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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"17db9b2cbf4490ca10c5533ca1c75a48","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9831fb3b-736a-4d78-b0f4-5fd38e40d609/retrieve","id":"-959194587"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"59dd3ae6-5ad4-41ad-bf94-8a392788d420","pagecount":"88","content":"CIAT is a nonprofit orgamzation devoted to the agricultura! and economic development of the lowland tropics. The government of Colombia prov1des support as host country for CIAT and furnishes a 522-hectare site near Cali for CIA T's headquarters. In addition. the Fundac1ón para la Educación Superior (FES) makes available to CIAT a 184-hectare substation in Ouilichao and a 73-hectare substauon near Popayán. CIAT also comanages with the Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario (ICA) the 22.000-hectare Carimagua Research Center in the Eastern Plams of Colombia, and carries out collaborative work on several of ICA's expenmental stations in Colombia. Similar work IS done w1th national agncultural agencies in other Latín Amencan countries. CIAT 1S financed by a number of donors representad in the Consultative Group for lnternational Agncultural Research (CGIAR).The dry or common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is an important protein and carbohydrate source in human diets in Latin America, where middle-and low-income families often cannot afford sufficient animal protein . Traditionally, beans have comprised as muchas 10 percent by weight of diets in the region (Bressani, 1972), but per capita consumption is falling as production increases lag behind population growth rates (Sanders and Alvarez, 1978). lncreased production is urgently needed to maintain or increase the affordable protein supply, especially to lower income groups.What strategy should be employed to increase overall production? Beans are predominantly a subsistence crop produced mostly by small farmers with traditional cultural practicas (Silva et al., 1972;Alvarado and Sanders, unpublished). They usually are not adequately fertilizad or protected from diseases and insects. Finally, they have received only limited support from national research programs (Roberts, 1970;Hernandez-Bravo, 1973;Pinchinat, 1973 ). Therefore, increased production and productivity should be achieved by developing technology based on low inputs to meet the needs of current producers. Roberts (1970) reviewed grain legume yields throughout the world and concluded that multidisciplinary grain legume research programs should be established in the international agricultura! research centers. He suggested CIAT become the center for bean(P. vulgaris) research. An integrated bean research program was initíated in 1973, a lthough so me CIA T staff members had worked on beans prior to that time.The United Nations' Food and Agricultura Organization (FAO) has estimated world bean production at 14.4 million tons annually, during 1977-79. Latín America was the most important production zone with 4.0 million ton/ year, approximately 30 percent of the total. Eastern Africa, the second most important zone in the tropics, produced an average of 0.8 million ton/year. Other important bean-producing countries are China and India, according to the FAO. In Asia most of the principal bean types have now been reclassified as Vigna sp.In the last decade in Latín America bean production growth has been substantially below the population growth rate (Sanders and Alvarez, 1978). The annual production increase of 1.2 percent resulted from expanding the area about 1.3 percent annually, since yields have been decreasing (-0.16%). Bean production has lagged substantially behind the 2. 7 percent annual growth in population .While Brazil and Mexico produced almost 78 percent of the region's dry beans, their long-term total production has increased relatively little. Significant production increases were reportad, however, in Argentina, Colombia, El Salvador and Guatemala (Tabla 1 ). Argentina increased her bean production from 32,000 tons in 1964-66 to 194,000 m 1977-79. The sharp production gain and consequent increase in Argentina exports made Latín America a net exportar of grain legumes by the mid-seventies. Nevertheless, Brazil. Cuba and Venezuela have importad heavily in recent years and their total imports reached almost 238,000 t annually in 1976-78. Total imports of grain Yields and the rate of yield improvement were less than those obtained with cereal gra ins and soybeans ovar the same years (FAO, 1963(FAO, -1975)). Yields ovar the region have remained low, comparad, for example, to the U.S.A. average of1 509 kg / ha. Yields in Latin America have declinad from 580 to 559 kg/ ha, an annual rate of -0 .16 percent from 1962 to 1979.These statistics reflect a complex production situation. In Argentina and Chile, two of the major bean exporters, production is concentrated on relatively larga holdings receiving high levels of inputs (Hernandez-Bravo, 1973;INTA. 1977). Although other Latín American countries possess limitad areas where larga bean farms predominate, most beans are produced on smaller holdings, often on slopping land of low fertility. Bean producing farms in El Salvador and Haiti average less than one hectare in size (Aguirre and Miranda, 1973;Scobie et al., 1974). Under these circumstances the tendency is toward multiple cropping systems (Junqueira et al., 1 972;Pinchinat, 1977) using minimal inputs (Bazan. 1975; Ruiz de Londof'\\o et al., 1978). Beans have increasingly been displaced from the morefertile, mechanizable lands by crops such as sorghum and soybeanswhich have a more stable production and marketing situation.Bean seed color and size preferences vary widely (Moh, 1971 ;Flores et al., 1973;Scobie et al., 1974) and complicate the production and consumption pictures (see columns 4 and 5 of Tabla 3). Blackseeded cultivars have outyielded those of other seed colors (Moh, 1971 ;CIAT, 1978). However, in many countries black beans either are not consumad or receive a substantial price discount.Bean production increases of almost 3 percent annually are needed to match population growth ratas. Even if production were to increase 6 percent annually, an initial price decline would be partially offset by increased consumption in middle-and low-income familias (Pinstrup-Andersen et al., 1976). 1n contrast to the \"green revolution\" crops, rice and wheat. bean yield increases of that magnitude would need to occur in a predominantly subsistence crop which is rarely i rrigated, fertilizad or protected from pests, which is produced under many farming systems and in which grain color and size preferences will slow the rate of development and acceptance of improved cultivars.Under experimental conditions, bush bean yields as high as 5.0 t /ha have been reportad (Cartee and Hank, 1974;CIAT, 1975a), and climbing beans on artificial support systems have y1eldea even higher (CIAT, 1976). The gap, however, between experimental yields and mean farm yields (less than 600 kg/ha in association) is huge. A review of the factors responsible for this gap is essential in devising a strategy for increasing yields.The literatura and farm surveys clearly indicate that diseases and pests are the major factors responsible for extremely low yields. More than 250 pathogens and 450 insects attack P. vulgeris. Several of these are widely distributed and can reduce yields substantially (Wellman, 1969;Auppel and ldrobo, 1962;Vieira et  el., 1971 ;Mancia and Cortez, 1975). An attempt was made by researchers to identify major bean diseases in Latin America. Bean common mosa ic virus (BCMV), rust, anthracnose, angular leaf spot, powdery mildew and common bacteria! blight were, in that order, considerad major diseases in South America (Gutierrez et el., 1975).Various regional surveys of production losses support these overall priority estimates (Echandi, 1966;Schieber. 1970;Costa, 1972;Crispin and Campos. 1976). Losses to BCMV can ranga from 53-96 percent (Laborde, 1967;Costa, 1972;Crispin, 1974;Hampton, 1975;Crispin and Campos. 1976); to bean rust from 18-82 percent (Carrijo, 1975; CIAT. 1975a); and to anthracnose, as much as 97 percent (CIAT, 1975a).Severa! diseases are important under specific regional or clim atic conditions. As cotton and soybean production expanded in Brazil. populations of Bemesia tabaci, the bean golden mosaic virus (BGMV) vector, increased. This virus has become a serious problem in many regions of Southern Brazil, as it already was in Central America ( Gamez. 1971 ;Costa, 1972;Costa and Cupertino, 1976). In warm, humid regions web blight can devastate production (Crispin and Gallegos, 1963;Echandi, 1966 and1976). In cooler regions where anthracnose is important, various local fungal diseases, root rots and halo blight are often important as well (Cardona and Skiles. 1954;Costa, 1972;Crispin and Campos, 1976;Shands et al., 1964).In Eastern Africa, anthracnose and halo blight are the principal pathogens (leakey, 1970;Kenyan Ministry of Agricultura, 1975). Other diseases such as rust. BCMV, Southern blight, white mold, Fusarium root rot, Cercospora, Alternaría, Ascochyta, angular leaf spot and bean scab are also important in Africa (Rheenen, 1978; Edje and Mughogho, 1 974; CIA T. Regional Workshop on Potential for Field Beans in Eastern Africa, 1981 ). Bean scab so far has not been reportad in Latín America.Although diseases are considerad to be more important, insects can also reduce bean yields substantially and losses as high as 94 percent are reportad. Leafhoppers (Empoasca kraemeri), chrysomelids and cutworms are important in most Latín American bean production zones (Bonnefil. 1965;Gutierrez et al., 1975). Other insects such as the bean pod weevil(Apion godmani)and the Mexican bean beetle (Epilachna varivestis) are important in Central America and Mexico (Enkerling, 1957). In Africa, the beantly(Ophiomyia spp.) form the principal production limiting insect pest (leaky, 1970).CIAT conducted an in-depth study of bean yield constraints in Colombia to better define production systems and problems. This study was made during 1974 and 1975, when Colombia exported black beans produced in larga holdings in the Valle del Cauca and Huila regions. The survey indicated a greater potential productivity in the more fertile Valle del Cauca than in Huila and Narino. Actual farm yields were 905 and 598 kg/ ha, in Valle and Huila respectively. The former region was characterized by large farm~ while small farms were common in the other two regions. In spite of larga expenditures on inputs including fu ngicides and insecticidas (Tabla 2), di se ase and insect losses were still high in the large-farm, monoculture region of Valle. The combination of rust, common bacteria! blight, angular leaf spot, and leafhoppers reduced yields in Valle del Cauce by 500 kg/ ha, or 36 percent. Thus, in the Valle, mechanization, monoculture, high input levels and planting improved black-seeded cultivars such as ICA-Pijao and ICA-Tu i still did not increaseyields to 1 ton/ ha. In Huila and Narif\\o, input use was much lower and beans were produced prmc1pally 1n association with maize. The prevalence of diseases in trad itional bean production zonas implies that new varieties with higher yield potential but lacking the appropriate resistances would confront even largar potential yield losses than those reportad here. In summary, the Colombian farm data i ndicate the prevalence of many serious diseases in the principal bean regions, the importance and difficulty of controlling diseases and insects with chemicals, and the importance of incorporating disease resistance into new higher-yielding cultivars, so they can attain their yield potential.Based on the studies cited above and several years of work within the Latin American bean network, requirements for disease and insect resistance in varieties for the principal production zones of Latin America have been defined (Table 3). These requirements are always under review as new data and observations become available. The principal disease and insect problems and other important constraints to bean production are discussed more fully in the next section (see also Schwartz and Galvez, 1980).Bean common moaaic virua (BCMV). lt has bean reportad from all bean producing countries in Latin America and Africa (Gamez, 1977;Kulkarni, 1973). Most regionally important varieties, especially nonblack-seeded types are susceptible to the virus. This is transmitted in seed, by aphids, and mechanically. Several strains of the pathogen have been identified in Latin Amarica (Aivarez and Ziver, 1965;Guerra et al., 1971 );Gamez, 1973;Drijfhout et al., 1978) including strains which can cause systemic necrosis in sorne cultivars (Drijfhout. 1975). Two types of resistance to BCMV have been identified; those conditioned by recessive and strain-specific genes or by a dominant \" 1\" gene, which pravents chronic systemic infection (mosaic) and seed transmission of the virus.Breeders in Latin America have principally utilizad the dominant type of resistanca (Cafati and Alvarez, 1975). Naithar resistanca a lona may be sufficient for all Latín American conditions. lf plants possessing the dominant 1 gene are infectad by a necrosis-inducing strain of BCMV, systemic necrosis and plant daath can result. With limited quarantine control in most countries, introduction of new mosaic or necrosis-inducing strains of the virus is a real possibility.Recently, resistance to all known BCMV strains was identified in germplasm from temperate zones (Drijfhout, 1978). In farm trials in Colombia, virus-free seed of varieties susceptible to BCMV could not substituta for varietal resistance to the virus (CIAT, 1978 and1979). The Bean Program has therefore given its highest priority to incorporating resistance to BCMV i nto its new materials.Sean rust (Uromyces phaseoll) is endemic to Latin America and may be the most important beandisease in subtropical regions up to elevations of 2500 m above sea level. Many races have been identified (Echandi, 1966;Christen and Echandi 1967;Netto et al., 1969;Augustin and Costa, 1971 a;Costa, 1972). Major shifts in race prevalence have been observad between seasons (Antunes, cited by Costa, 1 972) a nd with the introduction of n ew cultiva rs (Aug usti n a nd Costa, 1971 a).Many rust-resistant cultivars exist (Costa, 1972;Coyne and Schuster, 1975) but few retain their resistance over long periods of time or in all regions (CIAT, 1979). Stable resistance to rust is one of the highest priorities of the Sean Program. Sasic studies are needed on alternative control strategies, such as gene pyramiding, development of more stable resistance and cultural practicas for reducing disease incidence.Anthracnose (Colletotrichum lindemuthianum). lt is a major pathogen in Argentina, Srazil, Mexico, and high altitude regions in Central Ame rica, the Andean Zone countries and Eastern Africa. One hundred percent field infection can occur (Shands et al., 1964;Augustin and Costa, 1971 b;Araujo, 1973;Echandi, 1976;INTA, 1977;Gutierrez et al., 1975). While race differentials and nomenclature rema in to be standardized, 1 O apparently distinct races of anthracnose have been identified.The cultivar Cornell 49-242 is resistant to important races in Latín America (Oiiari et al., 1973) and has been used in breeding for resistance. New and distinct sources identified by Bannerot et al. (1971 ), Fouilloux (1976) carry resistance against additional races (Kruger et al., 1977), sorne against all known races (Drijfhout, pers. comm.). Resistance to anthracnose isa requisitefor a JI newmaterials the Sean Program develops for cooler production zonas.Angular leaf apot (lsariopsis griseo/a). This is perhaps the most underrated of the major bean diseases. Despite intensiva efforts to develop control methods in Colombia (Barros et al., 1957;Bastidas, 1977), the disease continuas to cause appreciable losses there and in other countries, partly beca use it can be seed-transmitted (Diaz et al., 1965;Crispin and Campos, 1 976;Ruiz de Londono et al., 1978). Brock (1951). Clave (1958) and Santos-Filho et al. (1976) have identified sources of resistance to this disease with resistance controlled by a single recessive gene. Possible race relationships for this pathogen must still be studied. The Program isdeveloping resistanceto angular leaf spot in specific materials.Common bacteria! blight(Xanthomonas phaseoll).lt is one of the most imortant disease pathogens dueto its wide occurrence a nd seed transmission. Moreover, it is difficult to control chemically or through varietal resistance. Resistance has been identified in GN-Nebraska No. 1 Sel27 and Pl207 262 and appearstobe quantitatively inherited with different genes controlling resistance in each cultivar. The narrow adaptation of the above two cultivars (CIAT, 1977) will necessitate extensive breeding efforts to incorporate resistance into tropically adapted cultivars and to pyramid resistance 1 evels. Resistance in GN-Nebraska No. 1 Sel 27 was derived from i nterspecific hybridization with blight-resistant P. acutifolius and more such crossing should be done. lncorporation of common bacteria! blight in materials for the tropical production zonas is one of the priorities of the Program . In sect Pests Leafhopper. Of the insects attacking beans, the leafhopper (Empoasca kraemen) is considerad the most widespread and i njurious (Bonnefil. 1 965;Langlitz, 1966;Costa and Rosetto, 1972;Gutierrez et al., 1975). Gutierrez et al. (1975) reportad significant damage by this insect in 11 of 12 Latin American countries surveyed. Yield 1 osses of up to 96 percent have been reportad (Diaz-Castro, 1971;Miranda, 1971 ). Damage is generally greatest under dry conditions.While intermediate levels of tolerance have been identified (Wolfenbarger and Sleesman, 1961) current control methods usually emphasize 1nsect1cides (Costa and Rossetto, 1972). The leafhopper is the only insect to which the Program has given priority to incorporate resistan ce into i mproved lines.Bean pod weevil (Apion godmani) is major bean pest in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua (McKelvey et al., 1947;Enkerling. 1957; Mancia. 1973a) with pod infestation ranging from 20-95 percent (Enkerling, 1957;Diaz, 1970;Mancia, 1973a).While resistant varieties have been identified (Guevara, 1957 and1969;Mancia, 1973b), present control recommendations depend primarily upon insecticidas (Diaz. 1970;Mancia, 1973a). Resistance to Apion is be ing develop in new lines intended for Central Ame rica.Mexican bean beetle (Epilachna varivestis). 1 t is a major problem in Mexico, Guatemala andEl Salvador, where yield losses of up to 75 percent are reportad (Paz et al., 1975). Existence of resistant cultivars has been reportad (Campbell and Brett, 1 966; Garcia and Sosa, 1 973; Raina et al., 1978).Storage insects .. The principal insects attacking stored beans are two bruchids, Acanthoscelides obtectus and Zabrotes subfasciatus. Both are common throughout Latin America but direct loss estimates are surprisingly low (Schoonhoven, 1976). However, these insects m ay be indirectly more important as they force the rapid sale of beans after harvest, thereby contributing to post-harvest price collapses (CIAT, 1977).Nematodes. Nematodes have been studied relatively little in Latin America but are important in Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Peru (Costa, 1972;Crispin and Campos, 1 976;Jimenez, 1976). lmportant genera in Colombia include Helicotylenchus, Pratylenchus and Meloidogyne. Weeds, especially Bidens pilosa, increased nematode populations according to studies by Riedel (CIAT, 1978).Given the major disease and insect problems mentioned, intensiva breeding efforts are needed to incorporate identified resistance genes into locally important varieties. Genetically improved varieties, such as rliacoi -Calima, ICA-Pijao, and Canario rlivex are available in sorne countries and have significantly improved yields, e.g ., in Colombia, Brazil and Mexico (Orozco et al., 1964;Vieira, 1970Vieira, , 1974Vieira, and 1977;;Cafati and Alvarez, 1975;Lopez and Andrade, 1975;Bastidas, 1977). However, most commercial varieties such as Flor de Mayo, Jamapa and Canario 101 (Mexico), Carioca and Rio Tibagi (Brazil), Alubia and Caballero (Argentina), Tacarigua (Venezuela), Pompadour (Dominican Republic), Rojo de Seda and Zamorano (Central America) and the Porrillos are mass or individual plant selections obtained from land race cultivars (Crispin, 1968;Ortega and Barrios, 1972;INTA, 1977); they are susceptible to most of the important diseases and insects.Besides diseases and pests, agronomic constraints, particularly problems of phosphorus or nitrogen deficiency and soil acidity contribute to poor bean yields. Analyses of 11 O Central American soils showed 20 percent hada pHof less than 6.0(Mulleretal., 1968), 66 percent were highly deficient in phosphorus (Fassbender et al., 1968) and 75 percent, deficient in nitrogen (Dfaz-Romeu et al., 1970).Central American bean fertilization trials, reviewed by Fassbender (1967) and Bazan {1975), showed wídespread responses to nitrogen and phosphorus but not to potassi u m. Malavolta ( 1972) reviewed232 bean fertilization trials in eight Brazilian states and reported responses to nitrogen (67 times), phosphorus (1 03), potassium (15), 1 ime (31 ), and micronutrient combinations ( 17). Aluminum (Buol et al., 1975) and manganesa toxicities associated with the low soil pH (Dobereiner, 1966) and molybdenum deficiency (Franco, 1977) complicate fertilizar recommendations. The observed large genetic variation in phosphorus requirements among bean cultivars, especially in those from Brazil (Whiteaker, 1975;CIAT, 1978 and1979) are being exploited as a method to partially overcome this soil constraint.Given the low nitrogen status of many soils it is unfortunate that many commercial cultivars of P. vulgaris have proved weak in symbiotic nitrogen fixation. Yield increases following inoculation have been reported (reviewed by Graham and Halliday, 1977) but inoculation failure is common . Currently, less than 1 percent of the bean seed planted in Brazil receives inoculation (Araujo, 1974). By exploiting the Rhizobium strain x bean cultivar interaction, the Bean Program attempts to reduce dependence on nitrogen fertilization.Majar bean pathogens such as BCMV, anthracnose, angular leaf spot and common bacteria! blight are seed -transmitted. Although beans have their center of origin in Latín America, the ability of seed transmission of most important diseases may be a major factor accounting for similar disease problems in Africa.In the U.S.A., certified seed is produced in relatively dry areas (e.g ., ldaho) with little disease pressure, to meet stringent quality standards (Copeland et al, 1975). Over an eight-year period in Michigan, bacteria! blight incidence on farms not using pathogen-free seed was 3 to 1 O times as high as that on farms utilizing such seed. Latin American bean-producing countries generally Jack effective systems of bean seed production and quality control. In both Colombia and Brazil, for example, fewer than 4 percent of the farmers use certified seed (Silva et al., 1972;Walder et al., 1977;Bastidas, pers. comm.).In Minas Gerais, Brazil, 59 percent of 338 farmers surveyed resowed harvested seed for between two and five years, while only 16 percent used pure line seed (Walder et al., 1977). In a Costa Rican study, Sanchez and Pinchinat (1974) obsprved an average germination of 68 percent for farmers ' seed . These studies indicate the importance of producing high-quality seed, and the Bean Program and CIAT's Seed Unit give great importance to improving seed production in Latin America.Sorne degree of water stress is common in most bean producing areas {CIAT, 1979). However, it is endemic in Northeastern Brazil and Coastal Peru and Ecuador; beans are seldom produced under irrigation in these areas. Moderate levels of tolerance to drought have been identified but it may be difficult to obtain materials resistant to extended dry periods. Short-season varieties may be needed for certain regions. Experience has shown that farmers have sought to compromise between disease presence and drought risk by planting beans so that they mature at the end of the rainy season.In Latín America beans are often grown in association principally with maize, but also with cassava, coffee, potatoes and other crops (Moreno et al., 1973;Andrade et al., 1974;Ruiz de Londoño et al., 1978). Many different cropping systems exist. Approximately 80 percent of the bean area in Latin America is sown in association (Gutierrez et al., 1975), and 75-90 percent of the area in Africa (Leakey, 1970). Associated culture-the growth of two or more crop species together for part of their lite cycles~oes lower yields of beans and the companion crop (Francis et al., 1977;Ruizde Londoño et al., 1978). However, there may be advantages to association such as reduced pest incidence, eros ion control and reduced economic risk (Lepiz, 1971 ;Moreno et al .• 1973;Andrade et al., 1974;Soria et al., 1975;Desir and Pinchinat, 1976). While experimental yíelds of about 2 ton/ ha of beans with 5 ton/ ha of maize have been reportad (Desir and Pinchinat,1 976), yields are generally m u eh less (Krutman, 1 968;Santa Cecilia and Vieira, 1977). Agronomic research is complicated in farming systems bythe largenumberofvariables, includingdensities of maize and beans, time of planting, fertilization, weed control and compatibility of cultivars.Relay croppi ng-where crops sha re the sa me a re a for pa rt of the ir growth cycle, but at different stages of development-is common with beans and maize. In Central America beans are plantad nearthe end of the rainy season and must face diminishing soil moisture during flowering and pod formation (Garcia and Zandstra, 1977). Development of later-maturing maize populations for these regions would aggravate the problem of raising bean yields (Garcra and Zandstra, 1977).In summary, beans in Latín America are produced mostly by small farmers as a cash crop. Due to uncertainty of production from high disease pressure or drought, farmers utiliza few inputs; consequently, bean supplies and prices fluctuate greatlyfrom year to year. On the other hand, increasing production stability by increasing environmental stress resistance enables farmers to use inputs. and beans may move back into the better lands. The low-input philosophy of the Bean Program is directed to achieving these objectives, althoug h the use of inputs is always expected to increase production.The Bean Program has the major objective of developing, in collaboration with national programs, technology that can lead to increased productivity of field beans. The Program formulated its first strategies following a 1973 conference on the potential of field beans in Latin America (CIAT, 1973). Literatura and economic surveys, and visits to and from national programs are continually usad to reevaluate and modify strategies. The Program's principal activities for attaining its objective are: (1) germplasm improvement; (2) development and validation of improved agronomic practicas; (3) training of national program scientists; and (4) international collaboration.The Bean Program plans to achieve its overall objective by concentrating upon germplasm improvement. Emphasis is upon development of scale-neutral production technology with bias to the needs of the small farmer. This is being achieved by development of germplasm resistant or tolerant to diseases and insect pests instead of making chemical control recommendations. Raducad dependence on chemical fertilizers and tolerance to water stress are sought; no research is done on practicas such as mechanization or irrigation. Work on improvement of climbing bean technology is directad exclusively towards small-scale farmers. The Program emphasis will stay on Latín America but outreach activities will include Eastern A frica .Development efforts are limitad to the common bean, P. vulgsris.Research on relatad species such as the scarlet runner bean (P. coccineus) and the tepary bean (P. scutifolius) is limitad to their contribution to improving the common bean through interspecific hybridization. The lima bean (P. lunatus) collection at CIAT will be evaluated, documentad and maintained for national program use but no breeding work will be undertaken.No major effort is made to adapt beans toare as outside their current production zones. such as the hot hum id lowlands. or the highly acid, infertile soils. Other legumes have comparativa advantages in adaptation to these areas, while the cost and time involved to adapt beans to these areas are prohibitiva.The Bean Program placas its major emphasis upon improving germplasm. This encompasses the collection, maintenance and evaluation-of germplasm and the development and distribution of genetically improved bean germplasm.Collection, maintenance and evaluation of bean germplasm. The CIAT germplasm bank currently stores around 30,000 accessions of -Phaseolus spp., primarily P. vulgaris, obtained from more than 20 countries. In collaboration with national institutions and the IBPGR, additional germplasm is periodically collected from those areas where numbers or diversity of materials are lacking. CIAT's Genetic Resources Unit is primarily responsible for the maintenance, morphological characterization and distribution of germplasm bank accessions.Staff of the Bean Program actively participate in evaluating accessions for resistance to various diseases and insect pests, for plant architecture and yield potential, and for their response to climatic and edaphic constraints. A common procedure is to screen accessions for desired variability in observation nurseries both at CIAT-Palmira and Popayan. Hill plots or small row plots are used to accommodate large numbers of entries. This is done especially for accessions which have not been screened before or when a new problem arises for which desired variability is needed.Accessions which appear promising are normally reevaluated for the same character and are enterad in the First Uniform Screening Trial (VEF) (Fig . 1) and tested for artditional factors if they are also homozygous resistant to BCMV.   Moreover, selected materials may be directly utilizad as parents in hybridization and/ or entered in international screening nurseries. This system assures the continuous flow of desirable variability from the bank to germplasm improvement projects.Development of genetically improved germplasm. The principal short-term goal of the Bean Program is to achieve yield gains under farmers ' conditions through breeding for resistance todiseases and insect pests . S imultaneously, research is being done to increase tolerance to stress environments and to improve plant architectural characteristics. Physiological traits possibly leading to improved yield potential have been identified in beans, and the search for these traits continuas. They include stem strength, tap root, differences in maturity, erect branches and narrow leaves. After incorporation into materials of good agronomic background, their true value can be determinad.lncorporating resistance to BCMV, rust, anthracnose, angular leaf spot. common bacteria! blightand leafhoppers intoagronomically and commercially acceptable lines is the primary objetive. The immediate goal is to consolidate resistance to multiple factors in materials with yield potentíal equal to or higher than present cultivars. They must fit into actual production systems and meet seed size and color preferences of consumers. Not all combinations of resistances are necessary in all materials (Table 3, pag. 17). Resistance to common bacterial blíght is not very important in beans for the Andean highlands. Anthracnose resistance is not necessary for many warm production regions in Central America, Coastal Peru, Ecuador and Chile.Genetic variation for tolerance of beans to stress environments, principally drought and low soil phosphorus, is sought. Architectural traits -stem strength to prevent lodging and disease accumulation due to soil contact of pods, and plant height, to increase numbers of pod-carrying internadas and photosynthetic capacity -are improved simultaneously. Breeding for improved protein content and qua\\ity and cooking properties is presently of low priority. Seed color and size of advanced materials must satisfy the requirementsofconsumers in the different regions.Two breeders in the Program dedícate full time to bush beans, and one, to climbing beans. One bush bean breeder concentrates on breeding for increased resistance levels to diseases and insects prevalent in warm climates. The other breeder works on improving yield potential through better plant architecture, increasing stress tolerance to climatic and edaphic factors, and improving resistanceto diseases prevalent in cooler regions (Table 4). For the genetic improvement of climbing beans, the same principies and priorities apply as for bush beans. Although noaccurate data exist on the relativa importance of climbing versus bush beans, one-third of the total breeding effort for climbers is estimated to be above the relative importance of this type, again indicating the Bean Program's bias towards small producers. As there is a variety by cropping system i nteraction for yields of climbing bean varieties, genetic improvement evaluations are done in the cropping system the material is intended for, that is, in direct association or in relay systems with maize. For direct association, a vigorous bean type is sought to provide an optimal yield combination in both maize and beans. For relay cropping, too vigorous a bean variety would cause maize lodging. Maior aspects of germplasm improvement activities are described below.Parental sources include national cultivars, germplasm bank accessions, introductions and experimental lines or selections in various stages of development and evaluation. The germplasm development and evaluation scheme used by the Bean Program is shown in Figure 1. Befare initiating each recombination cycle, the list of parents used in crossing is updated, based upon information available from prevíous nurseríes, progeny performance, specific requests of collaborators, and Program directions.In collaboration with CIAT's Data Services Unít, a computerized information system (SIFRI; see Fig . 1) is utilized to document the handling and evaluation of germplasm bank accessions, parents, crosses and selections. This helps avoid duplication of breeding efforts, assists in progeny management and facilitates responding to outside requests.Special attention is being given to rapidly improve widely grown cultivars, such as Jamapa, Canarios, Flor de Mayo, Zamorano, Pompadour, Diacoi-Calima, Cargamanto, Sangre de Toro, Favinha, Mulatinho, Roxinhos, lguacu, Alubia, and others. The basic adaptive features, grain and plant types of these cultivars are reselected while crossing them to : (a) sources of resistance to important disease and insect pests limiting their specific regional production potential ; {b} similarly, to sources of tolerance to adverse climatic and edaphic factors; and, (e) better plant architectural types to improve their yield potential.Germplasm improvement activities are d ivided into projects (Fig . 1 and Table 4) in which desired variability is recombined and built up further. When improving a particular character, parental combinations are sought which enhance and stabilize its expression as well as combine it with other desirable traits. For example, for common mosaic virus, sources of resistance to different strains of this virus are being crossed with tropically adapted parents possessing agronomic value and resistance to insects and other diseases. In general, parents are selected which combine overall performance with specific characteristcs that complement or contrastwith those of the other parent.Single but especially three -way crosses are commonly made. A limited number of backcrosses are made to improve selected national cultivars. In sorne projects selected F 3 and F4 familias are utilizad for early generation intermating and recurrent selection .Crosses are made manually in screenhouses or field-crossing blocks at CIAT -Palmira or Popayan. The latter site is primarily used for materials which are poorly adaptad at Palmira. The feasibility of utilizing male sterility and extrose stigma characters is being studied as a method for population improvement. The number of crosses in different projects takes into account Program priorities, availabilityof screening facilities and breeding methods employed.All segregating populations and early-generation familias are grouped together and managed separately for each project until their promising selections enter the First Uniform Nursery (VEF). For example, all crosses made for rust resistance are planted season after season in the rust evaluation nursery for screening, selecting and purifying until lines breeding true for their resistance are identified. Similar procedures apply for BCMV, leafhopper, common bacteria! blight, and anthracnose nurseries. For simultaneous improvementor incorporation of two or more characters, complementary parents possessing multiple desirable traits are crossed. Early generations are screened in one of the three following manners:1. Simultaneously, when and if inoculating, screening and selecting techniques are compatible, e.g., for anthracnose and angular leaf spot, common bacteria! blight and rust. ln sorne cases, several diseases are evaluated in the same nursery, in other cases, separate nurseries are needed for each d isease or pest.Alternetely, e.g., for anthracnose and low soil phosphorus tolerance, or anthracnose and leafhoppers in which the F 2 populations are first screened for resistance to anthracnose in Popayan and survivors evaluated at CIAT-Quilichao for low soil phosphorus or at CIAT-Palmira for leafhoppers. The sequential testing continuas until desired recombinants are identified.Divergently, in which the population is either divided for screening or first screened for the primary character or the character with high heritability-most frequently disease resistance -and then seed of selected plants is split. One part is u sed for its progeny confirmation test and the remainder is u sed for evaluation against the additional factor(s). The sequence is repeated until true-breeding recombinations are selected.All phases of germplasm development and evaluation are an integrated team activity. While severalteam membersworkcloselyin the initial stages of germplasm improvement in a particular project, all participate in evaluating advanced selections from any project or source entered in the uniform screening nurseries.Screening and selection activities are conducted in a few locations (mainly CIAT -Palmira and Popayan) which are representativa of major ecological bean production zonas (Tabla 5). Nearly 80 percent of the bean production zonas show average growing season temperaturas which fall between those of the two principal testing sites-CIAT-Palm ira and Popayan (Fig. 2). CIAT-Quilichao is used primarily to screen for low soil phosphorusand biological nitrogen fixation. The La Selva and Obonuco substations of the Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario (ICA) are principally used for climbing beans and associated technology su eh as inoculation in relay or association with maize. For climbing beans, in addition to the above factors, the F 3 and subsequent segregating populations are screened directly in the appropriate cropping system (relay or association). Selected progenies and yield trials are subsequently evaluated in associated and/ or relay cropping systems w ith regionally predominant maize cultivars.Screening for production constraints not occurring in Colombia, including BGMV, Apion and the bean fly, requires that crosses be made and verified at CIAT-Palmira before seed of segregating populations can be sent to collaborators for screening and selection. Seed of selected progenies is brought back toCIATto initiatethe next cycle of the improvement process.  The major growth habit types which exist, and are primarily being sought during germplasm improvement, are described in Tabla 6 .While a modified backcrossing system is used for improving important cultivars grown in principal production zonas, the pedigree breeding method ora modified pedigree system is extensively u sed to improve most other materials. Populations are handled in bulk before individual plant selections are made, e .g., for drought or low soil phosphorus. These are generally characters for which precise and dependable screening facilities are not presently available.In all stages of germplasm development and evaluation, relatively low inputs and moderate stress to nutrients, water, diseases and i nsect pests are emphasized. Once a line has been selected within a project, usually in F 6 or F 7 generations,it is coded and advanced to the VEF for uniform and multiple character evaluation.The Bean Program conducts two uniform evaluations each year, the First Uniform Nursery (VEF) and the Preliminary Yield Trial (EP). The term \"uniform\" refers to screening and evaluation, for any given character, under similar conditions and with equal emphasis on all entries irrespective of their source of origin, genetic constitution and stage of development. The VEF and EP form vital and essential links among different improvement projects and integrate activities of all team members and collaborators. Materials being testad in the lnternational Bean Yield and Adaptation Nursery (IBYAN), the lnternational Bean Aust Nursery (IBAN) and other international nurseries have to pass quality criteria set for these nurseries.Both the VEF and EP are complementary nurseries and have the following common objectives: (a) to demonstrate the relativa potentials and deficiencias of advanced selections from all sources; (b) to enable selection of candidatas for the IBYAN, IBAN, and other international nurseries; and (e) to enable selection of parents for subsequent germplasm improvement.The progression from VEF to EP and the characteristics evaluated in each take into account CIAT's research priorities as they relate to production problems, numbers of materials which can be handled, screening facilities, and the quantity of seed available.. lt is open to all collaborators working in dry beans. Entries are selected from the germplasm bank, from matertals provtded by collabora tors of national and internationa l programs and from lines developed by CIAT. VEF entries must possess homozygous resistance to BCMV and be uniform for plant growth ha bit and grain type, in addition to the primary character(s) for which they were selected. Principal features of the VEF are listed in Table 7 . Preliminary Yield Trial (EP). The Preliminary Yield Trial (EP) is the second stage of the uniform testing of experimental lines of dry beans. A ll entries ar'~ selected from the previous VEF. This is the first yield eva luat10n of experimentallines and is planted at CIAT-Palmira and Popayan.Besides yield, lines are testad for additional characteristics, many of which were not testad in VEF. Unlike the VEF, the EP is not restricted to Colombia but is evaluated at key sites around the world for specific adaptation and constraints not found within Colombia, e.g ., BGMV, Apion, the bean fly and strains of anthracnose. Seed of each EP entry is kept for short-and long-term storage by the Genetic Resources Unit. An annual catalog of EP results is printed for use by collaborators. Small quantities of seed of complete or partial sets of an EP are available to interested scientists.  The lnternational Bean Yield and Adaptation Nursery (IBYAN) is distributed internationally to key locations representing a wide ranga of major dry bean-producing areas. Objectives that were formalizad in an internationaiiBYAN workshop are to distribute and test. under a wide range of environments, outstanding commercial cultivars, germplasm bank accessions and experimentallines. Evaluation goals are: (a) to help identify high-yielding, stable materials for direct use as commercial cultivars; (b) to evaluate at each location a set of locally developed and adapted varieties representing a range of the best available materials in the region to be comparad with international bean improvement progress; (e) to assess specific and general adaptation of beans; and, (d) to select parents for further improvement.The IBYAN i s composed of four categories of materials: germplasm bank selections, experimental lines developed by either national institutions or CIAT, and check entries. With the exception of the Checks and entries selected from national programs, all other materials pass through the VEF and EP before entering the IBY AN. The check varieties include local varieties furnished by each collaborator, representing the best material available at each site; international checks -a group of varieties of known performance included in all trials over time; and elite checks -outstanding entries from previous IBYAN trials.The IBYAN trials take into account seed color and size preferences (consumer's requirements) and agronomic requirements of the different cropping systems (farmer's requirements). This dual approach is basic in bean improvement. Bush bean materials are of specific seed color and size groups, eg ., small seeded grouped into black, red, white nurseries, etc., medium or large white, red, canario, etc. Each group i ncludes plant types that m ay be grown in monoculture, association, or relay cropping but do not need support for climbing . Climbing beans requiring support are distributed in three groups -small blacks, small reds and large-seeded of all colors. The essential features of the IBYAN are listad in Tabla 9 .The IBYAN is intended as the bridge between research station studies of promising, stable and widely adaptad germplasm, and materials required for the on-farm trials and seed increase by national i nstitutions. Th is, like the other trials, are free of charge. Timely production of adequate quantities of pathogen-free seed is an integral part of the bean testing system (Fig. 1 ). Seed for IBYAN's is produced at Dagua, in a valley near Cáli, where absence of commercial bean production and semi-arid conditions guarantee seed free of pathogens.Additional germplasm exchange is accomplished by the international disease and insect resistance nurseries. These include nurseries for resistance to rust, BGMV, leafhoppers and Apion.Purposes of these nurseries are to distribute and evaluate sources of resistance to organisms orto races of pathogens not occurring in Colombia . lnternational nurseries are also distributed for evaluating materials for nitrogen fixation and for tolerance to drought and extreme temperaturas. Although no formal nursery is assembled, interested institutions can receive seed of segregating populationsat any stage of development.Severa/ components of agronomic research are best conducted by nationa/ programs. Most agronomic research such as fertilizar and herbicida response will be location-specific. Optimal plant density is specific to plant type, cropping system and location. lmproved varieties will not necessarily respond in the same way to inputs as traditional varieties. Since it will not be possible in the short term to incorporate resistance to all important local diseases, chemical control of sorne of these may be profitable in particular conditions. Hence, these types of applied research must also be done by national programs.On the other hand, research in agronomic practicas often as part of training which can be applied locally is done by the CIAT Bean Program. This includes methods and timing of fertilizar application, weed control and competition studies, and interactions of density on growth habit and nitrogen fixation.CIAT also conducts agronomic research on associated cropping, mainly the association of beans with maize, cassava and coffee, to study relative planting dates and influences of associations on disease and pest incidence and on nitrogen fixation. Farm•level •trials. Specific technological packages should be evaluated in farm • level trials by both CIAT and national programs. A principal problem in producing new bean technology, both involving new varieties and new agronomic practices, is that farm-level conditions are often much more adverse than those of the experiment station . Moreover, at the farm, specific bean types are required to fit into a production system. Hence, there must be continua! interaction between farmers and researchers, and this dialogue and feedback process is established through on•farm testing.With on• farm testing, both the effects of new varieties and associated technology can be tested under farmers' conditions. This provides researchers with a direct source of information on technical and economic problems impeding the functioning or the adoption of their experimental results. This is especially important since the principal dientele, the small producers, have more difficulty in communicating directly with researchers.Farm -level testing by the CIAT Bean Program is, therefore, notan extension activity but an integral component of the research process. and its focus is upon the feedback or measurement and evaluation of research performance and progress.Farm• level testing is also utilizad to develop and provide methodologies for other research institutions to verify their experimental results and farm-level constraints to the adoption of their new technology. The training component is an important aspect of this activity.lmproving bean productivity cannot be done by an international center alone. A center needs to work within a collaborative network for germplasm improvement and distribution 'and development of agronomic practicas.  In 1975 the Bean Team assumed responsibility for developing a Latin American network of bean research workers. This network is now being expanded into Eastern Africa. Bean Program scientists felt each national program presentad a unique situation, hence responsibility for coordinating activities with specific countries was divided between Program staff. While this concept has undergone some change with the naming of a regional network coordinator for Central America andan out-posted staff member in Peru, the scheme continues to function in most of South America.The bi-monthly newsletter \"Hojas de Frijol\" is designad to improve communication and information within the Latin American research network. Additionally, to enhance transfer on information, an i llustrated book, Field Problema of Beans in Latín America, and a monograph on disease, insect and other problemsof bean production have been published.To further intensify the network collaboration between national and international programs and among national programs, the Bean Team is planning to have additional regional out-posted staffoverthe next few years. Current plans are for one staff member in Eastern Africa (1982( ), one in Brazil (1983) ) and one in the Middle East (1985). These are in addition to the two now working in Central America and the Caribbean and in Peru. Their principa l responsibility is to strengthen collaboration between research programs. Activities include selection of trainees. enhancing germplasm flow and generally assisting national programs in their activities.The Team also collaborates with institutions outside of Latin Amertca (Table 11 ). These mst1tut1ons provide basic research and methodology development. for wich CIAT lacks facilities. adequately tramed personnel or the comparative advantage to conduct such studies. In 1974. in collaboration with the CIAT Library, a documentation and abstracting ser.vice was established to process and distribute citations and abstracts of bean literatura to interested i nstitutes and scientists. They are available on a monthly subscription basis andas annual compilations in book form (Fig. 3). More than 3000 articles have been processed and approximately 1000 abstracts continue to be processed and published annually in Spanish and English.A series of workshops continuas to be organizad on bean production topics with participants invited from national programs and international institutions. In these. scientific information is exchanged and program strategies are discussed with national programs. providing a feedback to the Bean Program on itsobjectives and strategies.    lnstead, a computerized summary of superior national and international breeding 1 ines and germplasm selections evaluated in each EP will be available annually, and seed of desired materials can be requested. All EP lines are resistant to BCMV and to at least one additional disease. Request for specific combinationsof characters in gerrt'4)1asm shipments can be met quickly, as a result of computerizing all data.Accesssions are regula rly evaluated for Program needs bythe tea m members. Observation nurseries are often plantad in CIAT-Palmira and Popayan, and are simultaneously screened for resistance to BCMV. All BCMV-resistant materials which are adaptad in one or both sitas enter the VEF for further testing as described in previous sections.   In addition to BCMV, valuable sources of resistance to rust, angular leaf spot, anthracnose, common bacteria! blight, bean golden mosaic virus and web blight (Tabla 13) or combinations of these (Tabla 14) ha ve be en identified. Although of lower priority, sources of resistance or tolerance to other diseases, such as root rots, halo blight, and various foliar pathogens were also identified. lnitial evaluations at CIAT -Palmira showed different rust resistance mechanisms -slow rusting, necrotic reaction and limitad pustulesand their stability is now being measured. A second level of germplasm screening for rust resistance in the lnternational Bean Rust Nursery (IBAN) has revealed cultivars with resistance to races of the pathogen in severa! areas, but none with resistance to rust at all locations testad (Table 1 5) (CIAT, 1979b). These and additional materials are being evaluated in subsequent IBRN's and used as parents.Similarly, the Bean Golden Mosaic Nursery demonstrated resistance sources to this importar.t virus disease. As a consequence, multiple-disease resistant fines including resistance toBGMV were developed and released in Guatemala as new varieties. Among insect pests, emphasis has been placad on the leafhopper (Empoasca kraemeri). All available bank accessions have been evaluatad for tolerance, and differences in the susceptibility of cultivars are evident (Fig. 7). Levels of resistance encountered this far are adequate to provide protection during average leafhopper attacks but nead to be increasad for protection during heavy attacks. Materials of sorne preferred grain types still lack adequate levels of resistance. Studies have also confirmad and/or identifiad sources of resistance to Apion, and spider mitas.Besides disease and insect resistance sources, other valuable genetic variability has been encounterad in the germplasm bank. High-yielding varieties such as ICA-Pijao, Porrillo Sintetico, Jamapa and non-black accessions such as Bico de Ouro and NEP-2 are usad as parents in the breeding program.ldentified accessions with erect plant type and variability in pod and leaf size may be of value in raising yield potential. Other characteristics used in parental selection include the ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen in symbiosis with Rhizobium, tolerance to drought stress, and to low soil phosphorus end extreme temperaturas, as well as insensitivity to photoperiod (Table 16).1t appears that tolerance to low soil phosphorus has to be measured by yield reduction in stressed versus non-stressed plots (Table 17) . as good vegetativa growth may occur but pods do not f ill. Leading brazilian commercial cultivars were among the most tolerant ones to low soil phosphorus. The Program selects entries efficient in phosphorus utilization and responsiva to phosphorus inputs (Fig . 8). Figure 8 also reflects the Sean Team 's general philosophy of seeking genetic variability which permits as high a yield as J><)ssible under low-input management but also provides a yield response to higher levels of management.Sorne desorable agronom1c charactenstics of selected lmes and cultivars that show these factors.  Va rietal improvement has evolved considerably since the modest effort initiated in 1974. Currently about 500 parents are utilizad in the crossing program and more than 1 500 different crosses are made annually (Fig . 9). These provide more than 200,000 F 2 plants to be evaluated under field conditions each year. Unes leaving the varietal improvement programs are coded and enter the VEF for adaptation and multiple disease and insect resistance testing and subsequent selection and testing in the EP. Table 18 shows sorne of the more prom ising breeding li nes combining multiple resistances in several seed colors that were identified during the 1979 evaluations.  Alllines leaving the Programare now resistant to BCMV. The Bean Team has incorporated the dominant 1 gene along with desirable strain-specific genes in sorne advanced lines. This is done in collaboration with the Plant Breeding lnstitute of the Netherlands. Progenies are tested in CIAT for adaptation to Latin American conditions.Since 1974 an active program of preliminary, uniform and international yield trials has been conducted in multiple locations. lnitially thesetrials included only germplasm accessions but nowthey consist predominantly of advanced breeding lines.ln initial selections from the germplasm bank, the high-yielding cultivars were principally black-seeded. Now, however, advanced breeding lines with other seedcoat colors equal or have surpassed the yield potential of blackseeded selections.While the 20 highest yielding materials in ttie 1979 EP yielded an average of 3.58 ton/ ha (ranging from 3.42 to 4.0 ton/ha) under intensiva management, more importance is given to lines' performances under more rustic management conditions approaching farmers' traditional practicas. Yield data of the 1978 and 1979 EP trials conducted under this management level are given in Tablas 19 and 20. In the 1978 yield trials, the bestCIAT line outyielded the best local variety by up to 43 percent and the best breeding linesoutyielded the best parents by 57 percent. Although the principal product of the Bean Program is finished breeding lines. national programs request specific crosses and select from among the best advanced lines identified each year. Network breeders have promoted CIAT crosses into promising advanced lines.One example is the Acacia lines selected out of early segregating materials by Honduran breeders. Three of these promising lines showed average yields of 2.32 ton/ ha, comparad to 1 .69 ton/ ha for f ive local varieties, a difference of 0 .63 ton/ ha. These lines combine resistance to BCMVand rust with increased yield potential and plant type, and one,Acacia 4,was recently released as a new variety. Sorne BGMV-resistant: selections made in Central America and Brazil have substantially outyielded their parents when subjected to the virus, while ma intaining their yield potential in the absence of the virus (Table 21 ). Three new BGMV varieties were recently released in Guatemala. Seed multiplication of such newly released varieties have been initiated.The best EP selections together with national program entries enter the IBYAN. Numbers and locations of IBYAN shipments over three years are given in Tabla 22 and include both bush and climbing trials. Whi le the f irst IBYAN of 1976 contained only germplasm bank accessions, current trials are principally composed of improved lines. Results of the first IBYAN (1976) from 50 locations ranging in latitude from 1 °5 (Boliche, Ecuador) to 55°N (Csmbridge, England) for both tropical and temperate locations, showed the mean yield of the best five lB Y AN en tries was 31 percent better than that of the best local cultivars (Table 23).  Yield stability of the 20 lB Y AN entries variad across locations. Five black-seeded type 11 cultivars (PI 309 804, Jamapa,ICA-Pijao, 51051 , and Porrillo Sintetico) not only showed high average yields, but also relatively stable performance between sites (Fig. 1   (1) a.(1) a: Unfortunately, these Type 1 vanet1es are often large-seeded commercial types whose market value is substantially higher than smaller-seeded varieties in many countries. Currently both bush and climbing bean IBYAN 's are divided in small sets of lines of one commercial color group. Thus a ny collaborator only w ill receive lines .Jf commercial seed type in an IBYAN.Most bean producers cannot make large expenditures for inputs, hence considerable emphasis is given to development of technology utilizing low fertilizar inputs.Many Latin American soils are deficient in phosphorus and fertilization is necessary to get good yields. Critica! levels of phosphorus for bean growth at Popayan have been determinad to be about 15 ppm (Bray 11). To keep applications as low as possible, varietal differences in tolerance to low phosphorus are sought. Larga genetic differences have been found in the ability to produce yields under low soil phosphorus levels. The Bean Program hasdirected part of its resources to incorporating and augmenting this characteristic in germplasm i ntended especially for Brazil. When fertilizers are applied, results have shown that band applications in phosphorusfixing soils was advantageous when triple super-phosphate was used. However, sorne rock phosphates. when broadcast, are more residual and economical.Atmospheric nitrogen fixation at seasonal rates in excess of 40 kg of N2 fixed/ ha has been achieved, both under conditions at Popayan and CIAT -Ouilichao (CIAT, 1979). Such fixation rates are at least equal to those reported for other grain legumes. Fixation by determínate. early-flowering cultiva rs has proved w eak, as shown in Figure 11 . In severa l experiments n itrogen fixatio n (as meas u red in C 2 H 2 reduction) has been positively correlated with ca rbohydrate supply to nodules, again w ith major differences apparent between cultivars (Fig. 12).   When the effect of cultural practices was studied, association with maize reduced nitrogen fixation in bush beans, but had littleeffecton the fixation rate of climbers. Optimum planting density for nitrogen fixation was near the optimal for maximum yields, however phosphate fertilization greatly increased nitrogen fixation .CIAT mamtains a documentad collection of sorne 300 cultures of Rhizobwm phaseo/1: which are available either as cultures or peat inoculants to other scientists. Currently, the best strains are tested in an lnternational Bean lnoculation Trial (IBIT) in many countries.Diseases. The production of pathogen-free foundation seed (clean seed) is an important research area of the Program. Studies of seed saved by farmers in Colombia 's Huila region showed low germination rates and many fungal contaminants. CIAT has stressed the \"c leaning \" of such seed to minimize the possibility of distributing pathogens in seed shipments and for increasing germination and early stand (Fig. 13). Various types of improved seed, including certified, protected and pathogen-free seed from Chile and from Dagua (CIAT's seed production site), did not have yield advantages over farmers' seed. when tested in on-farm trials. The principal reason appears to bethe difficulty of completely roguing BCMV in highly susceptible varieties. Since BCMV can substantially reduce yields and clean seed appears to be an inadequate substitute for resistance, the Bean Program only releases lines for testing that have resistance to BCMV.In such lines. seed free of other pathogens is expected to have a largar yield advantage and is tested again on farms. Additionally, farmers seem to select the best seed for future plantings. When new varieties are produced. the importance of improved seed production techniques is expected to substantially increase. The Seed Unit at CIAT is collaborating with several national programs to establish seed production schemes. lnsects. Several studies have been conducted to determine critica! insect pesf levels. Chrysomelid attack at the seedling stage can substantially reduce yields; however, in later stages its influence on yields is minimal. Studies relat ing leafhopper populations and damage with product ion costs ind icate an optimum return for the farmer by controlling Empoasca populations when they reach about 1 nymph/ leaf (Fig. 14). Empoasca control is most important during the flowering period. Mulching has been shown to reduce Empoasca attack in addition to reducing weed growth and preserving soil moisture.Treating harvested seed with small quantities of vegetable oils. a technique used earlier for cowpeas in Africa, has been highly successful in controlling the storage pests Zabrotes and Acanthoscelides. Only 5 mi of oil/ kg eliminated insect populations but did not affect germination or cooking quality (Table 24). Bean/ maize association Studies of the association of beans and maize have advanced considerably since their initiation in 1975. Associated cropping of beans and maize has reduced attacks of certain diseases and insect pests, while increasing others. Both leafhoppers and common bacteria! blight incidences appeared lower under this cropping system.Experiments have shown reduced yields of maize varieties even at lower bean densities. Although optimum densities for each species must be defined, density alone is not ah i mportant variable determining y1elds. Density response will depend upon the varieties of beans and maize, location, input use and other factors of weather and disease/pest incidence (Francis et al., 1978).In one series of trials, association with maize reduced bush and climbing bean yields 58 and 64 percent, respectively. Maize yields were reduced an average of 30 percent by association with beans. The hig hest association yield ach ieved in experimental plots was 2 .2 tons of beans and 5.5 tons of maize per hectare.Yields above 4 .5 t/ ha have been achieved in CIAT-Palmira and Popayan for climbing beans supported on mature maize stems and more than 5.0 t/ha on bamboo/ wire trellises. Numerous experiments to evaluate the genotype x system interactions for beans have indicated climbing bean lines should be selected under the cropping system for which they are intended. Specific and different types of beans and maize appear necessary, depending on whether direct association or relay cropping systems are utilizad. For planting in direct association, a vigorous climbing bean (Type IVb) should be sown with a maize variety intermediate in height (2.5m) and having narrow leaves and lodging resistance. A moderate climber (Type IVa) planted w ith a tall (2.5 m), lodge-resistant maize is better suited for relay systems.Whereas the genus Phaseolus has been studied intensively in temperate regions, physiological studies under tropical or semitropical conditions have been limitad. Growth analysis experiments (Table 25) helped identify yield-limiting factors in five varieties, from the tour growth habit groups defined by CIAT. The earliness of Type 1 plants limits the maximum leaf area and leaf area duration. lncreased node development and leaf area were strongly relatad to yield in all varieties. Flower and pod abscission has proved a major problem in beans with all cultivars tested showing almost 70 percent flower and pod abscission (Table 26). Abscission is greatest in flowersand pods high in the canopy, on branches, or in the higher positions within a raceme. Fir:;t-formed flowers are more likely to mature than those produced la ter. Growth habit groups have distinctly different patterns of flower production . This is an important f inding for beans produced under rainfed conditions (Fig. 15).The final test of experiment station technology occurs on farmers ' fields and in the marketplace. Farm testing was done in major bean zones in Colombia . Simple agronomic packages including chemicals, optimum plant support and better weed control substantially increased yields and farm income without larga increases in input costs (Table 27).Farm trials have shown potential gains of 1 t / ha of beans with improved agronomy. Approximately half of these grains can be obtained with low but specific input use, whi le the other half depends on higher input use (Fig. 1 6). Currently the first new improved fines from uniform yields testing are being testad at the farm leve!. Starting in 1979 all breeding lines being relea sed for international testing are resistant to BCMV, and in 1981 alllinas for areas in which anthracnose is a limiting factor will have resistance to this disaasa. Gradual improvamant will continua for resistanca/tolerance to tha leafhopper, angular leaf spot, common bacteria! blight, bean golden mosaic virus and other diseases and pests. lt is probable that resistances to other diseases such as Ascochyta, root rots, web blight and nematodes will become more important selection criteria once resistance to priority diseasas beco mes more frequent. For particular diseases such as rust, with its larga race variability, the stability of current resistance sources will determine whether greatar efforts will be necessary in seeking more stable resistance, possibly in collaboration with Title XII resaarch funding in the U.S.A.To the moment yield potential has been less emphasized than yield stability. Even so some significant gains have been made in yiald levels, and great variation in plant architecture and yiald components demonstrated. Thus, though crosses for enhanced yield potential currently contribute only a low percent of total crosses, greater emphasis will be given to this area in the future. Also limitad crossas will be made to develop improved snap bean cultivars.An expanded effort in the search for incraasad tolerance to adversa conditions such as drought, low phosphorus and acid soils will make new materials more ralevant to tha principal production zonas in Brazil, Latín America's largest producar of beans. Similarly, \"76 proteín content and cooking time will receive increased attention in selecting breeding lines. While the 1979 IBYAN stilllacked lines with proper seed sizes and colors, each year materials with a maximum number of resistances appropriate to their respective target zones will be approaching the seed characteristic requirements of national programs.Working with several national programs, the Bean Program will expand its utilization of farm trials as feedback mechanisms to determine constraints on introducing improved varieties and associated technology. In this respect, farm trials will increasingly complement the IBY AN.The size of national bean programs varíes from a few scientists to large multidisciplinary teams. Therefore, the Bean Program will maintain its present disciplinary mix, as sorne national programs will need finished varieties, while others request parental sources or segregating populations. The latter, for example, should become increasingly important as a consequence of CIAT's training efforts. National program personnel will be able to increasingly manage and fine-tune thenew germplasm and explore local adaptation and meet specific production problems and consumar preferences in their regions. To further strengthen this, regional outposted staff will be stationed in major bean production regions. In the future, IBYANs will contain an increasing number of locally improved materials.Once initial research objectives have been met, a change in emphasis will occur as the Bean Program moves towards cropping systems research. This will enable the bean crop to fit better into existing cropping patterns and, where necessary, provide for i mprovement of cropping systems.","tokenCount":"10692"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"57feb2a1f41a79610b4006ffd863f392","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/3910876c-b68c-465e-abd9-d79ac487cf3c/retrieve","id":"636255923"},"keywords":["Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, through the Tropical Legumes III project cowpea, Cowpea market participation, food security, income, northern Nigeria, rural traders, urban traders C21","C26","Q12","Q13"],"sieverID":"90769d75-d19f-43e4-98f6-8c122edcb637","pagecount":"17","content":"This article evaluates the impact of cowpea market participation on household food security and income in northern Nigeria. Using household survey data from a representative sample of over 1,500 farm households and applying a combination of instrumental variable techniques and dose-response functions, we found that cowpea market participation had a statistically significant positive impact on household food security and income. Cowpea market participation increased food expenditure by 1.6% and household income by 0.7% with a 10 unit increase in the quantity of cowpea sold. These results underscore the importance of cowpea market participation for household food security and income improvement. We also found that selling cowpea to rural and urban traders significantly increased household income, food expenditure, and food security. Results show that selling cowpea to rural and urban traders increased household income by 17% and 13%, respectively. The results point to the need for an enabling policy environment and public infrastructure to enhance market participation of farmers and traders. Public infrastructure investments in the form of feeder road construction and maintenance in the distant villages are encouraged, which in the long run can translate into improved cowpea productivity and welfare of smallholder farmers.Although there is some progress in the fight against hunger in the world through increase in food production, many people are still food insecure and suffer from some form of malnutrition (FAO, IFAD, & WFP, 2015;Godfray et al., 2010;Sibhatu, Krishna, & Qaim, 2015). Globally, an estimated 821 million people were undernourished in 2017, with the majority living in the developing countries (FAO et al., 2018). Sub-Saharan Africa has the world's highest prevalence of undernourishment that was projected to be 23.2% during the same year (FAO et al., 2018). Nigeria remains a country with high levels of poverty, food insecurity, and malnutrition. An estimated 54% 1 of Nigerians live on less than US$1.9 per day and about 37% of the children were malnourished in 2013 (NPC & ICF, 2014;World Bank, 2018). Northern Nigeria has the highest poverty and malnutrition rates (Amare, Benson, Fadare, & Oyeyemi, 2018;NBSN, 2010).Smallholder market participation has long been touted as a strategy to improve farmers' productivity, income, food security, and poverty (Barrett, 2008;Radchenko & Corral, 2018;Sibhatu et al., 2015). However, no conclusive evidence exists on its effect on food security and nutrition. On the one hand, there are studies which have shown that commercialization of agricultural produce is effective in improving food security and nutrition (e.g., Muriithi & Matz, 2015;Ogutu, Gödecke, & Qaim, 2017;Ogutu, Gödecke, & Qaim, 2019;Ogutu & Qaim, 2019;Radchenko & Corral, 2018). On the other hand, studies such as Carletto, Corral, and Guelfi (2017) found little evidence that agricultural commercialization has a positive effect on the nutritional status of smallholder farmers. We contribute to this debate on market participation by examining the impact of cowpea market participation on household food security and income in northern Nigeria using rigorous econometric approaches, and a unique and comprehensive household-level data collected from a nationally representative sample of over 1,500 cowpea producing households in the region. Understanding the relationship between cowpea (an important crop in the northern Nigeria) market participation and food security can have important policy implications.Most previous studies on market participation have mainly concentrated on understanding the factors that facilitate or hinder incidence and level of market participation (e.g., Bellemare & Barrett, 2006;Burke, Myers, & Jayne, 2015;Mignouna, Abdoulaye, Akinola, Kamara, & Oluoch, 2016;Olwande, Smale, Mathenge, Place, & Mithöfer, 2015). Others have gone beyond determinants and examined the effects of market participation on income, food security, and poverty (Muriithi & Matz, 2015;Ogutu & Qaim, 2019;Radchenko & Corral, 2018). Yet, to our knowledge, none of these studies considered the associated benefits of different market choices (rural and urban) on food security and welfare of smallholder farmers, with the exception of a study by Montalbano, Pietrelli, and Salvatici (2018). In this study, a household was considered to have participated in the market if they sold any amount of cowpea.We add to the growing literature on market participation in the following ways. First, unlike many previous studies on market participation which use the traditional discrete choice of market participation versus nonparticipation, this study uses a continuous variable, the quantity of cowpea sold, as an indicator of market participation. This enables us to measure the impact of the level or intensity of market participation on our indicators of food security (household dietary diversity [HDD] and food expenditure per capita) and household income per capita. Further, taking advantage of the continuous nature of our treatment variable, we assess the impact of cowpea market participation by estimating dose-response functions and their derivatives, the marginal treatment effects. Marginal treatment effects estimate the heterogeneous returns to market participation (Radchenko & Corral, 2018). Second, we examine the farmers' decisions of pursuing different market choices in the cowpea value chain. Specifically, we consider whether selling cowpea to rural traders or urban wholesalers/traders has a positive effect on HDD, food expenditure per capita (hereafter referred to as food expenditure), and household income per capita (hereafter referred to as household income). This is especially important in view of the scantiness of the literature on grain assembly in rural Africa, making it difficult for policymakers to better understand the effects of grain assembly on rural farm households (Sitko & Jayne, 2014). To achieve these objectives, we used instrumental variable (IV) techniques to a unique and comprehensive household-level data involving a nationally representative sample of over 1,500 cowpea farmers in Nigeria. The IV technique allowed us to control for both observed and unobserved characteristics that would otherwise bias our results.In summary, the main aim of the study was to examine the impact of cowpea market participation on household food security and income. Specifically, this study was done to understand the associated benefits of different market choices on food security and welfare of smallholder farmers. This information has particularly been lacking in the literature.The rest of the article is organized as follows. The following section briefly describes the structure of the cowpea market in Nigeria, followed by the empirical framework and data collection procedure. In this section, we outline the empirical models used to estimate the impact of cowpea market participation on HDD, food expenditure, and household income. The penultimate section presents the empirical results and discussion, and Section 4 draws conclusions and describes the implications of the results for policy.Nigeria is the largest cowpea producer in the world as well as the largest consumer and importer of cowpea in Africa (Alene & Manyong, 2007;Langyintuo et al., 2003;Mishili et al., 2009). The crop is important for small-scale farmers in terms of soil fertility management, and sources of cash income, high-quality protein food, and fodder for animals (Kristjanson, Okike, Tarawali, Singh, & Manyong, 2005;Mishili et al., 2009;Singh, Ehlers, Sharma, & Filho, 2002).The cowpea value chain 2 comprises traders that ensure the movement of grain from rural markets to urban wholesale markets and finally to consumer markets (Mishili et al., 2009). Most of the cowpea production is sold as grain although some cowpeas are purchased as green pods at harvest time, and in some regions, the leaves are eaten as greens (Mishili et al., 2009). In most cases, farmers sell their marketable surplus cowpea either in small quantities to rural assemblers and commission agents, who aggregate them into 100 kg bags which are then sold to urban wholesalers or sometimes sold in large quantities directly to urban wholesalers (Langyintuo et al., 2003;Lowenberg-DeBoer & Ibro, 2008;Mishili et al., 2009). The center for cowpea trade in Nigeria, which also happens to be the largest cowpea market in the world, is Dawanau market located in Kano state. The traders in Dawanau market support a well-developed collection system throughout northern Nigeria where they provide credit to buyers in local markets. The local traders buy cowpea in small quantities, which are later aggregated and stored until transported to Kano (Lowenberg-DeBoer & Ibro, 2008). A large quantity of cowpea sold by farmers in north central Nigeria pass through the Dawanau market where independent grain and cowpea traders operate (Langyintuo et al., 2003).In this trading system, rural traders play a vital role in buying cowpea from markets in remote areas which may not be accessible by the bigger traders in the urban areas. Notwithstanding, most studies argue that rural traders usually exploit farmers by offering them low prices. For example, Sitko and Jayne (2014) noted that most people have the view that unreliable market access conditions compel farmers to sell their produce to village-level grain assemblers who exploit their lack of formal markets by offering prices that are below the cost of production. In this study, we aim to assess whether selling to rural and urban traders influences the welfare of smallholder cowpea farmers in Nigeria.To assess the impact of cowpea market participation on HDD, food expenditure, and household income, we estimated the following linear equation where Y i represents the outcome variables (household dietary diversity scores [HDDS], 3 food expenditure, and household income), T i is our treatment variable, market participation represented by the quantity of cowpea sold, X i is the vector of control variables, and ε i is the random disturbance term. The parameter of interest is β i which measures the effect of cowpea market participation on our outcome variables. Market participation can be modeled as where Z i is a vector of the determinants of market participation. T i is, however, potentially endogenous such that the cov (T i , ε i ) ≠ 0. To correct this, we employed the IV regression that accounts for unobserved characteristics, yielding unbiased and consistent estimates. This, however, requires identifying an IV that satisfies the orthogonality condition (i.e., a variable that is strongly correlated with the level of market participation but not directly correlated with our outcome variables). Following Rao and Qaim (2011) and Rao, Brümmer, and Qaim (2012), we used the availability of public transportation in the village as an IV or exclusive restriction. Public transportation is likely to increase market participation, and this is plausible because in most cases, farmers must deliver their products themselves to the cowpea market. We therefore included the availability of public transportation in Zi.To test whether the instrument is relevant, we used the Anderson canonical correlations test (Baum, Schaffer, & Stillman, 2007).In addition to the IV approach outlined above, we also estimated the dose-response functions (DRFs) and their derivatives (marginal treatment effects) following Cerulli (2015). Unlike previous DRFs models, for example, Bia and Mattei (2008) which require the normality assumption to be satisfied, this model does not need the full normality assumption, and it is well-suited when many individuals have a treatment level of zero (Cerulli, 2015). For the sake of brevity, we do not present the estimation niceties of the DRF model, but Cerulli (2015) gives an overt description of the model.To test whether selling to rural or urban traders influences HDD, food expenditure, and household income, we used the control function approach (Rivers & Vuong, 1988;Wooldridge, 2015). Unlike the cowpea market participation indicator, which was a continuous variable, the decisions of whether to sell to rural or urban traders are dummy variables; hence, we used the appropriate modeling procedure that considers the binary nature of our indicator variables. We can redefine Equation 2 as where Z i is a vector of the determinants of the decision to sell to rural traders and urban traders; 1 [.] is an indicator function whose value is 1 if the statement inside the brackets is true, and 0 otherwise. Note that in this study, rural traders are defined as those traders who buy cowpea within the farmers' village/markets. Urban traders on the other hand are defined (1)as traders who buy cowpea directly from farmers and rural traders in the main district markets. Denoting the observed HDD, food expenditure, and household income of the participants in the rural or urban market and nonparticipants by Y i0 and Y i1 , then we can specify the potential outcomes as where X i is defined as above (Equation 1), β represent the parameters to be estimated, and μ i0 is unobserved random component. The observed treatment and outcome can be expressed as T i in Equation 6 is also potentially endogenous and this may arise because of unobserved heterogeneity, reverse causality, or measurement error, leading to biased estimates (Ogutu et al., 2019;Ogutu & Qaim, 2019). That is, the treatment variable T i may be correlated with the error terms in Equations 4 and 5. To break the correlation between the possibly endogenous treatment variable and unobservables affecting the outcome variable, we used the IV control function approach (CFA). In addition to the instrument mentioned above, we included ownership of donkey/ ox cart in the rural trader model as an additional exclusion restriction. Donkey/ox carts are importantin northern Nigeria where livestock rearing is an integral part of the farming system. Since they are usually used in the transportation of crop produce to the market, we envisage that this variable is correlated with our treatment variable but not directly with the outcome variables.The estimation of the CFA proceeds in two steps. In the first step, we estimated a probit model of the choice to sell cowpea to rural or urban traders (Equation 3, including the instruments) and obtained the generalized residuals. The predicted residuals were then included as additional covariates in the second-stage regression of the outcome variables (Equation 6). Since the outcome variables-HDD, food expenditure, and household income-are all continuous variables, we estimated the outcome equations using ordinary least squares regression (OLS). The final estimate that we get is the average treatment effect on the treated ATT, that is, the effect for only those households who sold their marketable surplus to rural and urban traders.The data for this study came from a nationally representative sample survey of 1,525 cowpea producing households conducted in 2017 by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) under the Tropical Legumes III project. A survey questionnaire was designed using computerassisted personal interviewing (CAPI) based software called Surveybe and administered by trained enumerators who collected data from households through personal interviews. The survey targeted 10 states-Borno, Bauchi, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, and Zamfara-which represent about 75% of the total cowpea production in Nigeria. These states mainly fall within the Sudan Savanna, which is the major agro-ecological zone for cowpea production in Nigeria. A multistage stratified sampling procedure was used to select the households. In the first stage, the 10 states were grouped into two geopolitical regions-three states in northeast and seven states in northwest. Only three states were considered (Borno, Bauchi, and Gombe) from the northeast region due to the security problems experienced in other states in the region during the survey. A list of villages and Local Government Areas (LGAs) located in the 10 states of the two regions was obtained from the National Population Commission (NPC).In the second stage, 25 and 13 LGAs were selected in each region using probability proportional to size (PPS) sampling. In the third stage, five cowpea producing villages were then randomly selected from each of the selectedLGAs. Following the selection of the villages, a sampling frame was developed for cowpea-growing households in the selected villages with the help of the extension agents from the Agricultural Development Programs (ADPs). In the final stage, eight households were randomly selected from each selected village resulting in a total sample of 1,525 households (995 households in the northwest region and 530 households in the northeast region). 4  The survey collected valuable information on the socioeconomic characteristics of the sample households, quantity of cowpea sold, marketing costs, and type of traders to whom farmers sell their produce.Table 1 shows the definitions and descriptive statistics of the key variables in our study. Our market participation variable is represented by quantity of cowpea sold. Results indicate that on average households sold about 633 kg of cowpea to various players in the market with about 48% of them selling to rural traders and 15% to urban wholesalers. Considering that the average production in our sample was 927 kg, the results suggest that over 60% of the households sold their cowpea. The proportion of cowpea sold was much higher (4) than that reported by Gondwe et al. (2017) in Zambia and Mignouna et al. (2016) in Nigeria.The outcome variables used in the study are the HDD and food expenditure which are proxies for food security , and the total household income , a proxy for the welfare of the farm households. The household HDD was constructed following the guidelines provided by Kennedy, Ballard, and Dop (2010). During the survey, households were asked to mention the food items they consumed in the past 7 days ranging from cereals, vegetables, proteins to beverages and condiments. These food items were classified into 12 food groups, each with a score of 1. According to Kennedy et al. (2010), the HDD is a qualitative measure of food consumption that reflects household access to a variety of foods and is also a proxy for nutrient adequacy of the diet of individuals. It is also meant to reflect the economic ability of a household to access a variety of foods. Table 1 shows that the HDD ranged from 0 to 12 with a mean value of about 9. This implies that on average, most of the households had reasonably good access to a variety of foods. Food expenditure is an important measure of food security as it is an indicator of economic vulnerability, that is, it approximates the losses experienced when food prices rise (Lele, Masters, Kinabo, & Meenakshi, 2016;Moltedo, Troubat, Lokshin, & Sajaia, 2014;Smith & Subandoro, 2007). Food expenditure includes the total food purchased by the household, the consumption of food produced by the household, and any food received by the household either through aid or in kind. The results show that on average, households spent ₦78,425 on food purchases, accounting for two-thirds of the household income. The average household income was about ₦116,546. Household income which is an indicator of farmers' well-being includes income from crops, livestock and livestock products, and off-farm income (e.g., salaries, remittances, farm labor wage income, pension income, and income from business). Table 1 further presents the household characteristics such as age, sex, education, cultivated land, number of adults in the household, and access to off-farm income. About 96% of the sample households were male headed, with about 4% of the households attending junior secondary school education. The number of adult members of the household between the ages of 15 and 59 is used as a proxy for household labor endowment. On average, each household had about seven adult members. Almost 85% of the sample households had access to off-farm income. Off-farm income is an indication of the dependence on off-farm employment in the household's community and among neighboring communities and may affect the individual household's labor allocation and cash earnings (Smale & Mason, 2014). Kinship, number of years the head of the household has been living in this village, friends or relatives in leadership positions in formal or informal institutions and member of formal and informal groups/institutions are all important indicators of social capital. About 59% of the households owned a radio. Radio ownership is important especially for the decision to participate in markets because radio ownership can facilitate access to production, market and price information (Olwande et al., 2015). Following Aguilar, Carranza, Goldstein, Kilic, & Oseni, (2015), we constructed a wealth index using principal component analysis (PCA) in which we considered all the assets owned by the household such bicycles, motorbikes cars, and television sets.Households with more assets are expected to participate in the market more fully than those with fewer assets. Previous studies have shown that improved cowpea varieties out yield local varieties, implying that a household's marketable surplus can be influenced by productivity (Kamara et al., 2010;Olwande et al., 2015). To capture this, we included an improved cowpea adoption dummy, which shows that about 42% of the households planted improved cowpea varieties in the 2016 cropping season. In participating in the input and output markets, households also incur transaction costs (Alene et al., 2008;Barrett, 2008;Olwande et al., 2015). The average one-way transport cost to the main market, distance to the village market, and distance from the homestead to farm are proxies for transaction costs incurred by farmers in transporting their produce to the market. It takes an average of 43 min for farmers to transport produce to the nearest village markets. Lastly, about 62% of the households had access to public transport and about 15% owned donkey/ox carts.Table 2 shows the outcome variables disaggregated by cowpea market participation. Note in Table 2, market participation is defined by a discrete choice variable and not continuous variable. The results indicate that cowpea market participants had higher food expenditures and incomes as compared to their nonparticipants. Participants spent about ₦11,736 more on food purchases than nonparticipants. Similarly, cowpea market participants had on average ₦18,867 more income than nonparticipants. While these results may suggest that cowpea market participation can be beneficial to the households, it will be misleading to conclude that market participation had impact on food expenditure and household income since descriptive analysis does not control for both observed and unobserved characteristics. To effectively assess its impact, we turn to multivariate analysis presented in the subsequent sections.We estimated the impact of cowpea market participation on HDD, food expenditure, and household income considering both observed and unobserved characteristics using an instrumental variable regression outlined in Section 2. But first, we estimated the determinants of cowpea market participation using ordinary least squares (OLS), and the results are presented in Table A1 5 in the appendix. Availability of public transport in the village is the instrumental variable used in the estimation. The availability of public transport in the village is expected to influence market participation without directly affecting our impact variables, making it a good candidate to be used as instrument. Results in Table A1 show that the availability of public transport in the villages is an important determinant of level of participation in the cowpea market, suggesting that it can be a relevant instrument to identify our IV model. The Anderson canonical correlations likelihoodratio test of whether the equation is identified, that is, that the excluded instruments are relevant is reported in Table 3 and shows a rejection of the null hypothesis, suggesting that the model is identified and that the instrument is relevant.Table 3 shows the results from our IV model from Equation 1. Specifically, the first row of Table 3 shows the impact of quantity of cowpea sold on HDD, food expenditure, and household income. The results indicate that cowpea market participation significantly increasd HDD, food expenditure, and household income. A 10% increase in the quantity of cowpea sold increases the food expenditure and income by 1.6% and 0.7%, respectively. These results are consistent with the results found by Montalbano et al. (2018) and Muriithi and Matz (2015) who found that maize and vegetable market participation increased food consumption, nutrition and total household income in Uganda and Kenya, respectively.To evaluate the effect of cowpea market participation over the entire sample of the distribution, we also estimated the dose-response functions. The dose-response functions in a way can also be viewed as a robustness check for the IV results since the functions are estimated based on observed characteristics and ignore the unobserved characteristics. Coupled with the DRFs, we also estimated the derivatives of the DRFs, that is, the marginal treatment effects to capture the heterogeneity in treatment effects. Figure 1 shows the estimated dose-response functions (average treatment effect) of cowpea market participation on HDD, food expenditure , and household income . Each estimated DRF is accompanied by 1% confidence bands. The x-axis shows the dose, which is the quantity of cowpea sold, scaled to be between 0 and 100 while the y-axis measures the average treatment effect (ATE). The results show that as the amount of cowpea sold increases, so do the HDD, food expenditure, and household income. The results show that food expenditure increases from below zero to a maximum of around ₦25,000 with an increase in the quantity of cowpea sold. Likewise, household income increases, reaching a maximum of about ₦140,000 with an increase in the amount of cowpea sold. These results are quite consistent with the IV results presented in Table 3.The marginal treatment effects graphs (Figure A1 in the appendix) show that the returns to cowpea market participation are heterogeneous, and generally, the conclusions are comparable to the DRFs. The slopes of all the MTE curves are positive, indicating positive selection bias, that is, cowpea market participation is most effective in increasing HDD, food expenditure, and household income for farmers who sold a larger amount of cowpea. This is consistent with the results found by Manda, Khonje, Alene, and Gondwe (2017) for groundnuts in Zambia and Wossen et al. (2018) for cassava in Nigeria. To fully understand the benefits of participating in the cowpea market, we analyzed the effect of the farmers' choice of either selling to rural traders or urban wholesalers on the same outcome variables as above. We estimated an instrumented control function model as outlined in Section 2. We used the availability of public transport as an instrument to identify the urban trader choice model. To identify the rural trader choice model, we included the variable, ownership of donkey/ox carts in addition to the availability of public transport variable for reasons explained above. Tables A2  and A3 in the appendix present the results of the endogeneity tests for the treatment variables. We performed a Wald test to determine whether the estimated correlations between the treatment-assignment and potential-outcome models were different from zero. The null hypothesis is that the correlations are jointly zero and rejection of the null hypothesis suggests endogeneity. Results in Table A3 show that we can reject the null hypothesis of no endogeneity at 10% and 5% for the HDD, food expenditure, and income equations, implying that without controlling for this endogeneity, our results would be biased. This provides the justification for using the instrumented control function approach. Even though our main objective was to assess the benefits of either choice of the market, we discuss briefly the determinants of the choice of whether to sell to rural or urban traders in Table 4 (first stage control function results). 6 Results in Table 4 show that the determinants of the decision of whether to participate in the rural or urban markets are different in terms of both magnitude and direction. For instance, participation in urban markets increases with the age of the household head. Livestock ownership increases the participation in rural markets but reduces participation in the urban markets.Age of the household head −0.00 (0.00) −0.00 (0.00)Sex of the household head −0.17 (0.17 This is probably because livestock is usually used to transport produce to village markets where in most cases the roads are in bad conditions and public transportation is not available.On the other hand, in urban areas, transportation of produce to the market can easily be done using public transport because generally the roads are in better conditions than those in the rural areas. Likewise, access to off-farm income has a positive effect on the decision to sell to rural traders and has a negative effect on urban market participation. Generally, the social capital variables had statistically significant effects on the decision to sell to rural traders while insignificant for the urban traders. The distance to the nearest market had a positive effect on the decision to sell to rural traders and negative on the urban traders. This is probably because of high transaction costs associated with transporting the marketable surplus to the market. Most of the village markets are near farmers' residences while those in urban markets are quite distant from the farmers' residences. Previous studies (e.g., Alene et al., 2008;Barrett, 2008;Renkow, Hallstrom, & Karanja, 2004) have shown that transaction costs (e.g., distance to the nearest market) prevent some of the farmers from participating in the market and in our case, prevents farmers from accessing urban markets offered by the urban wholesalers. Finally, our instrumental variables were statistically significant in explaining the decision to sell to the rural and urban traders. After controlling for observed and unobserved characteristics, the impact of the choice of whom to sell cowpea (i.e., either to rural or urban traders) from the control function model is presented in Table 5 below. The results show that selling to rural traders increases HDD by 38%, food expenditure and household income by 17%, each. Similarly, selling to urban traders increased HDD by 55%, food expenditure by 16%, and household income increased by 13%. The magnitudes of the percentage increase were not very different between the two market outlets. These results are consistent with other studies (e.g., Asfaw, Lipper, Dalton, & Audi, 2012;Montalbano et al., 2018;Sibhatu et al., 2015;Stifel & Minten, 2017) which indicate that market access/participation increases the dietary diversity and well-being of farm households. There are two major pathways through which market participation can affect dietary diversity. One pathway is through an increase in agricultural production, followed by more marketable surplus and income. Market participation leads to an increase in agricultural production which in turn leads to more marketable surplus (Stifel & Minten, 2017). The market surplus increases income for farmers which consequently increase their ability to buy more diverse foods from the market (Sibhatu et al., 2015). The other pathway is through transaction cost reduction followed by more marketable surplus and income. That is, participation in the local markets provided by rural traders reduces the transaction costs associated with the marketing of cowpea produce, which in turn leads to more marketable surplus and more income for farmers which consequently increase their ability to buy more diverse foods from the market (Sibhatu et al., 2015). On the flip side, lack of local market access increases transaction costs and leads to less marketable agricultural surplus, thus resulting in less food and fewer food items purchased (Stifel & Minten, 2017).This study estimated the impact of cowpea market participation on household dietary diversity, food expenditure per adult equivalent, and household income per capita using data from a nationally representative sample of over 1,500 farm households in northern Nigeria. We used a combination of instrumental variable techniques and dose-response functions to achieve our objective. Using the quantity of cowpea sold as an indicator of cowpea market participation, we found that on average farmers sold about 633 kg of cowpea to various cowpea traders. The results from our study also showed that, ceteris paribus, cowpea market participation significantly increased household dietary diversity, food expenditure, and household income, consistent with other studies on market participation and commercialization of agricultural produce. Cowpea market participation increased food expenditure by 1.6% and household income by 0.7% with a 10% increase in the amount of cowpea sold. The results suggest that the contribution of cowpea market participation to household income led to higher food expenditures and a more diversified diet. The effects on income and expenditure are plausible and consistent with other studies, considering that we only looked at cowpea. Ogutu et al. (2019) for instance examined the impact of agricultural commercialization (including crops and livestock), on income and poverty in Kenya. They found that commercialization increased income by 17% and reduced the prevalence of poverty by 5.1 percentage points. Similar results were obtained by Radchenko and Corral (2018) on food security in Malawi and Seng (2016) in Cambodia. Unlike other studies which have not explored the benefits of different markets channels of smallholder market participation on household food security and income, we showed in this study that selling cowpea to rural traders on average increased food security as measured by the household dietary diversity scores by 38% while selling to urban traders increased food security by 55%. Specifically, the results suggest that farmers who sold to urban traders had more diversified diets than those who sold to rural traders. In urban areas, there is usually variety of foods that are available for purchase as compared to rural areas where there is a limited choice; hence, the likelihood of households who had to travel to urban areas to sell their cowpea of having a diversified diet is higher than those who sold within the rural areas. Contrary to the common view that rural traders exploit small-scale farmers, results show that selling cowpea to rural traders on average increased household income by 17% while selling cowpea to urban traders increased by 13%. Rural traders are economic agents performing a function for which they are being remunerated, and at the same time, this function provides benefits to farmers as shown by our results. The results from this study show that these traders can be one of the solution to the seemingly nonexistent structured grain markets in rural areas. In most parts of the rural northern Nigeria, the road infrastructure is not in a good condition, making it very difficult for farmers to access distant urban markets. It also makes it very difficult for farmers to access market information from extension agents. Rural traders fill in these gaps by providing local stable market-outlet services, lowered search and transport costs and through interlinked contracts and may provide credit, inputs, and information (Kassie, Jaleta, Shiferaw, Mmbando, & Mekuria, 2013;Sitko & Jayne, 2014). It is therefore important for the government to recognize that rural traders also play an important role in the marketing of agricultural produce and to create an enabling environment in which commodity traders are encouraged to participate in the cowpea market. Precisely, the provision of credit facilities would greatly encourage these traders to buy produce even from hard to reach areas where most of the big traders are not present. Second, availability of public transportation is important in encouraging farmers to access urban markets; hence, public infrastructure investments in the form of feeder road construction and maintenance in the distant villages are encouraged, which in the long run can translate into improved cowpea productivity and welfare of smallholder farmers in not only Nigeria, but sub-Saharan Africa as a whole where market access is particularly a problem.| 15 of 17 MANDA et Al.  ","tokenCount":"5691"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"39af61eaa1044f1c13ea6ddb9ef98601","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H026013.pdf","id":"834846742"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b41ecfee-31ce-48b8-b328-0f5e3402cbb7","pagecount":"5","content":"The farmers in Punjab, especially in the southern part, are faced with constraints of low agricultural productivity due to utfit ground water. Besides, Bahawalnag? district is almost situated at tlie tail of the Puiijab's canal irrigation system. The only source of irrigation is the canal system. The performance of which has gone down over the years due to several economic and socio-political factors. In the given situation, neither the government nor the farmers alone cai. solve these problems. It was one of our long felt needs that the farmers should be organized to improve irrigated agriculture, a major source of our livelihood.There are five main criteria of selection:1 Hakra 4-R distributary comes under Fordwah Eastern Sadiqa South (FESS). It is a World Bank project on lining and drainage of canals. In addition, under this project, OFWM is doing the same organization work at Sirajwah distributary, so we coordinated with them for the organization of farmers. The farmers of the Distributary have diverse backgrounds such as local, Molijir and settlers etc.With little intervention by the agency, for development work there was an incentive for the farmers to be organized.It is a medium to large, 57-k.m long distributary with 124 irrigation outlets. The design discharge is 193 cusec, which was sanctioned in the 1966. The gross command area is 48250 acres and culturable coininand area is about 43400 acres. Presence of hydraulic structures, which would help the water users to monitor the discharge in terms of space and time '.These drop structures represent the five subsystems,The first sub-system falls from RD-0 to RD-46, with 25 irrigation outlets (Ghulab All zone); Tlie Second sub-system falls froin RD-46 to RD-72 with 24 irrigation outlets (Haroonabad Zone);The third subsysteni falls froin RD-72 to RD-112 (tail) with 27 irrigation outlets (Tail Zone);The fourth subsystem is 1Wininor with 15 irrigation outlets (Khatan Zone); Tlie fifth subsystem is 1R/ ininor with 33 irrigation outlets (1R Zone).The base line survey was conducted in thirteen sample watercourses, in July and August 1995. It covered socio economic and technical inforination of the area. The purpose of tlie base line survey was to use this information to interact with tlie water users for establishing the WUOs.Social Mobilization process is based on five dialogic steps. Each step is the base of next step. If one is weak then next cannot be obtained. It is iterative. Each step leads to tlie next step.The initial interactions with the people in tlie project area helped the field team to accomplish tlie following combination activities:Importance of the program; Explain tlie project objectives; Preliminary calibration exercise;Introduce llMl and its programs to the peopre;Collect or construct warabandi schedule; and ldetitificatioii of Social Organization Volunteers (SOVs)T1i process was launched froin September 1995 to May 1996. The purpose of tlie identification was to help tlie field team comprising of five members and to involve the community in the organization ivork. The internally generated demand for social organizatioii has a greater chance of making these organizations productive and sustainable. It was difficult for a small field team to interact with 4500 \\vater users, so 158 SOVs were identified. The selection of the SOVs was based on the following criteria:Referred by tlie majority; Knowledgeable; Honest; Educated;Have experience in spealung at public place; Already taking part in the collective action.The SOVs were trained for one day. In the training their role and interaction with the community was discussed.After the identification process, Series of the meetings were arranged. Here the SOVs were only the target. Tlie purpose of the meetings was to further clear their mind about the program and IIMI, so as they can interact with the community with great zeal and zest. Tlie role of the SOVs was also discussed in the meeting. The participation ratio in the meeting remained 70%. The process was four months.The meeting was held at the larger scale, at village level. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the tentative plan to establish water user organization, tiieiiiberslup of W A S , organizational structure and procedure for identifying organizational leaders. The meeting also worked as a follow up to the earlier awareness building meetings. The participation rate in the meeting was 39 %. This step was completed within the period of four months.A series of the meetings were conducted for discussing the process and finally taking the decisions for selecting the organizational leaders at watercourse level. There was considerable gap, [6][7][8] days, between the planing.and organizing of the meeting. The idea was to give maximum publicity and provide equal opportunity for all eligible water users to come forward for leadership. The average participation rate was 77 YO in the meeting. The members framed the informal coininittee that coniprised on 1 to 7 persons, with consensiis. They sent one person, who is the chairman of the committee, for the general body of the water user organization. The niiniber of general body of an organization (subsystem) depends upon the number of watercourses.The general body of each subsystem selected their own office-bearers, president, vice-president, general secretary, joint secretary, secretary information, and treasure. Each subsystem nominated five persons for federation members. This step took six niontlis to complete.The general body of 25 federation members in their two iiieetings selected five office-bearers 011 5 hlarch 1097. In this way, the organization process was completed.The approach fur social organizationThe approach was based on direct interaction with the community. Inforination was not one way, it was exchanged between SOs and community, SO and SOVs, SOVs and community and among commiinity niembers.Three tier organizational structure (WUAs, WUOs & WUF)First the farmers were organized at watercourse level into -124 WUAs, then they rvel-e orgaiii/ed at subsystem level covering five subsystems, a i d later they were federated at distributary le\\,el l'liet e were two main reasons of three tiered stnictures at the Hakra 4-R distributary. Firstly, 10 iiit,olve inaxiiniini water users in the irrigation management decision-making for the sustainability of the program. The office-bearers are comparatively inore active than the non-office-bearers. So in the three tiered structures, almost 600 hundred people collie ahead. If these office-bearers are active then there are inore chances of it sustainabilitySecondly, to increase tlie interaction among tlie water users, as the distributary is 57 kin long and it is very difficult for the headers and tail enders to interact with each other. Now they can interact easily through three tier organizational structure. ..1.2 . Disappointment among tlie community 3. and fanners Anarchy of legislation 6. Cultural Factors Propaganda by the people benefiting from status quo Low collaboration from relevant agencyThose people who were taking illegal benefits from the system started propagating against the activity. They not take part in collective action but get benefit fi-om it. They boosted the doubts a i d misinterpreted things. They propagated that meter would be installed on the outlets, privatization of the system and raise in water charges etc.This constraint is based on the past collective effort/actions and non-iinplementatioii of tlie programs. Some people related it with cooperatives and Uslier/Zakat where nominations are made from tlie top level and no value is given to public opinion. Therefore, some people were disinterest at the initial stagePeople were not sure of tlie implenientation of the program due to wide scale prevalence of corruption and political system. According to them tlie only solution was blood revolution.Low collaboration was only due to insecurity among tlie agency's staff. They thought that there was a chance of losing their jobs if the program is implemented. That's why they did participate in tlie farmers meetings.There was not any clear policy about the program due to lack of legislation. Tlie people felt it was useless without legal protection. If they organize themselves without recognition, tliere will be no incentive for tlie organization, so they showed disinterest initially.It is in our tradition to value tlie elder's role, to be lethargic, to ignore tenants and to build \"Chtidraht\" or izzat (class status). The reason for low participation rate (10% to 40%) in tlie meetings was that mostly people thought they were supposed to obey the elders' decisions and also \\vliat one committed on others behalf, would be acceptable to others. People wanted to show their \"Cliudrat\" status at all costs during site selection and selection of office-bearers. It happened only at few watercourses.Organize tlie workshop at initial stages and define the role of relevant operating agency. Also clear people's doubts by niaking them aware that joint management improves the system without damaging their interests.As it is a novel experience, there is need to publicize it through mass media. Tell people about the importance of the program, so they participate in the process with great zeal zest.The size should be manageable, so the SO can interact with the coniniunity regularly to avoid the mmors and keep it well aware about the existing situation.For the effectiveness of an organization, legal protection is very important. If an organization makes a decision, there should be legal protection for its implementation.The best way is the democratic way. It is nice if the process is completed with consensus, or through the election. The democratic way is the only way for the sustainability of the organization.We should m,&e the process free from the politics contacts. Agriculture is the backbone of our economy, so we should at least avoid politics and brotheryism.","tokenCount":"1549"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d5aa5f865fa8195d1b4671cefa891043","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/db90efe4-a17d-4f1f-ba1c-5ccfeaa0397c/retrieve","id":"1615514643"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d12bbcf1-c38d-4dba-b2f5-56fc24b448ab","pagecount":"33","content":"One of the major underlying reasons for poor agricultural performance in East and Southern Africa (ESA) is the low efficiency of agricultural value chains and lack of resilience against climate shocks. Many agricultural value chains are fragmented and characterized by instability of relationships between offtakers and smallholder and emerging farmers. The ones that suffer the most from these inefficiencies and threats are the farmers. There are significant hurdles to farmers and market systems. These include access to affordable inputs, advisories, logistics, finance, and market linkages. Agribusinesses are addressing these challenges through their products and services, and supporting farmers to improve productivity, incomes, and resilience to climate change. This is particularly important in East and Southern Africa, where farmers are engaged in maize production which is vulnerable to climate change and projected to face not only 15% climate-related declines in yield without adaptation, but also challenges from diminished cropland suitability and poor agronomic inputs and management; degraded environmental bases with declining soil fertility and degraded water systems 1 .The mission of Ukama Ustawi is to support developments that transform the ESA agrifood system through sustainable intensification to maize-mixed systems and crop diversification to de-risk other systems. In addition, to a) empower more women and young farmers, agribusiness owners, and value chain actors; b) promote healthier diets; and c) protect the natural environment from further degradation.Against this backdrop and based on what has already been conceptualized 2 , the goal of this project is to support Ukama Ustawi design a Climate-smart Agriculture (CSA) accelerator programme that can be implemented in East and Southern Africa. The overall objective of Ukama Ustawi is to develop an accelerator programme that is demand-driven, responsive to market needs, inclusive of gender and youth and targets high-growth, high-impact agribusinesses that require technical assistance and links to financing to strengthen food systems and advance sustainable and inclusive growth. The programme, named Food Systems Accelerator, will achieve this through 3 main areas to be implemented across select focus countries in East and Southern Africa over the duration of the initiative (2022 -2024):2.1. Provision of CSA Technical Assistance (TA): to provide agribusinesses with coordinated and specialized evidence-based TA support that encourages adoption and/or strengthens their CSA practices, as well as addresses concrete ecosystem challenges. CSA TA supports de-risking of agribusinesses (especially those involved in production) and improves their bankability. This TA support will be provided by CGIAR network of scientists.2.2. Provision of Impact Measurement and Management (IMM) Technical Assistance: Understanding how to effectively measure and manage impact is critical to ensuring agribusinesses achieve their desired result in contributing towards positive environmental and social impact. Companies use this data to improve business performance, identify areas where value can be created and make better decisions to maximise positive impact while minimising negative impact. Further, IMM strengthens the position of a company for investment by impact and/or responsible investors. This training will be provided by CGIAR network of experts.Assistance: Funding provides crucial resources that enable businesses to develop new products, expand production capacity and access new markets. Securing financing (especially from the private sector) is an essential step in establishing a foundation for long-term growth and sustainability. However, businesses must be investment ready to secure funding. Management teams must understand their growth plans and financing needs to ensure that new funding supports, rather than hinders, their path to sustainability. Further, they must understand how to position their business to potential investors and be equipped to negotiate with them. This TA support will be provided by IFDC-2SCALE and its network. Ultimately, by the end of 2024 Ukama Ustawi would have accelerated up to 30 agribusinesses (40% run by women and 40% by youth) and facilitated links to at least USD 5 million of new finance, that has been unlocked and invested, or in the process of being invested through debt, equity, or grants.The CGIAR Food Systems Accelerator is a work package in the Ukama Ustawi (UU) regional initiative of the CGIAR. The Initiative aims to support climate-resilient agriculture and livelihoods in 12 countries in East and Southern Africa by helping millions of smallholders intensify, diversify, and reduce the risks in maize-based farming through improved extension services, small and medium enterprise development, supporting governance frameworks and increased investment with a gender and social inclusion lens.The International Fertilizer Development Centre (IFDC) is a public international organization addressing critical issues such as international food security, the alleviation of global hunger and poverty, environmental protection and the promotion of economic development and self-sufficiency. IFDC focuses on increasing productivity across the agricultural value chain in developing countries. This is achieved by the creation and transfer of effective and environmentally sound crop nutrient technology and agribusiness expertise. The IFDC-2SCALE program, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, is one of the most innovative incubator programs for inclusive agribusiness in sub-Saharan Africa.2SCALE develops a portfolio of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in several (10-15) target countries in sub-Saharan Africa. These partnerships aim to promote inclusive business in agriculture, through support to value chain development, agribusiness cluster formation and enabling business environments. The agribusiness cluster approach is designed to help rural smallholders move from subsistence farming to farming as a business and to supply agricultural products for local, national, regional, and international markets. The project partners with national and multinational agri-food companies as drivers to increase productivity and to improve efficiency and sustainability of supported agribusiness clusters and value chains. Specific attention is given to job creation (including for the youth), women entrepreneurship and \"base of the pyramid\" (BoP) consumers and producers; the latter are most people and therefore the largest market for food products in sub-Saharan Africa.In a world of abundant liquidity, access to finance to invest in working capital, capital expenditure and expansion for regional and international trade is increasingly challenging to procure for a wide range of cash-intensive business activities, and especially for agri-businesses in Africa. Private sector funders have a high perception of sector and country risk and do not have the ability to assess and manage these risks. Insufficient market data and high transaction costs hinder private sector's investment in agribusinesses.This concept paper will leverage on the breadth of agriculture financing expertise and experience to codesign a science-based accelerator programme with the Ukama Ustawi project team. This accelerator will address some of the challenges in unlocking investment by identifying high-impact and inclusive bankable businesses in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia, and de-risk them through the provision of technical assistance and grants. It will also be used as a practice guide to operationalize sciencebased accelerator programmes across Africa.5.1. Science-based -the accelerator leverages the portfolio of CGIAR innovations as well as the expertise of a wide network of international researchers from various disciplines. Agriculture and food systems knowledge is combined with social sciences to create systemic change while considering commercial parameters to ensure business success.5.2. Focus on Climate-smart Agriculture -CSA as a sector remains relatively underexplored in the agriculture funding landscape despite the potential of adaptive and mitigation effects to create stronger and more sustainable value chains 3 . Part of the challenge relates to the commercial viability of solutions compared to tried and tested alternatives. Apart from providing investment readiness support, this accelerator programme focuses on strengthening food, land and water systems through a value chain approach and the CSA practices of agribusinesses, de-risking them through provision of bespoke technical assistance from highly qualified experts and creating a strong investment pipeline of highimpact, high-growth companies. 5.3. Provides Impact Measurement and Management (IMM) technical support -the accelerator programme supports agribusinesses to effectively measure and manage impact which is critical to ensuring they achieve their desired result in contributing towards positive environmental and social impact. Companies use this data to improve business performance, identify areas where value can be created and make better decisions to maximise positive impact while minimising negative impact. Further, IMM strengthens the position of a company for investment by impact and/or responsible investors.5.4. Provides Investment Readiness technical assistance -supporting agribusinesses understand their growth plans and financing and how to position their business to potential investors and be equipped to negotiate with them. 5.5. Promoting gender, youth, and social inclusion -targeting female and youth-led agribusinesses, as well as strengthening gender and inclusion within business operations. 5.6. De-risking grant -following the conclusion of the accelerator programme and pitch day (demo day), companies with the top four scores will receive a grant of USD 20,000 each according to their business scaling plans. 5.7. Access to investor network, mentors, and experts -through networking events and technical assistance, agribusinesses will gain access to public and private investors, commercial partners, and industry experts. 5.8. PR and marketing support through existing marketing platforms for agribusinesses already working with Ukama Ustawi (e.g., Shamba Shape Up) and IFDC-2SCALE. The accelerator team will explore opportunities for PR and marketing support. 5.9. Access to Alumni Network and peer learning supportAs part of the first cohort, the Food Systems Accelerator will onboard 10 agribusinesses from Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia that are aligned with the following priority areas: sustainable intensification of production through (i) Mechanization and Irrigation and (ii) Conservation Agriculture, (iii) improving Nutrition through crops that diversify from maize and promote alternative staples, legumes and other food and cash crops and add-value or process those crops and (iv) managing agriculture risks (Agriculture Risk Management) through access to financial services and adoption of climate information services. Applicants must be working with smallholder farmers as partners either by sourcing produce from them and/or customers by providing products and services to them. They must be for-profit, with at least 2 years of operations, legally registered with the relevant documentation, post revenue with paying customers, a demonstrated business case and commercially viable. Finally, applicants must have a need to scale and accelerate innovative and transformative climate solutions that make the food system more inclusive and resilient. To attract the most promising inclusive agribusinesses, the programme will leverage both physical and digital channels. This approach ensures that the search is inclusive and exhaustive, reaching agribusinesses that may not have a strong online presence.The Call for Applications will be a competitive application process that will be hosted digitally by VC4A.A dedicated campaign page for the Call for Applications will be created, including documents for download with additional information per priority area. There will be weekly reports on the progress of applications, and a final report when the application period ends. See Annex 2.1. for the Call for Application campaign and Annex 2.2. for the application form.With input from the IFDC-2SCALE team, VC4A will:• Set up the campaign page • Set up the application form page • Monitor the application process and provide insights on progress from the data • Provide an online adjudication tool for the selection process • Support promotion of the programme • Support post-selection cohort promotionIn addition to the promotional activities provided by VC4A, the IFDC-2Scale and CGIAR team will advertise the Call for Applications through the following channels to attract agribusinesses:6.2. Digital channels 6.2.1. Social media: sharing the Call for Application promotional material on 2SCALE, Ukama Ustawi and CGIAR social media pages such as: LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. The following are the CGIAR science centers that will be approached to assist with spreading the word: CIAT, IWMI, ILRI, CYMMYT and IITA. The Call will be shared three times per week from the launch date to the deadline. This will be coordinated by the 2SCALE team for their social media pages, including those of their partners. CGIAR team will coordinate for their social media pages.6.2.2. Ecosystem partners: promoting the Call by engaging key ecosystem partners to share the promotional materials with their mailing lists, in their newsletters, community sites and forums. See Annex 2.3. for partners that the Food System Accelerator will approach:6.3. Physical channels 6.3.1. Sending the Call promotional materials to selected networks and business associations on the ground to share with their members.6.3.2. Leveraging IFDC-2SCALE's large pipeline of agribusinesses to prospect opportunities. The following organizations will be instrumental: IFDC Global, IFDC ESA, 2SCALE, SNV, BoP Inc, ICRA, PrC amongst others 6.3.3. Leveraging Ukama Ustawi and CGIAR's network of agribusiness to prospect opportunities. The following science centers and initiatives will be approached to share within their networks: CIAT, IWMI, CYMMYT, IITA, PABRA, AICCRA and ClimBeR.The Call for Applications will be launched on 23 rd November 2022 and the deadline of submissions will be 23:59hrs CAT on the 22 nd of December 2022. The campaign will last for 4 weeks.This selection process will involve the following steps:The total applications received will be reviewed by the accelerator's core team members represented by 2SCALE and CGIAR UU WP 3 members. Members from the CGIAR Sustainable Finance team will support this step of the selection process.Shortlist applications to: 25 agribusinesses 7.2. Stage 2: Selecting 4 Agribusinesses to receive grant funding After the 10 agribusinesses selected for acceleration complete the 6-month programme, 4 agribusinesses from each of the target countries will be selected to receive grants and sign a partnership agreement. Each agribusiness will be scored against the following general criteria:• Full attendance of technical assistance training by member(s) of management team • Scoring of homework submissions (graded according to timeliness of submission, completeness, quality, and effort demonstrated) • Satisfactory performance of the enterprise participants in the technical assistance and agreed milestones.• Full attendance of networking events • Ability to showcase to judges and investors investment ready/scalable innovations • Pre-demo Day investor engagement activity scores • Live pitch at demo day scoresThe shortlisted applications will be reviewed by the accelerator's core internal team represented by 2SCALE, CGIAR UU WP 3 members and a panel of external experts. The external experts will be agribusiness experts from each of the target countries. A scoring tool will be developed and jointly reviewed by the core Food Systems Accelerator Team against the criteria above. A further screening on the areas below will provide more scores:• Ability of the innovation to scale Providing a needs-based and bespoke curriculum will assist the agribusinesses scale sustainably, increasing their impact, growing local economies, and reducing the risk of failure. As such, a quality technical assistance curriculum is an essential part of a successful accelerator programme.The Food Systems Accelerator programme curriculum will be guided by the needs of the agribusinesses in the cohort. The information for the needs assessment will be collected:• During the Call for Applications to get a general understanding of the applicant's needs • During onboarding of the cohort to get a more in-depth understanding of the agribusiness' needs However, given the experience of the core team we can generally anticipates the investment readiness needs to fall into some of the following areas:1. Technical Assistance -on IMM and CSA based on a CGIAR developed curriculum. 2. Business planning -understanding the importance of and how to build a business plan.3. Target market identification -understand your ideal customer and the size of the market opportunity, as well as how to identify opportunities to think bigger and scale to a larger audience. 4. Customer acquisition -learning how to engage key stakeholders. 5. Competition -understanding the competition that exists for your business, and how to use competitive analysis to identify and leverage your competitive advantages. 6. Identification of milestones and metrics -learning to create a plan for moving your business forward and identifying performance metrics that you will use to measure success. 7. Human Resource -build the organization chart for your business and identify when to hire, insource, outsource, as well as alignment to the company's overall vision and culture. 8. Governance -strengthen corporate governance of the company by learning how to build a board of directors, identifying and appointing Board of Directors, building a Board Charter and other key aspects. 9. Fundraising -learning how to determine how much financing is needed to achieve milestones and success and build a plan for investment funding. 10. Strategy and projections -building your growth plan and translating the company's business strategy into a financial forecast. Building an income statement, balance sheet and cashflow statement. 11. Accounting, legal, tax and other regulatory issues 12. Investor engagement -Building a pitch deck, identifying investors, how to pitch to investors, engaging with investors, negotiations and what to expect in a due diligence process.The Food Systems Accelerator Programme will offer technical assistance in three areas:8.1.1. Scientific excellence which will include:• Innovation specific climate-smart agriculture • Gender and social inclusion (GESI) -inclusion of GESI within company level, supply chain level and customer level 8.1.2. Investment Readiness which will include:• Fundraising -training on how to secure finance • Commercial sustainability -growing a business sustainably • Regulatory support -launching into exports, navigate industry regulatory issues, etc.There will be three phases of technical assistance delivery:8.1.4. Design and diagnostic: The technical team will organise an in-person design and diagnostic session for each of the agribusinesses within the cohort in February 2023. The design and diagnostic will identify the TA needs of the agribusinesses. The outputs of the design and diagnostics session will inform the design of the programme curriculum.8.1.5. Co-development: After the needs of the agribusinesses are identified, the technical team and the agribusinesses will co-design a curriculum and structure of TA delivery, including the number of sessions, duration, specific topics covered, type of trainers and the session outputs. Given the experience of the technical team we can generally anticipate 4 sessions per month for the period of implementation using a hybrid delivery method (both in-person and online), and a mix of group sessions for general trainings and one-on-one sessions per agribusiness for more specific needs. TA experts will receive a general guide and recommendations on how to best prepare for trainings and/or mentoring sessions from the accelerator team.8.1.6. Delivery: each agribusiness receives technical assistance along the 3 areas according to their identified needs. The accelerator programme will provide high-quality TA experts who have practical experience. Trainings will be execution-oriented with the agribusinesses delivering concrete results.There will be practical homework/assignments delivered monthly. These monthly milestones will be co-developed with the agribusinesses to ensure that the programme is not too demanding because the entrepreneurs need to work on their businesses. Monitoring of these milestones will be conducted monthly by the accelerator team.Some KPIs for each agribusiness will include:• Participating in all the training sessions • Completion of the homework/assignments given • Quality of completed homework/assignments • Timeliness of submission of homework/assignmentsCommunity building activities are an important aspect of an accelerator programme. Therefore, it is important to include community building services and activities within the programme. Besides all the formal training sessions, the Food System Accelerator will organise some community building activities.One important part of community building activities and post-programme support will be focused on alumni members i.e., all the agribusinesses that have successfully graduated from the Food Systems Accelerator programme. This is to maintain or enhance the agribusinesses' investment viability and provide more opportunities for business growth. In addition, satisfied agripreneurs are both the best promotors of the accelerator programme and a strong resource to build a great community.To build an alumni network, the Food Systems Accelerator programme will:• Build and maintain an alumni database • Organise annual networking gatherings between cohorts • Organise peer-to-peer mentoring: mentoring sessions between alumni members and incoming cohortsThe accelerator programme will offer the following post-programme support:• Fundraising support: invite successful graduates to participate in investor road shows • Presenting successful stories in the media: this will further promote the agribusinesses and the accelerator programme • Talent scouting: help alumni members attract talent and find key employees for their businessesOne of the key objectives of the Food Systems Accelerator is to link the agribusiness cohort to financing in the form of grants, equity, and debt. Therefore, the accelerator programme will:10.1. Identify -build and maintain a pipeline of suitable investors. This will include, leveraging both the existing network of IFDC-2SCALE and the investor mapping data in the market assessment conducted with Briter Bridges 4 to identify investors and financial institutions that are actively investing in agriculture in East and Southern Africa.The accelerator programme will work with the following:10.2. Prepare -create an investment pack which will include a deal book and all necessary material for engaging with donors and private sector funders, and an effective communication strategy.10.3. Engage: This will include:• organising an investor roadshow • inviting targeted investors to in-person events (kick-off/onboarding, pitch/demo day)• accelerator programme mid-cycle email updates to investors within the pipeline 10.4. Monitor: track and maintain on-going conversations with investors and other funders to monitor progress.The Food Systems Accelerator will conduct an impact assessment to measure the impact and performance of its programme and inform future programmes. A framework will be developed that will:•  The CGIAR Food Systems Accelerator aims to support agribusinesses scale climate-smart innovations among agrifood actors to solve pressing problems in food value chains and contribute to stronger and more sustainable food systems.The overall objective of the CGIAR Food Systems Accelerator Programme is to: • Access to finance through de-risking grants to scale CSA innovations and business models and matchmaking with private investors for follow-on capital.What are we looking for in participants?i. Priority innovation themes We are looking for user-centric innovation cases that will lead to broad and positive impacts in food security through the increase in productivity, climate change resilience and adaptation and mitigation of the negative effects on agriculture. We support innovations that are climate-smart and that have a strong case for commercial sustainability. Innovations can be digital, technical, financial, products, services processes, or business models.These can be existing or planned innovations in either of the four target countries as well as under one of the four priority innovation themes. Supported innovations should be designed to benefit smallholder farmers and associations in East and Southern Africa. Attention will be given to business models that promote agro-processing and provide aggregation services. Women and youth owned companies are encouraged to apply.The four priority innovation themes are as follows:• Mechanization and irrigation:Mechanization is the process of using agricultural machinery to mechanize the work of agriculture greatly increasing farm worker productivity. Mechanization encompasses production, distribution, and utilization of a variety of tools, machinery, and equipment for the development of agricultural land, planting, maintaining crop and livestock harvest and post-harvest operations. Irrigation is the system of applying water to crops and field by aid of machinery like pumps, sprinklers, drip hoses and any other mechanical means. Mechanized irrigation directly increases the water use efficiency leading to many indirect benefits in the climate action area. Some examples of innovations under this theme include, solar powered irrigation, supplementary irrigation, grading and sorting equipment, storage, and processing equipment.• Conservation agriculture is a farming approach that promotes minimum soil disturbance, maintenance of permanent soil covers and diversification of farmed plant species. It enhances natural biological processes and contributes to increased water and nutrient use efficiency reducing the need for chemical fertilizers and the disturbance they create in the environment. The approach is based on practical application of three interlinked principles: (i) continuous none or minimum mechanical soil disturbance (no-till seeding or planting and no-till weeding), (ii) permanent maintenance of soil mulch cover (crop biomass, stubble and cover crops), and (iii) diversification of cropping systems (crop rotations and/or sequences and/or associations involving annuals and perennials, including legumes for natural nitrogen fixation), along with other complementary good agricultural production and management practices. Some examples of innovations under this theme include, agriculture-based sustainable intensification management practices, Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) and Integrated Pest Management (IPM).• Nutrition-sensitive climate-smart agriculture are solutions decreasing the trade-offs between agricultural productivity, climate change, and human and animal nutrition. They make farming more climate sensitive and produce more nutritious food while maintaining productivity. Some examples of innovations under this theme include products such as legumes, cassava, livestock, dairy, oil seeds, horticulture (fresh produce and vegetables), and other staples.• Agricultural Risk Management (ARM) is the identification, evaluation, and prioritization of risks in agricultural activities including coordinated and economic application to minimize, monitor and control the probability or impact of unfortunate events and maximize opportunities. They make farming more predictable and increase the resilience of farmers. Some examples of innovations under this theme include advisory services, market linkage services, digitizing the value chain and financial products (microinsurance, savings, lending, and credit guarantees).ii. Business stage • Early Stage: companies that have begun to market their products. Will require funding to market products. Funded by venture capitalists and growth equity investors (private equity) • Growth Stage: companies with increased demand for products, that require funding to increase production and are looking for debt or equity investors (venture capital and private equity). • Expansion Stage: companies looking to gain market share locally and/or for export funded by debt and equity (private and public equity).What do we have to offer to the selected participantsi. Provision of CSA Technical Assistance (TA); through this programme each agribusiness will collaborate with CGIAR scientists and experts to receive coordinated and specialised evidence-based TA support that encourages adoption and strengthens their CSA practices, addresses concrete ecosystem challenges, and improves their bankability. Agribusinesses will also have access to research and data. ii. Provision of Impact Measurement and Management (IMM) Technical Assistance:Agribusiness teams selected to this Programme will receive training on how to effectively measure and manage impact, use their data to improve business performance, identify areas where value can be created and achieve their desired result in contributing towards positive environmental and social impact. This training will be provided by CGIAR network of scientists and experts. iii. Provision of Investment Readiness Technical Assistance: Each agribusiness in this programme will collaborate with IFDC-2SCALE and its network to receive investment readiness and business development support to help secure financing from the private sector. iv. De-risking Grant: Following the conclusion of the accelerator program and Pitch Day, four companies will receive USD 20,000 each according to their business scaling plans.v. Access to investors and corporate partners to attract follow-on funding and potential business opportunities. iii. At least 2 contact details of company's references iv. Team composition v. Curriculum Vitae for management team vi. Tax Compliance Certificate and/or in the case of a startup tax exemption certificate b. A clear inclusive strategy for smallholder farmers, women, and youth within the business model in at least one of the following dimensions: ownership, management team, workforce and policies, supply chain and customers. c. Applicants must be a for-profit company and demonstrate commercial viability and either be profitable or on the path to profitability. NGOs, corporate companies, and consultants will not be considered. d. Operating in the following countries: Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia.Team members who should have access to the page/applications they should have a VC4A member account and if they are to be shown on the page, a profile photo and additional info should be added to their profiles. The CGIAR Food Systems Accelerator is a work package in the Ukama Ustawi regional initiative of the CGIAR. The Initiative aims to support climate-resilient agriculture and livelihoods in 12 countries in East and Southern Africa by helping millions of smallholders intensify, diversify, and reduce the risks in maize-based farming through improved extension services, small and medium enterprise development, supporting governance frameworks and increased investment with a gender and social inclusion lensThe 2SCALE (www.2scale.org) is one of the most of IFDC (www.ifdc.org) influential incubator and accelerator program of inclusive agribusiness in sub-Saharan Africa. The program support partnerships and business models with significant potential to attract and employ the youth, to engage and empower women, and to improve food and nutrition security (at the consumer end of the value chain), also the program focus on replication of successful business models and on institutional factors that drive or constrain systematic and transformative change, to accelerate and scale inclusive agribusiness.The application form consists of 5 steps:1. Eligibility criteria 2. General company information 3. Commercial and financial information 4. Climate-smart agriculture 5. ProposalSteps 1 to 4 comprise of binary and drop-down answers so that the captured responses can be standardized and captured in an excel. Necessary entries are marked with an asterix (*)Step 5 should provide a download option for a proposal document (.doc) as well as an upload field.Step -will improve the human capital (technical skill levels) of producers in the target area -will increase the stability of agricultural production needed to help producers meet their own basic food security and income needs -will promote the diversification of the income and asset bases of users -will promote crop diversification in the target area -will involve the incorporation of site-specific knowledge in its application -will facilitate cooperation and networking among producers -will foster local and regional production and supply chains -will provide opportunities for feedback from extension workers -will narrow existing power differentials in the community -will contribute to reducing existing gender inequalities -will increase the resilience of the cropping system to drought -will increase the resilience of the livestock to drought -not applicable The team has the qualifications needed to make the business successful. Management team members have complementary expertise.10% 5The company is innovating in one of the following priority innovation themes (Mechanisation and irrigation, Conservation agriculture, Nutrition, Agriculture risk Management) 10% 5Gender Does the enterprise have women founders/ women in leadership/management team/ supporting women in its ecosystem?10% 5Is the company close to profitability (for growth stage companies) / does the company have revenues (startup companies)?10% 5Agribusiness 4 C'sCharacter: The motivation of the agribusiness and the extent to which the Agribusiness is adhering to minimal standards of Social Responsibility (SR)Competence: A review of the practicability and a check on whether the innovations adopted/applied for make economic/business sense thus making scalability possible. 10%","tokenCount":"4907"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"86cd93583900b22fde3c303e5fda141a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8801fa2c-1067-4c5c-b0a6-fbd07eab150f/retrieve","id":"1824745063"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6b944979-98bf-437f-9779-115835c5fd15","pagecount":"4","content":"Benin is located on the Guinean coast of West Africa and has a mixed tropical and sub-equatorial climate with two rainy seasons. Beninoise farmers practice mixed rain-fed crop and livestock farming. Climate change puts the country at risk of food insecurity. Since the 1960s the mean average temperature has increased by 1.1ºC and that the average number of 'hot' days per year increased by 39 days between 1960 and 2003, from 38 days in the 1960s to 77 days in 2010, and the number of 'hot' nights by 73 nights from 53 nights in the 1960s (McSweeney et al, 2010). In contrast, the frequency of 'cold' days and nights annually has decreased significantly since 1960. There is a general decrease in annual precipitation of about 180 mm from a previous value of about 1480 mm in the 1960s to 1300 mm presently; and increased incidences of drought. There is erratic and intensified rainfall leading to floods and soil erosion. Climate models project an increase in annual temperature by 1.5 to 3°C by the 2060s and up to 5.1°C by the 2090s (Jalloh et al. 2013). As a result, farmers are already experiencing lower harvest yields, and food production is projected to decrease by 6% by the year 2025. Adaptive measures are necessary to avert further food insecurity. One adaptation strategy is to help farmers and plant breeders find and use genetically controlled plant traits that are suited to their changing climate conditions. Indeed, the 5 th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recognizes the importance of strategies based on the use, conservation and management of genetic resources for climate change adaptation (IPPC, 2014). The report highlights the importance of improving crop tolerance to new conditions and improving access to genebanks to develop varieties with appropriate adaptive characteristics. It also notes the importance of using indigenous knowledge to identify adaptive strategies contributing to food security (ibid).CCAFS, with support from projects funded by the Darwin Initiative (Mutually support implementation of the ITPGRFA and the Nagoya Protocol), the Netherlands (Genetic Resources Policy Initiative) and GIZ (the ABS Capacity Development Initiative), supported the introduction in a group of communities called Tori-Bossito of participatory methods to identify potentially useful plant genetic resources for experimentation by farmers and plant breeders. The research teams focused on maize, which was selected by the farmers as it is particularly important for their food security in Tori-Bossito.A team of CCAFS Scientists from Bioversity International led a participatory capacity building initiative with a multistakeholder research team comprising farmers and local leaders from Tori-Bossito, scientists from Benin's national agricultural research organizations, including the national genebank, plant breeders, agronomists, climate specialists, and local civil society organizations. The objective was to analyze the impacts of climate change on food security crops in Tori-Bossito, and to identify potentially adapted maize genetic resources from local farmers, the Benin national genebank, other countries' genebanks and genebanks hosted by international organizations. A total of 20 scientists and 46 men and women farmers participated in action research and learning exercises.Through participatory action, research and learning (PAR&L), scientists and farmers discussed climate change-related challenges for their crops. They also identified desirable traits for maize (and other crops) that enable adaptation to those challenges. The teams conducted a 'four square analysis' whereby they charted out the richness and evenness of distribution of maize varieties used by the farmers (Rana et al, 2005). They identified some existing varieties that perform better under the current stressed conditions as well as varieties that they had lost which they considered worthwhile obtaining and re-introducing locally. The second and third stages of the PAR&L focused on identifying potentially useful maize materials in the Benin national genebank, other countries' genebanks, and genebanks hosted by international organizations. The teams were taught how to access and use publicly available climate data (from WorldClim at http://www.worldclim.org/) and national and international genebanks' accession level information, including passport data (from Genesys at https://www.genesys-pgr.org/welcome) and a range of computational programs. The teams were able to identify accessions conserved in those collections that are potentially adapted for use in Tori-Bossito under both present climatic conditions, and conditions that are predicted for Tori-Bossito in 2050.Data on maize accessions from the national gene bank and from Genesys database were screened using combination of GIS and climate datasets (current and future) from Worldclim to develop climate profiles (both current and 2050) for each accession, in order to develop a predictive tool to identify suitable varieties. A total of 19 bioclimatic variables were extracted using the BIOCLIM algorithm at 2.5 arc-minutes resolution, and using the program DIVA-GIS. Most of these variables were associated with the different precipitation and temperature regimes from WorldClim, characteristic of the different habitats of the selected crops.Agro-ecological variables at each locality were extracted using DIVA GIS. Each accession had a unique agroecological zone. The accessions were clustered based on three variables: annual average temperature, annual precipitation and agro-ecological Zone. The teams calculated the annual average temperature and annual precipitation variables derived from each month's minimum and maximum precipitation and temperatures using the formulas: ((tmin1+tmax1)/2 + (tmin2+tmax2)/2 + (tminn+tmaxn)/2)/12 and (prec1+prec2+precn) respectively and matched with the growing season at each reference site. Finally, the selected accessions from the national gene banks and international sources were mapped to provide a visualization of the change in the number and geographic spread of the sites of original collection of the accessions that are best candidates for use under present climate conditions, and predicted conditions in 2050.Additional factors-such as soil qualities, elevation, agricultural practices, and cultural preferences-beyond temperature and precipitation patterns need to be taken into consideration when determining whether an accession is potentially well suited for use in a particular area. Therefore, additional work is necessary to filter 'best bet' candidate materials from those identified by the research work reported here. Nonetheless, this project's focus on temperature and precipitation patterns provided useful leads for the research teams. It research results underscored the fact that farmers in Benin will be increasingly dependent on 'external sources' of plant genetic resources. It is clearly important to put systems in place to ensure that farmers in Tori-Bossito (and plant breeders who are developing materials for use by those farmers) will have access to the genetic resources they need for adapting their agricultural production systems to changing climates.Focus group discussions with farmers confirmed that there have been changes in rainfall patterns, with lower amounts of rains being experienced and shifting rainy seasons. Farmers also reported increased temperatures and an increased number of hot days with prolonged dry seasons and droughts. Ultimately these shifting climate patterns have led the two regular cropping seasons in one year to collapse into just one, as illustrated in Figure 1. This has been the situation for the last three years. Figure 1 might give the impression that the newly merged single growing season is almost as long as the other previously separated seasons put together so that farmers could sow and harvest twice during the single longer season; however this is not the case. Farmers are not only able to harvest once per year. As a result of these climatic changes, farmers have experienced maize yield losses. This is partly due to the fact that changing climate conditions are also contributing to increased incidence of pests and diseases. Maize prices have increased, and farmers reported feeling increasingly food insecure.Some adaptive strategies that farmers are currently employing include using earlier-maturing maize varieties.Those varieties are improved varieties. They require additional inputs such as fertilizer, which makes them prohibitively expensive for many of the farmers. Some farmers are replacing their maize with other crops such as cassava. As a last resort, some are abandoning farming to do off-farm activities such as motorcycle transport or petty trading.The four cell analysis of local maize diversity revealed that there are nine maize varieties actively being grown by the farmers in Tori-Bossito. The preference scoring indicated that the highest ranked variety (based on the following traits: yield, early/late maturity, resistance to pests and diseases, response to low input farming, drought, cooking characteristics and taste) possesses good cooking and storage qualities, it is high-yielding, relatively early-maturing and drought tolerant and is largely grown for the market (photo 3). It is an improved open-pollinated variety that was introduced into the community about 10 years ago.The other eight varieties will be less and less useful to the farmers as the climate changes. Three of them are improved, early maturing and high yielding, but they are not widely grown because they are susceptible to drought and do not possess desirable cooking qualities; they also attract low market price. Three other varieties are drought resistant, but are low-yielding, with poor cooking qualities.The remaining two varieties have longer maturity periods, making them vulnerable under the changing conditions. In recent years, farmers also lost three local varieties that were late maturing and could not withstand lower rainfall. Ultimately, they are increasingly reliant on just one maize variety. The research team underscored the importance of farmers being able to manage a broader portfolio of adapted varieties for their food security.Farmers listed the desired traits in the following order of priority: drought tolerance, early maturing, and high yielding.The process of finding adapted maize germplasm from beyond Tori-Bossito started with an analysis of national genebank collections. The national genebank has 225 accessions of maize collected from different parts of Benin. Of those accessions, 132 are potentially suited for growing in Tori-Bossito in present climate conditions (noting, of course, that they may not be useful for other reasons, e.g. low-yielding, disease susceptibility, poor taste, poor cooking qualities, etc). However, when looking forward to the predicted climate conditions in Tori-Bossito in 2050, only 37 of the accessions in the genebank appear to be potentially adapted.Over the same time period there will be an increase in the number of maize accessions conserved in other countries' and international genebanks that are adapted for Tori-Bossito's changing climateUsing information available through Genesys, the research team identified 39 accessions in other countries' genebanks and in international collections that are suited to Tori-Bossito's current climate. This number might seem to be rather low, given that more than half of the maize accessions in the national genebank appear to be well suited to current day conditions in Tori-Bossito. This is due to the seasons that have shortened then merged, the variability in temperature and rainfall during this merged season leads to few varieties that are matched.The number of accessions that are potentially adapted to Tori-Bossito's predicted 2050 climate actually increases to almost 150. This is consistent with the finding that Tori-Bossito's climate will change in ways that make it similar to the climates where those materials were collected at the time they were collected. Interestingly, many of the accessions identified through Genesys were originally collected not only in Africa, but also in Central and South America and parts of Asia.Climate change is already having a negative impact on maize production in Tori-Bossito. To be able to respond, farmers and plant breeders need to be able to take advantage of maize genetic diversity as a source of traits that are adapted to changing climate conditions: traits such as drought tolerance, and early maturity. Local maize diversity in Tori-Bossito is limited. As climates change, farmers will become increasingly reliant on genetic traits from materials originally collected elsewhere: either from within Benin or internationally.The proportion of maize materials currently included in the national genebank of Benin that are potentially suited to grow in Tori-Bossito's changing climate is decreasing. By contrast, there will be an increase in the proportion of materials conserved in other countries' and international genebanks that are potentially adapted to Tori-Bossito's changing climatic conditions. Therefore, farmers in Tori-Bossito and plant breeders hoping to develop materials for their use will be increasingly reliant on genetic diversity from other parts of the world as the source of adapted genetic traits.The MLS created by the ITPGRFA was designed to facilitate international availability and exchange of plant genetic resources as inputs into agricultural research, plant breeding and training. Benin ratified the ITPGRFA in 2015. Recently, Benin has also adopted interim measures-\"Decree on national guidelines on access to genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their use in the Republic of Benin\"-to put systems in place to implement the ITPGRFA at national levels. The research presented in this Info Note highlights the importance of programs to train multi-stakeholder teams-with roots at farmer community levels-to use the MLS to access the diversity that farmers and plant breeders need to adapt to climate changes. ","tokenCount":"2094"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3c2b899ce79eb6559600939031c9dfb7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b289ba21-f9fb-4a18-b6dc-c05f00ef2eae/retrieve","id":"-206743288"},"keywords":["future","meat substitution","plant proteins","stakeholders","backcasting","pathways"],"sieverID":"bc7f1aeb-e894-410e-80c2-1a678458bf38","pagecount":"22","content":"Global and European diets have shifted towards greater consumption of animal proteins. Recent studies urge reversals of these trends and call for a rapid transition towards adoption of more plant-based diets. This paper explored mechanisms to increase the production and consumption of plant-proteins in Europe by 2030, using participatory backcasting. We identified pathways to the future (strategies), as well as interim milestones, barriers, opportunities and actions, with key European stakeholders in the agri-food chain. Results show that four strategies could be implemented to achieve the desired future: increased research and development, enriched consumer education and awareness, improved and connected supply and value chains and public policy supports. Actions needed to reach milestones were required immediately, reinforcing the need for urgent actions to tackle the protein challenge. This study concretely detailed how idealized dietary futures can be achieved in a real-world context. It can support EU protein transition by informing policy makers and the broader public on potential ways to move towards a more sustainable plant-based future. The outputs of this analysis have the potential to be combined with dietary scenarios to develop more temporally explicit models of future dietary changes and how to reach them.A number of studies conclude that increases in animal protein production and consumption are unsustainable, contributing to degraded natural systems, biodiversity losses and climate change [1][2][3][4][5]. These changes are also implicated in an array of human health issues [6][7][8]. Global consumption of animal products has increased by almost 30% since 1961, whilst plant protein consumption has largely reduced [9,10]. Animal-proteins now account for at least 40% of dietary proteins [11,12]. These dietary changes are the manifestation of socio-economic transitions towards wealthier and urban populations [13][14][15][16][17]. These patterns are widely expected to continue, even in wealthier regions [16,17]. The impacts of these trends have led to suggestions that without future targeted dietary changes, the associated environmental and health impacts will be grave (e.g. Etemadi et al. [6], Springmann et al. [18]). These predictions have led to calls for sustainable diets rich in plant-based proteins to be encouraged (e.g. Willett [2], Springmann et al. [18], IPCC [19]).The potential for reversing current dietary trends and replacing animal proteins with plant proteins has been widely studied [11,20,21]. Adoption of the 'Mediterranean,' vegetarian or vegan diets have all been proposed as mechanisms for achieving such reversals [2,18,22,23]. The benefits of shifts towards diverse and largely plant-based diets could address the negative impacts of current dietary trends by reducing dietary based emissions, supplying adequate calories for growing global populations, averting diet related avoidable deaths and reducing agriculturally driven deforestation [2,18,22,23]. However, despite the considerable benefits that could be accrued from plant-based diets, they represent significant societal and agricultural systemic changes, with dramatic shifts in consumer attitudes needed [8,24,25]. Although consumer attitudes have shifted and increases in vegetarianism have been observed in wealthier countries [25,26], further shifts are still required to attain the idealized futures described in the literature (e.g. Springmann et al. [21]).These observations evidence a divergence in outlooks of the future, where idealized futures [18,22] are compared to business-as-usual projections [17]. The process of reaching idealized future conditions are often considered through dietary scenarios, where narrow mechanisms (e.g. meat taxation) and their impacts (e.g. reduced meat consumption) are analyzed (e.g. Springmann et al. [21], Cassidy et al. [22], Erb et al. [23]). The utility of such methods is unquestionable for framing the human health and environmental argument for dietary change and potential future conditions [27]. However, scenario-based analyses, in general, consider only limited variables, ignoring the wider challenges of how contemporary social and agricultural systems transition to a point where the idealized future becomes a societal reality [28].Characterization of potential strategies and the policy environments required to encourage and enable such wide-ranging systemic changes remain comparatively unexplored. A number of recent studies have begun addressing this, characterizing how consumption shifts could be made through education and policy interventions over time [29,30]. But their narrow focus ignores the wider social, agricultural and political environments within which these changes would need to be made. Graça et al. [31] go a step further, developing a framework for mapping the socio-economic barriers and enablers, which may discourage/encourage future dietary shits. Although this work is vital, it largely considers only one side of the problem-consumption. However, for dietary transitions to be made, simultaneous changes in production would also be needed. This therefore offers an opportunity to investigate how society and in particular high animal-protein consuming regions, like Europe, can address current trends and move towards the idealized futures envisaged in the literature. In particular, considering mechanisms and pathways for encouraging both increased consumption and production of plant proteins.To do so, we propose a participatory methodology to characterize pathways from the present towards an idealized dietary and production future, where plant-proteins are consumed and produced at the expense of animal proteins. In investigating idealized futures, the development of participatory normative scenarios (or backcastings) can be useful [32]. Participatory backcasting offers a framework for medium to long-term planning that includes development of mechanisms and strategies required for attaining desirable futures [33,34]. It is normative, goal-oriented and problem-solving and is characterized by involvement of heterogeneous stakeholders contributing to a consensual visioning [35].This analysis looks to: (i) understand the barriers and opportunities that may inhibit or enable dietary and production changes in the future; (ii) map policy actions and milestones needed to achieve a sustainable future; iii) develop stakeholder developed strategies for moving towards this sustainable future. This novel study ultimately aims to inform visionary policy-making about future strategies and possible shifts in consumption and production of proteins across the EU towards a more sustainable future and hopefully provide the impetus for future studies to provide greater detail to these strategies.This analysis has been developed within a five-year European research project: 'PROTEIN2FOOD' ( Development of high quality food protein through sustainable production and processing. Project No. 635727-2. Horizon 2020 Programme, under the Societal Challenge 2-Food Security, Sustainable Agriculture and Forestry, Marine, Maritime and Inland Water Research and the Bioeconomy. EU Commission, 2015-2020.). The project aims to develop innovative, high quality, protein-rich crops and food products to sustain human health, the environment and biodiversity and help transition to more sustainable food systems in Europe. Stakeholders play a crucial role in the project forming a 'stakeholder forum,' an advisory body to the project. Stakeholder forum meetings are organized annually to gather stakeholders and partners to facilitate discussion about the project and future prospects. This study is devoted to the analysis of the results obtained in the 3 rd Stakeholder Forum meeting, held in Freising, Germany, in March 2018. More information of the PROTEIN2FOOD and the stakeholder forum and workshops can be found in Supplementary Material 'The Project.'The backcasting technique can be used to develop normative visions of the future [33]. It can assist in planning and decision-making by exploring the conditions required for realization of idealized visions [34]. It also presents the opportunity to explore the feasibility of alternative future conditions and formulate solutions for their achievement [36]. Including stakeholders as part of this technique allows them to work backwards from agreed end-points and outline barriers and opportunities, define milestones and describe actions required for the achievement of idealized end-points [37]. Backcasting can liberate stakeholders of the constraints of contemporary thinking, offering greater freedom in developing more creative solutions [38]. Stakeholder engagement can also expand the knowledge base and provide an opportunity for social learning [39], increase legitimization of outputs and allow for consensus building [40]. As an output, strategies from the future to the present can be mapped and characterized, aiding in planning processes [36].Participatory backcasting can be developed following variants of the five steps (e.g. Kok et al. [36]) presented in Table 1: Table 1. Methodological steps of participatory backcasting.Step ActivitiesBackcasting starts defining and describing the desired future in which the problems identified are expected to be solved by meeting a stated objective. Participants determine the spatial and temporal scale of the analysis and agree upon the final end-point (objective) of the backcasting and its timeline.Milestones are interim objectives that are required to achieve the desired objective from Step 1. Participants are asked to identify milestones and place them on a backcasting timeline (line from the year of the objective to the present). Also, they are invited to specify why the milestone is needed, what it entails and when it needs to be achieved.Barriers and opportunities for achieving the objective and milestones are identified (Steps 1 and 2). Participants are given the opportunity to present factors or processes that they consider to be a barrier for achieving the objective or milestones. Similarly, opportunities that can be taken advantage of to achieve the objective and the interim milestones are defined. As with the milestones, participants are asked to explain the barrier/ opportunity to other participants and then place it on the backcasting timeline.Participants are then invited to identify actions that are required to achieve the objective (Step 1) and milestones (Step 2), address the barriers or take advantage of the opportunities (Step 3). Participants are asked to describe the action and place it upon the backcast timeline. Likewise, they are requested to be as specific as possible, specifying what the action would entail, who would enforce them and when they would be implemented.Participants are then asked to develop pathways from the desired future objective back to the present. Milestones are connected with the policy actions that would be required for their achievement. These pathways connecting milestones and actions are called strategies.The backcasting exercise was implemented as part of PROTEIN2FOOD during the 3 rd stakeholder forum meeting. The stakeholder forum meeting consisted of a one-day workshop of 37 participants, which included key researchers from the project and representatives of the food production-processingconsumption chain (Table 2). The workshop included short plenary presentations on the EU plant-protein food challenge, the backcasting exercise and a final wrap-up discussion chaired by a research EU Policy Officer. The backcasting exercise was developed following the steps described in Table 1.Step 1 (defining a desirable future) was completed in a plenary session with all participants agreeing on a common desired future objective. Then, two groups of 18 and 19 participants were formed to develop Steps 2 to 5 (identification of milestones, barriers, opportunities, policy actions and strategies). As much as possible, the two groups were equally balanced in terms of stakeholder group and geographical representation (see Table 2). Steps 2 to 5 were simultaneously performed across the two groups to facilitate the process of developing backcasting maps and to explore alternative visions of how to reach the desired endpoint. As part of Step 4 (identifying policy actions), participants were asked to vote on which policy action was most needed to achieve the final objective. This voting was also weighted, with participants giving three votes to the most important, two votes to second and one to the third.As a result, two backcasting maps were produced. A summary overview in the form of strategies and most voted options was presented and discussed in the final wrap-up session.The two backcasting maps were comparatively analyzed in terms of structure and contents. The structure of the backcasts was analyzed using basic graph theory. To do so, the backcast maps were interpreted as graphs, which are mathematical structures that represent pairwise relationships between elements. We used Latapy et al. [41] as a basis to study the spatial structure (composition) of the maps (type and number of elements; barriers, opportunities, milestones and actions and links between them). As part of this analysis, two parameters were created: (i) 'M+A' that represents the sum of milestones and actions and is considered a proxy for measuring the proactivity and response to change of the system (backcast); and (ii) 'O-B' is the number of opportunities minus the barriers and is used as a proxy to measure the resistance to change of the system (backcast). Following Wu et al. [42], we also studied the temporal structure of the maps, in particular, the evolution of elements and links across time. The content of the backcasts was analyzed by looking across maps identifying different and common elements (milestones, barriers, opportunities, actions) and strategies. We used Kok et al. [36] to compare strategies and identify robust (common) strategies and policy suggestions. Strategies were considered robust if the themes they covered and the general content were identified in both groups.Stakeholders agreed on the following desired end-point (objective): \"To increase plant-protein production and consumption (by 25% and 10%, respectively) in the EU by 2030.\" This objective coincides with one of the key expected results of the PROTEIN2FOOD project. Participants believed that the project could incentivize protein crop production and consumption in the EU by developing new breeding techniques, optimizing crop and soil management methods and identifying appropriate market approaches. The new plant protein food ingredients and products developed in the project were expected to receive a high consumer acceptance, leading to a gain market share of these types of products and a reduction of meat consumption in the medium to long term. Meeting the desired objective was considered crucial to enhance protein transition from animal-based to plant-based protein and thus, promote a more sustainable plant-rich diet in the EU.A period of 15 years (2015-2030) was selected for the backcast timeline. The year 2030 was chosen as the reference point for the future due to the time horizon of the PROTEIN2FOOD project, its temporal proximity to facilitate participants' ability to imagine a future and to coincide with the targets of relevant policies and initiatives, such as the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the EU's FOOD 2030. Researchers and policy makers have become increasingly more aware that dietary change is central to meet the proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (2, 16 and 17)  [43] and the Paris Climate Change Accord [19].In total, 146 elements were generated across the two backcasts, with 82 (56% of the total) developed in the first group and 64 (44% of the total) in the second (Table 3). In general, elements were evenly distributed across groupings (milestones, barriers, opportunities and actions). Actions represent the largest number of elements, followed by milestones. Full backcasts can be found in the Appendices (Tables A3 and A4). The temporal positioning of elements was not evenly distributed (Table 4). Most elements were placed in the present (2015-2020) and the near future (2021-2025), with few elements placed in the most distant period (2026-2030). In Group 1, 39 elements (48% of the total) were included in the present (2015-2020), 30 (36%) in the near future (2021-2025) and 13 (17%) in the long-term future (2026-2030). Similarly, in Group 2, the present concentrates most of the elements (29, 45% of the total), followed by the near future (25, 39% of the total) and the long-term future (10, 16% of the total). Looking at the type of elements and their location on the timeline (Table 4), barriers were found in the present (2015-2020), actions in the present and near future (2015-2025) and opportunities and milestones more evenly distributed. Figures 1 and 2 show that, in the period covering the near past-present (2015-2020), barriers outnumber opportunities (O-B presents negative values), particularly in Group 2, which illustrate the difficulty to change the current situation. After 2020, stakeholders perceive a brighter future, with more opportunities than barriers (O-B positive values) and thus suggest less resistance to change. In both groups, barriers reduce to zero at the end of the period (2026-2030) but this is more noticeable in Group 1, where no barriers were identified after 2024. This may be explained by current barriers being more evident than those of the future. Years 2022-2023 and 2027-2030 are quite neutral, with the same number of opportunities and barriers (O-B is equal to zero).The proactive response to change, measured by the sum of milestones and actions (M+A), presents a more irregular and oscillatory pattern compared with the resistance to change (O-B) (Figures 3 and 4). Notably in Group 1, years with high M+A values are preceded and followed by years with low M+A values. In general, however, the present and near future (2015-2025) include high M+A values, suggesting stakeholders perceive that immediate action is required. The most distant period of time (2026-2030) shows low M+A values (e.g. in Group 2, neither actions nor milestones were defined in year 2027). Thus, how to act in the future is less clear in the eyes of stakeholders.  The number of links in both maps are similar, 51 in Group 1 and 52 in Group 2. Both groups show a high percentage of total links being between milestones and actions (67% and 44% respectively) (Table 5), showing the direct link between actions and milestone achievement. However, the more dispersed effects of milestones achieving milestones are noted by only 10% of all links being between these elements in Group 1 and 29% in Group 2. The number of connections that a year has in the future years implies the importance of that year in the backcast. For Group 1 years 2019, 2020 and 2026 have the highest influence in the flow of the process (Figure A1). In the case of Group 2 2018 and 2020 are the most influential ones (Figure A2).In total, 37 milestones were defined (19 in Group 1 and 18 in Group 2). In Group 1, the milestones were oriented towards technology, processing, products and crop management and breeding. In Group 2, themes also included consumer awareness, organic agriculture supports, value chain establishment and the organoleptic properties of plant-proteins. Common milestone themes included: In the first five years of the timelines, milestones regarding funding, development facilities and product availability are seen in both groups. This would suggest that stakeholders think of these being the easiest to achieve due to their temporal proximity. More temporally distant milestones include increased awareness of plant-proteins, improved management and development of varieties.Across the two groups, 36 barriers and 33 opportunities were identified. The 19 barriers identified by Group 1 are diverse and include technological, agronomic and societal awareness. Of the 17 barriers identified by Group 2, distinct themes like product cost and scale were proposed as important impediments to achieve the objective. Across the groups three similar barrier themes were identified:High prices of protein-rich processed products may limit greater consumption (2018-2022)Low demand and a lack of knowledge of products also hinder consumption (2015-2020) • Protein-rich product functional properties in terms of difficulty of protein extraction, lack of homogeneity in isolates and the organoleptic properties and anti-nutritional factors of represent processing barriers (2016-2025)In total, 33 opportunities were identified (19 in Group 1 and 14 in Group 2). In Group 1, dietary changes, market development, sustainable benefits of plant-proteins, increased awareness and innovation were cited as opportunities. In Group 2, access to information, international collaborations and increased value in value chains were suggested. Although opportunities were distinct between the groups, repeated themes were evident:Health and environmental benefits (2020-2025) • Dietary changes and increased consumer awareness (2021-2022) • Marketability of products and improved access to information (2022)In total, 39 actions (25 in Group 1 and 14 in Group 2) were defined. These actions are clustered across themes of consumer education, financial and information supports, lobbying and value chain restructuring. In Group 1, actions include increases in public supports, investments in breeding, creation of a plant lobby, consumer education, marketing and advertising and taxes of soya imports. In Group 2, actions included local supply chain development, certification, lobbying, biodiversity payments and labelling.In total, 6 common actions were defined by participants (Figure 3). Despite the commonality of these actions, their voted importance was quite different. The development of local supply chains, increased consumer information, increases in funding for research and creation of a plant-protein lobby were voted as the most important (Figure 3). Furthermore, it is interesting to note the creation of a plant-protein lobby, which in both backcasts was set for the period 2020-21. This implies the perceived urgency for the need of a concerted and organized effort to include plant-proteins in political decision making and the need for a counter-point to the perceived power of the meat and dairy lobbies (identified as barriers). In total, 13 strategies (7 in Group 1 and 6 in Group 2) linking milestones with actions were developed (different colored arrows in Figures 4 and 5). The strategies are presented from right to left, with the goal on the right and the stepwise milestones and actions needed from 2030 back to 2015 to attain the objective. These strategies are diverse and range from agricultural research and development, policy supports and consumer education. A number of these strategies are complex, requiring a number of actions and milestones before achieving the objective (e.g. Agricultural Research and Development and Marketing and Labelling of Figure 4; Consumer Education and Awareness and Development and Support of Supply and Value Chains of Figure 5), countered by a number of more simple strategies (e.g. Crop Management and Guidelines of Figure 4 and Agricultural Research of Figure 5). It is interesting to note that the groups perceived the strategy of Agricultural Research differently, one considering it complex, the other more simplistic.From Figures 4 and 5 it is evident that these strategies are similar not only in their content but also in the timelines for implementation. The similarity across the groups suggest that participants in both groups saw, in general terms, similar pathways of moving towards a more sustainable future. In both groups, the need for funding and support of protein products appear to be a key step in each of the strategies and for achieving the desired goal.  Following the workshop, 4 robust strategies for achieving the goal of increasing plant-protein production by 25% and increasing consumption by 10% were identified:Increased investment in research (~2018-22) for crop breeding (~2022) is implemented to improve protein-rich plant varieties for improved disease resistance (~2023) and higher yields (~2027), making these crops more attractive to farmers. Improved crop varieties result in increases in area dedicated to protein-rich crops across the EU (~2028). Expansion of new cultivars is dependent upon information and support for agricultural training (~2024). Means for achieving these increases in funding would be through the development of a protein-crop lobby (~2019).Formation of local supply chains (~2019) encourage creation of value chains for protein-rich crops (2024-26) and expansion in protein-rich crop area (~2028). The establishment and consolidation of these chains are supported and encouraged by supports for local protein-crop and organic production (2023-24), as well as through supports from the future reform of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) (~2027).Advertising is expanded to increase exposure of protein-rich crop products (~2019), with labelling improved (~2019) to increase consumer information (~2019-21). Improved consumer education (~2021) is supported by dissemination of educational media to improve understanding of consumption and production benefits. Increased exposure to products and information drives greater consumption (~2023) and acceptance (~2025) of novel plant-based products.The formation of a protein-crop lobby (~2019) would encourage greater national public (agricultural) policy supports (~2022-24) directed towards protein-rich crops, leading to increased supports from the CAP (~2027). This results in a competitive protein crop market (~2028) and increases in areas dedicated to protein crops (~2029). Further support mechanisms are used to increase taxes on imported soya (~2026) and establish protective taxes to encourage greater use of EU-produced raw materials (~2023). Policies are also implemented to increase prices of animal protein products (~2025).We performed a participatory backcasting exercise to identify and explore potential strategies for enabling sustainable European dietary futures, with four robust strategies identified. The constituent parts of these strategies largely echo findings of the literature of sustainable dietary futures but formalize them into coherent and temporally mapped pathways.These normative strategies outline the need for greater production of plant-proteins in the EU. To do so, stakeholders stressed that formal investments in agricultural research should become a focus of future EU policies and could liberate protein-rich crop production. Particular attention is needed on investing in breeding programs to develop higher yielding and resistant protein-rich crop varieties. Such a suggestion is not without precedence within recent EU agricultural policies, where focused research investments were highly successful in stimulating pea production [44]. The cobenefits of such a policy could be wide-ranging and could help to address the agricultural barriers that currently affect legume production in Europe [45].However, greater production of plant-proteins would not be sufficient to guarantee their availability nor their affordability for the general public. Stakeholders suggested that the focus of EU policies should also shift towards supporting the supply and value chains of protein-rich crops. Magrini et al. [44] outlines the inhibitory effects of incomplete supply chains for crops such as legumes, a point reflected in the workshop and from the authors' experiences in Spain. Etemadi et al. [6] evidences the benefits of complete and well-resourced value chains, highlighting how investments in value chains can contribute to consumption increases. Henchion et al. [46] argues that the commercial production of novel proteins requires the establishment of new value chains capable of minimizing production costs and risks. This could contribute to overcoming a major barrier identified by the stakeholders-the high price of protein-rich processed products. This barrier follows that of previous studies [47], who identified that healthier foods are likely unaffordable for low income populations. A shift to healthier diets may therefore require higher incomes, nutritional assistance and lower prices, representing considerable social and economic transformations. In this context, Henchion et al. [46] stresses the necessity of developing new initiatives to involve wider stakeholders and key value chain actors, not traditionally working together, to support the aforementioned transformations. Stakeholders insisted the crucial role of multi-scale governments (regional-supra national) for achieving such transformations. Voisin et al. [48] demonstrates previous governmental successes of supply chain supports, through creation of niche markets and labelling.A decade after Schneider [49] posited that a lack of information of protein-rich crops had limited their production and consumption, de Bakker and Dagevos [50] noted the continued need for consumer education concerning plant-based products. Awareness of animal products' environmental impacts remains low amongst western consumers [51]. According to stakeholders, this lack of information continues to affect EU consumers. Ritchie et al. [8] states that without movement in consumer attitudes concerning animal-based products, consumption shifts are unlikely. Stakeholders noted and addressed these concerns stating that to reduce animal product consumption, increase animal replacement products' acceptance and shift towards greater plant protein consumption, would require EU-scale improvements in consumer education and access to and availability of, information. There continues to be a common notion amongst the general public that healthier diets may be unpalatable, low in variety and may be time intensive [31]. According to stakeholders, to address this misinformation the EU must step in and develop educational policies as a conduit for encouraging public opinion and consumption changes. Historically, governments have had policy successes in encouraging and promoting consumption shifts through educational activities [52]. Wellesley et al. [53] establishes that the general public expect governmental leadership to reduce the consumption of unhealthy products. Stakeholders suggest that marketing campaigns, which follow information and education campaigns, coupled with improved labelling and exposure to novel products, could assist in shifting consumer perceptions and increase awareness of the environmental and health impacts of animal products.Increases in public supports and implementation of taxes is another potential strategy presented for encouraging sustainable dietary changes. To increase production of protein-rich crops stakeholders noted that national or supra national agricultural policy supports were required. This is not without antecedence, where CAP supports have had direct and positive impacts upon EU legume cropping area [10]. Stakeholders reinforce the continued need of these supports for encouraging EU production of protein-rich crops. Stakeholders also stressed the need for taxation upon non-EU produced protein-rich crops, like soya, supporting calls from Wellesley et al. [53]. Protective taxes to encourage use of local raw protein-rich materials in plant-based products was also suggested as an enabling mechanism for transition. However, such protectionist taxation could have international trade implications, considering the EU's global trade agreements. Stakeholders summarized that application of taxes on animal-based products could also be used to reduce consumption. This is in line with calls from the literature for such measures (e.g. Springmann et al. [54]). Nordgren [55] argues the wide-ranging benefits of taxing meat consumption, with Springmann et al. [54] noting the benefits of carbon intensity related taxation, coupled with subsidies for food groups with positive health and environmental impacts. Saxe et al. [56], however, cautions the likely political, industrial and social opposition to such a strategy.Although these strategies are defined individually, it is evident that their application in the realworld could not be mutually exclusive, being in many cases interdependent and complementary. For example, lobbying for greater supports for plant proteins and increased investment in research may be far more successful with greater citizen awareness and interest in their benefits. Improved consumer education would also encourage the completion of the supply chains, as farmers and companies would recognize the benefits of following consumer demands. Proposed policy suggestions could be considered individually or as part of a meta-strategy, taking advantage of their interconnectedness, to encourage a series of a virtuous circles towards more sustainable futures. Sachs et al. [57] calls this meta-strategy a 'sustainable food transformation' and argues that to achieve it, interventions should be pursued in an integrated manner. In line with our results, the strategies identified by Sachs et al. [57], to operationalize this transformation would require deep structural changes, strong government action and the mobilization of stakeholders. Our findings and those of Willett et al [2] and Gerten et al. [58] suggest that it is crucial that adoption of less resource-intensive diets occurs in the upcoming decade. Stakeholders perceive that, in the next years, we will be facing more opportunities than barriers and a high number of actions and milestones, which may contribute to accelerate the EU protein transition up to 2030.Finally, this study has contributed to the extensive literature on dietary change by concretely detailing how shifts in diets and production could be achieved in the real world, where current trends are largely moving in an increasingly unsustainable direction. Through a participatory methodology we mapped the conditions required to transition towards a near-future Europe, where diets are more plant-based. We identified a suite of strategies that, if implemented, could shift the EU from its current pathways towards a more sustainable 2030. Encouragingly, these strategies in many cases were found to be robust across groups, which may point to their potential efficacy, if implemented. These stakeholder derived strategies could be combined with the dietary scenarios that dominate the literature, to develop more explicit scenarios, assisting policy making.This study is subject to some limitations. One shortcoming inherent to participatory backcasting exercises is that the proposed final objective is largely dependent on values and can therefore be potentially contested [59]. This can be mitigated when the topic addressed is of high political relevance [34], which is this is the case of the present study. Furthermore, working temporally backwards can be difficult for stakeholders [38]. Thinking backwards can be counterintuitive and requires high concentration, especially when end-points are chosen far into the future (25-50 years). This may diminish the inherent capacity of backcasting to deal with high uncertainty in distant situations [60]. To address this, a more immediate goal period (2030) was selected.In participatory backcasting, the distinction between milestones and actions is often described as too vague and dependent on the wording used [36]. Some examples that can be found in our study (e.g. 'optimizing crop management' as an action or 'crop management optimized' as a milestone) support this finding. Similarly, barriers and opportunities are in many cases difficult to distinguish (e.g. 'lack of public support' as barrier or 'public support' as opportunity) and can emerge as relevant items at different points in time (2015-2020 or 2020-2025). In these situations, good workshop facilitation is considered essential to clarify items, guide discussions and ensure an appropriate iterative process by looking at both the long and short term [38]. The authors tried to minimize these problems acting as facilitators due to their long experience in organizing, implementing and facilitating stakeholder workshops [61].Another critical aspect common to participatory backcasting is time constraint. As time is limited in the workshops, the backcasts produced usually do not reach the level of detail that is needed to be used directly into decision-making processes [36]. In the present study, there was not enough time to address important issues, such as responsibility, costs, impacts or implementation procedures. In subsequent workshops, these issues should be analyzed, along with mutual influences between steps and strategies.This study aimed to inform policymakers and the interested general public through the development of potential strategies and required actions to move towards a more sustainable dietary future in the EU. We used participatory backcasting to identify actions and develop strategies to transition EU protein-rich food production and consumption by 2030. Strategies developed revolved around increased funding for research, development and support of local supply chains, consumer education and awareness building and policy supports. These proposed strategies present a stepwise, time considerate and stakeholder derived conduit to a desirable future. Many of the developed strategies were dominated by actions required immediately, reinforcing the urgent need for actions to achieve necessary dietary changes and therefore avoid the health and environmental impacts of continuation of current dietary trends. This article complements previous studies that elaborate on the benefits of dietary shifts by enhancing understanding of near future barriers and opportunities, whilst providing stakeholder-based policy suggestions for encouraging sustainable dietary and production shifts. This study is, to our knowledge, the first to concretely detail how shifts in diets and production could be achieved in a real-world European context. The outputs of these stakeholder derived strategies could be combined with the dietary scenarios, that dominate the literature, to develop more temporally explicit models, to assist policy making and future scoping. Further, we propose as a next step, that further workshops should be performed, with a wider diversity of stakeholders (e.g. consumer groups), not only to validate the current strategies but to generate more detailed strategies. This would offer a greater learning opportunity for a wider selection of interest groups and would result in the development of highly structured and detailed strategies to be presented to policymakers. ","tokenCount":"5688"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c895dda2ee27e6395b7b93b9699114df","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9d85a4f1-7cb9-46bf-bae2-a8b5f5b43894/retrieve","id":"258119191"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0d29b71b-cfd3-4422-925b-300e91a23ebb","pagecount":"4","content":"Vegetable growers in and around Accra, Ghana's capital, have felt their livelihoods being threatened by a city bylaw banning the use of polluted drain water, their main source of irrigation. Using diluted wastewater is a common practice in urban and peri-urban agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa and other low-income countries, and is known to pose health risks to people.CGIAR Challenge Program for Water and Food (CPWF) Project Number 38 \"Safeguarding public health concerns, livelihoods and productivity in wastewater irrigated urban and periurban vegetable farming, \" supported by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), built on past work by local universities in an effort to find solutions to reduce health risks without compromising the livelihoods of the producers and the health of the consumers.Reducing health risks from irrigation water Farmers were generally aware that the water they used was contaminated. Their knowledge of health risks resulting from direct exposure to wastewater from irrigation was however, quite low. They took few precautions on their farms to reduce those risks.Farmer and food vendor knowledge regarding health risks and implementation of risk reduction measures for increased food safety have increased National irrigation policy revised to reflect new stance on potential benefits of wastewater re-use Sedimentation ponds and filtration using sand filters were tested and found to reduce helminth eggs to acceptable levels. Lowering the watering height and using a rose or spray head on the watering reduced helminth egg and coliform counts.Simple adjustments in water practices, such as reduced splashing from the soil to the vegetables, lowered contamination levels. Cessation of irrigation before harvesting was also effective, with longer periods being more effective, though some yield reduction was noted. This led to various follow up projects (e.g. by WHO, IDRC and FAO) and the founding of the Ghana Environmental Health Platform, which continues the work started by local universities and CPWF partners.Project researchers were also asked to provide inputs to the WHO guidelines for wastewater use in agriculture.In close collaboration with the Resource Centre on Urban Agriculture and Food Security (RUAF), researchers initiated the revision of the Accra bylaws banning the use of polluted drain water.In 2010, the national irrigation policy was launched, which stated that, with certain precautions, the re-use of wastewater could be beneficial.\"About 800 million people are engaged in urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) worldwide, contributing about 30% to the world's food supply (UNDP 1996).UPA is an effective way of alleviating poverty. It provides jobs for the poor. In Africa 65% of the people involved in UPA as farmers or traders are women.\"showing vegetables displayed on the ground Photo: IWMINow Accra's urban vegetable farmers can continue to make a living, while helping ensure the city's food security.Most Significant Innovations 1. Health risk reducing options tested and verified on farm, in markets and in the fast food sector.2. Advice to WHO on options for risk reduction using a multi-barrier approach from farm to fork as per WHO guidance.3. FAO using the results for the production of farmer field school modules.4. Influence on Ghana National Irrigation Policy.","tokenCount":"503"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"152ea2ed990357ad8745706f3fe1414a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d4e24cc5-7985-445b-b88c-6eb1968b1ff4/retrieve","id":"-1127095540"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e9f45007-4780-44c1-bbe1-4ec84edd8aa1","pagecount":"4","content":"Very little ia known of the general phyaiology oí eaasava. Consequently the initia! program is intended to give a haaie underatanding oí the growth eyele of the plant and how this ia affeeted by factor s known to be of major importan ce in other erops.Growth cycle of the plant fu. most crops assimilation during the búÍking.:periOd (the period when economic.\" yield ia formed) aecounta for more than 80 percent of the yie1d. lt has been repeatedly , \". \"found in a variety of other crope tOOt the primary factor influeneing rate of assimilation ls having sufficlent leaf area to intereept more than 90 percent of the incoming light.In the Iriah potato, yield la dire~ly related to the integral.of the lea! area index wit~ tlme during the bulking period (when lea! area index la greater than 3 lt la taken as 3), Henee a study of the pettern of lea! area index ls easentia! to understanding the erop. 300 N split so as to be 100 a.t planting, 100 at 3 months and 100 at 6 months • 200 K20 )) at planting 200 P 2 0 5 )Weed oontrol: Inseot oontrol:By hand as neoessary Inseotioides as neoessaryHarvests at 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, lO, 11, 12 months after.planting. At eaoh harvest the following measurements wiIl be made:.1. Lea!: Areá, width, weight, angle, number., nitrf)gen oontent., ..'2. PetioIe: Length, weight.3. stem: Node number, branohing habit, sugar and staroh oontent, dry weight.4. Roets: Fresh weight, dry weight, sugar and starch, nitrngen oontent, number.5. Ught: ,L. T.R .• totallncident radiation, profile radiation.Expected information .l. Dependence of growth rata on lea! area index and radiation: presence or absence oí optimum L. A. I. for C. G. R.3.5.Contributi~ of carbohydrate stored in the atems before tuber bu1king tb final yield.ReIationship between yield and growth rate after tuber formation.Differenoes in growth associated with broad and fine leaves and their effeet on light penetration. .-1 -1There are several reporte suggesting tbat there is little tf any response to 'N' in eassava. As a erop physiologist 1 find this somewhat surprising. However, casaava ia normal1y grown on light free-draining soils where nitrogen losses will be large. 1t Expected information 1. Nitrogen response x time of application interaction.2. Effects of time of application on nitrogen content of roots. rilte oi plantingThe response oí yuca to climatic changeIJ. particuIarly solar radiation, is not known.To gain preliminary information a series oi monthly plantings using the best known available agronomíc techniques wiIl be grown in simple yield trials.At present the rate of multiplication of planting material is quite low in ,cassava, somewhere in the regíon of 10 times per annu~, For a successful breeding and selection program a much faster rate of reproduction ls requlred.Tbis problem wlll be approached in two ways:1. An assessment oi the feasibility of mist propagation as a means of rapid multiplicatlon using single node cuttings. During this study hormonal and fertilizer treatments wiIl be investigated .2. Investigation of rapid methods of propagation in the field.******.,","tokenCount":"502"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"633b06e590120d4108f1d23170e92daa","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/be30b19d-a28d-4bd5-8af9-7c52d8171609/retrieve","id":"-1901374098"},"keywords":["global barley panel","genetic diversity","barley breeding toolbox","population structure","phenology","association mapping (AM)"],"sieverID":"1a89740f-cc65-46a8-abd3-b3e93b5559d2","pagecount":"18","content":"Breeding programs in developing countries still cannot afford the new genotyping technologies, hindering their research. We aimed to assemble an Association Mapping panel to serve as CGIAR Barley Breeding Toolbox (CBBT), especially for the Developing World. The germplasm had to be representative of the one grown in the Developing World; with high genetic variability and be of public domain. For it, we genotyped with the Infinium iSelect 50K chip, a Global Barley Panel (GBP) of 530 genotypes representing a wide range of rowtypes, end-uses, growth habits, geographical origins and environments. 40,342 markers were polymorphic with an average polymorphism information content of 0.35 and 66% of them exceeding 0.25. The analysis of the population structure identified 8 subpopulations mostly linked to geographical origin, four of them with significant ICARDA origin. The 16 allele combinations at 4 major flowering genes (HvVRN-H3, HvPPD-H1, HvVRN-H1 and HvCEN) explained 11.07% genetic variation and were linked to the geographic origins of the lines. ICARDA material showed the widest diversity as revealed by the highest number of polymorphic loci (99.76% of all polymorphic SNPs in GBP), number of private alleles and the fact that ICARDA lines were present in all 8 subpopulations and carried all 16 allelic combinations. Due to their genetic diversity and their representativity of the germplasm adapted to the Developing World, ICARDA-derived lines and cultivated landraces were pre-selected to form the CBBT. Using the Mean of Transformed Kinships method, we assembled a panel capturing most of the allelic diversity in the GBP. The CBBT (N=250) preserves good balance between row-types and good representation of both phenology allelic combinations and subpopulations of the GBP. The CBBT and its genotypic data is available to researchers worldwide as a collaborative tool to underpin the genetic mechanisms of traits of interest for barley cultivation.The new advances in genotyping technologies and genomic research applied to breeding (Genome Wide Association Studies and more recently Genomic Selection) have the potential to bring the largest yield productivity increase and stability improvement since the Green Revolution. The efficient use of these new tools is important to attain the production needed to feed the increasing population in a scenario of climate instability. These new approaches have been widely adopted thanks to new low-cost and high throughput genotyping technologies (Paux et al., 2010;Rimbert et al., 2018). However, despite the reduced cost, many public and private breeding programs, mostly in developing countries, still cannot afford them and as a result, a new technological gap between the developing and developed world has arisen.Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) covers 50Mha worldwide, ca. 20Mha of them in developing countries (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2022). Its drought tolerance and integration in the traditional crop-livestock farming systems make this crop an integral part of the strategies to cope with Climate Change, especially in the Dry Areas (Sanchez-Garcia, 2021). With the mandate to develop new barley varieties and cutting-edge research for the developing World, the CGIAR Global Barley Breeding program of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), in collaboration with national partners, has successfully developed, since 1977, more than 250 cultivars released and adopted by farmers. Genomic studies have been an integral part of the research carried out in the program to underpin the genetic control of traits of interest such as drought tolerance (Varshney et al., 2012), disease resistance (Visioni et al., 2018;Visioni et al., 2020) and nutritional and malting quality (Gyawali et al., 2017;Bouhlal et al., 2021) among others. This research has been integrated into the breeding program and the new germplasm developed carries novel QTL for traits of interest, benefiting partners Worldwide. However, despite the large network of testing locations and phenotyping capacities that the program uses -mostly in Morocco, Egypt, Ethiopia, Lebanon and Indiathe capacity to identify new QTL is still limited, especially for stresses not occurring at the testing locations. A collaborative network of scientists, particularly from the developing world, testing the same germplasm across local conditions and stresses and for traits of interest could help identifying new relevant alleles that will then be available to the whole network.Several highly diverse barley populations have been assembled in the last 30 years to study the genetic control of traits. Most of these populations consisted in core collections of major genebanks (Van Hintum et al., 1995;Igartua et al., 1998;Muñoz-Amatriaıń et al., 2014) or even multilateral efforts such as the International Barley Core Collection in 1989  (Knüpffer and van Hintum, 2003). Also, collections of modern varieties and elite germplasm have been used (Looseley et al., 2020), however, many of these populations are not representative of the barley varieties adapted to the developing world or are too large to be grown with limited resources. In addition, only a limited number of them take advantage of the new genotyping technologies that allow the use of large number of representative stable markers such as the 50k Illumina Infinium iSelect genotyping array for barley (Bayer et al., 2017) or are not freely available to the international community.When studying subpopulation genetic differentiation, Muñoz-Amatriaıń et al. (2014), found that many differentially selected genomic regions are coincidental with, or near to known loci involved in flowering time and spike row number. Russell et al. (2016) reported similar differentiation between two and six-row germplasm close to the location of VRS1 on c h r o m o s o m e 2 H ( K o m a t s u d a e t a l . , 2 0 0 7 ) and INTERMEDIUM-C on chromosome 4H (Ramsay et al., 2011) known as controlling the number of fertile florets in barley. In fact, the two spike morphologies have traditionally been separated geographically, and this separation has been reinforced by modern plant breeding (Muñoz-Amatriaıń et al., 2014). Therefore, any efforts in producing new mapping populations have to take into account the balance between row-types as well as other morphological or genetic traits that can impact the population's genetic structure.The main objective of the present study was to identify and assemble an Association Mapping panel of 250 barley genotypes to serve as a barley breeding toolbox, especially for the Developing World. To this aim, we took advantage of the extensive expertise of ICARDA on germplasm exchange through its network of international collaborators, on the consistent use of genebank material in the breeding program and recent efforts to develop relevant association panels to assemble and genotype a Global Barley Panel (GBP) of 530 barley entries. This panel includes entries representing the different barley uses (feed, forage, malt and food), morphophysiological traits and phenology patterns and local and regional preferences. It is using the information gathered from this Global Barley Panel that we aim to constitute a barley breeding toolbox that represents the global diversity in the GBP and: i) is representative of the germplasm grown in the Developing World; ii) covers a wide range of genetic variability, morphophysiological traits and phenology groups and iii) is of public domain or international public goods to facilitate germplasm exchange.A Global Barley Panel (GBP) of 530 genotypes mainly considered of spring-type, including elite lines, cultivars, and landraces from different geographic origins was assembled. The GBP includes a significant number of elite lines and cultivars from the ICARDA Global Barley Breeding Program of the CGIAR, both from the ICARDA program previously based in Syria, now in Morocco and Lebanon, and from the ICARDA/ CIMMYT Latin-America program based in Mexico, merged during the first decade of the 2000s. The set represents a worldwide spectrum of barley genetic variance with diversity of row-types, end-uses, growth habits and geographical and environmental distribution. Out of the 530 genotypes (292 two-row and 238 six-row types), 288 are from the ICARDA Global Barley Breeding Program, 61 from the United States of America (USA), 48 from Europe, 40 from India, 23 from Australia, 19 from Canada, 12 from Africa, 6 from Latin America and 16 from other countries across the globe. The Panel also includes 17 landraces from different countries (Figure 1). A detailed list of the genotypes used is provided in Supplementary Table S1.The genotyping work was done in two events. The first 266 entries were genotyped as described in Verma et al. (2021). For the second event, genomic DNA was isolated from lyophilized 2week-old leaf tissue from a single plant from each genotype as described in (Slotta et al., 2008). The GBP was genotyped using the recently developed barley Infinium iSelect 50K chip (Illumina, San Diego, California, USA) (Bayer et al., 2017) by TraitGenetics GmbH using the manufacturer's guidelines. Out of 43,461 scorable SNP markers (Bayer et al., 2017), 40,342 were polymorphic (Supplementary Table S2). A final set of 36,253 SNPs was obtained after removing markers with minor allele frequencies (MAF) < 5% and markers with > 10% of missing data. The distribution of the filtered SNPs across the seven barley chromosomes was illustrated using the CMplot package (Yin et al., 2021) for R statistical software (R Core Team, 2019).From the set of 40,342 SNP markers, a subset of 40,256 polymorphic markers with known physical positions was selected to perform the linkage disequilibrium (LD) analysis for each chromosome using TASSEL 5.0 software (Bradbury et al., 2007) and a sliding window of 50 SNPs. The LD for locus pairs within the same chromosome was estimated as the squared allele frequency correlations estimates (R 2 ) and significant corresponding p-values ≤ 0.01. The R Statistical Software (R Core Team, 2019) was used to estimate the extent of LD by nonlinear regression analysis based on all intrachromosomal R 2Characterization of the 530 genotypes used based on row number (A, C) and geographic origin (A, B). values as described in Hill and Weir (1988) and implemented in Remington et al. (2001). After analyzing the distribution of the observed R 2 values, the critical R 2 value was set to 0.1, which refers to the minimum threshold for a significant association between two loci. The distribution and extent of LD were visualized by plotting the R 2 values against the genetic distance between same-chromosome markers (Mb).To estimate the genetic diversity within the GBP, a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was conducted with the filtered SNP marker set using TASSEL version 5.0 (Bradbury et al., 2007), and the first two eigenvectors were considered. The unrooted neighbor-joining (NJ) clustering algorithm under the Provesti's absolute genetic distances was applied using the R package poppr (Kamvar et al., 2015) to investigate the relationship among barley accessions. The R packages, ggtree (Yu, 2020) was used to visualize the NJ phylogenetic tree. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) implemented in the R package poppr (Kamvar et al., 2015) was used to assess the genetic diversity between and within major clusters (row types and geographic origins) defined by PCA and the NJ clustering. For AMOVA of geographical origin, we excluded the \"Other\" group since it includes cultivars from different origins. The population differentiation was assessed based on population pairwise Fst calculated using hierfstat package (Goudet, 2005). Diversity indices analyses including Nei's unbiased gene diversity (Nei, 1978) and allelic richness were calculated using the \"locus_table\" and \"poppr\" function of poppr R package (Kamvar et al., 2014).AMOVA was used to assess the extent of genetic diversity existing within the 530 barley genotypes based on flowering genes. For it, SNP markers associated with major flowering time genes in barley were selected: BK_05 (T/C) associated to HvVRN-H3 (FT1) gene, BK_14 (A/G) associated with HvPPD-H1 gene, BK_17 (C/G) associated to HvVRN-H1 gene, and BOPA2_12_30265 (A/G) associated with HvCEN gene (Comadran et al., 2012). AMOVA tests were used to calculate the variation explained by each of the SNP markers associated with flowering genes and the 16 allelic combinations (AC) of the 4 markers. The list and detailed information of the selected SNPs are provided in Supplementary Table S4. AMOVA was conducted using the R package poppr (Kamvar et al., 2014). The AC obtained from the SNPs were used to identify germplasm classes based on their earliness and lateness. LD parameter (R 2 ) calculated by TASSEL software (Bradbury et al., 2007) was used to test whether the selected SNPs were in LD with each other (Supplementary Table S3).The 36,253 filtered SNP markers were used to calculate individual admixture coefficients using the sparse Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (sNMF) algorithm implemented in the R package LEA (Frichot and Francois, 2015). This method was specifically developed to estimate individual admixture coefficients on large genomic datasets. The sNMF algorithm estimates ancestry independently for each individual and does not require prior assumptions about population membership. We used the cross-entropy criterion from the snmf function (Alexander and Lange, 2011;Frichot et al., 2014) to test several putative populations (K) ranging from K=2 to K=15. For each K we set the number of runs to 10, alpha to 10, tolerance to 10 -5 , and the iterations number to 200. Lines with strong admixture were defined as those showing less than 70% of identity (membership) with any ancestry in the model (Supplementary Table S5).To select a subset that represents the diversity of the population and at the same time provides an optimized set of entries for association mapping studies we used the R package GeneticSubsetter (Beukelaer et al., 2012;Graebner et al., 2016). For it, we used the Local Search subsetting option that produces single-genotype replacements repeatedly to multiple random starting subsets, until no more single-genotype replacements can be made with 100 iterations. The subsetting criteria used was Mean of Transformed Kinships (MTK) which measures the kinship of genotypes in a subset and identifies the most dissimilar set of genotypes, a favorable trait for GWAS studies.A total of 40,342 polymorphic SNP markers were retained after removing monomorphic markers and used for further genetic analysis. Only 86 SNP lacked chromosomal and physical map position information. The highest number of markers per chromosome was observed in chromosome 5H followed by 2H with 7,545 and 6,718 SNP respectively while chromosome 1H had the lowest number of SNPs amongst the seven chromosomes with 4,415 SNP. The MAF ranged from 0.26 to 0.28 with chromosome 4H having the lowest average MAF. The PIC values ranged from 0.34 to 0.36 among chromosomes and an average density of 8.54 SNPs per Mbp was calculated (Table 1). Diversity statistics computed for each SNP are summarized in (Supplementary Table S3). The minimum PIC value for SNPs was 0.003 with an average of 0.35. Most of the markers (66.12%) displayed PIC values exceeding 0.25, indicating the informativeness of the genotyping in our population. The SNPs density along the seven barley chromosomes was higher in proximal and distal portions compared to pericentromeric regions (Figure 2A). The mean R 2 values for the whole genome decreased with increasing pairwise distance. In general, LD showed a fast rate of decline, and the decay distance was approximately 0.3 Mb (Figure 2B).We conducted PCA using the filtered set of 36,253 SNP markers to evaluate the genetic diversity of the 530 barley genotypes. The PCA of the GBP showed a clear differentiation based on row type and geographic origin. The first axis of the PCA, explaining 8.6% of the genotypic variance, separated the genotypes according to their row type, being the 2-row genotypes located towards the negative side of the axis and 6row ones in the positive (Figure 3A). The same separation was observed with the phylogenetic tree (Figure 3C). In addition, two-rowed genotypes were grouped into five subgroups, the first was composed mainly of entries from Australia and ICARDA; the second was mostly from USA; the third grouped genotypes from Canada, USA and ICARDA; the fourth was predominantly from Europe, and the subgroup 7 was composed mainly of ICARDA entries. The six-rowed barley genotypes were split into three groups, with the first one (subgroup 5) composed of ICARDA, India, North and South America, the second (subgroup 6) and third (subgroup 8) represented two genetically different subgroups of ICARDA genotypes, as observed in the two-rowed genotypes (Figure 3B). Landrace genotypes were not grouped in distinct group while presented in separated clusters together with genotypes from other origins.The genetic variation between and within groups was further explored through AMOVA tests and the analysis of genetic diversity parameters (Tables 2, 3, respectively). AMOVA revealed that the row type grouping accounted for more than 10.6% of the whole genetic variation (Table 2). This result supports the grouping defined by the first PC in the PCA (Figure 3A). The six-rowed genotypes contributed to a higher share of genetic variation within populations as compared to two-rowed genotypes (Table 2). Six-rowed genotypes contained a higher number of polymorphic loci (Npl), higher MAF and PIC values than two-rowed genotypes. The allelic richness (Ar) and the number of private alleles were higher in two-rowed genotypes. However, equivalent values were observed between row types for Nei's unbiased gene diversity (He) (Table 3).To better describe the pattern of genetic diversity across the geographic origins, the \"Other\" group was removed and nine subgroups (Africa, Australia, Canada, Europe, ICARDA, India, Landraces, Latin America, and USA) were considered for analysis. The cultivated landraces were considered as a separate group to avoid distorting the genetic integrity of the geographic groups, as the rest of the lines are either released varieties or advanced breeding lines. The AMOVA of this grouping explained up to 12.32% of the total genetic variation (Table 2). The genotypes from ICARDA, USA, and Africa groups contributed the most to the genetic variation as reflected by the mean squares. The genotypes from ICARDA contained the highest number of polymorphic loci and of private alleles. The lowest value of allelic richness was found in the Latin America population (1.4), probably due to the low number of entries in the group, while the ICARDA population showed the highest value (1.65). The Nei's gene diversity varied from 0.26 (Europe) to 0.34 (ICARDA and Africa). The lowest MAF (0.17%) and PIC (0.24) were obtained for the Latin America population, while the Africa population showed the highest values with 0.28 and 0.37, respectively (Table 3). However, in pairwise differentiation among geographic groups, the highest Fst and therefore the highest difference was found for India vs Europe (Fst = 0.26) followed by Landrace vs Europe comparison (Fst = 0.25). Large differences were also found between, Australia vs Landrace (0.23) and Australia vs India (Fst=0.22) (Table 4). These results confirm the distinctiveness of European population from the other populations as reflected also by the PCA (Figure 3B). The ICARDA group showed generally lower pairwise Fst values, and therefore genetic distance as compared to all the other groups, despite the relatively higher Fst values shown with the European, Canadian and Australian groups (Table 4).Population subgrouping using sNMF, cross-validation and the cross-entropy criterion approaches gave further information regarding the genotypic structure of the GBP. The cross-entropy criterion did not exhibit a minimum value or a clear plateau and steadily decreased at higher k values (Supplementary Figure 1). However, substantial reductions of the criterion could be observed from cluster 2 to 8. Using 70% membership as a threshold, entries were assigned to different subpopulations at each K. Individuals whose highest ancestry coefficient is less than 70% were considered as admixed. Germplasm groups defined by sNMF with the number of ancestral populations corresponded USA and SubPop8.7 representing India. Over half of the genotypes placed in SubPop8.1 (SubPop7.5) were \"PETUNIA 1\" and its derived genotypes. Genotypes assigned to SubPop8.5 (SubPop7.7) were mostly issued from crosses with the cultivar \"Rihane-03\". Similarly, genotypes included in SubPop8.8 (SubPop7.3 and SubPop4.3) were mainly derived from crosses with the cultivar \"CANELA\". Most of the unassigned entries (admixed; n=356) observed in the collection were from ICARDA (58%) and to a lesser extent from USA (9.83%), and India (7.02%).In addition to the genetic structure of the population, the diversity based on four SNPs previously identified as linked to major flowering genes (HvVRN-H3 (FT1), HvPPD-H1 HvVRN-H1 and HvCEN) and generating sixteen allelic combinations (AC) was studied. The AMOVA of the genetic differentiation between and within each flowering locus and their allelic combinations was conducted (Table 5). The marker associated to HvCEN explained the highest variation (11.11%) among populations followed by those associated to VRN-H3 (4.33%), while the VRN-H1 explained the lowest (2.53%) variation among populations. The sixteen allelic combinations explained 11.07% of total genetic variation. Fifteen genotypes with missing SNP data were not considered when calculating AMOVA based on allelic combinations. The sixteen allelic combinations were classified from the latest flowering (AC1) to the earliest (AC16; Figure 5A) on the base of the mean values of heading date recorded in 20 environments across Morocco, Lebanon, and India (data not shown).All sixteen allelic combinations were present in the 275 genotypes from ICARDA origin. Thirteen allelic combinations were detected in USA group, eight in European, Australian and \"Other\" barleys, and seven in Indian genotypes. The most frequent allelic combinations in the germplasm were the early flowering AC15 (21.17%), AC12 (12.62%) and AC16 (12.43%). AC11 and AC13 were less frequent and unique to the ICARDA and Landrace populations. (Figure 5C; Supplementary Table S5). The PCA showed a clear distribution pattern of allelic combinations based on their effect on phenology. Genotypes associated with late allelic combinations were grouped on the negative side of the first PC while the early ones were more widespread (Figure 5A). Allelic combinations with late flowering characterized most two-rowed European, Canadian and USA genotypes and, to a lesser extent, the two-rowed African, Australian and Other origins (Figures 5A, B). The distribution of different allelic combinations within germplasm origin groups is shown in Figure 5C.Figure 5D shows the assignment of allelic combinations to different clusters in the phylogenetic tree. The group of 2-rows genotypes comprises entries carrying late or intermediate flowering allelic combinations, mostly from USA, Canada and Europe origins belonging to groups 2,3 and 4, respectively. On the other hand, genotypes from ICARDA and Australia (cluster 1) carry early to intermediate flowering allelic combinations. Interestingly, Cluster 7, mainly composed of ICARDA entries, is characterized by early allelic combinations, with few genotypes having late flowering allelic combinations. The 6-row genotypes are mostly grouped in Clusters 5, 6 and 8 that are mostly composed of entries from ICARDA, India and other origins carrying early flowering allelic combinations. mostly USA, Canada and Europe origins respectively. In particular, the allelic combinations showing the earliest average flowering (AC15 and AC16) were most frequent in ICARDA genotypes, while most European and USA barleys carried the allelic combinations associated to the latest average flowering (AC1 and AC2). Two-rowed genotypes from USA carried mostly late flowering allelic combinations while in the six-rowed genotypes early flowering allelic combinations predominated. Frequent allelic combinations within Australian barleys were of the intermediate flowering AC9 (36%) and the early flowering AC12 (27%). Indian genotypes and Landrace included in this study carried predominantly the early flowering AC15 (28.2%; 43.8%), AC12 (10.8%; 18%) and AC10 (28.2%; 18%) respectively. These results indicate that the materials used in the analysis are carrying specific flowering allelic combinations linked to their geographic origins.To assemble a collection of diverse barley germplasm representative of the germplasm grown worldwide and with particular emphasis on Developing World a subset of the full collection was selected. Instead of considering the whole GBP for the subset, where many lines are proprietary, we used the 312 entries mostly from CGIAR origin (including cultivars released in developing countries) and the landraces. The reason for this was to fulfill the three objectives of the present study, that is, that the panel developed is of public domain and free to use; that is relevant to the developing world and that it represents a wide genetic diversity (Figure 6). The subsetting was done using the Mean of Transformed Kinships method aiming at a final number of 250 entries. Up to 99.72% of the polymorphic markers present in the GBP set were also polymorphic in the new CGIAR subset. The distribution of the missing markers showed chromosome 7H as the one with less coverage (31) while chromosome 1H showed the highest coverage with only 3 markers missing. Moreover, 426 of the 471 rare alleles (alleles carried by <1% of the lines) of the total population are present in the subset. After filtering for minor allele frequency (MAF≥5%)and missing data (<10%), the number of polymorphic markers in the CGIAR set was 35,854, that is, 89% of the total number of polymorphic markers and 98.9% of the ones present after filtering in the GBP.The subset continues to preserve a good balance between the row type with a slightly larger proportion of 6-row types (55% of the 250 entries) over the 2-rowed types as compared with the Global population (46% 6-row and 54% 2-row) (Figure 6). The selected subset showed a good coverage of most of the PCA spectra except the most negative values in PC1, where the European, Canadian and USA varieties are located (Supplementary Table 6). In fact, entries from all the SubPopulations identified in the present study are enclosed in the subset. The proportions are similar in the subset as compared to the Global Panel except for SubPopulation 1, 3 and 6 in which the subset shows a smaller proportion as compared with the GBP (Figure 6). These 3 SubPopulations are characterized by harboring entries from USA, Canada and Europe, the 3 origins identified as some of the least related to ICARDA material (Table 3). It is noteworthy to mention that all the Allelic Combinations identified at the most important phenological loci are represented in the subset (Figure 6).  The characterization and dissection of genetic diversity and structure present in current germplasm collections help the breeders to meet breeding goals through the identification of beneficial alleles for traits of interest associated to molecular markers (Tester and Langridge, 2010;Al-Abdallat et al., 2017;Mazzucotelli et al., 2020). With this aim, in this study we explored the genetic diversity of a large global barley panel, comprising two-and six-rowed barley, from nine geographic origins and with different end-uses. The size and diversity of the panel used makes it a relevant tool for exploring the genetic diversity available for breeders.Out of the 43,461 scorable SNPs markers of the 50k iSelect SNP array (Bayer et al., 2017), 40,342 SNPs were found polymorphic in the global barley panel. Thus, 92.5% of all potential markers were segregating in our panel and 89.8% of them did so in a significant number of genotypes (MAF>5%) and with minimum data loss (missing data<10%).This result is similar and often higher than other reports of 39,733 SNPs (Darrier et al., 2019);33,818 SNPs (Novakazi et al., 2020) and 37.242 SNPs (Cope et al., 2020). The highest number of SNPs was found on chromosomes 5H and 2H, respectively, while chromosome 1H contained the least number of SNPs accordingly with Bayer et al. (2017). Using the filtered set, we reported high gene diversity (0.35) and PIC (0.35), which indicates a similar level of genetic diversity as compared to previously studied collections. Higher PIC values have been reported for 170 Canadian cultivars and breeding lines (PIC=0.38; Zhang et al., 2009) and wild and cultivated barley (PIC= 0.38 and 0.35 respectively; Dai et al., 2012). Recent genomic studies reported lower gene diversity and PIC values in diverse germplasm collections including landraces, wild and cultivated barley (Pasam et al., 2012;Bengtsson et al., 2017;Amezrou et al., 2018;Verma et al., 2021). The high level of genetic diversity reported is probably a result of the wide range of worldwide germplasm collected across years and of the different objectives of the breeding programs. Particularly, the large proportion of ICARDA Global Barley Breeding Program elite lines (54.3%) contributed greatly to genetic diversity. This is probably due to its extensive use of genetic resources from the ICARDA Genebank and from the extensive breeding efforts and international collaborations and germplasm exchange needed to address the needs of a global breeding program.Principal components analysis (PCA) and the NJ clustering partitioned the 530 entries into two clearly defined groups based on row-type (2-row vs 6-row) and highlighted the presence of subgroups characterized by common or closely related origins. Furthermore, AMOVA analysis indicated that germplasm origin could also explain a significant part of genetic diversity. The variation explained by geographic origin was higher than the value reported by Jilal et al. (2008) for a worldwide collection of 304 barley landraces from seven countries. The row type grouping captured 10.6% of the total genetic variance, which was lower than Malysheva-Otto et al (2007) for 504 European barley cultivars released during the 20th century suggesting that the diversity of this panel goes beyond the row type genepools. Row type in barley has been shown in the past to be one of the main determinants of the genetic structure, both due to the inherent nature of the trait which is associated to major regional preferences and its association to the different barley end-uses (Komatsuda et al., 2007;Saisho et al., 2009;Zhou et al., 2012). Most European countries exclusively use two-row barley for malt, while in North America, six-row varieties have played an important role in brewing (Verstegen et al., 2014;Milner et al., 2019). When comparing the genetic diversity, the six-row group showed more Npl, Nua, Ar, MAF, PIC values and genetic diversity relative to the number of genotypes as compared to the 2-row group. Higher MAF and PIC of six-row barley was also reported for a global barley panel (Hill et al., 2021), while the opposite was true for a Canadian barley collection (Zhang et al., 2009).The group of ICARDA germplasm showed high genetic diversity as revealed by the number of polymorphic loci, number of unique alleles and Nei's unbiased gene diversity. Moreover, 99.72% of the 40,342 polymorphic SNPs in the panel were so in the ICARDA population too. Interestingly, the lower differentiation between ICARDA germplasm and most of the other origins evidenced the long-lasting collaborations between the Global Program and national and regional breeding programs. In fact, more than 250 spring and winter 2-row, 6row and naked barley varieties of ICARDA origin have been released in 46 countries since 1979, including USA (5 varieties), Canada (15 varieties), Australia (4), India (8 varieties) and some African (70) and Latin American (27) countries among others. ICARDA germplasm has in addition being extensively used in crosses in the National programs. Interestingly, the Indian germplasm is closely related to the groups of Landrace, ICARDA and Africa, while distinct from the other groups. Landrace group exhibited the lowest Npl, MAF and PIC values which may be explained by the under-representation of Landrace genotypes during the development of the 50K SNP array (Bayer et al., 2017;Darrier et al., 2019).Latin American germplasm exhibited the highest He, MAF, PIC although having the lowest number of individuals (5) as compared to other origins. This could be due to the diverse source of genotypes originating from different countries (Argentina, Peru, Ecuador and Uruguay). Despite American malting varieties being obtained through hybridization with European accessions, the national industrial standards for malting and brewing have led to the development of germplasm with specific characteristics (Matus and Hayes, 2002). The European barley germplasm showed the lowest allelic richness and genetic diversity as compared to other geographical origins. Similar findings were achieved in a previous study by Malysheva-Otto et al. (2006) when conducting a genetic diversity study with 953 barley accessions and 48 SSR markers. Furthermore, it has been suggested that the replacement in Europe of six-row spring barley by two-row spring barley during the 18th and 19th centuries led to a loss of diversity (Backes et al., 2003). In addition, the European varieties used were also the least related to the ICARDA germplasm. This could be due to the type of environments these varieties target in Europe. Most of the European varieties used in the present study were released in West, Central and Northern Europe where the type of environment and stresses associated differ from the main target areas of the Global Barley Breeding Program. In fact, while there have been collaborations between ICARDA and research groups from these countries both nowadays and in the past, practically all 25 ICARDA originated varieties released in Europe have been so in countries of the Mediterranean Basin.In the current study, we also analyzed the allelic diversity at four SNPs associated with key flowering genes (HvCEN, HvVrn-H3, HvPpd and HvVrn-H1) and their additive effect on the phenology and adaptation of the panel studied. These highly polymorphic (PIC > 0.4) loci were not in LD (Supplementary Table S2) and showed to be associated to the genetic structure of the population. The different allelic combinations of the four markers used explained 11.07% of the total variance and the distribution of HvCEN was the main driver of the association between the flowering genes and genetic structure of the population with minor effects of the other flowering genes studied. This influence was even more evident in the PCA graph which, in addition, shows clear geographical structuring based on earliness/lateness of the constructed allelic combinations. Comadran et al. (2012) and Russell et al. (2016) found that the patterns of single and multiple-flowering gene combinations contributed to a wide range of ecogeographical adaptation in barley.The ICARDA group contained all sixteen allelic combinations indicating high allelic variability that could provide adaptation to different environments and farming practices. Notably, in the rest of the germplasm, most of the genotypes harboring early-flowering allelic combinations are six and two-row barleys from India, ICARDA and Australia, while most of the accessions with late allelic combinations grades are two-rowed barleys from Europe, USA, Canada and Latin America. However late-flowering allelic combinations were also present in low frequencies in two-rowed genotypes from Africa, Australia, and ICARDA. Alqudah et al. (2014) found a similar separation of a spring barley collection based on the response to photoperiod and reduced photoperiod sensitivity (Ppd-H1/ppd-H1) at heading time. In this study, most of the accessions in the PpdH1-group were six-rowed barleys from West Asia and North Africa (WANA) region and East Asia (EA), while most of the accessions in the ppd-H1 group were two-rowed barleys from Europe. Spring barley accessions originating from regions where the growing season is short and with a dry summer (WANA, India e.g.) tend to carry photoperiod responsive Ppd-H1 alleles, causing early heading under LD, while late-flowering allelic combinations in European and North American accessions of spring barley could be due to reduced photoperiod sensitivity, ppd-H1, alleles as reported earlier by (Turner et al., 2005;Wang et al., 2010;Alqudah et al., 2014). Saisho et al. (2011) highlighted the geographic distribution of vernalization requirements in domesticated barley; western regions including Turkey, Europe, North Africa, and Ethiopia were strongly associated with a higher degree of spring growth habits, while the extreme winter growth habits were localized to Far Eastern regions including China, Korea and Japan. In the European-cultivated germplasm, most variation in vernalization requirement is accounted for alleles at the VRN-H1 and VRN-H2 loci, as the majority of European varieties are thought to be fixed for winter alleles at the VRN-H3 locus (Cockram et al., 2007). In the Landrace group predominated early-flowering allelic combinations and showed an allelic profile similar to India and six-rowed genotypes representing CWANA region. The barley landraces have adapted to seasonal photoperiod and temperature by changing their growth habit from a facultative winter-planted species in its center of origin to a short-season spring-planted crop on the northwestern fringes of Europe and highland plateaus of Central Asia (Comadran et al., 2012).It is generally agreed that the principal sources of structure in diverse collections of barley germplasm are spike row number, growth habit, and geographic origin (Cuesta-Marcos et al., 2010;Hamblin et al., 2010;Comadran et al., 2012). The results obtained through population structure, principal component analysis, neighbor-joining clustering analysis indicate a separation based on inflorescence type, geographic origin and phenology. Generally, PCA does not always classify accessions into discrete clusters, especially not when admixed accessions and accessions of various geographical origins are included (Glaszmann et al., 2010). In our case, subpopulations defined by sNMF correspond to discrete clusters in the PCA space. At K=2, a division according to row type was the main driver. Finer subdivisions at higher K could be interpreted based on geographical origin, phenology and row type generally within the discrete clusters established by the phylogenetic tree. Earlier studies reported similar population divisions (Muñoz-Amatriaıń et al., 2014;Al-Abdallat et al., 2017;Bengtsson et al., 2017;Amezrou et al., 2018;Milner et al., 2019;Verma et al., 2021).Two-row cultivars from Australia, USA and Canada alongside two-rowed varieties from Latin America and Europe were mostly grouped in the first, second, third and the fourth clusters, respectively. This relatedness can be explained by the European origin of American cultivated barley that was introduced in the continent from Europe nearly 500 years ago. Then after, the similar climate and continual human migration has likely led to subsequent introductions and exchanges (Casao et al., 2011). This relatedness could be seen already since the K=2 separation population structure. However, at higher Ks, the USA and Australian, most of them malting barley types, formed relatively distinct and stable groups within the diversity observed across the panel and had little overlap with the genotypes from other groups. This was especially true also for the European two-rowed barleys. Malysheva-Otto et al. (2006) suggested that the lower genetic diversity existing in European barley may be explained by the fact that exotic varieties were very rarely involved in the breeding programs in Europe. It is also important to note that two-rowed barleys are mostly malting types which may lead to specialized breeding gene pools. Two-rowed genotypes grouped in cluster 7 were from ICARDA origin and showed also distinctiveness at least from K=4 (SubPop4.3). These lines included the cultivar CANELA and its derived crosses (Supplementary Table S4). CANELA is a 2-row malt barley resistant to at least 7 diseases, issued from the ICARDA/CIMMYT Latin America breeding program where the focus on malt barley was particularly strong as compared to the Syrian program.Cluster 5, 6 and 8 assembled most of the 6-row barley lines of the panel. Although in this case, the phylogenetic clustering did not completely overlap with the subpopulations at K=4, at larger K these three clusters were evident. Cluster 5 grouped two subpopulations at K=8. The first subpopulation consisted of USA and Canada 6-row feed barley entries. The second grouped mostly 6-row Indian varieties. Cluster 6 instead consisted of a distinct subpopulation from ICARDA origin (SubPop7.7 and SubPop8.5). Genotypes of this group were mostly derived from crosses with the cultivar RIHANE-03, a mega-variety from the ICARDA Syria program released in several North African and West Asian countries characterized by its drought tolerance. Cluster 8 harbored one subpopulation (SubPop7.5 and SubPop8.2). This subpopulation assembled almost exclusively the 6-row ICARDA lines issued from the ICARDA/CIMMYT Latin America program, notably the lines derived from the cultivars PETUNIA-1 and, especially, 'DOÑA JOSEFA' (aka V-MORALES) a widely adapted 6-row malt barley line. The last subpopulation consisted of genotypes mostly issued from crosses between entries from the Syrian and Mexican programs. Despite this differentiation, the PCA showed some level of overlap in Clusters 5, 6 and 8 suggesting that these subpopulations may have some genetic overlapping that goes beyond the origin.Admixed genotypes at K=8 belonged to nine geographical origins and 57.6% of them were ICARDA breeding lines (47% two-row and 53% six-row). The higher number of admixed genotypes among the ICARDA lines can be explained by their largest population size (53.6% of genotypes present in the collection) and its extensive use of two-by-six row crosses for germplasm improvement (Amezrou et al., 2018;Visioni et al., 2018;Verma et al., 2021). Likewise, two-by-six row crosses hybridization is routinely practiced in India for improving the adaptability of exotic two-row barleys with indigenous six-row cultivars (Verma and Sarkar, 2010).The main objective of the present study was to identify and assemble an Association Mapping panel of barley genotypes that represented the diversity of the Global Barley Panel to serve as a CGIAR barley breeding toolbox (CBBT) especially for the Developing World. For it, the main criteria to select among the lines in the Global panel was: i) to be representative of the germplasm grown in the Developing World; ii) to cover a wide range of genetic variability, morphophysiological relevant traits and phenology groups and iii) be of public domain or international public goods to facilitate germplasm exchange.In order to meet these criteria and due to their large diversity, the CGIAR entries, including landraces hosted in the ICARDA genebank were pre-selected for a total of 241 lines. The Developing World representativity requirement was met due to the global target of the CGIAR Global Barley Breeding program especially in terms of adaptation and end-uses. In fact, most of the CGIAR lines included in the panel have been shared with and selected by National Partners as part of the Barley International Nurseries. These sets of diverse and elite barley genotypes distributed upon request to more than 70 collaborators in 20 countries in America, Europe, Africa and Asia (Sanchez-Garcia et al., 2021) annually have resulted in the release of more than 250 varieties since 1977, mostly in the Developing World. Moreover, these genotypes are transferred as International Public Goods under a Standard Material Transfer Agreement that allows their free use for research, education, and breeding. The CGIAR lines also showed wide diversity and representativity of the whole population. This group of lines showed the largest number of polymorphic loci and together with the landraces covered most of the diversity in the population. Moreover, the CGIAR origin lines are present in all the subpopulations and showed all 16 allelic combinations of phenology genes.However, to facilitate future phenotyping studies and reduce redundancies a core subset of 250 entries was selected using Mean of Transformed Kinships method. The use of this method differs from others like the PIC based one used in other studies such as Muñoz-Amatriaıń et al. (2014) due to the different aim of the subset. In the case of the CBBT, the primary aim is to serve as an Association Mapping panel for researchers that do not have access to one and rare trait discovery is only a secondary objective. However, the subset chosen kept most of the diversity of the Global panel and its morphophysiological traits' proportions suggesting that rare trait discovery is still possible. In summary, the CBBT is a solid and diverse representation of the barley grown in developing countries but also significant in the developed World.The genotypic data of the population is available in Supplementary Table 7 and in Germinate Database (https:// germinateplatform.github.io/get-germinate/). All the data generated on this population will be freely available in Germinate for the global barley community to use.The main objective of the present study was to assemble a collection of diverse barley germplasm representative of the germplasm grown worldwide and with particular emphasis on Developing World. The results showed that the Global panel used in this study is highly diverse and covers a wide range of both genetic variability of cultivated barley and phenology groups. The CBBT assembled represents with fidelity the genetic diversity and key morphophysiological traits of the Global panel. This collection will be made available, together with the genotypic data, to breeders and researchers worldwide to serve as a collaborative tool to underpin the genetic mechanisms of traits of interest for barley cultivation. In addition, the collaborative approach to gene discovery will make this collection a toolbox for breeders that will be able to use the germplasm and the markers identified by researchers worldwide in their own breeding programs.","tokenCount":"7197"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6a7e21522193e40a5e884ac8db80e7fc","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://dataverse.harvard.edu/api/access/datafile/:persistentId/?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/NKH9SW/ICTHC1","id":"181458374"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"01cfba10-3533-4976-9c4c-b92fd5d4171f","pagecount":"22","content":"Ask the respondents if we can interview them for a few minutes. If YES, then obtain informed consent and then proceed with the interview.Hello. My name is _____________________. We are here on behalf of the Alive and Thrive (A&T) and Integrated Family Health Program (IFHP) to have some understanding about the health extension program and the services aimed at improving infant and young child feeding being provided in the health posts.Your kebele has randomly been selected to participate in this study. We will be asking you several questions about the types of services that you provide; the kind of training you received and your interaction with health extension workers, volunteer community health workers. The information you provide us will be used by the RHB and organizations supporting services in your facility, for planning service improvements or further studies of services. The information you share may also be provided to researchers for analyses, however, any reports that use your data will only present information in aggregate form so that neither you nor the facilities can be identified. We will also inform you regarding the survey results. You may refuse to answer any question or choose to stop the interview at any time. Do you have any questions about the survey? Do I have your agreement to proceed? If you have any questions or queries regarding this survey, please contact Dr. Disha Ali (0911 4664601) of International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)/ Alive and Thrive or Prof Yemane Berhane (0014-168207) of Addis Continental Institute of Public Health (ACIPH).How long have you been working as supervisor?If less than 1 year, write 0 ","tokenCount":"269"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"54966a7b399cad3302b91b34aa2760c4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H041591.pdf","id":"1760525304"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a8ac51aa-7091-40ba-9c63-f14d54442b80","pagecount":"13","content":"Management of land, soil and water are intimately related and complementary to each other. Land degradation, and in particular soil quality degradation, is a major factor limiting agricultural water productivity and is often neglected in water management circles. When degradation of agricultural soil resources results in productivity declines that are more limiting than water, then water productivity declines. The best existing evaluation of the extent of soil degradation worldwide is still the Global Assessment of Land Degradation (GLASOD) by Oldeman (1991). Based on this assessment we can infer that on 50% of arable land worldwide, water productivity is below what could have been expected before degradation occurred (Wood et al., 2000; see also Eswaran et al. (2001) for more detailed treatment of yield impacts from land degradation). Soil degradation limits water productivity in cases where absolute quantities of water are not the most limiting factor. This situation is widespread, considering that nutrients can be more limiting than water even in very dry areas, such as the Sahel (Penning de Vries and Djiteye, 1982;Breman, 1998). Addressing these constraints is critical if improvements in water productivity are to be achieved. Increasing awareness of a 'global water crisis' recognizes that the scarcity of clean water does affect food production and conservation of ecosystems. It is predicted that by 2025, most developing countries will face either physical or economic water scarcity, while at the same time global demand for food will increase (Molden, 2007). Because irrigated and rainfed agriculture is by far the largest human consumptive use of fresh water, improving the productivity of water used in agriculture can assist in increasing food production while maintaining water-related ecosystem services. Tackling human-induced degradation of agricultural lands is therefore central to addressing the 'water crisis'.This chapter reviews a range of studies and concepts regarding options for improving water productivity through improved land management that mitigates soil degradation, and aims to highlight its importance as part of a comprehensive strategy to address global water scarcity. The focus is primarily on crop water productivity at the field scale, but the importance of taking a landscape-scale perspective when evaluating impacts of changes in water use is also discussed.Soil and land degradation can be identified and described in terms of physical, chemical and biological changes from some ideal state brought about by natural or man-made influences. Soil degradation is often assessed as the amount of soil material that has been removed from a landscape by water and wind erosion, since these physical changes are obvious and quantifiable. The effects on fundamental chemical properties, soil nutrient supplies and soil biological activity are, however, often less obvious and more insidious in nature. All of these forms of degradation significantly influence water productivity in both rainfed and irrigated production systems (Table 2.1). The degree of impact will depend on the type and level of degradation.The impact of soil chemical degradation on water productivity is predominantly direct. By reducing yields, chemical degradation reduces water productivity. One form and cause of chemical degradation is the loss of soil organic matter, which is a ubiquitous and underappreciated form of degradation. Soil organic matter (SOM) both acts as a substrate upon which the macro-and micro-flora and fauna depend, and also mediates the cycling of nutrients within ecosystems and imparts important chemical attributes to soils, such as cation exchange capacity (CEC) and buffer capacity. When ecosystems are disturbed through changed land use and continuous cultivation, the productivity of most agricultural soils declines rapidly, particularly under humid climatic conditions, due to a loss in SOM (Kang and Juo, 1986;Aweto et al., 1992;Noble et al., 2000Noble et al., , 2001)), accelerated acidification (Gillman et al., 1985;Noble et al., 2000) and a reduction in CEC, thereby limiting the ability of the soil to hold important nutrients.Chemical degradation, including loss of soil organic matter and nutrient depletion, is a form of degradation that has been underappreciated for decades in high-input systems, as inputs can be increased to offset the yield impacts of degradation. For example, yield declines in rice-rice systems in the Indo-Ganges plain were only recently revealed through long-term yield data analysis. These analyses showed a yield decline of 37 kg/ha/year over 20 years (Padre and Ladha, 2004). This represents a 15% decline over the study period, undetected in shorter-term studies. The decline could be reversed through the application of NPK fertilizer and farmyard manure, thus indicating that soil chemical degradation through organic matter and nutrient depletion was the primary cause of observed yield declines (see Penning de Vries, Chapter 5, this volume).The impacts of salinization and waterlogging in irrigated systems are better appreciated. In the irrigation systems of arid and semi-arid zones, one of the largest threats to sustained agricultural production and water productivity is secondary salinization. Although data are poor, estimates indicate that 20% of irrigated land worldwide suffers from secondary saliniza-  (Oldeman, 1991).tion and waterlogging (Wood et al., 2000), induced by the build-up of salts introduced in irrigation water or mobilized within the soil profile. Currently, the FAO estimates that 29% of the irrigated land in six countries of the Near East had salinity problems between 1990and 1994(Martinez-Beltran and Manzur, 2005)  (Sakthivadivel et al., 1999). Although it is relatively easy to link salinity to poverty, limited information is available that places a monetary value on the social and economic impacts (Ali et al., 2001). Available information addresses mainly crop yield losses on salt-affected soils, revealing estimates of an annual global income loss in excess of US$12 billion (Ghassemi et al., 1995).The impact of physical degradation on water productivity is mainly indirect. By interfering with the soil water balance and the ability of plants to access soil water, physical degradation reduces water productivity. Physical degradation includes soil erosion, crust formation, structural decline, compaction and waterlogging, all of which have a negative impact on yields and hence water productivity. As with chemical degradation, loss of soil organic matter is one of the primary causes of physical degradation because it is vital to the maintenance of soil structure.Soil erosion is one of the most severe forms of soil physical degradation and results in the irreversible removal of fertile surface layers. A decrease in soil depth due to erosion will result in a loss of clay and organic matter, and thereby reduces the water-holding capacity of the soil and soil depth (Stocking, 1994). Both of these impacts will significantly reduce the productivity potential of soils and the physical attributes of the solum. Likewise, the formation of surface crusts will result in a dramatic decline in the saturated hydraulic conductivity of the soil surface, thereby impeding the intake of water into the soil profile and reducing its recharge (Nishimura et al., 1990;Miller and Radcliffe, 1992). Moreover, crusts are known to inhibit the seedling emergence of crops as the crust dries out and develops its hardness (Nabi et al., 2001).As a result of compaction, the total porosity and the proportion of large pores (macropores) diminishes while the proportion of smaller pores increases (Cruse and Gupta, 1991). A decrease in porosity, with an associated increase in soil bulk density, induces an increase in the mechanical impedance of the soil, thereby limiting root proliferation (Oussible et al., 1992;Dunker et al., 1995). Based on field experiments using upland rice, Hasegawa and Kasubuchi (1993) illustrated the water extraction patterns of plants. When a soil profile is thoroughly wet, plants extract most soil water from shallow, densely rooted layers. With a decrease in surface-layer water content, water retained in deeper layers begins to make a larger contribution to transpiration. If a crop has a sparse root system in these deeper layers, the crop ceases to extract soil water, even though there may be sufficient soil moisture at depth. Thus, crops with a poor root distribution system are more susceptible to drought when compared with crops that do not have this limitation.Global water scarcity analyses generally agree that a large share of the world population -up to two-thirds -will be affected by water scarcity over the next few decades (cf. Shiklomanov, 1991;Alcamo et al., 1997Alcamo et al., , 2000;;Raskin et al., 1997;Seckler et al., 1998;Vorosmarty et al., 2000;Wallace, 2000;Wallace and Gregory, 2002). While views diverge as to whether or not this constitutes a 'crisis', it is clear and inescapable that as the global population grows, there will be proportionally less water available per capita, given that the resource base is more or less constant. It is often assumed that such water scarcity means that people will have insufficient water for their domestic use, but this is not necessarily the case. At a minimum water requirement per capita of 50 l/day, the annual domestic requirement is less than 20 m 3 per capita. In fact, the total amount of water required for domestic purposes is small compared with the water required for other basic needs, such as to produce their food (Rijsberman, 2006).People require thousands of litres of water per day to produce their food, depending on their dietary and lifestyle preferences. On average, it takes roughly 70 times more water to grow food for people than people use directly for domestic purposes (cf. SIWI and IWMI, 2004). In addition, the large majority (up to 90%) of the water provided to people for domestic purposes is returned after use as wastewater and can be recycled, while most of the water (40-90%) provided to agriculture is consumed (evapotranspired) and cannot be reused, until it falls again as precipitation.There is broad agreement that future increases in water scarcity will turn water into a key, or the key, limiting factor in food production and livelihood generation for poor people throughout much of rural Asia and most of Africa, with particularly severe scarcity in the breadbaskets of north-west India and northern China. Competition for water is cause for considerable political tension and concern already, for example on the Euphrates and Jordan, and these tensions have little to do with domestic water demand but are driven by water demands for the agricultural sector (Phillips et al., 2006). The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target to halve the proportion of poor and hungry by 2015 will require feeding 900 million more people and improving the dietary composition of 400 million others. It is estimated that this will require a 50% increase in freshwater use in agriculture by 2015, and a doubling of freshwater consumption by 2050, if production is to keep pace with population growth (Rockström et al., 2005). Analysis of future water requirements also suggests that a large proportion of this increased food production will have to be met in the rainfed agricultural sector (Rockström et al., 2005), due to limitations to the continued development of irrigated agriculture. In Asia especially, new irrigation development faces increasing competition from other sectors of the economy, including industry, urban centres and the environment.Given increasing conflicts over fresh water, and considering that the production of food is the largest consumptive user of fresh water, it is now appreciated that efforts to improve the productivity of water in agriculture can result in significant savings in water diverted or used to produce food. Agricultural water productivity can be a very broad concept, expressing the beneficial output per unit of water input, and encompassing biophysical and social aspects of the relationship between production and water use (Molden et al., 2007). This concept would then have various values at different spatial scales (plant, field, farm, irrigation network, river basin and agroecological zone) and different stakeholders (farmers, system managers, policy makers). Here, we will focus on agricultural water productivity at the plant and field level, where the primary stakeholder is the farmer. Thus, we will concentrate on crop water productivity (CWP), defined as the agronomic yield per unit of water used in transpiration, evapotranspiration (ET), or applied (including precipitated) water. This concept is equally valid for irrigated and rainfed systems and thus also provides a vehicle for exploring water-use options at the basin scale, where a variety of systems and options for development exist.Increasing agricultural water productivity can significantly reduce the total amount of water we will need in the future to produce food. Thus, agricultural water productivity estimates are an important component in scenarios that have been explored to try to estimate future water requirements. For example, under a base scenario that included optimistic assumptions on yield increases and efficiency, Seckler et al. (1998) estimated a 29% increase in irrigated land would be required by the year 2025 to produce enough food to feed the population. But because of gains in water productivity, the increase in water diversions to agriculture would only need to be 17%. FAO (2002aFAO ( , 2003a,b) ,b) and Shiklomanov (1998) had comparable results. FAO (2002b) estimated a 34% increase in irrigated area and a 12% increase in irrigation diversions, and similarly Shiklomanov (1998) projected a 27% increase in irrigated diversions. More recently, scenarios taking into account both irrigated and rainfed agriculture projected that 30-40% more water will be used in agriculture by 2050 than is used today (De Fraiture et al., 2007). This optimistic scenario was based on the assumption of balanced investments in water management in rainfed and irrigated areas, and increased water productivity. Without improved water management the overall increase is projected to be 70-90%. Because of the importance of rainfed agricultural production now and in the future, we are interested in water productivity in both irrigated and rainfed systems.A fundamental but somewhat technical discussion is required to understand how CWP can be improved. For a given crop variety, there is a near linear relationship between plant biomass (leaves, stems, roots, grain, etc.) and transpiration (Tanner and Sinclair, 1983), depending on plant variety and climate (Steduto and Albrizio, 2005). Since the mid-1960s, breeding strategies that increase the harvest index (the proportion of grain to total biomass) have resulted in larger increases in water productivity than any other agronomic practice. These gains, however, are not based on a decrease in transpiration per unit of biomass produced, but instead on an increase in the proportion of biomass that is marketable or consumable produce (usually grain). Thus, the amount of biomass per unit transpiration has not changed through breeding strategies that increase harvest index. This illustrates the perceived 'biological imperative' that to produce more biomass, more water is required for transpiration. Given that it is now thought that the scope for further increases in harvest index seems small, even with biotechnology (Bennett, 2003), where might we identify opportunities to continue to increase water productivity in agriculture?The difference between actual water productivity and this limit represented by plant physi-ology demonstrates the enormous opportunities to increase water productivity. Taking wheat as an example, Fig. 2.1 shows the significant variation that exists in CWP (Sadras and Angus, 2006). The solid line in Fig. 2.1 may represent the biological limits along which increased biomass production requires increases in water use, while most systems surveyed achieved much lower water productivity. The mechanisms to achieve improvement are related to reducing evaporative losses of water or increasing transpiration efficiency, both of which can decrease ET per unit of biomass produced, thus increasing water productivity. Both of these factors can be strongly affected by land management and soil quality. In particular, increased infiltration rates and soil water-holding capacity can reduce evaporative losses, and soil fertility improvement can increase transpiration efficiency. Understanding a simple water balance of a typical farm helps guide an analysis of where opportunities lie to increase water productivity. Water which either falls as precipitation or is applied to any particular field can have several fates: transpiration, evaporation, storage or drainage (Fig. 2.2). Storage and drainage water can still be used productively either on-site or downstream, and is not 'lost' unless its quality declines (through, for example, being drained off into a saline aquifer). Evaporation, however, is a significant by-product of agricultural practices, and does not contribute to biomass production. Evaporation depends on climate (thus CWP is generally higher at northern latitudes with lower temperatures) and soil shading (by leaves of the crop canopy), and can thus be high in rainfed systems in the tropics, with high temperatures and low plant densities. In degraded tropical systems, evaporation is even higher, as infiltration into the soil and soil waterholding capacity are reduced, runoff is rapid and plant densities are very low. Transpired water can also be wasted if crop failure occurs after significant biomass growth. Thus, practices that reduce evaporation and prevent crop failure, such as mulching and fertilizer to increase soil water retention, plant vigour and leaf expansion can significantly increase CWP. Losses due to pests also limit harvestable yields, and hence managing these limitations can also increase water productivity.Transpiration efficiency -the biomass produced per unit of water transpired -is also highly dependent on soil nutrient availability. In fact, it has only recently been appreciated that the linear relationship between transpiration and biomass production only holds at a constant level of nutrient availability. Soil degradation therefore, particularly poor soil fertility, is a primary cause of low water productivity. A recent modelling study by one of us (Nangia), undertaken to understand the role of nitrogen fertilizer in enhancing water productivity, particularly highlights the role of soil nutrient availability as a determinant of water productivity. While a lot of agronomic studies have been conducted investigating crop response to nutrients and water, they were primarily aimed at understanding land productivity and not water productivity. This work, aimed at bridging this gap, concluded that more biomass and harvestable products can be produced per unit of transpired water given adequate nitrogen availability (Fig. 2.3), and that maximizing water productivity was not equivalent to maximizing land productivity. The improvement is most successful when trying to raise productivity from very low levels, such as are common in many degraded rainfed farming systems.The basis for understanding how much CWP can still be improved in practice is provided by a few recent reviews that have quantified CWP variability in irrigated and rainfed systems.These reviews indicate that significant improvement to CWP can be achieved. On irrigated land, Zwart and Bastiaanssen (2004) estimated the variability in WP for major crops based on measurements of actual ET on fields across five continents (Table 2.2) from 84 published studies conducted since the early 1980s. This variability, often up to threefold differences between low and high water productivity, is encouraging since it gives an idea of the tremendous potential that exists to increase CWP. These authors concluded that, if constraints were removed, increases of 20-40% in CWP could easily be achieved. The variation was primarily attributed to climate, irrigation water management and soil management. Similarly, Fig. 2.1 demonstrates the significant variation in CWP for wheat (Sadras and Angus, 2006). In semi-arid zones of sub-Saharan Africa Falkenmark and Rockström (2004) found CWP for maize, sorghum and millet to range from about 2.5 to 15 kg/mm water per/ha. As with Zwart and Bastiaanssen (2004), improving soil management was one of several factors identified that affect CWP.This gap between actual water productivity and potential is largest in rainfed farming systems in semi-arid areas. Falkenmark and Rockström (2004) review the theory and data supporting the significant opportunities that exist to improve water productivity in these rainfed systems. They highlight the tremendous potential to shift from unproductive evaporative losses to productive transpiration. Figure 2.4 shows the relationship between actual CWP as measured by ET and grain produced across a large range of sites in sub-Saharan Africa. Hatfield et al. (2001) support this conclusion, based on an extensive review of studies that examined the potential of soil management practices alone to improve water-use efficiency. Hatfield et al. (2001) estimated that CWP could be increased by 25-40% through soil management practices, such as 'no till', to improve infiltration and soil water storage, and between 15 and 25% with nutrient management.  summarizes the idea that, although the biological relationship between water use and biomass may be linear, soil management could significantly push the line towards increased production at the same level of water use, such as illustrated in detail for wheat (Fig. 2.1). Likewise, poor soil management and soil limitations move the line down, limiting water productivity.In another recent review of case studies of resource-conserving agriculture projects (Pretty et al., 2006), it was estimated that improvement in water productivity ranged from 70 to 100% in rainfed systems, and 15 to 30% in irrigated systems (Table 2.3). These estimates were made based on reported crop yields and average potential evapotranspiration (ETp) for each project location during the relevant growing season. Actual evapotranspiration (ETa) was assumed to equal 80% of ETp, and ETa to remain a constant at different levels of productivity. Impacts are attributed primarily to land management changes such as removing limitations on productivity by enhancing soil fertility, and reducing soil evaporation through conservation tillage. The variability was high due to the wide variety of practices represented in the dataset, but do demonstrate gains in WP are possible through the adoption of sustainable farming technologies in a variety of crops and farm systems (Bossio et al., forthcoming).A few detailed field studies from Australia, Africa and Asia serve to highlight these potential impacts. Smith et al.'s (2000) careful study demonstrated this shift from evaporation to transpiration as influenced by soil fertility in a   rainfed wheat/lucerne production system in New South Wales, Australia. By increasing fertilizer (i.e. nitrogen) inputs, they were able to demonstrate increases in water productivity of wheat grain as measured by crop evapotranspiration from 8.4 to 14.6 kg/mm of water (Table 2.4). Some interesting trends can be gleaned from these results on improving the CWP of rainfed production systems when limited by the fertility status of the soil. In annual cropping systems, evaporation decreases and transpiration increases with increasing leaf area. As a consequence, the total amount of water consumed through the sum of evaporation and transpiration (ET) in a crop with low leaf area may be similar to that consumed in a crop with high leaf area. In this case, ET of 404 and 439 mm, respectively, was measured between these two contrasting crops. This study therefore clearly demonstrates that it is erroneous to assume that the water use of a high biomass crop will be proportionately greater than that of a low biomass crop, when leaf areas are very different (Smith et al., 2000). In this case, a doubling of grain yield only required a further 35 mm of ET (less than 10% increase) (Table 2.4).Field results from a low-yielding rainfed system in Africa (Barron and Okwach, 2005) demonstrated that water productivity could be dramatically increased and also highlighted the importance of synergistic water and nutrient management to achieve this impact on farmers' fields. Water productivity in a smallholder maize production system in semi-arid Africa was increased from 2.1 to 4.1 kg grain/mm/ha, almost a 100% increase, by using supplemental irrigation to mitigate dry spells. But this increase was only achieved when supplemental irrigation was applied in combination with nitrogen fertilizer (Barron and Okwach, 2005).In cases where soil chemical and physical degradation is extreme, rehabilitation of degraded soils can have an even greater impact, as demonstrated in recent studies on rainfed production systems in north-east Thailand (Noble et al., 2004). Sandy soils in NE Thailand have severe nutrient and carbon depletion after 40 or more years of agricultural production. Low nutrient-supplying capacity, poor water-holding capacity and the presence of a compacted layer at 20-30 cm are the dominant constraints to ensuring yield stability under rainfed conditions. Crop failure is now the norm owing to the extremely low availability of both nutrients and water. Annual precipitation is about 1100 mm, and sufficient for rainfed farming. Adding fertilizers or supplemental irrigation cannot stabilize yields, owing to the soil's very low capacity to retain water and nutrients. A novel approach of adding clay materials to these soils has ensured yield stability, as well as significantly enhancing crop yields (Noble et al., 2004;Noble and Suzuki, 2005). A measure of water productivity in these studies was estimated from the biomass produced per unit of rainfall over the growing season. Water productivity increased from a mere 0.32 kg/mm under the degraded situation to 14.74 kg/mm where constraints such as low nutrient supplies and water-holding capacity were addressed through the application of clay-based materials. These dramatic results are partly attributed to a 28% increase in soil water-holding capacity (Noble and Suzuki, 2005).The primary focus of this chapter has been CWP at field level and the opportunities that exist to improve CWP by mitigating soil degradation through improved land management.We have demonstrated that the potential gain in water productivity through land management interventions, particularly to improve soil  quality, is large and, we suggest, generally underappreciated. Various studies estimate that water productivity in irrigated systems could be improved by between 20 and 40%, primarily through land management approaches. In rainfed systems in developing countries, where average crop production is very low and many soils suffer from nutrient depletion, erosion and other degradation problems, potential improvement in water productivity is even higher, and may be as high as 100% in many systems. This is particularly important given that a large share of the needed increases in food production will have to come from rainfed systems.We have emphasized the importance of reducing real losses in the water balance, such as evaporation, by improving soil physical properties, and increasing transpiration efficiency through improved nutrient management as the key entry points through which desired improvements in water productivity can be achieved. This point is particularly important in the watershed or landscape context. If increases in biomass production on site are achieved simply by using more water, without reducing unproductive losses or increasing transpiration efficiency (i.e. water productivity remains constant), this would then simply represent an increased diversion of water from runoff or deep percolation to biomass production on site. This type of diversion would be a reallocation of water that may have been valuable downstream either to maintain aquatic ecosystems or for other productive purposes in a different location. It is not necessarily an increase in water productivity at the landscape or basin scale if water is simply used in a different location. The important entry point for water productivity improvement at larger scales is to reduce real losses of water that occur through evaporation, losses to saline sinks, ineffective transpiration, or useless transpiration resulting from crop failure.The diverse set of studies discussed above clearly demonstrate that improved land management is a very promising way to increase water productivity, particularly in lowyielding rainfed systems. To put this in perspective, the recent Comprehensive Assessment on Water Management in Agriculture reviewed the opportunities to improve agricultural water productivity and found that alternatives such as genetic improvements can be expected to yield only moderate water productivity improvements, although genetic improvements may play an important role in reducing the risk of crop failure (Molden et al., 2007). Synergistic interventions, including improved water management and maintenance of soil quality, have the greatest potential to improve water productivity. There is every indication, therefore, that investing in the rehabilitation of degraded agricultural lands should be taken up as a priority in efforts to mitigate the 'water crisis'. There are additional gains to be had in such an intervention, including maintenance of terrestrial ecosystems, and also the preservation of aquatic ecosystems and their accompanying services, all of which are linked directly to how agricultural land is managed and maintained.","tokenCount":"4542"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f65d0aa4f89c7f97d5fb9ccba7b3034b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/bbdbc9db-640e-4a06-b093-3f6980b2002e/content","id":"-892140292"},"keywords":["Wheats","soft wheat","Triticum aestivum","dwarfs","varieties","genera","taxa","land races","ancestry","provenance. AGRIS category codes: F30 Dewey decimal classification: 633.1123 KLRF/4,IB&cAl/IVZBZ CHIRYA CHIRYA CatAG.CUlIGLEW<VALLVPVl'V CIGM87Bl CHIRYA 1992 CIMMYT 4JNINGMAl NO.4t'OLESONl/ ALIVYANGMAl NO.4 CHIRYA.l CHIRI CatAG.CU/IGLEW<VALLVPVl'V4,I CIGM87Bl•110B CHIRYA 1992 CIMMYT NINGMAl NO.4t'OLESONl/ALI¥ YANGMAI NO.4 CHIRYA.2 CHIR2 CatAG.CU/IGLEW<VALLVPVl'V4,I CIGM87Bl•113B CHlRYA 1992 CIMMYT NINGMAI NO.4t'OLESONI/ALI¥ YANGMAl NO.4 CHIRYA.3 CIDR3 CatAG.CU/IGLEW<VALLVPVl'V4,I CIGM97Bl•116B CHIRYA 1992 CIMMYT NINGMAl NO.4t'OLESONl/ALI¥ YANGMAl NO.4 CHIRYA.4 CIDR4 CatAG.CU/IGLEW<VALLVPVl'V4,I CIGM87B1-122B CIDRYA 1992 CIMMYT NINGMAl NO.4t'OLESONl/ALI¥ YANGMAl NO.4 CHIRYA.5 CHIR5 CatAG.CUlIGLEW<VALLVPVl'V4,I CIGM87Bl•l006B CHIRYA 1992 CIMMYT NINGMAI NO.4t'OLESONl/ALI¥ YANGMAl NO.4 CHIRYA.6 CHlH8"],"sieverID":"ca0faa54-b29a-4ac8-84cf-d7833b34b77b","pagecount":"85","content":"CIMMYf is an internationally funded, nonprofit scientific tesearch and ttaining organization. Headquartered in Mexico, the Center works with agricultural research institutions worldwide to improve the productivity and sustainability of maize and wheat systems for poor farmers in developing countries. It is one of 16 similar centers supported by the Consultarive Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The CGIAR comprises over 50 partner countries, intemational and regional organizations, and private foundations. It is co-sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, the International Bank for Reconsrruction and Development (World Bank), [he United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).O ne of CIMMYf's primary functions is to produce germplasm for use by cooperating national crop improvement programs. In the development of wheat germplasm, emphasis is given to producing advanced materials that can be readily integrated into national wheat-breeding programs. Early generation segregating materials are also made available to cooperators.Each year, CIMMYT makes thousands of bread wheat crosses and generates hundreds of advanced lines. These materials are distributed annually to national programs by way of our international nursery system; nearly 50 nurseries consisting of advanced yield trials, screening nurseries and F2 segregating populations are distributed annually to over 200 cooperators around the world. National programs are free to use the germplasm in these nurseries in any way that best suits their needs. Options range from crossing with local varieties to placing entries directly into multiplication for eventual release as varieties.The reader should note that CIMMYf does not release or name varieties; that is the right and responsibility of cooperating national programs, and each national program has its own system for naming released cultivars. CIMMYf does name its advanced bread wheat breeding lines, and our system for differentiating among these lines currently utilizes the names of land birds only. At one time, however, the names of mountains, lakes, rivers, islands and certain phonetic combinations were used; some of these earlier names remain in use today. The CIMMYT/ICARDA program continues to use phonetic combinations or combinations of parental names.This revised bulletin contains a compilation of all semidwarf bread wheat cultivars and advanced lines produced by CIMMYT and by the Mexican National Institute of Agricultural Research (INIFAP); it also contains the names and pedigrees of cultivars with CIMMYT parentage that have been released since 1962 by cooperating national programs. Our purpose in publishing this bulletin is to facilitate the exchange of more exact information among wheat researchers working with these materials, and to assist them in their note taking and record-keeping activities.CIMMYT uses the Purdy nomenclature (Purdy et al. 1968) for writing pedigrees. Thus, if parent A is crossed with parent B and the F1 hybrid is crossed with parent C, its pedigree would be designated as N BIIe. Subsequent crosses with parental material D,E,F and G would be indicated as:The female parent is designated by listing it first (to the left side) followed by the pollen parent (placed to the right side of the cross). Thus, A is the female and B is the pollen parent in the first cross.The line AlB is the female and C is the pollen parent in cross two, etc.Backcrosses are designated with an asterisk (*) and a number indicating the dosage of the recurrent parent. The asterisk and the number are placed next to the crossing symbol that divides the recurrent and donor parents. The following are examples involving one backcross (two doses):A is the recurrent parent: B is the recurrent parent:AlB is the recurrent parent: C/D is the recurrent parent:Each pedigree name begins with an alphabetic designation of the cross origin (Table 3), followed by a cross number. After the cross number there is either a letter or number-letter combination. For top and double crosses, a letter is assigned to each plant selected in the F1 generation. In number-letter combinations, the number identifies the individual plant and the letter indicates the location of selection (see Table 4). The zero-letter combinations (OM, OY, etc.) are reserved for populations carried as bulk in that generation. Examples of each are presented at the top of the next page. Because of the large number of crosses made annually at CIMMYT and cooperating institutions, this type of information needs updating continually. Therefore, included in the back of this bulletin is a 3 and 1/2 inch diskette with the most recent update of the information contained in this bulletin.In addition, CIMMYT is contributing to the development of two data management systems that bring pedigree information together: the Genetic Resoutce Information Package (GRIP I) for wheat (Mackay et al. 1996) and the International Wheat Information System (IWlS) (Fox et al. 1996). GRIP I collates pedigree information for more than 100,000 wheats. IWlS is a system that manages and integrates information pertaining to bread wheat, dutum wheat and triticale. The body of data on these crops is large and intricate. By providing a common language to identify individual wheat and triticale germplasm uniquely, IWlS seamlessly joins conservation, utilization and exchange of genetic materials.U na de las funciones primordiales del CIMMYT es la producci6n de germoplasma para los programas nacionales de mejoramiento de cultivos que cooperan con el Centro. AI crear el germoplasma de trigo, se busca producir materiales avanzados que puedan ser integrados sin dificultad a los programas nacionales de mejoramiento de trigo. Ademas, el Centro pone a la disposici6n de cientificos colaboradores materiales segregantes de generaci6n temprana.Cada ano, el CIMMYT lleva a cabo miles de cruzamientos de trigo y produce cientos de lfneas avanzadas. Estos materiales se distribuyen anualmente a los cientificos colaboradores mediante el sistema de viveros internacionales del Centro. Se envian cerca de 50 ensayos de rendimiento avanzados, viveros de selecci6n y poblaciones segregantes F2 a mas de 200 investigadores de todo el mundo. Los programas nacionales estan en libertad de utilizar el germoplasma de estos viveros en la forma que mas les convenga. Sus opciones van desde el cruzamiento con variedades locales hasta el inicio inmediato de la multiplicaci6n de las entradas para liberarlas posteriormente como variedades.Ellector debe tomar nota de que el CIMMYT no libera ni nombra las variedades cultivadas, pues estas funciones son derecho y responsabilidad de los programas nacionales. Cada programa tiene su propio sistema para nombrar las variedades que libera. El CIMMYf si designa los nombres de las lfneas avanzadas de trigo harinero y el sistema que utiliza actualmente para caracterizar estas Hneas se basa en los nombres de aves terrestres. Anteriormente se usaron nombres de montafias, lagos, dos, islas, asi como ciertas combinaciones foneticas, algunas de los cuales se siguen usando hoy dia. El programa CIMMYfIICARDA continua utilizando combinaciones foneticas, 0 combinaciones de nombres de progenitores.Este boletin revisado contiene una recopilacion de todas las variedades cultivadas y lineas avanzadas de trigo harinero semi-enano del CIMMYf y del Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales y Agropecuarias (INIFAP), asi como tambien los nombres y genealogias de las variedades provenientes del CIMMYT que han sido liberadas desde 1962 por los programas nacionales. El objeto de publicar este boletin es facilitar el intercambio de informacion mas exacta entre los investigadores de trigo que trabajan con estos materiales y ayudarles a realizar sus anotaciones y llevar sus registros.EI CIMMYT utiliza la nomenclatura de Purdy (Purdy et aL 1968) para las genealogias. Por tanto, si el progenitor A se cruza con el progenitor B yel h{brido F1 se cruza con el progenitor C, su genealogia se indicarfa as{: NBI Ie. Los cruzamientos subsecuentes con material progenitor D, E, F y G se manifestarfa como sigue: NBIIC/3/D/4/E/5/F/6/G EI progenitor hembra se indica poniendolo primero (dellado izquierdo) seguido del progenitor polinizador (dellado derecho del cruzamiento). As{ pues, A representa el progenitor hembra y B, el progenitor polinizador en el primer cruzamiento; la Hnea NB representa el progenitor hembra y C, el progenitor polinizador en la segunda cruza, yas{ sucesivamente.Los retrocruzamientos se designan con un asterisco (*) y un numero que indica la dosis del progenitor recurrente. EI asterisco y el numero se colocan junto al simbolo de cruzamiento que separa a los progenitores recurrentes de los progenitores donadores. En seguida aparecen algunos ejemplos de retrocruzamiento (dos dosis):A como progenitor recurrente: B como progenitor recurrente: NB como progenitor recurrente: C/D como progenitor recurrente:Cada genealogfa comienza con la designaci6n alfabetica del origen del cruzamiento (Cuadro 3), seguida por un numero de cruzamiento. Despues del numero de cruzamiento, aparece una letra 0 una combinaci6n de numero y letra. En los cruzamientos dobles y de FIx variedades se asigna una letra a cada planta seleccionada de la generaci6n Fl. En las combinaciones de numero y letra, el numero identifica la planta individual y la letra indica ellugar donde se realiz6 la selecci6n (Cuadro 4). Las combinaciones de cero y letra (OM, OY, etc.) se refieren exclusivamente a las poblaciones que fueron avanzadas en masa en esa generaci6n. A continuaci6n se presentan ejemplos de cada caso. Debido al gran numero de cruzamientos que se hacen anualmente en el CIMMYT y en las instituciones que cooperan con este, es necesario actualizar y revisar el boletfn de manera continua. Por consiguiente, en este boletfn se incluye un diskette de 3 y 1/2 pulgadas con la informaci6n mas reciente.£1 CIMMYf tambien colabora con el desarrollo de dos sistemas de manejo de datos que recopilan informacion sobre genealogias: el Paquete de Informacion de Recursos Geneticos del Trigo (GRIP 1) (Mackay et al. 1996), Y el Sistema Internacional de Informacion sobre el Trigo (IWIS) (Fox et al. 1996). £1 GRIP 1 contiene informacion genealogica de mas de 100,000 trigos.£1 IWIS es un sistema de manejo de datos que integra muchos tipos de informacion sobre el trigo harinero, el trigo duro y el triticale. £1 acervo de informacion sobre estos cultivos es vasto y complicado. AI proporcionar un lenguaje comun para identificar de manera inequivoca los trigos y triticales, el IWIS integra la conservacion, la utilizacion y el intercambio de materiales geneticos.£1 IWIS se compone de software e informacion que:     Aumentan el valor de la semilla relacionandola con extensos datos genealogicos y de comportamiento Proporcionan a los programas nacionales acceso a datos provenientes de muchos paises Reunen datos de instituciones de investigacion de trigo de todo el mundo Integran disciplinas colocando datos de diversas Fuentes en una sola base de datos Suministran datos necesarios para el mejoramiento de trigo.•    !CARDA• Table 1..'\\'aml'.\\hhPnlig\"l\"(-'l' Sl'iedioll                                 ","tokenCount":"1714"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"771c97cef88261c67f309c6231919e64","source":"gardian_index","url":"http://awm-solutions.iwmi.org/Data/Sites/3/Documents/PDF/Country_Docs/West_Bengal/National%20Consultation%20Brief%20West%20Bengal.pdf","id":"-310418481"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d25d862f-b59f-4499-9d9c-5a9951cb79d1","pagecount":"2","content":"The AgWater Solutions Project is helping to unlock the potential of smallholder farming through agricultural water management (AWM) solutions. This includes technologies and approaches, such as soil moisture management, drip irrigation and water harvesting techniques, as well as the supporting policies, institutions and business models. Partnerships are key to the success of the project. As such, the project promotes collaboration at all levels with, and between, a range of stakeholder groups including researchers, policymakers, investors, farmers and implementers.The National Consultation Workshop was an opportunity for such engagement and for participants to share their opinions on AWM solutions that would be appropriate for West Bengal and could be out-scaled. This briefing note provides a short summary of the discussions held during the Workshop and the AWM solutions that were prioritized. For more information on the AWM solutions currently being used in West Bengal the reader is referred to the Situation Analysis Briefing Note, which is also available on the website.The consultation workshop was attended by 34 participants representing government organizations, research and academic institutes, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society bodies, farmers and farmer organizations.In West Bengal 78% of all farmers are smallholders with less than 2 ha of land each. Irrigation is very important but the Project team and discussions that followed with the workshop participants.area under canal irrigation has declined from 886,000 ha to 560,000 ha, while groundwater irrigation has increased over the past 50 years. This rapid adoption of shallow tube wells paved the way for agricultural growth in the 1980s and 1990s. Around 10% of these shallow tube wells are powered by electricity and the rest by diesel. The reason for the preference for diesel is the government of West Bengal's electricity policy.In India as a whole there are concerns about overexploitation of groundwater and this appears to be driving water policies.In West Bengal, the high rainfall and the alluvial aquifer make it less likely that overexploitation will occur. However, the government policies of groundwater certification and rural electrification make it difficult for farmers to get connected to the grid, leading to economic scarcity of groundwater. The groundwater potential and policies will be researched further by the AgWater Solutions Project.The type of AWM strategies being utilized in the State varies by agroecological zone, and this should be taken into account when developing AWM solutions. In North 24 Parganas, shallow tube wells with diesel pumps are the main source of irrigation; in Hugli, deep tube wells with submersible pumps are most prevalent; in Uttar Dinajur, diesel-operated shallow tube wells and occasional treadle pumps are found to operate; and in the drier district of Purulia, tanks and ponds are the most important sources of water for agriculture.The participants were asked to share their opinions on AWM in West Bengal and to provide suggestions for refining the research and selecting case studies for in-depth analysis.It was suggested that the project take a holistic view of AWM solutions, rather than focusing on specific aspects such as groundwater and electrification. The research should also take into account the agroecological zones and the existing conditions. For example, in drier and highland parts of West Bengal, such as Purulia, Medinpur, Bankura and Birbhum,awm-solutions.iwmi.org there could be investment in rainwater harvesting and storage in small ponds dug on individual plots of land.Coupling this with low lift pumps could further increase access to water. In the southern parts of West Bengal, groundwater is a good option and could be utilized through shallow tube wells. Drip irrigation rather than flood irrigation could be implemented where possible to preserve water resources. In Cooch Bihar, International Development Enterprises (IDE) has had some success with treadle pumps and System of Rice Intensification (SRI). Critically, the project team must ensure that all recommendations are supported by sound evidence that does not lead to the overexploitation of water resources.The participants also felt that improvements in AWM could be achieved through better training and ensuring that AWM was an integral part of the micro-planning process adopted by the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs).Specifically, the participants were asked to put forward their ideas for desirable agricultural AWM investments in West Bengal. These suggestions are provided here:• Training and dissemination of various AWM options will be essential if they are to reach smallholder farmers. Manuals on the various AWM solutions and an inventory of best practices from other locations should be developed. These should be part of the standard kit for all extension workers and they can be disseminated by extension workers, NGOs and farmers' organizations. This would strengthen the extension service, which could be supported by grassroots organizations, especially if a consortium of NGOs, national agricultural universities and government departments are formed to address AWM.• Make it easier to obtain electricity connections, provide a one-time capital cost subsidy and remove compulsory State Water Investigation Directorate (SWID) certification.• Renovate surface tanks and ponds and use them for multiple purposes, especially aquaculture. This could also lead to groundwater recharge.• Invest in extension services and demonstrate optimal AWM to farmers, especially for crops with low water requirements.• Invest in water harvesting structures and groundwater recharge to avoid over-dependence on groundwater. Use the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) funds to build or rehabilitate storage and irrigation infrastructure.• Introduce and test \"smart voucher\" diesel-based subsidy for diesel-pump owners.• Collaborate with national partners and local agricultural universities on technological innovations. Then provide funds and support for dissemination and uptake.• Strengthen agricultural output markets, especially in areas that grow nontraditional market-oriented crops.• Support livelihoods diversification, especially in drier parts of West Bengal through watershed development, soil moisture conservation and rainwater harvesting. Improving forward market linkages for niche crops such as spices would be beneficial, as would investing in off-farm job creation to ease pressure on land and water.The suggestions raised in the workshop are being taken forward in the choice and design of the in-depth case studies and in the ongoing stakeholder dialogue process.","tokenCount":"985"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"88838b50dd278d8d621d8d41e60f3390","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b5d27c20-92c6-4519-a44f-489d31a17bd6/retrieve","id":"-1475868734"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2a39119e-101d-4c55-a96d-31ece5f64a3c","pagecount":"13","content":"Luz Adriana Jiménez l.a.jimenez@cgiar.org Sandra Marcela Vargas s.m.vargas@cgiar.org Natali Rendón, n.rendon@cgiar.org Sonia Gallego, s.gallego@cgiar.org Octubre, 2024 [LOGO] [LOGO] Eslabón comercial………………………………………………………………….7Recomendaciones para la comunidad de AgroZapatero……………...…8Desde el año 2022 y como parte de las acciones de la Iniciativa AgriLAC Resiliente del CGIAR, se llevó a cabo en el departamento de Bolívar en Colombia, la implementación de la metodología para explorar las condiciones del mercado de arroz con el fin de contribuir al fortalecimiento de las asociaciones de productores de Leticia y Zapatero que producen el arroz biofortificado Fedearroz BioZn035, estas actividades han sido desarrolladas en alianza con la Fundación Canal del Dique COMPAS con el apoyo de actores locales como el SENA y la Unidad Municipal de Asistencia Técnica Agropecuaria (UMATA).Esta metodología incluyó la implementación de una serie de acciones tendientes a analizar el funcionamiento de la cadena de valor, los actores, la demanda, la oferta, las oportunidades y riesgos en la comercialización del arroz, lo cual se convirtió en el insumo para el desarrollo del presente documento el cual tiene como objetivo proponer acciones y recomendaciones para que la comunidad de productores de Zapatero pueda tener mejores resultados en su proceso productivo y comercial.Zapatero es una vereda ubicada en el corregimiento de la Boquilla, con acceso por el kilómetro 10 en la vía que conduce de Cartagena a Barranquilla (Alcaldía Distrital de Cartagena, 2023). La vereda tiene aproximadamente 300 habitantes y es reconocida por su vocación arrocera. En la comunidad de Zapatero no existen productores organizados como asociación, no obstante, son parte del Consejo Comunitario de Zapatero, el cual tiene como objetivo el desarrollo de las comunidades y administración de los territorios colectivos.Como lo destacan sus moradores, su principal actividad productiva se centra en el cultivo del arroz, con una tradición de más 50 años entre generaciones. También realizan la producción de cultivos como: corozo, mango y melón.En el proceso de fortalecimiento propuesto en el marco de la iniciativa AgriLAC, la participación de los productores ha variado, manteniéndose en un promedio de 20 miembros involucrados, distribuidos así:12 mujeres 8 hombresCon el fin de contribuir en la mejora del desempeño tanto productivo como comercial de la comunidad de Zapatero participante en el proyecto, desde el año 2022 se realizan actividades que comprenden los eslabones productivo, de transformación y de mercados. Entre las acciones implementadas se han llevado a cabo ensayos en campo para el cultivo de arroz, usando prácticas de agricultura sostenible, así como se ha contado con la asesoría de un equipo técnico para el eslabón de poscosecha y transformación de alimentos, con lo cual se busca mejorar la calidad del producto que llevan al mercado. Finalmente, y con el objetivo de mejorar el acceso a los mercados, han participado en el desarrollo de estrategias que buscan fortalecer su competitividad comercial.Tras dos años de implementación, se realizó el seguimiento a la adopción de las prácticas bajo un esquema de entrevistas individuales a cinco personas y se desarrolló un grupo focal que contó con la participación de 25 personas (14 hombres y 11 mujeres), obteniendo resultados que han sido claves para la definición del presente plan de fortalecimiento.El cultivo del arroz es uno de los productos agrícolas más sembrados en el departamento de Bolívar, está presente en 26 de los 44 municipios, destacándose 3 sistemas de siembra: secano manual (en 21 municipios), secano mecanizado (en 11 municipios) y riego (en 7 municipios).Se destacan los pequeños y medianos productores, en el caso de los primeros poseen áreas destinadas para la siembra que pueden variar entre 0,5 y 20 hectáreas, éstos se caracterizan por cultivar bajo el sistema secano manual, donde la mayoría no hace uso de paquetes tecnológicos ni semillas certificadas, en consecuencia, se presentan bajos rendimientos (menos de 3 ton/ha). Parte de la producción de sus cultivos se destina para el autoconsumo y los excedentes se comercializan en el mercado local.En cuanto a la producción, el sistema que genera mayor productividad es el secano mecanizado con 55% (71.625 ton), seguido por el secano manual con 30% (39.139 ton) y por último el arroz de riego con 15% (19.585 ton) (García Botina, et al., 2023) Mapa de producción de arroz de acuerdo con el sistema productivoFuente: Exploración de demanda de arroz local frente a las condiciones productivas de la Asociación de productores de Leticia-BolívarAl comparar los rendimientos de los tres sistemas de siembra, el de riego es el que presenta los mayores valores con 5,3 ton/ha.Una de las características de este sistema es el uso de semillas certificadas, el empleo de tecnología y maquinaria agrícola para la adecuación de terrenos (curvas de nivel), prácticas de control de malezas y fertilización. Seguido, se encuentra el sistema secano mecanizado con 4,1 ton/ha y por último el sistema secano manual con 3,2 ton/ha (Fig. 3), ambos sistemas en ocasiones también incluyen el uso de semillas certificadas, pero a diferencia del sistema de riego estos dependen de los factores climáticos para la siembra. Según testimonios de molineros de la región (Vargas Gonzalez, et al., 2023), el arroz producido en sistema secano manual y mecanizado de riego de las zonas de centro y sur Bolívar es acopiado principalmente en Magangué (15 molinos), y en otros molinos en Montería, Planeta Rica, Sahagún, Ayapel y Caucasia. También parte del arroz de Bolívar es acopiado por los molinos de mayor envergadura ubicados en Barranquilla como Granos y Cereales, Inversiones Lache, y FC&C Arrocera del Litoral. Otros arroces son procesados en pequeñas plantas que tienen las asociaciones, y otra parte es comprado por intermediarios que acopian en las zonas y venden a los molinos. Aunque los intermediarios no son tan comunes en el sector arrocero, según algunos testimonios, este actor aún juega un papel en la cadena de arroz en el Bajo Cauca.La mayoría de los molinos compran el paddy verde como materia prima para luego transformarlo a arroz pulido, pero hay algunos casos como el del Molino Majagual (Sucre), cuyo objetivo es solo prestar el servicio de secado y trilla por COP$ 140 el kilo de arroz paddy. Una vez trillado, el agricultor comercializa el arroz individualmente.Existe otro tipo de molineras, quienes se dedican a la compra de grano partido para la transformación en subproductos como la harina de arroz, coladas, batidos, panadería, espesantes y base para mezclas.El eslabón de transformación es muy importante para el sector arrocero porque es el primer paso comercial con el que se encuentra el productor, y asegura la compra y posterior distribución y comercialización del arroz pulido seco y subproductos, y representa el 17% de los costos del arroz blanco. En Bolívar y en casi todo el Bajo Cauca prima la informalidad en este eslabón. Los molinos no están registrados ante la cámara Induarroz, suelen abrir y cerrar según el éxito del ciclo productivo, hecho que repercute en la seguridad financiera y comercial de los productores.El arroz es un producto básico de la canasta familiar colombiana, en cifras, el consumo per cápita nacional de este cereal es de 43 kilogramos, cifra que es considerablemente mayor en la Costa Caribe pues asciende a 50 kilogramos en la zona urbana y más de 70 kilogramos en la zona rural, lo cual demuestra el arraigado consumo de arroz en la dieta de las familias de la región.La comercialización está concentrada principalmente en cuatro molinos que lideran el mercado no solo del departamento sino también de la región los cuales son: Arroz Diana, Granos y Cereales (arroz Sabrosón), Inversiones Lache (arroz leopardo) y Arrocera del Litoral (arroz extra), en algunos casos estas empresas tienen sus propias extensiones de cultivo para la transformación y comercialización, sin embargo, en otros casos como Arrocera del Litoral e Inversiones Lache compran el arroz paddy directamente a los productores o importan desde Estados Unidos cuando no se alcanza a suplir la demanda.En cuanto a la oferta de productos, manejan diferentes líneas de acuerdo con la calidad del arroz (ej. Premium, Integral) sin embargo, el más vendido en la región es la línea básica o económica que tiene alrededor del 20% de granos partidos, las presentaciones más comunes son las de 500gr y las pacas que contienen de 15 a 20 unidades de 500gr. (García Botina, et al., 2023).LDe acuerdo con la identificación de necesidades, con la comunidad de Zapatero se abordó un proceso de fortalecimiento integral que comprendió todas las etapas de la cadena desde la siembra, poscosecha y comercialización, las cuales se detalla a continuación:El fortalecimiento en el módulo de agricultura sostenible en la comunidad de Zapatero tuvo los siguientes procesos: El fortalecimiento en el componente de poscosecha y procesamiento para asegurar la calidad e inocuidad del arroz producido en la comunidad de Zapatero, se implementó siguiendo el siguiente esquema:Para el fortalecimiento en el componente de comercialización y mercados de la comunidad de Zapatero se implementó el siguiente esquema:En general para todos los cultivos, no se llevan registros de los costos de producción. En el ejercicio de costos realizado con la comunidad para el cultivo de arroz se encontraron los siguientes resultados: el costo de producción de una hectárea asciende a COP$ 6´590.000 dónde el 47% es destinado a insumos, seguido de mano de obra 34%.Al realizar un análisis de los costos de producción actuales y los ingresos que se tienen por la actividad productiva de arroz se encontraron los siguientes resultados:Conceptos y análisis interno Comercialización arroz paddy (actual)• El precio de venta de arroz paddy es de COP $1,900/Kg.• Los ingresos por la comercialización de arroz paddy son de COP$9,500,000/ Tonelada.• La rentabilidad de este negocio es de 48%.• El precio de venta de arroz blanco (con características diferenciales) según análisis de mercado es de $7,000/kg• Los ingresos por la comercialización de arroz blanco serían por COP$ 35,000,000/Tonelada.• La rentabilidad de este negocio teniendo en cuenta los costos asociados para la transformación es del 65%De acuerdo con la información, los productores de la comunidad de Zapatero tienen una gran oportunidad si incursionan en la venta de arroz blanco porque, aunque implica un proceso adicional de transformación, ofrece una rentabilidad significativamente mayor que la comercialización de arroz paddy, lo que representa una oportunidad para mejorar sus márgenes de ganancia y agregar valor a su producto final.De acuerdo con el análisis de la capacidad productiva y de transformación de la asociación se definieron dos perfiles de clientes los cuales cumplen con características que permitirán una articulación efectiva y una oportunidad de negocio sólida:El perfil del cliente I describe a los restaurantes de tipo gourmet cuya filosofía se centra en el uso de productos de base local:El segundo perfil de clientes describe el segmento de tiendas saludables, quienes buscan proveer a sus clientes con productos nutritivos y amigables con el medio ambiente:Posterior a la definición del perfil de clientes que podrían generar un mayor impacto en los ingresos de la comunidad de Zapatero, se hizo la identificación de potenciales empresas según estas dos categorías, identificando un total de seis restaurantes y cuatro tiendas saludables, de las cuales se seleccionaron dos para realizar el proceso de conexiones comerciales que se describe a continuación: Las conexiones comerciales fueron diseñadas con el fin de propiciar un espacio de acercamiento entre compradores potenciales y la comunidad de Zapatero. Además, para que tanto oferentes como demandantes tuvieran la oportunidad de exponer los principales aspectos relacionados con el proceso comercial. Los lugares seleccionados para esta conexión comercial fueron: Restaurante Pepina, Restaurante la Picúa y Restaurante bar el Barón.Durante la visita al restaurante La Picúa se identificaron los siguientes aspectos:• Interés del restaurante en productos locales: los administradores del restaurante La Picúa expresaron su interés en adquirir productos locales como arroz, corozo, plátano y guanábana para incorporar en sus propuestas gastronómicas.• Enfoque en el arroz como producto clave: durante la reunión, se discutió la capacidad productiva y los volúmenes de arroz disponibles para la venta. Los productores mencionaron la posibilidad de comercializar arroz blanco, identificando una gran oportunidad en este mercado.• Importancia de la organización de los productores: los administradores del restaurante enfatizaron la necesidad de que los productores se organicen para facilitar procesos de comercialización exitosos, destacando la relevancia de la búsqueda activa de nuevos mercados.• Reconocimiento al trabajo colaborativo: los productores de Zapatero destacaron el enfoque colaborativo en sus actividades agrícolas, con una mención especial a la participación de las mujeres en estos procesos.• Compromiso del restaurante con los productores locales: La Picúa reafirmó su propósito de trabajar con asociaciones de productores y pescadores del municipio para resaltar el valor de los productos locales en sus platos.La conexión comercial realizada entre el Cafe Bar el Barón y los productores de la comunidad de Zapatero dejó los siguientes resultados:• Interés en el arroz biofortificado: el administrador del restaurante El Barón expresó su interés en incorporar arroz biofortificado en sus recetas tras realizar pruebas sobre el peso, tamaño de los granos y tiempo de cocción.• Evaluación del producto: el restaurante El Barón recibió una muestra del arroz biofortificado para conocer su calidad y hacer pruebas antes de la reunión, lo que evidenció una disposición para experimentar con productos locales.• Interés en una relación comercial a corto plazo: ambas partes manifestaron su interés en establecer una relación comercial a corto plazo, no solo para incluir el arroz en los platos del restaurante, sino también para contribuir a la seguridad alimentaria de los trabajadores del Bar.• Compromiso social del Barón: El Barón reafirmó su enfoque en la compra local, destacando su interés en apoyar la producción local de alimentos a través de la adquisición de productos de la comunidad de Zapatero.Como parte del fortalecimiento comercial y de acuerdo con las limitantes identificadas en los ejercicios, se destacó la falta de una marca que los representara como asociación y como comunidad con gran experiencia y oferta productiva, es así como con información recopilada junto con las personas de la comunidad y el apoyo de la Fundación Canal del Dique COMPAS se logró el desarrollo de la marca Agrozapatero, con la cual esperan posicionarse no solo a nivel local sino regional como productores de arroz y otros cultivos a través de la venta directa a restaurantes, tiendas saludables y en mercados locales.Basados en la creación de la marca, la comunidad participante decidió dar un paso más para fortalecer el proceso de comercialización, para lo cual con el apoyo de la Fundación Canal del Dique COMPAS crearon el empaque para la comercialización del arroz:Gracias a la intervención realizada en el marco de la iniciativa AgriLAC y al acompañamiento de la Fundación Canal del Dique COMPAS, los productores de Agrozapatero comenzaron a participar en ferias y eventos para promover sus cultivos, destacándose el arroz biofortificado. Entre estas actividades, participaron en el primer mercado campesino organizado por el Distrito de Cartagena, donde lograron vender todo el arroz disponible en su primera participación, además de otros productos como el melón.Actualmente los productores de Agrozapatero siguen participando en este mercado con diferentes productos agrícolas y están a la espera de tener cosecha de arroz biofortificado para seguirlo comercializando.Por otro lado, los productores también participaron como observadores en la segunda Rueda de Negocios convocada por la Secretaría de Agricultura de la Gobernación de Bolívar. Este evento se realizó en cumplimiento de la Ley 2046 de 2020 y el Decreto reglamentario 248 de 2021, que establecen las condiciones e instrumentos para que las entidades públicas y privadas que contraten con recursos públicos para la adquisición, suministro y entrega de alimentos, en cualquiera de sus modalidades de atención, estén obligadas a adquirir localmente alimentos de pequeños productores agropecuarios y/o de la Agricultura Campesina, Familiar y Comunitaria, así como de sus organizaciones. Este porcentaje mínimo debe ser del treinta por ciento (30%) del valor total del presupuesto de cada entidad destinado a la compra de alimentos.Lo anterior representa una oportunidad clave para los productores de Agrozapatero pues este requisito garantiza un mercado asegurado y estable, lo que les permite acceder a nuevas oportunidades comerciales, mejorar sus ingresos y fortalecer sus capacidades productivas. Además, al fomentar la compra local, se impulsa la economía rural y se promueve un desarrollo agrícola más inclusivo y sostenible.Con el fin de validar con la comunidad de Zapatero sobre la adopción de las prácticas en sus procesos, se diseñó una herramienta de seguimiento que consistió en la implementación de entrevistas individuales a cinco personas y se desarrolló un grupo focal que contó con la participación de 25 personas (14 hombres y 11 mujeres). A continuación, se presentan los resultados:• Tras la participación durante estos dos años en el proceso de fortalecimiento, los participantes reconocen los beneficios y la diferenciación del arroz biofortificado, indican que el principal beneficio al consumir el arroz biofortificado es el contenido de zinc que los otros arroces tradicionales no tienen, algunos dijeron \"la vitamina la trae en el grano, no se la aplican\", también se refirieron a que el consumo de arroz biofortificado ayuda al buen desarrollo de los niños.• En relación con el proceso productivo, los participantes mencionaron que \"se necesita menos semilla para sembrar, la producción es mayor, macolla más, echa más granos\"; en este punto la señora Amparo Nisperuza expuso su experiencia donde expresó que \"obtuvo 14 bolsas de arroz de 5kgd e la siembra que hizo en el patio de la casa\", lo cual considera como un excelente rendimiento. • A la fecha, la comunidad lleva 2 años sembrando arroz biofortificado de la variedad Fedearroz BioZn035, también han aprendido sobre la rotación de cultivos y la importancia que tiene tanto para el cuidado del suelo, como que les ha permitido contar también con frijol para el auto consumo. • Otro aspecto a destacar fue el interés que el grupo de mujeres de la comunidad tuvo frente a la nueva variedad de arroz y al proceso de siembra siguiendo parámetros de agricultura de conservación: los hombres del grupo hoy reconocen cómo gracias a este proceso, las mujeres participan activamente en el cultivo del arroz.BioZn035 la productividad ha aumentado, antes solo tenían una cosecha al año, ahora tienen dos. • Indicaron que prefieren sembrar de la forma tradicional, es decir, al voleo, si bien reconocen que la siembra con semillero trae mejores resultados, el esfuerzo y tiempo empleado es mayor al de la siembra tradicional.\" Se necesita menos semilla para sembrar, la producción es mayor, macolla más, echa más granos. Amparo Nisperuza productora de la comunidad de Zapatero.• Aunque participaron en talleres de agricultura de conservación, aún no están dispuestos a cambiar algunas prácticas agronómicas que generan menos impacto ambiental porque les implica mayor inversión en mano de obra. • Sin embargo, han adoptado prácticas como la rotación de cultivos y el uso de bioinsumos, con las cuales están contribuyendo con la restauración del medio ambiente.• Según el seguimiento realizado, los procesos poscosecha que se realizan dentro de la comunidad son mínimos, el arroz lo venden en verde o paddy, es decir que no realizan algún proceso de secado o molienda para el arroz que venden. • El arroz que destinan para autoconsumo lo secan al sol en los patios de las casas y lo pilan, generalmente esta última labor la realizan las mujeres y una vez pilado lo almacenan en tanques sellados, procesos que aún carecen de seguir las normas de buenas prácticas de manufactura. • Al analizar en laboratorio muestras de arroz paddy que produce la asociación, los resultados obtenidos lo clasifican como un arroz tipo \"premium\". • Aunque cuentan con un molino, no tienen la infraestructura requerida para el proceso de molienda, afectando la calidad del producto final. • El arroz pulido no se produce bajo prácticas adecuadas de manufactura, lo que afecta la calidad e inocuidad del producto.• El proceso de comercialización lo realizan de forma individual, aun no venden como colectivo, su principal comprador se encuentra en Barranquilla, es arrocera el Litoral y venden al arroz por bultos; sin embargo, desde el último acompañamientode AgriLAC en la zona, manifiestan haber participado en dos mercados campesinos en los que han sido invitados por la UMATA y por la Fundación Canal del Dique COMPAS, donde han comercializado a pequeña escala el arroz y el melón. • Dentro de los retos a los que se enfrentan, mencionan que no cuentan con un transporte propio y que el precio del arroz es estándar y establecido por el mercado, por lo cual hay poca o nula capacidad de negociación. • Actualmente se evidencia que tienen un negocio rentable con la venta de arroz paddy. • Aunque tiene interés en comercializar arroz pulido, no cuentan con las condiciones organizativas y comerciales.• Después de las conexiones comerciales en las que participaron no se han establecido acuerdos con los compradores porque manifiestan que la calidad que exigen es alta y ellos aun no la cumplen, tienen presente que es una gran oportunidad, sin embargo, deben fortalecerse en algunos aspectos (calidad del arroz) para cubrir estos mercados.• La comunidad de AgroZapatero tiene un alto potencial para abastecer de arroz pulido a los restaurantes locales de Cartagena y a tiendas de alimentos saludables. Así mismo se ha identificado potencial para comercializar el arroz pulido en ferias y mercados locales de la ciudad, para ello deben seguir una serie de pasos que les permitan tener un arroz pulido de alta calidad:• Certificarse en la producción de arroz pulido, para ello pueden asesorarse del SENA.• Realizar las adecuaciones de infraestructura para el molino artesanal con el fin de cumplir con la normativa técnica.• Otra alternativa que la comunidad podría evaluar es contratar un servicio de maquila para su arroz en paddy para que puedan comercializarlo bajo su propia marca siguiendo los parámetros de calidad y del mercado.• Si bien actualmente no cuentan con las condiciones necesarias para la venta de arroz a los restaurantes con los que se establecieron conexiones comerciales, se recomienda avanzar con la venta de otros productos ofrecidos durante esos encuentros, como melón, mango y corozo. Esto permitirá establecer una relación comercial sólida con los clientes, generando confianza y manteniendo abiertas las oportunidades para, en el futuro, comercializar el arroz biofortificado. Además, esta estrategia diversifica los ingresos de los productores y fortalece su posicionamiento en el mercado.• En cuanto a la organización de la comunidad, se recomienda la constitución como asociación de productores, ya que ello les permitirá contar con la documentación que requieren algunos potenciales compradores para poder cerrar las transacciones.• A nivel organizacional, es fundamental crear diversos comités y asignar responsabilidades específicas para garantizar que los procesos dentro de la comunidad sean más fluidos y que las actividades no recaigan solo en unas pocas personas. La distribución equitativa de tareas no solo mejora la eficiencia, sino que también fomenta una mayor participación. Se recomienda que estos comités sean liderados por mujeres y jóvenes de la comunidad, ya que su inclusión en roles de liderazgo puede fortalecer el sentido de pertenencia y compromiso, además de promover la equidad y la innovación en las iniciativas comunitarias.• En el componente técnico, se recomienda adquirir semilla certificada que garantice las características del cultivo. Establecer rotaciones de cultivos en los lotes para disminuir el banco de malezas y hacer un uso racional de herbicidas, permitiendo el uso de productos pre-emergentes que disminuyen la incidencia de estas hierbas y generan menos contaminación al medio ambiente. También se recomienda seguir fortaleciendo la preparación de bioinsumos, ya que, como han comprobado los mismos productores y los datos recolectados, el uso de estos insumos tienen un alto impacto en el rendimiento y la calidad del suelo. Además de contribuir a la sostenibilidad ambiental al reducir el impacto sobre el medio ambiente, el uso de bioinsumos puede considerarse un valor agregado al momento de comercializar el arroz, lo que podría mejorar su competitividad en el mercado. To learn more about this Initiative, please visit this webpage.","tokenCount":"3930"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6e6493c146648596c629a5262b0ba14b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ecddcc54-f06b-4dde-b774-a99ac0f70d5d/retrieve","id":"2009687384"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e686327d-7b2f-4c4a-ad7b-145b57d54d58","pagecount":"2","content":"Although many countries in Southeast Asia are evolving an urban-and market-based economy, rural poverty persists. More than 200 million rural people live on less than US$1 a day, the majority depending on mixed crop-livestock agriculture for their household income, food security and asset accumulation. Pig production is an important livelihood option in China, Vietnam and parts of Thailand.With rapid economic growth, knowledge about how to adapt small-scale farming systems to change is an essential tool in the fight against poverty. The project aims to improve smallholders' incomes by improving collaboration and strengthening links throughout the market chain. The project examines the use of modelling and simulation tools as a means of developing novel feeding strategies for small-scale croplivestock producers. These strategies are based on the feed potential of improved sweet potato varieties and other feed resources, complemented with efficient techniques of silage making and a smallholder-based industry of protein extraction from sweet potato leaves.The aim is to identify sustainable feeding strategies based on local resources managed by the smallholders themselves. By improving on-farm feed resources, including sweet potato, legumes and others, the project aims to ensure that farmers have year-round feed availability, better livestock productivity and higher household income. Production of value-added local products (e.g. sweet potato-based silage and high-protein supplements derived from sweet potato and legume leaves) will improve employment opportunities, household income and livestock nutrition. The project also aims to strengthen local feed market linkages for these value-added local products.Project teams in each country have received training in management of the sweet potato crop and in the use of various livestock modelling tools. They also helped redesign the tools to make them more interactive. As suggested by the model, using sweet potato silage as the main diet for fattening pigs reduced production costs, resulting in a greater gross margin for the households. This technology represented a better option for farmers than purchasing the more expensive commercially available concentrates.Feeding sweet potato silage and home-made concentrate feed to pigs gave farmers higher gross margins compared with those achieved using commercial concentrates and no silage. Although including sweet potato silage in theSystem analysis and modelling tools to develop improved feeding strategies for small-scale crop-livestock farmers in Southeast Asia The SLP-funded project Using system analysis and modeling tools to develop improved feeding strategies for small-scale crop-livestock farmers in Southeast Asia (2007)(2008)(2009) was conducted by CIP and the national research institutions of China (SASA), Vietnam (NIAH) and Thailand (DLD) with scientific contribution from the Production Systems and the Environment Division of CIP.ration tended to lead to a lower final live weight, it resulted in a more uniform weight gain, which increased the gross margin by 37%. Therefore, sweet potato silage is a good alternative to supplementing concentrate feed with other locally available resources, since it gives a higher gross margin and better total farm income.A ration for fattening pigs requires a good quality supply of protein. Through laboratory analysis, the team identified the most profitable combination of sweet potato and legume. Protein extracted from sweet potato vines appears to have an adequate amino acid balance and the extraction method can be adapted for use on a small farm.Project staff will also test and validate various livestock production models as a means of further improving the use of local resources for smallholder pig production. By training extension workers and other development practitioners in the use of such tools, it is hoped to disseminate the idea more widely, resulting in more efficient use of resources and greater income for poor farmers.Some adaptive on-farm research, training and dissemination activities will continue and a strategy for long-term technology dissemination will be designed with the local partners.Sweet potato has proved to be a valuable feed resource for smallholder crop-livestock systems in the tropical and subtropical lowlands of Southeast Asia. This novel strategy for sweet potato conservation can be used on most small farms. Protein extraction from sweet potato vines has proven to be a feasible option, providing good quality protein that can be used as both food and feed.Novel sweet potato silage making in smallholder pig farms","tokenCount":"679"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fbedc51e3ce88a0356d8f77564cc3460","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/b7020912-2c79-44c3-9590-d239a2f20e89/content","id":"-2008423597"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8c2459d4-2b7b-4d12-9a89-38fdaf635d5f","pagecount":"47","content":"Table 1. (continued)•r c:ov.atry CJUJU\"s• CY.UU\"S\" • IGC/Tl11 x:-14536-ltr-1 r-1 Y-1a-1 r-1910 JIBXlCO 1a-or Cl UC.VO CV c KAGll&IBl '\"S \"/BR\" S\" / /110/]/CENTElfO ALTO X-lSO•Cl 1978 KEXICO CINNAJllON CIN • IUA X-2•02-61N-JH-O• 1)10 MIX I CO CINUEl'I CillUtM ' PW121/P&OLIPIC ' 1i13 MIXICO CIVi:T\"S\" CIVET\"s• c MUS\" S \"//DRI&A/l.GI. 8-2651 1912 MIXICO COOR.ONG cao • tA x-1•&f1-sa-211-or-2B-OY 1910 S-AUSTllALIA CUIUt£NCY CHY c MlA/BGL\"S\" X-15.5 5 2-3 3H-2Y-2Y-1M-OY 1911 S-AUSTRALIA CUYO CUYO ' IISS/CIK\"R\" X-1S69l-l06Y-1M-Oll: 1919 KIXICO DACHSHOtlD DACH oTable 1. (continued)One of CIMMYT's primary functions is to produce germplasm for use by national crop improvement programs and other collaborators. In the development of triticale germplasm, emphasis is given to producing advanced materials that can be readily integrated into these collaborating breeding programs. Early generation segregating materials are also made available to cooperators.Each year, CIMMYT makes thousands of triticale crosses and generates hundreds of advanced lines. These materials are distributed annually to cooperators by way of our international nursery system. National programs and other cooperators are free to use the germplasm in CIMMYT nurseries in whatever ways best suit their needs. Options range from crossing with local cultivars to placing entries directly into multiplication for eventual release as cultivars. The reader should note that CIMMYT does not release nor name varieties; that is the right and responsibility of cooperating national programs, and each has its own system for naming released cultivars. CIMMYT does assign names to advanced triticale breeding lines (using the names of animals). This is done to differentiate promising lines, and to simplify our pedigree recording system and the making of crosses. This bulletin contains a compilation of all triticale cultivars and advanced lines produced by CIMMYT and by the Mexican National Institute of Agricultural Research (!NIA); it also contains the names and pedigrees of cultivars that have been released by cooperating programs. Our purpose in publishing this bulletin is to facilitate the exchange of more exact information among triticale researchers working with these materials, and to assist them in their note-taking and record-keepinf! activities.With the publication of this bulletin, CIMMYT has opted for a change in its system of indicating the order of crosses in each pedigree so as to conform with the system now used by most other crop breeding organizations. Not only will this make it easier to trade data, but the system itself is easier to use. The table below contains a comparison of the old and new systems. Thus, if parent A is crossed with parent B and the F1 hybrid is crossed with parent C, its pedigree would be designated as A/B/ IC. Subsequent crosses with parental material D,E,F and G would be indicated as:A/B//C/3/D/4/E/5/F/6/GThe female parent is designated by listing it first (to the left side) followed by the pollen parent (placed to the right side of the cross). Thus, A is the female and B is the pollen parent in the first cross. The line A/B is the female and C is the pollen parent in cross two, etc.Backcrosses are designated with an asterisk ( •) and a number indicating the dosage of the recurrent parent. Because of the large number of crosses made annually by CIMMYT and cooperating institutions, this bulletin requires updating and revision periodically to accomodate additional entries. We welcome contributed information and suggestions designed to make this compilation more comprehensive and useful to triticale researchers the world over.(JI            El>A\"S\"ELAtfD ELD s M.2A//K.LA /Bllll\"S\".X:-.>.   HIPPO\"S\" s PND\"S \"/SPD\"S \"/4./TGE\"S\" /1/PG\"S\" /CENT.  .... • lTOC lt32 = TJ/BGL\"S\"BTA\"S'//PHD\"S\"/YE 75/5/El/ARM\"S\"/ /1'12.A/l/AJ>X \"S \"/4/NY\" S \"/BGL\" S\" C llUS\"S\" /JLO\"S\" K2A/CKL t\"J/IRA PTR\"S\"//CIH /FS 651 BGL DEi.IV ./AHTEATEJ.\"S\" lllA/BGL\" S \"//M2A\"' 2/ClN M2A/9ULX E2//CHL\"S\"    \"\"\"UJtON 11 S• U&ON\"S\" c OCTO llY/HAB.E//BCH\"S\"/SPY llY.E VACA\"S\" YACA\"S\" s K2A/Cill//PllD\" S\"WHALE\"S\" c W74. 103/ADX\" S \"/3/BGL\"S \"/M2A//lllA WOLP'\"S\" WOLP'\"S\" s CML\" s II /l:AL/ /LOBO\" s II /l/GPR .. s .. /RM\" s.WOMBAT\"S\"WBT\"S\", PG \"S \"/CEMT. BULK//A8N,. S \"/l/JRA/CML   3. Triticale cultivars and advanced lines sorted according to cross numbers.MEllINO\"S\" ltERillO\"S\" c M2A/TCL WHEATY/ /Il!IIA/l/BGL• S\"     s PRD\"S \"/MPE 11 $ \"/ /GPR\" S \"/YAK \"S\" X-50 40 8-B-5Y-2Y-1K-l Y-0 WOLP'\"S\" WOLF\"S\" s CML\" s .. /ICAl./ /LOBO .. s \"/ 3/GPR\" s \"/RM\" s II X-50 59 8-A KATZE\"S\" KATZE\"S\" s DACK/WLOSZANOWSKIE//M2A• 2 X-!.3260REH\"S\" REH\"S • s SRL\"S \"//M2A/CAL/5/BUEY/BGL\" S •I X-S4032-B /MFS \"S \"/l/IA/IllA/4/ADX\" S HIPPO\"S\" HIPPO\"S\" s PRD\"S .. /SPD 11 5 .. /4/TGE II s .. /l/PG. s .. IX.-6201 C&KT llULlr.//ABN\"S\" MUSTANG\"$\"MST\"S\" s Al•\"S 11 //M2A /IRA/l/PND\"S\"/CASTOB./ X-6 l l 77-l-2Y-2K-OY 4/416/SPY//TED\" S\" LAMM\"S\" LAHM\"S\" s LMG\"S \"/SPD\" S \"/4/BGL\" S \"/MUS\" S \"/      •... ","tokenCount":"756"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"39d0bec6436442a8309ad3576ed66a45","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/47b74df8-5ff6-4d7a-ab5e-8698479c39e2/retrieve","id":"1510427520"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"094ad089-6e43-4905-88cb-b1e6ff94c9eb","pagecount":"5","content":"The impacts of climate change in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA), are already well known to farmers. Climate change affects women more negatively compared to men in five impact areas: (i) agricultural production; (ii) food and nutrition security; (iii) health; (iv) water and energy; (v) climate-related disaster, migration, and conflict. Over 2 million people in Kenya face the threat of food insecurity due to climate change.Maize production is particularly vulnerable to climate change. It is projected to face not only 15% climate-related declines in yield without adaptation but also challenges from diminished cropland suitability and poor agronomic inputs and management; degraded environmental bases with declining soil fertility and degraded water systems are already apparent.Given that maize-mixed systems cover over 75% of the cropping land in many places, it is critical to build climate resilience and derisk through diversification.Crop diversification seeks to promote crop diversity by crop rotation, multiple cropping, or intercropping, with the goal of improving productivity, sustainability, and supply of ecological systems.Ukama Ustawi (UU): Diversification for Resilient Agri-food in East and Southern Africa: This aims to help millions of smallholders intensify, diversify and de-risk maize-mixed farming through improved extension services, institutional capacity strengthening, targeted farm management bundles, policy support, enterprise development and private investment.The Gender Equality Initiative (HER+): Tackles gender inequality in agri-food systems to build climate change resilience in the Global South. We aim to co-Identify and model diverse scenarios for bundling climate-smart technologies to empower women and men to be partners and drivers of climate-change solutions.In Kenya, Ukama Ustawi and HER+ are implemented in 5 counties: Nakuru, Narok, Kakamega, Embu and Makueni. Map showing UU and HER+ sites in KenyaThe project promotes Conservation Agriculture and promotes the three principles of CA that help to regenerate soils while at the same time building resilience to climate change.Crop diversification involves integrating legumes such as beans, green grams, pigeon peas, cowpea into the cereal based cropping systems.In Nakuru County, KALRO Njoro is collaborating with the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, Participatory Approaches For Integrated Development (PAFID) and the County Governments of Nakuru to scale out sustainable intensification and climate smart agriculture practices to build resilience in the maize based system. The interventions are in 3 Sub-Counties: Njoro, Rongai and Gilgil where 6 mother demos have been established to enable learning by farmers and researchers.Interventions revolve around the following areas:• Climate Smart Agriculture ","tokenCount":"393"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d4f04a3c819bc10a627c18204c6e2e32","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/234cbe58-05c1-4428-a85f-77827d7b9244/retrieve","id":"-2030203693"},"keywords":["nutrient balance","legumes","biological nitrogen fixation","manure","soil fertility ORCID iDs"],"sieverID":"d1a4eab4-e12b-4e38-a6da-fa20e175eb13","pagecount":"16","content":"Can farmers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) boost crop yields and improve food availability without using more mineral fertilizer? This question has been at the center of lively debates among the civil society, policy-makers, and in academic editorials. Proponents of the \"yes\" answer have put forward the \"input reduction\" principle of agroecology, i.e. by relying on agrobiodiversity, recycling and better efficiency, agroecological practices such as the use of legumes and manure can increase crop productivity without the need for more mineral fertilizer. We reviewed decades of scientific literature on nutrient balances in SSA, biological nitrogen fixation of tropical legumes, manure production and use in smallholder farming systems, and the environmental impact of mineral fertilizer. Our analyses show that more mineral fertilizer is needed in SSA for five reasons: (i) the starting point in SSA is that agricultural production is \"agroecological\" by default, that is, very low mineral fertilizer use, widespread mixed crop-livestock systems and large crop diversity including legumes, but leading to poor soil fertility as a result of widespread soil nutrient mining, (ii) the nitrogen needs of crops cannot be adequately met solely through biological nitrogen fixation by legumes and recycling of animal manure, (iii) other nutrients like phosphorus and potassium need to be replaced continuously, (iv) mineral fertilizers, if used appropriately, cause little harm to the environment, and (v) reducing the use of mineral fertilizers would hamper productivity gains and contribute indirectly to agricultural expansion and to deforestation. Yet, the agroecological principles directly related to soil fertility-recycling, efficiency, diversity-remain key in improving soil health and nutrient-use efficiency, and are critical to sustaining crop productivity in the long run. We argue for a nuanced position that acknowledges the critical need for more mineral fertilizers in SSA, in combination with the use of agroecological practices and adequate policy support.Agriculture is at the cross-road of sustainability issues related to food security, biodiversity loss, environmental degradation and climate change. Alternative approaches to \"industrial\" or \"conventional\" agriculture (Sumberg and Giller, 2022), such as regenerative agriculture and agroecology are gaining momentum, as noticeable from the rising number of scientific papers dealing with these topics (Giller et al., 2021b;Wezel and Jauneau, 2011). Success stories of farmers in the tropics who shift away from mineral fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemical inputs also abound on social media and communication materials of nongovernmental organizations. These are increasingly being populated with testimonies of farmers diversifying their cropping systems with cover crops, investing in livestock keeping, producing high-quality compost, and improving their cropland with the use of legumes, often with claims of great positive impact on income, food security, and soil fertility maintenance.These promises of diversified and \"fully-integrated\" farming systems where the need for external inputs to sustain soil fertility and crop productivity is reduced or eliminated, along with abundant scientific literature on the farmlevel impact of resource recycling and improved efficiency, have certainly inspired the \"input reduction\" principle of agroecology: \"Reduce or eliminate dependency on purchased inputs and substitute conventional inputs that have negative impacts on the environment, replacing them by making use of agroecological alternatives\" (Wezel et al., 2020).Agroecology can be defined in numerous ways. A broad definition is \"the science of the relationships of organisms in an environment purposely transformed by man for crop or livestock production\" (Martin and Sauerborn, 2013). More recently, agroecology has been defined as the application of ecological concepts and principles to optimize interactions between plants, animals, humans and the environment while taking into consideration the social aspects that need to be addressed for a sustainable and fair food system (Wezel et al., 2020). A key focus has been increased reliance on knowledge and management of ecological processes, complementing and reducing the use of external inputs, like mineral fertilizers and pesticides. Agroecology revolves around a set of 10 elements (FAO, 2018) or 13 principles (HLPE, 2021), among which the recycling, input reduction, soil health, biodiversity and synergy principles are directly relevant to soil fertility maintenance. 1 These principles can be operationalized through a wide range of agroecological practices, among which are intercropping, agroforestry, rotation with legumes and crop-livestock integration. Decades of scientific work in the tropics have shown that these agroecological practices can contribute to replenishing and maintaining soil fertility, i.e., \"the ability of a soil to sustain plant growth by providing essential plant nutrients and favorable chemical, physical, and biological characteristics as a habitat for plant growth\" (https://www.fao.org/global-soil-partnership/areas-of-work/ soil-fertility/en/).Here, we question the \"input reduction\" principle of agroecology: what does it mean in resource-limited farming contexts, such as those commonly experienced by smallholder farmers throughout sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)?The aforementioned success stories often seem based on conducive individual circumstances, for example, high remittances and above-average farm size, thus neglecting the constraints faced by the majority of smallholder farmers in SSA. Farm sizes have been shrinking in SSA, and soils are generally nutrient-depleted, due to low inherent fertility and decades of continuous cropping with low nutrient inputs, leading to low crop productivity (Sanchez, 2002). Huge productivity gains need to be achieved to match a growing food demand (van Ittersum et al., 2016). Yet, in the development community, particularly in SSA, an emerging viewpoint considers the use of mineral fertilizers as \"climate stupid.\" 2 Advocates of this perspective argue that governments should stop subsidizing them, due to their rising costs and their negative impact on the environment, including the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Instead, they advocate for the promotion of low-cost agroecological alternatives that are expected to revitalize the soil and protect the ecosystem. Within the scientific literature, there is a debate at the science-policy interface harnessing current knowledge to build views on the possible future of agricultural systems: some authors claim that there is \"a growing consensus that sustainable intensification in Africa will be […] fertilizer intensive\" (Jayne et al., 2019;Vanlauwe et al., 2014), while others assert, that \"reducing the dependency on purchased inputs can reduce food insecurity especially for small-scale food producers\" (Wezel et al., 2020) and that \"the challenges farmers face can be met with appropriate management […] making the addition of external inputs largely unnecessary\" (Gliessman, 2014). Côte et al. (2022) propose a reconciling view of agroecology that does not exclude \"the use of […] exogenous inputs when yield gap is important,\" insisting that \"an in-depth agroecological transformation […] should be free of synthetic pesticides and should be parsimonious in the use of synthetic fertilizers.\" Donor agencies, notably the European Union and its member countries, increasingly support development projects in SSA that engage with the agroecological transition and transition to green economies (DG DEVCO, 2020), without necessarily being clear on the role that external inputs and mineral fertilizer play.In this article, we critically examine the input reduction claim made by agroecology in the context of smallholder farmers in SSA. Our objective is to evaluate the feasibility and desirability of this principle for SSA, specifically concerning the maintenance of soil fertility and the role of mineral fertilizer. Our analysis leads to five arguments: (i) the starting point in Africa is \"agroecological\" by default, meaning very low fertilizer use, that has over the years led to poor soil fertility as a result of widespread soil nutrient mining, (ii) the nitrogen (N) required by crops cannot be adequately fulfilled solely through biological N fixation from legumes or through recycling of animal manure, (iii) other nutrients like phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) need to be replaced and are also key for biological N fixation, (iv) mineral fertilizer, if used appropriately, causes little harm to the environment, and (v) reducing the use of mineral fertilizer would hamper crop productivity gains and contributes indirectly to agricultural expansion. We then discuss the role that agroecological principles can play in improving soil health and nutrient use efficiency, and in sustaining crop productivity.Our analyses focus on rainfed annual cropping systems in SSA. This category regroups the maize crop-livestock, root and tuber crop, and cereal-root crop-livestock farming systems (Dixon et al., 2001) that predominate on the continent. Our analysis does not focus on irrigated systems (e.g., rice, vegetables) and perennial systems (e.g., coffee, cocoa, oil palm), that represent a relatively smaller share of the agricultural production area (Vanlauwe et al., 2023).Starting point in SSA: Agroecological \"by default\"Maintaining soil fertility through agroecological practices has been a common feature of mixed crop-livestock farming systems in SSA where livestock plays a great role in soil fertility maintenance. For example, in the cotton basin of southern Mali, the income earned from cotton production has been used by farmers to increase the size of their cattle herd-they can recycle amounts of manure as high as three tons per hectare per year (Falconnier et al., 2015). Farmers also rely on legumes and biological N fixation: in central Senegal, farmers have cultivated millet in rotation with groundnut for decades (Noba et al., 2014). Across the semiarid and subhumid zones of the continent, from the groundnut basin of central Senegal and the cotton basin of southern Mali, to central Ethiopia (Sida et al., 2018) and the mid-Zambezi valley in Zimbabwe (Baudron, 2011), farmers have deliberately retained native trees in their fields, creating the so-called \"parklands.\" Some of these trees are N-fixing trees, for example, the well-known Faidherbia albida (Delile) A. Chev. (Peltier, 1996). In the Sahel region, farmers have traditionally maintained long-term fallows that help replenish soil fertility and offer an additional source for livestock nutrition and manure production (Schlecht et al., 2004).As a result of these long-standing agroecological practices, manure and biological N fixation have been estimated to be the largest sources of N input to cropland when considering the African continent as a whole (Billen et al., 2014). In fact, Africa is the only region of the world where mineral fertilizer is not the first source of N input to cropland (Billen et al., 2014). This conclusion also holds when looking at N inputs to cropland at the farm and village level: despite considerable variations among farms in, e.g., Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Mali, organic inputs from outside the farm/village are the primary source of N, followed by biological N fixation, atmospheric deposition and mineral fertilizer, in that order (Figure 1). The main sources of P input to cropland in Africa are manure and mineral fertilizer, which contribute approximately the same amount, around 2.5 kg P/ha/year. This is in contrast to the other regions of the world where the main P source is mineral fertilizer (>10 kg P/ha/year) (Ringeval et al., 2017).Fertilizer use on cropland (including perennials) is currently very low in SSA, on average 13 kg N/ha/year, 3 kg P/ ha/year, and 3 kg K/ha/year (FAOSTAT, 2023). This contrasts sharply with other regions of the world, e.g., Northern America with 73, 11, and 21 kg/ha/year for N, P, and K, and China with 170, 29, and 54 kg/ha/year for N, P, and K, respectively. The numbers for Africa mask, however, a great diversity across countries and agroecological regions within countries (Vanlauwe et al., 2023). In Africa, fertilizers are predominantly used in horticultural systems and large commercial farms, whereas their use is extremely limited in smallholder farms. Southern Africa has witnessed a sharper increase in mineral fertilizer use in the 1960s compared with East and West Africa, possibly because of the thriving large-scale farm sector in the region. In the 1980s, the phasing-out of governmental subsidies for inputs, as a result of structural adjustment programs, has caused mineral fertilizer use to decrease in several countries of SSA (Jayne et al., 2018).One could therefore argue that smallholder mixed crop-livestock farming systems across SSA do not need to engage in an \"agroecological\" transition, given their limited dependency on external inputs in the form of mineral fertilizer, and their reliance on biological N fixation and recycling of plant biomass. Yet, a close look at the nutrient balances of cropping systems across the region suggests that long-term agro-environmental sustainability is not granted. Soil nutrient mining is widespread: Smaling et al. (1997) estimated that the cultivated land in SSA was losing annually 22 kg of N, 2.5 kg of P, and 15 kg of K per hectare. These negative balances have continued to increase over time (Vanlauwe et al., 2023). A comprehensive literature review indicated that more than 75% of nutrient balance studies across SSA concluded on negative balances for N and K, and about 60% of studies for P (Cobo et al., 2010). Long-term experiments conducted across the region also point to substantial soil nutrient mining over time; even the biennial rotation system of millet and groundnut in the F. albida parklands in central Senegal has shown evident negative N and P balances (Pieri, 1989). Similarly, the millet cropping system of western Niger with fallowing and strong livestock-mediated nutrient transfers was found to lose nutrients (Powell et al., 2004). The nutrient inputs derived from agroecological processes, as currently harnessed by smallholder farmers in SSA, combined with the current low fertilizer use, cannot compensate for nutrient exports and losses, that mainly occur in the form of crop harvest products, animal removals, leaching, and soil erosion. Demographic pressure and the related cropland expansion at the expense of rangelands and fallows add further constraints on soil fertility maintenance with current agroecological practices (Schlecht et al., 2004).This happens in the context of low crop yields compared to the yield potential that could be achieved based on the region's climate and soil properties (Affholder et al., 2013). This discrepancy can be largely attributed to low nutrient availability in the soils (Sanchez, 2002). Yields need to substantially increase to meet the current and future food demand and alleviate rural poverty in SSA while minimizing deforestation and other forms of land-use change. Narrowing yield gaps in SSA can contribute to increasing food security at household, national, and continental levels (Gérard et al., 2020;Giller et al., 2021a;van Ittersum et al., 2016). For example, modest increases in maize yield were found to greatly contribute to improved food security in Tanzania and Uganda, though this depended strongly on local contexts (Falconnier et al., 2023). Yet, increases in cereal productivity can only be achieved if nutrient inputs increase substantially (ten Berge et al., 2019). Across several case studies, the estimated maize grain yields that are compatible with food security ranged from 3.5 to 11.9 t/ha (median 6.5 t/ ha, Table 1). This translates into N uptake (grain + straw) that ranges from 54 to 228 kg N/ha, with a median of 113 kg N/ha (Table 1 and Figure 2A). For a maize-based cropping system to be sustainable, these crop exports need to be compensated by some form of nutrient inputs. If mineral fertilizers were to be reduced as per the \"input reduction\" claim of agroecology, other forms of input need to be drastically increased. In the next sections, we examine to what extent legumes and biological N fixation, and the recycling of plant biomass through composting and use of cattle manure, can help bring the N, P, and K required.Most legumes obtain N from the atmosphere through a symbiotic relationship with rhizobia bacteria. Plant N originating from biological fixation, if not exported from the field, is a net input to the soil-crop system. Four types of legumes can be distinguished: trees and shrubs, green manures (i.e., legumes primarily cultivated for biomass to be incorporated into the soil), grain legumes (legumes primarily cultivated for food), and fodder legumes (legumes primarily cultivated to provide feed and fodder to livestock). Figures 2B-C clearly demonstrate that on average, the potential net input from biological N fixation is greatest for legume trees and shrubs, and green manures, followed by grain legumes and fodder legumes. In what follows we scrutinize the constraints to fully achieve high levels of net N inputs with the integration of legumes into cropping systems.Legume trees and shrubs could contribute as much as 100 kg N/ha/year through N fixation (median of 13 studies, Figure 2B). The net N inputs vary considerably, owing to the way perennials are integrated into cropping systems, and which plant parts are left on or incorporated into the soil (Figure 2B). Trees and shrubs can be integrated into cropping systems in at least three different ways. The first is improved woody legume fallows (Sileshi et al., 2008), where trees are planted to give a large amount of high-quality biomass that can be incorporated into the soil to release nutrients for the subsequent crop. Improved fallows usually take two years to be implemented and can be considered a short-term benefit for soil fertility, but with a strong trade-off with food security because food crops cannot be grown during the fallow period. Labor for planting trees and weeding can also be a constraint to the adoption of these systems by farmers (Giller, 2001). A second option to integrate trees are parklands, i.e., the deliberate retention of scattered trees in farmers' field so that mature trees coexist with crops. In the parklands of the Sahel region, it is common to find F. albida trees, that shed their leaves during the growing season, so that competition with the annual crop for light, water and nutrients is limited (Sida et al., 2018). However, only mature trees aged 20-40 years fix substantial amounts of N (Giller, 2001), which makes it a longterm investment for farmers. Although more observations are needed, net N inputs from parklands seem also lower than those from improved woody legume fallows (Figure 2B). Besides, there is a threshold beyond which the increase in tree density in parklands no longer benefits the crop (Leroux et al., 2020). A third option is alley cropping, where trees or shrubs are planted in rows alongside the crops, and their prunings can be left on or incorporated into the soil (Sileshi et al., 2011). Farmers' adoption of  Boxplot of (A) estimated maize nitrogen (N) uptake (in grain + straw) for grain yield compatible with food security in four selected studies (see Table 1 for details of the four studies), (B) Net N input from biological N fixation from trees (13 studies), (C) Net N input from biological N fixation from green manures (21 studies), grain legumes (59 studies) and fodder legumes (60 studies), (D) Net N input from manure (four studies). For grain legumes, we assumed that all grain was exported and only stover was returned to the field, with a harvest index of 0.4 for soybean and groundnut and 0.35 for other grain legumes (Herridge et al., 2008). For fodder legumes, the studies are the same as for green manure (excluding those that are not palatable), but we assumed that only roots were returned to the soil. N fixed in roots was estimated using a root: shoot ratio of 0.3 for the majority of studies where it was not quantified. The dotted horizontal bar in B, C, and D is the median maize uptake (see A). In B, two outliers are not displayed (1063 and 1026 kg/ha, Peoples et al., 1996). See Table S1 for details on the reviewed studies.alley cropping has been generally low (e.g., Swinkels and Franzel, 1997), unless employed on contours and used as fodder (see section on fodder legumes). Although alley cropping offers the prospect of alleviating the trade-off between food security and environmental sustainability, because food crops and trees can be mixed, trees often compete strongly with the crops for light and water, especially during dry years (Rao et al., 1991).Nitrogen fixation by green manures, grain and fodder legumesGreen manures have similar potential net N inputs to cropland compared with trees and shrubs (median of 91 kg N/ha/year across 20 studies, Figure 2C). Although green manures rotated with cereals can bring a substantial yield benefit to the cereal (e.g., Ripoche et al., 2021), this comes at the cost of foregoing a part of the cereal yield, similar to woody fallows. The increase in cereal yield from the green manure often does not sufficiently compensate for this yield penalty (e.g., Ojiem et al., 2014;Ranaivoson et al., 2022). The small farm sizes exacerbate the challenge of losing a growing season for cereals, thereby becoming a major obstacle to the adoption of green manures. This concern has been very often voiced by farmers, along with the lack of consumable or marketable products derived from green manures (Vanlauwe et al., 2003). Additional labor is also another constraint, as incorporating the biomass from green manure into the soil can take as much as 80 persons per day per ha for a prolific Mucuna in Malawi (Vanlauwe and Giller, 2006), i.e., 40 times more than what is required to apply mineral N fertilizer (Ojiem et al., 2014).Grain legumes offer directly consumable and marketable products, e.g., the grains of cowpea, soybean, common beans, and groundnut and are therefore preferred by farmers over woody fallows and green manures. However, the benefits in terms of soil fertility are smaller because the grains are removed from the field (Figure 2C). Franke et al. (2018) showed that on average grain legumes increase cereal yield by 0.49 t ha −1 via their precrop effects. Such yield increase is considerable, but far below the strong cereal yield increases needed to reach food security in SSA (see the first section). There is a strong trade-off between legume grain yield and the residual soil nutrient benefits (Giller et al., 1994). High-yielding soybean varieties with high N-harvest index can even be \"net removers\" of soil N (Vanlauwe and Giller, 2006). Overall, the grain productivity of legumes is far below that of cereals, for a labor demand that is generally greater (Ojiem et al., 2014), which is a major impediment to the adoption of grain legumes by smallholder farmers.Plant residues, including prunings from shrubs and trees, as well as the stems and leaves of grain legumes, are often of great value as fodder for livestock (except some green manures with toxic components like in some species of Crotalaria). For example, farmers in East Africa adopted the cultivation of fodder shrubs like Leucaena trichandra on contours (Wambugu et al., 2011). However, with fodder legumes, all aboveground biomass is exported from the fields, and only roots remain, representing a small N source for the following crop (Figure 2C). On the other hand, part of the fodder biomass and its nutrients can be returned to the field in the form of manure (see the section on manure).Grain legume intercropping can be a promising alternative to cereal-legume rotations, as it allows for the maintenance of cereal production. Although the proportion of N uptake by the legumes through biological fixation is usually similar in intercropping compared with sole cropping (e.g., Namatsheve et al., 2020), the absolute amounts, and the potential net inputs to the cropping system, are smaller (Figure 2C). This is due to the lower plant density of the legume in intercropping compared with the sole cropping, but also because of competition for light and water with the cereal crop (e.g., Traoré et al., 2022). For example, Namatsheve et al. (2020) found that the grain productivity of intercropped cowpeas was on average around 50% of that of sole cowpeas, whereas the yields of the intercropped cereals were around 80% of those of the sole crops.Only the legume options that compete strongly with food production (woody fallows and green manure) can bring substantial N inputs from biological N fixation (Figure 2B) in the range of what would offset the N exports (grain + straw) of a maize crop with a yield level (∼6.5 t/ha) that is compatible with food security objectives (Figure 2A). Other options that compete less with food production and/ or offer direct value for farmers (grain and fodder legumes, Figure 2C) can only bring a fraction of what would be required to offset the N exports by maize.The estimated contributions of biological N fixation to the net N inputs to cropland, as shown in Figure 2, are possibly overestimated. Firstly, this is because only a small fraction (less than 30%) of the N in green manure and legume tree prunings is effectively recovered by the following cereal crop. Part of it can be leached, volatilized or immobilized by soil microorganisms (Giller and Cadisch, 1995). Secondly, high levels of N fixation can only be achieved if P is not limiting, and if appropriate inoculation is performed when the legume nodulates poorly. These conditions are usually observed in on-station and/or researchermanaged trials (corresponding to most of the estimates of Figure 2) but do not necessarily hold true in farmers' fields. Thirdly, pests and diseases, usually controlled in research experiments, are an additional barrier in farmers' fields that must be overcome for the full realization of the potential benefits of legume N fixation.In conclusion, although legumes can contribute substantially to N input to cropping systems, it is unlikely that they alone can sustain agricultural productivity at the high level that is required for food security.A simple calculation indicates that about 9 t manure (dry matter) per ha per year would be required to balance the N exports by a maize crop yielding 6.5 t/ha with a corresponding export of 125 kg N/ha in its grain and stover (see Table 1), considering that manure from smallholder farms in SSA contains on average 1.4% N (Pieri, 1989). This is largely beyond the 4 t/ha typically applied by cattle owners on a portion of their cropland in, e.g., Zimbabwe (Rusinamhodzi et al., 2013;Zingore et al., 2008). Nine Tropical Livestock Units (TLU), corresponding to approximately 13 cattle or 90 goats, are required to produce 9 t of manure (considering that one TLU produces 2.8 kg of manure per day, Berre et al., 2021). This number of TLU is far beyond what smallholder farmers typically own: for example, the average TLU across nationally representative household samples (Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture, LSMS-ISA data) was 1.39 in Uganda and 1.43 in Tanzania (Figure 3). Because it is not feasible to collect all the produced manure and part of its N is lost during storage, composting and transport (Vayssières and Rufino, 2012), farmers recycle far less than what is theoretically possible. Even farmers owning 12 TLU or more cannot recycle the required 125 kg N/ha (Figure 3). Thus, recycling of N through manure falls short of what is required to sustain the necessary levels of cereal yields (Figure 2A, 2D).During the cropping season, livestock cannot access fields and feed mainly on rangelands. One TLU-250 kg liveweight-consumes a maximum of 3% of its liveweight daily (Moran, 2005). Based on a simple calculation, it is estimated that 1.4 ha of rangeland would be required for feeding one TLU in the Sudano-Sahelian environment of West Africa, corresponding to a livestock carrying capacity of 0.7 TLU/ha. This estimation assumes that one TLU requires around 1400 kg of biomass over a six-month growing season and that rangelands produce about 1000 kg of biomass (dry matter) per hectare with 600 mm of rainfall, considering a rainfall productivity of 1.7 kg biomass (dry matter) per millimeter rain (Rufino et al., 2011). In many areas of the Sudano-Sahelian region, livestock density is far beyond this estimated carrying capacity of 0.7 TLU/ha, e.g., 4.8 TLU/ha in western Burkina Faso (Andrieu et al., 2015) and 1.3 TLU/ha in the Senegalese groundnut basin (Grillot et al., 2018). It is also important to note that high grazing pressure often leads to a decline in rangeland productivity (Hiernaux et al., 2009). The above estimations indicate that available feed resources are a strong constraint to maintaining the large herds that would be necessary to produce the manure required to sustain high cereal yields. Furthermore, manure represents a direct transfer of nutrients from rangelands to croplands. For example, Andrieu et al. (2015) estimated that N loss from the rangeland could be as high as 25 kg N/ha/year in western Burkina Faso. Enriching cropland with nutrients from manure therefore comes at the expense of soil nutrient mining in rangelands (Powell et al., 2004).For P and K fertilization, agroecological practices rely on the transfers of biomass through manure and compost. It should, however, be noted that with these lateral transfers, the places of origin of the biomass (e.g., rangelands, hedgerows, fields of farmers who do not own cattle and where crop residues are left) are progressively impoverished in P and K. Therefore, we argue that P and K need to be brought by mineral fertilizers if long-term agro-environmental sustainability is to be guaranteed.In addition, biomass transfers are also often insufficient to meet crop requirements. One reason is that low P and K contents in soil translate into low P and K concentrations in recycled plant materials. Soils of SSA have typically low plant-available P due to low P concentration in the parent material and extended weathering, and because of low soil pH and binding of phosphates by Fe 3+ and Al 3+ cations (Margenot et al., 2016). Similarly, plant-available K in soils of SSA is generally low because of prolonged weathering over time and insufficient external inputs (Majumdar et al., 2021).As a result, P and K concentrations in manure and compost are rarely above respectively 0.2 and 0.6%, in SSA (Blanchard et al., 2014;Fall et al., 2000;Zingore et al., 2008). This means that manure inputs of respectively 8 and 14 t/ha would be required to sustain a maize yield of 6.5 t/ha, corresponding to P and K uptake demands of 16 kg P ha −1 and 83 kg K ha −1 . It is clear that these P and K requirements for crops are difficult or even impossible to achieve by smallholder farmers, given their current herd sizes and feed resource limitations (see previous section and Schlecht et al., 2004).Relying solely on biomass transfers in combination with the ongoing depletion of soil P and K might also have implications for the potential of legumes to efficiently fix N. In particular, insufficient availability of P can constrain biological N fixation, as adenosine triphosphate is needed in larger quantities for N-fixing legumes than for other crops (Giller, 2001). Besides, soil K deficiency affects the growth of rhizobia, nodule formation and functioning, resulting in a depressing effect on biological N fixation (Divito and Sadras, 2014).Mineral fertilizers are often and rightly blamed for environmental pollution (Gruber and Galloway, 2008). Pollution arises from both their use and their production. In what follows, we analyze opportunities to address the negative environmental outcomes of mineral fertilizer, firstly related to their use, and secondly to their production.In general, fertilizer use contributes to four negative environmental outcomes. First, direct soil emission from the application of mineral fertilizers is the most important source of N 2 O emission from agriculture, together with emissions from organic fertilizer (Tian et al., 2020). The estimations regarding these two emission sources carry considerable uncertainty, making it challenging to distinctly differentiate between them (IPCC, 2022). Second, NH 3 volatilization from fertilizer application can have serious consequences for human health, acidification, and eutrophication of ecosystems (Liu et al., 2023;Paerl et al., 2014), and is also a source of indirect production of N 2 O. Third, the global increase in N and P fertilizer use has led to the eutrophication of water (Paerl et al., 2014;Peñuelas and Sardans, 2022). Fourth, N fertilizers have resulted in global soil acidification that can undermine soil carbon (C) sequestration and climate mitigation efforts (Raza et al., 2021). Yet, these negative outcomes do not come from the fertilizers per se, but from their excessive or inappropriate use. It is important to note that there are no chemical differences between NH 4 + or NO 3 − ions coming from organic or mineral fertilizers. Plants equally absorb both these two ions regardless of their source while the origins of negative environmental impacts of nutrients vary. For example, N 2 O emissions are very high in Europe, North America, and East and South Asia, which together consume over 80% of the world's mineral N fertilizers (Guenet et al., 2021;Tian et al., 2020), while it is manure application that is currently the main source of agricultural N 2 O emissions in SSA (Davidson, 2009;Guenet et al., 2021).Global N-use efficiency in croplands has dramatically dropped over the last decades and is now only about 40% (Lassaletta et al., 2014;Zhang et al., 2015). The potential to improve fertilizer-use efficiency and reduce pollution in regions of intensive agriculture is therefore large, with a limited negative impact on crop yield (Wuepper et al., 2020). For example, it has been reported that N-use efficiency in Greece increased from 30% in 1990 to more than 70% in 2010 (Lassaletta et al., 2014). In SSA, the scope to improve N-use efficiency is also large, as the current average agronomic efficiency of N is estimated at 14 kg maize grain per kg N applied, compared with the global average of 30 kg kg −1 (Vanlauwe et al., 2023). In general, improvement of nutrient-use efficiency can be achieved by widely adopting the 4R principles (the right nutrient source at the right rate, right time and right place) (Penuelas et al., 2023). In the context of SSA, site-specific nutrient management tailored to the high spatial heterogeneity of smallholder farming systems will be key (Chivenge et al., 2021). An analysis of 11 published studies showed that the addition of N fertilizer increased N 2 O emissions compared to the no input control, but there were no differences among the different rates of N fertilizer application (Vanlauwe et al., 2023). In addition, even with the high N fertilizer rates, N 2 O emissions remained below 1 kg N 2 O-N ha −1 . Nitrogen fertilizer application at a rate four to five times greater than the current average in SSA (i.e., 60 kg N/ha), using one basal application and two top dressings, led to low N 2 O emissions in Zimbabwe, far below the IPCC default values (i.e., 0.5 to 1% of applied mineral N) (Shumba et al., 2023).With regard to production, the synthesis of NH 3 to produce mineral N fertilizers accounts for about 0.8-1.2% of the global anthropogenic CO 2 emissions and 2% of global energy (Gao and Serrenhoo, 2023;Smith et al., 2020). Ammonia emissions during fertilizer production are also responsible for indirect N 2 O emissions. These GHG emissions could, however, be largely reduced by the production of NH 3 using hydrogen from water hydrolysis with renewable energy instead of fossil fuels (Smith et al., 2020;Wang et al., 2018). This prospect is currently significant enough for the IPCC to consider NH 3 as a potential low-or zero-carbon fuel similar to hydrogen (IPCC, 2022). The current expansion of fertilizer manufacturing witnessed across Africa could also largely reduce GHG emissions due to transport, besides increasing the sovereignty of the region for access to fertilizer.Overall, it is estimated that GHG emissions from N fertilizer production and use could be reduced by up to one-fifth of current levels by 2050 with currently available technologies, increasing N-use efficiency being the most effective one, as about two-thirds of GHG emissions from fertilizers actually take place immediately after their application in croplands (Gao and Serrenhoo, 2023). The excess of fertilizers currently being used in regions where overapplication is prevalent could be redistributed to SSA (less in the Global North, more in the Global South), possibly without the need to produce more fertilizers at the global scale.Eutrophication is a rising issue throughout Africa, particularly around large and rapidly expanding cities (Nyenje et al., 2010), but it is currently most probably driven by untreated sewage waste and erosion deposits rather than by the excessive fertilizer use in agriculture (Vanlauwe and Giller, 2006). However, if fertilizer use is to increase, its contribution to eutrophication has to be carefully monitored. Relevant \"4R\" fertilizer practices that are crucial to increase profitability and reduce gaseous losses will also contribute to limit N and P leaching and their contribution to eutrophication.The impacts of a strategy where the use of mineral fertilizer is reduced or eliminated, as purported by the \"input reduction\" principle of agroecology should be carefully evaluated, and weighed against the negative environmental impacts associated with fertilizer use. Because nutrient limitations constrain crop yields (see the first section), reducing fertilizer use will further lower crop yields, and inevitably drive cropland expansion to meet the demands of a fast-growing population in SSA. Although increased fertilizer use for higher crop productivity will cause an increase in N 2 O emissions (e.g., Leitner et al., 2020), cropland expansion into natural ecosystems would trigger an even greater ecological footprint. Conversion of natural ecosystems into cropland is associated with accelerated vegetation and soil C loss, and loss of biodiversity (Searchinger et al., 2015). Kehoe et al. (2017) showed greater biodiversity losses with cropland expansion than with agricultural intensification, globally and in SSA in particular. Van Loon et al. (2019) projected greater GHG emissions associated with cropland expansion than with agricultural intensification to meet food security in SSA by 2050. In addition, even though SSA is generally considered as having abundant land, accounting for about 60% of the world's uncultivated arable land, this abundance is primarily concentrated in less than 10 countries. Most countries in the region are facing land scarcity. This makes cropland expansion a limited option, emphasizing the need for production intensification on existing cropland. For a net positive effect of intensification and fertilizer use on the GHG balance of Africa to take place, public policies and stronger governance of natural resources will have to be put in place to prevent rebound effects (i.e., increased deforestation due to increased profitability of farming) (Byerlee et al., 2014). In this context, it is noteworthy to highlight that a number of countries in the South, such as Vietnam, India, Bhutan, El Salvador and Chile, have successfully achieved a land-use transition in recent decades through sound policies and innovations, which has led to the simultaneous increase of their forest cover and agricultural production (Lambin and Meyfroidt, 2011).It is clear from what precedes that harnessing only biomass fluxes and biological N fixation cannot bring all the nutrients required to increase food production and meet the food demand of an increasing population. However, these processes and the related practices are key to maintain or improve soil health in general, and soil organic C, in particular (Vanlauwe et al., 2023). Soil health is one of the 13 HLPE principles of agroecology, and is reflected in three of the ten FAO agroecology elements, namely diversity, synergy and resilience (Wezel et al., 2020). Degraded soils, i.e., soils with poor health and with chemical and physical properties of low quality are estimated to occur in 25% of croplands globally, across all environmental conditions (Le et al., 2016). In what follows we show that two agroecology principles (recycling and biodiversity) and associated practices (the use of organic amendments and agroforestry) are key to maintain and improve soil health.Degraded soils tend to be poorly responsive to mineral fertilizers (Nezomba et al., 2015). The application or retention of organic resources is critical to maintain or restore soil health (Laub et al., 2023). Crop residues are the most abundant and available organic resource, and their retention in croplands can play a significant role. However, due to other competing demands for animal feed, fuel and construction, amounts of crop residues returned to cropland are usually low (Valbuena et al., 2012). In this context, manure is often the most critical resource to maintain soil health, but required application rates may be prohibitive to smallholders (see section on manure). On the other hand, there is a large potential to increase the biomass and nutrients being recycled through manure by adopting better herd management (e.g., cattle housing) and improved manure storage (e.g., heap coverage) (Rufino et al., 2007). Improved recycling is thus required if soil organic matter is to be maintained in soils. Manure application can also mitigate soil acidification resulting from the continuous application of N fertilizers on soils with low cation exchange capacity and low pH buffering capacity (Vanlauwe et al., 2001).Agroforestry-defined in its broad sense as \"land-use systems and practices in which woody perennials are deliberately integrated with crops and/or animals on the same land management unit\" (Leakey, 1996)-can also maintain and improve soil health. Agroforestry is based on the biodiversity principle. Compared to annuals, some perennials have deeper root systems and fix more C, capture nutrients from deeper soil layers and produce biomass and litter for a longer period of time; their inclusion in cropping systems can thus contribute to a greater input of organic C to the soil (Corbeels et al., 2019), but also lead to nutrient cycles (e.g., N, P) that are more tightly coupled to the C cycle (by stoichiometric relations in plant biomass, organic matter and microbial biomass), and thus are less leaky (Lemaire et al., 2014).Efficiency is a key principle of agroecology (captured in both 13 HLPE principles and the 10 FAO elements), but also a concept that is central to the ecological and economic sustainability of any agricultural production system, whether agroecological or not (Kumar et al., 2020).Long-term improvement of soil health as described above can lead to more nutrients being supplied by the decomposition of soil organic matter, complementing or substituting some of the nutrients that need to be supplied by mineral fertilizers (Myers et al., 1994). Although nutrients other than N \"need to be imported and replaced continually\" (see section on P and K), agroecological practices help maximize their use efficiency. In the case of P in particular, the inclusion of legumes (principle of biodiversity) can lead to higher nutrient-use efficiency, as legumes tend to have greater rates of P acquisition than cereals (e.g., Tang et al., 2021). Often, the efficiency of mineral fertilizer improves with the use of agroecological practices. For example, the incorporation of Crotaliaria-Mucuna green manures into the soil improved N-use efficiency of the subsequent upland rice in Madagascar (Ranaivoson et al., 2022); the use of cattle manure was responsible for increased maize response to mineral fertilizer in Kenyan smallholder farms (Njoroge et al., 2019); intercropping maize with soybean gave greater fertilizer N-use efficiency across 106 observations in Africa (Xu et al., 2020). More generally, experimental evidence suggests that increased plant diversity-in particular functional diversity tends to lead to higher nutrient-use efficiency (Furey and Tilman, 2021). Biomass recycling (through manure, crop residues; principle of recycling) also leads to P being retained in the labile organic soil pools, which may lead to higher P-use efficiency (Drinkwater et al., 2017). Similarly, nutrient-use efficiency was shown to be promoted by nutrient recycling through livestock grazing (e.g., Hiernaux and Turner, 1996). Finally, better nutrient-use efficiency also decreases the risk of negative cost-benefit ratios when farmers invest in fertilizers (Bielders and Gérard, 2015).Maintaining other ecosystem services for sustained crop productivity Bommarco et al. (2013) highlighted the link between supporting and regulating ecosystem services, crop productivity and yield gaps, both in low-input and intensively cultivated production systems. Soil fertility maintenance and nutrient cycling are key supporting ecosystem services for agriculture and have been reviewed in the previous sections of this article. Biological pest and weed control, and crop pollination are two regulating ecosystem services that are equally critical for food production.Crop losses due to pests are projected to increase with climate change (Deutsch et al., 2018) while the use of insecticides in agriculture is increasingly regulated and its cost-benefit ratio is declining globally (Zhang, 2018). Weeds also contribute substantially to yield gaps globally for a range of crops (maize, wheat, cotton, soybean) (Oerke, 2006). As a result, biological pest and weed control is becoming more critical, in both low-input and intensively cultivated production systems. Similarly, the global pollinator decline is threatening all regions of the world. Yield losses due to pollinator decline have been recorded globally for crops with a moderate dependence on pollination. On the other hand, yields of crops with a high dependence on pollination may have been maintained by their stronger reliance on domestic honeybees, whose stocks are, however, growing slower than the demand for pollination (Aizen and Harder, 2009;Garibaldi et al., 2009).Biological pest and weed control, and pollination may be stimulated by increasing on-farm diversity, a key agroecology principle. For example, the populations of wild pollinators, and predatory and parasitoid arthropods may increase following the retention of natural and semi-natural patches in cropland, that provide nectar, alternative preys, and overwintering and nesting habitats (Bianchi et al., 2006). These patches may also host and provide cropland with insectivorous birds and bats (Sow et al., 2020). Natural areas may also provide agricultural areas with herbivores feeding on weeds, and with pathogens attacking crop pests (Blitzer et al., 2012). The optimal amount of noncrop habitat and the optimal spatial arrangement are species-specific, and depend on the dispersal ability and sensitivity to disturbance (including edge effects) of the species of interest (Ekroos et al., 2016). With regard to weeds, diversified crop rotations including legumes can help decrease weed pressure and its impact on cereal yield (e.g., Ripoche et al., 2021). Appropriate biological pest and weed control is a critical step to ensure appropriate crop growth and improved nutrient-use efficiency (ten Berge et al., 2019).The analysis of existing scientific literature on nutrient balances in SSA, biological N fixation of tropical legumes, and manure production and use in smallholder farming systems shows that agroecological practices have a clear role to play when it comes to maintaining and improving soil fertility in the context of smallholder farmers in SSA. However, further reducing the already low use of mineral fertilizeras per the \"input reduction\" principle of agroecology-may aggravate the current challenge of nutrient depletion in croplands and rangelands throughout SSA. Our analysis shows that biophysical production factors, but also shortages of land and farm labor, constrain the opportunity to close crop nutrient gaps and increase productivity by relying solely on N fixation and transfers of biomass using manure. More research at the farm and landscape level where issues of nutrient availability and sustainability operate, is needed to explore the benefits and constraints of agroecology. It is, however, clear that agroecological practices can improve nutrient-use efficiency and should complement the use of mineral fertilizer, provided that financial and physical access to fertilizer is guaranteed through adequate market development. Moreover, effective policy support to agroecological practices that deliver great environmental benefits for the society, but often limited short-term benefits to farmers, requires urgent attention.François Affholder, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Faculdade de Agronomia e Engenharia Florestal, Maputo.","tokenCount":"7663"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"91a20c3fc47d121d9ba4f062d305f300","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9ce59150-8f25-48e3-a148-ed75acd4829e/retrieve","id":"-1865844048"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"bfc9d58f-bd61-4c41-957f-23f2edf1f50e","pagecount":"51","content":"Vitamin A deficiency, drought, low soil nitrogen (low N) and Striga hermonthica parasitism of maize (Zea mays L.) cause malnutrition and food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa. The objectives of this study were to determine combining abilities of extra-early provitamin A (PVA) lines, classify them into heterotic groups (HGs), identify testers, and determine yield stability of hybrids under contrasting environments in two trials. In trial 1, 20 extra-early PVA lines were inter-mated in a diallel mating scheme to obtain 190 F 1 hybrids. The 190 F 1 hybrids plus six checks were tested under Striga infestation, drought, and stress-free environments in Nigeria from 2015 to 2017. In trial 2, 35 extra-early yellow hybrids were evaluated under low-N, Striga-infested and stress-free environments in 2018. Provitamin A concentrations of 23.98 and 22.56 µg g -1 were obtained for TZEEIOR 202 and TZEEIOR 205. TZEEIOR 197 × TZEEIOR 205 (20.1 μg g -1 ) and TZEEIOR 202 × TZEEIOR 205 (22.7 μg g -1 ) contained about double the PVA level of the commercial check, TZEEI 58 × TZEE-Y Pop STR C5 (11.4 μg g -1). Both general (GCA) and specific (SCA) combining ability variances were statistically significant for most agronomic traits, although GCA was much larger than SCA effects, indicating that additive genetic effects primarily controlled the inheritance of those traits.TZEEIOR 97 and TZEEIOR 197 were identified as inbred testers. TZEEIOR 197 × TZEEIOR 205 (20.1 μg g -1 ) was identified as a single-cross tester as well as the most stable and highestyielding hybrid across environments. TZEEIOR 202 and TZEEIOR 205 should be invaluable resources for breeding for high PVA. PVA level was independent of hybrid yield potential, indicating that selection of superior hybrids with elevated PVA levels should be feasible.Abbreviations: ASI, anthesis-silking interval; ATC, average-tester coordinate axis; DA, days to anthesis; DAP, days after planting; DS, days to silking; EASP, ear aspect; EHT, ear height; EPP, ears per plant; EROT, ear rot; ESP, emerged Striga plants; GCA, general combining   ability; YIELD, grain yield; HGs, heterotic groups; HPVA, PVA levels of the hybrids; VAD, vitamin A deficiency; HUSK, husk cover; IITA, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture; MP, mid-parent; PASP, plant aspect; PHT, plant height; PVA, provitamin A; RL, root lodging; RMHT, Regional Maize Hybrid Trial; SCA, specific combining ability; SDR1, Striga damage syndrome ratings at 8 WAP; SDR2, Striga damage syndrome ratings at 10 WAP; SL, stalk lodging; STMA, stress tolerant maize for Africa (STMA), SSA, sub-Saharan Africa; WAP, weeks after planting; WCA, West and Central Africa.MALNOURISHMENT OCCURS AMONG MILLIONS OF PEOPLE worldwide with the larger proportion being in developing countries, especially in Asia and Africa -sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in particular (Jauhar, 2006). According to Swaminathan (2012), in some \"hunger hot spots\" of the world where agriculture is the backbone of survival, as in SSA and South Asia, mainstreaming nutrition in agriculture programs is the most effective and low-cost method of eliminating malnutrition. During the past two decades, tremendous efforts have been made to improve the nutritional status of crops consumed in SSA, but the region still has the largest number of malnourished people in the world. For instance, in West and Central Africa (WCA), a large proportion of the population has limited access to nutritionally balanced food to support a healthy life (Badu-Apraku and Fakorede, 2017). Maternal and childhood malnutrition results in underweight, causing millions of deaths in the sub-region. The World Health Report of 2002 ranked malnutrition first among the top globally preventable health risks, with the dreaded HIV/AIDS ranking fourth, an indication that greater attention should be focused on improving nutrition to minimize the impact of preventable diseases. Cereal-based diets on which most Africans subsist, have low levels of vitamin A (VA). According to West (2002), about 33 million preschool-age children suffer from sub-optimal VA, which has contributed to their vulnerability to several major diseases, including river blindness (onchocerciasis), anemia, diarrhoea, measles, malaria, and respiratory infections (Villamor and Fawzi, 2000). Menkir et al. (2014) reported that in SSA, vitamin A deficiency (VAD) affects more than 45 million children five years old or less. Furthermore, VAD impairs the functionality of the immune system, increases susceptibility to diseases, increases the chances of death from severe illnesses, andcauses night or complete blindness (Sommer, 2008).Maize is the most important staple food crop in SSA. It is the most widely consumed cereal in WCA, where it is eaten as green maize, processed grain, popcorn and sweet corn. Quality improvement (biofortification) of this crop, therefore, has a crucial nutritional role in solving some of the problem of malnutrition in Africa. Kernels of some types of maize, especially yellow and orange maize, contain pro-vitamin A (PVA) in the form of carotenoids in the endosperm, for which there is a high level of genetic variation and which makes it possible to increase accumulation of the vitamin through plant breeding. In a study involving 39 maize inbred lines, Blessin et al. (1963) obtained 0.9 to 4.1 μg g -1 of carotenes, and 18.6 to 48.0 μg g -1 of xanthophylls. Ortiz-Monasterio et al. (2007) reported a variation of 0.24 -8.80 μg g -1 in total PVA and a range of 5 to 30 % in the proportion of PVA to total carotenoids among 1000 tropical maize genotypes obtained from the International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvement (CIMMYT) in Mexico. Therefore, increasing the level of PVA in maize through breeding is a feasible approach for alleviating malnutrition related to its deficiency. A study was conducted in Zambia by Palmer et al. (2016) to investigate the impact of PVA maize consumption on dark adaptation, an early functional indicator of VAD. Results revealed that children with deficient or marginal VA status showed increased pupillary responsiveness following consumption of PVA maize thus providing evidence of the functional health benefits of consuming PVA maize.In addition to VAD, parasitism by Striga hermonthica, low soil nitrogen (low-N) and drought are among other constraints in maize production in SSA. Striga parasitism can lead to complete crop failure when the infestation is very severe (Kroschel, 1999). On the other hand, drought could reduce maize yield by up to 90% when it coincides with flowering (anthesis and silking) and/or grain-filling periods (NeSmith and Ritchie, 1992). Furthermore, the savanna soils, where maize potential could be easily maximized, are low or completely deficient in certain nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, several micronutrients as well as in organic matter. In SSA, low-N stress reduces maize grain yield by 10 to 50% year -1 (Logrono and Lothrop, 1997). Genetic enhancement of maize is the most economic, affordable and sustainable option for mitigating the adverse effects of S. hermonthica parasitism, drought and low-N in SSA (Badu-Apraku et al., 2015a, b, c). The development and commercialization of multiple-stress-tolerant maize with high levels of PVA content is urgently required to mitigate VA malnutrition and food insecurity in SSA. Substantial progress has been made in increasing the PVA in maize through conventional breeding (Menkir et al., 2013). Menkir et al. (2013), indicated that the identification of adapted orange maize inbred lines from diverse genetic backgrounds and with varying carotenoid concentrations is critical to facilitating the development of superior PVA hybrids and establishing a successful PVA hybrid program. Suwarno et al. (2014) demonstrated the effectiveness of grouping PVA lines based on maximum molecular marker-based genetic distance between the lines to achieve heterosis.However, little or no information is available on the development and commercialization of multiple-stress-tolerant PVA maize hybrids.Cultivation of hybrid maize in SSA has occupied center stage in the past decade and emerging seed companies have relied on existing outstanding germplasm in the public domain for commercialization. However, a successful hybrid development program is a function of the heterotic patterns of the parental lines used in the development of the hybrids and their ability to combine well with most other inbred lines, or specific lines to develop productive and superior hybrids (Fan et al., 2009). Thus, heterotic groups (HGs) are formed among sets of developed inbred lines, such that those with genetic similarity are placed in the same group, whereas those genetically dissimilar are categorized in opposite groups (Fan et al., 2009;Badu-Apraku et al., 2015a, b). This increases the chances of developing outstanding hybrids for commercialization, since crosses are made only among inbred lines from opposite HGs.Information on inter-trait relationships guides a breeder on the choice of traits to consider for improving the performance of a primary trait, such as grain yield, under diverse environmental conditions (Talabi et al., 2017). Breeders routinely investigate how grain yield and secondary traits of maize interact, especially when new sets of genetic materials are developed, to ascertain that the existing interrelationships among the traits have not been altered by the genetic constitution of the newly developed materials or by climate change. Several researchers have documented inter-trait relationships in maize. Number of ears per plant (EPP), anthesissilking interval (ASI), and stay-green characteristic (STGR) were identified by Bänziger et al. (2000) as the most reliable secondary traits for improvement of grain yield under drought-stress and low N conditions. Badu-Apraku et al. ( 2011) also identified EPP and ASI, along with plant aspect (PASP) and ear aspect (EASP) as the secondary traits for yield improvement under both drought and low N stresses. They also found days to 50% silking (DS), days to 50% anthesis (DA), plant height (PHT), and STGR as indirect selection criteria for grain yield under low-N environments (Badu-Apraku et al., 2011).Since 2007, several inbred lines with varying levels of PVA and reactions to stresses are being developed in the IITA maize improvement program. However, there is dearth of information on the heterotic patterns of the extra-early PVA inbred lines and on the performance and intertrait relationships of derived hybrids in multiple environments. In addition, only few PVA hybrids in the extra-early maturity group have been developed and released for commercialization in the sub-region. The studies reported here were therefore conducted to (i) determine the GCA and SCA effects for grain yield and several other agronomic traits of extraearly PVA inbred lines, (ii) assign the inbred lines to appropriate heterotic groups, (iii) identify inbred lines and single-cross hybrids for use as testers for producing high-yielding single-cross and three-way hybrids, (iv) evaluate grain yield performance and stability of the hybrid combinations of selected inbred lines in drought-affected, Striga-infested, low-N, and optimal growing environments, and (v) examine inter-trait relationships among the PVA hybrids. , a source of high PVA, from the IITA Maize Improvement Program in an effort to transfer the genes for high beta-carotene into the cultivar.The F 1 was backcrossed to the extra-early cultivar and kernels of the BC 1 F 1 with deep orange color were selected and advanced to F 2 and F 3 stages through selfing. At the F 3 stage, lines with intense orange color were selected and recombined to obtain the extra-early PVA cultivar '2009 TZEE-OR1 STR', from which a new set of extra-early inbred lines were extracted starting in 2011. By 2014, a total of 224 S 6 inbred lines, selected for deep orange color, had been developed from the variety. This set of PVA inbred lines were assessed for tolerance to induced drought at Ikenne, Nigeria, in the 2014/2015 dry season. Thereafter, the PVA inbred lines were advanced to the S 7 /S 8 stages, from which the kernels were sampled and subjected to chemical analyses at the Food and Nutrition Laboratory of IITA-Ibadan for the determination of their PVA contents. Results of the chemical analyses were used as the basis for selecting the PVA inbred lines evaluated in the genetic studies reported here.Two trials (Trial 1 and Trial 2) were conducted in the present study. In Trial 1, 20 extra-early S 7 PVA inbred lines selected for moderate to high levels of beta-carotene content (Table 1) were inter-mated in the IITA-Ibadan breeding nursery in 2015 according to the diallel mating scheme (Sprague and Tatum, 1942) and 190 F 1 hybrids were obtained. The PVA hybrids and six yellow hybrid checks were used for combining ability studies in Striga-infested (Experiment 1), drought (Experiment 2), and optimal growing environments (Experiment 3) from 2015 to 2017. Trial 2 comprised 34 extra-early-maturity genotypes, including PVA and non-PVA hybrids, which were selected from a number of preliminary maize hybrid trials. The 34 hybrids and a commercial check were evaluated in the Stress Tolerant Maize for Africa (STMA) Regional Maize Hybrid Trial (hereafter referred to as Regional Maize Hybrid Trial or RMHT) in Striga-infested, low-N and optimal growing environments in Nigeria, in 2018.This trial consisted of three independent experiments conducted under different management conditions. Experiment 1 involved evaluation of the 190 PVA hybrids plus six extra-early hybrid checks (42-49 days to flowering) at Mokwa (9•18 N, 5•4 E, 457 m above sea level, 1100 mm mean annual rainfall) under artificial Striga infestation during the 2016 and 2017 growing seasons. Residual Striga seeds were eliminated by inducing their suicidal germination through the injection of ethylene gas into the soils two weeks prior to manual Striga infestation. The artificial Striga infestation followed the procedure proposed by Kim (1991). Fertilizer application was delayed until about 25 days after planting (DAP) when 30 kg ha -1 was applied as NPK 15:15:15. Delay in fertilizer application and the low rate were aimed at subjecting the maize plants to a required stress level to trigger the production of strigolactones, hormones responsible for the stimulation of germination of Striga seeds. The Striga plants that emerge, being parasitic, grow in the maize field for as long as the host plant (maize) is growing and supplying the required nutrients for the growth and development of Striga plants.In Experiment 2, the 196 hybrids were planted during the dry seasons of 2015/2016, 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 under managed drought at Ikenne (6•53'N, 30•42'E, 60 m above sea level, 1200 mm mean annual rainfall). The soils at Ikenne are characterized as Alfisols (Soil Survey Staff, 2007), which are fairly flat, uniform and typically have high water-retention capacity. The experiments were established during the dry seasons of each year, starting from November to March of the following year. Water was provided to the trials through a sprinkler irrigation system, which made available about 17 mm of water to each plant every week. Drought was imposed in the trials at about 25 DAP, during which water supply was discontinued. As such, growth and development of plants till harvest were dependent on the moisture stored in the soil. Basal fertilizer was applied as 60 kg each of K, P and N at sowing. Topdressing was carried out by applying 30 kg of N ha -1 at 3 weeks after planting (WAP).Experiment 3 involved evaluation of the 196 hybrids in optimal growing environments at Mokwa in 2016, Ikenne in 2016 and 2017, and Bagauda (lat.12°00'N, long. 8°22'E, with 580 m above sea level and 800 mm mean annual rainfall) in 2017. In the optimal environments, there was adequate supply of water and nitrogen and the plots were Striga-free. About 60 kg each of N, P and K ha -1 was applied as basal fertilizer at 2 WAP, with additional 30 kg N ha -1 top-dressed 4 WAP.Each of the three experiments was conducted using a 14 × 14 lattice design, with two replications. In the three experiments, 3 m long single-row plots were used, with inter-and intra-row spacing of 0.75 and 0.40 m, respectively. Three seeds were sown per hill and emerged seedlings were thinned to two per hill at about two WAP to attain the target population density of approximately 66,667 plants ha −1 . Atrazine (Primextra) was applied for pre-emergence weed control in all the fields, whereas Paraquat (Gramoxone) served as a post-emergence herbicide in drought and optimal fields. Following the emergence of maize plants, Striga fields were kept weed-free through hand pulling.Entries of Trial 2 were evaluated in Striga-infested environment in Mokwa, during the 2018 growing season. In addition, the trial was conducted in low and high-N environments at Ile-Ife and Mokwa, and in optimal environments in Ikenne, Mokwa,Zaria (11•11'N,7•38'E,640 m) above sea level, 1200 mm mean annual rainfall) and Bagauda in 2018. The experimental design used was a 5 × 7 lattice with three replications. Two-row plots, each measuring 4 m long, with inter-row spacing of 0.75 m and within-row spacing of 0.40 m, were employed. Other experimental procedures used in the Trial were as given for Trial 1.The soil of the field used for the low-N experiment in Mokwa was characterized as Luvisol and that of Ile-Ife as fine-loamy, isohyperthemic Plinthustalf (Soil Survey Staff, 2007). The fields had been previously depleted of N by continuous planting of maize crop without application of N fertilizer, in addition to the removal of plant residue after each harvest, for a period of two years. Prior to planting, soil samples were collected for determination of N level by the Kjeldahl digestion and colorimetric method using Technicon AAII Autoanalyser (Bremner and Mulvaney, 1982). The soils had very low residual N, varying from 0•21 to 0•53% N. Based on the soil test results, urea, triple super phosphate and muriate of potash were used to formulate fertilizer, which was applied 2 WAP at the rate of 15, 60 and 60 kg ha -1 each of N, P and K to the low-N experiments, whereas 45, 60 and 60 kg ha -1 of N, P and K were applied to high-N experiments. The N-treatment fields were top-dressed at 4 WAP with the amount of urea required to increase the total available N to 30 and 90 kg ha -1 for low-N and high-N experiments, respectively. Herbicides, followed by manual weeding as needed, were employed for weed control in the trial. Evaluation of the hybrids in the RMHT under optimal environments followed the standard agronomic practices, as described for Trial 1 under optimal environments.Seed samples used for the carotenoid analyses were produced, as described by Suwarno et al. (2014) by self-pollinating the first and last two plants per plot in the 196 hybrid trial involving the 190 PVA and six normal endosperm extra-early yellow hybrid checks as well as 20 selected S 8 plants of PVA inbred lines evaluated under optimal growing conditions at Ikenne and Mokwa in 2016 and 2017. The self-pollinated ears of the inbred lines and hybrids in each year were harvested per plot, dried under ambient temperature and shelled (Azmach et al., 2013).The seed samples were stored in the long-term storage facility of IITA at 4°C. Seed samples of the 20 inbred lines used for the diallel cross, along with top yielding 13 PVA hybrids and two checks obtained from composite grains harvested separately from the inbred lines and hybrid trials of each year, were drawn from the long-term storage. The carotenoids were extracted and quantified at the Food and Nutritional Laboratory of IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria. The High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) method, based on the extraction protocol described by Howe and Tanumihardjo (2006), was employed for the carotenoid analysis. The five carotenoids, β -carotene (cis and trans isomers), α-carotene, β-cryptoxanthin, zeaxanthin, and lutein, were determined based on calibrations using external standards. Total carotenoids were computed as the sum of concentrations of α-carotene, β-carotene, lutein, zeaxanthin and β-cryptoxanthin. PVA was computed as the sum of β-carotene, and half of each of βcryptoxanthin and α-carotene contents, because β-cryptoxanthin and α-carotene contribute about 50% of the β-carotene as PVA according to the US Institute of Medicine (2001). Two independent measurements were taken to represent each sample. In addition to the PVA levels of the hybrids (HPVA) determined by chemical analysis, those of the mid-parent (MP) were estimated as the average of the sum of PVA levels of parental inbred lines of a specific hybrid.Data were recorded on days to anthesis (DA) and silking (DS), anthesis-silking interval (ASI), plant height (PHT), ear height (EHT), plant aspect (PASP), ear aspect (EASP), root lodging Combined analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed for agronomic traits of Trial 1 (genetic study) across year-location combinations in Striga-infested, drought and optimal growing environments using the SAS codes for GLM and the RANDOM statement with the TEST option (SAS Institute, 2011). Genotypes were considered fixed effects, whereas test environments, replications, genotype by environment interaction and all other sources of variation were treated as random effects.For Trial 2 (RMHT), ANOVA was done separately across stress (Striga-infested and low-N) and non-stress (Striga-free, high-N and optimal) growing environments. The statistical model employed for the combined analysis in the present study has been previously described by Badu-Apraku et al. (2015b). Broad-sense heritability (H 2 ) of the traits was estimated as the proportion of the phenotypic variance contributed by the genetic variance based on the hybrid means, following the method of Hallauer et al. (2010). Repeatability (R 2 ) of grain yield and other measured characters was computed for individual environments using the following formula:The standard errors for heritability and repeatability estimates (Hallauer et al. 2010) were computed and used for pair-wise comparison of calculated estimates of the two parameters.Excluding the checks from the analysis of Trial 1, the GCA effects of the PVA parental lines and the SCA effects of F 1 hybrids as well as their mean squares under each and across research conditions were estimated according to Griffing's Method 4 model 1 (fixed effects) (Griffing, 1956), using the DIALLEL-SAS program (Zhang et al., 2005) in SAS software version 9.3 (SAS Institute, 2011). The significance of the GCA and SCA effects were tested using t-statistic. The square root of the GCA and SCA variances provided an estimate of the standard errors corresponding to their effects (Griffing, 1956). The relative importance of GCA and SCA was examined following the method proposed by Baker (1978), as modified by Hung and Holland (2012). The importance of the combining ability effects was examined by expressing the GCA effects as the ratio of the total genetic effects (i.e., 2GCA + SCA). The closer the ratio to unity (equivalent of 100%), the greater the predictability of hybrid performance based on GCA effects alone (Baker, 1978).The PVA lines were assigned to the HGs across test environments using the GCA effects of multiple traits (HGCAMT) grouping method (Badu-Apraku et al., 2013). This was accomplished by standardizing GCA effects of measured traits that showed significant mean squares for genotypes across test environments and subjecting the dataset to Ward's minimum variance cluster analysis based on the Euclidean distance obtained from HGCAMT, employing SAS software 9.3 (SAS Institute, 2011). To qualify as a tester, an inbred must (i) have a high, statistically significant positive GCA effect for grain yield, (ii) belong to a heterotic group, and(iii) possess a high per se grain yield (Pswarayi and Vivek, 2008). Single-cross testers were also identified according to the criteria established by Pswarayi and Vivek (2008), which included (i) parental inbred lines involved in the development of the hybrids must have positive and significant GCA effects for grain yield, (ii) parental lines of hybrid must belong to the same heterotic group, and (iii) the single-cross hybrid must have a reasonable grain yield.The ANOVA was performed on plot means of grain yield across test environments to determine whether the G × E interaction was significant. For traits with significant G × E interaction mean squares, the genotype main effect plus G × E interaction (GGE) biplot was used to determine the performance and stability of selected top 15, middle five and worst five PVA maize hybrids plus five yellow hybrid checks across test environments. All the hybrids in the RMHT were also subjected to GGE biplot analysis. The GGE biplot is a Window's application software that fully automates biplot analysis (Yan, 2001). Information on the GGE biplot program may be accessed at www.ggebiplot.com (Accessed 13 February 2019). The relationships among traits were investigated using the stepwise multiple regression analyses (SPSS, 2007) and illustrated with sequential path diagrams (Mohammadi et al., 2003;Badu-Apraku et al., 2014). In this method, HPVA, considered the primary trait, was regressed on MP of grain yield and other traits. Traits with significant contributions to HPVA were identified as first order traits. Subsequently, each first order trait was regressed on traits not in the first order category to identify those with significant contributions to HPVA through the first order traits.These were grouped as second order traits. The procedure was continued till all measured traits had been categorized. The standardized b values of the regression analysis provided an estimate of the path co-efficient, which was tested for significance using the t test at 0.05 probability level (Mohammadi et al., 2003;Badu-Apraku et al., 2014).The PVA levels of inbred lines used in this study were significantly different, ranging from 7.88 μg g -1 for TZEEIOR 27 to 23.98 μg g -1 for TZEEIOR 202 (Table 1) with an overall mean of 10.91 μg g -1 and SEM of 0.91. Eight (40%) of the lines had PVA value greater than 10 μg g -1 and two of them, TZEEIOR 202 (23.98 μg g -1 ) and TZEEIOR 205 (22.56 μg g -1 ), had values significantly higher than the overall mean. Similarly, the hybrids resulting from the crosses of the 20 inbred lines had significantly different PVA values with two of the hybrids, TZEEIOR 197 × TZEEIOR 205 (20.1 μg g -1 ) and TZEEIOR 202 × TZEEIOR 205 (22.7 μg g -1 ), having values much higher than the target of 15 μg g -1 proposed by HarvestPlus (Table 1). Here also, relatively few hybrids had PVA values greater than 10 μg g -1 .Theoretically as well as in practice, most traits of maize inbred lines display hybrid vigor or heterosis in single crosses. Results of the inbred lines and their resulting hybrids seemed to deviate from the expected trend that PVA values of hybrids would be higher than the midparent value. For the inbred lines and their hybrids summarized in (2008) examined tropical yellow maize inbred lines sampled from four trials in one location and a fifth trial conducted in two locations and found that carotenoid concentrations of lutein, zeaxanthin, β-carotene, β-cryptoxanthin, α-carotene and total PVA contents were not strongly affected by the differences in replications or locations or GEI. In another study conducted by Menkir and Maziya-Dixon (2004), no significant GEI was obtained for β-carotene of 17 maize genotypes evaluated in three locations for 2 years.Environments (E), genotypes (G), and G × E interaction (GEI) sources of variation significantly affected YIELD and most other traits of the PVA hybrids in the Striga-infested, drought, and optimal environments (Table 2). Some traits, such as DA, PHT, EHT, RL and EROT, wereconsistently not affected by one or more of the three sources of variation in the three environmental conditions of the study (Table 2). The proportion of total variation due to the environment varied among the field trial conditions. Grain yield, for example, had much larger proportion due to the environment for optimal (45%) than Striga (28%) and drought (6%)conditions. Similar values for G were 15, 25, and 37%; and for G x E were 12, 14, and 25%for the three field trial conditions, respectively. The stress environments, Striga-infested in particular, had more traits with non-significant G and GEI mean squares than the optimal environmental conditions. However, significant differences occurred among the hybrids for grain yield and some other traits, an indication that real variability existed among the hybrids which could be exploited during selection for these traits under the stress factors (Badu-Apraku et al., 2015a, b, c). Significant GEI effect detected for grain yield and some other measured traits is also desirable; an implication that PVA hybrids adapted to specific stress and nonstress environments are potentially available in the extra-early PVA maize germplasm at IITA (Badu-Apraku et al., 2008). The consistent expression of ASI, PHT, EHT, RL, SL, HUSK and EROT irrespective of the environments in which the hybrids were tested, if confirmed in further studies, could be an advantage to the breeder to minimize evaluation costs by reducing the number of environments in which data are obtained on these traits for PVA hybrids.Under optimal conditions, the much larger proportion of total variation caused by the environment (45%) relative to proportions due to G (15%) and G x E (12%) calls for attention.First, the results show that the recommendation that hybrids be tested over multiple environments for several years prior to promotion for release and commercialization (Badu-Apraku et al., 2007;Ifie et al., 2015) is also applicable to PVA hybrids. Second, although significant differences observed among the hybrids for all measured traits in this study would facilitate the identification of hybrids with desired attributes (Bhatnagar et al., 2004), it seems the environment would greatly regulate the response to selection, an observation similar to that made for some modified-endosperm opaque-2 tropical maize inbred lines (Pixley and Bjarnason, 1993). Third, coefficient of variation and repeatability, which are some of the parameters used as indicators of reliability of production estimates (Badu-Apraku et al., 2012), varied widely among traits and evaluation conditions (Table 2). Although the grain yield CV was lower and repeatability estimate higher for optimal relative to Striga and drought environments, the values call for more stringent management conditions to optimize production of PVA hybrids, an indication that the genotype x environment x management interaction is operating in PVA hybrid maize production. However, heritability estimates for grain yield ranged from 30 to 69% under contrasting environments used in the present study (Supplementary Table 1). This observation, along with CV≤30 for most traits under all environments in this study indicated that the data set from the test locations were reliable with minimal or no systematic error. Although the test environments used in the present study were consistent in discriminating among the agronomic traits of the hybrids, the results suggest that the type of environmental condition used by scientists would depend on the breeding strategies and product target.As indicated by significant GCA and SCA mean squares under each evaluation condition, both additive and non-additive gene actions were involved in the inheritance of most measured traits of the genetic materials evaluated in this study (Table 2). Across all test environments, >60%of the total genetic effect was attributable to GCA for YIELD and other traits (Fig. 1). These results support the general evidence in the literature; that is, additive gene action controls inheritance of most traits of maize although non-additive gene action, along with environmental effects could also be important but to a lesser extent. In other words, PVA inbred lines are not different from other inbred lines in terms of quantitative inheritance. Under optimum conditions, GCA x E and SCA x E were also statistically significant for all traits except ASI.This was not the case under the stress environments where relatively few GCA x E and SCA x E interactions were significant. In fact, under Striga infestation, GCA x E interaction was not significant for any trait, including grain yield. These results suggested that the inheritance of the PVA maize traits controlled by both additive and non-additive gene action was not dependent on the environment within each evaluation condition to much appreciable extent (Wegary et al., 2013). This is desirable because it indicates that the performance of the hybrids produced from the inbred lines in this study could be reliably predicted based, to a large extent, on the GCA effects alone (Baker, 1978). Contrarily, significant GCA x E and SCA x E interaction effects for most traits under optimal conditions and some of the traits under the stress conditions indicated that mode of inheritance of the traits could vary under different environmental conditions, as observed in earlier studies (Badu-Apraku et al., 2011a).GCA effects of inbred lines. Among the lines evaluated in the study, eight (TZEEIOR 97,TZEEIOR 142,TZEEIOR 197,TZEEIOR 202,TZEEIOR 205,TZEEIOR 209,TZEEIOR 250 and TZEEIOR 251) had significant positive GCA effects for grain yield across test environments and mostly under each environmental condition (Table 3). These inbred lines are likely to produce high YIELD in hybrid combinations (Badu-Apraku et al., 2015a). However, none of the inbred lines consistently had significant GCA effects for all the other traits assayed in the study. The effects were significant for some traits, ranging from two for TZEEIOR 209 to nine for TZEEIOR 197 and TZEEIOR 250 ( It is noteworthy that the inbreds TZEEIOR 97 and TZEEIOR 251 had significant positive GCA effects for YIELD across environments as well as significant negative GCA effects for STGR under drought. The inbred TZEEIOR 251 had significant and positive effects of GCA for YIELD across test environments and significant negative GCA effects for STGR in drought as well as in Striga-infested environments. The performance of inbred line TZEEIOR 197 was particularly striking. Across all environments, the line showed significant positive GCA effects for YIELD but significant negative effects for STGR under drought as well as for SDR2 and ESP1 under Striga-infested environments. This suggested that TZEEIOR 197 could serve as a potential source of beneficial alleles for improved grain yield, drought tolerance and Striga resistance/tolerance in PVA hybrids. The line could also be introgressed into consumer acceptable tropical PVA germplasm that are otherwise susceptible to drought and Striga infestation. In addition, inbred line TZEEIOR 197 may be a potentially good tester for PVA single-cross hybrid production.The HGCAMT method (Badu-Apraku et al., 2013) assigned the inbreds into two HGs across environments at 40% level of dissimilarity (i.e. R-squared value of 40%), with 11 and 9 of the lines in HG 1 and HG 2, respectively (Table 4 and Supplementary Figure 1). The placement of the inbred lines into two heterotic groups increased the chances of developing high-yielding hybrids through inter-mating of inbred lines belonging to opposing HGs. The inbred TZEEIOR 97 was identified as tester for HG 1 and TZEEIOR 197 for HG 2, while TZEEIOR 197 × TZEEIOR 205 was identified as single-cross tester for HG 2. The identification of inbred testers TZEEIOR 97 and TZEEIOR 197 for HGs 1 and 2 would not only fast track the development of outstanding hybrids but also support a conservative approach to hybrid development, as testers identified for each HG could be crossed to lines of opposing HGs. Of interest was the inbred TZEEIOR 197 which was identified as possessing genes for high YIELD, drought tolerance and Striga resistance/tolerance, and as one of the new inbred testers.This inbred would definitely be invaluable in the development of high yielding, multiple-stress tolerant PVA hybrids for commercialization in SSA.In the GGE biplot view, the thick single-arrow red line passing through the biplot origin and the average tester is referred to as the average-tester coordinate axis (ATC). The double-arrow line (ATC ordinate) separates hybrids with yield less than the average (to the left side of the line) from those with yield greater than the mean (to the right side of the line) (Figs 2 and 3).The average performance of a hybrid is approximated by the projection of its marker on the ATC. The stability of the hybrids is measured by the projection onto the ATC y-axis singlearrow line (ATC abscissa). The shorter the absolute length of the projection of the hybrid, the more stable it is (Yan et al., 2007). In the GGE biplot, hybrid TZEEIOR 109 × TZEEIOR 197 was promising in terms of YIELD but relatively less stable (Fig. 2). The PVA hybrid TZEEIOR 142 × TZEEIOR 197, which ranked third in YIELD, was very stable across test environments.However, hybrid TZEEIOR 197 × TZEEIOR 205 in the genetic study had the highest above mean YIELD as well as the shortest projection onto the average-tester coordinate y-axis and was, therefore, the highest yielding and most stable hybrid across test environments (Fig. 2).Based on the genetic studies, this hybrid was identified as a single-cross tester for HG 2 and Results of ANOVA for extra-early yellow and PVA hybrids evaluated in RMHT revealed significant differences among the hybrids for all measured agronomic traits across stress and non-stress environments except for SDR2 under Striga infestation (Table 5). The environment effects were significant for all measured traits assayed separately across stress and non-stress environments. In contrast, hybrid × environment interaction effects were significant for YIELD and STGR under stress and for DS, ASI, HUSK, PASP and EASP across non-stress environments. Furthermore, the results revealed TZEEIOR 197 × TZEEIOR 205 as the highest yielding hybrid across stress (3554 kg ha -1 ) and non-stress (5655 kg ha -1 ) environments, outyielding the commercial PVA check, TZEEI 58 × TZEE-Y STR C5 by 67 and 61%, respectively. In addition, TZEEIOR 197 × TZEEIOR 205 was superior to the commercial hybrid check in terms of HUSK, STGR and SDR2 under stress, and PASP, EASP and EPP across stress and non-stress environments.The GGE biplot revealed TZEEIOR 197 × TZEEIOR 205 in the RMHT as having the most outstanding above mean YIELD performance and was therefore considered the highest yielding hybrid across test environments (Fig. 3). However, the hybrid had a long projection onto the average-tester coordinate y-axis. Other promising hybrids in terms of YIELD stability across test environments included TZEEIOR 125 × TZdEEI 7 and 2009 TZEE-OR2 STR × TZdEEI 7.Information on the interrelationships among traits plays a key role in the choice of secondary traits a breeder would consider for inclusion in the selection index. In the present study, causal relationships among the hybrid PVA levels, mid-parent levels, YIELD and other measured agronomic traits were illustrated using stepwise regression as well as path analyses under Striga-infested and drought environments (Mohammadi et al., 2003;Talabi et al., 2017). The stepwise multiple regression analysis revealed MP as the sole trait in the first order category accounting for 93% of the observable variation in the PVA levels of hybrids under managed drought environments (Fig. 4). This implied that the PVA content of a hybrid is largely dependent on those of the parental lines used to develop it. Husk cover was the only second order trait while EASP, DS and PHT fell in the third order category of traits contributing to the variation in the hybrid PVA levels. Plant aspect, STGR, DA, ASI, EHT and EROT were categorized as fourth order traits while YIELD and SL were classified as fifth order traits. EPP was in the sixth order category of the traits.Across Striga-infested environments, MP and RL were identified as the first order traits explaining about 96% of the observable differences in the hybrid PVA levels (Fig. 5). This implied that mid-parent PVA and RL were the primary traits that influenced the HPVA under artificial Striga-infested environments. About 96% of the variation could be attributed to these traits, indicating that the PVA content of a hybrid is a function of the PVA levels of the parental inbred lines as well as the lodging resistance of the PVA hybrids under artificial Striga-infested environments. The traits in the second order category included DS, EPP and PHT. Days to anthesis, ASI and YIELD were classified as third order traits while EASP and ESP1 fell in the fourth order. Striga damage syndrome rating at 10 WAP was the only trait in the fifth order whereas HUSK and SL were among sixth order traits. The seventh order category comprised EROT, ESP2 and SDR1. Ear height was the sole trait in the eighth order under Striga-infested environments. The identification of YIELD as fifth and third order traits under induced drought and Striga-infested environments, respectively, implied that the PVA level of hybrids is independent of their yield performance. Thus, simultaneous selection for high YIELD and elevated PVA levels would suffice when the development of hybrids with these characteristics is the goal of a breeding program.When the HarvestPlus Challenge Program was initiated, the yellow kernel maize, on average, had 1.5 μg g -1 PVA content while the orange color maize had 3-8 μg g-1 (HarvestPlus, 2014).Maize breeders then considered maize germplasm with orange kernels as a possible source of PVA and focused attention on the materials for PVA improvement. By implication, PVA genes must have been present in the landraces, although in low frequencies at best. The WECAMAN program subjected the populations developed from the composite of the landraces to genetic enhancement of resistance/tolerance to drought, Striga, and low-N, along with improved quality protein and PVA content, both of which are more recent projects. Stress tolerant maize varieties that have relatively high nutritious value are now being released to farmers in SSA.The genetic studies and breeding efforts for improved PVA that are presented in this paper were based on the orange kernel materials. Indeed, inbred lines with relatively high PVA have been developed and used as parent materials for hybrids. Among the inbred lines are TZEEIOR         TZEEIOR 22,TZEEIOR 24,TZEEIOR 26,TZEEIOR 27,TZEEIOR 28,TZEEIOR 41,TZEEIOR 45,TZEEIOR 30,TZEEIOR 97,TZEEIOR 233 and TZEEIOR 234 TZEEIOR 109,TZEEIOR 197,TZEEIOR 209,TZEEIOR 250,TZEEIOR 251,TZEEIOR 140,TZEEIOR 142,TZEEIOR 202 and TZEEIOR 205  ","tokenCount":"6757"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2d45afd5fb5da52ab4f172264d8025d6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/6394cabb-099c-48e8-9027-81c8b2924440/retrieve","id":"672932430"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"cc67cea3-8b4e-42ee-9462-cb549c2760ea","pagecount":"72","content":"Resource Recovery and Reuse (RRR) is a subprogram of the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) dedicated to applied research on the safe recovery of water, nutrients and energy from domestic and agro-industrial waste streams. This subprogram aims to create impact through different lines of action research, including (i) developing and testing scalable RRR business models, (ii) assessing and mitigating risks from RRR for public health and the environment, (iii) supporting public and private entities with innovative approaches for the safe reuse of wastewater and organic waste, and (iv) improving rural-urban linkages and resource allocations while minimizing the negative urban footprint on the peri-urban environment. This subprogram works closely with the World Health Organization (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), United Nations University (UNU), and many national and international partners across the globe. The RRR series of documents present summaries and reviews of the subprogram's research and resulting application guidelines, targeting development experts and others in the research for development continuum.There are many opportunities to address the dual challenge of waste management and soil nutrient depletion in developing countries via the safe recovery of nutrients from both solid and liquid waste streams for reuse in agriculture. Commercialization of waste-based organic fertilizers such as Fortifer TM (fecal sludge-based fertilizer) has the potential to generate significant benefits for developing economies via cost recovery for the sanitation sector and providing affordable alternative agricultural inputs for smallholder farmers. The successful commercialization of Fortifer TM , however, largely depends on future businesses understanding the dynamics and functionings of the markets that they will operate in. To guide future Fortifer TM businesses, this report presents a detailed market assessment of a fecal sludgebased fertilizer product -Fortifer TM , evaluating farmers' perceptions, attitudes and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for the product. Two formulations of the Fortifer TM product were considered -pelletized Fortifer TM (PF) and non-pelletized Fortifer TM (NPF). This report further provides insights into the market demand and outlook as related to the adoption profiles of farmers and adoption rates. This will serve to guide businesses on the types of marketing and pricing strategies to implement in order to facilitate market entry and mitigate the negative effects of competition. This research was conducted in the Greater Accra and Western regions in Ghana; Kampala, Uganda; Bangalore, India; Hanoi, Vietnam; and Kurunegala, Sri Lanka. Furthermore, cross-country analyses were conducted to better understand the effects of market drivers and if possible, capture lessons learned for knowledge sharing.Farmers' fertilizer purchasing decisions were analyzed to better understand farmers' WTP for agricultural inputs.Price was considered an important factor by farmers on whether to purchase Fortifer TM or not across all study areas, except Hanoi. The latter is possibly due to the fact that farmers traditionally face high fertilizer prices (no subsidies), anticipate the expense and so do not view it as a limiting purchasing factor. With most farmers in these countries being smallholders and typically cash-constrained, accessible and suitable financing will be essential to incentivize adoption. A comparison of key product attributes influencing farmers' fertilizer purchasing decisions across Africa and Asia showed that farmers in Hanoi did not score highly in any of the product attributes compared to all other regions. Nutrient content and fertilizer application methods were amongst product attributes, which scored highly across all the study areas, but less so in Hanoi. An important attitude construct that cuts across most of the selected regions is the issue of safety, which captures farmers' perceived concerns about the safety of the product. To this, farmers' attitudes toward fecal sludge-based fertilizer were generally positive in all the study areas, on condition that a relevant authority ((preferably a governmental authority) that can be trusted certifies the product. While farmers in Bangalore and Kurunegala perceived Fortifer TM as a substitute for chemical fertilizer and would buy it irrespective of the price offered, farmers in Ghana and Uganda were price sensitive and would only buy Fortifer TM if it was cheaper than chemical fertilizer. Additionally, experiential learning as measured by farmers knowing someone who has used the product before and/or if it has been recommended by a trusted source, is critical to whether farmers will purchase the product or not. Future Fortifer TM businesses will need to explore strategic partnerships with agricultural ministries and tap into their extension programs to catalyze adoption.Regression models assessing factors influencing farmers' WTP showed that farmers were less willing to pay for Fortifer TM at higher bids, and this was consistent across all the six countries. Statistically significant socio-demographic variables influencing farmers' WTP for Fortifer TM included farm size, status of landownership and previous experience using organic fertilizer. The effects of farm size on farmers' WTP differed by product type, in that farmers with larger farm sizes were more willing to pay for PF over NPF. This is expected as the latter requires more labor for application. The effects of the attribute variables were similar and consistent across both the Asian and African countries.Farmers' concerns about product safety and related needx for third-party product certification was confirmed by the regression results. Third-party certification will be especially necessary in the Asian countries where guidelines for fecal sludge use in agriculture are unclear.Willingness-to-pay estimates for Fortifer TM were comparable to the prices of existing compost and artificial fertilizers in all the study areas. In Ghana, the mean WTP estimates for NPF and PF were USD 0.145 kg -1 and USD 0.198 kg -1 , respectively for the Greater Accra region. The mean WTP for NPF in Western region was 20% higher than the mean WTP for NPF in the Greater Accra region while the reverse was true for PF. Kampala recorded significantly higher prices than either regions in Ghana, with farmers' WTP twice that in Ghana. In the Asian countries, while WTP estimates were fairly similar for Hanoi and Kurunegala, Bangalore estimates were approximately seven times higher. The highest WTP estimates for NPF and PF among these countries were USD 0.73 kg -1 and USD 0.52 kg -1 , respectively, whilst the lowest WTP estimates were recorded in Hanoi at USD 0.11 kg kg -1 and USD 0.13 USD kg -1 for NPF and PF, respectively. Generally, across all the countries, farmers were willing to pay more for PF than NPF with the exception of Bangalore and the Western Region in Ghana.The demand analyses indicated that the Western region of Ghana recorded the highest demand for both NPF and PF at 0.045 million and 0.044 million tons year -1 , respectively, in spite of the marginally lower adoption rates in comparison to Kampala and the Greater Accra region of Ghana. Demand for NPF and PF in the Western region is about 15 and 24 times higher than that of the Greater Accra region, respectively. Estimated demand in Kampala is significantly lower than any of the other countries, which is not surprising as this is driven by the considerably low fertilizer application rates.Of the Asian study areas, Kurunegala posted the highest demand for both Fortifer products, followed by Hanoi and subsequently Bangalore. The demand for NPF in Kurunegala at 0.6 million tons year -1 is nine times and two times more than that recorded for Bangalore and Hanoi, respectively. This is not surprising as the Kurunegala district ranks high in terms of agricultural activities with oil crops, coconut and paddy production dominant in the region. There is a greater demand for NPF as opposed to PF in all of the countries. This is indicative of farmers' greater willingness to adopt a product (a compost-type product) similar to what they currently use. Overall, demand is comparatively lower in the African countries than the Asian countries for both Fortifer TM products, which was expected, given the overwhelmingly lower fertilizer application rates in the former. The Western region in Ghana has the highest cultivated area of all the countries but still records demand estimates lower than its Asian counterparts.Whilst farmers may be keen to adopt a product (NPF) similar to what they currently use, they are more price sensitive to this product as there are comparable substitutes available in the market. In the case of PF, there are no records of its extensive production or that of a similar product in Uganda or Ghana. Fortifer TM producers will need to particularly consider this when setting prices. Their decision on whether to implement a penetrative, competitive or premium pricing system is crucial as short-term price changes can significantly affect demand. In the case of Ghana, an increase in the price of NPF by USD 0.05 kg -1 will reduce demand by approximately 30%, as is the case in Uganda.For the Asian countries, the elasticity of both the NPF and PF demand curves for Hanoi are approximately the same. This suggests that there is no significant difference in demand with an equal level of price change for both products. However, in the case of Kurunegala, there is a similar trend as in the African countries where the NPF demand curve is more elastic than the PF demand curve. This suggests that farmers will generally be more responsive to price changes for NPF than PF, and an equivalent price change for both NPF and PF will result in a larger change in demand for NPF compared to PF. Thus, whilst a significant potential market exists in Kurunegala, high price sensitivity of farmers may negatively affect demand.Another important facet of market dynamics considered in this report was the diffusion of Fortifer TM , assessed using the Bass model. Adoption profiles for Fortifer TM indicated that the farmers' coefficient of innovation, p, representative of early adopters, was generally low across all the countries and for both Fortifer TM products. For PF, Bangalore recorded the lowest measure for early adopters, while the Western region in Ghana had the highest level of early adopters.As noted earlier, the Western region boasts a strong and extensive agriculture sector, predominantly characterized by large-scale agricultural producers who have more flexibility in terms of financial resources to invest in new technologies. Kampala had the lowest measure among the African regions -which is not surprising given the unusual low fertilizer application rates in Uganda. This result is also mirrored for the case of NPF. For NPF, Kurunegala recorded the lowest measure for early adopters whilst the Greater Accra region had the highest measure. It is interesting to note that in comparing the coefficients for both PF and NPF across all the countries, early adopters had a proclivity for NPF rather than PF with the exception of Kurunegala. This result corroborates the findings from the demand estimations.Whilst the measure of early adoption was generally low, it is interesting to note that on average, farmers from the African countries had a marginally higher measure for early adoption of both PF and NPF than the Asian farmers.The results confirmed what is traditionally known of developing country farmers, who are typically known as imitators for adoption of agricultural technologies. This is confirmed by the coefficient of imitation, q, (representative of late adopters, i.e. farmers who will adopt a technology, if it is recommended by other farmers or any other trusted source (e.g. extension service agents)) estimates. The values for q were the same for both NPF and PF. With the exception of Hanoi, most farmers will most likely adopt Fortifer TM if a trusted source can confirm and recommend its quality. This suggests that future Fortifer TM businesses will need to invest in strong awareness programs coupled with actual field experiments to increase product recognition and eventual adoption. Strategic partnerships with existing governmental extension programs will be key in view of farmers' reliance on extension agents for technical information and training.For all the study areas, it was noted that market growth rate in the introduction phase of Fortifer TM will be significantly fast. While investments in promotion and awareness programs will be necessary, greater focus should be placed on incentive mechanisms to catalyze farmer adoption. In the African countries, diffusion of Fortifer TM products is expected to be faster in Ghana than in Uganda. This is largely driven by the higher measures of early adoption and comparatively higher levels of fertilizer application rates in Ghana. For Uganda, a country with relatively low fertilizer application rates, it is important that Fortifer TM businesses focus on the development of new product features and quality improvement to buffer the effects of competitors' innovations. In Asia, diffusion of Fortifer TM products will be faster in Bangalore than in Hanoi for both NPF and PF, despite the larger market and higher measures of early adoption in the latter. Greater investments in awareness programs coupled with actual field experiments will be crucial to increase product recognition and eventual adoption, in comparison to Bangalore where farmers are already informally using fecal sludge for agricultural production. This result is also applicable for Kurunegala and Hanoi; however, the comparisons between Bangalore and Kurunegala are inconclusive. Higher percentages of market demand were captured at the period of peak sales in the African countries compared to the Asian countries, suggesting faster market growth rates in the former. This result is indicative of the combined effect of higher innovation and imitation coefficients on market demand and growth. Similar results were noted for PF. Of the African countries, Ghana had the fastest diffusion rate for Fortifer TM products, while this was the case for India and Sri Lanka in the Asian countries considered for this study.Opportunities to address the dual challenge of waste management and soil nutrient depletion in many developing countries via the safe recovery of nutrients from both solid and liquid waste streams for reuse in agriculture is high on the global agenda. Large urban cities in Africa and Asia such as Kampala, Uganda, Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana and Hanoi, Vietnam face the challenge of a growing urban population and a resulting exponential increase in waste generation (Danso et al. 2017). Limited public funds to support waste management infrastructure and services has resulted in significant environmental pollution as most of the generated waste, whether collected or uncollected, is often deposited untreated in open spaces, waterbodies and/or landfills (Kinobe et al. 2015;Matter et al. 2015;Cofie et al. 2010. The long-term effects of these practices include increased human health risk from communities' exposure to untreated waste and generation of significant quantities of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the form of methane, to name a few. This situation is particularly exacerbated for cities characterized by a growing population and rapid urban migration (Sabiiti 2011;Vermeiren et al. 2012;World Bank 2015a, 2015b, 2017;Jagadeesh et al. 2015;Kollikkathara 2009;Loi 2005;Manning 2010).As evident in the last decade, solid waste generation has doubled and was projected to increase exponentially from 1.3 billion tons a year in 2010 to 2.2 billion tons a year in 2025 (Hoornweg and Bhada-Tata 2012), globally. This increase is mostly attributed to developing countries, where it is driven by a combination of high urbanization rates and economic development. In developing countries, the per capita waste generation rate ranges between 0.4 to 1.1 kilograms (kg) day -1 , reaching 2.4 kg day -1 in many urban areas, of which on average 50-75% is organic matter (Sabiiti et al. 2014;Kawai and Tasaki 2016). The pattern of inadequate treatment of municipal solid waste translates to other waste streams such as fecal sludge 1 (excreta). For example, an estimated 2.4 billion users of onsite sanitation systems in Sub-Saharan Africa generate fecal sludge that goes untreated resulting in environmental contamination (Rao et al. 2017;Muspratt et al. 2014;Koné 2010). Also important are the health concerns often related to waterborne diseases associated with fecal contamination, which are among the top causes of child mortality in India and Sri Lanka (Hingorani 2011;Bain et al. 2014;Lakshminarayanan and Jayalakshmy 2015). With the increasing challenges of waste management, policy-makers in developing countries have adopted many international principles and approaches such as Agenda 21 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but in practice, waste management challenges have not significantly improved (Diener et al. 2014;UNICEF and WHO 2012).Conversely, municipal solid waste (MSW) and fecal sludge (FS) are huge sources for nutrient recovery (Sabiiti 2011) that have yet to be exploited. The recovery of nutrients from both solid and liquid waste streams is especially important where soils are poor and the availability of alternative inputs is constrained. Many large cities in developing countries boast of large urban arable farm areas (Thebo et al. 2014;Nuwagaba 2003). Uganda is noted as a country with very low fertilizer application rates compared to other countries in the region (Crawford et al. 2005;Bayite-Kasule et al. 2011;EPRC 2011;Pedersen et al. 2012). Average annual fertilizer consumption in Uganda is estimated at around 10,000 to 20,000 tons, which is significantly lower than other comparable African and Asian countries 2 (IFPRI  2008; World Bank 2013). Peri-urban and rural farmers in Uganda face increasingly limited access to fertilizers due to: a) structurally-flawed subsidy programs and b) limited and inefficient distribution networks, resulting in exorbitant market prices; and invariably decreased agricultural productivity. With a foreseeable increasing trend of urban food demand, increasing fertilizer prices and stricter regulations for safeguarding the environment from pollution, initiatives for nutrient recovery from waste will play a key role in the economic development of many urban cities in developing countries and elsewhere.There is great potential to close the nutrient loop, support a 'circular economy' and cost recovery within the waste sector or even to create viable businesses. The idea of closing the nutrient and water cycles by using municipal organic waste, fecal sludge and wastewater for urban and peri-urban agriculture is nothing new. Not only has it been practiced for generations in many countries either formally or informally, but it has also been proposed and tried on a small scale as a green solution for modern cities (Smit and Nasr 1992;Murray and Buckley 2010;Murray et al. 2011;EAI 2011). Farmers in West Africa and South India, for example, redirect cesspit truck operators to dump the raw collected fecal sludge on their farm fields to obtain the nutrient-rich manure (Otoo and Drechsel 2018;Rao et al. 2016;Cofie et al. 2009). Health authorities however are more concerned about the health issues associated with the use of raw fecal matter in food production but field experiments in Ghana have shown that with sufficient solar drying and crop restrictions, these risks can be minimized (Seidu 2010;Keraita et al. 2014) and this is even possible in situations where there are limited regulations governing the process.Over a decade of research by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) shows the use of compost 3 can accrue significant benefits to farmers and also has the potential to reduce public budget allocations to waste management (Otoo and Drechsel 2018;Danso and Drechsel 2014). Additionally, previous studies have shown that composting of municipal solid waste is more beneficial than other existing options such as land filling, incineration or open disposal (Drechsel et al. 2004;Hutton et al. 2009;De Bertoldi et al. 1996;EC 2002). However, very few successful cases have been noted such as Waste Concern in Bangladesh, Balangoda Municipal Compost Plant in Sri Lanka and Zoomlion in Ghana; most initiatives in low-and middle-income countries have been recorded as small scale and seldom viable without significant subsidies. With the limited viability of wastebased nutrient recovery initiatives, compost businesses have been particularly linked to gaps in market information and business planning. Research has shown that farmers' concerns related to low product nutrient content, skin diseases from product use, related labor requirements and general mistrust of information provided on product quality, significantly affect the demand for the compost product (Otoo et al. 2015;Viaene et al. 2015;Danso et al. 2006;Drechsel et al. 2004). In many situations, farmers' willingness-to-pay (WTP) was either too low or farmers preferred existing substitutes for soil inputs such as cow dung, poultry manure or even dried fecal sludge (Evans et al. 2013;Otoo et al. 2012;Cofie et al. 2006;Danso et al. 2006). The use of these alternatives, however, comes with limitations. The cost of transporting fecal sludge from Kampala in Uganda, for example, to peri-urban and rural areas where large-scale farming is more prevalent, is significantly higher compared to other alternatives like chemical fertilizer (Otoo et al. 2015). Additionally, the limited awareness about the value and safety of using fecal sludge for enhancing agricultural productivity is prevalent (NETWAS 2011).There are opportunities for the pelletization and blending of fecal sludge (FS) and municipal solid waste (MSW) cocompost with rock phosphate, urea/struvite or nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK) to produce a product with: a) structure improvement (reduced bulkiness while simplifying crop application -pellets) and b) higher nutrient content tailored for specific crops and soils (Annex 1). This will enhance the competitive advantage, marketability and field use (Nikiema et al. 2013(Nikiema et al. , 2014)). IWMI has developed such a product called Fortifer TM , a nitrate-fortified and pelletized fecal sludge and MSW-based co-compost, which addresses the current challenges associated with using 'regular' compost or dried fecal sludge such as bulkiness, low nutrient content and associated health risks (IWMI 2017;Impraim et al. 2014;Nikiema et al. 2013). The main approach is to dry the septage followed by aerobic composting of the dewatered sludge, which sanitizes and reduces its volume. Although fecal sludge can be processed alone, co-composting with another organic waste, such as organic municipal waste is more common, as it improves the composting properties, in particular the carbon-nitrogen ratio and moisture content (Figure A1) (Cofie et al. 2009(Cofie et al. , 2016)). Opportunities to increase the accessibility and usability of value-added fecal sludge products in agriculture include fortification or enrichment of fecal sludge with nutrients such as rock phosphate, struvite/urine or industrial fertilizer to boost their fertilizer value; and pelletizing the composted fecal sludge, resulting in easy-to-handle, safe, high-value products.The commercialization of such a product in countries such as Ghana, India, Sri Lanka and Uganda, for example, would make an immense contribution to both the sanitation and agriculture sectors. Revenue generation from the sale of the Fortifer TM product also provides great opportunities for cost recovery for the sanitation sector (Murray and Buckley 2010), while farmers, on the other hand, have increased access to alternative agricultural inputs at competitive market prices. The successful commercialization of Fortifer TM , however, requires an accurate estimation of the relative market size for the new product. Even more importantly, the questions of whether demand actually exists and whether end-users are willing to pay for the product need to be explored, as \"demand, even among those with limited resources, is not automatic\" (Phillips et al. 2003;page 194). In particular, the perceptions of the end-users towards the product and their WTP need to be assessed, especially given mixed reviews of farmers' attitudes concerning excreta use for agricultural production in many developing countries.In this regard, the objectives of this study are to: 1. Assess farmers' perceptions and attitudes of fecal sludge-based co-compost (Fortifer TM ). 2. Estimate their WTP for fecal sludge-based cocompost (Fortifer TM ).for fecal sludge-based co-compost (Fortifer TM ).Many studies have estimated farmers' WTP for compost products but most have been undertaken in developed countries with very few in the developing world (Agyekum et al. 2014;Palatnik et al. 2005;Arene and Mbata 2008;Valerian et al. 2001). In particular, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive study that covers several developing countries using an empirical application of a contingent valuation method to assess the market feasibility of a fecal sludge-based fertilizer. The results from this study will provide important demand-side (productspecific attributes) information for future businesses to guide their investment decisions. The findings will not only be of interest to waste management regulators in the selected countries, but also to international donors and sanitation investors who are constantly exploring a holistic approach in generating multiple benefits from waste reuse businesses.The use of organic nutrients in crop production is not new and different forms such as poultry manure and cow dung, human excreta, slurry from biogas digesters and compost have been used in crop production. Human excreta has been used in crop production for centuries (Drechsel et al. 2010;Pham Duc et al. 2014). However, mineral fertilizer remains the main source of nutrients in agriculture. Although the contribution from organic nutrients is minimal relative to mineral fertilizer, they have high significance considering their effect on soil physico-chemical and biological properties. This minimal contribution is due in part to the lack of production and consumption data as a result of the informal nature of their use in many instances (Roy et al. 2006).Human excreta is a rich source of NPK, also found in mineral fertilizers, and can therefore be recycled for use in agriculture (Cofie and Adamtey 2009). As a result of the high nutrient value of raw fecal sludge, many farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America are very eager to use it in crop production because it also offers a cheaper alternative source of nutrients and is much more readily available (Nikiema et al. 2013). The World Health Organization (WHO) has developed guidelines to promote the safe use of human excreta in agriculture, realizing its resource value and nutrient content for crop production (WHO 2006). This has culminated in the recent development of technologies and pre-agricultural use of human excreta such as composting of dried fecal sludge, co-composting with other organic matter and enrichment with inorganic fertilizer (Nikiema et al. 2013(Nikiema et al. , 2014)).Various studies have been conducted to ascertain the suitability and the health risks associated with the use of human excreta as a nutrient source in crop production.Pham Duc et al. (2011Duc et al. ( , 2014) ) studied the prevalence of helminth infection among farmers using human excreta as fertilizer in Vietnam. Mackie Jensen et al. ( 2008) also studied the perceived health risks and benefits among farmers of using human excreta as fertilizer in Vietnam. Lederer et al. (2015) investigated the potential of using recycled human excreta as a nutrient source in agriculture in Uganda. Koné et al. (2007) investigated helminth egg removal and inactivation efficiency using composting of dewatered fecal sludge as a treatment process. Cofie et al. (2010) also investigated farmers' perceptions and cultural attitudes towards the use of human excreta in farming in southern Ghana.Apart from the health challenges associated with the use of human excreta in farming, which are effectively eradicated through composting (Nikiema et al. 2013;Cofie et al. 2010;Mackie Jensen et al. 2008;Knudsen et al. 2008), there are also socioeconomic and cultural challenges that to a large extent border on the very viability and sustainability of a fecal sludge-based fertilizer business and its acceptability among farmers. Consequently, studies have been conducted in various countries to empirically ascertain and evaluate these conditions. A study by Ali (2004) noted that the failure of most compost projects is due to the lack of attention paid to demand and marketing. A marketing study for compost across four countries; Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh revealed that identification of market segments and devising good strategies are requirements for successful composting operations (Drescher et al. 2006). In spite of the high cost of inorganic fertilizer, it is quite difficult for farmers to shift to compost because the incremental yield benefits of compost occur in the long term. Rouse et al. (2008) found that the success of the Horizon Lanka, university and community compost projects in Sri Lanka was attributable to effective marketing.A study by Danso et al. (2006) estimated the demand for compost in Ghana and found that government subsidies are necessary to boost both production and use given the abundant availability of cheap poultry manure. A study on marketing of human excreta as a soil ameliorant in Uganda by NETWAS (2011) revealed that re-use of human excreta as a fertilizer in Uganda is a possibility, however a careful selection of target customer segments is a prerequisite for success. A study by Knudsen et al. (2008) evaluated the risk perceptions' and health risks' awareness among Vietnamese farmers using human excreta in agriculture.The farmers prefer composted excreta to fresh, uncomposted human faeces, the latter being described as 'dirty'. In order to identify potential mitigation measures to address negative consumer perceptions and understand the dynamics of the market the new product will be sold in, potential businesses will need to clearly assess the underlying factors of farmers' purchasing decisions and unpack the structural elements that drive market demand.In this study, a farmer's decision process is modeled using a random utility framework (Danso et al. 2017). We assume that the sociodemographic characteristics of farmers influence their attitudes towards the fecal sludge-based co-compost, Fortifer TM , 4 and contribute to each farmer's subjective use of the product. Stated preference methods such as contingent valuation and choice-based conjoint analysis have gained immense popularity in eliciting farmers' valuation of new technologies or other farming input products (Burdine et al. 2002;Lusk and Hudson 2004;Kimenju and Groote 2008;Ibro et al. 2009;Gbégbélégbé 2008). These methods elicit WTP from consumers in a hypothetical and less than realistic environment and are based on intended behavior. In this study a contingent valuation questionnaire was applied using a dichotomous choice model to assess farmers' WTP for fecal sludgebased fertilizer. To assess farmers' knowledge, attitudes and perceptions towards fecal sludge-based fertilizer, multivariate data analysis using factor analysis was used. Furthermore, the Bass model was applied to assess the market outlook for fecal sludge-based fertilizer.In providing estimates for non-market goods and services, stated preference valuation and conjoint analysis are the most dominant approaches (Lusk and Hudson 2004;Kimenju and Groote 2008). Most researchers prefer to use these approaches because of their flexibility in design and the relatively low implementation costs. These methods elicit WTP from farmers in a hypothetical and less than realistic environment and are based on either perceived or intended behavior. Critics argue that these approaches are not incentive-compatible as farmers' prevalent decision-making options are not consistent with their preferences for the good in question (Carson 2000). Thus, it is not too surprising that research has shown that these elicitation techniques have consistently overestimated consumers' WTP measures (Umberger and Feuz 2004;Kimenju and Groote 2008). In spite of this bias, these approaches continue to be used because they provide results that are better than other methods and are relatively cost effective to generate. where y i is a farmer's WTP, is the vector of parameters and e i is an error term which is assumed to be normally distributed with \uD835\uDC52\uD835\uDC52 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 ~\uD835\uDC41\uD835\uDC41(0, \uD835\uDF0E\uD835\uDF0E 2 ). Then we have: (2) where is the standard cumulative normal. The estimated parameters and the estimated standard deviation can then be used to determine the average WTP of the respondents: where and are the vector of coefficients associated with the explanatory variables and the coefficient capturing the amount of the bid from the Probit model respectively.It is hypothesized that farmers' knowledge and attitude towards fecal sludge-based fertilizer will affect their WTP for Fortifer TM . Thus, a multivariate data analysis using factor analysis was used to assess farmers' knowledge, attitude and perceptions towards a fecal sludge-based fertilizer. Information pertaining to farmers' attitudes toward fecal sludge-based fertilizer consists of many interrelated variables. To reduce the dimensionality of the attitude variables and to create a smaller set of meaningful orthogonal variables, a factor analysis was used (Jolliffe 2002). Factor analysis is used to reorient data and create a few variables (also referred to as factors) which account for as much of the available information as possible. In the factor analysis, p can be expressed as observed random variables, X=[x 1 , x 2 ,…, x p ] can be expressed as linear functions of m (< p) and latent factors aswhere j= 1,2, …, p; k= 1,2,…,m denotes factor loadings and ej, j= 1,2,…, p are error terms or specific factors. The factors obtained have the property that each factor is uncorrelated with all others and thus can be included as explanatory variables in the single-bounded dichotomous choice model.The survey was conducted in the Greater Accra and Western regions of Ghana, Kampala in Uganda, Hanoi in Vietnam, Bangalore in India and Kurunegala in Sri Lanka as depicted in Figure 1. The Greater Accra region is the smallest in terms of land size among the ten regions in Ghana, having a total land area of about 4,450 square kilometers (km sq.) and a bimodal rainfall pattern. The average annual rainfall in the region varies from about millimeters (mm) along the coastal belt to about 1,270 mm in the extreme southwest. The major agricultural activities in the region include crop production (cereals, root and tubers, vegetables and tree crops), livestock, fisheries and alternative livelihoods such as mushroom cultivation, apiculture, rabbit and grass-cutter rearing. The Western region has an approximate land area of about 239,221 km sq. The region is the wettest in the country with a double peak rainfall pattern and an average annual rainfall of 1,600 mm. The vegetation and climate make the region very conducive for agriculture; this coupled with the moderately well-drained, clayey and loamy soil types in the region enables significant plantation agriculture in the region. The region is the largest producer of cocoa, rubber, coconut and oil palm in the country.At present, Ghana does not produce any inorganic fertilizer although recently a few compost-producing plants operating at a commercial scale have been established. All inorganic fertilizers used in the country are imported by a few private companies, which distribute the fertilizers to registered wholesalers or retailers located in the regional capitals. While there are only few fertilizer importers, there are about retailers of fertilizers spread throughout the country (FAO 2005). In Ghana, despite the fact that the importance of fertilizer is made clear in the National Development Plan, its adoption is still very low (Fuentes et al. 2012). It is estimated that fertilizer application rate is 8 kilograms per hectare (kg ha -1 ) in Ghana compared to 20 kg ha -1 in Sub-Saharan Africa, 99 kg ha -1 in Latin America, 109 kg ha -1 in South Asia and 149 kg ha -1 in East and Southeast Asia (MOFA 2015). The low application rate has been attributed to, among other factors, the high cost of fertilizers. A study by FAO (2005) indicated that the key constraints to fertilizer use in Ghana include insufficient credit to the farmer, high lending rates by banks for the agriculture sector and problems with marketing of agricultural produce. Moreover, distance from the farm gate to the nearest fertilizer dealer is cited as one of the several challenges faced by Ghana in the use of fertilizers (Krausova and Banful 2010). Not only farmers but also agricultural inputs dealers in all the regions have to travel long distances ranging from median distances of less than 50 km in Greater Accra to 152 km in the Western region to access their suppliers (IFDC 2012).As with Ghana (Greater Accra region), the Ugandan economy is predominantly supported by agriculture and contributes almost 25% to the national gross domestic product. Beyond this, urban agriculture features prominently as part of Kampala's economy and is an important livelihood strategy for the city's urban poor, especially women (Hooton et al. 2007)  (George and Gracious 2005). With increasing and erratic inorganic fertilizer prices and increased organic farming, agricultural producers will become more dependent on organic fertilizer sources as their main nutrient source. Market distortions coupled with the absence of a large-scale government fertilizer program that provides subsidized fertilizer and an inactive private fertilizer sector that can supply fertilizer at competitive prices, represent a great opportunity in the broader fertilizer market for organic (waste-based) fertilizer businesses.This trend mirrors the case in Vietnam, where the absence of fertilizer price subsidies means that farmers face erratic and significantly high fertilizer prices. Prices are typically subject to international price changes and exchange rate fluctuations of the economy. Accordingly, the Vietnamese fertilizer market has and continues to experience great price volatility. Fertilizer prices have doubled, and in some cases even tripled, over the past year. This creates significant speculation among local producers and farmers about future price hikes, causing a surge in farmer demand. Whilst, producers benefit from input subsidies, fluctuations in fertilizer prices result in significant uncertainties related to production. These trends however represent a great opportunity for waste-based organic fertilizer businesses to take advantage of erratic chemical fertilizer prices and the limited number of actors in the respective market and capture a share of the market. Whilst, peri-urban and urban agriculture is a longstanding feature in Hanoi and its surrounding areas, and an important indicator for fertilizer demand, rapid urban growth is leading to greater competition over land use, such that this practice is being increasingly threatened by conversion to nonagricultural urban uses (Lee et al. 2010). Research suggests that 80% of fresh vegetables, 50% of pork, poultry and freshwater fish, as well as 40% of eggs, originate from urban and periurban areas of Hanoi. This region boasts a warm humid subtropical climate with abundant rainfall (Peel et al. 2007), conducive for agricultural production.This climatic pattern extends also to the Karnataka region (Bangalore, India) and North Western region of Sri Lanka (Kurunegala). Crop production ranks high in both regions in terms of agricultural activities with oil crops, coconut and paddy production dominant in the Kurunegala region. The region of Karnataka boasts 122,470,000 ha of cultivated land (with 157,354 ha in Bangalore), constituting 25.3% of the total geographical area of the state (Government of Karnataka 2017). The 2001 census indicated that farmers and agricultural laborers formed more than half of the workforce of Karnataka (Government of India 2017). The main crops grown are rice, ragi, jowar, maize, and pulses (tur and gram), oilseeds and a number of cash crops. Karnataka is the largest producer of coarse cereals, coffee, raw silk and tomatoes among the states in India (FAO 2017; Government of India 2017). Horticultural crops are grown over an area of 16,300 km² and the annual production is about 9.58 million tons, with the generated income constituting over 40% of all income from agriculture. Contrary to the cases of Vietnam and the two African countries, there are large-scale government chemical fertilizer programs that provide subsidized fertilizer to farmers and a moderately active private fertilizer sector that supplies fertilizer at competitive prices in India and Sri Lanka. The fertilizer industry is however similarly plagued with market distortions related to limited product differentiation, distribution inefficiencies in the supply chain, information flow and foreign exchange rate fluctuations. Overall, the selected regions for this study boast a conducive climate for agriculture, which along with market distortions in the chemical fertilizer sector preliminarily translate into a great industry opportunity for a burgeoning organic waste-based) fertilizer industry.Prior to conducting the market experiments, a scoping study was conducted in each of the cities to make a preliminary determination of the key potential customer segments for the Fortifer TM product. As a potential substitute for chemical fertilizer, Fortifer TM is viewed as a key agricultural input and smallholder farmers were noted as the main prospective customer segment. Subsequently, a survey was conducted to assess farmers' attitudes and WTP for Fortifer TM in six cities in five countries, representing two continents -Africa and Asia. The surveys were conducted in Greater Accra and Sekondi-Takoradi of the Western region in Ghana, Bangalore in India, Kampala in Uganda, Kurunegala in Sri Lanka and Hanoi in Vietnam.The CV surveys were conducted in 2015 in all the selected locations. Respondents for the study were sampled from farming households in several districts, representative of urban, peri-urban and rural parts of the city region.In Kampala, for example, the respondents were sampled from farming households in five districts (Table 1) representative of: a) urban Kampala (i.e. Kampala city, central division) and b) peri-urban Kampala (i.e. Luwelo, Mukono, Mpigi and Wakiso divisions). The targeted sample size of 300 farmers was proportionally distributed across each district based on the land use (i.e. residential land vs. agricultural land) distribution per district. Respondents from each district for the study were randomly sampled from farming households with and without compost-use experience in the different divisions. Twenty-five respondents provided a protest response and refused to respond to the surveys. Therefore, a total of 275 farmers fully completed the survey, with valid observations for the analysis. In Ghana, for the Greater Accra region, 226 farmers were interviewed in six districts while in the Western region, four districts were sampled and a total of 235 respondents were interviewed. The districts were Accra, Tema and Ashaiman municipalities, Shai Osu-Doku, Ada East and Ga East districts in Greater Accra and Nzema East Ahanta West, Mpohor and Bia East in the Western region. For each district, at least two communities were selected. The Ashaiman irrigation site was deliberately selected in Ashaiman metropolis as it is the main site for agricultural activity in the district. Similarly, Tema, Klaggon and Community 11 and 12 were selected, as agricultural activities are mainly concentrated in these communities.A similar sampling approach was implemented in the Asian cities and the data are presented in Table 1. In addition to the responses to CVM experiment questions, data were collected on the respondents' socioeconomic characteristics, farmers' fertilizer-use characteristics, farmers' fertilizer purchasing behavior including their knowledge, perceptions, attitudes and experience in using different compost products, among other factors. These data served as the explanatory variables in investigating the heterogeneity in the farmers' preferences for fecal sludge-based co-compost.  Prior to the implementation of the market experiments, pilot surveys were conducted to explore the type of farming activities in and around the selected study areas. Samples of the Fortifer TM product were introduced to the farmers during the pilot surveys to get an insight into their willingness to use and pay for the product. In each selected survey site, informal discussions were conducted with a group of farmers to determine the starting bid levels to be used during the actual survey. Before the actual surveys, enumerators underwent a one-day training focusing on the execution of the market experiment, technicalities of the questionnaire and characteristics of the Fortifer TM product for which the WTP values were to be elicited. This ensured that the enumerators were knowledgeable about the product and would be able to adequately address any questions that the farmers might raise regarding the product during the actual survey. Two different types of formulations of the Fortifer TM product were used in the market experiments: a) a pelletized co-compost and b) non-pelletized co-compost. To elicit the farmers' WTP for the Fortifer TM products, they were randomly assigned different bid levels to control for the effect of extraneous variables on the dependent variable.The study used a single-bounded dichotomous choice model to estimate the WTP for both the pelletized and nonpelletized Fortifer TM (NPF) product. The farmers were thus initially provided with a bid; when this was accepted, they were then given a higher bid for which their acceptance or rejection was evaluated. In the instance when the initial bid was rejected, the farmers were given a lower bid and their acceptance or rejection of the bid were also evaluated.The CV experiment was designed on the basis of 'low bids', 'medium bids' and 'high bids' for both types of the Fortifer TM product. Using the throw of a die, the farmers were randomly assigned to these three categories -when the die showed a 1 or 4, the participant was assigned a 'low bid'; when the die showed a 2 or 5 the participant was assigned a 'medium bid' and when the die showed a 3 or 6 the participant was assigned a 'high bid'. Table 2 shows the different bids assigned to the farmers. The different bids were determined based on consultation with local partners in each of the countries and based on a scoping market study. The ranges of price levels were chosen to reflect the low-end and high-end prices that were observed in the actual fertilizer markets in the different cities. For example, the levels of prices chosen ranged from USD 0.12 kg -1 to USD 0.54 kg -1 in Kampala, Uganda. Thus if a randomly selected respondent was assigned a low bid for NPF, the respondent was initially given a bid of USD 0.15 If they accepted this bid level, they were subsequently presented with a higher bid of USD 0.19, which they accepted or not. Table 2 shows that on average the population of participants was fairly evenly assigned to the different bid levels in the selected cities -with the exception of Kampala where the majority was assigned the low-level bid. It is important to note that the bids were presented to the respondents in local currencies in the different cities but for uniformity and ease of comparison of the results, the bids are presented here in United States dollars (USD).  Table 3 presents the sociodemographic statistics of the respondents from the selected study areas. This information will be useful for the subsequent sections, particularly in estimating the WTP measures and the influence of these variables on the mean WTP. The survey results showed that the sampled farmers were disproportionately male across all the cities, although comparatively fewer in Kampala and the Western region of Ghana. Most farmers were within the age bracket of 38-51 years, which corroborates the finding that the productive age group in developing countries (14-59 years) is the age group that provides labor to the agriculture sector (World Bank 2016; ILO 2016). The average ages of the sampled farmers in the African and Asian cities were 45 and 48 years, respectively. The level of education of the farmers was noted to be moderately evenly distributed across the three categories of: a) no education, b) primary education and c) secondary education in the African cities.In the Asian cities, with the exception of Bangalore, a disproportionate percentage of the farmers had a secondary education in comparison to the other educational levels. The relatively high literacy level of the farmers suggested that the farmers had the basic education to perform activities such as reading and understanding the instructions on labels and fertilizer application methods -which may be an implicit factor that influences their willingness to adopt/use the Fortifer TM product.Most of the respondents belonged to medium-and large-sized households, ranging between three and seven members. This result may be indicative of the use of family labor for agricultural activities. This assertion is also supported, particularly in the African cities, by the fact that a significant percentage of the farmers do not engage in off-farm employment. A similar trend was observed in Asia, although the percentages were relatively proportionally distributed across on-and off-farm employment in Bangalore and Hanoi. The number of years that the farmers had been engaged in agricultural activities varied significantly across the different countries from as low as one year to 40 years, with an average of 25 years of farming experience. The highest percentage of farmers belonging to a farmers' association occurred in the Western region in Ghana. This is not surprising as this region is a main agricultural belt in the country. Additionally, whilst urban and peri-urban agricultural is prominent in the selected cities -the farmers tend to be nomadic due to increasing urban development and thus typically have a lower incentive to engage in farmers' associations, especially if this comes at a cost. Farmers in the study areas were predominately small scale with an average land size ranging from 0.83 to 7.92 acres, although the latter is more representative for the Western region farmers in Ghana. This significant variation also translates to the income earned, ranging from USD 849 to approximately USD 5,062 -with the highest earners in Hanoi. It is important to note that the large standard deviations may well be attributable to the fact that farmers are typically unwilling to reveal their incomes and thus the stated income levels may be biased downwards.Although, traditionally noted to be nomadic farmers, most of the respondents in all the cities owned their land.With the exception of Kampala and Bangalore, a dominant percentage of the farmers used chemical fertilizers. The case of Kampala is attributed to several distortions in the fertilizer market, including: a) an uncertain macro-environment, characterized by high exchange rate movements with a devaluation of local currency; b) high domestic and import taxes; c) a weak regulatory system that cannot control unlicensed suppliers; and d) limited established distribution networks. As expected, organic fertilizer use was higher among farmers in Kampala and Bangalore, although on average 50% of the farmers in the other locations used organic fertilizer. Gender Gender category (%) 1= InorganicUse_org_fert Use of organic fertilizer (%):  Note: a The overall percentage of respondents using different kinds of organic fertilizers.The use of poultry manure for agricultural activities was quite predominant in Ghana until recently (Boateng et al. 2006). Despite farmers' increasing demand for poultry manure, its availability is increasingly diminishing given the declining state of the country's poultry industry, which is attributable to lax import policies. Bangalorean farmers are also noted to be large users of organic fertilizers, although this was not observed in Hanoi (Table 5). The survey included statements related to a set of fertilizer attributes that were likely to have an influence on farmers' choice of fertilizers. To determine the most important factors that influence farmers' choices, farmers were asked to rate various product attributes. These product attributes were rated based on their level of importance prior to purchasing fertilizer using a Likert scale. Product attributes were then ranked for their level of importance based on the number of farmers giving high scores (4)(5) to each attribute (Table 6).Farmers in both regions of Ghana rated a suitable credit offer as the most important product attribute in making their fertilizer-purchasing decisions. While price was ranked as the second most important product attribute in the Western region, a convenient location to buy the product was rated as the second-most important attribute in Greater Accra. Nutrient content and fertilizer application methods were also amongst the product attributes, which scored high in both regions. Other product attributes which farmers considered before purchasing fertilizer were organic matter, volume to apply and a label showing product certification by relevant authorities such as the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. The importance of brand and packaging ranked as the least important attributes in both regions. Moreover, whether the product was locally made or imported was not considered as an important product attribute determining farmers' fertilizer purchase decisions. In contrast, farmers in Kampala considered whether someone they knew had used it as the most important aspect when making a fertilizer purchase decision. Fertilizer application method, organic matter, waterholding capacity and volume to apply were also considered as important product attributes. Unlike surveyed farmers in Ghana, farmers in Kampala did not consider a suitable credit offer and price as the most important attributes when making purchase decisions. While farmers in Ghana were indifferent to the safety of a product, farmers in Kampala rated safety as an important product attribute when making purchase decisions.Farmers in Bangalore, Hanoi and Kurunegala considered different product attributes when making fertilizer purchase decisions. While farmers in Bangalore and Kurunegala rated product quality as measured by nutrient content and safety as the most important product attributes respectively, farmers in Hanoi made their fertilizer purchase decisions based on whether someone they knew had used it. In addition to nutrient content and safety, farmers in Bangalore and Kurunegala rated price and organic matter as important product attributes when making purchase decisions. Waterholding capacity and volume of fertilizer to apply were also rated as important product attributes by Kurunegala farmers.Comparison of key important product attributes influencing fertilizer purchase decisions across Africa and Asia showed that farmers in Hanoi did not particularly give a high score to any of the product attributes compared to all other regions. While price was given a moderate to high score in all of the regions, farmers in Hanoi rated price as the least important product attribute. While farmers in Ghana rated a suitable credit offer as very important in their purchase decisions they were indifferent to the safety of the product; in contrast farmers in other regions, with the exception of Hanoi, were indifferent to credit offers but rated safety as an important product attribute. The farmers were asked a series of questions aimed at assessing their knowledge, attitudes and perceptions regarding fecal sludge-based fertilizers. This information was collected to investigate the effect of farmers' attitudes on their WTP for Fortifer TM . To investigate the underlying structure of the attitude variables, we conducted a factor analysis. This section presents the results of the factor analysis for the selected regions.Table 7 presents the factor loadings of attitude variables (in bold) on the extracted factors after varimax orthogonal rotation. The factor analysis of attitude variables in Greater Accra resulted in four factors while three factors were identified in the Western region. Each of the factors had an eigenvalue greater than 1. The first three factors were similar in both regions, but in a different order, indicating that their relative importance differed. The total variance accounted for was 67% in Greater Accra and 51% in the Western region. Cronbach's alpha coefficients were computed to examine the internal consistency of each factor. Values were moderate to high (0.62-0.89), indicating that the attitude variables loading on each of the factors measured the same underlying construct. The first factor termed 'positive attribute' had high loadings on questions related to the potential benefits of Fortifer TM in both regions. This factor captured the tendency of farmers to accept Fortifer TM based on its perceived potential benefits such as its potential to enhance agricultural productivity, nutrient availability to crops and enhance long-term soil fertility including its contribution to improving sanitation and environmental sustainability. However, in the Western region, while perceived potential benefits of Fortifer TM had positive factor loadings on 'positive attribute', the variables related to farmers' concerns about religious and cultural beliefs against using fecal sludge-based fertilizers had negative factor loadings (-0.71 and -0.76). This indicated that when a farmer believes that it is religiously and culturally unacceptable to use a fertilizer made from fecal sludge, the farmers' tendency to consider the benefits of using fecal sludge-based fertilizer is reduced.  Three factors were identified in Kampala (Table 8). The first factor, certification-trust, had high loadings on variables related to certification of Fortifer TM by relevant authorities. This factor captures farmers' tendency to trust and buy the product based on approval by relevant and trusted authorities. This is also in line with farmers' attitudes towards certification of the product in Ghana. Thus, farmers in the selected regions of Ghana and Uganda perceived that product quality is guaranteed if certified by relevant authorities. In addition to certification, this factor had high loading on statements related to the perceived price of Fortifer TM compared to chemical fertilizer indicating that farmers tend to buy Fortifer TM if it is cheaper than chemical fertilizer. The second factor, safety issues, had high loadings on variables reflecting farmers' awareness of the advantages and disadvantages of fecal sludge-derived fertilizer and their concerns on safety aspects. This is also in line with results obtained in Ghana whereas factor four captured farmers' concerns on safety. The third factor, positive attributes, captured farmers' perceived advantage of fecal sludge-based fertilizer including their preference of the pellet over nonpellet form. The farmers responded to fewer knowledge and attitude variables in India and Sri Lanka compared to those used in Ghana and Uganda. The third factor, safety issues, had high loadings on variables reflecting farmers' concerns about safety aspects. However, the Cronbach alpha is low (0.42) indicating that the attitude variables loading on the safety factor do not measure the same underlying construct. Looking at the factors extracted from Kurunegala, the first factor, positive attribute, had high loadings on variables related to the perceived advantage of fecal sludge-derived fertilizers for improving sanitation and the environment. The third factor, awareness, captured farmers' knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages of fecal sludge-derived fertilizers and their acceptance without any reservation. However, the Cronbach alpha is low (0.29) indicating that the attitude variables loading on this factor does not measure the same underlying construct.The perception statements used in the Hanoi surveys differed slightly because of the context and there was a need to adapt the questionnaires accordingly to ensure proper comprehension by the farmers. Three factors were identified in Hanoi ( Looking at the overall result from each country, sampled farmers in all the selected regions perceived that if Fortifer TM is certified by relevant authorities, it can be trusted. Another important attitude construct that cuts across most of the selected regions is the safety issue which captures farmers' perceived concerns about the safety of the product. While sampled farmers in Bangalore and Kurunegala perceived that Fortifer TM can substitute for chemical fertilizer and would buy it irrespective of the price offered, farmers in Ghana and Uganda were price sensitive and would only buy Fortifer TM if it was cheaper than chemical fertilizer. Once the factors were identified, indices were created for each factor by calculating the factor scores for each farmer in the sample. The factor scores were then used as one of the explanatory variables in the dichotomous choice model to assess consumers' WTP for Fortifer TM (see subsequent section 5.5.1).Fertilizer (Fortifer TM )We used a Probit regression model to estimate equation 2. Table 11 depicts the variables used in the econometric analysis. The log-likelihood ratio test was used to select the appropriate model for the analysis. A Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to determine the questions that provided a better assessment for farmers' purchasing decisions and perceptions about Fortifer TM .The PCA showed that factors such as product certification, price and safety concerns of the product were the relevant questions to assess farmers' purchasing decisions. Also, the PCA revealed that the ability to use the product if certification was done by a relevant authority, product use without any reservations, certification by a trusted authority and benefits to the environment were better determinants of farmers' perceptions for a pelletized and certified Fortifer TM product.Separate regression models were run for two formulation types of Fortifer TM -NPF and PF (Table 12).As noted earlier, the Fortifer TM product was developed to address challenges associated with using 'regular' compost or dried fecal sludge such as bulkiness, low nutrient content and associated health risks. Thus, it was important to not only assess farmers' WTP for the general Fortifer TM product (fecal sludge-based fertilizer) but also the specific product attributes. Reduced product bulkiness implies a more concentrated product with reduced volume, lower transportation costs and related lower labor costs. Farmers may thus be incentivized to pay a marginally higher price for pelletized over non-pelletized compost.A set of common explanatory variables was used to explain farmers' WTP for the two products, which enabled comparison of results between the two models as well as comparison of results across regions and countries. In addition to the sociodemographic characteristics of the farmer and the random amount the farmer was asked to pay (Bid1), other explanatory variables included attitude variables obtained from the factor analysis. Attitudes of farmers are not necessarily independent of their sociodemographic characteristics, i.e. the differences in the attitudes of farmers are likely to be related to their sociodemographic characteristics. This poses an endogeneity problem as attitudes are partly determined by sociodemographic characteristics of farmers. To overcome the endogeneity problem, the factors obtained were first regressed on the sociodemographic characteristics of farmers as a system of linear equations by using seemingly unrelated regression estimation (SURE).Results of the SURE model indicated that the models were not significant and that the attitude variables were not endogenous for all the countries. Thus, the attitude variables were considered as exogenous explanatory variables.  Results for Ghana: Tables 12 and 13 present the Probit model results for the WTP equations for NPF and PF in Greater Accra and the Western region respectively. In Greater Accra, the Bid1 variable was statistically significant in both models; as the bid went up the probability of a positive answer went down. Thus, the higher the amount requested to pay, the lower the probability a farmer would be willing to pay for NPF and PF. Furthermore, it implied that the farmers were more likely to choose different formulations of Fortifer TM if it was less expensive than other inorganic or organic fertilizers. Examining the results of the sociodemographic characteristics of respondents, some of the sociodemographic characteristics which had a statistically significant effect on farmers' WTP for NPF did not have a significant effect on the probability of farmers' WTP for PF and vice versa. While the educational level of the farmer had a negative and significant effect on the likelihood of farmers' WTP for NPF, it had no statistically significant effect on farmers' WTP for PF indicating that farmers with higher level of education were less likely to be willing to pay for NPF.In contrast to the results for the Greater Accra region, in the Western region the Bid1 variable was not statistically significant in both models indicating that price did not have a significant effect on farmers' WTP for different formulations of Fortifer TM . For the sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents, the variable farm_exp, which represents the farmers' farming experience, had a negative and statistically significant effect on farmers' WTP for PF however, the same variable did not have a statistically significant effect on farmers' WTP for NPF indicating that as farmers' farming experience increases, farmer's likelihood of paying for PF reduces. Thus, young farmers with less years of farming experience are more likely to pay for PF in the Western region.We expected farmers' characteristics to have a significant effect on farmer's WTP for Fortifer TM . This was confirmed by the fact that farm characteristics such as farm income, farmers' previous use of any organic fertilizer and having off-farm work and land titles all had a statistically significant effect on the likelihood of a farmer's WTP for at least one Fortifer TM formulation in Greater Accra. While farm size and whether a farmer is a member of a farmers' association did not have a statistically significant effect on farmers' WTP for both Fortifer TM formulations, farm income had a positive and significant effect on farmers' WTP for PF. This indicates that farmers with higher income are more likely to be willing to pay for PF, implying that wealthier farmers have more flexibility in allocating funds and are more willing to invest in new agricultural inputs to further improve yield. Farmers who previously used any form of organic fertilizers such as compost or animal dung are less likely to be willing to pay for any of the Fortifer TM formulations. This might be because organic fertilizers, such as composts, are available informally at a lower price and animal dung is sourced at a lower price in Ghana, thus making Fortifer TM less attractive for those who rely on other organic fertilizers.Having off-farm work had a positive and significant effect on farmers' WTP for both Fortifer TM formulations, indicating that farmers who had off-farm work were more likely to be willing to pay for the two Fortifer TM formulations. Furthermore, we expected that farmers who owned the land they cultivated would be more likely to be willing to invest in agricultural inputs to ensure that long-term soil quality is preserved.However, our results showed that landownership did not have a statistically significant effect on farmers' WTP for any of the Fortifer TM formulations. Of the attribute variables, farmers' perceived price and cost of handling of Fortifer TM compared to alternative fertilizers such as chemical fertilizer (price-sensitive) and safety concerns driven by cultural and religious beliefs (safety-culture) were noted to negatively influence their WTP for the Fortifer TM product, particularly NPF.Similarly, in the Western region farm characteristics such as farm size, farm income, landownership and farmers' previous use of any organic fertilizer all had statistically significant effects on the likelihood of farmers' WTP for at least one Fortifer TM formulation. Farm size had a positive and statistically significant effect on farmers' WTP for both Fortifer TM formulations, however farm size did not have a statistically significant effect on farmers' WTP in the Greater Accra region. This indicated that in the Western region, farmers with larger farm sizes will be more willing to pay for Fortifer TM products.While farm income had a positive and significant effect on farmers' WTP for NPF, it was weakly significant at the 20% critical level in the case of PF indicating that farmers with higher income were more likely to be willing to pay for NPF. This was in contrast to the results obtained in Greater Accra where farmers with higher income were more likely to pay for PF. Farmers who previously used any form of organic fertilizers such as compost or animal dung were less likely to be willing to pay for any of the Fortifer TM formulations. Similar results were obtained in the Greater Accra region.Model results pertaining to attitude variables revealed that in Greater Accra, the parameters for price-sensitive and safety-culture were significant at 5 and 10% critical levels respectively for NPF. Price-sensitive and safety-culture both had a negative effect on the probability of farmers' WTP for NPF. The attitude variable price-sensitive captures farmers' tendency to buy Fortifer TM if it is cheaper than chemical fertilizer and easier to transport and handle compared to other organic fertilizers while the safety-culture variable captures farmers' concerns on safety, including cultural and religious beliefs against using fecal sludge-based fertilizers.A negative and significant effect of these attitude variables indicated that farmers who believed that Fortifer TM should be priced lower than other inorganic fertilizer as well as farmers who had concerns about the safety of the product were less likely to pay for NPF. In contrast, attitude variables did not have a significant impact on farmers' willingness to pay for PF.In the Western region, the attitude variable, certification-trust had a negative and statistically significant effect on farmers' WTP for NPF but was weakly significant at the 20% critical level and had a positive effect in the case of PF. This indicated that farmers expressing concerns about product certification are less likely to pay for NPF but are more likely to pay for PF in the Western region. Other attitude variables did not have a significant impact on farmers' WTP for both Fortifer TM products.The results of the Probit models for Kampala are presented in Table 14. The FBOM (farmer's membership in the farmers' association) variable was omitted from the regression models due to the limited variation in the data points. Only two farmers were noted to belong to a farmers' association. For both regression models, the Bid1 variable is negative and statistically significant as expected, indicating that price increases will reduce the probability of a farmer buying either NPF or PF. Of the sociodemographic variables, the farmers' experience in agricultural production and level of farm income are statistically significant. In the case of NPF, the more experienced the farmer is, the less likely she/ he is to invest in NPF. Whilst this result is contrary to what was expected -as more experienced farmers are likely to be more familiar with the benefits of organic fertilizer use-this result may suggest that 'older' farmers are less willing to invest in inputs with delayed/ longer-term benefit accrual. Similar to the case in the Greater Accra region, farmers earning higher incomes are more willing to purchase Fortifer TM products, although more so for PF than NPF. Farmers engaging in off-farm work were noted in both Kampala and the Greater Accra region to be willing to pay for PF. This may be indicative of budget flexibility that the farmers have from additional income earned from off-farm employment.It was hypothesized that farmers with a smaller household size would be more willing to use PF given its attributes of reduced labor requirements in comparison to NPF.The Hhmember variable was used as a proxy to measure labor availability for agricultural production. Although the negative coefficient supports the notion of labor savings for PF use, it is statistically insignificant. Subsequently excluding it from the regression model had very marginal (insignificant) effects on the fit of the model. Landownership plays an important role in farmers' purchasing decisions of agricultural inputs. We note from the results that farmers who own the land they farm on are more willing to invest in Fortifer TM than those who are either renters, squatters or own untitled land. This corroborates the findings in both regions in Ghana. Farmers with previous experience in using other organic fertilizers such as compost, animal manure (use_org_fert) are more willing to buy Fortifer TM products, which is in contrast to the findings in Ghana. This may be suggestive of the lower product quality available to farmers, but as indicative in Table 4, organic fertilizer use is more prevalent in Uganda than in Ghana.Two of the three attribute variables were statistically significant for both NPF and PF. Farmers who have safety concerns (reservations) with Fortifer TM use are less willing to pay for the product as indicated by the negative coefficient. This result is supported by farmers' willingness to buy a formulation of Fortifer TM if a trusted governmental authority certifies the product -indicative of their need of safety assurance. Overall, the results from the African countries indicated that farmers' willingness to buy Fortifer TM decreases with increasing prices as expected. The effects of the socioeconomic variables related to the farmers' agricultural production experience, farm income, landownership and off-farm work on the farmers' WTP for Fortifer TM were similar across the three cities. Higher farmer income and landownership positively influenced their investment decision for Fortifer TM as did off-farm work. Surprisingly, contrasting results were noted for the variable capturing the effect of farmers' previous use of organic fertilizer on their WTP. Product certification is a crucial factor that influences farmers' purchasing decisions of any Fortifer TM product. This result indicated that there is a strong need for relevant governmental authorities in these countries to provide adequate product safety and quality control.Results for India: Bangalorean farmers were less willing to pay for Fortifer TM at higher prices as indicated by the negative coefficient for the Bid1 variable (Table 15). Of the socioeconomic variables, farmers' experience in agricultural production was the only statistically significant variable. It showed that the more experienced the farmer is, the less likely she/he will invest in PF, similar to the findings in Uganda and Ghana. Whilst this result is contrary to what was expected -as more experienced farmers are likely to be more familiar with the benefits of organic fertilizer use-this result may suggest that 'older' farmers are less willing to invest in inputs with delayed benefit accrual. Prior use of organic fertilizer positively influences farmers' WTP for both NPF and PF. The income effects of off-farm work on farmers' purchasing decisions of Fortifer TM can be ambiguous in that with the additional income, they may be willing to invest more in agricultural inputs. However, the option of alternative employment, especially if wages are higher, may deter farmers from making incremental investments in agriculture. It was noted among Bangalorean farmers that the latter is true and this may be indicative of increased urban development that threatens peri-urban and urban agriculture. Landownership is a critical factor influencing farmers' purchasing decisions of Fortifer TM . Similar to the African cases, farmers that rent, squat or own untitled land are less willing to invest in Fortifer TM . This may suggest that they view buying Fortifer TM as an investment for which they may not recoup a return in the 'very' short term. Of the attribute variables, certification and perception of product safety significantly influenced farmers' WTP for the Fortifer TM product. Whilst, the coefficient on the substitute variable was positive and indicated that farmers were more willing to buy Fortifer TM if it was sold at the same or a lower price than chemical fertilizer, it was not statistically significant. Results for Vietnam: Data were not available for the off-farm work, landownership and FBOM variables, and so were not included in the regression models for Hanoi. Additionally, age of the farmer was used as a proxy to measure the farmers' experience in agricultural production given limited data on the number of years the farmers were engaged in farming activities. As expected, the Bid1 variable was negative and statistically significant -suggesting higher farmers' WTP for Fortifer TM in view of lower prices (Table 16). Farmers with higher levels of education were noted to be less willing to pay for NPF, similar to the case in Ghana. This result may be because older farmers were less willing to adopt new agricultural technologies and were inherently less educated.An interesting result was that farmers with larger farm size were less willing to pay for NPF whilst the opposite was true for PF. This confirmed our hypothesis that farmers will adopt PF based on the inherent labor-saving characteristic of the product. Although farmers predominantly use inorganic fertilizer as opposed to organic fertilizer, the regression model suggests that farmers who have greater experience using organic fertilizer are more likely to pay for Fortifer TM , in particular PF.In terms of the attribute variables, the negative and statistically significant coefficient on the substitute variable suggested that farmers would be more willing to pay for Fortifer TM if its price was lower than or equal to that of chemical fertilizer. Product certification by a trusted governmental entity was additionally noted to be an important factor in farmers' purchasing decisions of Fortifer TM as in Bangalore. Farmers had no reservations about using either NPF or PF as long as it was proven safe and of high quality. The sign and significance of the safety_issues variable, which measures the farmers' concerns on safety related to use of a fecal sludge-based fertilizer, provided further evidence to support this result. Results for Sri Lanka: The results for the regression model for Kurunegala showed that farmers would be less willing to pay for Fortifer TM at higher bids (Table 17). Assessing the effects of the socioeconomic variables showed that education had an ambiguous effect on farmers' WTP for Fortifer TM . Whilst this variable was generally insignificant for PF across the other cities, it was negative and statistically significant in Kurunegala. Higher levels of education can suggest a greater understanding of the benefits from Fortifer TM use and thus these farmers were more willing to use the product, although this was specific to PF. Farm size was an important variable affecting farmers' WTP for Fortifer TM -farmers with larger farms had a lower WTP for NPF than those with smaller-sized farms. This confirmed our hypothesis that farmers consider the labor-saving characteristics of agricultural inputs (in this case, fertilizers) in their purchasing decisions. Higher farmer income positively influences farmers' WTP -suggesting that wealthier farmers have more flexibility in allocating financial resources and are more willing to invest in new agricultural inputs to further improve yield.All the attribute variables were statistically significant in the case of PF. Beyond the imperative need for a certified Fortifer TM product to incentivize farmers' WTP for the product, farmers' perceived benefits positively influenced their WTP. Additionally, the farmers in Hanoi were noted to be more willing to pay for Fortifer TM if they were knowledgeable about the advantages and disadvantages of using fecal sludge-based fertilizers and accepted its use without any reservation. In summary, results for the Asian countries indicated that increases in price will decrease farmers' WTP for both Fortifer TM products. Farm size was an equally important indicator for farmers' purchasing decisions, particularly for NPF -as farmers were less likely to be willing to pay for NPF if they had large farm sizes. This is indicative of the incremental labor requirements for NPF (representative of additional production costs) which farmers take into account when deciding on the type of fertilizers they will use. Farmers' income generally did not influence their WTP for Fortifer TM , with the exception of Kurunegala where wealthier farmers were more likely to purchase PF. The effects of landownership on farmers' WTP was evident only in the case of Bangalore, as was farmers' previous experience in using organic fertilizer. The latter result however extends also to Hanoi. Important determinants of farmers' WTP for NPF and PF were the attribute variables. In both cases, product certification by a trusted governmental body was imperative to incentivize farmers' purchase of Fortifer TM . This result is supported by the fact that farmers' concerns Notes: *Significant at the 0.10 level.**Significant at the 0.05 level.***Significant at the 0.01 level.on safety associated with the use of Fortifer TM negatively affects their likelihood of purchasing the product. Price of competitive products significantly influences farmers' adoption behavior as noted by the negative and significant coefficient of the substitute variable, although specific to Hanoi. Cheaper substitute products will result in a lower demand for Fortifer TM .In comparing the results of the Asian and African countries, the regression models showed that farmers were less willing to pay for Fortifer TM at higher bids, and this was consistent across all the six countries (Annexes 2 and 3). Assessing the effects of the socioeconomic variables showed that education had an ambiguous effect on farmers' WTP for Fortifer TM . Farm size, status of landownership and previous experience using organic fertilizer also significantly influenced a farmer's purchasing decision on Fortifer TM . Most farmers in the study countries, with the exception of the Greater Accra region and Hanoi, owned the land that they farmed. It is thus expected that farmers from Kampala, Bangalore and Kurunegala, all things being equal, will be more willing to pay and use Fortifer TM . The effects of farm size on farmers' WTP differed by product type, in that farmers with larger farm sizes were more willing to pay for PF over NPF, as the latter requires more labor for application. The effects of the attribute variables were similar and consistent across both the Asian and African countries. In particular, farmers' concerns about product safety and related need for certification were key factors influencing their decision when purchasing Fortifer TM . Third-party product certification is necessary, especially in the Asian countries where guidelines for fecal sludge use in agriculture are unclear.Marginal effects results -Ghana and Uganda: Table 18 presents the estimated marginal effects of the explanatory variables on the likelihood of farmers' WTP for Fortifer TM products in the Greater Accra and Western regions, and Kampala. As expected, in Greater Accra, the bid variable had a negative and statistically significant marginal effect. The higher the amount the farmer was requested to pay, the lower the probability that a farmer would be willing to pay for Fortifer TM . Thus, if the bid amount rose by USD 1.00, the probability of the farmer paying for NPF and PF decreased by 0.027. The impact of increasing the price on farmers' WTP was similar for both Fortifer TM products. In contrast, in the Western region, the bid amount had no statistically significant marginal effect on the likelihood of farmer's WTP for both Fortifer TM products. The case of Kampala was similar to that of the Greater Accra region where there was a negative marginal effect of the bid on farmers' WTP for Fortifer TM . A USD 1.00 increase in the bid amount reduced the probability of a farmers' WTP by 1.445 and 1.573 for NPF and PF, respectively. This reflects a significant reduction in demand from price changes that producers need to pay particular attention to.The effect of the farmers' sociodemographic characteristics showed that the education variable had a negative and statistically significant marginal effect on NPF in the Greater Accra region while education of farmer did not have a statistically significant marginal effect on farmer's WTP for both products in the Western region and Kampala. However, the variable farm_exp had a negative and statistically significant marginal effect on farmers' WTP for PF and NPF in the Western region and Kampala, respectively. Thus, an increase in one level of education decreased the probability of WTP by 0.072 for NPF in Greater Accra region and an increase in the number of years of farming by one year decreased the probability of WTP by 0.001 for PF in the Western region and 0.003 for NPF in Kampala.The effect of farm characteristics showed that off-farm work and previous use of organic fertilizer had statistically significant marginal effects on farmers' WTP for both products in Greater Accra while farm income had a statistically significant marginal effect on farmers' WTP for PF only. Similarly, farm characteristics such as farm size, farm income, land title and previous use of organic fertilizer had statistically significant marginal effects on farmers' WTP for at least one Fortifer TM product in the Western region and Kampala. The fact that a farmer used organic fertilizer decreased the probability he/she would be willing to pay for NPF and PF by 0.152 and 0.109 respectively in the Greater Accra region while it decreased the probability of farmer's WTP for PF by 0.194 in the Western region. In Kampala, previous experience with organic fertilizer increased the probability of farmers' WTP for Fortifer TM by 0.152 for NPF, with no marginal effects for PF. Moreover, farmers who had off-farm work were more likely to pay for PF only in Kampala, and both NPF and PF in the Greater Accra region while off-farm work did not have a statistically significant marginal effect on farmers' WTP for both products in the Western region. Farm income had a positive and statistically significant marginal effect on farmers' WTP for PF in Greater Accra and Kampala while it had a positive and statistically significant marginal effect on farmers' WTP for NPF in the Western region. An increase in farm income by USD 1.00 increased farmers' likelihood to pay for PF by 0.0003 and 0.0001 in Greater Accra and Kampala, respectively. In the Western region, an increase in farm income by USD 1.00 had a greater marginal effect of 0.001 for NPF. Farm size had a significant and positive marginal effect on farmers' WTP for both products only in the Western region. An increase in farm size by 1 acre increased farmer's likelihood to pay for NPF and PF by 0.199 and 0.015 respectively. Land titles did not have a statistically significant marginal effect on farmers' WTP for both products in Greater Accra while it had a significant and positive marginal effect on farmers' WTP for both products in Kampala. It was noted that when farmers own the land they cultivate, the probability of their WTP for both NPF and PF increases by 0.124 and 0.154, respectively.  The marginal effects also showed that a higher score in the attitude variables, price-sensitive and safetycultural issues, decreased the likelihood of consumers' WTP for NPF in Greater Accra. When the score in the attitude variables price-sensitive and safety_cultural issues increased by 1 unit, the probability of WTP for NPF decreased by 0.077 and 0.059 respectively. In the Western region, only one attitude variable -certification_trusthad a negative and statistically significant marginal effect on farmers' WTP for NPF indicating that an increase by one unit in the score of the attitude variable certification_ trust decreases the probability of WTP for NPF by 0.076. Thus, while at least one attitude variable had a statistically significant marginal effect on NPF in both regions, none of the attitude variables had statistically significant marginal effects on farmers' WTP for PF in both regions. In the case of Kampala, a unit increase in the score of the certification_trust variable increased the probability of WTP for both NPF and PF by 6.3% and 5.8%, respectively. On the other hand, perceived product safety concerns decreased demand. A unit score increase in the safety_ issues variable decreased the likelihood of a farmer's WTP for NPF and PF by 14% and 8%, respectively. The positive_attitude variable however had no marginal effect on the probability of WTP for either products.Marginal effects results -India, Vietnam and Sri Lanka: Table 19 presents the estimated marginal effects of the explanatory variables on the likelihood of farmers' WTP for Fortifer TM products in Bangalore, Hanoi and Kurunegala. As expected, in all three countries, the bid variable had a negative and statistically significant marginal effect. The higher the price a farmer had to pay, the lower the probability that they would be willing to pay for Fortifer TM . A USD 1.00 increase in the bid amount offered decreased the probability of the farmer paying for NPF by 160%, 30% and 594% in Bangalore, Hanoi and Kurunegala, respectively. Likewise, for PF, a USD 1.00 increase in price reduced demand by 139%, 89% and 277% in the three cities. This result suggests a very elastic demand curve, particularly for Kurunegala.The effect of the sociodemographic characteristics of the farmers showed that the education variable had an ambiguous effect on Fortifer TM products across the countries. Whilst a negative effect was observed in Hanoi, a 1-level increase in the education level of a farmer increased the probability of WTP by 3% for PF in Kurunegala. No marginal effects for this variable were observed in Bangalore. The variable farm_exp had a negative and statistically significant marginal effect on farmers' WTP for PF in Bangalore. Thus, an increase in the number of years of farming by one year decreased the probability of WTP by 2.6% for PF in Bangalore.The effect of farm characteristics showed that farm income, off-farm work, previous use of organic fertilizer, farm size and status of landownership had statistically significant marginal effects on farmers' WTP for at least one Fortifer TM product in the three countries. Farm income had a positive and statistically significant marginal effect on farmers' WTP only in Kurunegala and for PF. An increase in farm income by USD 1.00 increased farmers' likelihood to pay for PF by 0.000007. In the Western region, an increase in farm income by USD 1.00 had a greater marginal effect of 0.001 for NPF. Interestingly, farmers who had off-farm work were less likely to pay for NPF in Bangalore. The income effects of off-farm work on farmers' purchasing decision of Fortifer TM can be ambiguous in that with the additional income, they may be willing to invest more in agricultural inputs. However, in the case of Bangalore, the option of alternative employment, especially if wages are higher, may deter farmers from making incremental investments in agriculture.The fact that a farmer used organic fertilizer increased the probability that she/he would be willing to pay for NPF and PF by 18% and 34%, respectively in Bangalore, while it increased the probability of farmers' WTP for PF by 16% in Hanoi. However, no marginal effects were observed for either Fortifer TM product in Kurunegala. Farm size had a significantly negative marginal effect on farmers' WTP for NPF and a positive marginal effect for PF in Hanoi and Kurunegala. An increase in farm size by 1 acre decreased a farmer's likelihood to pay for NPF by 5% and 0.1% in Hanoi and Kurunegala, respectively. On the other hand, a 1-acre increase in farm size increased the probability of farmers' WTP by 7% and 0.1% in Hanoi and Kurunegala, respectively. Status of landownership had an effect on farmers' purchasing decisions in Bangalore. Farmers who owned the land they cultivated were willing to pay for the Fortifer TM product, irrespective of the formulation. Landowning farmers were 38% and 16% more likely to be willing to pay for NPF and PF, respectively. No marginal effects for this variable were observed in either Hanoi or Kurunegala. The Hhmember variable, capturing the effects of free or inexpensive labor availability, had no marginal effects on demand in any of the countries.The marginal effects also showed that a higher score in the attitude variables, certification_trust and positive_attitude, increased the likelihood of consumers' WTP for at least one of the Fortifer TM products in all three countries. A unit increase in the score of the certification_trust variable increased the probability of farmers' WTP for NPF by 65%, 2% and 3% in Bangalore, Hanoi and Kurunegala, respectively. The marginal effects of the positive_attitude variable were only observed for PF in Kurunegala.On the other hand, farmers' concerns on safety issues associated with Fortifer TM use had a negative and statistically significant marginal effect on their WTP for both NPF and PF, indicating that a one-unit increase in the score of the variable safety_issues would decrease the probability of WTP for NPF and PF by 33% and 23%, respectively in Bangalore. A 4% decrease was similarly observed for NPF in Hanoi.  Based on the regression estimates, WTP estimates and respective confidence intervals based on the Krinsky and Robb method were computed for testing the null hypothesis that WTP>=0. The WTP estimates for NPF and PF were determined using the mean values of the explanatory variables. The mean WTP for the two Fortifer TM products are presented in Table 20 for all the countries. The mean WTP estimates are statistically different from zero for all the countries, implying that farmers were receptive to the Fortifer TM products.For Ghana, the mean WTP estimates for NPF and PF were USD 0.145 kg -1 and USD 0.198 kg -1 , respectively for the Greater Accra region. The mean WTP for NPF in Western region was 20% higher than the mean WTP for NPF in the Greater Accra region while the reverse was true for PF, i.e. farmers in Greater Accra were willing to pay 20% higher than their counterparts in the Western region. The standard measurement for fertilizers in Ghana was mostly in 50-kg bags, thus the mean WTP for NPF in standard packaging was USD 7.11 for the 50-kg bag while the mean WTP for PF was USD 9.91 for the 50-kg bag in the Greater Accra region. These figures were comparable to the existing prices for compost and artificial fertilizers such as NPK in the country. Kampala had significantly higher prices than either regions in Ghana, with farmers' WTP recorded as 2 times and 2.3 times those in the Western and Greater Accra regions, respectively.In the Asian countries, while WTP estimates were fairly similar for Hanoi and Kurunegala, Bangalore estimates were almost seven times higher. The highest WTP estimates for NPF and PF among these countries were USD 0.73 kg -1 and USD 0.52 kg -1 , respectively, whilst the lowest WTP estimates were recorded in Hanoi at USD 0.11 kg -1 and USD 0.13 USD kg -1 for NPF and PF, respectively. Generally, across all the countries, farmers were willing to pay more for PF than NPF with the exception of Bangalore and the Western Region. The noted WTP estimates for the Asian countries as with the African countries were comparable to the existing market prices for inorganic fertilizers.Understanding the potential market for Fortifer TM extends beyond estimating the WTP measures and the factors that affect them but also requires having a clear overview of the potential quantity demanded in view of other market effects (e.g. competition). Fertilizer consumption rates across the study areas showed a big disparity between the African and Asian countries. Uganda and Ghana recorded very low levels of fertilizer application rates at an average of 2 kg ha -1 and 25 kg ha -1, respectively (Figure 2). Particularly for Uganda, this has been attributed to a fertilizer industry plagued by market distortions which are subsequently exacerbated by ineffective policies and limited infrastructure. With neither a large-scale government fertilizer program that provides subsidized fertilizer to farmers nor an active private fertilizer sector that supplies fertilizer at competitive prices, farmers face erratic fertilizer prices amidst the limited number of actors in the fertilizer market. Whilst these market distortions and barriers are limiting factors in the chemical fertilizer sector, they represent an opportunity for business development in the organic fertilizer subsector and businesses such as those for Fortifer TM production. Low fertilizer application rates in Ghana have been attributed to, among other factors, the high cost of fertilizers. Key constraints to fertilizer use in Ghana include insufficient credit to the farmer, high lending rates by banks for the agriculture sector and problems with marketing of agricultural produce. In the Asian countries, on the other hand, there were comparatively higher levels of fertilizer application rateswith Hanoi recording the highest at 370 kg ha -1 , followed by Kurunegala at 216 kg ha -1 and Bangalore at 165 kg ha -1 . Despite high levels of fertilizer consumption in Vietnam, there are fertilizer price subsidies, which means that farmers face erratic and significantly high fertilizer prices. Prices are typically subject to international price changes and exchange rate fluctuations. Contrary to the case of Vietnam and the two African countries, there were largescale government chemical fertilizer programs that provide subsidized fertilizer to farmers and a moderately active private fertilizer sector that supplied fertilizer at competitive prices in India and Sri Lanka. The fertilizer industry is however in the same way plagued with market distortions related to limited product differentiation, distribution inefficiencies in the supply chain, poor information flow and foreign exchange rate fluctuations.Based on data for the aforesaid fertilizer consumption and estimated adoption rates (Table 21), we estimated the potential demand for Fortifer TM in the study areas. As Fortifer TM is a novel product, adoption rates were estimated based on the percentage of respondents who answered yes to the 1 st bid and either yes or no to the 2 nd bid. We acknowledge that considering a more conservative measure would be to use the percentage of respondents who answered yes to the 1 st bid and yes to the 2 nd bid (i.e. 1 st bid = Yes, 2 nd bid = Yes). This however creates an upward bias in the corresponding WTP measure. It is not surprising that adoption rates were higher for NPF than PF because the farmers were familiar with compost-type products and in Ghana, India and Sri Lanka, there is significant informal use of fecal sludge in agriculture. The highest adoption rates were in Hanoi and Kurunegala and, surprisingly, Kampala. Interestingly, the range for adoption rates for PF was quite narrow considering all the countriessuggesting that whilst the farmers may overwhelmingly adopt NPF, they are a bit more reserved in their investment in PF. Bangalorean farmers generally had the lowest adoption rates for both Fortifer TM products.Chemical fertilizer application rates were used as a basis for the calculation of the application rates of Fortifer TM . Average chemical fertilizer applications were obtained via secondary data sources and Fortifer TM application rates were estimated at five times this estimate as Fortifer TM is considered to be a close competitive substitute product. It is important to note that the consideration of transportation costs to farmers for accessing Fortifer TM may reduce the estimated market demand and invariably the estimated economic return to producers. In this study, we assumed that the farmers will purchase the product from their current fertilizer outlets and will not incur any additional transportation costs when purchasing Fortifer TM . This may not necessarily be true, especially in Ghana where the distance from the farm-gate to the nearest fertilizer dealer is one of the key challenges farmers face when trying to access fertilizer inputs (Krausova and Banful 2010). Fer�lizer consump�on (kilograms per hectare of arable land)Of the African study areas, the Western region records the highest demand for both NPF and PF at 0.045 million and 0.044 million tons year -1 , respectively, in spite of the marginally lower adoption rates in comparison to Kampala and the Greater Accra region (Table 22). Demand for NPF and PF in the Western region is about 15 times and 24 times that of the Greater Accra region, respectively. Estimated demand in Kampala is significantly lower than any of the other countries, which is not surprising as this is driven by the considerably low fertilizer application rates. It is important to note that notable surrounding agricultural districts were considered in the market-size estimation, i.e. Luwelo, Mpigi, Mukono and Wakiso in addition to Kampala. Of the Asian study areas, Kurunegala posts the highest demand for both Fortifer TM products, followed by Hanoi and subsequently Bangalore. The demand for NPF in Kurunegala at 0.6 million tons year -1 is nine times and two times more than that recorded for Bangalore and Hanoi, respectively. This is not surprising as the Kurunegala district ranks high in terms of agricultural activities with oil crops, coconut and paddy production dominant in the region. Demand estimates for Hanoi are based on consideration of agricultural land for the whole province. The latter, coupled with high fertilizer application rates and adoption rates contribute to the recorded high demand estimate.There is a greater demand for NPF as opposed to PF in all of the countries. As previously noted, farmers are more willing to adopt a product similar to what they are familiar with (a compost-type product). Overall, demand is comparatively lower in the African countries than the Asian countries for both Fortifer TM products, which was expected, given the overwhelmingly lower fertilizer application rates in the former. The Western region in Ghana has the highest cultivated area of all the countries but still records demand estimates lower than its Asian counterparts. Note: a The estimate market demand is calculated as a product of the cultivated area, estimated Fortifer TM application rate (tons ha -1 ) and the estimated adoption rate.Beyond estimating the demand for the Fortifer TM products, it is important that future businesses have an idea of farmers' responsiveness to price changes. Whilst this is captured in the regression models to some extent, the use of the demand curve allows us to better illustrate price ranges where demand is most sensitive. A negatively sloped demand curve can be drawn from the cumulative probability distribution of the bids offered to the farmers for both Fortifer TM products. Figure 3 (a-f) shows the plot of the percentage of respondents who gave a positive response to 1 st bids offered for both NPF and PF.As with any linear demand curve, at higher price points the demand curves are more elastic and more inelastic at lower price points for all the countries. In the case of the demand curves for the African countries, we can assess and compare the level of demand elasticity between NPF and PF based on the inclines of the demand curves. This is based on the notion that for two intersecting demand curves, price elasticity at any given price point will be greater for the flatter demand curve than the relatively steeper demand curve. At the point of intersection, the demand curves have an identical price and quantity. Based on this, the demand curves for NPF are generally more elastic than the demand curves for PF for all three countries. As noted from the demand estimates in Table 22, whilst farmers may be keen to adopt a product (NPF) similar to one that they are familiar with (a compost-type product), they are more price responsive as often there are comparable substitutes available in the market. In the case of PF, there are no recorded cases of its extensive production or that of a similar product in Uganda or Ghana. Fortifer TM producers will need to particularly consider this when setting prices. Their decision on whether to implement a penetrative, competitive or premium pricing system is crucial as shortterm price changes can significantly affect demand. In the case of Ghana, an increase in the price of NPF by USD 0.05 kg -1 will reduce demand by approximately 30% and this is also the case in Uganda.In considering the demand curves for the Asian countries, the elasticity of both NPF and PF curves for Hanoi are approximately the same (overlapping demand curves). This suggests that there is no significant difference in demand with an equal level of price change for both products. However, in the case of Kurunegala, there is a similar trend as that in the African countries where the NPF demand curve is more elastic than the PF demand curve. This suggests that farmers will generally be more responsive to price changes for NPF than PF, and an equivalent price change for both NPF and PF will result in a larger change in demand for NPF compared to PF. As an example, for a USD 0.05 kg -1 price change, demand decreases by 30% for NPF whilst that for PF decreases by 20%. Thus, whilst a significant potential market exists in Kurunegala, high price sensitivity of farmers may negatively affect demand. - A comprehensive overview of market elements for the successful commercialization of a product requires understanding the rate of diffusion of the product (i.e. market demand growth of the product over time). The evaluation of the market outlook will aid potential Fortifer TM businesses in business planning. This is important, as investment toward an uncertain future can be difficult and risky; marketforecasting tools have been developed to alleviate the risk and to obtain more accurate and reliable information (Proctor 2000). As Fortifer TM is a fairly novel product in the fertilizer market, there are no existing time series data to develop a standard demand equation for a market trend analysis.The Bass model was used for the market outlook assessment of Fortifer TM in this study. This model has been used extensively in marketing for dynamic forecasts of market demand for new products against the background of intense rivalry between products or brands and is used to describe consumers' behavior in relation to their loyalty towards the product (Bass 1969;Satoh 2001). The Bass model allows one to forecast the rate of diffusion of the Fortifer TM product (future product behavior), whilst accounting for external factors such as market competition. This represents important demandside information that can guide investors' decisions on the envisioned stages of their businesses' life cycles. This is important because it is well known that adopters of agricultural technologies, particularly in developing countries, are often characterized as laggards (late adopters/imitators) rather than innovators (introduction) or early adopters (growth). In this regard, it is important for future Fortifer TM businesses to know the adoption profile of potential customers (farmers) and assess the effects on market demand.The Bass model is a mixed model capturing both innovative and imitative effects -i.e. the influence that early-adopting consumers and late-adopting consumers have on market demand. The Bass model is an S curve model that contains two values ('p' and 'q'), one that represents a value for the degree of innovation -p (sales influenced by desire for novel products -early adopters) by consumers and another for the degree of imitation -q (sales influenced by word-ofmouth -late adopters) (Bass 1969); and is defined as:(5)The density function of time to adoption is given by f(t) and the cumulative fraction of adopters (i.e. demand) at time t is given by F(t). The coefficients of innovation and imitation are defined by p and q, respectively. A(t) is defined as the cumulative adoption at period, t. This basic premise states that the conditional probability of adoption at time t (the percentage of the population that will adopt or buy a product at time t) is increasing in the fraction of the population that has already adopted. Therefore, part of the adoption influence depends on imitation or 'learning' and part of it does not. The parameter q reflects that influence and the parameter p reflects an influence that is independent of previous adoption (Mahajan et al. 1990). M defines the potential market (the ultimate number of adopters) for the product in question.In application, the major interest is in the coefficients of imitation and innovation (p and q) -which characterize the adoption profile of potential consumers and the timing of the peak in adoption, and the potential market size (M) of the Fortifer TM market. The optimal time that sales of a product will peak (i.e. the time where most of the market share for the product considered is captured 5 ) is given by: ( 6) Jeuland (1994) found that the average value of p is often quite small -0.01 or less, while q is rarely greater than 0.5 and rarely less than 0.3. Lawrence and Lawton (1981) found that the value of p + q lies between 0.3 and 0.7. These estimates, however, consider multiple sectors, which may not be reflective of the agricultural input market. This is because the diffusion rate (i.e. adoption and imitation) of new products or technologies is known to be particularly low in the agriculture sector in developing countries (Otoo 2011;Kasirye 2013;Simtowe et al. 2016). In the case of fertilizer use, strong loyalty of farmers (low switching behavior) for chemical fertilizers in the absence of strong alternative products in the market may affect the rate of adoption of Fortifer TM .In the absence of existing data for p and q for Fortifer TM , other organic fertilizer products or similar substitute products, this study estimated the coefficients based on the findings of Sulthan et al. (1990). The coefficient of innovation, p, representative of early adopters, was estimated as the percentage of respondents that was willing to buy the fecal sludge co-compost product, specifically those that provided a positive response to both the 1 st and 2 nd bid offers. We used a more conservative measure given the traditionally low diffusion rates of new technologies among agricultural producers in developing countries. The coefficient of imitation, q, representative of late adopters, was estimated based on the population of respondents who stated that they would purchase Fortifer TM products if they were recommended by other farmers or any other trusted source (e.g. extension service agents). They are representative of possible imitators in the sample population. Using a five-level Likert scale 6 , respondents -a) who agreed (level 4) and b) strongly agreed(level 5) with the statement were considered to be imitators and the representative percentage of the population estimated accordingly. The S curve was estimated based on estimating the sales (adoption) at time, t given as: (7) where M is defined as the potential market (the ultimate number of adopters) for Fortifer TM and is estimated in Table 22. Q(t) is cumulative sales of Fortifer TM at time, t.Farmers' adoption profiles for Fortifer TM : As expected the coefficient of innovation, p, representative of early adopters, was generally low across all the countries and for both Fortifer TM products (Table 23). For PF, Bangalore recorded the lowest measure for early adopters, while the Western region in Ghana had the highest level of early adopters. As noted earlier, the Western region boasts a strong and extensive agriculture sector, predominantly characterized by large-scale agricultural producers who have more flexibility in terms of financial resources to invest in new technologies. Additionally, Kampala has the lowest measure among the African regions -which is not surprising given the unusual low fertilizer application rates in Uganda. This result is also mirrored for the case of NPF. For NPF, Kurunegala recorded the lowest measure for early adopters whilst the Greater Accra region had the highest measure. It is interesting to note that in comparing the coefficients for both PF and NPF across all the countries, early adopters had a proclivity for NPF rather than PF with the exception of Kurunegala. This result corroborates the findings from the demand estimations. Whilst the measure of early adoption was generally low, it is interesting to note that on average, farmers from the African countries had a marginally higher measure for early adoption of both PF and NPF than the Asian farmers.For the coefficient of imitation, q, representative of late adopters (i.e. farmers that will purchase if it is recommended by other farmers or any other trusted source (e.g. extension service agents), the results confirmed what is traditionally known of developing countries, where farmers are typically known as imitators for adoption of agricultural technologies. The values for q were the same for both NPF and PF as single data points were considered for each farmer's response. Hanoi farmers had the lowest measure for imitated-based adoption whilst the Greater Accra region recorded the highest level among all the regions. Kampala had the lowest measure for the African regions considered although only marginally lower. With the exception of Hanoi, most farmers will most likely adopt Fortifer TM if it is recommended by a trusted source/ someone who has used it and confirmed high quality. This suggests that Fortifer TM producers will need to invest in strong awareness programs coupled with actual field experiments to increase product recognition and eventual adoption. Strategic partnerships with existing governmental extension programs will be key for Fortifer TM businesses in view of farmers' reliance on extension agents for technical information and training, particularly in developing countries.  Note: a p -estimated as % of respondents willing to buy fecal sludge co-compost, i.e. respondents who provided a positive response to both the 1 st and 2 nd bid offers; q -estimated as % of respondents who stated that they would purchase Fortifer TM products if they were recommended by other farmers or any other trusted source, i.e. respondents who agreed and strongly agreed with the related statement;M -estimated as in Table 22; and measured in tons year -1 .Greater Accra region, Ghana: As observed in Figure 4a, sales (adoption) for NPF in the first half of the first year were negative, suggesting the need for Fortifer TM producers to account for storage costs in their financial statements. This was also the case for PF (Figure 4b). Both Fortifer TM products showed an exponential growth very early on in the growth phase and took 2.5 and 4.5 years to reach peak sales for NPF and PF, respectively. The shorter peak period for NPF compared to PF was mainly attributable to the higher measure of early adopters (p = 0.438 > 0.217), but also farmers' greater willingness to adopt a product similar to that with which they were familiar. In the case of PF, if necessary, businesses can adjust their production capacity and other financial requirements in order to target a higher average peak volume at the estimated average peak time. To achieve a comparatively higher and steady growth, businesses can adopt new strategies to reach new customer segments, new marketing and distribution strategies. Additionally, regular customer testing and evaluation will be useful to further tailor product features, in particular for Fortifer TM , such as nutrient ratio requirements and pelletization to consumer preferences.The market for NPF and PF can be captured in approximately 4.5 and 7 years, respectively. The difference in the length of adoption time is based on the relative difference in early adoption measures. At this stage, sales grow at slower rates and finally stabilize, essentially the S-curve will flatten out.Fortifer TM businesses will maximize profit and recover all the cost of operation and development. The main goal in this phase for businesses is to maximize production capacity.Prices can be increased or matched with competitors' prices. Whilst the cost of research and development (R&D) will be lower at this stage, experiments for the development of new product features are important to buffer the potential decrease in demand in the declining stage (as observed in the latter quarter of year 4). Product promotion will still be necessary to avoid possible brand switching. Competition for market share will be particularly stiff in this stage and strategic pricing, quality adjustment and promotional and awareness programs will be necessary to maintain current customers but also to reach additional customer segments. This will also be applicable to PF.Western region, Ghana: In contrast to the Greater Accra region, sales (adoption) for NPF in the first year were positive in the Western region (Figure 4c). This is not surprising given the greater demand in the latter market but also the comparatively high measure of early adoption rates. The market peaked in year 3, which was slightly earlier than that of Greater Accra. The PF market not only peaked a little later than the NPF market in the Western region (Figure 4d), which was indicative of farmers' proclivity for a product similar to that with which they were familiar, but also sales in year 1 were negative as in Greater Accra region.At the peak, businesses would have captured 68% and 69% of the NPF and PF markets, respectively; suggesting that Fortifer TM businesses need to invest more in incentive mechanisms that encourages farmers' adoption. Imperfect farmers' knowledge of human waste-based organic fertilizers may attributable for this trend in the introduction stage. Strong awareness programs coupled with actual field experiments will increase product recognition and shorten this phase.Credit-based sales with growers may be a good option to explore in order to establish farmer relationships and ensure demand. This strategy is increasingly been adopted by chemical fertilizer suppliers in Ghana. However, this implies that the cost of R&D (sunk cost) and negotiations may be higher and lead to lower profit overall at business start-up. The marginal difference in the time period in which markets for both products are fully captured is similarly attributable to the differences in the innovation coefficient. In comparing the two regions in Ghana, even with larger markets for both NPF and PF, market growth rates were marginally faster in the Western region compared to the Greater Accra region.The organic fertilizer market is still in a nascent stage in Ghana and there is ample opportunity for new compost and Fortifer TM businesses to enter the market. It is important to note that although chemical fertilizer businesses have the largest share in the industry, market distortions inherent in their supply chain mitigates the effects of their market power of which Fortifer TM businesses can take advantage. However, especially in the Western region where agricultural production is extensive and thus a greater number of fertilizer businesses exists, effective pricing strategies will be crucial to ease market entry for Fortifer TM businesses. Given farmers' price sensitivity, Fortifer TM businesses will need to implement a penetrative or competitive pricing strategy to mitigate competition effects.Kampala, Uganda: The trends observed in Kampala were similar to those in the Western region; negative demand for PF in the first year, although not for NPF (Figures 4e  and 4f). Both Fortifer TM products showed an exponential growth very early on in the growth phase and took 3.5 and 4.5 years to reach peak sales for NPF and PF, respectively. For NPF, approximately 67% of market demand could be captured in the first year. On the other hand, it took about four times the number of years to achieve the same for PF. At the peak, businesses would have captured 79% and 60% of the NPF and PF markets, respectively. The relatively slower market growth rates for both products were mainly attributable to the assumed and conservative lower diffusion coefficients due the traditional nature of low adoptability by Ugandan farmers and their current level of knowledge and use of human waste-based organic fertilizers. Product growth sales and even eventually demand can be increased via the adoption of innovative marketing and pricing strategies and strongly positioning the product in the market at the introduction stage. Market growth stagnates at approximately years six and eight for NPF and PF, respectively. For a country with relatively low fertilizer application rates, it is important that Fortifer TM businesses focus on the development of new product features and quality improvement to buffer the effects of competitors' innovations (i.e. loss of consumer interest in products and a switch to new competitive products). Additionally, prices will need to be set lower to attract and possibly maintain more price-sensitive consumers.In comparing the adoption (sales or cumulative sales) graphs for the three African countries for NPF, the Western region reached its peak sales the fastest, followed by Kampala and subsequently the Greater Accra region (Annex 4). This is also the case for PF in the Western region. On the other hand, the Greater Accra region reached its peak incremental sales faster than Kampala for PF. For NPF, 79%, 66% and 62% of the market demand was reached at the period of peak sales in the Greater Accra region, Kampala and Western region, respectively. This result is reflected in the time period in which the market was fully captured -4.5, 6 and 5 years for the Greater Accra region, Western region and Kampala, respectively, indicative that Greater Accra has a faster market growth rate. On the other hand, for PF, 69%, 63% and 60% of the market demand was reached at the period of peak sales in the Western region, Kampala and Greater Accra region, respectively. Corroborating this result are the time periods in which the product markets were fully captured. For all three countries, there were limited to no incremental sales after years 6 and 8 for NPF and PF, respectively. In summary, the diffusion of Fortifer TM products will be faster in Ghana than in Uganda despite the larger market in the former, largely driven by the higher measures of early adoption and comparatively higher levels of fertilizer application rates in Ghana.Bangalore, India: Sales (adoption) of NPF in the first year were positive in Bangalore (Karnataka region) (Figure 5a). This is not surprising given the comparatively high measure of early adoption rates in comparison to Kurunegala. The market peaked in 3.25 years and thereafter was fully captured a little after year 5. At the peak sales period, 69% of the market demand was captured although it is worth noting that a significant proportion of this occurred in the year 2. Adoption of PF, although at a slow rate, in contrast to the African countries, was positive in the first year (Figure 5b). The PF market, as with the other African countries, peaked much later than the NPF market in Bangalore (in 5.5 years), which is indicative of farmers' proclivity for a product similar to that with which they are familiar. At peak sales, however, similar to PF, 69% of the market demand would have been reached. The introduction of Fortifer TM products can be facilitated when the competitive products are at the current chemical fertilizer stage of maturity. However, subsidies for the latter sector mean that effective pricing strategies (penetrative pricing) will be crucial to ease market entry. Additionally, strong awareness programs coupled with actual field experiments will increase product recognition and eventual adoption. By the eighth year there were no incremental sales for the product and market growth stagnated. Given the slower growth rate for PF, innovative marketing and incentive mechanisms related to product pricing would be essential in strongly positioning the product in the market and maintaining a strong customer base.Hanoi, Vietnam: Similar to Bangalore, sales were positive for NPF in the first year (Figure 5c). This observation is marginally mirrored by the case of PF, although negative sales were only observed for about one-quarter of the first year (Figure 5d). Both Fortifer TM products showed an exponential growth very early on in the growth phase (although faster for NPF) and took 3 and 4.5 years to reach peak sales for NPF and PF, respectively. For NPF, approximately 55% of market demand was captured when peak sales were reached, while it took five years for PF in comparison to three years for NPF. As corroborated by the innovation coefficients (given the same imitation coefficient), adoption of NPF will be significantly faster than PF in Hanoi. At the peak, businesses would have captured about 53% of the PF market, suggesting that most market growth occurs in the introduction stage of the product's life cycle. Similar to Bangalore, innovative pricing strategies (credit-based sales or penetrative pricing) and strong awareness programs coupled with actual field experiments will be needed to increase product recognition and eventual adoption. This implies that the cost of R&D (sunk cost) and negotiations will be higher and lead to lower profit overall at business startup. It was observed that it took 10.5 years to fully reach the PF market, in comparison to 6.5 years for NPF. The longer life cycle of the PF product, means that Fortifer TM businesses will not only need to invest in product promotion to reach additional customer segments and maintain customer bases, but also conduct regular customer testing and evaluation to further tailor product features such as nutrient ratio requirements to consumer preferences.Kurunegala, Sri Lanka: As with Bangalore and Hanoi, sales for NPF in the first year were positive in contrast with PF, which were negative (Figure 5e and 5f). This is not surprising given the greater demand in the former market but also the comparatively higher measure of an early adoption rate. The market for NPF peaked in year 4, which was slightly later than the other two Asian countries. The PF market peaked marginally later than the NPF market (4.5 years), which was indicative of farmers' preference for products similar to those with which they were familiar. The marginal difference in the time period in which markets for both products were fully captured can be attributable again to the differences in the innovation coefficient. At the peak, businesses would have captured 60% and 68% of the NPF and PF markets, respectively. This suggests that, as with Bangalore and Hanoi, most market growth of both NPF and PF occurs during the introductory phase of the products' life cycle. Typically, producers increase prices or match their competitors' price when they are in or close to transitioning to the growth phase. With a significant portion of the market for PF already captured in the introductory phase, producers of PF can adopt this pricing strategy. This however cannot be the case of NPF as the share of the market captured is lower and farmers are more price-sensitive (more elastic demand) than they are to PF. Maintaining a penetrative or competitive pricing strategy even in the growth phase would serve producers better in reaching new customer segments and maintaining their customer base. Product promotion will still be necessary to avoid possible brand switching.In comparing either adoption (sales or cumulative sales) graphs for the three Asian countries for NPF, Hanoi reached its peak sales the fastest, followed by Bangalore and subsequently Kurunegala (Annex 5). This result is corroborated by the respective innovation coefficients. On the other hand, for PF, Kurunegala reached its peak sales faster than either Hanoi or Bangalore. For NPF, 55%, 60% and 69% of the market demand was reached at the period of peak sales in Hanoi, Kurunegala and Bangalore, respectively. This finding suggests that in Hanoi, where limited farmers' knowledge and use of human waste-based organic fertilizers may cause low adoption rates in the introduction stage, greater investments in awareness programs coupled with actual field experiments will be needed to increase product recognition and eventual adoption, in comparison to Bangalore where farmers are already using fecal sludge for agricultural production. This result is also reflected in the time period in which the market is fully captured -5, 6.5 and 8.5 years for Bangalore, Hanoi and Kurunegala, respectively, indicative that Bangalore will have a faster market growth rate for NPF. Similarly, for PF, 53%, 68% and 69% of the market demand was reached at the period of peak sales in Hanoi, Kurunegala and Bangalore, respectively. Whilst the market growth for PF for Bangalore and Kurunegala was faster than that of Hanoi, the differences between Bangalore and Kurunegala were inconclusive. For all three countries, there were limited to no incremental sales after year 8.5 and 10 for NPF and PF, respectively. In summary, the diffusion of Fortifer TM products will be faster in Bangalore than in Hanoi for both NPF and PF, despite the larger market and higher measures of early adoption in the latter. This result was also applicable for Kurunegala and Hanoi, however the comparisons between Bangalore and Kurunegala were inconclusive.For all the countries under consideration, market growth rate in the introduction phase of the product life cycle was significantly fast. In this regard, while investments in promotion and awareness programs will be necessary, focus should be placed on incentive mechanisms to capture new customer segments and maintain the current customer base. In comparing the results of African countries to the Asian countries for NPF, on average, higher percentages of market demand were reached at the period of peak sales in the African countries as opposed to the Asian countries. This result translates to faster market growth rates observed in Africa compared to Asia, suggesting a significant combined effect of the higher innovation and imitation coefficients on market demand and growth. Similar results were noted for PF. It is important to note that although the difference in average percentages of market demand reached at the period of peak sales was marginal, the difference observed for the market growth rate was substantial. This result is reflected in the time period in which the market was fully captured -6, 7 and 8 years for the Western region, Greater Accra region and Kampala, respectively; and 7.5, 8 and 9 years for Kurunegala, Bangalore and Hanoi, respectively. Of the African countries, Ghana had the fastest diffusion rate for Fortifer TM products, while this was the case for India and Sri Lanka in the Asian countries considered for this study.There are numerous opportunities to address the dual challenge of waste management and soil nutrient depletion in many developing countries via the safe recovery of nutrients from both solid and liquid waste streams for reuse in agriculture. Commercialization of waste-based organic fertilizer such as Fortifer TM has the potential to generate significant benefits for developing economies via cost recovery for the sanitation sector and comparatively affordable alternative agricultural inputs for smallholder farmers. The successful commercialization of Fortifer TM , however, largely depends on businesses' understanding the dynamics and functionings of the markets that they operate in. To guide potential investors in Fortifer TM businesses, this report presents a detailed market assessment of the product -highlighting farmers' perceptions and attitudes towards Fortifer TM , and their WTP.The report further provides insights into the market demand and diffusion of the product as related to the adoption profiles of farmers and adoption rates. This serves to inform businesses on the types of marketing and pricing strategies to implement in order to facilitate market entry and mitigate the effects of competition. The analyses were conducted in the Greater Accra region and Western region in Ghana; Kampala, Uganda; Bangalore, India; Hanoi, Vietnam; and Kurunegala, Sri Lanka. Furthermore, cross-country comparison analyses were conducted to better understand the effects of noted market drivers and if possible, lessons learned for knowledge sharing.We analyzed farmers' fertilizer purchasing decisions as it is hypothesized that they influence their WTP for agricultural inputs. Credit-based transactions were noted as an important purchasing decision factor by farmers in both regions of Ghana but less so in Kampala and the study areas in Asia. It is well known that most farmers in Ghana are smallholders and typically cash-constrained and so accessible and suitable financing is essential to incentivize adoption. Therefore, it was not surprising that the price of the product was noted as an equally important factor considered by farmers in the input-purchasing decisions across all study areas. A comparison of key product attributes influencing farmers' fertilizer purchasing decisions across Africa and Asia showed that farmers in Hanoi did not score highly in any of the product attributes compared to all other regions. While price is given a moderate to high score in all of the regions, farmers in Hanoi rated price as the least important product attribute. The latter is possibly because farmers traditionally face high fertilizer prices (no subsidies), anticipate the expense and so do not view it as a limiting purchasing factor. Nutrient content and fertilizer application methods were also amongst product attributes, which scored highly across all the study areas, but less so in Hanoi. Experiential learning as measured by farmers knowing someone who has used the product before and/or if it has been recommended by a trusted source, is critical to whether farmers will purchase a product or not. Future Fortifer TM businesses need to explore strategic partnerships with agricultural ministries and tap into their extension programs to catalyze adoption.Analysis of farmers' perceptions about Fortifer TM in all the study areas, suggested that adoption will only occur if Fortifer TM is certified by trusted third-party entities (preferably a governmental authority). Another important attitude construct that cuts across most of the selected regions is the 'safety issue' which captures farmers' perceived concerns about the safety of the product. While farmers in Bangalore and Kurunegala perceived Fortifer TM as a substitute for chemical fertilizer and would buy it irrespective of its price; farmers in Ghana and Uganda were more price-sensitive and would only purchase Fortifer TM if it were comparatively cheaper than chemical fertilizer.Regression analysis results provided further support of the factor analysis results above. In comparing the results of the Asian and African countries, the regression models showed that farmers were less willing to pay for Fortifer TM at higher bids, and this was consistent across all the six countries.Assessing the effects of the socioeconomic variables showed that education had an ambiguous effect on farmers' WTP for Fortifer TM . Farm size, status of landownership and previous experience using organic fertilizer significantly influenced a farmer's purchasing decision of Fortifer TM . Most farmers in the study countries, with the exception of the Greater Accra region and Hanoi owned the land that they farmed on. It is thus expected that farmers from Kampala, Bangalore and Kurunegala, all things being equal, will be more willing to pay for and use Fortifer TM . The effects of farm size on farmers' WTP differed by product type, in that, farmers with larger farm sizes were more willing to pay for PF over NPF, as the latter requires more labor for application. The effects of the attribute variables were similar and consistent across both the Asian and African countries. In particular, farmers' concerns about product safety and the related need for certification were key factors influencing their decision when purchasing Fortifer TM . Third-party product certification will be necessary especially in the Asian countries where guidelines for fecal sludge use in agriculture are unclear.Beyond understanding the factors that drive farmers' purchasing decisions for Fortifer TM , farmers' WTP and demand were estimated. Generally, across all the study areas, farmers were willing to pay more for PF than NPF with the exception of Bangalore and the Western region in Ghana.The noted WTP estimates for the Asian countries as with the African countries were comparable to the existing market prices for inorganic fertilizers. Farmers' WTP for both Fortifer products were comparatively similar with the exception of Bangalore and Kampala, which recorded significantly higher values. Mean WTP estimates for NPF and PF were USD 0.145 kg -1 and USD 0.198 kg -1 , respectively for the Greater Accra region, Ghana whilst those for NPF in the Western region were 20% higher. However, the reverse was true for PF, i.e. farmers in Greater Accra were willing to pay 20% higher than those in the Western region. Kampala noted significantly higher prices than either regions in Ghana. In the Asian study areas, while WTP estimates were similar for Hanoi and Kurunegala, Bangalore estimates were almost seven times higher. The highest WTP estimates for NPF and PF among these countries were USD 0.73 kg -1 and USD 0.52 kg -1 , respectively whilst the lowest WTP estimates were recorded in Hanoi at USD 0.11 kg -1 and USD 0.13 kg -1 for NPF and PF, respectively.Demand for both Fortifer products was relatively substantial.Of the African study areas, the Western region recorded the highest demand for both NPF and PF at 0.045 million and 0.044 million tons year -1 , respectively, in spite of the marginally lower adoption rates in comparison to Kampala and the Greater Accra region (Table 22). Demand for NPF and PF in the Western region was about 15 and 24 times that of the Greater Accra region, respectively. Estimated demand in Kampala was significantly lower than any of the other countries, which is not surprising as this was driven by the considerably low fertilizer application rates. It is important to note that notable surrounding agricultural districts were considered in the market size estimation, i.e. Luwelo, Mpigi, Mukono and Wakiso in addition to Kampala. Of the Asian study areas, Kurunegala posted the highest demand for both Fortifer products, followed by Hanoi and subsequently Bangalore. The demand for NPF in Kurunegala at 0.6 million tons year -1 was nine and two times more than that recorded for Bangalore and Hanoi, respectively. This is not surprising as Kurunegala district ranks high in terms of agricultural activities with oil crops, coconut and paddy production dominant in the region. Demand estimates for Hanoi were based on consideration of agricultural land for the whole province. The latter, coupled with high fertilizer application rates and adoption rates contributed to the recorded high demand estimate. A greater demand was observed for NPF than PF in all the countries. As previously noted, farmers are more willing to adopt a product similar to what they are familiar with. It is important to note that the demand estimates may not be comparable across the study areas given different geographical scales. With that in mind, generally, it was noted that demand was comparatively lower in the African countries for both Fortifer products, which was expected, given their overwhelmingly lower fertilizer application rates. The Western region in Ghana had the highest cultivated area of all the countries but still recorded demand estimates lower than its Asian counterparts.Another important facet of market dynamics considered in this report is the diffusion of Fortifer. For all the study areas, it is noted that market growth rate in the introduction phase of Fortifer will be significantly fast. In this regard, while investments in promotion and awareness programs will be necessary, greater focus should be placed on incentive mechanisms to catalyze farmer adoption. In the African study areas, diffusion of Fortifer products is expected to be faster in Ghana than in Uganda despite the larger market demand in the former. This is largely driven by the higher measures of early adoption and comparatively higher levels of fertilizer application rates in Ghana. For Uganda, a country with relatively low fertilizer application rates, it is important that Fortifer businesses focus on the development of new product features and quality improvement to buffer the effects of competitors' innovations (i.e. loss of consumer interest in products and switch to new competitive products).Additionally, prices will need to be set lower to attract and possibly maintain more price-sensitive consumers.A comparison of adoption rates for the Asian study areas indicated that diffusion of Fortifer products would be faster in Bangalore than in Hanoi for both NPF and PF, despite the larger market and higher measures of early adoption in the latter. This finding suggests that in Hanoi, limited farmers' knowledge and use of human waste-based organic fertilizers may cause low adoption rates in the introduction stage. Greater investments in awareness programs coupled with actual field experiments will be crucial to increase product recognition and eventual adoption, in comparison to Bangalore where farmers are already using fecal sludge for agricultural production. This result is also applicable for Kurunegala and Hanoi; however, the comparisons between Bangalore and Kurunegala are inconclusive.The matured compost is then ground to a specific consistency. The ground compost is then mixed with starch, ammonium sulfate and water in ratios of 1: 0.03; 1: 0.06 and 1: 0.25, respectively. The resulting nitratefortified substance is then pelletized using a pelletizer. The raw pellets are then dried, sieved and packaged. Any remnants/fine particles resulting from the sieving process are added back into the process at the initial grinding stage. The pelletization step requires less than a day for pellet formation and 3 to 7 days for drying of pellets (depending on the drying method and climatic conditions, especially if solar energy is used.  ","tokenCount":"22620"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4ec6a9e63a91ec427a5f57e0c11467b1","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/927f90e0-ace8-4114-9ffa-00c9f0cca3dd/retrieve","id":"1724078304"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"221f178d-4aac-4b8a-adb8-a1955291a62e","pagecount":"55","content":"This synthesis was written based on essays produced by the following youth:• Sangwani Rebeccah Gondwe, Malawi, Southern Africa • Aristide Z. Adaha, Benin, West Africa • Maureen Agena, Uganda, Eastern Africa • Isaac Chanda, Zambia, Southern Africa • Riten Chand Gosai, Fiji, Pacific • Gabriel Dacko Goudjo, Cameroon, Central Africa • Tyrone Hall, Jamaica, Caribbean The full versions of essays can be read on the ARDYIS website http://ardyis.cta.intThe energy of youth can spark economies … The future belongs to them and they have a clear vision of the world we need to build together: peace, the preservation of our beautiful planet, the opportunity to make a better life.-United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (ACP) countries faces many chal lenges. De spite their countries' heavy reliance on this sector for economic growth, food security and employment, young people perceive agriculture as an unattractive career option.Agriculture accounts for over 50% of GDP in some countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. This, coupled with the high level of unemployment, means that the need to secure the continued interest of youth in agriculture is imperative.The majority of farmers today are older. A research study by the Caribbean Farmers' Network (CaFAN) found that the average age of farmers in the Caribbean is 45 years, with the majority being over 60 years of age 1 . With a lack of youth to replace them, the future of agriculture is uncertain. Youth unemployment is a critical problem. In several countries the number of young people out of work exceeds 50%.It is therefore evident that a well-supported agricultural sector could present the ideal solution if it is transformed in the eyes of the younger generation. It must become attractive, viable and offer real opportunities for income.ICTs offer a good avenue for achieving this objective. These technologies are reaching every socioeconomic segment, even in remote rural areas. They offer efficient tools for transforming the agriculture sector. As it's recognized that young people spearhead the development of innovations 1 Caribbean Farmers' Network -Source: www.cafan.org, CaFANYouth in Agriculture Regional Workshop, 2010 in ICT, there are therefore, new rationale and opportunities for linking agriculture and youth. Moreover, in rural areas, ICTs can help improve youth livelihoods and reduce rural exodus.The ARDYIS (Agriculture, Rural Development and Youth in the Information Society) project is one of CTA's recent initiatives with ACP partners, notably created to improve ICT access for ru ral youth. Its aim is to raise awareness and streng then the capacity of young people, allowing them to contribute to agriculture and rural development through the use of ICTs. This booklet provides an overview and the results of the essay competition «Youth finding solutions to challenges in agriculture and rural development using ICTs!», one of the many ARDYIS activities. Entries submitted demonstrated that youth are more and more interested in the agricultural sector and supporting them will definitely have a strong impact in attracting more youth to rural areas.In addition to the ARDYIS project, CTA has also embarked on other initiatives such as a project with the FANRPAN (Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network) to develop policies for youth in southern Africa and initiatives to target young scientists. Through its youth initiatives, CTA will contribute to the efforts of ACP governments to create employment and income for the youth in agriculture and related rural economies.Fostering youth solutions...T he essay compe tition «Youth finding solutions to challenges in agriculture and rural development using ICTs!» was an initia tive of the ARDYIS project, a frame work of actions, which aims to improve oppor tunities for youth in agri culture and rural develop ment through the use of ICTs.Youth, aged from 18 to 25 years old, were re quired to submit entries in four categories. The first category asked them to present two agricultural challenges and discuss how ICTs could be used to address them; the second category offers to analyze how ICTs could be used for effective advocacy and lobbying to promote agriculture; the third category targeted the use of ICTs to improve access to markets and the last category allowed them to tell the story of a young person living in a rural area who has used ICT successfully or in an innovative way (even if the experience was not a success) for his/her work. The summaries of essays published here are grouped into three sections, based on the initial four categories.We have decided to share summaries 2 of 18 of the best essays to highlight the solutions and perspectives of some of the best young entrants. Showcasing successful youth exposes those to new opportunities, motivates them, ultimately boosting their interests and those of their peers. We are certain that among these 18 young people, whose essays have been highlighted in this booklet, we have future leaders of ACP agricultural and rural development. Some of them are already making a difference in their communities and they will certainly achieve more in the future. They are people to watch! 2 For more information about the contest and to read the full versions of the best essays, please check: http://tinyurl.com/ ardyis-essay-documents Launched in June 2010, the competition has helped to create a collaborative framework for hundreds of young people and youth organizations who are active or interested in the farming sector, in rural development and in the use of ICTs in that context. Different activities have been organized since then, including: training and exchange on the use of web 2.0 tools in agriculture and rural development; a workshop on agricultural entrepreneurship through ICTs, the Youth In Agriculture Blog Competition (YoBloCo Awards; see Appendix); the adoption of an advocacy document entitled \"Call for Stronger Support for Youth Involvement in Agriculture and ICT\"; and networking and information dissemination on opportunities. Many youth have attended conferences to strengthen their knowledge, and some even have secured employment opportunities as a result.The ARDYIS initiative is still at its early stages and is refining its strategy and actions. We are open to collaboration with all organizations interested in these issues. I would like to seize this opportunity to thank the institutional members of the project's advisory committee, whose constant support has been crucial to the success of this project. Thanks must also go to my colleagues at CTA, in particular, Mrs Oumy Ndiaye (who as head of department at CTA, played a central role in the establishment and operation of the initiative), Thilda Chevouline, Giorgio Bellinzas, Therese Burke and Jenessi Matturi. Some encouraging results have been achieved so far and more will be accomplished in the future. PART 1Agricultural theft, crop pests and unpredictable weather con-ditions… these are just some of the challenges facing today's ACP producers. Information and communication technologies tailored to their needs and budgets can offer some solutions -and help farmers introduce more sustainable practices, improve record-keeping and plan more efficient farm strategies. My favourite quote: \"The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible -and achieve it, generation after generation.\" -Paul S. Buck My blog: http://www.ictworks.org/news/tyrone-hallD usk is approaching in the sleepy Jamaican village of Glengoffee, and farmer Leslie makes his usual evening rounds to check his property. He patiently counts his cattle, scans his crops and makes a mental note of all his tools and other assets. The evening patrol has become an essential ritual ever since agricultural theft -or praedial larceny to use its technical name -began to spiral out of control. More than 1 in 10 Jamaican farmers have been victims of agricultural theft, losing cattle, crops and equipment to crimes that are increasingly the work of organised gangs.More than one million farmers have suffered indirect losses such as damage to crops by intruders. Each year, an estimated J$5 billion ( 43 million) worth of crops and livestock is stolen. Responses have ranged from hiring security guards to installing trained guard dogs and the government has put in place stiffer penalties with a traceability system to track the movement of food and animals. But these measures can only be taken once the theft has happened and many exasperated producers have either been discouraged from investing in their businesses or have given up farming altogether.Tyrone Hall, Jamaica, Caribbean My main goal is to pioneer a consultancy that specializes in using communication to improve development processes with respect to health, the environment and rural development.Technology may offer some solutions. An electronic laser fence security alert system is one such innovative proposal. It consists of an invisible laser fence installed around a property, which triggers SMS messages or voice calls to mobile phones when an intruder crosses the line. Invisible to the naked eye, it is undetectable by outsiders and uses a medium that is both familiar and widely available. Nearly two-thirds of the population now has access to a mobile phone.Mobile phones may also hold the key to solving another problem critical to Jamaican farmers -poor market information and inadequate links between producers and buyers. An SMS information database (SMS ID) would put the two sides in touch, enabling farmers to post the price of their products via SMS or voice calls and retailers and middle-men or consumers to request the lowest prices for various products using the same simple system. For example, farmer Leslie could text prices for his produce that week: yam $100 or carrot $50. Meanwhile, buyers could request prices by punching in the name of the product and a given price range -perhaps carrot minimum $? Or potato average $? Another buyer might want to ask: who has min carrot $? And the answer will quickly come back: farmer Leslie  has the lowest priced carrots @ $10. Farmers need never be out of touch with market prices again if they use SMS ID.Based on the original essay: \"Tackling Jamaica's two main agricultural plagues with ICT: Praedial larceny and information asymmetries/poor marketing\" by Tyrone Hall.As a proud 20-year-old Jamaican young lady, I take pride in reminiscing on the achievements in my life so far. I grew up in the rural community of Sandy Bay, Hanover. While attending secondary school [The Montego Bay High School for Girls] I adopted a spirit that was geared towards volunteerism. This continued throughout my tertiary level institution where I aligned myself with the Junior Chamber International (JCI) organization to further fulfil service needs.I hope that the government will seek to enhance this vital sector (which serves as a means of added employment), resulting in a reduction in the levels of poverty.\"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.\" -AristotleF armers need to be more united if agriculture is to thrive in the Jamaican parish of Hanover. That is the verdict of the chairman of the Green Island Cane Farmers' Association, who claims producers lack tools to communicate with each other and with authorities and organizations that could support them. The once high levels of productivity in the parish are now in decline. Farmers in Hanover complain of being neglected by the Ministry of Agriculture and say that they have no reliable channel through which to negotiate conditions that affect their incomes. A 2009 study found that more than half of the Jamaican farming community has access to a mobile phone. However, this system of communication has not proved sufficient to answer the needs of local producers.A more effective solution could be a small telecentre in the parish of Hanover, with access to an Intranet system to offer a constant, lowcost link between the Ministry and farmers. Skype could be part of the package, opening A UNITED FRONT FOR FARMERS Samantha Kaye-Christie, Jamaica, Caribbean While pursuing a degree in psychology at the University of the West Indies, I realized that the poverty levels in Jamaica have got worse. I think this is due to the lack of interest in the government in the agricultural sector.the way to video conferences. The Intranet link would also be a platform for farmers to exchange experiences and good practices, in order to boost output.One important consideration is that farming in Jamaica is not considered to be a profession for young people. Farmers are generally not well educated. A 2006 survey found that 50.8% of Hanoverian small-scale farmers were aged 54 or more, and that none had continued their education beyond primary school. In order for ICTs to be effectively used, most farmers will require training. One solution is to use touch screens with icons, far simpler than standard systems. If well presented, the new technology may even attract more young people to the farming sector in Hanover.ICTs also offer hope in addressing other problems, caused by the development of tourism facilities in the area. The building of hotels and other infrastructure needed to welcome visitors robs the farming sector of valuable land and resources. The use of glass-bottomed boats to view coral reefs causes damage to them, depleting fisheries and other marine resources as a result. Use of a Geographic Information System (GIS) could do much to mitigate both problems. GIS helps users to capture, store, analyse and present data for a specific location and would offer a means of viewing variables that affect crop yield, soil erosion and drought risk. This data could be translated into information useful to farmers and relayed to them via the Internet. For example, data on soil assessment would help them to plan their planting strategies and manage their land in a more efficient manner. For coastal management, GIS could play a useful role in locating and quantifying coral reefs, to improve conservation and protect fishery habitats. Naturally, all these initiatives will require investment and commitment. But as a popular Jamaican saying goes: \"If you want good yuh nose haffi run\" [If you want good, you really have to sacrifice and work for it].Based on the original essay: \"ICTs -Are they really the solution to challenges faced by Hanoverian farmers?\" by Samantha Kaye-Christie. I am young, dynamic and versatile Vincentian who is committed to the cause of advancing my country, and the Caribbean region. I am passionate about bettering the lives of young people through capacity building and will continue to champion the cause of under-privileged youth.I am pursuing a Bachelors of Laws at the University of the West Indies, but I'm scheduled to graduate in a couple of months. In reality however, my passion is I.T. / computer science. In any event, given that I am already in the profession, I promise to do my best to better the lives of those whom I interact with.My blog: http://ictandthelaw.blogspot.com/ My Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ super.starjasonP est infestations and lack of reliable market information are two major hurdles for producers in the Caribbean, preventing them from realising the full potential of agriculture in this fragile region. With 23 island states spread over a wide area, the Caribbean is highly fragmented. ICTs offer considerable scope for addressing some of the region's key problems, providing uniform solutions to even the most isolated areas. An agricultural information system (AIS) could do much to improve farmers' access to information on trends for prices and product demand. This would improve their negotiating position, make them less vulnerable to over-pricing for seeds, fertiliser and other inputs, and help them become better placed to make strategic decisions about which crops to grow and where to sell them. A regional price information system could collect data from main national markets and filter it out to local level through small information centres equipped with computers and Internet access. In more isolated communities, two-way or rural radio could be used to broadcast market prices to a wider target audience. Similar systems have already proved effective in some developing countries.Jason Haynes, St Vincent and Grenadines, Caribbean I appreciate the use of ICT in agriculture and rural development and will accordingly continue to foster closer ties between my profession and those important areas.A case in point is Ghana's e-Commerce project which collects commodity prices in key markets and makes the data available to rural farmers through a network of provincial offices. Add-on components to such a system might include an information and online purchasing options for farm implements, advice on how to cultivate and manage certain crops and weather forecasts to help producers plan for extreme conditions. Over the past 6 years, hurricanes have destroyed entire crop plantations in Antigua and Barbuda and caused US$305 million ( 224 million) worth of damage to agriculture in Belize.To combat pest damage and crop diseasewhich have led to what the Caribbean Agricultu ral Re search De velopment Institute (CARDI) describes as a \"frightening situation\" -Internet-based decision support systems can be useful tools for farmers. They can provide all the information needed to help producers select the most appropriate pest control strategy, including pest identification, life cycles and pest distribution models linked to weather monitoring systems. For maximum effect, such systems could offer details of bio-control methods, backed up by 'intelligent' functions such as e-learning tools and dynamic simulations of crop ecosystems.The sterile insect technique (SIT) is recommended environmentally friendly option for farmers. The technique involves sterilising factory-reared male Caribbean fruit flies by irradiation and releasing large quantities into infested areas. When they mate with female fruit flies, no offspring are produced, so populations are gradually reduced and sometimes wiped out. The Caribbean fruit fly causes massive damage to tropical and subtropical fruits across the region. CARDI research has revealed that the pest is found in nearly one-hundred fruit species, including citrus, guava, mangoes, French cherry, rose apple, peach and tropical almond.My name is Nawsheen Hosenally. I'm 21 years old and from Mauritius. I'm a final year student at the University of Mauritius, where I'm studying agriculture and specializing in agricultural extension. I joined the Agricultural Society of the University of Mauritius as secretary for 1 year and after that I wanted to go further and joined AIESEC.Youth expect to have entrepreneurial opportunities in agriculture,, where they get the support of the government/other organizations to start a business and contribute to the economy or get a job in the agricultural sector. Many youngsters have studied agriculture and have many ideas, but due to lack of opportunities and incentives, they have simply changed their field of study.Participating in the ARDYIS project has been one of the best decisions I have taken in my life so far. It started with the submission of the essay, after which all participants were registered in a group for discussion forums where participants shared our opinions/ideas on specific topics. This has increased my knowledge and interest in ICTs, youth and agriculture. Then, we took part in training on the use of Web 2.0 tools in Accra, Ghana which has proven to be very useful as I find I am regularly using what I have learnt there in my studies and other professional work. We are being notified about different opportunities for internship/scholarship/ competition, which is exactly what we need.My blog: http://nawsheenh.blogspot.com/ Essay summary I CTs could do much to help Mauritius achieve its goal of increasing agricultural output, while keeping production costs low and using more sustainable farming methods. The small island state is highly dependent on imports, producing just 23% of the food it needs. But a national campaign launched in 2008 to lower this level of dependence must be flanked by a strategy to use communication technologies if it is to have any real impact. Crucially, the ICTs must be matched to the conditions -and the budgets -of farmers.For smallholder producers, the mobile phone is the ideal tool. Most smallholders have a small plot of land and are either illiterate or only attended primary school. The mobile phone answers their needs perfectly, being simple andThe reason I'm studying agriculture is because I'm interested in global issues such as hunger, poverty and climate change, and my field of study enables me to contribute to making a positive impact on society.inexpensive to use, with good network coverage in all rural areas. Yet to date, the only mobilebased agricultural service in use on the island is the SMS disease alert, provided by the Agricultural Research and Extension Unit. It sends SMS messages to registered planters, warning when an outbreak of disease threatens a particular crop. Why stop with plant disease? How many more services could be offered to farmers using mobile phones? What about adapting the system to provide information on the price of inputs, weather updates, good agricultural practices, animal health and husbandry and help with marketing agricultural products? A good place to start would be a database for quality seeds, so that any farmer wanting a particular seed would only have to send a simple SMS to ask about availability and price.Other applications could include using the organiser of a farmer's mobile phone to keep records of farm details, such as chemicals used and the date of application. Most small-scale farmers are notoriously lax about record-keeping. Mobile phones could also increase interaction between extension services and farmers on radio shows. Farmers could send questions via SMS, prompting a dialogue with extension experts about problems and ways to solve them.Co-operatives, entrepreneurs and sugar planters, who generally have larger budgets and a better education, could take advantage of more sophis-ticated ICTs. Farming software can be used to record and save farm records on computers, helping producers to plan their farms and lower their production expenses. GPS technology, already adopted by two sugar estates in Mauritius, can be used to guide tractors in auto-pilot mode, cutting labour costs and making precision agriculture possible. The Internet can enable farmers to check market prices and weather reports download technical guides and share information. With a blog or wiki, farmers can easily interact with each other and find solutions to mutual problems. If the goal of making Mauritius more food secure is to be achieved, all stakeholders involved in agriculture -the public sector, NGOs, research and extension -must make more use of ICTs. ICTs offer the chance for them to work together with farmers and find real solutions for Mauritian agriculture.Based on the original essay: \"Two challenges experienced in Mauritius related to agriculture or rural development, and the use of ICTs to address them.\" by Nawsheen Hosenally Bibi. As many farmers find to their cost, the toughest link to crack in the value chain is often the last one. Finding buyers for their products or services can be a daunting business for many smallscale producers. But ICTs can play a valuable role in linking them to markets.My name is Sangwani Rebeccah Gondwe. The name Sangwani is \"Tumbuka\" and it means \"Rejoice\" in English. I love this name. I was born 25 years ago to Malawian parents. I come from the Northern part of Malawi but I spent most of my time in the capital city, Lilongwe. I hold a BSc in agribusiness management and I just finalized working on my MSc in agricultural and applied economics. My Master's thesis was in agricultural marketing. One set-back to the enhancement of agricultural marketing in Malawi and most African countries is poor access to information and ICTs.My favourite quote: \"Communication is the grease that makes the wheel of marketing go round\".In my article, I referred to a case where a 100 km stretch of road could take you 3 hours to travel instead of an hour because it is so poor. Therefore most agricultural products would deteriorate before you could find a prospective buyer for your products, if you are to depend on road transport. On the other hand, a phone, email or radio message may take one minute and they are connected.Email: sangwani2009@gmail.comK aronga district, in Malawi's northern region, is just 110 km from the neighbouring district of Chitipa. The journey should take no more than an hour, but the road is in a poor state and often the trip takes well over three hours. The daily newspaper regularly arrives a day late.. Mobile phone networks in Chitipa are erratic and Internet connection is unreliable in both districts. Yet both communities have a vital need to stay in touch with each other. Maize is the predominant crop in Chitipa, while farmers in Karonga produce mostly rice. Trading between the two districts is essential and farmers need to be connected so they have real-time information on markets and product availability.The close ties but poor links between Chitipa and Karonga are echoed in many other parts of rural Malawi. Liberalisation in both the communication and agriculture sectors has led to massive scope for improved market information for smallholder producers. In theory, these developments should have enabled small-scale producers to plan which crops to grow and how best to sell them. In practice, poor access to reliable market infor-As youth are most likely to embrace the technologies and use them, then they are the best agents to ensure maximum and efficient use of such and I strongly advocate for their involvement.mation, compounded by inefficient markets, continue to make it difficult for producers to place their products to the best effect.Some recent initiatives have had positive impacts on the ability of farmers to access markets, though these results have been poorly documented. Institutions have been set up to link smallholder farmers to markets through ICT interventions using FM radio, mobile phones, the Internet and emails. One such system is the Initiative for Development and Equity in African Agriculture (IDEAA), which is part of the Malawi Agriculture Commodity Exchange (MACE) project and disseminates prices for a range of products on a weekly basis. The Agriculture Commodity Exchange (ACE) programme, introduced recently by the National Association of Smallholder Farmers in Malawi (NASFAM) publishes updated farm prices on the Internet.But large numbers of farmers in Malawi remain cut off from such innovations, especially in remote areas such as Chitipa and Karonga. Small-scale farmers in Malawi are already facing massive challenges, grappling with under-sized plots and low-yielding varieties among other difficulties. Although smallholder farmers account for 25% of the country's total GDP, an estimated one-third of the country's population is perpetually unable to produce enough food to feed the family. Many farmers rely on sales of other agricultural products to buy the food they need. Efficient commodity markets are critical to all smallholder households in Malawi. And the use of modern ICTs to connect farmers to market information has now become an imperative.Based on the original essay: \"When the use of modern ICT becomes a requisite: The case of Malawi.\" by Sangwani Rebeccah Gondwe. Now aged 22, I grew up on my parents' farm in the west of Cameroon in a predominantly agricultural region. After graduating from high school in 2007, I moved to the capital, Yaoundé, where I passed the competitive entrance exam to the School of Telecommunications Engineering. The importance, and the instability, of telecommunications in my country are both key reasons for my choice of this sector for my future career. In 2010, after obtaining my degree in civil engineering, I learned of the ARDYIS project organized by CTA via the discussion group of Engineers Without Borders -Cameroon. I entered the essay contest and won the prize for central Africa. Through my research for the project, I was able to identify the challenges, solutions and opportunities within the agricultural sector. From this moment on, I decided to focus my telecommunications studies and my career on agriculture. I am currently working as a volunteer at Engineers Without Borders -Cameroon, where I am in charge of the programme: \"Bridging the digital divide to improve efficiency in agricultural systems\".My blog: http://afriqueenor.over-blog.com/ Essay summary R eorganization of Cameroon's telecommunications sector has already led to several interesting developments -a number of them favouring the country's rural communities. An e-government project has been launched to improve the efficiency of public administration, extending virtual services to areas where there are no offices. A network of multipurpose community telecentres (MCTs), in more than 150 locations, has done much to improve communications in isolated areas. With more and more graduates considering agriculture for their future, and the growing trend to form farming co-operatives, there is scope for ICTs to bring wide-ranging benefits to this important sector. A four-pronged strategy could do much to address the most serious challenges facing farmers, which include low productivity, insufficient credit, poor organization and weak market access.First would be a weekly radio broadcast, to be called \"Agri-Info\" and hosted by an extension expert in local languages. It would discuss prices on national and local markets, outlets, process-My dream is to continue my studies in a top-class university, to deepen my knowledge in Telecommunications which will enable me contribute more effective solutions to the agricultural sector in my country.ing and storage techniques and management and sales skills. Specialists could be featured on the programme, and farmers invited on to air their views about their problems and share solutions. A second component would be a deal with a mobile phone operator to secure a low-cost package offering unlimited phone calls and SMS messages between farmers. The service could also supply audio messages on technical issues of interest to producers. Village information centres, using material made available by the MCTs, could be a useful channel for making knowledge on key issues available to rural communities. The centres would cover a wide range of subjects and would make use of a variety of media, including posters and videos.A third initiative would be an Internet platform offering a geo-referenced database, using GIS, voice, data and video in a virtual community salon, staffed by someone well-informed in both agriculture and ICTs, who would help producers to explore the Internet and all it has to offer them.Once these three initiatives have been up and running for 3 years, and producers have become familiar with using ICTs, a community WIFI network for rural areas could be launched. This lowcost service, which can be made with local materials such as old sardine cans, would enable farmers to connect with each other, as well as with local radio and MCTs. Producers could buy second-hand computers and use freely downloadable software. The system could be powered by solar panels in areas with no access to electricity. Support from government and NGOs would be crucial to ensuring the success of these initiatives, but the opportunity of using ICTs to provide real benefits to rural producers is one that should not be missed.Based on the original essay: \"Comment les TIC peuvent-elles être utilisées pour améliorer l'accès au marché des produits agricoles au Cameroun?\" by Gabriel Dacko Goudjo.I grew up in Makurdi, the capital of Benue State of Nigeria. My family was involved in agriculture. From the age of 10, I had learned how to till the soil and sow staple crops such as maize, groundnuts and rice. At one stage I owned my own small soybean farm.When I was 14, I maintained a small poultry farm, rearing birds such as broilers and turkeys. I intend to invest in agriculture. My love for the sciences informed my decision to do engineering in school. I graduated with a degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria in 2009. In high school I dreamt of winning a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. I still hope to win one in literature as I pursue my love in poetry and story writing.ARDYIS brought intelligent young people to gether and the network I have created with these brilliant young minds has been very beneficial in my day-to-day endeavours.Favourite website: I would choose www.google. com, because for me it is the gateway to other sites, besides its versatility in terms of Google maps, docs, reader, etc.My blog: http://poeticfarmer.wordpress.com Contact: rutherford2forlife@yahoo.comA practical approach to linking farmers with new information technologies has the potential to improve the small-scale agriculture sector in Nigeria. Using ICTs to map land resources and markets could help solve some of country's most pressing agricultural problems, which include low productivity and scant opportunities for farmers to sell their produce at decent prices. Geo-mapping, used to identify the potential of land for farming and its suitability for specific crop and livestock production, canYouth can play a huge role in the development of their communities. We have an imminent food security challenge when young people shy away from agriculture, leaving this sensitive field to an ageing population.be a powerful tool for increasing agricultural output. Mapping markets for various products could help farmers decide where best to place their products. The same service could supply information on re quire ments for accessing particular markets, especially for export.Ineffective extension services pose major difficulties for Nigerian farmers, and here too, ICTs can help. Distance learning can offer valuable information to producers. Farmers living anywhere in the country can go to ICT centres to sign up for online courses that will give them the technical knowledge they need to adopt sound agricultural practices, as well as business management skills such as book-keeping. Manuals, containing practical information about production and marketing methods, can be offered online or as CDs. Video podcasts offer farmers an easy way of learning about crop and livestock production. Instead of the top-down system, why not use a two-way extension service method? The ask-the-expert approach, successfully used in a number of countries and known by various names, enables producers to ask specific questions and receive answers via a feedback platform, generally a website. Farmers can use Internet blogs to share their experiences with other farmers, swapping problems and solutions with each other.An online database, containing names, phone numbers, websites, email and contact addresses for all agricultural extension centres, would be a useful service, especially if supplemented by details of community focus groups, NGOs, credit suppliers and development partners. Communication between these groups would open the door to more opportunities for introducing high-yielding and innovative practices and linking farmers to markets.In order to set these kinds of services in place, changes will have to be made at policy level. Local government will need to do more to en sure the provision of basic ICT facilities for communities. One idea is to form partnerships with private organizations to set up ICT centres in rural areas. With 65% of Nigerians under the age of 25, youth will be a powerful force in developing the country's agriculture sector. Youth interest in the sector could be stimulated by forming young farmers' clubs in secondary schools, while the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) -a mandatory one-year scheme for graduates in Nigeria -could be an effective tool for fostering ICT development in rural communities. Who better to pass on ICT skills and training than young educated members of NYSC? And what would be a better gift for the new generation of farmers?Based on the original essay: \"Using ICTs to bridge the agricultural extension Gap and improving market access for rural farmers in Nigeria: A practical approach\" by Itodo Samuel Anthony. Perhaps the vitality of agriculture to the Pacific region and the world really convinced me to endorse this field as a top priority; where my utmost interest and dedication lies. Currently I am working for the Biosecurity Authority of Fiji and advocating for youth to adopt agriculture via CTA's ARDYIS project. It has been the first ever project (of its kind) that I have been involved with... My favorite quote: \"Man despite his historic pretensions, his sophistication and art, owes the fact of his existence to a 6-inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains\"… Anonymous Favourite website: http://www.facebook.com/agrifiji -my initiative and commitment to spread the gospel and attract youth to agriculture.A griculture continues to be the bedrock of the Fijian economy, accounting for 14% of the country's GDP and two-thirds of its almost 320,000 strong workforce. However, with a drastic decline in sugar cultivation and production, the agricultural focus has now shifted towards diversifying into high-value cash crops for the domestic market, as well as tourism and exports. Information poverty continues to be one of the main obstacles to more modern, marketoriented farming practices in Fiji, whose 330 islands are scattered over 1.3 million square kilometres. Farmers are isolated, from each other, and from information and markets that could help them earn better incomes. As a result, they are reluctant to commercialise production. Most of Fiji's 86,680 rural households -54% of the population -are engaged in subsistence agricultural or fishing activities.It is a common fact that people prefer the so-called luxurious life and are slowly moving to urban centres, leaving behind a declining rural population where majority farming takes place. Hence the onus is on the youth to avoid succumbing to the age-old stereotype that agriculture is hard labour and not a reputable profession and a white collar job is a preferred career choice.ICTs can provide the essential link in bridging this information gap, but to date the agriculture sector has failed to take advantage of these new technologies. The potential is certainly there, and other developing countries have already paved the way, showing how ICTs can bring tangible benefits to farmers. Widespread use of mobile phones offers massive scope for spreading agricultural information. Software has already been developed to do just this. Take the example of Uganda, where a suite of mobile applications is being used to give farming advice. Rural telecentres, equipped with computers and Internet and using solar power for energy, can be valuable channels for transmitting information, as seen in a number of African countries. Useful agricultural information on the Internet can be accessed via mobile phones that support Internet connections. Video conferencing with farmers via satellite or over the Internet is another innovative use of ICTs, which can be especially helpful in remote areas.With many Pacific islands threatened by climate change, it is important that farmers are kept informed of new techniques. In Burkina Faso, farmers' organizations have used digital photos and video to teach new growing techniques, leading to a nine-fold rise in output. ICTs can also be used to increase the efficiency and sustainability of small-scale farms, making information available on crucial issues such as pest and disease control and early warning systems. Up-to-date market information can dramatically improve farmers' negotiating position, and simple websites that match supply and demand can be a start to more sophisticated trade systems.ICTs can help with stock and quality control, essential for some domestic and most export markets, and important when it comes to applying for credit. Global positioning system (GPS) technology, still relatively new to Fiji, can provide valuable support to marketing and distribution. In Ethiopia, it has been used to map rural roads, helping NGOs, extension services and farm ers to plan their trans porta tion needs. Tradi tional electronic media, such as radio and tele vision, which have more than 80% coverage in Fiji, should not be forgotten. But more could be done to broadcast qua lity pro grammes and provide a plat form for feed back from farmers.Based on the original essay: \"The use of information and communication technology to address information poverty and reluctance of farmers to commercialize in the Fiji Islands.\" by Riten Chand Gosai. My own dream is to become a leader on the international scene to defend African interests and those of the most marginalized communities. My goal is to bring together the qualities and competences necessary to nurture my ambition.My blog: http://www.toundeblog.blogspot.comD espite its relatively recent rise, it is clear that the contribution of ICT to agricultural development and poverty reduction is becoming increasingly significant. In particular, mobile telecommunications are of special interest because of their capacity to empower rural African communities. Although mobile phones were once considered luxury goods for well-todo urban populations, they have come to be increasingly used as the standard means of accessing information and of communication among rural populations.The humiliating and thankless place of agriculture in ACP countries today discourages interest from the younger generations. Their dream is to have a modern macroeconomic and institutional environment in which to develop their ideas and build an up-to-date agricultural sector that is capable of facing current challenges. It is only the youth that will be able to develop a fresh, modern image of agriculture in ACP countries.However, many mobile telephone applications remain underused in the rural sector, thereby limiting the potential of this tool to boost to primary development. Short text messaging (SMS), for example, is little known or used among rural populations, despite being a relatively cheap and effective means of communication. Furthermore, the multiple SMS function and synchronization via PC allow the user to reach a wider target group, and can, for example, improve access to markets and provide producers with more accurate price information.Unfortunately, at present only a small number of umbrella organizations are using multiple SMSs to communicate with the leaders of farmers' organizations. Yet, given the current rate of mobile phone penetration in the rural sector, and the increasing need for improved market access for small-scale producers, as well as meteorological information, the time is ripe for an expansion of this service to a wider public, in particular, to those at the beginning of the value chain. For this expansion to succeed, however, it will be important to lift the institutional and socio-linguistic barriers that currently limit SMS use in the rural agricultural sector. Expanding the use of multiple SMSs via PC, for example, requires simplified instructions and the creation of support structures drawn from the local population.An additional potentially limiting factor in upscaling its use is linguistic competence. Special attention should therefore be paid to schooling for children and literacy among rural populations in their local languages. ICT localization, in particular, the development of mobile telecommunications in local languages, constitutes a major strategic opportunity to improve market access for farmers through the widespread use of SMSs.Based on the original essay: \"Comment les TIC peuvent-elles être utilisées pour améliorer l'accès au marché des produits agricoles du Bénin?\" by Babatoundé Rivaldo Alain Kpadonou.Stienen, J., Bruinsma, W and Neuman, F. ( 2007) \"How ICT can make a difference in agri cultural liveli hoods\", International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD).I am from Burkina Faso, aged 25. I grew up in a village in the Boucle du Mouhoun Region in Burkina Faso, where I attended primary school and part of my secondary school education. I completed my secondary school studies at Lycée Ouézzin Coulibaly in Bobo Dioulasso, the economic capital of Burkina Faso.After graduating from high school with a specialization in mathematics, I decided to continue my studies in economics and management at the University of Ouagadougou. I have already completed the first stage of graduate school, specializing in applied macroeconomics, and am currently working on my doctorate at the Laboratory for Economic Policy and Analysis at the University of Ouagadougou II.The decision to analyse the issue of market access for agricultural products from the perspective of access to information is linked to my training as an economist, and to a number of studies I carried out using databases. Furthermore, according to economic theory, information plays a vital role in all market mechanisms.In the last few years, I have also carried out a lot of research on the role of ICT. This is why I entered my essay for the ARDYIS contest and ended up finalist for West Africa.My favourite quote: My favourite quote comes from my father, who always writes it at the end of his letters to me: \"Where there's a will, there's a way (A coeur vaillant, rien d'impossible)\".My blog: http://traoreinoussa.blogspot.comA griculture dominates daily life in much of Burkina Faso, where 80% of people live in rural areas. But lack of market access is one of the major hurdles facing producers, trapping the majority of them in subsistence farming and preventing them from taking that crucial stepInoussa Traoré, Burkina Faso, West Africa I believe that the real wealth of our nations is our youth. We are the future! on the path to becoming small-scale entrepreneurs. ICTs are becoming more widely available in rural areas of this West African country, despite problems posed by poor infrastructure and illiteracy. And the slow but steady march of new technologies is bringing important changes to the agriculture sector on which most people depend for their livelihoods.In the early stages, in Burkina Faso, ICTs were mainly used to help farmers improve crop farming practices and obtain forecasts about the weather. Then, gradually, the scope began to widen and new communication tools were introduced to open up market access. These days, agricultural information is available through a host of channels, including the Internet, television and radio, as well as on DVDs and CD ROMs. Some initiatives have become household names. TV Koodo runs a popular service broadcasting commodity prices on television and the Internet. A system launched by NGO APROSSA -Afrique Verte also sends out regular bulletins on the situation in agricultural markets. A market information system managed by SONAGESS publishes cereal prices on a website.GPS offers scope for tracking products in the value chain, a prerequisite for some markets and an important stepping stone on the path to certification. Several women's producer organizations have succeeded in obtaining certification using this technology.The Internet has made it possible to sell -and buy -at the click of a mouse, opening up new markets for producers. A number of producers' organizations have been swift to seize this opportunity, setting up websites to promote their products. Some women's groups are successfully using this strategy to sell the shea butter that they produce.When there is no Internet, the mobile phone can be used to distribute market information and make deals with buyers. The Burkina Faso Chamber of Commerce has launched a project called Mobile Business which uses SMS messages to provide producers and traders with the latest details on local and international market prices. Much progress has been made in using ICTs to spur the agriculture sector. But there is scope for a great deal more, although parallel improvements must be made in raising literacy and education levels if the strategy is to achieve the best effect. A market intelligence unit would be an invaluable tool for farmers and traders alike. Powered by software that ensures regularly updated market information from a range of different sources, such a system would be a significant help in decision-making. More information means more business, and that is good news for everyone in Burkina Faso's agriculture sector.Based on the original essay: \"Comment les TIC peuvent-elles être utilisées pour améliorer l'accès au marché des produits agricoles du Burkina Faso?\" by Inoussa Traoré. Thanks to ARDYIS, I received a wealth of information including training in Web 2.0. I gained a fuller understanding of the significance of rural development and how ICTs play their part. It helped me get a clearer picture of my personal dream for Africa. I had the opportunity to present my ideas and to be heard by an international jury. That was quite an honour and I travelled to countries I have never been to before.The agriculture and rural development sector must be managed professionally just like any other sector such as the financial sector or the tourism sector, so that they feel proud to be professionals involved in achieving something meaningful.My blog: http://theafrodream.blogspot.comI t is 7 am, and a 28-year-old woman farmer is getting ready for the busy day ahead. This season, she expects to harvest 500 tonnes of high quality potatoes. Today, she is still wondering where she will sell them, but she takes out her mobile phone, sends an SMS and soon smiles as she receives confirmation of an order to supply a weekly tonne of potatoes for the next twelve weeks. The transaction has been made possible by a service introduced by a local software company, in partnership with mobile phone service provider. Meanwhile, in Zimbabwe's communal lands, a 16-year-old boy walks into a telecentre, leaving his ox-drawn cart full of vegetables outside. After searching through the database, he sends an email to a potential buyer. The answer comes back almost immediately, with details of when the client will come to collect the produce.I am more determined to see my vision/dream, the Afro Dream, become a reality, whereby any inhabitable place in Africa provides its inhabitants with any product or service that is locally developed/ produced and can be found anywhere in the world.These two scenarios are projections rather than real examples. But they could soon become a reality if ICTs are used to improve access to markets for farmers in Zimbabwe. It is important to match the right technologies to the right producers and markets. Producers in Zimbabwe range from newly resettled farmers, with average computer literacy, to communal farmers -mostly very young -and the elderly, who depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, but whose literacy levels are very low. Then there are commercial farmers, mostly young or middle-aged, whose literacy levels are high.Zimbabwe now has an affordable mobile phone service and good network coverage, making this tool the obvious choice since mobile phones are widely available and easy-to-use. With locally developed software, mobile phones can be used to match farmers' offers to buyers' needs and notify farmers about the latest market prices. With the help of experts from the Agricultural Research Extension (AREX), there is scope for building information systems to offer market prices over the Internet. Computer prices are coming down and in Zimbabwe customs duties on all ICT goods have been scrapped. To attract buyer interest, farmers could use mobile phones or computers to upload details of produce and expected yields. This information could be relayed, via the Internet or SMS, to screens located in public market places, or directly to mailboxes of agents, agriprocessing companies and importers of Zimbabwean produce.We need better Internet support infrastructure and affordable services. Broadband over power line (BPL) technology, already available in South Africa, could make a significant contribution to developing this area in Zimbabwe. It relies on the existing electricity power lines and has bandwidth speeds of up to 200 Mbps. Telecentres can be valuable in rural areas, offering a variety of services (e.g. fax, Internet, typing, printing, scanning and information, including details from online agricultural databases). Even computer illiterate farmers can walk in here and get help in securing buyers for their produce.\"How can ICTs be used to improve access to market for agricultural products in Zimbabwe?\" by Gerald Mangena.Colle, R.D. ( 2005 T oday's agricultural challenges need modern solutions -ones that are producer-driven, affordable and adapted to local communities. ICTs hold the key to development in Zimbabwe's rural areas, where 70% of the population is based. At national level, communication technologies are well integrated into government administration, and all ministries and state corporations have their own ICT structures and personnel. NGOs have also come on board. One popular initiative is the Freedom Fone launched by the Kubatana Trust, which uses interactive voice response (IVR) technology. Anyone can call the service to leave a voice message, listen to messages from others, or hear the information provided by Kubatana Trust. This is a social platform but could also be adapted for agriculture. Private companies looking for out growers and contract producers could use the network to link up with farmers and their organizations.Youth must be relevant to their specific disciplines. Youth should use whatever avenues they have to make a difference. Youth must learn from experienced farmers and persons involved in agriculture. \"Mere talk\" is unacceptable. Youth must do it.Mobile phones offer a quick and inexpensive channel for marketing perishable agricultural products such as tomatoes, eggs and milk. Producers can use SMS and multimedia messages to link up with buyers and form groups to meet up with them when larger quantities are involved. On the Internet, farmers can use Google Earth to map and plan their fields and crops and Skype and Yahoo Messenger to talk to each other, as well as to potential buyers. Video conferencing gives farmers the opportunity to hook up live with producers in other parts of the country, or even the world.Producers can create and subscribe to websites that promote marketing activities through e-bulletins and updates. E-newsletters can be used to document farmer success stories. Through social networking platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Google Chat, and by running their own blogs, producers can communicate, share experiences and penetrate new markets, using community Internet facilities if they do not have their own. Virtual producer forums offer exciting opportunities for farmers to market seasonal prod-ucts, linking up with local, regional and global markets. Such systems can enable suppliers and buyers to compare prices and producers to market lesser known products such as mushrooms and grain amaranth, alongside popular commodities such as maize, soybeans, tobacco and roses. E-marketing zones can be created, covering similar geographical, administrative, livelihood, and agro-ecological zones, boosting investor confidence and securing new markets for producers.Roadshows showcasing ICTs are a good way of putting rural communities in touch with developments in agriculture. Held at rural business centres, community halls and schools, such events offer a chance for producers to congregate and show off their crops and livestock. One unusual feature of agriculture in Zimbabwe is that both young and old are involved in the sector. ICT roadshows are an effective way of reaching both ends of the generation spectrum.Based on the original essay: \"How can ICTs be used to improve access to market for agricultural products in Zimbabwe?\" by Raymond Erick Zvavanyange. Despite not having an agricultural background, I would like to contribute to the development of this sector because of its great importance to the economy of my country.My favourite quote: \"Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail.\" -Charles F. KetteringL ack of policy support, inadequate extension services, weak land tenure and limited access to inputs, credit, new technologies and markets. These are some of the factors acting as a brake on the rural economy of Benin, a country where more than 50% of the population is engaged in the agriculture sector. Poor market linkages pose one of the major hurdles to better yields and incomes for the country's producers. Farmers lack knowledge about market prices, new outlets, transport and trade rules. With little or no reliable information, small-scale producers in many parts of Benin are totally isolated from the positive impacts of globalisation and often fall prey to middle-men. Links between producers' organizations and other important partners such as extension services and research are often sadly lacking.Improving access to information about markets, production techniques and important factors such as traceability and quality standards can make a significant contribution to increasing revenues for farmers. An agritrade website designed to help producers keep abreast of market trends and prices could be an important first step on the path to securing higher sales volumes and profit margins. The Indian initiative e-Choupal is a case in point. In a local context, the website of Benin's National Chamber of Agriculture would be the obvious choice for hosting such a platform, backed up by information centres to provide support, Internet access and ICT training in rural areas.Today's youth wants (…) a new form of agriculture that uses modern techniques and that will create a high number of jobs in the service and ICT sectors.As Burkina Faso cotton producers' association UNPCB has already shown, there is scope for negotiating a fixed fee with mobile phone operators for unlimited calls between subscribers and an SMS service to give updated market prices and connect buyers and sellers. This virtual market would allow online transactions to take place, making valuable savings in time and transport costs for producers. An effective ICT-based market platform, such as Prix par SMS run by RESIMAO-WAMIS-NET, can help producers plan their farm strategy well in advance, choosing which crops to grow when, depending on forecasts of likely demand. The platform could subsequently be developed to supply other services such as information on crop technologies and good practices or ICT training.More traditional technologies also have their role to play. Radio and television broadcasts can be valuable channels for relaying information in local languages and letting producers know who is looking for which product. Farmers' organizations can use Internet radio to download pod-casts on marketing or modules for training and compilations can be made, stored and distributed on CD-ROM. Any such initiative will be doomed to failure unless local people are involved in developing and managing it and the service is designed to be self-financing. But all the evidence points to the fact that Benin's large rural population has a great deal to gain from more investment in ICTs.Based on the original essay: \"Amélioration de l'accès au marche des produits agricoles par les TIC au Bénin.\" by Aristide Z. Adaha. I am a 25-year-old Jamaican, currently working in an agricultural research organization. I was exposed to agriculture from an early age; as my parents kept a small backyard farm and my grandparents raised poultry on a small-scale. I expect that as we continue to develop new technologies to improve efficiencies, the world will see that the only thing constant is change.The challenges faced in market access in my country and in the Caribbean region, are very real issues and in my opinion the key limitations toward development. Highlighting some of these challenges in this forum would allow these concerns to reach a wider audience.Contact Info: johnson.lloyd@hotmail.comF ruit, vegetables, fish, sugar, cocoa, peppers, coconuts and poultry -the Caribbean has a wealth of often exotic agricultural products to offer, both as raw and value-added items. But lack of reliable markets is hindering agricultural development in the region. Problems include inadequate market information, poor standards of training and informal farming systems, with little formal structure or planning.Reliable market information is difficult to obtain because of the seasonal nature of many prod-The youth are the future. To aid in the progress toward rural development as it relates to agriculture, there is a wealth of knowledge and experience from current farmers that will need to be transferred to another generation of farmers. In this technological age, it is expected that the youth will use these skills to increase efficiency in production practices and have access to more information than earlier farmers.ucts. Prices are constantly changing on these volatile markets, and the picture is made even more difficult by the geographical spread. The same commodity may have a different price in different locations, regardless of quality. And with no sound source for market information in the Caribbean, keeping one's finger firmly on the pulse is an uphill struggle. A public database system generated by a regional body and published as a website or mailing list could do much to improve the situation. With data fed into the system by local authorities, and regular updates of market information, consumers and suppliers would have a clearer idea of prices, leading to increased trade and more scope for placing new products and tapping into unfamiliar markets.ICTs can also be used to improve producers' knowledge of quality standards and give guidance to farmers before they enter a production chain. With increasingly rigorous standards, both for international and some local markets, small-scale Carib bean farmers who don't have adequate systems in place are finding themselves unable to sell their goods or to reap the rewards. Audio-visual and other multimedia packages, backed up by practical training exercises, could do much to improve farmers' understanding of quality requirements. As mobile phones are used by most Caribbean farmers, follow-up tutorials could be conducted via daily voice or text messages. Disease prevention, high-yielding techniques and technologies to prolong shelf-life are all areas where ICTs can play an important role in helping farmers to find out about more effective practices. Jamaica's Agricultural Business Information System (ABIS), launched by the Rural Agricultural Development Agency (RADA) is a useful model for mainstreaming informal markets. The system aims to register all farmers on the island on a district basis, listing critical information such as acreage, crops and harvest dates. The goal is to improve market access and help with planning, avoiding market gluts and lower prices --a common problem for farmers in the region.Regional organizations could greatly increase collaboration and strengthen linkages and dialogue using ICTs. Throughout the region there are a host of organizations dedicated to agriculture, in both public and private sectors. But their impact is often not as strong as it might be, partly because synergies are weak or non-existent. ICTs could help to synchronise activities, leading to open networking among stakeholders and more effective interventions for development and production.Based on the original essay: \"Improving market access of Caribbean agricultural products with information and communication technologies.\" by Lloyd Johnson Jr. Agriculture needs to attract more young people if it is to move ahead and develop in the future. ICTs can be an effective way of helping young rural entrepreneurs to launch a business or improve production in their day-to-day work. And since many of them enjoy using high tech tools, it all adds up to the perfect match.I have spent most of my life in a rural area of Nakuru district, Kenya where we have our fair share of social and economic problems. When local residents complained of having to travel several miles into town to get access to their money to pay for: food, shelter, education and health care, I realised that there was potential to use ICT to improve local money access. I introduced one of the youth to of the idea of setting up an M-Pesa (mobile money transfer) shop which he did. This initiative allowed members of the community to get easy access to their money and they were able to buy household consumables and farm inputs without travelling. This example can be used as a model for the transformation of life in other rural areas.Engagement of the youth in agriculture is minimal. But youth could make great contributions in agriculture and rural development.My blog: http://gbiportal.net/members/ chrisngige/ Email: chrismwa2005@gmail.comK amau is a young Kenyan in his late twenties, who lives in a small farming community in the Central Rift Valley. Four years ago, he became an agent for local company Safaricom, whose services include the mobile phone money transfer system M-Pesa, which literally means 'mobile money'. Convinced of the potential, Kamau set up an M-Pesa kiosk in his rural community. Business flourished, and using his profits, the enterprising young Kenyan then ventured into farming. He rented several fields and planted potatoes using methods from the Organic Farmer, an e-bulletin on sound farming practices published by the International Centre for Insects, Pests and Ecology (ICIPE) which he got on his General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)-enabled mobile phone.Kamau also planted maize and beans and obtained healthy yields, but when it came to harvest time, he was determined not to fall into the clutches of middle-men, as his parents' generation had done. Everyone knew they offered low prices. TheThe story was on a successful and inspiring experiences of a young person who use of ICTs transformed his life and benefited his community. If this model is used in other places, it could impact positively on young rural people lives.savvy entrepreneur opted for a high-tech solution, turning to 411 Get it, a joint ven ture be tween Sa faricom and the Kenya Agri cultural Commodity Exchange (KACE). Using his mobile phone to access up-to-date commodity prices, Kamau identified a favourable market.But Kamau's farming success was only the beginning -not just for him, but for the entire rural community. He invested in M-Kesho, an electronic savings account which also offers short-term loans to farmers. Other villagers started to open M-Kesho accounts with the proceeds of crop sales, using Kamau's kiosk to make the transactions. Kamau's one-stop e-banking kiosk has simplified money access, increasing the amount of cash available to be spent in the local economy. Producers no longer need to travel to towns, so are more likely to spend their money closer to home. Farm owners in the nearby town of Nakuru no longer have to commute to Kamau's village to pay their casual labourers, using the young businessman's M-Pesa kiosk instead. Agro-vet and other traders use M-Pesa to pay their suppliers and spend the cash saved on transport costs buying local stock and inputs. The entire local economy has benefited as a result.Like any good entrepreneur, Kamau has a knack for spotting business opportunities, so when he saw that his operating capital was declining during the planting and weeding season, he decided to diversify. Taking out a soft loan, he bought a motorcycle, an ideal mode of transport for the poor local roads, and as he was soon to find out, an excellent way of making extra income. Teaming up with a partner, the young Kenyan launched a taxi service, a thriving business in rural Kenya and one mainly dominated by youth. Banker, farmer, taxi operator -Kamau has spread his business interests over a wide range of sectors. But the common denominator is ICTs. He would never be where he is now if he had not made them work for him.Based on the original essay: \"Impacts of ICT on livelihoods: Experiences of a Kenyan rural youth.\" by Chris Mwangi. My favourite quote: \"Putting a price on water will make us aware of its scarcity and make us take better care of it.\" -Agnel Gurria, Secretary-General of the OECD.My blog: http://dignityinpoverty.blogspot.com/ Essay summary I CTs, including mobile phones and web 2.0, can be an effective tool for drawing more young people into agriculture. Twenty-fiveyear-old Gilbert Egwel is proof of that. This small-scale fruit farmer from Akere parish in Uganda's Maruzi county has used community radio, telecentres and his mobile phone to launch a lucrative career based on mango and lemon trees. It all started when Gilbert heard a community radio talk show. The theme was nursery beds, and it gave the school leaver the idea of tapping into the growing market for fruit juice from manufacturers in the capital Kampala.Maureen Agena, Uganda, Eastern Africa I want to be a role model and icon to all the young women who think that technology or technical courses are not meant for them.Gilbert bought 50 grafted mangoes and 60 lemon seedlings, and was pleased with the results of his first harvest, resolving to expand production. However, daunted by the 3000 sh ( 1) cost of buying each new seedling, he decided to produce his own, selling the surplus to other local farmers who were beginning to show an interest in his fledgling fruit business. With information gleaned from an agricultural radio talk show aired by local telecentre the Kubere Information Centre (KIC), Gilbert started a nursery, mobilising village children to collect mango and lemon seeds from the neighbourhood. The young farmer planted 100 seedlings of local mangoes (known locally as Ayembe) and 50 of lemon (Acungwa), using banana fibre as potting bags. Most of them failed to grow, but using the profits from his now thriving seedling nursery, he bought better quality potting materials from Kampala.This time Gilbert was more successful, and he set about finding markets for his now flourishing fruit tree venture. Earlier this year, he attended a web 2.0 training session run by the Busoga Rural Open Source Development Initiative (BROSDI), and joined two online platforms at Facebook and Twitter. It was becoming increasingly clear that this approach held the key to tapping into a wider market. He received further training from the CTA-supported Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET), learning how to find information on the Internet and use ICTs to connect with buyers.Today, Gilbert runs a booming fruit seedling nursery and is the sole supplier of grafting materials to the National Agriculture Research Organization (NARO) in Kawanda, with whom he makes regular contact via his mobile phone. He also uses his phone to receive payment, through the Mobile Money service run by Mobile Telephone Network-MTN (Uganda). And he has subscribed to MTN updates to receive the latest market prices.The path to success has not always been easy and challenges include poor infrastructure such as roads, processing and storage facilities. But Gilbert is confident that ICTs can help overcome most difficulties.\"The only solution to all the agricultural-related problems we face is access to the right information at the right time\" says the fruit farmer, who now owns 15 acres of land bought with his savings. Gilbert's goal is to launch a juice processing venture and provide jobs for more young people from his village.Based on the original essay: \"Increasing agricultural productivity through technology: A story of a young modern fruit grower in Apac, northern Uganda\" by Maureen Agena.Mukibi, J.K. ( 2001) Agriculture in Uganda, Vol II. Fountain Publishers Limited, Uganda. Verheij, E. ( 2006) \"Fruit growing in the tropics\", Agrodok Series, No. 5. Digigrafi, Wageningen, the Netherlands.I am a 24-year-old male Zambian. I am a social worker and ICT trainer and consultant and currently the Executive Director for Ndola Youth Resource Centre, an organization that specialises in using ICT for youth development. As I grew up, I came to learn that what separates a successful youth from another is simply the availability of relevant information. My desire is to have a skilled young generation that rely on ICTs to make well-informed decisions for sustainable livelihood development.Contact: www.facebook.com/Isaac.chandaW ith high youth unemployment in Zambia, government schemes are offering young people in the Copperbelt province easier access to agricultural land, inputs, livestock, training opportunities and in some areas, start-up capital. But limited market exposure continues to be a serious obstacle for many young farmers, whose lack of experience makes them an easy target for unscrupulous buyers and middle-men.One practical solution lies in an Internet-based platform designed to showcase young farmers and their products and to link them to markets. The Find the Young Farmer website could offer both audio and visual information and be developed using free and open source software such as Dreamweaver and easy Php for web design, MySQL for databases and Wikipedia for blogs and wikis.The platform would serve as a directory for agricultural commodities and services, allowing young farmers to advertise what they have to offer and consumers to search by agricultural product, service or location, using general or more refined criteria. As well as the name and contact details of young farmers and organizations, the website would offer space to post photographs of produce and links to blogs or Youtube videos.Isaac Chanda, Zambia, Southern AfricaICTs and particular sectors of development.The marketing tool would automatically connect interested buyers to the young farmer concerned and would also supply contact information such as mobile or fixed phones, as well as email and physical addresses. Links to social media networks would enable users and farmers to exchange knowledge and experiences and a separate section would enable visitors to download useful agricultural material and information such as research documents and newsletters.Circulated to government ministries, telecentres, organizations and via press and other media, the website would target both local and international audiences. As its popularity grew, so too would its power as an instrument for putting young farmers in touch with buyers.Young farmers in the Copperbelt province would be encouraged to receive training in basic ICT literacy before being invited to upload details including the nature of their business, type and category of products and contact information, as well as photos and videos of themselves and items offered for sale. To make the service sustainable, farmers would be expected to pay for space, in order to cover the cost of developing and managing the website. Expected results would be better market linkage for young farmers, more competition, more standardised prices for agricultural products and time savings for buyers looking for farm products and services.Based on the original essay: \"Find the young farmer: Locating young farmers without limitations\" by Isaac Chanda. T he prospects looked bleak when young Ivorian Euphrèm N'depo set out to launch his career after graduating in food chemistry and engineering. N'depo, 26, knocked on many doors to find his first job, but all were in vain. The odds were stacked against him. Jobs are increasingly scarce in both the public and private sectors of Côte d'Ivoire, and unemployment in the 15-24 age groups has risen to over 24%. For the 25-34 age range, the rate is 17.5%. In N'depo's sector the picture is even more grim. The jobless rate among graduates like him is now 42%. One in two Ivoirians are officially classed as living in poverty.Undaunted, N'depo decided to launch into the small livestock business, opting for rearing poultry and cane rats (grasscutters). Realising that he would need some technical knowledge to help him in his new venture, he set about investigating how to obtain some training. As the cost of the centres offering courses were way beyond his means, and the distances much too far, N'depo decided to turn to the Internet. Easier said than done in the rural community of Irobo where he lived, about 100 km from Abidjan. Here there was no landline connection to the Internet. The nearest one was at Dabou, 50 km away.N'depo has never been one to give up easily and is a young man full of resources. He resolved to get round the latest obstacle using bluetooth technology and a GPRS-enabled mobile phone to line to the Internet. He soon found all the information he needed.Euphrèm Akaffou N'depo, Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa Founder and owner of a poultry and cane rat farm set up with a group of young entrepreneurs. The income generated has financed my studies to become an agrifood engineer.\"The website of the Agromisa Foundation, through its downloadable publications, enabled me to become self-taught in poultry keeping, co-operative management and marketing farm products,\" he said. \"The website of Vétérinaires sans Frontières (Vets Without Borders) enabled me to find out about rearing agoutis.\"The young graduate's business plan was so impressive that he won funding from the local authorities and technical help from rural development agency ANADER to build chicken coops and cages for the cane rates and buy animal feed and breeding livestock to get started. With help from ANADER, N'depo launched a co-operative of young livestock keepers -nine young men and five women --all of them jobless graduates like himself. The venture was soon making enough to pay a small regular salary to each member of the co-operative. But there was no time for complacency. Faced with exorbitant costs for fodder to feed their growing livestock venture, the young farmers once again turned to the Internet, and once more they were rewarded, finding a better, less costly formula based on maize, soya, fishmeal, salt, bone-meal and snail shells, enriched with vitamin concentrates. The group is now busy planning other improvements, using information found on the Internet, of course.Based on the original essay: \"L'histoire d'un jeune producteur agricole vivant en milieu rural en Côte-d'Ivoire qui utilise les TIC avec succès, de manière novatrice pour son travail : leçons apprises et alternatives envisages.\" by N'depo Akaffou EuphrèmAgromisa Foundation : www.agromisa.org Vétérinaires sans Frontières : www.vsfe.org","tokenCount":"12467"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c9eb528a780e2aadd1ab734af03f6339","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5c05e75f-8fc6-49fa-85f3-effd53062358/retrieve","id":"-952517651"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"94cf460c-3fa1-48f8-8d8b-d2560a339617","pagecount":"35","content":"The que.tion most commonly asked by CIA rs supporters and collaborators Is \"What 15 CIAT dolng to eosure !hat the technology it i. develOPing will be put to productlve use? \", Indeed !his Is !he que$tion we coostantly ask oorselve., since our stated goal of increased productian and productivity cannot be achleved unl ... !he technology i. transt'erred throogh Its various stoyes in arder to be utilized by farmers, However, perallel to this question i, the Irequently expressed COnc8m !hat, in the;r rusll and ameiety to see !he fruits 01 !heir labor applied, the International Agricultural Research Centers will over-extend themsal ... , ovar'r.sthing their administrativa capacity, diluting !heir research efforts and moving into areas in which thay have less competenee .nd can perform le .. elfectively. Thus, there exists the dual coneero thet tho Intomational Centen will do too tittle and !hat !hev wíll do too much in !he are. 01 technology transfer, commonly referred to as \"outre .. h\". This underscores the nsed fO( CIAT to define what i. its strategy as a basi, lar deciding what it will do, or, probably even more important, what it will not do in this area, It i. partlcularly important to do so at this time when the Ceno ter has reached the ego at whieh !he growing amount 01 exciting new techoology belng generated by lIS programs needs to be effectively validated lo on•farm trials, adaptad by national institutions to local conditions, and tran.ferred to farmers.Tha purposo 01 thi. paper is to inform CIAr. Board 01 Trustee\" clientcountrie\" and the Consultati.e Group for loteroational Agricultural Re.eareh (CGIARl, 01 !he basic principies embodied in CIAT'. philosophy on !his subject, the strotagie, for achieving its technology transfer objectives, and plans for executing the stra• tegy during !he next five yaar. (T actie,).A clear understanding of our terminology is 6tsential. WhiJe we consíder the terms Uoutreach services u and Utechnology transfer\" practicaUy interchangeable far the discussion that follows, we have nol used the latter tarm In the title specifieally because it is often understood in the narrow sanse of Hextension\" to farmen. Ac• tual/y, !he teehool09Y tronsfer activities of an International Center are ehiefly thos. relatad 10 !he transfer 01 its technology to local institutions, along with sueh actívities as relate to strengtheníng these institutions to better perform their tasks 01 local adaptl.a rese.<eh and extension in the areas 01 competenee 01 the Ceoter. The word Itseryicesu has been added to make it clear that the Canter is reaching out to cOllaborating in.titutions, with the attitude of serviee to the region in the spirit of horizontal transfer.The outraach ,ervice, philo,ophy 01 CIAT must be viewad within the Context 01 the overafl objectives of the Center whích are summarlzed as fúllows:To generate and deliver 6 in coUaboration with national institlltions. improved technology whien will contribute to increMed production, productivity and qua&itv of specific basie food commadltles in th. tropics--prínclpally cpuntrie. of Latin Ameríca and the Carlbbe.n-thereby enabling producers and consume .. , _ially those with limited resources, 10 inc, ... e thalr purch •• -¡ng powar and improv8 their nutrition.It is essential that the work of an 1nternat¡onal Center be sean as but one part in the contfnuum of activities which begins with new scientif¡c discoveries and ends with the eventual application of science~based technology by the farmer to improve his productivity and welfare. Th¡s continuum with reference to the commodíties dealt with by CIAT is ,chematically illustrated in Figure 1. Suceassful accomplishment of the end result ¡nvolves the cooperation of various national, regional and ¡nternatianal agencies, of which an lnternational Center ¡s but one. Such a Center can be effectíve only to the extent that it cooperates as a partner with these various ¡ns• titutions and 5ees its role as camplementary to the activities of other insthutions rather than competitive or substitutionary.Of the var!ous institutions particípatíng in agricultural development none is more important tnan the natianal institutíons ¡nvolved in agricultural research and development. It is only through strong national programs that the technology gener~ ated by CIAT can be evaluated under variad local conditions, modified as necessary and eventually transferred to the farmers along vyith the essential services and ín~ put, requíred to mak. it use!ul for the producer, It i$ a keystone 01 CIAT', philosophy that cordial and productive cotlaboration be maintained with sucn institution,. and that. in the area 01 CIA T's competen ce and within the limits of ils resources, every effort be made to strengthen the capacity of these institutions. to carry out these functions as fuI! and effective partners. CIAT's portnership with n.tionol programs is enhanced and lacilitated bV coopera• tion with various regional and international organizations, A brial description of these rel.tionships is given in Appendix A,The PrincipIe of Comparative Advantage An important corollary of the principie of complementarity, and sn essentisl con, sideration in avoiding over-reaehing CIAT'. capacity o. undulv diluting it. aetivities, is to question everv activitv and new proposal from the viewpoint 01 comparati ... advantaga to make the mast useful contribution, CIAT onlv engages in those aetivities within i1$ mandate in which it has a unique capabillty to do the ¡ob belter than some other institution.The Need for Regional Adaptadon and On-farm Validation An Important component of CIAT', outreach services philoSOPhV is the re.lization that the Center canno! provid. linishOO technology for !he manv ecological lones, the varied socio-economie condltlon. and the different quality preteronees within It' ara. of responsibility, Ther. is no a\"uranee that a glven technological package is good just becau .. it porfonms well on a CIAT experlment station, Seforo mo ta,k 01 technology generation is complete, new varietles and practico, muS! b. evaluated on a regional hasi\" madifled where necessary to meet local raquirements and testOO under the real lerming conditions repre .. nting the largost number 01 producers and eeo,v,tem. possible_ Such activiti •• cannot be carried out bV CIAT alone_ When they are conducted on the .\"periment .tation. of local institutions or on individual farmo, thay must be done by, or in cooperation wlth, the appropriate local or9Oni-zation_ Such regional te$llng and on•larm validation not onlv plav. on important role in the technology transfer process, but serves as a vital source of information l....:llng back into elA T's eommadity programs to influence technology designoWithin the framework 01 o •• rall objactive. and general philosophy described above, it is essential to delineate more specifíc operationaf objectives against which activi~ ties will be evaluated. These are: 1.To develop improved technology for selected commodities which hl$ the potenti.1 to greatlv increase tIle production and income of a large segment of farme .. ; 2.To tr.nsfer tIlis technology to local institutions;Te help strengthen th. capacity of local institutions to adapt, evalu• ate, validate and transfer thi, technologv so that it will be utilized lo the benefit of producers and consumers.CIArs ,trategy for outreach services is characterized by a description of tIle components of its teehnology transter and tIle criteria to be utilized in selecting v.rious activitie. as described below. These must be understood in the context of their retationship to tIle technology generation tunctions. (2) Bilateral eontract. These .taff are appointed as local campan.nts 01 natlonsl agricultural researen teams at the raquest of individual eountñes. They serve on a temporary {usually three to tlve yeanl basi., and their purpose is lo strengthen the institution they are assigned to In their tield of eetlvlty while natlonal stall complete thelr training lo liII such posltions. Bilateral contract staft will normally be worklng chlofly with ano 01 the commodities lar whlch the Center h .. responslbiliti .. , will have close ti •• with the respective program in CIAT, and will partlclpate in the annua, revlew of that programo Neverthele •• , their responsibilities will not extend beyond the boundaries of the country to which they are assigned, and they will be eXp€cted to work within the administrative structure of the national program.Funding PrincipIes far Outposted Staff. As a general principIe regional servic€s ,Iaff should be funded from the eore budget of the Center and bilateral contrae! staff ,hould b. ,peeial project-funded. Mast frequently, ,pecial project funds to cover the costs of bilateral contraet staft wiJl be part of a multilateral agency's or bilateral donor's techn¡ca! assistance contributlon to a partIcular country. CIAT regional servíces 5taft are currently funded entírely from special project contribut¡ons. However l al! those which are required on a long-term basrs should eventually be included in the eore budget in order to provide continuity and more accuratety re• flect tneir integral role in the total international responsibilities of the Center. Once these regional service staff haya been approved as part of the core budget. spe\" clal contributions fer such 5taff should be considered as \"restricted core\" and dOT nors hav¡ng a specíal ¡nterest in a given region shoutd be encouraged to consider this funding in addition to whatever may be their contdbution to the \"unrestricted core\" budget 01 the Ce'flter. In the rare instances when a particular donor can provide funds for certain regional serv¡ces but, because of its internal fiscal restraint, can not consider them pan of tlcore\" contríbutions, such financing.can be considered as speeial projeet funding, with the understanding tha! tha,. ca,t. will be incorporated ¡nto the core budget. if and when that part¡cular donor support expires.Principies of Locating Out¡Josted Regional Serviees Staff. Selection 01 the country in whích such staff are stationed wiJI be based on the strategic loéation in relation to the region servad and will depend on the hast country's willingness to provide such facilities as are required to facílitate ease of ínternational movement and ato tract capable staft. Whenever possíbte such staff shouid be physicaHy or admin¡stratively attac:hed to an international agency with appropriate responsibilities In that regioo.For each set of outreach services activitíes it is important to consider the criterla which will be used in determining whether or not to engage in 11, and what prioríty it has in relation to other desirable activities. CIAT will not have the resources to do everything that it is asked to Or would like to do, It is therefore important to know how a decísion will be made to say \"yes\" or \"no\" tú a partícular request or suggestioo. The important criteria which will be takeo into account in mak¡ng sueh decisions are described below. While it would be desirable to quantify these in such a manner that a computer could consider the various facts and give a clear \"yes\" or \"no\" in each instance, in reality these criteria will, for the foreseable future, remain highly subjective, and sometimes even contradictory, so that a great deal of personal judgment needs to be exercised. A description of the criteria to help make such judgmental decisions more systematic follows.Training Proportion of Resources Devoted to Training. Th is refers both to the financial resources available as well as the time of individual program scientists which can be dedicated to this important function. There is, unfortunately, no magic formula which indicates what proportion of the Center resources shauld be dedicated to this task. Nevertheless, the fallawing factars shauld be considered.(1) The stage af the technology generation process in a particular programo bath in relation to the amount af information available to be used in training, as well as the need for adequately trained personnel at various stages in the technology adaptation and transfer process.(2) In the case of individualized research training, the number of trainees already assigned to an individual scientist as a function of the supervisarv capacity of that scientist.(3) The trado-off between the time of a seientist invested and the eontribution the individual training participant will make to the on-going re-search program and/or the future callahorative research effort that can be expected to result from such training.Overall for the present stage of CIATs development, the rough formula 0115 to 20 percent of the Center's budget and 2. to 3 man-years of training participants per senior scientific staft member seems to be the appropriate arder of magnitude. pected that this ratio of core vs. external funding will continua into the future, Some special interest trainíng (e,g, seed production techo nologyl will continua to be funded principally as part 01 special projects.(21 Scholarship Recipient.. Cor.•budgeted training funds will normally be utilized only far participants from lesser-deve1oped countries. In the case of research traínees from developed countries in which the research to be conducted by the scholar is considered an important contribution to CIAT's research actívitíes a portion of the costs may, in special cases, be covered from elAT's resources. However, such trainaas will not be fully lunded by CIAT. Individualizad in•service (6 to 12 monthsl training, either degre. or non-degree relatad, will be utilized in all cases where a commodity/discipline research approaeh is raquirad ( •. 9., bean pathologyl. Structured eourses. on the other hand. are organized on a commodity basis 10 provide multídisciptinary training experiences to groups of 20 to 40 professionals.An adequate balance between individual in•service training, med¡um-term (6 months) training courses and short (1 month) courses will be continuously sought, Whíle no one set criterion is universally applicable, the point of balance shifts wíth the evolulion 01 each commodíty program and the damand Imm clíent countrí\",. In the latter hall 01 the decada 01 the 80s, it is anticipated that there will be a gradual evolution to higher level, research In--country Tralning, C1AT has definite limitations as to the size of its training programo Certain types of trair'linfL especially for extension personnel, can best be con-duete<! in the countries. Thus, on a limited basis l CIAT uses ¡ts comparatíve advantage in providíng training in methodology and new teehnology to assist country programs in conducting courses to further strengthen their technoiogy validation and transfer capabilfties in the area of erA T's commod¡ties.Due to budget constraints and límitations of adm¡nistrative capaciW. the number of regional services staff of CIAT should remain modest, probably not to exeeed 15 to 20 for the entire Center. Consequently, far each commodity program, only program 5t3ff for areas that are mast strategically important for successfully attaining that program's obiective, should be budgeted in thi, category. To determine these areas, the foliowíng critería should be carefully weighed:(a) Percentage 01 the world afea devoted to that commodity that i, located in the region.lb) The potential for e.pansion of production larea and vield,) of that commodity in the regioo.(e) The importanee 01 the commodity in the diet' 01 the people 01 that regíon, especially those w!th limited resources, (d) The importance of that eommodity as a component al the larming systems of producers in that region, especially those with limited resources.(e) The expressed interest 01 regional and national agriculturalleeders lor me development 01 mat commodity and for stationing CIAT ,taff in the region, (f) The representadveness of the eeosystem in terms of other production areas, or as a critical sita for research essential to adaptatton of CIAT•generated technology to that or similar regions, (g) A comparativo advantage for CIAT's involvement over that 01 other organizations. ¡a) The particular commodlty lo Important in lhe diet. 01 the people of that country, aspecially thos. in the low•income sector.lb) The commodity l. important ín the productlon sy.tern. 01 faro mers 01 that country, especially farmers wllh Ilmited rescurces.¡e) TOOr. is. potenlial lor slgnillcant and rapld productíon Increase 01 the particular commodlty in that country.(d) There is an expr.solon 01 political will and commitment to con• duct an actíve program of technology v.lidatlon, adoption and transfer for the partícular commodity t as well as the establish• meot of appropriate policies relatad to infrastructure t input availabiHty, remunerative markets, and eredit. Prelerably, the commodlty ín question should have been given high priority for development in the country, and a vertically íntegrated national program to promote its productlon should be well-plan• ned.(e) The national prograrn and donor agencies are commítted to the funding 000 posting 01 the CIAT staff m.mbe .. for a suffícient• Iy long period of time and to providing such financíal and man• power support as are required for them to make a significant contríbution.(1) The hest country i. wíllíng to designat. personnel for lurther training and/or counterpart functions so as to faeilitate the continuity 01 lhe .. activítios following the expiratíon of the CIAT staff members' contracts.(9/ The host country ís willing to provido the necessary exemptlons• and perquisites commensurate with internatíonal technical assistance '!aff.In choosing between the various bilateral contraet oppOrtunities CIAT will normal• ty decline such involvement under the following circumstances.(a) The task is overall institution building rather than devefopment of á commodíty for which CIAT í, responsible.lb) The ta,k ;, chieflv related to e\"tension rather than research or research/extension linkage.(e) Tha research instítutian is isolated from the extension organiza~ tion and/or has nttla or no work in farmers' fields and there ap~ pears to be no desire to changa this situation.{d) The administrative or salary structure of the hast institution is such that ;t ;s unlikelv to be able to retain híghly qualified 'taff trained under the programo TACTICS 11979-1983)CIAT's commodity programs are still quite young and are just now arrivíng at theír full, planned .!affiog levels. Today, the programs are building on the foundalions of germplo,m .,sessment, ond methodology development ¡oid in the early year., and are functíoning as well•integrated interdisciplinary taams working towards efearly defined objectives. Thís is a periad when a rapidiy increasing amount of highly promising teehnology is beginnlng to emerge tram these programs in a manner which national programs can adapt to local condítions and utiHze ¡n their national production afforts. This is a time when the growth of the commoditY programs should begin ta level off and outreach services take on an increasingly important role. It i, likelv, therefore, that the proportíon of the Center', total 3vailable resources dedícated to technology transfer activities wil ¡ ¡ncrease duríng the nex! five years.Number and Types of Gourses to be Held st G/A T. The following group CQurses are presently planned as regular (yearly) and special events in the next five years.Beans: Two yearly 5•week intensive courses for 30 participants each on re• search for bean production (in Spanish). Starting in 1980~ in alternate years one of the courses will be given in English for participants from As¡a, Africa aod me Caribbeao.Cassatte: One yearly 4-week intensive course for 30 participants on research for cassav. production (in Spanish).Two 2~week courses for 15 participants each on tissue culture, one In English (1979), and one in Spanish (19801.Tropical Pastures: One yearly 5•month course tor 20 participants on re. ,earch for forage production (in Spanishl.Speclalized 2•week courses in specific disciplínes may be added.Ríce: One yearJy 5~month Course for 10 participants on rice research and production (in Spaníshl.One yearly 4-week intensive course for 30 participants on rice production.Seed Teehnology: On. yearly 8•week course for 25 participant, on ,e.d production technology (in Spanish aod English).  received attention. Table 3 shows the countries or reg¡ons which have requested assistance and are likeiy candídates in the next few years.Audiotutorial Unirs. These uníts developed at C1AT fm the use ¡n its training activ~ it¡es will also be distributed to national training programs, Table 4 shows a projection of units to be made available on different subjects. for each commooity.A basic pattero of workshop events common to all commodity programs has been devefoped. This pattern ¡neludes a commodity research network meeting every other year and a special topie workshop in alternate years, These are indicated in the schedule below lor  -Policí •• for Food and Faed Crop Productíon (Octobar 1979).. Plant Pathogeníc Bacteria (1980).Other scheduled yearly events that are important components of elA T's outreac:h tactics are:-Pr ... ntatíon D.y.: CIAT. Advance. in Research (yearly in April) .. Annual Program Revíews (yearly ín Decomber). Based on the criteria desc,ibed on page 14 above, CIArs four major commodity programs plan to outpost regional servíces staff, listed in Table 5, in the geographic areas indicated, during the next five years.Current Staff Assignments Prc;ections. Since these types of appointments will depend on speeial project fund availabifity and are of a temporary nature$ it is neither possíble, nor desírable, to proj.ct precisely fo, which countri.s fund, will become av.ilable and which countries will mee! the criteria described aboye. However, it is Important to set some limits on the general magnitude 01 ,uch invol.ement. lt will be CIAr, policy to try to be continuously i\"volved in a few ,ueh bilateral contraet activities, These provida a very important feedback mechanism to the Center by putting eommodity program seientists in touch with the various problem, of national commodity programs working under real condition,; and by providíng vertical integratíon tram the research laboratory to the farmers' fields. Parti• cipation should remain modest 000 will be a dynamie involvem.m as individual country programs are completed and new ones are initiated. It is antic\\pated, there~ TABLEe Current oUlpo.ted bilateral contract staff Bolivia, and Venezuela.The combined projection. for total outpo.ted staff, including both re.earch and outreach se .. ices personnel, and taking into consideration .ery rough projection. 01 bilateral contract stall, are summarized in Table 7. ID8. The In ter-American Development Bank is not only a valued source of financing to CIAT's care budget but is also an important contact because of the large number of agricultural proiects it financ:es with loans and grants throughout Latin America. A growing number of contacts haya becn made wíth the: headquarten and regional offices in order to strengthen'-cooperatfon and ensure that CIAT technoro* gy is made available for its vadou$: projects, and that ¡nformation gained in these projects provídes feedback te aid in technology desígn of the Center.CA TIE. The Centro Agronomico Tropical de Investigadon y Enseñanza, a regional rasearch and training institution servin9 Central Ameriea, is actively involved in cropping s'fstems research, working chiefly with sm311 farmers in that regíon. Cooperation with these on~farm activitíes provides an excellent opportunity for testing and feedback in relation to the usefulness of e lA T technology for improvement of small farmer croppin9 systems. An agreement has been signed between CATIE and CIAT and it is antlcipated that there will be grow¡ng collaboratíon rn this important activ.ty,•PCCMCA. The Programa Cooperativo Centroamericano para el Mejoramiento de Cultivos Alimenticios is an organization of Central American and Panamanian scientists that has been meeting annually for many years to exchange information on results of regional testing of a number of basjc toad crops. el A T participates actively in it5 annual meeting and has responded to this organization's request to províde coordinators for rice and treans for that region,  CIAT Documentation ServicesAbstracts of sil documents processed by me Documentatían Cenrer.Those are printed on 3 x 5\" .ard. which are airmaíled monlhly to \"p.proximately 1800 subscribers in the world.T ables of Cantents. Sei_\"ti,t, in Latin America receíve the contenls pages 01 those journal. recoived by the Library every month.Photocopyíng SBrvíce. The Mo ,e .. ices above are backed by a pholo• copying servi •• whích fulfills lhe importanl function of document de• I ivery to users.Specialized Litef8WfJ!J Searches. CIATs mechanized system allow. for highly spocifie literature s.arches to be performed in an average of 15 to 20 mínutes, permitting r.quests 10 be answered the same day they are received.Annual Cumulatíve 8íbllographíes. Al! .rticles processed in lhe Documentation Center are, at the end of the year# índexed into spe.ciflc categoríos and publlshed in book formoMonographs and Manual.. To give a complete rango of information serviCf¡s. broad areas of research are chosen and a weU•known specialist is give-n the task of making a state-of•the-art reporto which is published as a monograph.","tokenCount":"3914"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"058923c6d7e67cfe9037048f3a583e7d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0379457b-fe11-48d8-b0c2-cbf212197be0/retrieve","id":"-762543128"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2d7aa7a3-6c32-4c5f-b139-01cabed1bc2d","pagecount":"18","content":"No solo es conveniente desarrollar una tecnología clave para lograr el potencial de producción en yuca (costos bajos, rendimientos altos) I también es necesario su adopción por los agricultores (2).Las nuevas variedades, componentes importantes de tecnología mejorada, son seleccionadas por los mejoradores basados en producciones estables comprobadas durante varios años y en múltiples sitios; además de tolerancia a plagas, enfermedades y estres edafoclimáticos (componentes básicos de estabilidad). Sin embargo, la experiencia indica, que no siempre se adoptan cuando entran al sistema de producción del agricultor, contrastando con variedades regionales, ampliamente difundidas en áreas de cultivo del pais, con producciones inestables e inferiores en algunos casos a las experimentales. Mientras más tradicional es la agricultura, más fuertemente están impresos en ella los caracteres de la sociedad que la practica. Para una situación de esta naturaleza, en la que la producción se lleva a ~abo con 'un enfoque de medios-propósitos, el desarrollo de tecnologia usando los principios de la investigación agrícola, basados a su vez en principios de causa-efecto, no tendrían en realidad tanta validez como se ha creído hasta el momento (Dillon, 1976). Asi entonces, para que la tecnología y su transferencia tengan éxito deben emplearse nuevos métodos dentro de enfoques también novedosos. La Investigación Participativa en Yuca aparece como la mejor alternativa propuesta hasta el momento; es una metodologia complementaria a la investigación tradicional, que integra Criterios de productores-mejoradores y maximiza la eficiencia de selección de variedades. La diversidad de respuestas a prácticas agronómicas, tolerancia a plagas y enfermedades, estabilidad, etc. de las variedades, frente a diferentes condiciones de producción de la yuca, conforman la base de un progama de mej oramiento (4). A través de Bancos de Germoplasma (in vitro y en Campo), evaluaciones completas de caracteristicas agronómicas en cada introducción, pruebas avanzadas con mejores materiales en condiciones representativas y finalmente Programas de Hibridación que recombinan características deseables, conforman en términos generales los esquemas tradicionales de mejoramiento en yuca (Programa de Mejoramiento de Yuca-CIAT, Figura 1). La participación de productores de yuca en el proceso mismo del desarrollo y evaluación tecnológica, fuá postulado hace cúatro años para el caso especifico de la Costa Atlántica de Colombia, actividad llevada a cabo en búsqueda de nuevas opciones de selección de mejores cultiva-, res.Variedades provenientes de Ensayos de Rendimiento (ER) I son establecidas por los cultivadores dentro de su area de producción, usando los procedimientos de siembra y cultivo normal en la finca.Basados' en la combinación de métodos participativos que captan opiniones de los agricultores, con métodos tradicionales de investigadores para obtener información sobre el comportamiento de variedades, se desarrolló la metodología IPY.El análisis de las razones para diferenciar una variedad buena de una que no lo es, permitió identificar objetivos de agricultores que sugieren implementar la IPY en etapas preliminares de selección. (Fiqura 1). en sus planes de comunicación, transferencia de recomendaciones y asistencia técnica, basados en criterios políticos, macroeconómicos y técnicos. La caracterización de los dominios de recomendación en Colombia, identificó municipios y/o veredas que caen dentro de áreas prioritarias de la Regional 2 del lCA (Departamentos de Atlántico, Bolívar, Sucre y Córdoba) y Magdalena. lPY, en su etapa inicial de diagnóstico determinó aspectos relacionados con precocidad, asocio, características de variedades locales y época de siembra.La mayoria de Instituciones de Investigacion están organizadas según programás por disciplinas y por cultivos. Es recomendable que l~ conducción propiamente dicha, de las pruebas y encuestas, se delegue a equipos multidisciplinarios r asignados a regiones o áreas geográficas específicas.La experiencia hasta el momento, indica que profesionales del Programa de Tuberosas de lCA (Grupo de Yuca y AsociadOS) y Secretaria de Agricultura de Bolívar, son actualmente practicantes eficientes de IPY en Colombia. El equipo asignado a cada subregión trabaja en investigación ajuste transferencia de tecnología y en algunos casos la docencia (Universi--4 -dades); interactuando con agricultores de fincas pilotos, de plantas de procesamiento, productores de almidón, productores pequeños, medianos y miembros de cooperativas. La se-lecci6n de los agricultores participantes está basada en la experiencia local de cada investigador, teniendo encuenta aspectos relacionados con el interés en la prueba, disponibilidad de area, habilidad de comunicación, fácil acceso a los mercados existentes en la reqi6n y representatividad regional.Los productores comparten objetivos comparables, que los llevan a identificar características similares en relaci6n a variedades deseadas, así tenqan criterios especificos en la finca. IPY estudi6 las reacciones de los productores frente a las nuevas variedades estableciendo una red de mas de 90 pruebas y 200 agricultores participantes (1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)). Por el poco control de la variabilidad, se requiere de un número de 15 a 20 fincas por ciclo; el análisis reqional determina el nivel de estabilidad de las nuevas variedades y el grado de homoqenidad del dominio de recomendación.El aqricul tor toma un papel activo en la investiqación al movilizar toda su experiencia para evaluar la aceptabilidad de las variedades'. Una técnica adecuada consiste en darle una función de enseñanza centrada en el uso de herramientas tradicionales, métodos de siembra, prácticas de manejo, ta-I les como deshierbas o métodos de cosecha, etc de particular utilidad para el diseño de entrevistas de evaluación que conlleva conocer la terminoloqía local. Por ser los agricultores los evaluadores principales de variedades en IPY, se tiene en cuenta el •uso de sus recursos\", para que comprendan las implicaciones de las alternativas, además de un Bdiseño simple\" que les permita observar diferencias medibles con sus propios medios de medición. Así, los cultivadores establecen, dentro de su área de producción, parcelas de 30 a 50 plantas de cada variedad experimental y/o tradicional (parcela testigo), usando sus procedimientos de siembra y cultivo normal en la finca (Prácticas culturales tradicionales). Con libertad en deciciones de distancia de siembra, intercultivo, posición de la estaca, manejo en general etc, el agricultor evalúa el desarrollo del cultivo desde las primeras etapas, mientras que el profesional orienta la demarcación de parcelas, distribución e identificación de las variedades. En las regiones de caracteristicas de ambiente similares, el grupo de variedades experimentales fué idéntico variando únicamente los cultivares locales. La selección de las variedades para las pruebas se acordó con los programas de mejoramiento de las entidades participantes.-Evaluaciones Abiertas Formular preguntas es una técnica clave en la evaluación con productortes.Hay tres tipos de preguntas: dirigidas (o condicionadas), cÚrectas y abiertas. Las primeras no deben usarse en evaluaciónes con productores, pues llevan implí-, cita la respuesta esperada; las directas están generalmente orientadas a obtener aspectos específicos de información razón por la cual tienen más uso en encuestas; las preguntas abiertas muy útiles en evaluaciones con productores, son aquellas que los estimulan a expresar y explicar ideas y opiniones, por consiguiente una evaluación abierta es un método para captar y consignar reaciones espontáneas de los a través de sus criterios.La técnica de productores diálogo con preguntas abiertas se apoya en interrrogantes como: por qué?, qué?, cómo?, cuando?, usted cree, usted que opina? etc. Las entrevistas abiertas, definen dimensiones relevantes de la investigación a nivel de fincas: producción, demanda por tecnología y mercadeo. como resultado de funciones especificas por función homogenea. Las experiencias obtenidas en el primer paso, indicaron la necesidad de un profundo estudio de términos usados en cada región, lo cual es posible caracterizando las expresiones empleadas para definir los atribUtos de las variedades y adaptar métodos de comunicación con agricultores (Tabla 1). La técnica de ordenar entre alternativas estableciendo un orden de preferencias, (variedades locales y clones experimentales), combinada con preguntas abiertas que permitían explicar al productor cada posición seleccionada, fueron herramientas útiles en el conocimiento de los criterios. Este procedimiento integró la evaluación absoluta en subgrupos de opciones promisorias (agrupación de variedades en rangos de buenas, regulares y malas) con la comparación entre pares de cada una de (juzgando cada variedad como mejor o peor las razones de los juicios (Figura 2). Con \"Métodos participativos\" (Ashby, 1986) parámetros de aceptación basados en lo que las alternativas que otras, dando se midieron los percibe el agricultor, comerciante y consumidor. Tabulando las veces que un criterio es mencionado espontáneamente, se encontró la importancia relativa de cada uno en la evaluación de las va-I riedades (-criterios de Selección\").-Evaluaciones agronómicas El otro componente de IPY lo constituyen las evaluaciones agronómicas, comunes en los programas de mej oramiento cuya información ayuda a la interpretación técnica de las preferencias. La metodología IPY conformó un manual de instru-cciones con diez puntos claves, que constituyen el soporte del procedimiento.Evaluaciones propias de lo agricultores La aceptación o rechazo es una clasificación subjetiva en rangos de alto, intermedia o baja. Dichos rangos los definen las evaluaciones de cosecha y precosecha a través de criterios de selección. Estos calificados como buenos, regulares o malos discriminan los rangos cuando la característica observada es contrastante en un intervalo. El análisis de regresión, donde preferencia se define como la variable dependiente y los criterios como las independientes, es una herramienta útil que determina el \"peso\" de los criterios de selección de los agricultores.Las evaluaciones abiertas suministraron un listado de términos diferentes para definir el mismo aspecto. Por ejemplo, almidón, harina, aguada, seca, vidriosa, rucha, etc., son expresiones referidas a contenidos de almidón de la raíz: carga, número de raíces, rendimiento, parir, producción, son sinónimos.Con las técnicas mencionadas, expresiones como \"Buena para el mercado\" que integra principalmente el color de la cáscara, la pulpa y la corteza fueron correctamente interpretadas (Tabla 1). El siguiente paso fué el estudio de frecuencias de posibles r \"criterios de selección\", expresadas según la etapa de evaluación. Los datos iniciales mostraron mayores proporciones de conceptos referidos a la raíz, sugiriendo la necesidad de evaluaciones iniciales e intermedias en el ciclo vegetativo. Por ejemplo, la retroinformación obtenida del clon CM 1355 -2, con 4 meses de edad, mostró más susceptibilidad a ácaros en las pruebas del norte de Bolivar con respecto a las de -8 -Córdoba, Bucre y Magdalena. Los estudios indicaron también qúe los productores aceptan o rechazan teniendo encuenta el mercado fresco, basados en criterios referidos a color (cáscara, corteza, y pulpa); grosor, tamaño y número de raíces comerciales. Variedades como CM 3306-9, MCol 72, CM 681-2, fueron rechazadas por el color claro de la cáscara de la raíz. El análisis del criterio indicó que cambios ligeros en la intensidad del color disminuía la aceptación.Esto fué confirmado con CM 3555-6 en algunas localidades. Cambios en el contenido de almidón por estrés han disminuído calidad culinaria y aceptación de la variedad, como fué el caso de CM 523-7. Por colores crema o amarillos de la pulpa los productores rechazaron variedades como CM 3408-1, CM 3750-5 Y MCol 72 (Tabla 2). Variedades con promedios inferiores a 4 raíces comerciales/ planta y evaluaciones regulares del grosor y tamaño tienen aceptación intermedia. Por esta razón Venezolana y P-12 han ocupado posiciones intermedias a bajas en el orden de preferencia, en algunas localidades. La tecnología IPY, aplicada con los propios recursos del agricultor, ha permitido que ellos comprendan las implicaciones de las alternativas en los distintos sistemas de producción. La arquitectura de la planta, relacionada con manejo del cultivo (asocio, control de malezas, competencia, etc.) fué estudiada de la información de las pruebas. Los datos de la Tabla' 3 explican la acep,tación de los crones de prelanzamiento en asocio con maíz, otros cultivos y monocultivo. Los promedios indican que con el manejo del agricul-, tor, los rendimientos de raíces frescas en monocultivo comparado con los de las asociaciones con maíz, se reducen en 35% para Venezolana mientras que en CM 3306-4 Y CG 1141-1 la reducción es del 30%; contribuyendo a explicar la aceptación tanto en monocultivo como en asociación. DISCUSIOH IP en Yuca, en la Costa Atlántica de Colombia tuvo como enfoque el conocimiento de \"Criterios de Selección\" de productores basado en la retro información Investigador agricultor. Sin embargo, las técnicas y principios desarrollados pueden emplearse para realizar evaluaciones con productores en otras tecnologias y lugares (Ej: Estación Experimental). De este modo la retro información en un sentido amplio ha tenido las siguientes implicaciones: l. El análisis de las razones para diferenciar una tecnologia buena de una que no lo es, permite identificar objetivos de agricultores que sugieren tenerlos encuenta en etapas tempranas de selección, \"evaluación temprana\".En la práctica para estudios oportunos de competencia y manejo del asocio podría incluirse el maíz como intercultivo en etapas iniciales de selección en mejoramiento. Asi, el ligar la información de la Estación Experimental con la de la finca, conlleva un proceso iteractivo para programas de mejoramiento. Por esto se recomienda la participación de productores en la evaluación de primeras alternativas a través de localidades y años.2. Lograda una retro información confiable y validada (nuevas posibilidades a la tecnología actual de los productores), son posibles evaluaciones más detalladas con pocas \"alternativas promisorias\". IPY evalúa con los productores variedades más rélacionadas con sus espectativas según la retroinformación de ciclos anteriores.3. La retro información agricultor-investigador, genera , y comparte una información sistemática, sobre las reacciones de los productor'es a las preferencias de \"variedades\" en los ensayos. La identificación de estos componentes tecnológicos antes de su promoción, incrementa el éxito de los métodos de transferencia de tecnología tanto formales como informales (agricultor a agricultor). El enfoque inicial de IPY fué desarrollar métodos de evaluación con productores para ayudarlos en el proceso de expresión de \"criterios\" frente a alternativas tecnológicas (variedades); pero su evolución llevó a la preselección de \"variedades prototipo\" como trabajo conjunto de productores y científicos. La verificación de criterios de selección ha determinado la etapa de validación y adaptación donde profesionales de ajuste y transferencia de tecnología identifican posibles variedades de prelanzamiento. En resumen, IPY no fué diseñado para liberar variedades, pero el enfoque de aceptabilidad del productor en el modelo, ha permitido este resultado como producto importante de la metodología.Las evaluaciones con productores pueden ser empleadas en cualquiera de las etapas del proceso de generación tecnológica, con métodos aplicables a diferentes momentos del proceso de investigación: diagnóstico, planeación y diseño experimental, adaptación y validación. Las técnicas de evaluación con productores podrian usarse en programas de investigación por especialidades o por cultivos.Por ejemplo, los científicos de suelos pueden obtener información diagnóstica sobre el manejo y conservación que hacen los productores, mediante el.~so de los métodos de interrogación desarrollados. Así I conocerían prácticas locales, manej o, uso de fertilizantes, etc.En ensayos de mejoradores que incluyan variedades con características por incorporar, I podrían los agricultores ayudar a identificar características varietales de mayor (o menor) aceptación. En un manejo integrado de plagas y enfermedades seria de interés para fitopatólogos y entomólogos evaluar las reacciones de productores frente a las nuevas alternativas. En resumen, IPY en el futuro tendría como áreas de acción la integración de criterios agronómicos, económicos y de agri-cultores; una mejor colaboración investigador-agricultor y la difusión de ideas agricultor a agricultor.  Ejemplo hipotético de evaluación en la fase final del ciclo vegetativo. (Establecimiento de orden de preferencia) ","tokenCount":"2454"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d13254711aa5978dba6be91ecc785eb1","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/06337196-645b-46bc-8714-86d7a9039118/retrieve","id":"-1860047743"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f98b500c-f2f7-4dc5-8d65-b68d91318607","pagecount":"1","content":"What exactly is One Health and what does it cover? These points are frequently debated. The OHHLEP definition of One Health (2021) has greatly helped, but discussions continue. Other fields do not have the same uncertainty about identity and membership, so why do we?A One Health approach is needed when different sectors need to work together for better results. This applies to the following: 1) Combined Economic Assessments -When a threat impacts in more than one sector a siloed approach only captures effects in a single sector, ignoring others. Unfortunately institutional structures have largely evolved to only consider their own sector. An example would be a crop mould, like fusarium or aflatoxin causing food and livelihood losses, as well as human and animal health risks through contaminated food and feeds. To make decisions in the interest of wider society, all impacts must be considered. 2) Coordinated Control -This is needed when control is more effective and cost-effective when implemented across sectors in a coordinated manner. Failings often arise due to budgets being allocated to the sector experiencing the impact, excluding other sectors that need to be engaged for effective control. Examples include the control of zoonotic diseases such as rabies, anthrax and many foodborne diseases, with control in food systems, animals and environment neglected, resulting in greater preventable human health burden and greater global costs. 3) Collateral Consequences -Changes in one sector can lead to changes in another. This interdependence of sectors through system-wide effects and connections must be considered when deciding on a plan of action. The anticipation of consequences in other sectors is a key aspect of good One Health governance. There are many examples, one being in food systems where intensification may improve productivity, livelihoods and food security, but may have collateral impacts on local ecosystems and conservation, and even increase socio-economic inequality.Ultimately the inter-connectedness of systems may explain all the above, with sector divisions being a societal management construct superimposed upon a planetary continuum that calls for One Health.One Health is certainly an effective slogan, capturing the buzz for oneness and harmony. These two words reflect the holistic connectedness of the health of the planet and those that live upon it. This is something that chimes with both systems scientists, and something more spiritual concerning how we increasingly see man's relationship with the world around us in the human dominated Anthropocene epoch, that man brought about but had not planned for.Traditional siloed approaches to global threats could be described as shortsighted with many blind-spots. Although not explicit, One Health champions the need for reform and new approaches given established discipline-specific approaches have left society unarmed when faced with the big, complex problems that increasingly affect our lives.Beyond a slogan, the One Health approach is one where there is collaboration and coordination between the many disciplines and sectors that can influence the health of humans, animals and the environment. Initially applied by health professionals it previously focussed on intersectoral collaboration needed to better protect health, particularly human health. But the need for transdisciplinarity to effectively address more complex problems is universal, and an expanded definition of One Health is now used, working for healthy systems that can sustain healthy humans, animals, plants and ecosystems.When is a One Health approach needed?Theo Knight-Jones International Livestock Research Institute t.knight-jones@cgiar.org I One Health is not a profession Many delegates at One Health conferences come from professions such as veterinary or medicine. Professions have strictly defined membership criteria, x years training, pass the exam, register with the professional body, which then allows the professional to do expert actions others cannot legally perform. Some then look for the equivalent criteria for being a One Health expert, but none exist.One Health is not a discipline Scientists are typically specialised experts within a specific discipline. Detail, rules and clarity are important for good science, and scientists look for that in the definition of One Health. But we find that it concerns all disciplines that play a role in the collective management of healthy humans, animals and environments. This covers a big, diffuse confederation of disciplines.The position of an institute or individual within One Health can have big implications. We see Ministries and Departments cajoling for position to claim One Health funding and authority that may come with being centre stage for One Health. ","tokenCount":"718"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"06d8accf043d37de69c2edab6d3279a2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9b4f8274-3d2c-44f1-86b0-a01c8c758333/retrieve","id":"-2026276373"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"97a64107-79d5-4097-8352-dc9a45cfdf63","pagecount":"10","content":"The First International Forum on Water and Food of the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) was held in Vientiane, Laos from November 12 to 17, 2006. The Forum had two overarching objectives:• to link people together to discover what they are doing within the CPWF and in the world of water and food beyond the Program; • to articulate the links between research, policy and practice.The Forum was designed to maximize the opportunities for people who usually work far away from one another to come together for a meaningful exchange of ideas, experiences, and techniques for improving water productivity. The core of the Forum's program was made up of 18 (6x3 parallel) working sessions, where short introductions on topics of relevance to the CPWF were followed by structured and facilitated debate. Reports of the workings sessions were afterwards shared and discussed among all participants in 'Open Forum' sessions.The 'Policy and Practice Panel' (PPP) comprised policy-makers from developing countries, development specialists, members of donor agencies and researchers closely connected to policy. Its key role was to contribute to the discussion, and in particular to draw out the practical consequences of the research being discussed. Panel members attended all parallel sessions. Each evening the members met to discuss and distil key issues raised during the day. The Panel had 10 members. 1   Since for many of the Panel members exposure to the CPWF was limited to the Forum itself, the PPP can only reflect and provide feedback on the CPWF by using the knowledge that was shared with its members during the Forum. It should be noted that the PPP did not attempt to review the CPWF or provide advice based on a through examination of all its thematic and basin focal research. Rather it drew lessons and implications from the discussion and knowledge that was shared and gained during the various sessions. These did not provide comprehensive coverage of the CPWF's activities; moreover, they did often address broader themes. The PPP does not aim to provide an inclusive summary of all ideas generated during the Forum regarding Policy, Innovation and Development or Research, but focuses on a number of key issues as they transpired over the days. These key issues are discussed here with the aim to contribute constructively to the track record and achievements of the CPWF and to provide strategic support and guidance to CPWF management and governing bodies in their way forward.The following main issues will be discussed: the evolving research agenda and research approaches of the CPWF; the opportunities for the CPWF in transnational water management; the need for strong communication, information and knowledge sharing approaches; the importance of capacity building approaches that complement the ongoing research activities; and suggestions for making its research more relevant to policy makers and development agencies. The paper will conclude with an assessment of the evolution of the challenge program as could be gauged from the Forum. The panel hopes that its report further energizes the CPWF community in its many activities.Based on the discussions throughout the Forum, the PPP concluded that certain issues regarding the way research is conducted can be further improved for the sake of effectiveness and synergy. These suggestions address both generic/holistic issues and recommendations for specific future strategic research areas.A general observation by the PPP is that many of the sessions were closely linked to each other and that it can be of advantage to the CPWF to build a more coherent research portfolio based on integrating the outcomes of the different sessions. This research portfolio should be realistic and achievable and should strive to improve water and food issues within a framework of integrated resource management. Another general observation is the need to improve the linkages between the outcome of the Comprehensive Assessment and the CPWF research agenda. This was clearly evident in the sessions addressing trade, capacity building and other global factors but could be of value in other areas of research.Studies reported in the Forum have demonstrated multi-disciplinary research to a varied extent. However, it was agreed that more emphasis should be given in order to accelerate the existing momentum and improve the effectiveness of such integration. The PPP maintains that research on water and food touches many natural and social scientific disciplines. This is especially important where institutional arrangements are of concern. Therefore improved integration will enhance synergy and result in outcomes with more positive impact. This can be achieved through dedicated funding mechanisms that will support such integration as a prerequisite for any research proposal. In addition, certain research areas are core to all CPWF research activities and should also be included as a prerequisite. Examples are gender and cultural issues, inclusion of economics, political ecology and other elements of social sciences. Another related suggestion is that the CPWF should invest in policy research, understanding the formulation of policies and processes related to implementation of policies (see also below).The PPP strongly support the partnership that the CPWF has built between CGIAR institutions and many national and regional players, including the NARES, ARIs and academic institutions. It is suggested that this could be improved further by better understanding the role of CGIAR in relation to national and local research institutions when designing the research agenda as well as conducting the actual research and its dissemination. This will allow improvement in the production of both national and international public goods, i.e. knowledge.Many of the Forum sessions addressed the issue of scale, be it scaling up from local to basin level, or from basin to global level. The PPP recommends that this issue should be researched further. There is a need to better understand the tension between different scales and improved outcomes of both local/downstream and upstream scale studies and their integration. It is suggested that the CPWF should develop generic frameworks for various topics related to water management (utilisation of water in agriculture).It is suggested that the CPWP should establish a database of best practices and case studies to be used by researchers and for developing an impact framework across the CGIAR.It is suggested that the CPWF should consider the following strategic research areas:• Clarify the term 'water poverty', which is often interpreted differently by various researchers. This may lead to confused information within and across the basins. • Biofuel production has importance both for water productivity and energy production. It can provide alternatives to fossil fuel and create employment for many in cultivation and processing. At the same time, the cultivation of the raw plant matter for biofuel production requires large amount of water and the production processes result in further water consumption and highly polluted waste-water that may pollute the environment. The links between trade and biofuel production should also be addressed, along with the relationship between trade, water and poverty current and future implications. • The CPWF is currently addressing livestock production but there is a need to integrate livestock closely with water for crop production • Research into free trade agreements, investment agreements and local water rights will greatly add value to the CPWF as it will allow other thematic and basin focal projects to be better informed as for the macro environment. Other global issues to be addressed are issues related to climate change, WTO, globalisation and virtual water trade. Trade in virtual water can be also researched in relation to ecosystem resilience and poverty alleviation. • A key issue raised by the PPP is the need for research to understand \"what water means?\" Is it an economic good or a human right and how should this issue be resolved? • It is necessary to address the significance of the CPWF programme in policy terms.Numerous linked issues regarding water and food were discussed in separate sessions. The question arises as to how we can clarify the focal points to be the priorities for the CPWF second phase? • It is necessary to consider integrating the policy issues for CPWF. It might be necessary to address the following focal aspects: 1) security of drinking water quality and quantity in rural areas and for animals; 2) food security in terms of water quality and quantity for irrigation, and 3) the environmental flows policies for maintaining ecological functions which provide the goods and service for human being must be stressed as a critical and strategic target. • For synthesis of policy components, further research is necessary. In order to do this I think that scientifically better understanding of the concept/ terms might need study on lexicon for CPWF.Additional Negotiations over river waters between countries at the governmental level often reach deadlock either because of bureaucratic woodenness and absence of flexibility, or because of other irritants in the relationship between the two countries. Non-official dialogues between NGOs or academic institutions on either side, or at the people-topeople level, can play a significant role in bringing the governments together. Success stories and failures of this kind could be useful subjects of research in order to seek to persuade governments (a) to look beyond boundaries, and (b) to actively enlist the cooperation of NGOs.Whatever principles or methods are evolved in the context of inter-country disputes will have a degree of applicability even in water-related conflicts between political or administrative units within a country. Case studies of such instances could be valuable.Inter-use disputes, such as agriculture-industry, rural-urban or irrigation-drinking water, tend to become intractable in the absence of a clear set of priorities and principles. The priorities and principles that could lead to equitable resolutions in such cases might be a valuable subject of study.It is important to move beyond conflict resolution towards positive bilateral or multilateral co-operation, and a project examining successful and failed case studies would make a valuable contribution.Very few water researchers and policy makers are aware that water resources and water services may be subjected to the terms of investment and trade agreements, the circumstances and conditions of trade accords change perceptions about national jurisdiction and control of water resources and public utilities in ways that are often not anticipated and can have negative social and economic impacts on water.Many countries are currently being sued under the terms of investment and trade agreements for conflicts resulting from water utilities and control of water resources. These cases are not heard by national courts but by arbitration tribunals, which apply international investment law and procedure.There is a connection between local water management, and trade and investment agreements. Trade and investment agreements can seriously affect local water rights and management, unless appropriate caveats are built into agreements and legislation.Domestic institutional capacities that guarantee the quality of domestic decision making on most countries are not sufficiently well developed. Therefore, there is a need to upgrade national capabilities, this includes monitoring and controlling basic water resources as well as regulating the services associated to water.The Challenge Program by means of research, capacity building and international lobbying may help countries to establish a better balance to guarantee citizen and national rights, including the duties and obligations of investors vis-à-vis in countries where investments take place.An important issue that has been observed is the need for satisfying communication needs and for developing information tools related to basin management. The CP's ability to communicate and share accumulated knowledge, including traditional knowledge, is of great importance.Regarding information sharing with development practitioners and policy makers, the CPWF should consider the development of an online database that shares best practices.Another opportunity for the CPWF is to develop concise formats for sharing the information essential to allow improved user participation and policy dialogue, and matrixes where, for example, mapping of water and water related issues is the entry point to help solve poverty.The use of proper language among stakeholders is necessary. Policy makers probably have different codes than, lets say, mountain livelihoods. The CP already has accumulated valuable information on themes and regions where language and culture are quite different. In the near future, even more information will be available. So the efforts to communicate effectively and share data with different stakeholders will require a team of communication specialists that can make this information available in the best presentation possible to different audiences.The definition of capacity building may vary, depending on the context. This was demonstrated in Session 15 where numerous key words were attributed to it. Capacity building is simply the creation of an enabling environment for an individual or institution to deliver the mandate effectively. This can be achieved by training, professional exchange programmes and by providing the necessary infrastructure.Hydrological basins are ecologically diverse and complex in nature and often cut across national boundaries. Understanding their ecology requires a multi-disciplinary and multinational research and syntheses. It is therefore, very important that basin countries should share a common vision of sustainable management of basin resources, so that environmental and livelihoods gains may be realised. This can be achieved through the capacity building of principally the resource scientists, researchers and the resource users. Therefore, the Panel recommends:• developing a Capacity Development Policy or Strategy at national and / or regional level.and South -South countries and regions. • integrating capacity development across disciplines and devise complimentary strategies on data generation, integration and application. • exchanging national scientists across basins.This section reflects on the relationships between research, policy and practice as aired at the Forum and offers recommendations for enhancing them in line with current best practice. These suggestions apply equally well to research under the aegis of the CPWF and independent of it.Most research reported and discussed at the Forum has been applied rather than pure, in that it was designed to influence policy and practice on water and food in pursuit of the relevant Millennium Development Goals. However, undertaking and publishing the results of applied policy-relevant research will not, in itself, get the research into the policy process. There is no guarantee that ideas will be adopted; however, these best practice guidelines will greatly enhance the prospects for having an impact on practice.Traditionally, the dissemination and uptake of research results were often thought to be the separate responsibility of others (communications and media liaison officers, or even the actual or potential users themselves); indeed such views have been heard this week. Nowadays, however, most researchers and research organisations understand that this is inadequate. Researchers themselves must be in direct communication with research users, and not just as an afterthought at the end of a project but as part of a coherent strategy. After all, the measure of success of applied research is not the completion of the research as such but its assimilation and application by users.Very widespread this week has been vague reference to 'policy' and/or 'policy-makers' as if these are homogeneous and clearly defined concepts. However, research needs to be carefully targeted at influencing particular policies and the specific relevant actors who formulate, modify, apply and enforce those policies.Identification of the users (or 'audiences') of particular research results and what specific problem, prolicy or legal instrument to target is therefore the starting or entry point of what is now often called an uptake pathway.There are many different categories of research users, e.g. particular categories of local actors, community-based organisations, private firms, NGOs (local, national, international), government departments, parastatal organisations, and intergovernmental and international organisations such as the World Bank, IMF, UN agencies, regional development banks, World Trade Organisation and International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives. They are diverse -both within and between categories and spatial scales of operation -and hence are often referred to collectively as community/ies of practice rather than 'users'. Ultimately, any person or organisation affected by, or with an interest in, the research and its results is a stakeholder; users are important stakeholders and the suggestions here are a key form of stakeholder engagement.Users/practitioners have different information requirements, while the most appropriate ways to engage them also vary. These need to be ascertained early on -ideally before the start of a project and certainly long before its completion. This requires reconnaissance to liaise and understand the priorities, needs, institutional or corporate processes (including decision-making, policy development, legislative and/or budgetary cycles) of the respective research users. Such needs include the appropriate form (including the degree of technical detail, layperson's language and style) in which results are presented. In a nutshell, researchers must understand and fit in with these requirements.Sometimes it is possible -even appropriate -to address research users at the end of a project or even afterwards, provided that this is done effectively and meets a particular need. This then becomes an effective entry point. Good examples of this are crises (e.g. flood, drought, hurricane, conflict, pollution accident) when a user is required to respond quickly but lacks the information, tools and/or policy advice to do so. Such users will then be particularly receptive and this could be the start of a more enduring relationship.Generally, however, applied research is most effective when the users are engaged and involved from inception. This is as true of a local community group as an official body or company. The most appropriate form of engagement will vary according to specific circumstances but as a rule, the greater the consultation, collaboration, participation and other forms of active engagement, the greater will be the 'buy-in' or sense of 'ownership' by the users and hence the greater the likelihood of results being in appropriate forms, fed in at appropriate times and to the right people in the institution, and hence being understood, assimilated and acted upon.Large organisations may not wish to be directly involved in the actual research but representatives may readily agree to serve on a reference or review group, or to hold periodic briefing meetings.In other circumstances, where active engagement is desirable and desired, action research may be an effective form of engagement. This is where an intervention or innovation (e.g., a well or borehole, sanitation improvement, new farming technique, new crop or livestock variety, introduction of aquaculture, or a new institutional policy) is introduced as part of the research project and its impacts are then studied collaboratively with the beneficiaries.It is always helpful, even essential, to identify particular 'champions' in the user group or institution and to embed them firmly in the research process. This is particularly so with local community groups which may have very different identities and social / economic / political positions from the outside researchers. Such champions greatly increase the prospects for project success during its lifetime but also its longer term sustainability, once funding and support end. Even after the end of a project, follow-up and monitoring should continue, in order to maintain relationships and keep the doors open.There is now a growing literature on these issues, while organisations like the Stockholm Environmental Institute (SEI) and the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) have considerable relevant experience. The current issue of IHDP Update (3/4.2006) is devoted specifically to this subject (downloadable from www.ihdp.org).The Forum proved to be an excellent venue to generate ideas and to encourage creativity. In this respect it is very important that the session convenors digest the many ideas that were brought up towards a synthesis that may be shared with their colleagues and with CPWF management. The Forum was less effective for sharing progress within the CP. The format did not allow the detailed presentations that this requires. It could not do justice to the many activities of the CPWF community.At present, harvesting ideas and generating a sense of belonging may be more important than assessing results, but one would expect that over time this will change. The Panel would recommend that in future the creativity-focused approaches be combined with approaches for taking stock of the progress that the CPWF has achieved.Fuzziness: In many sessions, the Panel came away with the impression that there was considerable fuzziness in the underlying concepts. The session on 'water poverty' was on the link between water management, availability and productivity on the one hand and poverty on the other; while the concept of landscapes was not clearly defined. The content of several sessions was hard to guess from their titles.The conceptual fuzziness then combined with loose ends, making it difficult to conclude sessions and draw up clear implications for future actions. At this stage the fuzziness may be effective (e.g., the \"water poverty\" session was delightful) to generate further ideas, and to think outside the box. For future communication and knowledge exchange purposes, it is, however, important that the guiding concepts of the CPWF be gradually approximated towards clearly defined terms. This is all the more important to avoid miscommunication among the many nationalities, disciplines and approaches participating in the CPWF.The CPWF as a learning organism: The Panel was delighted to find several sessions where the main intention was to learn and to think about ways for increasing future effectiveness. The session on Political Ecology, for example, was included in order to address a perceived weakness (the difficulty to engage with policy makers), and to develop ideas on how to overcome those. As we all know, one is never too old to start learning. However, for such sessions to be effective, the presentational and organisational issues mentioned above must be addressed.The Panel was also pleased with the focus in several of the sessions on 'factors for success-obstacles -strategies'. Science for development needs to take social, economic, political and any other type of constraint into consideration from the start and cannot start thinking about strategies for impact once the research is concluded.The CPWF is built on a partnership of NARES, CGIAR centres, Advanced Research Institutes and other institutions. When the Challenge Programs were conceived, one of the considerations of this design was that it would be better able to take advantage of the capacities that nowadays exist in many developing countries. In the Forum the collaboration between the different partners is taken forward to a very equal level, where NARES fully participate in the development of the priorities, the management and the governance of the main activities, and the intellectual leadership of the program. The Panel recommends that the leadership of national partners be further consolidated and reflected in future events. One concrete suggestion is to explore the possibility of exchanging scientists, between countries in basins, or between basins, in order to take advantage of specific expertise.The CPWF was launched with a clear focus to contribute to the Millennium Development Goals. However, in the Forum programme, attention to the Millennium Goals was more implicit than explicit. The Panel suggest that the CPWF maintains a clear focus in all of its activities on how they will contribute to the MDGs. As one participant in the Open Forum observed, relating to policy makers requires that we speak their language, of which the MDGs are an important part.Nurture the blossom, let the fruit set: A final impression of the Panel is that the CPWF is starting to blossom, with many interesting activities taking place and much enthusiasm being generated. However, in most cases the fruit is only just starting to be formed. A key challenge for the Program management is to now ensure that the fruit grows and matures. While the Panel has not assessed the design of the CPWF in great details, its impression is that the design, if not somewhat scientific (e.g., little explicit attention to knowledge management), is sound. The Panel encourages the CPWF to pursue the direction that is has taken, before considering any major re-orientation in subsequent phases. Meanwhile, certain activities may be modified for managerial or operational reasons, and some activities may be added to take account of new perspectives, but the principal design should remain as it is.The way forward for the CPWF will occasionally be bumpy, as it apparently has been over recent months. That is only to be expected for a programme with such novel design, focus and management principles. The Panel therefore wishes the CPWF, its participating organizations and all the individual members of its community good luck.","tokenCount":"3982"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f7a3c412d9b8b657b2dd3d50d6f775b5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/635b2073-e44c-4efb-b63c-f3743ca32f19/retrieve","id":"-472095704"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"9042e90d-9a64-4ade-8d83-917af56e4960","pagecount":"31","content":"Climate change and gender norms are interwoven, with women frequently being more vulnerable due to preexisting social and economic inequalities (Awiti, 2022) In Nigeria, gender norms and the tradition of giving more privileges to men are prevalent (Makama, 2013;Olonade et al., 2021) These norms shape women's access and control to issues pertinent to successful participation in agrifood systems (AFS) The norms are slow to change, restrictive, and limit the capacities of women's AFS actors to build economic resilience to climate change Nigeria, as a climate change hotspot, presents a compelling situation for understanding how gender norms influence women's economic resilience (Akinsemolu and Obafemi, 2019) Source: CGIAR System Organization's albums | Flickr Critiques have discouraged using such approaches because they address the visible gender gaps, not the underlying structural barriers that create gaps, such as unequal attitudes, norms, and power relations (Cole et al., 2015).Most efforts at addressing gender inequality have been limited to the use of gender accommodative approaches, which most times concentrate efforts on increasing awareness of women's needs and treating the symptoms of inequality, such as individual access to land, credits, technology, and other resources Effective design and application of GTAs: Designing effective GTAs in addressing normative constraints requires a better understanding of the existing norms at different institutional levels and the associated constraintsEvidence Gap: there are critical evidence gaps in the design, use, and application of GTAs that can address normative constraints Recently, Gender Transformative Approaches (GTAs) have been forwarded to address the root causes of gender-based inequalities by tackling unequal norms, attitudes, and power relations.The study addresses four main objectives which are:Objective 1: To identify the major climate-related events affecting AFS actors in the cassava, catfish, and chicken value chains Objective 2: To understand how climate-related events have affected the performance and livelihoods of the AFS actors;Objective 3: To understand the gender norms that shape the activities of women value chain actors across the three value chains and Objective 4: To understand how gender norms affect women's economic resilience to climate change challenges across the three value chainsProvide insights into the normative constraints that limit women's capacities to build economic resilience to climate change (CC) challengeslearning from Casava, Catfish and Chicken value chains in Nigeria.As part of its Work Package 1 (TRANSFORM: Reducing normative constraints that limit women's economic resilience to climate change (CC) challenges),The Harnessing Gender and Social Equality for Resilience in Agrifood Systems (HER+) Initiative:• Implemented comprehensive qualitative assessments of gender norms with women and men operating at different nodes of the cassava, catfish/fish, and chicken value chains in Nigeria and Tanzania. This study presents the methodology and preliminary findings of the qualitative assessment that was carried out with women and men operating at the different nodes of the cassava, catfish, and chicken value chains in Nigeria. Objective 1 -Main climate-related events affecting AFS actors by genderAlthough men and women reported being affected by similar climate events, our study observed gender differences. Women's activities were affected by all the climate-related events reported. However, men's activities were affected by three main climate eventsflooding/excessive rain, inadequate/infrequent rain, and drought/excess heat.In some ways, this finding confirms men's concentration in the production nodes of the value chains, while for women, there is a high possibility of participation in post-harvest handling, processing, and distribution; thus, they are affected by more climate events transcending those experienced by men. This finding is supported by Akinsemolu and Obafemi (2019). Their study observed that women and girls' involvement in more domestic activities exposes them to more extreme weather events.Objective 2 -Impact of CC challenges on the performance and livelihoods of AFS actors across the value chains • 1: When there is flooding, processors (fish), who are mostly women, do not have access to fish to process • 2: During excessive heat and a long dry spell, the cost of fish goes up, which also affects business for fish processors • 3: During the rainy season, when there is excessive rain, it takes longer to smoke fish using charcoal• 1: Men are more into fish production than women. As a result, climate events such as flooding, excessive heat and dry spell will affect the pond condition and the production capacity of the male catfish producers Impacts on women and men in catfish value chain• Reduced productivity and profitability • Reduced income with attending impact on household food security, livelihoods and climate resilienceObjective 2 -Impact of CC challenges on the performance and livelihoods of AFS actors across the value chainsWomen and Men• 1: When there is a flood, it is difficult for some chicken farmers to access their farms leading to the loss of birds and equipment.• 2: However, when there is too much heat, chicken farmers need to find a way to cool down their chickens; otherwise, they experience poor egg production, reduced meat production, and high mortality and morbidity of chickens• 3: When it is too hot, vaccines fail, and the quality of vaccines received cannot be assured, which increases death and disease for chickens• Reduced productivity and profitability • Reduced income with attending impact on household food security, livelihoods and climate resilienceObjective 2 -Impact of CC challenges on the performance and livelihoods of AFS actors across the value chainsAlthough men and women AFS actors reported they experience the same impacts of CC challenges. However, our studies found gender differences in the impacts especially in line with the nodes/activities actors are engaged in.Also, for men and women, CC challenges are compounded by poor infrastructure such as poor roads and lack of drainage.\"When it is the rainy season, the river is full, then it affects our pond, and our fish are washed away\" Many of the women and men AFS actors presented an attitude of fatalism and helplessness in their responses to CC challenges 'Exactly, we know that it is from God, and we can do nothing about it' (Male Producer, Cassava Value Chain, FGD)-'There is always flood. The rivers are full, and there is no repair, in my own opinion, that's it…. when it's rainy season the river is always full so it affects our ponds to the extent that it carries away our fish. So, the carrying away of the fish brings loss for most of the farmers. The extent that from there some farmers do collapse due to losses' -(Male catfish producer -FDG).-'What I can see in those events is excess heat. That is why we plant banana trees to protect the water flowing in and out of the fishpond. The excess heat is the major challenge, as we have taken care of the flow of excess water and dirt, making the fish safe because nets are over the fishpond. It is the excess heat that poses a big challenge to the fish' (KII Female community Fish Value Chain) Slow onset climate events (SOEs), especially changes in climate variability and increased extreme weather, have disproportionately greater negative impacts on the well-being of smallholder farmersObjective 3: Gender norms that shape the activities of women value chain actors across the three value chainsParticipants confirmed the prevalence of discriminatory gender norms that serve as barriers to women's in:• • Norms that prevent women from owning major assets such as landlimit women's ability to expand their businesses and, finally, their ability to be resilient to climate change impacts• Norms that restrict women's mobility and demand that women are responsible for caring for the children -prohibit women from engaging in other non-domestic and productive activities• Norms that restrict women from speaking in public -affect their ability to voice out issues of concern to them and their livelihoodsObjective 4: How gender norms constrain women's economic resilience to CC challenges• Norms about technology adoption and use -prohibit women's free access and use of some technology/equipment. It limits their participation in some activities of the value chain• Norms about access to credits and loans -prohibit women from getting loans without their husbands' approval. This increases the bureaucratic process of women's accessing loans and restrictions on their financial capacities• Norms relating to the gender division of labourassign domestic roles to women, thereby increasing their workload; such norms also restrict women from taking up some activities in the value chain which are presumed to align with women's domestic role e.g., washing, peeling, processing• Restrictive gender norms widen structural gender inequality in AFS.• These norms further limit the capacity of women in AFS to build economic resilience to CC challenges.• Actors in AFS should focus on designing and implementing gendertransformative interventions that tackle structural norms that limit women's economic resilience to CC challenges.• These and evidence from other diagnostic work under the One CGIAR HER+ initiative will inform the design of interventions to overcome the normative constraints towards women's economic resilience to climate change impacts.","tokenCount":"1453"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d1c23f0d0c9f8971699b8dff69787b8e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/28e086ea-be49-4038-8682-bffdf5fe42a4/content","id":"984979118"},"keywords":["PI-Pob. 21 C5 HC219-3-I-B-##-B-I-3-BB-## CML-264 0.58 LI","L3","L4","L5 P9-(Ac.7643xPob. 43)-2-3-2-I-BB-## CML-273 0.43 Ll","L2","L3","L4","L5 P7-(Pob.21 C5 HC218-2-3-B-###-B-I-BBB-## CML-258 0.23 Ll","L2","L3","L4","L5 P6-L. Diam. 8043-53-I-I-B-##-01-BB-## CML-278 0.11 L3","L4","L5 PIO-Pb. 29 STE CI HC25-6-4-1-#-BBB-## CML-271 0.12 L2","L3","L4","L5 SCW9302 P3-(P24 MH119*54)-6-4-I-I-BB-## CML-247 0.46 Ll","L2","L3","L4","L5 P8-TSI 49-2-BBB-##-I-BBB-## CML-254 4.23 Ll","L2","L3","L4","L5 PI O-(AC.7643xPob. 43)-2-3-4-3-BB-## CML-274 0.18 LI","L3","L4 P7-Pob. 21 C6 SI MH-125-3-B-I-1-2-BB-f-## CML-255 0.22 L2","L3","L4 P9-Pob. 22 TSR-4-3-1-3-I-BB-#3 CML-267 0.22 LI","L4","L5 SCY-9303 CML-287 0.79 LI","L2","L3","L4","L5 P8-SA TSR-23-3-2-3-2-BB-## 0.62 LI","L2","L3","L4","L5 P3-SA TSR-76-1-2-2-2-BB-## CML-299 0.48 LI","L2","L3","L4","L5 P6-Pob. 24 C5 HC34-2-3-B-f-2#-BBB-## CML-285 0.2 Ll","L3 Pl0-SA TSR-7-4-2-2-1-BB-## CML-298 0.21 L2","L3","L4 SCY-9304 PI-SA TSR-23-3-1-1-1-BB-## CML-297 0.66 Ll","L2","L3","L4. L5 P6-(Pool 22 x Pool 22)-2-2-3-1-BB-## CML-282 0.55 Ll","L2","L3. L4","L5"],"sieverID":"e1073c85-928c-4dc5-bb51-88a64b46d5da","pagecount":"350","content":"Caribe (PRM) es una red colaborativa de investigación de maíz con énfasis en el desarrollo de germoplasma mejorado, tecnologías para el manejo sostenible del cultivo del maíz y la evaluación de adopción e impacto de las tecnologías generadas. El desarrollo de las actividades tiene como meta fortalecer la capacidad de los programas nacionales de investigación agrícola. El PRM usa la planificación participativa por objetivos y su fase actual es de 1995-98. La red está constituida por nueveMario Fuentes' RESUMEN Se estima que 33% del maíz en Guatemala se siembra bajo las condiciones del altiplano, con alturas entre 1200-3000 msnm., divididas en altiplano Central y Occidental. Ambas zonas son ecológicamente contrastantes y muestran alta interacción genotipo x ambiente que contribuye a que los cultivares de maíz expresen baja estabilidad del rendimiento, características agronómicas indeseables como tardíos, excesiva altura de planta, mala ubicación de la mazorca y alta susceptibilidad al acame. El objetivo del Programa de Maíz de JCTA es generar cultivares con alto potencial de rendimiento, características agronómicas deseables y amplio rango de adaptación. La metodología del mejoramiento consistió en realizar colecciones nativas en la zona, su evaluación en ambientes contrastantes y la formación de poblaciones. El esquema de selección incluyó la evaluación de progenies en fincas de agricultores y recombinación en estaciones experimentales. Bajo este sistema se desarrollaron las poblaciones V-30t, V-302, Bárcenas 71, V-304, V-30S, Don Marshall y Chanin, adaptadas al altiplano Central y las poblaciones San Marceño, Guateian Xela, Compuesto Blanco, Toto Amarillo y Chivarreto para al altiplano Occidental. La selección mostró ganancias de 4.3% por ciclo para rendimiento y disminución en la altura de planta y una mejor posición de la mazorca. Las variedades mejoradas mostraron 2] y 4t % de aumento en rendimiento en comparación a los materiales testigos del agricultor en ensayos de prueba en campos de agricultores, para la zona del altiplano Central y Occidental, respectivamente.El altiplano de Guatemala está ubicado sobre la Sierra Madre y constituido por los departamentos de San Marcos, Quetzaltenango, Huehuetenango, Totonicapan y Sololá que conforman el altiplano Occidental y Chimaltenango y Sacatepequez el altiplano Central y ocupan aproximadamente 17,711 km 2 (16% de la superficie del país). Se localiza en la latitud 14°39' N Y longitud 90°49' W. La población del altiplano en 1985 se estimó en 2,502,868 habitantes (30% de la población nacional) y 141 habitantes por km 2 , constituida por diversidad de grupos étnicos, bajo nivel de escolaridad, alto índice de analfabetismo (50.8%) y uso generalizado de lenguas indígenas. En la región se observa un I Invcstigador Progruma Maíz-JeTA, Guatemala.Publicudo cn SíNTESIS DE RESULTADOS EXPERIMENTALES I)¡;I.PRM 1993-1<)<)5, VOL. 5 (1<)97), p. 3-14.3 marcado minifundio, uso de áreas marginales para cultivos, bajos recursos económicos, subocupación de la mano de obra, canales de comercialización deficiente, migración, baja productividad agrícola y se practica una agricultura de subsistencia y de sistemas donde el maíz es el principal componente asociado con frijol, trigo, papa y cucurbitáceas (ICTA, 1987). En los últimos años, la producción especies hortícolas orientadas al mercado de exportación han cobrado mucha importancia.Los suelos del altiplano se formaron sobre material madre de cenizas volcánicas. El relieve varía desde plano hasta fuertemente inclinado, con buen drenaje interno, la capacidad de abastecimiento de agua es regular, la fertilidad natural es alta y acusan un alto peligro de erosión. El altiplano Central esta ubicado en la zona de vida bosque montano bajo. La precipitación anual es de 1588 mm, humedad relativa promedio de 80% y temperatura media de 17.9°C. Las altitudes varían entre 1300-2200 rnsnm. El altiplano Occidental se ubica en la zona de vida bosque húmedo montano bajo. La precipitación media anual es de 2065 mm, humedad relativa de 80% y temperatura media de 15.5°C, las altitudes varían de 2300 a 3000 msnm. (Simmons et al., 1959;IGN, 1983).El uso potencial de la región es forestal, sin embargo se hace uso de tierra para cultivos equivalente entre el 71-93% (SER, 1990). Las modalidades tecnológicas de producción agrícola del altiplano son variables. El uso de germoplasma nativo de maiz o también llamado criollo predomina en el área y se cultiva asociado (85%) y en monocultivo (15%) (ICTA, 1977). La generalidad de los agricultores del altiplano siembran maíz en condiciones de humedad residual antes de las lluvias. La preparación del suelo se realiza inmediatamente después de la cosecha para conservar la humedad. La siembra se realiza entre marzo y abril, variando la fecha de acuerdo a la localización de la unidad de producción y ciclo de cultivo. Se han identificado 4 sistemas básicos de los sistemas productivos agrícolas del altiplano (OEA-MAGA, 1994).Representa a los agricultores ubicados en el grupo de supervivencia. La producción es para autoconsumo y realizan trabajos fuera de la fmca para satisfacer sus necesidades básicas. El área promedio de la fmca es de 0.46 ha. Los principales rubros de producción son granos básicos, plantas nativas, hortalizas, especies de ganado menor y especies forestales con fmes energéticos. Se observa con mayor frecuencia en Quetzaltenango y Totonicapan y menor en Chimaltenango.Representa a los agricultores ubicados en el estrato de transición a la diversificación de cultivos. La producción es para consumo farniliar y ventas de excedentes para el mercado local (a nivel de municipio). Utiliza sistemas de cultivo de granos básicos en asocio y monocultivo de hortalizas y frutales. Esta presente en el 53% de las fmcas de Quetzaltenango, y en el 22%, 21% y 4% de las fincas de San Marcos, Totonicapan y Chimaltenango, respectivamente. El área promedio de las fmcas es de 1.25 ha.Representa a los agricultores ubicados en el estrato de diversificación de la producción. La producción es para el consumo en menor grado y en mayor escala para la venta en mercado nacional e internacional. Utiliza sistemas de cultivos granos básicos en asocio y monocultivo. El asocio Maíz-Frijol-Haba (M-F-H) se cultiva en 53% de las fmcas de Chimaltenango y área promedio de 0.67 ha. En Quetzaltenango y San Marcos es menos importante. La diversificación de la producción ocurre con hortalizas de exportación y hortalizas de consumo local.Representa a los agricultores ubicados en el sistema de producción de transición hacia la especialización agrícola. El destino de la producción es para consumo, venta, procesamiento y exportación. El área promedio de las fincas es de 10.17 ha. Utiliza sistemas de cultivos de granos básicos en asocio y en monocultivo, hortalizas y frutales. Maíz-Frijol (M-F) se cultiva en 50% de las fincas con un área promedio de 1.43 ha Y es más frecuente en Chimaltenango y menor en San Marcos y Quetzaltenango. Cultivos de exportación como brócoli y arveja china incrementan su frecuencia y área de cultivo. La descripción de los modelos y áreas en donde se practica, se presenta en el siguiente modelo: Cuadro 1. Modelos de los sistemas productivos agricolas del altiplano de Guatemala.Sistema La zona del altiplano presenta vanaClOn de condiciones de topografia, fertilidad, temperatura, precipitación, suelo y amplia diversidad ambiental, lo que limita plantear recomendaciones con amplia cobertura. La mayoría de agricultores utiliza variedades nativas de maíz. El potencial de rendimiento es variable, tardíos (hasta 280 días), baja adaptación a la diversidad ambiental posiblemente al proceso de selección tan específico a que han sido sometidos• a través de muchos años, excesiva altura de planta y mazorca, principalmente bajo condiciones de alta fertilidad y susceptibles al acame. El manejo agronómico del maíz varía entre agricultores y regiones. Existe diversidad de sistemas de asocio y/o relevo con otros cultivos, distancia de siembra, arreglos topológicos, fertilización, uso de abonos orgánicos, épocas de siembra, preparación del suelo, entre otros. El Programa de Maíz de ICTA concluyó en 1973 que no se podrían obtener aumentos importantes del rendimiento, si no se trabajaba en la disminución de la altura y selección de familias rendidoras para conformar poblaciones estables a través de ambientes.La estrategia se fundamentó en reconocer la importancia de utilizar germoplasma nativo como fuente de desarrollo de cultivares adaptadas a regiones contrastantes del altiplano. Realizar colecciones de germoplasma nativo en las regiones objetivo del ICTA, evaluarlas a nivel de estación experimental y en campos de agricultores para conformar poblaciones en base a los materiales superiores en la evaluación y realizar el mejoramiento sistemático de las poblaciones a través de selección fraternal convergente hacia adaptación en ambientes contrastantes para minimizar el efecto de la interacción genotipo x ambiente (ICTA, 1975(ICTA, y 1987)).El objetivo del Programa de Maíz de ICTA es evaluar la diversidad genética del germoplasma nativo e identificar materiales que sirvan de base para el mejoramiento genético del cultivo y desarrollar variedades con alto potencial de rendimiento, características agronómicas deseables y amplia adaptación a las condiciones ambientales del altiplano de Guatemala que contribuyan a maximizar la productividad del cultivo en las distintas áreas del altiplano de Guatemala.El Programa de Maíz trabaja en dos estaciones experimentales del ICTA. La estación experimental del altiplano Central ubicada en Chimaltenango y con cobertura a los departamentos de Sacatepequez y 5 Chimaltenango para las localidades ubicadas entre 1200-2200 msnm. En el altiplano Occidental la estación Labor Ovalle ubicada en Quetzaltenango con cobertura a los departamentos de San Marcos, Quetzaltenango y Totonicapán cuyas localidades están entre 2300-3000 msnm. Se disponen de equipos de Prueba de Tecnología para cada zona del altiplano que apoyan las actividades del Programa de Maíz en la evaluación de germoplasma en los campos de agrícultores. Para cumplir con los objetivos planteados, a partir de 1973 se diseño el esquema del Sistema Dinámico de Mejoramiento de maíz para el altiplano (ICTA, 1976).El sistema se basa en la evaluación de progenies en fmcas de agricultores y selección en estación experimental para amortiguar los cambios ambientales a través del método de selección familiar de mazorca por surco modificado, el cual permite la acumulación de efectos aditivos para alto rendimiento, bajar altura de mazorca y planta y mejorar otras características agronómicas. Se seleccionan individuos en base a la evaluación de progenies en ensayos de rendimiento. Bolaños (1980) cita a Poey (1979) quien describe el método: se siembran las familias en por lo menos seis localidades en surcos individuales de 5 m y se les toman datos agronómicos y de rendimiento con las que al integrarlos se fundamenta el criterio de selección de familias en el lote de recombinación de la estación experimental. No se siembran repeticiones y se compensa al colocar testigos en forma sistemática para relacionar los valores obtenidos de las familias dentro de una estratificación adecuada y estandarizar el efecto ambiental. Los lotes de recombinación pueden ser de medios hermanos (MH) ó hermanos completos (HC) y cada ciclo debe producir no menos de 250 familias que serán nuevamente evaluadas en campo de agricultor en el siguiente ciclo. Las hileras por mazorca se emasculan en el bloque y se siembran hileras de machos formados por un compuesto balanceado de todas las familias de mazorca por hilera para obtener una máxima recombinación entre las familias seleccionadas y completar un ciclo cada año. Se selecciona el 20% de las familias y dentro de estas las 5 mejores plantas las cuales servirán para las pruebas del siguiente año. El diferencial de selección comprende diferencias entre y dentro de familias.La restricción en el número de familias que pueden compararse resulta en intensidad y diferencial de selección reducida, pero se compensa por una menor desviación estándar fenotípica al controlar mejor la contribución ambiental mediante la repetición de familias en varias localidades (Bolaños, 1980).Poey en 1977 introdujo variantes a la metodología para ampliar la base genética de las poblaciones sujetas a mejoramiento (Bolaños, 1980). A la selección de MH se le incorporan familias de origen diferente llamadas familias de soporte y se siembran junto al lote de recombinación. En la generación F!, estas familias se retrocruzan con la población base para recuperar las características deseables de esta. A continuación, se someten las familias a un ensayo de rendimiento en por lo menos 2 localidades para seleccionar las mejores e introducirlas a la población base y que formen parte del compuesto balanceado al recombinarlas. Se incluye 4-6% del total de familias de la población que se esta mejorando y solamente se introducen las familias con un diferencial de selección superior al 15% para capitalizar efectos aditivos. En esta etapa los efectos heteróticos aun pueden manifestarse.A partir de 1985, se realizó un ciclo de selección recurrente de líneas SI en las poblaciones en mejoramiento. Se generaron 400 líneas por población y se evaluaron a nivel de estación experimental. La población se reconstituyó con el 20% de la fracción superior y se formaron variedades sintéticas con las 5 a 8 líneas superiores de la evaluación (Fuentes, 1990). Bolaños et al. (1982), cita a Molina que informa que la selección de progenies autofecundadas es recomendable cuando se requieren avances genéticos rápidos en poblaciones y las variedades presumiblemente tienen una varianza genética reducida. En la mayoría de poblaciones del altiplano, iniclaImente cada una de estas, se sometieron al sistema de Unidad de Divergencia Ambiental (UDA). El sistema selecciona y recombina en dos ambientes diferentes. En alta densidad (88,000 pl/ha) se selecciona la capacidad de competencia de la planta y en la baja densidad (44,000 pl/ha) el potencial de rendimientp. Las polinizaciones se realizan en baja densidad. Durante el período vegetativo se seleccionan las plantas de acuerdo a su fenotipo y a la cosecha se evalúan por su comportamiento. Se selecciona hasta 20% de familias superiores. Bajo este sistema se han seleccionado familias que con menor altura de planta en 1 m y mayor precocidad (15-30 d) en la zona del altiplano (ICTA, 1977).La base de las poblaciones de maiz generadas para el altiplano proviene de germoplasma nativo y colectado en diferentes zonas geográficas de la región por el Programa de Maíz y los Equipos de Prueba de Tecnología, el cual ha sido evaluado extensivamente y utilizado como material base y/o soporte. Se estima que se han evaluado un total de 829 colecciones nativas para el grupo de grano amarillo y 483 para grano blanco (Barrios, 1969;ICTA, 1975;Fuentes, 1986). El Cuadro 2 presenta el origen, localidad de colecta, último ciclo de selección, color y adaptación de las poblaciones de maiz formadas a partir de la evaluación de germoplasma nativo. La población San Marceño, Guateian Xela y Compuesto Blanco fueron generados por el Programa de Investigación del Instituto Agropecuario Nacional (IAN) y sometidas posteriormente al proceso de selección planteado por ICTA. En el altiplano central se evaluaron 95 colecciones de maíz de la región. Los 10 mejores criollos superaron al testigo Bárcenas-71 y V-301 (3019 y 3845 kg/ha) en 41 a 71% (4269 Y 5162 kg/ha)(datos no presentados) (ICTA, 1977). La fracción superior se evaluó durante dos años consecutivos  en 10 y 9 localidades, respectivamente (Cuadro 3).El Criollo 34 Amarillo Patzicia, Criollo 48 y 89 . Amarillo Balanyá, se identificaron con mejor potencial de rendimiento hasta de 4580 kg/ha, estables (bi=1 y S 2 di=0), características agronómicas deseables y superan en 20% a las variedades mejoradas y 500 kglha a la media de las mejores variedades criollas. Con los resultados obtenidos se recomendó la formación de la población V-304 en base a los Criollos 34, 48 y 89. Las variedades Criollo Blanco 5-76 y Criollo 4 Amarillo Chirnaltenango fueron los superiores en áreas del valle de Chirnaltenango con 5100 Y 4800 kglha y superaron en 14 y 10% al criollo local. El Criollo Blanco 5-76 se constituyó en soporte de la población V-301 y el Criollo 4 amarillo Chimaltenango conformó a la población V-302. La evaluación permitió definir adaptación de las variedades criollas en base a áreas homogéneas por lo que el altiplano central se subdividió en dos áreas alta y baja (1300-1800 y 1800-2200 rnsnm) (ICTA, 1979). El Cuadro 4 presenta la fracción superior del germoplasma de maíz evaluado durante los años 1977-78 a través de 31 localidades del altiplano Occidental. Las variedades San Marceño y Criollo 252-76 fueron identificados como estables. El rendimiento superó a los criollos locales hasta en 590 kglha en las localidades de Quetzaltenango. Los parámetros de estabilidad bi=1 Y S 2 d=O confrrman su estabilidad. San Marceño promedio 5510 kg/ha y superó al Criollo 605-76 en 660 kglha en la subregión de Quetzaltenango y ocurrió lo contrario en la región de Totonicapan donde el Criollo 605-76 superó en 720 kglha a San Marceño. En base a esta evaluación se delimitó el área de adaptación de San Marceño y se recomendó formar la población Tato Amarillo en base al germoplasma del Criollo 605-76 y someterla al proceso de mejoramiento.El Cuadro 4 presenta las medias de rendimiento de las variedades y criollos superiores identificados para el altiplano occidental evaluados a través de diferentes localidades en finca de agricultor entre 1978-82. Las variedades mejoradas superaron en promedio hasta en 14% al testigo local. Prueba de Tecnología evaluó diferentes variedades criollas a través de diferentes ambientes ubicados entre 2600-2800 m.s.n.m distribuidos en Quetza1tenango, San Marcos y Totonicapan. El Criollo 612 mostró un rendimiento consistente a través de años en evaluaciones en la zona alta del altiplano Occidental (4000-5060 kglha). En 1982 este material conformó la base la población Chivarreto (ICTA,1987).La Unidad de Prueba de Tecnología y el Programa de Maíz constantemente evalúan germoplasma nativo. Las evaluaciones incluyen germoplasma local y de zonas adyacentes para identificar el superior y utilizarlo como introducciones. La metodología permitió identificar colecciones con rendimiento similar y/o superior a los testigos, menos días a floración femenina y se han utilizado como soporte en las poblaciones generadas (rCTA, 1987(rCTA, , 1988(rCTA, , 1989)).El progreso de selección obtenido por la metodólogía de mejoramiento en las poblaciones de maíz se presentan en el Cuadro 5. En el altiplano central los ciclos de selección de las poblaciones V-301 y V-302 evaluadas a través de 4 localidades indican que en total se capitalizó 10% en rendimiento e incrementos de 440 y 410 kg/ha, respectivamente. El método seleccionó plantas de menor altura, mejor posición de mazorca y menor días a floración. La altura de la planta y de la mazorca se , redujo 86 y 40 cm en la población V-301 y 12 días menos a floración femenina. Para V-302 la altura de planta se redujo 40 cm y no afecto a la altura de mazorca. Los días a floración femenina disminuyeron 12 días. En general las restantes características agronómicas son uniformes (Fuentes y Landaverry, 1987). La evaluación de ciclos de selección en las poblaciones del altiplano occidental indican incrementos por ciclo de selección de 4.2, 4, 4.3, 1.7 Y 1.1% en San Marceño, Compuesto Blanco, Guateian Xela, Toto Amarillo y Chivarreto, respectivamente. Representa incrementos totales de 1144, 1252, 671, 430 Y 280 kglha sobre la media original. La altura de planta y de mazorca de San Marceño se redujo 30 y 28 cm y se mejoró el porcentaje de mazorcas con buena cobertura, no así en las otras poblaciones (Orozco, 1981;Avila y Fuentes, 1987).Las características agronómicas de las variedades derivadas de las poblaciones en mejoramiento se presentan en el Cuadro 7. Se ha obtenido mayor rendimiento, uniformidad en relación a altura de planta y de la mazorca, sanidad foliar y menor número de días a floración.Las variedades Don Marshall y Chanin formadas con germoplasma local e introducciones del CIMMYT, son precoces y de porte bajo (dos meses mas precoces que los criollos, 1.5 m mas bajos) se desarrollaron para el altiplano central. Se utilizan en cultivos asociados y siembras intercaladas con mejores ventajas que las variedades criollas. Al sembrar en marzo permite cosechar en agosto y sembrar trigo y/o hortalizas en segunda, 10 que intensifica e incrementa la productividad del sistema (Córdova y Poey, 1980).Se realizaron cruzamientos interpoblacionales como alternativa de ampliar la base genético e incluirlas como generaciones avanzadas dentro de las poblaciones en mejoramiento y seleccionar hacia rendimiento, precocidad y adaptación (ICTA, 1977(ICTA, y 1979;;Bolaños, 1980). Algunos resultados presentaron perspectivas de uso. Cruzamientos intervarietales realizados en Chimaltenango en 1977 indican heterosis hasta de 25 y 44% sobre V-301 y Bárcena-71 al cruzarlos con Mix 1 Tuxpeño (ICTA, 1977). Materiales de maíz del altiplano central cruzados con fuentes de precocidad y porte bajo introducidos del CIMMYT entre ellos Pool 27, Pool 34, Pool 33, Amarillo Bajillo, Amarillo Bajillo x mezcla tropical blanca, Aed x Tuxpeño presentaron entre 75-100 días a floración femenina y se incorporaron como material de soporte de la población Chanin (Bolaños, 1980). Cruzamientos de San Marceño y Compuesto Blanco con materiales locales e introducidos expresaron rendimientos que superan entre 17 y 27% a San Marceño y entre 12-22% al Compuesto Blanco. El mestizaje entre materiales de zona media y alta mostraron heterosis que superan hasta en 44% a San Marceño que fue el mejor testigo. Los mejores rendimientos se obtuvieron entre Compuesto Blanco-18 x V-301, (B-71 x San Marceño) F2 (ICTA, 1977).Cruzamientos intervarietales entre variedades criollas del altiplano occidental con materiales del CIMMYT, no presentaron diferencias significativas ni mejora en características agronómicas de las cruzas intervarietales con respecto a San Marceño y Compuesto Blanco. Las cruzas intervarietales presentaron 20 días menos en floración en relación a Guateian Xela, pero no superaron el rendimiento (ICTA, 1979). El CIMMYT ha desarrollado germoplasma de maíz para condiciones de altiplano. Evaluaciones preliminares indican bajo rendimiento, alta incidencia de enfermedades foliares e inadaptación en relación a los testigos en condiciones del altiplano de Guatemala (ICTA, 1979).Evaluaciones posteriores con nuevo germoplasma presentaron buen comportamiento agronómico y tolerantes a enfermedades foliares. Destacaron los materiales Pool l2a, Comp. 1 QPM Y Pool l3a con rendimientos entre 5769 y 6776 kg/ha, menor altura de planta y de mazorca y superan hasta en 18% al testigo Toto Amarillo que rindió 5714 kg/ha (Bolaños y Avila, 1987). Para el altiplano central los materiales Pool lA, Pool 9A, Pool 9B, Batan 8788, Batan 8736 al mestizarse con las variedades Don Marshall blanco y amarillo y Chanin rindieron hasta 7890 kg/ha que equivale a un 35% superior a la variedad Don Marshall y 94 días a floración femenina (Alarcón y Fuentes, 1991). 10 La parcela de prueba constituye poner en manos del agricultor la alternativa tecnológica, manejada por éste para que la evalúe en comparación con su tecnología tradicional. Para el altiplano Central las variedades evaluadas a través de diferentes localidades y años superan a la variedad del agricultor en 370 a 520 kg/ha (12-18%). Mientras que para el altiplano Occidental los rendimientos sobre la variedad del agricultor lo superan entre 240-968 kg/ha (6-27%). Los datos se presentan en el Cuadro 8.  FUENTE: leTA, 1977;1981;1987;1988 Y1989. Informe TkDlco del ProgralDJl de Maíz.El Proyecto de Generación, Transferencia de Tecnología y Producción de Semillas (pROGETTAPS) se inició en 1987, fue concebido para consolidar los servicios de investigación y transferencia de tecnología que presta el Sector Público Agrícola. La ejecución del proyecto fue responsabilidad de lerA y Dirección General de Servicios Agrícolas (DIGESA) para el componente agrícola. El proyecto integró en el proceso de investigación y transferencia de tecnología a investigadores, transferencistas y agricultores. Cada unidad que integró a estos agentes se denominó módulo y formado por un investigador de Prueba de Tecnología de lerA, un promotor agrícola de DIGESA y diez representantes agrícolas (RA), quienes participaron activamente en trabajos de prueba, adopción, integración y transferencia de tecnología y generaron un efecto multiplicador (Reyes, 1990;Córdova, et al., 1992). Con esta estructura se transfirieron las variedades de maíz generadas para el altiplano (Cuadro 8) y entre 1987-88 se condujeron 469 parcelas de transferencia bajo condiciones de monocultivo y asocio (M-F), en otros casos se transfirió fertilización química.En el altiplano Central, la diferencia en réndimiento de la tecnología •propuesta en relación a la del agricultor varió entre 96 a 1475 kg/ha. Se observaron diferencias al evaluarlas bajo condiciones de asocio y monocultivo de 248 y 1571 kg en V-301 y V-302. En el altiplano Occidenta11a diferencia en rendimiento osciló entre 300-1209 kglha. Estos datos confrrrnan el potencial de rendimiento de las variedades generadas por el Programa de Maíz y su adaptación a diferentes condiciones ecológicas y de manejo agronómico bajo condiciones del agricultor.Dentro de las estrategias y mecanismos para apoyar la transferencia de tecnología, el PROGETTAPS desarrolló la actividad de producción artesanal de semilla mejorada. Los agricultores, cuyas áreas de producción se encuentran aisladas en laderas con suelos pobres, no tienen acceso a la semilla proveniente de los sistemas convencionales de producción de semilla. Uno, porque no son sujetos de crédito; y dos, porque la industria semil1era no se interesa por esas áreas, debido a que las ganancias no son atractivas (Córdova, 1990). Esta actividad la ejecutaron técnicos de DIGESA, en apoyo a pequeños productores en áreas donde no existe disponibilidad de semilla mejorada. Este sector hace disponible y accesible en suficientes cantidades la semilla de interés de los pequeños productores.El desarrollo de esta nueva industria semillera se realizó dentro de los propios núcleos de pequeños agricultores; identificando como mini-empresarios potenciales a aquellos agricultores que produjeran semilla para autoconsumo, con lo cual se propiciaria que la semilla producida a nivel de estas comunidades tuviese una fuerte posibilidad de quedarse entre los agricultores de esos mismos lugares (Córdova, et al., 1992). Entre 1987-88 se condujeron 40 y 76 parcelas de semilla artesanal en el altiplano central y occidental, respectivamente, distribuidas en diferentes localidades (Godínez, et al., 1990y Reyes, 1993). Reyes (1993) y Godínez et al. (1990), informan sobre la evaluación de la adopción de las variedades transferidas a través de PROGETIAPS en los primeros dos años de ejecución del proyecto para el altiplano. Los agricultores se clasificaron en cuatro poblaciones: los agricultores que condujeron parcelas de transferencia; agricultores que condujeron parcelas de semilla artesanal; agricultores que no condujeron parcelas, pero participaron en actividades de promoción; y los agricultores que no han participado en la ejecución del PROGETIAPS. La medición de la adopción de la tecnología se estimó en base al porcentaje de agricultores que emplearon las variedades recomendadas y el porciento del área de maíz en que estas fueron sembradas, se estimó el coeficiente Efecto Multiplicador Estimado (EFE) y los diferentes factores que inciden en la adopción se analizaron en función de regresión múltiple (Reyes y García, 1990;Reyes, 1993). Para el altiplano central se determinó la adopción de variedades en el 53% de los agricultores que han participado en las actividades de transferencia y 48% de agricultores que han participado en actividades de promoción. En el altiplano occidental 57% de los agricultores que participaron en parcelas de transferencia y de semilla y 59% de agricultores que participaron en actividades de promoción. La conducción de parcelas de semilla acusa el efecto favorable más fuerte y conjuntamente con parcelas de transferencia registran un efecto multiplicador de 2.55 y 0.96 para altiplano central y occidental. En la adopción de variedades de maíz incide la conducción de parcelas de semilla, el tamaño de la familia, la actividad económica principal del agricultor. Las giras y reuniones no fueron más eficientes que otros mecanismos de promoción que emplearon los RA, tales como, ubicar las parcelas en lugares visibles o comunicación personal con los agricultores. La disponibilidad de semilla desempeñó un papel clave en la adopción de variedades y existen márgenes potenciales de adopción que no fueron cubiertos por no existir semilla en el campo.1. La investigación en base al uso de g~rmoplasma nativo para. el desarrollo de variedades de polinización libre ha sido efectivo y obtenido logros significativos en rendimiento, adaptación y características agronómicas.2. La respuesta al método de selección familial modificó positivamente al rendimiento y equivale a incrementos totales de 440 y 410 kg/ha para V-301 y V-302 del altiplano central y 1144, 1252, 671, 480 Y 280 kg/ha en San Marceño, Compuesto Blanco, Guateian Xela, Toto Amarillo y Chivarreto del altiplano occidental, respectivamente.3. Se redujo significativamente la altura de la planta y posición de la mazorca en las poblaciones V-301, V-302 y San Marceño hasta en 86 y 80 cm. 4. La evaluación de variedades mejoradas en parcelas de prueba y de transferencia superan al testigo local en 968 y 1478 kg/ha, respectivamente. 5. El desarrollo de variedades precoces es una alternativa con potencial de uso en los sistemas de producción para uso intensivo del suelo e incrementa la productividad.6. La adopción de variedades mejoradas fue del 53 y 57% en agricultores que participaron en actividades de transferencia de tecnología y registraron un efecto multiplicador de 2.55 y 0.96 para el altiplano central y occidental.7. La producción artesanal de semilla para el pequeño productor es un mecanismo que influye en la disponibilidad y adopción de variedades mejoradas.Róger Urbina 1El complejo del achaparramiento se ha establecido en forma endofítica en las regiones tropicales bajas de Centro América. Esta enfermedad es causada por micoplasmas, espiroplasmas y el virus del rayado fino, y representa un peligro potencial para la producción de maíz en la región. Dentro de este contexto, el Programa Regional de Maíz (PRM) lleva a cabo un proyecto colaborativo para desarrollar cultivares con resistencia a la enfermedad y buen potencial de rendimiento. Bajo un esquema de selección recurrente de líneas SI-SZ' se están mejorando las poblaciones Tropical Tardía Blanca Dentada (Pob. 73) y Tropical Intermedia Blanca Cristalina (Pob. 76), las cuales están en el quinto y tercer ciclo de mejoramiento, respectivamente. La generación de líneas SI' su avance a Sz, la recombinación de la mejor fracción de cada población y la formación de las variedades sintéticas experimentales se hace en El Salvador y Nicaragua en forma independiente. Sin embargo, la evaluación de las líneas se efectúa en ambos países en la época normal de siembra y bajo condiciones con una presión natural elevada de la enfermedad. Los productos finales de cada ciclo se evalúan en ambientes con problemas de achaparramiento. Los últimos sintéticos desarrollados (SC3P73 N, SC2P76 N Y SC3P73 R) superaron en rendimiento de grano al cultivar tolerante NB-6 en 15.5% y 11.7%, respectivamente, y con 17.1 % a 20.5% menos plantas y mazorcas afectadas por achaparramiento. Los cultivares tolerantes se destacan en ambientes desfavorables con presión de la enfermedad, sin perder su potencial de rendimiento en los ambientes favorables El achaparramiento es una de las enfermedades más devastadoras que afecta al cultivo del maíz y es un factor limitante de la producción en las zonas tropicales y subtropicales del continente Americano; se presenta desde el nivel del mar hasta zonas intermedias o de altura y en latitudes desde 40 0 N, hasta los 30 0 S (de León, 1984). En Centro América y el Caribe, la enfermedad alcanza niveles críticos de incidencia, principalmente en aquellas regiones donde los agricultores siembran variedades criollas con bajo nivel tecnológico y donde las condiciones climatológicas son ¡Coordinador del Programa de Granos Básicos. INTA, Nicaragua.Publicado en SÍNTESIS DE RESULTADOS EXPERIMENTALES DEL PRM 1993-1995, VOL. 5 (1997), p. 15-20. favorables para el desarrollo del vector de la enfermedad tales como: escasez de lluvia, altas temperaturas y baja humedad relativa.Los efectos del achaparramiento en plantaciones comerciales de maíz se cuantificaron por primera vez en Nicaragua en 1986. En ese año la superficie perdida y afectada parcialmente tota1ízó 27,682 ha; con una pérdida de rendimiento de 29,445 toneladas de grano, o una pérdida de U$5 millones de dólares aproximadamente (DGB-MIDINRA, 1986).En las regiones donde el achaparramiento se presenta en forma endofitica, los riesgos de pérdidas aumentan cuando los agricultores retrasan sus siembras por causa del establecimiento irregular de las lluvias. Para contrarrestar el efecto detrimental de la enfermedad y asegurar una producción sostenida, se deben sembrar en éstas localidades cultivares con tolerancia a la enfermedad. Consciente del problema, el programa de maíz del CIMMYT en conjunto con los programas nacionales de maíz de Nicaragua y El Salvador iniciaron en 1975 un programa colaborativo de mejoramiento genético para desarrollar cultivares con resistencia al achaparramiento. Al comparar la respuesta al achaparramiento de tres ciclos de selección con el ciclo cero, en localidades de Nicaragua y El Salvador, se observaron porcentajes promedios de disminución de plantas afectadas por la enfermedad de 16, 28 Y 19% en las poblaciones 73, 76 Y 79 respectivamente (de León et al., 1984).El esfuerzo colaborativo iniciado en 1975, tendiente a desarrollar variedades tolerantes al achaparramiento, tuvo como resultado positivo la liberación en Nicaragua en 1984 de la variedad NB-6 (Santa Rosa 8073) y en años subsiguientes fue liberada con los nombres de La Lujosa B-101 en Honduras, Santa Rosa en México y Venezuela (Córdova et al., 1990). Reportes de Nicaragua indican que la variedad NB-6 sembrada en 2000 hectáreas rindió 3.5 t/ha, en tanto que los híbridos susceptibles al achaparramiento 1.5 t/ha (Urbina, 1991) El progreso alcanzado en el mejoramiento para resistencia al achaparramiento utilizando el método de selección recurrente con líneas SI-S2 ha sido evidente; por lo tanto en la segunda etapa de mejoramiento iniciada en 1985 por el PRM, se ésta utilizando la misma metodología con ciertas variantes para lograr a corto plazo: a) eliminar o reducir la frecuencia de genes recesivos deletéreos presentes en las poblaciones sometidas a mejoramiento; b) incrementar la frecuencia de alelos favorables involucrados en la resistencia al achaparramiento; y c) desarrollar cultivares con resistencia y buen potencial de rendimiento MATERIALES Y MÉTODOS La segunda etapa del proyecto colaborativo de mejoramiento genético para achaparramiento la reinició el PRM en 1985 en El Salvador y República Dominicana, incorporándose posteriormente. Nicaragua en 1986. Esta etapa se inició con dos poblaciones blancas y dos amarillas, pero en el presente trabajo solamente se hará referencia a las poblaciones blancas bajo mejoramiento en El Salvador y Nicaragua. Las dos poblaciones se formaron con líneas SI derivadas de las siguientes variedades experimentales: La Población 22 se eliminó del proyecto después de dos ciclos de selección al no lograrse ganancias significativas en resistencia, ya que carecía de una frecuencia alta de genes condicionadores de la resistencia. La Población 22 fue sustituida por un grupo de líneas derivadas de la variedad Santa Rosa 8576, la cual se formó con germoplasma mejorado por la Misión Técnica Agricola de China (Taiwan) y el Programa de Maiz de Nicaragua. A partir de su incorporación en el proyecto se le denominó \"Población 76\", por tener dicho germoplasma un buen porcentaje de la población TIWF.Las poblaciones se están mejorando bajo esquemas de selección recurrente de líneas SI-S2' Por ser un proyecto colaborativo, el mejoramiento se lleva a cabo en los países participantes, sin embargo la responsabilidad del manejo de cada población le corresponde a un determinado país; por ejemplo, El Salvador maneja la Pobo 73 y Nicaragua maneja la Pobo 76.El primer ciclo se inició generando 400 líneas S, en cada una de las poblaciones; se formaron 4 ensayos con las líneas de cada población para evaluarse en Nicaragua y El Salvador en dos épocas de siembra (una normal y otra tardía bajo alta incidencia de la enfermedad). Las líneas se evaluaron en un diseño de látice simple 20 x 20 con dos repeticiones; siendo el tamaño de la parcela un surco de 5 m de largo. A cada una de las líneas se le tomaron datos de las características agronómicas, reacción al achaparramiento (conteo de plantas y mazorcas afectadas por la enfermedad, calificación de la severidad del daño) y el rendimiento de grano.La información consolidada de las variables medidas se utiliza para efectuar la selección de la fracción superior en cada una de las poblaciones (40 líneas); las cuales se siembran en cada país en la siguiente época para efectuar la recombinación entre líneas S. por medio de hermanos completos. Igualmente se seleccionan en cada ciclo las 10 mejores líneas para formar una variedad sintética experimental. En el proceso selectivo se procura escoger líneas no emparentadas para evitar estrechar la base genética de la población.Las familias de hermanos completos se siembran en la época de alta incidencia de la enfermedad y en cada una de ellas se efectúan autofecundaciones. A los 15 días después de la floración, las autofecundaciones en plantas con sintomatología del achaparramiento se eliminan; las que superan esta selección se cosechan y se utilizan para evaluarse en el siguiente ciclo de mejoramiento.En el tercer ciclo de la Pobo 73 y en el segundo de la Pobo 76, la recombinación de las líneas S, se efectuó con la modalidad de medios hermanos; esto se hizo con la fmalidad de romper grupos de ligamentos indeseables que en el futuro podrían obstaculizar la selección de los caracteres favorables y al mismo tiempo se pretendía disminuir la endogamia en léi población. En las familias de medios hermanos se formaron hermanos completos (cruzas directas y recíprocas) para evaluarlos en ensayos internacionales en diferentes países en dos épocas; una normal y la otra con presión de la enfermedad. Concluída la evaluación internacional de familias de hermanos completos se inició el ciclo normal de selección recurrente.A partir del cuarto ciclo de la Pobo 73 y el tercero de la Pobo 76 las líneas SI se están avanzando a S2; las primeras se siembran en la época de incidencia del achaparramiento en surcos de 6 m de longitud; la mitad del surco se siembra a alta densidad (15 cm entre plantas) para evaluar la línea y en los otros 3 m se siembra a baja densidad (30 cm entre plantas) para efectuar las autofecundaciones. Antes y después de la floración se eliminan las familias indeseables; se seleccionan a la cosecha únicamente las sanas para ser evaluadas en la siguiente época, en ensayos de rendimiento y sanidad. Con esta modificación se están evaluando 225 líneas S2 en surcos de 2.5 m de largo con dos repeticiones en dos localidades y dos épocas de siembra.El progreso del mejoramiento genético de ambas poblaciones se determina indirectamente a través de la evaluación de los sintéticos experimentales desarrollados en los últimos ciclos de selección, junto con las variedades compuestas de cada ciclo, variedades e híbridos tolerantes desarrolladas en años anteriores e híbridos comerciales susceptibles de alto potencial de rendimiento utilizados como testigos de referencia.Los ensayos conformados con estos materiales se evalúan en los países de Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panamá y República Dominicana en épocas normales de siembra y con alta incidencia de la enfem1edad. Se utiliza un diseño de bloques completos al azar con cuatro repeticiones y tamaño de la parcela de 4 surcos de 5 m de largo. A cada entrada se le toma datos de las características agronómicas, reacción al achaparramiento y rendimiento de grano.Análisis de varianza por localidad y combinado, análisis de estabilidad, comparación de medias mediante la prueba de Tukey, contrastes ortogonales, análisis de regresión simple y frecuencias de clases, cálculo de índices de selección y achaparramiento.La selección basada en progenies endocriadas (SI' S2, etc), es teóricamente efectiva para efectuar cambios en la frecuencia de genes con efectos aditivos (Hallauer y Miranda 1981). La efectividad de la selección recurrente practicada en ambas poblaciones para los caracteres rendimiento de grano, plantas y mazorcas afectadas por achaparramiento es evidente.En los Cuadros 1 y 2 se observa que el diferencial de selección se incrementó a través de los ciclos para la variable rendimiento de grano; para el porcentaje de plantas enfermas el diferencial fue negativo; siendo variable debido a la erraticidad de la incidencia de la enfermedad. Los valores negativos demuestran que las líneas seleccionadas para ser recombinadas en el siguiente ciclo acusan mayores niveles de tolerancia a la enfermedad que la población en su totalidad.A través de los ciclos se manifestó progreso en el mejoramiento de los caracteres de importancia económica; lo cual indica que la selección recurrente de líneas SI es efectiva para elinúnar alelos recesivos deletéreos que limitan el progreso en la selección (Córdova et al., 1986). En la fracción seleccionada se observaron ganancias considerables en rendimiento de grano y disminución del daño ocasionado por la enfermedad en plantas y mazorcas, producto de la capitalización de alelos favorables condicionadores de la resistencia Cuadros 1 y 2.En el programa de mejoramiento genético para resistencia al achaparramiento que precedió al actual, (de León et al., 1984) basado en los resultados obtenidos afirmó que un programa de selección recurrente de líneas SI' su evaluación y recombinación de una fracción seleccionada es adecuado para acumular niveles de resistencia estable. El mejoramiento de la Población 73 logrado por medio de la selección, ha aumentado el rendimiento de grano en ambientes con fuerte presión de la enfermedad en un promedio de 0.31 t/ha/ciclo (10.4% por ciclo); éste incremento está asociado con una reducción de 10% por ciclo en el número de plantas afectadas. La regresión entre rendimiento y número de plantas afectadas por achaparramiento determinó que por cada planta enferma se reduce el rendimiento en aproximadamente 75 gramos (Aguiluz y Urbina, 1992). Después de tres ciclos de selección y con moderada incidencia de achaparramiento se obtuvo ganancias de 11 % por ciclo en resistencia a la enfermedad y 4.3% en rendimiento. De acuerdo a los resultados obtenidos se puede inferir que la selección ha sido efectiva en mejorar el comportamiento de los cultivares bajo presión de la enfermedad, pero aparentemente sacrificando un poco el potencial de rendimiento en ambientes óptimos.Al comparar los mejores sintéticos de ambas poblaciones desarrollados en el último ciclo de mejoramiento con otras variedades tolerantes al achaparramiento liberadas comercialmente e híbridos de alto potencial de rendimiento; se nota claramente que los sintéticos SC3P73 N, SC2P76 N y SC3P73 R presentaron mayor rendimiento de grano y menor porcentaje de plantas y mazorcas afectadas por achaparramiento que los testigos NB-6 y H-53 (Cuadro 4); estos resultados demuestran en forma objetiva el progreso alcanzado ya que los cultivares señalados manifiestan superioridad respecto a los testigos de amplio uso por parte de los agricultores.Es importante señalar que los sintéticos presentaron mejor respuesta en ambientes desfavorables con alta incidencia de la enfermedad, sin embargo no pierden su potencial de rendimiento en ambientes favorables. Los sintéticos SC3P73 N, SC2P76 N y SC3P73 R, rindieron igual a los híbridos B-833 y HN-879 en ambientes donde no hubo presión de la enfermedad y en ambientes con alta incidencia de achaparramiento los superaron ampliamente, en algunos casos estas ganancias fueron mayores de 2.0 tiha (>100%) (Cuadro 4).Los cultivares desarrollados en los últimos ciclos de mejoramiento para resistencia al achaparramiento, presentaron un comportamiento diferancial bien marcado con respecto a los híbridos y a las variedades tolerantes en los ambientes con alta incidencia de la enfem1edad. Los sintéticos SC3P73 R y NB-12 fueron los cultivares que sufrieron menos abatimiento del rendimiento al pasar de un ambiente de incidencia de la enfermedad a otro de alta incidencia. Por tanto con esta evidencia se tiene la certeza de que los cultivares puestos a disposición de los agricultores son superiores a los que están utilizando en la actualidad.Cuadro S. Efecto del achaparramiento en el rendimiento de grano en cultivares de maíz evaluados en la estación experimental H. Tapia B., Managua Nicaragua Ounio y septiembre de 1991).Evaluación de Materiales con Resistencia Múltiple a Cogollero, Barrenadores y Achaparramiento Rafael Obando l , Róger Urbina', John A. Mihm 2 y Marcos Mendoza'Con el objetivo de evaluar materiales con resistencia múltiple a cogollero, (Spodoptera jrujiperda Smith) barrenadores (Diatraea spp.) y al achaparramiento transmitido por la chicharrita (Dalbulus maidis D. & W.); se evaluaron cuatro víveros (2 de grano blanco y 2 de grano amarillo, ambos con líneas y cruzas simples) de CIMMYT en la estación experimental Santa Rosa, Nicaragua, en postrera de 1994. Las entradas se evaluaron en dos repeticiones en parcelas de 1 surco de 2.5 m de largo a 0.81 m entre surco y 0.25 m entre posturas. Los víveros se sometieron a infestación natural de plagas; el daño por cogollero se evaluó con una escala de 1-9 (l es poco daño y 9 tiene el cogollo destruido). El dafio de achaparramiento en las plantas se evaluó a los 75 días después de la siembra. A la cosecha se tomó el peso de campo y el número de mazorcas afectadas por achaparramiento. Las cruzas simples presentaron mayores rendimientos de grano. En el vívero de probadores resistentes al achaparramiento de grano blanco la mejor cruza rindió 9.6 tlha, con dafio de cogollero de 5, sin dafio de achaparramiento. Para los materiales de grano amarillo, la mejor cruza rindió 7.9 tlha, con dafio de cogollero de 6 y 15% de plantas con síntomas de achaparramiento y sin mazorcas afectadas por la enfermedad. En los víveros de testigos resistentes a barrenadores, cogollero y achaparramiento, en el de grano blanco la mejor cruza rindió 6.5 tlha con dafio de cogollero de 6, 5% de plantas con síntomas y ninguna mazorca afectada; en el de grano amarillo la mejor cruza rindió 5.8 t/ha, dafio de cogollero 6 , 21 % de plantas afectadas y 5% de mazorcas con síntomas de achaparramiento. Los resultados del estudio revelan buenas posibilidades de obtener en el futuro cultivares con niveles aceptables de resistencia múltiple a estas plagas.Entre los factores que afectan en mayor grado el rendimiento de grano en maíz en Nicaragua, se encuentran las plagas conocidas como cogollero (Spodoptera frugiperda J.E. Smith), barrenadores (Diatraea spp.) y el achaparramiento producido por micoplasmas y spiroplasmas transmitidos por el vector chicharrita del maíz (Dalbulus maidis D.& W.).Desde hace algunos años, el programa de Entomología (Resistencia de la Planta Huésped) del CIMMYT ha estado formando poblaciones de maíz para obtener resistencia múltiple a este complejo de plagas. Ya no se puede aceptar la idea que el desarrollo de plantas con buenas características agronómicas y alto rendimiento es suficiente para obtener resistencia automáticamente. Además, ya no se debe confiar a ciegas en los plaguicidas, los insectos desarrollan resistencia a ellos. Por tanto, se debe diseñar una serie de prácticas de combate en la que intervengan la resistencia de las plantas (Maxwell y Jennings, 1984).Entre los mecanismos de variabilidad en las plantas que se pueden usar para seleccionar resistencia se encuentran la hibridación y la herencia citoplásmica. Los avances en la genética y las evidentes ventajas de evitar pérdidas por las plagas y enfermedades de las plantas por el simple hecho de sembrar una variedad resistente en vez de una susceptible, hacen posible y muy deseable la producción de variedades resistentes (Agrios, 1989).En la postrera de 1993, con poblaciones naturales de plagas y enfermedades, en Nicaragua y El Salvador se tomaron datos en líneas derivadas de tres poblaciones; Pob.21 X Antigua, Pob.76 X RIM-BCA Pob.76 X RIM-Cogollero. Se identificaron líneas con resistencia múltiple a cogollero y achapimamiento en las 3 poblaciones. Estos datos combinados con calificaciones de resistencia a barrenadores bajo infestación artificial en CIMMYT-México, permitirá identificar líneas con resistencia múltiple a las tres plagas. Las líneas seleccionadas se usarán para avanzarlas a mayores niveles de endogamia, sintéticos e híbridos experimentales, así como para formar una población que se usará en el mejoramiento para resistencia múltiple a estas plagas (Mihm et al., 1994).El objetivo del presente estudio es evaluar la sanidad y el rendimiento de grano de germoplasma de maíz con resistencia múltiple a cogollero, barrenadores y achaparramiento.Procedentes de CIMMYT México, en la época de postrera (7 de octubre de 1994) se sembraron en la estación experimental Santa Rosa Nicaragua, cuatro viveros 2 de grano blanco y 2 de grano amarillo, cada uno formado por líneas y cruzas simples. Los viveros sembrados fueron: l. Probadores resistentes al achaparramiento, de grano blanco con 20 entradas (15 líneas y 5 cruzas simples). 2. Probadores resistentes al achaparramiento, de grano amarillo, con 29 entradas (cruzas simples). 3. Testigos resistentes al achaparramiento, barrenadores y cogollero, de. grano blanco, con 67 entradas (34 líneas y 33 cruzas simples). 4. Testigos resistentes al achaparramiento, barrenadores y cogollero, de grano amarillo, con 90 entradas (48 líneas y 42 cruzas simples).Cada vivero se evalúo con 2 repeticiones, sembrando cada entrada en un surco de 2.5 m de largo, espaciados a 0.81 m y entre planta 0.25 m. No se hizo ningún control de plagas para evaluar el daño ocasionado por las poblaciones naturales en los viveros. El daño de cogollero se evaluó en el follaje antes de la emergencia de la espiga, usando la escala de 1-9 (Mihm, 1984), la cual se describe a continuación: l. Pocos agujeritos 2. Varios o muchos agujeritos 3. Pocos agujeritos y 1 ó 2 lesiones elongadas 4. Varios agujeritos y unas cuantas lesiones elongadas 5. Varios agujeritos y lesiones elongadas 6. Muchos agujeritos, varias lesiones elongadas y unas cuantas porciones comidas 7. Varias lesiones, porciones comidas y áreas muriendo. 8. Lesiones elongadas, porciones comidas y áreas muriendo. 9. Cogollo casi todo comido, varias lesiones y áreas muriendo.La evaluación del daño de achaparramiento se hizo en plantas y en mazorcas. A los 79 días de sembrado se anotó el número de plantas que presentaba algún síntoma visible de achaparramiento. Al momento de la cosecha se anotó el número de mazorcas afectadas. Se calculó la heterosis y los coeficientes de correlación simple entre las variables en estudio, daño de cogollero, porcentaje de mazorcas y plantas achaparradas y al rendimiento de grano.Las cinco mejores cruzas que presentaron el mejor rendimiento de grano de este vivero se presentan en el Cuadro l. Solamente la cruza con el mayor rendimiento de grano superó la media de este grupo indicando que una sola cruza se separó muy por encima del resto. La mejor cruza presentó el valor más bajo de daño de cogollero, incluso debajo de la media, mientras que las otra presentaron daños de cogollero arriba de la media. La mejor cruza no presentó daño de achaparramiento en plantas ni en mazorcas, mientras que las otras presentaron daños en plantas y en mazorcas o solamente en plantas (Cuadro 1). Todas estas cualidades de la mejor cruza, menor daño de cogollero y sin daño de achaparramiento hicieron que se manifestara en el mejor rendimiento de grano, muy por encima de las demás.Las líneas que presentaron los mejores rendimientos de grano, no fueron los progenitores de las cruzas simples evaluadas (Cuadro 1). Esto indica que este grupo de materiales se debe seguir evaluando para seleccionar las mejores líneas que formarán otros nuevos materiales. Se encontró una correlación negativa y altamente significativa entre daño de cogollero y rendimiento lo mismo que entre porcentaje de plantas achaparradas y rendimiento de grano. También se encontró una correlación positiva y altamente significativa entre daño de cogollero y porcentaje de plantas achaparradas (Cuadro 1). Esto indica que tanto el daño de achaparramiento en plantas como el daño de cogollero están disminuyendo significativamente el rendimiento de grano y que los materiales que presentan el mayor daño de achaparramiento también presentan el mayor daño de cogollero al 0.01 de probabilidad.El rendimiento de grano, las diez mejores cruzas formaron un grupo más o menos homogéneo, el cual supera a la media (5.5 t/ha) entre 12 y 43%. El daño de cogollero oscila alrededor de la media entre 2 y 18% sobre la media. El daño de achaparramiento en plantas y en mazorcas fue menor en los materiales que ocuparon los primeros lugares. A medida que el rendimiento de grano disminuye alejándose del primer lugar el daño de achaparramiento aumenta (Cuadro 2).Se encontró una correlación negativa y altamente significativa porcentaje de mazorcas achaparradas y porcentaje de plantas achaparradas con el rendimiento de grano. También se encontró una correlación positiva y altamente significativa entre el porcentaje de plantas achaparradas y el porcentaje de mazorcas achaparradas (Cuadro 2). Esto indica que el achaparramiento disminuye significativamente el rendimiento de grano y que el aumento en el porcentaje de plantas achaparrados produce también un aumento en el porcentaje de mazorcas afectadas al 0.01 de probabilidad.Las diez mejores cruzas superaron la media del rendimiento (4.7 tlha) entre 3 y 39% Y presentaron heterosis entre 85 y 415% en relación al mejor progenitor. El dai10 de cogollero presentó valores negativos en los porcentajes de heterosis en la mayoría de los casos, aunque también hubieron casos neutros y positivos. El achaparramiento en plantas en todos los casos presentó valores de heterosis negativos y el achaparramiento en mazorcas presentó valores variados siendo la mayoría negativos (Cuadro 3). Estos resultados indican que las ganancias obtenidas en el rendimiento de grano por heterosis son altas, hasta de 415% en relación al mejor progenitor. Indica también que los mejores materiales en rendimiento de grano resultaron de la mayor disminución por heterosis en el daño de achaparramiento en plantas.Se encontró una correlación negativa y altamente significativa entre dai10 de cogollero, mazorcas achaparradas y plantas achaparradas con rendimiento de grano. También se encontró correlación positiva y altamente significativa dai10 de Cogollero con mazorcas achaparradas, dai10 de cogollero con plantas achaparradas y plantas achaparradas con mazorcas achaparradas (Cuadro 3). Estos valores de correlación indican que el dalio de cogollero y achaparramiento en mazorcas y plantas disminuye significativamente el rendimiento de grano. Indican también que las plantas susceptibles al dalio de Cogollero también son susceptibles al daÍ'io de achaparramiento en plantas y en mazorcas.  --------------------------------------Mejor Progenitor Cuadro 4. Mejores materiales identificados en el v(vero testigos resistentes al achaparramiento, barrenadores y cogollero de granD amarillo. Santa Rosa, Nic.ragua, 1994 B. Las diez mejores cruzas superaron la media del rendimiento de grano (4099 Kg/ha) entre 2 y 33% Y presentaron una heterosis entre 54 y 528%. El dana de cogollero present6 valores de heterosis negativos en la mayoria de los casos, aunque tambien hubo valores neutros y positivos. El achaparramiento en plantas en todos los casos present6 valores de heterosis negativos, mientras que el achaparramiento en mazorcas present6 valores de heterosis variados siendo la mayoria positivos (Cuadro 4).Estos resultados indican que las ganancias obtenidas por heterosis en el rendimiento de grano son altas, hasta de 528%, en relaci6n al mejor progenitor. Indica tambien los mejores materiales en rendimiento de grano estuvieron influenciados por la mayor disminuci6n por heterosis en el dana de achaparramiento en plantas. CONCLUSIONES I. El rendimiento de grano en las cruzas se increment6 hasta en 528% en relaci6n al mejor progenitor. El dana de cogollero y achaparramiento en las cruzas disminuy6 por efecto de la heterosis, aunque' tambien hay casos en los cuales aument6. 25 2. El rendimiento de grano de las mejores cruzas fueron las que presentaron la mayor heterosis negativa en el dana de achaparramiento en plantas. Se encontr6 correlaci6n negativa y significativa entre el rendimiento de grano con las tres variables estudiadas; dana de cogollero, achaparramiento en planta y mazorca.3. Los materiales susceptibles al achaparramiento en planta tambien fueron susceptibles al achaparramiento en mazorca y dana de cogollero.Salvador Castellanos! y Luis Larios 2   La prueba de cruzas hibridas experimentales es importante para identificar nuevas combinaciones hfbridas que puedan ser utilizadas comercialmente. En 1994, el Programa de Maiz de ICTA realiz6 evaluaciones en tres ambientes de Guatemala de cuatro ensayos de hibridos (2 de grano amarillo y 2 de grano blanco) en colaboraci6n con CIMMYT, por medio del Programa Regional de Maiz (PRM). Los objetivos fueron: 1) identificar el potencial de cruces simples, triples y dobles de grano blanco y amarillo generados por CIMMYT en ambientes del tr6pico bajo de Guatemala; 2) identificar cruces hibridos y/o Iineas con potencial como cultivares per se 0 para incorporar germoplasma elite al ICTA. En general, los hibridos cruzas simples fueron superiores a los testigos incluidos, como era esperado por tener una mayor heterosis, sin embargo; estos hibridos no son una alternativa potencial a corto plazo para el agricultor tipico de Guatemala, por el alto costo de la semilla certificada. Los hibridos triples experimentales superiores se comportaron similares en potencial de rendimiento a los testigos comerciales y/o experimentales delICTA incluidos en las evaluaciones. Las Iineas que conformaron los hibridos simples y triples superiores se considera germoplasma basico para ser incorporado al ICTA y de esa forma estructurar nuevos cruzamiento con otras fuentes de germoplasma elite.El exito de la fonnacion de hibridos se da a traves del conocimiento de los mecanismos que controlan la herencia del rendimiento, siendo varios los aspectos importantes: la relacion de los efectos geneticos y como estos contribuyen a la heterosis total obtenida en una cruza determinada. El desarrollo de hibridos de maiz en escala comercial, puede involucrar la formacion de progenitores endogamicos y no endagamicos 0 una combinacion de los dos anteriores, variando el numero de sus componentes que puede ir de un minimo de dos a un maximo de cuatro padres. Los hibridos se pueden agrupar en dos grandes clases: hibridos convencionales y no convencionales (Vasal et. aI., 1988).El PRM ha generado hibridos experimentales con el Postdoctorado, Programa de Maiz, CIMjvlYT-Mexico; 2Fitomejorador, Programa de Maiz ICTA, Guatemala. DEL PRM 1993-95, VOL.5 (1997), p. 26-29. objetivo que los programas nacionales puedan utilizarlos de acuerdo a sus intereses, con el proposito de encontrar hibridos convencionales con alto rendimiento y buena adaptacion. Con este objetivo se establecieron cuatro ensayos de lubridos experimentales de grana amarillo y blanco en el tropico bajo de Guatemala para: 1) evaluar el potencial de cruces lubridos simples y triples de grano amarillo generados por CIMMYT, 2) identificar cruces hibridos y/o lineas con potencial como cultivares per-se o para incorporar gennoplasma elite al Programa de Maiz de ICTA, 3) mantener el vinculo de colaboracion en doble via con el CIMMYT para obtener informacion que sirva de base en la generacion de gennoplasma para el desarrollo de lubridos convencionales de lineas con adaptacion a la region de Centro America y el Caribe, y 4) continuar evaluando y desarrollando germoplasma del CIMMYT, como parte de las actividades del Proyecto de hibridos del PRM, donde el Programa delICTA coordina las actividades a nivel regional.Dentro de las actividades incluidas en el Plan Operativo 1994 del PRM, se consideraron cuarro diferentes ensayos proporcionados por el CIMMYT que incluyeron cruces simples y triples entre lineas elite de grano amarillo desarrollados por ese centro de investigacion. La evaluacion de estos ensayos se llevo a cabo durante el ciclo de temporal de 1994 en diferentes ambientes de Centro America y el Caribe, contandose con el apoyo fmanciero compartido entre los diferentes programas nacionales y el PRM. En este infonne unicamente se presenta la infonnacion obtenida de las evaluaciones conducidas en Guatemala.Los ensayos en mencion, CHTTY-94 y CHTIW-94, con 20 entradas en un disefio de bloques completos al azar con 4 repeticiones; el segundo set HTY-94 y HTW-94 con 25 entradas bajo un disefio de lattice simple 5X5 con 4 repeticiones. Los ensayos CHTTY-94 y CHTIW-94 fueron evaluados en las estaciones experimentales del ICTA en Cuyuta, y San Jeronimo, asi como tambien un ensayo conducido con fmanciamiento propio de la Compania Cristiani Burkard S.A. en la Finca Las Vegas en Tiquisate. En el caso de los ensayos HTY-94 y HTW-94 se condujeron en las estaciones del ICTA en Cuyuta y San Jeronimo.Los ensayos conducidos por ICTA tuvieron como parcela experimental I surco de 5 m de largo y el de Cristiani Burkard 2 surcos de 5 m, espaciados en todos los casos a 0.75 m entre surcos a una densidad de 5.33 plantas por m 2 • EI manejo agronornico de los ensayos respecto a control de plagas, malezas y fertilizacion dependio de la incidencia y las recomendaciones de investigacion de cada una de las localidades.EI germoplasma incluia lineas con diferentes estados de endogarnia y/o familias de hermanos completos derivadas de las poblaciones 24, 27, 36, 28, 79, Sintetico Amarillo para los hibridos arnarillos; y para los hibridos blancos lineas derivadas de las poblaciones 21, 22, 29 y 43, las cuales presentan adaptacion potencial para ambientes de Centro America y EI Caribe. como tambien caracteristicas agronornicas expresadas. Los hibridos superiores seleccionados y los dos testigos no mostraron diferencias significativas seglin la prueba de Tukey (P<O.05) en base al analisis combinado (datos no incluidos). Los mejores hibridos incluyeron cruzas simples (CS) y cruzas triples (CT).En los Cuadros 4 y 5 se incluyen los cuadrados medios por localidad y a traves de localidades para rendimiento en los dos ensayos HTY-94 y HTW-94. Se observa en el Cuadro 4 que se obtuvo alta significancia tanto a nivel de localidades como en el combinado, siendo la fuente de variacion localidades la que mas contribuyo a la varianza. La alta significancia para la interaccion Loc. x Trat. indica la respuesta diferencial de los genotipos en los dos ambientes de evaluacion. Los Cuadros 2 y 3 presentan el rendimiento de grano obtenido en cada localidad y a traves de localidades de los hibridos experimentales superiores comparados can los testigos incluidos en los ensayos CHTTY-94 y CHTTW-94. Para identificar los hibridos superiores que se incluyen en los Cuadros 2 y 3 se tomo en cuenta la informacion del tipo de hibrido, asi EI Cuadro 1 muestra los cuadrados medios por localidad y a traves de localidades para rendirniento de grano de los ensayos CHITY-94 y CHTIW-94. Los cuadrados medios del infieren que se observo diferencias altamente significativas para todas las fuentes de variacion incluidas tanto a nivel de localidad como en el amilisis combinado. La fuente de variacion localidades fue la que mas contribuyo a la variacion total, 10 que demuestra 10 contrastante de los ambientes de evaluacion. La significancia de la interaccion Loc x Trat infiere que la expresion de los genotipos evaluados es diferente en los distintos ambientes, aunque esta es demasiado pequeiia. En cuanto a la significancia de tratamiento demuestra que existen genotipos que estan mostrando diferente comportamiento en los ambientes evaluados.La informacion de campo colectada en cada ensayo de evaluacion fue el rendimiento de grana al 15% de humedad y las caracteristicas agronomicas de los distintos genotipos involucrados. Para la interpretacion de la informacion obtenida, se hizo amilisis de varianza por localidad y combinado a traves de localidades para rendimiento ajustando los datos por covarianza, asi como tambien las medias a traves de localidades de aquellas caracteristicas agronomicas de interes. Cuadro 3. Rendimiento de grano (tlha) de 6 bfbridos Cuadro S. Rendimiento de grano (tlha) de 9 hfbridos superiores en CHTTW-94 evalnados en 3 localidades de superiores en el ensayo HTY-94 evalnado en 2 localidades Guatemala, 1994. de Guatemala, 1994. Ent.Hib. Cuy. S.J. En los Cuadros 5 y 6 se presenta el rendimiento de grano en cada localidad a traves de localidades de los 9 hibridos experirnentales superiores comparados con los testigos incluidos en los ensayos HTY-94 HTW-94. Para esta seleccion se tomo en cuenta el rendimiento y caracteristicas agronomicas, asi como el tipo de hibrido (CS 0 CT)L os hibridos superiores y los testigos que se presentan en los Cuadros 5 y 6 no mostraron diferencias significativas en base a la prueba de Tukey (P<O.05) del amilisis combinado. En su mayoria los hibridos superiores correspondieron a CS como esperado. Estas CS no son altemativas inmediatas para el agricultor tipico productor de maiz en Guatemala por el costo que representa la semilla certificada de CS's, sin embargo la informacion obtenida tiene su importancia inmediata para identificar lineas elites como gennoplasma para involucrarlo en otros cruzarnientos dentro del prograrna de hibridos de ICTA.Los cruces triples superiores que se muestran en los Cuadros 5 y 6 expresaron rendimientos similares a los testigos, especialmente con el Exp. 9122 (Cuadro 5) y HB-83M (Cuadro 6), como tales no constituyen una altemativa en el corto plazo, sin embargo al igual que en los cruces simples. Las lineas que conforman los mejores hibridos triples pueden constituir germoplasma valioso para continuar estructurando nuevos cruces. CONCLUSIONES Y RECOMENDACIONES 1. Los hibridos superiores en los 4 ensayos de este estudio (CHTTY-94, CHTTW-94, HTY-94 y HTW-94) fueron cruzas simples como esperado, sin embargo, debido al alto costo de la semilla certificada, estos hibridos no son una altemativa a corto plazo para Guatemala.2. En general, los hibridos triples experirnentales se comportaron similares en potencial de rendimiento a los testigos comerciales y/o experimentales delICTA inc1uidos en las evaluaciones.3. Las Iineas que conformaron las cruzas simples y triples que expresaron potencial de rendimiento aceptable, se considera germoplasma valioso para involucrarlo en los programas de mejoramiento del ICTA y estructurar nuevos cruzamientos con otras fuentes elite con que cuenta el proyecto.Allard, R.W. 1980. Principios de la mejora genetica de las plantas. Trad. al espanol por Jose L. Montoya. Ed. Omega, S.A. Barcelona, Espana. Cap. 22.Mario Fuentes', Luis Larios•, Jose Luis Queme•, Carlos Perez' y Salvador Castellanos! RESUMEN EI objetivo de este trabajo es evaluar cruces dialelicos de 10 Iineas elite de grana blanco del Programa Regional de Maiz (PRM), estimar los efectos de aptitud combinatoria general y especifica (ACG y ACE) Y realizar predicciones de rendimiento de cruces triples y dobles dentro del esquema del esquema de desarrollo de hibridos. Se establecieron ensayos con 49 tratamientos (45 cruces y 4 testigos) en un diseilo de hitice triple 7x7 a traves de localidades en Guatemala, Mexico y Nicaragua. Los valores de ACG y ACE se obtuvieron a traves del diseilo cuatro de Griffing y la predicci6n de hibridos con el metodo B de Jenkins. Los resultados indican diferencias significativas entre los diferentes tratamientos por localidad y a traves de localidades. Se identificaron cruces simples con rendimientos entre 4.99 y 5.75 t1ha que superan al testigo HB-85 hasta en 17%. En relaci6n a los efectos de ACG, las Iineas 1 y 7 derivadas de las poblaciones 21 y 29 presentaron efectos positivos de 0.50 y 0.72 tlha, respectivamente. Los cruces 5x3, 9x8 y 10x2 obtuvieron los mayores efectos de ACE con 1.12, 0.95 y 0.68 t1ha, respectivamente. La predicci6n de hibridos triples y dobles te6ricamente superan hasta en 11 y 8% al testigo. Se sugiere evaluar los hibridos predichos en ensayos regionales para verificar los resultados.EI conocimiento de la capacidad combinatoria de lineas endocriadas de maiz aporta la informacion basica al mejorador en los programas de formacion de hibridos. Los conceptos de ACG y ACE fueron introducidos por Sprague y Tatun (1942). En la pnictica estos permiten seleccionar lineas con buen comportamiento promedio en una serie de cruzarnientos e identificar combinaciones hibridas especificas con un comportamiento superior a 10 esperado en base al promedio de las lineas que intervienen en el cruzarniento.Los diseiios de apareamiento conocido como dialelos han sido ampliamente utilizados cuandose requiere conocer la aptitud combinatoria de un grupo selecto de lTecnicos del Programa de Maiz, ICTA, Guatemala; 2Postdoctorado, Progama de Maiz, CIMMYT-Mexico.Publicado en SiNTESIS DE RESULTADOS EXPERIMENTALES DEL PRM 1993-95, VOL. 5 (1997), p. 30-34. lineas endocriadas. Griffmg (1956), presento los detalles del amilisis diah~lico para modelos fijos (Modelo I) y para modelos aleatorios (Modelo II). El modelo I ha sido el de mayor aplicacion cuando el mejorador esta interesado en conocer la capacidad combinatoria de un grupo en particular de lineas, las cuales son consideradas como la poblacion sobre la cual se haran inferencias. Los cruzamientos dialelicos en base al Metodo 4 de Griffmg, ensaya un nillnero de P x (P-l) / 2 cruzas FI posibles, pero no toma en cuenta el efecto materno y permite identificar las cruzas que presente mejores caracteristicas agronomicas deseables.Los hibridos convencionales de lineas endocriadas se presentan como una alternativa para incrementar el rendimiento del maiz y utilizar eficientemente la heterosis en areas con condiciones ambientales favorables y buen manejo agronomico. El PRM ha enfatizado el desarrollo de hibridos triples y dobles por la accesibilidad del insumo semilla por parte de los agricultores debido al bajo costa en relacion al uso de semilla proveniente de la cruza simple.Los objetivos especificos de este trabajo son: I) estimar los efectos de aptitud combinatoria general y especifica; 2) realizar predicciones de rendimiento de cruzas dobles y triples a partir de la informacion de las cruzas simples; y 3) generar hibridos con potencial de adaptacion a las diferentes regiones maiceras de Centro America y el Caribe.Se utilizaron 10 lineas de material genetico diverso del Programa Regional de Maiz (PRM). Estas 10 lineas fueron identificadas en los ensayos regionales de 1993 en base a la mejor aptitud combinatoria a traves de diferentes localidades de Centro America y El Caribe. El Cuadro 1 describe el origen y grado de endogarnia de las lineas en estudio que sirvieron para formar el dialelo de 45 cruzas simples (CS). Las condiciones de manejo agronomico de los ensayos en relacion al control de plagas, malezas y fertilizacion dependio de la incidencia y de las recomendaciones de investigaci6n de cada localidad en evaluacion.Se obtuvieron datos del rendimiento del grano y de caracteristicas agronomicas, como altura de planta y de mazorca, porcentaje de mazorcas con mala cobertura, porcentaje de mazorcas podridas, porcentaje de acame, etc. Se realizaro un amilisis de varianza individual y combinado a traves de localidades para rendiniieJr.<) al 15% de humedad. Los datos se ajustai:on por covarianza.Se calcularon estimaciones de aptitud combinatoria general (ACG) y especifica (ACE) de las lineas y cruzas involucradas. ACG es la media de las cruzas de una linea media general de todas las cruzas y ACE es el rendimiento de una cruza media general de todas las cruzas ACG de un padre ACG del otro padre de la cruza. El amilisis dialelico se realizo con el paquete estadistico Diallel.exe que incluye el metodo cuatro de Griffmg, el cmil evaluo (P(P-l )/2) cruzas posibles en un solo sentido. Con los resultados de las cruzas simples se realizo la prediccion de hibridos de cuatro y tres vias basado en el metodo B de Jenkins. cruces hibridos.Las cruzas con efectos positivos de ACE tambien mostraron altos rendimientos en las localidades en evaluacion. El metodo B de Jenkins selecciono las mejores cruzas simples para realizar la prediccion de hibridos dobles y triples que se presentan en el Cuadro 7 y que posteriormente se evaluaran extensivamente a traves de diferentes ambientes de Centro America y EI Caribe.hibridos dobles predichos presentan rendimientos entre 5.10-5.28 tlha y equivale a 4-8'% de heterosis en relacion al testigo HB-85. Mientras que los hibridos triples predichos rinden entre 5.23-5.44 tlha que equivale a 6-11 % sobre el testigo. EI rendimiento de la cruza simple de la hembra que conformaria el futuro hibrido oscila entre 4.12-5.13 tlha. Este factor es de importancia economica considerando la expectativa en el futuro de la produccion comercial de la semilla hibrida.Cuadro 2. Analisis de varianza para rendimiento (t/ha) en las localidades en evaluacion, PRM 1994. Cuadro 1. Descripcion de las 10 /ineas de maiz de grano blanco que originaron a las cruzas dialelicas, PRI\\1 1994. La localidad de Cuyuta, Guatemala presento el mayor rendimiento con 5.21 tlha. Nicaragua fue la localidad con menor rendimiento con 3.50 tlha. Los coeficientes de variacion oscilaron entre 11 y 23%, respectivamente. El Cuadro 3 presenta el rendimiento de las 8 cruzas simples superiores por localidad y a traves de localidades.El Cuadro 2 presenta el amilisis de vananza por localidad y combinado a traves de localidades para rendimiento del grano (tlha). Se observan diferencias altamente significativas entre los tratamientos por localidad y a traves de localidades. La interaccion Loc x Trat (LxT) fue significativa e indica que las cruzas simples presentan diferente comportamiento a traves de localidades. El mayor porcentaje de la variacion se debe a la localidad con cuadrados medios de 107.52... : Significaliyo 31 1% de probabilidad El Cuadro 5 presenta la ~stimacion del efecto de aptitud combinatoria general (ACG). Las lineas 1,4 y 7 presentan ACG positiva equivalente a 0.49, 0.34 Y0.72 tlha, respectivamente. Las otras lineas expresan estimaciones negativas. El efecto de aptitud combinatoria especifica se presenta en el Cuadro 6. Los mayores efectos positivos se identificaron entre las cruzas 5x3, 9x8 y IOx2 con valores de 1.12, 0.95 y 0.68 tlha, respectivamente. Estos resultados indican que se han identificado cruzas entre lineas divergentes que pueden incrementar la heterosis al conformar nuevos EI objetivo de este trabajo es evaluar cruces dialelicos de 10 !ineas elite de grano amarillo del Programa Regional de Maiz (PRM), estimar los efectos de aptitud combinatoria general y especifica (ACG y ACE) Y realizar predicciones de rendimiento de cruces triples y dobles dentro del esquema del esquema de desarrollo de hibridos. Se establecieron ensayos con 49 tratamientos (45 cruces y 4 testigos) en un diseiio de latice triple 7x7 a traves de localidades en Guatemala y CIMMYT, Mexico. Los valores de ACG y ACE se obtuvieron a traves del diseiio cuatro de Griffing y la prediccion de hibridos con el metodo B de Jenkins. Los resultados indican diferencias significativas entre los tratamientos por localidad y a traves de localidades. Se identificaron cruzas simples con rendimientos entre 5.04 y 5.59 tlha que superan al testigo HA-46 en 6%. En relacion a los efectos de ACG, las !ineas 3 y 4 derivadas de la Poblacion 36 y 24 presentaron efectos positivos de 2.05 y 2.79 tlha, respectivamente. Las cruzas 5x3, 7x3 y 4xl obtuvieron los mayores efectos de ACE con 0.86, 0.73 Y 0.61 tlha, respectivamente. Se efectuo prediccion de hibridos triples que teoricamente superan en 6% al testigo. Se sugiere evaluar los hibridos predichos en ensayos regionales para verificar los resultados.El conocmuento de la capacidad combinatoria de lineas endocriadas de maiz aporta la informacion basica al mejorador en los programas de formacion de hibridos. Los conceptos de ACG y ACE fueron introducidos por Sprague y Tatun (1942). En la pnictica estos permiten seleccionar lineas con buen comportarniento promedio en una serie de cruzarnientos e identificar combinaciones hibridas especificas con un comportarniento superior a 10 esperado en base al promedio de las lineas que intervienen en el cruzarniento.Los disefios de aparearniento conocido como dialelos han sido ampliamente utilizados cuando se requiere conocer la aptitud combinatoria de un grupo selecto de lineas endocriadas. Griffmg (1956), presento los detalles del amilisis dialelico para modelos fijos (Modelo I) y para modelos aleatorios (Modelo II). EI modelo I ha sido el de mayor aplicacion cuando el mejorador esta interesado en conocer la capacidad combinatoria de un grupo en particular de lineas, los euales son considerados como la poblacion sobre la cual se haran inferencias. Los cruzamientos dialelicos en base al Metodo 4 de Griffing, ensaya un mimero de P x (P-I) / 2 cruzas FI posibles, pero no toma en cuenta el efecto materno y permite identificar las cruzas que presente mejores caracteristicas agronomicas deseables.Los hibridos convencionales de lineas endocriadas se presenta como una alternativa tecno16gica para incrementar el rendimiento del maiz y utilizar eficientemente la heterosis en areas con condiciones ambientales favorables y buen manejo agronomico. El PRM ha enfatizado en el desarrollo de hibridos triples y dobles por la accesibilidad del insumo semilla por parte de los agricultores debido al bajo costo en relacion al uso de semilla proveniente de cruza simple.Los objetivos especificos de este trabajo son: I) estimar los efectos de aptitud combinatoria general y especifica; 2) realizar predicciones de rendimiento de cruzas dobles y triples a partir de la informacion de las cruzas simples; y 3) generar hibridos con potencial de adaptacion a las diferentes regiones maiceras de Centro America y el Caribe.Se utilizaron 10 lineas de material genetico diverso del Programa Regional de Maiz (PRM). Estas 10 lineas fueron identifcadas en los ensayos regionales de 1993 en base a la mejor aptitud combinatoria a traves de diferentes localidades de Centro America y el Caribe. El Cuadro 1 describe el origen y grado de endogamia de las lineas en estudio que sirvieron para formar un dialelo de 45 cruzas simples (CS). Las condiciones de manejo agronornico de los ensayos en relacion al control de plagas, malezas y fertilizacion dependi6 dela incidencia y de las recomendaciones de investigaci6n de cada localidad en evaluacion. Cuadro I. Descripcion de las 10 lineas de mafz de grano amarillo que ori~inaron las cruzas dialelicas, PRM 1994. Los ensayos se realizaron en Cuyuta y CIMMYT, Mexico. Se utilizo el disei'io de hitice triple 7x7 con tres repeticiones. Se evaluaron 45 cruzas simples y 4 testigos. La parcela experimental consistio de dos surcos de maiz de 5 m de longitud. La parcela titil fue de 44 plantas que equivale a una densidad de poblacion de 5.30 plantas/m!. Los ensayos se ubicaron en localidades comprendidas entre 0-1000 msnm en el cicio de junio-octubre de 1994.Se obtllvieron datos del rendimiento del grano y de caracteristicas agronomicas, como: altura de planta y de mazorca, porcentaje de mazorcas con mala cobertura, porcentaje de mazorcas podridas, porcentaje de acame, etc. Se realizaro un analisis de varianza individual y combinado a traves de localidades para rendimiento al 15'% de humedad. Los datos se ajllstaron por covarianza.Se calcularon estimaciones de aptitud combinatoria general (ACG) y especifica (ACE) de las lineas y cruzas involucradas para rendimiento. ACG es la media de las CIUzas de una linea media general de todas las cruzas y ACE es el rendimiento de una cruza media general de todas las cruzas ACG de un padre otro padre de la CIUza.EI amilisis diaIelico se realizo con el paquete estadistico Diallel.exe que incluye eI metodo cuatro de Griffing, el cual evaluo (P(P-I )/2) cruzas posibles en un solo sentido. Con los resultados de las cruzas simples se realizo la prediccion de hibridos de cuatro y tres vias basado en el metodo B de Jenkins.EI Cuadro 2 presenta el amilisis de varianza por localidad y combinado a traves de localidades para 36 rendimiento del grano en tlha. Se observaron diferencias altamente significativas entre los tratarnientos por localidad y a traves de localidades. La interaccion Loc X Trat (LxT) fue significativa e indica que las cruzas simples presentaron diferente comportarniento a traves de localidades. El mayor porcentaje de la variacion se debe al efecto del cuadrado medio de localidad con 98.56. La localidad de Cuyuta, Guatemala presento el mayor rendimiento con 3.53 tlha, mientras que la localidad de CIMMYT-Mexico rindio 2.38 tlha. Los coeficientes de variacion oscilaron entre II y 17%, respectivamente. EI Cuadro 3 presenta el rendimiento en tlha de las 8 cruzas simples superiores por localidad y a traves de localidades. EI rendimiento expresado por las cruzas simples oscilo entre 5.04-5.59 tlha comparado con el testigo HA-46, que rindio 5.25 tlha. Las cruzas simples no presentan diferencias significativa en relacion al testigo, aunque algunas cruzas 10 superan hasta en 6%.El Cuadro 4 presenta el analisis combinado del dialelo para la variable rendimiento de las 10 lineas de maiz. Los efectos de ACG y ACE son altamente significativos y provocan efectos aditivos y de dominancia, respectivamente. La varianza no aditiva adquiere importancia en las cruzas entre progenitores no emparentados por obtener mayor expresion de efectos heteroticos.En el Cuadro 5 se presenta la estimacion del efecto de aptitud combinatoria general (ACG). Las lineas 3 y 4 presentan ACG positiva equivalente a 2.05 y 2.79 t/ha, respectivamente. Las lineas restantes expresan estimaciones negativas. EI efecto de aptitud combinatoria especifica se presenta en el Cuadro 6. Los mayores efectos positivos se identificaron entre las CIUzas 5x3, 7x3 y lOx4 con valores de 0.86, 0.73 y 0.75 t/ha, respectivamente. Estos resultados indican que se han identificado cruzas entre lineas divergentes que pueden contribuir a incrementar la heterosis al conformar nuevos cruces hibridos.Las cruzas con efectos positivos de ACE tambien mostraron altos rendimientos en las localidades en evaluacion. El metodo B de Jenkins selecciono las mejores cruzas simples para realizar la predicci6n de hibridos. Solamente se identificaron hibridos triples que superan al testigo HA-46 que se presentan en el Cuadro 7 y que posteriormente se evaluaran extensivamente a traves de diferentes ambientes de Centro America y EI Caribe. Los hibridos triples predichos rinden entre 5.23 y 5.54 tlha que equivale hasta 6% sobre el testigo. El rendimiento de la cruza simple de la hembra que conformaria el futuro hibrido oscila entre 4.92-5.58 tlha. Este factor es de importancia econ6mica considerando la expectativa en el futuro de la producci6n comercial de la semilla hibrida.1. Se iden~ificaron las !ineas 3 y 4 (4313 Y4315 CUY 94A) con estimados de ACG de 2.05 y 2.79 tlha.2. Las mejores 8 cruzas simples expresaron rendimientos de 5.04 a 5.59 tlha y superaron en hasta 6% al testigo HA-46.3. Se identificaron cruces simples con estimados hasta de 0.86 tJha de ACE. Estos cruces se pueden considerar en cruces dirigidos con otras lineas del Proyecto.   En 1994, CIMMYT inici6 la evaluad6n de hfbridos tropicales en ensayos internadonales. Los hfbridos fueron codificados usando el sistema de nomenclatura del CIMMYT, sin embargo, la genealogfa completa fue suministrada a los Programas Nadonales colaboradores en las hojas maestras. En 1994 y 1995, los ensayos estuvieron conformados por 20 entradas. En el primer allo fueron incluidos como testigos una variedad de referenda y dos hfbridos locales, mientras que en el segundo allo fueron incluidos como testigos un hfbrido simple de referenda y dos hfbridos locales. De los ensayos de bfbridos tropicales blancos (CHTTW), se recibieron resultados de 27 localidades, donde los rendimientos de fluctuaron entre 5.9 y 6.9 tlha. Los hfbridos superiores rindieron entre 6.5-6.9 tlha. Algunos de los hfbridos superiores tambi~n resultaron muy estahles. Las lineas involucradas fueron: CML 264,273,247,274,254,258 Y 270. EI mejor hfbrido super6 en 20% a la variedad testigo La Posta Sequfa C3. Algunos hfbridos superaron en 8% a los mejores hfbridos testigos incluidos por los programas nadonales. Con respecto al ensayo de hfbridos tropicales amarillos (CHTTy), se redbieron resultados de 32 localidades. En general, los hfbridos amarillos rindieron menos que los blancos y su comportamiento rio fue muy superior al de los mejores hfbridos testigos incluidos en los diferentes pafses. La linea CML-287 estuvo involucrada en algunos de los hfbridos con mejor rendimiento. Las otras lineas que parecen prometedoras son: CL-00331, CL-02808, CML-297 YCML-298.EI desarrollo de lnbridos de maiz en CIMMYT es el resultado de un gran esfuerzo. EI programa se inicio a principios de los 1980's considerando la necesidad del desarrollo de hibridos en los paises en vias de desarrollo. El enfasis dado al desarrollo de hibridos vs variedades de polinizacion abierta ha sido inconsistente en el mundo en desarrollo en los ultimos 50 anos. Sin embargo, durante la decada anterior el interes en el desarrollo y promocion de hibridos incremento rapidamente. No solo ha habido evolucion en el tipo de lnbridos de maiz, sino que en algunos paises ha habido un proceso trascendental al colocar mayor enfasis en el desarrollo de hibridos simples. Un esfuerzo modesto se inicio en CIMMYT en 1985 hacia el desarrollo de hibridos, enfatizando la generacion de informacion sobre la habilidad combinatoria, el desarrollo de fuentes para lnbridos, el desarrollo de progenitores endocriados y no endocriados, investigacion en probadores, y desarrollo y prueba de hibridos de maiz convencionales y no convencionales (Vasal y McLean, 1994). Hasta 1994, la evaluacion de hibridos de maiz tropical se limito a pocas localidades en Centro America, Mexico y en algunas localidades de prueba de los prograrnas regionales de maiz ubicados en Cali, Tailandia y Costa de Martil. En 1994, CIMMYT formo con un importante esfuerzo dos ensayos de hibridos tropicales de madurez completa, uno de color blanco y el otro amarillo. Estos ensayos son (CHTIW) tropical, de color blanco, (CHTIY) tropical de color amarillo, los cuales se pusieron a prueba a nivel intemacional. En 1996, se considera la introduccion de un ensayo adicional de maiz hibrido precoz. En este informe presentaremos los resultados de los ensayos conducidos durante 1994 y 1995.En 1994 cada ensayo consistio de 20 entradas, incluyendo 2 testigos hibridos locales y una variedad de polinizacion abierta. En 1995 la variedad testigo fue eliminada y reemplazada por un hibrido de referencia (el mas rendidor en los ensayos intemacionales de hibridos de 1994). Cada ensayo constaba de 4 repeticiones y 2 surcos de 5 m de largo distanciados 0.75 m aproximadamente. En cada ano mas de 60 juegos fueron distribuidos, sin embargo, la informacion no fue analizada en todas las localidades. Los resultados que se presentaran incluyen informacion a traves de localidades a nivel mundial, al igual que datos pertinentes a localidades ubicadas en Centro America. Los resultados presentados incluiran rendimiento y otras caracteristicas agronornicas.En 1994 se distribuyo el ensayo CHTIW, y se cuenta con los resultados de 27 localidades, los cuales se presentan en el Cuadro 1. Algunos de los hibridos se desarrollaron muy bien, registrando rendimientos de 6.4-6.9 t/ha. Tambien, en base a la informacion a traves de localidades, podemos destacar que varios hibridos mostraron superioridad sobre el mejor testigo hibrido incluido en cada localidad. La mayoria de los hibridos tuvieron mejor rendimiento que la variedad La Posta sequia C3. Por 10 menos 3 hibridos mostraron una superioridad mayor al 23% comparada con el testigo varietal. A traves de localidades, algunos de los mejores hibridos de CIMMYT mostraron menor altura de planta que el mejor testigo hibrido incluido en diferentes localidades. En promedio, los hibridos de CIMMYT parecen ser mas tardios que las entradas locales incluidas en el ensayo. A juzgar por los valores del coeficiente de regresion (b) de Eberhart y Russell (1966), la mayoria de estos hibridos parecen ser bastante estables. La informacion respecto a los hibridos de comportamiento superior en Centro America se indican en el Cuadro 2. El hibrido mas rendidor en cada pais estuvo entre 6 t/ha y mas. En una localidad de altitud media como San Jeronimo, Guatemala; el rendimiento mas alto fue de 10.5 t/ha. Indudablemente el mejor hibrido de CIMMYT en cada localidad fue mejor que el mejor testigo local. El porcentaje de superioridad sobre el mejor hibrido local vario entre 180 -106%.Con respecto al ensayo CHTIY, distribuido en 1994 se obtuvieron resultados de 32 localidades. Los hibridos amarillos no tuvieron rendirnientos tan altos como los hibridos blancos (Cuadro 3). El rendimiento de algunos de los mejores hibridos vario de 5.4-5.8 t/ha comparable con el promedio del testigo hibrido local cuyo rendirniento fue de 5.6 t/ha. El hibrido CML 287 x CL 00331 estuvo en el tope de rendirniento a traves de localidades y fue 4% superior al mejor testigo hibrido. Asi como en el caso de los ensayos de hibridos blancos en los ensayos de hibridos amarillos, los hibridos superiores fueron entre 19-27% mejores que el mejor testigo varietal (Across 8627)RE. Una vez mas la estabilidad estimada por los valores de b indica que estos hibridos fueron bastante estables a traves de localidades.El comportarniento de hibridos amarillos en Centro America y el Caribe se presentan en el Cuadro 4. El rendirniento del mejor hibrido de CIMMYT vario de 4.9 t/ha en San Cristobal, Republica Dominicana, a 10.2 t/ha en San Jeronimo, Guatemala. Invariablemente en las localidades de cada pais, el mejor hibrido de CIMMYT fue superior al mejor testigo local variando entre 58-3%. El hibrido CML287 x CL00331 mostro superioridad en dos localidades de Guatemala y en dos localidades de Panama. Los resultados del CHTIW conducido durante el ano 1995 son mostrados en el Cuadro 5. Unicamente se incluye informacion de 13 localidades, los mejores htbridos que aparecen en el cuadro tuvieron un rendimiento promedio entre 6.0 -6.4 t/ha, en contraste con el rendimiento de 5.6 t/ha del mejor htbrido local incluido por los programas nacionales. El htbrido testigo de referencia CML 247 X 254 fue el htbrido de menor estatura comparado con las entradas sobresalientes y el mejor hibrido testigo local.Los resultados promedio de 18 localidades de prueba para el ensayo CHHTY durante el ano 1995 son presentados en el Cuadro 6. . El htbrido de referencia CML287 x CL00331 obtuvo el mejor rendimiento (5.6 t/ha) en ccmtraste con el testigo hibrido local con 4.99 t/ha. Los htbridos mas rendidores no difrrieron del htbrido testigo local en madurez asi como en otras caracteristicas (altura de planta y mazorca), sin embargo, pocos htbridos parecieron exhibir mala cobertura comparados con los htbridos testigos locales. 5. Algunos de los hibridos superiores mostraron mejor resistencia a pudrici6n de mazorca y achaparramiento que los lubridos testigos locales.6. Los htbridos con comportamiento superior en 1994' mostraron buena estabilidad sobre un amplio rango de ambientes.  Diversas metodologias y estrategias pueden utilizarse para desarrollar hibridos de maiz. Existen I)rocedimientos convencionales para el desarrollo de hibridos los cuales eshin siendo usados I)or mejoradores de maiz en los paises en desarrollo. Considerando la gran cantidad de tiempo necesario para desarrollar e identilicar hibridos superiores, es importante disefiar alguna estrategia de corto plazo de manera de hacer esta actividad mas simple, eficiente y de menor costo, al reducir fases a un minimo. Esto puede lograrse mediante la identiticacion de lineas endocriadas pertenecientes a diferentes patrones heteroticos. En este trabajo se discutira la necesidad y utilidad de lineas como probadores en un programa de desarrollo de hibridos. I'rocedimientos para la identilicacion de tales lineas seran presentados. y se discutira de manera detallada, la nl'cesidad de usar uno 0 mas probadores del mismo 0 de diferente germoplasma heterotico. Se discutiran resultados obtenidos en dinrsos estudios conducidos en el CIi\\lI\\IYT y se presentllra informacion sobre las lineas que han resultado de mayor utilidad como probadores dentro del germoplasma de maiz tropical de Cll\\1l\\lYT, incluyendo materiales de diferentes grupos de madurez y endospermo blanco y amarillo.Las cstratcgias para el desarrollo de hibridos, deben c\\'olucionar a traves del tiempo para satisfacer la necesidad de idcntificar y liberar hibridos de maiz supcriores, Debcn usarse procedimientos innovadores que pucdan haccr el esfuerzo dedlcado al desarrollo de hibridos mas cficiente. mediante la reduccion de las etapas de evaluacion, asi como el periodo de tiempo necesario para la identificacion de hibridos superiores, El procedimiento estandar para el desarrollo de hibndos cnvuelve pasos definidos que deben seguirse en la evaillacion de !ineas para habilidad combinatoria general y especifica, y en la prediccion del comportamiento en cruzas usando datos provenientes de hibridos simples, Este procedimiento requiere de mucho tiempo y recursos economicos.A medida que un programa de investigacion en hibridos evoluciona, deben identificarse lineas probadoras apropiadas que puedan utilizarse para evaillar !ineas recientemente desarrolladas. EI uso de lineas endocriadas como probadores puede acelerar considerablemente el desarrollo de hibridos, mediante la reduccion de fases de evaluacion y del periodo de tiempo necesario para la liberacion de un hibrido. La identificacion y utilizacion de lineas probadoras serviria como un punto comun en la extrapolacion de resultados de habilidad combinatoria entre diferentes mejoradores.Para abordar el tema de probadores en maiz se necesita considerar varios aspectos, tales como: necesidad de los mismos, tipos de probadores, seleccion de probadores, procedimientos usados en su identificacion, y finalmente la utilizacion de probadores para mejorar la eficiencia del proceso de desarrollo de hibridos. EI presente trabajo discute la evolucion de !ineas probadoras derivadas de diferentes poblaciones blancas y amarillas del CIMMYT. Esta informacion es de utilidad no solo para et Programa de hibridos del CIMMYT, sino tambien para los programas nacionales interesados en el desarrollo de hibridos.En 1986, el Programa de Maiz del CIMMYT condujo una serie de experimentos con hibridos generados, utilizando el sistema de cruzamientos dialelicos. A partir de los resultados de estos ensayos, fueron identificadas once !ineas como probadores blancos y ocho !ineas como probadores amarillos. Estas lineas se originaron de las poblaciones 21, 25, 32 y los pooles 23 y 24 en el caso de las lineas blancas, mientras que las !ineas amarillas fueron derivadas de las poblaciones 24, 27, 36 Y el pool 26. Estos probadores constituyeron el empuje inicial en el esfuerzo dedicado al desarrollo de hibridos, pero desafortunadamente tuvieron uso limitado debido a su bajo nivel de endogamia.Los esfuerzos en la identificacion de \\ineas probadoras superiores han continuado en el subprograma de tropicos bajos. Durante 1993 fueron constituidos cuatro dialelicos de diez \\ineas cada uno, dos dialelicos involucrando \\ineas blancas y dos involucrando \\ineas amarillas. Los 45 hibridos generados en cada dialelo mas cuatro testigos, fueron evaluados en las estaciones experimentales del CIMMYT en Mexico, asi como en algunas localidades de Centro y Sur America. Ademas 45 \\ineas blancas y 45 \\ineas amarillas fueron cruzadas con tres hibridos simples como probadores. De esta manera tres ensayos de hibridos blancos y tres ensayos de hibridos amarillos, cada uno constituido por 45 hibridos triples mas cuatro testigos fueron evaluados en las estaciones experimentales del CIMMYT en Mexico y algunas localidades de Centro y Sur America. Estos ensayos permitieron la identificacion no solo de hibridos superiores, sino tambien de \\ineas endocriadas que pudieran utilizarse en el futuro como probadores en la investigacion en desarrollo de hibridos.Los Cuadros I y 2 muestran el rendimiento y caracteristicas agronomicas de algunos de los hibridos superiores, asi como la contribucion de aptitud combinatoria general (ACG) de cada padre, y los efectos de aptitud combinatoria especifica (ACE) de cada cruza para los ensayos de hibridos simples conducidos en 1993. En el grupo de hibridos blancos seleccionados la ACG asi como la ACE, son muy importantes y contribuyen al comportamiento observado en los hibridos. La situacion para los hibridos simples amarillos es diferente, en algunos la ACG contribuye substancialmente, mientras que en otros un padre tiene ACG negativa y valores de ACE bastante altos y positivos, resultando en hibridos altamente productivos.Los valores de ACG y estabilidad de ACG para las \\ineas superiores identificadas a partir de los ensayos de hibridos simples, son presentados en el Cuadro 3. Varias \\ineas mostraron ACG estable en diferentes localidades de evaluacion.El Cuadro 4 muestra la estabilidad de ACG para las lineas involucradas en los hibridos triples, evaluados durante 1993. Los mimeros en parcntesis indican el mimero de localidades donde los valores de ACG resultaron estables. Tal como en los ensayos de hibridos simples, las \\ineas involucradas en los hibridos triples superiores presentaron buena estabilidad de ACG en diferentes ambientes. Basandonos en resultados de ambos tipos de ensayos, un mimero de lineas probadoras potenciales han sido identificadas (cuadros 5 y 6). Actualmente el Programa de tropicos bajos utiliza 20 lineas blancas y 15 lineas amurillas, como probadores en el programa de desarrollo de hibridos (Vasal et aI., 1994).Cuadro 1. Cruzas superiores en cuatro ensayos de cruzas simples conducidos durante 1993.    Cuadro 6. Lineas tropicales amarillas probadoras.No.Codigo CIMMYT CI\\tL Gcncalogia Origcn Estas lineas fueron estudiadas intensivamente durante 1995, con el objeto de tomar decisiones rn;is concretas y concluyentes acerca de cual 0 cuales de ellas podrian utilizarse como probadores para los diversos grupos heteroticos manejados por el Programa de maiz del CIMMYT. Estas investigaciones tambien permitinin decidir si solo un probador, preferentemente no parental, ya sea un hibrido simple 0 una linea endocriada podria utilizarse para discriminar !ineas respecto a su habilidad combinatoria. CONCLUSIONES 1. Once lineas blancas y ocho lineas amarillas con niveles de endogamia no superiores a S3, fueron identificadas como probadores en 1987.2. Ensayos de hibridos simples y triples conducidos recientemente, han permilido identificar nuevas lineas probadoras con mas elevado nivel de endogamia. Veinte !ineas blancas y quince lineas amarillas se encuentran actualmente bajo estudios intensivos.  En un programa orientado al desarrollo de hibridos, la identificacion de buenos progenitores es igualmente importante a la creacion de hibridos superiores. Es necesario enfatizar no solo la habilidad combinatoria de las Ii,:\\eas, tal como sucede actual mente, sino tambien 1' 1 comportamiento de Iineas endocriadas per se. A medida (Iue la tecnologia evoluciona de hibridos multiparentales hacia hibridos biparentales, el comportamiento de las lineas endocriadas, especial mente su capacidad para producir buena cantidad y calidad de semilla, se convierte en un factor clave para la promocion de hibridos simples. EI presente articulo discute la necesidad de utilizar lotes de evaluacion de lineas para diversos atributos, que podrian ser parte de los programas de niejoramiento poblacional 0 parte integral del proceso de desarrollo de lineas. EI Programa de Maiz de Tropicos Bajos del C1I\\II\\IYT. ha enfatizado la evaluacion de lineas superiores para diversas caracteristicas como tolerancia a sequl;\\, resistencia a insectos, tolerancia a suelos acidos, resistencia a virus y resistencia a mildiu velloso. EI comportamiento agronomico de las Iineas tambien ha sido estudiado en ensayos de rendimiento en localidades mlilliples, incluyendo algunos ambientes en Centro America para obsen'ar su estabilidad de rendimiento I' identificar aquellas a ser utilizadas en el programa de reciclaje de lineas. Los resullados de diferentes viveros de evaluacion de Iineas endocriadas que aqui se presentan, han conducido a la identificacion de lineas utiles para varl;\\s de la caracteristicas antes mencionadas. A traves de esta estrategia, tambicn se han identificado Iineas allamente productoras, que pueden utilizarse como progenitores hembra en la formacion de hibridos simples.EI desarrollo de hibridos de maiz ha evolucionado a traves de los aiios. En los paises desarrollados la mayoria del hectareaje de maiz es sembrado con hibridos simples. mientras que en los paises subdesarrollados una amplia variedad de tipos de  DEL PRM 1993-1995, VOL.5 (1997), p. 50-55. 50 hibridos desde convencionales hasta no convencionales es sembrada en diferentes paises (Pandey y Gardner, 1992). A medida que mejores lineas endocriadas son desarrolladas, la tendencia sera ha producir hibridos de maiz convencionales tales como hibridos dobIes, triples e hibridos simples. En todos los hibridos convencionales de maiz, las lineas endocriadas estan involucradas como padres.La mayoria de los programas publicos de maiz alrededor del mundo, asi como del sector privado dedican gran esfuerzo a la evaluacion de combinaciones hibridas, pero poca atencion es prestada a la evaluacion de lineas parentales. En el subprograma de maiz para tropicos bajos de CIMMYT, se ha puesto enfasis en la evaluacion de lineas de diferente madurez en ensayos de evaluacion. Esto ha servido para muchos propositos, como determinacion del comportamiento de lineas a traves de diferentes ambientes con respecto a rendimiento y otras• caracteristicas agronomicas, reaccion a diferentes enfermedades foliares y a patogenos causantes de pudricion de mazorca (Vasal et aL, 1994).La evaluacion de lineas respecto a diferentes caracteristicas ayuda en la identificacion de fuentes de resistencia para estreses bioticos y abioticos, y en algunas instancias en la identificacion de germoplasma con caracteres raros, los cuales son muy dificiles de encontrar en poblaciones de polinizacion abierta.Un programa fuerte y agresivo de desarrollo de lineas, puede integrar actividades de otras disciplinas y permitir la evaluacion de tecnicas y procedimientos los cuales. son dificiles de probar confiablemente a nivel de Poblaciones 0 variedades. Los ensayos de evaluacion de lineas per-se combinados con datos de comportamiento en cruzas facilitan la identificacion de lineas para reciclaje dentro de un grupo heterotico particular.Finalmente, los ensayos de evaluacion de lineas sin'en como vehiculos para la diseminacion de germoplasma endocriado a los programas nacionales cooperadores. Los beneficios que se han observado en CIMMYT, especialmente en el subprograma de maiz para tropicos bajos son casi ilimitados como se hani evidente con los resultados que se presentanin en este reporte. La fijacion de alelos durante el proceso de endogamia es al azar, pero las lineas que sobreviven al mismo pueden expresar caracteres para los cuales no se ejercio ninguna presion de seleccion. Los resultados de los diferentes estudios presentados en este trabajo reforzanin nuestra confianza para continuar conduciendo este tipo de experimentos rutinariamente.A traves de los alios, el subprograma de maiz de tropicos bajos del CIMMYT ha desarrollado una serie de lineas endocriadas que presentan buena habilidad combinatoria y buen comportamiento en cruzas. Ha sido la politica de CIMMYT anunciar periodicamente lineas, de manera de acelerar el desarrollo de hibridos de maiz en los paises en vias de desarrollo. Un total de 58 lineas fueron anunciadas en 1991, seguido por otras 62 en 1994. Ademas algunas lineas tropicales han sido anunciadas por el programa regional de Sur America en Colombia, y el programa regional de Sur Africa en Zimbabwe. EI programa tambien evalua continuamente lineas prometedoras en ensayos de evaluacion per-se, Asi como en combinaciones hibridas. En este trabajo discutiremos los resultados de la evaluacion de lineas CML'S y otras lineas prometedoras en ensayos replicados, asi como evaluaciones para algunos estreses bioticos y abioticos.EI rendimiento y comportamiento agronomico de lineas endocriadas ha sido evaluado en ensayos en multiples localidades desde 1992, sin embargo solo se presentan resultados del 1994, para indicar el comportamiento per se de lineas de diferentes origenes. EI rendimiento de las lineas blancas y amarillas en diferentes alios es indicado en los Cuadros I al 4.EI Cuadro I detalla el comportamiento de lineas blancas provenientes de diversas poblaciones. Debe notarse, que algunas de estas lineas rindieron entre 3-4 t/ha. Para altura de planta, las lineas mostraron gran variacion, con la mayoria de las lineas de menor altura origimindose de la poblacion 49, las lineas derivadas de la Poblacion 43 fueron generalmente altas. Los resultados para las lineas amarillas pueden encontrarse en el Cuadro 2. EI comportamiento de las lineas amarillas fue muy promisorio con rendimientos comprendidos entre 2.8-4.1 t/ha. EI Cuadro 3 muestra el rendimiento promedio de las mejores lineas amarillas en Guatemala, Panama y Republica Dominicana. En general, podemos notar que las lineas de CIMMYT superaron a los testigos locales, con algunas de las mejores lineas rindiendo entre 4.3-5.2 tlha.EI rendimiento de las lineas blancas en cinco localidades en Centro America se presenta en el Cuadro 4. La localidad San Jeronimo en Guatemala, resulto con los rendimientos mas altos. En promedio en los paises centroamericanos, las mejores 2 lineas corresponden a la Poblacion 73. Gtras lineas superiores fueron originadas de las Poblaciones 21, 43, 32 Y del pool 24. Aunque no se presentan los datos, algunas de las lineas de CIMMYT mostraron poca pudricion de mazorca y baja incidencia de achaparramiento.Cuadro I. Medias de rendimiento de grano y otros caracteres de lineas endogamicas blancas deri\\'adas de diferentes poblaciones.  Calif.No.Asp.Maz 47  -I ()El subprograma de maiz para tropicos bajos, tambien ha evaluado lineas para tolerancia a sequia en la estacion de Tlaltizapan durante la epoca seca (Cuadro 5). A pesar del hecho, que estas lineas nunca fueron seleccionadas para tolerancia a sequia, algunas de elIas respondieron favorablemente bajo condiciones de estres hidrico. Algunas de las mejores lineas rindieron entre 2-4 t/ha, con ASI no mayor de dos dias. En la mayoria de los casos las lineas produjeron una mazorca por planta y presentaron buen aspecto de mazorca. En general, la altura de las plantas diminuyo pero algunas lineas mostraron buena altura de planta bajo condiciones de estres. Las lineas de CIMMYT tambien han sido sometidas a infestacion artificial con Spodoptera jrugiperda y Diatrea saccharalis, las lineas con mejor reaccion a ambos insectos son listadas en el Cuadro 6. Algunas lineas CML'S y prometedoras tuvieron un nivel de dana similar al testigo resistente.La reaccion de las lineas CML's al patogeno causante de la cenicilla del maiz es presentado en e1 cuadro 7. La linea CML-50 fue obviamente notable por su resistencia (0% de infestacion), las lineas CML-32, CML-307 tambien tuvieron baja incidencia (11.1 y 17.3 % respectivamente), otras lineas tales como CML-22, CML-47, CML-52 CML-269, CML-286 y CML-287 fueron moderadamente resistentes con posibilidades de mejorar su reaccion mediante selecci6n.Cuadro 8. Lineas blancas resistentes a F.moniliforme Genealogia Calificaci6nPOB.21STEClHC27-l-6-l-l-4-BBB-l-##-BB 1.0Cuadro 9. Lineas amarillas resistentes a F.moniliforme. Los Cuadros 8 y 9 muestran lineas resistentes a Fusarium moniliforme, algunas lineas mostraron calificaciones muy bajas para este patogeno causante de pudricion de la mazorca. La mayoria de estas lineas fueron derivadas de las poblaciones 21,25,43,24,27,28,36   Cuadro 11. Lineas Resistentes a MSV.2.-Algunas de estas lineas constituiran buenas fuentes para la transferencia de resistencia a otros genotipos de maiz.I. Los resultados de los ensayos de rendimicnto per-se de lineas endocriadas, asi como los vivcros de evaluaci6n para diferentes estreses bi6ticos y abi6ticos han sido bastante esperanzadores. Aunque las lineas no fueron previamente seleccionadas para estos caracteres, algunas lineas resultaron resistentes/tolerantes a la cenicilla del maiz, Rhi::.octonia, virus del rayado del maiz y FusariulI/ lI/ol/ilTfarll/e. Igualmente. un numero de lineas presentan buen nive! de tolerancia a sequla y acidez del suelo.Las lineas CML'S tambien han sido evaluadas para su reacci6n a Rhizotocnia sp. pOI e1 programa de maiz de la India. Referencias previas indican dificultad en encontrar fuentes de resistencia para este pat6geno. Las lineas CML-9, CML-19, CML-55, CML-254 y CML-305 mostraron buena tolerancia en campo a esta enfermedad (Cuadro 10).La evaluaci6n de lineas endocriadas para su reacci6n al virus del rayado del maiz ha resultado en la identificaci6n de 3 lineas (CML-256, CML-270 Y CML-273) con buena resistencia y otras 3 lineas (CML-277, CML-278 y CML-28I) con moderada resistencia a este virus (Cuadro 11). Este grupo de lineas tambien han sido evaluadas para tolerancia a acidez del suelo pOI el programa regional de maiz de Sur America. Aunque no se presentan datos, al menos cinco lineas (CML 27, CML 36, CML 40 Y las lineas SAT-76-1-2-2-2-BB-f y SAT-76-1-l-l-2-BB del sintetico amarillo TSR) resultaron tolerantes a suelos acidos.Actualmente las lineas CML' S y otras lineas prometedoras estan siendo evaluadas para achaparramiento, dolencia que constituye un serio problema en algunos paises de Centro America y el Caribe. Tenemos esperanza en que este esfuerzo resultara en la identificaci6n de algunas lineas con resistencia al complejo viral causante de la enfennedad.Paises en Vias de Desarrollo Surinder K. Vasal), Felix San Vicente Este trabajo discute retos importantes que deben afrontarse en el desarrollo de hibridos simples de maiz. La tecnologia de hibridos de progenitores multiples fue diseiiada para encubrir debilidades de las \\ineas endocriadas con respecto a rendimiento, vigor y otras caracteristicas, mediante la incorporacion de fases adicionales en el proceso de produccion de semillas para hacer la misma economicamente viable. Los hibridos simples serian particularmente utiles no solo desde el punto de vista del mejorador sino tambien del productor de semillas. Diversos procedimientos y estrategias del mejoramiento genetico para el desarrollo hibridos y lineas endocriadas productivas y vigorosas seran discutidos. Estrategias a corto plazo, particularmente el recicIaje de \\ineas para desarrollar \\ineas progenitoras agronomicamente superiores seran discutidas. Se presentaran resultados de evaluacion de Iineas endocriadas para enfatizar que lineas con buen potencial de rendimiento de 3.0-5.0 t/ha, pueden ser desarrolladas para hacer mas factible la tecnologia de hibridos simples.En los ultimos 50 alios el mejoramiento de maiz ha evolucionado considerablemente. Los metodos de seleccion individual fueron remplazados por metodos de evaluacion de progenies. Mas recientemente los procedimientos que enfatizan el concepto de hibridos estan ganando popularidad, implicando el uso de selecci6n de progenies autofecundadas conjuntamente con estimados de aptitud combinatoria. En programas con mayor enfasis en hibridos varios tipos de selecci6n recurrente interpoblacional estan siendo utilizados.  DEL PRM 1993-1995, VOL,5 (1997), p.56-58. 56 mayores esfuerzos al desarrollo de hibridos simples en sustituci6n de hibridos multiparentales. Este tipo de evoluci6n ha sido drastica en los paises desarrollados, donde la totalidad del hectareage es sembrado con hibridos simples. La situaci6n en los paises en vias de desarrollo es completamente diferente, y practicamente todos los diferentes tipos de hibridos convencionales y no convencionales estan siendo cultivados con diferentes niveles de exito. La tendencia con el transcurso del tiempo, esta cambiando hacia hibridos convencionales; pero sin embargo algunos programas nacionales estan desarrollando activamente su investigacion en hibridos, y la revoluci6n de los hibridos simples esta por llegar en algunos paises subdesarrollados asi como sucedi6 en el mundo desarrollado 30 alios atras.La tecnologia de hibridos multiparentales fue diseliada por Jones (1918), para enmascarar las debilidades de las lineas endocriadas con respecto a productividad y vigor, y hacer de la producci6n de semilla hibrida una propuesta econornicamente viable. Un viraje de la tecnologia de hibridos multiparentales hacia la de hibridos biparentales estara deterrninada por e1 comportarniento per se de las lineas ha ser utilizadas como parentales hembras en hibridos simples. Los acontecimientos en el mundo desarrollado han sido contundentes al adoptar totalmente la tecnologia de hibridos simples. Esto ha sido posible mediante la producci6n de lineas endocriadas vigorosas y altamente rendidoras, que perrniten la viabilidad econ6mica de la producci6n de semillas.Las estrategias en el mundo desarrollado han sido bastante innovadoras respecto a los procedimientos involucrados en el desarrollo de lineas endocriadas. El reciclaje de lineas elite es el procedirniento comunmente utilizado por el sector privado de estos paises. Lineas derivadas de esquemas de selecci6n recurrente norrnalmente provienen de programas de mejoramiento de universidades publicas, pero en general la contribuci6n de este tipo de lineas ha sido relativamente limitado. Es probablemente justo decir, que todo el esfuerzo dedicado al desarrollo de hibridos ESTRATEGIA PARA ACELERAR LA TECNOLOGIA DE HIBRIDOS SIMPLES EN PAISES EN VIAS DE DESARROLLO La siguiente seccion enumera los aspectos que deben considerarse para acelerar el desarrollo y adopcion de la tecnologia de hibridos biparentales en el tercer mundo. en los Estados Unidos esta basado en pocas lineas endocriadas (Smith,1988).Los paises en vias de desarrollo han experimentado dificultades para lograr desarrollar buenas lineas endocriadas, principalmente debido a que las poblaciones base son drasticamente afectadas por los efectos de depresion endogamica. Autofecundacion continuada en poblaciones de polinizacion cruzada es el metodo comunmente preferido. Los esquemas de reciclaje son ya sea desconocidos 0 utilizados limitadamente por algunos programas de maiz de avanzada.7. La tecnologia de hibridos biparentales produccion de hibridos uniformes y rendidores que son mas adecuados para mecanizada.Este documento discute las bondades de la tecnologia de hibridos biparentales y la estrategia necesaria para acelerar el desarrollo y adopcion de los mismos en el tercer mundo.A los hibridos simples se les atribuyen entre otras, las siguientes ventajas:1. Son faciles de generar y involucran menos fases en la produceion de semilla que los hibridos multiparentales. Por ejemplo, para la produccion de semilla de hibridos simples se requieren tres etapas, mientras que para hibridos triples y dobles se requieren cinco y ocho respectivamente.2. Algunos hibridos superiores pueden ser identificados en un periodo relativamente corto de tiempo.3. Las etapas de mejoramiento son relativamente mas simples y en menor cuantia, 10 que resulta en reduccion de costos en el desarrollo de este tipo de hibridos.4. La identificacion y desarrollo de hibridos puede alcanzarse en una sola fase en contraste con dos 0 mas en el caso de hibridos multiparentales.5. El periodo de tiempo destinado a la identificacion de nuevos hibridos puede reducirse drasticamente y pueden dedicarse recursos y esfuerzos adicionales de una manera agresiva al desarrollo de lineas mas vigorosas y productivas.6. Los problemas en la produccion de hibridos simples son facilmente identificables y correctivos apropiados pueden adoptarse de manera de corregir los mismos. 57 1. Los patrones heteroticos deben enfatizarse y fortalecerse donde sea necesario.2. En poblaciones base, los procedimientos de seleccion deben enfatizar aspectos orientados hacia hibridacion, inc1uyendo tolerancia a la depresion endogamica, aptitud combinatoria, y la identificacion de patrones heteroticos para la maximizacion de la heterosis.3. lncrementar la eficiencia en los procedimientos de identificacion de hibridos mediante el desarrollo de lineas probadoras apropiadas para cada par de poblaciones heteroticas.4. Los esfuerzos dedicados al desarrollo de lineas endocriadas deben ser fortalecidos, de manera de obtener una buen germoplasma de lineas elite.5. Los procedimientos de reciclaje deben abordarse agresivamente mediante el desarrollo de poblaciones Fe utilizando lineas elite.6. La evaluacion de lineas per se debe adoptarse con el objeto de disponer de una caracterizacion completa de las mismas, incluyendo su potencialidad como hembra o macho en la confeccion del hibrido. 7. A medida que los programas adquieren mas sofisticacion es necesario identificar cuales lineas seran utilizadas como hembras y cuales como polinizadores. Al llegar a este punto el reciclaje debe ser efectuado solo entre lineas hembras 0 entre lineas polinizadoras. 8. Los esfuerzos en la identificacion de probadores nuevos y superiores deben ser continuos. Probadores de baja productividad deben ser reemplazados por nuevos probadores a medida que estos son identificados. 9. Estrategias de desarrollo de hibridos que enfatizan una sola fase de evaluacion deben ser introducidos. Asimismo, el mejorador debe identificar lineas probadoras no parentales, que permitan obtener en una sola etapa informacion acerca de aptitud combinatoria al igual que identificacion de hibridos superiores.10. Debe incrementarse el uso de altas densidades de siembra durante el desarrollo de lineas endocriadas, para acumular tolerancia en general a condiciones desfavorables, y qUiZ3S alguna tolerancia a la sequia. II. El reciclaje de lineas debe sistematizarse utilizando resultados de ensayos de evaluacion de lineas per se, asi como de ensayos para estimacion de aptitud combinatoria en diversos ambientes.Algunos de los puntos mencionados anteriormente han sido enfatizados por el programa de hibridos del CIMMYT, y estamos muy complacidos con los resultados obtenidos en un tiempo relativamente corto. El programa ha desarrollado un numero considerable de lineas endocriadas, que podrian utilizarse como hembras en la confeccion de hibridos simples.Mediante el uso de densidades de siembra y practicas culturales apropiadas, algunas de las lineas pueden producir 4 t/ha de semilla de buena calidad.Varios hibridos simples tambien han sido identificados a traves de los ensayos intemacionales y otros ensayos de hibridos, los cuales rinden 6 0 mas t/ha promedio en multiples localidades.La tecnologia de hibridos biparentales se esta haciendo realidad en algunos paises asiaticos tales como China, Tailandia, y Vietnam, y algunos otros paises seguiran este ejemplo en los afios venideros. Es oportuno mencionar que la preocupacion respecto a vulnerabilidad genetica, debe considerarse mediante el uso de germoplasrna divergente y disponibilidad inmediata de lineas, que combinen resistencias a los estreses bioticos importantes que eventualmente puedan manifestarse.Amarillo en Tres Localidades de Panama, 1995-96 Alfonso Alvarado y Daniel Perez•En 1995, fueron evaluados un total de 13 hibridos desarrollados por el el Programa Regional de Maiz (PRM) y el lDIAP, Dekalb, Pioneer, ademas de 4 variedades experimentales procedentes de CIMMYT-Mhico. Las evaluaciones se realizaron en la tinea de un productor en Parita y en campos experimentales del lDlAP en Rio Hato y EI Ejido. EI amllisis combinado para rendimiento mostr6 diferencias significativas entre cultivares y localidades, 10 que indica que los cultivares no se comportaron igual en todos los ambientes evaluados. Las localidades con mayores rendimientos fueron Rio Hato y Parita, con un rendimiento promedio de 5.6 y 6.6 tlha, respectivamente. En EI Ejido la precipitaci6n fue ernltica durante el desarr9110 del cultivo, 10 que afect6 el potencial de producci6n de los cultivares, con un rendimiento de 4.6 tlha. Sobresalieron por su alto rendimiento y buenas caracteristicas agron6micas los hibridos dobles y triples experimentales del PRM (A 6 x -\\ls)AI6' (A 16 X A 18 )A I , (AI X A 18 )A 6 , (A 16 x AIIJ( Al x AJ y el hibrido XL-655 de Dekalb, con 6.5, 6.4, 6.4, 6.3 Y 6.4 tlha, respectivamente.La produccion de maiz en Panama, se destina en un alto porcentaje para la elaboracion de raciones balanceadas que utilizan principalmente para la alimentacion de aves y cerdos. EI consumo del maiz ha aumentado en los ultimos aiios, de tal forma que la produccion nacional no alcanza a cubrir la demanda total, por 10 que se requiere la importacion de grandes cantidades de este grano (mas de 136 mil toneladas).Hasta 1991, toda la semilla hibrida para las siembras mecanizadas era importada, cuando IDIAP libero los primeros 3 hibridos nacionales a traves de su programa de mejoramiento genetico y procedio a la produccion de semilla para las siembras de 1992. De igual forma en alios anteriores puso a disposicion de los productores la variedad Guarare 8128, de excelente adaptacion en todo el pais. EI proceso de mejoramiento genetico es dimimico por 10 que se hace necesario continuar los estudios para identificar y seleccionar nuevos hibridos y 'Ingeniero Agr6nomo y 2Agronomo, IDlAP, Panama. l'ubJicado en SiNTESIS DE RESULTADOS EXPERIMENTALES DEL PRM 1993-1995, VOL. 5 (1997), p. 59-63. 59 variedades que superen en rendirniento y caracteristicas agron6micas a los cultivados actualmente.El objetivo de este trabajo fue determinar el potencial de rendimiento, caracteristicas agronomicas y adaptaci6n de hibridos y variedades experimentales desarrollados por eI PRM, IDIAP, Pioneer, Dekalb y CIMMYT, a traves de diferentes ambientes.La hibridaci6n en maiz se considera como un metodo genotecnico que tiene como objetivo eI aprovechamiento de la generacion F I proveniente del cruzamiento entre dos poblaciones (PI Y p\") con cualquier estructura genotipica, las cuales pueden ser lin~as endogamicas, variedades de polinizacion Iibre, variedades, sinteticos 0 las poblaciones F I mismas en el caso de las cmzas dobles (Marquez, 1988). Jenkins (1978) menciona Shull (1909) inicio los conceptos de hibridacion. Los pasos esenciales son: a) obtencion de lineas homocigoticas 0 cercanas a la homocigosis; b) evaluacion Yselecci6n de lineas puras en todas las cruzas posibles; y c) utilizacion de las mejores cruzas para la produccion comercial. Vasal (1991) en el desarrollo de hibridos convencionales es muy importante identificar fuentes de germoplasmas con tolerancia a endocria yalta aptitud combinatoria. EI mismo autor considera que los patrones heteroticos deben ser considerados para el desarrollo eficiente de hibridos en el menor tiempo posible. Una de las ventajas obtenidas con el uso de hibridos de cruza simple es que el rendimiento es superior a los obtenidos con las variedades de polinizacion Iibre, hibridos de cruza doble y triple (Jugenheimer, 1981).EI hibrido triple se consigue cruzando un hibrido simple con una linea pura, ambos seleccionados por sus caracteristicas de productividad y capacidad de adaptacion; y ocupa un lugar intermedio entre un hibrido simple y un doble (Llanos, 1984). EI aprovechamiento de lineas puras ha dado lugar a la formaci6n de hibridos con alto rendimiento los cuales superan a estructuras hibridas no convencionales. Son varios los autores que han estudiado la interaccion genotipo x ambiente (Marquez, 1985); sin embargo, 10 han hecho desde el punto de vista de variables observables, sin explicarlas en terminos de variable causales 0 determinantes. El Cuadro 4 muestra las medias de las caracteristicas agron6micas evaluadas. Asi podemos observar que a pesar de su alto rendimiento, algunos hibridos tienden al acame(A, x A 1X )A I6 \" (Alb X Alx)(A z x A 6 ) Y (Alb x A 1X )A 6 • Los hibridos XL-655, XL-370 de la empresa Dekalb y el P-8916 del IDIAP, fueron mas afectados por hongos que atacan a la mazorca.Las variedades de libre polinizacion (Cuadro 5) Se establecieron tres ensayos, dos en campos experimentales del IDIAP (Rio Hato, EI Ejido) y uno en la finca de un productor de Parita. Los tratamientos 10 conformaron 14 hibridos de grana amarillo desarrollados por IDIAP, el PRM, Dekalb, Pioneer, y cuatro variedades de polinizacion abierta desarrolladas por CIMMYT (Cuadro 1). EI disei'io experimental utilizado fue bloques completos al azar con 4 repeticiones siendo la unidad experimental de 2 surcos de 5 m de largo, separados a 0.75 my 2 plantas por postura cada 0.5 m de distancia para una poblacion teorica de 5.33 plantas/m 2 • La siembra se hizo manualmente, el control de malezas se realizo con la aplicacion de la mezcla de atrazina + pendimentalina a razon de 2.5 + 2.5 I de producto comercial/ha con posteriores limpiezas manuales. La fertilizacion consistio en la aplicacion de 227 kg/ha de 15-30-8 al momenta de la siembra, mas 182 kg/ha de urea 30 dias despues de la germinacion.Con los resultados obtenidos se realizo el analisis de varianza para rendimiento y otras variables estudiadas por localidad y a traves de localidades (Cuadro 2), encontrandose diferencias altamente significativas para rcndimiento en las tres localidades evaluadas. Los coelicientes de variacion para rendimiento obtenidos par localidad (Parita 8.9'%, Rio Hato 11.9% y el Ejido 10.4'%) y para el amilisis combinado 11.4%, se considcran adecuados indicando que las variables cxperimentales fueron manejadas adecuadamente.bl cl Cuadro 3, se aprecia los rendimientos obtenidos por localidad y el combinado de los mejores 8 hibridos expcrimentales incluidos en este ensayo, destacandose 6 hihridos desarrollados por el PRM y 2 desarrollados por Dckalb. Los rendimientos mas altos correspondieron a I'arita y Rio Hato con medias de 6.6 y 5.6 t/ha. EI rcndimiento mas bajo se obscrvo en EI Ejido con 4.6 tfha, debido principalmente a una erratica y mala distribucion de la precipitacion. Cuadro 4. Rendimiento y caracteristicas agronomicas de hibridos experimentales evaluados en tres localidades. 1995. En 1994 se evaluaron once cultivares de mafz de grano amarillo, incluyendo seis cruzas simples, dos mestizos y tres variedades; todos desarrollados en Republica Dominicana. EI objetivo era obtener informacion del comportamiento de materiales recientemente formados en comparindolos con tres variedades testigo incluidas en la prueba. Se utilizO un disefio de bloques completos al azar con 4 repeticiones en 4 localidades: Bani, San Juan, Nigua y San Cristobal. Se realizo analisis de varianza y prueba de Duncan para obtener las diferencias estadisticas entre los cultivares. EI hibrido N03xDK12 supero en 34% a las variedades CNIA-12 Y 12% a UNPHU-301C a traves de las 4 localidades. Se recomienda incluir N03xDK12, N03xDK14 y N03xDK19 en combinaciones hibridas triples 0 dobles; producir los mestizos N03xUNPHU-304C y N03xUNPHU-305C y hacer pruebas mas extensivas con ellos, ya que este cultivar puede ser atractivo para la industria de semillas.En Republica Dominicana el cultivo del maiz esta creciendo en importancia, registrandose una tendencia creciente en su consumo aparente. En 1993, la demanda aparente fue de II millones de qq, pero mas del 90% de esta cantidad fue importada (SEA, 1994). Por otro lado, muchos agricultores mediano y alto nivel tecnologieo dedicados al cultivo de hortalizas y frijoles requieren de un cultivo no hospedero de mosca blanca para sistemas de rotacion, para romper eI cicio biologieo de esta plaga, que ha causado dafios euantiosos en esos cultivos en afios recientes (Alvarez et aI., 1992). El maiz puede representar una buena altemativa si se pueden obtener niveles adecuados de rentabilidad. Ademas, un material mejorado de maiz puede tambien aproveehar la fertilizacion residual a parcelas hortieolas y de frijoles (Abreu y Romero, 1984). Es de esperar que la eficiencia de utilizacion de ese abono residual sea mayor para materiales mejorados que para las variedades tradicionales (Navarro y Ortiz, 1992).Un factor que cobra importancia es que existe un Mercado interno interesante, min no cuantificado, para el maiz cosechado en fresco, cuando el grano esta en la I Fitomejoradores y Tecnicos del Programa de Maiz, CESDA, San Cristobal, Rep. Dominicana. I'ublicado ell SiNTESIS DE RESULTADOS EXPERlMENTALES 11I'II 'RM 1993-95, VOL. 5 (1997), p. 64-67. 64 etapa de masa con consistencia pastosa. En estos casos, hemos observado que las variedades mejoradas son preferidas sobre los materiales locales.En Republica Dominicana se han generado y probado un nUrnero de lineas de maiz en diferentes instituciones que han servido para la formacion de cultivares de un gran potencial de uso (Comalat, 1988;Ortiz y Comalat, 1992). 19ualmente, el Programa Regional de Maiz para Centroamerica y El Caribe (PRM) ha desarrollado materiales con grandes posibilidades para su combinacion forrnando cultivares apropiados a los requerimientos existentes en el pais (Castellanos et aI., 1993, Perez et aI., 1993, Vasal et aI., 1994).El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo la obtencion de materiales de maiz con ventajas comparativas para uso en los sistemas de produccion mencionados antes. Tales cultivares deberan ser factibles de producirse como semilla y ser puestos a la disposicion de los agricultores. Objetivos especificos eran la obtencion de informacion de las caracteristicas agronomicas de los cultivares evaluados, la comparacion del rendirniento y las caracteristicas generales de seis hibridos simples, dos mestizos y variedades de polinizacion abierta y la seleccion de los cultivares con mejor comportarniento, recomendar su utilizacion directa 0 como progenitores para generar materiales de mayores posibilidades de uso como semillas.El presente trabajo incluyo 11 genotipos de maiz (Cuadro 1). Se utilizo un diseiio de bloques completos al azar, con 4 repeticiones y 4 localidades. La unidad experimental fue de 4 surcos de 5m de largo, separados a 0.8 m entre e110s y a 0.5 m entre posturas, con dos plantas por postura a una densidad teorica de 5.33 plantas/m 2• Se evaluaron rendirniento de grana al 15% de humedad, dias a la floracion, altura de planta y mazorca, acame (incluyendo plantas dobladas desde su base 0 debajo de la mazorca en mas de 30 grados 0 ta110s quebrados), aspecto de plantas, (escala 1-5, 1=excelente y 5=pesimo) porcentaje de mazorcas podridas y plantas con achaparrarniento. En dos los experimentos se utilizo riego pOI' gravedad. Solo en el caso de Nigua hubo deficiencias hidricas debido a problemas con el sistema de riego. Se fertilizo a dosis de 100 kg N/ha y se controlo efectivamente los insectos y malezas.Las localidades fueron: 1) La estacion experimental EI Escondido, Bani, (18°22' latitud N y 70°22' longitud W), en un bosque muy seco tropical montano. 2) La estacion experimental del Centro de Investigaciones Aplicadas a Zonas Aridas (CIAZA) en Azua (18°22' N Y 70°50' W), 40 msnm y clima de bosque seco subtropical, suelo Typic torrifluvents, pendiente de 2%, moderadamente profundo, y bien drenado 3) La finca experimental del Instituto Politecnico Loyola en San Cristobal, (18°25' N Y 70°26' W) a 44 msnm en un bosque humedo subtropical; sue los franco arenosos y llanos; y 4) La Hacienda Nigua, campo experimental de la Universidad Nacional Pedro Henriquez Urena (18°20' N Y 70°04' W), a 14 msnm en un bosque seco tropical; suelo Typic haplustulls, franco arcilloso, de drenaje moderado, con profundidad de 40 em y pendiente del 1%. Todos los hibridos, los dos mestizos y la variedad UNPHU-301C resultaron mas rendidores que las variedades CNIA-12 y CESDA-88 en esta prueba; esto indica que se esta perdiendo la posibilidad de obtener de producir probablemente hasta mas de un 30'% mayor cantidad de granos con la utilizacion de CNIA-12 (Cuadro 1). At'1Il en la localidad en donde se registraron los mas bajos rendimientos, (IPL), al menos un hibrido, el N03xN07, y un mestizo, el N03xUNPHU-304C, rindieron mas de 1.4 t/ha mas que las variedades CNIA-12 y CESDA-88; y de ellos, el N03xN07 Ie saco 1 t/ha de ventaja a la variedad UNPHU-30 IC en esa localidad. Esta es otra evidencia en contra de la antigua creencia de que en ambientes desfavorables las variedades rinden mejor que los hibridos u otros cultivares. EI comportamiento de CNIA-12 estuvo en consonancia con 10 expresado pOI ' Navarro y Ortiz (1992) en que esa variedad no saca provecho de los ambientes favorables de igual manera que otras variedades mejoradas 0 hibridos para conseguir un mejor rendimiento en grano.Con respecto a las caracteristicas agrolH)micas (Cuadro 4), entre los cultivares mas rendidores, los hibridos N03xDK 12 y N03xDK 19 presentan las mejores caracteristicas al presentar l11uy buen aspecto general de plantas, porcentaje de mazorcas sanas igual a la variedad adaptada CNIA-12 y huen comportamiento para el porcentaje de plantas no acal11adas, y para plantas no afcctadas poria enfermedad achaparramiento del maiz. EI hihrido N03xDK 14 tambien presento buenas caracterlsticas de tolerancia al achaparramiento y para plantas no acamadas, aunque presento un buen cOl11portamiento para el porcentaje de mazorcas sanas. EI acame que presentan las variedades CNIA-12 y CESDA-88 es una de las caracteristicas mas indeseables que muestran esos materiales.El cuadro 2 muestra diferencias altamente significativas para localidad y significativas para localidad x cultivar. Las diferencias entre los cultivares son significativas a un 7% de probabilidades de error. Como se observa en el cuadro 3 el hibrido N03xDK 12 mostro mayor rendimiento en grano que cualquiera de las variedades bajo estudio. Igualmente, los mestizos N03xUNPHU-305C y N03xUNPHU-304C tuvieron rendimientos superiores a las variedades CNIJ.-12 y CESDA-88. Fue notable el buen comportamiento de la variedad UNPHU-301C para la localidad de Azua, en donde se comporto igual al hibrido N03xDKI2.EI rendimiento de los hibridos N03xDK 14 y N03xDK 19 reafirmo 10 encontrado en cl estudio de habilidad combinatoria realizado pOI ' Ortiz y ('omalat (1993); sin embargo, en esc mismo trabajo cl hibrido N03xT66, tuvo un comportamiento superior al expresado en la presente evaluacion. N03xT66 tambien tuvo mejor comportamiento en el ensayo del PCCMCA conducido en 1995 sobre II localiclades, donde ocupo el tercer Jugal' en rendimiento, con 5.48 t/ha (Pixley, 1995). En la Figura 1 se observa una comparaclOn del rendimiento de los mejores hibridos, escogidos en base a su productividad en grano y. comportamiento agronomico, con los mestizos, las variedades y la variedad local CNIA-12. Se puede notar' como los hibridos escogidos 0 los mestizos presentan ventajas respecto a las variedades, con la excepci6n de Azua, donde la variedad UNPHU-30IC tuvo muy buen comportamiento; ver tambien la Fig. 2. En la Fig. 3 se enfatiza la superioridad del comportamiento de los mestizos sobre la variedad CNIA-12. En un contraste ortogonal realizado los mestizos fueron superiores al grupo completo de variedades probadas si se asume una probabilidad de error superior al 6%. La infonnaci6n obtenida en este ensayo y estudios anteriores con los mismos materiales, sugieren que hay potencial en los materiales mejorados para sustituir a la variedad CNIA-12 por materiales mas productivos si la sustituci6n no implica desventajas en su mercadeo. Se recomienda inc1uir el N03xDK12, N03xDK14 y N03xDK19 en combinaciones hibridas triples 0 dobIes, productos hibridos con mayores posibilidades de comercializaci6n. Se recomienda tambien producir los mestizos N03xUNPHU-304C y N03xUNPHU-305C y continuar pruebas mas extensivas con ellos, ya que estos pueden constituir materiales tenninados respecto a las posibilidades de comercializaci6n de su semilla.   Dialelo de Variedades Dominicanas de Maiz (Zea mays L. )Jose Ortiz', Felix Navarro' y Pedro Comalat'Nueve variedades de polinizacilm abierta y todas sus posibles combinaciones fueron evaluadas en dos ambientes de la Republica Dominicana en un disel'lo de dialelos. Los objetivos del estudio fueron determinar la habilidad combinatoria general (HCG) y espedfica (HCF.) y estimar el nivel de heterosis involucrado para las cruzas en cada combinaci6n. EI estudio detect6 diferencias si~nificativas entre las variedades, entre las cruzas y el nivel de heterosis. EI 52% de la variaci6n entre cruzas fue debida a efectos aditivos y el resto a efectos de dominancia e interacciones. Las cruzas fueron 5% superiores a sus pro~enitores. La variedad NC-6 de grana blanco present6 un alto valor de HCG y los cruces CESDA-36xPob-24 y CF.SDA8xUNPHU-304C los valores mas altos de lICE. Las cruzas UNPHU-304CxCESDA-88 y Loyola-86xUNPHlJ-30SC presentaron los valores mas alto de heterosis entre los materiales amarillos.La variac ion fenotipica de una poblacion esta condicionada por la acci6n conjunta de su genotipo, el medio ambiente que Ie rodea, asi como la interaccion de ambos. Una de las herramientas utilizadas para cstimar los componentes de varianza son los disenos de cruces (mating design), donde se desarrollan progenies ljue son posteriormente evaluadas, uno de estos disenos es cI de dialelos. Jinks y Hayman (1953) y Griffing ( 1956) desarrollaron la teoria para el amilisis de dialelos. Un estudio de este tipo permite deterrninar el comportamlento de cruzas de progenitores y determinar la habilidad combinatoria general, debida a crectos aditivos y la habilidad combinatoria especifica, dchida a ercctos de dominancia e interacciones.Un all<ilisis de dialelos que incluye los progenitores, asi como todas sus posibles combinaciones se puede usar para determinar la heredabilidad de caracteres en varicdades de polinizacion abierta, sinteticos y compuestos (Hallauer y Miranda, 1988). En este tipo de analisis el mejorador se interesa por la respuesta de los cultivares per se, asi como la repuesta de sus cruces. Los objetivos especificos de este estudio son determinar la variaci6n debida a efectos de habilidad combinatoria general y especifica de todas las posibles cruzas de nueve variedades amarillas de m~iz y detenninar las variedades con mejor habilidad combinatoria.Se realizaron dos evaluaciones, una en la Estacion Experimental del Centro de Investigaciones para Zonas Aridas, CIAZA, en Azua (18°21' N, 70°50' W) a 40 msnm, y la otra en la Estacion Experimental Arroyo Loro del Centro de Investigacicllles Agricolas del Suroeste, CIAS, en San Juan de la Maguana (18°49' N, 70°17' W) a 419 msnm. Ambas evaluaciones fueron realizadas durante el segundo semestre del ano 1994.Se incluyeron todas las combinaciones resultantes del cruce de nueve varierlades de polinizacion abierta (Cuadro 1), asi como las variedades per se, para un total de 45 entradas. Las variedades estan descritas en Navarro y Ortiz (1992).Se uso un diseno de bloques completos al azar con cuatro repeticiones. La unidad experimental era de 2 surcos de 5 m de largo separados a 0.8 m entre si, con 0.5 m entre posturas, a una densidad teorica de 5.33 plantas/m 2 . El manejo agronomico en ambas localidades fue adecuado a las exigencias del cultivo. EI amllisis estadistico se hizo de acuerdo al diseno de bloques completos al azar en arreglo factorial, donde los factores fueron localidad y entradas. Para rendimiento se utilizo el metodo 2 de Griffing (1956) para un analisis de dialelos. En la evaluacion se incluyen los progenitores y un juego de progenies FI's. Este metodo perrnite hacer una division ortogonal de los efectos debido a variedades, variedades vs cruzas (nivel de heterosis) y los efectos de las cruzass que son descompuestos a su vez en efectos de habilidad combinatoria general de las variedades y su respuesta en cruces especificos, es decir, su habilidad combinatoria especifica. Puesto que las variedades utilizadas son una muestra de la poblacion, el modelo I (fijo), es utilizado (Ortiz y Comalat, 1992). El amilisis de varianza para rendimiento se presenta en el Cuadro 2. No se detecto diferencia significativa entre las dos localidades utilizadas para el estudio. Tampoco el diseiio detecto interaccion de las variedades por los ambientes. Los efectos de entradas fueron descompuestos en efectos ortogonales debido a las variedades, sus cruzas y la comparacion de las variedades con sus cruzas (Cuadro 2).Se detecto diferencia entre las variedades per se, siendo las variedades mas rendidoras UNPHU-30lC y CESDA-36. El nivel de heterosis general involucrado en el analisis, la comparacion de las variedades vs todas sus posibles cruzas, resulto ser significativo al P<0.08. Las cruzas fueron en promedio 5.3% superior a las variedades. Los efectos de cruzas fueron descompuestos a la vez en variacion debida a la habilidad combinatoria general (HCG) de las variedades y sus cruces, habilidad combinatoria especifica (HCE). Ambos efectos fueron estadisticamente significativos. Del total de variacion debida a las cruzas el 52% correspondio a efectos aditivos, es decir varianza en HCG.Entre los materiales de grano amari 110 x amari 110, las cruzas UNPIIU-304CxCLSDA88 (14.8%) y Loyola-86xUNPIIU-305C (10.8%) mostraron buena heterosis La cruza CLSDA-88xNL-6 fue la que mostro mayor heterosis, rindiendo 35% mas que el mejor padre; la variedad N13-6 de grano blanco. Las peores combinaciones por su heterosis negativa fueron Pob-24xUNPIIU-305C, Pob-24xUNPHU-304C y UNPHU-304CxCESDA-36, rindiendo 27.8, 30.4 y 24.5% menos que el progenitor de mayor rendimiento.. EI Cuadro 3 presenta los valores de habilidad combinatoria general de cada variedad, asi como sus cruces especific.os. La variedad NB-6, de grano blanco y por tanto de patron heterotico diferente a las evaluadas, resulto la variedad con mejor habilidad combinatoria general, se destaca la variedad Pob. 24 como la peor. E I valor de HCG en t/ha indica el incremento 0 disminucion promedio de la variedad en las cruzas en que esta involucrada. En el Cuadro 3 puede destacarse adicionalmente que los cruces de CESDA-36xPob.24 y CESDA-8lixUNPHU-304C resultaron ser las mejores combinaciones especificas. La cruza CESDA-8axCNIA-t2 se presenta con mala repuesta. EI valor de HCE indica aumento 0 disminucion en t/ha que 10 esperado debido a interacciones geneticas y ambientales.Las medias agronomicas y nivel de significancia de las variables agronomicas evaluadas de las variables evaluadas a traves de localidades se presenta en el Cuadro 3. Una estrategia para los programas de generacion de !ineas es formar grupos heteroticos de !ineas a partir de CLSDA-88 y UNPIIU304C, para aprovechar la heterosis resultante de las cruzas de esos posibles grupos heteroticos detectados en este trabajo. Jose Ortiz1y Felix Navarro•Once variedades de maiz granD amarillo fueron evaluadas en 5 ambientes de Centro America y el Caribe durante 1994 y 1995. EI objetivo de este estudio fue determinar el comportamiento de estos cultivares de maiz bajo los diferentes ambientes. Las variedades fueron sembradas en un disefio de bloques completamente al azar con cuatro repeticiones. Resultados obtenidos demuestran que entre las variedades amarillas con mejores respuestas se encuentran las variedades UNPHU-304C, CESDA-36 y UNPHU-305C. Dominicana (San Juan de la Maguana, Azua y Bani), una en Panama (ElEjido) y una en Guatemala (Cuyuta). En cada localidad los cultivares fueron dispuestos en un disefio de bloques completos al azar con cuatro repeticiones. La parcela uti! consto de 2 surcos de 5 m de largo a 0.8 m entre si. Para el analisis de los datos se utilizo un arreglo factorial de bloques completos al azar con cuatro repeticiones. Los factores considerados fueron localidades y variedades. Cuadro 1. Cultivares evaluados en 5 localidades en 1994.La importancia del achaparramiento en el maiz en Republica Dominicana y Centro America es bien conocida (Grogan y Rosekranz, 1968;Navarro et at, 1987). Ortiz et at (1993) reportaron sobre 8 variedades de maiz amarillas en cinco ambientes de Republica Dorninicana y Centro America bajo presion de la enfermedad. En dicho estudio, la variedad CESDA-88 tuvo la menor incidencia de achaparrarniento, pero el rendimiento no fue afectado significativamente por la enfermedad. Once variedades de polinizacion abierta de maiz fueron utilizadas para la presente evaluacion (Cuadro 1) (Navarro y Ortiz, 1992). Las entradas fueron evaluadas en cinco localidades, tres en la Republica Publicado en SINTESIS DE RESULTADOS EXPERIMENTALES DEL PRM 1993-95, VOL. 5 (1997), p. 71-73.El analisis estadistico se presenta en el Cuadro 2. Se detectaron diferencias estadisticas entre las variedades para todas las variedades evaluadas. En el analisis solo nos concentraremos en el rendimiento en grano y su relacion con la enfermedad achaparrarniento del maiz.La localidad de Bani de la Republica Dominicana presento la media de rendimiento mas alta de la localidades utilizadas, siendo Cuyuta en Guatemala la de menor rendimiento. Se detecto interaccion de las variedades con el ambiente (P<0.09). Se puede destacar en el Cuadro 4 que UNPHU-304C es de las variedades mas rendidoras, comprobando resultados obtenidos por Ortiz et at (1993) y concuerda con un estudio de dialelo de variedades amarillas dominicanas de Ortiz et a1. (1995). La variedad local Frances Largo, junto a la variedad de la poblacion 24 del CIMMYT, obtuvieron las medias de rendimiento mas bajas a traves de las localidades evaJuadas.El mejoramiento para reducir el achaparrarniento ha sido exitoso, esto puede ser notado si son comparadas (Cuadro 4), las variedades mejoradas (UNPHU-301C, UNPHU-304C, UNPHU-305C, CESDA-36, Loyola-86 y CESDA-88) con Frances Largo, variedad con buena tolerancia, pero bajo rendimiento de grano. Un analisis de regresi6n simple fue utilizado para explicar como la enferrnedad afecta el rendimiento. La ecuaci6n lineal Y=5.73-0.09x**, fue obtenida a partir de las medias de ambas variables. Esto significa, en promedio, que cada planta afectada con achaparrarniento reduce el rendimiento en 90 gramos. CONCLUSIONES ,.. I. Las variedades UNPHU-304C, CESDA-36 y UNPHU-305C, de los programas Dominicanos de maiz tienen muy buen comportarniento.2. Se ha logrado avance en el mejoramiento para tolerancia contra el achaparrarniento. Las variedades locales UNPHU-304C, UNPHU-305C, CESDA-36, CESDA-88 y Loyola-86, se comportaron similar al testigo Frances Largo, con buen grade de tolerancia al achaparramiento perc de bajo rendimiento.Cuadro 2. Cuadrados medios de algunas de las variables evaluadas en diferentes ambientes 1994. Cecilio Torres l , Ernesto Benitez 2 y Eduardo Rodriguez 2 RESUMEN Este trabajo reporta una evaluacion de 22 hlbridos en la estaci6n experimental EI Toma~uln, con el objetivo de identificar los materiales superiores para la epoca de primavera en Cuba. Se utiliz6 un latice simple con 4 relJlicas. EI analisis de varianza mostro diferencias estadisticamente si~nificativas entre tratamientos. Varios materiales rindieron mas que el testi~o HS-46, que rindio 5.74 t/ha. EI testi~o nacional CUB T-4 rindi6 7.55 tlha, y sola mente dos hibridos 10 igualaron estadisticamente. En base a estos resultados, se recomienda formar dos hibridos dobles (1409 x 1404) x (1403 x 1402) Y (1409 x 1404) x (1401 x 1402). EI rendimiento de estos hibridos fue de 6.54 y 6.79 t/ha, respectivamente, superior al testi~o regional y a la media general del ensayo.EI mejoramiento del maiz mediante la hibridacion y la seleccion poblacional se inicio en Cuba en el ai\\o 1936. contando el pais en la actualidad con germoplasma mejorado de alto valor genetico, asi como. con hibridos y variedades de polinizacion libre (VPL) que cuentan con prestigio internacional por su adaptacion. rendimiento y estabilidad a nivel regional y nacional. Una via para lograr mayores en la obteneion dc gcrmoplasma mCJorado. dc hibridos y variedades con earacteristicas de reslstencia 0 tolerancia a enfermedades. sequia 0 humedad limitada. precocidad, cte. la constituye la colaboracion existente haee varios anos con el Programa Regional de Maiz (PRM) y el Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo (CIMMYT) de Mexico. Los objetivos son identificar por su adaptaei6n y rendimiento los mejores hibridos prediehos en las condiciones de CUItIVO de la epoca de siembra de primavera. de lJuvia 0 temporal. Los efectos de 1a accion por epocas de siembra contrastantes se manifiestan en las siembras de maiz en Cuba. en caracteres tales como el rendimiento en grano y otros de importancia agronomica como son los dias a la 110racion, altura de la planta, incidencia de acame, enfermedades y otros (Torres, 1991). En el periodo Iluvioso 0 de primavera cuando las plantas crecen bajo condiciones de abundantes precipitaciones, altas temperaturas diumas y noctumas y de dias de horas luz mas largos, se registra un ritmo de crecimiento mas rapido, 10 cual se evidencia por un numero menor de dias hasta la floraci6n, una mayor altura de la planta, mayor incidencia de enfermedades y acame y una disminucion del rendimiento en grano desde 0.8 hasta 3.5 t/ha (Torres, 1976;Torres y Betancourt, 1979). En general la productividad de los hibridos y las variedades cultivadas durante la epoca de siembra de primavera representa solo el 69% en comparacion con la epoca de frio 0 de seca con regadio. En la actualidad, con los nuevos hibridos y variedades de polinizaci6n libre, se puede lograr en primavera el 78% de la productividad en la epoca de frio (Torres et aI., 1991).Se evaluaron 22 hibridos predichos de maiz de grano amarillo generados por el PRM y se utilizaron 3 testigos lCTA, HA 46, lCTA Exp. 9122 y CUB T-4. El diseno estadistico fue un latice simple 5 x 5 con cuatro replicas con unidad experimental de dos surcos de 5 m de largo espaciados 0.90 m entre surcos con un area de 9 m 2 y 40 plantas en la parcela para una densidad de poblacion de 4.44 plantas/m 2 . La siembra se realizo con preparacion convencional del suelo y niveles de fertilizacion de 120 kg N/ha, 90 kg P 2 0/ha y 80 kg K,o/ha. Para garantizar una genninacion uniforme se c;nto con el apoyo del riego, asi como cuando no 1I0vio durante el desarrollo del cultivo.El experimento se establecio en la Estacion de Granos EI Tomeguin, Alquizar, en un suelo ferralitico rojo hidratado (oxisol) a 50 msnm. EI experimento se sembr6 en Abril de 1994 efectuandose la cosecha en Agosto del mismo ano. La relacion de las entradas del ensayo se presentan en el Cuadro I. diferencias estadisticamente significativas del resto de los 20 liIbridos que no difrrieron entre si en rendimiento (Cuadro 4). La media de rendimiento fue de 6.07 t/ha y solamente 9 hibridos predichos fueron capaces de rendir por encima de la media general (Cuadro 3). Asimismo, solo 16 hibridos predichos (en 4-18%) superaron al testigo regional HA 46, que rindio 5.74 t/ha (Cuadro 3).Los dias a floracion masculina fluctuaron de 48 a 53 dias, con una media de 50 dias. La precocidad es una caracteristica deseable, si consideramos que otros cultivares tipicamente florecen a los 60 dias en esta epoca del ano. Tambien se observo una altura de planta y mazorca promedio de 262 y 117 em, respectivamente (Cuadro 4).En los componentes del rendimiento, se pueden apreciar resultados que concuerdan con los presentados por Bolanos y Barreto (1991). En dichos componentes las medias del experimento fueron de 4.39 plantas y 4.66 mazorcas por metro cuadrado con una produce ion de 1.06 mazorcas por planta y un peso medio del grano de 131 g (Cuadro 4). EI acame de tallo fue moderado tomando en cuenta la epoca del ano, donde con frecuencia ocurren tormentas 10 que produce mucho acame. Fueron tolerantes los cultivares con menos de 15% de acame de tallo en el ensayo y en cuanto al aspecto de planta, mazorca y calificacion a enfermedades se observo un comportamiento satisfactorio (Cuadro 4).\\-Cuadro 2. Amilisis de varianza de la variable rendimiento en grana de los hibridos predichos y sus testi~os, 1994.Fuentes Los programas de mejoramiento genetico de maiz en la region de Centro America y EI Caribe constantemente generan hibridos experimentales con la meta final de proporcionarselos a los agricultores. EI ensayo uniforme del PCCMCA evahia anualmente mas de 30 hibridos de grana blanco y amarillo a traves de diversos ambientes de la region. EI objetivo de este trabajo es conocer el comportamiento de estos genotipos y su interaccion genotipo-ambiente. En 1994 se evaluaron 21 genotipos de grano blanco en 10 ambientes y 22 genotipos de grana amarillo en II ambientes. Se utilizo un diseno de bloques completos al azar con 4 repeticiones y se cuantific6 la interacci6n genotipo ambiente con el aRalisis de efectos principales aditivos e interacciones multiplicativas (modelo AMMI). Los hibridos blancos que menos interactuaron con el ambiente fueron SEMESA-470 y 481 Y XB-IIl2 y 1114 con puntajes cercanos a cero (-0.047, -0.052, -0.003 y -0.017, respectivamente), pero no superaron en rendimiento al testigo. Los hibridos amarillos de mayor estabilidad fueron XA-I008 y el 3018 con puntajes de -0.033 y 0.053, respectivamente, y tampoco superaron en rendimiento al testigo. EI hibrido de grana blanco que tuvo mayor interacci6n con el ambiente fue el HC-57 y el de grana amarillo fue Cub.T-91. Los hibridos blancos que tuvieron los mejores comportamientos fueron el H-53 con 5.32 t/ha y el300lW con 5.60 t/ha, respectivamente. Para los de grana amarillos, fueron el 27x28 e ICTA HE-9122 con 5.79 y 5.83 t/ha, respectivamente; ambos del PRM.La produccion de maiz en la region Centroamericana y el Caribe se desarrolla en una gran diversidad de ambientes contrastantes que provocan en muchos casos bajos rendimientos. Con la fmalidad de obtener cultivares de maiz estables y rendimiento aceptable, los programas nacionales de la region y las compaiiias privadas nacionales y extranjeras evaluan el comportarniento de sus variedades e hibridos comerciales y experimentales en ensayos uniformes del PCCMCA los cuales son sembrados en un amplio rango de ambientes en la region. La informacion de estos ensayos perrniten la toma de decisiones en la seleccion IFitomejorador, Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganaderia, Costa Rica. DEL PRM 1993-1995, VOL. 5 (1997), p. 77-83.   77 de cultivares adecuados a la circunstancia de cada pais por parte de los programas nacionales, compaiiias privadas, instituciones intemacionales, mejoradores, tecnicos y agricultores. Este es el cuarto aiio consecutivo que se siembran dos juegos de ensayos, uno de grano blanco y otro de grano amarillo. Le correspondio a Costa Rica preparar los ensayos y presentar el informe de los resultados de 1994.Los objetivos del trabajo son evaluar el rendimiento de grano, caracteristicas agronomicas, y la adaptacion de hibridos blancos y amarillos generados por los programas nacionales y compaiiias privadas de semilla, a traves de diversos ambientes de Centro America, Panama y el Caribe. Otro objetivo es detem1inar la interaccion genotipo x ambiente de los hibridos para identificar los materiales superiores con buena estabilidad de rendimiento. Queme (1992) seiiala que los hibridos blancos HB-85, CB-XHS-507, H-53 Y MAX-397 fueron los mas estables del ensayo del PCCMCA de 1991, superando al testigo HB-83M y a la media general del ensayo. El mismo autor identifico los hibridos amarillos EXP-9l22, 3078, HC-78 Y H-I04, los cuales superaron al testigo HA-45. Urbina (1993) determino que los hibridos blancos H-53, HS-5GM Y 1402CW, CB-XHS-511 y HN-913 superaron en rendimiento al testigo HB-83 en los ensayos uniformes del PCCMCA en 1992. EI mismo autor seiiala que la estabilidad fue menor en los hibridos amarillos que en los blancos ya que unicamente el HA-55 y T-9 presentaron puntuaciones AMMI cercanas a cero, pero sus rendimientos fueron inferiores al promedio global de los hibridos evaluados. Los hibridos amarillos XL-380 y HR-12 rindieron mas que el testigo HA-46 y la magnitud de su interaccion con el ambiente fue relativamente baja, pOI 10 que parecen promisorios. Alvarado et al. (1994), seiialan que los mejores hibridos amarillos fueron el EXP-9122 y CubT-4, los cuales superaron en rendimiento al testigo HA-46 con valores AMMI cercanos acero, 10 cual los identifica como cultivares con baja interaccion con el ambi'ente, en el ensayo uniforme del PCCMCA en 1993. Los mejores hibridos blancos fueron HS-7GM y HB30, los cuales superaron en rendimiento al testigo HB-83 y con valores AMMI cercanos a cero.En 1994 el ensayo unifonne de maiz del PCCMCA de grana blanco tuvo 21 cultivares (Cuadro I) Y el amarillo tuvo 22 cultivares (Cuadro 2) generados por los programas nacionales y compafiias privadas productoras de semilla. Los ensayos fueron enviados a Centro America, Panama, Republica Dominicana y Cuba. Se analizo infonnacion de 10 localidades para grana blanco y 12 localidades para grano amarillo.Para los dos ensayos se utilizo un disefio de bloques completos al azar con 4 repeticiones, sembrandose 2 surcos de 5 m de largo por unidad experimental a una densidad de 5.33 plantas/m\". Se registraron las variables dias a floraci6n masculina y femenina, altura de planta y mazorca, acame de raiz y tallo, mazorcas descubiertas, aspecto de mazorca, enfennedades foliares y de la mazorca, peso de campo de mazorca y porcentaje de humedad del grano. EI rendimiento de campo de mazorca se transfonno a rendimiento de grana al 15% de humcdad. En las localidades donde influy6 el numero de plantas cosechadas se realizo un ajuste por amllisis de covarianza.En ambos experimentos se realizo analisis de varianza por localidad y combinado para rendimiento. Se calculo la diferencia minima significativa (DMS) al 5%. Para medir la interaccion genotipo-ambiente se efectuo eI amilisis de efectos principales aditivos e interacciones multiplicativas (modelo AMMI) (Crossa et aI., 1990).El Cuadro 3 presenta los resultados para rendimiento. EI cuadrado medio de los cultivares sefiala una relativamente alta variabilidad de estos en las localidades de Cuyuta, Leon, Canas y Omonita. Las localidades San Jeronimo, Omonita y Canas tuvieron altos rendimientos (8. 3, 5.6 Y 6.4 t/ha, respectivamente). EI CV para las estas localidades fue de los mas bajos, 10 que indica buen equilibrio entre sus componentes. EI Cuadro 4 contiene el amilisis AMMI para rendin1iento de los hibridos evaluados y las localidades en donde se hicieron las pruebas. Las fuentes de variacion de localidades, genotipos y la interaccion de estas dos variables fueron significativas (P<O.01), indicando alta variabilidad, 10 que pennite diferenciar entre los componentes de cada una. Para una mejor interpretaci6n de la interaccion genotipo-ambiente, esta se subdivide en efectos principales aditivos e interacciones multiplicativas (Eje I y Eje 2). No se utilizan mas ejes porque los efectos son cada vez mas pequefios y de menor importancia. Estos dos componentes principales representan el 56% de la suma de los cuadrados de la interaccion genotipo-ambiente y el 30% del grado de libertad. Como el PCA 1 representa el 35% de la suma de cuadrados de la interaccion que nos ocupa, este es el que ayuda mas en la prediccion del efecto de interacci6n e indica que hubo un considerable grado de interaccion entre genotipos y ambientes. EI Cuadro 5, tiene los valores del comportarniento de los cultivares y los ambientes con respecto al rendimiento asociado al puntaje del EJE 1. Los hibridos de mayor estabilidad fueron SEMESA-470 y 481 Y XB-1112 Y 1114 con puntuaciones cercanos a cero (-0.047, -0.052, -0.03 y -0.017, respectivamente), de ellos SEMESA-481 tuvo el mejor rendirniento (4.2 t/ha). El hibrido 3001 W tuvo buena estabilidad (puntaje 0.129) y un buen rendimiento (5.6 t/ha). De los cinco hibridos mas estables (poca interacci6n con el media ambiente) este es el unico que super6 al testigo en rendirniento (HB-85 con 4.5 t/ha). EI hibrido HC-57 fue el que mas interaccion tuvo con la localidad, de manera que se interpreta que se adapta bien a ambientes de buena produccion, ya que su rendirniento fue relativamente bueno. Los ambientes que mostraron los menores valores de interaccion con los genotipos fueron Las Vegas y Guapiles (-0.081 y 0.098, respectivamente). Estos ambientes son de adaptacion amplia con respecto a los genotipos; pueden servir para introducir materiales exoticos 0 sea son los ambientes denominados neutros. Los ambientes San Jeronimo y Leon (-1.438 y 1.184, respectivamente) fueron los que tuvieron la mayor interaccion con los cultivares, de manera que perrniten adaptaciones especificas.La Figura 1 muestra los genotipos mas estables con una agrupacion horizontal, 10 que indica que son de adaptacion amplia. Los genotipos HC-57, SEMESA-1512 YA 7597 son de adaptacion especifica.Ensayo de Hibridos de Grano Amarillo EI Cuadro 6 presenta el analisis de varianza para rendirniento. EI cuadrado medio de los cultivares sefiala una relativa alta variabilidad de estos en las localidades de San Jeronimo, Tomequin y Zamorano, respecto a la media. Las localides de San Jeronimo, Parita y Zamorano tuvieron altos rendirnientos. EI CV para estas localidades son los mas bajos.  Rendimiento (Tm/ha)   . Genotipos i-Ambientes Figura 2. Diagrama de medias de rendimiento y puntuaciones del primer eje del componente principal de 2J hibridos de grano amarillo y J J ambientes. PCCMCA94EI presente infonne es producto de un trabajo cooperativo en el cual han participado entidades e instituciones de Centro America, Panama, EI Caribe y Mexico, quienes al igual que en otros anos han participado con gran profesionalismo. Panama: Alfonso Alvarado, Daniel Perez (IDIAP), Costa Rica: Arnoldo Vargas, Carlos Calderon (MAG), Nicaragua: Rafael Obando, Lazaro Narvaez (lNTA), Honduras: Luis Brizuela, Oscar Cruz (SRN), Francisco Gomez (El Zamorano), El Salvador: Fidencio Guerra, (CENTA), Guatemala: Carlos Perez, Jose Luis Queme, Luis Larios (lCTA),Salvador Castellanos (CRISTIANI BURKARD), Rene Velazquez (SEMINAL), Cuba: Marcos Torres (IIHLD), Rep. Dominicana: Ramon ('elado, (CESDA), CIMMYT: Jorge Bolanos (Programa Regional de Maiz para Centro America y EI Caribe).Alvarado, A., l. Camargo B. y R. Gordon. 1994. Evaluacion dc Hibndos de Maiz (Zeu IIWYS L.) de Grano Blanco y Amarillo, en Ambicntes de Centroamerica, Panama y EI Caribe. Infomle PCCMCA 1994. Panama, 37 p.Evaluacion de Hibridos de Maiz (Zea mays L) de Grano Blanco y Amarillo en Ambientes de Centroamerica, Panama y EI Caribe Luis Brizuela lLa generacilm de germoplasma ha sido uno de los logros de mayor relevancia del Programa Regional de Malz (PRM) y las empresas privadas que desarrollan investigacion en la region. En los ensayos uniformes del PCCMCA se evaluaron hlbridos de grano blanco y amarillo a traves de mas de 30 ambientes en la region. EI objetivo de este estudio es obtener informacion sobre el eomportamiento de los hlbridos y su interaecion con los ambientes del area. Durante 1995 se evaluaron 30 hlbridos blaneos bajo un diseflo de latice rectangular 6 x 5 con 3 repeticiones y 14 hlbridos de grano amarillo bajo un diseflo de DCA con 3 repeticiones. Se realizo analisis de varianza por localidad, eombinado y se utilizo el modelo de efeetos principales aditivos e interaeciones mutiplieativas (AMMI) para determinar la interaecion genotipo x ambiente. Los hlbridos Pioneer 1394BN y CBHS-7GMI fueron superiores al testigo HB-83 (4.76 t/ha) en 4 y 3.5%, respectivamente con puntuaciones AMMI eereanas a eero. EI eomportamiento de los hibridos blaneos fue similar en las loealidades de San Jeronimo, Cuyuta y EAP, ya que no se eneontro signifieancia estadlstiea. En los materiales amarillos no hubo respuesta en Lepaguare, Cuyuta y La Maquina. Sin embargo, el analisis AM MI eneontro alta significancia en todas las fuentes de variacion. Los hlbridos amarillos mas estables fueron HE-9126, P-8916, P-8812 Y DK-999 con rendimientos superiores al testigo (HA-46 con 3.75 Uha) en 17.8, 18.6, 22.6 Y 27.2 %, respeetivamente. EI hlbrido DK-888 superb al testigo en 38.14%. EI cultivo del maiz en la region de Centro America y EI Caribe, ocupa el primer lugar de acuerdo al area de produccion y a la importancia como producto de consumo humano y en la elaboracion de concentrados para la alimentacion animal. Este grano se produce en una gran diversidad de ambientes contrastantes que inducen en muchas ocasiones muy baja productividad en el cultivo. A pesar de tres decadas de investigacion ejecutados por los Programas Nacionales en el desarrollo de germoplasma mejorado, todavia se obtienen muy 'Coordinador del Programa de Maiz del DICTA, San Pedro Sula, Iionduras Publicado en SINTESIS DE RESULTADOS EXPERIMENTALES DEL PRM 1993-1995, VOL. 5 (1997), p. 84-91. 84 bajos rendimientos consecuencia de factores cliIruiticos (mala distribucion de las lluvias), poca fertilidad de suelos, manejo agronomico deficiente y ausencia del material genetico mejor adecuado.Debido a las limitaciones que se tienen en la disponibilidad de cultivares con alto potencial de rendimiento y con muy buena estabilidad el Programa Regional de Maiz (PRM), con la colaboracion de las compafiias privadas todos los afios promueven los hibridos nuevos en los ensayos uniformes del PCCMCA ya que es un mecanismo apropiado para que tanto los Programas Nacionales como las compafiias privadas puedan poner a disposicion su semilla en manos de los productores de maiz.Los objetivos de este trabajo son obtener informacion sobre los hibridos blancos y amarillos, deterrninar su adaptaci6n y estabilidad, identificar hibridos superiores, y entregar y difundir la informacion generada 'a todos los programas nacionales, compamas privadas, y productores de semilla para que sirva de base en la toma de decisiones en la industria de semilla de la region.Alvarado et a!. (1994) sefialan que los mejores hibridos amarillos fueron el EXP-9122 y CUBT-4, los euales superaron en rendimiento al testigo HA-46 y tuvieron valores AMMI cercanos acero, 10 cual los identifica como cultivares con baja interaccion con el ambiente. Los mejores hibridos blancos fueron HS-7GM Y HB30, los cuales superaron en rendimiento al testigo HB-83 y tuvieron valores AMMI cercanos a cero. Los mejores hibridos amarillos y blancos ademas de tener buen rendimiento y poca interaccion con el ambiente presentaron adecuadas caracteristicas agron6micas. Pixley (1995) encontr6 que los htbridos de mayor estabilidad fueron SEMESA-470, 481 y XB-I112, con puntajes AMMI cercanos a cero. Los htbridos amarillos XA-1008 y 3018 mostraron buena estabilidad con puntajes cercanos a cero.Los ensayos uniformes del PCCMCA de 1995 se formaron con 30 htbridos de grano blanco (Cuadro 1) y 14 cultivares amarillos (Cuadro 2) generados por los programas nacionaIes y compaiiias privadas productoras de semilla. Se prepararon 15 ensayos de hibridos blancos y 17 amarilIos, pero al momenta de preparar el reporte, se habian recibido 9 y 11 infonnes, respectivamente. Las localidades donde se establecieron los ensayos estan en los Cuadros 3 y 4.Para e1 ensayo de hibridos blancos se utilizo un diseno de latice rectangular 6 x 5 con 3 repeticiones y 4 surcos por unidad experimental. En el ensayo de hibridos amarilIos, el numero de cultivares fue de 14 por 10 que se utilizo un diseno de bloques completos al azar con 3 repeticiones y el numero de surcos fue de cuatro igual se hizo en los hibridos blancos. El numero de plantas por surco de 5m de largo fue de 22 considerandose los dos surcos centrales como la parcela Jtil con un rango de area de 8.25 y 9.90 m 2 . El testigo del ensayo de hibridos blancos fue HB-33 y el de los amarillos fue HA-46, ambos deliCTA-Guatemala. Se registraron las variables dias a floracion masculina y femenina, altura de planta y mazorca (m), acame de raiz y tallo, enfennedades comunes, mazorcas descubiertas, aspecto de planta y mazorca, peso de campo de mazorca, porcentaje de humedad y ajuste de rendimiento al 15% de humedad. En los hibridos blancos el amilisis de varianza por localidad de rendimiento se efectuo con el modelo de latice y para los amariIIos se utilizo el mode1o de BCA. Se caIculo la diferencia minima significativa (DMS) al 5%. La interaccion genotipo-ambiente se midio por el modelo AMMI, de los efectos principales aditivos e interacciones multiplicativas (Crossa et al. 1990).Los resultados del analisis de varianza individual y el combinado de las localidades se presentan en el Cuadro 5, donde se aprecia que solamente en las localidades de Cuyuta, San Jeronimo y EAP, en el resto de las localidades se encontro alta significancia entre estos hibridos, sometidos a la evaluacion. La alta significancia de la interaccion localidad x tratamiento en rendimiento nos indica que los hibridos estan influenciados de manera diferente por el efecto del ambiente. EI rango del CY oscila entre 9.2 y 20.1 %. La localidad con mejor rendimiento fue Omonita con 6.67 t/ha y la menor fue Santa Cruz PonTillo con 0.89 t/ha. En todas las localidades la eficiencia de usar el analisis de latice sobre bloques completos al azar estuvo arriba del 50'%. Cuadro 1. Ensayo de hibridos de maiz de grano blanco del PCCMCA. Para una mejor interpretacion visual se presenta la Figura 1 en donde se muestra el hibrido CB-HS-7GMI que reporto rendimientos altos y esta dentro de los estables (puntuacion AMMI 0.125). Sin embargo, el mas estable fue SEMESA 481 pero con rendimientos mas bajos que la media obtenida en la evaluacion 4.365 t/ha. Los hibridos que interactuaron mas con el ambiente fueron Pionner 9144 y H-53 ya que presentaron puntuaciones AMMI de 0.921 y -0.885 por 10 tanto se clasifican como genotipos que se adaptan bien en ambientes especificos de produccion. Los ambientes que mas interactuaron con los hibridos de acuerdo a la puntuacion AMMI fueron Leon, Lepaguare y EAP con scores de -1.078 y 0.726, respectivamente.El analisis de varianza por localidad y combinado se detalla en el Cuadro 8 en donde no hubo respuesta significativa en las localidades de Lepaguare, Cuyuta y La Maquina, luego en el resto de las localidades el comportamiento de los hibridos fue diferente en esos ambientes. Las localidades donde se obtuvo los mayores rendimientos fue Las Acacias y EAP Y los CY's oscilaron entre 10.9 y 32.5%.El Cuadro 9 se presenta el analisis AMMI de los 14 hibridos evaluados en 11 localidades donde los resultados fueron similares al caso de los hibridos blancos. Se encontro alta respuesta significativa para todas las variables de fuente de variacion. El primer eje de interaccion PCA 1 capto el 42.5% de la suma de cuadrados de la interaccion localidad x hibridos con 16.9% de los grados de libertad. s::s:: Figura 2. Medias de rendimiento y puntuaciones del primer eje del componente principal de 14 hibridos de grana amarillo y II ambientes. PCCMCA 1995.En ambas evaluaciones el factor productivo fue similar para hibridos blancos y amarillos ya que la media de rendimiento fue de 4.36 y 4.30 tlha, respectivamente, sin embargo; se detectaron un mayor numero de hibridos amarillos que superaron al testigo, se puede deducir que el progreso del mejoramiento de los hibridos blancos podria permanecer estabilizado.De acuerdo a la informacion obtenida, en los dos ensayos el manejo agronomico se considera algo deficiente ya que la densidad de poblacion fue baja, para blancos de 36,000 a 46,000 plantaslha y para amarillos de 36,000 a 45,000 plantaslha. La densidad teorica debe ser de 53,000 plantaslha por 10 que se esta perdiendo un 13 -14% de plantas en el transcurso del ciclo del cultivo.De acuerdo a los resultados es evidente los logros alcanzados por los Programas Nacionales y las Empresas Privadas en la generacion de hibridos con alto potencial de rendimiento y con muy buenas' caracteristicas agronomicas.1. Se prepararon un total de 32 ensayos de hibridos del PCCMCA 1995 fueron 15 de color de grano blanco y 17 de grano amarillo recibiendo informacion de 9 localidades para los blancos y 11 localidades para los hibridos amarillos, traduciendose en 66 y 70% de recuperacion de la informacion.2. En las dos evaluaciones el comportamiento productivo de los hibridos fue similar ya que la media de rendimiento para hibridos blancos fue de 4.36 tlha y para los amarillos fue de 4.30 tlha. Sin embargo, se identificaron mas hibridos amarillos que superaron al testigo (HA-46) que en el caso de los blancos.CB-HS-7GMl, C220, DK-833, Pionner 1394 FN, HN953, SEMESA-481 y HB-62, Pionner 1394BN y HB-85. Los hibridos amarillos con mejor estabilidad fueron P-8812, P-8916, HE-9126, HE-9122, DK-999, H-104 yHA-72.4. La productividad de ciertos hibridos provenientes de los Programas Naciones y Empresas Privadas fueron generalmente superiores a los testigos por 10 que se deduce que han habido progresos significativos en la generacion de germoplasma tropical.EI presente infonne es producto de un trabajo cooperativo en el cual han participado entidades e instituciones de Centro America, Panama, EI Caribe y Mexico, en donde los trabajos se han lIevado a cabo con mucho interes y profesionalismo. El Salvador: Adan Aguiluz, Fidencio Guerra, (CENTA). Alvarado, A., I. Camargo B. y R. Gordon. 1994. Evaluaci6n de Hibridos de Maiz (Zea mays L) de Grano Blanco y Amarillo, en Ambientes de Centroamerica, Panama y EI Caribe. Infonne PCCMCA 1994. Panama, 37 p. C6rdova, H.S. 1989. Evaluaci6n de 36 cultivares de maiz en 20 ambientes de Centro America, Panama y EI Caribe, PCCMCA 1988. Presentado en la XXXV Reunion Anual del PCCMCA, San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Crossa, 1.;H.G. Gauch Jr. y R. W. Zobel. 1988. Estimacion estadistica predictiva de rendimiento en ensayos de variedades. In Simposio \"Modelos de Estabilidad para Evaluar la Adaptacion de Cultivares. XXXIV Reunion Anual del PCCMCA, San Jose, Costa Rica.Queme, 1.L.; M.R. Fuentes. 1992. Evaluacion de hibridos de maiz (Zea mays L.) de grano blanco y amarillo, en diferentes ambientes de Mexico, Centro America, EI Caribe y Venezuela. Infonne PCCMCA 199 I PRM-ICTA, Guatemala, c.A. 6Ip. Una buena parte de la ganancia genetica en cuItivares modernos de maiz se debe a una mejor tolerancia a densidad. Este trabajo tiene por objetivo caracterizar la respuesta a densidad a varios niveles de N de los cuItivares de maiz mas importantes de leTA. Se uso un disefio de parcelas sub-sub-divididas con 2 niveles de N (75 Y 150 kg N/ha), 3 niveles de densidad (3.0, 5.0 Y 7.0 pl/m 2 ) y 3 cultivares (2 comunes y un testigo local por localidad) en 3 repeticiones a traves de 3 localidades en Guatemala. La respuesta a densidad se analizo por regresion lineal entre el logaritmo del rendimiento por planta y la densidad (metodo de Duncan). Se hizo analisis por localidad y combinado para los cultivares comunes, (HB-85 y B-1). La densidad optima oscilo entre 5.0 y 6.0 pl/m 2 para ambos cultivares, pero el rendimiento fue mayor para HB-85 (6.2 t/ha) comparada con B-1 (5.0 t/ha). No se detecto una respuesta significativa a dosis de N, ni interaccion entre densidad x N. Una posible explicacion de la ausencia de respuesta a N es el hecho que los ensayos fueron conducidos en estaciones experimentales con historia de fertilizacion continua. Se sugiere continuar la caracterizacion de la respuesta a densidad de estos cultivares bajo condiciones en campos de agricuItores tipicos.EI desarrollo de gennoplasma mejorado de maiz de lCTA es una de las mayores actividades del Programa de Maiz que es primordial para seguir encontrando mejores genotipos que puedan responder a las exigencias de los agricultores. Aunado a la investigacion genetica, tambien se realizan estudios de manejo de estos cultivares para identificar la fonna de como responden a los paquetes tecnologicos que se tienen hoy en dia. Bolanos (1993) indica que existen varias avenidas para incrementar la productividad (fraccian cosechable de una cultivo: a) un incremento en la duracian del cultivo 0 en la produccian de la fase de llenado de grano dentro del total; b) un incremento en la produccian de materia seca por unidad de area y por consiguiente una 'Tecnicos del Programa de Maiz, ICTA; 'Agr6nomo Regional CIMMYT. DEL PRM 1993-1995, VOL 5 (1997), p. 95-100. 95 mayor produccian de grano, c) un incremento en la produccian de materia seca destinada a la fraccian cosechable (mazorca) reflejando una mejoria en el indice de cosecha; y d) una mejoria en la tolerancia a alta densidad que tambien esta asociada a la capacidad de tolerar estreses ambientales.Actualmente la recomendacian sobre la densidad del cultivo del maiz es de 4.4 pUm 2 , densidad similar que han encontrado con cultivares del PRM «5.0 pUm 2 ) (Larios, 1990;Bolanos 1993), 10 cual indica que los ultimos cultivares liberados no han sido mejorados para tolerar una mayor densidad. Tambien se tiene la idea que al cambiar a una densidad mayor, se tiene que cambiar los parcentajes de nutrimentos. ya que el N es tipicall1ente uno de los elementos mas limitantes en los agroecosistemas (Kocher, 1986). Los objetivos que se plantearon para este estudio fue de caracterizar la respuesta a densidad de siembra de tres cultivares de maiz y determinar si existe alguna respuesta a cambios de una mayor fertilizacian.El material genetico 10 constituya semilla de las variedades e hibridos comerciales y experimentalcs: B-1, B-5, HB-85 Y HE-9126, siendo estos genotlpos los que tienen demanda nacional. EI diseilo utilizado fue de parcelas sub-sub-divididas, donde la parcela grande fue niveles de N (75 Y 150 kg/hal, la parcela media densidad (3.0, 5.0 Y 7.0 pi/mC) y la parcela chica tres variedades (dependiendo de la localidad). La unidad experimental fue de 13.2 m C con distanciamientos de siembra de acuerdo a la densidad, manteniendo el ancho de surco a 0.80 m. Los ensayos se ubicaron en las estaciones experimentales de lCTA en Cuyuta, San Jeronimo y Jutiapa. EI ensayo recibia un manejo adecuado y una aplicacian de P de 40 kg/ha como P 2 G S ' A la cosecha se tomaron parametros como: numero de plantas, numero de mazorcas, peso de grano, humedad del grano. Los calculos de rendimientos de grano se realizaron al 15 % de humedad, se cuantifico el numero de plantas (pUm 2), peso de mazorca y mazorcas par planta (rnz/pl). La respuesta a densidad se analiza par el metodo de Duncan (1958)  (Bolanos et a!., 1993).En los Cuadros I, 2 Y3 se muestran los resultados de amilisis estadistico que se realizaron para las variables plantas por m\", mazorcas por m 2 , mazorcas por planta, rendimiento pOl' planta, peso de mazorca y rendirniento de grano para Cuyuta, San Jeronimo y Jutiapa. Para N, Jutiapa (Cuadro 3) no mostro significancia para todas las variables evaluadas, mientras que en Cuyuta solamente plantas/m\" fue significativo. Para San Jeronimo, el peso de mazorca y rendimiento (t/ha) no fueron significativos. Sin embargo, el factor densidad mostro alta significancia para todas las variables en las tres localidades y los tres niveles de densidad afectaron en diferente forma a las variables estudiadas. De forma similar el factor variedades denoto un comportamiento diferente para las variables rendimiento de grano y peso de mazorca en las tres localidades ya que a nivel estadistico fueron difcrcntes indicando que al menos un genotipo fue superior en esta evaluacion. La mayoria de interacciones de primer y segundo orden fueron no significativas, 10 cual indica que estos factores no interaccionan en las variables evaluadas sino que aetuaron en forma indcpendiente.En el Cuadro 4 se muestran los estadisticos a nive! cOll1binado de las tres localidades donde se evaluaron los genolipos a diferentes densidades, donde se puede observar que los factores principa~es fueron no significativos a excepcion del factor variedades que denota significancia a P<O.O I en rendimiento de grano, pl/m', mzlm\" y peso de ll1azorca. En cuanto a las interaceiones de primer y segundo orden, estas no moslraron signiticancia en ]a mayoria de los casos.En los Cuadros 5, 6 y 7 se ll1uestran los componentes de rendimiento del ensayo de densidades para estimar la respuesta de tres cultivares de maiz. Se observa que para altura de planta y de mazorca ninguna densidad afecto a cstas variables ya que en las tres densidades los cultivares mostraron alturas de planta normales de acuerdo a la localidad en donde fueron evaluados. En C:uyuta la altura fue entre 222 y 231 em (Cuadro 5), San Jeronimo entre 208 y 225 em (Cuadro 6) y Jutiapa entre 129 y 132 em (Cuadro 7). El peso de Ia mazorea en baja densidad fue 86, 111 Y 130 g, respectivamente, seguido par la densidad media con 88, 108 y 107 g, Ypor ultimo en densidad alta con pesos de 82, 96 Y 85 g en Cuyuta, San Jeronimo y Jutiapa, respectivamente.En el Cuadro 8 se resume a nivel combinado los componentes del rendimiento de las tres localidades evaluadas notandose la misma tendencia que a nivel individual donde la densidad baja tiende a tener el mayor 96 peso de mazorca y mimero de mazorcas por planta, pero el rendimiento es mayor en la alta densidad 10 cual indica que estos genotipos soportan densidades mayores a 7.0pVm 2 • Un factor importante que da seguridad a los resultados es que se pudo mantener las densidades teoricas en el campo ya que estas fueron de 3.0, 5.0 y 7.0 pVm 2 y la densidad real en promedio de las tres localidades fueron de 3.27,5.19  y 7.08 pVm 2 (Cuadro 8). En cuanto a rendimiento la densidad alta mostro los mayores rendimientos de 5.25, 7.33 y 5.77 t/ha, la densidad media de 4.90, 6.73 y 5.61 t/ha, siendo estos resultados estadisticamente diferentes de la densidad baja que mostro rendimientos de 3.59, 5.11 Y 4.58 t/ha para Cuyuta, San Jeronimo y Jutiapa, respectivamente.Para el factor cultivar los resultados se muestran en los Cuadros 9, lOy 11 de las tres localidades evaluadas donde solo para peso de mazorca se nota que existieron cambios donde las variedades fueron las de menor peso con 80, 90 y 99 g/mazorca para B-1 en las tres localidades y para B-5 de 89 g en Jutiapa, rnientras que el hibrido HB-85 expreso pesos de 93, 94 y 134 g para las tres 10calidades, 10 anterior viene a repercutir en la expresion fmal del rendimiento donde se demuestra que los hibridos tienden a tener mayor rendimiento que las variedades de polinizacion Iibre posiblemente por tener un mayor periodo de llenado de grano.Los componentes del rendimiento en promedio en funci6n de genotipos comunes en ensayos y a traves de localidades se presentan en los Cuadros 12 y 13. Los cambios que existen de poder cultivar una variedad versus un hibrido 10 cual se nota claramente que un hibrido tienemayor rendimiento que una variedad para este caso fue de 1.2 t/ha la diferencia (Cuadro 12), 10 anterior se debe a que los hibridos tienen un mejor aprovechamiento de los nutrimentos en el llenado de grano. EI mayor rendirniento se observo en San Jeronimo (6.44 t/ha) y el menor en Cuyuta (4.59 t/ha).En base a los resultados anteriores se infiere que el comportarniento de los genotipos de maiz en relacion a densidad, pareciera que pueden soportar altas densidades y aun iguen obteniendo altos rendimientos, pero no hay un cambio drastico de la densidad media a la alta 10 cual indica que la mejor densidad es de 5.0 pVm 2 y que en promedio mostr6 5.91 t/ha en comparacion con la densidad alta que rindio 6.37 t/ha. En cuanto a fertilizacion no se observo respuesta significativa de pasar de 75 alSO kg/ha de N porque los cambios son minimos en cuanto a rendimiento y mostraron 5.54 Y 5.68 t/ha con bajo y alto nive!, respectivamente. Cuadro 1. Estadfsticos estimados de respuesta a densidad y fertilizaCli6n en tres cultivares de mafz en Cuyuta 1994. Cuadro 8. Componentes de rendimiento en el ensayo de respuesta a densidades de tres cultivares de maiz evaluados en tres localidades de Guatemala, 19994. 3. EI mayor rendimiento de los cultivares fue con la mayor densidad, con rendimiento de 6.37 t/ha, la densidad media de 5.91 t/ha y la densidad baja expreso un rendimiento de 4.53 t/ha.En este estudio los hibridos mostraron un mayor rendimiento que la variedad de polinizacion libre, dichas expresiones fueron de 6.20 t/ha para HB-85 y de 5.00 t/ha para B-1.5. Los resultados sobre densidades dan a entender que los hibridos responden en mejor forma que las variedades de polinizacion libre a una poblacion de 5.00pl/m~.6. En base a los resultados obtenidos se debe iniciar investigacion en finca para poder medir el cambio que se pueda hacer en los diferentes arreglos topologicos que existen en los sistemas de produccion de maiz y poder aumentar la densidad de siembra, ya que la 100 Se establecieron tres ensayos de maíz en dos aftos, localizados en Río Hato y El Ejido, Panamá. El disefto experimental fue de parcelas sub-sub-divididas en arreglo de bloques completos al azar con tres repeticiones. La parcela principal fue niveles de N (75 Y150 kg/ha). En las sub-parcelas se ubicaron las densidades (3.3 y 7.4 pllm 2), mientras que en las sub-sub-parcelas los cultivares (P-8916 YX-304C). Para la respuesta a densidad se utilizó el modelo de Duncan. El objetivo de este ensayo fue el obtener una respuesta a densidad bajo dos niveles contrastantes de fertilidad. La alta densidad redujo principalmente el tamafto de las mazorcas (de 112 a 69 g). De acuerdo a los resultados obtenidos y a los coeficientes de regresión logrados, observamos que el modelo de Duncan funciona correctamente y con precisión. La densidad óptima aumentó con el nivel de N de 75 a 150 kg/ha en todos los cultivares. Se observó una interacción significativa de densidad x cultivares y densidad x N para peso de mazorca, llenado de grano, ASI y número de mazorcas por planta. Factores como el índice de cosecha, número final de hojas y número de hoja de la mazorca no se vieron afectados por la densidad.Trabajos realizado por Bolaños (1993) indican que los parámetros fenológicos y fisiológicos que explican las bases del progreso de los cultivares se basan más en la duración de la fase del llenado de grano y no de la eficiencia. En su estudio se encontró que cada día adicional de llenado incrementó los rendimientos en 100 kg/ha para las variedades de polinización libre (VPLs) y 150 kg/ha para los híbridos. Este autor encontró que los híbridos superan a las VPLs en 1.5 a 2.0 t/ha. Esta diferencia se basó en que la tasa de crecimiento de la mazorca de los híbridos es mayor en los híbridos que en las variedades (2.64 vs 2.11 g/día). También se detectó una fuerte relación negativa entre la duración del llenado y la madurez. Estos datos sugirieron que prolongar la fase de llenado de grano es un método efectivo para incrementar el rendimiento.Ilng. Agrónomo, M.Sc., 2lng. Agrónomo, 3Agrónomo, Instituto de Investigación Agropecuaria de Panamá, Centro Regional Agropecuario de Azuero. PRM 1993-1995, VOL. 5 (1997), p. 101-105. 101 Algunos autores sostienen que la tolerancia a la densidad ha sido una de las causas del aumento de los cultivares modernos (Fischer y Palmer 1984;Pandey y Gardner, 1992).Se ha encontrado que las bajas densidades son una de las razones primordiales de los bajos rendimientos de maíz encontrados en los trópicos (Bolaños y Barreto, 1991;Bolaños et al., 1993a). Una manera de evaluar la densidad óptima del cultivo de maíz ha sido el modelo de Duncan (1958), en donde se establece que el rendimiento por planta (rendlplanta) decrece de manera exponencial con la densidad (pl/m 2 ). Esta relación tiene una base teórica sólida y ha sido ampliamente validada y documentada en la literatura con muchos cultivares y en diversos ambientes (Fery y Janick, 1971;Duncan, 1984;Bolaños et al., 1993b).Una de las conclusiones del método de Duncan (1958) posibilita evaluar la respuesta a densidad de cualquier cultivar de maíz con solamente dos niveles de densidad, ya que, sólo se necesitan dos puntos para establecer una relación lineal. La solidez de la respuesta dependerá de la solidez de los dos puntos obtenidos. Para mejor interpolación a nivel agronómico, normalmente estas dos densidades, se establecen para que estén a ambos lados del nivel óptimo, pero aún dentro de un rango apropiado agronómicamente.Por otra parte, el uso del nitrógeno es considerado como esencial en la producción del maíz. A través de muchos estudios se ha podido documentar la importancia de este elemento, así como la respuesta positiva de este cultivo a la aplicación de diferentes fuentes que contienen este elemento. Gordón et al. (1991Gordón et al. ( , 1992) ) encontraron el nivel óptimo económico de la aplicación de N varió de 125 a 197 kg/ha en muchos lugares de la región.El objetivo de este estudio fue describir los parámetros fisiológicos y fenológicos estándares relevantes en la elaboración del rendimiento en los cultivares más importantes o de mayor uso en las siembras comerciales del país; así como obtener una respuesta a densidad bajo dos niveles conÚ'astantes de fertilidad.Se establecieron tres ensayos de maíz, dos a inicios de septiembre de 1993 y unó en 1994. Un ensayo estuvo localizado en la Finca Experimental de Río Hato en Coclé y los otros dos en la Finca Experimental de El Ejido en la Región de Azuero.El diseño experimental utilizado fue el de parcelas sub-sub-divididas en un arreglo de bloques completos al azar con tres repeticiones. La parcela principal lo constituyó niveles de N (75 y 150 kg/ha). En las subparcelas se ubicaron las densidades, mientras que en las sub-sub-parcelas los cultivares evaluados. Las densidades evaluadas fueron de 3.3 y 7.4 pl/m 2 • Para lograr estas densidades se sembró el maíz a 0.75 m entre hileras y la distancia entre plantas varió de 0.18 (7.4 pllm\") a 0.40 (3.3 pllm\"). Los cultivares evaluados fueron el híbrido nacional P-8916 y el híbrido importado X-304C.La unidad experimental estuvo conformada por 5 surcos de 5 m de largo, de los cuales, los tres centrales constituyeron la parcela efectiva. En cada golpe se dejó una sola planta. El control de malezas se realizó con la mezcla de atrazina más pendimentalina a razón de 2.0 +-2.0 l/ha, con posteriores limpias manuales por escapes del control de algunas malezas. La fertilización consistió de aplicación de 60 kg de Pp 5 /ha al momento de la siembra. La fertilización nitrogenada (urea) se realizó aplicando la mitad de al momento de la sicmbra y la otra mitad a los 30 días después de la sicmbra (dds).Para las mediciones solamente se usaron plantas en los tres surcos centrales sin tomar en cuenta las dos hileras de plantas de los extremos. A los 10 días después de la gemlinación se marcaron con pintura blanca 12 plantas por parcela, cuando aún la hoja número 5 era reconocible. Posteriormente se hizo lo mismo con la hoja número 10. Después de la floración, se contó el número final de hojas por planta (NFH), contando desde la hoja número 10 (marcada), así como el número de la posición de la hoja de la mazorca (NHMZ).Antes de la floración y después que el 10% de las espigas eran visibles, se visitó la parcela cada 2 a 3 días y se determinó la fecha a 50% de floración masculina y femenina (DAFM y DAFF). El intervalo entre la antesis y la emisión de los estigmas (ASI) se calculó como la diferencia entre DAFF y DAFM. Con el mismo procedimiento de visitas continuas antes de la cosecha, se determinó los días al 50% de madurez fisiológica (DMF). La presencia de capa negra se tomó en plantas de los surcos bordes. La duración del llenado de grano se calculó como la diferencia entre DMFyDAFF.Al momento de la cosecha se tomaron los datos de rendimiento de grano y de forraje y el número de mazorcas y plantas cosechadas. El índice de cosecha (IC) se calculó como la proporción de grano en la biomasa total. El rendimiento de grano se uniformizó al 15% de humedad y se calcularon los componentes de rendimiento estándares (Bolaños y Barreto, 1991). Se efectuó un análisis de varianza por localidad y uno combinado a través de las dos localidades.En la prueba de homogeneidad de las varianzas entre las tres localidades, se encontró que las varianzas para las variables estudiadas eran homogéneas. Debido a esta homogeneidad, los datos se analizaron de manera combinada y no individual para cada localidad. En el Cuadro 1 se observa el análisis combinado de todas las variables analizadas.El análisis de varianza índicó que hubo diferencias altamente significativas entre los cultivares, en relación a los componentes del rendimiento y a los parámetros fisiológicos y morfológicos evaluados. El mayor rendimiento se obtuvo con X-304 C (4.81 tlha), seguido por P-8916 (4.30 t/ha). El índice de cosecha mostró diferencias altamente significativas, con su máximo valor en el híbrido X-304C con 44.8%. La duración entre la floración masculina y la femenina (ASI), fue similar para los dos híbridos (1.6 días).La duración del llenado de grano difirió significativamente entre todos los cultivares, siendo el X-304C el cultivar con mayor duración de llenado (44.5 días), mientras que el P-8916 fue de con 42.4 días. En relación a la tasa de crecimiento de la mazorca, es decir, la eficiencia del llenado (este número solo incluye el crecimiento del grano, excluyendo la tuza y las hojas de la mazorca), se encontró que fue de 2.0 y 2.11 g/día para los híbridos P-8916 y X-304C, respectivamente (Cuadro 2).Cuadrol. Cuadrados medios de las principales características evaluadas en el ensayo de respuesta de cuatro cultivares de maíz a la densidad de plantas bajo dos niveles de contrastantes de N. Panamá, 1993Panamá, -1994  Analizando estos parámetros en su conjunto, se puede inferir que el mayor rendimiento del híbrido X-304C se debió a su mayor período de llenado del grano y a su mayor tasa de crecimiento de la mazorca. En relación al P-8916 se encontró que ambos valores son menores lo que se traduce en un menor tamaño de la mazorca.En ambos niveles de N se encontró que la población óptima de plantas es mayor en el X-304C. Esto se puede deber al tipo de arquitectura que presenta este híbrido, el cual es de hojas mas angostas, lo que se traduce, en un menor rendimiento de rastrojo al final de la cosecha, permitiendo un mayor número de plantas por hectárea.Cuadro 2 Promedio de las principales características de los cultivares evaluados en el ensayo de densidad por nitrógeno.De acuerdo a los resultados del análisis estadístico de este experimento, se observó una interacción significativa entre la Densidad con los Cultivares y entre la Densidad con la Dosis de N aplicada para las variables peso de mazorca, llenado de granos, AS! y mazorcas por planta (Cuadro 1).Las densidades promedios finales obtenidas en este ensayo para los cuatro cultivares fue de 3.62 y 7.39 pllm 2  , con rendimientos asociados de 4.30 y 4.82 tfha, con algunas variaciones entre cultivares. La alta densidad redujo principalmente el tamaño de las mazorcas (de 112 a 69 g). Esta reducción del peso de la mazorca es la base de la relación exponencial del modelo de Duncan. De acuerdo a los resultados obtenidos y a los coeficientes de regresión logrados, observamos que el modelo de Duncan funciona correctamente y con alta precisión.El Cuadro 3 muestra los principales parámetros de regresión obtenidos, así como la población de plantas que optimiza el rendimiento para cada variedad, según el nivel de N aplicado. Se observó que la densidad óptima de plantas aumentó considerablemente, cuando el nivel de N subió de 75 a 150 kg/ha, en ambos cultivares. Este resultado indica, que a densidades altas es necesario aumentar la dosis de N aplicada para lograr buenos rendimientos. En relación al peso de las mazorcas, se observó que el X-304C es el cultivar en donde la reducción del peso fue más pronunciada, al aumentar la densidad (diferencia de 52 g/maz), mientras el P-8916 presenta una reducción de menor magnitud (34 g/maz). En la duración del llenado de granos, se observó que todos los cultivares redujeron este período al aumentar la densidad (Cuadro 4).Otro factor que se vio afectado por la densidad de plantas fue la sincronía floral (ASI), la cual aumentó al incrementarse la población de plantas. El material más susceptible al cambio de densidad fue el X-304C, el cual aumentó de 1.2 a 2.1 días, por el aumento de la densidad. Para el P-8916, a pesar de aumentar el período entre las dos floraciones (masculina y femenina) por el efecto de la densidad, este aumento fue menor a un promedio de 0.4 días. Cuando se analizó ASI a dosis de 150 kg N/ha, el aumento de la densidad ocasionó un aumento de AS!. Por el contrario este valor no se afectó con dosis baja de N (Cuadro 5). Este experimento mostró que ambos cultivares al aumentar la dosis de N aplicada, el valor del ASI, tiende a ser igualo ligeramente mayor. Por su parte,a densidades altas la sincronía foliar no es afectada al aumentar la dosis de N, es decir el período entre las dos floraciones no se incrementa al aumentar la dosis de N. Peso de Mazorcas (g) Cuadro 5. Promedio de las principales características encontradas según cultivar x dosis de N, Panamá, 1993Panamá, .1994. 75 kglN . 75 kglN 150 kgINTambién se observó que cuando se evaluó en presencia de bajos niveles de N (75 kg de N/ha), el aumentar la densidad disminuyó el número de mazorcas por planta, es decir que se observó un mayor número de plantas sin mazorcas al momento de la cosecha, mientras que, cuando este elemento no es una Iimitante (150 kg N/ha), el aumento de la densidad no afectó este parámetro (Cuadro 5). Factores como el índice de cosecha y número final de hojas, número de hoja de la mazorca no se vieron afectados por los cambios en las densidades. l. El modelo de Duncan (1958), basado en el decrecimiento exponencial del rendimiento por planta con la densidad, funcionó de manera adecuada.P-8916 X-304C 3. La densidad óptima de población de plantas depende directamente de la dosis de N aplicada. Siendo la población óptima más alta a medida que aumenta la dosis de N.Respuesta del Maíz al Sistema de Siembra Intercalada con Canavalia ensiformis a Distintas Epocas de Siembra, Azuero, 1992-94 Román Gordón l , Jorge Franco2, Nivaldo de Gracia 3 y Andrés Gonzáler RESUMEN Este trabajo resume 16 ensayos sembrados en los últimos tres anos (tres en 1992 , ocho en 1993 y cinco en 1994). En estos, sólo se seleccionaron tratamientos comunes, que incluyeron variaciones en la época de siembra de la canavalia con respecto al maíz. El objetivo fue de cuantificar y caracterizar las diferencias de un sistema intercalado con uno en monocultivo. Además de determinar el efecto de varios arreglos de canavalia, se trató de maximizar el rendimiento de la leguminosa y minimizar las pérdidas en el rendimiento del maíz. El rendimiento de maíz no se vió afectado por asocio con canavalia en ninguno de los sistemas evaluados. La siembra de canavalia en surcos alternos del maíz resultó ser la mejor alternativa, debido a que se logra un buen rendimiento de ambas especies, además de que por tener un surco sin leguminosas, se facilitan muchas labores que se realizan después de la siembra.El asocio de gramíneas con leguminosas es una práctica que se ha realizado con muy buenos resultados desde hace mucho tiempo (Pieters 1916;Ofori y Stern, 1987). Entre los principales objetivos para realizar este asocio se puede mencionar el de reducir la erosión, tener una mayor disponibilidad de alimentos por unidad de área y disminución de riesgos, entre otros. Este tipo de asocio tiene algunos beneficios entre los que destacan la aportación de nitrógeno por fijación directa, aprovechamiento de la radiación para la producción de biomasa o abono verde, desaprovechada por el cultivo principal, reducción de la incidencia de malezas y la preservación y mejora en las propiedades fisicas y químicas de los suelos (Wade y Sánchez, 1983;Smyth et al., 1991;Zea, 1992aZea, , 1992b)).Desde 1989 el lDIAP con apoyo del Programa Regional de Maíz (PRM) ha realizado experimentos para evaluar el asocio, relevo y rotación de leguminosas de cobertura dentro de los sistemas de maíz. Datos obtenidos indican una tendencia marcada de las leguminosas de reducir el rendimiento de maíz en comparación con el monocultivo cuando estas se siembran de manera simultánea y en surcos alternos (Zea 1990, 1992a, 1992b, Barreto et al., 1992;López et al., 1993). Gordón et al. (1993) encontraron que el asocio simultáneo en surcos alternos de maíz con canavalia es una alternativa para estos sistemas, debido a la poca reducción del rendimiento de maíz en comparación con monocultivo (menos de 200 kgfha). De las leguminosas intercaladas en asocio temprano con el maíz, la canavalia presentó características agronómicas sobresalientes por su menor competencia y menor variabilidad a través de los ambientes evaluados (Zea 1992a;1992b;Barreto et al., 1991). La siembra del maíz en Azuero se caracteriza por ser generalmente en monocultivo con pastoreo del rastrojo en la época seca (enero a mayo) por parte del ganado. Debido a la baja calidad del forraje del maíz, la práctica de siembras intercaladas de leguminosas con maíz puede ser una buena alternativa para esta zona. Este trabajo se realizó para cuantificar y caracterizar las diferencias en producción de un sistema intercalado en comparación con monocultivo.Los datos utilizados provienen de 16 ensayos, tres en 1992, ocho en 1993 y cinco en 1994 (Cuadro 1). De todos los tratamientos que se evaluaron en estos ensayos se seleccionaron los tratamientos de interés, que incluyeron variaciones en la época de siembra de la leguminosa con respecto a la siembra del maíz.En cada año se utilizó un diseño de bloques completos al azar con tres repeticiones. En 1992 y 1993 las parcelas experimentales consistieron de 6 surcos de 5 m de largo. En 1994 el tamaño de las parcelas fue de 10 surcos de 10 m de largo. El cultivar de maíz utilizado en once de estos experimentos fue el P-8916, mientras que en los cinco restantes se utilizó la variedad Guararé 8128. En todos los casos la semilla de maíz fue tratada con el insecticida furatiocarb a razón de 8 gr i.a.fha. Cuadro 1. Características generales de los ensayos utilizados para el análisis del efecto de la época de siembra en el asocio de maíz y canavalia. El maíz fue sembrado a 0.9 m entre hileras y 0.5 m entre golpes, dejando dos semillas por golpe para una densidad teórica de 4.4 pl/m 2• La fertilización consistió de 227 kg de 15-30-8/ha al momento de la siembra más 227 kg de urea/ha a los 30 días después de la siembra (dds). El control de malezas se realizó con la mezcla de pendimentalina más atrazina a razón de 2.0 + 2.0 lIha en algunas localidades, mientras que en otras se aplicó glifosato a razón de 4.0 l/ha, dependiendo del complejo de malezas presente en los lotes experimentales.Los tratamientos evaluados fueron los siguientes: l. Surcos Alternos O dds (SA): La canavalia se sembró el mismo día que el maíz en surcos alternos (un surco con canavalia y otro libre) a una distancia entre golpes de 0.5 m y dejando dos semillas por golpe, para una densidad teórica de 2.2 pl/m 2 • 2. Surcos Continuo O dds (SeO): La canavalia se sembró el mismo día que el maíz en el centro de todos los surcos a una distancia entre golpes de 0.5 m y dejando dos semillas por golpe, para una densidad teórica de 4.4 pl/m 2 • 3. Surcos Continuo J5 dds (SeI5): La canavalia se sembró 15 días después de la siembra del maíz en el centro de todos los surcos a una distancia entre golpes de 0.5 m y dejando dos semillas por golpe, para una densidad teórica de 4.4 pl/m 2 . 4. Surcos Continuo 30 dds (Se30): La canavalia se sembró 30 días después de la siembra del maíz en el centro de todos los surcos a una distancia entre 107 golpes de 0.5 m y dejando dos semillas por golpe, para una densidad teórica de 4.4 pl/m 2 • 5. Monocultivo (SLeg): Parcela sin asociación con leguminosas.Al momento de la cosecha se tomaron datos del rendimiento de grano, número de plantas y mazorcas cosechadas, rendimiento de materia seca del rastrojo y el porcentaje de humedad del grano, de la parcela efectiva (4 surcos centrales). También se midió el peso de la materia verde y número de plantas de la canavalia a la cosecha del maíz y luego se tomó una muestra para determinar la humedad y calcular el peso seco de cada parcela. Para la materia seca de la canavalia se usaron los dos surcos centrales.Para el análisis de los datos de rendimiento de grano y de materia seca de la canavalia, se realizó una prueba de homogeneidad de varianza entre todas las localidades. Luego se tomó el promedio de los tratamientos de interés y se realizó un análisis de varianza, tomando como covariable el rendimiento promedio de maíz de las localidades.Los datos de rendimiento mostraron que el potencial de todas las localidades fue diferente, siendo alto en unas y bajo en otras. Tomando en cuenta que todos los tratamientos no fueron evaluados en todas las localidades, el promedio de cada uno de los tratamientos estuvo afectado por esta situación. De tal manera, que se favorecieron principalmente a los tratamientos SCIS y SC30, que no fueron evaluados en varias localidades de potencial bajo (Cuadro 2).Para corregir este efecto de potencial de rendimiento, se realizo un análisis de varianza tomando al rendimiento promedio de la localidad como covariable. Este análisis resulto altamente significativo, por lo que se procedió a calcular las Medias Ajustadas o Medias por el método del Mínimo Cuadrado.El Cuadro 3 muestra el rendimiento de maíz ajustado (de acuerdo al análisis de covarianza) y sin ajustar, rastrojo y algunos componentes del rendimiento del cultivo. Además se presentan los resultados del rendimiento, biomasa total y población de canavalia obtenidos por efecto de los distintos tratamientos.Cuadro 2. Rendimiento de grano por localidad y por tratamientos utilizados para analizar el efecto de la época de siembra en el asocio maíz mas canavalia.  Al realizar el análisis estadístico para la variable rendimiento de grano se encontró que no hubo diferencias significativas entre los tratamientos, mientras que la covarianza fue altamente significativa (Cuadro 4). Esto indica que el rendimiento de maíz no se vió afectado por el asocio con canavalia en ninguno de los sistemas, ya que no redujo significativamente los rendimientos en comparación con el testigo. Los datos muestran que en el sistema de siembra de la canavalia, sea en Surcos Continuos o Alternos, al momento de la siembra de maíz (O dds) es la que mas redujo en los rendimientos del cultivo. En estos tratamientos se detectó el menor rendimiento, respectivamente, 3.70 y 3.83 t/ha. A medida que se retarda la siembra de la canavalia con respecto al maíz en Surcos Continuos, los rendimientos del cultivo aumentaron de 3.70 a 3.97 tlha, para ambos sistemas respectivamente (SCO a SC30). Si se observan los distintos componentes del rendimiento, se concluye que el tamaño de mazOrca es el que mejor explica este aumento en el rendimiento final del maíz. La época de siembra de la canavalia tuvo un marcado efecto en el rendimiento final de materia seca de esta. Los resultados son contrarios a los encontrados en el rendimiento de maíz, es decir, los mayores rendimientos se obtienen en las siembras al inicio del cultivo, ya sea en SC o SA con 5.21 y 2.80 t1ha, respectivamente. A medida que la siembra de la canavalia se retrasa, el rendimiento disminuye hasta alcanzar un valor menor de 1.0 t/ha, en las siembras de SC30. Este bajo rendimiento se puede explicar por dos factores, uno es por la menor disponibilidad de radiación para la canavalia, debido al sombreado por parte del maíz. El otro factor que incide es la disminución de la humedad disponible para la canavalia, ya que, las lluvias se suspenden al final del mes de noviembre, cuando la leguminosa tiene menos de dos meses.En relación a la biomasa general del sistema, se encontraron diferencias altamente significativas. Esta biomasa esta conformada por la suma del rastrojo de maíz mas la materia seca de la leguminosa. En este sentido todos los sistemas que involucran la canavalia, exceptuando el SC30, superan en mas de 3.0 t/ha al sistema SLeg, lo cual se refleja en una mayor y mejor disponibilidad de alimentos para el ganado en la época seca. También se puede reflejar ganancias si se transforma el equivalente de materia seca en aportes de N al sistema, el cual va de 24 a 169 kg Nlha.Al analizar los resultados encontrados, para obtener una recomendación en donde se optimice el rendimiento de los dos cultivos, y por ende las ganancias del productor; se tiene que el sistema Surcos Alternos Odds, resultó ser la mejor alternativa. En este sistema se logra un buen rendimiento de ambas especies, además de que por tener un surco libre o surco sin leguminosas, se facilitan muchas labores que se realizan después de la siembra. Entre estas labores está las aplicaciones secundarias de abono nitrogenado y la cosecha final del maíz. En los sistemas en Surcos Continuos esta última labor es muy afectada, lo que implica un mayor costo en la mano de obra para la cosecha.109No se observaron diferencias estadísticas entre los cuatro sistemas de asocio versus el maíz en monocultivo.2. Se observó una tendencia de aumentar los rendimientos de maíz a medida que la siembra de la canavalia se retrasa de la siembra del maíz.3. El rendimiento de materia seca de canavalia se reduce a medida de la época de siembra de la misma se aleja de la siembra del maíz.4. Se recomienda el sistema de asocio de maíz mas canavalia en Surcos Alternos, por ser el que permite una maximización del rendimiento de las dos especies y afecta menos las otras labores en el desarrollo del cultivo.Barreto, H., G. Sain, W. Raun y J. Bolaños. 1991. Los ensayos regionales del programa de maíz para Centro América y el Caribe. p.I-8, en Análisis de los Ensayos Regionales de Agronomía, PRM-CIMMYT, Guatemala. Zea, J. L. l 992b. Efecto residual de intercalar leguminosas sobre el rendimiento de maíz (Zea mays L.) en nueve localidades de Centro América. p.97-103, en Síntesis de resultados experimentales 1991, CIMMYT-PRM, Guatemala.Epocas de Siembra, Panamá, 1993-1994 Román Gordón\\ Jorge Franco z , Andrés GonzálezZ, Nivaldo de Gracia 3 y Adys P. de Herrera 4Se realizó un experimento durante dos años consecutivos, en dos localidades de Panamá donde se evaluaron diferentes arreglos y rotaciones del maíz y canavalia. El objetivo fue cuantificar y caracterizar las diferencias de un sistema en asocio y monocultivo y además determinar el efecto residual de la canavalia en el rendimiento de maíz. La canavalia se sembró en medio de los surcos de maíz en surcos contínuos (SC) y surcos alternos (SA) de manera simultánea a la siembra del maíz. La población teórica de canavalia fue de 2.2 y 4.4 pi/m', para las siembras en SA y SC, respectivamente. El maíz fue sembrado a 0.9 m entre plantas y 0.5 m entre golpes para una densidad de 4.4 plim z . La siembra de primera fue fertilizada con 136 kg de 15-30-8 /ha más 136 kg de urea/ha. En las siguientes siembras todos los tratamientos recibieron abono completo al momento de la siembra, con excepción del testigo del agricultor que recibió la segunda aplicación de urea. Los resultados indican que el rendimiento de grano no es afectado por el asocio con canavalia. La producción de materia seca de la canavalia fue mayor en monocultivo en primera, seguidos por las parcelas en surcos contínuos y surcos alternos. Se observó un efecto residual positivo al dejar los residuos de canavalia de una época de siembra a la otra.El uso de leguminosas como abono verde es un método que se utiliza desde hace muchos años. Trabajos realizados por investigadores, informan de los beneficios de incorporar leguminosas de cobertura con el fin de aportar nitrógeno al sistema mediante la fijación biológica (Wade y Sánchez, 1983;Yost et al., 1985;Barreta et al., 1992). Bouldin et al. (1989) encontraron que se pueden sustituir hasta 170 kg N/ha, utilizando leguminosas de cobertura. El uso de la Canavalia ensiformis (canavalia) y Mucuna deeringianum (mucuna) como abono verde fue estudiado por Barreta et al. (1992). Ellos reportan que el factor que permitió relacionar la respuesta a N bajo sistemas de abono verde, fue la cantidad de N I Ing. Agrónomo, M.Sc., 'Ing. Agrónomo, 3Agronómo, 4Lic. Economía, M.Sc., Instituto de Investigación Agropecuaria de Panamá, Centro Regional Agropecuario De Azuero. DEL PRM 1993-95, VOL. 5 (1997), p. II \\-1 18. 111 almacenado en la biomasa superficial de cada una de las leguminosas estudiadas.Durante 1992, se realizó un experimento en donde se evaluaron las leguminosas mucuna y canavalia, sobresaliendo esta última. El resultado de este ensayo indicó que el rendimiento de maiz en las parcelas en rotación con canavalia superaron a las parcelas sin leguminosas en 1.85 t/ha. El análisis económico de este ensayo determinó que la dosis óptima de N para aplicar en este sistema es de 54 kg/ha, mientras que en las parcelas que no tenían leguminosas en relevo el óptimo fue de 13Q kg/ha, produciendo un ahorro de 85 kg de N/ha (Gordón et al., 1993a).Desde 1989, el Programa Regional de Maíz (PRM), ha realizado experimentos para evaluar el asocio, relevo y rotación de leguminosas de cobertura dentro de los sistemas de producción de maíz. Datos obtenidos indican una tendencia marcada de la leguminosas de reducir el rendimiento de maíz en comparación con monocultivo cuando éstas se siembran de manera simultánea al cultivo y en surcos continuos (Zea, 1990;Zea et al., 1992aZea et al., y 1992b;;Barreta et al., 1991). Gordón et al. (1993b) encontraron que el asocio simultáneo en surcos alternos de canavalia con maíz es una alternativa para estos sistemas, debido a la poca reducción del rendimiento de maíz en comparación con monocultivo.El sistema de siembra del maíz en Azuero se ha caracterizado por el monocultivo y luego pastorear los residuos de la cosecha durante la época seca (enero a mayo). Herrera et al. (1993), indican que el rastrojo de maíz asociado con canavalia mejora el consumo de forraje y el aumento de peso del ganado, en comparación con animales que consumieron solamente forraje de maíz. Hasta el presente, la siembra de leguminosas se ha utilizado en parcelas puras como banco de proteína. Debido a la baja calidad del forraje de maíz en la época seca, la práctica de siembras intercaladas con leguminosas, puede ser una buena alternativa para esta región.El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo identificar el sistema asocio/rotación que mejor se adapte a las condiciones del productor, de manera que se maximice el rendimiento total del cultivo (la producción total de las dos siembras) y reduzca la utilización del N en forma de urea. Entre los objetivos específicos está: 1) cuantificar las diferencias en producción de un sistema intercalado en comparación con monocultivo; 2) determinar el efecto residual de la canavalia en el maíz de segunda; y 3) evaluar el efecto de dos arreglos de canavalia (surcos contínuos y surcos alternos) sobre el rendimiento del maíz.Se realizaron ocho ensayos en los dos años que duró el experimento. En ambos años se sembraron dos ensayos por cada época de siembra. Las localidades en donde se llevaron a cabo estos experimentos, están ubicadas en áreas de influencia del Programa Regional de Reforzamiento a la Investigación Agronómica sobre los Granos Básicos (PRIAG) en Panamá (Nalú y La Madera). Los ensayos de primera coa fueron sembrados en la segunda quincena de mayo y cosechados en la primera semana de septiembre. Los ensayos de segunda coa fueron sembrados en la última semana de septiembre y cosechados al final de enero del siguiente año.Se usó un diseño de bloques completos al azar con tres repeticiones. La unidad experimental consistió de una parcela de seis surcos de maíz de 5.5 m de largo, separados a 0.9 m entre sí y dos plantas por golpes a 0.5 m, para obtener una densidad teórica de 4.4 pVm 2En total se establecieron ocho tratamientos, en donde se evaluaron diferentes combinaciones de rotación y asocio de maíz más canavalia, además de parcelas en monocultivo (Cuadro 1).La canavalia se sembró de manera simultánea en medio de los surcos de maíz en surcos alternos (SA) y surcos contínuos (SC). La población teórica de canavalia fue 2.2 y 4.4 pl/m 2 , para las siembras en SA y SC, respectivamente. Esto se consiguió sembrando la canavalia a dos plantas por golpe separados a 0.5 m entre sí.Los tratamientos de la primera coa fueron cosechados al final del período, sacándose todo el grano y la tuza de la parcela. Luego se procedió a cortar tanto las plantas de maíz como las de canavalia (según cada tratamiento) y se dejó todo este forraje (de ambas especies) sobre la superficie del suelo. Dos semanas después de la cosecha, se sembraron los trat;tmientos de la segunda coa. Se trató que los golpes de maíz de la segunda siembra, coincidieran con los de 112 la primera época. Todos los tratamientos en primera coa recibieron 136 kg de 15-30-8/ha al momento de la siembra más 136 kg de N en forma de urea a los 30 a 35 días después de la siembra (dds). Los tratamientos de segunda coa (residuales), sólo recibieron 136 kg de l5-30-8/ha al momento de la siembra, a excepción del T s que recibió la segunda aplicación de 136 kg N en forma de urea por hectárea.La variedad de maíz utilizada fue Guararé 8128, la cual fue tratada con el insecticida furatiocarb a razón de 8 g i.a./kg de semilla. Se utilizó el sistema de siembra bajo labranza de conservación en todas las\" épocas. Se tomó una muestra de suelo (20 cm de profundidad) antes de la siembra de cada ensayo (Cuadro 2).Se determinó el rendimiento de maíz y sus componentes (plantas y mazorcas cosechadas, peso de mazorcas, mazorcas/planta, índice de cosecha y biomasa total producida) en los cuatro surcos centrales de cada parcela. La biomasa seca del maíz se encontraba al 15% de humedad para el cálculo de peso seco y la biomasa equivalente por unidad de área. El índice de cosecha se calculó como la fracción del grano en la biomasa total, después de descontar la tuza y estandarizar a 0% de humedad. Se midió además el rendimiento de canavalia (peso húmedo) y el número de plantas cosechadas por parcela en los dos surcos centrales (siembras en SC) y en el surco central (siembras en SA). A la cosecha del maíz se tomó una muestra de canavalia, para determinar el porcentaje de humedad al momento del corte y su contenido de nitrógeno.Cuadro 1. Estructura de tratamientos evaluados en el ensayo de asocio/rotación de maíz canavalia, Panamá, 1993-94. A los datos se les realizó un análisis de varianza por localidad y uno combinado, luego de realizarse un análisis de homogeneidad de varianzas a las variables de rendimiento de grano en cada período (coa). Para separar las medias, se utilizó el método de diferencias pareadas o contrastes no ortogonales entre tratamientos de interés. Se realizó una correlación entre todas las variables de respuesta en cada localidad por coa. Se tomaron datos de precipitación en cada localidad (Cuadro 3).Se efectuó un análisis economlCO de presupuesto parcial para medir a corto plazo los beneficios y costos asociados a la incorporación de la canavalia en el sistema de producción del maíz, considerando solamente los efectos sobre el rendimiento de maíz (CIMMYT, 1988).El Cuadro 4 presenta las medias de rendimiento y algunos de sus componentes, del promedio combinado de las localidades de Nalú y La Madera en las cuatro siembras realizadas en este experimento. Los datos muestran que en ambos años, el rendimiento de grano fue mayor en primera coa (3.95 vs 3.29 y 2.99 vs 1.78 tlha) (Cuadro 4). Este resultado puede explicarse, por la interacción entre la distribución de lluvias que se presentó en ambas localidades y el ciclo de la variedad uti lizada en este experimento (ciclo de vida de 110 días a madurez fisiológica). Cuando se sembró en primera coa, el maíz completó de manera normal su ciclo con la precipitación registrada de mayo a agosto. En las siembras de segunda coa la fase que va de emergencia hasta floración (20 de septiembre al 15 de noviembre) todos los ensayos recibieron una precipitación mayor de 290 mm. Para esta misma siembra la fase de llenado de grano hasta madurez fisiológica (15 de noviembre a enero) recibió menos de 100 mm de lluvia en tres de los experimentos (Nalú '93 y '94, La Madera '94), lo que tuvo una incidencia directa en la reducción del rendimiento obtenido. Este efecto en el rendimiento de segunda coa, se observó con mayor incidencia en 1994 (reducción de 1.54 tlha), ya que las lluvias fueron más erráticas a partir de la segunda quincena del mes de noviembre (cinco y dos días con precipitación para Nalú y La Madera, respectivamente) y en diciembre prácticamente fueron nulas (26.7 y 2.50 mm para Nalú y La Madera, respectivamente) (Cuadro 3). Para el análisis del efecto de los tratamientos, se tomó en cuenta los resultados del análisis combinado de las localidades de Nalú y La Madera. En el Cuadro 5 se observa el análisis de varianza combinado para el rendimiento de las dos coas en ambos años.Los resultados obtenidos en los ensayos de primera coa, indican que el rendimiento de grano no es En el ensayo de segunda coa de 1993, se observó un mayor rendimiento en las parcelas en monocultivo que venían de la rotación con canavalia en la primera coa (Ts+T ó ) con 3.44 t/ha, en comparación con las parcelas de se (T 1 +T,) y SA (T 2 +T 4 ) con 2.96 y 3.13 t/ha, respectivamente.Estas diferencias fueron de aproximadamente 310 y 480 kg/ha, las mismas fueron significativas al 10 Y5%, respectivamente.También se encontró que en las tres primeras siembras (las dos de 1993 y la primera de 1994), las parcelas con SA superaron en 310, 170 y 220 kg/ha a las parcelas en se. De los componentes del rendimiento, el peso de las mazorcas es el que explica mejor las diferencias, ya que, presentaron diferencias al 5% de probabilidad (Cuadro 7). Ambos tipos de asocio no reducen la población de plantas ni el número de mazorcas cosechadas. Resultados similares fueron reportados por Gordón et al. (1993b).(T)+T 2 +T s ) y se (T 3 +T 4 +T 6 ). A pesar que el número de plantas de la leguminosa fue el doble en las parcelas de se, la diferencia en rendimiento de materia seca entre ésta y las parcelas SA, fue menor de la mitad, lo que indica, que el rendimiento en la parcelas SA es mayor por unidad de área. Esta mayor producción por área se puede deber a la menor competencia y mayor espacio libre en los surcos sin canavalia que tienen el sistema en SAo El análisis químico de las muestras de canavalia en laboratorio indicó que el contenido promedio de N en las mismas fue de 3.2 %. De acuerdo a este análisis, las cantidades de N aportados por la biomasa de la canavalia al sistema para la segunda coa fue de 499, 154 Y 231 kg N/ha, para las parcelas de canavalia, SA y se, respectivamente (Cuadro 8).Cuadro 5. Análisis de varianza de rendimiento de grano del combinado Nalú y La Madera, Panamá 1993-94. El Cuadro 8 muestra las medias de rendimiento de canavalia y sus componentes asociados, para las tres primeras épocas de siembra. La media del rendimiento de materia seca en las parcelas en monocultivo de la canavalia (T 7 ) en la primera coa fue de 15.59 y 5.76 t/ha (1993 y 1994), y ésta superó significativamente (P<0.Ü1) a la producción en las parcelas de SA En la segunda coa la producción de biomasa de la canavalia fue menor. En las parcelas con SA el rendimiento fue de 2.55 tlha, mientras que, en las parcelas se fue de 3.57 t/ha. Esta producción de biomasa, implica que el sistema de asocio, dejó disponible para el siguiente ciclo de cultivo (mayo 1994) 82 Y 114 kg de N/ha, para los sistemas SA y se, respectivamente; o en su defecto, materia seca disponible para la alimentación del ganado en la época seca. Sosa et al. (1993) encontraron una fuerte relación negativa entre el efecto del mantillo y las aplicaciones de N, en las siembras bajo labranza de conservación, utilizando como mantillo el rastrojo de maíz. El sistema de dejar los residuos de la cosecha del maíz para la segunda siembra representa un potencial de inmovilizar parte del N disponible para la planta. Dicha limitante para la planta de maíz en la segunda coa, puede reducirse en los sistemas en que el aporte de N de la leguminosa es alto, de tal manera, que el N que necesitan las bacterias que realizan la descomposición del tallo y hojas del maíz, son suplidos por la leguminosa.De acuerdo a los resultados obtenidos, se encontró que hubo una respuesta positiva a la rotación de la canavalia y el maíz. El análisis de correlación mostró que hubo una relación positiva de 43 y 45% entre las variables rendimiento de canavalia en primera coa y la producción de grano y peso de las mazorcas en la segunda coa, respectivamente. Este efecto se observó en el rendimiento obtenido en la segunda época, en aquellas parcelas que en la primera coa se sembraron con canavalia, ya sea, en monocultivo (T 7 ), SA (TI' T z y T s ) y se (T 3 , T 4 y T 6 ) en comparación con la parcela que en ambos ciclos se sembró de maíz en monocultivo (Tg).El mayor rendimiento en segunda coa, se obtuvo en la parcela con rotación de canavalia seguida de maíz (T 7 ), con 3.73 y 2.21 t/ha, para 1993 y 1994,respectivamente. Este rendimiento superó al monocultivo (Tg) en el primer año en 230 kg/ha y la diferencia aumentó a 550 kg/ha, en el segundo año. También se observó que los tratamientos sembrados en segunda coa de manera residual en las parcelas con se (T 3 +T 4 +T 6 ) superaron a las parcelas que siguieron al SA de primera coa (T,+Tz+T s ). Este aumento fue de 130 kg/ha en 1993 y luego el mismo se elevó a 190 kg/ha para 1994.En los tratamientos de primera coa de 1994 que seguían a las parcelas se de 1993 (T z +T 4 ) se observó un aumento de rendimiento de 120 kg/ha en relación a los tratamientos que siguieron a las parcelas en SA de 1993 (T I +T 3 ) siguieron en 120 kg/ha (Cuadro 9). Esta mayor respuesta se puede atribuir a que existió la misma relación en la producción de materia seca de la canavalia en la época de siembra que antecedió a los tratamientos analizados o comparados. (Cuadro 9). Cuadro 8. Rendimiento de canavalia (t/ha) y población de plantas, en los tratamientos según sistema de asocio en el combinado Nalú y La Madera, Panamá 1993-94. Dentro de las alternativas planteadas en este ensayo se encontraron varios sistemas que tuvieron rendimientos similares o superiores a la práctica del agricultor (T 8 ), luego de los dos años de evaluación (Cuadro 10). El sistema que mayor producción tuvo fue el que incluyó el asocio se en la primera época, seguido de la siembra de maíz en monocultivo durante la segunda época (T 6 ). También se observó que si se agrupan los tratamientos que incluyen la canavalia en primera coa y monocultivo en segunda (T 5 +T 6 ), el rendimiento total de ambos (12.28 t/ha) es similar al testigo.Los sistemas que incluyen el asocio de la canavalia en ambos ciclos (T 1 +T 2 +T}+T 4 ), tuvieron rendimientos totales similares al testigo, pero con la ventaja de que éstos produjeron un volumen de materia seca de canavalia que fue aprovechado por el ganado en la época seca. El tratamiento que incluye la rotación de la canavalia en primera coa y el maíz en segunda (T 7 ), fue dominado por todos los tratamientos en la producción total de maíz (suma de las cuatro coas de siembras).La siembra en rotación de maíz y canavalia es una alternativa en aquellas zonas en donde la precipitación pluvial, en la primera época de siembra (mayo-agosto) es muy errática o escasa, de tal modo, que no se puede levantar una buena cosecha de maíz en este período. También se debe tomar en cuenta el hecho de que este sistema permite sembrar más temprano en comparación con los sistemas que involucran dos siembras de maíz, de tal forma, que el cultivo escapa al efecto de escasez de humedad para la fase de llenado de grano, por lo que, se esperaría un mayor rendimiento al obtenido experimentalmente.En relación al efecto de los sistemas de asocio con canavalia, se observó que en primera coa el sistema con SA (T 1 +T 2 +T 5 ) superó al se (T}+T 4 +T 6 ) en 0.50 t/ha y fue ligeramente superior al monocultivo (T 8 ). En las siembras de segunda coa, el rendimiento fue similar para ambos sistemas (SA y Se) y el monocultivo superó a ambos en aproximadamente 0.40 t/ha. Al comparar el testigo con el promedio de los tratamientos T 5 y T 6 que son monocultivos en segunda y asociados en primera, se observó que éstos superan a la práctica del agricultor (T 8 ).Los datos de precipitación sugieren que en primera coa, al no ser una limitante la humedad, las dos especies (maíz y canavalia) no compiten entre sí, de tal modo que el asocio en SA supera ligeramente al testigo y al Se. Por el contrario, al sembrar en la segunda coa, los tratamientos con canavalia son más afectados por el déficit de humedad, ya que todos los sistemas en monocultivo los superan, incluyendo el promedio del T 5 y T 6 •Los costos de introducir la leguminosa por ciclo de cultivo tanto en el sistema SA y se ascendieron a B/.33.00 y B/. 66.00, respectivamente (Cuadro 11).La evaluación económica del asocio simultáneo de la canavalia en primera coa, indicó que con las alternativas de SA se obtuvieron rendimientos ligeramente superiores al monocultivo y se a menores costos variables; lo que. implicó mayores beneficios netos (tratamiento no dominado) (Cuadro 12). Por otra parte, en el asocio simultáneo de la canavalia en la segunda coa, se encontró que las alternativas tanto en SA como se, fueron superadas en beneficios netos, por el maíz en monocultivo (T 5 y T 6 ) (alternativas no dominadas) (Cuadro 12). Cuadro 9. Producción de canavalia y el respectivo rendimiento de maíz en la siembra posterior al crecimiento de la leguminosa en el combinado Nalú y La Madera, 1993-94. En la evaluación económica de la producción de maíz en segunda coa, se obtuvo que la parcela en rotación de canavalia seguida de maíz (T 7 ) fue la de los mayores beneficios netos. Este tratamiento superó a las alternativas que tenían la canavalia en primera en SA y se, así como el sistema de maíz en monocultivo en primera (Cuadro 13).Se efectuó también un análisis económico conjunto de los dos años, evaluando los beneficios y costos en las cuatro coas. Para esto se agruparon las alternativas que implican dos ciclos de canavalia al año (TI al T 4 ), un ciclo (T s Y T,,), la alternativa de rotación canavalia maíz (T 7 ) y el maíz monocultivo. Al respecto se encontró que la siembra de maíz asociada con un ciclo (T s Y T,,), presentó beneficios netos superiores al resto de las alternativas evaluadas, incluyendo las siembras en monocultivo (Cuadro 14).En general, de la evaluación económIca realizada puede señalarse que a corto plazo y considerando solamente los efectos sobre los rendimientos de grano; las alternativas que incluyen la incorporación de la canavalia (SA o se en dos coas; SA o se seguidos del monocultivo), superan en beneficios netos la siembra del maíz sin incorporación de la canavalia en el sistema (maíz en monocultivo).puede observarse, los indicadores económicos de rentabilidad obtenidos de la evaluación, corresponden únicamente a la medición de los efectos a corto plazo (dos años), de la incorporación de la canavalia sobre el rendimiento de maíz. Una evaluación más completa debe contemplar los beneficios económicos del uso de la canavalia en el ahorro de nitrógeno, en el incremento de la calidad y cantidad de forraje y del mejoramiento del suelo, los cuales no son posible medir en este ensayo.Cuadro la. Rendimientos totales obtenidos en los diferentes tratamientos durante las dos épocas de siembra. Combinado Nalú y La Madera, Panamá 93-94. 3. Se encontró una respuesta positiva de la siembra de canavalia en primera coa sobre los rendimientos en segunda coa. 4. Los beneficios netos totales más altos se obtuvieron en los sistemas con asocio de maíz y canavalia en primera y maíz en monocultivo en segunda. Se realizó un experimento en dos aftos consecutivos para evaluar la respuesta del maíz a tres dosis de N (O, 75 Y t 50 kg de N) en rotación con canavalia, comparado con una siembra sin leguminosa. Las parcelas de rotación se establecieron en mayo al inicio de la época lluviosa, y en septiembre se sembró un experimento con maíz, bajo dos tipos de labranza. Uno consistió en incorporar la canavalia y malezas presentes y el otro en dejarlas sobre la superficie del suelo. Se evaluaron cuatro sistemas: uno en donde se cortó la leguminosa y se dejó el rastrojo en la parcela (CanR+F); una parcela en. donde creció la leguminosa, se cortó toda la parte vegetativa de las plantas y se extrajo este rastrojo de la parcela (CanR); una parcela en donde no había leguminosas y se le colocó todo el rastrojo del área anterior (CanF) y una parcela sin leguminosas (SLeg). Se utilizó un disefto de parcelas sub-sub-divididas, las parcelas principales siendo los sistemas arregladas en bloques completos al azar con tres repeticiones, la labranza eó las sub-parcelas y las dosis de N en las sub-sub parcelas. Se encontró un efecto residual altamente signifcativo de los sistemas, siendo CanR y CanR+F los de más alto rendimiento con 5.39 y 5.28 tlha, respectivamente. Luego siguió CanF (3.58 t/ha) y por último la parcela SLeg con 2.50 t/ha. La respuesta a N fue altamente significativa con rendimientos de 2.82, 4.54 Y 4.99 tlha, para O, 75 Y t 50 kg de N/ha, respectivamente. Las dosis de N que maximizan los rendimientos para CanR+F CanR, CanF y SLeg fueron de 39, 30, 36 Y 110 kg N/ha, respectivamente. La interacción N x sistemas resultó altamente significativa.El uso de leguminosas como abonos verdes es un método utilizado desde hace muchos años. Varios autores han informado de los beneficios de incorporar leguminosas de cobertura con el fin de incorporar nitrógeno al sistema mediante la fijación biológica (Wade y Sánchez, 1983;Yost et al., 1985y Barreto et al., 1992). Bouldin et al. (1989) encontraron que se pueden sustituir hasta 170 kg de N con leguminosas de cobertura. Burle et al. (1992) encontraron que Canavalia brasiliensis y Mucuna aterrima son especies promisorias por su tolerancia a estrés hídrico y rápido crecimiento. Estos autores encontraron que el maíz pudo obtener hasta 80 kg de N/ha provenientes de la canavalia. Gordón et al. (1993) reporta un experimento donde evaluaron Mucuna deeringianum (mucuna) y Canavalia ensiformis (canavalia), sobresaliendo ésta última, donde el rendimiento de maíz en las parcelas en rotación con canavalia superaron a las parcelas sin leguminosas en 1.85 t/ha. Asimismo, la dosis óptima de N fue de 54 kg/ha, mientras que, en las parcelas sin leguminosas, la dosis óptima fue de 139 kg/ha (Gordón et al., 1993). Los mismos autores realizaron un experimento donde evaluaron el efecto de los componentes de la canavalia (raíces y follaje) por separado, encontrando diferencias en la respuesta del maíz en cada sistema (Gordón et al., 1994).Este trabajo se realizó para determinar los requerimientos de N para la producción del maíz en monocultivo, bajo un sistema de siembra alterno de canavalia en mayo y maíz en septiembre. Se evaluaron dos sistemas de labranza, incorporando la leguminosa y dejándola sobre la superficie del suelo. Además de evaluar el aporte de la parte aérea de las leguminosas, así como el efecto de sus componentes (forraje y raíces), se pretendía de evaluar la dinámica del nitrógeno y cuantificar la equivalencia del N aportado por la canavalia.Se realizaron dos ensayos consecutivos (1993 Y 1994), en la finca Río Hato Sur, Provincia de Coclé, Panamá, ubicada a 25 msnm. Se evaluó la respuesta del maíz a tres dosis de nitrógeno (O, 75 Y 150 kg N/ha), bajo el sistema de siembra de rotación del maíz con Canavalia ensiformis además de una siembra sin leguminosas. La canavalia fue sembrada al inicio de la época lluviosa (mayo) y el maíz en septiembre del mismo año. Se evaluaron dos tipos de labranza, uno consistió en incorporar las leguminosas y malezas antes de la siembra (labranza convencional) y el otro en dejarlas sobre la superficie del suelo (labranza de conservación). Para la realización de este ensayo se contó con cuatro parcelas, de un área de 324 m 2 (27 x 12 m), y equivalen a los cuatro sistemas evaluados:1) Parcela donde creció la canavalia, luego en septiembre se cortó el forraje y se dejó todo este material sobre la misma. Corresponde al efecto de ambos componentes de la planta (raíces y forraje) y del mejoramiento del suelo. Se le denominó Canavalia Raíces + Forraje (CanR+F). 2) Parcela donde creció la canavalia, luego se cortó toda la parte vegetativa de las plantas y se extrajo este forraje de la parcela, quedando únicamente en la misma, las raíces de las leguminosas y el efecto del mejoramiento del suelo. Corresponde al sistema denominado Canavalia-Raíces (CanR). 3) Parcela sin leguminosas, que en septiembre se le colocó todo el forraje de la canavalia que había en la parcela mencionada en el punto 2. Esta fue el Sistema Canavalia-Forraje (CanF). 4) Una parcela sin leguminosas (SLeg).El suelo donde se sembró el experimento es franco arenoso con aproximadamente 5% de pendiente y con fertilidad de media a baja. Se realizó un análisis del suelo en mayo y otro antes de la siembra del maíz (septiembre) (Cuadro 1). En este ensayo se utilizó el híbrido de maíz P-8916. El diseño experimental utilizado fue el de parcelas sub-sub-divididas (Sistemas x Labranza x Dosis de N). Las parcelas principales fueron arregladas en bloques completos al azar con tres repeticiones. La parcela principal fue el sistema. Las sub-parcelas fueron el tipo de labranza (convencional y conservación), mientras que las sub-sub-parcelas fueron las dosis de nitrógeno. La parcela de labranza convencional consistió en una parcela donde se efectuaron tres pases de rastra, incorporando todo el material vegetativo que se encontraba en la superficie (leguminosas y malezas). La parcela de labranza de conservación, consistió en una parcela que no se preparó, sólo se chapeó la leguminosa y/o maleza (según el Sistema) y posteriormente se le aplicó el herbicida Round-up a razón de 4.0 l/ha. El tamaño de las unidades experimentales fue de 4 surcos de maíz de 5.5 m de largo, separados a 0.75 m entre hileras y 0.5 m entre golpes, dejando dos plantas por golpe, para una densidad teórica de 5.33 pl/m 2 • El control de malezas se realizó con la aplicación de la mezcla de atrazina más pendimentalina a razón de 2.0 + 2.0 l/ha, con posteriores limpias manuales, por escapes del control de algunas malezas. La fertilización consistió de la aplicación al momento de la siembra de 60 kg de P 2 0 S /ha más la mitad del N. En 1994 se le aplicó además del P y N la cantidad de 20 kg de S en forma de Ca 2 S0 4 -2H 2 0. El resto del N se aplicó en forma de urea 30-35 días después de la siembra (dds).Se tomaron datos del peso y contenido de N de las leguminosas, al momento de cortarlas, contenido de nitrógeno en la hoja de la mazorca al momento de la floración, número de plantas y mazorcas a la cosecha, rendimiento y porcentaje de humedad del grano. La precipitación de esta localidad en los dos años de experimento se observa en el Cuadro 2.Los resultados indicaron que hubo diferencias altamente significativas para rendimiento y algunos de sus component<;;s en los distintos factores estudiados, \\ así como en aJ~unas de las interacciones (Cuadro 3). En el análisi~i estadístico se observó que los factores Leguminosas; Dosis de N y Año absorben la mayor parte de la~ariación del experimento (93.5%), con un 38.1, 29.~'Y 25.5%, respectivamente. Los otros componentes a pesar de que ciertos presentan diferenci;ás estadísticas, sólo alcanzan el 7.5% de la variacióp total del experimento para la variable rendimÍento de grano. Los otros componentes del rendimiento o variables de respuestas siguen la misma tendencia que la observada en el rendimiento. Cuadro 1. Análisis de suelo para cada parcela en rotación, Río Hato, Panamá, 1993-94. Efecto Residual de la Canavalia:La diferencia en el rendimiento de materia seca del forraje entre los dos años, se debió principalmente a la distribución de las lluvias durante el período de crecimiento de la leguminosa.Se encontró que hubo una respuesta altamente significativa por el efecto residual de la canavalia y los distintos sistemas evaluados. Los rendimientos más altos se obtuvieron en las parcelas que tenían la canavalia y por último la parcela sin rotación con leguminosas. Esta respuesta índica que la siembra de la canavalia favoreció al cultivo. En relación a los sistemas, se encontró que el grupo de más alto rendimiento estuvo fonnado por CanR y CanR+F con 5.39 y 5.28 t1ha, respectivamente (sin diferencias estadísticas entre ellos). Luego le siguió CanF (3.58) y por último SLeg con un rendimiento de 2.50 t/ha. Cuadro 2. Precipitación pluvial (mm) en Río Hato desde mayo hasta diciembre de 1993-94. El análisis de laboratorio de la canavalia (tallos más hojas) indicó que el por~entaje promedio de N en la partes analizadas fue de 3.2%. La cantidad de materia seca en las parcelas de canavalia, al momento de realizar el corte fue de 5.88 y 6.02 t/ha, para 1993 y 1994, respectivamente. Esto equivale a incorporar 188 y 192 kg de N/ha, en agosto de ambos años (Cuadro 4).Este mismo orden se observó en el peso de mazorca y mazorcas por planta, con diferencias significativas (P<O.Ol y P<O.05, respectivamente). Esto indica que la siembra de las leguminosas antes del maíz favoreció el rendimiento del cultivo. El número de pl/m 2 presentó diferencias significativas (P<O.02) en donde el promedio de la población de los diferentes sistemas estuvo entre 5.19 a 4.94 pllm El aporte de N al cultivo por parte de los sistemas evaluados se puede observar en el rendimiento del maíz en el intercepto de la curva con el eje del rendimiento, el cual representa el rendimiento del cultivo cuando no se aplica N al sistema.El resto de los componentes de rendimiento no mostró diferencias significativas entre sí (Cuadro 7). Resultados similares encontró Gordón et al. (1993Gordón et al. ( Y 1994)), de manera que el efecto de disminuir las pérdidas de la humedad del suelo, sumado al efecto positivo encontrado en los sistemas que sólo incluyen las raíces, indican que es mejor dejar las plantas de la leguminosa a manera de mantillo y practicar la labranza de conservación. Contrario a estos resultados, Costa et al. (1990), encontraron que las parcelas donde no se incorporaban las leguminosas rendían menos, en comparación con incorporación, debido a que en las no incorporadas había mayores pérdidas de N.La respuesta de la aplicación del N fue altamente significativa ydependió del manejo de los residuos de las leguminosas. En el análisis de varianza se observó que la interacción leguminosas por dosis de N fue significativa (P<O.O 1). Además del análisis de varianza, se realizó un análisis para detenninar la curva de rendimiento máximo estable (plateau) en función de las dosis de N aplicado en fonna de urea, para cada sistema (Cuadro 8).El número de rnz/m 2 presentó diferencias (P<O.OI), observándose el promedio más bajo en el sistema SLeg con 4.16 rnz/m 2 . En relación al tamaño de la mazorca, las más grande se lograron con los sistemas CanR y CanR+F con 105 y 100 g/mazorca, mientras que los tamaños más pequeños se obtuvieron con los sistemas CanF y SLeg (Cuadro 5).En relación con el sistema de labranza, el mismo no mostró diferencias estadísticas, aunque, el promedio de las parcelas en labranza de conservación fue mayor, que las parcelas en labranza convencional (4.20 Y4.11 t/ha, respectivamente). La precipitación pluvial errática que se presenta comúnmente en esta zona del país, parece favorecer a las parcelas con residuos sobre la superficie, de tal manera que la poca humedad existente se conserva mejor.La respuesta de la aplicación de N fue altamente significativa. Los rendimientos obtenidos para el promedio de las dosis de O, 75 Y 150 kg de N /ha fue de 2.82, 4.54 Y 4.99 t/ha, respectivamente. En relación al peso de las mazorcas se observó que a medida que se aumenta la cantidad de N el tamaño de la mazorca es mayor. Para las variables pl/m 2 y rnz/m 2 se observó que Jos promedios más bajos se encuentran en las parcelas sin N (Cuadro 6).Los resultados muestran que el sistema que sólo contenía las raíces (CanR), logró rendimientos superiores en comparación al sistema que evaluaba el efecto del forraje (CanF). Esto sugiere que la mayoría del N que acumulan las hojas y tallos de las leguminosas no es aprovechado por el cultivo en rotación. Las ganancias o respuestas positivas observadas en las parcelas que sólo contenían las raíces, por su parte, sugieren que el mejoramiento físico que puede sufrir el suelo, además de la cantidad de N que es fijado durante el crecimiento o desarrollo de las leguminosas, así como, el contenido de N que tienen las raíces, son aprovechados o revierten en mayores beneficios para el cultivo de rotación. Otra explicación posible es que, debido al crecimiento de las raíces de la leguminosa, se aumenta el contenido de micorrizas en el suelo, favoreciendo el mejor desarrollo del cultivo en rotación. El punto de inflexión de las curvas, indica la dosis en la cual la respuesta del cultivo permanece estable, es decir, el rendimiento no aumenta por incrementos en las dosis de N aplicado. Al analizar los valores encontrados se observa como en el sistema SLeg se necesitan 110 kg/ha, para lograr el rendimiento máximo, mientras que en los sistemas que involucran la canavalia, la dosis óptima oscila entre 30 a 40 kg N/ha. Esta reducción implica un ahorro significativo en la utilización de urea en la producción del cultivo (Figura 1). Se debe señalar que el efecto de la rotación de las leguminosas, parece involucrar algo más que el aporte de N calculado en base a la producción de biomasa, como 10 puede ser, el mejoramiento en la estructura del suelo o algunos componentes que no se pudieron medir en este trabajo. En este análisis se encontró que el rendimiento máximo (plateau) que se puede obtener en el sistema SLeg es de 3.86 t/ha, el cual es superado por los sistemas CanR, CanR+F en más de 1.5 t/ha, ya que, el plateau en estos fue de 5.91 y 5.50 t/ha, para cada sistema respectivamente. Este incremento en el techo del rendimiento, que se puede lograr implementando la rotación de la canavalia en la producción del maíz, mejoraría la eficiencia de los productores en un 43 a 54%,.La dosis de O N fue el factor que más reducción produjo en el número de mazorcas por planta, en las parcelas SLeg. Alrededor de un 42% de plantas abortaron las mazorcas en el nivel de O N, en comparación con los niveles de 75 y 150 kg con 13 y 4% de aborto, respectivamente. En los sistemas CanR+F y CanR no se observó este efecto, ya que el porcentaje de aborto fue menor del 5%, para todos los niveles. En el sistema CanF, el nivel de O N presentó 14% de plantas sin mazorcas. Los factores, pllm 2 , rnz/m 2 , peso de mazorca y número de mazorcas/planta, explican los bajos rendimientos a ON (Cuadro 9).Cuando se observa el promedio general (a través de dosis) de los distintos sistemas, los datos sugieren que el forraje de la canavalia no tiene mucho aporte en el rendimiento, ya que, no hay diferencias significativas entre los sistemas CanR y CanR+F (6.01 vs 6.00 y 4.73 vs 4.59 t/ha, para los años 1993 y 1994, respectivamente).Cuadro 8. Valores para la curva de respuesta del rendimiento de grano en función de las dosis de N aplicada, Río Hato, Panamá, 1993-94.   -'------'---\"--------'------''---------'------'---'------------ Al analizar la interacción Leg x Dosis, se observó que al pasar de O a 75 kg N/ha en el sistema CanR, hubo una ganancia de 1.76 y 1.58 t/ha, un 36.9 y 43.8% de incremento, con respecto a la dosis de ON. Por el contrario, en el sistema CanR+F el incremento en la dosis sólo aumentó el rendimiento en 0.50 y 0.82 t/ha (8.9 y 20.8% de incremento). Es decir que en ambos años el nivel de ON en el sistema CanR+F superó al rendimiento observado en el sistema de CanR. En el sistema CanF este incremento de dosis representó un porcentaje mayor del rendimiento (68.9 y 111.7%). En los tres sistemas que involucran la rotación con canavalia, se observó que no hay respuesta a la aplicación de nitrógeno cuando se pasó de la dosis de 75 a 150 kg N/ha (Cuadro 10). Se realizó un experimento en dos afios consecutivos para evaluar la respuesta del maíz a tres dosis de N (O, 75 Y 150 kg de N/ha), en rotación con Mucuna deeringiana, comparado con una sin leguminosas. Las parcelas de rotación se establecieron en mayo al inicio de la época lluviosa, y en septiembre se sembró un experimento con maíz. Este consistió en evaluar dos tipos de labranza, uno incorporando las leguminosas y malezas presentes, antes de la siembra y el otro dejándolas sobre la superficie del suelo. Se evaluaron cuatro sistemas: Uno en donde se cortó la leguminosa y se dejó el rastrojo en la parcela (MucR+F), una parcela en donde creció la leguminosa, se cortó toda la parte vegetativa de las plantas y se extrajo este rastrojo de la parcela (MucR), una parcela en donde no había leguminosas y se le colocó todo el rastrojo del área anterior (MucF) y una parcela sin leguminosas (SLeg). Se utilizó un disefio de parcelas sub-sub divididas, las parcelas principales fueron los sistemas, arregladas en bloques completos al azar con tres repeticiones, en las sub-parcelas se evaluaron la labranza y en las sub-sub parcelas las dosis de N. El efecto residual fue altamente significativo, con más alto rendimiento por MucR y MucF (4.97 y 4.42 t/ha, respectivamente), siguiéndole MucR+F (4.12) y por último SLeg con 2.50 Uha. La aplicación de N fue altamente significativa con rendimientos promedios de 4.81, 4.46 Y 2.70  El uso de leguminosas como abonos verdes es un método utilizado desde hace muchos años. Varios autores han informado de los beneficios de incorporar leguminosas de cobertura con el fin de incorporar nitrógeno al sistema mediante la fijación biológica. (Wade y Sánchez, 1983;Yost et al., 1985y Barreto et al., 1992). Bouldin et al. (1989) encontró que se pueden sustituir hasta 170 kg de N, utilizando leguminosas de cobertura. Burle et al. (1992), encontraron que la Canavalia brasiliensis y la Mucuna aterrima, son especies prornisorias por su tolerancia a estrés hídrico y rápido crecimiento. Gordón et al., (1993), reportaron los resultados de rotación de maíz con mucuna y canavalia, sobresaliendo ésta última. En 1993, Gordón et al (1994) realizaron un experimento similar donde se evalúo el efecto de los componentes de las leguminosas (raíces y follaje) por separado, encontrando diferencias en la respuesta del maíz en cada sistema.El presente trabajo se realizó con el objetivo de determinar los requerimientos de N para la producción del maíz en monocultivo, bajo un sistema de siembra alterno de leguminosas en primera coa (mayo) y maíz en segunda (septiembre), bajo dos sistemas de labranza (incorporando la leguminosa y dejándola sobre la superficie del suelo), además de evaluar el aporte de la parte aérea de las leguminosas, así como el efecto de sus componentes (forraje y raíces). Además de evaluar la dinámica de N y cuantificar la equivalencia del N aportado por las leguminosas.Se realizaron dos ensayos consecutivos (1993 y 1994), en la [mca Río Hato Sur, ubicada en la provincia de Coclé, Panamá, ubicada a 25 msnm. Se evaluó la respuesta del maíz a tres dosis de N (O, 75 Y 150 kg N/ha), en rotación con mucuna, además de una siembra sin leguminosas. La leguminosa fue sembrada al inicio de la época lluviosa (mayo) y el maíz en septiembre del mismo año. Se evaluó dos tipos de labranza, uno consistió en incorporar las leguminosas y malezas antes de la siembra (labranza convencional) y el otro en dejarlas sobre la superficie del suelo (labranza de conservación).Para la realización de este ensayo se contó con cuatro parcelas, cada una consistió de un área de 324 m 2 (27 x 12 m), y representaron a los cuatro sistemas evaluados: 1) Parcela donde creció la Mucuna, luego en septiembre se cortó el forraje y se dejó todo este material sobre la misma. Corresponde al efecto de ambos componentes de la planta (raíces y forraje) y mejoramiento del suelo, es denominado Mucuna Raíces + Forraje (MueR+F). 2) Parcela donde creció la Mucuna, luego se cortó toda la parte vegetativa de las plantas y se extrajo este forraje de la parcela, quedando únicamente en la misma, las raices de las leguminosas y el efecto del mejoramiento del suelo, corresponde al sistema denominado Mucuna-Raíces (MueR). 3) Parcela sin leguminosas, que en septiembre se le colocó todo el forraje de la mucuna que había en la parcela mencionada en el punto 2. Esta fue el Sistema Mucuna-Forraje(MueF). 4) Una parcela sin leguminosas (SLeg).El suelo donde se sembró el experimento es franco arenoso con aproximadamente 5% de pendiente y con fertilidad de media a baja. Se realizó un análisis del suelo en mayo y otro antes de la siembra del maíz (septiembre) (Cuadro 1). En este ensayo se utilizó el uíbrido de maíz P-8916. El diseño experimental utilizado fue el de parcelas sub-sub-divididas (Sistemas x Labranza x Dosis de N). Las parcelas principales fueron arregladas en bloques completos al azar con tres repeticiones. La parcela principal fue el Sistema. Las sub-parcelas fueron el tipo de labranza (convenCional y conservación), mientras que las sub-sub-parcelas fueron las dosis de nitrógeno.La parcela considerada como labranza convencional consistió en una parcela que recibió tres pases de rastra, incorporando todo el material vegetativo en la superficie (leguminosas y malezas). La parcela de labranza de conservación consistió en una parcela que no se preparó, sólo se chapeó la leguminosa y/o maleza (según el Sistema) y posteriormente se le aplicó el herbicida Round-up a razón de 4.0 l/ha. El tamaño de las unidades experimentales fue de cuatro surcos de maíz de 5.5 m de largo, separados a 0.75 m entre hileras y 0.50 m entre golpes, dejando dos plantas por golpe, para una densidad teórica de 5.33 pl/m 2• Después de la siembra del maíz, se realizó el control de malezas con la aplicación de la mezcla de atrazina más pendimentalina a razón de 2.0 + 2.0 l/ha, con posteriores limpias manuales. La fertilización consistió de 60 kg de P 2 0s/ha más la mitad del N a la siembra. En 1994 se le aplicó también 20 kg de S en forma de sulfato de calcio dihitratado. El resto del N se aplicó en forma de urea 30-35 días después de la siembra (dds). Se tomaron datos del peso de las leguminosas y el contenido de N al momento de cortarlas, contenido de N en la hoja de la mazorca al momento de la floración, número de plantas y mazorcas a la cosecha, rendimiento y porcentaje de humedad del grano. La precipitación de esta localidad se observa en el Cuadro 2.Los resultados muestran diferencias significativas para rendimiento y algunos de sus componentes en los distintos factores estudiados, así como en algunas de las interacciones (Cuadro 3). En el análisis estadístico se observó que los factores Dosis de N, Año y Leguminosas (Sistemas), absorben la mayor parte de la variación del experimento (90.9%), con un 37.6,27.9 Y 25.4%, respectivamente. Los otros componentes a pesar de que ciertos presentan diferencias estadísticas, sólo alcanzan el 9.1 % de la variación total del experimento para rendimiento de grano. Los otros componentes del rendimiento siguen la misma tendencia que la observada en el rendimiento. El análisis de laboratorio de la mucuna mostró un contenido de 2.9j% de N, mientras que para el residuo en la superficie del suelo, el porcentaje obtenido fue de 1.20%. La cantidad de materia seca en las parcelas de mucuna, en agosto fue de 6.13 y 5.90 tlha, más 2.62 y 2.45 tlha del residuo, para 1993 y 1994, respectivamente. Esto equivale a incorporar 211 y 202 kg de N/ha, en agosto de ambos años (Cuadro 4).Se encontró que hubo una respuesta altamente significativa por el efecto residual de la Mucuna y los distintos sistemas evaluados. Los rendimientos más altos se obtuvieron en las parcelas que tenían la Mucuna y por último la parcela sin rotación.En relación a los sistemas, se encontró que el rendimiento más alto se obtuvo en el sistema MucR con 4.97, le siguió MucF (4.42 t/ha), MucR+F (4.12 t/ha), y por último la parcela SLeg con un rendimiento de 2.50 t/ha. Todos ellos fueron estadísticamente diferentes al P<O/OOl. Este mismo orden se observó en los componentes mazorcas por planta y peso de mazorcas siendo sus diferencias significativas al P<O.Ol. Esto indica que la siembra de las leguminosas antes del maíz, favoreció el rendimiento y los otros componentes del cultivo. En relación al tamaño de la mazorca, las más grandes se lograron con los sistemas MucR y MucR+F con 99 y 98 g/mazorca, mientras que los tamaños más pequeños se obtuvieron con los sistemas MucF y SLeg. El número de pl/m 2 no presentó diferencias significativas, en donde el promedio de la población de los diferentes sistemas estuvo entre 5.28 a 5.06 pl/m 2 • El número de mz/m 2 presentó diferencias al P<O.OOI, observándose el promedio más bajo en el sistema SLeg con 4.16  La respuesta de la aplicación del nitrógeno fue altamente significativa. Los rendimientos obtenidos para el promedio de las dosis de 0, 75 y 150 kg N/ha fue de 2.70, 4.46 Y 4.81 t/ha, respectivamente. En relación al peso de las mazorcas se observó que a medida que se aumenta la cantidad de N el tamaño de la mazorca es mayor. Para las variables pl/m 2 y mz/m 2 se observó que los promedios más bajos se encuentran en las parcelas sin N (Cuadro 6).Cuadro 5. Rendimiento de grano y sus componentes, según sistemas evaluados, Río Hato, Panamá, 1993-94. Esto sugiere que la mayoría del contenido de N que acumulan las hojas y tallos de las leguminosas, no es aprovechado por el cultivo en rotación. Las ganancias o respuestas positivas observadas en las parcelas que sólo contenían las raíces, por su parte sugieren, que el mejoramiento fisico que puede sufrir el suelo, además de la cantidad de N que es fijado durante el crecimiento o desarrollo de las leguminosas, así como, el contenido de N que tienen las raíces, son aprovechados o revierten en mayores beneficios para el cultivo de rotación. Otra explicación posible es que, debido al crecimiento de las raíces de la leguminosa, se aumenta el contenido de micorrizas en 'el suelo, favoreciendo el mejor desarrollo del cultivo en rotación. En relación con el sistema de labranza, el mismo no mostró diferencias estadísticas, aunque, el promedio de las parcelas en labranza de convencional fue ligeramente mayor, que las parcelas en labranza de conservación (4.03 vs 3.96 tlha, respectivamente). La precipitación errática que se presenta comúnmente en esta zona, parece favorecer a las parcelas con residuos, que conserva mejor la humedad existente.El resto de los componentes del rendimiento no mostró diferencias significativas entre sí (Cuadro 7). Resultados similares encontró Gordón et al. (1993Gordón et al. ( Y 1994)), de manera que el efecto de disminuir las pérdidas de la humedad del suelo, sumado al efecto positivo encontrado en los sistemas que sólo incluyen las raíces, indican que es mejor dejar las plantas de la leguminosa a manera de mantillo y practicar la labranza de conservación. Contrario a estos resultados, Costa et al. (1990), encontraron que parcelas sin incorporación de leguminosas rindieron menos en comparación con las con incorporación, debido a que en las no incorporadas había mayores pérdidas de N . Dentro de los resultados observados sobresale el echo de que las parcelas con MucR superaron en rendimiento a las parcelas de MucR+F y MucF. Esta situación se pudo deber, a que, al momento de la siembra del maíz, los dos sistemas que incluyen el forraje de la mucuna, presentaron un alto volumen de materia seca en la superficie (mantillo), dificultando de este modo la emergencia del maíz, situación que no se dio en las parcela que no incluyó el forraje. Debemos señalar además, de que es posible, que el crecimiento del maíz se vea afectado por la descomposición de la gran cantidad de materia verde de esta leguminosa.Interacción Leg x Dosis de N La respuesta a N fue altamente significativa y dependió del manejo de los residuos de las leguminosas. En el análisis de varianza se observó que la interacción leguminosas por N fue significativa (P<O.OI). Además del análisis de varianza, se realizó un análisis para determinar la curva de rendimiento máximo estable (plateau) en función de las dosis de N aplicado en forma de urea, para cada sistema (Cuadro 8). El aporte de N al cultivo por parte de los sistemas evaluados se puede observar en el rendimiento del maíz en el intercepto de la curva con el eje del rendimiento, el cual 'representa el rendimiento del cultivo cuando no se aplica N al sistema. Cuadro 6. Rendimiento de grano y sus componentes, según dosis de N aplicadas, Río Hato, Panamá, 1993-94. En este análisis se encontró que el rendimiento máximo (plateau) que se puede obtener en el sistema SLeg es de 3.83 t/ha, el cual es superado por los sistemas MucR, MucF en más de 1.5 t/ha, ya que, el plateau en estos fue de 5.65 y 5.33 tlha, para cada sistema respectivamente. Este incremento en el techo del rendimiento, que se puede lograr implementando la rotación de la mucuna en la producción del maíz En el sistema SLeg, el valor del intercepto fue de 0.81 t/ha. Este bajo rendimiento se puede explicar, por el bajo contenido de materia orgánica que muestran los distintos análisis del suelo en esta parcela. El incremento en el rendimiento de grano sin aplicar N a los sistemas MucR y MucR+F fue significativamente superior, ya que, el valor del intercepto fue de 3.83 y 3.20 tlha, para ambos respectivamente. Estos valores superan al testigo SLeg por el orden de 3.05 y 2.39 tlha. (Cuadro 8).Cuadro 9. Medias de rendimiento de grano obtenido en el ensayo de rotación, según sistemas y dosis de N, Río Hato, 1993-94.Se debe señalar, que el efecto de la rotación de las leguminosas, parece involucrar algo más, que el aporte de N calculado en base a la producción de biomasa, como lo puede ser, el mejoramiento en la estructura del suelo o algunos componentes que no se pudieron medir en este trabajo.   El reciclaje de nutrimentos y la aplicación racional de la labranza son considerados elementos esenciales de una estrategia de producción sostenible para los sistemas de cultivos. El uso de leguminosas como abonos verdes es un método usado desde hace muchos años. Wade y Sánchez (1983), Yost et al. (1985), Y Barreto et al (1982) informan de los beneficios de incorporar leguminosas para incorporar N al sistema mediante la fijación biológica. Gordón et al. (1994) reportaron que leguminosas como canavalia y mucuna, pueden sustituir mas de 150 kg N/ha a sistemas de maíz.Desde hace varios años el IDIAP en conjunto con el PRM vienen promoviendo la labranza de conservación. Estudios recientes por Herrera et al. (1994) reportan un aumento en la adopción de este sistema en la región de Azuero. Adiciones de residuos al suelo alteran el ciclo del N, pudiendo afectar su disponibilidad para el cultivo. Por esta razón es importante entender la interacción entre el uso de residuos como mantillo y N (Barreta, 19S9). Ensayos regionales del PRM sobre I Ing. Agrónomo. M.Se., 2Agrónomo, 3lng. Agrónomo, Instituto de Investigación Agropecuaria de Panamá, Centro Regional Agropecuario de Azuero.Presentado en SíNTESIS DE RESULTADOS EXPERIMENTALES DEL PRM 1993-1'),)5, VOL. 5 (1997). p. 133-135. 133 esta interacción sugieren una inmovilización cercana a 60-S0 kg N/ha por la descomposición del residuo o mantillo de maiz en sistemas de labranza de conservación (Sosa y Bolaños, 1993).En Azuero, se ha incrementado el asocio de maíz con Canavalia ensiformis así como su su uso como mantillo para la labranza de conservación. El objetivo de este trabajo es evaluar el efecto de residuos con diferentes relaciones de CN al rendimiento de maíz bajo distintas dosis de N.El experimento se realizó en la Finca Experimental El Ejido, distrito de Los Santos, Panamá, a 30 msnm (7°55' N, S0053' W). El ensayo evaluó la respuesta del maíz a dos tipos de rastrojos (canavalia y una mezcla de residuos de maíz y canavalia) como mulch bajo labranza de conservación en arreglo factorial con niveles de N (O, 75, 150 Y225 kg N/ha). El diseño fue de parcelas divididas en bloques completos al azar con tres repeticiones. Para lograr estos rastrojos o residuos (parcela principal), se sembró una parcela de canavalia al inicio de lluvias (mayo); luego a finales de agosto se procedió a cortar todo el forraje, dejándolo sobre la superficie del suelo. Al momento del corte el total de canavalia que se usó como mulch fue 5.0 tlha. A la mitad de la parcela se le procedió a colocarle tallos de maíz de una parcela contigua, a razón de 4.0 t/ha. Mientras que la otra mitad se dejó la canavalia sobre la superficie para hasta el momento de la siembra del maíz.La unidad experimental fue de 4 surcos de 5.5 m de largo con una densidad teórica de 5.33 plantas/m 2 . Para obtener esta población, el maíz se sembró a una distancia de 0.75 m entre hileras y 0.5 m entre golpes, dejando dos plantas por golpe. El cultivar utilizado fue el híbrido nacional P-S916, el cual fue tratado con el insecticida furatiocarb a razón de S gr i.a./kg de semilla. Para el control de malezas, se realizo una aplicación de glifosato en dosis de 4.0 l/ha, una semana antes de la siembra. La fertilización fosforada se realizó con la aplicación de 60 kg de P 2 0 S como super fosfato triple; La mitad del N se aplicó al momento de la siembra, mientras que la otra mitad se aplicó a los 30 días después de la siembra. Se tomaron datos del peso y contenido de N de las leguminosas, al momento de cortarlas, así como número de plantas y mazorcas a la cosecha, rendimiento y humedad del grano. La precipitación se observa en el Cuadro l. 4). En este análisis se encontró que el rendimiento máximo (plateau) que se puede obtener en el sistema Can+Rastrojo de maíz es de 4.35 tlha, el cual es superado en aproximadamente una tonelada (1.0 tlha) por el sistema con rastrojos de canavalia, ya que, el plateau en este fue de 5.30 t/ha. Cuadro 1. Precipitación pluvial (mm) en el campo Experimental de El Ejido desde agosto hasta diciembre de 1994 Cuadro 3 Análisis de varianza del rendimiento de grano, peso de mazorca y mzlm' en el ensayo de evaluación de diferentes tipos de rastrojo. Además del análisis de varianza, se realizó un análisis para determinar la curva de rendimiento máximo estable (plateau) en función de las dosis de N aplicado en forma de urea, para cada sistema (Cuadro RESULTADOS y DISCUSIÓN La respuesta a N fue altamente significativa. y dependió del manejo de los residuos de las parcelas. El rendimiento de maíz para las dosis de 0, 75, 150 Y 225 kg de N/ha fue de 2.67, 4.27, 4.85 y 4.98 t/ha, respectivamente. En relación al peso de las mazorcas se observó que a medida que se aumenta la cantidad de N el tamaño de la mazorca es mayor. Este tamaño aumentó de 71 a 107 g/mazorca para las dosis de °a 225 kg N/ha, respectivamente. Para pUm 2 no se encontró diferencias dosis de N, mientras que para el número de mzlm 2 se observaron diferencias altamente significativas, y los promedios más bajos se encontraron en las parcelas sin N (Cuadro 2).El resultado del análisis de laboratorio de la canavalia (tallos más hojas) indicó que el porcentaje promedio de nitrógeno en la partes analizadas fue de 3.25%. La cantidad de materia seca en las parcelas de canavalia, al momento de realizar el corte fue de 5 t/ha, lo que equivalió a incorporar 162 kg de Nlha. Este incremento en el techo del rendimiento se puede lograr implementando la rotación de maíz con canavalia, indica que el rastrojo de canavalia, el cual tiene un alto contenido de N (relación C:N baja), aporta N al sistema.El punto de inflexión de las curvas, indica la dosis en la cual la respuesta del cultivo permanece estable, es decir, el rendimiento no aumenta por incrementos en las dosis de N aplicado. Al analizar los valores encontrados se observo como en ambos sistemas fue de 90 y 119 kg de N/ha, para lograr el rendimiento máximo.El aporte de N al cultivo por parte de los sistemas evaluados se puede observar en el rendimiento del maíz en el intercepto de la curva con el eje del rendimiento, el cual representa el rendimiento del cultivo cuando no se aplica N al sistema.1. Se encontró una respuesta significativa a la aplicación de N al maíz.2. El rastrojo de maíz reduce el potencial de rendimiento del sistema, debido quizás a la fijación de parte del nitrógeno de la canavalia. Barreto, H. 1989 Se realizó un experimento en la finca experimental del Ejido, para determinar el efecto de la densidad de siembra y arreglo espacial sobre el rendimiento de grano y de forraje en el cultivo de Canavalia ensiformis. Se evaluaron dos distancia entre hileras, tres distancia entre plantas y dos niveles de plantas/golpe. Se encontró que la distancia entre hilera y la distancia entre gplpes, no afectó significativamente la producción de grano y de forraje de canavalia. Sin embargo, el incremento de una a dos plantas por golpe afectó negativamente la producción de grano, pero no la de forraje. Se determinó una población óptima de canavalia para la producción de grano y forraje de 6.58 y 7:41 pI/m', con rendimientos de 3.30 y 12.44 tlha, respectivamente.El déficit de proteína cruda, durante la época seca, constituye uno de los principales factores que limita la producción d~leche y carne, en las explotaciones ganaderas de la región de Azuero. Por lo tanto, .se requiere del uso de leguminosas forrajeras que permitan mejorar la disponibilidad de este nutrimento. Así, Canavalia ensiformis es considerada una leguminosa muy promisoria, ya que tiene un alto potencial de producción de materia seca, tolera un amplio rango de texturas y fertilidap del suelo, crece bién en suelos de tierras bajas y pedregosos, así como en suelos ácidos y salinos, con un rango de pH entre 4.3 a 7.5. También se desarrolla bien en sitios, donde la pluviosidad oscila entre 700 y 4200 mm y es resistente a períodos de sequía prolongados (Jaramillo 1983; Arango y Mendoza 1984, citados por Bernal y Jiménez, 1990).Esta leguminosa, ha sido motivo de estudio durante los últimos años en Panamá, especialmente en Azuero, sin embargo, los trabajos se han dirigido a la siembra en asoCio con maiz o en cultivos de rotación; por lo tanto, no existe información a nivel local, sobre el manejo agronómico de canavalia en parcelas puras para la Publicado en SÍNTESIS DE RESULTADOS EXPERIMENTALES DEL PRM 1993-1995, VOL. 5 (1997), p. 136-138. 136 producción de forraje o de grano (Gordón et al., 1993;Herrera et al., 1993).Estudios realizados en Venezuela han mostrado que la densidad de siembra es uno de los principales factores que determinan la producción de materia seca de esta especie. Martín (1983) (citado por Bernal y Jiménez, 1990), al comparar tres densidades de siembra (25, 50 Y 83 mil pl/ha), encontró mayores rendimientos con la densidad intermedia. Por otro lado, Oviedo y Guzmán (1983), (citados pOJ~Bernal y Jímenez, 1990), realizaron un ensayo donde evaluaron el efecto de cuatro distancias entre hileras y plantas, y encontraron que la densidad fmal es la variable de mayor incidencia sobre la producción de grano de canavalia.El presente trabajo se realizó con el propósito de determinar el efecto de la densidad de siembra y arreglo espacial sobre el rendimiento de grano y de forraje en el cultivo de Canavalia ensiformis.El ensayo se realizó en la Finca Experimental de El Ejido, provincia de Los Santos (70 53' N, 80°23' W), a 26 msnm, con 1122 mm de precipitación media anual y 27.3°C de temperatura media. Los suelos son profundos, bien drt:nados, con colores pardo rojizo en los horizontes superficiales y pardo amarillento en los horizontes más profundo (Jaramillo, 1985). En el Cuadro 1, se presentan los resultados del análisis de suelo del área experimental.El ensayo se sembró durante la segunda época, en el periodo comprendido desde septiembre de 1994 a enero de 1995. Para el establecimiento de la canavalia, el suelo se preparó en la forma convencional (arado y dos pases de rastra); la siembra se hizo en forma manual, el arreglo espacial y la densidad de siembra se hizo de acuerdo a los tratamientos (Cuadro 2). Se fertilizó con fósforo a razón de 60 kg de PlO/ha, al momento de la siembra en todos los tratamientos. Durante el desarrollo del cultivo, no s~presentó problemas de malezas.El diseño experimental utilizado fue de parcelas divididas, (parcelas principales: distancia entre hileras), en diseño completamente al azar, subparcelas en arreglo factorial de dos factores (distancia entre plantas y número de plantas/golpe), con tres repeticiones. Se utilizaron dos distancias entre hileras (0.6 y 0.9 m), tres distancia entre plantas (0.3, 0.4 Y0.5 m) y dos niveles de plantas/golpe (1 y 2 plantas/golpe) (Cuadro 2).El tamaño de las parcelas experimentales fue de 4 surcos de 6 m de largo. En cada parcela experimental, se tomaron datos sobre la producción de grano y de forraje. La cosecha de de forraje se efectuó a los 100 días después de la siembra (dds) Y la producción de grano a los 140 dds. Para ambas variables se cosecharon 3 m de los dos surcos centrales. Se calculó el óptimo fisico para variable rendimiento de grano y forraje, tomando en cuenta la ecuación, en donde la variable independiente es el número de pl/m Los rendimientos promedio de forraje y de grano de Canavalia,se presentan en el Cuadro 3. En el análisis de varianza, se determinó que la distancia entre hileras y la distancia entre golpes, no afectó significativamente (P<O.OS), el rendimiento grano y de forraje de canavalia. Al igual qué, el número de plantas por golpe, que no afectó significativamente (P<O.OS), el rendimiento de forraje, aunque se observó una tendencia a incrementar el rendimiento con dos plantas/golpe). Probablemente este efecto estuvo relacionado a una mayor población de plantas. En cambio, el rendimiento de grano fue mayor (P<O.OI), con una planta/golpe, en comparación a dos plantas/golpe. Esto se debió probablemente al mayor número de vainas por planta, qué se logró con la siembra de una planta por golpe, la cual se incrementó significativamente (P<O.OS) de 2.S a S.6 vainas/planta. Al realizar el análisis de regresión, se encontró una significancia alta para el coeficiente de regresión, tanto para grano como para forraje. Se calculó el óptimo fisico para cada variable y se encontró que la población óptima para grano fue de 6.S8 pl/m 2 , con un rendimiento de grano de 3.30 t/ha. Mientras para la producción de forraje, la población óptima de plantas de canavalia fue de 7.41 pI/m 2 , con un rendimiento estimado de materia seca de 12.44 t/ha, en un solo corte a los 100 dds. El Cuadro 4 presenta las ecuaciones de regresión para la producción de forraje y de grano de canavalia, donde Y corresponde al rendimiento de grano o de forraje (t/ha) y X, el número de plantas/m Para conocer la incorporaclOn de nutrimentoss y materia seca al suelo que realiza la canavalia asociada al maíz y sus efectos en los rendimientos de la gramínea, se condujo un experimento en la Estación Experimental de Granos El Tomeguín, en un suelo ferralítico rojo (oxisol) en un diseño de bloques al azar con cuatro repeticiones. Se encontró que los diferentes asocios de la leguminosa con el maíz no afectaron sus rendimientos, la incorporación de materia seca y nutrimentos al sistema por la canavalia fue mayor cuando se asocio a la menor densidad de población del maíz y su siembra se realizó al unísono.La agricultura cubana por muchos años contó con recursos para la utilización de fertilizantes químicos y herbicidas, situación que ha variado marcadamente, por ello en la actualidad la investigación busca alternativas para sustituir parcial o totalmente estas necesidades por opciones que permitan limitar la aparición de plantas indeseables, mantener la fertilidad de los suelos y los rendimientos de los cultivos. El uso de abonos verdes y otras fuentes orgánicas puede cumplir con estos requisitos y están al alcance del hombre, FAO (1983), una de la variantes es la de asociar al maíz una leguminosa como la canavalia que aporta nutrientes al suelo, no sólo N fijado por el Rhizobium, sino también recicla P y K en su materia seca, todo ello de interés para las áreas agrícolas del país, debido a que el maíz se siembra para consumo en primavera como rotación para las siembras de cultivos principales en invierno.En un suelo ferralítico rojo hidratado (Oxisol), (Cuadro 1) de la Estación Experimental de Granos y Cuarentena El Tomeguín, se desarrolló un experimento durante la época de frío (Diciembre-Abril), para estudiar el asocio de la canavalia (Canavalia ensiformis L.) con maíz , usando la variedad P-7928 de polinización abierta. Los tratamientos fueron: 1. Maíz en monocultivo (44 mil pl/ha) 2. Maíz a 44 mil pl/ha + asocio a Odds con canavalia a 44 mil pl/ha 3. Maíz a 44 mil pl/ha + asocio a 30 dds con canavalia a 44 mil pl/ha 4. Maíz en monocultivo a 66 mil pl/ha 5. Maíz a 66 mil pl/ha + asocio a Odds con canavalia a 22 mil pl/ha 6. Maíz a 66 mil pl/ha + asocio a 30 dds con canavalia a 44 mil pl/ha Se utilizaron parcelas de 6 surcos de 5 m de largo con un área de cálculo de 18 m 2 . Se fertilizó sólo el maíz con una dosis de 150 kg de N/ha, aplicado 1/3 en siembra y 2/3 a los 25 días después de la siembra (dds). Se empleó un diseño de bloques al azar con cuatro repeticiones.Los efectos de los diferentes asocios en la cobertura del suelo a los 45 dds (Cuadro 2), mostró que la densidad del maíz no influyó significativamente en la cobertura que realiza la leguminosa y si el momento de inserción de la misma, pues la siembra simultánea logró cubrir 68.7% del suelo, lo que deja poco margen a la aparición de plantas indeseables y una mayor conservación de la humedad de este.En la producción de materia seca del maíz (Cuadro 4) no se alcanzaron diferencias significativas, los mayores valores (por encima de las 11 t/ha) se observaron cuando se utilizó la mayor densidad (66 mil pUha), Zea (1992) en un estudio similar buscando el efecto residual de la leguminosa logró producciones de materia seca muy inferiores, estos resultados evidencian que el asocio de la leguminosa en espacio y tiempo no ocasionó efectos negativos en el crecimiento y desarrollo del cultivo principal.En la canavalia (Cuadro 4) se obtuvo un comportamiento igual al logrado con la materia verde, pues a medida que aumentó la densidad de población del maíz y la canavalia y se desfasó la siembra de la leguminosa se deprimió su producción, Gordon (1993), obtuvo resultados similares en valores de producción y tiempo de inserción de la leguminosa.En el conjunto, el mayor reciclaje fue provocado cuando la canavalia (22 mil pl/ha) fue sembrada al Cuadro 1. Características del suelo.\"20 KCl 1 -20 7.0 5.9Técnicas Analíticas Potenciometría 1:2.5 unísono con el maíz, este asocio proporcionó también los mayores reciclajes de N y P con valores de 157.3 y 26.7 kg/ha respectivamente (Cuadro 5 y 6), Porras (1993), cita aportes por la biomasa de maíz muy similares y Nutman (1976) precisa aportes de 49 kg/ha de N por concepto de la fijación biológica, como los aportes son directamente proporcional a la producción de masa seca, se encontró una tendencia similar en la leguminosa al obtenido en este indicador.En los rendimientos (Cuadro 7), se detectaron diferencias altamente significativas, la mayor densidad (66 mil pUha) utilizada para el maíz, provocó incrementos con relación a la menor (44 mil pUha) de 1.25 t/ha (25%), los valores más altos en la producción de granos secos fueron alcanzados con el asocio del maíz en la canavalia sembrado a la mayor y menor densidad respectivamente y esta última insertada al unísono. Se -aprecia también que los diferentes asocios no deprimieron los rendimientos del maíz, por el contrario se lograron incrementos en casi todos.    Lo obtenido demuestra la factibilidad del intercalamiento de la canavalia con el maíz sin que se provoquen efectos antagónicos que unidos al reciclaje de materia seca, N y P al suelo hacen de esta práctica un elemento importante a considerar en la agricultura nacional actual.Los resultados obtenidos permiten al agricultor cubano disponer de una alternativa realizable gradualmente a pequeña y mediana escala pues .la introducción de una leguminosa como la canavalia en el sistema, alguno, permite disponer de un abono verde en un lapso breve, que unido a los restos de cosecha del maíz, posibilita hacer un eficiente reciclaje de masa seca y nutrientes al terreno, para su mejora.Virginia Marrero•, José de Jesús Guzmán•, Adilen Roque l , Benito Faure l y Odile Rodríguez lCon el objetivo de seleccionar variedades promisorias de vigna (Vigila ullguicu/ata (L.) Walp.) que se adapten al intercalamiento con maíz se desarrollaron ensayos preliminares en la Estación Experimental de Granos El Tomeguín. Se inició con la evaluación de 80 variedades, teniendo en cuenta hábito de crecimiento, precocidad y rendimiento en grano, y fueron seleccionados 8 como las mejores productoras de materia seca y aportes de N y P. Para el asocio con maíz fueron tomadas 6, con diferentes hábitos de crecimiento y precocidad entre otras características Los resultados obtenidos en comparación con el maíz en monocultivo, indicaron que la mayoría de las variedades no afectaron los rendimientos del maíz y en general se lograron incrementos en la producción total por unidad de superficie que oscilaron de 0.29 a 0.71 tlha dependiendo de la variedad.La vigna es una leguminosa comestible de alto contenido proteico con capacidad para fijar N, además de una buena opción como abono verde para la recuperación de los suelos de pobre fertilidad o agotados por el uso intensivo. Se cultiva en monocultivo o asociada con diferentes especies como sorgo, maíz, yuca, arroz, algodón y boniato entre otras. Actualmente pueden establecerse parámetros para el estudio de variedades de vigna en los diferentes sistemas de produccíón, según Pereira et al. (1984) en monocultivo y siembras extensivas, las variedades de hábito de crecimíento semi-ramificadas y erectas son las más adecuadas ya que permiten mayor tecnicidad del cultivo, y para sistema asociados príncipalmente en suelos de alta fertilidad natural, las variedades erectas son más adaptables, pues no poseen mucha agresividad por los nutrimentos, agua y luz solar.En Cuba desde hace pocos años se trabaja este cultivo en forma extensiva, no sólo como alternativa para la obtención de grano de primavera-verano, sino también en sistemas de rotación o intercalamiento para el uso de sus residuos de cosecha en el mejoramiento Motivado por lo antes expuesto y la necesidad de dar respuesta al Programa Regional de Maíz para Centroamérica y el Caribe (PRM), sobre la búsqueda de variedades de vigna que se adapten al intercalamiento con maíz es que se realiza este estudio.Los trabajos se condujeron en la Estación Experimental de Granos El Tomeguín en un suelo ferralítico rojo (Oxisol) con alto contenido de P y K Y bajo en materia orgánica (Cuadro 1), durante los años 1992-1994 con un promedio anual de precipitaciones de 1559.3 mm y rango de temperatura entre 19.6 y 29.5 oC, con un promedio anual de 24.3 oc.Para la fase de selección de materiales genéticos se partió de 80 variedades de frijol vigna, del total fueron seleccionadas 12, las cuáles fueron sembradas en la época de primavera a un marco de plantación de 0.9 x 0.06 m para una densidad de 185 mil pllha evaluando hábito (HC), días a floración (DF), días a madurez fisiológica (DM), peso de 100 semillas (P de 100 S) Y rendimiento del grano en kg/ha.Posteriormente se escogieron las variedades de hábito de crecimiento V y VI como referencia para determinar la producción de biomasa y su contenido de N y P al momento de la floración. Una vez concluida la etapa de selección se llevó a cabo el estudio de intercalamiento con maíz (variedad P-7928), con los siguientes materiales de vigna: IT86D-792, IT86D-386, IT86D-472, IT86D-782, Cancarro y Viñales 114-A, seleccionadas por presentar diferentes hábitos de crecimiento, precocidad, etc. (además de disponer de suficiente semilla) y un tratamiento con maíz en monocultivo para un total de 7 tratamientos con tres réplicas, distribuidas• en un diseño de bloques al azar. Las siembras maíz más vigna se realizaron al unísono. La densidad de población para ambos cultivos fue de 44 pl/ha, se establecieron parcelas de 18 y 13.5 m 2 de superficie neta para maíz y vigna respectivamente. Sólo la gramínea se fertilizó a una dosis de 150, 60 Y 80 kg/ha de N, P 2 0 S Y K 2 0 respectivamente, el N se aplicó 1/3 en siembra y el resto a los 30 días después de la siembra (dds). Las variables evaluadas fueron para la vigna, rendimiento del grano, producción de materia seca (hoja + tallo) y peso de 100 semillas; y para el maíz, rendimiento en grano tierno y seco. Para todas las variables se aplicó el análisis de varianza y la prueba de Duncan al 5% de probabilidad, en los casos donde hubo respuesta significativa.Las características agronómicas estudiadas de la variedades seleccionadas se observan en el Cuadro 2, destacándose la IT86D-792 y la IT86D-472 como las más precoces, a su vez las dos primeras presentaron los más altos rendimientos en grano acompañadas de la Viñales 144-A, la IT86D-782 y la CancaITo con valores que oscilaron desde 2060 a 1018 kg/ha. Por su parte la evaluación con hábitos de crecimiento V y VI, (Cuadro 3) señalan a las 81D-1228-12, 8lD-1228-14, Viñales 144-A, 835-899 Y 84E-116 con producciones de materia seca superiores a las 5 t/ha aunque es de destacar que la mayoría de esta variedades presentaron Cuadro 1: Características del suelo bajos rendimientos de grano, como se apreció en el Cuadro 2, aunque si aportan las mayores cantidades de nutrimentos, fundamentalmente de N (hasta 223 kg/ha) de ser incorporados como abono verde al suelo.El Cuadro 4 muestra los resultados del intercalamiento vigna-maíz donde la producción de grano y materia seca de las vignas resultó altamente significativa, destacándose la Vi~ales 144-A con valores de 688 kg/ha y 1.27 t/ha, respectivamente, independientemente de este resultado, consideramos que todas las variedades estudiadas pueden ser una buena opción para el intercalamiento con maíz por su adaptación a este sistema de producción más aún los IT86D por sus características de ser más precoces en este caso los IT86D, presentaron buena adaptación. Con relación al maíz aunque sin diferencia significativa, la mayoría de las variantes en asocio, superaron al maíz en monocultivo al rendimiento, lo cual no coincide con 10 planteado por Zea et al. (1990) Y Choto et al. (1992), donde el asocio de maíz con canavalia redujo significativamente la producción del maíz. La diferencia entre estos resultados y los de este estudio en Cuba, pueden deberse a la fertilidad del suelo (Cuadro 1) y posibilidad de regadío. Por último, la producción total por unidad de superficie fue superior en los asocios con incrementos que oscilaron entre 0.29 y 0.71 t/ha con relación al monocultivo.H20 ph KCl mg/lOO g de S. P205 K20 Por su alta producción de materia seca de N y P los materiales de vigna de hábito de crecimiento V y VI son una buena opción como abono verde.2. La variedad Viñales l44-A se destacó como la mejor productora de granos (688 kg/ha) y de materia seca (1.27 t/ha) en intercalamiento con maíz.3. Todos los materiales de vigna seleccionados para la inserción con maíz incrementaron los rendimientos por unidad e superficie en relación con el monocultivo, en valores de 0.29 a 0.71 t/ha.  Se realizó un ensayo para evaluar el asocio de maíz con variedades de vigna en la Finca Experimental de El Ejido, en Azuero, Panamá. El disefio experimental fue de bloques completos al azar con tres repeticiones. El análisis de varianza a los datos del rendimiento del maíz y algunos de los componentes del rendimiento, mostraron que no hubo diferencias significativas entre los distintos tratamientos evaluados. El análisis de varianza del rendimiento de vigna indico que hubo diferencias altamente significativas entre los distintos cultivares evaluados. El grupo de cultivares que sobresalieron esta conformado por el IT-82E-32, Pronto Alivio, CN-85A-3-2, TVX-3629 y el IT-82D-889 con rendimientos de 143.7 130.4, IIU, 105.2 y 103.7 kg/ha, respectivamente.El asocio del cultivo de maíz con otras especies cultivables por el hombre ha sido muy variable. Durante muchos años los agricultores han utilizado las leguminosas asociadas al maíz. En Centro América es frecuente ver el asocio entre este cultivo y el frijol común (Phaseolus spp), principalmente en áreas en donde la poca disponibilidad de tierra y la escasa precipitación pluvial, obligan al uso intensivo de la tierra. Otro de los asocios lo constituye el de maíz con el frijol vigna, el cual es una leguminosa que aporta muchas proteínas a la dieta del panameño. Estudios realizados por Zea et al., (1990) informan que el frijol vigna y la Canavalia ensiformis constituyeron en uno de los asocios con las mejores posibilidades para aspectos como control de malezas y cobertura del suelo, para una mayor protección contra la erosión y especialmente la vigna por su aptitud para consumo humano, ciclo corto, tolerancia a la sombra y su habito no trepador.Los primeros intentos en Panamá de este asocio los informa González et al. (1989aGonzález et al. ( y 1989b)). En ellos uno de los problemas que se puede confrontar es el de variedades no adaptadas para este sistema. Ejemplo de ¡ lng. Agrónomo, M.Sc., 2 Agrónomo, 3 Ing. Agrónomo, Instituto de Investigación Agropecuaria de Panamá, Centro Regional Agropecuario de Azuero. ]46 este problema fue la variedad RH-209, la cual se comporta muy bien en monocultivo, pero en asocio no tolera la sombra del maíz. Otro de los problemas que se puede confrontar es la excesiva población de siembra, la cual afectará los rendimientos del maíz. Gordón et al. (1992) encontraron en 1990 que el cultivar de vigna de mayor rendimiento para el asocio con maíz fue La Martina. Mientras que en 1991 y 1992 los mismos estudios identificaron a la variedad IT-820-889. En relación al rendimiento del maíz en estas parcelas, se observó que no hubo diferencias significativas entre los tratamientos, sobresaliendo en los tres años (1990)(1991)(1992). los tratamientos con el cultivar IT-820-1069 y IT-820-889 como los que menos redujeron los rendimiento del maíz. El objetivo de este ensayo fue el de identificar otros cultivares de vigna (del programa de frijol de IDIAP) que se adapten al asocio con maíz.Se realizó un ensayo en la Finca Experimental de El Ejido, en Azuero, Panamá, a 30 msnm, (7°55' N, 80°53' W). El ensayo se sembró a fines de septiembre de 1994 y fue cosechado a fines de enero de 1995. Se usó la variedad Guararé 8128 de maíz. El diseño experimental fue de bloques completos al azar con tres repeticiones. Las parcelas contaron con 4 surcos de 5.5 m de largo, separados 0.75 m entre hileras; con una distancia entre golpes de 0.5 m, y dos plantas por golpe. La vigna se sembró en medio de los surcos de maíz, separadas a 0.3 m entre golpes, dejando dos plantas por golpe. En total se evaluaron 19 cultivares de vigna más una parcela de maíz en monocultivo. Los cultivares de vigna evaluados se observan en el Cuadro 1. La fertilización para el maíz fue de 227 kg de abono completo 15-30-8/ha y 227 kg de urea/ha. El control de las malezas se realizó manualmente. Tanto las semillas de maíz como de vigna se trataron con el insecticida furatiocarb a razón de 8 gr i.a./kg de semilla. No se realizó ninguna aplicación adicional de insecticidas durante el desarrollo del cultivo. Se tomaron datos del rendimiento de grano, porcentaje de humedad de ambos granos (maíz y vigna), al momento de la cosecha, número de plantas y mazorcas cosechadas. La precipitación acumulada se observa en el Cuadro 2. Cuadro 1. Nombre de los cultivares de vigna evaluados en el ensayo de asocio con maíz, El Ejido 1994-95. Los rendimientos del maíz y vigna se observan en el Cuadro 3. El exceso de lluvia a fines de septiembre e inicios de octubre afectaron mucho a los rendimientos de las vignas. En cambio los rendimientos del cultivo de maíz no fueron afectados.El análisis de varianza del rendimiento del maíz y algunos de sus componentes de rendimiento, mostraron que no hubo diferencias significativas entre los tratamientos evaluados (Cuadro 4), aunque el menor rendimiento se obtuvo en el asocio con el cultivar CN-85A-3-2 con 3.14 t/ha. Por el contrario, el mayor rendimiento se obtuvo en el asocio con el cultivar IT-82D-889, con un rendimiento de 4.47 t/ha. Este mismo cultivar ha sido reportado en otros trabajos realizados por Gordón et al. (1992)  De todas estos materiales el Pronto Alivio es un cultivar utilizado comúnmente por los productores de Azuero, por lo que puede ser considerado criollo, el resto de los cultivares fueron importados principalmente del lITA, Nigeria. Por su parte los rendimiento mas bajos se obtuvieron con los cultivares 39-2E, IT-82D-I069 e IT-82D-669 con menos de 25 kg/ha, respectivamente.Estos resultados demuestras que existen cultivares en el banco de semilla del IDIAP, que se adaptan al asocio con el maíz, principalmente los materiales mas precoces. Lo que puede afectar la aceptación de estas variedades de vigna por parte de los productores es el tipo de grano, en especial su color, tamaño y características culinarias. CONCLUSIONES l. El exceso de las lluvias al inicio del experimento afecto en gran medida los rendimientos de las vignas pero no así los del maíz.2. Los cultivares de vigna de mejor rendimiento fueron IT-82E-32, Pronto Alivio, CN-85A-3-2, TVX-3629 y el IT-82D-889 con rendimientos de 143.7 BOA, I1U, 105.2 y 103.7 kg/ha, respectivamente.3. El asocio con vigna no afecta los rendimientos del maíz.Rodolfo Pierre lEste trabajo presenta una síntesis de los resultados de investigación en labranza de conservación en campos de agricultores del área de Luperón y San Cristóbal (CESDA), República Dominicana. La zona de Luperón está caracterizada por suelos en laderas con alto potencial de erosión, un sistema de producción basado en maíz y el pastoreo de los rastrojos por animales en la época seca. En este contexto, el Programa Regional de Maíz (PRM) ha impulsado la labranza de conservación, entendiéndose esta como un sistema que cubre más del 30% de la superficie del suelo con los residuos de los cultivos anteriores. Parcelas mantenidas por 3 ciclos con mantillo superficial sin disturbar el suelo mostraron un incremento del rendimiento de maíz de 3.34 a 5.19 tlha, acompañados por una mayor producción de biomasa (de 1l.5 a 18.0 t/ha), una diminución del número de plantas sin mazorcas (de 21 a14%) y una sustancial mejoría en la eficiencia de uso del N aplicado (de 41 a 98 kg de Nlha para producir una tonelada de grano). Asimismo se detectó una significativa disminución en acame (21 vs 3%) y daños por Spodoptera spp. (de 59 a 42%). Este trabajo reporta también una respuesta diferencial a dosis de N, P Y S en función de los sistemas de labranza. Los resultados apoyan a la labranza de conservación como un instrumento utilizable para reducir la erosión, incrementar el rendimiento, disminuir el acame y las pérdidas por cogollero en las áreas de laderas de Luperón.La labranza de conservación es un instrumento de manejo utilizable en las áreas de laderas donde se establecen cultivos como el maiz; para reducir las pérdidas de suelo por erosión. Los cambios inducidos por la labranza de conservación están bien documentadas en las zonas templadas, como Estados Unidos, Brasil y otros paises (Bandel et. al., 1975;Barreta, 1989). Muchos trabajos establecidos a largo plazo han permitido describir los cambios inducidos y una mejor comprensión y definición del concepto propuesto de labranza.1Investigador D1A-CESDA, República Dominicana.Publicado cn SíNTESIS DE RESULTADOS EXPERIMENTALES DEl. PRM 1993-1995, VOL. 5 (1997), p. 149-153. 149 Al no disturbarse el suelo, la dinámica de los nutrimentos disponibles se altera, observándose síntomas visuales de deficiencias más marcados, como por ejemplo, deficiencias de N. Muchos reportes evidencian una menor eficiencia de utilización de los fertilizantes aplicados bajo labranza de conservación; necesitándose en los primeros ciclos aportar cantidades mayores de nutrimentos si se quieren disminuir los efectos mencionados (Barreta, 1989;Sosa y Bolaños, 1993).El presente trabajo intenta contribuir a la comprensión de los fenómenos que suceden bajo la labranza de conservación. La implementación de un sistema distinto de labranza implica cambios sustanciales en los componentes que intervienen en la producción.Luperón está ubicado en la llanura costera del Atlántico de la República Dominicana, y es cabecera del municipio de la provincia de Puerto Plata; localizada en los 19°54' latitud norte y 70°52' longitud oeste. La precipitación anual varía entre 1000-1400 mm con una temperatura media de 24 a 26 Oc (Figura 1). Los suelos ocurren sobre depósitos lacustres y marinos compuestos por rocas calizas y sedimentos aluviales. Las áreas planas tienen suelos de color pardo-oscuro, generalmente molisoles de pobre drenaje, arcillosos, neutros, con alta saturación de bases y lenta permeabilidad. Las áreas colindadas tienen suelos pardo-claro pocos profundos y pendientes de 8 a más de 30%, bien drenados, neutros, con alta saturación de bases y gran susceptibilidad a la erosión.El cultivo de maiz en temporal (siembra en oct-nov) tiene larga tradición, una gran parte en zonas de laderas. Los residuos de cosecha son utilizados principalmente para la alimentación del ganado, con mayor intensidad en los años de sequía (tiempo en el cual la leche alcanza sus mayores precios; haciendo atractiva incluso la venta del rastrojo), quedando así desprotegida la superficie del suelo. La recolección y quema de los pocos residuos y malezas antes de la preparación del terreno aumenta las posibilidades de erosión. La práctica local de producción_ de maiz es bastante uniforme y el rendimiento promedio no excede las 2.0 t/ha (Pierre et al., 1997).• Temperatura O Pluvlometrla ENSAYOS ESTABLECIDOS Figura 1. Temperatura y pluviometria media de Luperón, República Dominicana.En el segundo ciclo donde se estableció frijol (superpuesto en las parcelas del 1er ciclo para estudiar el efecto residual) no se observaron diferencias significativas entre los sistemas de labranza comparados; no encontrándose respuesta a las aplicaciones de nutrimentos deller ciclo (80 y 120 kg N/ha y 40 y 80 kg P/ha, respectivamente). Resulta interesante la correlación encontrada entre el rendimiento y el número de plantas sin mazorcas (r=-0.67**), 10 que a su vez está correlacionado con el abastecimiento de nitrógeno (r=-0.67) (Figura 3). Un inadecuado abastecimiento de N y/o una baja eficiencia de su uso determina un mayor número de plantas sin mazorcas y bajos rendimientos.Bajo' el sistema de labranza de conservación las causas señaladas corno determinantes del incremento del rendimiento se manifestaron con mayor intensidad: de 98 kg de N necesarios para producir 1 ton de grano en el ler ciclo, para el 3ro se necesitaron solo 41 kg de N (Cuadro 1), lo que sugiere que al transcurir el tiempo se observa una mejoría en la eficiencia de utilización de N. Esto también es evidente con un menor número de plantas sin mazorcas del 21 al 4% (Figura 2).El Cuadro 1 presenta los resultados de la primera rotación. El rendimiento con labranza convencional consistentemente superó al rendimiento reportado bajo labranza de conservación a través de los diversos ciclos. Sin embargo, se observó un incremento del rendimiento del ler al 3er ciclo; que podría explicarse debido a una mayor producción de biomasa, una sustancial mejoría en la eficiencia de utilización del N aplicado (cantidad de N necesaria para producir 1 ton de grano) y la reducción observada en el número de plantas sin mazorcas.Se establecieron sistemas de rotación maíz-frijol-maíz bajo labranza de conservación y labranza convencional en ensayos formales en tres ciclos sucesivos en la estación CESDA, San Cristóbal en un suelo Fluventic Haplustol, Franco Gruesa mixta Isohipertérrnico. .Ã l inicio del proyecto se establecieron ensayos multifactoriales permanentes: multifactoriales por la diversidad de preguntas que se pretendían responder; y permanentes por atender las experiencias en otras zonas que plantean la necesidad de realizar evaluaciones de varios ciclos si se pretende entender los cambios inducidos con la introducción de un sistema de labranza.Un diagnóstico agronormco realizado al inicio del pr~yecto con monitoreos constantes permitió identificar los factores que limitan la productividad y sostenibilidad del sistema: a)dramáticas pérdidas de suelo por erosión; b) quema de los residuos y preparación del suelo en las laderas; c) baja población de plantas por unidad de superficie (3.5-4.0 plJm 2 ); d) distribución espacial con 3 a 5 plantas por postura (con parcelas con 60% de las plantas sin mazorca); y e) baja utilización de insumos químicos (Pierre et al., 1997).  En otras regiones se han documentado numerosos cambios inducidos con la labranza de conservación (Barreto, 1989). A continuación se presentan algunos de los cambios observados en el comportamiento de los nutrimentos en función del sistema de labranza empleado. La Figura 4 confIrma las observaciones anteriores que sugieren mayores tasas de inmovilización del nitrógeno bajo la labranza de conservación (Mengel, 1985), así como una mayor lixiviación de nitratos (Bandel et al., 1975). Figura 2. Relación entre el sistema de labranza, nitrógeno y número de plantas sin mazorcas. Figura 3. Disminución en el porcentaje de plantas sin mazorca en función del sistema de labranza y el tiempo. ' 1 . . . . La respuesta a la fertilización con P ha dependido del método de labranza, mayores dosis de P se han necesitado para lograr iguales rendimientos que los obtenidos bajo labranza convencional. Pierre et al. (1989) reportaron un aumento significativo del rendimiento con aplicaciones de P sólo en el marco de una fertilización de N adecuada y/o relativamente alta (Figura 5).Síntomas más dramáticos de defIciencia de N consistentemente se observan, en las plantas de maíz desarrolladas en un suelo sin arar, cuando se comparan con plantas bajo el sistema convencional de labranza en el mismo suelo. En general en suelos no disturbados (Les) y con mantillo en la superficie, se presentan mayores requerimientos de N (Sosa y Bolaños, 1993). El análisis económico indica, sin embargo, que la Les es más rentable; esto sin tomar en cuenta el valor del suelo que se conserva al disminuir la erosión, lo que en regiones como Luperón tiene una importancia de primer orden. Bajo el sistema de labranza convencional se observó una respuesta signifIcativa en el rendimiento a las aplicaciones de S, la cual posiblemente se debe a las pérdidas por volatilización del S, cuando los residuos vegetales se queman, alternativamente las respuestas a la aplicación de S se esperaba que fuese limitada bajo la labranza de conservación, debido a que las reservas de S orgánico mineralizable se consideran mayores bajo este sistema de labranza (Figura 6). Sánchez (1976) demostró que con la quema de residuos se podría volatilizar hasta el 75% del S orgánico presente en los residuos. La respuesta a la fertilización con S y P fueron independientes y significativas para cada elemento. La aplicación conjunta de S y P resultó en un incremento del rendimiento de tipo sinérgico no antagónico como se ha reportado en otras regiones (Barrow, 1969) (Figura 6). El acame en maíz ocurre con frecuencia, dado el carácter insular de República Dominicana, con marcados periodos lluviosos y fuertes ráfagas de viento. Estudios realizados en Luperón así como en San Cristóbal, demuestran consistentemente que bajo el sistema de labranza de conservación el número de plantas acamadas es significativamente inferior que bajo la labranza convencional. En Luperón se observó una correlación positiva entre el rendimiento y el acame de raíz, lo que sugiere que el peso de la mazorca fuera el factor causal en la mayor incidencia de acame.Rendimiento MG/HA. --------~~.~--------------A R,ATacame de raíz y tallo en porcentaje, respectivamente., u P<O.Ol, ns, no significativo a P<O.IO. El gusano cogollero (Spodoptera frugiperda) constituye uno de los principales problemas entornológicos del cultivo del maíz en la República Dominicana. Consistentemente y en diferentes localidades (Luperón, San Juan, San Cristóbal) se ha constatado una incidencia diferencial y significativa del gusano cogollero en función del sistema de labranza utilizado. Ejemplo, 59.4% de plantas fueron atacadas en la labranza convencional versus 41.7% bajo el sistema de labranza de conservación. Distintos cultivares de maíz presentaron niveles diferentes de tolerancia (Figuras 8 y 9). Una disminución de la probabilidad de ataque del cogollero podría alcanzarse con el sistema de Les.  Una gran proporción del maíz se siembra en condiciones de ladera en Centro América. El PRM ha venido impulsado la utilización de los residuos de cosechas anteriores (especialmente maíz y/o sorgo) como mantillo superficial. Este trabajo reporta sobre 12 ensayos regionales evaluando distintos niveles de mantillo (O, 2.5, 5 Y 10 t/ha) en diseño factorial con N (O, 75 Y 150 kg/ha), algunos ensayos con dos o tres años en el mismo sitio. Los resultados muestran una interacción negativa sobre el rendimiento entre mantillo y N. A dosis bajas de N, el mantillo tiene un efecto negativo sobre el rendimiento, pero a dosis altas de N, este es ligeramente positivo. Esto• se debe posiblemente a la inmovilización del N aplicado por las altas cantidades de mantillo. La respuesta a N es positiva en todas las localidades, siendo este factor más explicativo en el análsis de varianza. A cualquier dosis de mantillo, el rendimientos aumenta de O a 75 kg N/ha, pero no se obtiene respuesta adicional de 75 a 150 kg N/ha. Asimismo, se encontró una relación fuerte y negativa entre pudrición de mazorca y niveles de N. Los resultados sugieren que se debe considerar fuertemente la economía de N del cultivo antes de recomendar adopción de la labranza de conservación.Cerca del 60% del maíz se siembra en condiciones de ladera en la región de Centro América, tipicamente con tecnologías que rápidamente degradan y erosionan los suelos (Sosa et al., 1993). En este contexto, el Programa Regional de Maíz (PRM) viene impulsando desde 1989 tecnologías que favorezcan la producción sostenida de maíz por pequeños y medianos productores en áreas marginales. En la zona de Guaymango, El Salvador, (Calderón et al., 1991), se realizaron varios ensayos para evaluar el efecto del uso de distintos niveles de rastrojo de maíz/sorgo como mantillo superficial sobre el rendimiento de maíz (Sosa, 1992;Sosa y Bolaños, 1993). Violic (1989) manifiesta que existen suficientes tecnologías que ya no justifican la labranza, o preparación mecánica del suelo. Las malezas se pueden controlar con la aplicación de herbicidas, los residuos del cultivo se pueden usar como mantillo superficial para reducir la erosión y mantener la humedad del suelo. Asimismo, es de sobra conocido que la labranza intensiva deteriora la estructura del suelo, compaclando el suelo, etc. Violic (1989) añade que en 1940 surge la labranza cero con el descubrimiento del 2-4 D y otros herbicidas hormonales, a los cuales se suman en 1950-60 las triazinas (residuales) y más recientemente los disecantes foliares como el paraquat.Según la Sociedad de Conservación del Suelo de América (1976), labranza de conservación es cualquier sistema que reduce la pérdida de suelo o agua, en comparación con la labranza convencional. Algunos autores consideran que para que realmente sea labranza de conservación debe dejarse por lo menos un 30% de la superficie del suelo cubierta con mantillo. Johnson (1988), por ejemplo, indica que dejando un 20-30% de mantillo a la siembra, la erosión se reduce entre 50 y 90% comparado con un suelo sin protección, aunque menciona que otras variables también participan. Sin embargo, la aplicación de niveles de mantillo al suelo puede alterar profundamente procesos y propiedades fisicas y químicas en el suelo (Bolaños, 1989;Barreto, 1989), debido a cambios que se producen al modificar el sistema de laboreo del suelo. Los cambios más importante's tienen que ver, en este caso, con la mineralización e inmovilización del N motivado por la acumulación de la materia orgánica en los estratos superficiales del suelo, bajo labranza cero, cambios ya documentados y que en general indican que la inmovilización de N bajo labranza cero es mayor que bajo condiciones de labranza (Barreto, 1989). En muchos casos, más de la mitad del N aplicado se inmoviliza en labranza cero en comparación con la labranza convencional (Barreto, 1989).Es necesario resaltar la importancia de la relación CN del rastrojo para entender el balance entre mineralización e inmovilización del N de los residuos vegetales y la disponibilidad de este elemento bajo sistemas de labranza cero (Barreto, 1989). La relación C:N de los rastrojos de maíz-maicillo oscila entre 60-80, en comparación con los residuos de leguminosas, que tienen C:N entre 15-20. Cuando los residuos tienen CN altos (bajo contenido de N), la descomposición de estos requiere de una demanda fuerte de N, lo que puede causar una inrnobilización del N disponible en el suelo. Aplicaciones de residuos con CN inferiores a 20 (alto contenido de N) resultan en una mineralización neta de N durante la descomposición de estos. Debido a que los residuos de maíz-sorgo tardan más de 6 meses en descomponerse, esto significa una inrnobilización importante del N disponible para el maiz. Estudios a largo plazo sugieren que la inrnobilización del N es temporal estableciendóse un nuevo equilibrio en la mineralización e inrnobilización del N en el suelo (BaITeto, 1989). Experiencias anteriores en el PRM muestran efectos negativos sobre el rendimiento de maíz con aumentos en las dosis de rastrojo (mantillo). Sosa (1992), con niveles de O a 30 t/ha de mantillo, mostró que hay un pequeño efecto negativo sobre e! rendimiento de maíz por las dosis elevadas de mantillo.El objetivo principal de este trabajo es evaluar el efecto y la interacción de diferentes niveles de mantillo y N en diferentes ambientes a través de la región, así como examinar las bases fisiológicas y agronómicas de la posible interacción mantillo x N.Se establecieron un total de 12 ensayos a través de localidades y años, de la siguiente manera: 2 en 1992 (Jutiapa y La Máquina, Guatemala), 6 en 1993 (2 en Guaymango y 1 en Texistepeque, El Salvador; Jutiapa y Cuyuta, Guatemala; San Andrés, El Salvador), 3 en 1994 (Jutiapa y Cuyuta, Guatemala; San Cristóbal, Nicaragua) y 1 en 1995 (Jutiapa, Guatemala). Por país, 7 fueron en Guatemala, 4 en El Salvador y 1 en Nicaragua. En algunas localidades (Jutiapa y Cuyuta, Guatemala, 93,94 y 95) los ensayos se establecieron en los mismo sitios en busca de observar efectos a mediano y largo plazo. Casi todos los ensayos fueron establecidos en campos de agricultores.Se usó un arreglo factorial de tratamientos en bloques completos al azar, con tres repeticiones por localidad. Los factores evaluados fueron: niveles de rastrojo (mantillo superficial) con O, 5 y 10 tlha y dosis de nitrógeno con O, 75 Y 150 kg Nlha, para un total de 9 tratamientos. En algunas localidades se agregó e! nivel 2.5 tlha (Jutiapa 93,94 Y95) o se sustituyó este nivel por el de 10 tlha (Cuyuta 93 y 94). La fertilización fosforada fue uniforme y consistió de 30 kg Plha, usando triple superfosfato (0-46-0) como fuente. La unidad experimental fue de 6 surcos de 5 m de largo, con distancia entre.surcos de 0.75-0.80 m y entre posturas de 0.40-0.50, dependiendo de la localidad, 155 colocándose 2 pllpostura, para una densidad teórica de 5.0-5.3 plantas/m 2• A la cosecha se tomaron solamente los 4 surcos centrales. Se usó la variedad de maiz recomendada para cada localidad, tratándose la semilla con insecticida para control de plagas del suelo. Se mantuvo control sobre malezas e insectos del follaje durante el ciclo de cultivo. A la cosecha se midió: número de plantas cosechadas, número de mazorcas totales y podridas, el peso de campo y la humedad de! grano. Se tomó también peso de planta (parte aérea) para estimar rendimiento de rastrojo y de biomasa total.Se realizó análisis de varianza por localidad y al combinado de las 12 localidades. Se efectuó también análisis de regresión con niveles de rastrojo y nitrógeno.El análisis de varianza muestra que el N fue el factor más importantes en las diferencias de rendimiento detectadas (Cuadro 1), mientras que ni los niveles de mantillo ni la interacción de mantillo x N tuvieron un efecto significativo sobre las variables analizadas.Para rendimiento de grano (Cuadro 2) se puede observar que, además de las diferencias entre localidades, el N absorbe la mayor proporción de los cuadrados medios, 10 que hace que este factor sea altísimamente significativo en términos estadísticos (P<O.OOI). La interacción significativa 10calidad*N es esperada, debido al amplio rango de las localidades dond.e se realizaron los ensayos. Sin embargo, es interesante observar la no interacción de los factores en el efecto sobre las variables estudiadas, lo cual permite analizar con mayor claridad los resultados.En términos de efectos netos promedio a través de localidades, años y dosis de N (Cuadro 3), el rendimiento tiende a disminuir conforme aumentan los niveles de rastrojo, fundamentalmente a una disminución en peso de la mazorca. A dosis de 75 kg Nlha, el rendimiento se casi duplica en comparación con O N, pero sigue siendo afectado negativamente por los niveles de mantillo. Sin embargo, a dosis de 150 kg Nlha, el rendimiento aumenta levemente con relación a 75 kg N/ha, pero casi no responde a niveles de rastrojo, asumiéndose que esta dosis, o cerca de ella, que cubre la demanda del cultivo y la de los microorganismos que participan en la descomposición del rastrojo. Cuadro 1. Resumen de los resultados de los análisis de varianza de la principales variables de respuesta, combinado de 12 localidades. Centro Amércia, 1992-1995.Variable El rendimiento de grano se incrementa en 1.7 t/ha al pasar de Oa 75 kg N/ha (23 kg grano/ kg N aplicado), en tanto que al pasar de 75 a 150 kg N/ha el incremento es de 0.5 t/ha (6 kg grano/ kg N aplicado). Sin embargo, este comportamiento es distinto según los niveles de rastrojo, notándose que cuando no se pone rastrojo (O t/ha) hay una fuerte respuesta a N (O a 75 kg N/ha), pero 156 entre 75 Y 150 kg N/ha, la respuesta es mínima. En comparación, a niveles de 5 y 10 t/ha de mantillo, el incremento en rendimiento con dosis de O a 75 kg N/ha es menor, pero existe una respuesta positiva a dosis mayores de 75 kg N/ha (de 75 a 150 kg N/ha), debido, como ya se mencionó antes, que hay que aplicar suficiente N para cubrir las demandas del cultivo y de los microorganismos mineralizadores. Esta misma respuesta se ha observado en otro tipo de ensayos (Zea, 1995), en donde aplicaciones mayores de 75-100 kg N/ha no reportan mayores incrementos de rendimiento.En términos generales (Cuadro 4) por cada kg N/ha aplicado el rendimiento de grano aumenta 15 kg promediado a través de todos los niveles de rastrojo. Sin embargo, esta ganancia es variable por localidad y año para cada nivel de rastrojo (ver Cuadro 4). Es claro que la respuesta a N casi no se ve afectada por el nivel de mantillo, con rangos de 4 a 26 kg grano/kg N para Ot/ha de mantillo, de I a 29 para 5 t/ha de mantillo, de 4 a 32 para 10 tlha de mantillo, y un promedio general de 3 a 29 para todos los niveles de rastrojo.El incremento en rendimiento se explica principalmente por el incremento en el número de mazorcas por planta y mayor peso de mazorca, notándose, como en estudios• anteriores (Sosa et al., 1993), que los niveles de rastrojo no afectan consistentemente al número de mazorcas por planta (Cuadro 3), a diferencia de otros estreses como la sequía (Bolaños y Barreta, 1990).La respuesta del maíz a niveles de mantillo a diferentes dosis de N (Cuadro 5) muestra que en promedio el rendimiento de grano de maíz se reduce 16 kg/ha a ON Y 5 l kg/ha a 75 kg N/ha. A niveles altos de N, el rendimiento no se ve significativamente afectado por los niveles de mantillo. Cuadro 4. Respuesta del rendimiento de maíz a dosis de N (kg de grano maíz por kg N aplicado) a diferentes niveles de rastro.jo (ton) aplicados como mantillo superficial a través de 12 localidades en Centro América, 1992-199S Estos datos suguieren que adopción de la práctica de la labranza de conservación casi no tiene efectos positivos sobre el rendimiento del maíz a corto plazo, e incluso puede reducir sustancialmente el rendimiento de este en condiciones de baja disponibilidad de N. Dado que la relación C:N juega un papel muy importante en este aspecto (Barreto, 1989), aparentemente sólo cuando se pone suficiente N al sistema se logra suplir la demanda de este elemento para uso en el proceso de descomposición del rastrojo y la demanda del cultivo.Sin embargo, en algunos casos, cuando existe limitación de humedad, como en 1993 y 1994 en Jutiapa, Cuyuta y San Andrés (Cuadro 5), el uso de rastrojo como mantillo superficial tuvo efectos positivos sobre el rendimiento de maíz (70 a 80 kg grano por ton mantillo aplicados, ver Cuadro 5), hipotéticamente debido a una mayor retención de humedad en el suelo (Zea, 1995).Es importante resaltar que se detectó una relación fuerte entre pudrición de mazorca y bajos niveles de N (O N) Y no así con niveles altos de rastrojo (Cuadro 3), situación que puede deberse a que el rastrojo utilizado estaba libre de inóculo contaminante, o que las condiciones de los ambientes donde se condujeron los ensayos no tenían condiciones favorables para la enfermedad.l. Los resultados obtenidos muestran una interacción importante entre uso de rastrojo de maíz como mantillo y N. En la mayoría de los casos, el maíz casi no responde positivamente al uso de rastrojo como mantillo, e incluso los rendimientos del maíz se pueden reducir significativamente a niveles bajos de N. Por 10 tanto, es importante considerar la economia del N cuando se recomiende la labranza de conservación.2. El equilibrio en la demanda de N a niveles altos de mantillo (5 y 10 tJha) parece alcanzarse con 150 kg N/ha.3. En ambientes con condiciones de humedad lirnitante, el rendimiento de maíz puede aumentar con el uso de mantillo superficial.4. La dosis de N es el factor que produce los efectos más significativos sobre el rendimiento de maíz y sobre las otras variables estudiadas. 5. La pudrición de mazorca parece estar más ásociada con bajo N que con altos niveles de rastrojo.Román Gordón l , Andrés González 2 , Nivaldo De Gracia 3 y Jorge Franco 2Diversos estudios han mostrado que la eficiencia de absorción de los fertilizantes es baja en los sistemas de producción de maíz. Este estudio evaluó diferentes métodos de aplicación de urea-N (voleo, postura, incorporación del abono) y número de aplicaciones (dos vs tres) y un testigo absoluto sin N. Se establecieron seis tratamientos en un diseño de bloques completos al azar con cuatro repeticiones, en ocho localidades del país, durante dos años. La dosis aplicada en todos los tratamientos fue de 100 kg/ha de urea-N. Los resultados muestran una eficiencia ba.ja de absorción para todos los tratamientos cercana al 30%•. La eficiencia aparente de uso de N entre los diferentes métodos de aplicación como son chuzo vs voleo (32 vs 23%) y de postura vs voleo (30 vs 23%) indican una mejoría de alrededor del 8'\\{, de ganancia por los métodos y de 2% por pasar de 2 a 3 aplicaciones fraccionadas (30 vs 32% ). Esta ganancia en rendimiento deberá compensar los costos adicionales de esta forma de aplicación de N.El uso del nitrógeno es considerado como esencial en la producción del cultivo de maíz. Después de muchos estudios se ha podido documentar la importancia de este clemento, así como la respuesta positiva de este cultivo a la aplicación de diferentes fuentes que contienen este elemento. Gordón et al. (1991Gordón et al. ( , 1992) ) encontraron que el nivel óptimo económico de la aplicación de N varió de 125 a 197 kg/ha, en los lugares en donde se realizaron experimentos de dosis de N.Para la producción de maiz en Azuero se realizan aplicaciones de N en fOlma de urea, que oscilan entre 70 y 165 kg/ha, en uno a tres fraccionamientos. Una gran proporción de éstos aplican el fertilizante a la superficie del suelo al voleo o por bandas. Esta forma superficial de aplicación de fuentes de N amoniacales pueden conducir a pérdidas considerables por volatilización directa o por escorrentía, y así contríbuir a la baja eficiencia de su uso. Si aunamos a esta baja eficiencia los cambios recientes en la política económica hacia la producción agrícola, donde la liberación de los mercados es quizás lo más relevante, se necesitará una mayor eficiencia técnica y económica que permita a los productores permanecer en el mercado. En este sentido, mejorar la eficiencia en el uso de los insumas agropecuarios se convierte en un objetivo básico.El objetivo de este estudio fue determinar el rango de la eficiencia de uso de N-urea bajo distintos métodos de aplicación. comparando la respuesta del maíz a dosis de N-urea aplicado al voleo, por posturas e incorporado y fraccionamiento (dos vs tres), con la finalidad de identificar métodos más eficientes de la aplicación del N-urea y hacer estimaciones generales de la eficiencia de uso del N en los sistemas de producción de maíz.Durante dos años consecutivos (1993 Y 1994) se establecieron ocho ensayos en la Región de Azuero, en la segunda época de siembra (agosto-enero). El diseño experimental utilizado fue el de bloques completos al azar con cuatro repeticiones. Las parcelas experimentales fueron de cuatro surcos de 5.5 m de largo (16.5 m\").. La siembra se realizó a una distancia de 0.75 m entre hileras y 0.50 m entre golpes, dejando dos semillas por golpe, para una densidad teórica de 5.33 plantas/m\". El cultivar utilizado fue el híbrido P-89l6, el cual fue tratado con el insecticida furatiocarb a razón de 8 g i.a./ha. El control de malezas se realizó con la aplicación de la mezcla atrazina más pendimentalina a razón de 3.0 + 3.0 Itlha en algunas localidades y de glifosato a razón de 4.0 Itlha en otras. Todos los ensayos recibieron una fertilización de 60 kg de pps/ha, al momento de la siembra.Se evaluaron seis tratamientos, que incluyeron una variación en el fraccionamiento y en los métodos de aplicación de la urea. En el caso de dos fraccionamientos, la mitad se aplicó a la siembra y la otra mitad a los 30 días después de la siembra (dds). En el caso de tres fraccionamientos un tercio (33%) se aplicó a la siembra, 33% a los 21 dds y el último 33% a los 35 dds (Cuadro 1).En este ensayo se usó un clorofilómetro (modelo SPAD-S02, Minolta) para estimar el contenido de clorofila en la hoja de la mazorca al momento de la floración en 12 plantas por parcela y su transformación en %N. La relación de la lectura de este aparato fue encontrada en ensayos previos (Gordón et al., 1993)  Se tomaron datos de rendimiento, número de plantas y mazorcas cosechadas, porcentaje de humedad del grano y rendimiento de rastrojo. Se tomaron los registros de precipitación pluvial de la región durante los dos años en que se realizaron los ensayos (Cuadro 2). Para el análisis físico-químico del suelo, se tomó una muestra compuesta de 0-20 cm de profundidad en cada uno de los bloques. Las muestras fueron enviadas al Laboratorio de Suelos del IDIAP y se realizó el análisis según Hunter (1976). El análisis de suelo por localidad se observa en el Cuadro 3.Los resultados de este experimento en relación al rendimiento de grallos y otras variables de respuesta, se observan en el Cuadro 4. El Tratamiento 1 (TI)' con dos aplicaciones de urea al voleo en forma de banda, presentó la peor eficiencia posible en la aplicación del fel1ilizante. Este tratamiento representa el límite inferior en un sentido agronómico de la eficiencia de uso del fet1ilizante. Los Tratamientos 2 y 3 (T 2 Y TI) mejoran sistemáticamente la eficiencia de uso, al aplicar la urea en dos aplicaciones. En el caso del T 2 las aplicaciones fueron por posturas de forma superficial pero localizado y en el TI las aplicaciones fueron a chuzo, enterrado a S cm aproximadamente. El Tratamiento 4 (T 4 ) representa la mejor eficiencia posible, al fraccionar la urea en tres aplicaciones todas enterradas a chuzo (S cm de profundidad). El Tratamiento S (T s ) representa el testigo absoluto sin aplicar N, mientras que el Tratamiento 6 (T ó ) representa la práctica utilizada en todos los ensayos realizados por el Programa de maíz del lDIAP, en donde la primera aplicación es en forma de chuzo (enterrado) y la segunda en forma superficial pero localizada al lado de la planta, es decir la mezcla del Tratamiento 3 y 2 respectivamente. El análisis combinado a través de las ocho localidades mostró claramente los efectos de la incorporación y el fraccionamiento sobre el rendimiento y la economía del N del cultivo. Tanto el rendimiento y porcentaje de N en la hoja aumentan consistentemente a medida que avanzamos del Tratamiento 1 al4 (Cuadro 4).Estas diferencias en rendimiento, se deben a cambios en el peso de las mazorcas, sin detectar diferencias en el número de plantas o mazorcas/m 2 o mazorcas por planta. De todos los métodos de aplicación, voleo en banda en dos aplicaciones (TI) resultó con el menor rendimiento y menor valor de porcentaje de N. Los mejores métodos de aplicación fueron el de enterrar la urea, ya sea, en dos o tres aplicaciones a chuzo (T 3 y T 4 ); resultados éstos consistentes con las expectativas. El T 6 Y T 2 tuvieron comportamientos intermedios entre el TI y T 3 • Las mediciones de clorofila o %N en la hoja a la floración lograron detectar diferencias entre éstos (Cuadro 4).El Cuadro 5 muestra los análisis• estadísticos del combinado para las variables rendimiento de grano y sus componentes. La diferencia entre el T 4 YTI (0.25 t/ha), representa la ganancia en eficiencia debido a los cambios más extremos en el método de aplicación. Las ganancias con la aplicación por posturas T 2 (0.23 t/ha) y dos aplicaciones incorporadas T 3 (0.28 t/ha) fueron similares, mientras que la diferencia entre la combinación de los métodos (T 6 ), fue la más baja (0.19 t/ha).La diferencia en rendimiento entre T 4 y/o T 3 VS TI deberá compensar el costo adicional de los tres o dos fraccionamientos y el costo adicional de enterrar la urea, en comparación con el voleo de la urea. En el caso del T 6 vs TI se deberá compensar por el costo adicional de enterrar el N en la primera aplicación y la postura de la segunda. En promedio, el efecto neto de mejorar la práctica de aplicación N-urea de voleo-voleo vs chuzo en dos aplicaciones (Tlvs T 3 ) fue de 0.28 ± 0.32 t/ha, mientras que el T 4 vs TI de fue de 0.25 ± 0.35 t/ha, los cuales fueron significativos al 9 y 13% en los estimados de las diferencias, aunque la diferencia varió según las localidades (Cuadro 6).La diferencia entre los distintos tratamientos con aplicación de nitrógeno versus el testigo absoluto, T s , permitió estimar las diferencias en la eficiencia del uso de N-urea, bajo los distintos métodos de aplicación de la urea. El nivel de rendimiento del T s también permitió estimar la disponibilidad de este elemento en el suelo. El Cuadro 6 muestra las diferencias en rendimiento por localidad y el combinado de todos los tratamientos y el testigo absoluto, siendo la mayor diferencia en el análisis combinado, la del T 3 con 1.04 ± 0.51 t/ha, seguido por la 161 del T 3 Y T 2 con 1.01 ± 0.47 y 0.99 ± 0.56 t/ha la de menor magnitud fue la del TI con 0.76 ± 0.58 t/ha. El T 6 registró un valor muy parecido al T 2 con una diferencia con respecto al testigo absoluto de 0.95 ± 0.53 t/ha. Usando estas diferencias de rendimiento entre los tratamientos con 100 kg de N aplicado y el testigo absoluto (Ll Rend), se puede estimar la eficiencia aparente de uso. El primer paso es calcular el contenido de N removido por el maíz. Utilízando el indice de cosecha (IndC) para cada Tratamiento (el cual tuvo valores de 29 a 42%) y el contenido de N en el grano y rastrojo de maíz de 1.5% y 1.0% (promedio total de 1.25%), respectivamente, se puede calcular el diferencial de N absorbido con la fórmula:LlN abs (kglha) = (LlRend IIndC) x O.125 x 1000 La cantidad adicional de N absorbido (LlN abs) relativo al testigo absoluto en proporción al N aplicado (100 kg N/ha) es la eficiencia de uso o absorción El Cuadro 6 muestra las estimaciones por localidad y el combinado. En promedio estas fueron desde 23.7% (TI) hasta 32.3% (T 3 ). Aún a pesar de la variabilidad en la respuesta de N los datos muestran un aumento promedio aparente de 8.6% en la eficiencia de uso entre el T 3 en comparación con el TI' Este aumento en la eficiencia puede significar cerca de B/ 5.00/ha considerando dosis promedio de aplicación (80-100 kg/ha), a los precios actuales de urea-N (B/ 0.50/kg), 10 que equivale a varios miles de balboas de ahorro por este aumento en la eficiencia.En los valores de la eficiencia de uso de N de los tratamientos se detectó una considerable variación entre las diferentes localidades. Las mayores eficiencias se encontraron en Guararé con 44.7% (promedio de todos los tratamientos), mientras que las más bajas fueron ubicadas en Chitré y El Pedernal (promedio de 10.7 y 13.3%). Estas diferencias entre los diferentes tratamientos puede estar relacionada por el uso de los suelos, así como por la distribución de las lluvias.Debido al elevado rendimiento de las parcelas sin N en algunas de estas localidades, la eficiencia aparente de uso de N fue baja. Esta manera de calcular la eficiencia de uso depende fuertemente de los valores de rendimiento en los tratamientos o parcelas sin aplicación de N, factor que puede causar errores significativos. Sin embargo, es factible mejorar la eficiencia de uso del N cambiando el método de aplicación. Se sugiere continuar esta línea de investigación. Cuadro 4. Rendimiento de grano y los principales componentes de los tratamientos evaluados en el ensayo de eficiencia de N (combinado), Azuero, Panamá, 1993-94. La relación entre clorofila y N en la hoja de la mazorca a la floración y el rendimiento final fue muy fuerte. Los datós confirman la importancia de la economía del N en la elaboración del rendimiento fmal. Debido a la alta sensibilidad del c1orofilól11etro para detectar diferencias en el contenido de. N en las hojas y la alta importancia de éste en la elaboración del rendimiento, se sugiere continuar usando el c1orofilómetro elila investigación futura del IDIAP.l. Al comparar los métodos de aplicación al voleo, postura e incorporado no se detectaron diferencias significativas entre éstos. Sin embargo, el efecto de los tratamientos fue consistente pero pequeño ante la variabilidad existente en los ensayos.2. Los mejores métodos de aplicación fueron el fraccionamiento incorporado en dos y tres ocasiones (T 3 y T 4 ). El método de aplicación de más baja eficiencia fue el de aplicación al voleo en forma de banda en las dos aplicaciones (TI)' 3. La diferencia entre los dos tratamientos extremos (T 4 vs TI) en redimiento de grano fue en promedio 0.25 ± 0.35 t/ha, mientras que la diferencia entre los tratamientos T, vs TI fue de 0.29 ± 0.32 t/ha. 163 4. Las ganancias detectadas en rendimiento fueron acompañadas por cambios en el contenido de clorofila y N en el follaje del cultivo. A pesar que no se lograron detectar diferencia en rendimiento entre los métodos de aplicación, las mediciones del c1orofilómetro y porcentaje de N en el follaje si detectaron diferencias entre tratamientos de una manera significativa.5. Se logró un aumento de 8.6 y 7.3 % en la eficiencia de aplicar el N-urea en dos y tres fraccionamientos incorporados en relación al peor método de eficiencia, el cual fue el de voleo-voleo Diversos estudios han mostrado que la eficiencia de absorción de los fertilizantes es baja en los sistemas de producción de maiz de la región. Una mejoría en la eficiencia de absorción significaría un impacto significativo en la rentabilidad de los sistemas de producción de maíz. Este trabajo reporta los resultados de 19 ensayos durante 1993-94 a través de la región de Centro América y el Caribe, para evaluar la eficiencia de absorción de urea-N en maíz bajo diversas practicas de aplicación (voleo vs chuzeado) y fraccionamiento (2 vs 3 aplicaciones), un testigo absoluto sin aplicación de N y el testigo del agricultor. Todos los ensayos recibieron lOO kg de N y dosis de 20 kg P/ha y se usó la mejor variedad de maíz recomendada para cada zona. Los datos muestran una eficiencia de absorción cercana al 30% para todos los tratamientos de aplicación de N. Comparaciones entre aplicaciones al voleo vs chuzeado mostraron una respuesta significante en rendimiento de grano al chuzeado (de 0.39 Uha P<O.OOI), sin detectarse una mejoría por el fraccionamiento de 2 a 3 aplicaciones. Se detectó una relación fuerte y significativa entre el rendimiento final y el contenido de N en la hoja de la mazorca a la floración, estimada con c\\orofilómetros. Se esperaba que enterrar la urea (chuzeado) incrementaría la eficiencia de uso de N más que la mejoría detectada.Diversos estudios indican que la eficiencia de uso de los fertilizantes es baja en los sistemas de producción de maíz de la región. Las aplicaciones de N oscilan entre 80-100 kg N/ha en uno o dos fraccionamientos, normalmente con urea o sulfato de amonia (FAO, 1992). Una gran proporción de los pequeños agricultores aplican el fertilizante a la superficie del suelo al voleo o por posturas. Esta aplicación superficial de fuentes amoniacales pueden conducir a pérdidas considerables por volatilización directa o por escorrentía, y así contribuir a la baja eficiencia de uso.Publicado en SíNTESIS DE RESULTADOS EXPERIMENTALES DEL PRM 1993-1995, VOL. 5 (1997), p. 164-169. 164 El objetivo del presente estudio es determinar el rango agronómico de la eficiencia de uso de N-urea bajo distintas formas de aplicación comunes en la región. El trabajo evalúa la respuesta del maíz a dosis uniformes de N-urea bajo distintos métodos de aplicación (al voleo, por posturas e incorporado) y fraccionamiento. El objetivo de este trabajo es identificar mejores métodos de aplicación del N-urea y hacer estimaciones crudas de la eficiencia de uso de Nurea en los sistemas de producción.Se establecieron un total de 19 localidades en 1993-94 siendo estas las siguientes: Cuyuta y La Máquina (Guatemala); Los Santos, La Pasera y las Tablas (Panamá); Cuyumapa (Honduras) y San Cristobal (Nicaragua) en 1993. Para 1994 fueron Chitré, Parita, Guararé y La Enea (Panamá); Jutiapa, San Jerónimo y Cuyuta (Guatemala); Cortes (Honduras); San Andrés (El Salvador) y San Cristobal (Nicaragua).Del total sólo se incluyeron 13 localidades, bajo un diseño de bloques completos al azar con 3 o 4 repeticiones, cada parcela experimental fue de 4 surcos de 5 metros de largo (18 m 2 ) a una densidad de maíz teórica de 5.33 pl/m 2 • Se uso la variedad de maíz recomendada para cada localidad, en su mayoría híbridos de alto potencial de rendimiento. El manejo agronómico fue el adecuado, con respecto a la fertilización todos los ensayos recibieron adecuada cantidad de fósforo (>20 kg P/ha). El nitrógeno fue aplicado utilizando urea perlada a razón de 100 kg/ha y se mantuvieron los ensayos libres de plagas y de enfermedades.Los ensayos evaluaron 5 tratamientos a nivel regional y tratamientos adicionales de interés local (Cuadro 1)., sobre variación en el fraccionamiento y método de aplicación de urea. En el caso de 2 aplicaciones de urea, la mitad se aplicó a la siembra y la otra mitad a los 35 días después de la siembra (dds). En el caso de 3 fraccionamientos, el 40% se aplicó a la siembra, el 30% a los 25-30 dds y el restante 30% a los 40-45 dds. Cuadro l. Estructura de tratamientos del ensayo de eficiencia de uso de urea-N. En 5 localidades, en 12 plantas por parcela, se tomó mediciones del contenido de clorofila en la hoja de la mazorca a la floración con un clorofilómetro (modelo Minolta SPAD-502) (Figura 1). En estas mismas, se tomó una muestra de la lámina foliar de la hoja para análisis químico de % N en laboratorio. Estos datos se utilizaron posteriormente para calibrar el clorofilómetro en función del % N en la hoja. Esta calibración fue forzada a intercepto= O y fue de %N = 0.048 x CHL (~=0.99) (Gordón et al., 1993). Se midió el contenido de clorofila a la floración con el clorofilómetro, rendímiento y sus componentes, rastrojo, biomasa total e índice de cosecha. Debido al rendimiento relativamente elevado de las parcelas sin nitrógeno en estos ensayos, la eficiencia aparente de uso de N fue baja. Esta manera cruda de calcular la eficiencia de uso de N depende fuertemente del rendimiento obtenido en los tratamientos sin N, factor que puede causar errores significantes. Sin embargo, los r~sultados muestran que es factible mejorar la eficiencia de uso de N aplicado cambiando el método de aplicación. En resumen, se encontraron diferel]Cias entre métodos de aplicación, siendo el mejor método el enterrado (2 fraccionamientos), siendo el peor método el superficial al voleo, encontrándose respuestas positiva de 0.38 t/ha al incorporarse versus el voleo, aumentado la eficiencia del uso de.urea-N en un 18 %.El Cuadro 4 muestra los análisis individuales por cada localidad, pero solamente para los tratamientos extremos (Trtl y Trt3), para estimar la eficiencia de uso de N. Diferencias entre Trt4 y Trtl representan la ganancia en eficiencia debido a los cambios más extremos en el método de aplicación. Las ganancias con aplicación por postura (Trt2) o incorporado (Trt4) fueron menores. Estas diferencias en rendimiento entre el Trt3 y Trtl deberán compensar por el costo adicional de 2 fraccionamientos y el costo adicional de enterrar la urea en comparación con el voleo. En promedio, el efecto neto de mejorar la practica de aplicación de urea=N de voleo-voleo a chuzo-chuzo (Trt3-Trtl) fue de 0.27 t/ha. Las diferencias entre los tratamientos con 100 kg N/ha (Trt 1 al 4) contra el testigo absoluto (Trt5) permiten estimar la eficiencia de uso del fertilizante aplicado bajo los distintos métodos. El nivel de rendimiento del Trt 5 permite estimar la disponibilidad nativa del suelo y debe de usarse como nivel referencia para calcular las diferencias.La cantidad de N absorbido (f..N abs) relativo al testigo absoluto en proporción al N aplicado (lOO kg/ha) es la eficiencia de uso. El Cuadro 4 muestra estimaciones de la eficiencia de uso por localidad. Estas promediaron 45 y 27%, respectivamente, para Trt 3 Y Trt1. Aún a pesar de la variabilidad en la respuesta a N, los resultados muestran un aumento aparente de 18% en la eficiencia de uso entre el Trt 3 YTrt 1. sí lograron detectar diferencias entre estos (Cuadro 3). Los datos sugieren que la medición de clorofila y/o % N ayudan a diagnosticar diferencias en rendimiento temprano durante el ciclo del cultivo.El Cuadro 4 muestra las diferencias en rendimiento por localidad del Trt 3 Y Trtl en comparación al testigo absoluto (Trt5). La respuesta promedio fue de 1.34 t/ha (± 0.86 t/ha) para el Trt3 y de 0.96 t/ha (± 0.56t/ha) para el Trtl. También en estas comparaciones se detecta considerable variación a nivel regional, incluso localidades donde el efecto neto de aplicación de N fue negativo. Usando estas diferencias de rendimiento entre los tratamientos con 100 kg N aplicado y el testigo absoluto se puede estimar la eficiencia aparente de uso. El primer paso es calcular el contenido de N removido por el maíz. Entonces asumiendo un indice de cosecha cercano al 40% y contenido de N en el grano y rastrojo de maíz de 1.5% y 1.0% (promedio total de 1.2%), respectivamente, se puede calcular el diferencia de N absorbido.Cuadro 3. l\\1edias de rendimiento y sus componentes, clorofila y %N en la hoja de la mazorca a la floración para tratamientos de métodos de aplicación de N a través de 13 localidades de Centro América. Se encontró una regresión lineal fuerte y significativa lineal entre ambos (%N=O.048xCHL r=0.99). Esta relación puede usarse para transformar datos obtenidos con el clorofilómetro a unidades de contenido de N en otras localidades.La relación entre mediciones de clorofila y N en la hoja de la mazorca a la floración y el rendimiento final se muestra en la Figura 4 (a,b). Los resultados confirman la importancia del N en la elaboración del rendimiento final. Entre los tratamientos, las diferencias en el contenido de N en la hoja se detectaron con más precisión que las diferencias en rendimiento.valor promedio de U$ 0.50 por kg N-urea, esto significaría un ahorro en fertilizante de U$ 4/ha, para obtener los mismos rendimientos. Una extrapolación las 2 millones de hectáreas que se siembran anualmente en Centro América, pudiese signifcar un ahorro de U$ 8 millones anuales en N-urea. Otra manera de estimar el efecto económico, es evaluar e! grano adicional que se produjera por una mejor eficiencia de N. Asumiendo, 50 kg N/ha aplicados, 15 kg grano adicionales producidos por kg adicional de N absorbido, y una mejoría de 15% en la eficiencia de uso de N-urea, significaría aproximadamente una producción extra de 112 kg grano/ha, a U$ 1.5/kg, para U$34 millones anuales CONCLUSIONES A través de todos los ambientes se detectó una relación positiva altamente significativa entre el porcentaje de N en la hoja de la mazorca a la floración y el rendimiento final (r = 0.75**). Estos resultados sugieren que el porcentaje de N en la hoja de la mazorca a la floración tiene un valor altamente predicitvo del rendimiento final. Datos similares fueron obtenidos por Gordón et. al (1993) en estudios sobre la respuesta del maíz a la rotación con leguminosas de cobertura.Si los productores de maíz usaran métodos más eficientes de aplicación de N-urea que resultasen en un aumento en la eficiencia de! 25 al 40% (15% de mejoría), una aplicación promedio de 50 kg N/ha, y un 1. Se compararon métodos de aplicación de voleo, por postura e incorporado, sin detectarse diferencias significativas entre estos. El efecto de los tratamientos fue pequeño pero consistente ante la variabilidad experimental de los ensayos.2. El mejor método fue la aplicación de N-urea en dos fraccionamientos chuzeados (Trt3). El peor método fue el voleo en dos fraccionamientos (Trt1). La aplicación por posturas (Trt2) fue ligeramente superior al voleo.  4. Las lecturas del clorofilómetro se encontraron altamente correlacionadas con %N en la hoja de la mazorca a la floración, estableciéndose la siguiente relación: %N=0.048xCHL (r=0.99).5. La ganancia en rendimiento a 100 kg de N aplicado fue de 0.96 (± 0.56) Y 1.34 (± 0.86) t/ha para voleo e incorporado, respectivamente, equivalentes a eficiencias aparentes de uso de N de 27 y 45%, respectivamente. El análisis indica un aumento de 18% en la eficiencia de uso debido a la incorporación del fertilizante versus el voleo.6. Las ganancias en rendimiento fueron acompañadas por cambios en el contenido de clorofila y N en el follaje del cultivo. Se detectó una relación fuerte y significativa entre el rendimiento y el contenido de N en el follaje. A pesar que no se lograron detectar diferencias en rendimiento entre los métodos de aplicación, las mediciones del clorofilÓmetro y el % N del follaje si 169 detectaron diferencias entre el tratamiento de una manera significativa.7. Estos datos sugieren que le clorofilómetro se puede usar para detectar efectos en la economía de N del cultivo en etapas tempranas durante el ciclo vegetativo.REFERENCIAS FAO (1992). Fertilzer Use by Crop. IFAlIFDCfFAO, Rome, Italy. Este trabajo presenta las estrategias agrónomicas impulsadas por el PRM y los resultados experimentales más sobresalientes de los distintos proyectos de investigación de la red. La estrategia agronómica se basa en el uso de germoplasma con buen comportamiento, semilla de buena calidad, siembra a densidad apropiada, así como el uso de rastrojos como mantillo bajo labranza de conservación en laderas, la inserción en asocio simultáneo, relevo y/o rotaci6n de leguminosas de cobertura, así como el uso de modestos niveles de fertilización química.En la región de Centro América y el Caribe, se siembran cerca de 2 millones de hectáreas de maíz. El maíz es el cultivo de subsistencia más importante para los pequeños productores de escasos recursos. Cerca del 60 a 70% se siembra en monocultivo y el resto en asocio con otros cultivos como frijol, sorgo, ajonjolí, etc. La mayoría (cerca del 70%) se siembra en mayo-junio (primera) con el establecimiento de las lluvias, y el resto durante septiembre-octubre (postrera). Se estima que más del 60% del maíz se siembra en suelos de ladera, de baja fertilidad, con alto potencial de erosión y en sistemas agrícolas típicos de subsistencia con bajos insumos. En general, estos sistemas solamente tienen un buen potencial de rendimiento los primeros pocos años después de la limpia de la vegetación nativa, declinando rápidamente en pocos años con el uso de la tierra. Debido a la fuerte presión demográfica en la región, se espera que la cantidad de maíz cultivada en suelos marginales se incremente considerablemente en los próximos años.Los rendimientos de grano promedios de estos sistemas de subsistencia son inferiores a las 1.S t/ha de grano y 3.0-4.0 t/ha de rastrojos. Los agricultores usan variedades criollas de maíz, baja densidad de población ( 10-lS mil postums por hectárea), mal arreglo espacial (3-4 plantas por postura), siembra manual, poco o no fertilizante, poco o ningún insumo químico, control de malezas inadecuado, y pérdidas considerables de grano en condiciones postcosecha. La mayoría se destina al auto-consumo, una familia subsistiendo con una tonelada de grano por año. El rastrojo vegetal es sobre-pastoreado en la temporada seca o quemado antes de la siembra en la limpia del terreno. Los suelos quedan descubiertos gran parte del año, y sufren severas degradaciones fisicas y químicas así como una erosión acelerada.Cerca del 2S% del maíz en la región se siembra en parcelas de tamaño intermedio (lO-SO ha) con tecnologías intermedias: semilla mejorada (variedades o híbridos) con tratamiento químico, siembra en surcos con tracción animal o mecánica, densidad de siembra alta (SO mil pl/ha), control de malezas (herbicidas, cultivo), niveles intermedios de fertilízante (60-100 kg N/ha, >20 kg P/ha), e insumos químicos para el control de enfermedades y plagas. Los rendimientos promedios para este tipo de agricultor oscilan entre 2.0-2.S t/ha. El 10-lS% del área restante se siembra en parcelas grandes (>SO ha) por agricultores con altos insumos y una visión claramente comercial. El producto se destina a los mercados de alimentos humanos y animales del área. Estos usan semilla híbrida, siembra mecánica, alta densidad de siembra, y niveles altos de insumos. Los rendimientos promedios para estos tipos de agricultor oscilan entre 4.0-4.S toniha (Schmook, 1989;Rodriguez y Miranda, 1990).El Programa Regional de Maíz para Centro América y el Caribe (PRM) ha venido desarrollando estrategias agronómicas que favorezcan la sostenibilidad de los sistemas de producción importantes de la región. El PRM es una red colaborativa de investigación conformada por nueve programas nacionales de investigación de maíz y el Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (CIMMYT) (Listrnan, 1994). Su fmalidad es incrementar la productividad sostenible de los diferentes sistemas de producción de maíz al desarrollar y parcialmente validar alternativas tecnológicas con un enfoque de agricultura sostenida (PRM, 1995). Debido a la naturaleza del problema, el reto ha sido proveer alternativas tecnológicas que aumenten la productividad pero manteniendo o mejorando el recurso base (suelo, agua, nutrimentos).El PRM ha impulsado el uso de germoplasma mejorado con densidades apropiadas, la labranza de conservación, la inserción de leguminosas de cobertura en asocio, relevo y/o rotación con maíz, y el uso eficiente de modestos niveles de fertilización química. Estas estrategias son relativamente fáciles de adoptar en la medida que las ventajas de la práctica sean percibidas por los agricultores. Los objetivos esenciales de la estrategia son: l. Promover el uso de germoplasma adaptado con buen potencial de rendimiento y tolerancia a los estreses bióticos (achaparramiento, pudrición de mazorca) y abióticos (sequía) prevalentes en la región, con manejo agronómico apropiado: altas densidades de siembra y el uso eficiente de niveles apropiados de insumos químicos para expresar al máximo el potencial productivo del suelo, el agua, y la radiación disponible.2. Mantener el suelo cubierto con un mantillo vegetal para proteger el suelo contra la erosión y mejorar el balance hídrico logrando la conservación del suelo y agua. Para esto es esencial evitar la quema anual de los rastrojos y el sobre-pastoreo durante la época seca.3. Insertar leguminosas de cobertura en asocio y/o relevo con el maíz para mantener el suelo cubierto, reducir la competencia por malezas, proveer una fuente de rastrojo y N para el siguiente ciclo y/o pastoreo animal durante la temporada seca, y aprovechar la radiación no usada por el maíz para fijar N atmosférico.Se estima que los rendimientos promedios de maíz de la región de Centro América oscilan de 1.5 a 2.0 t/ha (Schmook, 1989;Rodríguez y Miranda, 1990). Desde el punto de vista agronómico, el rendimiento por unidad de área de un cultivo de maíz depende del número de mazorcas cosechadas por hectárea (rnz/ha) y su peso promedio (Bolaños y Barreto, 1991). Dado que una mazorca de maíz puede pesar 100 g, esto significa que en promedio los agricultores solamente cosechan de 15 a 20 mil rnzlha para obtener esos rendimientos promedios. Si la densidad óptima de siembra es de 50 a 60 mil pllha, ~sto significa que muchas plantas no llegan a producir mazorca o mueren durante el ciclo. La baja densidad de población al momento de la cosecha está claramente asociada a los bajos rendimientos en la región (Rodríguez y Miranda, 1990;Bolaños y Barreto, 1991;Bolaños et al., 1993). Los ensayos regionales del PRM, usando relativamente altos niveles de insumos (la mejor variedad disponible, densidad apropiada de siembra, 100 kg Nlha, > 20 kg Plha, control de malezas, plagas y enfermedades), producen rendimientos promedios de 3.9 tonlha a través de 35 ensayos en campos de agricultores (Bolaños y Barreto, 1991). Ensayos de variedades conducidos por la red de mejoramiento en estaciones experimentales también obtienen rendímientos promedios de 4.0-4.5 tonlha (Urbina, 1993).Usando datos experimentales de 34 ensayos diversos de agronomía en la región de Centro América localizados en campos de agricultores y estaciones experimentales, Bolaños y Barreto (1991) mostraron la fuerte dependencia del rendimiento con el número de rnzlha cosechadas y el peso promedio de estas independiente de los tratamientos experimentales impuestos. A pesar que no detectaron una relación significativa entre rendimiento y pllha directamente, el número de rnz/ha estuvo lineal y directamente relacionado con el número de pl/ha (Bolaños y Barreto, 1991). El rendimiento promedio de los 34 ensayos fue 3.73 t/ha, con 43 mil pl/ha y 39 mil rnz/ha a la cosecha, y un peso de mazorca de 93 g. La población a la cosecha fue 15% menor que la densidad teórica establecida en los ensayos, aún con tratamientos específicos para mantener la densidad deseada. Turrent (1983), analizando los componentes de rendimiento de 11 campos de maíz de Las Tuxtlas (México) en siembras de secano, concluyó que la variación en rendimiento dependió más de la variación en la población final de plantas y/o mazorcas que del tipo de variedad usada, número de granos por mazorca o peso final de grano. En estos diagnósticos, los rendimientos fueron 1.5 ± 0.9 t/ha, la densidad inicial de siembra fue 44 mil pllha, la densidad final fue de 30 mil plha (32% de pérdida) y se cosecharon 27 mil mazorcas de 57 g en promedio.En parcelas de agricultores de subsistencia, todos los componentes de rendimiento normalmente reflejan problemas.Tomemos un agricultor que cosecha 30,000 plantas por hectárea, 0.75 mazorcas por planta (75 mazorcas de 100 plantas) y mazorcas de peso promedio de 75 g. El rendimiento sería: Rend = 30,000 pllha x 0.75 rnz/pl x 75 g/rnz = 1.7 t/ha Este valor se encuentra muy cerca a rendimientos promedios de agricultores típicos de subsistencia, donde las limitaciones son el producto de bajo número de plantas por hectárea, una buena proporción de plantas estériles (sin mazorca), y bajo peso promedio de las mazorcas. Un bajo número de plantas se puede deber a una baja densidad de siembra o a una pérdida de plántulas por estreses, en especial problemas de plagas. Un bajo número de rnz/pl (o número de granos por mazorca) se puede deber a estreses durante la floración, y estreses durante el llenado de grano afectan el peso final de grano. Es importante entender como a lo largo del ciclo del cultivo se forman sincrónica y sucesivamente los componentes de rendimiento (Bolaños y Barreto, 1991;Bolaños y Edmeades, 1993), lo cual permite entender de una manera fisiológica las limitaciones al rendimiento.Una gran proporción del maíz se siembra en suelos de ladera con baja fertilidad, alto potencial de erosión, y bajo condiciones de precipitación errática e insuficiente. Entre las prácticas más nocivas se encuentran la tala indiscriminada de los bosques, el sobre-pastoreo y/o las quemas anuales de rastrojos y la falta de protección del suelo durante las lluvias. Una de las practicas más sencillas para la conservación del suelo es la labranza de conservación, entendida esta como el uso de los residuos vegetales como mantillo superficial. La práctica más importante asociada con la labranza de conservación no radica en el número de operaciones primarias o secundarias de labranza, pero en la cantidad de rastrojo que queda sobre la superficie. En la labranza convencional, sólo entre 0-10% de los rastrojos quedan sobre la superficie. En comparación, entre 6S-80% en sistemas mecanizados de labranza cero, y casi el 100% en sistemas de chuzo con labranza cero por pequeños agricultores (Barreto et al., 1988).Por ejemplo, en Guayrnango, El Salvador, el uso de la labranza de conservación en un sistema de maízmaicillo, con manejo de rastrojos y sin quema, ha sido adoptada y ampliamente difundida entre los agricultores desde hace aproximadamente IS años en unas 3 mil hectáreas de maíz en una zona de laderas (Calderón et al., 1991;Choto y Saín, 1993;Mercado et al., 1994). En vez de chiapear y quemar los rastrojos en la preparación del terreno, los agricultores adoptaron la no-quema y el mantenimiento del rastrojo del sistema maíz-maicillo como mantillo vegetal cubriendo el suelo. Los agricultores siembran al chuzo encima del rastrojo del ciclo anterior, sin efectuar quemas o remociones del rastrojo. De una siembra en arreglo topológico irregular (mateado) adoptaron la siembra en hileras en curvas de nivel. Las variedades mejoradas e híbridos de maíz sustituyeron a las variedades criollas, y se empezaron a usar modestos niveles de fertilízante (80-100 kg N/ha, SO kg P/ha). Como consecuencia de estos cambios tecnológicos la productividad del sistema mejoró considerablemente. En 1974, antes de la adopción de las prácticas de conservación, los rendimientos de maíz eran de 1.0 t/ha con 0.7 t/ha de maicillo. Actualmente, los rendimientos promedios se han estabilízado en 3.2 t/ha de maíz y 2.1 t/ha de maicillo (Calderón et al., 1991, Choto y Saín, 1993;Mercado et al., 1994). Con el uso difundido del rastrojo como mantillo vegetal, el suelo ha paulatinamente mejorado su. $=.structura y fertilidad, y ahora permite la explotaeión' sostenible y eficiente de la tierra, a niveles bastante aceptables de productividad.La efectividad de la práctica de dejar el rastrojo como mantillo sobre el suelo para controlar la erosión y mejorar el balance hídrico se debe parcialmente al tipo de sistema de producción predominante en el área. El sistema maíz-maicillo produce por lo menos 10 t/ha de biomasa como rastrojo. Esta cantidad permite al agricultor pastorear parte del rastrojo durante la época seca dejando todavía suficiente para proteger el suelo contra la erosión. Medidas preliminares tomadas en el área indican que se pastorean cerca de 1.0-2.0 t/ha de rastrojo por mes, lo que permite que permamezca entre 4.0-6.0 t/ha de rastrojo como mantillo al fmal de la temporada seca en mayo-junio (Calderón et al., 1991;Choto y Saín, 1993). En otros sistemas donde se ha tratado de impulsar la labranza de conservación, la poca biomasa disponible de rastrojo y las necesidades de pastoreo en la época seca, son las principales limitaciones a la adopción de esta práctica. En sistemas de maíz en relevo con frijol, por ejemplo, la producción de biomasa del sistema es mucho menor, ya que el maicillo produce 4-S veces más biomasa que el frijol, y la biomasa del frijol normalmente se remueve del sistema durante la cosecha (para ser aporreado).La presencia de un mantillo vegetal altera muchas relaciones (Bolaños, 1988): a) Reduce la insolación, disminuyendo la temperatura y la evaporación superficial del suelo. Esto mantiene temperaturas más apropiadas para el desarrollo de las plántulas, especialmente en épocas de sequía y ayuda a mantener la humedad en el suelo. b) Aumenta la materia orgánica, nutrimentos y actividad biológica cerca de la superficie, con una marcada estratificación a través del perfil. Esto crea una mayor proliferación de las raíces del cultivo cerca de la superficie. c) Aisla la superficie del suelo, creando un microclima muy distinto debajo del mantillo (húmedo, temperatura baja, no insolación, no viento) que minimiza los efectos destructivos del ambiente sobre el suelo. d) Reduce la tasa de escurrimiento y erosión por agua y viento, por lo que aumenta la tasa de infiltración y reduce la erosión. e) Previene la formación de costras superficiales, protegiendo la superficie del suelo del impacto de las lluvias, incrementando la infiltración. f) Sin embargo, el mantillo puede ser hospedero de plagas y enfermedades (tal es el caso de pudrición de mazorcas), puede inmovilizar cantidades importantes de N del fertilizante químico, y plantea problemas de aplicación de fertilizantes al suelo (Barreta et al., 1988).Todas estas características tienen como consecuencia que los sistemas con mantillo son más eficientes en la captación, disponibilidad y eficiencia de uso del agua por los cultivos, y son la estrategia más práctica para mejorar el balance hídrico en ambientes secos o de precipitación errática. La sequía es una de las limitantes más importantes del maiz que se reportan en la región. Sin embargo, aún en las zonas más secas donde se siembra el maíz, la precipitación excede los 900 mm anuales y existen más de 120 días donde la precipitación excede la demanda evaporativa. Los problemas de sequía ocurren principalmente debido a una precipitación errática (períodos secos de más de 20-30 días), altas pérdidas por escorrentía, y el manejo inadecuado de los suelos. Las estrategias para mejorar la eficiencia de uso de agua son: a) mantener el suelo cubierto con mantillo para aumentar la infiltración, reducir la escorrentía, evitar el encostramiento superficial, reducir pérdidas por evaporación directa del suelo, reducir la erosión; b) sincronizar la fenología del cultivo a períodos de disponibilidad hídrica según patrones de clima (Bolaños, 1988), ya sea usando cultivares de ciclo corto que logren evadir los períodos de sequía prolongado.Los ensayos regionales del PRM han explorado la respuesta del maíz a distintos niveles de rastrojo como mantillo y su interacción con N (Sosa y Bolaños, 1993;Sosa et al., 1993;Zea y Bolaños, 1997). Los resultados muestran claramente que a dosis altas de N, el rendimiento de grano de maíz aumentó 0.25 y 0.30 t/ha con 10 Y 20 t/ha de rastrojo como mantillo (Sosa y Bolaños, 1993). Niveles de 30 t/ha de mantillo mostraron una interacción significativa con el ambiente, con un efecto positivo en el rendimiento en ambientes pobres, pero con una reducción en los ambientes con potencial de rendinliento superior a los 5.0 t/ha de grano. Esta interacción negativa entre niveles de mantillo con N ha sido confirmada en ensayos regionales conducidos en 1992-1994 (Sosa et al., 1993;Zea y Bolaños, 1997). A través de 42 comparaciones a nivel regional, respuestas positivas en rendimiento de grano se observan solamente a niveles altos de N (100 Y 150 kg N/ha). La presencia de un mantillo vegetal (5 o 10 t/ha de mantillo) puede reducir el rendimiento cerca de 50 kg/ha por cada tonelada de mantillo en ambientes pobres en N (50% de reducción) (Sosa et al., 1993). En algunos casos, el uso de rastrojo de maíz como mantillo puede reducir el rendimiento en más de 1.0 t/ha de grano.Zea y Bolaños (1997) presentan datos adicionales sobre la interacción mantillo x nitrógeno. En promedio, la respuesta del maíz a niveles de rastrojo como mantillo es pequeña en comparación con la respuesta a N. Incluso, el uso de rastrojo de maíz puede reducir sustancialmente el rendimiento en condiciones de baja disponibilidad de N. Estos datos sugieren que la presencia de un mantillo vegetal puede inmovilizar cerca de 50 a 60 kg N/ha. Por tanto, el manejo exitoso de los residuos y rastrojos como mantillo en sistemas de labranza de conservación debe considerar la economía de N del cultivo (Barreta et al., 1988;Zea y Bolaños, 1997).No cabe duda que el uso de leguminosas de cobertura como abonos verdes tienen un efecto benéfico en la sostenibilidad de los sistemas agrícolas. La leguminosa puede ser asociada en fOfila intercalada, en relevo y/o en rotación, según los patrones de uso y del sistema predominante. Los beneficios del asocio de cereales con leguminosas incluyen aportación de N por fijación directa, aprovechamiento de la radiación desaprovechada por el cultivo principal para producción de biomasa para abono verde, reducción de la erosión al mantener una mayor cobertura del suelo, reducción en la incidencia de malezas, preservación y mejora en las propiedades fisicas y químicas de los suelos y posible reducción de plagas y enfermedades.Desde 1988 el PRM ha evaluado el asocio, relevo y/o rotación de leguminosas de cobertura (abonos verdes) dentro de los sistemas de producción de maíz. Datos obtenidos en 24 ensayos uniformes durante 1989 y 1990 indicaron una tendencia marcada de las leguminosas de reducir el rendimiento de maíz en comparación con monocultivo cuando estas se establecen simultáneamente con el cultivo (Zea et al., 1991;Zea, 1992;Barreta, 1994). De las leguminosas evaluadas en asocio temprano (O a 10 días después de la siembra del maíz), Canavalia ensiformis presentó características sobresalientes para su siembra intercalada con maíz debido a su menor competencia con el monocultivo y menor variabilidad en comparación con la mucuna y la vigna (Stizolobium deerengianum y Vigna unguiculata) bajo las mismas condiciones (Zea et al., 1991;Zea, 1992;Barreto, 1994). Dado su hábito de crecimiento así como sus características morfológicas, la canavalia ha sobresalido para asocio temprano con maíz en forma intercalada y tiene buena reputación para soportar ambientes secos con precipitación errática (Bernal y Jiménez, 1990).Existen muchas razones teóricas y evidencia experimental que indica que la siembra simultánea de leguminosas con maíz casi siempre reduce el rendimiento de este en comparación al monocultivo. La reducción en rendimiento es mayor mientras mayor sea la competencia impuesta por el asocio. Solamente en la medida que la leguminosa capture radiación, agua y nutrimentos que el cultivo de maíz desperdicia (escurrimiento, lixiviación, drenaje, evaporación directa, malezas, baja población de plantas), redunda entonces el asocio en beneficios netos al sistema. Esta reducción en rendimiento por el asocio simultáneo fue reportada ampliamente en los ensayos regionales del PRM en 1988-1990(Barreto, 1994)).Sin embargo, el PRM ha documentado alternativas de asocio que minimizan la competencia con el maíz pero mantienen muchos de sus efectos benéficos sobre la cobertura del suelo, el control de malezas y su efecto residual. Ejemplos son la inserción de leguminosas a densidades más bajas para asocio simultáneo (ej, en surcos alternos) o la siembra tardía a surco continuo (2-3 semanas después de la siembra del maíz) (López et al., 1993;Gordón et al., 1993). Ambos ejemplos minimizan los efectos negativos del asocio de competencia sobre el maíz, pero aún producen suficiente efecto benéfico para compensar los costos del establecimiento. Otro ejemplo puede ser la alternativa del doble surco bajo investigación (PRM, 1995), la cual apunta a arreglos topológicos que optimizen la captura de radiación por el asocio en su conjunto, maximizando la producción de maíz y leguminosas.Para ser rentable, la reducción en el rendimiento del maíz causada por los tratamientos de asocio simultáneo deberá ser compensada por un flujo debido a varios efectos benéficos del asocio: a) una reducción en las labores de control de malezas, b) el valor de la producción de ejote y grano por la leguminosa, c) el valor residual de raíces y residuos como mulch estimados con el rendimiento de frijol en relevo, d) un incremento paulatino de la productividad a largo plazo por mejoría en las propiedades del suelo. El balance de estos flujos será un factor determinante para la adopción de estas tecnologías por los productores.No cabe duda que una de las ventajas del asocio más importantes percibidas por los agricultores es sobre el control de malezas. Sin duda, los tratamientos de asocio simultáneo normalmente tienen un enorme efecto positivo sobre el control de malezas, debido a la rápida cobertura del suelo en comparación al monocultivo. Este tipo de asocio simultáneo posiblemente redundaría en beneficios netos en sistemas con una alta presión de malezas, con alta precipitación y/o potencial de rendimiento, donde el maíz normalmente sufre una competencia fuerte por las malezas. Sin embargo, en ambientes limitados por sequía y/o baja fertilidad (típicos de muchos de los ensayos visitados), la alta densidad de la leguminosa en asocio competirá fuertemente con el maíz y redundará posiblemente en reducción del rendimiento.Otro de los objetivos mencionados del asocio es el uso de los residuos de la leguminosa como mulch para promover la labranza de conservación en siembras de relevo. El manejo del mulch sirve para mantener una cobertura sobre la superficie del suelo, mejorar el balance hídrico y aportar minerales y nutrimentos al suelo para cultivos siguientes. Sin embargo, las leguminosas tienen características que limitan su efectividad como mulch: a) una rápida descomposición bajo condiciones ambientales favorables dado su alto contenido de N (relación C:N baja); b) un alto riesgo de pérdidas de N por volatilización y/o escorrentía ya que la mineralización de los residuos ocurre en la superficie, c) una poca durabilidad relativa de los residuos de leguminosas como mulch. En comparación, los residuos de cereales (bajos en N) pueden durar mucho tiempo (6-8 meses) como mulch con buena cobertura del suelo antes de descomponerse. Otro asunto a considerar es la probabilidad de introducir plagas y pestes importantes al cultivo de frijol en relevo por residuos de leguminosas establecidas en asocio en el ciclo de primera.El efecto residual del mulch de la leguminosa como fuente de nutrimentos sobre el siguiente cultivo en relevo dependerá de la cantidad de biomasa y su composición química retornada al sistema en comparación con el monocultivo (Zea, 1993). Por ejempl9, en el caso de algunas leguminosas como la vigna (caupí), se puede cosechar y remover del sistema la producción de ejotes, grano, etc., y contabilizar el valor comercial de estos en el mercado (flujo de beneficio). Sin embargo, la cosecha de este producto comestible significa también una remoción del sistema de biomasa y nutrimentos (granos de frijol o caupí tienen 4-5% de N), obviamente reduciendo el efecto residual de este tratamiento. En el caso de la canavalia, donde no se remueve ningún producto comestible y toda la biomasa retoma al sistema, el efecto residual es máximo, pero no aporta ningún beneficio económico inmediato al agricultor. El manejo de estos factores experimentales de manera distinta puede complicar la comparación del efecto residual sobre los cultivos en relevo.En el Litoral Atlántico de Honduras se ha difundido desde hace más de 20 años el uso del frijol de abono o mucuna (Saín et al., 1993;Buckles et al., 1994a,b). Esta es una zona tropical de alta precipitación pluvial y los agricultores siembran maíz durante la época de postrera (septiembre-octubre) para cosecharlo durante los meses más secos de marzo-abril. El frijol de abono lo siembran en febrero-marzo con la dobla del maíz, durante la época de llenado de grano del maíz. Al cosechar el maíz, la mucuna se establece totalmente y cubre totalmente el terreno desde mayo a septiembre, aprovechando la época lluviosa. En estos 6-S meses de guarnil, la mucuna puede producir cerca de 10-15 ton/ha de biomasa (contenido de 200-300 kg N/ha). No toda esa cantidad de N en la mucuna es fijada de la atmósfera, pero sí una parte importante, y los nutrimentos que contiene esa biomasa retoman al sistema con la mineralización del residuo de la leguminosa cuando seca y muerta (Triomphe, 1997).Las ventajas que los agricultores perciben en el uso del frijol de abono son un aumento de la fertilidad del suelo, el control de las malezas, la reducción de la erosión, y el aumento de la humedad. Las desventajas más importantes son la pérdida del uso de la tierra para fmes comerciales cuando está en descanso con frijol de abono, y la posibilidad de derrumbes en las laderas (Saín et al., 1993;Buckles et al., 1994a.b). Al sembrar leguminosas en asocio y/o relevo con sistemas de maiz, el agricultor aprovecha la radiación no usada por el cultivo principal (maíz) para producir biomasa fijando N directamente de la atmósfera que retomará al sistema agrícola con el uso como abono verde.El maíz necesita adquirir nutrimentos del suelo para sostener la productividad. Por ejemplo, el nitrógeno (N) es normalmente el elemento más limitante a la productividad en muchos suelos. El fósforo (P) es también otro elemento limitante. Muchos de los suelos de la región tienen contenidos de potasio (K) altos, y los cultivos normalmente no responden a aplicaciones de este elemento. El contenido de N en la planta de maíz decrece casi linealmente a medida que la planta madura (acumula unidades de calor). Para una plántula recién germinada, el contenido de N puede ser cerca al 5% de la materia seca total, este valor decrece alrededor del 2.5% a la floración. Por consiguiente, un cultivo de maíz con 6.0 ton/ha de materia seca a la floración contiene cerca de 150 kg N/ha. Sin esta cantidad de N en el suelo (ya sea por mineralización nativa, adiciones en la lluvia, adiciones de materia orgánica, o adiciones de fertilizante) no será posible sostener esa producción de materia seca.El grano de maíz tiene un contenido de N alrededor de 1.5%, y el rastrojo alrededor de 1.2%. Si un agricultor cosecha 5 ton/ha de grano de maíz, este grano contiene cerca de 75 kg N/ha, y el agricultor remueve esta cantidad de N del sistema irreversiblemente. Desde el punto de vista de la sostenibilidad del sistema, es necesario retomarle al sistema por lo menos la misma cantidad. Si al producir este grano, produce además otros 6 ton/ha de rastrojo, necesitó otros 72 kg N/ha. Al quemar el rastrojo, la mayoría del N se volatiliza en forma gaseosa, y se pierde del sistema con un costo relativamente importante. O sea, el cultivo necesita consumir cerca de 150 kg N/ha para alcanzar esa productividad. Si el suelo no es capaz de mineralizar esta cantidad de N a la velocidad que la planta lo necesita, es necesario entonces aplicarlo en fOIT'1a de fertilizante químico o como adiciones de materia orgánica que contenga suficiente N. Consideraciones similares se pueden hacer con los otros nutrimentos, por ejemplo, el grano de maíz contiene cerca de 0.2-0.3% de P. Follaje verde, recién expandido, joven, tiene contenidos de N alrededor del 3%. Si asumimos una densidad específica del follaje del maíz de 6.0 mg/cm 2 (1 ha de follaje pesa aproximadamente 600 kg materia seca), esto significa que cada índice de área foliar (lea! area index) o cada hectárea de follaje cuesta cerca de 20 kg N/ha. Ya que el maíz tiene un índice de área foliar óptimo cerca de 4 a 5, esto significa un costo en N de SO-lOO kg N/ha para interceptar la radiación.Diversos estudios indican que la eficiencia de uso de los fertilizantes es baja en los sistemas de producción de maíz de la región (Larios et al., 1997). Las aplicaciones promedio de N oscilan entre SO-lOO kg/ha en una o dos fraccionamientos, normalmente con urea o sulfato de amonia. Una gran proporción de los pequeños agricultores aplican el fertilizante a la superficie del suelo al voleo o por posturas. Esta forma superficial de aplicación de fuentes de N amoniacas pueden conducir a pérdidas considerables por volatilización directa o por escorrentía, y así contribuir a la baja eficiencia de uso. Larios et al. (1997) compararon diferentes métodos de aplicación de N-urea (voleo, posturas, incorporado) detectando una mejoría consistente, pero pequeña, en la eficiencia de uso del N con la incorporación del N al suelo y su fraccionamiento. La ganancia en rendimiento por método fue 0.4 t/ha, la cual deberá compensar los costos adicionales de la aplicación de N. Sin embargo, estos autores reportaron una relación fuerte y significativa entre mediciones de N en la hoja de la mazorca a la floración (estimados con un clorofilómetro) con el rendimiento fmal a través de 19 localidades, confrrmando la importancia del N en la elaboración del rendimiento fmal. Gustavo Saín•El aumento de la productividad y la conservación de los recursos se anuncian como objetivos deseables de la investigación agrícola pero frecuentemente se los presenta como sustitutos. Alcanzar uno se debe hacer necesariamente a costa de sacrificar el otro. En este trabajo se presenta la idea de que ambos objetivos pueden ser complementarios entre si a través de la generación y transferencia de tecnologías que simultáneamente aumenten la productividad y conserven los recursos naturales (APeORE). Esta idea se ilustra con el caso del desarrollo y adopción de la labranza de conservación con manejo de residuos. Finalmente se presentan algunas características de costos y beneficios de tecnologías que se encuentran desarrolladas o en etapas avanzadas de desarrollo en la región.Para lograr una agricultura sostenible se debe afrontar un conjunto complejo de procesos interrelacionados. En el largo plazo, el desarrollo económico y el aumento de ingresos proporcionará la base para incrementar las inversiones en la conservación de recursos.Sin embargo, dada la situación económica actual en Centroamérica, es probable que en los próximos años se intensifique la presión sobre el uso y deterioro de los recursos naturales de la región. contrarrestar los efectos de estos factores en la investigación agrícola se postulan dos objetivos generales: aumentar la productividad y consávar los recursos naturales. A menudo, sin embargo, estos objetivos se plantean como competitivos entre si, dando lugar a nuevas tecnologías dirigidas a aumentar la productividad (tecnologías AP) a costa del deterioro de los recursos y, viceversa, nuevas tecnologías dirigidas a conservar los recursos (tecnologías CORE) a costa de disminuir la productividad. De esta manera, cuando se trata de seleccionar tecnologías, se considera que habrá que hacer ciertos sacrificios (trade-ofJs) con respecto a los objetivos de la investigación, dependiendo de los recursos que se deseen conservar.La importancia creciente de la conservación del medio ambiente ha llevado a que se piense cada vez más en términos de tecnologías que simultáneamente eleven la productividad del sistema y conserven los recursos tales como suelo, agua y nutrimentos. A este tipo de tecnologías se las ha denominado tecnologías que aumentan la productividad y conservan los recursos (tecnologías APCORE). Una premisa fundamental que gobierna la generación de este tipo de tecnologías es que los objetivos de aumentar la productividad y conservar la base de recursos no se pueden considerar en forma separada en el sistema de la finca. A. Intensificación y reorganización del uso de los recursos (tierra, mano de obra e insumos) ya existentes en la finca, incluyendo el manejo intensivo de la producción animal y forestal.Las causas del problema del deterioro del medio ambiente son profundas y demasiado complejas como para ser detalladas aquí. Sin embargo, se debe destacar la estrecha relación existente entre el deterioro de los recursos, la pobreza y el crecimiento de la población. De estos tres factores, la pobreza representa un papel central en la determinación de los otros dos. La experiencia histórica ha mostrado que la reducción de los niveles de pobreza contribuye significativamente a disminuir la presión sobre los recursos naturales y la tasa del crecimiento de la población y, por lo tanto, a reducir la presión sobre los recursos naturales. Para El Cuadro 1 presenta algunos ejemplos de tecnologías desarrolladas para la conservación de los recursos naturales que se usan en la actualidad o que están en proceso de desarrollo; no se trata de una lista completa, pues sólo se incluyen los ejemplos más relevantes. Estas tecnologías abordan problemas relacionados con la conservación de suelos, nutrimentos y humedad, la reducción del uso de productos químicos, la biodiversidad y la conservación forestal.Una de las características más importantes que los agricultores juzgan de la tecnología en general es el tiempo que transcurre desde el pago de los costos hasta que se perciben los beneficios. Aunque la distribución de los costos y beneficios a través del tiempo varía considerablemente de una tecnología a otra, muchas tecnologías tipo CORE requieren de costos inmediatos y tardan algunos años en producir beneficios. Por el contrario, las tecnologías tipo AP se caracterizan por tener un retorno a la inversión relativamente rápido.Cuando se consideran los usos alternativos de las tecnologías dirigidas a aumentar la productividad (AP), estas pueden comportarse simultáneamente como conservadoras de recursos (CORE), y viceversa, dependiendo de las circunstancias. El caso de la difusión de la labranza de conservación en Guaymango, El Salvador, provee un ejemplo de interacción entre ambos tipos de tecnologías. La Figura 2 describe la asignación de una cantidad de recurso, R (rastrojo del sistema), entre dos usos. competitivos: alimento para el ganado y mantillo para protección del suelo. RoRo representa la curva de transformación del residuo para un nivel inicial de productividad del sistema de cultivo. La pendiente de esta curva se denomina la tasa marginal de sustitución (TMS) entre alimento y mantillo. Cuadro 1. Características de costos y beneficios de algunas tecnologías de conservación de los recursos naturales.  Esta tasa mide el costo de oportunidad, en ténnino de alimento para el ganado, de usar una unidad de rastrojo como mantill0 2  Dependiendo de las circunstancias internas y externas prevalecientes, un agricultor se puede situar en diferentes posiciones a lo largo de esta curva. Por ejemplo, puede usar todo el rastrojo como alimento si los precios son convenientes o, por el contrario, puede usar todo como mantillo si le da una gran importancia a la conservación del suelo. Si S* representa la cantidad mínima necesaria para un control efectivo de la pérdida de suel0 3 , entonces un agricultor situado en el punto B estará usando la cantidad de rastrojo OC como mantillo y OA como alimento para el ganado. Dado que la cantidad OC es menor que el mínimo S* el suelo se estará erosionando.Una forma de revertir esta situación sería modificar las circunstancias de los agricultores de manera que se corriera a una posición de la curva de transfonnación situada a la derecha del punto B, de manera que use como mantillo una cantidad de residuo mayor que el mínimo S*. Sin embargo, este camino es en general dificil en el corto plazo. Podría implicar, por ejemplo, modificar la percepción de los agricultores acerca del valor de la pérdida de suelo.Una segunda vía de alcanzar el requenmIento mínimo S* sería una nueva tecnología que eleve la productividad del sistema. Este cambio se ilustra en la Figura 2 como un desplazamiento de la curva de transfonnación hacia afuera hasta alcanzar la curva R]R I . Aún sin ningún cambio en las circunstancias, los agricultores se moverían a un punto como el D donde .el sistema pennite cumplir el mínimo requerimiento S*. De esta manera, una tecnología que aumenta la productividad pennite simultáneamente alcanzar un objetivo de conservación del suelo.En el caso de Guaymango, el equilibrio se logró alcanzar mediante una combinación de tecnologías dirigidas a aumentar la productividad (híbridos, fertilizantes y pesticidas) y otra dirigida a conservar el suelo (manejo de los rastrojos). De esta manera el paquete combinado se comporta como una tecnología APCORE (Choto y Sain, 1993;Sain y Barreta, 1994).Sin embargo, existen tecnologías que conllevan el aumento de la productividad del sistema y la conservación de los recursos en si mismas (APCORE) como lo es la inserción de leguminosas de cobertura.Un ejemplo del doble accionar de este tipo de tecnologías lo provee el sistema de abaneras en el Litoral Atlántico de Honduras (Buckles et al., 1992). La Figura 3 muestra el efecto de introducir la Mucuna sobre la productividad del sistema. No solo hay un aumento en la productividad promedio sino que también reduce considerablemente el riesgo.En general, existen condiciones económicas e institucionales que muchas veces imposibilitan que se alcance un uso racional de los recursos aún cuando los niveles de productividad del sistema se eleven considerablemente. Algunas de estas condiciones son: • La presencia de distorsiones (impuestos y subsidios) en los mercados de productos e insumos. Por ejemplo, subsidios a los fertilizantes y otros agroquímicos han llevado al abandono de la práctica de la abonera en algunas comunidades de Honduras (Flores, 1993; Matute y Abrego, 1995). • Fallas de los mercados de algunos Insumos y productos. Principalmente por problemas institucionales. Por ejemplo, el pastoreo libre de los rastrojos en algunas áreas de El Salvador lleva al agotamiento del rastrojo dejando al agricultor sin posibilidad de usarlo para proteger el suelo (Sain y Barreto, 1995). • Fallas (no existencia) de mercados de los recursos naturales. • Costos de transacción elevados.Aunque ya existe un acervo importante de conocimientos acerca de las tecnologías que fomentan una agricultura sostenible, con frecuencia los costos de introducirlas en los sistemas son elevados. Algunos de estos costos son cubiertos por el agricultor (mano de obra adicional), mientras que otros probablemente son sufragados por la sociedad en general (más investigación). Sin embargo, en muchos casos, dichos costos se distribuyen de distintas fonnas.La mayor parte de las tecnologías agrícolas tiene que ser adaptada a las condiciones locales, y esto es especialmente cierto en el caso de las tecnologías de conservación. En consecuencia, la investigación a nivel local y la extensión, así como las inversiones en la experimentación realizadas por la comunidad y los agricultores, son un componente importante de los costos de generar estas tecnologías. Una dificultad adicional es que, aunque problemas como la erosión y la deforestación son graves, existe muy poca información que ayude a asignar un valor económico preciso a estos procesos.Asimismo, resulta dificil atribuir los costos relativos de la degradación de recursos a los distintos sectores de Beneficios netosBeneficios Netos la sociedad y, por lo tanto, es muy dificil saber cómo se deben repartir los costos de revertir esos procesos.En el Cuadro 1 se presentan, a modo de ejemplos, las principales clases de costos que suelen surgir en el caso de las tecnologías orientadas a mejorar la productividad y proteger el medio ambiente. El tipo y el monto de estos costos varían dependiendo del tipo de tecnología que se trate. Una tecnología que requiera de un solo tipo importante de costos (por ejemplo, la mano de obra para construir terrazas) no necesariamente tiene mejores probabilidades de ser aceptada que otra que exige varios tipos de costos pero de menor magnitud.   Figura 3. Distribución acumulativa de la probabilidad de los rendimientos de maíz sembrado bajo tres sistemas. Litoral Atlántico de Honduras.Los costos en que pueden incurrir los agricultores cuando adoptan nuevas tecnologías se pueden subclasificar en seis tipos principales:1. Conocimientos y organizaclOn. Algunas tecnologías requieren de bastante esfuerzo por parte del agricultor para combinar sus conocimientos con observaciones intensivas, a fin de adaptarlas a su sistema de finca (como en el caso del manejo de cultivo en callejones). Además, algunas tecnologías requieren que los agricultores se organicen dentro de sus comunidades, especialmente cuando se trata del manejo de un recurso común.necesario que los agricultores hayan alcanzado cierto nivel en el sistema educativo formal, o que sean adiestrados a través de actividades de extensión pública o privada (por ejemplo, capacitación en el manejo integrado de plagas).3. Mano de obra. Muchas tecnologías de conservación necesitan una inversión adicional en mano de obra; por 10 tanto, su viabilidad dependerá de su costo de oportunidad. Este puede variar de una zona a otra y de un país a otro y, en consecuencia, una tecnología que es aceptable en un lugar puede ser menos atractiva en otro.Pese a la tendencia general a reducir la cantidad de insumas comprados requeridos para las tecnologías de conservación, con algunas es necesario comprar químicos, o alquilar o comprar maquinaria nueva. A veces• es necesario importar estos insumos en cantidades suficientes por 10 menos al principio (por ejemplo, germoplasma para la implantación de barreras vivas).Algunas tecnologías requieren de bastante investigación especializada. Es necesario contar con políticas que dirijan estas investigaciones (ya sean públicas o privadas), de manera que se dirijan a lo.s sistemas agrícolas correctos según los objetivos nacionales de desarrollo.tecnologías modifican la secuencia de cultivos existentes con especies de menor valor económico, es probable que inicialmente hagan disminuir el valor de la producción total (por ejemplo, cuando en una rotación se sustituye un grano por un abono verde).186Algunas razones importantes por las cuales los agricultores no siempre invierten en la adopción de tecnologías destinadas a la conservación de sus recursos son: a) En general, cuanto más altos sean los costos iniciales y/o más bajos sean los beneficios inmediatos, y cuanto mayor sea el tiempo transcurrido entre ambos, menor será la probabilidad de que la tecnología sea aceptada, especialmente por agricultores de escasos recursos. b) La conveniencia para el productor de la tecnología depende de altas tasas de descuento que predominan especialmente entre los pequeños agricultores. Un horizonte de planificación demasiado corto es un caso especial donde la tasa de descuento es 10 suficientemente alta como para que las consecuencias económicas tengan un valor despreciable para el agricultor y su familia. c) Aun cuando los beneficios descontados se comparen favorablemente con la inverSlOn requerida, los agricultores podrían no estar dispuestos a invertir en la tecnología a menos que reciban pruebas fehacientes de que producirá beneficios a largo plazo. Es decir que los agricultores exigirán un valor adicional por la incertidumbre que predomina cuando los beneficios son esperados para dentro de 10 o 15 años. d) Los agricultores tienen que comparar los beneficios de largo plazo generados por las inversiones en mejoras a los recursos (como el control de erosión), con aquellos producidos por inversiones destinadas a aumentar la productividad a corto plazo, aun cuando éstas pongan los recursos naturales en peligro. Esta comparación es importante en general, pero lo es aún más en el caso de los agricultores más pobres, porque en muchos casos sus recursos son los que corren mayor peligro. e) Gran parte de los costos provocados por el deterioro de los recursos no afecta a los productores en forma directa, sino a otros sectores de la sociedad. Como por ejemplo, el caso de la contaminación del agua para consumo humano en las ciudades o la sedimentación de las represas para la generación de energía eléctrica. f) La presencia de políticas inefectivas promulgadas sin información precisa sobre las consecuencias económicas y sociales de las distintas maneras de solucionar o aliviar los problemas reales. g) La falta de derechos de propiedad bien definidos sobre algunos recursos naturales que en muchos casos lleva a la sobre-explotación del recurso. Por ejemplo, en aquellos casos donde hay libre acceso al pastoreo de rastrojos o pastos.No es razonable esperar que la tecnología por sí sola solucione el problema de la conservación de recursos. En la mayoría de los casos, la adopción de tecnologías de conservación se facilita cuando es apoyada por cambios simultáneos en las políticas económicas e institucionales.Muchos países han registrado éxitos notables con tecnologías que contribuyen tanto a la conservación de recursos como al incremento de la productividad, tales como la labranza de conservación, el manejo integrado de plagas y la inclusión de leguminosas intercaladas en el sistema de producción. No obstante ello, no hay soluciones mágicas, ya que el desarrollo de todas esas tecnologías requiere de tiempo y recursos considerables que siempre implican un balance entre costos y beneficios.Las tecnologías destinadas a aumentar la productividad (AP) y aquellas destinadas a conservar los recursos (eDRE) pueden comportarse en forma complementaria o competitiva entre sí dependiendo más de circunstancias exógenas que de sus características inherentes. Aunque se debe reconocer que siempre existirán sacrificios, la dicotomía entre ambos tipos de tecnologías es relativa. Si existen condiciones para •la generación y difusión de tecnologías que combinen ambos efectos (APCORE), estas deberían gozar de una alta prioridad en aquellas áreas donde la conservación de los recursos y el aumento de productividad son importantes.Se debe tener en cuenta, además, que existen límites biofisicos relacionados con el sistema agropecuario, los que imponen restricciones a ciertos parámetros de las tecnologías por ser generadas (variación en el potencial de las tierras de cultivo). En general, cuanto más pobre sea el ambiente de producción (por ejemplo, laderas en zonas secas), mayor será el costo de la generación de tecnología y menor será el aumento absoluto de rendimiento que se puede esperar. Así, al establecer las prioridades para la generación de tecnologías, es indispensable considerar las tecnologías específicas que se necesitan en los distintos ambientes e identificar las limitaciones que éstos imponen. Para esto se requiere de una zonificación agroclimática adecuada.Por último se debe recordar que la generación de tecnología es un proceso continuo en el sentido que no existen respuestas o soluciones que sean definitivas ni perfectas. La introducción de una tecnología destinada a solucionar un determinado problema a menudo provoca nuevos problemas que requieren de otras soluciones.Se agradece a Mario Jauregui, Olaf Erenstein y Héctor Barreto por sus comentarios y sugerencias.Buckles D., I. Ponce, G. Sain y G. Medina. 1992. Tierra cobarde se vuelve valiente. Uso y difusión del frijol de abono (Mucuna Deeringianum) en las laderas del Litoral Atlántico de Honduras. México D.F. CIMMYT.Choto C. y G. Saino 1993. El mercado de rastrojo y sus implicaciones para la adopción de la labranza de conservación. En: Bolaños, J., G. Sain, R. Urbina y H. Barreto (Editores). Síntesis de Resultados Experimentales del PRM 1992. Vol. 4 (1993), CIMMYT-PRM, Guatemala. Olal Erenstein 1 RESUMEN La clave de la labranza de conservación es el uso de los residuos como mantillo. Sin embargo, existe mucha confusión en relación al termino labranza de conservación, entre otras cosas por poner demasiado énfasis en la labranza. El laboreo es sólo uno de los factores que afecta la disponibilidad de los residuos en áreas tropicales. Por ende, la conservación de residuos parece un término más apropiado para estos ambientes. En México, la promoción de la labranza de conservación hasta la fecha enfatizó la no-quema y la no-inversión de suelo (el no barbechar). De hecho, estos dos factores son incompatibles con la conservación de suficientes residuos para formar un mantillo efectivo. Sin embargo, hay que destacar que para llevar a cabo la conservación de residuos es necesario ver todos sus usos en conjunto. O sea, no sólo la quema o el barbecho, sino también la extracción productiva, el total de la incorporación y el desgaste, además de la producción de residuos. El conjunto de usos alternativos y la producción se reúne en el balance de residuos y este balance es particular para cada localidad.La labranza de conservaclOn ha recibido mucha atención en los últimos años en México. Varias agencias, tanto gubernamentales como no gubernamentales, han estado investigando o promoviendo la tecnología a través del país. Toda esta atención favoreció la difusión de la tecnología al poner a los productores en contacto con la tecnología. Sin embargo, también tuvo sus inconvenientes: La gran cantidad de participantes involucrados generó un igual número de interpretaciones de en qué consistía la tecnología. Algunos interpr.etaban la, tecnología simplemente como la no-quema. Otros, como labranza cero o reducida (sin invertir). Sin embargo, la clave de la tecnología consiste en conservar suficientes residuos  1993-1995, VOL.5 (1997), p. 188-197.   188 como mantillo. En su ausencia, prácticas como la labranza cero pueden ser hasta contraproducentes. Por lo tanto, algunas de las experiencias fallidas fueron erróneamente atribuidas a la labranza de conservación.¿Donde se originó la confusión? De hecho \"un problema clásico relacionado con la labranza de conservación durante los años de su desarrollo ha sido su definición\" (Pierce, 1985). La confusión en cuanto a las definiciones se debe en parte a que existen distintas interpretaciones de \"conservación\" (¿conservación de qué? ¿del suelo, del agua, de los residuos?). Otra gran parte de la confusión se relaciona directamente con la palabra \"labranza\".De hecho, existen muchas métodos diferentes de labranza (incluyendo una amplia gama de herramientas y prácticas). Además, la presencia de la palabra \"labranza\" pone mucho énfasis en el laboreo del suelo. Al parecer, esto es lo más adecuado en los sistemas de producción en los Estados Unidos, donde se originó la tecnología. Allí, la incorporación de los residuos a través del laboreo era el principal destino de los residuos por lo que al disminuir el laboreo se quedaban automáticamente más residuos como mantillo. Sin embargo, en los' ambientes tropicales la labranza es sólo uno de los varios factores que afectan la disponibilidad de residuos. Es más, en algunos ambientes tropicales no hay ninguna forma de labranza (p.e. sistemas manuales en zonas marginales con siembra de espeque). Por lo tanto, •en los sistemas tropicales \"conservación de residuos\" parece un término más apropiado para denominar la tecnología. Esto hace hincapié en el componente crucial de la tecnología y no tanto en un componente'parcial. 1.El presente trabajo .da. ún resumen de las implicaeiones de la conservación de los residuos en las sis.temas de producción en México. •Esta ponencia se limita prindpalmente a lOs sistemas de producción de maíz, ya' que éste es' el cultivo más importáiite¡ .en México. Sin. embargo; antes de entral' al mane,lb de los residuos en México presentaremos'en tnayot detalle el papeJ.de los residuos en• la conservación 'de los 'suelos (y el agua).,)Los dos principales procesos de la erosión hídrica son el desprendimiento de partículas del suelo por el salpicamiento de la lluvia y el transporte por escurrimiento superficial. Los elementos primarios para su control son el mantenimiento de cobertura del suelo (para reducir el salpicamiento) y la maximización de la infiltración (para reducir el volumen y, por ende, la velocidad del escurrimiento) (Shaxson et al. 1989). Los residuos de la cosecha pueden proporcionar ambos elementos si se dejan en cantidades suficientes para formar un mantillo efectivo. Este mantillo es una arma de dos filos, al servir como lámina protectora sobre el suelo y al mismo tiempo, aumentar la infiltración a éste. El mantillo aumenta la infiltración al formar nuevas barreras fisicas contra el escurrimiento y al mejorar la estructura fisica del suelo (y por ende, su permeabilidad). Cuandd el 35% de la superficie del suelo está cubierto con residuos esparcidos de manera uniforme, la erosión por salpicamiento puede reducirse hasta en un 85% (comparado con un suelo desnudo) (Shaxson et al. 1989). La relación entre la erosión relativa por salpicamiento y la cobertura del suelo a bajo nivel aparece en el cuadrante 1 de la Figura l.El cuadrante 11 de la Figura 1 permite transformar la cobertura requerida a un nivel aproximado de residuos de maíz. Por ejemplo, para obtener una cobertura del 35% se requieren aproximadamente dos toneladas de residuos por ha. Aunque cantidades superiores a las dos toneladas sí incrementan la cobertura, la ganancia en términos de disminución de erosión es relativamente mínima. Por ejemplo, 4 toneladas de residuos darían una cobertura de aproximadamente 60% y una erosión relativa de menos del 5%. Por lo tanto, desde un punto de vista conservador, mayores cantidades de residuos sí conservan mejor al suelo. Sin embargo, desde un punto de vista económico, esa conservación de suelo se vuelve cada vez más cara en términos de las cantidades de residuos requeridas. El nivel de dos toneladas ha quedado establecido como el umbral mínimo para obtener una reducción considerable de la erosión relativa. El punto preciso para satisfacer este umbral es inmediatamente después de la siembra, es decir, después de establecer el cultivo pero antes de que éste genere suficiente cobertura vegetal para proteger el suelo.La idea de usar los residuos como mantillo se originó con el fin de conservar el suelo. Sin embargo, un aspecto importante de la degradación del suelo es que el daño es acumulativo. El efecto de la degradación en un año específico puede ser menor e insignificante, pero el efecto puede acumularse a través del tiempo (Lal, 1987). De igual forma, los beneficios al reducir la degradación a través de prácticas de conservación del suelo son acumulativos. Por otro lado, los pequeños productores en ambientes tropicales se enfrentan a carencias y necesidades que requieren satisfacer a corto plazo. Estos productores por lo general no están dispuestos a invertir grandes cantidades en medidas de conservación. Para que las prácticas de conservación del suelo sean viables en estos ambientes, deben representar costos adicionales limitados. Por lo tanto, cabe hacer notar que la conservación de residuos funciona además como una medida de conservación del agua ya que al disminuir las pérdidas de este líquido (menor escurrimiento, mayor infiltración, menor evaporación) aumenta la cantidad de agua disponible para el cultivo. En general, este efecto de conservación del agua es él que se nota primero en términos de un mejor rendimiento al adoptar prácticas de conservación de residuos. Este efecto es más evidente en las zonas que presentan un déficit de agua durante el ciclo de cultivo. Sin embargo, hay que destacar nuevamente que este efecto de conservación del agua depende principalmente de la presencia de los residuos como mantillo. Es decir, la conservación del suelo y el agua está en función de la conservación de los residuos.El efecto de la conservación del agua puede generar beneficios a corto plazo y así aliviar el costo de conservar los residuos. Sin embargo, este costo de adopción (y por ende, el potencial de la conservación de residuos) depende de varios factores locales que afectan directamente la disponibilidad de los residuos.A continuación se presentan los factores que influyen en la disponibilidad de residuos en México. Primero, se presenta el lado de la producción de residuos y a continuación los diferentes usos alternativos que se les dan a estos. La Figura 2 presenta esta información gráficamente.La producción agrícola en general se enfoca a la producción de uno o más productos primarios (p.e. grano de maíz). Sin embargo, esta producción del producto primario también genera residuos (p.e. rastrojo de maíz) que, por consiguiente, se pueden considerar derivados de la producción agrícola.11 +-=t::::-+--+-f-+-+-+-+--+==+=:1=::::¡::=f='I=-+o~+-+--+--l Cobertura suelo (%) Ym (tn mantillo/ha) Figura 1. Esquema de dos -cuadrantes con gráficas de la relación de la erosión relativa y la cobertura de suelo en el cuadrante I (Shaxson et al. 1989)  Ym (tn mantillo/ha) 1 Insumo (unidad/ha) Figura 2. Esquema de tres -cuadrantes con gráficas de la relación del insumo y el rendimiento de grano IYgI en el cuadrante 1; el rendimiento de grano y el rendimiento de residuos [Yr] en el cuadrante 11; y el rendimiento de residuos y la cantidad de mantillo [Ym] en el cuadrante 111 (adaptado de Saín, 1996).En cereales como el maíz esta relación puede expresarse de la siguiente manera:Reorganizando esta relación se puede calcular la producción de residuos de la siguiente manera:El interés en la producción del producto primario se refleja, entre otras cosas, a través del índice de la cosecha, que expresa la producción del producto primario como una fracción de la biomasa total.Los factores ecológicos determinan en primera instancia la producción potencial de biomasa en cada ambiente. El factor primordial en zonas tropicales es la disponibilidad de agua y en segunda instancia, la disponibilidad de los diferentes nutrientes (de macro a micro nutrientes). La disponibilidad de estos factores está directamente relacionada con las características ecológicas del medio ambiente, como la precipitación, la evapotranspiración, el suelo, la temperatura, la altitud, la topografia, etc. Ceteris paribus, la cantidad de biomasa disponible (y por ende, la producción de residuos) es generalmente mucho mayor en el trópico húmedo que en el trópico árido; en el trópico bajo que en el trópico alto; en zonas con buen temporal que en zonas con temporal marginal (corto y/o irregular); etc. Las limitaciones impuestas por el medio ambiente pueden ser modificadas por las prácticas agronómicas. Lógicamente, la disponibilidad del agua no sólo se puede aumentar a través del riego sino también a través de prácticas de conservación del agua o de modificaciones en la época de siembra. Asimismo, no sólo se puede aumentar la disponibilidad de nutrientes a través de la fertilización sino también a través de otros cambios fisicos o químicos de los suelos. Ceteris paribus, la cantidad de biomasa disponible (y por ende, la producción de residuos) es generalmente mucho mayor en la agricultura de riego que en la de temporal; en los casos donde se usa fertilizante que con los mineros del suelo; etc. Esta relación muestra que la producción de residuos está directamente vinculada con la producción del producto primario. Además, el índice de cosecha para cereales como el maíz es relativamente constante para una variedad dada. Por lo tanto, para cereales como el maíz la producción de residuos es una función linear de la producción de grano (vea cuadrante II de la Figura 2).Vale la pena resaltar que el índice de cosecha sí puede variar bastante entre las diferentes variedades de un cultivo. Por ejemplo, una variedad criolla de maíz puede tener un índice de cosecha tan bajo como 30%, mientras que para una variedad mejorada este índice puede alcanzar el 50%. Así, al obtener el mismo rendimiento de grano, la producción de residuos en general será substancialmente más alta para una variedad criolla que para una variedad mejorada.La relación directa que existe entre la producción de grano y la producción de residuos implica que todos los factores que influyen en la producción de grano también influyen directamente en la producción de residuos. La producción de grano es una función de varios factores, incluyendo factores de naturaleza tanto agroecológica como socioeconómica.Sin embargo, las prácticas agronómicas no sólo influyen sobre la disponibilidad de los factores esenciales. El cultivo mismo determina en gran medida la respuesta en términos de producción a la disponibilidad de los factores de producción. En primer lugar, el tipo de cultivo tiene grandes implicaciones. Por ejemplo, un cultivo de cereales (p.e. maíz) produce potencialmente más biomasa que un cultivo de leguminosas (p.e. frijol). En segundo lugar, la variedad del mismo cultivo también influye. Una variedad mejorada de cereal en general responde mejor a los insumos que una variedad criolla. Además, las diferencias entre las variedades se reflejan a través del índice de cosecha (cuadrante II, Figura 2).Todos los factores agroecológicos en conjunto determinan la forma de la función de producción que aparece en el cuadrante 1 de la Figura 2.Las prácticas agronómicas alivian algunas de las limitaciones impuestas por el medio ambiente. Sin embargo, el uso de estas prácticas agronómicas se ve afectado directamente por factores socioeconómicos como los de precios de los insumos y de los productos y en especial por la relación entre éstos. El precio relativo del insumo (en relación al producto) determina en gran parte el nivel de su us0 2 • Pero no sólo los precios determinan el uso de los insumos. La orientación de la producción (mercado o autoconsumo) determina en gran medida la influencia de los precios sobre el uso de los insumos. Por otro lado, la disponibilidad de recursos también influye sobre el uso de insumos. Por ejemplo, aunque es económico echar 100 unidades de fertilizante por ha al cultivo, el productor algunas veces sólo puede echar 50 unidades debido a la falta de liquidez.Los factores socioeconómicos determinan en gran parte donde se ubica el uso de los insumos en el cuadrante 1 de la Figura 2. Por lo tanto, dado la función de producción, los factores socioeconómicos determinan el nivel de producción correspondiente.La producción de residuos no se traduce simplemente en su disponibilidad como mantillo. En las zonas tropicales, existen varios usos (o destinos) que se les dan a los residuos y que afectan directamente su disponibilidad como mantillo. Estos usos de los residuos pueden variar en forma considerable entre e, incluso, dentro de las regiones. Los diferentes usos alternativos de los residuos afectan las relaciones en el cuadrante III de la Figura 2. A continuación, presentamos los diferentes usos en mayor detalle. En la sección posterior veremos las implicaciones de estos usos sobre la conservación de los residuos como mantillo.Aunque los residuos de maíz en general se consideran derivados de la producción agrícola, éstos tienen varios usos productivos. El principal es su u~o En México, el uso de residuos de maíz como fuente de forraje en la estación seca es muy común, en especial a través del pastoreo en la parcela. La cantidad de residuos que se aprovecha es variable, aunque en general depende en gran parte de la presión ejercida por el ganado (intensidad y duración) y la existencia de otras fuentes de forraje (p.e. agostadero o cultivos forrajeros). En general, los residuos no son muy nutritivos como alimento animal y son más bien usados por necesidad. Esto es aún mas evidente si se compara el uso de residuos en zonas áridas con su uso en las zonas húmedas. En éstas últimas, generalmente existen mejores alternativas de forraje que los residuos, por lo que su uso es limitado. También el hecho de que el pastoreo del ganado sea relativamente selectivo refleja el bajo valor nutritivo de los residuos. En general, el ganado se come primero los elementos frágiles de los residuos (hojas y totomoxtle), dejando los elementos menos frágiles (caña) para el último.La quema es una práctica tradicional para eliminar los residuos (comúnmente denominados 'la basura '). En muchas áreas de México todavía es uno de los primeros pasos en la preparación del terreno para la siembra. Antes del ciclo de cultivo (que en general coincide con los finales de la época seca) se prende fuego a la biomasa seca de la parcela. Esta práctica se originó en los sistemas de roza, tumba y quema para deshacerse de las grandes cantidades de biomasa y aumentar la fertilidad disponible con la ceniza. No obstante, también en sistemas más sedentarios persiste la práctica, aun cuando las cantidades de biomasa ya sean mucho menores. Los productores siguentiemp03 y varios factores agroecológicos, como la humedad, la temperatura y la actividad biológica' en el suelo durante ese periodo. La naturaleza y el estado (fragilidad) de los residuos también son factores importantes que influyen sobre la rapidez/facilidad de la descomposición. Además de los procesos de descomposición, el desgaste también puede incluir elementos de erosión eólica e hídrica de los residuos. Esto puede ser importante en zonas con fuertes pendientes y/o vientos.En general, la suma de todos los posibles usos o destinos de los residuos no puede exceder la producción. Aunque teóricamente existe la opción de importar residuos a la parcela para formar un mantillo efectivo, esta opción en general no es viable económicamente a nivel de producción (Lal, 1989). También cabe señalar que estos usos (con excepción del mantillo) son irreversibles, aunque en sí no son mutuamente exclusivos. Por ejemplo, parte de los residuos puede ser utilizada para e¡' pastoreo (extracción productiva) y el resto podría incorporarse durante la preparación de la tierra. Por ende, el balance de residuos se puede formular coma:(3) P donde En ambientes cálidos y húmedos, el desgaste de los residuos entre los ciclos puede ser substancial. Sin embargo, en muchos ambientes mexicanos el desgaste está relativamente limitado por una combinación de factores. Por un lado, la distribución uni-modal de la precipitación en la mayoría de los ambientes implica un periodo seco largo y pronunciado (de hasta más de medio año). Sin embargo, e! desgaste está limitado durante esta época por la falta de agua. Por otro lado, en lugares más húmedos el tiempo entre los ciclos se reduce al tener la posibilidad de un segundo cultivo (p.e. de relevo). Además, el principal cultivo en México es el maíz y los residuos de maíz son poco frágiles relativamente, especialmente si se le cosecha manualmente.En los sistemas de labor en México es común el uso del barbecho (arado de disco) y la rastra (de discos). El barbecho es especialmente efectivo incorporando los residuos (80-90% según ACC y cnc, 1994), aunque varias pasadas con la ~astra también logran incorporar cantidades substanciales de residuos. quemando por varias razones. La principal razón es limpiar la parcela para facilitar• el resto de la preparación del terreno y la siembra. Esto es especialmente el caso en los sistemas manuales o de tracción animal, donde la incorporación de residuos es mínima, lo que subsecuentemente dificulta la siembra. Además, la quema también sirVe como control de plagas, enfermedades y malezas. En este respecto, la quema es un método de control de dos filos, ya que afecta directamente a los organismos (individuos o inóculo) y a su hábitat. Este último es particularmente importante en el control de plagas como los roedores.En los sistemas de labor, la preparación del terreno tradicionalmente implica el laboreo del terreno antes de la siembra. El principal propósito de este laboreo es dejar una cama de siembra limpia y homogénea, que facilite' la siembra y e! establecimiento del cultivo. Para lograr esto, se mezcla la parte superficial de! suelo y se incorporan los residuos presentes en la superficie. En los sistemas mecanizados, la incorporación puede ser substancial aunque la cantidad exacta depende en gran medida de las prácticas de labranza que se utilicen. En especial influyen los implementos lisádos, el numero de pasadas y la profundidad y rapidez de los labores (ACC y cnc, 1994). En general, los sistemas de tracción animal sí tienen algo de incorporación aunque de menor magnitud que en los sistemas mecanizados. En los sistemas manuales de cero labranza la incorporación es insignificante.En general, la quema es muy efectiva para deshacerse de los residuos. Sólo en casos con cantidades limitadas de residuos puede ser menos eficiente si el productor no se toma la molestia de juntarlos.Aun sin darles ningún uso específico, la cantidad de residuos disminuye a través del tiempo debido al proceso de desgaste. Este proceso es más que nada la descomposición de los residuos y es una función del P:producción; U E : extracción productiva; U Q : quema; U I : incorporación; UD :desgaste; U M : mantillo-.Este balance de residuos es particular de cada lugar porque tanto la producción como sus destinos son determinados por factores locales. Una complicación al determinar el balance de los residuos es que muchos de los destinos no se cosechan o miden habitualmente. Por consiguiente, algunas veces resulta dificil recopilar esta información de forma rápida. Sin embargo, existen varias técnicas que facilitan la medición de las cantidades de residuos. Dos métodos basados en observaciones de campo son el uso de fotografias con cantidades predeterminadas de residuos como referencia (p.e. Tripp y Barreto, 1993) Y la metodología de la línea de transecta (p.e. Shelton et al., 1994).Cabe destacar que el uso de residuos como mantillo siempre será residual. O sea, los otros usos/destinos en general determinan cuantos residuos sobran para su posible uso como mantillo. Anteriormente ya se vio que un mantillo necesita por lo menos 2 toneladas de residuos por ha para ser efectivo. Por lo tanto, podemos reorganizar la relación (3) para formular la siguiente condición para la conservación de residuos: (4) Si se satisface esta condición, se habrán conservado suficientes residuos como para formar un mantillo efectivo. Sin embargo, si no se satisface esta condición habrá que o aumentar la producción de residuos (P) o disminuir sus usos alternativos (¿:U) si se quiere formar un mantillo efectivo. A continuación revisaremos el potencial de estas opciones en términos generales, tomando en cuenta los posibles costos que implicaría para el productor. Cuanto más altos estos costos, más altos son los costos de oportunidad de los residuos como mantillo y menos atractiva será la adopción de la tecnología. Sin embargo, hay que resaltar que estos costos serán específicos para cada localidad.Aumentar la producción de residuos en primera instancia parece ser una opción que podría aumentar la posibilidad de satisfacer la condición de la conservación de residuos (4). Sin embargo, muchos de los usos están directamente relacionados con la cantidad total de residuos, como son la quema, la incorporación y el desgaste. Ceteris paribus, esto implicaría que un aumento en la producción resultaría también en un aumento de estos usos. Sólo en los casos 194 donde la extracción productiva es importante y de un nivel más o menos fijo (p.e. a través del pastoreo de la parcela) se podría aliviar la disponibilidad de residuos substancialmente al aumentar la producción. Por lo tanto, parece más prioritario disminuir usos como la quema y la incorporación primero.La promoción de la labranza de conservación en los sistemas de labor se ha enfocado en disminuir la incorporación. De allí también se originó el énfasis en la labranza• mínima y la labranza cero, que disminuyen substancialmente la incorporación de residuos en comparación con sistemas de labranza más intensivos. Una de las primeras metas al promover la labranza de conservación en los sistemas de labor es eliminar la práctica del barbecho.Disminuir el laboreo reduce substancialmente la incorporación de residuos. Además, puede generar un ahorro substancial de gastos en la preparación del terreno. Este puede ser uno de los mayores atractivos de la tecnología a corto plazo. Sin embargo, la reducción del laboreo también resulta en una cama de siembra más irregular cubierta con más residuos. La presencia de los residuos dificulta la siembra y la hace más tardía, tanto si es manual, con tracción animal ( 'tapa pie') o mecánica con sembradora convencional. Una sembradora directa soluciona este problema al poder sembrar a través de los residuos en un suelo no preparado (pero laborable). Sin embargo, hasta la fecha la disponibilidad de este tipo de maquinaria es relativamente baja en México, entre otras cosas por su elevado costo. Por lo tanto, la adopción de la labranza de conservación en los sistemas de labor en México ha estado orientada hacia los sistemas de labranza mínima. Esto tiene el inconveniente de que estos sistemas de labranza mínima todavía incorporan una parte substancial de los residuos (p.e. dos pasadas con rastra de discos podrían incorporar la mitad de los residuos presentes; ACC y cnc, 1994). Esto es especialmente problemático en las zonas de México donde la disponibilidad de residuos ya es limitada.Además, no es sólo el proceso de la siembra lo que se dificulta. Algunos cultivos simplemente no logran establecerse debajo de un mantillo de residuos del cultivo previo (p.e. garbanzo después de' maíz en Jalisco; Mendoza et al., 1992). Por lo tanto, el patrón de cultivo puede limitar la posibilidad de disminuir la incorporación. La falta de laboreo también puede generar problemas con las malezas perennes en los sistemas basados en cero labranza. Por otro lado, el no incorporar los residuos podría limitar el crecimiento de malezas si el mantillo es lo suficientemente grueso.La promoción de la labranza de conservación en los sistemas no laborables se ha enfocado en la eliminación de la quema de residuos. De hecho, la práctica de la quema es incompatible con la labranza de conservación, ya que ésta es tan eficiente deshaciéndose de los residuos que no deja los suficientes para un posible mantillo. Sin embargo, muchos de los productores asocian la incidencia de varias plagas del maíz (incluyendo plagas del suelo como la gallina ciega Phyllophaga spp., plagas de follaje como el gusano cogollero Spodoptera Fugiperda y roedores) con la no-quema de los residuos de maíz. El potencial para una mayor incidencia de plagas y enfermedades existe ya que la mayoría de las áreas de temporal en México tiene un patrón de cultivo de maíz -maíz continuo con un solo cultivo por año. Sin embargo, el dejar los residuos no sólo favorece las plagas y enfermedades dañinas, sino también a sus enemigos naturales y ayuda a establecer un nuevo equilibrio. De hecho, algunos estudios reportaron una incidencia igual o menor en algunas plagas (por ejemplo, una disminución en la incidencia del gusano cogollero según Violic, et al, 1989), mientras que otras aumentaron. Por lo tanto, todavía no está totalmente claro cómo el dejar los residuos como mantillo influye sobre los costos de control de estas plagas y enfermedades o el daño que causan.Algunos programas de labranza de conservación se han enfocado en dar incentivos y frenos para convencer a los productores de la no-quema. Por ejemplo, por un lado, el Gobierno del Estado de Chiapas ha estado distribuyendo incentivos como rociadoras de mochila, insumos y créditos para promover las prácticas de la no-quema. Por el otro, ha impuesto una ley que prohibe el uso de la quema en la preparación de la tierra (Cadena, 1995).Cabe resaltar que un productor dejará de quemar sólo si considera que los beneficios de la no-quema son mayores que los costos. Sin embargo, no es suficiente que el productor mismo se convenza de las ventajas de la no-quema y no queme sus residuos. Siempre que uno de sus vecinos siga quemando para preparar el terreno o regenerar la pastura, existe el riesgo de quemar accidentalmente el mantillo (es común oír en México que el productor no quemó pero que 'se pasó 195 la lumbre '). Por ende, si el productor quiere estar seguro de que sus residuos no se quemarán posiblemente tendrá que hacer inversiones adicionales en tiempo y esfuerzo para construir una guardarraya.Disminuir la extracción productiva de los residuos sólo es factible si el productor considera que los beneficios de no extraerla son mayores que los costos. Cabe destacar que como se trata de extracción productiva en general si existen verdaderos costos visibles al conservar los residuos. Además, se pueden distinguir varias posibilidades. Puede ser que el productor extraiga los residuos para su propio beneficio. En este caso, al reducir la extracción necesitará buscar alternativas de forraje o disminuir su hato. A primera vista esto no parece una opción muy atractiva.También puede ser que otros productores extraigan sus residuos. En este caso, los costos de disminuir la extracción dependen mucho del hecho de si los usuarios recompensarán al dueño. Es posible que la extracción sea gratuita. Por ejemplo, a través de un pastoreo comunal después de la cosecha, que es una práctica común en México y Centroamérica. Si es socialmente aceptable, el productor puede contemplar restringir el acceso de los animales a sus parcelas. Por ejemplo, cercando su parcela. Sin embargo, en este caso la necesidad de proteger sus residuos puede representar una barrera substancial de entrada en términos de costo.En otros lugares ya existe un mercado para los residuos de la cosecha, donde generalmente se vende la 'pastura' (los residuos) en pie. Los arreglos y precios son variables, dependiendo de la región (p.e. demanda y producción de residuos como forraje) y de los factores específicos de la parcela (p.e, la ubicación, el cercado, la disponibilidad de agua, la cantidad de residuos). En estos casos, los costos de disminuir la extracción de los residuos son especialmente obvios, ya que, en general, los productores tendrán que ceder la venta de los residuos. Esta es una limitación particularmente severa si los beneficios en relación a la venta de los residuos forman una parte substancial de la ganancia bruta (p.e. > 10%), como es el caso en algunas zonas semiáridas de México (p.e. la Mixteca oaxaqueña, Bravo et al.;1992).Cabe destacar que los arreglos de tenencia de la tierra en México generalmente también incluyen disposiciones respecto al destino de los residuos. Por lo tanto, puede ser imposible para un arrendador disminuir la extracción de residuos ya que ésta está completamente en los manos del dueño.Es dificil disminuir el desgaste ya que este proceso es autónomo y el resultado directo de las fuerzas de la naturaleza. El productor sí tiene la opción de influir algo en el proceso a través de la fragilidad de los residuos (p.e. la selección de cultivo; y método de cosecha) y el tiempo que están expuestos éstos al desgaste (p,e. la época de siembra). Sín embargo, parece que esta opción no genera grandes posibilidades para la conservación de residuos.En resumen, las opciones más realistas para poder satisfacer la condición de conservación de los residuos parecen ser la eliminación de la quema y la disminución de la incorporación (especialmente el barbecho en sistemas mecanizados). Ambas prácticas son muy eficaces en deshaciéndose de los residuos y por lo tanto, son incompatibles con la conservación de éstos. En México, la promoción de la labranza de conservación también enfatizó estos dos factores. Sin embargo, bien puede ser que aun con la no-quema y la labranza reducida no queden suficientes residuos como para formar un mantillo efectivo. En estos casos habrá que reducir la extracción productiva de los residuos, que en general parece ser una opción más costosa. El potencial de la tecnología en estos casos dependerá mucho del costo de oportunidad de los residuos como forraje. Las otras dos alternativas, aumentar la producción o disminuir el desgaste de los residuos, son relativamente menos promisorias.La clave de la labranza de conservación es el uso de los residuos como mantillo. Sin embargo, existe mucha confusión en relación al termino labranza de conservación, entre otras cosas por poner demasiado énfasis en la labranza. El laboreo es sólo uno de los factores que afecta la disponibilidad de los residuos en áreas tropicales. Por ende, la conservación de residuos parece un término más apropiado para estos ambientes.En México, la promoción de la labranza de conservación hasta la fecha enfatizó la no-quema y la no-inversión de suelo (el no barbechar). De hecho, estos dos factores son incompatibles con la '196 conservaclOn de suficientes residuos para formar un mantillo efectivo. Sin embargo, hay que destacar que para llevar a cabo la conservación de residuos es necesario ver todos sus usos en conjunto. O sea, no sólo la quema o el barbecho, sino también la extracción productiva, el total de la incorporación y el desgaste, además de la producción de residuos. El conjunto de usos alternativos y la producción se reúne en el balance de residuos. Este balance es particular para cada localidad así que es peligroso generalizar. Sin embargo, en el contexto mexicano, el balance de residuos por lo general no da mucho lugar a la conservación de residuos en zonas semiáridas. En estas zonas, los residuos generalmente son una importante fuente de forraje en la temporada seca, en tanto que la producción es limitada. Por ejemplo, en la región Mixteca (estado de Oaxaca), que es semiárida, Bravo et al. (1992) encontraron que la importancia de los residuos como forraje y el consecuente alto precio de los mismos representa una grave limitación para la conservación de residuos.Adys Pereira\\ Gustavo Sain,z y Yisela VilIarreal 3En 1983-84, lDlAP inició investigación y validación de la labranza de conservación en la zona de Azuero, recomendándose la chapia del terreno, la aplicación de un herbicida quemante y sembradoras de cero labranza. Este estudio se hizo en tres regiones maiceras de Azuero para estimar el grado de adopción de esta tecnología; identificar los factores que han incidido en la adopción y analizar sus implicaciones para los programas de investigación y transferencia. Se hizo una encuesta formal a 122 productores, con un muestreo estratificado por región y tamafio de parcela. Los resultados indican que el cambio tecnológico más importante ha sido la progresiva eliminación del arado y la reducción en el número de pases de rastra. En la Región l se encontraron niveles de adopción del 29% en cero labranza y de 37% en labranza mínima; en la Región 11 y 11I el nivel de adopción de la cero labranza ha sido muy bajo y 27% han adoptado la labranza mínima. Estas variaciones se explican por las diferencias regionales en los factores que inciden en la adopción. Los factores que influyeron positivamente son la accesibilidad o tenencia de maquinaria de cero labranza, el manejo o nivel de información que poseen los productores sobre la tecnologia, la tenencia de la tierra, la topografía plana del terreno y nivel de recursos de los productores, estimados a través de la superficie sembrada y el número de reses. Entre los factores que influyeron negativamente sobresalieron la tenencia de maquinaria convencional y la compactación del terreno.La producción de maíz en la Región de Azuero (que comprende las provincias de Herrera y Los Santos) se realiza a través de dos sistemas principales: el maíz mecanizado y el maíz a chuzo tradicional o de subsistencia, sembrada generalmente en áreas pequeñas caracterizado por un bajo uso insumos, escaso acceso al crédito y asistencia técnica.El sistema mecanizado objeto de este estudio puede caracterizarse de la siguiente manera: un sistema de producción con uso de insumos, maquinaria, semilla  DEL PRM 1993-1995, VOL. 5 (1997), p. 198-220. 198 certificada, un nivel tecnológico alto, generalmente reciben asistencia técnica, tienen acceso a financiamiento, un porcentaje considerado de productores alquilan terrenos para realizar las actividades y la producción se destina en su totalidad al mercado.En la región de Azuero el hectareaje sembrado de maíz bajo este sistema mecanizado, ascendió a 11,669 ha, en el último año agrícola 1994-95 que equivale a un 80% de la superficie total de maíz mecanizado a nivel nacional. Esta actividad involucra aproximadamente 600 productores, y genera ingresos brutos en el área por un monto estimado de 8.5 millones de balboas en concepto de pago de mano de obra, ganancias al productor y compra de insumos y servicios requeridos en el proceso de producción.A inicios de la década del 80, los productores comerciales de maíz de la Región de Azuero preparaban sus terrenos mecánicamente utilizando lo que denominaremos la labranza convencional, que consiste en voltear el suelo con un arado de disco o rastra pesada, a una profundidad de aproximadamente 6 pulgadas, y realizar dos o más pases de rastra o Semi Roma hasta dejar el terreno en condiciones para la siembra, (Pereira de Herrera y col. 1990).El cultivo de maíz mecanizado se realiza en terrenos planos, con pendientes menores a 20 0 , y con una precipitación promedio (período 80-93) anual de 975.0, con altas precipitaciones en meses como agosto y septiembre (102.4 y 123.6 mm, respectivamente) que corresponden a los períodos de siembra y primeros estadíos del cultivo de maíz. Uno de los principales problemas encontrados en los campos de los productores que utilizan la preparación del terreno de manera convencional es la fuerte erosión y lavado de los suelos.En términos generales la labranza de conservación, definida como un sistema o secuencia de operaciones que reduce la pérdida del suelo o del agua, en comparación al sistema convencional (Kilmer, 1982); incluye sistemas que van desde la labranza cero hasta la labranza reducida.Atendiendo a las bondades de la labranza de conservaclOn:de reducir la erosión, conservar humedad del suelo, reducir costos de producción y que presenta menos limitaciones al momento de la siembra; el IDIAP inició a partir de 1984-85 un programa de investigación y validación de la tecnología de cero labranza, la cual se describe a continuación. Se recomendó la utilización de una chapia mecánica o manual del terreno, la aplicación posterior de un herbicida quemante (por ej. Gramoxone a razón de 2 lt/ha) una vez que la maleza inicia su rebrote, y la siembra después con máquina sembradora de precisión adaptada a este sistema de preparación. Si la maleza no alcanza alturas mayores de 0.50 m, se debe aplicar el herbicida sin corte previo. La siembra también puede ser realizada a chuzo dependiendo del tamaño de la parcela. En parcelas con problemas de malezas de hoja ancha como la Baltimora recta (cirulaca) se puede evitar el chapeo, si dos a tres meses antes de la siembra se aplica 2-4-D a razón de 1-2 lt/ha.Por su parte, el Ministerio de Desarrollo Agropecuario, (MIDA) ha difundido entre los productores del área esta tecnología, a través de parcelas demostrativas y actividades de transferencia. Por otro lado, algunas casas comerciales han introducido para la venta desde mediados de la década del 80, máquinas sembradoras de precisión las cuales se adaptan al sistema de labranza de conservación.Se tiene conocimiento informal que existen productores que han adoptado la cero labranza tal como se describió anteriormente; otros han adoptado parcialmente la labranza mínima modificando o adaptando el sistema (por ejemplo eliminando el arado y disminuyendo el número de pases de Semi Roma o rastra); y se conoce también de productores que no han adoptado la tecnología.Lo anteriormente expuesto, argumentó la necesidad de efectuar un estudio de adopción de la labranza de conservación en la Región de Azuero Los objetivos planteados para este estudio fueron los siguientes: a) Identificar el grado de adopción de la cero y mínima labranza de conservación en maíz en la Región de Azuero. b) Identificar los factores que influyen en la adopción de la cero y mínima labranza en maíz; y 199 c) Analizar las implicaciones de este estudio para el programa de investigación y transferencia en maíz en la Región de Azuero.Para determinar los niveles de adopción de la labranza de conservación y los factores que inciden en este proceso en la Región de Azuero, se utilizó una metodología de análisis descriptivo y la aplicación de un modelo de decisiones que permite explicar sus factores determinantes. Para efectuar estos análisis se utilizaron datos empíricos de una encuesta formal aplicada a 122 productores de las principales áreas maiceras de la Región de Azuero, donde prevalece el sistema de producción mecanizado y la producción se destina en su totalidad al mercado.A pesar de que existen diferencias climatológicas y de suelo no tan marcadas a nivel de las áreas del estudio, se tiene conocimiento a priori de que existen diferentes condiciones particulares en las áreas, que han permitido un mayor o menor grado de adopción de la práctica de la labranza de conservación. Estas características pueden ser sintetizadas de la siguiente manera: la variación en los tipos de labranza utilizados, la caracterización del productor a nivel de los recursos productivos (tamaño de la parcela, de maíz y de la finca, tenencia de ganado, acceso a maquinaria, entre otros), acceso a la tecnología de conservación.De acuerdo a la ubicación política-regional de Panamá el estudio se realizó en ocho distritos de las provincias de Los Santos y Herrera y 50 localidades distribuidas a lo largo de la zona costera maicera, (tal como se observa en la Fig. l).Tomando en consideración las diferencias por área señaladas, se estimó conveniente estratificar la muestra a utilizar en este estudio. Se utilizó un muestreo estratificado, considerando tres grandes estratos o áreas. La región 1, que comprende a los distritos de Las Tablas, Pedasí, Pocrí y Guararé en la Provincia de los Santos contempló 28 localidades; la región 11 conformado por los distritos de Los Santos y Macaracas en la Provincia de Los Santos, incluyó 12 localidades; y en la región 11, formado por los distritos de Chitré y Parita en la Provincia de Herrera, se realizaron encuestas en 10 localidades, Fig. l.En cada estr~to o área se estratificó en base al tamaño de la parcela más grande de maíz cultivadas por el productor. Para la selección de la muestra se utüizaron distintos rangos de tamaño de parcela (0.1 -2.5; 2.6 -5.0; 5.1 -10.0; 10.1 -30.0; 30.1 -50.0; 50.1 -100.0 Y> de 100 ha).Para determinar el tamaño de la muestra en cada rango de tamaño de la parcela se utilizó la siguiente fórmula:Número total de productores en cada rango de tamaño de la parcela. B es igual al error de estimación del muestreo, el cual fue considerado en un 15% de la desviación estándar del tamaño de la parcela, para el caso de la región 11 y II; en tanto que, para la región III se utilizó un 25%, ya que las desviaciones eran muy altas, elevando demasiado el tamaño de la muestra en un estrato.La información del número de productores y tamaño de las parcelas de maíz y su distribución regional que fue suministrada por el MIDA, quien recopila la información de todos los productores integrados al mercado. El estudio se realizó con una encuesta formal a 122 productores distribuidos en los tres estratos de la siguiente manera: 52 encuestas en la región 1; 46 en la región 11; Y24 encuestas en la región III. Esta muestra utilizada representó a nivel general un 21% del total de productores o fincas maiceras que producen para el mercado en la región de Azuero.En el análisis de los datos de la encuesta se utilizaron indicadores de estadísticas descriptivas, correlaciones, regresiones (para la estimación de las curvas de difusión y adopción) pruebas de t, tablas cruzadas entre otras. Se utilizó además un modelo logístico multivariado de decisiones permite explicar la adopción y sus factores detelminantes.La estimación de la curva de difusión se efectuó utilizando una función logística, que supone que el comportamiento del porcentaje acumulado de adopción sigue una forma de S, con un incremento inicial lento en el uso de la tecnología, seguido de un incremento más rápido y luego una desaceleración a medida que el porcentaje acumulado de adopción se acerca al porcentaje máximo esperado. Matemáticamente se expresa así: La encuesta se realizó en marzo y abril de luego del cielo agrícola del maíz (n correspondiente al año agrícola 1993-94. 1994, coa) CARACTERIZACION DEL SISTEMA DE PRODUCCIONEl área donde se realizó el estudio se ubica en la zona costera ( distancia de aproximadamente 20 km. de la costa) de la Región de Azuero (provincias de Herrera y Los Santos), Fig. 1. De acuerdo a los análisis de suelo de algunas localidades seleccionadas en el área de estudio, los suelos van de ácidos a ligeramente ácidos (pH 5.6 a 5.9); y la textura en la mayoría de los casos, es franco arcilla arenoso. El contenido de P es variable observándose valores que van de 1.2 a 5.7 ug/ml; en general los suelos tienen muy baja toxicidad de aluminio y bajo contenido de materia orgánica. En general, esta zona se encuentra a una altitud entre 10 Y 40 msnm; y la precipitación pluvial promedio anual oscila entre 1000 a 1500 mm (de mayo a noviembre) En cuanto a la topografia de las parcelas de maíz evaluadas en el estudio, en su mayoría son planas (65%); sin embargo, aproximadamente un 35% de las parcelas descritas por los productores ubicadas como onduladas en la región 1 y n. En la región III, prevalecen mayormente los terrenos planos (79%).K / (1 + e -a-bl), Características del Sistema de Producción:dondc: Vt = porcentaje acumulado de agricultores que han adoptado la tecnología en un tiempo t. K ~~el tope superior de adopción. B= una constante, relacionada con la tasa de adopción; y a .~una constante, relacionada con el tiempo en que comienza la adopción.El porccntaje de K se determinó de forma independiente.Para calcular los parámetros a y b se utilizó una regreslOn de cuadrados mlmmos, utilizando observaCIones reales sobre Yt, y transformando la curva logístíca en:El sistema de cultivo utilizado por los productores de maíz de Azuero que producen para el mercado, es la siembra del maíz en n coa (septiembre), y seguidamente a la cosecha se pastoreari los rastrojos de maíz. Durante la 1 coa (con el inicio de lluvias) se mantiene el ganado en pastoreo hasta la preparación del terreno para la siembra del maíz nuevamente en n coa.Los datos de la encuesta confirman lo anterior. En las tres regiones estudiadas, arriba del 90% de las parcelas tenían el sistema pastoreo-maíz n coapastoreo. En la región n, se encontró un 10% de los productores que sembraron en 1 coa maíz u hortalizas. La caracterización del componente ganadero y la importancia del mismo dentro del sistema de pmducción de maíz, puede realizarse tomando como base indicadores tales como el hectareaje dedicado a ganadería y el número de reses.En general se observa que la ganadería es un componente importante en todas las regiones. Un alto si TESIS DE RESULTADOS EXPERIMENTALES DEL PRM 1993-1995. VOL 5 (19')7) porcentaje (arriba del 70%) de los productores de maíz en los tres estratos son ganaderos, dedicando en promedio entre 60 y 91 hectáreas de terreno, tanto propias como alquiladas. Prevalecen desde pequeños ganaderos (con posesión de menos de 15 reses) hasta los ganaderos, que tienen amba de 100 cabezas de ganado. Sr bien la ganadería es importante en las tres regiones, se puede concluir que en la Región 1, los ganaderos son más grandes. Se encontró en la región 1, promedios más altos en número de reses por productor, respecto al resto de las regiones (101 vs 61 y 74, respectivamente).La importancia del componente ganadero en el sistema de producción de maíz se refleja también, en los tipos de arreglos que los productores de maíz que alquilan realizan con los dueños de los terrenos; y en el uso que se le dan a los rastrojos.El estudio se realizó sobre la base de la parcela más grande sembrada de maíz. Con respecto a la tenencia de la tierra, se encuentran diferencias a nivel de las regiones. En la región 1, existe un mayor porcentaje de tierras alquiladas en comparación con las regiones JI y III, donde prevalecen las tierras propias, Fig. 2.El alquiler de estas parcelas se realiza generJ Imenle durante el ciclo del cultivo. ya que los dueil s de l:ls mismas son gener:llmente ganad~ros y eXIgen el uso del mstrojo.En todas las regi De • los productores de rnaíz que cultivan en tierras propias utiliznt los rast1:oj s para alimentar el ganado (más de un 85% Je los productores) y aquellos que no son ganaderos [quilan estos rastrojos. Por otro lado, un alto p rcentaje de los productores que siembran en terrenos alquilados (aproximadamente 75% para las re~i nes 1 y fI Y de 86% para la región III) no tienen derecho a utillzar los rastrojos de maíz, ya que generalmente los dueños de estas tierras son ganaderos. Esta situación se da aún cuando los productores tienen varios años de . Iquil r la misma parcela. Por ejemplo en la región 1, un 44% de los productores que alquilaron terrenos para culti ar maíz, tenían más de cuatro años de alquilar la misma parcela; porcentajes un poco menores se encuentran también en las regiones JI y III. Los resultados de la encuesta, revelan la importancia que tienen los rastrojos de maíz para la alimentación del ganado durante la crítica época seca. Las características de tenencia de la tierra están vinculadas con el número y tamaño de las parcelas utilizadas en el cultivo de maíz.Se encontró una diferencia marcada en las superficies totales sembradas de maíz a nivel de las regiones, así como en el número de parcelas utilizadas. Como puede apreciarse en el Cuadro 1, en la región I los productores siembran superficies más grandes en relación con los dos estratos restantes. En las áreas de Las Tablas, Pocrí, Pedasí y Guararé, la superficie promedio fue de 47.2 ha; en comparación con 15.9 y 16.6 ha en las regiones n y III, respectivamente.Se encontró una diferencia estadística significativa entre la superficie sembrada promedio de la región I y la correspondiente a las regiones n y III; no así entre las superficies de las regiones n y III Cuadro 1.De acuerdo a la Fig. 3 en la región 1, un 25% de los productores sembraron áreas menores a 5 ha; en tanto que para las regiones n y III estos porcentajes ascendieron a 50 y 46% respectivamente. Por otro lado, se encontró en la región 1, que cerca de un 20% de la muestra sembraron superficies mayores a 100 ha; en contraste con las regiones n y In que solamente reportaron un 4%.El hecho de que los productores de la reglon 1 siembren áreas más grandes los obliga a realizar la actividad productiva en varias parcelas, y en mayor medida alquiladas, comparadas con el resto de las regiones. Al respecto, en la región 1, el número de parcelas utilizadas es mayor que en el resto de las regiones.En las regiones n y III el cultivo de maíz se concentra en una o dos parcelas (78.3 y 62.4%, respectivamente), en tanto que, en la región 1, un 32.7% de los productores sembraron de 3 a 5 parcelas; y un 19% sembraron más de seis parcelas.La descripción de la preparaClOn del terreno realizada por los productores de maíz durante 1994 pennitirá caracterizar los métodos de labranza utilizados actualmente y comprender mejor el proceso de adopción de la cero y mínima labranza.Se encontraron diferencias marcadas a nivel de las regiones en estudio, los cuales se pasan a describir.A nivel de los distritos de Pocrí, Pedasí, Las Tablas y Guararé (Región 1), se encontró un 25% de los productores han adoptado la tecnología de cero labranza. Un porcentaje considerable de los productores (43%) han realizado adaptaciones al sistema de cero labranza que se transfirió, eliminando el arado, efectuando uno o dos pases de Semi Roma y aplicando un herbicida quemante. Esta fonna de preparación del terreno la denominaremos mínima labranza.Es importante destacar que solamente un 14% de los productores utilizan el arado y rastra y correspondió a una localidad muy específica del distrito de Guararé. Un 19% de los productores utilizó tres pases de Semi Roma, lo cual constituye un sistema muy similar a una labranza convencional, con la diferencia que no se utiliza el arado, Fig. 4 De acuerdo a los resultados de la encuesta, la tecnología de cero y mínima labranza que actualmente están utilizando los productores de maíz puede ser descrita de la siguiente manera. Los productores que utilizan tanto cero como mínima labranza aplican un herbicida quemante, generalmente Round-up o Gramoxone, aplicado por la mayoría de los productores en los primeros 15 días antes de la siembra, principalmente para el caso de Round-up .. Hay que anotar que la chapia mecánica que fue parte de la práctica recomendada, no es una práctica común entre los productores de maíz, independientemente del tipo de labranza utilizado. El período en que los productores realizan el o los pases de Semi Roma varía generalmente en un lapso de un mes y 15 días entre un pase y otro. No obstante, un grupo de productores (38%) de los que realizaron dos pases de Semi Roma efectuaron los mismos de manera seguida.  --------~---------------------  La siembra la realizan con una sembradora de ¡cero labranza, la cual a diferencia de la sembradora convencional utilizada en suelos preparados con arado o rastra pesada, posee discos corrugados que permiten la siembra en terrenos preparados bajo el sistema de cero o mínima labranza.También se utilizan sembradoras convencionales a las cuales se les han adaptado los discos. Un 70% de los productores entrevistados en la región 1 utilizaron la sembradora cero labranza o la convencional con discos adaptados, Cuadro 2.La mayoría de los productores manifestaron que tenían acceso a este tipo de sembradora tanto propia como alquilada, por lo que ésta no constituye una limitante de la adopción de la tecnología de cero labranza en este estrato.Paralelamente a los cambios en la preparación del terreno, se han dado los cambios en los tipos de sembradoras. Al respecto los productores de la región 1, cambiaron el uso de sembradoras de plato y las comerciales (John Deere 7,000 o Giraldi) por las sembradoras de cero labranza.Un 75% de los productores manifestaron que tenían cuatro o menos años de estar utílizando las sembradoras de cero labranza.Se encontraron diferencias marcadas en la preparación del suelo entre la región 1, y las regiones Il y III. En estas últimas regiones alrededor de un 45% de los productores continúan utilizando el arado de disco con uno o dos pases de rastra, tal como se aprecia en la Fig. 5; situacíón que se presentó muy esporádicamente en la Región 1. Es muy común también como forma de preparacíón del terreno el uso de la Semi Roma (dos y tres pases). Se observa una ligera tendencia a disminuir los pases de rastra en la región III versus la región Il (33% de los productores de la región III realizaron dos pases de Semi Roma en comparación con 20% para la región Il).En lo que respecta a los tipos de preparación objetos de estudios, como es la labranza de conservación, podemos hacer los siguientes señalamientos. Un 20% y 33% de los productores de la región Il y I1I, respectivamente, están utilizando la labranza mínima como ha sido definida (uno o dos pases de Semi Roma), Fig. 5. La cero labranza solamente la está realizando un 13% de los productores en los dos estratos. Como se analizará en el siguiente punto, este 205 porcentaje no es equivalente al de adopción de esta tecnología, ya que algunos de estos productores (con énfasis en la región Il), no han pasado por un proceso de uso de la labranza convencional, y luego una adopción de la cero labranza. Esta situación es diferente a la encontrada en la región 1, en donde todos los productores utilizaron la labranza convencional en períodos anteriores y luego pasaran a la cero labranza.Las modalidades en los tipos de preparación encontrados fueron los siguientes. En el caso del arado y varios pases de rastra, generalmente se dejan aproximadamente 15 días entre el arado y los dos pases de rastra seguidos.En otros casos, se encontró productores que realizan el arado y primer pase de rastra seguido, y luego en un período aproximado de 15 días realizan el segundo pase de rastra. Cuando los productores efectúan dos pases de Semi Roma, generalmente dejan un período de 15 días entre el primero y el segundo pase.No es muy común el uso de herbicidas quemantes, cuando los productores utilizan dos pases de Semi Roma, a diferencia de la región 1, donde el uso de la mínima labranza es acompañada del uso de herbicidas quemantes como Round-up o Gramoxone. Esto se explica, por una mayor presencia de las malezas, principalmente la pimentilla (Cyperus rotundus) en la Región 1, en comparación con la Il y III. Esto explica también el hecho de que los productores de las Regiones Il y III que preparan sus terrenos en cero labranza utilizan como herbicida quemante el Gramoxone y no Round-up, como se encontró en la Región 1.La forma de siembra y el uso de sembradoras vario considerablemente a nivel de las regiones. En los distritos de Los Santos y Macaracas (región Ir), encontramos un porcentaje considerable de productores (41 %) que utilizan el método de siembra a chuzo, y en menor medida en el distrito de Parita (región I1I). Por otro lado, se observa en los dos estratos que prevalece el uso de sembradoras de plato y convencional utilizadas mayormente en terrenos preparados bajo el sistema convencional, utilizando arado y rastra, Cuadro 2.Esto indica que la adopción de la mínima labranza en las regiones Il y I1I, no se ha dado en el uso de sembradoras de cero labranza, como es el caso de la región l. Incluso, aquellos productores que preparan sus terrenos bajo el sistema de cero labranza, realizan las siembras a chuzo. El uso de las sembradoras está vinculada a la disponibilidad de las mismas en el área.En esta parte del trabajo, se tratará de caracterizar el proceso de difusión de la te nología de mínima y cero labranza en las distinta regiones en estudio, y la construcción de las curvas de difusión.En la evaluación de la adopción de la labranza de conservación se considerarán como adoptadores de esta tecnología, a aquellos productores de maíz que han cambiado de un sistema de preparación tradicionalmente convencional (con utilización del arado y varios pases de rastras) al uso de la cero o mínima labranza. En este sentido se excluyen de la muestra a los productores que tradicionalmente han realizado la cero labranza, (uso de chapeo o herbicida quemante, y siembras a chuzo) y que nunca han utilizado la labranza mecanizada. Estos productores siempre han utilizado la cero labranza; por tanto, no pueden ser considerados como adoptadores, m tampoco como no adoptadores.Se investig' entre [os productores los cambios que habían realizado los productores en la preparación del suelo en los últimos seis años, sobre la base de que a partir de 1987-88 se da con mayor énfasis el proceso de difusión de la tecnología, a pesar de que los trabajos de validación se inician desde 1984-85.El proceso de cambio más importante y más dinámico se ha verificado en 1;, región 1. En este aspecto se encontró que un 70'>ó de los productores han efectuado cambios en la preparación del suelo en los últimos seis años.La mayoría (76%) de estos productores efectuaron los cambios en los últimos tres años, lo cual es un indicador del dinamismo de estos cambios en años recientes.. Los cambios más relevantes observados se refieren a la eliminación del arado, la reducción del número de pases de rastra o Semi Roma y la adopción de la labranza mínima o \"cero labranza\", Cuadro 3. Los niveles de adopción de la cero y mínima labranza en la Región 1 ascendieron a 29 y 37%, respectivamente.  En las regiones II y III , los cambios verificados no han sido tan dinámicos comparados con la región 1, ya que solamente alrededor de un 50% de los productores han cambiado sus métodos de preparación del suelo en los últimos seis años. La rapidez con que se han dado estos cambios ha variado un poco a nivel de las regiones II y III. Por ejemplo, en la región II, el 90% de los que han cambiado, lo han realizado en los últimos tres años; en comparación con la región III donde los cambios los han efectuado de 3 a 5 años atrás. Esto puede atribuirse a lo siguiente. La Región 11 corresponde a las áreas de Los Santos y Macaracas que están más cercanas a las áreas de la región 1 donde 207 el proceso de adopción ha sido más dinámico Esto se ha dado a pesar de que la transferencia o difusión de la tecnología ha sido más escasa en comparación con el resto de las regiones. Por otro lado, en el caso de Parita, que geográficamente está más alejado de la región 1 y II, se impulsaran estas tecnologías de conservaclOn, como parte de un programa de transferencia años atrás; sin embargo, no se han dado las condiciones de disponibilidad de sembradoras de cero labranza que permita avanzar en este proceso.En cuanto a los tipos de cambios en la preparación del suelo experimentados en las Regiones II y I1I, se puede señalar que los más relevantes se refieren a la eliminación del arado, y la incorporación de las Semi Romas, con uno o varios pases, Cuadro 4.Respecto a las tecnologías de la labranza de conservación, objeto de este estudio se obtuvo niveles de adopción de 17.4 y 20.8%, en la región 11 y III respectivamente, en el uso de la mínima labranza, principalmente con la utilización de dos pases de Semi Roma, Cuadro 4. Por otro lado, se encontró en las regiones 11 y III porcentajes muy bajos de adopción de la cero labranza, de 4% solamente. Este porcentaje de adopción es mucho menor que el porcentaje de productores que utilizan actualmente el sistema de cero labranza en la producción de maíz en estas regiones.Esto indica que, hay un grupo de productores ( 6) que realizan la cero labranza tradicional, es decir, uso de herbicidas quemantes o chapeo manual y siembras a chuzo sin haber sido sujetos de un proceso de cambio tecnológico de la labranza convencional a la cero labranza.Se encontró una ligera tendencia a incrementar los rendimientos d~las parcelas donde se adoptó la cero y mínima labranza, aunque no se tiene evidencia que los mismos obedecen al uso de la labranza de conservación. El rendimiento promedio entre productores que utilizaron la labranza de conservación ascendió a 76 qq/ha; en comparación con 64 qq/ha en aquellos productores que no adoptaron, Cuadro 6.Los niveles de adopción de la mínima y cero labranza son muy diferentes a nivel de las regiones estudiadas. En las Regiones 11 y III se ha adoptado parcialmente la mínima labranza, no así la cero labranza; en comparación con la Región I (Las Tablas, Pedasí, Pocri y Guararé) donde se ha dado un alto nivel de adopción de la mínima y cero labranza, Fig. 6 Lo anterior, permitió calcular las curvas de difusión de la labranza de conservación (cero y mínima) para la región 1, Fig. 7, Ypara las regiones 11 y I1I, Fig. 8 Para estimar la curva de difusión de la adopción de la labranza de conservación (mínima y cero) se utilizó la curva logística descrita en la sesión metodológica de este documento.Cuadro S. Utilización de insecticidas a la semilla de maíz entre adoptadores y no adoptadores de la labranza de conservación, Azuero, Panamá, 1994. Cuadro 6. Rendimiento promedio (tlha) de maíz, de adoptadores y no adoptadores de la labranza de conservación, Azuero, Panamá, 1994. La tecnología de cero labranza fue asociada inicialmente con la utilización de insecticidas comoo el tratamiento a la semilla, por la mayor presencia de plagas como la gallina ciega que podrían darse con la mayor cantidad de residuos en el suelo, y agudizado por los efectos del componente ganadero que caracteriza este sistema. Al respecto, el estudio demostró que no hay una asociación significativa en el uso de insecticidas del suelo entre los productores que adoptaron la cero y mínima labranza y aquellos que no adoptaron. Se observa en el Cuadro 5 que, del total de productores que utilizaron insecticidas el 47.27% fueron adoptadores de la labranza de conservación y el 52.73% no adoptaron; por lo que no hay una relación directa entre adoptadores y utilización de insecticidas.Otro de los aspectos que se relacionó con la tecnología de la cero labranza, fue la creencia de que el uso de esta tecnología podría disminuir a corto plazo los rendimientos. Al respecto, y contrariamente a lo considerado, el estudio demostró que hay diferencia significativa entre las medias de rendimiento de maíz de los productores que adoptaron la labranza de conservación y aquellos que no adoptaron, Cuadro 6.  -----------------------  -------------------------l   40 t --------------------------l 30 t-----------------=JII\"\"\"'--.,..------l 20 t------------~~<fIII!::---'2fI'C-'---------l 10 t-------::::::::;;;;:;;;o' ~7~=-----------  1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999  Respecto a la adopción de la cero labranza en la región I Fig. 6, a pesar de que los primeros trabajos de validación de la cero labranza, se inician en 1984-85, la encuesta demostró que la mayoría de los que han adoptado la cero labranza o la mínima labranza los han efectuado principalmente durante los últimos tres años con énfasis de 1990 en adelante). Esto ha permitido un aumento rápido de la curva de difusión de la labranza de conservación (cero y mínima) en estos años, Fig. 7.El comportamiento anterior se corrobora también con la información suministrada por la empresa COPAMA, distribuidora de sembradoras de maíz de cero labranza en Azuero, quien señaló que a partir de 1990 en adelante se vendieron en la Región de Azuero un total de 6 máquinas por año. Asumiendo el modelo logístico de la adopción, expresado en la Fig. 7, es de esperar un fuerte aumento en el uso de estas alternativas tecnológicas de conservación (cero y mínima) en el corto y mediano plazo. adopción de la labranza de conservaclOn, es mucho más lenta en el mediano y largo plazo, comparativamente con la Región 1, Fig. 8.En el análisis de la adopción de la labranza de conservación es importante analizar quienes recomendaron la tecnología al productor, es decir, a través de qué mecanismo se difundió la misma.Hay que partir señalando que la tecnología transferida inicialmente por parte del IDIAP y MIDA correspondió a la cero labranza; sin embargo, en la práctica los productores han realizado adaptaciones, que hemos denominado minima labranza. En la encuesta se investigó sobre los entes que participaron en la difusión de la tecnología tanto de cero como de mínima labranza. En lo que respecta a las regiones 11 y III Ytomando como base la curva de difusión de la labranza de conservación, Fig. 8, se espera una adopción más rápida de la mínima labranza, en relación con la cero labranza. Esto está vinculado en gran medida con la poca disponibilidad de sembradoras de cero labranza en esa área. Sin embargo, la dinámica del proceso de Se encontró una marcada diferencia a nivel de las Regiones. En la I y III se ha dado una mayor difusión de la tecnología. Un 65. 4  Lo anterior tiene su explicación en el hecho de que en la Región 1 y III las instituciones de investigación y extensión del sector público (MIDA e IDIAP) desarrollan un programa de extensión de esta tecnología a los productores, a través de diferentes tipos de eventos, tales como: parcelas demostrativas, giras de campo y charlas tanto para técnicos como para productores. En la Región II, no se dio por parte de estas instituciones un programa de transferencia, es por esto que aquellos que reportaron que conocían la tecnología, señalaron que se las había recomendado otro productor. En la región 1, a pesar del esfuerzo institucional inicial, se dio una participación significativa de los productores en la transmisión de los conocimientos sobre la nueva tecnología (58.8%), Cuadro 7.Un factor importante que influyó positivamente en la transferencia de la tecnología en estas áreas se refiere al hecho de que quienes inician el proceso de cambio hacia la cero o mínima labranza correspondió en gran medida a productores líderes en esa zona. Estos productores generalmente grandes, son los que inicialmente introducen las sembradoras cero labranza y quienes también alquilan maquinaria agrícola, ejerciendo una influencia sobre el resto de productores de maíz.En la Región III, a diferencia de la 1, a pesar de que se dio un proceso de transferencia de la tecnología, los productores líderes y dueños de maquinaria no han adoptado la cero labranza, y por lo tanto no han influido sobre el resto de productores.Se investigó sobre las opiniones expuestas por los productores en tomo al por qué han cambiado los métodos de preparación del suelo. En la región 1, las razones señaladas por los productores como explicativas del uso de la cero y mínima labranza, se presentan en la Fig. 9.En opinión de los productores el principal factor (46% de las respuestas) que los ha inducido al uso de la cero o mínima labranza corresponde a la reducción de costos, respecto a la labranza convencional. La reducción de costos de producción/ha utilizando la cero o mínima labranza, varía dependiendo del método o forma de preparación, es decir, del número de pases de Semi Roma y del tipo de herbicida quemante utilizado, principalmente. La preparación del terreno utilizando herbicida Ro\\}nd-up, implica una reducción de costos en comparación con la labranza convencional de aproximadamente B/.50.00/ha. Esto representa una disminución alrededor del 8% de los costos totales de producción.El uso de la labranza mínima con un pase de Semi Roma y aplicando posteriormente el Round-up, disminuye los costos de preparación respecto a la labranza convencional en aproximadamente B/.32.00/ha. Es importante destacar la importancia que asignan los productores a los efectos inmediatos o de corto plazo que tiene la tecnología de mínima o cero labranza, respecto a los de largo plazo como es la conservación del suelo y que constituye una de las principales ventajas del uso de esta tecnología.Solamente, un 26% de las respuestas de los productores correspondieron a factores de conservación del suelo, específicamente razones vinculadas con la disminución de la pérdida del suelo, al utilizar la cero o mímima labranza en comparación con la labranza convencional.El hecho de que los productores le dan mayor importancia a la reducción de costos, sobre aspectos de conservación de suelos, está vinculado con la tenencia de tierra en esta Región, donde un porcentaje considerable (48%) de las mismas son alquiladas durante el ciclo del cultivo.Una de las razones indicadas en menor medida por los productores como explicativas del por qué están utilizando la cero o mínima labranza, correspondió a un control más efectivo de las malezas. El uso de la labranza convencional o de la Semi Roma en campos infestados de pimentilla (Cypems Rotundus) incorpora y disemina la misma, permitiendo una acentuación del problema.Mientras que, en el sistema de cero labranza, al no preparar el suelo y aplicar el Round-up, se, obtiene un bajo porcentaje de germinación de la misma, y después de varios años de usar este sistema se reduce considerablemente la pimentilla.A pesar de que en la Región II y lIJ los niveles de adopción fueron bajos y por lo tanto la cantidad de respuestas también; se investigó a aquellos que habían realizado cambios en la preparación del suelo. El comportamiento de los productores en estas Regiones fue diferente a la Región 1. Se encontró un mayor porcentaje de respuestas señal:ando la conservación de los suelos como razón para realizar las disminuciones en las labores de preparación del suelo en las Regiones II y lIJ.En estos estratos arriba de un 70% de las parcelas utilizadas son propias, además son productores con áreas de producción más pequeñas y con mayores limitaciones de recursos que los productores de la Región 1. Esto definitivamente que lleva a tomar una mayor conciencia por parte de los productores de la necesidad de conservar el recurso tierra.Por otro lado, hay una clara identificación de las ventajas que ofrece la mínima y cero labranza a corto plazo, al reducir los costos de producción respecto a la labranza convencional.Mejor control de maleza Figura 9. Opiniones de los productores sobre el por qué utilizan bl mínima o cero labranza en malz, Región 1 , Azuero, Panamá.En la Región 1, el pequeño grupo de productores que no efectúan la cero o mínima labranza señalaron como factores explicativos los siguientes: el desconocimiento de la tecnología (26%); problemas con el terreno (26%), y la poca disponibilidad de sembradora apropiada para esta tecnología (27%), aunque este último factor fue señalado en un área muy específica más cercana a la Región JI que al resto de las áreas de la Región 1.Es importante señalar que la encuesta permitió detectar también la desadopción o los problemas confrontados por los productores en el uso de la tecnología de cero labranza. Se encontró que un mínimo porcentaje de los productores de la Región 1 (7.7%), reportaron que había confrontado algún problema al utilizar la cero labranza, principalmente con el tipo de terreno. Estos productores generalmente pasaron de la cero a la mínima labranza.El análisis de las razones de por qué no utilizan la cero o mínima labranza es de mayor importancia en las Regiones JI y I1I, donde fue menor el porcentaje de adopción. Al respecto, y tal como se aprecia en el Cuadro 8 el factor más importante (alrededor del SO% de las respuestas) corresponde a la falta de sembradoras de cero labranza en el área. Al respecto se encontró que el 72 y 88% de los productores de la Región 11 y I1I, respectivamente, no tienen acceso a sembradoras cero labranza en el área.Otro factor importante señalado en la región JI, se refiere al desconocimiento de la tecnología.. De las tres regiones estudiadas, en el ésta no se dio un proceso de transferencia dirigido de esta tecnología por parte de las instituciones vinculadas al sector agropecuario.Un aspecto que merece atención se refiere también al factor señalado en la región I1I, donde a pesar de que se dio un proceso de transferencia de esta tecnología por parte del MIDA, los productores no han adoptado porque disponen de maquinaria de preparación convencional (incluyendo las sembradoras), y por lo tanto no han cambiado el método. Un 20% del total de respuestas de esta región plantearon que tenían maquinaria convencional, Cuadro 8.Se analizan individualmente los factores que han incidido en la adopción de la cero y mínima labranza en Azuero. La elección de los factores se realizó en base al conocimiento del proceso de adopción en esta zona y los factores reportados por la literatura en este tipo de estudio.Los distintos factores que han influido en la adopción de la labranza de conservación pueden agruparse en tres grupos: La fonna de tenencia de la tierra es un factor que puede influir en la adopción de tecnologías como la labranza de conservación las cuales tienen efectos a largo plazo sobre la calidad y conservación del suelo. Se debe esperar que aquellos productores que tienen posesión sobre la tierra pueden estar mayonnente interesados en adoptar tecnologías que a mediano o largo plazo conserven el recurso tierra; en comparación con aquellos productores que alquilan tierras durante el ciclo del cultivo.El análisis individual de esta variable, tomando como base los datos de la encuesta, no demostró sin embargo, una asociación importante con la adopción de la labranza de conservación. La explicación de este resultado puede atribuirse al hecho de que en la Región 1 donde se ha dado un mayor grado de adopción un porcentaje considerable de productores alquilan terrenos, en comparación con las otras dos regiones donde el porcentaje de adopción ha sido menor y los productores son mayonnente propietarios de sus tierras.No obstante, entre las razones expuestas por los productores de por qué han adoptado la cero o mínima labranza, se encontró un mayor porcentaje de productores propietarios que señalaron la conservación de suelos; en comparación con aquellos productores que alquilan terrenos. va a estar afectada negativamente por la tenencia de maquinaria convencional. La probabilidad de adoptar la tecnología de labranza de conservación debe ser muy baja entre productores que ya poseen maquinaria convencional; en comparación con productores que no disponen de estas maquinarias.En el análisis individual de estas variables y su nivel de asociación con la adopción de la labranza de conservación se encontró una relación positiva altamente significativa en la prueba de Chi-Cuadrado entre los niveles de adoptadores y el acceso a sembradoras de cero labranza, Cuadro 9.Por otro lado, y consecuentemente con 10 esperado, se obtuvo también una relación significativa entre la tenencia de maquinaria convencional y la no adopción, Cuadro 10.Las dos variables sjguientes se han tomado como indicadores del nivel de recursos, riqueza o ingresos que tiene el productor. Generalmente los productores con mayores niveles de recursos, pueden ser los primeros en adoptar tecnologías como la de labranza de conservación. Cuadro 9. Disponibilidad y acceso de sembradoras cero labranza y niveles de adopción de labranza de conservación, Azuero, Panamá, 1994.El grado de compactación del terreno es un factor que puede influir negativamente en la adopción de tecnologías que implican no remover el suelo, como es la cero labranza. El promedio de reses/ha, como indicador de la compactación del terreno, fue ligeramente superior entre los no adoptadores respecto a los adoptadores; sin embargo, en la prueba de medias no fue significativa. Cuadro 10. Tenencia de maquinaria convencional y niveles de adopción, de la labranza de conservación, Azuero, Panamá, 1994.La adopción de la tecnología de la labranza de conservación implica la necesidad de contar con sembradoras apropiadas a este sistema; y por otro lado, 214 Los productores con mayor recursos son generalmente también los mayormente integrados al mercado, los que tienen mayor acceso a los créditos, los que están más dispuestos a asumir riesgos y tienen un criterio más empresarial. Estos son factores que pueden influir positivamente en la adopción de nuevas tecnologías como la labranza de conservación, cuyos efectos inmediatos de reducción de costos de producción, es uno de los aspectos priorizados en estos tipos de productores, al momento de incorporar nuevas tecnologías.Esto implica el uso de una nueva maquinaria sembradora o la compra de discos especiales para adaptar a las sembradoras convencionales.Cuadro 13. Acceso a información y niveles de adopción de la labranza de conservación, Azuero, Panamá, 1994.Adoptadores No Adoptadores Tienen (%) Los resultados obtenidos son consistentes con las diferencias regionales encontradas en el proceso de adopción de la cero y mínima labranza. Por ejemplo en la Región I1I, a pesar de que hubo un proceso de transmisión de conocimientos o información, no se dio adopción de cero labranza, ya que otros factores como la no accesibilidad a sembradoras cero labranza ejercieron mayor influencia en la adopción.Las variables consideradas en este punto corresponden a la cantidad de ganado que posee el productor y la superficie sembrada de maíz. La comparación de medias de estas variables entre los adoptadores y no adoptadores, utilizando los datos empíricos, demuestran 10 siguiente. Tal como se esperaba, entre productores de mayores recursos económicos (mayor cantidad de reses y mayores superficies sembradas) se ha dado mayor adopción que entre productores de menores recursos. Se encontró una diferencia estadístic~significativa entre la superficie total promedio sembrada de maíz de los adoptadores, comparado con los no adoptadores, Cuadro 11. De igual manera, la cantidad de reses promedio de los adoptadores fue diferente estadísticamente al 11 %, al promedio de reses que poseen los no adoptadores, Cuadro 12. c)No tienen (%) Un factor muy importante que influye en la adopción de una determinada tecnología se refiere al nivel de información o conocimiento que tiene el productor sobre esta tecnología. Se espera una relación directa entre el manejo de la información de la labranza de conservación y el nivel de adopción de esta tecnología.El análisis individual de esta variable con los niveles de adopción, tomando como base los datos de la encuesta, señala que hay una relación positiva entre el acceso que tuvo el productor a la información sobre la tecnología de cero labranza y los niveles de adopcíón (probabilidad al 15%), Cuadro 13.Se analizan los efectos simultáneos de los factores que afectan la decisión de adopción, así como de otros factores que pueden afectar la decisión de adoptar la labranza de conservación.Para medir estos efectos simultáneos se utilizó un modelo logístico multivatiado, el cual se expone a continuación:El modelo incluye variables relacionadas con las características de la parcela de maíz y la finca en general, asi como las vinculadas con los recursos o ingresos del productor y algunas características del productor como es el manejo de la información. Un resumen de las estadísticas básicas de la muestra de cada una de las variables utilizadas en el modelo logístico se detalla en el Cuadro 14.La descripción de las variables del modelo arriba descrito, se realiza seguidamente.ADOPCIÓN: La adopción de la labranza de conservación fue medida como aquellos productores que utilizaron la mínima o cero labranza (tal como ha sido definida en este documento) en el ciclo agrícola 1993-94; y que cambiaron el método de preparación del suelo en los últimos seis años. Este cambio se refiere al reemplazo del sistema convencional de preparación del suelo (principalmente arado y rastra) por el sistema de mínima o cero labranza. Esta definición de adoptadores implica que los productores que durante el ciclo 1993-94 utilizaron la cero labranza tradicionalmente, pero que no han sido sujetos de un proceso de cambio en el sistema de preparación, son excluídos de la muestra.Parcela y de la Finca.TENENCIA: Esta variable asumió el valor de 1 cuando la parcela más grande de maíz era propiedad del productor; y de Ocuando correspondía a otra forma de tenencia (alquilada, principalmente).TOPO: La topografia de la parcela fue considerada en el modelo como un factor que puede influir en la decisión de adoptar la labranza de conservación. Esta variable tomó el valor de 1 cuando la topografia de la parcela era plana, y de O cuando la parcela era ondulada o muy inclinada. Esto respondió al hecho de que es de esperar que en las áreas más planas se ha dado una mayor incorporación del sistema de labranza convencional, y con ello un mayor problema de lavado del suelo y erosión por exceso de laboreo.COMPACT: Esta variable refleja el grado de compactación del terreno. Fue medida como la cantidad de reses que posee el productor/total de hectáreas sembradas de maíz. Este es un indicador de la presión de pastoreo a que está sujeta la parcela.DISPSEMBCERO: La disponibilidad o acceso a sembradoras aptas para sembrar bajo el sistema de cero labranza fue un factor evaluado en el modelo. Esta variable tomó el valor de 1 cuando había accesibilidad o disponibilidad de sembradoras en cero labranza, en el área donde estaba ubicada la parcela, en tanto que, es O cuando no hay disponibilidad. Esta variable incluye tanto las sembradoras de cero labranza, así como las sembradoras convencionales con discos adaptados para siembras en cero labranza. La adopción de la labranza de conservación requiere la disponibilidad de sembradoras.MAQCERO: Variable cualitativa que refleja la tenencia por parte del productor de sembradora de cero labranza y de Semi Roma asumiendo el valor de 1 cuando es propietario y O cuando no tiene esta maquinaria.MAQCONV: Esta variable se refiere a la tenencia de maquinaria de preparación y siembra convencional, específicamente el arado, y sembradora convencional. La variable tomó el valor de 1 cuando el productor era propietario de alguna de esta maquinaria y de O cuando no tenía propiedad sobre estas maquinarias. Por 10 tanto, debe esperarse una relación negativa entre la propiedad de maquinaria convencional y la decisión de adoptar la cero labranza.LN RESES: Logaritmo natural de la cantidad de reses que tiene el productor de maÍZ. Se espera que la posesión de ganado, como un indicador de recursos del productor, tenga una relación positiva con la decisión de adoptar la tecnología de labranza de conservación.LNSUPTOPRO: Esta variable está constituida por la interacción de la superficie total sembrada de maíz y la tenencia de dicha superficie. La variable se constituyó de la siguiente manera: LNSUPTOPRO = (logaritmo natural de la superficie total sembrada de maíz) * (variable cualitativa de tenencia, igual a 1 cuando la superficie era propia, y O para otros tipos de propiedad).c)INFORMA: Esta variable cualitativa asumió el valor de 1 cuando el productor ha tenido acceso a la información de la tecnología de labranza de conservación, y O cuando no ha tenido. El acceso a la información se refiere al hecho de si el productor recibió la recomendación de la tecnología, ya sea de parte de las instituciones de investigación y extensión que promovieron dicha tecnología, así como de otros productores.Los parámetros estimados del modelo de adopción de la labranza de conservación se presentan en el Cuadro 15. En términos generales, el modelo logístico estimado para los datos fue significativo (prob=O.OOOl) de acuerdo a la prueba de \"Likelihood Ratio Chi-Square\". Esto significa que las variables seleccionadas explican o influyen en la decisión de adoptar la labranza de conservación. Cinco de las nueve variables explicativas de la adopción fueron significativas al nivel del 5% o menos (Cuadro 15). En cuanto al tipo de relación de estas variables con la decisión de adopción, reflejada en los signos de los coeficientes, se puede señalar que fueron satisfactorios. Con excepción de la variable LNSUPTO PRO, todas la demás tienen los signos esperados.A nivel de las variables individuales, se observa que las vinculadas con la accesibilidad o tenencia de maquinaria tanto de cero labranza como convencional, influyen de manera muy significativa (Prob. de 0.01 o menos) en la decisión de adoptar la labranza de conservación. Este comportamiento era esperado ya que por un lado, la accesibilidad a la maquinaria de cero labranza es básica en la adopción de esta tecnología; y por otro lado, para los propietarios de maquinaria convencional como el arado y sembradora, la adopción de la labranza de conservación representaría una tecnología muy costosa.Cuadro 14. Estadísticas descriptivas de las variables utílízadas en el modelo de adopción de la labranza de conservación en Azuero, Panamá, 1994. La variable tenencia también fue significativa en el modelo tal como lo reporta la literatura, se encontró una relación directa significativa entre la propiedad de la parcela de maíz y la adopción de prácticas de conservación (cuyos efectos principales pueden medirse a mediano o largo plazo) como la mínima o cero labranza. Variables que caracterizan la parcela como la topografia del terreno y la compactación fueron significativas solamente al 15%. Se obtuvieron las relaciones esperadas.En la variable LN RESES utilizada como indicador de los ingresos o recursos del productor, se obtuvo la relación positiva esperada; sin embargo, no fue significativa. Otra de las variables indicativas de recursos, LNSUPTOPRO, a pesar de que fue significativa al 3% mostró un signo negativo no esperado.Se corroboró la relación positiva entre el manejo de la información de la cero labranza y la adopción de esta tecnología. No obstante, no fue significativa esta relación. CONCLUSIONES l. Las formas actuales de preparación del suelo y la siembra del maíz varían considerablemente a nivel de las regiones maiceras estudiadas. El proceso de cambio tecnológico en estos componentes en los últimos años, también ha sido diferenciado. En general, a nivel de las tres regiones el cambio más importante lo ha constituido el proceso hacia la progresiva eliminación del arado y la reducción en el número de pases de rastra. En el caso de la Región 1, el otro cambio importante ha correspondido al uso de herbicidas quemantes, sin labores previas al suelo y la siembra con sembradoras para suelos no preparados, conocida como cero labranza. Esta última práctica que fue la tecnología transferida por IDIAPIMIDA inicialmente, ha sufrido adaptaciones por parte de los productores. La más importante ha consistido en la realización de uno o dos pases de Semi Roma, seguido de la aplicación de un herbicida quemante y posteriormente la siembra con maquinaria de cero labranza o convencional, y a la cual denominamos mínima labranza.2. Los grados de adopción de la cero o mlmma labranza, definida en este estudio como labranza de conservación, han variado significativamente a nivel de las regiones. En la Región 1 se encontraron niveles de adopción del 29% en cero labranza y de 37% en labranza mínima; en tanto que, en la Región II y III el nivel de adopción de la cero labranza ha sido muy bajo, y en un porcentaje considerable (27%) han adoptado la mínima (principalmente con dos pases de Semi Roma).3. Las variaciones en los grados de adopción de la labranza de conservación encontrados a nivel de las regiones son explicadas principalmente por las diferencias regionales en los diferentes factores que inciden en el proceso de adopción. Los factores que influyeron positivamente en la decisión de adoptar la labranza de conservación correspondieron a la accesibilidad o tenencia de maquinaria de cero labranza; el manejo o nivel de información que poseen los productores sobre la tecnología; la tenencia de la tierra; la topografia plana del terreno y los mayores recursos de los productores medidos a través de indicadores como la superficie sembrada y el número de reses. Entre los factores que influyeron negativamente en la decisión de adoptar la labranza de conservación, sobresalieron la tenencia de maquinaria convencional y la compactación del terreno.4. La creencia de que la práctica de la mínima o cero labranza, en comparación con la labranza convencional, va asociada con un mayor uso de insecticidas (por la mayor presencia de insectos del suelo, como la gallina ciega), fue descartada. De igual manera, se corroboró que los rendimientos a corto plazo no son afectados negativamente por el uso de la labranza de conservación.5. Aunque los productores reconocen la participación que ha tenido el MIDA e IDIAP en el proceso de transferencia de la tecnología de labranza de conservación, el estudio demostró que el mecanismo que más se utilizó en la transmisión de esta tecnología fue la de productor a productor.6. Las razones expuestas por los productores como explicativas del uso de la mínima y cero labranza corresponde a la reducción de costos de producción, conservación de los suelos y un mejor control de las malezas.7. Del estudio de adopción efectuado se desprenden algunas implicaciones a nivel de investigación. Por un lado, la consideración de un grupo de productores de que no efectúan la cero labranza por problemas del terreno, los cuales pueden estar asociados también con un mayor nivel de compactación del suelo, sugiere la necesidad de investigar con mayor detalle los suelos y los niveles de compactación de los mismos, en las parcelas de maíz de estos productores identificados. Esta permitirá caracterizar las limitaciones reales que el tipo y manejo de suelo tienen sobre las utilización de la cero labranza. La caracterización adecuada de estos aspectos ayudaría a evaluar mejor el futuro potencial de la cero labranza en la zona y sobre todo analizar con más elementos la posibilidad de que los productores que realizan actualmente la mínima labranza cambien a la cero labranza. 8. Otro de los componentes que merece efectuar investigación de acuerdo a los resultados encontrados, se refiere al componente de malezas (principalmente la ll'pCl\"IIS m/ll/u/us) y la vinculación con el uso de la labranza de conservación, utilizando aquellos productores que reportaron que utilizaron esta tecnología, para obtener un mejor control de malezas. 219 9. Del estudio se desprende también la necesidad de investigar los efectos a través del tiempo, del uso de la cero labranza sobre la conservación de los suelos, medido a través de los cambios en rendimientos y algunos parámetros de propiedades del suelo. En este sentido los resultados del estudio de adopción constituirían el punto inicial o la base de la investigación de medición de los efectos de la labranza a largo plazo. 10. Las principales implicaciones del estudio en materia de transferencia y extensión, diferenciadas por regiones son las siguientes: a) En la Región II se requiere un mayor esfuerzo de transferencia a los productores de la tecnología de cero y mínima labranza, ya que poseen un alto potencial para la adopción de este sistema. Por ejemplo: son en su mayoría propietarios de sus tierras; un porcentaje considerable siembran a chuzo (10 que no les crea dependencia de la disponibilidad de las sembradoras de cero labranza para la adopción de la tecnología); un gran porcentaje desconoce la tecnología; los suelos son más inclinados en comparación con las otras áreas; y finalmente, prevalecen los productores que todavía realizan la labranza tradicional, es decir, no practican o no han entrado a la era de la mecanización, aunque, la cercanía a la Región 1 los expone a esta tecnología mecanizada, y a un mayor dinamismo en este proceso. b) En la Región 1 y II se hace necesario continuar con el programa de extensión de la tecnología de cero labranza, con miras a dirigir el proceso de cambio del uso de la mínima hacia la cero labranza. De igual manera, debe hacerse énfasis en la extensión de otros aspectos vinculados con la labranza de conservación, como por ejemplo el manejo del suelo y de los residuos, de tal manera que los productores se sensibilicen de las ventajas e importancia a más largo plazo, de la labranza de conservación, y no la vinculen principalmente con efectos a corto plazo como es la reducción en los costos de producción.Los autores agradecen el apoyo brindado por el Ing. Miguel Sarmiento en la selección de la muestra. Agradecen también la colaboración de los ingenieros Nivaldo De Gracia y Raúl González y de los agrónomos Andrés González y Jorge Franco, técnicos del Programa de Maíz del IDIAP, Azuero; en la aplicación de las encuestas a los productores de maíz.Cristina Choto l , Gustavo Sain 2 y Tito Montenegro l RESUMEN Entre 1961 Y 1980 la producción y el rendimiento de maíz creció a tasas superiores al 3%, mientras que entre 1981 y 1991 la tasa de crecimiento de la producción cayó a 1.5%. Vn factor importante en este estancamiento fue la disminución en el uso de variedades mejoradas de maíz. Vn factor ligado al uso de híbridos es la política de crédito a los pequeños agricultores. Los beneficios de crédito ágil para la compra de semilla híbrida y otros insumos se pueden percibir si se considera que un incremento del 10% en la superficie cultivada con híbridos produce un impacto igual en la productividad. Además, la alta rentabilidad a nivel de finca de la semilla mejorada, permitiría otorgar créditos a precios reales y no subsidiados. Como resultado de la contracción de la demanda, la producción total de semilla certificada decreció durante el período 1980-92 a una tasa anual del 4.8%. A comienzos de los 80's la producción nacional de semilla osciló entre 3,000-3,500 ton anuales, mientras que en los 90's esta misma fluctuó entre 2,200-2,400 ton por año. De hecho, los agricultores están usando más semilla de híbridos de generaciones avanzadas que antes. La crisis también cambió la industria semillerista, donde los pequeños agricultores perdieron participación en el mercado en favor de empresas más grandes. Los productores grandes de semillas manejan el 45% del volumen total producido, mientras que el 55% restante se distribuye entre 13 productores donde sobresalen las cooperativas de pequeños productores.El maíz es el alimento más ímportante en la dieta del pueblo Salvadoreño. Por esta razón, la autosuficiencia en este alimento básico ha sido una de las prioridades para el Gobierno de El Salvador a través de la historia contemporánea.La producción de maíz en El Salvador es la más tecnificada y con mayor productividad de la tierra en toda la región centroamericana. Los rendimientos promedios a nivel nacional superan a los obtenidos en los demás países del istmo. La base para esta superioridad sobre el resto de las naciones centroamericanas descansa en parte en la amplia I Investigadores de la Unidad de Socioeconomía del CENTA, El Salvador; 2 Economista Regional para Centro América y El Caribe, CIMMYT. DEL PRM 1993-1995, VOL.5 (1997), p. 221-235. 221 difusión que han tenido los materiales híbridos. El Salvador es el único país de Mesoamérica en donde la mayor parte de la superficie cultivada con maíz por pequeños agricultores se realiza utilizando materiales híbridos (López-Pereira y Espinosa Calderón, 1993).Sin embargo, en los últimos 15 años el incremento en la productividad se ha detenido. Esto ha significado una disminución importante en la tasa de crecimiento de la producción, lo que a su vez ha provocado cierta dificultad para satisfacer el creciente consumo interno de maíz. Una de las hipótesis que se postula en este trabajo es que el estancamiento de la productividad está relacionado con la reducción en el uso de materiales híbridos por parte de los productores de maíz. El objetivo principal del trabajo es identificar los principales factores que han influido en la disminución del uso y producción de semillas mejoradas durante el período 1980-1993.Para conseguir este objetivo se analiza la evolución histórica de los factores económicos, institucionales y estructurales que han modificado la estructura de demanda y oferta de semilla mejorada. Estos factores provocan desplazamientos en las curvas de oferta y demanda de semilla cuyos resultados finales dependen de las fuerzas predominantes. Por ejemplo, si la oferta de semilla mejorada se contrae por efecto de factores de política sin que se afecte la demanda, el resultado final será una contracción en la producción de semilla y un alza de sus precios. Si por el contrario la política induce una contracción de la demanda de semilla sin afectar la oferta, el efecto final será también de una contracción de la producción, pero con una reducción simultánea en los precios de la semilla.Se espera que la información generada en este trabajo sea de utilidad para la industria de producción y distribución de semilla, para los fitomejoradores y, en forma especial, para los responsables de reorientar y mejorar el diseño de los sistemas de suministro de semilla mejorada para los agricultores más pobres. Un mayor uso de semilla mejorada por los pequeños agricultores es una manera de propiciar un incremento en la productividad del cultivo en explotaciones de subsistencia y, por lo• tanto, en los ingresos de ese estrato de la pQblación.LA DEMANDA DE SEMILLA MEJORADA La demanda de semilla mejorada de maíz está determinada por factores tales como el nivel de producción de maíz, la contribución marginal de la semilla mejorada a la producción, el precio de la semilla mejorada y de otros tipos de semillas disponibles para el agricultor, y el precio del maíz, entre otros 2 • En esta sección se examina la evolución histórica, a nivel nacional, de la producción, la superficie cultivada, el rendimiento de maíz y la contribución de la semilla híbrida a la productividad del cultivo. Posteriormente se examina a nivel del agricultor el uso actual y la rentabilidad potencial de la semilla mejorada. Finalmente se analiza el impacto de algunos factores relacionados con la política sobre el uso de semilla mejorada.La producción de maíz en El Salvador creció durante el período 1961-1992 a una tasa anual del 3.9%. Esta tasa de crecimiento fue principalmente el resultado de un aumento en la productividad, la cual creció a un ritmo anual del 2.2%, mientras que la superficie cultivada creció a una tasa anual de 1.7%. Sin embargo, la tasa de crecimiento de estas variables no ha sido constante a través del período considerado (Cuadro 1 y Figuras 1 y 2).Con el fin de probar la hipótesis de la existencia de un cambio estructural en las tasa de crecimiento a partir de 1980, se estimó un modelo lineal segmentado con punto de corte en el año 1980, de la forma siguiente (Pyndick y Rubinfeld, 1991): donde InY t representa el logaritmo de la variable de interés (producción, superficie y rendimientos de maíz) en el año t, to indica el año de corte (1980 en este caso), ~es una variable indicadora que toma el valor 1 si t>to y Osi t<=t o ; finalmente, ~o, ~I Y ~2 son parámetros a ser estimados. El valor de ~I da la tasa de crecimiento en el primer período (1969)(1970)(1971)(1972)(1973)(1974)(1975)(1976)(1977)(1978)(1979)(1980) mientras que la suma 2 En realidad a nivel de finca individual la decisión de usar una semilla mejorada implica un cambio en la función de producción del maíz y como tal no se puede hablar de una función de demanda derivada como si fuera un cambio a 10 largo de la. función de producción. Sin embargo a nivel regional o nacional, sí existe una función de demanda de semilla a medida que fincas individuales deciden adoptar la semilla mejorada a una densidad de siembra determinada.representa la tasa de crecimiento correspondiente al segundo período (1981)(1982)(1983)(1984)(1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992). La hipótesis de un cambio estructural en la tendencia entre ambos períodos corresponde entonces a probar la hipótesis que ~2 es diferente de cero. Los resultados obtenidos de la estimación mediante el método de los cuadrados mínimos ordinarios para las tres variables se muestran en la Cuadro l.De acuerdo con estos resultados, a partir de 1980 se produce un cambio importante en la tasa de crecimiento de los rendimientos y de la producción de maíz. Entre 1961 y 1980 la producción y los rendimientos crecieron a tasas superiores al 3%, mientras que entre 1981 y 1991 la tasa de crecimiento de la producción cayó en un 1.5% y los rendimientos permanecieron estables.Dadas las condiciones de oferta limitada de tierra en El Salvador, el proceso de aumento de la producción basado en aumentos de la superficie cultivada es insostenible en el mediano y largo plazo. Es necesario entonces identificar las causas del estancamiento de los rendimientos a fm de tomar las medidas necesarias para revertir esta situación y continuar con un crecimiento sostenido de la producción de maíz.Las ganancias en los rendimientos de maíz durante el período 1961-1980 fueron el resultado del proceso de extensa difusión masiva de un paquete tecnológico cuyos componentes principales lo formaron nuevos materiales híbridos y la fertilización con nitrógeno y fósforo (Walker, 1980;Soza y Moscardi, 1977). Cuadro 1. Resultados de la estimación de las tasas de crecimiento de la producci6n, superficie y rendimiento de maíz en El Salvador, 1961Salvador, -1991      1961196319651967196919711973197519771979198119831985198719891991 Afto Afto Fuente: Dirección General de Estadistica Agropecuarias Figura l. Evolución y tendencia de la superficie cultivada y producción de maíz a nivel nacional en El Salvador, durante los aftos 1961-1992.•. .  1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 Año Figura 2. Rendimientos de maíz a nivel nacional en El Salvador, 1961-1992.La relación entre la difusión de materiales híbridos y la evolución de los rendimientos de maíz se ilustra en la Figura 3, en donde la difusión de híbridos de maíz• se mide en términos del porcentaje de la superficie total que es cultivada con estos materiales durante el período 1954-1992. Para el análisis se han diferenciado tres épocas. La primera época se extiende desde 1954 hasta 1967, la segunda va desde 1968 hasta 1980 y la tercera comienza en 1981 y se extiende hasta 1993. Las dos primeras épocas corresponden a la expansión de los materiales híbridos y al aumento de los rendimientos.Durante la tercera época (1981)(1982)(1983)(1984)(1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993), la superficie cultivada con materiales híbridos se estabiliza al comienzo del período y posteriormente declina mientras que los rendimientos se mantienen estables.En la fase que va desde 1954 a 1967 se liberan comercialmente los primeros híbridos producidos en el país. En 1955 se libera el híbrido H-l, en 1963 se libera el H-3 y en 1965 el H-5. Con la producción comercial de semilla de estos dos últimos híbridos comienza la difusión masiva por parte del Gobierno de El Salvador de estos nuevos materiales acompañada de campañas de divulgación para la aplicación de fertilizantes y herbicidas (Waiker, 1980). En 1967 comienza la segunda época, que se caracteriza por una rápida difusión de los nuevos materiales. Estos pasan de ocupar aproximadamente el 10% de la superficie total cultivada con maíz al comienzo del período hasta alcanzar casi el 70% en 1980. Durante este período se liberan algunos nuevos híbridos y se mejora el H5 aunque se le sigue comercializando con el mismo nombre (Adán Aguiluz, comunicación personal).A partir de 1981 se inicia una etapa que se caracteriza por el estancamiento y disminución del proceso de difusión de los híbridos, hasta alcanzar el 55% del total de la superficie cultivada en las últimas campañas. En esta fase se liberan comercialmente al menos tres nuevos materiales: el Hl7 en 1987, y el H53 Y H56 en 1990, los cuales han tenido una buena aceptación entre los agricultores y podrían jugar un papel importante en la recuperación de los rendimientos y de la industria semillera en El Salvador Trabajos previos han demostrado la relación que existe entre el nivel de rendimientos a nivel nacional y el porcentaje de la superficie total de maíz que es cultivada con variedades mejoradas (López-Pereira y Espinosa Calderón, 1993). Para estimar esta relación se procedió a estimar la siguiente ecuación: donde InY t representa el logaritmo de los rendimientos en el año t; H l es el porcentaje de la superficie cultivada con híbridos en el año t; a o y al son parámetros a ser estimados y El es un término de error. Se debe notar que al mide el cambio porcentual en los rendimientos inducidos por un cambio en el porcentaje de la superficie total que es cultivada con híbridos.Para estimar esta relación se procedió primero a eliminar de ambas series las variacines anuales que podrían ser causadas por factores climáticos 3 y luego se estimaron los parámetros mediante el método de los cuadrados mínimos ordinarios. El resultado se presenta a continuación: [3] lnY t = 0.058 + 0.009 H t (13.9)** R 2 = 0.87; n=29 donde el valor entre paréntesis corresponde al estadístico t, y ** significa que el coeficiente es diferente de cero con 99% de confianza.Los resultados confirman la asociación entre ambas variables. Los rendimientos promedios a nivel nacional crecen a razón del 0.9% por cada punto porcentual en que se incrementa el porcentaje de la superficie total cultivada con materiales híbridos. Por lo tanto, un aumento del 10% en la superficie cultivada con híbridos trae aparejado un aumento del 9% en los rendimientos promedio.En un estudio realizado en 1992 por el Departamento de Economía Agrícdla del Centro Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria y Forestasl (CENTA) con una muestra de más de 250 agricultores productores de maíz a nivel nacional, se encontró que durante ese año alrededor del 70% de los agricultores declararon usar semillas de maíces híbridos 4 • Sin embargo, el uso de semillas híbridas varía considerablemente de acuerdo con la región geopolítica que se trate (Figura 4).En las regiones I y 11 (Occidental y Pacífico) las cifras indican un uso masivo de híbridos, mientras que en la región IV (Oriental) sólo el 30% de los agricultores declararon usar materiales híbridos. La región III (Norte) se mantiene un poco por debajo del promedio nacional. Los bajos porcentajes de uso de semillas híbridas en la región IV pueden explicarse por el mayor riesgo de sequía y porque esta región se vio fuertemente afectada por el conflicto político militar de la década de los 80. Este último factor, que también desempeñó un papel importante en la región I1I, provocó que tanto la investigación y la extensión así como el normal aprovisionamiento de los mercados de insumos y semillas se concentraran, durante la década de los 80, en las regiones I y 11. En cuanto a los híbridos más usados en 1992, tanto a nivel de las regiones como a nivel nacional, fueron el H5 y el H3 (Figura 5).Resultados similares arrojó un estudio reciente sobre el manejo del cultivo de maíz en el Departamento de Ahuachapán en la región Occidental. El 56% de los agricultores usaron en 1994 semillas de maíces híbridos.  1954 1957 1960 1963 1966 1969 1972 1975 1978 1981 1984 1987 1990 1993 Fuente: Dirección General de Estadísticas Agropecuarias Figura 3. Difusión de materiales híbridos y evolución de los rendimientos de maíz en El Salvador, 1954Salvador, -1991. . Sin embargo, si se considera la generaclOn de semilla utilizada, 47% de los agricultores usó semilla de híbridos de primera generación y 9% usó semilla híbrida de generaciones posteriores. El 80% de los agricultores utilizaron el híbrido H5, y en menor escala aparecen el HB83 (8%) Yel C385 (8%) (Choto, Sain y Montenegro, 1995). La conveniencia económica para el agricultor de cambiar la semilla que está usando puede ser evaluada en forma sencilla calculando cuál sería el precio máximo que el agricultor podría pagar por la nueva semilla y mantener el cambio rentable (CIMMYT,1988). necesaria para inducir al agricultor al cambio (CIMMYT, 1988).Si el precio calculado de acuerdo con la ecuación [4] es igual o menor que el que los agricultores realmente pagan por la semilla mejorada, quiere decir que la semilla se encuentra accesible en términos económicos para el agricultor. Los resultados obtenidos usando valores promedios de rendimientos experimentales de los híbridos más difundidos muestran una clara ventaja económica de los híbridos sobre las variedades criollas aún usando tasas de descuento de hasta un 400%. [4] El precio maXlmo que los agricultores estarían dispuestos a pagar por la semilla mejorada (P'I) se calcula como:donde (R -~) representa la diferencia en rendimiento I entre la variedad mejorada (R 1 ) y aquella a la cual reemplaza (~); P m YP,o representan el precio del maíz y el precio de la semilla que el agricultor está usando; S es la cantidad de semilla usada por unidad de tierra (densidad de siembra) y M es la tasa mínima de retomo Esta elevada rentabilidad resulta fundamentalmente de la ganancia en rendimientos de los híbridos sobre los criollos que alcanza el 150% (Cuadro 2) y a los bajos precios de la semilla híbrida en El Salvador (Cuadro 3). La relación precio semilla híbrida:precio grano pone a El Salvador entre los países que tienen más bajos precios relativos de semilla hibrida (CIMMYT, 1987;López-Pereira y Espinosa Calderón 1993;ASPRüDES, 1990).   Tres factores de política económica e institucional que afectaron la demanda de semillas mejoradas durante la década de los 80 son : a) la política de precios, incluyendo el precio de las divisas (tasa de cambio) y el nivel general de precios (tasa de inflación), b) la disponibilidad de crédito agrícola y la tasa de interés, y c) el conflicto político-militar (Hugo, Andrews y Stimpson, 1991).Durante las década de los 60 y 70, el uso de semillas híbridas y fertilizantes se difundió rápidamente gracías al ambiente económico de crecimiento y estabilidad existente, y a un programa de crédito dirigido que subsidiaba el uso de los nuevos componentes tecnológicos. El Banco de Fomento Agropecuario (BFA), otorgaba crédito que muchas veces se entregaba en forma de insumas: semilla híbrida y fertilizantes. Estos créditos se otorgaban a tasas de interés menores que las tasas de inflación, por lo que la tasa real de interés era nula o negativa. Además, durante la década de los 70 y la mayor parte de los 80, la tasa de cambio sostenida por el Gobierno mantuvo al colón por arriba de su valor de equilibrio lo que abarató artificialmente la importación de insumas como fertilizantes y otros agroquímicos.Sin embargo, a partir de 1980 las condiciones económicas comenzaron a cambiar. El Producto Bruto Interno (PBI) se estancó o decayó, y el país comenzó a registrar tasas de inflación elevadas. La combinación de inflación alta y tasa de cambio sobreva1uada castigó al precio del maíz recibido por el productor. El índice del precio real del maíz en finca declinó más rápidamente que el costo real de producción del maíz, lo que trajo como consecuencia una pérdida neta de ingresos para el productor y por lo tanto provocó una contracción de la demanda de insumos externos a la finca (Hugo, 1991).Los datos del Cuadro 3 muestran que la caída registrada en el uso de híbridos no estuvo asociada a los precios de este insumo. La tendencia de los precios relativos de los híbridos siguió un patrón decreciente en el período 1981 -1991. Al comienzo de la década de los 80's se necesitaban casi 5 kg de maíz para comprar 1 kg de semilla híbrida, mientras' que al comienzo de los 90 sólo se necesitaban 3 kg.Un factor que parece estar más ligado al uso de los materiales híbridos por los agricultores, es la disponibilidad y precio del crédito. La Figura 6 muestra la estrecha relación que existe entre la disponibilidad de crédito, medida por el porcentaje de la superficie total de maíz, cultivada con crédito del BFA, Y el porcentaje de la superficie cultivada con híbridos.La estrecha asociaclOn entre ambas series, correlación del 90%, a través de todo el período, indica que un cambio en la disponibilidad de crédito conlleva un cambio en la misma dirección en el uso de semilla híbrida. Por 10 tanto, uno de los efectos inmediatos de la política económica aplicada durante los años 80 al reducir drásticamente la disponibilidad de crédito a los pequeños agricultores fue la de disminuir la adquisición de nueva semilla híbrida a nivel del agricultor.    1954 1956 1958 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 Año Fuente: Dirección General de Estadístícas Agropecuarias y Hugo, Andrews y Stimpson, 1991.Figura 6. Asociación entre la superficie con maíz cultivada con crédito y la superficie cultivada con híbridos.El Salvador, 1964Salvador, -1991. . LA OFERTA DE SEMILLA MEJORADA En esta sección se examinan los factores que influyen sobre la oferta de semilla mejorada, a través del análisis de la evolución histórica de la producción de semilla mejorada y de la estructura de la industria de producción de semilla. nacional, es posible estimar la proporción de la superficie cultivada con híbridos de primera generación y con híbridos de generaciones posteriores.Para estimar la superficie cultivada con híbridos de primera generación, se estima primero la disponibilidad de semilla mejorada en el año t (St) como:La producción de semilla certificada durante el período /980-/992[5]La producción total de semilla certificada decreció durante el período 1980-92 a una tasa anual del 4.8 % (Figura 7). A comienzos de los 80 la producción nacional osciló entre 3,000 -3,500 toneladas anuales, mientras que a comienzos de los 90 la producción fluctuó entre 2,200 -2,400 toneladas por año.Esta caída de la oferta disponible de semilla tiene implicaciones sobre la superficie total de maíz que puede ser sembrada con semilla híbrida de primera generación.donde (Qt-') es la producción doméstica de semilla certificada en el año anterior y (E t -J t ) corresponde a las exportaciones netas (exportaciones menos importaciones) en el año 1.Si se supone que toda la disponibilidad del año t (St) se usa en ese mismo año con una densidad de siembra constante (d), la superficie sembrada con híbridos de primera generación en el año (SRl t ) se calcula como: Partiendo de las cantidades de semilla certificada producidas en un año determinado y de la superficie total cultivada con materiales híbridos reportada a nivel   La superficie sembrada con híbridos de generaciones avanzadas (SH2 t ) se estima entonces como diferencia entre la superficie total reportada con híbridos a nivel nacional (SH t ) y el estimado de la . superficie con híbridos de primera generación:El Cuadro 4 muestra los resultados de la estimación. Al comienzo de la década de los 80 la proporción de la superficie total sembrada con híbridos de primera generación fue de aproximadamente un 70%, mientras que menos del 10% de la superficie total se sembró con híbridos de generaciones avanzadas. A comienzo de los 90, la situación cambió completamente. La proporción de la superficie total reportada con híbridos disminuyó a un 55%, de los cuales un 35 % correspondió a híbridos de primera generación y alrededor del 20% a híbridos de generaciones posteriores.Dos híbridos, el H3 y el H5, han dominado la producción de semilla certificada durante el período 1980-1992 (Figura 8).. En 1980 ambos materiales conformaban casi el 90% de la producción total de semillas, siendo el H3 el principal material producido. A partir de 1981 el H5 comenzó a desplazar al H3, aumentando su participación relativa hasta alcanzar, al comienzo de los años 90, casi un 80% del total producido. A partir de 1982, la producción de H3 decayó hasta llegar a 1992, cuando se produjeron menos de 100 toneladas de semilla de este material.A partir de 1990 se comenzó a producir semilla de-los híbridos H17 y H53. Estos materiales tuvieron un crecimiento singular, alcanzando casi el 20% en 1992 lo que provocó que el híbrido H3 prácticamente desapareciera del mercado. Si esta tendencia se mantiene es probable que estos materiales comiencen también a desplazar al H5 dentro del mercado de semillas híbridas. Sin embargo, una característica notable de la producción de semilla en El Salvador es la aparición esporádica de semilla de híbridos que solamente permanecen en producción unos pocos años para luego desaparecer. En los 13 años considerados, los únicos materiales que se produjeron en forma continua durante todo el período fueron el H3 y H5. Los demás materiales reportados se produjeron por un lapso promedio de sólo 3 años. En El Salvador existe actualmente una industria con una estructura institucional y funcional consolidada, como resultado de un largo proceso que comenzó a mediados de la década de los 40 cuando se inició en el país el mejoramiento genético. Este esfuerzo dio sus primeros frutos 10 años más tarde con la liberación de los primeros híbridos comerciales. A partir de ese momento surgen las primeras estructuras de organización de la industria.La producción de semillas certificada se iníció en la década de los 50 por el Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadería (MAG), organismo que inicialmente distribuía semilla de variedades mejoradas. La liberación del híbrido Hl en 1955, y posteriormente los híbridos H3 y H5 en 1963 y 1965, motivó la necesidad de la certificación de semillas. Dada la ausencia de organizaciones nacionales de certificación, fue necesario recurrir al sistema internacional para controlar la producción comercial de los híbridos. En enero de 1956 se organizó la Sección Profesional para la Certificación de Maíz Híbrido, bajo la supervisión de la Misión de Agricultura de los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica. En setiembre de ese mismo año, se creó el primer organismo estatal de control, el cual se denominó Servicio de Maíz Híbrido. A partir de 1958 se ampliaron sus responsabilidades a la certificación de semillas de otros cultivos, por lo que se le cambió el nombre a Servicio de Certificación de Semillas.Posteriormente, la rápida expansión del área sembrada con los nuevos híbridos trajo aparejada la dificultad de cubrir la creciente demanda de semilla mejorada, por lo cual, en 1971, el sector público abrió las puertas a la empresa privada a la producción de semilla. Simultáneamente, se promulgó la Ley de Certificación de Semillas y Plantas que dió origen a la estructura actual de la industria de producción de semilla en El Salvador (López Sánchez, 1978;ASPRODES, 1990). De acuerdo con esta ley, que se mantuvo vigente hasta 1992, el organismo encargado del control y supervisión de la calidad de la semilla era la División de Certificación de Semillas y Plantas. Hasta ese año la producción de semillas certificada estaba formada por una estructura mixta en donde las funciones de desarrollo y liberación de híbridos eran ejercidas por el sector público, mientras que la 231 reproducción y comercialización estuvieron principalmente en manos del sector privado con una presencia mínima del sector público. En 1993 se promulgó una nueva ley que reemplazó a la vigente desde 1971 y por medio de la cual el sector público se retiró de la actividad de producción de semillas pero retuvo las funciones de control y fiscalización a través del proceso de certificación de la semilla. La Figura 9 presenta la estructura institucional actual que regula el proceso de certificación de semilla.Un organismo dentro de la estructura de la industria de producción de semillas que no se muestra en la Figura 9, es la Comisión Nacional de Semillas (CNS). Este es un organismo colegiado, constituido por representantes de los diferentes grupos de productores privados y por el MAG, que actúa como organismo asesor de la División de Tecnología de Semilla y Certificación de Semilla en aspectos tales como definición de áreas de siembra, cuotas de exportación, y precios de ventas de semillas. Sin embargo, con la Ley de autonomía del CENTA el CNS no se encuentra aún en funcionamiento. La producción de semilla certificada es un proceso en donde la semilla pasa de ser un producto de una fase a ser un insumo de la siguiente. Córdova et al., 1992 indica que en ese proceso se deben reconocer cuatro categorías o clases de semillas: i) semilla genética o del fitomejorador, la cual es el resultado final del proceso de mejoramiento efectuado por el genetista o fitomejorador; ii) semilla básica o de fundación, es la primera multiplicación en el campo a partir de la semilla genética; iii) semilla registrada, es la primera multiplicación de la semilla básica; y iv) semilla certificada o comercial, es la última etapa en el proceso de multiplicación de semillas (Veliz, 1993). La Figura 10, muestra esquemáticamente el funcionamiento del sistema de producción y mercadeo de semilla certificada. El CENTA produce semilla básica a partir de la semilla genética o del mejorador, la cual es procesada y vendida a través de la Unidad de Tecnología de Semillas a los productores de semilla registrada y certificada, previa licencia de producción otorgada por la División de Certificación de Semillas y Plantas. Durante el proceso de producción, estos productores son supervisados por los técnicos de la División de Certificación quienes avalan y garantizan la calidad e identidad genética de la semilla certificada. Los productores deben cumplir las normas específicas para la producción de semillas certificadas del Reglamento General de Certificación de Semillas y Plantas que establece las tolerancias de campo permitidas para la certificación de la semilla. Debe notarse que los productores de semilla tienen la opción de comprar el material genético básico al CENTA o importarlo. 1\"A groservicios --.\"~~r-------í/ I A gricultores ~------------Figura 10. Funcionamiento del sistema de producción y mercadeo de semilla certificada en El Salvador.Los materiales más vendidos desde 1990 a 1994 corresponden a aquellos para la producción de semilla del híbrido H5 (Cuadro 5). Se deben notar también algunos cambios registrados en años 1993 y 1994 en los cuales no se vendió semilla para la producción de los híbridos H3 y H17. El H53 pasa de producirse como híbrido triple a producirse como doble. Finalmente aparecen en el mercado dos nuevos materiales: los híbridos H56 y H104.Dentro del sector privado de producción de semilla certificada se encuentran tres tipos de actores: cooperativas de productores, empresas productoras grandes y pequeños productores individuales que pueden entrar y salir esporádicamente del mercado. Todos ellos se encuentran agrupados dentro de la Asociación de Productores de Semillas de El Salvador (ASPRODE). La importancia relativa en el mercado de cada uno de estos actores ha cambiado substancialmente a lo largo de los últimos 10 años (Figura 11). En 1980 más del 80% de la producción de semilla procedió de pequeños productores individuales (englobados en la Figura 11 como \"Otros\"). A partir de 1981 los agricultores agrupados en cooperativas del sector reformado pasan a ser los principales productores de semilla certificada, alcanzando en 1982 el 80% del mercado. Sin embargo, a partir de ese año las cooperativas van perdiendo su participación relativa en favor de las empresas Semillas S.A. y Prosela S.A., las cuales capturan al final del período alrededor del 45% del mercado, sobrepasando a las cooperativas que quedan con un 40%, mientras que los productores individuales capturan el restante 15%.El número total de productores de semilla fluctuó alrededor de 15 miembros y ha seguido una tendencia levemente declinante durante la década. Es decir que la industria declina durante la década en término de los volúmenes producidos pero el número de actores permanece relativamente estable, con entradas y salidas esporádicas de productores individuales. Esto muestra una cierta movilidad en la industria que podría estar relacionada a la rentabilidad relativa de la actividad y a la liberación comercial de nuevos materiales que no tienen aceptación en el mercado y desaparecen después de un cierto número de años.Se puede apreciar entonces que con anterioridad a la vigencia de la ley en 1993, el CENTA intervino en la venta de semillas certificadas comercializando, durante los 80, entre el 1 y el 5% del total de semilla certificada. A partir de la ley en 1993, el sector público no participa en la producción y venta de semillas certificadas.Se debe notar que no todos los productores de semilla que operan en el mercado adquieren semilla básica del CENTA. Por ejemplo, en la campaña 1994/95 operaron 12 productores en el mercado, pero solamente 6 de ellos adquirieron material básico del CENTA.Los volúmenes promedios de semillas producidos por establecimiento varían de acuerdo con el tipo de semilla. Los volúmenes mayores corresponden al H5, con alrededor de 200 toneladas de semilla por productor, y el H3, con alrededor de 70 toneladas. La semilla certificada producida puede ser vendida en el mercado interno o exportada. En el mercado interno es vendida a agroservicios, transportistas, o directamente a los agricultores. Sin embargo es común que primero la semilla producida sea almacenada en alguna de las tres plantas de procesamiento existentes en el país. Una de estas plantas pertenece al CENTA, mientras que las otras dos son privadas (Semillas S.A. y Prosela S.A.) y tienen una capacidad instalada para procesar 32 t/día cada una y para almacenar un total de 3,864 t de semilla bajo condiciones naturales.Cuadro 5. Semilla de materiales parentales para la producción de diferentes híbridos vendidos por C ENTA, ] 990-] 994.  El Reglamento General de Certifiéación de Semillas y Plantas establece también normas específicas para el procesamiento de semillas, regulando las acciones de estas empresas.La cadena de comercialización finaliza con la venta de semilla certificada a los usuarios finales: los agricultores. Esta venta se realiza a través de tres canales. El canal más importante en términos del volumen comercializado es aquél donde el productor vende la semilla certificada a uh distribuidor mayorista que a su vez vende a agroservicios (minoristas) o al agricultor.Aproximadamente el 60% de la semilla certificada se comercializa a través de este canal. El 40% restante es vendido por el productor directamente a los agroservicios (35%) y a los agricultores (5%).Los precios a los que el productor vende la semilla certificada varían de acuerdo con el tipo de semilla y comprador (Cuadro 6). El margen promedio entre el mayorista y el agricultor es de aproximadamente 20%. Sin embargo, el margen es substancialmente menor para el H5.Adopción y Uso de Semilla Mejorada de Maíz entre Pequeños Agricultores del Sudeste de Guatemala Gustavo Saín l , Fabío Herrera 2 y Julio Martíne:t RESUMEN La mayor parte de los productores de maíz de Guatemala no tienen acceso a insumos agrícolas. En 1987 sólo el 16% de la superficie total fue sembrada con semilla mejorada. Este trabajo intenta identificar intensidad, formas de uso y patrón de difusión de la semilla mejorada, y los factores que influyen sobre su adopción en el departamento de Jutiapa, Guatemala. Los resultados muestran que DIGESA (agencia de extensión) tuvo un impacto significativo en la adopción y difusión de semilla mejorada en el departamento. Este impacto se refleja por la tasa de crecimiento en el uso de variedades mejoradas a partir de 1986. El uso de variedades mejoradas también se encuentra asociado a la siembra de maíz en monocultivo. Agricultores con parcelas pequei\\as tienen menos probabilidad de usar semilla mejorada. Si bien la propiedad de la tierra es un factor que afecta el uso de variedades mejoradas en forma significativa, su importancia relativa no es tan considerable como los anteriores. Un resultado importante es que se tiende a usar semillas mejoradas más en tierras planas que en laderas. La edad del agricultor resultó importante solamente en el caso de adopción total. Los agricultores jóvenes además de ser menos adversos al riesgo, tienen menos dependientes y más probabilidades de usar la semilla mejorada en la totalidad de la superficie dedicada a maíz.Guatemala produce el 42% DEL total de maíz de la región centroamericana. La importancia del cultivo en la economía guatemalteca se refleja en el hecho de que durante la década de los 80 el valor de la producción de maíz representó aproximadamente el 10% del valor total de la producción agrícola del país. (Cuadro 1).La mayor parte de los productores de maíz de Guatemala son pequeños agricultores de subsistencia. Aproximadamente un 60% de las explotaciones productoras de granos básicos en Guatemala son minifundios caracterizados principalmente por un tamaño que muchas veces resulta insuficiente para satisfacer las necesidades alimenticias básicas de una familia típica (5 a 6 personas). La importancia numérica de este grupo, su situación alimenticia precaria y su crecimiento demográfico urgen una atención permanente para mejorar el nivel tecnológico de estos productores y con ello, sus ingresos (Herrera y Jiménez, 1992).De ahí la importancia de incorporar a los sistemas de producción de maíz nuevas tecnologías que contribuyan a mejorar los rendimientos y de esa manera propicien el incremento en los ingresos de los agricultores. Una estrategia para aumentar los rendimientos en forma rápida y efectiva es promocionar un mayor uso de semilla mejorada por los pequeños agricultores. Aunque la disponibilidad de semilla mejorada de maíz a través del sistema de producción convencional creció durante el período comprendido entre 1981 y 1992 (Cuadro 2), este crecimiento ha sido irregular e insuficiente para cubrir las necesidades potenciales de semilla mejorada limitando seriamente el acceso de los pequeños agricultores a ésta y a otros insumos agrícolas.Por ejemplo, en 1987 la superficie cosechada de maíz en Guatemala sembrada con semilla mejorada fue de sólo un 16% siendo agricultores medianos y grandes los principales usuarios de este insumo (Echeverría, 1990). En los últimos 20 años el rol del sector público en la producción de semillas certificadas de granos básicos disminuyó en términos relativos. Por ejemplo, la participación del Instituto de Tecnología Agropecuaria (ICTA) en la producción de semilla certificada de granos básicos disminuyó de un 25-30% en 197525-30% en -197925-30% en , a sólo el 1% en 1985 (Veliz) (Veliz). Dado que los precios de la semilla mejorada proveniente del sector privado son, en términos generales, mayores que los precios de semilla provenientes del sector público, la disminución del papel del sector público en la producción de semilla mejorada puede haber influido en el uso de semilla mejorada por pequeños agricultores.Cuadro l. Area cosechada, producción, rendimiento, valor y porcentaje de la producción agrícola total del maíz en Guatemala. 1976 Con el fm de mejorar el acceso de los pequeños agricultores a la semilla mejorada mediante el incremento de las actividades de transferencia de tecnologías agrícolas, se puso en funcionamiento, a partir de 1986, el Proyecto de Generación y Transferencia de Tecnología Agropecuaria y Producción de Semillas (PROGETTAPS). Aunque el proyecto cubrió inicialmente 7 departamentos, a partir de 1989 se incorporan 8 más para un total de 15 departamentos (Figura 1).El proyecto puso énfasis en la promoción y transferencia de nuevos materiales genéticamente mejorados los cuales eran producidos por el Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnología Agrícola (ICTA) y transferidos por la Dirección General de Servicios Agrícolas (DIGESA). Ambas instituciones se integran en la ejecución de PROGETTAPS y aprovechan el vínculo entre investigadores y extensionistas para promover un efecto multiplicador a través de la participación de agricultores en la prueba, adopción, integración y transferencia de tecnología (Córdova el al., 1992, Ortiz ).A partir de 1987, el Programa cobra vigor mediante la implementación, a nivel nacional, de estrategias y mecanismos de transferencia de tecnología destinadas a generar un sector productivo de semilla mejorada con la participación de los pequeños agricultores a nivel de 237 sus propias comunidades rurales, para que de esa manera, este sector tuviera acceso en cantidades suficientes a la semilla de nuevos materiales mejorados (Córdova el al., 1992).Aunque no estaba programada en la formulación inicial del Proyecto, una estrategia de acción que surgió durante su ejecución fue la del Programa de Producción Artesanal de Semilla Mejorada. Este programa fue planteado y ejecutado como una estrategia para hacer accesible la semilla mejorada a los agricultores que no tenían suficientes recursos para su compra o para aquellos que no la tenían disponible en su comunidad (Ramiro Ortiz. Comunicación Personal).Así, el número de parcelas de transferencia realizadas a nivel nacional por PROGETTAPS para los distintos cultivos involucrados pasa de 506 en 1986 a 4630 en 1989 (Ortiz el al., 1991). En estas parcelas los agricultores utilizaban principalmente semilla mejorada como único insumo del paquete tecnológico recomendado. Como consecuencia de la intensa actividad desarrollada en el período, la producción artesanal de semilla certificada de maíz a través de PROGETTAPS creció a una tasa anual del 22% pasando de 26.1 toneladas en 1986 a 138 toneladas en 1992 (Cuadro 2).  PROGETTAPSl! convencional!! de difusión de este insumo entre los pequeños agricultores. El estudio contribuye además a conocer cual es la intensidad del uso, preferencias en cuanto a formas de uso de semilla mejorada, e identificar el patrón de difusión histórico del 'uso de variedades mejoradas y materiales híbridos en la región.La información generada es de utilidad para los diferentes sectores relacionados con la industria de producción y distribución de semilla así como para los fitomejoradores, y en forma, para los responsables de orientar y mejorar el diseño de los sistemas de suministro de semillas mejorada para los agricultores más pobres.Fuentes:---l' Años 1981 -1992,Veliz 1993. fJ. Años 1985-1990,  Valladares y Sain, 1993. Años 1991 -1992, Veliz 1993   El objetivo general del trabajo es el identificar los factores que influyen sobre la decisión de usar o no semilla mejorada por pequeños Qroductores de maíz en Jutiapa, Guatemala . Se pretende conocer el impacto que ha tenido el programa de DIGESA como un medio 238 En este trabajo los datos primarios provienen de una encuesta realízada durante los meses de junio-y julio de 1991 coordinada por un equipo de técnicos del Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), y DIGESA bajo el patrocinio conjunto del Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), del Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (CIMMYT), y del Programa Regional de Maíz (PRM).Número y proporclOn de fincas en la población en la muestra por Municipio en el Departamento de Jutiapa, Guatemala La encuesta se realizó con extensionistas de DIGESA previamente capacitados para recolectar la información adecuadamente. El tamaño de la muestra fue de 208 agricultores diseminados en los 18 mumcipios del departamento de Jutiapa que corresponde aproximadamente al 2% del total de fincas en el Departamento. El número de agricultores en cada Municipio se determinó de acuerdo con la proporción del número total de fincas en cada uno de ellos (Cuadro 3). Dentro de cada Municipio los agricultores fueron seleccionados al azar. El diseño de la encuesta fue coordinado por el CIAT (Baltensweiler, 1992).El departamento de Jutiapa se encuentra ubicado en la región sudeste de Guatemala (Figura 1) Y tiene una superficie aproximada de 322,000 hectáreas. Existen alrededor de 33,000 fincas familiares con un área promedio de 6.70 has; sin embargo, un 77% de esas fincas tienen menos de 3.5 has (Baltensweiler, 1992).La región produce alrededor del 12% del maiz, 37% de sorgo y 39% de frijol cultivado en Guatemala. El uso de insumos agrícolas es bajo lo que se refleja en la productividad de los principales cultivos que ha permanecido estancada en los últimos años y es altamente dependiente de factores climáticos y 239 edáficos. Sin embargo, estos productos representan la mayor parte del ingreso y fuente alimenticia de una familia rural típica en la zona (Thornton y Hoogenboom, 1990).Aunque el promedio de lluvias anuales en el Departamento oscila entre 1100 y 1450 mm/año dependiendo del municipio, Jutiapa puede ser considerada como una región en donde la humedad es un factor limitante para la agricultura. Esto se debe principalmente a que la precipitación se concentra en los seis meses que van de mayo a octubre cuando cae más del 80% del total anual (Figura 2) (Simmons et  al.,1959, Thornton y Hoogenboom, 1990).Los suelos de Jutiapa se dividen en tres clases. Suelos de la Altiplanicie Central que comprenden un 85% de la superficie total del Departamento son suelos pedregosos e inclinados, aptos sólo para pastos y bosques. Suelos del Litoral del Pacífico, que comprenden sólo el 504% de la superficie total, son suelos fértiles, productivos y fáciles de manejar. Finalmente, existe una clase miscelánea (9.6%) que incluye áreas donde no domina ninguna clase particular de terreno. En general son suelos aptos para la agricultura.La mayoría de los agricultores poseen la tierra en propiedad (61 %), mientras que un tercio de ellos la alquilan (Cuadro 4). El tamaño promedio de las fincas es de 2.3 hectáreas aunque existe una cierta variación de acuerdo con la forma de tenencia. Los propietarios tienen una propiedad con un tamaño promedio de 2.7 ha mientras que los arrendatarios alquilan un promedio de lA ha (Cuadro 2). Estas cifras ponen de manifiesto el carácter minifundista de las fincas predominantes en la región.La superficie total de la finca se dedica en un 60% a actividades permanentes en donde predominan los pastos y bosques y barbechos. Dentro de los cultivos anuales (40%), la producción de granos, principalmente l11aíz -y frijol, ocupa el mayor porcentaje de la superficie con un 39% del total de la superficie de la finca (Cuadro 5). Cuadro 4. Tenencia de la tierra y superficie de la fincas, Jutiapa, Guatemala 1991 Tenencia Porcentaje de agricu Ito res Consultados sobre sus expectativas de cambios en el uso de la tierra, la mayoría de los agricultores (53%) piensa que continuará sembrando la misma superficie que en la actualidad mientras que un tercio (29%) tienen la intención de aumentar la superficie cultivada con granos básicos y tubérculos. Aunque no existen estadísticas oficiales sobre la superficie total cultivada con maíz en el Departamento, un estudio reciente indicó que en 1989 había un total de 21,579 productores que en total cultivaban 32,170 hectáreas de maiz (SPADA citada por Viana, 1990).\"Medianero: comparten costos y ganancias en mitad y mitad Cuadro 5. Uso de la tierra por pequeños agricultores en Jutiapa, Guatemala, 1991Porcentaje de la superficie totalEl maiz se siembra bajo dos sistemas: el sistema tradicional donde el maíz se siembra asociado a otro cultivo y en monocultivo. En el primero, el maíz se asocia generalmente con frijol, sorgo u ocasionalmente algún tubérculo. En el área hay dos épocas de siembra naturales para el cultivo del maíz las cuales están relacionadas al patrón de lluvias. La primera época coincide con el inicio de la temporada lluviosa y se extiende desde el fin de abril hasta mediados de mayo y la segunda durante el mes de agosto (Figura 2). Figura 2. Precipitación media, máxima y mínima mensual. Jutiapa, Guatemala Cuadro 6. Tipos de semilla de maiz entre los Agricultores del departamento de Jutiapa. I época de siembra, 1991La segunda época se considera de mayor riesgo por la disponibilidad de agua durante el llenado de la mazorca por lo que los agricultores, en su gran mayoría, solo siembran durante la primera época de síembra. Casi el 90% de todos los agricultores en la muestra, usan las dos primeras semanas de mayo para establecer su cultivo. De esa manera se previenen de situaciones de lluvia errática o de sequía, y tienen suficiente tiempo para establecer un segundo cultivo anual durante la segunda época de siembra.  Casi tres cuartos de los agricultores del Departamento de Jutiapa utilizaron semilla criolla durante la siembra del maíz en 1991, mientras que más de un tercio de ellos usaron semilla de maíces híbridos y de variedades mejoradas (Cuadro 6, panel a). Sin embargo, cuando se desagrega la información, se observa un panorama un poco más complejo ya que un 35'% de los agricultores usaron dos o tres tipos diferentes de semilla (Cuadro 6, panel b). Un poco más del 40'% de los agricultores utilizaron sólo semilla criolla siguiéndole en orden de importancia aquellos que sembraron semilla criolla y mejorada y en tercer lugar aquellos agricultores que sólo sembraron híbridos. La diferencia en las cifras entre agricultores que sólo siembran materiales híbridos en relación con aque110s que sólo siembran materiales mejorados pareciera indicar la tendencia de que los primeros tienden a ser sembrados en exclusividad mientras que los materiales mejorados se siembran en adición a los materiales criollos.Los agricultores reportaron usar al menos 30 variedades criollas. Sin embargo, ocho de estas treinta cubren el 85% del área cultivada con este tipo de semillas. La variedad más popular es la denominada Arriquín cultivada por la mitad de los agricultores usando el 56% de la superficie dedicada a variedades criollas. Las otras siete variedades criollas usadas con mayor frecuencia (29%) se conocen como: Ulupilse, I3ayonil, Americano, Maizón, San Marceño, Cola de rata y Candela (Cuadro 7).Sin embargo, cuatro clases, dos variedades y dos híbridos, son utilizados por un 89% de los productores y ocupan el 90% del área total sembrada con semilla mejorada. Las semillas mejoradas mas usada correspondieron a las variedades B-1 y B-5 Y a los híbridos H-5 y H-3 (Cuadro 8).En el caso del maíz mejorado, los agricultores reportaron usar un total de 9 clases de semilla mejorada, de las cuales cinco son híbridos y cuatro son variedades.El patrón de difusión de la semilla mejorada de maíz en el Departamento de Jutiapa se estimó mediante la recolección histórica' entre los agricultores en la muestra de información sobre cuando comenzó a comprar o intercambiar semilla de variedades mejoradas o híbridos (No se distinguió entre variedades mejoradas y materiales híbridos por lo que el patrón de difusión se refiere a materiales mejorados en general). Para minimizar los errores relacionados con este tipo de información se usaron ayudas visuales en donde se ubicaron en el tiempo eventos especiales ocurridos en el área. Los resultados reflejan parcialmente el impacto que tuvo el programa de DIGESA-PROGETTAPS (Figura 3). cosecha anterior, y cambiarla con otros agricultores. Aunque la mayoría (75%) de los agricultores practican una sola forma de adquisición, el 25% restante adquiere la semilla de dos o más formas diferentes.Cuadro 8: Variedades mejoradas e híbridos usados durante la primera época de siembra. Jutiapa, Guatemala, 1991 Porcentaje de Agricultores SuperficieEn los primeros 8 años (1977 -1985) el porcentaje de agricultores que usaban semillas mejoradas aumentó en un 11% mientras que en los 6 años siguientes (1986 -1991) la difusión de semilla mejorada en el departamento se aceleró y aumentó en un 38%, es decir a razón de un poco más del 6% anual.Existen tres formas de adquisición de semilla para la siembra de maíz: comprar la semilla, guardarla de la 1!m-1ffi2 1ffi3-1935 1ffi)-1~1003 -1001 Peíab Figura 3: Patrón de difusión de la semilla mejorada de maíz en Jutiapa, Guatemala, 1977-1991 La forma más común es la de guardar la semilla de la cosecha anterior para utilizarla en la próxima sicmbra. El 66'% de los agricultores guarda parte de su producción de maíz como material de siembra para la próxima cosecha. un 26'% de los casos compra la semilla de maíz y un 8% la cambia por otros productos.Aqucllos agricultores que siembran semilla híbrida tienden más a comprarla que aquellos que siembran materiales mejorados (Cuadro 9). Esto es consistente con las mayores pérdidas en productividad asociadas con el uso de semilla híbrida de generaciones avanzadas.obtener semilla nueva de las variedades que ya cultivan, y por tanto se requeriría un sistema activo de producción de semilla con nexos cercanos a la investigación y extensión para lograr una reposición más rápida (Heisey 1990).La información sobre las formas de adquisición y uso de la semilla mejorada permitió estimar que más del 85'>i, de los agricultores reemplazan la semilla mejorada (variedades o híbridos)' en tres o menos ciclos de cultivo, mientras que casi un 25%, de los agricultores cambian la semilla después de un ciclo de uso (Cuadro 12).Dentro del grupo de agricultores que compran semilla de maíz. los lugares más comunes donde el agricultor adquiere la semilla también varía de acuerdo con el tipo de semilla que usa (Cuadro lO).Cuadro 9. Tipo de semilla mejorada y forma de adquisición. Jutiapa, Guatemala, 1991  Cuando se les preguntó a los agricultores, cual( es) es (son) lar s) formar s) de adquirir semilla mejorada 2 que ellos prefieren, las preferencias de los agricultores en la muestra se volcaron hacia la producción de su propia semilla ya sea por selección del mejor grano o por producción artesan~l (Cuadro 11).Estos resultados son consistentes con los encontrados en estudios similares en donde los agricultores utilizan el sistema convencional de semIllas más para cambiar sus variedades que para En el caso de la semilla criolla, otros agricultores de la misma o de otra aldea son la fuente de origen para la adquisición de semilla mientras que en el caso de semilla mejorada. ya sean materiales híbridos o variedades mejoradas, la compra en casas comerciales y a otros agricultores son las fuentes principales para la adquisición de la misma.I.as preferencias sobre las dos primeras formas de adquisición tienen en común que en ambos casos la semilla se obtiene de dentro de la finca pero se dIferencian fundamentalmente en que, producirla artesanalmente, implica cumplir con los requisitos y controles que PROGETAPPS exige a un agricultor para ser beneficiario y recibir la asistencia técnica e insumos que brinda el proyecto, mientras que, la preferencia por seleccionar el mejor grano de la cosecha implica continuar con los métodos tradicionales del agricultor para producir la semilla., N\" Sl' dISI111~UIÓ entre variedades mejoradas y materiales hibridos pur 1\" que las preláeneias respecto a la formas de adquisición se n.:J\"Il'rC a Illuknaks 1l1c.10radns en general Esta información es importante ya que el horizonte de tiempo en el cual los agricultores reemplazan sus semillas es muy importante para el establecimiento de políticas agrícolas ya que los períodos de reemplazo considerados como óptimos por los fitomejoradores y agentes proveedores de semilla a menudo subestiman la duración del ciclo de reemplazo usado por el agricultor (Heisey y Brennan 1991).Una de las condiciones que los agricultores consideran importante en la determinación del número de ciclos a usar es el precio de la semilla. Un 74% de los agricultores manifestaron no estar de acuerdo con el precio que conocen de la semilla mejorada. Sin embargo, al consultarles sobre cuál sería el precio máximo que pagaría por ésta, el promedio resultó ligeramente superior al promedio del precio que ellos revelaron conocer de la semilla (Cuadro 13).Si se comparan los precios que los agricultores dicen conocer con los precios reales de la semilla (Cuadro 14) se aprecia que los agricultores de Jutiapa tienen una idea bastante acertada del valor comercial de la semilla mejorada y que estarían dispuestos a pagarlo si las condiciones de los demás aspectos relacionados con la comercialización fueran de su conveniencia.Precio Precio de la grano' semilla mejorada 2 (Q/kg.) (Q/kg.) Varo Híb.Híb.Ciclos de uso de la semilla Porcentaje de me.iol•ada agricultores Precios (Q/kg.) Conocido por agricultor Máximo que pagaría Cuadro 12, Número de ciclos de siembra que los agricultores usarían la semilla mejorada Cuadro 13. Precio conocido y precio máximo que el agricultor estaría dispuesto a pagar por semilla mejorada, Jutiapa, Guatemala, 1991.Para explicar el modelo conceptual usado para estimar la demanda de semilla mejorada se considera que el agricultor se enfrenta con la decisión de elegir entre dos alternativas: usar semilla criolla (j=0) o usar semilla mejorada (j=I). La elección de un determinado tipo de semilla depende de la utilidad que las características o atributos de la semilla tengan para el agricultor i-ésimo (X ij ) y de las características (circunstancias internas y externas) del agricultor y su finca (C¡). Es decir, que cada agricultor valora en forma diferente las características de las alternativas de acuerdo con las circunstancias internas y externas que enfrenta. De esa manera, la utilidad de un determinado tipo de semilla j para el i-ésimo agricultor (Vij) se representa por la función:donde X¡j representa el conjunto de características de cada una de los tipos de semillas alternativos y C¡ el conjunto de características del agricultor. El subíndice i mdica quc tanto el conjunto de alternativas como el de características puede ser diferente para distintos agricultores.En una muestra aleatoria de agricultores es casi imposible que el investigador pueda observar todos los elementos de X,] (J de C¡ o que conozca con exactitud cual es la función de utilidad de los agricultores. Entonces es posible dividir la función de utilidad en dos partes: una parte determinística o sistemática formada por la función [1] Y otra parte aleatoria que representa todos los elementos no observados y toda la incertidumbre del investígador respecto a aquellos aspectos de la función de utilidad que son desconocidos. Es decir:donde, ~es un vector de parámetros a ser estimados, y E¡] un vector de variables aleatorias.De acuerdo con Manski (1977) hay cuatro fuentes de incertidumbre que justifican la presencia de E¡j : 1) características no observables. Ni el investigador ni el propio agricultor conocen perfectamente el vector de características de las semillas; 2) variaciones no observadas en las preferencias de los agricultores. Las preferencias individuales varían entre los agricultores dentro de un dominio de recomendación y esta variabilidad es capturada en este término aleatorio; 3) errores en las medición tanto de las características de las alternativas tecnológicas como en las circunstancias de los agricultores; y 4) error en la especificación de la forma de la función de utilidad. Usualmente se asume una fonna lineal lo cual puede inducir a errores.La introducción del termino aleatorio significa que aun conociendo la parte sistemática de la utilidad el investigador no podría estar seguro de cual sería la elección de un determinado agricultor. En su lugar, se puede representar la probabilidad de que el agricultor iésimo elija cada una de las alternativas como: La parte derecha de la desigualdad corresponde a la parte sistemática de la función de utilidad y se puede definir como un índice de utilidad lj. Cuanto más grande sea este índice mayor será la diferencia entre las partes sistemáticas de las utilidad derivada de la alternativa 1 sobre la alternativa O y mayor será la probabilidad de que el agricultor adopte la semilla mejorada. Suponiendo que la parte sistemática de la utilidad es una función lineal en los parámetros de las características de la semilla y del agricultor, el índice de utilidad se puede expresar: La parte izquierda de la desigualdad está formada por la diferencia de dos variables aleatorias por lo que es también una variable aleatoria. Sustituyendo la expresión [5] en la [4], y haciendo e¡ = (E¡O -E¡¡) se tiene:Por lo tanto la probabilidad de que la alternativa 1 sea adoptada es igual a la probabilidad de que la variable aleatoria definida por la diferencia entre los términos aleatorios de las alternativas sea menor o igual al índice de utilidad l¡. La probabilidad de que una variable aleatoria sea igual menor que un valor determinado está dado por la función de distribución cumulativa (fdc) de esa variable aleatoria. Por 10 tanto:Asumiendo que la variable aleatoria e¡ tiene una función de distribución logística se obtiene: 1 [3 ] La función [8] es la base del modelo logit usado en el modelo empírico de este trabajo para estimar la probabilidad de adopción de las variedades mejoradas.Es decir que el agricultor elegirá el tipo de semilla que le de la mayor utilidad. Dado el modelo de utilidad' aleatoria (MUA) especificado en la expresión [3] es posible expresar la probabilidad de que el i-ésimo agricultor elija usar la semilla mejorada (alternativa l) como: 245Adopción: Los factores observados en la encuesta no estaban diseñados con la precisión suficiente para discriminar en la decisión del agricultor de adoptar o Categoría PorcentajeCuadro 15. Variable dependiente, proporción de cada categoría en la muestra una variedad mejorada o un híbrido, por esta razón se decidió agrupar a estos materiales en una sola categoría: variedades mejoradas. De esta manera el modelo empínco propuesto intenta determinar los factores que influyen en la decisión de adoptar en forma parcial o total un material mejorado sin diferenciar entre si se trata de un híbrido o una variedad mejorada.No adoptador (Yi =0)Parcialmente adoptador (Yi = 1)Totalmente adoptador (Yi = 2) 47.8 33.2 19.0La variable dependiente es una variable cualitativa que clasifica a los agricultores en tres categorías. El valor O representa al agricultor que no ha adoptado una variedad mejorada. El valor 1 representa al agricultor que ha adoptado la semilla mejorada en forma parcial, es decir, que sembró parte de la superficie con maíz con semilla criolla y parte con semilla mejorada. El valor 2 representa al agricultor totalmente adoptador que siembra toda la superficie con variedades mejoradas. El Cuadro 1S muestra las proporciones de cada una de estas categorías encontradas en la muestra.Para estimar la probabilidad de adopción parcial o total se normaliza la expresión [6] en términos de las alternativas de no adopción y se estiman las dos funciones logit siguientes (Gugajarati 1988, Train 1990):El impacto de las variables individuales sobre la probabilidad de adopción parcial o total se estima mediante el calculo de las elasticidades. La elasticidad E mide el cambio porcentual en la probabilidad de adopción ante un cambio porcentual en el factor. Se calcula como:impacto marginal del factor i.A continuación se describen las variables independientes incluidas en el modelo, sus efectos esperados y sus principales características en la muestra.Sistema: Es una variable dicotómica que toma el valor 1 si los agricultores siembran alguna parcela de maíz en monocultivo, y O si todo e! maiz se siembra asociado a otro cultivo. Se espera que los agricultores que siembren alguna parcela en monocultivo tiendan a usar más semilla de maíz mejorado que aquellos que siembran maíz en asocio. Es probable que el cambio del sistema tradicional a monocultivo esté impulsado por motivos relacionados con el incremento en productividad y rentabilidad y, por lo tanto aquellos agricultores que cambian el sistema también cambian a variedades mejoradas buscando una rentabilidad mayor.Distancia: Esta variable representa la distancia en km. de la parcela del agricultor al municipio donde se encuentra la plaza comercial más cercana donde adquiere insumos y vende su producto. Tanto la distancia como el tiempo que tarda el agricultor en recorrerla, son circunstancias que determinan en mucho la facilidad de! campesino para obtener insumos agrícolas, vender sus productos y recibir servicios de asistencia técnica. Como circunstancia de vida este factor juega un importante rol en la decisión de un agricultor para usar o no semilla mejorada de maíz y otros insumos agrícolas. Se considera que a mayor distancia, mayores serán los costos no solo de adquisición de la semilla, sino también de adquirir o recibir información (asesoría técnica) sobre sus características y manejo. Por lo tanto se espera una . relación inversa: agricultores ubicados a mayor distancia del municipio tendrán menor probabilidad de adoptar la semilla mejorada.Se consideró que la relación entre distancia y costos de transacción no era lineal por lo que se incluyó además un término cuadrático para capturar este efecto. DIGESA: Variable dicotómica que toma el valor 1 si el agricultor conoce por al menos un año el programa de producción artesanal de semilla desarrollado por DIGESA, y O si no 10 conoce. Esta variable captura el grado de información de los agricultores sobre la producción artesanal de semilla por 10 que se espera una relación directa entre esta variable y la probabilidad de adopción.Familia: Tamaño del núcleo familiar medido por el número de personas que viven en la casa del agricultor. Se espera que entre más numerosa sea la familia menor será la probabilidad de usar semilla mejorada. El sustento de esta hipótesis se basa en dos argumentos. Por un lado, familias más numerosas necesitan mayores cantidades de maíz para satisfacer el consumo interno el cuál se realiza preferentemente con maíz criollo. Por otro lado, familias más numerosas destinan mayor proporción del ingreso total a satisfacer necesidades vitales y por 10 tanto es probable que tengan mayores restricciones presupuestarias para la adquisición de semilla mejorada.Tamaño: Tamaño en hectáreas de la finca. Numerosos trabajos anteriores incluyen al tamaño de la explotación como una de las características de la fmca más relacionada con la adopción de nuevas tecnologías. Es usada también para caracterizar el sesgo distributivo de la nueva tecnología. Se espera que a mayor tamaño menores serán las restricciones de recursos financieros y de tierra para su adopción y por 10 tanto mayor será la probabilidad de adoptar la semilla mejorada.Tenencia: Variable dicotómica que toma el valor 1 si el agricultor posee al menos parte de la finca en propiedad, y Osi no posee ninguna. La tenencia ha sido un factor importante mencionado en la literatura sobre adopción de nuevas tecnologías especialmente en casos de aquellas dirigidas a la conservación de recursos o que requieren de una inversión inicial considerable. En el caso de semillas mejoradas se espera una relación positiva entre la propiedad de la tierra y la probabilidad de adopción debido al efecto riqueza. Aquellos agricultores con tierra en propiedad son mas ricos que los que no tienen y por ello más probable que adopten la semilla mejorada.Asociación: Variable dicotómica que toma el valor 1 si el agricultor pertenece a ninguna organización local (asociación, cooperativa, comité comunal, etc.) y O si no pertenece a alguna organización. En la literatura sobre adopción de nuevas tecnologías, la afiliación de los campesinos a organizaciones locales o regionales 247 frecuentemente se reporta como un factor muy relacionado a la adopción de nuevas técnicas de producción. Se espera que una mayor participación en organizaciones campesinas incrementa las alternativas de obtener servicios de asistencia técnica, crédito u otras formas de asistencia económica reduciendo los costos de adquirir información e incrementar la probabilidad de adopción de semilla mejorada.Finanext: Variable dicotómica que toma el valor 1 si el agricultor usa alguna fuente de financiamiento externo a la fmca para la producción de maíz y O si no 10 hace. Esta es otra variable que también se reporta en la literatura como un factor importante sobre la decisión de adopción. Se espera que el acceso al crédito facilite el uso de estos insumos comprados fuera de la fmca como la semilla mejorada.Edad: Edad del agricultor en años. La edad es una de las características del agricultor que se menciona frecuentemente en la literatura como un factor de importancia en la adopción de nuevas tecnologías . Aunque los resultados encontrados en trabajos anteriores no son concluyentes, se espera que los agricultores jóvenes sean más receptivos a las nuevas tecnologías y por tanto más innovadores.Educación: Variable dicotómica que toma el valor 1 si el agricultor tiene al menos un año de escuela y O si no tiene educación formal. El nivel de educación es otra característica del agricultor, además de su edad, que más frecuentemente se relaciona en la literatura con mayores tasas de adopción de nuevas tecnologías. Un alto nivel educativo se ha vinculado consistentemente con mayores tasas de adopción.La variable que más se ha usado para reflejar el nivel de educación es el número de años de educación del agricultor, sin embargo, muchos de estos casos corresponden en su mayoría a trabajos realiZados en países desarrollados donde esta variable presenta una variabilidad razonable. En el caso del presente trabajo el nivel de educación formal de los agricultores en la muestra fue muy bajo. Un 43% de los agricultores no posee ningún tipo de escolaridad y un 54% de ellos recibieron un promedio de dos años de educación primaria y sólo un 3% tiene educación secundaria.Plana: Porcentaje de la superficie cultivada con maíz que el agricultor considera plana. Estudios previos recientes (Bellon y Taylor, 1993) han mostrado la importancia de la clasificación campesina de los suelos sobre la adopción de nuevas tecnologías especialmente cuando existe adopción parcial. Se espera una asociación positiva entre esta variable y la probabilidad de adopción de variedades mejoradas ya que es probable que el agricultor invierta más en tierras planas con mayores probabilidades de altos retornos que en aquellas tierras en laderas.Mala: Porcentaje de la superficie cultivada con maíz que el agricultor no considera como una buena tierra para el cultivo de maíz. Además de las características topográficas los agricultores también clasificaron la tierra de cultivo en tres categorías de calidad: pedregosa, erosionada, y buena (Cuadro 16). Para la definición de esta variable se agruparon las categorías pedregosa y erosionada en una sola que define a la tierra como no buena en el criterio del agricultor. Se debe considerar que una tierra pedregosa no necesariamente tiene una baja fertilidad. Esta variable dice simplemente que el agricultor no la considera como buena. En este caso se espera una relación inversa por la misma razón esgrimida anteriormente: es mas probable que el agricultor invierta en tierras que él/ella considere de mejor calidad que en aquellas que considera de menor calidad.Cuadro 16. Caracterización campesina de las parcelas de maíz Pedregosa Erosionada Buena Los Cuadros 17 y 18 resumen las variables incluidas y sus características mas importantes en la muestra.Los resultados de la estimación mediante el método de máxima verosimilitud de las ecuaciones 8 y 9 pueden considerarse satisfactorios. El modelo ajusta bien de acuerdo con las distintas pruebas estadísticas propuestas en la literatura. La mayor parte de las variables incluidas tienen los signos esperados y son estadísticamente significativas (Cuadro 19).La ecuación 6 fue usada para estimar la probabilidad de adopción de semilla mejorada para un agricultor típico y otros tipos de agricultores calculada a los valores promedios de las variables cuantitativas (Cuadro 20). De acuerdo con los valores más frecuentes encontrados en la muestra un agricultor típico de maíz en Jutiapa se caracteriza por tener parte de la tierra en propiedad (69%), no participar en ninguna asociación (86%), no conocer a DIGESA (74%) y sembrar todo su maíz en asocio con otro cultivo (58%). Los otros tipos de agricultores son definidos por cambios en las variables cualitativas cuyos coeficientes resultaron diferentes de cero: sistema de cultivo, información sobre DIGESA, participación en una asociación y tenencia de la tierra.Las probabilidades asociadas con cada uno de ellos reflejan cambios en la probabilidad de adopción respecto al agricultor típico ante un cambio en el nivel de la variable cualitativa que se trate manteniendo las demás al nivel definido para el agricultor típico. Efecto esperado Proporción en la muestra Sistema. Toma el valor 1 si el maíz se siembra en monocultivo. Educación. Toma el valor 1 si el agricultor ha ido a la escuela. Digesa. Toma el valor 1 si el agricultor tuvo información sobre el programa de DIGESA. Tenencia. Toma el valor 1 si el agricultor posee parte de la finca en propiedad. Asociación. Toma el valor 1 si el agricultor participa en al menos una asociación local. Crédito. Toma el valor 1 si el agricultor hace uso del crédito en la producción.. De acuerdo con los resultados sobre la probabilidad de adopción de semilla mejorada reflejados en el Cuadro 20, para un agricultor típico de Jutiapa, la probabilidad de usar semilla mejorada en fonna parcial es de un 24% y en fonna total de un 18%.  Un factor que incide en fonna significativa en la probabilidad de adopción es el hecho de si el agricultor decide sembrar al menos parte de su maíz en monocultivo. En este caso, tal como fuera postulado, la probabilidad de que el agricultor use semilla mejorada en fonna parcial se incrementa en un 80% y entre un 40 y un 50% que la use en fonna total. Este resultado indica la posibilidad que el cambio de sistema de cultivo, en parte o en el total de la superficie, y la decisión de adoptar semilla mejorada sea una decisión conjunta.  249 Dos factores que tienen un impacto similar al anterior sobre la probabilidad de adopción de un agricultor típico se relacionan con el nivel de infonnación que posee. Uno de ellos se refiere directamente al conocimiento que tiene al agricultor del programa de DIGESA. En este caso el impacto sobre la probabilidad es similar al encontrado para el cambio del sistema de cultivo. El otro factor, es la participación en organizaciones locales. En este caso el impacto se destaca en la decisión de usar semilla mejorada en la totalidad del área dedicada a la siembra del maíz. La presencia de este factor casi duplica la probabilidad de que el agricultor típico siembre la totalidad de la superficie dedicada a maíz con semilla mejorada. Los coeficientes asociados con las variables relacionadas con la participación en organizaciones comunales y con conocimiento del programa de DIGESA resultaron con los signos esperados y significativos por lo menos al 5% de probabilidad tanto para adoptadores parciales como totales. La participación en organizaciones comunales disminuye los costos de adquirir infonnación y aumenta la probabilidad de adopción de semilla mejorada. Este resultado coincide con aquellos encontrados por Harrington el al., 1992, Belknap y Saupe 1988, Herdt  y Capule, 1983. La importancia del programa de DIGESA puede ser medida a través del impacto asociado a un cambio en esta variable.El cuarto factor que resultó importante en la decisión de usar semilla mejorada fue la propiedad de la tierra. Si el agricultor no tuviera tierra propia la probabilidad de usar semilla mejorada en forma parcial o total se reduce en un 60%. Es importante reconocer que aun cuando los retornos a la inversión en semilla mejorada se recuperan inmediatamente, este resultado estaría indicando la importancia de restricciones financieras. Es probable que las tasas mínimas de retornos para aquellos agricultores que no poseen tierras propias sean demasiadas elevadas como para inducirlos a invertir en nuevas semillas.Tamaño: Es la variable que tiene un mayor impacto sobre la probabilidad de adopción. Un aumento del 10% en la superficie total de la finca conlleva un aumento de aproximadamente el 5% en la probabilidad de adopción total o parcial. El tamaño de la finca y el hecho de tener tierra en propiedad son dos características que afectan positivamente la probabilidad de adopción ya sea en forma parcial o total. Una mayor superficie de la finca y la propiedad de tierras son indicadores de mayor riqueza e ingreso que, a su vez, está muy relacionado con la posibilidad de adquirir más y mejores insumos agrícolas. Estos resultados son consistentes con aquellos encontrados en otros trabajos sobre adopción de nuevas tecnologías. (Brush et al., 1990, Belknap y Saupe 1988, y Rahm  and Huffman, 1984).Agricultor típico Parcial Total Cuadro 21. Elasticidades de la probabilidad de adopción (cambio porcentual en la probabilidad de adopción ante un incremento de 1% en el factor) El Cuadro21 muestra la elasticidad de la probabilidad de adopción respecto a las variables cuantitativas que resultaron estadísticamente significativas. Las elasticidades se calcularon, usando la ecuación 9, para el caso del agricultor típico. A continuación se analizan las variables agrupadas por tipo.Finanext:. Aunque los coeficientes asociados con la disponibilidad de financiamiento extra finca tuvieron signos contrarios a lo esperado tanto en el caso de adopción parcial como total, no resultaron estadísticamente significativos a ningún nivel relevante de probabilidad. Una posible explicación para este resultado es el bajo nivel de uso de fuentes de Clasificación campesina de los suelos: De las dos variables incluidas para capturar el efecto de la clasificación campesina de los suelos solo aquella relacionada con la topografia resultó significativa. Un incremento del 10% en la proporción de tierra dedicada al maíz considerada por el agricultor como plana, eleva en poco mas del 3% la probabilidad de adopción total o parcial de semilla mejorada. La clasificación campesina relacionada con la calidad de suelo (tierra pedregosa o erosionada) no parece afectar en forma significativa la probabilidad de adopción de variedades.Estos resultados son parcialmente consistentes con aquellos reportados por Bellon y Taylor quienes encontraron una clara asociación entre calidad de suelos y adopción de variedades mejoradas de maíz en Chiapas, México (Bellon y Taylor 1993).Familia: Tal como fuera mencionado con anterioridad el número de integrantes del núcleo familiar afecta negativamente la adopción de semilla mejorada en el caso de adopción total; sin embargo, no juega un papel importante en la adopción parcial. Este resultado es consistente con la hipótesis sobre la importancia del maíz criollo en el autoconsumo. En el caso de la adopción parcial el numero de miembros de la familia no es importante ya que las necesidades se satisfacen con el maíz criollo sembrado. Este resultado es consistente con los hallazgos de Brush et al., 1990 y de Rauniyar y Goode, 1990. Distancia: Tal como fuera esperado, una mayor distancia a los mercados afecta negativamente la probabilidad de adoptar semilla mejorada. Un aumento del 10% en la distancia reduce la probabilidad de adopción parcial o total por parte de un agricultor típico en un poco más del 3%. Estos valores son consistentes con los encontrados por Gottret et al., 1993. financiamiento afuera de la finca. Sólo un 17% de los agricultores posee algún tipo de financiamiento extra finca los cuales provienen de el crédito brindado por el Banco Desarrollo Agrícola (11 %) Y el alquiler de servicios de bueyes y mano de obra (6%).Edad: El coeficiente asociado con la edad del agricultor no resultó estadísticamente significativo en el caso de la adopción parcial, sin embargo si existe una asociación inversa significativa entre la edad y la siembra de toda la superficie de maíz con semilla mejorada. Es decir que son los agricultores más jóvenes los que tienen mas probabilidad de cambiar la variedad en forma total aunque su impacto no es muy importante. Un incremento de un 10% en la edad del agricultor reduce la probabilidad de usar variedades mejoradas en toda la superficie en solo 0.4%.Educación: Los coeficientes relacionados con el nivel de educación de los agricultores no resultaron estadísticamente significativos a ningún nivel relevante de probabilidad en ninguna de las dos ecuaciones. Contrariamente a lo encontrado en otros trabajos sobre adopción de tecnologías el nivel de educación no resultaron significativas a ningún nivel relevante de probabilidad en el caso de la adopción parcial, sin embargo si existe una asociación inversa entre la edad y la siembra de toda la superficie de maíz con semilla mejorada.Los agricultores del departamento usan y prefieren dos variedades mejoradas de polinización abierta (B-l y B-5) Y dos híbridos (H-5 y H-3). Si bien no se tiene información sobre el numero real de ciclos que el agricultor usa estos materiales, sin embargo las formas de adquisición reportadas y preferencias indican que la mayoría de los agricultores usan la semilla entre 1 y 3 ciclos agrícolas. Los niveles de precios relativos de la semilla mejorada encontrados (entre 3.5 y 5) son considerados adecuados para los agricultores.Los resultados muestran que el programa tuvo un impacto significativo en la adopción y difusión de semilla mejorada en el departamento. A nivel de agricultor, involucrarse con el programa por un mínimo de 1 año incrementa en forma significativa la probabilidad de usar semilla mejorada. Este impacto se refleja a nivel agregado por el incremento de la tasa de 251 crecimiento en el uso de variedades mejoradas que se registra a partir de 1986. También relacionado con el nivel de información que maneja el agricultor, se encontró que aquellos agricultores que participan en asociaciones comunales también incrementan la probabilidad de usar semillas mejoradas.El uso de variedades mejoradas se encuentra asociado a un cambio en el sistema de siembra de maíz asociado a maíz en monocultivo.Un agricultor que siembra parte o toda su parcela en monocultivo incrementa en forma significativa la probabilidad de uso de semilla mejorada. Es probable que el agricultor que siembra en monocultivo destine el producto exclusivamente al mercado por lo que la productividad de la parcela juegue un rol preponderante en la decisión de que variedad usar, mientras que preferencias sobre el consumo jueguen un papel secundario. Esta hipótesis es apoyada por el resultado encontrado sobre el impacto del numero de miembros en la familia campesina. Este factor no es importante en la adopción parcial pero si es limitante en el caso de adopción total. Dos factores importantes para la estrategia de extensión usada en el programa son: la influencia que tiene el costo de adquirir insumas e información reflejados por la distancia del agricultor al centro de abastecimiento y el tamaño de la finca. Los resultados confirman que aquellos agricultores mas lejanos a los centros tienen menos probabilidad de usar semilla mejorada. Lo mismo para aquellos agricultores más pequeños.Las futuras estrategias de extensión deben considerar estos factores al establecer sus prioridades. Una difusión más rápida requiere mayor esfuerzo promocional de los extensionistas agrícolas, y aumentar los canales de distribución. Si bien la propiedad de la tierra es un factor que afecta el uso de variedades mejoradas en forma significativa, su importancia relativa no es tan considerable como los anteriores.Un resultado importante por sus implicaciones para investigación y extensión es el hecho de que los agricultores del departamento tienden a sembrar semillas mejoradas en tierras planas más que en las laderas. Este hallazgo es consistente con la hipótesis mencionada anteriormente sobre la inversión en nuevas tecnologías.La edad del agricultor resultó importante solamente en el caso de adopción total. Este resultado confirma la aseveración realizada respecto a la importancia del uso final del producto. Los agricultores jóvenes además de ser menos adversos al riesgo, tienen menos dependientes y por lo tanto tienen mas probabilidades de usar la semilla mejorada en la totalidad de la superficie dedicada a maíz.Los autores desean agradecer a Robert Tripp, Mike Morris, Ramiro Ortiz, Mario Jauregui, Héctor Barreto, Jerome Fournier, Porfirio Masaya, Elio Durón y Giancarlo de Piccioto por sus comentarios y sugerencias realizadas a una versión preliminar que permitió mejorar enormemente este trabajo. También desean agradecer a la Cooperación Suiza para el Desarrollo (COSUDE), a la Fundación Ford (FF), y al Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID) por el apoyo financiero a las actividades del CIMMYT y el PRM. Sin su generosa contribución este trabajo no hubiera sido posible. Finalmente al JCTA, y al CJMMYT por brindar el apoyo institucional necesano para tener un excelente ambiente de trabajo.José Luis Quemé!, Rolando Ochoa 2 , Carlos Acosta 3 , Kurt Schneider 4 y William Quemé 5El maíz juega un papel importante en la alimentación de los guatemaltecos. En la producción de este cereal parte de la problemática principal son las deficientes y/o limitadas prácticas de manejo de la postproducción. La Cooperación Suiza al Desarrollo en 1990 inició un proyecto de postcosecha conjuntamente con la Unidad de Postcosecha de DIGESA de Guatemala, surgiendo la presente investigación la cual se ejecutó en los aílos 1990-91, cuyos objetivos fueron cuantificar el porcentaje de daílo, pérdida de grano, factores que influyen en el grano daílado, identificación de insectos, caracterizar cada sistema e identificar alternativas de almacenamiento. El trabajo consistió en evaluar las siguientes estructuras de almacenamiento:Troja Tradicional (TT), Troja Tradicional con Manejo Mejorado (TTMM), Troja Tradicional con Patas (TTCP), Caseta de Secado (CS) y Silo Metálico (SM), dicho estudio se realizó con 88 agricultores en JO municipios del departamento de Chimaltenango en Guatemala. Entre los resultados relevantes se tiene que el Silo Metálico fue la mejor alternativa con porcentajes de daílo y pérdida acumulada menores del J%, la caseta de secado funcionó adecuadamente en el secado del grano, los factores adversos que más afectaron fueron los roedores, insectos y hongos, y entre los géneros de insectos de mayor importancia están: Sitotroga y Sitophilus. Además se determinaron las características del manejo del cultivo después de la madurez fisiológica, así como el manejo y las características de cada estructura almacenamiento.El maíz juega un papel importante en la alimentación de los guatemaltecos, ya que la población, principalmente rural obtienen de este cereal alto porcentaje de sus requerimientos proteicos y energéticos.En Guatemala, el maíz se siembra en un área aproximada de 928 mil manzanas lo que representa el 87% del total de área dedicada a los cereales. El rendimiento promedio nacional es de aproximadamente 28 quintales por manzana, esta baja producción se debe  DEL PRM 1993-1995, VOL. 5 (1997), p. 254-267. 254 a varios factores entre los que se pueden mencionar factores socioeconómicos, uso de variedades criollas y/o degeneradas, de bajo potencíal de rendimiento, características agronómicas indeseables, deficientes y/o limitadas prácticas de manejo agronómico y postproducción.La postproducción es uno de los factores más importantes a tomar en cuenta para su mejora, ya que de lo contrario se tiene la problemática de pérdida de alimentos, disminucíón de la productividad del cultivo y en algunos casos pérdida de ingreso de divisas.La Cooperación Suiza al Desarrollo (COSUDE), consciente de la problemática de la postproducción, inició en 1990 un proyecto bilateral de postcosecha en Guatemala. Fue así como surgió el trabajo de la evaluación de diferentes estructuras de almacenamiento en diferentes áreas del departamento de Chimaltenango.Dicho trabajo se justificó porque en el altiplano central de Guatemala (donde se ubica Chimaltenango), existe una agricultura de subsistencia, con limitados recursos económicos y de tierra, y sobre todo, la mayoría de los agricultores que son pequeños y medianos productores, utilizan estructuras de almacenamiento tradicionales inadecuados para el buen almacenamiento del grano de maiz, provocando pérdidas, ventas del producto a bajo precio y compras con elevados precios en época de escasez.Otra justificación es debido a que caSUDE en trabajos bilaterales con otros países ganó experiencia y además identificó alternativas de almacenamiento, silo por ejemplo, los cuales reducen las pérdidas hasta cerca de cero porciento, siendo éste una buena alternativa para Guatemala.Este trabajo se ejecutó en los años 1990-91, evaluando cinco estructuras de almacenamiento, troja tradicional (TI), troja tradicional con manejo mejorado (TIMM), troja tradicional con patas (TICP), caseta de secado (CS) y silo metálico (SM). La evaluación se realizó con 88 agricultores en 14 comunidades, ubicadas en 10 municipios del departamento de Chimaltenango, Guatemala.l. Cuantificar el porcentaje de daño y pérdida del grano almacenado bajo diferentes estructuras de almacenamiento.2. Identificar los factores que más influyen en el porcentaje de grano dañado. 3. Identificar los insectos que se presentan en las diferentes estructuras de almacenamiento.4. Contar con la información de las características de cada sistema previo a su difusión masiva.5. Identificar la(s) mejor(es) altemativa(s) mejoradas de almacenamiento adaptables a las condiciones de las localidades de estudio.1. El comportamiento de la TI es' similar a las estructuras mejoradas.2. La CS disminuye el porcentaje de humedad sin afectar el grano de maíz.En el Cuadro 1, se describen los 10 mUnICIpIOS donde se realizó la evaluación, estando comprendidos entre 1,785 a 2,310 msnm, ubicados entre 14°36' 30\" Y 14°47' 24\" de latitud; y entre 90°47' 35\" Y 91°0 0' 53\" de longitud.La evaluación se realizó a finales del año 1990 y todo el año de 1991.Con base a la prueba de concepto, los agricultores se seleccionaron a partir de la población de pequeños y medianos productores.En el Cuadro 2, se detallan los municipios y comunidades donde se realizó la investigación, seleccionando 28 agricultores para evaluar la TI, 15 para la TICP, 14 para la CS, 15 para la TTMM y 16 para el silo metálico.Esta no sufrió ninguna modificación, se dejó al agricultor que la manejara tal como él 10 viene realízando a través de los años.Se utilizó la TI, modificando en lo que se refiere a selección de las mazorcas, desinfestación de la estructura con Actellic líquido 50 EC a razón de 50 cc/galón de agua; aplicación de Actellic en polvo al 2% a las mazorcas a razón de 29 gr/250 mazorcas.La construcción fue de acuerdo a las recomendaciones de la unidad de postcosecha (UP), incluyendo además las modificaciones especificadas en la TIMM.La construcción se realizó de acuerdo a las recomendaciones de la UP, se le hizo las mismas modificaciones de la TTMM y además, el maíz se almacenó con alta humedad (24%).La construcción y manejo del silo fue de acuerdo a las recomendaciones de la UP, utilizando silos de 18 y 30 qq de capacidad y aplicándoles fosfuro de aluminio a razón de 4 pastillas/18 quintales de maíz almacenado.Los muestreos se realizaron a intervalos de 30 días, durante todo el año de 1991, siendo el tamaño de la muestra de 10-12 mazorcas las cuales se tomaron del área donde se extrae el grano para el consumo. Seguidamente las muestras se enviaron al laboratorio de la UP para su análisis.Para la toma de datos se utilizaron tres boletas, la primera para el registro inicial, la segunda del registro periódico y la tercera para el análisis de laboratorio. Santa Apolonia 2.Tecpán Guatemala (PGS/NGS) * NGdnr (PGS/NGS) * NGD * PGS El 78% de los agricultores que almacenaron en la TI realizaron la práctica de \"dobla y despunte\", el 7% solo doblaron y el 15% no realizó la dobla y despunte. Este tipo de manejo la ejecutaron la mayoría de los agricultores en los meses de octubre y noviembre.Cosecha P = Pérdida PGS = Peso de grano sano al 15% de humedad NGS = Número de granos sanos NGd = Número de granos dañados NGdnr = Número de granos dañados no recuperables Para determinar el porcentaje de grano dañado se hizo mediante el conteo del número de granos dañados de una muestra de 1,000 granos expresada en porcentaje.En esta parte se presentan algunos resultados en promedios y frecuencias, relacionados con la post 257 El 46% cosecharon en diciembre, el 50% en enero y el 4% en el mes de febrero. La mayoría cosechan sin tuza (67%); 26% con y sin tuza ; y en menor porcentaje existen agricultores que cosechan con tuza (7%).Todos los agricultores utilizan variedades criollas, cuyos colores de granos se describen a continuación: amarillo (11% de las trojas), amarillo-blanco (11%), amarillo-negro (3%); amarillo-blanca-negro (43%), blanco-amarillo (14%), blanco-amarillo y negro (18%).El 100% de agricultores no desgrana para almacenar, secando el maíz al sol en promedio de 13 días.El 68% de las trojas, fueron construidas el piso y las paredes con madera rústica; el 21 % de piso de madera rústica y paredes con caña de milpa; el 4% con piso y pared de caña de milpa; otro 4% con piso de madera y paredes de adobe y 3% con otros materiales. Para el techo utilizaron lámina (89%) y teja de barro (11%). Las dimensiones fueron de 1.75, 1.94 Y2.38 m. para la altura, ancho y profundidad de la troja respectivamente; con capacidad de 8.08 m 3  • Algunas trojas se construyeron sobre el suelo a una altura promedio de 0.27m.La condición del almacén se consideró buena en la mayoría de las trojas (93%) y regular en las restantes (7%). La cantidad de maíz almacenado en promedio fue de 40.22 qq, ocupando el 55% del volumen total de la troja. En promedio la fecha de entrojado fue el 25 de enero, con fecha mínima del 23 de diciembre y máxima del 22 de febrero.La mayor parte de las troj as no presentaron evidencias de roedores (93% de las trojas), lo mismo sucedió con los insectos (86%), maíz germinado (100%), calentamiento (96%) y evidencia de moho (79%). En cuanto al control de plagas, el 43% no hace ningún control, el 7% utiliza cal (5 lbs/troj a); 39%, utiliza malathion al 5% (1-2 lbs/troja); el 4% aplica sevin (0.5 lbs/troj a); efectuando el control al momento de entrojado.Los datos para el manejo provienen de 10 agricultores que utilizaron la TTMM, ya que no se pudo obtener información del total (15). El 10% despuntan y doblan; el 40% doblan y el 50% despuntan, ejecutando dichas prácticas en los meses de octubre, noviembre y diciembre.El 7% cosecharon en octubre, 14% en noviembre y el 7% en diciembre, 64% en enero y 7% en febrero. Sin tuza cosecharon el 57% de los casos, con y sin tuza el 7%; y con tuza el 36%.El 100% utilizaron variedades criollas con los siguientes colores de granos: amarillo (7%), amarilloblanco (13%), amarillo-blanco-negro (20%), blanco (7%), blanco-amarillo (20%), blanco-amarillo-negro (33%).El 100% de agricultores no desgranan para almacenar, secando el maíz al sol en promedio de 11 días.El 14% de las trojas, fueron construidas el piso y las paredes con madera rústica; el 65% con piso de madera y paredes de caña de milpa; y el 21 % construidas con caña de milpa tanto para el piso como para las paredes. Para el techo todas las trojas tuvieron lámina. Las dimensiones fueron de 1.43, 1.98 Y 1.94 m. para la altura, ancho y profundidad de la troja respectivamente; con capacidad de 5.43 m 3 •El 73% de las trojas estaban bajo condiciones buenas y el 27% en condiciones regulares. La cantidad de maíz almacenado en promedio fue de 20.66 qq, ocupando el 43% del volumen total de la troja. En promedio la fecha de entrojado fue el 26 de enero, con fecha mínima del 27 de noviembre y máxima del 22 de febrero.La mayor parte de las trojas presentaron evidencias de roedores (73%) , evidencia de insectos (73%), maíz germinado (25%), evidencia de moho (54%) y cero porciento para el calentamiento. Para el control de plagas, se utilizó Actellic 50EC líquido y Actellic 2% en polvo, efectuando el control al momento del entrojado.El 7% de los agricultores que almacenaron las TTCP efectuaron despunte y el 50% dobla y despunte y el 43% no realizó ninguna práctica. El manejo lo ejecutaron en los meses de noviembre y diciembre.El 7% cosecharon en octubre, 13% en noviembre y el 33% en diciembre y 47% en enero.El 93% cosecharon sin tuza y el 7% restante lo hicieron con hlza.El 53% de los agricultores utilizaron variedades criollas, 27% variedades mejoradas y 20% utilizaron criolla y mejorada. En cuanto al color de granos, el 46% de los casos fue amarillo-blanco, 40% amarilloblanco-negro; 7% blanco y 7% blanco-amarillonegro.La totalidad de los agricultores no desgranan para almacenar, secando el maíz en promedio 15 días.El 100% de las TTCP fueron construidas con madera rústica para el piso y la paredes, mientras que para el techo se utilizó lámina. Las dimensiones fueron de 1.77, 1.89 Y 2.20 m. para la altura, ancho y profundidad de la troja respectivamente; con capacidad de 7.36 m J .Las condiciones de las trojas fueron buenas para el 100% de los casos, la cantidad de maíz almacenado en promedio fue de 30.28 qq, ocupando el 30% de la troja. La fecha de entrojado fue el 25 de enero, con fecha mínima del 18 de diciembre y máxima del 22 de febrero.El 31 % de las trojas presentaron evidencias de roedores, 84% con evidencia de insectos, 84% con evidencia de moho, 25% con maíz germinado, y sin 259 calentamiento. Para el control de plagas se utilizó Actellic 50EC líquido y Actellic 2% en polvo, efectuando la aplicación al momento del entrojado.El 60% de los agricultores efectuaron dobla y despunte, el 40% restante no efectuó ningún manejo. La dobla y el despunte lo efectuaron en los meses de noviembre y diciembre.El 10% cosecharon en noviembre, el 30% en diciembre y 60% en enero. La cosecha la realizaron sin tuza en el 60% de los casos y con tuza lo hicieron el 40% de los agricultores.El 100% de los agricultores utilizaron variedades criollas con los siguientes colores de grano: amarillo (10%), amarillo-blanco (40%), amarillo-negro ( 10%) Yblanco-amarilla-negro (10%).No desgranan para almacenar, secando el maíz al sol por un espacio de 11 días en promedio.El 33% de las casetas utilizaron madera rústica para el piso y las paredes; 22%, madera para el piso de madera y caña de milpa para las paredes; y el 45% madera para el piso y otros para las paredes. Las dimensiones fueron de 1.58, 0.81 Y 2.70 m. para la altura, ancho y profundidad respectivamente; con capacidad de 3.45 m 3 .Las condiciones de las casetas fueron buenas en su totalidad, almacenado 23.09 qq, ocupando el 56.35% del volumen de la caseta.La fecha de almacenamiento promedio fue el 21 de diciembre, con fecha mínima del 7 de diciembre y máxima del 22 de enero.En el 30% de las casetas existió evidencias de roedores, insectos el 20%, moho 90%, maíz germinado 40% y calentamiento el 10%. Para el control de plagas se utilizó Actellic 50EC líquido y Actellic 2% en polvo, efectuando la aplicación al momento del almacenamiento.El 27% de los agricultores doblaron, el 64% despuntaron y el 9% doblaron y despuntaron.El manejo lo ejecutaron en los meses de noviembre, diciembre y enero.El 7% cosecharon en noviembre, el 54% en diciembre y 39% en enero. La cosecha la realizaron sin tuza en el 31 % de los casos y con tuza el 69%.La totalidad de los agricultores utilizaron variedades criollas, cuyos colores de granos se describen a continuación: amarillo (15%), amarillo-blanco (8% ), amarillo-blanco-negro (8%), blanco (54%), blancoamarillo (8%) y blanco-amarillo-negro (7%).El 42% desgrana en forma manual y el 58% utiliza maquinaria. El secamiento al sollo hacen por espacio de 6 días en promedio.Las condiciones de los almacenes se consideraron buenas en el 100% de los casos, almacenado 16.08 qq en promedio. La fecha promedio del almacenamiento fue el 20 de febrero con fecha mínima del 12 y máxima del 28 de febrero.En el 70% de los casos existió evidencias de roedores, 100% con evidencia de insectos, 100% con moho, 8% con calentamiento, y sin maíz germinado.De acuerdo a la información de las cinco estructuras de almacenamiento en estudio, los agricultores realizan la práctica de \"dobla y despunte\", efectuando dicha actividad en el mes de noviembre y cosechan en los meses de diciembre y enero. Es común observar también que más del 60% de los agricultores cosechan y secan al sol las mazorcas sin tuza, durando el secamiento aproximadamente 11 días en promedio.El maíz almacenado en las diferentes estructuras es criollo, cuyas mazorcas en la mayoría de los casos tienen mezclas de color de grano (blanco, negro y amarillo) predominando el color amarillo seguidamente el color blanco.Una característica importante en las troj as, es que no se ocupa toda la capacidad de éstas, utilizando el espacio restante en alguno casos, para colocar sobre el maíz almacenado herramientas, equipo de campo y otros.La cantidad de maíz almacenado en las diferentes estructuras tipo troja, varió desde 5.28 qq/troja hasta 125 qq (ver Cuadro 3). El intervalo de la producción coincide con los rendimientos que obtienen los agricultores en las microfmcas y fincas subfamiliares, que son los agricultores meta del proyecto. El área de las microfmcas oscila entre O y 0.7 ha y las subfamiliares entre 0.7 a 7 has., concentrándose el 85% de los agricultores con el grupo que posee de O hasta 2.2 ha. siendo el rendimiento promedio de 30.80 qq/ha, por lo tanto, la cantidad de maíz sujeta a almacenamiento será en promedio de unos 40 qq.Un resumen del inicio y final del almacenamiento se observa en la Figura 2, en donde cada línea representa una estructura, siendo común el inicio del almacenamiento en enero y febrero para las estructuras TI, TIMM, TICP Y CS; los que almacenaron en silo lo hicieron todos en el mes de febrero. Para la mayor parte de las estructuras, el final del almacenamiento se dio en los meses de julio y agosto.En el Cuadro 3 y Figura 3 se presentan los promedios del maíz que se almacenaron en cada estructura, así también, como el maíz mulco que se identificó antes del almacenamiento, aclarando que éste último no se almacenó.En promedio el maíz muleo representa un 15% del total del maíz, valor que puede ser un poco más bajo (quizás un 10%) ya que, este cáleulo se realizó con el maíz almacenando sin considerar el total del maíz cosechado.En el Cuadro 4 y Figura 4 se describen algunas características que identifican la diferencia entre el maíz muleo y el maíz almacenado. En general el MM presenta 12 veces más porcentaje de pérdida con respecto al MA, o sea una relación 12: 1. Así también, se puede notar que el MM tiene menos granos sanos; mayor número de granos dañados; mayor número de granos no recuperables; menor peso de 1,000 granos, lo cual queda reflejado en el peso hectolitro (69 HL) siendo 7.4 HL menos que el maíz almacenado (76 HL).La humedad del grano del MM (15%) fue 3% menos que el maíz almacenado (18%) pudiéndose deber a que el MM fue dañado en mayor proporción por insectos (Anexo 1), los cuales se alimentan de una parte del grano con mayor humedad (endospermo). Otra razón puede ser que por el tamaño del grano (pequeño) pierda más fácilmente el contenido de agua.Los insectos que se identificaron fueron:_Sitophilus zea mais, Sitophilus oryzae, Sitotroga cerealella. La presencia de insectos, hongos y el tamaño pequeño del grano, caracterizaron a las muestras en la mayoría de los casos con olor y apariencia anormal.En el Cuadro 5, se presenta el flujo de maíz a través del tiempo para diferentes estructuras, observando que para el mes de agosto se han consumido la mayor cantidad (68%) del maíz almacenado; esto es de esperarse, ya que consumen aproximadamente 3.60 qq por mes, de los cuales el 65% se destina para alimentación humana y el 35% para consumo animal. La mayoría no vende maíz a excepción de algunos casos en donde almacenan cantidades superiores a la media.Esta situación obliga a pensar que para satisfacer la demanda de la familia del agricultor se necesitan que almacene por lo menos 43qq de maíz.El porcentaje de daño y pérdida ocasional (Cuadro 6) se aCl?ntúa a partir del mes de julio; esta situación quizá obliga a los agricultores a que saquen la mayor cantidad de maíz a partir de dicho mes. La TT es la estructura que presenta los valores más altos llegando a 47.7% de daño y 38.6% de pérdida; siendo el silo 261 metálico el que presenta los valores más bajos 6.6 y 3.4% respectivamente.Analizando las variables más importantes de este estudio, el porcentaje de daño y pérdida acumulada (ver Cuadro 7, Figura 5), se puede decir que la TI presentó los valores más altos 13.90 y 5.14% respectivamente, resultando el silo metálico como la estructura más. adecuada para el almacenamiento del grano del maíz (0.81 de daño y 0.66 de pérdida). Algo importante que se observa en las TTMM, TICP y CS es que presentan bajos valores de daño y pérdida, lo cual confirma que con sólo mejorar algún componente de la TI se disminuye significativamente el daño y la pérdida, resultando estas trojas mejoradas una buena alternativa para el almacenamiento.En el Cuadro 8 se presentan algunos de los agentes que más causan daño en el grano almacenado (insectos y hongos) observando que la TI es la que resulta más afectada por insectos, llegando a tener daños de 22%. Una situación contraria se presenta en el silo, en donde el daño por insectos no llega ni al 1% (ver Figura 6). La TIMM, TICP y CS, también presentan valores muy bajos de daño por insectos, lo cual indica que el tratamiento químico que se les hace a las paredes de las trojas y al maíz, es efectivo.En donde no hay diferencias entre estructuras es en el porcentaje de daño por hongos (ver Cuadro 8 y Figura 7), esta situación nos indica que en el futuro se le tiene que dar mayor énfasis a esta variable, para así lograr un almacenamiento adecuado.Otro agente que provoca daño son los roedores, quizá es uno de los problemas que más se le tiene que poner atención cuando se almacena en las TI, TTMM, TICP y CS, ya que la evidencia de roedores en las trojas se da en casi el 100% de los casos en los meses de mayo y junio.Los insectos que se identificaron y que más afectan al maíz son:     2. No se rechaza la segunda hipótesis ya que el grano se almacenó en la caseta de secado a 24% de humedad y luego en 50 días bajó al 15% sin dañar el grano.3. La TT fue la estructura que presentó los valores más altos de porcentaje de daño y pérdida acumulada, 13.90 y 5.14 respectivamente.5. La TTMM, TTCP y CS son también buenas alternativas de almacenamiento ya que presentaron valores bajos de porcentaje de daño y pérdida.6. Se identificaron que los factores que más ocasionan grano dañado son los roedores, insectos y hongos.7. Entre los insectos que más afectan están Sitotroga cereallela, Sitophilus zea mais y Sitophilus oryzae.8. Se cuenta con suficiente información que garantiza recomendaciones de las estructuras mejoradas en forma masiva.4. El silo metálico fue la mejor estructura con porcentajes de daño y pérdida acumulada menores del 1%.Evaluación de Distintas Epocas de Siembra y la Incidencia del Achaparramiento en Maíz, Azuero, Panamá, 1993-94Román Gordón l , Nivaldo de Gracia 2 , Jorge Franco 3 y Andrés Gonzáler RESUMEN Se realizó un experimento en dos localidades de la Región de Azuero (Las Tablas y Guararé) a partir de la primera coa (junio de 1993), con el objetivo de observar el ataque de la enfermedad conocida como achaparramiento del maíz. El diseilo experimental utilizado fue de parcelas divididas en un arreglo de bloques completos al azar con tres repeticiones. Las parcelas principales consistieron de las distintas épocas de siembra. Estas parcelas se sembraron cada 15 días, iniciándose el 15 de junio (Guararé) y elIde julio (Las Tablas) para un total de 7 y 6 épocas de siembras, respectivamente. En las subparcelas se evaluaron tres cultivares P-8812, X-304 e, y NB-12. En ambas localidades se observó un efecto muy marcado de la enfermedad según las épocas de siembra. Las siembras realizadas antes del 15 de agosto fueron las que mostraron mayor porcentaje de plantas afectadas por el patógeno (con síntoma) y mayor porcentaje de mazorcas afectadas. El mayor porcentaje de plantas achaparradas en Las Tablas y Guararé se dio en la siembra del 1 y 15 de julio con 64.6 y 21.8%, respectivamente. Luego éste fue disminuyendo hasta alcanzar un valor de 5.5 y 1.5% en las siembras del 15 de septiembre.Todos los cultivares evaluados presentaron síntomas de la enfermedad. En Las Tablas en donde la incidencia de la enfermedad fue más alta, presentarón un porcentaje de dailo promedio de todas la épocas de siembra de 30.03% (P-8812), 23.40% (X-304 C) Y 11.81 % (NO-t2). De acuerdo al conteo de la población del Dalbulus maydis se encontró que ésta es altamente virulenta, ya que a pesar de las bajas poblaciones encontradas, se observa un alto porcentaje de plantas afectadas con los síntomas del achaparramiento.En 1992 se observó en varias parcelas de maíz de la Región de Azuero, una alta incidencia de la enfermedad conocida como achaparramiento. Gordón et al (1993), encontraron que esta enfermedad se presentó en todas la áreas de cultivo de la región, pero con diferente intensidad. Estos mismos investigadores encontraron que la época de siembra fue el factor que más influyó para favorecer la incidencia de la enfermedad; y que la interacción encontrada en los cultivares se debió que uno de los materiales más sembrados no se dio en la época de mayor incidencia de la enfermedad (siembras antes del 15 de agosto).La enfermedad conocida como achaparramiento fue reportada por primera vez como una enfermedad nueva del maíz en Río Grande, Valle de Texas en 1956. El complejo del achaparramiento está compuesto de tres agentes causales a) Spiroplasma kunkelii o raza Río Grande (Corn stunt spiroplasm CSS), que causa la proliferación de mazorcas y bandas cloróticas comenzando de la base de las hojas; b) micoplasmas (Maize bunshy stunt micoplasm, MBSM), que producen el típico síntoma de enrojecimiento de las hojas; y c) el virus del rayado fmo, que causa las típicas Lbandas cloróticas en las hojas (Nault and Bradfute, 1979). Este complejo del achaparramiento es transmitido por chicharritas de la especie Dalbulus maydis (Homoptera: Cicadellidae).El principal hospedero de este insecto es el maíz, pero puede sobrevivir en plantas de teosinte (zea spp), Tripsacum e incluso sorgo (Nault and Bradfute, 1979;Sveinhaug and Jorgensen, 1988). El ciclo de vida de este insecto desde huevo hasta adulto es de 23 días. Los adultos de esta especie son muy sedentarios. Los movimientos y dispersión de los adultos se debe a cambios en la temperatura o disturbios mecánicos. Las hembras son más móviles que los machos y requieren más nutrientes para la producción de los huevos (Nault and Bradfute, 1979). Climas cálidos, baja humedad relativa y escasa precipitación son favorables para el desarrollo de altas poblaciones del vector. En Nicaragua Sveinhaug and Jorgensen, (1988) encontraron que las poblaciones de Dalbulus maydis se incrementaron a partir de septiembre, mientras que las más bajas se dieron en los meses de julio a agosto.El objetivo de este trabajo fue el de determinar las épocas de siembras que son afectadas por el ataque de esta enfermedad. Otro objetivo fue el de determinar la susceptibilidad de dos cultivares sembrados comercialmente en el país y compararlos con un material que presenta buena tolerancia Se realizó un experimento en dos localidades de la Región de Azuero (Las Tablas y Guararé) a partir de la primera coa o época de siembra Uunio de 1993). El diseño experimental fue de parcelas divididas en un arreglo de bloques completos al azar con tres repeticiones. Las unidades experimentales fueron parcelas de cuatro surcos de 5.5 m de largo. La distancia de siembra fue de 0.75 m entre hileras y de 0.50m entre golpes, dejando dos plantas por golpe, para alcanzar una densidad teórica de 5.33 pVm 2Las parcelas principales consistieron de las distintas épocas de siembra. Estas parcelas se sembraron cada 15 días, hasta llegar a la última siembra, la cual se realizó el 15 de septiembre. Las mismas se iniciaron el 15 de junio (Guararé) y elIde julio (Las Tablas) para totalizar 7 y 6 épocas de siembras, respectivamente. En las subparcelas se evaluaron tres cultivares a saber: P-8812, X-304 C y NB-12. El primero es un híbrido del Programa Nacional y el segundo es un híbrido importado, ambos cultivares son sembrados de manera comercial en el país. El tercero es una variedad de grano blanco, proveniente del Nicaragua, la cual es tolerante al achaparramiento y es sembrada comercialmente en ese país.Las semillas de los tres cultivares fueron tratadas con el insecticida furatiocarb a razón de 8 g i.a.fha. El abonamiento de todas las épocas consistió de 227 kg de 15-30-8fha al momento de la siembra más 227 kg de urea a los 30 días después de la siembra (dds). El control de malezas se realizó con la aplicación de la mezcla de atrazina más pendimentalina a razón de 3.0 + 3.0 lIha en Las Tablas y con glifosato a razón de 4.0 lIha en Guararé.Se tomaron datos de rendimiento de grano, número de plantas y mazorcas cosechadas, número de plantas y mazorcas que presentaban el síntoma de la enfermedad y el número de D. maydis por planta. La precipitación pluvial durante el período que duró el ensayo se tomó en la localidad de Guararé (Cuadro 1).La intensidad con que se presentó la enfermedad en este experimento no fue uniforme en las dos localidades evaluadas. La intensidad de la enfermedad fue mayor en Las Tablas (21.75% de plantas con síntoma), mientras que en Guararé a pesar que la enfermedad se presentó en una intensidad baja (6.1'Y0 de plantas con síntomas), los resultados son similares como los observados en Las Tablas.Cuadro 1. Precipitación y número de días con lluvia en Guararé de mayo a diciembre de t993. Al realizar un análisis de correlación entre todas las variables medidas y el rendimiento de grano, se encontró que las variables que representan el síntoma de la enfermedad (plantas y mazorcas afectadas), presentaron un coeficiente de correlación negativos con valores de 0.55 y 0.58 (significativos a P< 0.001), respectivamente, lo que demuestra que la enfermedad tiene un efecto directo sobre los rendimientos del cultivo. El peso de la mazorca fue el factor o componente del rendimiento más afectado. Al realizar el análisis de correlación con el peso de la mazorca, se encontró que estas variables tuvieron un coeficiente de correlación negativo de 0.43 y 0.44, para el porcentaje de plantas y mazorcas afectadas, respectivamente.En ambas localidades se observó un efecto muy marcado de la enfermedad según las épocas de siembra. Las siembras realizadas antes del 15 de agosto fueron las que mayor porcentaje de plantas afectadas por el patógeno (%plantas con el síntoma) y mayor porcentaje de mazorcas afectadas presentaron. Resultados similares obtuvieron Gordón et al (1993) en donde se observó en el muestreo realizado en toda la Región de Azuero, que la enfermedad atacó más fuerte o tuvo su mayor incidencia en las siembras anteriores al 15 de agosto.El mayor porcentaje de plantas achaparradas en Las Tablas y Guararé se dio en la siembra del 1 y 15 de julio con 64.62 y 21.85%, respectivamente. Luego éste fue disminuyendo hasta alcanzar un valor de 5.50 y 1.48% en las siembras del 15 de septiembre, para las Tablas y Guararé, respectivamente. Estos últimos porcentajes son considerados de una intensidad o incidencia normal en las siembras realizadas tradicionalmente en esta Región. En relación al porcentaje de mazorcas afectadas por la enfermedad, se encontró que, el mayor daño se dio en la siembra del 1 de agosto, para ambas localidades con 25.57 y 30.56% (Las Tablas y Guararé) y al igual que en el porcentaje de plantas afectadas, el mismo fue disminuyendo hasta alcanzar un nivel de 9.32 y 4.62% en las siembras del 15 de septiembre (Cuadro 2). El análisis estadístico para ambas variables demostró diferencias significativas (Cuadro 3).La proliferación de jilotes por plantas (mazorcas en formación), el cual es el otro síntoma que esta relacionado con la enfermedad, mostró un incremento en las tres primeras épocas de siembra, en el caso de Las Tablas. Esta sintomatología alcanzó el máximo valor en la siembra del 1 de agosto con 1.32 jilotes/planta, luego de esta época la misma disminuyó hasta lograr un promedio de casi un jilote/planta. En Guararé la siembra del 15 de julio, fue la que alcanzó el máximo nivel de jilotes/planta y luego mostró la misma tendencia observada en Las Tablas.En relación al rendimiento de grano, se observó que hubo diferencias altamente significativas entre las distintas épocas de siembra. En Las Tablas el menor rendimiento se obtuvo en la siembra del 1 de julio (1.96 t/ha), mientras que los mayores rendimientos se obtuvieron en el período del 15 de julio al 15 de agosto (3.86, 3.27 y 3.73 t/ha, respectivamente). Estos resultados parecen indicar que no hubo relación entre la incidencia de la enfermedad y el rendimiento obtenido, pero hay que señalar que las dos últimas siembras (1 y 15 de septiembre) fueron muy afectadas por la escasa precipitación del mes de septiembre el cual mermó la producción de granos. Otro factor que parece indicar el mejor rendimiento obtenido en estas tres épocas es el número de mazorcas cosechadas/m 2 (r =0.49) los cuales alcanzaron los más valores más altos en estas épocas, en comparación con las otras. En Guararé los rendimientos más bajos se obtuvieron en las siembras realizadas antes del 1 de agosto (inclusive). Al igual que en Las Tablas el número de mazorcas cosechadas/m 2 puede ser un factor que influyó en el bajo rendimiento obtenido (r = 0.63).Los resultados obtenidos en relación al porcentaje de plantas afectadas indican que hubo una diferencia altamente significativa entre ellos. Todos los cultivares evaluados presentaron síntomas de la enfermedad. El resultado de este experimento indica que los cultivares que se siembran en el país a nivel nacional son susceptibles, ya que, en Las Tablas, donde la incidencia de la enfermedad fue más alta, presentaron un porcentaje , de-' daño promedio de todas la épocas de siembra de 30.03% (P-8812) y 23.40% (X-304 C), mientras que la variedad nicaragüense NB-12 presentó un porcentaje de daño mucho menor (11.81), lo que podría catalogarla como tolerante a la enfermedad (Cuadro 4). En Guararé se observó la misma tendencia para esta variable con promedios de plantas afectadas para el P-8812, X-304 C y el NB-12 de 7.55, 7.19 y 3.53%, respectivamente. En Las Tablas el comportamiento se mantuvo igual en todas las épocas de siembra, es decir, el P-8812 siempre mostró porcentajes de plantas afectadas mayores que el X-304 C, y éste a su vez, superó en relación al daño a la variedad NB-12. En Guararé la tendencia fue similar, aunque en la siembra del 1 de julio el P-8812 presentó el promedio más bajo de plantas afectadas que el NB-12 Y X-304 C (15.00% vs 18.20 y 19.41%, respectivamente).En relación al porcentaje de mazorcas afectadas se observó diferencias altamente significativas entre los cultivares. El material menos afectado en ambas localidades fue el NB-12 con 3.90 y 6.96% de daño (promedio de todas las épocas). En general esta variedad mostró un porcentaje bajo de mazorcas enfermas, sólo en la época de siembra del 1 de agosto, el porcentaje de daño fue relativamente alto (31.63%), en el resto de las épocas su daño fue menor del 10%, lo que demuestra su tolerancia a la enfermedad.El híbrido nacional P-8812 fue el que más daño presentó con 26.50 y 12.69% de mazorcas afectadas en Las Tablas y Guararé, respectivamente. El X-304 C, obtuvo un valor promedio entre estos dos cultivares en las dos localidades (15.78 y 8.86%), Este híbrido (X-304 C) alcanzó hasta un 30.8% de mazorcas afectadas y 65.5% de plantas con el síntoma en las épocas en donde la enfermedad se presentó con intensidad alta, lo que indica que el éste no es resistente (Cuadro 5).En relación al rendimiento de grano, en Las Tablas se observó que el NB-12 superó a los dos híbridos evaluados en las siembras del 15 de julio al 15 de agosto. En las siembras del mes de septiembre y del 1 de julio los híbridos superaron a esta variedad. Exceptuando la siembra del 1 de julio, en donde a pesar de que la enfermedad se presentó con alta incidencia se observó que en las épocas en donde se presentó con alta incidencia la enfermedad la variedad por su tolerancia permitió rendimientos superiores (Cuadro 6). Debemos señalar que este bajo rendimiento de la variedad se debió principalmente por la baja germinación de las semillas, dando por resultado una baja población de plantas al fmal de la cosecha (4.16 plantas/m 2 ), en comparación con los híbridos (5.29 y 5.09 plantas/m 2 ). Esta situación se mejoró en las siguientes épocas, a través de la siembra de más semillas por golpe en el caso del NB-12.El conteo de las poblaciones del insecto transmisor de la enfermedad, se realizó en todas las épocas a partir de los 15 dds, con una frecuencia de un muestreo semanal. El resultado de este conteo indicó que las poblaciones encontradas del vector no superaron el promedio de un Dalbulus maydis por planta. Este promedio indica que la población existente en la región es altamente virulenta y bastan unos cuantos insectos para que la enfermedad se convierta en una limitante para la producción de este cultivo.A pesar de que las siembras se realizaron escalonadamente, se esperaba que la población del insecto fuera en aumento hasta alcanzar la máxima población en las siembras del 15 de septiembre, situación que no se dio. A partir de las siembras del 1 de septiembre no se logró detectar especímenes de esta especie. Lo que indica, que existe algún factor que está regulando las poblaciones del vector de manera efectiva y natural. Este estudio pretende contribuir al entendimiento de la elaboración del rendimiento y sus componentes en sistemas de producción de maíz de la Luperón, República Dominicana. Se efectuó un monitoreo dinámico en 21 campos de agricultores durante 1993 y 1994, lo que permitió el levantamiento de las informaciones aquí presentadas. El objetivo es identificar problemas claves que limitan la elaboración del rendimiento en maíz. Para la toma de datos se establecieron 5 estaciones fijas de 5 m lineales en un área pre-seleccionada de 100 mI y 5 estaciones adicionales de 3 m elegidas al azar dentro del predio del agricultor. La densidad promedio de siembra fue 6.55 pI m-l , perdiéndose el 26% de estas durante el desarrollo del cultivo, para una densidad final a la cosecha de 4.73 pI m-l. En promedio, el 14% de las plantas no produjeron mazorca para una cosecha final de 4.0 mz m-l. En los primeros 25-35 días del cultivo se perdieron el 24% de las plantas, debido a una combinación de fuerte ataque del gusano cogollero así como la fuerte presión de las malezas.. Los datos son consistentes con datos regionales del PRM, confirmando que el bajo número de plantas y mazorcas a la cosecha explica los bajos rendimientos de maíz en campos de agricultores.Desde el punto de vista agronómico, el rendimiento por unidad de superficie del maíz depende del número de mazorcas cosechadas por unidad de área y su peso promedio (Bolaños y Barreto, 1991). La baja densidad de población al momento de la cosecha es una de las razones más importantes de los bajos rendimientos en campos de agricultores de la región (Rodríguez y Miranda, 1990;Bolaños y Barreto, 1991;Beauval, 1992a). Diferentes estudios (Turrent, 1983;Beauval, 1992) han sugerido que rendimientos de maíz menores a 2-2.5 ton ha-1 están asociados a un bajo número de plantas por hectárea así como una alta proporción de plantas infértiles. Un bajo número de plantas ha-I se puede deber a una baja densidad de siembra o la pérdida de plantas por estreses,en especial por problemas de plagas. Un bajo número de mazorcas por planta (o número de granos por mazorca) se puede I Investigador, D1A-CESDA, IExtensionista Agrícola, SEA, Luperón,. 3Agrónomo Regional, ClMMYT-Guatemala:. Publicado en' SÍNTESIS DE RESULTADOS EXPERIMENTALES DEL PRM 1993-1995, VOL. 5 (1997), p. 274-278. 274 deber a estreses durante la floración, y estreses durante el llenado de grano afectan el peso final de grano. Es importante entender como a lo largo del ciclo del cultivo se forman sincrónicamente y sucesivamente los componentes de rendimiento (Bolaños y Barreto, 1991;Bolaños y Edmeades, 1993).Los objetivos del presente estudio son entender los procesos de formación del rendimiento y las causas de la variabilidad en sus componentes a través del ciclo del maíz y sus limitantes en campos de agricultores típicos de Luperón.Estas actividades y/o ensayos no envolvieron el establecimiento de ensayos con tratamientos experimentales especificos o diseños estadísticos como en la experimentación tradicional. En estos, se efectuó un diagnóstico agronómico dinámico en 21 campos de agricultores y/o parcelas de validación de maíz representando diversos ambientes, condiciones socioeconómicas, practicas culturales, variedades, etc, para monitorear los procesos de elaboración del rendimiento en la zona de Luperón, República Dominicana (Cuadro 1). Dentro de cada parcela seleccionada, se escogió un área relativamente homogénea de 10 x 10m donde se efectuó el diagnóstico dinámico visitándose la parcela 6 veces en total: siembra (visita 1), establecimiento (visita 2), fase vegetativa (visita 3), floración (visita 4), llenado de grano (visita 5) y cosecha final (visita 6). Dentro de esta área de 10 x 10m, se marcaron 5 estaciones de 1 surco de 5 m lineales donde se efectuó un monitoreo continuo y repetitivo del cultivo. En cada visita también se escogieron al azar 5 estaciones adicionales de 1 surco de 3 m lineales, pero afuera del área marcada de 10 x 10m pero aún dentro de la parcela del agricultor. visita a la floración (visita 4), en 12 plantas al azar se midió el largo (L) y ancho máximo (A) de la hoja de la mazorca y se estimó el área foliar como L x A x 0.75, se contó el número de hojas verdes (NHV) presentes debajo de la mazorca, y en 12 jilotes al azar se detenninó el número de hileras y el número de granos por una hilera.Se recopiló un calendario de las actividades culturales realizadas por el agricultor en la parcela, y las herramientás, los insumos y el trabajo Uornales) para su realización. Para cada localidad, se tratará de conseguir toda la infonnación meteorológica disponible (lluvia, temperatura, humedad, radiación). en la estación, el número total de plantas con acame, el número total de mazorcas, el número de mazorcas podridas, y el peso de campo respectivo. En 12 mazorcas al azar, se determinó el índice de desgrane, la humedad de grano por Dickey-john, el número de hileras y número de granos por hilera y el peso de 200 granos.Se cosecharon 24 plantas al azar al pie de cada base detenninándose su peso fresco. Con una estimación de humedad obtenida en una submuestra de 6 plantas se detenninó el peso seco, sumándosele 20% para contabilizar un estimado de las hojas perdidas durante el ciclo. El índice de cosecha (lC) se calculó como la fracción de grano de la biomasa total después de descontar el olote. Con los datos de la cosecha se calcularon los componentes estándares de rendimiento. Al momento de la cosecha, se detenninó el rendimiento final y sus componentes en todas las estaciones lineales y en el área marcada de 10 x 10m. En las 5 estaciones fijas de 5 m, en 5 estaciones al azar de 3 m, y en la parcela de 10 x 10 m, se detenninó una distancia promedio entre surcos y se contó el número total de plantas.La mayoría de los agricultores muestreados usan la variedad Francés Largo, un criollo mejorado de olote muy delgado y grano amarillo dentado. Esta variedad tiene buena aceptación en la zona (Cuadro 1). Una característica sobresaliente es la unifonnidad en el arreglo topológico de siembra, en fonna manual a una distancia promedio entre surcos mayor que 1 m con un arreglo mateado con 3-4 plantas por golpe. Esta característica difiere de los reportes regionales del PRM, donde predomina un arreglo topológico con 1-2 plantas por golpe (Bolaños et al., 1993).El Cuadro 2 muestra la densidad inicial de siembra, la densidad final, el rendimiento y sus componentes (rnz/m 2 , rnz/pl, número de granos por mazorca, peso de 1 grano, peso de mazorca, rendimiento), la biomasa y el índice de cosecha, el porcentaje de pudrición de mazorca, para los 21 agricultores muestreados. Relaciones gráficas entre estas variables se muestran en la Fig. l.El rendimiento promedio de los 21 agricultores muestreados fue 2.58 tlha, debido a una población final de 4.73 pl/m 2 y de 4.00 rnz/m 2 con peso de 69 g/rnz. Se detectaron correlaciones muy pobres en el rendimiento final y la densidad de plantas o mazorcas, pero correlaciones significativas con el peso de mazorca y la biomasa final. La relación entre rendimiento e índice de cosecha mostró una relación curvilínea. Estos datos confinnan resultados obtenidos por el PRM (Bolaños et al., 1993).La mayoría de los agricultores muestreados tuvieron cerca de 4.0 pl/m 2 a la cosecha, con una mayor variabilidad en el número de mazorcas cosechadas (Fig. 1). Sin embargo, fue el peso de mazorca (y/o índice de cosecha) el factor más detenninante en explicar la variabilidad en rendimiento observada. Cuadro 2. Componentes de rendimiento y parámetros agronómicos en 21 campos de agricultores en la zona de Luperón, República Dominicana, durante 1993-94.  • ...., , . Figura 1. Relación entre rendimiento de grano (t/ha) y la densidad final de plantas (pl/m2) y mazorcas (mz/m2), el número de mazorcas por planta (mz/pl), el peso promedio de mazorcas, la biomasa final y el índice de cosecha para diagnósticos dinámicos agronómicos efectuados en 1993-94 en 21 campos de agricultores en la zona de Luperón, República Dominicana.Es obvio que rendimientos inferiores a 2.0 t/ha están asociados con una reducción en el peso de la mazorca y una caída drástica en el índice de cosecha (Fig. 1). Estos datos confirman el nivel crítico de rendimiento cercano a las 2.0 tlha reportado anteriormente por Bolaños et al. (1993).La Figura 2 muestra la dinámica promedio de población de plantas y mazorcas a través de los diferentes estadios de desarrollo del cultivo.El número de plantas se reduce 30% de la siembra al establecimiento, 15-20 días después. Esta reducción en el número de plantas coincide con una gran incidencia del gusano cogollero, Spodoptera spp., la que obliga a muchos agricultores a resembrar. A partir de esto, la densidad de plantas decrece hasta la cosecha, pero a una tasa lineal y lenta. El número de rnz/m 2 también decrece a la misma tasa promedio que la densidad de plantas. El monitoreo dinámico confirmó los datos encontrados en 1992 en parcelas de campos de agricultores (Bolaños et al., 1993). Se encontró una dependencia relativamente pobre del rendimiento final con la densidad final de plantas y mazorcas, pero una correlación muy fuerte con el peso de mazorcas y con la biomasa final. Figura 2. Dinámica promedio de la densidad de plantas y mazorcas a través del ciclo del maíz para los 21 agricultores muestreados en 1993-94.S=siembra, E=establecimiento, V=fase vegetativa, F=f1oración, L=lIenado de grano, C=cosecha.Estadio de desarrollo 2 s E v F L e 277 2. Los datos confirman la sugerencia que parece existir un rendimiento crítico cercano a 2.0 tlha, rendimientos inferiores a 2.0-2.5 tlha asociados con una proporción alta de plantas infértiles, bajo número de mazorcas por planta y por ende una caída drástica en el índice de cosecha. Rendimientos superiores a este nivel crítico tienen 1 rnz/pl e le superiores a 0.35.El Achaparramiento del Maíz: Patógenos, Síntomas y Diagnóstico Priscila Henríquez l y Dan Jeffers z RESUMEN El achaparramiento, una enfermedad del maíz, causa pérdidas severas en varios países de América Latina. Este complejo agrupa tres patógenos: el spiroplasma .del achaparramiento (Spiroplasma kunkelil), el Phytoplasma del Enanismo Arbustivo del Maíz y el Virus del Rayado Fino, los cuales son transmitidos por cicadélidos del género Dalbulus. Entre los síntomas causados se encuentran la reducción del tamafto de los entrenudos, coloraciones rojizas en las hojas, bandas cloróticas en la base de las hojas, amarillamiento, proliferación de mazorcas y proliferación de hijos en la base del tallo. Frecuentemente ocurren infecciones mixtas y la sintomatología suele ser semejante y parece depender del germoplasma y las condiciones ambientales. Por estas razones, el diagnóstico de campo suele ser inadecuado y es necesario realizar pruebas de laboratorio para identificar la presencia de los patógenos. Reacciones antígeno-anticuerpo, especialmente ELlSA, son utilizadas para detectar agentes fitopatógenos por su relativa facilidad de operación y bajo costo. Recientemente técnicas de diagnóstico basadas en el uso de ácidos nucleicos han sido desarrolladas con mucho éxito, siendo éstas muy sensitivas y específicas para diagnosticar la enfermedad.El complejo de enfermedades conocido como achaparramiento es de creciente preocupación para los productores de maíz del trópico y subtrópico en el continente Americano. En Florida se reportaron pérdidas de $60 millones en producción de semilla de híbridos de maíz en 1979-80 (Bradfute et al., 1981). El problema que la enfermedad causa en los trópicos es aún mucho más grave. Por ejemplo, en 1986-87 en el pacífico de Nicaragua la enfermedad afectó 28 mil ha. del cultivo causando pérdidas de U$ 3-4 millones (MINDIRA-DGA, 1986). Otras epidemias se han reportado en El Salvador (Anaya García, 1975), Panamá (Gordón et al., 1993), República Dominicana, Haití, Honduras y México, las cuales han causado pérdidas considerables. Recientemente, grandes áreas de Brasil, en donde se siembran híbridos susceptibles, están siendo seriamente afectadas por esta enfermedad (F. Tavares Femandes 1996, Comunicación Personal).El achaparramiento fue observado por primera vez en Río Grande, Texas, por Alstatt (1945) en plantas de maíz que presentaban entrenudos cortos, proliferación de hijos y enrojecimiento de las hojas. Alstatt envió muestras de plantas infectadas con esta \"enfermedad del Río Grande\" a Kunkel quien llamó a la enfermedad achaparramiento, considerando al agente causal como un virus, y estableciendo que el vector era Dalbulus maidis. Posteriormente, Maramorosch (1955) estudió plantas de maíz colectadas en la meseta central de México. Estas plantas mostraban algunos síntomas diferentes de los producidos por la \"enfermedad del Río Grande\", ya que además presentaban abundante proliferación de hijos, por ello se le consideró como otra cepa del achaparramiento y se le llamó \"Mesa Central\". En 1961 la enfermedad se identificó en El Salvador (Ancalmo y Davis, 1961), en donde producía plantas con entrenudos cortos y bandas cloróticas.La confusión perduró durante los años setenta en cuanto a si la enfermedad era causada por un sólo agente con varias cepas, o por distintos patógenos (Davis, 1977). Granados et al. (1968), trabajando con dos \"cepas del achaparramiento\", una de Louisiana y la del Río Grande, demostraron que los agentes causantes eran prokariotes, carentes de pared celular y susceptibles a tratamientos con tetraciclina. Estos investigadores detectaron los organismos en plantas y en las glándulas salivares de insectos infectados. En 1975, dos grupos de investigadores lograron independientemente aislar y cultivar in vitro al spiroplasma, al cual se le llamó Spiroplasma kunkelii (Chen and Liao, 1975;Williamson, 1975).Mucho progreso en el campo de la virología y bacteriología permitió entonces distinguir entre los virus y los prokariotes de la clase Mollicutes, que agrupa organismos dificiles de cultivar o totalmente no-cultivables. Avances en microscopía electrónica, purificación de virus y técnicas de transmisión usando los saltahojas vectores, permitieron establecer que S. kunkelii es miembro de un complejo de patógenos que causan el achaparramiento, siendo otro mollicute, el phytoplasma del enanismo arbustivo, el agente etimológico relacionado con el síndrome de la cepa Mesa Central (Bradfute and Robertson, 1977;Bascope y Galindo, 1978;Nault, 1980). Igualmente, acelerado progreso se ha logrado en la caracterización del otro miembro del complejo, el virus del Rayado Fino (Gámez, 1977), que es también transmitido por D. maidis y al cual inicialmente se consideró como una cepa más de achaparramiento. Los nombres Río Grande y Mesa Central han caído en desuso, y ahora se usa el término \"achaparramiento\" para el complejo de patógenos transmitidos por cicadéllidos del género Dalbulus.Infecciones mixtas de los tres patógenos parecen ser frecuentes, especialmente cuando 1M niveles poblacionales del vector son altos. Por ello los síntomas producidos por los patógenos suelen mezclarse o enmascararse, y el diagnóstico de achaparramiento bajo condiciones de campo resulta inapropiado y a menudo dudoso. Se desconoce además la reacción de diferentes germoplasmas de maíz a los componentes individuales del complejo que pueden influir en los síntomas observados.Los patógenos que han sido asociados con el achaparramiento son los mollicutes spiroplasma del achaparramiento (CSS) y Phytoplasma del Enanismo Arbustivo del Maíz (MBS), y el Virus del Rayado Fino (MRFV). Estos patógenos son transmitidos en forma persistente por chicharritas del género Dalbulus (Homoptera: Cicadellidae), especialmente por la chicharrita del maíz, D. maidis. Algunos autores (Whitcomb, 1989) también consideran al Virus del Enanismo Clorótico del Maíz (MCDV), transmitido por especies de Graminella como miembro del complejo en Norte América. A continuación se describen brevemente las características de los organismos.Spiroplasma kunkelii Saglio et. al. (CSS), posiblemente ocurre en todos los países donde también ocurre su vector D. maidis, desde el sur de Estados Unidos hasta Argentina (Whitcomb, 1989). Spiroplasma kunkelii pertenece a la clase Mollicutes, 284 orden Spiroplasmatales, familia Spiroplasmataceae. Las células de S. kunkelii son móviles, de forma helicoidal, de 5 a 10 ¡.lm en longitud, poseen una sola membrana y carecen de verdadera pared celular.La etiología de CSS ha sido confirmada por los postulados de Koch. Este organismo pasa a través de un complejo ciclo biológico que involucra la ingestión por el vector desde las células del floema de la planta enferma, el pasaje y multiplicación en el canal alimenticio, epitelio, membrana basal y hemocelo hasta las glándulas salivares del insecto, desde donde es inoculado nuevamente a una planta sana cuando éste se alimenta. La eficiencia de D. maidis para transmitir CSS alcanza 100% (Markham and Alivizatos, 1983). A través de este proceso se produce la infección a la planta pero no al insecto (Whitc.omb and Williamson, 1979). En la planta, el patógeno se encuentra limitado al floema, traslocándose a puntos activos de crecimiento. Estudios de transmisión con D. maidis infectados con CSS y usando la técnica de ELISA como diagnóstico, detectaron el patógeno 14 días después de infección con chicharritas, dos semanas antes del aparecimiento de síntomas (Gussie et al., 1995). El patógeno se encontró primero en hojas jóvenes, en las espigas en desarrollo, y en grandes concentraciones en las raíces. Debido a que CSS está presente en la planta enferma antes de que los síntomas sean aparentes, CSS puede ser adquirido por las chicharritas antes que la enfermedad sea reconocida por síntomas en el campo.El rango de hospederos naturales de CSS consiste de maíz y teosinte (Zea mays mexicana y Z. m. parviglumis). Algunas especies perennes como Z. diploperennis, Z. luxurians y Z. perennis han sido infectadas experimentalmente y es posible que sirvan de reservorios en el campo. Usando la especie europea de saltahojas Euscelidius variegatus, el patógeno ha sido transmitido experimentalmente a especies no gramíneas incluyendo frijol haba (Vicia faba), \"chula\" (Catharanthus roseus), arveja (Pisum sativum), rábano (Raphanus sativus) y espinaca (Spinacia oleracea) (Alivizatos, 1984;Markham et al., 1977).Las primeras descripciones de los síntomas causados por CSS son las de Alsttat (1945) quien reportó plantas enanas, bandas rojas extendiéndose a todo lo largo de las hojas, y clorosis. En sus primeros experimentos usando D. maidis infectados con éste patógeno en el invernadero, Kunkel (1946) reportó que el primer síntoma observado es el aparecimiento de bandas cloróticas en la base de las hojas que a medida que la enfermedad progresa se extienden a lo largo de la misma. Algunos reportes de sintomatología causada por CSS dan lugar a confusión ya que puede haberse tratado de una infección mixta con el phytoplasma, con el virus del rayado fino, o con otro patógeno. Aún más, síntomas también dependen de condiciones de temperatura y genotipo de maíz. Por ejemplo, en maíz dulce en condiciones controladas del invernadero, el patógeno induce el acortamiento de los entrenudos y la formación de bandas cloróticas en las hojas, pero produce muy poco enrojecimiento (Nault, 1980). En ensayos realizados en la estación experimental de Poza Rica donde se liberaron D. maidis infectados solamente con CSS para evaluar líneas avanzadas de CIMMYT, se estableció que los síntomas más prevalentes en plantas infectadas fueron la coloración rojiza de las hojas (20%), entrenudos cortos (20%), bandas cloróticas (16%), proliferación de mazorcas (15%) Y espiga deforn1ada (13%). Debido a la variedad de síntomas observados en díferentes germoplasmas no resulta posible diagnosticar la presencia de CSS basándose en la observación de síntomas, sino que es necesario hacer, los adecuados análisis de laboratorio para su diagnóstico.Los phytoplasmas son organismos pertenecientes a la clase Mollicutes, y por mucho tiempo fueron conocidos como \"organismos parecidos a mycoplasmas\" debido a su semejanza morfológica con mycoplasmas patógenos de animales. Los phytoplasmas son orgamsmos pleomórficos, transmitidos por Cicadéllidos, y habitan el floema de la planta, en donde se multiplican. A diferencia de los spiroplasmas y mycoplasmas, hasta ahpra los intentos de cultivar phytoplasmas in vitro no han sido exitosos, debido probablemente a que se desconocen sus requerimientos nutricionales. Al igual que los spiroplasmas, el control químico de estos organismos no resulta viable debido a que la tetraciclina solamente es bacteriostática y no elimina completamente estos patógenos.El phytoplasma del enanismo arbustivo del maíz es transmitido por varias especies de Dalbulus, y experimentalmente por Graminella nigrifrons y G. sonorus (Granados et al., 1968). Al igual que S. kunkelii, MBS tiene como únicos hospederos a maíz y teosinte, Tripsacum no ha demostrado ser susceptible al patógeno. En maíz dulce y bajo condiciones de invernadero, el período de incubación del patógeno es de 9.5 a 18,9 días (Nault, 1980). Los primeros síntomas 285 reportados en maíz dulce son clorosis en el margen de las hojas en desarrollo, seguido de enrojecimiento de las puntas de las hojas viejas. A medida que la infección progresa, las hojas presentan clorosis del margen, enrojecimiento, deformación, y acortamiento, se producen numerosos hijos en la base del tallo y axis de las hojas, y proliferación de mazorcas.El rango geográfico de MBS incluye los Estados Unidos, México, Costa Rica y Perú (Nault and Bradfute, 1979). Por mucho tiempo se consideró que en México, este patógeno estaba limitado a elevaciones altas con climas templados (Whitcomb, 1989). Sin embargo, análisis usando sondas radioactivas identificaron el phytoplasma en muestras de maíz colectadas en Poza Rica, la estación experimental de CIMMYT a baja elevación y de clima tropical (Gordon, sin publicar). Además se ha diagnosticado el patógeno también en muestras de localidades en los trópicos bajos de El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panamá y Belice (Henríquez, sin publicar).El virus del rayado fino está formado por una sola cadena de ARN (León y Gámez, 1981). Los viriones son isométricos, de 22-30 nm de diámetro, las partículas sedimentan en dos componentes: un componente conteniendo cápsidos vacíos de proteína y otro que contiene la nucleopreoteína infectiva.El virus es transmitido por D, maidis en forma persistente. No se ha demostrado transmisión mecánica, aunque Louie (1995) logró un porcentaje muy bajo de transmisión (1-25%) en forma experimental en semillas usando micro agujas. MRFV se multiplica dentro del vector (Rivera et al., 1981;Gingery et al., 1982) pero no es transmitido transovarialmente.MRFV induce la formación de finas manchitas cloróticas en las hojas que se consideran características de la enfermedad. Las primeras manchitas ocurren en las hojas del cogollo, y progresivamente se unen para formar manchas alargadas en toda la hoja, produciendo el rayado característico (Nault and Bradfute, 1979). En genotipos muy susceptibles puede llegar a producir reducción del tamaño de la planta, y por ello puede confundirse con infección de CSS o MBS. Los primeros síntomas ocurren de 8-14 días después de la inoculación, pero en invernaderos y con temperatura coritrolada hemos observado síntomas a los 5-6 días en maíz Tuxpeño Sequía (Jeffers, sin publicar). Los síntomas son más severos cuando las plantas son inoculadas a más temprana edad.El virus está restringido a maíz, teosinte y Tripsacum, y se encuentra distribuido geográficamente en asociación con D. maidis desde Texas y Florida hasta Brasil, Perú y Paraguay. La estimación de las pérdidas debidas al virus en las planicies costeras de Centro América resulta problemática debido a la combinación de síntomas causados por los otros dos patógenos ya descritos. Sin embargo, se ha estimado que MRFV puede inducir pérdidas de rendimiento de hasta 50% en peso de mazorcas maduras, y en Colombia se observó incidencia del 100% en cultivares muy susceptibles (Gámez, 1977).Las chicharritas del género Dalbulus pertenecen a la familia Cicadellidae, Orden Homóptera. Estos insectos poseen un aparato bucal chupador y son estrictamente fitófagos. Dalbulus maidis es un especialista en maíz aunque es capaz de sobrevivir en otras gramíneas, y ocurre en la mayoría de los países de América Latina donde se siembra este cultivo. D. maidis es el principal vector de los patógenos del achaparramiento, pero seis otras especies de Dalbulus también transmiten los patógenos con diferentes grados de eficiencia. Una razón para ello es que CSS es patogénico para todas las especies de Dalbulus, exceptuando D. maidis (Madden and Nault, 1983). Aunque con efectos menos severos, MBS es patogénico para D. maidis y otras especies de Dalbulus a excepción de D. gelbus y D. elimatus.El ciclo de vida de D. maidis está severamente influenciado por la temperatura. Tsai (1988) reportó ~inco estadías ninfales, los cuales se acortan con el incremento de temperatura.En invernaderos de CIMMYT, con temperaturas promedio de 38.5°C máxima y 12.3°C mínima, hemos observado que el período de huevo es de 7 días, el período total de ninfa a adulto de 27 días y los adultos pueden sobrevivir hasta 3 meses (Jeffers, sin publicar). En Centro América, siembras tardías, precipitación escasa, baja humedad relativa y altas temperaturas son favorables para el desarrollo de altas poblaciones de D. l1Ioidis.MCDV es transmitido en forma semipersistente por especies de Graminella, y aparentemente se encuentra limitado a zonas templadas de Norte América (Gordon and Nault, 1977). En maíz produce síntomas semejantes alas del achaparramiento, incluyendo amarillamiento y enrojecimiento de las hojas, y enanismo. Otro hospedero importante es Sorghum halepense, desde el cual el virus puede ser transmitido a maíz. No se tienen reportes de MCDV en Centro América.MDMV pertenece al grupo de los potyvirus, estando su genoma compuesto por una sola cadena de ARN. Se han reportado cinco cepas de este virus: la cepas A (cepa tipo), B, C, D, Y F, las cuales pueden ser distinguidas de acuerdo a su reacción al antisuero contra la cepa A, y por la frecuencia de transmisión de sus distintos vectores (AAP Description of Plant Viruses, 1990). MDMV es transmitido por al menos 25 especies de áfidos (Knoke et al., 1983): incluyendo Aphis gossypii, Acyrthosiphon pisum, Rhophalosiphum padi, R. maidis y Brevicoryne brassicae. La transmisión es de manera no-persistente pues los áfidos deben alimentarse de la planta enferma por solamente unos minutos, reteniendo el virus durante una o dos horas.El virus infecta varias especies de gramíneas, incluyendo maíz, sorgo y zacate Johnson (SOIghum halepense) desde donde es transmitido a maíz (Knoke et al., 1983). MDMV puede sobrevivir en gramíneas perennes o en las semillas de gramíneas anuales, lo cual representa una importante reservorio natural para el virus y los áfidos que se alimentan de dichas plantas.Se ha reportado considerable variación en la manifestación de los síntomas en maíz. Durante las primeras etapas de desarrollo de la enfermedad, se desarrollan manchas verde oscuras en las hojas, que a medida que la enfermedad progresa, se vuelven más intensas y llegan a formar mosaicos con bandas difusas. El patrón de este mosaico generalmente se inicia en la base de la 'hoja y puede ser irregular y difuso (Tsai and Brown, 1989). La cepa A produce mosaicos que usualmente están límitados al área entre las nervaduras y forman bandas, que también son evidentes en las hojas de la mazorca. El virus puede producir enanismo y poco llenado de las mazorcas.Como se ha mencionado, el diagnóstico del achaparramiento solamente basándose en síntomas observados en el campo, resulta inadecuado debido a la complejidad de la sintomatología y porque las infecciones mixtas son muy comunes (Leirgulen and Myrstad, 1991). Por ello, fitopatólogos del CIMMYT en cooperación con otros institutos de investigación, están realizando trabajos para obtener técnicas más apropiadas para el diagnóstico de los patógenos del achaparramiento con el objetivo de poner dichas técnicas al servicio de los mejoradores. Las técnicas se agrupan bajo dos grandes enfoques: técnicas de serología (Inmunosorbencia con enzimas conjugadas, ELISA) y técnicas moleculares (Reacción en cadena de la polimerasa, PCR).Esta técnica se basa en una reacción antígenoanticuerpo, y es usada ampliamente en muchos laboratorios de diagnóstico debido a su facilidad de ejecución, sensibilidad y especificidad. ELISA vino a revolucionar la detección de patógenos en plantas, especialmente virus (Clark and Adams, 1977) y otros organismos no cultivables para los cuales otras técnicas, como el uso de microscopio, no eran factibles.En una reacción de ELISA, el antígeno o bien el anticuerpo se adhieren a una superficie sólida, y la sensibilidad de la reacción antígeno-anticuerpo se incrementa con la adición de una enzima, usualmente a la fracción de inmunoglobulina G (IgG) del anticuerpo. Cuando la reacción es positiva, la enzima se detecta observando una reacción de color que sigue a la adición de una sustrato apropiado.Para la detección de CSS y MRFV hemos usado ELISA de doble sandwich (DAS-ELISA) con unidades F(ab'h, antisueros polic1onales y protocolos obtenidos del Dr. Don Gordon (Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, Ohio State University). En esta prueba de ELISA las paredes del pozo de la placa de polystyreno se cubren primero con las unidades F(ab')2 del anticuerpo, previamente purificadas, y aquellas unidades que no se absorben son lavadas con una 287 solución buffer de fosfato. La muestra conteniendo el patógeno (antígeno) se agrega al pozo y se incuba, lavándose los antígenos que no son retenidos por las unidades F(ab')2. Posteriormente se agrega el anticuerpo de detección y este se marca con Proteína A biotynilada. Después de lavar la placa se marca la Proteína A biotynilada con Conjugado de Horseradish Peroxidasa Straptividina seguido de un substrato que es hidrolizado a un color específico cuando se produce la reacción con la enzima. El color de la reacción se mide con un espectofotómetro. Las muestras en donde el patógeno está presente desarrollan coloración, y la intensidad de este color es indicativo de la concentración del patógeno.Esta técnica ha demostrado ser muy útil para diagnosticar CSS y MRFV de muestras colectadas en Centro América y México, ya que puede emplearse en muestras frescas, congeladas o liofilisadas. Se requiere un gramo de tejido fresco y pueden procesarse muchas muestras a la vez, y los resultados se obtienen en dos días.Pruebas con antisueros polic1onales desarrollados a partir de la inoculación en conejos con extractos de plantas de maíz infectadas únicamente con MBS, hasta la fecha no han sido satisfactorias debido a la reacción cruzada del antisuero con plantas sanas. Sin embargo, se continúan las investigaciones para desarrollar un antisuero que sea sensitivo y específico para este patógeno (Hemíquez et al., sin publicar).La reacción en cadena de la polimerasa es una importante técnica en biología molecular, que consiste en sintetizar millones de copias de una secuencia de ADN en término de unas horas. Desde su introducción a mediados de 1980 (Mullis and Faloona, 1987) la PCR ha simplificado, acelerado y mejorado el diagnóstico de muchas enfermedades en humanos, animales y plantas.El genoma de prokariotes y eucariotes consiste de dos cadenas de ADN enlazados por puentes de hidrógeno entre los pares de bases complementarios. En el primer paso de PCR, el DNA es calentado a una temperatura de 94oC para separar las dos cadenas. Dos \"iniciadores\" (pequeñas piezas de ADN de una sola cadena diseñados para acoplarse a los terminales de la región del genoma que se va a amplificar) se agregan a la reacción. Los iniciadores solamente se anillan a las regiones de ADN que poseen las respectiva secuencia de bases complementarias. El anillado se produce a una temperatura entre 40°C y 65°C, dependiendo de los iniciadores usados. La segunda cadena de ADN se extiende entonces a partir de los iniciadores por la enzima Taq polimerasa, usando como unidades de construcción una mezcla de 5'-trifosfatos de desoxinucleósidos (dNTPs). Este tercer proceso de extensión de la cadena se efectúa a n°c. Al final del primer ciclo de la reacción de PCR, se obtienen dos copias de la secuencia del ADN que se quiere amplificar. Las dos copias entonces entran a un segundo ciclo de amplificación y •luego a un tercero y así sucesivamente, hasta que después de 25 ciclos que toman apenas unas horas, cerca de un millón de copias de la secuencia inicial se han producido. Al final de la reacción, la presencia del ADN amplificado se confirma por electroforesis en una gel de agarosa tiñendo el ADN con bromuro de etidio.En la práctica el procedimiento es sencillo. El ADN de la muestra a analizar, buffer, MgCl z , dNTPs, iniciadores y enzima Taq se mezclan en un tubo y se colocan en una unidad de calentamiento (termocicler) controlado por una computadora. Este termocicler puede ser programado para cambiar las temperaturas que se requieren para la reacción. El componente crucial del sistema son los iniciadores, los cuales determinan la especificidad de la reacción. Es imperante conocer la secuencia al final del fragmento de ADN que se desea amplificar para diseñar los iniciadores adecuados, ya que la amplificación del ADN ocurre solamente cuando los iniciadores pueden anillarse.En los laboratorios de CIMMYT hemos usados la PCR para detectar los patógenos del achaparramiento. Los iniciadores han sido gentilmente donados por investigadores de varios países (para CSS: Dr. Colette Saillard; INTA, Bordeaux, France; para MBS: Dr. Nigel Harrison, Univeristy of Florida; y para MRFV: Dr. Rose Harnmond, USDA).La limitante principal es evitar contaminación entre .Ias muestras por lo cual se debe poner mucho cuidado especialmente cuando se extrae AON de muchas muestras a la vez, lo cual limita el número de muestras que una persona es capaz de procesar a 40 por día. Los resultados se obtienen a los tres días y para esta técnica se usan solamente 0.2 g de tejido fresco tomado de la base de la segunda hoja superior de la planta.Con el objetivo de asegurar la producción sostenida de maíz en zonas en donde el achaparramiento representa una amenaza potencial, el CIMMYT y el Programa Regional de Maíz para Centro América y El Caribe (PRM) han puesto interés especial en el desarrollo de variedades tolerantes al achaparramiento. Así, varias poblaciones han est~do bajo mejoramiento en esquemas de selección recurrente con evaluaciones llevadas a cabo bajo presión natural de achaparramiento en varios ambientes de Centro América. Bajo este enfoque se han obtenido logros substanciales en producción y reducción en el porcentaje de plantas con síntomas. Es por lo tanto importante contar con técnicas de diagnóstico que puedan discriminar e identificar separadamente dichos componentes. Este trabajo se está realizando en apoyo a los mejoradores de CIMMYT y del PRM, y se espera sea una contribución en la búsqueda de resistencia a esta enfermedad.Jorge Bolaños l RESUMEN Este trabajo presenta un modelo simple de la productividad primaria de los cultivos anuales, usando como ejemplo el maíz (Zea mays L.). El rendimiento es producto de la radiación interceptada por el follaje durante el ciclo, su conversión en biomasa a través de la fotosíntesis y la distribución de materia seca hacia la fracción cosechable. El marco conceptual y estimados razonables de los parámetros se esquematizan con casos hipotéticos de maíz tropical bajo distintas condiciones ambientales y de manejo. La duración del ciclo, el nivel de radiación disponible, la intercepción de radiación por el follaje, la eficiencia de conversión y el índice de cosecha son las variables necesarias para estimar rendimiento. En gran medida, la productividad del cultivo depende más en la cantidad de radiación que logre interceptar durante el ciclo, que en la eficiencia de conversión. Asimismo, el marco conceptual provee los elementos para una examinación ex-ante de los efectos de distintas estrategias agronómicas sobre la productividad.Este trabajo presenta un modelo simplificado de la productividad potencial de los cultivos anuales. En este, el rendimiento es el resultado de la asimilación neta de dióxido de carbono y su distribución hacia la fracción cosechable del cultivo, integrada a lo largo de la duración del ciclo (desde la emergencia a la cosecha). Dicho en forma matemática: R = IC J A dt donde R es rendimiento (fracción cosechable), IC es índice de cosecha o la proporción de R en la biomasa total, A es la asimilación neta por unidad de área, y t es tiempo (Monteith, 1990;Loomis and Connor, 1992). O sea, la acumulación de biomasa depende de la radiación incidente, la fracción de esta interceptada por follaje verde, la eficiencia de conversión en biomasa a través de la fotosíntesis y su distribución a la parte cosechable del cultivo. Por tanto, R también se puede expresar de la siguiente manera: R = t X Rs X %RI X E X IC donde t es la duración del cultivo en días; R. es el promedio diario de la radiación incidente (MJ m-2 día-]), %RI es el porcentaje de la radiación interceptada por follaje verde durante el ciclo, E es la eficiencia de conversión promedio (g MJ\") Y IC es el índice de cosecha. Este marco conceptual permite estimar el rendimiento con bastante precisión (± 1-2 t hao]) usando estimados razonables de los parámetros %RI, E Y IC, y además provee un marco conceptual para una examinación ex-ante del impacto pQtencial de distintas estrategias agronómicas sobre la productividad.La radiación solar (R.) (onda corta) incidente sobre los trópicos (0-30 grados de latitud) varía entre 10 y 25 MJ m-2 día-!, (1 MJ=10 6 Joule y 1 Joule=0.24 calorías), principalmente por cambios en la nubosidad y el día del año (Gates, 1980). La proporción del R. total (onda corta) que es fotosintéticamente activa (PAR) (400-700 nm) es casi siempre el 48-52% (Loomis and Connor, 1991). La constante solar (la radiación incidente afuera de la capa atmosférica de la tierra) es cerca a 30 MJ m-2 día-!, pero la atenuación por las partículas atmosféricas típicamente reducen R. a 20-25 MJ m-2 día-I para días claros, sin nubosidad, de verano, y a 5-10 MJ m-2 día-] o más para días nublados y lluviosos. La radiación se mide típicamente por piranómetros en estaciones meteorológicas, pero puede ser estimada conociendo la latitud, el día del año y la proporción de horas brillantes a horas con nubosidad (Gates, 1980). Por ejemplo, en un ambiente con un valor promedio de R. de 20 MJ m-2 día-], un cultivo de 120 días dispondría de 2400 MJ m-2 durante el ciclo. En gran medida, la productividad potencial estará determinada por la radiación capturada por el cultivo de este total disponible.En los cultivos anuales, el desarrollo del follaje y su intercepción de radiación a través del tiempo dependerá de la densidad de siembra, la tasa de expansión del follaje, la arquitectura foliar, el arreglo espacial, y muchos otros factores ambientales y genéticos. La radiación interceptada por un cultivo depende de la radiación solar incidente (R,) y el porcentaje de esta interceptada por el follaje a lo largo del ciclo (Monteith, 1990). En los cultivos anuales, la intercepción de radiación aumenta exponencialmente después de la siembra a medida que la planta crece y el follaje se expande, eventualmente cubriendo casi totalmente el suelo y capturando casi toda la radiación incidente (ver Figura 1). En los estadios iniciales del desarrollo del cultivo, mucha de la radiación incidente no es interceptada por el follaje y la producción de biomasa se encuentra limitada por el tamaño del follaje (Hsiao, 1982). Dada la arquitectura de la mayoría de los cultivares de maíz, intercepción total de la radiación incidente ocurre con índices foliares (lea! area index, LA/) (m 2 de follaje por m 2 de suelo) que oscilan de 3-4 para cultivares con hojas laxas y grandes, y de 5-6 para cultivares con hojas pequeñas y erectas (Fischer and Palmer, 1984). Normalmente, el maíz se siembra a densidades de 4 a 7 plantas m-2 (Fischer and Palmer, 1984). La intercepción de radiación disminuye durante el estadio de llenado de grano debido a la senescencia del follaje y la pérdida de área foliar verde.La suma acumulativa de la radiación interceptada por el follaje a lo largo de todo el ciclo es el principal factor que determina la biomasa total producida, y no la intensidad en un momento dado (Monteith, 1990;Loomis and Cannor, 1992). Existe una relación muy estrecha entre la suma acumulativa de la radiación interceptada por el follaje y la biomasa total producida en muchos cultivos, así como el consumo de agua (Monteith, 1990). Para maximizar la productividad en ambientes sin limitaciones hídricas, el cultivo deberá cubrir el suelo rápidamente y mantener su área verde foliar por un período largo.Si el cultivo experimenta estrés al comienzo del ciclo (aún si el estrés es muy ligero), estos efectos normalmente se acumulan a lo largo del tiempo, reduciendo significativamente la cantidad total de radiación interceptada por el cultivo durante el ciclo (Hsiao, 1982). Estos principios se esquematizan con los casos A, B Y e de cultivos de maíz en la Figura 1.Los porcentajes mostrados se refieren al total de la radiación disponible interceptada por el follaje desde la emergencia a la cosecha en cada caso, o sea, el área mostrada baJo cada curva (%RI).-'#.  El cultivo A de maíz ejemplifica condiciones de un buen manejo agronómico, buena fertilidad y buen manejo de malezas. El follaje cubre rápidamente el suelo y llega a interceptar cerca del 95% de la radiación solar disponible con la cobertura final del suelo por el follaje. Sin embargo, este cultivo solamente intercepta el 54% de la radiación total disponible a lo largo del ciclo.La línea punteada refleja cambios por uso de un cultivar con mejor mantenimiento del área verde foliar (staygreen), por lo que captura 4% más de radiación que el cultivo A, o 58% del total disponible. Por tanto, para maíz en condiciones típicas del trópico, aún con el mejor manejo agronómico posible, el cultivo solamente llega a interceptar un máximo del 50-60% de la radiación total disponible. El cultivo B de maíz tipifica muchos agricultores de bajos recursos con mal manejo agronómico, baja fertilidad, mal control de malezas, y otros factores limitantes, cuya consecuencia es que el follaje no cubre totalmente el suelo y no intercepta la radiación total disponible por día. El efecto de este desarrollo incompleto del follaje se acumula a través del tiempo, y la cantidad total de radiación interceptada por el cultivo decrece fuertemente, interceptando solamente el 32% de la radiación disponible durante el ciclo, 22% menos que el cultivo A. Si hay malezas presente, la radiación no interceptada por el cultivo será interceptada por ellas, con implicaciones que estas también usarán parte del agua y N disponible.El cultivo C de maíz representa el desarrollo del follaje bajo un caso aún más extremo y severo de mal manejo agronómico y presencia de estreses ambientales. Esta curva ejemplifica condiciones donde el desarrollo del follaje es reducido desde muy temprano en su desarrollo por sequía, baja fertilidad, y/o competencia por malezas. Los estreses se acumulan a través del tiempo, y el cultivo C solamente intercepta el 19% de la radiación total disponible durante e! ciclo, 35% menos que el cultivo A.Por tanto, aún con el mejor manejo agronómico posible (ej., cultivo A), 60-65% parece ser el máximo de! total de la radiación disponible durante el ciclo que el follaje de maíz logra interceptar en su desarrollo, ya que hay pérdidas substanciales durante la fase inicial después de la siembra y durante el llenado de grano cuando las hojas comienzan su senescencia (Muchow, 1989;Monteith, 1990). Cultivos con mal manejo agronómico interceptarán aún menor cantidad de radiación (ej., 30-40% para el cultivo By 20% para e! cultivo C). Estos estimados de %RI para los casos A, B y C se comparan favorablemente con reportes de 55-60% para %RI en condiciones de buen manejo agronómico y valores de 30-40% bajo condiciones de estrés hídrico o de N (Muchow and Davis, 1988;Muchow 1989a;Muchow, 1989b). En otro estudio de más de 100 líneas SI de maíz de origen tropical y templado, %RI promedió 39% y tuvo un rango de 30-46% (Chapman and Edmeades, 1996).En el caso de cultivos en asocio, la radiación desaprovechada por el cultivo principal puede ser aprovechada por el cultivo en asocio. Por ejemplo, si sembramos una leguminosa de forma simultánea con el maíz (ej., canavalia en surcos alternos), la radiación no utilizada por el maíz al inicio del ciclo, o al final del ciclo, podrá ser usada por el cultivo en asocio. Asumiendo que el maíz intercepte alrededor del 60% de la radiación disponible, y otro 15% no será aprovechada por ineficiencias del sistema, entonces alrededor del 25% de esta radiación podrá ser aprovechada por el asocio para producir biomasa.La eficiencia con que distintos cultivos o cultivares de maíz convierten radiación (R,) en biomasa se denomina la eficiencia de conversión (E) y tiene unidades de gramos de biomasa producidos por MJ interceptados. La productividad potencial de una superficie de cultivo es de 1.7 g Ml 1 (3.4 g Ml ' PAR) en base a cálculos teóricos, pero aún los valores récord reportados sobre la productividad de diversos cultivos solamente alcanzan el 50-60% de este potencial teórico (Loomis and Connor, 1992). En general, la eficiencia de conversión (E) es un parámetro bastante conservador en la naturaleza (Monteith, 1990;Muchow et al., 1990). Cultivos con metabolismo C 4 tienen valores de E alrededor de 1.0-1.5 g Ml1, Ycultivos con metabolismo C 3 de 0.5-1.0 g Ml 1 (Monteith, 1990).Para maíz, valores de E de 1.2-1.5 g Ml 1 son normales para buen manejo agronómico (Muchow et al., 1990;Loomis and Connor, 1992). Sin embargo, los ambientes templados disponen de mayor radiación por unidad de tiempo termal que los ambientes tropicales, caracterizados por temperaturas altas y un desarrollo fenológico rápido del cultivo, y altas tasas respiratorias (Fischer and Palmer, 1984). A través de diversos ensayos, E promedió 1.0-1.2 g MJ-' para maíz en buenas condiciones agronómicas y 0.4-0.6 g Ml ' para maíz bajo estrés hídrico o deficiencias de N (Muchow and Davis, 1988;Muchow, 1989a;Muchow, 1989b).Estos mismos autores reportaron una relación lineal entre E y el contenido específico de N para hojas de maíz y sorgo a través de un rango amplio de disponibilidad de N (Muchow and Davis, 1988). Debido que el contenido de N decrece a medida que la planta envejece, E también decrecerá con el desarrollo del cultivo. También hay reportes que E decrece a medida que la humedad del ambiente se reduce (Muchow et al., 1990).En ciclos de selección de Tuxpeño, Bolaños y Edmeades (1993) reportan valores de 0.8 g Ml' bajo riego normal y 004 g Ml' bajo sequía en Tlaltizapán, México, un sitio con conocidas deficiencias de hierro. En otro estudio, los valores promedios de E fueron cerca de 1.0 g Ml' a través de 10 poblaciones, sintéticos y variedades tropicales de maíz, detectándose muy poca variabilidad genética para E (Lafitte, comunicación personal).Por tanto, para follaje de maíz sin limitaciones, un buen estimado para E puede ser 1.2 g Ml 1 para condiciones de trópico. Los valores máximos reportados de E para maíz (en su fase vegetativa) en la literatura son de lA g Ml' (Muchow, 1989;Muchow et al., 1990). Sin embargo, en condiciones de baja fertilidad, estrés hídrico, etc., E puede bajar a 0.5 g Ml' o aún más (Muchow et al., 1990).Para un día típico en el trópico, con un promedio de 20 MI m-2 día-' de radiación solar, intercepción completa por el follaje de maíz (100% de cobertura del suelo), y una eficiencia de conversión (E) de 0.5-1.0 g Ml', la producción diaria de biomasa por un cultivo de maíz sería de 100 a 200 kg ha\" por día.El maíz produce biomasa a través de la fotosíntesis, pero la materia seca tiene que ser redistribuida hacia la mazorca, que es la fracción cosechable. Híbridos disponibles en la zona templada tienen IC's de 50-55%, pero la mayoría de los maíces tropicales tienen IC's de 40-45% (Fischer and Palmer, 1984;Bolaños and Edmeades, 1993). Sin embargo, si hay estrés durante la floración, IC puede reducirse drásticamente (15-20%), ya que el aborto de granos y/o mazorcas por planta aumenta (Fischer and Palmer, 1984). Cultivares de maíz criollos tienen índices de cosecha inferiores a maíces mejorados.Modelo simple de la productividad En base a las consideraciones anteriores, la productividad potencial (materia seca o biornasa) y el rendimiento de grano (matería seca total multiplicada por el índice de cosecha) se pueden estimar así: Biomasa total ~t x R,. x %RI x E R == t x R,. x %RI x E x IC donde t (tiempo) es la duración del cultivo en días, que puede variar según la precocidad, el fotoperíodo, y la temperatura (de 90 a 120 días para maíces tropicales); R, es la radiación solar diaria (de 10 a 20 MI m-l día-', fundamentalmente dependiendo de la nubosidad); %RI es el porcentaje de la radiación interceptada por el cultivo (de 0.6 para buen manejo agronómico hasta 0.2 por mal manejo agronómico, Fig. 1); E es la eficiencia de conversión de radiación en materia seca (1.2 g Ml' para follaje sin estrés y 0.5 g Ml' en situaciones limitantes marginales); y le es el índice de cosecha, que depende de la fracción de la biomasa destinada a la mazorca (45-50% máximo, pero estreses durante la floración lo reducen).El cultivo A interceptó el 54% de la radiación disponible (20 MI m-2 día-' x 120 días x 0.54 = 1296 MI mol), o sea, casi 1300 MI m-l durante el ciclo. Con una eficiencia (E) cercana a 1.0 g Ml', esto significa que este cultivo producirá 1300 g m-l, o sea, 13.0 ton hao' de biomasa. Con un índice de cosecha (IC) de 0.5, esto significa una producción de grano de 6.5 ton ha-l. Este valor concuerda bastante bien con los potenciales para cultivares de maíz de 120 días en el trópico.El cultivo B interceptó el 32% de la radiación disponible (20 MI m-2 día-' x 120 días x 0.32 = 768 MI m-2 ), o sea, un total de 768 MI m-ldurante el ciclo. Con una eficiencia (E) de 0.7 g Ml' (asumiendo una reducción en E debido a estreses), entonces, esto significa una producción de biomasa de (768 MI m-l x 0.7 g Ml' = 538 g mol), o sea, 504 ton ha-l. Con un índice de cosecha (IC) de 0.5, esto significa una producción de grano de 2.7 ton ha-l.El cultivo C interceptó el 19% de la radiación disponible (20 MI m-l día-' x 120 días x 0.19 = 456 MI mol), o sea, solamente 456 MI m-l de un total disponible de 2400 MI m-l a través del ciclo. Con una eficiencia (E) de 0.5 g MI-',(menor por mayor estrés), esto significa una producción de biomasa de 2.3 ton ha-l. Si asumimos un índice de cosecha (lC) de 0.5, esto significa una producción de grano de 1.1 ton ha'\" la cual sería menor con un le; menor. Es sorprendente que este simple modelo de productividad estime con realismo la productividad de muchos campos de agricultores de maíz de la región.En resumen, el rendimiento de grano es el producto de los siguientes factores (cultivos A, B YC):A: 120 x 20 x 0.54 x 1.0 x 0.5 = 648 g m-2 = 6.5 tha\" B: 120 x 20 x 0.32 x 0.7 x 0.5 = 269 g m-2 = 2.7 C: 120 x 20 x 0.19 x 0.5 x 0.5 = 110 g m-2 = 1.1La manipulación de las distintas variables permiten evaluar el impacto de diversos cambios sobre la productividad, por ejemplo, evaluar cambios genéticos (mejor índice de cosecha, mayor estabilidad, staygreen, rápida expansión vegetativa, etc.), cambios agronómicos (cambios en E y %RI), cambios en la duración del cultivo, cambios en la radiación solar disponible (días largos vs cortos), etc.El follaje consume agua al interceptar radiación, ya que toma el equivalente de una radiación incidente de 2.4 MI m-2 día-' para evaporar l mm de agua por día (se necesitan 683 calorías para evaporar 1 g de agua a 20 oC) (Gates, 1980). Mientras la superficie se encuentre húmeda o mojada o actúe como una superficie húmeda (ej., cubierta por el follaje de plantas, cultivos, pastos, bosques, etc.), más del 90% de la radiación incidente se disipará en la energía liberada a través de la evapotranspiración (ET) y muy poca a través del calor sensible (se denomina sensible porque se siente a través de un incremento en la temperatura). Si la superficie se encuentra seca (ej., suelo seco), entonces la energía incidente tendrá que disiparse como calor y la temperatura aumentará considerablemente (por ejemplo, al mediodía, compare la temperatura de arena mojada y arena seca en la playa, o la de un pasto verde con un piso de concreto o pavimento, etc.).Por tanto, el porcentaje del área de la superficie que actúa como superficie húmeda es una buena primera aproximación para estimar el porcentaje de la radiación incidente que se disipará en ET. Este principio le da base al concepto de coeficientes de cultivo (Kc) , usados para calcular 1\"1 ET de un cultivo en base al ET potencial o ET o (Dorenboos and Pruitt, 1984). El porcentaje del área que se encuentre seca no podrá disipar la energía incidente como ET, sino como calor sensible. En caso de advección, cuando el área se 295 encuentra rodeada de áreas extensas secas y calientes, entonces el ET (expresado en unidades energéticas usando 1 mm = 2.4 MI m-2 ) podrá exceder a R. por 20-40% debido al calor sensible adicional proveído por la advección.Con estos estimados se puede predecir la demanda potencial de agua (ETo' o evapotranspiración potencial) para distintos ambientes. En general, en los trópicos, ET o podrá variar desde 3-4 mm día-) en lugares nublados, húmedos, 5-6 mm día-) en lugares tropicales de verano; y 7-8 mm día-) en lugares muy cálidos y áridos (Gates, 1980).El maíz necesita adquirir nutrimentos del suelo para sostener la productividad descrita anteriormente. El nitrógeno (N) es normalmente el elemento más limitante a la productividad. El fósforo (P) es también otro elemento limitante. Muchos de los suelos de la región tienen contenidos de potasio (K) altos y los cultivos normalmente no responden a aplicaciones.Por ejemplo, follaje verde, recién expandido, joven, tiene contenidos de N alrededor del 3%. Si asumirnos una densidad específica del follaje del maíz de 6.0 mg cm-2 (1 ha de follaje pesa 600 kg de materia seca), esto significa que cada índice de área foliar o cada hectárea de follaje cuesta cerca de 20 kg N ha-l. Ya que el maíz tiene un índice de área foliar óptimo cerca de 4 a 5, esto significa un costo de 80-100 kg N hao' para interceptar la radiación.El contenido de N decrece casi linealmente a medida que la planta madura o acumula unidades de calor. Una plántula recién germinada tiene alrededor de 5% N en la materia seca, el cual se reduce a 2.5% para la floración. A la madurez, el grano de maíz tiene alrededor de 1.5% de N y el rastrojo alrededor de 1.0-1.2% de N. Por consiguiente, para producir 5 ton hao' de grano de maíz (contiene cerca de 75 kg N hao') y 6 ton hao) de rastrojo (otros 72 kg N ha-'.) se necesita esa cantidad de N. Si el suelo no es capaz de mineralizar esta cantidad de N a la velocidad que la planta lo necesita, es necesario entonces aplicarlo (fertilizante químico o materia orgánica que contenga suficiente N), o no será posible sostener esa producción de materia seca. La misma lógica se puede aplicar para otros nutrimentos, ejemplo, el grano de maíz contiene cerca de 0_2-0.3% de P, etc.. Desde el punto de vista de la sostenibilidad del sistema, es necesario retornar al sistema por lo menos la cantidad que se remueve como grano, rastrojo, del sistema para consumo humano o animal. Al quemar el rastrojo, la mayoría del N se volatiliza en forma gaseosa y se pierde del sistema con un costo relativamente importante.Leguminosas de cobertura (ej., Stizolobium deerengianum, mucuna o frijol de terciopelo), pueden producir cerca de 10-15 ton ha' I de materia seca a lo largo de 6-8 meses en las épocas lluviosas (ej., aboneras en el Litoral Atlántico de Honduras). Usando el modelo simple para estimar la productividad y estimados razonables se puede calcular: Biom Leg= 180 días x 15 MI m' z día• 1 (R.) x 0.75 (%RI) x 0.7 (E) = 14 ton ha• l . Esta biomasa contiene cerca de 2.5% de N para un total cercano a 300 kg N ha• l . Esta cantidad de N puede sustituir el uso de fertilizantes químicos y es suficiente para sostener la productividad de un cultivo de maíz. La cantidad de materia seca producida durante varias etapas del crecimiento del maíz es una variable importante de conocerse. Sin embargo, la falta de instalaciones de secado dificulta su medición en muchos campos. Un método simple para convertir el peso fresco de un cultivo a peso seco en el campo resolviera este problema. En este estudio, se calcula la relación entre el peso fresco y seco del rastrojo de maíz a través de su desarrollo fenológico para ocho cultivares de maíz con diferentes vigores y periodos de madurez en dos localidades de México. Para todos los cultivares, el porcentaje de materia seca en el rastrojo (MS%) fue alrededor de 15% desde la siembra hasta la segunda mitad del llenado de grano, cuando aumentó rápidamente hasta la cosecha. Las diferencias entre cultivares fueron más notorias en la segunda mitad del llenado, cultivares tardíos con menos humedad que los precoces. La regresión de MS% contra el estadio de desarrollo expresado en forma relativa contra la antesis (R, días al muestreo/días a la antesis). Las ecuaciones con mejores resultados (R2 = 0.97 -0.99) fueron: Precoces: MS% = 12.6 + 0.94R 2 + 1.68R 4; Tardíos: MS% = 16.1 -4.00R 2 + 3.36R 4 • No hubo diferencias constantes entre VPLs o híbridos, aunque se notaron ciertas diferencias entre localidades atribuidas a diferencias en la humedad relativa. Se describe un protocolo para determinar el peso seco del rastrojo de maiz por unidad de área (ton ha'l) cuando no se dispone de condiciones de secado, utilizando únicamente una báscula y una regla.Muchas veces se necesita información sobre el peso seco del cultivo en etapas específicas de su crecimiento. Sin embargo, la falta de secadoras en muchas estaciones experimentales de los progrmas nacionales de investigación agrícola de la región de Centro América o en campos de agricultores dificulta la obtención de este tipo de dato. Las pocas secadoras y hornos existentes se encuentran generalmente en algunas estaciones experimentales, algunas veces lejos del lugar donde se llevan a cabo los experimentos.J Fisiólogos de Maíz, CIMMYT, México. 2Agrónomo/Fisiólogo de Maíz, Programa Regional de Maíz, CIMMYT, Guatemala. DEL PRM 1993-1995, VOL. 5 (1997), p.297-302. 297 Incluso cuando las instalaciones de secado se encuentran cerca, los problemas para transportar grandes cantidades de material fresco al laboratorio, la necesidad de obtener sub-muestras apropiadas y la capacidad inadecuada de las secadoras ocasionan que el investigador no obtenga la información necesaria. Por todas estas razones, sería muy útil poder convertir los pesos frescos a pesos secos en finca, utilizando la relación entre el contenido de humedad o de materia seca de la planta y su etapa de crecimiento.En un cultivo anual y determinado como el maíz (Zea mays L.), la proporción de materia seca cambia a medida que el cultivo pasa por sus distintos estadios fenológicos de desarrollo. Un método conveniente para comparar maíces con distintos ciclos de desarrollo es expresar la fecha de muestreo relativa a cierto estadio fenológico estándar, por ejemplo, los días a la antesis. Utilizando esta medida, llamada estadio relativo de desarrollo fenológico (R), el cultivo alcanza R=l.O en la antesis. Otros valores de R, por ejemplo, al inicio del espigamiento (R=O.4), a la mitad del llenado de grano (R=1.5), a la madurez fisiológica (R=1.9) y la cosecha del grano se lleva a cabo aproximadamente a R=2.2, cuando el porcentaje de materia seca en el grano es alrededor del 80% (o 20% de humedad).La proporción de agua en las plantas es alta cuando éstas son jóvenes y disminuye conforme envejecen, alcanzando un nivel mínimo en la madurez. En las plantas jóvenes, el tejido foliar, que tiene un gran contenido de agua debido a sus importantes funciones de metabolismo, intercambio de gases, fotosíntesis y transporte de nutrimentos y minerales, constituye la mayor parte del peso fresco. Si el contenido de agua en las hojas disminuye por debajo del 30% de su valor máximo debido a la sequía, las hojas morirán (Ludlow y Muchow, 1990;Loomis y Connor, 1992).Conforme la planta crece, el tallo representa una mayor proporción del peso seco y la planta se vuelve más fibrosa ya que aparecen los materiales estructurales con un contenido de humedad más bajo. Aproximadamente de lOa 14 días después de la polinización, el almidón empieza a acumularse y de manera simultánea, el agua es desplazada del grano.Esto provoca un rápido aumento en el porcentaje de materia seca de la mazorca, del 17% durante la antesis a más de 70% a los 50 días después de la polinización aproximadamente (valor R=1.9). Como el peso seco de la mazorca aumenta de menos del 1% del peso seco total de la planta a aproximadamente al 50% durante este mismo tiempo, este incremento en el porcentaje de materia seca se refleja en el contenido de materia seca de toda la planta. Al mismo tiempo, las hojas se vuelven más anchas y aumenta el nivel de fibra en los tallos. Juntos, estos cambios dan como resultado un fuerte incremento en el porcentaje de materia seca de toda la planta durante el llenado de grano (o una disminuición del porcentaje de humedad). El porcentaje de materia seca puede aumentar de cerca del 20 al 50% desde la antesis a la madurez fisiológica (R=I.9). En esta etapa, el contenido de materia seca del grano es aproximadamente 67% y el del resto de la planta alrededor de 42%. Para cuando el contenido de materia seca del grano alcance el 80% (R=2.2), el de la planta entera será del 65 al 70% (Daynard y Hunter, 1975;Fairley, 1980). Subsecuentemente, la planta muere y sus componentes, con la excepción del grano, pierden agua rápidamente hasta alcanzar un contenido de materia seca estable de 3 a 8% menor al del grano unas semanas después de la madurez fisiológica, cuando R=2.5.En cualquier etapa del crecnmento, el ambiente puede alterar el porcentaje de materia seca en el cultivo. Por ejemplo, si la planta está sometida a una fuerte demanda evaporativa, su contenido de agua puede disminuir un 10% durante el llenado y tal vez un 15% en la etapa posterior a la floración (Loomis y Connor, 1992). La muerte prematura del cultivo provocada por la sequía o las heladas también cambia la relación entre la materia seca de la planta y la etapa de crecimiento.El objetivo de este estudio es determinar la relación entre el peso fresco y el peso seco del rastrojo de maíz en varias etapas de desarrollo fenológico. El trabajo reporta resultados de evaluación de ocho cultivares con diferentes periodos de madurez. a través de dos localidades en la temporada de lluvias de verano en México. El estudio fue una actividad conjunta entre el CIMMYT, México y el Programa Regional de Maíz (PRM) de Centroamérica y el Caribe.Los experimentos se llevaron a cabo en las estaciones experimentales de Tlaltizapán (TL) Y Poza 298 Rica (PR) en la estación de lluvias de verano (juniooctubre) de 1994. TL se localiza a 19°N, a una altitud de 940 m. Su temporada de cultivo del verano se caracteriza por valores de temperatura máxima y mínima diarios de 31°C y 17°C Y una radiación de 21 MJ m-2 • Por el contrario, PR se localiza cerca del Golfo de México a 21°N Y a 60 m de altitud. Su temporada de verano tiene valores promedios de temperatura máxima, mínima y de radiación de 32°C, 22°C Y 22 MJ m-2 • En general, PR es más húmedo que TL, incluso durante la temporada de lluvias. El suelo en PR es franco arenoso (Troplofluvent) y el de TL es arcilloso calcáreo (Isotherrnic Udic Pellustert).Se sembraron ocho cultivares de maíz: cuatro variedades de polinización libre (VPLs) y cuatro híbridos cruza simple (Cuadro 1), en un diseño de látice 2x4 (0,1) con tres repeticiones en ambas localidades. Los cultivares representaban diferentes vigores y periodos de madurez típicos de ambientes tropicales en Centro América (VPLs contra híbridos). Las parcelas eran de cinco surcos con una separación de 0.75 m y una longitud de 10.5 m con una densidad de 5.3 plantas m-2• Al cultivo se le mantuvo libre de malezas, insectos y enfermedades.En siete ocasiones se hicieron colectas de 9 plantas (1.7 m 2 ) de los tres surcos centrales de cada parcela (aproximadamente a los 26-40 días después de la siembra; 1 día después del 50% de la antesis, 70, 85 Y 90 días después de la siembra y en la madurez fisiológica. En cada colecta, las plantas fueron cortadas a nivel del suelo aproximadamente a las 10 AM y se les llevó a un laboratorio de campo para determinar el peso fresco. El tiempo que transcurrió entre cortar la planta y pesarla fue de menos de 10 minutos. En caso de estar las hojas mojadas por la lluvia, la colecta se posponía hasta que las hojas se hubieran secado. Las plantas de cada parcela se cortaron en pedazos pequeños y se secaron a 80°C en un horno durante cinco días y después se pesaron. Para las primeras cuatro colectas no se separó ninguna parte de las plantas por lo que el peso del rastrojo de estas recolectas fue el equivalente al peso total de la planta (sin incluir raíces). En las recolectas realizadas 85 y 99 días después de la antesis, solamente se pesó el rastrojo fresco sin incluir la mazorca (tallos, hojas, espigas y brácteas). Las mazorcas fueron secadas, desgranadas y pesadas para calcular el rendimiento de grano durante la colecta. En la madurez fisiológica, se colectaron 18 plantas (304m 2 ), y se tomó el peso fresco total del rastrojo y las mazorcas. Cada una de las partes se secó por separado y se calculó el rendimiento del grano.Se registraron los días que transcurrieron desde la siembra hasta el 50% de la antesis de 38 plantas útiles en cada parcela. Las fechas de colecta para determinación de pesos frescos y secos se expresaron en unidades R (i.e.,[días transcurridos desde la siembra hasta el muestreo)/(días transcurridos desde la siembra hasta el 50% de la antesisD, para confirmar que las comparaciones se hicieran entre cultivares y localidades con una etapa de desarrollo similar. El contenido de materia seca del grano en la madurez también se detem1inó pesando y secando una muestra de grano de 5 mazorcas localizadas en los surcos bordos de cada parcela durante la última colecta. El rendimiento de grano se determinó por medio de una muestra de 24 plantas por parcela.El porcentaje de materia seca del rastrojo (MS%) se expresó como [100. *peso seco/peso fresco] y se realizó análisis de regresión entre MS% contra R para cada parcela, usandose una regresión polinomia de la cuarta potencia, resultando MS% = a+bR 2 +cR 4 (R 2 = 0.97-0.99) la mejor ecuación. Los coeficientes de regresión (a, b, c) de cada parcela fueron sometidos a un análisis combinado de varianza utilizando un modelo fijo. Del mismo modo, se utilizararon valores promedios de los coeficientes para comparar la respuesta de MS% a R para los cultivares y lugares.Una unidad de R para todo el ensayo fue, en promedio, de 56.6 días. Los rendimientos del grano obtenidos (expresados a cero humedad) fueron normales para estas localidades (Cuadro 1). La evolución del contenido de materia seca del rastrojo de cada cultivar se resume en el Cuadro 2 y reflejan las diferencias (de hasta 14 días) en la fecha al 50% antesis de las distintas entradas. Los coeficientes de regresión que se presentan son promedios de 6 parcelas (2 localidades x 3 repeticiones). Las regresiones se usaron para predecir los valores de MS% para distintas etapas de R, valores que se presentan en el Cuadro 2. Todos los cultivares mostraron el mismo MS% durante las etapas tempranas del desarrollo, notándose diferencias hasta más o menos el 70% del llenado de grano, 299 cuando R>1.67. Las diferencias entre los cultivares a R=2.0 (una semana después de la madurez fisiológica) fueron muy notorias, variando del 40.7% (Selección Precoz Ció) al 60.5% (La Posta Sequía C 3 ), aunque no se detectaron diferencias notorias entre híbridos y VPLs en el DM% esperado. Hubo una tendencia de los cultivares de madurez precoz (Selección Precoz C 6 y C 16 ) a contener más agua que los cultivares de madurez tardía en las etapas de R=1.67 hacia arriba. Este hecho podría deberse a que los cultivares de madurez tardía estaban madurando cuando las lluvias estaban a punto de terminar y la humedad relativa del aire iba en descenso, mientras que los dos cultivares precoces completaron el llenado cuando todavía había lluvias abundantes, a una mayor humedad relativa del ambiente. Las VPLs tardías también mostraron una tendencia a tener mayor MS% hacia el final del llenado que los híbridos, tal vez reflejando su periodo de llenado más corto (Bolaños, 1995) y senescencia más rápida.El análisis de varianza de los coeficientes de regresión y los valores predichos de MS% (Cuadro 2) muestra que TL difería de PR en que las plantas tenían menor MS% desde la antesis hasta la mitad del llenado y mayor MS% en cualquier otro periodo fuera de este intervalo. Es probable que esto refleje las diferencias del tiempo que se tomó entre cortar las plantas y calcular los pesos frescos. Es evidente que el intervalo entre el corte de las plantas y el pesarlas debe ser corto pero razonable, ya que las plantas pierden agua a través de las hojas a un paso acelerado, especialmente cuando se encuentran expuestas al sol.La importante interacción cultivar x localidad para los coeficientes de regresión b y e (Cuadro 2) puede explicarse con las diferencias entre los patrones de humedad relativa en las dos localidades, lo que afectó de distintas maneras a cultivares de diferente períodos de madurez. Fue muy afortunado que este ensayo se realizara en dos localidades para que esos ambientes, típicos de las localidades más húmedas (PR) y más secas (TL) de Centro América, quedaran debidamente representados.Conocer el contenido total de materia seca (MST%) también es necesario si un investigador necesita calcular la biomasa total durante la segunda mitad del llenado de grano, cuando el contenido de materia seca del grano es significativamente mayor que el del resto de la planta (Daynard y Hunter, 1975 • Seleccionar aleatoriamente varias (6-8) áreas representativas en el campo para muestreo; • Identificar, marcar y medir las dimensiones del área en unidades de m 2 (Area). • Cortar las plantas dentro de cada área, juntarlas en un hato y cuando hayan pasado 10 minutos después del corte, detenninar el peso fresco en kg con una báscula de campo. Registrar el peso y la fecha. • Registrar los días desde la siembra a la antesis (DA) y a la fecha de muestreo (DM), y calcular R como R=DM/DA. • Calcular MS% con la ecuación apropiada según la madurez del genotipo (precoz vs tardío). En caso de necesitar el MST%, sumar al valor calculado de MS% la corrección apropiada según la etapa de desarrollo del Cuadro 3. • Convertir el peso fresco (PF) a peso seco de rastrojo (PS; kg) así: PS=PF*MS%. Para obtener el peso seco total, incluyendo las mazorcas, convertir el peso fresco total (PFT) a peso seco total (PST; kg) así: PST=PFT*MST%. Calcular materia seca por unidad de área (ton ha'!) de la siguiente manera, PS* 101Area.Se debe prestar mucha atención durante muestreos después de R=2.0, ya que existe un relativamente alto grado de error relacionado con MS% en esta etapa. La probabilidad de error es igualmente alta si las plantas están muy afectadas por la sequía u otros estreses, especialmente al final del ciclo del cultivo. . . 60 . .. ..~4 0 i El cuidadoso examen de la relación humedad/peso seco de toda la planta y el grano presentado por Daynard y Hunter (1975) y del peso seco contra R (calculado con las curvas de crecimiento presentadas por Edmeades, 1972) dió como resultado una tabla de valores porcentuales de la materia seca para sumarlos a los valores esperados de MS% para obtener el MST% (Cuadro 3). Es así que se calcula que MS% a R=2 sea del 48%. Para obtener el MST% en esta etapa, se suma el valor correspondiente del Cuadro 3 (6%) para que resulte un MST% de 54%. Este valor concuerda con los publicados por Daynard y Hunter (1975).• Promediar la producción de peso seco de cada una de las 6-8 sub-muestras para obtener una muestra representativa de todo el campo.Ricardo Radulovich l , Edwin Solórzano l y Jorge Bolaños 2La medición de la humedad del suelo es fundamental para una serie de aplicaciones, lo cual debe realizarse con prontitud para actuar en base a los resultados. Este trabajo reporta la calibración empírica en suelos tropicales del método de medición de humedad por retlectometría por dominio temporal (conocida en inglés como time-domain retlectometry, o TDR), comparando los resultados contra valores de humedad volumétrica obtenidos por muestreo gravimétrico. Se realizaron mediciones en cuatro suelos de Costa Rica, dos Andisoles, un Alfisol y un Inceptisol, todos ellos de la zona con marcada sequía estacional. Los valores de humedad volumétrica brindados por el TDR fueron de mucha precisión y su exactitud en retlejar la humedad volumétrica obtenida por muestreo gravimétrico se demostró por valores de correlación de Pearson altamente signiticativos, entre 0.90 y 0.95 para los cuatro suelos, y entre 0.84 y 0.99 para las tres profundidades medidas en cada suelo. Sin embargo, las pendientes de la relación linear (tipo y = mx + b) fluctuaron entre 0.73 y 1.29 entre los cuatro suelos y, además, substancialmente para las tres profundidades dentro de cada suelo. Esto indica la necesidad de obtener una curva de calibración no solo para cada suelo sino para cada profundidad en la que se utiliza el aparato. Tras estas consideraciones y otras mencionadas en el texto, el método del TDR es confiable para ser utilizado en los suelos que predominan en la región con sequía estacional de Centroamérica.La humedad del suelo es un parámetro fundamental para conocer o estimar los efectos del déficit hidrico en el desarrollo de los cultivos y, entre otras aplicaciones, permite determinar la necesidad de riego de acuerdo a niveles de consumo que se establezcan. El método estándar o de referencia para determinar la humedad del suelo es el muestreo gravimétrico, con valores que se convierten a humedad volumétrica mediante la densidad aparente. Este método, que es manual y laborioso, además de ser destructivo y conllevar valores de variabilidad a menudo altos, tiene la desventaja que no brinda resultados sino hasta que la muestra es llevada al I Profesores, Escuela de Ingeniería Agrícola, Universidad de Costa Ríca y 2 Agrónomo Regíonal de CIMMYT para Centro América y El Caribe. DEL PRM 1993-1995, VOL. 5 (1997), p. 303-306. laboratorio, pesada, secada por 48 hr y vuelta a pesar. En vista de que las decisiones en función del agua a menudo requieren de prontitud, esta limitación de tiempo resta aplicabilidad al método. Es por ello que se realizan esfuerzos para diseñar aparatos que eliminen o disminuyan dichas limitaciones, permitiendo tomar mediciones confiables e instantáneas en el campo mismo.El método de reflectometría por dominio temporal (conocido en inglés como \"time-domain reflectometry\" o TDR), fue propuesto en 1975 por Davis y por Davis y Chudobiak para su uso en suelos y ha sido desarrollado formalmente desde Topp y otros (1980), utilizándose cada vez con mayor aceptación por su confiabilidad y facilidad de uso (Gardner y otros, 1991). El método consiste en la medición de la constante dieléctrica del suelo, la cual está dominada principalmente por el contenido de agua. Mediante el uso de dos varillas de acero que se entierran, se propaga una señal eléctrica a través del suelo y el intervalo de tiempo de la velocidad de propagación es un indicador directo del contenido volumétrico de agua en el suelo (Topp y Davis, 1985). Entre las ventajas del método es que el aparato de TDR es portátil y brinda medidas directamente en el campo, las cuales son almacenables en memoria. La principal desventaja es el alto precio del aparato que se comercializa.El método de TDR no ha sido probado aún extensamente en suelos tropicales, lo cual es necesario de realizar antes de proceder a su uso en experimentación de campo. Este trabajo reporta sobre dicha calibración contra muestreo gravimétrico, con [mes de validar el uso del método en diversos suelos tropicales.El trabajo fue realizado en Costa Rica, durante los meses de enero a abril de 1996. Se utilizaron cuatro suelos agrícolas en el régimen climático del Pacífico, que tiene marcada sequía estacional. Todo el trabajo se realizó directamente en el campo, alterando los contenidos de humedad del suelo mediante riego en diversas fechas, midiendo en todas las instancias por lo menos 48 hr después de cada riego. Los suelos utilizados, junto con su clasificación tentativa y algunas características fisicas se describen en el Cuadro 1. Se aprecia que tres de los suelos son arcillosos y uno franco arenoso. Esto, junto con el hecho de que se muestrearon tres órdenes, permite considerar que los resultados son extrapolables a un amplio rango de suelos tropicales.El diseño experimental seguido consistió en tomar pares de muestras consistentes de: Una medición con un aparato de TDR (Trase System 1, Soil Moisture Corporation) a las profundidades determinadas por el largo de las varillas de acero, que son de 15, 30 Y45 cm de largo, lo cual da mediciones de humedad volumétrica de O a 15, O a 30 y O a 45 cm de profundidad del suelo. Cada medición o muestra con el TDR consistió de cinco lecturas para cada profundidad, tomadas dejando un intervalo de doce segundos entre cada medición. El valor de cinco lecturas se adoptó debido a que la gran precisión del aparato hizo innecesario utilizar un mayor número de submuestras. Esta precisión se refleja en valores de coeficiente de variación para grupos de cinco lecturas que fluctúan entre 0.16 y 2.68 %, con un promedio de 0.88 %.Una muestra de humedad gravimétrica tomada para las profundidades de Oa 15, 15 a 30 y 30 a 45 cm. Cada muestra consistió de dos submuestras para cada medición del TDR, tomadas en un radio de 5 cm de las varillas. Las muestras gravimétricas fueron llevadas al laboratorio, pesadas con precisión de 0.01 g, secadas por 48 hr a 105 C, y vueltas a pesar, tras lo cual los valores de humedad gravimétrica fueron convertidos a humedad volumétrica utilizando valores de densidad aparente medidos para cada profundidad.Un aspecto del trabajo consistió en evaluar la factibilidad de utilizar el aparato de TDR dejando varillas enterradas permanentemente en el campo, en vez de enterrarlas cada vez que se utilizan. Para ello, se calibraron en los dos Andisoles varillas de acero hechas en Guatemala contra las originales del aparato, para lo cual se obtuvieron los resultados mostrados en el Cuadro 2, que expresan una validez totalmente aceptable de las' varillas locales contra las originales, en correlaciones altamente significativas que son prácticamente de una a una.Las correlaciones entre los valores de humedad volumétrica por muestreo gravimétrico y aquellos que brinda el aparato de TDR fueron extremadamente altas y significativas para los cuatro suelos y las tres profundidades en cada uno de ellos, según se muestra en el Cuadro 3. La relación linear (y = rnx + b) fue escogida por brindar consistentemente los valores más altos de correlación; sin embargo, en aproximadamente 40% de los casos la relación exponencial brindó valores de r ligeramente superiores a la relación linear. De acuerdo a las pendientes para tres de los suelos, que fueron inferiores a 1.00 excepto un caso, el aparato de TDR subestimó el contenido de humedad volumétrica (Cuadro 3). Sin embargo, esta tendencia se revertió para el suelo Haplustalf de Grotina, en el cual el aparato sobrestimó el contenido de humedad volumétrica, con pendientes mayores a 1.00; también en este suelo se dieron interceptos negativos. Hook y Livingston (1996) han notado la necesidad de considerar diferentes pendientes e interceptos en diversos suelos, e incluso atribuyen algunas diferencias en mediciones a contenidos de agua inmovilizada en suelos arcillosos. lnteresantemente, los valores medidos de O a 15 cm de profundidad dieron consistentemente altas correlaciones para los cuatro suelos, lo cual puede ser el producto de una mayor homogeneidad de la capa de suelo bajo medición (Cuadro 3).Las grandes diferencias en las ecuaciones del Cuadro 3, que son considerables en pendientes tanto entre suelos (hasta un 50% de variación) como dentro de cada suelo (incluso >30% de variación), indican la necesidad de realizar una calibración del aparato no solo para cada suelo sino también para cada profundidad con la que se trabaja. De no realizarse dichas calibraciones, se podrá incurrir en discrepancias entre suelos de más del 50% y 305 dentro de cada suelo de hasta más del 30%, según las diferencias en pendientes notadas en el Cuadro 3. Estas grandes diferencias, aparte de sugerir interesantes características para los suelos utilizados, no ameritaron mayores estudios en vista de que se dieron también dentro de cada suelo y, sobre todo, considerando que para todos los casos las mediciones del aparato de TDR correlacionaron excelentemente con las de medición por muestreo gravimétrico Respecto a la factibilidad de utilizar varillas enterradas pennanentemente en vez de enterrarlas para cada medición, se determinó que es preferible enterrarlas para cada medición ya que las varillas enterradas pennanentemente pueden introducir errores en la medición al separarse del suelo, lo cual puede ocurrir tanto por manipulación como por procesos de encogimiento del mismo. Los grandes errores introducidos en la medición por dichas separaciones entre varillas y suelo han sido notados por Whalley (1993) y por Gregory y otros (1995).En conclusión, el método del TDR es preciso y exacto para las condiciones y suelos estudiados, y se recomienda su uso en experimentación de campo. Para ello, deberá realizarse una calibración para cada suelo y profundidad y, preferiblemente, las varillas de acero deberán enterrarse para cada medición en vez de ser dejadas enterradas permanentemente en el campo.Cristina Choto, Tito Montenegro 1 y Gustavo Sain 2 Figura 1. Difusión de la labranza de conservación en Guayrnango, El Salvador. introducción de leguminosas en el sistema e investigar la interacción entre el mantillo y N.Guaymango es un tesoro para la investigación, no solo por su valor demostrativo, en lo que la labranza de conservación puede hacer para mantener la productividad del suelo bajo un sistema de cultivo intenso sino que permite la coexistencia con respeto al sistema de finca a través de un pastoreo cuidadoso de los residuos y de la protección del suelo (Choto y Sain, 1993). Desde los 1980's, días de campo en el área se han realizado continuamente.Los impactos más sobresalientes de este esfuerzo conjunto de varias instituciones públicas y privadas trabajando con los agricultores fueron el incremento de la productividad del sistema agrícola y la adopción masiva de la labranza de conservación (manejo de los residuos). Por ejemplo, en el caso del maíz los rendimientos aumentaron en 235% en un período de 15 años, mientras que los de sorgo aumentaron en un 200% en el mismo periodo. El patrón de difusión de la labranza de conservación en Guaymango se muestra en la Fig. l. La adopción masiva de la labranza de conservación durante los años 70 y 80 pe¡mitió que, con el correr del tiempo, los agricultores \"vieran\" el efecto sobre la mejora en la calidad de los suelos, creándose una conciencia colectiva sobre la importancia de los residuos en el cuidado del suelo. Este trabajo presenta los resultados de la Primera Feria de la Labranza de Conservación realizada en Guaymango, El Salvador. Los agricultores del área adoptaron las prácticas de la no-quema y el uso del rastrojo de los ciclos anteriores como mantillo superficial para proteger el suelo, además de la adopción de híbridos de alto potencial de rendimiento y modestos niveles de fertilización química. Este sitio ha sido visitado por muchos técnicos, extensionistas, agricultores, y ha servido de punto focal para la promoción de estas tecnologías sostenibles a nivel nacional, regional e internacional.La historia de la adopción y difusión de la labranza de conservación comienza a inicios de la década los 70's con la creación de la Agencia de Extensión Agropecuaria (AEA) de Guaymango. Este caso ha sido bien documentado (Calderón, 1973;Mendoza et al., 1991;Calderón et al., 1991;Sain y Barreta, 1995) yes ampliamente conocida. En 1973 la AEA, en colaboración con otras instituciones que trabajaban en el área, puso en marcha un ambicioso programa destinado a mejorar la productividad del sistema de cultivo maíz -sorgo prevaleciente entre los agricultores de la región. El programa creó y promovió grupos de agricultores, estableció un sistema de incentivos y difundió un paquete tecnológico destinado a incrementar la productividad del sistema y a conservar el suelo mediante el manejo de los residuos en la época seca (Calderón et al., 1991).A comienzos de los años 80 el Centro Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (CENTA), en colaboración con el Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (CIMMYT), comenzó a trabajar en campos de agricultores en Guaymango en temas considerados como prioritarios: Generar y difundir nuevos híbridos, mejorar la eficiencia de la fertilización con N y P, mejorar el control de malezas y pestes. Posteriormente el énfasis de la investigación cambió hacia la En estos eventos, los agricultores de otras áreas del país tienen la oportunidad de observar el manejo que los agricultores de Guaymango dan a los residuos del sistema maíz -sorgo y escuchar de los propios labios de los agricultores sus experiencias con la tecnología de conservación.Dado que en los días de campo la participación de la comunidad se limita a los sitios que se visitan, nació la necesidad de organizar un evento que involucrará más ampliamente a la comunidad de Guaymango, y que al mismo tiempo sirviera a la difusión de la práctica de conservación del suelo mediante el buen manejo de los residuos. De esta manera, el CENTA en colaboración con el CIMMYT y el PRM, con el auspicio financiero de la Fundación Ford y de la Cooperación Suiza al Desarrollo (COSUDE), decidieron organizar la Primera Feria de la Labranza de Conservación en Guaymango. La Feria se realizó el 7 de abril de 1995, a más de 20 años del comienzo del programa de conservación y productividad.La Feria perseguía los siguientes objetivos específicos: l. Dar a conocer los logros obtenidos en la conservación de los recursos naturales mediante el buen uso del rastrojo, a otros agricultores y a un amplio espectro de instituciones gubernamentales, no gubernamentales, empresas privadas, y otras.2. Permitir que entidades públicas y privadas nacionales, regionales e internacionales mostraran sus avances tecnológicos aplicados a la conservación de los recursos suelo yagua.Involucrar e incentivar a la comunidad de Guaymango, pionera de esta práctica, para que continúe con la realízación de la misma.La organización de la Feria estuvo a cargo de un comité integrado por miembros de las tres instituciones organizadoras: CENTA (Centros de Desarrollo Tecnológico (CDT) de Iza1co y San Andrés), PRM y CIMMYT.Dado que el evento estuvo dirigido a que los participantes conozcan las nuevas prácticas de producción y conservación de los recursos, el comité dispuso organizar la Feria tomando un conjunto de exhibiciones como centro. En las mismas las instituciones participantes montaron sus exposiciones y realizaron demostraciones de sus productos para que los participantes pudieran llegar a observar y preguntar sobre los temas que les interesasen.Fueron invitadas las instituciones públicas, privadas y ONGs que trabajan tanto dentro del ámbito nacional como regional (Cuadro 1). El Cuadro 2 muestra la lista de instituciones invitadas. Para la difusión masiva de la Feria, la comisión publicó en los medios de difusión escritos una invitación abierta a concurrir al evento. Además, se publicó una serie de artículos explicando los objetivos y a1cances de la Feria. Por otra parte, algunos comerciantes de Guaymango pagaron publicidad en los medios masivos de comunicación invitando a las comunidades a asistir a la Feria. Cuadro 1. Lista de instituciones y proyectos invitadas a la Primera Feria de la Labranza de Conservación. Guayrnango, 7 de abril de 1995. Participaron en la Feria más de 300 agricultores del área de Guaymango y comunidades vecmas, y una gran cantidad de funcionarios de organizaciones públicas y privadas.LA FERIA La comISión puso énfaSIS en involucrar a la comunidad de Guaymango en todos los aspectos de la organizaCIón y ejecución de la Feria. Se incentivó su participación en diferentes actividades relacionadas con el evento. Las escuelas fueron involucradas en el ordenamiento de los participantes. las calles fueron ornamentadas. y se incentivó la venta de comidas y hebldas por parte de amas de casa y locales de venta de alimentos. La Po licia Nacional Civil prestó la seguridad necesaria en el evento, Además. fueron especialmente invitados 54 agricultores cooperadores en el proyecto de investigación sobre los impactos de la lahranza de conservación que el CENTA. el PRM Y el CIMMYT llevan a cabo en el área. a fin de entregarles un reconocimiento público por su actitud cooperadora. La Feria dio comienzo con un acto protocolario de inauguración presidido por el Sr. Viceministro de Agricultura, Ingeniero Ernesto Jaimes, quien en su discurso de inauguración enfatizó la importancia de la labranza de conservación como una tecnología útil para aliviar el problema de la degradación de los suelos que enfrenta El Salvador. El Ingeniero Jaimes hizo un ferviente J1amado a que el ejemplo de Guaymango se propague en otras áreas.El CENTA, a través de su Director General, Dr. Roberto Arias Milla, lanzó el primer Concurso Nacional de Conservación de Suelos con el objetivo de promover la difusión de la labranza de conservación mediante el otorgamiento de estimulos en fom1a de premios a los agricultores que mejor implementen las prácticas de conservación en sus parcelas. Entre los premios de este concurso cabe destacar una visita a la sede central del CIMMYT en Texcoco, México, con el propósito de observar los trabajos de conservación que se realizan allí.Luego del breve acto de inauguración, los asistentes comenzaron el recorrido por los diferentes exhibiciones y visitas guiadas a parcelas de agricultores del área. En estas últimas, los participantes pudieron observar el efecto de la labranza de conservación sobre la calidad del suelo cuando se realiza en forma continua por varios años. Se destaca también la demostración que el Programa de Fomento de la Tracción Animal (FOMENTA) realizó de la siembra con cero labranza mediante tracción animal. Durante las visitas a los \"stands\", los agricultores y otros visitantes pudieron tener acceso a una gran cantidad de información disponible en forma de publicaciones.La Primera Feria de la Labranza de Conservación en Guaymango resultó un éxito si se juzga por la concurrencia, el entusiasmo de los participantes y el grado de involucramiento de la comunidad de Guaymango.DieCIocho exhibiciones fueron montadas por instituCIOnes públicas y privadas asi como proyectos nacionales, regionales e internacionales interesados en difundir sus resultados y productos. La participación de los agricultores y de la comunidad fue excelente.En las horas del mediodía y de la tarde la Feria se vio animada por la presencia del Ballet del Instituto Salvadoreño de Turismo, el grupo de teatro de FOMENTA integrado por artistas nicaragüenses, y de una marimba integrada por miembros de la comunidad de Guaymango, Durante la Feria se realizaron varios actos de premiación y donaciones. Además de los ya realizados en el acto de inauguración, FOMENTA donó al CENTA el módulo de exhibición que había sido fabricado en Nicaragua. El PRODETEC INTA-FINNIDA rifó entre los agricultores participantes una sembradora PROMECH adaptada para cero labranza y promovida por ese proyecto de cooperación entre Finlandia y Nicaragua. Finalmente, el PRM premió a cada uno de los 54 agricultores colaboradores con desgranadoras manuales fabricadas por FOMENTA. El CENTA, a través de sus exhibiciones, donó a los agricultores diversas muestras de los productos exhibidos. Lo mismo hicieron algunas de las casas comerciales presentes en la Feria.La participación de la comunidad de Guaymango fue activa mediante la visita a la feria y la venta de comidas tipicas. La actividad se prolongó hasta la noche.Queda la pregunta sobre si habrá o no una segunda, o tercera, o enésima Feria de la Labranza en Guaymango. Es decir, podrá la Feria hacerse sostenible? No hay todavía una respuesta cierta a estos interrogantes.Sin embargo, sí existen algunas propuestas concretas en ese sentido.Para la segunda Feria existe la alternativa de realizarla como un día de campo de la XLII Reunión Anual del Programa Cooperativo Centroamericano para el Mejoramiento de Cultivos y Animales (PCCMCA) que se realizará en El Salvador en 1996. En este día de campo, además de las exhibiciones de las instituciones y proyectos, se podrían presentar algunos de los afiches relacionados al tema de la conservación del suelo y el agua. De esa manera se estaría realizando una innovación en el PCCMCA mediante la combinación del día de campo con la presentación de afiches. Esta idea está siendo considerada por el CENTA, que es la institución responsable de la organización del próximo PCCMCA. Para la tercera Feria y otras posteriores, una posibilidad para hacerlas sostenibles a nivel de la comunidad sería realizarlas conjuntamente con la fiestas patronales de Guaymango.Cualquiera que sea la alternativa que prevalezca, para que la Feria tenga un futuro sostenible es necesario que las organizaciones locales y fuerzas vivas de Guaymango se involucren intensamente en su organización y la asuman sientan con la misma determinación con que hace más de 20 años adoptaron la práctica del buen manejo de los residuos para la conservación del suelo y el agua.Las instituciones organizadoras de la 1 Feria, desean expresar su profundo agradecimiento a las distintas personas y organizaciones que mediante su aporte hicieron posible la realización del evento.A la Fundación Ford y a la Cooperación Suiza al Desarrollo, cuyo generoso financiamiento permitió la realización de la Feria. A las instituciones públicas y privadas nacionales, regionales e internacionales que, a través de su esfuerzo y dedicación en el montaje de los \"stands\", hicieron posible el éxito de la Feria. A todo el personal de la Agencia de Extensión Agropecuaria y Forestal de Guaymango, por el esfuerzo y dedicación en la organización y montaje de la estructura fisica de la Feria. A la comunidad de Guaymango, por el apoyo y entusiasmo demostrado antes, durante y después del evento. Finalmente a los agricultores del área de Guaymango, por su generosidad y colaboración. La evaluación participativa de un ensayo de arreglo topológico de maíz-caupí del INTAlPRM, realizada durante la primera de 1995, mostró que entre los tratamientos innovadores de doble surco, el arreglo de doble surco de maíz con 40 cms entre los surcos goza de una mayor aceptación por parte de los agricultores. Sin embargo, el arreglo preferido por los productores fue el maíz en monocultivo. Se obtuvo también información de los agricultores sobre las nlzones de sus preferencias y sobre alternativas en cuanto al patrón de cultivo (\"arreglo\") se refiere. La mitad de los campesinos entrevistados hubiera sembrado frijol común en lugar del caupí. La evaluación participativa ayudó a identificar posibles colaboradores entre los productores para una posterior fase de adaptación de la tecnología a nivel de finca.En ocas\\on de una gira de intercambio en agronomía sostenible de maíz durante la cual se visitó y analizó un ensayo de arreglo topológico de maízleguminosas del INTAl PRM, se acordó realizar una evaluáción participativa de dicho ensayo. Esta propuesta respondió, al mismo tiempo, a una inquietud de fomentar el uso de los métodos de evaluación participativa en los trabajos de validación que están llevando a cabo las insituciones de investigación y transferencia.El ensayo tenía por objetivo evaluar la alternativa del doble surco de maíz, contra maíz en monocultivo y asocio tradicional. Todos los tratamientos tenían la misma densidad de siembra de maíz y de asocio la misma densidad de la leguminosa. La variante es su arreglo topológico. El PRM está interesado fundamentalmente en la productividad del maíz, permitiendo variación local en la escogencia de la leguminosa. Los tratamientos eran: TI Maíz en monocultivo T2 Maíz en asocio con caupí, arreglo tradicional (maíz en surcos de 80 cros y caupí en medio de cada surco) T3 Doble surco de maíz; maíz a 20 cros entre surcos 2 hileras de caupí a 50 cros ' T4 Doble surco de maíz; maíz a 40 cros entre surcos 2 hileras de caupí a 40 cros 'En los tratamientos de monocultivo (TI) Y asocio tradicional (TI), la distancia entre surcos de maíz es uniforme y el follaje eventualmente \"cierra calle\" con una cobertura casi total del suelo. En comparación, en los tratamientos de doble surco (TI y T4), el maíz probablemente no \"cerrará calle\", por lo que capturará menos radiación, significando potencialmente una menor productividad. Sin embargo, esta pérdida de radiación no interceptada por el maíz en los arreglos de doble surco debe ser compensada parcialmente por radiación lateral adicional capturada que es posible por el tamaño reducido de la leguminosa en asocio (caupí). La hipótesis que gobierna el ensayo es el rendimiento del maíz deberá ser similar en el doble surco que en los otros tratamientos.Sin embargo, se espera que los tratamientos de doble surco difieran sustancialmente de los otros en el rendimiento de la leguminosa en asocio. En el doble surco, la leguminosa interceptará bastante más radiación que en el asocio tradicional, posibilitando una mayor producción total de biomasa y/o rendimiento fmal (rastrojo y/o grano) de esta. O sea, la hipótesis de trabajo es que el doble surco apunta a una productividad total mayor del sistema debido a una mejor eficiencia en la captura total de radiación vis a vis los tratamientos testigos. Esta productividad mayor solamente se verá realizada en la medida que el agua y los nutrimientos necesarios para sostener esta productividad no se encuentren limitados.Es esencial enfatizar que este arreglo topológico del doble surco ha sido diseñado para sistemas de siembra manual (chuzo) y para suelos de ladera. Este arreglo obviamente presenta muchas dificultades en su adopción para la siembra mecanizada. Sin embargo, esta estrategia puede tener un impacto positivo para el control de la erosión en suelos de ladera, donde el doble surco de maíz puede actuar como una especie de barrera viva. Es importante considerar estos criterios para la identificación de futuros agricultores colaboradores en una etapa posterior de prueba en finca.El ensayo evaluado pertenece a la fase de experimentación. Tradicionalmente, no se contempla una evaluación por los productores de ensayos correspondientes a esta etapa inicial de experimentación. El modelo clásico de generación-en la estación experimental-y de transferencia-a la fil/ca-de tecnologías, aún vigente en muchas partes, prácticamente excluye la intervención de los agricultores en una fase temprana de la investigación tecnológica. Este modelo, sin embargo, ha venido siendo ampliad0 2 • Hoy en día, en muchas instituciones de generación y difusión de tecnología ya no son hechos aislados cuando los productores (o productoras) visitan la estación experimental para evaluar los trabajos de experimentación, los cuales están diseñados para solucionar posteriormente un problema de producción en las fincas de una determinada región.2Véase la importancia que ha venido ganando la experimentación campesina en Nicaragua (PCaC, UNICAM o recientemente el mismo INTA, apoyado por el PRlAG). También aportan elementos de juicio los siguientes trabajos: Ashby, Jacqueline. Manual para la evaluación de tecnologias con productores. CIAT. Publicación No. 188. Cali. 1992 3. Estimar el potencial de aceptación de la tecnología. 4. Poder definir mejor los próximos pasos en el proceso de introducción de la tecnología. 5. Estimular la experimentación propia del campesino. 6. Fomentar la colaboración entre los productores y los técnicos.El presente ensayo, se basa en una serie de antecedentes e hipótesis agronómicos interesantes en cuanto a los arreglos de doble surco se refiere. Sin embargo, la tecnología innovadora de doble surco iba a ser transferida de la estación experimental al campo eventualmente. Por esta razón, se acordó realizar una evaluación participativa del ensayo para (1) permitir una intervención temprana de algunos productores en un proceso de generación y adaptación de una tecnología y (2) introducir un método de evaluación participativa con la finalidad de capacitar a los técnicos participantes.El evento fué planificado conjuntamente por el INTA, PASOLAC y el PRM y preparado logísticamente por INTA. De parte del INTA intervino personal de la Agencia de Carazo (Región A-2), de la Regional A-2 y del Programa Nacional de Suelos y Agua. Se invitó a 20 productores de diferentes 'partes atendidas por la Agencia de Carazo.Desarrollo del Evento l. Bienvenida a los agricultores 2. Introducción: Breve explicación del ensayo; aclaración del objetivo de la reunión con los productores 3 ;  explicación del procedimiento a los agricultores.3. Formación de cuatro grupos de agricultores; cada grupo contaba con 5 productores y un técnico; cada grupo observa las 4 repeticiones del ensayo, analiza los )\"No es un dia de campo, durante el cual el Instituto le recomienda alguna tecnología al productor, cs una reunión con los productores para que ellos evalúen diferentes formas de sembrar maíz y caupí y nos den a conocer su coneepto y su preferencia. El doble surco a 40 cm (T4) tendrá un mayor potencial de aceptación por los productores entre los dos tratamientos de doble surco, al llevarse esta prueba a nivel de fmca. Sin embargo, el doble surco, en cualquiera de sus dos modalidades, quizás no es una práctica que convenza facilmente a los productores.2. Cuáles han sido las razones de escogencia de un determinado tratamiento? El Cuadro l contiene las razones más importantes en favor y en contra de cada arreglo, de acuerdo a como los productores se han pronunciado.Nota: el total entre todos los tratamientos de la selección positiva supera el 100% debido a la posibilidad de mencionar mas de un tratamiento. Lo mismo se aplica en el caso de la selección negativa. 3. Porcentaje de selección positiva menos porcentaje de selección negativa o el índice de valorización global. La mayoría de las razones mencionadas tiene que ver con el cultivo de maíz, su desarrollo, la manera de sembrarlo y el rendimiento esperado. Relativamente pocos comentarios están relacionados con los efectos (positivos o negativos) de la leguminosa 4• Además, tal como las opiniones han sido algo divididas en cuanto a la preferencia de los arreglos, se encuentran también razones opuestas referente a un mismo tratamiento. 4. A los productores se les hizo la pregunta qué iban a sembrar una vez que se haya terminado el ciclo vegetativo del caupí (o también después de su cosecha)? Un 35% señaló que no iba a sembrar nada en los espacios dejados por el caupí, mientras un 65% sembraría de nuevo. De estos últimos, un 77% sembraría frijol común, 15% otra leguminosa y un 8% un cereal. Al sembrar de nuevo, varios agricultores indicaron que lo harían con espeque y doblando previamente el maíz. 5. Finalmente, se quiso saber si los productores visitantes hubieran sembrado arra cultivo en lugar del caupí? 22% dijo que no, mientras el 78% manifestó que sí. De estos, 64% hubiera sembrado frijol común, 14% \"frijol abono\", 14% \"trigo\" (sorgo) y un 7% yuca.Interpretación. El frijol común ocupa dos veces el primer lugar. Primero, cuando se trató de buscar un cultivo que se podría sembrar despúes del caupí. Segundo, al buscar una alternativa al caupí. 4Este hecho podría indicar que los productores carecen dc información acerca de las funciones que cumplen las leguminosas en los sistemas asociados con maíz. útil por su demanda en el mercado, su aptitud para el autoconsumo, por la costumbre de sembrarlo y por la posibilidad de sacar doble cosecha (frijol y maíz) de un área reducida de tierra. El caupí no comparte todas las ventajas que reúne el frijol común. Entonces, lo que para el productor está bajo evaluación no es solamente el efecto agronómico de la incorporación de una leguminosa en el maíz, mas bien los usos potenciales de dicha leguminosa, incluyendo el consumo humano y la comercialización.6. En la reumon final, algunos productores manifestaron su interés en implementar un ensayo de arreglo topológico en su finca. La mayoría de los productores quiere volver a visitar el ensayo en el momento de la cosecha. Se mencionó otro posible arreglo, consistiendo en 3 a 4 surcos de frijol, alternándose con un surco de maíz. Otra idea de un campesino fué la de asociar sorgo con una leguminosa, bajo diferentes arreglos de siembra, siendo el sorgo un cultivo importante en su zona. Se habló también de la necesidad de llevar el trabajo a otras zonas agroecológicas. Finalmente, los productores hicieron entender que el evento les había gustado y que se debería llevar a cabo más frecuentemente este tipo de reuniones.CONCLUSIONES Los 4 arreglos topológicos de maíz, tres de ellos en asocio con caupí, no provocaron una clara tendencia de opinión entre los agricultores. No obstante, el arreglo maíz monocultivo goza de la mayor aceptación. El doble surco de maíz con distancia de 20 cm entre surcos fué el tratamiento que provocó más reprobación. El doble surco a 40 cm casi ocasionó igual número de pronunciamientos en favor como en contra.La mayoría de las razones mencionadas por los productores en ocasión de su selección (positiva o negativa) de tratamientos tiene que ver con el cultivo de maíz, su estado de desarrollo y el rendimiento esperado. Pocos comentarios se refieren a los efectos (positivos o negativos) de la leguminosa. La mayoría de los productores (65%) sembraría otro cultivo al terminarse el ciclo vegetativo del caupí. Dentro de estos agricultores, 77% se decidiría por el frijol común.La mayoría de los campesinos entrevistados-un 78%-hubiera, incluso, sembrado otro cultivo en lugar del caupí: 64% de ellos frijol común, la parte restante \"frijol abono\", sorgo o yuca.l. Al terminar el ciclo del caupí, se podría contemplar sembrar frijol común, ya que los campesinos se mostraron interesados en este patrón de cultivo.2. Al llevar el ensayo a nivel de fincas, se debería incluir los tratamientos TI, T2 YT4 solamente.3. Se debería analizar, si no valdría la pena asociar maíz con frijol común (en lugar de caupí). En este caso, incluso, se podría añadir como cuarto tratamiento el arreglo maíz-frijol intercalado (3-4 surcos de frijol, un surco de maíz), sugerido por un agricultor.4. Sería oportuno insertar eventos de evaluación participativa en otros casos, por ejemplo en el mismo ensayo, montado en otras regiones o paises (PRM) y también en otros trabajos, particularmente de 315 validación (INTA). En general, los informes sobre los ensayos deberían íncluir los resultados de evaluaciones hechas por los productores, a parte de la ya acostumbrada información técnica y económica. Agroecología del Sistema de Aboneras en el Litoral Atlántico de Honduras Bernard Triomphe l RESUMEN En el litoral atlántico de Honduras se ha documentado un sistema de aboneras con la rotación de maíz con mucuna. Para duplicar este sistema en otras partes, se necesita una base teórica sólida. El presente estudio intenta proveer la información básica sobre el sistema de aboneras, en especial la dinámica de nutrimentos. También se analizan tendencias a largo plazo de la fertilidad química y física de los suelos. La metodología se basó en estudiar parcelas con distintas historia de uso de esta rotación con aboneras para detectar cambios a largo plazo. Se describe brevemente el sistema de aboneras y se analizan las fracciones de la dinámica de nutrientes a lo largo del año, la acumulación y mineralización de la biomasa de mucuna, así como la dinámica del N en el I}ertil del suelo. Finalmente, un examen preliminar de los datos permite concluir que los suelos han mejorado después de 12 años de rotación continua, debido a la acción multiforme del mulch de la mucuna mantenido sobre el suelo. Si bien este sistema de aboneras es demasiado específico para extrapolarlo directamente a otras regiones, el mantenimiento de una cobertura casi perenne parece constituir un punto crítico para lograr una buena productividad y sostenabilidad agrícola.En Centro América, hay mucha experiencia práctica por parte de los agricultores y de varias üNGs sobre el uso de rotaciones de cultivos, incluyendo cultivos de cobertura (Bunch. 1993;Thurston et al., 1994). Estas rotaciones parecen conllevar numerosos beneficios tanto desde el punto de vista del agricultor (baja inversión inicial, ganancias a corto plazo, ayuda en el control de malezas, etc.) como desde el punto de vista técnico (control de la erosión, buena productividad, etc.). Sin embargo, la caracterización sistematica y cuantitativa de estos factores es insuficiente todavía, impidiendo conceptualizar claramente el potencial y las limitaciones de dichos sistemas fuera de las zonas donde han sido desarrollados y adoptado espontáneamente por los mismos agricultores. Dentro de este contexto, el objetivo de esta ponencia es presentar algunas evidencias iniciales I SCAS, Comell University, lIhaca, New York. DEL PRM 1993-1995, VOL. 5 (1997), p. 319-328.   319 sobre el funcionamiento biológico del agroecosistema Maíz de postrera/Mucuna spp. tal como se practica en la costa norte de Honduras. En particular, se analiza la dinámica de nutrientes (especialmente la del nitrógeno) tanto en sus aspectos a corto plazo (ciclo anual) como en los de largo plazo (10 a 15 años). Finalmente, se discuten algunas implicaciones de nuestras observaciones sobre el diseño de sistemas de producción 30stenibles. METODOLOGIA Brevemente, los puntos siguientes resumen el marco general dentro del cual este estudio se llevo a cabo (para mas detalles, véase Triomphe, 1996).(1) caracterizar la rotación maíz/mucuna en sus aspectos agronómicos, (2) determinar los efectos a largo plazo de dicha rotación sobre la fertilidad del suelo y (3) explorar la dinámica del nitrógeno a lo largo del ciclo del maíz.La fertilidad química y fisica del suelo en parcelas de agricultores sometidas a la rotación maíz/mucuna.A nivel espacial, el estudio abarco cuatro niveles distintos: la región (el litoral Atlántico de Honduras); la comunidad (San Francisco de Saco, Las Mangas, El Recreo y Piedras Amarillas), la parcela y la falda uniforme (una posición topográfica particular seleccionada dentro de cada parcela).A nivel temporal, el estudio abarco dos escalas: el corto plazo (i.e. la temporada agrícola) y el largo plazo (lOa 15 años de uso continuo de la rotación maíz/mucuna).GENERALIDADES Todo el estudio se realizo bajo el esquema de \"investigación en campos de agricultores\". Los principales métodos de trabajo incluyeron (1) un monitoreo de sitios de observación a lo largo del ciclo de cultivo, que consistió en varias visitas en fechas claves de la rotación maíz/mucuna durante las cuales se miden u observan los principales factores y condiciones determinantes de los rendimientos de maíz (Byerlee et al., 1991), ( 2) una serie de ensayos de respuesta a N y P acoplado con un seguimiento de la dinámica del N mineral en el perfil de suelo, y (3) la constitución de \"cronosecuencias\", o sea conjuntos de parcelas de distintas edades (desde O hasta IS años de uso continuo de mucuna) que permitan \"representar\" la evolución de la rotación maíz/mucuna en el tiempo. El propósito de usar una cronosecuencia es poder entender las tendencias a largo plazo ahorrando el tiempo que llevaría necesariamente un experimento a largo plazo: por esta razón algunos autores hablan de substitución espacio-par-tiempo (Pickett, 1988).Una combinación de entrevistas individuales y colectivas, observaciones cualitativas y mediciones cuantitativas fue usada para recolectar información. Los principales rubros de la recolección incluyeron las practicas de los agricultores y su racionalidad, mediciones de biomasa de la mucuna, así como su contenido de nutrientes, su CN, y su riqueza en C 13 , estimaciones de los rendimientos de maíz y sus componentes, así como mediciones de su crecimiento y su estado nutricional. La fertilidad de los suelos se caracterizo a nivel químico por la determinación de las cantidades de N mineral (7 a 10 fechas muestro/ ciclo), del pH, del C orgánico, N total, C/N, c 13 , bases intercambiables, Al, P disponible, y micronutrientes. En cuanto a física de los suelos, se determinaron las tasas de infiltración, la densidad aparente, la macroporosidad, el contenido de agua y la temperatura a varias profundidades.La mayoría de esas mediciones se repitieron durante dos ciclos de cultivo. La intensidad de recolección vario de una comunidad a otra: los estudios mas detallados se hicieron en San Francisco de Saco mientras que en El Recreo y en Piedras Amarillas, el estudio fue mucho menos extenso. 320 El contexto socio-economlCO y agroecológico en las laderas del litoral Atlántico a) Contexto socio-económico La Costa Norte tiene una historia de inmigración desde regiones mas pobres del país; todavía es zona de frontera agrícola y a la vez esta sujeta a una marcada expansión ganadera abarcando cada vez mas tierras con pendientes moderadas (Humphries, 1994).En promedio, los niveles de educación capacitación son relativamente bajos, con limitada acción oficial de apoyo al medio rural (infraestructura, crédito, extensión, investigación).A pesar de estas :::ondiciones, la producción agrícola esta fuertemente orientada hacia la comercialización, incluyendo el caso de los granos básicos.La mayoría de las tielTas \"agrícolas\" presentan pendientes fuertes (de 2S-30 a 100 %). Sin embargo, los suelos son relativamente profundos y fértiles, clasificados en su mayoria como Alfisoles, Inceptisoles o Entisoles. Los suelos ácidos (Ultisoles) son mas escasos.Las lluvias son copiosas (2S00 a 3S00 rnm/año), permitiendo 2 ciclos agricolas al ai'io. Hay una temporada \"seca\" que se extiende de febrero a mayo (SO a ISO rnm/mes) y una larga estación lluviosa en la cual la precipitación mensual rebasa fácilmente los 400-S00 mm, especialmente entre septiembre y diciembre.Este clima tropical húmedo ofrece condiciones favorables para producir una gran diversidad de cultivos tanto anuales como perennes (PDBL,1991).A raíz de las condiciones anteriores, la agricultura de ladera en la Costa Norte esta caracterizada por (1) una gran sensibilidad a la erosión de las tierras cultivadas y (2) un esquema productivo en el cual la deforestación y la agricultura migratoria siguen siendo dominantes, a la vez que la gran mayoría de los agricultores solo se dedican a la producción tradicional de granos básícos.En este contexto, el desarrollo y la subsecuente adopción de un sistema de producción novedoso, como lo es el sistema de aboneras, representa un avance indiscutible, que requiere de atención especial, toda vez que entender bien estos sistemas permitiría su posible extrapolación fuera de la Costa Norte.Básicamente, el sistema de aboneras es una rotación (o quizás mejor dicho, una asociación) entre un cultivo de mucuna durante la principal estación lluviosa (primavera) y un maíz de temporada seca (postrera) (Flores, 1987). Una vez establecida la rotación en una parcela, las principales etapas son las siguientes: a) El fin del ciclo de la mucuna esta detenninado por su madurez fisiológica \"natural\" entre mediados de noviembre y mediados de diciembre (i.e. cuando empieza a secarse, después de haber producido semilla), momento después del cual los agricultores chapian la mucuna con todo y vainas, sin quemar este material. b) Inmediatemente después de la chapia, siembran el maíz con espeque a través del grueso colchón de mucuna seca, entre diciembre y enero. c) Siguen generalmente uno a dos controles de malezas (generalmente manual, pero a veces con Paraquat), para beneficio del maíz y también de la mucuna, que se restablece naturalmente en las parcelas a partir de febrero (genninación espontanea de las semillas producidas en noviembre/diciembre y que acabaron de madurar en el colchón). Muy pocos agricultores resiembran la mucuna año tras año. Una minoría aplica un poco de urea a los 40-50 días despues de la siembra del maíz. d) En este momento y sin contar la poda que se le da a la mucuna (en dado caso de que se desarolle mucho), es solo cuestión de esperar la cosecha a partir de [males de abril. Al finalízar la tapisca, la parcela vuelve a estar dominada por la mucuna, que crece vigorosamente y sofoca gradualmente todas las malezas que habían prosperado después de la ultima limpia, a la vez que bota todas las cañas de maíz al treparla. No hay ninguna intervención mas en la parcela hasta que regrese el tiempo de la chapia. Cabe enfatízar el hecho que el sistema de ab.oneras es un sistema de cero labranza, sin quema y con muy pocos insumos externos (un poco de herbicida y fertilizante, si es que se usan del todo).Las principales ventajas de este sistema son las siguientes: a) Requiere poca mano de obra tanto para el establecimiento del sistema como para su mantenimiento b) Permite aprovechar el mejor ciclo para el maíz (periodo seco & precio de venta) c) No se quema la parcela; el suelo queda cubierto todo el año (lo que evita la erosión y conserva agua en el perfil de suelo) d) Provee cantidades apreciables de nitrógeno y otros nutrientes al descomponerse el mulch de mucuna. e) El mulch ayuda en el control de malezas t) Los rendimientos de maíz son buenos (2.5 a 3.5 t/ha en promedio, o sea 100% mas comparado con parcelas sin mucuna) y empiezan a subir desde el primer año de establecida la rotación; posiblemente, sean más estables de un año para otro.En cuanto a desventajas tales como las señalan los agricultores (Buckles et al., 1992), cabe destacar: 1) La limitación más clara consiste en la perdida de un ciclo agrícola al año, en el sentido que la mucuna (que hasta la fecha no ha recibido ningún otro uso que el de servir como mu1ch) ocupa la parcela por 8 meses, un tiempo durante el cual se podría teóricamente producir otro cultivo. Existen algunas experiencias con 2 ciclos de maíz al año en rotación con mucuna, pero no queda muy claro todavía como acortar el ciclo de esta ultima sin afectar marcadamente la producción de biomasa o de semilla.2) Varios agricultores mencionan los derrumbes durante los periodos de lluvias intensas (mas de 200-300 mm en uno o dos días) en las partes con pendientes muy fuertes (> 60-70%), debido supuestamente al ablandamiento del suelo propiciado por la mucuna. Pero estos mismos derrumbes se observan en parcelas sin mucuna y hasta en los bosques vírgenes...las laderas de la Costa Norte no son muy estables y cultivarlas año tras año con o sin mucuna seguramente acentúa los riesgos de derrumbes.3) La proliferación de ratones: pt;ro ,esta situación parece ser cíclica y afecta también las partes sin abaneras En la práctica, las ventajas superan ampliamente las dcs\\fentajas y hacen de este sisterna,una .alternativa muy deseable (vease criterios descritos en Buuch, j 993 j, explicando la popularidad excepcional de este sistema entre los agricultores del litoral Atlántico: la tasa promedio de adopción casi alcanza, 70% (Buckles et al., 1992).Al mismo tiempo que se reconocen los logros y cuaJidades indiscutibles del sistema de abaneras, surgen numerosas preguntas y dudas sobre las posibilidades de mejorarlo y adaptarlo (o cuando meJ,1os sus principios) a otras condiciones agroecologicasen y lo fuera de Centro América (Thurston et al., 1994). Sin embargo, no es fácil querer adoptar o mejorar las .practicas de los agricultores de la Costa Norte, sin entender primero los mecanismos biológicos que constituyen la base del funcionamiento interno del sistema de abonerasy que condicionan las mismas prácticas. compartimientos activos durante distintos periodos del año..' Para simplificar la presentación, nos limitaremos a• indicar •los• principales puntos a considerar sobre el ciclo de nutrientes (Cuadro 1).Al analizar eLCuadro 1, uno puede darse cuenta de:(1) La importancia capital del mulch en todas las etapas del ciclo ya sea como fuente o como pozo de nutrientes, lo que lo califica como regulador principal del ciclo de los nutrientes en el sistema de abaneras. Su contribución esta estrechamente relacionada con la intensidad de la mineralización y el aporte periódico de material orgánico fresco.También .participa activamente en las redistribuciones internas que to111an lugar permanentemente entre el mulch, la materia orgánica del suelo, la biomasa microbiana' y la solución del suelo.(2) El papel de las malezas, que inmovilizan nutrientes al absorberlos durante su crecimiento y los restituyen al ser nuevamente incorporadas al mulch durante las limpias. (3) El papel de las' prácticas de los agricultores en la alimentación del mulch y la exportación de nutrientes.En base a la defin,ición anterior, se vuelve mas fácil identificar los varios compartimientos (\"pools\" en, in,gJes) t,mto internos cQmo externos que participan en el ciclo de nutrientes, ya s,ea como fuentes.o corno• pozos (i.e. sitios donde se acumulan los nutrientes). Puesto que esta situación es dinámica (i.e. cambia con el tiempo), es necesario diferenciar cuales son los El sistema de abonera es muy complejo: para simplificar la discusión. solo se hará hincapié en algunos aspectos relacionados con la dinámica de nutrientes a corto plazo. en base a tendencias promedio observadas en San FranCISco de Saco. Ya que este tipo de análiSIS depende de cómo están definidas las Ji'onteras dcl sIstema. vamos a considerar para la discusión subsecuente un sistema abierto conformado por el perfil lk -udo (O a 100 cm), con una capa de mu!ch (i.e. material muerto) encima. Todos los demás componentes, como por ejemplo la mucuna en crecimiento o• el N lixiviado, son por definición considerados externos al sistema y como tal, representan entradas o salidas.de nutrientes y tra114ónnació¡l.Quizá la forma mas sencilla de analizar el papel desempeñado por el ciclo de la mucuna es considerando este ultimo como una fase de acumulación y reciclaje de nutrientes (N claramente, pero también P, K, Ca y micronutrientes).Una de las preguntas-claves es que tan rápido toma lugar esa acumulación durante el ciclo de la mucuna. No podemos cualificar el ritmo detallado durante todas las etapas de desarollo de la mucuna, ya que solo medimos biomasa entre floración (octubre) y chapia (diciembre) durante un solo año. Resulta que la mucuna parece acumular activamente biomasa (en base a materia seca) en este periodo, con un aumento promedio aparente de 40% en menos de 3 meses: de 10.0 tlha a 14.2 t/ha. En términos de nitrógeno, el aumento es menor: solo 26% en promedio, pasando de 0,24 a 0.31 t/ha, reflejando probablemente la mineralización activa que toma lugar aun durante el ciclo de la mucuna y también la importancia de la redistribución interna del N acumulado hasta octubre. Una conclusión pnktica importante es que seria algo arriesgado querer acortar el ciclo de la mucUila (considerando que 8 meses es un lujo) ya que• se perderían cantidades considerables de biomasa y' 'de nutrientes, lo que posiblemente afectaría el poténcial de rendimielli1il del maíz. Cuadro 1: Principales fuentes y pozos de nutrientes en el sistema de aboneras, Litoral Atlántico de Honduras. Al chapiar la mucuna, el agricultor propicia su descomposición bajo la acción conjunta de la flora y meso y microfauna (insectos, hongos, bacterias, etc.) presentes en o cerca de la superficie del suelo. Al descomponerse, el mulch de mucuna libera los nutrientes que esta ultima había acumulado durante su ciclo.Al volverse disponibles nuevamente en solución, estos nutrientes son absorbidos total o parcialmente por una serie de organismos (animales o vegetales) que los necesitan para su crecimiento y desarrollo: entre ellos, el maíz pero también las malezas, o los propios microorganismos del suelo. Los nutrientes no asimilados pueden perderse por volatilización, lixiviación, o también ser incorporados en la materia orgánica estable (el \"humus\") después de transformaciones sucesivas.Cabe recordar que el proceso de descomposición es gradual y sujeto a la influencia de las condiciones climáticas: en particular, las condiciones muy secas frenan la descomposición, hecho importante que considerar debido a que el mu1ch queda totalmente expuesto a la desecación por estar ubicado a la superficie del suelo.Al igual que en el caso de la acumulación de nutrientes, una pregunta critica es saber cual es la tasa de descomposición del mulch. Mediciones realizadas entre diciembre 93 y mayo 94 (un ano excepcionalmente seco) permiten estimar indirectamente tasas de descomposición (en base a materia seca) del 33% en los 80 primeros dias después de la chapia y 17% adicionales entre los 80 y 160 días 323 (cuando la sequía fue casi total). En términos de nitrógeno, las tasas son del 40% y del 18% respectivamente para los mismos periodos, correspondiendo a una liberación promedio de 103 Y 28 kg de N por hectárea, probablemente inferior a la que se da durante una postrera más húmeda.Debido a la importancia capital de la mineralización para el ciclo del N en el sistema de abaneras, vale la pena conocer la intensidad y dinámica de este proceso, especialmente durante la fase de redistribución del N, ya que nos interesa mas que nada el N disponible para el cultivo de maíz. Una primera aproximación consiste en seguir el contenido de N mineral de la solución del suelo durante el ciclo del maíz. Sin entrar en detalle, la Figura 1 sintetiza los datos obtenidos durante dos años consecutivos (postreras 92/93 y 93/94) en parcelas con varios años en la rotación maíz/mucuna. El N mineral (expresado en kg de N por hectárea) representa la suma del N03 y del NH4 encontrados en cada fecha en muestras de suelo colectadas entre O y 60 cm de profundidad.Cabe señalar que esta evaluación no toma en cuenta el N directamente absorbido por las raíces (de maíz, de malezas) presentes en el mulch y también el N orgánico presente en la solución del suelo, cuya contribución parece ser del mismo orden de magnitud que la del N mineral.En base a la figura 1, cabe destacar lo siguiente: a) A pesar de la variabilidad entre parcelas en cuanto a niveles de N, puede considerarse que todas las parcelas muestreadas presentan un comportamiento bastante uniforme.Cuadro 2. Respuesta del maíz a una aplicación de 50 kg N-urea/ha en el sistema de aboneras, Litoral Atlántico, Honduras. b) Poco después de la chapia de la mucuna y por unas 3 a 4 semanas, hay un marcado incremento en la disponibilidad de N mineral en el perfil de suelo, con niveles máximos alrededor de 0.1 tlha-1 • c) Hay una buena sincronización entre la demanda de N por parte del maíz en crecimiento y la liberación de N que se origina de la mineralización del mulch y de la materia orgánica del suelo. La disminución del N disponible en el perfil se debe seguramente en gran parte a la absorción activa de N por el maíz o las malezas durante este periodo (absorción típica alrededor de 0.1 tl.ha-I en las partes aéreas del maiz a madurez fisiológica). (n) numero de parcelas de ensayo (NTC) No, Total al Chapiar l/ha e) La mayoría del N disponible se encuentra en los primeros lOa 15 cm del perfil, a la vez que la cantidad de N en los horizontes mas profundos es relativamente baja, dando a pensar que las perdidas por lixiviación deben de ser modestas. d) Hay bastante N disponible en el suelo durante todo el año, aun cuando no hay demanda por parte del maíz: este N es muy probablemente reciclado parcial o totalmente por la propia mucuna, lo que invita a interrogarse sobre la importancia real de la fijación simbiótica en el sistema de abaneras. f) Finalmente, hay una tendencia a encontrar menos N mineral en el pe~fil en 93/94 comparado con 92/93 para periodos similares del ciclo de maíz (por ej. alrededor de 0.05 tlha a los 45 dds vs. 0.07 t/ha resp.).Rainfall mm 140-,-------r''\"T'\"T\"\"\"-\"T\"\"T\"'\"T\"T\"\"T\"\"T-'T\"\"'1r-r------,-0Sampling dale (O = 1/Dec) Aunque la respuesta a N fue muy variable de una parcela para otra, la respuesta promedio fue mas fuerte en 93/94 comparado con el año anterior (Cuadro 2), lo que esta en acuerdo con las tendencias detectadas en cuanto a disponibilidad de N mineral en el perfil (véase dinámica del N mineral). Ya que el N total acumulado por la mucuna al momento de la chapia fue similar entre los 2 años, una interpretación razonable permite relacionar la amplitud de la respuesta con la precipitación recibida durante la postrera. Durante una postrera relativamente humeda como la del 92/93, Desde el punto de vista del cultivo de maíz, no importa mucho de donde viene el nitrógeno, con tal de que haya lo suficiente en la solución del suelo durante los tiempos en que la planta lo requiere para su crecimiento. Una forma relativamente sencilla de determinar si hay suficiente N es agregándolo al suelo y ver si la planta responde a esta adición: si no y asumiendo que no interactuaron otros factores con la respuesta al N, uno puede concluir que el suministro \"natural\" de N cubre las necesidades del cultivo. Si la respuesta es significativa, esto indica que el suministro de N durante el ciclo del maíz no fue adecuado ya sea en términos de cantidades o de disponibilidad instantánea. hubo una mineralización activa del mulch proporcionando cantidades de nitrógeno suficientes para el maíz, mientras que durante una postrera muy seca como la del 93/94, la mineralización fue menor por falta de agua, conduciendo a cierta deficiencia en N, que pudo ser compensado por un aporte externo de urea.Cabe recordar que en la Costa Norte, la probabilidad de tener una postrera muy seca es relativamente baja, indicando que en promedio, habría poca necesidad de aplicar urea en parcelas con producción abundante de biomasa de mucuna, cuando menos bajo el manejo seguido por la mayoría de los agricultores en la actualidad.A LARGO PLAZO Los efectos a largo plazo son una consecuencia de la repetición año tras año de los mecanismos parcialmente analizados en el párrafo anterior. Representan el balance neto dejado por los 2 mecanismos opuestos de acumulación de materia orgánica y nutrientes por un lado y de descomposición de esta materia orgánica y salidas definitivas de nutrientes del sistema del otro lado. Debido a la metodología empleada para caracterizar estos efectos (el uso de un esquema de cronosecuencias), no podemos hacer mas que deducir de manera indirecta las tendencias aparentes de la evolución de algunas de las características del suelo de parcelas sometidas al sistema de aboneras. Finalmente cabe destacar que en una perspectiva de sostenibilidad y específicamente de conservación del medio ambiente, lo que importa es predecir cambios negativos eventuales, indicativos de una degradación del recurso suelo. Por el contrario, características estables o mejoradas indican que el sistema es sostenible en su forma presente.Hay varias formas de caracterizar los cambios que afectan la materia orgánica en el sistema de aboneras: una forma es analizando las cantidades totales de m.o. presentes y la otra es analizando su calidad, tal como la refleja por ejemplo su composición. En esta discusión, vamos a usar datos colectados en San Francisco de Saco, por ser mucho mas detallados que los de cualquier otro sitio. 325 Cuadro 3. Distribución del carbono orgamco ('X.) en los primeros 15 cm del suelo en parcelas con O hasta 15 años en el sistema de aboneras, San Francisco de Saco, Honduras. * 1 hor. 0-2.5 cm; 2 hor. 2.5-5 cm; 6 -hor. 12.5-15 cm Los datos presentados en el Cuadro 3 son típicos de los cambios que afectan un perfil en un sistema de cero-labranza (Barreto, 1989). Ya que el aporte de materia orgánica se hace por encima del perfil, sin ninguna incorporación, los primeros 5 cm del perfil son donde se nota claramente la acumulación de m.o., mientras que a profundidades mayores de 10 cm, casi no pueden detectarse diferencias.Usando una muestra mas completa de parcelas, se observaron los cambios siguientes en el horizonte 0-10 cm: el C orgánico aumenta de 2.13% en parcelas sin mucuna a 2.39% en parcelas de 4-6 años con mucuna y 2.76% en parcelas con mas de 12años. Acompañando los cambios en C orgánico, hubo cambios simultáneos en las cantidades de N total presentes en el perfil (0.21 %, 0.24% Y0.29% respectivamente), reflejándose en la estabilidad relativa de la relación C:N: 10, 10.1 Y 9.4 respectivamente para los mismos grupos de parcelas.También vale la pena destacar que a medida que van aumentado los niveles totales de N, su disponibilidad (para mineralización y reciclaje) parece ir aumentando, tal como lo indican los datos de potencial de mineralización: 31 ppm de N para parcelas sin mucuna vs. 41 ppm para abaneras viejas. Es interesante evaluar las tasas netas anuales de almacenamiento de C y N en los 10 primeros cm del perfil. Para carbono, se trata de un promedio de 0.05% anuales (in: 0.016 y mas: 0.106), representando un almacenamiento promedio de mas de 112 t.ha-1 de C en este horizonte cada año.Para N, la tasa anual de almacenamiento neto alcanza 0.006% (min: 0.0022 y max: 0.0105 %), o sea alrededor de 70 kg de N.ha-1 almacenados en el horizonte 0-10 cm cada año.La Figura 2 indica sin ambigüedad que no hay ninguna tendencia hacia la acidificación del perfil con el tiempo, al contrario, como lo comprueban la estabilidad o ligero aumento de pH, el incremento en la cantidad de bases intercambiables y los niveles insignificantes de Aluminio.Esta acidificación hubiese podido manifestarse debido a la grandes cantidades de N liberadas por la mucuna y potencialmente disponibles para ser lixiviadas. El hecho de que no se detectó acidificación alguna parece confirmar las observaciones hechas en 4.4 y resalta la probable importancia del eficiente reciclaje de N en el sistema de abaneras.En cuanto a la tendencia a tener más fósforo disponible con el tiempo, una interpretación posible involucraría el proceso de solubilización del P del suelo propiciado por la mucuna y su subsecuente retención y reciclaje en el mulch y en los primeros cm del suelo (Schlather and Duxbury, 1994).La evaluación llevada a cabo en este estudio fue menos sistemática que en el caso de las propiedades químicas, e incluyo menos parcelas, por razones logísticas obvias. También cabe destacar la fuerte variabilidad intra-parcela de las propiedades físicas, un hecho ampliamente documentado en la literatura. 0-10 30-60' 0-10 30-60' 0-10 30-60' 0-10 30-60 Sn Feo Mangas Cuero Piedras Site and Horizon Finalmente y aún que no podamos presentar datos cuantitativos al respecto, cabe destacar el hecho de que no parece haber erosión alguna en el sistema de aboneras, si uno acepta los derrumbes locales y otros signos de degradación como fenómenos irremediables que afectan periódicamente algunas parcelas ( con o Sin embargo, es todavía posible detectar algunas tendencias índicativas de la dinámica que afecta las propiedades físicas del perfil de suelo. Por ejemplo, las tasas de infiltración parecen haber aumentando en parcelas con muchos años en el sistema de aboneras, pasando de 46 mm/hora en promedio para parcelas sin mucuna o con menos de 2 años en el sistema, a unos 67 mmJhora para parcelas entre 5-7 años y 8 l mm/hora para parcelas con mas de 10 años. Simultáneamente, las tasas de escurrentiá respectivas (obtenidas después de haber aplicado lluvias artificiales con una intensidad alrededor de 100 mmJhora, un nivel fuerte aún para el litoral Atlántico) alcanzaron 49%, 32% Y 24% para las mismas parcelas (van Es el al., 1994).Lógicamente, la porosidad total del horizonte 0-10 cm (el opuesto de la densidad aparente) parece haber aumentado ligeramente con el tiempo transcurrido en el sistema de aboneras, pasando de menos de 52% a 55% y a 57% siempre para los mismos 3 grupos de parcelas. Este incremento no parece traducirse en una macroporosidad significativamente mas importante en los primeros 10 cm del perfil, sin embargo. Globalmente, estos datos confirman la percepción de los agricultores quienes hablan de \"ablandamiento\" del suelo bajo la rotación maíz/mucuna, cuyo origen no queda muy claro (acción de las raices de la mucuna vs. actividad de los lombrices y otros miembros de la mesofauna del suelo por ejemplo). Al cabo de esta presentación, en la cual se discutieron algunos de los mecanismos y efectos observados en el sistema de abaneras, vale la pena reflexionar sobre las lecciones que nos enseñan tanto el funcionamiento de este sistema como la historia de su adopción (Buckles et al., 1992) en cuanto a la concepción de sistemas de cultivos sostenibles.Cabe enfatizar una vez mas algunas de las ventajas indiscutibles del sistema de aboneras. Requiere poca mano de obra y pocos insumas externos. Ofrece al agricultor una buena productividad fisica en su forma presente (rendimientos promedios de 2.5 a 3.5 t/ha) y a la vez un alto potencial productivo a futuro (los mejores rendimientos observados superan los 6 t/ha). Estas ganancias en productividad (en otras palabras, esta intensificación) comparado con el sistema tradicional se logran sin ninguna degradación del recurso suelo. Finalmente, es una innovación fácil de adoptar aún sin ayuda de parte de un sistema oficial de extensión, lo que obviamente constituye una de sus características mas deseables, esto en un contexto de disminución de las capacidades públicas de intervención en la agricultura campesina.Mucha gente sueña con duplicar los resultados obtenidos en la Costa Norte en otras regiones de Centro América y tienen tendencia a considerar la mucuna como una receta universal. Sin embargo, tal actitud es peligrosa ya que el sistema de abaneras constituye una adaptación única a un conjunto de factores y condiciones relativamente específicos de la Costa Norte de Honduras. Hay pocas otras regiones con lluvias tan abundantes y tan bien distribuidas, con suelos tan fértiles, con condiciones de mercado tan ventajosas y con presión demográfica moderada, permitiendo dedicar sin mayor problema hasta la fecha parcelas enteras a lo que se puede considerar como un 327 ciclo de \"barbecho mejorado\" de 8 meses de duración. Lo que si puede extrapolarse son los principios que forman la base del sistema de abaneras, quedando como trabajo diseñar sistemas específicos que permitan hacer uso de ellos.El mulch, ¿un principio con validez general? Claramente, la clave del sistema de abaneras esta constituida por la creación y el mantenimiento de un mulch casi perenne que cumple múltiples funciones cruciales: dispositivo anti-erosivo eficiente y barato, ayuda en la conservación de agua y el reciclaje de nutrientes y ayuda en el control de malezas. Contrariamente a muchas propuestas concebidas por agrónomos que pretenden aumentar la productividad agrícola en base a la adopción de todo un paquete tecnológico complejo, la integración de tan solo una innovación (el mulch), permite transformar positivamente en un solo golpe casi todos los aspectos del sistema de producción. Ahora bien, hay que reconocer que producir y mantener un mu1ch suficiente representa un gran reto para los que trabajan en regiones con un potencial limitado para la acumulación anual de biomasa vegetal y en donde la competencia para acceso a la tiena es fuerte (por el ganado o los propios agricultores) (Buckles and Baneto, 1995).Ojalá este estudio haya servido para ilustrar una vez mas los grandes beneficios que pueden derivarse al aceptar partir de la experiencia y la realidad de los agricultores, para concebir y mejorar los sistemas de cultivos presentes con su participación activa. En mi opinión, es menester y justificado muy a menudo salir del esquema tradicional del tipo 'transferencia de tecnología', especialmente cuando el cliente principal de este proceso vive algo al margen de la sociedad industrial-comercial de donde suele funcionar el modelo de transferencia.Otra lección importante consiste en reconocer la utilidad de trabajar con un enfoque de \"sistemas\" para maximizar la probabilidad de identificar los problemas y las oportunidades mas relevantes para desarrollar alternativas atractivas para los agricultores. Desafortunadamente, sigue habiendo un énfasis exagerado en los círculos académicos y profesionales hacia estudios y acciones muy disciplinarias, sin considerar de cerca las interacciones con otros componentes y factores. Hay que seguir luchando por crear condiciones adecuadas para que los agrónomos estudien y adopten un enfoque de sistema, no por ser una moda intelectual sino por ser una necesidad metodológica de rutina.Al mismo tiempo, es muy necesario dedicar esfuerzos especiales para analizar adecuadamente los mecanismos biológicos que forman la base de los efectos o resultados encontrados en los estudios agronómIcos llevados a cabo en parcelas de agricultores o en las mismas estaciones experimentales. Sin este entendimiento, los agrónomos están condenados a repetir trabajos cuya única originalidad consiste en el sitio o el año en que se desarrolla, sin ofrecer posibilidades claras de extrapolar resultados a otros sitios o años. Claramente, queda mucho por hacer en este sentido y se requiere de inversiones significativas a varios niveles para lograr mejorar esta situación.Finalmente, considerando las fuertes limitaciones practicas que afectan a las instituciones de muchos países tropicales, parece aconsejable reconsiderar la forma en que los recursos están distribuidos dentro de aquellas instituciones encargadas de la investigación agronómica. En mi opinión, sería probablemente mas eficiente a largo plazo trabajar relativamente a fondo en pocos sitios y sobre pocos temas, con métodos y herramientas de bajo costo (pero bien adaptados a los objetivos), que seguir esparciendo recursos minúsculos entre innumerables temas o sitios, alcanzando en el proceso mas frustraciones que verdaderos logros. A manera de ilustración, no creo que se lograrán grandes avances en el tema de cultivos de cobertura sin invertir recursos (humanos, financieros) significativos.Antes de todo, quisiera mencionar la contribución esencial que tuvieron a lo largo de este estudio los agricultores de San Francisco de Saco (Atlántida) y especialmente Don José María Ayala Enríquez, no solo por haber compartido pacientemente sus experiencias y parcelas conmigo, sino también por estar dentro de los principales creadores del sistema de abaneras. La investigación reportada en este documento ha sido financiada conjuntamente por el ClRAD (Centre de Cooperation Intemationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Developpement, Francia) y el CIlFAD (Comell Intemational Institute for Food, Agrículture and Development, Estados Unidos) y constituye una parte de mi tesis de doctorado con la Universidad de Comell, bajo la asesoría de los Ores. Bouldin y MI. Pleasant. Personas de varias instituciones participaron activamente en este proyecto: especialmente a Marco-Antonio Ponce, Luis Brizuela, Secarlos Padilla, estudiantes del Departamento de Suelos del CURLA/UNAH, a Manuel Lopez y Osear Espinal, profesores del mismo Departamento, al Ing. Orly La Mustia Hilachosa del Frijol Común (Pllaseolus v/llgaris L.) es causada por el hongo basidiomiceto rhallatephorus c/lc/lmeris (Frank) Donk (anamosfo = Rhizoctollia solalli Kuhn). La enfermedad está distribuida en todas las zonas productoras de frijol en Centro América y el Caribe causando pérdidas en la producción y calidad de granos de variedades de origen Mesoamericano y Andino. El hongo se disemina de manera efectiva por basidiosporas, contacto por micelio de planta a planta, salpique de esclerocios y residuos de cosecha y/o suelo infestado y semillas. Las medidas de control de la enfermedad son ineficientes y costosas sobre todo para los pequeños y medianos productores. Las variedades comerciales que se siembran en la región son susceptibles a la Mustia Hilachosa. El mejoramiento varietal para la resistencia a la enfermedad no ha sido efectivo debido a que se desconoce lo suficiente sobre la variabilidad de este patógeno y los mecanismos de resistencia. El hongo R. sola11i posee una amplia variabilidad genética manifestándose en características morfológicas, culturales, patogénicas, ecológicas y epidemiológicas. La anastomosis del micelio es el criterio utilizado para agrupar los aislamientos del hongo con compatibilidad genética. Los grupos de anastomosis (AG) son considerados como poblaciones genéticamente independientes y su distribución depende de los hospederos predominantes en una zona determinada.En los últimos ai10s se han observado variabilidad en la reacción de cultivares resistentes en evaluaciones de lo~Viveros Internacionales, debido a los pocos estudios sobre el patógeno, no se sabe si esto es debido a la variabilidad del patógeno y al medio ambiente, o la interacción entre ambos. Las investigaciones sobre el agente causal de la Mustia Hilachosa en la región ha sido muy limitada y escasa. El propósito de nuestro estudio es: Entre el otoño de 1993 y la primavera de 1994 se inició la primera fase de la colección de muestras de la parte aéreas de plantas de frijol con síntomas de Mustia Hilachosa en República Dominicana, Panamá, Guatemala, Honduras, Puerto Rico y Cuba. Lam uestras fueron transportadas en fundas de p\"rd y procesadas en el laboratorio de fitopatolog;\" dd Centro de Investigaciones Agrícolas del Surve;;te (CIAS), San Juan de la Maguana.Porciones de tejido infectado se examinaron microscópicamente y/o colocaron directamente en planchas petri conteniendo medio semiselectivo consistente en 2% de Agar Agua (Difco Co.) al que se añadió 30 l/L de Metalaxyl (Ridomil 2E, 25% a. i) y 60 l/L de sulfato de Estreptomicina (1 gr/ml agua dest. estéril). Las placas fueron incubadas a temperaturas de 25-280C por 48 horas. Micelio de las colonias con características morfológicas de Rhizoctonia fueron transferidas al medio Papa-Dextrosa-Agar (Difco Co.), para confirmación de la especie R. solani y otras características culturas (Sneh el. al., 1991). Sub muestras de las aislamientos representativos de las diferentes zonas frijoleras de los seis países se utilizaron para determinar su condiciones nuclear y grupo de anastomosis, otras muestras colectadas posteriormente en Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras y México serán examinadas genéticamente en una segunda etapa, aunque fueron incluidas en los ensayos de virulencia y patogenicidad.La virulencia de los aislamientos se determinó en plántulas de frijol de los cvs. PC-50 e l(~A-PIJAO y patogenicidad en raíz cv. CESDA 88 y Soya cv. Kenwood. Las hojas primarias de las plántulas fueron inoculadas con micelio (Godoy et al., 1992) y mantenidas bajo condiciones de humedad >95% y temperatura 25-28°C. Las lesiones se midieron a las 48 horas después de la inoculación del frijol y la soya y a las '72 horas en las de maíz. Cada tratamientos (aislamiento) fue repetido cuatro veces.El agente causal de la Mustia Hilachosa Thanatephorus cucumeris (Frank) Donk mostró variabilidad en cuanto a los grupos de anastomosis y sub grupos dentro y entre países. Aún con un número limitado de aislamientos, se encontró una población genéticamente diversa. En países tales como Cuba y Honduras no se habia confirmado la presencia del hongo hasta el presente.Aunque la cantidad de muestras tomadas por país fue suficiente, en muchos casos el aislamiento del hongo no fue posible debido a que las muestras estaban deshidratadas ó fueron afectada por descomposición de las hojas. Sin embargo muchas de las hojas se recibieron en buenas condiciones, pudiéndose observar dos tipos de lesiones. Las lesiones más típicas fueron aquellas en las que se observaron manchas acuosas, extensas y áreas necróticas acompañadas de micelio.Otras lesiones pequeñas y delimitadas mostraron similitud a aquellas que resultan de infección por basidiosporas. Este tipo de lesión fue observado en muestras de hojas tomadas en Panamá, Rep. Dominicana y Costa Rica. En estos países se ha observado con frecuencia el desarrollo del estado sexual (Gálvez et al., 1989;Godoy-Lutz et al., 1994).Solo se obtuvieron colonias multinucleadas del estado asexual de R. solani. De los 73 aislamientos seleccionados para el estudio genético, 39 fueron asignados al grupo AG-l con sus respectivos subgrupos y 34 al grupo AG-2-2.Los aislamientos de AG-2-2 fueron obtenidos de lesiones similares a las causadas por basidiosporas. De los aislamientos pertenecientes a AG-l, 24 fueron clnsifieados en el subgrupo AG-I-IB tipo macroesclerocio (0.5-2.0 cm) y 13 tipo microesclerocio « 0.1 cm). Los únicos aislamientos recuperados de lesiones en un campo de Cuba produjo un tipo de esclerocio distintivamente diferente en tamaño (0.2-0.5 cm), formn y textura. 330 Estos aislamientos fueron clasificados como AG-l-lA (S. Naito, comunicación personal) (Ogoshi, 1987;Sherwood, 1969;Sneh et al., 1991) aislamientos de este subgrupo han sido asociados con el tizón del tallo del arroz en Japón pero no con Mustia Hilachosa del Frijol Común (Ogoshi, 1987).Las características culturales de los aislamientos de AG-l y AG-2-2 se mantuvieron estables aún después de transferencias múltiples en medio y reaislamiento de las diferentes inoculaciones.La caracterización del patógeno que causa la Mustia Hilachosa tiene implicaciones importantes en las estrategias del control de la enfermedad, ya que los diferentes grupos y subgrupos difieren en la ecología y epidemiología (Ogoshi, 1987). En soya y arroz, los tizones foliares son causados por diferentes aislamientos de AG-llA y AG-I-IB, respectivamente. La diferenciación de estos, aunque causan sintomas similares, fue crítica para establecer la relación densidad de inóculolincidencia de la enfermedad y para tomar decisiones sobre cultivos de rotación y/o asociados para ambos cultivos. Se determinó que la temperatura optima, sensibilidad a fungicidas y otras condiciones que favorecieran la supervivencia de propágulos variaba entre estos subgrupos (Jones et al., 1989;Ogoshi, 1987).En campos frijoleros donde la Mustia Hilachosa es causada por aislamientos de AG-2 ó AG-I-IB (tipo microesclerocio) los propágulos producidos en la parte aérea de la planta y diseminados por el viento tendrian una mayor importancia en el ciclo de vida del patógeno y el desarrollo de epidemias que aquellos distribuidos en el suelo. Por lo tanto, medidas tendientes a reducir la esporulación, crecimiento micelial y desarrollo de microesclerocios en el follaje serian más efectivas que aquellas tendiente a reducir los propágulos en el suelo.El uso de coberturas es una práctica recomendada para reducir los propágulos en el suelo que se diseminan por medio del salpique causado por lluvias, sin embargo, la misma no ha sido efecti\\'a en algunos países ó zonas donde predomina la fase sexual y la diseminación es más efectiva por vía aérea.Los aislamientos por país, inoculados en los cultivares de frijol, soya y maíz variaron en cuanto virulencia y patogenicidad. Los aislamientos del grupo AG-l, colectivamente, crecieron más rápido que los de AG-2 a temperaturas de 20, 2S y 30°C Y fueron más virulentos en frijol que los de AG-2. Estos resultados concuerdan con reportes de los campos donde aislamientos de AG-l incitan síntomas severos de Mustia Hilachosa tales como defoliación rápida e infección de vainas y semillas (Gálvez et al., 1989;Godoy-Lutz et al., 1994).Todos los aislamientos fueron patogénicos al maíz y produjeron lesiones acuosas. E l hongo desarrolló micelio abundante en las plántulas de maíz infectadas cuando fueron mantenidas en cámara húmeda por 72 horas.Micelio del patógeno asociado con residuos de maiz fue infectado en plántulas de frijol aún después de haber sido mantenido a 10°C por tres semanas. El maíz es un cultivo importante en Centro América y se utiliza como cultivo de rotación en el manejo integrado de la Mustia Hilachosa (Gálvez el al., 1989).Nuestros estudios sugieren que residuos de maíz, aunque el cultivo no es infectado por el hongo que causa la Mustia Hilachosa del frijol bajo condiciones de campo, pueden servir como reservorio del hongo y como fuente de inóculo primario en las primeras etapas de 1a enfermedad.Los estudios sobre la variabilidad de T cucumeris continuarán con un mayor número de aislamientos. Estas investigaciones beneficiarán a fitomejoradores y agrónomos de la región en la búsqueda de fuentes de resistencia y el desarrollo de estrategias de manejo más eficientes.Identificación de Razas de Xanthomonas campestris pv.Phaseoli en Hojas de Phaseolus Vulgaris Mildred Zapata lLa bacteriosis o tizón común del frijol constituye una limitante en muchos paises de Centro América y el Caribe. Al presente no existen variedades comerciales resistentes al patógeno Xallthomollas campestris pv. phaseoli (Xcp). Se ha reportado sobre cultivares de frijol común con inestabilidad en la resistencia y variabilidad en la virulencia de la bacteria, pero casi no se ha estudiado la interacción huésped-patógeno. Para este caso, se coleccionó Xcp en Costa Rica, Cuba, República Dominicana y Puerto Rico. Las colecciones se inocularon en genotipos purificados de P. vulgaris. La respuesta a la inoculación foliar de Xcp mostró la presencia de genotipos útiles en la diferenciación de razas fisiológicas de la bacteria. Por otro lado, también se logró identificar materiales con resistencia a múltiples razas de Xcp. Por tanto, se establece la presencia de razas fisiológicas basado en la respuesta foliar de P. vulgaris al grupo de la colección de Xcp de Costa Rica, Cuba, República Dominicana y Puerto Rico.La bacteriosis o tizón común es uno de los problemas de mayor importancia en la producción del frijol, Phaseolus vulgaris L. en casi todos los países donde se cultiva esta leguminosa. Tiene distribución mundial (Bradbury, 1986). El agente causal de la enfermedad, la bacteria Xanthomonas campestris pv. phaseoli (Xcp) (Smith) Dye ataca las hojas de la planta, destruyendo a veces de un 35-40% de ellas (CIAT, 1985), lo cual reduce el área fotosintética de la planta, también puede atacar la vaina y la semilla, lo cual reduce el valor comercial de los frijoles. Las pérdidas en cosecha se han estimado entre 10-45k (Saettler, 1989), causando pérdidas de millones de dólares en muchos países (Vidaver, 1993). Por otro lado, el control es dificil ya que la bacteria es transmitida a través de la semilla Xcp fue descrita por primera vez en 1897. Aunque se conoce bastante sobre la biología, epidemiología, I BacteriÓJoga. Depto. Protección de Cultivos. Univ. de Puerto Rico. Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. DEL PRM 1993-1995, VOL. 5 (1997), p. 332-338. 332 rango de huéspedes y otras propiedades (Zaumeyer y Thomas, 1957;Schuster y Coyne, 1981) poco se sabe sobre la variabilidad patogénica de la bacteria. El objetivo general de esta investigación es determinar si existe variabilidad patogénica en Xcp utilizando colecciones del patógeno provenientes de Centro América y El Caribe.El diagnóstico preliminar se basa en síntomas, especialmente de las hojas. Sin embargo, la confirmación requiere identificación del patógeno y otras pruebas. Gilbertson et al. (1989), desarrollaron una sonda de ADN para la identificación de la bacteria basada en una secuencia de un plásmido obtenido de cepas representativas de 50 zonas geográficas. Dicha técnica está siendo evaluada por varios investigadores.Algunas de las dificultades para evaluar resistert\"íJ al patógeno son las siguientes: la resistencia dl' l,b hojas y vainas se hereda independientemente (Coyne y Shuster, 1983, Park y Dhanvantari, 1987); el largo del día afecta la susceptibilidad de algunos genotipos en ambientes diferentes (Webster et. al;1983, Saettler, 1989)); no existe uniformidad en los métodos de inoculación utilizados; algunos investigadores no han observado la reacción de inmunidad (sin síntomas) en los genotipos de P. vulgaris utilizados (Coyne y Shuster, 1983;Park y Dhanvantari, 1987); existen diferencias en virulencia (Shuster y Coyne, 1981, Saettler, 1989) y existen poblaciones epífitas del patógeno (Saettler, 1989;Ishimaru et a1.,1991 ).Se han descrito interacciones específicas cultivarraza caracterizada gene-gene para varias Xanthomonas spp. y sus huéspedes. La respuesta de resistencia está controlada por un gene avirulento del patógeno y el gene correspondiente del huésped (Flor, 1955;Ellingboe, 1976). Al presente se han clonado los genes de avirulencia en Xc pv. vesicatoria (Swanson et al.,  1988, Wallen et al., 1988; Banas et al., 1989;  Minsavage et al., 1990; Canteros et al., 1991), Xc pv. malvacearum (DeFeyter y Gabriel, 1991), Xc pv. campestris y X orizae sv. oryzae.En el Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) se ha utilizado la cepa de mayor virulencia para estudios de determinación de resistencia. En 1981, CIAT informó una metodología modificada de las cuchillas impregnadas con bacterias según informada en 1979. Luego de. comparar la nueva metodología usando ó cultivares de Phaseolus vulgaris concluyeron que dicho procedimiento era mas rápido, fácil de utilizar e uniforme. Sin embargo, no discriminaba dentro de los niveles de resistencia. En 1988, CIAT vuelve y modifica la técnica informada en 1981. Dicha técnica requería luego de la inoculación manual con cuchillas aspersionar inóculo en la tarde. otros métodos utilizados para la inoculación envuelven multi-agujas, laceraciones en los tejidos y aspersión a presión con arena impregnada de inóculo (Zapata et al., 1985). Estos últimos permiten una mejor evaluación de diferencias en respuesta a la inoculación del patógeno debido a que el tejido no sufre mucho daño mecánico.El concepto de raza se ha utilizado para identificar variación dentro de una especie. Sin embargot este ténnino no se reconoce como una taxa por el Código Internacional de Nomenclatura Botánica (Hawksworth, 1974). La variación intraespecífica se identificó inicialmente en hongos por estudios de especialización patogénica usando diferentes huéspedes ( Erikson y Henning, 1896) y subsecuentemente en diferentes genotipos de una misma especie (Barros, 1911). Después de Stakman, 1914 el concepto raza fisiológica (raza) fue aceptado para tipos especializados a distintos genotipos dentro de una especie.Estas entran en dos grupos: diferenciales de un gene y aquellos cuyo número de genes de resistencia se desconoce. Lo mas importante es poder d~terminar el número de genes de resistencia detectables. Esto es, el número detectable de los fenotipos avirulentos que posee la población del patógeno. Por otro lado, si un 333 gene de resistencia no es pareado por virulencia, el gene en particular y el cultivar no será útil en revelar la diversidad genética del patógeno, sino que también habrán efectos epistáticos, y otros genes en el cultivar no serán detectados. A veces la resistencia enmascarada puede dar una reacción diferente a la normal. Idealmente cuando se buscan diferenciales aquellos que contienen un solo gene son los mejores para medir diversidad en una población. Cualquier agrupamiento en la distribución de genes de resistencia limita la capacidad del diferencial para detectar diversidad.Originalmente esta especie estaba restricta al agente causal de la pudrición negra de las crucíferas. Sin embargo, existen otros patógenos muy similares que se encuentran dentro de esta especie designados como patovares. En el grupo de Xc se han identificado algunas razas de patovares como: pv. cerealis (Hagborg) Dye. Varias razas patogénicas se han descrito. Wallin, diferenció ó razas por reacción en 5 variedades de avena. pv. oryzae (Ishiyama) Dye. La especialización patogénica del agente causal del arroz ha sido demostrada en cultivares de arroz que tienen genes específicos para resistencia a la enfermedad (Barton, Willis, 1989). En Japón Xco se ha clasificado en o razas en base a las reacciones de cinco cultivares diferenciales con cuatro genes de resistencia individuales o en combinación. En la interacción entre arroz y Xco, la respuesta hipersensitiva no se desarrolla (Klement et al., 1982;Parry, 1986) y lo que se considera os el desarrollo de la lesión (Ou, 1985).pv. malvacearum (Smith) Dye. La enfermedad causada por esta bacteria es conocida como mancha angular de la hoja, pero puede presentar síntomas de pudrición y necrosamiento en la planta de algodón. Afecta cotiledones, hojas, y tallos.La interacción diferencial entre razas y cultivares resistentes se ha esclarecido y la variación de virulencia se ha analizado genéticamente. Hay dos tipos de algodón: diploide y tetraploide. Estos tipos contienen muchas especies y cada especie tiene respuestas inmune, resistentes, tolerantes y susceptibles.La resistencia vertical del algodón a la enfermedad esta determinada por 16 genes de resistencia. Por otro lado, la resistencia horizontal está controlada por un complejo de polígenes.pv. phaseoli (Smith) Dye. Xcp y la variante Xcp (fuscans) inducen síntomas en hojas, tallos, vainas y semillas (Zaumeyer y Thomas, 1957;Saettler, 1989Saettler, , 1991)). Se informó variación patogénica en Xcp y Xcp fuscans basado en ó cultivares de Phaseolus vulgaris (Ekpo y Saettler, 1977). Las plantas en la etapa reproductiva fueron mas susceptibles a una de las cepas. Zapata et al. (1985), encontraron reacciones específicas entre Xcp y genotipos de Phaseolus vulgaris que fueron evaluados para resistencia al patógeno.Se han identificado 7 razas de Xcp, cinco de ocurrencia natural y 2 inducidas químicamente mediante la utilización de Phaseolus acutifolius L. como planta diferencial (Zapata y •Vidaver 1987;Zapata, 1989). Freytag (1989), describió en P. acutifolius un gene dominante pata resistencia a tres cepas de Xcp.1. Identificar las razas de Xcp prevalecientes en los países de Centro América y E1 Caribe. 2. Identificar los genotipos de Phaseolus vulgaris con potencial diferencial de la bacteria Xcp. 3. Identificar genotipos de Phaseolus vulgaris con altos niveles de resistencia a múltiples razas de Xcp (prevalecientes en la región de Centro América y El Caribe).Se coleccionó material de frijol infectado con XCP en noviembre de 1993 en Costa Rica (924 y 931), Cuba (957 y 958), República Dominicana 872 y Puerto Rico (974, 975, 980 Y 981). Se realizaron los procedimientos necesarios de aislamiento y purificación. Cada aislamiento se inoculó en plantas indicadoras de patogenicidad, o sea, genotipos susceptibles a Xcp. Para determinar la presencia de razas, genotipos diferenciales, y genotipos resistentes a múltiples razas se inoculó cada aislamiento bacteriano en tres sitios diferentes a un lado de la hoja y el otro lado de la hoja se inoculó de igual forma, pero sin 334 bacteria, dejando tres sitios de la hoja como control e indicador del daño mecánico.La primera fuente de genotipos utilizados para evaluar a nivel de invernadero consistió de 120 genotipos de Phaseolus vulgaris pertenecientes al Vivero de Fuentes de Resistencia de Centro América. Dicho vivero fue obtenido del Dr. Federico Rodríguez de la Secretaría de Recursos Naturales, en Danlí, Honduras. Dentro de este vivero hay materiales seleccionados para los proyectos de Apion, Mosaico Dorado, Antracnosis, Bacteriosis, Empoasca. Rendimiento Baja fertilidad, Precocidad Mancha angular, y otros. Los materiales se sembraron en tres replicados utilizando la mezcla de suelo comercial (Sunshine 1) y se irrigaron por un sistema de riego por goteo. Las plantas se inocularon en la hoja trifoliada a los 21 días, utilizando una punta de pipeta y cultivos de Xcp de 24 horas crecidos en agar nutritivo. Los datos se tomaron a los 14 y 21 días después de la inoculación. La escala utilizada varió de 1-5 siendo, 1=resistente y 5 = altamente susceptible.Se evaluaron los genotipos resistentes a bacteriosis común (WBB-35, W-BB-11, W-BB-20, W-BB-52, W-BB-56) liberados en Puerto Rico en 1991 (Zapata et al., 1991), Great Northern No.1, Sel 27, y la línea comercial Great Northern (utilizada en la zona templada). También fueron evaluadas líneas derivadas de cruces interespecíficos y las variedades de Guatemala: ICTA-Ostua, Chapina y Santa Gertrudis. El propósito de la evaluación fue seleccionar genotipos de mayor o igual resistencia al Great Northern No.1 Sel 27 ya que este genotipo representa una de la fuentes de resistencia mas importantes reconocidas al presente.Durante el primer ensayo se realizaron selecciones de plantas individuales, bajo condiciones de invernadero para purificar la semilla. Por otro lado, algunos materiales se descartaron debido a la propensidad a enfermedades de la r.aíz causada por hongos. Se ha continuado con la purificación de semilla mediante el incremento de semillas de plantas individuales para proceder con la evaluación de otros aislamientos.SS, RR, Y RS y se separó 1 qrupo de plantas diferenciales para estas razas (Cuadro 4). Cuadro 1. Variabilidad patogénica de Xanthomonas Campestris pv. Phaseoli en diferentes genotipos de frijol común.La evaluación de la colección de Xcp de Cuba 957 y 958 mostró 3 patrones de interacción (SS, RR, Y SR), respectivamente. Se encontró un solo genotipo funcional como diferencial ( Cuadro 5). Sin embargo en algunos casos la semilla cosechada no resultó suficiente para hacer todas las evaluaciones que se presentan en los cuadros de los resultados.Se logró coleccionar, aislar y purificar algunos aislados de Xcp representativos de los países de Centro América y El Caribe. Se determinó la patogenicidad para todos los cultivos antes de ser utilizados para los experimentos de diferenciación de razas, genotipos diferenciales y genotipos con resistencia a múltiples razas.Mediante la evaluación de los 120 genotipos de P. vulgaris con Xcp de Puerto Rico 484at República Dominicana 872 y Costa Rica 924 se identificaron por lo menos 7 genotipos con potencial diferencial de las colecciones de bacteria arriba mencionadas (Cuadro 1). Al mismo tiempo dichos genotipos evidencian que las colecciones de Xcp de Puerto Rico 484a, República Dominicana 872 y Costa Rica 924 son específicos en patogenicidad a genotipos de la especie vulgaris, por lo cual representan razas fisiológicas de la bacteria.En 1994 se diferenciaron 5 respuestas de interacción a las colecciones de República Dominicana 872, Costa Rica 924, y Cuba 957 y 958 (Cuadro 2). De acuerdo a las respuestas de resistencia y susceptibilidad de 17 genotipos se determinaron las siguientes patrones de interacción: RRSs' SRSS, RSSR, RRRR y SSSS, respectivamente. Por otro lado, se identificaron 3 grupos de diferenciales que fueron funcionales para identificar las Xcp probadas.Los resultados del experimento de evaluación de las colecciones de Xcp de Puerto Rico 974, 975, 980, Y 981 mostraron o patrones de interacción: SSRS, SSSR, RRRR, SRSR, SRSS., y SSSS con 4 grupos de plantas diferenciales (Cuadro 3).La evaluación de las colecciones de Xcp de Costa Rica 931 y 924 mostraron 3 patrones de interacción: Escala de severidad: 1 -resistente, 2 -leve susceptible, 3moderada susceptibilidad, 4 = susceptible, 5 = alta susceptibilidad. Sin embargo en algunos casos la semilla cosechada no resultó suficiente para hacer todas las evaluaciones que se presentan en los cuadros de los resultados.Se logró coleccionar, aislar y purificar algunos aislados de Xcp representativos de los países de Centro América y El Caribe. Se determinó la patogenicidad para todos los cultivos antes de ser utilizados para los experimentos de diferenciación de razas, genotipos diferenciales y genotipos con resistencia a múltiples razas.Mediante la evaluación de los 120 genotipos de P. vulgaris con Xcp de Puerto Rico 484at República Dominicana 872 y Costa Rica 924 se identificaron por lo menos 7 genotipos con potencial diferencial de las colecciones de bacteria arriba mencionadas (Cuadro 1). Al mismo tiempo dichos genotipos evidencian que las colecciones de Xcp de Puerto Rico 484a, República Dominicana 872 y Costa Rica 924 son específicos en patogenicidad a genotipos de la especie vulgaris, por lo cual representan razas fisiológicas de la bacteria.En 1994 se diferenciaron 5 respuestas de interacción a las colecciones de República Dominicana 872, Costa Rica 924, y Cuba 957 y 958 (Cuadro 2). De acuerdo a las respuestas de resistencia y susceptibilidad de 17 genotipos se determinaron las siguientes patrones de interacción: RRSS, SRSS, RSSR, RRRR y SSSS, respectivamente. Por otro lado, se identificaron 3 grupos de diferenciales que fueron funcionales para identificar las Xcp probadas.Los resultados del experimento de evaluación de las colecciones de Xcp de Puerto Rico 974, 975, 980, Y 981 mostraron o patrones de interacción: SSRS, SSSR, RRRR, SRSR, SRSS., y SSSS con 4 grupos de plantas diferenciales (Cuadro 3).La evaluación de las colecciones de Xcp de Costa Rica 931 y 924 mostraron 3 patrones de interacción: Escala de severidad: 1 = resistente, 2 = leve susceptible, 3 moderada susceptibilidad, 4 = susceptible, 5 = alta susceptibilidad. Cuadro 2. Genotipos de Phaseolus vulgaris diferenciales de Xanthomonas campestris pv.phaseoli coleccionadas en República Dominicana, Costa Rica y Cuba.  PRM 1993-1995, VOL. 5 (1997) Cuadro 3. Diferencíacíón de razas de Xanthomonas campestr;s pv. phaseo/i coleccionadas en Puerto Rico.  (Zapata y Vida eT, 1987;Zapata, 1989). Aunque se hablan bservado reacciones específicas a Xcp en algunos genotipos de frijol (Zapata et aL, 1985) no se había pr fundizado como en el presente estudio para docwnentar la presencia de razas fisiológicas con la especie. La det rm.i.nación de razas mediante el so de pJ¡aseolus vulgaris presenta un cua ro diferente de especifidad patogénica. Esta nvuelve la reacci.ón de inmunidad (no síntomas) versus susceptibilidad la cual no se habia oficializado hasta el presente.La interacción patogénica de las diferentes razas detectada en algunos genotipos de P. vulgaris expltca la inestabilidad de la resistencia de algunos genotipos cuando se siembran en países diferentes donde pueden existir razas distintas de la bacteria ( Figuras 1 y 2). Los resultados obtenidos establecen la presencia de razas fisiológicas dentro del grupo de la colección de Xcp de Costa Rica, Cuba, República Dominicana y Puerto Rico. Además quedó establecida la ex.istencia de genotipos de P. vulgaris útiles en la diferenciación de Xcp. Dichos genotipos abren un campo de investigación hacia la determinación del número de genes envueltos en la resistencia a Xcp en los genotipos de P vulgaris.Figura I. Hoja trifol.iada que presenta el foliolo izquierdo con respuesta de resistencia a Xcp de República Dominicana 872, foliolo central con susceptibilidad a Xcp de Costa Rica 931 y foliolo derecho que representa el control con una respuesta de resistencia o no Sintomas. Los foliolos fueron inoculados con bacteria en el lado derecho con excepción del control donde aparece el daño mecánico en ambos lados de la hoja.337 Figura 2. Hoja trifoliada que pre enta el folioJo izquierdo con respuuta de usceptibiUdad a Xcp República Dominicana 872, Foliolo central con susceptibilidad a Xcp de Co la Rica 931 y folioJo deruho que representa eJ control con una respuesta de resistencia o no sintomas. Los foUoJos fueron inoculados con bacteria en el lado derecbo con excepción del control donde aparece el daño mecánico en ambos lados de la hoja.Por otro lado, se han identificado genotipos con resistencia amplia a las colecciones de Xcp estudiadas. Estos genotipos tienen mucho valor en programas de fitomejoram.iento para la incorporación de resistencia a múltiples razas de Xcp.","tokenCount":"125846"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"406fe0859f83cd1b43cc67fa10ca1956","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/86762db0-f713-4db3-b004-2510159c8c73/content","id":"-344382767"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c12396f5-3c1b-4bcb-aed6-f92d5853fbee","pagecount":"2","content":"Que es la enfermedad MLN? n Necrosis Letal del Maíz o MLN (por sus siglas en inglés, Maize Lethal Necrosis) es una enfermedad viral que afecta al maíz. n MLN es causada por una co-infección del Virus del Moteado Clorótico del Maíz (MCMV), y cualquiera de los siguientes virus: Virus del Mosaico de la Caña de Azúcar (SCMV), Virus del Mosaico del enanismo del Maíz (MDMV) y Virus del Mosaico Rayado del Trigo (WSMV).n Esta enfermedad es el mayor problema en la producción del maíz y es considerada una amenaza para la seguridad alimentaria de África porque ha causado pérdidas en el rendimiento de hasta el 100%.Cómo se transmite el MLN?Los insectos son vectores y transmiten el virus MLN; estos vectores incluyen trips, afidos, escarabajos foliares y gusanos de la raíz.MLN también es transmitida a través de semilla (i.e. la semilla producida en una planta enferma puede llevar el virus).La gente, los animales, la maquinaria e implementos agrícolas, también pueden acarrear el virus a través del movimiento en los campos infectados.Las hojas severamente dañadas pueden marchitarse, torcerse y presentar manchas amarillas y un secado prematuro. Los científicos se refieren a esto como clorosis severa y necrosis foliar.Pobre llenado de grano, o no desarrollo de grano en las mazorcas.Secado prematuro de las hojas que cubren las mazorcas.12 pasos para controlar la enfermedad MLN en los campos de los agricultores Que pueden hacer los campesinos para prevenir la enfermedad MLN?Los agricultores pueden evitar la transmisión siguiendo los siguientes doce pasos 1.7.8. 9.10.12.Conocer el historial de cultivos y enfermedades del campo donde de planea sembrar. Practicar la rotación de cultivos entre maíz y otro cultivos cuando sea posible.Verificar que el terreno agrícola siempre este fertilizado correctamente. Esto asegura que las plantas estén sanas y puedan luchar contra enfermedades.3. Usarsemilla certificada comolibre de MLN.No siembre grano de su propia cosecha.Limpiar maquinaria e implementos agrícolas usando desinfectantes, antes y después de su uso, para eliminar la contaminación por el virus.Mantener la granja limpia eliminando pastos y malezas que puedan ser hospedantes alternativos en el campo.Revisar el campo semanalmente para detectar poblaciones de insectos vectores. Una población alta de insectos incrementa la posibilidad del desarrollo de una enfermedad.Realizar el control químico de insectos vectores usando insecticidas recomendados (una vez cada 1-2 semanas).Inspeccionar semanalmente las plantas para detectar los primeros síntomas de MLN y controlar a los insectos vectores.Arrancar las plantas que presentes síntomas de MLN, destruirlas mediante incineración y enterrar los residuos fuera del campo de cultivo para evitar la diseminación de la enfermedad. No alimentar al ganado con estas plantas, ya que animales como las vacas, pueden transmitir el MLN a campos de maíz sanos.Practicar rotación de cultivos por al menos una estación, con cultivos que no sean cereales, preferiblemente leguminosas (frijol, soya, chicharos, etc.). Evitar la siembra continua de maíz, asegurando un periodo de al menos dos meses sin maíz en el campo.Sembrar temprano al inicio de la temporada de lluvias.","tokenCount":"487"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"5ee6dd30d7d6ce91811ca2c55d3d132e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0da279fa-85e5-4975-8945-06624c4f5310/retrieve","id":"-1619843607"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"db0eaf93-0267-4252-ae7d-86a55be9c3fd","pagecount":"36","content":"Demo 1.2. Hilling-up ............................................................................................. Demo 1.3. Identification of pests and diseases ..................................... Demo 1.4. Roguing ................................................................................................ Demo 1.5. Dehaulming ........................................................................................ Demo 1.6. Harvesting and grading ............................................................... DEMO 2. Positive selection ................................................................................................................... DEMO 3: Small plot technique .............................................................................................................This guide is a complementary tool that supports other training materials on ware potatoes and seed potato multiplication. Therefore, it is not meant to be used alone. The objective of this demo guide is to help the trainer to organize and facilitate hands-on demonstration sessions in the field. It contains three demos: crop husbandry, positive selection and the small plot technique for seed multiplication. For each demo, the guide tries to answer the following questions: What, Why, When, For how long, With what, and How. The How contains both text and images to clearly illustrate each demo session.For each demo session, the trainer should take into account the following four successive steps: (i) an introduction or brief reminder on the subject; (ii) the practical demonstration in accordance with this guide; (iii) a question-and-answer session; and finally (iv) an update for the next training session.Several demos on crop husbandry will be carried out through a field trial with the aim to show farmers the importance of using good quality seeds. To do this a field trial will be installed with two seed plots using seeds of two contrasting qualities: good seed versus bad seed. It is recommended, for fair comparison, to use, as far as possible, the same variety for both plots.Demo 1.1.Setting up the field trial.Provide hands-on training on potato planting.At the beginning of the growing season.For how long? 120 minutes for planting, but the trial spans the entire cropping season.• Many small/thin hoes (one per participant),• 1,100 seed tubers (35-55 mm diameter) of high quality seed (G1 or G2),• 1,100 seed tubers from the market,• 500 kg of animal manure,• Mineral fertilisers (32 kg of YaraMila and 8 kg of YaraLiva),• Fungicides (see training manuals),• Insecticides (see training manuals),• 1 measuring tape, and • 1 rope for marking the borders of the plots (delimination).Prepare two small plots of 20 m x 12 m each. Preferably use a terrain that has not been used for potato or any other crop in the same family for the past three years. Ensure that there is a distance of at least 2 m between the two plots.For each plot, open 15 furrows with a spacing of 80 cm. If the terrain is steep, make the furrows perpendicular to the slope to minimize the effects of erosion and maintain run-off water within plant rows. In each furrow, place successively the manure, mineral fertilisers and tubers at 30 cm. For each tuber, place about 125-250 g of manure. In practical terms, the manure collected with the two hands of an adult is applied to 2-3 seed tubers. For the mineral fertilisers, mix 32 kg of YaraMila with 8 kg of YaraLiva. Add the equivalent of the content of a Fanta cap of this mixed fertiliser on the top of the manure. A second cap of the mixed fertiliser is applied as topdressing right after plant emergence.Once the fertilisers have been applied, carefully place the tubers so as not to break the sprouts. If possible, avoid putting the tubers in direct contact with manure and fertiliser. In total, each plot will need 1,000 tubers which must be well covered with enough soil (10-15 cm above the tuber). Do not waste your time placing tubers with the sprouts in upright position. The sprouts emerge without any noticeable delay regardless of their position. Hilling-up potato crop.Avoid tuber yield reduction.When 2 -3 weeks after plant emergence.With what Small (thin) hoes (one per participant).The hilling-up of the potato crop is done with a small hoe, narrower than a normal hoe.Stand between two adjacent potato rows. Move backwards as you remove soil from the furrow onto the rows/hills to the two sides. After the demonstration, ask the participants to practice in turn. To avoid risks of contamination, hilling must begin in the plot with healthy seeds and end with the bad seed plot. Demo 1.3.Field identification of pests and diseases as described in the training manual.Pest and diseases reduce yields and spoil the quality of the potatoes.When 5 -6 weeks after plant emergence.• Pieces of white paper (one per participant),• 1 clean glass,• 1 small sharp knife, and • Clean water (250 ml).This demo on identification of pests and diseases is done in the bad seed plot. This is indeed where we expect to find more pests and diseases compared to the plot planted with healthy quality seeds. Please use the Trainer Guide to help identify the different pest and diseases. Carefully observe and discuss with the participants the identification and management of any pest and disease present in the plots.Some diseases can be easily identified in the field. This is the case for late blight, bacterial wilt, blackleg, leafroll virus and mosaic viruses. Late blight, blackleg and leafroll virus can be identified with the naked eye. For the mosaic symptom, pass a piece of white paper under a leaf with the suspected symptom. Diseased leaflets will appear translucent and yellowish whereas healthy ones remain opaque and dark green. This test is usually done in full sunlight.To accurately identify bacterial wilt, uproot the wilting plant and cut a small piece of the stem base (e.g., 5 cm long) using a sharp knife. Hold the piece of stem base with the hand or the tip of the knife partially immersing it in a glass of clear water. Hold still and wait approximately 2 minutes. If the bacteria ooze out of the end of the stem and move downward like a white smoke it means that the plant is infected by bacterial wilt as there is no other disease known to produce this phenomenon.1 Identify a wilting plant 2 Check that the plant stems are not cut 3 Uproot a stem 4 Cut off a piece of stem base 5 Immerse the stem base into water 6 Hold still and observe if the bacteria ooze out of the end of the stem Maintain a high-quality crop.To be combined with the identification of pests and diseases (Demo 1.3).• 1 normal hoe,• 1 bucket/basket or any other container that does not permit soil to leak, and • 1 peg (1.5 m long).The practice consists of inspecting the field, identifying and uprooting any abnormal plants, including tubers and roots. The plants to be rogued are either diseased (e.g. bacterial wilt) or off-types caused by varietal mixture at planning and volunteers growing from unwanted tubers. Field inspection works well when done early morning, while walking away from the sun for better identification of abnormal plants. It is not recommended to inspect the field in the afternoon as the leaves may naturally appear wilting without any diseases.If a plant is confirmed to be infected with bacterial wilt by the glass test, uproot the entire plant along with the soil in which it was planted (all foliage, roots, tubers and soil). Take it out of the field and throw it into a deep pit. In case there is no pit available for disposal of diseased plants, ensure that the plant and soil are put in a place where there is no risk of contaminating agricultural land, including your neighbours' fields. Demo 1.Removing or destroying the potato foliage before its natural death.To ensure that high quality seed tubers are harvested and that they maintain quality after storage.When 2 weeks before harvest, when the foliage begins to turn yellow in the plot that used quality seed.With what 1 sickle or machete.This demo is done in the plot with quality seed. Smallholder farmers may dehaulm using tools such as a sickle. Others pull out the potato plant while stepping around its base to prevent tubers from coming out as well. Tubers remain in the soil while the potato foliage is removed from the field. Since the field trial aims at comparing yields, do the practice on a small corner of the plot. To do this, invite each participant to pull out a plant and then cut a second plant with a sickle. For a fair comparison of yields between the two plots, ask the participants to do the same in the second plot. This means that they must dehaulm the same number of plants in both plots.Before concluding the demo, give the participants an opportunity to discuss and to learn from each other. Information related to tuber size and quality is analysed and discussed at harvest (Demo 1.6). Demo 1.6.Harvesting the trial.Comparison of yields obtained.Just after total death of the foliage.With what • 50 empty bags, size for 50 kg,• 1 weighing scale with a capacity of 100 kg,• 1 potato grading device (Hole diameters: 30 and 55 mm),• 2-3 hoes, and • 50 small pegs (30 cm long)Before organizing a demo on harvesting, make sure it is not going to rain. This demonstration corresponds to the harvest of the two trial plots, starting with the one planted with quality seeds. Harvest the plants by hand, one by one. If the soil is too hard, use a hoe to loosen it.Once the tubers are dug up be careful to ensure that tubers from different plants do not mix and leave them on the ground before collecting them. This makes it easier to inspect tubers systematically and signal, using pegs, the plants that have diseased or abnormal tubers. Count the number of healthy-looking plants to be harvested before collecting the tubers. Tubers from diseased plants must be collected last and used for consumption and not for seed.To take yield data, collect all tubers from healthy plants and separate them into two main groups according to size: marketable tubers (≥ 30 mm in diameter) and non-marketable tubers (the rest). Then separate the tubers in the first group into two subgroups: a 30-55 mm size and the larger tubers that are normally appreciated for processing. Count and weigh the tubers to determine the total number and total weight of each of the three categories. Use this information from both plots to make a comparative analysis of tuber yields and quality.Before leaving the field, collect all crop residues, including rotten foliage and tubers. This creates good conditions for planting the following crop. On-farm bulking of high-quality seed sourced from trusted seed producers.• 200 medium sized seed tubers (less than 40 mm in diameter) of high quality,• 27 kg of manure • Mineral fertilisers (2.4 kg of YaraMila and 0.6 kg of YaraLiva),• Fungicides (see training manuals),• Insecticides (see training manuals),• 1 measuring tape,• 1 rope for delimitation of plots,• 5 hoes,• Wooden boards/pieces of timber, and • 2 shovels.The small plot of seed is a triple clean-technology (clean seeds, clean soil and clean agricultural practices) carried out on a small plot of land. Therefore, select and prepare a 12 m x 4 m area where the potato or another crop from the same family has never been grown or at least not for the last 5 years. Also, choose a site that is not downstream of other potato fields that could be a source of contamination through runoff water.After a deep plough, delimit a small plot of land in the middle measuring 9 m x 1.5 m. Clear this plot to a depth of 15 cm by setting the soil aside. Then spread 27 kg of manure and 1.5 kg of mixed mineral fertilisers (YaraMila + YaraLiva). Refill the plot with the dug soil cleared from the plot. Then draw planting lines at a regular interval of 30 cm and make small holes about 10-15 cm deep on the lines at a regular spacing of 25 cm. Use small sticks or the end of the hoe handle to dig these holes. In principle, the entire plot will need 180 tubers, corresponding to the number of holes dug. Use the same stick, hoe handles, or hands to cover the tubers with soil.Since it is not possible to make ridges as it is done in normal fields, hilling-up is done by hand by adding clean soil from the area around the plot. The plot should be raised above the ground surface from the time of planting. This can be aided by wooden boards or pieces of timber. As you hill up with more soil, protect the edges to maintain the top of the plot at a higher level than the ground surface (more than 15 cm).After the plants have emerged, maintain the plot as you do in a normal field, whether it is for disease and pest control, top dressing or other good agricultural practices. It is extremely important to take precautions to prevent any entry of diseases and pests into the plot, including the use of clean agricultural tools.5 Spread the fertilisers 6 Refill the plot with soil","tokenCount":"2137"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"83709bdd98be14b18b0b161dac9f0fea","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4ef23961-c63b-4b9a-aee7-832e06b68aac/retrieve","id":"771247024"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"84d46508-1c37-4988-92a8-c5cbb44d07fa","pagecount":"14","content":"Home to 177 million people, the Asian Mega-Deltas are biodiverse, fertile, and productive food baskets dominated by rice, fisheries, and aquaculture that support millions within and beyond the deltas. However, deltaic food systems are impacted significantly by climate change. There are more frequent floods and with increasing intensity, salinization is a key challenge particularly along the coastal deltas, and there are challenges with water quality and quantity. Climate extremes pose significant challenges to Bangladesh's steady progress on economic growth and food production and security, and impacts are likely to trigger new poverty traps and emerging hotspots of food and nutrition insecurity, with consequential impacts of increased urbanization and migration.CGIAR's Asian Mega Deltas initiative aims to support relevant stakeholders in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam, India and Myanmar in working towards resilient, inclusive, and productive deltas that are better adapted to climatic and other stressors while supporting livelihoods well-being and maintaining socioecological integrity.One of the focus areas of the AMD Initiative is to strengthen inclusive, gender-equitable governance of land, water, and other natural resources on which integrated food systems depend. Food systems policies in Bangladesh are transitioning towards climate-resilient agri-food systems, however there is room for greater synergy in how different sectoral policies adopt this approach, and overall attention to building capacity of local implementation actors to implement policies more effectively and enable better translation of policies to practice. Supported by the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC), the apex organization of National Agricultural Research Systems in Bangladesh, this workshop focus was inclusive governance in Bangladesh's agri-food systems.The workshop aim was to bring together key stakeholders and initiate the co-development of an inclusive food systems governance framework focusing on the Southwestern deltaic part of Bangladesh. The workshop outcome was to identify actionable pathways to climate resilient food systems that prioritize food and livelihood security of the most marginalized in the face of escalating climate risks.• Validate findings of the Policy Brief, \"Towards Inclusive Governance for Resilient Agri-food Systems in Bangladesh.\"• Discuss pathways to action for achieving inclusive governance in food systems in the face of climate impacts in the southwestern delta regions of Bangladesh.There were 39 participants, including 10 women, two of the four panelists were women.Workshop Content  The following points were made:Bangladesh's success in ensuring agricultural productivity, food security and poverty reduction are all considerably threatened by climate change and other anthropogenic factors, as the 7th most climate-vulnerable country globally. Bangladesh has transitioned to a lower-middleincome status and future economic growth will rely increasingly on sectors beyond agriculture. However, sustaining agricultural productivity directly affect the lives, livelihoods, and food security of nearly 80% of Bangladesh's rural agrarian population, and climate change impacts put at risk the three goals of sustained economic growth, food security and poverty reduction.Under the AMD Initiative, a team of CGIAR and local researchers examined how food systems policies and key planning strategies interpret and integrate inclusive governance, gender equality and social inclusion and sustainability. These findings were presented during the workshop.The presentation underscored three critical challenges: engagement with women and disadvantaged groups at local levels is constrained by multiple factors; institutional capacity for inclusive governance needs to be strengthened, and mechanisms for fiscal checks and balances on inclusive governance need to be better monitoried. To tackle these challenges, five pathways for action were proposed:• Intentional and consistent representation of marginalized communities in policy processes • systemic change on issues of social inclusion amongst relevant food systems institutions and actors. • effective mechanisms for review of financial allocations on gender equality • co-production of knowledge -so that experiential knowledge of local communities informs expert knowledge and interventions, and • incentivizing inclusive and sustainable innovations.Special Guest: Ms. Keya Khan, Director General, Women's Affairs Ms. Keya Khan, Director General (DG) of the Department of Women Affairs at the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, highlighted Bangladesh's consistent efforts towards gender equality in South Asia. She discussed the Ministry's initiatives for women's empowerment, including food subsidies, mother and child nutrition programs, small-scale loans, and capacity-building activities. Ms. Khan emphasized the importance of addressing social norms and structures to empower women effectively and advocated for systematic monitoring and evaluation of interventions, such as gender budgeting implementation. Additionally, she stressed the significance of coordination across sectors and levels, involving men, religious leaders, and social leaders at the local level to ensure gender inclusivity.The Special Guest, Dr. Md. Mahmudur Rahman, Joint Secretary -Planning Wing at the Ministry of Agriculture, acknowledged that the findings of the AMD study reflect challenges already recognized by the Ministry of Agriculture, and steps are being taken to address them. Dr. Rahman acknowledged the necessity of intentionally including women and highlighted that 40% of the total beneficiaries in their programs are women.Panelist 1: Prof. Ainun Nishat, C3ER, BRAC University Dr. Nishat expressed his appreciation for a workshop on inclusive governance mechanism towards a resilient agri-food system in the country. He emphasized the importance of comprehensive water management, particularly in coastal areas and highlighted that global discussions on the \"water-energyfood security nexus,\" should include risks posed by climate change. Dr. Nishat also pointed out that the focus of food security discussions in the country tends to remain narrowly centered on rice production, and that policy-making processes are not participatory or integrated enough.Panelist 2: Dr. Mokhlesur Rahman, CNRS Drawing from several years of field-based experience, Dr. Mokhlesur Rahman emphasized the need for inclusive participation of marginal farmers and women in local-level water management. He expressed concern about minimizing elite capture, particularly in community-level water management in coastal areas. In these regions, facing challenges such as high salinity, cyclones, erosion, and extensive shrimp farming, traditional livelihoods like agriculture, livestock, and capture fisheries are severely limited due to water stress. Policies and Act enabling land and water leasing have resulted in a capture of about 70% of functional water canalsessentially a privatizing of common pool resources (CPR), a situation where leaseholders prioritize aquaculture, and severely restrict productive water access for smallholders and landless groups. This excludes communities from their traditional rights and increases their vulnerability. Despite being under Polders 5 and 15, areas like Shyamnagar lack formal water management groups due to the dominance of canal leasing processes. However, efforts to rehabilitate canals and ponds for rainwater storage have shown promise. The Center for Natural Resource Studies (CNRS) had successfully demonstrated the cultivation of Rabi crops and the revival of capture fisheries in restored canals, indicating potential for diverse agricultural and fisheries practices. To address the detrimental effects of canal leasing, Dr. Mokhlesur advocated canceling leases and rehabilitating canals under community management, enabling diverse water use, particularly for transforming agri-food systems and revitalizing capture fisheries and livestock management. He stressed the necessity for policy and legal interventions to support local communities in their rights to common pool resources, and also emphasized a more comprehensive approach in recognizing water as a vital resource for multiple livelihoods.Panelist 3: Dr Benoy Kumar Barman, Senior Scientist, World Fish Dr. Benoy K. Barman, Senior Scientist at WorldFish, presented recent work done by World Fish in contributing to the revision of the National Fisheries Policy of 1998. He presented the outcome of extensive participatory discussions undertaken by World Fish in diverse regions of the country, which highlights several challenges and opportunities for sustainable aquatic food production systems in Bangladesh. The National Fisheries Policy of 1998 is currently being revised and the focus is to double fish production, support food security, generate employment, and improve livelihoods, especially in light of climate change challenges. The new Fisheries Policy applies a co-creation policy approach through extensive discussions with multiple actors, as well as local communities, and also aligns with relevant national policies, strategies, and plans, including the Bangladesh 8th Five Year Plan 2025, Perspective Plan of Bangladesh 2041, and Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100. Dr Burman presented evaluation criteria and thematic areas established to gather information through a consultation process, covering aquatic food systems, social and economic inclusion, nutrition and public health, and climate resilience and environmental sustainability.Alongside WorldFish, FAO and Chemonics International also participated and contributed to these meetings.Panelist 4: Prof. Sayema Huq Bidisha, Dhaka University Prof. Bidisha spoke on the topic of gender-budgeting system in ministries and its role in facilitating gender inclusion. She highlighted several key points:In the context of prevalent patriarchy and a disadvantaged position for women, resource allocation through a gender-sensitive budget is a vital tool.Since FY10, the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) has annually presented a gender budget report, expanding from 4 to 44 ministries.In FY24, approximately 38.2% of the budget was allocated to gender budgeting. However, disparities exist within ministries, such as the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Fisheries, where the operating budget plays a key role. However, a significant proportion of this supports operational, rather than programmatic spending.Regular monitoring and evaluation of programs are essential for effective gender budget implementation. Addressing existing gender norms requires investment and incentives for private sector participation.Gender budgeting methodology mandates ministries to allocate resources based on 14 specific criteria, but challenges remain in ensuring effective gender disaggregation. Ministries like Women Affairs focus on women's empowerment but receive limited funds, necessitating more gender-responsive projects and budget allocations.Challenges in the agriculture sector include limited access to inputs, training, and technology, alongside gender-restricted norms and market constraints. Linking small-scale projects to ministries like MoA and enhancing agricultural marketing facilities are crucial steps.Beyond numerical allocations, evaluating the impact of the gender budget on women's lives is essential. Qualitative analysis is essential to assess achievements in agriculture and related sectors, emphasizing the need for context-specific approaches and gender-segregated data.Ministries such as Water Resources and Agriculture should prioritize direct development projects aligned with women's needs, fostering inclusivity and empowerment.Dr. Shamsul Alam, the chief guest at the event and Former State Minister of Planning of Bangladesh, Government of Bangladesh, elaborated on how the current government has facilitated Bangladesh's remarkable economic growth and consistent progress in meeting human development goals. He emphasized the importance of consultative, inclusive planning and policies in achieving these milestones. Dr. Alam underscored the significance of consultative processes, ensuring the involvement of local actors, institutions, and experts in all planning processes, particularly in initiatives like the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100.Dr. Alam also highlighted several challenges on how sectoral silos pose a significant problem, both on the ground and at the ministry level, making coordination challenging. Conflicting provisions in sectors often arise due to the interdependence between different sectors. Addressing structural challenges requires a holistic approach that considers the interconnectedness across various sectors.In response to Dr. Mokhles's presentation, Dr. Alam mentioned the emergence of water problems in Satkhira due to shrimp cultivation blocking canals. He emphasized that such issues are interconnected across different levels of the system and can only be resolved through decisive political actions.Dr. Alam emphasized the critical need for Bangladesh, one of the most hazard-prone countries among the ten deltaic regions of the world, to address the increasing adversities posed by climate change and rising temperatures. He highlighted that the country should prioritize the implementation of the first-phase action plans outlined in the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 (BDP 2100), which were specifically designed for various climate hotspots. Dr. Alam stressed that these action plans should be integrated into the upcoming Ninth Five Year Plan (2026-2030) and fully executed by 2030 to effectively mitigate climate risks and enhance resilience.In his closing remarks, Dr. Sheikh Md. Bokhtiar, Executive Chairman of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council and the Chair of the workshop, reflected on Bangladesh's journey since independence. Despite facing challenges such as food security and poverty, Bangladesh has made significant strides, emerging as South Asia's fastest-growing economy. This progress is particularly remarkable considering Bangladesh's vulnerability to climate and anthropogenic impacts, compounded by its high population density. Dr. Bokhtiar emphasized that these achievements underscore the country's commitment to inclusive governance, which will continue to guide Bangladesh's transition to more resilient and sustainable food systems. Furthermore, Dr. Bokhtiar highlighted the complexity of inclusive governance, acknowledging the opportunities for improvement. He referenced a 2023 report on the status of women in the agriculture system, which showcased substantial progress. However, gender disparities persist across various aspects. Dr. Bokhtiar also mentioned the recent launch of the PARTNER project supported by the World Bank, aimed at contributing to the implementation of agricultural policies. Moreover, Dr. Bokhtiar underscored the importance of leveraging existing, proven agri-food technologies that are well-suited for coastal communities facing the impacts of climate change. He pointed out that despite their effectiveness, these technologies have not yet been widely adopted. Dr. Bokhtiar called for concerted efforts to promote these technologies on a larger scale, ensuring that they become more socially inclusive. He emphasized that this expansion should be guided by the recommendations outlined in the policy brief, along with practical considerations discussed during the workshop.At the conclusion of the workshop, Ms. Indu Kumari Sharma extended her gratitude to all the participants, including the Chief Guest, Special Guests, panelists, and the Chair, as well as the AMD team based in IRRI office -Bangladesh for their assistance and enthusiasm. She emphasized that without their collective efforts, the workshop would not have been possible.The workshop concluded successfully, marked by active participation from all attendees who discussed a range of challenges and proposed solutions for governing a socially inclusive agri-food system. The interactions between government officials, civil society activists, and academia during the workshop led to a productive exchange of ideas and experiences, highlighting the collaborative spirit of the event. Contributions from the Chief Guest and Special Guest were particularly impactful, setting a forwardlooking tone for future progress.","tokenCount":"2243"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9c399e45d8027dbbdca0703023ea6397","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/135c4493-8b0b-4ac3-ac14-0e3477236a21/retrieve","id":"1493319224"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"5b0f64db-b730-45e6-9c5e-865033887cd0","pagecount":"40","content":"With a vision to 2020, it is intended to provide guidance to research and development practitioners and investors from the public and private sector, helping them to identify areas of possible intervention and collaboration. The document was developed through a consultative process. It was drafted in January 2006 by the International Centre for Underutilised Crops (ICUC), with input from the Global Facilitation Unit for Underutilized Species (GFU). In early February 2006, a cross-section of over 200 experts in underutilized plant species research and development -representing universities, national agricultural and horticultural research systems, international research centres, government institutions, non-governmental organisations, regional networks, donor organisations and the private sector -was invited to provide feedback on the draft document. In addition, the draft document was posted on several relevant listservers, including FAO's NTFP Newsletter, the Forest Information Update, the Global NTFP Partnership listserver and the Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn listserver, as well as on the websites of ICUC (www.icuc-iwmi.org) and GFU (www.underutilized-species.org).1. The world is presently over-dependent on a few plant species. Diversification of production and consumption habits to include a broader range of plant species, in particular those currently identified as 'underutilized', can contribute significantly to improved health and nutrition, livelihoods, household food security and ecological sustainability. In particular, these plant species offer enormous potential for contributing to the achievement of the MDGs, particularly in combating hidden hunger and offering medicinal and income generation options. They are also closely tied to cultural traditions, and therefore have an important role in supporting social diversity.2. Recognition of the cultural, economic and food value of indigenous biodiversity is growing. Yet while there is increasing interest in research and development activities with underutilized plant species, these efforts require heightened direction and focus.3. This paper provides a Strategic Framework for underutilized plant species research and development activities. Developed through wide consultation, it aims to avoid duplication of effort and to help cover gaps in current knowledge, while allowing outputs and approaches to be synthesised regionally. The Framework acts as a roadmap to guide stakeholders as they develop the work plans needed to generate new knowledge, lobby policy makers, or develop markets, for example. It will also guide efforts to set both research and funding priorities.4. Focusing on the differing needs and circumstances of two world regions -Asia and the Pacific, and Sub-Saharan Africa -the Strategic Framework outlines the outstanding challenges and opportunities to be considered in promoting increased use of these plants; growing urbanisation, international trade, climate change, and health care are major areas of direct relevance. Although underutilized plant species have great potential for helping to address important concerns in these areas, the full development of their potential is hampered by lack of awareness in society, as well as by lack of relevant capacity within the research community. At the same time, these plant resources -and the land they are grown on -are increasingly threatened by global and local pressures.5. An integrated, partnership approach is proposed, focusing on the following intervention areas to generate maximum impact: knowledge generation, communication, capacity building, policy improvement and market development.6. Because of the complexities involved in developing the potential of underutilized plant species, clear concepts for action need to be formulated and made widely known, and consortia of complementary partners need to be formed. The roles of the diverse partners must be clarified and coordinated. Such partners include international and national agricultural and horticultural research organisations, advanced research institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community based organisations (CBOs), private companies, national governments, regional and international organisations, and donors and funding agencies.Regular discussion with the relevant desk officers in such funding agencies is recommended -to raise awareness of underutilized plants' value, and to devise new research paths jointly.7. The document reviews current activities, provides examples of success and emphasizes the need to improve resource mobilization in support of underutilized plant species research and development, including urgent work to collect baseline information and formulate meaningful indicators to guide future action.Maintaining the genetic diversity of grains such as fonio (Digitaria exilis) in community seed banks is an important contribution to food security.The underlying problem can be formulated as:Over-dependence on a few plant species exacerbates many acute difficulties faced by communities in the areas of food security, nutrition, health, ecosystem sustainability and cultural identity.Wild fruits provide vitamins and minerals especially to women and children.Box 2: Definition of 'underutilized species'It is difficult to define just what qualifies as an 'underutilized species'. Terms such as 'underutilized ', 'neglected', 'orphan', 'minor', 'promising', 'niche' and 'traditional' are often used interchangeably to characterise the range of plant species that are the focus of this document. For this Strategic Framework, we have used the following definition: those species with under-exploited potential for contributing to food security, health (nutritional/medicinal), income generation, and environmental services.This definition of underutilized plant species can also be illustrated by examples of success:Species for fighting hunger and malnutrition -In South Asia, the little millets provide nourishing flour that can be mixed with rice flour, offering longer shelf-life, and made into healthy snacks. Millets have a higher micro-nutrient content -including calcium and iron, vitamins like niacin, and sulphur-containing amino acids -and contain more soluble fibre than rice or wheat. These grains also have a low glycaemic index, making them attractive health foods (MSSRF, n.d.).Species for medicinal use -Artemisia annua is a plant with anti-malarial properties that has been used for over two millennia in Chinese traditional medicine. Each year, there are over 500 million cases of malaria worldwide; of the more than 1 million people whose deaths are directly linked with malaria, 90 percent are children. Because synthetic products are unaffordable for most of the rural poor, people naturally revert to herbal drugs. And although the efficacy and the potential associated risks of Artemisia products have not yet been fully studied, the potential of Artemisia and other species has generated much interest amongst research institutions in the West and international agencies such as WHO. In the first quarter of 2006, a twomonth electronic discussion forum dedicated to Artemisia was moderated by the Dutch Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) and a workshop on herbal antimalarials was convened by the World Agroforestry Centre (Simons et al., 2006). Furthermore, several locally-made Artemisia products have been released.Species for income generation -Myriad tropical fruits, such as Annona spp. (soursop, sweetsop, cherimoya etc.), Aegle marmelos (beli), Feronia limonia (wood apple) and Choerospondias axillaris (lapsi), can be processed by small-scale entrepreneurs into juices, jams, candy etc. and sold in community shops or local supermarkets. Dhammika Perera is a Sri Lankan who currently earns Rs 50,000 (USD 500) monthly from his fruit processing enterprise -more than half of the family income. He started this enterprise after attending an ICUC training course in 2004 on processing and marketing underutilized crops. Mr Perera now employs ten staff to meet the demand for his products, and because his business has increased the demand for fresh beli, wood apple and soursop, local producers have increased their household income as well. On July 12 2006, Mr Perera received the Sri Lanka Standards certification for his fruit juice products, thus further strengthening his position amongst local competitors.The Aztecs believed that amaranth (Amaranthus spp.) seeds had supernatural powers and used them in ceremonial dishes associated with human sacrifice.In the 16th century, amaranth was forbidden by the Conquistadores, who wanted to root out these practices; amaranth grain was reduced to only a few remote areas of Mexico and the Andes. Today it is highly valued culturally in Peru, where during carnival festivities women dancers often use the red amaranth flower to paint their cheeks; they then dance carrying bundles of amaranth on their backs as if they were babies. The genus is receiving increasing attention because of the nutritional properties of the grain and leaves and can now be found throughout the world (Stallknecht and Schulz-Schaeffer, 1993).Species for ecological protection -Vetiver grass (Vetiveria zizanioides) is used for soil stabilisation: when grown in contours along a slope, its dense root system acts as a 'living soil nail'. Vetiver roots, which have an average tensile strength of 75 MPa, improve the shear strength of soil by between 30 and 40 percent. The ability of vetiver to protect vital infrastructure in the face of extreme weather events has been demonstrated globally, for instance during Hurricane Mitch in Central America in 1998 (TVN, n.d.). In addition, vetiver is used for thatching, rope making, basket weaving etc., and its roots contain a valuable oil that is used in the perfume industry as a base for aftershaves.In recent years, underutilized plants have come out of the shadows and are moving fast into the limelight of rural development (see Annex 1 for some milestones and Box 3 for factors influencing today's interest in such species). Several national research systems are supporting work on these plant species, though not to the same extent as research on industrial and staple crops such as oil palm, rubber, cocoa, tea, wheat, rice etc. Policy makers and funding agencies are now recognising the value of indigenous biodiversity for diversification of farming systems, which will in turn help to buffer the risks of environmental and economic disasters (CGIAR, 2005). However, these efforts need direction and focus. This is not the first strategy paper for underutilized crops (IPGRI, 2002;Gündel et al., 2003). Nonetheless, the need for a revised joint framework for activities with neglected and underutilized plant species was aired at several gatherings of partners in 2005. The partners identified several reasons for this: the importance of avoiding duplication of activities on these highly promising species; the desire to avoid leaving gaps where a potential for utilisation is more difficult to perceive; and the need for more regional syntheses of outputs and approaches. The formulation of the strategy began with an electronic consultation process initiated by ICUC, GFU and IPGRI in February 2006. This was followed by workshops of experts in Colombo (March 16-17, 2006) and in Nairobi (May 24-25, 2006). A group of volunteers drawn from these meetings contributed to the further revision of the strategy document. In drafting this Strategic Framework, we were guided by the principles outlined in Box 4.Work on underutilized species, whether in research or development, requires a collaborative, open minded spirit that recognises and respects the complexity and interaction of social, economic and environmental factors in the development of underutilized-crop products.Our approach is people-centred, pro-poor and gender-sensitive. It is founded on respect for the intellectual property of communities and adheres to relevant international codes of conduct, national legislation and international treaties governing germplasm access, movement and exchange.Our research will contribute to improving livelihoods through a high-quality sciencebased approach. Global food security has become increasingly dependent on a handful of crops. Over 50 percent of the daily global requirement of proteins and calories is met by just three crops -maize, wheat and rice (FAO, 1996) -and only 150 crops are commercialised on a significant global scale. On the other hand, ethnobotanic surveys indicate that, worldwide, more than 7,000 plant species are cultivated or harvested from the wild (Rehm and Espig, 1991;Wilson, 1992). The very existence of these species may be threatened by their relative neglect by science and development, and by the increase in area under production to higheryielding and better researched crops. In Africa, for example, exotic fruit trees are taking over land once planted to indigenous fruit trees (Antoine Kalinganire, pers. comm.) Studies also demonstrate the replacement of local varieties by improved, high-input varieties (FAO, 1996); this may lead to a narrowing of livelihood options for the poor.There are major gaps in our knowledge about these neglected and underutilized species and their ecology. Our capacity to conserve them and improve their yield and quality is also limited. Little has been done to identify the most effective means of commercialisation or the best marketing and policy frameworks to enable us to promote their use and maximise their economic value.All of these factors represent obstacles to the successful promotion and conservation of underutilized plant species.Although theories vary as to why certain plant species are underutilized, most widespread amongst them is the belief that this resulted from a combination of serendipity and chance selection processes that took place several times in human history; this, coupled with a few crops' adaptability to varying climatic conditions, made these few crops agricultural favourites (Janick, 1991). Once these favourites gained a head start on their competitors, selection and seed exchange concentrated on them, speeding up their domestication. Nonetheless, it was only during the mechanisation of agriculture in the 19th century that the real reduction to only a handful of major crops took place. The reduction in hunger that has been achieved worldwide to date is a great accomplishment. Nonetheless, there are nutritional issues that still have not been addressed. In particular, hidden hunger, or the lack of micronutrients, vitamins and other essential dietary components, is greatly neglected (Frison, 2004). Close to 120 million children suffer from vitamin A deficiency and its many effects, the most serious amongst them being blindness. About a third of the world's population is anaemic as a result of iron deficiency. Although dietary supplements can help in combating these deficiencies, they are beyond the reach of the poorest people. On the other hand, obesity, cardiovascular diseases and type II diabetes are on the increase, even in developing countries, because of oversimplified diets.The challenge of the MDGs is not only to halve hunger by 2015, but also to attack hidden hunger. For most people, dietary diversity represents the most effective answer to this problem. Many underutilized grains, fruits and vegetables will have a crucial role to play in providing the solution (IPGRI et al., n.d. b), not only in the developing world but in high-income countries as well.Similarly The Population growth will continue Agricultural land will be increasingly converted to non-agricultural purposes, thus increasing competition for the remaining land area Globalisation will allow more international exchange of knowledge and goods More people with better educations will enter the work force (especially in Asia) Diseases, such as HIV/AIDS and malaria, will continue to kill tens of thousands of productive people (especially in Africa) Domestic markets for new products will be increasingly influenced by international market forces, such as quality standards Growing urbanization may lead to an increased demand for convenience food and thereby to increased health problems associated with simplified diets (especially in Asia) Interest in ecotourism and in ethnic foods will increase Dependence of commodity crop farmers on the world market for inputs and sale of products will increase Awareness of intellectual property rights/access and benefit sharing policies will grow Effects of climate change will become more pronounced.Box 6: AssumptionsThe regions addressed by this Strategic Framework (Asia and the Pacific, and Sub-Saharan Africa) are vast and represent a wide diversity in terms of status, speed and direction of development.Eleusine coracana is one of the so-called minor millets that are enjoying something of a renaissance in parts of India and Nepal.Farmers and consumers are coming to appreciate the better qualities of the minor millets, which are being successfully re-branded as nutritious millets.In the Kaski district of Nepal, a pilot project examined all aspects of the production chain, from the farmers' choice of varieties to consumer preferences. The project aimed to identify the best options for adding value to finger millet whilst promoting its benefits to consumers and policymakers. In two villages, Kalabang and Ralmare, farmers identified their favoured traditional varieties and then worked with researchers to evaluate several improved lines. Of these, three in particular impressed the farmers because of their high yields and plump grains.Now, the emphasis is on working in a participatory fashion with the modern lines to improve some of the traditional landraces, which people prefer for particular foods but that are difficult or unprofitable to grow.Whilst farmers were working on production, others worked on public awareness, disseminating the good news about millets through radio, print, fairs and festivals, workshops and school programmes across the Kaski district. Surveys revealed that as a result of these efforts some groups of people -amongst them intellectuals, diabetics, the younger generation and foreigners -increased their demand for millet. Micro-entrepreneurs told the same story.After the publicity efforts, department stores and others increasingly came looking for millet-based foods to sell in Pokhara, the main town of Kaski. Demand for millet grain quadrupled between 2001 and 2004. Sales of millet cookies increased even further: one micro-entrepreneur reported a leap from 50 to more than 600 packets a month in just 18 months. Whole new types of foods, such as millet namkin, a savoury snack, appeared on the market, with sales increasing twenty-fold over the course of a year.The Kaski project is an example of successful collaboration amongst groups that run the gamut from international research centres to cooperatives and individual farmers, offering a series of lessons for consideration elsewhere. Farmers picked their preferred varieties and worked to improve local landraces, preserving the environmental benefits of the crop. Improved quality and supply made it attractive for industry to use millet. Microentrepreneurs played an essential role in the valueadding process. Finally, wide-ranging public awareness activities underpinned the whole effort by sensitizing urban and rural populations to the benefits of millet.(Adapted from IPGRI et al., n.d. a)Climate change forces people in many low-lying areas to migrate to higher ground, where they must cope with saline soils, tropical storms of greater ferocity, precipitation, and extended spells of drought (IPCC, 1998). Whilst niche plants are often thought of as being hardier, more resilient and better adapted to extreme conditions, this needs to be demonstrated and verified, and their value to rural livelihoods must be assessed.Communicable diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, are particularly prevalent in Africa. In both Africa and Asia, the majority of the rural population consults traditional healers for medical advice and health care. Mr Pallagyo has concentrated on quality and marketing. He employs local women to harvest his crops, which must be done even when demand is low, as leaving fruits on the plant inhibits the formation of flowers. Each day the women pick about 10 to 15 buckets of eggplant, earning around USD 2.50. Mr Pallagyo also buys from other farmers before passing the whole harvest on to workers who sort, grade and pack the eggplant. The workers carefully evaluate the fruits on the basis of colour: creamy white fruits are preferred, whilst reddish and yellowish ones are rejected, as are mottled, rusted and immature fruits. The use of two grades -one for the largest, undamaged, cream-coloured fruits and the other for the restensures that Mr Pallagyo gets the best possible price for the produce.Access to markets is a problem for all rural farmers. Initially, Mr Pallagyo used local transportation to reach the Tengeru market, where he sold his produce to retailers. His initial success enabled him to invest in a bicycle, which cost TShs 28,000. Better transport brought bigger profits and a permitted further investment of TShs 700,000 in a motorbike. As the business grew, he was able to afford a second-hand pick-up truck, which has further enhanced his capacity to collect the harvest and deliver the sorted and graded produce. A mobile phone has also become an essential business tool, enabling Mr Pallagyo to stay in touch with his customers and to keep on top of market fluctuations.In addition to his family's improved standard of living, Mr Pallagyo has added an extra half a hectare to his land. His enterprise has also benefited his neighbours, who now have employment and a market for their own produce. Finally, in the markets, customers are assured of a steady supply of high-quality African eggplant.(Adapted from IPGRI et al., n.d. a) Yet while many traditional plants have medicinal properties, their natural resource base is often threatened by unsustainable harvesting techniques that are prompted by population pressure, land conversion or other factors. Indigenous knowledge also needs to be mapped before it is lost, and research into active compounds and sustainable harvesting methods is necessary.Against this background, the development of underutilized plant species is still hampered by a general lack of awareness in all sectors of society and a lack of the necessary capacity within the research community.Challenges and opportunities continued...In Africa and Asia, the majority of the rural population uses traditional medicines for health care.It is crucial to ensure that underutilized plants are part of pilot initiatives, development projects and entrepreneurial endeavours. Rather than thinking of a list of priorities that need to be ticked off from the top downwards, we see the needed activities as part of a large puzzle. Numerous partners will need to participate in diverse activities, each contributing to the completion of the overall picture according to their particular strengths and capacities.In this respect, work on traditional crops that are relatively important economically (such as jackfruit in Asia or bambara groundnut in Africa) is just as important as work on traditional species that have their greatest potential in local and informal markets, and that are important for household food security and other needs of the poor (such as some of the minor vegetables). Work towards food security is equally as important as work to develop new sources of income from non-food products/species. Each of these activities increases the value of these plant resources and ultimately allows the poor to strengthen their livelihoods. This joint effort, together with the implementation of favourable policies, will allow underutilized plants to make significant contributions to improved food security, nutrition, health and incomes amongst the rural and urban poor. The use of these plants will also contribute to the sustainable management of fragile ecosystems.Specifically, research and development with underutilized plant species will contribute to: better health amongst vulnerable groups, such as pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, children and the elderly better educations for children thanks to school feeding programmes using products from underutilized plants that will result in better health and therefore in improved attendance and performance in school reduction in the incidence of malnutritionrelated non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes II and cardiovascular diseases availability of improved health care options through better knowledge amongst health practitioners of the medicinal properties of a wide range of plants increased income opportunities through the development of micro-enterprises for processing and selling food and non-food products from underutilized species and the encouragement of special micro-credit systems for this purpose well-maintained and well-used in situ and ex situ germplasm collections of underutilized species, in recognition of national and regional responsibilities to conserve these unique genetic resource for future generations adoption of more sustainable and diverse land-use systems, allowing farmers to harness existing biodiversity without eroding valuable existing genetic resources.Appropriate information and germplasm exchange protocols will help to protect individual, national and regional intellectual property rights, underpinning this effort. This Strategic Framework attempts to highlight specific fields of activities, and by doing so to promote coordinated efforts to tackle as many parts of the puzzle as possible. Linkages between public and private organisations, advanced and less-advanced institutions, major and minor crop researchers, as well as research with practical applications, are the centrepiece of this Framework.Problem trees (Annex 2a and b) have been developed to demonstrate how various challenges are interlinked in causal chains. These trees were developed separately for the Africa and Asia-Pacific regions to ensure that regional differences were not lost. Entry points for maximum impact can be identified at the branch tips of the trees for each of the two regions. A diagram of global intervention points (Figure 1) has been developed to facilitate the quick visualisation of opportunities for intervention by the research and development community dealing with underutilized plant species. These trees and diagram will be further refined as more dialogue and information exchange takes place. The main intervention areas for maximum impact are:1. These intervention areas are supported by improved interaction and partnerships amongst all stakeholders.Figure 1 shows the links between these intervention areas and their expected effects. The diagram also indicates potential barriers that are beyond the immediate control of the primary stakeholder group. These are primarily areas of human behavioural change: whilst we can create an enabling environment, we cannot force increased demand or consumption of underutilized plants and their products per se.The following are the key steps:1. The global knowledge base will be enhanced by scientific research, mapping of indigenous knowledge and documentation of existing information that at present may not be accessible.2. Through targeted communication in a variety of formats, this information will raise the awareness of the general public about the value of underutilized plants; relevant information will feed into curriculum development to inform the next generation and will also contribute to capacity building amongst the primary stakeholders: the underutilized plant species community itself.3. Two special cases of 'communicating knowledge' have been highlighted. Firstly, lobbying among policy makers and other influential interest groups in order to remove existing barriers -for example trade barriers -and arrive at appropriate policies; increased public awareness will also contribute to this goal. Secondly, market development in order to improve the supply of quality products; increased capacity will also contribute to this goal. A 'barrier' has been inserted in Figure 1 to indicate that, whilst every effort will be made to achieve a positive outcome through policy lobbying, the final result depends on a variety of factors outside our immediate control. Market development, which includes the development of functioning market chains, provision of relevant training and support for business development, is more predictable, and success in this area is more likely.4. The prerequisites for continuing targeted research and development activities that will use and further increase the global knowledge base include increased capacity amongst the primary stakeholders and a better educated younger generation. This will produce an iterative process that will enable sustainable growth in the production of and demand for underutilized plants and their products.5. Finally, assuming that appropriate policies, increased demand, sustainable production and increased/better supply coincide, the goal of increased consumption/use of underutilized plant species to address the overall development problem will be reached. To achieve this, however, the aforementioned potential barriers need to be overcome; to this end, more effort, interaction and lobbying will be required.Some examples of possible short-to-medium term interventions are given below. Nonetheless, the initiators of this consultation hope that the process itself has fostered closer collaboration and a sense of 'pulling the same string' so that increased cohesion and coordination will follow. ICUC, IPGRI and GFU will, as global actors, honour their responsibility to continue to support regional and national underutilized plant species research and development through their partnership programmes.Whereas it is recognised that increased funding is essential to enable increased activities with underutilized plant species, any request for financial support to any agency needs to be built upon a solid case. Therefore, clear concepts for action need to be formulated and made readily available, and consortia of complementary partners need to be formed.Examples are provided in Boxes 10 and 11. Informed ongoing dialogue with funding agencies is necessary to ensure that underutilized species research is not carried out in reaction to calls for proposals (often small ones), but rather is shaping the funding agenda of donor agencies.If feasible, institutions will prioritise activities and develop operational plans in accordance with this Strategic Framework. National coordinating offices could be named to ensure greater visibility and voice within the national agricultural research and development systems.Research and development activities with underutilized plant species are primarily carried out by international and national agricultural and horticultural research organisations, NGOs, CBOs and university departments.There are many small, medium-sized and large private companies that are interested in developing underutilized species for their enterprises, some with a clear focus on community development and others through their corporate social responsibility departments.This Strategic Framework is meant to provide a roadmap for actors in underutilized plant species research and development.PAGE 18There are many small, medium-sized and large private companies that are interested to develop a grater variety of underutilized species products.Box 10: A champion for partnerships \"Bambara groundnut is a rare example of a long-term, multidisciplinary and international research commitment to any underutilized crop. By integrating research partners in Africa, India and Europe we now have a coherent body of knowledge and expertise that spans the genomics, physiology, agronomy, nutrition, socio-economics and marketing of the crop. We also have a basis to advocate further research on bambara groundnut and apply our collective experience to many other underutilised species.We started in 1988 at the University of Nottingham using departmental funds to support MSc projects. Then in 1991 we approached the EU and got our first major 4year project in 1992. We got some support from other donors for short periods of time, but not before the first EU project had shown results in 1996. It then took four years until we got our second EU project which finished in 2004. BAMLINK, the follow-up, started in 2006, but by then the team was strong enough to keep the momentum up between projects.\" Sayed Azam-Ali, University of Nottingham, UK Box 11: An example of an integrated approach to tackling the problem of HIV/AIDS (adapted from Garí, 2004) Public-private partnerships are beginning to emerge, such as for the domestication of Allanblackia. Here fruits are selected for propagation studies in a community nursery.PAGE 19Public-private partnerships are beginning to emerge and may have a major role to play in overcoming proprietary concerns (intellectual property rights) when using new technology -such as biotechnology -for research and commercialisation (Dawson and Jaenicke, 2006). There may also be a need for advanced research institutions to collaborate with less advanced ones in order to ensure the smooth transfer of methodologies developed during advanced research. Furthermore, there is a need for centres working on major crops to link with institutes working on minor crops so that lessons can be transferred from major to minor crops, and perhaps vice versa (Naylor and Manning, 2005).The need for increased collaboration is evidenced by the number of networks formed over the past ten years (Williams and Haq, 2002). Important regional networks include dedicated plant genetic resources networks (for example the Pacific Agricultural Plant Genetic Resources Network, coordinated by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community), networks on a variety of specialty underutilized crops (such as the Bambara Groundnut Network) or commodity groups (such as UTFANET, for underutilized tropical fruits, in Asia). Few survive, however, beyond the first few years of enthusiasm and external funding. In Africa, NEPAD, FARA and the Sub-Regional Organisations ASARECA, CORAF-WECARD and SADC-FANR can play a facilitating role in supporting underutilized plant species networks, or assist in integrating relevant activities into existing networks.Regional and international organisations such as AVRDC, GFU, ICRAF, ICUC and SPC have the mission for and are active in coordinating, where appropriate, research prioritisation and impact assessment, research and technology development, and information dissemination and exchange. Research and development with underutilized plants has concentrated so far on a small number of key activities: database inventories of useful species and experts, bibliographic resources, priority lists of species, germplasm collections of locally or regionally important species, horticultural/agronomic studies to improve productivity (domestication), and in some cases, post-harvest and processing studies. Very few have taken on the support of biotechnology methods (for propagation) and/or are studying species at the molecular level (for characterisation). There are a limited number of actors involved in marketing and business development activities specifically designed for products from underutilized plants. Often, these activities have been part of someone's 'hobby' or personal priorities. Whereas this has contributed to the establishment of very important collections (both data and germplasm), little of these resources have contributed thus far to larger rural development projects.Annex 4 provides information about ongoing activities from some of the contributors to this consultation. This list, however, cannot provide a complete picture of ongoing activities; additional information about underutilized species experts can be found at www.underutilized-species.org. Further contributions are welcomed and will be included in later editions of this document.Over the past decade, research and development with underutilized plants has been supported by a handful of dedicated organisations and foundations, for example ACIAR (Australia), BMZ (Germany), CTA, DFID (United Kingdom), the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Mac Knight Foundation, the Syngenta Foundation and USAID 1 . Although as a rule, individual countries have provided limited support, in some countries government support has been substantial, to the point that their national personnel capacity is now the main factor limiting further progress. The private sector's contribution is currently difficult to assess.In order to tap into the funding available from these and other sources, continuing dialogue with the relevant desk officers is recommended; this dialogue should aim at raising awareness about the value of underutilized plants and jointly conceptualizing and facilitating the development of relevant projects with the funding organisation. Partner organisations within countries or across regions will form consortia that will be ready to assemble and develop project concept notes and proposals when relevant calls are issued. Networks and fora, such as ACUC in Asia and FARA in Africa, are particularly valuable in developing critical mass and coordinated research agendas amongst partner institutions.There is great potential for increasing private-sector interest in supporting work on products form underutilized plants. Dialogue with relevant companies, including the multi-nationals, is required. ICUC, GFU and IPGRI will provide guidance in identifying promising funding sources and will endeavour to circulate relevant information to as wide a network of recipients as possible.We see donors and funding agencies as integral partners in the development and promotion of underutilized plant species.At present, very little baseline information is available against which the progress and possible success of strategies and activities with underutilized species can be measured. In particular, because of the complex mandate of research and development with underutilized plant species, which touches on several livelihood areas, secondary indicators such as number of children attending (and finishing) school may be used; these, however, are of questionable relevance. The number of new research and development projects undertaken by partner organisations is a similarly vague indicator, as this may demonstrate improved political will but not necessarily impact at the grass-roots level. Data on the number of new enterprises in processing and marketing of underutilized crop products may be collected from various national enterprise development agencies, but this information may not include informal businesses, and thus provides an incomplete picture. As a matter of urgency, baseline information needs to be collected and meaningful indicators need to be formulated.The number of successful new enterprises in processing and marketing of underutilized plant products will be an indicator for impact.This document provides a framework within which stakeholders will be able to develop their work plans to contribute to specific parts of the puzzle, whether in the generation of new knowledge, communication, policy lobbying or market development. It provides guidance for the leaders of regional and sub-regional organisations and the directors of national agricultural and horticultural research systems in developing their research priorities. It also provides guidance for donor agencies and investors who may want to revisit their funding priorities.The framework highlights the complexity involved in the promotion of underutilized plants. Activities are interlinked and happen simultaneously. ICUC, IPGRI and GFU are committed to supporting their partners, but it is up to every individual and institution to contribute to implementing the strategy by lobbying and raising awareness amongst the general public, donors and policy makers.Many respondents requested a forum to exchange scientific information and research results; beyond hosting an e-information bulletin, we plan to organise an international conference on underutilized plant species, but funds need to be raised for this.Although a considerable number of people involved in research and development with underutilized plants have been able to contribute during the consultation process, many have not been reached. For example, Latin America and the CWANA region have not had the opportunity to contribute through a regional workshop. Funds -and champions -are being sought to include these regions.The process that has led to the development of this Strategic Framework is a starting point in the promotion of increased partnership and dialogue amongst stakeholders. Consultation began at the beginning of 2006. Since then a variety of processes have been observed (some of which resulted from the enhanced dialogue initiated by ICUC and GFU).Examples include the emergence of a number of new mechanisms for information exchange and the launch of new initiatives, such as the AVRDC-led Global Horticulture Initiative. ICUC and GFU have also set up a working group on underutilized plants within the International Society for Horticultural Science. In addition, the INBAR-led GFAR Global Partnership on Non-Timber Forest Products is also now beginning to take shape.This framework, and the action that will follow, allow us to draw new attention to the important contributions that underutilized plants can make to improved health and nutrition, income generation and ecological sustainability, through the diversification of production and the consumption of a broader range of plant species.Let's continue to work together to make our vision a reality!The way ahead A strategy paper is not an end in itself. Once written, it needs committed actors for its implementation. So, how can we make the vision of increased awareness and utilisation of underutilized plants a reality?The consumption of a broader range of plant species will be an important contribution to health and nutrition, income generation and ecological sustainability.   BAIF Development Research Foundation, India, is engaged in generating gainful employment for small and marginal farmers by facilitating the use of degraded natural resources in several parts of India. Promotion of tree-based farming on degraded lands is an important programme, through which farmers are provided with various inputs to establish fruit species and multipurpose tree species on their holdings.Under this programme, the participating families are given the necessary guidance and critical inputs to establish fruit orchards on 0.4 ha. The major fruit crops, which are promoted on the basis of soil productivity, moisture availability, demand for the produce and economic returns, are mango, cashew, sapota and Indian gooseberry. Apart from the above crops, many other underutilized fruit-tree species have been introduced on a small scale, mainly on field borders and bunds, serving as windbreaks, and thereby contributing to income and food security. The inter-space is used by farmers for the cultivation of vegetables and food crops. These intercrops support families to a great extent during the gestation period.The families maintaining such orchards on 0.4 ha are able to earn over USD 500 per annum when the trees begin to bear, generally after five to six years. Thus, the programme has demonstrated the feasibility of promoting biodiversity and ecological restoration whilst ensuring sustainable livelihoods for the local communities.Various underutilized fruits are being popularised under this programme, including custard apple (Annona squamosa), ber (Zizyphus mauritiana), tamarind (Tamarindus indica), jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) and Indian gooseberry (Emblica officinalis). The advantages of these crops are their ability to grow in harsh and adverse agroclimatic conditions. The products of these species are consumed by local people and often considered delicacies. Many of these species have good nutritional and medicinal value. Efforts are now being made to process these fruits for value addition and establish close linkages amongst consumers and producers.The MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, India, is working with farming communities in a participatory manner to promote the cultivation and consumption of underutilized crops, largely nutritious millets, so as to increase farmer income. They are using pathways such as participatory variety selection to increase yield; community conservation of traditional varieties; introduction of appropriate technology; community capacity building for value addition; product development; and marketing of value-added products to enhance income generation.The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), Fiji, coordinates the Pacific Agricultural Plant Genetic Resources Network, which links plant genetic resources programmes and scientists in the Pacific who are working on underutilized species such as taro, breadfruit, yams, pandanus and local fruits and nuts. SPC also maintains a regional in vitro conservation facility, the Regional Germplasm Centre, which conserves and distributes virus-free materials of important Pacific crops. IPGRI has also been successful in raising the profile of underutilized species by increasing publicity at highlevel fora, such as the Convention for Biological Diversity (see 9th meeting of SBSTTA 2003 and www.iisd.ca/biodiv/cop8/enbots/20mar.html).Resources Programme (SGRP), IPGRI has commissioned a study to survey the number of species and collections that are held in the CGIAR Centres' genebanks, as well as the level to which they have been characterized. The study will also revise the existing literature to identify cases where the use and conservation of underutilized species have or have not benefited the poor. Based on these results, IPGRI will make recommendations to SGRP and the CGIAR System as to how best to strategise their work on underutilized species for the benefit of the poor.The Global Facilitation Unit for Underutilized Species (GFU) is a service provider to other actors in the field and has a strong advocacy role. Its activities are, therefore, focussed on providing information, connecting actors, and creating greater awareness of the role that underutilized species play in improving livelihoods, as well as on policy recommendations aimed at creating an enabling environment for wider use of underutilized species.The International Centre for Underutilised Crops (ICUC) has supported national germplasm collections for a limited number of underutilized crops such as pummelo (Citrus maxima), jackfruit (Artocarpus PAGE 33 ANNEX 4heterophyllus) and tamarind (Tamarindus indica). It has produced a series of monographs and extension materials on 10 priority species and has organised relevant training courses. It has also been instrumental in the creation of several dedicated regional networks (UTFANET, SEANUC, UTVAPNET and ACUC).The University of Nottingham, UK has been associated with bambara groundnut for 17 years, with activities that cover the gamut from molecular research to marketing, in Africa, India and Europe. U Nottingham also conducts research on African yam bean and has a network of partners with experience in lupin, triticale and finger millet.The Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) is involved in many activities related to research for development, ranging from biotechnology to social sciences. Recently, a new area of research is being implemented which is highly relevant to this consultation. CIAT now has a Tropical Fruits project and is developing activities with mainstream species as well as with species with strong local markets that by definition are considered underutilized. CIAT has several projects for the improvement of regional species, but the criterion to work on these species is that they have an established market.The World Vegetable Center is the principal international centre dedicated to vegetable research and development. AVRDC develops varieties, such as the African eggplant, and technologies that increase vegetable production and consumption in developing countries. This leads to more economic opportunities, higher incomes and healthier diets for the poor.The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has long-standing work related to biodiversity for food and nutrition, including specific initiatives with underutilized plants and related indigenous knowledge. This work covers policy initiatives, pilot actions and publications aimed at catalysing the wide use of plant resources for food, nutrition and livelihoods. The FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture is the intergovernmental forum for genetic resources, with a notable focus on plant resources and underutilised species. Furthermore, FAO negotiated and hosts the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources, which is a global agreement that, amongst other goals, endorses national and global efforts \"promoting the expanded use of local and locally adapted crops, varieties and underutilised species\" (art. 6.3). FAO has also an Interdepartmental Working Group on Biological Diversity, which coordinates research, awareness and development initiatives on plant resources, including underutilised species, from diverse approaches. Some of these initiatives highlight the nutritional value of less-known plants and cultivars, whilst others have raised awareness of the role of underutilised plant species in mitigating AIDS impact and in enhancing the livelihoods of rural and poor urban populations.National, regional and international collaboration can support researchers and farmers in the development of improved varieties, such as this taun (Pometia pinnata) in Papua Guinea.","tokenCount":"7292"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6ce28dc8f113b27084a3c82d75d370c0","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8b744f4b-e45d-4e04-9a48-f607d8c0de5e/retrieve","id":"1615202500"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d8f96acb-25a8-43fe-a4bb-42880fbdf0e6","pagecount":"30","content":"Introduction to the sustainable intensification assessment framework Intended use of the framework Assessing trade-offs and synergies -Indicator selection Application of SI Assessment framework to field and household data Way forward Questions and comments Sustainable Intensification Indicator Project -Project initiative conceived based on a series of stakeholder meetings on SI indicators held in Africa and USA 2012-2014.-The goal of the project is to develop and recommend indicators and metrics for SI within a framework of five domains at four scales.• Use by agricultural scientists working in research for development projects --but is flexible and can be used by scientists interested in sustainable intensification.• Synthesis of literature and stakeholder expertise to obtain list of indicators, metrics and methods at the four scales and identify gaps. • Engage scientists and project managers involved in SI to curate the list of indicators and methods.-Meeting and field visit in Mali (October 2015)• Discussion and meeting with steering committee and AfricaRISING scientist.  ","tokenCount":"156"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1eed4f5975a5240e22b7c44f120c5d10","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/69d0a585-069b-44ee-9332-e64541c1da67/retrieve","id":"-1091629556"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2427252f-b862-4f15-8cfb-d720b8d13815","pagecount":"4","content":"The information in this guide can be freely reproduced for non-commercial use, if credited as coming from CTA.Reproduction for commercial use requires prior authorisation from CTA.Every sheep grazing on pasture is infested with one type of worm or the other. The effect of these in the animal depends on:The type of worm  There are many types of worms that can infest sheep. However, some important ones in the Eastern Africa region are mentioned in Table 1 against their symptoms. The level of worm infestation is related to climate and the seasons. It is therefore possible to treat animals at particular times of the year or in response to weather patterns and break the life cycle of the parasites. Points to note:Stocking rate: • If you have too many animals per unit area, pasture contamination is enhanced and frequent re-infections occur.","tokenCount":"140"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"5b8083be6a525e8dff1331110d2319f2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/assessment/files_new/publications/Discussion%20Paper/CADiscussionPaper1.pdf","id":"982824648"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"4bd16472-b8ae-41b0-834f-7d1d3d12ade5","pagecount":"30","content":"The purpose of this review was to evaluate the extent to which the current scientific literature allows us to determine and quantify the ecological costs and benefits of irrigated agriculture in wetland ecosystems of the developing countries, and to establish quantitative relationships between anthropogenic activities and ecological responses. The following are the main points that emerged:• Irrigation or activities associated with agricultural irrigation can and do cause adverse impacts to wetland ecological resources ranging from localized and subtle, to long-distance and severe.• Irrigation or activities associated with irrigation can also result in the creation or enhancement of important wetland ecological resources.• Depending on the irrigation activity and scale, irrigated agriculture and ecological resources can sustainably coexist.• The confounding effects of \"natural\" or other anthropogenic stressors are not often evaluated when the effects of irrigation on wetlands are being assessed, and it can be difficult to partition the effects due to irrigation.• The potential long-term ecological benefits of water storage schemes are rarely investigated.Any measurement of impact usually stops once the project is implemented.• Because of the above (bullets 4 and 5), \"quantitative\" information on the relationships between irrigated agricultural activity and ecological effects is sparse to non-existent. This severely impairs our ability to learn from previous failures or successes and, importantly, to design future activities and projects so as to minimize environmental impacts.• If we are to minimize the potential for ecological injury and enhance the likelihood of benefits in future projects, it is crucial that the existing data base be enormously expanded. Specifically, we need to treat each new project and scheme as a \"natural experiment\" where the ecological resources and effects are quantified from before the project is implemented until long after implementation. Until this is accomplished, we run the risk of repeating the same mistakes that have been made in the past.The relationship between irrigated agriculture and its effects on wetland ecosystems has often been portrayed as one of a direct tradeoff between the human need for food versus nature. The reality, as revealed by this literature review, is much more complex, as both systems human and nature may be adaptive. Where nature might adapt automatically, such as a waterfowl adapting to paddy rice as a replacement for natural wetland habitat, humans too adapt consciously. For example, as humans have learned about the valuable services wetlands provide, the response has been to find ways to preserve and restore wetlands. This is relatively achievable in the developed countries, which has access to funds and the institutional and legal capacity to impose no loss of wetlands, but it is much more difficult in the developing countries where there are pressing needs for increased food production with the limited funds available. In such situations, nature may have to absorb the full costs of change, rather than humans modifying their expectations and requirements in the face of natural needs. The goal of this literature review is to assess the knowledge available to developing countries in supporting decisions on alternative future strategies for irrigation implementation, and to assist in mitigating potential future ecological impacts of irrigation development. The focus of this review has been on developing countries because it is there, rather than in the developed countries, that the potential for large-scale adverse impacts is severe.A brief discussion of the status and importance of both wetlands and irrigated agriculture is given in the next section. This is followed by a discussion of our approach in reviewing the literature. Finally, we present the results of our review in the form of six key conclusions that capture the state of knowledge of the effects of irrigated agriculture on wetland ecosystems in the developing countries. A set of recommendations for future research is given at the end of the paper.There is a long history of development leading to the complete destruction of massive areas of wetlands, particularly in the developed countries. In a generalized overview, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD 1996) stated: Some estimates show that the world may have lost 50 percent of the wetlands that existed since 1900; whilst much of this occurred in the northern countries during the first 50 years of the century, increasing pressure for conversion to alternative land use has been put on tropical and sub-tropical wetlands since the 1950s.No figures are available for the extent of wetland loss worldwide, but drainage for agricultural production is the principal cause; by 1985 it was estimated that 56 65 percent of the available wetland had been drained for intensive agriculture in Europe and North America; the figures for tropical and subtropical regions were 27 percent for Asia, 6 percent for South America and 2 percent for Africa, making a total of 26 percent worldwide. Future predictions show the pressure to drain land for agriculture intensifying in these regions.We begin this review with a definition of wetlands as well as some observations about the value or the services wetlands provide to human society. Agriculture, and irrigated agriculture in particular, have been critical to supplying the food needs of an ever increasing human population. Clearly we cannot eliminate irrigated agriculture. The road ahead must include ways of farming that recognize the value of wetlands.The global wetland area is generally estimated to be 7 to 9 million km 2 (4 6 percent of the land surface of the Earth) (Mitsch and Gosselink 2000). While there are many definitions to the term wetland many would agree that these are areas with high water tables contributing to a specific ecology. The most broadly accepted definition of wetlands is: Areas of marsh, fen, peatland or water, whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt including areas of marine water, the depth of which at low tide does not exceed 6 meters (Ramsar Convention 1971; Articles 1.1 and 2.1).Wetlands are increasingly gaining global attention, bringing together many scientists from different disciplines to study these unique ecosystems. One example of such attention is the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, adopted in 1971 and as of December 2002 has 1230 wetland sites distributed in six regions (Europe, Asia, Africa, Neotropics, Oceania and North America) recognized as wetlands of international importance (Wetlands International Ramsar sites database, 2002). However, there are likely to be many more wetlands to be identified and recorded as many countries have only recently begun identifying important wetlands.The functional value of wetlands depends on their size and placement within the landscape, as well as their relationship to adjacent water areas. Wetlands can be natural or artificial or mixtures of both. There is general agreement that the existence of wetlands is due to specific hydrology, soil type, and vegetation and animal communities, and that their functions depend on the context of their relative placement within the ecosystem. Some of the services wetlands provide include:• Habitat for aquatic birds, other animals and plants, fish and shell fish production;• Biodiversity;• Food production;• Water storage, including mitigating the effects of floods and droughts;• Groundwater recharge;• Shoreline stabilization and storm protection;• Water purification;• Nutrient cycling;• Sediment retention and export;• Recreation and tourism;• Climate change mitigation;• Timber production;• Education and research; and• Aesthetic and cultural value.Few attempts have been made to calculate the economic value of the goods and services provided by wetlands. Although the accuracy and precision of these attempts may be debatable, they have merit in that they draw attention to and emphasize their enormous economic importance. Previous estimates include: between US$8,977 and US$17,000 (1983) for the goods and services provided by each acre of Louisiana wetlands (Costanza et al. 1989), and between US$19 million and US$70 million per year for a 45 mile stretch of the Platte River, Colorado (Loomis et al. 2000). In the developing countries, the existence and functioning of wetlands can be crucial for adjacent agricultural and extractive economies (e.g., Hollis et al. 1993b).While the functional and economic values of wetlands are increasingly recognized, development projects continue to lead directly or indirectly to their loss. As presented in the following section, irrigated agriculture has been destructive in the past, and has the potential to continue to do so in the future unless better management processes are established in the developing countries.Irrigation has been practiced for at least 4,000 years, primarily because it allows for increased productivity through more optimal timing of water application. More recently, irrigated agriculture in combination with improved crop varieties and chemical inputs has led to 24 percent more food per person between 1961 and 1997, despite the population increase (Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems 2000). In addition to increase food security, there is a net increase in economic gains to farmers.It is estimated that around 5 percent of agricultural land globally (264 million ha) is irrigated, with South Asia (35%), Southeast Asia (15%) and East Asia (7%) showing a high dependency on irrigation. China and India represent 39 percent of the global irrigated area and Western Europe and United States have 13 percent, while sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania have less than 1 percent of their agricultural land irrigated (PAGE and Wood 2000). Irrigation accounts for approximately 70 percent of the water withdrawn from freshwater systems for human use. Only 30 60 percent is subsequently used downstream, making irrigation the largest net user of freshwater. Estimates also show that the share of cropland that is irrigated has grown by 72 percent from 1966 1996. Developing countries tend to have scarce water resources and relatively larger agricultural demands; and as such will have greater water extractions, which in turn can have greater impacts on associated wetlands (Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems 2000).While environmental impacts have been recognized as important in assessing agricultural projects, and assessment processes exist, active monitoring against baseline pre-project conditions have not kept pace with developments in productivity. Some aspects often regarded as important in assessment are hydrology, water and air quality, soil properties, erosion and sedimentation, biological and ecological change, socio-economic impacts, ecological imbalances and human health (FAO 1995), although all aspects are not often covered for a given project, due to external factors affecting project implementation. The classic example is that of dams, which have been constructed to control the natural variations of the hydrological cycles, so that the water is made available on demand for agriculture. Often the effects of flooding downstream and their benefits were not contemplated. The importance of natural flooding to fisheries and recession agriculture and groundwater recharge have been realized only recently (Acreman 1996). Some of the established effects of agriculture on wetlands include:• Direct loss of wetlands due to draining and conversion to agricultural land;• Indirect loss of wetlands area due to water withdrawal from rivers and streams for irrigation;• Loss of wetland area and function due to damming for water storage;• Loss of seasonal wetlands due to changed hydrologic cycle from water storage;• Loss of wetland function due to salinization, sediment deposition, erosion, eutrophication;• Pollution from use of pesticides and other chemicals; andExamples of many of these effects are described with specific examples in subsequent sections of this review.Relevant documents were identified by first conducting a literature search under the keywords: irrigation and wetlands. This computerized search identified an initial total of 1096 references. The majority of these were rejected from further consideration either because: a) they did not apply to developing countries; b) they were obviously journalistic or nonscientific in nature; or c) they were derived from primary studies, the results of which were reported in original documents that could be obtained. This left a total of approximately 180 reports that were potentially useful. Hard copies of these reports were obtained from various libraries, or by contacting the authors directly. Once obtained, the reference list for each report was examined to determine if additional and pertinent reports that had not been found in the original search were available. These were then obtained, whenever possible.An additional search procedure was to contact known participants in the field and ask them to identify documents and/or data sets that they considered important. The individuals who were contacted and their affiliations are aknowledged in the copyright page.A total of approximately 200 documents were obtained and reviewed. Of these, 37 contained information pertinent to our study. These are listed in the References List in section 7, with notes on their findings in Appendix A to this paper.We have reviewed only documents that apply to developing countries; no thorough or systematic review of the developed country literature has yet been performed. This is important, as it may introduce a bias into our results: most of the practical attempts to integrate agricultural and ecological concerns have taken place in the developed countries, and most of studies of the ecological benefits of irrigation have also been carried out there (e.g., the wildlife resources associated with the irrigated farmland in the Central Valley of California, or the rice fields of Louisiana). On the other hand, costs, rather than benefits, have been the main foci of studies in the developing countries.Thus, focusing entirely on the information of developing countries may bias the results of any review toward the ecological costs of irrigation and downplay the potential benefits.Within the general charge of reviewing the scientific and gray literature to evaluate the extent to which irrigation has been shown to affect wetland ecosystems in developing countries, we concentrated on providing answers that may be useful in developing alternative future strategies for irrigation implementation, and assisting in mitigating potential future ecological impacts. Each reviewed document was evaluated in terms of the information that it provided pursuant to eight questions:1. What were the ecological effects that were caused by irrigation and could they be distinguished from effects due to other anthropogenic or natural stressors (i.e., how confident can we be that the observed effects were due to agricultural water use?)2. Did the project described result only in ecological costs, or were there also benefits?3. Are there taxonomic relationships between costs/benefits and project types, scales, and management regimes?4. Do the data and information presented in the paper facilitate the identification of quantitative relationships between intensity of use (e.g., amount of withdrawal) and degree of ecosystem impact?5. Which components/activities of the project contributed most to the costs and/or benefits? And did the project find ways to mitigate or enhance certain effects?6. Did the resulting end-use of the irrigation water (i.e., the crop type) affect the costs and/or benefits?7. Did the surrounding habitat matrix (i.e., arid versus non-arid) matter in whether costs or benefits were incurred?8. Is it possible to identify indicators of ecological costs and benefits that could be used either at small or large spatial scales, or at both?To the extent possible we attempted to focus on all potential types of impacts of irrigation on wetlands. These include both the effects of water withdrawals upstream of the wetland, and irrigation activities within the wetland, itself.Much pertinent information is contained in gray literature sources that are difficult to identify and locate. Thus, the process of reviewing all potentially relevant documents is not yet complete. Indeed, it is unlikely to ever be so. However, we believe that the most important documents have been reviewed and the main results have already emerged (particularly in the areas of data gaps and information needs). We anticipate that these results will contribute to the knowledge base of IWMI s Comprehensive Assessment.Six main results have emerged from the literature review:1. Irrigation or activities associated with agricultural irrigation can and do cause adverse impacts to wetland ecological resources ranging from localized and subtle, to long-distance and severe.2. Irrigation or activities associated with irrigation can also result in the creation or enhancement of important wetland ecological resources.3. Depending on the irrigation activity and scale, irrigated agriculture and ecological resources can coexist in potentially sustainable fashions.4. The confounding effects of natural or other anthropogenic stressors are not often evaluated when the effects of irrigation on wetlands are being assessed.5. The potential long-term ecological benefits of water storage schemes are rarely investigated. Any measurement of impact usually stops once the project is implemented.6. Because of the above (4 and 5), quantitative information on the relationships between irrigated agricultural activity and ecological effects is sparse to non-existent. This severely impairs our ability to learn from previous failures or successes and, importantly, to design future activities and projects so as to minimize environmental impacts.Each of these conclusions is examined in greater detail below.Irrigation schemes or water diversions for irrigation have undoubtedly caused adverse effects to wetland ecosystems. At their most severe, these effects have included the submersion of wetlands, or their replacement by upland vegetation communities (or by essentially unvegetated land in the case of the Aral Sea), with consequent effects on the biota that depend on these wetlands and the services that humans hitherto derived from the systems. Documented examples of these extreme cases include the Aral Sea literature (Kotlyakov 1991;Micklin 1988;Precoda 1991) The ecological impacts of irrigation or water diversions for irrigation can occur a short distance from the dam or irrigation site, or many miles downstream. Examples of the latter include the construction of the High Dam at Aswan, which, by reducing sediment transport, is contributing to the erosion of wetlands in the Nile Delta 800 km downstream (Penvenne 1996). Also, the size of the marine harvest of prawns off the coast of Mozambique is positively correlated with the flow entering the sea from the Zambezi River (GammelsrØd 1996). Recent declines in marine prawn populations and impacts to the commercial prawn fishery have been ascribed to reduced flows from the Zambezi River due to barrages and dams in Mozambique (GammelsrØd 1996). The damming of the Indus in Pakistan, like the Nile example, has also reduced sediment transport with subsequent die-off of mangrove forest communities in the downstream delta (Meynell and Qureshi 1995).When viewed against the backdrop of wetland hydrologic needs, the ecological impacts caused by schemes such as the Aral Sea diversions, the damming of the Indus, or the Kano River Irrigation Project are not unexpected. They are largely a function of the scale of water diversion. Large projects that divert the majority of the flow of the feeder streams will necessarily result in large impacts to the associated wetlands.Although no quantitative relationships have been established, and the resilience of any particular wetland ecosystem will vary depending on other anthropogenic and natural stresses, it may be likely that relatively small percent diversions (10% or less?) may be ecologically sustainable in some wetlands (though perhaps not all), whereas larger diversions as have occurred in many schemes, are more likely than not to be unsustainable. Also, it is at least possible that the relationship between the scale of the withdrawal or diversion and the ecological impact may not be linear. The first quartile of the flow diverted may have much less effect than (say) the second or third. This, if so, is both good and bad news: up to a certain limit, withdrawals may be sustainable; however, exceeding that limit might result in disproportionate, unexpected, and potentially irreversible effects. Also, the ability of a wetland to withstand a level of diversion may be partly a function of the intrinsic variability of the wetland itself: wetlands that go through marked natural cycles of water inflow may be more resilient than more stable wetlands (since the biota of the former may be better adapted to water shortage). However, given that so little quantitative information concerning ecological impacts has been generated by past irrigation projects, the above considerations are largely speculative.Unfortunately, too few rigorous studies have been performed to determine the levels of withdrawals that may be adequately protective of the environment. Nevertheless, this is the crucial question determining the likelihood of coexistence of ecological resources and irrigated agriculture. Assuming that we can define an acceptable level of impact, how much water can be diverted and used without the risk of unacceptable ecological impacts? This question automatically focuses attention on the resilience of wetland ecosystems (i.e., the ability of wetland systems to resist and recover from a stressor). Resilience will be a function of a number of important site-specific factors, including the type of wetland and its intrinsic robustness, and the existing level of stress (natural and anthropogenic). Unfortunately, while resilience is an important and much-discussed ecological principle, how to measure it has not received enough attention. By failing to monitor the ecological consequences of the implementation of irrigation projects, we have lost an important opportunity to understand the relationships between levels of stress (e.g., water withdrawals) and ecosystem resilience and impacts.Apart from failing to realize the ecological consequences of the scale of diversions (or realizing, but ignoring them), the other main problem that has contributed to impacts is a failure to plan at the level of the watershed or larger scale. Were the effects of the Aswan Dam on the Nile Delta 800 km away or the effects of the Zambezi flows on the marine prawn fishery adequately considered when the potential impacts of the dams were being evaluated? Obviously, the extent of the environmental disaster caused by the Aral Sea scheme came as a surprise to planners who focused at the local or, at best, the regional level.Almost all of the literature reviewed concerned situations in which upstream withdrawals had affected downstream wetlands. However, in some cases, extractions may take place in the wetland itself, to irrigate either surrounding upland areas or other parts of the same wetland (the situation that may pertain in many Southern African dambos). To what extent do these activities have similar effects as upstream extractions? If the water being extracted from the wetland is for irrigation of adjacent uplands, but return flows are large, the impacts may be less severe. And if the water is being shunted around different parts of the wetland (rather than being moved to nonwetland habitats), the consequences may also be less severe. In these situations, a number of important site-specific considerations arise: what is the loss to evaporation of the return flow? To what extent are different parts of the same wetland ecosystem functionally equivalent and does removing (or returning) water to one or more parts preserve the whole wetland ecosystem? Unfortunately we do not yet have information or data that could be used to answer these important questions.In addition to the installation of new dams and irrigation schemes, changing traditional management practices at long-established projects can also result in ecological impacts. Switching from ditch-fed irrigation to concrete channels and metal pipes in the Kanto Plain rice paddies in Japan resulted in population reductions in two species of frogs that depended for their spawning habitat on the traditional, inefficient ditches that helped create pools of standing water during the frog spawning season (Fujioka and Lane 1997).Water withdrawals for irrigation in some cases can act to exacerbate the effects of other stressors on the wetland ecosystems, resulting in effects that exceed those that would be expected from dewatering, alone. Lake Kus in western Turkey is under stress from a growing use of the lake by the local human population. One of these stresses is the increasing pollution of the lake by organic materials. This, in conjunction with dewatering for irrigation, has resulted in the increasing eutrophication of the lake and changes in the aquatic biota toward an assemblage more characteristic of nutrient rich systems (Altinsacli and Griffiths 2001). Wildlife responses to the implementation of irrigation schemes can, in turn, result in stress to wetlands. In and around the Waza National Park in Cameroon, dewatering of the Logone River has resulted in the loss of prime grazing habitat for wildlife. Populations of some ungulates such as reedbuck and kob have been lost or severely reduced. Elephants have responded differently: they have been displaced from their traditional areas, resulting in damage to wetland habitats (and more frequent interactions with farmers) (Tchamba, et al. 1995).Few published examples have been found where water storage for irrigation unambiguously created valuable wetland habitat in the developing countries. This does not mean that such benefits do not occur (see the discussion in Section 2.1 of the bias inherent in focusing only on developing world studies). Water storage tanks in Sri Lanka undoubtedly provide functional and valuable habitat for wetland organisms. Observations over only a few hours at one such tank during December 2000 resulted in 22 species of herons, shorebirds and waterfowl being recorded (Hector Galbraith unpublished data). Tanks elsewhere in Sri Lanka are known to support a similar diversity of wetland birds (Galbraith unpublished data), which matches that found on natural wetlands in Sri Lanka and Asia.While there are few studies of such benefits in the developing countries, data from the developed countries give some indication of types and scope of benefits that may accrue: for example, the rice fields in the Central Valley of California and in Louisiana, USA, provide important habitat for waterbirds and shorebirds (Day and Colwell 1998;Remsen et al. 1991, respectively). The populations of birds that these areas support are likely to be of at least national importance. Similarly in Mediterranean countries, rice agriculture has created internationally important habitat for wading birds (Fasola and Ruiz, 1996). In the UK there are over 500 reservoirs. These provide habitat for birds and other water-associated organisms and are particularly valuable because of the extensive areas of wetland that have been drained. The general importance of these reservoirs for wildlife is indicated by the designation of 174 as Sites of Special Scientific Interest (Moore and Driver 1989). It is likely that such benefits to birds and mammals may be greater in otherwise arid areas, rather than in areas where natural wetlands are more plentiful.By its nature, rice farming is most likely among the various uses to which irrigation water is applied to result in new valuable wetland habitats. The instances cited above lend support to this. However, as yet, these ecological benefits have not been catalogued in any systematic way.The examples in Section 3.1 notwithstanding, not all irrigation schemes have adversely affected associated wetland ecosystems. Examples may include the cultivation of dambos (shallow, channelless, seasonally inundated depressions) in southern Africa, where up to 30 percent of dambo area may be irrigated without obvious adverse ecological impacts (Faulkner and Lambert 1991). However, since this conclusion has not yet been rigorously tested through ecological analysis, this conclusion must remain speculative. Also, Lankford and Franks (2000) argue that coexistence of wetlands and irrigation for rice is possible in at least some parts of Tanzania, providing that the spatial and temporal variability in the water needs of the wetland are understood and accommodated into the agricultural planning. The key in this case is flexibility in being able to change seasonal allocations of water based on flow data; during dry years, a greater proportion of the flow may be allocated to protect wetland core areas. During wet years, irrigation may be increased without jeopardizing the wetland ecosystem. In both cases, adverse impacts are avoided by allocating an adequate amount of water to the wetland and by planning for the entire watershed.A modeling study conducted by De Voogt et al. (2000) predicted that for the important Turkish wetland bird breeding site, Kus Cenneti, irrigated agriculture and wetland ecosystem resources could coexist. Currently the wetland is being adversely affected by low flows due to diversions during the bird breeding season (also the main irrigation period). De Voogt et al. (2000) estimate that the wetlands could be maintained by allocating river water flow to them. This would result in a predicted loss of yield in the agricultural system of a few percent during dry years and no loss in wet years. In this model, the water needs of the wetland were not estimated in great detail. It is possible that if temporal and spatial estimates of nature s demand were studied more closely, the integration of agriculture and wetland values could be made more compatible and the small predicted yield losses reduced even further. Also, the crops that are currently grown in the area are thirsty cotton and grapes. Institutional encouragement to switch to other crop types might make enough water available for both the farmers and the wetlands.Natural factors such as drought may confound the evaluation of the ecological impacts of water withdrawal and use for irrigation. An example is the ecological impact to the Hadejia-Nguru wetland complex in Nigeria (Hollis et al. 1993a;Lemly et al. 2000). The latter study reports declines in the avian populations using the area and implicates water storage schemes as the main cause. However, this area suffered severe droughts during the 1980s and 1990s when precipitation was markedly reduced (Hollis et al. 1993a), after many years of above average rainfall in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. The extent to which these natural events contributed to the waterbird population reductions has not been assessed. In the Logone floodplain in Cameroon (Tchamba et al. 1995) acknowledged that climatic variability and drought played a part in the observed impacts to floodplain habitats and wildlife populations. They estimated that in normal rainfall years the damming and irrigation schemes probably contributed less than 40 percent of the observed impacts. However, in dry years the human use of the water contributed a much larger portion of the observed impacts. Also, Tchamba et al. (1995) point out an important fact that while droughts may come and go, the dewatering schemes are permanent. This, in the long-term, could have more fundamental impacts on the wetland ecosystems than the estimated 40 percent or less on a year-to-year basis.Anthropogenic stressors unrelated to irrigation may also complicate the evaluation of water management and ecological costs and benefits. For example, the barrage schemes on the Zambezi River may well be contributing to reductions in marine prawn harvests. However, no attempt has yet been made to determine the extent to which overfishing is also important. To what extent does overgrazing contribute to the decline in the Hadejia-Nguru wetlands? Any evaluation of the effects of irrigation must, necessarily, include the examination of the contributions by all major stressors. This has important practical applications: if the costs associated with all stressors at a site are additive, perhaps the costs that could, potentially, be incurred by irrigation could be mitigated by lessening the effects of other stressors.Usually, the measurement of impacts or benefits due to irrigation project implementation ends with the project installation. However, one study shows that under some circumstances ecological benefits may accrue in the long term. Masundire (1996) documents initial impacts and long-term consequences of the Kariba Dam (built primarily for hydropower, but it also supplies agricultural needs). The creation of the Kariba Dam was preceded by an intensive effort to capture and relocate wildlife whose home ranges would be inundated by the dam. In this sense, the building of the Kariba Dam was an adverse ecological impact. However, once the area was flooded, it became an important water source for wildlife in an otherwise arid environment. Indeed, so successful has it become in attracting grazing animals and their predators during the dry season that it is now a major site for ecotourism. Thus, the Kariba Dam has been both an ecological cost and a benefit. This illustrates the difficulty in easily assigning cost-benefit scores on the basis of change from pre-impact conditions, without also taking into account the post-impact conditions.One of the main findings of this review has been that despite the multitude of opportunities that have been presented by past irrigation schemes to provide data on activities and ecological effects, the actual data base is extremely limited. The literature that currently exists allows us to determine, at best, that adverse and beneficial effects to wetland ecosystems have occurred due to irrigation and associated activities; however, many of the questions raised in Section 3 of this review cannot be addressed. This is because few detailed and long-term studies of the costs and/or benefits of irrigation schemes have been performed in developing countries. Beyond determining that extracting or diverting too much water is likely to have deleterious effects, most existing studies do not provide information that is detailed enough to allow us to describe cause-effect linkages or to assist in avoiding future mistakes.Important questions that remain unanswered include:• What environmental factors affect how much water can be withdrawn for human use without unacceptable adverse ecological impacts being incurred (see Section 4.1)?• What environmental cues (indicators) may tell us whether or not we are stressing the wetland-watershed system to the extent that significant costs may be incurred?• In drought-prone areas, how could water resources planning be integrated with the protection of wetland ecosystems?• While existing schemes may have caused adverse ecological impacts during their implementation, what benefits (see the Kariba Dam illustration in Section 4.2) have accrued since then, i.e., in the long term?• How can we ensure that small is beautiful? Specifically, in localized and small-scale systems such as dambos we have an opportunity to merge ecological and agricultural functions. How do we do so?• Existing data show that rice irrigation may also provide opportunities to conserve (or create) important ecological attributes. What tools and approaches can be developed that will facilitate this?The implementation of existing irrigation projects could have provided important data to address the above questions. Yet, unfortunately, they did not do so. The reasons for this lack of follow-up are interesting as the following quote by White (1988) illustrates:To my knowledge there has not yet been a thorough, comprehensive post-audit of any major water project.Any such effort is impeded by factors that work in combination to discourage comprehensive study. Public criticism ... tends to narrow or muffle the study of impacts by proponents. Once the project is completed, critics lack incentives for study ... they have lost the battle and have little interest in learning that any attacks were unfounded. Proponents tend to look only for vindication ... The only way in which we can redress this balance and fill important data needs is to treat future irrigation schemes as natural experiments that should be studied from before implementation to completion and beyond to gather data that will help us determine cause-effect relationships. Also, existing schemes should be revisited in a case-study approach to fill in some of the information gaps that should have been addressed during project planning and implementation. The IWMI proposed Comprehensive Assessment (in particular, using case studies to develop the Knowledge Base component) provides us with an opportunity to answer some of the important questions that the existing literature cannot address and begin to move forward toward more effective planning and implementation of irrigation schemes.Ø Area of natural lakes in Syr Dar ya delta decreased from 500 km 2 to few tens of km 2  and 11 out of 25 largest natural lakes in Amu Dar ya delta dried up.Ø Area of riparian Tugay forest in Amu Dar ya delta reduced by about 50 percent as depth to watertable increased by 3 8 meters.Morimoto, Y., Morimura, A.;Ogar, N. 1997 Ø Prior to water diversions, an important fishery for sturgeon, carp, and bream existed, over 1 million musk rat pelts were taken annually, reeds provided raw materials for building and cardboard/paper manufacture, and Tugay riparian forest provided year-round grazing.Ø Before 1960s agriculture was local in scale and confined to river valleys where moisture was abundant. This may have resulted in local loss of wetland habitat but not great reduction in water going into the Aral Sea.Ø Reed-swamps that once covered 700,000 ha are now confined to about 30,000 ha close to man-made lakes.Ø Withdrawal canals may be creating new wetlands (e.g., Karakum and Bolshoy Andizhansk Canals). However, these may be highly salinized.Penvenne, L.J. 1996. Disappearing delta. American Scientist. 84:438 439.Ø Decreased sediment deposition is leading to erosion of the Nile Delta wetlands.Ø Reduced sediment loads due to High Dam and trapping of sediments in delta irrigation canals.Ø Irrigation of delta is causing eutrophication and contamination of wetlands.Ramsar, 1991. Ramsar advisory missions: Report No. 26, Egypt. Lakes Bardawil and Burullus. http://ramsar.org/ram_pt_26e.htm.Ø Both sites are designated as of international importance by Ramsar.Ø Highly important for migratory bird populations (most of which breed in Europe).Ø Sedimentation and closing off of channels connecting wetlands to sea is resulting in drying up of wetlands.Ø Heavy fertilizer and pesticide loads are now entering wetlands associated with the two lakes.Ø Effects on bird populations or wetland habitats are unclear as yet.White, G.F. 1988. The environmental effects of the High Dam at Aswan. Environment 30:5 40.Ø After closure, fish species diversity downstream of dam decreased from approximately 47 species to 14 25 species.Adams, W.M. 1993. The wetlands and conservation. In: The Hadejia-Nguru Wetlands: environment, economy and sustainable development of a Sahelian floodplain wetland, G.E. Hollis,; W.M. Adams: M. Aminu-Kano (eds). Glanz, Switzerland. IUCN.Ø Baturia wetland reserve within the Hadejia-Nguru wetland complex is being impacted by reduced seasonal flooding due to drought and water storage schemes.Ø Vegetation (trees and shrubs) is showing signs of water stress.Ø No evidence is presented that any additional ecological injury being inflicted. Ø Prior to the construction of the dam 300-2,000 km 2 was flooded in the wet season.Ø Highly important for migratory birds 320,000 numbers in 1997.Ø Fifth most important wetland site for Palearctic migrant birds.Ø Tiga Dam completed in 1974. Supplies water to Kano River Irrigation Project (14,000 irrigated ha). Hadejia Valley Project barrier under construction will irrigate 8,000 ha.Ø Flooding to wetlands already reduced by 17 percent.Ø Seasonally flooded wetlands drying up (e.g., Baturai Wetland Reserve) and depth to groundwater increasing.Ø Waterbird diversity and numbers falling, particularly cranes, storks and pelicans. No attempt made to distinguish between effects of recent droughts and water storage.Ø Plans for the new dam at Kafin Zaki may reduce flows by a further 50 percent.Masundire, H. 1996. The effects of Kariba Dam and its management on the people and ecology of the Zambezi River. In: Water Management and Wetlands in Sub-Saharan Africa, M.C Acreman; G.E. Hollis (eds). Glanz, Switzerland: IUCN-World Conservation Union.Ø Populations of large wildlife species were displaced by flooding of their ranges during the construction of the Kariba Dam.Ø The dam subsequently became an important water source for wildlife.Ø The wildlife attracted to the dam in the dry season is the basis for a local ecotourism industry.Scoones, I. 1991. Wetlands in drylands: Key resources for agriculture and pastoral production in Africa. Ambio 20:366 371.Ø Valley bottom wetlands (fadamas, dambos, bas fonds, and wadis) comprise 5 10 percent of the land in the African savanna.Ø Provide opportunities in arid areas to diversify crops, increase yields, and complement dryland farming.Ø Typical management involves building small dams at head waters, berms and raised beds further down to manage water flow.Ø Ecological costs of irrigation in these areas are uncertain needs to be studied more effectively at the catchment level.Meynell, P.J. Water diversion schemes from the Indus are among the largest such diversions in the world. Total irrigated area covers 12 million hectares. Of total annual inflow of 180 billion m 3 , 129 billion is diverted for agriculture. In dry years virtually no water reaches the delta. The delta supported highly important ecological resources including 260,000 ha of mangrove forests. Through dewatering and sediment trapping, the diversions upstream have had the following effects on the mangroves: Ø Erosion of the delta and loss of mangroves to the sea.Ø Replacement of mangroves by salt-tolerant species.Ø Reduction in area of mangroves from 260,000 to 160,000 ha.2) Chowilla Floodplain.Ø Ramsar site.Ø Seventeen thousand seven-hundred hectares in extent.Ø Dependent on water flows from the upstream.Ø Diversions for agriculture have reduced flows to wetland by >50 percent.Ø The area flooded has been reduced from 33 percent of the site to 5 percent.Ø Salinity has increased killing trees in some areas.Ø Biomass and abundance of aquatic invertebrates (e.g., 18 gastropod species) have declined.Ø Native fish populations also have declined (no data cited).3) Gwyder Wetlands Ø Proposed for Ramsar designation.Ø Twenty-four thousand hectares in extent.Ø Dependent on water flows from the upstream.Ø Mainly sedge/rush swamp.Ø Fifty-five percent of inflow diverted for irrigated agriculture (mainly cotton).Ø Cover by hydrophytic vegetation has decreased by 66 percent (converted to upland plant communities).Ø Ramsar site.Ø One-hundred and thirty thousand hectares in extent.Ø Dependent on the flow from the upstream.Ø The most important wetland site for waterbirds in Australia.Ø The dams were installed beginning in the 1960s.Ø Seventy percent of the flow was regulated for agriculture (mainly cotton).Ø Flow reaching wetlands reduced by 60 percent.Ø Marshes have shrunk by 50 60 percent.Ø Abundance and species richness of waterbirds has been reduced. Smaller colony sizes and less frequent breeding.Ø Hydrophytic woodlands area reduced by 14 percent. Water diversions to supply large-scale irrigation schemes upriver have led to the following ecological effects downstream:Ø Transformation of floodplain grasslands hitherto dominated by perennial species to communities dominated by annuals. This has meant loss of important grazing habitat for domestic livestock and for wildlife.Ø Population reductions in many ungulate species including reedbuck and kob.Ø Displacement of elephants into suboptimal habitat.Ø An increased frequency of negative human-elephant interactions.Ø Major reductions in fish populations and declines in fish catches. Ø Coexistence of rice irrigation and wetlands is feasible if the temporal and spatial dynamics of the wetland flows are acknowledged and irrigation planning accommodates them.Ø In wet years there is water for both uses. In dry years enough water must be allowed to reach wetlands to maintain core areas irrigation may have to be cut back in dry years.Remsen, J.V.; Swan, M.M.; Cardiff, S.W.; Rosenberg, K.V. 1991. The importance of the ricegrowing areas of south-central Louisiana to winter populations of shorebirds, raptors, waders and other birds. Journal of Louisiana Ornithoogy. 1:37 47.","tokenCount":"6910"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"34c707436c9a39811a3403dfab3077d2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/24aaab70-9722-4e55-9203-0cfb67978738/retrieve","id":"1732413274"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f71f7fe9-5cd4-4653-9cff-11aafce36116","pagecount":"9","content":"Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above. The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used.The Epi in the Mara epidemiology workshop took place from 10 to 21 November 2014 at the Governor's Camp in Maasai Mara, Kenya. This was a follow-on from the Epi on Safari workshop that was held from 24 April to 3 May 2013 in Nyeri, Kenya.The Epi in the Mara workshop was targeted at postdoctoral scientists and researchers from the Food Safety and Zoonoses program of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The workshop was led by Prof Ian Dohoo, professor emeritus from the University of Prince Edward Island, Canada.The agenda of the workshop is provided in Annex 1 and the list of participants in Annex 2.The main objective of the workshop was to strengthen the capacity of the participants to effectively carry out epidemiology research at ILRI. The other objective was to provide a forum for the participants to present and discuss their draft manuscripts and datasets, through a guided peer review process, to improve and make the manuscripts suitable for publication.Lecturer: Prof Ian DohooThe workshop was divided into the following three major themes:1. Multilevel modelling: This was a mixture of lectures and labs with 'assigned' data plus some time for participants to work on their own data with presentations of analyses and challenges from these data on the second-last day. 2. Confounding_Bias_Missing Data: This was a mixture of lectures and labs with 'assigned' data 3. Participant Co-pilot Presentations: Each participant was assigned a 'co-pilot' to review the participant's draft manuscript and work with the participant to maximize the feedback obtained from the discussion following the presentation of the study.The reference text for the workshop was Veterinary Epidemiologic Research (2009), Second Edition (http://www.upei.ca/ver).The main software programs used during the course were: Stata (including the -gllamm-and -episens-packages)  MLwiN (http://www.cmm.bristol.ac.uk/MLwiN/), specialized software for multilevel modelling  Spreadsheets (MS Excel or Open Office Calc)There was no instruction in R but, where possible, attempts were made to provide R code for most of the exercises.The participants prepared the following materials in advance of the workshop: a draft manuscript (or a detailed outline of their projects)  a presentation about their projects, highlighting any challenges faced (and overcome) or still being faced  a one-page description of their data (data with a multilevel structure were described using the template shown in Annex 3) the dataset to be used during the training Prof Dohoo had earlier provided the following suggestions to assist the participant to prepare their datasets:(a) One record per observation at the lowest level of the hierarchy (e.g. if the dataset contained data from lactations within cows within herds, the dataset should have one record per lactation) (b) Make sure that each observation is uniquely identified (e.g. herd id, cow id and lactation number) ","tokenCount":"493"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"562e35d41161746ae2f719c1d002e34e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/43af46ae-4708-4c58-ba73-41b8310247f0/retrieve","id":"-455185431"},"keywords":["Sweet potato silage","Gas production","Pig faecal inoculum"],"sieverID":"56e994fb-d2f8-4139-b00d-80b235f51d18","pagecount":"3","content":"Vine, tuber and whole plant silages from five cultivars of sweet potato (Hapur local, Indonesia Boger (IB) 97-6/7, IB 12/24, IB 12/7 and CIP SWA-4) were investigated for nitrogen content, in vitro digestibility and metabolizable energy content and rate and extent of in vitro gas production using fresh pig faecal matter as inoculum (1 part faeces: 50 part buffer). Except for nitrogen content, significant cultivars dependent differences were only observed for total plant silages (TPS) but not for vines and tuber silages. In total plant silages nitrogen content, in vitro digestibility and metabolizable energy content ranged from 1.0 to 1.5%, 63.4 to 71.3% and 9.3 to 10.7%, respectively. Highest and lowest extent of in vitro gas production from TPS were 63.8 ml/200 mg DM and 56.3 ml/200 mg DM respectively. No significant differences were observed for rate of in vitro gas production from TPS, however rates of gas production from tubers and vines differed significantly between cultivars.Sweet potato is widely used as a food -feed crop that supplies food for human consumption and fodder for the livestock. Silages made from vines, tubers and whole plants of improved cultivars contributed substantially to increased productivity in pig systems in Asia (Pezo, 2004;Fuglie et al. 2005). Pigs are monogastric animals and use of sweet potato silage will occur at least partially through microbial fermentation in the hindgut. These microbes are still intact in fresh faecal matter and can potentially be used to inoculate in vitro systems for estimating for example fodder digestibility, metabolizability and rate and extent of fermentation. The objective of the present work was to test an in vitro system inoculated by fresh pig faecal matter using silages prepared from vines, tubers and whole plant of five different cultivars of sweet potato. This in vitro system could then support further improvement of sweet potato for food-feed traits in plant breeding programs.Fresh faecal matter was collected from five male crossbred pigs (c. 35 kg live weight) kept on a diet containing sweet potato. The vitro gas production systems of Menke and Steingass (1988) was used for the incubations and also for the calculation of in vitro digestibility and metabolizable energy content from in vitro gas production. The adoption of this in vitro system to using faecal inoculum instead of rumen fluid has been described by Pandian (2003). In vitro gas production was recorded from 0 to 96h and extent and rate of gas production was described based on the exponential model y = B (1-e -c(t-lag) ) where B is the asymptote of gas production, c the rate of gas production and lag a delay in the onset of fermentation.Except for nitrogen content and rate of in vitro gas production, silage fodder quality traits did not significantly differ in vines and tubers of the five cultivars (Table 1 and 2). In vitro digestibility, metabolizable energy and in vitro gas production measurements showed higher fodder quality for tubers than for vines, however nitrogen content was higher in the vines than in the tubers. Except for nitrogen content cultivars differences in fodder quality traits was essentially due to differences in vine to tuber proportions. The observed variation in fodder quality traits was appreciative for whole plant silage and nitrogen content, in vitro digestibility and metabolizable energy content ranged from 1.0 to 1.5%, 63.4 to 71.3% and 9.3 to 10.7%, respectively. Some cautions is advised as in vitro digestibility and metabolizable energy estimates were based on equations that uses in vitro gas production in rumen fluid and various chemical constituents such as nitrogen and ash. (Menke and Steingass, 1988). Exact values for digestibility or metabolizable energy content of the silages for pig nutrition will therefore differ from the ones reported in Table 1 and 2, but the ranges reported hold probably true. Ramakrishna et al. (2006) reported the biomass yield of the silages used for the present work. A comparison of the whole plant biomass dry matter yield with the silage quality data reported in this work (Table 1 and 2) showed that there was no significant relationship between silage quality traits and sweet potato biomass yield. These findings suggest that high biomass yield and high biomass quality are not necessarily exclusive traits. It should therefore be feasible to further improve quantity and quality traits in sweet potato breeding and selection programs. The in vitro technique tested here will be useful in such breeding and selection work. ","tokenCount":"732"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"43347c369349b6d8c6463cd3af382603","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/0fb2221a-e200-441c-b38e-98a5526f2ea8/content","id":"-1153957592"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"01bd180d-a58f-4355-97be-33a4125f7c96","pagecount":"8","content":"Calidad industrial de trigos harineros mexicanos para temporal. II. Variabilidad genética y criterios de selecciónThe genetic variability and heritability of quality-related parameters and the selection criteria for bread making quality useful for breeding of mexican rainfed bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), were determined in a set of 15 genotypes representing diverse breadmaking quality. The evaluation was done in 11 locations which represent the environmental variability of rainfed wheat-producing area of Mexican highlands. It was found that quality traits: test weight, grain and flour protein, bread loaf volume, kernel texture, and sedimentation volume (gluten strength-related parameter), showed a very low genetic variability. Gluten extensibility (alveographs-P/L and P/G) and enzymatic activity associated with grain preharvest germination, showed intermediate genetic variability. Gluten strength (Al-veograph-W) and dough mixing time showed the highest levels of genetic variability. Alveograph-W, mixing time, sedimentation volume and kernel texture showed the highest heritability values. Alveograph-W, mixing time, sedimentation volume, alveograph-P/L and alveograph-P/G, showed a positive and significative association with bread volume. Considering genetic variability and heritability, the former variables are adequate for indirect selection for improving bread-making quality. Index words: Triticum aestivum L., genetic variance, heritability, genetic variation coefficient, Pearson´s correlations, bread making quality, gluten strength.La superficie de trigo harinero (Triticum aestivum L.) de riego en México se ha reducido drásticamente debido principalmente a la escasez de agua y a la reconversión hacia cultivos más rentables y de exportación. Esto ha contribuido a que la industria recurra a la importación de trigo para suplir la demanda nacional. La siembra de trigo de temporal o de secano en México es una posibilidad para reducir el déficit que actualmente tiene el país, ya que hay alrededor de un millón de hectáreas de temporal donde el trigo es una opción viable. Un factor que ha impedido incrementar las siembras de trigo en temporal, es que los productores frecuentemente enfrentan problemas para comercializar el grano, porque la industria molinera prefiere importar trigo del mercado internacional, con el argumento de que los trigos mexicanos no poseen la calidad de panificación requerida (Villaseñor et al., 2000).La calidad industrial del trigo se caracteriza mediante el análisis de parámetros físicos, químicos y reológicos relacionados con la calidad molinera y de panificación. El análisis físico incluye rendimiento harinero, textura de grano y peso hectolítrico; el análisis químico incluye al contenido de proteína en grano y harina, volumen de sedimentación y actividad enzimática (alfa-amilasa) asociada con germinación en la espiga, las cuales están relacionadas directamente con la calidad panadera (Finney et al., 1987;Seleny, 1988;Peña et al., 2002;Souza et al., 2002). El análisis reológico de la masa incluye características como fuerza de gluten (alveograma-W), extensibilidad de gluten (alveogramas-P/L y P/G), propiedades de amasado (tiempo de amasado y tolerancia al amasado en el mixógrafo), entre otras, porque están relacionadas con las propiedades viscoelásticas de la masa que determinan las propiedades de panificación de la misma (Chen y D´Appolonia, 1985;Finney, 1989;Wooding y Walker, 1992;Peña et al., 2002;Souza et al., 2002). En la prueba de panificación se miden aspectos como volumen de pan y estructura y apariencia de la miga, variables importantes en la caracterización de la calidad panadera de un trigo (Hoseney, 1994;Qarooni, 1996).El conocimiento de la variabilidad genética utilizada en programas de fitomejoramiento, es de primordial importancia para el establecimiento de estrategias de selección. Dicha variabilidad se expresa con varianzas fenotípica y genotípica; sin embargo, el coeficiente de variación genética es el mejor parámetro para tal propósito (Ehdaie y Waines, 1989). Peterson et al. (1992) registraron valores de varianzas genéticas de: 998 para proteína en la harina, de 2.2 para tiempo de amasado, 24.3 para volumen de sedimentación y 0.11 para dureza de grano. Por su parte, Graybosch et al. (1996) encontraron varianzas de 2107 para proteína en la harina y 275 para volumen de sedimentación, mientras que Espitia-Rangel et al. (1999a, b) reportan varianzas de 0.01 a 0.02 para peso hectolítrico, de 1.2 a 5.1 para proteína en la harina y de 0.003 a 0.008 para tiempo de amasado.La heredabilidad es un parámetro genético que determina si las diferencias entre individuos se deben a diferencias genéticas entre éstos ó a diferentes respuestas a los factores ambientales. Los valores de heredabilidad varían ampliamente para proteína en harina, proteína en grano, peso hectolítrico y volumen de sedimentación (0.30 a 0.40, 0.30 a 0.60, 0.12 a 0.44 y 0.19 a 0.56, respectivamente), pero son altos y consistentes (0.75 a 0.83) para textura de grano (Loffler et al., 1983;O'Brien et al., 1989;Fenn et al., 1994;Peterson et al., 1998).Las relaciones existentes entre parámetros de calidad son relevantes para el fitomejoramiento, sobre todo cuando la selección está dirigida al mejoramiento simultáneo de varios factores, o al manejo de caracteres de difícil cuantificación o de baja heredabilidad. Por ejemplo, se han detectado asociaciones entre volumen de pan y proteína en el grano, proteína en harina, volumen de sedimentación, tiempo de amasado y alveograma-W (Trethowan et al., 2001); entre el peso hectolítrico y alveograma-P/L, alveograma-W y volumen de sedimentación (Gupta et al., 1992;Peterson et al., 1992;Graybosch et al., 1996); y entre la textura del grano y peso hectolítrico, alveograma-P/L, alveograma-W y volumen de sedimentación. De igual forma, las características reológicas como alveograma-P/L han resultado asociadas positivamente con tiempo de amasado, alveograma-W y volumen de sedimentación (Peterson et al., 1992;Graybosch et al., 1996).Con respecto a las características físicas, químicas, reológicas y de calidad panadera de trigos harineros mexicanos para temporal, poco se conoce de los efectos genéticos y ambientales sobre la variabilidad en caracteres de calidad, así como de las asociaciones entre parámetros de calidad bajo condiciones ambientales diversas. Con el propósito de generar el conocimiento necesario para hacer más eficiente el mejoramiento de la calidad de trigo en el Altiplano Central de México, el presente trabajo tiene como objetivo determinar la variabilidad genética, la heredabilidad, la asociación entre caracteres y los criterios de selección para diferentes parámetros de calidad industrial de trigos harineros mexicanos para temporal.Loss 15 genotipos de trigo de temporal usados representan la diversidad genética del germoplasma utilizado en la región objetivo, e incluyeron cuatro variedades recientemente liberadas: Juchi F2000, Náhuatl F2000, Tlaxcala F2000 y Rebeca F2000; cuatro variedades testigo Gálvez M87, Temporalera M87, Batán F96 y Romoga F96; cuatro líneas avanzadas del programa de trigo de temporal; y las variedades Zacatecas VT74, Arandas F90 y Pavón F76 que han sido utilizadas ampliamente para siembras de temporal. Se sembraron en el ciclo primavera-verano de 1999 en once localidades de temporal: Juchitepec, Tecamac y Coatepec en el estado de México; Nanacamilapa y Apizaco en Tlaxcala; Santiago Tillo en Oaxaca; Jesús María en Jalisco; Cuyuaco en Puebla; Roque en Guanajuato; Buenavista en Morelos y Amealco en Querétaro. Este conjunto de localidades representa la diversidad ambiental de las regiones mexicanas de trigo de temporal.Los genotipos se distribuyeron en un diseño de bloques completos al azar con dos repeticiones. La parcela experimental consistió de cuatro surcos de 4 m de largo separados a 30 cm. Las siembras se realizaron de acuerdo con las recomendaciones del Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales Agrícolas y Pecuarias para cada región. Las parcelas experimentales fueron cosechadas para determinar el rendimiento, en kg ha -1 . Los análisis de calidad fueron realizados en el Laboratorio de Calidad de Trigo del Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (CIMMYT).El análisis físico del grano consistió en la evaluación de peso hectolítrico (kg HL -1 ) determinado en una muestra de 500 mL con una balanza volumétrica (Seedburo Equipment Co., Chicago IL.), y la textura del grano (índice de dureza, %) determinada con un analizador por reflectancia en el espectro infrarrojo cercano (NIR, por sus siglas en inglés) Infralyzer 300 (Technicon, N. Y.) calibrado (método 39-70A; AACC, 1995) con base en el índice de tamaño de partícula (método 55-30; AACC, 1995), en el cual una mayor proporción (%) de partículas finas presentes en una muestra de harina integral indica mayor suavidad del grano.La harina refinada se obtuvo de muestras de grano acondicionado a 14 % de humedad, con reposo de 24 a 36 h previo a la molienda, la cual fue efectuada en un molino Brabender Quadrumat Sr. (Brabender, Alemania) El análisis químico consistió en la determinación del contenido de proteína en el grano y en la harina, del volumen de sedimentación (parámetro relacionado con la fuerza de gluten) y la actividad enzimática (alfa-amilasa) asociada con la germinación en espiga. El contenido de proteína (g kg -1 ) en grano y en harina se midió con el analizador NIR Infralyzer 300 (método 39-10; AACC, 1995). La actividad enzimática se determinó indirectamente por el método viscosimétrico de índice de caída (FN, por sus siglas en inglés) con un aparato Falling Number AB 1400 (Falling Number, Suecia) en una muestra de 7 g de harina con 14 % de humedad (método 56-81B; AACC, 1995). El volumen de sedimentación (mL) se determinó en una muestra de 1 g de harina a la que se agregó dodecil sulfato de sodio (SDS, por sus siglas en inglés) de acuerdo con el procedimiento descrito por Peña et al. (1990), en el que a mayor volumen mayor es la fuerza de gluten.El análisis reológico consistió en la determinación de variables de fuerza de gluten (alveograma-W), extensibilidad de gluten (alveogramas-P/L y P/G) y tiempo de amasado en el mixógrafo. Las variables alveográficas W, P/L y P/G se obtuvieron con un Alveógrafo de Chopin (Trippette & Renaud, Paris, Francia) en una muestra de 50 g de harina, de acuerdo con el método 54-30 de la AACC (AACC, 1995), utilizando el criterio de consistencia constante (absorción variable, 50-57.5 %) y ajustando el tiempo de mezclado (7-9 min) hasta obtener una masa tersa. El alveograma-W es un medida de la fuerza de la masa (10 -4 J) en el que a mayor valor de W, mayor es la fuerza de gluten. Los alveogramas-P/L y P/G son la relación entre la altura y longitud del alveograma y entre la altura y el índice de expansión, respectivamente, e indican la extensibilidad del gluten. A menores valores de P/L y P/G, mayor extensibilidad del gluten. El tiempo de desarrollo de la masa (Tiempo de amasado, min) se determinó en un mixógrafo (National Manufactiring Co., Lincoln, NE.), en una muestra de 35 g de harina a 14 % de humedad, y absorción de agua variable, de acuerdo con el contenido de proteína en la harina (método 54-40; AACC, 1995), de modo de que a mayor tiempo de amasado mayor es la fuerza de gluten. La calidad panadera (representada por el volumen de pan, mL) se evaluó en 100 g de harina a 14 % de humedad, mediante el método de panificación de masa directa (método 10-09; AACC, 1995); el volumen de pan se determinó por desplazamiento de semilla de colza (Brassica sp.).Previo al análisis estadístico de los datos porcentuales de textura de grano, se realizó una transformación logarítmica. Ambientes y genotipos se consideraron como factores aleatorios. Los componentes de varianza para cada una de las fuentes de variación se estimaron mediante el procedimiento VARCOMP del SAS (SAS, 1994). En el Cuadro 1 se presenta la estructura del análisis de varianza y esperanzas de cuadrados medios.Cuadro 1. Estructura del análisis de varianza combinado y esperanzas de cuadrados medios de 15 genotipos de trigo en 11 ambientes de temporal. Primavera-Verano 1999.Rep(A) a(r-1) SCr(a)Genotipo (G) (g-1) SCg CMg σ 2 e + r σ 2 ag + ra σ 2 g G x A (g-1)(r-1) SCag CMag σ 2 e + r σ 2 ag Error a(g-1)(r-1) SCe CMe σ 2 e Total arg-1 FV, G L, SC, CM y ECM, son fuentes de variación, grados de libertad, suma de cuadrados, cuadrados medios y esperanzas de cuadrados medios, respectivamente σ 2 g, 2 ga y 2 e, son componentes de varianza de genotipos, genotipos por ambientes y error, respectivamente Los componentes de varianza se calcularon al igualar la esperanza matemática de los cuadrados medios con los estimadores de éstos en el análisis de varianza. El coeficiente de variación genética (CVG) de todas la variables, se calculó al dividir la desviación estándar genética entre la media (CVG < 20 = variabilidad genética alta; CVG=12 a 20 = variabilidad genética intermedia; CVG > 10 = variabilidad genética baja). La heredabilidad se estimó al dividir la varianza genética entre la varianza fenotípica. Las correlaciones de Pearson se obtuvieron con el procedimiento CORR del SAS (SAS, 1994).La varianza entre genotipos fue la principal fuente de variación para peso hectolítrico, textura de grano, proteína en la harina, volumen de sedimentación, alveograma-W, tiempo de amasado y volumen de pan mientras que los efectos de interacción genotipo x ambiente fueron los más importantes para actividad enzimática, alveogramas-P/G y P/L (Cuadro 2). Los efectos de localidades, genotipos y su interacción fueron significativos para todas las variables estudiadas (datos no mostrados). En actividad enzimática, alveogramas-P/G y P/L y rendimiento de grano, el efecto genético fue similar al efecto de la interacción genotipo x ambiente. En la textura de grano, volumen de sedimentación, alveograma-W y tiempo de amasado, la varianza genética correspondió a más de 54 % del valor de la varianza fenotípica, lo que muestra que los efectos genéticos son importantes en estas variables.Cuadro 2. Componentes de varianza estimados para 11 variables de calidad y rendimiento de 15 genotipos de trigo en once ambientes de temporal. Primavera-Verano 1999. Los coeficientes de variación genética más altos correspondieron a las variables reológicas alveograma-W y tiempo de amasado (Cuadro 3), las cuales presentaron una amplitud de 763 x 10 -4 J y de 4.5 min, respectivamente. La amplitud de la variación del tiempo de amasado fue mayor a la observada (2.5 min) por Peterson et al. (1992) para trigo rojo de invierno cultivado en condiciones de temporal errático. Esto sugiere que es necesario aplicar selección para reducir la amplia variabilidad en tiempo de amasado que ocurre en condiciones de temporal. Los coeficientes de variación genética para alveogramas-P/G y P/L y actividad enzimática fueron intermedios (Cuadro 3), pero todavía permiten efectuar selección. La amplitud de la variación para alveograma-P/G (1.4 a 8.2) y alveograma-P/L (0.3 a 2.2) y sus medias de 3.8 y 0.8, respectivamente, indican que los trigos mexicanos para temporal presentan buena extensibilidad para panificación, comparable a la de trigos duros de primavera cultivados en condiciones variables de temporal (Addo et al., 1990). La actividad enzimática varió de 72 a 700 s, con una media de 560 s, valores que indican que los trigos mexicanos de temporal presentan buena tolerancia a la germinación en espiga. Los coeficientes de variación genética más bajos (2 a 10.7) correspondieron a volumen de sedimentación, rendimiento de grano, textura de grano, volumen de pan, proteína en grano y en harina y peso hectolítrico; es decir, estos trigos mexicanos de temporal poseen una reducida variación genética para rendimiento de grano, acumulación de proteína y textura de grano.Las heredabilidades más altas correspondieron a alveograma-W (0.70), tiempo de amasado (0.64), textura de grano (0.54) y volumen de sedimentación (0.54) (Cuadro 3), lo cual sugiere que estos caracteres pueden ser mejorados más fácilmente porque la variación observada en estas variables se debe principalmente a efectos genéticos. En contraste, rendimiento de grano, peso hectolítrico, actividad enzimática, proteína en grano y harina, alveogramas-P/G y P/L y volumen de pan, tuvieron heredabilidades bajas (< 0.50), que indican una mayor dificultad de su mejoramiento al tener influencia considerable de la interacción genotipo x ambiente. Los valores de heredabilidad encontrados en este estudio concuerdan con los reportados anteriormente para caracteres de calidad de trigos rojos de invierno (Loffler et al., 1983) y trigos australianos de primavera (O'Brien et al., 1989).El volumen de pan presentó las correlaciones más altas con proteína en grano y en harina, y con los alveogramas-W y P/L (Cuadro 4), similar a lo observado por Trethowan et al. (2001) en trigos cultivados con riego. Esto indica que tanto en condiciones de temporal como en riego, la calidad panadera está determinada principalmente por la cantidad y la calidad de la proteína del gluten. Aunque significativa, la relación entre volumen de pan y tiempo de amasado fue baja. Por otro lado, el tiempo de amasado tuvo una correlación relativamente alta con alveograma-W, pero baja con los alveogramas-P/G y P/L (Cuadro 4); por tanto, el tiempo de amasado está influenciado principalmente por la fuerza del gluten y no por su extensibilidad. Entonces, el tiempo de amasado por sí solo no es una variable suficientemente efectiva para seleccionar por calidad panadera.Alveograma-W presentó la correlación más alta con el volumen de pan, y también presentó asociación positiva con tiempo de amasado, proteína en grano y en harina, volumen de sedimentación, y actividad anzimática. Esto confirma los resultados reportados por Bettge et al. (1989) y Addo et al. (1990). El volumen de sedimentación presentó asociación positiva con proteína en grano y harina, mientras que su asociación con los alveogramas-P/G y P/L fue negativa. Resultados similares han sido reportados anteriormente (Peterson et al., 1992;Graybosch et al., 1996). El tiempo de amasado presentó una relación positiva con alveograma-W, mientras que su asociación con los alveogramas-P/G y P/L y con volumen de pan su asociación fue relativamente baja, lo cual coincide con resultados reportados anteriormente (Bettge et al., 1989;Addo et al., 1990;Peterson et al., 1992).Las variables alveograma-P/L y P/G, que expresan la extensibilidad de una masa, estuvieron asociadas negativamente con volumen de pan, con proteína en grano y harina, y con volumen de sedimentación.La proteína en grano y harina presentaron una relación positiva con volumen de pan, volumen de sedimentación y alveograma-W. Peso hectolítrico, textura de grano y actividad enzimática no mostraron asociación significativa con el volumen de pan como era de esperarse pues estas variables están relacionadas más bien con la calidad molinera del trigo. Estos resultados confirman lo encontrado anteriormente (Bettge et al., 1989;Addo et al., 1990;Peterson et al., 1992).La respuesta a la selección dependerá de la variabilidad genética, la heredabilidad y a la asociación del carácter de interés con otras variables. Si se quiere mejorar la calidad molinera (rendimiento harinero) de los trigos mexicanos cultivados en temporal, se tendrá que seleccionar hacia valores más altos de peso hectolítrico, el cual depende de la forma, tamaño y llenado del grano (Seleny, 1988). Pero la reducida variabilidad genética detectada para peso hectolítrico en los trigos mexicanos de temporal sugiere la necesidad de introducir germoplasma que permita mejorar este parámetro de calidad. Es necesario seleccionar trigos con tolerancia a la germinación en espiga, sobre todo en regiones temporaleras (de secano) donde las lluvias coinciden con la madurez del grano. Es importante también seleccionar para obtener grano de endospermo duro a semiduro, ya que mayor dureza resulta en niveles relativamente altos de almidón dañado durante la molienda, lo cual incrementa la absorción de agua de la harina. La proteína en el grano es frecuentemente considerada en la comercialización de trigo; los trigos mexicanos de temporal incluidos en este estudio mostraron poca variabilidad y una baja heredabilidad para este carácter, por lo que se deberá introducir germoplasma que posea, además de las características ya mencionadas, mayor eficiencia en la utilización de nitrógeno disponible y mayor habilidad para acumular proteína en el grano.En los trigos mexicanos cultivados en temporal, la variabilidad genética y la heredabilidad para volumen de pan, presentaron valores bajos por lo que se deberá introducir variabilidad para este carácter. En cambio, los caracteres como proteína en grano, proteína en harina, alveogramas-P/L y W, volumen de sedimentación, alveograma-P/G y tiempo de amasado, además de estar asociadas con volumen de pan, presentaron mayor variabilidad genética y heredabilidad que el volumen del pan, por lo que es posible utilizar tales caracteres como criterios para la selección indirecta del mismo. La variabilidad genética de los trigos temporaleros mexicanos es baja para las variables de calidad como peso hectolítrico, proteína en grano, proteína en la harina, volumen de pan, textura de grano, rendimiento de grano y volumen de sedimentación. En variables como alveograma-P/L, actividad enzimática (tolerancia a la germinación en la espiga) y alveograma-P/G, la variabilidad genética es baja pero aceptable; mientras que para alveograma-W y tiempo de amasado la variabilidad genética es alta. Las variables alveograma-W, tiempo de amasado, volumen de sedimentación y textura de grano presentaron los valores más altos de heredabilidad. Las variables alveograma-W, tiempo de amasado, volumen de sedimentación, proteína en grano, proteína en la harina y alveograma-P/G presentaron asociación positiva y significativa con volumen de pan, lo que aunado con sus altos valores de variabilidad genética y heredabilidad, las hace las variables más adecuadas para la selección indirecta del volumen de pan.Los autores agradecen al CONACYT (Proyectos: I29928B y 34718-B) y Alianza para el Campo del estado de México (Proyecto: 3553) el financiamiento otorgado para la realización de la presente investigación.","tokenCount":"3424"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4dd377b4c929189b46774575d64034e8","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ef752aba-8427-4e5d-a40c-d6f05dcd0d54/retrieve","id":"1494524602"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"3f10c9fc-2d89-4f1e-b85a-6e0def0cb0b6","pagecount":"25","content":"AOOut 300 million famers in the tropics practice shifting cultivation and related bush fallow systems. With increasing pressure of p::>pulation, the ratio of fallCM to cultivation period declines rapid! y and so does the fertility and produc-• tivity of the soil. It has l::een estimated that to meet the increasing demands for food prodl):::tion in the various tropical regions, the rate of land developrent rrey have to be as much as 6 to 10 million hectares per armum.'lb solve this problem, an approach which is often preferred by many regional am national planners is to bring new land into large scale rrechanized fanning. However, the conclusions drawn recent! y fran a critical appraisal of large-scale agricultural developnent schares in savanna. arxj forest regions of Africa and elsewhere in the tropics are not encoura9ing. Plarming and execution of such schares, with utter disregard of the soil conditions and other envi.ro.nrrental and socio-econanic factors, have led to widespread barren arxj unproductive land where lush green forest once prevailed.Recent advances in agronanic and soil research have helred to diste1 many misconceptions of the agricultural p::>tentials of land and soil resources in different tropical regions. 'Ihe completion of the Soil Map of the Ybrld by FAO/UNESCO and the subsequent developnent of various technical soil and land evaluation systEms have provided us with nnre reliable information which can now re used for soil and land assessnent. h:Jricultural land developnent in developing countries, therefore, is to be based on the following prerequisites:(i) soil and land suitability, (ii) ~ kind of farming system to be adopted, and (iii) the socio-econ:xnic inplications.In the hood and per-hunid regions of the low al ti tude tropics (Le. Precipitation ~ Potential Evapotranspiration (P ~ ET) for period betweell 6 to B rronths, or nore than B rronths of the year, respectively), the luxurious rainforest is often supported by the extrerel y infertile 90ils (i.e. strongly leached Ultisols and O>ciEOls). Land covered wi th such soils, are rrore sui table for agro-forestry or tree crop plantations, particularly in areas where population ~ssure is low.'!he traditional bush fallow system of cultivation in such envi.ror1nents, th:>~h subsistence ~ is an effective and stable metlnd of soil managenent when lam availabU i ty is unlimited. ltbre penre.nent :focxi crop cultivation on such land is only possible through frequent applications of nrulti-elE!'l'l9l1t fertili~s and l:ilning. 'Furthemore, periodic tree crop fallow may be required rot only to recycle the plant nutrients leached ~ the surface rorizon but also to inprove the deteriorated subs::lil st:r\\x:ture. Large scale ny:ciianised forest clearing of 1800 <:x::rJ1?riSing the strongly acidic and kaolinitic soilsmay be prohibitive. '!his is particularly ~ for land with a rolliIXJ topogratny and steeper slates.In the hunid/sub-hunid tt:'ansitJ.On zone of west Africa CLe. oouth-\\oJest.ern Nigeria), the less leached Alfisols are the aCundant soi'ls lUlder the predcminanUy secondary forest vegetation. Land-form in the region is characterized by a rolling top:>graphy with snall V-shafed valleys. rb-till rnaize farming with crop residue mulch has teen shown to be a pramsing system of crop production on lar1d newly cleared fran forest.Sub-humid and Semi-arid Regions 111 the sub-humid and semi-arid regions of Africa Ci.e. p ~ ET for 4-6 and 2-4 JIDnths for the year, respectively), the upland areas are generally daninated by the \"lateritic\" and naturally COITpacted soils (i.e. kaolinitic Alfisols and Inceptiools), while the rrore fertile hydrorrorphic soils and vertisols are found in restricted areas of inland depressions and river valleys.'!he upland soils in these regions are intensively cultivated in areas where rainfall is nore reliable or where supplimental irrigation is available. On the other hand, the lowland areas are generally under-utilized. In the savannah regions of West Africa, the lowland areas are mainly used for vegetable crop production such as tanato and pepper during the dry season.IbNever, much of the land is left uncultivated thrOugOClUt the rainy season because of lack of pro~r drainage and flood water control system. Such lowland areas could be develo~d for intensive rice production with better \\vater managerrent practices.The tropical highlands of Fast and Central Africa comprise pJtentiall y the rrost productive land in tropical Afr ica . 'The fine-textured, oxidic Alfisols and Oxisols (or, Eutric Nitosols, FAO ) derived fran ferranagnesian rocks are widely occurrinq soils in the region. Such soils generally have little physica l limitation and extensive food crop production systems can be develo~ wi t.h appropriate fertilizer use. I.arge sca:io rrechanized agriculture is quite suitable for such soils, provided that supportive agro-industries are readily available.A technical soil evaluation system for highly ~athered soils (or, soils with variable charge) is being developed at 11Th. The principal objective of the system is to provide agricultural planners in the tropics wi til a set of simple guidelines for agricul tural soil utilization and land developtent. Such soil quality and limitation guidelines are to be used in conjunction with necessary information on land-forms and agro-clirnatic condi tions in order to assess the ultimate roils and land sui tabili ty .The technical soil evaluation system classifies highly weathered soils in the tropics into four mineralogical groups and tv.D chemical sub-groups which are supplimented by a set of soil physical and fertility 'rondition rrodifiers'. '!he systan nay be briefly summarized as follows: Table 1. A Technical soil evaluation system based on soil mineralogy (Juo , 1981). In traditional systens and for SIT611 size holders clearing is usually done by hand using machete, axe, hoe and other indegenous tcols. In orde:c to ensure regrowth during the next fallowing period, stumping is qenerall y not done. 'Ibis rrethod of clearing causes the least soil disturbance, and the problem of nm-off and soil erosion is generally minimal. H0M8ver, this system cannot be used for large scale mechaniZed farminq, since, it is slow, and exp2I1sive to carty out.Land clearing for plantation crops and pastures can also be done manually by \"ring ba.rking\". '!his rrethcrl is generally effective for eradication of trees up to certain size. Ringred trees, generally take long tine to die, and the shading by standing trees can be detrirrental in establishing gcod pastures.ii) Chemical Poisoning:with high risks of JXllluting the environrrent, sorre chemicals can be used for killing existing vegetation cover for establishrrent of plantation crops or pastures. The cooice of the suitable chemical smuld take into consideration the health hazards to human and animals. The persistence of • the chemicals in soils and natural waters is also an :i.r£lrortant factor to be considered. Compared with mechanized clearing, manual clearing operations are slow and inefficient. C€pending on the vegetation cover and tree density, TI1aI1ual clearing operations may require up to 200 rran-days/ha for carplete clearing of a semi -d.ecidoous rain forest (Table 2). Out of which 54 percent of the tirre is needed for cutting and falling, and 34 ~cent for stunping and burning.On the other hand, it required a1:xmt 2 ~rking hoursjha to clear with the shear blade attadrre.nt ~ with 2. 70 ~rking hours/ ha required with the tree pusher/root rake conbination (Table 3).Accordingly, the fool consumption is also al:x:mt 50 };:ercent less for the shear blade than for the tree pusher attachrrent.Shear blade followed by no-tillage offers good protection against soil erosion, therefore, subsequent post-clearing land developnent (terracing, grass waterways etc.) are not necessary.'!he post-clearing land developrent costs, de~ding on the rrethod of land clearing and the roil and slope characteristics, rray be as high as us $450jha.  4). It is interesting to p:Jint out that the roil loss/grain yield ratio ranged from 0.02 for traditional land clearing and mmaganent to 11.2 for tree pusher/root rake clearing followed by conventional tillage.'lhe fX)st-clearing larrl nanagement and cropping systans sh:mld rmintain or ilrprove the soil productivity in order to ensure a sustained and econonically viable production system.During the past decade, nTh has been oonducting research as part of the effort to replace or improve tram tional bush fallow rrethXis with rrore productive systems. No-tillage is essentially farming without plowing, where seeds are planted in a narrow slit or trench opened mechanicall y in the killed sod or previous crop residue. Weed and other competing vegetation are oontrolled by chemical herbicides I and plant roots are left in the soil to deCOf'lFOse.In the forest zone of West Africa, where the highly erosive Alfisols with low nutrient and water rolding capacities are daninant, the no-till maize production with crop residue mulching on newly cleared forest land has shawn distinct advantages over oonventional till age. In comparison with conventional tillage, the no-till system has the following advantages:(i) Soil erosion caused by water or wind is drastically reduced.(ii) Sloping lands that cannot otherwise te used for raw crops can be used with a minimun risk of soil erosion and degradation. 'The cost of installation and of maintenance of traditional soil erosion oontrol measures (terraces) is reduced.(iii) Energy requirements are reduced.(iv) The time required for land preparation is reduced, that provides more flexibility in planning farm operations.(v) The investIrent in machinary is reduced.(vi) Soil-water and nutrient reserves are used rrore efficiently.Research conducted at rrm and elsewhere have shown that if the vegetation caver is rerroved for arable landuse, a crop residue mulch of 4 to 6 t/ha provides adequate protection to tie soil against the impacting raindrops and prevent soil erosion. 'lhe effectiveness of residue mulch is considerably enhanced if the soil surface has not been disturbed by ro;clrurical manipulations such as caused by plowing and intercul tivation. These requirements for soil and water conservation can benet through the use of the \"notill\" system.l'!xperirrents o:mducted at 11Th for the last ten or !TOre years have indicated that, at least on slopes upto 15 percent, rontinuous maize production can be practiced without serious erosion risks (Table 5), provided that zero tillage is used together with crop and weed residues maintained as a mulch.M:iize yield (total of 2 crops per yearJ with zero tillage have proven to be superior than the oonventional tillage (Fig. 1). But the significant yield decline after the fourth year •under both tillage systems are due to a variety of factors.Soil compaction and soil acidification are among the important ones. 'Illese data. :rcint out the limitations for the utilization of the so-called \"kaolinitic\" or \"low activity clay\" soils for continuous fcxXi crop cultivation. 'Ib overccme such soil limitations, periodic chiselling ,returning land to planted fq.llow with deep rooted perennials, or ploughinq at the end of the rainy season are currently being studied.M:>reover, for the no-tillaqe system to be successfully adopted, a package of aqronanic practices must be developed for different soils, crops and aqroeaological environments. The cultural practices reccxrrrended for the conventional plCMing system are rpt always suitable for the no-tillage system. Agroncmic and eo::manic studies on the following spects are being developed and strengthened at rITA (i) effective control of insects and disease-producing organisms, and the rodents that are likely to be rrore in rntillage than in conventional tillage system.(ii) al ternative methods of adequate weed control if appropriate herbicides are lY)t available I and (iii) suitable cropping systans to rreet the resid~ requirements for soil and water conservation and f or alternot~ uses (fuel, fodder, fences etc) •Alley cropping is a systan, in which arable crops are grown in the spaces be~en rows of planted ~y shrubs or tree f allows in which the fallow species is periodically pruned during the cropping season to prevent shading and provide green manure f or the cc:mpanion crop.The alley cropping system retains the basic features of bush fallow. It offer s an attractive alternative and may be easily adopted by the small f~rs in tropical Africa. Major rrodi f icat i ons are as follow:Selected species of fast-growing small trees and shrubs (usually legunes with nitrogen-fixing ability) are used to replace the variable species of t;e naturally-regenerated bush fallCM.(ii) 'The small trees or shrubs are planted in ravs with interrow spacing wide enough to aHCM the use of rrechanized equiprent.(Different Sp3.cings ~re tried -2, 4, 6 and 8 ffi. There are drawbacks to toth the too narrow and the too wide sp3cings). 'The nitrogen contribution by Ieucaena rrrulch on maize grain yield was equivalent to al:xmt 100 kgjha for every 10 t/ha of fresh prunnings (Table 6). The continoous addition of pnmed material to the soil along with the barrier fonned by the Leucaena raws also reduces run-off and soil erosion. '!he systan of contimxms bush fallow as observed in Halley cropping\" is expected to retain soil productivity for a long period and permit rrore effective use of the land. ---------------------------------------------------------------   ","tokenCount":"2069"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"656ee938a10ac7937efcfa905b38250d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f1b33d6d-87f9-457f-ac23-3d80e3ca80c2/retrieve","id":"-2098302771"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"245544fa-65f6-4396-9791-8076ef41d886","pagecount":"8","content":"Climate change research must be nationally relevant for research outputs to be used broadly. This is why CIMMYT-CCAFS conducted its research in close collaboration with the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) and other stakeholders in Ethiopia. The climate research outputs generated were used as inputs during the development of Ethiopia's National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy. The collaboration with national stakeholders also helped in building national climate research capacity in Ethiopia where climate change information is limited.• CIMMYT-CCAFS research played a crucial role in building national climate research capacity in Ethiopia.• CIMMYT-CCAFS research outputs informed the national and regional climate change development initiatives in Ethiopia.Ethiopia is a diverse country with different agroecological and crop production systems (MoARD 2005;Georgis et al. 2012). The natural resource base is rich with different ecosystems encompassing huge biodiversity, water and soil resources. However, an increase in both human and livestock populations is exerting heavy pressure on the natural base (land, water and vegetation) leading to natural resource degradation. In addition, the potential for feeding a growing population is being challenged by environmental shocks that are becoming more severe under climate change. These conditions have led to low productivity and food insecurity in the country (Georgis 2010).Ethiopia is highly vulnerable to climate change due to its low level of economic and social development, low levels of income per capita, limited disaster risk management and weak institutional capacities. The agricultural production systems in the country mainly depend on rainfed agriculture which is sensitive to the negative impacts of climate variability and change. Agriculture is of particular concern in Ethiopia not only because the sector is most vulnerable to climate change but also because it is practiced by smallholder farmers who have poor starting conditions, weak adaptability, and limited adaptation options (NMSA 2007). A large proportion of the population (>80%) of Ethiopia is employed in the agricultural sector which is mainly based on human and animal energy. The methodologies used include gathering information through key informants such as interviews with experts at relevant government ministries, research and academic institutions, and review of reports. The major ones include:• Interviews with high level experts from the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Environment and Forestry on climate change policy and strategy issues.• Interviews with CIMMYT-CCAFS researchers and research managers at EIAR.• Discussions with regional policy makers and research staff of relevant regional research centres particularly those involved in maize and wheat research in Oromia regional state, and higher learning institutes (e.g. Haramaya University).• Review of relevant documents which include:- The Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) is mandated by the government to provide research-based evidence on agricultural issues in the country, develop improved agricultural technologies and recommendations and advise policy makers on issues affecting agriculture such as natural resource management, climate change, mechanization, socio-economics and extension. The Biometrics, GIS and Agro-meteorology Directorate (BGAD) of EIAR in particular is tasked to generate research information on climate and related issues in the country. BGAD has distinct roles in climate change initiatives in Ethiopia and has been a member of the national taskforce that developed the Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) which became a focal point for climate change initiatives that require research-based information. BGAD is also currently leading and coordinating a team of experts in the Ethiopian panel of climate change. Therefore, the collaboration between EIAR/BGAD and CIMMYT-CCAFS on climate change research is an excellent approach to link research outputs to national and regional policy needs.Historically, the two organizations, EIAR and CIMMYT, have been conducting collaborative research on wheat and maize through the development of improved crop varieties with high nutritional and good market value. CGIAR centres such as CIMMYT have high-level capacity in research and development and are well placed to assist national programmes such as EIAR with research skill development and capacity building. The EIAR-CIMMYT-CCAFS collaboration on climate change research which covers maize and wheat systems was based on the analysis of past and future climate data from 50 stations located in the maize-and wheat-based farming systems in the country. The major outputs of the research are:• Regional downscaling of future climate for Ethiopia;• Past and future climate extremes;• Past and future frequency and distribution of droughts;• Seasonal and intra-seasonal climate characteristics relevant for agricultural purposes;• Validation of global datasets for local purposes;• Establishment of a national climate database management toolkit that provides climate data and analysis results (ACERO).The close collaboration between CIMMYT-CCAFS and the national research system of Ethiopia can be considered as a new approach in building the research skills of local researchers. This facilitates the process of ownership which consequently leads to the uptake of research outcomes by the government in policy development (Takele et al.Mr. Andualem Shemeles, Director of BGAD, lists the main achievements of the CIMMYT-CCAFS-EIAR collaboration as follows:1 • EIAR-CIMMYT-CCAFS provided continuous input to the development of the National Climate Adaptation Strategy. EIAR-CIMMYT-CCAFS scientists were part of the consultative meetings and workshops held on strategy development and provided feedback on the draft document.• The output of the EIAR-CIMMYT-CCAFS research indicated that extreme weather has a major impact on the Ethiopian economy and recommended to prioritize this in the Strategy.• The Climate Resilient Green Economy Unit (CRGEU) in charge of the mitigation and adaptation activities at MoA, was able to broaden their knowledge base through active participation in climate change meetings, workshops and briefings organized by EIAR.• The Extension Directorate of MoA collaborated with EIAR/BGAD to forecast the 2014/2015 rainfall season and developed a strategy for regional governments to take precautionary measures incorporating the drought frequency indices developed by CIMMYT-CCAFS.• The findings of EIAR-CIMMYT-CCAFS climate researchers were incorporated in the seasonal climate outlook strategy which was used to develop crop management practices.• Regional governments are using the findings of EIAR-CIMMYT-CCAFS to incorporate in their regional climate change policy and adaptation strategies.• NGOs are keen participants of EIAR-CIMMYT-CCAFS climate change workshop and are now putting more emphasis on climate and environmental issues in their interventions.Ethiopia is a land of diversity and opportunity. The country has many different agro-ecologies and farming systems that vary within short distances. The EIAR-CIMMYT-CCAFS partnership is a good example of how collaboration at the national/local level builds capacity and generates research outputs that influence national and regional policy and action. EIAR-CIMMYT-CCAFS researchers are drafting articles for journal publication. However, preparing policy briefs and organizing policy workshops would be advisable in order to utilize the full potential of the research outputs.OU TCOM E ST U DI E S 7In its annual report to Management response","tokenCount":"1083"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c5af73e08090445a4ccd4df1c3a798c7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/09c3b78f-841f-4dde-9caf-75156e3795f4/retrieve","id":"625508083"},"keywords":["intensification","land speculation","frontier","Latin fm-erica","c~ttle ranching. ¡","' 1"],"sieverID":"083f4080-e57d-4064-80ab-c1b0b1d7828f","pagecount":"44","content":"Frontier areas in Latin America have been characteriz~d-';:b-y~/a::'\"n~d~s\"\"p-e\"\"c\"\"u-''''a'''tt!':o'''n-,' abandonment and exploitation. This paper analyzes a frontier cattle ranching area in the savanna where intensification has occurred in spite of land speculation. A whole farm livestock production model is used to quantify the determinants of intensification.Results show that land speculation has simultaneously increased the profitability of cattle ranching while sfowing down intensification and impeding the adoption of sustainable practices. Intensification occurred because the production gains offered by improved pastures over native grasses were large enough to overcome the negative effect of land speculation on intensification. By contrast, in the Amazon, improved technologies have to overcome the high fertility of newly deforested land. Thus, technology, land speculation and characteristics of the resource base interact in a complex way to determine the speed and nature of intensification .The sustainable management of frontier areas is of increasing importance in a world characterized by growing populations and increasing pressure on the natural resource base. Latin America, in particular, has turned increasingly to its frontier areas to provide food, export earnings and employment. Examples abound however, of Latin American frontier occupation being characterized by massive resource degradation, with minimal compensating contributions to agricultural production, (World Bank, 1993;Aramburu, 1984;Hecht, 1988). This paper analyzes a frontier cattle ranching region in the Colombian savanna, where substantial increases in agricultural productivity have occurred. While intensification has undoubtedly been accompanied by resource degradation, the compensating increases in production and carrying capacity imply that this is a frontier that offers the possibility of sustainable increases in production. The paper analyzes the determinants of intensification in the savanna, and draws implications about the lack of intensification in the Amazon. The results reveal that speculative land price increases, technology, and the nature of the resource base in the savanna have been key determinants of the pace and nature of intensification. While land speculation in the Amazon has led to mining of the native soil fertility, the poor production potential of native vegetation in the savanna largely precludes land mining. This, combined with improved pastures which provide strikingly better returns than native savanna grasses, has induced intensification instead of land exploitation. Also, while in the Amazon penetration roads increased the supply of new land, in the savanna infrastructure improvement occurred within areas that were \" • already accessible. Speculative land price increases have been a double edged sword in the savanna, on the one hand contributing substantially to the profitability of cattle ranching, and on the other hand slowing down the intensification process, and impeding the adoption of sustainable technologies.The process of intensification in the savanna is particularly interesting because the neotropical savannas of Latin America are recognized as one of the last significant agricultural frontiers in the world. As a result, their potential for contributing to world food supply is now widely acknowledged (Borlaug andDowsdell, 1994, Macedo, 1994). It has also been argued that development of the savanna could alleviate pressure on the Amazon rain forest (CIAT, 1991 al. Recently, there has also been more awareness about the ecological implications of intensification in the savannas (Solbrig, 1993;Macedo, 1994;Smith, et al. in press), particularly biodiversity losses from degradation of native savanna grasses and gallery forests (Klink, et. al., 1993;Rippstein and Girard, 1994), and siltation and pollution of watercourses and neighboring wetlands (Alho, et. al., 1988). Thus, a sound understanding of the driving forces behind intensification is required if the savanna is to fulfill its agricultural potential, while simultaneously protecting the environment.The study area covers the municipalities of Puerto Lopez and Puerto Gaitan, an area of 2364 sq. km. in the department of Meta, in the Colombian savanna (Figure 1). The region is characterized by highly acidic soils (pH 3.8 -5), with high levels of aluminum (> 80%). Annual rainfall is 1700 -2500 mm., with a dry season of 3 -4 months. The vegetation consists primarily of native savanna grasses, with clumps of woody areas.Small water courses are found throughout the region, along the banks of which are gallery forests.The analysis of land use change presented in this paper, draws on a rich data seto In 1995 the authors carried out a survey of 98 randomly selected farmers, which had been preceded by earlier surveys in 1979, 1989, and 1992. Bio-physical case studies of small samples of farms were carried out in 1977-1979, and in 1988 -1991. In addítíon on-statíon and on-farm tríals have been on-going ín the area since the early 19705.In the 19705, the regíon was still a frontíer area, Le. the natural ecosystem was just beginníng to be brought under human íntervention. Although the native savanna grasses were grazed, the number of animals per ha. (0.09) was too low to alter the natural vegetation. The majority of holdings lacked officíal land títles and physícal boundaries, and the native savanna grasses were open to communal grazíng (Tamayo, 1975). Rivers were the main form of transport, the dirt tracks running through the area beíng vírtually ímpassable during the wet season (Sere and Estrada, 1985).Major changes in land use have taken place in the last fifteen years, the most   • notable being the shift from extensive cattle ranching on native savanna grasses, to semi-extensive cattle ranching, in which a small but increasing proportion of the farm is planted to improved pasture (Table 1). Survey data from 111 farms in the municipalities of Puerto Lopez and Puerto Gaitan show that there was virtually no planted pasture in 1979 (Sere and Estrada, 1985). Adoption increased steadily to 9% of the total area in 1989, 17% in 1992 (Cadavid, 1995). andreached 20% in 1995. During this period the number of animal s per ha. tripled and fertilizer users increased from 3% to 53% of farmers. Accompanying this intensification in land use, has been a decline in the average farm size from over 5000 ha. to under 2000 ha. in 1995.A dramatic increase in land prices has al so taken place during this periodo In the 1995 survey, farmers were asked to value land in native savanna,in the vicinity of their farms, at current market prices. Comparing these values to estimates for 1979 ¡Sere and Estrada, 1985) shows that land prices increased at an annual rate of approximately 15% in real terms. In 1995, land in improved pasture was reported to be selling at 2.5 to 5 times the price of native savanna. A very active land market has accompanied these changes: only 9% of sample farmers in 1995 inherited their land.The rest purchased their farms, fifty four percent having acquired them within the last 12 years. Presumably these new owners purchased land because they had better access to capital or management ski 115, and could therefore get higher returns from the land than previous owners. Considerable progress in the legalization of land titles has also occurred: in 1995 88% of farms had legal title deeds. In spite of the intensification, cattle ranching remains the dominant enterprise, with a few farmers (15%) having small plots of annual or perennial crops, the most dominant among these being watermelon .Although improved pastures occupy only a small part of the area, they appear to have resulted in significantincreases in land productivity and carrying capacity.Production data from on-farm sources show that beef production is around 12 kg/ha on native savanna (Kleinheisterkamp and Hiibich, 1985). and increases to around 200 kg/ha on improved grass pastures under farmers' management (CIA T, 1994).Weighting this data by the reported extent of improved pasture implies that beef production/ha. has more than tripled between 1979 and 1995. Data from the intensive case studies carried out in the late 1970s (Sere and Estrada, 1985) indicate also that with 20% of the area converted to improved pasture, and the current stocking rate on improved pasture of about 1 AU/ha. (Hoyos et al., 1992), the potential herd size has increased by 80% (Table 1). Consistent with this, the cattle inventory of sample farmers increased at an annual rate of 2. 9% between 19799% between and 19899% between (Cadavid, et. al., 1991)), which is considerably higher than the increase in the national inventory of 0.93% over the same period (Lorente, 1994).The key role played by land values in inducing land use intensification is widely accepted. Intensification increases the returns per hectare of land, but requires investment in farm infrastructure and/or inputs.Farmers may prefer therefore to practice unintensified techniques, and use the foregone investment to acquire more • land. This may give a higher total income if land is cheap relative to capital and labor.Thus intensification increases with land values. While so me authors have related this phenomenon to population pressure, which increases the scarcity and therefore the value of land (Boserup, 1965;Binswanger and Mclntire, 1987), others have emphasized transport infrastructure and distance from market centers (Binswanger and Mclntire, 1987, Smith et. al, 1994, Katzman, 1974). Improved access to markets lowers input/output price ratios, and thus increases the discounted present value of expected future returns from the land.In frontier areas a number of authors (World Bank, 1993;Kaimowitz, 1994) have pointed out that intensification is unlikely as long as the frontier is open, i.e. as long as construction of penetration roads ex poses previously inaccessible public land to private occupation, thus increasing the supply of economically usable land and exerting a downward pressure on land values. Another impediment to intensification particularly in frontier areas, is the lack of government law and order services, particularly poor enforcement of property rights, leading to illegal encroachment and violence (World Bank, 1993).Thus a considerable literature linking high land values to intensification exists.Very little is known however about the impact of land price appreciation on intensification. Recently a number of authors have hypothesized that land speculation is an impediment to intensification, particularly in frontier areas (World Bank, 1993;Brandao and Rezende, 1992;Kaimowitz, 1994;Smith et. al., in press). Where creditand risk markets are incomplete, or macroeconomic instability exists, land values exceed the present value of capitalized agricultural profits. In frontier areas when infrastructure improves and land prices increase rapidly, this speculative component gains importance relative to productive use. Available capital is therefore likely to be used more for increasing land holdings, than for intensification (Lowenberg -DeBoer and Boehije, 1986).Technological advances also interact with incentives to intensify (Smith et. al., 1994). If a new technology results in a major increase in land productivity, farmers may obtain a higher total income by changing to the new technology on their current land holding, rather than augmenting their land holding with the old technology. The lower the land price the larger will be the extra land that can be acquired if the new technology is not adopted. Thus only a very major technological advance induces intensification when land prices are low. Conversely, the greater the technological advance, the lower the land price at which intensitication occurs.High interest rate regimes in Brazil have been blamed tor the current pattern of land use in the Amazon, in which new land is opened up after existing land is \"mined\" and abandoned (World Bank, 1993). The logic behind this is that high interest rates increase the preference for current income relative to future income. Thus land is exploited tor high initial incomes, with mini mal investment in inputs for sustaining future productive capacity. The extent to which this argument is valid will depend on biophysical conditions which determine the scope for land mining. As pointed out \\ • • earlier this may be much higher in the Amazon (where native fertility after deforestation is high). compared to the savanna where possibilities for short term exploitation are severely limited by the poor quality of native grasses. It should be also be recognized that high interest rates increase the cost of acquiring new land, and thus have the opposite effect of discouraging extensification. This aspect may be less important in the Amazon where penetration roads lower the cost of land acquisition, but is likely to hold more weight in the savanna, where the frontier is closed.We now carry out a descriptive analys•,s of data from the Colombian savanna, in order to develop hypothesis about the relative importance of the various factors which may have induced intensification. Intensification in this area appears to be related closely to land values. The smallest farms, with the highest proportion of area in improved pasture and with the highest stocking rates are located in parts of the savanna where land values are highest (over $500/ha.) (Table 2). This is an area which is electrified, located relatively close (100 km) to the capital of Meta (Villavicencio). and connected to it with a paved road. In addition it has a flat topography whích permits mechanizatíon, thus makíng it more economically fe asible to sow improved pasture. By contrast, plains with poor infrastructure, have a significantly lower degree of land use change, with 19% of the area in improved pasture, and land values under $300/ha. Intensification is even lower in remote areas wíth an undulating topography.Considerable improvements in infrastructure have occurred, startíng in the early 1980s. Currently about 45% of the road between Villavicencío and Carimagua is , • • paved, and the road between Puerto Gaitan and Carimagua is passable for most of the year. The road between Villavicencio and the nation's capital (Santafé de Bogotá) is al50 being significantly improved. Majar oil discoveries in the eastern part of this regian, which have more than doubled Colombia's oil reserves, are expected to lead to further improvements in infrastructure. Thus improvements in infrastructure appear to have stimulated an increase in land prices, which in turn have induced intensification. The role of infrastructure in the savanna has been very different from its role in the Amazon, where penetration roads made new land available for human intervention, ie the frontier was 'open' . By contrast, land in the savanna had long been accessible. Infrastructure improvements increased the viability of economic activity, rather than increasing the supply of land as in the Amazon. Thus infrastructure stimulated intensification in the savanna, and impeded it in the Amazon.Improvements in infrastructure undoubtedly increased the profitability of cattle ranching by permitting producers to take advantage of seasonal differences in cattle prices. However, the extremely high degree of land price appreciation (15% p.a. over the last 15 years) makes it likely that land is also being acquired as a speculative financial asset. Macroeconomic developments since the mid 1980s have favored the attractiveness of land as a financial asset. During the latter part of the 19805 asevere structural adjustment program led to a rapid increase in inflatíon (from 20% in 1980to 32% in 1990;IMF, 1995). During this period there were few investment opportunities other than land that cauld keep up with inflation. The 1990s have been characterized by high levels of capital inflows averaging $1.7 billion during 1991-1993 , 1995). This was due both to high levels of foreign direct investment in the oil sector, and to the repatriation of profits from the iIIegal drug trade, which increased the demand for land. Although the recent political crisis and crackdown on the drug trade has led to currency depreciation, and an uncertain outlook for land prices, it is likely, in the medium term, that land will continue to be regarded as a trusted financial asset. Thus, expected appreciations in land values are likely to play a part in the intensification decision. This is borne out by the reported objectives of ranchers. The majority of farmers (52%) claim that they hold land both because of its productive capacity, and because of expected increases in land values. Twenty eight percent of farmers are interested primarily in the land's productive value, while the rest (20%) claim they are holding land primarily as a financial asset.Turning next to technology, the productivity of the traditional technology of grazing animals on native savanna grasses is severely limited by the inherent nature of the forage on offer, characterized by low levels of dry matter yield (which enforce low stocking rates), and poor digestibility which limits liveweight gains per animal (Fisher, et. al., 1992). Thus in the savanna, expanding to a new area with traditional technology gives a very minor increase in benefit. In this situation improved grass pastures are able to offer spectacular increases in land productivity, with more than 1 6 fold increases in beef production per ha, as shown earlier. By contrast in the Amazon, cultivation with traditional technology on newly deforested land gives high retUrnS for a few years. Improved technologies have to significantly surpass these returns in the first few years in order to be adopted (World Bank, 1993). Thus the poor Price changes appear to have resulted in a high degree of variability in the ratio of output to input prices, without displaying any clear trend. Cadavid (1995) shows that during the 1978-1992 period cyclical changes in cattle prices were accompanied by a high degree of variability in a weighted composite of input prices. Real interest rates however increased steeply from 5% p.a. in the early 1980s to 13% p.a. during 1985-1994(lMF, 1995)). Thus intensification occurred during a period of unstable prices and high and increasing interest rates.Turning finally to population pressure, the colombian savanna is clearly a manifestation of intensification occurring in a land abundant area. In 1985, population density was as low as 3.5 persons/ sq. km in Puerto Lopez, and even lower (0.46 persons/sq. km) in Puerto Gaitan (DANE, 1989).Summing up therefore, the descriptive analysis leads to the hypotheses that the most significant factors driving the process of intensification decision have been technology, land price appreciation, and the nature of the natural resource base. These factors are incorporated in the quantitative analysis given below .Let the returns to cattle ranching on native savanna be = the discount rateL 1 = -=---'-----'-------'-.........•....................•.......... ( 4)(1 + r)'and..... ( 5)where v= annual rate ot land price appreciation in real terms l/E (equation 9) is the incremental discounted income from improved pasture.Thus the more profitable the current technology relative to current practices, and the higher the land price, the greater will be the degree of intensification. Since l and E are also functions of v, intensification is determined by the interplay between technology, land price, the rate of land price appreciation, and the resource base. The relative importance of these factors will be quantified in the empirical analysis.A whole farm livestock production model is used to simulate annual changes in beef production over the planning period, resulting from cumulative changes over time in the establishment of improved pasture. The structure of the livestock production model is based on Gittinger's (1982)   (Kleinheisterkamp and Habich, 1985). As the area in improved pasture increases, certain key technical coefficíents are changed in accordance with trial results, synthesízed in Botero (1989).With 50% in improved pasture, for example, the calving rate íncreases from 46% to , 70% (Kleinheisterkamp and Habich, 1895), and the calf mortality rate falls from 12% to 7% (Botero, 1989). The breeding enterprise al so progressively includes a fattening component starting with 8% of the herd, when 20% of the area is planted to improved pasture. Typical stocking rates on improved pasture and native savanna are achieved via cattle purchases and sales as required. Data on year by year lWG per animal on native savanna and improved pasture is obtained from a long term trial carried out over 16 years and summarized by lascano and Euclides (1994).We begin by quantifying the nature of the relationship between intensification and its determinants.Taking the case of a rancher who purchases 500 ha. in native savanna in time period O, we simulate the returns to intensification and extensification over a time horízon of 15 years, at the end of which period the capital gains on land are realized by disposíng of the farm. Farm size remains constant at 500 ha.throughout the planning period under the intensífícation strategy, but is augmented under the extensification strategy by purchasing land with the foregone expenditure requíred for intensification. The discount rate is taken as 5% (equivalent to the real interest rate in the early 1980s). and improved pasture is assumed to sell for 2.5 times the price of native savanna. land price is varied from $1 O/ha. to $200/ha., and the rate of land price appreciation from 0% p.a. to 15% p.a. in real terms.The case of extensification is represented by a farm containing only native savanna. Gíven that adoption of improved pasture occurred very slowly in the early 1980s, the intensíficatíon strategy is represented by a farm that converts 10% of the Thís índicates that intensification is unlikely unless land príces are at least $1 OO/ha.Figure 2 al so shows that with land appreciation held constant at 15%, the incentive tor íntensification (ie the positive difference between INT15 and EXT15l, increases with the price of land. This is consistent with the positive relation between pasture adoption and land price shown in Table 2. In 1995 average land prices were aboye the threshold level for intensificatíon ín all parts of the study area. Therefore it ís not surprising that 93% ot tarmers had at least a part of theír farms in improved pasture, and that the proportion of improved pasture averaged 10% or greater in all parts of the study area (Table 2). Figure 2 also shows that it improved pastures had been about 30% les s productive, causing INT15 to shift downwards to INT' 15, the threshold land príce tar íntensífícatíon would have risen to T' 15 (just under $200/ha.). Thus the dramatically higher productivity of improved pastures over native savanna appears to have induced earlíer intensificatíon.Figure 3 analyzes the impact of land price appreciation on intensification.Given the negative returns to native savanna, the strategy of extensification is represented in the rest of the paper as a slow rate of adoption of improved pasture, resulting in 10% of the farm being converted to planted pastures by the end of the planning periodo Intensification is represented as a more rapid adoption, resulting in 50% of the farm being converted by the end of the planning periodo As before, the foregone expenditure required for intensification, is used to acquire addítíonal land in the extensification strategy. Figure 3 shows that when land prices appreciate at 15%, the threshold intensification price (T15) is > $1 50/ha. If the expectation of land appreciation drops to 5%, intensification occurs at T5, ie at land prices > $50. Thus a high rate of land price appreciation slows down the process of intensification. This occurs because when land prices appreciate rapidly, capital gains dominate income gains from intensification. Therefore farmers with relatively cheap land are better off purchasing more land in order to capture capital gains, rather than investing in intensification. At higher land prices les s land can be acquired by foregoing intensification, and therefore the opportunity for capturing capital gains on additional land declines.The higher the rate of land price appreciation, the slower the rate at which this phenomenon occurs. This quantifies the negative effect of land speculation on intensification, and shows that the high rate of land price appreciation in the study area explains why intensification has progressed relatively slowly. Intensification can be expected to progress slowly as long as expectations about land appreciation remain high.Figure 4 holds land appreciation constant at 15% and varies the discount rateo At a higher discount rate of 10%, the intensification threshold (T*15) is around $75/ha., which is lower than at a discount rate of 5% (T15). Both the INT and EXT curves shift downwards at higher discount rates, but the downward shift in EXT is greater than that for INT particularly at lowland prices, because EXT involves buying more land, an expenditure that is incurred at the beginning of the planning period, and therefore penalized when discount rates are high.Figure 4 indicates how sensitive NPVs are to discount rates. In fact Figure 5 shows that with interest rates at 15% in real terms, even 50% in improved pasture is • Intensification in the savanna appears to have had both positive and negative effects on the environment. On the positive side, Fisher et. al (1994) show that improved pastures sequester substantially more carbon than native savanna grasses. On the negative side, farmers and scientists report considerable resource degradation, some aspects of which appear to be systematicaily related to intensification. In the sample as a whole a little over 60% of farmers report degradation of native savanna, which results in changes in plant communities, and threatens biodiversity (Rippstein and Girard, 1994). Table 3 compares reported degradation between areas of moderate and poor infrastructure in the plains. Reported degradation of native savanna appears to be significantly lower in areas of moderately good infrastructure where 50% of the area is in improved pasture, compared to areas where improved pastures occupy only 19%. Native savanna degrades because the common practice for coaxing higher productivity out of native grasses is trequent burning, and continuous grazing of young regrowth after burning. The lower incidence of native savanna degradation in intensified areas implies that when farms increase the area in improved pasture, the pressure to produce more from native savanna declines.To the extent that land speculation slows down intensification, it prolongs the pressure on native savanna. On the other hand, intensification may ultimately lead to only small pockets of native savanna remaining. Thus it is important to study the spatial variability in plant communities in native savanna, in order to identify suitable protected areas as intensification proceeds.Other widely reported ecological changes include degradation of gallery forests reported by 60% of farmers. and declines in bird. animal and fish species each reported by around half the farmers. Gallery forests appear to be under greater threat in the more intensified are as (Table 3). 90% of farms that report degradation of gallery forests relate this to the extraction of 5pecies for fencing paddocks of improved pasture.27% of farmers had also cut down ga/lery forests in arder to plant improved pastures. Thus the adoption of improved pastures appears to threaten gallery forests.Thirty five percent of farmers report that logs are extracted for sale from gallery forests. This is likely to be more prevalent in intensified areas because infrastructure is better. and therefore the cost of getting lag s to market is lower. Table 3 shows that whíle fish species and supplies have declined uniformly in all areas, birds and animals are under greater threat in areas of better infrastructure. Farmers relate this to uncontro/led hunting and fishing. and degradation of gallery forests, both of which appear to be more prevalent where infrastructure is more developed.A little over 60% of farmers report degradation of improved pastures, mainly 1055 of ground cover, which could result in wind and water induced soillos5. Pasture degradation al so results in significant declines in animal production. Data from trials on two farms, under farmers' management show that beef production per ha. declined by a third within three years on one farm, and declined to a negative value in the other farm (CIAT, 1994). An intensive monitoring of pasture management practices indicates that overgrazing may partially account for the degree of pasture degradation. Improved pastures are grazed for about 67% of the year, with grazing pressures particularly high during the dry season. when instantaneous stocking rates are about 0.8 to 1.6 • • AU/ha. (Hoyos, et al, 1992). Unlike in the Amazon rain forest however, degraded pastures are not abandoned. Forty four to sixty percent of paddocks are renovated at least every four years. Sixty six percent of farmers renovate by harrowing, with or without the application of small quantities of P fertilizer, while 5% use fertilizer alone .Seventy eight percent of paddocks were reported to have been attacked by splttle bug which is commonly controlled through overgrazing followed by mechanical renovation (eIAT, 1991 b). Thus overgrazing, nutrient deficiencies (particularly Nl, and pest problems appear to contribute to pasture degradation. Rotation with annual crops has been proposed as a means of renovating degraded pastures, the cost of renovation fertilizer being paid out of crop sale proceeds (Vera, et. al., 1992). However only 2%of the pasture area is renovated with this technology.Technologies for preventing pasture degradation include mixed grass-Iegume pastures which maintain soil N levels (Thomas, 1992), and increase soil carbon in sand fractions (Guggenberger et. al., 1995) and earthworm populations (Decaens et. al., 1994). Adoption however remains disappolnting. Only 2% of the pasture are a contains legumes, and 88% of farmers who plant legumes report that legumes fail to persist under farmers' grazing pressures.The relative profitability of pure grass, and grass-Iegume pastures is compared in Table 4. As before we simulate the case of a rancher who purchases 500 ha. in native savanna, progressively converts a part of it to improved pasture, and disposes of the farm at the end of the planning period of 15 years. Land price appreciation is •• assumed to be 15% p.a. in real terms, and improved pasture (whether pure grass or grass-Iegume) sells tor 2.5 times the price of native savanna. The first two rows of Table 4 present results based on data from on-farm trials under farmers' management.In the first trial LWG was lower on the grass-Iegume pasture than in the pure grass pasture. In the second LWG was 30% higher on grass-Iegumes. In both trials legumes effectively disappeared after 3 years, and had to be resown, while the grass persisted.Results show that the Internal Rate of Return (lRR) for grass-Iegumes was at best only marginally higher than tor pure grass. Thus there is clearly a need to improve the performance of currently available legumes under farmers' management. In the third row of Table 4 a controlled trial with best practices is analyzed, in which the legume persisted tor 16 years. Here the LWG on grass-Iegumes was 34% higher than on grasses, and no expenditure on replanting legumes was required. Even in this tri al however IRR was only 8% higher than for grass pastures. The fourth row simulates a further 30% increase in LWG for grass-Iegume pastures compared to the data in the third row, giving a total increase of 74% over pure grass pastures. Under these condítíons a considerable increase of 20% in the IRR ís achieved. In the last row LWG remains at the level of the third row, but the rate of land price appreciation declines to 5%. The results show that in this situation the inclusion of legumes can increase IRR by 23%. Thus when land appreciates rapidly, the productivity gains of improved technology are overwhelmed by the capital gains from land sales, which dominate the IRR. Thus technologies have to offer spectacular increases in productivity before they are adopted. Recent data indicate that a newly released legume, Arachis pintoí, offers significant gains in productivity while persisting under farmers' management (Lascan o,• 1994). However adequate data are not yet available to quantify whether it is sufficiently productive to make a significant impact on profitability. under high rates of land price appreciation. Thus land speculation may impede the adoption of technologies which have the potential to prevent resource degradation .The above results indicate that technology, land speculation and biophysical conditions have all been key determinants of the process of intensification in the savanna. These results are used to take a first step towards formulating a tentative development path for frontier cattle ranching areas in the savanna (Thomas, et. al.. in press). In emerging frontier areas when land price is stagnant at very low levels, extensive production systems based on native savanna grasses are likely to prevai!. With very low stocking rates and minimal infrastructure resource degradation is unlikely. This is similar to the situation prevailing in the Colombian savanna in the 1970s, and is depicted as phase I in Figure 6. As infrastructure improves land prices may increase very rapidly if conditions in the larger economy encourage speculative land purchases. In this situation capital gains on land investment dominate profitability, and overwhelm technological advances which offer but moderate production increases. Thus only technologies which lead to spectacular increases in productivity are likely to be able to induce intensification. Thus the speculative motive slows down the pace of intensification and technology adoption. On the other hand it may support the productive use of land by maintaining the viability of cattle ranching under unfavorable economíc conditions.This scenario is similar to the current situation in the Colombian savanna (phase 11 in Figure 6). in which the dramatic production increases obtained with grass pastures has stimulated their adoption, and consequent intensification.Sustainable technologies, such as grass-/egume pastures have not however be en Frontier areas in Latin America have been rife with land speculation, abandonment and exploitation. Intensification has been an elusive commodity. Our analysis indicates that intensification can occur even in frontier areas. Intensification occurred in the savanna because improved pastures offered spectacular production increases over native grasses, the gains being large enough to overcome the negative effect of land speculation on intensification. The implication is that biophysical conditions may be one factor contributing to the lack of intensification in the Amazon.Improved technologies in the Amazon have to out perform the high native fertility of newly deforested land. Also, in the Amazon the supply of new land has been progressively augmented by the construction of penetration roads, while in the savanna infrastructure has increased the economic viability of already accessible land.Thus technology, land speculation and characteristics of the resource base interact in a complex way to determine the nature and speed of the intensification process.These crucial elements should be taken into consideration in the development of      ","tokenCount":"5562"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f73ae7c77ba122ec4b822d467ff8fd0b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0e1a2954-7af6-4f96-9ca6-774e3468b6ab/retrieve","id":"-500612107"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e6dd2f2a-5823-4ba7-b5e8-2d15fa06c86b","pagecount":"32","content":"Bioversity International undertakes, encourages and supports research and other activities on the use and conservation of agricultural biodiversity, especially genetic resources, to create more productive, resilient and sustainable harvests. Bioversity International's aim is to promote the greater well-being of people, particularly poor people in developing countries, by helping them to achieve food security, to improve their health and nutrition, to boost their incomes, and to conserve the natural resources on which they depend. Bioversity International works with a global range of partners to maximize impact, to develop capacity and to ensure that all stakeholders have an effective voice. Bioversity International is part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, which works to reduce hunger, poverty and environmental degradation in developing countries by generating and sharing relevant agricultural knowledge, technologies and policies. This research, focused on development, is conducted by a Consortium of 15 CGIAR centres working with hundreds of partners worldwide and supported by a multi-donor Fund.The world faces an enormous challenge of ensuring that the global community has access to a safe and nutritious diet, while simultaneously combating the rising number of health problems related to overnutrition such as obesity and diabetes. Agriculture and the global food system are capable of playing a key role in addressing this challenge, yet agriculture needs to be designed with nutrition in mind. The recent food price volatility crisis, climate change and the rise in cost of petroleum-based inputs shine a light on factors that contribute to the unsustainable nature of our agricultural system. But within these challenges lie opportunities to change the way we do business at the same time as making an important contribution to better nutrition security for the future. There is also a clear recognition that the agriculture, health and nutrition sectors will make considerable advances in nutritional security when working together. The time to act is now, building upon the momentum to improve nutrition around the world with examples such as the 1000 Days and Scaling Up Nutrition movements.Bioversity International is the leading research organization dedicated to the use and conservation of biodiversity in agriculture and is part of the Consortium of International Research Centres of the Consultative Group for International Agriculture Research (CGIAR). The CGIAR has a new institutional model designed to improve its delivery of research results in a rapidly changing external environment, as well as a new strategy that includes one important outcome that focuses on nutrition and health. During the 40 years of the CGIAR's existence, the organization has provided innovative research and impacts that have helped to change lives on a large scale. The CGIAR, we expect, will be even more efficient in providing crucial solutions to the problems faced by smallholder farmers globally. We are determined to build on past accomplishments and expertise in order to ensure this result. This nutrition strategy presented here defines the initial ten-year road map for a comprehensive research programme that will provide increased insight and evidence that can be used to improve nutrition in more sustainable agricultural systems for smallholder farmers and their beneficiaries.We are excited by the task ahead and we believe we can meet the challenge we face. We aim to show that agricultural biodiversity, underutilized crops and local and traditional foods can be powerful tools to combat poverty and malnutrition while preserving healthy ecosystems. With this innovative strategy, we seek to build on Bioversity's experience in agricultural research and in the conservation of genetic resources in order to provide an efficient and life-changing service to smallholder farming communities across the globe. This strategy will be used to channel and focus our efforts but it will retain an inherent flexibility as we seek to improve and expand it. We see this as the beginning of a new and exciting journey during which we hope that the work we do benefits our partners, the larger development community and, most of all, the communities who are our beneficiaries.August 2011One of the world's greatest challenges is to secure adequate food that is healthy, safe and of high quality for all, and to do so in an environmentally sustainable manner. Burdened by the growing demands of an ever-increasing human population, it remains unclear how our current global food system can sustain itself. This challenge is further compounded by climate change, ecosystems and biodiversity under stress, population growth, increased urbanization, social conflict and extreme poverty. For these reasons, there has never been a more urgent time for collective action to address food and nutrition security on a global scale.Redirecting the global agricultural system as the supplier of the world's food in order to ensure better nutrition is crucial so that we can operate from a better understanding of our global agricultural system. It is imperative that research and development start to think about new and sustainable approaches to improving the quality and variety of food produced and consumed around the world. The role that agriculture plays in dietary diversity and nutrition outcomes is central, and nutrition must be front and centre as a major outcome and goal of agriculture and production systems, as a potential avenue to improving dietary diversity, food quality and human health as well restoring or preserving ecosystems.One area that requires further understanding is the role of agricultural biodiversity in improving dietary diversity and quality. Agricultural biodiversity-the diverse traits exhibited among crops, animals and other organisms used for food and agriculture, as well as the web of relationships that bind these forms of life at ecosystem, species, and genetic levels-is the basis of the food and nutrient value chain and its use is important for food and nutritional security.Bioversity International's nutrition research over the past several years has focused on the role and impact of traditional foods on dietary diversity and livelihoods. The research agenda is being expanded under Bioversity's 2011-2021 Nutrition Strategy to develop strong methodological and empirical evidence on how agricultural biodiversity contributes to dietary diversity and nutrition with downstream livelihood and ecosystem benefits. The new strategy focuses on food and nutritional system approaches to improving human nutrition and health. The major goal of the strategy and subsequent programme is to promote the use of agricultural biodiversity within food production systems and provide nutritionally-rich food sources that contribute to dietary diversity and, potentially, better nutrition and health. Our major focus is in rural and peri-urban communities in the developing world.The strategy has four major objectives:1. To strengthen the evidence base for the role of biodiversity in nutrition and health and the means of incorporating agricultural biodiversity, specifically, into food and nutritional systems approaches; 2. To ensure the production of more nutritious foods through commercial pathways that reflect agriculturally biodiverse practices and cultural preferences; 3. To determine which agricultural biodiversity practices and delivery systems work on the ground in development programmes to improve nutritional security; 4. To mainstream the role of agricultural biodiversity into public health and nutrition policy and practice by sharing evidence and providing local solutions.Bioversity International will ensure that the role of agricultural biodiversity is monitored, evaluated and enhanced within food and nutritional systems of different communities that adhere to different socio-cultural traditions within diverse agro-ecosystems in a range of economic and political situations. There will also be a focus and emphasis on the preservation, conservation and sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity and protection of ecosystems in the developing world, because these provide communities with the resources for productive and resilient food and nutritional systems. We hope that through this nutrition strategy and Bioversity International's global research agenda that we can provide useful evidence, tools and products for use by governments, development programmers, value chain and food sector actors, academic and research institutions, health and agriculture workers, farmers and communities.Stevie Mann / Bioversity Stevie Mann / BioversityThe global malnutrition burden and addressing the challenge One of the world's greatest challenges is to secure adequate food that is healthy, safe and of high quality for all, and to do so in an environmentally sustainable manner (Pinstrup-Andersen 2009). With the growing demand of an ever-increasing human population, it remains unclear how our current global food system will sustain itself. Compounded with climate change, ecosystems and biodiversity under stress, population growth and urbanization, social conflict and extreme poverty, there has never been a more urgent time for collective action to address food and nutrition security globally. This burdened food system impacts the most vulnerable people, as statistics clearly show. There are currently an estimated 925 million people suffering food and nutrition insecurity (FAO 2010a). However with food price increases, these estimates may now be conservative. In addition to those who are hungry, there are also 195 million children under five years of age who are stunted in their growth (UNICEF 2009) and of those children, 90% live in just 36 countries (Black et al. 2008). Malnutrition takes its toll; it is responsible for 35% of all child deaths and 11% of the global disease burden (Black et al. 2008). Micronutrient deficiencies, known as hidden hunger, undermine the growth and development, health and productivity of over two billion people (Micronutrient Initiative 2009). At the same time, an estimated one billion people are overweight and another 300 million are obese in both the developed and developing world (WHO 2006), which contributes to the risk of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. With over-nutrition, many countries and urban communities in the developing world are experiencing the nutrition transition-going from undernutrition to obesity related to insufficient exercise, sedentary lifestyles and unhealthy diets (Doak et al 2005;Popkin 2008).The global community has responded to the malnutrition crisis by focusing on interventions that aim to impact 90% of the global population burdened by stunting and that largely address inadequate dietary intake, disease burden and poor childcare practices (Bhutta et al 2008). There has been a particular focus on the window of opportunity, specifically, the first 1000 days of a child's life from the nine months in utero to two years of age (Barker 2007;Golden et al 2009;Victora et al 2008). This window is critically important because nutritional setbacks during this time can result in irreversible losses to growth and cognitive potential and can reduce educational attainment and earning potential (Martorell et al 1994;Shrimpton et al 2001;Victora et al 2008). The Scaling Up Nutrition Framework for Action (SUN), recently endorsed by more than 100 global partners and policy makers, highlights the need for early childhood and maternal nutrition-specific interventions (Bhutta et al 2008), which aim to: − Promote good child-feeding and hygiene practices; − Provide micronutrient supplementation for young children and their mothers; − Support the provision of micronutrients through food fortification; − Treat acutely malnourished children with therapeutic feeding.While highlighting core interventions, the four aims listed above will be further strengthened with a multi-sectoral approach that incorporates nutrition-sensitive interventions from other sectors, such as agriculture, education and social protection that address underlying causes of malnutrition. However, practical operational strategies for localizing and applying sensitive interventions must be further clarified and defined as to how such interventions impact nutritional outcomes. Some suggested agriculture-related nutrition-sensitive interventions include (UNSCN 2010): − Agricultural extension services promoting better crop diversity and biodiversity for improved nutrition; − Integrated agro-forestry systems that reduce deforestation and promote the sustainable exploitation of nutrient-rich non-timber forest products; − Integrated farming systems exploiting the synergies of horticulture, aquaculture and small livestock rearing to reduce waste and expenses on agricultural inputs and increase food production diversity; − Improved household food production and livelihoods (i.e. diversification of household food production for selfconsumption in order to improve the nutritional quality of the family diet); − Education and communication for development and social marketing strategies that strengthen local food systems and promote cultivation and consumption of local micronutrient-rich foods; − Improved post-harvest management (food storage, transformation, handling and processing) to reduce losses in terms of quantity and nutrient content, which also contributes to nutrition security.While the underlying determinants of malnutrition have been well understood for decades, the design, testing and scaling of more holistic multi-sectoral packages that combine child and maternal care and disease control with these nutrition sensitive, and largely agriculture-focused approaches, have been limited in their development and implementation. With the tools and knowledge that are currently at our disposal, there is a renewed global focus on interventions that address the root causes of food and nutrition security-both under and over-nutritionas part of a wider multi-sector approach, which should include agriculture.Redirecting the global agricultural system to ensure better nutrition is important as the supplier of the world's food. The current global agricultural system is producing enough food, in aggregate, but access for all to enough food that is affordable and nutritious has been more challenging. Agricultural systems have largely become efficient at producing a handful of staple grain crops, mainly maize, rice and wheat. In developing countries and particularly those in nutrition transition, people obtain most of their energy from these staple grains along with processed oils and fats and sugars, resulting in diets that often lack micronutrients and other necessary dietary and health components.Agricultural systems vary across the world spanning large-scale monocrop landscapes to smallholdings of farmers who typically live on less than two hectares of land. Smallholder farmers often work marginal lands without the tools, knowledge and resources to improve production, yet in places such as sub-Saharan Africa, 90% of farmers are subsistence smallholder farmers. In the developing world, the majority of smallholder farmers are net food buyers and rural households make up a substantial majority of the world's 900 million-plus hungry (FAO 2009). Because these individuals buy more than they sell, their access to affordable, nutritious food is an issue.It is necessary to understand how our agricultural system can promote positive nutrition outcomes. Big drivers of trends in food consumption globally are the private sector, markets, processed food and diet shifts. Research and development practitioners must start thinking about new and sustainable approaches to improving the quality and variety of food produced and consumed around the world and to develop innovative new roles that agriculture can play that will improve dietary diversity and nutrition outcomes. To do this, nutrition must be a central goal of agriculture and production systems and be recognized as a potential avenue to improving dietary diversity, quality and health as well as a means of restoring and preserving ecosystems. But one size does not fit all and this approach must ensure that agriculture -the backbone of food production -is tailored to respond adequately to the diverse conditions of major agro-ecological, socioeconomic and epidemiological situations.Agriculture is the bedrock of the food system and biodiversity is important to food and agricultural systems because it provides the variety of life (Tansey and Worsley 1995). Biodiversity includes the variety of plants, terrestrial animals and marine and other aquatic resources (species diversity), along with the variety of genes contained in all individual organisms (genetic diversity), and the variety of habitats and biological communities (ecosystem diversity). Biodiversity is essential for humanity, providing food, fibre, fodder, fuel, and medicine in addition to other ecosystem services.Agricultural biodiversity refers to the biological variety exhibited among crops, animals and other organisms used for food and agriculture, as well as the web of relationships that bind these forms of life at ecosystem, species, and genetic levels. It includes not only crops and livestock directly relevant to agriculture, but also many other organisms that have indirect effects on agriculture, such as soil fauna, weeds, pests and predators.FAO (2010b) estimates that of a total of 300,000 plant species, 10,000 have been used for human food since the origin of agriculture. Out of these, only 150-200 species have been commercially cultivated of which only four-rice, wheat, maize and potatoes-supply 50% of the world's energy needs, while 30 crops provide 90% of the world's caloric intake. Intensification of agricultural systems has led to a substantial reduction in the genetic diversity of domesticated plants and animals. Some on-farm losses of genetic diversity have been partially offset by conservation in genebanks (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2008). Even so, the implications of this loss of agricultural biodiversity for the biodiversity and quality of the global food supply are scarcely understood, especially from the perspective of nutrition.Agricultural biodiversity is the basis of the food and nutrient value chain and its use is important for food and nutritional security (Frison et al 2006), where it can potentially act as: − A safety net against hunger; − A rich source of nutrients for improved dietary diversity and quality; − A basis for strengthening local food systems and environmental sustainability.Agricultural biodiversity furthermore includes species with under-exploited potential for contributing to food security, health, income generation, and ecosystem services. Terms such as underutilized, neglected, orphan, minor, promising, niche, local and traditional are frequently used interchangeably to describe these potentially useful plant and animal species, which are not mainstream, but which have a significant local importance as well as a considerable global potential for improving food and nutrition security. Even so the research of Bioversity International and others reveals that the major causes of neglect and underuse of these important species are often related to factors that include poor economic competitiveness with commodity cereal crops, a lack of improved varieties, enhanced cultivation practices, inefficiencies in processing and value addition, disorganized or non-existent market chains as well as a perception of these foods as being \"food of the poor\" (Jaenicke et al 2009).Interspecies and intraspecies variability represents a considerable wealth of local biodiversity and, with a better understanding of their contributions and use, could have potential for contributing to improved incomes, food security and nutrition. They also have considerable potential for enhancing adaptation to global climate change. Some of these species are highly nutritious and have multiple uses. For example, some are strongly linked to the cultural heritage of their places of origin, while some are highly adapted to marginal, complex and difficult environments and have contributed significantly to diversification and resilience of agro-ecological niches. Many such species are collected from the wild or are produced in traditional production systems with little or no external inputs (Padulosi et al 2011;Bharucha and Pretty 2010).The role of agricultural biodiversity in improving dietary diversity and dietary quality is an area that requires further understanding. The lack of diversity is shown to be a crucial issue, particularly in the developing world where diets consist mainly of starchy staples with less access to nutrient-rich sources of food such as animal proteins, fruits and vegetables. Dietary diversity is a vital element of diet quality and the consumption of a variety of foods across and within food groups and across different varieties of specific foods more or less guarantees adequate intake of essential nutrients and important non-nutrient factors. Research has demonstrated a strong association between dietary diversity and diet quality and nutritional status of children (Arimond and Ruel 2004;Kennedy et al 2007;Rah et al 2010;Sawadogo et al 2004). It is also clear that household dietary diversity is a sound predictor of the micronutrient density of the diet, particularly for young children (Moursi et al 2008). Studies have also shown that dietary diversity is associated with food security and socioeconomic status, and links between socioeconomic factors and nutrition outcomes are well documented (Arimond and Ruel 2004;Hoddinott and Yohannes 2002;Ruel 2003;Thorne-Lyman et al 2010;World Bank 2006;World Bank 2007).It is essential to understand how the global agricultural system and the benefits derived from agricultural biodiversity influence the drivers of global dietary consumption patterns, nutrition and health status in particular in the developing world. The 2011-2021 Nutrition Strategy focuses on food and nutrition system approaches to improving human nutrition and health.The major goal of the strategy and subsequent programme is to promote the use of agricultural biodiversity within food production systems in order to provide nutritionally rich food sources that contribute to dietary diversity and, potentially, better nutrition and health. Our major focus is on rural, peri-urban and urban communities in the developing world.Bioversity International's nutrition research over the past several years has focused on the role and impact of traditional foods on dietary diversity and livelihoods. The research agenda is now expanding to develop strong methodological and empirical evidence on how agricultural biodiversity contributes to dietary diversity and nutrition with downstream benefits for livelihoods and ecosystems.There will be a particular focus on the role of local and traditional foods (LTFs) and neglected and underutilized species (NUS) amongst rich ecosystem and landscape sources of agricultural biodiversity for nutrition security.Bioversity International will ensure that the role of agricultural biodiversity is monitored, evaluated and enhanced within food and nutrition systems of different communities living by various socio-cultural traditions within diverse agro-ecosystems in a range of economic and political arrangements. There will also be a focus and emphasis on the preservation, conservation and sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity and on the protection of ecosystems in the developing world, which, in turn, can provide communities with the resources for productive and sustainable food and nutrition systems.There are important, yet unanswered, questions about agricultural and ecosystem biodiversity and its role in improving dietary diversity and quality and which will help to ensure nutrition security and increased health benefits. We hope that through this nutrition strategy and Bioversity International's global research agenda, answers to key research questions will become available and will provide clarity for governments, development programmers, value chain and food sector actors, academic and research institutions, health and agriculture workers, farmers and communities. These key research questions include:− How does on-farm agricultural biodiversity contribute to household consumption and to dietary diversity and quality? − How can we link agricultural diversity to improved nutrition and health outcomes and benefits and do these links have an impact? − Can agricultural biodiversity be scaled for commercial use while maintaining biodiversity and ecosystems and improving human health? − What does agricultural biodiversity imply for peri-urban and urban markets and what do trends in urban markets imply for potential success of agricultural biodiversity? − How can we better use and promote local knowledge of agricultural biodiversity to improve the health of households? − What new tools and methodologies can be created and validated that measure agricultural biodiversity associated with dietary patterns?The Nutrition Strategy is divided into two categories with two sub-objectives each:Research and evidence-oriented:− To strengthen the evidence base for the role of biodiversity in nutrition and health and the means of incorporating agricultural biodiversity into food and nutrition systems approaches; − To ensure that the production of more nutritious foods through commercial pathways reflects agriculturally biodiverse practices and cultural preferences.− To determine which agricultural biodiversity practices and delivery systems work on the ground in development programmes to improve nutrition security; − To mainstream the role of agricultural biodiversity as a standard consideration in policies and practices regarding public health and nutrition by sharing evidence and by providing local solutions.Women produce 60-80% of the food that is consumed Bioversity's work will mainly focus on agro-ecosystems that have agricultural biodiversity potential in areas with a high burden of malnutrition in developing, transition and middle income countries. The key priority countries will be drawn from the 36 countries where 90% of the world's stunted children live and which either have a functioning agricultural system or the potential for improving their agriculture, as well as countries with readiness to accelerate action in nutrition (SCN 2009).The beneficiaries of the strategy will include:Rural smallholder farmers in the developing world.At least half of the world's food-insecure people are smallholder farmers living in poverty. Many of these farmers are women, who are disproportionately poor and vulnerable to malnutrition, which affects not only themselves but their children as well.Although women and children remain the most vulnerable to the consequences of malnutrition, beneficiaries of Bioversity International's work will include entire smallholder household families.With the world's population expected to grow significantly in the next 30 years and many more people migrating to urban centres, there will be a need to increase the nutritional quality and environmental sustainability of food production and to ensure that food distribution and access is more equitable. Sustainable agricultural intensification complemented with improvements in the nutritional quality of foods will need to be considered with the growing needs of the global urban population. Working with private sector and value chain actors will be essential to ensure that peri-urban and urban consumers have access to affordable foods coming from agriculturally biodiverse food systems.Communities at risk of traditional food system loss.These communities have derived a subsistence base from the natural resources available in specific ecosystems. Some of these ecosystems and traditional food systems are threatened or in transition. These beneficiaries, include farmers, pastoralists, forest communities and fisher folk, who are some of the most nutritionally vulnerable, particularly in poverty stricken, foodinsecure communities.Objective one:To strengthen the empirical evidence of agricultural biodiversity's role in nutrition and health.The major objective of this research will be to generate a better understanding of the links among agricultural biodiversity, diet quality, and nutrition and health, as well as the overall role of nutrition within agricultural systems. By establishing a robust set of interdisciplinary projects in relevant agro-ecological systems, research will determine the main drivers of agricultural biodiversity and the role of agrobiodiverse practices and landscapes in dietary quality and diversity, and in health and nutrition outcomes for rural communities.Together, the two major research components will reinforce evidence of the vital role and impact of agricultural biodiversity and local traditional foods in improving diets and, by extension, human health and nutrition. Bioversity International will explore the interactions of these two components at individual, household, and community levels.Component one: Agricultural Biodiversity in Diets, Health and Nutrition. To describe and define the role of agricultural biodiversity in diets, health and nutrition, including the nutritional value, usage and consumption patterns of foods derived from agriculturally biodiverse landscapes, and their impact on human nutrition and health outcomes.Large-scale evidence is necessary in order to chart the impact of agricultural biodiversity on health in diverse developing world settings. Another under-researched area is the impact of a long-term approach towards diversification of nutrient-dense crops and the effects of such diversification on deficits in micronutrients and other important health factors in global communities. For many populations, LTFs and NUS, wild foods, and biodiversity in particular plant species like lesser-known grains and legumes, leafy green vegetables, tubers, crop wild relatives and forest fruits play an important role in traditional diets and, in some cases, income generation. However, little is known about nutritional value, use and consumption patterns for most traditional plant foods, and their subsequent impact on human health, chronic under-nutrition, over-nutrition and risks of non-communicable diseases.This component of Bioversity International's research will address the gap in empirical evidence that links conservation and use of agricultural biodiversity to improved nutrition and health outcomes. With this in mind, the research will: − Develop and apply research tools to understand the composition and consumption of foods from agricultural biodiversity (local, traditional, NUS, varieties of major staples); − Assess the effectiveness of the use of agricultural biodiversity use on dietary diversity and quality; − Assess the impact of agricultural biodiversity and local and traditional foods on nutrition and health outcomes; − Determine how agricultural biodiversity and local and traditional foods can mitigate the nutrition transition; − Define the linkages between the conservation of genetic resources on farm and in genebanks and the benefits to human health through characterization of nutrients and health-promoting non-nutrients of plants; − Quantify the cost of and access to diets sourced from agrobiodiverse systems.Component two: Nutritional anthropology and sociology of agricultural biodiversity. To explore food sovereignty and the socio-cultural and traditional roles of foods sourced from agricultural biodiversity in communities and households, and to understand why we eat what we eat, the right to high-quality foods, and the role of traditional food systems in those decisions.Supporting the use of biodiversity within traditional and indigenous food systems and local cuisines and diets may provide a buffer against the decline of healthful dietary behaviours. The anthropology of food is the study of eating habits, that is, the ways in which individuals or groups of individuals respond to social and cultural pressures and how and why they choose, consume and make use of certain specific aspects of the food supply including nutrition (Garin 2001;Guthe and Mead 1945). It is essential to understand the way food supplies are affected by changes in market structure, public policies, family composition, household income, and women's roles, along with the socio-cultural, behavioural and political and economic factors related to food and nutrition. Understanding inequities in food access and how cultural contexts influence food production, allocation and use are all critical to creating better nutritional outcomes. Sadly, these factors are often overlooked.Food sovereignty concerns what Via Campesina, an organization representing smallholder farmers around the world, describes as the \"right of peoples to define their own food, agriculture, livestock and fisheries systems, in contrast to having food largely subject to international markets\" (Via Campesina 2007). It is an important concept which should be taken into account in efforts to improve nutrition in less-developed countries (de Schutter 2011). It is crucial, in order to achieve long-term food security and adequate nutrition, that the production and distribution of food in developing countries remains, at least in large part, under the control of local populations and national institutions. Although international markets are essential in providing an efficient alternative to the local production of food, especially staple commodities, they cannot be seen as the sole method of feeding people. The concept of food sovereignty ensures that food is produced locally, according to national or regional customs, preferences and tastes, by taking advantage of local crops and varieties and sustaining a biodiverse agricultural paradigm. This not only helps empower local people, allowing them to choose how to produce food as well as what food to produce, but also helps generate valuable income for smallholder farmers and national enterprises.Research in this component will focus on understanding why we eat what we eat and the role of traditional food systems in those decisions. In this component, Bioversity International will: − Analyze and document the knowledge, practices, and value of traditional food culture both within households and at the community level as well as safeguard or improve upon these cultures; − Assess how urbanization, migration and the availability of new foods are changing food decisions and choices, particularly towards traditional food and diets; − Promote education and knowledge of agricultural biodiversity in traditional health and nutrition practices; − Strengthen food sovereignty principles in the context of agricultural biodiversity and nutrition for local communities without sacrificing self-reliance and income generation.To ensure that the production of more nutritious foods through commercial pathways reflects agriculturally biodiverse practices as well as cultural and consumer preferences.The links between what is produced on the farm, the consumer who buys that food, and the income received by the producer does not stop at production (Hawkes and Ruel 2010). Food is stored, distributed, processed, retailed, prepared and consumed in a range of ways that affect the access, acceptability and nutritional quality of foods for the consumer. Value chains are thus fundamental to consumption, dietary and nutrition perspectives and not only in terms of the supply of foods. Little emphasis has been given to how consumers can play a role in influencing value chains and how changes in the demand for specific local foods can influence the processes and outputs of value chains. There has also been little attention to how actors along the value chain can be better informed on enhancing the nutritional value of local foods. Food and nutrition systems need to be rethought by creating new business paradigms that demonstrate the value of biodiversity while promoting improved diet and nutrition outcomes.The research undertaken in this objective aims to understand the role markets and value chains play in improving nutrition and dietary diversification both directly, through an increase in the production of nutritious foods sourced from biodiverse systems, and indirectly, through an increase in income for smallholder farmers. Similarly, smallholder farmers can diversify their diet and improve their nutritional status either by producing more biodiverse foods directly or by accessing more nutritious and diverse foods in markets through a rise in their disposable incomes. The research will emphasize understanding the role that nutritious LTFs and NUS play in creating demand for biodiverse products from rural and urban consumers and in boosting disposable income for smallholder farmer producers.Component one: Consumer demand, knowledge and access as drivers for smallholder farmers to produce and consume more nutritious, diversified foods. To improve our understanding of how local and international consumer behaviour can increase the demand for nutritious food produced by smallholder farmers and how smallholder farmers, as net buyers of food, can access nutrient-rich foods sourced from agriculturally biodiverse farming systems in informal and formal markets.It is essential to understand how consumer demand for nutritious foods sourced from agriculturally biodiverse systems drives up production of these products among smallholder farmers in developing countries. It is also important to understand the reverse -how increased production of nutritious foods sourced from agricultural biodiverse landscapes can increase knowledge of and demand for these foods. With this component Bioversity International, working in partnership with value chain actors, will: − Define the mechanisms and incentives available to smallholder famers to increase their incomes and competitive advantages by producing nutritious LTFs sourced from agrobiodiverse systems; − Determine how women farmers can be linked in as producers and processors of nutrient-rich foods along the value chain or as ingredient suppliers to commercial manufacturers of specialized, local, commercial products for nutritionally vulnerable populations; − Identify ways to link smallholder farmers and the nutritious products sourced from agrobiodiverse farms to peri-urban and urban consumers, with a detailed analysis of the trends in peri-urban markets that determine potential success of agricultural biodiversity; − Collect and preserve traditional knowledge of smallholder farmers relating to the production, storage and marketing of nutritious products from agrobiodiverse systems.To determine best practices and delivery systems for agricultural biodiversity in nutrition and health development programmes.This objective seeks to understand how to integrate and implement agricultural biodiversity tools and methodologies in order to positively impact nutrition development programmes and food assistance on the ground. Bioversity will undertake operations research on delivery system approaches used by development agencies on food systems approaches in different regional agro-ecosystem hubs through rigorous monitoring and evaluation. The ultimate goal is to ensure that dietary quality and diversity and, ultimately, health and nutrition outcomes improve through integrated development work.Component one: Integration of agricultural biodiversity in development programmes. To design, collaborate, monitor and evaluate development programmes that implement agricultural biodiversity with agriculture and nutrition interventions and generate evidence of the health and nutrition benefits and cost effectiveness of these programmes.A new generation of food security and development programmes, which integrate nutrition and health goals has risen to the forefront. Currently there is limited evidence documenting the operational issues, impact and cost effectiveness of these new programmes and few have integrated these biodiverse agricultural practices (Fanzo and Pronyk 2010). Similarly, community-based agriculture programmes designed to improve human nutrition and health have rarely been scaled up successfully (Bushamuka et al 2008;Iannotti et al 2009). Research in this area is needed to inform the design of new programmes through the collaboration of agriculture, health and nutrition experts who effectively integrate interventions and foster synergies through an agricultural biodiversity lens.In this component, Bioversity International, in partnership with development workers, will: − Develop best practices that allow development programmes to use agricultural biodiversity to provide nutritional and dietary benefits to their target groups; − Define the added role of local and traditional foods and ingredients in the development of specialized and therapeutic food products for complementary feeding programmes for children under two, for nutritional therapy programmes aimed at HIV/AIDS patients and for acute malnutrition treatment programmes; − Identify the ways that foods sourced from agriculturally biodiverse landscapes can be incorporated effectively into school meal programmes and school garden projects; − Demonstrate the cost effectiveness and health impact of locally-produced, nutritious foods distributed in food aid and assistance programmes as well as in other food-based social safety net programmes.Component two: Value of agricultural biodiversity in food and nutrition systems. To assess the added value of agricultural biodiversity when integrated with other components of a food system approach such as ecosystem services, water and sanitation, health care, education, infrastructure and agriculture production systems.This research component will focus on qualifying and quantifying the added value of agricultural biodiversity within food and nutrition systems. A food and nutrition system is the sum of the actors and processes involved in transforming raw materials into foods and nutrients into building blocks for better health outcomes, all of which function as a system within the constraints of biophysical and socio-cultural contexts. Robust food systems can address underlying causes of food and nutritional insecurity by integrating agriculture, healthcare, water and sanitation, ecosystem services, gender empowerment and education, all of which are crucial for long term human development. These systems involve people, who as consumers are the central focus of the work. They ensure that environmental integrity, economic self-reliance and social well-being are maintained and emphasized. A healthy food and nutrition system is accessible, safe, sustainable and resilient. It ensures that links are made between food production and food consumption (Sobal et al 1998). There is also an additional role for biodiverse non-agricultural sustainable ecosystems that are important in dietary diversity and quality for local populations. This component will undertake research to understand and address the added value of agricultural biodiversity for nutrition and diets amidst the complexities of food systems in environments with vastly different diets, cultures, traditions, livelihoods, vulnerabilities and levels of marginalization.In To mainstream the role of agricultural biodiversity into public health and nutrition policy and practice by sharing evidence and providing local solutions.While a few organizations have been actively involved in promoting food-system approaches, generally they have suffered from lack of convincing evidence without providing a local context. As a consequence, there remains insufficient evidence to support well-defined, scalable agricultural biodiversity interventions that might be linked to improvements in outcomes for maternal or child health. Not surprisingly, this translates to a rather ineffective environment for policy and mainstreaming, which might lend support to these food-based approaches. Bioversity International will undertake the sharing of its experience and knowledge in research for development to guide and support policy at international, national and local levels.Bioversity's nutrition programme, through its assessment of nutritional and livelihood benefits from local food products derived from the rich agricultural biodiversity in the developing world, will certainly contribute to international efforts to address global food concerns such as the response to soaring food prices across the globe, food sovereignty, the effect of globalization of diets on health and the need to promote the effective conservation and use of this globally significant resource.Through the establishment of cross-sectoral policy platforms to promote the mainstreaming of biodiversity, the programme will create synergies with relevant global initiatives and provide linkages with national programmes and policy frameworks. Bioversity International share the evidence gathered with partners, governments and organizations for mainstreaming and integration into larger public health and agriculture policy forums and large-scale programming.In this component, Bioversity International will: − Strengthen international development initiatives that incorporate agriculture biodiversity linked food system approaches in food and nutrition security, global health and social protection policies and programmes; − Promote conservation of agricultural biodiversity and its role in improving nutrition security in national nutrition and agriculture plans and policies.It will be essential to advocate the importance of biodiversity on healthy diets and to educate the scientific community, the general public and practitioners in health and agriculture on evidence as it becomes available.With this in mind, Bioversity will: − Increase public awareness of the importance of nutrition and health; − Organize and participate in international, regional and national meetings with action outcomes that target Bioversity's beneficiaries; − Publish research findings in high impact, peer-reviewed journals as well as in popular outlets including high profile newspapers and influential blogs; − Mainstream nutrition into sectors that are not typically accustomed to considering nutrition in their research, policy or practice.Successful cases of promotion of food biodiversity at local and national levels can be scaled up regionally through the development of educational methods that address the conservation of agricultural biodiversity, sustainable development, traditional food culture and nutrition and health. Compilation of best-practice case studies and success stories will also be pursued to promote models and options for mainstreaming biodiversity into food systems across developing regions and agro-ecosystems.DElIVERING ThE STRATEGY Dominic Sansoni / World Bank Dominic Sansoni / World Bank Bioversity International will undertake thorough research and analysis of food and nutrition systems and how they function in different settings. The aim is to better understand the challenges and identify the opportunities, pinpointing the gaps that can be addressed to improve system resiliency.To carry out this research, Bioversity International will assemble a diverse team of scientists and practitioners from different disciplines including nutrition, public health, ethnobotany, economics, ecology, agronomy and anthropology. Most of the nutrition focus will be in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where food system experts are staffed in Bioversity's regional offices. As the programme diversifies and grows, Bioversity International will continue to boost its nutrition research capacity.Bioversity International works in collaboration with partners to ensure that research results are then translated into better development practices and policies that can have an impact across multiple sectors. An integrated global framework for enhancing the conservation and use of agricultural biodiversity for dietary diversity, nutrition, health and sustainable development requires working towards further collaboration and convergence of priorities among agriculture, health, business and environment. Bioversity International will work with research organizations and universities in the developed and developing world. Work will also be expanded within the CGIAR reform process to ensure better collaborations within the CGIAR system on joint research initiatives. The research Bioversity International undertakes will involve the UN system and will complement their work at country and global levels. Bioversity International will ensure that the ultimate beneficiaries of our work, including communities, farmers and women, are involved in every facet of the research. Bioversity International will also ensure that the knowledge gained as result of this programme of research will be shared with the Scaling Up Nutrition movement for incorporation into country-scale plans.United Nations agencies -Bioversity International will continue to contribute within the United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition and will work to direct biodiversity and nutrition objectives in support of convergent policies in relation to climate change, food insecurity and poverty. We will also contribute at a global level to food and nutrition security issues and work in line with the Scaling Up Nutrition framework, the Committee on World Food Security and the United Nations High Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis. Academic and research institutions -Bioversity International will ensure that empirical evidence is built in partnership with academic and research institutions with the capacity for rigorous research that amplifies and complements the CGIAR's own work. Academic and research bodies have a vast capacity for robust research projects and Bioversity will contribute to their agenda by providing increased knowledge and science to the agriculture and nutrition landscape.Value chain actors -Bioversity International will partner with private sector actors and stakeholders in order to promote agricultural biodiversity, the use of local foods and their role in boosting smallholder farmer income. These actors include farmers, processors, post harvest handlers, media outlets, food industry and retail experts who understand that markets and business enterprise are essential to the research and creation of new delivery systems for nutritious foods. Bioversity International will work with national and regional governments, farmer associations and cooperatives as well as with small and large private sector companies in order to sustain initiatives aimed at boosting the production and distribution of nutritious and biodiverse foods.International will partner with research institutes that work with plant and animal genetic resources as well as with breeders, botanists and botanical gardens to ensure that agricultural biodiversity expertise is woven into our nutrition work.organizations -Bioversity International will work with development practitioners on the ground to ensure that our operations research fills identified gaps in developing countries and makes an impact on development objectives and outcomes. We will work within development initiatives such as school feeding programmes, voucher and cash-based programmes that facilitate food access, mother and child health and nutrition programmes and homestead food production projects as the operations arm of research on agricultural biodiversity practices. Bioversity will also ensure that research results will be shared with the Scaling Up Nutrition movement for incorporation into country plans. Bioversity will also work with agricultural extension and community health workers to ensure that best practices and research results are translated into concrete benefits to households and communities alike.International will work with local farmer cooperatives and associations to make sure that research is carried out in ways most valued and understood by farmers. Bioversity will also collaborate with international movements and institutions that share the same core values and aspirations aimed at improving the nutrition and the capabilities of smallholder farmers in developing countries. Movements and cooperatives that seek to protect and sustain smallholder famers, indigenous populations and agricultural biodiversity will also be important to Bioversity International's work.In response to a global mandate to assume a role leading and coordinating activities that promote the conservation and use of agricultural biodiversity, Bioversity International aims to strengthen the capacity of developing countries to undertake biodiversity and nutrition research across disciplines. It recognizes that to achieve long-term impact and the global potential of this strategy will demand an improved capacity for promotion, social marketing and education about local food biodiversity, nutrition and ecosystem health at national, regional and global levels. Bioversity will leverage its global network of nutrition leaders to pursue capacity building with:Academics and universities -Bioversity International will work with academia and research institutes in the developed and developing world to promote food systems learning, courses and programmes of study in institutions of higher education.Individuals -Bioversity International will assist in the training of future nutritionists, agronomists and other professionals on food-based approaches in innovative academic programmes, non-academic certification programmes, government training courses and other curricula using new methodologies and tested capacity building tools.Communities -Bioversity International will work in collaboration with farmers and local communities on improved agricultural biodiversity practices that focus on nutrition and engage community health workers and agriculture extension workers, anthropologists and ethnobotanists in new methodologies, interventions and approaches to link agriculture and nutrition.A variety of methods and tools will be used to build evidence, perform operations research and monitor, evaluate and assess impact. Qualitative and quantitative operations research will be undertaken.The qualitative methodologies will include focus groups, interviews with key informants and actors along the value chain and in particular women consumers. It will include participatory and rapid appraisal tools including mapping, seasonal calendars, Venn diagrams, proportional piling and direct observation.The quantitative methodologies will include surveys for dietary and market assessments, rapid assessments of vulnerability, mapping exercises, biological measures for serum micronutrients and anthropometry in order to assess nutritional impact. Research designs will include randomized control trials as well as crosssectional, retrospective, prospective and case control studies. Ecological studies will also be performed to assess consumption patterns and will include local knowledge and trends.Operations research, also known as delivery system research, is concerned with finding out which interventions, strategies or tools can enhance the quality, effectiveness or coverage of agriculture, nutrition and health programmes in which more analytical research is being carried out. It will involve a variety of descriptive processes, such as cross-sectional analyses, case control studies and retrospective or prospective cohort analyses (Zachariah et al 2009).Development programme study designs will include adequacy, plausibility and probability methodologies. Adequacy methodology measures the expected change of nutrition status as programmes are implemented. Programme performance is evaluated and status is assessed before and after the interventions. Plausibility methodology assesses whether the programme seemed to have an effect above and beyond external factors and influences. Probability methodology is used to measure whether a programme had an impact, and checks for potentially confounding elements by making use of randomization and control groups.In conducting the research outlined in this strategy, a wide variety of tools and technology will be used, including livelihood tools for assessing physical, financial, social, natural and human capital. Vulnerability assessments and mapping will be monitored with geographic information systems and the Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping System (FIVIMS). Other methods based on food security, human development, food sovereignty and rural development will be considered.Market mapping will focus on access to markets, outcomes related to food access and availability, trader and focus group interview guides, market location mapping exercises and prices. Local market assessments will include food availability lists, seasonality, prices and preferences.Food security tools such as the household hunger scale, household food insecurity access scale, months of adequate household food provisioning and the coping strategy index (FAO and FANTA-2) will be used.Other dietary and consumption tools to be used in the research will include infant and young child feeding surveys from the World Health Organization (WHO), women's diet quality tools (see Ruel et al 2010 and other papers in that supplement), household dietary diversity scores from Food And Nutrition Technical Assistance (FANTA), consumption and composition indicators from FAO, such as their International Network of Food Data Systems and the new International Micronutrient Assessment and Planning Programme (WHO). Linear programming methods will be used to select diets based on local foods that satisfy a set of nutritional constraints while minimizing the total energy content of the diet, with costs assessed using tools such as Save the Children's cost of diets tool (Chastre et al 2007;de Pee et al 2010).Nutritional assessments including anthropometry to assess children's nutritional status as well as biochemical analyses of micronutrients will be essential to measure the impact of interventions or research on nutrition and health outcomes.Agriculture, ecosystem and biodiversity tools will be employed on-farm and in landscapes and will include a species richness index (defined as the number of identified and previously described edible species, either plant or animal, per farm), as well as a species diversity index, a species evenness index and individual species-area relationships. Access surveys will include assessments of access to seed diversity, technology and markets.Other areas to be developed include the nutritional functional diversity at the farm level, nutritional composition at subspecies level and cultural preferences for species and subspecies.Technology such as mobile phones, satellite positioning systems and food enrichment technology will also be used.The CGIAR is committed to reducing poverty and hunger, improving human health and nutrition and enhancing ecosystem resilience through high-quality international agricultural research, partnership, and leadership. The CGIAR's Research Programme on Agriculture for Improved Nutrition and Health, directly and strategically supports this commitment.Agricultural production will need to increase if the world is to meet the food needs of a growing population from a finite resource base. How agriculture develops to do this will have consequences for the health and nutrition of people. The CGIAR Research Programme is designed to support the overall CGIAR agenda by improving our understanding of how agriculture can better accentuate the benefits and mitigate the risks of agricultural development for human health and nutrition. The lessons learned are intended to serve the entire CGIAR agenda within agro-ecological production systems and along food value chains.The CGIAR Research Programme emphasizes two groups of people. The first is those people who are left behind by socioeconomic development, who suffer from high rates of malnutrition and agriculture-associated diseases and who rely on aid and development support. The second group is made up of poor people who live in dynamically intensifying and changing systems in which this type of research can help to direct agricultural development towards more beneficial approaches.Aspects of Bioversity's nutrition strategy fit well within the new CGIAR Research Programme and specific components and objectives of the proposed work will have substantive contributions to make to the overall CGIAR Research Programme.Objectives one and three fit well with Component one of the CRP, on nutrition-sensitive value chains, while Objectives three and four fit well within Component four of the CRP, on programmes and policies.Bioversity International will monitor and evaluate the implementation of this strategy on an annual basis with an external Scientific Advisory Council. The purpose of the Council is to provide Bioversity with expert, independent advice on nutritional science policy and strategy and to advise on matters concerning agricultural biodiversity, food and nutrition security, diet quality and diversity and the role of ecosystems in well being. Members are appointed as independent scientific experts on the basis of their specific skills and knowledge. (See chapter four for details of the Council members.)Monitoring and evaluation will be an integral element of the research agenda within each objective of the strategy and a logical framework for the proposed research is outlined on the following page.Over the years Bioversity International will demonstrate clear, realistic, measurable and rational pathways needed to achieve impact, in collaboration with our partners. Bioversity International will be accountable for the provision of inputs, for carrying out activities and for producing both lower-order and higher-order outputs. Subsequently, we will share responsibility with partners for the research outcomes generated, and engage together in the delivery of the development outcome. We give high importance to identifying partners that can share responsibility for achieving the research outcomes and that will play an important role in the delivery of the development results.Objectives one and two, with a focus on evidence building, will be the major priorities in the first five years and through the life of the strategy. Objective three will be the focus of years six through nine, while Objective four will be the focus of years seven through ten. All of the objectives will be targeted in key priority countries and specific agro-ecosystems. We plan to ensure that each objective and the different components are addressed as part of holistic research projects on similar sites because the various components together will define the nutrition and livelihoods impact. Each component may require distinct partnerships, tailored research approaches, methods and programme designs. Key priority countries will include the 36 countries where 90% of the world's stunted children live, where agricultural systems are fully functioning or that have potential for improvement, as well as countries that are ready to accelerate action in nutrition (SCN 2009). -Improved evidence of the links of agriculture to public health -Increased presence of LTFs from biodiverse systems in value chains and accessible to urban populationsTo promote the use of agricultural biodiversity within food production systems and provide nutritionally rich food sources that contribute to dietary diversity and potentially better nutrition and healthIndicators to be monitored Scientific public health and nutrition articles with ABD components and data Procurement programmes sourcing ABD for specialized nutrition products School meal programmes and garden projects with ABD practices embedded National nutrition policies with ABD interventions embedded Development agencies working on public health programmes integrating ABD increased Joint agriculture and nutrition strategies implemented in Developing Countries-ABD better integrated into national, regional and global nutrition, and public health development programmes and policies -Improvements made in multi-sectoral food system approaches to tackling malnutritionAdoption of outputs by target groups at regional and national levels-Tools and best practices used for development programmes and policies -Food development assistance and school meals effectively integrating ABD -Nutrient gap analysis and profiles deployed for use in developing countriesObjectives three and four -Best practices for ABD and nutrition linkages for development programmes developed -Usage of LTFs in specialized foods and school meals for development programmes defined and documented -ABD sourced commodities integrated into select food aid baskets -Nutrient gap and ABD added value quantified -Nutrient profiles of non-crop ecosystems identified and documented -Role of women in food systems approaches characterized -Research tools to measure added value and impact of ABD in public health programmes developed -Nutrition development programmes integrated with agricultural practices redefinedMartin W. Bloem, MD, PhDDr Martin W. Bloem is Chief for Nutrition and HIV/AIDS Policy and UNAIDS Global Coordinator at the World Food Programme in Rome, Italy. He holds a medical degree from the University of Utrecht and a doctorate from the University of Maastricht and has joint faculty appointments at both Johns Hopkins University and Tufts University. Martin has worked and lived in several countries in Asia including Bangladesh, Thailand and Indonesia. He has more than two decades of experience in nutrition research and policy. Bloem acted as Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Helen Keller International prior to his appointment at WFP and has devoted his career to improving the effectiveness of public health and nutrition programmes through applied research. His work has led him to participate in task forces convened by leading non-governmental organizations such as the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition (UNSCN), the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the World Health Organization (WHO).Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN Dr Barbara Burlingame is Senior Officer and Leader of the Nutrition Requirements and Assessment Group at FAO. Her areas of responsibility include food composition, human nutrition requirements, dietary and nutritional risk assessments, the cross-cutting initiative on biodiversity for food and nutrition as well as the provision of nutrition advice to FAO member nations and the Codex Alimentarius Commission. Since 1995, she has been the director of INFOODS, the International Network of Food Data Systems and since 1998 she has been the editor of the international, peer-reviewed Journal of Food Composition and Analysis. She chairs the International Union of Nutritional Sciences Food Data Task Force and is a member of several scientific advisory boards. She has authored many scientific papers and UN publications, and several book chapters and reference books and been awarded the New Zealand Royal Society's Science and Technology Medal, Dr Burlingame studied at the University of California, Davis, and obtained a BSc in Nutrition Science and Environmental Toxicology. She did her postgraduate work in New Zealand at Massey University where she obtained a PhD. From 1987-1998, she worked for the New Zealand Institute for Crop & Food Research. She has been at FAO since 1998.Fabrice DeClerck is a Belgian landscape and community ecologist with a faculty appointment at CATIE in Costa Rica. His primary research activities focus on the biodiversity and ecosystems in human-dominated landscapes of Mesoamerica. DeClerck holds an adjunct research fellowship with Tropical Agricultural Programmes at Columbia University and consults on the role of biodiversity and conservation in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). He leads research projects on biodiversity conservation and ecosystem functioning in cattle and coffee agricultural systems, looking at how biodiversity and functional diversity can be managed to increase the provisioning of ecosystem services and poverty alleviation. His current work is focused on how the position of agroforestry systems affects the capacity of these systems to provide ecosystem services. DeClerck's research also looks at how functional diversity can predict ecosystem function, including models of loss of functional diversity with agricultural intensification and the contribution of functional agrobiodiversity to human nutrition. DeClerck was a postdoctoral fellow with the Earth Institute at Columbia University where he actively investigated and wrote on the role of ecology in poverty alleviation. He also maintains an active theoretical ecology research agenda on the relationship between tree species richness and carbon storage in a tropical forest of Panama.Glenn Denning is a professor of Professional Practice in International and Public Affairs, and Associate Director of the Centre for Globalization and Sustainable Development at the Earth Institute of Columbia University. He helped establish The MDG Centre, East and Southern Africa in Nairobi, Kenya and served as its first Director from 2004-2009, during which he provided leadership to the centre's agenda in agriculture and rural development and its support to the African Green Revolution. He previously held senior management positions at the International Rice Research Institute and the World Agroforestry Centre and has lived and worked in Asia and Africa for more than 30 years. Denning served on the UN Millennium Project Hunger Task Force (2004-2006) and is a member of the Senior Steering Group of the UN High Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis. Dr Denning holds agricultural science degrees from the University of Queensland, a PhD from the University of Reading, and an MPA from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Boitshepo \"Bibi\" Giyose, PhDThe New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) Secretariat, South Africa Boitshepo \"Bibi\" Giyose is a Senior Food and Nutritional Security Advisor to NEPAD's Planning and Coordinating Agency for the African Union. Before joining NEPAD, Giyose worked for UNDP/UNAIDS Botswana as the regional project coordinator for strengthening the United Nations response to HIV/AIDS in small-population African countries. She has also worked as the regional coordinator for the Commonwealth Regional Health Community Secretariat for East, Central and Southern Africa, as a nutritionist for the Government of Botswana and as a private nutrition consultant. The World Bank Anna Herforth holds a PhD in international nutrition from Cornell University, an MSc in food policy from Tufts University and a BSc in plant science from Cornell University. She has worked with academics, non-profit organizations, CGIAR centres and the UN, contributing to nutrition policy and programmes in Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. In each region she has spent considerable time with agricultural and indigenous communities. Currently Herforth is a Nutrition Specialist at the World Bank, working on nutrition as a multi-sectoral issue related to agriculture and the environment.Dr CJ Jones is Country Manager for the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). Since 1989, she has lived and worked in both east and southern Africa, during which time she has held a variety of high-level private-sector positions including technical consultant on privatization in Zambia, lead local consultant for the privatization of Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines, founding director of the Lusaka Stock Exchange and of the African Plantations Corporation and director of several Zambian commercial banks. At the same time, she established her own investment company and developed a reputation for business management and business opportunities at the cutting edge of African industry and for raising significant new foreign investment capital. Since 2007, Jones has worked at the interface between public and private sector investment in East Africa and is currently working with GAIN to put key public health interventions related to nutrition into effect. For example, GAIN's Kenyan food fortification programme, which will reach 27 million Kenyans, and the Maternal and Infant Young Child Nutrition (MIYCN) initiatives are two that are working directly with industry to produce nutritious infant foods and make them available to mothers in low-income groups. An Australian citizen, Dr Jones was born in rural Australia and received her professional qualifications from Sydney University and Wollongong University. Jones is also a qualified educator with postgraduate qualifications in education, administration and finance.  In its common use hunger describes the subjective feeling of discomfort that follows a period of not eating. Even temporary periods of hunger can be debilitating to longer term human growth and development. Acute hunger is when food lack is short term and caused by sudden shocks to the food system, such as drought resulting in famine, whereas chronic hunger is a constant or recurrent lack of food. Reducing hunger levels places the emphasis on the quantity of food and refers to ensuring that a minimum caloric intake is met.Nutrition refers to a diet's quality. A diet rich in macronutrients (fat, carbohydrate and protein) and some micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) has been proven to improve birth weight, growth, and cognitive development and decreases child mortality.Malnutrition is a broad term commonly used to describe people who are malnourished if their diet does not provide adequate calories, protein, fat and micronutrients. It can also refer to individuals who are unable to fully utilize the food they eat due to illness. A lack of essential micronutrients (essential vitamins and minerals) often results in hidden hunger, where the signs of malnutrition and hunger are less immediately visible, and which can result in the nutrition disorder of undernutrition. Although a lot of the focus regarding malnutrition centres on undernourishment, overnutrition is also a disorder of malnutrition in which individuals consume excess calories, make poor food choices, or do not have access to high quality food. One of the major long-term determinants of malnutrition is poverty, a factor that holds true in developed and developing countries.Global acute malnutrition, or wasting, is defined as low weight for height or the presence of oedema. It can be moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) or severe acute malnutrition (SAM). It occurs as a result of recent rapid weight loss, malnutrition, or a failure to gain weight within a relatively short period of time. SAM is the most dangerous form of malnutrition and if left untreated, can result in death. Wasting occurs more commonly in infants and younger children. Recovery from wasting is relatively quick once optimal feeding, health and care are restored. Wasting occurs as a result of deficiencies in both macronutrients (fat, carbohydrate and protein) and some micronutrients (vitamins and minerals).Chronic malnutrition, commonly referred to as stunting, is a failure to grow in stature, which occurs as a result of inadequate nutrition over a longer period. It measures chronic deprivation, with inadequate food intake, poor health and poverty, which results in poor child growth. Stunting of children under five years of age is a strong indicator of hunger and of endemic poverty, one of hunger's determinants. Global and country stunting is often much more prevalent than undernutrition and wasting and more accurately reflects nutritional deficiencies and sickness that occurred in the most significant times of a child's growth.The 1996 World Food Summit stated that \"food security exists when all people at all times have both physical and economic access to sufficient food to meet their dietary needs for a productive and healthy life\". The achievement of food security depends upon three distinct but interrelated processes (USAID 1992). The first is food availability, ensuring that a sufficient quantity and diversity of food is available for consumption from farm, marketplace or elsewhere. The second is food access, which refers to households having the physical and financial resources required to obtain food. The third is food utilization, having the capacity and resources necessary to use food appropriately in order to support healthy diets. This includes access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation, knowledge of food preparation and the basic principles of good nutrition, proper child care, illness management and so on.Increased consumption of unhealthy foods compounded with increased prevalence of overweight in middle-to-low-income countries is typically referred to as the Nutrition Transition. It occurs in conjunction with the Epidemiological Transition and has serious implications in terms of public health outcomes, risk factors, economic growth and international nutrition policy. Nutrition transition may result in malnutrition not simply from a need for food, but from the need for a high-quality diet. Foods rich in vitamins and minerals such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains have been substituted by foods heavy in added sugar, saturated fat, and sodium. This trend, which began in developed, industrialized countries, has spread to developing countries. These developing countries are now stressed with the double burden of malnutrition -hunger alongside the health problems associated with overnutrition, such as obesity, diabetes and stroke.Agricultural biodiversity includes ecosystems, animals, plants and microorganisms related to food and agriculture. Today most crop species and domesticated livestock are the result of thousands of years of human intervention, including selective breeding and other farm practices. Agricultural biodiversity provides food and raw materials. Moreover, every plant, animal and microorganism plays its part in the regulation of essential ecosystem services, such as water conservation, decomposition of waste, nutrient cycling, pollination, pest and disease control, climate regulation, erosion control, flood prevention, carbon sequestration and many other ecosystem-oriented factors (CBD, 2010).There is no universally accepted definition of local foods or traditional foods. Traditional foods are generally from a particular culture, available from local resources and culturally accepted. Other aspects that have to be factored in to a consideration of traditional foods include sociocultural meanings, techniques for acquisition and processing, use, composition and nutritional consequences (CINE 2006). In this strategy we use local and traditional foods to refer to plants and crops, fruits, non-timber forest products, livestock, fish, hunted game, wetland species, wild or gathered foods and insects.Agro-ecosystem describes a conceptual model of an agricultural system (crop, farm or whole economy), which relates its functions to its inputs and outputs. An agro-ecosystem encompasses land used for crops, pasture, and livestock, the adjacent uncultivated land that supports other vegetation and wildlife, the associated atmosphere, and the underlying soils, groundwater and drainage networks. Ecosystems services are ecological processes and functions that sustain human wellbeing (Daily 1997).Sustainable diets are diets with low environmental impact and which contribute to food and nutrition security as well as to a healthy life for present and future generations. Sustainable diets are protective and respectful of biodiversity and ecosystems, culturally acceptable, accessible, economically fair and affordable, nutritionally adequate and safe and healthy while also optimizing the use of natural and human resources.","tokenCount":"11468"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"61740894a54794d62960f133e3654594","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/64544275-86cb-40f0-8dc2-ab849aed666a/retrieve","id":"2136419241"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f38939ce-8864-419b-9dc3-5919accd4c3f","pagecount":"50","content":"This is a working paper that has not been formally peer reviewed. The opinions expressed in this paper and any possible errors are the responsibility of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the position of the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture Intensification or of the institutions and individuals who were involved in the preparation of the report. This report was commissioned by the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture Intensification (CoSAI). CoSAI brings together agricultural and food systems experts and decision-makers from the Global South and is collaborating with scientists, innovators and partner organizations from across the globe.The authors gratefully acknowledge the support and inputs provided by the Secretariat of the Commission on Sustainable Agriculture Intensification (CoSAI) as well as all associated Commissioners who played an extensive role in reviewing the analysis and various drafts of the report as well as their support and inputs towards the approach for the study. The authors also thank Richard Kohl for his extensive support through the process.The Oversight Committee for the study comprised CoSAI Commissioners Maurício Lopez (co-Chair), Rasheed Sulaiman V (co-Chair), Irene Annor-Frempong, Rodomiro Ortiz, Uduak Edem Igbeka, Vara Prasad and Varad Pande, and technical advisor, Julia Compton. Study management and administration was provided by David Shearer and Josefina Achaval-Torre from the CoSAI Secretariat.Within Kenya, the study was led by Bancy Mati. The authors sincerely thank all the institutions and individuals who provided data, information and insights which helped to ground and enrich this report. Special thanks go toKenya. This is a technological innovation involving the construction of water-harvesting farm ponds for crop irrigation, improving agricultural intensification, food security and climate change resilience by small-scale farmers. Although some farm ponds previously existed in isolated farms, this innovation started around 2009 with an initiation phase in Yatta Sub-County of Machakos County, where dug-out farm ponds were actively promoted (2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014). The out-scaling phase started from around 2013 to the present (2021) in the three counties Kitui, Machakos and Makueni in 1 All of the studies are available on the CoSAI website (https://wle.cgiar.org/cosai/pathways-for-innovation). viii eastern Kenya. It is estimated that at least 10,000 farm ponds were excavated and actively used for irrigation in the three counties.This focuses on adoption of solar-powered irrigation in peri-urban areas of Kajiado County, which border the city of Nairobi, from 2005 to 2021. This is mostly a technological innovation driven by business pull through peri-urban agriculture to meet the demand for fresh produce in the nearby Nairobi city, along with innovative financing models to suit farmer needs. Since Kajiado has almost no rivers, this innovation is driven by the need to pump groundwater, the availability of affordable solar-powered irrigation systems kits, and free (solar) energy. Solar-powered irrigation equipment is sometimes marketed as complete kits (solar panels, pump and irrigation gear). This has enabled irrigated agriculture to thrive using clean energy and thus resulted in agricultural intensification.Tana Catchments. This innovation presents a case of watershed management activities implemented by land users in upstream catchments of the Upper Tana River Basin from 2012 to 2021. Starting with a three-year proof of concept phase (2012-2015) a business case was developed, followed by an implementation phase (2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020). This was a blended finance innovation with technological, environmental and socio-economic components. It addressed the creation of a Water Fund through a platform for public-private partnerships, providing support and a delivery mechanism for SAI and watershed conservation. The downstream water users (in Nairobi) provide incentives (blended finance) for upstream communities (land users) to conserve the sources of water.From the foregoing, the following were recommended:• Farmers should be engaged throughout the innovation process. It is emerging that innovation thrives when farmers and local communities are included as investors or stakeholders rather than as beneficiaries, for example, in the construction of waterharvesting structures. Support them contribute to the ideas shaping the innovation, and encourage them to drive it practically.• Quite often, end users are resource poor small-scale farmers who may require some financial push. Thus, the financing models that have a cost-sharing element (e.g., water credits) have a greater chance of success. Interesting examples at different scales of innovation include mobile phone financing for solar pumps ('pay-as-you-grow') and conservation measures financed by public-private partnerships of the Upper Tana-Nairobi Water Fund. ix• Innovations take time to be tested, implemented and upscaled -at least eight or more years in the cases covered in this report. It is therefore imperative for all partners to have patience and to plan long term, including in the financing of the initiative.• Innovations usually benefit from strong leadership. The identification and support of champions (both individual and institutional) facilitate a coordinated pathway for growing the innovation. As for example, the strong leadership by a respected entity, as was provided by The Nature Conservancy in Upper Tana, was instrumental in putting together the partners needed to build up the Water Fund.• Conducive government policies, their implementation and support through relevant institutions facilitate smooth operations and easier upscaling of innovations. One example is favorable import tariff policies for solar-powered equipment. Government policy is informed by innovation based on lessons learned. Innovations can lead to policy reform.• The bundling of innovations when introduced from the beginning gives the initiative an integrated approach for both problem solving and success, enabling targeting of incentives, upscaling, policy push and out-scaling of lessons learned. For example, the success of solar pumps required a bundle of innovations in finance, institutions, policy and technology.• Partnerships facilitate a multiplier effect helping to reduce transaction costs, share responsibilities and provide support according to strengths and needs of stakeholders. • Integrated approaches are necessary and require partnerships in order to meet the needs of various actors at the financing and policy side as well as those of land users at the implementation end. • Partnerships (of government, NGOs, development partners, researchers, farmers and the private sector) enable pulling together resources, synergies and project implementation.The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture Intensification (CoSAI) promotes more and better investment in innovation for sustainable agriculture intensification (SAI) in the Global South, and works to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the climate goals of the Paris Agreement. For CoSAI, 'innovation' includes not only science and technology but, importantly, innovation in policies, finance and social institutions. 'Transformative innovation' of agriculture for SAI means \"major change to farming system structures and functions\" or \"a fundamental shift in the way food is grown and supplied\", moving agricultural systems significantly in the direction of SAI goals. The CoSAI's main target audiences are 'innovators' (research and development entities and the private sector) and 'investors in innovation' (e.g., Ministries of Agriculture and international funders) who invest directly in agricultural innovation and research. Thus, the term 'innovation' in this context includes SAI-related institutional, policy and financial innovations as well as scientific and technological innovations. SAI refers to the transformative changes required in agricultural systems to meet the United Nations SDGs and the climate goals of the Paris Agreement, including social and human objectives as well as environmental sustainability.In lieu of this, it is important to identify pathways, approaches and partnerships that can address the complexity of innovation challenges within agricultural systems. However, many past innovations have taken a less planned and structured pathway to success, engaging with imperfect enabling environments, with needed policy and institutional changes brokered along the way. Learning from pathways of previous transformative innovations is important for future work in this area. The purpose was to produce practical, evidence-based lessons on factors that influence success in pathways for innovation for SAI.This particular report refers to the country case study for Kenya. It is one of three country case studies (Brazil, India and Kenya) that used a common framework of analysis to draw out common lessons as well as context-specific findings.  Kenya's agricultural sector is among the most innovative in sub-Saharan Africa, driven in part by the need to grow more food for a rapidly growing population, declining area of good land for cultivation, weather-related limitations, especially recurrent droughts, and highly competitive markets. In a study of agricultural innovations in Kenya (Makini et al. 2016), some 43 innovations were identified and categorized into eight domains -cropping, livestock, governance, marketing, finance, processing, natural resource management and value addition -of which 62% were crop-related innovations. The majority (61%) of the innovations were technical, 23% were organizational and 16% were institutional.Other projects have also identified innovations focused on land and water management in Kenya (Critchley et al. 1999). Indeed many agricultural innovations in Kenya remain undocumented, while others are still emerging, which offer lessons on factors that influence success in pathways for innovation for SAI.This is one of three country case studies covering Brazil, India and Kenya, which utilized a common analytical framework to identify SAI innovations (Annex 1). In Kenya this involved a systematic and consultative process summarized as follows:1) Conducting Literature Review: A review of literature was conducted to capture data, information and material content for the case studies. Information was gathered from reports, records, publications and other sources bearing on SAI in Kenya. Also reviewed were global, regional, national and local data sources from the internet, libraries and key contacts.2) Preliminary Identification of Candidate SAI Innovations: From the literature review, the first round of seven candidate SAI innovations in Kenya (Annex 2) were selected. The selection criteria were common across the three country studies: a) Innovations that have been achieved recently, at least from 2000 to date b) Innovations that have impacted relatively large numbers of people, preferably targeted at groups or regions (excludes individual farmer innovations) c) Preferably home-grown innovations d) Transformative innovations e) Representing a variety of 'initiators', e.g., public sector, private sector, civil society and public-private partnerships f) Representing a variety of innovations in policy, social institutions and finance as well as science and technology (or ideally combined) g) Innovations that might affect different types of farmers.Based on information gathered from literature, data analysis and consultations, the top three SAI innovations in Kenya identified were: (i) Water harvesting and storage in farm ponds for irrigation in eastern Kenya (ii) Solar-powered irrigation in peri-urban Kajiado (iii) Blended finance supporting agricultural intensification and watershed management in Upper Tana Catchments.Using the contacts from the stakeholder mapping, respondents likely to provide further information and details on the selected SAI innovations were contacted as key informants. These were interviewed through ICT (information and communication technology) modes such as e-mail communications, telephone interviews, WhatsApp, Zoom meetings and face-to-face meetings with observance of all COVID-19 safety protocols.Verifying the Presence of the SAI Innovations at the Grassroots: Field visits were made to five counties where the three SAI innovations had been identified: Kitui, Machakos, Makueni, Kajiado and Murang'a. During these visits, national and county government staff, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community-based organizations (CBOs), private sector service providers, farmers and other stakeholders were interviewed and the innovations visited and verified (Annex 3).The scarcity of records and central databases meant that supporting data were not easy to find, with the exception of the blended finance case study. The information available from the Internet was descriptive, while due to COVID-19 pandemic, face-to-face interviews were at a minimum and data gathering relied on telephone and e-mail. Even then, field visits were made to verify realities on the ground and interviews conducted with key informants. Drought and prolonged dry spells have for years ravaged and continue to affect agriculture in the semi-arid counties of Kitui, Machakos and Makueni in eastern Kenya (Recha et al. 2016). Farming in the three counties is predominantly smallholder, rainfed crop production. The seasonal rainfall, when it falls, is highly variable, erratic and occurs in intense storms resulting in poor infiltration, excessive runoff and consequently massive soil erosion. Due to the erosion menace, between the 1970s and the 1990s, many donor-driven projects and government initiatives on soil conservation through terracing were implemented (Tiffen et al. 1994). However, soil conservation, much as it improved crop production marginally, could not bridge the yield gap caused by recurrent droughts, which have got worse over the years, to the point where farmers stopped planting maize during the long rains (Mati 2012). All these problems could be solved by making water available for farming, in all areas, even those lacking rivers or groundwater. It is this challenge which was turned into opportunity through water harvesting.Water-harvesting farm ponds (water pans or on-farm small storages) 2 are water storage structures constructed below the ground surface to collect rainfall runoff from open surfaces such as home compounds, roads, grasslands and other areas (WFP 2018). A farm pond has an inlet to regulate inflow and an outlet to discharge excess water. It is usually surrounded by a small bund, which prevents erosion on the banks. A farm pond may be earthen (where the soil profile is self-sealing) or, in many cases, lined with dam plastic, concrete or other material to prevent water losses by seepage (Figure 1).The field investigations showed that pond sizes vary depending on the farmer's water requirements, land availability, soil type, excavation costs and catchment characteristics. In Kenya, farm ponds are usually excavated by hand using simple hoe and shovel, but in a few cases, larger farm ponds are excavated by machinery. Water stored in the farm pond is extracted using buckets or pumps, the type depending on farmer's financial capacity (e.g., manual, petrol or solar-powered pumps). The water is usually used for irrigating part of the farm to grow high value/short season crops and, in some cases, for livestock watering. Due to high turbidity and other health concerns, most families do not drink water contained in farm ponds. Rather, they seek drinking water elsewhere, e.g., from boreholes, water kiosks or roof harvesting storage tanks. Thus, farm ponds are used mostly for crop intensification and to drought-proof agriculture in the dry zones. In that time, the few existing food stocks were depleted, livestock were sold in distress or just died and local people generally lost their assets and were impoverished. Seeing all this, Dr. Titus Masika, a retired teacher, encouraged local farmers to excavate water-harvesting farm ponds for use to grow food. With some assistance from an NGO, the Christian Impact Mission (CIM), farmers were trained on water harvesting and construction of farm ponds which were about around 4-5 meters deep (World Agroforestry 2020). This initiative encouraged many families to excavate their own ponds and within a short time, over 3,000 water-harvesting ponds had been constructed in the Yatta area alone (van Steenbergen 2019). This number continued to grow and by 2021 almost every household in Yatta owned at least one or more farm ponds. It should be noted that this success was partly enabled by the fact that the soils in Yatta are self-sealing. Hence the farm ponds are simply scooped (no need for lining) as they hold water adequately (Figure 1) without seepage issues. The technology is thus easy to replicate.The water stored in the ponds was lifted to farmlands mostly using buckets or petrol pumps and used to irrigate food crops. The types of crops grown also changed, becoming more diverse, including marketable produce such as vegetables. Farmers could now grow kale, cabbage, tomato, onion, peppers and indigenous vegetables. It should be noted that farmers in Yatta cultivate on average 5 acres (2 ha) for field crops, mostly maize, pigeon pea, cow pea and green gram. The water from the farm pond is inadequate to irrigate such large areas. Rather, it is used to irrigate high value crops, especially vegetables and seedlings for sale. These types of crops do not cover the entire farm, but take up about a ¼ to ½ acre (0.1-0.2 ha) and rainfed crop production continues throughout the rest of the farm. Sometimes, when the rains fail, farmers 'top up' rainfed crops with the water from ponds, averting crop failure by using harvested water, hence agricultural intensification. The knowledge, attitude and behavior change components that were undertaken by the CIM included training on water harvesting techniques, utilization, agronomy and learning to grow crops with supplemental irrigation.The water harvesting initiative evolved through two phases, with the starter phase (2009-2014) in Yatta Sub-County of Machakos County, where digging of farm ponds was actively promoted with assistance of CIM. The success of the Yatta water-harvesting farm ponds attracted many visitors to the area. A number of projects and programs were implemented to upscale water harvesting across Kenya based on the Yatta model. This triggered the second phase which was the out-scaling to other parts of Kenya, which occurred during 2014-2021. By this time, visitors were trooping to Yatta to learn from their experiences and see the farm ponds and agricultural activities. Indeed the training center located at Yatta and operated by CIM started charging fees for training or taking groups around, at a cost of KES 10,000 (USD 100) per day, when they realized that farmers were spending too much time hosting visitors. The groups visiting Yatta were mostly leaders, farmers, NGOs and individuals -a number of serious adopters resulted from this learning exercise. Beyond Yatta Sub-County, water harvesting was promoted by NGOs and county governments. By 2021, it was estimated (information from key informants) that about 10,000 farm ponds had been constructed in the three counties of Kitui, Machakos and Makueni (Figure 2). b) Kitui County: This is the most arid of the three counties where farm ponds were actively promoted. As a result, the county government funded the construction of larger ponds for community and livestock drinking water supplies. However, household water harvesting with storage in farm ponds was also promoted by the county government and various NGOs, including Caritas, Action Aid, World Vision Kenya, the Kenya Red Cross Society and international development partners, e.g., the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) (ICRAF 2020). Others include CBOs and farmer common interest groups. For instance, Caritas excavated at least 120 farm ponds in Kitui over the last three years, while a Kwamikuyu CBO dug 100 farm ponds in the Kwavonza Ward alone (field staff interviews). The total number of farm ponds in Kitui could not be ascertained because farmers quite often excavate ponds on their own initiative. One major challenge in Kitui is severe drought which ravaged the county for two consecutive seasons (2020/2021) to the extent that some farm ponds were dry. Generally, the larger farm ponds still had water even after the prolonged drought. This implies that it is necessary to construct large ponds in the drier areas (farms are also larger in this area).In Makueni County, the combined efforts of the national government, county government, NGOs and farmers' own initiatives facilitated faster and more visible evidence of adoption of farm ponds. The county government was at the forefront of coordinating the activities. Water-harvesting farm ponds have always existed in Makueni, mostly dug by individual farmers as well as through support by NGOs and donor-funded projects (e.g., WFP, FAO, European Union, United States Agency for International Development, Caritas and Action Aid), albeit data for quantification are hard to come by. The contemporary impetus for water harvesting started when the Makueni County Government officials and farmers made a series of trips to Yatta in 2016 to learn from their experiences. Following this, the county government took seriously the concepts of water harvesting with the slogan \"Kutwikania Kiuu Movement\" which simply translates to \"Water Conservation Movement\". The Makueni County Government using NIA's machinery provided services of mechanized farm pond excavation (free), thus lessening the initial cost. The farmers' contribution included completion of the pond (removing debris, smoothing, lining the pond and providing auxiliary infrastructure including pumping equipment). By September 2021, NIA had excavated some 500 additional farm ponds of capacity 500-1,000 m 3 in the county. Parallel to NIA's excavated farm ponds, the county government implemented a cost-sharing arrangement for excavation of ponds in Kathonzweni, Makindu and Kibwezi.Type of innovation: This is a technological innovation at the farm level, bearing components of a financing model. Water-harvesting farm ponds require some engineering/technical expertise for design and construction, as the technology is not truly indigenous. Farm ponds were introduced to most farmers in the recent past, as a new and innovative way of harnessing rainfall runoff in relatively large quantities, capable of supporting irrigation. In addition, the Makueni case study illustrates an innovative financing model that enables cost-sharing of the more expensive aspects of developing a farm pond, i.e., cost of rapid excavation and purchase of dam liners. Moreover, farmers sometimes work together in groups supporting each other in digging farm ponds, e.g., in Kitui.An integrated approach: An integrated approach was adopted by the starter Yatta project and later by the adopters especially in Machakos and Makueni Counties in promoting water harvesting. In both cases, farmers (including both adopters and non-adopters) were trained on pond construction, operations and management, crop selection and agronomy, soil fertility management, water conservation, marketing of produce and linkages to microfinance and farming as a business. The integrated approach is best illustrated through a water harvesting project implemented in Mwala, Machakos County, through the Drydev initiative (Drydev 2019). They observed that: \"since installing farm ponds, the farmers have diversified their production, now including vegetables, fruits trees, poultry and bee keeping, allowing them to produce throughout the year and thus maximizing their income.\" This facilitated opportunities for increased production of major staples, vegetables and fruits, thus contributing to improved household nutrition.Adoptable by all farming scales: The adopters and users of farm ponds range from the poor or uneducated who mostly dig smaller farm ponds using family labor, to farmers with alternative sources of income, e.g., having wage employment elsewhere, who invest in larger farm ponds with substantial capital outlay (based on interviews and field observations). Regardless of wealth status, all farmers required technical advice and services such as proper siting, construction and lining of ponds (where necessary) or pump selection, thereby encouraging cross-learning within the community.Subsidies and incentives: Each of the three counties provided some form of incentive or subsidies to cushion farmers against the high costs of construction and equipping of farm ponds. In Kitui, NGOs provided subsidized dam liners while farmers provided labor for the excavation. In Machakos and Makueni (where ponds are larger), they sought the help of NIA, which excavated the ponds for free but the farmer did the finishing, including dam lining. Also in Makueni, the county government implemented a financing model of the cost-sharing excavation of farm ponds as described in Box 1 (quoting the Makueni County Director of Agriculture).This initiative is led by the county government which had purchased some machinery (back-hoe excavators) specifically for the water harvesting program, leased out to farmers at a subsidized fee. Farmers prefer mechanized excavation as it is faster and more cost effective than manual digging. The farmer hires the excavator for one day, paying KES 4,000/hour (USD 40/hour). On average, the excavator takes 5-6 hours on good soil or about 8 hours on hard and stony soils to excavate a 500 m 3 capacity farm pond, meaning just one day is needed for excavation. Depending on site conditions, some farm ponds are earthen, while others are lined with dam plastic. Thus, the average cost of a farm pond starts from about KES 30,000 (USD 300) for unlined ponds. For farmers who require lining their ponds, dam liners are expensive as the average cost is about KES 90,000 (USD 900) for a 500 m 3 pond, resulting in a total cost of about KES 120,000 (about USD 1,200) for these large lined ponds. This is a substantive capital outlay, hence the need to support the poor through various credit or grant programs. Indeed poorer farmers excavate smaller ponds using manual labor. The NGOs and other funding streams normally subsidize the cost of dam liners.Partnerships: In the earlier stages, during the promotion of water harvesting in Yatta (2009-2014), partnerships were formed under the leadership of CIM (Dr. Masika) to kick-start the process. These included farmer groups and extension workers. In the out-scaling years (2014-2021) another partnership led by ICRAF with partners who included international NGOs (ADRA, World Vision, SNV-Netherlands and Caritas) promoted water harvesting through the Drydev project in Machakos and Kitui. Thereafter, there were various partnerships led by respective county governments, e.g., in Makueni, the county government partners in promoting farm ponds for food security with organizations such as the WFP, Action Aid, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and FAO.Policy and institutional support: At the national level, water harvesting is well espoused in long-term plans such as Kenya Vision 2030 as well as the Irrigation Policy (GoK 2017). In addition, counties play an important role in implementation of water harvesting programs. Nearly all counties have included promotion of water harvesting for irrigation in their five-year CIDPs. Based on the CIDP, development funding is channeled to counties, including grants for projects by development partners. Thus, the policy and strategy support was a major factor in driving the scale that was reached. In the Agricultural Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy 2019-2029 (GoK 2019), farm ponds feature as a critical enabler to unlocking growth of investments in agriculture. Even the Water Act (Republic of Kenya 2016) recognizes water harvesting and storage as necessary for improving agricultural productivity and climate change resilience.One of the greatest challenges is the high cost of construction of farm ponds, especially those requiring dam liners. Without support by relatives or subsidies by various projects, poor farmers find it difficult to afford excavation of farm ponds, especially as it is a labor-demanding activity. Older farmers in Yatta informed the researchers that it took them a number of years to excavate one pond by hand, as the work had to be done during the dry season when other farm work is low. For this reason there is the need to support the poor and female-headed households with subsidies to excavate ponds.Another field observation was that technical staff suggested that there is generally enough surface runoff to fill a pond at household level, even after a few storms. The size of ponds is thus limited more by cost/labor consideration than by availability of runoff.There is usually a need for trained technical staff to design, layout and supervise the construction of farm ponds. The number of available technicians was reported to be low, calling for more capacity building in this highly specialized field. Some of the more common problems associated with farms ponds include high evaporation rates and safety concerns, which can be resolved by fencing the pond area, covering with special nets as well as provision of pumps with water draw-off points positioned away from the pond. Sometimes these best practices are not adhered to.The energy to lift water from the pond to the irrigated field is another challenge. Many farmers cannot afford solar powered or motorized pumps. Delivery of water to fields is sometimes manual and thus wasteful (of both energy and water). All these issues need to be addressed to make best economic use of the farm pond for agricultural intensification.Estimates by field staff indicated that at least 10,000 farm ponds had been excavated by 2021, and were being used for irrigation of food crops in the three counties, facilitating agricultural intensification and food security for small-scale farmers. This positively impacted on at least 100,000 people in the food value chains created, emanating from the presence of the farm ponds (as reported by county staff).The impacts of water harvesting and storage ponds for improving food production and climate change resilience are substantive. Respondents interviewed stated that by using the stored water, farmers were able to bridge the dry season when rains fail, hence produce more food crops such as maize, pigeon pea, beans, fruits and vegetables. Moreover, a wider range of crops including marketable produce, especially fresh vegetables and fruits were being grown.Farm ponds advanced the commercialization of the rural economy through increased participation of farmers in strengthened value chains of selected inputs and commodities, access to credit and financial mechanisms, while enhancing information exchange, knowledge and advocacy. In one example in of a youth group that adopted farm ponds in Mwala, Machakos County, it was observed that a net positive return on investment could be achieved within 2½ years (Drydev 2019). In regard to income benefits, for the same youth group, it was observed that farm ponds cost KES 158,000-319,000 (average of KES 207,066 or USD 2,071) to install, including auxiliary irrigation infrastructure. Farmers reported increased annual farm income of KES 179,200 (USD 1,790). Average monthly household expenditure on food has reduced by KES 1,840 (USD 18) attributable to irrigated produce using farm ponds (Drydev 2019).Farm ponds provide opportunity for creation of employment and increased livelihood options and household incomes through sales of their produce, with subsequent enhanced living standards. Water harvesting supports nutrition as farmers are able to grow nutrient rich crops and kitchen gardens. The water is also used for livestock thus enhancing integrated agriculture. Furthermore, water harvesting was also a social innovation, meaning it enabled the design and implementation of new solutions that imply conceptual, process, product or organizational change, which ultimately improve the welfare and wellbeing of individuals and communities (https://www.oecd.org/regional/leed/socialinnovation.htm). In essence it changed how farmers respond to drought, enhancing incomes and community resilience to climate change.Another outcome was the opportunity for farmers in dry zones to have access to water at farm level throughout the year and to irrigate crops including on land without a river or ground water resources. This gave this innovation opportunity for wide adaptability. Other factors included (a) dynamic leadership by Dr. Masika through CIM that initiated wide adoption within Yatta and attracted adopters -both NGOs and county governments, (b) technology advances through availability of solar-resistant plastic dam-liners, (c) subsidized excavation and incentives made available to farmers to accommodate the high costs of construction and (d) capacity building provided by NGOs, county governments and various projects. This was especially evident in the eastern Kenya counties of Kitui, Machakos and Makueni, where farmers adopted construction of farm ponds, to solve the problem of food security in the face of recurrent droughts. In addition, most of Kajiado has few rivers and is too dry for rainfed agriculture. Luckily, the peri-urban areas of Kajiado lying on the Athi-Kapiti plains have good soils and appreciable groundwater resources, estimated to have a potential yield of up to 240 m 3 /day (WRA 2020), which can be exploited for irrigation. In the past, groundwater resources remained largely underutilized due to the high cost of water pumping using conventional energy sources, thereby discouraging investment in irrigation.Water pumping for irrigation relied on conventional energy sources, such as petrol or diesel pumps (Muturi et al. 2019) and in a few cases, electric pumps powered from the grid.Evolution of solar-powered irrigation systems (SPIS): Before the 1970s, use of solar power generation was negligible in Kenya. As a response to the oil crisis of the 1970s, use of renewable energy was encouraged and solar energy for heating water and lighting homes was popularized. Toward the late 1970s, solar photovoltaic (PV) systems were installed in remote areas and solar pumps started to make their way into the Kenyan market (Chandel et al. 2015). The early types of PV pumping systems used centrifugal pumps, usually driven by variable frequency alternating current (AC) motors. However, these pumps had low hydraulic efficiencies in the range of 25-35%. These early solar pumps were fraught with problems, as they were inefficient, expensive and easily failed. The power obtained from solar equipment was usually weak with short functional life, and local people did not know how to maintain batteries. These factors discouraged smallholder farmers from adopting solar-powered pumps. In the 1980s-1990s, efforts on solar PV went to lighting of schools, health centers and for pumping drinking water mostly funded by donors and NGOs.Meanwhile, affordable energy to pump water from groundwater sources for irrigation in Kajiado was the missing link to agricultural intensification. This disconnect was resolved from around 2000, when the energy sector was liberalized in Kenya (EED Advisory 2018), a critical trigger of the innovation. The number of solar-energy and irrigation companies marketing solar water pumps increased, including in Kajiado peri-urban areas. Private sector marketers of solar products, sometimes doubling up as agents of various companies, promoted SPIS solutions to farmers through farm visits, shows and advertisements in the media. This knowledge push encouraged farmers in peri-urban Kajiado to adopt SPIS. More farmers were able to open up land for irrigation or to convert from use of fossil fuels or grid electricity into SPIS.This innovation involved enhancing agricultural intensification using green energy through adoption of SPIS in peri-urban areas of Kajiado bordering the city of Nairobi. Kajiado County has high insolation rates of about 4-6 kWh/m 2 with an average of 5-7 peak sunshine hours per day. Only 10-14% of this energy can be converted into electricity due to the conversion efficiency of solar PV modules (EED Advisory 2018). Since 2006-2007, the Ministry of Energy has actively promoted solar energy for offgrid electrification. It funded the Solar for Schools program, which it aims to extend to off-grid public institutions. In terms of solar power penetration, data from the 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census Volume IV show that just 15.5% of households in Kajiado County used solar as their main source of energy for lighting (KNBS 2019). Even then, the percentage of solar energy harnessed for water pumping or irrigation was not quantified.Type of innovation: This is mostly a technological innovation driven by business pull through periurban agriculture, bundled with innovative financing models using mobile money platforms. SPIS is defined as \"an irrigation system where water pumping is powered by solar energy\" (FAO 2018). The SPIS adopted in Kajiado (Figure 3) typically consist of the following main components: (1) a PV array (solar panels), (2) a controller unit [either direct current (DC) or AC inverter], (3) an electric motor, (4) a water pump and (5) a water storage facility/tank (optional). The most common solar water pumping systems for irrigation range from low-head submersible pumps for shallow wells to heavy-duty submersibles for borehole pumping. Boreholes that yield from 20 to over 100 m 3 /hour have adequate water for irrigation and may require large solar panels, which are available on the Kenyan market.Interviews with key informants revealed that, in the peri-urban areas of Kajiado, adoption of solarpowered irrigation by farmers has rapidly expanded in response to close proximity of the market for irrigated produce in nearby Nairobi city, and availability of equipment through various sales agents.The private-sector-led solar PV industry provided affordable, durable, easy to operate solar water pumps, sometimes marketed as a complete kit (solar panels, pump and irrigation equipment) with innovative financing models to suit individual farmer needs. This facilitated expansion of agriculture and improved production of food, both for local and export markets. In the peri-urban areas, the average farm sizes were small, ranging from 0.5 ha to about 10 ha for the more commercial farming. The majority of SPIS farmers were small-scale. Photos: Bancy Mati.a) Market penetration of SPIS: Within Kajiado, SPIS adoption started increasing from around the year 2000, mostly due to marketing and publicity by respective companies promoting the technology, and a policy push for green energy (Republic of Kenya 2012). Sales data are difficult to come by but one company, Sunculture, reported to have sold at least 200 SPIS kits in Kajiado alone (staff interviews). Indeed the true number of SPIS kits operating in Kajiado remains largely unknown as no relevant mapping has been done. Most farmers buy their solar kits directly from the private sector and there is little information flow to the county databases. Generally, the sales of both small-and large-scale solar powered pumping systems are reportedly growing steadily. The factors contributing to this are illustrated in Figure 4. b) Solar-powered irrigation kits became affordable: Technological advances in the design of solar equipment saw prices go down generally, associated with the push for clean energy. For water pumping, invention of solar-powered pumps that operate with DC further simplified the technology, making it more efficient and affordable. In effect, contemporary SPIS kits offer an array of products ranging from small portable kits to large-scale installations for scheme-level irrigation or communityscale projects. For smallholder individual farms irrigating about 0.2-0.4 ha, an SPIS kit that includes a submersible pump and solar panels costs about USD 350-1,740 (KSSI 2017). Meanwhile, those for heavy-duty borehole pumping may cost about USD 30,000. As these are initial costs and there is low if any running costs, then the investment is worthwhile. Also, the cost of solar panels has reduced by 80% in the last 10 years. Furthermore, the cost recovery of solar pumping investments can be attained within 1-3 years (ALIN 2020). This shows that solar power has come of age to plug the energy needs for irrigation.The proximity of the county to Nairobi city and indeed location within the metropolitan area provides easy market targeting for fresh produce. The irrigated farms of Kajiado provide fresh vegetables (kale, cabbage, tomato and onion) for the local market and French bean for the export market, due to easy access to the international airport (Mati 2019).There are a number of financial institutions providing grants, loans and credit for agriculture in Kenya including at village level. There are also private companies and NGOs offering innovative credit schemes targeting smallholder farmers engaged in irrigated agriculture. These include asset financing, such as providing in-kind soft loans for farmers to purchase SPIS equipment. The most common typologies of financing and credit models for SPIS include pay-as-you-grow, pay-as-you-go, microfinance credit schemes, mobile layaways, rent-toown models, the leasing model, aggregator models and table-banking models (Mati 2019). Thus, a number of these credit schemes facilitate the poor to access SPIS through affordable financing (see Box 2).This is a financing credit model for SPIS, designed for small-scale farmers, in which no collateral is required. The farmer shows evidence of access to land, irrigation water and being active in farming, but with a need for water pumping. Credit is allowed for farming on as little as ½ acre (0.2 ha) plot of land. The solar kits on offer vary with farmers' irrigation requirements. Some of the smaller ones comprise portable solar panels with a pumping kit (submersible pump and pipes). A solar pumping kit capable of a suction head of at least 15 m costs about USD 350.Farmers can take the pump on loan and pay through an M-Pesa 3 credit scheme which deducts 'water credits', in a credit scheme referred to as 'pay-as-you-grow'. This enables the farmer to pay for the cost of the solar pumping kit in small installments as he/she grows a crop. Once the credit is fully paid, the farmer fully owns the pump.The solar panel is fitted with an electronic sensor linked to a dedicated SPIS M-Pesa loan account of the farmer and also to the bank. When the pump is operating, it triggers a connection to the computers in the offices of the company that sold the SPIS system, which reflect remotely that the pump is in operation (the company keeps a rich database of who is irrigating and when). At the same time, operating the solar pump also triggers a link to the loan account (in a bank) for that particular pump/farmer. As the water is pumped, it uses M-Pesa credit which in turn reflects as a deduction of the loan account in the bank -all this happens simultaneously. In essence, the loan reduces each time the pump is operated. When there is no money in the M-Pesa account, the pump stops and can operate again if the M-Pesa account is topped up. Some farmers pay a monthly rate while others pay on an as needed basis, i.e., they top up the M-Pesa account as necessary. This continues until the loan is fully paid, at which time the solar pump operates freely without the need for topping up with M-Pesa credit, and the pump becomes wholly owned by the farmer. Many farmers pay the loan by the second crop season of vegetables or within a year, as reported by key informants.e) Complete SPIS kits: Several SPIS service providers and companies provide the layout and design of the whole system, including planning of agronomic aspects, and act as holistic service providers.Examples include Sunculture, Kickstart International, Futurepump, Epicenter Africa and Irrico. In Kenya, there is a general trend toward suppliers planning and designing the entire SPIS (including pump and irrigation equipment), installing it and offering service contracts for its operation, thus being competitive. In that case, the company acts as a service provider but links the farmer to a financier for the purchase of the system.f) Enabling policy: The Government of Kenya in 2012 zero-rated the import duty and removed Value Added Tax on renewable energy equipment and accessories (Republic of Kenya 2012). Moreover, the Finance Act -2021 (Republic of Kenya 2021) upheld tax exceptions on specialized equipment for the development and generation of solar and wind energy, including PV modules, DC charge controllers, DC inverters and deep cycle batteries that use or store solar power. This helped to retain lower costs of solar panels and attachments. However, these tax exemptions do not cover peripheral equipment, such as mountings, pumps, pipes or irrigation equipment. If tax exemptions were expanded to all irrigation equipment, costs would be reduced leading to more adoption, and thus encouraging increased food production.Value chain actors: There is a wide stakeholder base engaged in the SPIS value chain, as obtained in interviews with key informants. They include (i) users of solar products and equipment -mostly farmers, (ii) suppliers of either whole SPIS kits or components of solar-powered equipment and associated services, such as importers, wholesalers, retailers and re-sellers, manufacturers and service providers across a wide spectrum (private companies, technicians, extension workers, traders and transporters. There are also (iii) development partners supporting SPIS (UN, multilateral, international and local NGOs), (iv) banks and financial institutions, (v) marketing and farmer support organizations, including NGOs, (vi) institutions offering training on solar-powered systems and (vii) policy and regulatory institutions at national and county levels (government).Service providers: There are many service providers active in Kajiado County in the SPIS space, some with offices there or simply operating from Nairobi. The most common ones include the following:• Sunculture -have a wide range of small pumps including the RainMaker solar water pump systems, which consist of a solar pump, controller, battery bank, portable solar panel and sprinkler (http://sunculture.com/products)• Epicenter Kenya -re-sellers of various types of pumps and also provide technical support for fixing pumps. Main types of pumps are those by Grundfos, Kenya Lorenz and others (http://epicenterafrica.com)• Future Pump -have popularized their SF2 solar pump which is a reciprocating, positive displacement piston pump using a DC motor. It is simple in design -farmer fixable, and good for smallholder farms (https://futurepump.com)• Kenya Lorentz -sells medium to large solar pumps including the PS2 solar pump which is of high efficiency with a wide power range from 150 W to 4 kW. They also sell a wide range of pumps (https://www.lorentz.de)• Davis & Shirtliff -also a reseller of all types of pumps including Dayliff DDPS60 and Sun-Flos range, which are solar-powered pumps suitable for water transfer in small-scale applications and installation of equipment (https://www.davisandshirtliff.com)• Other companies include Greenserve Agri-solutions, Chloride Exide, Grundfos, Wotech Kenya Ltd, Grekkon, Irrico International, Adritex Kenya and Generation Kenya Limited. Others offer various services from capacity building to extension services. For instance, Strathmore University does capacity building for technicians who may be self-sponsored or funded by companies, while the County Government of Kajiado provides policy support and extension staff on all aspects of agriculture including irrigation. Other stakeholders include transporters, traders and retailers who complete looping of an SPIS value chain.A number of challenges face the sub-sector of solar-powered irrigation, cutting across technological, policy, economic and social issues, and they include the following:#High initial costs: Although the prices of solar energy equipment have drastically dropped, making the technology affordable to medium-scale farmers and those with alternative incomes, the cost is still relatively high for smallholder farmers. For instance, a small solar pumping kit for irrigation costs about USD 350-800, which is still too expensive for poor farmers (Mati 2019). Moreover, most solarpowered pumping equipment is imported from China, India, USA, Germany and other countries and finding spare parts locally can be a challenge.There are few qualified technical staff to handle design, installation, operation and maintenance of SPIS and this affects the quality of products, design, installation and maintenance services for SPIS (http://kerea.org/voluntaryaccreditation-of-solar-pv-businesses-in-kenya).The peri-urban areas of Kajiado have been taken over by residential areas which occupy formerly fertile lands that could be irrigated. This means shrinking space for agriculture.c) Limited publicly available information on renewable resources to support investment promotion, decision making and energy planning.d) A limited local capacity to manufacture solar power components and equipment.e) Limited information on appropriate credit and financing mechanisms, which causes delay in project implementation. c) Multiple use of solar energy generated: SPIS are versatile and can be converted to other uses at farm level. They offer multiple use of energy which is especially important in areas not connected to an electricity grid. The solar energy is used for post-harvest processing of crops, lighting homes, charging mobile phones and other light industries. This eliminates the need to purchase fuels such as petrol and paraffin. Through improved access to energy and water, SPIS helps to stabilize, increase and diversify agricultural production (e.g., vegetables and fruits). The increased availability of food improves food and nutritional security, especially for smallholder farmers and their communities.d) Scalability: Solar-powered irrigation is applicable across multiple scales as pumps come in a range of capacities and solar panels can be added if additional power as required. SPIS can be implemented at individual farmer or community levels. The County Government of Kajiado has conducted a mapping of the potential sites for solar energy installations, and is in the process of piloting a new smart-grid solar technology (ALIN 2020).e) Reduced labor and drudgery: Solar pumping upscales farmers from using manual water-lifting devices such as bucket irrigation or treadle pumps. This is a major relief for women whose health is affected by manual irrigation methods. SPIS is low maintenance, easy to install, simple and reliable, and may operate unattended. Some smaller SPIS kits are portable, making them easy to share between farmers and for safe keeping.f) Environmentally friendly: Solar water pumping is a climate-smart choice, especially when compared with petrol, diesel or other fossil fuels. Overall, SPIS can play an important role in climate change mitigation, reducing greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide) emissions in irrigated agriculture by replacing fossil fuels with a renewable energy source.g) Resilience against drought/climate change: Farmers in dry zones regularly suffer crop losses due to droughts. Affordable pumping, especially with introduction of supplemental irrigation of crops, could cushion farmers against weather shocks. Being renewable, solar energy facilitates irrigation and thus attainment of SDGs that have a bearing on food security (SDG 2), water (SDG 6), energy (SDG 7) and climate change (SDG 13). The national government developed a roadmap for SDGs which is supportive of renewable energy including solar, as one way of climate change adaptation and resilience (Ministry of Devolution and Planning 2017).There are significant benefits of solar pumping solutions for women and youth. SPIS are often used for crops traditionally grown by women, such as fruits and vegetables. This could enable women farmers to engage in production of vegetables, improve household nutrition and incomes from sale of agricultural produce. Also, SPIS is a laborsaving technology which is attractive to youth. Although not quantified, key informants interviewed indicated that a large number of youth were engaged in SPIS in Kajiado.Management in Upper TanaThe city of Nairobi has a growing population, numbering 4,397,073 in 2019 (KNBS 2019). It is a thirsty city, suffering huge water deficits. The water demand in Nairobi city averages 750,000 m 3 /day against a delivery capacity of 525,000 m 3 /day (Gichuki 2015). The Upper Tana catchments supply the bulk of the water used in Nairobi through the Sasumua and Ndakaini dams, which draw their water from the Chania and Thika rivers, respectively. Nairobi being a major industrial hub in Kenya, its consumption includes both industrial and household water. However, increasing suspended sediment in the rivers has become a major issue as it increases the maintenance and water treatment costs. Indeed the water treatment costs often increase more than 33% during the rainy season, as sediment runoff fills and disrupts treatment equipment causing supply interruptions. Without intervention, this problem is likely to escalate, as climate change causes more intense rainfall events and population growth leads to more farming on steep watershed slopes. In addition, Nairobi's water treatment and distribution facilities are under pressure and face a deficit of 30% of water when the system is operating at full capacity. It is becoming clear that sorting this out requires interventions at the source, i.e., in the catchments where the resource managers are local farmers. Such efforts require supporting community actions in the areas where the water originates.Meanwhile, in the upstream catchments of the Upper Tana, the land owners/users who live upstream cultivate the steep, fragile lands prone to erosion, soil degradation and are generally resource poor. It is essential that downstream users support upstream actors to better manage the watershed and promote conservation. Residing on top of water catchment areas, these land users constitute 'unpaid watershed managers' of the natural resources, including the water collected in dams and taken to the city of Nairobi downstream.The city of Nairobi on its part has, among its residents and clients, large water users comprising companies with generous corporate social responsibility funds. Some of these companies and water utilities such as the Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company are willing to support conservation and other beneficial activities in upstream areas where the resource comes from. Moreover, the city entities and land users would also like to see ecosystems preserved, agriculture practiced in a sustainable manner and watershed conservation that translates into cleaner water flows from the catchments. As opposed to previous approaches of one-off projects, this innovation brought together the water users downstream (Nairobi-based private and public institutions) who set up a long-term sustainable blended financing mechanism, the Upper Tana-Nairobi Water Fund which has since graduated into a fully incorporated trust in Kenya. It is a long-term financing model for watershed management combined with governance and having legal basis as a charitable public trust. The Water Fund created a platform for participation of public, private and development actors and communities, providing support and a delivery mechanism for SAI and watershed conservation, where downstream water users (at the tap) provide incentives (blended finance) for upstream communities (at the top) to conserve the sources of water.Type of innovation: This is a blended financing innovation with technological, environmental and socio-economic components. The Water Fund was the first of its kind in Kenya, and indeed in Africa.Following a successful proof of concept, a five-year project phase from 2015 to 2020 actualized to create the Water Fund as an enduring institution and implement various activities out of which successful outcomes were achieved: reduced erosion, increased tree cover, rainwater harvesting, crop diversification, increased incomes for farmers and investment flows from partners. This phase was implemented with funding support from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) through IFAD (IFAD 2015) and implemented by TNC in collaboration with partners. It entailed the following:Timelines: This innovation has a timeline of nine years (2012-2021) in two phases: (i) the first three years (2012-2015), implemented as a proof of concept phase, when baseline studies and partnerships building were done to test the business case for setting up a Water Fund modeled on experiences in other parts of the world but anchored in local realities and (ii) the second phase of five years (2015-2020) was the setting up of the Water Fund through a GEF-funded project culminating in the transition into a fully independent trust under Kenya law in September 2021.Proving a business case for the Water Fund: The Water Fund was initiated in 2012 through a threeyear proof of concept phase which was used mostly for gathering baseline data, hydrological and economic modeling and developing a stakeholder base. This stage was meant to determine the 'business case' for establishment of a Water Fund for Nairobi (TNC 2015). This entailed a series of studies over a three-year period meant to assess the economic viability of a Water Fund for the Upper Tana River basin. The studies were commissioned by a public-private steering committee comprising TNC and its partners. This coming together of the large companies led to financial commitments and goodwill for the Water Fund's establishment in Nairobi.A water fund is a governance and financial mechanism focused on science-based implementation of upstream land and water conservation measures necessary to meet water quality and/or quantity goals (Figure 5). It features a public-private partnership of government, public and private donors and private sector institutions -some of which are major water consumers 'at the tap' that contribute to the water fund operations and implementation fund and/or endowment. The endowment fund is a long-term financing mechanism to which the partners make contributions. Whether endowment or general implementation funds, they are used to support water and soil conservation measures 'at the top' (TNC 2015). These measures benefit local farmers through increasing agricultural yields by reducing soil erosion, improving crop production sustainably, taking care of water quality and catchment conservation.Identifying the benefits and costs: The Water Fund business case study focused on the benefits that would arise given a USD 10 million investment in priority sub-watersheds disbursed over a period of 10 years as a preferred scenario. Investment planning and watershed modeling were performed using economic analysis and a coupled SWAT-InVEST modeling framework. Subsequently, FAO's EX-Ante Carbon Balance Tool (EX-ACT) tool (  Source: TNC 2015.The financial support for water funds is used to promote sustainable land and water management practices upstream that filter and regulate water flow. These management practices can include strategically-sited tree planting and land terracing, natural water holding features and on-farm soil and water management practices. Funding is also used to support economic opportunities that enhance livelihoods and the quality of life for upstream communities that further incentivize farmers and landowners to implement sustainable management practices. Indeed, many of the interventions that improve water quality and quantity also lead to increased agricultural yields.Water funds can also enhance communities' ability to adapt to climate change, by building in resilience to fluctuating water supplies and temperatures.Implementation of water funds is a proven model founded on the principle that it is less expensive to prevent water problems at the source than it is to address them further downstream. The results of the Water Fund business case demonstrated a clear economic basis for the establishment of the Water Fund. It proposed a USD 10 million investment in Water Fund interventions showing that this is likely to return USD 21.5 million in economic benefits over a 30-year timeframe. The study projected that for every USD 1 invested by the Water Fund, stakeholders in the basin and Nairobi would see over USD 2 worth of benefits accrued (Schmitz and Kihara 2021). The payback period for the investment is calculated at approximately 20 years.The Water Fund provides a secure and transparent program through which public and private donors and partners who depend on clean water supplies from the Upper Tana watershed can direct resources to conservation strategies that will yield the greatest returns for the common good and the economy.Financial outlay: From a financial perspective, the business case recommended that to achieve the results required in the Upper Tana, an annual expenditure of some USD 1 million would be required over a 10-year period, impacting on some 50,000 farms and adjacent forests whereby most farms would be engaged to change their land management and soil management practices. This meant collective action by partners downstream and in the international community, who would mobilize at least USD 1 million annually, to try to achieve the target of USD 10 million that constituted the initial budget of the Water Fund (for a 10-year period).Theory of change: The function of water funds is premised on the principle that it is cheaper to prevent water problems at the source than to address them further downstream (TNC 2015). Investments in green infrastructure using natural systems to trap sediment and regulate water often provide a more cost-effective approach than relying solely on gray (built) infrastructure such as reservoirs and water treatment systems. The idea of a Water Fund for Nairobi was based on findings from other successful water funds that TNC had implemented elsewhere in the world. Examples include the cities of Quito in Ecuador and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. By the time of its formulation in 2012, the Water Fund relied on experiences gained in addressing similar issues in Latin America, where over 30 water funds had been developed (TNC 2015). The Water Fund was thus planned with these concepts (Figure 6) of sharing the benefits of watershed conservation by upstream land owners/users through investments by downstream beneficiaries of accruing water resources protection and ecosystem services.Developing a blended finance system or 'water fund': This entailed mobilizing sustainable financing from donors, private sector and water users in the downstream city of Nairobi and in the international community to support agricultural intensification and watershed conservation activities in Upper Tana River catchments. Blended finance is defined as the strategic use of development finance for the mobilization of additional finance toward sustainable development in developing countries (OECD 2021). The problem addressed was the disconnect in availing a sustainable financing mechanism to support watershed management and SAI in the upstream catchments of the Upper Tana River Basin.The innovation started with a 'proof of concept' phase.Setting up the institutional structures: This entailed creation of a public-private partnership or steering committee. Grassroots activities were implemented in partnerships with county governments (Murang'a, Nyandarua and Nyeri) and some specific activities and deliverables contracted out to NGOs, such as the Sustainable Agriculture Community Development Programme (SACDEP) and the Green Belt Movement. The day-to-day activities were coordinated by staff in the secretariat with oversight by the Board of Management, which represents the managerial expertise responsible for the technical matters of the Water Fund. The overall direction of the Water Fund was entrusted to a board of trustees, the apex body responsible for delivery of the Water Fund and resource mobilization. A number of factors and activities contributed to the success of this innovation, such as the following:• Establishment and institutionalization of the Water Fund management platform. This involved identification of at private sector companies in Nairobi, and linking them with public sector institutions to create a public-private partnership to establish the Water Fund as a charitable trust incorporated under Kenyan law and governed by a board of trustees. The board of trustees was charged with overall implementation of the Water Fund, which worked through a set of advisory committees and a technical secretariat, responsible for the day-today management of its activities.• Mobilization of funds from both public and private sector institutions to support tangible activities in the upstream catchments. This included support from international stakeholders including the Swedish International Development Agency, GEF, IFAD, Frigoken Limited and Coca-Cola.• Investment flows to upstream catchment land users/land owners that supported sustainable land management and integrated natural resources management implemented by farmers and other land users in the Upper Tana catchments. The farmers in the identified priority conservation areas were rewarded in-kind through training, provision of free tree seedlings and nutritious fodder grasses, subsidized dam liners for water harvesting, subsidized seeds and linkages to markets.• Capacity building of farmers, farmer groups, community, county and national institutions was done using extension services from NGOs in collaboration with county governments (Murang'a, Nyeri, Laikipia and Nyandarua). Farmers were trained on best practices in crop agronomy, soil conservation, water harvesting and farming as a business.• Establishment of robust knowledge capture, management and learning systems so as to track progress made and share lessons both at local and national levels. Strong emphasis was placed on monitoring and evaluation frameworks to support the Water Fund in decision making and allowing for an adaptive management approach to the targeted incentive schemes, and also to allow for upscaling, policy integration and replication of lessons learned.The Water Fund had strong leadership from The Nature Conservancy (TNC) which hosted the secretariat and convened all the partners. The main partners included the Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company, Kenya Electricity Generating Company, the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture, Tana and Athi Rivers Development Authority, Water Resources Authority, East Africa Breweries Limited, Coca-Cola, Frigoken Limited and the water technology company Pentair. Other than the funding partners described above, there are other partnerships with local NGOs that cover the three priority sub-watersheds of Thika-Chania, Maragua and Sagana-Gura. These included the Thikabased SACDEP, the Greenbelt Movement and Caritas. Partnerships with expert institutions (ICRAF, National Museums of Kenya and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology) were also established to support scientific baseline studies, training and impact monitoring. The Water Fund is now an incorporated charitable trust in Kenya, with dedicated leaders and a growing partnership base and own financial and governance systems.A number of challenges have faced the implementation of the Water Fund. For instance, although at the beginning, water harvesting farm ponds had not been planned for, it became evident that water shortages during the dry season would result in direct over-abstraction of the rivers, and excess flooding during the rainy season still caused sedimentation. To solve these problems, rainwater harvesting and storage in lined farm ponds were added to the activities supported by the Water Fund. These farm ponds became popular but the cost of UV-treated dam-liners is high for farmers, hence the Water Fund provided them while the farmers bore the cost of excavation. The fact that dam liners were provided at a great subsidy (which is the largest cost) enabled the high adoption of water harvesting in the target areas. Landslides (considered a geological form of erosion) continue to occur in the most upstream parts of the catchment causing erosion damage and sedimentation of rivers, even in some steep forested areas. Some of the locations were totally inaccessible and took a long time to rehabilitate.Climate change and erratic weather has seen extreme events of rainfall and drought, which hamper both crop intensification and watershed protection. Although hydrological studies have proved improved water quality over the short term, there is still a need for long-term data collection to be able to advise policy on the scientific outputs emanating from Water Fund activities. The COVID-19 pandemic starting March 2020 curtailed a number of planned field activities that could not be adapted to a virtual support and implementation system thereby derailing the pace of advancement of the Water Fund deliverables.The Water Fund has generated measurable benefits over the past six years for people living in the watershed, for the residents of Nairobi and for watershed functions: over 44,000 farming households (about 220,000 people) are on record as having adopted improved soil conservation and water-saving technologies. The Water Fund focuses on the most at-risk areas of the watershed and helps farmers take simple steps to increase water and food security. Strategies included tree planting for agroforestry and reforestation (Figure 7), terracing, water harvesting and planting vegetated buffer zones along river banks. Generally, the Water Fund generated a wide range of benefits enumerated as follows:• 44,725 farmers have implemented land and water conservation measures  By fostering multi-stakeholder alliances and partnerships, while also being a broad-based publicprivate partnership, the Water Fund facilitated alliances incorporating beneficiary groups, NGOs and private sector and public service providers along an innovative implementation strategy, and partnerships can be formed in the future. This is the underlying concept of water funds in providing financial sustainability; through payments for ecosystem services which require both a market for suppliers and the demand of recipients.The tools for the economic monitoring of return on private sector investment were integrated into the Water Fund management structure. The success of the Water Fund was measured against its efficiency in disbursing funds and to provide incentives for catchment management and to improve downstream water quality and quantity. Particular attention was paid to good targeting, i.e., the extent to which the most vulnerable beneficiaries such as poor and food insecure women, youth and female-headed households (now standing at 38% of total) benefited from Water Fund incentives and whether the incentive schemes employed were appropriate to the needs of beneficiaries. As a result, a conservative assessment of the results predicted by the science-based business case demonstrates a viable return on investment in the implementation of the Water Fund while direct community benefits have grown several fold from the initial estimates (key informant interviews).Scaling out: Beyond the Water Fund, the rolling out of similar activities inside Kenya and across the African continent is a testimony to the encouraging results of this initiative. Some areas of uncertainty that remain include the degree to which biodiversity in the region is protected, the degree to which the project will reduce the risk of flooding events in the longer term and the sustained levels of sediment reduction being attributed to the project. However, the Water Fund is most certainly making encouraging strides toward climate resilience, nature-based solutions in the water sector, livelihood improvement and evidence-based policy making in the region.The Kenya case study on pathways to innovation for SAI includes three case studies, across different agro-ecologies and contexts, that can be considered successful cases of SAI. The first case of water harvesting and storage in constructed farm ponds to provide water for supplemental irrigation of food crops is set in semi-arid agro-ecologies of eastern Kenya (Kitui, Machakos and Makueni). It started with a passionate champion and resource poor, food insecure small-scale farmers in a dry environment who learn and are supported to construct farm ponds. The technological innovation is pushed by financing models and capacity building for it to work.The second case of solar-powered irrigation in peri-urban areas of Kajiado County -which has grown mostly through a private enterprise push -is solar water pumping for irrigation and entrepreneurial farmers in a market-responsive initiative. Whereas a conducive policy environment facilitates this innovation, the role of the public sector in extension or capacity building is negligible, pointing to a possible future where innovation tends to be demand driven with the private sector at its core.The third innovation on blended finance unveils the possibility of raising sustainable financing for agricultural intensification, driven from a watershed management perspective in the Upper Tana catchment, with blended finance from institutions based in the city of Nairobi, located downstream. The concept of the Water Fund, although not new internationally, was tested and by building credible evidence that it works was able to attract funding. The three cases have certain common features that describe the pathways. These include strong and focused leadership especially at the beginning, bundling of innovations, partnerships through which initiatives share synergies and responsive farmers willing to try new things. Financing of the innovation through various innovative modes, new knowledge and learning were at the core of each innovation.Some key challenges were observed, including scarcity of data, particularly on financial issues, with much information being provided verbally from interviews. In addition, where private sector engagement is strong, e.g., in solar-powered irrigation, the partnerships are difficult to pin down as there is competition and lack of central databases concerning what has happened. The field verification of each SAI case revealed much more information than use of the Internet, especially as so much remains unrecorded. In addition, the scaling process can be slow (in terms of reaching critical numbers of adopters), such as impacts on food security, climate change resilience and poverty reduction, which can be long term. The Kenya case study therefore shows that the pathways differ depending on local conditions and expected goals.1) Centering end users in the innovation: Farmers should be engaged throughout the innovation process. It is emerging that innovation thrives when farmers and local communities are included as investors or stakeholders rather than as beneficiaries: for example, in the construction of waterharvesting structures. They contribute to the ideas shaping the innovation, and are encouraged to drive it practically. In addition, end-user needs should be included through stakeholder engagement and development of tailored context-specific solutions.2) Financing: Innovative financing is often as important as technology in driving innovations. Quite often, end users are resource poor small-scale farmers who may require some financial push without creating a dependency syndrome. Thus, the financing models that have a cost-sharing element, especially in-kind (e.g., water credits), have a greater chance of success. Interesting examples at different scales of innovation include mobile phone financing for solar pumps ('payas-you-grow') and conservation measures financed by the public-private partnerships through the Water Fund.3) Innovations take time to reach 'at scale': Innovations take time to be tested, implemented and upscaled -at least eight or more years in the cases covered in this report. It is therefore imperative for all partners to have patience and to plan long term, including in the financing of the initiative.4) Leadership: Innovations usually benefit from strong leadership, which should be identified and supported from the very beginning. The identification and support of champions (both individual and institutional) facilitates a coordinated pathway for growing the innovation. For example, strong leadership by a respected entity, the TNC in Upper Tana, was instrumental in putting together the partners needed to build up the Water Fund.Conducive government policies, their implementation and support through relevant institutions facilitate smooth operations and easier upscaling of innovations. One example is favorable import tariff policies for solar-powered equipment. Government policy gets informed by innovation based on lessons learned. Innovations can lead to policy reform. 6) Bundling: The bundling of innovations when introduced from the beginning gives the initiative an integrated approach for both problem solving and success, enabling targeting of incentive, upscaling, policy push and out-scaling of lessons learned. For example, the success of solar pumps required a bundle of innovations in finance, institutions, policy and technology. Identification of the root cause of problems and what should be changed by a minimum number of actions offers a pathway to innovation. 7) Partnerships: Partnerships facilitate a multiplier effect helping to reduce transaction costs, share responsibilities and provide support according to strengths and needs of stakeholders. Integrated approaches are necessary and require partnerships in order to meet the needs of various actors at the financing and policy side as well as those of land users at the implementation end. Partnerships (of government, NGOs, development partners, researchers, farmers and private sector) enable pulling together resources, synergies and project implementation.The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture Intensification (CoSAI) brings together 21 Commissioners to influence public and private support to innovation in order to rapidly scale up sustainable agricultural intensification (SAI) in the Global South.For CoSAI, innovation means the development and uptake of new ways of doing things -in policy, social institutions and finance, as well as in science and technology.Contact us: wle-cosaisecretariat@cgiar.org wle.cgiar.org/cosai","tokenCount":"11809"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1b303c0176d9647a606561c671e85650","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0d2cc249-7852-40e2-96a5-8ded81620b82/retrieve","id":"1492639360"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"dd3de427-9a45-4d4e-bbe6-ccd725852e90","pagecount":"19","content":"Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above. The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used.vThe International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) organized a workshop of local, regional and international food safety stakeholders. The workshop was held at the ILRI Nairobi campus on 24 February 2014. The main objective of the workshop was to introduce current and new projects on food safety to stakeholders. Thirty-two participants attended the meeting, representing the main institutions involved in food safety in East Africa, including the African Union-Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Department of Veterinary Services (DVS) in Kenya\"s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, FAO, ILRI, the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS), the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), the Kenya Meat Commission (KMC), the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the World Health Organization (WHO).The meeting was divided in three main sections. During the first part, each stakeholder institution was introduced and its representative gave a short five-minute presentation about institution\"s goals and priorities on food safety. The second section featured technical presentations from FAO and ILRI representatives in relation to ongoing or future projects on food safety. In particular, FAO\"s key food safety initiatives are (i) risk-based inspection systems/import; (ii) good practices throughout the food chain; (iii) data generation on various food safety issues (for example, mycotoxins, chemical hazards, pathogens and antimicrobial residues); (iv) multi-factorial policy and decision-making; (v) risk analysis toolkit; (vi) early warning/rapid alert surveillance and (vii) effective response to emergencies.The meeting ended with a plenary discussion about the technical presentations by ILRI and FAO. Some relevant points were: (i) informal markets cannot be too regulated due to the risk of hiding, increasing the public health risk; (ii) decision-making needs to use a mix of methods; (iii) there is a need for a coordinated surveillance; (iv) although food safety standards exist, there is weak capacity to enforce them; and (v) there is lack of knowledge about the main foodborne pathogens and their impact, the levels at which they cause harm and the likely consequences of taking no action to reduce risk.Cristobal Verdugo represented ILRI at an \"Early warning -rapid alert\" workshop organized by FAO in Rome in October 2013. During that meeting, he held several bilateral meetings with representatives from the other attending organizations, among them Andrew Edewa, food safety officer at AU-IBAR. Considering the possible synergy between ILRI and AU-IBAR, Verdugo proposed a meeting between both institutions in Nairobi to explore possible areas of collaboration on food safety issues. A meeting proposal was presented to ILRI and FAO managers, who then decided to scale up the proposal and invite other stakeholders to better understand the needs of the several actors involved in food safety in East Africa and explore possible areas of collaboration among the participating institutions. With these objectives in mind, a workshop was organized at the ILRI Nairobi campus, bringing together key stakeholders in food safety in East Africa.The objectives of the meeting were to:1. Present new or current activities in the area of food safety that ILRI expects to implement, or has implemented, in Africa.2. Present new activities in the area of food safety that FAO expects to implement in Africa.3. Obtain feedback from stakeholders about the presented project activities.4. Understand the needs and challenges of stakeholders in the area of food safety.5. Create links between stakeholder institutions and explore possibilities of research collaboration.Opening remarks by Jimmy Smith, Delia Grace and Jean KamanziStakeholder representatives gave brief presentations (3-5 minutes) on their institutions\" food safety interests and the priorities for the future.Abigael Obura (CDC Kenya): CDC Kenya is an agency of the government of the United States of America that works with the Government of Kenya in control and prevention of diseases (malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS) using the One Health approach and has sentinel sites for disease surveillance. Aflatoxins are a major food safety issue; CDC Kenya was involved in responding to the aflatoxicosis outbreak in Kenya in 2004. An aflatoxin serosurvey carried out in 2011 revealed that 78% of analyzed samples had detectable levels of aflatoxins and aflatoxin exposure cut across socioeconomic levels, indicating that this is a general public health problem. In light of the porous borders in the region, the serosurvey will be extended to the eastern Africa region (Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia and Rwanda) to target public health interventions after identifying populations at risk.Christopher Mutungi (Egerton University): Food safety work is carried out by the Department of Dairy and Food Science and Technology. Work is being done on mycotoxin and pesticide residues; effect of hermetic grain storage systems on reducing aflatoxin levels in stored grain; mycotoxin residues in animal products and breast milk and food losses in the dairy chain. Priority: Adoption of a holistic approach to food safety in line with changing food production and processing practices.Joyce Thaiya (DVS): This is a specialized department in the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries. The veterinary public health section focuses on the safety of animal-source foods and carries out inspection and certification of meat and milk products. Meat inspection is carried out at all abattoirs in the country and along the value chain.  2013) that covers various food products, including dairy and meat products. Most of the other food standards deal with microbiological quality. There is a regional standard that covers food hygiene (EAS 39). The Kenya national working agreement for the catering industry covers food safety certification for hotels and other catering establishments. Quality assurance in food processing factories includes a process inspection report, certification and the KEBS standardization mark of quality. With regard to food inspection in the market, aflatoxin in maize products was found to be widespread, mainly because the maize is contaminated at the farm level. Challenges: Training of food manufacturers, limited testing facilities and infrastructure at food factories and communication of food safety information.Charles Mbakaya (KEMRI): He discussed the link between the environment, nutrition and health based on a conference paper to be presented soon. National food safety specialists act as focal points on animal health issues. Aquatic food safety is an important area from the point of view of antimicrobial residues. OIE has four regional offices in Africa, each of which is linked to the regional economic communities operating there. In East Africa, they are working with the East African Community and the Intergovernmental Authority for Development to raise awareness on animal health and food safety standards. There is a network of international reference laboratories with expertise on disease; others have wider expertise on food safety. Currently there are no reference laboratories in Africa but there is a twinning arrangement in Namibia and Uganda focused on upgrading the regional laboratories to become reference labs in future. It was noted that there is a need to have reference laboratories in Africa that have capacity for food safety analysis, such as dioxin and pesticide residues. this is soon to be finalized. An African Union food safety coordination mechanism is to be set up and linked to country systems.This session included two sets of technical presentations about current or new projects in the area of food safety. The first block was delivered by Mary Kenny and Jean Kamanzi from FAO.The second block was delivered by Tom Randolph and Delia Grace from ILRI. A summary of those presentations is discussed next.Food safety in FAO (Mary Kenny)The five main strategic objectives of FAO were introduced. These are (i) eradicate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition, (ii) improve provision of goods and services from agriculture, forestry and fisheries in a sustainable manner, (iii) reduce rural poverty, (iv) enable more inclusive and efficient food and agricultural systems at local, national and international levels, and (v) increase the resilience of livelihoods to threats and crises.Following those objectives, the main challenges in the area of food safety were presented: (i) lack of food safety programs, (ii) poor coordination of actors, (iii) lack of commitment and (iv) lack of capacity to participate in formal markets.The FAO food safety unit was introduced and its structure presented. Its core activities are (i) scientific advice, (ii) capacity building, (iii) support policy development, (iv) supporting the participation of member countries in the Codex Alimentarius Commission and (v) facilitating global access to information and the development of food safety.Current key initiatives conducted by FAO in the area of food safety were presented. These include (i) risk-based inspection systems and import, (ii) good practices throughout the food chain, (iii) data generation on various food safety issues (for example, mycotoxins, chemical hazards, pathogens and antimicrobial residues), (iv) multi-factorial policy and decisionmaking, (v) risk analysis toolkit, (vi) early warning and rapid alert surveillance and (vii)effective response to emergencies.The results of a recent survey on food safety needs in East Africa were presented, observing important needs across the spectrum of food safety activities. In particular, the needs between high-income countries and low-and medium-income countries were compared. Both groups of countries presented a need to improve their laboratory capacity and food inspection systems (a lower score was assigned to high-income countries). However, the low-and middle-income countries had an additional need to improve elements related to education and outreach on food safety hazards.The presentation finished with some forthcoming opportunities, such as: (i) a regional early warning and rapid alert surveillance workshop on food safety (East Africa), (ii) a regional multi-factorial policymaking workshop, (iii) food safety situational analysis for East Africa and (iv) a food safety strategy for East Africa.The presentation began by highlighting the current focus of FAO projects on food safety, namely, (i) practical training materials and toolkit on risk analysis, (ii) food safety policy and risk management decision-making using a multi-factor approach, (iii) supporting countries to more effectively participate in meetings of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, (iv) expert scientific advice and data input to FAO and WHO, (v) data collection on levels of mycotoxins in sorghum, (vi) legal frameworks and food control systems and (vii) support of value chain operators.Additional tools to strengthen scientific approaches include (i) a tool to assess the performance of sampling plans, (ii) a user-friendly web-based tool to guide sampling plans for mycotoxin detection, (iii) a risk management tool for control of Campylobacter and Salmonella in chicken meat and (iv) a tool to assess the performance of presence/absence sampling plans and concentration-based sampling plans for microbiological hazards.An account was given of ongoing and pipeline projects in Africa:• Project to strengthen coordinating capacity in Africa• Projects to strengthen national Codex infrastructure  Central Africa: Cameroon, Gabon and Central African Republic (ongoing 2013-14)  Eastern Africa: Ethiopia, Rwanda and Burundi (pipeline)  Southern Africa: Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Lesotho (pipeline)The presenter highlighted scientific input requests from Codex (and member countries), addressed by groups of experts, in the areas of (i) veterinary drugs and food additives, (ii) prioritization of parasites at global level and (iii) risks with low-moisture foods. He gave practical examples of each of the above points. In a particular example, a multi-factor approach conducted in Uganda recognized five food safety issues as important. These were (i) Brucella spp. in dairy products, (ii) aflatoxins in maize, (iii) acute diarrhoea in children under five years of age, (iv)Taenia solium cysticercosis in pork and (v) methanol in unregulated alcohol.Support has been given to the development of value chains, focusing of the use of good agricultural practice, good manufacturing practice, good hygiene practices and HACCP. In this regard, training on production of tomato, maize, meat and cashewnut has been carried out in Tanzania for public and private groups. Monitoring and evaluation through following up with participants on the impact of training informs future needs. Similarly, a workshop has been conducted in Rwanda for public and private groups on safe production of milk, passion fruits, rice and maize chains.The presentation gave an overview of the research program. ILRI\"s research has been mainly focused on food safety of animal origin. However, in recent years, the institute has adopted a multidimensional approach to research on food systems. The approach focuses on small-scale farming and informal market systems which mainly provide animal-source food to the poor.The short-term objective is to increase productivity for smallholder farmers and informal marketing.Food safety in informal markets (Delia Grace) An introduction about ILRI was given, highlighting a staff of more than 130 international scientists, many from developing countries, two large campuses in Kenya and Ethiopia, and several offices in other areas of Africa and Asia. ILRI supports projects on food safety in informal markets. Recent projects have shown that informal markets can perform better than formal ones in some developing countries. In East Africa, over 80% of animal-source foods foods are sold in informal markets and supermarkets are fairly limited. Interestingly, it has been observed that in some regions, supermarkets are less safe than wet markets. Studies by Jabbar et al. and Lapar et al. showed the willingness to pay more for food safety.Another important research output highlighted during the presentation was the high levels of Trichinella in pork and the risk of Cryptosporidium in Nairobi from eating raw vegetables grown using manure from cows. Additionally, it has been observed that microbiological hazards are generally the most important.Past and current food safety projects by ILRI were then described. These include (i) safety of pig feed (Uganda), (ii) multi-pathogen surveys (Tanzania), (iii) Safe Food, Fair Food project (several countries), (iv) rapid assessment of food safety and nutrition research opportunities (several countries), (v) nutrition in value chains (several countries), (vi) pork safety (several countries), (vii) \"More Pork\" and (viii) \"Cow Killer\". In general, chosen value chains are on contextual issues related to current policies and their enforcement and the practice on the ground.There are a number of food safety research activities on aflatoxin, namely, (i) risk assessment of aflatoxins in the dairy chain, (ii) afla-extra: review and mapping of aflatoxin and impact on livestock, and (iii) work at the Biosciences eastern and central Africa (BecA) hub at ILRI on screening maize varieties for aflatoxin resistance as well as decontamination. Projects on aflatoxins developed in partnership with other institutions are: (i) market incentives for aflatoxin management (with the International Food Policy Research Institute), (ii) aflasafe (with the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture) and (iii) control of aflatoxin in groundnuts (with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics).Other projects managed by ILRI\"s Food Safety and Zoonoses program and indirectly related to food safety are under the Dynamic drivers of disease in Africa project. These include: diseases associated with irrigation, assessing and developing livestock traceability systems, and risk of Ebola emergence in Uganda. The presentation ended with a discussion on scaling up of food safety projects.Needs, gaps and opportunities Plenary discussions followed the technical presentations. The main issues discussed are highlighted below.On the question of how to strengthen domestic markets, it was noted that informal markets contribute towards a significant proportion of the national gross domestic product of developed countries. Over-regulation is likely to lead to informal traders going underground, thereby increasing public health risks. Thus, there is need for pro-poor policies as well as stakeholder information and education. Due to limited resources, the main focus has been on export markets.On the question of how to get data, it was recognized that there is a lack of capacity in public institutions in addition to a lack of data within domestic markets, especially informal ones. In this regard, it was stated that ILRI\"s objective is to generate evidence whereas FAO is attempting to look at the core data that exist, specifically, what data are available, gender issues and food security elements around decision-making. These last two points triggered a discussion about how one would weight each of these areas (gender and food security) and how to measure them. The discussion led to the statement that policymaking needs to use a mix of methods and we need to be sure that research outputs are truly useful. Moreover, research should include participatory methods to ensure that stakeholders have the opportunity to provide some input.We need to generate data on the pathogenic microorganisms of importance to food safety, the minimum and maximum levels at which they cause harm and the likely impact of potential food safety issues: what are the potential threats, what would happen if they escalate and what would happen if we do nothing. Similar questions were also stated for chemical issues.Another point was the need for a better surveillance approach. For example, the baseline levels of several food safety issues are currently unknown. It is important for surveillance to be conducted in markets through a food chain approach that considers economic issues.Moreover, there is a need for coordination between the various stakeholders and with the intelligence that we have already.Regarding the need for food safety standards and finding the middle ground between providing food safety without sacrificing food security, it was stated that standards exist but the problem is the weak capacity to comply. Some institutions provided information regarding specific needs that they have identified in relation to food safety. Codes of inspection  Profiling of diseases  Level of antimicrobial and drug residues in the meat and milk  Capacity building along the food chain to support food safety  Laboratory services  Self-assessment in food production; something specific for farmers or producers to use to ensure that the food that they produce will be safe. Surveillance: from a public health point of view, there is need to move from reactive to proactive approaches. Some surveillance data from rumour mills; not in a structured way but there is some follow up through DVS. There are not enough personnel to do this in a very intensive way. Problem with surveillance is due the huge fragmentation of the data. DVS aids at the slaughterhouse and a different group at the butchery. There is need for a more integrated approach to food safety management. Data may exist but it is uncoordinated; a coordinated approach is needed.BecA-ILRI hub  Variation in the laboratory results obtained  Lack of quality assurance between laboratories  Lack of accredited laboratories in Africa","tokenCount":"3029"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"deb185dd6eba08eaad0f2b4b12ed4866","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d2d7a0fc-990c-4216-827f-dc7ab4a78816/retrieve","id":"1376827669"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"5ee2410b-abe8-43ef-92b2-5b876cbbbd89","pagecount":"12","content":"Agriculture is under-performing because of women's unequal access to productive resources. At the same time agriculture also faces formidable challenges; from increased food demand to climate change impacts. Closing these gender gaps, therefore, is beneficial for not only women and men but also agriculture.CGIAR researchers are well aware that to help achieve more gender-equitable distribution of food and income, they must urgently find more effective ways for enabling poor women as well as men to benefit from the adoption and sustained use of innovations resulting from research. To fulfill this commitment, CGIAR has in recent years accelerated longstanding efforts to integrate gender perspectives into its research through capacity building and institutional change.A System Level Gender Strategy was devised in 2011 to ensure that the global CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs), also launched in the same year, could address gender issues decisively.Operational responsibility for gender research has resided strictly with the CRPs and CGIAR Centers, while the role of the CGIAR System Management Office has been to provide technical advice, facilitating and leveraging joint efforts to form partnerships and enhance capacity for gender mainstreaming in the CRPs. This brief describes these efforts and their contribution to gender mainstreaming across CGIAR.CGIAR was charged by the Fund Council to build on gender and diversity programming initiated in the early 1990s, as well as the opportunity created by the new, global research programs, to adopt a more systematic approach for addressing gender issues in agriculture.With the aim of accelerating the development of capacity for research on gender in CGIAR, the System undertook the Gender Research Action Plan (CGIAR Consortium, 2014) developed with support from the CGIAR Fund Council. The program addresses shortcomings identified in a 2013 Assessment of Gender Mainstreaming in CGIAR (CGIAR Consortium, 2013) that identified the critical importance of strengthening research capacity in the social sciences and echoes findings of a previous system review ( CGIAR Science Council, 2009). The Plan provided resources for Postdoctoral Fellowships; university-supported mentoring, coaching and leadership development especially for postdoctoral researchers; knowledge sharing and good practice exchange in the Network through the CGIAR electronic platform; as well as technical advice and monitoring from the System Organization (then known as the Consortium). (Pie chart to be inserted here)The Action Plan was designed to accelerate the integration of gender in research which by 2013 was still uneven, with some Programs lagging behind others. A scoping study in 2010 had identified the need for a system-wide policy on gender (mandating dedicated strategies and work plans) and emphasized the importance of gender mainstreaming in all CRPs. In response, the Consortium Board resolved to design a CGIAR strategy for this purpose (CGIAR Consortium Board, 2011). It defined two branches for gender mainstreaming: one intended to ensure an inclusive workplace that would effectively recruit and retain the best research talent; the second intended to ensure the use of gender analysis to inform the entire research cycle: i.e., targeting, priority setting, research design, implementation, adoption and use of results, monitoring, evaluation, and impact assessment. This Brief does not cover CGIAR efforts to deal with gender and diversity in the workplace, its focus is on mainstreaming gender in research.The system-level Gender Strategy expected the gender relevance of CGIAR research to improve and stated that all CRPs would deliver results beneficial to poor rural women in major target areas within four years of inception. In addition, the strategy specified guidelines for the development of CRP gender strategies and outlined the terms of reference for the expert community of practice-the CGIAR Gender and Agriculture Research Network.The Consortium Level Gender Strategy catalyzed the preparation and retro-fitting of program-level Gender Strategies, even as CRPs were well into implementing their research (Gender CGIAR, Gender Strategies). However, by 2013 it was clear that it was difficult for Programs to fill gender gaps in the ongoing research and to muster the research capacity to do this.System-level incentives were created for CRPs to integrate gender in research. The Consortium required that each CRP include a gender budget in its Gender Strategy and subsequently in its annual Program of Work and Budget (POWB) . Annual Reports included a set of gender performance monitoring indicators. In 2013, Fund Council members asked the Consortium to report on progress on gender every six months. The Consortium Board decided that CRP Directors would be accountable to the Consortium for reporting satisfactory gender research results and for progress in relation to performance indicators included in the CRP Annual Report, and that the approval of a gender strategy be a condition for CRPs to receive W1-2 funding from 2014 onwards. In 2015, CRPs began developing proposals for their second phase, known as the CRP 2 Portfolio, during which time CRPs were required to include how research on gender would be integrated and financed.In 2013, the Consortium Board adopted a policy that made financial support from CGIAR Fund windows 1 and 2 contingent on satisfactory performance in allocating resources and delivering results. This prompted CRP leadership to earmark resources for the integration of gender into research with particular care. As a result, from 2013 to 2016, CRP budgets showed a steadily increasing commitment to investment in gender research, which was largely matched by actual expenditures, despite budget cuts since 2014 (CGIAR Consortium, 2016).In addition, CGIAR science leaders and gender researchers received guidance from the Gender Network for planning and integration of gender into CRP budgets and reports. The guidelines, which some of the CRPs have adopted, were designed to help researchers budget differently for research projects completely focused on gender issues than for research projects with another focus in which gender, while integrated, plays a relatively small role (Ashby, 2015). The In addition, the Gender Network has published information about gender training on its website, including blog posts reporting on key experiences.The CGIAR Gender and Agriculture Research Network plays a vital role in mainstreaming gender in research carried out by CRPs and Centers. In the few years since its formation, the network has evolved into a community of practice, which provides gender researchers with an effective means to share knowledge and experience among themselves, while channeling their collective input into the strategic framework CGIAR has established for fulfilling its commitment to deliver concrete benefits for poor rural women and men. CGIAR gender researchers have embarked on several cross-CRP initiatives in recent years, which illustrate particularly well the added value of a networking approach for gender mainstreaming.Since 2013, CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs) have been required to provide a self-assessment of the status of gender mainstreaming in their Annual Reports, based on two performance indicators, designed to track performance in a standardized way over time on:• Gender equality targets in place -the extent to which the CRP has clearly identified the changes in beneficiary gender equality that it intends to produce by defining a baseline and setting targets• Institutional architecture for gender mainstreaming in place -the extent to which the CRP and Center(s) have defined responsibilities, allocated resources and implemented practices for generating and using research evidence on gender equality Each indicator can be self-assessed at one of three levels: whether the Program \"approaches requirements, \"meets requirements\" or \"exceeds requirements\". An analysis and commentary is available at Gender CGIAR, Gender Mainstreaming Performance Indicators.This is a catalogue of research studies which has been developed to make it easier for researchers to locate recent gender-related research in CGIAR Research Programs and contact each other about this work. The catalogue will provide input to the Fund Council Gender Monitoring Framework Indicator \"Data Collection\", which monitors the rate of change in compliance with minimum standards for sex disaggregated data collection.The Gender Network played a key role in launching the cross-program global study on norms and agency (GENNOVATE) which addresses a critical evidence gap. The Network provided support through training, expert consultancies, and workshops on methodology, as well as communications and knowledge sharing. The research involves case studies (in 125 rural communities of 26 countries so far) that use a standardized method to explore how gender norms encourage or hold back agricultural innovation. A key feature of GENNOVATE is its focus on ensuring cross-site consistency in methodologies among programs so that data can be pooled to increase the scale and relevance of gender research.The Gender and Breeding Working Group was formed in 2015 to address a different kind of gap: the lack of practical approaches for enabling breeding projects to take gender considerations into account when setting objectives and prioritizing traits. A key premise of this work is that high-throughput genotyping and genomic selection will increase breeding precision and speed up selection, better enabling CGIAR breeders to take into account strategic gender-differentiated traits. As the CRPs ramp up the collection of sex-disaggregated data, this should exponentially improve their capacity to characterize farmer preferences and prioritize traits of social and economic importance, opening up new opportunities to address the contrasting preferences of men and women producers for different traits in plants and animals and thus promote more inclusive and equitable adoption of improved genotypes.In October 2016, the working group, in collaboration with the Gender Network, hosted the Gender, Breeding and Genomics Workshop in Nairobi, Kenya. Its aim was to identify knowledge gaps and \"must-have\" ingredients of successful, genderresponsive breeding initiatives.Participants also explored the implications of the genomics revolution, particularly the new opportunities and entry points it offers for effective integration of gender in breeding research.The network's gender and breeding working group has recommended the use of economics methods and tools. Developed for a workshop held in Nairobi last year, the authors present economic methods that address these research questions, analyzing their uses, protocols, and pros and cons. The methods cover the spectrum from diagnostic research to evaluation. The authors demonstrate that the application of economic methods to large, nationallyrepresentative datasets allows the extrapolation of research results to wider regions and crosscountry comparisons. The objective is not to replace qualitative with quantitative methods, but to achieve a balance.A further challenge for the CRPs is to incorporate gender analysis into their economics research. This is critical for grounding and orienting such research for the delivery of agricultural innovations that offer concrete benefits to poor rural men and women.To this end, in 2016, the Gender Network made a specific outreach to involve economists across the CGIAR system in sex-disaggregated data collection and analysis through knowledge sharing. In April of that year, a webinar was organized to discuss how standards for the collection of sex-disaggregated data used in gender analysis have been applied to date, with a focus on the key lessons that CGIAR Centers and their partners have learned. Later on that year, in September, the Network developed the concept for a workshop submitted by the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM) for CGIAR economists with no prior knowledge of gender research or sex-disaggregated data collection. The workshop's objective was to enable participants to acquire and apply the latest advances in knowledge on incorporating gender into the design of quantitative research, as well as data collection and analysis.In 2014, a set of guidelines on sex disaggregated data collection was developed by CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), with contributions from network members and the IFPRI Gender Task Force, and endorsement from what is now known as the CGIAR System Management Office. This document identifies simple and achievable steps for gathering such data and raises issues that researchers should consider throughout the research process, such as who should provide information, the unit of analysis, and the research context (Doss, 2014).Launched in 2016, the network has also facilitated knowledge sharing webinars to (1) discuss how the guidelines have been used so far, including any new insights garnered and challenges faced; (2) discuss the main goals and contributions of the working paper on the indicators of gendered control over agricultural resources and whether it is possible to define robust indicators of gender gaps in use and control over resources that are likely to impact and be affected by agricultural innovation; and (3) contribute to the on-going development of a multistakeholder platform to develop and harmonize indicators for assessing the impact of agricultural innovation towards the diverse sustainable development goals.Support for the Network in communications, knowledge sharing, and data and information management has aimed at promoting more dynamic scientific consultation and collaboration, as well as improved access to information and resources combined with new opportunities for knowledge sharing. This support has helped establish a sound basis for effective interaction between Network members and opened up continuous information flows between different user groups within the Network. The various tools and products developed for this purpose have been tailored to the expressed needs of Network members New communications products -including a dedicated website and monthly bulletin -have heightened the visibility of CGIAR gender research among donors, partners, and researchers, while also facilitating access to news, data, information, and working groups. In 2016 alone, the Gender and Agriculture Website provided links to about 200 gender-related blog posts. It also served as an archive for information about Network activities and provided a neutral space for showcasing genderresponsive research conducted by CRPs and Centers.A report series titled \"Change in the Making\" was launched in October 2015 to provide CGIAR Fund donors and others regular updates on advances in research towards the sub-IDOs on gender and equity. The first issue, prepared in close consultation with gender researchers across CRPs, focused on \"gender-equitable control over productive assets and resources,\" drawing on published findings from recent work.Other tools and products have provided effective ways to connect dispersed members working on gender in different programs and regions. A \"living\" list of gender researchers, for example, has helped determine who is working on gender and better involve them in key conversations. The support team has also created and facilitated knowledge sharing opportunities to promote mutual learning on specific topics.As mentioned, a webinar series on issues related to gender and agriculture was designed in collaboration with the CRPs and their partners, and six webinars with a total of 228 participants were held on diverse topics.CGIAR System level commitment to gender equity has moved forward significantly since 2010.There has been significant pay-offs from these efforts, notably:• system-wide progress in embedding gender in CGIAR research processes with some CRPs now routinely monitoring their gender mainstreaming efforts -an estimated 25-50 percent of projects are partly or fully mainstreamed;• a growing body of highly relevant gender research that is effectively contributing to wider gender mainstreaming through a variety of analytical and methodological tools and frameworks, and associated capacity building;• a significant increase in published outputs from CGIAR gender specific research: In 2012, only six CRPs published ( 22) peer reviewed journal articles, in 2015 all CRPs published (87) journal articles that were the outputs of gender research;• a qualitative advance in the integration of gender in the design of the second round of CRPs, with some emerging, promising impact pathways laying the groundwork for more systematic and effective integration of gender in Phase II CRPs.• progress in extending sex-disaggregated data collection and in integrating gender into baseline and impact assessment survey tools, which will enable more systematic assessment of gender-disaggregated or related outcomes and impacts, across a variety of sites, within the next 2-3 years (in some CRPs); A data repository stores and publishes gender-related data and collection instruments, while also providing links to external datasets.In ","tokenCount":"2550"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"244db12aea039acbc567f981e3a5caa8","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/7347b54f-435c-4596-83d8-2443f41aa0a4/retrieve","id":"262924248"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"ec35d0b7-ba3e-43d4-ac51-2dcbfb1f613d","pagecount":"6","content":"T he world is faced with an unprecedented explosion in technology. Not all of this is universally welcomed -the irritation of mobile telephones on public transport comes immediately to mind -but the new technologies affect every area of our lives. Nowhere is this more true than in agriculture.Changes in farming proceeded slowly but steadily for thousands of years, but accelerated during the last two centuries as scientists and other observers came to understand the farming process, the need for particular nutrients and rotations, and the nature of pests and diseases. Further acceleration followed after the 1950s with increased mechanization and the introduction of effective pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. Biotechnology has accelerated the pace of change once again throughout the 1990s.Biotechnology provides a major opportunity to meet the nutritional needs of an expanding world population, with finite land resources. It offers a new approach to the control of pests and diseases, it will provide crops of improved nutritional quality; and it will bring about increased yields.Biotechnology is unlikely to be a complete solution to our agricultural problems, but it will play a key role in a sustainable agriculture that also uses integrated pest management and plant breeding techniques. That is the expectation in industrial countries, but it is only a hope for many others. There is a pressing need for the agricultural revolution to spread throughout the world, but to achieve it, we must provide an incentive to the innovators and owners of the new crop production technologies to share them.There are many forms of encouragement -from argument to finance -and one of these is the subject of this paper. The process of technology exchange will be encouraged and facilitated by a strengthening of intellectual property laws, especially those of the developing countries. Unfortunately, like modern biotechnology, intellectual property rights (IPR) are controversial and often misunderstood.This paper addresses some of these misunderstandings, and indicates how strengthening intellectual property rights will enable farmers throughout the world to receive the latest developments in crop production.Intellectual property is a broad term used to cover patents, designs, trademarks, plant breeders' rights, copyright, and trade secrets. All of these have a part to play in the development and commercialization of plant production products. However, the three most important IPRs in this context are patents, plant breeders' rights, and trade secrets. None of these creates as much argument as patents.A patent is a monopoly of limited scope, granted to the owner of an invention, for a limited period of up to 20 years. It is a right that is effective only in the country that grants the patent. While it is in force, a patent enables the owner to exclude others from using the invention commercially in that country.A patent provides the innovator with a limited period within which he/she has the oppor-Intellectual Property Protection: Who Needs It?tunity to recoup his/her investment in the research and development (R&D) of the invention. In return, the inventor discloses the invention to the public, and that disclosure enables other scientists and interested parties to use the invention in their own research. In due course, that research may lead to further innovation, and society will benefit. It is no coincidence that those countries with strong research-based industries are also those countries with strong intellectual property laws.IPR is national in character, and like other national laws they vary from country to country. Attempts to bring some harmonization into this area have succeeded in the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, generally referred to as TRIPs. TRIPs, which entered into force in 1995, applies to all members of the World Trade Organization (WTO). TRIPs, however, is not a complete remedy for inadequate laws since it lays down only minimum levels of protection, rather than providing for the optimum. Nevertheless these levels are important, none more so than the basis for a patent set out in Article 27. Article 27 provides that patents shall be available for any inventions, whether products or processes, in all fields of technology, provided that they are new, involve an inventive step, and are capable of industrial application.Patent rights are of little use if they cannot be enforced, and TRIPs also provides that member countries shall ensure that enforcement procedures are available under national law, so as to permit effective action against any act of infringement of an IPR. Enforcement is a particular concern in the field of biotechnology, where the capability of biological materials carrying genetic information to self-reproduce makes the copying of an invention and the infringement of patent rights all too easy.The implementation of TRIPs will undoubtedly strengthen IPR in many parts of the world, but implementation is unlikely in the short term. Developing countries are permitted a transitional period, until 2005, within which to bring their intellectual property laws into compliance with the minimum standards laid down in TRIPs. Unfortunately, many developing countries lack the means rather than the will to take the necessary steps.The objectives of intellectual property law are stated succinctly in TRIPs: The protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights should contribute to the promotion of technological innovation and to the transfer and dissemination of technology. It is useful to consider these two aspects separately.The cost of developing a new plant protection chemical is over US$150 million; the cost of developing a new transgenic plant commercially is comparable. The investment in R&D must be recovered, and the monopoly period -provided first by patents and second by protection of the confidential data supplied in regulatory packages -is essential to provide the innovator with sufficient time and opportunity to make that recovery. Without IP protection, research-based companies would be unable to bear the risk of the major investment in R&D required to bring those technologies to the market.The incentive effect of patents for developing countries is sometimes questioned on the grounds that these countries have little private sector research, and may produce few inventions. It is certainly true that inventors in those countries file few patents domestically or abroad, but without adequate IPRs, there is little incentive for local companies to set up their own research departments, nor for foreign companies to bring their technology and their research capabilities to the countries. It is left to the public sector to be the major fund provider of this research. That funding is vital, but it is not sufficient.Farmers must have the opportunity to obtain modern crop production products at a reasonable price. Local research organizations need access to the latest technologies in the form of transfer of materials and know-how to further their own research, research which is often necessary to provide solutions to peculiarly local problems. These requirements can be met partially in developing countries by means of technology transfer.The importance and benefits of technology transfer are widely recognized, and it is consequently a cause for concern and regret that in the field of crop production, technology transfer proceeds so slowly. While part of the problem lies in funding, another factor results from the two sides -the technology providers and the technology receivers -viewing each other and the technology transfer process with suspicion.The private sector, potentially the major provider of new technology, ought to be eager to provide technology that will lead to the development of new markets. Companies are worried, however, that providing their know-how, whether by sales or by licensing, is tantamount to giving the technology away, unless it has the protection of enforceable IPR. In the case of biotechnology, where reproduction of plant material is relatively simple, companies may be powerless to prevent their technology from being copied and their markets destroyed or undermined by those who have not incurred the expenses of developing the technology.The developing countries that want and need the technology fear the technology provider's demands for stronger IPRs which, they believe, will lead to higher prices and a drain on currency reserves. These concerns are real -and are discussed later -but there is clear evidence that strengthening IP laws leads to an increase in technology transfer to the benefit of both the provider and the recipient.In the recent past, as an example, companies in industrial countries were reluctant to bring their products into the Chinese markets. There was inadequate patent and data protection, and once companies had established their market, generic manufacturers rapidly appeared to reap the benefit. These local manufacturers also exported the products to neighboring states where there was either weak or no patent protection, or where enforcing patents required a long and uncertain litigation process. As a consequence, China was deprived of the latest plant production products.China has recently strengthened its patent law, and although it still needs improvement in its enforcement procedures, companies are now not only prepared to collaborate with Chinese companies, they are actively seeking collaboration.There are many concerns surrounding intellectual property law, and although these are often based on misunderstanding, they remain a barrier to progress. It is essential that those who believe that strengthening IPRs will be beneficial, should listen and inform. As a contribution to this process, I would like to consider four specific issues: prices, local development of technology, theft of resources, and ethics and morality. This is by no means an exhaustive list of possible topics.It is argued that IPRs lead to an increase in prices. While it is true that products containing new technology will generally be sold at higher prices, that is not the same thing as a general increase in prices. The old technologies remain; indeed the introduction of new technologies may well make the old ones cheaper.New genetically improved seeds are more costly to develop and produce, and those increased costs must be recovered. Farmers expect to pay a higher price for seed which will bring added value, but no farmer will pay more for the benefit than the increase in value which it will provide. Producers have little choice but to price their products so as to share the added value with the farmer. Such arguments will be of little interest to poor and subsistence farmers. In order to receive the benefits of the new technology, they must first acquire the seed. Intellectual property will not be of much help to them. They will require the assistance and support of government agencies and international organizations such as the World Bank (Lele, Lesser, and Horstkotte-Wesseler 1999).It is also argued that without IPRs, local companies would be able to copy the products and bring them to the local markets at much cheaper prices. That may be true but the advantages -such as they are -are short term, and serve to delay the introduction of new products. Moreover, if the originator ceases to act as product steward for the products, the result is often a flow of substandard products with inadequate instructions for their use, and which are ineffective.Some opponents of intellectual property claim that patents inhibit local research, and interfere with the work of local companies and research organizations.The freedom to carry out research is safeguarded under patent law; experimental use for research purposes is not an infringement of the rights of the patent owner. Scientists are free to take the invention, to modify it, and to incorporate it into their own research programs. Dissemination and use of knowledge in this way is a fundamental part of the original contract between the owner of the patent and the state granting the right. It results in the faster development of the technology, and the introduction of new products and processes.Public funding of research in developing countries plays an essential role in addressing local problems, but it will not be sufficient. There are always other demands on the available money.Local companies and research organizations need inward investment, in finance and in the form of materials and know-how. Yet again, however, it has to be acknowledged that these materials and know-how have a value to the private sector which will be unwilling to supply them if it feels that in doing so, it will lose control over them.Publicly funded research organizations themselves do not always make the best use of the intellectual property protection that is available. The International Agricultural Research Centres of the CGIAR, for example, have tended to favor not seeking intellectual property protection, a position thatwas noted in the 1996 OECD Survey \"Intellectual Property Technology Transfer and Genetic Resources\": \"[The] Centres have to operate in a changed research and funding environment and to collaborate with organisations for which intellectual property is a necessary counterpart to their willingness to invest in development. This has long been true of industrial organisations, and academic and public sector organisations are also now taking a more positive attitude towards protecting innovations resulting from their research. The International Agricultural Research Centres may therefore wish to review their own positions in this respect.\" The recent CGIAR center statements on genetic re-sources, intellectual property rights, and biotechnology reflect the evolution of the centers' thinking on these issues (CGIAR 1999).Patenting the results of this research would not prevent the IARCs from making them available, but it will give them the option of entering into cross-licensing agreements or collaborations with companies holding other intellectual property of interest. Patents become bargaining chips that can be traded to further the research aims of the IARCs.A recent attack on the private sector is that companies in industrial countries are stealing the resources and know-how of local populations, patenting these resources, and then denying the use of the technology to the population who had used it, often for centuries. The case of the Indian neem tree is often quoted.Indian farmers have used the seeds of the neem tree for pest control for centuries. The American company, W R Grace, discovered a process for extracting the oil from the seeds, and applied for patents. Alarmists spread the story that the Grace patents would prevent farmers from continuing to use their traditional methods of pest control. The story created understandable consternation amongst Indian farmers and a worldwide outcry against big business. The story is nonsense.Patents are granted only for inventions that are new and not obvious, and the use of the neem seeds in pest control fell into neither of these categories when Grace applied for its patent. Grace could not monopolize the use, nor could a patent give Grace ownership of the neem tree or its seeds (Grace buys seed on the open market). And finally, no patent can stop anyone from doing something which he was doing before the patent application was filed.Similar stories are now circulating concerning the so-called theft of genes by the industrial world. If this does occur, then it will be illegal under the provisions of the Convention on Biological Diversity.In any event, it is worth stressing again IPRs extend only to the new inventions created from the isolation and transference of the gene. The identification of a gene with a useful trait in a local plant, and the transference of that gene into a different crop plant, may entitle the discoverer to patent the use of that gene in the transformed plant, and perhaps to the transformed plant itself. However, the patent will give the innovator no rights over the original plants, which can continue to grow or be grown without reference to the patentee.TRIPs provides that inventions may be excluded from patentability if their exploitation should be prevented in order to protect ordre public or morality. It is important to note that it is the exploitation of the invention that is of concern here, not the invention itself. This distinction has been missed by many, and has resulted in the morality arguments being extended from the use of biotechnology to biotechnology itself, and from there to biotechnological patents. Parties who believe that biotechnology is immoral also argue that patenting biotechnological inventions -or, more emotively, patenting life -is immoral. Many patents, particularly in Europe, are presently being attacked on these grounds.The consequences of attacking patents on moral grounds may not lead to the results which opponents of biotechnology hope, a point noted by Jefferson (1999) in his expert paper prepared for the Secretariat advising the Convention on Biological Diversity. The paper is an exhaustive review of the so-called \"terminator\" genes, referred to in his paper as \"genetic use restriction technologies\" and abbreviated to GURTs.A patent only confers a negative right on its proprietor to prevent others from using the protected invention for a limited period. The right to positively use or not use the invention by the patent holder is, hence, not addressed by the patent law which is primarily an instrument for promoting research by ensuring the possibility of excluding imitation by third parties.Hence, if the GURT patent were to be found inviable or invalid on any grounds, the effect of non-protection would be that the relevant method would remain or be put in the public domain. The absence of protection would not automatically lead to stopping the eventual adoption and diffusion of the GURT technology; on the con-trary, such an absence may foster its dissemination.In less elegant words, what has been invented cannot be uninvented. Even if a patent is cancelled on the grounds that the invention is immoral, the inventor is still able to use the invention. Indeed, everyone is free to use it. Patent law is not the route to regulating the use of biotechnology (see also Leisinger, This volume).The case for strengthening IPRs in developing countries is, I believe, overwhelming, and the need to strengthen these rights is urgent. Countries should evaluate their positions without delay, and should be encouraged to implement TRIPs -or better, to improve upon TRIPs -as soon as possible. That said, the modification of intellectual property laws requires money and skilled advisers, both of which may be in short supply in some developing countries.Funding and other technical assistance is available. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has an agreement with the World Trade Organization (WTO) to provide assistance to developing countries to meet their TRIPs commitments, to provide technical assistance in drafting, and to train staff and provide software. However, the limited resources of WIPO and WTO remain a constraint and could mean that some countries are unable to meet their commitments, even by the 2005 deadline.The World Bank and other international development agencies could certainly help by providing resources to the WTO or directly to developing countries for this purpose. Such funding would not only increase the number of countries meeting their TRIPs obligations by the deadline or even earlier, it would also promote open and constructive discussion of TRIPs in the next WTO round.There is a further and additional approach which could save both time and resources. There is little logic in many different nations, each having similar standards and economic goals, to examine and grant patents for the same invention. The most efficient and economic approach is a regional organization, such as the African Regional Intellectual Property Office (ARIPO), the African Intellectual Property Organisation (OAPI) or the European Patent Convention, which centralize the examination and granting of patents for all member countries into one office.Enforceable and strong IPRs are essential to encourage the transfer of the latest technologies to developing countries, and for stimulating research in these same new technologies. They are vital for the modernization of crop production in developing countries.Weak intellectual property laws and the inability to enforce intellectual property rights will limit the access of developing countries to the new technology, which is so important for the development of their agriculture and the saving of valuable environmental resources. Weak laws will inhibit much-needed inward investment.Each country must evaluate its own intellectual property laws and needs carefully, but I would urge all developing countries to strengthen these rights as soon as possible, and for the World Bank and other international development agencies to assist them in this endeavor. I am confident that the benefits -the access to the new technologies and inward investment -will follow.","tokenCount":"3310"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e8c3be531f91f6879cd64e0d3b54b084","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a309274f-2908-4c6d-a6ba-973e53de5fce/retrieve","id":"1568595761"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"479b4ac1-c21b-4082-a778-32894bc00225","pagecount":"22","content":"Rangelands are the predominant land use worldwide, covering nearly half of the Earth's land surface (White et al. 2002). In East Africa, rangelands provide the main source of livelihoods for pastoralists, underpin the livestock sector that provides nearly half of the agricultural gross domestic product in the agriculture-dependent economies of Kenya and Ethiopia (Behnke 2010) and host greater wildlife numbers than the national park systems (Western et al. 2009). Rangelands provide these ecosystem benefits to humanity in spite of the fact that many rangelands globally and in East Africa have undergone extensive degradation, due to the combination of climate change, high stocking densities and disorganized grazing on account of weakened traditional or customary institutions for rangeland management (Kiage 2013).Community-based rangeland management (CBRM) is a general term for any local level strategy for managing rangelands (Reid et al. 2014). In pastoral East Africa, CBRM mainly refers to the reorganization of currently haphazard grazing patterns by means of facilitative reinvigoration of traditional or customary institutions, or building new local institutions (Flintan and Cullis 2010) where no functional local institution exists. CBRM is designed to improve the control of communities (traditional or local institutions) over their land, improving perception of land tenure security and enabling pastoral communities to gain recognition for their efforts to manage their rangelands. While the social impacts of CBRM are significant (Flintan et al. 2019), more detailed study is required to assess its impact on the environmental condition of rangelands.Remote sensing methods can be cost-efficient means of assessing environmental impacts of CBRM, although their external validity is difficult to demonstrate in rangelands. In arid landscapes most particularly, satellite signal limitations and calibration requirements can be non-trivial constraints on the usefulness of these models for tracking environmental impacts of CBRM (Zhao and Running 2008). A large set of remotely sensed indices have been applied to assess and track the condition of rangeland ecosystems over large scales (Prince 2019). The influences of management regimes are challenging to differentiate from changes in climate (Hopping et al. 2018;Miehe et al. 2010) and associated cascading effects and studies with thorough characterization of management regimes are desirable.The objectives of the present study were to (i) apply three indicators of rangeland conditions derived from remote sensing in three pastoral landscapes in Ethiopia and Kenya; (ii) interpret spatiotemporal trends in the three indicators to assess the feasibility of their application to detect landscape level influences of community-based rangeland management; (iii) compare the three indicators in terms of their ability to distinguish areal trends in rangeland conditions over long time periods and large areas; and (iv) assess the need for modifications to the analyses conducted.Three research areas were selected for the analysis on the basis that CBRM has been in place for several years (9-14 years) with plausible effects of CBRM on rangeland conditions over large areas CBRM operates (95-7100 km 2 ). In each site, analyses centered on a focal rangeland unit(s): (i) Olkiramatian and Shompole group ranches in Kajiado county, Kenya (who manage their land similarly and in close coordination); (ii) Il Ngwesi Group Ranch in Laikipia county, Kenya; and (iii) Dirre Dheeda in Borana Zone of Oromia Region in Ethiopia. The map for Dirre Dheeda was provided courtesy of the Pastoralist Areas Resilience Improvement through Market Expansion project (PRIME 2019). All sites have a bi-modal rainfall pattern with two rainy seasons and two dry seasons annually, with mean annual precipitation varying from approximately 500-800 mm yr -1 . To focus on rangelands typically used for grazing, all water bodies, areas with extensive cropland, forests and areas with >40% woody cover (Kahiu and Hanan 2018), were excluded from analyses.Three indicators were applied to assess trends in rangeland condition: (i) cumulative annual normalized difference vegetation index (cNDVI) (Jenkerson et al. 2010); (ii) annual rainfall use efficiency (RUE; cNDVI/annual precipitation) using CHIRPS precipitation (Funk et al. 2015); and (iii) bare soil (Guerschman and Hill 2018). cNDVI and RUE were selected on account of their widespread use for tracking changes in the productivity of vegetation as an indicator of environmental quality; and bare soil was selected due to its straight-forward interpretation as the amount of land not covered by any vegetation (Guerschman and Hill 2018).For the draft analyses presented here, trends were estimated by summing cNDVI annually across all seasons (both wet and dry seasons), and averaging RUE and bare soil (%) across entire years. Annual values were then combined with neighboring years in three time periods reflecting inflection points in management regime change as CBRM proceeded. The period between 2003 and 2005 denotes the pre-CBRM (baseline) period; 2011-2013, the early CBRM period; and 2017-2019, the ongoing CBRM period. These time periods were also selected to avoid including major droughts in the analysis, during which little or no improvement in rangeland condition should be observable. The 2003-2005 time period was selected to avoid the major drought in short rains from the end of 2005 to early 2006. The 2011-2013 period followed two successive droughts from 2010-2011 and 2017-2019. There were also two successive droughts in 2016 and 2017. The 2019 long rains were similarly excluded.In Kajiado and Laikipia, Kenya, a treatment-control approach was followed, with rangeland condition trends inside the focal rangeland units ('treatment') compared to trends outside the focal rangeland units in paired, ecologically similar pastoral lands nearby ('control'). The Kajiado group ranches were compared with neighboring group ranches within a 25-km perimeter and the Laikipia group ranch was compared with two neighboring group ranches. In these treatmentcontrol sites, putative effects of CBRM were quantified as any improvement or decline in rangeland conditions inside the focal rangeland unit, relative to rangeland condition outside the focal rangeland unit. In Borana, Ethiopia, no such control areas were available as identical CBRM processes were initiated in all rangeland units in Borana at the same time by the same institutional consortium (Craft 2019). Therefore, a treatment-only approach was adopted, tracking change within Dirre Dheeda over time without reference to outside areas. \"Improvement\" in rangeland condition is defined as positive changes (increase) in cNDVI and RUE; negative changes (reduction) in bare soil; and \"decline\" in rangeland condition as the converse.In each site, elevation classes were delineated to enable more direct comparisons in space and time between pastures of similar ecological potential. In the Kajiado site, higher quality pastures at lower elevation (<680 m) were separated from lower quality pastures at higher elevation (>680 m). In the Laikipia site, draft analyses presented here focus only on higher quality pastures at lower elevation <1277 m. In the Borana site, higher quality pastures at higher elevation with higher rainfall (>1400 m) were separated from more arid lower quality pastures at lower elevation (<1400 m).A simple and robust statistical approach was adopted for all sites, using analysis of variance (ANOVA) to detect significant differences between areas and time periods, with pair-wise comparisons of area-time-period combinations verified by means of Tukey post-hoc tests.In the Magadi area group ranches, trends in rangeland conditions differed greatly among elevation classes (Table 1, Figure 1). Inside the two group ranches, higher quality pastures at lower elevation (<680 m) appeared to have improved relative to the 25 km 2 buffer outside the two group ranches, according to all three indicators. In contrast, lower quality pastures at higher elevation suggested no change in terms of cNDVI or RUE (or even a relative decline in cNDVI) yet appeared to have improved in terms of reduction in the difference in bare soil between inside and outside the group ranches.In the Laikipia group ranch, trends in rangeland conditions differed greatly according to both the indicator selected and the control-treatment pair (Table 2, Figure 2). Inside the group ranch, higher quality pastures at lower elevation appeared to decline in terms of cNDVI relative to one neighboring conservancy ('control A') but appeared to improve compared to a second neighboring conservancy ('control B'). Bare soil showed the converse pattern-an improvement in terms of bare soil compared to conservancy A, and a decline relative to conservancy B. RUE trends were weak, with the only significant difference between areas inside and outside of the rangeland unit being a decline relative to conservancy A during the period 2017-2019.In the Dirre area, trends in rangeland conditions again differed greatly according to elevation classes (Table 3, Figure 3). The differences in cNDVI, RUE, and bare soil among management areas and time periods indicate the potential utility of each of the three rangeland condition indicators. However, the tendency within sites was for the three indicators to generally disagree on the direction of trends in rangeland conditions among management areas and analysis periods (Table 4). All three indicators were aligned and suggest parallel trends in two of the six cases analyzed-in higher quality pastures in Kajiado and lower-quality pastures in Borana. cNDVI and RUE tended to agree more often with one another than did bare soil, primarily due to the use of cNDVI in calculating RUE (RUE = annual cNDVI/annual precipitation). Otherwise, little convergence was found among indicators in terms of the rangeland condition trends their values suggested. All three rangeland condition indicators appeared valid for detecting differences in trends suggestive of degradation and restoration occurring in response to the combined influences of major drivers, particularly changes in climate and management regimes. Each indicator likely tells a fraction of a larger picture. cNDVI and RUE are more ecosystem processfocused indicators, with cNDVI primarily indicative of overall photosynthesis and plant growth, and RUE of the same per unit rainfall. Bare soil, on the other hand, indicates the spatial distribution of ground with neither photosynthetic nor non-photosynthetic vegetative cover, a property of ecosystems rather than a process. These differences are notable as the intrinsic relative rates of change in ecosystem processes and properties often differ by an order of magnitude or more in response to ecosystem drivers operating over vastly different time scales through multiple mechanisms leading to emergent changes (O'Neill et al. 1987).In Kajiado, Kenya, the apparent improvement in higher quality pastures at lower elevation inside the focal rangeland units-Shompole and Olkiramatian group ranches-relative to similar areas outside may be significantly attributable to land arrangements outside the group ranches. These areas outside the focal rangeland units are under lease to the Tata Chemicals company, which allows herders from neighboring areas (and perhaps much further away) to graze their animals in their leasehold area. For these herders, the lack of secure land tenure in this area may disincentivize effective rangeland management. One important next step for the Kajiado analysis will be to clarify grazing use patterns in these lower elevation pastures. The apparent relative reduction in bare soil in lower quality pastures at higher elevations could relate to higher reliance on these poorer pastures due to degradation at lower elevations outside the focal rangeland units, including invasion by Prosopis juliflora in substantial tracts within the 25 km buffer zone (less so within the focal rangeland units).In Laikipia, Kenya, the two conservancies neighboring the focal rangeland unit-Il Ngwesi group ranch-also apply community-based rangeland management in some form and for variable durations and intensities. Management differences among the three rangeland units likely to relate to the observed differences in rangeland condition trends are not yet clear making further confirmation of management regimes and timelines a priority. However, the contrasts between these trends-nearly opposite for cNDVI and bare soil most particularly-was great and it appears unlikely that management differences could fully explain this divergence.In Borana, Ethiopia, differences in aridity appear related to the differences in rangeland condition trends in the focal rangeland unit-Dirre Dheeda. The widespread degradation over recent decades on account of rapid shrub encroachment into grassy savannas and major soil erosion (Coppock 2016) could be reflected in the pattern of fairly static cNDVI and slight improvement in RUE coupled with increasing bare soil in lower quality pastures below 1400 m elevation. Although these conflicting patterns could indicate anything between degradation and restoration, the increase in bare soil is noteworthy as soil erosion is a preeminent symptom of degradation in these areas. In contrast, the central Borana plateau (<1400 m) exhibited generally slight and recent (since 2013) improvements in cNDVI, RUE and bare soil, suggesting a long-term trend of improvement in these higher rainfall savannas of higher quality. The contrast between the apparent improvement in the condition of more humid pastures at higher elevations in comparison to the apparent overall stability (or possible decline) in rangeland conditions in more arid pastures at lower elevations appears significant in light of the tendency of more arid rangelands to better resist grazing-induced degradation (Von Wehrden et al. 2012) in spite of slower recovery rates. If reliance on lower elevation pastures has increased during the analysis period, apparent improvement in higher elevation pastures could relate to the lack of improvement in lower elevation pastures.The general absence of agreement among indicators suggests that explicit quantitative field evaluation of the three indicators remains a valuable pursuit. Evaluation is costly but useful, especially in relation to systems and questions that challenge the ability of satellites to discriminate meaningful differences. The influence of management regimes on rangeland condition in the context of a changing climate is an excellent example. Rangelands are typically comprised of multiple plant species of multiple plant growth forms (annual and perennial grasses and forbs, and evergreen and drought-deciduous shrubs and trees) with differing growth rates and seasonal phenology (Whitecross et al. 2017) responses to precipitation (Ogle and Reynolds 2004), and utility to grazing and browsing species of livestock and wildlife. These vegetation components exhibit substantial natural variation and co-variation along gradients in soils, hydrology and vegetation that evolve over time in response to increasingly erratic rainfall. The contrasting trends among indicators and areas in Laikipia is particularly confounding and strongly suggest that field evaluation should be a priority for scientists, managers and policymakers.Each of the three rangeland condition indicators analyzed are likely reflective of different ecosystem processes and properties with potentially divergent responses to management and climate. Their use in combination (and with other indicators) may be complementary and could form a more complete assessment of how management and climate interact to determine rangeland condition. As with any remote sensing approach for quantifying changes in ecosystem condition, the ability of these methods to depict valid changes in rangeland conditions relates to their accuracy, specific indicative value and the rates of change in these indicators as the structural and functional attributes of rangeland ecosystems shift over time. To effectively pinpoint the causes of change in rangeland condition, field evaluation of remotely sensed indices is an essential element of assessing the robustness and effectiveness of the various existing means of quantifying degradation and restoration trends in rangelands. ","tokenCount":"2430"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e7858d2bdd2d9e28807bca06333ed10d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/414c535d-bd5f-4611-84be-06195823dfd3/retrieve","id":"1012233811"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"42b41492-7c71-4743-a297-0372f8b77c6a","pagecount":"10","content":"Strengthening local traders' capacities, including those of women, by sharing quality-seed-related information, and by linking with local seed producers to purchase goodquality seed.• Establishing a decentralized seed-certification system, centrally involving women as professional certifiers.• Serving women' s needs and interests in crop improvement, by focusing on gendered quality and trait preferences.In this brief, we address the two dimensions of women and seed systems development -what women do for seed systems development, and what seed systems interventions could do for women -in the context of South Sudan.Gender relations influence access to seeds and their use, and to related knowledge. They also influence outcomes linked to seed availability, seed quality, seed affordability, and control over seed use. These outcomes directly impact household food and nutrition security, income generation, and adaptation to changes (Puskur et al., 2021). In many countries, women play key roles in seed systems as custodians and managers of seeds and seed-related information, but these roles are not always recognized, respected, supported and rewarded. Important seed-sector interventions, such as seed aid, are often gender-blind and fail to consider gender as an important factor that influences seed access and use. This can have an impact on the larger social context, for example on the social cohesion and peace of the community. In many countries, women face major challenges when they wish to enter the seed business, more so than men. This can be due to sociocultural and gender factors, such as the household division of labor that places a huge burden on women; husbands' reluctance to allow spouses to become entrepreneurs, and limited access to knowledge, technology and finance by women (Gumucio et al., 2021;ISSD Africa, 2023). and iv) women can make strategic decisions concerning their ability to access, use and benefit from seed (Puskur et al., 2021). However, evidence of empowering seed interventions is scarce (Brearley andKramer 2020, Puskur et al., 2021).Crop diversification offers an especially interesting empowerment strategy.  (Vernooy, 2022). In Africa, crop diversification has produced good results at farm and community levels (Vernooy et al., 2021).For Female farmers had one more criterion, not prioritized by their male counterparts: early maturity. There are notable differences between the two lists, although both ranked sorghum as the most important cropfemale-male preference ranking: 1 st : sorghum-sorghum; groundnut-cassava; maize-sweetpotato; cassava-pearl millet; sesame-sesame; sweetpotato-bean; cowpeaokra; eggplant-cowpea; pumpkin-groundnut; 10 th : okramaize. At the variety level, women often consider cooking and taste characteristics (e.g., eating, flour and malting quality), more than men, except for cereal brewing quality, which men value highly (beer brewing is also an income generation activity). In recent years, farmers lost some varieties in Ikwoto County, e.g., bambara nut, taro, and varieties of groundnut (Akabiri and Moru), and pearl millet (Imajang, Teh).The informal seed system is the prominent system, with women playing key roles in production and distribution. Key actors are internally displaced people (IDPs), returnees, refugees, hosts of refugees, and grain traders operating in the local markets. They handle seeds of cowpea, groundnut, maize, pearl millet, sesame, sorghum and sweetpotato. Varieties are mostly local (landraces), but also improved ones. The community seed production scheme is the second dominant seed system, contributing 16% of total seed supply, in particular bean, cowpea, green gram, groundnut, maize, onion, sesame, sorghum, sweetpotato and yam. Key actors are farmers' groups and farmers' cooperatives. The seed-relief seed system supplies 10% of seed. The seed-relief programmes supplies the major food-security cereal crops as well as vegetable crops. Key actors involved in seed relief include more than 10 international programmes.The seed network analysis clearly demonstrates that women are key actors in seed management (see Figure 1). Of the 752 farmers involved in the social seed network, 75% were female farmers. The average age of the respondents was between 37-42 years. Altogether, they access 23 crops.Ikwoto cluster: Female farmers (18%) tend to give seed to family/friends outside the Payam (the below county administrative unit) more than male farmers (11.65%). Female farmers (18 %) receive seed from family/friends outside the Payam more than male farmers (11% The common challenges faced by the seed systems are (in decreasing order of significance) poor storage ability and health status of the farm-saved seeds; poor storability; grains sold as seeds; non-authentic relief seed lots; relief seed delivery inconsistent with the cropping calendar, and insufficient and pricey private companies seed supply. These challenges are compounded by enduring conflicts (insurgency, communal fighting) and frequent natural disasters. which ensures a steady market income. Female and male farmers prioritized their most-preferred crops and varieties on the same sets of six criteria: good yield, drought tolerance, flood tolerance, good eating quality, high market demand, and less damage by birds and pests. Female farmers added one additional preference criterion which was not prioritized by their male counterparts: crop maturity. Regarding the major crops, women expressed a slightly higher preference for maize and sorghum, while men for cassava and sesame; for groundnut, the difference is minimal. Expressed preferences for varieties were more dissimilar, including both local and improved varieties by both sexes. Farmers in Torit County have lost some crops, for example, Bambara nut, finger millet, pearl millet, pigeon pea and sunflower.The social seed network is made up of local farmers, IDPs, refugees, returnees, hosts of refugees, local traders, I/NGOs, and government institutions, with most of the transactions done based on seed exchange/ barter (not cash); women make up more than 70% of the seed exchangers. The most exchanged crops are groundnut, maize and sorghum, the major food crops in the area. Torit market and Omoliha market are the two local grain markets which have the highest number of direct connections with farmers and their communities in Torit County. The Torit and Omoliha markets are an important source and recipient of seeds, where farmers actively trade the grain and use it as seed for their crop production. Third, the AVSI programme has the largest connection with farmers. As a result, the seed network is relatively highly centralized. The informal seed system supplies almost 70%, with international seed relief organizations offering 17%, the private sector 8% and government institutions 2%.The common challenges faced by seed systems are (in decreasing order of significance) poor road connections, inadequate storage facilities, lack of market information, and the absence of a seed policy, including a seed certification body and field inspectors. These are compounded by conflicts resulting in looting and burning of fields and by climate hazards such as floods and drought.In the studied counties, farmers continue to maintain considerable crop and variety diversity of a range of crop types, but everywhere there have been diversity losses. No detailed analysis was made of the cause(s), but it is likely due to a combination of factors. These include the enduring impact of conflicts and war; climate-change impact; changing prices and marketing opportunities; changing food habits; outbreaks of pests and diseases; the introduction of crops and crop varieties from elsewhere (through seed aid interventions) during a prolonged period, and perhaps erosion of local crop (management) knowledge. Farmers expressed an interest in obtaining seeds of their lost varieties for reintroduction. Crop and trait preferences differ between women and men to varying degrees, reflecting different needs, interests and responsibilities and (crop management and related) roles in the household. For women, nutritional and cooking characteristics are especially important, more so than for men, with the exception of the qualities of beer, an important income-generating product.Farmers use multiple seed channels (sources) to obtain seeds of local and improved varieties, which can vary by season, with women playing key roles as seed custodians, exchangers and managers in all counties. Exchange and barter are the most common mechanisms to obtain seeds (not cash). Some social What can be done to improve the situation? Here are some suggestions.f Female farmers play a dominant role in local seed supply in the studied counties. They should be further empowered through targeted training in quality seed production, by promoting improved seed storage practices and involvement in seed related programming at county level.f Nodal seed farmers, many of whom are women, should be further empowered through training in good quality seed production so that they can become a reliable (sustainable) source of seed dissemination of new and improved varieties at the county level.f Post-harvest technologies and practices should be improved to reduce burdens on women, and increase food availability and quality (shelf-life) and opportunities to market produce and seeds.f The establishment of sustainable community seedbanks, with leadership roles of women, could contribute to greater seed security, and increase adaptative capacity to overcome disturbances and shocks.f The capacity of community-based seed-producer groups should be strengthened in quality seed production, internal seed quality control, organizational development, and strategic linkages with output markets and seed service providers.Women interested in seed production should be encouraged and supported.f There is need to support crop diversification, notably in Ikwoto Payam, but also elsewhere, through (i) introducing improved and well-adapted varieties;(ii) promoting superior farmer-preferred and climate-resilient local varieties; (iii) timely distribution of quality seeds by supply organizations, and (iv) introducing organic pesticides and fertilizers.Introducing exotic, improved seeds of crops, such as quinoa, and embarking on early generation seed bulking of promising local varieties could also be useful measures. Humanitarian and development organizations should broaden their crop/variety portfolio.f The Chahari, Isoke, Magwi, Omoliha, Seraga and Torit markets contribute significantly to the local seed supply. Farmers and communities frequently access seed for key local food-security crops from these local grain markets. The capacity of local traders, including women, in these marketplaces could be further strengthened by sharing qualityseed-related information through training, and by linking with local seed producers to purchase goodquality seed.f The above recommendation could be extended to also include the establishment of a decentralized seed certification systems, in which women could play key roles as professional certifiers.f Women's needs and interests also deserve more attention in crop improvement, through paying attention to the quality and trait preferences of both women and men. This could be further supported by improving the dissemination of relevant knowledge about improved crops and their management.Proudly showing locally produced vegetable seeds in Wau, Western Bahr el Ghazal, South Sudan. G.J. van Uffelen","tokenCount":"1680"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"544715c45a0df5242fa53d68cc72e323","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/110976ba-f26d-4ce2-9950-1baa2a54aef4/retrieve","id":"-634624896"},"keywords":["15 N natural abundance method","Canavalia brasiliensis","Forage legume","Nicaraguan hillsides","Nitrogen budget","On-farm trials"],"sieverID":"d63b63ba-4a54-4312-acac-2bc528762ad8","pagecount":"18","content":"Canavalia brasiliensis (canavalia), a drought tolerant legume, was introduced into the smallholder traditional crop-livestock production system of the Nicaraguan hillsides as green manure to improve soil fertility or as forage during the dry season for improving milk production. Since nitrogen (N) is considered the most limiting nutrient for agricultural production in the target area, the objective of this study was to quantify the soil surface N budgets at plot level in farmers fields over two cropping years for the traditional maize/bean rotation and the alternative maize/canavalia rotation. Mineral fertilizer N, seed N and symbiotically fixed N were summed up as N input to the system. Symbiotic N 2 fixation was assessed using the 15 N natural abundance method. Nitrogen output was quantified as N export via harvested products. Canavalia derived in average 69% of its N from the atmosphere. The amount of N fixed per hectare varied highly according to the biomass production, which ranged from 0 to 5,700 kg ha -1 . When used as green manure, canavalia increased the N balance of the maize/canavalia rotation but had no effect on the N uptake of the following maize crop. When used as forage, it bears the risk of a soil N depletion up to 41 kg N ha -1 unless N would be recycled to the plot by animal manure. Without N mineral fertilizer application, the N budget remains negative even if canavalia was used as green manure. Therefore, the replenishment of soil N stocks by using canavalia may need a few years, during which the application of mineral N fertilizer needs to be maintained to sustain agricultural production.Population growth in the rural poor areas of developing countries has contributed to land use intensification that adversely affects soil fertility, with nutrient depletion and soil erosion being major causes of soil degradation (Tan et al. 2005). Crop and livestock productivity therefore declines, causing decreased income generation opportunities, and food insecurity. In the Nicaraguan hillsides, population is expanding at an annual growth rate of 1.3% (IFAD 2009). Cropping is limited to two short and successive rainy seasons, and therefore livestock suffers forage shortage during the long dry season of 5-6 months. Smallholders are mostly affected by the declined soil fertility due to their marginalized situation and their inability to overcome production constraints (Pfister 2003). Agricultural production usually does not exceed the needs for subsistence, making the sale of products almost impossible. Sufficient amounts of mineral fertilizers are not affordable and in small-scale farms, nitrogen (N) depletion is a major production constraint (Ayarza et al. 2007;Smyth et al. 2004).Introduction of cover crop legumes can be beneficial to such a system due to their ability to add N via symbiotic N 2 fixation (Boddey et al. 1997;Ojiem et al. 2007) and to provide surface mulch during the dry season or to provide fodder to livestock (Said and Tolera 1993). In order to identify the most suitable legume for the Nicaraguan hillsides, forage specialists and local extentionists induced farmer participatory evaluation of potential legume species. Among all the legumes tested, Canavalia brasiliensis Mart. Ex. Benth (canavalia), also known as Brazilian jack bean, attracted most attention from farmers mainly due to its vigorous growth, good soil cover and outstanding level of adaptation to drought stress based on green forage yield. Moreover, canavalia is also adapted to a wide range of other stress factors, including low fertility soils (CIAT 2004;Schloen et al. 2005;Schmidt et al. 2005).Previous studies have indeed shown positive effects of canavalia on crop productivity when integrated in the crop rotation (Bordin et al. 2003). Maize yield was higher after a rotation with canavalia than after other cover crops, because of its high biomass production and rapid litter decomposition rate (de Carvalho et al. 2008). In an on-station study over 4-years, the use of canavalia green manure in rotation with maize was equivalent to a replacement of 50 kg N ha -1 of mineral N fertilizer (Burle et al. 1999). Canavalia brasiliensis is known to nodulate well (Alvarenga et al. 1995) but its contribution through symbiotic N 2 fixation has not been quantified. The integration of a highly productive legume crop in a cropping system could also increase mining of nutrients (Bu ¨nemann et al. 2004), and a yield increase of the subsequent crop also means higher N export via harvested products. The contribution of a legume to a system may also be further diminished if crop residues are used as fodder (Peoples and Craswell 1992). Before promoting the use of canavalia to smallholders, it is important to evaluate whether canavalia results in a net N input to the cropping system, i.e., whether the N input through symbiotic N 2 fixation exceeds N output through harvest. Such imbalances can be revealed by calculating the N budgets for the rotations of interest. Nutrient budgets are commonly used as indicators of changes in soil fertility at national or regional scale (Bindraban et al. 2000;Smaling et al. 1993), and more recently have been useful to evaluate soil fertility status and nutrient efficiency of African smallholder crop-livestock systems (Rufino et al. 2009;Zingore et al. 2007). However, there is no published information on on-farm N budgets on the alternative uses of forage legumes in Central America. We chose the soil surface budget approach where all the N entering the soil via soil surface and leaving the soil via crop uptake are recorded (Adu-Gyamfi et al. 2007;Oenema et al. 2003;Watson et al. 2002).Canavalia was tested either as green manure to improve soil fertility or as forage to improve milk production. When used as green manure, it was left on the plot during the whole dry season and was incorporated at the onset of the next rainy season before sowing maize. As forage, it was cut and removed at the beginning of the dry season to simulate grazing. The use of the traditional maize/ bean (M/B) rotation as control does not mean that canavalia should replace bean. Indeed, farmers grow bean on only half of the cultivated area. Thus there is possibility to grow canavalia on the other half, and to alternate each year between the areas under maize/ canavalia (M/C) and M/B rotations.The main objective of this study was to quantify the soil surface N budgets at plot level in farmers fields over two cropping years for the traditional M/B rotation and the alternative M/C rotation. We tested the hypothesis that the introduction of canavalia into the traditional rotation will help reversing soil N depletion by (1) fixing a high proportion of N, (2) increasing the N budget of the crop rotation, and (3) thereby increasing maize yields the year following its integration into the production system. We emphasized N output via crop harvest and N input via N 2 fixation of canavalia and bean. We also assessed N recycled with crop residues.The study area is located in the hillsides of northern Nicaragua, in the Rio Pire watershed (Municipality of Condega, Department of Esteli), within a 2 km radius around the community of Santa Teresa (13°18 0 N, 86°26 0 W) (Fig. 1). Soils are classified as Udic and Pachic Argiustolls (MAGFOR 2008). The climate is classified as tropical savannah (Aw) according to the Ko ¨ppen-Geiger classification (Peel et al. 2007). Annual mean rainfall is 825 mm (INETER 2009) and has a bimodal distribution pattern (Fig. 2).Farmers are traditional crop-livestock smallholders, cultivating maize and bean on about 2 ha of land, and sharing an area for grazing on less productive pastures based on Jaragua grass (Hyperrenia rufa). Cultivation is done essentially with hand-held tools. Prior to sowing maize land is usually prepared with a plough pulled by oxen if accessibility to the field and slopes allow; otherwise it is prepared manually using a hoe. Maize is sown at the end of May, at the onset of the first rainy season. Maize is fertilized with urea and sometimes also with NPK fertilizer. At maturity, plants are cut above the ears and maize ears are left drying on the stalks for 2-3 months. Meanwhile, beans are sown around mid-September between the maize rows to take advantage of the part of the bimodal rainfall pattern. Both maize and beans are harvested in December. In January, at the beginning of the dry season, forage is getting scarce in the grazing area, and farmers let their cows enter the cultivated fields to graze crop residues.Four farmers of Santa Teresa, who were interested in integrating canavalia in a part of their production area, were identified. They chose themselves the site for the experiment within their farm. Crop management was done by the farmers, whereas data and samples were collected by the scientists. Sites are named after farmer's initials: FC (Felipe Caldero ´n), GR (Gabriel Ruiz), LP (Lorenzo Peralta) and PT (Pedro Torres). General site characteristics are given in Table 1.On each site five crop rotations were established on 70-100 m 2 -plots, and repeated in three completely randomized blocks, for a total of 60 plots. The control treatment was the traditional M/B rotation. The four others were M/C rotations with four different cutting intensities to simulate grazing, i.e. with 0% (M/C0), 50% (M/C50), 75% (M/C75) or 100% (M/C100) removal of canavalia biomass (Fig. 3). Land was prepared according to the usual practice, with hoe on FC site and ploughing with oxen on the other sites. Farmers sowed maize (Zea mays var. Catacamas) at the end of May 2007, by hand, with a seeding rate of 23 kg per hectare, with a row-to-row spacing of 75 cm and a plant-to-plant spacing of 50 cm. Compound NPK fertilizer (12-30-10) and urea were applied 8 and 22 days after sowing respectively. The doses varied from 0 to 8 kg N ha -1 for NPK complex and from 30 to 60 kg N ha -1 for urea, according to each farmer's usual practices (Table 2). Weed control was done before maize germination by spraying glyphosate and after germination manually with a large knife. Cypermethrin 1 was used for insect control. Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris var. INTA seda rojo) or canavalia (var. CIAT17009) were sown between maize rows at the end of September with a seeding rate of 78 and 51 kg per hectare, respectively. No fertilizer was applied to either legume crop. Maize and bean harvest occurred between November and December according to the usual practice. In January, the different percentages of canavalia above ground biomass were removed from the field. In May 2008, remaining standing maize stalks and canavalia plants were cut with large knife and left on the ground as mulch. Fields in 2008 were prepared as described for 2007, using either plough or hoe, and treatments were repeated on the same plots. Farmers did not reduce mineral fertilizer application after the first canavalia rotation.Precipitation during crop growth (May to January), measured at the meteorological station of the nearby municipality Condega, was similar for both years (about 920 mm), which is 19% above the normal rainfall (Fig. 2). Temperature for both years was also similar, with a mean of 24°C, a maximum of 33°C and a minimum of 16°C (INETER 2009). Sites are named after farmer's initials. For soil chemical properties: averages on all plots (0-10 cm depth), with standard deviation in parenthesis (n = 15) a Measured following Nelson and Sommers (1982) Symbiotic N 2 fixationThe rates of N derived from the atmosphere (%Ndfa) in canavalia and bean were assessed both years using the 15 N natural abundance method (Shearer and Kohl 1986), which is based on the slight natural differences between the 15 N abundance of the soil and the 15 N abundance of the atmosphere. As reference plants, non-fixing dicotyledonous weeds (Oberson et al. 2007) growing at the same time as the legumes have been selected and marked in the field to avoid them being cut during weed control by the farmers. Other herbaceous and shrubby weeds were excluded. Two weeds were chosen in the immediate proximity (i.e. within a radius of 50 cm) of each marked legume. Weeds were limited to four different species per site and per year, each of them being present at least five times for each legume and as well distributed as possible across the site. Species chosen were Baltimora recta, Delilia biflora, Euphorbia graminea, Euphorbia hirta, Lagascea mollis, Melanthera aspera, Mitrocarpus hirtus, Richardia scabra, Borreria suaveolens, Ageratum conyzoides, and Conyza Canadensis (Table 2). Sampling of canavalia occurred 3 months after planting, before drought, at the beginning of the flowering period. For bean, sampling occurred at the growth stage of late flowering to early pod filling. Five bean plants and five canavalia plants were harvested per block, together with their paired weeds, resulting in thirty legumes and sixty reference plants per site and per year. Table 2 shows slightly lower sample numbers, as in a few cases the marked plant did not develop well and was therefore not harvested. Plants were dried and analyzed for their 15 N abundance (see below).The %Ndfa for each legume plant was calculated following Shearer and Kohl (1986), using its two paired weeds as references. The final %Ndfa per legume and per site was then calculated as the average of the fifteen %Ndfa estimated from single legume plants for this site.  (1)(2) (3) (2)(1)(3)  The B-value, i.e. the isotopic fractionation during N 2 fixation, was obtained from a pot experiment in the greenhouse at the International Centre of Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), Colombia (3°30 0 N, 76°21 0 W), following the procedure of Unkovich et al. (1994). Plants were grown from the end of November 2007 to the end of February 2008. Temperature in the greenhouse fluctuated from 20°to 37°C in synchrony with photoperiod, and relative humidity ranged from 40 to 90%. Eighteen 3.3 l-pots were filled with washed white quartz, planted with canavalia or bean and watered daily with an N-free nutrient solution. The inoculum used was made from a mixture of soils from our study sites. Harvest occurred at the same development stage as in the field. Shoot d 15 N values were corrected for seed N effect using a mass balance (Boddey et al. 2000;Hogberg et al. 1994) accounting for the N distribution between shoots and roots.Maize production was evaluated in each of the 60 plots of the experiment. To evaluate the yield of the different maize parts, several row segments were chosen to represent the plot, excluding the border lines, and equivalent to 20-30 m-row length in total per plot. On these row segments, plants were counted and classified into two categories: plants with harvestable ears and plants without. Harvestable ears were considered good for human consumption by the farmers. The category ''plants without harvestable ear'' included plants that were without ear, with damaged ear, with already harvested ear, or with ear on the ground. Samples of ears of each category, corresponding to the number of ears for 2 m 2 , were taken in each plot.Harvestable ears were separated after sampling into good grain, bad grain, cobs, and husks. Samples were pooled per block, except for good grain, for which samples were kept separated per plot. Yield of the different ear parts was assessed as follow:where no. of harvestable ears per plot correspond to the number of plants with harvestable ears per plot, as almost no plants developed more than one ear.Samples of not harvestable ears were not separated into plant parts because their state did not allow doing so. The amount of not harvested ears per hectare was calculated as in formula [1], except that the number and weight of not harvested ears were used.Samples of stalks and leaves were taken to complete maize biomass production estimation. As traditionally farmers cut the upper part of the stalks to let the cob dry, only a few entire plants could be found and sampled on two sites. Assuming that average stalk and leaf weight was the same on all plots, yields were calculated as in formula [1] using the total number of plants per plot.In order to know which plant parts are exported and which are recycled on the plot, the fate of maize harvested ears was determined by plant part for each farmer. Maize grains (MG) were exported from the plot for human consumption, maize cobs (MC) and damaged grains (MDG) (i.e. broken, discoloured, shrivelled or undersized grains) were exported to be fed to pigs or used for combustible, maize husks (MH) were either recycled on the plot or exported to be fed to cows. Maize without harvestable ears (MRE) and residues (stalks and leaves) (MR) were not removed from the plot.Bean yields were assessed according to farmer's current practice. On 1 m 2 in each plot, bean plants were removed from the soil with their roots, separated into grain (BG) and residues (shoot and root, BP), and both plant parts were sampled and weighed separately. The fate of BG is usually to be exported for consumption, while BP remains on the plots. However, during both years of this study, heavy rainfall over short periods and to larger extent diseases such as angular leaf spot killed many bean plants leading to very low yields. Farmers harvested only when expected grain value compensated labour cost for harvest.Yield ear part ½kg ha À1 ¼ no:harvestable earsper plot  weight ear part ½kg ear À1area plot [m 2  10; 000At each canavalia cutting time, above-ground biomass (CB) production was assessed in each plot with the Comparative Yield Method (Haydock and Shaw 1975) in which the yields of random 1 m 2 -quadrants are rated with respect to a set of five reference quadrants preselected to provide a scale covering the range of biomass encountered within each plot. Ten quadrants were rated per plot. Different proportions-100, 75, 50 or 0%-of the available biomass were removed according to the experimental plan, by cutting canavalia with large knifes either on a plant number basis, or on a height basis when plants were undistinguishable. The M/C100 plots, where all the biomass was removed and weighed, were used as control of the biomass estimate obtained with the Comparative Yield Method. Samples of the above ground biomass were taken from each block. Removed biomass (CBR) was exported from the plot to be fed to animals.Canavalia, bean and reference plants sampled in the field were dried in a wooden oven at about 40°C until constant dry weight and ground with a rotary knife mill at CIAT-Nicaragua. Maize plant parts were dried at ambient temperature and ground with the same mill.Canavalia and bean samples from the greenhouse were dried at 70°C and ground with a rotary knife mill at CIAT-Colombia. All samples were then shipped to Switzerland, powdered with a ball mill (Retsch, GmbH, Germany) and analyzed for total N on a Thermo Electron FlashEA 1112 Automatic Elemental Analyzer. The d 15 N of legumes and reference plants were measured at the Geological Institute of the ETH Zurich on a Thermo Electron FlashEA 1112 coupled in continuous-flow with a Thermo-Fisher MAT 253 mass spectrometer. Finely ground field pea seed with an atom % 15 N of 0.367 was used as analytical standard.Soil surface N budgets were estimated for all plots and for both years (May to January) following the equation:where Nfix is the contribution of symbiotic N 2 fixation, Nfert is the mineral fertilization, Nseed accounts for maize, bean and canavalia seeds and Nexport is the amount of N exported from the plot. Nfix was calculated as the product of %Ndfa, N concentration and legume biomass. Nfert was calculated for each site based on the amount of fertilizer applied by the farmer and the N concentration in urea and NPK complex. Nseed was calculated as the product of N concentration and seed density.Nexport from the plot differed for each site according to the fate given by each farmer to the different plant parts of the crops and was estimated as:where N X is the amount of N in kg ha -1 in each of the mentioned plant part X, obtained from its N concentration multiplied by its biomass production in kg ha -1 (dry matter basis). N MH equals 0 if the farmer left the husks on the plot. N BG equals 0 if the farmer decided to not harvest beans, or in M/C rotations. N CBR equals 0 in M/B and M/C0 rotations.The amount of N recycled on each plot is the amount of N in crop residues and in remaining canavalia, calculated as follows:where N X is the amount of N in kg ha -1 in each of the mentioned plant material X, obtained from its N concentration multiplied by its biomass production in kg ha -1 . N MH equals 0 if the farmer exports the husks. N BG equals 0 if the farmer decided to harvest beans, or in M/C rotations. N (CB-CBR) equals 0 in M/B and M/ C100 rotations.Statistical analyses were performed using program R (R Development Core 2007). Rightskewed variables were log-transformed before the analysis. Yields were submitted to a Wilcoxon's rank-sum test to check for significant differences between the 2 years. The significance of the effects of site and treatment on crop production and on N balance was tested by an analysis of variance using aov and lme functions in R (Pinheiro and Bates 2000). The model was composed by treatment as fixed factor, site and bloc as random factors, bloc being nested within site.The B-values obtained from the greenhouse experiment were -1.26% for canavalia and -3.74% for bean. The d 15 N of the reference plants ranged from 0.2 to 13.1% in 2007 and from 0.5 and 8.4% in 2008. Table 2 presents the average d 15 N per species and per site, for both years together as there was no significant difference between the 2 years. The d 15 N of the legumes ranged from -2 to 2%, with extreme values up to 4.6% in 2007 and 2.6% in 2008. Each legume had significantly lower d 15 N than its two reference plants. Figure 4 shows the d 15 N of each N 2 -fixing plant and the mean d 15 N of its paired reference plants for all sites in 2007 and in 2008. Average %Ndfa was 55 and 58% for bean, and 64 and 74% for canavalia in 2007 and 2008, respectively. Among sites, mean %Ndfa did not vary much, with a standard deviation of 3-9%. For bean, average Ndfa did not differ significantly between 2007 and 2008 (P = 0.478). For canavalia, average Ndfa in 2008 was significantly (P = 0.000) higher than in 2007.Maize grain yields (Fig. 5) conformed to the usual production of the region (personal communication from the farmers), with an average yield of 2,410 kg ha -1 in 2007 and 2,070 kg ha -1 in 2008.Grain yields were not significantly different between the 2 years (P = 0.107). The first year of rotation made no effect on grain yields of the subsequent year (P = 0.187). Yields were affected significantly by the site in 2008 (P = 0.025) but not in 2007 (P = 0.135).Bean grain production (Fig. 5) was much lower for both years compared with the farmer reported mean production value of 1300 kg ha -1 . This was mainly due to heavy rains and diseases. The grain yield ranged 13 to 320 kg ha -1 in 2007 and from 0 to Canavalia biomass production (Fig. 5) varied between 0 and 5,700 kg ha -1 , with a mean value of 2,110 kg ha -1 in 2007. In 2008, the biomass production varied between 290 and 4,330 kg ha -1 , with a mean value of 1,530 kg ha -1 . Biomass did not significantly differ between both years (P = 0.223) and was not influenced by the site neither in 2007 (P = 0.070) nor in 2008 (P = 0.999). The removal of canavalia biomass at the beginning of the dry season in 2007 had no significant effect on the production in 2008 (P = 0.066). The variation in canavalia biomass production within GR and PT sites was higher than the variation between sites.The components of the soil surface N budget and the resulting balance for each treatment on each site are presented in Table 3. Nitrogen input from mineral fertilizers applied to maize was from 38 to 68 kg N ha -1 . Mineral fertilizers and seeds contributed per site equally to M/B and M/C rotation. In relation to the overall N inputs, Nfert represented on average for both years 88% of the total N input in the M/B rotation, and 69% in the M/C rotation. For both years, Nseed represented from 3 to 6% of the total N input. The contribution of symbiotic N 2 fixation to the M/B rotation did not exceed 8 kg N ha -1 (8 and 3% of the total N input in 2007 and 2008, respectively), whereas it was on average 22 and 17 kg N ha -1 (or 29 and 24% of the total N input) in the M/C rotation in 2007 and 2008, respectively. Nitrogen exported through maize harvest ranged from 16 to 67 kg N ha -1 . Canavalia represented an export of up to 87 kg N ha -1 in 2007 and 39 kg N ha -1 in 2008 when the whole aboveground biomass was removed.The M/C0 treatment showed in most cases the highest N balance per site, with an average surplus of 33 kg N ha -1 in 2007 and 26 kg N ha -1 in 2008 (Fig. 6). In 2007, M/C100 treatments resulted in most cases with a negative N balance with an average depletion of 15 kg N ha -1 . In 2008, the M/C100 balance was in average in equilibrium, with 2 kg N ha -1 in average. An average surplus of 14 and 17 kg N ha -1 in 2007 and 2008, respectively was observed with the M/B treatment. The N balance for both years was influenced by the site (P = 0.015 in 2007 and P = 0.003 in 2008). Treatments had a highly significant effect on the N balance in 2007 (P = 0.000) and a significant effect in 2008 (P = 0.006).For the most contrasting treatments M/B and M/C0, the amount of N recycled and its source are presented in Fig. 7. After maize harvest, about 18 kg N ha -1 were recycled on the plot with maize residues, independent of the treatment, which represents about 32% of the overall maize N uptake. Nitrogen recycled in the M/C0 rotation is higher than in the M/B rotation. Bean residues contributed with about 3 kg N ha -1 to the N recycled. When canavalia was not removed, an average value of 22 kg N ha -1 was recycled on the plot with canavalia biomass.Symbiotic N 2 fixation estimated with the 15 N natural abundance methodThe suggested minimum difference of 2% between reference plants and legumes (Unkovich et al. 1994) was reached at all sites and for both M/B and M/C treatments (Fig. 4). Standard deviation of all reference species d 15 N per site was in average 1.1%, and was not higher than 2.2%, which shows that soil d 15 N was relatively homogeneous on each site. For canavalia, the B-value obtained was in the range reported for tropical legume species used as forage or cover crops (Unkovich et al. 2008). The value for bean was slightly lower than -2.2 reported for common bean by Unkovich et al. (2008).Bean %Ndfa was higher than the average of 36% reported by Herridge et al. (2008) for common bean in farmers fields. Canavalia %Ndfa in 2007 was in the range of the 57-69% reported by Giller (2001) for Canavalia ensiformis. M/C50 38 0.4 2.5 13 (4) 14 ( 10) 56 ( 9) 10 ( 2) 34 ( 14) 10 ( 8) M/C75 38 0.4 2.5 13 (4) 19 ( 12) 56 ( 13) 15 (3) 53 ( 6) 21 ( 14) M/C100 38 0.4 2.5 13 (4) 18 ( 3) 59 ( 13) 20 ( 4) 53 ( 16) 25 ( 6  22) 87 ( 30) 49 ( 12) 39 (0)Standard deviation is given in parenthesis. M/B is the maize-bean rotation; M/C is the maize-canavalia rotation; N M is N export through maize, i.e. through grains, damaged grains, cobs and husks; N BG is N export through bean grains; N CBR is N export through canavalia biomass removedCanavalia had an average %Ndfa of 64% 2007, despite the fact that it was grown for the first time in this region and not inoculated. For the second year of cultivation of canavalia, an average increase of about 17% was observed compared to the first year values. Results from the pot study conducted at CIAT-Colombia showed that nodulation is more rapid and abundant (30% more nodule fresh weight) when canavalia is inoculated with rhizobia from a site where it has been grown for 5 years (S. Douxchamps, unpublished data). Higher %Ndfa can therefore be expected after a few years of cultivation, and may reach in the third year the value of 80% as reported for many tropical green manure legumes (Giller 2001;Thomas et al. 1997).Compared to on-station trials conducted in Brazil, canavalia biomass production was similar to the values of 230 to 6,550 kg ha -1 observed when grown during the dry season (Burle et al. 1999) but lower than the value of 10,030 kg ha -1 observed when grown entirely during the rainy season (Carsky et al. 1990). Canavalia biomass production varied highly among plots. The reasons behind this variation are due to soil and topographic factors, which are discussed elsewhere (Douxchamps, 2010). Because biomass production varied more than %Ndfa, the variation in Nfix was determined by variation in biomass, which has been also observed by Thomas et al. (1997) in the humid tropics for three forage legumes. Likewise, the difference of biomass production between the legumes was the main reason why Nfix by canavalia was on an average about 16 kg N ha -1 higher than that of bean crop.This difference in Nfix between the two legumes was underestimated, as below-ground biomass contribution was partially taken into account for bean but not for canavalia. Canavalia is known for its deep pivoting root system with lots of fine roots and lateral root extension up to 3.5 m (Alvarenga et al. 1995). Besides the problems encountered in trying to estimate or recover such a root system, the rapid turnover of belowground tissues and root exudation make difficult to determine below-ground N contributions (Cherr et al. 2006). Below-ground N associated with or derived from roots can represent up to 50% of the total plant N of legumes (Herridge et al. 2008). To account for below-ground N, Unkovich et al. (2008) suggested a multiplication by factor 2 for fodder legumes, which would give for canavalia in our trial an average Nfix of 44 kg N ha -1 in 2007 and 34 kg N ha -1 in 2008. For bean, only dry roots were recovered, whereas exudates and root turnover were not taken into account. By using the multiplication factor of 1.4 suggested by Unkovich et al. (2008), the maximum Nfix for bean in our trial would be of 11 kg N ha -1 .Effect of on-farm conditions on Nfert, Nseed, and NexportNfert and Nseed were distributed by hand, by different farmers. Distribution of fertilizer and seed was not as exact as when it is done by machines or in on-station trials. As N contained in seeds remained small compared to the other factors of the budget, its potential variation had relatively small effect on the N balance estimations. Likewise, plant density was also somewhat heterogeneous between plots. The estimation of Nexport by maize was also affected by human factors. For example, people do not enter the fields very carefully: they may drop ears on the ground, or sometimes grab an appetizing maize ear to eat on the way back home. This may be one reason why plants with empty husks were found. The amount of empty husks represented on average 6% of the good ears.Therefore, the results from the different sites should not be combined as one single effect of canavalia when introduced on-farm, but rather be seen as a range of possible responses, taking into account farmers practices and their impacts on data variability. One may argue that those conditions render difficult to design a precise nutrient management guidelines for the region. Uncertainties are however part of budget calculations at all scales, and there are various ways to deal with them in the subsequent decision making process (Oenema et al. 2003). As farmers cannot afford taking risks, safety margins have to be taken into account.Both years and on all sites, increasing cutting intensities of canavalia reduced the N balance. On one hand, canavalia increased N input into the system compared to M/B rotation, but on the other hand it increased soil N depletion if completely removed. Under M/B rotation, balance depended much on bean yields. When beans were harvested, the balance became negative, except in the sites where high amounts of mineral fertilizer were applied (FC and GR). The positive to neutral N balance on M/B is mainly due to the low yields of common bean. Assuming yields of 800 kg N ha -1 (FAO 2009), N export through bean harvest would become about 30 kg N ha -1 , which brings the balance estimate to negative in most cases, with an average value of -6 kg N ha -1 and a maximum value of -40 kg N ha -1 on LP site. A positive N balance for the M/B rotation does not mean that the system is sustainable: lower bean yields mean lower or no income. Likewise, the observation of a higher N balance for all treatments of a site is due to reduced N export by maize. For example, on FC site maize yields were much higher in 2007 than in 2008, and thus the balance resulted much lower. When export through maize grain is not compensated by mineral fertilizers, as on LP and PT sites, the N balance becomes negative. If we would include the below ground N contribution from the legumes as presented above, the deficit observed in the M/C100 rotations would be in five of eight cases compensated, with an average balance of 18 kg N ha -1 . The impact on M/B rotations would be lower, and would not compensate the deficit observed on LP site, which would remain at about -10 kg N ha -1 .Many experiments have demonstrated the positive effect of legumes on succeeding crops (Peoples and Craswell 1992). However, in this study, the integration of canavalia as green manure had no effect on the following maize crop, probably because (1) one year of rotation is not sufficient to observe an effect, (2) the mineral fertilizer background is too high compared to the N input by canavalia, and (3) other factors related to management practices may have limited a productivity increase. For example, MRE, i.e. the amount of ears not harvested, represent a potential maize yield increase if crop management is improved. On all sites and for the 2 years, MRE had a mean value of 350 kg ha -1 , which corresponds to a loss of 10% of good grain yield. According to farmers, up to 50% of maize grain yield losses can occur in the region due to this problem and these losses do not include post harvest losses. Before important changes in nutrient management as the introduction of a legume in the rotation, the traditional system could be improved by a few simple efforts. There are opportunities to increase productivity with improved management, e.g., concerning plant density, timing of fertilizer application and weed control.According to the design of the experiment, we expected that in the green manure scenario M/C0, the N of crop residues is recycled within the plot, as no cows would enter the field to graze. However, in practice, according to participatory workshops with farmers, there will probably be only one type of M/C rotation. Farmers will allow cows to graze totally canavalia at the onset of the dry season. Regrowth, which was not expected when the experiment was designed, has been observed during the dry season when plants are not cut down to the ground level i.e., after grazing, and may be used for soil improvement. The former N recycled would in this case represent the amount of N available for grazing during the dry season. Rufino et al. (2006) reported for African dairy studies that on average about 80% of the ingested N is returned with manure. Assuming the same proportion recycled for cows in our trial and all N excreted being returned to the grazed plot, 33 kg N ha -1 on average would be recycled through canavalia grazing, under the form of faeces and urine. While the urine fraction would fall on a single spot at high concentration, the faeces fraction can be uniformly distributed on the plot surface by farmers. An efficient animal manure management would therefore be essential to maximize N recycling and compensate the N deficit observed with M/C100 rotation.The proposed rotation sequence would therefore be to alternate this most probable M/C rotation with the M/B rotation: canavalia would grow on the area not cultivated by beans (i.e. about 1 ha), and crops would be exchanged the following year, i.e., on the same area the sequence would be M/B-M/C-M/B-M/ C etc. (Fig. 8). In the traditional sequence, the succession of M/B and M (maize alone) rotations depletes N stocks over years, moreover on sites with low mineral fertilizer applications. The alternative sequence will build up N stocks year after year. Moreover, canavalia can reduce erosion and decrease weed pressure. The time until seeing an effect on agricultural productivity depends on the biophysical limitations of each site and the management options chosen by the farmers. Canavalia yield is assumed to be maintained over years. Legume yields can decrease after a few years of cultivation due to pests and diseases, as has been reported in other trials (Bu ¨nemann et al. 2004). However, this has not yet been observed with canavalia in a 6-year on-station experiment where canavalia was planted on the same plots every year (A. Schmidt et al., unpublished data). Still, the proposed rotation sequence needs long term testing on-farm. The use of models, once calibrated, can also be useful in predicting the effects of rotation sequences on soil fertility (Walker et al. 2008).The underlying assumption of a nutrient budget is that of a mass balance i.e. nutrient input to the system minus nutrient outputs from the system equals the change in storage within the system (Meissinger and Randall 1991). However, soil surface budgets consider soil as a black box, and do not provide information on the fate or origin of any budget surplus i.e. whether it is lost from the system or stored in the soil (Watson et al. 2002). Due to unaccounted N losses, like leaching and gaseous losses, N balances are overestimated unless they would be compensated by atmospheric N deposition. Accurate data being unavailable for the study region, atmospheric deposition was not included in the budget and assumed to be equal for all farms. Surface lateral nutrient flows, i.e. inputs and outputs by sedimentation, erosion and runoff were also not quantified. Despite the fact that those processes are left out, soil surface budgets based on ''easy-tomeasure'' flows have proved their utility in providing useful information to farmers and policy makers on soil fertility and on the need for restoration (Adu-Gyamfi et al. 2007;Rego et al. 2003), even in sloping hillsides of the tropics (Briggs and Twomlow 2002). These flows are also the easiest to manipulate to influence the nutrient balances in the short term (Bekunda and Manzi 2003). However, the estimation of lateral nutrient flows and gaseous losses is essential if an extrapolation of N budgets at landscape level and for a longer time frame is envisaged (Smaling et al. 1993). Finally, to predict how much N can be expected from the use of canavalia over years, an in-depth study on soil N fluxes is needed, including a determination of the fertilizer value of manure from cows fed with canavalia, an evaluation of N losses and of the belowground contribution of the legumes, and an assessment of the N mineralization rate for the different soil types of the Nicaraguan hillsides.When used as green manure, canavalia represents a net N input into the crop rotation due to symbiotic N fixation. Still, mineral fertilizers are necessary to maintain the N balance positive. Using canavalia as forage depletes soil N, and should be compensated by an effective return of animal manure on the plots. The introduction of canavalia in the Nicaraguan hillsides has the potential to improve agricultural production. However, the time needed to visualize an effect on crop productivity depends on the biophysical limitations of each site and the management done by the farmers.","tokenCount":"6815"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"59fc3681f228e8b51713cc5370b22d24","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5a2901a6-be32-4917-9fcf-2c4d91897a8f/retrieve","id":"-582382453"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2793296d-20ad-45df-b845-3091e0a1d4f7","pagecount":"52","content":"Price: DKK 25.00 (VAT included) DIIS publications can be downloaded free of charge from www.diis.dk DIIS Working Papers make available DIIS researchers' and DIIS project partners' work in progress towards proper publishing. They may include important documentation which is not necessarily published elsewhere.DIIS Working Papers are published under the responsibility of the author alone.Este informe tiene como objetivo presentar el perfil de pobreza para la parte alta de la cuenca del río Jequetepeque, departamento de Cajamarca, Perú, y analizar en qué medida el acceso al agua, particularmente para el riego, y a la tierra, depende de los niveles de pobreza. Con base en el perfil de pobreza se puede puntualizar que las familias no pobres se caracterizan por poseer pastos, bosques, cultivos con riego y fuentes de ingreso no agropecuarias. En cambio, los más pobres se caracterizan por producir más para el autoconsumo que para el mercado, depender más del trabajo como jornaleros, no tener tierra o poseer poca, y pocas parcelas con riego, por no tener fuentes de ingreso no agropecuarias y por pasar dificultades para hacerle frente a las enfermedades con recursos propios.Este informe tiene como objetivo presentar el perfil de pobreza para la parte alta de la cuenca del río Jequetepeque, departamento de Cajamarca, Perú, y analizar en qué medida el acceso al agua, particularmente para el riego, y a la tierra, depende de los niveles de pobreza. El perfil de pobreza está desarrollado con base en percepciones locales de bienestar, las cuales han sido 'traducidas' a indicadores cuantificables, que, combinados, producen un índice de pobreza (Ravnborg et al., 1999) El objetivo del proyecto es \"investigar y analizar las externalidades generadas por cambios del uso de la tierra en regiones montañosas, para proveer una base de información que sirva para la toma de decisiones en el pago por servicios ambientales, relacionado con la inversión social, como mecanismo efectivo para generar un desarrollo dinámico en el sector rural.\"El trabajo se efectúa en cuatro países: Bolivia, Perú, Ecuador y Colombia. En Perú, la investigación se realiza en colaboración con el Centro Ecuménico de Promoción y Acción Social -CEDEPAS.El presente informe está organizado en seis partes. Además de introducir el estudio, la primera parte incluye una breve descripción de Jequetepeque y la presentación de los datos y métodos aplicados en el estudio. La segunda parte presenta el perfil de pobreza, según el cual las tres categorías de familias --las más pobres, las menos pobres y las no pobres--son descritas de acuerdo con los indicadores de bienestar que constituyen la medida de pobreza. En la tercera parte del informe se presentan los resultados del análisis del acceso al agua, y de su manejo, principalmente para el riego, según el nivel de pobreza, mientras que la cuarta parte analiza el acceso a la tierra bajo el enfoque de pobreza. La quinta parte analiza la participación en organizaciones locales y el contacto con organizaciones externas.Finalmente, la sexta y última parte presenta un resumen de los resultados más destacados con respecto a la relación entre acceso al agua y a la tierra, y la pobreza.La cuenca del río Jequetepeque está ubicada en la costa norte del Perú, en la vertiente occidental de la Cordillera de los Andes. Tiene un área total de 6,982 km 2 (698,200 hectáreas), distribuida entre los departamentos de La Libertad (provincias de Pacasmayo y Chepén) y Cajamarca (provincias de Cajamarca, Contumazá, San Pablo y San Miguel).Abarca un total de seis provincias y 30 distritos. Los niveles altitudinales varían entre 0 y 4,188 msnm, con una topografía accidentada y con rangos de precipitación de 0 a 1,100 mm anuales. Los ríos que dan origen al Jequetepeque son: el Pallac, con una cuenca de 250 km 2 ; San Miguel o Puclush, con una cuenca de 1,065 km 2 , y Magdalena, con 1,500 km 2 . La tabla 1.1. muestra la población de las cuatro provincias a las cuales la parte alta de la cuenca de Jequetepeque pertenece. Fuente: www.embperu.org.br/mapa_politico_del_peru.htmAunque políticamente comprende diferentes provincias y regiones, la cuenca se articula a partir de la dinámica socioeconómica operante entre sus distritos y zonas. Así, existen ejes comerciales que unen lugares como San Miguel-San Pablo-Chilete-Tembladera-Chepén-San Gregorio, estableciendo relaciones entre centros poblados y áreas productivas de las zonas altas y medias, con las ciudades y centros productivos y comerciales en la parte costeña (Tembladera, Chepén, Guadalupe y Pacasmayo). En la tabla 1.1, se muestra la división política de la parte alta de la cuenca Jequetepeque.La población de la cuenca de Jequetepeque está distribuida de la siguiente manera: el 53% de los habitantes vive en el sector urbano y el 47% en el sector rural. Esta situación se debe a la concentración poblacional en las ciudades costeñas como Chepén, Pacasmayo y Guadalupe. El 81% de la población de esta zona es urbana, mientras en las zonas altas la situación es totalmente inversa, pues el 80% es población rural. El distrito de Chepén sigue siendo el de mayor población en el valle, y concentra el 29% del total de la zona baja; el de mayor crecimiento demográfico fue, sin embargo, el distrito de Guadalupe.La mayoría de la población depende de la leña como su fuente principal de energía, variando entre el 61% de hogares en la provincia de Cajamarca hasta más de 90% en SanMiguel y San Pablo (INEI, 2005).Con respeto al agua, entre el 50 y el 70% de los hogares de las provincias de San Pablo, Contumazá y Cajamarca obtienen agua a través de la red pública dentro de la vivienda, igual ocurre con el 25% de los hogares en la provincia de San Miguel. Aquí, el tipo de abastecimiento más importante es el río, la acequia, un manantial, con el 35% de la población, seguida por la red pública fuera de la viviendo (33% En el área de estudio se ha inventariado una red meteorológica que está a cargo, en su mayoría, por el Servicio Nacional de Meteorología e Hidrología (SENAMHI) y la Empresa Sunchobamba, Huacraruco y anexos.Las temperaturas en las cuencas media y alta del río Jequetepeque varían entre 25.4 ºC en Gallito Ciego y < 4.0 ºC en Lagunas Compuerta.Las temperaturas máximas ocurren en la zona del embalse Gallito Ciego, con > 30ºC (25.4ºC) en promedio, y las temperaturas mínimas ocurren en la zona de Lagunas Compuerta y Yanacocha, con < 0 ºC (4 a 8 ºC) en promedio anual.En la cuenca baja del río Jequetepeque, hasta la altitud de 500 metros, la precipitación promedio es <100 mm por año, considerada como normal, sin fenómeno El Niño. En el sector comprendido entre 500 y 1,500 msnm, las precipitaciones varían entre 140 y 430 mm de promedio multianual. En el piso altitudinal entre 1,500 y 2,000 msnm, las precipitaciones se encuentran en un rango de 420 a 570 mm. Entre 2,000 y 3,000 msnm, los promedios de precipitación oscilan entre 600 y 1,240 mm.1.1.4. Los sistemas productivos de la parte alta de la cuenca JequetepequeCasi el 80% del área de la cuenca alta de Jequetepeque está dedicada a pastos naturales, forestales y otros tipos de uso, incluyéndose también las tierras eriazas y aquellas cuya pendiente muy pronunciada impide un uso agrícola. Sólo una quinta parte de la superficie total de la cuenca es de uso agrícola, encontrándose marcados contrastes entre sus zonas baja y alta. Mientras en la zona baja se dispone de más tierras agrícolas y de una mejor infraestructura de riego, en la zona alta predomina la agricultura de secano, con altos porcentajes de tierra en descanso, lo que limita su capacidad productiva (Anuario Estadístico Agropecuario 1986, departamento de Cajamarca).El uso de la tierra varía significativamente según zonas, así, en el valle o zona baja la superficie agrícola alcanza a un 41%, mientras en la zona alta es de sólo 17%. Casi el 30% de la extensión total de la cuenca es utilizada como pastos naturales, la mayoría en la zona alta, y el 8% corresponde a pastos cultivados, incluida la alfalfa sobre el área agrícola cultivada. Las tierras marginales y forestales representan el 47% en la zona alta, y el 58% en la zona baja. La actividad agrícola en tierras bajo riego se reduce a las áreas en las riberas del Jequetepeque, o a pequeñas zonas en las laderas.Sólo un 40% del área agrícola total dispone de riego en toda la cuenca, frente al 60% en condiciones de secano. En la zona alta, en donde escasea el agua, el área agrícola bajo riego no llega al 12% del total, frente al 88% en secano. A ello debe agregarse el hecho de que alrededor de las 3/4 partes de las tierras de secano en esta zona se hallan en descanso, lo que limita notablemente su capacidad productiva.Los cultivos predominantes en la zona alta son la papa, maíz, trigo, arroz, cebada, arvejas, frutales y caña de azúcar, mientras que en la zona baja, el cultivo principal es el arroz (que cubre un promedio de 70% del área cultivada).El presente estudio abarca la parte alta de la cuenca de Jequetepeque, ubicada en las cuatro provincias de Cajamarca -Cajamarca, San Pablo, San Miguel y Contumazá. En total, los distritos de estas cuatro provincias que están ubicados dentro de la cuenca de Jequetepeque 3 tienen una población de 116,722 habitantes y una extensión de 2,084 km 2 (tabla 1.3).El perfil de pobreza para la cuenca de Jequetepeque que a continuación se presenta está basado en percepciones locales de bienestar obtenidas a través de clasificaciones de bienestar realizadas en siete comunidades (caseríos) de la cuenca. Las siete comunidades fueron seleccionadas de entre la diversidad de condiciones que existen en la cuenca con respecto a altura, composición de la población en términos de género, distribución de la tierra y accesibilidad, 4 siguiendo la metodología elaborada por Ravnborg (ver Ravnborg et al., 1999). En cada comunidad se realizaron tres clasificaciones de bienestar, y a través de las descripciones de los diferentes niveles, se identificó los siguientes 11 indicadores de bienestar (tabla 1.2):Con base en estos indicadores, se elaboró una encuesta para obtener información sobre ellos. La encuesta fue administrada a una muestra representativa de familias de la parte alta de la cuenca, y no sólo a las familias de las siete comunidades donde se había realizado las clasificaciones de bienestar. La muestra contiene un total de 400 familias, 5 y fue seleccionada mediante dos etapas, de las cuales la primera consistió en seleccionar un número de comunidades, 6 y la segunda, dentro de estas comunidades seleccionadas, consistió en muestrear al azar un número determinado de familias (tabla 1.3). La duración promedio de las entrevistas fue de 32 minutos, y sólo el 3% de las entrevistas duró más de una hora.Fuente: www.embperu.org.br/mapa_politico_del_peru.htm Para cada aspecto inicialmente mencionado en las clasificaciones de bienestar (tabla 1.2), la tabla 1.4 muestra cómo, con base en las preguntas de la encuesta, se han definido indicadores que cuantifican estos aspectos. Para cada uno de los 11 indicadores, cada familia entrevistada recibe un puntaje de 33, 67 ó 100, dependiendo del indicador y de su respuesta a las preguntas utilizadas para definir éste. Por ejemplo, una familia que tenga cuatro hectáreas de tierra obtendrá un puntaje de pobreza de 33 en el indicador ITIERRA, mientras que una familia que no tenga tierra propia recibirá un puntaje de pobreza de 100 en el mismo indicador.El índice final de pobreza se calcula como el puntaje promedio de pobreza, o sea, el promedio entre los puntajes que ha recibido cada familia en cada uno de los once indicadores de pobreza. Esa medida se llama Índice de Pobreza.Partiendo de éste, se puede definir las categorías de pobreza. La figura 1.1 muestra las frecuencias (número de familias) del índice de pobreza e indica los valores del mismo que definen las categorías de pobreza, mientras la figura 1.2 muestra más detalladamente cómo cada uno de los 11 indicadores contribuye al índice de pobreza.El perfil de pobreza que se presenta en la siguiente sección de este informe se basa en las categorías antes señaladas, trazadas respecto de los 11 indicadores que constituyen el índice de pobreza.  Enseguida, estas tres categorías de familias serán descritas con más detalle con respecto a los 11 indicadores constituyentes de bienestar.Las fuentes de ingreso principales para las familias que viven en Jequetepeque son la venta de la producción agrícola, la venta de derivados de la leche y de animales de la ganadería mayor y menor, la venta de mano de obra, y la presencia de algunos oficios y negocios no agropecuarios como las tejedoras, comerciantes, etc.De las familias de Jequetepeque, el 78% posee tierras y el 22% sólo tiene la casa o viven en casas de otros.Como muestra la tabla 2.6, sólo el 25% de las familias de la cuenca alta de Jequetepeque tienen más de dos hectáreas. Más de la mitad de las familias no pobres (51%) tienen más de dos hectáreas de tierra; éste es el caso para el 1% de las familias más pobres. La mayoría de éstas (71%) no tienen tierra o tienen menos de media hectárea de tierra. Éste es el caso para el 35% de las familias menos pobres y para el 12% de las familias no pobres.Tabla 2.6. En toda la cuenca predominan las parcelas pequeñas y medianas, son pocas las familias que poseen más de 10 hectáreas de tierra (3%).Además de la tenencia propia de la tierra, una gran parte de las familias acceden a la tierra como partidarios, sembrando en tierra de otra persona a cambio a una parte de la cosecha.Como muestra la tabla 2.7, casi la mitad (43%) de la población accede a tierra como partidarios. Son especialmente las familias más pobres las que acceden a la tierra de esta manera.El 13% de las familias alquilan tierra para producir, representando entre el 17% de las familias no pobres, el 12% de las menos pobres y el 10% de las familias más pobres.Tabla 2.7. Formas de intercambiar temporalmente el acceso a la tierra (fuera de por tenencia propia)Porcentaje de familias por nivel de pobreza, según su forma de acceder a la tierra Niveles de pobreza Forma de intercambio temporal de la tierra ns Correlación no significativa (prueba de Chi-cuadrado de Pearson).Solamente el 30% de los más pobres tienen animales, o sea ganado mayor, cerdos o borregos, mientras éste es el caso para el 81% de los no pobres y el 65% de los menos pobres (tabla 2.8), y ninguna de las familias más pobres tienen 4 vacas o más. Distinguiendo entre los diferentes tipos de animales, la tabla 2.9 muestra que el 44% de las familias en la parte alta de la cuenca de Jequetepeque posee ganado lechero o de engorde, y mientras éste es el caso para el 64 y para el 44% de los no pobres y los menos pobres, respectivamente, sólo el 16% de los más pobres lo tienen.Es menor la cantidad de familias que poseen cerdos (21%) y borregos (29%). En la tabla 2.9 se comprueba que existe una correlación significativa entre la posesión de cerdos y el nivel de pobreza: el 35% de los no pobres poseen cerdos, mientras sólo el 7% de los más pobres los tienen. Con la tenencia de borregos también existe relación significativa con la pobreza: el 41% de los no pobres tienen borregos, asimismo, un 28% de los menos pobres y un 13% de los más pobres.Tabla 2.9. Casi la mitad de las familias que tienen ganado mayor venden leche o sus derivados. Como es de esperarse, son los dueños de ganado mayor, no pobres, los que están más involucrados en la venta de leche.La tabla 2.10 muestra que en la parte alta de la cuenca de Jequetepeque existe relación significativa entre los niveles de pobreza y la venta de producción agrícola. El 72% de las familias con producción agrícola reservan la mayoría para consumo, y sólo el 25% de ellas destinan más de la mitad de su producción para la venta. Son los no pobres los que constituyen el mayor porcentaje de este grupo. Paralelamente, se observa que el 84% de los más pobres utilizan toda su producción para consumo, y sólo el 1% de ellos vende la mayoría de su producción. En el área de estudio, el 43% de las familias tienen ingresos no agropecuarios. Son principalmente las familias no pobres las que poseen fuentes de ingreso no-agrícolas (60%), seguidas por las familias menos pobres, de las cuales un poco menos de la mitad (41%) las tienen. De las familias más pobres, sólo el 25% tienen fuentes de ingresos no agrícolas. De las familias no pobres, el 43% tienen más de una fuente de ingreso no agrícola, por lo tanto, poseer ingresos no agropecuarios es una característica significativa para ser no pobre.Tabla 2.12. Cantidad de fuentes de ingreso no agropecuarios por nivel de pobreza Porcentaje de las familias por nivel de pobreza según la cantidad de fuentes de ingreso no agropecuarias que Las actividades que generan ingresos no agropecuarios encontradas en la zona son: negocios propios; compra-venta de granos básicos, papas y hortalizas; recepción de remesas; la jefa de familia teje para vender; empleo asalariado; ingresos por algún otro oficio y actividad profesional. El mayor porcentaje se encuentra en la recepción de remesas, y son los no pobres y los menos pobres los que tienen más remesas. Después de las remesas observamos que la otra actividad de mayor porcentaje es que la jefa de familia teja para la venta, y el comportamiento entre los distintos niveles de pobreza es muy similar. La compraventa de granos básicos y el ingreso por otro oficio se encuentran en el tercer lugar de las actividades que generan ingresos no agropecuarios en la cuenca. La seguridad alimentaria fue medida por la escasez de comida durante una época del último año. En la tabla 2.14 observamos que el 24% de las familias en la parte alta de la cuenca deJequetepeque afirman que han pasado más de una semana sin tener suficiente comida.Esta situación es más frecuente en las familias más pobres, el 49% de las cuales ha pasado más de una semana sin tener suficiente comida. La mayoría de las familias en Jequetepeque (80%) tienen sus casas en estado regular, es decir, puedan contar con algunos servicios como agua, luz y desagüe, o con una casa que tiene buenas paredes, buen piso o buen techo, pero no todo a la vez (tabla 2.15).El 16% de las familias tienen su casa en mal estado, es decir, no cuenta con ningún servicio y la casa cuenta con un máximo de dos servicios. Las casas de algunas familias están en regular estado. Finalmente, sólo el 5% de las familias tienen casas buenas. Como es de esperar, existe una correlación significativa entre el estado de la casa y el nivel de pobreza. La capacidad de atender a problemas de salud, o sea haber podido consultar con un médico, comprar medicinas, etc. con dinero propio, en el caso de que alguien en la familia se hubiera enfermado durante el último año, resulta significativamente relacionada con el nivel de pobreza.En total, en la tabla 2.16 observamos que en el 65% de las familias en la cuenca alta de Jequetepeque alguien tuvo problemas de salud durante el último año, y que, en promedio, el 17% de las familias no pudieron atender el problema con dinero propio, sino que Al analizar la información de la composición de la jefatura de la familia nos encontramos que el 19% de los hogares están dirigidos por un solo miembro de los dos jefes de familia.Es decir, sólo el varón o sólo la mujer están al frente de su hogar, y esto es lo más frecuente entre las familias menos pobres y más pobres (tabla 2.17).Tabla 2.17 Sin embargo, un porcentaje más grande de las familias (23%) indica tener a la mujer como jefa. La tabla 2.18 muestra que el 23% de los hogares en la cuenca alta de Jequetepeque están dirigidos por mujeres, y que esto es más frecuente entre las familias menos pobres y pobres, con 29 y 31%, respectivamente, en comparación con sólo el 5% de las familias no pobres. (prueba de Chi-cuadrado de Pearson).La capacidad para asegurar educación superior a los hijos fue medida mediante la capacidad para asegurar educación secundaria a los jóvenes entre las edades de 13 y 18 años. De las familias en la cuenca alta de Jequetepeque, el 21% logran asegurarles educación secundaria a los jóvenes. Mientras éste es el caso para el 32% de las familias no pobres y el 20% de las familias menos pobres, sólo es el caso para el 8% de las familias más pobres. La capacidad para contratar jornaleros para labores agrícolas tiene una correlación directa con el nivel de pobreza en la parte alta de la cuenca de Jequetepeque. En total, menos de la mitad de las familias contrata trabajadores para las actividades agrícolas: siembras, desyerbas, fumigaciones y cosechas (tabla 2.21). En su mayoría son las familias no pobres las que contratan trabajadores, tal es el caso para el 67% de estas familias, y en casi todos los casos (58%) contratan para tres o más actividades agrícolas. III. Pobreza y manejo del agua en la parte alta de la cuenca de JequetepequeLa tabla 3.22 refleja que el 58% de las familias tienen acceso al riego, y existe correlación significativa entre pobreza y riego. El menor porcentaje de acceso lo tienen las familias más pobres, con sólo el 34%, en contraste con las no pobres, que en un 75% poseen parcelas con riego.Al analizar el tipo de parcelas con riego observamos que en su gran mayoría (93%) son individuales, y que existe un comportamiento bastante uniforme en los distintos niveles de pobreza. La posesión de parcelas comunales y alquiladas sólo la constituyen el 7% de las familias.La gran mayoría de las familias que cuentan con riego accedieron a sus parcelas con riego por herencia (42%), por compra (42%) o por alguna combinación de las dos (8%), y sólo unas pocos lo obtuvieron por otras vías, como reforma agraria, préstamos y otros (tabla 3.22).Tabla 3.22. Acceso a parcelas con riego por nivel de pobreza Porcentaje de las familias por nivel de pobreza según su acceso a parcelas con riego Además de su mayor probabilidad de tener acceso a parcelas con riego, las familias no pobres tienden a tener más área bajo riego que las familias menos pobres y más pobres.Como muestra la tabla 3.23, el 35% de las familias no pobres tienen más de dos hectáreas bajo riego, mientras éste es el caso para sólo el 10% de las familias menos pobres y para ninguna familia más pobre.Los estratos de tenencia de la tierra con riego, mostrados en la tabla 3.23, indican que las familias más pobres (22%) poseen menos de media hectárea, y el 48% entre 0.5 y 1 hectárea. En el estrato que tiene más de dos hectáreas con riego sólo hay un 4% de familias más pobres, en este estrato se encuentra el 48% de los no pobres y el 20% de los menos pobres. *** Correlación entre el nivel de pobreza y estratos de tenencia de la tierra con riego, significativa a nivel de 0.001 (prueba de Chi-cuadrado de Pearson).1 Falta información sobre el tamaño de parcela con riego para las 41 familias restantes con riego.Lo más común en la parte alta de la cuenca de Jequetepeque es obtener acceso al agua para el riego a través de un permiso, 7 lo cual es el caso para el 39% de las familias, o a través de herencia, siendo el caso para el 24% de las familias con riego (tabla 3.24). En general, muy pocas familias tienen derecho permanente al agua para riego a través de una licencia (7%).7 El 'permiso' de agua solamente da acceso a ésta si la cantidad total de ella durante un año excede la cantidad a la cual tienen derecho los dueños de 'licencias' de agua ( Reflejando la informalidad del riego en muchas partes de la cuenca alta de Jequetepeque, sólo el 40% de las familias con riego indicaron pertenecer a un comité de riego, tanto familias que obtienen su agua de riego a través de un canal para tal fin, como familias que obtienen su agua de riego directamente a través de un río o quebrada o de un ojo de agua.La mayoría de las familias que indicaron ser miembros de un comité de riego también indicaron que éste pertenece a una comisión de regantes (tabla 3.26). De las familias no pobres, el 27% indicaron haber tenido un cargo dentro del comité de regantes, mientras éste es el caso para el 11% de las familias más pobres.Una tercera parte de las familias que tienen acceso a riego indicó pagar para el uso de agua para riego, y, aparentemente, son tanto familias que se identificaron como miembros de un comité de riego como familias que no se identificaron como tales, así que pagan por su uso del agua. La tabla 3.27 muestra en qué parte del sistema de riego tienen las parcelas, resultando una relación no significativa con el nivel de pobreza. Encontramos que el 37% de las familias tienen sus parcelas en la parte baja. Esta opción concentra el 50% de los más pobres.Seguidamente, se aprecia que el 35% de las familias tienen parcelas en la cabecera del sistema. Éste es el caso para el 41% de los no pobres y el 25% de las familias más pobres. Existe relación significativa entre pobreza y tener riego todo el año. De los más pobres, el 62% tienen riego todo el año, contra el 83% de los no pobres que acceden a él todo el año.Independientemente del nivel de pobreza, la mayoría de las familias que tienen acceso as riego consideran que les llega el agua a la que tienen derecho, y perciben que en tiempos de lluvia es igual para todas las cantidades de agua que les llega. IV. Pobreza y el manejo de la tierra en la parte alta de la cuenca de JequetepequeLa mayoría de las familias en la parte alta de la cuenca de Jequetepeque (87%) tienen cultivos anuales, y la mayoría tiene por lo menos una parte bajo riego (60%). Sin embargo, de las familias más pobres, el 41% sólo tienen cultivos anuales sin riego en comparación con el 21% de los no pobres y el 26% de los menos pobres (tabla 4.29).Para los cultivos permanentes, el riego constituye un factor aún más importante. Sólo la mitad de las familias en la cuenca alta de Jequetepeque tienen sembrados cultivos permanentes (tabla 4.29), y de las familias que los tienen sembrados, la mayoría los ha sembrado con riego por lo menos parcialmente. El menor acceso al riego implica que las familias más pobres tienen menos probabilidad de ser dueños de parcelas con cultivos permanentes, especialmente bajo riego. En la siguiente tabla 4.31 se constata que la mayoría de la producción está concentrada en cultivos anuales bajo riego, donde el más importante es el maíz. La producción de maíz de secano está en manos de los más pobres y el de riego en los más ricos, aunque también tienen una alta participación los menos pobres y los pobres. Igualmente el frijol y trigo de secano esta siendo manejado por los más pobres porque es destinado para el autoconsumo. El 48% de las familias fumigaron sus cultivos en el último año (tabla 4.32). Esta posibilidad sólo representa el 31% en las familias más pobres, en contaste con el 67% de los no pobres y el 42% de los menos pobres. Es poco frecuente la intoxicación por fumigaciones, porque el 74% menciona nunca haber vivido una situación de este tipo (tabla 4.33). Sin embargo, el 29% de los más pobres mencionan haberse intoxicado varias veces, y el 4% de los no pobres y el 6% de los menos pobres, posiblemente porque estos dos niveles de pobreza dependen menos del trabajo como jornaleros que los más pobres. Por esta misma razón, resulta significativa la relación entre niveles de pobreza y situaciones de intoxicación de fumigadores. El 62% de las familias de la parte alta de la cuenca de Jequetepeque han utilizado más de 10 años la parcela principal para la producción, y aparentemente no existe una correlación significativa entre el número de años de haber utilizado la parcela sin descansarla y el nivel de pobreza (tabla 4.34).Tabla 4.34. Años que utiliza la parcela principal sin descanso por nivel de pobreza Porcentaje de las familias por nivel de pobreza, según años que utiliza la parcela principal sin descanso ns En general predominan parcelas con pendientes planas y moderadas (65%), pero los más pobres poseen, en términos relativos, más parcelas con pendientes entre 30 y 70% o con pendientes muy fuertes (>70%), siendo el caso para el 42 y el 17% de las familias más pobres, respectivamente (tabla 4.36). El 73% de los no pobres poseen parcelas con pendientes de menos de 30% de inclinación. Igualmente, existe una correlación significativa entre las características estructurales del suelo y el nivel de pobreza (tabla 4.37). Sólo el 22% del total mencionó poseer \"suelos que mantienen bien la humedad, absorben y drenan fácilmente\". Menor cantidad de familias de las más pobres (16%), de las menos pobres (18%) y de las no pobres (33%) acceden a esta calidad de suelo.Por otro lado, \"los suelos malos que se secan demasiado rápido\" se encuentran en el 34% de las parcelas, y están en mayor medida en las parcelas de las familias más pobres (52%) y de las menos pobres (36%), mientras sólo el 20% de las familias no pobres indicaron tener este tipo de suelo en su parcela más importante. El 30% posee pastos y esto se relaciona con los niveles de pobreza, porque son los no pobres (46%) los que tienen mayor acceso a los pastos (tabla 4.39). Predomina el acceso a pastos individuales (30% del total) y muy poco a pastos comunales (10% del total). El 44% de los que tienen pastos individuales tienen riego, y son los menos pobres los que tienen más pasto con riego. En la tabla 4.40 se observa que la mayoría (88%), independientemente de los niveles de pobreza, introducen los animales en las parcelas para comer el rastrojo antes de sembrar.La mayoría (80%) introduce sólo a animales propios y pocos recibieron pagos por animales ajenos. En la parte alta de la cuenca de Jequetepeque son pocas las familias que tienen parcelas de bosque. En general, el 17% indicó tener acceso al bosque (tabla 4.41). Más frecuente es el acceso a parcelas individuales de bosque, mencionado por el 16% de las familias, mientras el 5% dijo tener acceso a parcelas comunales de bosque, obviamente, reflejando que algunas familias tienen acceso a ambos tipos de bosque. Atrás de estos porcentajes globales existe una correlación significativa entre el nivel pobreza y la posesión de bosques, ya que casi una tercera parte (32%) de las familias no pobres tienen acceso a bosque, en comparación con sólo el 3% de las familias más pobres. En general, en la parte alta de la cuenca de Jequetepeque el contacto con organizaciones externas, sea de crédito, apoyo directo o de asistencia técnica, es muy bajo. Sólo el 7% de las familias indicaron haber tenido algún contacto con organismos externos, como organizaciones de crédito, otros tipos de ONG o instituciones gubernamentales (tabla 5.43).En la tabla 5.43 se muestra que sólo el 5% de las familias han tenido acceso al crédito de algún organismo externo, y los no pobres son los que tienen más probabilidad de obtener crédito institucional. 1 Prueba de significancia no fue ejecutada por una frecuencia esperada baja en más de 20% de las celdas.En la cuenca alta del río Jequetepeque se identificaron tres niveles de bienestar: la mayoría de las familias se ubican en el estrato intermedio (53%), seguido de las familias más pobres (28%) y de las familias no pobres (19%). Al analizar aspectos de tenencia de tierra se observa correlación con los niveles de pobreza. Aunque la mayoría posee tierras, existe escasez por el tamaño de las parcelas que son muy pequeñas; el 35% de familias son sin tierra o sólo tienen el solar, y el 63% poseen de 0.5 a 2 hectáreas.Por otro lado, la mitad de las familias no pobres poseen parcelas mayores a dos hectáreas. Por este motivo, una buena cantidad de familias (43%) accede a tierra para producir como partidarios, especialmente las familias más pobres usan este tipo de arreglo. Pocos (13%) alquilan tierra para producir, y las familias más pobres (10%) casi no hacen uso del alquiler de tierra porque ello implica contar con disponibilidad de recursos financieros.Respecto de la tenencia de animales, existe correlación significativa con la pobreza. En general, el 44% de las familias poseen ganado lechero o de engorde, principalmente las no pobres. Ninguna de las familias más pobres tiene cuatro vacas o más. También existe relación entre venta de leche y derivados, con el nivel de pobreza. Los que tienen más ganado destinan más producto a la venta.Con respecto al ganado menor, sólo la tenencia de cerdos es significativa en relación con el nivel de pobreza. El 21% de las familias posee cerdos, el 35% de los no pobres versus el 7% de los más pobres. Hay más familias con borregos (29%) que con cerdos, pero no existe relación entre la tenencia de borregos y la pobreza.Sólo el 25% destina la mayoría de la producción agrícola a la venta, existiendo una relación significativa con los niveles de pobreza, es decir, a mayor nivel de bienestar mayor proporción de la cosecha destinada al comercio. El 90% de los más pobres producen para el autoconsumo.Cambiar esta racionalidad de producción, diversificando con la introducción de cultivos permanentes de frutales combinados con producción de autoconsumo podría ser una de las vías para reducir pobreza. Se pudo constatar que los más pobres han introducido cultivos permanentes sin riego, pero la masificación de esta alternativa para reducir la pobreza se enfrenta a la limitación del tamaño de las parcelas de los menos pudientes.En Jequetepeque, un 60% de las familias no se emplean como jornaleros. No obstante, se observa diferencias entre niveles de bienestar, siendo los más pobres (68%) quienes dependen más del trabajo como jornaleros.Poseer ingresos no agropecuarios es una característica significativa para ser no pobre en Jequetepeque. Sólo menos de la mitad de las familias (43%) tienen ingresos no agropecuarios, y son las familias no pobres (70%) las que tienen hasta tres fuentes de ingreso no agropecuario, que por orden de importancia son: las remesas, mujeres que tejen para la venta, la compraventa de granos básicos y el ingreso por algún oficio.Sobre la satisfacción de necesidades básicas, en el aspecto de seguridad alimentaria se encontró que el 24% de las familias pasaron más de una semana sin tener suficiente comida, situación más frecuente entre las más pobres (49%). En relación con el estado de la vivienda, 80% de las familias tienen sus casas en estado regular, cuentan con algún servicio básico o con una casa que tiene buenas paredes, buen piso o buen techo, pero no todo a la vez.La capacidad de atender problemas de salud está muy relacionada con la pobreza: el 17% de las familias no pudieron atender la enfermedad con dinero propio, sino que tuvieron que pedirlo prestado o hacer una recolecta entre vecinos o no pudieron hacer nada por falta de dinero. El 34% de las familias más pobres vivieron está carencia.En cuanto a las características de las familias, son pocos los hogares encabezados por una sola persona (19%), y ello es más frecuente entre las familias menos pobres y más pobres. Además, un alto porcentaje de hogares tienen al frente a una mujer (23%), lo que es más común en los hogares más pobres y en los menos pobres.En el tema de la educación está muy relacionado con la pobreza: las familias más pobres tienen menos acceso a educación secundaria (8%), y ninguna de ellas ha tenido acceso a educación superior. También la contratación de mano de obra para realizar labores agrícolas tiene correlación directa con el nivel de pobreza. Son principalmente las familias no pobres las que contratan jornaleros.Existe correlación significativa entre pobreza y riego: el 58% de las familias tienen acceso al riego, donde el menor porcentaje de acceso (34%) lo tienen las familias más pobres, en contraste con las no pobres (75%), además, que estas últimas tienen más superficie bajo riego. Cerca de la mitad de las familias accedieron a sus parcelas con riego por medio de herencia o compra. La forma más común de acceder al agua para riego es por permiso y por herencia, con diferencias poco significativas entre grupos.El manejo del agua es un aspecto importante en la cuenca de Jequetepeque, sobre todo en relación con la producción agrícola, donde los cultivos permanentes son manejados principalmente con riego, y los cultivos anuales básicos para el consumo, como el maíz, son manejados con riego por el 41% de las familias.Los sistemas de control y acceso al agua son bastante informales, sólo el 40% de las familias con riego indicaron pertenecer a un comité de riego. La mayoría de estas familias también pertenecen a un comité de regantes (37%), o alguien de la familia ha tenido un cargo en tal comité. En ambos casos, son las familias no pobres quienes tienen mayor presencia en las juntas directivas, y sólo una tercera parte paga por el agua de riego utilizada. Por otra parte, se encontró una relación significativa entre pobreza y tener riego todo el año, donde 83% de los no pobres tienen riego todo el año frente al 62% de los más pobres. Además, todos consideran que les llega el agua a la que tienen derecho.En cuanto al manejo de la tierra y la producción con o sin riego, 87% de las familias tienen cultivos anuales, y la mayoría tiene por lo menos una parte bajo riego (60%). Sin embargo, de las familias más pobres, el 41% sólo tienen cultivos anuales sin riego en comparación con el 21% de los no pobres y el 26% de los menos pobres. Cerca de la mitad de las familias fumigaron sus cultivos en el último año. La mayoría de los no pobres (67%) fumigaron sus cultivos, seguidos por los menos pobres, y por último los más pobres.Más de la mitad de las familias han utilizado la parcela más de 10 años continuos, para la producción. Esto tiene relación con la calidad percibida del suelo, ya que sólo el 13 de las familias afirman que el suelo de su parcela es bueno y que no necesita fertilizante para producir. Aunque las familias observen que el suelo de su parcela se erosiona, sólo un 26% ha hecho alguna actividad para mejorarlo, y un 31% algo para evitar que se lave, sobre todo, entre las familias no pobres (36% y 34%, respectivamente).La tenencia de pastos está relacionada con los niveles de pobreza: el 30% de las familias posee pastos, principalmente de forma individual, donde el 46% son los no pobres en comparación con el 27% y el 12% de los menos pobres y más pobres, respectivamente. Sólo el 17% de las familias tiene acceso a bosques, sobre todo de forma individual. Sin embargo hay una correlación significativa entre el nivel de pobreza y la posesión de bosques: el 32% de las familias no pobres tiene acceso a bosque contra el 3% de las familias más pobres.Hay poco contacto de las familias de Jequetepeque con organizaciones externas (7%), y poca participación en organizaciones locales; sólo un 8% de las familias tiene algún miembro como parte de una asociación local que no sean las relacionadas con el riego. Los más pobres son los que menos participan. Sólo el 5% de las familias tuvo acceso al crédito de algún organismo externo, y los no pobres son quienes tienen más probabilidad de obtener crédito institucional.Para finalizar, se puede puntualizar que para ser no pobre se debe poseer pastos, bosques, cultivos con riego y fuentes de ingreso no agropecuarias. En cambio, los más pobres producen más para el autoconsumo que para el mercado, dependen más del trabajo como jornaleros, no tienen tierra o poseen poca y pocas parcelas con riego, no tienen fuentes de ingreso no agropecuarias y pasan dificultades para hacerle frente a las enfermedades con recursos propios.Igualmente, no tienen acceso a educación secundaria ni a educación superior. Encontrar vías de salida a la pobreza de las familias de Jequetepeque implica razonar cómo poder incluirlas en las actividades productivas y no agropecuarias con mayor acceso al mercado, sin descuidar la seguridad alimentaria. Con respecto al manejo del agua y del suelo, se observa que los que tienen más recursos han realizado acciones para mejorar el suelo, pero también son los que usan más las fumigaciones de sus cultivos.","tokenCount":"6784"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"08641262e680539269df095cbc55e2dd","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b261308a-a264-4823-93bb-01a9a8d392c1/retrieve","id":"1499653516"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c09247aa-2a25-40f2-ac29-bc1fcf2de793","pagecount":"37","content":"Focus module 4Capacity Assessment outcomes for development partners (assessment 2015) Recap from module 2 and 3Feedback from earlier modules… 3. Gender responsive monitoring• helps to improve project performance: has the project achieved improvements in the lives and well-being of women and men?• Proven impacts can be used to improve decision-making and policies• Know and address unintended negative consequences and gender based constraints• Gender responsive M&E identifies opportunities to empower womenWhy gender responsive monitoring?• gender issues have to be measured on purpose and from the start, otherwise they will not be given any attention during the implementation of the project / program• Much M&E focuses on numbers and outputs and not on quality of participation and benefits• Data aggregated by household (and not by sex) obscures gender differences within households Why gender responsive monitoring?Concepts: monitoring vs evaluationContinuous Periodical (mid/end term)Assessment of impact, effectiveness, sustainabilityTo improve implementationConcepts: gender responsive monitoring• Assesses the project's effects and impacts (intended or unintended) on gender relations and women's empowerment.• Tracks changes in:the conditions and positions of women and men participating in the value chain, -women's and men's shares in employment and income across value chain nodes gender relations such as in the gender division of labor and workload, differences in access and control over resources and information, decision making, and others, -women's and men's attitudes and perceptions.• Gender responsive M&E should collect gender data and analyze the reasons for gender differences and develop interventionsGender responsive indicators: definition an indicator that captures gender-related changes in society, in a value chain, etc. over time• Does the program/project have different benefits and results for men and women? How and why?• Does the program/project affect changes in gender relations? How and why?• Requires sex-disaggregated data collection• Measures changes in positions and not (just) numbers, Compare:-\"the number of women who joined the producer association\" and -\"percentage change in proportion of women's membership\" • involve both women and men in developing, collecting and analyzing indicatorsFrom LAF program's Gender Strategy -impact level• Change in women's share of income from livestock and fish enterprises• Participation of women and other vulnerable groups in the livestock and fish markets• Change in assets ownership by men and women• Change in control of livelihood assets by men and women• Change in consumption of Animal Source Foods (ASF) by men, women, and children• Change in women's control of livestock and fish resources (e.g. decision making power) disaggregate further by:--ethnicity marital status sexual identity ability etc. Not the same as comparing male and female-headed households! Sex-disaggregated data: collection Sex-disaggregated data can be collected from men and women randomly selected from different households: Household x: 1 man Household y: 1 woman Or from one man and one woman within one household Household x: 1 man and 1 woman (primary members) Not necessarily twice as many people! Sex-disaggregated data: difficulties• men may not be willing to allow their spouses to be interviewed• Women may not be available at certain times of day, and men may be less likely to be present at other times• inconsistencies in data between men and women (especially when the same questions are asked to men and women)• \"joint management\" could be a disguised male dominance• Much of women's work is under-valued or 'invisible' to men and outsiders, and thus not reported Sex-disaggregated data: possible solutions• Use both male and female enumerators;• men and women to be interviewed separately, simultaneously and privately;• multiple visits to households for gaining confidence, follow-up discussions and comparison of data;• Choose a time and place which is convenient for women and men (may be different)• Starting interviews with questions on less sensitive domains• Compare men and women's responses to similar questions, and gather feedback on differences (FGDs)• Recognize diversities (class, ethnic, religious and other) as well as individual preferences and abilities ","tokenCount":"628"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6cc5281e591d75731f2cf526e34f1810","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4e232660-5f31-4774-bcb7-0cb735bc25a6/retrieve","id":"1913213457"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"87a986e5-da15-4d94-89fe-a63b60dbb5dc","pagecount":"2","content":"1. Scientific analyses increasingly agree that staying below 2°C will require change in food systemsand in diets more than food waste or agricultural production methods.In terms of human health, dietary change is needed to tackle hunger and under-nutrition (on the rise again globally) as well as obesity (overweight people outnumber underweight people, including in low-and middle-income countries) and micronutrient deficiencies.Healthiness and sustainability are compatible, but there's a big gap between current diets and healthy diets 3. In theory, healthy diets for all are possible within Earth's environmental limits. Everyone eating healthily would have happy side effects for the global climate.People fall short of, or overshoot, a basic healthy diet in different ways. Some food groups, such as wholegrain cereals, vegetables, fruit and nuts, should be eaten in greater quantities by almost everybody (Figure 1). For other food groups, such as  animal products, many poorer people, especially women and children, would benefit from increased consumption. But for most wealthy consumers, substantial decreases in intake are needed to deliver benefits, particularly for climate.The historic dynamism of people's diets raises hope that future change is likely. Many foods considered normal, or even traditional, in various cultures today were rare or unknown a century ago.Today almost all people around the world are eating a greater quantity and diversity of food than their grandparents did. Diets are also becoming more similar across countries.People's daily \"food environments\" play a huge role in determining the dietary choices we make, and what we learn in childhood strongly shapes our long-term preferences.Conventional approaches to enabling people to eat better diets have relied on information and awareness-raising. Recent behavioral research shows that healthy and sustainable foods are more likely to be widely eaten if they are made more appealing (in terms of cost, taste, convenience and enjoyment), more normal (familiar and mainstream) and easier (prevalent, and where possible the automatic or default choice) (Figure 2).To create food environments where healthy and sustainable foods are the appealing, normal and easy choice, we need major changes in the \"what\" and the \"how\" of growing, processing and sale of food-underpinned by clear economic incentives for agrifood industries and consumers alike.10. Current regulations and subsidies encourage overavailability of under-nourishing food; future policies could aim to price environmental impacts within food prices, with subsidies then aimed at increasing affordability of healthy diets among poor people.Wider issues of political economy, such as women's access to education and to family planning, or the overall willingness of governments to regulate industry, may prove pivotal.No serious joined-up effort has yet been made in any country to shift diets in the interests of human and planetary health.13. But front-runners among national governments, city governments and social movements are providing inspirational examples and leadership-taking action on dietary change that goes beyond mere awareness-raising towards more concrete incentives and enablers.Author affiliations 1) CGIAR System Organization; 2) Behavioural Insights Team; 3) International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT); 4) University of Michigan; 5) independent journalist.This briefing is part of Transforming Food Systems Under a Changing Climate, an initiative led by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) that aims to realize a transformation in food systems by mobilizing knowledge and catalyzing action. The initiative brings together leaders in science, business, farming, policy and grassroots organizations to identify pathways for transformation. To find additional publications in this series and for more information, please visit: http://bit.ly/TransformingFood.CCAFS brings together some of the world's best researchers in agricultural science, development research, climate science and Earth system science, to identify and address the most important interactions, synergies and tradeoffs between climate change, agriculture and food security. CCAFS is led by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and is carried out with support from the CGIAR Trust Fund and through bilateral funding agreements. For details please visit http://ccafs.cgiar.org/donors. ","tokenCount":"634"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"57f093306adc21c99daef0fe745181a7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/7de8847d-96dc-4382-9813-f2a0bfd2a37f/content","id":"-404573484"},"keywords":["Zea mays L.","SREG","QPM","Main components"],"sieverID":"b581f0e8-2697-47fb-9f32-bd2947a9c11e","pagecount":"10","content":"The utilization of site regression models (SREG) on multilocation testing allow the detection of significant differences in the genotype x environment interaction, even though these may not be detected by the analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results can be graphically displayed using the Biplot technique, revealing the additive effects on the genotypes and the genotype x environment interaction across years. Thus, the objectives of this work were to identify mega-environments, superior maize hybrids for each environment and mega-environment, stable maize hybrids with good performance across environments, and the most suitable environments for evaluation as well. A total of 66 field trials were grouped in five sets of experiments. An individual SREG analysis for each set of experiments and their combined analysis were conducted to assist in the graphic representation by the Biplot methodology. Results revealed that the constructed Biplots, graphically allowed the identification of superior maize hybrids, and the proper environments to conduct maize hybrid evaluation trials; however, it was not a reliable option for grouping test-sites in mega-environments.Because of their higher lysine and tryptophan content, QPM varieties and hybrids, are options to improve the nutrition of monogastric organisms such as humans, swine, poultry and fishes, among others. In developing countries where maize is a staple food, this is a very important issue. To contribute towards this effort, CIMMYT and INIFAP, working together, have conducted research to develop, identify and promote quality protein maize (QPM) in different regions of Mexico. The purpose of this article is to present some of the results concerning the performance of QPM hybrids, determined by a series of uniform trials conducted by INIFAP's maize research breeders in tropical and subtropical environments.The development and identification of new maize hybrids that respond to specific areas in a given environment, is one of the main objectives of a breeding project, which requires multiple environment trials for several years.It is well recognized that multilocation testing plays a crucial role in the selection of superior stable varieties (or agronomic techniques) which may be later promoted for commercial use (VARGAS et al., 1999).The Biplot GGE technique (graphics of two dimensions where variation due to genotype plus the genotype x environment interaction are taken into account) is a useful tool for the analysis of multilocation trials, since it detects the differences and similarities among environments in their genotype discrimination; the differences and similarities among genotypes in their response to the environment, the superior genotypes and their respective most suitable environment (YAN et al., 2000).Traditional statistical analysis are not always appropriate for analyzing multilocation uniform trials, since they only have an additive model that identify the genotype x environment interaction as a source of variation, but does not allow its analysis, leading to declarations that such interaction may be regarded as non-significant, when agronomically this can be important (ZOBEL et al., 1988). This is why multiplicative models such as SREG (regression of the environments), that incorporate both additive and multiplicative components which allow to detect significance in the genotype x environment interaction, if it is important.Yield estimates are the combined result of the effects of genotypes (G), environments (E) and the genotype x environment interaction (GE); however, only G and GE are important in varietal evaluation and mega-environments identification, thus the Biplot model GGE (G+GE) assists in detecting the performance of each genotype at each testing site (YAN et al., 1999). CAMARGO et al. (2004), used Biplot methodology in 30 environments at the Azuero region in Panamá, to determine similarities and differences among genotypes and environments, and the genotype differential response; the interaction nature and magnitude of any genotype with any locality. Biplot model allows plotting simple genotype-environment interaction graphics, localizing genotypes according to the environment yield responses and positioning the localities according to their discriminatory capacity.In Mexico, based on yearly rain rate, average temperature and altitude, five principal agro climatic regions (mega-environments) have been recognized for maize adaptation: Hot-humid and sub-humid, irrigated hot-arid, warm sub-humid, high altitude semiarid and high altitude sub-humid. Therefore maize breeding efforts are guided toward the development of maize hybrids and varieties adapted to each environment. However, competitive, stable and performance in successive generations of maize hybrids in more than one of such mega-environment, provides economic feasibility to the entire process. Such understanding contributes also to the identification of environments that render adequate discrimination of hybrid performance. Thus the objectives of this research included the identification of site similarity and the most appropriate testing sites for mega-environment conformation, and the identification of the most stable QPM hybrids with superior yields for each mega-environment.As part of the collaborative activities between INIFAP and CIMMYT, 66 uniform QPM hybrid trials arranged in five sets, were conducted from 1999 to 2001 in the hot humid and sub-humid, the irrigated hot arid, and the warm sub-humid environments. One set was conducted during the fall-winter of 1999-452 R. PRECIADO-ORTIZ, R. GUERRERO, A. ORTEGA, A. TERRÓN, F. CROSSA, H. CORDOVA, C. REYES, G. AGUILAR, C. TUT, N. GÓMEZ, E. CERVANTES  Num. Name Num. Name Num. Name Num. Name   1). Only 19 hybrids were common to all sets, thus the combined analysis was performed only with this group. The entries were distributed according to a lattice design with two replicates. Agronomic management was the recommended for each environment.Measured variables included meaningful plant traits, disease incidence and t ha -1 of grain yield. Only this latter trait is considered in this paper. To explain the variation due to genotypes and genotype x environment interaction, the statistical model for the regression on environments (RE) was used.Where µ is the effect of the general mean, β is the effect of j th environment, λ n is the singular value of n th main component PC n , ε in and η jn are the i th genotype scale in the j th environment scale, respectively for PC n .The regression analysis results were graphically represented by the Biplot methodology, (YAN et al., 2000), where the first two main components derived from SREG for environments and genotypes were placed as vectors to provide a visual relation among genotypes and environments.In the Biplot methodology it is possible to identify superior genotypes in terms of the average yield across sites, represented by PC1, and yield stability represented by scales of PC2. Therefore, the ideal genotypes must show high PC1 values (high mean yield) and PC2 values near zero (more stable). YAN et al. (2001) indicated that the ideal environment for testing should have high PC1 values (better hybrid discrimination) and PC2 scales near zero (closer representative of the environment mean).The SREG routines used for the Biplot methodology were developed according to the procedure described by VARGAS and CROSSA (2000) and BURGUEÑO et al. (w/d) in the statistical SAS Package (SAS INSTITUTE, 1999).In the Biplot figure, an angle lower than 90°and higher than 270°between a genotype and a site vectors, points out that the genotype shows a positive response to that environment. A negative response is shown when the angle between the site and the genotype is between 90°and 270°, the cosine of the angle between two environments (or genotypes) brings closer the phenotypic correlation of the two environments (or genotypes), thus an angle of 90°(or <90°) reveals a correlation of 0 (zero), an angle of 180°a correlation of -1 and an angle of 0°indicates a correlation of +1 (BURGUEÑO et al., w/d).The ANOVA of the five sets of experiments (Table 2) revealed significant differences among genotypes at the α level of 0.01 and for the genotype x environment interaction. The SREG also detected significant differences among the principal two main components (Table 3). The variation due to sites ranged between 84.0 and 89.8%, proportionally being the largest and justifying the use of SREG model. This model only uses the variation due to genotypes and their interaction with the environments (G + GE). Similarly, the combined analysis also detected significant differences and the source of variation due to trials and sites, across sets of experiments was greater than that presented by the other sources of variation. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Figure 1 illustrates the performance of 36 hybrids tested at 11 sites, based on the mean hybrid grain yields. The sites could be grouped geographically in 4 mega-environments. It was also possible to identify the hybrids with superior average performance for the test sites that integrate each mega-environment (Table 4). The sites grouping according to their mega-environment did not coincide with the traditional classification, since the hot arid, warm sub-humid sites, as well as the hot arid and hot humid and sub-humid sites group together in a single mega-environment.It is important to point out that the same site has contrasting differences in the fall-winter versus the spring-summer cycle. Therefore site grouping according to the traditional classification does not apply. The traditional clustering and the regression analysis does not coincide, since such analysis divides the sites (environment) in four mega-environments.Using the method of CROSSA et al. (2002) the five superior hybrids at each location were identified (Table 5). These authors indicate that the performance of a hybrid in a given location is estimated by the orthogonal projection of the hybrids vector on the line determined by the direction of the vector of that location; in other words, if the vector lines location is taken into account, the hybrid response to that site is approximately the distance of the segment of that line extended from the origin to the point, where the line can be perpendicularly intercepted by the line drawn from the hybrids vector.The identification of superior hybrids at each mega-environment is based on their average performance, taking into account all sites belonging to that mega-environment; therefore, the best hybrids at a location are not necessarily the same as those of the mega-environment where that location was included.Following the YAN et al. (2000) criteria, the hybrids that showed the best positive response to their environments (Table 10) were those that occupy the polygon's vertexes on the right hand side of the graphic (Fig. 1). These hybrids were: 7(H-367C), 24(H-551C), 45(HQ460236) and T2(H-516); similarly, the hybrids that occupy the vertexes to the left hand side of the graphic (Fig. 1) were those with the largest negative response. Such hybrids are the following: 15(HQ1006), 18(HQ5620310), 35(HQ010402) and T20(H-518). - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Set of % of Degrees of Mean Exps.λ 2 H + HS freedom Square ** Significance level: 0.01, λ 2 is the eigen value of each main component; % of H + HS is the percentage of variation. The analysis revealed that the 64 hybrids included in this trial and tested at 13 sites (Fig. 2) could be clustered into three mega-environments. The following hybrids revealed the largest positive response to the environments: 3(H-371C), 8(H-442C), 38(HQ364602), and 20(HQ0204); while 10(H-443C), 12(HQ1805), 18(HQ5620310), 39(HQ330502) and 53(V-538C) revealed the greater negative response (Table 10) and therefore the least recommendable.In Table 6, the five superior hybrids for each one of the test sites are given. Table 4 provides the site clustering for the mega-environments and the hybrids that on the average were the best yielders at the sites that belong to that mega-environment. Using SREG did not match with the traditional approach, since sites commonly separated in hot humid and sub-humid, and hot arid (irrigated) were clustered in the same mega-environment.The performance of 49 hybrids across six test sites, is shown in Fig. 3. The three mega-environments that were identified did not coincide with the traditional classification, since the test sites used in this trial belong to the warm sub-humid environment (Table 4). The performance of the best hybrids at each one of the test sites is given in Table 7. Hy-  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Set of Superior Groups of sites Superior hybrids in each Climatic Exps.Hybrids mega-environment domain HHSH = Hot Humid Sub-Humid; HA = Hot Arid; WSH = Warm Sub-Humid.brids with the most positive response across sites were: 3(H-371C), 28(HQ360246), 29(HQ360946), 36(HQ053602), 38(HQ364602), 40(HQ374602) and T18(Commercial check 5). Those that showed a negative response were: 55(VS-334C), 56(VS-335C), T16(H-358) and T17(H-359) (Table 10).This set included 36 hybrids was tested at 18 sites. The results from the analysis are presented in Fig. 4. Two hybrids, 2(H-441C), 33(HQ330246) and two checks, T23(H-520) and T25 (Commercial check 6), gave the best positive response, while hybrids 22(H-554C), 27(H-365C) and 51(H-519C) showed the largest negative response (Table 10). - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Site Superior 5 hybrids † 1, 2 Trials conducted at the same site but in different planting dates.TABLE 7 -Superior QPM hybrids in Set of experiments 3, which was conducted in the warm sites in the spring-summer of 1999.- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Site Superior 5 hybrids  The test sites represent five mega-environments. For each one, the superior hybrids are provided, as well as those that on the average had the highest yields across all sites that belong to each mega-environment (Table 4). The site allocation to each one of the mega-environments did not coincide with the traditional clustering, since there were mega-environments that included sites (regions) that belong to the hot humid and sub-humid, hot arid and warm sub-humid environments. Table 8 presents the best hybrids at each testing site.The performance of 64 hybrids and eight test sites (Fig. 5) could be subdivided into three megaenvironments, each one formed with similar sites, and the highest yielding hybrids across sites that belong to each mega-environment. As in previous sets of experiments, the mega-environment division did not coincide with the traditional site clustering, since the hot humid, hot sub-humid and warm subhumid sites were grouped in the same mega-environment. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Site Superior 5 hybridsRío Bravo, Tamps. T25, 3, T23, T2, T24  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Superior 5 hybrids  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------  This was also true for the hot arid and warm sub-humid (Table 4) sites. In Table 9, the superior hybrids for each site are given.The hybrids that showed the best positive response to the test sites were: 3(H-371C), 31(HQ370946), 34(HQ020933), T26 (REMACO 38), T28 (Commercial check 8). The hybrids with the greater negative response were (Table 10): 7(H-367C), 18(HQ5620310), 24(H551C), 77(HQ5626221) and 79(HQ3021).Because not all tested hybrids were included in the five experiments, the combined analysis was conducted only with the 19 hybrids common to all trials. This set was tested at 34 sites.The analysis grouped the sites in five mega-environments (Fig. 6). For each group, the superior hybrids and those that performed the best across test sites in the mega-environment, are given. Again, the test site clustering did not match the traditional grouping since the sites belonging to each one of the three climatic regions were grouped in the same mega-environment.The hybrids that revealed the greater positive response were: 3(H-371C), 8(H-442C), 46(HQ460209). Those with a negative response were: 7(H-367C), 9(HQ3602), 27(H-365C), 45(HQ460236) and 51(H-519C) (Table 10).The sites regression analysis from each one of the five sets of experiments revealed the clustering of the climatic regions in mega-environments did not coincided with the traditional approach. This may be attributed to the fact that the hybrids used to structure the trials were derived from germplasm already adapted to each of the hot humid, sub-humid and warm sub-humid climatic domains, but hybrids adapted to the three domains were not included. In addition, the average hybrid yields were used to define the mega-environments, however, such hybrids were different than those from each experiment, and their performance influenced how the mega-environments were clustered in each experiment.Biplot analysis (YAN et al., 2000)  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1 7, 24,45,T2 15,18,35,T20 2 3,8,18,20 10,12,18,39,53 3 3,28,29,36,38,40,T18 55,56,T16,T17 4 2,33,T23,T25 22,27,51 5 3,31,34,T26,T28 7,18,24,77,79 Comb. 3,8,46 7,9,27,45, 51 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- † 1, 2 Trial conducted at the same site in different planting dates. ducted in different years revealed that site clustering changed across years, and in most cases, mega-environments as indicated by the clustering of sites.The sites where hybrid performance was not influenced by the interaction with the environments were identified (YAN et al., 2001). These authors point out that the main effect of the environment (PC1) allowed sites to separate hybrids in terms of better general adaptation. In other words, sites with large primary effects may identify hybrids with better adaptation. The secondary effect of the environment (PC2) indicates the tendency of each site to interact with the hybrids (GE). Hybrids selected with large secondary effects at sites may be regarded as specific for those domains, but fail in their general adaptation.Therefore, selection for stable and high yielding hybrids, the optimum test environment should be the one with large primary effects and secondary effects near zero. The most appropriate test sites to conduct evaluations for each one of the experiments are given in Table 11. The better sites of evaluation in each of the five sets of experiments were: Tampico e Iguala for the sets of experiments 1; Valle del Fuerte, Culiacan and Rio Bravo for the set of experiments 2; Calera, Celaya and Cortazar for the set of experiments 3; Obregon and Celaya for the set of experiments 4, Pabellon and Celaya for the set of experiments 5; and Obregon, Izucar and Culiacan for the combined analysis. None of these sites were common to all sets of experiments, which prevented comparisons among sets of experiments.It is recognized that multilocation hybrid testing brings up research costs in hybrid development.Therefore selection of suitable sites such as Celaya, Obregon (Yaqui Valley) and Culiacan, may contribute to cutting down number of test locations, and reduce costs of sacrificing accuracy in the detection of the superior hybrids. However, the Celaya site was not included in the combined analysis, because none of the 19 hybrids common to all trials were present at this site. This is a short coming of the regression model (SREG), because graphic construction is based on average hybrid grain yield; thus the interpretation of results may change drastically by the inclusion or omission of some hybrids. The information presented here need to be verified.Table 12 presents the stable hybrids in each trial set and in the combined analysis that had PC2 values approaching zero. Because each set of experiments was conducted at different sites and hybrid stability is based on the across site yield, it was not possible to determine the appropriateness of the methodology across sets of experiments.The Biplot methodology effectively allowed the recognition of the superior hybrids across sites in each evaluation year. However, this is not a reliable model to cluster sites in mega-environments, since such clustering was not consistent across years. This is because of allotment to mega-environments is done considering only the hybrid average yield, and the clustering of sites in mega-environments changes when geographic, climatic and edaphic factors are not taken into account. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In order to determine with accuracy the efficiency of the Biplot approach in the identification of mega-environments, uniform sets of the same hybrids, including hybrids adapted to each agro climatic domain, should be conducted for at least two consecutive years.","tokenCount":"3109"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d5cea82726d66f68020f8ccc1483aa78","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b69e6ebc-dc8d-4322-9228-ccdcd931df5b/retrieve","id":"575479353"},"keywords":["climatic change","climatic risk","adaptive capacity. v"],"sieverID":"006c7ffb-4af1-4fb1-a9e3-d12911c22eef","pagecount":"57","content":"e Segurança Alimentar (CCAFS). Maputo, Moçambique. Disponível on-line no site: www.ccafs.cgiar.org. Publicado pelo Programa de Pesquisa do CGIAR sobre Mudanças Climáticas, Agricultura e Segurança Alimentar (CCAFS). Os relatórios do CCAFS tem como objetivo difundir trabalhos de pesquisa e práticas sobre mudanças climáticas, agricultura e segurança alimentar e estimular o feedback da comunidade científica. O Programa de Pesquisa do CGIAR sobre Mudanças Climáticas, Agricultura e Segurança Alimentar (CCAFS) é uma parceria estratégica de CGIAR e Future Earth, liderado pelo Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT). O programa é realizado com os fundos dos doadores do CGIAR, Agência Dinamarquesa para o Desenvolvimento Internacional (DANIDA), Agência Australiana para o Desenvolvimento Internacional (AusAID), Ajuda Irlandesa, Meio Ambiente do Canada, Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros dos Países Baixos, Agência Suíça para o Desenvolvimento e Cooperação (SDC), Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical (IICT), Ajuda da Inglaterra, Governo da Rússia, União Europeia (UE), Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros e do Comércio da Nova Zelândia, com o apoio técnico do Fundo Internacional para o Desenvolvimento Agrícola (FIDA).As estratégias identificadas para aumentar os conhecimentos e habilidades dos produtores nas diversas práticas identificadas com o objectivo final de melhorar a capacidade de adaptação das famílias às mudanças climáticas, incluem a organização de treinamentos e demonstrações das melhores práticas agrárias com destaque para as práticas que demandam pouco investimento financeiro para o seu acesso e utilização, e as que não são muito exigentes em termos de tempo necessário para a sua execução. A rádio comunitária é uma ferramenta que deve ser usada para veiculação de informação poderá auxiliar na sensibilização dos produtores a adoptar práticas que ajudam a mitigar o impacto das mudanças climáticas.Palavras-chave: mudanças climáticas, risco climático; capacidade de adaptação.A equipe de pesquisadores deste trabalho agradece ao Projecto de Investigação para Adaptação a Mudanças Climáticas, Instituto de Investigação Agrária de Moçambique pelo todo apoio oferecido para a condução deste trabalho.Um agradecimento especial vai para a Doutora Fernanda Gomes, Coordenadora do Projecto pelo todo apoio técnico que nos ofereceu durante todo o processo de preparação, condução e redacção do relatório final.Agradecemos aos colegas da Direcção de Formação, Documentação e Transferência de Tecnologias pelas suas valiosas contribuições durante o processo de preparação do protocolo de pesquisa e redacção do relatório final, nomeadamente Dra Anabela da Piedade Manhiça, Engª Itália de Sousa Cossa e Dra Marta Celeste Francisco.Agradecemos também o suporte dado no trabalho de campo pelo Serviço Distrital das Actividades Económicas de Chicualacuala e a colaboração das associações de produtores, das casas agrárias e dos líderes comunitários na organização dos grupos de discussão e pela sua estimável participação nas entrevistas e grupos de discussão organizados nos quatro povoados.Aos produtores e criadores inquiridos nos quatro povoados e os inquiridos que trabalharam na recolha de dados, o nosso muito obrigado pela sua colaboração.   Moçambique, devido a sua localização geográfica, é apontado como um dos países que vai sofrer mais os efeitos negativos das mudanças climáticas, nomeadamente secas, cheias e ciclones (Mosquito et al., 2009;MICOA, 2005). Os impactos das mudanças climáticas serão ainda mais agravados devido à limitada capacidade humana, institucional e financeira que o país tem para poder antecipar e responder directa ou indirectamente aos seus efeitos (MICOA, 2005).O Governo Moçambicano tem mostrado grande interesse e empenho nos aspectos relacionados com as mudanças climáticas (Mosquito et al., 2009;Martinho, 2009). Como fruto disso, assinou e ratificou as principais convenções do Rio (UNFCCC -Convenção Quadro das Nações Unidas sobre as Mudanças Climáticas, UNCBD -Convenção das Nações Unidas sobre a Biodiversidade, UNCCD -Convenção das Nações Unidas de Combate à Desertificação) (Mosquito et al., 2009).No âmbito da Convenção Quadro das Nações Unidas sobre as Mudanças Climáticas, o Governo de Moçambique aprovou o Programa de Acção Nacional para Adaptação às Mudanças Climáticas (NAPA) que define quatro principais intervenções, nomeadamente: (i) fortalecimento do sistema de aviso prévio; (ii) fortalecimento das capacidades dos produtores agrários para lidarem com as mudanças climáticas; (iii) redução do impacto das mudanças climáticas nas zonas costeiras, e; (iv) gestão dos recursos hídricos no âmbito das mudanças climáticas (Mosquito et al., 2009).As regiões sul e centro de Moçambique são apontados como as que sofrerão mais os efeitos negativos das secas, cheias e ciclones (MICOA, 2006) As intervenções deste projecto de investigação são a pesquisa e transferência de tecnologias agrárias que permitam uma melhor adaptação aos efeitos das mudanças climáticas. As acções de transferência de tecnologias previstas, circunscrevem-se a treinamentos e divulgação das tecnologias agrárias para os produtores de Chicualacuala para melhor lidarem com o risco climático nos seus sistemas de produção agrária. Para garantir a eficácia das actividades acima indicadas, incluindo as de pesquisa para a transferência de tecnologias, recomenda-se a realização de um diagnóstico dos problemas, conhecimentos e das necessidades dos produtores, antes da intervenção (Swanson, 1991;Boydell e Leary, 2003).Este relatório apresenta a descrição das práticas agrárias, incluindo as práticas de processamento de frutas e as principais necessidades de formação, informação e tecnologias agrárias, dos produtores do distrito Chicualacuala.A maioria dos agregados familiares do distrito de Chicualacuala depende das actividades agrárias e dos recursos naturais para a sua subsistência. Estas actividades poderão ser severamente assoladas pelo impacto das mudanças climáticas devido à vulnerabilidade que caracteriza a população deste distrito (MAE, 2005;INGC, 2010). Esta vulnerabilidade é agravada pela fraca capacidade de resposta das comunidades locais aos efeitos das mudanças climáticas (Matavel, 2012;Martinho, 2009).Vários documentos consultados sobre acções de mudanças climáticas nos dois distritos dão indicação de que já foram implementadas por várias organizações (UNEP/FAO/ PAP, 1998;INGC, 2010;Martinho, 2009), algumas intervenções para melhorar a capacidade de adaptação das comunidades rurais ao risco climático. Mesmo assim, ainda persiste a fraca capacidade das comunidades para lidarem com o risco imposto pelas mudanças climáticas.Segundo Martinho (2009), a vulnerabilidade das comunidades do posto administrativo de Mapai, no distrito de Chicualacuala, é afectado pela combinação de factores sociais, económicos e ambientais.Para realizar acções que visam melhorar a situação actual, propõe-se que antes de qualquer intervenção seja realizado um diagnóstico da situação actual e das actividades dos agricultores da área de intervenção (Swanson, 1991). Este estudo visava: (i) garantir que os treinamentos e a informação a oferecer aos produtores servissem as preocupações e limitações dos beneficiários (Boydell e Leary, 2003); (ii) melhorar o ambiente de interacção entre a investigação, extensão e produtores, que é fundamental para adopção das tecnologias (Swanson, 1991); (iii) evitar a sobreposição das acções e aproveitar aprender das lições dos projectos do mesmo âmbito implementados no distrito de Chicualacuala.• Analisar os problemas, os conhecimentos e as necessidades dos produtores, potenciais beneficiários da intervenção na área de adaptabilidade aos efeitos das mudanças climáticas de modo a desenhar intervenções que respondam às suas reais necessidades.1) Identificar as lacunas existentes em termos de informação, conhecimentos e tecnologias agrárias (agricultura, pecuária e recursos naturais) nas comunidades do distrito de Chicualacuala para melhor respondem aos efeitos das mudanças climáticas. 2) Descrever as potenciais barreiras que podem interferir na participação dos beneficiários nas intervenções de disseminação das tecnologias e no acesso e utilização dos conhecimentos a serem disseminados. 3) Identificar as estratégias de intervenção para responder as lacunas identificadas.O trabalho de recolha de dados para este estudo privilegiou a combinação dos métodos quantitativos e qualitativos. A combinação dos dois métodos visa fundamentalmente suprir as fraquezas e/ou aproveitar as forças de cada método (Denscombe, 2007). Para os métodos quantitativos usou-se o questionário dirigido aos agregados familiares (AFs) e nos métodos qualitativos recorreu-se às entrevistas semi-estruturadas com os informantes chave e discussão com grupos focais. As técnicas usadas neste diagnóstico são também sugeridas pelo Swanson (1991), como sendo as recomendáveis para a fase de diagnóstico dos problemas, necessidades e sistemas de produção locais dos produtores.Com o questionário recolheu-se a informação sobre as características dos potenciais beneficiários das formações, práticas agropecuárias, o nível de domínio dos conhecimentos relevantes para melhor lidarem com o risco imposto pelas mudanças climáticas, e o interesse em aprender essas práticas por parte dos potenciais beneficiários. As entrevistas semi-estruturadas e as discussões com grupos focais foram usadas para recolher informação geral sobre: as características dos sistemas de produção locais, as principais fruteiras e as práticas usadas para o processamento e conservação das frutas; os principais constrangimentos nas actividades agrárias; as estratégias a adoptar para a disseminação das tecnologias agrárias e; os factores que poderão influenciar as actividades de transferência e divulgação de tecnologias agrárias.Este diagnóstico foi conduzido em 8 povoados de dois postos administrativos do distrito de Chicualacuala. O distrito encontra-se no extremo Norte da província de Gaza.Os povoados estudados podem ser divididos em dois grupos: o primeiro, constituído por duas comunidades do Posto Administrativo Sede, nomeadamente Mahatlhane e Aldeia Eduardo Mondlane e um dos povoados de Mapai, Aldeia 16 de Junho, que dependem totalmente de agricultura de sequeiro. A segunda zona é constituída por um povoado do Posto Administrativo Sede, o povoado de Tchale e quatro outros povoados de Mapai, nomeadamente Madulo, Ndombe, e Chissapa. Nestes povoados, algumas famílias, principalmente as que pertencem às associações de produtores, têm acesso à água das lagoas e rios, semi-permanentes para irrigação de pequenas parcelas de hortícolas.Em relação ao clima, o distrito de Chicualacuala, localiza-se numa zona árida a semi-árida com baixa precipitação média anual e com prevalência de secas cíclicas e longas.O estudo foi conduzido em 8 povoados seleccionados para a implementação do projecto no distrito de Chicualacuala. Os 8 povoados possuem 37 bairros e 3.261 famílias.Para a recolha de dados quantitativos optou-se pela estratégia de amostragem probabilística estratificada por área geográfica, nomeadamente povoado e bairro, dentro do mesmo distrito. Esta estratégia visava fundamentalmente garantir que fosse recolhida informação de todos os povoados beneficiários desta intervenção. Em cada povoado, foram seleccionados de forma aleatória, dois a quatro bairros, em função do número de agregados a inquirir. Dentro dos bairros foram seleccionados aleatoriamente os quarteirões e nos quarteirões os agregados familiares a inquirir.O tamanho da amostra para o inquérito no distrito foi de 163 agregados familiares. A definição deste tamanho de amostra foi determinado com base na fórmula recomendada para casos em que a variável mais importante de estudo é nominal ou ordinal e a população de estudo é finita 1 . Foi considerado para o cálculo da amostra, o nível de confiança de 95% e a margem de erro de 5%. No total foram inquiridos 163 agregados familiares, dos quais 56% são de Posto Administrativo sede e 44% são de Mapai (Tabela 1). Chicualacuala é um distrito de matriz rural com uma taxa de urbanização de 16% (MAE, 2005). O clima do distrito de Chicualacuala é do tipo tropical seco com uma precipitação média anual inferior a 500 mm. Algumas zonas do distrito apresentam um clima do tipo semi-árido seco nas quais a precipitação varia de 500 a 800 mm (MAE, 2005).A evapotranspiração potencial de referência (ET 0 ) é geralmente superior a 1500 mm, e a maior parte do distrito apresenta uma temperatura média anual superior a 24 0 C. As elevadas evapotranspiração e temperatura que se registam no distrito agravam consideravelmente as condições de fraca pluviosidade provocando uma deficiência de água superior a 800 mm, chegando a exceder os 1.100 mm em Pafúri. No distrito regista-se uma grande irregularidade na quantidade de precipitação que cai ao longo da estação chuvosa, determinando a ocorrência de frequentes períodos secos durante o período de crescimento de culturas (MAE, 2005). A humidade relativa média anual varia de 60 a 65% (MAE, 2005).A maior parte do distrito apresenta altitudes inferiores a 200 m. Ao longo da fronteira com as Repúblicas do Zimbabwe e da Africa do Sul registam-se zonas com altitudes entre os 200 e 500 m (GDC, 2010;MAE, 2005).Os principais recursos hídricos são constituídos pela bacia hidrográfica do rio Limpopo e pelos rios Nuanetzi, Chefu, Munene e Singuédzi (MAE, 2005). O distrito conta ainda com lagoas tais como: Ndombe, Chidulo, Maphuvule, Madulo e Dumela (GDC, 2010).O distrito de Chicualacuala apresenta três tipos de solos: arenosos de tamanhos variáveis sobre os depósitos de Mananga, solos vermelhos pardos e derivados de calcários cinzentos (arenosos, argilosos e hidromóficos). As características do solo dividem o distrito em duas zonas agroecológicas designadamente zona A de solos arenosos e calcários, e zona B de solos fluviais (GDC, 2010).A vegetação é constituída por florestas galeria e mata aberta e fechada, savana ou pradaria, mata arbustiva mediana e savana arbórea, brenha ou pradaria.A principal actividade económica praticada no distrito é a agricultura que envolve a maioria dos agregados familiares. A área total cultivada é de 10 mil hectares; o tamanho médio das explorações agrícolas é de 1 hectare. A maioria dos produtores tem as suas áreas de cultivo na zona alta, onde cultivam milho, amendoim, feijão nhemba, batata-doce e abóbora, recorrendo ao sistema de produção consociado. As principais culturas de rendimento são o cajueiro e mafurreira (MAE, 2005).A outra actividade de relevo no distrito é a pecuária que é predominantemente praticada pelo sector familiar. As principais espécies animais praticadas são as aves, bovinos, ovinos e caprinos.Chicualacuala possui um grande potencial turístico e ecológico, possuindo extensas áreas integradas nos Parque Nacionais de Limpopo e de Banhine (Área de Conservação Transfronteiriça do Limpopo).A actividade comercial é limitada. As infra-estruturas sociais ainda não alcançaram a recuperação desejável desde a sua destruição aquando da guerra. O distrito não possui instituições financeiras formais (de poupança ou de crédito).A caça também ocorre no distrito, sendo as espécies mais importantes as gazelas, coelhos e as aves aquáticas.A pesca é uma actividade sem grande expressão no distrito, sendo o peixe pouco consumido localmente.A pequena indústria (carpintaria, pesca e artesanato) observa um desenvolvimento bastante limitado, sendo vista localmente como actividade alternativa à agricultura ou como prolongamento desta actividade.A faixa etária dos chefes dos AFs no distrito de Chicualacuala está entre 16 e 86 anos de idade, sendo 47,25 anos a média de idade. A maioria dos chefes dos AFs é de sexo masculino (64%) e não frequentou a escola (58%), ou frequentou até ao ensino primário (37%). A percentagem dos que possuem nível de escolaridade acima do ensino primário não ultrapassa os 6%. No que se refere ao domínio da leitura, escrita e fala da língua portuguesa mais de metade dos inquiridos respondem que não tem nenhum domínio da leitura, escrita e fala (Tabela 4). A figura 1 apresenta as principais actividades agropecuárias praticadas pelos AFs do distrito de Chicualacuala. Os resultados mostram que todas as famílias praticam a agricultura e cerca de 59% prática a pecuária. Em relação às actividades relacionadas com a exploração de recursos florestais as percentagens variam de 52% para a recolha de frutas silvestres e outros produtos não madeireiros, 20%, para a produção e venda de carvão e menos de 10% para o corte e venda de estacas e lenha. Em média os AFs tem 2.5 machambas ou parcelas para a produção agrícola. A maioria dos AFs tem as suas machambas na zona alta (63%). Os que cultivam apenas na zona baixa ou próximo de uma lagoa, representam apenas 14% dos AFs. Os que tem machambas tanto na zona alta como na zona baixa representam 23% dos AFs (tabela 5). A figura 2 apresenta as principais culturas praticadas nos últimos três anos pelos AFs dos povoados inquiridos no distrito de Chicualacuala. Os resultados mostram que as principais culturas, em termos de número de famílias que cultivaram são as seguintes: melancia, que foi cultivada por cerca de 99% de AFs, feijão nhemba (97%), milho (90%);feijão jugo (85%), abóbora (84%), amendoim (70%), mapira (52%) e mexoeira (52%). A batata-doce, principalmente a de polpa alaranjada, apesar de ser considerada uma cultura de ciclo curto, podendo-se adaptar às condições de precipitação de Chicualacuala, é apenas cultivada por menos de um quarto dos inquiridos. Em alguns povoados tais como de Mahatlhane e 16 de Junho, os produtores manifestaram interesse de cultivar estas variedades de polpa alaranjada se tiverem acesso a rama. Em Mahatlhane foi encontrado um vendedor proveniente de Chigubo a vender batata-doce de pola alaranjada, e havia muitas pessoas a comprar, o que pode significar que há demanda deste produto.A tabela 7 apresenta as principais práticas culturais, nomeadamente a preparação da terra, sementeira, sacha e colheita e o período do ano em que são realizadas. O distrito de Chicualacuala tem apenas uma época agrícola, com as sementeiras de quase todas as culturas a ocorrer no período de Novembro a Janeiro. As únicas culturas semeadas fora deste período são as hortícolas porque são cultivadas usando irrigação e a mandioca em que as estacas são espetadas dentro do fruto da melancia enterrada, para aproveitar a humidade providenciada.As sachas e as colheitas também ocorrem quase no mesmo período, sendo as sachas de Novembro a Fevereiro e as colheitas de Março a Julho (tabela 7). Segundo as entrevistas semi-estruturadas, o sistema de produção mais usado no distrito de Chicualacuala é de consociação. Apenas a batatadoce é que é cultivada no sistema de cultivo puro. As consociações indicadas são: (i) milho e amendoim; milho e abóbora; milho e feijão nhemba; mapira/mexoeira e abóbora/melancia; mapira e feijão nhemba. Das entrevistas e das discussões nos grupos focais foi possível perceber que de uma maneira geral: (i) não há consociação de árvores/arbustos de crescimento rápido mas sim, uma consociação com árvores florestais que existem nas machambas; (ii) o caso de cultivo em linhas usando os compassos e densidade recomendada, o que na verdade fazem é a sementeira em linha principalmente nas hortícolas e em alguns casos no milho quando a lavoura é feita com recurso a tracção animal e/ou com tractor, mas poucas vezes os produtores aplicam o compasso e a densidade recomendados.Com base nas discussões com os grupos focais e entrevistas semiestruturadas com os informantes chave, foi feito o levantamento dos principais constrangimentos que os agricultores encaram nas actividades agrícolas. Os constrangimentos levantados são os relacionados com o fraco acesso e domínio da informação e conhecimentos agrícolas pelos produtores. A seguir são apresentados os principais constrangimentos por povoado do distrito de Chicualacuala.• Ataque da cultura de milho pela broca de colmo;• Ataque de pragas e doenças nas hortícolas, com especial atenção para as pragas e doenças que atacam as culturas de tomate (exemplo: ácaro vermelho ) e couve, na época quente; • Surgimento de roscas e lagartas associado com o uso de mulching e cobertura vegetal que afecta diversas culturas; • Perdas da cultura de mandioca devido à praga de térmites;• Incidência de ratos que destroem diversas culturas no campo;• Perdas de milho, pós-colheita, principalmente devido ao ataque pelo gorgulho.• Secas cíclicas e irregularidade das chuvas que prejudicam as culturas;• Ataque das culturas pelos elefantes (principalmente abóbora e mexoeira);• Incidência de gafanhotos, principalmente no milho e feijão nhemba;• Ocorrência de gafanhotos que dizimam quase todas as culturas praticadas na zona alta;• Fraco domínio das técnicas e normas agronómicas tais como: sementeira em linha, densidade e compassos.• Irregularidade das chuvas e mudanças na época de início das chuvas;• Baixa produtividade agrícola devido à aplicação, por parte da maioria dos produtores, de consociações que provavelmente não são adequadas e desconhecimento dos tipo de solo adequado para cada tipo de cultura; • Redução da produção devido ao desconhecimento e não aplicação das práticas de maneio de fertilidade de solo;• Aparecimento de muitos gafanhotos que dizimam quase todas as culturas praticadas no povoado; • Perdas de feijão nhemba na pós-colheita, devido ao ataque do gorgulho.• Dificuldades de controlo de broca de colmo nas culturas de milho e mapira;• Ataque de gafanhotos que dizimam quase todas as culturas;• Perda da produção do milho devido ao ataque de pássaros;• Eclosão de pragas e doenças nas hortícolas;• Aparecimento de pragas de ratos, roscas e lagartas associadas com o uso de mulching e cobertura vegetal; • Perda significativa de milho devido à broco de colmo;• Doença da queima das folhas no feijão nhemba e amendoim.• Perdas de milho e feijão nhemba no armazém devido ao fraco domínio das praticas de controle do gorgulho e ratos.• Incidência da praga de ratos na abóbora e milho;• Fraco domínio das práticas de controlo da cochonilha, ácaros e gafanhoto espinhoso na mandioca; • Fraco domínio das práticas de controlo de escaravelho preto no milho;• Ataque de ácaros e lagartas no tomate;• Destruição massiva da cultura mapira por pássaros;• Perdas significativas de milho e feijão nhemba, pós-colheita, devido ao gorgulho.• Ataque de broca do colmo no milho;• Fraco desenvolvimento das plantas do milho e amarelecimento geral das suas folhas;• Ataque de ácaros e definhamento das plantas de feijão nhemba;• Necrose das folhas do amendoim;• Ataque de pássaros na mapira e mexoeira.• Perdas na cultura de milho devido à broca e pássaros;• Perdas significativas de muitas culturas devido ao ataque por gafanhotos;• Praga de rato que come semente recém-lançada na terra, especialmente a de milho e mapira.• Ataque do gorgulho no milho conservado.• Incidência da praga de ratos na abóbora e milho;• Incidência da cochonilha, ácaros e gafanhoto espinhoso na mandioca;• Fraca produção do milho devido ao escaravelho preto, a broca de colmo, pássaros, e amarelecimento das folhas associado ao fraco crescimento da cultura de milho; • Ataque de pássaros na nas culturas de mapira e mexoeira;• Ataque de várias culturas por gafanhoto;• Incidência de ácaros e lagartas na cultura de tomate;• Ataque de ácaros e definhamento das plantas de feijão nhemba;• Necrose das folhas no amendoim;• Baixa produção da mandioca porque os solos são pesados; • Perda da produção das culturas de milho e feijão nhemba, pós-colheita, devido ao gorgulho.A figura 3 apresenta o número de AFs que possuem cada uma das principais espécies de animais existentes no distrito de Chicualacuala. Na figura, pode-se ver que as aves (63%) seguidas de bovinos (47%) e caprinos (47%) são as espécies mais comuns nos AFs dos povoados inquiridos no distrito de Chicualacuala. Os suínos e ovinos são criados por 17% e 10% dos agregados familiares inquiridos, respectivamente. Para perceber que estratégias de maneio pecuário estão actualmente a ser usadas para melhorar a capacidade de adaptação ao risco climático, foi inquirido aos AFs se usaram nos últimos três anos alguma das nove estratégias/práticas descritas na tabela 9.Duma forma geral, há um fraco uso das estratégias sugeridas pela maioria dos AFs de Chicualacuala. Apenas em uma das nove práticas, a identificação de doenças mais frequentes nos animais, houve mais de metade dos inquiridos que indicaram ter aplicado esta prática nos últimos três anos. O tratamento das doenças mais frequentes e a construção de currais melhorados, registado por 49% e 43% dos AFs, respectivamente, constituem o segundo grupo das práticas mais aplicadas pelos criadores inquiridos no distrito de Chicualacuala. As restantes práticas foram aplicadas por menos de 12% dos AFs inquiridos (tabela 9). Neste tópico apresentam-se as principais fruteiras cultivadas pelos agregados familiares e as fruteiras nativas existentes nos agregados familiares beneficiários do projecto. Apresentam-se também as práticas usadas para o processamento e conservação das frutas (cultivadas e silvestres).A tabela 12 apresenta o número e a percentagem de famílias que têm fruteiras cultivadas. Duma forma geral, há poucas famílias com fruteiras cultivadas no distrito de Chicualacuala. A única fruteira cultivada que pode ser encontrada em mais de 50% de agregados familiares dos povoados inquiridos é o cajueiro. A segunda fruteira mais comum nos AFs é a mangueira que é cultivada por 34% dos inquiridos. As percentagens das restantes fruteiras cultivadas variam de 0% para a goiabeira e abacateiro, a 14% para a mafurreira. De uma maneira geral o processamento de fruta não é feito pelos agregados familiares dos povoados de Chicualacuala, envolvidos no diagnóstico com excepção de caju que é usado na preparação de sumos e bebidas alcoólicas.A tabela 14 apresenta o período de maturação de cada tipo de fruta silvestre disponível nos povoados do distrito de Chicualacuala. Como se pode ver na tabela, o distrito possui uma diversidade considerável de frutas silvestres. As frutas apresentadas na tabela são as que são mais abundantes em cada zona diagnosticada.As frutas mais comuns nos povoados diagnosticados são Canhu e Nhire, que existem em todos os povoados. O segundo grupo mais comum é constituído por Macuácua e Toma que apenas não é abundante nos arredores Tchale e da aldeia Eduardo Mondlane, respectivamente. Massala e Timuambo são abundantes em quatro dos sete povoados envolvidos no diagnóstico; e Matite, Cholwa e Cuwa são comuns em três dos sete povoados (tabela 14).Tabela 14. Calendário do período de maturação de cada tipo de fruta silvestre no distrito de Chicualacuala Em quase todos os povoados visitados faz-se algum processamento e conservação de algumas frutas silvestres disponíveis. As formas de processamento são quase comuns. A seguir são apresentadas as formas de consumo, processamento e conservação de cada fruta silvestre.(i) Canhu: com a polpa prepara-se sumo e bebidas alcoólicas. A amêndoa é usada em algumas comunidades, como substituto de amendoim, na preparação de caril.(ii) Mapfilwa, Cuwa e Toma: estas frutas são consumidas maioritariamente a fresco. Em Chissapa, a comunidade diz que as mapfilwas podem ser conservadas a seco por um período de até pelo menos dois meses. Em Ndombe as comunidades afirmaram que as frutas de Cuwa e Toma podem ser secas para o consumo posterior, na altura de escassez.(iii) Massala, Mahimbe e Matite: estas frutas são consumidas frescas. Mas há experiência, mas não muito usada, de se preparar aguardente a partir destas frutas.(iv) Macuácua: com os frutos não maduros prepara-se temperos usados na preparação de comidas. E, os maduros são consumidos frescos.(v) Nhire: esta fruta é consumida de várias formas. É consumida a fresco; produz-se aguardente; para o consumo posterior, na altura de escassez seca-se e na altura de consumo põe-se em água morna durante algumas horas; faz-se farinha que misturado com farinha de milho ou mapira é usado na preparação de bolos tradicionais. Este bolo pode ser conservado por pelo menos duas semanas. E com a polpa de Nhire (que é muito açucarada) faz-se sumos.(vi) Cholwa, Shampswa/Ndzole e Timuambo: apenas são consumido frescos. Os timuambos foram referidos como sendo de difícil conservação devido a sua facilidade de deterioração.(vii) Chicutse: com a raiz prepara-se um chá pelo facto de ser muito açucarada. O fruto é consumido a fresco ou junta-se com leite e as vezes com pele de animais para preparar um prato que segundo os entrevistados não é de fácil digestão; por isso não é recomendável servir as crianças.(viii) Malambe: a malambe é consumida fresca. Algumas famílias produzem uma pasta que misturam com água ou leite de vaca fresco. Este produto, localmente é comparado com iogurte. Há também experiências de produção de farinha para preparar xima.(ix) Charro: a sua semente é usada na preparação. Esta farinha é usada para prepararxima.Neste tópico apresentam-se os constrangimentos ligados aos conhecimentos e informação, encarados pelos agregados familiares na produção, maneio e processamento de frutas silvestres e cultivadas. Nas frutas silvestres, apenas no povoado de Maphuvule, apresentou-se um constrangimento relacionado com estas frutas. Isto deve-se provavelmente ao facto de as comunidades, duma forma geral, relegarem as frutas silvestres para o segundo plano, como alimentos para altura de fome.A seguir descreve-se, por povoado beneficiário do projecto no distrito de Chicualacuala, os principais constrangimentos encarados pelos agregados familiares na produção e processamento das frutas cultivadas e silvestres.• Não há cultivo de fruteiras porque, segundo os entrevistados o solo é pedregoso e não permite o crescimento das raízes das plantas; há também ataque severo de térmites que destroem as raízes das plantas, principalmente as recém plantadas.• Perda de árvores principalmente as recém plantadas devido a térmites, brocas e falta de água (fraca e irregular precipitação).• Morte de árvores de fruta que as comunidades plantam devido às pragas com destaque para o escaravelho preto, que ataque as plantinhas abaixo do nível do solo. • Fraca precipitação que tem prejudicado o plantio de árvores.• Fraco cultivo de fruteiras devido ao ataque das plantas por térmites e outros insectos que destroem o sistema radicular das plantas.• Fraco cultivo de fruteiras devido à fraca precipitação.• A maior parte dos solos da zona são pouco profundos e pedregosos, o que não permite o crescimento de fruteiras. Uma associação local plantou algumas unidades de plantas numa zona aparentemente apta mas muitas morreram aquando das cheias de Fevereiro de 2013 e outras estão a ser atacadas pelo gafanhoto espinhoso; • Ataque da praga de chimpanzés que consomem o falso fruto do cajueiro;• Fraco domínio das técnicas melhoradas de processamento e conservação de frutas silvestres pela maioria da população.• Morte de árvores de frutas cultivadas principalmente nos primeiros anos de estabelecimento por razões desconhecidas, suspeitando problemas associados à falta de água, aptidão dos solos e pragas. Os AFs foram questionados sobre o nível de domínio das nove práticas de maneio pecuário. As respostas sumarizadas na tabela 16 mostram haver um fraco domínio das práticas de maneio pecuário pelos AFs. Em todas as práticas a maioria dos inquiridos (mais 50%) respondeu que não tinha domínio.A conservação de forragem em feno; isolamento dos animais doentes do resto da manada; conservação e tratamento de resíduos agrícolas, na machamba, para alimentação do gado na época de escassez de pasto; uso de blocos multinutritivos e suplementação de ruminantes na época seca; cultivo de árvores forrageiras resistentes à seca; e retenção/colheita e conservação de água da chuva para o abeberamento do gado, constituem as práticas com mais AFs (mais de 80%) que não têm domínio. Depois deste grupo, segue-se o tratamento de doenças mais importantes, com cerca de 71% dos inquiridos. O terceiro grupo é composto por duas práticas com percentagens à volta de 50% -60% dos respondentes, nomeadamente identificação de doenças mais importantes e construção de currais melhorados (por exemplo: currais elevados para cabritos, ovelhas) (tabela 16). A maioria dos AFs não têm domínio das seis restantes praticas. As práticas com mais AFs (mais de 80%) sem domínio (nenhum a pouco domínio) são: processamento de frutas em sumos e jam; preparação de manteiga a partir de amêndoa de canhú; processamento de batata-doce (em sumos, jam, bolos, biscoitos, etc.); preparação de sumos, bolos, biscoitos de hortícolas; e processamento de caju em melaço. A produção de farinha mandioca, com 56%, figura no segundo grupo das práticas que os AFs têm fracos conhecimentos (tabela 18).A tabela 19 resume as respostas dos inquiridos em relação ao seu interesse em aprender as práticas agrícolas. Mais de 50% dos AFs responderam que tinham muito interesse em aprender 11 das 14 praticas indicadas na tabela. Os inquiridos responderam que não tinham interesse ou estavam pouco interessados ou ainda estavam indiferentes em relação à recepção de conhecimentos das três restantes praticas.As práticas de preparação e aplicação de pesticidas naturais e a captação e conservação de água das chuvas na machamba, são as práticas nas quais mais inquiridos (mais de 80%) mostraram interesse em aprender. O segundo grupo de práticas com mais pessoas interessadas em aprender, com percentagens entre 60 a 80%, são as seguintes: aplicação de adubos e estrumes de animais; preparação e aplicação de composto orgânico e de pesticidas sintéticos; uso de variedades melhoradas tolerantes à seca; e pousio melhorado usando espécies de rápido crescimento e tolerante à seca. O terceiro grupo, constituído por práticas que tiveram entre 50 -59% dos inquiridos muito interessados em aprender é composto por três áreas de conhecimento: uso de culturas de cobertura, cobertura morta e consociação de árvores/arbustos de crescimento rápido com culturas anuais (tabela 19). Práticas tais como rotação de culturas, lavoura mínima e uso de variedades tolerantes salinidade, são as que apresentaram menos de 50% de inquiridos com muito interesse em aprender. As percentagens dos inquiridos que responderam que tinham muito interesse em aprender estas três práticas estão entre 36% a 47% (tabela 19).A avaliação do nível de interesse dos AFs de Chicualacuala em aprender as práticas de maneio pecuário mostra que em cinco das nove práticas, os AFs têm muito interesse em aprender os seus conteúdos (tabela 20). Nestas cinco práticas entre 52% a 76% dos AFs disseram que estavam muito interessados em aprender os conhecimentos relacionados com essas práticas.O grupo com percentagens mais altas (60 -80%) é constituído pelos seguintes conhecimentos: identificação de doenças mais importantes; isolamento dos animais doentes do resto da manada; retenção ou colheita e conservação de água da chuva para o abeberamento do gado; e construção de currais melhorados. A prática sobre a conservação e tratamento de resíduos agrícolas, na machamba para alimentação do gado na época de escassez de pasto, está no segundo grupo das práticas com mais AFs interessados em aprender (52%). As quatro práticas, com menos de metade dos inquiridos interessados em aprender são: conservação de forragem em feno; tratamento de doenças mais importantes; uso de blocos multinutricionais e suplementação de ruminantes na época seca; e cultivo de árvores forrageiras resistentes a seca.A tabela 21, abaixo, apresenta os resultados da autoavaliação dos inquiridos do distrito de Chicualacuala em relação ao seu nível de interesse das práticas de maneio dos recursos florestais. Em três das seis práticas alistadas houve mais de metade dos inquiridos a responder que tinham muito interesse. E em duas práticas, nomeadamente implantação e maneio de florestas com espécies nativas, e cultivo de pastos e forragens na floresta, 50% dos inquiridos responderam que estavam muito interessados.As práticas com mais pessoas interessadas em aprender são as seguintes: cultivo de plantas medicinais (83%) e apicultura (80%). No segundo lugar está a prática de colecção e tratamento ou pré-tratamento da semente de árvores florestais de espécies nativas, com 66% dos AFs interessados. Em apenas uma das seis práticas alistadas na tabela houve menos de metade dos inquiridos a responder que tinham muito interesse em aprender. Essa prática é a de estabelecimento e gestão de viveiros florestais de espécies nativas em que 53% dos inquiridos disseram que estavam pouco ou nada interessados em aprender (tabela 21).As práticas de processamento das frutas e das hortícolas em conservante seco são as que tiveram menos AFs, em Chicualacuala, interessados em aprender. As percentagens destas duas práticas são as seguintes: 48% dos AFs pouco interessados em aprender o processamento da fruta em conservante seco e 47% dos AFs pouco interessados em aprender o processamento de hortícolas em conservante seco (tabela 22).As restantes sete práticas tiveram entre 58% a 91% de inquiridos interessados em aprender. As práticas que tiveram mais AFs interessados (mais de 80%) são: preparação de manteiga a partir de amêndoa de canhú; processamento de batata-doce (em sumos, jam, bolos, biscoitos, etc.); e a preparação de sumos, bolos, biscoitos de hortícolas. O segundo grupo de práticas com maior número de AFs interessados é constituído por processamento de frutas em sumos/jam; produção de farinha mandioca; e, processamento de leite de vaca/cabrito em iogurte. A prática de processamento de caju em melaço está no terceiro grupo com 58% de AFs interessados. A tabela 23 mostra as tecnologias já disseminadas no âmbito de diferentes acções visando o alívio dos efeitos das mudanças climáticas. O SDAE de Chicualacuala, a União Nacional dos Camponeses (UNAC) e a Fundo das Nações Unidas para Agricultura e Alimentação (FAO) adestraram os produtores de Tchale, Ndombe, Mahathlane, Maphuvule e Chissapa em técnicas de produção, conservação e processamento de hortícolas, bem como no processamento de frutas, leite de vaca (incluindo produção de iogurte). Outras tecnologias disseminadas pelas mesmas organizações estão relacionadas com o maneio sanitário e alimentar dos animais, especialmente a disponibilização de remédios para o controlo de carraças e a demonstração de preparação de feno em Mahathlane.O SDAE introduziu os princípios de agricultura de conservação (pratica da cobertura morta) e o cultivo de fruteiras, especialmente em Eduardo Mondlane e Mahantlane. A prática de celeiros melhorados foi introduzida em algumas comunidades de todos os postos administrativos do distrito de Chicualacuala.Para captação e conservação de água para irrigação e consumo animal foi introduzida a construção de represas com apoio da FAO e do SDAE. Em Madulo foi introduzida a técnica de rega gota a gota para irrigação de uma área e 1 hectare. No distrito de Chicualacuala a difusão de informação no seio da população é largamente efectuada nas reuniões promovidas pelos líderes comunitários e secretários dos bairros. Algumas informações relativas às decisões tomadas a nível do governo distrital para conhecimento público são transmitidas às comunidades em reuniões comunitárias.Um outro instrumento largamente usado no distrito para a transmissão de informação é a Rádio Comunitária de Chicualacuala. A rádio comunitária local não está operacional há dois meses devido à avaria no seu sistema de transmissão ocasionado por um curto-circuito que danificou os seus dois emissores. A Rádio Comunitária perspectiva que dentro de um curto espaço de tempo os emissores serão reparados e a produção e transmissão de programas serão reiniciadas.A rádio comunitária possui um raio de cobertura é de 90 km, sendo ouvida até Chicualacuala B, Tchale e Pafúri (não atingido os povoados do posto administrativo de Mapai). Os povoados de Mapai sintonizam com regularidade a Rádio Moçambique, delegação de Gaza. Apesar do limitado raio de cobertura os programas de rádio, veiculados conforme a sua grelha programática, em changana e português, possuem uma larga audiência.O período das 18:00 às 21:55 horas é o mais adequado para veicular programas destinados as produtores agrários uma vez que neste período o programa é transmitido em changana, numa altura em que os produtores já regressaram dos campos e estão disponíveis não só para ouvir mas também para interagir com os técnicos ou locutores que estão no estúdio, via telefone.As gravações podem ser em estúdio e há possibilidade de interagir com os ouvintes por telefone. Quando os spots são produzidos fora dos estúdios da rádio comunitária devem ter uma duração de 15 a 20 minutos e poderão ser passados o número de vezes necessário, conforme acordado e em horários de consenso. Se os spots tiverem sido produzidos em português, os técnicos da rádio poderão traduzi-los para changana, sempre que necessário. Para veiculação de informação deve ser pago um valor de 1.000,00 MT por mês.O sector de agricultura local possui experiência de uso da rádio comunitária para difundir informação sobre campanhas de vacinação, programas de produção, entrevistas com melhores produtores, entre outros programas.As comunidades inquiridas no distrito de Chicualacuala tem acesso à rede de telefonia móvel da operadora Movitel. De uma forma geral os telemóveis ainda não são aproveitados para a disseminação de informação agrária.Os factores abaixo descritos podem interferir na participação dos produtores nos eventos de capacitação e no acesso e utilização dos conhecimentos disseminados:• Língua usada nas acções de divulgação e transferência de tecnologias; deve-se privilegiar a língua local; • Os horários e os dias da semana definidos para as capacitações. Em geral os produtores estão nos campos de produção, individuais ou da associação, até cerca das 13 horas. Nas quartas e quintas-feiras os produtores participam nas feiras comerciais de troca e venda de produtos nas estações ferroviárias e não estão disponíveis para as capacitações; • Eventos comunitários: em alguns povoados como Tchale há dias para a pesca comunitária dai a necessidade de coordenação adequada com a estrutura comunitária local para que as capacitação não sejam afectadas; • Percepção que as novas praticas trazem consigo novos desafios: a adopção da prática de cobertura morta é influenciada negativamente pela percepção de que favorece o desenvolvimento de pragas de ratos de campo, escaravelho preto do milho, entre outras. Os criadores de gado acreditam que a pratica de fenação impõe trabalho adicional que não é compensado pelos benefícios da sua preparação e administração ao gado. Este facto desincentiva sua adopção pela maioria dos produtores; • A disponibilidade e o custo de insumos agrícolas como adubos, insecticidas, drogas para uso no maneio sanitário de gado restringe utilização pelos produtores; • Limitações financeiras dos produtores afectam adopção novas tecnologias como as relacionadas com o processamento de leite de vaca e batata-doce por exigir deles um esforço financeiro adicional; • A disponibilidade de ramas de batata-doce e estacas de mandioca limita adopção destas das culturas pela maioria dos produtores; • Filiação às organizações de produtores.A tabela 24 apresenta as organizações locais envolvidas na disseminação de informação e conhecimentos agrários, no distrito de Chicualacuala. Fazem parte da lista das organizações envolvidas na disseminação de informação e conhecimentos agrários em Chicualacuala, o Serviço Distrital das Actividades Económicas, Rádio Comunitária de Chicualacuala e Associações de produtores. Os extensionistas do SDAE estão sedeados em Chicualacuala Sede e Mapai. E as associações de produtores estão em todos povoados com excepção da Aldeia Eduardo Mondlane e 16 de Junho.As associações de produtores são organizações locais de produtores envolvidos em actividades agropecuárias. Estas organizações permitem o apoio interno entre os seus membros e facilitam a assistência técnica providenciada pela extensão agrária. As associações de produtores funcionam como meio de disseminação de informação e tecnologias agrárias aos produtores não associados, desempenhando assim uma função social muito importante. A outra cultura que poderia ser praticada por muitos agregados familiares em Chicualacuala e contribuir para a redução do risco climático mas que actualmente é cultivada por menos de um quarto dos agregados familiares, é a batata-doce. A grande limitante para a sua adopção massiva é a escassez e dificuldade de conservação da rama da batata-doce para a plantação. Nesta cultura, já existem variedades melhoradas de polpa alaranjada, de ciclo curto, adequadas às condições de precipitação do distrito.Na produção agrícola a maioria dos produtores do distrito (mais de 54%) aplica as práticas de rotação de culturas, uso de culturas de cobertura, cultivo em linhas usando o compasso e a densidade recomendada para cada cultura.A maioria dos produtores não usa as seguintes praticas agrícolas: aplicação de adubos e estrumes, preparação e aplicação de composto orgânico; aplicação de pesticidas sintéticos; preparação e aplicação de pesticidas naturais, lavoura mínima, variedades melhoradas tolerantes à seca e salinidade, pousio melhorado usando espécies de crescimento rápido e tolerantes a seca; captação de água das chuvas nos campos.As práticas de cobertura morta e maneio de pragas e doenças foram largamente disseminadas. Contudo, estas praticas não estão a ser usadas pela maioria dos produtores. A não adopção da prática de cobertura morta foi associada ao aparecimento de pragas que afectam a produção. Os produtores consideram que a cobertura morta cria condições favoráveis ao desenvolvimento de pragas, ou serve de esconderijo das mesmas. Foram apontadas as pragas de ratos de campo, o escaravelho preto do milho, entre outras. A multiplicação de pragas devido a pratica de cobertura morta aumenta o trabalho aos produtores e exige deles mais recursos para o seu controlo. A não disponibilidade de produtos químicos usados para o controlo de pragas e doenças, e os elevados custos para a sua aquisição foram apontados como algumas causas da não adopção de certas praticas de maneio de pragas e doenças pelos produtores. Outras praticas de maneio de pragas e doenças não são suficientemente conhecidas.Como indicado nas secções anteriores, a maioria dos agregados familiares do distrito não tem domínio das seguintes práticas: aplicação de adubos, aplicação de estrumes, preparação de composto, aplicação de pesticidas sintéticos, preparação e aplicação de pesticidas naturais; uso de variedades melhoradas tolerantes a seca, pousio melhorado, captação e conservação da água das chuvas no campo. Os produtores não têm domínio e estão interessados em apreender estas praticas. Paradoxalmente, os produtores estão igualmente interessados em aprender a pratica de uso de cobertura morta para conservar a humidade do solo muito embora esta pratica tenha sido apontada como associada ao desenvolvimento de certas pragas nos campos agrícolas. Isto sugere que os produtores percebem a vantagem do uso da cobertura morta apesar de considerarem que ela está associada ao desenvolvimento de pragas.O controlo de pragas e doenças das principais culturas é uma outra pratica em que foi reportado um fraco domínio e muito interesse em aprender pelos produtores. Maior preocupação foi apontada para: broca de colmo, gafanhotos, pássaros, ratos, escaravelho preto, amarelecimento geral das folhas (no milho); gafanhotos, ácaros, queima das folhas e desfolhamento das plantas (feijão nhemba); térmites, cochonilha, ácaros e gafanhotos espinhoso e elegante (mandioca); broca de colmo, pássaros, ratos (mapira e mexoeira); necrose e queima das folhas (amendoim); ratos e elefantes (abóbora).A maioria dos inquiridos não conhece e não está interessada em aprender o uso de variedades melhoradas tolerantes à salinidade provavelmente porque a salinidade não constitui uma preocupação no distrito. Os produtores também não tem domínio sobre a prática de lavoura mínima mas não estão interessados a aprender. Isto pode estar ligado ao não conhecimento das vantagens desta prática. Segundo Librero (1990), citado por Stuart (1991), estão entre as razões para não adopção de tecnologias pelos produtores a falta de conhecimento e a visão de que a tecnologia não é necessária.Os produtores locais querem aprender a lidar com a irregularidade das chuvas que no seu entender afecta as épocas de sementeira das culturas. A pratica de cultivo nas baixas ou próximo dos recursos de água pode ser adoptada para minimizar o efeito da irregularidade das chuvas. O cultivo de variedades de culturas mais tolerantes à seca pode contribuir para minimizar os efeitos da irregularidade das chuvas na produção.A maior parte dos agregados familiares do distrito de Chicualacuala cria animais. Os animais mais importantes, em termos do número de agregados familiares que criam, são: aves, bovinos, caprinos, suínos e ovinos. A criação de animais é limitada por uma multiplicidade de factores. Nos povoados de Mahatlhane, Tchale e Aldeia Eduardo Mondlane, a actividade pecuária é afectada por: carência de pasto e água na época seca; diarreias; sarna; caraças; bílis; requitsiose; piolhos; newcastle; e diversas epidemias especialmente em suínos e patos. Em Mapai, as principais limitantes da produção pecuária são: parasitas gastrointestinais e parasitas externos (incluindo carraças e pulgas); bílis; conjuntivite, ferimentos nos cascos; abcessos; requitsiose; sarna; e a doença de newcastle.Há uma fraca aplicação das práticas de maneio pecuário que podem responder aos desafios impostos pelas mudanças climáticas. A maioria dos criadores realiza as práticas de identificação de doenças mais frequentes nos animais (63%) e o tratamento das respectivas doenças (49.1%). As praticas de conservação de forragem em feno, isolamento dos animais doentes, conservação e tratamento de resíduos agrícolas, cultivo de árvores forrageiras resistentes à seca, produção e uso de blocos multinutritivos e suplementação de ruminantes na época seca, retenção e conservação de água da chuva para o abeberamento do gado são aplicadas por menos de 11% dos agregados familiares.As práticas de produção de feno, maneio sanitário dos animais, construção de represas ou sistemas de conservação de água, foram disseminadas no distrito mas não estão a ser usadas pela maioria dos criadores de animais. A razão para a fraca adopção da pratica de produção de feno prende-se com o facto de a falta de pasto na época seca ainda não ser um grande problema em algumas comunidades; noutras comunidades os criadores consideram que a produção de feno vem adicionar mais trabalho no agregado de actividades do dia a dia da família. Este facto foi observado por Stuart (1991) no Projecto de Gestão Integrada de Pragas focalizado para a Extensão e Mulheres nas Filipinas. A tecnologia de compostagem rápida introduzida pelo projecto foi rejeitada pela maioria produtores.Os produtores perceberam que a tecnologia era mais custosa em termos de tempo, energia e trabalho adicional que não poderiam suportar ou investir nele. A construção de represas e sistemas de conservação da água praticamente não foi adoptada porque esta actividade demanda recursos para o transporte de pedras e movimentação de terras que a comunidade não possui ou seria difícil mobilizá-los a partir de outras fontes de fora da comunidade.As práticas de maneio sanitário foram ensinadas aos promotores veterinários locais para posteriormente assistirem os criadores nas comunidades. Alguns criadores do Posto Administrativo de Mapai, afirmam que as drogas usadas pelos promotores veterinários não são adequadas para resolver os problemas do seu gado. Foi percebido que por insuficiência de químicos usados nalgumas praticas de maneio sanitário, os promotores veterinários não usavam as dosagens certas, o que levava a resultados não esperados. Este facto tem retraído a aderência dos criadores aos serviços de assistência veterinária facilitados pelos promotores veterinários locais.A maioria dos agregados familiares não tem domínio das práticas de conservação de feno em forragem, identificação e tratamento de doenças mais importantes, isolamento de animais doentes do resto da manada, conservação e tratamento de resíduos agrícolas na machamba para alimentação do gado na época seca, cultivo de arvores forrageiras resistentes à seca, retenção e conservação da água das chuvas e construção de curais melhorados.Os criadores locais não conhecem as praticas de produção e uso de blocos multinutritivos para a suplementação alimentar de animais na época seca e o cultivo de arvores forrageiras resistentes à seca.Os criadores locais estão interessados em aprender todas as praticas indicadas com a excepção do tratamento de doenças mais frequentes nos animais, uso de blocos multinutritivos e suplementação alimentar, cultivo de árvores forrageiras e conservação de forragem em feno. O tratamento das doenças dos animais é feito pelos promotores veterinários e esta é a razão da não preocupação em aprender esta pratica. Os criadores consideram que quem deve aprender esta pratica é o grupo de assistência veterinária os criadores. Os criadores locais não conhecem as praticas de uso de blocos multinutritivos e cultivo de árvores forrageiras resistentes a seca. O não conhecimento destas praticas pode precipitar a falta de interesse pela sua aprendizagem, o que torna necessária sua divulgação junto dos criadores. A pratica de conservação de forragem em feno já é conhecida e não há muito interesse em aperfeiçoá-la devido ao facto de trazer consigo trabalho adicional para os criadores.As principais fruteiras cultivadas no distrito são o cajueiro e a mangueira. De uma maneira geral a maioria dos agregados familiares não tem árvores de fruta.A produção de fruteiras é severamente limitada pelas condições edafo-climáticas inadequadas (especialmente solos e precipitação), pragas diversas especialmente as térmites, o escaravelho preto e as brocas. A limitada disponibilidade de recursos de água em muitas partes do distrito, a inexistência de fornecedores de mudas e a falta de experiência da sua produção pelos produtores afectam o desenvolvimento do cultivo de fruteiras.Apesar destas limitantes os produtores locais mostraram interesse considerável em melhorar o seu conhecimento sobre o cultivo de citrinos, mangueiras e cajueiros. Um aspecto de particular importância para o cultivo destas fruteiras é a disponibilidade de mudas.O distrito de Chicualacuala apresenta uma grande diversidade de frutas silvestres que são usadas para alimentação das populações, especialmente no período do ano em que há carência alimentar. As frutas são consumidas frescas ou processadas localmente, usando métodos tradicionais, especialmente para a obtenção de sumos e bebidas alcoólicas. O desafio é adopção de métodos adequados de conservação e processamento que permitem agregação de valor às frutas silvestres e assegurem a disponibilidade dos seus subprodutos por um período mais longo.Para além de frutas silvestres outros produtos que são obtidos da floresta incluem materiais para construção de casas, o combustível lenhoso (com destaque para lenha e carvão) e os materiais para a produção de objectos artesanais; da floresta é obtida a carne através da actividade de caça; a exploração de mel através da actividade apícola ainda está numa fase incipiente. A maior parte destes produtos indicados são comercializados constituindo fontes alternativas de rendimento familiar.Os agregados familiares conhecem mas não dominam as praticas de maneio de recursos florestais incluindo a colecção e tratamento ou pré-tratamento da semente de árvores florestais de espécies nativas, o estabelecimento e gestão de viveiros florestais de espécies nativas e a implantação e maneio de florestas. Os agregados familiares também têm fraco domínio da prática de apicultura; cultivo de plantas medicinais e de pastos e forragem.Os agregados familiares estão interessados em aprender as praticas de colecção e tratamento ou pré-tratamento da semente de árvores florestais de espécies nativas e a implantação e maneio de florestas dada a maior consciência sobre a contribuição das florestas na sobrevivência das populações locais e da crescente redução das florestas devido ao aumento galopante da exploração dos produtos florestais. Os agregados familiares estão igualmente muito interessados em aprender a pratica de apicultura e o cultivo de plantas medicinais. O mel é utilizado na alimentação e tal como as plantas medicinais tem muita aplicação como curativo de doenças humanas.Os produtores estão relativamente menos interessados em aprender o cultivo de pastos na floresta.Os principais produtos processados localmente incluem as hortícolas (couve), a mandioca, a batatadoce, o leite de vaca e as frutas silvestres. O processamento de hortícolas e frutas silvestres é baseado na secagem.O processamento de mandioca, batata-doce e leite de vaca foi introduzido nos últimos anos por várias organizações na forma de treinamentos a favor de alguns produtores. Os produtores aprenderam a produzir sumos, biscoitos e bolos a partir da batata-doce de polpa alaranjada. Os produtores foram treinados no uso de um método moderno de processamento de leite de vaca para a produção de iogurte uma vez que já processavam usando um método tradicional. Contudo, a aplicação do aprendizado continua aquém dos níveis esperados. Os produtores continuam a privilegiar o método tradicional de processamento de leite e o processamento da batata-doce é limitado.O principal motivo apresentado pelos produtores para esta situação tanto no caso do leite como no da batata-doce é que o processamento dos produtos indicados requer ingredientes diversos que exigem um esforço financeiro adicional. O mercado para os produtos processados é limitado, o que igualmente contribui para desincentivar a pratica de processamento numa escala relativamente maior e de forma regular. Stuart (1991) estudando os constrangimentos para a transferência de tecnologias observou que um dos desafios é a introdução de tecnologias de uso intensivo de recursos. O autor sustenta que os produtores ponderam, embora grosseiramente, os custos e benefícios da tecnologia introduzida, e rejeitam ou alteram-na para o nível em que percebem que os benefícios são superiores aos custos. Ainda segundo Stuart (1991) a percepção pelo produtor de vantagem da tecnologia tradicional relativamente à tecnologia recomendada determina a rejeição desta última. O tempo, a mão de obra e a energia exigidos pela tecnologia recomendada são a base para a tomada de decisão pelo produtor.Nalguns casos a falta de processamento dos produtos determina a sua perda por decomposição. Muita fruta silvestre é perdida dada a impossibilidade de seu total aproveitamento na forma fresca e quando não pode ser usada na produção de bebidas. Importa referir que em Chicualacuala o mercado da fruta silvestre fresca é limitado.A conservação de milho e feijão nhemba, duas culturas de extrema importância na alimentação e produção de renda familiar, constitui uma grande preocupação para os produtores. Os produtos armazenados sofrem do ataque de gorgulho e ratos, o que afecta a sua disponibilidade especialmente nos períodos críticos do ano.Os agregados familiares tem domínio das práticas de processamento de fruta e hortícolas em conservante a seco e processamento de leite de vaca ou cabrito em iogurte.A maioria dos agregados familiares não têm domínio das praticas de processamento de frutas (sumos e jam), amêndoa de canhú (e manteiga), batata-doce (sumos, jam, bolos e biscoitos), hortícolas (sumos, bolos e biscoitos), caju em melaço e mandioca (farinha de mandioca).Os agregados familiares estão interessados em aprender a produção de manteiga a partir de amêndoa de canhú, produção de sumos, jam, bolos e biscoitos a partir da batata-doce, preparação de sumos, bolos, biscoitos de hortícolas, produção de sumos e jam de frutas, produção de farinha de mandioca, produção de iogurte a partir de leite de vaca/cabrito em iogurte e processamento de caju em melaço.Os agregados familiares estão relativamente menos interessados em aprender o processamento das frutas e das hortícolas em conservante seco. Como indicado, os produtores já realizam estas praticas e apresentam um considerável nível de domínio.Baseando-se nas experiências das actividades anteriores desenvolvidas por outras organizações e no nível baixo de escolaridade da população do distrito pode-se sugerir que a comunicação e disseminação de informação deverá privilegiar o uso da língua local. Os métodos a usar deverão incluir os métodos tradicionais de divulgação de informações de âmbito geral, via líderes comunitários, e treinamentos práticos de curta duração, treinamentos usando o método de Escola na Machamba do Camponês, uso de campos de demonstrações de resultados e divulgação de mensagens usando rádio comunitária. Segundo Adhikarya (1994), a rádio é um instrumento de comunicação de massa muito eficiente e efectivo para criar consciência e aumentar o nível de conhecimento dos grupos beneficiários sobre uma determinada temática. A rádio será usada para veicular diversas informações como é o caso das épocas de sementeiras, e importância das frutas silvestres e das práticas de maneio florestal, incluíndo o reflorestamento com espécies nativas.O uso de material impresso deverá ser limitado aos líderes comunitários e líderes das associações de produtores, para partilharem com outros nos encontros comunitários e das associações, respectivamente.Em todos os povoados com excepção das aldeias Eduardo Mondlane e 16 de Junho, existem associações de produtores. Estas associações foram usadas anteriormente por outras organizações para os trabalhos de disseminação de informação agrária. As associações mostraram interesse em colaborar nas actividades de disseminação das tecnologias de alívio às mudanças climáticas. Librero (1990) citado por Stuart (1991) encontrou uma associação positiva entre a adopção de tecnologia e a pertença a uma organização de produtores nas culturas de couve, café, morando e manga.Todas as associações estão baseadas na zona baixa e/ou em zonas com acesso a água, permanente ou temporária para a rega. Mas como foi observado, a maioria dos agregados familiares não está filiada a nenhuma associação de produtores. Isto sugere que para a realização de algumas intervenções principalmente as orientadas para a zona alta, onde muitos produtores não filiados às associações e não têm áreas na zona baixa/com água, deve-se trabalhar com as lideranças comunitárias, para garantir a inclusão dos referidos.• Uma tecnologia agrícola que pode ser de alívio aos efeitos das mudanças climáticas transferida anteriormente e usada no distrito de Chicualacuala é a prática de cultivo das hortícolas, aproveitando-se a água das lagoas e riachos.• Para fazer face às mudanças climáticas os produtores têm as seguintes necessidades de formação, informação e tecnologias agrícolas: (i) conhecimentos sobre o controle de pragas e doenças nas culturas de milho, mandioca, feijão nhemba e hortícolas, mapira, mexoeira, abóbora, e amendoim;(ii) conhecimentos sobre a multiplicação e conservação da rama de batata-doce de polpa alaranja e estacas de mandioca;(iii) técnicas e práticas de melhoramento da fertilidade de solos com destaque para aplicação de adubos, estrumes, , pousio melhorado;(iv) potencialidades/vantagens dos sistemas agro-florestais (combinação de espécies florestais com culturas agrícolas, actividades pecuárias ou ambas); (v) práticas de cultivo usando variedades melhoradas tolerantes a seca;(vi) técnicas e práticas de conservação da humidade de solo, com destaque para sulcos espaçados, micro-bacias, sulcos fechados;(viii) conhecimento das vantagens de uso de culturas de cobertura;(ix) informação sobre as épocas de sementeiras ideias e actualizadas, para a sementeira de diversas culturas.• Para as práticas de maneio pecuário, as necessidades de formação, informação e tecnologias identificadas são as seguintes: (i) conhecimentos sobre o maneio sanitário de bovinos, caprinos, suínos, aves (galinhas e patos);(ii) técnicas e práticas de maneio alimentar com destaque para cultivo de arvores forrageiras resistentes á seca, e conservação e tratamento de resíduos agrícolas, na machamba, para alimentação dos animais no tempo de escassez.(iii) construção de curais melhorados.• As necessidades de formação, informação e tecnologias identificadas na produção de fruteiras têm a ver com: (i) conhecimentos e práticas de controlo de pragas e doenças nos citrinos, cajueiros e mangueiras;(ii) estratégias de conservação de humidade do solo nas plantas recém transplantadas;(iii) produção de mudas de citrinos, cajueiros e mangueiras;• No que concerne ao maneio de recursos florestais, as necessidades de formação, informação e tecnologias identificadas, no âmbito de alívio das mudanças climáticas são as seguintes: (i) valorização das frutas silvestres (as frutas silvestres são vistas como alimentos em situação de fome);(ii) importância de maneio florestal e especificamente o reflorestamento com as espécies nativas;(iii) prática de apicultura;(iv) conhecimentos de cultivo de plantas medicinais.• Para o processamento e conservação de produtos agrários, identificou-se as seguintes necessidades de formação, informação e tecnologias: (i) processamento de frutas, hortícolas e batata-doce de polpa alaranjada em sumos, jam e outros subprodutos; (ii) produção de manteiga a partir de amêndoa de canhú e outros produtos; produção de melaço de cajú; (iv) processamento e conservação de diversos produtos florestais, com maior destaque para as frutas silvestres; (vi) conservação de milho e feijão nhemba no celeiro, evitando o ataque principalmente do gorgulho e rato.• Todas as associações estão baseadas na zona baixa e/ou em zonas com acesso a água, permanente ou temporária, para a rega. Mas a maioria dos agregados familiares não está afiliada a nenhuma associação de produtores. Isto sugere que algumas intervenções principalmente as orientadas para as zonas altas no distrito de Chicualacuala, onde os não associados não tem áreas nas zonas baixas, com acesso a água, deve-se trabalhar com as lideranças comunitárias, para garantir a inclusão das pessoas que não estão filiadas às associações.• Sobre os métodos, meios e instrumentos de comunicação o Tendo em consideração as características dos produtores de Chicualacula, serão usados vários métodos e instrumentos de comunicação no processo de divulgação e transferência de tecnologias. Serão privilegiados: (i) treinamentos práticos de curta duração;(ii) treinamentos baseados na abordagem Escola na Machamba do Camponês;(iii) demonstrações praticas;(iv) campos de demonstrações de resultados; (v) divulgação de mensagens usando a rádio comunitária;(vi) materiais impressos: folhetos simples para serem usados pelos lideres comunitários, promotores veterinários e outros agentes de extensão e associações de produtores que tem algum pessoal capacitado para a sua utilização.• A disseminação de informação e conhecimentos agrários deverá ser feita na língua local, pois a maioria dos potenciais beneficiários não frequentou a escola e não sabe ler e escrever em português e os que frequentaram a escola fizeram-no apenas até ao ensino primário.• Em todos os povoados estudados, com excepção da Aldeia Eduardo Mondlane e 16 de Junho, existem associações de produtores. E estes têm sido envolvidos nas actividades de transferência de tecnologias para os seus membros. Portanto, podem constituir potenciais parceiros locais na implementação de acções de divulgação e transferência de tecnologias agrárias. Para além destas organizações dos produtores, pode-se contar também com o SDAE, a rádio comunitária de Chicualacuala, a rádio Moçambique -Delegação de Gaza, e algumas ONGs que operam nos povoados beneficiários do projecto.• As técnicas de comunicação interpessoal e os instrumentos de comunicação que não envolvem leitura têm maior probabilidade de terem sucesso na transmissão de informação. Mas também pode-se explorar os meios de comunicação tradicionais actualmente usados como a comunicação através das lideranças comunitárias, principalmente para transmitir informações gerais as comunidades.","tokenCount":"10256"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b19fdaabafcd7cff2bbbe2cff8f416c8","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/29aa3cf9-3bf0-4fd7-8390-9c11a83ea10b/retrieve","id":"250968550"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"3c91d252-59aa-4ee0-ad5c-f23442625433","pagecount":"15","content":"Many people are losing direct contact with nature, a phenomenon termed as the extinction of experience. Urban dwellers are particularly affected by this process that influences public health and habitat conservation. We explored the extinction of experience among the urban populace in Nigeria, a clear Global South representative with rapidly increasing human population. We interviewed 600 adults from several cities and performed statistical tests. Results show that most respondents have no contact nor connection with nature, revealing an important distancing from the natural world. The reasons respondents gave for not experiencing nature more often are mainly related to material terms (e.g., lack of time, money and nearby natural areas). We found that respondents with higher nature contact are also more connected to nature, which is promoted by the perception of neighborhood safety. Respondents living in Lagos, and those with lower levels of income and education show greater dissociation from nature. The relationships between real and perceived neighborhood naturalness and bird species are decoupled, but the perception of naturalness and bird species richness correlates. Our study provides novel information on the loss of human-nature interactions and its determinants in the Afrotropics. We recommend different actions necessary to ameliorate this problem.In recent decades, an increasing number of people are losing direct contact with nature, a phenomenon termed as the \"extinction of experience\" (Pyle, 1993). This process of continued isolation and alienation of humans from nature is commonly reported across the world (Miller, 2005), and constitutes a challenge for public health and for curbing environmental degradation (Soga and Gaston, 2016). On the one hand, the extinction of experience undermines the multiple benefits that interactions with nature have for people's physical and mental health (reviewed by Keniger et al., 2013). On the other hand, it also has a negative indirect effect on the environment through changes in people's behaviors and attitudes, as contact with nature can facilitate the appreciation of the natural world (Soga et al., 2016), and encourage proenvironmental behaviors and practices (Alcock et al., 2020;Prévot et al., 2018).According to Soga and Gaston (2016), the extinction of experience is primarily a result of the loss of opportunities to experience nature and the loss of positive orientation towards it. Both loss of opportunity and orientation can be exacerbated as societies grow and develop economically. Specifically, the decline in opportunities is often associated with environmental degradation, increasing urbanization of the human population, over-scheduling, and technological advancements that put television, videogames and internet as the main leisure activities (Hartig et al., 2014;Hartig and Kahn, 2016;Soga and Gaston, 2016). While recreational activities, such as hiking, camping, insect catching, fishing and birdwatching, attract people to nature (Gao et al., 2019;Kurnia et al., 2021;Szczytko et al., 2020), natural areas that support these activities are quickly disappearing due to anthropogenic activities (e.g., Newbold et al., 2015;OECD/SWAC, 2020). The fragmentation of natural areas and the rural-to-urban migration of humans (United Nations, 2019b) create large isolation distances that disconnect people from nature (Miller, 2005). In fact, long distances and transportation costs affect visitation rates to natural areas across age groups, gender, and educational levels (Okello et al., 2012;S. Zhang and Zhou, 2018). While these opportunity-related factors may be important in explaining the loss of interactions with nature, loss of orientation, understood as the feeling of connection or affinity with nature, may be an even more relevant factor (Cox et al., 2018;Lin et al., 2014). Interpretations and measures of the concept of nature connectedness are diverse in the literature, ranging from affective and cognitive aspects to facets of engagement and identity (Tam, 2013). Regardless of the indicator used, the literature suggests that nature connection is strongly associated with nature contact (Cheng and Monroe, 2012;Colléony et al., 2017;Nisbet et al., 2009;Tam, 2013), making it a key element in understanding physical detachment from the natural world. Some authors (e.g., Pyle, 2003), associate the feeling of disconnection from the natural world with the change of values in our societies and the predominance of materialism and consumerism. More recently, Riechers et al. (2020) suggested that landscape simplification induced by economic growth and dietary changes could have a negative impact on various relational values and impair human-nature connectedness.The interplay of human-nature interactions, opportunities to experience nature, and orientation towards it is neither linear nor unidirectional, marring an understanding of the causes and consequences of the loss of nature experiences (Soga and Gaston, 2016). A clear example of this is the relationship between nature contact (i.e., interactions with nature) and connectedness (i.e., feelings or affection for nature), two concepts that appear to be interdependent. Although connectedness is sometimes considered as a predictor of nature contact (e.g., Cheng and Monroe, 2012;Colléony et al., 2017), there are also several studies showing that a greater nature contact enhances connectedness (e.g., Braun and Dierkes, 2017;Lumber et al., 2017;Mayer et al., 2009). In addition, the intensity of nature contact during childhood has been reported as a strong predictor of later visits to natural areas during adulthood (Colléony et al., 2017), as well as nature connectedness and involvement in environmental actions as an adult (van Heel et al., 2023). In fact, Hosaka et al. (2018) noted, based on a study conducted in Japan, that these early nature experiences may be more important than socio-demographic factors for explaining participation in nature-based activities.The characteristics of the environment also have an impact in the extinction of experience. For instance, the extent of urban vegetation is known to be positively associated with fascinating animal groups like birds, butterflies, and beetles (see Arjona et al., 2023;Beninde et al., 2015;Ibáñez-Álamo et al., 2020), invariably influencing nature awareness and connectedness (Lim et al., 2022;White et al., 2023). Another important factor affecting visitation rate and duration of stay in natural areas is the perception of safety in many protected and unprotected wilderness areas (e.g., Lapham et al., 2016;Mata et al., 2022), consequently shaping nature connectedness (Adams and Savahl, 2015;Sedawi et al., 2020).Although there is a large body of literature investigating the various components and mechanisms driving the extinction of experience, such investigations are strongly biased towards countries in the Global North (Barragan-Jason et al., 2022;Bashan et al., 2021;Pett et al., 2016), leaving important knowledge gaps in our understanding of humannature interactions in regions of the Global South. The Global South consists of underdeveloped and developing countries, many of which are in the southern hemisphere, including Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Oceania (Dados and Connell, 2012;Shackleton et al., 2021). It presents biophysical and socioeconomic contextual characteristics that differentiate it from the Global North (Shackleton et al., 2021), which could influence nature connectedness in the area. For instance, most countries in the Global South experience higher urbanization rates, and socioeconomic crises (e.g., unemployment, poverty, health, and safety) than those from the Global North (World Cities Report, 2020), which could reduce investments (e.g., time and money) in nature visitation. Furthermore, people's responses and preferences for nature vary across cultures and countries (Colléony et al., 2019). These factors justify the importance of performing studies on the extinction of experience in the Global South. However, few studies have been conducted there in this respect, and they are focused mainly on touristic aspects like analyzing visits to natural areas such as national parks or protected areas (Kruger et al., 2017;Martinez-Harms et al., 2018;Wambani et al., 2021), and the consequences (mainly in terms of knowledge impacts) of distancing from nature (e.g., Binoy et al., 2021;Muslim et al., 2018;da Silva et al., 2022). Among specific regions of the Global South, Africa has received the least scientific attention in terms of human-nature connectedness research (Barragan-Jason et al., 2022) that is directly related to the extinction of experience concept. In fact, a recent systematic review of African urban ecology revealed that human dimension studies in the continent during the last century mainly focused on ecosystem services approaches rather than other topics such as the extinction of experience (Awoyemi and Ibáñez-Álamo, n.d.), suggesting that additional studies are needed from this discipline. This is particularly important given the declining state of the continent's huge biodiversity, and that outdoor activities have positive effects on human wellbeing (Lumber et al., 2017).In the present study, we set out to determine the applicability of the extinction of experience in the Global South, specifically in an African context, by analyzing data collected from 600 respondents from four cities in southern Nigeria (Auchi, Calabar, Ibadan, and Lagos), one of the most densely populated, yet understudied regions in Africa (e.g., Awoyemi and Ibáñez-Álamo, n.d.;Seto et al., 2012). Our study's motivation was to determine the drivers of disconnection between the urban population and nature, given that previous studies have already shown that rural people in the area are more connected to nature than urban dwellers (e.g., Pam et al., 2021aPam et al., , 2021b)). While those studies were conducted in the rural-urban gradient in central Nigeria, the rural areas of the southern part of Nigeria are relatively insecure due to ongoing social unrest and kidnapping activities in the area (see Ojukwu, 2011;Otu et al., 2018), further explaining why we focused on urban centers. Therefore, we set the following objectives for our study: (1) To explore the extinction of experience in Nigeria, identifying patterns of contact with nature across socio-demographic groups; (2) To find out the selfreported reasons why people do not interact more frequently with nature; and (3) To investigate the cognitive dimension of human-nature connection, exploring possible associations with the identified tendencies of contact with nature. As a cognitive measure of nature connectedness, we used the Inclusion of Nature in Self scale proposed by Schultz (2002), which captures \"the extent to which an individual includes nature within his/her cognitive representation of self\" (p. 67). We also considered awareness of the environment by comparing perceptions with objective indicators of vegetation and birds. To achieve the proposed objectives, we adopted a two-stage empirical strategy: a first stage of descriptive and latent class analysis (to investigate the first two stated objectives); and a second stage of regression analyses (to address the third objective).In this way, this study aims to make several contributions to the scientific literature. On the one hand, it examines human-nature relationships in a largely unexplored context. On the other hand, to our knowledge, this is the first study that attempts to identify and characterize segments of the population according to their patterns of contact with nature. An additional strength of the present research is the simultaneous investigation of experiential and cognitive dimensions of connection with nature. Through the results of this research, we intend to contribute to the proper channeling of resources aimed at improving experiences of nature in Afrotropical environments. Identifying factors underlying low levels of nature contact can inspire the design of interventions that favor intentional contact with nature and, ultimately, counteract the negative implications of the extinction of experience.The study was carried out in four Nigerian cities, including Auchi, Calabar, Ibadan and Lagos (Fig. 1). In terms of landmass, Nigeria is the 14th largest country in Africa, covering about 923,768 km 2 , and supporting several parks, natural areas, biodiversity hotspots and scenic sites (Ezealor, 2001). However, by mid-2023, Nigeria has an estimated human population of 223.8 million, translating to c.242 humans/km 2 (United Nations Population Fund, 2023), and suggesting an increasing need for awareness creation about nature conservation, particularly in highly urbanized areas.Nigeria has two vegetation zones: rainforest and savannah (Ezealor, 2001). The studied cities fall within the rainforest zone characterized by dense evergreen forests of tall trees with thick undergrowth (Ola- Adams and Iyamabo, 1977). Additional information on population density and Gross Domestic Product of the study area is provided in Table 1.Before choosing the studied cities, we first ensured that each of them qualified to be considered an urban center by having a contiguous patch of built-up land >1 km 2 , and dominated by human-constructed features like buildings (>10 buildings/ha), high human density (>1600 inhabitants/km 2 ), roads, and vehicles (Marzluff, 2001;Niemelä, 1999;C. H. Nilon et al., 2003;Schneider et al., 2010). In addition, two of our studied cities (Lagos and Ibadan) are among the most densely populated in the entire African continent (World Cities Report, 2020). Thus, our selection of cities followed the criterion used by Taylor et al. (2018), who performed a similar survey in the two most-populous cities in each of Australia and New Zealand. Second, we ensured the widespread geographic distribution of our studied cities to cover the diverse cultural or ethnic groups (e.g., Yoruba, Igbo, Ibibio, etc.) in southern Nigeria (Oladipo et al., 2007). Third, our studied cities share similar biotic and abiotic conditions (Ezealor, 2001). By meeting these criteria, our sample could be considered a fair representation of urban southern Nigeria (cf. Table S1).We used the \"create random points tool\" in ArcGIS (https://pro.arcgi s.com/en/pro-app/latest/tool-reference/data-management/create-rand om-points.htm) to stratify each city into five compartments stationed at the city center and its four cardinal points (i.e., west, east, south and  Note: *The density of the cities is based on data from Africapolis (http://africa polis.org), allowing us to gauge the qualification of each city as an urban center (i.e., >1600 inhabitants/km 2 according to Marzluff, 2001). Other indicators in the table are only available at the state (regional) level.north of the city center) similar to Ciski et al. (2019). Each compartment measured 1 × 1 km, and separated from any other by at least 500 m, allowing us to capture information from respondents living in neighborhoods with different urbanization levels, vegetation cover and other socioeconomic characteristics following previous studies using a similar approach (e.g., Cox et al., 2018;Galbraith et al., 2015). Within each compartment, we also used the \"create random points tool\" in ArcGIS to randomly select five points (at least 200 m apart among them) as focal areas to perform the face-to-face interviews (see below), thus, securing a wide representation of inhabitants from each compartment. All points were marked with a Global Positioning System device (Garmin etrex 20×) to identify the exact geographic coordinates. Furthermore, the selection of these compartments and focal points was also needed to match the socioeconomic information obtained from the interviews with the remotely sensed vegetation data (i.e., Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) and bird data (i.e., bird species richness) that require a similar methodological approximation to grant its independence from point to point (e.g., Kubiszewski et al., 2019). This standardization of compartments and points across the studied cities matches the methodology followed by other studies (e.g., Cox and Gaston, 2015;Ibáñez-Álamo et al., 2020).We purposively used questionnaires to interview six respondents from each point, totaling 150 people from each city and 600 respondents across the four cities. The total sample of 600 people consisted of an equal number of men and women as gender quotas were established to ensure equal representation. The surveys were conducted face-to-face (led by A.G. Awoyemi) between August and November 2021. At each point, six potential respondents (3 women and 3 men) were approached and asked if they lived within the 200-m radius of each point before interviewing them on a voluntary basis as no payments were made (otherwise they were not interviewed). This was relevant as it reflects respondents' experience and contact with nature on a daily basis (Taylor et al., 2018). Participants that agreed to answer the survey questions were then introduced to the purpose and objectives of the research, guaranteed anonymity and confidentiality of their responses, and were informed of their right to withdraw from the survey at any time. In addition, they were given the option to leave blank any questions they preferred not to answer. Each participant was interviewed independently of any other to ensure the uniqueness of the responses received. We conducted the interviews at different hours (mornings and evenings) of the day (week days and weekends) across the studied cities similar to other previous studies (e.g., Cox and Gaston, 2015). This procedure allowed us to cover a broad segment of the society with different sociodemographic and economic characteristics (Table S1).To assess experiences of nature, we relied on direct and intentional contact with nature. We opted for a broad definition of nature, including neighborhood greenspaces, parks and managed settings, because they can play a crucial role in reversing the extinction of experience, especially in urban centers. Previous evidence indicates that the benefits of interacting with nature are not limited to wilderness environments, but also to a broader definition of nature (Gaston and Soga, 2020).We asked about the frequency of contact with nature adapting the measures used by Soga et al. (2016). Thus, respondents were asked the following questions: (1) \"How frequently do you visit natural places (e. g., neighborhood green areas, parks with lots of trees, beach, mountain, orchards, forest reserves, woodlot)?\" (visits); (2) \"How frequently do you touch plants or flowers in natural places?\" (plants); (3) \"How frequently do you observe or touch animals (e.g., birds, insects) in natural places?\" (animals), which could facilitate nature connection, particularly during childhood (Franco et al., 2017;Kahn, 1997;Lumber et al., 2017). In addition to the frequency of visits, we considered the frequency of interactions with animals and plants to capture interactions that involve a more conscious and meaningful engagement with nature. Participants responded to those questions using a 6-point Likert scale (with 1 = never, 2 = once yearly, 3 = once every season, 4 = every month, 5 = every week, and 6 = every day). Those respondents who did not report the maximum frequency for all nature interaction questions were asked why they did not experience nature more often. They could choose several of the following options to answer this question: 1 = \"I don't have time\", 2 = \"I don't have money to visit them\", 3 = \"Lack of natural areas nearby (it is too far)\", 4 = \"I have a disability / Health problem\", 5 = \"I am not interested / I don't like nature\", 6 = \"Other reason\". We also considered the duration of visits to natural places (duration). Respondents answered the question \"How long do you normally stay in natural places?\" on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = some minutes, 2 = some hours, 3 = half a day, 4 = whole a day, and 5 = several days).Respondents also answered the three previous questions on the frequency of contact with nature (visits, plants and animals) during their childhood, classified here as when they were 6-12 years old. We created an aggregated indicator of the frequency of interactions with nature during childhood as the sum of the scores of the three questions (childhood frequency of nature contact). We also asked if they had ever lived outside their current city (yes or no) as a factor that could influence opportunities to interact with nature (lived outside current city).We evaluated affinity with nature (nature connectedness) using the Inclusion of Nature in Self Scale (Schultz, 2002), which is an adaptation of the Inclusion of Other in Self Scale by Aron et al. (1992). Based on selfconcept, this scale captures the cognitive dimension of connectedness with nature through a graphic question. Seven pairs of circles are shown overlapping to different degrees, one labeled \"Self\" and the other \"Nature\", and respondents were asked to choose the pair that best reflects their interconnectedness with the natural world (Fig. 2). Each pair of circles is assigned a score from 1 (separate circles) to 7 (completely overlapped circles).We assessed the opportunity to experience nature by asking about the participants' perception of the level of nature in their neighborhood (perception of neighborhood naturalness). Here, we described neighborhood naturalness to respondents as the coverage of vegetation (%) within the 200-m radius of each sampling point (i.e., where respondents live) following previous studies (e.g., Cox et al., 2018;Ugolini et al., 2020Ugolini et al., , 2021)). We then asked them to rate (on a 5-point Likert scale) how natural the location they live in is (i.e., the 200-m radius), whereby 1 = very artificial (≤20% vegetation cover), 2 = artificial (≤40% vegetation cover), 3 = intermediate (≤60% vegetation cover), 4 = natural (≤80% Fig. 2. Schematic representation of the level of nature connectedness adopted from Schultz (2002). vegetation cover), 5 = very natural (100% vegetation cover). We also asked for the types (based on taxonomic families) of birds (e.g., sparrows, pigeons, kites, crows; perception of bird types) they usually found there (1 = very few (<3), 2 = few (3, 4), 3 = intermediate (5-7), 4 = many (8-18), 5 = very many (>18)) by showing them different images using the guide to the Birds of Western Africa (Borrow and Demey, 2014). We defined the number of bird types for each category based on the information on bird censuses (5 mins/point) carried out in the same sampled cities and points in November 2020-January 2021 as part of another study on the association of urbanization with avian diversity.The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) estimates the presence and photosynthetic vigor of vegetation, and is commonly used to investigate the relationships between nature and human well-being in urban areas (Pereira et al., 2012;Taylor et al., 2018). To estimate the NDVI, we downloaded Cloudless Sentinel 2 Level 1C Images to cover the survey period (November 2021), from the USGS Earth Explorer (htt ps://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/). We then used the \"spectralindices\" function to estimate the mean NDVI using the R Statistical Software (Alabi et al., 2022;Leutner et al., 2019;Suab and Avtar, 2020).Some months before the interviews (November 2020-January 2021), a single observer (A.G. Awoyemi, an expert ornithologist with >10 years of experience censusing birds in Nigeria) recorded the number of individuals of each bird species seen and/or heard within a 50-m radius (Ivande and Cresswell, 2016) of each point where respondents were interviewed (bird species richness). The bird censuses were done following general recommendations for quantifying birds (Bibby et al., 2000) and thus carried out only under good weather conditions and during the morning (up to 4 h after local sunrise; Manu et al., 2006).We asked respondents to score how safe they felt in their neighborhood (safety), translating to a 200-m radius of each sampling point, where they could have direct and daily interaction with nature (Cox et al., 2018;Taylor et al., 2018). This was also scored on the following 5point Likert scale, including not at all (1), a little (2), moderately (3), quite a bit (4) or extremely (5).We obtained socio-demographic information from respondents, including age (continuous), gender (male or female) and marital status (single, married, divorced or widow); children (continuous). We also asked for their level of education (no formal education, primary, secondary, technical/polytechnic or university), employment status (selfemployed, employed by someone or not employed); and level of monthly income, scaled based on the approved Nigerian minimum wage of 30,000 Naira (National Minimum Wage Act, 2019), and converted to USD ($) on 30 November 2021 (<$73, $73-$145, $145-$218, $218-$290, >$290).This study was conducted following a two-stage empirical strategy. Statistical analyses were conducted using the R Statistical Software (R Core Team, 2022).To identify latent and unobserved groups, and to determine how the resulting subgroups differ in their pattern of human-nature interactions in the study area, we performed a Latent Class Analysis (LCA), which offers a probability-based classification (Scheier and Komarc, 2020;Song et al., 2021;Walsh et al., 2023). To achieve that, we used the \"MixAll\" package, which consists of algorithms and methods for modelbased clustering and classification (Iovleff and Bathia, 2022). The Mix-All package was relevant to our LCA because it supports different types of data (e.g., continuous, categorical/qualitative, count), missing values, and models (e.g., Gaussian, Gamma, Poisson), and is commonly deployed in clustering analysis (e.g., Ma et al., 2021;Nagode and Klemenc, 2021).A total of 11 indicator variables (described above), including those related to socio-demography (gender, age, education, marital status, children, employ and income) and intentional contact with nature (visits, plants, animals and duration) were incorporated into the LCA to identify the groups. In MixAll, the number of classes must be ≥2 (Iovleff and Bathia, 2022). Thus, we ran models up to five classes following Song et al. (2021), and selected the best model (see Table 2) as the one with the lowest Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) value (Burnham and Anderson, 2002;Nylund et al., 2007;Schwarz, 1978;Song et al., 2021). It is worthy of note that the incorporation of additional classes (i.e., > 5) increased BIC values, supporting our selection of five classes. The LCA generated an additional categorical variable, termed \"Class\" with two levels, including Class 1 (low nature contact) and Class 2 (high nature contact), which was included in further analyses. Thus, we first explored the distribution of the respondents across the identified latent classes, and how such variations influenced their self-reported reasons for not visiting nature more often.At the second stage, we performed regression analyses to determine differences in: (1) nature connectedness due to latent class membership (Class 1 vs Class 2) and the remaining variables not used to define the classes, including safety, childhood frequency of nature contact and living outside the current city, (2) NDVI due to subjective perception of neighborhood naturalness and latent class membership, and (3) bird species richness due to subjective perception of types of birds and latent class membership. We decided to use bird species richness since it positively correlated with the number of families of the sampled birds (r (598) = 0.98, p < 0.001).We checked the assumptions of normal distribution of our response variables (Shapiro and Wilk, 1965) and use log-transformed data when it was possible to obtain a reasonably normal distribution (i.e. NDVI). When the normal distribution was not obtained even after transforming data, we fitted our models using Poisson distribution (i.e., bird species richness). However, for the nature connectedness response variable, which is ordinal with natural and ordered categories, we performed an Ordered Probit Analysis using the \"ordinal\" package and probit link (Christensen, 2023;Ferreira and Moro, 2013). To check for potential interactions between the latent classes and our predictors on these response variables, we included an interaction of the latent class membership with all the independent variables included in the models.We then used a stepwise backward selection method to simplify the models (Crawley, 2013;Marhuenda et al., 2014). Thus, starting with interaction terms, variables with the highest p-values were first removed, and the procedure repeated until the best model (containing significant effects) was selected as the one with the lowest Akaike Information Criterion value (Burnham and Anderson, 2002). We set statistical significance at p-value <0.05. The study sample was balanced in terms of gender and the number of respondents from each city. Participants ranged in age from 14 to 72 years old (Mean ± SD = 34.89 ± 11.69 years). Approximately, 40% of the participants had a secondary school education, 30% technical school, and 20% university education. In terms of marital status, most of the participants were married (59.7%). In relation to income, 49% of the respondents who indicated their monthly income chose the lower range (<$73). This low-income level is very similar to that found by the Nigeria Poverty Map, which reveals that about 4 of 10 Nigerians (40%) are poor according to the 2018/19 national monetary poverty line (National Bureau of Statistics, 2023). In fact, when other factors, such as deprivations in cleaner cooking energy, sanitation, healthcare, food insecurity, housing, and education, were incorporated (termed multidimensional poverty), the poverty level increases to 63%. Given that the data also show that poverty level in northern Nigeria (65%) is higher than in the south (35%; our study area), and is also higher in rural (72%) than in the urban areas (42%) (National Bureau of Statistics, 2023), our data could be considered a fair representation of urban areas in southern Nigeria (cf. Table S1). The descriptive statistics of socioeconomic characteristics and other variables are given in Table 3.Through the LCA, we identify unobserved groups or classes of cases that explain associations between the indicator variables (contact with nature and socio-demographic characteristics). Overall, the LCA disaggregated the sampled respondents into two classes: Class 1 (low nature contact, n = 323) and Class 2 (high nature contact, n = 277) as shown in Figs. 3 and 4.Regarding human-nature interaction, a large proportion of the respondents in Class 1 reported to never visit natural areas (Fig. 3a) nor observe animals (Fig. 3b) or plants (Fig. 3c), and spend little time in natural areas (Fig. 3d) in comparison with Class 2. The differences between the two groups were more pronounced in terms of frequency of contact, while they were less evident in terms of the time spent in nature. For both groups, spending a few hours in nature was most common, although people in Class 2 are more likely to spend longer periods than those in Class 1.In terms of socio-demographic variables, there were similar levels of interactions with nature by females and males (Fig. 4a), though a higher level of nature contact was observed among younger respondents (Fig. 4b), and those with slightly lower number of children (Fig. 4c). While Class 1 with low nature contact was dominated by married respondents, Class 2 has a more balanced proportion of married and single respondents (Fig. 4d). We found lower levels of nature contact among respondents with lower educational levels (e.g., secondary/high school) than those with higher qualifications, such as university and technical degrees (Fig. 4e). Regarding the studied cities, respondents living in Lagos showed lower levels of nature contact (Class 1) relative to others, such as Ibadan, where respondents interacted with nature more often (Class 2; Fig. 4f). Occupational status also seems to exert some influences on nature interaction behavior as we found that the group with lower contact with nature was mainly comprised of self-employed people (Fig. 3g). Finally, results of income are noteworthy, with respondents earning less than $73 showing lesser likelihood of nature contact (Class 1).As for the declared reasons for infrequent interactions, the lack of time, money, and nearby natural areas was commonly reported across the two class memberships (Fig. 5). All stated reasons were relatively higher in Class 1 (low nature contact) than Class 2 (high nature contact).The results of our regression analyses showed interesting trends that consolidate the results obtained in the LCA. As anticipated, the Class 2, with higher nature contact based on the LCA, also demonstrated a significantly higher nature connectedness than Class 1 (Table 4; Fig. 6). Furthermore, while nature connectedness (independently of class membership) increased as the perception of neighborhood safety improves, we found no significant correlation between nature connectedness and whether respondents ever lived outside their current city or not (Table 4). The only significant interaction effect shows a negative correlation between nature visitation during childhood and Class 2 (Table 4; Fig. 7).We found a negative significant correlation between respondents' perception of neighborhood naturalness and the real (measured) naturalness estimated through NDVI irrespective of class membership (t = − 2.600, p = 0.010; Fig. 8a; Table S2). In addition, we found no significant association between the respondents' perception of types of birds (independently of class membership) and the real (measured) bird species richness (t = − 1.080, p = 0.280; Table S3). Exploring this dissociation further revealed that perception of neighborhood naturalness and types of birds significantly (positively) correlated (r (593) = 0.33, p < 0.001; Fig. 8b). Finally, the bird species detected in our censuses showed 35 different bird species of 22 families (Table S4). Of this Many cities in the Global South are growing rapidly, leading to the loss of biodiversity (Seto et al., 2012;United Nations, 2019a). This urbanization process also has the potential to disconnect people from nature as supported by our findings. Our study analyzed the humannature connection from a broad perspective, considering both the experiential and cognitive dimensions, as well as their interrelationships and shows a high level of extinction of experience in Nigeria. Thus, it fills an important knowledge gap by broadening our understanding of this crucial process from a Global South perspective (Barragan-Jason et al., 2022;Pett et al., 2016).Our study reveals a relatively large proportion of people with no nature experiences, corroborating the weakening of the relationship with nature reported by previous studies (Binoy et al., 2021;Cox et al., 2017;Imai et al., 2019;Soga et al., 2018). Despite this consistency of results, the proportion of people who never interacted with nature in this study (55%) was substantially higher than those reported from the Global North, where such proportion was ≤10%, whether considering only urban greenspaces (Ishibashi et al., 2020;Soga et al., 2015) or a wide variety of natural places (Colléony et al., 2017). The obtained low levels of contact with nature were particularly striking, especially given the temporal context of this study. We conducted our surveys in 2021 after the lock-down measures taken to curb the Covid-19 pandemic, when Lee et al. (2022) predicted a surge in nature experiences in Africa. Studies from other geographic areas have reported changes in preferences for contact with nature after the coronavirus crisis, favoring a higher frequency of visits to natural areas (Berdejo-Espinola et al., 2022;Lenaerts et al., 2021;Stankowska and Stankowska-Mazur, 2022).However, distancing from nature did not occur homogeneously among the study participants. The performance of the LCA allowed us to disaggregate the respondents into two homogenous groups differing in their behavioral tendencies. Despite its potential benefits, this methodological approach is seldom used to investigate human-nature interactions so far (Batool et al., 2022;Huynh et al., 2022;Jorgensen and Meis-Harris, 2022). Based on the segmentation of the intensity of nature contact by the LCA, the socioeconomic and demographic variables investigated in this study reveal important patterns that could be useful to improve our understanding of human-nature interactions from an African perspective. Our result showing a lower level of nature contact among older respondents suggests the potential influence of ageing that could limit the ability of older people from visiting nature more often, a pattern revealed by previous studies (e.g., Freeman et al., 2019). In contrast, the higher nature contact among younger respondents could also be associated with the recent increasing environmental consciousness across the world (e.g., Urbański, and ul Haque, A., 2020). However, if that applies to the study area, we would have expected that respondents with a higher number of children (synchronizing with recent decades) to experience nature more often, which was not the case here. This contrasting result suggests the influence of other potential factors. For instance, a higher number of children could imply higher family responsibilities for our study participants, and consequently reducing investments (e.g., time) on nature contact. Supporting this position  A.G. Awoyemi et al. regarding higher responsibilities, we also show that low nature contact was more prominent among married participants in comparison with those identified as being single. Nevertheless, environmental education shows promise in mitigating the low level of nature contact in Nigeria as our result already shows that nature contact is higher among more educated respondents.Meanwhile, Lagos holds the largest proportion of respondents with low nature contact, which is hardly surprising. On the one hand, Lagos is one of the most rapidly developing cities in the world (World Cities Report, 2020), which could have negative impacts on the associated biodiversity. This is supported by our study given that we recorded the lowest bird species richness in this city relative to others. Birds are an important animal group that promotes the interconnectedness of people with nature across different cities (e.g., Cox and Gaston, 2015). This could in part explain why Ibadan respondents experience nature more often relative to those sampled in each of the remaining studied cities. In addition to the highest bird species richness, the Ibadan Bird Club was established in 2014, growing in membership and meeting at monthly intervals, to promote birdwatching around the city of Ibadan, consequently reconnecting people with nature in the area (Awoyemi and Bown, 2019). On the other hand, Lagos is the center of economic activities in Nigeria (National Bureau of Statistics, 2023), which could partially restrict nature contact too. For instance, our result showing low nature contact among respondents that were self-employed than those employed by someone or had no job, suggests that people in the study area could prefer to invest more time in their businesses to boost their  income and profit. This makes sense given that the majority of respondents earn less than $73 monthly, particularly those in the class with low nature contact. Our results are unique in this respect by allowing us to quantify the influence of socioeconomic and demographic variables on an additional facet of living standard (i.e., human-nature interaction), which is now recognized globally as an antidote against mental health issues (Keniger et al., 2013;Tillmann et al., 2018).Our study supports the growing body of literature (e.g., Lumber et al., 2017;Tam, 2013) showing the positive associations between nature contact (i.e., experiential connection) and connectedness (i.e., cognitive connection). Here, the investigated nature connectedness based on the Inclusion of Nature in Self Scale (Schultz, 2001(Schultz, , 2002) ) reveals interesting findings. Overall, the perceived relationship between self and nature was very weak, with a third of the respondents perceiving themselves as completely separate from nature. This could be due to the low level of direct interaction with nature, as the different dimensions of nature connection may interact and influence each other (Ives et al., 2018). The results of the Ordered Probit Analysis support this idea, as Class 2 (high nature contact) shows a significantly higher connectedness too.As expected, the perception of safety by respondents positively correlates with nature connectedness irrespective of class membership, reinforcing previous findings (e.g., Sedawi et al., 2020). This result is crucial for potential decision-making and actions. For instance, the nonurban sites (e.g., wilderness, national parks and forest reserves) where people could also connect with nature are riskier in Nigeria (Ojukwu,  2011; Otu et al., 2018), suggesting that the perception of safety risks in the cities could further aggravate the low level of nature connectedness detected in our study. On this note, we call for the need to make urban greenspaces safer in Nigeria, and potentially in other areas of the Global South, where this peculiar situation exists.Regarding the variables relating to participants' past, nature connectedness did not significantly correlate with whether respondents had lived outside their current city, but significantly declined with increasing number of visits to natural areas during childhood (for the Class 2 with high nature contact). These results contradict the notion that earlier (childhood) experiences in nature are very important for developing a strong bond with nature during adulthood (Passmore et al., 2021;van Heel et al., 2023). Nevertheless, our results are encouraging as they suggest that strong nature connectedness could still be developed later in life regardless of the individual's background.Perhaps, surprising were our results showing a dissociation between real (measured) and perceived neighborhood naturalness and bird species richness independently of class membership. Here, NDVI significantly (negatively) correlates with the perception of neighborhood naturalness by the respondents on the one hand. This result suggests that the study participants were probably not aware of, not interested in or even underestimate the amount of greenness in their neighborhood, which is plausible given the low nature contact and connectedness detected in this study. This is particularly concerning given that our research focused on the immediate vicinity, where respondents could interact with nature on a daily basis. It is also possible that the respondents were rather more interested in certain plant parts like flowers or fruits (see Shwartz et al., 2014) than the amount of green vegetation in their neighborhood, pinpointing the need to investigate further the items that attract people to nature in the area. On the other hand, we found no significant association between the real (measured) and perceived bird species richness of the neighborhood. Poor identification skills could make it difficult for the study participants to differentiate the different kinds of birds found in their neighborhood, potentially leading to an important underestimation. Our result showing a positive significant correlation between the perception of neighborhood naturalness and bird species richness supports this position, and in general could indicate the need for additional educational activities involving birds (like those performed in the area by the Ibadan Bird Club or the A.P. Leventis Ornithological Research Institute; https://www.aplori.org/) in order to improve the value of nearby urban nature.In general, studies have shown a weak relationship between real and perceived biodiversity while recommending different ameliorative strategies (e.g., Belaire et al., 2015;Dallimer et al., 2012;Shwartz et al., 2014). In the UK for example, the deployment of bird feeders shows promise in mitigating the gap between perceived and actual bird species richness (Cox and Gaston, 2015). However, we did not record any act of feeding wild birds during our survey, an uncommon practice in Nigeria. Since respondents with higher levels of education experienced nature more often according to our results, environmental education could be more applicable in bridging the gap in biodiversity knowledge in the Nigerian context.The main reason participants gave for not interacting with nature more often was the lack of time. This finding is in line with that found by Boyd et al. (2018) that revealed \"too busy at work\" or \"too busy at home\" as the two main reasons for not visiting natural environments. As these authors pointed out, more research is needed to understand how people prioritize and allocate their time across different activities.The lack of money was the second most important reason for not visiting natural areas more often given by respondents in Class 1 (low nature contact). Given the various economic crises experienced by Nigeria, particularly during the Covid-19 Pandemic (Ozili, 2021;Stanley et al., 2020), respondents might have to prioritize the items on which they expend their limited income, which was <$73 for almost half of the respondents (49%). This total monthly income will, for example, only cover a 2-day return travel for a person to visit the Okomu National Park from Lagos, suggesting why respondents in our study may not have enough money to visit natural areas amidst other demanding living expenses like feeding, housing, healthcare, and education. It is thus hardly surprising that people with higher incomes tend to visit greenspaces more frequently (Jones et al., 2009), spend more time in them (Soga and Akasaka, 2019) and participate more in nature-based activities (Hosaka et al., 2018). On the one hand, higher incomes could enhance mobility due to the availability of private vehicles and capacity to travel farther to explore more natural areas (Martinez-Harms et al., 2018). On the other hand, wealthier neighborhoods tend to have higher quality greenspaces that are relatively easier to explore (Cox et al., 2017;Hoffimann et al., 2017), a pattern known as the luxury effect that is present in various urban ecosystems and cities around the world including Africa (Chamberlain et al., 2019;Leong et al., 2018).Another main reason why respondents did not increase their nature experience was the lack of natural areas nearby. This reason was particularly noticeable among members of Class 2 (high nature contact), suggesting the existence of people who would like to interact more with nature but lack the opportunities to do so. This result could be explained from two dimensions. First, it could be due to the respondents' lack of knowledge/awareness of the urban nature associated with their immediate environment as we had found a no significant or even negative associations between the real and subjective perception of nature and birds. Second, it could have arisen from the lower levels of biodiversity associated with urban centers in our studied cities. For instance, the cities included in our investigation are located in southern Nigeria, a region in Africa that has experienced an exponential loss of forest cover stemmed from different factors (FAO, 2011;Popoola, 2016), particularly urbanization (Awoyemi and Ibáñez-Álamo, n.d.;Seto et al., 2012). This urban expansion seems to be an important predictor of people's affection for nature in the area (Bashan et al., 2021). For instance, Lagos is the most densely populated of the sampled cities (9270 people/km 2 ), but also holds the highest number of respondents who never visited natural areas as well as the lowest bird species richness. Although accounting for a small fraction, our study also reveals the lack of interest and health issues as reasons for not visiting nature more often.Before concluding, some limitations of the study should be highlighted, one of which lies in the cross-sectional nature of our data. Although we could identify relationships between variables, we were only able to interpret them in terms of associations and could not infer cause-effect relationships. Secondly, to assess interactions with nature (e.g., Soga et al., 2016;Yamanoi et al., 2021), we considered activities beyond mere exposure but involving experiencing nature through different senses (Colléony et al., 2020a(Colléony et al., , 2020b;;Moss, 2012). However, some behaviors may constitute a negative form of engagement with nature if they involve unintentional harm to wild species and habitats (e. g., picking flowers or touching animals). Although this is beyond the scope of our paper, it would be valuable for future studies to examine the activities that people undertake in nature, distinguishing their effects on people, flora and fauna.Another aspect of the present study that should be considered for future investigation is that most participants reported to have lived outside their current city (84%). However, we did not collect further information on where they actually lived in the past, preventing us from knowing whether the participants grew up in an urban or rural area, which may have important implications. Only direct and intentional contact with nature during childhood was considered, ignoring the possible influence of incidental exposure to natural areas during early life. Other potentially relevant information such as the type (wild or managed), quality and distances of natural environments or the motivation to visit them could also be important in this context (Clayton et al., 2017;Colléony et al., 2020a;Soga et al., 2015;Y. Zhang et al., 2017). We therefore encourage future studies to gain a deeper understanding of nature experiences by overcoming the limitations of our study. Despite these limitations, we hope that our study will help to outline a clearer picture of the relationship that residents of urban areas in Nigeria (and potentially inhabitants of other African countries) have with nature.Expanding our knowledge of human disengagement from nature is necessary if we are to take measures to reverse it. Differences between countries and cultures demand regional studies, so that possible measures can be tailored to the specificities of each context (Bashan et al., 2021;Colléony et al., 2019). The bulk of research on human-nature interactions is based in Global North countries, but the extinction of experience is not a phenomenon unique to these countries. To our knowledge, this is the first study that assessed the extinction of experience by analyzing patterns of interaction with nature and its determinants in the Afrotropics.Using a reasonably large sample of Nigerian adults, we found evidence of a strong distancing of people from the natural world, indicating an important level of extinction of experience that is even more pronounced than previous studies have found in other areas. A second conclusion of this study is that low nature contact was more prominent in Lagos, and among those respondents with lower educational and income levels. Interestingly, we found a positive significant association between experiential and cognitive nature experiences, and that neighborhood safety is a promoter of nature connectedness. On the one hand, our study reveals a strong dissociation between real (measured) and perceived neighborhood naturalness and bird species richness. On the other hand, the perception of neighborhood naturalness and bird types significantly (positively) correlated. Finally, we identified the lack of time, money and nearby natural areas as the main reasons for not visiting natural areas more often in the area and provided some useful recommendations to try to revert the observed disconnection with nature by Nigerians. We hope that the findings of this study will help in the design of interventions that favor direct and intentional contact with nature for urban residents, so that the benefits associated with this contact can reach broad segments of the population.","tokenCount":"7948"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"5f4fbddc692bc8eb1029cc9ea433b49c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/13ee5db4-0781-4092-a353-72c3931dce2d/retrieve","id":"2018320555"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"355d14cb-f401-420b-b0d9-98ff7c31d66c","pagecount":"112","content":"2012 East africa Dairy Development project (EaDD)    the East africa Dairy Development project is a regional industry development program led by Heifer international in partnership with the international livestock research institute (ilri), technoserve, the World agroforestry centre (icraf) and the african Breeders services total cattle management (aBs tcm). the project is being implemented in Kenya, rwanda and Uganda. funded by the Bill & melinda Gates foundation, the goal of this project is to help one million people-179,000 families living on small 1-5-acre farms-lift themselves out of poverty through more profitable production and marketing of milk.Dairy cattle production in East africa has increased recently due to the high demand for fresh milk for a growing population and demand for value-added milk products for an expanding urban middle class. to meet this increased demand, there is need to increase the amount of available milk. this increase can be either by increasing the milk yield per cow or by increasing the number of animals. Due to pressure on land, increasing the milk yield per cow is the preferred option.Dairy farmers have taken up this challenge but are constrained by the lack of technical information on managing their animals. at times the available information is too complicated for them to understand. though increasing milk production is a combination of good genetics, good management and good feeding, feed costs constitute the major day-to-day expense. in East africa, this cost has been further exacerbated by the progressive shift from an extensive to an intensive system of dairy in both the high and the medium-to-low potential areas due to the shrinking land sizes and a lucrative milk market.With the recent advances in breeding technologies, farmers have gained access to high-quality dairy genotypes. to realize the full milk production potential of these genotypes, there is need for proper managerial practices, especially with regard to feeding. farmers need to be knowledgeable on how to maximize productivity while minimizing costs of feeding. a lot of research has been carried out on various aspects of dairy production, particularly in the area of feeds and feeding. this information has either remained on the shelf or been communicated in a form not appropriate to the farmer. this manual synthesizes and simplifies the information on feeding dairy cows for the farmer, extension worker and student. Whereas the information has been synthesized in such as way as to be applicable to the East african region, some information may be site specific, and in some instances information that is generalized may need to be customized to suit specific areas.the manual covers information on the basic nutrients a dairy cow requires, the available feed resources that provide these nutrients and practical aspects of feeding the animals. We acknowledge the contribution of the international livestock research institute (ilri), especially that of isabelle Baltenweck, for providing logistical support in preparing and producing this manual. We specifically want to acknowledge the contribution of icraf dissemination facilitators Josephine Kirui, patrick mudavadi, Jane Kugonza and Benjamin nzingamasabo for their contributions. in addition, we thank Dr Joseph methu of the association for strengthening agricultural research in Eastern and central africa and prof paul mbugua of the University of nairobi for reviewing the draft manual.Ben Lukuyu, Charles Gachuiri, Margaret Lukuyu, Solomon Mwendia and Charles Lusweti april 2012, nairobi, KenyaDairy cattle make a major contribution to both national and household economies as well as provide milk, which contains essential nutrients. milk contributes significantly to meeting the human requirements for animal protein and is especially important in the diet of children and the sick. regionally, dairy cattle farming contributes to employment on the farm (production), during value addition (processing) and marketing. the farming also supports a large service sector that offers specialized services in nutrition and health. increase in human population has resulted in pressure on arable land leading to deterioration of soil fertility and deforestation. manure from dairy cattle plays a major role in improving soil fertility and it is a source of energy (biogas) for the household.though milk production may not be 100% related to the external appearance of a dairy cow, some physical features are related to milk yield and the longevity (length of time animal is productive) of the animal in the herd. these features (figure 1.1, table 1.1) are commonly used in judging the goodness of a dairy cow from its external appearance. these characteristics should be considered by dairy farmers while buying, selling or culling dairy animals.   the aim of keeping a dairy cow is to obtain the maximum amount of milk. a cow will perform at its best only if its basic needs are met. these include:• freedom from hunger and thirst (good feed and clean water)• freedom from pain, injury and diseases (good health)• freedom from discomfort (comfortable environment, e.g. tempera ture, clean floor)• freedom from fear and distress (friendly, loving, gentle and caring handler)to exploit the cow's full genetic potential, there is need to have a good nutrition program and meet all other needs.ruminants are various cud-chewing hoofed mammals having a stomach divided into four compartments (rumen, reticulum, omasum and abomasum), each one with a specific role to play. the most important is the rumen. cattle, sheep and goats are ruminants. all ruminants 'chew the cud'. this means that the food they consumed earlier is returned to the mouth for a second thorough chewing before it is re-swallowed.the rumen is full of tiny microorganisms (bacteria and protozoa) that digest fibrous feed, such as fresh grass and hay, foodstuffs that humans and most other animals cannot digest. after digesting the fibre, the animal makes use of the end products for growth and milk production. the microorganisms can also convert non-protein nitrogen-containing ingredients (e.g. urea) into protein that the animal can use.these microorganisms also manufacture some vitamins, such as the vitamin B group.a dairy cow can be thought of as a milk manufacturing factory. into any manufacturing factory go raw materials, which are processed, and out of the factory comes a new product. the quality and quantity of the product are a combination of both the quality and the quantity of the raw materials and the efficiency of the factory.the raw materials that go into milk manufacturing are the nutrients. the quantity and quality of these nutrients depend on the feed consumed by the cow. if the cow is fed on poor-quality feed in large quantities or high-quality feed in small quantities, little milk will be manufactured. the size of the factory can be compared to the size of the cow-where a large factory will hold more raw materials, so will a large cow have a larger rumen.the machinery that converts raw materials into milk constitutes the digestive system (stomachs and intestines) and the udder (mammary gland). all cows can be assumed to have a similar digestive system but the capacity of the udder will vary depending on the number of milk-making units (alveolar cells), which is determined by the genetics of the cow.these cells are housed within the cow, which provides a conducive environment for them to function (the cow must be comfortable and free from pain). in a factory, this can be equated to the workers (their number and their comfort).the factory concept is diagrammatically illustrated in figure 1 CHAPTER 2: NUTRIENTS nutrients are substances obtained from food and used in the body to promote growth, maintenance, reproduction and production. feedstuffs contain the nutrients animals require to perform normal body functions (such as breathing, pumping blood, fighting diseases, growing, gaining weight, reproducing) and to produce milk. the feedstuff must be digestible and the products (nutrients) absorbed if the feed is to be useful to the animal. some components of a feedstuff have no nutritive value because they are indigestible and not absorbable (e.g. some woody plants) and pass out through faeces. in addition, some plants contain compounds that are toxic to the animal. the essential nutrients are energy, proteins, minerals, vitamins and water.the energy portion of the feed fuels all body functions, enabling the animal to undertake various activities including milk synthesis. this is the major nutrient (in terms of quantity) that dairy cows require.Maintenance: simply to maintain itself, an animal requires energy. the body weight does not increase or decrease, the animal does not produce; this energy is only for survival and the amount is affected by body size and the environmental temperature.Growth and weight gain: Gain is especially important for young animals, who need to attain the recommended weight for a particular age.Reproduction: a cow requires more energy during pregnancy for the foetus to grow and develop normally.Milk production: the energy requirement of a lactating cow increases with increase in milk production and butter fat content of the milk.Energy can be obtained from several types of feedstuffs that contain either carbohydrates or lipids (fats and oils).Carbohydrates are the major source of energy in the diet of dairy cows. they are found in the staple foods consumed by humans (e.g. rice, maize, wheat, potatoes). carbohydrates constitute between 50% and 80% of the dry matter in forages and grains. feeds contain three major types of carbohydrates:• Sugars: sugars are soluble in water, making them readily available to the animal. sources are molasses, sugar beets and sugar cane.• Starch: starch is the main form of carbohydrate stored in plants. it is the main component of cereal grains and some roots (potato tubers).• Fibre: forming the structural part of plants, fibre is present in large quantities in roughages. the fibre is broken down by microorganisms in the rumen (microbial enzymes) into products that the animal can use. it is also important in maintaining high levels of milk fat. sources include grasses, fodder crops and crop residues.Lipids (fats) contain about 2.25 times more energy than carbohydrates per unit weight. Generally, plants are good sources of oils while animal pro ducts contain fats. most plant seeds contain a small amount of lipids. the ex ception is oilseed plants, which may contain as much as 20% lipids (cotton, sunflower and soybean seeds) and are better sources of lipids than animal fats.the most obvious sign of energy deficiency is poor body condition due to excessive weight loss. lactating cows are unable to reach peak milk production in early lactation resulting in low lactation yields.cows consuming too much energy become too fat, resulting in low conception rates. they are prone to difficult calving, retained placenta, and higher incidence of milk fever and ketosis.in early lactation, feeding too much energy, especially in the form of grain, may lead to too much acid in the rumen (acidosis), increased risk of displaced abomasum, depressed feed intake and low milk fat percentage.Usually forages are high in fibre and low in energy, and concentrates are low in fibre and high in energy. therefore there is need to balance the two, as too much forage limits the intake of energy while too much concentrate results in milk fat depression, rumen acidosis and other health problems.protein is quantitatively the second most important nutrient in feeding the dairy cow. proteins are made up of building blocks referred to as amino acids.proteins provide the building material for all body cells and tissues (e.g. blood, skin, organs and muscles). proteins are also major components of products such as milk and meat. lack of protein therefore adversely affects milk production.Good sources of protein for dairy cows include:• Oilseeds and oilseed cakes: residues after the oil is removed from oilseeds, e.g. cottonseed meal or cake, whole cottonseed, whole soybeans (cracked) or meal and sunflower meal or cake.• Products of animal origin: such as fish meal, blood meal, meat and bone meal, feather meal and by-products from milk processing (e.g. skim milk and whey).• Herbaceous legumes: such as lucerne, desmodium and fodder trees (e.g. calliandra and sesbania).• Non-protein nitrogen: cows can obtain protein from sources that do not contain true proteins, such as urea and poultry waste (contains uric acid). these sources are referred to as non-protein nitrogen sources. microorganisms in the rumen use the nitrogen in urea to synthesize protein for their own growth.for lactating cows, there is a sudden drop in milk production if the amount of protein in the diet is suddenly reduced. severe deficiency may cause excessive weight loss in lactating cows, reduced growth rate in calves and heifers, and result in underweight calves being born.protein is an expensive nutrient and feeding excess is a waste of money as protein is not stored in the body but is broken down by microorganisms in the rumen and excreted in the form of urea.most of the protein in feed is broken down by microorganisms in the rumen (rumendegradable protein) and re-synthesized into bacterial protein. Bypass proteins are proteins resistant to microbial breakdown in the rumen (undegradable protein), and pass intact to the small intestines where they are digested and absorbed directly into the body.milk contains approximately 3.2-3.5% protein. thus a cow producing 25 kg milk per day secretes 800-900 g protein daily. cows have little ability to store protein in the body and so it must be supplied in the diet daily to maintain the milk yield. protein should be 15-18% of the total ration of a dairy cow depending on milk yield. • Age: mineral requirements for young growing animals are higher.• Physiological status: pregnant animals require more.• Level of production: High-producing cows require large quantities of calcium; deficiency is more likely to occur in early lactation rather than late.although roughages and concentrates contain minerals, the types and amounts vary widely and hence may not meet the requirements. During ration formulation, macrominerals calcium, phosphorus and magnesium are taken into account. roughages will supply adequate amounts of potassium and common salt can adequately provide sodium. some ingredients (supplements) are added to supply a specific mineral (e.g. limestone, salt, magnesium oxide).signs of mineral deficiency may not be obvious but they include• poor fertility: lack of heat signs and low conception rate • low milk production • poorly developed bones in young animals (rickets)• health disorders, for example, milk fever • poor body condition, which may be accompanied by a change in coat colourvitamins are nutrients in the feed required by the body in tiny amounts for normal functioning of the body, through their involvement in many body processes. some are synthesized by rumen microbes and/or stored in the body of the animal while others must be supplied in the diet. the vitamins that must be supplied in the diet include a, D and E; those that are produced in the body include B complex, c and K. there is no important health consequence of excess vitamins as the body is able to get rid of the excess. However, vitamin supplements are expensive and hence feeding too much is an economic loss to the farmer.Water, though not classified as a nutrient, is essential for life in all animals. Water accounts for 74% of the calf's weight at birth and 59% of that of a mature cow. Every 100 kg of milk contains up to 87 kg of water.the amount of water consumed at free will is influenced by several factors:• moisture content of feed. When the diet has a large proportion of dry feeds, e.g. hay and grains, the cow drinks more water than when the diet has a larger proportion of young or succulent feeds, e.g. young grass and legumes • amount of dry matter consumed • milk yield • environmental temperature • salt intake an increase in any of the factors above increases the water requirement for lactating cows. the amount of water consumed will also depend on the quality and quantity of water provided (table 2 Dry matter is what remains of a feed when all the water has been removed and it contains the nutrients described above (figure 2.1). this dry matter portion can be divided into organic matter comprising energy, protein and vitamins, and inorganic matter comprising minerals. animals must consume enough dry matter to obtain the required nutrients to keep them healthy and to let them grow, reproduce and produce milk.Dry matter is expressed as a percentage of fresh feed; hence a feed comprising 40% dry matter means that for every 100 kg of the feed, only 40 kg is dry matter. it is from the 40 kg that the animal will obtain its nutrient requirements. if the same feed contains 10% crude protein, the amount supplied by the feed will be 10% of 40 kg, which is 4 kg. Banana stem containing 10% dry matter means that if you feed 100 kg of fresh stems, the cow will have only 10 kg dry matter and 90 kg water.  Dairy cattle can be reared in ways that vary depending on the resources available to the farmer. farmers in East africa practise three main systems: intensive, extensive and semiintensive.in the intensive system, dairy cattle are enclosed in zero-grazing units (see design of zero-grazing unit in appendix 8), where they are provided with all their requirements for feed and water. this method is mainly practised where grazing land is scarce. in Kenya it is mainly practised in high-potential areas of central Kenya and also by urban and periurban farmers; in tanzania it is practised on the slopes of mt Kilimanjaro and in Uganda around Kagada. the forage can be grown on farm or purchased.this system has its advantages and disadvantages.• the cow does not waste energy walking in search of pasture.• it avoids diseases associated with communal grazing.• it allows dairy farmers with no grazing land to produce milk and make money.• the manure can be accumulated for improving soil fertility or used to generate biogas for domestic energy use.• the method is labour intensive as feeding and cleaning the unit must be done daily.• the initial cost of putting up a zero-grazing unit is high.• it may be difficult to detect when a cow is on heat, especially a singly housed cow. this is because when cows are housed in a group they mount each other and when in the open they show signs of restlessness by moving around.in the extensive system, the cattle are reared on pasture. it is practised where grazing land is available. in East africa the grazing land mainly comprises natural unimproved grass. in Kenya it is practised in most parts of the rift valley, where farmers own large tracts of land.• it is cheaper than the intensive system.• it is not labour intensive.• it requires dedicating much more land to grazing.• cows waste a lot of energy by walking while grazing in the field.• it is difficult to accumulate manure for improving soil fertility in crop fields.natural grasses can be improved by oversowing with herbaceous legumes (e.g. Trifolium) or planting grasses (e.g. rhodes grass). oversowing is the method of choice.in the semi-intensive system, the cattle graze for some time during the day and in the afternoon or evening they are supplemented with other forages like napier grass. this method is a compromise between intensive and extensive systems, whereby land is not limiting as in the intensive system but on the other hand is not enough to allow free grazing throughout the day.Due to population pressure leading to subdivision of land, this system tends towards the intensive system.other methods include 'roadside grazing' and 'tethering'. roadside grazing involves herding cattle on the roadside where they graze on natural unimproved pastures. it is popular in areas with land shortage. tethering restricts the cow to a grazing area by tying it with a rope to a peg. this can also be done on the roadside or any other public land. However, in either of these systems the animals may not get enough to satisfy their requirements.Efficient pasture management results in high yields of good-quality pasture that can be fed to dairy cattle for high milk production. Key activities to be considered include weed control, grazing management and fertility management.Weeds can reduce the productivity of the sown pastures, particularly during the establishment year, and should be controlled during the first year by either hand weeding or using herbicide (2-4D amine at the rate of 2.5 litres per hectare [ha]). in subsequent years fields are kept clean by slashing, hand pulling or mowing the weeds.the following should be observed:• in the establishment year grasses reach the early flowering stage 3-4 months after planting. at this stage the plant is not firmly anchored in the soil and therefore it is usually advisable to make hay rather than graze the pastures to avoid the risk of the cattle pulling out the young shoots.• if the pasture must be grazed during the establishment year, grazing should be light enough (use calves) to allow the plants to establish firmly in the soil.• for maximum benefit, use the pasture not later than the start of the flowering stage. Graze or cut at intervals of 4 to 6 weeks, leaving stubble at 5 cm height.• Graze animals when the grass is at the early flowering stage by moving animals from paddock to paddock.• one animal will need 1-2 acres of improved pasture per year in areas receiving over 900 mm rainfall.• conserve excess pasture in the form of hay for dry-season feeding.to attain maximum production from pasture, the grass requires additional nutrients from inorganic fertilizer or farmyard manure.• During the establishment year, soil nitrogen is adequate for grass productivity.• in subsequent seasons, topdress grass with 5-7 bags of calcium ammonium nitrate (can) or ammonium sulphate nitrate (asn) per hectare per year in three splits during the rainy season or 5-10 tonnes of farmyard manure.• in areas with phosphate deficiencies topdress with 2 bags of single superphosphate (ssp) or 1 bag of triple superphosphate (tsp) per hectare per year after the establishment year. this is in addition to nitrogen fertilizer.• nitrogen fertilizer may be applied on 1 or 2 months before the dry season to increase yields during the dry season.stocking rate is the number of animals (animal unit) for which a grassland unit (hectare) can provide adequate dry-matter forage for a specified length of time. stocking rate influences animal performance, pasture recovery, long-term pasture production and long-term pasture species composition.stocking rates should represent a balance between grazing pressure (pasture demand) and carrying capacity (pasture supply). the ultimate goal should be to optimize both animal and pasture production over the long term, as opposed to maximizing only one or the other. in general, improved pastures can support higher stocking rates than native or unimproved pastures. pasture establishment can be by direct sowing, undersowing or over sowing.Direct sowing is establishing pasture grasses without a nurse or cover crop.Seedbed preparation: on previously cropped land, plough towards the end of the preceding rainy season. follow with dry-season ploughing and harrowing for weed control. on virgin land, three ploughings and two harrowings may be required to make a good seedbed.• sow as early as possible in the rainy season. in areas that recieve bimodal rainfall areas, sow during the short rains to eliminate annual weeds.• sow seeds close to the surface to get them in contact with moist soil so they will absorb moisture and germinate. Do not bury the seeds deep since initial vigour is not sufficient to push through a heavy cap of soil.• Either broadcast grass seeds or drill in rows 30-40 cm apart.• mix the seeds with sawdust, rough sand or phosphate fertilizer for even distribution. if the seed is mixed with fertilizer, plant immediately to prevent the fertilizer from scorching the seed.• Grass seeds are most effectively sown with a wheat drill. Hand sowing is recommended for small acreages.• immediately after sowing compact the seedbed to enhance germination of the grass seed by improving contact with the soil. Use tree branches or trample by foot on small plots. in mechanized farms, use a roller. Fertilizer application at planting apply phosphate fertilizer or farmyard manure to promote strong root development.the recommended rates of fertilizer application are as follows:• ssp 2-4 bags/ha or • tsp 1-2 bags/ha or • Dap 1-2 bags/ha or • 10 t/ha of farmyard manure-should be broadcast and harrowed in before planting • topdressing with 5 bags can/ha or 5 t farmyard manure/ha per year Note: to prevent scorching the seed, use Dap only when rainfall is adequate, and use only well-decomposed farmyard manure.Undersowing is establishing pastures under a nurse or a cover crop. the nurse crop is grown together with pasture for economical land use. the nurse is harvested after maturity and the pasture left for 2 to 3 years.for successful undersowing observe the following:• Broadcast or drill pasture seed mixed with fertilizer 3 days after planting wheat or barley.• Where maize is the nurse crop, broadcast pasture seed mixed with phosphate fertilizer in the maize field after the second weeding of maize (4 to 5 weeks after planting maize) or when maize is knee high.• after the nurse crop is harvested remove stovers or straws and cut back the weeds using a panga or slasher.• During the establishment year, grazing is not recommended to avoid grass still with weak roots being uprooted by the livestock.oversowing is the introduction of improved pasture species (grasses or legumes) to a natural pasture. oversowing increases forage quality and productivity of natural pastures. it is the easiest and most cost-efficient strategy for improving natural pasture. although both grasses and legumes may be oversown, legumes are more suitable, as grasses do not establish readily, especially on soils that are not loose. oversowing should be done in areas where soils are light and loose. Benefits become evident after about 2 years.• land preparation is minimal hence cheap • less seed and labour are requiredfodder crops are annual or perennial or permanent crops, cultivated on arable land and grazed or fed to stock either green or in a conserved form like hay or silage. fodder crops are usually grown in rotation with cultivated cash crops. they are characterized by their high productivity per hectare (dry matter yield) compared with permanent pastures. further, these crops are grown as supplementary feed during the dry months of the year.fodder crops have been identified as the most important feed on smallholder farms in East africa due to their high forage yield per unit area. the most common are• napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum)• sweet potato vines (Ipomea batatas)• oats (Avena sativa)• fodder sorghums (Sorghum sudanense)• Bana grass: leafy and with few silica hairs, which cause irritation during handling. However, it is susceptible to napier grass headsmut disease (Ustilago kameruniensis).• clone 13: resistant to white mould disease. it is a high yielder but its thin stems make it difficult to establish. it is also susceptible to napier grass headsmut disease.• french cameroon: a high yielder, established easily from canes. susceptible to napier grass headsmut disease.• Kakamega 1 and 2: both are tolerant to napier grass headsmut disease. High yielders. Kakamega 1 has a higher growth rate than Kakamega 2 or Bana.• pakistan hybrid: does well in dry areas.Planting napier grass can be established from root splits or canes. it can also be planted alone or intercropped with forage legumes. two methods of planting napier grass are the conventional method and the tumbukiza method.the conventional method involves planting one cane (with 3-4 nodes) or root split in holes 15-30 cm deep. the spacing is 0.5 m x 0.5 m in areas with over 1400 mm of rainfall. in areas with 950-1400 mm rainfall the spacing is 1 m x 0.5 m. When cane cuttings are used, bury the nodes, leaving one node above the soil surface. see figure 4.1. forage legumes like silverleaf (Desmodium uncinatum), greenleaf (Desmodium intortum) and stylo (Stylosanthes guianensis) can be intercropped with napier grass to improve the quality of the feed and reduce the cost of nitrogen fertilizer. legume seeds at the rate of 3-5 kg/ha can be drilled along the napier grass rows or between the rows when the napier grass is planted.Fertilizer and manure management practices four fertilizer and manure management practices are recommended for napier grass. the choice depends on the financial resources of the farmer.• Use 1-2 bags of tsp or Dap fertilizer per hectare at planting followed by 5-7 bags of can fertilizer in three split applications per year, applied after harvesting and weeding in subsequent years.• Use 10 t/ha of farmyard manure at planting. in the following years apply the same amount, preferably after every harvest.• Use ½-1 bag of tsp or Dap plus 5 t/ha farmyard manure at planting and apply 5 t/ha farmyard manure plus 2-3 bags of can in three split applications per year in subsequent years.• apply 60 kg of slurry in furrows at planting followed by split application of the same quantity twice a year or more frequently if possible after harvesting.• Weed after each harvest to maintain high productivity.• Harvest when 1 m high or every 6-8 weeks to obtain optimal quality and quantity.• maintain a stubble height of 5-10 cm from the ground level at each harvest to avoid weakening the root system, which leads to low production in subsequent harvests.• to increase yields during the dry season, one of the split applications of the recommended rate of nitrogen fertilizer should be done 1 or 2 months before the end of the rainy season.'tumbukiza', a Kiswahili word meaning 'placing in a hole', is a new planting method started by farmers to increase productivity per unit of land. the method, which involves planting cuttings or root splits in well-manured holes, produces more herbage yields than the conventional method. Hence less land is required for one dairy cow.Step 1: Dig round or rectangular pits 60 cm (2 ft) deep and 60-90 cm (2-3 ft) wide. alternatively, make trenches 60 cm (2 ft) deep and 60-90 cm (2-3 ft) wide and of various lengths depending on the farmer's preference.Step 2: separate topsoil from subsoil as you dig the pit or trench.Step 3: mix every 20-litre container ('debe') of topsoil with 1-2 debes of farmyard manure and put it into the pit. for the trench, place topsoil and farmyard manure mixture every metre along the pit.Step 4: leave about 15 cm (6 in.) unfilled space at the top of each pit.Step 5: plant 5-10 cane cuttings or single root splits in the round and rectangular pits. in trenches plant 5-10 cane cuttings or single root splits every metre.Step 6: plant sweet potatoes or forage legumes between the pits to increase the quality of forage and to control weeds.the initial labour cost for digging pits and trenches is higher than for the conventional method. see figure 4.2. Benefits of the tumbukiza method the first harvest is done when the vines cover the ground about 4-5 months after planting. there are three methods of harvesting.• Harvest forage at intervals of 6 to 8 weeks leaving a stubble length of 25 cm for dual-purpose varieties and 5 cm for fodder varieties.• selectively pluck vines at the length of ½-1 metre from the tip at an interval of 3-4 weeks.• for vines planted on ridges, cut those extending beyond the ridges.cut and carry to the cow and feed up to 15 kg fresh material per day, as a supplementary feed to napier grass or other basal feeds.oats are recommended as a fodder crop for the high-altitude regions of Kenya (over 2100 m) and may be grown in pure stand or as a mixture with vetch.• Drill oat seeds in rows 30-40 cm apart.• When oat is being grown as a pure stand, 70-80 kg of seed per hectare is recommended. When grown as a mixture with vetch, 30-40 kg of oats and 20 kg vetch seed per hectare is recommended.• apply 2-3 bags tsp fertilizer per hectare at planting.• Hand weed or spray with herbicide 2,4-D amine 72% at the rate of 2.5 litres per hectare (spraying is done when oat is grown as a monocrop but not when grown with vetch).• cut at milk stage (4 weeks) leaving a stubble height of 5 cm from ground level.• topdress with 3 bags of can/ha to enhance growth and subsequent fodder yield.• cut oats at milk stage and wilt it before feeding to prevent bloat.• oats can be cut and conserved as hay or silage.• if being conserved either as silage or hay, oats should be cut when the grain is at milk or dough stage.sorghums are drought resistant and grow well in dry areas. sudan grass and columbus grass varieties are recommended for the drier parts of the East african region.• sorghums require a well-prepared seedbed to ensure even germina tion.• planting should be at the start of the rains.• at planting drill 25-35 kg of sorghum seed per hectare at a spacing of 30-40 cm from row to row or broadcast.• Use 1 bag of tsp fertilizer per hectare during planting and topdress with 2-3 bags of can fertilizer per hectare after cutting or grazing to stimulate new regrowth.• sorghums should be cut every 6-8 weeks.• after 5-6 cuttings it becomes uneconomical to maintain the crop and it should be ploughed.• Do not graze sorghum earlier than 6 weeks to avoid prussic acid poisoning.the quantities required to feed a dairy cow per day are the same as for napier grass.forage legumes play an important role in the smallholder farming system as they• improve soil fertility through nitrogen fixation.• have high crude protein in the leaves and foliage, which can be used as a protein supplement for cattle. legumes have high crude protein levels in the range of 15-34%, as compared with grasses, which are in the range of 5-19%.• are rich in minerals (calcium, phosphorus) and vitamins a and D.Desmodium can be grown as a sole crop or as an intercrop with grasses (figure 4.3). Establishment two methods of establishing desmodium are common: from seeds and from cuttings.• Desmodium requires a fine, firm and weed-free seedbed.• seedbed preparation should be done well before the onset of rains.• Use 3-5 kg/ha (2 kg/acre) desmodium seeds.• During planting, mix seed with 2 bags of tsp or 4 bags of ssp fertilizer. farmers can also use 5-10 t/ha of well-decomposed farmyard manure.• Drill the seed into shallow furrows 2.5 cm deep spaced at 30 cm or 50 cm; cover with little soil.• for intercropping with napier grass, make furrows between or along the napier rows and drill desmodium seed and fertilizer mixture in the furrows.• Use mature parts of desmodium vines.• Use freshly cut vines.• Bury 2 nodes leaving 1 or 2 nodes above the ground.• space at 30 cm or 50 cm from row to row and 15-30 cm from vine to vine.• Use the same rates of fertilizer as for seed but place it in holes.• to maximize germination, ascertain that the amount of rain before planting has been adequate.• Keep the stand free of weeds, especially during the early stages before the crop covers the ground, by using hoe or herbicide 2,4-D amine 72% at the rate of 2.5 litres per hectare.• topdress with 2-4 bags of tsp or ssp fertilizer every year to maintain high yields of desmodium herbage and seed.• for herbage production, make first cut 3-4 months from planting. subsequent cuttings should be at intervals of 6-8 weeks.• spray against harmful pests, especially when producing desmodium seed.• Harvest seed when the pods have turned brown by hand stripping the ripe pods and store in a dry place after threshing to avoid rotting.• cut and feed in green form.• cut and conserve as hay, whole or chopped.yields of 9-10 t/ha dry matter per year of 18-20% crude protein have been reported under good management. an acre can produce 30-60 kg of seed.When intercropped with maize it will• provide nitrogen to the crop • inhibit the growth of striga weeds • reduce damage by the maize stemborer • control soil erosionDairy farmers in the high-rainfall areas of East africa prefer lucerne over any other forage legume, primarily because of its palatability and high nutritive value that can sustain high milk production levels when fed to dairy cattle. commonly grown lucerne varieties:• cuf 101  • make furrows 30-40 cm apart and 2.5 cm deep.• mix 10-15 kg seeds with 4-6 bags of ssp fertilizer or 2-4 bags of tsp fertilizer and drill into the furrows; cover with a little soil.• Use 10-15 kg/ha lucerne seed.• in areas where lucerne has never been grown use lucerne inoculants (available from the faculty of agriculture, University of nairobi).• if inoculant is not available, collect soil from areas where lucerne has been previously grown and mix with the seeds before planting.• in acidic soils (pH less than 4.9) liming with agricultural lime is recommended at the rate of 10 t/ha. phosphate, inoculant and liming promote root development, nodulation and nitrogen fixation, respectively.• Weed control: hand weed at least 4-6 weeks after planting and thereafter whenever weeds appear.• spray against aphids and other pests with insecticides such as dimethoate at intervals of 2-3 weeks if necessary.• continue applying farmyard manure to lucerne field to improve soil fertility, structure, texture and herbage yields.• apply 1 bag of tsp fertilizer per hectare annually.• Harvest lucerne when it starts flowering (about 30 cm high) to a stubble height of 4-5 cm from ground level. one can obtain 6-8 cuts in a year.• the crop can last up to 4 years under good management.• cut and feed lucerne in green form after wilting it to avoid bloating.• conserve the excess lucerne as hay, whole or chopped.• conserve as silage when combined with other types of fodder such as maize.yields of 5-6 t/ha dry matter per year of 20-25% crude protein have been reported under good management.a short-lived perennial or annual legume, Dolichos lablab is cultivated as human food, green manure, cover crop and animal fodder. Dolichos has several advantages:• it provides better late-season grazing because it is tolerant to seasonal drought.• it is more compatible than cowpea with forage sorghum or maize when intercropped.• it gives higher yield of materials for conservation than do forages such as cowpea when drought sets in.• it has better resistance to diseases such as phytophthora rust and stem rot, which wipe out many cowpea crops.• it has better resistance than other forages, such as cowpea, to attack by insects like the bean fly.• Dolichos has a large seed thus does not require a fine seedbed as does lucerne.• Highest yields are obtained on land that has not been previously cultivated (fallow land).• it grows well on acidic soils.• space at 45 cm between rows and 30 cm from plant to plant, placing 2 seeds per hole.• Use 60 kg/ha seed.• Use 1-2 bags tsp per hectare or 5-10 t/ha of well-decomposed farmyard manure.• Harvest for fodder at an interval of 6 weeks (1½ months) leaving a stubble height of 15 cm from ground level.• Weed as required.• to get optimal yields in quantity and quality, harvest at early flowering stage.• Dolichos can be conserved as hay or ensiled.• it can be fed green to dairy cattle as a legume supplement.Dolichos analysed as a whole plant contains 16.8% crude protein with a dry matter yield of about 6 t/ha. the seed yield ranges from 1.1 to 3.4 t/ha with 20.25% crude protein content.stylo (Stylosanthes guianensis) performs well in wetter and warmer areas and on sandy soils. its ability to grow well on soils of low fertility is particularly valuable both to provide good-quality grazing on these soils and to improve the fertility of the soil. it is useful for weed control and grows well in pasture mixtures containing rhodes grass. it grows rather slowly in early establishment stages but persists better in grass-legume mixtures than does desmodium (see figure 4.5).prepare a firm, fine seedbed.• Drill at a spacing of 30-40 cm rows or broadcast the seed, especially when oversowing.• sow 3-4 kg/ha of seed.• apply 1-2 bags tsp per hectare.• Weed as required.• When grown in a grass-legume mixture, graze to reduce the shading effect of grass during the early establishment stage.• Harvest or graze at 6 weeks at intervals of 1½ months, leaving a stubble height of 5 cm. • Graze or cut and carry.• cut and conserve as hay.the whole stylo plant has a crude protein content ranging from 12.1% to 18% and dry matter yields ranging from 4.1 to 6.7 t/ha per year.fodder trees are used by small-scale dairy farmers as a cheap source of protein for dairy cows.common types of fodder trees:Calliandra-does well in upland areas with medium to high rainfall (700-2000 mm). it regrows well after cutting and harvesting (figure 4.6).Leucaena-also does well in upland areas with medium to high rainfall. it is slightly more drought resistant but is more subject to attack by insect pests. regrows well after cutting and harvesting (figure 4.7).Sesbania-grows better in high-rainfall areas and does better than other fodder trees in higher, cooler areas. in its early stages, it grows faster than calliandra or leucaena but it does not regrow as well after harvesting.• leaves, pods and soft young twigs provide good feed for cows.• they are a good supplement to straw, stover and poor grass diets.• they provide high-quality forage in the dry season.• to achieve good germination, place the seeds in boiling water for 4 seconds then soak them in cold water for at least 12 hours before planting them.• sow the seeds either directly into hedge rows at a spacing of 30-60 cm from plant to plant or in a nursery for later planting when they have reached a height of 60 cm.  • plant on the hedgerows around the homestead, on contour lines in the field, or as part of soil conservation structures.• apply 5 g (1 teaspoonful) of tsp fertilizer per hole during planting.• protect young trees from livestock.• cut trees when they are about 2 m tall, leaving a row of hedge 1 m high.• Harvest every 3-4 months.• leave a few trees to grow tall for firewood and seed.• for seed, collect pods when they start to turn brown, before they split open.• Dry pods on a sheet or gunny bag.• store collected seed in a tin or plastic container with a strong lid.• can be either fed fresh cut or dried for later feeding.• to encourage intake, mix with mineral salts or other feeds.• improves soil fertility by providing green mulch or by fixing nitrogen.• supplies fuelwood.• supplies wood for building.• provides live fencing.• furnishes food for bees.Leucaena. start harvesting at the beginning of the second wet season by cutting back to 50 cm above ground level. cut twice during the wet season when the regrowth is 50-60 cm, or once at the end of the wet season, and conserve as dry leaf meal. Grazing or harvesting intervals can be 6 to 8 weeks or 12 weeks in less favourable conditions. When well managed, leucaena can yield up to 2 t/ha dry matter per year.Calliandra. a well-established stand can be harvested 4 to 5 times a year with the harvesting interval varying with the rainfall. cut again when the regrowth is 50-60 cm. Depending on rainfall and soil fertility, dry matter yields range from 5 to 10 t/ha per year. the edible fraction of calliandra has a crude protein level of 20-25% of the dry matter.Because rain-based pasture and fodder production is seasonal, there are times of plenty and times of scarcity. it is thus imperative to conserve the excess for use in times of dryseason scarcity. the aim of conservation is to harvest the maximum amount of dry matter from a given area and at an optimum stage for utilization by animals. it also allows for regrowth of the forage.the two main ways of conserving fodder are by making hay or making silage.Hay is fodder conserved by drying to reduce the water content so that it can be stored without rotting or becoming mouldy (reducing the moisture content slows down the rate of growth of spoilage microorganisms). the moisture content should be reduced to about 15%. not all grasses and fodder are suitable for haymaking. • Harvest the fodder for haymaking when the crop has attained 50% flowering. at this stage protein and digestibility are at maximum, after which they decline with age.• the fodder should be harvested after 2 to 3 days of dry weather so that drying will be possible.• Where possible, drying should be done under shade so that the dried fodder retains its green colour, which is an indicator of quality.• turn the fodder using a farm fork to ensure even drying.• check the dryness by trying to break the stem. if it bends too much without breaking, there is still too much water.• legumes and grasses can be mixed to make better-quality hay, e.g. rhodes grass + lucerne.Baling the hay allows more material to be stored in a given space. a good estimate of the amount stored makes feed budgeting easier. Baling can be manual or mechanized, manual baling being more economical for small-scale dairy farmers.manual hay baling is done using a baling box with dimensions 85 cm long x 55 cm wide x 45 cm deep, open on both ends (figure 4.8). if the hay is well pressed, the box will produce an average bale of 20 kg. Hay can also be stored without baling by heaping it into a dome-shaped stack and covering it with a polythene sheet or a tarpaulin.Hay should always be stored in a sheltered enclosure away from direct sunlight and rainfall, e.g. in hay barns. rats and other rodents should be controlled as they can damage the hay.the quality of the hay should be evident on physical examination. Good-quality hay should• be leafy and greenish in colour • have no foreign material mixed with it • have no smell Feeding a dairy cow weighing 400 kg will consume an equivalent of about 3% of its body weight in dry matter (12 kg dry matter) per day. since hay contains 85% dry matter, if the cow consumes nothing else, it will require 14 kg of hay per day.leaf meal is conserved material from the protein-rich fodder legumes, which include lucerne, calliandra, leucaena and dolichos.• Harvest the leaves and dry them on a clean floor (under shade).• collect the dry leaves and put them in a gunny bag.• store the leaf meal in a dry place and away from the sun.• feed as a supplement. the meal should not form more than 30% of a daily ration.• Wet the leaf meal with water before feeding to reduce wastage through spillage.silage is high-moisture fodder preserved through fermentation in the absence of air. these are fodders that would deteriorate in quality if allowed to dry. silage can be made from grasses, fodder sorghum, green oats, green maize or napier grass.an ideal crop for silage making should• contain an adequate level of fermentable sugars in the form of water-soluble carbohydrates • have a dry matter content in the fresh crop of above 20% • possess a physical structure that will allow it to compact readily in the silo after harvesting crops not fulfilling these requirements may require pre-treatment such as• field wilting, to reduce moisture• fine chopping to a length of 2-2.5 cm to allow compaction • use of additives, to increase soluble carbohydrates Dry matter yield of common fodders used for silage making is 4-12 t/acre for napier grass, 6.8-8.8 t/acre for sorghum E6518 and 9.6 t/acre for maize.napier grass should be harvested when it is about 1 m high and its protein content is about 10%. maize and sorghum should be harvested at dough stage, that is, when the grain is milky. at this stage, maize and sorghum grains have enough water-soluble sugars so it is not necessary to add molasses when ensiling, However, when ensiling napier grass, it is necessary to add molasses to increase the sugar content. to improve silage quality, poultry waste and legumes like lucerne and desmodium may be mixed with the material being ensiled to increase the level of crude protein. However, since protein has a buffering effect that increases the amount of acid required to lower pH, poultry waste and legumes should be incorporated within limits. poultry litter should not exceed 5% and legumes should not exceed 25% of the total material ensiled.a silo is an airtight place or receptacle for preserving green feed for future feeding on the farm. silos can be either underground or above ground, the qualification being that the silo must allow compaction and be airtight. five types are described here: tube, pit, above-ground, trench and tower.• silage can be made in large plastic sacks or tubes. the plastic must have no holes to ensure no air enters. this is popularly referred to as tube silage.• silage can also be made in pits that are dug vertically into the ground and then filled and compacted with the silage material.• an above-ground silo is made on slightly sloping ground. the material is compacted and covered with a polythene sheet and a layer of soil is added at the top. When finished, it should be dome shaped so that it does not allow water to settle at the top but rather collect at the sides and drain away down the slope.• the trench silo is an adaptation of the pit silo, which has long been in use. it is much cheaper to construct than a pit silo. construction is done on sloping land. a trench is dug and then filled with silage material. this method is ideal for large-scale farms where tractors are used. Drainage from rain is also controlled to avoid spoiling the silage.• tower silos are cylindrical and made above-ground. they are 10 m or more in height and 3 m or more in diameter. tower silos containing silage are usually unloaded from the top of the pile. an advantage of tower silos is that the silage tends to pack well due to its own weight, except for the top few metres.• chop the wilted material to be ensiled into pieces not more than 2.5 cm long (figure 4.9).Figure 4.9. Chopping fodder for ensiling.• sprinkle the chopped material with a molasses and water mixture; for every sack use 1 litre of molasses mixed with 2-3 times as much water. this is especially for material like napier grass that has low sugar content. maize bran or cassava flour can be added to improve the carbohydrate (energy) content (figure 4.10). • place the chopped material, sprinkled with the molasses and water mixture, into the plastic tubing (1000 gauge) with a width of 1.5 m. cut a 2.5-m length, tie off one end and fill with the material, compressing it well, then tie the other end to seal. stack the filled sacks until needed. fermentation is usually complete after 21 days (figure 4.11). Well-prepared silage is bright or light yellow-green, has a smell similar to vinegar and has a firm texture. Bad silage tends to smell similar to rancid butter or ammonia.natural microorganisms ferment the sugars in the plant material and in the added molasses into weak acids, which then act as a preservative. the result is a sweet-smelling, moist feed that cattle like to eat once they get used to it.tube silage should be stored under shade, for example in a store. rats and other rodents that could tear the tube need to be controlled. When feeding, open the tube and scoop a layer and remember to re-tie without trapping air inside.When feeding from the pit, scoop in layers and cover after removing the day's ration, making sure the pit is airtight. Drainage from the top should be guided to avoid rainwater draining into the pit.When feeding from the above-ground method, open from the lower side of the slope, remove the amount you need for the day and re-cover it without trapping air inside.to avoid off-flavours in milk, feed silage to milking cows after milking, not before, or feed at least 2 hours before milking.nutrient losses may occur during silage making. in the field during cutting, losses due to respiration during wilting will be about 2% per day. if it rains, leaching may cause some loss.• overheating due to poor sealing gives a brown product, which may smell like tobacco and result in severe damage to nutrients, e.g. proteins.• Effluent losses of 2-10% that occur from moisture seepage contain soluble and highly digestible nutrients; seepage should be avoided by wilting the herbage.During silage preparation, different types of additives can be incorporated to improve the quality. these include fermentation stimulants. some crops may not contain the right type or the right number of lactic acid bacteria. Bacterial inoculants and enzymes can hasten and improve fermentation by converting carbohydrates to lactic acid. most inoculants contain Lacto bacillus plantarum.Fermentation inhibitors include acids such as propionic, formic and sul phuric. inorganic acids are more effective but are strongly corrosive thus not recommended. of the organic acids, formic is more effective than propionic, lactic or acetic.substrate or nutrient sources (grains, molasses, urea or ammonia) are used when there are insufficient soluble carbohydrates in the material to be ensiled (e.g. legumes, napier grass, crop residues). they are also used to increase the nutritive value of the silage. molasses can be added at the rate of about 9 kg/t of silage.Note: Use of additives is not a prerequisite for making good silage, but it is good for crops such napier grass, lucerne and grasses such as Cynodon dactylon (star grass),Brachiaria brizantha (signal grass), and Setaria sphacelata (bristle grass) because it improves fermentation and nutritive value of the resultant product.fodder banks refer to fodder left standing in the field to be used during times of feed scarcity. they can be used all year but are meant to cushion the farmer against forage scarcity expected during dry seasons. fodder banks do not supply 100% of nutrients required but supplement the available dry-season forage. suitable fodder bank species are shown in table 4.5. crop residues can be used for feeding dairy cattle but cannot supply adequate nutrients without supplementation. Because of their low digestibility they remain in the rumen for a long time, limiting intake. the other major limitation is they do not contain enough crude protein to support adequate microbial activity in the rumen. it is therefore advisable to feed them with a true protein source (as opposed to a non-protein source, e.g. urea) such as fodder legumes or commercial suppl ements such as cottonseed cake.crop residues should not be fed in large amounts to growing animals. if used, they should make up no more than 25% of the diet with the remainder comprising highquality feeds.several methods have been developed to improve the quality of crop residues, but chemical treatment has received the most attention.chopping straw to 5 cm or a little longer before feeding is a common practice. scientific tests have shown that chopping does not improve straw digestibility, but it does increase intake, reduce wastage and make it easy to mix the straw with other feed components.there is also the salting method, in which chopped straw is soaked in a dilute salt solution before feeding. although this method has not been scientifically tested, many farmers practise it, considering it effective.supplementation of crop residues with grasses, legumes or concentrate feeds significantly improves feed intake and animal performance. in dryland farming systems where forages are scarce, crop residues are supplemented with concentrate feeds. supplementation of the basal diet with good-quality forage or concentrates helps to overcome the problem of low palatability.treating crop residues with 4% urea solution at 45-50% moisture improves the nutritive value by increasing the digestibility, palatability and crude protein content. the process is simple and farmers can easily practise it. the chopped material is soaked in urea solution mixed at the rate of 4 kg urea (fertilizer grade) in 100 litres of water (4%). the urea-water solution is sprinkled on batches of the chopped material as it is added to the pit. after each addition, the mixing should be thorough. the mixing can be done in the pit or on a plastic sheet on the ground before packing the pit. it is commonly recommended that the pit remains closed for at least 3 weeks and preferably 1 month, but treatment times longer than necessary do not have adverse effects.the urea is converted to ammonia, which then breaks down some of the bonds in the fibrous material, making them accessible to microbial enzymes.Urea-molasses blocks provide both energy and nitrogen to the microorganisms in the rumen and thus improve the digestion of crop residues such as straw. it is recommended that not more than 1% of the total nitrogen in concentrates be supplied by urea or any other non-protein nitrogen compound. in total mixed rations, urea should be restricted to not more than 0.5% of the diet (dry matter basis). more than this may make the feed unpalatable and reduce feed intake.minerals make up a small portion of the diet but have a major functional contribution. often their content in the basal diet is inadequate for high-producing dairy cows and supplementation is required. as roughages and concentrates cannot supply all the required minerals, supplementation with a mineral source is recommended.the level of mineral supplementation depends on the mineral content of the basal diet. the mineral level in plant material in turn depends on the mineral content of the soil. as much as possible, the basal diet should meet the mineral requirements. individual requirements for minerals depend on age and level of production.Depending on the amount required, minerals are classified as macrominerals (g/day) or microminerals (mg/day or ppm). table 5.3 shows some of the most commonly used sources for the macrominerals. microminerals are commonly added to the ration as pre-mixes obtained from commercial pre-mix manufacturers or through commercial mineral supplements. the mineral mixes are specific for age and level of production.force-feeding is recommended for feeding minerals to dairy cows as it eliminates palatability problems, daily and cow-to-cow variation in intake, and over-consumption of minerals. the best method of force-feeding is in a total mixed ration. another commonly used method is to use a grain carrier. this method is suitable where the requirements can be predicted fairly accurately.the free choice method is not as accurate as force-feeding but is very practical. the mineral supplement, which is usually in powder or block form, is purchased and placed in a mineral box. construct a mineral box and place it in the housing unit or at a strategic place in the grazing area. the box should be raised from the ground and covered with a roof to protect the mineral from the rains. animals consume the mineral ad libitum (as much and as often as desired).Topdressing the topdressing method is often used for stall-fed cows where individual feeding is practised. the mineral mixture in powder form is sprinkled on the chopped material and the animal consumes it as it feeds. the problem is the minerals may separate and settle at the bottom of the trough.most of the vitamins required by a dairy cow are present in the diet in sufficient amounts.Water-soluble vitamins are synthesized by rumen bacteria. animals consuming aged grasses or improperly cured hay may require vitamin a supplementation.feed additives are non-nutritive in nature but are used to improve performance through improved feed use or by benefiting in some manner the health or metabolism of the animal. several additives have been used for dairy cows. feed additives are, however, neither a requirement nor a guarantee of high productivity or profitability.an additive should be used only if income is increased over the cost of the additive. if the cost of additive equals the increase in product, there is no financial benefit in using it. the withdrawal period or product discard period should also be considered.factors that should be considered to determine whether to use a feed additive include anticipated response, economic return and available information. response refers to the expected change in performance the user could expect or anticipate when a feed additive is included. returns reflect the profitability of using a selected additive. one guideline is that an additive should return two shillings or more for each shilling invested to cover non-responsive cows and field conditions that could minimize the anticipated response.some of the changes brought about by different additives include• higher milk yield (peak milk and/or milk persistency)• increase in milk components (protein and/or fat) • higher dry matter intake • stimulated rumen microbial synthesis of protein and/or energy production • increased digestion of nutrients within the digestive tract• stabilized rumen environment and pH • improved growth (gain and/or feed efficiency)• reduced heat stress effects • improved health, such as reduced ketosis, reduced acidosis or improved immune responseBloat control products are added to feed to prevent bloat, especially when animals are grazing on young grasses or legumes. Examples are Bloat Guard ® (poloxalene) and rumensin ® .Buffers are added to dairy cattle rations to mitigate against drastic pH changes in the rumen. High concentrate rations or sudden change from high roughage to high concentrate will result in excessive production of acid in the rumen. the resultant low pH of the rumen changes the microbial populations, favouring acid-producing bacteria. this leads to rumen upsets and reduced fibre digestion, which can be mitigated by buffers through stabilizing the rumen pH. Examples are sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), sodium sesquicarbonate and magnesium oxide.probiotics are substances that contain desirable gastrointestinal microbial cultures and/or ingredients that enhance the growth of desirable gastrointestinal microbes, for example, yea-sac ® , effective microorganisms and Diamond v-Xp ® .ionophores are feed additives that change the metabolism within the rumen by altering the rumen microflora to favour propionic acid production. they are effective in altering the composition of rumen microflora by favouring some types resulting in increased propionic acid production and decreasing production of acetic acid, methane and carbon dioxide. this improves efficiency of feed utilization by reducing gases thus lowering pollution by dairy cattle. Examples are Bovatec ® (lasolacid) and rumensin ® (monensin).total mixed ration exemplifies a complete meal. it is defined as a mixture of all diet ingredients formulated to a specific nutrient requirement, mixed thoroughly and fed ad libitum to the cow.concentrate mix is formulated to supplement a basal diet and thus it is not a balanced feed (see table 5.4). animals supplemented include those grazing or fed on a basal diet of roughage. the primary concern in rearing the newborn calf is to ensure it remains healthy. feeding management addresses nutrient requirements and in the initial stages should be primarily directed at encouraging rumen development.calf feeding is divided into four phases, depending on the development stage of the digestive system.When the calf is born, the rumen is not functional and forms only a small proportion of the stomach. as such the calf cannot digest complex fibrous feeds. the calf is thus fed on liquid feeds and low-fibre solid feeds until the rumen develops. as these feeds are mostly milk or milk by-products, which are expensive, early rumen development to allow feeding of cheap feeds is desirable. Early development is stimulated by feeding solid feeds. concentrate feeding has been shown to stimulate development faster than fibrous feeds.the calf is born with low immunity (protection from pathogens found in the environment) and is therefore susceptible to infections. colostrum is the first milk extracted from the mammary gland of the cow after calving. colostrum is a source of antibodies that protect the calf from these pathogens. it is therefore imperative for calves to get this milk immediately after birth as the rate of absorption is highest within the first 3 days.During the pre-ruminant phase, the calf rumen is still not functional and the calf can only take in liquids. the calf cannot digest complex carbohydrates or complex protein and thus only milk or milk by-products should be fed. milk replacers should contain simple proteins. rumen development starts towards end of this phase.rumen development continues. in addition to liquids, the calf should be encouraged to consume dry feeds, especially concentrates, as they are known to accelerate rumen development.to avoid calves consuming parasite eggs or larvae that are normally shed through the faeces of adult animals onto pastures.common roughages offered to calves include sweet potato vines and freshly harvested, wilted lucerne.calves should be offered fresh water in addition to milk. lack of drinking water slows down the fermentation process of the starter in the developing rumen, which in turn slows down development of the rumen lining and it takes longer before calves can be safely weaned.it is estimated that efficient conversion of feed into body mass growth requires about 4 kg of water for each kilogram of dry feed calves eat. lack of water thus lowers feed conversion. age and stage of development determine how much water calves require:• from 1 to 6 days of age, calves may drink large quantities of water when it is first presented. this novelty water consumption pattern rarely persists more than a day or two as long as water is offered ad libitum.• calves less than 3 weeks old do not need a lot of water but a steady supply of clean, fresh water is recommended.Between 3 weeks and weaning, calves' water consumption usually increases and water should be offered ad libitum.the natural way for a calf to feed is to suckle the dam after she is milked, the farmer having made sure that the dam is not milked dry. this is the most hygienic way as the calf gets milk direct from mother, clean and at body temperature.one milking cow may be assigned a number of calves to suckle, depending on the level of milk production. this is practical only on farms with several cows lactating at the same time.a rubber nipple is fixed on a milk bottle and the calf is trained on how to suckle. the alternative is to put milk into a bucket and insert a flexible plastic hose pipe with one end attached to a nipple.the most commonly used method is bucket feeding. the calf is trained to drink milk placed in a bucket (place your finger in the milk and as calf suckles your finger it imbibes milk). stainless steel buckets, where available, should be used for hygienic reasons as plastic buckets are difficult to clean. at all times, feed milk at body temperature. this is especially important during the cold season.sick calves should always be fed last to minimize cross-infection.a calf's health can be affected by disorders resulting from improper feeding. Diligent feeding management is therefore essential to ensure calf health is maintained. common problems associated with feeding are diarrhoea and pneumonia.scours may be caused by nutritional disorders, viruses or bacteria. Digestive upsets leading to scours are a major cause of mortality in young calves.the problem can however be minimized by• ensuring calves receive adequate colostrum within 6 hours of birth and therefore acquire some natural immunity • feeding the correct amount of milk • recognizing, segregating and treating scouring calves early • maintaining hygiene and cleanliness of feeding utensils and the environment • not rearing calves continually in pens, dirty yards or small paddocks that become heavily contaminated; paddock rotation will help prevent disease • separating sick animals to avoid cross-infection closely observing calves at feeding to identify scouring animals as soon as possible for remedial treatment will prevent dehydration and secondary disease leading to chronic illness and mortality. incidents of scours can be treated simply by using electrolyte replacers fed several times per day to prevent dehydration. reduce or omit milk for one or two feeds but provide fresh water, concentrates and forage. Do not use antibiotics to treat scours resulting from overfeeding or digestive upsets.Blood scours (mostly caused by coccidia) require veterinary treatment and management changes to improve hygiene.one cause of pneumonia in young calves is fluid going to the lungs via the windpipe (trachea). the first feeding of colostrum can cause problems if the feeding rate is faster than the swallowing rate. if colostrum is bottle fed it is important to use a nipple that matches the calf's ability to swallow. Greedy calves swallow large quantities of milk from the bucket, some of which may end up in the windpipe, leading to pneumonia.the calf feeding program shown in table 6.1 should result in a growth rate of approximately 400-500 g/day. the liquid feed (milk) should be fed twice daily and more frequently for sick or weak calves. calves should be given roughage throughout.Weaning is the withdrawal of milk or milk replacer while the calf becomes fully dependent on other feeds. traditionally, dairy calves are weaned based on age, 12 weeks being the most common. Early weaning is possible if more milk is fed and calves are introduced to pre-starter and starter early in life.to minimize stress, wean gradually. reduce the milk feeding from twice a day to once a day then to once every other day to allow the calf's digestive system to adjust to the new diet.criteria that have been used to determine weaning time include when the calf attains twice its birth weight, when the calf can consume 1.5% of its body weight of dry feed and the age of the calf.of the calves born, about 50% will be bull calves, which consume milk and compete with heifers. farms dispose of the bull calves in different ways, depending on the economics and type of production. these include• selling after birth • slaughtering after birth • rearing as beef steers • rearing as possible future siresBase the decision to keep or dispose of bull calves mainly on the cost of rearing themprice of milk vs disposal price-and the genetic value for future sires.after weaning, a female calf becomes a heifer, which will eventually replace the culled animals, increase the herd size or be sold to generate income. after weaning, heifers should be grouped according to size in small, uniform groups that have adequate access to forage and concentrate. Balance the ration and consider feeding a total mixed ration. Heifers should be closely observed and fed correctly to avoid the growth slump that can occur after milk is withdrawn.Heifers should achieve a growth rate of 500-700 g/day. this ensures that they will come on heat at the right time, as puberty is related to size rather than age. reduce the interval between weaning and first calving to increase the number of calvings per lifetime (more lactations) and lead to faster genetic improvement. achieving first calving at 27 or fewer months of age is possible only if the growth rate is high.on most farms, heifers are normally the most neglected group in terms of feeding, resulting in delayed first calving. When heifers of different ages are fed as a group, aggressiveness varies such that when concentrate is fed to the group, some get little. Heifers should thus be reared in groups of similar age or size-weaners, yearlings, bulling heifers (those that are ready for breeding) and in-calf heifers.Heifers can be reared on good-quality pasture as their nutrient requirements are low (growth and maintenance). supplementation with concentrate should be at 1% of body weight with 12-14% crude protein for heifers on legume forage and 15-16% crude protein on grass forage.protein is extremely important in the diet of growing heifers to ensure adequate frame size, wither height and growth. avoid short heifers by balancing the ration and including enough crude protein.While designing heifer feeding programs, it is important to consider the following:• puberty, which is related to calving age, is also related to size (a feeding indicator) rather than the age of the heifer. the consequences of poor feeding are therefore manifested in delayed first calving and commencement of milk production.• feeding heifers too much energy leads to fat infiltrating the mammary glands, inhibiting development of secretory tissue, thus reducing milk yield.• Underfeeding results in small-bodied heifers, which experience difficulty during calving (dystocia).• the size of the animal is related to milk yield. With twins of the same genetic makeup, every kilogram advantage in weight one has over the other results in extra milk.• overfeeding heifers on feed high in energy but low in protein results in short, fat heifers; high protein and low energy feed results in tall, thin heifers.Underfed, hence slow-growing heifers may reach puberty and ovulate but signs of heat may be masked (silent heat), while those in good condition will show signs of heat and have higher conception rates. over-conditioned or fat heifers have been reported to require more services per conception than heifers of normal size and weight.to monitor the performance of heifers, measure the body weight and the height at withers and plot on a chart. Growth of the heifer should be such that any increase in weight should be accompanied by a proportionate change in height.standard charts have been developed for different breeds with the expected weight and height at different ages for different breeds. Where weighing facilities are unavailable, the weight may be estimated based on the heart girth in centimetres. measure the heart girth using a tape measure and use a weight conversion table (see appendix 3) to get an estimate of the weight based on the heart girth. the height can be measured by a graduated piece of timber as shown in figure 7.1.  fat, over-conditioned heifers, at the same weight as leaner heifers, are normally younger with less skeletal growth. the pelvic opening is therefore narrow. Due to overfeeding, the calf is normally bigger, leading to dystocia. Underfed heifers will also require assistance and have a higher death rate at calving than normal-sized heifers. steaming up refers to providing extra concentrate to a pregnant heifer in the last 4 weeks of pregnancy. this extra concentrate should be fed in the milking parlour if possible, to accustom the heifer to the parlour. this feeding is also intended to allow the rumen bacteria to get accustomed to high levels of concentrate. it provides extra nutrients for the animal and the growing foetus. steaming up also allows the heifer to put on extra weight (reserve energy) to promote maximum milk production from the very beginning of the lactation. CHAPTER 8: FEEDING THE DAIRY COW8.1.1 Aim of feeding the dairy cow maximizing milk yield by meeting the cow's nutrient requirements is the aim of a feeding program. the nutrient requirements will largely depend on the amount of milk produced, which in turn depends on the stage of lactation-the period from calving. other factors affecting nutrient requirements are pregnancy and maintenance. the amount required for maintenance is largely affected by the cow's weight, environmental temperature and activity.milk production follows a curve (lactation curve), hence the amount of nutrients required will depend on the point on the curve. During the dry period, the aim should be to feed a diet that provides for the fast-growing foetus, deposition of an energy reserve and regeneration of the mammary gland.Quantitatively, energy is the most important nutrient considered during the formulation of dairy cow rations. Energy requirements of a lactating cow depend on• maintenance-keeping the cow alive-which depends on body size (bigger cows require more), activity (walking long distances to graze increases the requirement) and environmental temperature (too cold or too hot increases the requirement)• amount of milk the cow produces• the energy content of milk, indicated by butter fat content-the higher the fat content, the more energy required• reproductive condition-pregnant cows require more energy to cater for the growth of the calf Protein like energy, the protein requirement is dependent on milk yield, maintenance (replaces the amounts lost in urine, faeces and skin), growth and pregnancy. protein is not stored in the body and any excess is removed.protein is an expensive component and overfeeding should be avoided to minimize the cost. in addition, extra energy, which would otherwise be used for milk production, is used to remove the extra protein (nitrogen) from the body in form of urea in the urine.at the same time, protein deficiency leads to reduced growth and milk yield. see table 8.1 for recommended levels of dietary crude protein at different levels of milk yield. Dairy cattle require all minerals in their diet for optimal milk production, reproductive performance and health. although classical mineral deficiency symptoms are rare, in many cases under-and overfeeding of certain minerals does occur.Even small imbalances or deficiencies can develop into reproductive, health and milk production problems. as herd milk production increases, it will become more critical to balance and fine-tune the dairy cow's mineral and vitamin feeding program. Generally, the two sources of minerals include natural (organic) feeds (forages and grains) and inorganic mineral supplements to balance the minerals present in the forages and grains.the dairy cow, like all ruminants, depends on rumen microorganisms to synthesize the water-soluble vitamins and vitamin K. requirements for vitamins a, D and E must be satisfied from the diet.although water is not a nutrient as such, it is essential for life. Water can be obtained from feed, from drinking or from within the body processes. lactating cows need larger proportions of water relative to body weight than do most livestock species since 87% of milk is water. the amount required depends mainly on milk yield, moisture content of feed, amount of feed consumed and the environmental temperature.cows will drink more water if it is available at all times and when warm water is offered on cold days. Dairy cows suffer from a limited intake of water more quickly and severely than from a deficiency of any dietary nutrient. lack of water has a big effect on feed intake, especially if the feed is low in moisture. the lactation period is divided into four phases based on the cow's physiological cycle and nutrient requirements. feeding should be based on these phases.Phase 1: 1-70 days the first phase lasts from calving to peak milk production, which occurs at about 70 days. During this phase of lactation, milk production increases rapidly such that the voluntary feed intake cannot meet the energy demand. this results in an energy deficit leading to use of body reserves and to weight loss (negative energy).the health status and feeding of the cow during this phase are critical to its entire lactation performance. the cow should be fed so as to achieve peak production. if it does not peak, feeding later in the lactation period will not result in any appreciable increase in lactation yield.in an attempt to maximize milk production while maintaining good health, the tendency is to feed high levels of concentrates in this phase. However, if excessive concentrates are added too rapidly to the rations of non-accustomed cows, they may lead to digestive disturbances (e.g. rumen acidosis, loss of appetite, reduced milk production and low milk fat content). it is therefore recommended that concentrates be limited to 50-60% of diet dry matter, the rest being forage to ensure rumination (proper function of the rumen).During this phase, buffers can be helpful for cows fed high levels of concentrates.for very high-yielding cows, the necessary energy increase cannot be achieved through cereal-based rations-excess leads to digestive problems. other ingredients with higher energy density (e.g. fat) can be used. However, not more than 7% should be included as high fat reduces fibre digestibility by affecting cellulolytic bacteria. By-pass fat (rumen-protected fat) is available commercially.During this phase, a high-protein diet is important since the body cannot mobilize all the needed protein from itself, and microbial protein, which is synthesized in the rumen by microbes, can only partially meet requirements. a protein content of 18% crude protein is recommended in rations for high-yielding cows.animals that are well fed during this phase come on heat and achieve a 365-day calving interval-a calf every year.it is therefore important to ensure that the cow receives adequate nutrients when they are required and not later.Phase 2: 71-150 days the second phase lasts from peak lactation to mid-lactation. the volun tary dry matter intake is adequate to support milk production and either maintain or slightly increase body weight. the aim should be to maintain peak milk production for as long as possible with milk yield declining at the rate of 8-10% per month.the forage quality should be high. a 15-18% whole ration crude protein content is recommended. concentrates high in digestible fibre (e.g. wheat or maize bran rather than starch) can be used as an energy source.Phase 3: 151-305 days the third phase lasts from mid-to end-lactation, during which the decline in milk production continues. the voluntary feed intake meets energy requirements for milk production and body weight increase. the increase is because body reserves are being replenished, and towards the end of lactation, it is because of increased growth of the foetus. it is more efficient to replenish body weight during late lactation than during the dry period. animals can be fed on lower-quality roughage and more limited amounts of concentrate than during the earlier two phases.Phase 4: Dry period (306-365 days) this phase lasts from the time cow is dried to the start of the next lactation. the cow continues to gain weight primarily due to the weight of the foetus. proper feeding of the cow during this stage will help realize the cow's potential during the next lactation and minimize health problems at calving time (e.g. ketosis, milk fever and dehydration, dystocia).to minimize stress on the drying cow, consider the following options.• reduce feed intake to maintenance level (withdraw concentrates).• if the cow is a low yielder, just stop milking. pressure builds up in the udder and cuts off milk production.• if the cow is a high yielder, practise intermittent milking, skipping some milking times (milk only in mornings) so as to reduce milk synthesis caused by pressure building up in the udder.• temporarily withdraw water or reduce the amount for very high yielders to reduce milk synthesis.• after milking is stopped, treat (infuse) all the quarters with long-acting antibiotics to prevent mastitis from developing.the aims of drying a cow are to• build up body reserves in time for the next lactation period-if a cow is not dried in time, milk production will be reduced during the next lactation period.• allow the cow to regenerate alveolar tissue (milk-synthesizing tissue) that might have degenerated during the lactation period.• save nutrients for the fast-growing foetus. During the last phase of pregnancy, the calf grows rapidly and the cow's drying saves nutrients for the calf's growth.at the time of drying, the cow should be fed a ration that caters for maintenance and pregnancy, but 2 weeks before calving the cow should be fed on high-level concentrates in preparation for the next lactation. this extra concentrate (steaming) enables the cow to store reserves to be used in early lactation.to avoid over-conditioning, cows should not be fed large amounts of concentrate. the aim is to achieve a body condition score of 3.5-4.0 (see table 8.2). if the diet is rich in energy, limit the intake of concentrates. feeding bulky roughages can help increase rumen size to accommodate more feed at parturition (birth).Before calving, feed concentrate progressively to adapt the rumen microbial population. this will minimize digestive disturbances in early lactation when the diet changes to high concentrate.the amount of calcium fed during the dry period should be restricted to minimize incidents of milk fever in early lactation. a ration providing 15 g of calcium per day for the last 10 days of the dry period or an intake of 30-40 g/day over the whole dry period should reduce the number of incidents.this extra concentrate (steaming) enables the cow to store reserves to be used in early lactation. During this phase the cow may be fed good-quality forage or poor-quality supplemented with concentrate to provide 12% crude protein.During the 3 weeks immediately before and after calving, the cow should be given high-energy, highly palatable and digestible feed (e.g. commercial dairy meal and maize germ) or starchy feeds and molasses (this is also referred to as close-up feeding). this is to prepare the cow to consume large amounts of feed (for high milk production), accustom the rumen bacteria to high concentrate levels and prevent nutritional disorders (e.g. milk fever and ketosis) that are common in early lactation without over-fattening the cow.this period is important because there is rapid growth of the unborn calf, regeneration of the mammary tissue and colostrum production.Dairy cattle can be fed on forage or on pasture with no supplementation and milk production will depend on the quality and quantity of the pasture. However, it is difficult to realize the full genetic potential of a cow fed in this manner.on napier grass only, the expected milk production is 7 kg/day; it is 9-12 kg/day when the cow is fed on a napier-legume (desmodium) mixture. on grass alone (e.g. rhodes grass or nandi setaria), an average milk yield of 5-7 kg/day has been obtained and 7-10 kg/day on a grass-legume mixture. oats harvested at milk stage and fed to a dairy animal can enable it to produce up to 12 kg/day.lactating cows may be challenged with increasing amounts of concentrate until there is no corresponding increase in milk production. this method of feeding is recommended only if the extra milk produced offsets the added cost of the concentrate.challenge feeding should take place in the early lactation, when there is a risk of underfeeding. feed each cow the maximum amount of concentrates that it can consume, without reducing its roughage intake. continue this until the cow reaches peak milk production, 4 to 10 weeks after calving. By using this strategy, each cow is given the possibility to show its production potential.Body conditioning can assess the appropriateness of a feeding regime for lactating dairy cows. Dairy cattle deposit their energy reserves around the pelvic area and by scoring the amount of deposit using a standard score, their condition can be assessed. condition scores are normally on a scale of 1-5 with 1 being too thin and 5 too fat. animals prior to calving should be in good condition (3.75-4). table 8.2 shows body-conditioning scores and indications.overweight cows (over-conditioned) have been shown to be more susceptible to metabolic problems (ketosis) and to both infectious (mastitis) and non-infectious (retained placenta and lameness) health problems. they are also more likely to have difficulties at calving. Under-conditioning can lower milk production as there are insufficient energy and protein reserves for mobilization in early lactation.important areas assessed when scoring are short ribs, thurl, tail head, hook and pin bones (figure 8.2). an ideal cow has a body condition score of about 3.5, but the system is designed to have cows at certain stages of lactation at certain body conditions.after calving, cows should lose less than one point before they begin to gain weight; those losing more than one point are more vulnerable to reproductive problems.  from peak milk production to dry-off, cows should gain back the body condition that was lost before they reached the peak. ideally, the body condition score of a cow should be taken whenever it is handled. at the very minimum, scores should be taken at freshening, breeding and dry-off. if evaluation indicates over-or under-conditioning, the feeding strategy for an individu al cow or group has to be evaluated. feed rations may have to be recalculated and corrected to satisfy the cow's demand.Diets providing less than 15 g of calcium per day per cow and fed for at least 10 days before calving will reduce the incidence of milk fever.Ketosis is a disorder that occurs when energy intake fails to meet the high glucose requirement necessary for maintenance and for producing milk lactose. Ketosis affects high-producing cows during the first 6-8 weeks of lactation when cows are in negative energy balance. the excessive ketone bodies in the bloodstream come from the breakdown of fat when the animal is forced to draw on its bodily reserves for energy.cows of any age may be affected but the disease appears more common in later lactations, peaking at about the fourth lactation. over-conditioning at calving has been associated with increased incidence of ketosis.many cases of ketosis are subclinical. the cow's performance and health are compromised but there are no obvious clinical signs. some of the signs include lack of appetite (refusal to eat even concentrates) and a sudden drop in milk output.the urine, breath and milk carry a sweet smell of acetone. cows have raised blood ketone levels and may excrete ketones in urine and milk. Body condition is gradually lost over several days or even weeks.Ketosis causes financial loss through lost production and treatment. it may be prevented by management strategies that maintain a good appetite and supply adequate feed to meet this appetite during the late dry period and immediately after calving.these strategies include• feeding transition rations to close-up cows• ensuring cows are in body condition of 4.0 or less before calving• ensuring that any health problems that might cause reduced feed intake are treated as early as possibleacidosis is a syndrome related to a fermentative disorder of the rumen resulting in overproduction of acid, which lowers rumen pH below pH 5.5. the problem is related to feeding management, where the ration has high levels of digestible carbohydrates and low effective fibre.acidosis may be caused by• diets high in readily fermentable carbohydrates and low in roughage • fast switch from high forage to high concentrate • excessive particle size reduction by feeding finely chopped forageWatery milk: acetate, one of the end products of fibre digestion, is a precursor of milk fat synthesis. a diet that is low in fibre will lead to low levels of acetate in milk and thus low levels of milk fat. as a result, the milk appears watery.• Diarrhoea-accumulation of acid causes an influx of water from the tissues into the gut resulting in diarrhoea. faeces are foamy with gas bubbles and have mucin or fibrin casts.• sore hooves (laminitis)-Endotoxins resulting from high acid production in the rumen also affect blood capillaries in the hoof, causing hooves to constrict, resulting in laminitis.• Ulcers, liver abscesses-High levels of acid in the rumen also cause ulcers, allowing bacteria to infiltrate the blood and causing liver abscesses, which are seen at post-mortem.• prevention-Good management practices are needed to prevent predisposing situations from occurring. the root problem must be found and corrected.• Buffers can also be used to prevent a drop in rumen pH when high-concentrate diets are fed. Ensuring the presence of effective fibre in the diet promotes production of saliva, which is a buffer.Bloat is the abnormal accumulation of gas in the rumen. there are three categories:• frothy bloat that occurs when diets lead to formation of a stable froth or foam in the rumen • free gas bloat caused by diets that lead to excessive gas production • free gas bloat caused by failure to belch rumen gases, leading to accumulation of gas (e.g. oesophageal obstruction)Bloat occurs when gases cannot escape but continue to build up causing severe distension of the abdomen, compression of the heart and lungs, and eventually death.Bloat is a risk when animals are grazing young lush pasture, particularly if the pasture has a high legume content (e.g. clover or lucerne). ruminant animals produce large volumes of gas during the normal process of digestion, which either is belched or passes through the gastrointestinal tract. if anything interferes with the gas escape from the rumen, bloat occurs.natural foaming agents in legumes and some rapidly growing grasses cause a stable foam to form in the rumen. Gas is trapped in small bubbles in this foam and the animal cannot belch it up. pressure builds up in the rumen causing obvious swelling on the left side of the body.• the animal stops grazing and is reluctant to walk.• the left side of the abdomen is distended.• the animal strains to urinate and defecate.• rapid breathing-the mouth may be open with the tongue protruding.• the animal staggers.Pasture management: legumes should be introduced into the diet gradually over several days. avoid cows gorging on new pastures by feeding them on other feeds before letting them out to graze. silage, hay or mature pasture can be used to reduce the cow's appetite.initially, cows should be allowed access to the pasture only for short periods (an hour or so) and monitored closely during grazing and immediately after removal. cutting and wilting the pasture for 2-3 hours before feeding reduces the risk of bloat.Preventive medication: Drench with detergents and anti-foaming agents before letting animals graze.insert a stomach tube through the oesophagus to release the gas. in an emergency on the farm, puncture the rumen on the left side of the animal with a sharp knife. puncturing the rumen with the standard trocar and cannula is the quickest way to release the gas that cannot be expelled with a stomach tube.to formulate rations, knowledge of nutrients, feedstuffs (ingredients) and the animal to be fed is required. the ration formulated must be nutritionally adequate and be consumed in sufficient amounts to provide for the level of production desired at a reasonable cost.a ration is balanced when all the nutrients an animal requires are present in the feed the animal consumes during a 24-hour period. When an animal consumes nutrients in excess or in insufficient amounts, the ration is imbalanced. some imbalances have drastic consequences and if not corrected may lead to the death of the animal (e.g. milk fever due to calcium imbalance in dairy cows). However, most imbalances are difficult to identify as they result in some degree of loss of production, which causes animals not to realize their genetic potential.ration formulation is the recipe, that is, the list and amounts of feed ingredients to be included in a ration. Before formulating a ration, the following information is needed.Nutrients required obtain information on nutrients from feed requirement tables developed by various bodies.prepare an inventory of all available feedstuffs. for home-made rations, use materials available at home as much as possible; commercial feeds may use a wider range.the nutrient composition of each feedstuff should be known. analysis of the ingredients is most desirable but if not possible, obtain estimates from textbooks. Book values, however, can at times be misleading, especially for by-products. also consider the palatability of the ingredient and any limitations such as toxicity.always consider the cost of the ingredients. least-cost formulations should be made to obtain the cheapest ration.Type of ration ration type may be complete (total mixed ration), concentrate mix or a nutrient supplement of protein, vitamin or mineral.rations should be formulated to ensure that the animal consumes the desired amount of nutrients in a day. for example, if a heifer requires 500 g of crude protein per day and consumes 5 kg of feed, the crude protein content should be 10%. if it consumes 4 kg per day the crude protein content should be 12.5%.the simplest formulation is when two ingredients are being mixed to balance one nutrient. Using a pearson's square method allows blending of two feedstuffs or two mixtures. figure 8.3 illustrates how to make a ration with 18% crude protein using cottonseed cake (40% crude protein) and maize (10% crude protein). • subtract the lesser value from the larger diagonally. (Hence from the figure: 40 minus 18 = 22 and 18 minus 10 = 8.)• one ingredient must have a higher nutrient content than the desired and the other must have a lower value.• no ration can be formulated with a higher nutrient content than the highest of the ingredients or vice versa. (you cannot make a ration of 15% crude protein if both ingredients are higher than 15% or lower than 15%.)• therefore: if 8 parts of cottonseed cake are mixed with 22 parts of maize, the mixture will have 18% crude protein.if expressed as percentage (100 kg feed) then 8/30 x 100 = 26.7% cottonseed cake 22/30 x 100 = 73.3% maizethe cottonseed cake content in the ration is 26.7%, crude protein 40%; therefore it contributes 26.7 x 40/100 = 10.7. the maize contributes 73.3% of the mixture, crude protein 10%; therefore it contributes 73.3 x 10/100 = 7.3.feeding high-yielding dairy cows is a challenge to both farmers and nutritionists. profit margins in the dairy enterprise vary and are dependent on milk prices and feed cost. feed represents the largest input cost to produce milk (estimated to be 35-50% depending on the production system).the cheapest way to produce milk is by using farm-grown forages. However, forages are bulky and low in nutrient content and cannot support optimal milk production.csc -cottonseed cake cp -crude protein feed costs for a dairy herd can be budgeted to determine ingredients to be purchased or grown on farm. following is an example of how to budget for feed requirements: consider the size of the cow, for example 450 kg. the dry matter requirement is estimated at 3% of the body weight (3/100 x 450 = 13.5 kg).Dry matter requirement per year is 13.5 x 365 = 4928 kg.to obtain 4928 kg dry matter from fresh young napier grass (contains 15 kg dry matter per 100 kg fresh napier grass) will require 32,850 kg of fresh material. this amount of napier grass can be harvested from about 0.65 ha of land (napier yield is estimated at 8000 kg dry matter/ha per year under smallholder farmer conditions).assume a farmer has 0.4 ha under napier grass, dry matter production per year = 3200 kg giving a deficit of 1728 kg dry matter.if the deficit is to be covered using a commercial concentrate, the farmer will have to buy 1919 kg of concentrate (concentrate 90 kg dry matter per 100 kg fresh weight).if the cost of concentrate is KEs 21 (UsD 0.25) per kg, the farmer will spend approximately KEs 40,800 (UsD 480) per year on it.When purchasing feeds off farm, the cost comparison between feedstuffs should be based on nutrients purchased rather than weight of the feedstuff. thus the nutrient and dry matter contents of the material to be purchased should be known (table 8.3). as already mentioned, feed costs and farm gate price of milk determine the profitability of a dairy enterprise. an enterprise may opt to produce the maximum amount of milk irrespective of the profit margin. this is termed maximum production. if the milk price is high, this method may coincide with maximum profit.on the other hand, an enterprise using home-grown forage may or may not produce the maximum amount of milk but makes a profit. this happens when the cost of concentrate is too high. farm gate price of milk also depends on location, with peri-urban farmers getting better prices.a true maximum profit ration program includes a least-cost function, incorporates milk price information, and uses maximum profit (income over feed cost) as one of the constraints or specifications on which to formulate. to maximize profit the computer selects feeds and a milk production level to obtain a maximum profit; but for least-cost or balanced rations the computer selects only feeds to meet the nutrient requirements specified for a given level of milk production.total mixed ration is a blend of all of the constituents of a ration fed to a confined animal, mixed to prevent separation to a specific nutrient concentration and fed at free will to the cow. in the total mixed ration feeding system, the concentrates and roughage are mixed either by hand, in small-scale operations, or in a mixer wagon. Where a mixer wagon is used, the mix is often dispensed to the cow directly from the wagon.Before a total mixed ration is formulated, the following information is needed:• available feedstuffs • moisture and nutrient content of feedstuffs • cost • attributes of feed (e.g. maximum allowed in feed mix, presence of undesirable substances) • degree of processing required before mixing cow to be fed:• body weight (to allow estimation of maintenance requirements and voluntary dry matter intake) • expected milk yield Total mixed ration feeding a total mixed ration can be fed to cows using either the same ration to the whole herd (no grouping) or different rations to different groups. in a non-grouping system one mix is usually formulated to suit the high-yielding cows, the risk being overweight cows.Grouping the cows improves the precision of the feeding. the cows can be grouped according to many criteria: yield, stage of lactation, first-calf heifers etc. the main drawback of grouping is the time spent moving the cows from one group to another as production changes. these group changes can result in reduced milk yield due to social adjustment. in addition, several mixes have to be prepared and dispensed to suit each group. the total mixed ration feeding regime has several advantages over feeding ingredients separately:• it is possible to use a wide range of feedstuffs.• total mixed ration allows greater accuracy in ration formulation.• cows are able to consume large amounts of feed, especially in early lactation when high intake is helpful.• total mixed ration allows energy and protein to be used more efficiently by microorganisms in the rumen. this also results in good rumen health with few metabolic disturbances.• By mixing roughage and concentrates and feeding the mix at free will, the total nutrient intake for a group of cows can be regulated by the degree of concentration of nutrient in the feed.• total mixed ration allows use of ingredients that singly are not very palatable.the main disadvantage of total mixed ration is the high initial investment in equipment.the partly mixed ration regime combines total mixed ration and individual feeding of concentrates. roughage is mixed with some of the concentrates manually or with a mixer. the concentrate level in the mix is adjusted to fit the lower-yielding cows.the high-yielding cows are fed extra concentrates in the parlour. the pmr system makes possible combining the advantages of a group total mixed ration with individual feeding.locally available concentrates for feeding dairy cows are of several types. the most common is the commercial dairy concentrate (referred to locally as Dairy meal ® ). concentrates can also be home made using locally available ingredients with the help of a nutritionist.for home-made concentrates, the general rule is energy sources should form 70%, protein sources 29% and minerals/vitamins 1%.the maximum amount of milk that can be produced without concentrate supplementation will depend on the quality of the pasture or forage, which has been reported to vary from 7 to 20 kg milk per day.Guidelines on the amount of concentrate that should be fed to a cow have been suggested. the only accurate one is as calculated by a nutritionist and based on the cow's nutrient requirements. Examples in Box 8.1 show some of these guidelines. the disease is caused by a fungus, Ustilago kameruniensis. affected napier grass flowers early and the head is characterized by a loose black soot-like powder, which is the disease-causing spores.affected napier grass changes in appearance, the leaves become short and narrow, the internodes short, and the plant appears seriously dwarfed. in a stool, it starts with a few stems that when pulled, uproot easily and appear like a parasitic plant. the roots also appear shortened and dwarfed.the disease is spread by• planting diseased napier grass • transporting disease-causing spores to clean napier grass by wind or water or through farm tools • manure from cattle fed on diseased napier grass (with the spores) in Kenya, the occurrence of disease has been reported in • central Kenya in the districts of Kiambu, Kirinyaga, maragua, murang'a, nyeri, and thika • eastern Kenya; meru central and meru south • the rift valley: londiani and molo• Uproot the diseased stems or stools and burn; do not feed to cows.• apply enough farmyard manure on the napier grass to increase the yield, although it does not eradicate the disease.• avoid applying manure from cows fed on diseased napier grass.• plant disease-resistant napier grass cultivars such as Kakamega 1 or Kakamega 2, which are available from the Kenya agricultural research institute.napier grass stunting disease is caused by tiny bacterium-like organisms called Phytoplasma. the affected napier grass appears pale yellow-green, leaf size is seriously dwarfed and internodes are shortened. there is normally a proliferation of tillers from the affected stool. the affected and stunted clumps will later die.the disease is spread by planting diseased stems and splits and by leafhoppers and planthoppers. the diseased grass is safe for livestock to eat and the disease cannot be spread through manure.Occurrence of disease • inspect napier grass fields regularly, remove diseased stools and burn them.• Use clean planting material from clean areas.• avoid harvesting the same area frequently before the grass is at the recommended height, as early cutting exposes the stools to sap-sucking planthoppers that transmit the disease.• in areas that are seriously affected, use alternative fodders such as giant panicum, Guatemala grass and fodder sorghum.no napier grass cultivars presently known resist the disease.commercial concentrates are key to increased milk production as most pastures and forages are of low quality and cannot meet the nutrient demand of high-yielding cows.the main limitations in using these concentrates are affordability and quality. the farm gate price of milk, which is dictated by the processors, also determines affordability.price is dictated by the availability of raw materials, which in some cases are also used for other purposes, especially human food. When there is competition for the use of raw materials as human food, the price increases. currently, grain-surplus countries are using grains to produce biofuels, leading to an increase in world prices of cereals and cereal by-products.the quality of these commercial concentrates is also of major concern to the dairy farmer. though standards exist in different countries to check on quality they are not always enforced. currently, several laboratories can analyse these concentrates and advise the farmer accordingly.farmers should also note that concentrates are supplements and their effectiveness depends on the quality of the basal ration. if the basal ration is very poor, high levels of concentrates will be required to achieve the desired level of production.several factors can affect both milk quality and flavour. off-flavours in milk have been attributed to feed-related causes (80% of cases), oxidation (5%), rancidity (5%), chemical residues (3%), poor hygiene (3%) and other causes (4%). some feed-related flavours are not objectionable, while others are usually offensive. to reduce feed off-flavours in milk, eliminate mouldy feeds and ensure that feeds likely to impart off-flavours are fed either soon after milking or at least 4 to 5 hours before the next milking time. objectionable flavours from some feeds pass from the rumen and digestive tract, via blood, into the udder and milk. controlling intake of feeds that impart offflavours is not always easy, and the amount of time between feeding and milking varies.Oxidized flavour is characterized by a metallic or cardboard-carton taste and can be prevented by using stainless steel or glass equipment. plastic and rubber are acceptable but are hard to keep clean. prolonged exposure of milk to light may also result in oxidation.Rancidity is characterized by a bitter, soap-like taste. maintaining the milk at cool temperature helps reduce the problem. High levels of bacteria in milk, as from cows with mastitis, can aggravate the problem.Chemical flavours: milk may acquire a medicinal, sometimes minty, taste from disinfectants and cleaning agents used in disinfecting the milking equipment and milking area. care should be taken to use the correct amount of disinfectant for the appropriate length of time. also, care must be taken to properly clean and rinse equipment and to avoid the chemical agent coming in contact with milking equipment during milking.General hygiene in the milking area can affect the flavour and quality of the milk. contamination of milk, hence objectionable flavour, can occur through contact with the udder and from milking equipment. also, tests have shown that flavours can be transmitted from the environment to the udder within 15 minutes, by way of the cow's respiratory tract.another common cause of undesirable milk flavour is mastitis. this is mainly from the effect mastitis has on increasing the salt and decreasing the sugar content of milk. sometimes a flat or watery taste occurs, or both salty and watery tastes occur at the same time.Appendix ","tokenCount":"17952"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"5dde1478dfb92788b47b81e1c2c57bb6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f537e872-ac39-474f-98ed-aa4f4ddca12e/retrieve","id":"1939875851"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"5d2f628f-6dad-469b-b865-c786e9b45def","pagecount":"12","content":" Improvements in animal feeding and sustainable intensification are the most promising strategies for mitigating these impacts. The inclusion of forage legumes in cattle production systems has the potential to increase yield, efficiency and nutritional value of the forage, with less environmental impact. But adoption and use by the producers remain limited due to:  T2) Cayman-L. diversifolia association in a proportion of 70:30% (2,000 Leucaena diversifolia plants/ha). • A discounted cash flow model for the estimation of financial profitability indicators was developed.• A quantitative risk analysis by running a Monte Carlo simulation was carried out.• Three pasture persistence scenarios and the following variables were randomly combined: Live weight gain per animal and year  Investment costs  Maintenance costs  Sales price per kg of live weight  Purchase price per kg of live weight.• Sensitivity and scenario analyses were carried out to identify those variables with the strongest effects on the profitability indicators. Scenarios were determined by considering three annual degradation rates that decrease the total forage supply and therefore the carrying capacity: for T1 at 1% (S1), 3% (S2) and 8% (S3), and for T2 at 1% (S4), 3% (S5), and 5% (S6), respectively. 1 Mean value of the VPN obtained in the simulation (5,000 iterations and confidence level of 95%); 2 SD: Standard deviation of the NPV with respect to the mean value; 3 CI: Minimum and maximum values in a 95% confidence interval; 4 Quotient between benefits and discounted costs; 5 Minimum area required for two basic Colombian salaries in hectares (1 CBS=US$279). • L. diversifolia has significant potential to increase animal productivity and profitability, under different scenarios of animal productivity and market conditions, which is conducive to the sustainable intensification of meat production in grazing systems.• The inclusion of L. diversifolia comes along with a reduction of the risk of economic loss and less variance to changes in critical variables.• This is key to encourage adoption, since farmers, being naturally rather risk adverse, will most likely favor technologies with a relatively lower variance.• The establishment of grass-legume associations should be accompanied by specific training and extension programs that overcome the lack of knowledge and experience in the use of tropical forage legumes.• This will reduce uncertainties associated with technology adoption and increase adoption rates.• The access to and structure of necessary financial resources (e.g. credits) needs to be improved in order to provide the required framework for technology adoption.","tokenCount":"404"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/0624576559.json b/data/part_1/0624576559.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..8ddec56b84504f4320cfecfdacbabc2fe5e2682f
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c36f4bbee03b1c9809ba174470bee462","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/e152197e-a369-4409-999a-2ced52daafe6/content","id":"-1339713012"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"40843bb4-721f-4249-8f99-4f996fbfb4bd","pagecount":"2","content":"Begin scouting your field soon after maize has emerged. Fall Armyworm prefers to feed at night. For this reason, scouting very early in the morning is best.Fall Armyworm is now found in South and South East Asia and requires careful management to avoid crop damage.By counting the number of maize plants with signs of damage, you can decide how to protect your crop. Fall Armyworm is a serious pest that can feed on over but prefers to eat maize.Newly hatched and young larvae are about between 1 mm long. They grow to up to 45 mm as adults. You will have more success in controlling Fall Armyworm when they are young.Egg masses are small and white colored.Older larvae bore diectly into maize cobs, but it is very hard to control them at this stage.Leaf damage from young Fall Armyworm looks like small windows or pinholes chewed into leaves.Keep looking at least every 10 days for signs of Fall Armyworm damage.Larvae also leave behind waste when they feed.  ","tokenCount":"167"}
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..0f0e27bc4ef7ecd19cec13d2d2863140d2f5bae8
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"44cfd6e278a75737973ced6a0f7201da","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/786ea8e2-86d0-49bf-9986-a0877a3c03d6/retrieve","id":"-1255580563"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c899901c-fb45-4810-8511-50ee66f74f08","pagecount":"38","content":"CCAFS has 12 Objectives in four Themes. Each Objective has a 10-year Outcome Target and a 3-year intermediate performance target. CCAFS has surpassed the 3-year targets for two of the Objectives, achieved the targets for seven Objectives and is behind target for three Objectives (Table 1). Most progress has been made in East Africa (EA), West Africa (WA) and South Asia (SA) -the regions established at the start of CCAFS; but there have been significant outcomes in the recently established region of Latin America (LAM), with less progress in South East Asia (SEA). 1    Progress has been made from field level with farmers, to work in policy arenas (Table 1). For example: in India over 50,000 farmers have been insured with new index-based products; in Senegal, weather forecasts using new approaches are reaching 3 million farmers, with attention to reaching both male and female farmers; many national meteorological services (NMS) are shifting practices as a result of CCAFS R&D; nearly 15,000 women village leaders were trained in climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in Bihar and Nepal in 2013. Engagement in policy processes has influenced the national adaptation strategies in numerous countries. For example: Nicaragua's new national adaptation strategy has resulted in major investments for coffee and cocoa as a direct result of CCAFS research; agricultural ministers endorsed a major strategy for plant genetic resources in Mesoamerica. CCAFS-generated downscaled climate data was downloaded more than 100,000 times in 2013, including by key development partners. CCAFS research is helping set breeding strategies for beans, maize, rice, cassava and potatoes. The achievements are generally a result of partnerships -co-design, coproduction and co-dissemination with major development agencies, private companies (e.g. insurance), farmer organisations, communication services (e.g. rural radio) and other CRPs.In 2013 CCAFS also began phase 2 planning. Five Intermediate Development Outcomes (IDOs) are proposed. The IDOs will only be incorporated into programming in 2015, but in 2014 a performancebased management trial is being conducted on what is proposed as Flagship 4 in CCAFS phase 2. Performance-based management is not new to CCAFS, with performance measures used each year to give performance-based allocations to participating Centres.Within CCAFS, cross-Center work is now vibrant, and we would argue that this has resulted in CCAFS becoming the \"go-to\" place for climate change and developing country agriculture, an outcome that no single Center could achieve. But challenges remain, and perhaps one of the greatest relates to coordination amongst CRPs (e.g. different Centers and CRPs working with the same farmers, or the same regional organisations, in an uncoordinated manner) and boundaries amongst CRPs. Five CRPs started a trial in Burkina to coordinate impact pathways and activities.incorporated the approach into training materials and activities. (c) In Senegal, as an example, CCAFS has been working with the Senegal Meteorological Agency (ANACIM), Senegal NARES (ISRA), Department of Agriculture, local farmer associations and NGOs (World Vision, Red Cross), and rural radio networks. The detailed work, with attention to gender inequities, has been conducted in Kaffrine District where climate-informed advisories now reach 2000 farmers. CCAFS has stimulated the agricultural agencies and NMS to integrate activities for the benefit of farmers. Fifteen communitybased radio stations in 4 administrative regions of Senegal now deliver seasonal forecasts to an estimated 3 million farmers, using CCAFS and ANACIM forecast and communication approaches.2. Increasing incomes and reducing GHG emissions in the dairy sector. CCAFS has played a role in putting CSA on the global agenda, together with key partners, e.g. World Bank, FAO. This work is complemented by national policy engagement and action research on CSA technologies in about 20 countries. One example of action research is the contribution by CCAFS to the East African Dairy Development (EADD) program of Heifer International. ICRAF and ILRI are partners in this program, supporting EADD in the animal fodder, husbandry and extension components, and thus helping Heifer reach 179,000 families and increasing their earnings by a collective $131 million 2 . Heifer focused on improving milk production and quality, and access to markets through the formation of Dairy Farmer Business Associations. The science underpinning the use of improved feed to reduce GHG emissions has been documented by ILRI 3 , while ICRAF have worked at one of the EADD sites in Kenya, together with FAO, estimating GHG emissions and productivity. 4 For CGIAR, this is part of a cross-Center effort -\"Standard Assessment of Mitigation Potential and Livelihoods in Smallholder Systems (SAMPLES)\" -to develop methods for GHG accounting in smallholder systems. EADD has now adopted CSA as a program objective, partly based on engagement with CCAFS, and the mounting evidence that better feeding/manure management can contribute to GHG reduction and improved income for farmers.CCAFS' 2013 total budget was $71.6 million including funds from the CGIAR Fund and bilateral sources. Total execution in 2013 was $68.3 million (95%). Gender and social differentiation research activities were in the order of $5.5 million, approximately 8% of the total execution. Final and total 2013 allocated W1&2 budget as per the final Financing Plan received early in December was $44.8 million. First tranche of W2 2013 funds (2%) was received in mid-June and the first W1 tranche (30%) late in July. Thereafter, several other disbursements were made, amounting to 67% of the total 2013 W1&2 budget as of end of 2013. In January 2014 two more tranches were received (28%) which means that as of March 31st 2014 95% of the 2013 budget was funded.When CCAFS was initiated, 10-year outcome targets were specified for each of the 12 Objectives. In addition, for each Objective a 3-year intermediate performance target was established (Table 1). The CCAFS Theory of Change is given in the original program plan. 5 Baselines have been established at all sites. 6 CCAFS has now established Intermediate Development Outcomes (IDOs) for Phase 2, focussing on the proposed common IDOs amongst CRPs related to: Food security; Gender and social differentiation; Adaptive capacity; Policies and institutions; and Mitigation. These will be incorporated into CCAFS programming in 2015, though the performance-based trial does focus on these outcomes not the original outcomes. Impact pathways for all these outcomes are currently being finalised. 7 initial conditions, in order to achieve a better understanding of model results and variance among models. One paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 8 and seven papers in a special issue of Agricultural Economics 9 presented the detailed findings.extension agents and local government staff to work together to understand the role of trees and agroforests in reducing the impact of extreme weather events and long-term climate change. 22 G-range model, developed by ILRI, Colorado State University and USDA, builds on established models CENTURY and SAVANNA to give rapid forecasting of biomass production, soil condition and carbon stocks in dryland pastures. The model's comparability with field measurements ranges from reasonable to excellent for different sites. 23 Maprooms, from IRI, is an online tool to enable analysis of rainfall variability and seasonal predictability at CCAFS sites in Nepal, Bangladesh and Northern India. Users can assess the probabilities of above-normal, near-normal, and below-normal rainfall and temperature during each stage of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation cycle. 24Data assimilation-crop modelling framework, developed by IRI and NASA, is available to assimilate remotely sensed data with a crop model to improve crop yield forecasting at a given lead-time within the growing season. 25CCAFS maintained the open-access databases reported in 2012, and recorded more than 60,000 unique users in 2013. AgTrials, a repository of climate-specific agricultural trial data, 26 now contains 34,535 trials, up from 4,600 trials in 2012. Work was done to link databases where appropriate; for example, 29,633 data files in AgTrials are now identified against the trait terms of the Crop Ontology database, which harmonizes crop-specific terminology on climate-relevant genetic information to inform breeding for current and future climates. 27 Some 135,000 files were downloaded from CCAFS-Climate, which contains downscaled GCM data. 28 In 2013 there were nearly 1,900 downloads of CCAFS baselines material from Dataverse, 29 including by GIZ, World Bank, and International Relief for Development. One new database was added: RE-FARM Database. It contains 276 case studies on diversification for climate change adaptation to assist in identifying successful adaptation strategies based on diversification, and identify best bet technologies to increase the overall resilience of agroecological systems. 30 The number of CCAFS publications in ISI journals increased by over 25% on 2012, to 98, reflecting the increasing maturity of climate change research in the CGIAR. Several articles were in high-impact journals, including Science, Nature, PNAS and Global Environmental Change.Targets 1.1 and 1.2 in Theme 1 (Progressive Adaptation to Climate Change) were achieved. In 1.2 the Climate-Smart Village (CSV) approach -local learning platforms for a portfolio of adaptation (and mitigation) options (reported in 2012) to be trialled with men and women farmers -has been established at 15 sites in three regions. 31 The CSV approach is now being used by implementation agencies. Practical Action in Nepal, e.g., will implement CSVs in three districts. Target 1.2 has largely been accomplished through collaboration with some of the commodity CRPs. Climate modelling has helped to inform global and national breeding strategies. For example, the Global Cassava Partnership, an alliance of many agencies and including at least a dozen breeding organisations, has adopted the concept of the Rambo root, promoting cassava as a substitution crop and identifying biotic constraints as the priority for future breeding efforts. Target 1.3 was surpassed, with CCAFS science informing adaptation policy processes in three regions. The work with the Nicaragua adaptation plan, e.g., has resulted in a US$24 million investment to climate-proof the coffee and cocoa sectors.Progress has been good in Objective 2.1 of Theme 2 (Managing Climate Risk). One of the most promising outcomes involves the partnership with the Agricultural Insurance Company of India which already insures 12 million farmers. CCAFS has been improving the indices used to determine whether pay-outs occur, leading to protection of more than 50,000 rainfed farmers in one crop season alone. The number will go up in the next crop seasons. Progress in 2.2 has been slow, mostly because this is largely a new area for the CGIAR -dealing with the whole food system and crisis response.Nonetheless the pipeline of activities is promising. Target 2.3 has been surpassed, with some major successes (see 1 st success story in key messages).For two Objectives in Theme 3 (Pro-poor mitigation) the targets were achieved, but targets for Objective 3.2 were not met. This Theme focuses on mitigation, an area of major differences in opinion in the global climate negotiations, making progress on the ground difficult. The two new regions established by CCAFS (LAM and SEA) were partly selected because of their higher mitigation potential. Under the program plan, CCAFS is scheduled to conduct its first impact studies after three yearsCCAFS has been successful at mainstreaming gender throughout the program, and has met the requirements specified in Annex 2, and beyond, with the development of gender impact pathways in each region that include measures of evaluating progress towards the CCAFS gender IDO. However, gender targets for tools and products (Annex 1) have not been met (see section H). Gender-related progress in 2013 includes the following:Gender Impact Pathways capacity. In 2013, CCAFS facilitated the formation of region-specific gender impact pathways in a participatory approach with 40 female and 5 male CCAFS partners from 5 regions. The regional gender teams have formed a network to facilitate working together. 33Building the evidence base addressing CCAFS key gender research questions. Baseline surveys in all CCAFS sites include a gender component, and cover all CCAFS Themes. The questionnaires and training materials have been downloaded over 4,000 times and are being shared freely and widely. 34 Significant findings for both the climate smart agriculture (Theme 1) and climate information (Theme 2) work are that women receive significantly less information about CSA practice options and climate information than do men, but when they are receiving it, they are just as likely to adopt the practices. These results are being used in our sites in all 5 regions to co-design gender-targeted action research with local partners. We also found institutional and policy constraints are limiting the benefits reaching women and other disadvantaged groups from climate-related finance initiatives, and this informed the call for proposals in the low-emissions development work (Theme 3) for Phase 2. These results have also been shared with development partners such as IFAD and CARE, who are also designing programs to better target climate and CSA practice information to women and the poor.An intra-household data collection effort by three Centers (IFPRI, ILRI, CIAT) was completed and analysis is underway. It addresses the key gender questions found in the CCAFS gender strategy (e.g. gender differentiated adoption potential of climate smart agricultural practices in different agricultural systems). This questionnaire and training manual has been downloaded 50 times in 2 months. CCAFS also contributed to the design of a CG-wide global comparative research initiative on innovation through transformation of gender norms. We will be contributing several case studies. The program was implemented more or less according to plan. It is probably a good time to return to the table of indicators (Annex 1) and provide some further clarifications and simplifications, as we recorded a number of instances of different understanding behind the same indicators.We have identified CRP boundary issues and coordination at country and field levels as important issues to resolve in the coming years. In Burkina Faso we have joined with several other CRPs to plan a joint approach to impact pathways, M&E and coordinated activities. We have also initiated discussions with various CRPs to plan collaborative work. Nonetheless, strong leadership from the Consortium Office is needed to sort out some boundary issues as there is reluctance to deal with them at CRPlevel.CCAFS has been practicing performance-based management since its inception, but within the constraints of the initial CCAFS proposal (where the rule was that Centres decided how much of their previous core they would invest in different CRPs). We see phase 2 as an opportunity for quite a radical shift, where activities are 100% aligned with regional priorities in global themes. To this end we have initiated a process to reorganise the CCAFS portfolio, with expected shifts in Centre contributions to CCAFS.While CCAFS has made great strides in implementing its gender strategy, progress in terms of genderdifferentiated tools and products have been slower than targeted (Annex 1). This is partly a result of continuing lack of human resources in many Centers to tackle gender issues in a rigorous manner, but the recent hiring of staff will hopefully improve progress. CCAFS will also implement some new incentives to achieve greater progress. (2) Financial reports from IFPRI and ICRAF are treated as preliminary versions. Neither Comfirmation Letters nor Center Financial Statements were received before CIAT's books closure.(3) W1+2 Other expenditures reported by Centers amounted to USD 629 while W1+2 CGIAR Partnerships totaled USD 1,197. This means that almost USD 568 have not been properly reported as these two figures should match.(4) Excluding W1+2 Other figures, USD 42,044k is the W1+2 total expenditure(5) BIOVERSITY and ILRI's W1+2 and BILATERAL expenditures differ from the ones presented in their Audited Financial Statements (USD 29 and USD 175 respectively). Such funds were reported as Bilateral whilst these were W1+2 expenses as reported to CIAT.(6) ICRAF's W1+2, W3 and BILATERAL expenditures differ from the ones presented in their Audited Financial Statements (USD 480, USD 459 and USD 17 respectively). Center acknowledged not reporting expenses under the correct funding source in their Financial Statements (i.e. USD 480 of W3 were reported under W1+2 whilst these were W1+2 expenses)  ","tokenCount":"2587"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fec679c1ba5e34138dd65c31d4ca4c8c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/97e44f6d-2adc-46f4-9986-8960c2aa2550/retrieve","id":"-296871642"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"683d2350-fb06-4ed2-b0c2-6c2db55d27b0","pagecount":"6","content":"Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) is a pioneer species that readily regenerates after major natural or human disturbances, if weed competition and grazing pressure are low. Natural stands are often pure and fairly even-aged. The species grows predominantly on poorer, sandy soils, rocky outcrops, peat bogs or close to the forest limit. On fertile sites, Scots pine is outcompeted by other-usually spruce or broad-leaved-tree species.The species is wind-pollinated and has both male and female flowers on the same tree. Flowering is frequent; female flowering starts at the age of 15 years on solitary trees (on grafts, as early as 6-8 years) or 25-30 years in closed stands. Abundant male flowering appears some years later. Mast years are relatively frequent but at the boreal forest limit seed maturation is impeded by the short growing season; mast years may occur as seldom as once or twice in 100 years.These Technical Guidelines are intended to assist those who cherish the valuable Scots pine, genepool and its inheritance, through conserving valuable seed sources or use in practical forestry. The focus is on conserving the genetic diversity of the species at the European scale. The recommendations provided in this module should be regarded as a commonly agreed basis to be complemented and further developed in local, national or regional conditions. The Guidelines are based on the available knowledge of the species and on widely accepted methods for the conservation of forest genetic resources.Scots pine has a wide distribution across the whole Eurasian continent, ranging in latitude from 37°N to 70°20'N. At the boreal forest limit it survives with less than 100 frost-free days/yr and 300 mm annual rainfall. Towards the steppe plains of Central Asia its occurrence is limited by the length of the drought period. In southern Europe and Asia Minor, isolated occurrences are confined to the montane zone (up to 2200 m in altitude in the Balkans and Spain, and 2700 m in the Caucasus).Scots pine is a commercially important tree species in Europe. Its wood is easily workable, with good mechanical properties, and has many uses, primarily as construction timber and pulpwood.Its moderate site demands render Scots pine an ideal species for artificial regeneration. Accordingly, its seed has been traded and used across Europe for centuries. Indiscriminate planting from seed of uncontrolled origin sometimes resulted in blatant quality loss, triggering provenance research well before present-day genetic knowledge was available.There have been numerous attempts to subdivide the immense distribution area into various subspecies, which are rather unconvincing owing to the lack of any clear discontinuities in the contiguous range. Isolated southern occurrences, regarded as glacial relics, were occasionally described as separate species, such as P. hamata (Stev.) Sosn., P. armena Koch and P. sosnowskyi Nakai for the Caucasus region.Under natural conditions Scots pine is not readily interfertile with other pine species. Spontaneous hybrids with P. nigra, P. densiflora and P. mugo have been reported. Towards other taxa, the species shows a robust hybrid incompatibility.The high migration potential of both pollen and seed results in effective geneflow within the contiguous range, causing a distinct, clinal pattern of variation within the species, at least for adaptive traits. This is typically the case with growth and phenology characters, which are determined primarily by temperature conditions in the vegetation period. Northern and continental populations need less heat sum to complete phenophases and reach hardiness. Southern and coastal provenances have longer vegetation cycles and are less hardy. Intensive geneflow also maintains high within-population diversity in both adaptive and neutral traits. Stem form, crown form and branchiness show great variability within the area of distribution. Only the provenances of northern Europe/Siberia and those from higher elevations are straightstemmed with an ideal conic crown form and fine branches. Certain regional populations (e.g. southeastern Baltic coast populations) show superior growth traits and high phenotypic stability, while in other areas growth and stem form are typically poor, possibly indicating improper silvicultural practices in the past (e.g. in Germany or in the Carpathian Basin).In accordance with growth and stem form, mechanical properties of Scots pine timber show differences according to origin. This also includes the chemical composition, e.g. the extractive and oleoresin content of wood.Intraspecific variation in resistance traits has also been recorded. Resistance to fungal pathogens such as Lophodermium spp. is higher in the western, coastal parts of the range, whileinus sylvestris Pin us sylvestrisScots pinePinus sylvestrisScots pinePinus sylvestrisScots pinePinus sylvestrisSc southeastern forest steppe populations are especially susceptible. Geographic variation in susceptibility to insect pests has been proven for a number of insects; for instance Central European populations are susceptible to root collar weevil and pine moths, but more resistant to pine shoot borer and pine weevil.Biochemical and molecular studies have clearly indicated that there is high diversity in Scots pine throughout Europe, with most variation occurring within rather than between populations. Monoterpenes and isozymes have been used to group the remnant areas in Scotland. Both approaches identified one region lying at the extreme northwest of the species' distribution with distinctive characteristics. These approaches have been superseded by DNA-based markers for the chloroplast, mitochondrial and nuclear genomes.Variation in mitochondrial DNA (maternally inherited in pines) has indicated that the three major mitotypes present in Spanish populations encompass all the variability found in the rest of Europe. However, their individual occurrence throughout Europe separated Italian, westcentral European and Fennoscandian populations into three clear groupings. At the extremes of the natural range, only one mitotype occurred in the isolated populations in southern Spain whereas in Scot-land, although most sources matched the west-central European grouping, the Italian mitotype was present. Overall, molecular studies support the existence of three evolutionary routes within Europe for Scots pine and the higher variability in Spanish populations suggests that this area may have been an original centre of diversity.The main threats to survival lie at the extremes of its distribution, in particular, the northwestern and southwestern fringes (Scotland and southern Spain). Here the distribution of the species has become discontinuous and fragmentation into isolated populations is common. In extreme circumstances, this has left several remnant populations with fewer than 100 trees. Regeneration at the boreal forest limit is also problematic. In patches of the distribution browsing damage has led to a change of species. Measures such as fencing or reduction of game populations have been used to safeguard Scots pine populations, achieve successful natural regeneration, increase stocking levels and expand the areas concerned. In a number of instances, the need for grafted seed orchards to supply seed representing individual, highly vulnerable sources has been recognized.In the core area of European distribution, where large-scale artificial regeneration has taken place for a long time, loss of locally adapted, autochthonous populations may have occurred in many areas. In regions where the species has been cultivated outside its natural range (e.g. Germany, France, Hungary) Expected climatic changes will prolong droughts in continental SE Europe and in the Mediterranean region; this must be recognized as a potential threat not only to populations at the southern limits of the distribution area but also to highelevation populations. This is likely to cause a northward shift of the area where the species can be successfully cultivated.Because Scots pine is a species with an extremely wide distribution and occupying a broad range of habitats, genetic conservation seems to be a task of low priority. However, the need to address genetic resources of Scots pine is supported by the widely proven genetic diversity between populations, the effects of century-long cultivation and the expected environmental changes at the margins of the distribution.As Scots pine is one of Europe's most important tree species under forest management, the anthropogenic influence is obvious. Both survey and recording of native local (autochthonous) stands are important for gene conservation. These records could include various identification data; molecular markers become increasingly useful for this task.Long-term provenance tests have proved the value and importance of locally adapted populations. This is valid primarily for extreme site conditions (higher altitudes, coastal environments, extreme boreal conditions, rocky or semiarid sites). Preserved populations on these sites exhibit less plasticity when transferred to other conditions, but are usually superior locally. Special care should be taken, therefore, to select representative populations for conservation on such sites. Native stands selected for gene conservation will also serve as 'population standards' when compared with man-made forests.As with populations on extreme sites, isolated outliers might have been exposed to specific selection pressures or drift and may carry rare alleles. Such populations should be carefully protected and steps taken to collect forest reproduction material at the sites. Local material should be used for regeneration and material from endangered sites should also be established in ex situ conservation stands.Expected climate change will first affect the populations at the southern fringes of the distributional range. These populations are often remarkably vigorous and tolerant and may be of value for future breeding. Here also ex situ measures should be applied to safeguard long-term survival.The long tradition of artificial regeneration may have developed landraces that could also be targets for gene conservation efforts. These populations usually represent diverse, rather plastic genetic resources, valuable for future breeding and reproduction.When selecting gene conservation units along a continuous cline, ecological information should be preferred to neutral s sylvestris Pinus s sylvestrisScots pinePinus sylvestrisScots pinePinus sylvestrisScots pinePinus sylvestrisSc Guidelines for genetic conservation and use markers. In the absence of drift, in a contiguous distribution range adaptively different populations may be expected at distances where annual mean temperature differs by a minimum of 1.0-1.5°C (equal to ca. 200 km in a flat landscape).The size of gene conservation units of Scots pine should be sufficiently large to compensate for and buffer against outside geneflow: 100 ha should be considered the minimum. Nearby occurrences of genetically degraded or otherwise unsuitable stands should be either avoided or removed. A conservation unit should consist of numerous adjoining stands of various age, provided their origin is the same. In areas of scattered occurrence, initial size may be 10 ha as a minimum, which can be increased during successive regenerations.In many instances the pioneer character of Scots pine demands human interaction to prevent ecological succession. As far as possible, natural regeneration should be applied; this is less problematic on drier or poorer sites. Regeneration of admixed species should be tolerated for ecological reasons. The light demand of the species does not allow the development of a very complex stand structure, but this is not necessary as evenaged stands may hold equal diversity. Regeneration felling should be carried out stepwise, allowing for recruitment from numerous seed years. Scots pine is genetically rather insensitive to the type of regeneration cutting used. However, if the influx of outside pollen were minimized (a goal which can be met with only partial success), shelterwood cutting would be preferred to other regeneration regimes. Fencing of the unit has to be considered where high game density threatens natural regeneration processes.Pinus sylvestrisScots pinePinus sylvestrisScots pinePinus sylvestrisScots pinePinus sylIn certain cases artificial regeneration may be necessary (e.g. for ex situ conservation). To sample genetic resources properly, cones from 50 or more well-distributed trees should be collected (preferably in a good seed year). The quantity of seed from each tree must be equal in order to get a balanced participation in the final seed lot. Mixing of repeated seed harvests is beneficial, and no seed sorting or grading must be applied.Direct sowing should be preferred to planting. If possible, planting should be carried out with higher density than usual to allow for more natural selection.Intermediate low-intensity fellings and management should maintain a relatively dense stand structure. Selective removal of trees should be confined to malformed individuals; otherwise a broad variation of phenotypes should be allowed.In summary, priorities for specific gene conservation measures will differ regionally. Preservation of genetic resources of Scots pine should be visualized in the context of locally applied forest management practices (especially control of seed sources for artificial regeneration), the extent of protected or unmanaged areas and the occurrence, density or fragmentation of the species at the landscape level, together with actual threats and risks. The urgency to set up gene conservation units will be much higher in an area with fragmented remnants of local populations surrounded by planted forests of uncontrolled origin than in a region where sustainable forestry relying on natural regeneration and local seed sources is practised. ","tokenCount":"2048"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4290dbb257450e366edc8293b83569e7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ff83665e-219a-4c4d-95a9-bf34cff161fd/retrieve","id":"679490564"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"117a3563-506e-46c1-9fc6-b54b3a0694d6","pagecount":"47","content":"cumplido seis años de ejecuci6n. Desde su inicio en 1982, el Proyecto ha pasado por tres distintas fases: una fase experimental, una fase demostrativa y una fase de replicación.El período cubierto por el presente informe corresponde al cuarto año de la fase de replicaci6n durante el cual operaron 34 de las 36 plantas y se ampli6 el área de secado en 1200 metros cuadrados para un total de 29,490 metros cuadrados.En la campaña 1986/87 las plantas procesaron 9,916 toneladas de yuca fresca para producir 3,851 toneladas de yuca seca, o sea un aumento del 29.2% frente al año pasado. El uso de la capacidad instalada aumentó de 45% el año pasado, a 58%.Córdoba obtuvo la más alta rentabilidad con 36.2% seguido por Sucre con 19.9% y Magdalena con 5.6%. Bolívar, Atlántico y Cesar presentaron pérdidas debido principalmente a su incapacidad de conseguir materia prima para trabajar.Sinembargo, el 70% de las empresas arrojaron ganancias, mientras que el año anterior solo el 50% 10 hicieron.Córdoba presenta los costos fijos y variable más bajos del proyecto, mientras que Cesar muestra los valores más altos.Medellín se perfila como el mercado más estable e importante para la yuca seca, especialmente el cliente SOLLA. Otras compañías interesadas en Medellín son COLANTA, FADEGAN, CONTEGRAL, y FINCA.Esta plaza adquiri6 el 68% de la producci6n total de este año.Los precios de venta variaron desde $33,000 en Enero hasta $47,000 en Noviembre, un aumento del 42.4%.En Enero y Febrero hubo baja oferta de transporte y los transportadores subieron el precio por esta raz6n.El sector privado ha mostrado interés en el secado de yuca, reflejado en el hecho de que en esta campaña produjeron aproximadamente 400 t, o sea el equivalente al 10.4% de la producci6n de las plantas.Las plantas tuvieron problemas en la consecuci6n de materia prima debido a los altos precios en el mercado de yuca fresca. Los socios aportaron en promedio el 36% de la yuca picada; el año pasado el aporte fue del 30%.En la presente campaña la coordinación del Proyecto DRI-CIAT no program6 capacitaci1ín tendiente a aumentar el número de técnicos especializados en producci6n, procesamiento, comercialización, sistematización y organizaci6n.Se realizaron dos eventos para funcionarios, uno sobre conservación de yuca fresca y el otro sobre informática y monitoreo del proyecto oc yuca PROLOGO El presente documento constituye el Sexto Informe del Proyecto Cooperativo DRI-CIAT; ~ste describe las actividades desarrolladas en el período Diciembre de 1986 hasta Noviembre de 1987 y trata 108 aspectos en los cuales el proyecto ha operado normalmente y aquellos donde se deben hacer ajustes para lograr un mejor rendimiento técnico y económico de las plantas de secado de yuca. Además, incluye los planes para la ampliación del proyecto de yuca en el período 87/88 y un análisis general del desarrollo de la industria de yuca seca en la Costa Atlántica durante los últimos cuatro años.En Enero y Febrero de esta campaña se presentaron problemas con el transporte porque fué escaso y, aprovechando esta circunstancia, los transportadores elevaron el precio. La baja oferta de transporte se presenta debido a que en esta época sale la cosecha de sorgo, maíz y algodón en la Costa y en todo el país; ésto, sumado a que la yuca seca ocupa mucho volumen, hace que los transportadores eleven el transporte o prefieran otros productos.Los precios de compra de la yuca seca variaron con el tiempo. SOLLA pagó a $33,OOO/t en Diciembre y Enero, a $35,000 en Febrero y Marzo; en Abril y Mayo CONTEGRAL entró a comprar a $37,500/t; en Mayo y Junio FADEGAN compró a $40,000; en Julio y Agosto SOLLA compra a $45,OOO/t; en Septiembre y hasta Noviembre SOLLA y CONTEGRAL compran a $46,000 y $47,OOO/t recogida en planta. PURINA, NUTRINAL y NUTRIDIAZ no elevaron los precios como lo hicieron los de Medellín. Podemos concluir que el mercado más importante para la yuca seca es Medellín, en donde existen muchas empresas interesadas en comprar este producto (COLANTA, FADEGAN, SOLLA, CONTEGRAL y FINCA). debido a que (a) se encuentran bastante alejadas de las zonas productoras de sorgo y de los puertos de entrada El Proyecto Cooperativo DRI-CIAT, cuyo objetivo es la promoci6n del desarrollo agroindustrial del cultivo de la yuca en la Costa Atlántica, ha cumplido seis años de ejecución. Desde su inicio en 1982, el Proyecto ha pasado por tres distintas fases: una fase experimental, una fase demostrativa y una fase de replicación.El perfodo cubierto por el presente informe corresponde al cuarto año de la fase de replicaci6n durante el cual operaron 34 de las 36 plantas y se ampli6 el área de secado en 1200 metros cuadrados para un total de 29,490 metros cuadrados.En la campaña 1986/87 las plantas procesaron 9,916 toneladas de yuca fresca para producir 3,851 toneladas de yuca seca, o sea un aumento del 29.2% frente al año pasado. El uso de la capacidad instalada aument6 de 45% el año pasado, a 58%.C6rdoba obtuvo la más alta rentabilidad can 36.2% seguido por Sucre con 19.9% y Magdalena con 5.6%. BoUvar, Atllintico y Cesar presentaron pérdidas debido principalmente a su incapacidad de conseguir materia prima para trabajar.Sinembargo, el 70% de las empresas arrojaron ganancias, mientras que el año anterior solo el 50% lo hicieron.Córdoba presenta los costos fijos y variable más bajos del proyecto, mientras que Cesar muestra los valores más altos.MedelHn se perfila comO el mercsdo más estable e importante para la yuca seca, especialmente el cliente SOLLA. Otras compañfas interesadas en MedelHn son COLANTA, FADEGAN, CONTEGRAL, y FINCA.Esta plaza adquirió el 68% de la producción total de este año.Los precios de venta variaron desde $33,000 en Enero hasta $47,000 en Noviembre, un aumento del 42.4%.En Enero y Febrero hubo baja oferta de transporte y los transportadores subieron el precio por esta razón. seca. El SENA llevó a cabo seis cursos en Sucre, uno en C6rdoba.El presidente de la ANPPY asisti6 incluyendo uno en M~xico.en Atlántico y dos a seis eventos, En algunos departamentos el monto del crédito de producción es demasiado bajo y no se entrega oportunamente.Los equipos t~cnicos de Magdalena y Cesar no han operado y para la próxima campaña se buscará una solución a este problema.Desde Marzo/S7 en Barranquilla se inició un estudio econ5mico y de factibilidad para implementar la comercialización de la yuca fresca conservada en bolsas de polietileno. Se inició la fase comercial con una organización COOPROMERCAR en Repelón (Atlántico), productora de yuca de muy buena calidad y con potencial para producir todo el año.Se está construyendo un centro de acopio en Betulia con el fín de agilizar la comercialización de productos agrícolas de la región y fomentar la integraci60n cooperativa. En ese centro también se proyecta construir una planta piloto de molienda y mezclado para evaluar la tecnología de molienda de yuca.Para la próxima campaña se planea (a) aumentar el área de secado en 4,700 metros cuadrados, (b) ampliar bodegas en Magdalena, y (e) construir ramadas aledañas a las bodegas para aumentar la capacidad de almacenamiento. También se proyecta (a) expandir el uso de motores el~ctricos en tres plantas más. y (b) nueve plantas picarán con el disco tipo \"Colombia\". Ademiís, se hace necesario probar el uso de armazones portátiles con techo plástico en vez de la carpa de polietileno, cuyo uso está resultando antieconómico.CONTENIDO Página PROLOGO 1.3.s,Funcionamiento de las plantas de secado                                                                 3.2 Rentabilidad econ6mica ..... ' \" ... ' \" ' \" ' \" . ' \" .. ' \" ... ' \" ...                                                                            Estas dos cooperativas comercializaron leche y maíz, respectivamente.La producción de yuca seca se inició en Diciembre de 1986 y terminó en Abril para la mayoría de las plantas exceptuando cuatro plantas en Córdoba, una en Magdalena y otra en el Cesar, las cuales operaron hasta Noviembre con algunas interrupciones causadas por el mal tiempo o por la escasez de materia prima.Durante la presente campaña se ampli6 el 'rea de secado en 1200 metros cuadrados, distribuídos así: 500 metros cuadrados en Sucre y C6rdoba cada uno y 200 metros cuadrados en Atlántico. Se procesaron 9,915.9 t de yuca fresca con las cuales se produjeron 3,851 t de yuca seca, lo que significa un incremento del 36.7% y 28% respecto al año anterior. El factor de conversi6n yuca fresca/yuca seca aumentó, especialmente en Sucre y Bolívar, debido al ataque del gusano cachón, Erinnyis ello, con un promedio regional de 2.57 comparado con uno de 2.43 en el año anterior (Cuadro 1).El rendimiento promedio fué de 133.1 kg de yuca seca por metro cuadrado de piso en toda la campaña, o sea un incremento del 28.6% frente al año pasado. Sinembargo, este rendimiento está muy por debajo del rendimiento de 230 kg de yuca seca por m 2 , el cual es posible bajo las siguientes condiciones óptimas: (a) un buen suministro de materia prima, (b) un factor de conversión de 2.5, y (e) un manejo adecuado de los Ef:!.cieocia de uso:Ef:!.cieocia glOOal:M1de los lotes de yuca p~ por una planta ~os con los que podría procesar.M1de la pJ:lJdllrc:tón de yuca seca en un perfodo ~o con la pn:.ducción que se podría obte11er te6r:l.c.amente. Se asume una producción óptima de 230 kg de yuca seca/m • año.bl Cifras en par~ntesis indican el número de plantas.En la presente campaña no ampliaron las bodegas, con la excepción de COOPROCA en Córdoba que construyó una ramada a continuación de la bodega para almacenar yuca seca. La mayoría de las plantas de secado arruman bultos de yuca seca en la parte alta de las pistas y luego los cubren con una carpa plástica.En la próxima campaña se ha decidido ampliar las bodegas en Magdalena. En los departamentos restantes se sugiere construir ramadas a continuación de las bodegas para almacenar ahí y no en la pista. Las futuras bodegas deben poseer (a) un buen aislamiento t~rmico en su cubierta y (b) ventilaei6n transversal, con el fín de evitar la deshidratación de la yuca seca almacenada.En esta campaña, dos plantas en Suere (APROSOCORRO y COOAPROBE), una en Bolívar (ASOPADULA) y otra en Córdoba (COOPROCA desde bace tres años) operaron con motor eléctrico. El motor eléctrico presenta múltiples ventajas frente al de gasolina o diesel, a saber: (a) mayor eficiencia en el picado, (h) costo inicisl menor, (e) costos de operación menores, (d) más silencioso, (e) encendido más fácil, (f) puede acoplarse fácilmente a la máquina picadora, (g) facilidad de traslado de la máquina-motor en la pista pues no necesita anclaje, (h) fácil operación y mantenimiento.En la próxima campaña dos plantas en Magdalena y una en Córdoba planean operar con motores eléctricos. Además. nueve plantas (6 en Córdoba, 2 en Sucre y 1 en Cesar). picarán con el disco tipo \"Colombia\" 10 que permitirá su evaluación. Hasta ahora se ha utilizado experimentalmente en CIAT con resultados halagadores, ya que exhibe mayor eficiencia en el picado, uniformidad en el trozado y facilidad en el esparcido.En algunas plantas se construyeron recogedores y rastrillos de madera pesada y verde, lo que dificulta su operación y manejo. Se aconseja utilizar madera seca y liviana para este propósito.La mayoría de las plantas operaron con una carpa de polietileno de 25 x la metros en vez de la de 50 x 10, lo que facilitó elmenejo. A pesar de que fué más difícil la recogida y posterior esparcida, la calidad de la yuca seca fué mejor. Esto se observ6 en las plantas que operaron de Mayo a Noviembre. Sinembargo. el alto costo de la carpa ($50,000 en Febrero 1987 y $77,000 en Diciembre del mismo año) y su poca durabilidad, hace. necesario explorar la factibilidad de usar armazones portátiles de madera o hierro con techo plástico usados ampliamente en el Asia.La eficiencia global es un parámetro que combina (a) la disponibilidad de materia prima en la región de influencia de la planta y (b) el dominio de la tecnología y la capacidad empresarial que los campesinos han adquirido pars manejar las plantas de secado. Este año, al igual que en el anterior, la eficiencia promedio del proyecto fué muy baja (del 48 y 37% respectivamente) debido a que el promedio de ocupación de las plantas fué del 60% por la escasez de materia prima y en algunos casos por la falta de estrategias orientadas a obtener la materia prima.Una empresa de Córdoba (COOPROSAL) logró sembrar un lote de 23 hectáreas con crédito de Caja Agraria y asistencia técnica del lCA, solucionando en parte el problema de escasez de materia prima.Es muy importante que todas las organizaciones contraten un contador para el manejo contable total (presentación de balances, estados financieros, llevar los libros, etc.) y que el SENA siga impartiendo capacitación en la forma de llevar los registros y formatos que sustentan la contabilidad, el desarrollo socio-económico de las empresas y su proyección hacia la comunidad. En aquellas regiones donde el SENA no puede llegar, los asistentes técnicos deben llenar este vacio.Fué dificil obtener la materia prima ya que el precio para el mercado de yuca fresca, entre $12 y $2S/kg, impidió que las plantas de secado pudieran competir. En esta campaña, al igual que en las anteriores, la mayor parte de la yuca procesada provino de agricultores externos a las plantas de secado; este año los socios solo aportaron en promedio el 36% de la yuca picada contra el 30% del año anterior (ver el Cuadro 5).   fOR\"AS FIJOS VARIABLES TOTAL PUESTO PLANTA PUESTO SI.CON ASOCIATIVAS lit y.s lit y.s $/t y.s lit y.5 lIt y.1 lit y.s lit y.s lit y.s    --------------------------------~-----------------------------------------------entre Mayo y Junio fu'; de $38,000 y $40,OOO/t yuca seca; de Julio a Noviembre de $45,000 y $47,OOO/t yuca seca (recogida en planta).El flujo de caja fue más alto en Córdoba ($11,914/t yuca seca) debido al manejo eficiente de sus costos y a que 4 plantas pudieron operar hasta Noviembre, obteniendo mejores precios en el mercado de la yuca seca; en Atlántico ($3,179/t yuca seca) se refleja la escasez de materia prima causada por la competencia del mercado en fresco y de INYUCAL, fábrica de almidón de yuca, en Barranquilla.Una planta en Córdoba (COOPROCA) y tres en Sucre (COOAPROBE, COAGROPROMEZA y COAGROALBANIA) no pagaron intereses por capital de inversión por ser construídas con donaciones y recursos propios. Sucre es el departamento que en promedio presenta los menores valores en intereses por inveraión y capital de trabajo lo mismo que por depreciaciones ($936, $398 y $994/t yuca seca, respectivamente).Córdoba logró la mayor rentabilidad promedio en la presente campaña, 36.2%; se presentaron rentabilidades entre 18.6% y 59%. Le siguieron Sucre con 19.9% y Masdalena con 5.6%. Es preocupante la situación en Bolívar (-23.9%), Atlántico (-11.6%) y Cesar (-4%). Las causas de estas rentabilidades negativas fueron: (a) incapacidad de producción por falta de tierra de los socios, (b) baja producción causada por el intenso verano, y (e) el mercado fresco de Barranqul1la y Cartagena captó la mayoría de la yuca producida en la región ante la poca oferta proveniente de otros departamentos. En Bolívar el problema fué más grave debido a que el crédito de capital de trabajo fUE! otorgado en Marzo cuando la mayoría de la yuca había sido cosechada.El Cuadro 12 muestra que el 70.6% de las empresas arrojaron ganancias, mientras que el año anterior solo el 50% habían arrojado resultados positivos. La producción promedio por planta de toneladas de yuca seca, se incrementó en 19.5% con respecto a la campaña pasada para las plantas que arrojaron ganancias; caso contrario sucedi6 con aquellas plantas que obtuvieron resultados negativos donde la producción promedio por empresa se redujo en 41.5%. El rendimiento promedio se incrementó en 22.6% para las empresas que obtuvieron ganancias pero se redujo en 33 Producción promedio por empresas 43 53 (t de yuca seca)Rendimiento promedio 2 (kg yuca seca/m piso secado) 75 74 Uso de la capacidad instalada (%) 32 32 que presentaron p~rdidas 10 cual trajo como consecuencia disminución en el uso de la capacidad instalada (34.4%) pero se incrementó en aquellas plantas que tuvieron resultados positivos (23.6%).Es importante resaltar de que a pesar de haber obtenido mejores resultados este año que en el anterior, no se logró superar el nivel de uso de capacidad instalada de la campaña 84/85 y fue el más malo para las empresas que arrojaron pérdidas.En la presente campaña no se realizaron actividades de capacitación para funcionarios promovidas por la coordinación del Proyecto DRI-CIAT, lo que es preocupante ya que no se ha aumentado el número de t~cnicos especializados en El Proyecto de Yuca Seca ha operado con dos asesores DRr-CIAT, uno con sede en Sincelejo y otro en Santa Marta. Las principales actividades desarrolladas por estas personas han sido: a) Apoyar y colaborar con ANPPY en la comercialización de yuca seca.Prestar asistencia técnica en el procesamiento, empaque y almacenamiento de la yuca.c) Promover con el coordinador regional reuniones de evaluación de la campaña de yuca seca.Promover y coordinar con los directores regionales DRI. reuniones de los equipos técnicos.En los equipos técnicos ha estado participando el Antropólogo Paul Bode de la Sección de Economía de Yuca del CIAT, mostrando los avances en el monitoreo de las plantas de secado y en este año con la colaboración del SENA se ha logrado implementar un programa de monttoreo que se comenzará a aplicar en el período 87/88 con la colaboración del SENA y los Fondos Regionales DRI de los departamentos.A partir de Mayo/87 el asesor DRI-CIAT. Francisco Figueroa, comenzó a trabajar en el proyecto de conservación de yuca fresca en los estudios preliminares y en la factibilidad de implementarlo en Barranquilla, retomando la experiencia del CIAT en Bucaramanga. En Agosto 1987 se inició la fase semi-comercial, obteniendo buenos resultados y con la perspectiva de replicarlo en toda la Costa.Ampliación del Proyecto de Yuca 2 de piso m Construir 400 2 de piso m Construir 500 2 de piso y bodega m pequeña.1,400 m 2 de piso y construcción de otra bodega.2 1,400 m de piso y construcción de otra bodega. Determinar la viabilidad técnica y económica de producir trocitos de yuca seca y harina de yuca.Estudiar la factibilidad técnica y económica de producir raciones balanceadas para animales, especialmente aves y cerdos, en forma de harina pars uso local, utilizando la yuca como fuente principal de carbohidratos.Estudiar el posible aprovechamiento de productos no tradicionales fuentes de proteína como ltudzú, guandul, ramio y otros de la región.Para el período 87/88 se tiene planeado por parte del CIAT estudiar la factibilidad técnica y económica de introducir una tecnología de secado artificial para la Costa Atlántica dirigido a zonas donde se produce yuca todo el año.Desde Marzo/87 en Barranquilla se comenzó a hacer un estudio económico y de factibilidad para implementar la comercialización de la yuca fresca conservada en bolsas de polietileno. Como resultado de estos estudios, se inició la fase comercial en Agosto con una organización (COOPROMERCAR) con sede en Repelón, Atlántico a 90 km de Barranquilla.Esta cooperativa tenía experiencia en comercialización, produce yuca de buena calidad y puede producir en todas las épocas del año debido a que está localizada en un distrito de riego. Como este proyecto ha obtenido buenos resultados, en Noviembre se realizó el Taller DRI-CIAT sobre conservación de yuca fresca con la participaci6n de los asistentes regionales DR! y asesores en comercialización de la Costa Atlltntica; este evento cre6 muchas expectativas en los participantes y la esperanza de poder implementarlo en sus respectivos departamentos. Debido a ésto ae establecen tareas y pasos a seguir para poder realizar la comercialización de la yuca en fresco, especialmente en Atlántico, Bolívar, Sucre y Córdoba.Para el período 87/88 se tiene establecido que cada departamento interesado en realizar este proyecto debe hacer estudio económico y de factibilidad, además de analizar la calidad y los sitios de producción de yuca. Se empezaría con Atlántico y Bolívar y luego con los demás departamentos.La campaña 1986-87 mostró una franca recuperación de la mayoría de las empresas productoras de yuca seca con relación a los resultados de años anteriores. Cualquiera de los parámetros de eficiencia que se analicen muestra que las organizaciones de productores han adquirido un excelente dominio de la tecnología de aecado natural de yuca y que, en la mayoría de las áreas de influencia donde operan, las plantas de secado se han convertido en alternativas importantes de comercializaci6n para los productores de yuca y en fuentes generadoras de empleo e ingresos para un número significativo de agricultores. Los resultados de la campaña 1986-87 presentados en este informe permiten hacer los siguientes comentarios:l. Existe una clara diferencia entre las organizaciones vinculadas al proyecto. Unas plantas producen ganancias (24 plantas positivas) y otras, afortunadamente la minoría. producen pérdidas (lO plantas negativas). Las plantas positivas mejoraron su desempeño en este año alcanzando una producci<5n promedio de 147 t de yuca seca por planta (123 t el año pasado) y un rendimiento promedio de 157 kg de yuca por m 2 de piso (128 el año pasado), Las plantas negativas se vuelven cada día más negativas. En los resultados de este año obtuvieron una producci6n promedio de 31 t de yuca seca por planta (53 el año pasado) y un rendimiento promedio de 49 kg yuca por m 2 de piso (74 el año anterior). Es decir, que los ricos se vuelven más ricos y los pobres se vuelven más pobres. Lo que hace más penoso el análisis es el hecho de que la mayoría de las plantas negativas están ubicadas en áreas donde no se vislumbra a corto plazo una solución a la problemlitica que está dando origen a los desempeños tan pobres (Bolívar. Atlántico y Cesar) • Las plantas de secado en estas regiones pertenecen a organizaciones de productores con muy poca capacidad de producción de yuca dada su precaria situaci5n de tenencia de tierra; este factor, aunado a la competencia con otros mercados por la materia prima, ha terminado por convertir las organizaciones en dependientes de terceros y cuando acontece una situación como la de los dos últimos años de buenos precios para los mercados de yuca fresca, entonces la posibilidad de las plantas de operar rentablemente es mínima.Ha sido sugerido en informes anteriores y aún sigue siendo una recomendación vigente, la de establecer mecanismos que permitan a los agricultores la adquisici5n de tierras, vía reforma agraria o mediante la provisi6n de créditos especiales.Solo a través de acciones de esta naturaleza será posible lograr un funcionamiento adecuado de las empresas campesinas.La comercializaci6n de la yuca aeca sigue siendo el área de trabajo donde las organizaciones de productores necesitan más apoyo en asistencia técnica y capacitaci6n. Los canales de mercadeo para el producto continúan siendo fluctuantes. destacándose la consolidaci6n del mercado de Medell!n que en este año captó el 67.7% de la producci6n total comparado con el 46.5% del año anterior. Los mercados de Barranquilla, Bucaramanga y Valle del Cauca presentaron un descenso en los volúmenes captados pasando en este año al 22.3% frente al 45.7% de la campaña pasada. El mercado de Cartagena experimentó una pequeña mejoría en este año pasado del 6.9% al 9.5%. Esta situac16n crea dificultades cada vez mayores para los productores de yuca seca ya que deben negociar con mercados muy distantes (500-1,000 km).La campaña 1986-87 permiti6 a la ANPPY una participaci6n muy activa en las negociaciones con los compradores de yuca seca. La consolidación de este ente organizativo campesino debería ser tarea prioritaria en las actividades futuras del proyecto con el fin de lograr un nivel de desarrollo en la ANPPY que le permita asumir totalmente el área de comercializaci6n del producto. Habrá necesidad de probar la validez de esta forma organizativa frente a hechos como la atomizaci6n de la oferta del producto que hace que para las plantas de secado de Bolívar. Atlántico y Magdalena no resulte rentable vender el producto en los mercados donde ANPPY está logrando conquistar espacio. Logrará ANPPY la misma penetración en el mercado de Bucaramanga, por ejemplo ? Caso contrario, se deberá pensar en una descentralización de la comercialización y en el fortalecimiento de células locales de ANPPY que tengan más facilidades de operar en mercados más localizados.El fortalecimiento y motivación de los equipos técnicos es una tarea importante en 108 proximos años del proyecto. En algunas áreas se ha logrado desarrollar esquemas de trabajo organizados y coordinados y las relaciones de las entidades con los agricultores son muy buenas. En otras áreas, el mismo esquema de trabajo, los mismos propósitos, no han logrado funcionar y tenemos entonces el caso de un modelo organizacional que no es replicable de un departamento a otro, a pesar de la cercanía.Por qué el desarrollo de los equipos técnicos regionales es tan desigual ? Esta será la pregunta clave a resolver para poder encontrar los limitentes que están impidiendo un desarrollo armónico del recurso humano que presta asesoría tl!cnica en el proyecto.","tokenCount":"4096"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"379a49c76b42954cf8d72c04cba48828","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8095851b-3321-4c38-9228-0da06384796d/retrieve","id":"1172957691"},"keywords":["In this area","pollution","urbanization","industrialization","and other challenges greatly affect water resources. Besides","low productivity","disease","malnutrition","slow economic growth","social instability","and conflicts"],"sieverID":"dd4f7150-8899-4de3-835f-f118954970ab","pagecount":"4","content":"DWSP is a faith-based organization (FBO) that has been providing sustainable water and sanitation services to the rural poor, and water has stressed the communities of Kigezi Diocese since its inception in 1986.Rubaya and Butanda subcounties in Kabale District, southwestern Uganda, are heavily cultivated hills that range from 1,219 m (3,999 ft) to 2,347 m (7,700 ft) above sea level. Mean annual rainfall is 1,092 mm. The rainy seasons are from March to May and from September to November, with intervening light rains. The June to August spell is the main dry season, while from December to February, the rains are usually light. About two million people live in the district, making it one of the most highly populated in the country.The catchment area in the district comprises steep slopes, deeply narrow valleys of the Kigezi highlands, Lake Bunyonyi, River Ruhezagyende, and expansive swampy areas, 58% of which have been reclaimed for agriculture (NEMA, 2008).spraying crops and vegetables because the rains would wash the chemicals into the soils, which would then percolate into water systems.More so, the rate of vegetation destruction was increasingly high with the rising population pressure and high poverty levels amidst limited alternative means of livelihoods. There was also pollution from local gin production plants with effluent discharges into water sources.The community lacked appropriate technologies, best practices, and knowledge on the relationship between water and land resources, and how mismanaging one of them compromises the other. This inevitably affects the humanity that survives on such vital ecosystems. They could not systemically appreciate their problems.To mitigate these problems, a participatory project analysis was conducted. This entailed resource mapping of vulnerabilities and assessing threats and severity of depletion from a cause-and-effect perspective. It also required capturing community attitudes and dynamics, re-engaging of traditional interventions and measures, and involving the concerned stakeholders. This approach helped in defining problems, setting priorities, action planning, capacity-building training and implementing the project.KDWSP facilitated the formation and training of the catchment management organization and the resource user groups (charcoal burners, environmentalists, farmers, water user committees, and local gin producers). This strategically helped empower and put the community at the forefront of project implementation and sustainability.Implementation involved the construction of conservation channels, energy-saving stoves, contour furrows and check dams, punctuated with soil-filled gunny bags constructed across formed gullies at intervals to trap the silt. All water resource banks were buffered with environment-friendly projects.The communities were empowered to establish and manage nursery beds to improve green cover. Although replacing cut trees is good, it is not an effective method of recovering environmental benefits and, alternatively, an energy-saving stove over resources have made the communities more vulnerable to degradation of environmental resources.The main challenge to the water sector was in developing platforms for disseminating information on technologies, best practices, knowledge and experiences on water resources. It took great efforts to ensure that all stakeholders benefit and feel they are part of the process. The government's response to the challenge was seen in the Water Action Plan (WAP) released in 1993-94 to provide a flexible and dynamic framework for developing and managing Uganda's water resources.KDWSP employed an integrated water resource management approach in a successful pilot project, thereby reaching 408 households (2,448 beneficiaries) in the two subcounties. This project promoted and coordinated development and management of water, land, and related resources. It aimed at equitably maximizing the resultant economic and social welfare without compromising sustainability of vital ecosystems. The project started in June 2011 and ended in December 2013.Agriculture is the backbone of Uganda's economy, constituting about 42% of the GDP, more than 90% of export earnings, and employing about 86% of the labor force. However, the contribution of agriculture to total GDP has decreased from 45.7% in 1995-96 to 41.5% in 1999-2000.High population exerts lots of pressure on very scarce and fragmented land and its resources. This is so in the face of poor methods of farming, soil exhaustion due to destruction of soil structures, and deforestation for many economic and social reasons. The famous Kigezi terraces constructed during the colonial times have been heavily degraded and poorly maintained. As a result, landslides, floods, gullies, and erosion have brushed off fertile soils into lower streams.Further, destruction, sedimentation, siltation, and pollution of water sources from floods and local gin effluents had compromised environmental and community health. More destruction of water projects such as gravity flow schemes of Kahungye and Muguli, gardens, homes, and latrines compounded the problem. Water sources were polluted by farmers A functional and effective catchment network of stakeholders was established for learning and relearning. This involved the district level water resources management body, mandated institutions, opinion leaders, political leaders, and representatives of resource users to capture the interests of all stakeholders.Contact farmers in the catchment area planted 1,200 sugar canes, 900 seedlings of different tree species, 1,500 passion fruit, 200 tomato trees, and 600 grafted avocados. Four community-managed nursery beds were established to improve on the green cover while boosting their livelihood.Twenty-three households were supported with energy-saving stoves. Five local distillery industries also received improved energy-saving stoves, each accommodating 24 heating containers. Energy consumption was cut to a quarter from what it had been previously, and firewood that previously lasted for only a single day now lasts 4 days.Members of six water user committees were trained and refreshed; 179 artisans trained in rainwaterharvesting technologies have constructed 200 rainwater-harvesting ferrocement tanks (4,000 liters) and six institutional tanks (20,000-50,000 liters) to increase access to clean water for consumption, agriculture and environmental benefit, and to check water runoff.The slow adaptation capacity and delayed shift in the mindset of farmers to help them move from traditional framing to conservation agriculture presented barriers to adoption.Land fragmentation and scarcity were a challenge and a limitation to adaptation of best practices and resource bank protection.Community-led initiatives that address problems in the community have defined themselves; these have provided a reliable premise for sustainability. Interventions that may contravene some values or policies should be well-defined to minimize conflicts.was devised to check this gap. This stove, crafted with a heating unit, a cooling chamber, and a slug channel leading to a soak pit, became an effective facility adopted, promoted, and widely used in the community to check negative pollution of the environment.As well, there was need to create awareness in the community. The project established information and knowledge-sharing platforms for dissemination, learning, and training. Thematic messages were packaged in a video documentary, reports and music, and dance and drama pieces from farmer field schools. This strongly appealed to a wider audience, including mandated institutions and civil society at community, subcounty, district, regional, and national levels.KDWSP monitored and supported the implementation processes of resources, whereas user groups and the community worked together to deliver these projects with external support. This helped the project extend technical support and review practices and activities during implementation.The implementation was participatory as community members were involved in identifying and analyzing the problems, devising solutions, and training them how to implement and sustain the use of the technology.The community mobilized locally available materials (resources) such as stones, sand, unskilled labor, and food contributions.Equitably and inclusively, most interest groups, especially women, youth, and all institutions in the community participated, thereby bringing diverse stakeholders on board to capture wider interests and enhance project acceptability.Five soil and water conservation (SWC) channels and 135 check dams were buffered and excavated of average capacity 2-6 m 3 punctuated with soil-filled gunny bags and elephant grass. These have helped retain water for recharge and re-use and healed many gullies.","tokenCount":"1251"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4d68b70db82ed9783a044bab3fe71af7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/ce25e04f-da04-4de4-89ef-e6b6f7f1bf67/content","id":"-1228201275"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"aac0e29a-274d-4ca7-905d-19a2f8dc1474","pagecount":"33","content":"Agriculture is one of the fundamental pillars of the 2022-2027 Bottom-up Economic Transformation Plan of the Government of Kenya for tackling complex domestic and global challenges. Kenya's food system is crucial for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Kenya has prioritized aspects of agriculture, food, and land use as critical sectors for reducing emissions towards achieving Vision 2030's transformation to a low-carbon, climate-resilient development pathway.Kenya's updated NDC, as well as supporting mitigation and adaptation technical analysis reports and other policy documents, has identified an ambitious set of agroecological transformative measures to promote climate-smart agriculture, regenerative approaches, and nature-positive solutions. Kenya is committed to implementing and updating its National Climate Change Action Plans (NCCAPs) to present and achieve the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets and resilience outcomes that it has identified.On December 24, 2020, the Kenyan government formally submitted its updated NDC that describes Kenya's contribution to mitigation and adaptation from 2020 to 2030 and proposes priority mitigation and adaptation actions. Kenya has made a strong commitment to reducing economy-wide emissions (including from Land Use, Land-use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) by 2030 by 32% relative to the BAU scenario of 143 MtCO2 eq, with 21% of the mitigation cost not contingent on international financial support. Kenya has committed to reducing total GHG emissions (conditionally and unconditionally) by 45.76 MtCO2e by 2030, from an estimated 85.79 MtCO2e technical GHG emission reduction potential baseline. The updated NDC does not mention sectoral contributions that have increased by 2% from 30% in the 2015 INDC to 32% in the updated NDC. Kenya's total greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, CH4, N2O, and HFCs) will increase to 143 MtCO2e by 2030 from 56 MtCO2e in 2000 as the country pursues the Vision 2030 development agenda. The baseline GHG emission projections for 2030 for the seven sectors are as follows: electricity generation (29%), agriculture (27%), forestry (15%), transportation (15%), energy demand (7%), industrial processes (4%), and waste (3%).In the agriculture, food, and land-use sectors, Kenya estimated a rise of 41% in total emissions from the baseline year 2000 to 2030 (i.e., from 23 MtCO2e to 39 MtCO2e) mainly driven by i) livestock enteric fermentation (18.8 MtCO2e); ii) agriculture soils (16.2 MtCO2e); iii) savanna burning (2 MtCO2e); iv) livestock manure management (1.1 MtCO2e); v) rice cultivation (0.4 MtCO2e) and vi) burning of crop residues (0.2 MtCO2e).The agriculture sector only contributes about 7% of the GHG emission reduction ambitions set in Kenya's NDC and about 50 % (2.27 MtCO2e out of 5.53 MtCO2e) of the estimated technical emission reduction potential by 2030. The NDC establishes quantitative targets in key activities for the agriculture sector which include i) Agroforestry, with an emission reduction potential of 1.66 MtCO2e; ii) Sustainable land management, with an emission reduction potential of 0.55 MtCO2e; iii) Dairy Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA), with an emission reduction potential of 0.40 MtCO2e; and iv) Manure management (biogas technology for cooking and agro-processing), with an emission reduction potential of 2 MtCO2e; The qualitative emission reduction targets considered for mitigation in the agriculture sector are i) increasing the deep/offshore fishing fleet; ii) increasing the number of farmers using low-carbon (recirculating) aquaculture systems; and iii) increasing the rice-production area using efficient production technology. In the land use and forestry sector, the NDC establishes some specific and measurable nature-based solutions for emission removal solutions for LULUCF. These are i) restoration of forests on degraded land leading to the abatement of 32.5 MtCO2e by 2030; ii) reforestation of degraded forests leading to the abatement of 6.1 MtCO2e by 2030; iii) reducing deforestation and forest degradation with an abatement of 1.6 MtCO2e by 2030. Kenya has emphasized adaptation as the highest priority in its updated NDC to prevent further losses and damage. The key agriculture sector adaptation activities identified in the updated NDC include i) mainstreaming climate-smart agriculture (CSA) toward increased productivity through a value-chain approach, to support the transformation of agriculture (crops, livestock, and fisheries) into an innovative, commercially oriented, competitive, and modern sector; ii) building the resilience of agriculture systems (crops, livestock, and fisheries) through the sustainable management of land, soil, water, and other natural resources, as well as insurance and other safety nets; iii) strengthening communication systems on CSA extension and agro-weather issues.Kenya's NDC is supported by scientific analyses and accounting methodologies, and the NCCAP 2018-2022 technical analysis reports have been cited. The NDC analysis has been updated using the Mitigation Technical Analysis Report (MTAR), the Adaptation Technical Analysis Report (ATAR), and the Third National Inventory Report (NIR 3). The updated NDC was based on an assessment of the extent and impact of the NDC's implementation to date and an extended inventory of historical GHG emissions up to June 2020 using the best available data from various official sources and reports. Tier 1 quantification of uncertainties associated with estimates was used in the Second National Communication GHG inventory.Adequacy of the target from the perspective of the food system Kenya's updated NDC, submitted in December 2020, slightly increased its target for 2030. Whereas the previous NDC set a target of reducing BAU emissions by 30% by 2030 and was entirely dependent on international support, Kenya now commits to reducing BAU emissions by 32% by 2030, with a portion of this new target not contingent on financial support. While the introduction of an unconditional target is encouraging, Kenya still has a lot of room to improve its target.The NDC target in the agriculture sector commits to reducing only 2.77 MtCO2e, leaving a wide gap of 93% (36.23 MtCO2e) in the mitigation ambitions for total projected emissions by 2030 and about 50% in the technical mitigation potential estimated by 2030. Similarly, forestry and land-use change information is kept within the forestry sector, and Kenya commits to reducing about 20.8 MtCO2e (out of 22.1 MtCO2e), leaving a narrow gap of 6% in the mitigation ambitions for total projected emissions by 2030 (Table 1).On adaptation, the NDC targets provide specific indications of policy actions to address risk and vulnerability in the agriculture sector and food system, as well as information on policies, spatial information, and technology development, and the need to make progress against these actions and implement the NDC.The actual mitigation potential of each of the food sectors depends on a number of factors, ranging from policy, resources, and priorities to the practicality of implementing the potential mitigation actions. A sum of about US$ 502.55 million is estimated as necessary to support implementation of climate action in the current three priority food systems -agroforestry, smart agriculture, and Dairy NAMA -including the enabling actions presented in the updated NDC.All the food sector-related mitigation actions together have an abatement potential of 5.56 MtCO2e by 2030, compared with the sector's target of reducing 3 MtCO2e by 2030. The indicative proportionate emission reduction target contribution for the agriculture sector by 2030 is 2.77 MtCO2e with a high and low range of 2.8 and 1.6 MtCO2e, respectively. However, this does not necessarily have to be delivered by the sector since the actual sector GHG emission reduction will be based on the realistic opportunities available for emission reductions in the sector together with the sector plans and budget provisions.The available information in the overall food-system sector is viewed largely from the perspective of sensitivity to the risks, impacts, and vulnerabilities caused by climate change.Emissions from the different subsectors of the national food system, particularly from food production, consumption, storage and transportation, and food loss and waste are poorly quantified and understood in the updated NDC, suggesting that the use of data collection relating to activities should be improved in the future to analyze the sources of emissions when updating the next NDC. Adopting the Tier 2 advanced accounting method with a datamanagement system to prepare agriculture, food systems, and land use in the future update of the national GHG inventory is a key step to increasing coherence in GHG reporting and mitigation efforts.Data on sectoral contributions are not specified in the updated NDC or other associated documents, posing difficulties in analyzing the sectoral contributions of about 2.85 MtCO2e by 2030. Detailed data and analysis of GHG emission trends and mitigation potential in the food production, consumption, storage and transportation, and food loss subsectors were excluded in the NDC and associated documents.To achieve the NDC target, Kenya must implement policies, programs, and technologies that encourage reductions in emissions and drive the country to a low-carbon development pathway. Kenya has enormous potential to raise its agricultural ambitions, particularly in rice cultivation and livestock management. Similarly, other subsectors of food systems, such as consumption, transportation, and food loss and waste, have the potential to reduce GHG emissions and transition to a more resilient system. The key recommendations are as follows:• Raise ambitions in the agriculture sector: In the agriculture sector, out of 39 MtCO2e projected emissions, the current NDC targets are only set for a 2.77 MtCO2e emission reduction by 2030. This indicates a massive potential for increasing ambitions in the agriculture sector. The agroforestry, sustainable land management, and livestock climate actions proposed are projected to reduce emissions by about 5.17 MtCO2e by 2030. This aligns closely with the technical mitigation potential identified. However, efforts should be made to understand the technology and measures needed to enhance mitigation solutions in the agriculture sector, including the integration of complete food systems to raise ambitions with feasible quantifiable emission reduction targets. In addition, the NDC targets should include interventions to reduce emissions from cropland and rangeland fires, which have an identified mitigation potential, as well as emissions from rice cultivation.• Raise ambitions in the livestock sector: Reducing livestock enteric methane has remained a key priority of Kenya. However, the emission reduction projection from Dairy NAMA is estimated at only 0. Therefore, the priority actions of the AFOLU sector should be set in an integrated manner for the projection and accounting of GHG emission reduction.• Raise ambitions in aquaculture: Sustainable fishing and aquaculture have the potential to deliver an increased supply of ocean proteins, reducing the demand for land and supporting healthier and more diverse diets (FOLU, 2022). The NDC and associated documents have set policy priorities for sustainable aquaculture farming in Kenya mainly by increasing the number of farmers using low-carbon (recirculating) aquaculture systems and increasing deep/offshore fishing fleets. However, there is a need to make a reasonable estimate of mitigation potential at the national scale. This includes the enhancement and strengthening of the governance of community structures in participatory resource management in coastal ecosystems; conducting a blue carbonreadiness assessment for the full integration of blue carbon/ocean climate actions into NDCs; developing marine spatial planning; and outlining sustainable management approaches (Global Alliance for the Future of Food, 2022).• Integrate a holistic food system perspective to account for the adaptation and mitigation elements of a sustainable agriculture system: There is emerging literature about understanding the risk and vulnerability of the food system with varied levels of information on distribution, food processing, transportation, marketing and consumption, and food loss and waste. Kenya's NDC emission reduction is targeted towards the agriculture production system; there is a critical need to account for emission reduction potential throughout the food system by integrating data and information to set quantified mitigation targets throughout the system from production to consumption. To build the resilience of the food system, further emphasis needs to be placed on improving food storage infrastructure, food transportation and distribution, and the efficiency and sustainability of food processing, to reduce post-harvest food loss and waste and to increase access for poor and marginalized communities to climate-smart agriculture production and to more control over resources, finance, infrastructure, and technology.Promote climate-smart agriculture practices: Kenya has taken forward CSA as a transformative tool to build a nexus between climate change and agriculture. There are opportunities to promote crop varieties, livestock, fish breeds, and tree species that are adapted to varied weather conditions and can tolerate associated emerging pests and diseases. Some crops, such as banana, cassava, sorghum, sweet potato, pearl millet, groundnut, and finger millet, are expected to experience more favorable growing conditions as a result of climate change.• Enhance Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) system with harmonized GHG accounting methods to integrate the food system: Given the disparity between the Tier 1 method used in Kenya's inventory and the Tier 2 method used in the MRV of Dairy NAMA, adopting the Tier 2 method in the national GHG inventory is a key step to increasing coherence in GHG reporting and mitigation efforts. This will allow project-level initiatives to link with national MRV systems and track mitigation trends both in terms of absolute emissions and emission-intensity reductions. To realize this, support is needed to increase institutional capacity to manage the GHG inventory compilation process, as well as to create a data management system that facilitates the preparation of a livestock GHG inventory based on advanced accounting methods i .Chapter One: Aspects of food included in Kenya's NDC targetsAgriculture is one of the fundamental pillars of the 2022-2027 Bottom-up Economic Transformation Plan of the Government of Kenya to tackle complex domestic and global challenges. Agriculture is a vital part of Kenya's economy, making up 22.4% of its GDP (KNBS, 2022) in 2021 and employing 33% of the population in 2021 ii . Over 84% of Kenya's land area is arid and semi-arid, with poor infrastructure and other developmental challenges, leaving less than 16% of the land area to support over 80% of the population iii .In the last three decades, Kenya has made significant progress in modernizing and transforming its agriculture sector into an innovative, commercially oriented, and competitive sector (MoALF, 2020). However, the agriculture sector is yet to realize its full production potential to achieve positive food security, nourishment, and health outcomes in Kenya, due to climate-related shocks such as drought, floods, and pests and diseases. A recent food security and nutrition status report estimated that about 3.1 million people (20% of the population in Kenya's pastoral and Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs)) were classified as above acute food insecurity and acute malnutrition resulting from multiple shocks, including dry spells (poor seasonal rainfall), below-average crop and livestock production, and insecurity resulting from local resource-based conflicts and post COVID-19 pandemic effects that drove a price hike in staple foods iv . Kenya's low technological capability, inefficient production systems, inconsistent economic growth, increasing population, and climate variability is affecting food production systems and therefore the livelihoods and food security of millions of Kenyans who depend on agriculture (Lokuruka, 2020). Kenya is dealing with the double burden v of malnutrition, with some of the population considered overweight while others, predominantly children, suffer from undernourishment, micronutrient deficiencies, or stunted growth.At the same time, the agriculture sector is the major emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG) and is responsible for up to 22,539 Gg CO2 eq, which is 40.9 percent of the total country's GHG emissions vi . While the agriculture sector has supported food production yet contributed to increasing net GHG emissions, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Climate Change and Land emphasized the contribution of the food system to climate-change mitigation and recognized practices such as reducing crop and livestock emissions, sequestering carbon in soils and biomass, consuming healthy and sustainable diets and reducing food loss and waste as major opportunities for reducing GHG emissions while also improving health outcomes (IPCC, 2019).The guidance and framework have been developed to enhance the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) by integrating the food system approach to building climate resilience and diversifying context-specific mitigation solutions for food production, distribution, consumption, and waste (Global Alliance for the Future of Food vii , 2022; WWF viii , 2020). In this regard, the review of Kenya's NDC and associated documents was carried out to identify what aspects of food systems such as LULUC, production activities, food processing, transportation, marketing and consumption, and food loss and waste management have been included in the NDC targets. The scientific basis, data, and analytics behind the NDC targets are also reviewed to determine how realistic the targets are, identify data gaps, and provide additional mitigation options and their abatement potential for a possible update of the NDCs to consider food system integration.Kenya has a tropical climate with some modifications based on the topographies and altitudes. Kenya's climate is influenced by global, regional, and localized climate conditions. Some of the variability in the country's climate is due to the El Niño Southern Oscillation that has caused periods of drought and flooding in the country over decades. These events have caused economic losses and slowed down the value-added growth of agriculture (GoK, 2016 p4). Kenya's updated NDC sets out the premise of socio-economic losses estimated at 3-5% of the GDP annually over the last decade due to the successive impacts of climate change that have impeded development efforts.Future climate trends for temperature and precipitation show that Kenya's economy will continue to be affected. Global Climate Modelling (GCM) data indicate that the mean annual temperature is projected to increase by between 0.8 and 1.5°C by the 2030s, and between 1.6°C and 2.7°C by the 2060s (GoK, 2016 p5).With regard to precipitation, GCM data indicate that there will be a possible increase in average rainfall by the 2060s, especially from October to December. In addition, the data suggest with greater confidence that the proportion of annual rainfall that occurs in heavy events will increase. The range of increase varies from 2 to 11 percent by the 2060s and from 2 to 12 percent by the end of the century (GoK, 2016 p5).Agricultural production in Kenya is largely rainfed and dominated by smallholder farmers whose land holding is between 0.2 and 3.0 hectares, accounting for about 75% of total agricultural output and 70% of marketed agricultural produce (c.f. MoALF, 2020). Kenya's economy is highly dependent on horticulture and floriculture exports to the European Union. More than 95% of the fresh fruits and vegetables consumed in Kenya are grown domestically, mainly by smallholder farmers, and are supplied to rural and urban markets by small and medium-sized enterprises through informal supply chains.The sustainability of current arable, pastoral, and fishing production is expected to be negatively affected by changes in rainfall patterns, increases in temperature, and the occurrence of extreme weather events. Future projections of annual rainfall are uncertain and range from a 6% decrease to a 26% increase from the 1970-1999 average by 2060. The amount and timing of rainfall throughout the year are also projected to change, with increased inter-annual variability. Kenya has experienced extreme events of droughts, floods, and storms that have increased in frequency and extent in recent decades, impacting areas that were unaffected historically in both the arid and semi-arid lands and the key agricultural zones.Rising temperatures will probably alter the mix and distribution of agriculture and livestock pests, while the increased incidence of droughts, coupled with reduced rainfall projections for the arid and semi-arid regions, is expected to reduce yields in the key crops -maize, wheat, rice -and production in livestock and fisheries. Key cash crops such as coffee and tea are also likely to be severely affected due to temperature increases and the increased presence of pests and diseases (NEMA 2015). Fisheries are expected to be affected by physical and biological changes associated with climate change such as increase in water salinity, low primary production, and ocean acidification (Mohammed and Uraguchi, 2013). Additionally, indirect impacts, such as increased rates of runoff and soil erosion, and increased crop losses from wildlife migrations, rising and novel infestations from insects, diseases, and weeds, could significantly magnify production losses (NEMA, 2015, c.f WorldBank, 2021) 1.3. Mitigation Priorities and actions for the agriculture, food, and LULUCF sectorsKenya has committed to ambitious policies and measures to pursue a low-carbon, climateresilient development pathway to realizing Vision 2030, despite the country's negligible contribution to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (less than 0.1% in 2018). Kenya's total baseline greenhouse gas emissions were estimated to increase from 44 MtC02e in 1995 to 55 MtCO2e in 2020 and are projected to increase to 143 MtCO2e by 2030. Kenya's updated NDC (2020) describes Kenya's mitigation and adaptation contributions for the period 2020 to 2030 and proposes priority mitigation and adaptation actions. Kenya has made a strong commitment to economy-wide emission reduction, with an absolute target of 32% by 2030 relative to the BAU scenario of 143 MtCO2e, and a 2% increase in ambitions from the INDC submitted in 2015 (Table 1).Kenya has now committed to reducing 45.76 MtCO2e of GHG emissions in total by 2030 out of the 85.79 MtCO2e technical baseline GHG emission reduction potential estimated (21% of the mitigation cost not conditional on international financial support). However, with the increase in the ambitions raised, the updated NDC does not explicitly state the sectoral contributions to the total increased ambitions. In 2020, the leading source of emissions was agriculture at 42% of total national emissions, mostly due to livestock enteric fermentation, manure left on pasture and agricultural soils, and fertilizer application. This was closely followed by LULUCF at 38% because of deforestation and energy demand (7%), including transport at 7%. The balance from industrial processes and product use (IPPU) was at 2% and waste management at 2%. Between 2000 and 2030, electricity generation and agriculture sources are projected to contribute to overall national emissions through increased consumption of fossil fuels in generating electricity, meeting domestic, commercial, and industrial heating demands, and for transportation.In 2000, Kenya's total GHG emissions were 54,955 Gg CO2 equivalent (approximately 55 million tons of CO2 eq.) coming from all the sectors (Table 2). About 41% of total national emissions in 2000 were from the agriculture sector alone through enteric methane emissions from the livestock sector and emissions associated with the management of soils on agricultural lands, such as cultivation and tillage. The agriculture sector also contributes emissions by conventional tilling, the burning of savannah and crop residues, and rice cultivation. The LULUCF sector was a net emitter, contributing approximately 20,000 Gg CO2 equivalent (or approximately 20 million tons of CO2 equivalent) or 37.55 percent of total emissions.The agriculture sector (crops, livestock, fisheries, and agroforestry) together with land-use change contributes 78% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (NEMA, 2015). Within the agriculture sector, the major sources of GHG emissions are livestock enteric fermentation, manure left on the pasture, manure applied in soils, manure management, burning crop residues, rice cultivation, and burning savanna (NEMA, 2015).  The following are the key salient mitigation actions proposed under the agriculture, food, and LULUCF sectors.• Focus on Sustainable Agriculture: The NDCs place significant emphasis on promoting sustainable agriculture practices such as conservation agriculture, agroforestry, and limiting the use of fire in rangelands and cropland management, thus helping to improve food security, reduce GHG emissions, improve soil health, and reduce the impact of climate change on food systems. • Sustainable Land Management: The NDCs recognize the importance of increasing farm area under sustainable land management through conservation tillage for food security, and outline measures to improve the resilience of Kenya's food systems.• Sustainable Rice Production: The use of efficient production technology to increase rice production and expand areas of rain-fed rice production to lower GHG emissions.   (2018( -2022( ), the NCCAP 11 (2018( -2022)), and the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) (2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020)(2021)(2022)(2023)(2024)(2025)(2026)(2027)(2028)(2029)(2030). The following are the key salient adaptation actions, (which will also catalyze mitigation co-benefits) proposed under the agriculture, food, and LULUCF sectors.• Enhance the resilience of the agriculture value chain: Adopt sustainable climatesmart agriculture to build the resilience of small-scale subsistence farmers through the production of food crops, industrial crops, and horticultural products. Kenya intends to implement various priority adaptation actions to attain the Triple Adaptation Dividend, namely, avoidance of losses, gain of economic benefits, and gain of social and environmental benefits (including mitigation co-benefits). The key adaptation policy measures and strategic measures highlighted in Kenya's Climate Smart Agriculture Strategy (2017-2027) include the promotion and implementation of the following priorities.• Enhance adaptive capacity and climate resilience across all sectors of the economy.• Explore innovative livelihood strategies for enhancing the climate resilience of local communities through the financing of locally-led, climate-change actions. • Enhance a risk-based approach to climate-change adaptation through the development and application of comprehensive climate risk management tools that would help in addressing and adaptively managing climate risks in crops, livestock, and fisheries value chains. • Develop and implement strategies for early warning and response and ensure preparedness for extreme weather events. • Develop and use index-based agricultural insurance to reduce vulnerabilities due to extreme weather events. • Promote crop varieties, livestock, fish breeds, and tree species that are adapted to varied weather conditions and tolerant to associated emerging pests and diseases. • Develop, disseminate, and adopt technology along the crops, livestock, fisheries, and forestry value chains to withstand changes in temperature regimes and precipitation patterns.• Address residual climate-change impacts, loss, and damage, especially in the productive sectors of the economy. • Enhance the generation, packaging, and widespread uptake and use of climate information in decision-making and planning across sectors and counties with robust early warning systems (EWS). • Enhance the uptake of adaptation technology, especially by women, youth, and other vulnerable groups, incorporating scientific and indigenous knowledge. • Promote the diversification of enterprises and alternative livelihoods to enhance the productivity and profitability of agriculture enterprises. • Manage vulnerability due to unsustainable natural resource management by protecting existing natural resources.• Promote water harvesting and storage, irrigation infrastructure development, and efficient water use. • Promote and support the conservation and propagation of the germplasm of species with adaptive capacity.Chapter Two: Scientific basis, data, and analytics behind the NDC targets 2.1. The Process adopted.Kenya's updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) is in accordance with paragraphs 22-35 of Decision 1/CP.21 and Decision 4/CMA.1 and its annex. Compared to the first NDC, the updated NDC established a strong coordination mechanism led by the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Forestry, while the coordination was carried out by the Climate Change Directorate under the Ministry. Kenya has adopted the just transition principle as part of an aspiration to update the NDC that includes an extensive consultation process for social protection and an institutionalized review by stakeholders, to ensure that the interests of all stakeholders are considered in all the climate actions.According to the updated NDC, the process has been informed by a more detailed and robust assessment of mitigation and adaptation measures, in-depth analysis, improved information and data, and an extensive stakeholder consultation process that has included national and county government sectors, civil society, academia, and the private sector. The process was structured to support the enhancement of mitigation, adaptation, and transparent communication, together with alignment of the NDC with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The enhancements have not only targeted the mitigation ambitions of the NDC, but also the strengthening of the NDC's implementation.The process entailed the review of relevant national plans, policies, and legislation (Figure 1). The contributions described in the updated NDC submission build upon Kenya's initial NDC, the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) 2015-2030, new policies and national plans, and reflect subsequent work as captured in Kenya's Second National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP 2018-2022) and the Third National Inventory Report (NIR 3). 2.2. Scientific basis and data used.Kenya followed UNFCCC guidelines on information to facilitate clarity, transparency, and understanding (iCTU) to prepare its updated NDC. Kenya's preparation for the NDC has been informed by the best available science and its assessment is central to the IPCC's special report on 1. Kenya's NDC is supported by scientific analyses and accounting methodologies, and reference has been made to the technical analysis reports of the NCCAP 2018-2022. The Mitigation Technical Analysis Report (MTAR), the Adaptation Technical Analysis Report (ATAR), and the NIR 3 have been used to update the NDC analysis. The updated NDC was based on an assessment of the extent and impact of the implementation of the NDC to date and an extended inventory of historical GHG emissions up to June 2020, applying the best available data from various official sources and reports. The Second National Communication GHG inventory has used Tier 1 quantification of uncertainties associated with the estimates.According to the updated NDC, the priority mitigation and adaptation actions will be implemented through the NCCAPs as set out in the Climate Change Act, 2016, thus creating the opportunity to enhance the ambitions every five years with the revision of the NCCAPs. Kenya has developed an Integrated MRV system, including an Integrated MRV tool, for monitoring and reporting both mitigation and adaptation actions, together with their results. This Integrated MRV system is linked with already existing monitoring and reporting systems including the National Integrated Monitoring System (NIMES) and County Integrated Monitoring System (CIMES). The integrated MRV system will track the implementation status of the NCCAP, the NAP, and the NDC in the annual reports and will be input for both national and international reporting obligations.Kenya has made a clear commitment to implement and periodically update the National Climate Change Action Plans (NCCAPs) to achieve the NDC targets. While the previous NDC target was entirely conditional on international support, Kenya now commits to bear 21% of the mitigation costs, i.e. US$ 3.7bn, to reduce 32% of the BAU emissions projected by 2030. The updated NDC is not clear on specific sectoral contributions to GHG reduction as compared to the overall commitment to reducing the BAU emissions of 143 MtCO2e by 32%, (48.76 MtCO2e) by 2030. It is expected that in the NCCAP (2023-2027), there will be elaboration on how the 2% increase in ambitions is progressing; an emission reduction of about 2.85 MtCO2e is proposed in addition to sectoral disaggregated mitigation contributions. Therefore, at present, only national-level economy-wide emission reduction targets are known without a sectoral breakdown of raised ambitions for emission reduction relative to BAU (Table 4). The NDC promotes transformational agriculture for crops, livestock, and fisheries to contribute toward meeting the ambitious climate-change mitigation targets. The NDC target for the agriculture sector commits to reducing only 2.77 MtCO2e, leaving a wide gap of 93% (36.23 MtCO2e) in mitigation ambitions for total projected emissions by 2030. For the agriculture sector, the indicative proportionate emission reduction target contribution by 2030 is 2.77 MtCO2e with a high and low range of 2.8 and 1.6 Mt CO2e, respectively.Agriculture is the largest source of GHG emissions in Kenya and these are likely to increase from 30 MtCO2e in 2010 to 39 MtCO2e in 2030, largely driven by livestock methane emissions (18.8 MtCO2e by 2030) and agricultural soils (16.2 MtCO2e by 2030). The sector also contributes carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions through activities such as conventional tillage, burning of the savannah and crop residues, and rice cultivation (GoK, 2015).  The overall impact of the actions of the three agriculture sources depicts the low range of potential targets for emission reductions and opportunities to enhance NDC targets with practical strategy. The NDC target for agriculture is only set at 2.77 MtCO2e, which is a 50% gap in the estimated technical mitigation potential (5.53 MtCO2e) by 2030. Table 7 provides an overview of mitigation actions within the agriculture sector and the projection of agriculture's emission reduction potential by 2030. However, there remain areas where the NDC can be enhanced in terms of quantitative targets for agriculture and food sources for which the potential emission reduction projection has been carried out. (Table 8). Overall, the NDC scores from low to high in many categories of the food system-focused emission reduction targets for the quantitative and qualitative targets presented in the NDC as well as in Kenya's national climate-change action plans. In terms of content, agroecology, regenerative approaches, and nature-positive solutions are found to be promoted. The MTAR provides key enabling technologies associated with the priority mitigation options related to food systems for monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) and capacity building, including data collection and inventory development. The NDC lists essential actions, including specific commitments, strategies, or funding, related to the critical transition.No specific information on marketing and consumption.The The NDC lists some specific policy measures and actions for the critical transition. Overall Rating: MediumOverall, the NDC rates high to very high across many categories as it provides specific indications of actions to address risk and vulnerability in the agriculture sector and food systems, as well as information on policies, spatial information, and technology development; it needs to make progress against these actions and implement the NDC. Kenya has a sufficient commitment to adaptation through enhancing the resilience of the value chains by promoting climate-smart agriculture, livestock development, and aquaculture. The NDC includes measures to improve climate services to build climate resilience through sustainable land-use management, the provision of safety nets and extension services, as well as access to finance specifically targeted at marginalized communities. Overall Rating: Very high (5) Kenya's GDP relies on climate-sensitive sectors. Kenya's agriculture is 98% rainfed and therefore highly vulnerable to extreme events, climatic shocks, climatic changes, and variability. Drought, floods, rising sea levels, and pests and diseases are the key climate-related threats to agriculture food production. The NDCs have set a very strong policy target to enhance a risk-based approach to climate change adaptation through the development and application of comprehensive climate-risk management tools that could help in addressing and adaptively managing climate risks. Kenya has a welldeveloped strategy and action plan to address current and future climate risks and vulnerabilities with near-to long-term adaptation actions to address changes in temperature regimes, precipitation patterns, and extreme weather events.Overall Efforts rating: High (4) The adaptation target aims adopt climate-smart agriculture, including through national policy and strategic measures in the agriculture sectors, to enhance the adaptive capacity and resilience of farmers, pastoralists, and fisherfolk to the adverse impacts of climate change by reducing vulnerabilities. Differences in the degree of risk and level of adaptation efforts = GapThere are minimal gaps in terms of information and scientific basis to take forward adaptation action in Kenya.Rating: Very high (5), high (4), moderate (3), low (2), very low (1)The actual mitigation potential of each of the food sectors depends on a number of factors ranging from policy, resources, and priorities to the implementation practicality of the potential mitigation actions. An estimated sum of about US$ 502.55 million is needed to support the climate action implementation of the current three priority food systems, including enabling the actions presented in the updated NDC. Kenya has estimated about i) US$ 279.70 million for agroforestry and sustainable land management as part of the smart agriculture program; ii) US$ 222.6 million (US$ 149.73 million as private sector co-financing) for Kenya's Dairy NAMA project, of which US$ 56.06 million is requested from the Green Climate Fund (GCF), and iii) US$ 0.25 million for enabling actions, about a quarter of which is included in the Capacity-Building Initiative for Transparency (CBIT) project.All the food sector-related mitigation actions together have an abatement potential of 5.56 MtCO2e by 2030, compared with the sector's target of reducing emissions by 3 MtCO2e by 2030. The indicative proportionate emission reduction target contribution for the agriculture sector by 2030 is 2.77 MtCO2e, with a high and low range of 2.8 and 1.6 MtCO2e, respectively. This does not necessarily have to be delivered by the sector though, since the actual GHG emissions reduction by the sector will be based on the realistic opportunities available for emission reductions in the sector, together with the sector plans and budget provisions. The agriculture sector should strive to meet the low range of emission reductions (1.6 MtCO2e by 2030), requiring that other sectors implement actions to achieve the high range of emission reductions.The implementation of climate-smart agriculture practices has had mixed results x as indicted in the implementation status report of Fiscal Year 2019/20 of the NCCAP 2018-2022. As of June 2020, 52,075 ha of degraded land has been reclaimed through sustainable land management practices, meeting 87% of the NCCAP's 2022 target. Only 10,286 ha of agricultural land, or 4% of the 2022 target, has been put under soil nutrient management, while conservation agriculture practices are implemented in 20,050 ha of land, or 8% of the 2022 target. According to the NDC baseline, absolute emissions from the agriculture sector are projected to grow from 34 MtCO2e in 2015 to 41.6 MtCO2e in 2030, while the contribution of agricultural emissions (excl. LULUCF) to total national emissions is expected to decrease from 59% in 2015 to 32% in 2030. With the implementation of the CSA strategy, absolute emissions would reach 31.6 MtCO2e in 2030. If the sector successfully implements the measures from the NCCAP 2018-2022 and the sector's CSA strategy, it is likely that the sectoral target can be met. In order to achieve the minimum 1.6 MtCO2e recommended NDC target for emission reduction by 2030 for the agriculture sector, focusing on food security mainly during the NCCAP 2018-2022 period, the sector priority actions can comfortably deliver the low range of emission reductions (1.6 MtCO2e) by 2022 and the high range of emission reductions (2.8 MtCO2e) by 2030.Kenya has identified the key technologies required as part of the enabling actions for monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) associated with the three priority mitigation options. These are i) Agroforestry: nurseries, improved market access for small farms, extension service support, capacity building and pilot projects: ii) Sustainable land management: agriculture extension services, low-cost tillage systems and equipment; extension services to educate pastoralists and farmers on the risks associated with using burning to manage rangelands and croplands and the benefits of using alternative practices; iii) Kenya Dairy NAMA: formulation of improved feeds and feed additives to reduce enteric fermentation; development of breeding schemes and improved herd health and iv) enabling actions: MRV capacity building, including data collection and inventory development.Chapter Three: Missing data gaps Kenya's NDC is found to be focused more on emission reduction from nature-positive food production activities to meet the country's demand for food as the sector is dominated by smallholder rain-fed production. With climate change, there is an increasing problem of food insecurity and malnutrition, and tackling the decline in production is the major priority. Therefore, the immediate priority is on reducing emissions from distribution, processing, transportation, and marketing, and consumption and reducing food waste are not included. This may be partly due to a lack of data and information for activities related to the overall food system and potential contributions to emission reductions.The available information concerning the overall food system is viewed primarily from the perspective of sensitiveness to climate-change risks, impacts, and vulnerabilities. For example, Kenya has two distinct national distribution systems for agri-food products xi : one based on small-scale production and informal networks, and the other based on contract farming and supermarkets. Each distribution chain has different requirements regarding infrastructure (e.g., roads, markets, airports, or ports) and degree of organization. Kenya receives major foreign investments in agriculture, such as for large export-oriented horticulture and floriculture; the food system is transitioning from a traditional food system to a modern one, shown by export-oriented production, distribution concentration, and overnutrition for an increasing number of citizens, especially in the middle-and upper-classes. With the projected trends of increased precipitation and temperatures, there is a likelihood of an increase in flooding, washouts, scour, erosion, siltation/debris, and soil erosion, xii which ultimately disrupt road transportation networks or corridors essential for distributing food from production sites to markets, resulting in increased food prices and decreased access to food. Most farmers are small-scale, with mostly rainfed produce, and have limited transport, storage, and processing facilities, hence cash-strapped farmers sell their surplus around the peak of seasonal production at the lowest prices; this infrastructural inefficiency will limit access to food by marginalized groups.Consumption volumes are generally kept low in Kenya partly due to the relatively higher prices of indigenous vegetables (fresh produce in low supply) compared with staples like maize (and kale) that are easier to store and transport and enjoy more established and effective distribution networks. The reliance on rain, lack of storage facilities, and low level of food processing, coupled with other market failures and lack of water in the dry season (particularly challenging in the arid and semi-arid lands), cause peaks in food insecurity in a large part of Kenya for about eight months of the year. During the rainy season, there are often cases of overproduction leading to falling prices and/or food waste.Food consumption patterns are altered by the availability and affordability of certain foods impacted by production and distribution. Climate change can increase food loss due to supplychain disruptions and spoilage during transportation and storage, as well as post-harvest crop losses. Kenya estimates that about 20% of cereals are lost even before they reach the market xiii . The problem of post-harvest loss in horticultural crops is found to be acute in Kenya xiv . This loss not only contributes to environmental degradation but also exacerbates acute food and nutrition insecurity and malnutrition xv by reducing the availability of food. Soethoudt, and Castelein, 2021 analyzed intervention scenarios for smallholder potato value chains in Kenya that improved yields, reduced losses, minimized greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and increased economic performance and food security.The GHG inventory of the agriculture sector consists of disaggregated baseline emissions from livestock enteric fermentation, agriculture soils, savanna burning, livestock manure management, rice cultivation, and burning crop residues. The situation analysis of the agriculture sector report shows mitigation potential in the crop, livestock, and fisheries/aquaculture subsectors; landscapes and forestry; and productive resources (land, soil, and water), broadly categorizing mitigation strategies in three ways: carbon sequestration in soils; on-farm emission reduction; and emission displacement from the transportation sector through biofuels (MoALF, 2020). However, in the national food system, emissions, particularly from food production, consumption, storage and transportation, and food loss and waste, are poorly quantified and understood, suggesting that the collection of activity data should be improved in the future to analyze the sources of emissions (Table 11).The review of the Biennial Update Report (BUR) submission from non-annex 1 parties to the UNFCCC secretariat xvi shows that Kenya has not yet submitted its BUR. Kenya has stated during a submission xvii made to the UNFCCC secretariat that the country has no experience with BURs and hence no experience with reporting on support needed or received.Table 11 Analysis of the food system data and information reflected in the NDC.The NDC gives sufficient information to estimate the targeted GHG emission levels. The NDC includes the targeted absolute GHG emissions level. Regarding the food system, the NDC aligns with existing food system practices, considering agroecology and regenerative approaches and the conservation and regeneration of forest ecosystems. However, it does not account for overall food system emissions, a shift to healthy and sustainable diets, and the reduction of food loss and waste. Followed the guidance in information to facilitate clarity, transparency, and understanding of NDCs in Decision 4/CMA.1 Kenya followed the Decision 4/CMA.1 guidance on transparency to a large extent and followed iCTU guidance to prepare the updated NDCThe NDC describes most of the accounting modalities following IPCC guidance. The GHG inventory has used Tier 1 quantification of uncertainties associated with the estimates; however, this can be improved in subsequent GHG inventories using Tier 2. Scientific analyses and accounting methodologies in food system elements only consider production-related emissions information.The NDC lists essential actions, including specific commitments, strategies, or funding, related to the critical transition. It states that by 2030 the country will have an improved integrated MRV system. Kenya aims to promote sustainable digital agriculture solutions to improve productivity with support from development partners. Digital literacy among the population is a major barrier to the large-scale adoption of digital solutions. However, there is potential to adopt the digital revolution in the food system and agriculture xviii for inputs, production, distribution, and consumption using machine learning, weather stations, databases, mobile applications, and blockchains (FAO, and World Bank, 2021).Chapter Four: Additional mitigation options and their abatement potential for the possible update of Kenya's NDC• Raising ambitions in the overall agriculture and the food system: Kenya's projected level of emissions in the sector by 2030 and the current level of climateaction ambitions have significant gaps of 93%. Although Kenya is not a significant GHG contributor globally, domestically, in line with Vision 2030 and as a part of low carbon climate-resilient development committed to under the Paris Agreement, it can further elevate its contribution to the reduction of emissions from agriculture and the food sector. There are 14 key opportunities 1 to expand the current level of targets and accelerate food system translation based on the Global Alliance of Future of Food (2022) in three NDC components: i) the NDC planning and construction process; 2) NDC targets and measures; and 3) NDC implementation and monitoring aspects during the next NDC update process in 2025. Kenya should implement its land userelated emission abatement program more effectively and efficiently to achieve the desired results and impacts.• Preparing its long-term strategy for climate action: Kenya is waiting for the endorsement of its 2050 Long-Term Greenhouse Gas Strategy and Carbon Resilience Development Pathway under the Paris Agreement. Its long-term vision for 2030 has been presented, and it is not clear if Kenya would be able to achieve net zero status by 2050. There are opportunities to set targets for agriculture, food, and land use.• Improve coordination mechanisms set up within and across levels of government to develop the NDC and the policy development/implementation process: The National Climate Change Council is responsible for overseeing and coordinating the implementation of the NDC. However, there is a need to continue strengthening the coordination capacity of the Climate Change Units (CCUs) at the national and county levels to ensure better complementarity and cooperation between national, regional, and global transparency-related activities in Kenya. This also includes improving institutional capacity to manage the compilation process for the GHG inventory and establish a sustainable system for producing regular national GHG inventories.• Stronger alignment needed on global commitments: At the 26th meeting of the Conference of Parties in Glasgow, four sectoral initiatives were launched to accelerate climate action: methane; the coal exit; 100% electric vehicles (EVs); and forests/land use. Methane makes up around half of Kenya's total emissions. Kenya has not signed the methane pledge -becoming a signatory could have significant emission reduction implications for the country. Kenya has not signed the coal pledge -while Kenya has not yet deployed coal power generation, the long-term energy supply plan outlines coal as 12% of the country's power supply by 2040. Kenya adopted the electric vehicle pledge at COP26. While it did not commit to the 2040 target, Kenya signed the forestry pledge at COP26. This is significant, given Kenya's high share of emissions from LULUCF, which on average made up one-third of Kenya's total emissions over the last 20 years. Kenya can accelerate the shift toward sustainable food systems, in particular through measures that further promote regenerative agricultural practices, restore degraded land, and protect natural ecosystems.• Raising ambitions in the agriculture sectors: In the agriculture sector, out of 39 MtCO2e projected emissions, the current NDC targets are only set for 2.77 MtCO2e emission reduction by 2030. This indicates the massive potential for increasing ambitions in the agriculture sector. The agroforestry, sustainable land management, and livestock climate actions proposed are projected to reduce emissions by about 5.17 MtCO2e by 2030. This closely aligns with the technical mitigation potential identified. However, there are efforts required to understand the technology and measures needed to enhance the mitigation solutions in the agriculture sectors, including the integration of full food systems approach to raise ambitions with feasible quantifiable emission reduction targets. In addition, the NDC targets should include interventions to reduce emissions from cropland and rangeland fires, the mitigation potential of which has been identified, as well as reducing emissions from rice cultivation.• Raising ambitions in the livestock sectors: Reducing livestock enteric methane has remained one of Kenya's key priorities. However, the emission reduction projection from the Dairy NAMA is estimated at only 0.69 MtCO2e by 2030, suggesting a large gap in the implementation emission reduction program as well as in the agriculture baseline GHG emissions that are largely driven by livestock methane emissions (18.8 MtCO2e by 2030). These gaps need to be addressed by further reaching out to households in the emission reduction program. Kenya should enhance its capacity for identifying methane mitigation actions that align with the SDGs and integrate methane quantification and mitigation into existing and planned livestock subsector strategies, investments, and policies.• Raising ambitions in agroforestry and land use: The AFOLU sector contributes a 61.72% relative share of national GHG emissions (FOLU, 2022). Although there are no concrete and separate priority actions indicated for AFOLU, the NDC indicates the prioritization of nature-based solutions related to REDD+, agroforestry, conservation, restoration, and reforestation of degraded land. The current ambitions in terms of these activities have limited gaps: 20.8 MtCO2e of NDC targets out of 22.1 MtCO2e of projected emission reduction potential. The NDC has incomplete or generic information on land use planning. The second national communication has indicated about a 2.9 MtCO2e emission reduction baseline projection for cropland by 2030. Therefore, the AFOLU sector priority actions should be set in an integrated manner for the projection and accounting of GHG emission reductions.• Raising ambitions in aquaculture: Sustainable fishing and aquaculture have the potential to deliver an increased supply of ocean proteins, reducing the demand for land and supporting healthier and more diverse diets (FOLU, 2022). The NDC and associated documents have set policy priorities for sustainable aquaculture farming in Kenya, mainly by increasing the number of farmers using low-carbon (recirculating) aquaculture systems and increasing deep/offshore fishing fleets. However, there is a need to make a reasonable estimate for the mitigation potential at the national scale. These include the enhancement and strengthening of governance of community structures in participatory resource management in coastal ecosystems, conducting a blue carbon-readiness assessment for the full integration of blue carbon/ocean climate actions into NDCs, developing marine spatial planning, and outlining sustainable management approaches (Global Alliance for the Future of Food, 2022).• Integrating a holistic food system perspective to account for the adaptation and mitigation elements of a sustainable agriculture system: There is emerging literature about understanding the risk and vulnerability of the food system, with varied levels of information around distribution, food processing, transportation, marketing and consumption, and food loss and waste. Kenya's NDC emission reduction program is targeted at the agriculture production system, there is a critical need to account for emission reduction potential throughout the food system by integrating data and information to set the quantified mitigation targets from production to consumption. To build the resilience of the food system, further emphasis needs to be placed on improving food-storage infrastructure, food transportation and distribution, and the efficiency and sustainability of food processing, to reduce post-harvest food loss and waste; and on supporting access to climate-smart agriculture production and control over resources, finance, infrastructure, and technology for poor and marginalized communities.• Promoting climate-smart agriculture practices: Kenya has taken forward CSA as a transformative tool to build a nexus between climate change and agriculture. There are opportunities to promote crop varieties, livestock, fish breeds, and tree species that are adapted to varied weather conditions and can tolerate associated emerging pests and diseases. Some crops, such as banana, cassava, sorghum, sweet potato, pearl millet, groundnut, and finger millet are expected to experience more favorable growing conditions as a result of climate change.• Enhancing the MRV system with harmonized GHG accounting methods to integrate the food system: Given the disparity between the Tier 1 method used in Kenya's inventory and the Tier 2 method used in the MRV of the Dairy NAMA, adopting the Tier 2 method in the national GHG inventory is a key step to increasing coherence in GHG reporting and mitigation. This will allow project-level initiatives to link with national MRV systems and track mitigation trends both in terms of absolute emissions and reductions in emission intensity. To realize this, support is needed to increase institutional capacity to manage the compilation process of the GHG inventory, as well as to create a data management system that facilitates the preparation of the livestock GHG inventory based on advanced accounting methods 2 .• Providing clear financial allocations for sustainable food systems: Although the amount available to fund the implementation of the food system initiatives is not explicitly stated in the NDC, given the need to integrate all food system components in the NDC, greater resources would be needed to ensure that the activities being undertaken adhere to climate-smart as well as agroecological principles. There is scope to raise the conditional targets set within the NDCs by raising domestic financing as well as by ensuring that international finance is pledged and received to meet both the quantified and the policy measures communicated. Furthermore, it is important to enhance Kenya's capacity to secure climate finance for transformative action. Kenya is already part of the Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM 3 ) to facilitate the diffusion of leading decarbonizing technologies, products, systems, services, and infrastructure.• Including measures to build cross-ministerial collaboration as well as frameworks for stakeholder dialogue, exchange of best practices, and building of institutional capacity: The NDC refers to cross-sectoral problems that are a result of the impacts of climate change leading to food insecurity. Hence, greater coordination and cooperation between the relevant sector ministries must be demonstrated tangibly in the NDC to ensure improved and sustained access to nutritious food and contribute to a sustainable food system. ","tokenCount":"8878"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8f485cee2f2a59127490e5da6aaa7942","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/3095a84a-033d-47c0-991e-a0ebba40855a/retrieve","id":"1252985642"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7dd81b03-c9b8-457f-ab87-03c101c96c36","pagecount":"12","content":"T he climate-smart agriculture (CSA) concept reflects an ambition to improve the integration of agriculture development and climate responsiveness. It aims to achieve food security and broader development goals under a changing climate and increasing food demand. CSA initiatives sustainably increase productivity, enhance resilience, and reduce/remove greenhouse gases (GHGs), and require planning to address tradeoffs and synergies between these three pillars: productivity, adaptation, and mitigation [1]. The priorities of different countries and stakeholders are reflected to achieve more efficient, effective, and equitable food systems that address challenges in environmental, social, and economic dimensions across productive landscapes. While the concept is new, and still evolving, many of the practices that make up CSA already exist worldwide and are used by farmers to cope with various production risks [2]. Mainstreaming CSA requires critical stocktaking of ongoing and promising practices for the future, and of institutional and financial enablers for CSA adoption. This country profile provides a snapshot of a developing baseline created to initiate discussion, both within countries and globally, about entry points for investing in CSA at scale.The high biodiversity and environmental services in Chiapas can be maintained through diversified activities, such as agroforestry and silvopasture, as means for securing livelihoods and bolstering climate mitigation potential, diminishing tradeoffs between development and conservation.Climate risk management strategies, such as early weather notifications, warning systems, and agricultural insurance, can help farmers cope with the floods, pest infestations, and other climate extremes that are common in Chiapas.Minimum tillage in Chiapan maize systems can help increase carbon capture in soil while boosting productivity.Knowledge exchange strategies are essential for increasing the productivity and resilience of Mexico's agricultural sector. A formalized innovation system with public, private, and academic actors is important for knowledge generation, collection, and dissemination.The identification of suitable adaptation and mitigation options can be enhanced by development and access to Integrated Decision Support Systems that compile and analyze weather, agronomic and market information, and deliver results to a range of stakeholders and decision makers.* An ejido is an area of communal land used for agriculture, on which community members individually possess and farm a specific parcel.Regularly, land use decisions are made by community consensus.Strengthening governance and democratic landscape management of farmers associations, ejidos, * and communities can help increase productivity by creating economies of scale that bring connectivity to the fragmented landscape of numerous small land holdings in Chiapas.Chiapas receives considerable support from external entities, both federal and otherwise, on initiatives that integrate the three pillars of CSA. This institutional landscape will likely prove vital to Chiapas' ability to scale up CSA for the purposes of rural development and resilience to climate change.Although federal financing for CSA is extensive, supporting farmer-led investment and entrepreneurship can go a long way towards ensuring shared prosperity and long-term feasibility of CSA at scale. Agriculture contributes to 8% of the GDP in Chiapas [3] and employs 40% of the economically active population in the state [4]. Chiapas is the state with the second most marginalized population in Mexico, and small rural localities depend solely on agricultural activities [5].Chiapas faces socio-economic challenges and high inequity. Almost half of the population is food insecure (46%) and only 3% of people working in agriculture are women.1 Estimation for January to September 2011 by SAGARPA. 2 Computed by dividing total surface by the number of production units reported by scale in the National Agriculture, Livestock and Forestry inventory of 2007.The average size of agricultural landholdings in Chiapas is among the smallest in Mexico. According to national agricultural census data, 41% of farmers in Chiapas are smallholders (0-5 hectares), 49% are medium-sized farmers (5 to 20 hectares) and 10% are large scale (more than 20 hectares) [10]. 1  Low agricultural productivity in Chiapas can be associated with the size of agricultural landholdings and related socio-economic conditions in rural areas. The small size of plots impedes economies of scale unless effective farmers organizations are in place. Low productivity coupled with high production costs results in limited income potential for many farmers. Where farming in small plots is isolated, productivity and competitiveness are compromised [11].Land Use [9]  Main Crops [10]   National context: Key facts on agriculture and climate changeChiapas is located in the maize-bean region of southern Mexico. The maize-bean farming system is historically and culturally based on the production of these two products on a subsistence basis [12].The region is populated largely by indigenous communities. The historical small size of land holdings and lack of productive capacity has led to extensive poverty and severe land degradation in many areas.Important agricultural products in Chiapas are maize, coffee, sugarcane, beans, and cattle. The four crops are considered important due to their 2012 production values (US$426 million, $268 million, $152 million, and $72 million, respectively) and their harvested areas (50%, 18%, 2%, and 8% of total agricultural area respectively) [12]. The dairy bovine production system is considered important due to its contribution to average daily consumption of kilocalories per capita.According to the 2011 GHG emissions inventory for Chiapas [16], 19% of the total state emissions came from the agricultural sector. This percentage includes both livestock and other agricultural activities, but no disaggregated information per activity is reported. The sector with the highest contribution to GHG emissions was land-use change (58% of total emissions).Challenges with the agriculture sector in Chiapas are complex and linked with social, ecological, productive, and institutional aspects. In a workshop by the Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 2010, farmers identified almost 40 problems related to the sector (see list of Annexes), the three central ones being: 1) low productivity, 2) low organizational capacity in farmers organizations, and 3) barriers to access financial products [17].Productivity Indicators 3 GHG Emissions [16]  Agriculture GHG Emissions [16]  Key problems related to institutional capacity are: insufficient entrepreneurial support, low access to technical assistance, low support in the acquisition of production technologies, misalignment of government programs with the production cycles, programs that incentivize subsistence from the government, low institutional coordination, and scarce research aligned to rural needs [17].Soil in Chiapas is mostly suitable for forest activities and the forestry sector faces problems. Forest management has limited effectiveness due to the lack of integral development schemes, and the persistence of illegal wood and non-wood extraction activities. Furthermore, there are several kinds of natural protected areas in the state, including seven biosphere reserves, which form a biological corridor.The natural protected areas have proven ineffective to ensure conservation of key species, such as the xate palm and orchids. These problems were expressed in the workshop mentioned above. Farmers mentioned deforestation and an inadequate management of natural resources as key problems [17].Soils for agriculture in Chiapas are of low productive nature. Rendzinas (17% of territory) are claylike with low productivity and acrisols (16.2% of territory) have an acid pH, which also limits productivity [17].Size of farming plots in Chiapas is reduced as land is passed from generation to generation. As a common practice, farmers subdivide the land they possess to grant tenure to each of their successors, who in turn subdivide it when they pass it on to their next generations. This phenomenon results in low productive connectivity and minimizes the chances of economies of scale [17].In relation to climate, high relative temperature and humidity promotes pest infestations and diseases, especially in coffee systems [5]. Similarly, increasing climate variability makes investing heavily in agricultural production a financial risk for farmers.Part-time jobs and other off-farm sources of income are replacing agricultural entrepreneurship.Climate projections indicate that future temperatures in Chiapas are likely to increase 1.6 ˚C by 2030 [18,19]. Precipitation reductions in 2030 will be in the range of -6 mm to -53 mm.Extreme climate events affecting Chiapas include extended periods of drought and persistent flooding during critical periods of crop growth [5]. While tropical cyclones are likely to become more intense under a warmer climate as a result of higher sea surface temperatures, there is uncertainty as to changes in frequency [18].Chiapas' small coffee producers have already experienced production losses due to climate change.Warming of soil organic matter results in degradation, suppressed root growth, and decomposition of organic matter [20]. Coffee production is additionally at risk from rising temperatures, as these will favor proliferation of pests and diseases, such as coffee berry borer, leaf miner, nematodes, and coffee rust [21]. This graph displays three of the smartest CSA practices for each of the key production systems in Chiapas. Both ongoing and potentially applicable practices are displayed, and practices of high interest for further investigation or scaling out are visualized. Climate smartness is ranked from 1 (very low positive impact) to 5 (very high positive impact).Critical programmatic practices, such as agricultural insurance, loans, guarantees, and small but growing farmers organizations are being implemented to a certain degree but are in need of further organization and investment at the institutional level.Practices with high climate-smartness rankings and the potential to be applied across a large land area, but that currently exhibit low adoption rates, offer opportunities for increasing the overall climate smartness of the state. These practices of high interest for further investigation and promotion in Chiapas are:• Silvopastoral systems Product differentiation can enhance income.Table 1. Detailed smartness assessment for top ongoing CSA practices by production system as implemented in ChiapasThe assessment of a practice's climate smartness uses the average of the rankings for each of the six smartness categories: weather, water, carbon, nitrogen, energy, and knowledge. Smartness categories emphasize the integrated components related to achieving increased adaptation, mitigation, and productivity. Due to Chiapas' relative underdevelopment, the state is an intervention priority for the Mexican government.A variety of non-government organizations (NGOs) and international organizations also have ongoing CSA-related projects in the state. Due to extensive support from multiple levels of government, Chiapas is committed to climate change management. Key CSA-related policies and programs include:• State-Level Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory (IEGEI).• Feasibility studies for REDD+ 5 in Chiapas.• Climate Change Action Program for the State of Chiapas -PACCCH, 2011.• REDD+ Chiapa's strategy. • Technical Consulting Council for REDD+ (CTC-REDD Chiapas).• Water Law for the State of Chiapas.• Law for the Sustainable Forest Development of Chiapas.• Environmental Law of the State of Chiapas.• Law for Civil protection for management of disaster risks.The graphic on the left represents the main thematic foci of public and private institutions in Mexico related to the three pillars of CSA: adaptation, mitigation, and productivity. Unlike the national institutional landscape, CSA-related institutions in Chiapas show a high degree of cooperation and integration of climate change initiatives. Many of them address more than one, and even all three CSA pillars, as part of their agenda.In the productivity pillar, Root Capital, an international non-profit organization, provides microloans and climate information technologies to farmers. ","tokenCount":"1790"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"57af0ed13b66aa7b1b20d919f6b33952","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/78471ee3-3f4f-4a0b-b4d8-7411020858fe/retrieve","id":"1828842012"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e1a87b08-0e11-4df5-a109-b7bd29660377","pagecount":"80","content":"This abridged version of the MTP does not include reference to: Alignment to CGIAR Priorities, Elaboration of Partners Roles, Center Financial Indicators and Financial Plan. See the full version in CIAT's website (www.ciat.cgiar.org).3. NRM and policy research on issues that receive high priority in LAC. 4. Strengthening research capacity in the region through institutional innovation, knowledge management and skills enhancement.This Medium Term Plan 2010-12 is the first step in implementing these strategic directions.Eco-efficient agriculture for the poor CIAT aims to reduce hunger and poverty in the tropics through research that increases the eco-efficiency of agriculture. Eco-efficient agriculture increases productivity while reducing negative environmental impacts. Eco-efficient agriculture meets economic, social and environmental needs of the rural poor by being profitable, competitive, sustainable and resilient. Too often, productivity gains -increased production per resources used-have come at the expense of the environment or have not provided benefits to the poor. CIAT has, therefore, adopted the concept of 'Eco-efficient agriculture for the poor' as harmonizes the economic, environmental and social elements of development. It strives towards solutions that are competitive and profitable, sustainable and resilient, and generate benefits for the poor.Eco-efficient agriculture for the poor enables family farms to take advantage of technologies that use resources more effectively, deliver sustainable increases in productivity and yield more abundant food supplies. Science for impact is CIAT's contribution to achieving an eco-efficient agriculture for the poor. The core of CIAT's work is strategic research focused on producing outputs of new knowledge that yields improved technologies, resource management practices and institutions and policies. CIAT places high priority on insuring that there are clear pathways from its research outputs, to their use by partners and their ultimate impact on reducing hunger, poverty and natural resource degradation.CIAT sees co-development of research products with its national partners as key, and emphasizes of user participation in technology development and evaluation at the earliest possible stage. All CIAT research outputs are developed with partners. This both contributes critically to producing these outputs by complementing CIAT's comparative advantage and also contributes to the strengthening of capacity in national agricultural research systems. Helping to nurture a new generation of tropical agricultural scientists is an important goal for CIAT.CIAT is concerned not only that its research outputs are taken up by public research systems scientists, but that through partnerships involving farmers, the private sector and civil society, that research outputs result in adoption of improved technologies, practices, and decisions. CIAT judges its own performance primarily by the impact on the poor of its research outputs. Participation of end users in the evaluation and development of new technologies is a mainstream practice.Of particular concern is that eco-efficient agriculture yields benefits for rural women. Due to unequal access to resources, women typically comprise the majority of the rural poor. Thus eco-efficient agriculture can not effectively address the needs of the poor without taking into account the particular needs of women.CIAT's research outputs are integrated into production systems and taken up by users at a regional basis, with priority first on its home region of Latin America and the Caribbean, then on eastern and southern Africa and on south-east Asia. CIAT scientists conduct research in Latin America, Africa and Asia to meet diverse needs and to develop globally significant international public goods by promoting south-south linkages among the regions.CIAT is increasing the accessibility and availability of its outputs, making 'open' as the default setting to share as many of its research outputs as possible. CIAT seeks to extend this approach with our partners across Latin America to help create a Latin American \"Agricultural Commons\" that transforms the way knowledge is generated and applied in the region.During 2008, CIAT developed revised strategic directions to enable it to better achieve this vision of ecoefficient agriculture. These strategic directions were drawn up while the CGIAR was going through profound change, a process still underway. CIAT's strategic directions are intended to provide a compelling framework for program development on the basis of CIAT's strengths and experience, while allowing sufficient flexibility to shape the Center's future in accordance with the evolution of the CGIAR.The development of these directions involved consultations with many partners and stakeholders, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC); participation in the CGIAR change process and careful consideration of the recommendations of the 2007 External Program. CIAT envisages playing a unique role in the CGIAR system, both in terms of the commodities on which it works and in terms of the special partnerships it nurtures in LAC. Most of CIAT's research is global in scope. CIAT aims to help create conditions both in LAC and elsewhere in the tropics that are essential for eco-efficient agriculture through a tri-part strategy:1. Agrobiodiversity -Providing affordable and nutritious food as well as pathways out of poverty by increasing the productivity of crops. 2. Tropical soils fertility management -Overcoming one of small farmers' greatest obstacles to sustained increases in agricultural production. 3. Latin America and the Caribbean -Working with partners to solve problems of high priority for the region, while also generating global public goods.Improved crop and forage production is vital for improving food security, enhancing human nutrition and raising agricultural incomes. CIAT conducts research in LAC and through partnerships around the world on four globally important crops:1. Common bean -The world's most important food grain legume, which in Africa is grown mainly by women. 2. Cassava -The third most important food crop in the tropics, after rice and maize, and second only to maize in its suitability for multiple uses. IITA plays a lead role in cassava research in Africa. 3. Tropical forages -A key input for production of meat and milk (LAC's most important high-value agricultural products), with much potential for enhancing natural resource management (NRM). CIAT works in close collaboration with ILRI in Africa and Asia. 4. Rice -The most important staple food in South America and the world. CIAT research focuses on the unique characteristics of rice in LAC, while IRRI and the African Rice Center (WARDA) concentrate on Asia and Africa.Crop improvement and soil fertility management are closely related. Improved varieties can be adapted to low soil fertility through more efficient use of soil nutrients, while legumes, such as beans and many tropical forages, can improve soil fertility through biological nitrogen fixation. Crop yields vary greatly according to management, so there is much scope for improving productivity through better agronomic practices. Better management of crop residues and integration of forages into cropping systems can increase soil organic matter, boosting productivity while helping mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. CIAT research on tropical soil biology and fertility focuses on integrated soil fertility management and sustainable land management.To address the expressed needs and demands of the LAC region CIAT pursues an ecoregional strategy. An ecoregional approach integrates the aims of increased agricultural productivity and improved NRM, taking into account both the biophysical and socio-economic perspectives, through inter-institutional partnerships.The agenda of CIAT's ecoregional research will focus on four main topics:1. Improvement of crops that are important in LAC but also globally. 2. Improvement of other crops that receive high priority in LAC.genotyping platforms; tissue culture; transgenics; bioinformatics; and gene expression. Ultimately the consortium would catalyze strong breeding capacity with knowledge of genomics tools that are linked to efficient phenotypic characterization (quality, pest and disease, abiotic stress, etc.). Access to genomics tools would be either national, regional or outsource facilities tied to local bioinformatics capacities and the national ability to access and manage transgenic products.After years of inadequate support for crop improvement, it is now time for bold, innovative measures to regain momentum in this research, thus enabling it to respond decisively to agriculture's huge challenges and opportunities. A biotechnology research consortium which responds to regional demands, could take advantage of this opportunity. Its aim will be to exploit the potential of molecular biology and genetic transformation, not just in research on crops for which the center is responsible, but for the improvement of other species that rank high in the priorities of our regional partners.During recent years, CIAT has piloted the concept of a biotech partnership with researchers in Colombia, and the outcomes have been quite positive. Now, it is time for full-scale implementation of that approach. The outcome will not be more science for its own sake but problem-solving research at the genomic level that yields clear payoffs in the field and marketplace. With that practical orientation, CIAT-supported uses of biotechnology will focus on valuable plant traits, such as efficiency in water use and uptake and use of nitrogen, acid soil tolerance, disease and pest resistance and micronutrient content.During 2009 CIAT will be consulting widely with partners and stakeholders about the development of this consortium. It is anticipated that this will lead in 2010 to the development of a full program that would become part of the 2011-2013 MTP.Improved soil fertility is crucial to raising crop productivity and ending hunger in Africa. Given both the severity and widespread variability of this challenge, overcoming it will require a research partnership of significant scope and strength. In sub-Saharan Africa, efforts to build such a partnership can begin with FARA's extensive and highly productive African Network for Soil Biology and Fertility (AfNet), which is coordinated by CIAT's TSBF Institute and consists of dozens of members working at more than a hundred sites in 22 countries. AfNet will seek to catalyze the creation of a soils research platform that unites national organizations with all of the CGIAR centers that conduct research on soils in rainfed farming systems: CIMMYT, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), IITA and the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF). The aim of the platform will be to bring research on soil management more forcefully to bear on the challenges of reducing hunger and poverty, while enhancing NRM, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.Such a partnership represents an important opportunity for the CGIAR centers and their partners to forge important but disparate soils research efforts into a combined initiative that confronts the whole range of problems related to Africa's declining soil fertility and land degradation. A consolidated soils research platform in Africa, linked to similar research in LAC and Asia, can make integrated soil fertility management a reality many poor farmers in Africa and beyond.During 2009 CIAT will be consulting widely with partners and stakeholders about the development of this platform. It is anticipated that this will lead in 2010 to the development of a full program that would become part of the 2011-2013 MTP.CIAT's research agenda in the Amazon derives not so much from its agriculture production or the large absolute number of poor there, as it does from its globally significant natural resources. The Amazon is a major watershed, carbon sink and source of biodiversity, so continued misuse of its land resources -through unsustainable agricultural practices, degrading pastures, illicit crop production and exploitative timber extraction -has catastrophic consequences for the entire world. Finding attractive but less environmentally damaging livelihoods for Amazonian inhabitants is a matter of high global priority.The center will contribute to that effort through research aimed at halting land degradation, improving farmers' access to markets and enhancing ecosystem services, with particular emphasis on adaptation to climate change. Outputs from the center's research on cassava, tropical forages and rice are also highly relevant. CIAT's current work in this sub-region takes place through the CGIAR Amazon Ecoregional Systemwide Program which operates under the umbrella of the Amazon Initiative, which is currently hosted by EMBRAPA. The Ecoregional Program is an important research resource for the wider development objectives of the Amazon Initiative. The Ecoregional research program is coordinated by CIAT, and along with numerous national partners, includes from the CGIAR the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), and Bioversity International.Growing domestic markets and economic globalization have created many opportunities for the rural poor to take up the production and/or processing of higher value agricultural products, with the aim of boosting and diversifying their incomes. The potential of this avenue out of poverty is reflected in rising consumption of fruits. CIAT initiated research with a Tropical Fruits Program in 2001. For the last two years this work has continued, but it was embedded in a broader Linking Farmers to Markets Program. However, to give greater focus and higher effectiveness to this research, with this MTP it is restored to full program status.CIAT's Tropical Fruits Program will develop new production technology for selected neo-tropical fruits species; develop tools to improve the capacity of small farmers to compete in fruit markets; and generate new technologies of disease and pest control both to enhance product quality and market acceptability and also to reduce the environmental and human health consequences of excessive pesticide use.CIAT proposes to intensify its research in decision support and policy analysis, with the aim of determining the kinds of institutional arrangements and policies needed in order for small farmers and entrepreneurs as well as rural laborers to participate successfully in growth markets. This research will complement IFPRI's policy research. This research will have four foci: climate change, ecosystem services, linking farmers to markets, and impact assessment. While CIAT expects to give a higher overall priority to this body of research, major elements of this research were presented in the previous MTP as outputs in the Resilience and Linking Farmers to Markets Programs. CIAT is convinced that taking advantage of new market opportunities is crucial to improving the income of the rural poor. Enhancing knowledge on fostering these market linkages is an important research output not only for the Decision & Policy program but also for Tropical Fruits and the Amazon Ecoregional Program.CIAT's research on natural resource management will be sharply focused on integrated soil fertility management and ecosystem services, while work on land use dynamics and decision support tools for landscape management will be discontinued. Research on remote sensing to monitor land-use changes has already been phased out, along with research on community-level watershed management.In addition to Soil Fertility Management research and its ecoregional program in LAC, CIAT will sharpen the focus of its research on the genetic improvement of crops. As partners assume greater responsibility for plant breeding, the center will concentrate more on developing source materials with desirable traits, from which partners can assemble final products. This shift is well advanced with rice in LAC, where the public-private partnership FLAR carries out an increasing share of breeding formerly done by CIAT. Similarly, in cassava improvement, IITA in Africa, EMBRAPA in Brazil and national institutions in China and Thailand will play a major role in developing varieties for release to farmers. Breeding of Brachiaria grass will depend on partnerships with the private sector in several countries and with public institutions such as EMBRAPA in Brazil.Another shift made necessary by CIAT's pursuit of new research directions consists of a reduction in work on farmer participatory research. In recent years, rural innovation has been a pillar of the center's research strategy, resulting in the development of new participatory research methods and a territorial approach to agro-enterprise development. Those products are now commonly used in CIAT's own research and are being widely applied by partners. While the center will continue to use participatory approaches where appropriate in all its research programs, it will no longer seek to develop new participatory methods.Over the last decade, crop and agro-ecosystem health has figured importantly in CIAT's research, but in the future efforts in this area will be reduced. The development of biopesticides and research on endophytic fungi and bacteria, for example, will be discontinued, while work on whitefly will be scaled down. Any further research in those areas will take place only in collaboration with the CGIAR System-wide Program on Integrated Pest Management or the entity that succeeds it as a result of the CGIAR change process. In genetic improvement, center researchers may devote less attention to disease and pest resistance, as they increase emphasis on efficient use of resources, tolerance to abiotic constraints and enhanced nutritional quality. For the most important pests and diseases, however, work on genetic resistance will be maintained.CIAT's research agenda continues to be highly aligned with CGIAR System Priorities (SPs). Some 89% of CIAT's work is fully directed to SPs. Much of the 11% in new research, training and development related activities are also in fact oriented towards the achievement of SPs. Among SPs, CIAT's largest investment, 29% remains in priority 2, genetic improvement of staple crops. This is an increase over recent years. Linked with this research is a major investment in priority 1A, conservation of staple crops, amounting to 18% of total investment. Taken together, CIAT investment in genetic improvement and conservation constitutes one half of its agenda research.Due to the expansion of the work of the tropical soils fertility research area, investment in priority 4A, integrated land and soils research, continues to surge, rising some $2 million in 2009. It now comprises 20% of CIAT investment compared to 15% two years ago.Accelerating the flow of new varieties through seed multiplication and distribution is a common non-system priority activity. Significant quantities of forage seed have been distributed by partners and CIAT in LAC and SE Asia, and thus led to concrete outcomes at farm level. Seed will be supplied to FENALCE, the National Federation of Cereal Producers that is responsible for diffusion of legume production technology in Colombia, to re-establish a national system of bean yield trials. In addition, farmers groups are being given the opportunity in Colombia to work with biofortified beans, with higher levels of iron and zinc. Likewise CIAT is working with a wide diversity of farmers and civil society organizations in Africa for the multiplication and distribution of bean seed. While outside the strict definition of SPs, in reality this work is closely tied to CIAT's agenda research.Capacity building is an important component of the agenda to strengthen/benefit from the research capacity of partners and to enhance our capacity to deliver research products. Capacity building includes knowledge sharing workshops, group and individual training, and informal training. This effort is closely linked to dissemination of knowledge through internet based tool, website and extension materials and learning alliance. The audience include farmers, technicians, researchers, the private sector and educational institutions, the latter reached through individual and group training as well as internet based tool (i.e. the forage knowledge tool www.tropicalforages.info). Likewise degree training is a frequent activity. For example, three African scientists are completing their PhDs while doing thesis research with CIAT on topics related to drought resistance in beans. Again, while this is outside the strict definition of SPs, in fact it makes a significant contribution to achieving CGIAR objectives.The CIAT Science Park, Agronatura is a critical part of CIAT's non-research agenda activities. Agronatura provides a platform for partners whose principal interest is either in development related activities or for research on crops that are not CIAT mandates. This framework enables partners to co-invest through CIAT to realize complementary activities that CIAT itself would not undertake alone but that contribute to the overall objective of eco-efficient agriculture for the poor.Increased in productivity of crop plants under shifting and stressed environment will continue to be the key for food security, and will requires a greater emphasis on developing adequate research tools and deploying highly Eco-efficient varieties. The added increased in productivity will have to come from a better implementation of agronomical practices to close an existing yield gap, the development of better-adapted productive and nutritious varieties using the power of breeding and molecular biology tools and implementing adequate reaching end users strategies.To achieve these goals, CIAT maintains the world's most complete collections of the genetic resources of cassava, common beans, and tropical forages and four Agrobiodiversity programs are engaged in a global effort for the development and delivery of Eco Efficient germplasm of cassava, common bean, tropical forages, and rice (rice research is presented in detail as part of CIAT's LAC Research Area).The programs focus on:• Conservation of cassava, common beans, and tropical forages Genetic Resources.• Improved Beans for the Developing World.• Improved Cassava for the Developing World.• Improved Forages for the Developing World.• Improved Rice for LAC.The research strategy focuses on the exploitation of the vast genetic resources for sources of genes for disease and insect resistance, abiotic stress tolerance, nutritional quality and yield potential. The programs research activities are strongly integrated with technological and scientific competences in biotechnologies, human nutrition and reaching end users that allow CIAT to carry out cutting edge major projects and to implement delivery system. The programs develop basic tools and technologies that delineate the molecular genetic basis of cassava, beans, rice and tropical forages, to accelerate crop improvement and the development of innovative agricultural practices. The programs integrate plant breeding with a large array of biotechnological techniques including molecular markers, genomics, tissue culture and genetic transformation.Research is carried out in collaboration within the CGIAR Challenge Programs. Collaboration with a wide range of partners in developed and developing countries is a key characteristic of CIAT Agrobiodiversity Research Area.CIAT has assembled the world's largest collections of beans, cassava and tropical forages. CIAT's role as custodian for over 65,000 accessions of more than 850 plant species meets the expectation of the international community under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, signed in October 2006. CIAT has insured conservation of its materials by sending a safety back-up to the Global Seed Vault of Svalbard, Norway, in February 2008. In addition to conservation, CIAT has actively distributed samples of genetic resources, over 500,000 samples in 31 years of work. The challenge to promoting the eco-efficiency of agriculture by increasing productivity with a minimal environment footprint has three implications for its Genetic Resources Conservation Program (GRCP): (i) efficient conservation of a larger set of designated germplasm, (ii) improved distribution service of germplasm and data, and (iii) a research agenda targeted at improving the later two.CIAT plays a critical role for Phaseolus beans and Manihot cassava in the Global Crop Conservation Strategies financed by the Trust Global Germplasm. Since the global community expects more diversity from the CIAT genebank, management of this greater number of accessions requires increased efficiencies in conservation and multiplication. The CIAT-GRCP will systematically acquire germplasm of beans and cassava currently absent from the in-trust collections, mostly by explorations, in line with future crop improvement efforts (e.g. tolerance to heat, drought, and salinity). The GRCP will resume germplasm evaluation for abiotic and biotic stresses, as well as some technological traits (e.g. starch characteristics in cassava). Such evaluation was stopped after 1985, and thus significant sets of the in-trust collections have never been evaluated. Moreover, the stresses associated with climate change (drought, temperature extremes, water logging) require the identification of new sources of tolerance.The GRCP research agenda aims at improving technologies for better conservation at lower cost. Examples include: new methods for slow growth of cassava clones in vitro, ultra-drying of seeds of beans and forages for delaying regeneration, conserving botanic seeds of cassava, identification of internal genetic copies to avoid expensive redundancy. The development of a DNA bank is a cost effective response to users who want samples for genomic studies, without re-accessing the plant germplasm every time. Another drive is in the understanding of the structure of genetic diversity for beans and cassava to help identify which sets of germplasm should be collected in priority. Once collected, increased and maintained, molecular marker testing guarantees the genetic integrity of the accessions, so that users can find any genetic information they need. Functional genomics studies will find variants with complementary alleles for the best expression of genes responsible of an important trait (e.g. photosynthesis).International Public Goods. The designation of more than 65,000 accessions of beans, cassava and tropical forages into the Multilateral System of the International Treaty, and the annual reporting to the Governing Body about distribution of samples worldwide, formalize the role of CIAT genebank as generator of international public goods. South East Asia depends on CIAT for variability in the offer of cassava germplasm.Similarly, eastern and south Africa depends on CIAT for variability of beans. Conversely, most South American countries rely on CIAT for the offer in tropical forage germplasm. Although rich in bean genetic resources, both Central America and the Andes expect from CIAT bean germplasm from the other region, namely for disease resistance genes. Availability of germplasm with all characteristics documented helps advance research in biology or genetics labs all around the world.Different research works, although carried out by the genebank to address a conservation need on any of the CIAT mandate crops, are however generic and susceptible of broader applicability. Research on slow growth in vitro that aims to extend the time lag between each subculturing opens the possibility to reduce costs for many in vitro conservation facilities keeping clonal crops. The technology of molecular markers developed at CIAT to understand better patterns of genetic diversity or to spot internal genetic copies within collections, helps to solve problems of sampling during germplasm collecting efforts or to reduce redundancy in ex situ collections. Again that technology is not crop specific, but has broader applicability. These technologies as IPGs have been and will continue to be the purpose of several training activities.The period (2010)(2011)(2012) of this MTP will be a transition for CIAT genebank, while it will continue to participate in many training activities, as a new generation of professionals initiate work in LAC countries. Continuity in training is further justified by the different backstopping activities for NARS, given the support by the Trust to NARS for the regeneration of national collections. On the one hand, there will be the consolidation of the Upgrading process launched with the GPG1 and GPG2 projects supported by the World Bank and part of a collective effort with the other CGIAR genebanks. The genebank will continue with the shipping of safety back-ups to Svalbard, CIMMYT and CIP. The upgrading of the facilities for increased energy efficiency and physical security will be completed. The effort of recovering of 'institutional memory', namely documenting 2-3 decades of germplasm evaluation and linking with germplasm requests on the internet, shall be continued, as integral part of the delivery of international public goods.On the other hand, in view of new stresses (e.g. heat, drought, water logging) induced by climate change, and demands by traditional/new markets (e.g. popping beans for low energy cooking requirement, cassava with root protein content), CIAT genebank will resume germplasm explorations for beans and cassava, specially in the primary centers of genetic diversity. This seems possible given the good number of ratifications of the International Treaty by LAC countries. CIAT genebank will participate in the evaluation of germplasm for traits little or not considered so far (e.g. the abiotic stresses above). This evaluation is likely to involve new technologies, the design of which will require in-depth knowledge of plant genetic resources.Output 1: Keeping collections up to international standards. Users of the in-trust collections expect high quality germplasm in terms of viability, health, and genetic quality (i.e. without genetic contamination, drift or erosion). Research will improve the protocols for the detection of diseases of quarantine importance, for example, PCR based detection of Frog Skin Disease in cassava. Another research area is the spotting of internal genetic copies in the in-vitro cassava collection, where maintenance costs are high. To make safety back-ups that can be run at low costs, research will be conducted on ultra drying, slow-growth in vitro and cryoconservation. This research will not only increase internal efficiencies in collection management, but also these advances can be shared by many genebanks in LAC countries. Consultations with partners in the regional PGRFA networks, with Bioversity International and the Trust are also critical for the shaping of the research agenda.Impact Pathway: Collections that are kept non viable, disease infected, or genetically different as compared to the original materials, are likely to make no impact at all, while at equal costs of management as compared to collections up to international standards. First, distribution is likely to be stopped by any plant quarantine authority, starting in Colombia. Second, poor seed drying will force to a frequent regeneration of collections, increasing thus the conservation costs. Published research results and training carried out towards the reaching higher international standards have an outcome far beyond the in-trust collections kept by CIAT, but also on the germplasm collections maintained by the NARS, leading to efficiency gains in the conservation of a much broader range of collections.Output 2: Making in-trust germplasm available to user communities. The output is the timely delivery of the germplasm and its information (passport and evaluation data). CIAT will increase the amount and quality of information available on its website (e.g. exploration reports, 'Cahiers de Phaséologie' on the distribution of wild bean species). The germplasm ordering system is being improved and linked automatically with a report system of Standard Material Transfer Agreements, allowing CIAT to report quickly to the Governing Body about distribution of materials registered in the Multilateral System of the Treaty. Cases of non-delivery due to non-availability, poor viability or poor health will be reduced. 'Customer' satisfaction feedback will be continued. The CIAT genebank website will increase linkages with SINGER (the information system of the CGIAR genebanks); USDA Pullman for beans; and EMBRAPA/CENARGEN of Brazil for cassava. Common registries for beans and cassava and for forages with ILRI, will be further developed. The DNA bank will be expanded to encompass progressively the three genetic collections.Impact Pathway: Germplasm distribution rates have been of 5-7,000 samples yearly over the past ten years, indicating a relatively high level of distribution, an interest by CIAT programs, partners and users worldwide into genebank materials, and a capacity by CIAT genebank to deliver. From the germplasm distribution statistics over 30 years, CIAT genebank has had most of its recipients in the Western Hemisphere; yet, as cassava becomes more a crop for industry, distribution of germplasm and final impact will increase into Africa, India, South East Asia and China. The Asiatic countries will also request more germplasm of (Neotropical) forages for a variety of domestic animals, and of beans as vegetables. The providing of germplasm with well documented characteristics including mutants and genetic stocks is also key for the advance of genetic mapping work currently under way for beans and cassava, itself linked to marker assisted selection. The end users and beneficiaries are almost anywhere in the world, as recipients of in-trust germplasm are located in more than 110 countries.Beans are the most important food grain legume in the tropics, and are widespread in Africa and Latina America and the Caribbean. Because of their importance both to small holder producers and in the diets of the poor, more eco-efficient production of beans is necessary. This involves greater resource productivity, less environmental damage, and better nutritional quality.The Bean Program's primary mission is to contribute to household and global food security by assuring an adequate supply of beans as a culturally acceptable and traditional staple, in ways that are eco-efficient; and to improve the income of small bean producers of Latin America and Africa, by making bean production more profitable. We also seek to improve human nutrition, both by augmenting the supply of beans, and by improvement of their nutritional value.Our products are designed to respond in particular to the needs of small, resource-poor bean farmers in Latin America and Africa. Our research strategy focuses on the exploitation of the vast genetic resources of bean that are stored in CIAT's gene bank with 41,000 accessions of common bean and related species, and that are our most unique resource. Most traits are still selected by conventional means in field sites or in greenhouse evaluations where most important diseases, soil constraints and drought can be manipulated for purposes of selection. However, Marker Assisted Selection (MAS) is employed selectively but strategically, in most cases for disease resistance genes. CIAT pioneered participatory selection with farmers and this practice is being extended and systematized. While most products are seed based, others involve agronomic practices or are knowledge based. Our research is strategic combined with both basic and applied elements, as called for by the particular challenge.Strengthened institutions that enhance bean product quality and delivery is a central concern of the program. The Bean Program seeks to benefit partners at multiple levels through facilitated interaction, including farmers who are at the end of the organizational chain. NGOs, government extension agencies, farmer organizations, local seed companies, and non-conventional seed actors such as women groups, and people living with HIV/AIDS all participate and benefit. We aim to generate impact on target beneficiaries through their participation in development of innovations, knowledge and technologies in strategic alliances with multidisciplinary research teams and NGOs. Scaling out of innovations and best practices to areas with similar environments will be done through strategic alliances of research and development actors. The latter will use their network and other communication mechanisms to adapt knowledge and results relevant to them. Scaling up regionally and internationally will be done through international NGOs, advocacy, and communication.Several research issues are of particular importance for eco-efficiency in beans: pests and diseases; drought; plant nutrition; and the growth of urban markets in the developing world.Host plant resistance and IPM: Pest and disease control through plant resistance and cultural control has long been a mainstay of the CGIAR centers and of the CIAT Bean Program. It is thus not an innovation of ecoefficient agriculture, but it is a necessary component. Pesticide abuse in Latin America and Africa is not widespread in dry bean production (except for control of the white fly vector of Gemini viruses in Latin America) but it is rampant in snap bean production and must be reduced with resistant cultivars and IPM. Climate change will have big impacts on the distribution and intensity of biotic constraints. Heat and reduced rainfall may increase insect pests in some regions; excess rainfall in the Andes and in East Africa may intensify root rots and other diseases.Drought tolerance and yield potential: Drought is one of the biggest risks of agriculture, and climate change may increase rainfall irregularity. Among important bean production areas, Central America and Mexico have always experienced occasional droughts and are expected to become even drier, as is southern Africa.Research on drought resistance of bush bean has led to unexpected gains in yield potential under favorable conditions, leading us to reflect on physiological yield limitations of the crop, especially with regard to remobilization efficiency of biomass to grain. Improved remobilization, we think, can make the crop more efficient in many respects and contribute directly to yield.Fertilizer use and Symbiotic Nitrogen Fixation: Soil related constraints are probably the most important yield limiting factors and although some use of fertilizer inputs seems inescapable, there is great opportunity for improving fertilizer use efficiency. Root architecture of beans can be readily modified to make nutrient recovery more effective and efficient, employing known traits (such as increased basal root number and longer root hairs) and others that are under study, including aluminum resistance. Output 1: Beans with improved micronutrient concentration that have a positive impact on human health. Nutrient-dense foods are more efficient in delivery of nutrition to a population, kilo per kilo and dollar for dollar. Biofortified beans can improve human health, and economic analysis has shown repeatedly that this approach is resource efficient compared to other public health options. Bean nutritional improvement has focused on doubling the concentration of iron in the grain, and raising zinc by 40%. In a broader public health context, diet-related chronic diseases disable thousands and drain public resources. Diabetes alone costs Latin America an estimated $65 billion every year! Long known to be beneficial due to slow digestibility of complex carbohydrates, beans also have therapeutic effects for diabetes patients with circulatory disorders. Bean consumption also reduces the risk of myocardial infarction and at least two types of cancer. Thus, rescuing a traditional diet, including beans, should be a public health goal. Maintaining bean consumption in urban environments may demand more attention to specific traits such as flavor and texture, or canning quality where processed beans are preferred.This research is targeted to small farmers and poor rural and urban consumers in Africa and Latin America.Targeting is developed in collaboration with nutritionists and with experts in GIS, to address human populations with nutritional deficiencies in iron and zinc. Small seeded germplasm is often targeted to warmer climates or more difficult environments in Central America, Mexico, Venezuela, East Africa and Brazil. Large seeded germplasm is usually cultivated in more temperate climates in the Andean zone, the East African highlands and southern Africa, although in the African highlands small and large seeded types overlap. Improved germplasm is shared or developed jointly with NARS partners, who supply basic seed to a range of organizations active in seed production (local seed companies, NGO's, CBO's, women's groups) who in turn distribute to farmers. NGOs and health workers play a special role in delivery. Benefits accrue to farmers/consumers through stable food supply of more nutritious beans for home consumption, and potentially to poor urban consumers. Assumptions for the successful delivery of these products include institutional and financial stability of partners, political stability, and institutional support. The role of CIAT is that of a primary research provider (of improved germplasm), at times a secondary research provider (backing up national bean improvement programs with technical expertise and training), and catalyzer (to promote downstream alliances in the uptake chain). This product is complementary to those of CIMMYT and CIP.Impact Pathway: Output 1 is targeted to small farmers and poor rural and urban consumers in Africa and Latin America. Targeting is developed in collaboration with nutritionists and with experts in GIS, to address human populations with nutritional deficiencies in iron and zinc. This Output involves both small seeded germplasm that is often targeted to warmer climates or more difficult environments in Central America, Mexico, Venezuela, East Africa and Brazil. Large seeded germplasm is usually cultivated in more temperate climates in the Andean zone, the East African highlands and southern Africa, although in the African highlands small and large seeded types overlap, sometimes differentiated by soil fertility gradients within the farm, prevailing biotic constraints and household preferences. Improved germplasm is shared or developed jointly with NARS partners, who supply basic seed to a range of organizations interested in production of seed (local seed companies, NGO's, CBO's, women's groups) who in turn distribute to farmers. NGOs and health workers play a special role in delivery. Benefits accrue to farmers/consumers through stable food supply of more nutritious beans for home consumption, and potentially to poor urban consumers. Assumptions for the successful delivery of these Outputs include institutional and financial stability of partners, political stability, and institutional support. The role of CIAT is that of a primary research provider (of improved germplasm), at times a secondary research provider (backing up national bean improvement programs with technical expertise and training), and catalyzer (to promote downstream alliances in the uptake chain). This Output is complementary to those of CIMMYT and CIP.Output 2: Beans that are more productive under low input agriculture of poor farmers. This output includes both technologies aimed at improving food security among the rural poor and also to develop beans and strategies that respond to market opportunities. Genetically improved varieties that address the biotic and abiotic constraints of bean production are a primary product of this output. Improved germplasm is diffused through many of the same channels as beans with improved nutritional value, with the exception that partners may have less specific interests, and may be more production oriented. The role of CIAT is that of primary source of research for development. Better research methodologies such as molecular markers for resistance genes benefit researchers directly, and farmers indirectly as subsequent beneficiaries. Uptake pathway for such methodologies is direct communication through workshops and courses, and indirectly through publications, leading to benefits of more efficient and effective bean research. On the other hand, crop management practices are of direct benefit to farmers as users, potentially across all bean ecosystems. Uptake chains for agronomic practices are similar to those for seed based technologies; results are communicated to NARS and other partners (NGO's, CBO's, etc.) who have successfully diffused practices to farmers, to the benefit of farmers who enjoy more stable productivity. A sub-product of this line of work are beans that respond to market opportunities, and that benefit small farmers in both Latin America and Africa. Farmers in Ethiopia have already benefited from tapping into export markets for canning beans, and other countries are positioning themselves to follow suite. In Central America exporters are seeking to fill a niche created by the Latin population in the USA. This is a demand-driven activity, and in large part has generated its own impact pathway. Exporters and international grain buyers have established market chains that give them access to export quality beans. CIAT's role has been that of supplying germplasm in some cases, and in others to facilitate communication, and to give support in seed systems to avail quality seed to farmers of very specific varieties.Impact Pathway: Beneficiaries of Output 2 are in some cases researchers (both inside and outside of CIAT), and in some cases are bean producers. For example, molecular markers for resistance genes benefit researchers directly, and farmers indirectly as subsequent beneficiaries. Uptake pathway for such methodologies is direct communication through workshops and courses, and indirectly through publications, leading to benefits of more efficient and effective bean research. This assumes that partners are in a position to implement such technologies. On the other hand, crop management practices are of direct benefit to farmers as users, potentially across all bean ecosystems. Uptake chain for agronomic practices are similar to those for seed based technologies; results are communicated to NARS and other partners (NGO's, CBO's, etc.) who have successfully diffused practices to farmers, to the benefit of farmers who enjoy more stable productivity. Improved germplasm is diffused through many of the same channels as beans with improved nutritional value, with the exception that partners may have less specific interests, and may be more production oriented. The role of CIAT is that of primary source of research for development.Globally Cassava is the world's third most important food staple in the tropics, particularly important in the African and Latin American lowlands. It has huge potential for processing into multiple food, feed and other products, and this market led development is important in Asia and Brazil.Cassava is a very rustic crop that grows well under marginal conditions where few other crops could survive. Most cassava varieties are drought tolerant, can produce in degraded soils, and are resistant or tolerant to several of the most important diseases and pests. The crop is naturally tolerant to acidic soils, and offers the convenient flexibility that it can be harvested when the farmers need it. These characteristics make this crop a fundamental food security component in marginal agriculture lands. In addition to its important role in subsistence farming and food security, cassava is acquiring an increased role in rural development as source of raw material for many processing pathways. The most important uses of cassava are as a source of energy in animal diets in the feed industry, for the starch industry and, more recently, for the production of ethanol.Cassava research at CIAT seeks to improve the eco-efficiency of agriculture traditionally by focusing on high and stable productivity through breeding and adequate cultural practices. However, there is an increasing interest in cassava as a cash crop and processing it, from small, household operations up to large industrial ones, which not only require high and stable productivity, but also would benefit from roots with specific properties. The globalization of economies and new technological breakthroughs offer a unique opportunity not previously available to the crop. In addition, advances in molecular biology, genetic engineering, planttissue culture protocols and processing technologies provide important tools that will allow bridging the main technological gaps between cassava and the cereals. Finally there is an increasing interest from governments, private sector and research institutions to reduce the environmental footprint left by cassava production and processing.Our primary mission is to contribute to household and global food security in societies where cassava products are an important and traditional staple; to improve farmers' income as well as those from rural communities and processing facilities; and to develop and promote sustainable production and processing systems. Our outputs are designed to adapt to the rapidly changing economic environment for cassava, its farmers and the communities that produce and/or process it. Cassava research at CIAT is aware of the cultural and ecological differences, challenges and opportunities that cassava offer in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), Asian and African regions. There are three main approaches that have been implemented to face the new opportunities and challenges for cassava in the third millennium, which are described below. CIAT is aware that competition between cassava as raw material for different processing end-uses and its important food security role should be avoided. Processing cassava for large industrial facilities is occurring mostly in southern Brazil, Thailand, Vietnam or China where cassava is not an important food security crop.Nonetheless CIAT looks for a careful balance by the research team so the use new opportunities for cassava do not result in undesirable side effects compromising food security in rural or urban communities. We openly accept that the ultimate objective of the project is to turn cassava from a low-technology, subsistence crop into a cash crop that promotes technology adoption and offers better perspectives of improving farmers' livelihood and reduction of poverty, but with an increasing emphasis in achieving this through technologies that minimize the impact on the environment. This strategy is in full agreement with the conclusions of the Global Cassava Strategy initiative (FAO) and aligned with the strategies and priorities set by IITA as well.The new opportunities opened to cassava along with budgetary constraints have led the cassava product line at CIAT to reduce emphasis in worldwide breeding and emphasize more strategic pre-breeding activities to develop high-value genetic stocks that can be efficiently developed in spite of limited resources, or else would generate new resources to develop germplasm with enhanced nutritional quality. Other activities conducted at CIAT relate to more \"upstream\" research such as marker assisted selection, genetic transformation, identification of agents of biological control and ways to exploit them commercially, or development of new breeding methods such as the introduction of inbreeding through a protocol for the production of doubledhaploids (anther culture) also under development at CIAT. Validation and testing of new agronomic practices and the routine sharing of germplasm can be done by partners in Asia (basing our activities in Thailand and in close collaboration with the Department of Agriculture and Kasetsart University), Africa (where IITA plays an important role) and LAC (where CLAYUCA has proven to be key partner, in spite of its relatively recent creation). Therefore, the work related more to \"development\", is conducted by these partners. The research conducted at CIAT is gradually changing as the strategies to identify high-value traits have open the opportunity of investments from the private sector to exploit them. This unprecedented situation results in new funding opportunities but also in needs to address issues related to intellectual property rights. The emerging pest problems of cassava in Asia (particularly in relation to mealy bug and whiteflies) require the urgent action of CIAT to identify biological control agents that will be useful to the particular conditions in Thailand and surrounding areas where these problems are emerging. It is not unthinkable that this development is a consequence of climate change and can be the first steps of our project to start dealing with the consequences of this global trend.Output 1: Creation and maintenance of genetic stocks to overcome production constraints. This Output builds on the work conducted by the Conserving Genetic Resources Program through conventional breeding and pre-breeding. CIAT takes advantage of hosting the cassava genetic resources collection with about 6500 accessions including about 200 accessions from wild relatives. to screen it for useful traits. This \"prebreeding\" activity resulted important discoveries of valuable traits. Landraces of Manihot esculenta and other Manihot species proved to be important sources of high-value traits (such as high-protein in the roots), tolerance to abiotic (such as post-harvest physiological deterioration and drought) and biotic stresses (whiteflies, African Cassava Mosaic Disease, etc.) Methodologies for the successful screening of landraces in germplasm collections have also been developed and shared with the scientific community.There are four categories of cassava genetic resources that CIAT develops and shares: (a) relatively \"unimproved\" accessions from the germplasm collection which frequently are just old landraces; (b) genetic stocks used as sources for specific traits that are the result of specific crosses or careful screenings; (c) elite germplasm developed and evaluated for their adaptation to specific environmental conditions; and (d) genes, gene sequences and molecular markers. Landraces, genetic stocks and elite germplasm are routinely shared with NARs in Africa, Asia and LAC. IITA is an important bridge to introduce genetic variability for cassava research in Africa. While EMBRAPA is a key partner in Brazil, the main outcome for this Output is the consolidation and strengthening of cassava based agriculture by developing a germplasm that will allow for a high and stable, eco-efficient productivity. CIAT is also developing technologies for properly identifying drought-tolerant cassava germplasm and from there to develop molecular markers that will facilitate its introgression and selection by NARs.CIAT has shifted the objectives of cassava breeding to produce sources of high-value traits and emphasize the creation of genetic stocks (homozygous for the relevant trait). The HarvestPlus program will produce clones with enhanced nutritional value particularly in relation to carotenoids for vitamin A. For the animal feed industry and human nutrition, increased protein content is the main objective. For the starch industry novel starch types are of huge economic relevance. Different strategies have been implemented to develop these novel types and recently yielded its first fruits with the discovery of the long sought after mutation for a waxy starch in cassava. Recently different sources of tolerance to post-harvest physiological deterioration (PPD) have been identified (induced mutations, high-carotenoids content, wild relatives, and pre-breeding work).These approaches are gradually allowing the first steps towards the creation of genetic stocks that breeding projects worldwide can benefit from.The major change that affects the execution of output 1 is the implementation of the new SMTA agreement for the exchange of germplasm that affects all CGIAR System centers. In addition the deployment of highvalue traits require thorough analysis of issues related to intellectual property rights in agreement with the CGIAR policies.Impact Pathway: Germplasm is shared through direct shipment of in vitro plants from elite germplasm identified in CIAT's breeding activities in the sub-humid, acid soils, or mid-altitude valleys environments. CLAYUCA has greatly facilitated the distribution of elite cassava germplasm through its stakeholders in Latin American and the Caribbean region. PPD-tolerant germplasm will be introduced in Africa and has already been shared with John Beeching's Lab (University of Bath, U.K.). For the starch and bio-ethanol industries the successful negotiation with a consortium of Thai institutions for the development and deployment of a waxystarch cassava variety adapted to Thailand (TTDI) illustrate not only a very direct pathway for impact, but also a novel one. The agreement implies a detailed scheme for deploying the germplasm on one hand, revenues for the cassava product line at CIAT on the other and the first example of large financial investment of the private sector in cassava germplasm development and enhancement. For the high-carotene germplasm they are currently used as source for the development of commercial varieties to be deployed (tentatively in year 2011) in Nigeria and D.R. Congo, the two target countries for HarvestPlus. High carotenoids cassava cultivars are also appealing to be deployed within Agrosalud in LAC and offer commercial advantages for the feed industry. In addition CIAT routinely produces and ships thousands of botanical seeds to NARs and IITA, who initiate evaluation and selection schemes with this seed. Assumptions for the successful delivery of these outputs include institutional and financial stability of partners, political stability, and institutional support. It is always a matter of concern the phytosanitary restrictions for the shipment of plants in vitro. The Cassava Mosaic Disease is not present in the Americas. The role of CIAT is that of a primary research provider of the improved germplasm or genetic stocks. At times, our role is of secondary research provider exploiting traits or elite germplasm developed (and generously shared) by NARs. Manihot esculenta originated and was domesticated in the region where CIAT is located. Consequently most pest and diseases have co-evolved with cassava in the region. This implies that CIAT has to be extremely cautious in the process of shipping germplasm outside the region by a thorough indexation process to prevent the shipment of pathogens and/or pests as well.Output 2: More efficient genetic enhancement approaches. For cassava to remain competitive, a more efficient breeding scheme, particularly for low heritability traits such as yield, is needed. New breeding tools are required to develop the improved genetic stocks of output 1. Molecular markers are already fully integrated into the breeding scheme, CIAT has assumed a leading role in the areas of genetic transformation, development of protocols for the production of doubled-haploids homozygous lines and efficient methodologies for in vitro propagation of clean planting materials.The intended users of this output are mostly NARs involved in cassava research. Eventually processing companies may start using some of the technologies developed at CIAT. This is the case, for example, of starch companies in Colombia, Nigeria and South Africa, implementing rapid multiplication methods (including tissue culture protocols) for the production of clean planting material of elite germplasm. The product of this output is knowledge, which is shared with the intended beneficiaries through scientific publications, the internet, training courses, conferences and presentations at scientific meetings. The outcomes of this output will be more efficient breeding system that will allow cassava to remain competitive in the global markets, but also a subtle consequence will be the stimulus for cassava breeders that a new era of advanced technologies has arrived for cassava.Throughout the many different activities the cassava research at CIAT and CLAYUCA are also paying special attention to the development of human capacity of its personnel and that of our collaborators. Training is achieved through individual visits, field days, demonstration plots, workshops, formal courses and scientific publications. These two institutions are committed to help cassava researchers, producers and processors world-wide gain access to all products and technologies developed.There is no major change from the previous MTP in output 2 except for the growing concern on climate change that further highlights the relevance of our work regarding drought tolerance. At the end of August 2008, the molecular geneticists left CIAT (and several pending tasks) which have created considerable problems for the team to continue delivering as expected from different research projects.Impact Pathway: Most of the products related to this output will have indirect impact through facilitated breeding approaches either in work directly conducted at CIAT or by NARs and IITA. Of a huge relevance is the breakthrough success in overcoming a bottleneck in the process of developing doubled-haploids from microspore culture. The exine in the developing cassava microspore is very thick and did not let scientists to see through. This proved very difficult because it was not possible to identify treatments that promoted cell division and probably prevented any further development of multi-cellular structures by pure physical strength of the exine. By the end of 2007 CIAT cassava and biotechnology teams succeeded in digesting the exine. Now up to 30% success in the production of multi-cellular structures can be attained. Next step will be the regeneration of plants from these structures. When this happens, a true revolution in cassava breeding will take place. Drastic changes in the genetic enhancement of the crop will be possible and the \"design\" of outstanding hybrids and predictable exploitation of heterosis finally a reality. There are good possibilities that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will continue supporting this work that has already benefited from two consecutive 3-years projects with the Rockefeller Foundation.Output 3: Eco-efficiency of production & processing of cassava. Management of pests and diseases, likely to cause acute problems in large areas planted with cassava, has been an integral part of the cassava research at CIAT since its inception. There are three main type of products delivered through this output: sources of resistance to pests and diseases, agents for the biological control of pests and diseases; and diagnostic kits.The ultimate end-users of the results of this output are the farmers that grow cassava. However, the immediate beneficiary may be different. For the exploitation of genetic resistance to pests and diseases the breeding projects from CIAT, IITA, EMBRAPA and other NARs are clearly the first one benefiting from these products. For approaches related to the biological control of diseases and pests NARs can promote their use but farmers can almost immediately benefit from implementing them. In addition to farmers rural communities benefit from the positive impact that these approaches have on the environment and human health, by preventing or reducing the uses of agro-chemicals. These technologies also have a direct impact on the production costs and/or the sustainability of cassava productivity. CIAT's role is as a primary (in some instances as secondary) research provider. This output reflects one of the main strengths that cassava research at CIAT has had since its creation: its integral approach. As more cassava is demanded by different processing facilities, larger areas and continuous growth for a constant supply of raw materials will be required. This in turn will certainly result in better conditions for pests and diseases to become more prevalent. An integral approach for cassava production will then become more relevant than ever. The emergence of insect pests in areas of Asia that were relatively from them (particularly Thailand) offer a unique challenge for CIAT to support eco-efficiency through the powerful tools of biological control which was so successful in the similar problem of the mealybug in Africa.This output also develops cultural practices and processing approaches for a competitive and sustainable cassava production and/or processing. The expected impacts include reduction of the negative impact on the environment of growing and/or processing cassava for example by promoting hedgerows for the prevention of soil erosion or developing systems for processing industrial byproducts of agro-enterprises. CIAT's role is as a primary (in some instances as secondary) research provider. Because of the very nature of this output, CIAT's role can also be envisioned as an advocate or catalyst for the development and deployment of ecoefficient agricultural practices. Assumptions for the successful delivery of these outputs include institutional and financial stability of partners, political stability, infrastructure, and institutional support. This output also relates to the activities conducted by CLAYUCA, which result in a productive and close collaboration between the two research groups. CLAYUCA also serves as a bridge between CIAT and NARs associated with CLAYUCA making available technologies and products to NARs. In this regard, therefore, CLAYUCA has been a key partner in the pathway to impact.An increasing concern related to output 3 is the retirement of the two senior entomologists at CIAT and the departure of two pathologists (from the rice and forages program) that occurred during the last 12 month. Only one pathologist is left at CIAT (Elizabeth Alvarez from the cassava team) to attend to the four traditional commodities and tropical fruits in which she works actively. An additional change in the already mentioned emergence of insect problems in areas in Asia that had been relatively free from them. The senior agronomist that had been working in Asia for about 20 years will retire in May 2009. The scientist that will continue coordinating the work supported by the Nippon Foundation has already moved to CIAT's office in Bangkok.Impact Pathway: One interesting example of pathway to impact related to this output is the commercialization by a private company of different agents for the biological control identified at CIAT for major pests. However, the most typical pathway is through the sharing of germplasm with high degree of resistance to insects and pests. Recently, marker-assisted-selection for resistance to CMD for the deployment of germplasm in Africa with adequate levels and high frequency of resistance to the disease has been successfully implemented. In the case of LAC, CLAYUCA has been very successful positioning itself as an innovator particularly in the area of cassava post-harvest processing and interacting with other industrial processes in handling by-products.The goal of the work on tropical forages, targeted at the crop-livestock interface, is to improve livelihoods of poor rural crop-livestock producers while contributing to eco-efficiency of production systems. Thus the purpose of our work is to explore the benefits of multipurpose forages on improving agricultural productivity, enhancing soil fertility, restoring degraded lands, improving water quality, reducing deforestation and mitigating the effects of climate change, though the conservation and exploitation of the genetic diversity of either the natural variation or breeding of tropical grasses and legumes. This results in positive effects on poverty alleviation through enhanced smallholder competitiveness and improved food security, while reducing the ecological footprint.Livestock development is recognized as a key element for increasing the income of poor smallholders given the increased demand for animal products in developing countries. Recent analysis indicates evolving market opportunities for forages as prices for conventional feed resources, mostly grain-based feeds, are increasing while consumers want higher quality products. However, a high proportion of smallholder crop-livestock systems in the tropics are located in areas with prolonged dry seasons, exposed to waterlogging and/or with land in different stages of degradation. This leads to an inadequate supply of quality feed particularly in the dry season. In addition, in many cases smallholders with livestock and limited land (i.e., in Southeast Asia) have to walk long distances to harvest forages. On the other hand, tropical forages are amongst the few opportunities available to many smallholder farmers to produce high or added value products, due to the fact that forages can be grown not only in favorable but also marginal environments.To accomplish the goal and purpose of the Tropical Forages Program, the research is being organized around three outputs: (1) Forage germplasm developed through collection, selection and breeding, (2) Forages as high value products developed to capture differentiated traditional and emerging markets for smallholders, and (3) Forages integrated into smallholder crop-livestock systems to realize the benefits of improved forages through adaptation, innovation and adoption, aiming at higher livelihood security through higher resource use efficiency and reduction of the ecological footprint.Partnerships are formed with private seed industry, ARIs, NARS, and development partners to carry out strategic research to: select and breed forages; enhance adaptation of forage species to biotic and abiotic stresses; develop methods and tools for targeting, processing and evaluation of forages; employ operational research principles to develop forages for specific production and market niches; develop more sustainable crop-livestock systems using an innovation systems approach; explore the potential of improved forages for adaptation to and mitigation of climate change and reduction of the negative impacts of agriculture on the environment; and quantify the impact of forages on improving livelihoods and protecting the environment. Capacity building including group/individual training and knowledge management remains integral to our agenda to: (a) strengthen/benefit from the research capacity of partners, and (b) enhance our capacity to deliver research products in different environments.International Public Goods. The research products of CIAT's Tropical Forages Program are in line with CIAT`s approach to eco-efficient agriculture for the poor and the mandate of CGIAR of producing international public goods (IPGs). They can be grouped into the following categories:1. Defining mechanisms/processes (to assist in the development of screening methods) to understand how • improved forages affect animal productivity and product quality,• grasses resist pests and diseases,• forages adapt to acid soils,• forages adapt to drought and waterlogging,• and to what extent forages, mainly legumes, contribute to soil fertility,• grasses inhibit biological nitrification in soil.• forage quality for ruminants and monogastrics,• resistance to major biotic stress factors (i.e., spittlebug and Rhizoctonia),• adaptation to abiotic stress factors (i.e., adaptation to low soil nutrient status and high Al, to drought and poor drainage).3. Developing superior forage genotypes/cultivars to increase livestock productivity and protect the environment • Integrate grasses and legumes selected from germplasm collections and through breeding that have broad adaptation and multiple functions into crop-livestock production systems using an innovation systems approach.• Quantify trade-offs between use of forages for soil enhancement and as animal feed.• Quantify the benefits of improved forages in reducing global warming potential through carbon sequestration and reduced emissions of methane and nitrous oxide.4. Targeting and delivery of research results through dissemination of forage germplasm and decision support tools • Document conservation and distribution of germplasm.• Develop Decision Support Tools with information on adaptation, uses and management of different forage species.In line with CIAT`s focus on eco-efficient agriculture for the poor (i.e., balancing between economic, ecological and social impacts), outputs have been further sharpened. The research agenda builds on our achievements in increasing productivity of market-oriented smallholder crop-livestock production systems, while enhancing efforts to realize the environmental benefits of tropical forages. However, to respond to increased climate variability and extreme conditions, as a contribution to adaption to climate change more emphasis is placed on developing forages with high tolerance to both drought and waterlogging (Output 1). The efforts on developing forages will be complemented with research to realize income generation opportunities (Output 2) and enhance systems performance (Output 3). Forage-based systems not only contribute to livestock and crop production but can also reduce soil erosion, improve soil and water quality, and reduce global warming potential. Thus we will also increase our research on quantifying the benefits of improved forages with deep and abundant root systems in reducing global warming potential through improved carbon sequestration and reduced emissions of methane and nitrous oxide. The results are anticipated to have a positive impact on mitigation of climate change. However, information on the trade-offs between these multiple functions of tropical forages for crop-livestock production and environmental protection is still scarce. The assessment and quantification of the environmental effects of forage-based livestock production in relation to economic output will therefore integrate the three research outputs in the specific contexts of the three worlds of agriculture as proposed by the World Bank.Output 1: Forage germplasm developed through collection, selection and breeding. Forage grasses (e.g., Brachiaria) and multipurpose herbaceous and shrub legumes of high quality that are adapted to major biotic (e.g., spittlebug, Rhizoctonia) and abiotic constraints (e.g., low soil fertility, aluminum toxicity, drought, waterlogging) will be developed. Adaptation to the effects of climate change as a dynamic response is an integral part of the work on improving stress tolerance. Addressing forage conservation technologies suitable to smallholder systems and attention to emerging diseases and pests and climate change will further enhance the sustainability of smallholder systems. Results from this output will be inputs to Outputs 2 and 3 below.Impact Pathway: To contribute to the improvement of livelihoods of poor, rural, crop-livestock producers through high quality forages adapted to major biotic and abiotic constraints, forage researchers rely on natural genetic diversity from core germplasm collections housed in the Genetic Resources Unit of CIAT and other international and national centers. Artificial hybridization to create novel genetic variation is used when major limitations in successful commercial cultivars have been identified and when evaluation of large germplasm collections has failed to identify the required character combinations (e.g., spittlebug and Rhizoctonia resistance with adaptation to acid soils and drought in Brachiaria). Screening methods and selected genotypes with superior forage quality, resistant to major pests and diseases and adapted to acid, low fertility soils, to poorly drained soils and to drought, are the Output targets to be used by different partners engaged in research and development activities.Output 2: Forages as high value products developed to capture differentiated traditional and emerging markets for smallholders. Research will emphasize the high value opportunities of forages, leading to improved market competitiveness of forages (such as hay, silage and forage meal) and derived ruminant (e.g., cattle, goat, sheep) and monogastric (e.g., pigs, poultry, fish) livestock products. This includes the development of forage conservation methods targeted at smallholder systems. We work in a market-oriented value chain approach, involving the private sector, NGOs and governmental institutions.Impact Pathway: To improve the efficiency of partners to better target forages to diverse environments, production systems and market niches, the forage team collaborates with the RDC on People and Agroecosystems to develop methods of participatory evaluation of forages, decision support tools and more effective and equitable market interactions. Selected forage genotypes are evaluated and disseminated with and by partners in different environments and production systems. The superior grass and legume genotypes are released and promoted by NARS and private seed companies, and adapted and adopted by farmers to intensify and diversify their production systems.Output 3: Forages integrated into smallholder crop-livestock systems: realizing livelihood and environmental benefits. Research will be focused on improving the efficiency of labor and critical inputs such as fertilizer and water, thereby increasing system performance. Legumes as green manures in cropping systems provide part of the nitrogen needed to sustain productivity of crops. At the same time research aims to balance between economic and environmental -and implicitly social -sustainability of tropical agriculture.We will analyze the contribution of forages to the economic and ecological balance in resource (nutrients, water, land and labor) utilization, carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions. The major challenge is combining higher agricultural output (through higher forage productivity and quality) with greater input use efficiency in integrated production systems while at the same time contributing to mitigate the effects of climate change (e.g., exploring the potential of forages for carbon sequestration, reduction of methane emissions, inhibition of biological nitrification).Impact Pathway: The benefits of improved grasses and legumes are realized through adaptation, innovation and adoption, aiming at higher livelihood security through higher resource use efficiency. For its work in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean, CIATs Tropical Forages Program is collaborating with ILRI and CIAT-TSBF, with complementary research priorities and expertise to integrate forages in diverse crop-livestock systems. Adoption of new forage varieties results in more income to livestock farmers through more efficient use of land and labor, and more animal products for urban consumers, with impacts demonstrated in Latin America and the Caribbean and Southeast Asia. To reduce the ecological footprint and mitigate the effects of climate change, we integrate the decision support, biophysical and socioeconomic expertise of CIAT, ARIs, NARS and development partners. The utilization of forages to enhance system performance and reduce the ecological footprint is expected to have direct impact at the household level while at the same time providing avenues in ecosystem services and providing tools for decision makers. This partnership and the interaction with the private sector have allowed us to amplify networks for delivery of research outcomes. Information sharing through knowledge tools such as SoFT (www.tropicalforages.info) reaches a wide audience ranging from researchers and development practitioners to educational institutions, and complements our continued efforts of individual and group training.Vast areas of agricultural land in the tropics are succumbing to the threat of soil fertility loss. The problem is especially severe in Central America and is a major concern in sub-Saharan Africa, where fertilizer use is extremely low and about 500 million hectares are already moderately or severely degraded. Declining soil fertility means particularly severe limitations for women farmers, given the prevalence of gender inequality in access to more fertile land and to capital for purchasing inputs.Unless effective and equitable means of overcoming this problem are applied on a massive scale, small farmers will be hard pressed to realize the benefits of improved crops. Recent rises in fertilizer prices have made the need for better soil fertility management techniques more urgent than ever, and their importance will likely increase, as the impacts of global climate change unfolds in tropical agriculture. Together with better water management, prudent handling of soil fertility is central for making agriculture more ecoefficient.Scientists have reached a broad consensus on the basic principles underlying a holistic approach referred to as \"integrated soil fertility management\" (ISFM). The approach recognizes that, while mineral fertilizers are necessary for sustainable management of tropical soils, they are not sufficient for this purpose. Long-term experiments have shown that, when such fertilizers are applied without organic inputs, the ability of crops to use nutrients efficiently declines over time. Thus ISFM combines appropriate use of fertilizers with various organic inputs, including livestock manures and locally available multipurpose legumes.Another distinctive feature of ISFM is the recognition that interactions between the components of agricultural production -from water, soil, crops and pests on farm to input supplies, markets, rural institutions and health conditions in the surrounding landscape -are just as important as the individual components themselves. Thus, CIAT research on tropical soil biology and fertility focuses both on integrated soil fertility management and also on sustainable land management.Soil fertility depletion has been described as one of the major constraints to food security and income generation in the tropics, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and Central America (CA). Despite proposals for a diversity of solutions and the investment of time and resources by a wide range of institutions soil fertility depletion continues to be a major problem. The rural poor are often trapped in a vicious cycle between land degradation, fuelled by a lack of relevant knowledge and/or appropriate technologies to generate adequate income and opportunities to overcome land degradation. Intensification and diversification of agricultural production is required to meet the food, feed, and income needs of the poor and this cannot be achieved without sustainable investment in soil fertility management.To achieve sustainable investments in soil fertility management the Program has adopted the Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) paradigm. We define ISFM as 'A set of soil fertility management practices that necessarily include the use of fertilizer, organic inputs, and improved germplasm combined with the knowledge on how to adapt these practices to local conditions, aiming to maximize agronomic use efficiency of the applied nutrients and thus crop productivity. All inputs need to be managed following sound agronomic principles.' ISFM arose because of the recognition that addressing the interactions between components (e.g., water, pests and soils) is as important as dealing with the components themselves. This definition is in line with the goals of the African Fertilizer Summit, recently held in Nigeria, which aims at increasing fertilizer use from an average of 8 to 50 kg nutrients ha -1 by 2015.Improving the natural resource base without addressing issues of health and nutrition and income generation is often the reason for lack of adoption of ISFM practices. Maximum benefits from ISFM practices can only be obtained within an enabling context, where profitable farm input and produce markets, improved health and nutrition, functional institutions, and good policy are in place. eco-efficiency is embedded in the ISFM Program through the definition of ISFM that focuses on maximizing agronomic input use efficiency (environmental dimension) and through the recognition that profitable access to markets (economic dimension) and food security and good nutrition for all (social dimension) are major drivers for adoption of ISFM.The Program will be implemented in major impact zones with target cropping systems where soil fertility decline is a major issue and where a large number of people depend on these systems for food and nutrition security and income. In SSA, these include: (i) millet and sorghum-based systems in the West-Africa dry-lands, (ii) cereal-legume intercropping and rotations in moist-savannas of West, East and Southern Africa, (iii) cassava-based systems in humid lowland areas of West and Central Africa and (iv) banana-based systems in East and Central African highlands. Each of those zones has specific soil-related constraints to crop production, including low nutrient reserves (e.g. low available N and P), poor chemical quality (e.g., low buffering capacity), and physical constraints (e.g., low soil depth), resulting in sub-optimal nutrient and water use efficiencies. In Central America, one agricultural impact zone with crop-livestock systems is targeted with actions in two important countries (Nicaragua, Honduras) in the region.Some ISFM-based technologies have shown a high potential for large-scale adoption in some of the above Impact Zones and a relatively high increase in input use efficiency while further research for development investments are needed to fully assess the adoption potential of other technologies and their impact on resource use efficiencies.The GOAL of the ISFM Program is to improve the livelihoods of rural families in the target Impact Zones by developing ISFM-based profitable, socially just, nutrient-dense, and resilient crop production systems and creating an environment enabling their adoption.International Public Goods. International and regional public goods (IPG) generated by the ISFM Program include:• Improved knowledge on soil processes, including the role of improved germplasm in regulating input use efficiency. • Tools to take into account farm heterogeneity and farmer typologies in devising ISFM practices.• Best-fit ISFM practices for the target cropping systems and Impact Zones.• Decision support tools and models to analyze trade-offs among various livelihood realms.• Innovative approaches for sustainable crop utilization and enterprise promotion, including linking farmers to market, and rural poverty reduction. • Effective approaches to engage various stakeholders in ISFM technology evaluation and dissemination.• Technological, institutional, market, utilization, and policy options for increasing delivery of benefits and broader impact.TSBF-CIAT's comparative advantage is in conducting IPG research on ISFM in farming systems where declining soil fertility and soil degradation undermine rural livelihoods and market opportunities. However, while the institute will focus primarily on strategic, applied, and adaptive research, it will also support technology dissemination and development activities, working with partners via community-based organizations and NGOs, national and regional networks and global projects. Much of the research as well as NARES capacity building will be done via the Institute's main implementing network, the African Network for Soil Biology and Fertility (AfNet). Dissemination of findings will occur through effective partnerships with relevant development partners.The Output 1: ISFM for legume-cereal-based systems in sub-Saharan Africa promoted. During the last two decades, sustainable maize-grain legume rotations and intercropping systems have been developed for the savanna Impact Zones. Accompanying ISFM practices relies upon retention of legume residues, judicious and targeted application of mineral fertilizer, resilient legume and maize germplasm and adaptation to local variation in soil fertility. Farmers in the Sahelian Impact Zone are adopting the 'micro-dosing' technology, which refers to the utilization of relatively low quantities of fertilizer (<20 kg ha -1 ), either through point placement in millet or sorghum-based systems or through appropriate fertilizer management in maize-based systems. Micro-dosing is practiced in conjunction with water harvesting, or application of manure, crop residues, or household waste. In this Output activities will focus on creating an enabling environment, such as the \"warrantage\" or inventory credit system, to promote best ISFM practices in the Sahelian and savanna Impact Zones, based on a clear understanding of which enabling factors are required for widespread ISFM uptake by farmers. Decision support tools will assist in deciding trade-offs associated with these practices.Efforts will be made to institutionalize knowledge and approaches for evaluating and disseminating ISFM practices within relevant extension systems.Output 2: ISFM for cassava-, and banana-based systems in humid sub-Saharan Africa assembled. Cassava has often been coined 'poor people's food' and assumed to be a crop that could produce some yield where others failed. Consequently, efforts to integrate fertilizer and organic inputs into cassava-based farming systems have been limited. Currently, cassava is enjoying a new popularity and attracting renewed attention as a major resilient staple crop in the humid and sub-humid areas of SSA and as a cash crop for growing export markets in chips for livestock feed, starch, and other processed products. Bananas are among the most important food and cash crops in East and Central Africa and comprise principal components of food security and income generation within the region. Bananas require fertile soil, adequate moisture and pest management to achieve high yields and traditional banana production systems included the recycling of organic nutrients. Exportation of bananas to urban markets without the replenishment of the nutrients exported has resulted in unsustainable mining of nutrients in banana farming systems, leading to a decline in banana productivity. Both above systems are amenable to ISFM and Output 2 is aimed at developing such practices through proper understanding of the mechanistic principles underlying ISFM and ex-ante studies of the adoption potential of the emerging ISFM practices. Decision support tools and capacity building will trigger the initial uptake of ISFM within these systems within the timeframe of this MTP.Output 3: ISFM for conservation agriculture systems in Central America assembled. In the Central-American hillsides, land degradation is a major problem affecting approximately 75% of the area. Smallholders have no other choice than continuous crop production on lands prone to erosion. Soil nutrients are depleted, resulting in an overall soil fertility decline, contributing to low productivity and poverty. Results from earlier research activities indicated that the Quesungual Slash and Mulch Agroforestry System (QSMAS), a form of conservation agriculture, has beneficial effects on improving food security and reducing ecological footprints. QSMAS is based on (i) no slash and burn and management of natural vegetation, (ii) permanent soil cover, through continual deposition of biomass from trees, shrubs, weeds, and crops, and (iii) minimal disturbance of soil, through no tillage, direct seedling, and reduced soil disturbance. The integration of ISFM principles within the QSMAS systems has shown great potential. A specific challenge is to diversify the QSMAS through integration with livestock production in the region. Pastures are often highly degraded and dairy production drops dramatically during the dry season when milk prices increase 2-fold compared with the rainy season. The use of ISFM including improved crop and forage germplasm, adapted to low soil fertility and drought will contribute to sustainable livelihoods in the region. This Output is aimed at developing ISFM practices through a proper understanding of the mechanistic principles underlying ISFM. Decision support tools and capacity building will trigger the initial uptake of ISFM within the QSMAS within the timeframe of this MTP.Impact Pathway: The impact of ISFM within the Impact Zones will be visible through improved production, income, human health and nutrition, and soil fertility, and reduced nutrient mining and conversion of natural fallow to agriculture. Each of the Outputs Targets aims at reaching specific users who are then geared towards common outcomes and impact through effective partnerships. strategic research outputs will be used mainly by CGIAR, Advanced Research Institutes (ARIs), National Agricultural Research System (NARS), and Regional Consortia researchers who are envisaged to derive processes and principles based on applied research activities. NARS will then apply these principles, concepts and methods and adapt and improve ISFM practices to the prevailing production environments of their mandate areas. An enabling environment for adoption of ISFM, focusing on improved market access, knowledge on health and nutrition of farming communities, effective partnerships along targeted value chains, and stakeholder capacity building will not only create motivation for adoption of ISFM technologies but contribute directly to improved income and health and nutrition after adoption of such technologies. The intended users of these are development partners and farming communities with specific attention given to enlightening the ISFM research community on these issues. The building of human and social capital of all TSBF-CIAT stakeholders for effective research and sustainable management of tropical soils is necessary since managing soil fertility for improved livelihoods requires the integration of technical, social, economic and policy issues at multiple scales.Since most operations in this Program are supported by specific projects, the operationalization of specific impact pathways will be dependent on the goals and objectives of these projects and will not necessarily cover the entire value chain within a specific project. The overall importance of this Program is then to oversee that the necessary links are created between various initiatives operating in similar Impact Zones to ensure a continuity of partner networks and necessary coordination to deliver the required Outputs to achieve impact.The Land degradation is one of the major constraints to food security and income generation in developing countries. It has direct effects on short term crop productivity as well as on the longer term sustainability of natural resources.Moreover, there is the added challenge to maintain or improve the resilience of the productive capacity of the soil in view of climate and environmental change.In order to address land degradation we need to look at the larger agricultural production landscape (that comprises the bio-physical, socio-economic and the cultural and political landscape). The production landscape needs to be understood in terms of the provision of environmental (or ecosystem) goods and services. Soils play a key role in the provision of the services; soils store and cycle water from rainfall and irrigation and filter toxic substances through clay sorption and precipitation processes that determine surface and ground water quality, soil organisms decompose organic materials, cycle nutrients, regulate gas fluxes to and from the atmosphere, regulate soil borne pest and diseases and maintain soil structure through bioturbation. The affect of agriculture on these processes is the focus of this program along with the reciprocal affect of these processes on future agricultural productivity.The main objectives of the SLM program are • To enhance knowledge and understanding of soil ecological functions that sustain a productive agriculture and maintains or improves biodiversity and ecosystem services.• To utilize targeting of land use and soil management interventions to better reverse erosion of the soil resource base. • To enhance the production of ecosystem services through sustainable agricultural production and payments for ecosystem services.The SLM program has defined 2 outputs to satisfy the objectives and goals defined.Output 1: Eco-efficient land and soil management practices evaluated for landscape levels.Output 2: Options for enhanced and sustained agricultural production and ecosystem services, regeneration of ecosystem function and adaptation to climate change developed.International Public Goods. The IPG of the SLM program include the following:• Improved understanding on soil (biological) processes;• (Standard) methods for the assessment of soil quality and soil health, including soil biological, chemical and physical components; • Indicators of soil quality and soil health; • Assessment of soil quality and soil health for agro-ecosystems of major importance and understanding of processes that lead to poor soil quality and health; • Improved knowledge on how different stakeholders use and manage landscapes; • Improved systems and practices for managing soil, water and land resources at a landscape level; • Improved knowledge on global warming potential of different production systems; • Innovative diversification options of land use within agricultural production landscapes; • Decision support tools and models to analyze trade-offs among food productivity, ecosystem services and land conservation; • Institutional innovations and policy options to reduce land degradation and to restore degraded lands.• Three-tier-approach for sustainable crop and livestock enterprise promotion, linking farmers to market, and rural poverty reduction.The TSBF Institute has a comparative advantage in conducting and coordinating IPG research on soil quality and soil health in a farming system and land use system context, where land degradation undermines rural livelihoods. However, while CIAT-TSBF will focus primarily on strategic research, it will support technology dissemination and development activities with partners via innovation platforms, regional networks and international projects. CIAT-TSBF SLM program will continue research on below-ground biodiversity as a means of beneficially managing soil biology. Much of the applied research and dissemination of findings, as well as NARSs capacity building, will be done via the Institute's regional partner network -the African Network for Soil Biology and Fertility (AfNet) and through national partners. Efforts will be undertaken to expand the MIS consortium in Central America to build a similar network for soil biology and fertility research in Latin America. CIAT-TSBF also collaborates with the South Asian Regional Network (SARNet) on soil fertility research in that region.Several changes have been made compared to the 2009-2011 MTP. They related to:Outputs redefined and reduction in number of outputs and output targets. The number of outputs has been reduced to two, rather than the original five. Capacity building has been dropped as a separate output because these efforts are considered to be an integral part of the process to generate the outputs and impacts. The formation and capacity building remain an important objective of the program. Further, understanding the biophysical processes and principles that underlie soil health, soil and land degradation and principal and proximate causes that drive soil and land degradation as well as decision support tools for the targeting of interventions for sustainable land management is all integrated in one output. Biodiversity, being the basis for production of all ecosystem services, is naturally included as one of the components of the diagnostic phase. The 'economically viable and environmentally sound soil management practices' has been retained as separate output.Improved distinction between ISFM and SLM programs. The development of production technologies including soil management practices is very much the domain of the ISFM program. Ecosystem functioning is an important focus for the SLM program and the evaluation of (alternative) production systems in term of impact on ecosystem functioning at the landscape scale remains an important focus, and as such do also include technologies that target improved ecosystem services, like conservation measures and water harvesting technique. For this purpose we do want to evaluate production systems (like conservation agriculture, organic agriculture, crop-livestock systems, etc.) based on their global warming potential and ecological footprint index.Program more clearly structured according to impact zones. Output targets are defined according to impact zones rather then based on thematic distinction and allows for a more integrated and specific program of activities and allows for better integration with other programs to realize benefits to the region. The SLM program aims to maintain its presence in the Amazon and Central American Mid-Altitude hillsides zone, even though the CSM-BGBD project will come to an end in 2009. It will try to do so by including existing projects and formulating new proposals for these areas. Activities in India and Indonesia will have ceased, but we will look for opportunities to continue our work in South and South-East Asia and to maintain our global outlook.Output 1: Eco-efficient land and soil management practices evaluated. This output aims to insure the ecoefficiency of soil management practices including ISFM technologies, soil conservation measures, and water harvesting technique, etc. Eco-efficiency must deliver both high productivity and minimum negative ecological footprint. The research of this program is closely integrated with that of the ISFM program. While the ISFM program concentrates on identifying practices that enhance farm productivity, the Sustainable Land Management (SLM) program focuses on the environmental and natural resource implications of new ISFM practices. The ISFM program works principally at the level of the field, the SLM program complements this with a landscape approach. From this perspective the SLM program looks at the landscape impacts of new ISFM technologies on outcomes such as ecosystem services like carbon sequestration, water retention, soil biodiversity, or organic matter cycling. Production systems will also be evaluated on their potential contribution to global warming and energy use efficiency. The SLM program looks at trade-offs between farm productivity and food production with ecosystem services.For this output we will partly rely on IFSM trials that are conducted under the auspices of the SLM Program as well as the IFSM program and in close cooperation with AFNET, making use of their network long term trials. This includes studies on the effect of soil and land management on soil biodiversity. Ex-ante and ex-post adoption studies that look into the requirements of various systems for resources like land, labor, capital and manure will inform the definition of application domains. Information will be captured in fact sheets from which decision aids will be developed, constituting the knowledge base which will be the major element of this output. The decision aids will help select among various alternatives, for example, selection tropical forages for different types and qualities of organic matter. The knowledge base including the decision aids will be made available to third parties through the internet.Impact Pathway: Output 1 will be documentation of a set of proven technologies and systems for SLM together with information on their application domains. This knowledge base will be made accessible through the internet and we hope the website will serve as a vade-mecum for a wide range of target audiences. However, the innovation and development platforms (to be established for each intervention domain) will be the main target audience and mechanism for the dissemination of the research outputs. The use of this information will allow stakeholders (farmers, development NGO, extension services, research community, etc.) to make better selection of the technologies they want to invest in and moreover to agree on a joint agenda and programme for intervention. It will reduce risks and enhance returns on investment and herewith enhance changes for adoption of appropriate technology. It will allow for better trade-off analyses and herewith enhance negotiation power of the farmer communities.This output target aims to improve the availability, accessibility and the applicability of research findings, from the various disciplines within and outside CIAT, that are relevant to SLM and sustainable agricultural production. It will aid planning of research within the organization and with partners. Constraints in the availability of information and lack of rigorous analyses and synthesis of results from these various experiments and studies have resulted in duplication of research efforts as far as ISFM and soil conservation technologies are concerned. So we hope this output will make a contribution to improve efficiency of the limited research funds that are available for agricultural research in the tropics and improved targeting of the technologies.Output 2: Options for enhanced and sustained agricultural production and ecosystem services, regeneration of ecosystem function and adaptation to climate change developed. The SLM program aims to identify domains for intervention in sustainable land management. These domains are concrete geographical spaces with specific bio-physical and socio-economic characteristics, but that also allows identification of the relevant stakeholder group that need to be involved in planning of concrete interventions Particular attention will be paid to appraising the Quesungual slash and mulch agroforestry system based on principles of conservation agriculture that could be an alternative to replace the non-sustainable, environmentally unfriendly slash-and-burn system that is traditionally used by resource-poor farmers in hillside agroecosystems of the sub-humid tropics in Central America.The decision support tools for improved targeting of recommendation for sustainable land management will consist of a set of decision rules to define soil health problem domains, to define application domains of the various alternative technologies and production systems and to define the intervention domains. The possible interventions are evaluated basically by matching the requirements for the intervention with the conditions in each of the three types of domains specified. The tools developed for targeting interventions will assist in better targeting of investments by the rural development and communities.The AfSIS project will provide detailed information on soil functional properties for the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa. It will rely on diagnostic field trials to infer information on soil health status (i.e. the ability of the soil to provide soil ecosystem related services). The response to fertilizer is an important characteristic. From the analyses of field trials decision rules will be derived for the management of the health of soils of different properties. These data will provide a comprehensive overview of land degradation and soil quality status for different impact zones.This output will also embrace socio-economic data and address strategic alliances and organization of the stakeholders (e.g. farmer organization). For example, part of this work will be implemented through the formation of innovation platforms, but at the same time we will evaluate innovation platform as a proper mechanism in our intervention strategy. This will be done through an action research approach and will require use of participatory monitoring and evaluation techniques. Communities and stakeholders are involved with all the SLM project activities in the various impact zones to link research to development, but different strategies are applied. The SLM program will draw lessons learned from these different approaches to improve our intervention strategies and to enhance impact of our research within the various impact zones.The SLM Program will work closely with the Decision and Policy Analysis Program on methodological issues related to studies of ecosystem services, and some of this work should overlap with the Amazon Ecoregional Program.Impact Pathway: The impact pathway for Output 2 is similar though more focused on raising awareness and action preparedness. For the implementation of programs on the ground detailed information is needed and possible interventions (introductions of technologies) need to be considered within the wider context of the production systems and in production of alternative systems within the context of the production landscape. An area-wide approach is often required and interventions have often failed because technologies have been viewed in isolation or particular farming systems have been targeted without looking at opportunities for efficiency gains using an area-wide approach. This output aims to address this constraint by providing a systematic way for characterizing and diagnosing the production environment and for identifying and evaluating interventions options considering various technologies and alternative systems at a landscape level.Detailed data and information on status of land degradation on a continental scale (that AfSIS will provide) will be of enormous value to better predict the impact of climate change, to assess environmental impacts of land use change, to study potential for agricultural development, etc. This information will enhance the awareness of the magnitude and urgency of the problem of land degradation and will increase the willingness to take action. The accurate diagnosis and understanding of causes of land degradation and declining yields, the constraints and opportunities for SLM will contribute to better targeting of investments and finally the evaluation of alternative intervention strategies and options, the improved assessment of risks and changes of success will help to organize stakeholders and define a common cause. In the end, the decision making process is improved and the planning and targeting of interventions is improved. Again platforms will be the main vehicle through which the interventions are planned and through which we aim to enhance the cohesion and integration of the intervention form the various actors and stakeholders. This will greatly help the cause of the rural poor, to enhance their livelihoods and improve their environment. The creation of the right platforms to address these issues at local, national and international level will be critical though for its success.Following the recommendations of the recent EPMR, responding to the interests of partners, for example, as expressed in FORAGRO, and refocusing on its roots and particular comparative advantages within the CGIAR, CIAT will pursue eco-efficient agriculture on an ecoregional basis, working in high-priority sub-regions of LAC, many of which have strong similarities with regions in Africa and Asia. LAC's extraordinary biological, climatic and socioeconomic diversity especially favor a focused effort to enhance agriculture's eco-efficiency.An ecoregional approach in international agricultural research is consistent with expressed needs and demands within LAC. During recent months, CIAT has consulted with a large and diverse group of actors from both public and private sector organizations across the region. This involved formal discussions with many partner institutions in our host country, Colombia; with other major national partners, such as the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA); and with key regional entities, including the Center for Tropical Agronomic Research and Higher Learning (CATIE), the Forum for Agricultural Research and Development in the Americas (FORAGRO), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Inter-American Institute for Collaboration in Agriculture (IICA).The information CIAT gleaned was highly diverse, but it conveyed a number of clear messages about the role and strategic directions of international research. To begin with, partners called on CIAT to operate more closely with existing research capacities in the region. In 2006 there were 19,000 full time agricultural researchers in LAC. Partners see a potential for CIAT to become a regional technological platform, working with the strong national programs for common regional objectives that are widely shared.They called on the CGIAR to extend its crop research to include support for efforts on a wider array of crops (such as tropical fruits and biofuel feedstocks) that are important throughout the region. At the same time, they asked CIAT to continue with the conservation and improvement of beans, cassava, rice and tropical forages. In crop improvement, partners especially want to see CIAT concentrate on making biotechnology tools more accessible and more relevant to the needs of LAC. In addition, they urge the center to continue its efforts to strengthen small farmers' links to markets. Partners consider public-private partnerships to be necessary for the success of that work, and they look to international research for the technical backstopping needed to make such partnerships effective. Recognizing CIAT's past experience in NRM research, partners in LAC also requested a heightened emphasis on environmental services, including carbon sequestration, biological nitrogen fixation and provision of clean water.In general, partners expect the center's research agenda to respond flexibly to regional needs and to closely match regional priorities. They also recognize, however, that many of their own priorities fit well within the wider agenda of the CGIAR, including its major efforts in Africa. CIAT will need to respond to the region's diverse demands through an innovative approach that pursues research on a variety of crops, while also helping achieve a more competitive, market-oriented small-scale agriculture and more sustainable management of the region's biodiversity and other natural resources, drawing on global links and experience.In pursuing a renewed ecoregional role, CIAT will have to come to terms with two important institutional developments in LAC's agricultural research systems. First, to reverse the erosion of research capacity that has taken place in some disciplines and countries over the last decade or more, the center needs to assistand LAC partners welcome its assistance -in creating a whole new generation of agricultural scientists. Second, CIAT must address the striking duality in public sector research that has emerged during recent years, with a few countries (notably Brazil and Mexico) possessing strong research systems, while in a larger number research capacity has deteriorated as resources for this work have dried up. To implement a full agenda of research for LAC, it will be important to explore new roles for large national systems and to strengthen networks that meld large and small into a coherent ecoregional framework. There is recognition that regional funding sources, for example, FONTAGRO and IDB, will have to be tapped in order to fully resource these important initiatives.An important step in developing an eco-regional research strategy would be to hold a regional meeting to identify priorities and partnerships between national innovation systems and not just CIAT, but the broader CGIAR. This meeting would aim to reach agreements to formulate projects and jointly identify investment resources. FORAGRO has expressed interest in convening such a meeting.Rice is the leading food staple in South America and the Caribbean. While most of the world's rice is produced in Asia, which is home to IRRI, in LAC there are unique pests and diseases, as well as distinct grain types and cropping systems that require regional development of germplasm. The demand for rice in LAC is growing, and the region's abundant land and water resources give it the potential to be a growing supplier of rice to the world. During 1990-2004 rice production in LAC expanded annually at 3%, much higher than in any other region. Rice is grown under diverse agro climatic/soil conditions and production systems and the crop is subjected to diverse biotic and abiotic stresses, different from Asia and Africa. Mainly medium to small resource-poor farmers predominate in Central America and the Caribbean, and in the northern part of South America; some medium to large mechanized farms are found, especially in the Southern Cone. Therefore, there is a need to develop germplasm and technology appropriate for diverse type of rice production systems and different breeding strategies and rice materials are needed.Eco-efficient rice production systems, with high productivity and low impact on the environment are critical for the future. There are opportunities for growth in the rice sector in LAC. Recent data collected by FLAR in several countries indicate that by using better agronomic practices and improved varieties farmers are getting 1-2 ton/ha more of rice lowering production cost/ton of rice. International Public Goods. The \"International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture\" is an international agreement governing many of the world's most important crop diversity collections. The treaty will ensure that this diversity, which is critical for the rice crop improvement will remain in the public domain. In the area of germplasm, CIAT has decided to place most of its elite lines into this system. To do this, we will use the database format of IRRI and these should become part of the Future Harvest genetic resources. Most of the technologies including database management programs, breeding methodologies, and rice lines that are developed at CIAT enter into the public domain as international public goods. One of the most relevant and important products of the CIAT Rice Program is the development and deployment of interspecific rice lines derived from crosses between wild rice species and cultivated rice. Most of our partners and NARs in LAC are not in a position to carry out this type of breeding work since they lack the expertise, resources and funding to do it. Besides, they are more concerned with the development of improved lines to address production problems that impinge on today's rice production but not on broadening the genetic base of rice or on problems for which no sources of genetic resistance are known.Additionally, the adaptation and use of biotechnology tools in rice breeding programs by our partners will add another strategic dimension to products coming out of the CIAT Rice Program.The main significant changes affecting the Rice Project are related to the new CIAT organization where some research activities were eliminated or consolidated. The previous IP-4 Rice project is the new Rice Program \"Improved Rice Germplasm for Latin America and the Caribbean\". This Rice Program has three main Products: 1-Rice Germplasm for Improving Human Health and Nutrition in LAC; 2-Enhanced Gene Pools for Irrigated and Upland Rice in LAC; 3-Genotypic and Phenotypic Platforms for Rice Enhancement. The previous output 1, \"enhanced gene pools\", include pre-breeding activities for both irrigated and upland rice as well as collaborative activities with FLAR; many activities of the previous output 2, \"integrated crop, pest and disease management\", were eliminated while others consolidated into Product 2. The previous output 3, \"intensification and diversification of rice cropping systems for small farmers\", was eliminated. Two new Products, \"Rice germplasm for improving human health and nutrition in Latin America\", and \"Genotypic and Phenotypic Platforms for Rice Enhancement\" were added.From 2008 onward, core resources for the rice research activities have been significantly reduced. The strategy is to complement and strengthen the CIAT-FLAR platform with other institution(s) to attract more attention and funding via special projects. These changes are reflected in the consolidation or elimination of several of the Output Targets.Output 1: Rice germplasm for improving human health and nutrition in Latin America and the Caribbean.People living in areas where rice consumption is high (Haiti, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Panama, Dominican Republic, Colombia, and rural Brazil) are suffering from a number of major nutritional problems. Women and children are especially susceptible to deficiencies in micronutrients, particularly vitamin A, iron and zinc. As a result, they are at risk of disease, premature death, lower cognitive capacity, and poor quality of life. The costs of these deficiencies are high and economic and health indicators in LAC are deteriorating. Biofortified rice lines will be Rice Program's contribution to combat malnutrition in LAC through the development of and deployment of high iron and zinc rice lines. Research carried out at IRRI suggests that there is genetic variability in the rice genome to increase iron and zinc in the rice grain. It has been reported that consumption of biofortified rice, without any other changes in diet, is efficacious in improving iron stores in women with iron-poor diets in the developing world. We plan to develop rice lines having 6-8ppm of iron and 22-25ppm of zinc in milled rice using different breeding strategies. Progress made is good and some varieties with improved nutrient content, high yield potential, tolerance to main diseases and pests, and good grain quality will be released soon.Impact Pathway: This product is concerned with the development of high iron (6-8 ppm) and zinc (22-25 ppm) rice lines to combat malnutrition in LAC. Final intended users are urban and rural consumers, especially poor sectors. Improved rice germplasm as an instrument for improving human health and nutrition as well as for increasing productivity will benefit the poor people in Latin America (40% of LAC's population). Nutritionally improved staple food will provide an inexpensive, cost-effective, sustainable, long-term means of delivering micronutrients to the rural small resource poor farmers and the urban resources poor consumers. This project is carried out in close partnership with research institutions in Colombia (FEDEARROZ), Bolivia (CIAT-Bolivia, and ASPAR), Cuba (IIA), Brazil (EMBRAPA), Dominican Republic (IDIAF), Nicaragua (INTA and farmer's associations), and more recently Panama (IDIAP). Breeding material is evaluated for iron and zinc and selected ones are sent to AgroSalud's partners for local testing. Our partners, whom operate based on a network of germplasm exchange and participatory breeding activities in the region are in charge of testing, evaluating, multiplying and distributing seed of biofortified rice lines, and in collaboration with local nutritionists and socio-economists will estimate the benefits of the technology on the improvement of human health and nutrition as well as on increasing the productivity of rice and farmers well-being. Finally, lines with increased iron and zinc content will be named and release locally by our partners in AgroSalud.Output 2: Enhanced Gene Pools for Irrigated and Upland Rice in Latin America and the Caribbean. The genetic base of both irrigated and upland rice in LAC is very narrow. To increase the genetic diversity of rice, we use different breeding strategies, including interspecific crosses, composite populations, introgression and recombinant inbred lines, and we are developing biotechnology tools that allow the incorporation of traits more efficiently. Wild species are valued as a unique source of genetic variation; however, they have rarely being used for the genetic improvement of quantitative traits. Since 1994 the CIAT Rice Program has been characterizing and utilizing wild rice species. The strategy in place makes use of molecular maps in combination with backcrossing to elite breeding lines or commercial varieties to develop populations that are used to identify and transfer quantitative trait loci (QTLs) associated with traits of agronomic importance to cultivated rice. Broadening the genetic base of rice is also conducted through the development of synthetic rice populations using recurrent selection. Recurrent selection methods contribute to meeting the goals for continuous genetic improvement by assessing genotype x environment interactions to identify specific potential parents and pooling then to create site-specific synthetic rice populations with a broader genetic base. Through short cycles of selection and recombination, linkage barriers are broken down and favorable genes are accumulated. This is a smooth process of continuous improvement. These activities for rice improvement are carried out in close collaboration with partners in LAC via the REDMEGA network. The CIRAD-CIAT team started developing basic populations targeting the various rice ecosystems present in LAC, in partnership with scientists in Colombia, Venezuela and Cuba for the tropical ecosystem; Argentina for the subtropics; and Chile and France for the temperate zone. These populations are shipped to regional partners and evaluated locally.A marker-assisted selection program for recurrent selection will further improve the efficiency of the method.Impact Pathway: The objective is this product is to develop enhanced gene pools for both irrigated and upland rice, which are made available to our partners by different means. In the late 80s CIAT made the decision not to name and release rice varieties but left this decision to NARS. So the impact pathway depends entirely on the local evaluation, testing and selection of the breeding nurseries (CIAT-ION) that are prepared and sent to our collaborators every year, based on local demand. Our breeding lines are used as progenitors in further crossing by national rice breeding programs. In some cases these lines are released as commercial varieties after further selection, purification and seed multiplication. Typically this process takes 10-12 years after receiving the CIAT-ION nursery. The CIRAD-CIAT team set out to develop collaboration with rice breeders throughout LAC and took the lead in creating and sharing synthetic populations and providing training through the Working Group on Advanced Rice breeding (GRUMEGA). Improved populations are shared with regional partners and evaluated locally. Most of the cooperators use this material to develop sitespecific populations by introgressing additional variability to meet their specific breeding objectives. They then use these populations in their rice-improvement programs by recurrent selection. Recurrent selection is an activity that has been promoted through the GRUMEGA network. During the last 10 years, it has held many Rice Breeder Workshops and many local partners get populations and advanced rice lines from these activities. We are member of FLAR and most of the FLAR germplasm is developed using some of the CIAT germplasm. FLAR includes some of the strongest rice research institutions in Latin America and this is also a valuable source for germplasm exchange and enhancement as well as other forms of collaboration. Again, our regional rice partners are responsible for the release of varieties, which is the main impact of this Product 2.A very high percentage of the new rice varieties contain CIAT germplasm. The request for germplasm is highly variable (early segregating or advanced/fixed lines, parental lines) and depends on the production constraints affecting rice, and rice production systems used in a given country. In general, the smaller rice producing countries need advanced materials. The larger rice programs use germplasm and segregating populations to make their own selections. At the end, our impact will be measured by an expected increase and more ecoefficient rice production in LAC, with improved rice competitiveness through lower production costs and higher yields.Our pathway to impact is a framework for collaborative research built on five pillars: (i) capacity building, (ii) germplasm development and sharing; (iii) workshops for germplasm evaluation and selection, (iv) conferences to present results and advances, and (v) publications with and by collaborators.Output 3: Genotypic and Phenotypic Platforms for Rice Enhancement. Rice production faces the difficult challenge of obtaining reliable yields under variable conditions, notably due to the prevalence of biotic and abiotic stresses exacerbated by climate stresses. Numerous genes of economic importance are transferred from one varietal background to another through conventional breeding approaches, a time -consuming effort. Sometimes, screening procedures are cumbersome and expensive, and require large experimental area. Molecular biology is one of the key tools for generating more scientific advances that may not only reduce hunger and malnutrition in developing countries but also to contribute to an eco-efficient rice production. The entire genetic makeup of rice has been decoded, and more than 15,000 SRMs markers are available in rice, which allows us to tag genes of interest by tight linkage with molecular markers saving time and money, thereby increasing the efficiency of the breeding process. This approach, called marker-assisted breeding, has already been implemented in developed countries, but a large cadre of trained scientists and plant breeders working in developing countries will be required to reap the benefits of crop genomics. CIAT's scientists are using genetic engineering including transformation to transfer genes associated with desirable crop traits into elite lines or successful commercial varieties. A lot of molecular data have been generated at CIAT in rice on different agronomic traits, including an anchor marker map, several mapping populations, a field phenotyping platform and transformed rice lines carrying DREB-gene associated with drought tolerance. CIAT has permission from the Colombian National Biosafety Committee and excellent biosafety and field facilities for the generation and testing of transformed rice. Lines with better water and nitrogen-use efficiency will allow savings in water and fertilizer costs.Increasing the yield potential is one of the most challenging goals of current rice research. For many years conventionally-bred rice varieties could not make significant improvements in grain yield. Hybrid rice has done it in China and it is slowly expanding in other parts of the world. Some limited efforts in hybrid rice have been going on in LAC, but they lack the necessary dimension to success. CIAT could play a decisive role in creating a strong partnership with IRRI and regional partners, by developing an independent hybrid rice consortium for LAC.Impact Pathway: This product relates to activities in biotechnology that were housed in the CIAT Biotechnology Unit but that were conducted in close collaboration between rice scientists in the IP-4 rice project and the SB-2 project. The main objective is to integrate biotechnology tools available at CIAT and advanced institutions collaborating with us into the rice breeding program, especially via marker assisted selection and genetic engineering. Our pathway to impact will be similar to those already describe in Product 2, mainly through: (i) capacity building, including sharing of methodologies, databases, and software, (ii) development and sharing of genetic and breeding tools; (iii) workshops for germplasm evaluation and selection, (iv) conferences to present results and advances, (v) publications with and by collaborators, and (vi) collaborative research projects with strategic partners on activities of common interest.Cultivation of high value commodities with growing demand offers great economic opportunities for smallholder farmers. Rural employment and better profitability of farming systems have been associated with the production of High Value Agricultural Products (HVAP). HVAP, defined as 'crop, fish, livestock or nontimber forest products that return a higher gross margin per unit of available resources (land, labor, capital, human capacity) than other products within a given location and context' describe very well the characteristics of Tropical Fruits. More than 1100 species produce edible fruits in the LAC region, many of them with established and growing markets. Therefore fruits, as well as other high value crops, offer an alternative for crop diversification and a real opportunity for income generation. The opportunities for income generation are challenged by diverse constraints that vary from one region to another depending on the species of fruits, the agro-ecological and market conditions, political will and infrastructure.With rapid urbanization in the tropical countries providing powerfully growing internal demand, as well as the globalization of economies and growth of global food markets, the prospects for tropical fruits are excellent. This trend represents an opportunity for small scale smallholders who often have competitive advantages of an ability to more intensively manage small land holdings as well as access more productive lower cost labor.However, this opportunity for family farmers is limited by multiple challenges that need to be addressed, both on the production and on the marketing side. Indiscriminate and excessive use of pesticides, with the subsequent build up of undesired residues, become a barrier for accessing markets, and jeopardize the nutritional benefits of Tropical Fruits as a vehicle to supply vitamins and minerals to the poor. Sustainable production practices with minimum ecological footprint are required and need to be developed jointly with grower communities and local regulatory institutions.Another critical challenge is limited organizational skills, inappropriate market access and lack of capacity to respond to changing market demands. Small-scale farmers should be linked to the market chain so their products could be marketed in the domestic, regional or global markets. A good understanding of market requirements, market dynamics and development of technologies and practices to comply with market demands are essential for facilitating access of the poor to the HVAP markets. This can be achieved by creating solid public-private partnerships, new technologies, policy and interventions that consider the complexity of HVAP markets and make small-scale farmers more competitive, productive, and sustainable. Public and private policies become strategic elements to develop inclusive business models that consider smallholder growers in the rural development scheme.Within this context the mission of the tropical fruits program at CIAT is \"Improve the competitiveness of smallholder producers of tropical fruits and service providers through information and technologies that result in more sustainable production practices and systems, better access to markets and increased household income\"The research agenda of the Program has taken into consideration the eight primary issues identified through a Global Assessment of the Horticultural Sector: (1) access to markets, (2) post-harvest deterioration and food safety, (3) genetic resources conservation and development, (4) sustainable production systems and natural resource management, (5) capacity building, (6) enabling environment, ( 7) gender equity and ( 8) nutrition and human health. Our research outputs will address some of the issues.The Tropical Fruit Program can only be effective in reaching its goals of improving the welfare and increasing the incomes of rural communities by working with local partners: our success is dependent not only on our efforts but also on being able to find effective partners willing to work with us. CIAT will continue to build bridges among countries in the region to exchange information and knowledge related to biophysical and social aspects that result in the successful development of the fruit industries, and have had impact in the rural population. CIAT's role is critically important for a regional strategy in Tropical Fruits. Due to its effect on income generation and, in some cases restricted export market size, the willingness to exchange information among countries is not always present and needs to be constructed. The Tropical Fruits Program will continue to develop a strategic core research business built upon regional needs and aligned with the findings of the Global Assessment, as well as applied research as demanded by local partners and development organizations. Linkages to the CGIAR Ecoregional Program for the Amazon will be a central part of program efforts.International Public Goods. Tropical fruits outputs are biophysical and knowledge-intensive innovations (methods, tools, good agricultural practices) which are derived from both lessons learned across regions, locations and crops, as well as from direct laboratory experimentation. Publications of research outputs will be our main IPGs. However, adaptation and application of research findings will be done on a case by case basis by partner organizations, including NARs, producer organizations and development bodies. CIAT aims to participate in such adaptations and use that opportunity as a co-learning strategy to refine our understanding of the products to maximize impact of our products. Intended users of our products will be donors, policy makers, rural development institutions, NARS, University researchers and the private sector. Alliances with the private sector will be critical for broadening product adoptability.The Operationally, the Tropical Fruits Program will remain as a platform where the biophysical and the social sciences will naturally meet to create solutions that address identified problems of the fruit sector. Products to be generated by the Program emerge through a sequence of steps initiating with needs assessment for product targeting and design, product development, production system analysis, pathways for reaching end users and impact assessment.Output 1: Technologies for improving the competitiveness of smallholder tropical fruit producers. The focus of this output will be on the development of technologies for propagation of planting material and characterization and optimization of production systems.Little, if any, breeding has occurred in many of the tropical fruit species in the developing countries. Small farmers producers are planting material which is accessible to them, but which is either not suitable to their locations nor does not comply with market demands. Therefore, we will use participatory selection processes for identification of elite clones with consumer demanded characteristics. The methodology for participatory selection will built on existing CIAT's skills in this area, but in direct cooperation with local partners; through this interaction we are also strengthening their capacity to implement such approaches in Tropical Fruits.Examples using Naranjilla (Solanum quitoense) and Andean blackberry (Rubus glaucus) will be considered to draw lessons and learn from these processes. Introduction of elite clones that comply with market demands and, when possible, bearing disease resistance will have a very significant impact in human health of growers and consumers alike, and will result in implementation of good agricultural practices that will facilitate access to international markets.Methodologies for clonal propagation of elite materials need to be developed, optimized, and transferred to either farmers groups or commercial nurseries. The clonal propagation will be done either through conventional horticultural methods (i.e. Avocado, plantain), or through tissue culture technologies when phytosanitary risks demand such approaches (i.e. coconut, naranjilla).Smallholders Tropical Fruit production systems are seldom monocropping but typically cultivate multi-strata cropping systems, including agroforestry. Tools for rapid analysis of feasibility, and design of fruit production systems, combined with identification of ecosystem services (carbon sequestration, control of soil erosion, water quality, biodiversity) will be developed. Products emerging from such systems will bear non-tangible characteristics that will facilitate access to emerging niche markets. Modeling tools will be built using naranjilla, Andean blackberry and peach palm as examples of agroforestry like production systems. Development of these tools will facilitate bridging collaboration with other Programs, including the Ecoregional Program of the Amazon Initiative.Impact Pathway: The nature of the products derived from this output will be useful to many stakeholders, including NARs, local nurseries, local and international development NGOs and farmer organizations, and research institutions.In the case of elite clones selected through participatory methods, farmer organizations and NARs will be responsible for keeping the germplasm, with assistance from CIAT regarding effective propagation methods to secure the genotype. Methodology, either through tissue culture or vegetative propagation will de developed at CIAT and shared with relevant stakeholders. CIAT will prepare publicly available booklets that will be posted on CIAT's website for interested parties to downloaded. Also, CIAT will be prepared to receive visitors for hands on training when the methodology has been developed on site; however, it is envisioned that partner organizations will be co-sharing the development of the technologies. Farmers and farmer organizations will receive the benefits through facilitated access to elite germplasm, which could be accessed from local nurseries or directly from agro-business developed by the farmer organizations per se.Output 2: Policy guidelines and innovations to ensure pro-poor and equitable supply chains in the face of a highly dynamic world. Although smallholder farmers may have competitive advantages in production, and although there is a growing demand for tropical fruits both , from domestic urban populations and also from new or more accessible export and niche markets, smallholders often face competitive disadvantages in the marketing chain that need to be overcome for them to benefit from new market opportunities.Market access, presents different challenges fro smallholders for domestic and export markets; for supermarket chains, and niche versus traditional export commodities. Many factors determine the bargaining power of smallholders, including the quantity, quality and competitiveness of their supply, and the confidence in their reliability held by those further along the value chain. Wholesalers, processors, transporters, retailers and consumers manage by their own quality criteria. A key research question is how to build and sustain customer support for products that promote development. To effectively answer this question, it is important to take a cue from simple businesses that work very well. Research can help answer the question of how best to leverage market linkages to achieve growth for diverse members of rural communities and make small farmers attractive partners to large buyers.Discrete products will include protocols for diagnosis and selecting germplasm based on market signals, and tools for assessing benefits, costs and risks of targeted fruit species, improved knowledge management and an understanding of the mechanisms that govern effective supply chains. Mechanisms to link farm enterprises into the agri-food chain in a more equitable manner will be identified and validated with development partners, private sector buyers and public sector organizations in Latin America.Sustainable supply chains linking smallholders and key corporate buyers will be catalyzed, evaluated for equity, gender and environmental effects, and appropriate lessons out scaled through links with business partners, development and donor agencies in Africa, Asia and Latin America. A guide to improved knowledge management and innovation in agri-chains for linking smallholder farmers into higher value markets will be developed and validated. This research will draw heavily on the work of the CIAT Program on Decision and Policy Analysis.Impact Pathway: Working closely with development NGOs, local governments and large private enterprises strategies for streaming value chains, the strengthening of farmer organization to assure sustainable smallholder participation in value chains will be out scaled. When available, public documents will be posted in CIAT's and partner's websites for other to access, share and use it.Output 3: Technologies for management of diseases and pests. Disease and pest control amounts to almost 50 to 60% of the production cost in many tropical fruits. Due to biological pressures (pests and diseases) on their crops, farmers rely heavily on use of inorganic chemical control methods that induce resistance in pests and pathogens making damage from pests even greater and more difficult to control. Moreover, chemical residues reach an inacceptable level in fruits both for human health and the environment.Disease management components and strategies will be developed for tropical fruits, particularly the model crops of naranjilla, Andean blackberry, plantain and avocado targeted by Output 1 above -and in close collaboration with work on that output. Testing disease resistance inducers, and development of biopesticides will be part of the strategy to reduce the indiscriminate use of inorganic chemicals Access to new domestic and international markets will be seriously jeopardized unless production practices are improved, including reduced use of crop protection chemicals. Those limitations are the rule rather than the exception in developing countries, and therefore local governments, and the private sector are pressing national research organizations to develop phytosanitary strategies to overcome quarantine limitations imposed by importing countries. However, expertise and state of the art technologies for proper pests and disease agents identification are often lacking, or could be strengthened where they exist. CIAT aims to build a regional platform for diagnostics of major pests and diseases affecting tropical fruits. Services demand from the academia, NARS, local sanitary regulatory bodies and the private sector are becoming more prevalent and offer an opportunity for a more strategic development of a regional platform built through regional partners.Impact Pathway: Products and information generated in this output have direct relevance to farmers and researchers alike. Delivery of the outputs will occur through different venues, according to the stakeholder. Participation in scientific venues and publication in peer review journals will target researchers. Booklets containing more applied approach of the scientific information will be prepared and made available to NGOs, farmer organizations and phytosanitary authorities through web based technologies. When feasible, codevelopment with farmers participation will be encouraged and implemented, increasing the likelihood of technology adoption.The Amazon Ecoregional Research Program (a CGIAR Systemwide Program posted by CIAT) faces the challenge of contributing to research and development interventions that concurrently meet the short-and long-term needs of environmental conservation and the well-being of local populations. This program will support the identification, development and dissemination of sustainable land use systems that avoid further deforestation and support governments and civil society in their goals related to human welfare, environmental services, and improved governance. While CIAT is the host institution of the CGIAR Ecoregional Program that operates under the overall umbrella of the Amazon Initiative, Bioversity, CIFOR and ICRAF are full participants in the Amazon Ecoregional Research Program along with national program partners.The Amazon Ecoregional Research Program addresses several key problems including poverty, greenhouse gas emissions due to land use change that contribute to global warming, and biodiversity loss. Nearly 70 million ha of Amazon forest have been cleared over the last 30 years, mostly in Brazil. More than 30 million hectares of Amazonian pasture have been abandoned or are severely degraded. Soil erosion from slash-andburn agriculture has led to leaching of naturally occurring mercury into rivers, eventually concentrating up the food chain in fish consumed by humans -bringing about significant human health problems.To contribute in addressing these key problems the Amazon Ecoregional Research Program addresses four development challenges that were collectively defined by the Amazon Initiative Capacity building for national and local organizations is an important component for effectively implementing the above research agenda with lasting positive impacts in mind. As part of the Amazon Initiative, the Eco-Regional Research Program will in particular carry out training and outreach activities in Amazon countries to develop new capacities for research into environmental services and livelihoods to apply this capacity in regional collaborative projects. Capacity-building will be based on research activities and, during the next two years, prioritize acute training needs, as for example, in the area of incentive-based ecosystem services management and agroforestry tools.The Amazon Ecoregional Research Program promotes the participation of member institutions of the AI Consortium in collaborative research activities implemented through the Program. The AI Consortium is a platform for collaborative research and development by institutions working in the Amazon region. Scientists and development practitioners in seven countries of the Amazon participate in the AI. Formed and led by national and international research centers, the AI fosters broader collaboration between the member organizations and civil society organizations. By early 2009, 28 institutions are members of the AI Consortium, in addition to the four CGIAR centers. Apart from working closely with AI members, the Amazon Ecoregional Research Program will strengthen alliances that are strategically linked to the four main outputs. For example, GTZ and international NGO such as TNC, will become ever more important partners with regard to output 1.Output 1: Mitigation and adaptation to climate change. The Amazon is of global importance in regulating climate change, representing a significant storehouse of carbon reserves and source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. At the same time, projections show that both peoples and the biodiversity of the Amazon will be at risk as climate changes. Output 1 will work on available options, decision support tools and policy instruments for Amazon farmers and communities to mitigate and adapt to climate change and to enhance their provision of environmental services. In this regard, it is linked to CIAT Decision and Policy Analysis program.Adapting to and mitigating climate change requires research for development. Mitigation research has to contribute to the design of effective and equitable strategies to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD), enhance sinks of atmospheric carbon. Adaptation research needs to develop strategies for dealing with increasing climate risk across all sectors of the rural economy. Designing resilient land use systems and rural safety-nets can ultimately address both adaptation and mitigation objectives.Work related to output 1 has been initiated in 2008 by facilitating the formation of a \"policy value chain\" that spans from policy recommendations based on region-wide stakeholder consultations, to policy and program development, and to effective and equitable policy implementation. A specific target of this output for the next two years is the co-development and dissemination of recommendations for cost-effective and equitable reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) strategies in at least four Amazon countries.A related target is a tool for implementing organizations (such as local and national governments) wishing to apply for national and international carbon funding, this output will develop a framework including principles, criteria, indicators and verifiers for baseline assessments and monitoring of carbon stocks to be validated through pilot locations in Amazonian countries.Adaptation research will target the development of policy recommendations to reduce the vulnerability of local rural economy segments and selected land use systems (e.g. agroforestry, silvopastoral systems) to climate risk in Brazil and through the prediction and evaluation of climate change impacts on agroforestry species in the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Amazon.Impact Pathway: The overall expected outcomes of work on mitigation are the adoption of appropriate sustainable land use systems (SLUS) that provide positive impacts by increasing carbon (C) stocks through increases in biomass and, eventually, in soil C; and by decreasing GHG emissions through avoided deforestation.(1.1) Analysis of the carbon footprint of land use systems: Outputs will be methods for and the measurement of C stocks associated with different land use systems, including sustainable systems tested and developed by the AI-EP; and of GHG emissions associated with the conversion of land use systems -e.g., the conversion of forest to slash-and-burn agriculture. The expected outcomes will include the adoption of appropriate SLUS by smallholder and colonist communities in the forest margins, and achieving this is expected to have positive impacts in terms of C and decreased GHG emissions. Measurement techniques will be needed to institute PES schemes and to measure impact of the SLUS themselves.(1.2) Development of resilient land use systems to maintain and increase carbon stocks: This work will be conducted in collaboration with Outcome Line 2, sustainable production on deforested and degraded lands.Outcomes will be systems and adoption of systems that represent C stock increases and reduction of GHG emissions due to avoided deforestation. Policy instruments will be developed and promoted in collaboration with the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization so as to foster this adoption. Impacts are thus the maintenance and increase in C stocks, reduced GHG emissions, and positive welfare impacts from the more sustainable systems (including PES and product market chain development).(1.3) Development and testing of payment schemes for the management of ecosystem services (PES), including the exploration of C market opportunities: This will be a central area of innovation for the AI-EP, involving as partners CIFOR, ICRAF, NARS and other national agencies, with outcomes including adoption of schemes to reward local communities for adoption of practices that diminish GHG emissions and systems that increase C stocks; and enhanced effectiveness of organizations working on rights and compensation for environmental services. Impacts are essentially the same as those for 1.2: maintenance and increases in C stocks; reduced GHG emissions; and welfare gains to local communities via PES.(1.4) Identification and application of international instruments that can reduce deforestation and forest degradation: This innovation area is expected to produce analyses of policy options and the promotion of a \"policy value chain\" that favor adoption of SLUS and of AI advocacy in support of appropriate policy instruments. The overall expected outcome of work on adaptation is adoption of appropriate SLUS that provide positive impacts in terms of people's and communities' abilities to maintain and increase their welfare in the face of climate change. Welfare gains are expected through PES generated by adoption of SLUS and through financial gains made from product and market chain development generated from the SLUS. Impacts stemming from adoption of appropriate SLUS will again be maintenance and increase in C stocks; and reduced GHG emissions.(1.5) Examination of current mechanisms used to cope with risk: This innovation area will provide the outcome of understanding how communities have used their traditional knowledge to face risk related to production activities. Impact will be indirect: a building block to help in the development of local and national mitigation policies and programs.(1.6) Testing of innovative community based fire management: Accidental and uncontrolled fire will be one of the more difficult problems people will face as the Amazon dries and heats up due to CC. The AI-EP will work with communities to develop fire prevention and management methods. While less fire will mean a decrease in GHG emissions, more important will be maintenance of the productive systems on which communities' livelihoods depend.(1.7) Testing of adapted germplasm and land use systems (in collaboration with Outcome Line 2): The outcome of this innovation area will be critical to success: development, testing, and adoption of appropriate SLUS that are adapted to the future hotter and drier conditions of the Amazon. More drought and heat adapted crops, varieties, and products will be needed. Successful germplasm development and systems adoption will have the positive impact of sustaining the livelihoods of the peoples of the Amazon.(1.8) Work with local and national governments on appropriate adaptation programs: The AI-EP will have to work closely with local and national governments as they develop programs and policies to help those negatively affected by CC. Outcomes will be that local and national governments formulate and then enforce programs and policies that lessen the negative effects of CC on Amazon communities. The impact would again be the maintenance of livelihood systems on which the peoples of the Amazon rely.Output 2: Adoption of sustainable land use systems in deforested and degraded areas. Systems and technologies for sustainable production (or sustainable land use systems, SLUS) in deforested areas of the tropics have been developed in recent decades, e.g. improved, legume-based pastures, multistory agroforestry systems, small-scale timber plantations, silvopastoral systems, secondary forest management, and improved fallows. These technologies offer the possibility of harnessing the Amazon's underutilized interspecific and intraspecific genetic diversity -a possibility favored by increasing awareness and concern for environmental issues among politicians, policy-makers, consumers and producers; new markets for previously untraded goods (environmental services); consumer interest in niche and novel products; and more accessible markets at national levels (due to infrastructure improvements) and international levels (due to removal of trade barriers). Currently, the adoption of SLUS is limited by a series of constraints: poor targeting; lack of germplasm insufficient quantity and/or quality or at accessible prices; market limitations, including but not limited to the lack of development of markets for environmental services; the combination of free access to forest frontiers and insecure land tenure; and lack of supporting systems (technical support, credit).Output 2 will work on improved management and technical options, decision support tools and innovative institutional arrangements to allow Amazon farmers and communities to adopt Sustainable Land Use Systems (SLUS) for enhanced ecosystem services provision in deforested and degraded areas.Research and development have produced the building blocks of sustainable land use systems. Technological innovations may well be a part of appropriate future sustainable systems. Such innovations, however, need to be adapted to particular conditions and geographical areas. For innovations to be successfully disseminated, local key constraints to adoption need to be identified through participatory natural resource management research. Such research must contribute to targeting related policies and institutional arrangements.Incentive-based policy approaches can contribute to the adoption of sustainable land use, but must be designed properly to integrate with existing policies and avoid adverse side effects.Adoption of many SLUS depends on available seed or germplasm for multi-purpose trees, forages, legumes, and crops. As one of its priorities, the Program will develop improved germplasm for a selection of Amazon agroforestry (fruit and timber tree) species through participatory domestication, and disseminate them to farmers through enhanced germplasm supply systems and improved agronomic techniques. This work will be led by ICRAF.Targeted project and policy design requires knowledge about the temporal and spatial distribution of ecosystem services, the feasibility of project and policy implementation, as well as the benefits that local populations and the society can derive from them. The Amazon Ecoregional Research Program will contribute to harnessing the value of publicly available spatial information on management options for SLUS and for enhanced provision of ecosystem services by developing an online interface for the analysis of spatial data according to regional research priorities. This target will be jointly developed with the CIAT Decision and Policy Analysis program.Impact Pathway: Outcome Line 2 will primarily operate at national and sub-national level, with impacts at all levels. At the local level, i.e. in priority intervention zones, we envisage the following outcomes:(2.1) Selection and adoption of SLUS and implementation of appropriate adaptive research.(2.2) Improved germplasm supply; initiation of programs based on improved national technical capacity.(2.3) Local policies (e.g. at state and regional government levels) formulated or reformulated.(2.4) Innovative reward for environmental services schemes instituted.(2.5) New practices and approaches to dissemination and scaling-up adopted.The outcomes listed will produce the following impacts at local and national levels:-Land use systems that prevent and reverse environmental degradation and that sustain environmental services; and -More resilient livelihoods, including more stable incomes and greater food security.At regional and global levels, in addition to the aggregate of the local and regional impacts, the following emergent impacts will be produced: -Enhanced biostability of Amazonian ecosystem; -Reduction in global levels of greenhouse gas emissions.The achievement of these outcomes and impacts would also rely on the broader AI Consortium (i.e. as distinct from AI-EP) adding an explicit policy advocacy and dialogue component to its remit.Output 3: Enhanced benefits from forests for livelihoods and the environment. Forests and forest resources provide livelihoods for current forest dwellers and a temptation for loggers, ranchers, and perhaps future biofuel crop producers. Much of the Amazon forest is populated by indigenous and traditional populations and agricultural settlers with different degrees of dependence on forest resources. Increasing the direct benefits derived from forests by the local population is an important step towards reducing its loss. The challenge faced by the Amazon Ecoregional Research Program will be to add value to standing forests by supporting forest dependent local livelihood strategies and related policy programs through targeted comparative research and regional knowledge exchange. Output 3 will work on assessment methods and decision support tools to enhance benefits from forests for the livelihoods of Amazon smallholders and traditional communities and to the environment. This work will be led by CIFOR.Multiple-Use Forest Management (MFM) has been envisioned as a promising and more balanced alternative to timber-dominated strategies of forest use. However, in practice, it is not a dominant strategy and is often a marginal activity in forest sectors. Under the right conditions MFM could diversify forest use, broaden forest productivity and provide incentives to maintain forests. The Amazon Ecoregional Program, in partnership with other national and international organizations, will conduct a basin wide assessment to identify how MFM has been promoted or hindered and describe the factors leading to the observed outcome. Among other outcomes, this effort will provide recommendations and strategic future steps for policies and approaches to promote MFM.Impact Pathway: The \"forest\" Outcome Line will provide outcomes at the sub-national, national, and regional levels; and impacts at all levels from local to global. Several outcomes and impacts of the three subcomponents are expected.The sub-component working on the potential of underutilized forest species and populations will have the outcomes, first, of the dissemination of appropriate forest seed and germplasm; and of associated needed knowledge for the management of such germplasm; and, second, of the marketing of a wider range of forest products. The expected impacts of use of underutilized forest species would be greater income stability resulting from greater marketed product diversity; and increased income of forest resource users. The sub-component of multiple and diversified forest use and management seeks the outcome that stakeholders recognize and support such management. In this case, stakeholders are policy makers, NGOs, foresters/forest managers, and end users. Impacts would be the maintenance of environmental services in terms of biodiversity and carbon stocks; and improved, more stable livelihoods of end-users.A third sub-component would examine the issue of resource access and use. Outputs would be innovative systems that build on the traditional use rights of forest communities in the establishment of more formal land tenure and resource access rights. The expected outcomes would be increased and improved stewardship of forest resources and lands by local communities; and such stewardship would be expected to maintain and enhance the provision of environmental services.Output 4: Fair, financially attractive market value chains for Amazon products. Research for development will focus on removing constraints and identify opportunities for the development of new and existing value chains of Amazon products. This will involve research on product development and diversification as well as on benefit distribution in Amazon value chains. Products from forests and from deforested or degraded lands have the potential to improve the welfare of Amazon communities if appropriate products can be identified and developed, if seed and germplasm systems can be established, and if market value chains can be developed. Integration of such products in sustainable land use systems (SLUS) can have positive impacts in terms of environmental services. Output 3 will work with this market innovation focus to develop products (e.g., tropical fruits and fruit products, non-timber forest products, agricultural outputs, sources of bio-fuels and seed and germplasm needed in SLUS and systems (e.g., forest, agroforestry, agro-silvo-pastoral) to produce those products. The central area of concern for this output will be establishing innovative, successful ways to facilitate market value chain development, with close links with Bioversity and CIAT's Tropical Fruits program.Output targets over the next two years include the generation of a focused approach for value chain development for the realization of the economic potential of Amazonian fruit tree and non-timber forest products, specifically for peach palm (Bactris gasipaes), aguaje (Mauritia flexuosa), camu-camu (Myrciaria dubia), cupuazu (Theobroma grandiflorium) and ungurahui (Oenocarpus bataua). In 2011 it is expected to develop best practices for improved knowledge management and innovation systems for enhanced participation of Amazonian poor and vulnerable smallholder communities in agro-enterprises exploring new products developed from these selected Amazon fruit tree species.Impact Pathway: (4.1) Identification, ex ante impact analysis and targeting of potential products, especially but not limited to high value crops: Outputs are to include identification and characterization of potential products, spatial and socio-economic targeting of geographical areas, communities, and expected markets, and ex ante impact analysis. Impacts will be positive in terms of welfare if successfully developed, targeted, and marketed; and if positive investments in failures are avoided. (4.2) Product development and seed and germplasm management: Outcomes will include product development, including domestication and selection, and development of appropriate seed and germplasm systems. Positive welfare impacts will be obtained as new, marketable products are developed and if people have access to affordable needed seed and germplasm (and if market value chains are successfully developed, below). (4.3) Production in SLUS: As an important outcome, crops, trees or other planted products, and forest products will be integrated into SLUS. Positive welfare impacts will be derived from production in sustainable systems. Positive environmental impacts are expected from these more intensive, often tree-and perennial crop based diverse systems. (4.4) Market value chain development: The crucial outputs are methods to facilitate equitable, sustainable market value chains; and the development of the chains themselves in target communities. Outcomes will depend on intended users overcoming the constraints and taking advantage of the opportunities listed in the rationale. The innovation area will have to deal with information management, negotiation along value chains, problems of infrastructure, developing continuous production and economies of scale, product standards and quality control, resources access and land tenure, and financial mechanisms. Positive welfare impacts will be derived in terms of income, income stability, employment creation, and value added. Social and human capital gains will accompany successful market chain development and participation.The Decision and Policy Analysis program focuses on providing policy relevant research outputs around 4 thematic areas where significant demand exists in Latin America. These are ecosystem services and benefits to the poor, climate change and building of resilience into agricultural systems, design of pro-poor and equitable supply chains in a dynamic world, and impact targeting, facilitation and assessment. While being thematically diverse, the underlying research processes within the research program are quite similar, namely spatial and economic analyses. The program strongly believes in the power of information for making better decisions about agricultural and natural resource investments, from the farm-to the global-level. Through partnerships with key stakeholders, the provision of information and policy recommendations on these key thematic areas can contribute to outcomes in both research and development which enhance livelihoods and improve the management of natural resources in agroecosystems. This program is born out of the Agroecosystems Resilience Project from the 2009-2011 MTP. The MTP presented here is a modified version of the program which has been realigned based on the new Strategic Directions of CIAT, which acknowledges the importance of Latin America and promotes the concept of ecoefficient agriculture. The themes contained within this research program represent both research areas where there is significant demand from Latin American institutions (public and private), and where CIAT has some comparative advantage.Although the focus is on Latin America, the program also aims to transfer experiences to other continents, as well as engage in global-scale research which suits the demands of Latin America as well as other tropical regions. An example of the types of knowledge and tools which we envisage being transferable include the design and implementation of payment schemes for environmental services, which are currently undergoing a revolution in Latin America, and from which model cases could serve as examples for establishing such schemes in Asia and Africa.International Public Goods. IPGs generated from this program are generally knowledge-intensive innovations (methods, tools, good practice guides), and are derived from lessons learned systematically across environmental, socio-economic and geographical situations. Outputs are robust enough to be targeted subsequently at global and/or very broadly regional levels. Our IPGs constitute: internationally published good practice guides (and similar outputs) and peer-reviewed journal articles of research methodologies and policy relevant research results, software tools (e.g. Canasta, Homologue) made available permitting other users to adapt and apply them to their local conditions.As a baseline to many of the quantitative analyses made under the different outputs is the generation of data, itself of value to a range of partners. The program has in the past generated a number of important IPGs in the form of economic, environmental and agricultural databases (spatial and tabular) which are made available online to stakeholders and partners. These include the SRTM topography database (http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org), the WorldClim climate database (www.worldclim.org) and the Latin American Population database (http://gisweb.ciat.cgiar.org/population/index.htm). The program continues to develop such databases, including improved agricultural land-use data for the globe, and socio-economic databases at sub-national scales for Latin America. All these IPGs are to be distributed through the web to our partners and other research organizations.Beyond the basic data, the program develops a range of methodologies and tools. For example, under output 2 one envisaged IPG are good practice guidelines for the use of the SWAT model for the design of payment schemes for water-based ecosystem services, and economic models such as ECOSAUT which assess the expected socio-economic benefits of such a scheme. The models themselves are made available to research and development organizations engaged in the development of PES schemes, and the good practice guidelines are published in both peer-reviewed publications and through open-access booklets.Output 1 and 3 remain as a continuation of output 1 and 2 from the 2009-2011 MTP. Outputs 2 and 4 are new outputs for the 2010-2012 MTP, and have been selected as key issues for Latin America where CIAT can play an important role in the generation of new knowledge and guidance on policy issues. Output 4 was formally contained in the Linking Farmers to Markets program of the 2009-2011 MTP, and has been modified in focus to fit more closely with this program, taking a more policy-focused alignment towards addressing the issues surrounding international markets and the poor in Latin America.Output 1: Impact assessment for targeting, documenting and increasing the effectiveness of research and development. This output refers to both internal reflections on CIAT's impacts, through ex-ante and ex-post impact assessments, but also to the support of other research and development programs with impact targeting through spatial, economic and institutional analyses (impact mapping). This output takes advantage of CIAT's considerable collection of environmental, agricultural and socio-economic data to develop both new methods and apply existing methods to target R&D interventions, and to evaluate potential benefits and strategies for the deployment of new agricultural technologies. Some of the new methods developed under this output include the continued development of methods for the identification of environmental niches for crops, and extrapolation domain analyses for supporting technology transfer.The Program is also developing methodologies for maximizing impact during and after the life of R&D projects. This includes the development and application of Participatory Impact Pathway Analyses (PIPA), and the use and promotion of novel ICT/KM tools for enabling broader inclusion of partners, and dissemination of research results beyond the standard research networks. This research support service generates IPGs in itself in terms of methodologies, but also maximizes the impact and generation of IPGs in other R&D projects within and outside of the CGIAR system. Specific developments in this output for the next two years include the development of meta-databases of phenotyping trials, which together with extrapolation domain analyses will facilitate the targeted deployment of new drought-tolerant varieties developed by the GCP and other CGIAR Centre breeding programs. Work is also underway to improve knowledge of key pests and diseases of CIAT mandate crops, including cassava diseases. The work includes the development of predictive maps for pest distribution, permitting greater understanding of the environmental drivers of pest presence and pressure, and linking this with socioeconomic analyses of affected communities can inform research programs on the best-bet research strategies for mitigating negative impacts.Changes: Output 1 in essence remains the same as Output 1 from the Markets, Institutions and Livelihoods project from the 2008-2010 MTP. However, it has evolved since this time last year with greater clarity in the long-term strategy. Hence, the specific outputs for 2009 remain the same as in the 2008-2010 MTP for Markets, Institutions and Livelihoods, but there are a number of new specific outputs for 2010 onwards. Specifically, the output target on \"An assessment of the potential of payment for environmental services generated from agriculture to both improves the environment and rural livelihoods\" (previously a 2010 output) has moved to Output 2 of this project, where the work on ecosystem services is explicitly within the strategy. Three new specific outputs have been added, which develop methods for mapping extrapolation domains, and institutional analyses of water and poverty issues in the Andes included.Impact Pathway: The impact pathway for this research is specific to each individual output target, and is hence difficult to present succinctly in this main text. However, the objective of this specific output is to maximize the impact of R&D interventions through the better targeting, prioritizing and documenting of impact. Through the application of ex ante impact assessment in existing and significant R&D projects, the results from this output will lead to better decisions about where and how to invest limited R&D investments. The users of CIAT's impact work are principally researchers themselves, but also development agencies, whose final objectives are to enhance rural livelihoods.Output 2: Managing ecosystem services to the benefit of the rural poor. Large and reliable harvests depend upon ecosystem services. Fertile soils, ample water, and healthy biodiversity are beneficial inputs to agricultural production. These inputs also reflect the potential of ecosystem services. Degradation of natural resources is common in Latin America and throughout the world. Pressures to earn money in the short-term prevent longer-term sustainable land management practices. Trees are cut; soils erode; water sources dry out.Nevertheless, some people may be willing to help pay the costs of sustainable management practices. Carbon in vegetation and roots has value; avoiding soil erosion saves costs downstream; communities and cities want reliable water. Farmers may be willing to change their practices if the money is right. But who would be willing to pay? What investments are required? How effective are the changes in management?The sustainable management of ecosystem services is a critical component of eco-efficiency in agriculture, and has direct implications for bringing direct and indirect benefits to the rural poor as both net users and providers of several ecosystem services. In Latin America there is considerable demand for research on the best means of managing ecosystem services, especially through the use of novel payment schemes (PES). This output therefore has two major areas of focus. Firstly, the output looks to analyze cases across the Andes and Amazon and extract lessons for what policies work for promoting the conservation and sustainable use of ecosystem services to the benefit of the poor, and secondly the output develops specific tools and methodologies for quantifying ecosystem service flows and valuing them to a variety of stakeholders across institutions and landscapes. Both these focus areas aim at increasing the success rate of payment schemes through learning what contributes to successful, long-term schemes, and ensuring that schemes are established with realistic goals, and that all stakeholders in the scheme have access to information about the costs and benefits of implementing it.The output focuses primarily on water-related services and carbon-based services as these are both critical resources under the current environmental outlook, and services for which both demand and formal markets exist for the establishment of payment schemes. However, other ecosystem services (e.g. biodiversity) are also considered when relevant through the bundling of multiple services.Impact Pathway: The research in this output aims to improve the design and effectiveness of payment schemes for environmental services. The primary users of the research results are the authorities setting up payment schemes for environmental services, which are typically local and international NGOs, local and national government environmental bodies, and rural-and urban-private enterprises including water authorities, industrial agriculture businesses and international carbon trading companies. Through the learning of lessons from meta-analyses, and through the development of methods and tools for valuing ecosystem services CIAT partners directly with many of these organizations. Policy guidelines are also produced, which provide practical recommendations for implement payment schemes for these primary users. Uptake of CIAT methods, tools and best practice guidelines result in greater efficacy of payment schemes, resulting in higher success rates and eventually leading to sustainable management of ecosystem services and direct and indirect benefits to the rural poor trough both payment and increased natural capital.Output 3: Understanding impacts of climate change in order to identify adaptation pathways for the rural poor. As in most areas of the tropics, climate change is expected to have profound impacts on the agricultural sector in Latin America. Research efforts need to be targeted, and adaptation mechanisms in the field and along supply chains need to be identified, developed and implemented. CIAT is uniquely positioned to combine strong modeling capacity with explicit knowledge of agricultural systems and livelihood strategies to identify the threats that climate change poses to tropical agriculture, and identify how research and development should respond.This output aims at developing methods and tools for evaluating the impacts of climate change on crop productivity and livelihood strategies, and evaluating a range of adaptation options for confronting future changes in climate. The output focuses on the next 15 years, rather than providing long-term estimates of changes, and envisages the key users of the research products as researchers themselves, international and national level policy makers and development agencies looking to promote adaptation pathways for rural communities. Some examples of specific outputs from this area of work include the development of breeding strategies for CIAT mandate crops and other key crops for the next 15-20 years. Breeding programs take time, and hence the products of research decisions made today are likely to be released under different climate conditions. Coupling of climate change scenarios with sound crop suitability and productivity modeling can identify the main challenges facing each crop, and when combined with socio-economic datasets on poverty, population and nutritional characteristics, concrete breeding strategies can be developed which will help adapt agricultural systems to a future climate. Other examples include the development of suitability models for a variety of crops, and national and continental level analyses of the changing geography of crop adaptation to inform policy and development interventions. Some specific adaptation options such as the development of sound scientific means of establishing weather insurance schemes are also envisaged under this output.Much of the modeling in this output is applicable globally, although specific evaluation of adaptation options are primarily focused on Latin America, especially Central America and the Caribbean where significant increases in temperature and reduction in rainfall is predicted.Impact Pathway: This output provides policy-relevant results on the implications of climate change on agriculture, and through relevant dissemination of these recommendations better international (COP15) and national policy decisions (e.g. national adaptation strategies) can be made. Researchers in the Decision and Policy Analysis program are actively engaged in national and international fora in order to influence such policy decisions. Other direct users of the research products from this output are researchers themselves, who can use the results to design climate-proofed breeding programs, leading to new varieties adapted to future climate conditions. The identification of specific adaptation options, such as work underway with GTZ and CRS in coffee systems in Central America, lead to the promotion of practices which will increase the resilience of production systems to future changes in climate, leading to sustainable livelihood strategies for rural communities.Output 4: Pro-poor supply chains in highly dynamic markets. We know that under the right conditions, better information and skills that lead to better net returns can drive scalability and technology adoption. We know each case is different and that markets are dynamic and that understanding these markets is difficult. We need to understand how to get the biggest, widest, most equitable impact from our interventions. We believe market access holds many of the keys to driving success and hence scalability.Improved information and knowledge management in supply chains can contribute to increased and sustained participation of small farmers, rural laborers and small scale rural entrepreneurs in profitable markets. Increased income also becomes a driver for other innovations including farmers' adaptation and adoption of new technologies and their investment in their natural resource base. Research helps answer the question of how best to leverage market linkages to achieve growth for diverse members of rural communities and make small farmers attractive partners to large buyers. Market linkages vary across LAC and the tropics in terms of products (staple commodities and high value crops such as tropical fruits), markets (local, regional, national and international), trading relationships (supply chains and value chains), and public and private policies. IFPRI analysis predicts that staple food crops meeting growing urban markets are likely to benefit the largest number of the poor, while higher value crops represent a different strategy likely to reach smaller numbers of more specialized small holders.Market linkages set the agenda for most commodity and social science research, and understanding them will be important to many institutions in LAC and elsewhere. In both staple commodities and high value crops, markets guide the existence of and need for technology development, spatial analysis, rural institutions and organizations, and innovative public and private policies. Knowledge of what crop or variety to grow where, for what market, with what production technology and when, is critical to all members of the supply chain. Business models that effectively and profitably link small holder families and their organizations to other private sector actors in a sustained fashion are crucial. This output aims to develop business models and public-and private-policy guidelines for ensuring that the poor benefit from national and international markets. This work will be especially linked to that of the CIAT Tropical Fruits Program and to the CGIAR Ecoregional Program for the Amazon.Impact Pathway: This output engages with key actors directly to enable shared learning and improved practice. In the case of private sector policies, the principle scenario for this work is the Sustainable Food Lab which includes direct links to major private sector firms and the opportunity to influence their practice through improved knowledge and ways of engaging the poor. In many cases, these actors themselves are anxious to link with smallholder producers but lack the knowledge and skills needed to do so. CIAT researchers help facilitate this process while documenting results and developing scalable principles that are shared widely. Public sector actors are engaged via a regional learning network including Central America (Honduras and Nicaragua) and the Andes. This engagement will focus on reviewing the impact of public policy on supply chains of importance to the poor, designing and testing improved policies and documenting and disseminating the outcomes.CIAT participates in a wide array of CGIAR systemwide, ecoregional and Challenge Programs. Together with IFPRI, CIAT hosts the HarvestPlus Challenge Program on improving the micro-nutrient density of staple food crops. As a Challenge Program, HarvestPlus presents its own separate MTP.CIAT participates in all the other ongoing Challenge Programs: the Generation Challenge Program on genetic resources for crop improvement where CIAT has implemented commissioned and competitive research on beans, cassava and rice; the Food and Water Challenge Program, where CIAT has led the upper watersheds management research theme; and the Sub-Saharan Africa Challenge Program will CIAT coordinates the pilot learning site for east Africa together with ISAR of Rwanda. CIAT's research in these Challenge Programs forms an integral part of its Program MTPs.CIAT has also participated in a wide range of CG Systemwide Programs including, for example, the Systemwide Program on Genetic Resources which has played an important role in upgrading the CIAT gene bank; the IPM program through which CIAT has led a major research project on white fly pests; the African Highlands Initiative with which it has had several shared research positions. CIAT also participates in the Systemwide Livestock Program, the CAPRI collective action and property rights program, and the Alternatives to Slash and Burn, just to name a few. Like the Challenge Programs, work in these SPs is all presented as part of the Program MTPs.Because of unequal access to resources, the majority of the world's rural poor are women and the majority of the hungry and malnourished are likewise women. Thus, to truly overcome the challenge of poverty, international agricultural research has to take a conscious gender perspective. This has been a main focus of the CIAT hosted Systemwide Program on Participatory Research and Gender Analysis (PRGA) with numerous documented achievements since its establishment in 1997. The need to better incorporate a gender perspective into the international agricultural research system is both a prominent recommendation of the recent external review of the CGIAR System and a major objective of the ongoing CGIAR Change process.CIAT and the PRGA both wholeheartedly support these new developments in the CGIAR, and look forward to a serious strengthening of a gender perspective in CGIAR research. Major challenges remain: • A majority of agricultural research systems still lack a critical mass of participatory research (PR) and gender analysis (GA) practitioners, including in the CGIAR System. • There is still little recognition and practice of gender analysis. • There is still an unmet demand for capacity development in GA and PR methods.• Learning and change need to be institutionalized, so that PR and GA can be mainstreamed in agricultural R&D thinking and practice.In a changing institutional environment which involves the winding up of many of the current CGIAR Systemwide Programs, the several assets of the PRGA can be redeployed to support the evolution of new institutional forms to address pressing gender related issues. The assets of the PRGA include skilled human resources and a web of partnerships based on the credibility of long term relationships. CIAT intends to utilize these assets to help construct new approaches to critical issues of gender analysis in agricultural research. CIAT sees the need for two crucial outputs: 1. Mainstreaming gender analysis in agricultural research. 2. Enabling poor rural women to adapt to climate change.Besides the two outputs proposed by PRGA, CIAT will increase investment in gender at various levels across the whole spectrum of activities during the period 2010-2012. The steady trend of gender work at the Center was reinforced during 2007-2008 when CIAT conducted its first Gender Audit -the most comprehensive assessment done on gender issues in most Centers covering all CIAT regions. Today, the robust sensitization strategy, recommended by the Audit, is in place and capacity building efforts are currently part of CIAT's activities in a bilingual mode both in English and Spanish. The strategic inclusion of gender research in CIAT's regional and Headquarters based programs ensures a strong focus on analysis. The analysis represented by sound indicators is widely needed in order to ensure concrete outcomes reaching benchmarks in science for impact. Since the strength of CIAT's work is demonstrated by the integrated work of the regional offices, a revised strategy to cover all regions is in on going to support sensitive research and the autonomy of implementation through concrete activities in all CIAT's major programs. Gender will be explicitly supported and surveyed in the Center's proposal preparation line, since a gender specialist will work with the peer review team supporting the Resource Mobilization unit. This will ensure that all CIAT's future initiatives will include a gender lens in its proposed work.While the emphasis is to build a hub at CIAT to support the work in all regions, an initial explicit emphasis will be pursued in the Latin American Program. In that light, the Amazon Initiative will support the inclusion of a gender component in the work they are currently conducting in Belem and other surrounding communities in Brazil. Through an appreciative inquire, the Amazon Initiative will disaggregate information by gender to come to an understanding of the best avenues to work in areas of Climate Change, linking farmers to markets and the use of non-timber products. Another unique aspect of the work in Latin America, particularly in the Amazon, is portrayed by the vast diversity of ethnic groups and Indigenous peoples who inhabit this eco-region. They maintain relevant and intricate patterns of land ownership and exploitation which is intimately related with their ancestral beliefs and felt needs, oftentimes influenced by external factors such as proximity and access to markets. A gender sensitive approach will enhance work with local communities, allowing for the rescue of local knowledge, which combined with new alternatives for agricultural production and forest management will provide them with optional pathways out of poverty. The South Asia Region will also invest in gender work through a monitoring approach to the livelihoods strategies of resource-poor upland smallholder farmers, that includes relevant groups of ethnic minorities and women. This time the gender work will be focused on the livelihood improvement at the household level. Households are not homogeneous units; men are women play prevalent roles in directing income to various competing activities including the level of food purchased for the family consumption. Understanding patterns of investment by gender in the integration of crop/livestock system in Cambodia, the Lao PDR, and Viet Nam will facilitate strategic decision making for accessing markets by the smallholders in that region. The work in the Africa Region will strengthen gender analysis in Seed Systems and Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB), which so far has been the flagship of the Participatory Research and Gender Analysis (PRGA) Program.International Public Goods. The Program is unique within the CGIAR with its focus on PR and GA; it complements the Gender and Diversity Program, which focuses on staffing issues and capacity development among female scientists of many agricultural disciplines. The PRGA Program works alongside partners to develop methodologies that will be applicable over a much wider area, including across sub-regions and continents.Both the products of the research (e.g. crop varieties) and the methodologies developed to achieve those products are international public goods, freely available to all (in a non-commercial context).The three Outputs of the 2009-2011 MTP have been consolidated into two. The former Output 2 (New approaches to measure the effectiveness of research processes that contribute to poverty reduction) has to some extent been amalgamated into the revised output on participatory plant breeding (Output 1). Under the current funding scenario, however, it has been necessary to drop work related to seed systems, impact assessment (except for publication of past work in this area) and political economy. In addition, the Output Targets have been refined. In fact, the whole of the Program's portfolio is dependent on securing adequate funding.Output 1: Mainstreaming gender analysis in agricultural research. Unless gender analysis is mainstreamed in agricultural research and development institutions, gendered patterns of inequity will continue to prevail, and the benefits deriving from agricultural research risk continuing to bypass women thereby exacerbating problems of poverty and inequality. The capacity for gender analysis remains limited in a wide range of agricultural research and development institutions. Addressing this challenge is a long term task for the CGIAR, beyond the life span of the PRGA. Alternative models have been proposed to meet this need, either a stand alone Gender Program of some sort, or more broadly supported that gender analysis be embedded in all future CGIAR mega-programs.In either case, the PRGA will work closely with other CGIAR partners, including but not limited to IFPRI and the CGIAR Gender and Diversity Program in a common effort to find appropriate institutional forms for future mainstreaming of gender analysis in the CGIAR. In this transition phase, the PRGA will continue its work in 2010 in assessing the status of gender research and building capacity in pilot CG Centers. Likewise information dissemination on gender mainstreaming will continue in 2010, including the results of an ongoing (2009) inventory of gender research resources in the CGIAR.Gender mainstreaming is a globally accepted strategy for overcoming the problems of those disadvantaged by gender. Gender mainstreaming in agricultural research and specifically in the CGIAR and partner institutions is not an end in itself, but a strategy to achieve, through gender equality in research processes, better outcomes and ultimately impacts for both women and men. Mainstreaming involves ensuring that gender perspectives and attention to the goal of gender equality are central to all activities -policy development, research, advocacy/dialog, legislation, resource allocation, and planning, implementation and monitoring of programs and projects. As identified by the CGIAR reform process, gender research is not mainstreamed in most CGIAR Centers -and doing so will require not only systematic policies and activities within each Center, but also support to them in doing so. It is the latter gap that this research will fill. The Program holds the only Systemwide mandate for gender in research. Its physical location at CIAT and CIAT's desire to mainstream gender make CIAT an advantageous choice for pilot work in this area.Impact Pathway: With a variety of PPB methods (including new ones) at their disposal, and the practice of PPB institutionalized, plant breeders will be able to better target their efforts in variety development for staple crops in diverse, risk-prone environments (typical of resource-poor farmers). Moreover, attention to farmers' rights over the varieties developed should enhance the availability of material in a wider context (cf. variety protection imposed by commercial companies). Giving farmers the opportunity to share their experiences through media accessible to their peers elsewhere should 'spread the word' so that the whole farming population can benefit from PPB outputs. Consequently, farmers should be in a position not only to optimize their yield in the short term, but also to maintain enough variation to meet future changes (many imposed by climate change). This in turn should result in improved livelihoods and food security.Output 2: Enabling poor rural women to adapt to climate change. It is well documented that the poor in the poorest countries are most vulnerable to climate stresses in terms of food security. This is particularly true for women. While greenhouse gas emissions are generally lower among the poor who thereby typically can not play a leading role in climate change mitigation, the poor can not escape the consequences of climate change. Thus it is critical for the CGIAR to bring to bear analyses that can facilitate adaptation to climate change in a gender context. This research would include new participatory plant breeding (PPB) approaches with a gendered basis to help sustain and even support the broadening of the genetic base of poor people's crops for maximizing their use of agro-biodiversity.Such 'Evolutionary' PPB could produce variability to ensure food security in the face of climate change and weather variability and could also potentially serve as an implementation tool for farmers' rights. All this would require additional support to local seed systems, especially those feeding off PPB programs.PPB has proved ideally suited for the staple crops of the developing world's poor, as these crops often receive little or no commercial attention. PPB identifies adapted varieties for heterogeneous environments. Globally, the price of staple food crops soared in 2008, driven (at least in part) by the cultivation of more cash and oilseed crops (at the expense of staples) and the rising cost of oil. Moreover, agro-ecologies are now changing under the influence of climate change. PPB methods should enable 'evolutionary' plant breeding to keep pace with these changes and promote food security among the very poor. The PPB program seeks to refine our understanding of the situations in which joint efforts of farmers, scientists and others provide the most costeffective delivery. PPB work in many Centers is highly fragmented and not 'institutionalized. Hence, the PRGA Program continues to have a clear role in helping to improve the institutionalization of PPB through appropriate PPB approaches, methods and associated skills to achieve food security in the face of climate change and at acceptable R&D cost.Ensuring recognition of the collective innovation and breeding efforts of farmers, and keeping their materials freely available for use and further breeding form major challenges, as do issues related to seed multiplication and seed policy. PRGA Program has the advantage of being the only Systemwide body with a mandate for PR, and its primary partner in this work (ICARDA) has one of the longest histories of PPB in the System. An alliance will be forged with other interested Centers and their partners to learn wider and robust lessons that catalyze institutionalization.Impact Pathway: In working with Centers to determine their current gender status, and mapping a path for gender mainstreaming, the methodologies for assessing gender status will be refined. ","tokenCount":"30111"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"08e68807ae97c3249ef9822edbcd6401","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ffe439e8-962d-4344-9282-bab8b17f79a0/retrieve","id":"1766003094"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"ba98a02e-7e7a-4f2e-940a-83042e5acb63","pagecount":"6","content":"Design thinking initiatives are open-ended and unpredictable: a challenge for AR4D institutions. A project team of the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT (ABC) experimented with a hybrid approach, featuring both scientific methodologies and design thinking tools.endedness, and an iterative approximation between identifying the root(s) of the problem(s), and the best-bet solution(s). The first phases of the design thinking process therefore focus much on the problem space, before venturing into the solution space, often with unpredictable results.In fact, (Hoelzle and Rhinow 2019) identified three possible dilemmas in design thinking: For the unknown results, it is impossible to plan milestones or to know when to 'exit'. Further, strategic guidelines of organizations prescribe a certain direction, which makes a flexible learning process very difficult. For AR4D researchers and institutions, such open-ended approach might be even more challenging, since they have to move within the boundaries of scientific disciplines, their respective institutional mandates, and incentive systems that rewards publications over outcomes (Hall and Dijkman 2019).In the frame of the BMZ-funded small grant project 'Innovative Credit and Insurance Products for Scaling Climate-Resilient Agriculture in the Philippines', a team of researchers of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) therefore experimented with a more hybrid approach, coupling design thinking tools with recognized scientific methodologies.Aim of the project was to design and test innovative credit and insurance bundles, that would promote farmers' uptake of climate-resilient technologies and practices, which would in turn de-risk the agricultural production, and consequently also de-risk agricultural credits.In the following, this Info Note shortly introduces the aims, principles, and main phases of the design thinking methodology. It then describes the project as case study, and exemplifies the different steps undertaken in each phase of the design process. Finally, the Info Note discusses the main lessons learnt, that can be useful for future design thinking initiatives in the context of AR4D.\"If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me a faster horse.\" Henry Ford [presumably] Design thinking is a human-centered approach to innovation addressing wicked problems. Originally coined by the design agency IDEO in the early 1990s, it is nowadays 'taught' at the d.schools in Stanford (since 2005) and Potsdam (since 2007). As methodology, it draws from the designer's toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success. Key to the process are a hands-on solutions orientation, and interdisciplinary collaboration.The main principle of design thinking is to empathize with the intended user(s) of innovations, to understand what influences their decisions and actions taken. It parts from the hypothesis that users' needs are not necessarily the ones that are articulated, or can be captured in surveys. In design thinking, designers try to understand underlying motivations of users, and root causes of problems.Different to scientific methodologies, deep insights are gained from interactions with fewer, but 'extreme' users, rather than from large, systematic surveys that that ask for the 'what' and have no space to iterate on the 'why'.  Understand: Developing a shared understanding and 'language' among the interdisciplinary design team. Also drawing on existing knowledge from different sources. Empathize: Interact with the intended users to understand motivations and root causes of problems. This can be e.g., through in-depths interviews, observations, or user journeys. Define: Reframing the problem statement (the designers' task), based on interpreting ('making sense of') known facts with insights gained from empathic interactions. Ideate: Bringing out as many (wild!) ideas (or leads or such) for possible solutions, building on previous ideas (saying 'and' instead of 'but'), then prioritizing. Prototype: Give some physical representation to the chosen idea, that users can interact with.Since the first prototypes will probably be changed (or discarded), they need to be cheap, rapidly made, and simple. Test: Users interact with the prototypes (without explanations of designers!) and give feedback.The way they interact with the prototypes can bring new insights, towards the next iteration.As a highly iterative process, the continuous testing (and discarding) of hypothesis, ideas and prototypes requires from designers the willingness and capability to 'kill their darlings', making space for new problem framings, understandings, and approaches towards solutions.The Philippines is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate impacts. Since 2015, the Department of Agriculture (DA) actively promotes climate-resilient agriculture to increase production, farmers' adaptation capacities and mitigation potential. With technical support from CIAT, DA established the system-wide national Adaptation and Mitigation in Agriculture (AMIA) program. During the program implementation, farmers' access to credit emerged as a key ingredient for farmers' uptake of CRA innovations, which in turn was often constrained by the perceived risks of the agricultural sector, even worsening in the context of climate change.Responding to this challenge, in 2017, the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) created credit programs that were directly tailored to smallholder farmers' and fisher folks' needs and were to be channeled through local finance institutes like rural banks, micro finance institutes, or credit cooperatives. However, in the first year of their roll out, the number of availed credits had remained far below their potential scale. As possible solution, DA and ACPC reached out to the CIAT for developing credit and insurance bundles that would promote the uptake of CRA technologies and practices. The hypothesis was that CRA would reduce production risks for farmers, and consequently, as well for the lending institutions.As part of the project preparation, in March 2018, a member of the CIAT project team undertook a scoping study in Ivisan Municipality, Capiz Province, Philippines, facilitated by the CCAFS partner NGO International Institute for Rural Reconstruction (IIRR).Differently to design thinking processes that only design for the 'end-user', the project needed to consider also the needs and motivations of the lending institutes as 'nextusers', and local governments as possible facilitators or intermediaries. The scoping mission therefore interacted not only with different farmer groups andcooperatives, but also with representatives of local governments, lending -and insurance institutes, with a total of > 100 interactions.Qualitative interviews consisted of open questions about the context, and stakeholders' roles and experiences with climate change and finance products. Main insights were from the scoping session were: The APCP credit programs targeted at smallholder farmer and fisherfolks were already quite responsive to smallholder needs, in terms of low interest rates (6% p.a.), no collaterals, and flexible repayment duration. Due to accessibility constraints, vulnerable groups (women, elderly, tenants) felt excluded from the possibility to avail for credits. Most farmers preferred to use their own informal credit schemes, since they found the process of accessing financial products too complex. Lending self-help groups were very popular but lacked capital. Liability as a group was an issue. Lending institutes preferred to pay a fine for not lending to agriculture, albeit all ACPC's loans were automatically insured by the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC). Farmers had limited awareness and understanding of process and benefits of individual crop insurance.Textbox 2: A Hybrid Approach to Design ThinkingThe BMZ small-grant project 'Innovative Credit and Insurance Products for Scaling Climate Resilient Agriculture in the Philippines'Goal: Facilitating uptake of CRA options for >25,000 smallholder clients of ACPC by designing innovative credit and insurance products.Problem statement: Existing agri-finance products directed to smallholder farmers do not factor in climate change risks and farmers' adaptation options (CRA).Innovative credit and climate risk insurance products/ bundles that respond to smallholders needs when investing in CRA options, will reduce the risk for both farmers and service providers, thus facilitating wider uptake of CRA practices among beneficiary farmers.Methodology: A combination of participatory design thinking and economics valuation approaches, employed to prioritize the most relevant CRA options, responding better to farmers' investment needs, as well as fine tuning the financial products/packages. Methodological workshops on Human Centered Design, e.g., for assessing farmers' needs and developing farmers' typologies; State of the art behavioral experiments to test farmers' willingness to pay using contingent valuation, e.g. choice-experiment games to assess farmers' risk aversion and intertemporal preferences methodologies.From these insights, the project team formulated a set of 'point of view statements' for the key stakeholders. These then served as new problem framing: Farmers need credits that cater also for the most vulnerable (women, elderly, and very poor), that are quickly accessible with less paperwork and have repayment modalities that correspond to the rhythm of their incomes, in a world where self-help groups are much closer and more familiar. Farmers also need special support during the initial phase(s) of taking up CRA innovations, because they need to develop the practical skills, and perhaps only the second or even third try is successful. Farmers Credit Cooperatives and self-help groups need more capital for their members, in a context where no one wants to be liable for group loans because government money is perceived as \"grants\". Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) need clients that are likely to pay back in the sense that these are in good health condition, know the market, their climate risks and CRA options, are financially literate and have some sort of financial business or livelihood backup.These insights pointed a possible change of the projects' focus, towards a broader approach, including the processes of creating awareness, building capacities and facilitating the access to credit and insurance products. To accommodate such a flexible approach, the project team decided to embrace the design thinking methodology, making it the central approach for project implementation.At the same time, the project provided the option for one staff member to feed her PHD research with results from the behavioral experiments (See Textbox 2).With support of the partner NGO IIRR, the CIAT project team applied design thinking tools with stakeholders and farmer focus groups, to build farmer profiles for rice and coconut farmers and fisherfolks. Tools included a problem tree capturing root causes, story mapping towards visualizing main commodities' supply chains, cashflow timelines, challenge prioritization, mapping farmers coping actions, and open discussions. Main insights were that few coconut farmers aspired for agricultural loans due to strong government support, fisherfolks used a mix of formal and The budget allocated for staff trainings did not allow for a continuous coaching/ reflecting on interim insights/ results, crucial to planning of next steps.informal sources, and rice farmers preferred non-monetary loans (seed and fertilizer inputs).A household survey then captured socio-demographic and farm-level data and perceptions of climate change of 327 farming households, including two choice experiments: Risk aversion: Two scenarios were tested, for winning (lottery) and for losing money. Results indicated that farmers were more risk tolerant towards losses. Stated preference analysis: A conjoint analysis on individual's preferences was aggregated to reflect the 'average farmers'. Most important traits of loan bundles were the loan delivery time (<4 days), payment scheme (well matured loans) and lenders involvement (continuous monitoring). Less important were customization of loans, and credit cooperatives.When 'making sense' of these results, the project team found these difficult to interpret: The survey reflected the current status, but gave little hints about underlying reasons, or future aspirations. Also, the aggregation did not allow connecting to previous insights as farmer profiles.'There is nothing we dislike about our prototype, because we made it!'Results were presented in a virtual workshop with representatives of ACPC, PCIC, micro finance institutes and credit cooperatives. However, they did not play a further role: Discussion revealed that it was not feasible to change credit conditions, since that would involve higher level institutes like the Central Bank of the Philippines.Rather, through applying the 'user journey' tool, stakeholders followed the process from farmers' decisions to take a loan, throughout application, implementation and payback. Together, stakeholders build a service prototype, based on the following main insights: Farmers typically get most triggered to apply for loans after a climate event that had destroyed their crops. Farmers are heavily reliant on word-of-mouth for their information, while the use of text messaging and social media is limited due to limited digital infrastructure. CRA interventions shall help farmers anticipate climate events, focusing on the sustainability of their farm income over profitability. Documentary requirements shall be communicated early before the call for a loan in order to give farmers time to consolidate them or ask any questions. If the cooperatives are responsible for information dissemination, more farmers will receive it. Amount of info, though, has to be minimized in quick bite-sizes.The developed service prototype consequently consisted of five main phases (Figure 2):1) The ABC together with the Philippine Atmospheric, Geographical and Astronomical Services Administration to build a repository of CRA-options.2) ACPC and PCIC will deliver capacity building and climate services for farmer cooperatives.3) Climate events trigger the loan chain, and cooperatives organize the initial farmer orientation.4) Between availing of loans and their payout, cooperatives give financial management and CRA training, as well as seed variety recommendations.5) During planting, cooperatives do monthly monitoring and give nutrient management recommendations. Testing: Farmers' feedback on the prototype A final semi-virtual with Ivisan farmer groups validated this prototype, and added details on the design of the bundle:Product: Agri-loan, interest rate 6% (or less)/season, bundled with insurance, of up to PhP 50,000, transacted through cooperatives and monitored on a monthly basis.CRA inclusion: Bundled with 7-day weather forecast, with seed variety recommendations (upon receiving payment) and nutrient management recommendation (2-3 months into planting season).Requirements: Farmers are listed with ACPC and undergo financial management and CRA seminars prior to the release of the loan.Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the project extended to January 2022. The socialization of the service prototype, however, will continue in frame of further CIAT and AMIA projects in the Philippines, the region, and the OneCGIAR.This project provided crucial learnings for applying a hybrid approach of design thinking in the context of AR4D: Sequence of scientific/design thinking tools: Methodologies that provide 'scientific and representative' results can add to the needed information base, but require more time, staff and budget than quick, qualitative design thinking tools. Therefore, they should be considered only when the problem is already well reframed (and validated with all stakeholders), and a possible solution is prioritized. Budget, time, team, and adaptive management:Resources need to be allocated to staff training, and design thinking needs to be understood as a 'rapid and dirty' sequence of activities with many iterations, and involving all stakeholders. The core design team needs to remain continuously the same, while foci can change. Projects therefore rather need theories of change than logframes, and an adaptive management. Reflection and communication: The process could have benefitted from more regular backstopping and coaching in the design thinking process. Continious syntheses of previous insights could help to tailor next steps. Without such reflections, single steps have a tendency to not connect, not builidng on each other. Communication formats that include visualizations might be more useful than conventional reporting formats (also for communicating among project staff). Embeddedness: For the iterative character, it seems unlikely that the full design thinking process can be initiated, implemented and the output scaled, within the duration of a small grant. Good practice is therefore to include such initiatives in the frame of larger projects that can then carry on.","tokenCount":"2479"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fccaebc9fb43e59cad72556a1754a005","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5a82cabb-0c27-459b-a7d4-6500f6a37f12/retrieve","id":"1830535198"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"afd79d0f-509d-4910-a023-17d885c31085","pagecount":"14","content":"National and international research institutions, development agencies, donors, regional state unions, and CGIAR understand the benefits that SI of MFS generate for the five impact areas of CGIAR, and that this understanding will trigger genuine interest in supporting an integrated systems approach in the codevelopment and implementation of SI of MFS at scale.• Contribute to measuring the initiative's impacts • Increase the initiative's capacity to track the progress of its outputs and outcomes as stated in the results framework. • Increase the effectiveness accountability and reporting of the initiative to One CGIAR and donors ( in collaboration with One CGIAR System (Portfolio Performance Management Unit). • Contribute to managing midterm reviews and final evaluation in collaboration with with the One CGIAR Evaluation Advisory Service. • Contribute to supporting the initiative to reflect and adapt the full and WPs TOCs based on the results obtained on annual basis.Five international research institutions, six national research institutions, seven policymakers, and two donors (key strategic actors) are transitioning research priorities, policies, and strategic financial investments towards SI of MFS.50% of key innovation, demand, and scaling partners are jointly using a systems approach and a set of existing and novel tools adapted to different scales, agro-ecologies, and socio-economic settings to identify potential context-specific, integrated solutions for SI of MFS.Twelve research institutions (local and international), local partners, and 1.5 million farmers are developing, implementing, and validating SI options in selected MFS through participatory and inclusive processes.1.5 million MFS actors (farmers and other value chain participants) are adopting, adapting, and scaling socio-technical, gender-transformative innovation packages for SI of MFS.50% of partners (key strategic actors) and CGIAR scientists are adopting MFS thinking and gender-transformative approaches, mainstreamed through a global virtual institute for SI of MFS set up by the Initiative, and by regional scaling hubs promoting capacity building.  Linkages with other Initiatives/ One CGIAR efforts• Asia Mega Delta (AMD)• Transforming Agri-food Systems in South Asia (TAFSA)• Transforming Agri-food Systems in West and Central Africa (TAF-WCA)• Excellence in Agronomy (EIA)• Transforming Agri-food Systems in East and Central Africa (TAF-ESA)• Delivering genetic gain in farmers field (SeEdQUAL)• Portfolio Performance Management Unit (PPMU)• Standing Panel on Impact Assessment (SPIA)• Engagement with the work packages to decide on implementation sites, indicators and yearly targets.• Baseline study design and implementation to commence between June and August. First country will be Malawi.• Performance Management Plan and Data Matrix are currently being developed and will be discussed with the WPs during the inception meeting on day 2.• Develop a MELIA web-based application• Develop means for shared learning• Collaboration with SPIA and CGIAR MELCOP","tokenCount":"428"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"10686c092e9a85fe0aa4921ffcf5d212","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/34d89c63-ceea-4360-aaee-c5b8341df9ee/retrieve","id":"1221870713"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"5e7aebf2-74b9-4a2c-825a-e75546cd8602","pagecount":"14","content":"• Same format as standard economywide datasets (e.g., national accounts)• Allows us to measure AFS structure and performance using actual dataTotal value added generated by all agricultural value chains (in constant dollars)Agrifood System Employment (AgEMP+) GDP and employment in Tanzania's agrifood system (2019)• Part 1 focuses on the current size and structure of the national agrifood system     • AgGDP+ defines the AFS on the supply side• Household demand and trade (imports) capture AFS structure on the demand side• Agrifood processing is more important on the demand side than the supply side in the AFS AgGDP+ Household demandPrimary and processed product shares (%)Exports ($1.98 bil.) Imports ($0.65 bil.) • Growth was relatively evenly distributed among most value chains within the AFS, eight of the rest 10 value chains had a growth rate close to the AFS average• Off-farm growth is faster for most value chains  • Average across outcomes• The value of outcome indicators (elasticity or multiplier) is expected to differ across value chain growth; not all value chains are equally effective at achieving all outcomes • Normalizing the individual outcome scores• The values of each outcome indicator are scaled so that the most effective value chain is given a score of one and the least effective is given a score of zero. A value chain with adverse impact is also given a score of zero.• An average score with equal weights is used to measure the total impacts across all value chainsFuture Drivers 2019+ | Prioritizing Agricultural Growth(change in %-point)(change in %-point)(change in 1,000)(change in %)(averaged normalized scores, reordered)(change in mil. $)(per unit change in agriculture GDP, ordered by poverty) Agricultural growth has a strong growth multiplier effect generating income beyond agriculture• Rice has the strongest growth multiplier effect both for AFS income and total GDP; strong linkages with rice milling and service sectors ensure benefits of on-farm productivity gains spill over to rest of the economyIn conclusion, promoting multiple value chains can achieve broad impact ","tokenCount":"326"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/0795108833.json b/data/part_1/0795108833.json
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"58ad6ed64fd1d0fecad42ebddaf4b01e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/f6841670-8025-4acd-b678-ec54442fc7ec/content","id":"-1377638292"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"4e676a65-9aca-46d7-bf30-4ec2c849e778","pagecount":"18","content":"• Quality is what the customer requires -Fitness for use as defined by the customer -Uniformity around an expected performance →Farmers are becoming increasingly critical of seed quality, with the subsequent increase in claims not only for seed value, but also for damages incurred in a crop that did not meet with expectations. Proteins are separated by the differences in their electrical charges within a gradient of pH.Conventional Purity boardIncreases efficiency-ErgonomicWelldeveloped seeds Larvae inside the seedsSeed assessmentGlobal Positioning System (GPS)• Change from assuming homogenous fields to dividing them to smaller zones & managing them separately.• It depends on linking Satellite GPS with computers, on-the-go sensors.• Mapping yields (combine yield monitor).• Field mapping for records and insurance purposes • Variable rate planting (planter drive).• Variable rate of fertilizer, herbicide, and pesticide application (spreader drive).•   ","tokenCount":"133"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b23602a59e71f5be7559e5b784e52e34","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ddc92c03-9765-4222-a212-2d03db6f54c1/retrieve","id":"-1679806922"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a22eb1c4-bb01-4160-9cd4-c77ebac80e9e","pagecount":"2","content":"• Retail prices of maize increased by 6 percent in June.• Maize prices were highest in the Southern region.• ADMARC sales were reported in 1 out of 26 markets monitored by IFPRI.• No ADMARC purchases were reported in any of the markets monitored by IFPRI.• At market exchange rates (used for informal imports and exports), retail prices of maize in Malawi were lower than in Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, but higher than in Mozambique and South Africa, leading to informal imports from Mozambique.Figure 1 shows a trend in prices in the past 12 months ending in June 2023, and, for comparison, over the 12 months ending in June 2022. At the beginning of the harvest season, we start reporting prices of newly harvested maize, which has a higher moisture content than maize from the previous harvest. High moisture content makes it unsuitable for storage or milling. During drying, it loses about 20 percent of its weight. Solid lines in Figure 1 represent observed maize prices. Dotted lines represent prices adjusted for moisture content and thus the true price trend.In June, retail prices for maize maintained a steady upward trend, following the pattern from the previous month (Figure 1). The price of maize at retail level rose by 6 percent, with an increase from a weekly average price of K482/kg in the last week of May to K510/kg in the last week of June, as shown in Table 1. This is twice as much as in June 2022 when maize was sold at an average price of K255/kg. The lowest weekly average price of maize was reported in the first week of June in Chitipa where a kilogram was sold at K404/kg. In contrast, Chikwawa market reported the highest weekly average price (K600/kg) throughout the month of June.Mangochi, which experienced the largest increase in maize prices during the previous month, now observed the largest decline -7 percent between the last week of May and the last week of June. Traders attribute this price reduction to ease of accessing maize from Mozambique. Conversely, Ngabu experienced a notable increase in maize prices of 27 percent, but from a low base. Generally, prices throughout the southern region converged during June, attributable to imports from Mozambique helping to stabilize maize supply.The Monthly Maize Market Report was developed by researchers at IFPRI Malawi to provide clear and accurate information on the variation of maize prices in selected markets throughout Malawi. All prices are reported in Malawi Kwacha (K). To learn more about our work, visit www.massp.ifpri.info or follow us on Twitter (@IFPRIMalawi). At the regional level, monthly average retail maize prices also increased from K496/kg, K465/kg, and K430/kg in May to K511/kg, K466/kg, and K454/kg in June in the South, Centre, and North, respectively (Figure 2). Although the highest retail price of maize persisted in the South, while the lowest prevailed in the North, the North experienced the highest increase in maize prices in June. Monthly average prices of maize in the North increased by 6 percent during June, compared to 3 percent in the South while remaining almost unchanged in the Centre.Retail prices of maize in selected markets in Malawi were the highest in the region at the official exchange rate of K1,060/USD (Figure 4). However, when considering the (black) market rate of K1,750/USD, which is used for informal imports and exports, retail prices of maize in Tanzania and Zambia surpassed those in Malawi. In contrast, neighbouring Mozambique offers more affordable prices at both exchange rates, leading to an increase in imports across the southern region.Out of the 26 markets monitored by IFPRI, only Karonga market reported ADMARC sales for 6 days in the second half of the month of June.IFPRI Malawi has been monitoring retail maize prices and ADMARC activities in selected markets since October 2016. Currently, data is collected from 26 markets across the country, with monitoring occurring six days per week, excluding Sundays. At least three monitors report data from each market. Data is collected by means of phone calls to the monitors. Regional prices reported in Figure 4 are sourced from weekly reports from Commodity Insights Africa.  ","tokenCount":"686"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/0798917527.json b/data/part_1/0798917527.json
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"111bf6c32339a03870a228c1f4add333","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e5d07161-b883-4190-bb7f-99641d7d4a06/retrieve","id":"460652265"},"keywords":["common sampling frame","generation of statistically consistent agent populations","integrated modeling","interdisciplinary data collection","Monte Carlo approach","Uganda"],"sieverID":"7d6f3b83-a163-4da4-87ac-919accfcecaf","pagecount":"18","content":"An important goal of modeling human-environment interactions is to provide scientific information to policymakers and stakeholders in order to better support their planning and decision-making processes. Modern technologies in the fields of GIS and data processing, together with an increasing amount of accessible information, have the potential to meet the varying information needs of policymakers and stakeholders. Multiagent modeling holds the promise of providing an enhanced collaborative framework in which planners, modelers, and stakeholders may learn and interact. The fulfillment of this promise, however, depends on the empirical parameterization of multiagent models. Although multiagent models have been widely applied in experimental and hypothetical settings, only few studies have strong linkages to empirical data and the literature on methods of empirical parameterization is still limited. This paper presents a straightforward approach to parameterize multiagent models in applied development research. The parameterization uses a common sampling frame to randomly select observation units for both biophysical measurements and socioeconomic surveys. The biophysical measurements, i.e., soil properties in this study, are then extrapolated over the landscape using multiple regressions and a digital elevation model. The socioeconomic surveys are used to estimate probability functions for key characteristics of human actors, which are then assigned to the model agents with Monte Carlo techniques. This approach generates a landscape and agent populations that are robust and statistically consistent with empirical observations.In applied development research we often find \"critical triangle situations\" of poverty, resource depletion, and decreasing productivity (Vosti and Reardon 1997). Poor farm households are compelled to apply unsustainable farming practices that erode their natural resource base, reduce crop yields, and in turn, promote poverty. In many developing countries, for example in Uganda, the case study reported on here, farm households are trapped in such a downward spiral of interacting biophysical and socioeconomic forces (Pender et al. 2004). A major research issue in agricultural and development economics is to explore policy options to overcome this critical triangle and, in particular, to analyze the likely impacts of innovations on the livelihood of farm households and their natural resource conditions. Whereas in the past, research mainly focused on technical innovations, more emphasis is currently paid to institutional innovations such as land rental and labor sharing arrangements, resource user associations, and catchment management boards.Multiagent system models (MAS) have a large potential to improve the understanding of critical triangle situations, to learn about the uncertainties related with natural resource management and to explore new policy options (Parker et al. 2003). They may also provide a collaborative learning framework in which scientists, policy makers, and stakeholders may interact (Roeling 1999, Hazell et al. 2001, van Paassen 2004). To fulfill their potential, MAS need to be carefully parameterized and validated with empirical data. Only then they may provide relevant information about boundary conditions of rural development and the Ecology and Society 11(2): 19 http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss2/art19/ uncertainties involved, although MAS have been widely applied in hypothetical and experimental settings. However, few studies have tried to build empirically based MAS, and the literature on methods of empirical parameterization is therefore limited (Berger and Parker 2002).In this paper, we present a straightforward approach for empirical parameterization of MAS in applied development research. The paper starts with an introduction to integrated modeling in agricultural sciences and highlights the challenges of building empirical multiagent models. A subsequent section discusses the peculiarities of developing country research and proposes the use of \"common sampling frames\" as a suitable method for organizing data collection in interdisciplinary research projects. We then present a statistical approach based on spatial interpolation and Monte Carlo techniques to parameterize MAS with empirical data. Taking the example of ongoing research in Uganda, we show how landscapes and agent populations can be generated from field measurements and farm household survey data. The last two sections discuss the validity of our approach and conclude.The use of computer models has a long tradition in agricultural sciences, and high standards for model parameterization and validation have been established. Computer models in agricultural sciences have always been tailored to provide \"practical\" results for applied development problems. Crop growth models, for example, are used to simulate the fertilizer response of major food crops, thereby substituting for costly field experiments, and linear programming models are used to derive improved farm management plans. There is also vast experience with the coupling of these computer models, for example in bioeconomic models (Barbier 1998, Woelcke 2003, Holden and Shiferaw 2004) and in integrated river basin models (Rosegrant et al. 2000, Fisher et al. 2002).In general, integrated models in agricultural sciences have been very instrumental in capturing the technical or engineering aspects of humannature interactions and in highlighting the economic consequences of resource use changes (Kuyvenhoven et al. 1998). They may elucidate the tradeoffs that farm households face in crop choice and farming practices, assess the profitability of various land-use options, and capture the internal costs of adjusting to changes in environmental and marketing conditions (see also the more recent work of Holden et al. 2004). However, they face also limitations when it comes to analyzing critical triangle situations, in which heterogeneity of actors and landscapes is large and increasing (Berger et al. 2006). In general, this is the case when farm households differ considerably in terms of factor endowments and decision-making processes and when resources are exchanged locally or in networks. Another challenge for integrated modeling is to allow for a sufficient degree of spatial and temporal complexity, since changes in the natural environment, the market environment, and the introduction of improved technologies typically involve long-term interacting processes.Heterogeneity and interactions clearly fall into the core competence of multiagent models, which may therefore extend the scope of computer modeling in applied development research. In the field of natural resource use, MAS were applied to a variety of research questions (for an overview see Janssen 2002, Parker et al. 2003). MAS have been used to theorize about social and spatial dynamics (Gotts et al. 2003, Parker andMeretsky 2004), to simulate land-use changes (Huigen 2004) and diffusion of innovations (Weisbuch 2000, Berger 2001, Deffuant et al. 2002), to assess the impact of agricultural policies (Balmann 1997, Happe 2004), to accompany role-playing games (Barreteau et al. 2003) and in game theory applications (Bousquet et al. 2001). According to the classification proposed by Berger and Parker (2002), most of these applications are abstract or experimental; only few studies have tried to build empirical multiagent systems. Moreover, there are only few studies that have attempted to exploit the potential of MAS in integrating biophysical and socioeconomic model components (Parker and Berger 2002) Challenges to building empirical multiagent system model When parameterizing MAS with empirical data, the researcher moves into the problem domain of empirical modeling for which an extensive literature has been produced over the years. As an example, http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss2/art19/ we mention the influential work of Bockstael (1996) who addressed fundamental issues such as sample selection and spatial autocorrelation. One major challenge is to represent, in a statistically consistent way, a real-world situation of typically heterogeneous biophysical and socioeconomic conditions such as various soil types, crop and vegetation growth, land holdings, social networks, and human actors. Here, we will only focus on the parameterization of the cellular and the agent-based component of MAS and present one possible approach to generate landscapes of grid cells and agent populations. A detailed discussion of agent decision making, error propagation, and sensitivity analysis is, however, beyond the scope of this paper.As mentioned in the previous section, multiagent system models (MAS) have a large potential for integrated modeling of land-use changes based on empirical data. Although the capabilities of presentday technology, such as GIS and related data processing tools, have made more biophysical information accessible, there are still some challenges for data collection especially in interdisciplinary research projects.One drawback of doing applied research in developing countries is data scarcity although the situation has much improved in the last two decades. Under data scarcity, scientists in interdisciplinary research projects do best to concentrate their primary data collection on selected sites. However, one tendency is that scientists from various disciplines use different criteria for selecting their units of observation. As a result, data collection activities are often scattered over the study region, soil scientists are taking samples in one set of villages, whereas the social scientists are surveying another set of villages, plant growth models are calibrated for selected varieties, yet not the ones grown by trial farmers etc. Under these conditions, which are unfortunately rather the rule than the exception, it becomes very difficult to integrate empirical data within MAS.One way out is to apply a statistical procedure to select representative units and subunits of observation using a common sampling frame. This approach was employed for data collection in the Ghanaian Volta basin in West Africa as described in Berger et al. (2006) and van de Giesen et al. (2006). First, data on living standards and geospatial data were compiled from secondary sources and merged into one data set. Project scientists then developed a hierarchy of observation units (Fig. 1) and defined a priori selection criteria that would potentially capture all key research questions of the various scientists involved. Based on preliminary analysis, seven categories of selection criteria at the community level were identified: agro-ecological conditions, agricultural and fishing intensity, market orientation, household welfare, health and water use, social capital, and migration. Correlation analysis of the merged data set revealed interdependencies among some of the selection criteria, and principal component analysis was, therefore, used to derive a relatively small number of linear combinations of the original variables that retain as much statistical information as possible. Eight new variables, explaining about 70% of the total variance in the data, were used for a subsequent cluster analysis. The communities closest to the cluster centroid were then selected as representative communities. Scientists of the various disciplinary subprojects then randomly selected their subobservation units within these sample communities, for example households, water sources, or sample plots.The advantage of this interdisciplinary approach, apart from the logistical benefits that accrue from the concentration of field activities at certain communities, is that it provides representative and integrated data sets for the empirical parameterization of MAS.The remainder of this paper describes one possible approach to parameterize multiagent system models in applied development research. The parameterization combines predictive soil maps to generate a landscape from soil samples, and Monte Carlo techniques to generate agent populations from a sample of farm households. The method is described on the basis of a case study for two village communities in Southeastern Uganda, which were selected to analyze the downward spiral of declining soil fertility and increasing poverty and to assess ex ante the impacts of alternative policy interventions. http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss2/art19/ Fig. 1. Hierarchy of observation units in interdisciplinary research.The MAS software used for this case study builds on earlier work of Balmann (1997) and Berger (2001). It is coded in C++ and runs on Windows and Unix/Linux platforms (Appendix 1). Since this paper discusses only how to initialize the MAS, but does not present results from using this software, we will not provide a detailed description here. Some indications on functionality and where to download more information are given in the appendix. One integral component of this software is a crop growth and nutrient cycling module that was calibrated for agro-ecological conditions in Uganda using the \"Tropical Soil Productivity Calculator\" (see Aune and Lal 1995). Soil measurements and predictive soil maps were needed to parameterize this module.The two village communities are Magada and Buyemba in the Mayuge District; Magada counts 374 households and Buyemba counts 247 households. Both communities are densely populated with an average of 436 and 383 people/ km 2 in Magada and Buyemba, respectively, and are relatively well connected to market towns.Climatic conditions allow the cultivation of two sequential crops in a year. Main food crops are cassava, sweet potato, and beans; the main cash crop is coffee, whereas maize and plantain are both sold and home consumed. Farm households predominantly rely on the hand hoe in their crop management; the use of external inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss2/art19/ and improved seeds is rare. Intercropping is common and farm households usually allocate only small parts of a plot to a single crop combination. Soil fertility is generally low but varies across locations. The landscape is fairly sloping with large flat areas, and erosion levels are moderate (Brunner et al. 2004). A spatially explicit model was chosen to capture this heterogeneous landscape with local interactions.In the MAS, a landscape of grid cells represents the biophysical environment that farm households manage. In the Uganda study, the landscape model contains 12 layers, including soil chemical and physical properties, village boundaries and the location of farmsteads and agricultural plots. Layers are composed of grid cells of 71 x 71 m (0.5 ha), which is the smallest amount of land cultivated by a single farm household.Empirical information about soil properties is obtained from soil samples. The challenge was to create continuous soil maps by interpolating soil sample values. There are various approaches to this such as a kriging interpolation using semivariogram models or distance weighting algorithms (e.g., Ruecker 2005). The Uganda study used predictive soil mapping based on stepwise multiple regressions of soil properties on terrain parameters and/or other soil properties (Rhew et al. 2004). Terrain parameters were derived from a digital elevation model (DEM) with a 30-m grid size, and included elevation, slope, upslope area, plan curvature, profile curvature, curvature, wetness index, streampower index, and aspect.In a first stage, the prediction was based on 285 soil samples and 910 GPS measurements from a single hillslope in the village of Magada collected in 2000 (Ruecker 2005). Predictive models were initially estimated from these data and scaling effects were explored to find robust estimators at different scales. In a second stage, a new round of 120 soil samples and GPS measurements were collected in two villages in 2003. These data were used to validate the predictive models of the first stage, and to subsequently modify these (Rhew et al. 2004).The next challenge was to populate the landscape model with agents. The location of farmsteads and agricultural plots can be obtained through GPS measurements, maps of the land registry office, or aerial photography, yet such information is sometimes unavailable. In the Uganda study, handdrawn maps were available on which most of the sample households had been marked during the survey (1999)(2000) but not the exact location of their plots. The maps, however, showed that farmsteads were mainly located along community roads with scattered farmsteads in the other parts of the villages. The remaining nonsample households and all plots were to be assigned using these qualitative patterns. In ongoing research in Chile, complete georeferencing of household surveys and land registry maps is used.When complete data sets are lacking, random assignment is an option and subsequent sensitivity testing to repeated random assignments can reveal the impact of this unknown factor on simulation outcomes. Figure 2 shows the different stages in generating the spatially located agents and farm plots for the village of Magada; the same procedure was applied to Buyemba. The left upper panel (Fig. 2-A) depicts the sample points within the village boundary of Magada. The figure shows spatial dependency as sample farm households are not evenly distributed in the landscape but are clustered around the road network.Two different areas according to population density were therefore first demarcated: areas alongside the road network were designated as of high population density, and all other areas were of low population density (Fig. 2-B). Because the sample was random, the geographical distribution of the sample households represents the distribution of the total population. In Magada, for instance, 84% of the sample households lived in the high-density area, which accounted for 40% of the total village area. Of the remaining nonsample households, 84% was, thus, allocated in the high-density area and 16% in the low-density area. A standard routine for spatial random allocation, DNR Sampling Tool extension in ArcView GIS, was used for this purpose.All allocated farmsteads were then converted into grid cells, as shown in Fig. 2-C. Finally, using the estimated sample distribution from the survey, agricultural plots were allocated to the agents. A random spatial allocation was not used at this stage, as this would have produced an unrealistically scattered pattern of farm plots. The allocation was therefore done manually based on available qualitative information (Fig. 2-D).When generating an empirically based multiagent system model, (MAS), every computational agent must represent a single real-world farm household. In applied development research, random samples are typically preferred to population censuses or censuses of agriculture. Censuses do capture all farm households in the study area but, for financial and time constraints, cannot provide in-depth data of high quality (Carletto 1999). In the Uganda study, data were collected together with soil samples in 1999-2000 for 106 households, which is about 17% of the population. The challenge, hence, was to extrapolate the sample population to parameterize the remaining 83% of farm households.Monte Carlo studies are generally used to test the properties of estimates based on small samples. It is thus well suited to this study, in which data about a relatively small sample of farm households are available, but the interest goes into the properties of an entire population. The first stage in a Monte Carlo study is modeling the data generating process, and the second stage is the creation of artificial sets of data.The methodology applied here is based on empirical cumulative distribution functions. Figure 3 illustrates such a function for the distribution of goats over farm households. The figure shows that 35% of the farm households in the sample have no goats; the following 8% have one goat, etc. This http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss2/art19/ function can be used to randomly distribute goats over model agents. For this, a random integer between 0 and 100 is drawn for each agent and the number of goats is then read from the y-axis. Applying this procedure for all agents recreates the depicted empirical distribution function for goats. By varying the random seed number, the procedure yields different endowments at the individual agent level.When repeating the Monte Carlo procedure for all other resources, each resource would be allocated independently at the agent level, excluding the event of possible correlations between resources. However, actual resource endowments typically correlate, for example, larger households have more livestock and more land. To include these correlations in the agent populations, first the resource that most strongly correlates with all other resources is identified and used to divide the survey population into a number of clusters. Empirical cumulative distribution functions are then calculated for each cluster of sample observations.In the Uganda study, the sample was divided into clusters defined by household size because extensive data analysis showed that this was the variable most strongly correlated with all other variables. Nine clusters were chosen because this captured most of the different sizes in households and gave a minimum of five households per cluster. Cluster analysis can also be used for this purpose if several variables show strong correlations, but clusters produced this way are more difficult to interpret, especially when many variables are used. Figure 4 illustrates the approach for the distribution of goats.Each agent was allocated quantities of up to 80 different resources in the Monte Carlo procedure. These resources include 68 different categories of household members, i.e., 34 age groups of two sexes, four livestock types, i.e., goats, young rams, cows, and young bulls, area under coffee plantation, female head of household, liquidity, ratio of equity and debt capital, plus innovativeness. Agents were generated sequentially, that is, agent No.1 first drew 80 random numbers in 80 different cumulative distribution functions before agent No. 2 did the same.In order to get both statistically consistent and realistic agents, the generated agent populations were submitted to three tests at various levels of aggregation:1. Checks for inconsistencies at the population level: The average resource endowments of the agent population have to lie within the confidence intervals of each estimated sample mean. If not, the agent population generated from this seed value has to be rejected, and the agent random assignment is repeated with a new seed.The correlation matrix of agent resource endowments has to reflect the correlation matrix of the sample population. Otherwise, the agent population has to be rejected.An agent with 20 household members is very unlikely to have only one plot of land. However, because of the randomness of the resource allocation, unrealistic settings can occur in the agent population. By defining a lower and/or upper bound for some critical combinations, this problem can be overcome. If a resource combination lies outside such bound the generated agent has to be rejected, and the random assignment of this particular resource combination is repeated. Two sets of bounds are included. The first set defines minimum land requirements for livestock and the second set defines demographic rules to ensure realistic family compositions.The Monte Carlo approach outlined here works well if correlations among agent characteristics are not too tight. If individual agents, clusters of agents or entire agent populations are continuously being rejected on one of the above three criteria, then the cluster-specific distribution functions have to be fine tuned. By skewing the distribution functions towards otherwise underrepresented combinations of agent characteristics, as was necessary in ongoing To test the methodology, a large number of agent populations was generated by applying different random seed values. Their properties were analyzed at three levels: (1) the population level, (2) the cluster level, and (3) the level of the individual agents. Each of these analyses is discussed. Within the scope of this paper, the entire variation between and within agent populations cannot be shown. Instead, the results are illustrated with a few examples and snap shots from the agent populations.At the population level, we checked whether the averages in the agent population resembled those of the survey population. For this purpose, average resource allocations for 100 generated agent populations were calculated (Table 1). For all resources, the average resource endowments in the agent population fell within the 95% confidence interval of the survey average, and the difference between the two averages was generally small. The random agent generator hence reproduces population averages.To get more detail about the demographic structure of the population, a population pyramid for the survey population was drawn and compared with those of two agent populations in Fig. 5. This form of presentation may not be very suitable for comparing age groups exactly but does illustrate the high degree of similarity between the two populations.The above has shown that the sample population was well replicated at the aggregate population level, but this might not necessarily be so at lower levels of aggregation. The following graphs and figures, thus, look at the cluster and agent level.Figure 6 depicts four box plots comparing the distribution of household size, area under coffee, and goats and cows in the sample with an agent population with seed value 577. Each box ranges from the 25th to the 75th percentile, i.e., the interquartile range, with the 50th percentile, or median, also marked within. Clusters were based on household size, which is why there is a strong correlation between these two variables in the left upper pane. The figure shows that median values do not differ much between the survey population and the agent population. In addition, most interquartile ranges are of comparable width, except for household size, but that is because this variable was used to define the clusters.In the Ugandan case study, assigning the spatial location of farmsteads and farm plots is not part of the Monte Carlo procedure. Because of the lack of georeferenced data, we could not meaningfully redraw and statistically crosscheck the agent location maps. The land endowment was therefore constant for each agent in all agent populations. Only the nonland resources were randomly allocated to the agents based on cluster-specific distribution functions. Figure 7 plots household size against the number of plots per agent.One objective of generating agents randomly was to endow each agent differently in alternative agent populations. The success of the approach is illustrated with Fig. 8. This box plot shows the variation in resource endowments for agent No. 100 over 100 alternative populations. Agent No. 100 has a fixed location for farmstead and plots in the landscape, as can be seen from the zero variance in the agent's land area of 1.5 ha. The variation in resource endowments is high with, for instance, the household size varying between one and eight members and the number of goats varying between zero and three.The reproduction of correlations was the third objective in the random agent generation. The left diagram in Fig. 9 plots the number of adults against the number of children in the survey population, whereas the two right panes do the same for two generated agent populations. The figures show that correlation between adults and children within the household, as observed in the survey, is well replicated in the agent populations, ensuring that the agents created are demographically consistent in this respect.A less demanding approach to parameterize model agents based on the Uganda survey data would be to multiply every farm household in the sample by a factor of six, or if the sample is not random, by the inverse of every observation's probability weight. Average values in such agent population would exactly equal those of the sample survey. This cloning procedure, however, is unsatisfactory for two reasons.First, it reduces the variability in the model agent population. A sampling fraction of about 17% gives six identical agents, or clones, in the agent population. This might affect the simulated system dynamics, as these agents are likely to behave analogously. It becomes difficult then to interpret, for instance, a structural break in simulation outcomes: is the structural break endogenous, caused by agents breaking with their path dependency, or is the break simply a computational artifact resulting from the fact that many agents are the same? This setback becomes the more serious the smaller the sampling fraction is, because a higher share of the agents is identical.Second, the random sample contains a sampling error of unknown magnitude, which is also multiplied in the procedure. When using the cloning procedure, only a single agent population can be created, whereas for sensitivity analysis a multitude of alternative agent populations is needed.For these reasons, we developed a straightforward Monte Carlo approach that generates populations that are both statistically consistent and contain high levels of agent heterogeneity. The literature suggests alternative methods for Monte Carlo sampling and correlation control such as Latin hypercube sampling and restricted pairing (Saltelli et al. 2000). An improvement to our method could be to assign values to each of the model variables that conform to both their own empirical distributions and their correlations with other variables. More detailed testing will be needed to compare the performance of different approaches.Most multiagent systems have been based on hypothetical settings using artificial rather than real data. This paper showed that MAS could also reproduce real-world conditions by empirical http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol11/iss2/art19/ Fig. 8. Boxplot illustrating the variation in agent endowments in alternative agent populations.","tokenCount":"4518"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"db78baec767314aaeb09a35a80d0f2a0","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/59065514-bc59-46b4-85fe-ee5d6646d151/retrieve","id":"1853799749"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a9dc03e2-e7ed-40ea-adb9-b0ef1765a544","pagecount":"1","content":"A global crisis with limited solutions uField report from Burkina Faso FOCUs ,11 Bamboo An extraordinary plant with many uses viEwpOiNT ,16 intellectual heritage By Ameenah Gurib-Fakim iN BRiEF ,3 pUBLiCATiONs ,12 BETwEEN Us ,15For a long time, issues linked to production were held to be the prime cause of food crises. Causes likely to be examined included poor climatic conditions (such as drought or floods) and the proliferation of pests leading to disappointing harvests and a subsequently inadequate supply of food to satisfy consumer needs. This approach gave rise to the creation of various networks offering early warning and surveillance systems for weather conditions as well as monitoring services for harvests. Most of these are largely effective. Among them are FAO's Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS), USAID's Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) and the locust surveillance system.Tackling price instability","tokenCount":"142"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ff92b56a492152595674a6654515b4b2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e60f5bf8-db0c-4b89-b48a-58903a2b74fd/retrieve","id":"-346360701"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"80d546c1-5e31-48b4-935b-754a69b2fe7d","pagecount":"50","content":"SePR Working Papers contain results of research done by ILRI scientists, consultants and collaborators. The Working Papers are not subjected to full refereeing and are disseminated to motivate discussion and comment. It is expected that most of the Working Papers will be published in some other form. The author(s) alone is (are) responsible for the contents.Structure of demand for milk products in Ethiopia, 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Table 2. Changing structure of milk production and distribution in Ethiopia . . . . . . . . Table 3. Trends in total and per capita milk production  . . . . . . . . . . . . . Table 4. Profile of adopters and non-adopters of improved market-oriented dairy in Holetta, Ethiopia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Table 5. Gross margin for crossbred and local breed cows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2. Total and per capita milk production in Ethiopia (1961Ethiopia ( -2001) ) . . . . . . . . . . Figure 3. Butter and cheese production in Ethiopia (1961Ethiopia ( -2001) ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Figure 4. Imports of dairy products (milk equivalent) in Ethiopia (1960Ethiopia ( -2001) ) . . . . . Over the last decade following the political changes in 1991, the dairy sector in Ethiopia has shown considerable progress. Total milk production grew at an estimated rate of 3% compared to 1.8% during the period from 1975-90, thus ending the extended declining trend in per capita milk production in the country. The progress achieved is mainly due to technological intervention, policy reforms and increases in demand for dairy products due to population growth and urbanisation. The dairy sector in Ethiopia is expected to continue growing over the next one to two decades given the large potential for dairy de-velopment in the country, the expected growth in income, increased urbanisation, and improved policy environment. The shift towards a market economy is creating a huge opportunity for private investment in urban and peri-urban dairying. However, the main source of growth is expected to be the growth in demand for dairy products.Ethiopia holds a large potential for dairy development. The country currently manages the second largest livestock population in Africa, estimated at 29 million cattle, 24 million sheep and goats, 18 million camels, 1 million equines and 53 million poultry. In ad-dition, the country enjoys diverse topographic and climatic conditions. These consist of a high central plateau ranging from 1800 to 3000 metres above sea level (masl), a rift valley that divides the country from north to south with altitudes ranging from 1000 to 1800 masl, and lowland plain areas of less than 1000 masl in altitude. Depending on the altitude, temperature ranges from less than 10°C in alpine areas to 35°C and higher in the lowlands. Moreover, rainfall in most of the country is adequate for crop and pasture production (Alemayehu 1987). The favourable climate throughout the country supports the use of improved, high-yielding animal breeds and offers a relatively disease-free en-vironment for livestock development. The success realised in neighbouring Kenya is also expected in Ethiopia, given the high potential for dairy development, the on-going policy reforms and technological interventions and the very similar production environment.Given the considerable potential for smallholder income and employment generation from high-value dairy products (Staal 2002), the development of the dairy sector in Ethiopia can contribute significantly to poverty alleviation and nutrition in the country. Ethiopia, with its over 65 million inhabitants and an average annual per capita income of less than US$ 100, is among the poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Levels of malnutrition are consequently high. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that about 51% of the population is undernourished and over two million people are considered chronically food-insecure (FAO 2001). Com-pared to other countries in Africa, Ethiopians consume lesser amount of dairy products. Per capita consumption of milk in Ethiopia is as low as 17 kg while the average figure for Africa is 26 kg (Alemu et al. 1998). Besides providing income-earning opportunities for the poor, dairy development, especially at the smallholder sector level, can improve the nutritional status of Ethiopian children by making available milk for consumption and increasing household income.The excess demand for dairy products in the country is expected to induce rapid growth in the dairy sector. Factors contributing to this excess demand include, rapid population growth (estimated at 3% annually), increased urbanisation and expected growth in incomes. With the shift towards a market economy and liberalisation policies, private entrepreneurs are expected to respond to the increased demand through in-creased investment in dairying and milk processing. While the response of the private sector to the increased demand for dairy products is expected to be significant, the small-scale household farms in the highlands hold most of the potential for dairy develop-ment.This paper assesses the development of the dairy sector in Ethiopia over the past 50 years. In particular, it presents an overview of the dairy sector in Ethiopia. It also identifies key phases in the development of the dairy sector in Ethiopia and examines the trends in production and consumption, policy changes and development emphasis during each phase. Apart from these, the paper provides evidence on the potential impact of improved dairy cattle, examines the factors that increase smallholder participation in market-oriented dairying and identifies key policy and technology issues to be considered in the design of appropriate policy and development strategies. The paper also draws together evidence from neighbouring countries in order to assist in drawing conclusions for dairy development strategies in Ethiopia.Livestock are raised in all of the farming systems of Ethiopia by pastoralists, agro-pastoralists, and crop-livestock farmers. According to Tsehay (2002), milk production systems can be broadly categorised into urban, peri-urban and rural milk production systems, based on their location (Table 1). Both the urban and peri-urban systems are located near Addis Ababa and the regional towns and take advantage of the urban markets. The urban milk system consists of 5167 small, medium and large dairy farms producing about 35 million litres of milk annually. Of the total urban milk production, 73% is sold, 10% is left for household consumption, 9.4% goes to calves and 7.6% is processed into butter and ayib (cottage cheese). In terms of marketing, 71% of the producers sell milk directly to consumers (Tsehay 2002). The peri-urban milk system includes small-holder and commercial dairy farmers near Addis Ababa and other regional towns. This sector controls most of the country's improved dairy stock. The rural dairy system is part of the subsistence farming system and includes pastoralist, agropastoralist and mixed crop-livestock producers, mainly in the highland areas. The system is not market-oriented and most of the milk produced in it is retained for home consumption (Figure 1). The level of milk surplus is determined by the demand for milk of the household and its neighbours, the potential to produce milk in terms of herd size, production season and access to a nearby market. The surplus is mainly processed using traditional technologies and milk products such as butter, ghee, ayib and sour milk are usually marketed through the informal market after the households satisfy their needs (Tsehay 2002). The dairy sector in Ethiopia can also be categorised based on market orientation, scale and production intensity and classified into three major production systems: traditional smallholders, privatised state farms and urban and peri-urban systems (Alemu et al. 2000). The traditional smallholder system, roughly corresponding to the rural milk production system described above, produces 97% of the total national milk production and 75% of the commercial milk production. This sector is largely dependent on indigen-ous breeds of low-productivity native zebu cattle, which produce about 400-680 kg of milk/cow per lactation. The state dairy farms, now being privatised or in the process of privatisation, use grade animals (those with more than 87.5% exotic blood) and are con-centrated at a distance of 100 km around Addis Ababa. The urban and peri-urban milk production system, the third production system, includes small and large private farms in urban and peri-urban areas concentrated in the central highland plateaus (Getachew and Gashaw 2001). This sector is commercial and mainly based on the use of grade and crossbred animals that have the potential to produce 1120-2500 litres over a 279-day lactation. This production system is now expanding in the highlands among mixed crop-livestock farmers, such as those found in Selale and Holetta areas and serves as the major milk supplier to the urban market (Alemu et al. 2000;Holloway et al. 2000).Milk and milk products form part of the diet of many Ethiopians. They consume dairy products either as fresh milk or in fermented or soured form. Getachew and Gashaw (2001) estimated that 68% of the total milk produced is used for human consumption in the form of fresh milk, butter, cheese and yoghurt, while the rest is given to calves and wasted in the process. Butter produced from whole milk is estimated to have 65% fat and is the most widely consumed milk product in Ethiopia (Table 1). Of the total milk produced, around 40% is allocated for butter while only 9% is reserved for cheese. Tra-ditional butter, which ferments slowly at room temperature, can be kept for a year or longer, offering rural consumers a readily storable and durable dairy product.The consumption of milk and milk products varies geographically between the highlands and the lowlands and the level of urbanisation. In the lowlands, all segments of the population consume dairy products while in the highlands major consumers primarily include children and some vulnerable groups of women. The limited statistical data available on potential milk demand suggest that demand for milk will increase, at least in the urban centres and among the people with high purchasing power.The demand for milk depends on many factors including consumer preference, consumer's income, population size, price of the product, price of substitutes and other factors. Getachew and Gashaw (2001) indicated that the demand for milk is inelastic with respect to income and price. In general, increasing population growth, rising real income and decreasing consumer prices are expected to expand the demand for milk and milk products. The population of Ethiopia is estimated to grow at 2.9% per year while the urban population increases at a rate of 4.4%. Therefore, growth in population and income are expected to increase fluid milk consumption.Based on the 1994 national population census of the Central Statistics Authority of Ethiopia, urban dwellers account for 15% of the total population of 63.5 million in 2000. It is estimated that 40% of the urban population (those with average income above Ethiopian Birr (ETB) 1 350, or less than US$ 50) can afford to buy 20 litres of milk per month. A study by the Ministry of Agriculture in Addis Ababa indicated that effective demand for milk was about 36,240 t in 1995 and projected to reach 55,440 t in the year 2005. Similarly, the demand for butter was estimated to be 10,624 and 16,227 t in the year 1995 and 2005, respectively. The rural population is estimated to be 85% of the total population and its milk consumption largely depends on livestock holding. In the mixed crop-livestock keeping highland region, it is estimated that 50% of households own cattle of which 56% are dairy cattle. Consequently, most households have access to milk. Similarly, more than 80% of the households in the lowlands own cattle, significant numbers of small ruminants and camels. In this area, it is likely that all households consume milk (Getachew and Gashaw 2001).Recent political developments in Ethiopia coincide with three phases of dairy development policy. These include the imperial regime, characterised by almost a free market economic system and the emergence of modern commercial dairying , the socialist (Derg) regime that emphasised a centralised economic system and state farms , and the current phase under the structural adjustment programme and mar-ket liberalisation (1991 to present). The principal rationale for following the political regimes in identifying phases of dairy development in Ethiopia is that during each of these three phases, the country followed a distinct political path and development poli-cies that directly and indirectly influenced the dairy sector. These include land tenure and land policy, macro-economic policy and orientation of development efforts.The data used to trace production trends during these three phases are obtained from the FAO statistical database on agriculture. Additional data were collected from various sources because no complete data set exists on the dairy sector in Ethiopia. However, reported values vary across differing sources. These disparities, coupled with generally poor data quality, mean that conclusions based on the aggregate data should only be taken as indicative. Although it would be interesting to examine growth within each of the production systems over the different phases of dairy development, available data do not permit such analysis.In the first half of the 20th century, dairying in Ethiopia was mostly traditional. Modern dairying started in the early 1950s when Ethiopia received the first batch of dairy cattle from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). With the introduction of these cattle in the country, commercial fluid milk production started on large farms in Addis Ababa and Asmara (Hizkias 2000). Government intervened through the introduction of high-yielding dairy cattle on the highlands in and around major urban areas. The government also established modern milk processing and marketing facilities to complement these input oriented production efforts. Most interventions during this phase focused on urban-based production and marketing including the intro-duction of exotic dairy cattle, feeding with high ratio of dairy concentrated feed, modern dairy infrastructure and high management level (Annex 1).To facilitate the growth of the sector, UNICEF established a public sector pilot processing plant at Shola on the outskirt of Addis Ababa in 1960. The plant started by pro-cessing milk produced by the large farms. The plant significantly expanded in a short period and started collecting milk from smallholder producers in addition to that from the large farms. This led to further expansion of large dairy farms. During the second half of the 1960s, dairy production in the Addis Ababa area began to develop rapidly because of the expansion in large private dairy farms and the participation of small-holder producers with indigenous cattle facilitated by the establishment of the milk collection centres.With the advent of modern dairying, the Government of Ethiopia established the Addis Ababa Dairy Industry (AADI) in 1966 to control and organise the collection, processing and distribution of locally produced milk. Further, with the help of UNICEF, the Shola plant was expanded in 1969 and several government-owned dairy farms were established to supply the formal market and to serve as demonstration centres for the large commercial farms. In addition, the government introduced regular programmes and projects for dairy development. The first effort, initiated by the governments of Ethiopia and Sweden, was the establishment of the Chilalo Agricultural Development Unit (CADU), later named Arsi Rural Development Unit (ARDU), between 1970 and 1980. The unit produced and distributed crossbred heifers and provided artificial insemination (AI) and animal health services, in addition to forage production and marketing (Staal 1995).To create an autonomous body responsible for dairy development, the Government of Ethiopia established the Dairy Development Agency (DDA) in 1971. The DDA took over the responsibilities of AADI and assumed more tasks as well, including the pro-vision of services for increasing milk production and creating formal milk markets in urban areas outside Addis Ababa. Further, the Addis Ababa Dairy Development Project (AADDP) was launched by the World Bank in 1971 with the objective of developing commercial dairy production and providing support for smallholder producers in the form of credit, imported cattle and technical services. By 1972, the DDA was receiving about 21 thousand litres of milk/day for processing, 57% of which came from 65 large farms (Staal 1995). In addition to collecting milk, the DDA sold milk and dairy products through its kiosks and shops as well as to institutions. It also facilitated the creation of dairy co-operatives to ease the provision of credit as well as technical and extension services to dairy producers.Milk production in Ethiopia increased significantly during the 1960s. Between 1961 and 1974, milk production from all species increased by 16.6% from 637,375 to 743,100 t-an average annual growth rate of 1.63% (Table 2, Figure 2). This growth was largely due to the economies of scale in production as well as marketing, subsidies in transport to the formal market, secured land tenure and an active free market for feed and other inputs (Staal and Shapiro 1996). On a per capita basis, however, milk production declined during the 1961-74 period at an average rate of 0.87% per annum (Table 3). Dur-ing this period, butter and cheese processed using the traditional methods grew only slowly by about 0.1%. Processed milk production stagnated in the early 1960s but ex-panded significantly in the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s (Figure 2).  Following the 1974 revolution, the Ethiopian economic policy shifted towards socialism. The DDA continued to operate until 1979 when it was merged with numerous other nationalised dairy farms to establish the Dairy Development Enterprise (DDE). DDE was established to operate the nationalised state farms, establish a milk collection net-work, process and market dairy products, provide advisory and limited technical service to farmers, and sell veterinary medicaments and feeds to farmers. The enterprise had the capacity to process 60 thousand litres of milk at its inception. During this phase, the government shifted attention from urban to rural producers. However, substantial resources remained devoted to establishing large-scale state farms to provide fluid milk for urban consumers. This phase was characterised by intensive efforts by the government and donors towards developing the dairy sector through producers' co-operatives. The dairy development effort was geared towards rural producers who, in fact, were members of producers' co-operatives. Projects and programmes were im-plemented to improve dairy development focussed on producers, service co-operatives and peasant associations as major implementing partners. All the programmes were intended to bring about improvement in milk production and an increase in income through the introduction of improved feeding, breeding and health development pro-grammes while less attention was given to marketing and processing.  1961 1965 1969 1973 1977 1981 1985 1989 1993 1997   1961 1965 1969 1973 1977 1981 1985 1989 1993 1997    .Peasant Dairy Development Pilot Project (SPDDP) (see Annex 1). Although the programmes or projects implemented differed in their intensity, most of them were input-oriented.Because of these promotional efforts, total milk production increased significantly during this phase with the exception of the mid-1980s when the country experienced a debilitating three-year drought (Figure 2). Despite the significant increase in aggregate milk production, per capita milk production was declining. This phase was characterised by low producer prices, which discouraged production, emphasis on co-operatives in rural areas to the neglect of the most important producers in urban areas. To bridge the gap between supply and demand, dairy imports increased significantly during the second phase beginning from 1978. This was partly due to increased food aid, World Food Programme (WFP) milk powder imports, and a level of dairy production development that lagged far behind the demand (Tsehay 2000). During the drought of 1985/86, im-ports reached a peak of 279,651 and 314,726 t in 1985279,651 and 314,726 t in and 1986279,651 and 314,726 t in , respectively. Tsehay (2002) ) also indicated that import dependency rose steadily during this phase. For in-stance, dairy imports as a percentage of total consumption increased from 4.1 to 12.8% between 1977 and 1989. Commercial imports grew rapidly at 24.18% per year (Getachew and Gashaw 2001). Further, it is estimated that imported milk powder accounted for 23% of the Addis Ababa market.With the downfall of the Derg regime in 1991, Ethiopia embarked on policy reforms that aimed to bring about a market-oriented economic system. Several macro-economic policy changes were implemented. The exchange rate policy was altered from a fixed-rate system to a more market-determined system. A major devaluation of the local currency took place in 1992 followed by a series of smaller devaluations. A system of foreign cur-rency auctioning was introduced in 1995 and later changed to an inter-bank system. This probably has discouraged milk and dairy imports. Similarly, a new land policy was dec-lared. Although land remained in the hands of the government, the new constitution drawn up in 1994 allows temporary leases and farmers have the right to use the land in-definitely, lease it out temporarily to other farmers, and transfer it to their children but they cannot sell it permanently or mortgage it. Most importantly, the system of land re-distribution that created land insecurity and uncertainty has been abolished in Amhara and Tigray regions.In addition to these major policy reforms, the new federal government launched a new national development strategy named Agricultural Development-Led Industrialization (ADLI). The strategy seeks to bring about an improvement in the livestock sector by enhancing the quality and quantity of feed, providing improved animal feed and ex-tension services, increasing livestock health services and improving the productivity of local cows by artificial insemination while preserving the indigenous breeds (Benin et al. 2002). Although no clearly defined dairy development policy existed, it was envisaged that dairy policy would move increasingly towards private sector-led development. The policy recognises the potential of smallholder dairy production and accords due atten-tion to small producers although it also leaves room for the development of medium-and large-scale dairy farms in peri-urban areas. Activities undertaken include:• use of the potential adaptive genetic merit of animals • raising the quantity of feed available to livestock • improving health, breeding and husbandry services • encouraging the participation of private investors by improving income tax • improving the delivery of artificial insemination • developing and expanding efficient marketing systems in remote areas and • organising farmers into milk producing, processing and marketing co-operatives (Getachew and Gashaw 2001). In the third phase of the post-Derg market-oriented development, the private sector began to enter the dairy market as an important actor. Several private investors have now established milk-processing plants in Addis Ababa to supply fresh milk. Currently, the privately-held Sebeta Agro-industry is competing with DDE in supplying milk to urban consumers. DDE remains, however, an important actor in the formal dairy market. In 1993, the producer price paid by DDE increased from ETB 0.65 per litre to ETB 1.00 per litre and later to ETB 1.25. Meanwhile, the government privatised inefficient state farms, reducing the number of state farms from 14 to only 2. Moreover, the government accorded attention to the urban dairy producers and began serving them after the Min-istry of Agriculture (MOA) officially registered them.Post 1991 producer groups such as the Addis Ababa Dairy Producers Association (AADPA) emerged encompassing 90% of all urban dairy producers and a large proportion of peri-urban producers within a radius of 100 km of Addis Ababa (Staal 1995). Dairy development efforts in the post-reform period have focussed on smallholder dairy producers. The two major donor-funded SDDPP and Smallholder Dairy Development Project (SDDP) projects focused exclusively on improving dairy production at the small-holder level. Unlike the projects implemented during the Derg regime, these two pro-jects addressed the marketing problems of smallholder producers in addition to the provision of inputs. Milk production grew faster in the post reform period at an annual growth rate of 3% (Table 3). Although per capita milk production stagnated during this period and grew at a positive but insignificant rate after the policy reform, this represents a reversal or termination of the negative trend in the growth of per capita production during the previous two phases (Figure 2). However, the production of butter and cheese stagnated in the post reform period (Figure 3). In order to gain insight into possible sources of growth in the third phase, an attempt was made to disaggregate the total consumption of milk into different production systems. Rough estimates from the FAO (2002) data and available information from DDE and Getachew and Gashaw (2001) indicated that the contribution of imports of milk to total consumption of milk declined from 24% in 1985 to less than 1% in 2000. At the same time, the share of government-owned enterprises in total milk production decreased markedly. In contrast, the share of smallholder production in total consumption increased by 30%, from 71 to 96.6%. Of the total milk production from smallholders, only 1.2% comes from improved cattle. This is not surprising because the sector contains only 32,204 heads or 25% of the total improved cattle. Similarly, the contribution of large private farms increased from 21,750 t in 1985 to 33,182 t in 2000 (Table 2). The increase in private sector production is mainly due to government policies such as privatisation of state enterprises, removal of input market controls and increased use of improved livestock that were in the hands of producer co-operatives and state farms.To sum up, total milk production in Ethiopia increased during the 1961-2000 period at an average annual rate of 1.55%, though per capita production declined (Table 3) because of the high population growth rate. However, during the last decade pro-duction has been growing at an even higher rate (3%). The increased coverage of exten-sion services (such as better management skills) and increased use of improved inputs (improved breeds and feed) and policy changes promoting dairy production have con-tributed to faster growth of output. Dairy product imports during this phase were rela-tively smaller than in the earlier two phases (Figure 4). Most of the growth during 13  1961 1965 1969 1973 1977 1981 1985 1989 1993 1997 2001 Total production (× 10 3 t)  1961 1965 1969 1973 1977 1981 1985 1989 1993 1997 2001 Total production (× 10 3 t)Cheese Cheese Butter ButterSource: FAO (2002).Figure 3. Butter and cheese production in Ethiopia (1961Ethiopia ( -2001)).the third phase is concentrated in the peri-urban and rural production systems. 2 The emerg-ence of private processing industries and marketing units is likely to stimulate producers in the peri-urban areas and rural production systems as it offered producers a new mar-ket for their milk products.  As is common in other African countries (e.g. Kenya and Uganda), dairy products in Ethiopia are channelled to consumers through both formal and informal dairy marketing systems. Until 1991, the formal market of cold chain, pasteurised milk was exclusively dominated by DDE, which supplied 12% of the total fresh milk in the Addis Ababa area (Holloway et al. 2000). Recently, however, private businesses have begun collecting, processing, packing and distributing milk and other dairy products. The proportion of total production being marketed through the formal markets remains small (Muriuki and Thorpe 2002). Formal milk markets are particularly limited to peri-urban areas and Addis Ababa. However, unlike the early phases, the formal market appears to be ex-panding during the last decade with the private sector entering the dairy processing in-dustry in Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa in the eastern part of the country. 3 DDE remains the only government enterprise involved in processing and marketing dairy products. DDE collects milk for processing from different sources, including large commercial farms, collection centres that receive milk from smallholder producers and, to a lesser extent, powder milk from the World Food Programme (WFP). The enterprise at present operates 25 collection centres located around Addis Ababa-13 of them near Selale, 5 near Holetta and 7 around Debre Birhan.As the data in Annex 2 indicate, the total supply to DDE declined from 16.03 million litres in 1983/84 to 4.03 million litres in 1991/92. The state dairy farms were the de-pendable sources of milk for the enterprise supplying it with more than 45% of the total milk it processed between 1983 and 1991. But the share of state farms in milk supply to DDE fluctuated substantially after 1991 (Annex 2). This was mainly due to the reduced capacity following the sale of 12 state dairy farms and declining production from the remaining 2 farms due to feed shortage and management problems. To fill this gap, the share of private farms and smallholders increased significantly after 1991 and now ac-counts for over half of DDE's supply. DDE currently purchases milk from farmers at ETB 1.25/litre at the collection centres. It offers a price 15 to 25 cents less than that paid by private traders operating in the informal market (Zegeye 2000). Until the mid-1980s, DDE charged a price of ETB 0.70 per litre of pasteurised milk. The price in-creased from ETB 1.00 in 1985/86 to ETB 1.70 in 1987/88 and ETB 2.15 in 1990. Currently, DDE charges ETB 2.85 per litre of milk.DDE processes milk into pasteurised milk, butter, soft cheese, yoghurt, cream milk, formago (cheese) and ice cream (see Annex 3). The wide gap between production and sale of milk by DDE from 1980-90 reflects the failure of DDE to efficiently market its products. During the last decade, the period of transition to a market-oriented system, the marketing situation was improved and almost all the output was marketed. However, since its inception, the enterprise used its full capacity only during the four-year period from 1987 to 1990 (Staal 1995). The reasons for low capacity utilisation include manage-ment problems, financial difficulties, and unstable and low consumption levels of pro-cessed milk in the society due to fasting that prohibits the Orthodox Christians (about 35-40% of the population) from consuming dairy products for almost 200 days every year (Zegeye 2000).In addition to DDE, several private milk-processing plants have been established in Addis Ababa, two of which-Sebeta Agro Industry and Dinsho dairy industries-have already started marketing their products. Although their share of the market is still small compared to DDE's, the entry of private firms in the formal milk market is a significant development indicating the profitability and potential of private investment in the dairy sector in Ethiopia and that the policy environment is facilitating such entry.In recent years, promotional efforts have focused on dairy marketing. Milk-marketing co-operatives have been established by the SDDP with the support of the Finnish Inter-national Development Agency. These groups buy milk from both members and non-members, process it and sell products to traders and local consumers. The units also pro-cess milk into cream, skim milk, sour milk, butter and cottage cheese. The number of these milk co-operatives reached 32 in total-2 established by the FAO/TCP (Technical Cooperation Programme) and the World Food Programme (WFP) and 30 established by SDDP (Tsehay 2002).The informal market involves direct delivery of fresh milk by producers to consumers in the immediate neighbourhood and sale to itinerant traders or individuals in nearby towns. In the informal market, milk may pass from producers to consumers directly or through two or more market agents. The informal system is characterised by the absence of licensing requirement to operate, low cost of operations, high producer prices com-pared to the formal market and no regulation of operations. The relative share and growth of the formal and informal markets in the three phases was different. In all three phases, the informal (traditional) market has remained dominant in Ethiopia.Traditional processing and trade of dairy products, especially the traditionally soured butter, dominates the Ethiopian dairy sector (Table 1). Of the total milk produced only 5% is marketed as fluid milk due to the underdevelopment of infrastructure in rural areas.Advances in biological technology in livestock have been induced primarily to improve the yield of animal products per unit of feed or breeding stock (Hayami and Ruttan 1985). Analogous to the case of crop production, these advances typically involve one or more of the following elements:• (improved feeding to provide satisfactory environment for animal growth and feed supplements to stimulate higher productivity • disease control • better environments for animal growth, particularly shelter and • selection of efficient breeds specifically adapted to respond to those elements in the environment that are subject to man's control. These advances raise two issues relevant to the dairy sector in Ethiopia-feed constraints and genetic improvement.Inadequate supply of quality feed and the low productivity of the indigenous cattle breeds are the major factors limiting dairy productivity in Ethiopia. Feed, usually based on fodder and grass, are either not available in sufficient quantities due to fluctuating weather conditions or, when available, are of poor nutritional quality. These constraints result in low milk and meat yields, high mortality of young stock, longer parturition in-tervals and low animal weights (McIntire et al. 1992, 103). Improved nutrition through the adoption of sown forage and better crop residue management can substantially raise livestock productivity. National and international research agencies, including the Inter-national Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), have developed several feed production and utilisation technologies and strategies to address the problems of inadequate and poor quality of feeds. So far, the adoption of these technologies in the Ethiopian highlands has been limited.Unlike residue management, hay and silage making or adoption of forage legumes often involves the introduction of a new crop into the farming system. Therefore, how the new crop fits into the existing system is critical to successful introduction. In the case of forages, this is determined by the degree of crop-livestock interactions, forage and livestock product markets, the extent of market participation of forage growers and resource availability.Depending on the degree of crop-livestock interaction, several polar cases can be identified. In livestock-specialised systems such as the pastoral systems in southern Ethiopia and Afar regions, the crop enterprise is not part of the household production unit. Households in these systems are typically subsistence-oriented and based on seasonal milk production. The livestock herders are dependent on natural pastures and grazing areas and to some extent on grazing crop residues in crop systems after harvest. As such, the adoption of improved forages is irrelevant since livestock owners usually do not own cropland. However, a transition to agro-pastoralists occurs in different parts of pastoralist areas. In these emerging systems, improved forage is becoming increasingly feasible.The other polar case is the crop-specialised farming system in which households are predominantly crop producers with limited livestock holdings, mainly small ruminants. In these systems, crop-livestock interaction is minimal. Typical examples include the savannah zones of western Africa. In this system, a necessary condition for the adoption of forage is the availability of external markets for forage and animal products (McIntire and Debrah 1987). This system is very limited in Ethiopia as most of the crop pro-duction systems also involve livestock as an integral component.In the typical mixed crop-livestock farming system, the household has two integrated enterprises, crop and livestock production. Since in mixed systems households can grow and feed forages for their own animals without recourse to forage markets, this system holds the highest potential for the adoption of improved forages. Also, forages prove use-ful in this system to support livestock during periods of low availability of crop residues and natural pastures, such as during the cropping season. In addition to contributing to livestock production, forage legumes contribute significantly to soil nitrogen and provide a break in cereal-dominated rotations (McIntire and Debrah 1987).Empirical analysis of the adoption of forage in dairy farms in mixed farming systems has taken place in the Holetta area where forage technology has been introduced in association with improved dairy production. The empirical results suggest that the potential for the adoption of improved forage is high where both livestock productivity and response to improved feed technology are high, as with crossbreed cows, and where pro-duction is more market-oriented, as with dairy. Here, the potential for adoption is high because of the possible complementarities between regular cash income generation from dairy sales and the opportunity for intensification of crop production. Factors affecting adoption also appear to be interrelated such that the effect of one factor may influence adoption through its impact on another factor. For instance, crop intensification through increased use of purchased inputs eases land constraints and may lead to intensification of livestock production via improved feeding strategies.Unlike Kenya, the large cattle population of Ethiopia has relatively limited numbers of exotic dairy cattle and their crosses. Less than 1% of the 34.5 million cattle population of Ethiopia are exotic or crossbred dairy cows (Muriuki and Thorpe 2002). Although it was difficult to trace the ownership of improved dairy animals, it is estimated that state and private farms own a total of 128,745 grade and pure female dairy animals of which the smallholders sector owns 32,204 crosses and improved female dairy cattle.However, due to the dissolution of producer's co-operatives and the privatisation of state farms, most of the crossbreed cows are currently privately-owned in peri-urban and urban areas of the country (Getachew and Gashaw 2001). Consequently, milk productivity in Ethiopia is low. The indigenous zebu breed produces about 400-680 kg of milk/cow per lactation compared to grade animals that have the potential to produce 1120-2500 litres over a 279-day lactation.Genetic improvement has been recognised in the design and implementation of the development projects in the country during the last four decades (Annex I). With the exception of SDDP, the production and distribution of crossbreed heifers, the provision and distribution of dairy stocks, the provision and strengthening of AI services, and/or bull service were major components of the development projects implemented between 1967 and 1998. Through the effort of these projects, Ethiopia has built up a herd of 120 thousand exotic cattle. So far, only one government institution, the National Artificial Insemination Center (NAIC) provides AI services in the country. The service is available in urban, peri-urban and rural areas.All regions except Tigray, Somali and Gambela appear to have benefited from the dis-tribution of crossbred heifers (Figure 5). However, most of these projects-except twofailed to address the genetic improvement and the feed shortage problem simultaneously. The energy deficit resulting from poor quality or low quantity feed, especially during the dry season, could result in losses in body weight and body condition, thus affecting the production and reproduction efficiency of the cows (Zerbini et al. 1998). Besides, cross-breeds may need specialised management and veterinary health care. These were also not addressed in these projects. The only development project that addressed these issues simultaneously, beside marketing and processing, agroforestry and water development, was the Smallholder Dairy Development Project supported by the Finnish International Development Agency and implemented between 1995 and 1998 in 16 woredas in three regions.Enhancing the ability of poor smallholder farmers to reach markets and actively engage in them poses a pressing development challenge. Difficult market access restricts opportunities for income generation. Remoteness results in reduced farm-gate prices, increased input costs and lower returns to labour and capital. This, in turn, reduces incentives to participate in economic transactions and results in subsistent rather than market-oriented production systems. Sparsely populated rural areas, remoteness from towns and high transport costs all pose physical barriers impeding market access. Transaction costs such as lack of information about markets, lack of negotiating skills, and lack of collec-tive organisation are other impediments to market access. The question of how to ex-pand the market participation of smallholder livestock producers is a major challenge facing many governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in developing countries.A study carried out by ILRI using SDDP project data in Selale indicates some import-ant points to be considered in introducing new dairy technologies. The policy-relevant variables having the greatest impact in fluid milk markets are cow numbers, time to the milk group and visits by an extension agent. The number of cows kept affects marketable surplus through total production and marginal costs of production (Holloway et al. 2000). The action of pooling, especially pooling of milk collection and transportation activities, has the potential to mitigate costs. Reducing the milk delivery time from farm to collection point can increase sales to the milk group. This clearly relates to the trans-action costs of reallocating family labour to milk delivery. Currently, many potential fluid milk-marketing households are hours distant from any milk collection points. Any policy support to raise smallholder participation in milk marketing would necessarily need to weigh public costs against the expected gains by smallholder households.Market access poses a key bottleneck to the expansion of smallholder milk production and processing. Milk groups and co-operatives increase the participation of 20  smallholders in fluid milk markets in the Ethiopian highlands. Milk groups are a simple example of an agro-industrial innovation, but they are only a necessary first step in the process of developing more sophisticated co-operative organisations. The survival of the milk groups will depend on their continued ability to capture value-added dairy pro-cessing and retain the value-added for their members. The cost of milk production in Ethiopia is low but transaction costs are high, preventing current dairy exports. Milk groups, when developed further, could serve as basis for the development of produceroriented processing that better integrates smallholder producers with the Ethiopian dairy markets and the global agro-industry. Boxes 1 and 2 present two illustrative cases of milk groups.The Adaa Liben Woreda Dairy and Dairy Products Marketing Association was founded in September 1999 in Debre Zeit town, 50 km south-east of Addis Ababa. It has 34 founding members with a single share of ETB 100. The initial capital of the association was thus only ETB 3400. The amount of milk collected from the founding members was 308 litres per day or about 24 thousand litres per month. The association, though informally established in 1997, got its certificate of registration from Oromiya State in September 2000. Over the last few years, the association has grown significantly, and by June 2002, full membership had increased to a total of 426 members, with 245 male and 183 female dairy farmers. The total number of dairy cattle owned by the members is 1716. In addition, 181 non-member dairy farmers also supply milk to the association. Consequently, the current capital of the association has increased to ETB 500 thousand and milk collections have reached 174,360 litres per month in 2002, up by a factor of seven from the 24 thousand litres supplied monthly in 1999. There are seven milk collection sites in and around Debre Zeit town. Recently, the association purchased two coolers with a 25 thousand-litres capacity.The Addis Ababa Dairy Co-operative is the pioneer co-operative in Addis Ababa and its surrounding areas. The co-operative was first established in December 1992 with the aim of facilitating the supply of feed for urban dairy producers. By 2002, the number of members in the co-operative had reached 171, and almost half of them (85) were women. The current capital of the co-operative amounts to over ETB 61 thousand and each member on average owns 10 dairy cattle. Currently, the average milk collection per member is 20-30 litres per day or about 102,600 to 153,900 litres per month.The superior performance of Kenya's dairy sector offers several lessons to Ethiopia, whose dairy sector remains in its infancy. First, grade cattle provided the major source of increased productivity in Kenya. Hence, smallholders in Ethiopia should also be assisted to acquire grade cattle to increase productivity. Second, the development of effective infrastructure for the collection of milk in Kenya has also played a very important role in the development of the dairy sector in the country. This was made possible because the Kenya Cooperative Creameries (KCC) provided a guaranteed market for smallholder's milk. However, Ethiopia's DDE, the major public enterprise engaged in the collection and processing of milk from smallholders and private farms, is operating below full capacity and has not played a comparably significant role as market outlet or buyer of last resort. Hence, the enterprise needs to increase its efficiency and raise its collection network. The milk co-operatives should also be given enough technical and financial support to continue to serve as an important market outlet for smallholder producers. Currently, only a few milk processing industries operate, and these are limited to the capital and a few regional towns. The emergence of these private agro-industries has given the smallholders and peri-urban producers an alternative market to the DDE. Hence, the private sector should be promoted to engage in dairy processing and mar-keting to provide opportunity for smallholders to market their milk. The input market should also be liberalised and the private sector promoted to actively participate in the market. More importantly, the success of the dairy sector in Kenya was driven by in-creases in demand. Yet, this has not happened in the case of Ethiopia. Therefore, stimu-lating the consumption of milk and milk products in the major cities and townships through increasing awareness is important for the sustainable development of the sector.Milk production and marketing systems are similar in Kenya and Ethiopia (Muriuki and Thorpe 2002) and smallholders dominate dairy production in both countries. Both countries have parallel formal and informal marketing systems where the proportion of milk production marketed in the formal market constitutes a very small portion of the total milk produced (Muriuki and Thorpe 2002). In Kenya, the proportion of marketed milk sold in the formal market is 15% compared to only 5% in Uganda and a negligible share in Ethiopia (Muriuki and Thorpe 2002). With agro-industrial development of the dairy sector in Ethiopia coming through private investment, the proportion of marketed milk sold in the formal market is expected to increase.Despite the agro-ecological similarities between Kenya and Ethiopia, the Kenyan highlands have higher and more evenly distributed rainfall and hence higher potential for feed and forage production. In Ethiopia, on-farm feed and forage production as well as industrial concentrate need to be emphasised.Since the major part of the demand for dairy products in Ethiopia is mainly for processed milk (butter and cheese), smallholder, labour-intensive processing technologies should be encouraged. Such technologies-hand-driven churners-are available and are used by women in rural areas for butter production. In the future and as income grows, demand for processed dairy products such as ice-cream and yoghurt is expected to grow.In the typical mixed crop-livestock system of the highlands of Ethiopia, farming households produce milk using local zebu cows that are kept on communal pasture and crop residues. Milk productivity is low and most of the product is retained for home consumption. The small surplus may be processed into butter and cheese and either consumed or sold. In contrast, improved dairy technology based on high-yielding crossbred cows and production of improved forages has the potential for increasing milk production by smallholder households for both home consumption and the market. The household impacts of smallholder, market-oriented dairying has been analysed to test whether gains in real income from technical change or commercialisation may translate into food consumption of the poor and nutrient intake in a pilot research project implemented in the Holetta 4 area between 1993 and 1998 (Ahmed et al. 2000;Ahmed et al. 2002). The research project was aimed at evaluating the feasibility of using crossbred cows for both dairy and draft under farmers' conditions.The pilot project site is located in the Ethiopian highlands, about 40 km west of Addis Ababa, in the vicinity of Holetta town. The altitude of the research area is about 2600 masl. The farming system in the study area is classified as a mixed crop-livestock system with livestock playing an important role in the provision of food (milk and meat), draft power and dung, which is used mainly as a source of fuel as well as for soil fertility enhancement.The dairy technology consists of crossbred cows, improved feed technology such as on-farm production of forages and improved management. Pairs of crossbred dairy cows were initially introduced to 14 farmers in Holetta in 1993, half for milk production only and the other half for dairy and draft. In 1995 and early 1996, 120 more crossbred cows were sold on credit to an additional 60 households. Some households other than those participating in the project also owned crossbred cows. Willingness and ability to pay the initial down payment and costs for maintaining the crossbred cows were the major cri-teria used for selecting the participating households. Although the initial 14 farmers were relatively rich, the latter sixty farmers were selected from a list of farmers in three wealth groups, namely poor, medium wealth and rich farmers. Sixty control households using traditional practices of local zebu cows for milk production and oxen for traction were included in the household surveys beginning in mid-1995. The number of control farmers in each wealth group is roughly equal to the number of crossbred cow owners in the same wealth group. Within each wealth group, participating and control households were comparable, selected on the basis of the same criteria.Based on the profile of adopters and non-adopters (Table 4), household heads of both groups tend to be of similar average age and education. Households in both groups have comparable size in terms of adult equivalence, dependents and labour resources. However, adopters have more farm area, allocate more area to food crops and smaller local breed livestock herd size in addition to 1.69 crossbred cows on average. 5 Because of the higher income from improved dairying, adopting households earn significantly higher per capita income and spend more on household consumer items as well as on farm inputs. In addition, per capita intake of calorie, protein and iron is higher in adopting households. Within the study area, crossbred cows yield a gross margin of ETB 937/cow per year, or more than seven times the gross margin of a local cow (ETB 120), in 1997 (Table 5). This result mirrors a similar study by SDDP on the central highlands of Ethiopia in 1998, which shows a gross margin of ETB 865/crossbred cow per year with an annual milk production of 700 litres (Ojala 1998). Crossbred cows yield 37.2 litres of milk/cow per labour day, which is twice the yield/cow per labour day of the local breed. Although crossbred cows require a higher variable cost than local cows, the gross margin per unit variable cost was still higher than local cows indicating the profitability of crossbred cows (Table 5). This result compares favourably with the results of recursive econometric ana-lysis, which indicates significant productivity gains from crossbred cows as compared to local breeds. A recursive econometric model was estimated based on the conceptual framework of the impact of the market-oriented dairy production (MODP) at a household level pre-sented in Annex 4. In this framework, high productivity of crossbred cows and comp-lementary technology may result in a higher milk and dairy production. Adopting house-holds may use the additional cash income for buying food, meeting other household needs, or purchasing farm inputs. The impact of dairy technology on nutrition and health may result from direct increases of household consumption of milk and dairy products. The impact can also be indirect through higher household expenditure on food, health and sanitation or both. It has been well established by nutritionists that the consumption of more dairy products results in a better human nutrition and health (Neumann et al. 1993). Thus, we expect children of the adopting households who con-sume more dairy products to be healthier.In the recursive system, per capita income is defined as the market value of crop and livestock production and income from all other sources and estimated as a function of productive resources of the household and socio-economic characteristics of the household (Ahmed et al. 2002). Households earn income from production of crops and livestock including dairy, and renting resources such as land and labour. Crop production is a major source of income. Accounting for 61% of the income on average, this share is slightly higher (at 67%) for the control group and slightly lower (55%) for the adopters. Animal production constitutes 34% of the income of the MODP participants, and only 15% for the non-participants. Per adult equivalent income in the study area is generally low with a significant difference between the two groups of households. This difference is mainly attributed to the difference in dairy production.As expected, the adoption of dairy and associated technology is a significant determi-nant of household income. The estimated coefficient of 0.51 on per capita crossbred cows owned translates into an income elasticity of 0.465 at the mean value of per capita holdings of crossbred cows (0.91 cows). The mean per capita income of an adopting household is 41% higher (ETB 1663) than that of a non-adopting household (ETB 1178) (Table 4). This is a substantial contribution attributable to ownership of crossbred cows and the adoption of associated feed and management technology. This increase comes mainly from the additional milk sales.Local breed livestock herd also contributes significantly to per capita income in this mixed crop-livestock system, as indicated by the positive and significant coefficient of 0.12. Local livestock may contribute to household income indirectly through the provision of draft power to crop production and directly through animal sale and milk production for sale. Households with local breeds generate on average 15% of their income from livestock, mainly from live animal sales. However, the contribution of local breed livestock is much smaller than that of crossbreed cows.Crop markets appear to be an important institution for rural households for facilitating profitable transactions and income-generating opportunities. The longer the travel time to the crop market, the lower the per capita income of the household. Longer travel time may discourage cash transactions, constrain the flow of market information es-pecially on prices and availability of inputs, add to transaction costs of purchases and sales and shift labour from production activities. In this analysis, the estimated elasticity of income with respect to distance to crop market is -0.137. Tangka et al. (2002) showed the positive and significant effects of dairy technologies on food security and food production in the same area. These effects are reflected mainly through their impact on incomes and wealth. Besides, women in households with cross-bred cows earned nearly seven times more dairy income than women in households with only local cows. The average monthly non-dairy farm and off-farm incomes between the two groups of households were not statistically different, suggesting that the higher house-hold income in crossbred cow households came mainly from dairy products (Tangka et al. 2002).Household expenditure can broadly be disaggregated into expenditure on food, nonfood and farm inputs. Theoretically, expenditure on food includes value of food produced and consumed by the household. However, for lack of data, expenditure on food is defined here as cash expenditure on food and includes goods that are not produced by the household in addition to purchases of food to close any food deficit. Non-food ex-penditure includes household expenses such as clothing, health care, education and social contributions. Expenditure on inputs covers farm inputs such as fertiliser, chemicals and seed and livestock expenditure such as feed and veterinary expenses. Expenditures on food and non-food items are computed on a per capita basis while expenditure on inputs is computed for the household. The three relationships are estimated as functions of per capita income, proportion of cash income in total income, per capita area allocated to food crops, round-trip time to the nearest crop and livestock markets, and household socio-economic characteristics. Average annual per capita cash expenditure on food is estimated at ETB 40 and ETB 34 for the MODP participants and the nonparticipant households, respectively, with a statistically significant difference between the two groups (Table 4). These estimates are low mainly because these farm households con-sume most of their own food. Adopters have higher cash expenditures for farm inputs, transportation, tax and debt repayment, milling and clothing, which add up to higher but not significantly different total cash expenditures.The coefficients of the income variable in the three equations are positive and statistically significant. Expenditure elasticity of income is highest in the case of farm inputs (0.99) and lowest for non-food expenditure (0.21). This result indicates that income in-crements from technology adoption and commercialisation do not necessarily translate fully into additional food purchases but are distributed among the alternative needs of the households. It is worth noting that doubling income almost doubled expenditure on inputs indicating the high priority for increasing future income earnings from the use of purchased farm inputs. This also reflects the willingness of households to adopt improved crop technology such as improved seed and fertiliser. The high proportional increase in farm input expenditure from increments of income from adoption of the dairy tech-nology suggests that livestock intensification through the introduction of improved pro-duction technology may lead to intensification in crop production.The proportion of cash income in total household income measures the degree of market participation of the households. This proportion is significantly higher among the improved dairy households (Table 5). Sales of dairy, livestock and surplus crop are the major sources of cash for households. As the proportion of cash income increases, expenditure on both food and non-food items increases significantly. However, the proportion of cash income does not affect the expenditure on inputs, as credit is an alternative source for input purchases. Credit may be substituted for cash income allowing a household to spend more on other expenditures. At the mean, the elasticities of food and non-food expenditure with respect to the proportion of cash income are 0.30 and 0.61, respectively. These results suggest that technologies that increase productivity of a cash commodity such as dairy and other livestock technology also promote market par-ticipation through increased expenditures on food and non-food goods consumed by the household. This may generate significant growth linkages in the rural economy.It is hypothesised that the income impact of adoption of dairy technology transmits recursively through expenditure effects to influence nutrient intakes. Average per capita daily nutrient intake functions-for calories, protein and iron-are estimated as functions of per capita expenditure on food, per unit price of the nutrient, area allocated to food (cereals and pulses) as a proxy for food produced at home, and socio-economic factors of the household.On average both the MODP participant and non-participant households meet this minimum. MODP participants consume about 15% more calories, 13% more protein and 27% more iron compared to the non-participants (Table 4). Statistically, however, these differences are not significant. As discussed earlier, the contribution of the MODP to household nutrition may come not only through direct consumption of milk but also through substitution effects due to the impact of improved dairy production on market integration. Also, the diets may not change significantly as most households will stick to their usual diets. However, the main gains may be for the households that face de-ficiencies.Expenditure on food is a significant determinant of the intake of all three nutrients with estimated elasticities of 0.317, 0.326 and 0.193 for calorie, protein and iron. This supports the study hypothesis that increasing household incomes through the adoption of improved technology leads to improving household nutrient intakes and, therefore, contributes to better nutrition and health.There is a significant and negative relationship between the unit prices and nutrient intakes. The demand for these nutrients is relatively inelastic with own price elasticities of -0.39, -0.77 and -0.70, respectively. This reflects the degree of response of the house-hold to the cost of high-nutritive meals such as meat, dairy and vegetables. This may explain the fact that households with dairy crossbred cows consume 22% more milk than households without crossbred cows due to the perceived lower cost of own production. This also suggests an inverse relationship between the cost of food and the quan-tity prepared by the household. Unfortunately, these elasticities cannot be compared to estimates from other studies as in these studies commodity prices were used directly as regressors. The estimates obtained here are with respect to a weighted price index that depends on the cost of individual ingredients used in meal preparation.Nutrient intakes significantly increase as household food production (as measured by area allocated to staple crops) increases. This is clearly because food produced on farm constitutes the major source of household food consumption and hence, nutrient in-takes. There is an inverse and statistically significant relationship between the age of mothers and the per capita protein and calorie intake. This may be due to the likelihood that young mothers may have received more formal education due to the recent increase in the availability of schooling and more exposure to nutritional information. Male-headed households tend to consume significantly less energy and protein while house-holds with more children consume significantly more calories.To sum up, the assessment of the household impacts of adopting market-oriented dairy production which consists principally of crossbred cows and improved feed and management practices by smallholder households in rural Ethiopia demonstrates that market-oriented dairy technology significantly raises per capita income and income effects extend positively to expenditure and consumption. The higher the income level, the higher the expenditure on food, non-food items and farm inputs. On the other hand, expenditure is directly related to nutrient intakes. The resource base, including cultivated area and capital inputs, are also important determinants of per capita income.From a policy perspective, these results imply that the introduction of marketoriented activities is an effective way of reducing poverty and malnutrition of smallholder households in rural areas. Moreover, such introduction has the potential to stimulate the rural economy through demand stimulus for non-food. The enabling environment for the success of such activities includes marketing infrastructure and the availability of farm inputs and essential veterinary services for dairy farmers. Policies that encourage farmers' participation in markets and cash income generation appear to be critical.According to smallholder farmers who participated in the dairy project in Holetta, keep-ing crossbred cows has brought significant changes to their lives. Recent interviews in Holetta area indicate that crossbred cows have improved households' access to food, es-pecially dairy products. This has helped them to raise healthy children through increased consumption of dairy products. Moreover, the benefits of crossbred cows go far beyond household consumption. Farmers were also obtaining cash income from the sale of sur-plus milk, milk products and heifers. This increased their ability to buy fertilisers and improve their living standards by building decent houses and sending their children to school. Unlike crop production, which is seasonal, market-oriented dairying was more sustainable throughout the year in terms of generating cash income and hence, allows savings (Boxes 3, 4 and 5). According to the farmers, the benefits include access to dairy products for consumption and urine and manure for sustainable income. These in turn help them for the repayment of debts and household expenditure for such items as schooling, buying clothes and asset building.Fekeru Getachew is a young farmer. In 1995, he was among poor farmers who owned only one ox. Then he received two crossbred cows on credit. After eight years, he says, 'I have an entirely different way of life and I witnessed visible changes to the house-hold.' In addition to the two crossbred cows he currently has five draft oxen that he bought by selling the crossbred heifers.Fekeru believes that crossbred cows have brought many benefits to his family. 'To mention some', he said, 'I am now a father of three well-fed and healthy children because we have always milk at our home.' Remembering his old days where there was no cooking oil, he said, 'Now, thanks to these cows, we have enough cooking butter than ever before'. The benefits of these cows were not only for household use as they are also a source of cash income for the family. The cash income from the sale of dairy products is used to send his children to school and to buy clothing. He said that the cash from the sale of dairy products and crossbred heifers is helping him also to repay fertiliser credits. 'In situations like dry seasons where the price of crops goes down, I am no more obliged to sell my produce at low prices. I rather use dairy products as alterna-tive sources of cash.' Moreover, the fresh manure obtained from the cows has saved his wife from collecting fuel wood. However, he is facing problems such as inadequate feed supply and inadequate AI services. He said he has no doubt that the crossbred cows bring significant benefits. To sustain the benefits, he needs a regular supply of AI services and con-centrates.Gizaw Wendimu is a young secondary school graduate farmer. He said, 'I believe that I am a model to my neighbours because I have a better life since I received the two cross-bred cows in 1995.' He elaborates, 'I remember the day I learnt about crossbred cows with lots of joy. Since I brought the two crossbred cows in the house, we never had a problem of food and I have now two crossbred cows and two heifers.' Expressing his strong attachment to crossbred cows, he said, 'I couldn't imagine life with no milk and milk products in the future'. The crossbred cows, apart from helping him to have healthy children, are earning him income. He supplies the excess milk to a nearby hotel and to individuals.Gizaw has also built a decent house with the cash he obtained from the sale of milk and other dairy products. As the dry period for crossbred cows is shorter than for the local breeds, the income he earns proves more sustainable over time. Hence, he was able to save and repay his fertiliser credit. 'I can see a better future with my crossbred cows', he said adding, 'I am, therefore, planning to build new barn for the cows'. He attributes the benefits he obtained to the new technology as well as the continued effort he is making on the management of crossbred cows. He thinks that dairying can be a way forward for many farmers like him if it is supported with extension services.Teklu is an experienced farmer who appreciates the benefits of adopting crossbred cows if they are managed properly. At the beginning he said, 'I had only four cows, and then I received two crossbred cows on credit in 1995. Currently, I have five heifers and three crossbred cows'. He added, 'I have benefited for the last eight years from the crossbred cows and for me the cow is just like a dedicated mother who never gets tired of taking care of her children'. Teklu has planted oats and vetch for his crossbred cows on the plot he used to plant teff because he discovered that the dairy income in only two months is twice as high as the income from planting teff on that plot.Besides the consumption needs of his family, Teklu earned cash income from the sale of crossbred heifers and dairy products, which enabled him to build a new house in town. 'I also pay my debt regularly for fertiliser credit as the cows lactate for almost nine months per year. I keep my crossbred cattle at home and do not mix them with the local breeds during grazing', he said. This is intended to reduce the risk of diseases that can easily attack crossbred cows. Managing the crossbred cows for him is like nurturing a child, which should be done continuously and with no reluctance.Like other sectors of the economy, the dairy sector in Ethiopia has passed through three phases or turning points, following the economic policy and political history of the country. In the most recent phase, which is characterised by the transition towards a market-oriented economy, the dairy sector appears to be moving towards a takeoff stage. Liberalised markets, private sector investment and the promotion of smallholder dairy are the main features of this phase. Milk production during the 1990s expanded at an annual rate of 3% compared to 1.63-1.66% during the preceding three decades.However, most of the growth in milk production (60%) was due to the increase in herd size. Only one-quarter was due to productivity per animal resulting from technological change. This is not surprising since dairy production in the country is principally dependent on indigenous zebu breeds. Therefore, the integration of crossbred cattle to the sector is imperative for dairy development in the country. This can be achieved in two ways: first, by promoting large private investment that will eventually introduce new technology in the sector such as improved genotypes, feed and processing; and second, as smallholders will likely continue dominating the sector, by integrating crossbred cattle into the smallholder sector thereby improving their access to improved cattle breeds, AI and veterinary services and credit. Meanwhile, the government should also take the lead in building infrastructure and providing technical service to smallholders.Severe shortages, low quality and seasonal unavailability of feed likewise remain as major constraints to livestock production in Ethiopia. These constraints need to be addressed and technological change should be promoted in order to increase milk production.Due to poor infrastructure, the concentration of milk producers in rural areas, seasonal fluctuation of demand for fresh milk, and its perishability, the development and promotion of small-scale processing technologies is critical to increasing the partici-pation of smallholder producers in the dairy market. This is particularly important for Ethiopia where the demand for dairy products is dominated by butter rather than fluid milk. In addition, enhancing the ability of poor smallholder farmers to reach markets, and actively engage in them, is one of the most pressing development challenges. Milk groups and co-operatives increase the participation of smallholders in fluid milk markets in the Ethiopian highlands. Milk groups are a simple example of an agro-industrial inno-vation, but they are only a necessary first step in the process of developing more sophisti-cated co-operative organisations and well-functioning dairy markets. The survival of the milk groups that supply inputs, as well as process and market dairy products will depend on their continued ability to capture value-added dairy processing and return that value-added to their members. Evidence from Kenya emphasises the importance of collection organisations in improving access to markets and expanding productive bases (Staal 1995). There is also the need to stimulate the consumption of dairy products in the country as low demand for dairy products can potentially discourage production in the long run.Review of the development of the dairy sector in Ethiopia indicates that there is a need to focus interventions more coherently. Development interventions should be aimed at addressing both technological gaps and marketing problems. If the appropriate producer price incentives are in place and input markets are allowed to operate freely, dairy production may respond positively. This has been demonstrated in the case of dairy development in Kenya that has nearly similar agro-ecological and production systems. ","tokenCount":"11746"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"45a3606484541ba402651eaf5245a057","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/83a5263c-4a50-4b11-b4fb-e109549e8f1a/retrieve","id":"-75219994"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1945367a-c6c4-4078-93e3-beb274c89107","pagecount":"81","content":"The Smallholder Dairy Project The Smallholder Dairy Project (SDP) carries out research and development activities to support sustainable improvements to the livelihoods of poor Kenyans through their participation in the dairy sub-sector. SDP is jointly implemented by the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries Development (MoLFD, the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The project is led by the Ministry with primary funding from the UK Department for International Development (DFID). The three organisations work with many collaborators, including government and regulatory bodies, the private sector and civil society organisations.While it is difficult to pinpoint a particular consistent agricultural policy in Kenya since both objectives and strategies have been changing over time, a survey of National Development Plans and Sessional Papers (GOK 1965(GOK , 1974(GOK , 1986(GOK , 1994a(GOK , 1994b(GOK , 1996(GOK , 1997a(GOK , 1997b(GOK , 1997c) ) shows that the broad objectives have been growth, equity and participation. Other This report presents a review of the policy environment for the dairy industry in Kenya.The overall objective of the study was to identify and document components of the policy environment concerning dairy input and output markets, relevant stakeholders and their roles, the regulatory environment and factors constraining the implementation of those polices. Besides the review of relevant written Executive Summary policies, information was gathered in discussions during visits to key stakeholders, government officials, regulatory authorities, donors, non-governmental organisations, other knowledgeable key informants in dairy matters, and at a stakeholder workshop held to present and discuss preliminary findings. This review is divided into an executive summary and four sections. Section one traces the evolution of the dairy policy environment in Kenya from independence and gives a general overview of the present situation. Section two focuses on the regulatory frameworks that affect dairy production: cattle feeds, animal health, breeding and agricultural credit services are some of the areas reviewed. Section three looks at milk collection, processing and marketing. The regulatory frameworks for milk markets are reviewed and an assessment of the impacts of external milk trade and the informal milk market made. The section also discusses the potential effects of international trade rules and standards and a brief on the various stakeholders involved in milk collection, processing and marketing.Section four summarises the outcomes of the review, and discusses the policy implications. This review is divided into an executive summary and three sections. Section one traces the evolution of the dairy policy environment in Kenya from independence and gives a general overview of the present situation. Section two focuses on the regulatory frameworks that affect dairy production: cattle feeds, animal health, breeding and agricultural credit services are some of the areas reviewed. Section three looks at milk collection, processing and marketing. The regulatory frameworks for milk markets are reviewed and an assessment of the impacts of external milk trade and the informal milk market made. The section also discusses the potential effects of international trade rules and standards and a brief on the various stakeholders involved in milk collection, processing and marketing. At the end of the report, instead of a separate section for conclusions, they are summarised in this executive summary and as 'main issues' at the end of sections two and three.Some of the main constraints to increased milk production have been identified as inadequate quantity and quality of feed, including limited use of manufactured cattle feeds, and poor access to breeding, health and credit services. In some areas, poor access to output markets reduces the incentives to increase milk production.Farmers typically regard manufactured feed as being too highly priced, which contributes to its limited use. However, the major policy issue in feeds is the highly variable and often low quality of cattle feeds found on the market. The Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS), which is responsible for developing and enforcing quality standards, lacks the capacity to do so. The However, requirements of collateral and high interest rates remain prohibitive to many who wish to access credit. Recent trends towards macro-economic and fiscal policies that promote lower interest rates, if sustained, will help smallholders access more affordable credit.Poor infrastructure and unfavourable regulations are the main constraints in milk collection, processing and marketing. Given the high perishability of fresh milk, an efficient collection, processing and marketing system is crucial to the overall viability and profitability of commercial dairying. Overcoming these constraints is therefore critical. The high impact of poor roads alone on milk price is reflected in studies that estimate a price reduction of 47 cents per litre per kilometre of bad road.Though many marketing channels have evolved following liberalisation, the Kenya Dairy Board (KDB) has not developed consistent criteria for the licensing of some market intermediaries such as raw milk traders. Despite the entry of many processors into the market since market liberalisation, fewer remain in operation, and hardly any operates at full capacity. KDB records show that in 1997 there were some 45 registered private milk processors handling over 400 thousand litres of milk daily. However, the number of operational processors has been fluctuating and by February 2003 there were less than 30 operational dairy processing outfits. The processing market has assumed a potentially oligopolistic structure with four processors controlling more than 60% of the market.It is noted that despite efforts to promote this channel of milk marketing, the quantity of processed milk has remained about the same for nearly a decade at approximately 500 thousand litres per day leaving over 80% of the volume of milk sales going directly to consumers or through raw milk market intermediaries (Omore et al. 2002) 1 . The main participants in the raw milk markets are dairy co-operatives, milk bars, middlemen/traders, and farmers.The main policy issue in milk marketing relates to the licensing and regulation of the many players in the raw milk trade. The dairy industry is still, by and large, dominated by the preliberalisation mindset. For instance, trade in raw milk is still deemed illegal even when nothing in the law (Dairy Industry Act (DIA) Cap 336) explicitly outlaws it. Indeed the draft dairy policy (2000) has recognised the critical role played by raw milk vendors as stakeholders in the industry. Another major policy issue relates to the inconsistency between policy statements and the supporting legal framework. The dairy industry is still regulated by the Dairy Industry Act (Cap 336) (MoALD 2000a), first enacted in 1958 and which has not been amended to take into account the changed socio-economic environment. The reluctance to proactively bring all cadres of raw milk traders into the licensed and regulated milk trade in Kenya (unless they form groups and have fixed premises that can be inspected) sharply contrasts with efforts to do so in neighbouring countries, e.g. Uganda and Tanzania.Regulations in the dairy industry are mainly driven by perceptions of public health threats.However, the fact that regulations to reduce public health risks could have negative social consequences in terms of reducing employment opportunities for small-scale traders, or increasing the price of milk to poor consumers, is rarely recognised. Households in Kenya almost universally practice boiling of marketed milk before consumption. Since boiled raw milk is safe for human consumption, (because all bacterial pathogens that may be present in milk are killed by boiling (Omore et al. 2002)), dairy policy should recognise this fact. Recognising that some balance of the public health and social or economic tradeoffs may be necessary, and so some accommodation of regulated raw milk markets is not necessarily a threat the formal dairy industry, which is important for milk supply in major urban centres and for export trade expansion.It is perceived that there are current and potential threats to the local market from the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements of which Kenya is a signatory. However, given the strong domestic market and limited external dairy trade, it is not clear whether this perception is based on solid evidence, and some effort is needed to analyse the implications of each WTO regulation and the best implementation mechanisms so as to minimise negative effects.Officially, recorded quantities of imported milk products (mainly milk powder) are relatively insignificant and should not affect the local market.A running theme in this report is that of weak organisations and inadequate resources that limit effective implementation of stated policy and regulations. It has been noted that the major institutions involved in the industry such as:Central Artificial Insemination Station (CAIS), Kenya Veterinary Board (KVB), KDB, Ministry of Health (MOH), KEBS and MoLFD) often lack adequate resources to fulfil their roles effectively.Additionally there is often inadequate human and technical know-how. The KDB is attempting to address this issue through a restructuring process that also aims to transform the body from what has been a policing organisation to an effective regulator and development catalyst.Related to this is the issue of effective stakeholder representation. Given the realities of dairy production and marketing outlined above, a very significant number of stakeholders have little or no effective voice in decision-making on the industry. Key amongst these are the consumers, most of whom are consumers of milk from the informal/raw milk market, and the market agents that supply most of that milk. This lack of representation is not surprising, given the lack of organisation both of consumers and of informal market players. However, if the interests of all stakeholders are to be addressed, effective representation, whether on the Kenya Dairy Board, or in other stakeholder associations, is crucial.Lastly, poor co-ordination and information sharing between the various institutions and stakeholder groups in the dairy industry has been a matter of concern over the years. Though some steps have been taken to harmonise the operations of some institutions, for example the initiative to bring together the Kenya Stud-Book (KSB) and the Dairy Recording Services of Kenya (DRSK) under the Kenya Livestock Breeders Organisation (KLBO) to deliver efficient breeding services, the process has been slow.The key points emerging from this review are the following:• A supportive policy environment is needed to aid the development of Kenya's dairy industry, which contributes significantly to employment, public health, and the overall economy of the nation.• However, certain policy issues need to be urgently addressed, including the pace of review of policy and legislation, the appropriate enforcement of regulation, the development of institutional capacity, and widened stakeholder representation.• Specific policy priorities relate to provision of veterinary services (particularly health and breeding services for cattle), access to credit, and road infrastructure improvement.• Current policy and legislation initiatives need to take full account of broader national goals (such as the creation of employment and poverty reduction) and the reality of systems presently operating in the dairy sector These points lead to the following recommendations:• There is an urgent need for a quick review of the policies and regulations that are not in tandem with broader national goals (e.g., creation of employment) and the economic reality of the day.• Harmonization of the different acts that affect the dairy sector is required to reduce existing conflicts.• Private service provision should be encouraged with appropriate policies to fill gaps created by the liberalization process.Where that is not possible, sustainable alternatives should be sought, such as the introduction of cost sharing, or the training and equipping of community-based service providers. Accomplishing this may require revisiting licensing regulations for private service providers. • Full representation of all stakeholders on key bodies which influence policy would help ensure that the process of policy reform fully reflects the economic realities currently operating in the dairy sector. By early 1980s, the interventionist policies that centred on subsidised production services were rapidly becoming unsustainable, as budgetary constraints became more severe. For example, there was significant budgetary under-provision in the allocation for various expenditure items of the then Ministry of Livestock Development in key areas such as transport operating expenses that were critical for delivery of field services.Budgetary allocations for transport declined from 32% to 8% of the projected norm between fiscal year 1983/84 and 1990/91 (Peterson 1991).In In -address the future role of KCC -address issues of quality control.At this stage, it should be noted that certain less obvious policy shifts were occurring in the general agricultural and therefore dairy policy.The stress on equity as a policy objective seemed to have been dropped. This was perhaps due to earlier perceptions that equity meant Africanisation in the immediate post-colonial Kenya. Equity policy, say between small-scale and large-scale producers or between poor vs.rich consumers seems to have suffered as a result.The Four in milk production over others in the region. To achieve the overall objective of the dairy policy, the government will institute actions to enhance:• access to appropriate dairy production technologies and inputs• competition and efficiency in the dairy processing and marketing• entrance of new milk processors in the rural areas to tap the potential in these areas• delivery of region-specific and demanddriven extension messages that are tailored to suit the farmers Notices. Acts of parliament that directly effect the dairy industry include:• The Dairy Industry Act (Cap 336) (GOK 1958(GOK , revised 1984;;MoALD 2000a) • The Public Health Act (Cap 242)• The Food, Drugs and Chemical Substances Act (Cap 254) (GOK 1978b)• The Veterinary Surgeons Act (Cap 366)• The Pharmacy and Poisons Act (Cap 244) (GOK 1989b)• The Agriculture Act (Cap 318)• The Co-operative Societies Act (Cap 490)• The Standards Act (Cap 496)• The Animal Diseases Act (Cap 364) (GOK 1989a)• The Land Act (Cap 280) (GOK 1982)• The Factories Act (Cap 514)• The Companies Act (Cap 486) (GOK 1978a).To oversee implementation or enforcement of these laws, each Act has provided for the creation The following sections will address these policies and regulations, attempt to clarify where and how contradictory policies occur, and describe their implementation.Milk production is an important economic activity in Kenya and the country has been able to generally achieve self-sufficiency in its dairy requirements. Records show that annual domestic milk production more than doubled from 1 billion litres in 1980 to 2.4 billion litres in 1997 (FAO 2002).Since then, it is officially estimated that production has stagnated altogether despite the fact that the country is considered to have a potential to produce up to 4 billion litres/year (GOK 1997a), implying a gap of 1.6 billion litres between actual and potential output.However, strong evidence is emerging that in the absence of a livestock census since 1969, these estimates may significantly understate actual milk production (Waithaka et al. 2002 (Western); Staal et al, 1998 (Central)) so that the gap may not be nearly as large as earlier thought to be.Nevertheless, the continued failure to realise more of the productive potential has been attributed to underfeeding of dairy cattle, poor breeding services, ineffective disease control services and lack of access to credit. In some areas, poor access to output markets contribute to low incentive to increase production, and so low demand for the above inputs. Low input use in those cases is not necessarily due to the unavailability of input services.Underfeeding prevents cattle in smallholdings from realising a greater share of their genetic potential. Omore et al. (1999) attribute the low milk yields of between 5 and 8 kg/cow per day to under-nutrition. The main technical constraints to adequate cattle feeding include:poor quality and low quantity of available feeds and inadequate mineral supplementation. For breeding, the technical constraints relate to long calving intervals that sometimes stretch up to 600 days (Omore et al. 1999), although this is sometimes a deliberate farmer strategy to reduce risks and prolong cash flow (Tanner et al. 1998).Indeed, it is important to note that low cash input production strategies, including minimal concentrate feeding, may be very appropriate for small farmers with limited credit resources and great aversion to risk, or those with adequate land resources such as in parts of Rift Valley 2 (Kaguongo et al. 1997) These constraints to the industry's ability to perform and produce milk exist against a background of increasing demand arising mainly from growing population and increased urbanisation.Further, these constraints are considered to be partly associated with the inability of policies and responsible institutions to serve the interest of farmers. The main policy issues discussed under production are those related to industrial cattle feeds, animal health, artificial insemination, credit and dairy equipment.Where intensive production systems are appropriate, as in many parts of the Kenya highlands, an important determinant of the growth of the livestock sector is the availability of high quality livestock feeds. Feed cost accounts for over 40% of dairy production costs in highly intensive dairy systems (Staal et al. 2003b).The The manufactured livestock feed industry has From the public interest point of view, the role of cattle feed manufacturers is mainly to make the feeds available to the farmers at affordable prices, at the right time and importantly, to ensure consistent quality in conformity with set standards. They are expected to be:• efficient in their manufacturing, keeping pace with new technologies and world feed standards and• able to translate their efficiency into competitive prices, and promote proper use of cattle feeds within the dairy industry.The cattle feeds market is regulated by the MoLFD and the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) that is also responsible for setting the quality standards for all products sold in or imported into Kenya. Veterinarians are gazetted feed inspectors, but are rarely active in this capacity. Lack of policy and a specific regulator, as well as lack of capacity to regulate, is believed to have created an environment that makes it possible for some manufacturers to occasionally supply substandard feeds.Efficient and reliable animal health services The In line with these objectives KVAPS provides the following services:• financial support• training support• monitoring and counselling support  This rather slow progress can be attributed to the following factors:• The state of the economy and its adverse effects on the farmers' ability to afford proper animal health care • The lengthy process to access the loans -the process takes an average of three months• Applicants are required to provide acceptable collateral to the bank to cover at least 50% of the loan, a demand that many potential applicants find prohibitive.In contrast, the number of agro-vets and dukas supplying animal health products has expanded rapidly over the years. While these private ventures are not constrained by some of the factors affecting professional suppliers of animal health services, this expansion suggests that a demand for animal health services does exist, and that the problem lies within the institution of private veterinary practice.Concern with the deterioration in efficiency of delivery of veterinary prompted the DVS to review the animal health policies and strategies needed to enhance the contribution of the livestock sub-sector to the national economy. The resulting draft policy paper defines numerous policy and strategy directions that are considered important for dairy development.When the draft policy becomes operational and is implemented, it will be expected to contribute to resolving a number of outstanding issues constraining livestock production and efficient delivery of veterinary services to the clients, including:• the high cost of services and inputs• low level of awareness of benefits of animal health care• poor returns from livestock enterprises• inadequate supplies of veterinary inputs• inadequate storage facilities for drugs and vaccines in district veterinary offices• cattle rustling in the ASALs• resolving disease outbreaks from domestic and wildlife interactions• breach of quarantine regulations• large-scale outbreak of otherwise controllable diseases• inadequate feeds and supplementation• disappearing indigenous information base and ethno-veterinary practices and• limited public awareness of the existing policies.The proposed strategies cover services in the following areas:• animal breeding• animal disease and pest control• veterinary laboratory and quality control• animal welfare• planning and management of veterinary projects• veterinary training• veterinary public health• animal identification and• regulation of veterinary servicesThe preconditions considered necessary for success in achieving the stated policies and strategies are:• commitment and willingness by government to adopt and implement the proposed policies and strategies• commitment by all stakeholders to provide the necessary support, by playing the roles specified in the proposal As the regulatory body, the main functions of the KVB are:• arbitrates in disputes involving veterinarians• takes disciplinary measures where necessary• examines veterinarians holding qualifications obtained outside Kenya• registers veterinarians and license them and• supervises veterinarians in practice.Upon qualification with a bachelor's degree   2).However, enforcement of the regulations is apparently very limited: when shop owners inNjoro were asked what they regarded as threats to the longevity of their business, none stated law enforcement officers as a threat, and did not seem to view enforcement of laws as a risk to their enterprise. This simply underlines the low levels of enforcement.  * AHA = Animal Health Assistant. Source: Lewis (2000).Veterinary surgeons Act, Cap 366 Source: Kajume (1999, cited in ITDG (2000). The main policy issues in artificial insemination  The result is that dairy cattle in many instances seem to be getting increasingly smaller (Kilungo and Mghenyi 2001) and with lower yields, although undernutrition may be an important factor contributing to this (see Section 2.1). On the other hand, some suggest that poor recording practices in AI among small farmers is also contributing to in-breeding in some cases.Though an AI service was introduced in Kenya According to the DVS, there are about 300 private individuals, co-operative societies and veterinary clinics currently providing AI services in the country. Geographically, these are distributed as shown in Table 4. The Table indicates that the majority of private AI service providers also happen to be those areas with high dairy cattle density suggesting that market concentration is critical to the efficient provision of private AI services (Omore et al. 1999).• contracting AI services where private inseminators are contracted by the government in some areas and The main pedigree breeds in Kenya are Friesian, Brown Swiss, Ayrshire, Guernsey and Jersey.Only Kilifi Plantations and Mukumu Farm breed the Brown Swiss and Guernsey , respectively.The rest are bred in a number of large farms.Going by the number of breeders, Holstein-Friesian is by far the most popular breed (22 registered breeders) followed by Jersey (9) and Ayrshire (8).The dairy cattle breeders are responsible for ensuring that the industry gets quality dairy stock that will produce milk efficiently. They promote a variety of exotic and local species.Their role also includes promotion of the use of high quality breeding stock, lobbying for the interests of the industry and contributing to dairy sub-sector policy development. In practice, however, smallholders generally view the few breeders as an elite group not easily accessible to them.Through agricultural credit, farmers are able to acquire more goods and services than would otherwise be the case given their limited resources. The policy to improve flow of credit to farmers has included:• increasing the minimum lending by commercial banks to agriculture from 17 to 20% of their deposit liabilities It is also important to note that over the period since 1997, the government has increasingly adopted policies or issued statements that discourage direct involvement in commercial institutions, and a move to establish or expand parastatal agricultural banks will be seen as a step backwards. Re-establishing AFC or reviving the idea of the ADB as originally conceived would therefore appear to be contrary to other policies of the government. Currently, smallscale farmers who access credit mainly do so through small-and medium-scale enterprises lending institutions, co-operatives or self help groups. The increasing role of micro-credit lending institutions and demand for their services deserves further discussion.Institutions willing to lend to small-scale The main issues and constraints relating to the supply of cattle feed are:• costs that are perceived to be too high by farmers• shortage of key of feeds and key ingredients• variable and/or low quality of cattle feeds and ingredients used in feed formulation• uneven distribution of feed millers• lack of a clear policy guideline and effective regulation to ensure the supply of standardised quality feeds• decline in production of drought resistant crops and unavailability of fodder and pasture seed material including legumes• inadequate services such as extension, research, and market information• inadequate appropriate technological knowhow in forage management and storage.These constraints have clearly adversely affected the markets for cattle feeds, going by the low demand and under-utilised processing capacity.The main issues and constraints emerging in provision of breeding services are:• he as-yet unimplemented policy to harmonise breeding activities• non-recognition by the government of inseminators trained by the private sector, despite their increasing role in AI service provision• perceived high failure rates in AI services provided by KNAIS• high costs of private AI services• decline in AI service use and increasing reliance on unproven bull service by many smallholder farmers and• ineffective supervision of AI service providers by the DVS.The main issues relating to animal health services include:• weak supervision under the Pharmacy and Poisons Act is the restrictions under the Act that prohibit veterinarians from stocking veterinary drugs• exclusion of veterinarians as drugs inspectors under this Act has also limited the capacity to control the use of veterinary drugs thereby potentially contributing to their misuse The main issues in access to credit are:• non-implementation of intended government interventions to make credit easily available• slow growth of private micro-finance institutions• prohibitive collateral requirements• lengthy loan application procedures and In processors have been setting up additional coolers in strategic locations. Before market liberalisation, elaborate procedures for setting up milk coolers had to be followed, including reference to the District Development Committee. But now these have largely been lifted. The result is that most roads whose surface was once classified as bitumen or gravel have now worn out and are in worse condition than many earth roads. The cess collected from milk sales is not used for maintenance of feeder roads, unlike the case for cess charged for cash crops such as tea and coffee.In a number of cases, failure by government to meet project objectives and methods of implementation has led to disruption in donor funding for roads development and maintenance. For example, feeder roads in Eastern Province were intended to be maintained with funding from the EU using lowcost labour-intensive methods that offered the potential for employment generation and poverty reduction. However, at implementation stage, the government chose to engage a contractor instead of using local labour. This led to a suspension of funding for the project.The history of milk processing in Kenya dates  5). This drop was due to reduced deliveries by farmers who, frustrated by late and irregular payments, found more attractive outlets through informal traders (Owango et al. 1998). Currently, only one of KCC's 11 processing factories and two of its milk coolers are in operation.accorded dairy co-operatives more autonomy to pursue economic interest of the members (GOK 1997a). Instead of selling milk to KCC and other private processors, most co-operative societies opted to sell their milk directly to the traders/ middlemen, milk bars or consumers, who paid more for the milk. This has been shown to be because of high consumer preference for raw milk, which is seen to be more wholesome, have a better taste and is better priced. Even dairy farmers, frustrated by years of delayed and poor payment by the processors took advantage of the liberalised marketing environment and opted to sell in the alternative raw milk markets.These farmers actually consider the alternative markets to be more reliable and pay higher prices, although they too are often subject to risk of non-payment. In addition, low per capita income 8 levels have contributed to depression of effective demand for high-cost packaged dairy products.Following liberalisation of the dairy markets, the bond between farmers and their co-operative societies, and that between the societies and the processors were weakened considerably.Increasing numbers of farmers started diverting their milk away from the co-operative society and selling directly to consumers in the immediate neighbourhood, particularly schools, hotels, restaurants and shops. This has had the effect of reduced milk intake by the co-operative societies. The co-operative societies themselves also took advantage of the liberalised market, and started selling the bulk of their milk directly to consumers in the local townships, sometimes8 . Approximately 14 million Kenyans are currently unemployed and some 57% of its population are living below the poverty line, on income of less than US$ 1 a day. The Significantly, consolidation in milk processing is continuing, 9 while 18 factories that previously processed milk are either closed or have reduced their operations to milk cooling only (Table 6).Most of the 'failed' processors blame incomplete investment information for their failure.  Source: Staal and Mullins (1996). delivered at the factory, and is rejected. In the event that the farmer had been paid for the milk, this represents a direct loss to the processor. If they had not paid for the milk, as is often the case, the milk is returned to the producer.The most significant post-liberalisation development in milk marketing is the rapid growth of the raw milk sales in urban areas. Prior to the deregulation of milk markets, sales of raw milk were restricted to the rural areas that were largely unregulated. In that period, the regulatory authorities ensured that urban areas were inaccessible to the sellers of raw milk (Staal and Mullins 1996, Table 6).Over time, the share of processed milk in the urban markets has declined while that of raw milk has increased (Figure 1). Omore et al. (2004) estimated that raw milk accounts for 86% of the fresh milk market and that processed milk accounts for about 14%.The rapid growth of raw milk markets has been  to test for adulteration (Omore et al. 2002).Virtually, all milk bars in the urban areas operate in or near the middle-to low-income residential areas. In Nairobi, for example, most milk bars are to be found in Kibera, Kayole, Githurai, Kawangware and Kariobangi.There have been recent moves by the KDB to encourage milk bars to sell only bulked pasteurised milk from processors, or milk that has been batch pasteurised at the premises. This effort has not been successful, mainly because the increased cost of pasteurised milk does not match consumer-demand.During the survey for this review, only a few milk bars were found to have registered their businesses with the Registrar of Companies.Others were operating without registration certificates, this caused some problems with KDB and municipal officials, who are reported to demand 'protection fees' or bribes from them.      Source: FAO (2002).agents are free to develop efficient distributive mechanisms and processing capabilities to ensure that the domestic demand is met by domestic production and the surplus exported.It should be recognised, however, that the milk quality standards required by international markets are very high, and exports from Kenya may be constrained by poor quality control, even at the farm level.As described in the first section, many of Kenya's regulatory legislation and implementing institutions were put in place in the preindependence era and have undergone few significant reviews since then, even though major economic policies have been revised to reflect a more liberalised economic environment.As a result, a considerable gap exists between the written policy and the existing regulatory framework for governing many agricultural commodities, including dairy.12,000-10,000-8,000-6,000-4,000-2,000-0-Source: FAO (2002). Source: FAO (2002).  • organising and developing efficient production, 10 marketing, distribution and supply of dairy produce• improving the quality of dairy produce• promoting market research and private sector competition and• generally to ensure, either by itself or in association with any government department or local authority, the adoption of regulatory measures and practices designed to promote greater efficiency in the dairy industry and to protect public health.The DIA has been revised three times since 1958 (in 1962, 1972, and 1984) and is currently undergoing another revision. Already a draft DIA Bill has been prepared (see Section 3.2). In exercising its powers and in performing its A volume-based tax or cess is charged on retailed milk. Currently, the Board charges Kshs 0.20 per litre of milk handled and failure to comply may result in a higher penalty. This means any trader who sells milk to another trader is not liable to pay cess. Given the predominance of informal sales of milk to consumers, most milk remains un-cessed, even though anecdotal evidence from SDP suggests that informal traders are more than willing to pay cess in return for licenses to market milk freely without harassment. At the same time, double payment of cess occurs due to poor logistics and information as well as trader ignorance. For example, a middleman would pay cess for the milk delivered to a processor, who would also be charged the same rate of cess fees.Licenses are supposed to be issued to traders with acceptable premises before they may sell milk. Acceptable premises are defined to include fixed or mobile premises such as 'bicycles or other motorised vehicle utilised for storage, These prohibit sale of milk that contains less than 3.25% butterfat and 8.5% solids non-fat, and impose a fine of Kshs 10 thousand or up to one year's imprisonment, or both as penalty for breach of these regulations.These prohibit anyone to carry milk except with a permit issued by the KDB. Again, a breach of these regulations is penalised by a Kshs 10 thousand fine or up to one years' imprisonment or both.Not only do these regulations authorise the Board to appoint any person to be an inspector, but they also state that: 'all police officers shall be inspectors for the purposes of these regulations' with the powers (a) to enter the land, premises or place, or (b) to stop the vehicle, bicycle, pack animal or person and inter alia, seize, remove or detain any dairy produce if an offence is suspected. Currently, the inspectorate function at KDB is implemented through its own officers with the assistance of the police.Processors are registered under Sections 15, 16, and 17 of the Companies Act Cap 486 and the procedure for setting up a milk processing plant is very similar to those applying for milk coolers.Besides the milk quality controls described above, the KEBS also specifies the methods of analysis to be followed during processing. These methods are specific for each dairy product and the Bureau has the authority to enforce these standards by prosecution if necessary. The KEBS standards are similar, and in some ways more rigorous, than the public health standards, so that in satisfying the KEBS' requirements, the dairy industry also satisfies the public health requirements.Industry Bill (2000) Following the liberalisation of the dairy industry computerised 'data centre', with the aim of enabling better access to information for stakeholders.In addition to the head office in Nairobi, the KDB The procedure for setting quality standards for dairy products involves the Technical Standards are reviewed at least once every five years or as need arises. In some cases, Kenya has adopted and sometimes adapted standards from other countries. In all these actions, the various standards committees are guided by the international standards set by the Codex Alimentarius (CA) committee (Box 1). The Codex Alimentarius system presents a unique opportunity for all countries to join the international community in formulating and harmonising food standards and ensuring their global implementation. However, in common with other developing countries, the relevant bodies in Kenya may have limited ability to influence decisions on international standards,The Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point, or HACCP is a relatively new state-of-the-art approach to food safety that is gaining currency and international acceptance.HACCP, for example, has been endorsed by the Codex Alimentarius Commission (the international food standardsetting organisation), and is being used increasingly in the dairy industry to identify and eliminate hazards to food safety before they become critical.The  Through this Act the government ensures that the machines and equipment used for weighing and measuring milk are correct and accurate.The Act requires regular checking and adjusting of these machines. Every year officers of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry go round the country checking the accuracy of these machines. There is a further requirement that consumers be issued with receipts indicating the size, quantity and price so that complaints are easily verifiable.Before any business can be allowed to operate in Kenya it must have a license. The aim is to regulate the number of businesses in a particular line and curtail illegal activity while promoting professionalism at the same time by licensing only competent persons into particular lines of business.Before any dairy industry is set up, for instance a processing factory, it is now legally required that an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) be done to determine the possible impacts. These include air, water and sound pollution.Growth in production and demand of milk in Kenya has not been complemented by proportional growth in cooling and refrigeration facilities for the preservation of milk. As a result increasing quantities of milk is exposed to risk of spoilage.The Lactoperoxidase Preservation System (LPS) is an appropriate way to preserve milk where cooling is impractical (Codex 1991). Contrary to widespread misconception, the LP system is not a chemical preservation method but rather a natural biological system inherent in milk.Lactoperoxidase occurs naturally in raw milk as an antibacterial and is usually active for only 2 hours after milking. The LP system had been The WTO is the only global international organisation dealing with the rules of trade between nations. The emergence of the WTO has resulted in a multilateral trading system, complete with negotiated agreements that are ratified by the parliaments of most of the worlds trading nations. Kenya is a founding member and signatory to the WTO whose agreements are legally binding. Though Kenya's involvement in international trade in dairy products is minimal at the moment as documented in Section 3.5, these international agreements will become increasingly important depending on whether Kenya becomes a significant net importer or exporter of dairy products in the future.The agreement on agriculture is significant because it brought agriculture into the mainstream of international trade rules. The importance and policy implication of this agreement include:1) The AoA provides a framework for longterm reform of agricultural trade policies over the years. In brief, the Kenyan dairy industry will be exposed to more international competition from imports while at the same time finding it easier to export even into non-traditional external markets.2) Strengthened rules governing agriculture Tariffs resulting from this process of tariffication were subsequently to be reduced by an average of 36% in the case of developed countries over a 6-year period and 24% over a 10-year period for developing countries. The URA also introduced new rules on Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures (SPS). During the Uruguay Round negotiations there was concern that governments would start using unreasonable sanitary and plant and animal health requirements as trade barriers after the elimination of quotas on agricultural goods. So all such measures were brought under a new rule, the SPS.The most important aspect of the SPS is that it is an umbrella agreement, which recognises the government's rights to restrict trade in order to protect the health of its citizens. However according to the SPS a government cannot restrict trade or maintain a restriction against available scientific evidence. The SPS also allows for bilateral agreements.In order to harmonise sanitary and  The main technical issues in milk collection include:• The poor state of rural access roads, and The laws have also created regulatory agencies that are largely dysfunctional due to inadequate resources, and the impact of the regulations is therefore limited due to constraints faced in their implementation. For example, it is clear that the KDB has historically not always upheld the provisions of the DIA and all the Acts that deal with the sale of fresh milk. The suggested law review will therefore need to consider evidence as to why the current policy and law is not enforced effectively, even when it is appropriate.The apparently inconsistent treatment meted out by the licensing authorities to various parties dealing in similar products is a pointer to the arbitrariness with which the licensing procedures are implemented. This arbitrariness is already beginning to manifest itself in the conflict currently brewing in the milk market where the licensed and tax paying milk bars are agitating for the removal of those that are unlicensed and untaxed. This conflict situation is developing against a background where the antagonists milk bars, co-operative societies, traders as well as the farmers are all dealing in a similar product, raw milk. Lasting harmony would be encouraged by consistent implementation of licensing procedures.Experiences in many sectors and in many countries suggest that effective regulation is not likely to be achieved solely by providing resources to public bodies. This is because of systems that provide too few positive incentives, too many perverse incentives, and institutional culture in both the regulators and the regulated, which is hostile to policy implementation. There is the potential for much regulation to be determined, financed and enforced by the stakeholders in the industry itself, especially traders and processors. This may include quality assurance schemes, quality marks and awards.Where such self-regulation may be effective, owing to incentives for the participants, this should be considered, and, where appropriate, • A supportive policy environment is needed to aid the development of Kenya's dairy industry, which contributes significantly to employment, public health, and the overall economy of the nation.• However, certain policy issues need to be urgently addressed, including the pace of review of policy and legislation, the appropriate enforcement of regulation, the development of institutional capacity, and widened stakeholder representation. In the official policy and legislative environment, Although these are yet to be achieved, AFC is on the rebound with new funding and","tokenCount":"6875"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"56620c44c8a4ece4af170806c9d7b593","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/cd7cadca-c886-4bda-9dea-8a891c3e659a/retrieve","id":"-2048345397"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7b028b15-52fc-4bc0-ab56-4edc019d78b2","pagecount":"4","content":"From 2012 to 2106, the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish aimed to increase the productivity of small-scale livestock and fish systems in sustainable waysmaking meat, milk and fish more available and affordable to poor consumers across the developing world. The approach taken combined technology development in areas like animal genetics and feeding with the transformation of selected livestock and fish value chains, such as smallholder pigs in Uganda. Partnerships-with governments, national research institutes, and civil society and the private sector groups-are key to achieving these aims. This approach is continuing in the second phase CGIAR Research Program on Livestock.In each of the countries where the Program operated, these partnerships provided critical inputs at different stages of design and implementation. In the Uganda smallholder value chain work, for instance, the Program could not have achieved most of its objectives without the support offered by partnerships. This has been in the form of technical and financial support, human resources, infrastructure and knowledge sharing.While some partners were involved throughout the implementation period, specialized partnerships were also formed at different phases of implementation. This brief illustrates the benefits of this approach in the Program's smallholder pig value chain transformation work in Uganda.Beginning in 2012, the Program's pig value chain development work in Uganda, initially funded by International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and subsequently by Irish Aid and working closely with key partners and experts, followed a distinct iterative process, often implemented in parallel, as set out below.Program scoping and engagement-From the beginning, and through regular stakeholder meetings, the Program linked up strategic research and development partners.Visioning-The Program developed a common vision, theory of change and impact pathways for the joint value chain transformation efforts.Site selection-The Program identified specific locations and communities where research for development assessments and interventions would be centred. Marketing (PPM) Uganda Ltd, FarmGain Africa). These and many others were engaged from the start of the project and participated in many of its activities (outcome mapping, impact pathway, value chain assessment and feedback, review and planning workshops). A key outcome of this engagement was the birth of the pig multi-stakeholder platform that arose from the need for greater visibility of the pig value chain as expressed by the partners at the impact pathways workshop. The platform connects the various actors and stakeholders and facilitates information sharing, joint projects and advocacy to central government and other policy processes.Visioning To achieve a sense of collective ownership among the partners and a shared vision for the future direction of the pig value chain, the Program involved partners in a visioning exercise during the outcome mapping workshop in 2012. The participants identified the following value chain vision statement: 'empowered and efficient smallholder pig producers with increased productivity, having equitable access to markets, information, knowledge, improved technologies, and inputs for sustainable and resilient livelihoods in Uganda by 2023'.Site selection In 2012, during the selection of potential sites for the pig value chain work in Uganda, Geographic information system characterization was used, basing on pig population densities and poverty levels, together with stakeholder consultations. Partners validated the selection and identified other criteria for site selection. These partners included representatives of the local governments of Kayunga, Mukono, Bukedea, Kumi, Soroti, Tororo, Kasese, Hoima, Kibaale and Kabarole districts. At the end of this consultative process, Kamuli, Mukono and Masaka districts were selected as project sites for the inaugural smallholder pig value chain development project, which was funded by IFAD and the European Commission (EC). In 2013, following a similar process, Hoima and Lira districts were added to the project sites for the follow-on Irish Aid-funded MorePORK project.Situation diagnosis Prior to launching any major interventions, in 2012/13, ILRI conducted rapid value chain assessments (VCA) and situation analyses in collaboration with the local partners.Following the diagnostic assessments, key constraints and opportunities facing smallholder pig producers and other value chain actors were identified. Constraints included animal health issues (diseases and parasites), production and marketing challenges (expensive and low quality feeds, low price offered for pigs/pork, expensive inputs), poor slaughter and waste management and low visibility of the sector. These guided the selection of best-bet interventions.'Best-bet' interventions Best-bet intervention selection was mainly undertaken through participatory processes with stakeholders. In 2013, VCA feedback meetings were held with partners at district level, and potential best-bet interventions identified. The identified interventions were also presented to farmers and value chain actors at village level during feedback sessions for validation. In Lira and Hoima, the best-bet selection protocols were applied with stakeholders during feedback meetings. Success and failure reports also informed the selection and design of some interventions.Interventions were pilot tested, such as the pig business hub model in Masaka district involving two pig farmer cooperatives. Farmer capacity building support in business and enterprise development was provided hand in hand with the business hub model. Other best-bet interventions tested included African Swine fever (ASF) biosecurity protocols, using alternative local feeds for pigs, pig slaughter and food safety. Each of these typically involved different partners.Scaling Some of the Program's research interventions have been adopted and scaled up by local partners. PPM Uganda Ltd, a private firm that provides advisory and marketing services to small-and medium-scale pig producers has systematically used the Program's training materials in its courses. The pig multi-stakeholder platforms in the greater Masaka and eastern regions of Uganda were used for learning and to scale out feeds intervention (sweetpotato silage-based diets) by an IFAD/EC-supported development project of the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas. These scaling efforts have been greatly supported and accelerated by efforts to strengthen the capacities of local partners. Engaging partners in a sustained manner over the life of the projects, and taking account of their interests helped make the joint ventures scalable and sustainable. The communication, engagement and platforms also played an important role in updating partners on field activities and how best their interventions could be deployed.The steps above outline the general process and roles of partners at different stages. The following two partnerships illustrate the successes and challenges in a bit more depth. The first considers the 'retail' node of the value chain-often overlooked in more production-focused work-for which new types of partners had to be found. The second examines the Program's partnerships with local government, critical in the smallholder value chain, but again often overlooked by research for development efforts that are more comfortable with central government partners.One key challenge identified by stakeholders during the pig value chain assessments was the absence of centralised pig slaughter facilities in rural and urban areas. This potentially exposes consumers to contaminated and unsafe pork. Furthermore, unregulated slaughtering coupled with poor pork handling practices increase the risks from zoonotic diseases and pose waste management challenges.To mitigate this, ILRI worked with VWB and district governments to strengthen the skills of butchers and pig traders through training in proper pork handling and pig slaughter practices. In 2016, as part of this collaboration, a team of students from the United States of America (USA) trained 47 butchers in Mukono district. The team also refurbished a local butchery, transforming it into a model from which local butchers could learn to improve their own pork sale outlets. Upon their return to the USA, the students raised USD 2400 to purchase chopping boards for the trained butchers to help them improve their pork handling practices and safety standards. All these expenses were met by VWB-US, while ILRI provided staff time for monitoring and technical backstopping. VWB-US also steered the compilation of extension information materials on ASF detection and prevention and these were translated into three local languages (Luganda, Runyoro and Luo) and are currently being used by farmers (in Masaka and Lira), butchers (in Mukono) and traders (in Masaka, Mukono and Lira and at the Wambizzi abattoir). The manuals are also being used by PPM Uganda Ltd in its work in providing training to pig producers and traders and actively supporting pig producers and value chain actors through the use of a 'WhatsApp' chat group.In Masaka district, ILRI is working with the local government to set up a centralised slaughterhouse or abattoir. The district administration allocated land to construct the municipal abattoir and committed financial and human resources in form of a budgetary allocation and the deployment of the district engineer's staff time to the project. For its part, ILRI recruited two consultants to develop a business plan and an optimal structural design for the abattoir. With land, plans and strong buy-in from local producers, ILRI and the district government are engaging central government and foreign partners to secure the necessary funding to build the abattoir.In Mukono district, ILRI partnered with the local government to develop the capacities of pig producers to enhance the profitability of their businesses. Following an outbreak of ASF that threatened to wipe out an extremely significant portion of the district's pig population, the Mukono district local government procured piglets to distribute to 110 smallholder farmers in 6 sub-counties. ","tokenCount":"1487"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f1688562bdb55d7c5424e3b882409f0b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/75ecbdfc-93b8-40da-bee2-974c5dc20274/retrieve","id":"1292162273"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"799df828-4157-4962-9110-0fa8f64beeb2","pagecount":"41","content":"Aquaculture is used to produce fish and shellfish for markets under controlled or semi-controlled conditions. Fish must be maintained at densities that greatly exceed those typically found in nature. Regardless of the culture system used (e.g. ponds, raceways, reuse systems, cages), it is imperative that the culturist maintains an environment conductive to good fish health. However, fish farming conditions are often conducive to the spread of disease. Fish Diseases may be subdivided into: Infectious diseases, caused by pathogenic organisms present in the environment.They are mostly contagious and treatment may be necessary to control the disease outbreak. Non-infectious diseases, caused by environmental problems, nutritional deficiencies, or genetic anomalies. These are not contagious, usually cannot be cured by medications but rarely happen and are best prevented and controlled by provision of good water quality and good management.Infectious diseases are more prevalent and broadly categorized as bacterial, parasitic, fungal, or viral diseases and usually associated with high mortality and morbidity rates with broad negative impacts on farmers, consumers and the environment.The present study reviews infectious diseases among fish in Egyptian aquaculture and their impact on fish and human life, as well as the various interventions that have been used to attempt to prevent and control these diseases. Although, a considerable amount of research has been carried out into fish diseases in the Egyptian aquaculture sector, we focus on investigations that have been carried out since 2000.The sources and modes of infection among fish are variable, as fish disease is rarely a simple association between pathogen, a host fish and an environmental problem.Other stressors, such as poor water quality often contribute to the outbreak of disease and the complexity of the challenge. Many pathogens are either normal inhabitants in or on fish or saprophytes present in soil or water or invertebrate hosts, such as snails or crustaceans. The majority of infections are stress related. The transmission of infection to fish occurs through direct and indirect exposure of cultured fish to pathogens, which is facilitated by poor fish health management. The mechanisms by which fish diseases are transmitted generally including a mixture of the following: contaminated water supply, infected eggs or fish stocks and/or contaminated culture facilities, together with environmental conditions associated with the fish culture practice (air, ponds, soil, equipments, feed, pollutants, etc.).Bacteria are responsible for many diseases and heavy mortalities in farmed fish.Most of the causative micro-organisms are naturally occurring saprophytes, which utilize the organic and mineral matter in the aquatic environment to grow and multiply. It has been shown that the normal bacterial flora of fish reflects the bacterial population of the water in which they swim. The majority of fish pathogenic bacteria are short, Gram-negative rods belonging to the families Enterobacteriaceae, Pseudomonadaceae and Vibrionaceae. Typically they cause septicemic and ulcerative disease conditions. The long, Gram-negative, myxobacteria of the family Cytophagaceae, which are not recognized as pathogens of warm-blooded animals, may also cause heavy mortality in fish stocks. Gram-positive micro-organisms, including a few that are acid-fast, are less frequently encountered, but can cause severe losses in certain species of fish under particular conditions.During 2000, severe mortalities and morbidities were seen among cultured Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) in several large freshwater fish farms in Egypt (see Table 1). Laboratory studies revealed the presence of Aeromonas hydrophila in 70% of fish examined. The recovery rate of Aeromonas hydrophila from skin, muscle, kidney, spleen and liver tissues were 53%, 35%, 65%, 63% and 60% respectively (1) . Mortalities in both tilapia sp. and mullet sp. due to bacterial infections also occurred in several farms at Dakahila and Sharkia Governorates, where laboratory investigations isolated Aeromonas hydrophila and Flexibacter columnaris (2) . Moreover, Vibro anguillarum, as an economically damaging infectious disease, was recovered from 62% of clinically affected Nile tilapia. The percentages of isolation from skin lesions, muscles, kidney, spleen and liver tissues were 35%, 22%, 60%, 48% and 43%; respectively (3) .During 2001, columnaris disease was reported among Oreochromis niloticus and Clarias lazera cultured in the Abbassa Fish Farm, Sharkia. Identification of the isolates revealed Flavobacterium columnare and Cytophaga spp (4) (Table 1).Pseudomonas fluorescens was also isolated from carp in the Abbassa Fish Farm, with a prevalence rate of 23% (5) . Yersinia ruckeri (9.3%) was isolated from both apparently healthy and diseased cultured O. niloticus (8.3% and 12.4% respectively), and C. lazera (7.0% and 10.8%). In C. auratus and C. carpio, the incidence in apparently healthy fish was 3.8% and 2.5%, respectively (6) . During 2002 Pseudomonas fluorescens was isolated from Nile tilapia cultured in duck-fish farms at Ismailia and Sharkia Provinces with prevalence of 8% (7) (Table 1). Seventy eight isolates of Streptococcus iniae were also recovered with an incidence of 86.7% from diseased Nile tilapia cultured in brackish water in Fayoum Governorate. The environmentally stressed fish showed a mortality rate of 73.3%, compared with a mortality rate of 46.6% in non-environmentally stressed fish (8) .During 2003, outbreaks of KIebsieIla pneumoniae in 5 -7 month old Nile tilapia were recorded in three farms in Kafr EI-Sheikh Governorate, with mortality up to 27.7% (9) (Table 1). Enterococcus faecalis was recovered from Nile tilapia and rearing pond water samples reached 43.3%, 30% .0% and 85%, 60%, 5% in extensively, semi intensively and intensively operating fish farms, respectively (10) .   (11) .During 2005, Yersinia ruckeri was isolated from Nile tilapia, common carp (Cyprinus carpio) and monosex tilapia from different areas in both Behera and Kafr El-Sheikh Governorates (Table 1). The mortality number and percentage in monosex tilapia were lower than in common carp (12) .During 2006, Enterobactereacea (11 strains of Edwardsiella tarda and 9 strains of E. Ictaluri) were isolated from Nile tilapia, common carp and African catfish (50 ± 2 g) that were cultured in Behera, Kafr El-Sheikh and Alexandria Governorates (13) (Table 1). Streptococcus faecelis bacteria was recovered from monosex tilapia and grey mullet from different areas in Behera Governorate (14) . In fish farms in Behera, Kafr El Sheikh and Alexandria Provinces, Enterobactereacea (E. tarda and Yersinia spp.) were isolated from of Nile tilapia, common carp, African catfish and grey mullet (50 ± 2 g) at an incidence of 34%, 24%, 50% and 20%, respectively (15) . A. hydrophila and P. fluorescens were isolated from tilapia and African catfish at an incidence of 50% and 16.9%, respectively, while each of A. caviae and A. sobria were isolated with an incidence of 20% and 12.3%, respectively (16) .During late summer of 2008, an outbreak caused mortality of about 15% among cultured Nile tilapia in a private fish farm in Behera governorate due to infection F. columnare (17) .During 2009, the Bacteriological examination of 021 fish samples collected from Kafr El-Sheikh Governorate (60 diseased and 60 apparently healthy fish) revealed the isolation of 26 Streptococcus isolates with an incidence of 43.3% from diseased Nile tilapia and isolation of 17 isolates, with an incidence of 28.3%, from the 60 apparently healthy fish. The serological examination of 37 selected isolates result in differentiation into 17 Enterococcus faecalis, 12 Streptococcus iniae, 5 Streptococcus pneumoniae and 3 untype-able strains (18) .Parasites are the most common cause of infectious diseases. There are both opportunistic and obligate parasites. Obviously, for the obligate parasite, it is to the parasite's advantage not to kill the host if it is to live and reproduce. So, we find numerous parasites in wild fish which cause very little problem. Problems occur when infected fish are brought into the laboratory or into an intensive culture situation. Not only are the fish unusually stressed but they are also usually crowded and the reproducing parasites are not dispersed as they are in the wild. The closer the proximity of fish to one another the greater the probability of infection and mortality. Only the major parasite problems in cultured fish are covered here. Parasitic diseases of fish are classified into protozoan, crustacean and helminthic diseases. Generally, most of the crustaceans are external parasites causing severe diseases while protozoans cause either external or internal diseases according to their habitats. The majority of monogeneans and annelids are external parasitic diseases, while the majority of digeneans cause internal parasitic diseases. Nematode, acanthocephalan and cestode infestations are in general internal parasitic diseases. Nevertheless, a number of parasites with larval stages in fresh water fish have a piscivorous mammalian carnivore as their normal final host and are able to infect humans because of low host specificity of the adult stage.During 2000, encysted metacercariae were encountered in the muscles of cultured tilapia fish in Abbassa fish farm (see Table 2). After experimental infection, three Prohemistomatidae adult worms (Prohemistomum vivax, Mesostephanus appendiculatus and Mesostephanus melvi) were recorded (19) . Similarly, encysted metacercariae (EMC) were collected from Nile tilapia at Dakahlia, and after experimental infection, adult flukes were recovered and identified as Prohemistomum vivax, Pygidiopsis genata, Procerovum varium and Haplorchis pumilio (20) .During 2001, the prevalence of Trypanosoma infection was recorded in wild Chrysichthys auratus (42.3%) and African catfish (8%). The lowest infection was found in Morymyrus kanumme (3.5%) and Bagrus bajad (2.5%) while Nile tilapia and Labeo niloticus were free from infection (21) (Table 2). Other research studies were carried out on tilapia from three localities in Egypt, where 61.3% fish were infected with six different types of encysted metacercariae. Heterophyid metacercariae were reported from Tilapia zillii and Nile tilapia, haplorchid metacercariae were found in T. galilae, blue tilapa (O. aureus), T. zillii and Nile tilapia. Clinostomatid and euclinostomatid metacercariae occurred at the lowest percentage among T. zillii.  (22) . Moreover, a study carried out on Clarias lazera and Synodontis schall for the external and internal ). All isolated protozoa were at greatest prevalence during winter, followed by spring (24) . A parallel study also revealed that the prevalence and abundance of the metacercariae of Centrocestus sp. (Trematoda: Heterophidae) were recorded on gills of Nile tilapia and revealed 19.5 -98.46% infection rate (25) .During 2003, the prevalence of infection with Ichthyobodo necator in grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) was 100% while that with Capillaria larvae was 50%, while, the prevalence of infection in Nile tilapia with a mixed infestation of Trichodina spp. and Gyrodactylus spp. was 100% (26) (Table 2). In the same year, seven freshwater fish species were investigated for helminth parasites. The infection rate was 48%: acanthocephala (14%), cestodes (16.22%), digenea (10.66%), monogenea (1.77%), and nematodes (6.22%) were recorded (27) .During 2004, an investigation of entero-protozoan parasites in five fish species (Nile tilapia, blue tilapia, Tilapia zillii, African catfish and common carp) of farmed fishes at the Abbassa fish farm was carried out (  (28) . A parallel study was carried out during the same year for the external parasites that infest freshwater fish, mainly tilapia species (T. zillii, blue tilapia and Nile tilapia), African catfish, common carp and mullets collected from different aquaculture facilities in Sharkia Governorate. Twelve external parasite species were identified, eight of which were monogenetic trematodes (Macrogyrodactylus congolensis, Cichlidogyrus tiberinaus, C. magnus, C. arthracanthus, C. euzeti , C. longicornis longicornis, C. thurstonae and Heterothecium dicrophallum), two of which were protozoans (Trichodina domergue and Henneguya branchialis) and two crustaceans (Learnea sp. and Ergasilus sp.) (29) .Another investigation of parasitic infestation of Nile tilapia was carried out on private fish farms in Dakahlia Governorate. The total prevalence of parasitic infestation was 63.3%, while skin and fin infestations were 61.8 and 38.2%, respectively. The infestation rate with Trichodina, Chilodonella, Scyphidia, Apiosom sp., Icthyoborzecator, Gyrodactylus sp. and mixed monogenea with protozoa were 20.7%, 8.9%, 13.8%, 3.3%, 2.9%, 7.8% and 6%, respectively. The prevalence of parasitic infestation in Nile tilapia was high in autumn (26.7%) and least during summer (13.3%) (30) .During 2006 a number of African catfish cultured in Ismailia Governorate were investigated for internal parasitic diseases (Table 2). The prevalence of infection was 73.80%. The infection rates varied with season; spring (66.66%), summer (83.05%) and autumn (81.36%) while the lowest level was during winter (63.15%). The infestation rate was determined; nematode (19.28%), metacercariae (27.85%), fluke trematodes (18.57%) and cestodes (8.18%). The parasitological examination of infested fish revealed adult trematodes from the intestine (Afromacroderoides lazera, Orientocreadium lazeri and Astiotremma reniferum), metacercariae from the musculature and liver (Prohemistomatid metacercariae, Diplostomum tilapi and Cyanodiplostomotid). Cestodes (Polynchobothrium clarias) and nematodes from the intestines (Procamallanus laeviconchus and Paracamallanus cyathopharynx) (31) .During 2007 the ectoparasites infesting some freshwater fishes (Oreochromis spp), C. lazera and silver carp) in Behera Province were recorded (Table 2). The overall infestation rate was rate 87.3%. It was found that Oreochromis spp. was the most susceptible species to parasitic infestation (99%) followed by silver carp (97%) and C. lazera (66%). The peak of infestation was recorded during winter (98%) followed by autumn (87.3%), spring (82.7%) and summer (81.3%). The recorded ectoparasites were Trichodina spp., Chilodonella hexastica, Apiosoma spp., Ambiphrya spp., Henneguya branchialis, Myxobolus spp., and monogenetic trematodes (32) . Black carp Mylopharyngodon piscens (152) and common carp (400) were also collected from Abbassa fish farm, Sharkia, to study the prevailing ecto-and endoparasitic diseases. Protozoa (Trichodina sp.) affected common carp with total prevalence 65.25%. Seasonal prevalence patterns were as follows: spring 80%, summer 50%, autumn 72% and winter 59%. Monogenetic trematodes infected common carp with an overall prevalence of 56.5%. Seasonal prevalence was spring 30%, summer 73%, autumn 69%, and winter 54%. Encysted metacercaria of Centrocestus formosinus were isolated from black carp, with total prevalence 100% throughout the year. Encysted Diplostomum sp. metacircaria were isolated from common carp with total prevalence 0.5%. In terms of nematodes, Capillaria sp. was isolated from the intestines of black carp and common carp with overall prevalence values of 56% and 30.75%, respectively. Seasonally, the prevalence of Capillaria among infected black carp was spring 61.4%, summer 77.4%, autumn 30%, and winter 9.1%, while for common carp prevalence during spring was 44%, summer 48%, autumn 7% and winter 24%. The nematode Paracamallanus cyathopharynx was also isolated from the intestine of black carp by total prevalence of 7.93% and maximum seasonal prevalence during spring of 21%. The parasite was not recorded during summer, autumn or winter. The crustacean Lernaea cyprinecea was recorded in common carp at an overall prevalence of 22.5%, with seasonal prevalence of spring 2%, summer 74%, autumn 14% and winter not recorded. Leeches were recorded in 1.5% of common carp and a prevalence during spring of 6%, and a complete absence during the other seasons (33) .During 2008, a Cleidodiscus aculeatus infection was seen and associated with mass mortalities of Cyprinus carpio reared in tanks at the Abbassa Fish Farm (Table 2). All dead fish had high parasite abundance (mean abundance [± S.D.] = 148.3±22.5), entangled in the gills. Fish (73.2%) harbored the parasite with intensities ranging between 5 and 12 parasites per fish (34) .During 2009, The prevalence of isolated Protozoa from Oreochromis niloticus fingerlings collected from a cultured fish farm in Giza showed high infestation rates with Trichodina mutabilis (71.3%), Chilodonella hexasticha (60%). Monogenetic flukes (Gyrodactylus rysavyi) had infestation rate of 40%, while digenetic larvae (Hetrophyid metacercariae) showed an infestation rate of 66.6%. Also the prevalence and intensity of infection by Lernaea cyprinacea among three carp species were detected. A total of 450 fish were examined. The overall prevalence of infestations by Lernaea cyprinacea was 50.4%. Silver carp has the highest prevalence of Lernaea cyprinacea (62.7%), followed by grass carp (49.3%), then mirror carp (39.3%) (35) .During 2010 the metazoan parasitic infestation of African catfish, Clarias garipienus collected from January to December 2010 from Al-Manzala fish farm; Dakahlyia Governorate. Nine hundred and eighty four parasites were collected from 344 fish samples out of 500 African catfish (Clarias garipienus); different parasitic genera, trematodes (monogenetic Quadriacanthus clariadis and digenetic Orientocreadium sp.), cestodes (Polyonchobothrium sp.) and unidentified encysted metacercariae (EMC) were recovered. Parasites were collected from different body parts of the fish. Prevalence, intensity and abundance of the infection with parasites varied with season. Several histopathological changes were observed in fish organs; gills, accessory respiratory organ, skin, musculature, heart, anterior and posterior kidneys, liver, spleen, and intestine (36) .During 2012 the prevalence of Anguillicolacrassus crassus infection in the European eel Anguilla anguilla collected from Alexandria, Sharkia and Dakahlia fish farm, was 63%, with 4.49 mean parasite intensity per infected fish. The highest infection rates were recorded in spring and winter (79.3 and 70%), respectively. The lowest infection rates were recorded in autumn and summer (53.3 and 49.3%), respectively (37) .Fungi are responsible for a number of economically important diseases in teleosts. They cannot use photosynthetic pathways for energy production as they have no chloroplasts and therefore must live a saprophytic or parasitic existence. The Oomycetes (Saprolegnia, Achyla, Branchomyces) group is the most important of the fungal pathogens and are commonly seen during winter and are associated with stress factors. They are widely distributed in aquatic habitat and very few are parasitic. Oomycetes have a common characteristic feature of producing motile biflagellate spores that can cause infection to occur at any time. Saprolegniasis is a common and highly prevalent fungal disease that affects all species and ages of freshwater and estuarine fish. Several factors are involved in the development of fungal infections in fish. These factors may affect the fish or the fungus and it is a combination of factors rather than any single condition which ultimately leads to infection. It has long been considered that the fungi responsible for saprolegniasis are secondary pathogens, and lesions are commonly seen after handling and after traumatic damage to the skin, in overcrowded conditions and in conjunction with pollution or bacterial or parasitic or viral infections. Temperature has a significant effect on the development of infections. Most epizootics occur when temperatures are below the optimal temperature range for the species of fish. As the majority of fungal infections are secondary invaders, the review of fungal infection is included in the section on mixed infections.Viruses cause clinical or subclinical problems with negative impacts on the economy of fish production. Although members of twelve virus families have been identified in wild and cultured fish worldwide, there is currently little information about viruses infecting fish populations in Egypt. Only three records indicate the presence of infectious pancreatic necrosis virus (IPN) and spring viremia virus (SVV) among freshwater fishes (38)(39)(40) . The knowledge gap can be filled using a discovery-oriented fish research system. Based on multidisciplinary collaborative activity and utilizing molecular markers and molecular biology technology, such a system could give a comprehensive picture of the current status of fish viruses in Egypt within a few years.During 2000 a Saprolegnia diclina infection was observed during winter among Nile tilapia hatcheries in Sharkia Province. Mixed bacterial (54%) and parasitic (6%) infections were recorded (Table 3). The recovered bacterial isolates were identified as Flexibacter columnaris (8%), Aeromonas hydrophila (8%), Pseudomonas fluorescens (12%), and mixed infection of A. hydrophila and P. fluorescens (14%). The detected ecto-parasites were Trichodina sp. (2%) and Lamproglena sp. (4%). Single infection by Saprolegnia diclina was prevalent (40%) (41) .During 2001 aeromonads and pseudomonads together with Ichthyophthirius multifiliis and Dactylogyrus spp. were obtained from Oreochromis niloticus reared in hatcheries in Aswan Governorate (Table 3). Aeromonas hydrophila was the highest virulent strain, causing 100% mortalities within 5 days of infection while Pseudomonas fluorescens infection caused 60% mortalities within 8 days (42) .During 2002 mortalities due to Aeromonas hydrophila and Flexibacter columnaris as well as P. fluorescens were recorded at EI Mahzala, Nawa, EI-Tal EI-Kebeer and Abbassa fish hatcheries (Table 3). That same year, lernaeosis was recorded among common carp, grass carp, silver carp, black carp and Nile tilapia from the fish hatchery of the government's Central Laboratory of Aquaculture Research (CLAR), Abbassa, with an overall prevalence of 20.76 (43) .During 2004 Beni-Souef hatchery was visually inspected for parasitic lernaeids from brood and grow-out stocks (Table 3). The prevalence of the lernaeosis among broodstock of silver carp, grass carp and common carp were 38.8%, 39.6% and 39.4%; respectively. By contrast, prevalence among small sized carps of the same species was 39.6%, 61.7% and 54% (44) . During 2009, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and P. fluorescens (Biovar I, II, III, IV, and V) were isolated from silver carp broodstock, which exhibited 65% mortality following their transfer from Behera Province to Domiata Province (Table 3). The microorganisms were highly virulent to all tested cyprinids, moderately virulent to Nile tilapia and African catfish and virulent to mugilids (45) . During the same year, the crustacean parasites, especially Lernaea spp., were reported to cause serious economic problems and high mortality rates among fish hosts in carp hatcheries in the CLAR hatchery, Abbassa. The overall prevalence of infestations by L. cyprinacea was 50.4%. Silver carp had the highest prevalence (62.7%), followed by grass carp (49.3%), then mirror carp (39.3%). Among immature fish, the prevalence was higher in silver carp (72%) than in grass carp (54%) or mirror carp (45%). Also, among mature fish, the incidence was higher in silver carp (44%) than in grass carp (40%), or mirror carp (28%). Among immature fish, the intensity of infestation (i.e. counts per fish) was highest in silver carp (3-53), followed by mirror carp (4-28), then grass carp (4-22). Among mature fish, intensity was highest in silver carp (6-60); followed by grass carp (4-30) and mirror carp (10-20) (46) .Infectious disease occurs when a virulent pathogen, obligate or facultative, is able to overwhelm the defense mechanisms of a susceptible host under environmental conditions that are conducive to the disease process. Prevention is the cornerstone of any health protection program and can be as challenging and complex as the actual control of existing diseases. The control of fish diseases includes both preventive and treatment measures.The key elements of disease prevention include: Knowledge of pathogen transmission.  Reliable detection of disease carriers.  Development of effective methods to limit the entry of pathogens or carriers into fish cultural facilities. The capacity to provide environmental conditions conducive to good fish health.Avoidance of disease is a fundamental part of programs developed to protect the health of man and domestic animals. Regulatory and cooperative measures can be effective in preventing exposure to physical, chemical and biological disease agents.Regulations should be developed and applied to provide organizational structure and to assure the execution of procedures to contain diseases and their pathogens and to guide the action to be taken when outbreaks occur.Regulations for fish health protection are most useful in the control of those diseases clearly identified as being caused by obligate fish pathogens. It is essential to have the capability to accurately and timely diagnose these diseases and to have both governmental and industry support behind any effort to develop and implement regulations. Properly designed and applied regulatory programs can help solve certain problems that cannot be effectively dealt with by other less restrictive methods. There are many other important elements of fish health management that should be considered before regulation, as discussed below.Disease prevention in fish culture is, to a large degree, a function of the nature of a facility and how it is managed. Successful fish culture is largely the result of effective environmental manipulation (design of the facility and the nature of its water supply). The occurrence of infectious disease is often related closely to environmental stress. Environmental conditions imposed on fish are determined by site selection, water supply characteristics, facility design, fish handling and transport systems, and the efficiency of waste removal.Proper feeding of a nutritious diet is important, not only for growth and prevention of nutritional deficiencies, but also for the overall health and vigor needed to cope with a variety of disease agents. Fish under intensive culture rely entirely upon the nutritive quality of artificial feeds. Diet selection, feeding frequency, and quantities fed are controlled by the fish culturist. Nutritional problems, arising from dietary imbalances, continue to cause problems in cultured fish even though great advances have been made in the knowledge of the nutrient needs of fish. There is strong evidence in the literature on the role of nutrition in disease resistance (47) .The concept of genetically enhancing the resistance of fish to disease has intrigued workers for many years (48) . The loss of genetic diversity, as often happens in hatchery management, makes it difficult to develop strains of fish that are resistant to several diseases at once. Generally, by maintaining a high level of genetic diversity in a stock and by developing hybrid vigor, there should be potential for breeding fish strains with an enhanced ability to withstand stress and infectious disease agents. The process of selecting strains of fish that are resistant to a specific disease can create another problem. Disease-carrying populations of fish have been maintained at some installations to allow for \"natural selection\" in survivors and as a practical method of challenging selected stocks to measure any increases in resistance. Fish strains to be tested were held in water that already had passed through an infected population.Rapid progress has been made in research on the immune responses of fish and in the development of immunization procedures (49) . Vaccines do not provide absolute protection from infection but do help fish combat infections sufficiently to make immunization cost-effective in many situations where specific diseases cause repeat problems. As a result, licensed vaccines are now available against vibriosis, enteric redmouth, and furunculosis diseases. The development of vaccines against Egyptian pathogens in a national vaccination center in strongly recommended.The goal of a sanitation program is to prevent the transfer of fish pathogens from one place to another. Little information has been published regarding the methodology for ensuring sanitation of fish culture facilities, disinfection procedures, or the evaluation of cost-effectiveness of different sanitation measures (50) . Egg disinfection strives to prevent the vertical transmission of pathogens from the parent stock to the progeny and to prevent horizontal transmission from the egg facility to the rearing facility. During the rearing of fish, sanitation measures can be helpful in maintaining different stocks of fish in isolation from one another.Disinfection can be carried out using a phased approach or in a single, facility-wide operation. Phased disinfections can be performed whenever a facility cannot be depopulated and disinfected in a single operation. Total facility disinfection disrupts fish production, but is easier to carry out. There is also a better chance of success in total facility disinfection than in a phased operation because the risk of recontamination is reduced (50) .The objectives of control measures for infectious diseases are to: Reduce or eliminate the source of infection.  Break the connection between the source of infection and susceptibility of fish.  Reduce the susceptibility of fish to infection.Practical guidelines on how to control infectious diseases are provided in Annex 1. Accurate disease diagnostic techniques and sensitive pathogen detection methods are essential. Method of disease spread from fish to fish and from place to place must be determined. Steps can be taken to prevent the spread of disease by controlling the transfer of infected fish or eggs into areas believed free of disease. Elimination of infected carriers from the water supply to a facility and the introduction of specific therapy programs to reduce disease. Quarantine is the best method to reduce disease introductions. Introduction of exotic fish provides a degree of both benefit and risk.The risks include the possible introduction and establishment of a disease. If a disease is suspected but not clearly established, it is best to consider both precautionary and control methods. Details of aquatic animal quarantine are given in Annex 2.This step can be initiated as soon as research findings indicate which methods might be effective, even though significant sources of infection still exist. Examples of measures include: Broodstock populations which carry disease agents should be treated or eliminated. Stream water supplies may harbor infected carriers but the connection between the sources of infection and the cultured fish can be broken through the use of water sterilization equipment. Pasteurization of feed and feed ingredients can be used to break the link between source of infection and susceptible fish. Disinfection of rearing facilities between stocking of fish year-classes can also help break the connection between an infected stock and the next group of fish to be reared. This can be achieved not only by addressing endogenous factors, such as species and strain of fish, immunocompetence and age, but also by improving fish's ability to adjust physiologically to changes in the external environment. Adjusting environmental conditions to reduce adverse effects. Methods should be sought to regulate water temperatures, alter oxygen and other dissolved gas levels, reduce ammonia and nitrite levels, reduce population densities, and to improve handling methods to protect the integrity of the skin, scales and mucous membranes of fish. Consider the use of immunostimulants to improve disease resistance (see Annex 3).Successful disease control involves a careful program of fish health management that removes infected stocks, prevents re-infection, reduces stress, and maintains optimal production conditions. Unless an effective fish health management program is promptly initiated, disease will reoccur whenever stresses that increase susceptibility reappear. If fish are provided with a good environment and adequate nutrition, the risk of infection by pathogens is greatly reduced.Chemotherapy is defined as the use of drugs and chemicals for the treatment of infectious disease. To be useful, the chemicals must be effective against the pathogen without significant adverse effects on the fish host. The first successful chemical was probably salt, used as a dip treatment to reduce pathogens on external surfaces. Guidelines for chemotherapy are provided in Annex 4.Antibiotics are very useful additions to a fish health manager's toolbox, but they are only tools and not \"magic bullets\". The ability of antibiotics to help eliminate a fish disease depends on a number of factors: Does the problem have a bacterial component?  Are the bacteria involved sensitive to the antibiotic chosen?  Are the proper dosage and treatment intervals being used?  Have other contributing stresses been removed or reduced?Guidance on use of antibiotics is provided in Annex 5.Pond farm production accounts for around 85% of the volume of total aquaculture production in Egypt (Table 4). Interviews were carried out by WorldFish staff (unpublished data; 2011-2012) to explore the strategies for fish health management used by fish farmers. Disease outbreaks were reported as a problem in all three governorates (Kafr El Sheikh, Behara and Sharkia). The interviews revealed that of 13 farms in Behera, with an average of 22,000 cultured tilapia per farm, and with a total of 286,000 cultured tilapia (379 feddan 1 ), Saprolegnia was reported at two farms (average 44,000 tilapia) and Aeromonas infection was reported at three farms (average fish holdings 66,000 tilapia) and during the two infection types two treatments were applied (salt treatment for Saprolegnia and oxytetracyclin for Aeromonas).Of 14 farms in Sharkia that were investigated, with an average of 15,000 tilapia per farm and with with a sample total of 210,000 cultured tilapia (461 fedan), Saprolegnia was detected in two farms (average 30000 tilapia) and during the infection two types of treatments were applied (potassium permanganate and antibiotics).In Kafr-Elsheikh, of the 34 farms surveyed, with an average of 17,000 tilapia per farm and with a sample total of 578,000 cultured tilapia (1254 fedan), Saprolegnia was detected on seven farms (average numbers of fish held = 119,000 tilapia). Two farms were also infected with Aeromonas, and during the infection period two treatments were applied (the antifungals Anticide and ciprofloxacin).Table 4: Data on farmed fish production on sample farms in three governorates (51)  According to the literature, infection of tilapia during the growing season with either Aeromonas hydrophila, Pseudomonas fluorescens and/or Saprolegnia diclina is associated with 40-90% morbidity (average 70%) and 10 -50% mortality (average 30%).Cost scenarios associated with diseases and their treatment are presented in Annex 6.Fish has become an important resource in Egypt to meet the food and nutrition security needs of a rapidly expanding human population. Aquaculture and fish farming conditions should be improved in a way that controls the spread of disease, which negatively impacts on the development of the sector. Fish disease is rarely a simple association between pathogen, a host fish and environmental problems, such as poor water quality, and other stressors often contribute to the outbreak of infectious and non-infectious diseases. As can be seen from the above review, bacteria are responsible for many diseases and heavy mortality in cultured fish. Most of the causative micro-organisms are naturally occurring saprophytes, which utilize the organic and mineral matter in the aquatic environment for their growth and multiplication. Secondly, parasites infect fish far more than any other group of pathogenic organisms. There are both opportunistic parasite pathogens and also a number of obligate parasites that kill the host or interfere with growth and reproduction. Some are also of zoonotic and public health importance.Because of the lack of legislation and poor public service veterinary services, it is recommended that hatcheries and producers produce their own plans for early identification and control of key fish diseases.The production of larvae and fry remains risky for some species because of the lack of control of the microbiota in rearing systems. Conventional approaches, such as the use of disinfectants and antimicrobial drugs, have had limited success in the prevention or cure of aquatic animal disease. Use of antibiotics is also inappropriate because it can result in an imbalance of microflora for the fish larvae and promote antibiotic resistance. The development of a disease control program is a better and cheaper approach to disease prevention and control, especially in hatcheries.Immunostimulants offer one alternative strategy to the use of antimicrobials in disease control and have already been widely developed and successfully applied in aquaculture.As aquaculture practice in Egypt is developing and becomes increasingly complex, conflicts with other resource users will increase. There are also growing environmental concerns as farming practices intensify. The potential conflicts and concerns require careful evaluation and proper management. The Egyptian Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation (MWRI), Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation (MOALR), as well as the Ministry of Environment (MOE) must take the lead in tackling this important issue. The government of Egypt should increase their support to the aquaculture sector as a source of animal protein, while paying close and careful attention to aquatic environmental quality.  Method of disease spread from fish to fish and from place to place must be determined;  Steps can be taken to prevent the spread of disease by controlling the transfer of infected fish or eggs into areas believed free of disease; Elimination of infected carriers from the water supply to a facility and the introduction of specific therapy programs to reduce disease; Quarantine measures have been useful in containing outbreaks of disease in new areas after a disease control program has been put into operation.Farmers should be aware of general signs of fish diseases: The presence of dead or dying fish.  Fish often stop feeding and may appear lethargic.  Healthy fish should eat aggressively if fed at regularly scheduled times.  Pond fish should not be visible, except at feeding times.  Fish are observed moving listlessly in shallow water,  Fish are gasping at the surface, or rubbing against objects.  Other behavioral abnormalities.  Physical signs include the presence of sores (ulcers or hemorrhages), ragged fins or abnormal body confirmation (e.g. a distended abdomen or \"dropsy\" and exopthalmia or \"popeye\").Veterinarians should follow the guidelines required to accurately diagnose fish diseases, summarized as: Case history, dates of fish stocking, size of fish at stocking, source of fish, feeding rate, growth rate, daily mortality and water quality. Clinical signs, good records of behavioral and physical signs exhibited by sick fish, as well as morbidity and mortality rates. Check the water quality, especially dissolved oxygen, ammonia, nitrite, and pH, total alkalinity, total hardness, nitrate (saltwater systems) and chlorine (if using city water). Ideally, daily records should be available for immediate reference. Postmortem examinations of sick fish.  Laboratory examinations after very careful sampling.Quarantine is the best method to reduce disease introductions. Introduction of exotic fish provides a degree of both benefit and risk. The risks include the possible introduction and establishment of a disease. If a disease is suspected but not clearly established, it is best to consider both precautionary and control methods: Quarantine reduces the disease potential by the isolation of hosts (however, there is a great difference between disease and pathogen presence); The disease agent is not allowed to pass unchecked into a culture system, where it could rapidly increase in numbers; If newly arrived stock is placed in quarantine, a disease may be recognized after a suitable incubation period; Quarantine may establish a \"disease free\" or \"pathogen free\" status of imports.The purpose of quarantine is to: Allow fish to acclimatize to captivity in a controlled environment;  Allow treatment of disease in a controlled environment;  Reduce the stress of acclimation;  Reduce cost associated with medication and fish mortality;  Allow easy observation of new fish in case of disease.The development of quarantine measures: Facilitates holding and observation of fish in a biosecure environment;  Allows testing of fish for infectious agents in a diagnostic lab;  Facilitates access to more specialized laboratories and resources;  Protects the surrounding aquatic environment and biota;  Facilitates subdivision of risks into lower and higher categories. Quarantine facilities should be located within or close to existing fish heath facilities.  Facilities should have 24 h supervision.  Facilities should be lockable and access restricted to designated personnel.  Construction should avoid accidental spill or discharge of water or animals or equipment to the surrounding water. Intake water should be obtained from a clean, unpolluted source to prevent physiological stress or masking of infectious agents by opportunistic infections (water analysis recommended). No loss or release of quarantined fish. No loss of contaminated water or equipment.  Tanks, ponds, pools or other containers should be isolated from the aquaculture facilities as well as municipal and open water. All water leaving quarantine should be considered as potentially infected. It should be discharged into reservoir or pond that permits chemical disinfection or discharge into a land-based pit or pond. All equipments used in the quarantine (such as nets, containers, pipes, hoses, pumps) should remain within the containment facility and not be removed or used for any other purpose unless disinfected.Fish disease laboratory facilities in quarantine facilities: Should be located in an enclosed area.  Should have the materials necessary to prepare samples. Should be able to conduct microscopic examinations during quarantine. The containers and reagents as well as stains should be available to permit sample dispatch to the diagnostic lab. Samples leaving a high-risk quarantine facility should be transported by approved quarantine personnel and be preserved and secured for handling by non quarantine personnel.An immunostimulant is a chemical, drug, stressor, or action that enhances the innate or nonspecific immune response by interacting directly with cells of the system, thereby activating them. Innate defense includes both humoral and cellular defense mechanisms, such as the complement system and the processes played by granulocytes and macrophages.Immunostimulants increase immunocompetency by increasing resistance to infectious disease, not by enhancing specific immune responses but by enhancing non-specific defense mechanisms. No memory component is involved and the response is likely to be of short duration. Injection of immunostimulants enhances the function of leucocytes and protection against pathogens. However, this method is labor intensive, relatively time-consuming and becomes impractical when fishes weigh less than 15 g. Oral administration or immersion should thus be used. However, fish cannot be protected against all infectious diseases by immunostimulants.Immunomodulation of larval fish has also been proposed as a potential method to improve larval survival by increasing the innate responses of the developing animals until their adaptive immune response is sufficiently developed to mount an effective response to the pathogen. The delivery of immunostimulants as a dietary supplement to larval fish may thus be of considerable benefit in boosting innate defenses, with little detriment to the developing animal. During 2004-2009, the senior researcher and program leader of fish health at Worldfish (Dr. Salah Aly) carried out a series of experimental studies on the effect of immunostimulants on growth, survival and disease resistance in Nile tilapia, the most common freshwater fish in Egyptian aquaculture. All the results have been published and their Abstracts are accessible on the internet (52)(53)(54)(55)(56)(57)(58)(59)(60)(61)(62)(63)(64)(65)(66)(67)(68)(69)(70)(71) .Factors to be considered in the implementation of immunostimulation strategy: Stimulation of an immune system can be too intense and can harm or even kill the host.  The mode of action of different immunostimulants should be understood.  The immune system of larvae is poorly developed, consisting mainly of nonspecific defenses. The maternal immune defenses are significant only during early developmental stages. Research aimed at developing methods for immunostimulation of larvae should prioritize the stimulation of non-specific defense mechanisms, including that of nonspecific maternal defenses. The best treatment is good animal husbandry  Drugs and chemicals are often used to correct errors in management. While this may be used as a stop-gap, it cannot be used to prop up poor culture programs. Indiscriminaet use of therapeutic agents should be avoided.  The continuous feeding of low levels of antibiotics in the diet as a prophylactic measure against outbreaks of bacterial disease during periods of stress, or to improve growth rates, are questionable practices. It results in the removal of only those bacteria most sensitive to the drug and can lead to the development of drug resistant strains. Drug resistant bacteria can transmit resistance to bacteria that have never been exposed to the drug. Treatment with antibiotics is recommended only when needed, and then only at prescribed treatment levels. If it is decided to use antibiotics, treatment should be conducted for the full time period required. Foreshortened treatments encourage the development of drug resistance and can lead to the need for elevated drug levels, and eventually, to loss of effectiveness. The casual use of therapeutics on a routine basis is not without possible adverse effects on the general health of the fish and is not recommended,  Whenever possible, seek a positive diagnosis of any disease problem by a professional fish health specialist. Start treatment with the correct drug at the recommended level.  If a chemotherapeutant is needed, treat quickly and effectively.  Users are advised to proceed with caution and to follow label directions.  Recommended rates of treatment are based on the levels that researches have found to be necessary and that various fishes will tolerate. Although there is a built-in safety factor, using more than the recommended rate is not necessary, may be harmful, and even illegal. A two week withdrawal period from all chemotherapeutic treatments before the intended release or harvest date is recommended.Before treatment  Ensure that information on chemical characteristics of the water supply is available before application. Ascertain how environmental conditions on the farm are likely to affect the toxicity and efficacy of the treatment. What will work at one place may not be effective elsewhere because of differences in water chemistry. Before using any chemical, be sure to test it first on a small number of sick fish.  Keep in mind that healthy fish can tolerate chemical treatment more readily than sick fish and that treatment levels may need to be reduced if the fish are weak or in poor condition. Ensure that, rearing facilities are clean before treatment. Dirty raceways or tanks may contain organic matter that can absorb part of the treatment chemical and reduce its effectiveness. If the fish density is excessive it should be reduced, if possible, prior to static treatment. Supplemental aeration should be provided if needed. During hot weather, treatments should be made during the coolest part of the day, using chemicals that create the least environmental hazard or stress. Starving fish for l-2 days prior to treatment will reduce oxygen consumption and ammonia production and will increase resistance to scale loss. Treatment within 4 h of feeding should be avoided. Any parasitism of the gills should be treated first since such parasites may affect the respiratory capability of the fish. Monitor dissolved oxygen levels before treatment. Fish are stressed during treatment and their oxygen requirements increase. Before treating with a new compound or formulation or using a product for the first time on an installation, always treat a small group of fish first and watch for unexpected mortality. During treatment  Always observe fish during treatment to watch for signs of stress or unexpected toxicity.  Monitor dissolved oxygen levels during treatment. Fish undergoing treatment will be stressed and their need for oxygen increases. Always check calculations (0.1X will be ineffective; 1.0 is effective; but 10X will be fatal).If possible, have the figures corroborated independently. After treatment  Keep records of all treatments, their purpose, and the results for future reference.Treatment in the diet Commercial feed with antibiotic additives, if available, is cheap and easy to use. Medicated feed stores well and can be used in place of the regular diet. If commercially medicated feed is not available, medicated feed can be prepared on site. It is best to suspend such drugs in oil when preparing medicated feed (cod liver oil seems to have better palatability than soy bean or corn oils, but any of these will do). Once treatment has begun , the recommended dose and treatment schedule should be adhered to. It is a mistake to ry to save money by stopping treatment when mortalities stop, by using less than the recommended amounts, or by reducing the period of treatment.External: Localized skin applications are feasible only for broodstock and other valuable fish. The drug or chemotherapeutant used should be relatively insoluble in water, act on contact, and either be denser than water or readily adhere to the fish. Internal: For small numbers of valuable fish, injections of antibiotics may be used, but can be prohibitively expensive and labor intensive. Intraperitoneal injection is superior to subcutaneous or intramuscular injection. It may be best to anesthetize the fish with MS-222 (tricaine methanesulfonate), benzocain, clove oil, or some other recommended fish anaesthetic prior to injection.Dip bath:This involves a short bath treatment varying in duration from a few seconds to 5 min, depending on the chemical and concentration used. Dip treatments are often used on broodstock. While effective, they can be highly stressful. After treatment, fish should be rinsed in clean water before being returned to the holding facility to avoid transfer of chemical to the tank. Short baths:For treatments of <1 h, when fish are held in facilities where fresh water is available and adequate oxygen levels can be maintained, short baths are useful because high concentrations of chemicals can be used. Considerable care is required to avoid chemical overdoses or overly long contact times.This method is suitable only for treating stock held in fish ponds. Low concentrations of chemical are used and allowed to dissipate in the pond. Treatments may have adverse effects on the biota or on dissolved oxygen levels.In treatments of this type, a measured amount of concentrated chemical is added at the inlet and allowed to flush through a pond or raceway. Amounts of chemical used must be accurately determined. Lowering the water level in the holding unit reduces the quantities of chemical needed and also facilitates rapid dilution of the treatment when fresh water is added to restore normal conditions.In constant flow treatments, the chemical is metered into the water inflow at a constant rate to maintain a given concentration for a given period of time. This method requires accuracy and is expensive in terms of the amount of chemical needed. The method requires no special attention to oxygen or ammonia levels, since the water flow remains unchanged.General considerations before using antibiotics  Antibiotics only control the population of bacteria in a fish long enough for its immune system to eliminate them. Before antibiotics are even considered, sources of stress such as poor water quality (including sudden and large temperature changes), nutrition, genetics, and handling or transport must be removed or reduced. Affected fish should also be examined for parasites.  Any of the above factors -and, indeed, others, such as attacks by predators -may be the primary cause of disease, as bacterial infections are often secondary to such management problems. Contacting a fish health specialist early in a disease outbreak helps identify contributing stresses and the rate of bacterial infection, thereby reducing losses.The ideal solution to bacterial diseases involves working with a fish health specialist to culture the organism and to run sensitivity tests. Although culture and sensitivity tests generally take two or three days, they are, by far, the best methods for selecting an antibiotic that will successfully and economically treat an infection. A fish health specialist should provide instructions on submitting samples to a diagnostic laboratory: Affected fish should not be treated with antibiotics until after a pathogen sample has been analyzed. Samples should be taken from at least 3 to 5 fish showing typical symptoms of the disease. Fish that are submitted after they have been given antibiotics often provide poor culture results. While waiting for the culture results, the fish health specialist may suggest a broadspectrum antibiotic that can be used until culture and sensitivity tests have been completed. Legalities must also be considered when selecting antibiotics.  Fish health specialists will be able to provide information on legal constraints for specific antibiotics, information on appropriate dosages, methods of administration and other concerns.Although selecting the correct antibiotic is an important first step in controlling bacterial disease, proper administration of any antibiotic for the recommended number of days is equally important. Fish health specialists should provide instructions on the amount of antibiotic to use (dose), the frequency and duration of treatment. Withdrawal time (time required, after the last dose of antibiotic has been given, till selling the fish) should be known. The pharmacokinetics of a specific antibiotic should be determined.If the dose is too high or treatment times are too long, there is a danger of toxicity to the fish, frequently causing liver, kidney, or other organ damage that may or may not be reversible.If the dose of antibiotic is too low or treatment time is too short, the bacteria will not be killed or weakened sufficiently for the immune system of the fish to remove them, greatly increasing the risk of the bacteria developing resistance to the antibiotic.It is important to remember that fish diseases are not the only constraint facing freshwater aquaculture in Egypt: many other environmental factors and poor management practices also contribute to low productivity. Water quantity, extreme or changeable temperatures, and the quality and quantity of feed used, all increase the risks of disease. Knowing how to minimize the risks of disease outbreaks, how to monitor for key risk factors and what to do when they occur, can make the difference between a farm being profitable and not. Low temperatures during the winter season predispose farmed fish, especially tilapia, to attack by bacterial and fungal pathogens Aeromonas hydrophila, Pseudomonas fluorescens and Saprolegnia diclina are particularly prevalent and can cause massive mortalities. However, a number of studies suggest potential application of immunostimulants and probiotics in improving fish health and increase resistance to infections, one month of application providing protection for 1-2 months (see papers published by Dr. Salah Aly in this regard (42)(43)(44)(45)(46)(47)(48)(49)(50)(51)(52)(53)(54)(55)(56)(57)(58)(59)(60)(61) ).","tokenCount":"8505"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"22b9d3ff1fdf315a162877a8a316e08e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/FTA/Handbook_the_geospatial.pdf","id":"254033023"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d33c6742-5edc-47d9-ad30-695186d41127","pagecount":"54","content":"This handbook is intended to provide guidance on geospatial data quality and metadata management. While it can provide the reader with answers to basic questions on the latter, it does not have all the answers. The reader should also find the information and guidance helpful when dealing with important questions on geospatial data quality and metadata.Spatial data quality can be described as a character of the data that allows users to evaluate 'fitness to use'. Usually specified along with information about the completeness, consistency and accuracy of the data.Spatial data quality is a pillar in the implementation of GIS and its applications where reliable data will enable data users to obtain satisfactory and appropriate results for the intended use of the data.One element to check the data quality is topology consistency. A tool for this has been provided in the ArcGIS toolbox. We can use this tool to test the completeness and consistency of features using the following steps:Chapter 1 1. Topology error check should be conducted in a 'file geodatabase'. To start the topology check, we need to create a geodatabase in ArcCatalog. Figure 1 is a sample of the pages used to create a topology error geodatabase.  3. Setting the coordinates is an essential step in a topology check. We need to define the coordinate system to be used in the processing. We can use WGS 1984 as the coordinate system, which is the most frequently used in mapping. (Figure 3) 4. The next step is to import the feature class (polygon) that will be checked for topology errors. (Figure 4)6. After completing the import process, we can check the feature class IDNSeram_VegetationCoverExtent_CIFOR_2010 has been imported into the file geodatabase of the topology error (Figure 6). 5. We then need to specify the name and enter this in the output feature class (Figure 5)  8. We need to set the name of the output of the topology processing and set the cluster tolerance (Figure 8). 9. Click > next > tick the feature that will participate in the topology processing click > next click > next (Figure 9).10. We need to add the rules of the topology check. Set the rules for checking the topology errors-we can explore the explanation of the 'rules' in the rule description. Add rules that we would like to use click > next click > OK > next (Figure 10).   11. Once the topology check has finished processing, we will need to validate the new topology click >yes (Figure 11)14. We can review the results by adding the topology error features to the ArcMap. To add a topology layer click > yes ('yes' will popup when you finish checking the topology errors) Results can be seen in ArcMap (Figure 15). 13. We can check the topology results and properties with a right click > properties. Click errors to find the numbers of errors in the layer based on the rules (Figure 14).15. We can change the symbology of the topology results to explore the errors including the gaps and overlapping (Figure 16). Note: In this sample we conclude that the gaps that are categorised as errors are the small islands. Thus, there are no topological errors in this dataset including overlapping and gaps.1. Open the ArcCatalog click > Menu customise click > ArcCatalog options. Then the ArcCatalog options dialog box will appear click > Metadata (menu). In the Metadata Style section there are various options related to the Metadata style, click > ISO 19139 Metadata Implementation Specifications (Figure 17).  3. After 'Edit' has been clicked, the metadata-editing menu will be displayed on the right side of the metadata. There are three sections: overview, metadata and resource. We can save the editing by clicking > Save (red box -Figure 19).• Use limitation: description about limitations or protection for using the data (Figure 21).  To create metadata in ArcCatalog click > edit in the metadata menu. There are three sections where we can enter information.In the overview menu add information in the following: d. Item Description• Title: title of data• Tags: keywords in general. For example: data related keywords, data year, activity/project, location, donor.• Summary (Purpose): summary of the data• Description (Abstract): information related to the data, including an explanation of the data content, brief process of obtaining the data, pixel resolution (for raster data)/data scale, name/purpose of data activity. (Figure 20)e. Topics and Keywords• Topic Categories: spatial themes of related data. Each theme has a detailed description on the website https://apps. usgs.gov/thesaurus/thesaurus-full.php?thcode=15. When selecting the topic categories, you can have more than 1 theme or topic (Figure 22).• Content type: whether the data can be downloaded or not (example: downloadable data)• Place Keywords: keywords for the data collection site(s) or locations• Temporal Keywords: keywords for the time of the data. Usually, the year the data is entered here.     a. Spatial Reference -Reference System: this is the information related to the coordinates and projection system used. Usually, this is entered automatically by the system if the coordinate system in the data is defined. For example, using the WGS 1984 coordinate system, the EPSG code 32752 is defined (Figure 31).Yes, it is necessary. As one of the pillars in using the data, this quality data report can be written as more than one type, depending on the findings of the curator regarding the attributes of the data. The data quality can be entered as follows (Figure 32):b. Quality -Data Quality -Scope level: Dataset c. Quality -Data Quality -Report: information/records related to the attributes of the data after checking, using the GIS Curator.• To add information: (Report) click 'new report' (red box -Figure 33). • Report -Report Type: type of report/notes related to findings from curation. There are various options available here, for example, in the data there is a record for the type Conceptual Consistency (Figure 34). • Report -Dimension: dimension of the check results. For example, the dimension is the horizontal dimension of the data (Figure 35). • After entering information related to the Report type and Dimension, there will be a warning at the top that will ask for information to be entered, namely a conformance result (yellow box). To add a Conformance Result click > New Conformance Result (red box -Figure 36) After the Conformance Results appear, enter the following:• Report -Conformance Result -Pass: pass/fail. If there is no problem with the data in terms of the report type, enter (�) in the pass box. If there is a problem with the data leave the 'pass' box blank.• Report -Conformance result -Explanation: the curator can enter an explanation regarding the data attribute. Example: conceptual consistency was passed because the information available in the attribute data is clear and there is no overlapping (Figure 37).   • If the Conformance Result Menu has not been completed, warnings will appear as in Figure 40, which means they need to be completed.• If the pass column is blank/not marked (�) due to poor data attributes (yellow box), the warnings can be ignored (Figure 40).  A lineage statement is an explanation or information regarding how to obtain data, data quality attributes and notes from the researchers themselves regarding the data. A sample of lineage can be seen in Figure 42. The distribution of information describes the product specifications when distributed such as:• Distribution -Distribution Information -Distribution Format -Format Name: information on the format of the file being distributed.• Distribution -Distribution Information -Distribution Format -Format Version: the version of the data being distributed if the data has multiple versions. If it does not exist, it can be entered using a minus sign (-) (Figure 43). • Distribution -Distribution Information -Distributor: contact information regarding the agency that will distribute the data (Figure 44). Fields -Entity and Attribute Information: provide detailed information related to the attribute table, especially the column Attribute Field. This is how the title of the data attributes is inserted into the metadata and the data Shapefile (Figure 45). • Information needs to be entered into each column (Field Attributes), for example:» The CLASS_2010 column and its illustrations (Figure 46)» Attribute: class_2010:• Definition: description related to the column CLASS_2010• Definition Source: the source of the information is obtained from the definition column. If the source is not known, enter a minus symbol (-).• Enumerated Domain: enter a minus symbol in all as the default for value, definition and definition source. Enumerated Domain filled to system request.Note: Enumerated Domain is not required for Entity Type, FID, OBJECTID and Shape.Fields -Entity and Attribute Information -Entity Type: enter '-' as default for definition and definition source (Figure 47). Metadata can be exported in xml format using the following steps:Open ArcCatalog and click > the Shapefile and the metadata will be exported. Then click > the Description menu, next click > the Export menu on the toolbar (Figure 48).  ArcGIS will automatically process the data and the screen in Figure 50 will be displayed.After that, a new *.xml file will appear, which can be checked in ArcCatalog using the display below (red box -Figure 51). When viewed from Windows Explorer, the screen view will be displayed as in the red box in Figure 52. • The first step is to create a folder in Windows Explorer, for example: D:\\CIFOR\\FTA_Geoportal• The next step is to open > the CatMDEdit application and click > Add/delete repository (red box -with a hand symbol and a folder) (Figure 53).• Then the Repository Manager (and then the Repository Creation) dialog box will appear > click the repository folder that has been created (Example: D:\\CIFOR\\FTA_Geoportal) (Figure 54) Can metadata in XML format be edited in CatMDEdit?Yes, metadata in xml format such as the results from ArcCatalog can be edited using CatMDedit.• Once the Repository is available (example-FTA_Geoportal) click and wait > the Repository in question will turn blue then click > import (red box -Figure 56) • Then click > OK > Load and the FTA_Geoportal will appear in the repository list. After that click> the FTA_Geoportal folder and wait until it turns blue and an empty list column (Left) will appear, because it does not have an XML data list (Figure 55). • The Import dialog box will then appear click > add to click the XML file to be imported. After clicking the XML file click > Open then click > Import (Figure 57).  When the XML data in CatMDEedit appears > double-click on the data > metadata will be entered.• A new toolbar will appear containing the HTML menu, ISO 19115 etc. Because the metadata used is ISO 19115 click > the ISO 19115 menu. Information from the metadata has 3 classes: mandatory, optional and conditional. In Figure 61, there is a screen view of what it will look like.  • To change the metadata click >Edit at the bottom (red box), 'Save' and > 'Cancel' will be activated automatically (Figure 61).Here's an explanation:» Metadata file identifier: Information regarding the identification code for the data. If the identification code does not exist, a data title can be added/entered, for example 'Vegetation Cover Extent in Seram 2010'. (Figure 62)Figure 62. A unique identifier that can be implemented in the dataset » Language: this is the language used in the metadata, for example, English (Figure 63) » Metadata date stamp: this is the date the metadata was created (this is required information -red mark) (Figure 64).     » Credit: creator and person in charge of data (Figure 81).         We can click on the distribution information and select several options to define the distribution of data including:• Distribution format -MD_Format: format of data and version that has been used, i.e., Shapefile format.• Distributor -MD_Distributor_Distributor contact -CI_ResponsibleParty: information about the contact details of the responsible party, including the organization's name, position, contact information and role. For example, the website address on the CIFOR geonode:https://geonode.cifor.org/layers/geonode:idn_seram_ vegetationcoverextent_cifor_2010 (Figure 94)• Data quality information -DQ_DataQuality -Scope: this is information related to the data coverage. There are many options when entering data quality information. One example for spatial data is the Dataset as in Figure 95.• Data quality information -DQ_DataQuality -Report: this is where data quality may be entered, when viewed from the spatial data. Here you can enter more than one category.For example, after the data has been examined, there are notes in terms of ConceptualConsistency and TopologicalConsistency (Figure 96).  For example: if this data can be accepted, then click > 'True', this means it has been passed. (Figure 98) If the validation result provides information 'not valid', we need to recheck the metadata entry (Figure 103). The red text shows the elements of information that need to be entered to complete the metadata. ","tokenCount":"2100"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"96a209d2ef38fd69bbcb148e9e63fc5a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/2d3c9b0b-a697-4d4a-adfb-f77a80dd4020/content","id":"-763128906"},"keywords":["agroecology","indicators","multi-criteria","sustainability","tradeoffs","synergies"],"sieverID":"a9103c2f-dacb-4bc2-9e63-57aa245d04e8","pagecount":"5","content":"Agroecology and systems analysis have always been associated as at the core of agroecology is the search for synergies through the interactions of different components to support sustainable, resilient and equitable agricultural systems. Several agroecosystems analysis methods and tools have been developed. Systems approaches provide the theoretical basis and practical guidelines to capture the complexity of agroecosystems and design better, more sustainable, systems. These methodologies have been developed by and for different actors along the agricultural research and development continuum, from highly elaborated mathematical models to truly hands-on practical guidelines. Three examples of methodologies are briefly described. The Tool for Agroecology Performance Evaluation (TAPE), a global and collective effort to generate evidence on the extent and role of agroecology for transitioning towards more sustainable agroecosystems. The MESMIS framework, based on the participatory selection of multiple indicators, their quantification and integration for holistic assessment. Finally, FarmDESIGN, a model-based optimization tool allowing to assess current and alternative farm configurations and farming practices and quantify trade-offs, allowing the design of alternative, more sustainable systems. The application and adaptation of these and other systems analysis methods and tools can play a crucial role in the transition towards more sustainable agroecological systems.Agroecology is today one of the most promising paradigms for agricultural development. With origins on exploiting the ecological interactions within agricultural systems to improve their efficiency and sustainability; today agroecology is considered a practice, a science and a movement (Wezel et al., 2009).Agroecosystems are inherently complex systems.Multiple components are in constant interaction resulting in emergent phenomena at different scales in time and space. Moreover, farmers manage agroecosystems to satisfy a multiplicity individual and societ al. goals such as food and nutritional security, income generation, risk management, the preservation of cultural values and environmental stewardship, among many others. In agroecology, the complex and multifunctional nature of agroecosystems is acknowledged, and several efforts have been directed towards the development of methods and tools to capture such complexity and provide elements for the design of more sustainable agroecosystems, or more generally, natural resource management systems.Systems approaches provide the theoretical basis and practical guidelines to capture the complexity of agroecosystems and design better, more sustainable, agricultural and natural resources management.  (2) The MESMIS framework. Participatory multi-The MESMIS framework is one of the first efforts to apply systems analysis for the evaluation and design of agroecosystems through the use of context specific indicators (Speelman et al., 2007).Based on a systems approach, MESMIS provides    ","tokenCount":"404"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/0907279389.json b/data/part_1/0907279389.json
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e7a43c78b9a17a7e06bea458bcc9f516","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/56320c60-4db0-4df1-a67c-4bc0bfabdbd5/retrieve","id":"330579783"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"5fff7df7-8083-413b-b65e-b530bdae548e","pagecount":"5","content":"PIP (Pesticides Initiative Programme) é um programa fi nanciado pelo Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento. O grupo de Estados ACP e a Comissão Europeia confi aram a responsabilidade da implementação do PIP ao COLEACP, uma organização interprofi ssional para a promoção do comércio ACP-UE. Este documento foi produzido com a assistência fi nanceira do Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento. Os nossos agradecimentos ao Sr. Goergen, IITA, Cotonou (Benin) pelas fotos.A mangueira enfrenta numerosos problemas fi tossanitários de ordem fi siológica, fi topatológica e entomológica. Na África ocidental a importância económica dos danos causados pela mosca da fruta (Diptera tephritidae) na manga está a aumentar, quer no que se refere às mangueiras no quintal da casa, como nos pomares de pequenos produtores ou à escala industrial. A introdução e propagação em África duma espécie de mosca oriunda do Sri Lanka, a Bactrocera invadens, descoberta em 2004, na África ocidental (pelo IITA no Benin), poderá pôr em perigo o sucesso comercial recente de todo o sector da manga.As moscas da fruta são classifi cadas como \"insectos de quarentena\". Assim, qualquer remessa de fruta exportada para a Europa e que contenha apenas uma única fruta infestada, corre o risco de todo o lote ser rejeitado e destruído pelas entidades fi tossanitárias europeias. Os frutos que evidenciam o menor traço de terem sido picados por uma mosca da fruta, devem ser identifi cados, removidos e destruídos durante a colheita ou durante a sua triagem.Todos os anos, por causa deste insecto, há contentores repletos de fruta procedente de África que são interceptados, confi scados e incinerados nos portos e aeroportos europeus, causando, assim, grandes prejuizos económicos para os exportadores.O exportador que não consegue manter o seu compromisso de negócio corre o risco de perder o cliente e a sua reputação. A confi scação dum único lote pode arruinar todo o trabalho duma campanha agrícolaDas 12 espécies de diptera Tephritidae que atacam a manga, as duas que são consideradas como mais prejudiciais são a Ceratitis cosyra e a Bactrocera invadens (ainda que outras três espécies de Ceratitis também provoquem danos económicos signifi cantes).O ciclo de vida da maior parte das espécies de Tephritidae é similar. As fêmeas implantam os seus ovos nos frutos jovens da planta hospedeira, que são atractivas quando atingem a maturação. As larvas ou lagartas desenvolvemse na polpa da fruta que não foi tratada, cavando galerias (que constituem uma porta aberta para infecções secundárias quando as larvas emergem do fruto). O crescimento das larvas acelera a maturação da fruta, que se desprende e cai no chão. As larvas saiem da fruta e as pupas desenvolvem-se na parte superior (nos primeiros centímetros) do solo. O insecto adulto, depois da emergência, começa logo a procurar alimentos de que necessita para atingir a maturidade sexual, acasalar-se e pôr ovos.Se a população de moscas atinje níveis demasiado elevados, nenhum método de combate será realmente efi caz e rentável. O único método efi caz para interromper o ciclo de desenvolvimento da mosca é retirar, diariamente, toda a fruta caída no chão e evitar que os insectos adultos ponham os seus ovos na fruta (uso de armadilhas com isco, tratamento insecticida preventivo). Daí que nos pomares se deva aplicar todas as medidas preventivas que demonstraram ser efectivas. De modo a limitar a proliferação, é essencial controlar a população de moscas, logo no início da estação.Devido aos ataques da Ceratitis cosyra e da Bactrocera invadens, as perdas na colheitas que foram mantidas em 10% no início do período de crescimento podem atingir 80% no fi nal da campanha. Na Guiné-Conakry e no Mali, as perdas das principais cultivares comercais (p. ex Irwin, Amélie, Eldon, Kent, Smith and Keitt), podem atingir 40% no meio da campanha agrícola e até mesmo ultrapassar os 50% no caso de variedades com maturação mais tardia, como seja a Brooks.A mosca da fruta pode proliferar sob as seguintes condições:Medidas a tomar:Presença prolongada no chão do pomar de frutas caídas das árvores, infestadas com larvas. As larvas completarão o seu ciclo de crescimento no solo e criar-se-ão focos de infestação.Apanhe, diariamente, as frutas caídas.Remova rapidamente a fruta do pomar e destrua-a:-enterrando-a numa vala, (40-60 cm de profundidade), coberta, uma vez por semana, com terra ou cal viva; -recolhendo a fruta num saco ou sob uma cobertura de plástico impermeável, exposta ao sol; -submergindo a fruta num tanque cheio de água; -queimando a fruta numa vala ou num tanque. Are o solo de superfíciel (5-10 cm de profundidade) do pomar de modo a expor as pupas ao sol, aos parasitas e a predadores como sejam pássaros.Presença no pomar ou nas suas imediações de plantas cultivadas (que podem servir de hospedeiros alternativos para as moscas)Evite cultivar certas plantas tais como sejam pimentos, piri-piri e pepinos como culturas intercalares; Evite plantar ou manter plantas hospedeiras nas imediações, visto que os seus frutos são atraentes para as moscas, p.ex. citrinos, goabeiras, papaieiras, anoneiras, melões, etc. Um grande número de plantas hospedeiras nas proximidades pode resultar em grandes populações de moscas da fruta no início do período de colheita da manga. Aplique aos outros frutos as mesmas regras que em relação às mangas (apanhá-las, seleccioná-las, destruí-las) pois as moscas são polífagas.Presença de pomares abandonados ou não tratados ou de árvores selvagens cerca do talhão cultivado Evite deixar estas árvores nas imediações do pomar tratado, pois constituem focos de infestação; O êxito quanto ao controlo das populações de moscas nas zonas cultivadas requer informação e responsabilidade colectiva. Presença de ervas daninhas (que podem ser hospedeiras alternativas) Elimine, cuidadosamente, as ervas daninhas em redor das árvores; a sacha facilita ver as frutas que caem das árvores; Are o solo de superfície (5-10 cm de profundidade) de forma a limpar o pomar.Presença no pomar de várias variedades (com períodos de colheita que se seguem uns aos outros) Evite a cultura de variedades de manga com ciclos de crescimento muito diferentes, no mesmo pomar; visto que as populações de moscas crescem durante o período de produção, as variedades de maturação tardia muitas das vezes são as mais infestadas; No caso da procura de mercado o permitir, produza as variedades de maturação precoce, de modo a que a fruta amadureça quando o nível das populações de moscas ainda é baixo Presença de fruta infestada no talhão ou cerca do lugar onde se acondiciona a fruta Seleccione a fruta e elimine, imediatamente, qualquer fruto que apresente traços de ataque de moscas (consuma-as ou destrua-as imediatamente); Não deixe nenhuma fruta rejeitada (frutas demasiado pequenas, infestadas e fruta infestada eliminada durante a selecção) perto do pomar ou dos lugares de acondicionamento da fruta, visto que constituem focos de infestação.Transporte de fruta infestada para os mercados locais ou regionais Se possível evite vender as frutas infestadas ou rejeitadas durante a selecção; como alternativa garanta um consumo ou destruição adequada imediatos da fruta não comercializada (queime ou incinere a fruta; não a deite num recipiente/caixa de lixo); Evite transportar fruta com furinhos de zonas de maior infestação para zonas onde a infestação é menor.Para capturar as moscas macho de certas espécies, utilizam-se, geralmente, armadilhas com paraferomonas. Actualmente estas constituem o melhor meio para detectar as moscas e, no caso de serem utilizadas em grande escala e em grandes quantidades, podem travar o crescimento da população, logo no início da campanha agrícola.A técnica consiste em colocar, logo no início da campanha agrícola tiras impregnadas com uma substância específi ca que atrai as moscas e tratadas com um insecticida de contacto (malatião ou deltametrina).Estas armadilhas devem ser instaladas no pomar pelo menos um mês antes da fruta se tornar atractiva. Recomenda-se a instalação destas armadilhas também em outros pomares de outras árvores sensíveis à mosca da fruta, p.ex. pomares de citrinos.Cortam-se blocos de madeira ou as tiras (aglomerado do tipo Triplex) em pedaços pequenos e ensopam-se numa solução que contém metileugenol de forma a atrair o macho da B. invadens. Espeta-se um prego em cada uma das tiras para as fi xar ao tronco da mangueira. Em seguida pincela-se a tira com uma solução concentrada (uma emulsão de malatião ou de deltametrina preparada a partir dum CE -concentrado emulsionável -diluído em água) e deixa-se a secar. Pregam-se, então, as tiras nas árvores (1 para 10 árvores, ou cerca de 10 por hectare). Para que seja fácil retirá-las facilmente, não se deve espetar completamente o prego na árvore. A tira deve ser renovada todos os meses. Por debaixo da tira, pode-se pendurar um recipiente (p. ex. uma garrafa plástica cortada ao meio), para recolher as moscas capturadas.Pode-se usar o SUCCESS APPAT® produzido por DOW AGROSCIENCES (1 l/ha de SC -suspensão concentrada -com uma base de 0.24 g/l de Spinosad e uma substância alimentar incorporada, que atrai as moscas) para um tratamento localizado, num pomar de mangas (trate cada terceira árvore ou cada terceira linha). A União Europeia autoriza o uso de Spinosad na produção orgânica.Em caso de se continuar a captura de moscas na armadilha, deve-se renovar o tratamento cada 7 a 10 dias, dependendo da intensidade da população. Devem-se repetir os tratamentos na eventualidade de se registar uma queda pluviométrica superior a 10-25 mm, dependendo da intensidade da precipitação.Este tipo de tratamento tem muito pouco efeito sobre os inimigos naturais do pomar e os riscos para a pessoa que o aplica são muito baixos.O produto deve ser aplicado utilizando um pulverizador de dorso ou trajectória do jacto equipado com uma mangueira com um bico de 1-2 mm (diam). O disco do bico deve ser retirado de modo a se obterem gotinhas entre 1 e 5 mm (não utilize um nebulizador, a pressão deve ser mínima). O volume de pulverização deve ser entre 4 e 10 litros/ha. Aplique a calda na camada superior das folhas (cerca de 1 m2), com rotação em volta da árvore (não aplique sempre na mesma área das folhas) e tente penetrar ligeiramente no interior da folhagem. É melhor não tratar os frutos. Este tipo de aplicação localizada utilizando um pulverizador de dorso, permite fazer uma aplicação mesmo antes da colheita e até mesmo durante a colheita, visto que a pessoa que faz a aplicação pode evitar pulverizar os frutos.A decisão para se tratar completamente todo o pomar depende dos resultados da captura, quer dizer, no caso de haver enxames densos de moscas logo no início da período de crescimento e quando a fruta se torna mais sensível (os limiares de tolerância têm que ser minuciosamente defi nidos nas várias zonas agroecológicas).Nos pomares foram identifi cados muitos dos agentes de controlo biológico (quer dizer, dos inimigos naturais ou auxiliares) e podem ser usados para restringir o desenvolvimento das pragas, p.ex. cochinilhas pulverulentas e tripes. Um tratamento completo encerra riscos devido à potencial eliminação da maior parte dos agentes de controlo biológico, podendo desencadear uma recrudescência de determinadas pragas que, até então, tinham sido de menor importância.Para proteger os inimigos naturais é preferível limitar o número de tratamentos completos no pomar, por campanha agrícola, a não mais de duas aplicações, com um intervalo de 10 dias.As estratégias de controlo da população de moscas assentam na observação da infestação (armadilhas) e intervenções passo-a-passo: tratamento localizado e, em alguns casos excepcionais, em todo o pomar. Apenas podem ser usados produtos registados localmente. Deve-se iniciar o tratamento ou quando se detectaram as primeiras moscas (fêmea da Bactrocera sp. Ou da Ceratitis sp.) na armadilha ou na presença de frutos propensos à infestação pelas moscas (para a Ceratitis, na fase de maturação das frutas propensas a infestação, ainda mais cedo em relação à Bactrocera).Deve-se aplicar o primeiro tratamento atempadamente visto que o produto apenas tem um efeito preventivo, não é curativo (as larvas que crescem na fruta estão protegidas).Que produto utilizar?Os produtos são seleccionados na base do seu espectro, da sua efi cácia sobre as moscas, do LMR (limite máximo de resíduos) no caso das mangas e dos intervalos pré-colheita (IPC). Com um IPC de 7 dias, podem ser usadas certas substâncias activas (p.ex. bifentrin e lambda-cialotrina), até mesmo durante o período de colheita, sempre que se respeitar o LMR.Podem-se recomendar os seguintes insecticidas: lambda-cialotrina a 25 g/ha (1 kg/ha de Karate Max 2,5 WG® produzido por Syngenta) ou bifentrin com uma dose de 50 g/ha (0,5 m/ha de Talstar 100 EC® produzido por FMC).Antes de qualquer tratamento é importante decidir qual o método de aplicação e depois escolher e adaptar, devidamente, o equipamento de tratamento mais adequado à situação. Utilize um pulverizador pneumático -de dorso, trajectória do jacto -apetrechado com uma bomba centrífuga de modo a garantir uma distribuição homogénea do produto por toda a árvore. Um ensaio prévio com água permite determinar o número de árvores que podem ser tratadas com um tanque cheio. É necessário ter esta informação, assim como informação sobre a densidade plantas/ha, para se calcular o volume de mistura a preparar e a taxa de diluição do produto que respeita a dose necessária de substância activa por hectare. O volume da mistura varia, geralmente, entre 400 e 700 l/ha para pomares adultos. Aplique cada produto respeitando as boas práticas agrícolas, particularmente no que se refere às doses recomendadas e aos intervalos de pré-colheita (IPC) indicados no rótulo das embalagens. Tal aumentará a efi cácia do tratamento, evitará problemas de fi totoxidade e garantirá o respeito dos limites máximos de resíduos (LMRs).","tokenCount":"2199"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9cbb107844f1eda634e90b02e9b43162","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/17cdb235-b47b-4be5-97f8-cd7b581752ec/retrieve","id":"-1519445115"},"keywords":["Mekong Project 5: On Coordination and Multiple Stakeholder Platforms (MSPs)","3","Project Data Duration Target Commence Date Finish Date Duration: 52 months"],"sieverID":"42f3db6c-51ce-4e45-ab7a-748a2d9a5a01","pagecount":"20","content":"Maximum budget requested from CPWF: US$ 1.4 mill__________________________problems, opportunities and progress. M&E will be reinforced by frequent, ad hoc, meetings with project staff, and a constant flow of information between the Coordination Project and the projects in the field. Formal reporting requirements are that projects deliver these sixmonthly, for scrutiny and review by Project 5. After consolidation, these reports are then transmitted to the CPWF Secretariat with recommendations for action, and the release of funding tranches. These events will also be opportunities during which project staff will engage with -and receive feedback from -the Mekong MSPs.The project's M&E activities will also contribute to the information needs for BDC adaptive management (i.e. early identification of opportunities, threats and unexpected consequences together with appropriate response from and redefinition of the BDC (if necessary); and impact assessments). Project 5 will also implement so-called 'innovation research' as an integrated part of M&E, which examines how different types of research outputs and knowledge do (or do not) move along impact pathways in different contexts, and what types of network are required to achieve developmental outcomes and impacts.Project 5 is also responsible for the development of a communications strategy for the basin, which will be used to disseminate project results, from both Phases 1 and 2. While such communication will rely on conventional media -such as contributions to the CPWF newsletter, a website, posters and booths at regional and international fora -the Project will focus on the development of novel media and methods for disseminating these results, in close collaboration with the CPWF's Communications Coordinator.Central to the success of the communications strategy are the Project's Multiple Stakeholder Platforms, which are considered more fully below.Multi-Stakeholder Platforms are widely promoted as an institutional setting for participatory water management. They are defined as a 'decision-making body (voluntary or statutory) comprising different stakeholders who perceive the same resource management problem, realise their interdependence for solving it, and come together to agree on action strategies for solving the problem' (Steins and Edwards, 1998). That they are multiple stakeholder platforms refers less to the diversity of stakes (although these certainly characterise MSPs), and more to the diversity of actors represented within them. MSPs represent ways of managing increasing degrees of variety (diversity) and variability (dynamics). This diversity of views, stakes and interests can be articulated, tabled and discussed within MSPs, and, in turn, yield more integrated and sustainable outcomes, able to deal with increasing complexity, diversity and the dynamics of water management. MSPs are problem-solving institutional innovations, to democratise water management, to manage conflict, or even to make water management more efficient.MSPs will contribute to project goals in two key ways: first, these platforms serve a dual purpose: (a) as a conduit back into government agencies and dam development programs (as well as other agencies), allowing for transparency and information exchange with the Mekong BDC, enabling and strengthening implementation; and to function as a diverse and supportive technical network, serving to enrich research and implementation, and to benefit from a variety of perspectives.(b) To serve as conduits for research results and solutions, translating these into developmental impact. By developing trust and mutual respect between all partners involved in the BDC, this process serves to reinforce the BDC's impact pathways and improve impact potentials.Provisionally, three specific platforms have been identified: technical, government and dam developers/operators. A fourth, and very important platform is referred to as the 'Basin Advisory Committee', a group of individuals -drawn from the other three platforms, as well as other agencies -who represent diverse interests, and which will provide guidance and advice to Project 5 on the implementation of the CPWF's projects within the Mekong. MSPs membership will be derived from the existing networks of the CPWF in the basin, as well as those of MPOWER. Characteristically, these networks continue to expand and deepen.Key aspects of Projects 1 and 2 are to improve the benefits derived from reservoirs and the catchments within which they are located. Where such complementary and alternative uses are identified, Project 3 will attempt to attach dollar values to these benefits. These data will be crucial to improving the likelihood that technical and institutional innovations are adopted; and, through valuation, will also reveal the benefits of multiple use reservoirs and dam operation to the BDC's dam development and management partners. Project 5 will work to generate attractive scenarios (or 'simulation models') if dam developers, operators and associated government agencies adopt the technical and institutional solutions yielded by the BDC. Key aspects of these scenarios will be to demonstrate the zero or limited cost to dam operations if these innovations are adopted, and the gains in terms of reputation, benefits to riparian communities, reductions in environmental damage and reduced sediment loads into reservoirs. In addition, similar benefits derived from sequential dam operation will also be demonstrated. Collectively, these scenarios will make important contributions to negotiations both between the BDC and stakeholders, as well as between other agencies concerned with similar problems.The project is responsible for ensuring the coherence of the overall research program by ensuring that project activities contribute to agreed BDC impact pathways. It therefore links to all Mekong BDC projects.CPWF Mekong Project 5 is divided into two components, the first relating to coordination, and the second to the development, management and maintenance of multiple stakeholder platforms.The Basin Leader leads this project team, which is responsible for coherence of the overall BDC research program through ensuring BDC research remains problem-, opportunity-and impact-focused. For the duration of the project, the Basin Leader will work full time for the CPWF, and will report to both the CPWF Research and Innovation & Impact Directors, and will be supervised by the CPWF Research Director. Specifically the project is responsible for: Ensuring BDC research coherence through maintaining agreement on overall BDC vision and the impact pathways to achieve it.  Overseeing the development and regular updating of BDC impact pathways as a basis for monitoring and evaluation (M&E) to provide the information needs for BDC adaptive management (i.e. early identification of opportunities, threats and unexpected consequences together with appropriate response from and redefinition of the BDC).  Ensuring that appropriate 'intelligence' (from BDC social research itself, and other sources) and adequate reflection spaces are provided to adequately evaluate progress along BDC impact pathways as part of BDC adaptive management.  Coordinating BDC M&E and impact assessment.  Seeking opportunities to foster the uptake and use of Phase I outputs, in particular, but not limited to, those with direct relevance to the BDC.  Overseeing the development and implementation of a BDC communications strategy as an impact-oriented approach to disseminating research results. This is part of the project workbook.Professional discipline Provide a brief text statement on why the lead institution is well placed to lead the group.The CPWF is strategically placed to contribute to the coordination of its own projects, having considerable vested interest in making sure that they succeed, and a long history of experience in the water-and-food field, network development, the use of impact pathways as a planning and management tool. In addition, it has a five-year history in the Mekong, and an already existing network base there. This expanding network base includes: Provide brief text statements on why the proposed institutions are qualified to carry out the proposed work. Institution 1: CPWF (see www.waterandfood.org) has a long history of experience in the water-and-food field, network development, the use of impact pathways as a planning and management tool and good relationships in the Mekong Region. Previously, the CPWF was housed in the Mekong River Commission, a key inter-governmental agency with focus on the management of the Mekong Basin (see www.mrcmekong.org). During this time, the CPWF coordinated 13 multi-partner projects throughout the region, as well as developing networks and contacts of relevance to the present BDC. The then Basin Coordinator will be Project 5's Basin Leader, while one of its key consultants served as the interim Basin Coordinator, also at the MRC.Institution 2: The MSP component of Project 5 will not be lead by an institution, but a network. The Mekong Program on Water, Environment and Resources's (MPOWER) (see www.mpowernet.org) action research program is organised around comparative and regional studies and cross-cutting governance themes. Synthetic activities are guided by research leaders that build up multi-country and multi-organisation teams and help bring together the individual experiences of partner organisations. Capacity building and sharing are important goals of this network and supported by a fellowship program. MPOWER is presently coordinated by the Unit of Social and Economic Research (USER) of Thailand's Chiang Mai University. The network comprises multiple regional institutions, all of relevance to this BDC, and including multiple government agencies, dam developers and operators, and NGOs. In Project 5, the network will be represent by a single placement, drawing on the combined resources of the network. The formal members of the group are: The CPWF has a five-year experience in the Mekong River Basin. During Phase 1, it was based at the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an agency that will be central to the successful implementation of the Mekong BDC, and for the uptake of research results. During Phase 1, the CPWF developed excellent networks of relationships amongst key agencies within the basin. This will contribute directly to the successful implementation of this BDC, and the subsequent uptake of results emerging from it.During the first phase, 13 CPWF projects were implemented in the Mekong (three Small Grants projects, and ten open call projects), covering a wide diversity of foci. Of particular relevance to the Phase 2 BDC were Projects 50 (Enhancing Multi-scale Mekong Water Governance), 25 (Companion Modeling and Water Dynamics), 28 (Multiple use systems), 35 (Community-based fish culture) and 67 (Improving Water Allocation in the Mekong). From elsewhere in the CPWF basins, Projects 36 (Improved livelihoods through dam management), and 34 (Improved Fisheries in Tropical Reservoirs) also directly inform this BDC.Currently, there are several initiatives that this BDC will complement, and which possess the potential for this BDC to 'piggy-back' upon. These include the MRC's Fisheries Programme (www.mrcmekong.org/programmes/fisheries.htm) initiative to explore the impact of river barriers on fish migrations and breeding; and the cumulative impact of dams on the fisheries of Cambodia's Tonlé Sap (Great Lake), as well as elsewhere in the system. Also of importance at the MRC is its Initiative on Sustainable Hydropower (ISH) (www.mrcmekong.org/ish/ish.htm), with which this BDC intends to forge a close working relationship; and the Basin Development Program (BDP) (www.mrcmekong.org/programmes/bdp.htm), which also contains within its scope hydropower.Beyond the MRC, there are multiple other initiatives of interest to this BDC. These include Sustainability Assessment Protocol of the International Hydropower Association (IHA) (www.hydropower.org/sustainable_hydropower/IHA_ Sustainability_Assessment_Protocol. html), which is being tested on two dams in the Mekong, and, if tests prove successful, will be implemented at multiple other dam sites across the basin. The Mekong BDC sees considerable promise in contributing to this process.The Mekong Program on Water, Environment and Resilience (MPOWER) (www.mpowernet.org) is a regional network comprising 28 institutions and agencies with diverse experiences, interests and backgrounds. The program has been closely involved with the CPWF for five years, implementing two of its projects within the Mekong. MPOWER will be implementing the multiple stakeholder platforms (MSPs) component of Project 5, bringing to bear its extensive networking experience in the region, and enabling the formation of MSPs through its diverse network of highly relevant contacts. Amongst a wide variety or projects, MPOWER includes a focus on hydropower development, governance, fisheries and other aspects relevant to this BDC. The CPWF's Mekong BDC is implemented at a particularly auspicious time. Several funders, including the World Bank, ADB and other international finance banks, require some degree of assurance from dam developers that the sustainability of dam facilities is improved, both in terms of physical and engineering structure, but also in broader, contextual terms -as components along a river's reach, a catchment and the basin as a whole. This includes a growing concern in China that its dam developments are attracting increasingly negative press, especially in Lao PDR.What are the lessons or conclusions that can be drawn from this work?  The CPWF is well placed to deliver on this BDC in terms of its institutional (research) experiences in-basin and beyond.  That the CPWF's pre-existing network give it a powerful spring-board into the region, both in terms of improving its research, as well as increasing the likelihood of innovation up-take. In addition, the long-term experience of this project's staff in the region provides it with the capacity needed to expand upon these relationships. In particular, MPOWER's continuing network activities, and the maintenance of its contacts across the region are an important asset for the implementation of the Mekong BDC's multiple stakeholder platforms.  That the BDC commences at a particularly auspicious time -when several other programs are aiming in complementary directions, and international pressure is being applied to basin governments and dam developers to improve the sustainability of their dams.CPWF Mekong Project 5 comprises multiple components, of which research is just one. The bulk of Project 5's work will be to coordinate the other four CPWF Mekong Projects, and to develop multiple stakeholder platforms (MSPs). The methods to be used to implement each of these aspects -coordination, MSPs and research -are described below. The conceptual organization of the project is presented in the figure on the next page.Narrative: Project 5's central responsibility is to implement the Mekong BDC Impact Pathway, which will be developed together with the teams from Projects 1-4 at an inception workshop in Vientiane in January, 2010. Throughout the lifespan of the Mekong BDC, adaptive management will be employed to implement the impact pathway. Adaptive management refers to the ability to learn from experience and make early identification of opportunities, threats and unexpected consequences together with appropriate response from, and redefinition of, the BDC agenda. As the project unfolds, Project 5 will adapt coordination and management to respond to the challenges of implementation, research results as they emerge, and the changing socio-political context within which this program will be implemented (this socio-political context is extremely important to the success of this BDC, given the regional sensitivities surrounding hydropower development). A key tool in this respect will be 'reflection workshops' -annual events during which time project teams and other stakeholders will gather to evaluate progress along the impact pathway, as well as the quality of their experiential learning and the decisions they make as a result. The methodology that will be employed at these workshops is Participatory Impact Pathway Analysis (PIPA), used to both develop the BDC's impact pathway, as well as to evaluate progress along it. New problems and opportunities will be identified, and adjustments to the impact pathway will be made as necessary. Monitoring and maintaining the impact pathway will not, of course, be restricted solely to these workshops alone. Daily inspection and monitoring by the Basin Leader and his staff through frequent interaction with project teams and other stakeholders with similar interests will occur. To support this process, an 'evaluative culture' will be developed within Project 5, in individual project teams, and across the whole BDC. An organization can be said to have an evaluative culture when it engages in self-reflection and self-examination, seeks evidence, makes time to learn and encourages experimentation and change. Such introspection will be developed not just through reporting requirements (i.e. reporting formats that not only reveal implementation.Progress, but also critical self-reflection), but through training as necessary, encouragement and frequent interaction with the Project 5 team. Fora -particularly the reflection and CBWG workshops, as well as PIPA, will be employed to enrich the process, and to harvest lessons from it.Also of importance to both co-management and this evaluative culture, is Project 5's participation in annual Cross-basin Working Group (CBWG) workshops. Given the novelty of this implementation and management design, these are important to critically assess and openly discuss Project 5's management experience in the Mekong, and to learn from similar efforts in other CPWF basins. These workshops will also have relevance to the Project's research responsibilities, as described below.Needless to say, all of these processes will not only contribute to the implementation of the Mekong BDC, but also efforts to maintain the overall quality of integration. It is essential to the success of the BDC that the tools it employs to implement its research, and obtain impact, that this integration occurs.It is also clear from the above that the central management processes deployed by Project 5 are intertwined with its monitoring and evaluation (M&E) obligations. The impact pathway, the adaptive management used to maintain it, and the evaluative culture that support it all contribute to ensuring that oversight is maintained, research outputs delivered and impact generated. Project 5 focuses on monitoring for (a) accountability and (b) for adaptive management. Drawing on the CPWF's Monitoring and Evaluation Strategy, the central questions regarding accountability are, inter alia:  Is the BDC research program contributing to tackling the BDC?  Are projects delivering on agreed outputs and outcomes?  Is the Topic Working Group (TWG) with which the Mekong Basin BDC is associated producing generalisable knowledge?  Are funds being properly spent? Insofar as monitoring adaptive management is concerned, key questions are, inter alia:  Is BDC performance improving?  Is the BDC adapting to emerging opportunities and threats?  Is the TWG contributing to cross-basin learning? Impact pathways link BDC interventions with outcomes. Combined, the processes described above all contribute towards impact assessment. The lag time between and intervention and impact is, on average, about 24 years. There exists, however, scope for initial assessments of ex post impact, and for this Project 5 will obtain Most Significant Change stories from the research teams. An ex ante impact assessment will be carried out during the BDC inception workshops, where the research teams will contribute to identifying the kind of impact their individual projects will generate, and how this can be measured. These indicators will feed into the impact pathway, and used to track progress and implementation.Responsibility: the CPWF will lead on this activity, with major input from MPOWER, as well as consultancy-based support. Integrated projects evinced by publications that reveal cross-project collaboration and cognisance.  Collated project reports bi-annually.  Annual reflection workshops (4)  MSC stories as reports or synthesised in publications.  Monitoring and evaluation reports and feedback.  Mekong BDC website.  Contribution to CPWF newsletters and other programmatic outputs.  Innovative communications outputs to describe progress, initiatives and Phase 1 research.  Input to Cross-basin Working Group meetings.  Frequent report back to MSPs through a Mekong Basin email newsletter.The strategy for developing the Mekong BDC MSPs is tiered. As shown in the figure above, Project 5 will initially establish four platforms. The first of these, the Basin Advisory Committee, will contribute to M&E across the BDC, and represents a two-way conduit between the program and diverse basin interests, including dam developers, operators, government agencies and research interests. Its function is to deliver critical comment, suggestions and guidance on the BDC's implementation. It has a primarily administrative function designed to obtain buy-in from regional interests. Its membership will be obtained through personal interactions between the Basin Leader as well as the MSP coordinator.The second is the technical platform, whose task it is to improve the diversity of perspectives contributing to the research implemented under this BDC, and provide technical commentary and review of this research. Its function is primarily quality control and as a knowledge resource. Its membership will be obtained through personal interactions and the development of relationships between the BDC teams and such technical resources.The third is the government platform and international agency platform, comprising representation of state electricity generating agencies, ministries of development, planning, environment and/or water; as well as international agencies, particularly those who finance dam development, including the World Bank, ADB and regional and international financing mechanisms. This platform provides an enabling function -by keeping this group of interests well informed (via Project 5's communications strategy), access will be gained to government plans, dam electricity generating data, data on water flows and turbine through flow, and planning ideas for catchments. This platform also serves a scaling-up function, and will benefit the Mekong BDC by recommending the adoption of its innovations; and through influencing broader, regional decisions. This platform will have a broader perspective of dam development and hydroelectric dam management than the fourth platform (see below), viewing dams within the wider context of catchments and, indeed, the basin as a whole.The fourth platform is hydroelectricity (HE) developers and operators. This group comprises individual companies and agencies who set out to develop dams and/or may then operate them. Their focus tends to be restricted to the construction of the dam, its operation with a view to maximizing profit margins, and managing their power supply commitments. Once again, the key method for developing this platform will be networking, one-on-one with potential members.Ultimately, as the BDC progresses, all of these individual platforms will be merged into a Regional Forum on Hydropower Planning and Development. The reason for initially treating each platform independently is to ensure that each gets the attention it deserves. Trust and dialogue take time to develop, and treating all platforms as a single unit at the start makes no sense if the objective, at this stage, is to develop the relationship as opposed to the dialogue. In addition, each group has a separate batch of interests to protect, technical jargon, and associated networks. By gradually merging the platforms over the lifespan of the BDC, the chances of a regional hydropower forum emerging are considered much better. Finally, maintaining individual platforms at this stage allows Project 5 to tailor-make communications products to suit each set of interests and work to break down barriers to dialogue and cooperation.Enabling this dialogue to occur implies developing capacity for negotiation and dialogue, backed up by methods for negotiation, and communications to support this process.Responsibility: MPOWER as lead with significant input from CPWF and consultancy services. Discrete stakeholder platforms, monitored and reported upon.  Mekong Hydropower Forum with once annual meetings.  Ad hoc round table meetings as opportunities present themselves.  Reporting contributions to Project 5 reports to CPWF Secretariat.  Contributions to publications based on MSP development and experience (see research initiatives below).  Contributions to Mekong BDC communications outputs.  Frequent report back to MSPs through a Mekong Basin email newsletter.All of Project 5's research work will be action research -i.e. learning by doing. Its adaptive management strategies feed the research process and vice a versa, while also contributing to its own 'evaluative culture' (see below). Where research techniques lie beyond the abilities of the Project 5, the team will draw on the expertise of the CPWF's Topic Leaders, the MPOWER Network and its resident expertise, it's regional science networks, and, if necessary, consultants. No budgetary allocation is set aside for Project 5's research, given the degree to which it is integrated into its implementation processes.Project 5 responds to three research questions: (1) How can stakeholder platforms be used to support the integration of information on the consequences of adoption into on-going process of design and implementation?Work anticipating the impact of CPWF innovations will be based on scenarios development. Because the Mekong stakeholder platforms play such an important enabling and up-take role, the platforms become research objects in themselves, allowing the project to anticipate in what ways impact might be generated should innovations be adopted. The platforms, indeed, represent the main source of information in this respect. The impact pathways will anticipate what research products projects will generate, and it is the responsibility of Project 5 to relate this back to the platforms to inform the scenario development process. In turn, the results from this analysis will feed back into the impact pathway monitoring process, informing its reorientation if necessary.If the Mekong BDC is successful, the following will be achieved: reservoirs will be managed in ways that are fairer and more equitable for all water users. The management of Water Storage Infrastructure (WSI) will take into account fisheries and agricultural potential as well as hydropower generation, and riparian communities will be able to utilize these water sources for multiple purposes. Catchments will be managed in ways that reduce erosion and the siltation of WSI, while benefiting riparian communities by opening up farming and other opportunities. Of importance will be the ability to manage WSI sequentially, along the length of rivers, so as to optimize benefits for all. In order to achieve this, water governance -the capacity to negotiate amongst water users (including dam operators) -must be improved, paving the way for policy and administrative changes that enable the sharing of benefits among riparian communities, among water users and between nations. Project 5's scenarios work will be based on Cross-impact Analysis. This is a technique for analysis of complex systems. It concentrates on the ways in which forces on an organization, external or internal (events or trends), may interact to produce effects larger than the sum of parts, or to magnify the effect of one force because of feedback loops. It has been used successfully where dominant forces can be identified, and can be used to increase management's understanding of the relative importance of various factors. The technique draws on experts relevant to the future being imagined, in this case, the MSPs. The structure used for understanding the impact of events and trends on each other is called a Cross-Impact Matrix. The task, then, confronting Project 5 is to develop plausible scenarios based on the adoption (or non-adoption) of research products, and then to anticipate what the impact will be and what this might look like at various scales. In addition, it will assign probabilities as to the likelihood that particular scenarios (impacts) will occur, should adoption prove successful.Because MSP membership includes those likely to be affected by the successful adoption of these products, not only will a deeper understanding be obtained of stakeholder perceptions, but these can be brought to bear to generate outputs that better reflect their requirements; and better integrate information on adoption amongst potential next-and end-users.(2) How can dialogue and negotiation in stakeholder platforms be most effectively informed regarding the likely consequences of different strategies?A multi-agent system (MAS) is a system composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents. Multi-agent systems can be used to solve problems which are difficult or impossible for an individual agent or 'monolithic system' to solve. In Phase 1, the CPWF project on 'Companion Modeling for Resilient Water Management: Stakeholder's Perceptions of Water Dynamics and Collective Learning at the Catchment Scale' operated in the Mekong, and drew on MAS to try and understand and develop management systems along stretches of river, and between up-and down-stream water communities. This technique has particular relevance to negotiation, and the development of mutual understandings between strategic interests. The tool is both analytical (i.e. revealing strategic interests) and a solution (reconciling such interests and associated differences). Other negotiation techniques and options -such as 'desecuritization' work from the Okavango River Basin -will also be employed to facilitate and enable negotiation.The focus of this work will be the MSPs. Drawing on the above methodologies, the strategic positions of members within and between MSPs will be identified and mapped; once the scenarios work is complete, these same techniques will be employed to understand how strategic positions have changed. Where tensions continue to exist, these methods will be employed to resolve them, and obtain cooperation among different interests. Finally, these data will be employed to identify different routes that innovations can take through to impact, negotiating a variety of interests, and taking advantage of sympathetic ones.Gaining common agreement and understanding suggests the need to ensure that all players are able to empathise with the interests and strategic positions of other players. MAS, in part, allows this to occur. Other methods, such as organizing site exchange visits, will also be brought to bear to enable such common understanding to occur.(3) How do different types of research outputs and knowledge do (or do not) move along impact pathways in different contexts, and what types of network are required to achieve developmental outcomes and impacts.Action research is a reflective process of progressive problem solving led by individuals working with others in teams or as part of a 'community of practice' to improve the way they address issues and solve problems. Action research can also be undertaken by larger organizations or institutions, assisted or guided by professional researchers, with the aim of improving their strategies, practices, and knowledge of the environments within which they practice. There are profound similarities between action research and adaptive management, and for this reason, all research conducted by Project 5 is action research.The method for solving this research question is intuitively based on the methodology for the entire project, starting with impact pathway development, through reflection workshops and other interventions designed to alter it, through the development of innovations, and finally, impact. Problems and solutions, tensions and cooperation are all catalogued, and, via feed back loops, serve to strengthen the research initiative, as well as the implementation of adaptive management.Responsibility: CPWF, with input from MPOWER, consultants and Topic Leaders.How will your research address these research questions? Previously described in Section 11.1 above.The communications plan is integral to the success of the Mekong BDC. It aims to contribute (a) to the integration between the BDC's research components; (b) the development of the MSPs; (c) the dissemination of research and impact products; and (d) the scaling up and out of this impact.Central to the communications strategy is one-on-one interaction between Project 5 staff and its communications targets. In addition, the strategy focuses on conventional communications outputs, such as peer-reviewed papers, a website, books and book chapters and other media designed with specific target groups in mind; it also aims to move beyond the conventional, to produce innovative and unusual products conveying information about progress along impact pathways, BDC outputs, Phase 1 research products and explaining what it is that the BDC focuses on. It seeks to develop a journalists' network with a view to exploiting the print, radio and TV media through which to disseminate its findings and generate influence, and to consult with experts and other consultants on imaginative and thought-provoking media products that attract attention, questions and develop dialogue. Project 5 will work closely with the CPWF Communications Coordinator in the development and implementation of its communications strategy.Briefly describe how you will support an evaluative culture in the BDC?The evaluative culture aspects of this BDC have been described in Section 11.1. An evaluative culture implies critical self-analysis both within and across the Mekong BDC's projects, a willingness to confront these, and an acceptance to change the project as a consequence. An evaluative culture has the following characteristics:  it denotes an ongoing process rather than an end state;  it encompass attitudes as well as actions;  it is focused on improvement; and  it affects people across the project.The development of an evaluative culture in the Mekong BDC will focus on the following strategies:  linking evaluation plans to the BDC impact pathway;  encouraging the use and implementation of the results of evaluations;  building ownership of and commitment to the use of evaluation findings;  Project 5 support for evaluation (by actively promoting it);  the development of good support structures including Project 5, the Topic Leaders, the Communications Coordinator, the Innovation and Impact Director, and consultancies; the development of systems to collect performance information (reporting, reflection workshops, frequent one-on-one interaction between Project 5 and project teams;  evaluation findings being made available to the public;  effective communication.In the form of a Gantt chart, constructed as an Excel spreadsheet, Which is part of the project workbook.The Mekong BDC faces one key risk. The political sensitivities associated with dam development and planning in the Mekong Region mean that Project 5 must take particular care to brief relevant government and dam development and management agencies of the BDC's intentions, and reassure them of the initiative's political neutrality. This risk will be addressed through the project's MSP and communications activities. In particular, the project will seek to include this diverse set of interests in a 'Basin Advisory Committee', which will serve to both critique project implementation, as well as serve as a conduit through which project activities and directions are communicated back to regional governments and dam agencies.Project 5 shares a close relationship with Project 4, the Governance project. The latter, however, is a research project, the principal focus of which is to (a) research and identify the managerial and institutional changes that need to accompany innovations derived from Projects 1-3 if the latter are to succeed; and (b) managerial and institutional changes that need to occur if hydro-power benefits are to be maximized at basin scales. These institutional and managerial innovations are of great importance to the work of the MSP component of Project 5, and it is through this latter facility, the MSPs it develops and the influence it generates that the entire 'package' of innovations derived from Projects 1-4 will yield impact. ","tokenCount":"5503"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fbf09ce677934288506d3a3d62dd4ae7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ed66bd2c-e0b4-4929-9ad3-445e0342ae4d/retrieve","id":"464017744"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"59b1425d-5c2d-4ddb-841d-4df20f49d5b3","pagecount":"16","content":" Background  Objectives  Process of smoking fish in the area of Abidjan  Materials and methods• More than 80% of the country's fresh fish is traditionally smoked for sale in the local market and for export.• During the smoking process, Benzo(a)Pyrene, PAH of reference, can be released. It is potentially genotoxic and carcinogenic for humans and was found in products destined for export to the EU in 2007.• In 2006, a European by-law (EC no. 1881/2006) determined maximum levels of specific contaminants in food produce (BaP in smoked fish) and thus required surveillance of all smoked products (ETP) to be exported to the EU.3 Background 4• The application of these regulations is a severe setback for this profitable market in Côte d'Ivoire.• Smoked fish accounts for 0.73% of the total export volume which corresponds to 2.30% of foreign currency.• The sector employs approximately 70,000 people who feed another 400,000. There is a risk -423 respondents (88% are women), 59% are no scolarised -67% of operators use branches of rubber tree -Fat fish is preferably used for smoking -GPHs are very unknown as well as dangers encountered-Level of fat content in fish used for smoking > 6% -Concentration of PAHs varies according to the nature of constituents, smoking and compliance of GPHs (fluoranthene is higher in low-fat fish than in fat fish) ","tokenCount":"223"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b00193982d25045998856682c24a19ff","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e2313a5f-b270-4cd1-b1c4-e0bc6e4b82b7/retrieve","id":"1408796234"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1a783494-f40c-42dd-9ff3-b6b580574179","pagecount":"6","content":"Developing a sustainable and resilient seed system is vital for enhancing agricultural productivity and ensuring food security in Nigeria. This brief highlights the successful implementation of a stage-gate approach in introducing new potato varieties in Nigeria, offering valuable lessons for improving research and development efforts. The collaboration between the Nigeria Potato Seed Security Partnership (NPSSP) project, National Root Crop Research Institute (NRCRI), and Fruit and Veggies Global Ltd. resulted in the successful introduction of four potato varieties, namely Babban, Juriya, Kyau, and Unica with an explicit focus on trait combinations for climate resilience, disease resistance, and processing qualities, targeting differing CIP thanks all donors and organizations that globally support its work through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund. https://www.cgiar.org/funders/agro-ecologies. These varieties received formal approval for registration and release in June 2023, marking a significant milestone as the first new open-access varieties to be introduced in nearly a decade. They are high yielding and carry more robust, market-demanded traits than those currently grown, striking a balance in addressing farmers' limited ability to purchase inputs and meeting diverse market demands. Newly released open-access varieties are pivotal to stimulating market interest and simultaneously uplifting the local seed system. Deployment of newly released varieties is a viable option for variety and seed system development. Increasing farmer access to these varieties that are adapted to different local conditions will help strengthen food and livelihood security in the country.To adapt to the changing climate and build resilience to pests and diseases, farmers need access to a range of affordable quality seed of varieties that are adapted to meet local needs, markets, and agro-ecological environments, such as Babban, Juriya, Kyau, and Unica -the four new varieties released in Nigeria. Nigeria is a major potato producer in Africa, with a large cultivation area of about 350,000 hectares and a strong reliance on potatoes as a cash crop. The crop's potential is evident, as it offers nutritional benefits and climate resilience, producing more food per unit of land and using water efficiently compared to many cereals. However, challenges hinder the realization of this potential. Actual yields fall short of demand at just 3-4 tonnes per hectare due to limited access to improved varieties and affordable seed. High incidences of diseases are also a concern, resulting from inadequate crop management and the reuse of infected or low-resistant varieties. The adoption of better-quality seed, improved potato varieties, and Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) could significantly improve yields.Further, Nigeria's reliance on seed importation has been very unsustainable due to the complex logistics, lengthy process, and huge cost involved making the seed too expensive for farmers. This was aggravated by the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which further reduced seed availability. Production of early-generation seed (EGS) from European varieties is restricted due to proprietary rights. Without the starter material (tissue culture planting materials), developing new potato varieties and seed systems is not possible.Local seed production is needed to boost seed security, giving producers and policymakers a viable alternative that complements seed imports, to enhance resilience to future natural, political, or economic shocks.Addressing these issues is vital to unleashing the full potential of potato production in the country, promoting food security and economic opportunities for farmers and communities. To achieve this, the first crucial step is to establish a sustainable and resilient seed system capable of adapting to local conditions. An initiative undertaken by the NPSSP project in collaboration with NRCRI and Fruit and Veggies Global Ltd., with support from GIZ, demonstrated the importance of embracing a holistic approach in introducing new open-access potato varieties that are well-suited to the local environment. Embracing such local-based solutions can significantly enhance agricultural productivity and contribute to the livelihood security and overall development of Nigeria's potato sector.For nearly a decade, Nigeria faced significant challenges in its potato seed system as new varieties had not been released during this period. Relying on imported seed, the available stock degenerated and remained unchanged for an extended period. Existing varieties were not open access and were protected by proprietary rights, hindering the seed system and varietal development program in the country. Moreover, proprietary rights restricted seed cleaning and multiplication as the owner's permission was required, further complicating seed system development. This limitation also affected the availability of diverse varieties for various market segments in the country. Recognizing these constraints, stakeholders within Nigeria expressed the urgent need for open-access, climate-smart, disease-tolerant, and market-responsive robust varieties to bolster seed security and agricultural development.The International Potato Center's breeding team initiated a collaborative effort with national stakeholders in Nigeria to identify desired characteristics for potato varieties suited to the country's diverse agro-ecologies, and to meet consumer demand and market needs. Utilizing valuable input from stakeholders, the breeding team selected 10 advanced clones from the CIP breeding program that precisely met the identified criteria and needs of the Table 1. Evaluation and activities undertaken for the release and registration of new potato varieties in Nigeria Nigerian context. Subsequently, the selected advanced clones were presented to stakeholders for consideration.Local partners played a pivotal role in facilitating the smooth importation of the selected materials as tissue culture plantlets by preparing import permit. Once in Nigeria, these valuable plantlets were preserved and multiplied at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) located in Ibadan, ensuring the availability of material for selection through on-station, multilocation, and on-farm testing and evaluation process, and their nomination for variety release and registration process.The collaboration between public and private sector stakeholders proved instrumental in creating a local multiplication mechanism for the imported materials.The National Root Crop Research Institute (NRCRI) and Fruit and Veggies Global Ltd established seed multiplication units within their facilities, adopting the efficient Rooted Apical Cutting (RAC) technology. This allowed for rapid multiplication and bulking of the introduced material, ensuring a sufficient supply of seed for the release and registration process. While two out of the ten varieties did not survive during the multiplication process and were excluded, the remaining varieties thrived.Remarkably, within less than a year, these two institutions successfully produced the required amount of seed needed for the variety release and registration process.The eight advanced clones were submitted for evaluation for variety release and evaluation following the guidelines for registration and release of new crop varieties in Nigeria by the National Centre for Genetic Resources and Biotechnology (NACGRAB) ( Trials took place at NRCRI-Kuru in both the 2022 and 2023 cropping seasons. Planting and field management followed recommended GAP. Nicola and Marabel were used as local checks/controls. Data were collected on growth, canopy size, height, number of leaves and stems, stem diameter, tuber number, and weight as well as its resistance to diseases including late blight and bacterial wilt.Trials took place in both the 2022 and 2023 cropping seasons in eight locations across three states with the eight genotypes, and two local checks/controls, Nicola and Marabel. Planting and field management followed recommended GAP. Similar data were collected to those gathered in the on-station trails.Out of the original eight, six were evaluated in fifteen locations across three states.To ensure effective and objective evaluation from farmers, the trials were designed so that individual farmers got the seeds of three test genotypes and the two local checks/control varieties, Nicola and Marabel. This is to indicate the potential acceptability and adoption of test genotypes as substitutes or replacements over local varieties.Composition analysis and sensory testing 10 kg of tubers from each genotype were subjected to additional testing. Four tubers were analyzed to understand their composition -fat, moisture, protein, fiber, and ash content -while the remaining tubers were processed into boiled tubers, French fries, and chips which were then tested by consumers in a participatory way who rated them in terms of how much they liked (or did not like) the end products.Based on a series of evaluations, the project team recommended the release and registration for commercial use of six best-performing genotypes: CIP381381.13, CIP392797.22, CIP393371.157, CIP393371.58, CIP398190.200, and CIP398208.29 to the National Crop Varieties and Livestock Breeds Registration and Release Committee.The candidate varieties surpassed the yield of local checks by more than two-fold across all locations of on-station trials and the yields were stable across all the sites and seasons. This is corroborated by comparably higher yields in both multi-location and on-farm trials. Candidate varieties also showed relatively higher levels of resistance and tolerance to most common potato diseases such as late blight, bacterial wilt, and potato viruses compared to the local checks. The proximate composition of these candidates also indicates superiority in terms of ash, fiber, protein, starch, and Vitamin C content compared to the local checks.The candidate varieties not only have exceptional performance in terms of yield and disease resistance but also have desirable quality traits such as high dry matter content, tuber shape and size, tuber skin, and flesh color, which make them highly promising addition to the Nigerian potato industry based on their adaptability and fitness for different market segments. The stage-gate approach adopted ensures a structured and systematic evaluation of candidate varieties at different stages of the introduction process. Each stage serves as a gate, allowing only the most promising varieties to progress to the next phase. This helped in identifying and promoting varieties with a higher potential for success and impact. The approach also ensured that stakeholders, including farmers, researchers, and other experts, are actively involved in the evaluation and decision-making. This participatory approach ensures that the released varieties align with the needs and preferences of the end-users, increasing the chances of successful adoption.The public-private partnership between NRCRI and Fruit and Veggies Global Ltd. exemplifies the importance of collaborative efforts, stakeholder engagement, and innovative approaches in successful variety introduction, release, and registration in Nigeria's agricultural sector.The partnership leveraged the expertise and resources of both public and private entities. NRCRI brought its research capabilities and knowledge in breeding, while Fruit and Veggies Global Ltd. contributed its experience in seed multiplication and distribution. This synergy allowed for a more comprehensive and efficient approach to variety introduction.The successful establishment of seed multiplication units at the facilities of both NRCRI and Fruit and Veggies Global Ltd. highlights the importance of local-based solutions in variety introduction, release, and registration in Nigeria. By developing a local seed system, the partnership has significantly improved farmers' access to quality seed and increased the availability of improved varieties. This shift towards local seed production reduces the country's reliance on seed imports, promoting self-sufficiency and resilience in the agricultural sector. Moreover, the local breeding program's development enables a more agile response to","tokenCount":"1745"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"910c95cfa75b3a382e6c1212fba723b4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/11d679f2-ae01-4a2f-95e1-a89b298cdf02/retrieve","id":"1184711541"},"keywords":["www","climatesecurity","cgiar","org Africa Climate Crisis Security Observatory www","climatesecurity","cgiar","org Climate Security Observatory Series"],"sieverID":"c208f6e4-b066-42a2-8121-682d4709e3d6","pagecount":"18","content":"This factsheet gives answers on how climate exacerbates root causes of conflict in Kenya, using a climate security pathway analysis. Two main pathways are identified:Climate Security Observatory Series : Impact Pathways KENYA This publication is part of a factsheet series reporting on the findings of the CGIAR FOCUS Climate Security Observatory work. The research is centered around 5 questions*:How does climate exacerbate root causes of conflict?1. Resource availability and access: Climate-related impacts limit the availability of valuable resources such as water, pasture, livestock, and fish, making access to these resources highly contested. This is especially true in the country's drought-affected arid and semi-arid lands (which cover more than 80% of the land area), where small-scale resource-related conflicts between pastoral groups are facilitated by the proliferation of small arms, as well as grievances fed by marginalization, a lack of basic services, limited employment opportunities, weak governance, and erosion of formal institutions. The resulting climate-related insecurity has the potential to spread across administrative boundaries within Kenya as well as internationally.Rising temperatures, erratic rainfall, and flooding all threaten climate-sensitive livelihoods and food security by reducing agricultural productivity. Rural populations may migrate to other rural or urban areas in response to rising food prices, food and nutrition insecurity, and a lack of alternative livelihood options. The strain on local infrastructure and resources can exacerbate tensions between host communities and migrants. Those who remain in rural areas, particularly dissatisfied youth who lack access to education and employment, may become targets for recruitment by armed groups offering financial incentives.Tanaya Dutta Gupta, Gamal Mohamed Hassan, Abdimajid Nunow Abdi, Ignacio Madurga-Lopez, Theresa Liebig, Leonardo Medina Santa Cruz, Niklas Sax, Peter Läderach and Grazia PacilloWith a diverse topography and with more than 80 percent of land area under the fragile arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs) ecosystem, Kenya experiences a mix of climatic conditions: from the hot and arid north and northeast, a hot and humid coastline, to the cooler and more temperate central highlands (The World Bank Group, 2021). Kenya's western, central, and coastal areas, while comprising less than 20 percent of the entire country, are home to 90 percent of its 55 million population. These densely populated areas also feature a rich natural resource base, including forests, wetlands, aquatic and marine resources, together with productive and primarily rainfed agricultural land (The World Bank Group, 2021).Unlike temperatures, there is high variability in rainfall across the country. While characterized by two distinct wet seasons, rainfall patterns in Kenya are also heavily influenced by shifts in the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). Geographical and seasonal variations in rainfall are not only connected with extreme rainfall events and flooding, but also to prolonged droughts, both of which have become more common in recent decades. Drought cycles now occur every 2 to 3 years, whereas earlier they were recorded every 5 to 10 years. Along with drought, extreme flooding remains one of the leading causes of land degradation and soil erosion, adversely affecting the highly climate-sensitive livelihoods of the rural poor (The World Bank Group, 2021). Moreover, long-term average temperatures in Kenya are projected to rise (1.7°C by the 2050s and 3.5°C by the end of the century) across all emission scenarios (Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, 2016;The World Bank Group, 2021).As a country highly exposed to ecological threats, Kenya faces serious consequences from both drought and flooding (Institute for Economics & Peace, 2020, The World Bank Group, 2021). There have been 28 recorded incidents of severe drought in the past 100 years and the increasing frequency and severity of such events have had huge socio-economic impact. For example, the economic cost of the 1998 to 2000 drought was approximately $2.8 billion, mainly owing to the loss of crops and livestock, damage to fisheries, and the adverse effects on energy production and water supply (National Environment Management Authority, 2015). This severe drought affected food security for millions of Kenyans, while rising temperatures also resulted in the further spread of diseases like malaria (Government of Kenya, 2010). As of 2022, people in Kenya´s ASAL regions have experienced a fourth consecutive below-average rainy season (OCHA, 2022). This ongoing drought is the longest reported in the country for over 40 years, and has left at least 4 million people experiencing acute food insecurity. The amount of people without access to water has increased by 50% in the last year alone, and pastoral communities have faced significant losses in livestock, with more than 1.5 million cattle having died as a result of drought.Faced with these challenges, socio-economically disadvantaged Kenyans are becoming increasingly more exposed and vulnerable. Owing to their physical locations in hazard-prone zones, counties like Baringo, Kisumu, West Pokot, and Laikipia face a risk of disaster, necessitating significant investment in protection measures (Development Initiatives Kenya, 2019;Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2018). Furthermore, while low-lying coastal plains and wetlands remain at risk from saltwater intrusion and storm surges due to rising sea levels, other areas in the country face water stress as glacial losses on Mount Kenya and inland flooding contribute to diminished availability and quality of water for agricultural, energy, and domestic use (USAID, 2018).The agricultural sector (including crop, livestock, and fisheries sub-sectors), contributes around one-third of Kenya's GDP and is highly vulnerable to the impact of climate variability and extremes.Supporting more than 70 percent of the rural population (FAO, 2021), this sector, serving as a major source of food production and livelihood security for the rural poor, remains heavily dependent on seasonal rains (The World Bank Group, 2021). Climatic stressors such as rising temperatures, rainfall variability and increasing frequency and intensity of drought and floods have caused huge losses and damage to crops and livestock, with serious consequences for human lives and security (Government of Kenya, 2015;USAID, 2018).Despite being one of the fastest growing and largest economies in Sub-Saharan Africa, Kenya continues to face challenges related to poverty, inequality, weak investments, and corruption, as well as internal and external shocks (World Bank, 2021). Economic disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, along with pressure on health care infrastructure, have exacerbated these challenges.With a major portion of the population living in poverty, and a widening gap between rich and poor, more than two-thirds of families in Kenya experience vulnerabilities due to food insecurity and poor nutrition and health outcomes (USAID, 2021). Further, as a net wheat, fuel, and fertilizer importer, Kenya's economy remains vulnerable to global price shocks, such as that from the Russia-Ukraine war (World Bank, 2022a).In comparison to most of its neighbours with violent histories of civil conflict, Kenya has enjoyed prolonged civil peace, albeit punctuated with brief periods of violence (Theisen, 2012). In this ethnically and culturally diverse context, violence has usually been found to be associated with the occurrence of elections, especially during the polls that took place in 1992, 1997, and 2007(Theisen, 2012)).Following the violence around the contested 2007 election, the fragile states index (FSI) for Kenya peaked. Effects of this violence led to long-term population displacement, domestic supply chain disruptions, and food insecurity (Kenya Food Security Network, 2008). A reformed political economic governance system was introduced with the passage of a new constitution in 2010, and an ambitious decentralization process initiated aimed to transfer autonomy and decision-making power to county governments at subnational level (Kebede et al., 2021;World Bank, 2022). Devolution remains a key factor for Kenya, with implications for shaping local decisions and adaptive capacity of vulnerable communities in the face of worsening climatic shocks and stresses.Unlike some of its neighbours, Kenya enjoys relative stability and an absence of civil war. Nonetheless, there are occurrences of small-scale intercommunal resource-related conflict, along with political disputes and tensions, spanning different regions of the country. In the arid and semi-arid lands, for instance, where pastoralism features as the main source of livelihood, climate-induced scarcity of land and water has been connected with resource-based violent conflicts (Government of Kenya, 2015).Prominent examples include violence between groups such as the Samburu and Pokot, and between the Turkana and Pokot, (Greiner 2012;Ide et al., 2014). In Machakos and Makueni Counties of Eastern region, there has been an observed rise of conflicts over pasture and water in the last few years, undermining inter-communal peace (Maguta et al., 2020). This has possible spillover effects across Kenya's internal administrative boundaries as well as international boundaries with neighbouring countries.While climate may not be directly responsible for driving such localized conflict dynamics, the impact of climate variability and extremes, interacting with a range of socio-economic and political factors, can shape and exacerbate risks of human insecurity, conflict, and fragility. How might such indirect and complex linkages between climate and conflict, quite extensively studied for the African continent (Scheffran et al., 2019), manifest in a context like Kenya? The following pathways represent logical mechanisms of how the climate-security nexus may operate in Kenya, based on a triangulation approach combining: 1) a systematized search and interpretation of existing knowledge in academic and grey literature; 2) key points of discussion emerging from the June 2022 ClimBeR Climate Security workshop held in Nairobi; and 3) preliminary findings from fieldwork conducted in September 2022 across specific sites representing distinct ecosystems and livelihoods within Kenya.Climate-induced impacts on land, water, and food systems across Kenya may not only limit the availability of precious scarce resources, including water, pasture, livestock, and fish, but also make access to these resources highly contested. This is especially the case in the drought-affected arid and semi-arid lands (or ASALs, comprising more than 80 percent of land area in the country), where small-scale resource-related conflict between pastoral groups, usually manifesting in the form of livestock raids by male youth, are exacerbated by the proliferation of small arms, along with grievances fed by experience of marginalization, lack of basic services, limited employment opportunities, weak governance, and erosion of legitimacy of formal institutions. The resulting climate-related insecurity can spillover administrative boundaries within Kenya as well as across international boundaries.The effects of climate variability and extremes, interacting with existing socio-economic and political factors, can increase the risk of violence between communities relying on climate-sensitive pastoral livelihoods. The \"spiral of violence\" between Turkana and Pokot communities, for instance, can be connected to grievances fed by the experience of marginalization and insecurity, exacerbated by drought, heat stress, diseases, and hunger affecting the livestock, which could even lead to their death (Scheffran et al., 2014, USAID, 2018, Siedenburg, 2021).Livestock deaths are potentially both economically and culturally devastating for pastoralists, who might move in search of water, pasture, and market access to avoid losing their livestock, coming into conflict with other communities seeking the same resources (Siedenburg, 2021). An increasing frequency of drought not only affects livestock health, but also threatens pastoral livelihoods by affording pastoralists less time to recover from livestock losses (Schilling et al., 2014;Opiyo et al., 2015).Contested access to scarce resources like water, pasture, and livestock, along with the availability of small arms can shape risks of insecurity and violence, typically manifested in the form of livestock raids carried out by male youth (Scheffran et al., 2014).Neither drought nor conflict are new phenomena in Kenya's ASALs. Pastoral communities like the Turkana have historically depended on alternative tactics, including mobility and use of social networks, to access resources like pasture and water spanning over large areas, with accompanying ecological benefits (Akall, 2021;Western et al., 2020). Declining drought resilience, land degradation, together with land use changes and conversion for agricultural development and wildlife reserves, have led to a breakdown of traditional pastoral institutions based historically on social reciprocity and resource regulation (Western et al., 2020). As a logical consequence, when faced with the impact of climate variability on resource availability, as evidenced through an increase in prevalence of drought and diseases, and in a context characterized by access to small arms and deepening reliance on famine relief, there would likely be conflict over limited resources, including livestock (Blackwell, 2010).In a study on Turkana County, Ember et al., (2012) find that the intensity of violence is associated with periods of less than normal rainfall. The reasoning for this is framed around the desperation of groups seeking survival in situations of scarcity and where access to resources cannot be arranged peacefully.Conversely, other research has found that drier periods in the drylands potentially reduce the risk of conflict and increase the possibility of cooperation, making violent incidents like livestock raiding much less likely (Witsenburg & Adano, 2009). This has been attributed to the imperative for survival during harsher conditions, a decline in the economic value of livestock, and realization that \"fighting during a drought is suicidal'' (Eaton 2008), making times of hardship during drought-induced scarcity relatively peaceful. Indeed, there is strong evidence for the time following wetter years to be less safe than the drier years (Theisen, 2012), fueling opportunistic behavior as more time and effort can be given to strategically plan raids (Seter, 2016). Hence, rather than scarcity, conditions of abundance, including periods with more abundant vegetation, seem to be associated with a greater risk of violence and a higher incidence of livestock raiding (Meier et al., 2007, Witsenburg & Adano, 2009). Furthermore, little evidence has been found that scarcity in itself and in election years would lead to violence (Theisen, 2012). This is not to say resource scarcity or abundance by themselves inevitably lead to conflict, but rather to underline that under certain conditions the availability and access to water, pasture, and forage, due to unreliable rainfall, may inform risks of conflict among pastoral groups who depend on these resources for their livelihood security.For example, empirical evidence from community conservancies in Laikipia and Samburu counties of northern Kenya reveals the influence of climate on conditions of resource scarcity and competition, which can heighten the risk of insecurity and conflict. But the extent to which climate may act as a risk multiplier in this context, and at what point competition over critical resources may catapult towards violent conflict, depend on the question of \"how resources are managed in times of scarcity\" as well as the adaptive capacity of communities (Campbell et al., 2009).Moreover, conflict can itself be a part of the political dynamics of adaptation instead of being a factor inhibiting local adaptive capacity. This is the case in areas like Turkana, where the loss of livestock in raids that are increasingly becoming more violent and predatory, carry implications such as impoverishing 1 This report combines key insights emerging from a series of common visioning exercises around the climate security nexus in the ASALs, conducted with 45 diverse stakeholders working across humanitarian, development, climate, and peace sectors in Kenya.social networks and ties that previously played a key role in replenishment and exchanges through loans and gifts (Eriksen and Lind, 2009).Insights from a recently conducted fieldwork (Medina et al., in press) in Kenya reveals that communities in other parts of the ASAL region are also witnessing increasing intensity of violence during livestock raids. For instance, the Yakuu Indigenous Peoples of Mukogodo forest, living in an ecotone between the arid and fertile rangelands around Mount Kenya, have traditionally experienced instances of cattle rustling by neighbouring communities. Cattle rustling, although involving acts of violence, is also a long-established and culturally accepted practice, aiding in cattle replenishment, dowry exchange, and representing a rite of passage for male youth \"warriors.\" Individual instances of rustling are not necessarily deemed an act of conflict by the Yakuu community. Today, however, cattle rustling dynamics have shifted significantly. Death of cattle is a constant stressor for pastoralist wellbeing, mostly fuelled by drought, lack of pasture and diseases-all related to the effects of climate change.Longer migratory routes, adopted by pastoralists due to a lack of pasture in the more arid regions to the north, imply that a higher number of pastoralists now come in contact inside and around Mukogodo. In recent years, members of the Yaaku report a noticeable increase in the frequency and intensity of rustling conducted by neighbouring communities, which they directly relate to the impacts of drought over livelihoods and the availability of resources. Attacking raiders not only steal cattle, but also destroy infrastructure and displace people to secure access to land, waterholes, and pasture. This is echoed in key insights emerging from discussions during a June 2022 workshop on climate security held in Nairobi as part of the One CGIAR initiative: Building Systemic Resilience against Climate Variability and Extremes (ClimBeR). As highlighted in a pathway named \"warrior culture\" in the workshop report \"Towards a Common Vision of the Climate-Security Nexus in Kenya\" 1 (Medina et al., 2022), there is a significant gap in how climate-induced resource scarcity might influence \"religious environmental sense-making\" of pastoral communities in the ASALs, with the potential to shape localized conflict dynamics \"driven by sacred beliefs around entitlements and attachments to cattle.\" Group discussions with experts and practitioners during the workshop revealed that religious organizations, including churches, other faith-based organizations and even non-state armed groups with certain religious orientation can facilitate both radicalization as well as peacebuilding through resource sharing and cooperation, by offering resource support and filling a vacuum created by regional marginalization, lack of basic services, and eroding legitimacy of governmental institutions.Furthermore, influenced by a development policy bias of the state that has overlooked pastoralism as a viable livelihood in the drylands, relief operations have historically tried to relocate herders to more sedentary activities like fishing and irrigated agriculture schemes, leading to a shift away from livestock-keeping (Eriksen and Lind, 2009). Such strategies, under a conventional development paradigm, are not only ineffective in reducing inequity in distribution of resources, they also erode the legitimacy of formal institutional interventions by failing to consider local needs, aspirations, and adaptation efforts. Thus, conflict-sensitive institutional arrangements such as peace committees, and governance mechanisms considered critical for fostering cooperation and peace, could be disregarded as being imposed structures in parts of the ASALs (Eriksen and Lind, 2009;Adano et al., 2012;Scheffran et al., 2014). This is evidenced in conservation efforts involving rural communities as participants and beneficiaries, which though intended to ameliorate existing conflict outcomes actually result in the opposite, heightening risks of further conflict over communal resources. In the drought-prone East Pokot, along with neighbouring counties of Samburu, Turkana, Laikipia and Baringo, violence associated with livestock raids, and facilitated by the proliferation of small arms and weapons since the 1980s (Mkutu, 2008), is increasingly becoming embedded in politically-driven conflicts over control of land, infrastructure and territorial rights along ethnic lines and administrative boundaries (Schlee, 2010, Greiner, 2012). This can be negatively influenced by interventions in existing land use and tenure systems, such as the establishment of conservancies on group ranches that limit pastoral mobility and alienate groups from existing claims over lands, especially if they fail to consider regional communal dynamics related to past and present struggles over access and use of common pool resources (Greiner, 2012).Extractive activities like oil exploration with the discovery of reserves in northwestern Kenya, mainly in Turkana and surrounding areas, have the potential to amplify already existing climate vulnerabilities and conflict risks (Schilling et al., 2015). Oil extraction in the region has been justified by the government as contributing to national economic growth, facilitated by a marriage of interests between local elites and external investors. But this process can have detrimental consequences for the local environment and people of this region, through pollution of land and water, dumping of toxic wastes, disruption of pastoral migration routes, as well as marginalization and displacement of local populations (Mkutu and Mdee, 2020). This rush to extract oil could further feed a downward \"spiral of violence\" and vulnerability, aggravating existing climate-related conflict dynamics between the Turkana and Pokot communities in this arid area, one already harshly impacted by rainfall variability and frequent droughts (Scheffran et al., 2014).The risk of conflict between local communities and the oil interests may be amplified, as expectations around employment and development remain largely unmet in a region already suffering from weak governance and lack of access to basic services and security (Schilling et al., 2015). Adequate resource governance efforts, including institutional mechanisms for land use and rights, sharing of oil revenues among different stakeholders, as well as for mediating non-violent interactions between local communities, oil companies and the government, would be needed to address and mitigate this potential vicious cycle of climate-resource-conflict nexus (Schilling et al., 2015).Moving the spotlight from the pastoral dynamics to livelihoods based on farming and fisheries in the arid and semi-arid lands as well as other parts of the country can help illuminate how Pathway #1 might operate in specific sub-national contexts. Communities in Burat and Kinna of Isiolo County engaged in agricultural livelihoods, and dependent on natural resources like water, strongly perceive the impact of drought in terms of water stress, crop failure and declining yields. Under particularly harsh drought conditions, households relying on irrigation have also turned to erosive coping strategies such as charcoal making, using nearby forest resources. Conflicts over scarce resources were reported from these communities, mainly in the form of livestock raiding, inter-ethnic clashes, and disputes with local wildlife authorities over access to grazing lands within the Meru National Park (Quandt, 2021).With livestock an important asset for millions of rural Kenyans, conflict occurs not only between drought-affected pastoral groups but also between mobile pastoralists and sedentary farmers competing for diminishing resources, including water, land, and fodder (Mugonya and Hauser, 2022).For example, increasingly frequent droughts and erratic rainfall have amplified resource-related conflicts between Pokomo farmers and Orma herders in the Tana River Delta. While the Pokomo inhabit the riverbanks to cultivate crops in this wetlands area, the Orma herds, needing access to the river, pass through the agricultural lands, resulting in damaged crops and sparking intercommunal conflict. With the violence reaching a peak ahead of the 2013 elections, there was not only mistrust between the communities, but also toward the authorities, with local people securing arms for their own protection (Climate Diplomacy, 2012).Along with access to water, the question of effective governance of land resources is key to understanding the dynamics of cooperation and conflict over resources. This is especially relevant in livelihood transition zones, where actors depend on diverse livelihoods yet the same resources may collide with each other. Triggers like drought or political tensions around elections can tip the scale toward violent conflict (Greiner, 2013;Fox, 2018). For instance, recent research on Mukogodo forest in Laikipia County has found that in this zone of transition from pastoralism to agro-pastoralism, with a variety of land tenure arrangements, users and overlapping claims to resource rights, there exist tensions between multiple actors at multiple levels of governance and decision-making over forest and rangeland resources-national and county governments, communities, and NGOs. Despite a devolved governance system and the passage of the Community Land Act of 2016, the replacement of traditional mechanisms of cooperation by formalized institutions may erode social cohesion and exacerbate alienation, further marginalizing those historically deprived of formal rights to these land resources (Muok et al., 2021).Struggles over access and rights to resources characterize the condition of several communities across Kenya, especially those facing the increasingly harsh impact of a changing climate amidst global shocks and an evolving political-economic landscape. Drawing on preliminary insights from recently conducted fieldwork in the country, the experience of the Endorois community can exemplify such dynamics. The Endorois Indigenous Peoples, inhabitants of the area around Lake Bogoria for several centuries, were forcefully displaced by the Kenya government in the 1970s for the creation of Lake Bogoria Game Reserve. The community has since the 1980s organized in demanding the restoration of their rights and compensation for past injustices. More recently, the Endorois have been experiencing violent attacks from the neighbouring Pokot, with characteristics like other tribal territorial conflicts across Kenya. Driven by election-based violence, these conflicts have continued to revolve around political boundaries, access to land and the interests of political and economic elites.With thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) dwelling within the Endorois territory, many hundreds killed, dozens of thousand livestock stolen or killed, and infrastructure like water tanks and roads destroyed, the Endorois people today reject the term \"cattle rustling\", referring instead to \"terrorism\". Given that poverty and marginalization drive the recruitment of Pokot youth, mainly 13 to 20-year-olds participating in the attacks, increasing degrees of vulnerability could be understood as enhanced through climate impacts, rendering young populations more susceptible to recruitment for violence. At the same time, the effects of conflict have worsened Endorois' vulnerability to climate risks y undermining collaborative and adaptive capacities.Compared to populations engaged in pastoral and agricultural livelihoods, communities relying on fishing can be found scattered across the country, located along the coastline, wetlands, and lakeshores. Traditional fishing activities in lakes and floodplains around the Tana River have decreased over recent decades with the decline in fish yields (Leauthaud et al., 2013). This can be attributed to changes in the frequency and duration of floods, and the resultant drying up of lakes, along with dwindling populations of fish that served as a vital resource and source of identity for the Pokomo community. Artisanal fishing communities mostly live without alternative sources of income, and with low levels of education-factors which make them highly dependent on natural resources (Dzoga et al., 2019). Changes in the flooding regime, reduced water availability, and climate-induced degradation of productive capacities have spelled serious consequences for human security and social cohesion in the region (Leauthaud et al., 2013). Along Kenya's coastal lowlands, there are households dependent on marine fishery resources (Somoebwana et al., 2021). Fish catches in these fisheries are affected by warming seawater temperatures and the variability of the monsoons, influenced by El-Niño/La-Niña events (Kamau et al., 2021). With a growing population dependant on coastal resources, and climatic stressors projected to alter ecosystem dynamics, effective management and governance of near-shore fisheries becomes critical for avoiding resource over-exploitation and habitat degradation, with long-term benefits for the Blue Economy (Kamau et al., 2021).Commercial fishing in offshore waters also faces governance issues related to Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, at great cost to the country's economy (Benkenstein, 2018). Kenya's maritime governance, crucial to ensure access to coastal resources, is complicated by boundary disputes with the neighbouring countries of Somalia and Uganda. While the dispute with Uganda is around an island on Lake Victoria, the dispute with Somalia is over demarcation of a maritime boundary needed to strengthen security in the context of surging Somali-based maritime piracy in the Indian Ocean after 2005, as well as non-traditional security challenges, including illegal fishing, disasters, climate impact, marine pollution and the smuggling of drugs, weapons and people (McCabe, 2019). Overall, there remains an obvious gap in the literature around the role of fishery resources in influencing climate-related security of Kenyan communities.Nevertheless, any understanding of climate security pathways in Kenya focusing on 1) availability and access to land and water resources, as well as 2) livelihood and food insecurity, remains incomplete without adequately considering the transboundary dynamics and spill-over effects linking the impact of climate on localized and cross-border conflict outcomes.PATHWAY #2: Livelihood and food insecurity Summary Livelihood and food insecurity can act as an mediating mechanism between climate and conflict risk, not only in the context of drought-induced resource scarcity, but also in relation to risks of flooding. Rising temperatures and rainfall variability challenge climate-sensitive livelihoods by affecting productivity of agriculture, livestock, and fisheries. Rural populations confronted by rising food prices, food and nutrition insecurity, and lack of alternative livelihood options, may migrate to urban areas. Whether it is internal migrants in urban slums or refugees in camps, the pressure on local infrastructure and resources can fuel tensions between the host community and migrants.On the other hand, those staying in rural areas, especially discontent youth with lack of access to education and employment, may become targets for recruitment by armed groups offering economic incentives.As elaborated in Pathway #1 on resource availability and access, communities practicing climatesensitive livelihoods in the arid and semi-arid lands face risks of conflict with similar or different livelihood groups competing over dwindling resources. Over longer time, they can also experience food and nutrition insecurity, gradual livelihood erosion and eventual livelihood loss. Availability and access to resources including water, land, and food become critical here. In the words of a participant in the ClimBeR climate security workshop:In Kenya, we have seen an increasing frequency of droughts, which are now almost a continuous occurrence and affect an increasing number of people. The decreasing availability of water affects people´s livelihoods in multiple ways and induces conflict amongst communities. As we speak, whole areas of Marsabit are under curfew due to drought-driven conflict. (Joshua Laichena,Discussions during the workshop highlighted the role of food insecurity in mediating climateconflict linkages (Medina et al., 2022). Cattle rustling by male youth from drought-affected pastoral communities could be used to replenish livestock and food reserves. Communities can also turn to alternative-and less harmful-strategies for their source of income and survival. For example, in Turkana, during times of food shortages, a common practice has been to sell livestock for food. Other avenues may include gathering wild food, engaging in informal trade, and providing casual labour (Eriksen and Lind, 2009).With adaptation options in Turkana largely shaped by colonial and post-colonial development policies biased towards \"settling\" pastoralists (Lind and Eriksen, 2006), in past decades irrigation and fishing schemes have been introduced as part of relief operations. However, as fishing or farming alone could not meet all the needs for food and nutrition security, efforts to adopt sedentary livelihoods in such an arid area made pastoral communities even more vulnerable, rendering Turkana a hotspot where climate and conflict risks coincide (Eriksen and Lind, 2009).Empirical research focusing on other parts of the ASALs, such as Laikipia County, find that adaptation pathways are not homogenous for entire communities, but rather shaped by axes of social differentiation, including gender, age, and wealth (Ng'ang'a and Crane, 2020). At the scale of individuals, research finds that those who have reported moving due to drought and water shortages are more likely to experience violence than those who have not (Linke et al., 2018).Whether violence is an outcome or a driver of migration, climate and conflict-induced human mobility and insecurity play a key role in this pathway. The presence of refugees from Somalia and other African countries in the Dadaab camps, located in Garissa County of northeastern Kenya, has been identified as a factor stressing local resources (Kumssa and Jones, 2014). The majority of refugees in these camps are fleeing political instability and violence in Somalia, but their continued influx into this area close to the Kenya-Somali border should also be understood in the context of environmental and socio-economic impact of drought and famine on the region. Short-term humanitarian aid provided by international agencies and other NGOs is inadequate for sustaining the refugees in Dadaab, who are in need of longer-term development support and a durable solution to their plight. With a growing refugee population in and around the camps, there are concerns around reduced economic opportunities, along with human security challenges including sexual and gender-based violence faced by women, in part owing to a dearth of adequate shelter and having to walk long distances to collect firewood. Climatic stressors like inadequate rainfall in this highly drought-prone region compound risks of insecurity, mainly related to food and livelihoods for refugees and host communities alike, pushing them toward erosive activities like cutting trees. In the absence of adequate government policy and capacity-building programmes to address pressure on local resources, such a situation can in turn exacerbate environmental degradation, further fueling tensions between the host community and refugees (Kumssa et al., 2014).More recently in northeastern Kenya, there have been repeated incidents of violence on schools and teachers perpetrated by Al-Shabaab, the Somalia-based militant group opposing the Somali government. In retaliation against Kenya's military deployment to Somalia in 2011 to fight their insurgency, Al-Shabaab's activities in Kenya have mainly focused on bordering northeastern counties like Mandera, Wajir and Garissa, in addition to attacks in the capital Nairobi and a military airstrip in Lamu County. As one of the most marginalized and underdeveloped parts of Kenya, there are glaring regional inequalities between the northeast and the rest of the country, reflected in poor indicators of public health, education, and employment. These inequalities are deeply entrenched in the socioeconomic fabric of the northeast, with its roots in policies developed during the colonial era that largely neglected this Muslim-majority region (The World Bank, 2019).Security risks in this part of the country have continued to persist even after Kenya's policy of devolution, which aims to provide greater autonomy to county governments by distributing power and resources away from Nairobi (The World Bank, 2019). By mobilizing grievances related to persistent inequalities and a sense of marginalization in the region, Al-Shabaab's violent activities have forced the Kenyan government to withdraw all non-local teachers from the affected counties, resulting in what is being called an \"education crisis\" affecting the already long-neglected northeast. Effects of climate variability in this drought-prone region can exacerbate the crisis, with dire implications for security, including livelihood and food insecurity, providing Al-Shabaab with fertile ground to recruit youth discontented with a lack of access to education and employment (International Crisis Group, 2020).Livelihood and food insecurity act as major drivers of conflict risk in other parts of the country as well.In western Kenya, the Nyando river basin, comprising the Kano floodplains and the Nyando wetland, part of the bigger Lake Victoria Basin, represents one such fragile ecosystem, with land use divided between crop production and livestock rearing as the dominant sources of livelihood. According to official statistics of the Kenya government, over 70 percent of the population in this wetland region, which faces an increasing risk of flooding, live below the national poverty level (UNDP, 2009). Weak socioeconomic and health indicators, together with a growing youth population, can explain the heavy dependence of local people on its dwindling natural resource base for subsistence, resulting in over-exploitation and environmental degradation (Raburu et al., 2012).Additionally, the combined effects of variability in rainfall and river discharge, resulting in frequent floods (Kitheka et al., 2021), along with poor infrastructure and lack of access to basic services can compound risks of livelihood and food insecurity, which in turn can have devastating ecological consequences for the wetlands. Furthermore, shifting of rivers and water levels in the region can be linked to risks of human-human and human-wildlife conflicts. These can take multiple forms, including boundary disputes between communities like the Nyakach and Kano, as well as displacement of wildlife such as the hippopotamus due to destruction of papyrus swamps. Another type of risk can be seen emerging in this context, when resource use by local people, such as excessive water use, papyrus harvesting, sand harvesting, or immature fish harvesting, come into conflict with conservation efforts (Masese et al., 2012).For many Kenyans in areas around the lakes, wetlands, and the coast, fish constitute a major source of nutritious food. Harvested fish resources, along with crops, and forest products serve as dietary safety nets during challenging times (Fiorella et al., 2015). With women largely excluded from fishing and trading activities within the local economy, they often enter into jaboya relationships (involving transactional sex-for-fish exchanges) with fishermen to gain better access to fish for selling.Examining how the Lake Victoria ecology can influence these relationships, Fiorella et al., (2015) find that a climate-induced decline in fish catch is resulting in a \"scramble for the fish,\" heightening the importance of jaboya relationships for fish access, albeit with risks of HIV infection and social stigma.Insights from empirical observations during recent fieldwork further reveal the climate-induced livelihood insecurity faced by fishing communities around the Lake Victoria region, such as the Banyala Indiegenous Peoples of Busia County (Medina et al., in press). The Banyala are a traditional fisherfolk community who have been transitioning towards subsistence and small-scale cash crop farming since the 1990s owing to the plummeting of fish stocks in Lake Victoria and increasingly harsh regulation imposed by the Kenyan and Ugandan governments. However, with the increase in flooding, finding viable alternative sources of livelihood is becoming extremely challenging. Despite a reduction in the number of fishermen during past decades, recent years have seen an increase in their numbers. Faced with diminishing fish populations and changing behavioural patterns of fish resulting from the impact of climate change, Banyala fishermen are forced to go deeper into the lake and across the Ugandan border, where they are subject to risks of arrest, torture, and even death by Ugandan authorities and pirates. Kenya's post-independence period has been characterized by government policies protecting industry at the expense of the agricultural sector, which has been relatively neglected and penalized, thereby accounting for high rural poverty levels, limited diversification of agriculture, poor rural infrastructure, and gaping inequalities between rural and urban areas (Alila and Atieno, 2006). Together, they act as a push for internal migration from rural to urban areas, largely driven by livelihood insecurity in rural areas, which, in turn, is increasingly linked to the impact of climate variability on agricultural production, food and nutrition insecurity and lack of alternative livelihood options. The presence of migrants in urban areas puts pressure on urban infrastructure, leading to overcrowded living conditions and competition for jobs, which together with lack of access to public services can fuel ethnic and cultural tensions between urban residents and migrants (Spilker et al., 2020).It is worth noting here the gendered dynamics of rural-urban migration, with men migrating to urban areas for alternative livelihood sources, leaving women in rural areas with the added burden of agricultural and household work. Along with the expectation of adhering to climate-sensitive gender roles in providing food for households, this can make existing structural inequalities even more deeply entrenched; for instance, through denial of land rights and barriers in access to land for women (Etale and Simatele, 2021). The interaction of gender inequality with climate variability and other factors can make women differentially more vulnerable to food insecurity and risks of violence, including genderbased violence at home, despite women playing a key role in climate adaptation efforts.Key insights emerging from the analysis of climate security pathways in Kenya can be summarized as follows:1. Firstly, the two pathways discussed above do not operate in isolation. Rather, they are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. Lack of adequate access to critical resources may challenge livelihood and food security, while livelihood and food insecurity may further push people toward harmful alternative strategies that lead to degradation and depletion of vital resources.2. Secondly, there are linkages and inter-dependencies between the ASAL and non-ASAL regions that can become especially visible in the livelihood transition zones. Climate-induced resource depletion and scarcity in the ASAL region can exacerbate competition and overlapping claims over limited resources that can be found in the non-ASAL regions.3. Thirdly, the climate-security nexus in Kenya represents a vicious cycle between climate and conflict. The impact of climate, acting as a \"risk multiplier,\" can indirectly influence conflict risks through intervening mechanisms, the effects of which then further restrict coping and adaptive capacities when confronted by the impact of conflict on resources and livelihoods. 4. Fourthly, although there is a growing understanding of the climate-security nexus in Kenya as captured in academic and grey literature, the empirical focus to examine climate-conflict linkages remains overwhelmingly on pastoral livelihoods. There is scope for a more nuanced understanding and unpacking of the nexus in the context of agriculture and fishery-based livelihoods.5. Finally, the analysis of climate security pathways for Kenya reflects the need for more empirical examinations of intervening mechanisms through which climate impacts may indirectly amplify and translate into conflict risks. Developing multi-methods research frameworks with complementary quantitative and qualitative analyses could be the way forward.","tokenCount":"6587"}
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If you wish to reuse a component of the work, it is your responsibility to determine whether permission is needed for that re-use and to obtain permission from the copyright owner. Examples of such components can include, but are not limited to, tables, figures and images.Mozambique is already vulnerable to extreme weather events and climate change is projected to exacerbate their frequency and intensity. The occurrence of cyclones and flooding has increased in recent years and the trend is expected to continue. The country's coast-where 60 percent of the population, the three biggest cities, and critical infrastructure are situated-is most exposed to climate change-related risks, including damage from cyclones and projected sea level rise. Densely populated and low-lying regions, such as Zambezia, Nampula, Sofala, and Maputo Provinces, are particularly exposed to risks from flooding. More broadly, climate change is projected to increase average temperatures across the country and to result in higher variability in precipitation, especially in the south.The most critical economic sectors vulnerable to climate change in Mozambique are agriculture, transport, and potentially energy. In agriculture, maize is likely to be the most affected key crop. This can pose risks to food security (alongside expected higher food inflation because of climate change), given maize's widespread cultivation and role in nutrition. The impact on other crops is likely to be more limited, and to a large extent driven by damages from increased frequency of extreme weather events. This could exacerbate challenges in the sector, which is already constrained by low productivity and limited arable areas. That said, climate change could create some opportunities; for example, rice yields are projected to improve. Most studies project agricultural production in the central region to be most adversely affected by climate change, albeit the impact varies by crop and within regions. Mozambique's transport infrastructure is highly vulnerable to climate change due to the projected increase in flooding, the low proportion of paved roads, their limited interconnectivity, and the vulnerability of ports to cyclones and storm surges. Damages to Mozambique's transport sector are likely to have knock-on effects to other sectors and can have significant regional implications, as the country serves as a conduit for landlocked neighboring countries. Infrastructure damages, alongside the projected coastal erosion, may severely affect the tourism sector. Furthermore, Mozambique's high dependence on hydropower exposes it to losses from rainfall variability, which is expected to increase. The country's largest hydropower plant is located downstream on the Zambezi River, which various studies project to dry up due to climate change. Increased water use in upstream countries (such as because of greater irrigation needs and in response to growing populations) could also pose risks to Mozambique's hydropower sector.Mozambique needs to manage risks to its economy because of global mitigation efforts. This is because its main exports (aluminium, coal, and petroleum) are highly carbon-intensive. This poses risks to its trade balance and economic growth, given its already very limited fiscal space. While global mitigation efforts would be positive for the country because they would help limit the impact of the physical risks from climate change, the implications of a global transition to a low-carbon economy may pose more immediate risks.The Government of Mozambique (GoM) is taking steps to respond to climate change-related risks. Various national-level climate change policies and the integration of climate resilience considerations in sectoral policies (such as agriculture) include the National Climate Change Adaptation andMitigation Strategy (2013-2025) and updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The GoM has limited deforestation, which has adaptation and mitigation co-benefits. Notably, Mozambique is following a decentralized approach to climate adaptation, prioritizing the development of Local Adaptation Plans (such plans have been developed for 132 out of 154 districts as of 2021). These will inform the GoM's national-level climate adaptation and resilience strategy, including the ongoing development of its National Adaptation Plan (NAP). The key constraints to the country's climate change preparedness include limited technical capacity for policy formulation and implementation, difficulties in government coordination, as well as challenges in mobilizing funding for adaptation at the necessary scale (and mobilizing funding from the private sector in particular).This report proposes that climate adaptation and resilience efforts in Mozambique focus on ensuring the country can adopt a strategic, transformative, and coordinated approach at national and regional level. More precisely, efforts include to: (i) strategically help the agriculture sector adapt to projected climatic changes to reduce food inflation and food security risks, including diversifying away from maize; (ii) prioritize improving the climate resilience of critical infrastructure, including improving road quality and use of ecosystem-based solutions along the coast; (iii) consider how to ensure that climate and economic resilience considerations are reflected in the national industrial strategy, including with respect to energy sector development; (iv) develop technical capacity and modes for accessing updated climate change-related data and modelling from global sources; and (v) facilitate policy coordination and effective strategy implementation of climate adaptation measures by developing a climate Adaptation and Resilience Investment Platform (ARIP) at national level so that mobilization of funding at scale can occur.Mozambique is located in southeastern Africa along the Indian Ocean, with a long coastline stretching over 2,500 kilometers (km) (World Bank 2023b). It shares borders with Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Eswatini, and South Africa. It is highly vulnerable to climate change, ranking 154 out of 185 on the 2021 Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (ND-GAIN) index (ND-GAIN 2021).Mozambique has a tropical to subtropical climate across most of its geography. The country features a vast expanse of low-lying grassland plateau that spans nearly one-half of the country's land area, starting from the coastal areas and gradually ascending toward the mountainous regions in the north and west. The plateau has a tropical savannah climate (Figure 1) and provides important habitat for wildlife and agricultural activities (World Bank n.d.-a). The country's abundant forests occupy 43 percent of its territory (World Bank 2018a). The north and central inland areas have relatively higher elevations where the climate is largely temperate, with a dry winter and a hot summer. These areas receive about 1,000 millimeters (mm) of average rainfall per year. Along the coast, the country receives relatively higher rainfall compared to inland areas, with annual average rainfall varying  was the most affected country in the world by the impacts of extreme weather events in 2019, and the fifth most affected when considering the period 2000-2019 (Eckstein, Künzel, and Schäfer 2021). Furthermore, Tropical Cyclone Freddy hit Mozambique twice in 2023, causing widespread flooding around Zambezia Province (where a large part of the country's agricultural land is concentrated) (UNDRR 2023; Armand, Gomes, and Taveras 2019). The World Meteorological Organization is evaluating whether Freddy broke the record as the longest-lasting tropical cyclone on record (WMO 2023). 1 Figure 2 illustrates the areas most prone to extreme weather events.A number of studies highlight the increase in intensity and frequency of extreme events, including droughts, floods, and cyclones, over the past 20 years in Mozambique (Manuel et al. 2020;Mozambique, Government of Mozambique 2017;UNDP, UNEP, and GEF 2020). While historically floods have been the most frequent extreme weather events (based on data for 1980-2016), in recent years the frequency of cyclones significantly increased, making them the most common event for 1980-2019. Overall, recent trends suggest that Mozambique is affected by a tropical cyclone or a flood every two years on average, and by a drought every three years (Mozambique, Ministry of Land and Environment 2021). 2 USAID (2018) reports that since 1960, southern Mozambique has experienced more persistent droughts, while the coastal regions have had more episodic floods. Figure 3 illustrates the increased frequency of extreme weather events in Mozambique, according to the World Bank's data and classifications. The last five decades witnessed stable and noticeable growth in Mozambique's average temperature.According to the World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal, the mean temperature increased by 1.46°C from 1963 to 2020 (Panel A of Figure 4). Consequently, the number of days with a temperature higher than 35°C has expanded since the 1960s in Mozambique. In comparison, overall, annual   Trend 1951-2020Trend 1971-2020Trend 1971-2020Annual Precipitation Trend 1951-2020Trend 1971-2020Trend 1971-2020 Projected climate trendsTemperatures are expected to continue rising across the country and rainfall to become more volatile, especially in the south of Mozambique. Figure 5 shows the projected change in Mozambique's temperature and annual precipitation. Based on World Bank estimates, the increase in temperature is likely to continue until 2090 (Panel A), while annual rainfall does not vary significantly over time but is expected to have a higher variance relative to historical trends (Panel B).  Aid (2017) both expect temperatures (and the number of hot days) to increase on average but do not forecast significant changes in precipitation (apart from an increase in the intensity of rainfall events). Irish Aid (2017) projects dry seasons to be drier and rainy seasons wetter.Figure 6 exhibits the predicted trend of Mozambique's weather conditions by region. Overall, the average temperature is projected to grow in a similar magnitude across all regions until 2091, albeit the central and southern areas might experience a marginally greater temperature increase in a high emissions scenario. Average annual rainfall overall does not differ significantly by region but the fluctuations in precipitation in the south region of Mozambique are noticeably higher than in other regions, irrespective of the hypothetical scenarios for global emissions.Mozambique's NCCAMS (2012) projects more erratic rainfall in the south but expects that precipitation will decrease overall in the south and increase in the north. Mozambique's NDC (Mozambique, Ministry of Land and Environment 2021) does not make regional climate projection references. USAID (2018) projects more marked temperature increases in the interior (central), southern, and coastal areas (including an increase in droughts for the central and southern regions, as well as more floods during rainy seasons). It expects climate change to decrease the duration of the rainy season, particularly in the central region and Zambezi Valley. Irish Aid (2017) similarly notes a higher rate of warming in the interior (central) parts.The frequency and intensity of extreme weather events in Mozambique is expected to continue rising because of climate change (UNDP, UNEP, and GEF 2020; Mozambique, Ministry of Land and Environment 2021). Increased river flows are projected to increase flood risk, particularly from January to March, while high intensity rainfall is likely to increase flash flooding along the coast. The magnitude of large flood peaks could increase by 25 percent along the main stems of both the Limpopo and Save Rivers in the south (USAID 2018). Fant, Gebretsadik, and Strzepek (2013) find that the recurrence of high-damage flood events, greater than the 50-year event intensity, could increase significantly in Mozambique, potentially tripling the base occurrence, 4 with a tail risk of six to eight times more highdamage flood events. Droughts are also expected to last longer (Mozambique, Ministry of Land and Environment 2021). Irish Aid (2017) expects tropical cyclones to become more intense due to climate change but notes uncertainty about the frequency of cyclones and storms and their interactions with other features of climate variability in the region (such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation).  Sea levels are projected to continue rising substantially. USAID (2018) estimates an additional sea level rise of 13-56 centimeters (cm) by 2090 while UNDP, UNEP, and GEF (2020) project 18-59 cm by 2090. This is consistent with a projected 45 cm rise by 2100 due to thermal expansion under Mozambique's NDC (Mozambique, Ministry of Land and Environment 2021). 5 Mucova et al. (2021)  find that the mean sea level rise for the Mozambican coast is likely to be higher than the global average for all representative concentration pathways (RCPs), even those compatible with the Paris Climate Agreement goals-with projections of 54-55 cm (in more moderate climate scenarios; that is, RCP2.6, 4.5, and 6.0) and of 70 cm (in a high emissions scenario, RCP8.5) for 2081-2100 (relative to 1980-2005). Moreover, even small rises in sea levels are likely to dramatically increase the probability of severe storm surges (USAID 2018;World Bank Group 2010). Impacts are projected to materialize in the short to medium term as well, including potentially losing an estimated 4,850 km 2 of land to sea level rise by 2040 (USAID 2018).Mozambique is extremely sensitive to climate change risks because of its: (i) high reliance on natural resources (the agriculture sector in particular, as farming takes place in areas prone to drought and flooding); and (ii) critical infrastructure and population being situated along the coast, a high-risk area. The World Bank Group (2010) identifies the agriculture, energy, and transport (road infrastructure) sectors and coastal areas to be most vulnerable to climate change in Mozambique. The agriculture sector accounts for 70 percent of total employment (among the highest proportions in the world) (World Bank n.d.-g); together with forestry and fisheries it accounted for 27.5 percent of total gross domestic product (GDP) in 2021 (World Bank n.d.-e). Similar to neighboring countries, it is predominantly rainfed, which makes it very sensitive to climate variability, in addition to the relatively higher risk of extreme weather events. Climate change is projected to reduce agricultural productivity in Mozambique, where it is already lower than the southern African region average (Manuel et al. 2020). Hydropower accounts for 78 percent of Mozambique's installed electricity generation capacity, and relies heavily on water availability in the Zambezi River Basin, which is projected to decline (ALER and AMER 2022; Uamusse, Tussupova, and Persson 2020). The tourism industry, which accounted for 6.2 percent of GDP in 2019, is extremely vulnerable to climate change due to the projected substantial erosion of coastal areas, as detailed below (WTTC 2022; Mucova et al. 2021).The rising frequency and intensity of extreme weather events is a key climate change-related risk for Mozambique's economy and society. The GoM states that it lacks accurate data to estimate the precise value of direct and/or indirect economic losses associated with climate-related events (Mozambique, Ministry of Land and Environment 2021). According to a World Bank (2023a) analysis, climate shocks and security risks could lower Mozambique's GDP growth by 1.5 percent in 2023-2025. Arndt and Thurlow (2015) estimate that the economy of Mozambique could be up to 13 percent smaller in 2050, with 70 percent of the future climate scenario resulting in GDP losses of 0-5 percent.The study highlights agriculture, roads, hydropower, and the combination of sea level rise and cyclone strike as the major impact channels. Irish Aid (2017) posits that climate change may cause Mozambique's GDP to fall between 4 percent and 14 percent by 2050 and that the country will lose 1.1 percent of its GDP every year due to the economic impacts of droughts and floods.Mozambique's coastal regions are particularly vulnerable to climate change, with significant potential economic implications. Mozambique has one of the longest coastlines in Africa and hosts 60 percent of the population within its low-lying coastal lands (USAID 2018). The key risks from climate change stem from the projected increase in sea levels and the associated higher frequency of extreme weather events. The World Bank Group (2010) estimates that this could force 916,000 people to migrate by 2040 (2.3 percent of the 2040s population). Zambezia, Nampula, Sofala, and Maputo Provinces are projected to suffer the greatest damages and costs, as they are low-lying and densely populated. The cyclone risk from even small sea level rises is projected to increase substantially for Beira and Maputo 6 6 Mozambique's three most populous cities-Maputo, Matola, and Beira-are all located on the coast (World Population Review n.d.).(even when assuming no change in the intensity or frequency of cyclones), with Beira estimated to be relatively more vulnerable (World Bank Group 2010). Coastal erosion (90 percent of which is attributed to climate change) will result in loss and damage to important ecosystems, such as coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrass, with implications for biodiversity (USAID 2018). The economic implications of the climate change-related damage on Mozambique's coastal areas are likely to be substantial, as detailed below. They include losses in tourism and agriculture (particularly cashews, coconuts, and fisheries). Climate change-related damages to critical infrastructure, such as ports, and to major cities would have knock-on implications for various sectors and the economy as a whole. The climate change impact on Mozambique's coasts is likely to have food security implications, as coastal fisheries (which depend strongly on coral reefs) provide a livelihood for 6.6 million people in Mozambique and one-half of the nation's animal protein (USAID 2018).Mozambique is exposed to risks from the transition of other countries to low-carbon economies. This is because it relies on carbon-intensive exports such as aluminium, coal, and petroleum. Global measures to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, such as the European Union (EU) Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), could therefore adversely affect Mozambique's economic growth and trade balance, as detailed below (ACF and LSE 2023;Pleeck, Denton, and Mitchell 2022). That said, such measures would reduce the physical risks to the economy, so the net effect would depend on the approach and timeline of global transitions. For example, Manuel et al. (2020) find that in Mozambique, a scenario of aggressive emission reduction policies (L1S) generates positive impact compared to an assumption of unconstrained emissions, for roads, energy, sea level, and cyclone scenarios. This is corroborated by Arndt et al. (2019), as illustrated in Figure 7.Mozambique's agriculture sector is characterized by a high proportion of smallholder farmers, limited arable land, and reliance on rainfall. Agricultural land accounts for 52.7 percent of total land area (as of 2020; World Bank n.d.-d), while the rest of Mozambique's territory is covered with forest. However, only 7.2 percent of the total land is arable (World Bank n.d.-f), and less than 10 percent of the arable land is used, as a large proportion of farming takes place in flood-and drought-prone areas (FAO n.d.). The southern provinces need irrigation the most but have only a small share of land suitable for irrigation.Irrigation is predominantly used by commercial farmers who are largely in the southern region and focus on export crops such as cotton, cashew nuts, sugar cane, tobacco, and tea (FAO 2016). The main irrigated crops are sugar cane, vegetables, and rice (INIR 2013). Most irrigation schemes use surface water from rivers while groundwater is used to a very limited extent, mainly by the family smallholder sector (FAO 2016). Smallholder farmers-who produce 95 percent of the agricultural productionlargely practice rainfed agriculture, which exposes them to climate variability (FAO n.d.). Maize is the main food crop, accounting for 72 percent of the total small and medium farming units, followed by cassava and beans (Manuel et al. 2020). Smallholder farmers also produce rice, pigeon peas and, to a lesser extent, some cash crops (cotton, tobacco, seeds, and tea) and tree crops (cashew and coconut). Subsistence farmers raise cattle, pigs, chickens, and goats but cattle production is limited by the prevalence of the tsetse fly in two-thirds of the country (USAID 2011). Fisheries are an important source of income and daily protein, given Mozambique's extensive coastline. The subsector represents around 2 percent of Mozambique's GDP but has much larger potential, as only 1 percent of suitable area is currently used for aquaculture production (World Bank Group 2021).Climate change is projected to significantly affect Mozambique's agriculture sector, mainly due to the projected frequency and intensity of extreme events. This in turn is expected to result in inundation and waterlogging of low-lying crops, flooding of roads connecting crops to markets, and shifting growing seasons (USAID 2018). These impact channels could result in an agricultural GDP loss of 4.5-9.8 percent by 2050. The increased risk of floods due to climate change is expected to affect key value chains, such as for soy, pigeon pea, and sesame, with adverse implications for local markets and farmers' income (USAID 2018). Baez, Caruso, and Niu (2020) find that a cyclone, flood, or drought event leads to a drop of up to 25-30 percent in per capita food consumption. Overall, the risks from the adverse impacts of extreme weather events on agricultural production are particularly acute in rural areas, where agriculture is the primary source of livelihood for 90 percent of the population (INE 2015). Mozambique's adaptive capacity for climate change risks is likely to be compromised by preexisting vulnerabilities in the agriculture sector. These include inadequate water infrastructure, power outages, inadequate storage and logistics facilities, and underinvestment (ITA 2022). The high proportion of smallholder farmers is likely to create implementation challenges for the adoption of adaptation measures and for the introduction of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices more broadly. While irrigation could help manage climate change-related risks, water availability is projected to decline and irrigation demands are likely to be unmet in Mozambique (Fant et al. 2015;USAID 2018).Projections regarding the overall impact of climate change on crop yields in Mozambique vary, and several studies predict expected high variance. Arndt and Thurlow (2015) project that the average value added in agriculture for 2046-2050 is likely to decline by 4 percent, albeit declines of up to 10 percent are possible. Manuel et al. (2020) project the central region to be the most affected, with a likely decline in agricultural value added of 19 percent (and potentially up to 25 percent) by 2050, assuming global emissions are not constrained. On the other hand, the northern region is likely to be the least affected, with a mode of only 0.6 percent change but significant uncertainty (between -18.5 percent and +16.2 percent). The potential impact of climate change on agricultural production in the south is most uncertain, with outcomes running from -31 percent to +32 percent (Manuel et al. 2020). Arndt and Thurlow (2015) estimate that by 2050 yields will decline by about 3-4 percent on average across all climate scenarios relative to the baseline path. That said, declines of more than 10 percent are possible for some crops in specific climate scenarios. Similarly, the World Bank Group (2010) projects a 2-4 percent decline in the yield of major crops, which alongside the impact of more frequent flooding on rural roads, is expected to result in an agricultural GDP loss of 4.5 percent by 2050 (and potentially up to 9.8 percent). Mozambique's NDC (Mozambique, Ministry of Land and Environment 2021) suggests that climate change could reduce yields by as much as 25 percent, including a 20 percent yield reduction for the main crops for food security. Climate change is also projected to reduce the land available for agriculture in low-lying areas (where the majority of the population lives).Maize is likely to be most affected by climate change from the main crops in Mozambique. Climate change will likely increase the frequency of low-yield events for maize, resulting in a potential decline of about 15 percent by 2050 under a high emissions scenario (Table 1) (based on the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT) crop model (Jones et al. 2003) and the Sixth Phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) climate models). 7 USAID (2018) projects maize yield to potentially decline by 11 percent on average (2046-2065). Fant, Gebretsadik, and Strzepek (2013) predict Mozambique to experience a worse decline in the yields of rainfed maize compared to Malawi and Zambia. This impact is likely to exacerbate Mozambique's food security risks and dependence on food imports, as detailed below, given the importance of maize to the Mozambican economy and diet.The average impact on other crops is likely to be lower, and there may even be some gains, particularly for rice. Cassava is likely to be adversely affected, albeit to a lesser extent than maize. For example, USAID (2018) states that the yields of cassava, sorghum, soybeans, and groundnuts could decrease by 2-4 percent over the next 40 years. That said, Table 1 also shows potential yield increases in Mozambique, even in a high emissions scenario. In particular, rice production is likely to increase most significantly by 2050 among the major essential crops in Mozambique. In contrast to USAID (2018), this analysis anticipates that most regions in Mozambique will witness an increase in groundnut production in 2050 compared to their groundnut yield in 2005; sorghum yields will also increase slightly at the national level in 2050, with most agroecological zones in Mozambique experiencing a minor change in sorghum production (-2 percent to +2 percent). (Figure 8). In stark comparison, the projected loss in maize yield in Inhambane and Cabo Delgado (southern and northern coastal areas, respectively) is noticeably lower. Some subregions within Inhambane and Cabo Delgado are even expected to experience 2-10 percent growth in maize yield under the \"Median\" scenario. USAID (2018) finds that climate change could reduce maize yields up to 45 percent in some regions, such as Tete Province (Zambezi River Basin). Manuel et al. (2020) project climate change to reduce maize yields particularly in the south where the (mode) impact is expected to reach -10.2 percent by 2050 if global emissions are not constrained (but with significant uncertainty, implying that the change in yields could range between -20 percent and +40 percent). The northern and central regions are also expected to be adversely affected, though the most likely projected impact is lower: -1.5 percent and -3.5 percent, respectively. That said, the study finds an overall likely positive impact from climate change on maize production in the north (in terms of real gross value added), as smallholder farmers could expand their production area to compensate for the projected (relatively low) negative change in yields. The southern region is already a net maize importer (while the north and central regions produce surplus maize) (Manuel et al. 2020). Climate change is therefore likely to exacerbate regional food security dependencies.For other crops, several studies project the central region, including Zambezia, to be the most adversely affected by climate change. But positive gains are possible in various areas. Zambezia will likely experience a reduction in the yield of sorghum, most notably in 2050 (Figure 9). On the other hand, growth in groundnut yield is projected to be particularly outstanding in Inhambane, where groundnut output is likely to expand by more than 40 percent, whereas Zambezia and Tefe are predicted to experience major losses in groundnut production (Figure 10). USAID (2018) similarly projects sorghum and groundnut production in the central region to be most adversely affected. Manuel et al. (2020) project the greatest adverse impact from climate change on root crop yields to be in the center, albeit the southern region shows the highest variance in possible outcomes (and some cassava production takes place along the southern coast). The north region-where a large part of cassava production takes place-is expected to be negatively affected but to a lower extent. Growth in rice production in Sofala and Inhambane is likely to be most outstanding compared with that in other regions, while Nampula is among the few agroecological zones that will experience a loss in rice yields (Figure 11). 8 Traditionally, rice is a main source of income, particularly in Inhambane and southern Zambezia (FEWS NET 2014). Extreme weather events also pose risks to cashew and coconut production, as they are usually raised in coastal areas (USAID 2011(USAID , 2018)).8 The reference is to the estimates in the \"Median\" scenario.  Climate change is generally expected to reduce Mozambique's hydropower capacity. Uamusse, Tussupova, and Persson (2020) project that reduced runoff to hydropower stations due to climate change make it impossible to use their maximum capacities, resulting in a 10-20 percent decline in total power generation available annually in the 21st century. In particular, the study estimates that electricity output of the Cahora Bassa hydropower plant will be reduced by 20 percent until 2100. When also considering the hydropower plants under development, hydropower energy generation in practice may constitute 70-80 percent of the planned hydropower capacity for the country. Similarly, Spalding-Fecher, Joyce, and Winkler (2017) estimate that output from major Zambezi hydropower plants could decline by 10-20 percent due to climate change under drying scenarios (while wetter scenarios would result in only a marginal increase). Moreover, Mozambique could be particularly vulnerable to increases in electricity generation costs, potentially reaching 20-30 percent in the near term, due to its high hydropower dependence. The World Bank Group (2010) also expects a significant energy deficit due to climate change relative to base generation potential in Mozambique by 2050. In contrast, Arndt et al. (2019) do not predict a change on average in the runoff for Cahora Bassa by 2050, albeit extremes could reach ± 20 percent. The analysis suggests that the overall impact on hydropower generation in Mozambique may be mild due to a portfolio-type effect stemming from a large contributing area. Fant, Gebretsadik, and Strzepek (2013) state that the reservoirs behind Mozambique's hydropower plants have significant storage and are located downstream, which makes them less sensitive to changes in runoff. Hydropower demand is also small in proportion to the generating capacity in Mozambique-albeit that may change when taking into account regional trade and opportunities for export. The following paragraphs set out in more detail the vulnerabilities of Mozambique's hydropower sector to climate change. 9 Mozambique has 13 major river basins (listed from south to north): Maputo, Umbeluzi, Incomati, Limpopo, Save, Buzi, Pungwe, Zambezi, Licungo, Ligonha, Lúrio, Messalo, and Rovuma (Uamusse, Tussupova, and Persson 2020).Climate change may affect Mozambique's hydropower sector due to increased rainfall variability and frequency of extreme weather events. Hydropower generation is dependent on a predictably steady precipitation pattern (Uamusse, Tussupova, and Persson 2020). While precipitation in Mozambique is overall not projected to change significantly, several studies find that climate change is likely to lead to higher evaporation and more variable rainfall, which would adversely affect hydropower generation in Mozambique (USAID 2018; Uamusse, Tussupova, and Persson 2020). Mozambique already experiences frequent power shortages, mainly due to extreme weather events (ITA 2022). Climate change increases the probability of drought events, which could reduce electricity generation (Uamusse, Tussupova, and Persson 2020). For example, the 2015/16 major drought led to an unprecedented reduction in the water levels at the Cahora Bassa Dam reservoir to about one-third of total capacity (Kuo 2016) The underdevelopment of Mozambique's road network makes it vulnerable to climate change.First, this is because of the large proportion of unpaved roads. Mozambique's road network spans 30,562 km, with approximately only 20 percent (5,958 km) being paved. The remaining 80 percent is nonpaved, comprising secondary and tertiary roads (DLCA 2018a). 10 This exposes the country to climate change risks because unpaved roads are susceptible to increases in precipitation (such as because of flooding or heavy rainfall), as well as traffic increases (for example, if traffic needs to be redirected due to climate change damage to other roads in the areas) (Chinowsky et al. 2015). The country has other means of transportation, including a limited railway network (2,500 km long and primarily used for goods transportation), a number of airports (including several international ones), and five ports 11 (DLCA 2023(DLCA , 2018b)). However, road transportation remains the dominant means of moving people and goods in the country (ITA 2022). The road network (as well as the rail network) is focused around three main logistics corridors (Maputo, Beira, and Nacala), with limited linkages between the corridors and between urban and economic clusters (PwC 2013). This is likely to 10 In a recent interview, Mozambican President Filipe Niusy said that the country's inadequate road network is a major constraint to its economic development. He was quoted specifying that 27 percent of roads are paved, and that 69 percent of roads are in a \"reasonable\" condition, but the remaining 31 percent are in a poor or \"impassable\" condition (Club of Mozambique 2023a). 11 The major ones are Maputo, Beira, and Nacala (DLCA 2023).exacerbate the economic implications of climate change-related damage to the road network, including knock-on effects to other sectors. For example, Espinet et al. (2018) assert that accessibility to rural areas is currently low due to lack of road infrastructure, especially in Zambezia and Nampula Provinces. This disconnects farmers from large urban markets and could affect food security and inflation under climate shocks. The World Bank (2018b) also notes that fiscal constraints in developing road infrastructure and the effects of recurring natural disasters limit the agricultural productivity of rural communities and contribute to poverty.Climate change is projected to damage Mozambique's road network-mainly due to increased heavy rainfall, flooding, and cyclones-with significant economic implications. The World Bank Group (2010) notes the vulnerability of the country's road infrastructure to flooding; climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of floods and heavy rainfall, as discussed above. For example, the severe floods in 2000 cut national and regional roads, including the rail line to Zimbabwe, which led to a decline in economic growth of 1 percent (Arndt et al. 2011). Absent adaptation measures, Chinowsky et al. (2015) estimate that Mozambique could face a potential opportunity cost of 15 percent under median climate scenarios, translating into a lost potential of expanding the existing paved road network or upgrading unpaved roads in the country by 3,213 km of paved road. The impact is likely to be compounded by the projected increased frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones. During Cyclone Idai in 2019, for example, damage to road infrastructure limited humanitarian interventions from Beira into the northern hinterland, as sections of primary roads and many secondary were cut off (Comino 2021;Petricola et al. 2022). Cyclone Freddy in 2023 caused severe damages to the road infrastructure in the provinces of Zambezia, Nampula, Manica, Tete and part of Sofala (ANE 2023).Climate change-related damage to Mozambique's road infrastructure is likely to have regional impacts but its vulnerability varies by area. In southern Mozambique, flooding-such as due to storm surge, cyclones, and sea level rise (particularly after 2030)-could damage road links with the rest of the country. The plain of the lower Limpopo River southeast of Xai Xai, the lower Incomati River northeast of Maputo, and the estuary at Maputo and the lower Maputo River are the most vulnerable to flooding (INGC 2009). This could have implications for one of Mozambique's three main \"growth\" corridors: 12 the Maputo Corridor, the main one in the south, passing through landlocked regions and connecting the country to South Africa (Gauteng Province), as well as to Swaziland (Arup and Cities Alliance 2016; PwC 2013). In particular, while most of Maputo City is positioned on high ground, which provides some protection from extreme weather events, the Port of Maputo, its rail links, and its oil facilities are situated on the nearby estuary (INGC 2009). The projected higher risk of flooding in Maputo Province (World Bank Group 2010) also means that climate change increases the likelihood of flood-related damages to the national highway (NH1), which runs north-south, connecting the capital city, Maputo, with major cities northward. This risk was highlighted during the recent flooding in the area (Club of Mozambique 2023b; ACAPS 2023). Indeed, the GoM has been considering building an alternative road, linking Maputo Province to Manica, to connect the country in flood situations when the NH1 is damaged (Artigo 2022).The second major transport link-Beira Corridor (in the center, connecting the port city of Beira to Tete Province, and internationally to Harare, Zimbabwe, and Lusaka, Zambia, as well as Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Angola)-is particularly vulnerable to climate change. This is in part due to the risks to Beira City from cyclones and sea level rises (discussed above), and in part because of the risk of flooding in some parts of Tete and Sofala Provinces. Finally, the northern regions have the major routes moving east to west, from large port cities into provinces, with some connecting cities like Blantyre in Malawi (DLCA 2018a).Northern Mozambique is relatively less vulnerable to sea level rise and cyclones because the coastal zone is on higher ground, with fewer rivers, compared to the central and southern regions (INGC 2009). This implies that risks to the third key growth link-the Nacala Corridor (which passes through Nampula and links Mozambique to Malawi and Zambia, as well as the north of Mozambique to Tete Province)-are relatively lower. That said, the national-level roads that link Zambezia to international corridors are at risk, given the high susceptibility of the region to flooding, which could affect national and international trade, particularly harming the agriculture sector. Notably, damage to Mozambique's transport infrastructure is likely to have regional impacts, as the country is an important conduit for access to global markets, especially as four of its six neighboring countries are landlocked (UNDP, UNEP, and GEF 2020).Similarly, Mozambique's port infrastructure, an important component of the national and regional economy, is at risk from climate shocks. Mozambique has five ports, in Maputo, Beira, Nacala, Quilimane, and Pemba. The Port of Maputo is the largest in Mozambique and offers an important access route for import and export cargoes from South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, and Botswana (DLCA 2023). 13 However, as discussed above, it is highly vulnerable to flooding (INGC 2009). The Port of Beira is the second largest in Mozambique, and the main port for exports and imports from Sofala, Manica, and Tete Provinces, and is a strategic gateway for the landlocked countries in southeast Africa. It particularly serves transit cargoes, such as copper, tobacco, chrome, timber, and consumer goods, to/from Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, and DRC. A fuel pipeline links the port to Zimbabwe (DLCA 2023). This port, however, is vulnerable to flooding and requires adaptation measures even under more moderate projections for sea level rises (INGC 2009). The current seawall (3.4 meters) and the vegetative dune barrier that protects the port and city would be unable to withstand coastal erosion under a high sea level rise scenario, or intense cyclones, thus putting the port and maritime infrastructure at risk (INGC 2009). Similar to the road infrastructure, increased climate shocks on Mozambique's port infrastructure would disrupt regional trade, particularly affecting neighboring nations (Meeuws 2004).Food inflation due to climate change is likely to exacerbate food security risks in Mozambique.Mozambique is a net importer of food and is ranked 94 out of 113 on the 2022 Global Food Security Index 14 (ITA 2022;Economist Impact 2022). Its main food imports include rice, wheat, palm oil, sugar, and maize. Its main food exports are tobacco, sugar, legumes, soybeans, seeds, and nuts (cashew, coconut, and Brazil nuts) (FAO 2021;OEC n.d.). Odongo et al. (2022) find that rainfall and temperature variability significantly increase both food and overall inflation in the country. Temperature variability affects Mozambique's capacity to generate electricity, which has implications for food prices (as well as other items in the consumer basket). Baez, Caruso, and Niu (2020) find that maize prices in particular exhibit higher volatility in food markets that are close to areas affected by extreme weather events-which could further increase food security risks for vulnerable communities. Odongo et al. (2022) find a strong transmission of foreign inflation through imported prices to domestic prices. Mozambique predominantly relies on the regional market for some of its key food imports, such as wheat, suggesting that extreme events with regional impact would exacerbate food inflation and, therefore, food security risks in Mozambique. The projected lower yields for maize in Mozambique could increase the country's reliance on maize imports, which are likely to become more expensive, as climate change is also expected to negatively affect maize production in most parts of neighboring countries, such as Zambia and Malawi (Ngoma et al. 2021;Thomas et al. 2022). That said, the climate change impact will vary by crop; for example, the projected improvement in rice yields could create opportunities to reduce Mozambique's dependence on rice imports. Overall, given Mozambique's poverty challenges (more than 60 percent of people live in poverty [World Bank 2023b] and the country ranked 106 of 116 on the 2021 Global Hunger Index [Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe 2021]), food inflation is likely to significantly affect its already vulnerable population.Mozambique's dependence on exports with high carbon emissions exposes it to risks from global climate change mitigation efforts. In particular, its main goods exports are: (i) mineral fuels, mineral oil, and products of their distillation-over 40 percent of total goods exports (largely petroleum gas and coal briquettes, as well as some coke and refined petroleum); and (ii) aluminium articles-about 25 percent of total goods exports (predominantly raw aluminium). 15 This exposes it to international price volatility, while global mitigation policies are projected to relatively reduce fossil fuel prices (Bauer et al. 2016;Carney 2015). Mozambique is expected to be affected by the introduction of the EU's CBAM. According to UNCTAD (2021), it is the 12th most exposed country in the world and second most exposed in Africa (after South Africa), based on the 2019 aggregated value of exports to the EU in sectors considered to be in the CBAM. The CBAM will enter into force in its transition phase as of October 1, 2023, and will apply to imports of cement, iron and steel, electricity, aluminium, hydrogen, and fertilizers. When fully operational, EU importers of goods covered by the CBAM will need to buy CBAM certificates (linked to the EU Emissions Trading System) whose price will be calculated depending on the emissions embedded in the relevant products (Ivleva, Månberger, and Kirr 2022;EC n.d.). For Mozambique, the impact is driven by its aluminium exports, 54 percent of which went to the EU in 2019, amounting to 7 percent of the country's GDP in 2020 (Pleeck, Denton, and Mitchell 2022). Estimates of the CBAM's impact on Mozambique's economy vary: Pleeck, Denton, and Mitchell (2022) calculate that the CBAM could increase the cost of aluminium exports by 39 percent and lead Mozambique's GDP to fall by 1.6 percent (if demand follows the price change). ACF and LSE (2023) expect Mozambique to be affected by the policy but estimate the cost to represent only 0.07 percent of GDP. The impact of the policy will depend on various factors, such as the price of carbon, Mozambique's ability to divert production to non-EU countries, etc. Overall, global transition efforts are likely to pose challenges for Mozambique's mining industry and the risks should be managed strategically to limit the adverse impact on the economy. However, such efforts would help minimize the physical risks from climate change, which are expected to have profound economic and social impacts on the country, as this report illustrates.Mozambique has limited fiscal space to take climate adaptation actions, similar to other countries in southern Africa. Its government debt stood at 102.6 percent in 2022 and interest payments comprised 10.7 percent of revenues in 2022 (AfDB 2023a; Fitch Ratings 2023). Mozambique is exposed to currency risk as 71.0 percent of its total debt stock is foreign exchange-dominated (Fitch Ratings 2023). As described above, climate change could adversely affect its trade balance in the future. Mozambique's fiscal vulnerability could be exacerbated by the ongoing conflict in the northern parts of the country, which creates challenges for political stability and requires increased security spending while disrupting investment flows and tourism activity (AfDB 2023a). While taking adaptation measures could be more cost-effective than frequent disaster relief (Aligishiev, Bellon, and Massetti 2022), it is also likely to have significant implications for Mozambique's fiscal positions under the current climate finance architecture. That said, the recent offer by the Belgian government of a €2.4 million \"debt-for-climate swap\" could be a positive step toward improving climate and economic resilience in Mozambique (Belgian News Agency 2023). 16Climate change policies and government's response disaster risk management, and water resource management-as one of eight priority areas. It aims to increase its climate-resilient infrastructure by 2024 and to increase the length of dykes from 74 km to 107 km to reduce the vulnerability of communities and the economy to climate risks. In addition, AfDB (2023b) notes that Mozambique has developed climate-informed macroeconomic forecasts, which should also support its policy preparedness to manage climate change-related risks and the integration of climate considerations into other regulatory actions.Mozambique is in the process of developing its National Adaptation Plan (NAP). In 2017, the country, with the support of the National Adaptation Plan Global Support Programme (NAP-GSP), commenced development of a roadmap to develop Mozambique's NAP (UNDP, UNEP, and GEF 2020; Irish Aid 2017). It also produced a stocktaking report that analyzed the information and knowledge gaps and the barriers: (i) financial; (ii) technological and knowledge; and (iii) political and institutional (UNDP n.d. Annex A summarizes the GoM's climate change governance framework and highlights a number of key projects. Other measures in key climate-sensitive sectors are detailed below.The GoM has taken steps to enhance its preparedness for climate change in agriculture.  Note: Chen et al. (2015) provide details on the methodology for calculating the ND-GAIN Index, including how it reflects a country's readiness and vulnerability assessments. UNDP, UNEP, and GEF (2020) underscore the lack of technical capacity to mainstream climate change in national, provincial, and district planning and budgeting systems as a huge limitation to scaling adaptation in Mozambique. On-farm adoption of CSA practices and technologies by small-scale farmers is generally hindered by low access to knowledge and technology, high investment costs (especially in the case of multifunctional boreholes), as well as limited opportunities for credit and insurance access (CIAT and World Bank 2017). More broadly, AfDB and GGGI (2022) find the limited capacity for and experience in formulating and enforcing green growth legislation and standards to be a key constraint to Mozambique's green growth readiness. Low human capacity is identified as a critical challenge for the implementation of NDCs and Sustainable Development Goals in Mozambique, especially for scaling up private sector involvement.Mozambique faces significant challenges to closing the substantial funding gap for climate adaptation measures. These include the limited capacity and coordination to drive a national framework to mobilize and raise funds; insufficient coordination between public and private sectors; low awareness of green finance; and limited dissemination of information on programs and policies, including insurance schemes (EED Advisory 2021; Tafese 2016). Structural constraints, such as Mozambique's fiscal position and the underdevelopment of its financial sector, exacerbate these challenges. Annex B provides an overview of Mozambique's climate finance landscape.This report aims to support and inform the approach and design of Adaptation and Resilience Investment Platforms (ARIPs) that help mobilize funding for adaptation at scale. For Mozambique, investment would be particularly important with respect to adapting the agriculture sector to projected changes in the climate in the country (with focus on food security) and to improving the resilience of critical infrastructure. The latter will also help reduce adverse knock-on effects from climate change to other sectors, as well as to other economies in southern Africa, given Mozambique's role as a conduit for regional and international trade. Overall, this report underscores the importance of a broader approach to climate adaptation that also helps achieve industrial diversification and structurally reduce Mozambique's exposure to climate-sensitive sectors. A potential ARIP could help support future adaptation efforts, such as by facilitating:Adaptation of the agriculture sector, including diversification away from maize production. This could help reduce food security risks in Mozambique, as well as take advantage of new opportunities where changing climate conditions can have a positive impact on other food crops. A strategic approach may also require further cost-benefit analysis and consideration of what the impact of climate change on agricultural production regionally would mean for Mozambique, given its dependence on food imports. Improved regional coordination on climate change adaptation for agriculture, which platforms like ARIP could help facilitate, could help address food security risks at regional level (particularly as maize production is likely to be adversely affected by climate change in neighboring countries) and identify comparative advantages under the changing climate conditions. For example, Odongo et al. (2022) suggest development of coordinated climate action strategies, including a continental green growth investment package with clear responsibilities across African countries to address food import dependencies. Adaptation measures for the agriculture sector include improved use of irrigation, which would help manage drought periods, particularly in areas where agricultural production takes place in arid or semi-arid lands. However, the increased occurrence of floods from heavy rainfall and cyclones requires an ambitious consideration of how to improve the sector's climate resilience, including through improved use of agricultural insurance. In addition, Manuel et al. (2020) report evidence of lack of coordination between different initiatives in the agriculture sector, which results in overlaps.Improvement of the climate resilience of critical infrastructure. The GoM's efforts to improve early warning systems have already yielded important benefits, as they helped reduce the casualties during Cyclone Freddy (UNDRR 2023). But more consideration of how best to limit the economic costs of increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather events would support economic resilience. Such measures include sealing unpaved roads and strategically expanding the road network to offer alternatives to transportation in flood-prone areas and with respect to international corridors' interconnectedness. With regard to coastal climate resilience, the World Bank Group (2010) highlights the likely high costs and therefore recommends focusing on vital coastal infrastructure (such as key ports) and on reducing the impact on people (rather than the loss of land). It also suggests that the relocation of critical infrastructure may ultimately be necessary. Mucova et al. (2021) recommend the use of ecosystem-based adaptation to address coastal erosion. This includes protecting mangroves, as well as planting other species along the coast that help capture and stabilize coastal sediments, to serve as a natural barrier to strong winds, dampening the rise of seawaters and safeguarding biodiversity. Such measures are likely to yield adaptation, conservation, and mitigation co-benefits. Overall, given the regional and international benefits of Mozambique's transport infrastructure, funding mechanisms could be explored on a regional basis and with more engagement with the private sector, given the potential climate risk management benefits particularly for export-oriented companies, as well as broader environmental benefits of ecosystem-based adaptation.A strategic approach to climate adaptation, ensuring that climate considerations are integrated in the nation's industrial strategy. This could, for example, involve consideration of how climate change may affect the development of Mozambique's hydropower sector, building on the observations in this report and on the adaptation and mitigation strategies of neighboring countries. Uamusse, Tussupova, and Persson (2020) note the need for strong and cooperative governance arrangements, including at regional level, to manage shared water resources, particularly given the likely expansion of irrigation, planned hydropower capacity improvement, and the projected increased precipitation variability due to climate change. They also suggest increasing transmission capacity within and between countries (such as through initiatives akin to the joint European electricity market). Odongo et al. (2022) recommend focusing on expanding solar and wind sources to reduce reliance on hydroelectricity, which is expected to help reduce electricity prices and inflation. Similarly, while Mozambique's industrial strategy considers agricultural priorities, ensuring that these reflect robust, up-to-date climate projections would support their effectiveness. Overall, a national-level, crosssectoral climate adaptation and investment strategy could facilitate such considerations. This vision is particularly important given Mozambique's decentralized approach to climate adaptation. While the approach presents an interesting case study for the benefits of a locally led adaptation response, it may need to be supplemented with more analysis to identify strategic opportunities for transformative adaptation (that is, going beyond disaster risk management and exploring opportunities for climate and economic resilience).Development of technical capacity and improved access to robust, up-to-date climate projections.An ARIP could support the development of Mozambique's climate adaptation and resilience strategy, including its NAP process, by facilitating access to technical expertise and relevant data and modelling. This could help address the capacity challenges to the GoM's response, as noted above.It could also help ensure that climate-related policies, as well as industrial policies such as PRONAI, reflect the latest projections of the potential impact of climate change in Mozambique. Support with technical capacity could also help the GoM and relevant regulatory bodies in developing a green finance framework, including supporting policies and guidelines.Mobilization of finance for adaptation at scale that delivers a consistent and effective climate adaptation response. Mozambique's limited fiscal space and challenges in mobilizing investment from the private sector represent key constraints to its ability to take climate and resilience adaptation measures, including the recommendations in this report. An ARIP should therefore prioritize efforts for mobilization of funding for climate adaptation and resilience. A national-level adaptation and resilience strategy, including an investment plan and a pipeline of projects, could facilitate the country's ability to engage with donors and investors. It could also help reduce duplication and maladaptation risks. For example, Manuel et al. (2020) find evidence of poor communication and knowledge-sharing between resilience initiatives in the agriculture sector in Mozambique. A nationallevel investment plan could help ensure that funding mobilized through different initiatives (such as through debt-for-climate swaps) is implemented in a manner that supports the national adaptation strategy.• Climate Resilience: Transforming Hydro-Meteorological Services Project for Mozambique, World Bank (2013-2019): The objective of the initiative is to strengthen hydrological and meteorological information services to deliver reliable and timely climate information to local communities and to support economic development (UNDP, UNEP, and GEF 2020).• Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR): Deployed by the Climate Investment Fund (CIF) and MTA, it covers drought insurance, smallholder irrigation, and land and water resource management across the country. 18 The US$89 million PPCR investment plan also supports upgrading infrastructure, enhancing climate services, and developing its local and national capacities for climate-resilient planning and action (Mozambique, Ministry of Land and Environment n.d.).• Nature, People and Climate investment program: In 2022, the African Zambezi River Basin Region was selected as one of the first participants in the program, under which Mozambique (as well as Malawi, Namibia, Tanzania, and Zambia) will seek finance to support restoration of 30,000 hectares of degraded wetlands along the Zambezi River Basin. ","tokenCount":"8945"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d5ac941f682896fcdcffc26cb5601b50","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d14a527b-038e-42f4-a9cd-7df71c124d3d/retrieve","id":"1263786344"},"keywords":["Cobb-Douglas","Elasticity","Mechanization","Rice","Technical efficiency"],"sieverID":"28971fea-a971-4267-8393-42f9af5f0a49","pagecount":"10","content":"The study was conducted among 274 mechanized and 220 traditional rice farms using multistage sampling technique to assess the technical efficiency in rice production among mechanized and traditional farmers in Jhapa, Sunsari and Bardiya districts. The Cobb-Douglas functional form of the stochastic production frontier was employed to obtain the technical efficiency in mechanized and traditional rice farms. The overall technical efficiency of the mechanized and traditional rice farm ranged from 40.31 to 92.23 and 31.21 to 85.02%t with the mean technical efficiency of 80.56 and 70.11% respectively. The scope of increasing output by adopting the technology adopted by the best performer was 19.44% in mechanized and 29.89% in traditional rice farm respectively. Majority of the farmers were operating at an efficiency level 70-80% and 60-70% in mechanized and traditional farms respectively. The average technical efficiency of mechanized rice farm was higher than that of traditional rice farm and the difference was significant. There was scope of increasing output through rational use of existing resources in both farm categories. Manures, chemical fertilizers had significant and positive effect to total yield of rice kg/ha. The effect of machine use to total yield of rice was positive and significant. Rice farms adopting machines were more technically efficient compared to traditional rice farm.Agriculture is the main stay of Nepali economy contributing 26.98% to country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (MoALD, 2019) and engage 60.4% of its labor force (NPC, 2020). Food security is the burning issue in Nepal with more than two-thirds of the districts facing food shortages every year (Joshi et al., 2012). Rice is placed at the first rank among cereal crops in terms of area and production, contribution to GDP and AGDP and livelihood of the people (Regmi, 2017). Rice contributes about 20% and 7% to AGDP and GDP respectively and also supplies about 40% of the food calorie intake in Nepal (CDD, 2015). Currently, from the area of 1.49 million hectares of land, 5.61 million metric tons rice is produced in Nepal and the Terai region of the country shares more than 70% in term of area and production in Nepal (MoALD, 2019). However, the trend of importing rice (Milled and grain) has increased from 487 thousand metric ton to 769,000 metric tons in terms of quantity while the value has almost doubled from NRs.16 billion to NRs.32 billion in the last 6 years (DoC, 2019). Thus, this situation clearly demands the calls for improving yield of rice to ensure food and nutritional security in Nepal.Adoption of improved technology and focus on agriculture research is one of the best options to increase agricultural production and productivity (Asfaw & Bekele, 2010). Government of Nepal (GoN), Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) has been playing a significant role to improve the rice productivity in the country. The current production is not sufficient to meet the demand of growing population and ensure food security in the country (Shrestha et al., 2020a;Shrestha et al., 2020b). However, the results have not been achieved satisfactory. The average growth rate in area and production of rice is only about 0.35% and 1% per year (Regmi 2017). Rice is labor intensive crop and thus requires large number of labors during various farm operations (Bhandari et al. 2015& Dhital, 2017). The rice productivity is greatly affected by labor scarcity during crop establishment (Liu et al, 2017). For the successful crop production, the timeliness of farm operations is important and use of improved implements and machineries is important for undertaking the farm operation in time. In this context, farm mechanization can help address shortage of labor, ease drudgery, enhance productivity and the timeliness of agricultural activities, promote efficiency in resource use (ESCAP, 2018).Mechanization is important option to ensure profitability in agriculture (Vortia et al., 2019). According to Asefa (2012), if existing inputs and technologies are not efficiently utilized, trying to introduce new technologies will not be cost-effective. Thus, a technical-efficiency analysis is crucial to find out if farmers are efficient in the use of the existing resources and to decide when to introduce new technologies in mechanized and traditional rice farms. The role of mechanization in enhancing the efficiency in production system has still remained to be analyzed in Nepal. There have been several studies on exploring the production efficiency of rice in Nepal but study on farm mechanization impact on rice production efficiency has not been conducted till date. Thus, the present study examines the technical efficiency in mechanized farm and compares it with traditional rice farm so that farmers can be motivated to adopt new technologies. The study is also required to understand how the resources have been used and what are their contribution to output. The study also explores the efficiency distribution at which farmers in both the mechanized and traditional rice farm are supposed to fall.The study was conducted in Jhapa, Sunsari and Bardiya districts of Nepal. Jhapa and Sunsari districts were two Terai districts of province no. 1 and Bardiya was one of the Tarai districts of Province No. 5. These three districts were among the most potential district in rice production in Nepal. The selected three districts share 12.6% and 14.1% to total national area and production in Nepal (MoALD, 2019). These districts were also the command areas of Rice Zone and Super Zone units of Prime Minister Agriculture Modernization Project (PMAMP) which is a government owned project being implemented to facilitate for industrialization of rice sector via promotion of mechanization as one of the strategic interventions. Within the selected districts, respondents from one local unit from Jhapa (Kachankawal Rural Municipality), two local units from Sunsari (Duhabi Municipality and Gadi Rural Municipality) and two local units from Bardiya (Rajapur Municipality and Geruwa Rural Municipality) were selected for taking data through structured and semistructured questionnaires.Multistage random sampling technique was adopted for the selection of study area and sample respondents for collection of information required for the study. The rice growing farm was divided into two categories i.e. Mechanized and Traditional rice farms. Mechanized farm referred to the rice farm that uses at least one or more of agricultural machines for at least one or more farm operations in tillage, transplanting, harvesting, threshing. Traditional farms were referred as rice farm that used none of the agricultural machines for rice cultivation. The rice grower of selected rural municipalities and municipalities were considered to be in sampling frame. The data was collected through structured and semistructured questionnaires. Based on the population size, the sample size of the study was 494 respondents which constituted 220 respondents from traditional and 274 respondents from mechanized rice farms. The focused group discussion, key informant interview, stakeholders analysis were performed during study. The sample size was determined using the following formula and was also verified by using Raosoft software for determination of sample size. The sample size was determined using the following formula: The field survey was conducted in the month of December 15, 2018 -April15,2019.The technical efficiency was calculated by adopting Input-Oriented Measures. In order to estimate the technical efficiency of mechanized and traditional rice farms in study area, stochastic production frontier was used. The data was analyzed using STATA software. Where, Ln =Natural logarithm Y ij =Output (kg) of i th crop on j th type of farm X ij1 = Human labor (man days) for i th crop on j th type of farm X ij2 = Seed (kg) for i th crop on j th type of farm X ij3 = Machine hours (hours) for i th crop on j th type of farm X ij4 = Manures and fertilizers use (kg/ha) i th crop on j th type of farm X ij5 = Chemical Fertilizers (kg) for i th crop on j th type of farm X ij6 = Agro Chemical (litre/ha) for i th crop on j th type of farm X ij7 = Irrigation (hours/ha) Vi = Error term measuring errors not under the control of farmers Ui = Error term measuring errors under the control of farmers. β 1, β 2............. = Coefficients to be estimatedThe technical efficiency was calculated by adopting Input-Oriented Measures. In this frontier model the yield (kg/ha) was dependent variable for both types of farm. The maximum possible independent variables influencing the dependent variables were explored and fit into the model. The independent variables identified were machine hours (hours/ha), seed rate (kg/ha), compost and manures (kg/ha), chemical fertilizers (kg/ha), agro-chemical use (liter/ha), irrigation hours (hours/ha), bullock use (days/ha), human labor (man days/ha). To estimate the technical efficiencies of mechanized and traditional rice farms, natural log transformation was done for dependent and all the independent variables. The coefficients estimated for mechanized and traditional rice farms using stochastic production frontier is presented in the Table 2.The estimated coefficient (-0.011) for human labor was negative and insignificant which means additional use of labor in mechanized rice farm does not increase the output anymore. This finding was in line Uldare (2014) with who found the estimated coefficient of labor was positive and non-significant for mechanized and non-mechanized rice farms in Nigeria. The estimated coefficient for seed was positive but insignificant. This means additional use of seed per hectare will not increase the output. This could be because farmers were already using the seed more than recommended rate so that additional seed per hectare would not contribute to the output increment significantly. Similarly, coefficients for compost/manures and chemical fertilizers was positive and significant at 5% and 1% level of significance.  Oladiebo and Fajuyigbe (2007) who concluded the significant positive relation between level of fertilizers and output for upland rice cultivation in Osun state. The study revealed that the estimated coefficients for agro-chemicals used in mechanized rice farm was 0.908 and was significant at 5% level of significance depicting one percent increase in use of agro-chemicals would increase the output by 0.9 percent. This result is consistent with Canete and Temanel (2017) who found the use of chemicals to control disease pest and chemical fertilizers had significant positive effect to total yield. Coefficient (0.059) for machine use was positive and significant implying that increase in hours of machines use for rice cultivation would increase the output level significantly. Negative and significant coefficient (-0.04) for bullock use indicated that every percent increase in bullock use (in days) would decrease the rice output by 0.04 percent. The presence or absence of technical inefficiency was tested in the study using the important parameter of log likelihood i.e. λ = σu/σv. If λ = 0 there were no effects of technical inefficiency, and all deviations from the frontier were due to noise (Aigner et al. 1977). The estimated value of λ was 1.231 significantly differed from zero. So, the null hypothesis that there is no inefficiency effect was rejected at the 0.1 percent level using the Z-statistic, suggesting the existence of inefficiency effects for rice farmers in mechanized rice farm category. Note:  and  indicate significant at 5% and 1% level of significance respectively.The estimated coefficients obtained from the Stochastic Frontier Production Function for traditional rice farm is presented in the Table 3.The estimated coefficient (0.273) for compost/manures was positive and significant at 5% level of significance. This implied that increase in use of composts and manures by one percent would increase the output level by 0.27%. There was significant effect of chemical fertilizer to the total output indicating that one percent increase in chemical fertilizers would increase the output by 0.015%. The coefficient for human labor was positive and significant at 5% level of significance which means increase in human labor (man days) by one percent will increase the output by 0.028 percent. Estimated coefficient (0.034) for bullock labor use in traditional farm was significant Journal of Agriculture and Natural Resources (2020) 3(2): 82-91 ISSN: 2661-6270 (Print), ISSN: 2661-6289 (Online) DOI: https://doi.org/10.3126/janr.v3i2.32484 at 5% level of significance. This showed that increase in bullock labor use would significantly contribute to output increment. The effect of seed use to the output was found to be negative and insignificant. This indicated that the additional use of seed for rice cultivation would not increase the output level significantly. This was because farmers of all category were using the seed in excess of recommended rate and thus increase in seed rate beyond the recommended rate would not increase the output. Similarly, the estimated coefficient for plant protection measures (agro-chemicals) was found to be positive and non-significant indicating that increase in agro chemicals as a plant protection measure would not significantly increase the output.The presence or absence of technical inefficiency was tested in the study using the important parameter of log likelihood i.e. λ = σu/σv. If λ = 0 there were no effects of technical inefficiency, and all deviations from the frontier were due to noise (Aigner et al. 1977). The estimated value of λ was 1.176 significantly differed from zero. So, the null hypothesis that there is no inefficiency effect was rejected at the 0.1 percent level using the Z-statistic, suggesting the existence of inefficiency effects for rice farmers in traditional rice farm category. Table 4 depicts efficiency categories of mechanized and traditional rice farm in the study area. The overall technical efficiency of the mechanized rice farm ranged from 40.31 to 92.23 with the mean technical efficiency of 80.56 percent. This indicates that famers of mechanized rice farms could lessen their input use on an average of 19.44% in order to operate at full efficiency level, Therefore, the study concluded that there is still possibility of increasing the rice yields by 19.44% adopting the technology adopted by the best performers. Similarly, the overall technical efficiency of the traditional rice farm ranged from 31.21 to 85.02 with the mean technical efficiency of 70.11 percent. This implies that the nonmechanized rice farm produces 70.11% of the maximum attainable output with given input Journal of Agriculture and Natural Resources (2020) 3(2): 82-91 ISSN: 2661-6270 (Print), ISSN: 2661-6289 (Online) DOI: https://doi.org/10.3126/janr.v3i2.32484 88 levels. Wide gap between low and high technical efficiency was evident for both mechanized and traditional rice farm. This also mean that rice farmer could achieve the technical efficiency level of its most efficient counter parts. Kea (2016) also found the gaps in technical efficiency in rice production system with the mean technical efficiency of 78.4% indicating room to further improve the technical efficiency.The mean technical efficiency in mechanized rice farm implies that on an average farm produces 80.56% of the maximum attainable output with given input levels. The average rice grower in mechanized rice farm could increase output by 12.65% approximately (1-80.56/92.23). Similarly, the most technically inefficient farmer could increase the production by 56.29% (1-40.31/92.23) if he/she could increase the level of technical efficiency to the most efficient counterpart. Since the mean technical efficiency of mechanized rice farm is 80.56%, it can be concluded that the 19.44% of the output is lost due to the inefficiency in rice producing system.Similarly, the mean technical efficiency in traditional rice farm implies that the average farm produces 70.11% of the maximum attainable output with given input levels. The average rice grower in traditional rice farm could increase output 17.53% approximately (1-70.11/85.02). Similarly, the most technically inefficient farmer could increase the production by 63.29% (1-31.21/85.02) if he/she could increase the level of technical efficiency to the most efficient counterpart. Since the mean technical efficiency of traditional rice farm was 70.11%, it can be concluded that the 29.89 % of the output is lost due to the inefficiency in rice producing system. In mechanized rice farm, majority of the farmers were operating at an efficiency level of 0.7 to 0.8 (i.e. 70% to 80% efficiency). About one-third farms were at efficiency level of 0.7-0.8 followed by one-fourth farms at 0.8-0.9 and remaining farms were operating below 70% of efficiency. Similarly, in traditional rice farm, majority of the farmers were operating at an efficiency level of 0.6 to 0.7 (i.e. 60% to 70% efficiency). About 40.0% farms were at efficiency level of 0.6 -0.7 followed by one fourth farms at 0.7-0.8 and remaining farms were operating below 60% of efficiency.Journal of Agriculture and Natural Resources (2020) 3(2): 82-91 ISSN: 2661-6270 (Print), ISSN: 2661-6289 (Online) DOI: https://doi.org/10.3126/janr.v3i2.32484The estimated means of technical efficiency between mechanized and traditional rice farm was tested with t-test to find out whether the difference of means of technical efficiency were significant or not. The mean difference of the technical efficiency between mechanized and traditional rice farm was found to be 0.1045. The average technical efficiency of mechanized rice farm (0.8056) was higher than that of traditional rice farm (0.7011) and the difference was statistically significant at 1% level of significant. This was in line with Vortia (2019) who concluded that rice farms with higher level of mechanization are technically more efficient than the others although both farm groups are technically inefficient in rice production. The current study revealed that there was still scope of increasing output level of rice by increasing the efficiency of farm through wise mobilization and use of existing resources. The Pearson's Chi-square value was 91.53 and the difference in efficiency between mechanized and traditional rice farm was found statistically significant at 1% level.The overall technical efficiency of the mechanized rice farm and traditional rice farm ranged from 40.31 to 92.23 and 31.21 to 85.02 percent with the mean technical efficiency of 80.56 and 70.11 respectively. This indicated that that famers of mechanized rice farms and traditional rice farm could increase the output by 19.44% and 29.89% in order to operate at full efficiency level respectively. Wide gap between low and high technical efficiency was evident of inefficiency for both mechanized and traditional rice farm. This also mean that rice farmer could achieve the technical efficiency level of its most efficient counter parts. In mechanized rice farm, majority of the farmers were operating at an efficiency level of 0.7 to 0.8 (i.e. 70% to 80% efficiency and in traditional rice farm, majority of the farmers were operating at an efficiency level of 0.6 to 0.7 (i.e. 60% to 70% efficiency). The overall efficiency level of both the farms suggest that increase in output and decrease in cost could be obtained using available technology. The elasticity of various input used for rice production in both the farm indicated that the manures, chemical fertilizers had significant and positive effect to total yield of rice kg/ha. The effect of bullock use (days) was positive and significant to total output kg/ha whereas it had non-significant impact in mechanized rice farm. The effect of machine use to total yield of rice was positive and significant indicating additional use of machine hours would increase the output. There is scope of increasing the efficiency of rice production system through use of machines and inefficiency can be minimized by creating awareness, educating farmers, technical capacity buildup of farmers.","tokenCount":"3125"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2c441caee5ad9d61ec61244afb5e3441","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/eb4163d7-1bc0-49b2-8268-0f33130b0e03/retrieve","id":"-1274396136"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"280e701d-edc8-412a-8985-7784e9a02d3f","pagecount":"26","content":"Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above. The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used.Editing, design and layout-Step 1 -Setup of the sentinel zones 21.a -Selecting sentinel zones and identifying sentinel clusters 21.b -Participatory field feasibility and validating sampled SZ and SCs 4Step 2 -Set up data collection 52.a Contributor selection and training 52.b Drought recall exercise 72.c Identify rangeland transects 8Step 3. Network managementThere is increasing interest and investments in drought risk financing (DRF) tools for pastoral systems. Nonetheless, existing data is insufficient for assessing the quality or improving these tools in most pastoral regions (ILRI 2021).The sentinel zone (SZ) concept aims to address this gap by maintaining a network of SZs, sampled for socioenvironmental representativeness, that generate indicators specifically developed to track the impacts of drought on the productive resources and welfare of households, and at a frequency appropriate for tracking their dynamics (Fava and Jensen, 2021). Within the SZs, indicators from each of these domains-rangeland conditions, value of production, and household consumption-are quantitatively measured, to reflect the changes before, during and after droughts.Data collection is performed weekly by a network of contributors. While there are many possible models for such arrangements, it is important to ensure that contributors are local, so that they are aware of the circumstances and conditions in the participating community, and that they can consistently collect repeated measurements in specific rangeland locations, markets, and households. 1 The longitudinal nature of the data generated by the SZ network is one of its key features, so consistency is extremely important.Information on rangeland forage conditions is collected from specific transects of pastures identified in each sampled community. This task includes a set of images and subjective forage-condition assessments, which are then used to estimate the fraction of bare ground, the composition of vegetation, and trends in available forage. Together, these three indicators are all aimed at tracking forage available for livestock production in the region.Forge conditions then impact household welfare through, among other channels, livestock productivity, which is tracked through milk production, livestock births, livestock losses, and livestock body condition within the participating households. While such production can be consumed directly through milk or livestock slaughter, the value of production is impacted by market prices, which can also be sensitive to forage conditions, so commodity and livestock prices are also tracked. Indicators of consumption and food security then provide metrics of household wellbeing. More details on motivation for the selected indicators can be found in Fava and Jensen (2021) and this report provides more details on sampling and how to collect the indicators.The SZ network was launched in March of 2021 with two SZs, one in Ethiopia and one in Kenya. These two sites provided an opportunity to refine the sampling and data collection protocols developed in Fava and Jensen  (2021), as well as develop training programs for contributors and participants. Ideally, several stakeholders in the pastoral regions will launch SZs moving forward, potentially with or without support from the current research and implementation team. This document targets an audience interested in launching an SZ in their area of operation.This manual is a guideline on launching an SZ to integrate the data it generates into the broader SZ network database. Figure 1 summarizes the critical steps that are taken when setting up a functional SZ.Figure 1: Steps for setting up and maintaining an SZ and SC.Step 1a: Identify the promising sentinel zones from the socio-environmental classes and related sentinel clusters from the environmental sub-classes.Step 1b: Participatory field feasibility and validation of sampled SZ and SC. Identify boundaries of the SCs and engage local communities.Step 2a: Select and train local and appropriate contributors to collect the data.Step 2b: Perform the drought recall exercise to identify the period and severity of large natural shocks that occurred in the past ten years.Step 3a: Monitoring data collection to track the transmission of drought's impacts from forage conditions to livestock production, to household welfare.Step 3b: Monitor and manage the contributors to ensure that accurate data are consistently collected.Step 2c: Identify participating households, markets and rangeland transects.Step 1 -Setup of the sentinel zones 1.a -Selecting sentinel zones and identifying sentinel clustersThe objective of the SZ network is to provide information that can be used to track the environmental and household production and welfare conditions over time at a temporal and spatial resolution that is sufficient for assessing and improving DRF tools. In this section, general principles for selecting the SZ location within a large region and, subsequently, the specific sampling locations, are illustrated. It should be noted that this is not a rigid procedure, as it could and should be customized based on the most recent and accurate geospatial data available to characterize pastoral systems both environmentally and socio-economically.In the framework of DIRISHA, the SZs are sampled from socio-environmental classes (SE Strata henceforth) as described by Fava and Jensen (2021) and illustrated in Figure 2. The two layers were selected for the IGAD region, and they are openly available 2 . However, alternative geospatial products can be used for the initial stratification of the region of interest based on environmental and socio-economic criteria. As examples, the boxes in Figure 2 represent suggested locations for SZs in the IGAD region with bimodal seasonality. These suggestions are created to illustrate the concept and are not intended to be prescriptive in shape, size, or location. But there are some parameters and recommendations to follow when locating an SZ. Notably, the SZs should be located and shaped so that there is not a great deal of variability within the SZ in the SE Strata shown in Figure 2. The idea is that each SZ focuses on and represents a single SE Strata.3 As is discussed below, subsampling within SZ will capture heterogeneity within that SE Strata, so that the SZ network will provide information on both the variation between SE Strata (between SZs) and heterogeneity within SE Strata (within SZ). For example, the easternmost blue square in Figure 2 is mostly low rangeland production in the regions with bimodal seasonality (top panel) and with high social vulnerability (bottom panel). One should use the maps in Figure 2 to identify areas of operation where there are fairly large regions (e.g., 100 km2) dominated by a single SE Strata.Once prospects for SZs have been located, local knowledge should be used to identify regions that are appropriate for this exercise. Recall that the intention is for the SZ to provide information on pastures and pastoralists that depend on them. Therefore, the SZs should be in regions where livestock is commonly grazed and represent a primary source of income for households; that is, populated pastoral regions. 4 In addition, while selection bias is always a concern, logistical and security considerations, such as accessibility, conflict, and national boundaries, should also be considered. 5 Once a SZ location has been identified, sentinel clusters (SC) are selected, one from each of the main environmental sub-classes of the primary SE Strata in that SZ. This environmental sub-stratification within the primary SE Strata aims to capture environmental heterogeneity within the SE Strata. Here again, the implementor will use the local context to locate appropriate communities and related pastures for their SCs. Each SC should include pastoral households and the rangelands that the community members commonly depend on. These parameters might result in SCs that are quite misshapen as pastures are rarely spread uniformly in all directions for households. What is important, is that the households in the SC commonly depend on the rangelands within the SC. 6 With regard to the spatial or population size of the SC, there are no hard bounds, but the implementation plan calls for sampling 8 households within each SC that have livestock, have at least one child less than 5 years old, and commonly use the sampled rangelands. One would hope that the 8 households are drawn from a larger roster of relevant households (i.e., the SC has more than 8 households that fit the criteria). The distribution of population and rangelands will play a large role in determining the boundaries of the SC (Figure 3). The conceptual formulations and justification of the sampled SZ and SCs need to be followed by a field visit to each SC. The field visit provides an opportunity to verify that the sampling process has selected a relevant region (in respect of the project objectives), to identify SC boundaries, and to begin planning for efficient operations. The field visit requires a technical team that is familiar with the research objectives and sampling design, and a familiarity with the local context. These visits also provide the opportunity to introduce the project to the regions and to begin identifying allies within local institutions, government offices, and communities.The suggested engagements during this initial scoping mission can be structured into the following themes.Community entry should take place with local chiefs, relevant local ministry representatives and administrators, and pastoral associations. The first objective is to help stakeholders understand the goals of the project and to link those project goals to other stakeholders. A second objective is to create awareness and build trust in the region. The conditions necessary for the activity to be rolled out in the SC are also outlined and verified.Collecting community details (key resources) starts with identifying landmarks in the region that are crucial in the pastoral productions -ritual sites, watering points, general assembly points or areas vital to the pastoral community.In most parts of the dryland system, localised names of rangelands or other biophysical features help collect community details. The activity also includes collecting information on the composition, spatial distribution and the population of communities living within an SC. The intention is to have an idea of specific communities within the SC that could be targeted for data collection. For instance, urban centres are avoided since they will likely be populated by people that rely less on pastoral activities. Also, communities living close to the edge of the SZ or in transition zones are avoided as they are more likely to herd their animals outside of the SZ or in a different socio-ecological zone. The information obtained is used to identify a representative community within the SC for monitoring.Identifying normal grazing boundaries of the main pastures commonly used by community members for each of the wet and dry seasons. These pasture resources are considered key feed reserves during dry and wet seasons where most households in the community send their animals for grazing. Therefore, the frequency of grazing and the number of households relying on the identified pasture resource is the key aspect of this exercise. It is preferred to sample from communities that graze within the original SZ and SC boundaries. If there are communities grazing much beyond the pre-defined SC boundaries during these normal periods, they are excluded from the targeted group. However, in cases where a large proportion of communities often graze outside the pre-defined zones, then the boundaries are revised to reflect the situation in the communities.Eliciting common livestock and pasture management strategies will ensure that the communities selected are not outliers in herd composition or herd management. Ideally, the sampled communities in the SC would be reasonably similar to other communities in the SC and even the SZ. Therefore, communities with very different rangeland management policies or herd composition than most of their neighbours should be avoided. For example, if most households in most communities in a SC herd both cattle and goats, we would not want to sample from a community where most households have only camels or mostly grow crops rather than own livestock. The intention is to be consistent with a representative sample of grazers and browsers kept in the SC. All else being equal, it is better to have communities where more types of animals are herded and especially grazers, which rely on forage that is usually more sensitive to drought.Information on general grazing patterns and pastoral resource governance is also important to obtain. It helps to understand the utilization and management of the rangelands. For example, some communities preserve specific pastures for the dry season or have individual enclosures to be used for sick or lactating animals. Information should also be collected on the types of available vegetation, and how they are distributed within the SC. Together, with information on the spatial distribution of dry and wet season pasture, the details on livestock management and distribution of forage types are used to identify the rangeland transects with community members.Eliciting common markets, while not necessary for selecting SCs, is an activity that can be performed with the same group of individuals and at the same time, as the above verification activity. The objective is to identify the markets commonly used by communities within the SC for purchasing and selling commodities, milk, and livestock. In many cases, there will be small local markets for purchasing commodities and occasional sale of livestock. However, larger and more important livestock markets will fall outside of the SC boundaries. If these larger markets are frequently used by community members, then those markets should also be included in the data collection activities.Step 2 -Set up data collectionOnce the SCs have been identified and validated, the next step is to recruit a network of contributors who will support the project by helping to facilitate future activities and collect the weekly surveillance data. Each SC will have at least two contributors. As much as possible, the contributors should be recruited from the local communities to reduce the burden of data collection (both on the contributor and participating households), reduce the risk of missing data, and to minimize costs. Local contributors can more easily locate and travel to participants and visit local rangelands, which can minimize attrition and missing data. It also lowers the cost of field activities and puts the contributor in a position to recognize gross misreporting. There can also be advantages related to language and trust. As such, contributors should have the following traits.• They should live and work within the target community.• They should be trusted by the community members because the job includes engaging community members and visiting households.• They should have knowledge and understanding of the communities and the livelihoods within the SC.• They should have prior knowledge of the local livestock and commodity markets, an understanding of the market operations and have contacts at the market.• They should be literate and able to use digital data collection tools.• They should have some familiarity with smartphones so that learning to collect the smartphone-based surveys is not a large burden.A good practice is to collect a list of potential contributors from the local stakeholder during the SZ and SC validation exercises. These stakeholders can use their understanding of the project and their local knowledge to identify promising candidates. The candidates' interest and competence should then be assessed by the technical team. In this case, the candidate must be someone the team can trust to work with. This is because these contributors will often act as liaison with the community and participants, and sometimes they can be responsible for handling payments to participants. The selected team is invited for training, but a list of other potential candidates should be held in case a replacement is needed in the future.All the contributors within an SZ should be trained at one time in a location within the SZ if possible. A single training for all the contributors is not only cost-effective, but also helps facilitates peer-to-peer learning and builds comradery within the team, which can be important when contributors need to ask their colleagues for ICT support or to help cover each other's activities when necessary.The training program should start by explaining the project's objectives and then outlining the expectations for the contributors and the incentive structure. At that point, trainers should check with each contributor to be sure that they are available for the project period and are still committed now that they understand what is expected of them. In our experience, there is often a risk that candidates attend training to collect per diems/stipends with little intention of participating for the duration of the project, for example, if they are a student and plan to return to a distant school in a month. While some contributors will end up resigning from their position, it is frustrating and wasteful to have one leave just after training, which would require identifying and training a new candidate. Further, high turn-over rates could negatively impact consistency and quality of the data.Once the contributors have committed, they should be trained on how to access and use the data collection platform. All data is collected on smartphones using a mobile survey application. The survey software (application/ platform) will have some basic hardware and system capacity requirements, and some tasks require that photos and GPS points are taken, so the devices and software must be compatible with those needs. Certainly, the software should function offline. The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) uses the KAZNET platform to task contributors, but the survey forms could be directly launched on any Open Data Kit (ODK) service or could be migrated to another platform. 7 No matter the data collection software used, training should include handson training on phone maintenance: charging, how to add airtime and internet bundles, how to download and install apps, how to use location services, best practices on taking photos, and a discussion about connectivity requirements for submitting data. Once the phone maintenance issues are covered, it is time to turn to the survey application. Work with the contributors to download and install the application. Credentials for the survey software should be created logically -so that contributors can easily remember them -and documented by the project in case they are lost by contributors. It should be assumed that contributors will change phones and potentially sim cards 7 The KAZNET platform is a micro-tasking platform that was developed through a collaboration between ILRI and ONA (https://company.ona.io/). The platform allows administrators to create tasks, which are ODK survey forms that are geo-fenced (form completion is restricted by location) and can only be completed in pre-designated periods. The contributor engages with the platform through a smartphone application that provides a menu of available tasks and details on the parameters of the task (e.g., incentive, location, and period restrictions) which the contributor can select and complete. See Chelanga et al. 2021).during the course of the project. Indeed, we have had cases of contributors sharing phones, lost phones, stolen phones, and deleted apps. This is all to say that it is useful for the contributors to know how to download, install, and sign into the programs that they are asked to use.The survey application training should be hands-on and can take place while training on each of the tasks. Start by describing the three types of data they will be collecting: household, pasture, and market. The details of each task are described in detail in Appendix A, as are links to the paper version of the survey forms. Each of the tasks has its own set of objectives, forms, and protocols. For instance, market tasks are only performed inside markets during market days-any market tasks performed out of these parameters should be rejected. Individual survey questions should be discussed for each of the tasks in terms of the information targeted, how to frame questions in the local language, the link between questions, and quality controls embedded. In these sessions, relevant changes to the surveys can be made in response to feedback from the contributors, for example, by adjusting the acceptable domain of acceptable cattle prices to reflect local conditions or adding hints to remind contributors of the aim of a specific question. Like any data collection exercise, it is important that contributors discuss the meaning of the survey tasking and their translations into the local language.While training on each task, be sure to highlight and discuss the time and location in which every task can be performed. Data collection is done weekly. This means a contributor should perform each of her/his rangeland transects and visit each participating household weekly. Additionally, contributors will be responsible for attending weekly market days to collect information. There is some flexibility in timing for the rangeland and household data, but most livestock markets, at least in our experience, have specific main market days. Contributors should understand their responsibilities, how they are paid, where there is flexibility, what is expected of them, and the consequences for non-participation.Contributors are encouraged to communicate effectively and respectfully with their peers, the supervisory team, households, market stakeholders and any interested party in the community. Trainings on formal survey consent and soft skills in communication are part of the training. Use of additional communication platforms (e.g., WhatsApp groups, short message services [SMS]) can be very helpful. The intention of this session is to create avenues for continuous learning during the project period, and to minimize friction from the frequent contact with communities. Forming WhatsApp groups allow for quick and efficient sharing of problems and solutions.Hands-on training through role playing, practice rounds with selected pre-test households and rangeland transects, and livestock markets help teach contributors about data collection protocols and requirements for quality data. This offers the trainers an opportunity to identify and address weaknesses in the contributors and issues with any task.The objective of the drought recall exercise is to identify the period, severity and main cause of large natural shocks that occurred in the past ten years to better understand the relative importance of drought in the region and to provide a dataset that can be used to assess the accuracy of drought indices. The drought recall exercise is performed separately, in each SC. It is a participatory activity in the form of focused group discussions with stakeholders drawn from target communities in the SC. The target group of stakeholders is similar to those engaged in the feasibility and validation activity in the SC. A relatively larger number of participants is preferred (e.g., around 10) for triangulation of information; matching shocks to years and assessing their relative magnitude can be challenging. It is strategic to use the newly trained contributors as facilitators to leverage their local knowledge, interpretation of local the language and context, and continued training. It also helps to verify their position in the project to members of the communities.The drought recall activity requires concentration and commitment by the stakeholders to avoid errors in identifying events, matching them to years and seasons, and ranking them according to severity. Be sure to motive the activity by linking it to that larger agenda.Start the recall exercise by first developing a series of reference points in time within the recall period, especially at the beginning of the recall period. These reference points help participants place events more accurately and need only be events that took place at a time agreed upon by the group members, for example, elections, cultural ceremonies, locust invasion, football championships, and other unique events that most participants are aware of. The group also needs to agree on the cycle of seasons, when wet season(s) take place, and when dry season(s) take place.Once the reference calendar is agreed upon, work with the participants to identify the 3 best periods for forage availability. Then begin discussing the worst seasons for livestock. There are several reasons for seasons that are especially bad for livestock and that can cause livestock losses. There are many options on how to progress through this process (e.g., focusing first on drought or first on the seasons with the highest losses, no matter their cause) but the object is the same-to identify the 3 periods with the highest losses due to drought and understand the magnitude of those losses with respect to losses caused by other shocks. A template found in Appendix B provides a structured form for recording the timing, type, and severity of shocks. Notes should also be made and collated for referencing later. These can be lively discussions that could lead to adjustments in the existing monitoring questions or the addition of extra tasks.During the discussions, focus on the common risks to livestock. To rank the severity of shocks, use a hypothetical starting herd of 10 animals and ask how many would have been alive after the shock. Or, if livestock losses do not seem to well capture the severity of the drought, take note of key coping strategies adopted during and after the major shocks, and use them as an alternative way to rank severity.The drought recall exercise provides coarse information on when historic shocks took place and their severity. This is useful for assessing the relative importance of drought and verifying if the drought index accurately captures severe drought. The objectives of the monitoring data are more ambitious, to reveal and track the transmission of drought's impacts from forage conditions to livestock production, to household welfare. Illuminating such dynamics requires high-frequency and longitudinal data across several domains. This requires that we identify a set of rangelands and households to track overtime. In addition, information is collected from local markets to track the terms of trade that livestock producers face, which can exacerbate or mitigate the impacts of drought.Building on the information obtained from stakeholders during SC feasibility and validation, households, markets, and rangelands are selected from each community. In each SC, our team has used eight households, four rangeland transects, and the 2-4 most commonly used, local, livestock markets. Participating households should be identified by community members. Target households are those with near community-median livestock holdings, have some children below five years old living at the homestead (so that Mid-Upper Arm Circumference -MUACmeasurements can be tracked), that often graze their livestock within the SC, and that have livestock herders living at the homestead (so that household members have information on both household consumption and livestock production). Once the households have been selected, the local contributor and field coordinator should visit the participant and introduce the project to them. Contributors should be made fully aware of the project's objective and timeline. The contributor should walk the participant through the type of questions that they will be asked each week, and it should be clear that participants are expected to work with the contributor to ensure that the survey is collected weekly as much as possible. The contributor should then request and record formal consent from the participant. Compensation/tokens of appreciation should also be discussed at this point, and the participants' eligibility should be verified. Finally, the participant's profile task should be collected by the contributor. This is an excellent time for the field coordinator to provide the contributors with feedback on how they interact with the participants and the data collection platform..Rangeland transects are identified from the important local rangelands identified during the stakeholder engagements. The technical team, SC contributors, and a community guide should organize targeted visits to commonly used dry and wet period pastures to identify and mark the potential transects. 8 It is desirable to track both dry and wet period pasture, but in situations where dry period pastures are not well defined or located too far from settlements, additional wet period pastures may be monitored. For proper identification and tracking, each transect is given a convenient and mnemonic name. Once identified, each contributor is assigned two distinct transects to monitor over the project period. The survey tools should be updated to include the transect names for contributors to select them when performing their tasks in the future.The relevant markets for tracking index commodities, livestock prices, and livestock volumes are identified through community engagements. These could all be in a similar location or quite distinct. For example, commodities prices might be tracked at a local store in a neighbouring community while livestock prices and volumes are tracked at a livestock market in a different location. The objective is to focus on the places that community members use most often for buying and selling the good of interest.Step 3. Network managementOnce the preparatory work is completed, and the contributors have been registered, weekly data collection commences. While this process runs, several monitoring and maintenance activities are required to ensure accurate data is consistently collected and submitted.Managers should monitor submissions for both quantity and quality. Setting up automated processes for summarizing data, flagging outliers, and highlighting missing data can save time and increase data consistency and quality. Managers should communicate with contributors and, when necessary, replacements (of either households or contributors) should be made quickly and transparently without a great deal of commotion as the project relies on the support of the community members and the team of contributors.Contributors should be aware that tasks could be adjusted, and methods for communicating changes should be in place. We note that many survey platforms have remote update features, so as long as the contributors are appropriately trained, updating tasks can be quite simple.The contributor network must be monitored, paid, and communicated with. Communication is the most important component of maintaining the network. Be sure to have clear and simple modes of communication set up. Social platforms can encourage peer-to-peer support, and provide a venue for gamification and information dissemination.Payments to contributors and participants should be transparent and clear. One option is to send the list of payments to all contributors and participants so that everyone is aware of how much they are receiving and why. In our implementations, contributors are not paid per task and are not paid for contributions that are deemed invalid, for example, if the verification photo cannot verify the task. Managers need to be very consistent, clear, and explicit as to why submissions are rejected. In our experience, contributors become frustrated very quickly if they do not know why their submissions are being rejected. Clear and timely communication can quickly increase and maintain data quality and consistency. Delays in payments or disputes about payments can also be a large issue, but this too can usually be addressed with communication and transparency. Where available, electronic payments systems (e.g., bank transfers, M-Pesa) to both households and contributors can reduce transaction costs and risks. 98 More details on the desirable characteristics of the rangeland transect are found in Appendix A.9 While there can be many benefits to electronic payment systems, implementors also need to weight them against potential costs related to registration and access, which can cause bias in the sample or impose limits on who in the household control the payments.Challenges, such as application breakdown, market closures and household attrition are addressed by the system administrator. This implies that the administrator should be on standby and in close contact with the team of contributors to allow timely responses to any issues arising.The long-term viability of sustained data collection requires that there are sufficient funds available to support it. Here we outline the main costs for would-be implementors.Launching an SZ requires a considerable amount of in-person fieldwork for identifying SCs, community entry, managing the drought recall exercise, identifying rangeland transects, training contributors and recruiting participants. In our experience, the process requires a minimum of 25 days in the field per SZ. For this, we suggest using two staff working together in one vehicle. The main costs for this activity are meals, incidentals and lodging (MI&L) for staff, transportation for staff, MI&L for contributors, transportation for contributors, and finally expenses related to community entry and the drought recall exercise. While the actual rate of MI&L and transportation will vary by site, what is clear is that one would, at a minimum, need to have a budget for MI&L for 50 staff days (2 staff, 25 days each), and 112 contributor days (8 contributors, 14 days each), a vehicle for at least 25 days, resources for contributor transportation (i.e., either reimbursing transportation needs or providing transport) and the budget required for community entry and the drought recall exercise (e.g., transportation for participants, meals provided, drinks, and stipend).Once the SZ has been launched, the maintenance expenses are reasonably predictable and low. The primary direct expense is paying the contributors. While many different payment schemes are possible, we estimate about USD 15/ contributor/working day, and each contributor works about 2 days per week to cover her/his households, transect points, and market. The project should agree with contributors about who will be responsible for transportation costs and smartphone data costs related to data collection and submission. Participants should be compensated for their time at a rate that is appropriate for using 1-2 hours of their day each week. Projects should also plan to visit each of the SCs every few months after launching data collection. This allows community members and participants to raise any issues before they have festered for long and allows the research team an opportunity to follow up on any curiosities they are seeing in the data. This is also a good opportunity to run a refresher training with the contributors and to work with the community to build engagement, for example by providing summaries of the trends in the data for their region and from other SZs.Note that the above does not include any staff salaries, which can be considerable considering the amount of time spent in the field for the initial launch, managing the network of SZs, verifying submissions and making payments to contributors and participants, and for using the data.A rough budget is as follows.• Initial SZ starting activities cost about USD 15,000 in direct field expenses• Data collection plus three maintenance trips cost about USD 25,000 per year in direct field expenses• Hardware and subscriptions: USD3,000• Field technician: 50% FTE• Researcher/PI: 15% FTEThe above budget would generate about 52 survey sets from each of 32 households, 52 collections from each of 16 rangeland transects, and 52 survey sets from each of 4 livestock and commodity markets. Because there are many and varied expenses related to collecting household surveys using conventional approaches, it is not easy to provide a clear comparison between the data collection approaches described here and the more conventional household surveys. However,, as a point of reference, using the same budget our team at ILRI could collect 10-15 rounds of the same surveys from the same sample using conventional methods, rather than the 52 rounds that we will collect using the local enumerator approach. 10Launching and maintaining an SZ will surely come with a host of challenges and issues. We close this manual with a list of best practices for managers and implementors. Above all, be sure to keep the objectives of the mission consistent and accurate data in mind.Early and effective mobilization of stakeholders for engagement in all the participatory processes is crucial. It not only reduces costs but helps to draw a broad range of stakeholders; both those that happen to be available and those that are near the site on the day of activities, which should improve the quality of the discussion and community buy-in. These stakeholders will also provide a channel for feedback during the implementation. It is important to schedule activities around local calendar of events, such as market days or traditional ceremonies. It is also good practice to plan a feedback session with the local stakeholders and participants a few months after data collection has commenced. This is a time to show the community some of the uses for the data being collected, receive any feedback on how to better meet the SZ's objectives and identify any grievances before they have had a long time to fester.Having clear and easy communication with contributors is one of the most important strategies for maintaining consistent and accurate data collection. The DIRISHA team has experience maintaining several remote teams and communication consistently surfaces as the most important management practice. Be sure to set up a number of appropriate communication groups (one for SZ contributors, one for each SC) with a member from the implementation team that is responsible for monitoring and replying to issues that arise. In our experience, poor communication is the leading cause of poor quality or missing data.A streamlined process for monitoring data should be used to monitor and provide feedback on data quality and quantity in a timely fashion. Data submitted should be checked and validated soon after submission. This helps to identify errors, make corrections, and follow up on delayed submissions. Rejected data should be accompanied by a justification, and whenever appropriate, an individual follow-up call should be made (especially early in the implementation). This should be supported by well-built frontend (phone side) data quality controls including timestamps for ensuring data is collected during the required times, GPS locations associated with submissions, maximum and minimum rages for variables, and effective skips patterns.The importance of having consistent, high-quality, weekly measures should be emphasized to contributors. For household data, data collection should be scheduled at the convenience of the participant. Note that the householdlevel data requires a period when both livestock are available, and the respondent has time.Flexible data collection software: While most tasks should be stable by the time data collection starts, there is often a need to update tasks or even add tasks as circumstances change. The SZ should be implemented using software that allows for remote updating, and contributors should be trained on that process. In cases where changes are made, the change schedule and details should be communicated in advance. Develop a confirmation process so that contributors confirm that they have updated their tasks and have the correct version of the tool.10 The above calculation assumes that training costs are approximately equivalent between approaches because the number of data collectors and training content is nearly identical. Further, we assume that both approaches require a field technician to provide the training and manage the data and a researcher/PI to oversee the project. Therefore, direct field expenses of data collection are where the main cost differences are. Assuming that the actual enumerator time spent collecting data is the same for each round, then the main difference is that: (1) there is no public transportation in these regions and 4x4s are needed, which cost $200/day, and (2) providing enumerators with room and board, which costs $30/enumerator/day.The rewards for each task should be communicated and calculated in such a way that contributors can easily calculate their expected payments and dispute discrepancies. We suggest contributors to be paid per completed and verified task, but there is a threshold for contributing, under which the contributor is replaced. Participants should be paid a single flat rate each week for participating and multiple weeks without participation is the reason for replacement. Payments for both household tokens and contributor rewards should take place at agreed intervals and using previously agreed upon modes. They should be on-time, and any delays should be communicated well and early. In cases of reduced pay due to a high number of rejected tasks, the administrator should provide sufficient explanation to the contributor early enough. It is important to focus on data quality from the beginning to set the expectation high.As with all collection of data that may contain sensitive information, there are ethical considerations to consider when implementing an SZ. There are two main concerns. First, the data collection activities themselves should not pose any risk to contributors or participants. This includes ensuring that the activities are not too large of a burden for the participants and that contributors are paid sufficiently for their efforts. As we have mentioned earlier, it is important to perform community entry activities thoroughly and well, so that community members understand and support the objectives of the project. This community entry should also reduce the risk that participating households are discriminated against by community members, but the contributors should monitor informally for such discrimination. Finally, because there is conflict in many dryland regions, it is important to be sure that the contributors can safely collect the data that they are charged with; pay attention to boundaries between groups of individuals with a history of conflict and be sure that the contributor is comfortable communicating concerns related to conflict to those managing the SZ. Second, the data should not pose any risk to contributors or participants. Anonymizing data before sharing, by dropping identifying information and adding random errors to the latitude and longitude of household locations is one step required for keeping private information safe. In addition, if the information is shared back to communities, it should be aggregated at a level that ensures anonymity for the participating households, which means aggregating to the SZ level since participating households within each SC will be commonly known. Certainly, all activities should be approved by a Research Ethics Board and meet all research requirements of the country.A final note on collaboration: We hope that this manual has helped you think through the process of setting up an SZ. Please do reach out to the contacts listed in this manual to discuss your implementation. Not only can we provide support, but we also want to be sure to work together so that you are able to meet your objectives in joining the SZ network, and that the data collected by the SZ that your institution is launching, can be integrated into the SZ network's databases.Rangeland transects should be located in dry-period and wet-period pastures commonly accessed and identified by the targeted communities. In cases where dry period pastures are practically constraining for the contributors to access (e.g., very far away or changing each season), then focus can be put on wet season pastures. A transect of 100 meters should be defined across an important grazing area in each pasture. The start and endpoints of the transect should be marked or recorded in some way with easy to identify and fixed objects, like poles or rock piles.To perform the transect path, start at one end of the transect and complete the first portion of the task, then the next portion should be repeated at each transect point, which should be spaced every 10 meters, as instructed in the tool. Each time the transect is collected, pictures and GPS should be taken at in a uniform camara position. Nadir images should be taken with arms directly out at chest height. The task includes a question for the contributor to provide an assessment of the conditions at the rangelands where the transects are drawn. Some of the questions require observation and comparison of the transect forage conditions relative to condition in the last visit-mostly a week.For example, a question on whether there was rain at the transects requires the contributors to either observe any changes in the rangelands that could indicate the occurrence of rain. Also, they could tell if it rained over the 7 days if they were present in the community over the period. Other subjective assessments of the rangelands require past knowledge of up to 5 years-so the contributors compare the current conditions to a similar period in the past.Market prices for basic commodities.Prices and availability of basic goods consumed in the communities in identified market location are tracked on a weekly basis. In our implementations we track sugar, milk, rice, fodder, meat, beans, and cabbage. Prices of standard measurements of commodities e.g., in kilograms or any other relevant standard applicable in the local context should be used. The task should be performed at the same market every weekly cycle of data collection.Prices should be recorded in the local currency and that currency should be recorded by the survey software. Demand and supply shocks occasioned by changes in environmental conditions are expected to impact the market prices of these commodities commonly consumed by pastoral communities.Market prices for all animal types traded in sampled markets are collected during the main weekly market. Specific animal categories found to be commonly traded in the market (e.g., mature, moderate, non-castrated animal types) should be selected for tracking to increase likelihood of consistent data. These decisions should be informed by initial market assessment and discussions with community members. During the market day hours, contributors approach a seller who has just completed a deal with a seller, and record the final prices paid for the animal. To increase the representativeness of the data, contributors should be encouraged to make multiple submission within each category each week. Prices should be recorded in the local currency and that currency should be recorded by the survey software.This task targets data on the number of livestock, per animal type, supplied to the markets for trade at a particular market day. When available and deemed reliable, contributors should acquire the total count of animals bought/ sold on that market day, from the records of market management agents. If such records are not available, then the contributor could perform and record a headcount of the number of each type of animal, during the busiest part of the day. As long as the contributor uses a consistent practice, this head-count spot-check, should vary with throughput, and therefor provides an alternative when throughput itself is not available.Household livestock milk production.Milk production in pastoral settings is a notoriously difficult variable to track because production is not often tracked by the household. This set of tasks targets two indicators, total milk production within the household's herd and the milk production of a specific index animal. The idea is that, while the total production is the ideal measure, those at the household may not be able to accurately estimate milk produced by portions of the herd. So, we assume that total milk recorded by the task, is a coarse approximation of total milk produced. Milk production by the index cow should be much more accurate but may not reflect the conditions that other animals in the herd face. Milk production is recorded weekly cycle, but is done so using 24-recall period. Amounts of milk should be recorded in units of measurement that are appropriate for the region, but the amount in litres should be calculated by the survey software and recorded.This task targets data on food availability and consumption of different food categories by the households to obtain a household dietary diversity score (HDDS). It also focuses on strategies applied to cope with food shortage-with is commonly referred as 'reduced coping strategy index' (rCSI). The HDD task is developed by following the protocol Kennedy et al. (2011). Household consumption choices from a list of 16 food categories is deemed to indicate access to food and a proxy to nutrient adequacy. The rCSI tasks are made up of questions adopted from Maxwell et  al. (2003). The households recall how they managed scarce food times, by re-allocating different quantities across day and night mealtimes. A reference period of 7 days is targeted for both HDDS and rCSI data. The tasks should be performed at homesteads of the sampled households and the contributor should be sure to interview a household member that is well informed on the household's consumption.The MUAC measurements for the caregiver and children below five years old are measured in this task. The roster of eligible children is obtained from the household's profile task. They are populated in the MUAC task to reduce the risk of inconsistency in tracking measurements. Eligible children should be precisely identified at each measurement period. Using a tailor-made tape commonly called MUAC-tape, the measurement is taken of the mid upper left arm, while the arm is held in a relaxed position. The tape is calibrated in centimetres (CM), with arrow pointers and colour codes to guide the contributor. See UNIFEC (2020) for more information on the MAUC tapes and a video on how to measure MUAC can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pQUtOsjjSY. Four our project, the MUAC is measurements are taken after every 7 days. The data provides a quantitative measure of severe or moderate acute malnutrition of caregiver and child tracked.The task entails tracking multiple dimensions of animal's body conditions and weight. Assessment of physical body condition follows standard protocol set by Kenya Bureau of standards (KEBS) of giving body score depending in the appearances of specific body parts. Contributors are trained how to assess and score body conditions of different animal types. Camels and cattle are scored into four categories: fat, moderate, thin, and emaciated. Goats and sheep are scored in three classes: fat, moderate, and emaciated. Following the protocol by Goopy et al. (2017), body weight is measured using standard hearth girth tape. The protocols for measuring cattle are widely used and thus we focused only on cattle on our SC. A specific index cow should be identified in the households for the weekly tracking.The animal body conditions are assumed to change depending in the forage conditions in the accessed rangelands.This entail recording the numbers of death and births occurrence over the previous seven days among animals herded by a household. The main cause of death is also collected for each reported loss.ISBN: 92-9146-753-7The ","tokenCount":"8148"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"eeee035c780cf6f028e0f9c55cb389cf","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/cdf96ba7-08b4-4d6e-adee-a41691fab63a/retrieve","id":"-64724614"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d69906fc-468b-4ec2-8df5-ec32108b08a3","pagecount":"11","content":"Assessing soil organic carbon (SOC) is vital for water retention, soil health, nutrient cycling, greenhouse gas emissions, and pollutant reduction and thereby contributes to sustainable agricultural production and food security. Thus, using long-term climate, soil, and land management inputs, the Rothamsted Carbon (RothC) model was applied to assess the current and future SOC stocks in the Anjeni watershed using long term climate, soil and land management data. RothC was calibrated with long-term SOC, land management, and climatic data from the Anjeni watershed in north-west Ethiopia. The correlation coefficient between simulated and observed SOC in 1997 and 2021 were 0.77 and 0.86, respectively, suggesting that the model could characterize the SOC of the Anjeni watershed. Then, the RothC was used to estimate SOC in the watershed for 30 years, from 2022 to 2052, under three slope gradients and four land use type and carbon storage scenarios (business as usual (BAU), low, medium and high carbon inputs). The result indicated that in the lower slope gradient, the current SOC simulation is less than all future scenarios considered under all land use types. Grass/fallow land showed higher current and projected SOC than cultivated land and plantation forest. Moreover, grass/fallow land with a gentle slope gradient had higher SOC than the watershed's middle and high-elevation parts. Overall, the model projected an increase of SOC under different future scenarios that could be due to climate and land use cover changes, the long-term soil-water conservation camping works and better soil and land managements in the watershed. This future assists for water retention, soil health, nutrient cycling, soil aeration, and greenhouse gas emission reduction, which in turn could enhance agricultural productivity, food security, and sustainable development.The soil organic carbon (SOC) level is a critical determinant of soil productivity (Deressa et al., 2020;Mondini et al., 2017). Soil can sequester or release carbon depending on various factors such as environmental conditions, management practices, and other influencing factors (IPCC, 2019;Afzali et al., 2019). Proper soil management and agricultural practice can increase soil productivity and decrease the decomposition of SOC, further reducing the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (IPCC, 2019;Yokozawa et al., 2010).In the Ethiopian highlands, the growing population and increasing demand for food are putting pressure on the agricultural sector and forces to expand traditional agricultural practices with no proper management (Zerssa et al., 2021;Agidew and Singh, 2018). The sustainability of agricultural production relating to soil quality is becoming affected by the nature of intensive and inappropriate farming, with the removal of crop residues accelerating the decomposition of SOC that leads to soil degradation (Fantin et al., 2022;Chatterjee et al., 2020). Consequently, the carbon emitted from improper soil management increases the concentration of CO 2 in the atmosphere, which raises the global temperature (Chatterjee et al., 2020). The SOC loss due to land use pattern change (from forest or grassland to agriculture) is expected to be high, particularly in Ethiopian highlands (Baye, 2017;Assefa et al., 2017;Amsalu et al., 2007;Hurni et al., 2005).In the Anjeni watershed, most of the population relies on agriculture. However, agricultural output is declining, and its sustainability is in doubt due to significant land degradation, soil erosion, and deteriorating soil fertility, even though sustainable agriculture is recognized as a crucial issue to achieving the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Bayabil et al., 2015;Alemu et al., 2013;Setegn et al., 2010). On the other hand, smallholder farmers in Ethiopia, especially those in the Anjeni watershed, have struggled to meet the community's growing demand for food by increasing the area of their farms within forested or grazing areas. Additionally, farmers use fallow times that are too short or nonexistent to adequately replenish soil fertility, which generally leads to a decline in agricultural production (Wawire et al., 2021;Alemu et al., 2013).Ethiopia has actively pursued soil and water conservation techniques campaigns since the 1980s to reduce land degradation, sedimentation, and soil erosion that help promote soil fertility. Recently, the Ethiopian government approved a 15-year plan to safeguard the nation from the negative consequences of soil degradation and create a climate-resilient green economy by 2025 (FDRE, 2011). Additionally, a five-year, two-phase strategy (2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020) has been established by the Growth and Transformation Strategy Plan (GTP) to adopt soil and water conservation (SWC) methods with community involvement (EGTP, 2023).The Anjeni watershed is a pivotal site for the Soil Conservation Research Program (SCRP), aimed at implementing soil and water conservation techniques to mitigate erosion. Over time, the Amhara Regional Agricultural Research Institute (ARARI) has sustained research efforts in soil and water conservation, making Anjeni one of the longeststanding watersheds with substantial land management investments. Diverse soil and water conservation practices have been implemented to address land degradation and soil erosion and enhance soil fertility. Notably, the Anjeni watershed was severely degraded before 1984 (Hurni et al., 2005(Hurni et al., , 2010)). Therefore, assessing the SOC dynamics using process-based models in various land uses and slope gradients is necessary for evaluating SOC stocks of various land uses and slope gradients in the Anjeni watershed using a process-based SOC simulating model.The Anjeni watershed's sustained efforts in land management and conservation agriculture prompt an examination of how sustainable land management practices influence SOC dynamics across varied landscapes and slopes. To identify pathways of C release from soil or retained in soils, it is crucial to understand the dynamics of SOC in connection to LULC change and agricultural management practices (Chatterjee et al., 2020;Adhikari et al., 2019). For sustained agricultural output and a stable ecosystem, it is crucial to increase soil carbon levels by increasing carbon imports or reducing the decomposition of organic matter in the soil (Amanuel et al., 2018). To address the sequestration of carbon in agricultural soils, several management techniques are known to increase soil organic carbon (SOC) contents in croplands, including organic amendments, cover crops, crop rotations, agroforestry, or conservation agriculture (Fantin et al., 2022;Sharma et al., 2019). On the other hand, the intense agricultural practice brought about by the rising population and the great need for food made it harder to implement the aforementioned conservation agriculture measures (Wassie, 2020;Sharma et al., 2019).Given the diverse land uses, slope classes, and various land management and agricultural inputs, process-based models are instrumental in comprehending soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics in the Anjeni watershed. These models facilitate timely evaluations of soil fertility for sustainable agriculture by analyzing SOC fate under different scenarios, leveraging long-term experimental datasets that encompass soil types, climate conditions, and land uses specific to the study watershed.Process-based models are widely used to simulate SOC changes for various scenarios because field observations are expensive (Mishra et al., 2019). Additionally, a process-based model aids in extrapolating data gathered through observation to hypothetical future situations. These models increase the research's level of relevance but also give farmers and stakeholders vital information they need to make decisions about various agricultural systems (Jordon et al., 2022). Hence, the Rothamsted Carbon Model (RothC) has been used in several countries as well as different ecosystems, climate, and land cover types such as the UK, Austria, Brazil, Spain, Zambia, China, Japan, Germany, Italy, India, and Kenya were used for this study (Mishra et al., 2019;Mondini et al., 2018;Yao et al., 2017;Senapati et al., 2014;Yokozawa et al., 2010;Kaonga and Coleman, 2008;Guo et al., 2007;Ludwig et al., 2007;Kamoni et al., 2007;Cerri et al., 2007;Shirato and Taniyama, 2003;Romanya et al., 2000;Coleman et al., 1997). Using the RothC model under specific environmental and management conditions necessitates a validation process using comparable observed SOC stock. Therefore, the rationale of this study is to calibrate and validate the RothC model for the Anjeni watershed and simulate SOC under different scenarios. There is growing interest in using process-based models to understand the dynamics of natural and edaphic factors on soil carbon. Therefore, this research article will serve as a benchmark for future research. Ethiopia, only two studies have been conducted so far related to RothC. The first study, which was carried out over entire Ethiopia (Abegaz et al., 2022), was on a large scale, which is difficult to use for policymaking, and the second study was in the Tigray region (Mesfin et al., 2020) which is in semiarid agro-ecological zone in the northern part of Ethiopia. Thus, this study assessed the soil's current carbon stock and future potential using different scenarios in the Anjeni watershed. Regular evaluation of the watershed is vital to detect the effects of soil conservation works in the watershed.Thus, validating the widely used RothC model for estimating C turnover can enhance the assessment of SOC dynamics in different land cover of the Anjeni watershed that can be extrapolated to areas under the same climatic condition to assist in the management strategies in a long-term perspective. The objectives of this study were to (i) test and validate the RothC model for estimating SOC stocks in different land covers and slope gradients at the Anjeni watershed in Ethiopia and (ii) simulate and evaluate the future SOC based on different scenarios using the RothC model.This study was conducted at the Anjeni watershed of the Blue Nile basin in the west Gojam zone (Demebecha district) in the northwestern part of Ethiopia. The geographical location of the watershed is at 10 • 40′59 ″N latitude and 37 • 31′57″E longitude, with mean elevation ranges from 2100 to 2500 m (Fig. 1). The watershed is a mixed croplivestock subsistence farming system with an area coverage of 108.3 ha. The watershed is categorized under the Wet Weyna Dega (wet subhumid) agro-ecological zone with an annual average rainfall of 1650 mm and temperature of 16.5 • C (Alemu et al., 2013). There are about five major land use land cover types in the watershed, including cultivation land, plantation forest, grassland, settlement, and fallow land, covering 70 %, 14 %, 10 %, and 6 %, respectively (Geremew et al., 2023). The dominant soil types in the watershed are Alisols, Nitisols, Regosols, Leptosols, and Cambisols, with coverage of 41 %, 23.8 %, 12.4 %, and 19 %, respectively (Setegn et al., 2010).The soil sampling collection was based on the slope and land use cover type that the entire Anjeni watershed was classified into three slope gradients as gentle slope (1-15 %), moderate slope (15-30 %), and steep slope (> 30 %). Four land uses were identified for each of the three slope gradients in the watershed: fallow land, cultivation land, settlement, grassland, and plantation forest. We had collected the soil sample in 2021, from average soil depths of 0-30 cm, as recommended by IPCC (2003). Moreover, undisturbed soil cores were collected from the two soil depths (i.e., 0 -15 cm and 15 -30 cm) and average soil depths of 0-30 cm to assess the bulk density. As reported in Geremew et al. (2023) reported, 36 disturbed soil samples were gathered, representing four land use cover categories, one depth, three replicates, and three different slope gradient categories. All sampling locations were georeferenced using a GPS to obtain their coordinates, and soil laboratory analyses were conducted at the Debre Berhan Agricultural Research Center in Ethiopia.Based on the climate data obtained from the Water and Land Resource Center (WLRC) of Ethiopia from 1983 to 2022, the average monthly rainfall is 135.9 mm, with the highest in July (381.1 mm) and the lowest in January (11.1 mm). The average monthly minimum temperature is 9.7 • C with the highest in May (11.9 • C), while the lowest was in December (6.6 • C). The highest monthly maximum temperature was observed in March (27.3 • C), while the lowest was in August (19.8 • C). The average monthly maximum temperature was 24.2 • C. The highest monthly average temperature was indicated in April (19.2 • C), whereas the lowest was in August (15.5 • C). Based on the data analysis from 1983 to 2022, the monthly average temperature was 16.9 • C. The highest average monthly potential evaporation is 80.3 mm in May, whereas the lowest was in December (55.5 mm). The average monthly potential evaporation is recorded as 64.3 mm.The monthly vegetation indices is one of the inputs of the RothC Model. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Terra satellite product of the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) was obtained from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) web service (https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/products/mod13q1v006/) (Didan, 2015). The 16-day composite monthly NDVI of 250-meter spatial resolution (Level 3 product) was used for this study. The NDVI is computed as the ratio of the difference between Near Infrared and Red band reflectance to the sum of Near Infrared and Red band reflectance, and the values range from − 1 to 1, where higher values are for green vegetation, closest to 0 for bare soil, and negative values for water bodies. As shown in Fig. 3, the monthly NDVI pattern is similar to the monthly rainfall time series (Fig. 2), with high NDVI values in June, July, August, and September, in the major rainy season called Kiremt.Once the NDVI vegetation indices were extracted from MODIS, the NDVI was converted into Net Primary Production (NPP) to get the monthly carbon input from vegetation cover using MIAMI model of NPP based on annual temperature and rainfall. A detailed description of MIAMI model, processes, and r script is available from the FAO publication (FAO, 2020). The most used SOC simulating models are RothC and Century (Falloon and Smith, 2002). In this study, the R version the RothC Model available as SoilR package (Jordon, 2021;R Core Team, 2020;FAO, 2020;Sierra et al., 2012) was used due to its suitability to simulate SOC in different land uses with limited data availability (Wiltshire and Beckage, 2022;Mishra et al., 2019). The (RothC) was originally developed at Rothamsted Station in the UK. This model has been adopted by several countries across the globe for different ecosystems or climatic conditions including croplands, grasslands, and forests (Jordon et al., 2022;Coleman and Jenkinson, 1999). The RothC model is easy to use with readily available datasets, whereas other models require various challenging datasets; for example, the century model requires soil temperature rather than air temperature. Coleman and Jenkinson (1997) provided excellent descriptions of the RothC model. Since most models are parameterized under particular management and climatic regions, SOM models could have several limitations. It is generally suggested that models such as RothC may be limited by failing to account for soil pH effects on soil carbon turnover (Jenkinson, 1988;Parton et al., 1989;Jenkinson et al., 1992;Motavalli et al., 1995). The RothC model also lacks algorithms for carbon input estimation and a differentiated consideration of carbon input sequestration from organic amendments commonly used in agricultural soils. Additionally, RothC does not accurately simulate SOC dynamics in waterlogged soils, though there has been some improvement.Using the soil type, moisture content, temperature, and plant cover of the particular experimental site/watershed, the model was used to simulate organic C turnover in topsoils that were not waterlogged (Coleman and Jenkinson, 1999). The model does not compute C inputs to the soil from above-ground and below-ground biomass, nor does it include a sub-model for plant growth and yield as it is not used for crop growth simulation (Jordon et al., 2022;Coleman and Jenkinson, 2014). The soil organic C in the RothC model is divided into four active fractions, namely, decomposable plant material (DPM), resistant plant material (RPM), microbial biomass (BIO), and humified organic matter (HUM), including the fifth minor inert organic matter (IOM) fraction that is resistant to breakdown (Coleman and Jenkinson, 1997). A first-order decay process with a unique characteristic rate breaks down each fraction (Coleman and Jenkinson, 2014). The general methodology and the structure of the model are shown in Figs. 4 and 5. The RothC model computes the total organic C (tons per hectare) in a monthly time-step.The minimum data required to run the RothC model are weather/ climate, soil, and land management datasets (Wiltshire and Beckage, 2022;Coleman and Jenkinson, 2014), it is well described in Table 1. The average monthly climate input datasets required for the model, such as rainfall, air temperature, and potential evapotranspiration, were acquired from the Amhara Agricultural Research Center (Anjeni Watershed Directorate Office) at the Water and Land Resource Center (WLRC) from 1983 to 2022. Temperature-based Thornthwaite empirical equation was applied to estimate the potential evapotranspiration (PET) at Anjeni Watershed (Thornthwaite, 1948).Where, PET is monthly potential evapotranspiration in mm, T mean is monthly mean temperature ( • c), I is heat index for the location = ∑ 12 i=1 i, and i is monthly Thornthwaite heat index = ( Tmean) 1.514 α = 6.75*10 − 7 I 3 − 7.71*10 − 7 I 2 + 1.79*10 − 2 I + 0.49(2)RothC is a SOC decomposition model simulating SOC changes in agricultural soil under different environmental conditions and management practices solely concerned with soil processes that SOC partitioned into five conceptual pools such as DPM, RPM, BIO, HUM, and IOM (Mondini et al., 2017). Except for IOM, each pool's decomposition proceeds according to a first-order decay mechanism, with the rate of decay being influenced by meteorological factors (such as temperature and moisture) and clay content (Yao et al., 2017) (5)The amount of carbon (Z) from each active pool decomposes in a given month according to an exponential decay function (Afzali et al., 2019;Jordon et al., 2022)That considers the initial amount of carbon in the specific pool (Z 0 ), and the parameters a, b, and c stand for rate-modifying factors for temperature, soil water content (moisture), and soil cover, respectively. K is used to denote the compartment's specific decomposition rate constant, and (t) = 1/12 (0.0833) is used to translate k into a monthly time step, as k is based on an annual decomposition rate (Coleman and Jenkinson, 2014).The decomposition rate modifying factor b is computed as follows: if the Accumulated Topsoil Moisture Deficit (ATMD) less than 0.444 of the Maximum Topsoil Moisture Deficit (MTMD), then be is fixed as 1 meaning that no effect of moisture (Coleman andJenkinson, 1997, 2014). Otherwise, b is computed asThe model uses average monthly air temperature rate modifying factor a, and the factor a is computed as follows, a = 47.911 + e ( 106.06 T+18.27Where T is the average monthly air temperature.The CO 2 / (BIO + HUM) ratio x, is computed from the clay content of the soil based on the following equation: Based on experimental data, the scaling factor 1.67 is used for all soils to set the CO 2 / (BIO + HUM) ratio in Rothamsted soils (23.4 % clay) to 3.51.The amount of available soil water and the soil temperature impact how much carbon is lost from the soil through microbial breakdown processes (Coleman and Jenkinson, 1996). The soil water-based rate modifying parameter used by the RothC model is through a soil moisture deficit dependent on the soil's clay content, monthly average rainfall, and pan evaporation (Afzali et al., 2019;Jordon et al., 2022). The accumulated soil moisture deficit is determined monthly from the balance in soil water between rainfall and evaporation, and the maximum soil moisture deficit is connected to clay content through a quadratic function (Mishra et al., 2019). The partition between CO 2 evolved and BIO + HUM generated depends on the amount of clay content in the soil. A DPM/RPM default ratio of 1.44, for example, suggests that for agricultural and grasslands, 59 % of plant material is DPM and 41 % is RPM, dividing the carbon intake from plants into the soil (Coleman and Jenkinson, 2014). The RothC utilizes a DPM/RPM ratio of 0.25 for tropical woodland or deciduous forest, with 20 % of DPM and 80 % of RPM (Jordon et al., 2022;Falloon and Smith, 2002). Fig. 3 shows that the decomposition of the DPM and RPM produces CO 2 , BIO, and HUM, which are released into the atmosphere. However, the amount of CO 2 , BIO, and HUM production depends on the soil's clay concentration (Coleman and Jenkinson, 2005). Once more, BIO and HUM decompose to generate CO 2 , whereas BIO + HUM by default splits into 46 % BIO and 54 % HUM. Manure is thought to decompose more quickly than plants that split into 49 % DPM, 49 % RPM, and 2 % HUM (Senapati et al., 2014;FAO, 2020;Coleman and Jenkinson, 1997).Because permanent crops have a high lignin content and a high resistance to decomposition, the DPM/RPM ratio is 1. In a study carried out Zambia at Msekera fallow land standard DPM and RPM ratios (1.44, 0.25) and other constants like 0.95 and 1.1 were used for the RothC model (FAO, 2020; Kaonga and Coleman, 2008).The spin-up involves an initialization by which the model runs for 500 years, to realize the SOC equilibrium state in the five pools, repeating the agricultural land management in the watershed (plant residues, manure), land use, and long-term monthly average hydroclimatic data (1983)(1984)(1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000) inputs of RothC model. Clay and SOC content data collected in 2021 from the four land use types at the three slope gradients (lower, middle, and upper part of the watershed) were additional data inputs used for the model spin-up in this study. In a model spin-up initialization, the C quantity in each pool is initially set to zero. Then, the pools are allowed to attain equilibrium under stable agricultural land management and long-term hydro-climatic data. The DPM/RPM ratios reported in Table 3, as recommended by Coleman and Jenkinson (1996), were used for this study as input for agricultural land management. For example, the DPM/ RPM ratios of 1.44, 0.67, and 0.25 were used for the identified land use types in the Anjeni watershed.The model is designed to operate in two modes: forward or direct mode, where known inputs are used to calculate changes in SOC, and inverse or indirect mode, where known changes in SOC are used to compute the inputs. The RothC model was iteratively run in the forward mode for 500 years by initialization of the soil carbon in the five pools, by which summed corresponds to the baseline SOC, in order to fit the model output to the baseline SOC data acquired from 72 sites of the Anjeni watershed. The model operates in the forward mode for calibration while considering the hydroclimate data (2001-2022) and decadal NDVI once the equilibrium state has been achieved iteratively during initialization. While the model's other inputs and default values (Tables 2 and 3) were identical to those used in the spin-up run. The RothC model is calibrated until the simulated and measured SOCs in each of the land use types match in an equilibrium condition. The SOC fractionation method used by various previous studies and described by Zimmermann et al. (2007) or FAO, 2020 was utilized to isolate SOC to various pools.We evaluated the accuracy of different initialization techniques with SOC data obtained in different years. As indicated in Geremew et al. (2023) in Fig. 1, the SOC collected by Gete in 1997 from 16 sites was used for model validation. The significant linear relationship between the measured and simulated SOC was analyzed by different statistical methods. Model validation was a continual process in which the model was examined under various conditions and considering recently obtained information and requirements.The SOC trends were projected to the year 2052 using the NDVI and hydro-climate data (monthly mean rainfall, temperature, and potential Evapotranspiration) from 2001 to 2022 after the model had been set to run in the forward mode. Once the forward simulation reaches an equilibrium state through iterative initialization based on the current (2001-2022) dataset, the SOC was projected for 30 years from 2022 based on different scenarios to predict the SOC for 2052. The general methodology of RothC model is presented in Fig. 5 where RPM (Resistant plant material), DPM (decomposable plant material, BIO (Microbial biomass, soil microbes), HUM (Humidified SOM, humus), IOM (resistant to biological transformations), and NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index).Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis were applied to examine the observed collected and model simulated datasets in this study using R statistical software. The observed SOC correlation with RothC model predicted SOC was evaluated using Pearson correlation coefficient (r) as defined by Pearson (1920). A two-tailed, 5 % significance level was used for this study, assuming that both variables are normally distributed. Suppose that the two correlating variables are b (observed SOC) and c (model simulated SOC), both owing n values b 1 , b 2 , b 3 and c 1 , c 2 , c 3 …, correspondingly, and then r is defined as follows: Correlation coefficient (r) varies between -1 ≤ r ≤ 1. When r close to 1 indicates that as observed SOC increase, there is an exact predictable increase in model simulated SOC. However, when r close to 0 indicates that as observed SOC increase or decrease, model simulated SOC can't be predicted.The Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) that is used to compare the difference between observed and simulated SOC, which is expressed as follows;Where n is the number of measured values.In most cases, the SOC change occurs due to land management/use changes; thus, regular assessment of SOC dynamics is vital using a costeffective physical processes-based model like RothC. The climate, soil, and land management datasets such as rainfall, air temperature, potential evapotranspiration, NDVI/NPP, SOC, and clay content that controls the carbon turnover were used as inputs to run the RothC model to simulate the current and future SOC of Anjeni watershed. Based on the data from 1983 to 2000, the RothC model was spin up to initialization for the SOC to reach at equilibrium state. Then, the model was again run using the dataset from 2000 to 2022 to eventually match the simulated SOC to that of the observed in each of the pools with the suggested spin-up run of 500 years to minimize the computational times (Jordon et al., 2022;FAO, 2020;Nemo et al.,2017). The model performance in the Anjeni watershed context was tested as follows.The model spin-up initialization was carried out using long-term monthly average hydro-climatic data (1983)(1984)(1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000), agricultural land managements of the watershed (plant residues, manure), SOC, clay content, and land use inputs to estimate the initial SOC stocks of each pool. For the model warm-up and forward simulation, the collected SOC data in 2021, clay content, and long-term NDVI and hydro-climate data from 2001 to 2022 were used. Moreover, the RothC Model performance was verified using independent SOC data obtained from Gete, which was collected in 1997 from 16 sites. Fig. 6 shows the correlation between the simulated and observed SOC, for the forward simulation with the 2021 and 1997 observed SOC, with the correlation coefficient (r 2 ) of 0.86 and 0.77, respectively, implying that the RothC model characterized the SOC of the Anjeni watershed well. The RSME, representing the total divergence between the simulated versus observed values of 2021 and 1997, were 0.013 and 0.074, respectively. The model performed well in predicting the SOC of the watershed. The observed and simulated SOC values were nearly distributed along the 1:1 line. However, the correlation of forward simulation with the 1997 observed SOC was slightly lower than forward simulation with the 2021 observed SOC. This might be due to the watershed's data quality, climate, and soil management practices. Overall, the model underestimated the observed SOC; the simulated SOC values were greater than the observed, possibly because of model limitations in addition to data quality, the watershed's climate, and its soil management practices.The observed soil sample was collected from plantation forest along with cultivated, grass, and fallow lands. Nevertheless, as the fallow field cover type lacked specified DPM and RPM ratio values, it was regarded as grassland. The default grassland value, 1.44, was applied to the fallow land simulation. Consequently, the fallow land in the RothC simulation was grassland. Furthermore, the lower, middle, and upper portions of the watershed were designated by the three slope gradients-gentle slope (1-15 %), moderate slope (15-30 %), and steep slope (>30 %), respectively. As indicated in Fig. 7, relative to plantation forests and cultivation lands, the observed and simulated SOC was higher in grass/ fallow lands. The SOC in plantation forests is slightly higher than that of cultivated land, though grass/fallow lands had the highest SOC values of all three types of land use and land cover (LULC). The higher SOC value The default decomposition rate constant (k) per year of the active pools is set as follows:. The RothC default DPM and RPM ratio for various land cover types.Land cover type DPM/ RPM Agricultural/arable/ crops, cultivated land 1.44 Grassland (improved grassland), fallow land 1.44 Forestry (deciduous/tropical woodland, trees), plantation forest 0.25 Semi-natural (unimproved grassland/scrub), weeds, grazing land 0.67 Tree-crop intercropped systems 0.95 in grass/fallow land could be attributed to several factors such as (vegetation type, land management practice, root system characteristics, residue management, and microbial activity) as a result, grasses and fallow lands often have a higher input of organic matter from plant residues, root turnover, and decaying biomass (Ntamwira et al., 2023). The simulated SOC value is higher than observed in all LULC types. The gentle slope (lower land) received clay content in cultivated land, grass/fallow land, and plantation forest were 61.8, 63.1, and 62 %, respectively. The moderate slopes (middle land) clay content was 65.5 % for cultivated land, 64.9 % for grass/fallow land, and 69 % for plantation forest. The steep slope (upper land), the collected clay content in cultivated land, grass/fallow land, and plantation forest were 65.7, 63.3, and 62.7 %, respectively. In addition to mixing soils from the deeper layers, the higher clay concentration in upper-farmed land may be the result of greater physical and chemical weathering (Mulat et al., 2018).After the RothC model was initialized and validated in the watershed based on two independent periods of observed SOC, the SOC in the Anjeni watershed was projected for 30 years, from 2022 to 2052, as the efficiency of RothC model was verified that the model well characterizes the historical SOC dynamics of Anjeni watershed. The projected total SOC including DPM, IOM, RPM, BIO and HUM SOC indicated higher SOC by 2052 for grass/fallow land as compared to cultivated land and plantation forest (Fig. 8). This could be due to long-term fallow practice, well-managed grassland/fallow lands with large amount of grass roots and high grass root biomass turnover rate, which is important as protection from erosion and lack of tillage. Similar results were reported previously (Geremew et al., 2023;Geleta and Laekemariam, 2022;Wiesmeier et al., 2019;Muktar et al., 2018). Moreover, the total SOC of grass/fallow land at the lower/gentle slope gradient of the watershed was higher relative to middle and high elevation. This could be due to the soil forming factors, deposition, long-term fallow practice, and differences in geomorphological processes on gentle slopes. Similar results were reported by (Geleta and Laekemariam, 2022;Betemariyam et al., 2020). The total projected SOC various from upper cultivated land (2.1 ton/ha) to lower grass/fallow land (4.15 ton/ha). Concerning the five pools (Fig. 8), the SOC in HUM were higher as compared to DPM, IOM, RPM, and BIO, this could be due to that humified organic matter has undergone a stabilization process, making it a more persistent pool of organic carbon in the soil (Wiesmeier et al., 2016). In addition, the decomposition, inert, and resistant organic matter might have lower concentrations of SOC because they are either actively decomposing or are composed of materials that are less prone to contributing to the soil carbon pool (Lal, 2014). The second reason could be Humified organic matter generally has a higher concentration of Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) compared to other forms (Gerke, 2022). Also, the lowest SOC was in IOM varying from middle cultivated land (0.02 ton/ha) to lower grass/fallow land (0.07). The lower value of IOM could be associated with that inert organic matter generally refers to organic materials in the soil that are resistant to decomposition and have a longer residence time in the soil (Dai et. al, 2021). The other reason also linked to the chemical composition, microbial decomposition, physical protection, and environmental conditions (Almagro et al., 2021). These materials are often more stable and less prone to microbial breakdown. The increase of SOC in some of the slope gradients could be due to the long period intensive soil and water conservation work at Anjeni watershed that has increased vegetation cover for the last decades (Geremew et al., 2023).For projected 30-year analysis of SOC, different possible scenarios were considered such as business as usual scenario (BAU) (i.e., based on current technology, management and agricultural land practices); low scenario (i.e., sustainable soil/land management to increase 5 % of carbon input); medium scenario (i.e., sustainable soil/land management to increase carbon input by 10 %); and high scenario (i.e., sustainable soil/land management to increase carbon input by 20 %). Possible soil/ land management practice that could be implemented are: enhancing biomass production and residue returns to the soil, residue retention; grazing management, plant nutrition; species introduction; manure or organic amendment application; using cover crops and/or vegetated fallows; promoting agro-forestry; managing crop residues and grazing to ensure optimum soil cover etc. Based on lower gradient high scenarios, the SOC increased from current cultivated (2.1 t/ha), grass/fallow (4.0 t/ha), and planation forest (2.98 t/ha) to cultivated (3.42 t/ha), grass/ fallow (5.13 t/ha) and planation forest (4.7 t/ha) LULC types of the watershed. At the lower slope gradient, in all the three LULC types, the current SOC simulation (SOC_t0) was lower than the future BAU, low, medium, and high scenarios of SOC. While in the middle and upper slope gradients the SOC at SOC_t0, BAU, low scenarios were inconsistent depending on the LULC types (Fig. 9).The implications of the RothC simulation results in the Anjeni watershed indicate that proper land management is essential to enhance soil carbon and increase agricultural production. Additionally, there should be a greater emphasis on acquiring soil and land use data for Ethiopia. In future projects, it is crucial to explore the need, scope, and availability of socioeconomic data associated with decision-making at farm, regional, and national levels, which may influence the actual selection of land management practices in both space and time and their impact on SOC accumulation would be crucial.In general, the basic controls on SOC stock changes are understood in this research, and it is reasonably well-known which management practices can be used to increase SOC storage across the Anjeni watershed. Furthermore, Applying results from small-scale experiments to larger areas is necessary in order to understand the potential role of soils in sequestering or releasing carbon under different land management scenarios and to inform management and policymakers about likely consequences of land-use and sustainable soil management changes on soil carbon in specific regions. Besides, the local community uses this information to improve the soil quality.As indicated in Fig. 10, besides the three scenarios, the minimum and maximum possible C turnover under different LULC types and slope gradient based on SOC_t0, BAU and medium scenarios were assessed. Based on the current simulation (SOC_t0), the possible minimum C turnover under different conditions could varies from middle gradient plantation forest (0.5 t/ha) to lower gradient grass/fallow land (2.4 t/ ha), whereas the maximum C turnover varied from middle gradient plantation forest (1.3 t/ha) to lower gradient grass/fallow land (4.4 t/ ha). In most of the cases, the maximum possible C turnover were noticed at the lower gradient grass/fallow land, while the minimum were observed at middle gradient plantation forest (Fig. 10). The increase in the SOC in the future could be attributable to the higher temperature, which increases plant photosynthesis, induced a CO 2 fertilization effect, and enhanced plant growth. Moreover, the higher development of above-and belowground biomass due to natural resource management work in the watershed consequently increases the carbon input to soils that in turn increases the SOC stock.Analyzing the current and projected soil organic carbon (SOC) at watershed level is vital to support the government's plan for land use planning and management to implement the development of different agricultural activities to enhance sustainable agriculture and productivity. Besides to this, the research result will serve as helpful information for government bodies by providing enough details about how soil carbon amounts are depleted and enhanced in response to different land management scenarios. Additionally, since soil plays a significant role in sequestering atmospheric carbon, understanding the interaction between different land management scenarios and soil carbon dynamics across various land use systems is crucial for the carbon market as well. Soil organic carbon plays an essential role in enhancing food security via soil stability, aeration, water retention, pollutant reduction and nutrient cycling. Therefore, cost-effective physical processes based on RothC model were applied to assess the current and future SOC in Anjeni watershed. The long-term required climate, soil and land management datasets were used to initialize and verify /run the RothC model to simulate SOC in Anjeni watershed. The forward simulation of RothC model was applied based on two independent period-observed SOC in the watershed. The forward simulated SOC correlation with two independent period observed SOC, which were the 2021 observed SOC and 1997 observed SOC, the correlation coefficients (r 2 ) were 0.86 and 0.77, respectively, indicating that the RothC model characterized the SOC of Anjeni watershed reasonably well. Although in most of the cases, the model slightly overestimated the SOC in the watershed, which could be due to the model limitation, data quality, and climate conditions.Once it was verified that the model well characterized the SOC of the watershed, the SOC in the watershed is projected for 30 years, from 2022 to 2052. The SOC was projected under three slope gradients (i.e., gentle slope (1-15 %), moderate slope (15-30 %), and steep slope (>30 %)) and LULC types (i.e., cultivated land, grass/fallow land, and plantation forest). The current and 2052 projected total SOC (DPM, IOM, RPM, BIO and HUM) indicated that the SOC was higher in grass/fallow land as compared to cultivated land and plantation forest, which could be due to long-term fallow practice, well managed grass/fallow lands, and high grass root biomass turnover rate. Furthermore, the total SOC grass/fallow land of the lower/gentle slope gradient was higher relative to middle and higher parts of the watershed, which could be due to deposition, long-term fallow practice, and differences in geomorphological processes on gentle slopes. Regarding the five pools, the SOC in HUM were higher as compared to DPM, IOM, RPM, and BIO that could be due to better plant residue and manure practice at the watershed.Other possible scenarios were considered such as business as usual (BAU); low; medium; and high scenarios. The results indicated that the high scenario upper gradient SOC increased from current cultivated (1.97 t/ha), grass/fallow (3.9 t/ha), and planation forest (3.1 t/ha) to cultivated (3.7 t/ha), grass/fallow (4.5 t/ha) and planation forest (4.2 t/ ha) LULC types. Concerning the lower slope gradient, in all the three LULC types, the current SOC simulation (SOC_t0) < future BAU, low, medium and high scenarios of SOC.Overall, the RothC model projected an increase of SOC in the future, which is good for water retention, soil stability, aeration, decrease greenhouse emission, and nutrient cycling that further improve agricultural productivity. Finally, This study clearly articulates that the RothC model performance is good to simulate the SOC change under different land uses and land management scenarios. Further research it is recommended to investigate climate change impact on the soil organic carbon using carbon models. It is also suggested that the broad socioeconomic issues and management scenarios should be considered as drivers of SOC change.","tokenCount":"6553"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7b4b8bddfaed14d6cb3ba2e92b0c3397","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f95bc838-eea2-4d24-bd56-036726aedd9d/retrieve","id":"1753260944"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"197aad95-f96c-4cd0-ac85-15e23c4d0496","pagecount":"1","content":"Cooking banana is the main staple crop in Uganda produced mostly by smallholders for food and income (Kalyebara et al., 2005). Lescot (2015) reported an average annual banana production of about 8.9 million metric tons. Haggblade and Dewina (2010) reported an annual per capita consumption of 172kg/person/year, making Uganda the largest consumer in the world. Selling cooking banana by visual inspection without measuring its weight is a common practice in East and central Africa. This system is very subjective and thus considered inefficient as it presents a huge risk of economic losses along the value chain. In some instances, cooking banana is weighed, for instance at wholesale level in Rwanda (Bauer, 2011) and at export level in Uganda (Nalunga et al., 2015). Attempts to introduce weighing at farm level have proved to be futile. This study assesses the perceptions towards and willingness to adopt a weightbased pricing system (WPS) in the cooking banana value chain in Uganda• A market study was conducted among different VC actors between July and September 2015 • Two districts in south western Uganda (Rakai and Isingiro) and eight markets were selected for the study; respondents were randomly selected • A pretested structured questionnaire was administered to producers, traders, and consumers • Checklists were used to gather information from key informants (including market masters, bicycle traders, brokers, wholesalers, exporters and supermarket representatives) • Means and standard deviations were used to compare VC actors' willingness to adopt and perceptions towards the WPS • To determine the factors affecting willingness to adopt the WPS, two model specifications were estimated; Probit regression for producers and retailers and multinomial regression for consumersTable 1 : Perceptions about the weight based pricing system by VC actor and gender (%)• Respondent's age, education, extent of economic losses, experience in banana marketing, existing knowledge about the weight-based pricing system, perceived improvement in trust and perceived improvement in prices had significant positive effects (at p<0.05) in embracing the WPS • However, distance to the nearest market, stock turn over rate and membership to farmer/trader group had negative significant effects in embracing the WPS • WPS is perceived as:  A key innovation for more transparent, trustworthy and efficient price setting  Great contribution to reducing economic postharvest losses • 98% of the producers, 40% retailers, 75% supermarkets and 50% consumers were willing to adopt the WPS Generally, value chain actors are willing to adopt the WPS. The WPS for cooking bananas is perceived as key innovation for more transparent, trustworthy and efficient price setting for banana and a tool for reducing postharvest economic losses, thus improving income across the value chain. To enable effective standardization of the cooking banana pricing system, we recommend that all value chain actors' feelings toward the WPS need to be considered, this will provide a basis for developing strategies for its effective and efficient introduction among the cooking banana value chain actors in Uganda. Providing more factual information and understanding of how the WPS works and what benefits it would bring is crucial ","tokenCount":"503"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/1034403201.json b/data/part_1/1034403201.json
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3bc02f7967df92fd165c5c8bc08975fd","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5e75a58e-114f-489c-8757-d787b46308c8/retrieve","id":"-1635065545"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6d9233d8-54d6-4357-9aef-1720885041b5","pagecount":"2","content":"In the Ganges Brahmaputra floodplain thousands of beels form an extensive inland open water fisheries system. Floodplains provide a diverse range of livelihoods and ecosystem services for local communities and are responsible for 30% of Bangladesh's fish production. But these floodplains are under increasing stress from pollution, overfishing and infrastructure development.The CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems funded a project called 'Floodplain Fisheries and Aquaculture in Bangladesh and India', with the goal of demonstrating the social and environmental benefits of properly managed, community-based fish culture. The project was implemented by WorldFish and built upon ten years of previous research on community fisheries. Between January 2012 and December 2013 the project worked in six focal sites to develop better strategies for managing fisheries, including adaptive fishing methods and organizational improvements.Decisions regarding management of Bangladesh's floodplains should move beyond simple considerations of aggregate yield to include reflections on how agriculture and aquaculture might improve livelihoods. In 2013 pilot beels were stocked with mola broodfish, which in addition to growing into sizeable fish by the end of the rainy season, also bred and produced a large number of additional mola fry. Other small changes to the normal aquaculture management practices of the cooperatives allowed small, un-stocked fish to flourish.The net result was big gains for the communities. The harvest of small fish, not traditionally considered to be an important source of food and income, increased from 9,295 kg in 2012 to 19,024 kg in 2013. Contribution of mola and other un-stocked small fish to fish production increased from 6.30% in 2012 to 18.45% in 2013.• Encourage a community-based approach to fish culture in the floodplains • Introduce large-size fingerlings of suitable fish species to the region's ecosystem • Promote simple technologies to create a system that is suitable for the production of both stocked and un-stocked indigenous fishCommunities benefit most when natural resource management schemes attempt to foster social inclusion and the sharing of benefits between members of society. The research team worked with the communities to develop a system whereby the fishing coops (made up of land owners and professional fishers) granted permission to landless community members to harvest the small fish using traditional gear. Small fish have provided an important source of food and income for some of the poorest members of society, and as a result have fostered community harmony.• Encourage the participation of floodplain land owners, fishers and the landless within fishing cooperatives • Mandate access for poor and landless members of society to the floodplains for traditional harvesting of small fish For more information, contact Dr. Benoy Barman, WorldFish (B.Barman@cgiar.org).Photo: Balaram Mahalder Photo: M. Yousuf Tushar  gv ‡Qi Ae`vb 2012 mv ‡j kZKiv 6.30 fvM †_ ‡K †e ‡o 2013 mv ‡j kZKiv 18.45 fv ‡M Av ‡iv Z ‡_¨i Rb¨ †hvMv ‡hvM Kiaeb: W. webq eg© b, Iqvì© wdk (B.Barman@cgiar.org; +8801712192423).","tokenCount":"476"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ca78b33d9af086c2730da43b69d61e55","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9abae140-95e6-4750-8791-a6a7c56207d2/retrieve","id":"1118364712"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"5f48d2f9-eb2f-4344-929a-99ef8401011a","pagecount":"72","content":"The Gender Audit Team wants to acknowledge the stimulating and constructive ideas and suggestions we received from Barun Gurung (CGIAR Systemwide Program on Participatory Research and Gender Analysis, PRGA), Hilary Feldstein (PRGA), Dannie Romney (ILRI), Esther van Hoeve (ILRI), and Nina Lilja (PRGA). We also appreciate the thorough reviews of the manuscript by Shirley Tarawali (ILRI) and Anandayasekeram Ponniah (ILRI -IFPRI) which significantly improved the quality of the report. We thank the management of ILRI for participating full heartedly in the audit and providing us with institutional support to conduct the study. Many ILRI staff showed interest and patience and spent significant amounts of time to answer our queries and to contribute toward a prioritized and workable plan of action for mainstreaming gender analysis.This publication includes sections on introduction, methodology, findings from the gender audit, a report of the action plan development workshop, conclusions and recommendations, and appendices. The introduction outlines the concepts and definitions of gender analysis and gender equity adopted in this study and explains the objectives of the gender audit. The methodology section describes the process leading to and influencing the present study. It is important to note that the present study analyses and builds on the outcomes of a previous study with similar objectives conducted in 1997. The principles of mainstreaming, adopted in the design of the present study, and the various components of the study are also described in the methodology section. The approach of the gender audit was based on a method developed by the Commission on the Advancement of Women (CAW), which recommends the use of pie and bar charts for presentation of univariate analysis results. The responses in the audit questionnaire have resulted in 46 pie and 8 bar charts. Although the carefully designed audit questionnaire resulted in several pie and bar charts (each providing essential information to help understand the current status of gender analysis in ILRI), only a few charts have been presented in the main text for the sake of brevity. The remaining charts have been given in the appendix, which nevertheless remains an integral part of the analysis results of the gender audit. The chapter on the workshop for developing an action plan illustrates how the participatory process was extended into planning the action towards institutional change. The last chapter synthesizes all the inputs from the audit and action planning phases, and presents the final conclusions and recommendations made by the Gender Audit Team. The objective of this gender audit was to conduct an institutional assessment to identify the opportunities and constraints for mainstreaming gender sensitive research approaches in ILRI. The audit consisted of the following activities: meetings, follow-up study on the 1997 portfolio review, open and semi-structured interviews, survey, ILRI literature study, and SWOT analysis. Throughout the analysis four main elements for successful mainstreaming were considered: political will, accountability, technical capacity, and organizational culture. A deliberate effort was made to focus on gender analysis in research rather than gender equity in staffing, without however treating the two issues as disconnected.In 1997, a portfolio study was conducted in ILRI to review the institute's research, training, and dissemination activities with a gender and user perspective, and to recommend how attention to gender analysis could be strengthened. However, the implementation of these recommendations was far from satisfactory, given the lack of appropriate follow-up to the 1997 review. Respondents in the present gender audit suggested that the list of recommendations was too long, and lacked both prioritization and a clear strategy for implementation. Nevertheless, in the present gender audit, interviewees generally agreed with the recommendations of the 1997 reportIn the present gender audit, 58 staff across levels, themes, and professions were interviewed with a formal questionnaire. The results revealed a generally good understanding of concepts of gender analysis in research, gender equity in the organization, and mainstreaming. A vast majority thought it was necessary to mainstream gender analysis in ILRI. There appeared to be good policies on gender equity in the organization, but no policy on gender analysis in research existed. It was often mentioned that gender analysis in ILRI is more talked about than actually practiced and that ILRI strategic and priority documents hardly mention it. In the MTP 2006MTP -2008, gender could easily be fitted into statements about vulnerability analysis (Theme 1), policy options for sustainable land use (Theme 5), or livestock and human nutritional status (Theme 5). There was much confusion about whether ILRI has a gender focal point, and if so, about its responsibilities. It was evident from the response that the management is committed to promoting representation of women at senior levels. The survey also highlighted certain observations in other areas: training efforts in gender issues towards management and board are strong, and are mostly on gender and diversity (G&D); very little training on gender analysis goes on at the Operational Project level and below, and it is not budgeted; good performance in gender analysis is not rewarded; there is discrepancy between reflection of gender perspectives in ILRI's public awareness material and ILRI's research publications. Many respondents mentioned collection of gender disaggregated data, but these data are neither analysed nor published in most cases. The major obstacles to integrating gender analysis in ILRI were about (1) lack of staff training, awareness, understanding, and information;(2) lack of institutional priority; (3) qualification and skills of staff; and (4) availability of gender analysis tools. The recommendations most frequently mentioned by the respondents were: (1) create awareness, provide training, make information easily accessible;(2) establish a gender expert unit or person;(3) to add gender criteria in total quality management (TQM) and other project approval processes; (4) ensure increased commitment from management.A workshop was held on 21 st and 22 nd March to discuss the results of the review and to develop an action plan for mainstreaming. The audit team's recommendations, incorporating all other inputs, can be summarized as follows:1. ILRI to allocate resources to identify or recruit a Gender Resource Person (GRP) and provide him/her with public support and endorsement to assist management in integrating gender aspects in policy documents, MTP and log frames; assess knowledge needs and gaps of projects and themes in ILRI and coordinate training activities; lead specific case studies of gender analysis in livestock research; compile existing literature on gender analysis and make it accessible to staff; develop a training manual; develop a detailed plan of action with indicators and time frames for monitoring and evaluation of progress in gender analysis; to integrate gender criteria in the TQM process. 2. In the medium term, to add gender analysis responsibilities in job descriptions and terms of references where applicable; to include gender criteria in performance assessment formats. 3. In the long term, to develop proposals to attract donor funding for gender related research projects across different themes of ILRI. 4. In the long term, to continue to improve female representation in various staff levels at ILRI and working conditions for women, in close collaboration with the G&D program of the CGIAR. 5. In the long term, to transform the GRP into a gender expertise team consisting of several gender experts integrated in the various research themes. 6. In the long term, to identify livestock innovations that have a high potential of impacting livelihoods of men, women and children. Liaise with stakeholders in relevant innovation systems to enhance dissemination and uptake.1 IntroductionGender analysis is often considered a guide to help better understand the social and economic set up of livelihoods through understanding of the gender differences and relationships. The definition provided by DAC (box 1) for gender and gender equity is adopted in this report.As the global outlook of understanding development is shifting to addressing inequalities, the United Nations Millennium Development Goals also value to attend gender issues in the course of development. For the eight development goals that include income and poverty, sustainability, and global partnership, the concern of gender is clearly reflected in most.Gender analysis provides valuable insights to understand specific demands for specific groups in the society. Recognition of this helps to know more about vulnerable groups, cause of vulnerability, and also to draw attention to solve associated problems.Similarly gender analysis in ILRI can help to understand disparities in livestock production and help to design innovative research initiatives. This in turn will add value to increase efficiency of improving livestock productivity and improving livelihood system for vulnerable groups, therefore adding more value to the impacts of ILRIs' research activities.ILRI's vision is a world made better for poor people in developing countries by improving agricultural systems in which livestock are important. ILRI works at the crossroads of livestock and poverty, bringing high-quality science and capacitybuilding to bear on poverty reduction and sustainable development for poor livestock keepers and their communities. The three pathways through which ILRI seeks to improve the contribution of livestock in poor households are:• Securing assets of the poor.• Improving the productivity of their livestock systems.\"The term gender refers to the economic, social, political and cultural attributes and opportunities associated with being male and female. In most societies, men and women differ in the activities they undertake, in access and control of resources, and in participation in decision-making.In most societies, women as a group have less access than men to resources, opportunities and decision-making. The nature of gender definitions (what it means to be male or female) and patterns of inequality vary among cultures and change over time.Gender equality requires equal enjoyment by women and men of socially-valued goods, opportunities, resources and rewards. Gender equality does not mean that men and women become the same, but that their opportunities and life chances are equal. Achieving gender equality will require changes in institutional practices and social relations through which disparities are reinforced and sustained. It also requires a strong voice for women in shaping their societies\" Source: DAC (1999), Guidelines for women empowerment in Development Cooperation, OECD, France.• Improving their market opportunities.ILRI realises the importance of women's roles in livestock production systems of the poor, and the potential effects that livestock innovations have on the livelihoods of men and women. However, there has been very little focus on the integration of gender perspectives in ILRI's research agenda. In 1997 a portfolio study was conducted in ILRI to review the institute's research, training, and dissemination activities with a gender and user perspective and to recommend how attention to gender analysis could be strengthened. The study revealed that the concepts of gender analysis were not completely new to ILRI, they were often used in the social science sector, and had great potential to contribute to the improvement of livelihoods of rural women especially through small ruminants where women often have greater managerial roles. In the chapter 'Recommendations', 2 recommendations were made related to priority setting of research, 15 recommendations related to the various stages in a research process, 11 recommendations related to capacity building within the institute, and 4 recommendations related to strengthening of NARES (appendix 1). However, no clear responsibilities for the implementation of the recommendations were suggested. In 2005, it seemed not clear to anyone within ILRI to what extend these recommendations had been implemented.Mainstreaming gender analysis is commonly understood as the integration of the gender perspective into every aspect of research cycle: design, implementation, and monitoring & evaluation. For successful mainstreaming, there needs to be a political will, technical capacity, a conducive organizational culture, and accountability for gender integration in work plans and their results. In 2005, ILRI management approached the CGIAR Systemwide Programme on Participatory Research and Gender Analysis (PRGA) to assist in reviewing the status of gender analysis in ILRI and to recommend strategies for mainstreaming gender analysis in the institute. PRGA provided a grant to develop a strategy for mainstreaming gender-sensitive research in ILRI. The first step was to conduct an institutional assessment to identify the opportunities and constraints for mainstreaming gender-sensitive approaches in research. The second step was to develop a concrete plan of action for mainstreaming based upon the results of the assessment. The third step would be to operationalize the action plan within ILRI. The first two steps are within the scope of the Letter of Agreement between (LoA) ILRI-PRGA, and are described in this report. The third step is beyond the LoA and beyond the scope of this study and will be the responsibility of ILRI.The specific objectives of the gender mainstreaming initiative based on the LoA between ILRI and PRGA were:• To conduct an diagnostic study to identify opportunities and constraints for mainstreaming gender analysis in ILRI. • To assess the status of GA in the institute, including the changes since the 1997 review.• To conduct a planning workshop in collaboration with the System-wide Program on Participatory Research and Gender Analysis. The purpose of the workshop was to report findings of the diagnostic study these to develop a plan of action for mainstreaming gender analysis in ILRI.In March 2005 a meeting was held in Nairobi with representatives from different ILRI research themes, ILRI management, and PRGA. The objective was to discuss the need for participatory research and gender analysis in ILRI, concepts of mainstreaming, and preliminary plans for a process of mainstreaming. One of the results of this meeting was the formation of a 'Gender Core Team 1 ' consisting of representatives from each research theme (app. 5) and the directorate. Towards the end of 2005, ILRI Management Committee asked Director Theme 5 to be responsible for a gender analysis mainstreaming initiative and Theme 2 was asked to develop the initiative.Ralph Roothaert was made the coordinator, and two consultants were recruited: a research assistant (Maria Mulindi) and a gender expert (Yeshi Chiche). In consultation with the Gender Core Team and PRGA, a plan was developed for the mainstreaming initiative, consisting of (1) a diagnostic phase (gender audit), followed by (2) the development of an action plan. An intensive communication initiative was launched to create awareness among ILRI staff, to increase the chance of voluntary participation in the diagnostic activities, and to enhance ownership of the gender mainstreaming initiative and the action plan. Information about the objectives, concepts, and procedures were sent through email to all staff and progress reports were posted on the ILRInet. The institutional diagnosis was referred to as 'gender audit', and later toned down to 'gender analysis review'.The following tools were used in the gender audit:• Semi-structured interviews • Informal discussions and meetings • Formal survey • SWOT analysis • ILRI literature review For the second step, a workshop was organised. During the entire audit, four elements of mainstreaming were considered: political will, technical capacity, organisational culture, and accountability. Political will represents the foundation for mainstreaming any new idea or approach within an organisation. Political will is translated in policy documents and allocation of funds. There also needs to be a mechanism to ensure that policies are implemented, which we refer to as accountability. Incentives for staff to implement activities according to new policies and its monitoring and evaluation mechanisms are part of accountability. Staff of an organisation also need to be capable and have the necessary knowledge to implement activities that contribute to the policy and mission of the institute. This is referred to as technical capacity. Lastly, there needs to be a conducive environment for new ideas, policies and strategies to thrive. This is reflected by the organisational culture. For instance, integration of gender analysis in research is unlikely to be successfully implemented if the organisation consists of only men or only women, or if working conditions prevent a balanced staff composition. The four pillars are conceptually represented in the mainstreaming tree (fig. 1).The emphasis of this initiative is on mainstreaming gender analysis in the research programme of ILRI. As described in the example of the previous paragraph, gender equity in the staffing of the organisation is an important factor that contributes to the organisational culture, but is only one element out of four which are required for mainstreaming gender analysis. This study has tried to balance all factors. In terms of assessment of previous achievements, the study has focussed on gender analysis in research rather than gender issues in staffing persee. ILRI has been actively participating in the CGIAR programme on Gender and Diversity (G&D) which aims to improve gender equity and cultural diversity in recruitment processes and in career opportunities, and to create a conducive and gender sensitive working environment. The report from 1997 by a team which reviewed the research, training and dissemination activities in ILRI with a gender perspective was retrieved from the hard disk of an ILRI scientist who had been involved in the study. A new study was designed to assess the changes that had occurred as a result of the recommendations made in the 1997 study. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews were conducted with some ILRI staff. Issues for discussion were:• Awareness of the 1997 portfolio review.• Personal views on the recommendations stated in the report.• Perception and examples of implementation of recommendations.• Reasons for lack of implementation.• Successes and challenges of integrating gender analysis.• Suggestions for mainstreaming.• Available ILRI publications or reports reflecting GA.Ten staff were originally selected to participate in the follow up study, but only eight agreed to be interviewed or respond through email. The criteria for selecting the ten staff were:• Institutional memory (from 1997 to date).• Professional engagement in gender analysis.• Thematic spread.• Geographical spread representing ILRI focal areas. Out of the eight staff, five were interviewed directly, whereas three responded through email.Informal discussions were held with members of the management committee. Initially these discussions were held to assess the mandate and support for the gender audit, and to create a common understanding of the purpose of the initiative. A second series of discussions were held towards the end of the diagnostic phase, with management and other staff. These discussions provided insights into realistic scope for implementation of an action plan for mainstreaming, and the availability of resources. Most discussions were face to face, some in groups, some individual, and some through e-mail.A questionnaire was designed for a sample of ILRI staff. The questionnaire had the following focal areas:• Evaluation of the understanding of concepts related to gender analysis in research, gender equity in the organisation, and the mainstreaming of gender analysis. These were open ended questions. A list of professional staff was obtained from HR in January 2006. The total number of professional staff were 195, 47 of whom were female. The total number of staff to be included in the survey was 60, about 30% of the total population which was considered a statistical minimum for a reliable representation. Purposive sampling was applied to include all the DG, DDG, all Directors, and all Operational Project leaders, totalling 24 staff. Of the remaining 171 staff, 41% were IRS and 59% NRS (including students).The IRS:NRS ratio was maintained in the random sampling of the remaining IRS and NRS to make up a number of 36 staff to be interviewed. An equal balance of male and female respondents was maintained among the remaining 36 respondents. The reason for maintaining an equal male:female ratio was to ensure a big enough sample of female perspectives towards gender mainstreaming issues. The implications of this biased sampling was a higher proportion of female respondents compared to ILRI's staff composition: 38% of total respondents were female, whereas only 24% of ILRI staff are female (app. 6.3).A strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT) analysis was planned to analyse the outcomes of the follow up study of the 1997 review and the results of the survey. Initially the SWOT was planned as a participatory exercise with the Gender Core Team, but due to time constraint of its members, it was conducted by the coordinator, the assistant and the consultant of the gender audit team. The results of the SWOT analysis served as an entry point for informal discussions and meetings with management and staff to discuss the scope of activities and resources within an action plan for mainstreaming gender analysis. Feedback and additions received during these meetings were incorporated in the SWOT analysis.From the follow up study of the 1997 ILRI portfolio review and from the survey a list of reports and publications was obtained about research activities which interviewees had mentioned as examples of gender analysis outputs in ILRI's research. Some respondents also mentioned ILRI policy documents which had sections on gender analysis and gender equity. Among the more than fifty reports and publications with aspects of gender analysis (see also appendix 7), about 20 were selected and reviewed by the audit team. Criteria for selection were inclusion of clear gender aspects in policy, clear gender perspectives in research, implementation of research after 1997, geographical spread, and representation of ILRI's five research themes. The most relevant research case studies were presented in the workshop on developing an action plan for mainstreaming gender analysis.A workshop was organised on 20 th and 21 st March 2006 to discuss the results of the ILRI gender analysis review, and to develop a plan of action for mainstreaming gender analysis in ILRI, with representatives from different research themes and the directorate. A total of seventeen people participated in the workshop (app. 5).Responses from the interviewees have been compiled in appendix 2. All staff who were interviewed had been employed by ILRI before the 1997 study was conducted and the report published, but only half of them were aware of it. The awareness had often been created through the communication campaign which was started with the current gender mainstreaming initiative in 2005. It was worrying that among the staff which were selected based on a criterion of being involved in gender studies, awareness was small. One of the reasons was that, according to the scientist who retrieved the report, the report had not been circulated and that the recommendations had reached very few staff.After seeing the recommendations part of the report, respondents generally agreed with them, and gave an average score of 7.5 out of 10, 0 meaning total disagreement and 10 meaning total agreement (app. 2). It was noted that the list of recommendations were too long, and that the report didn't provide a clear strategy on how to follow up the recommendations and implement activities. Suggestions were not prioritised.The follow up study reported many successes that ILRI has achieved since 1997, such as gender outcomes in the broad bed maker project in Ethiopia and the crop-livestock project in W. Africa, and gender integration in the project implementation plan of the IPMS project in Ethiopia. In other projects, gender considerations had been incorporated partially, such as in the diagnostic phase of the water-livestock project, or in the implementation phase of the fodder innovation project. Increased partnerships with grass-root level organisations were also mentioned several times as an effective way through which ILRI has increased gender aspects in its work. Some project had trained and recruited female enumerators which enhanced direct involvement of women farmers. It was also mentioned though that successes might not have been induced by the 1997 report, but by other factors such as concerns by donors, and individual interests.Many challenges were described in mainstreaming gender analysis, and are related to policy and incentives, human expertise, culture and practices:• Lack of a structured approach to mainstreaming, priority of the institute, and commitment. • Funds haven't been identified. • An incentive system for staff has been absent.• Strong focus on project milestones, and inflexibility of those milestones which discourages the practice of integrating lessons learned and adjusting project design according to recommendations from lessons learned.• From the responses it became clear that there is no consensus about the best strategy to establish and utilise expertise on gender analysis. The recommendation in the 1997 report is to hire an anthropologist, sociologist or animal scientists with strong skills in gender analysis. The role of this scientist would be to work with other scientist and strengthen their skills rather than to implement an independent study. One of the issues is whether or not to hire or identify a person in ILRI who has a supportive role. Theme 1 has already made that decision, and recruited a person with responsibilities on gender analysis. • Very little training of staff, project heads and students on gender analysis had taken place in the past few years. • There has been no 'gender champion' in the organisation.• Gender analysis is sometimes regarded as a women's issue and the responsibility of women scientists only. • Implementation of new ideas depend on instructions from above, and in case of mainstreaming gender analysis these instructions have been absent. • Many opportunities were missed, when gender disaggregated data were collected but not analysed, such as in projects in West Africa and in Ethiopia.There were also some misconceptions and isolated individual opinions of influential people which can form a barrier to accepting principles of gender analysis for minds alike. For instance:• The argument of whether the desire for mainstreaming gender analysis was based on ILRI's values or based on Western values. From the subsequent gender audit survey it became very clear though that the desire to mainstream is inherent to ILRI as opposed to driven from outside. This observation needs to be communicated clearly within the institute. • Some respondents believed that gender analysis has become part of a policy and quoted the ILRI strategy to 2010' or the 'ILRI Assessment of priorities to 2010 (Thornton et al., 2000)' documents as evidence. After reviewing these documents, we failed to spot any evidence in the official publications, although in the short revised publication of 'Strategies to 2010' one guiding principle related to gender analysis is mentioned. It will be important to alert management on these short comings. • One commented that gender analysis needs to rely on individual's interest and inquisitiveness. This realm of thinking promotes a freedom of choice for individuals to embrace concepts of gender analysis or to reject them. It antagonises the concept of mainstreaming, which promotes changes in policies, accountability, culture and capacity building at all levels in the institute, towards increased application of gender analysis. The audit team does not support this individual opinion. • Someone else commented that gender analysis is not a profession but a philosophy or attitude. The audit team thinks that it is not a matter of either or but of both. Gender analysis is part of a research process which improves the process as a whole and its outcomes. The pathway to becoming a good scientist leads through formal and informal education and through practice. Proper training and relevant experience of practitioners benefit the quality of science. In that regard, gender analysis is not different from other sciences. It is also true that the cultural background of a scientist affects his or her research priority setting practices and approaches of implementing research, with either negative or positive effects on integration of gender analysis in research. This is why it is important to build a conducive culture in the institute for conducting gender analysis. However, as has been explained in Chapter 2 and fig. 1, culture forms only one of the four pillars of mainstreaming. Building technical capacity and hence professionalism is another essential pillar. • It was mentioned that one of the constraints to gender analysis in ILRI is the lack of gender disaggregated data in certain regions of the world that one could work with. One could turn this around and argue that this is even more reason to conduct gender analysis.The audit team recommends that these misunderstandings and misconceptions are acknowledged and that a safe and open environment is created to discuss them. This process will lead to a stronger culture for mainstreaming gender analysis.Most responses of the survey have been analysed and presented in pie and bar charts in Appendix 4 in an attempt to improve the readability of this section. A few charts have been repeated in the main text to illustrate the variability of responses. Results of the survey have been grouped in different sections and are summarised below.The majority of respondents had sufficient knowledge about the meaning of gender analysis in research (fig. 2, main text). Many responses were related to understanding the heterogeneity in the target group and adding gender variables in research. All respondents from IPMS, the Directorate, HR and FA, and PC gave answers which were in line with the concepts of gender analysis adopted by the gender audit team. A relatively high proportion in Theme 4 responded with 'I don't know'. Female respondents had a better understanding than male respondents, and in locations outside Nairobi they had a better understanding than in Nairobi (app. 4, figs. 3a and b).  Overall, there was a good understanding of the meaning of mainstreaming. Among NRS and students though, 50 % or more didn't know its meaning. Eighty percent of all respondents thought it was necessary to mainstream gender analysis in ILRI (fig. 3, main text). Although the emphasis of the gender review was not gender and diversity (G&D) issues in staffing, some questions were directed to G&D.  The majority of respondents did not know or thought ILRI doesn't have a policy on gender analysis in research (app. 4, fig 7). The ones who responded positively mentioned the presence of a policy in theme 3, IPMS (3 times), MTP, ILRI strategy to 2010, ILRI mission statement, CGIAR policy, G&D program, or in recruitment. Upon verification, the only existing policies on gender analysis seem to be in IPMS and indirectly in the MTP. The MTP mentions poverty and vulnerability analysis (Theme 1), management and policy options for sustainable land use by poor livestock keepers in marginal lands (Theme 5), livestock keeping and child nutritional status in poor households (Theme 5). IPMS has clear goals on gender related issues and a written strategy on how to address them. The MTP touches upon gender issues, but doesn't specifically mention it, nor does it indicate gender strategies. Poverty issues in the MTP seem to assume that gender analysis is included. ILRI strategy to 2010 document was revised in 2002, resulting in a much smaller document; 25 pages in stead of the original 122 pages. The revised document mentions several guiding principles for strategic planning, one of them being: 'Incorporate gender analysis to identify the needs of poor women in all research activities, in view of the vital role that they play in agriculture in the developing world, their effectiveness at channelling benefits to families, and their marginalised status.'In the section about policy on gender analysis, a question was asked about whether ILRI has a gender focal point (GFP). More than forty percent of the respondents thought that ILRI had one (app. 4, fig 8). When asked who this GFP was, half of them mentioned names of staff who had been involved in the G&D program at one point, or still are. Persons in theme 2 were also frequently mentioned (app. 4, fig 9). The diversity of responses reflects the confusion in the institute. Many names that were mentioned in relation to the G&D program were part of HR, but they don't seem to form a coherent group. In terms of a GFP for gender analysis in research, there is more confusion, and our conclusion is that it doesn't exist.Less than 25% of all respondents thought integration of gender analysis in projects was mandatory in ILRI to a moderate or great extent. Only 5 % of the respondents stated that gender questions or criteria were always or frequently included in TQM or other project approval processes. Study of documents revealed that there are no questions or criteria in the ILRI Total Quality Management (TQM) process for proposal development and approval related to gender analysis.To a moderate extent To a limited extentCannot answerTo the fullest extent Very few respondents thought that professional staff have adequate knowledge and skills to integrate gender analysis in their work (fig. 5, main text). Fifteen percent of respondents thought that there is a person or division responsible for enhancing gender sensitive research in ILRI to a great or moderate extent, and thirty-six percent responded to a limited extent (fig 6, main text). Out of those, half allocated this responsibility to someone in Theme 2 (app. 4, fig 12). One third of all respondents thought that ILRI drew upon this person or division for providing gender expertise in planning, designing, implementing and analysis in research projects to some extent (app. 4, fig. 13). However, in the MTP 2006-2008 there is no mention of such a mandate for Theme 2, and in practice Theme 2 might not provide much services in gender analysis.Two-thirds thought that there was no training of professional staff in gender sensitive planning and analysis in their OP (app. 4, fig. 14). More emphasis is placed on training of senior management and board members: the majority of management interviewed thought that they are trained in integrating gender equality in the organisation (app. 4, fig. 15).Elements of gender analysis are hard to find in the 'Terms of Reference' or job descriptions of professional staff (fig. 7, main text). On very few occasions is gender analysis included in job and individual performance evaluation (app. 4, fig. 17). On the occasions that it is, it is a result of the documentation of a gender related output that an individual scientist has agreed to produce during that particular year. The evaluation form as such does not mention gender. Only 10% thought that good performance in gender analysis is awarded in ILRI (app. 4, fig. 18). There don't seem to be adequate resources for implementing the ILRI gender policy (fig. 8, main text; fig. 20, 21, app. 4). However, in the absence of a clear policy on integration of gender analysis this is not surprising. Gender analysis seems to have more chance in special projects than in projects funded from core money. Thirty-eight percent thought that training in gender analysis is budgeted for to some extent. A majority thought that gender perspectives are incorporated in ILRI's fund raising strategies (fig. 23, app. 4). There is an overwhelming agreement that ILRI promotes teamwork involving men and women as equal partners, and that management is committed to promoting female representation at senior levels of ILRI, including the board. Opinions are divided about whether management and staff in ILRI are gender sensitive (fig. 9, main text). Gender research issues are discussed openly, but perhaps not always seriously. A majority agrees that women view gender research issues differently than men. More people agree than disagree about staff being enthusiastic about the gender work they do, 47 and 24 percent respectively. Sixty-six percent think that gender analysis fits into the image of ILRI. Ninety-seven percent think that a gender perspective is reflected in ILRI's public awareness materials to some extent. An almost similar proportion thinks that gender perspectives are reflected in ILRI's research publications, but the intensity of agreement is much less. A majority, 57 %, think that the organisational culture of ILRI does not place higher value on the ways males tend to work, although almost 40 % of respondents think the opposite. About equal numbers of respondents agree or disagree that the working environment has improved for women over the past two years. Most respondents, 60 %, disagree that males have an easier time to establish personal and professional networks in ILRI. A vast majority, 91 %, think that ILRI could do much more to institutionalise gender analysis (fig. 24 -33, app. 4). When asked what the three most important characteristics of an ideal professional staff at ILRI are, the highest number of responses were related to being able to communicate well in different ways, to be a team player, being able to motivate others, and good networking skills. The second most important characteristic related to professional excellence, expertise, skills, intelligence, leader among peers and understanding research issues. Third most mentioned characteristics related to the three R values of ILRI: respect, responsibility and responsiveness, but including honesty, faithfulness, transparency, integrity and being ethical (fig 34, app. 4).A majority of respondents thought that gender analysis considerations are included in the design of projects in their OPs. Many scientists would use participatory methods to incorporate views and preferences of male and female end-users in project design.When it comes to implementation of projects, even more scientists take into account existing gender roles and interests of male and female farmers. A vast majority thinks that collecting gender disaggregated data are useful for the design and evaluation phases of research, and they collect them in several fields, such as amount of labour required or spent, participation in decision making, or control over benefits. Only 13 % of female respondents gave a 'don't know' reply when asked about the understanding of gender analysis, versus 25 % of male respondents (fig 1b, app. 4). When asked about the meaning of gender equity, relatively more female respondents gave replies related to equal treatments and benefits, discrimination, and career opportunities, but in the other reply categories (balance among staff, working environment, other) there was no difference. For the question about whether management takes responsibility towards the ILRI's gender policy, replies from male and female respondents were similar. Also, for the question whether management is committed to promote female representation at senior levels, answers from male and female respondents were similar. Fifty percent of female respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement that management and staff are gender sensitive, whereas only 19 % of male respondents disagreed. There was no difference in agreement about 'a gap between how men and women view gender issues in research'.To the question about whether working environment has improved for women in the past 2 years, more men agreed and more women disagreed.There was no difference in understanding about concepts of gender analysis between IRS and NRS (fig 1b, app. 4). When asked about the meaning of gender equity, most NRS' replies were related to balance of gender among staff, equal employment opportunities, fair recruitment procedures and HR policies. IRS' responses varied more (see fig. 2, app. 4). To the question whether management and staff are gender sensitive, there was no difference in replies between IRS and NRS. To the question about whether working environment has improved for women in the past 2 years, most IRS agreed, whereas most NRS disagreed.A SWOT analysis was carried out by the audit team taking into account the analysis of the follow up study, the survey, and informal meetings. Results are presented in tables 1 -4. Most cells in the tables have several pieces of information, which means that a comprehensive approach for follow up is required in terms of an action plan for mainstreaming. • Increasingly competitive environment to source funding for proposals limit successful funding of proposals with a strong gender component. • Talk, no action.• Minority does not believe in relevance of mainstreaming gender analysis, and wants to keep it completely optional.A workshop was held on 20 and 21 March 2006 to discuss the results of the ILRI gender analysis review, and to develop a plan of action for mainstreaming gender analysis in ILRI, with representatives from different research themes and the directorate (app. 5).The first part of the workshop was reserved for reviewing cases where gender analysis has made an impact on a better understanding of livestock research issues, adjustment of research and development practices, and livelihoods of poor men and women.The following case studies were presented, mostly based on ILRI and its partners' experiences:1. 'The Role of Gender in Risk Analysis' presented by Tom Randolph. This case showed how application of gender analysis tools in the diagnostic phase of research shaped the agenda for research questions that address the human health aspects associated with urban livestock production. 2. 'Gender Outcomes of Dairy Research in Ethiopia' presented by Alexandra Jorge.The case analysed the roles of women in livestock production in Ethiopia which were strikingly different from men. Introduction of cross-bred dairy cows initially increased the workload of women, but later resulted in hiring more labour and a shift from farm to more profitable off-farm activities by women. 3. 'Alley farming for improving small ruminant productivity in West Africa' presented by Maria Mulindi. This case showed the relevance of difference between gender in ownership of land towards adoption of technologies, and the relevance of female extension workers. 4. 'Dual purpose cows for smallholder farming systems in the highlands of Ethiopia'presented by Maria Mulindi. The study showed the effect of adding gender variables in research towards understanding adoption patterns of a technology. 5. 'The Broad Bed Maker, Ethiopia' presented by Ralph Roothaert. This case showed a modest but effective approach of involving women in the dissemination phase of a land cultivation technology, which resulted in empowerment of women to access micro-credit, agro-inputs and increased contacts with extension workers, and increased adoption of the technology, in an environment where women farmers were traditionally marginalised. 6. 'Farmers' perception of benefits of improved dual purpose cowpea, Nigeria' presented by Ralph Roothaert. It described how reflecting on research results with a gender lens lead to a new hypothesis. 7. 'Pathways out of poverty in Western Kenya' presented by Ralph Roothaert. The last case described how individual open interviews with two women farmers added a whole new dimension to understanding dynamics of falling into poverty.Several generic lessons were learned:• ILRI can dramatically and efficiently increase its impact in gender analysis by partnering with other ongoing projects and institutes. For instance, collecting human blood samples requires awareness of ethical concepts and approaches which organizations working with HIV/AIDS have much experience in. • In order to obtain credible data on gender impacts, households for testing technologies should be randomly selected during the planning phase of research. Self selection of households results in biased adoption patterns and associated livelihood benefits. • Esther van Hoeve and Barbara van Koppen (2005) have written an excellent tool for incorporating gender aspects in the design of livestock research, using a gendered sustainable livelihood framework. It is recommended as a tool to incorporate gender in the design phase of research to all ILRI researchers. • Researchers are biased by their own cultural background (e.g. 'this is how things are done, it is normal, it has always been like this'), which affects the identification of gender issues in research. • Gender aspects are highly relevant in poverty analysis studies, but structured gender analysis has not taken place yet. Gender aspects could be easily incorporated in the design phase. Participatory methods will be powerful tools to complement structured surveys and to enhance understanding. Outcomes of participatory methods need to be incorporated in research publications. Surveys need to be planned in such a way that analysis of gender disaggregated data is possible. • In some cases surveys have collected gender disaggregated data, but incentives to analyse and report them have been absent.Ranjitha Puskur presented a framework of integrating gender perspectives in the IPMS project in Ethiopia. It became clear that a top-down approach can be very effective in mainstreaming gender analysis. Although nobody objected to gender issues in IPMS, it has largely been the strict donor requirements that affected a gendered project implementation plan. It has resulted in mainstreaming of gender principles across all staff, partners and field activities. The lesson learned here is that a donor requirement together with strong management directives goes a long way in successfully mainstreaming gender analysis in a program.There is a general agreement within the institute that it has a good track record on improving gender equity and diversity among its staff, and that management is committed to improve it further. The G&D program has contributed to streamlining gender aspects in the personnel policy manual and job advertisements. This creates a favourable environment for mainstreaming gender analysis in the research programs. ILRI likes to portray itself as a gender sensitive organisation, both in terms of working etiquette and in terms of research for development issues. There is a strong back-up from donors.There is a fairly good understanding about the meaning of gender analysis in research.On the other hand however, and according to staff, the biggest obstacles to mainstreaming gender analysis in ILRI are related to human expertise. Very few scientist have been trained in gender research methods, and many feel that this inhibits them from integrating gender analysis in their projects. There is an clear lack of awareness of the methods and tools available that one could use. Although many tools have been developed for research in INRM, some of which specifically addressing livestock issues, many researchers would not know where to find them. There is no person or division in ILRI that supports gender analysis in a systematic way, although some staff are regarded as having expertise in gender analysis. Theme 2 is viewed as the place where most experts are housed, but the Theme has no mention of gender in any of its strategic documents, and it is doubtful whether the Theme actually provides this expertise.ILRI has invested a lot in improving gender and diversity in the workplace. This might have resulted in some improvements in the capacity for conducting gender research, since women have a slightly better understanding and motivation. On the other hand, one can not assume that all women are good practitioners of gender analysis. A more effective strategy for capacity building is to include of both men and women in training programs. The scope for increasing expertise in gender analysis in ILRI is also closely related to the second biggest obstacle mentioned by staff: institutional priority and support from senior management. This includes policies, guidelines, mechanisms to put a practice in place, lack of incentives, and focus on technical issues.The two main obstacles link very well with the most frequently mentioned suggestions for mainstreaming. ILRI staff would like to see a wide variety of options implemented to increase the awareness and capacity on gender analysis concepts and tools. There are many good suggestions to build an internal information system to support this (see section 3.2, p. 24). One important strategy frequently mentioned is to establish a gender expert person or unit. Suggested responsibilities are to mainstream gender in workplans, collaborate with themes, and strengthen the capacity of others in gender analysis. A very practical suggestion is to integrate gender analysis aspects in the TQM process, whereby research proposals need to indicate how gender aspects have been integrated in the design, or need to indicate why integration of gender aspects is not appropriate. Staff also expect more intellectual leadership and support from management on gender analysis.It is evident that gender analysis is more talked about than actually implemented in ILRI. At all levels there is a desire to change this situation. However, the mechanisms are not in place. ILRI needs to start with developing a policy or strategy about what it aims to achieve in terms of outputs, outcomes and impacts that affect women, children, elderly, HIV/AIDS affected families, and marginalised groups of a society or members of a community. We advise that gender analysis should not be confused with poverty analysis, nor should activities on poverty analysis cover up for absence of gender analysis. In themes 1, 2, 3, and 5, there are clear and direct opportunities to integrate gender aspects in their strategies. Much research in theme 4, however, is laboratory based, and therefore integrating gender analysis in its research projects is not always relevant or straight forward. Nevertheless, theme 4 should not be excluded from the mainstreaming exercise, as scientists ought to feel they are part of the 'bigger picture' and need to know how their research contributes towards gender sensitive research outcomes and impact. As for the other themes, theme 4 staff are positive towards mainstreaming gender analysis.Gender aspects need to be integrated and made explicit in the TQM process. For projects that have been identified as highly gender relevant, gender analysis criteria and outputs need to be made specific in job descriptions and performance evaluation systems of project staff members.As indicated earlier, a potential danger lies in the fact that some staff would like to keep integration of gender analysis in research completely optional. If the institute follows this path, there is a great likelihood that technical projects, programs or themes will leave out gender considerations. The gender audit team recommends that all researchers at ILRI are trained in concepts of gender analysis. They should have a clear understanding of ILRI's mission and understand how their particular piece of research fits in the wider picture of fighting poverty in a gender equitable way. In addition, researchers who are not laboratory based need to acquire skills on how to integrate gender analysis in the design, implementation and evaluation phases of research. An easily accessible information system on gender concepts, tools for integrating gender analysis in research, and cases that show evidence of impacts of gender analysis needs to be developed within ILRI.A monitoring and evaluation system needs to be developed to track progress on integration of gender analysis in the research agenda of ILRI. This could be linked to the MTP performance indicators. ILRI needs to select or recruit a qualified, experienced or highly motivated staff member who will take on the responsibility of coordinating and targeting capacity building on gender analysis in research, to support themes with queries on methodologies, to coordinate an information system, and to assist in monitoring and evaluation of gender analysis outputs. Resources need to be made available or sought not only to implement capacity building in various programs, but also to cover the time of this resource person.The action plan presented in this section was developed based on outcomes from the gender audit, recommendations from the gender audit team, and the action plan workshop. The goals and their related activities have been grouped into short, medium and long term to reflect priority and achievability, and they have been sequenced chronologically (table 5). The first priority is to adjust ILRI's policy as this is the foundation for mainstreaming.Short term goals (1 -12 months):1. ILRI to allocate resources for establishing or recruiting a Gender Resource Person (GRP). 2. ILRI to identify or recruit a GRP and provide him/her with institutional and well communicated support and endorsement to implement the following activities:a. Assist management in integrating gender aspects in policy documents 4 , which are currently reflecting a strategy upto 2010, but might want to be extended beyond 2010. b. Assist management and other staff in integrating gender aspects in MTP and log frames. c. Launch a campaign to increase gender awareness, e.g. seminars, production of brochures, etc. d. Assess knowledge needs and gaps to implement integration of gender analysis in projects and themes in ILRI. e. Coordinate training activities based on identified needs, liaise with other institutes who can contribute, e.g. University of Nairobi. f. Compile existing literature on gender analysis, organize an information system on gender analysis which will be easily accessible to professional staff, e.g. on the ILRInet. g. Develop a training manual for integrating gender analysis in the project cycles and impact assessment of research at ILRI. h. Identify one or two existing projects where gender can immediately be integrated and have an impact. Assist in planning and conducting case studies. i. Lead specific case studies of gender analysis in livestock research. j. Develop a detailed plan of action with indicators and time frames for monitoring and evaluation of progress in gender analysis.3. ILRI, with assistance of the GRP, to develop gender criteria for integration in the TQM process. This ensures gender aspects being part of new proposals where appropriate.Medium term goals (1 -2 years):The GRP will need to work with management, human resources and supervisors to achieve the following goals.4. To add gender analysis responsibilities in job descriptions and terms of references of scientists where applicable. 5. To include gender criteria in performance assessment processes. 6. Develop a reward mechanism for outstanding research in gender analysis, e.g. during APM. 7. Include a section on the annual report on achievements in gender analysis.Long term goals (> 2 years): 8. Develop proposals to attract donor funding for gender related research projects across different themes of ILRI. Institution-wide responsibility. 9. ILRI management to continue giving the G&D team support and financial resources to improve working conditions for women and female representation in various staff levels at ILRI. 10. The concept of GRP will be transformed into a gender expertise team consisting of several scientists from various research themes with good conceptual knowledge on gender analysis and experience in integrating gender analysis in research. The roles of the team will be: a. Continued responsibilities as mentioned for the GRP. And in addition: b. To develop and maintain a learning based monitoring and evaluation system to feed back lessons learned on gender analysis. 11. For the gender expertise team to identify livestock innovations that have a high potential of impacting livelihoods of men, women and children. Liaise with stakeholders to enhance dissemination and uptake.Considering the current reorganisation process within ILRI with regards to Theme 1, Theme 2, and the DDG office, and the urgency of starting the activities mentioned under short term goals, the gender audit team recommends that initially the GRP be housed in Theme 5. The current director of Theme 5 has experience in the G&D program and gender analysis in research. Theme 5 would also offer easy entry points where gender analysis can immediately be integrated (2h), such as the risk analysis project. Once the reorganisation of Theme 1, 2 and the DDG office has been finalised, the GRP can be transferred to the newly proposed 'Innovation learning and impact unit 5 ' which is intended to mainstream innovation systems perspectives and approaches, gender analysis and impact assessment within the organisation as a whole. Activities 2e, f, g, i, j as well as the activities mentioned in the medium and long term goals will be ideally housed in the innovation learning and impact unit. By this time the GRP will have transformed into a gender expertise team (10). As with most research projects, considerably more time went into the design, implementation, analysis and documentation of this gender audit than originally planned. However, we feel that the extra time was well spent. During the design phase there was an intense discussion among key ILRI staff and outside resource people about the necessary focus of the study in terms of balance between gender equity issues in the organisation and gender analysis issues in the research program. We found more need and support to focus on gender analysis issues which has influenced the design of the gender audit, but we believe that we found an acceptable compromise among interested parties. Much time was spent during this discussion, but is was an essential part of the process to develop ownership of the gender audit. The high degree of ownership which resulted has already paid dividends: management, board and other staff are anxious to implement the action plan for mainstreaming of gender analysis in ILRI.Another part of the gender audit which consumed considerable more time than planned was the review of literature. Many examples of gender issues in research projects and publications were mentioned by staff who were interviewed during the follow up study of the 1997 portfolio review and during the formal survey. Not every report and publication could be reviewed. Ideally the gender issues in these projects, reports and publications would have been reviewed during in depth discussions with the authoring scientists, but neither the audit team nor the scientists had time for that. We believe though that we have formed a fair and representative view of current gender analysis practices in ILRI through the sample of documents reviewed.The Gender Audit Questionnaire Handbook published by the Commission on the Advancement of Women has provided helpful guidance to design the formal survey and to illustrate issues and questions that are relevant for mainstreaming gender analysis.• Impact assessment. This is perhaps the most critical area for insisting that ex post studies of the impact of technologies look beyond adoption rates and numbers to the actual impact on household members. The studies being done by in Addis are a positive step in that direction. Before and after comparisons will provide insights into actual shifts in labor, resource allocation, and distribution of benefits when new technologies are adopted. What is the connection between increased production, increased income, individual and household expenditures, and the welfare and livelihood impacts? Are there changes in resource control such as the possible shift in ownership of cows and proceeds from dairying with the introduction of crossbred cows?• Feedback research results into research planning• In animal and forages collections and characterization, include information from men and women farmers where possible. The use of participatory techniques, particularly focus groups is likely to enhance the reliability of this knowledge.• In problem assessment, especially at benchmark sites:• Continue the use of participatory appraisal techniques • Maintain principles of gender disaggregation and analysis • Include inquiries on user preferences and indigenous knowledge• Include users as early as possible in selection and testing of new technologies.• In field based studies, increase efforts to work with NGOs. They are often very knowledgeable about patterns at the field level and gender relations. They may provide access to groups not usually in the public domain.• Put identification of specific beneficiaries in the logframe, proposals and concept notes. The data for such identification will depend on improved information from ILRI's own studies and those of others. Draw on case studies, GIS, information from production systems and benchmark sites.• Consider how to make diagnostic tests and vaccines user friendly.• Hire an anthropologist or sociologist with gender expertise. An animal scientist with strong social science skills would also be appropriate. The role of this scientists should be carefully defined ensuring that a strong focus is on working with other scientists, strengthening their research rather than focusing on independent long term studies. The focus of his or her portfolio should be methodology refinement, identifying where gender is relevant in ILRI's current research activities and building in appropriate strategies or methods for getting that information, especially at the benchmark sites.• Train staff in key positions, such as project heads, in gender analysis. Reinforce such training by developing an inhouse capacity and mechanism for reinforcing this learning.• Continue to raise awareness of biological scientists about the implications of their research at the field level through seminars and through periodic review of their work from the perspective of the application of the knowledge they are generating. Such reviews might include national livestock scientists well grounded in field studies and practice.• Support the efforts to improve institutional exchange of information from ongoing studies.• Hold short gender analysis training courses for ILRI graduate students every 18 months. Such a course would bring together biological and social scientists in joint problem solving and give them practice in the benefits and practices of interdisciplinary research.• Include interested scientists and project and subproject leaders in such a course.• Make special efforts to recruit and train female enumerators. Where female enumerators from agriculture or extension agencies are difficult to find, consider using outreach staff of other institutions, such as teachers, nurses, home economists, community development agents as well as personnel from NGOs.• Conduct a literature review on gender roles and livestock production. ILRI has a vast collection of livestock literature including fugitive pieces. Georeferencing the findings on ILRI's GIS would contribute to building a base of information which scientists could use to formulate hypotheses about the relevance and particular pattern of gender relations in different environments.• Develop case studies based on ILRI and others' research for use as teaching materials and in ILRI's own public awareness materials.• Integrate user perspective and gender analysis into training courses and manuals. Scientists, policy makers and extension agents should know the development objectives and context of their work.• Technical courses should include awareness raising with results from research and case studies. The objective is to ensure that scientists see where this information as important to their research.• Social science and field based courses should include methods for gender analysis and gender sensitive participatory research.• Consider integrating gender analysis workshops and gender expertise into in network and collaborative research activities with NARSs and NGOs. At the workshop we held on the Nairobi compound there were several scientists from KARI who were interested in learning more practical approaches to gender analysis.Do you agree with these recommendations? Answer on a scale of 0 -10 (0= don't agree with any of them; 10 = completely agree with all of them). Please motivate your answer. Answers: 6.5,7,7,8,8,8.5 Average: 7.5 • List is too long, some are generic, some are very specific. Difficult to identify a starting point, e.g. female enumerators? It is not workable. • Some are a bit mechanistic. E.g. hire an anthropologist. Not my strategy.• The list of recommendations might be influenced by values and norms that I don't share. Gender might not always be an issue, even in downstream research.Assess the relevance of gender first and then look for expertise and appropriate processes.b) Do you think that any of these recommendations have been implemented?Yes: 3 No: 2 Partially: 3 Some implementation might not be a result of this report.• My overall impression is that our attention to gender has simply 'risen with the tide' of concern and expertise on the analysis and awareness of gender. In part that must be due to not appointing the social scientists/anthropologists to ILRI. However, among our partners and within individual projects there has been more attention to gender. I suspect this has been driven more by donor concern and priorities than by in-house initiatives. Please explain your answer.• Institutionally we have gone through changes. Currently the structure is more conducive for gender analysis. Approaching the ideal is better than to strive for the ideal. • In some projects in Ethiopia gender is integrated.• Implementation of recommendations depends on instruction from above.• We've come a long way in linking participatory and other methods such as livestock surveys and GIS, but we still haven't got a research project specifically looking at the role of livestock for women in different systems and locations and the implication for livestock-relate policies and interventions. A proposal is on the way in Theme 1.If none of these recommendations were implemented since the 1997 review, or if you think they were not sufficiently implemented, what do you think were the culprits?• First of all, to head in a new strategic research directions takes either a commitment of a substantial chunk of core funds and hiring a committed, creative person to lead it (which hasn't happened), or by convincing a new donor that it is hugely important. For all the talk by donors about caring about this area, I'm not sure who to go to right now with such a proposal. • Priority of the institute, and its commitment. • Lip service. Posters portray ILRI's concern about gender. ILRI is cautious but doesn't internalise it. There is no deliberate effort. Integration of gender analysis should not be imposed but it needs to be build in ILRI's philosophy. • If there is no systematic mainstreaming, there is no progress.• Lack of efficiency of the institute.• I don't think many scientists in ILRI have been impressed by the efforts of the PRGA. My own experience (participation in a training workshop in the Philippines) was that they do not try to relate their concerns and expertise to the mainstream work of research. They seemed more concerned in making gender a research topic (this is quite a valid objective) and less in using gender analysis to make overall research outputs more effective. • So the culprits are likely to be a failure to appoint staff with expertise in gender analysis with an appreciation of how our mainstream research works. Gender analysis is one tool from the social sciences that needs to be made available to all ILRI programs but it is only one (albeit very important) aspect of society that contributes to our understanding of livestock issues and affects the potential impact of our research outputs. • There was no gender 'champion' in ILRI.gender, and children need to be understood and their needs need to be prioritised, with the emphasis on poverty (our very specific mandate). Maybe we have so much trouble understanding poverty that we have little patience for the interactions between gender, ethnicity, poverty and livestock. This is a complex research area. My own challenge is to simultaneously recognise that these are issues, my (our) relative helplessness to understand how to deal with them and at the same time keep research going.• Knowledge base: how many people know about gender analysis, which data do you collect, and how do you collect them. • As a women, I am always regarded as the appropriate person to lead such research, and I find that assumption annoying.• It is crucial to integrate gender in livestock research. Create awareness and training. ILRI needs to be in a strong position. • Management needs to make gender analysis a policy.• Add gender and other key elements as a checklist in the TQM.• There needs to be an incentive system, e.g. an annual award for gender sensitive research during the APM. • Monitor and evaluate the research process. OP leaders have to take an active role to include it in the portofolio. • We need a gender unit or expert at ILRI to backstop and provide services, but the person needs to be integrated in existing projects. • Engendering research is not a profession, it is an attitude. • There is no need for a gender expert in ILRI. We need to continuously train ILRI staff on gender issues. We have a bad experience with a 'gender office' in institutions in Africa. • I have always tried to let the research question guide the appropriate method or approach to use, and not start with the method (i.e. gender analysis).Are there any reports or other publications that describe gender analysis in work carried out by ILRI? Please give references or indicate where we can find them.• See Appendices.         ","tokenCount":"10998"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"359f94efe01f6e3ef82f46729b9c462a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/83a5a8d1-2d2d-4f00-b39e-2250a393efa8/retrieve","id":"607448380"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"139eb28d-9bf3-412a-ab81-9f398f36e6e0","pagecount":"13","content":"OUTPUT 4 Development of genetic stocks and improved gene pools adapted to the sub-humid environments.Activity 4.1. Evaluations and selections in the sub-humid environment.For logistic reasons, improvement activities developed for several regions of the Northern Coast of Colombia were centralized initially in Barranquilla. Many of the materials evaluated there can then be transferred to the more humid region in the Departments of Córdoba and Sucre, and to the Middle Magdalena (Department of Santander). Table 4.1 lists the most relevant trials, whereas the other tables show results specific to each one. As mentioned in the previous Output (Table 3.5) a total of 4452 seeds were germinated and 3091 seedlings from these botanical seeds (targeting this particular environment) were transplanted at CIAT-Palmira in an isolated field. The planting of the F1 stage is isolated to reduce as much as possible infection by diseases that can be found at later stages of the evaluation process. Seedlings from botanical seed are considered to be disease-free and efforts are made to maintain this condition for as long as it can possibly be done. Enough vegetative cuttings from 1189, 10-months old plants (grouped in 57 families) from the F1 nursery planted the previous year could be obtained and planted in the Clonal Evaluation Trial (CET) for the sub-humid environment in Santo Tomás (Atlántico Department) on June 19, 2004. The trial will be harvested in April-May 2005. A second CET was planted with the 376 F1C1 genotypes, which did not produce the number of stakes required and, therefore, Project IP3: improving cassava for the developing world Output 4-2were grown again during the previous cycle (See Table 4.1).Clonal Evaluation Trials are very large experiments around one hectare in size. A major constraint in their evaluation is the experimental error associated with the unavoidable variation in environmental conditions in such a large experimental plot. Because this is the first evaluation and selection stage (See Output 3) only 7 stakes are available from each genotype. Replication of each clone, therefore, is difficult to implement. On the other hand clones are grouped in either full-or half-sib families. Since many clones are generally available from each family they are randomly allocated in one of three blocks in which the field is divided. In other words instead of planting all the clones from a given family together one after the other, they are split in three groups, which are planted in the three blocks the entire evaluation is divided into (Figure 4.1). This approach allows for two interesting advantages:a) There is a replication effect for the families because all the clones from a given family are scattered in three \"repetitions\" in the field. The averages from all these clones are less affected by the environmental variation in such a large experiment.b) Selection is made within each block. This is similar to the stratified mass selection suggested by Gardner (See Activity 3.5, page 3.15). This approach effectively overcomes the environmental variation that can be measured by comparing the means of each block. Because all the clones from the CET were divided, the average performance of each family were more precisely estimated, since each family was scattered in three different parts of the field, whereas before it was concentrated in just one sector (Figure 4.1). As a consequence, the estimates of GCA for each family is much more precise.A summary of the results from the CET for the Sub-Humid environment harvested this year is presented in Table 4.2. The 1157 clones included in the CET were allocated in three blocks with 388, 386 and 383 clones each one, respectively. Checks were also included in each block. Table 4.2 provides information on the averages for each of the three blocks. The variation among these three blocks is an error that eventually affects the selection process. By selecting within each block, however, this environmental effect could be effectively eliminated. Since selection indexes were calculated within each block there is no major variation for this variable across blocks. On the other hand the average fresh root yields were 18.7, 27.1, and 29.7 t/ha respectively for Blocks 1, 2 and 3. This highlights the large environmental variation that is overcome by stratifying the selection within each block. In Table 4.3 the size (number of clones) and the number of selected clones from each family has been consolidated. This data has been obtained by combining information of the three blocks in which the CET was divided into. The average selection index has also been included. The use of selection index has been already described in Output 3.Family CM9955 had 11 clones scattered in the three blocks of the CET. Eight of these clones (73%) were selected. The average selection index for this family was 13.40. A family with an average performance would have a selection index around zero. Positive selection indexes mean an average performance better than the mean of the population. A negative selection index suggests a performance below the mean of the population. In the case of family CM995, it is obvious that the general performance of that family was outstanding because its selection index (averages across the 11 clones that conformed this family) was 13.40. The information from Table 4.3 can be further consolidated around the average performance of each progenitor used to generate the CET. This is so because each progenitor can be used to produce more than one family. For instance Clone SM 1411-5 (Table 4.4) was used as one of the progenitors in seven full-sib families. Table 4.4 provides information for the most important characteristics of the progenies from each parent. This information is very closely related to the GCA estimates and reflects the breeding value of each progenitor. This information is very useful for defining the parents to be included in the crossing nurseries in the future. Project IP3: improving cassava for the developing world Output 4-6The parental clones listed in Table 4.4 have been ordered based on the proportion of clones selected. Clone SM 1665-2 was used in two families, which combined included 55 clones, 28 of them were selected (51%). Clone SM 1411-5 participated as progenitor in seven families, generating a total of 138 clones of which 53 were selected (38%). On the other hand, at the bottom of Table 4.4 it is clone CM 6758-1. It was one of the progenitors in five families and was represented by a total of 140 clones of which only 7 were selected (5%). The relevance of this information should be obvious to the reader. Furthermore information from Table 4.4 points out the strengths and weaknesses of each progenitor, as reflected in the average performance of their progenies. For instance the progenies from clone SM 1665-2 (Top of the table) showed the highest average fresh root yield (25.5 t/ha) and harvest index (0.61), but tended to have low dry matter content (30.7%). The second best progenitor, on the other hand, produced progenies with a much better average dry matter content (32.4%), but with lower fresh root yield (21.9 t/ha) and harvest index (0.51). The progenies from clones located at the bottom of Table 4.4 tended to have lower average for fresh root yields, harvest index, and/or dry matter content. Clone CM 2772-3 is adapted to the acid soils savannas environment and the Putumayo Department, it was included as progenitor in this trial because it has yellow roots.As explained in Output 3 (Figure 3.1) the following step in the selection process is the Preliminary Yield Trial or PYT. Clones evaluated in these trials are those selected during the CET conducted the previous year. The seven plants from the CET produce more than 30 stakes. Therefore, the PYT are planted with three replications of 10-plant plots. Each experimental plot consists of two rows with five plants each. Since selections at the CET stage are conducted in there different blocks selections within each block generate a respective PYT. The clones allocated to each block at the CET (and selected) are therefore, competing among themselves also at the PYT phase. The reasons for this are: a) This approach maximized the genetic variability within each PYT by maximizing the number of families present in it; b) The performance of the cassava plant depends heavily on the quality of the stake from which it grew, and the quality of the stakes, in turn, depends on the environmental conditions in which the mother plant grew. By keeping together in the same PYT trial the clones that grew together at the CET a better uniformity of the quality of the stakes is achieved and, therefore, the experimental error at the PYT is somewhat reduced.The  The trials from the 2003 CET had average dry matter yields of 8.0; 7.9; and 5.7 t/ha respectively for PYT4, PYT5 and PYT6. It seems that the environmental conditions for PYT6 were in this case much worse that those for PYT1 and PYT2. The average dry matter yield in the selected group of 20 clones from each trial was 11.4; 11.7; and 11.3 t/ha, respectively for PYT4, PYT5 and PYT6.An interesting feature from the PYTs described in Tables 4.5 to 4.7 is the frequency of clones from a given family selected. Families CM 9957 and GM 290 had 7 of their clones selected (across the three PYT experiments). Family CM 9958 had four clones selected and families GM 274, GM 262 and CM 9966 had three.During the June 2001-May 2002 season a Diallel Study was conducted. That trial was used for generating valuable quantitative genetics information regarding the inheritance of the most relevant traits in cassava. The trial was also used for selection purposes and the best clones from that experiment were included in a CET during the June 2002 -May 2003 and the selected clones were grouped for a PYT whose results are presented in Table 4.11. It is worth to mention, for example the outstanding performance of family GM 258, which had three of its clones selected from PYT-7 (Table 11). Families CM 9954 and GM 246 had two of their clones selected. ","tokenCount":"1666"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/1055922133.json b/data/part_1/1055922133.json
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"aeba0f292ce2358417224c46200c78cf","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/62a50abc-7f62-4ada-a5f1-5b9935b42c55/retrieve","id":"23041899"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"32cf261c-63d1-46ae-b1ae-e7d0fc8bd3f4","pagecount":"19","content":"The discussion of different aspects related to integrated control of diseases and pests is presented emphasizing the cultural practices, varietal resistance and biological controls. Cassava, a perennial vegetatively propagated crop cultivated in a wide range of ecosystems, requires integrated control programs for diseases and pests as a prerequisite for yield stabilization and satisfactory production •Most agricultural'research is directed toward the investigation of a specific factor or set of factors related to the production system of different erop species. The results of this research are rarely integrated in a logistic production package. More reeently, researeh has been oriented on a cornmodity basis, making the integration of scientifie teams to study one crop appear more reasonable; thus scientists can develop broader concepts of the erop and its problems, leading to more applied results.With regard to cassava, there are several reasons why an integrated control program for diseases and pests is a prerequisite for yield stabilization and satisfactory production. Among these are the fol1owing: l. Cassava is a perennial crop with undetermined physiological maturity (Jennings, 1976); consequently, an established biotic problem could be perpetuated.2. The vegetative cycle is long, ranging from 8-24 months, depending on the cultivar and/or ecosystem. During this time, the plants can suffer climatic and edaphic pressures (e.g., drought, low or high tempera-tures, nutritional deficiencies or toxicities). as well as attack by pathogens, insects, mites and nematodes. The intensity and severity of these stresses vary among ecosystems and from one growing season to another, and are related to the ecological conditions occurring throughout each growing cycle and to the existence of material susceptible to the stresses presento 3. Cassava is propagated vegetatively from cuttings of lignified stems.The quality of the planting material is determined by the climatic. edaphic, pathological and entomological stresses (negative production factors, NPFs) of the genotypes cultivated in a given cycle and their resistance to these stresses. The quality of the stem cuttings determines, to a great extent, the overa11 success in achieving optimal yields (CIAT, 1979(CIAT, , 1980;;Lozano et al •• 1977). On the other hand.infected and/or infested propagation material is highly probable in cassava un1ess preventative measures are taken (Lozano, 1977a).Manihot esculenta is composed of cu1tivated clones that have be en selected for desirable characteristics over many years by farmers in each ecosystem. primarily based on tolerance to the NPFs existing in a given region. The introduction of one or several NPFs from other ecosystems and/or planting clones in ecosystems different from the native one can cause serious damage to the original clones, as well as to those planted outside their native ecosystem (Lozano. Byrne & Bellotti. 1980).5. Several cassava clones are planted in each region throughout the whole or most of the year. Consequently, in most ecosystems, tissues of diverse genotypes susceptible to different biotic problems are present throughout the year. The reason for the lack of epiphytotics in traditional plantations or for the presence of biotic problems at levels below the economic threshold is due almost entirely to the biological balance that exists in the ecosystem; and this must be maintained.6. Cassava has a long genetic cycle (up to 3 years), which de1ays the development of new, improved varieties, to1erant to specific problems (Kawano et al., 1978); thus a stable-type resistance is preferred.7. Cassava growers need to exercise great care in the production of their own p1anting material in order to avoid sanitary, agronomic and economic problems caused by a. The 10w multiplication rate (5-10 cuttings/plant) (Lozano et al., 1977) b. damage caused to cuttings since they are easily injured during preparation and transportation, as well as the difficu1ty of subsequent storage (40% of the buds in sorne clones failed to germinate after only 2 weeks' storage) (Lozano et al., 1977) c. Packing and shipment of cuttings are difficult and expensive because of their weight and volume (10,000 cuttings required to plant 1 ha weigh ca. 1 ton and occupy 2 m 3 ). 8. Most cassava growers are traditional farmers (Phi11ips, 1974) with 1itt1e technica1 know-how and few economic resources. Prob1ems re-1ated to this crop shou1d be sol ved using a simple, inexpensive but efficient cu1tivation system.Based on the foregoing factors, the importance of integrated crop management in the control of pests and diseases can be seen; this system 4 must combine good cultural practices with biological control and varietal resistance.Uniform cultural practices cannot be recornmended across all cassavagrowing areas; they should be adapted to the specific characteristics of each ecosystem. Moreover, the incorporation of different practices should be based on a cost-benefit analysis, bearing in mind the farmer's capacity and that stability of production is the ultimate goal. Sorne practices may appear unessential, but the roots (the cornmercial product) may be affected and, unfortunately, can be appreciated only at harvesting time.The following are sorne cultural practices that, when applied in combination, can reduce or even eliminate stresses due to NPFs in a given ecosystem, thus producing stable yields. l. When cassava is planted irnmediately after the removal of forest, perennial or woody annual crops, severe root-rot problems can appear due to pathogens and/or pests that affect these plant species as well as cassaya (Booth, 1977;Bellotti & Schoonhoven, 1978b). A decrease in soil infestation can be obtained by planting nonsusceptible crop species (e.g., cereals) befo re cultivating cassava and bunning the plant debris left on the ground (Booth, 1977;Lozano & Terry, 1977).2. Soil preparation should be as for any other traditional crop. As cassava is susceptible to flooding and to pathogens favored by this condition (i.e., Phytophthora and Pythium spp.), soil drainage must be adequate for the quantity and distribution of rainfall in each ecosystem. For example, planting on ridges is recornmended when rainfall is higher than 1200 rnm/year. The size and depth of these ridges will vary in re1ation to soi1 texture and frequency of rainfa11 (Booth, 1977;Lozano & Terry, 1977;Olivero, Lozano & Booth, 1974).3. It is we11 known that the quality of p1anting material is crucial for the successfu1 cultivation of any vegetative1y propagated crop. This is one of the most important factors in any cassava production systems programo responsible not only for good crop stand and establishment (good rooting of cuttings and bud germination), but a1so for the sanitary conditions of the crop and final yield (commercia1 roots/p1ant) per unit areal cyc1e (CIAT, 1978(CIAT, , 1980;;Lozano et al., 1977).The qua1ity of the cuttings depends on certain agronomic characteristics (lignification, thickness related to each clone, size, number of nodes/cutting, ang1e of cut, and degree of mechanica1 damage), sanitary conditions (free of systemic and localized pathogens, insects and mites), and disinfestant and protectant treatments app1ied before p1anting or storage (Lozano et al., 1977).In general cuttings should be taken from the healthiest plantations on the farm or in the region, selecting the most lignified portion of the stem from vigourou$ 8-to 15-month-old plants, cutting stem pieces 20 cm long at a right angle. Any portion of the stem with signs of necrosis (discolorations), cankers, tumors, ga11s, galleries and/or insect (scales, borers, etc.) or mite infestations must be eliminated.Infested or infected cuttings can contaminate healthy ones during the storage period (Lozano et al, 1977;Vargas, 1977).Cuttings must be treated with fungicides and insecticides for di s-infestation, disinfeetion and proteetion. Planting material should not be stored unless strietly neeessary (CIAT, 1979(CIAT, ,1980;;Lozano et al.,1977) • . 4. Cuttings should be planted in aeeordanee with the terrain; satisfaetory root formation and distribution result from the position of the eutting in the ground (Castro et al., 1976). Good root development leads to vigorous plants which are more resistant to biotic problems and easier to harvest. This in turn can lead to less physiologieal and mierobial deterioration during storage, whieh are enhanced by mechaniea1 damage during harvesting (Booth, 1976;Lozano, Coek and Castaño, 1977).Considerable losses in establishment due to the failure of rooting or bud germination can oceur if planting is done during the hottest season of the year in areas with high average temperatures. This may be eaused by the effeet of so11 temperature on horizontally planted cuttings; when planted vertieally or obliquely, air eireulation eools down the extreme upper portion of the eutting, redueing the effect of hot soi1s. It is neeessary to bear in mind that the bud thermal inaetivation point of most cu1tivars is 52. 5°C min (CIAT,1974); high temperatures can also damage the stem epidermis, causing openings suitable for the establishment of pests and pathogens. 5. Good weed control is important because cassava is a poor competitive speeies (Dol1, 1978). Moreover, adequate weed control could reduce both pathogens and pest popu1ations on other host species and also allow good air circulation between plants. increasing the rate of rainfall evaporation.This reduces the relative humidity for suffieient time to deerease the rate of establishment and propagation of sorne pathogens, inseets and mites.However,certaln weeds can serve as a host and food supply for benefieial inseets, and their elimination would decrease their populations. Weed control must therefore be carried out with both these aims in mind. In large plantations, it may be wise to 7 keep p10ts or bands of native weeds to help maintain a natural biological balance.6. Periodic inspections of plantations are highly recommended in order to (a) determine the seale and timing of agronomie operations such as drainage, weed control, etc.; (b) remo ve plants or plant parts with initia1 infection or infestation symptoms of diseases (viroses, mycop1asma, etc.), inseets (scales. shoot flies, etc.) and mites, which at the initial stages attaek scattered plants in the stand. These plants should be removed from the area in plastic bags and burned to prevent the dissemination of these problems; and (e) forecast the cornmencement of epiphytotics caused by pathogens and insects, al10wing appropriate control strategies to be planned and carried out at the most advantageous time. A full-time trained worker would be justified on farms of 15 ha or larger to carry out control of agro-phytosanitary problems.7. Since the roots are highly perishab1e as a resu1t of both physio1ogica1 and microbia1 deterioration (lozano, Cock & Castaño, 1977), it is suggested that planting and harvesting operations be prograrnmed according to marketing conditions. Simi1arly, since the incidence and severity of this deterioration are enhanced by mechanical damage, this should be minimized or avoided during harvesting, packing and shipping (Booth, 1977).Recent research on fresh root storage suggests that physiologica1 deterioration is a biochemical process (Lozano, Cock, Castaño,1977;CIAT, 1980) that can ~e contro11ed by pruning 2-3 weeks before harvest. Storage of roots in sea1ed plastic bags in order to prevent dehydration by keeping up the saturated relative humidity a1so gives good control. Microbial deterioration has been contro11ed by dipping the fresh roots in a fungicide solution (Lozano, Cock & Castaño, 1977).8. P1ant debris left on the ground after harvest can act as propagation media for pathogens and pests that can cause severe damage to cassava after successive plantings (larvae of Co1eoptera; Rosellinia spp., Armil1ariella spp., etc.). The elimination, especial1y of stems and roots, can help maintain these root-rot prob1ems at low leve1s for several p1anting periods. (CIAT, 1979;Lozano, 1977b.) The determination of the percentage of root rot after each harvest, especia1ly on soils rich in organic matter, helps determine whether crop rotation or fal10wing is advisable.In general, plots that have over 3% root rot at harvest require crop rotation or fa110wing in order to decrease the inocu1um potential of biotics infesting the soil. When crop rotation is p1anned, ca re shou1d be taken in the choice of crops in the sequence since several other crops are a1so attacked by cassava pathogens; cereal s are a good choice. (Lo~ano,1977b;Lozano & Booth, 1974;Lozano & Terry, 1976).On the other hand, cutworm pests of maize and sorghum can a1so attack young cassava p1ants. If these are present, it is necessary to apply poi son baits or spray the soi1 with funga1 or bacteria1 pathogens of these insects before planting (Bel10tti & Schoonhoven, 1978b). 9. Planting time can affect pest and/or disease incidence. Periods that favor high multiplication rates of pathogens, especially wet periods in the tropics or cool seasons in semi-subtropical areas, should be avoided (Lozano,1977b;Lozano & Terry, 1976). By p1anting over several periods during several cycles, it is possible to determine the appropriate p1anting time for each ecosystem.10. Consecutive planting in the same or in different plots over long periods of time can induce a progressive increase in the inocu1um potential of pathogens and pests, causing outbreaks of increasing severity with time. A delay in planting for a few months will lead to a decrease in the biotic problem. This can a1so be reduced by planting stems of longer than usual length (0.40-0.50 m instead of 0.20 m) in arder to obtain large plants with several buás in a short period of time; these will have a higher tolerance to biotic problems such as shoot flies (Silba pendula) than small p1ants obtained from short cuttings.11. Cultivation of cassava in association with other crops has been reported to be responsible for the low incidence and severity of biotic prob1ems in tropical cropping systems; traditionally managed farms combine this with p1anting mu1tico10na1 cassava p1ots. This system should be studied and maintained wherever possible, aboye a11 where cassava is used as a staple food. Sudden changes in productíon systems may bring about unexpected changes in the ecologica1 equilibrium, which in the long term are ref1ected in the balance existing with the native biological control of the ecosystems.12. Well-planned spacing of plants can prevent the formation of microclimates favorable for the propagation of diseases and pests, as well as decrease the spread of biotic problems within the stand (e.g •• scale insects). An ideal spacing can be reached by decreasing plant populations per unit area or changing the p1anting system (i.e •• two rows separated by only 0.50 m, followed by another two at 2.00 m distance). The effects of such methods should be evaluated according to each ecosystem and its soi1 fertility, the clone type, harvesting systems used, etc.13. Improvement of growth conditions for cassava by increasing the nutritional level of the soil and the water supply during critical growth periods facilitates vigorous plant development, which in turn produces a higher tolerance to the stresses exerted by the biotic problems within a given ecosystem. However, the use of these cultural practices, their leve1s and frequency of application shou1d be determined by economic ana1ysis. In general p10ts that are selected for the production of cuttings shou1d receive the best cultural and biologica1 treatments.14. As several biotic problems are disseminated through vegetative and sexual propagation material, it is of great importance to establish and strictly observe quarantine regulations (Lozano, 1977a). In general it is suggested that only official institutions be authorized to introduce cassava propagation material; vegetative material should be introduced by meristem culture or sexual seeds taken only from healthy plantations.15. The use of sonie light traps, poison baits, pheromones, gama and xrays for sterilization. hormones, etc., are control measures that shou1d be considered in order to improve the control of insects during different periods of the crop cycle, taking into account the biotic prob1em, the ecosystem and the feasibi1ity of its execution {Be11otti & SChoonhoven, 1979SChoonhoven, , 1978b;;Bellotti, Reyes & Arias, 1980).The long production cycle of cassava makes chemical control of pests uneconomical. This fact, combined with the great ability of the cassava plant to recover from abiotic and biotic stresses, indicates that biological control may pro ve very effective (Bellotti & Schoonhoven, 1978b;Bellotti, Reyes & Arias, 1980). Moreover, many beneficial agents exist in cassava plantations: in the case of Erinnyis ello alone, some 30 parasites, predators and pathogens have been identified (Bellotti, Reyes & Arias, 1980).Biological control should constitute one of the most important approaches of any integrated control package for the diseases and pests of all ecosystems.The following suggestions can help maintain the natural biological control already present in a given ecosystem and improve it by increasing populations of native or introduced beneficial agents.1. Although pesticides are valuable components of integrated control, they must be used only when other control measures are not effective and when it is economica1ly necessary because of yie1d reductions caused by the biotic problem (Bellotti, Reyes & Arias, 1980;Lozano, 1978). If an outbreak requires pesticide app1ication, this should be selective with, if possible, a low letha1 effect on beneficia1 agents (Bellotti & SChoonhoven, 1978;Bellotti, Reyes & Arias, 1980).2. A detailed inventory of beneficial insects and microorganisms as wel1 as of pests, diseases, hosts and foad sources of these pests is urgently required. The evaluation of each biotic problem in each ecosystem will aid in the establishment of priorities for each approach to biological control. 12 3. Ecological studies directed towards explaining the relationship between parasites. pests and the environment will provide valuable information for future strategies on biological control for each ecosystem.4. Natural biological control can be improved by increasing the populations of the most beneficial species through mass rearing. followed by liberation and colonization (Bellotti. Reyes & Arias. 1980). It can a1so be improved by the introduction of new. more efficient beneficial species or biotypes that can be adapted to the condítions of a particular ecosystem. 5. Even though modern agricu1ture uses the monoculture/homogeneous genotype system for several crop species, our experíences with cassava 1eads us to suggest that it wou1d be better to use the multivarietal system in monoculture or mixed cropping with other crop species, as is the current practice among most cassava growers. The genetic clona1 variability in plantations restricts the asemic propagation of pests and pathogens, keeping their populations at low levels, greatly reducing the risk of sudden outbreaks.6. Alternate hosts of pathogens and pests,grown in or near cassava plantations (e.g., Poinsettja pulcherrima. host of the causal agent of superelongation disease).should be removed, as well as any source of food for pathogens and pests (the hornworm eats leaves of rubber trees; fruitflies feed on rotting fruits; several soil-borne pathogens live on decaying cassava root debriSj etc.). Extension programs should explain the advantages of carrying out these practices and if hosts cannot be e1iminated because of their economic importance (rubber trees in Malaysia and Brazil, for example), integrated control programs should also be planned for these crop species.7. The liberation of irradiated insects or interspecific hybrids of pests in the area has not yet been done in cassava, but would be a promising biological control system for the future. Spraying the soi1 with bacteria, fungi, viruses, etc., that are pathogenic to soil-borne insects and pathogens of cassava, is another good possibility that merits study.Yield stability with time in a given ecosystem is related to the stresses resulting from the NPFs existing in each ecosystem, as well as to the genetic capacity of clones to tolerate these stresses. Since cassava clones ha ve been se1ected for a very long time in loca1ized areas and perpetuated vegetatively, the cassava/ecosystem interaction is great. A good, welladapted clone with tolerance to a given ecosystem could be severely affected by the NPFs of another ecosystem. Consequently, in each particular ecosystem, regional clones or clones from similar ecosystems should be preferred to those introduced from ecosystems with different sets of NPFs.Introductions should be made specifically to improve the gene pool existing in each ecosystem (regional clones). Improvement programs should be decentralized and located in areas selected on the basis of extensive agrosocioeconomic studies (Lozano, Byrne & Bellotti, 1980).The concept of varietal evaluations should be mu1tiple, integrating the following three general concepts: (a) satisfactory yield of fresh roots, stareh, fo1iage, etc. according to its uti1ization; (b) good production of high-quality planting material; and (e) highly acceptable root quality aceording to the socioeconomic requirements in each region. Clones selected according to these critería wou1d probab1y be the mast stable over time, being the most acceptable to farmers.Clona1 evaluation in each ecosystem should be directed to identifying genotypes with the widest type of resistance to the NPFs existing in it; this eva1uation should be performed by observations in areas where the NPFs of each eeosystem are severest and most frequent. These eva1uations should be integrated, performed by scientists of different disciplines and during severa1 consecutive eyc1es (CIAT, 1978(CIAT, , 1979;;Lozano, Byrne & Bel1otti, 1980). This should not e1iminate or underrate evaluations direeted to identifying tolerance to specific important biotic problems because this eould be needed to improve clones having widetype resistance but susceptible or defieient in certain required characteristies.Varieta1 resistance obviously improves biological control of the area because economie damage oeeurs only at higher population levels, faci1itating the increase of beneficial biotics and reducing or e1iminating the need for pestieides. In cassava an attack of Erinnyis spp. can produce up to 40% defoliation without causing any yie1d 10ss; this permits a delayed inseeticide app1ication for their control or the use of any other control measure compatible with the bio1ogical equilibrium of the region.The foregoing general recommendations for the integrated control of diseases and pests in cassava shou1d be complemented by scientific support given by research and extension agencies to growers and pro-cessors. The long-term success of cassava production in a given country or region may depend on both the research support and the appropriate application of these control measures.","tokenCount":"3504"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"eeda15ac3c3ef1bee97a474de989635d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/7ecf3914-407e-4219-b36c-90fc842f30d8/retrieve","id":"-1096918158"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2dd8d536-a01b-4f8b-bbf3-177772208ddf","pagecount":"11","content":"Models can play a key role towards improving understanding about critical environmental and development challenges, such as declines in soil fertility due to inadequate management practices, or drops in returns to labor as soil fertility declines. They serve as logical constructs that offer a simplified representation of complex systems to provide insights into a 'perceived reality' (McCarl 1984), or a specific part of their inner workings (Gershenfeld 1998). In particular, mathematical models focus on the effects of different components of the 'target system,' and describe or predict behaviors using mathematical concepts, theories, and language (ibid 1998). In the fields of agriculture and natural resource management (NRM), decision-making models, land use planning models, statistical relationship-based or process-based models may be used to analyze biophysical and/or socioeconomic phenomena.The purpose of this brief is to identify considerations for integrating gender and social inclusion considerations in mathematical modeling focused on agriculture and natural resource management. The brief is not a guideline per se, nor is it exhaustive in terms of entry points for gender integration in mathematical modeling. Rather, it is intended to stimulate thinking on ways to engage with gender relations to develop models that can support analysis on innovations that promote equitable and sustainable agriculture and natural resource management.There are many different ways to design and use models depending on the type of phenomenon to be analyzed and type of questions the model needs to answer. Econometric models can and often do include gender considerations or 'gender' as an explanatory variable. In contrast, models that describe only biophysical processes will not include gender per se in the model, but may nonetheless carry gender implications that require consideration (i.e. treating gender relations as an exogenous variable that shapes the biophysical world or that influences the impacts of biophysical change). Integrating gender considerations into models requires analyses that acknowledge the complex, shifting and context-specific nature of gender roles and relations (Doss et al. 2001, Gladwin et al. 2002). Drawing on the scarce literature on gender in modeling, we demonstrate below that gender relations require consideration across key phases of the modeling cycle, including when: 1) conceptualizing the model/framework; 2) collecting data to populate the model; and 3) interpreting model outputs.Models are informed by and reflect a conceptual framework. They (often implicitly) embed assumptions about inter-agent interactions and institutions (Swallow and Swallow 2015). Gender analysis, which can be supported by and/or conducted with a scientist with gender expertise, is needed to underpin socio-economic or bioeconomic models so as to include relevant elements in the model. As gender relations are contextually-specific, models will need to consider their particularities in the settings of interest (Fontana 2015). Moreover, depending on the scale at which a model is pegged and its substantive focus, certain gender issues may be more relevant than others.A first important concept for gender-responsive models of household-scale processes is that of gender-differentiation within the household, which commonly involves an unequal distribution of costs and benefits and of decision-making power among members (Udry 1996, Doss et al. 2001, Gladwin et al. 2002, Mudhara et al. 2002). As Sen (1990) demonstrates, the household is a site of coinciding and competing interests among members, wherein women and men engage in distinct, but also shared and overlapping processes in production, as well as consumption, and decision-making. 1 Moreover, gender interacts with other social identities (age, marital status, ethnicity and so forth) to create diverse social positions within the household, which shape intrahousehold power relations (see Box 1). For example, a mother-in-law may have more decision-making power than a daughter-in-law; and a young man may have less authority within the household than his father. Given this intra-household differentiation, models should not assume equal opportunities or outcomes for different household members.Gender-responsive modeling may involve integrating variables in the model that account for an unequal access to and control over resources and assets among different groups of women and men. As Fontana (2015, p. 1) reports in her guidelines to integrate gender in bio-economic research, \"looking at issues of environmental, economic and social sustainability through a gender lens means being aware that women and men have a different capacity to access, control and use assets and resources, and that women tend to face disadvantage more than men in a number of domains.\" Women and men also frequently have different capacities to access information, due to unequal access to formal education, social networks, and extension services (Doss andMorris 2001, Ragasa et al. 2013). Hence, in a study on adoption of improved fallows to enhance soil fertility in Eastern Zambia, Keil et al. (2005, p. 234) account for \"differences in land and labor endowments as well as wealth status found between male and female headed households.\" Their model shows that these differences in the availability of land and labor among women and men account for women's relatively lower adoption rates.Another key gender issue for models focused on agriculture and natural resource management are the labor (or time) constraints rural women typically experience given their heavy work burdens. These are due to women's responsibilities in what are commonly called 'productive' activities (which generate incomee.g. agriculture, trade) and 'reproductive' activities (unpaid activities, which maintain the householdsuch as domestic tasks, collecting water and firewood, caring for children, elders, and ill household members, etc.), as well as in women's more limited ability to mobilize other people's labor compared to men (Grassi et al. 2015). Differences in labor availability among men and women farmers, when relevant, need to be accounted for to avoid the generation of 'biased' outputs. For example, Gladwin et al.'s (2002) intraand inter-household decision-making model shows that a lack of access to land and labor prevented women from adopting a range of agroforestry innovations in Eastern Zambia.Gender differences in access to assets and resources and the gender division of labor also shape women's and men's preferences and decisions. Models may thus also need to account for gendered preferences and decision-making, as preferences can be systematically different for men and women, even within the same household (Siddiqui 2009). For example, in an experimental role-playing game in Indonesia, Villamor and van Noordwijk (2016) found that women and men had a different willingness to assume risks associated with changes in land use, and thus had different land use preferences. Willingness to adopt new technologies may also be genderspecific. For example, given their labor constraints, women may not be willing to adopt productivity-enhancing technologies if they increase their work burden or decreases their ability to tend to other tasks (Doss 2001). Moreover, as noted above, women and men may not have the same information; and this will shape their preferences and decisions with respect to resource management.Hence, some models account for the gender-specificity of preferences, access to resources, and decision-making in agriculture and natural resource management, with attention paid to the underlying causes for gender differences. For example, Gladwin et al. (2002) use participatory role-playing exercises to investigate gender-specific preferences in land use. They integrate gendered disparities in access to land, credit, and other resources in a model to study how these factors affect land use patterns and consequent delivery of ecosystem services. Similarly, Baker et al. (2015) develop a model to reflect the number and type of ecosystem services related to water that are important to, and used by, different gender groups. Villamor et al. (2014) use agentbased modeling based on participatory mapping and role-playing exercises to complement quantitative data exploring the potential effectiveness of a payment for ecosystem services (PES) design in a rubber eco-certification scheme. Rather than treating the household as a unit, their simulation incorporates decision-making processes for heterogeneous households. Their results show that gender is an important factor in decision-making about land use options; hence, integrating gender considerations in their models improves the model's accuracy.Due to the gender differences and inequalities described above, the distribution of costs (e.g. monetary, labor or other) and benefits (e.g. consumption, income) from adopting different practices or innovations may also be gender differentiated. A model predicting the impact of an innovation should reflect that this impact is likely to differ for women and men, and for different groups of women and groups of men, as gender shapes \"relative female/male wages, gender differences in the distribution of time between paid and unpaid work, women's and men's shares in total household consumption\" (Fontana 2015, p. 10).In developing a model, it is critical to consider which social relations beyond gender have an important bearing on the phenomenon under study. An 'intersectional' analysis that explores how gender interacts with age, education level, marital status, ethnicity, position within the household, or other salient social relations is required to understand resource management processes.Intersectionality refers to how different axes of social marginalization (e.g. based on being a woman, being young, belonging to a particular ethnic group or following a particular religion) interact to create distinct experiences of discrimination and marginalization (Cho et al. 2013, Kabeer 2015). It means that the experiences of any individual is shaped by several aspects of their identify, such that the experiences of a better-off woman, for example, can be quite different from those of a poorer woman, or those of a young married woman different than those of an older widow.What intersectionality implies is that a model may need to include several social categories (e.g. gender, age, socio-economic status) to describe or predict gendered outcomes. For example, Haggith et al. (2003) use the Forest Land Oriented Resource Envisioning System (FLORES) simulation model to capture interactions between rural communities in forest margins and natural resources. Based on anthropological studies that describe the rules and relationships that mediate land distribution processes, the authors integrate gender, marital status and childbearing as variables affecting how land and labor are allocated within the community. Likewise, Villamor et al. (2015) adopt an intersectional approach that puts gender and household wealth in relation to each other to understand land use decisions. In this way, the model offers greater explanatory power than it would if it accounted for social differentiation based solely on gender.Efforts to integrate gender analyses in models often include attention to 'male' versus 'female' household headship. This information is commonly collected during household surveys and available for use in the model. Yet, while disaggregation by gender of household head has been useful for learning about these different household configurations, it overlooks gender inequalities occurring in households with two (or more) spouses, and the experiences of women in these households who typically have different strategic interests, livelihoods, and constraints than their male counterparts (Chant 2004).In their seminal study on women's adoption of agricultural innovations in Ghana, Morris and Doss (1999) problematize research designs that survey only female-headed households because these engage with only a small sample of women, leaving behind those who live and work in dual-headed households (often referred to as 'male headed') and are the vast majority of women farmers. In their study on of bananarelated disease management practices in Uganda, Kikulwe et al. (2017, p. 88) criticize the use of the household head sex to investigate gender because it ignores that \"men and women within the same household cultivate and own crops either independently or jointly\". The authors interview men and women from dual headed households to understand gendered adoption preferences and constraints for banana Xanthomonas wilt (BXW) control technologies. Results show that women tend to have lower adoption rates than men because of a lack of access to physical and financial assets. For example, the adoption of banana tissue culture cloned from disease-free banana plantations was more frequent in men owned banana plantations because of the high cost of acquiring this technology.A focus on 'female-headed households' as a homogeneous group is also misleading because it tends to conflate different types of households, including those wherein women are widowed, divorced or separated, and those wherein a spouse is temporarily or permanently away on migration. Yet, these different realities have distinct implications for household resources and resource allocations as well as decision-making. Hence, Mudhara et al. (2002), in their study of technology adoption, consider households to be divided into 'male-headed,' de facto 'female-headed' (where the 'male head' is not residing on the farm), and de jure 'female-headed' (formally identified as female headed as per land ownership and inheritance laws). They further differentiate female-headed households by marital status: married women, single women, widows or siblings of absent male household heads, who will experience different levels of power and control over resources according to the higher or lower status assigned to their position by local norms and rules. In their gender-sensitive model, Mudhara et al. (2002) include several variables for labor (e.g. who is employed in plowing, planting, weeding and harvesting, and who has command and control of the necessary labor), account for gendered cash constraints, and land area availability to simulate the effects of the introduction of a new crop.A model's descriptive or predictive ability depends on the quality of the data used to populate it. Gender-responsive sampling and data collection are thus important considerations when developing and populating a conceptually gender-sensitive model. Questions around who to include as participants in data collection to ensure representativeness of respondents are primordial. Doss (2014) explains principles of sex-disaggregated quantitative data collection that also apply to modeling activities relying on empirical data. Moreover, surveys, interviews and/or participatory approaches to data collection will need to overcome constraints that may preclude the full engagement of both women and men research participants. Elias (2015) explores gender-responsive strategies for data collection, which range from identifying suitable places and times to engage with women participants, to using gender-responsive language, and facilitating discussions in inclusive ways. Indeed, the ways questions are framed in data collection instruments will influence data quality.For instance, Caldwell et al.'s (2007) model of China's CO2 sequestration potential is based on a GIS-based integrated assessment approach that brings together five models for carbon sequestration, crop income, timber income, carbon credits, and Grain for Green (a national reforestation program that pays farmers for converting fields into forest). A complementary household survey module to assess the program's impact on different gender and ethnic groups is included, with gender-specific questions on changes in labor burdens and workloads resulting from the implementation of the Grain for Green program. Although the questionnaire includes important questions for conducting gender analyses, 92% of the survey respondents were male. Moreover, the authors note that the survey was difficult to read and understand, which may have further biased the results, as women in the area generally had less formal education (which also contributed to lower survey completion rates by women than men). Inclusive sampling schemes and data collection instruments designed with due consideration for respondents' capacities, and settings and interactions that put socially diverse participants at ease, are needed to gather data that will populate gender-responsive models.Finally, a gender lens is required when interpreting and utilizing model outputs. Even biophysical models, which may not explicitly include gender, may generate outputs on phenomena that carry gender implications. Hence, additional gender analyses may be required to supplement biophysical outputs in order to draw gender-relevant implications. For example, outputs from a model predicting changes in soil carbon as a result of increased use of inorganic fertilizer should be understood within the context of gendered soil management processes. This means recognizing that women and men from differentiated social groups (e.g. richer or poorer) will have unequal capacities to access and apply inorganic fertilizer, and that they may be impacted differently from changes in the concentration of soil carbon (Zhang et al. 2019). For other models that already explicitly include gender, the interpretation needs care. Either way, interpretations will require a solid understanding of gender relations, which may be acquired through the literature as well as through complementary data collected using methodologies that can provide rich insight into historically rooted, place-specific social relations (see, for instance, guidelines on integrating gender into biophysical research prepared by the CGIAR Research Program on Dryland Systems, 2015).Gender integration in mathematical models focused on agriculture and NRM is important for research and practice to be more responsive to the realities and strategic interests of all those who the work is intended to benefit-both women and men from socially differentiated groups. Doing this requires asking the right questions about gender and conducting gender analyses to reveal the gender-specific experiences, constraints, and opportunities of women and men. For example, this means considering how gender relations shape access to resources and assets, time and mobility, interests and preferences, and ability to have voice and influence in decisionmaking processes. Neither women nor men are homogeneous groups, and attention to how gender intersects with other social factors, such as age or stage in the life cycle, socio-economic status, ethnicity or caste, among others, is needed for informed analyses. Ensuring adequate sampling and engagement with different social groups in data collection are critical for gender integration, as is an informed interpretation of model outputs. This brief has sought to provide a starting point towards this integration to support the development of equitable innovations, and contribute to efforts to enhance gender equality and social inclusion through agriculture and NRM.","tokenCount":"2839"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6e15e5fe1f1eaec0319c649daef407c0","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/81e6e8b5-f40c-4f17-8864-c7973954a6f8/retrieve","id":"604184184"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1197beaa-d955-4f08-b0af-0e48d101ddc8","pagecount":"1","content":"The CSA Papers aim to generate critical insights into five key areas of CSA based on unpublished scientific information.n Contributors of Papers will participate in a writeshop, be provided honoraria, and be eligible for travel grants to showcase their work.The Climate-Smart Agriculture Papers ('CSA Papers') will support the documentation and sharing of lessons from unpublished or on-going research and development interventions relating to climate-smart agriculture (CSA) broadly, with emphasis on experiences in Eastern and Southern Africa. While there is a significant body of knowledge available on technologies, varieties, models, and institutional arrangements relevant for agricultural development, there is much less information that specifically address the three objectives of CSA. This project will support scientists and development actors to finalize and release data, to create new knowledge on CSA and get the information in front of development actors.This project will create a think tank-type of atmosphere, where thought leaders come together with ideas and data to answer key questions on the following five topic areas: The CSA Papers will convene a write-shop, offer honorariums to authors and reviewers, and support travel grants for select participants to present their papers.This project will produce an open-source book, with 6-8 chapters on each of the five topics. Additionally, a selection of the papers will be presented in relevant scientific and development meetings. The initiative will help form a cadre of thought leaders that can help take CSA to the next level of implementation. ","tokenCount":"239"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"711209a417d5c04520027cedfc2c1f70","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/7709cab1-00a8-4b14-b42d-c4d0f9ad43a6/content","id":"564120756"},"keywords":["plant breeding","GWAS","spatial analysis","abiotic stress","early testcross"],"sieverID":"2995e598-a1be-45a8-baa5-694f519aa2a1","pagecount":"19","content":"Introgressing Drought Tolerance From Landraces under drought conditions. Our results indicate that the positive diversity delivered by landraces are still present on the backcrosses and this is a potential breeding strategy for improving maize for drought tolerance and for trait introgression bringing new superior allelic diversity from landraces to breeding populations.Current climate change models predict an increased frequency and intensity of drought for much of the developing world within the next 30 years. These events will negatively affect maize yields, potentially leading to economic and social instability in many smallholder farming communities. Knowledge about the genetic resources available for traits related to drought tolerance has great importance in developing breeding program strategies. The aim of this research was to study a maize landrace introgression panel to identify chromosomal regions associated with a drought tolerance index. For that, we performed Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) on 1326 landrace progenies developed by the CIMMYT Genetic Resources Program, originating from 20 landraces populations collected in arid regions. Phenotypic data were obtained from early testcross trials conducted in three sites and two contrasting irrigation environments, full irrigation (well-watered) and reduced irrigation (drought). The populations were genotyped using the DArTSeq R platform, and a final set of 5,695 SNPs markers was used. The genotypic values were estimated using spatial adjustment in a two-stage analysis. First, we performed the individual analysis for each site/irrigation treatment combination. The best linear unbiased estimates (BLUEs) were used to calculate the Harmonic Mean of Relative Performance (HMRP) as a drought tolerance index for each testcross. The second stage was a joint analysis, which was performed using the HMRP to obtain the best linear unbiased predictions (BLUPs) of the index for each genotype. Then, GWAS was performed to determine the marker-index associations and the marker-Grain Yield (GY) associations for the two irrigation treatments. We detected two significant markers associated with the drought-tolerance index, four associated with GY in drought condition, and other four associated with GY in irrigated conditions each. Although each of these markers explained less than 0.1% of the phenotypic variation for the index and GY, we found two genes likely related to the plant response to drought stress. For these markers, alleles from landraces provide a slightly higher yieldMaize is a major crop cultivated in many regions of the world and is one of the most important cereals for food production, occupying around 193 million hectares in 2018 (Faostat, 2018). That corresponds to about 15% of the total area in agricultural use. Globally, the majority of maize hectares planted are in subtropical and tropical regions including many parts of Latin America, Africa, and Asia (Faostat, 2018). Millions of smallholders and subsistence farming communities in these regions rely on maize as a major source of calories as well as income to pay for basic needs and schooling for their children. For optimal yields, maize demands a large amount of water; therefore, drought events at key junctures in the growing cycle can cause significant losses in grain yield and year-to-year yield fluctuations (Harrison et al., 2014). This yield instability creates great financial incertitude in the farming communities of developing countries where maize is important. Unfortunately, most climate change forecast models concur that an increase in the frequency and intensity of drought events is occurring and will continue to occur throughout the 21st century in many global regions (IPCC, 2007(IPCC, , 2014;;Dai, 2013;Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2018;Lu et al., 2019;Spinoni et al., 2020). These data suggest that if maize varieties with novel sources of drought tolerance are not soon developed, smallholder and subsistence farmers in many parts of the world will become even more vulnerable to yield fluctuations and the financial insecurity that entails. Fortunately, maize is a species with immense genetic variability and breeding for drought tolerance is an essential tool for overcoming the effects of climate change in maize production (Fisher et al., 2015). This genetic diversity has largely been collected in the world's germplasm banks and is additionally evident in the fields of many smallholder farmers that still plant landrace populations (Sanchez et al., 2000;Prasanna, 2012;Arteaga et al., 2016). In this context, the more than 25,000 maize landrace accessions maintained in the germplasm bank of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (Spanish acronym, CIMMYT) are a tremendous resource for identifying novel resistance and developing new cultivars better able to maintain grain production in water-limited conditions. The reality, however, is that maize breeders in the private and public sector have for many years not used as new sources of variation the landrace accessions held in germplasm banks. This is mostly due to such factors as linkage drag, adaptation issues, poor agronomic characteristics and low yield potential (Goodman, 1985;Goodman et al., 2014). For that reason, in 2011 CIMMYT initiated the Seeds of Discovery project (SeeD), one of the components of MasAgro initiative, which has been largely funded by the Mexican government. The objective of SeeD called later MasAgro Biodiversidad, is to mine the unexplored allelic variation in the maize germplasm bank for important abiotic and biotic pressure as well as nutritional and end-use characteristics.Under abiotic stress conditions, tolerance is the ability of the plant and its yield component traits to maintain grain production during an extended period under that stress (Schafer, 1971;Miti et al., 2010). Between stand establishment and physiological maturity, maize has two periods in the growth cycle when the crop is most vulnerable to yield loss due to drought conditions: (i) from the late vegetative growth stage through to the end of flowering and (ii) during the grain filling period (Sayadi Maazou et al., 2016). Of these two, the flowering stress is considered the more devastating because of the greatly increased anthesis-silk interval (ASI) that can be provoked by drought conditions (Bolaños and Edmeades, 1996). ASI measures the number of days from when anthesis occurs to when receptive silks (stigmas) emerge. In non-stressed conditions, the maize male inflorescence typically begins releasing pollen one to two days before silk emergence and releases pollen for 4-7 days, existing a considerable variability in this period across genotypes (Hall et al., 1982;Struik and Makonnen, 1992;Uribelarrea et al., 2002). However, under drought stress the interval between anthesis and silk emergence can be greatly increased resulting in significantly reduced yield because a reduced amount viable pollen is available when the silks finally do emerge. In more extreme drought conditions, silks may emerge too late to receive pollen or may not emerge at all resulting in barren plants and no grain production. Because of this vulnerability, ASI is one of the most studied traits in maize, and it has been used as a secondary trait for indirect selection for grain yield and drought tolerance (Bolaños and Edmeades, 1996;Xue et al., 2013). CIMMYT has conducted long-term recurrent selection breeding in two populations for drought tolerance focused on decreasing ASI and maintaining grain yield under drought stress (Bänziger et al., 2000). These two populations, La Posta Sequía (LPS) formed in the mid-1980s, and Drought Tolerant Population (DTP) formed in the early 1990s have now gone through recurrent selection for 7 and 9 cycles, respectively. In total, fifteen official CIMMYT maize inbred lines (CML) and several open-pollinated varieties (OPV) have been derived and released from the various cycles of LPS and DTP. These CML and OPV have been used extensively in east Africa, South Asia and Latin America and are adapted to either highland, mid-altitude subtropical or lowland tropical environments. While this breeding project was successful in developing new sources of elite drought tolerant material, the LPS and DTP source material represents only a fraction of the overall diversity in the CIMMYT germplasm bank. Much more of this diversity needs to be explored, using the latest techniques to unravel the genetic control of drought tolerance in maize. And FIGURE 1 | Scheme of the plant material formation showing the populations, the crosses, and the testcrosses. CML 376 is the maize line used as recurrent parental. The X means a cross. BC represents the backcross between the F1s and the CML 376. BC1F1 is the population resulted from the backcross, BC1S1 is the result of BC1F1 self-pollination, likewise, BC1S2 is the population resulted from BC1S1 self-pollination. The ⊗ means a self-pollination. TC1 and TC2 are the two testcross trials carried as field experiments. IPs is Individual Plants of the BC1F1 and BC1S2 that were crossed with the tester(s). T1, T2, and T3 are the three tester genotypes. The yellow G means that the population was genotyped, and P means that the field trials were phenotyped. The number in the lower left corner of the boxes is the number of genotypes, or populations in the case of Landraces and F1. The \"Selection\" on a dashed line means that we used the results of TC1 to select the superior BC1S1 genotypes, this process selected the 174 superior genotypes among the 1326 existing in BC1S1, the selected genotypes formed the BC1S2.while ASI remains a trait of importance in developing drought tolerant maize, a plant's response to drought stress is based on physiological and morphological modifications that involve a complex number of genes and molecular pathways (Rengel et al., 2012;Min et al., 2016). By better comprehension, the genetics underlying drought tolerance, and by accessing more of the genetic diversity available for this trait, breeding programs working on this trait will improve selection precision and the speed of breeding cycles.In order to understand both the genetic diversity of a specie and the complex genetic factors controlling response to abiotic stress, molecular markers are an important tool for geneticists and breeders (Xu et al., 2017). Methodologies such as genome-wide association studies (GWAS) seek to relate molecular markers to observed phenotypes and thus discover the chromosomal regions associated with the trait of interest. In maize, this procedure has been used for many different traits, both abiotic and biotic (Xiao et al., 2017). In others important cultivated plants, GWAS has been used in studies on millet (Jaiswal et al., 2019), common beans (Fritsche-Neto et al., 2019), rice (Huang et al., 2010), soybeans (Hwang et al., 2014). In a review on the use of GWAS in maize, Xiao et al. (2017) showed that most studies use a panel of inbred lines with per se phenotypic data or, seldomly, testcross hybrids. For crops such as maize where hybrids are used to exploit heterosis, the testcross is an important strategy in research for the development of improved hybrids, as it represents the real genotypic constitution of the crop grown by farmers. Additionally, early generation testing (EGT) of semi-inbred lines as testcrosses is a common strategy used in maize breeding programs, being a cross between a tester inbred or F 1 with a S 2 or S 3 experimental line. The aim is to take advantage of early selection for yield potential, avoiding future testing costs on unpromising families (Bernardo, 2010). EGT takes advantage of the fact that yield potential can be identified early in the inbreeding process and shortens the time to line release because the inbreeding and testing process can be done in tandem instead of sequentially. Early testcross populations to date have not been commonly used in GWAS studies. Therefore, this study aims to identify genomic regions related to drought tolerance in two sequential inbreeding generations of early testcrosses obtained between landrace-derived semi-inbred lines and elite testers. The main reason to use landraces is to bring novel positive alleles to a breeding population, we intend to do that combining some breeding, genetics, and analytics techniques, as back-cross, early-testcross, GWAS, selection index and mixed models.Before the evaluations discussed in this study, 326 landraces of subtropical adaptation were evaluated in per se drought trials over 2 years (data not shown, see https://seedsofdiscovery. org/catalogue/maize-drought-tolerant-landraces/ for more details). Subtropical adapted maize landraces are from areas between 800 and 1800 m above sea level (Edmeades et al., 2017). The 326 were selected from the CIMMYT International Germplasm Bank and the Mexican National Maize Collection collected and managed by Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agricolas y Pecuarias (INIFAP) using an aridity index described in Ruiz Corral et al. (2013). The rank of allele frequency of superior alleles considering the 10 significant SNPs (General) and the 4 SNPs with superior allele originated from landraces (Landrace origin), 1 is the first position, i.e., with the highest frequency and 20 the last, with the lowest. Highlighted the top five landraces for each rank of superior alleles frequency.They originated from dryland production areas, with 290 (89%) coming from Mexico and the rest from Argentina and Chile. At least 24 different maize races were represented in the selected set of accessions, however, 17% of them were not racially classified. Although latitude also plays an important role in adaptation, we did not consider latitude in the selection of the landraces as drought evaluations in Mexico are conducted during the winter dry season and much of the photoperiod sensitivity that could potentially be provoked by a change in latitude is negated. Based on the results of the per se evaluations, the 20 highest performing accessions were used to develop semi-inbred lines by the SeeD maize breeding project in the Genetic Resources Program of CIMMYT.In deriving inbred lines from maize landraces, crossing to an elite line is a common practice to avoid severe inbreeding depression and to add favorable alleles for important agronomic traits (Tarter et al., 2004;Meseka et al., 2015;Navarro et al., 2017). In this case, the 20 selected landraces were crossed with the elite CIMMYT line CML376 to generate 20 segregating F1 populations (Figure 1). The F1 populations were then crossed again to CML376 (backcross) and ears were harvested and shelled individually creating 1480 BC1F1 lines with an average of 74 lines per landrace population and each line averaging 25% landrace genome. In the following cycle, individual plants were selfed to produce BC1S1 lines and at the same time the plant was crossed to the F1 tester CML264/CML311 (hybrid produced by crossing CML264 and CML311) to produce testcross seed for yield trial evaluations (TC1) in the winter of 2015-2016. This tester was selected because it is a commonly used subtropical tester in Mexico and has the advantage of producing large quantities of testcross seed. Based on their TC1 yield performance under drought and well-watered conditions, 68 entries were selected for further testing (Table 1). The BC1S1 lines had been selfed in a nursery while the yield trials were conducted but only 64 of them produced harvestable BC1S2 ears. Two to three ears per BC1S1 line were harvested for a total of 174 BC1S2 ears. In the summer, these 174 BC1S2 lines were crossed to 3 testers for TC2 trials in The accuracy (Acc%), coefficients of genetic (CVg), and error (CVe) variation and heritability are also presented. ns, not significant; + p < 0.2; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.the winter of 2016-2017. The testers used were the TC1 tester, CML264/CML311, plus CML373 and CL501801.From the 1480 BC1F1 individual plants selfed and crossed to the tester CML264/CML311, 1326 produced sufficient seed quantities of both selfed seed and testcross seed. Six check hybrids were added, so the TC1 experiment had a total of 1332 entries. The TC1 was carried out at three locations: the INIFAP experiment station at Santiago del Ixcuintla (SI) -Nayarit State, the CIMMYT experiment station at Tlaltizapán (TL) -Morelos State and the INIFAP station at Los Mochis (LM) -Sinaloa State. In each location there were two treatments, drought (DR) and well-watered (WW). A sparse phenotyping arrangement of genotypes in location was used due to restrictions on field space and seed amount, but the landraces ancestry was balanced in each location. That means, we did not test the entire set of 1332 genotypes in all locations, using so an unbalanced distribution of genotypes across location. The distribution of the testcross entries was: 266 tested only in TL (∼13 progenies of each 20 landraces), 266 tested only in LM (∼13 of each 20 landraces), 265 tested in TL and LM (∼13 of each 20 landraces), 529 tested in the 3 locations (∼26 of each 20 landraces). Thus, the TC1 experiment consisted of 6 combinations of location and treatment (3 locations and 2 irrigation treatments). The experiment was designed in a way that each location contains three plots of the tested germplasm in that specific location, one plot in irrigated condition and two plots in drought condition. The irrigated (WW) treatments were planted in a modified augmented design with systematically distributed spatial check plots arranged in a chess knight move, the field implementation of this design were based mainly on the studies of Cullis et al. (1998); Muller et al. (2010), and Clarke and Stefanova (2011). The percentage of checks ranged from 11.7% in LM, 13.7% in TL, and 20.4% in SI. The DR treatments were conducted in a randomized complete block design with two replicates, except in Santiago del Ixcuintla, where even the DR experiment was conducted as the WW experiments. The checks included in the trial were classified into three different categories: (i) the genetic check consisting of the recurrent parent crossed to the tester, CML264/CML311//CML376; (ii) the comparative checks consisting of the commercially sold hybrid CML264/CML311//CL106951 and the CIMMYT standard check for drought evaluations, LPSC7-F64/CML550; (iii) and finally, the spatial checks, hybrids CEBU, P3055W, and P4082W. The TC1 trials were planted on January 14, 20, and 30 of 2016 at TL, SI, and LM, respectively. Harvest dates for the trial, in the same order, were June 4, 10, and 27. Winter planting dates were chosen because this is the dry season for much of Mexico, especially the western half of the country. Using drip irrigation in all the sites, we were able manage the amount of water delivered to each treatment. In all locations we used a tworow plot, in TL and SI were 4.5 m long with 0.75 m between the rows, and in LM, 4 m rows spaced by 1 m. The agronomic treatments (fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides) were applied following common local practices. The irrigation in the drought treatments was interrupted 3 weeks before the expected anthesis date at each location, and after flowering terminated one more irrigation was done to ensure the grain filling. The plots were harvested by hand, the ears threshed by machine, the weight and moisture grain of each plot were taken, and the plot grain production was adjusted to 13% of grain moisture and converted to 1000 kg per hectare (Mg.ha −1 ), considering the differences in plots size at each site.The TC2 trials followed a similar protocol. The set of 174 BC1S2 lines selected using the TC1 data were tested in 18 location × treatment × tester combinations (3 locations, 2 irrigation treatments, and 3 testers. The 3 locations were TL, LM, and San Juan de Abajo (PV) -Nayarit State, replacing the SI TC1 location, the 2 irrigation treatments were WW and DR, and the 3 testers were the hybrid CML264/CML311 and the lines CML373 and CL501801. All TC2 trials used two-rows plot of 4 m length, with 0.75 m between rows, harvest was accomplished using a Wintersteiger Classic plot combine at TL and PV location, and a New Holland TR 88 2-plot combine at LM, both combines provide measures of the grain weight and grain moisture of each plot. The agronomic treatments and water supply were managed the same as for the TC1 trials.We used DArTseq technology (Sansaloni et al., 2011), developed by Diversity Array Technology company, 1 for genotyping all the 1326 BC1S1 and 174 BC1S2 lines and the recurrent parent CML376. The genotyping was carried out in the Genetic Analysis Service for Agriculture (Spanish acronym, SAGA) facility at CIMMYT, Mexico. A bulk of 10 seeds of each BC1S1 and BC1S2 line was sampled. A genomic representation was generated by digesting nuclear DNA with a combination of two restriction enzymes, PstI (CTGCAG) and NspI (CATG), and ligating individual barcodes adapters to identify the origin of each fragment after a samples pooling. Successfully amplified fragments were sequenced using the sequencer Illumina HiSeq2500 (Illumina Inc., San Diego, CA). Then, the SNP calling for those fragments was produced by the DArTsoft analytical pipeline (DArTsoft; DArT P/L, Australia 2 ) where the markers were identify de novo by comparing the sequences of fragments present in genomic libraries of samples previously processed, this process identifies and calls SNP markers against an existing library and it is totally independently of any reference genome. After this process, a set of filtering parameters were then applied to select highquality markers for this study. To obtain markers positions on the chromosomes, the DNA fragment sequences were BLASTed against the Zea mays L. reference genome (B73 RefGen_v4).2 https://www.diversityarrays.com/ This procedure resulted in a genomic profile of 47,047 SNPs. Of this total, the markers of uncertain mapping or nonnuclear were still discarded, resulting in a profile of 32,592 SNPs with excellent quality that were positioned on the maize reference genome. The 32,592 SNPs were named, for this study, by their order in the genome from M1 (the first mark in chromosome number 1) to M32592 (the last marker in chromosome number 10). A final quality control procedure was applied, and markers with minor allele frequency (MAF) <5% were excluded and a call rate ≥95% used. Thus, markers with more than 5% of missing data were excluded. The imputation of missing data was performed by the Wright method carried out using the R package snpReady (Granato and Fritsche-Neto, 2018) using the function raw.data, and resulted in a final total of 5,695 SNPs (Supplementary Table 1). The genome coverage was obtained by calculating the SNP density within a 100 Mb window, that is, the number of SNPs in each 100 Mb DNA segment for all the chromosomes, for this was used the R package rMVP (Yin et al., 2020).For analysis of the phenotypic data, a two-stage process was performed. In the first stage, adjusted yield means of genotypes were obtained by location, and then in the second stage a mixed model was fit jointly considering residual weights estimated in the first stage. The spatial corrections were applied in the first stage, using a first-order autoregressive process (AR1 AR1) to model the covariance structure of error. The spatial modeling approach was chosen due to some factors as the high number of genotypes tested, the augmented design with repeated check plots applied and the large size of the field trial.The WW treatments were designed in a complete spatial model, with no replicates of the test genotypes, and the replicated checks were systematically distributed in the field, so these trials were fitted with the following model in the first stage:where y is the vector of phenotypic data, arranged by Row x Column (plot field position), X is the design matrix of fixed effects; τ is the vector genotypes effects (and tester in the case of TC2 trials), and eventual spatial factors row and columns (as explained below); and e vector of errors e ∼ N 0, Rσ 2 ; R is the covariance matrix of e. The spatial analysis does a decomposition of the e into a vector ζ of spatial correlated effects, and a vector η of spatially independent residuals, in this spatial approach of modeling the residual we assume the error variance as:The var [η] is assumed to be independent (σ 2 I n ), and the var [ζ] is the correlated spatial error, and we assume a firstorder autoregressive, (AR1 AR1) (Gilmour et al., 1997), so the error variance is the sum of them, and we can show it as (Dutkowski et al., 2002):where AR1(ρ col ) and AR1(ρ row ) are the first-order autoregressive correlation matrices for columns and rows. The components σ 2 ζ and σ 2 η are the spatial residual variance and the non-spatial residual variance, respectively, ⊗ is the Kronecker product. The (ρ col ) and (ρ row ) are the autocorrelation parameter for field columns and field rows:The Kronecker product of them results in the symmetric correlation matrix (size n by n, where n is the number of plots) that captures the correlation between each pair of plots.Where cor 1,2 is the correlation between the plot 1 and plot 2, and η is the number of plots. Therefore, as said before, the final error variance structure for the first stage models is the sum of the correlated spatial error and the spatial independent error:The DR treatments follow the same logic for the error variance structure. The difference between the analysis of WW treatments and DR treatments is in the fixed section of the model, in the drought management there were replicates, so the factor replicate was added as fixed effects. Therefore, the model is similar, but X also contains the block design, and the vector τ also contains the fixed effects of replicates.This analysis provides a variogram plot of the residuals that shows in a geographic form any spatial pattern that may be a result of systematic variation due to the row and columns effects. Depending on the variogram of each trial, the row and column may be included as a fixed effect factor (Burgueño et al., 2000). The Wald test was used to verify the significance of adding this fixed effect in the model. And when significant they were retained in the model.Once all the individual trials were fitted to its specific model, we obtained the genotypes adjusted means (BLUE) of each location and irrigation treatment irrigation treatment.With the adjusted mean of each genotype in each combination of location and irrigation treatment irrigation treatment, we applied the Harmonic Mean of Relative Performance Index (HMRP) as a measure of genotype drought tolerance in each location. This index, proposed by Resende (2004), allows selection of genotypes that had good performance in both contrasting environments, in our case, in the drought and well-watered fields. The following equation is used to calculate the HMRP index:where HMRP ij is the harmonic mean relative performance of genotype i in site j; GYww ij is the BLUE of grain yield under well-irrigation treatment of genotype i in the site j; GYdr ij is the BLUE mean of grain yield in the drought condition of genotype i in site j; ȳww j and ȳdr j are the overall BLUE means of the well-watered and drought condition experiments, respectively, in site j.For the joint analysis (second stage), we used a linear mixed model to compute the best linear unbiased predictions (BLUPs) of the HMRP, grain yield in drought (GYDR) and well-watered (GYWW) conditions for each genotype fitting the following model:where y is the vector of BLUEs obtained in the first stage; β is the vector of fixed effects of site, g is the vector of the genotypic values of the lines, i is the vector of the random effects of the interaction sites by genotype, e is the random errors vector. X, Z, and W are the design matrix for β, g, and i. The weighting method was based on squared standard errors from stage one BLUES. As the weight of HMRP, we used the mean of squared standard errors of the well-watered and drought experiments, as the index use both adjusted means (WW and DR BLUES) as its components. The significance of the fixed effect of location was estimated using Wald statistic, and for the random effects, genotypes, and genotypes x location interaction, by Likelihood Ratio Test (LRT). The broad-sense heritability, for the joint analysis, was estimated as:where σ 2 g is the genotypic variance, σ 2 ge is the variance due to genotype by site interaction, σ 2 e is the residual variance, l is the number of sites, 3, in this study and r is the number of replicates. All the phenotypic analyses were performed using the ASReml-R v.3 package (Butler, 2009) in R, version 3.5.3 (R Core Team, 2019). In the Supplementary Material you can find R codes and some comments on how these analyses were carried out.Genome-wide association analysis based on Mixed Linear Model (MLM) was performed using the Fixed and Random Model Circulating Probability Unification in the R package FARMCPU (Liu et al., 2016) for three traits: grain yield in drought and well-watered conditions and the drought tolerance index (HMRP). Principal Component Analysis was done using genomic information to assess population structure. The genome-wide association model (MLM equation) used was:where g is the vector of adjusted phenotypic observation (BLUPs of HMRP obtained in the joint analysis presented above, or GYDR and GYWW); β is the vector of the fixed effects of intercept, single markers, and the three first principal components used for population structure control; u is the vector of random additive effects; e is the vector of random residual; the X is the design matrix of fixed effects; Z is the genotype incidence matrix driven by VanRaden's genomic relationship matrix (GRM) (VanRaden, 2008), so u∼N(0,G), where G is the VanRaden's GRM. A Multiple-test threshold adjustment was performed by a permutation method to determine the SNP significance level. This procedure was carried out in FARMCPU using the FarmCPU.P.Threshold function. The same GWAS process was done with the BC1S1 and BC1S2 populations, using the phenotypic data from TC1 and TC2, respectively.The linkage disequilibrium for the BC1S1 data was measured by the r 2 parameter (square of the correlation coefficient between two loci), using Synbreed R package (Wimmer et al., 2012). The LD decay pattern for each chromosome was evaluated by nonlinear regression fitting expectation of r 2 of each pair of markers with the distance between them to generate a curve of LD decay (Hill and Weir, 1988;Remington et al., 2001).Through the MaizeGDB (Portwood et al., 2019) and National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI 3 ) databases, a search into maize reference genome (B73 RefGen_v4) was carried out to check the surroundings of GWAS-significant markers. This search was done inside a window of 200k base pairs (bp) TABLE 5 | Significant SNPs for drought-tolerance index and grain yield in drought and well-watered conditions, with the SNP position (chromosome and position), polymorphism (PM) of the SNP (Reference > Alternative), genotype of CML376 (CML) for the given SNP, minor frequency allele, effect of allele substitution, heritability, and r 2 for the GWAS of BC1S1 generation.   Peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerase CYP21The most described genes founded in each search and the protein type/family that these most described genes encode. * Finds described in the discussion and detailed in Table 8.centered on the markers, i.e., in a chromosome segment of 100k bp going up and downstream of the markers, we used this window size based on the LD decay obtained to our population and on the maize LD decay reported in the literature. Gene ontology is not thoroughly consistent across platforms, and MaizeGDB notation was chosen as primary. The functional annotation of the genes found inside those windows was analyzed and related to a drought tolerance process.The purpose of using landraces in a breeding program is to bring novel positive alleles to a breeding population. As the recurrent parent CML376 was also genotyped, it was possible to check if favorable alleles in our semi inbred experimental lines are derived from the CML376 or the landraces. The allele frequency of SNPs associated with the traits, and derived from the landraces, was calculated for the entire population, and stratified for each landrace family group. This allowed verifying if specific landrace is a potential donor for the allele of interest.On the other hand, regarding selection, it is also important to know the distribution of the superior allele across the landrace progenies in the breeding population, regardless of its origin, landraces or the elite recurrent parent line. The superior allele is the one that causes a positive variation in the trait of interest. Therefore, we also calculated, for the significant SNPs, the frequency of the alleles with positive effects for each landrace progeny.To evaluate the population in terms of favorable alleles content, the 20 families were ranked by the sum of the ranks of the superior allele frequency for each SNPs. Two rankings were made, one considering all significant SNPs, regardless of the origin of the superior allele, and the other considering only the markers where the superior allele is from landraces. Thus, with the former we assess which landraces could be more suitable for selection and with the latter, which landraces would be the best source of superior new alleles.Validation was performed by two approaches. In the first, we compared the results of GWAS over BC1S1 and BC1S2. In the where ŷ2 is the vector (size n) of estimated genetic values in generation BC1S2, X is the genomic matrix of BC1S2 individuals, with dimension of n by m, where, n is equal to 174, that is, all the genotypes of BC1S2 generation, and m is the significant SNPs found in the BC1S1 GWAS, and finally, α 1 is the vector of allele substitution value for each significant SNP. The prediction ability was measured by Pearson Product-Moment correlation r (ŷ2,y2) where y 2 is the vector of BLUPS of the genotypes in the TC2. This procedure was carried out to the tolerance index and grain yield in both irrigation treatments.Based on the variograms surface trends, specific spatial factors were chosen as fixed effects to better fit the model to each site/irrigation treatment (Table 2). In all the individual trials, the Wald test confirmed the significance of using the spatial factors.progenies and the genetic check (Tester × CML376) distributions of grain yield means (Supplementary Figure 1) and the drought tolerance index (Supplementary Figure 2) show that there are landrace progeny genotypes performing better than the genetic check, which is a desirable situation for selection. Significant differences among genotypes were detected for grain yield under well-watered conditions (Table 3). Under drought and for the index, genetic differences were detected only to a 0.2 p-value threshold, both with a p-value of 0.15 (data not shown).Overall, the heritabilities were low, considering the joint analysis for the drought-tolerance index, GY in drought (GYDR) and well-watered (GYWW) conditions, as expected for such complex traits (Table 3). The heritability of HRMP (0.06) and GYWW (0.04) were lower than for GYDR (0.17). The accuracy was similar for the three traits, with a higher value for GYDR (25.5%).The Harmonic Mean of the Relative Performance index measures drought tolerance. Its values are around 1.0, with higher values being more tolerant genotypes and lower values less tolerant. Regardless of site, the HMRP mean is always close to 1.0 because it is relative to the population in each site (Table 4). The genotypes with higher drought tolerance index values are also those that presented higher yield under both irrigation treatments (Figure 2). In BC1S1, the tolerance index to the location TL presents a higher variance than the other locations, and LM the lower. In contrast, in BC1S2 generation the LM presents a variance higher than TL and PV, and in general, the amplitude of the drought tolerance index was lower in BC1S2 than in BC1S1 (Supplementary Figure 3) what was expected as the genetic diversity was higher in the first generation, before applying selection.The use of principal components (PC) as covariates into the GWAS model was necessary as the population structure might result in a spurious marker-trait association. This necessity was confirmed by comparing the QQ-plots of the GWAS model with no PC as covariates and the QQ-plots of models containing it (QQ-plots not shown). The QQ-plots showed a better adjustment in the models that consider the correction for the first PCs. However, the sum of variance explained by the first three PCs was just 5.58%, distributed by 2.76, 1.44, and, 1.38%, evidence that the population was not very structured. Plotting the first two PCs no clear stratification in the population is noted Supplementary Figure 4), despite that the landraces families exist in the population. Only when considering the third PC is it possible to separate the group of landraces into SNLP166 and CHIH87 progenies. The lack of population structure gives one positive side to the analysis, since there is a lower risk of falsepositive due to a possible structure, which is reduced further with the use of PCs as a covariate in the model.The association results (p-values of the marker-trait association in a Manhattan plot and the quantile-quantile plots) are shown in Figure 3 for BC1S1 and in Figure 4 for BC1S2. The quantile-quantile plots (QQ-plot) is a plot of the negative log observed p-values against the distribution of expected p-values, i.e., under the null hypothesis, that there is no association between the SNP and the trait. This is a simple tool to check how well the chosen GWAS model absorbed the population structure (covariates in the model). The dots on the upper right section of the graph are the SNPs with some association with HMRP. We expected that most markers would not be associated with the trait. Looking at the QQ-plot, most markers have a p-value observed close to the expected null hypothesis, which can be verified by the line-shaped markers' p-values that are aligned to the red line (observed equals the expected).Regarding the BC1S1 results, the thresholds calculated from the permutation (8.78 × 10 −6 for HMRP, 1.13 × 10 −5 for GY in DR, and 1.28 × 10 −5 in WW) were very close to the Bonferroni correction (0.05/N = 9.01 × 10 −6 ) for the three GWAS procedures, considering the logarithmic transformation −log 10 . Two markers associated with HRMP were found (Figure 3A), one on chromosome 1 (M2216) and another on chromosome 4 (M13512). For drought treatment, four associated markers were found (Figure 3B), two on chromosome 1 (M232 and M3547), one on chromosome 3 (M11032), and the last on chromosome 8 (M26036). For the well-watered treatment, four markers were significant (Figure 3C), on chromosomes 1 (M3299), 2 (M7826), and a two on chromosome 7 (M21270 and M22252). The minor allele frequency of these 10 SNPs ranged from 5.20% (M26036) to 31.24% (M7826). The significant SNPs together explain just 0.04% of the drought tolerance index phenotypic variation (r 2 ), and 0.07 and 0.08% of the grain yield phenotypic variation under drought and well-watered treatments (Table 5).The SNP M7826, associated with GYWW, was the only marker (among the ten) that did not have any individual in one of the homozygous classes (Figure 5). The alternative homozygous at M13512 showed a slight increase in the HMRP. In general, the heterozygous class tended to be between the homozygous classes, following a trend of additive substitution effect, except to the SNPs M3547 and M3299, where the heterozygous class had a higher grain yield (in DR and WW, respectively) than the homozygous classes. The SNPs M26036 and M11032, associated with GYDR, suggest a higher GY when homozygous for the alternative allele. Conversely, the SNPs M232 and M3547 showed lower yield when homozygous for the alternative allele. When homozygous for the alternative allele, the SNP M21270 is less productive in well-watered treatments. In contrast, the SNP M22252 shows an opposite direction, higher yields when homozygous to the alternative.The significant markers found using in this research were not stable across traits in the first generation (BC1S1). The two SNPs associated with the drought tolerance index were not associated with grain yield. Likewise, none of the SNPs associated with grain yield were in both irrigation treatments. Furthermore, none of the 10 SNPs found by GWAS in BC1S1-TC1 (Table 5) were significant in the BC1S2-TC2 GWAS (Table 6 and Figure 4). The BC1S2-TC2 GWAS had assigned 3 SNPs for drought tolerance index and 3 for grain yield under drought treatments and 5 for grain yield in well-watered treatments. In the second generation, one SNP was stable across the traits. The SNP M25973 was associated with the drought tolerance index and with the grain yield in both irrigation treatments, although it was not detected in the first generation.The correlation between the predicted values of the BC1S2 estimates based on the effects of allelic substitution of significant SNPs obtained from BC1S1 GWAS, and the observed BLUPs was -0.11 for the drought tolerance index, -0.20 for grain yield under drought treatments and -0.23 under well-watered.Putative genes for drought tolerance were identified by searching the B73 genome in the regions around the ten significant SNPs identified in the analysis (Table 7). The search was performed inside a 100k bp window up and down-stream of the markers. The linkage disequilibrium (LD) decay estimative from the BC1S1 data can be observed by plotting the r 2 against the distance of base pairs (Figure 6), a rapid decay occurs while increasing the chromosome distance between two loci for all the chromosomes. The overall LD decay extent was in a range of 50-300k bp and just for the chromosome number 3 the r 2 does not decrease to less than 0.13 within 100k bp. A more abrupt decrease of the LD was observed in chromosome 8 and, in contrast, a smoother decay was observed in chromosome 3. All the other chromosomes presented a similar decay pattern.The SNP M2216 is 60k bp upstream from a predicted gene that is still not characterized. M13512 is in a region of chromosome 4 that has nine putative protein coding sequences. The closest gene to M232 SNP is located 85k bp upstream from it, and other three putative genes are less than 60k bp away. M3547 SNP is in an intron of a putative gene and there are five more probable genes inside its search window. M11032 is also in an intron of an uncharacterized putative gene, with eight more putative genes around it. The SNP M26036 is in a region with 14 possible genes. M3299 is in an exon of an uncharacterized predicted gene and with two more in its search window. M7826 is 1.5k bp only from a putative gene, and in less than 50k bp there are seven more predicted genes. The SNP M21270 is on a chromosome region with 20 putative genes. Moreover, in the M22252 window, we could find six predicted genes. Clearly, a window of 100k bp can host a large number of genes, and possibly many more than those listed here, as annotation and gene discovery is a work in process.Regarding the allele origin, the frequency of landrace alleles in the BC1S1 lines ranges from 5 to 31%. The SNPs M3547 and M7826 present the highest frequencies for the landrace allele among the ten significant SNPs (Supplementary Figure 5). The favorable allele for four SNPs (M3547, M11032, M26036, and M3299) came from the landraces. Populations originating from the NVOL46, COAH20, COAH21, CHIH87, and COAH78 landraces are those with a higher frequency of the superior allele for these 4 SNPs (Landrace origin rank on Table 1 and Supplementary Figure 5). Regardless of the origin of the superior allele, the five landrace populations that present a higher frequency of superior allele were those obtained from SNLP17, NVOL46, COAH78 CHIH85, and COAH20 (general rank on Table 1 and Supplementary Figure 6). This suggests that these populations have a higher frequency of favorable alleles, being a good source for drought tolerance.All the field trials presented strong spatial (row and columns) trends. Therefore, the spatial modeling used in the first stage analysis was crucial to avoid, or minimize, their effects on the means, mainly in the WW treatments, where augmented design was carried out. Thus, we expected lower heritabilities in these trials (WW) than in the DR treatments, even though drought-stressed trials usually are more affected by field spatial trends (Badu-Apraku et al., 2004), resulting in lower heritability for yield. That was one of the reasons we chose to use two repetitions in the DR treatments, to be able to estimate better the residual variance and to avoid the possible complete loss of genotypes, since under stress the number of missing plots is often higher, which would greatly affect the genetic estimates in case there is only one plot of each genotype. Another reason that would explain the greater heritability in drought than in the irrigated condition may be the fact that a diverse population when tested in a stressful environment may have its individuals better discriminated than if tested in a stress-free environment, that is, genetic diversity may be more evident in the phenotypic response when in a stressful environment, which may be reflected in heritability.As the TC1 used a single tester, the tester by genotype interaction could not be separated from the estimated genotypic value (BLUEs and BLUPs). Thus, the first generation (BC1S1) data are biased by this interaction, which is acceptable since it is not feasible to perform a testcross trial with more than 1,000 genotypes crossed to a group of testers. In the second testing year this was minimized, as with only 174 BC1S2 lines, testcrossing with three testers was possible.Similar values are found when comparing the grain yield means and the drought tolerance index for the BC1 progeny testcrosses and the genetic checks (Tester crossed with CML376). However, the distribution suggests a superior performance for the BC1 progenies for grain yield (Supplementary Figure 1), and for the drought tolerance index (Supplementary Figure 2). It can be inferred that there are novel alleles originating from the landrace donor parent that contribute to drought tolerance and/or a positive interaction between genes from the different sources, landraces or CML.The usage of HMRP and other index based on harmonic mean is recognized for stress tolerance studies (Jafari et al., 2009;de Mendonça et al., 2017;Lyra et al., 2017). The Harmonic Mean Relative Performance was confirmed as a simple and efficient index that allows the selection of lines that perform well in both the DR and WW irrigation treatments, achieving the objective of these \"stressed x not stressed\" trials (Figure 2). Using the HMRP index, the breeder can select the highest performing lines in both treatments or those that perform very well in one and close to the average in the another. Additionally, the breeder can avoid selecting those that underperform in at least one of the treatments. Sites and line by site interaction effects were significant regarding the index (Table 3). Therefore, even if the means across the sites are similar, differential expression of the drought tolerance was identified, and selection based on results by location should be avoided.We believe that the final number of SNPs (5,695) was relatively low considering the start point of 47,074 markers comparing with others maize GWAS published (Xiao et al., 2017), mainly because the strict quality control filters in terms of missing data, however, the markers were widely distributed across the genome, covering all chromosome arms without any large uncovered segment and the low density areas are usually around the centromere region (Figure 7). This good genome coverage is important for this kind of study and considering the good quality of the final set of 5,695 SNPs due the strict quality control process, the relative low number is not a limitation. This number of markers may be due to the genetic mating design of the population. Crossing and backcrossing to a homozygous line (CML376) could dilute allele frequency. It could also be a reason for the restricted population structure (estimated by the PCA), even though the lines originated from 20 different landrace parents, and for the low minor allele frequency (MAF) of the SNPs associated to the traits (Table 5). Another important detail that should be considered is that the germplasm of the reference genome used to obtain markers positions (B73 RefGen_v4) has a temperate origin and certainly presents incongruities with landrace derived materials, however, it is the best reference genome available at that moment. It is important to remember that maize landraces, due to heavy transposon activity and other factors, often contain large amounts of insertions, deletions, and reorganized chromosomes. Perhaps, if a closer genome had been used to position the markers, we may have an even better coverage, however, because our population derived from Landraces crosses would be difficult to get any closer reference genome. The drastic reduction on the final set of markers, from 32,592 to 5,695, occurred during the quality control process; the call rate used was high (95%) to ensure a high-quality set of markers over a large set with many imputations.Many researchers use correlated traits to study drought tolerance such as seedling survival rate under drought (Mao et al., 2015), ear length and kernel number per row (Lu et al., 2006), and one of the most used, Anthesis-Silk Interval (ASI) (Yu, 1994;Bolaños and Edmeades, 1996;Vargas et al., 2006;Wang and Qin, 2017). This is due to the low heritability of grain yield compared with the correlated traits. Xue et al. (2013) using a diversity panel of CIMMYT lines and studying nine traits related to drought tolerance found 42 SNPs associated with those traits, any one of the SNPs listed by the authors was detected by our study as significant for the HRMP index. Setter et al. (2011) in an association mapping study of abscisic acid levels during drought stress in maize found 8 polymorphisms related with drought tolerance. One of those polymorphisms was used for the annotation of the maize gene Zm00001d034385, a validated gene associated with drought tolerance. It is mapped 24M bp from the M3547 SNP in the present study that was associated with GYDR. Although it is on the same chromosome arm (chromosome 1, long arm), it is a considerable long distance away, given a LD decay of ∼100k bp.The LD decay reported in maize varies considerably among populations (Flint-Garcia et al., 2003). In landraces or a highly diverse panel, the LD decay is reported to be smaller than in elite inbred lines, by a magnitude of 1k bp for landraces and ∼500k bp for elite inbred lines (Yan et al., 2009). Additionally, the average LD decay distance in tropical germplasm (∼10k bp) is shorter than in temperate germplasm (∼100k bp) (Lu et al., 2011). The populations used in this study were at the midpoint as the initial subtropical landraces were the donor parent in a backcross where an elite inbred line was the recurrent parent.We focused our search for genes in a window of 100k bp around the 10 trait-associated SNPs. The LD extent for our population (50-300k bp) is in accordance with those observed in the literature. This is the expectation for material that are neither landrace nor elite inbred line, since the former normally has a shorter LD decay than evidenced in our experimental lines and the latter, a larger LD decay (Remington et al., 2001;Flint-Garcia et al., 2003). Except for two cases, our genome search found putative genes that are not completely described. These two cases are SNP M232 that is associated with GYDR and is  Chen et al., 2012;Xu et al., 2015;Min et al., 2016 M11032 80.7k bp Zm00001d043929 Fasciclin-like arabinogalactan Johnson et al., 2003;Faik et al., 2006;Finkelstein, 2013;Zang et al., 2015;Wang et al., 2016;Cagnola et al., 2018 The distances between the mark and the putative gene in pair of bases, the putative gene name, the protein encoded type/family and references that studied these proteins with drought stress in plants. located 85k bp close to the gene; and Zm00001d027539 that belongs to the glutathione S-transferase (GST) gene family (GST, EC 2.5. 1.18). This second gene family plays an important role in plant response to environmental conditions (McGonigle et al., 2002) plus some abiotic stresses such as herbicide (Cataneo et al., 2003), heat (Cetinkaya et al., 2014), and drought (Xu et al., 2015;Min et al., 2016). In Arabidopsis, plants with mutated GST gene were more tolerant to drought stress than wild-type plants (Chen et al., 2012). Additionally, there is the predicted gene Zm00001d043929 associated with GYDR in the present study and mapped to ∼80k bp upstream from the M11032 SNP. This gene encodes a protein with a fasciclin-like domain (FAS1), and this domain is found in Fasciclin-like arabinogalactan (FLAs) proteins that are involved in cell adhesion. Also, some FLAs have their expression regulated by the phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) (Johnson et al., 2003). Both FLAs and ABA play an important role in plant response to stress (Faik et al., 2006;Finkelstein, 2013;Zang et al., 2015). Wang et al. (2016) points out that the participation of FLAs in enhancing cell wall synthesis in response to drought stress, which could minimize water loss and cell dehydration. Reduction of some FLA gene expressions is also associated with kernel abortion in maize (Cagnola et al., 2018) leading to a reduction in kernel number and thus lowering yield.These two findings (Table 8) are promising for further maize breeding studies. In our experimental lines, we detected markers within ∼80k bp of these genes. Thus, fine-mapping and allele variant studies in these specific loci could help to elucidate their role and could be included in a genomic selection set. These two markers (M232 and M11032) could be used in our experimental lines to drive the selection in the next generations and be a basis for further investigations. This is especially so for the M11032 SNP, where the alternative allele originates from the landrace (Figure 5) is the superior one, and the homozygous state for this allele had a slightly higher grain yield in drought treatments. The landraces ARZM12193, CHIH338, CHIH87, COAH19 are not always good sources for the superior allele, since the frequency of M11032 is null in these populations.There were three more significant SNPs (M3547, M26036, and M3299) where the superior allele is from the landraces, which demonstrates new diversity for drought tolerance alleles in the experimental lines. In this context, the landraces NVOL46, COAH20, COAH21, CHIH87, and COAH78 would be the main sources for exploring this diversity since they have a higher frequency of these favorable alleles.For the BC1S1 testcrosses, the lack of significant SNP correlation among the irrigation treatments may be a sign of differential expression of genes under contrasting water environments. For example, Cagnola et al. (2018) demonstrated that drought stress could induce a reduction in FLA gene expressions, which may cause kernel abortion in maize resulting in reduced grain yield. As discussed above, there is a putative gene inside the SNP M11032 window that belongs to this gene family.Likewise, there was no correlation of significant SNPs between the BC1S1 and BC1S2 generations. This is to be expected since selection was made in BC1S1 to generate the BC1S2 we induced a non-random allele frequency change between the generations that can affect the results as the new generation is diverging from the first (Henshall, 2013). Thus, in our study, the use of the BC1S2 generation to validate the GWAS results of BC1S1 generation was not effective.Additionally, the use of allelic substitution effects estimated using the BC1S1 data to predict the phenotype of BC1S2 generation as a validation method was not successful. The correlations between the predicted values and the observed BLUPs were low and negative to the three cases (-0.11 for the drought tolerance index, -0.20 for GYDR treatments and -0.23 for GYWW). The allele frequency also interferes with the average effect of the allele. Therefore, the selection and its incumbent frequency allele changes, also results in allelic effect deviations estimated in BC1S1, which could not be constant through generations of selection. Moreover, the heritabilities were low in BC1S1 (0.04-0.17), and the significant SNPs explain less than 0.1% of phenotypic variation, that is indicative of the complexity of quantitative traits as drought tolerance and grain yield, that reduces the efficiency of using a few SNPs for prediction, even if they are significant. Finally, there is the effect of the tester on the BC1S1 phenotypic data since the interaction tester by landrace progenies could not be estimated in this case. Thus, the allelic substitution effect is biased for this specific testcross and to use it to predict the genotypic values of a second testcross involving another tester may be unfeasible.Early testcross is a strategy to take advantage of early selection for yield and other traits that avoids excessive resource spending on unpromising families, and it can also be applied in a prebreeding program. However, as Bernardo (2010) concludes, the low heritability limits its effectiveness. The GWAS in early generations achieved promising results and was demonstrated to be a useful tool for identifying new genetic variants in our landrace population. Nevertheless, a practical and effective method to validate a GWAS in this situation still needs to be developed.The frequency of allele from landrace over the entire population are the same values of the MAF (Table 5), once the allele from landraces is, as expected, the allele in minor frequency. Landrace origin rank (Table 1 and Supplementary Figure 5) gives the idea of which landraces are the most promising source for positive variants, and it suggests that the landraces NVOL46, COAH20, COAH21, CHIH87, and COAH78 are those that could be used for further investigations regarding new variants, at the same time, the populations originated from them could be more explored by breeders to exploit this new variant superiority.The general rank (Table 1 and Supplementary Figure 6) gives the idea of which landrace populations are the promising to selection regards the combination with adapted elite genitor. This suggests that the SNLP17, NVOL46, COAH78 CHIH85, and COAH20 populations have a higher frequency of favorable alleles and/or their combination, being a good source for drought tolerance.The GWAS analysis was able to identify genomic regions associated with drought tolerance in early generation testcrosses, although they were not stable over generations or irrigation treatments. Two promising putative genes that encode proteins related with the physiological plant response to abiotic stress are located close to the significant SNPs found in this study. Some alleles from the landraces provide a slightly higher yield under drought treatments. These results indicate that the diversity delivered from landraces x elite inbred line backcrosses can play an important role for improving the maize tolerance to drought, and for trait introgression bringing new superior allelic diversity from landraces to breeding populations. As we expected for a complex trait such as drought tolerance, we did not find a unique marker with a large genetic effect, but a handful of regions that can be transferred to advanced and adapted breeding populations using landraces as origin of positive variants.","tokenCount":"9654"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"0976f51280a0a6660ce88acfaa3d573f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/3e691b7c-d7a7-4099-9a77-550b2487fe43/retrieve","id":"-2121532911"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"bc9f6968-c73e-4896-a847-c4edf77765fc","pagecount":"6","content":"CGIAR recognizes the profound role of the food system as both the source and main impact pathway of this crisis -and has mobilized itself to support policymakers, farmers and food system practitioners amongst others make an informed response to both the immediate crisis and transforming the food system as we \"build back better\".In response, CGIAR will 1.) change existing CGIAR Research Programs to support an immediate COVID-19 response; 2.) implement CGIAR Research Programs already highly relevant to COVID-19; 3.) re-orient CGIAR's longer-term research strategy to reflect the 'game-changing' scale of and 4.) strengthen our immediate and longer-term response capability.Before this current crisis the need for change was already clear. Most of the world's population eats too little, too much, or the wrong type or combination of food -at an unsustainable cost to the climate, the environment and human health.The food system is creating and multiplying risks. For example, a new zoonosis -a disease transmitted between animals and people -breaks out on an average of every four months. This is the predictable consequence of the ever-intensifying interactions among humans, animals and the natural world. Zoonotic diseases develop and intensify when human and wildlife interactions increase, often due to habitat loss hand-in-hand with intensified agriculture and food markets. COVID-19 is the latest materialization of this risk. As the pandemic now accelerates in less resilient social and economic contexts, the public health, social and economic impacts of COVID-19 -and measures to slow or stop its spread globally and locally -have undermined incomes and exposed large underlying inequalities. This is morphing into a food security and nutrition crisis, and a clear illustration of the huge costs of the 'externalities' of the food system.The way this crisis will unfold in the medium to longer term is uncertain, but one thing is clear, it presents a unique opportunity to reset the world's food system, to \"build back better\" -to finally implement what has been advocated for some time by CGIAR and many others: a sustainable food systems revolution -as urgent as the agricultural revolution that launched CGIAR, yet exponentially more complex. This was articulated in CGIAR's most recent System Business Plan -whose transformation elements remain valid although with more emphasis needed in the One Health agenda to reduce the risk of a repeat pandemic.Our research response to COVID-19 is addressing four thematic areas to maximize the relevance and utility of support to policymakers and practitioners.¡ Food systems: Improve functioning of the full food supply chain and its enabling environments to secure jobs and livelihoods, and to ensure access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food for all. ¡ One Health: Manage the human, animal and environmental health interface to improve prevention of, detection of, and response to emerging and endemic zoonoses. ¡ Inclusive public programs: For food security and nutrition -implement social protection, agricultural development and other inclusive programs to mitigate food and nutrition insecurity among vulnerable populations. ¡ Policies and investments: Enable more effective cross-sectoral policies and investments linking beneficial environment, economic, social and health outcomes for crisis response, economic recovery and improved future resilience.CGIAR's research response is anchored on three overlapping phases of the COVID-19 pandemic: ¡ Short-term crisis response: Provide immediate evidence and tools for decision-making to support food availability and access, health interventions and public programs, policies and investments at scale. ¡ Medium-term recovery: Support understanding of the impacts of crisis response and adapt policies and programs to reflect initial experiences and consequences for all groups in society. Recovery actions form the basis for addressing longer-term resilience issues. ¡ Long-term resilience: Generate evidence and tools to prevent and manage emerging disease threats and comparable food system shocks and build greater resilience into food, land and water systems. CGIAR must, and will, focus on COVID-19 in delivering its new mission statement, \"Ending hunger by 2030 -through science to transform food, land and water systems in a climate crisis\".As the world's largest global agricultural innovation network, CGIAR is playing a leading role in the global response to COVID-19 -on the immediate response, on the medium-term recover and on the essential long-term resilience-building needed to build back better. CGIAR is deploying its 8,000 scientists and staff in over 100 countries, depth of expertise, +3,000 partnerships and the world's genebanks.CGIAR is providing knowledge, evidence, technologies and methods to help key implementing and policy partners mitigate the pandemic's effects on agriculture and food security. Working closely with national stakeholders, CGIAR is identifying country-specific demands for COVID-19 relevant research, carrying out multidisciplinary research in response to this demand and supporting uptake of evidence-based policy and investment decisions to deliver impacts on the ground. This is set out in a new report entitled Responding to COVID-19. Four key elements underpin our response plan:Three-quarters of all flagships in the CGIAR Research Programs and Platforms adjusted their 2020 budgets to include activities to maximize relevance and utility for governments and other partners in relation to their COVID-19 response. At the same time, 100% of CGIAR research is already relevant to building back better food systems.Among activities to address the new challenges posed by COVID-19, CGIAR is:• Redeploying livestock data analytic capacity to support the development of a COVID-19 vaccine;• Providing online tracker tools on poverty effects and public policy responses to COVID-19's impacts on food systems; • Updating digital tools to include COVID-19 market information for small businesses; • Monitoring the effectiveness of nutrition programs during the pandemic.Two-thirds of the 2020 CGIAR Research Portfolio address two or more near-term COVID-19relevant themes (e.g. food production, trade and markets, human and animal health, pro-poor policies), while 100% of the portfolio aims to deliver on long-term resilience of food, land and water systems. Collectively, CGIAR is making available its latest research and analysis on COVID-19 to support informed decisions. Integrated support is being provided on-demand to governments seeking to improve their food system responses and social protection programs. Ongoing efforts draw on the four research pillars outlined above: food systems; One Health; inclusive public programs for food and nutritional security; and pro-poor policies and investments.• In a number of countries, including Ethiopia, CGIAR is using economic models to is assess the economic and food security impacts of COVID-19; • In Bangladesh, CGIAR is working with local partners to monitor supplies and prices of food, labor and inputs, and to advise on appropriate policies, with an emphasis on mitigating COVID-19 impacts on the most vulnerable members of society;• ILRI Nairobi laboratory temporarily re-purposed to process human COVID-19 tests for the Kenyan Ministry of Health.Re-orient CGIAR's longer-term research strategy to reflect the 'game-changing' scale of COVID-19CGIAR's new research strategy, covering our work up to 2030 and for approval this year, will fully reflect the scale and substance of COVID-19 in the context of CGIAR's new mission to transform food, land and water systems. This is likely to include placing sharper focus on building greater resilience into food, land and water systems; and more emphasis on the One Health agenda in the form of generating evidence and tools to prevent and respond both to emerging disease threats and to comparable shocks. The aim to 'build back better' -not return to business as usual following the COVID-19 crisis -is a priority for a united CGIAR in its efforts to transform food systems to meet global goals on food security, sustainable development and climate change.","tokenCount":"1215"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"04454d231b92de0d1bc352f91d3f76b4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/c1a1bd4d-5426-4205-ba4b-dbdf5d80d5b6/content","id":"-1648900688"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2b4b7981-fb5f-420b-ad78-08a0dd60c160","pagecount":"13","content":"A functional and granular spatial yield forecasting system is demonstrated.• Spatial-temporal variability of soil, weather, and management was considered.• Combination of crop modeling with statistical approach insured good performance.• Forecast captured the mean yield at the sub-regional level.• Forecast uncertainty decreased as the growing season progressed.Seasonal climate variability determines crop productivity in Ethiopia, where rainfed smallholder farming systems dominate in the agriculture production. The highly variable nature of the climate in the country, particularly rainfall and temperature changes, increased frequency, and magnitude of droughts (Korecha and Barnston, 2007;Tesfaye et al., 2015a) poses many challenges for farmers and agricultural communities. Under such conditions, farmers, agricultural experts, and policy makers are lacking the information on the likelihood of achieving the optimal crop production level and making decisions. In such circumstances, reliable and timely issued crop yield forecast can play a vital role for pre-season and in-season planning of crop production. Therefore, forecasts must have a reasonable lead-time and accuracy, which is required for operational preparation and then implementation of suitable strategies (Troccoli,et al., 2008).Nowadays, state-of-the-art seasonal climate forecasts are providing relatively accurate, location and time specific products and can be linked to various systems, including process-oriented crop simulation models (Cabrera et al., 2009;Jones et al., 2000;Basso and Liu, 2019). Liu and Basso (2020) developed a new method to forecast maize yield across smallholder farmers' fields by integrating field-based survey with a crop simulation model. The yield forecasting algorithm used historical weather to select years in which temperature and precipitation matched the reported in-season temperature and precipitation characteristics. Years were then categorized as colder, normal, and hotter than normal. They were also grouped into drier than normal, normal, and wetter than normal categories. The algorithm then selected weather series where the temperature and precipitation categories matched with the reported inseason weather characteristics to conduct simulations. The method has shown to provide acceptable forecasts 14-77 days prior to maize crop harvest across the three districts in Tanzania.Detailed process-based crop models' suite, such as the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT), is designed to simulate the response of crop to weather conditions among other factors affecting crop production (Jones et al., 2003;Hoogenboom et al., 2019). Recent studies (Kirthiga, 2013;Shelia et al., 2019;Shin et al., 2010;Tesfaye et al., 2015b) have demonstrated the use of the DSSAT suite of crop models to understand causes of spatial yield variability and conduct yield gap analysis for factors that limit yield. To facilitate the use of DSSAT for decision support on a spatial scale and to conduct regional yield forecast, automated procedures and related tools are needed to implement crop growth simulations spatially (Elliott et al., 2014;Shelia et al., 2019;Thorp et al., 2008).Recently, Ogutu et al. (2018) provided probabilistic maize yield prediction over East Africa using the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) system-4 ensemble seasonal climate hindcasts and the World Food Studies (WOFOST) model. In their study, the authors predicted annual maize yield anomalies 2-months prior to planting and found that the prediction had good probabilistic skill at above-average and below-average yield categories.Various regional and national institutions provide operational seasonal climate forecasts. In Eastern Africa, the Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forum (GHACOF) organized by the Climate Prediction and Applications Centre (ICPAC) of the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and other partners issues such forecasts. The forum tries to give a consensus estimate of the likely impacts of the forecast on-climate sensitive sectors such as agriculture and water resources, among others (Hansen et al., 2011). However, the impact assessments of the forecast are based on expert knowledge and thus, to a certain extent they are subjective. Additionally, use of impact models that can translate climate forecast into output forecasts such as crop yield are also limited.Integrated modern seasonal climate forecast and crop modeling for crop production forecasts can support those who are engaged in climate risk management in agriculture (Ordonez et al., 2022;Troccoli et al., 2008). The use of crop simulation models along with climate predictors of yield and climate forecasts allows decision makers to make early planning of contingency options. Preparation and effective planning for the coming season and proper management helps reduce risks associated with weather uncertainty. Such tools could be employed by the GHACOF process to enhance the effectiveness of seasonal climate forecasts by translating them into yield forecast using crop models to provide an estimation of direct impacts of climate drivers on crop production (Ogutu et al., 2018).A detailed overview of the eight main global and regional scale agricultural monitoring systems currently in operation and their comparison based on the input data and models used, the outputs produced and other characteristics such as the role of the analyst, their interaction with other systems and the geographical scale at which they operate was provided by Fritz et al. (2019). One example is the Famine EWS Network (FEWS-NET) that provides decision support to food assistance programs and relief agencies (Funk and Verdin, 2010) based on data from various sources, but especially agroclimatology data and by building monthly scenarios for further analysis (Brown et al., 2007;Senay et al., 2015). Similarly, the Global Information and Early Warning Systems (GIEWS) is monitoring the condition of major food crops across the globe to assess production prospects by utilizing remote sensing data on water availability and vegetation health during the cropping seasons (Rojas, 2015). Another example is GEOGLAM (GEO GLobal Agricultural Monitoring) that brings together key players in the global agricultural monitoring community to provide an assessment of crop growing conditions, crop status, and agroclimatic conditions that could have an impact on the global production of wheat, maize, rice, and soybean (Justice et al., 2015).Such crop monitoring systems largely focus on soil water availability by crops without considering the complex interactions between weather variables, crop physiology and management practices (Ogutu et al., 2018). They are tailored to meet the needs of different stakeholders and, hence, they differ in the importance they place on inputs to the system as well as how they disseminate their results. Additionally, these systems mainly depend on data recorded by remote sensing satellites and reanalysis products, which assist with the assessment of crop condition anomalies that can then be used to infer information on yield, area, and production reductions. However, this approach is unable to provide a production forecast that ideally is needed for strategic and tactical crop production and food security interventions.An operational real-time crop yield forecast system is the MARS-Crop Yield Forecasting System (MCYFS) (Lecerf et al., 2019). MCYFS is based on 25 km resolution gridded runs of WOFOST model (Boogaard et al., 2014). A team of experts together with the Consortium partners operates and maintains the system and provides crop yield forecasts to the public. Several decades ago, its earlier version was used in East Africa (Rojas et al., 2005). MCYFS is focused on Europe and neighboring countries. There are only a few examples of its use in Northern Africa.There are various approaches currently being used or developed to produce seasonal and in-seasonal crop yield forecasts. They cover a broad range of approaches from data-driven statistical techniques to more physically based model-driven approaches (Basso and Liu, 2019;Schauberger et al., 2020). In data-driven approaches, the Machine Learning (ML) algorithms play major role to achieve accurate yield prediction for different crops (Chlingaryan et al., 2018;Liu et al., 2017). The most successful ML techniques have been Artificial Neural Networks (Emamgholizadeh et al., 2015;Gonzalez-Sanchez et al., 2014) or in some cases its combination with Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) (Maya Gopal and Bhargavi, 2019). Data-driven approaches have several limitations. They strongly depend on the data quality, model representativeness and the dependencies between the input and target variables (Chlingaryan et al., 2018).Yield forecasting approaches that rely on crop models generally are combined with seasonal climate or weather forecasts. Crop models operate at a daily time step and require daily weather as one of the inputs. In their approach for linking seasonal climate forecasts with crop models Capa-Morocho et al. (2016) disaggregated seasonal climate data into daily weather data. In another approach, Togliatti et al. (2017) used combination of short-term daily weather forecasts from the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) along with the current and historic weather data to drive crop model. There is an example of using ensemble of yield predictions based on seasonal climate predictions in eastern Africa (Ogutu et al., 2018). Crop growth-based yield forecasting models are data intensive and are currently applied only for the USA by the USDA and for Europe by the MCYFS (Fritz et al., 2019). If agricultural communities are to benefit from crop production forecasts in managing climate risks, the information must be presented in terms of production outcomes at a scale relevant to their decisions, with uncertainties expressed in transparent terms (Hansen et al., 2006). In addition, such information can contribute to enhancing index insurance quality through better detection of adverse conditions. As yield estimation techniques improve, index insurance programs will ensure that they deliver on their promise of detecting and protecting against largescale, community-wide shocks (Benami et al., 2021).One way of achieving crop yield forecasts is using a lightweight desktop application compared to other systems such as the CCAFS Regional Agricultural Forecasting Toolbox (CRAFT) (Shelia et al., 2019). CRAFT is a flexible and adaptable software platform that is based on a crop engine that can run pre-installed crop models and is linked to the Climate Predictability Tool (CPT) (Mason and Tippett, 2016) for seasonal climate predictions to produce a crop yield forecast. In developing countries where smallholder agriculture is the dominant livelihood and the economic sector the forecasting system similar to CRAFT has not been widely used to support early decision making and in-season tactical interventions. A functional, granular (0.083 • or ~ 10 km resolution grid) spatial yield forecasting system such as CRAFT could provide agricultural risk management options leading to greater economic and social benefits for highly variable environments. CRAFT has been successfully applied for in-season yield forecasting of wheat and rice cropping systems in Nepal and Bangladesh and is currently being evaluated for yield forecasting and climate change applications in West Africa in collaboration with Agrhymet, and the CASCAID Project of ICRISAT (NeKSAP, 2017).This study aims to evaluate a methodology implemented in CRAFT that links seasonal climate forecasts with gridded crop simulations for in-season yield forecasting for East Africa. Specific objectives of the study were a) to calibrate and evaluate spatial simulations of CRAFT and b) to determine CRAFT's ability and applicability in forecasting maize yield of smallholder farming systems at a fine spatial resolution at the region of Oromia State in Ethiopia.The study area covered the Oromia regional state in Ethiopia (Fig. 1a), which consists of 17 administrative zones (CSA, 2016). Oromia regional state is the most populous subnational entity in all of Africa (Aynalem Adugna, 2021;Geremew, 2020) and the world's 42nd most populous subnational entity. Oromia is the major agricultural production region accounting for 50 % of major food crops production in Ethiopia (CSA, 2020). Out of the 5.86 million ha covered by grain crops in Oromia, 1.2 million ha (21 %) is covered by maize, which is grown by 72 % of the smallholder farmers (CSA, 2019).In this study, we have used CRAFT version of 3.4 for yield forecasting (https://craft.dssat.net/). CRAFT is a Windows desktop application with a graphical user interface. It is an integrated modeling framework for gridded crop simulations at two spatial resolutions (0.083 • and 0.5 • ) and within-season yield forecasting, risk analysis, and climate change impact studies (Shelia et al., 2019). It runs pre-installed ensemble of crop models although the default crop engine is DSSAT. Gridded simulations can be conducted for any region and for up to three levels, but only for one level at a time. The levels could be for example, a country / state/ district if the administrative area is the region of interest or any other customized levels, represented with corresponding GIS shape files.A crop engine, such as DSSAT, in CRAFT, requires daily weather data, comprehensive soil profile data used in the soil water and nutrient simulations by the crop model, crop and cultivar genetics, and management data. Accordingly, data required for gridded simulations are weather data, soil profile (s) data, and masked data for crop and management (inorganic and organic fertilizers, etc.) for each grid cell. They can be prepared based on provided templates and uploaded in CRAFT's MySQL database. The toolbox allows creation of projects such as calibration, yield forecast, climate change, and risk assessment. The conducted spatial simulation's results then can be viewed in thematic maps and summarized in tables with various statistics for the entire region and for each grid cell in the region.Prior to yield forecasting, the observed yield data can be detrended.The state of Oromia and sub-regional administrative zones overlaid with the total maize harvested area (A), and the planting area for two maize hybrids (BH660 and Melkasa-II) used for simulations (B).After the optional detrending procedure, a yield correction factor for calibration can be applied to the regional yield aggregated from the simulated yield on a cell scale in order to minimize the root mean square error (RMSE) with observed regional yield (Challinor et al., 2005;Hansen and Jones, 2000). CRAFT combines crop simulations and a statistical approach to integrate the seasonal climate forecast with the crop yield forecast (Shelia et al., 2019). Preparation of a forecast for a certain date during the crop growing season in the current year can be described in four steps: (1) yield is simulated first with observed antecedent weather data for the current year up to the forecast date and then with weather data from available historic years one by one until final harvest is simulated (Hansen et al., 2004). ( 2) The resulting time series of simulated yields are treated as the predictand and used with a time series of appropriate seasonal climate predictor fields (e.g., fields of seasurface temperatures (SSTs)), to train a multivariate statistical model using the Climate Predictability Tool (CPT) (Mason and Tippett, 2016).(3) The forecast yield value for the current season is a forecast produced from current seasonal climate predictor observations fitted in the multivariate statistical model. ( 4) The yield forecast distribution is then obtained from cross-validated hindcast residuals, centered on the expected value of the yield forecast (Hansen et al., 2004;2006).The daily precipitation data of the Climate Hazards Group Infrared Precipitations (CHIRPS), satellite data combined with gauge observations, at 5 km resolution were obtained from the data library of International Research Institute (IRI) for Climate and Society of the Columbia University (IRI Data Library). Dinku et al., (2013Dinku et al., ( , 2018) ) evaluated CHIRPS with rain gauge data over Ethiopia and found that it performed well for all spatial and temporal scales with the most significant improvement in reducing biases. The daily maximum and minimum air temperature data of the AgERA5 historic and near real time forcing data at a 0.1 • horizontal resolution were obtained from the Copernicus data portal (Boogaard and van der Grijn, 2019). The AgERA5 dataset provides daily surface meteorological data, tailored for agriculture, for the period from 1979 to present. The service is based on the fifth generation of ECMWF atmospheric reanalysis of the global climate (ERA5). Daily solar radiation data were obtained from NASA's POWER (Prediction Of Worldwide Energy Resource) data (Stackhouse et al., 2018), which is freely available for download at a spatial grid resolution of 0.5 • (http s://power.larc.nasa.gov/). Weather datasets were re-gridded to 0.083 • resolution on which CRAFT operates, using nearest-neighbor remapping.The high-resolution soil profile data required by DSSAT were directly extracted from SoilGrids (https://soilgrids.org/), a system for digital soil mapping based on a global compilation of soil profile data (WoSIS) and environmental layers by the International Soil Reference and Information Centre (ISRIC). Several essential soil physical and chemical properties such as bulk density, silt, and clay content, and organic carbon were obtained from Harvestchoice data portal (IFPRI, 2020). Then, pedo-transfer functions were used to derive soil hydraulic properties (Rawls and Brakensiek, 1985;Saxton et al., 1986). Other soil parameters not available from SoilGrids were estimated from the Harvest Choice generic soil profiles (HC27) (Han et al., 2019). A single soil profile represents dominant soil properties for each 10 km grid-cell and the data are stored in the DSSAT soil database using the *.SOL file format. A soil mask containing a CellID, Soil Profile ID and percentage share of the soil profile within the grid-cell were used for the simulation area.Maize production shows an expansion in area during the last decade in the regional state and maize has relatively better technologies compared to other crops. The region benefits from enough supply of improved hybrid seeds, better agronomic practices, and supply of synthetic fertilizers because of its proximity to the national fertilizer distribution centers through well-organized farmer unions and cooperatives. There is also a tendency of an increase in the use of improved hybrids over time. Popular maize hybrids BH660 and Melkasa-II are the most dominant varieties in the Oromia region. The maize annual total harvested area data at a 0.083 • resolution (Fig. 1A) was obtained from the Spatial Production Allocation Model (SPAM) product, a spatially disaggregated crop production statistics data in sub-Saharan Africa for 2017 (IFPRI, 2020). The maize crop mask, the fraction of a grid cell covered by maize, was created by computing the ratio of the SPAM maize area in a grid cell to the total area of that particular grid cell. Maize crop mask was staying the same over the years during simulations. Dominant in the region and calibrated for maize mega environments (Tesfaye et al., 2015b) two varieties BH660 and Melkasa-II (Table 1) were assigned to entire maize crop area (Fig. 1B) and were used for the gridded simulations.In the Oromia Regional State, the planting window for maize is from April to June with a harvesting period ranging from September to January. Almost all farmers in the region grow maize for food (MoA, 2020). Most importantly, a significant portion of the maize area increased with improved hybrids et.al. A rule-based automatic planting was used with a 120-day planting window starting from 1 April for the model runs over the 1991-2019 period. The maize hybrid BH660 was sown at a population of 4.44 plants/m 2 over areas having an elevation above 1800 m, whereas Melkasa-II was sown at a population of 5.33 plants/m 2 over areas with an elevation below 1800 m (Fig. 1a). As smallholder farmers in Ethiopia generally use crop residues from the prior harvest as animal feed, the soil was initialized with 100 kg/ha of root weight from previous crop and 50 kg/ha of fully incorporated crop residue at a depth of 10 cm with a 0.8 % nitrogen content (Tesfaye et al., 2015b).Although fertilizer application rates have increased over time, the amount still falls short of the national recommendation of about 110-130 kg/ha of urea and di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) (MoA, 2020). Approximately 60 % of maize growers use 100-150 DAP kg/ ha (18-27 kg N/ha, 20-30 kg P/ha) and about 56 % used 150-200 urea kg/ ha (70-93 kg N/ha) in 2020, depending on the hybrid, as higher rates are recommended for hybrids (CSA, 2020). The Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) provided sub-regional levels of fertilizer types, application rates, timing, and frequency of application (Fig. 2).As CRAFT operates on up to three levels, regional (level 1: Oromia) and sub-regional (level 2: its sub-regional administrative zones) levels, observed maize yield data from 2004 to 2019 were obtained from the annual agricultural sample survey database (AgSS, https://www. statsethiopia.gov.et/our-survey-reports/) of the Central Statistical Agency (CSA) of Ethiopia. CSA provides national level area planted, production and yield data since 1980 for over 26 crops and a regional level area planted, production and yield dataset since 1999 (CSA, 2015). The agency's agricultural production survey typically evaluates over 500,000 agricultural plots, 38,000 households in 1,850 Enumeration Areas (EAs). While the CSA takes area measurements for all sampled agricultural plots, they do not measure yield estimates from each plot, instead five crop cuts at most ultimately determine the productivity for an entire woreda for any given year (Warner et al., 2015).The seasonal climate for Ethiopia has a significant inter-annual variability. One of the important mechanisms that control this variability is the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The ENSO is now understood to be among the dominant modes of variability dictating climate and yield anomalies, besides the primary source of predictability so far in Ethiopia (Clarke, 2008;Diro et al., 2010;Tesfaye and Assefa, 2010). The National Meteorological Agency (NMA) of Ethiopia uses the pre-season ENSO state and the associated equatorial pacific Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly (SSTA) to provide an operational outlook for the coming season and its expected impact on the crop production (Korecha and Sorteberg, 2013). The ENSO phases provide a rough categorization of underlying climatic variables and can be associated with crop yield (Rosenzweig and Hillel, 2008). In addition to SST, Lee et al. (2022) used precipitation, temperature, evapotranspiration, and vegetation index as a predictor field and demonstrated a potential for predicting maize yield over sub-Saharan Africa using machine learning approach. Similarly, Laudien et al. (2020) showed the potential of using SST of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and weather variables as predictors in robust statistical models to predict maize yield over Tanzania.The Nino-3.4 SSTA was used as a gridded predictor field for the maize yield forecasts in this study. The 3-month running average SSTA of Nino-3.4 from the Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature version 5 (ERSSTv5) (Smith and Reynolds, 2003) for the domain located in the Pacific ocean (between 5 • North and 5 • South, and between 120 • West and 170 • West) were obtained from the IRI data library of the Columbia University.This study investigated the linkage of the anomaly pattern and the strength of the linear relationship between the regional (Oromia) aggregated simulated maize yield and the pre-season Niño-3.4 SSTA index using correlation and composite analyses (Boschat et al., 2016). Composite analysis is a sampling technique based on the conditional probability of a given event that will occur (maize yield anomaly) if it is certain that another event has taken place or will take place (SSTA). Thus, the composite analysis will provide information on the probability of the maize yield being in the above-average, near-average, or belowaverage category based on the state of ENSO episodes, i.e., El Niño, Neutral, or La Niña.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) operational definition of El Niño, La Niña and Neutral was used to determine the historical distribution of the ENSO episodes. Accordingly, the phases are categorized as El Niño when the SSTA departure is greater than or equal to + 0.5 • C, La Niña when the SSTA departure is less than or equal to − 0.5 • C and neutral when the SSTA departure is between − 0.5 and + 0.5 • C. In the composite analysis, the simulated maize yield data is converted to categorical data, e.g., above, near, and below average maize yield categories, using tercile cut points. Then, for each El Niño, Neutral, and La Niña event, the number of each above, near, and below values of average maize yield were counted. These category counts were recorded, and the probability of occurrence were calculated. This probability represents the historical event distribution or probability of the simulated maize yield being in the above, near, or Fig. 2. Sub-regional fertilizer application rates in Oromia, Ethiopia. below average category given the occurrence of El Niño, Neutral, and La Niña episodes (Fig. 3).The maize crop simulations were conducted on the 0.083 • or ~ 10 km resolution spatial grid by the CRAFT toolbox using the DSSAT crop model as a crop engine and data for 1991 -2019. The crop model simulation requires input data, such as weather, soil properties and management, and other data that varies in space and time. The model needs initial values to resolve daily changes in some aspects of the soil process, particularly, soil water and nutrient balance. However, acquiring initial values to initialize the soil water and nutrient balance every season on regional gridded simulation is difficult. One way to initialize the model is to 'spin-up' (initialize with the model simulation itself), so that the run will establish values for these state variables. The spin-up period is the time of adjustment it takes for the model to reach a state of equilibrium in soil water, carbon, and nitrogen conditions. When spinning up, the model should be run as a dynamic system to simulate carbon and nitrogen process fully to allow the soil profile to adapt, evolve and respond to the seasonal and inter-annual cycles of water redistribution in the system and soil organic matter pools. The maize simulations were initialized on the first day of each year (Jan-01) to allow for a 3 to 5-month spin-up period to equilibrate the soil water and nutrient balance.Yield often shows an increasing trend over time, which can be attributed to technological improvements such as new varieties or enhanced crop management. Therefore, prior to calibrating simulated yield, time series of the observed yield data should be detrended (Lu et al., 2017). Time trend analysis is one of the most common methods used to detect the impacts of changes in yields over time. This is based on the hypothesis that the time trend may reflect the improvement of production techniques by crop yield observations (Chen, 2011). The observed maize yield will be regressed against time, and correlation between these two variables, i.e., the maize yield and time itself, will be tested. Some other factors that impact the maize yield may also correlate with time trend, which could be simplified by using time trend alone to detrend the yield. We assume the time trend is chosen as the main factor to detrend the yield over time, since maize production technology improvement may be the major impact. Thus, the observed regional yields (2004 -2019) were detrended by CRAFT's detrending functionality using linear regression prior to their use.When using dynamic cropping system models for spatial analysis, their ability to extrapolate the temporal patterns of crop growth and yield beyond a single experimental site is crucial. Thus, the quality and strength of crop models is related to the quality of scientific data used in model development, calibration, and evaluation (Bellocchi et al., 2009;Thorp et al., 2008). When a model is applied in a new environment, the calibration and evaluation steps are crucial to link model outputs to real world situations. Crop models are usually calibrated and evaluated using measured yield and yield components trial data from field plots for their use for field-level applications (Timsina, 2007). However, it is not always appropriate to extrapolate field-level model evaluations to largescale conditions indicating the need to evaluation models at a higher scale to avoid the problem of extrapolating results from a plot level to a regional level in spatial modeling.In CRAFT, the calibration process is based on long-term regional observed yield data after the cultivar parameters for a model are calibrated for a set of cells. As part of this empirical calibration process, yield is simulated from 2004 to 2019 and then by fitting a linear regression between the simulated and observed yield by conditioning that the regression line goes close to the X and Y axes intersection, i.e. (0,0) point, a value for the modification factor is determined. Thus, the empirical calibration was done using a yield modification factor, which was then applied to the simulated yield per cell aggregated to the regional level. As a result, the calibrated simulations will have the same yield levels as the observed yield at the aggregated regional level, since the simulated yield is scaled by a modification factor.The 3-month running average of Nino-3.4 SSTA indexes, January to March (JFM), February to April (FMA) and March to May (MAM), were used as gridded predictor fields to produce the pre-season and in-season maize yield forecast at the grid cell and at the regional level. CRAFT uses the Climate Predictability Tool (CPT) as an external engine to derive multivariate statistical model between the predictor (SSTA) and predictand (yield). In this study, the training period for the statistical model was a 29-year time span  with the crop model simulated yield data. The yield forecast was conducted at different dates in 2020. Each yield forecast update was initialized on the first day of each month until maturity using the presiding 3-month average Nino-3.4 SSTA index Fig. 3. Simulated yield composites (1991Simulated yield composites ( -2019) ) showing the ENSO episode probabilities. JFM-January, February, March; FMA-February, March, April; MAM-March, April, May; AMJ -April, May, June. as a predictor. The maize yield forecast uncertainty is presented as cumulative probability distributions at the grid cell or aggregated regional level.The crop simulation results were evaluated using sub-regionally aggregated observed yields. Visualizing tools such as a frequency histogram and a boxplot were used to display the evaluation metrics. The yield forecast was verified using a hindcast simulation initialized on April 1 from 2015 to 2019 and 5 years observed yield data (2015-2019) that were not used during the calibration process. In case of the yield forecast verification, a 2 x 2 contingency table (Table 2), that counts the frequency of occurrence of each combination of hindcast and observed yield category was constructed from dichotomous (Below-Above) of hindcasts. Then the well-known forecast quality measures were derived from it. The sub-regional aggregated yields were converted to binary events, i.e., below-average yield corresponds to a value of 0 and aboveaverage yield corresponds to a value of 1.By using a forecast quality measure derived from the contingency table, a performance diagram (Roebber, 2009) is produced. Through the performance diagram, the accuracy, bias, reliability, and skill of the hindcast yields can be simultaneously visualized and the underlying relationship can be easily understood. The key forecast quality measures in the performance diagram are the probability of detection or a hit rate (POD), false alarm ratio (FAR), bias, and critical success index (CSI), also known as the threat score, are then defined:(1)(2)where A and D, are the number of correct hindcasts; B and C are is the number of false alarms. With some algebraic transformation, POD, FAR or its equivalent, a success ratio (SR = 1 -FAR), bias, and CSI can be related as presented in the following formula:Inter-annual yield anomalies are often linked to variations in systems that control the regional climate with quasi-periodic fluctuations, such as ENSO and Nino-3.4 SSTA. The existence of ENSO signals in the maize yield anomaly could have a potential to drive the inter-annual variations in maize yields. Recent studies also suggest strong potentials for predicting crop yield using the pre-season and in-season ENSO state in eastern and western Africa (MacCarthy et al., 2017;Ogutu et al., 2018;Rojas et al., 2014;Rosenzweig and Hillel, 2008). The Nino 3.4 region provides a good measure of Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly (SSTA) gradients that result in changing the pattern of deep tropical convection and atmospheric circulation. It influences the local rainfall distribution and maize crop production sensitivity at varying magnitude over different spaces and times (Haile et al., 2021). The results from this study showed a positive correlation between Nino-3.4 index and the maize yield anomaly (Table 3).The regional aggregated maize yield anomaly tends to increase as the Nino-3.4 SSTA index increases and vice-versa. The existence of this lag relationship raises the possibility of using the pre-season and in-season Nino-3.4 SSTA index to predict the performance of the expected maize production. This positive relationship was particularly observed in the temporal pattern of maize yield anomaly (Fig. 4). Few years are under the influence of only one specific El Niño phase while most years are characterized by a transition phase. For instance, the years from 1999 to 2009 were dominantly under the influence of La Niña episode, where we observe frequent negative yield anomalies. On the other hand, frequent positive yield anomalies are observed during the years from 1991 to 1994, in which the El Niño phase was dominant.The historical (1991 -2019) maize yield composite probabilities during the ENSO episode event distributions are presented in Fig. 3. The composite analysis suggests that the cycles associated with El Niño episodes are dominated by normal to above normal yield whereas La Niña episode are dominated by normal to below normal yield is more or less equal chance of getting normal, above normal or below normal yield during neutral years.The empirical calibration was applied to simulated regional aggregated yields from 2004 to 2019 using a modification factor (0.98) calculated by CRAFT. After the calibration process the RMSE decreased from 267.9 to 254.5 kg/ha (Fig. 5).The mean spatial patterns of sub-regional level observed, and simulated yield are shown in Fig. 6. On average, observed spatial variability of yield across sub-regions agreed well with the simulated yield. The model overestimated the observed yield in Bale, Arsi, and east and west Harargie zones. The simulation captured the mean spatial maxima of observed yield in the western part of Oromia.   The frequency and cumulative frequency distribution of the aggregated observed and simulated yields at sub-region level is presented in Fig. 7. The simulation underestimated the observed distribution for lower (<3500 kg/ha) yield and overestimated the observed distribution at relatively moderate (3500---4500 kg/ha) yield levels. On the other hand, the simulation accurately reproduced the observed yield above   The temporal pattern of the spatial variability of observed and simulated yield across sub-regions as a box plot (which includes minimum and maximum values, lower and upper quartiles, average, median and outliers) is presented in Fig. 8. Accordingly, Fig. 8 shows more variability in the observed than in the simulated dataset. Nevertheless, the simulation performed relatively well in producing the year-to-year fluctuations of the observed yield across sub-regions having around 6 % bias (PBIAS) and 955 kg/ha of error (RMSE). Yet, the simulation slightly overestimated the observed yield in 2007 and 2010.The hindcast aggregated yield was assessed against the observed regional and sub-regional yields. The regional aggregated hindcast simulation from 2015 to 2019 was evaluated against detrended yield (Fig. 9). The hindcast simulations performed well with a RMSE of 164 kg/ha.The quality of yield hindcast was assessed using aggregated subregional yields (Fig. 10). The comparison statistics show level of accuracy of the forecast with CSI value of 0.31 and SR value of 0.5. As SR increases, the POD decreases indicating that the slope of the contours remain negative.The cumulative distributions of the regional yield forecast made on April 1, May 1, and June 1 are shown in Fig. 11. As expected, the interval of the forecast uncertainty decreased as the season progress. For the April 1 forecast, the predicted regional yield distribution ranged from 3900 to 4800 kg/ha while it ranged from 4150 kg/ha to 4600 kg/ha for the June 1 forecast.We assumed that the mean simulated regional yield from 1991 to 2019 can be considered as Normal yield. Then, the percentage deviation of predicted sub-region yield from the normal yield was calculated for the April 1, May 1, and June 1 forecast dates. In general, a normal yield (-5% to 5 % of the mean) was predicted for all the forecast dates that were considered (Fig. 12). The April 1 forecast prediction showed 5 % to 15 % increase in yield relative to the normal over North Showa zone, Borena zone, and over adjacent areas of eastern and southeastern highlands. Those areas are considered marginally suitable for maize and hence the crop less cultivated in those areas. Surprisingly, the yield for May 1 prediction showed a − 5% to − 15 % deficit yield over the southeastern highlands, a complete reversal from the previous one. For June 1 forecast, most of the areas showed a close to normal yield prediction.  High-resolution gridded crop yield forecasts that can adequately capture spatial variability of factors such as soil, weather, and management affecting growth and development and ultimately yield, are highly important for decision makers to advise smallholder farmers. The CRAFT toolbox can provide such forecasts. For demonstration, a maize yield forecast at a granular level is presented in Fig. 13, for a grid cell near Bako (9.12 • N, 37.06 • E) of the Oromia Regional State. The predicted values for this location ranges from 3200 kg/ha to 4100 kg/ha and there is 80 % chance that the location could produce up to 3900 kg/ ha of maize yield.The maize yield prediction by CRAFT presents a skillful forecast at aggregated level and a reasonable forecast at a granular level. The maize prediction also captures the spatial variability (heterogeneous nature) of the maize production in the regional state. The forecast shows poor performance over areas that are less suitable for maize production (over districts where maize production was fewer or scarce). Such limitations can be improved when management data such as fertilizer input, dominant cultivar type and planting window can be provided at finer spatial scale (district level). Because of the uncertainty associated with CSA's yield estimation and data scarcity, the calibration and evaluation   of the maize simulation was only performed at a course scale (regional and sub-regional) using aggregated values, which could introduce additional sources of uncertainty. There was no indication that the area of planted maize in a sub-regional and regional level influenced the relationship between aggregated modeled yield and CSA regional yield estimates. The range of maize prediction values can also be improved with better representation of the spatial variability if the empirical calibration of the crop simulation is performed at a sub-regional or even district level. In this study, we were not able to analyze different maize cultivars effect on yield forecast. The reason for this is that CSA has provided yield estimations as aggregated values, not the disaggregated observed yield by varieties. Accordingly, we did not have comparable yield values with forecast.Our study shows that functionality implemented in CRAFT has potential to contribute addressing pre-seasonal and in-season crop production strategic planning, through procedures related to maize management technology, particularly, variety selection, sowing (timing, areas, etc.), fertilizer applications (timing, rates). Because crop management related parameters are crop model inputs, and this allows developing various scenarios of those inputs. Our study also demonstrates effectiveness of seasonal climate forecasts, in this case SSTs, that are translated into granular maize yield forecasts, 10 km Cell level in CRAFT, that more useful for farmers. Derived maize production forecast can be used for strategic and tactical interventions for food security at district or country level.The difficulties of adopting a dynamic crop simulation model, such as DSSAT, in CRAFT is associated with the intensive data requirement for the model simulation and evaluation. Data limitation was often a heavy burden on this study in order to provide detailed information at a finer spatial scale. Despite these challenges, CRAFT provides the capability of using crop models that can be run at a local or district scale with less demand on required data inputs. However, this can be improved if  sufficient data on the local cultivar, crop management practices, and observations such as phenology and crop yield are available. This will provide the opportunity for calibration at a local scale of the cultivar coefficients and will allow for capturing the spatial variation of the local cultivar to variability in the seasonal climate for different locations.In this study, we have shown the potential of CRAFT for yield forecasting and its ability and applicability in forecasting maize yield for smallholder farming systems. Normal-to-above normal maize production was forecasted for the 2020 growing season over the Oromia regional State of Ethiopia. Assessment of the potential predictability of maize production in Oromia indicates a relatively good performance of the forecast model in capturing the mean yield level at administrative level and its spatial and temporal variability. However, the forecast was not accurate in all cases; poor performance was observed in the marginal maize environments, which affected forecast accuracy.The study indicated that CRAFT can be used to study the mesoscale nature of spatial and temporal crop yield variability, as well as it can be used as a decision support system for early yield estimation of major food security crops at the national level by institutions that oversee Agriculture. In addition, it also opens a pathway to ICPAC and AGR-HYMET to consider the CRAFT toolbox as a regional crop yield forecasting system in East and West Africa, respectively. Future studies should re-evaluate and address the importance of the size of agricultural areas while comparing aggregated simulated yields with yield data collected from a fraction of the target area.Practical implications.The study evaluates a methodology implemented in the CCAFS Regional Agricultural Forecasting Toolbox (CRAFT) (Shelia et al., 2019) for spatial yield forecast for maize hybrids across Oromia region in Ethiopia, where maize is one of the most important staple crops for food security and a source of smallholder farmer incomes. CRAFT as a climate service links seasonal climate forecasts with gridded crop simulations for in-season probabilistic yield forecasting in the spatial scale. For spatial yield forecasting it requires gridded data sets on weather, soil, crop and crop management. In this study calibration was conducted using regional level observed maize yield data (2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014) and the yield hindcast was evaluated against sub-regional (2015-2019) aggregated observed yields. The results showed that the hindcast simulations were performed well (RMSE of 164 kg/ha).A functional, granular (0.083 • or ~ 10 km resolution grid) spatial yield forecasting system such as CRAFT could provide probabilistic yield forecast with various lead time and thus, can serve as an early warning system. It can also provide agricultural risk management options for greater economic and social benefits for highly variable environments. Functionality implemented in CRAFT has potential to contribute addressing pre-seasonal and in-season crop production planning. Crop management related parameters are inputs for the Cropping System Model (CSM) of the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT) (Hoogenboom et al., 2019), and thus, it allows us to develop various scenarios of those inputs, particularly for selection of maize hybrids, sowing (timing, areas, etc.), and fertilizer applications (type, timing, rates) characteristics for decision making on the optimal management. ","tokenCount":"6999"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"024cf505a9aebc196eeeb10ff9bb3088","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/fd6c1397-2bdf-4e9e-9f1f-65ded10f5a92/retrieve","id":"-388165533"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d1dacfdb-5305-4c13-8e98-711c8063aadc","pagecount":"61","content":"1. Types ofwatershed ll . Tools developed by Ciat and our eollaboratol> The nioe Ciat guides Tools relaled lo the informalioo technology sector Cial primers 1f1. Olher eiat Manuals aod Methodological Documents IV. Glossary of terms used Referencese I A T Individuals can use decision support, but ir is of most value when used to share information among many groups representing different perspectives, whose own infom1ation about a situation in the watershed is only partial.That is why we describe this approach as decision support based in discovery: because it is built around providing the tools and technologies that help to build capacity for the research and information management needed for making good decisions about watershed resource rnanagement. The local people or organizations themselves choose the tools they feel are required for their particular purpose and area, having first been trained in their use . We supply the training and tools; we do not make recommendations. Our approach helps people in ¡he capacity of discoveringwhat it is that (hey ought lo do. We suppOli their process offinding out what the options are, evaluating the options, and making well-informed decisions .The approach offered in this booklet (Box 4 offers a surnmary) is not exhaustive and is in a continuing process of developrnent and growth. lt covers sorne key decision poinls and actions in the process of planning and implementing a learning process approach to stakeholder watershed management. Water and the sustainable management of watersheds are vital to the welfare of humanity. Even more than food, water has become a cIitical limiting factor in human development and the elimination of poverty. Massive urbanization in the developing world is putting huge strains on the capacity of lhe rural landscape, and in particular its watersheds, to provide burgeoning cities with healthy and adequate supplies of water. The elimination ofmral poverty depends critically on intensifying agriculture on smallholdings, and on sustaining adequate stream flow to meet basic domestic, agIicultural, and small-scale agroenterpIise requirements. Rural and urban poverty is connected and interdependent through the need for water. Water is a product of the rural landscape and depends on sound land management just as much as does the production offood.The CIAT approach to watershed management is not centered on the water ¡tself, but rather on the relationship of people with natural resources. lt is important to motivate the comrnunity and give the raise local interest in conserving their natural resources. We seek sustainable development at the local leve!. This means addressing lhe immediale needs of the people (increasing production) while dealing with, and making local people aware ofpossibility to, the need to care forthe environment.For the farm families managing the natural resources, sustainability may be more closely associated with their livelihoods and the survival of the :Jimily than with the natural resource base itself. At the worst, increasing population, decreasing farm size, and declining labor producti vity could combine to lead to a set of farmer decisions that result in soil erosion and fertility decline, deforestation, pesticide abuse, surface and ground water contamination, and eventual deeertification (Ashby et al. 1994).Individual farmers on their own farms cannot solve problems of land degradation in tropical America. Ihis reql1ires a landscape perspective. CIAI has developed a suite of tools lin.ked to geographic information systems (GIS) and partieipatory methods as components of deeision support (DS) systems that help stakeholders with eonflicting interests identify eornmon problems at the landscape sea le (CLAI 1999a).Projects of the partieipatory watershed type have greatly increased at national, intemational, and bilateral levels over the past 10 years. Ihis approach appeals in its promise to satisfy Agenda 21 's complex demands with a single coherent strategy of involving local stakeholders and communities at multiple sea les and zones while addressing cross-ecosystem issues and interactions related to fanning and narural resource conservation. However, the newness, complexity, and ambition of multi-purpose, multiscale watershed approaches make success elusive even in the best circumstances. Organization is highly complex, and co-leaming methods and eomputer-based tools are needed to deal with plural stakeholders with conflieting goals operating at levels and time scales usually alien to most agricultural and natural resouree scientists (Rhoades 1998).In a watershed, crops, livestock, and forestry products are all marketable and paid foro Water is another produet of a watershed yet is almost never paid for, although it is sold onwards by a water authority to downstreallL users. Traditionally, the foeus ofwatershed management has eentered on the water itself, ofien only as a product for eonsumption outside the watershed even though it is intrinsieally tied up with lhe other watershed produets. Existing problems are addressed rather than any attempt being made to devel op the resouree. In the past, a top-down planning approach was based on land capability, rather than on lhe capacities and needs of local people, and typically promoted activities that were forced upon residents and cornrnunities from outside. This lack of fit between human and biophysical boundaries has caused tensions and antagonisms between local populations and outside watershed project managers (Datta and Virgo 1998). The other extreme was to assume that participation would solve the failure of centrally control!ed, extemal!y driven watcrshed projects with no local ownership (Farrington and Lobo 1997). Presumably, respecting local views and tapping into local knowledge in making decisions on research and management questions can help design and have accepted more sustainable, locally-relevant management systems (Hufschmidt 1986). Neither of these extremes works well. We need a synergetic point between ¡he perception and actions ofboth lhe local people and the specialists, a combination ofboth the technical and scientific aspects with local participation.The essential component of an agro-ecosystem is its people producers and with al! tbe dimensions that accompany them socially, IAconlorrlÍc,llly, and environmentally (Waltner-Toews 1993). The people we ost want to help tend to be concemed with daily problems; they may not k too far ahead. Their children are hungry lJOW, production must be creased lJOW, the effect on their natural resources líes in the future. We leam about situations, draw principIes to develop the tools needed, then can extrapolate results and upsca le them . Box 1 shows how the CIPASLA organization (a local consortium of watershed stakeholders in Colombia), Box 1. CIPASLA: P.,'ncnhlp. d .. wlng using the CIAT approach, has helped • on ,'.o'cale •• d applied .. ,e.reh Self-financed budget USS300,OOO increase the resources available to its A leaming proeess approaeh is used rather than a \"blueprint\" approaeh beeause an understanding of the situation is required if the eommunity is going to undertake watershed resouree management. This leaming approaeh is not new, it has been used suecess fully in other afeas, and it has begun to be used in watershed management over the past deeade. The ~ oftooll1sed in training is new, ineorporating scientifie elements, GIS, collaborative work, models , et cetera in an aecessible and usable form at municipality leve!. The approach can also be used as a complement to top-down management approaches to inform, adjust, and aid in decision making. Research management involves a series of deeisions, we support people in making good decis ions.A watershed can be as large as the Amazon basin, accounting for a large slice of a continent, or as small as the runoff from a few fields into a stream (see Appendix 1). Why then do we in CIAT use a watershed as a unit ofanalysis for research , as a framework for organizing training, and as a foundation for the research and development of partnerships needed to do this research and training? Beeause, when combined with other issues of scale, it is a usefiJI, demarcated, agro-ecological mosaic in which agriculntral activity affects the yield and quality ofwater. The working size of a CIAT watershed is delimited by rhe groupings of farmers, foresters, and orher enterprise owners that interact in its management. To a large extent, the stakeholders in a watershed define the boundaries ofthe geographieal space in which it is meaningful to take decisions in order to improve their management of the watershed resourees. Stakeholder interests define who is \"in\" the watershed and who is outside or off-site. The biophysíeal boundaries ¡hat define the watershed as a functional hydrological system are also essential to this approach. The watershed allows biophysical seientists to clearly delimit the study unit, making it easier to eonduct input-output studies, decision-making and simulation models, and expet1 systems (EI-Swaify and Yakowitz 1997, cited in Rhoades 1998). A watershed is no! a \"natural\" socioeconomic uni!. Ofien a cornmunity \"domain\" covcrs different watersheds, and usually the same watershed is shared by different cornmunities Ihat also use the neighboring watersheds. This poses problems that should be addressed through collective action:CIAT facilitates this process through the fonnation and support to local consonia ofwatershed stakeholders provided in this approach. We combine the geographical unit (watershed, subcatchments) where water flows , with social units (communities, municipalities) where decisions are made. The social boundaries for decision making ofien overlap the watershed boundaries (see Figure 6). This is essential, because managing the multiple natural processes of a watershed requires dealing with multiple social actors.The many activities taking place within a watershed affect water quality, quantity, and stream peak flows. Cultivation affects sediment load and infiltration rates, thus changing water quality and soil/subsoil water storage. Good, economically viable, soil conservation measures can increase water quality and smooth stream flow peaks. Tree planting usually (but not always) reduces peak run-off and hence lowers flood risk and evens out water flow rates. Pastures planted for livestock often stabilize against erosion, but animal effiuent can a rrect water quality (nitrates plus disease organisms). Both forestry and permanent pastures actually iocrease water consumption wilhin the watershed. Rapid changes of land use can have unforeseen effects on water quality, yield, and stream flow peaks if the full functioning of tbe watershed is not well known. For example, large-scale plowing of old pastures can resul t in a flush o f ni tra tes to the stream flow.Pesticide and herbicide residues may wash directly into flowing water (e.g., from inappropriate washing of application machinery, or dumping of residues), 01' may leach through the soil to ground waters. Box 3 shows an example of one project where farmers are farrning organically in arder to reduce agrochemical pollution of grotind water. Postharvest processing can be a source of stream polllltion ir residues are allowed to drain directly to streams (e.g., in cassava starch production and sisal processing). Fish farming, although local, may be a majar water user within the watershed; it is also a maj ar polluter ifthe tank and processing effiuents are not treated. Even smal! areas of dense vegetation acting as stream flow buffer zones along stream bOllndaries can ameliorate the effects of dirty nlnoff where it is unavoidab le.an integrated approach to NRM In sorne areas of the Andean zone, farrners spray their crops as ofien as once a week. The \"chemical culture\" these farmers embrace is reinforced by habit and rooted in their fear of crop failure. Under a CIPASLA-sponsored project, extension workers from Colombia's Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje (SENA) are helping farmers establish organic gardens of aromatic and medicinal herbs, among other crops, for sale in nearby urban markets.  The booklet suggests, for the different work areas ofthis process, when and how stakeholder can make use of a number of too1s fo r deci sion support, collecting and orgallizing information, organizing, and rnonitoring and eva luation.The CIAT publication \"Decision making for sustainable natural resource rnanagernent: Nine tools !hat help\" (CIAT 1 999a) describes the rnain rools used in tbe process up lO presentoThe glossary at!he end ofthis booklet explains sorne ofthe terminologyused !hat is spec iftc to thi s subject. The sustainable management of natural resources depends on people's capacity to take \"sustainable\" decisions, wbether tbe level of decision making is the municipality, the watershed, or the village. Thus, the CIAT Methodological Guides are support lools for decision taking and not resource managementtoolsper se.With this in mind, the focus of attention moves , for example, from the problem of tbe quantity and quality of water available for human consumption to the exploration of future scenarios that tbe community wisbes to construct to guarantee sufficient quality and quanti ty ofwater for the next 20 years, based on present decision taking (Knapp et al. 1999).The approach offered in this booklet (Box 4 offers a sUITunary) is not exhaustive and is in a continuing process of development and growth. It covers sorne key decision points and actions in the process of planning and implementing a leaming process approach to stakeholder watershed management.Box4. The CIAT learning process approach is aimed at stimulating its users to identify new work areas and new tools that they need lo inelude in their process, to develop their own applications of methodological tools, and to systematize their experience into guides like those we provide. People have to make decisions, we aim to help them. The CIAT approach addresses the following questions.• Where are we going to work? We need to define the physical boundaries and the decision-making or social • units.Who are the key people for the key problems in this our • priority area?What is the vision of tbe future for this watershed? How • should we organize for better management?• What technological options do we have for change?How do we monitor and evaluate and check that the watercourse is really becoming a better place to live in, that conservation is occurring, and the watershed is being managed for the long-terrn? We train and help in the use oftools to answer these questions. Then we go through the process ofthe five components below, and the tools we have developed fit in as and where required. Finally, we hold a forum where the people of the watershed address tbe questions together and the process is worked through witb the tools that they choose to u ' \" e I A TThe main elements ofthe process here descri ,d are called componenls. It is an iterative process and canoot be carried tone component al a time, or with one component following another; us lIy several components will be implemented at a time. Sorn e might be s ed before others are fini shed. At any one time, tbe user may need to go ackward or forward in tbe list of co mponents outlined below.  Grimble et al., 1995 define stakeholder analysis as: \"An approach for understanding a system by identifying the key actors or stakeholders in the system and assessing their respective interests in that system. Stakeholders include all those who affect, and are affected by, the policies, decisions, and actions of the system; they can be individuals, communities, social grou ps or institutions of any size, aggregation,or level in society. The terms thus inelude policymakers, planners and administrators in government and other organizations, as well as commercial and subsistence user groups.\"Stakeholder analysis is relevant for NRM because: • What is the poverty or wealth of different stakeholder groups? Depending on the \"systern\" or the issues in question we rnay need to know the levels ofpoverty existing and tbe spatial distribution ofpoverty orwell-being in the watershed.For that purpose we have developed a rnethodological tool to identifY local indicators of well-being and to construct regional profiles for rural poverty. This is integrated with and cornplernentary to dernographic databases such as census data with variables relating to, for exarnple, the accessibility of services, type ofhouse construction, and levels of education. With this kind of data, we can begin to draw profiles ofthe basic resources available to farmers and can get sorne idea ofwhat people have attheir disposition .• What are the ownership and usufruct rights and customs that guide how different stakeholders use these resources? Ownership is sornetirnes available on census data, but can be a delicate subject on which people do not always speak frankly or truthfully, and this should be borne in mind. At present, CIAT does not research these topics .• What are the formal and informal organizations active in the watershed and their objectives? How do they work together? Organizations can work together through consortia. Inter-institutional consortia should involve at least the fom1al organizations. Workshops help bring together different organizations and have them define their objectives.The rnain stakeholder with whorn CIAr works is the local organization at socioeconomic leve!. In the technological sense, stakeholders are much more diverse. Producers continue in participatory research (e.g., the Hillsides Options Supermarket or SOL, its Spanish acronyrn, where strategic research also takes place and different types ofpartners are involved, see Box 6) . There are stakeholders at watershed and higher levels (rnunicipalities), and we should al so consider those stakeholders beyond tbe watershed who are decision makers and should be involved. All ofthese are connecled 00 separate questions. The vision is not limited to the watershed , but goes beyond, those ourside are also importan!.For sra keholder management of watersh ed resources, lbe relevant stake hold ers need ro be brought togeth er to decide on lhe appropriate management innovations, bow to enforce tbern, how to reward or sanction thern, how to monitor cornpliance, who is better orworse off as a result ofthe changes, and whether these are having the desired effect on lhe watershed. Sorne stakeholders rnay like these changes, sorne may be opposed, and olhers may be indifferent. Thestakeholders ofa collective decision-rnaking process need to decide w ho are rhe relevant people who need 10 meet for this nlllmc,.e' Leaving our so me srakeholder group could be fatal to success.Scien ti sts and technicians know their subject, but farme rs ha ve local knowledge and traditions. Jt is important to get to know them in order to work with them, we cannot assume that anyone's knowledge is comp lete. Thus, on arrival in a work area, a quick sounding is taken to interact with the hnm \" ,r< find out rheir customs, way ofworking, socioeconomic factors, tbe too1s they use , rhe crops rbey grow, and so forth . Through di alogue, tbose farmers can he1p and rbose wbo ha ve problerns are identified. Producer and technician share their know1ed ge to identify local indicators of soil use, p1ants, fertil ity, physicochernic al propelii es of land el cetera througb local terminology and classificarion.This makes it possible ro take berrer decisions on th e managemenr ofnatural resources in re1ation with their stare of degradation. The Committees for Local Agricultura1 Resea rch (CIALs, rhe Spani sh acronym) are a good example of how rhis works. These commirrees of four or more farmers, elected by their communi ty, carry out adaptive technology resting in the local environment, combining local knowledge and exotie technologi es , on topi es chosen by the co mmuni ty (Ashby et al. (995). Collecting local infonnation and knowledge can be done in rnany ways, from a participatory diagnostic to sorne type of formal interviewing. The use of a maqueta is helpful for bringing the information IOgether (Box 5).Box 5. Maquetas. The people with local interestare those who best know the countryside. A tool we have found highly useful in gathering local knowledge is the \"maqueta\", a threedimensional structure made of the watershed out of papier-ma ché or other locally found materials. The community puts it together, using sorne GIS information such as altitudes, but mostly their own knowledge of the area. They put houses, schools, roads, et cetera in place then work out the land uses, in effect constructing their watershed. The great advantage ofthis is that they become sensitized, are made aware of, the larger environment beyond the small boundary of the farm, and that they look at the larger picture. They come to realize that their problems relate to what happens outside their own small sphere. They visualize the actual natural resources ofthe region and are thus able to better understand project possibilities. The maqueta is a powerful tool for stimulating group discussion and creating a sense of community.Local knowledge and information is an important input to decision making involving the natural resources of a watershed.At the end of the diagnostic process, a synthesis can be made of the actual present situation. Problems and opportunities, their relationships, and their causes and effects are identified. Both the human aspect and natural resources are included. These three types also represent a gradation from success ro failure, implying that using local knowledge, building on indigenous worldviews , and encouraging ownership are the best predictors of long-term sustainable success. The importance ofthe CIAT focus is that it is not based on rhe usual top-down methods used in watershed management. With them identify what is in place, rhen mobilize local institutions so that they deal with problems or take advantage of oppottunities. We do not make decisions for people, give support and training so that they can make their own decisions.In every case, CIAT aims to increase tbe natural resources and improve the quality of life for producers. Both these aspects are being worked upon, generating sustainable uses and giving technological help at the small-scale level and moving outwards lo watershed leve!. The priority is that the producers use the tools developed, that rhe whole group involved in the watershed can collaborate, and that CIAT complements the work being undertaken. Demand-driven research and development means that stakeholders will talk about all problems, notjust water and crops (Rboades 1998), which may lead to the pitfall of unrealistic expectations. However, planning from local demand through the participatory planning by objective helps to identifY further strategic research and researeh for collaborators or for opportunities in adaptive researeh (Figure 1).IARC., CIALs.. The organizational idea is to support the basie users producers, campesinos.The focus is to get them to look towards the organizations that are becoming more cooperative. The CIAT strategy is 10 strengthen existing local eonsortia, or help form new ones if necessary, to keep the sustainability of natural resources at a higher level (e.g., Campos Verdes see Box 7) . Impact cannot be immediate, a period of 5 years is more realistic, when the consortia has become strong enough to rnanage projects and when clients in the projects have resouree eonservation in mind as well as produetivity. Figure 2 shows what demand-driven researeh is being conducted to date using the CIAT approach to watershed management.Decisions have to be made on what are the priorities and opportunities that can be realistieally addressed. The approach supports those collaborating in making these decisions.  A theoretical framework is established using a simplified model ofthe origin of soils. It is applied borh to modem concepts of pedology and lo soil c1assification so Ihal the producer and technician can share their knowledge lo understand and analyze Ihe origin, evolution, and distribution of soils. In this way it is possible to take better decisions on the management of soils in relation with their state of degradation.Wben choosing combinalions of technology options to test for cropping systems, agroforestry, agrosilvopastoral systems et cetera, the use of soil quality indicators (SQ!s) impacts on choices more to do with the timing of certain managemenl options. For example, if we have a system to recover degraded soil (e.g., green manure systems), identifying orusing certain SQIs guide us as to when the soil has fully recovered before retuming to the croppi ng phase.is important in lhe efficiency ofusing time and space in an agricultural ser-•up. The LSQ! (Local Soil Quality Indicators) Guide also covers the issue of upscaling. This links with how LSQI at plot scale are affected by management at the farm scale, and how the collective management of several farms within a watershed can provide an impacl al the watershed scale that can be meas ured or synthesized in the water quality for example.We are now aiming at establishing a link between water and soil quality ~.:\"--• indicators. These types of indicalors help in making decisions on the best options for the use of the land.[n choosing options for crop diversification, an institution within tbe watershed undertakes a marker study. The prodllcts identified are evaluated to find out which are the most promising options incllldingparticipation wilh farmers. Introduction ofhigh value crops can inerease farmers' benefits in the long mn, making it worthwhile for farmers to use Ihe resouree eonserving praetices (figure 3). Evaluation is made with tbe farmers using a concept board outlining in simple form what the best options offer (already screened for their agronomic and eeonomic viab ilities), including profits. It beco mes a joint decision-making process as to which options the farmers develop as projeets. lt ends in a portfolio ofpossible produets. The system has been used in Cabuyal-Colombia, Yoro-Honduras, and Pueallpa-Pem with good results. For example, in Cabuyal, the growing ofblackberries was shown to be viable and through its own dynamism , this is now a principal erop in the area. Dairy prodllets were also identified throllgh this approach; a small processing plan! has been set up producing yogurt and cheese (Figure4).   At this stage, an Action Plan comes about as a result of planning and synthesis (prioritization). Tbe \"Methodology for decision taking for multiple interest groups\" (Knapp et al. 1999) calls in data from the information technology tools. It is a goal-oriented as opposed to problem-oriented methodology. A forum or worksbop is held to go through the activities (see page 30). Goals are defined by desired future conditions giving specific targets. This is useful for planning acti vities, because specific information is needed for planning, and the models are naturally called into process to give concrete quantitative infonnation about system variables.Decision makers need to come together, have as much information available as possible, and discuss and compare in order to make valid decisions. The decision support system (DSS) is a methodology designed 10 help multiple stakeholder groups come to terms with the future oftheir landscapes. Tbe methodology is accompanied by a user friendly computer program that is able to record all infolmation that is colleeted and eondensed during group discussions . The DSS is ab le to bring fOlward all infonnation that bas been obtained through the use ofthe otherCIAT Guides. They should not be used in the sp irit of a central planner who \"knows better\", but in the spirit of helping the different stakeholders in their negotiation process. Most watershed uses are conflictive and one wants to support al! the groups who have a stake in the watershed, especially the weaker ones.There now exist different types of models that can compare altemative scenarios. CIAT has been testing several of these model types such as biophysical watershed models, optimization models, and cellular automata. Most ofthese tools are made user friendly so as to allow local technicians to run them and explain the results in an easy way.Sorne ofthe applications include 3-D presentation ofthe watershed so as to see in quasi real-Ji fe how the landscape would change under different decisions or extemal driving forces. CIAT's objective is now to make these tools available to local organizations that are involved in watershed management or in conflict resolution to help in their decision making. From 1982-88, the Crap Systems Uníts ofthe CIAT Programs ran many field tríals evaluatíng germplasm and exploring aspects such as varíetíes , fertilizatíon , and planting density. Verificatíon tríals took place with the partícipation of producers. Demonstration work was also undertaken and was similar to later work wíth the CTALs. Research was workíng on how to select work areas/farms/number of places ín which to conduct trials to be taken ínto account for trustworthy statistics.CTAT has the expertise to help farmers ín running theír own Irials or in fOtming organizations that do so. The SOL sites províde another area for farmer-run and scíentific tríals. The SOL (Box 6) ís an ínítiative ofthe CTAT-Híllsides project to develop technological options and offer these to poor farmers, technicíans, producers, and institutions. The aim is to develop technologíes that establish profitable, sustainable production systems through multi-institutional alliances, using a participatory approach (design, planning, monitoring, and assessment), which ineludes shared responsibilíty at all decision-making levels. The SOL links farmer experimentation with formal research.Box 6. The SOL (Supermercado de Opciones para Ladera, or Hillsides Options Supermarket) aims to develop technological options that are economically viable and environmentally sustainable. A participatory approach is used lhat ineludes shared responsibility at all decision-making levels. Strategic principIes allow for extrapolation and upscaling. In Honduras, the SOL site is the Tascalapa River watershed, in Nicaragua, lhe Wibuse-Jicara watershed. Men and women of the communities actively participate in different activities (e.g., alternative grass species, seed production for grass and legume spp., soil conservation, natural regeneration of native species, and identification ofmarket products). While still in the initiating stages, the SOL sites are expected lO help develop technological options that small-scale farmers will readily adop!. The CJA Ls are a method for experimenting with options and they use tools such as the crAL Primers. A committee offour farrners, elected by their own cornmunity, analyze and execute research themes deterrnined or identified by their community in different places ofthe same. Eight steps are followed: the CIAT Seeds Unitgave training and investigated and generated seed handling technology. This first began with industry in mind, to supporting small-scaIe producers. Small-scale technology generated including equipment for seed cleaning, selection, drying, storag,e, and treatment. The equipment was of wooden construction and artisanal type, but equally as efficient as industrial equipment. Within watersheds, consortia (e.g., CLODEST and CIPASLA) identified diversification and marketing as being necessary to be able to reach sustainable production systems. When new crops are identified, diversification occurs, incorporating higher value crops into the production system with or without processing; or value may be added through postharvest handling and processing of existing and introduced crops. These generate ineome and employment in the region , leading to reduction in poverty, then farmers beeome motivated to invest in their resource base, breaking the vieious eirele of mining their resourees . This can lead to more sustainable landseapes.Experimenting with options and evaluating them is a necessary basis OIl which lo make decisions on !and use.Six tasks have been identified as critical for community-Ievel organization (Knapp et al. 2000) : l.Identifying stakeholders and ensunng their representation ID management effort. 2.Providing forums for analysis and negotiation ofdiverse interests. Organizing a fornm could be ad hoc. It may include stakeholders who do not have a real commitment to what is under discussion. Once their positions are made clear and they approve ofthe project, they may not want 10 take actual parto The method ofparticipatory planning by objectives method helps in the organization of a forum or workshop.In organizing a network for GIS information exchange, the Intelligent TeamIDecision Support System (lT/DSS) synthesizes the six tasks identified aboye. The \"Intelligent Team\" modifier connotes that our DSS is designed to support a team ofmultiple-goal-pursuing stakeholders as opposed to singleproblem, single stakeholder decisions. The most important part is forum management. The lTlDSS electronic forum workbook is now complete and in the process of publication in a similar format to the DS tools. The electronic fornm solicits information and adds a further dimension to the work model used by the Hillsides team. The forum componen! motivates and compels participants towards making decisions for sustainable NRM.Box7. Campos Verdes This association was formed in 1997 in the Calico River watershed, Nicaragua and has successfully obtained funding for cornrnunity projects through national and international institutions and nongovernment organizations. lt has established direct links with three NGOs (CARE, PRODESSA, PNUD), three GOs (the Mayor's Office, MAGFOR, UNA) and three local organizations (Cooperativo Sueños Realizados, UCOSD, CJALs), about 38% oflhe 27 entities involved in the San Dionisio Municipality. The association contri bu tes etTectively to community developrnent in such a way that GOs and NGOs find it an efficient support for their programs, demonstrating the convenience of its permanency and actions in the ditTerent communities. Organizing a forum could be ad hoc. It may include stakeholders who do not have a real com.mitment to what is under discussion. Once their positions are made clear and they approve ofthe project, they may not want to take actual parto The method ofparticipatory planning by objectives method helps in the organization ora forum orworkshop.In organizing a network for GIS information exchange, the Intelligent TeamlOecision Support System (IT/OSS) synthesizes the six tasks identified aboye. The \"Intelligent Team\" modifier connotes that our OSS is designed to support a tea m ofmultiple-goal-pursuing stakeholders as opposed to singleproblem, single stakeholder decisions. The most important part is forum management. The ITIDSS electronic forum workbook is now complete and in the prócess of publication in a similar format to the OS tools. The electronic forum solicits information and adds a further dimension to the work model used by the Hillsides team. The forum component motivates and compels participants towards making decisions for sustainable NRM.Box 7. Campos Verdes This association was forroed in 1997 in the Calico River watershed, Nicaragua and has successfully obtained funding for community projects through national and international institutions and nongovernment organizations. lt has established direct Imks with three NGOs (CARE, PROOESSA, PNUD), three GOs (the Mayor's Office, MAGFOR, UNA) and three local organizations (Cooperativo Sueiios Realizados, UCOSO, CIALs), about 38% ofthe 27 entities involved in the San Dionisio Municipality. The association contributes efTectively to community development in such a way that GOs and NGOs find it an efficient support for their programs, demonstrating the convenience of its perroanency and actions in the difTerent communities. The support of associalions, local organizations, institutions, and govemment create space for better planning and decision making municipallevel.Capacity building is done thJOugh a series of workshops in which the Guides are brought together and validated. First an Induction Workshop is held for decision makers and candidates and trainers from institutions who have expressed interest in applying one or more of the melhodological Guides or in helping others apply them . This is an opportunity for explaining more about lhe Guides and c1arifyi and responsibilities. Action Plans and their important role are explained. AIl candidates are interviewed forthe final selection of 16 to make up a national team oftrainers who are given copies ofthe Guides to study.Later, a Training ofTrainers Workshop takes place after a meeting with CIAT instructors to go over the trainees' knowledge ofthe Guides. In the workshop, trainees work in groups with instructors, going through the Guides and how to use them. The new trainers can then bold national Workshops, with some supervision at first from CIAT iostructors. At these workshops, Action Plans are elaborated (Box 8). These are smal! projects through which people commit themselves at institutionallevel to use what they have leamed during training with the Guides. Organizatioos participating io Workshops are asked to write down their mission and vision so that everyone in the forum can understand exactly with whom they are going to work. The Action Plans identify wbo could be affected and who should be involved in what is being planned.Plan s cover in simple tabular form:I.The character oftbe institution involved, its address, mission, and reason for wanting to use the tools.2.1dentification of the desired situation, who will be affected, and how decisions will be taken.3.Methodological tools to be applied and the environment or areas where tbey are to be applied. The training in the use of the Guides leads to the making of Action Plans, which are decisions taken by participants on what needs to be done and how to do it in their specific areas .It is highly impOItant to maintain an efficient infonnation system within a project and with its partners, and palticularly so in situations of multiple collaboration such as occur in watershed management. It is also highly important to exchange infolmation with other projects ro share experiences, lea m from our mistakes, and provide assessments.  The erAL Primers are aimed directly for farmer use. During 2001, Primers are to be developed corresponding to each of the Guides so that members of the organizing groups ofilie community can use them as workbooks.At locallevel, interviewing to gain local information can work both ways, the occasion being used to inform farrners of what is being done or may be done in the watershed and of projects that are underway. The Workshops to which they are invited also disseminate infonnation at the locallevel.Good decision making depends upon access to good and ample infOlmation.Project monitoring is considered both as a tool for measuring the impacts of the activities carried out and as providing ongoing opportunities for analysis and reflection about the progress made toward achieving the project's objectives. This in tum provides feedback to improve the monitoring system. Figure 5 illustrates the process.This goes together with lhe implementation componen!. lt needs to be a tool for reflection on what has been and is being done, giving the experience of those involved. It is a feedback and improvement ofthe process. At this stage we work on the most important aspects for follow up and later define the indicators to use. We determine the initial situation or base line then follow up the implementation and howthis influences the indicators ofprocess.We use this information for motivating people's reflection on whether they are doing well, the results are as expected, why or why not, what to do next, and so on. This is a \"learning by doing\" approach (Implementation), which Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) promotes. Including the M&E of the process of implementing our approach is vital to its success, th at is, M&E both looks at the outcomes of improving resource management and improves the process. It also improves people's decision-making abiliries. When confronted with multiple stakeholders with the sanctioned right to press for their needs, grass-roots workers need not only a \"paradigm shift\" but good science, appropriate methods, organizational skills, workable technologies, su fficient funding, and donor patience (Rhoades 1998).Since its inception over 30 years ago, CLAT has accumulated a great deal of information and experience and is well placed for strong impact at watershed leve!. We also take into account what other entities are doingthis aspect is important and needs constant verifYing. In Central America many other institutions are working at watershed leve! , but more on rural development and less on research, training, and the use of lools. Concenlrating on these aspects, CIAT is filling a void.It is importan! to involve other partners (research and development institutions) with comparative complementary advantages who can contribute in making up a package Ihat satisfies the expectations of the technological component for the management of natural resources. In an ongoing research process, CIAT contiulIes lO design and validate new methodological guides.Amongst these are the \"Des ign, use, and updating ofa GIS at locallevel\" , \"Use of tbree-dimensional models for the development of a holislic understanding of the environment-maquetas\", and \"A decision support system for groups of multiple interests\".Also planned are guides on the ITIDSS , the SOL, organic matter and soil management, ami soil macrofauna (in collaboration with the CGIAR SWNM, www.swnm-org, systemwide program on Soil, Water and Nutrient Management), maquetas, site similarity analysis, and gender analysis. As work continues, olher needs wil! emerge and further guides will be developed. The CIAT approach of decision support to stakeholder watershed resource management has been used with sorne success for local sustainable development in small areas. lt takes ioto account socioeconomic and environmental aspects. The results of this approach can be seen relatively quickly from the socioeconomic perspective (Box 9); its effects on natural resources will take longer to quantify. CIAT can readily apply its ample experiences and this methodology to watershed management.Box 9. What results can we expect of using this learning process approach? We can expect changes in:• Resources both natural and human (welfare) • Management • Skills and knowledge • Organization These can be seen in the success ofthe CIPASLA Although watersheds are a useful unit for organizing research, this does not imply that theobjective will always result in management plan s thatoptimize water resources (Knapp et al. 2000). Rather, the objective is lO inelude the analysis of water as well as soil and vegetation in the family of indicators that provide a \"feedback mechanism\" for stabilizing and sustaining hillside production systems (CGIAR 1996).When poor farmers seize Ihe chance to make decisions themselves, to exploit the besl oftraditional wisdom and formal science, they take a crucial step on the slow path to prosperity. CIAT continues working to empower poor fanners, presenting them with wider choices, new opportunities, and hope for a better life (CIAT 1999b). Watersheds can be described in very specific geographic terms using the walercalchmenl (ridgeline) as Ihe dividing line on a diagram ofrivers. Where Ihe river goes inlo Ihe sea is then the primary watershed, where the river di vides beco mes the secondary one, and so forih. Thi s is a theoretical way of dividing the rivers into a graph, but it does not give an idea ofwatershed size.There is a hierarchy of different sizes ofwatershed depending upon the type oflerraio.A hierarchy of communities also exists. CIAT work s in watersheds because they often coincide with communities of people who work together, or interact, in terms ofwhat goes on in the physical area ofthe watershed. The community sizes are much related to the hierarchy of watersheds country boundaries, regional organizations, local govemment, veredas (local parishes). These overlie a physical watershed in different ways.The pbysical watersbed interacts with the community depending upon the teITain and scale. How the river networkl terrainl watershed reacts with the comrmmity mainly depends upon the type of countryside. Figure 6 is intended to give some idea of the complexity of scales and the overlays of different boundaries.Communications tend to run in the same pattems as ri vers. In some areas, the ri ver system is used as transport and becomes the form of communications, whereas in other areas the rivers may be fastrunning or difficult to cross in the wet season and therefore impede communication. In mountainous terrain, the ridgeline of very high mountains is often an impediment, while in lhe mid-elevalion Andes the community of a municipality is ofien on both sides of the ridge between the rivers . In the forest margins, in many cases communications mn along the tivers, and deforestation and colonization tend to spread out from either a ti ver or a road.If a valley is shallow with good agricultural ground on either side, then lhe community forros by the river and is demarcated by the ridges. There may even be a different community on either side ofthe tiver. Yoro and Yorito are examples of fluvial communities (in the valley and going up the side of the hill), while Cauca, Cabuyal, and Ovejas tend lO be interfluvial as the rivers cut deeply into the hills.The size of cornmunity we can manage to work with is what defines the watershed. We try to find a community that fits into a communication catchment area and that is defined by a watershed pattem. We try as much as possible to capture !he human interaction in the area, thus it is natural to stop at a boundary to communications. The idea is that ifwe can define a particular type of catchment area where people fonu a coherent unit, then when we find another similar area results can be extrapolated to it by using site similatity analyses. . aking an Atlas . . arreto H, Jiménez P, Lamy F. 1998. Atlas of Yorilo and Sulaco, Yoro Honduras). Guide 6 (in Spanish) of the series \"Methodological instruments for decision taking in natural resource management\". ClAT, Cali, Colombia. 79 p.~entifying Market Opportunities. stertag CF. 1999. Identifying and evaluating market opportunities for small-scale rural producers. Guide 7 (in Spanish) of the series \"Methodological inslruments for decision taking in natural resource management\". CIAT, Cali, Colombia. 182 p. sing Simulation Models. strada RD, Chaparro 0, Rivera B. 1998. Use of simulation models for ex-ante evaluation. Guide 8 (in Spanish) of the series \"Methodological instruments for decision taking in natural resource management\". CIAT,Cali,Colombia. 194 p. eveloping Organizing Processes. eltrán lA, Tijerino D, Vemooy R. 1999 Developi ng orgal1lzmg processes at local level for collective management of natural resources. Guide 9 (in Spanish) of the series \"Methodological instruments for decision taking in natural resource management\". CIAT, Cali, Colombia. 147p.e I A TIhese include humanlsocialleconomic/productive mapping, and the use of remote sensing, aerial photos, and other G[S tools. Water/hydrological modeling is also useful, bu! should be calibrated; CIAT has models for the Central American and Andean regions. We can do model aspects of water management, e.g. estimate how much water is produced, when it is produced, the times of cleanest water, times of shortage et cetera.1. The Accessibility Wizard -We have developed computer-based tools Ihat produce, for example, accessibility maps that allow us lO make maps oftime to marketsetc.2. Soil-water budget model (SWBM). Ihis model allows simulation of future scenarios as fitness tests for the water component, the ability ofthe landscape to regulate water. We can then app ly scenarios as stresses to the watershed to see what reaction ensues. palticipating institutions or other participants write up small pro in the form of Action Plans, in whieh one or more ofthe tools are 1 If approved, these plans are then eamed out by the institution eva!ualed as paltofthe training seheme.Decision support system: This is a system of support fordeeision taking. It ineludes an oper eomplementary group of methodologíes (whieh in their tum ine proeesses and tools) and of information tools (software and di and numeriea! data) . These are of permanent aeeess to people groups, allowing lhe support of their deeisions of inversion polities about the area withi n their arnbit of responsibility Decision support tooVinstrument: Used in or for lhe support ofdeeision taking . Each ofthe nine rnethodologieal lools described in \"Informed dee l rnaking for sustainable natural resource managernent: Nine too!! help\" can be a decision support tool when used towards that end.A system of organisrns oeeupying a habitat, together with t aspeets ofthe physieal environment with whieh they ¡nterae\\. Thus agro-ecosystem : agriculture and ecosystem.  The nine tools produced lo date contain the essential components of each decision support tool and materials to accompany the training (e.g., questionnaires, objectives, and exercises). The leaming model used by the Guides sustains that practice is the most important aspect of leaming in helping develop the abilities and attitudes needed for decision taking.A tool for application of a method in a particular field.In developing the CIAT Guides, the terrn methodological tool has been used with the same meaning as methodological instrument.When it is incorporated in a decision-making system, it takes on the cbaracter of\"decision support too\\\".A person or a group with an interest or concem in the process of watershed management including farmers , researchers, planners, technical experts, community development workers, different agency professionals or others in volved in the use and man agement ofnatural resources.ln tbe process ofplanning and implementing this approach: TI1e rcsearchers, planners, technical experts, community development workers or other agency professionals or those involved in the use ofnatural resources.Sustainable: Able to be maintained at a certain rate or leve!.Sustainable development: Is a permanent process, a perpetual search for a balance between the demands generated to satisfy human needs and the capacity ofNature to cover these demands without irreversible degradation. Because human demands change with time, tbi s balance is not static, bul has 10 be redefined constantly.","tokenCount":"7860"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"44ecb1e5fa5fe1415b3b874ac4cc71b4","source":"gardian_index","url":"http://www.scielo.org.co/pdf/rcen/v31n1/v31n1a05.pdf","id":"1962522944"},"keywords":["Whiteflies","Species","Biotypes","RAPD-PCR","Host plants","Insecticide resistance"],"sieverID":"5282ac4a-4204-4610-a4d7-c4f4f5d6bf5e","pagecount":"8","content":"Resumen. Para actualizar la información obtenida en el año 1997 sobre la composición de especies y biotipos de moscas blancas en cultivos anuales en el Valle del Cauca, se hizo un nuevo reconocimiento en 37 localidades de 23 municipios del departamento. Se tomaron muestras de adultos y pupas en once cultivos. Por observación de las características morfológicas de las pupas se hizo la diferenciación entre las especies Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) y Trialeurodes vaporariorum (Westwood). La reconfirmación de la identidad de especies y la diferenciación entre los biotipos A y B de B. tabaci se realizó por medio de polimorfismo en ADN amplificado al azar (RAPD-PCR). T. vaporariorum, predominante en 1997 con 73% de las muestras, ocupa ahora un lugar secundario con apenas 22,7% de las muestras. El biotipo A de B. tabaci (en 1997 con 15,5% de las muestras) no fue encontrado en ninguno de los muestreos realizados en 2002-2003. Por el contrario, la incidencia del biotipo B se incrementó de 11,5% en 1997 a 62,6% en 2003. Su mayor presencia se evidenció además por la común ocurrencia de desórdenes fisiológicos como la maduración desuniforme en frutos de tomate, el plateado de las hojas del zapallo y la clorosis de pecíolos y vainas en habichuela, que no habían sido señalados en el departamento. Habichuela, soya, pimentón, batata y uva fueron registrados como nuevos hospedantes del biotipo B. En 14,6% de las muestras se halló mezcla de biotipo B y T. vaporariorum. El biotipo B mostró altos niveles de resistencia a insecticidas convencionales y susceptibilidad a insecticidas novedosos (neonicotinoides y reguladores de crecimiento). Se discute la importancia que estos cambios en la composición de especies y biotipos de moscas blancas pueden tener para la agricultura de la región.Palabras clave: Moscas blancas. Especies. Biotipos. RAPD-PCR. Hospedantes. Resistencia a insecticidas.Summary. To update information on whitefly species composition and occurrence of whitefly biotypes affecting annual crops in the Cauca Valley of Colombia, a new survey was conducted in [2002][2003]. Thirty-seven sites in 23 different locations were visited. Adult and pupal samples were taken from 11 crops. Differentiation between the species Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) and Trialeurodes vaporariorum (Westwood) was based on morphological characteristics of the pupae. Reconfirmation of species identity and differentiation between biotypes A and B was done by means of random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPDs-PCR analysis). T. vaporariorum, the predominant species in 1997 (present in 73% of the samples), now occupies a secondary place detected in only 22,7% of the samples. The Biotype A of B. tabaci (15,5% of the samples in 1997) was not found in any samples taken in [2002][2003]. On the contrary, the incidence of the B biotype increased from 11,5% in 1997 to 62,6% in 2003. Increased incidence of the B biotype was also evidenced by the common occurrence of such physiological disorders as irregular ripening of tomatoes, silver-leaf symptoms on squash and pod chlorosis on snap beans. These disorders had not been recorded in the Cauca Valley before. Snap beans, soybeans, pepper, sweet potato, and grapes were recorded as new host plants for the B biotype. A mix of T. vaporariorum and biotype B was found in 14,6% of the samples. The B biotype showed high levels of resistance to conventional insecticides and susceptibility to novel insecticides (neonicotinoids and insect growth regulators). The importance that these changes in species composition and biotypes of whitefly have to the regions agriculture are discussed.Una de las especies de mosca blanca que ha sido más estudiada en los últimos años es Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius), debido a su amplia distribución geográfica, gran número de hospedantes afectados y la marcada capacidad de transmitir virus (Na-ranjo y Ellsworth 2001). En 1991, ataques severos de B. tabaci sobre alfalfa, brócoli, algodón, tomate y papa en Estados Unidos causaron pérdidas cercanas a 500 millones de dólares (Perring et al. 1993). Por medio de estudios detallados se encontró que los ataques severos se debían a la presencia de una variante de la especie deno-minada biotipo B de B. tabaci (raza Florida, raza Poinsettia, o B. argentifolii Bellows & Perring), forma totalmente diferente de la B. tabaci nativa (raza California, raza algodón, biotipo A) (Perring 1996). Morfológicamente no se pueden distinguir los dos biotipos de B. tabaci; sin embargo, existen algunas características biológicas que los diferencian: el biotipo B presenta mayor rango de hospedantes, ataca en mayores densidades de población y presenta mayor capacidad para adquirir resistencia a los insecticidas que el biotipo A (Cahill et al. 1996). Además de estos aspectos, el biotipo B induce desórdenes fisiológicos en tomate (maduración desuniforme de los frutos) y cucurbitáceas (plateado de las hojas) que no son inducidos por el biotipo A (Perring 2001). Una identificación más precisa se puede hacer a nivel bioquímico y molecular, por medio de esterasas no específicas y polimorfismo en ADN amplificado al azar (RAPD) respectivamente, ya que los dos biotipos presentan patrones de bandas que permiten diferenciarlos y determinar la presencia de cualquiera de ellos en un cultivo o región determinada (Perring 2001).En Colombia, Quintero et al. (1998) registraron mediante pruebas bioquímicas y moleculares la presencia del biotipo B de B. tabaci en poblaciones de moscas blancas colectadas en la costa Atlántica durante 1995, que habían causado pérdidas considerables en algodón debido a la excesiva excreción de melaza y en tomate por la maduración desuniforme de los frutos. A partir de este primer registro, se realizó un muestreo de moscas blancas en cultivos semestrales de Colombia y Ecuador, donde por medio de la técnica de RAPD´s se identificó a Trialeurodes vaporariorum (Westwood) como especie dominante en el trópico alto y valles interandinos de los dos países sobre cultivos de fríjol, habichuela, tomate y papa, ubicados entre 600 y 2.830 msnm. El biotipo B de B. tabaci se encontró en el trópico bajo entre 0 y 890 msnm desde Córdoba hasta la Guajira en Colombia. En el Ecuador el biotipo B fue la única especie identificada en la costa. Los hospedantes registrados para el biotipo B fueron ahuyama, berenjena, algodón, col, melón, fríjol lima, pepino, sandía, tomate y tabaco. El biotipo A sólo se halló en los departamentos de Córdoba, Sucre, Valle del Cauca y Huila sobre berenjena, tomate, tabaco, soya, brócoli y poinsetia entre 50 y 1.350 msnm (Quintero et al. 2001). Para complementar el diagnóstico, se realizaron estudios de resistencia a insecticidas por medio de la técnica de viales impregnados sobre adultos de moscas blancas en varias regiones de los dos países (Cardona et al. 2001). Las poblaciones de T. vaporariorum fueron susceptibles a metomil, medianamente resistentes a cipermetrina y muy resistentes a metamidofos, mientras que las poblaciones del biotipo B de la costa Atlántica mostraron altos niveles de resistencia a metomil y a metamidofos en la mayoría de los sitios; tan sólo tres localidades presentaron niveles de resistencia intermedia a cipermetrina. Estos resultados confirman los registros de resistencia a organofosforados, carbamatos y piretroides que han mostrado poblaciones de biotipo B en algunas regiones del mundo (Elbert y Nauen 2000; Palumbo et al. 2001).Para el caso específico del Valle del Cauca, Rodríguez y Cardona (2001) diagnosticaron la problemática de moscas blancas sobre cultivos semestrales en 15 municipios hortícolas del departamento durante 1997 y 1998, por medio de identificaciones morfológicas (cuarto ínstar ninfal), electroforesis de α-β esterasas y RAPD´s. T. vaporariorum fue la especie dominante (73% del total de las muestras tomadas) en tomate, tabaco, pepino, habichuela, zapallo, berenjena, fríjol, repollo, cilantro, pimentón, arveja, col y geranio en un intervalo de altitud entre 828 y 2.040 msnm. El biotipo A de B. tabaci se encontró en segundo lugar con 15,5% de los casos. Como hospederos para el biotipo A se registraron los cultivos de soya, tabaco, poinsettia y algodón en intervalo de altura de 850 a 950 msnm. El biotipo B ocurrió en la menor proporción del muestreo (11,5% de las muestras) sobre plantas ornamentales de poinssettia, dalia y maní forrajero mantenidos bajo cubierta entre 963 y 995 msnm. Este biotipo también fue hallado a 1.200 y 1.700 msnm sobre plantas de poinssettia importadas de los Estados Unidos y mantenidas en ambiente artificial.La presencia del biotipo B en el Valle del Cauca detectada en 1997 no tuvo mayores repercusiones iniciales en el sector hortícola del departamento. Sin embargo, como consecuencia de un período prolongado de sequía durante el 2002, en septiembre del mismo año algunos agricultores de municipios como Pradera, El Cerrito, Guacarí y Roldanillo observaron poblaciones excesivas de mosca blanca, ataques más agresivos en diversos hospedantes y desórdenes en la maduración de los frutos de tomate (síntoma denominado arco iris por los cultivadores). Estas situaciones no se habían manifestado en años anteriores en el departamento y causaron pérdidas considerables a la producción. Simultáneamente, en habichuela se detectó la ocurrencia de un desorden fisiológico (clorosis de pecíolos y vainas), sintomatología asociada a la presencia del biotipo B en Egipto (Hassan y Sayed 1999), además de síntomas típicos de un begomovirus nuevo transmitidos por B. tabaci. Surgió entonces la necesidad de actualizar la información sobre la presen-cia de especies de moscas blancas en las principales regiones hortícolas, con el fin de confirmar la posible presencia del biotipo B de B. tabaci y determinar si había cambios en la composición de especies. Además, como los agricultores incrementaron el control químico como principal estrategia de manejo, y como las moscas blancas tienen gran capacidad de adquirir resistencia a insecticidas (Denholm et al. 1996;Palumbo et al. 2001), se vio la necesidad de hacer evaluaciones de resistencia a algunos productos en adultos y ninfas en aquellas zonas en las cuales predominaba el biotipo B.El área de muestreo se dividió en cinco zonas: norte, centro-norte, centro, centrosur y sur. Se colectaron 123 muestras en 22 municipios del Valle del Cauca y uno del norte del Cauca (Tabla 1). Las visitas se realizaron entre julio de 2002 y julio de 2003. Para cada muestra se registraron los datos de altitud sobre el nivel del mar, el nombre de la planta hospedante y observaciones correspondientes a la presencia de síntomas característicos de la presencia del biotipo B en hospederos específicos.Para la identificación morfológica se colectaron en cajas de petri hojas infestadas con pupas de moscas blancas, que fueron revisadas bajo estereoscopio en el laboratorio. Las especies se clasificaron utilizando las características registradas en la clave de campo para inmaduros de moscas blancas de Centro América (Caballero 1994). Los adultos fueron colectados con aspiradores bucales y se conservaron en etanol al 70% hasta el momento de la identificación molecular, la cual partió de la extracción de ADN de insectos individuales según el método descrito por Quintero et al. (1998). El ADN de todas las muestras se amplificó por medio de RAPD´s con el cebador OPA-04. Se utilizaron como testigos los biotipos A y B de B. tabaci criados sobre Phaseolus vulgaris L. (var. ICA Pijao) a 23 o C y 70% HR y T. vaporariorum criado sobre el mismo hospedante a 21 o C y 80% HR. La comparación con los testigos de las colonias permitió la identificación de las Las evaluaciones de resistencia de adultos a insecticidas tradicionales (organofosforados, carbamatos y piretroides) se hicieron en campo mediante la técnica de viales impregnados con la dosis diagnóstico de cada producto (Rodríguez et al. 2003). Los individuos colectados directamente de las plantas en cada zona visitada se introdujeron en los viales. Seis horas después se registró el número de individuos vivos y muertos en cada vial con el fin de calcular el porcentaje de mortalidad. Se utilizaron como controles viales tratados con acetona pura. Para los insecticidas sistémicos (imidacloprid y tiametoxam) se colectaron hojas infestadas con pupas, que fueron llevadas a cuartos de cría del CIAT para esperar la emergencia de adultos. Cuando los adultos así obtenidos tenían cinco días de edad, fueron utilizados en pruebas de resistencia por el método de inmersión de pecíolos (Rodríguez et al. 2003), que consiste en sumergir pecíolos de fríjol de la variedad ICA Pijao por 16 h en soluciones acuosas de las dosis seleccionadas para cada producto, de tal manera que el insecticida sea absorbido por los pecíolos y luego traslocado a las hojas. Posteriormente, se cortaron discos de follaje de 5 cm de diámetro, que se colocaron sobre agar noble en cajas de Petri. Como testigos se utilizaron pecíolos sumergidos en agua destilada. El tiempo de exposición a los insecticidas fue de 48 h. Tanto en las pruebas con viales como en las de inmersión de pecíolos se registró el número de individuos vivos y muertos en cada repetición. En los dos tipos de prue-ba se usó un diseño de bloques completos al azar con diez (10) repeticiones por dosis de cada insecticida y 20 adultos por repetición, para un total de 200 individuos evaluados por dosis de producto.Para medir la resistencia en ninfas, se levantaron crías de cada raza a partir de hojas infestadas con pupas, colectadas en cultivos afectados en cada una de las zonas visitadas. Los adultos emergidos de las pupas se mantuvieron en plantas de fríjol variedad ICA Pijao, bajo las mismas condiciones ambientales (23 o C, 70% HR) a las cuales se crió la raza susceptible. Se estableció una población de ninfas de primer ínstar de cada raza que fuera suficiente para las pruebas, mediante la confinación por 24 h de 10 adultos de siete días de edad en jaulas pinza sobre trifolios de fríjol. Se esperaron por lo menos 10 días para que ocurriera la eclosión de los huevos. Como en cada jaula ocurren números variables de ninfas, se marcó el área de ubicación de ellas y se contó el número de individuos por repetición así obtenidos. Los trifolios con ninfas se trataron con las dosis seleccionadas de cada uno de los insecticidas por inmersión de follaje durante 5 s (Rodríguez et al. 2003). Como tratamiento control para corrección de mortalidad, se usaron trifolios infestados con ninfas inmersos en agua destilada. Luego de 26 días se contó el número de exuvias (emergencia de adultos) en el área demarcada de cada repetición. La diferencia entre el número inicial de ninfas y el número de exuvias por repetición, constituye una medida de supervivencia y se usó para calcular el porcentaje de mortalidad obtenido con cada dosis. Se usó un diseño de bloques completos al azar con cuatro repeticiones por dosis diagnóstico de cada producto.En todos los casos (adultos y ninfas), la mortalidad se corrigió por la fórmula de Abbott (Busvine 1971) y no se aceptaron pruebas con porcentajes de mortalidad en los testigos superiores al 10%. Todos los datos se sometieron a análisis de varianza previa transformación a arco seno de la raíz cuadrada de la proporción. En el trabajo se presentan las medias sin transformación. Cuando la prueba de F fue significativa, se hizo la separación de medias por Diferencia Mínima Significativa (DMS) al 5% (STATISTIX 1998) con el propósito de comparar las respuestas de las razas de campo con respecto a la respuesta de la raza susceptible de biotipo B mantenida en CIAT.Para identificar posibles cambios en los niveles de resistencia en poblaciones de adultos a través del tiempo, las mortalidades obtenidas en la primera medición de resistencia (2002B) con cada raza, en cada sitio, fueron comparadas con las mortalidades obtenidas en la segunda medición (2003B). La comparación se hizo mediante el análisis de los datos en un diseño de parcelas divididas; las mediciones periódicas de resistencia constituyeron las par-celas mayores y las razas fueron las parcelas menores. Se hizo separación de medias por DMS al 5% (STATISTIX 1998).La interpretación de los datos de mortalidad corregida se hizo mediante la siguiente escala arbitraria para clasificar la resistencia o susceptibilidad de las poblaciones: 0-50% de mortalidad, resistencia; 50-80%, resistencia intermedia; > 80%, susceptibilidad (Cardona et al. 2001;Rodríguez et al. 2003).De las 123 muestras colectadas, 108 (87,8%) fueron identificadas por morfología de pupas. T. vaporariorum y B. tabaci fueron identificadas como las dos especies de moscas blancas predominantes en la zona. Estas dos especies han sido reconocidas por la mayoría de autores como plagas causantes de grandes pérdidas económicas en distintos cultivos.De las técnicas de identificación de moscas blancas disponibles, la técnica de RAPD es una de las más adecuadas, porque es rápida y permite distinguir con precisión diferencias entre los fragmentos de ADN de los dos biotipos de B. tabaci (Perring 2001). Otra de las ventajas que posee esta técnica, es el manejo fácil de las muestras en campo sin necesidad de refrigerar (Quintero et al. 2001). Como lo han señalado diversos autores, el uso del cebador OPA-04 en el presente trabajo también reveló un alto grado de polimorfismo entre T. vaporariorum y los biotipos A y B de B. tabaci (Gawel y Bartlett 1993; Quintero et al. 1998Quintero et al. , 2001) (Fig. 1). Hubo 100% de coincidencia entre las identificaciones morfológicas y las moleculares.  En algunos de los cultivos, el biotipo B estaba asociado con T. vaporariorum (Tabla 2), mezcla que no había sido registrada anteriormente en Colombia.Además de las identificaciones morfológicas y moleculares que permitieron registrar la presencia del biotipo B en el Valle del Cauca, se observaron desórdenes fisiológicos característicos causados por este biotipo tales como la maduración desuniforme de los frutos de tomate y el plateado de las hojas de zapallo. Es importante vo (Fig. 4). Este desorden (conocido en inglés como chlorotic pod), fue asociado a la presencia del biotipo B en cultivos de habichuela en Egipto (Hassan y Sayed 1999). La situación en el departamento del Valle se complicó además, con la aparición de síntomas de una enfermedad causada por un nuevo begomovirus transmitido por el biotipo B en habichuela, al cual Morales et al. (2002) denominaron Virus del arrugamiento foliar del fríjol. Las plantas afectadas por este virus muestran arrugamiento foliar severo y amarillamiento moderado (Fig. 5). Estos begomovirus son capaces de atacar gran cantidad de especies cultivadas, debido a que son transmitidos de malezas a cultivos por adultos y ninfas de B. tabaci (Morales 2001). La alta incidencia de begomoviurs en las plantaciones de habichuela revela el gran potencial epidemiológico que estos virus transmitidos por B. tabaci han demostrado poseer en otras regiones tropicales y subtropicales del mundo (Morales et al. 2002). Los resultados del presente estudio para el cultivo de habichuela, originaron el desarrollo de investigaciones encaminadas a la búsqueda de fuentes de resistencia al begomovirus por parte del CIAT, como alternativa de manejo para el problema diseminado en las regiones hortícolas del departamento, ya que a pesar de que existen fuentes de resistencia a begomovirus en fríjol común, éstas no han sido usadas para mejorar variedades de habichuela que satisfagan las características agronómicas y de calidad que demandan los productores del Valle del Cauca (Morales et al. 2002).Los porcentajes de mortalidad corregida obtenidos con metamidofos en los tres sitios de estudio fueron inferiores al 50% y destacar que la presencia de estas sintomatologías son indicativos de la presencia de biotipo B en una nueva área geográfica (Perring 2001).En habichuela (hortaliza de importancia económica en el departamento), se registra por primera vez la aparición de un desorden fisiológico caracterizado por la decoloración de los tejidos jóvenes y las vainas de la planta; esta sintomatología es ocasionada por el daño que originan poblaciones altas del biotipo B en el culti-     (2001), quienes detectaron altos niveles de resistencia a metamidofos en todas las razas de biotipo B evaluadas en la costa Atlántica. Se registraron niveles de resistencia altos a monocrotofos en la Unión e intermedios en Rozo. La raza de Santa Helena exhibió resistencia intermedia (50-80% de mortalidad corregida) a este ingrediente activo. Los niveles de resistencia a organofosforados son frecuentes en razas de T. vaporariorum y B. tabaci debido al excesivo uso de este grupo químico por parte de los agricultores en el departamento (Rodríguez y Cardona, 2001;Rodríguez, et al. 2003).La raza de La Unión presentó resistencia intermedia a metomil en tanto que la de Rozo, a pesar de haber sido catalogada como susceptible en las dos mediciones de resistencia, manifestó disminución significativa en la susceptibilidad en el 2003. Para Santa Helena, la respuesta a metomil fue de resistencia intermedia en la primera medición y de susceptibilidad en la segunda (Tabla 3). La resistencia del biotipo B a metomil también fue encontrada en varias razas de Córdoba, Atlántico y Sucre por Cardona et al. (2001) y confirma la mayor capacidad de este biotipo para tolerar el carbamato en comparación con T. vaporariorum, especie que es muy susceptible a metomil en diversas regiones de Colombia y el Valle del Cauca (Cardona et al. 2001;Rodríguez et al. 2003). En las evaluaciones de resistencia con carbofuran se detectó resistencia alta en Santa Helena y La Unión e intermedia en Rozo. Con carbosulfan, en la primera medición Rozo y Santa Helena fueron tan susceptibles como la raza CIAT, durante la segunda evaluación las poblaciones mostraron aumentos significativos en su nivel de tolerancia a este producto y pasaron a ser medianamente resistentes. La Unión mostró resistencia a carbosulfan en las dos evaluaciones (Tabla 3). De acuerdo con los resultados de Rodríguez et al. (2003), carbosulfan era uno de los productos eficientes para el control de moscas blancas en zonas como Rozo; la eficiencia se explicaba por la presencia de poblaciones de T. vaporariorum susceptibles a ese producto; no obstante, la mayor incidencia del biotipo B en esta región, hace que el insecticida aparezca ahora como poco efectivo para el control de adultos.Se encontraron altos niveles de resistencia a cipermetrina en Rozo e intermedios en La Unión. Hubo una disminución significativa en la susceptibilidad a este piretroide en la raza de Santa Helena durante la evaluación realizada en el 2003 (Tabla 3). La resistencia a cipermetrina también ocurre en razas de biotipo B de Sucre y Córdoba (Cardona et al. 2001). Para el caso del Valle del Cauca, en los registros de Rodríguez et al. (2003) cuando la especie dominante en Santa Helena era T. vaporariorum, se había manifestado susceptibilidad y el producto figuraba como eficiente para el control de moscas blancas. Los resultados del presente trabajo sugieren que cuando ocurre un cambio en la composición de especies en una región determinada, el uso de este tipo de piretroides es poco efectivo para el control de adultos. La raza colectada en La Unión fue susceptible a cialotrina; las de Rozo y Santa Helena, catalogadas como susceptibles en el 2002, pasaron a ser medianamente resistentes al producto en el 2003. Todas las razas del biotipo B evaluadas con bifentrin presentaron diferencias significativas con respecto al testigo susceptible CIAT y se clasificaron como resistentes al piretroide (Tabla 3).Los cambios en la resistencia de adultos de biotipo B a insecticidas tradicionales (organofosforados, carbamatos y piretroides), están relacionados con el historial de exposición a insecticidas para el control de mosca blanca y otras plagas en las regiones con mayor actividad agrícola en el departamento. Los niveles de resistencia a insecticidas informados en este trabajo, señalan que existe una problemática de moscas blancas difícil de manejar en las zonas más afectadas por el biotipo B en el departamento. También aportan información fundamental para el diseño de futuros planes de control químico del biotipo B, donde los insecticidas modernos (neonicotinoides y reguladores de crecimiento), juegan un papel fundamental. Estos ingredientes activos constituyen herramientas importantes para una alternativa química que, manejada adecuadamente en programas de rotación y aplicada con criterio a niveles de población cercanos a umbrales de acción, pueden hacer parte del paquete de manejo integrado de moscas blancas en zonas con ataques críticos del insecto tales como Rozo, Santa Helena y La Unión. La asociación de la presencia del biotipo B con desórdenes fisiológicos y begomovirus, complica aun más la situación de cultivos como la habichuela, para el cual es necesario incluir la resistencia varietal al virus como pilar fundamental en el manejo integrado de la plaga, debido a la mayor importancia socio-económica que los begomovirus pueden cobrar en Colombia (Morales et al. 2002). ","tokenCount":"3959"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cc4a83f32e76c725cffdf7bfbbedf15c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/925e59d8-a6cc-4bb7-896d-6121f100f88d/retrieve","id":"1762534300"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0c2ce6d1-93ca-4c21-a0db-0593adaf17a2","pagecount":"34","content":"The Nexus Project is a collaboration between IFPRI and its partners, including national statistical agencies and research institutions. Our aim is to improve the quality of social accounting matrices (SAMs) used for computable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling. The Nexus Project develops toolkits and establishes common data standards, procedures, and classification systems for constructing and updating national SAMs. This addresses the need for greater transparency and consistency in SAM construction to strengthen model-based research and policy analysis in developing countries. Nexus SAMs allow for more robust cross-country comparisons of national economic structure, especially agriculture-food systems. The Nexus Project's guiding principles are that all data should be traceable to original sources and/or assumptions, and that all SAMs should be freely available online. Greater transparency and accessibility should facilitate more data validation and participation of the modeling community. Statistics are continuously being revised and errors are often only identified when data is used for analysis, and so we welcome your suggestions on how the SAMs can be improved to reflect new and/or better information.A national SAM is an economy-wide data framework that captures the detailed economic structure of a country. A SAM is a square matrix in which each account is represented by a row and a column. 1 Each cell reflects a payment from the column account to the row account, i.e., incomes appear along rows and expenditures along columns. Double-entry accounting requires that, for each account, total revenue (row total) equals total expenditure (column total). Table 1 shows an aggregate SAM, with verbal explanations in place of numbers.Nexus SAMs distinguish between \"activities\" (entities that carry out production) and \"commodities\" (representing markets for goods and non-factor services). SAM flows are valued at producer prices in activity accounts and at market prices in commodity accounts, i.e., inclusive of indirect taxes and transactions cost margins. Commodities consist of activity outputs, either exported or sold domestically, and imports. In the activity columns, payments are made to commodities (intermediate demand) and factors of production (value-added, equal to operating surplus and compensation of employees). In the commodity columns, payments are made to domestic activities, the rest of the world, and various tax accounts (for domestic and import taxes).The government in a Nexus SAM is disaggregated into a core government account and various tax collection accounts. Tax accounts are necessary since otherwise the economic interpretation of certain payments becomes ambiguous. Direct payments between the government and other domestic institutions are reserved for transfers. Payments from the government to factors are captured in the government services activity. Government consumption demand is a purchase of the output from the government services activity, which in turn, pays labor. Domestic nongovernment institutions: Domestic nongovernment institutions consist of households and enterprises. Enterprises earn factor incomes (reflecting their ownership of capital) and receive transfers from other institutions. Enterprise incomes are used for corporate taxes, enterprise savings, and transfers to other institutions. Unlike households, enterprises do not demand commodities. In the SAM, enterprises are an aggregation of financial and nonfinancial corporations, as defined within the System of National Accounts (SNA).Household consumption: Nexus SAMs distinguish between home (own) consumption of activities and marketed consumption of commodities by households. Home consumption, which appears in the SAM as payments from household accounts to activity accounts, is valued at producer prices, i.e., without marketing margins and sales taxes that may be levied on marketed commodities. Final household consumption of marketed commodities appears as payments from household accounts to commodity accounts, valued at consumer prices including marketing margins and taxes. Activities and commodities: Standard Nexus SAMs separate domestic production into 42 activities, as shown in Table 2. 2 Each activity represents a group of industries from the International Standard Industrial Classification system (ISIC Revision 4). The 4-digit ISIC codes corresponding to each SAM activity are shown in Table A1 in the appendix. Agricultural activities are further disaggregated using the FAO's classification system, as shown in Table A2 in the appendix. Information on production technologies comes from national input-output tables (IOT) or supply-use tables (SUT). Activities and commodities have a one-to-one mapping based on a concordance between ISIC industries and Harmonized System products (HS Version 2012).  Nexus SAMs separate factors into three broad categories: labor, land and capital. Labor is further disaggregated across three education-based categories, as shown in Table 3. There is greater consistency in education categories across countries since these are based on the number of years of schooling that workers report having completed (see the notes provided in Table 3). Information on total labor value-added as a share of sectoral gross domestic product (GDP) is drawn from national IOTs or SUTs. This is disaggregated across labor subcategories 2 Nexus SAMs are aggregations of IFPRI's detailed country SAMs, which adopt a standard classification (90 activities/commodities, 13 factors, and 15 household groups). Some SAMs are even more detailed, but all can be aggregated to the standard 90/13/15 Nexus structure (and to the 42/5/10 structure documented here). 3 The lengthy concordance between Nexus SAM commodities and HS 2012 codes are available upon request.using wage and salary data as well as imputed earnings by unpaid family members as reported in household and labor force surveys (see Section 5).Capital is gross operating surplus (GOS), plus a portion of the mixed income reported in national IOTs or SUTs that is not assigned to either labor or land factors. Crop and livestock capital are paid directly to households, while capital earnings in other sectors are paid to enterprises. Households: Nexus SAMs separate national populations into 10 representative household groups, as shown in Table 4. Rural and urban households are distinguished based on a country's official definition of these areas and may vary between countries. Rural and urban households are further disaggregated into per capita consumption quintiles. Quintiles are defined at the national level, meaning that rural and urban quintiles are comparable and that the combined population of each quintile is equal to a fifth of the national population. Per capita consumption groups are not adjusted for adult-equivalency and, like national accounts, include all (most) consumption items reported in a country's household survey (see Section 5). The latter implies that the consumption estimates and quintiles in Nexus SAMs may deviate from poverty-oriented consumption measures and groupings, since these typically use adult equivalence scales, exclude \"nonessential\" items (e.g., airplane tickets), and impute a \"use value\" for durable and semidurable assets (in addition to housing). The remaining accounts in the Nexus SAMs are shown in Table 5. These include the transaction costs of moving goods between producers, domestic markets, and national borders, as well as the various indirect taxes imposed on marketed commodities. The previous section outlined the broad structure of a Nexus SAM, including its standardized classification of accounts. This section describes the information included in each row and column entry in the SAM. One advantage of Nexus SAMs is that their Macro SAMs have a common classification or definition of cell entries. This section describes each of the blocks of cells in the Macro SAM following the numbered sequence shown in Table 8.The Macro SAMs are compiled using three key data sources. First, the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Government Finance Statistics (GFS) database provides detailed information on government revenues and expenditures and follows a standardized accounting framework. Nexus SAMs use the 2014 GFS Manual (GFSM) (IMF 2014b) and a mapping between GFSM codes and macro SAM accounts can be found in  Definition: Value-added is the returns earned by factors during the production process, such as labor wages and salaries, land rents, and capital profits. Land and capital includes gross operating surplus (GOS), part of which may be reported as \"mixed income\" in national accounts or IOT/SUTs.Estimation: Total value-added by activity is estimated in two steps. First, national accounts report the level of gross domestic product (GDP measured in basic prices) for aggregate sectors and these are assigned to groups of SAM activities. Second, aggregate GDP estimates are disaggregated to the level of the SAM activities using information on sub-sectoral production from sources beyond national accounts. The value of activity level agricultural production is estimated using production quantity and producer price data from national Ministries of Agriculture and/or the FAO's FAOSTAT database (FAO 2021). Total value-added in each agricultural sector is estimated by multiplying the ratio of GDP to gross output (derived from IOT/SUTs) by the estimated value of activity gross output. Similarly, information on activitylevel industrial production is derived from manufacturing or industrial surveys (or possibly from changing weights of producer price indices).Labor value added is disaggregated across the worker categories in Table 3 using national household and/or labor force survey data. 4 Workers in these surveys report their sector of employment, their earnings (wages, salaries, in-kind, etc.), and their education levels. Earnings from farm and non-farm enterprises are usually reported at the household level in surveys, and in such cases, these earnings are allocated across individual household members based on their reported employment status and sector of employment. It is assumed that paid and unpaid family members earn equal shares of household enterprise incomes (net of input costs).Definition: Net taxes on production (or subsidies if value is negative).The total value of activity taxes (atax) is taken from the IMF's GFS and includes \"taxes on payroll and workforce\" (GFSM code 112). This is disaggregated across activities using information from national tax authorities and/or from the IOT/SUT. For the latter, tax rates are derived from the IOT/SUT and then applied to the sectoral value of GDP and intermediate payments (see Entries 1 and 2). This provides an initial estimate of net activity tax payments, which are then scaled to match the total value of activity tax collections.Definition: Value of domestically produced goods and services that are supplied to markets, either for domestic use or for export. Marketed output is net non-marketed or home produced and consumed goods and services (see Entry 18).Estimation: This is a residual balancing item for activities. The value of gross output less the value of non-marketed consumption is paid from each activity to its corresponding commodity, thereby balancing activity rows and columns.Definition: Trade and transport costs associated with moving goods between producers, markets and national borders, either for domestic, import or export trade. For example, exporters incur transport fees when moving goods from their factories to the national border, whereas importers incur fees when delivering goods to domestic markets.Estimation: There are two approaches to estimating transaction costs in Nexus SAMs. First, margin payments as a share of total demand are estimated using past IOT/SUTs. These rates are then applied to total demand estimates in the SAM, including exports, to derive new transaction costs. Second, margins are estimated by the gap between producer and market prices, net of indirect taxes, using price data supplied by national statistical agencies. The first approach is preferred and is the one typically used for Nexus SAMs (see detailed description of each SAM's data sources for information on which approach was used). Finally, transaction cost margins generate income for trade and/or transport activities.Definition: All indirect taxes imposed on goods and services (or subsidies if value is negative).Estimation: Nexus SAMs separate taxes on products into three categories: sales taxes (stax), export taxes (etax), and import tariffs (mtax) (see Table 4). The total value of tax collections is taken from the IMF's GFS. Sales taxes are \"taxes on goods and services\" (GFSM code 114), which is a summation of various tax instruments, most importantly value-added taxes (GFSM 11411), sales taxes (GFSM 11412), and excise duties (GFSM 1142). Import tariffs (mtax) are \"taxes on international trade and transactions\" (GFSM 115), excluding \"taxes on exports\" (GFSM 1152), which are assigned to export taxes in the SAM.Tax revenues are disaggregated across commodities using national tax authority data and/or tax rates estimated from the IOT/SUT. If the IOT/SUT is outdated, then weighted import tariff rates are taken from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development's Trade Analysis and Information System (TRAINS) (UNCTAD 2021). Tax rates are applied to the level of domestic sales, imports or exports (see Entries 7 and 32). This provides an initial estimate of commodity level tax payments, which are then scaled to match the total value of each tax revenue category, as estimated above.Definition: Value of goods and services imported from abroad, less the cost of carriage, insurance and freight.Estimation: The total value of imports is taken from national accounts, and this is then disaggregated into total goods and total services using current account data from the IMF's BOPS (i.e., BPM6 codes BMG for \"goods, debit\" and BMS for \"services, debit\"). BOPS provides detailed information on services imports by commodity, and this is used to assign imports to service commodities in the SAM (see Table A5 in the appendix). Goods imports are disaggregated across commodities using 6-digit HS gross import flows from the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics (COMTRADE) database (UNSD 2021).Definition: Capital payments to enterprises after paying factor taxes and after transfers to the rest of the world (see Entries 10 and 11). Payments equal gross operating surplus (GOS) generated outside the crop and livestock sectors (see direct payments to households below). GOS includes the value of consumption of fixed capital during the production process.Estimation: This is a residual balancing item for the capital account. Total capital income less capital taxes and foreign transfers is paid to the enterprise account, thereby balancing capital's row and column.Definition: Labor, land, and crop/livestock capital payments to households, after paying factor taxes and making transfers to the rest of the world (see Entries 10 and 11). These payments equal compensation to workers, returns to land, and the capital earnings (i.e., GOS) generated in the crop and livestock sectors.Estimation: This is a residual balancing item for labor and land. Total factor incomes less factor taxes and foreign transfers are paid to individual household accounts, thereby balancing these factors' rows and columns. Labor payments to households are disaggregated across household and labor categories using information from national household or labor force surveys (see Entry 2 on treatment on workers' shares of household enterprise incomes). Land and livestock capital payments to households are disaggregated using survey households' reported revenues from agricultural crops and livestock.Definition: Direct taxes paid by capital to the government.The value of capital tax collections is taken from the IMF's GFS. Factor taxes are \"taxes on property\" (GFSM code 113), which is a summation of various taxes, including wealth and estate taxes and capital levies.Definition: Labor, land and capital incomes paid to foreign households or enterprises. For example, workers belonging to foreign households may earn some or all of their labor incomes in domestic industries and this income may be repatriated back to workers' home countries.Similarly, some profits generated by foreign-owned mining companies may be repatriated to company headquarters in another country.Estimation: Factor transfers to the rest of the world are from the IMF's BOPS. Labor transfers are \"compensation of employees, debit\" (BPM6 code BMIPCE). Capital transfers are \"investment income, debit\" (BPM6 BMIPI), which includes, amongst others, payments on equity and investment funds to foreign investors.Definition: Indirect capital payments by enterprises to households, after paying corporate taxes and saving and making transfers to government and the rest of the world (see Entries 13, 14, 15 and 16). This includes indirect gross operating surplus paid from the earnings of household nonfarm enterprises.Estimation: This is a residual balancing item for the enterprise account. Total enterprise income less taxes and transfers is paid to households, thereby balancing the enterprise row and column. Enterprise earnings are paid to households based on households' earnings from nonfarm enterprises, dividends and private pension funds as reported in national household surveys.Definition: Transfers from enterprises (financial and non-financial corporations) to governments, other than direct tax payments (see Entry 13). For example, domestic banks may provide loans to the government, or parastatal enterprises may pay dividends or repay loans to the general government. Enterprises may also contribute to public social welfare schemes on behalf of their employees.Estimation: Transfers received by the government from financial and non-financial corporations are taken from the IMF's GFS. This is \"property income\" (GFSM code 141), which includes, amongst others, interest and dividend payments and payments for rented public property. Transfers from enterprises also include \"other taxes\" (GFSM 116), which are either paid by business or are unidentifiable. Finally, enterprises include employer contributions to social security (GFSM 1212) and other social schemes (GFSM 1222).Definition: Corporate and other direct taxes paid by enterprises (financial and non-financial corporations) to the government.The total value of taxes collected from enterprises is taken from the IMF's GFS. This includes taxes \"payable by corporations and other enterprises\" (GFSM code 1112) and \"other taxes on income, profits, and capital gains\" (GFSM 1113).Definition: Domestic private savings by enterprises (financial and non-financial corporations). This includes reinvested earnings as well as the value of the consumption of fixed capital (i.e., provision for capital depreciation).Estimation: Total domestic private savings is back-calculated by subtracting public and foreign savings from the value of gross capital formation (see Entries 21, 26, 29 and 36). Unfortunately, few developing countries have the detailed national accounts data needed to disaggregate domestic private savings across corporations (enterprises) and households. Accordingly, in the absence of this information, the Nexus SAMs assume that enterprises and households have similar savings rates, after enterprises have subtracted their allowance for the depreciation of working capital.Definition: Secondary income transfers from domestic financial and non-financial enterprises to the rest of the world.The value of enterprise foreign payments comes from the IMF's BOPS. This includes \"other transfers, debit\" (BPM6 code BMISOOT).Definition: Activity output that is both produced and consumed within the household, i.e., \"own\" or \"home\" consumption.Estimation: Non-marketed consumption is estimated in three steps. First, the share of total private consumption for each Nexus SAM commodity is estimated using aggregate private consumption from national accounts and commodity-level consumption from national household surveys. Second, the share of home consumption in total consumption of each commodity is estimated using the household surveys, and this share of then used to separate total commodity consumption into marketed and non-marketed components. Third, home consumption is disaggregated across household groups using household survey data. Home consumption is defined as any products not purchased in markets, including the consumption of both home produced products and products received \"in-kind\" from other households (i.e., without monetary payment).Definition: Commodities that are purchased in markets and consumed by households.Estimation: Marketed consumption is estimated in three steps. First, the share of total private consumption for each Nexus SAM commodity is estimated using aggregate private consumption from national accounts and commodity-level consumption from national household surveys. Second, the share of home consumption in total consumption of each commodity is estimated using the household surveys, and this share of then used to separate total commodity consumption into marketed and non-marketed components. Third, marketed consumption is disaggregated across household groups using household survey data. Marketed consumption is defined as any products purchased in markets, i.e., not home produced or received \"in-kind\" from other households.Definition: Payments by household to the government other than for direct taxes (see Entry 19). For example, households may contribute to public social welfare schemes, including retirement and healthcare funds.The total value of transfers is taken from the IMF's GFS. This is social security and other social contributions, including payments by employees (GFSM codes 1211 and 1221), self-employed and unemployed people (GFSM 1213), and unallocable and imputed contributions (GFSM 1214 and 1223). Household transfers to government also include various other revenue sources, including from sales of goods and services (GFSM 142), and fines penalties and forfeits (GFSM 143).Definition: Direct income or personal taxes paid by households. For example, households often \"pay as you earn\" (PAYE) taxes to the government based on their wages and salaries.Estimation: Total tax collection is taken from the IMF's GFS. It includes taxes on income, profits and capital gains that are \"payable by individuals\" (GFSM code 1111). This is disaggregated across the household groups in the Nexus SAMs using personal income tax rates reported by households in the national household survey. If tax data if not available or is poorly captured in the survey, then incomes from secondary/tertiary educated labor is used as a proxy for disaggregating total direct tax collections (see Table 3).Definition: Domestic private savings by households.Estimation: Total domestic private savings is back calculated by subtracting public and foreign savings from the value of gross capital formation (see Entries 21, 26, 29 and 36).Unfortunately, few countries have the detailed national accounts data needed to disaggregate domestic private savings across enterprises (corporations) and households. Accordingly, in the absence of detailed information, the Nexus SAMs assume that enterprises and households have similar savings rates, after enterprises have subtracted their allowance for the depreciation of working capital. Household savings are then disaggregated across household groups in the SAM using information from national household surveys. Although survey households often report the value of deposits made into bank accounts or the amount of savings during the year, including private pension contributions, this information is often poorly captured. In such cases, proxy indicators are derived from household earnings from enterprises and incomes from more educated labor.Definition: Secondary income transfers from households to the rest of the world.The value of household foreign payments comes from the IMF's BOPS. This includes \"personal transfers, debit\" (BPM6 code BMISOPT). Transfers are disaggregated across household groups in the SAM using information from national household surveys that capture the amount of remittances households sent abroad.Definition: Government recurrent spending on goods and services. Public consumption demand by the government institution is the primary source of demand for services produced by government activities, which consist of public administration, education, and health and social work.The total value of government consumption is drawn directly from a country's national accounts data. This is cross-checked against recurrent expenditures in the IMF's GFS, which reports government's \"compensation of employees\" (GFSM code 21), \"use of goods and services\" (GFSM 22), and \"consumption of fixed capital\" (GFSM 23). Total consumption is disaggregated across commodities using budget shares derived from the IOT/SUT, and then adjusted to reflect changes in the composition of supply of public administration, education, and health and social work services.Definition: Transfers from the government to enterprises (financial and non-financial corporations). For example, the government may pay interest or repay the principal on a loan from a domestic bank, or the government may lend money to parastatal companies.Estimation: Transfers paid by the government to financial and non-financial corporations are taken from the IMF's GFS. This is interest payments to nongovernment residents (GFSM code 242), subsidies to public corporations and private enterprises (GFSM 25) and \"other expenses\" (GFSM 28). The latter includes property expenses like dividend and rental payments.Definition: Payments by the government to households. For example, governments may pay households from a public pension or cash transfer scheme.The total value of transfers is taken from the IMF's GFS. This is social benefits (GFSM code 27), which includes social security, social assistance, and other employmentrelated social benefits, each of which may be paid in cash or in-kind.Definition: Recurrent fiscal surplus for the government (of deficit if cell entry is negative). Note that this is the difference between revenues and recurrent expenditures, i.e., before public capital investment. Recurrent expenditures include public consumption spending (see Entry 25) and transfers to domestic and foreign institutions (see Entries 24, 25 and 27).Estimation: This is the residual balancing item for the government account, although it crosschecked against the difference between total revenues and total recurrent expenses in the IMF's GFS (GFSM codes 1 and 2). Any deviation from GFS data is due to the Nexus SAM giving preference to statistics from national accounts (for indirect tax collections and government consumption spending, see Entries 3, 6 and 23) and to the IMF's BOP database (for foreign transfers, see Entries 27 and 35).Definition: Transfers from the government to the rest of the world. For example, government may provide foreign aid to other countries, or must pay interest or repay loans to foreign governments and financial enterprises.The value of government foreign payments comes from the IMF's BOPS, and is cross-checked against the IMF's GFS. BOPS-based payments include \"general government transfers, debit\" under secondary income (BPM6 code BMISG). GFS-based payments include interest payments to nonresidents (GFSM code 241), and grants paid to foreign governments and international organizations (GFSM 26).Definition: Revenues transferred from individual tax accounts to the government account.Estimation: This is a residual balancing item for the tax accounts in the SAM. The distinction between taxes and the government account allows the SAM to disaggregate indirect taxes on commodities, i.e., sales taxes, export taxes, and import tariffs (see Entry 6).Definition: Combination of gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) and changes in stocks or inventories. GFCF is the spending on commodities involved during the investment in capital stock. For example, investment typically involves the purchase of machinery, vehicles and equipment, as well as payments for constructing new factories and storage facilities. Changes in stocks occur when businesses carry-over stock for sale in subsequent years, or when they sell products in the current year that were produced in previous years. Positive values in the SAM indicate an accumulation of stocks and negative values indicate a depletion of stocks. Finally, note that the Nexus SAMs combine private, public and foreign investment, just as they combine private, public and foreign savings (see Entries 15, 21 and 26).The Nexus SAMs distinguish between GFCF (s-i) and changes in stocks (dstk). SAM entries are determined in two steps. First, the total value of GFCF and stock changes are taken from official national accounts data. Second, these total values are disaggregated across commodities using expenditure shares from the IOT/SUT. In some cases, countries report the composition of GFCF on an annual basis, in which case this information is used in place of the IOT/SUT shares. The same is true for stock changes, although most countries only report detailed stock changes when a new IOT/SUT is produced during the rebasing of national accounts. Although commodity level stock changes in Nexus SAMs may deviate from national accounts, this may be less concerning since these flows are typically exogenous within economywide models.Definition: The accumulation of stocks for sale in subsequent years are added to the amount of savings available in the country (and a depletion of stocks reduces savings). For example, if an activity produces a machine this year for sale next year then they are effectively saving the value of the machine (or investing in future sales). This transfer of total stock changes to the savings account was not shown in Table 1, because it nets to zero in SAMs that aggregate gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) and changes in stocks.Estimation: This is a residual balancing item for the change in stocks account (see Entry 29). The total value of stock changes is paid to the savings account. A positive value means a net accumulation of stocks and a negative value means a net depletion.Definition: Value of goods and services exported abroad.The total value of exports is taken from national accounts, and this is then disaggregated into total goods and total services using current account data from the IMF's BOPS (i.e., BPM6 codes BXG for \"goods credit\" and BXS for \"services credit\"). BOPS provides detailed information on services exports by commodity and this is used to assign exports to service commodities in the SAM (see Table A5 in the appendix). Goods exports are disaggregated across commodities using 6-digit HS gross export flows from the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics (COMTRADE) database (UNSD 2021).Definition: Labor, land and capital incomes received from the rest of the world. For example, workers belonging to domestic households may earn some or all of their labor incomes working in a foreign country and this income may be repatriated. Similarly, domesticallyowned companies may repatriate profits earned abroad.Estimation: Factor transfers from the rest of the world are from the IMF's BOPS. Labor receipts are \"compensation of employees, credit\" (BPM6 code BXIPCE). Capital receipts are \"investment income, credit\" (BPM6 BXIPI), which includes, amongst others, income on foreign equity and investment funds.Definition: Secondary income transfers from the rest of the world to domestic financial and non-financial enterprises.The value of enterprise foreign receipts comes from the IMF's BOPS. This includes \"other transfers, credit\" (BPM6 code BXISOOT).Definition: Secondary income transfers from households to the rest of the world. For example, households may receive remittance incomes from family members working abroad.The value of household foreign incomes comes from the IMF's BOPS. This includes \"personal transfers, credit\" (BPM6 code BXISOPT). Transfers are disaggregated across household groups in the SAM using information from national household surveys that capture the amount of remittances households received from abroad.Definition: Transfers from the rest of the world to the government. For example, government may receive foreign aid from other countries.The value of government foreign receipts comes from the IMF's BOPS, and this is cross-checked against the IMF's GFS. BOPS-based receipts include \"general government transfers, credit\" under secondary income (BPM6 code BXISG). GFS-based payments include grants received from foreign governments and international organizations (GFSM code 131 and 132).Definition: Current account balance equal to total foreign capital or savings inflows.Estimation: This is the residual balancing item for the rest of world account, although it crosschecked against the current account balance reported in the IMF's BOPS (BPM6 code 1). Any deviation from BOPS dataand this is usually smallis due to the Nexus SAM giving preference to total the value of imports and exports reported in national accounts (see Entries 7 and 31).Nexus SAMs are constructed in three stages using the IFPRI SAM Building Toolkit. The toolkit uses a standardized template in Microsoft-Excel® to construct and export an unbalanced SAM to a compilation and balancing program that is executed in the General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS).During the first stage of the SAM Toolkit, a Macro SAM is constructed using the data described in previous sections. The three main data sources for the Macro SAM are national accounts, GFS, and BOPS. Unfortunately, in many developing countries, these three data sources are not fully reconciled. For example, the total value of exports and imports in national accounts may not exactly match the values appearing in BOPS. Preference is given to certain data sources. For instance, Nexus SAMs always use national accounts data instead of trade data from BOPS or government consumption spending estimates from GFS. Similarly, preference is given BOPS over GFS when estimating transfers between the government and the rest of the world. Row and column totals in the Macro SAM are reconciled manually through various residual balancing items, as listed below:• Marketed supply balances the activity accounts (see Entry 4)• Transfers to households or enterprises balances the factor accounts (see Entry 8 and 9)• Transfers to households balances the enterprise account (see Entry 12)• Household and government savings balance the household and government accounts (see Entries 21 and 26) • Foreign savings balances the rest of world account (see Entry 36).During the second stage, income and expenditure shares derived from surveys and other sources are used to disaggregate the Macro SAM entries across detailed activities, commodities, factors, and households. Sectoral and product data is used to disaggregate production and trade, and survey data is used to disaggregate factor and household incomes and consumer demand. There are always imbalances between the level of supply and demand for commodities and between household incomes and expenditures. These imbalances are manually checked for misclassification issues and logical errors in data collection and reporting. However, imbalances invariably remain, and so Nexus SAMs use cross-entropy estimation techniques to reconcile row and column totals at the detailed commodity and household level. For more information on cross-entropy-based reconciliation of SAM accounts, see Robinson et al. (2001).The 2021 Zambia SAM follows the Standard Nexus Structure (see Section 2). Table 9 lists the specific data sources used to construct the SAM. Most sources are consistent with those used in Standard Nexus SAMs (see Section 3).Activities: Zambia's national accounts were rebased using a 2010 base year. The SUT was aggregated to the Nexus activities using the ISIC Revision 4 concordance (see Table A1 in the appendix). National accounts provided GDP estimates for 19 sectors, which were further disaggregated to the Nexus 68 sectors using crop and livestock production and producer price data from FAOSTAT (see Table A2) and gross output values for manufacturing subsectors from Zambia's 2010 SUT. National accounts provided sufficient detail for service sector GDP. The final SAM was aggregated to the standard 42 activities for dissemination. Commodities: National accounts report GDP by expenditure group, i.e., private and public consumption, investment demand, and exports and imports. These groups were disaggregated across the Nexus commodities using the following data:• Six-digit COMTRADE and itemized BOPS data were used to disaggregate international goods and services trade, respectively. • The 2015 Living Conditions Monitoring Survey (LCMS), which is a nationallyrepresentative household survey distinguishes between marketed and own consumption spending, and this information was used to disaggregate total private consumption spending across activities and commodities.• The 2010 SUT provided information on the breakdown of public consumption spending across public administration, health and social work, and education. This was updated using GDP estimates for public administration, education and health. • Initial indirect tax rates were first estimated from the 2010 SUT and then adjusted using more recent data on tariffs and VAT collections by commodity. Rates were then scaled uniformly to match total revenues by tax instrument. • Transaction cost margins (as a share of commodity supply) were estimated from the 2010 SUT.Labor: The SUT separates sectoral GDP into compensation of employees, and gross operating surplus. Labor value-added was disaggregated using sector-level worker and household income shares derived from the LCMS. This includes wage earnings, as well as farm and non-farm enterprise revenues. The latter were apportioned equally to individual household members based on their reported employment status and sector of employment. For example, if more than one household member reports being employed in agriculture, then each of these members are assigned an equal share of the households' reported farm earnings.Households: Household incomes and expenditures were disaggregated across representative household groups using information from the LCMS. Households receive factor incomes based on reported earnings of individual household members. The value-added generated by crop land and livestock capital were paid to household groups based on their reported farm enterprise revenues. Direct tax payments were assumed to be proportional to secondary/tertiary-educated workers' wage and non-farm enterprise earnings. Finally, transfers received from the government and the rest of the world were assigned to households using information from the LCMS. More specifically, the ratio of transfer earnings to total household consumption was used to estimate initial transfer incomes, and these were then scaled uniformly across all households to match the total value of transfers appearing in government and balance of payments statistics.      ","tokenCount":"5767"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"34108f967ed6109e6c7519a08613fe73","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/10da85f4-26ce-4d25-8838-c30c71c4afc4/retrieve","id":"-2044565812"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f3d9830c-bd31-4c95-a9a4-c25228cd53b1","pagecount":"38","content":"One of AE-I's WP3 tasks is to identify the potential for co-developing/upgrading business models (and the value chains (VCs) they are part of) through the integration of HLPE's agroecological principles. In order to do so, one has to first analyze the selected VCs and diagnose their current agroecological status, which constitutes the main objectives of this Rapid Agroecological Value Chain Analysis (RAVCA) guideline.The CGIAR initiative Transformational Agroecology across Food, Land and Water Systems develops and scales agroecological innovations with small-scale farmers and other food system actors in seven low-and middle-income countries. It is one of 32 initiatives of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future, dedicated to transforming food, land, and water systems in a climate crisis. www.cgiar.org/initiative/31-transformational-agroecology-across-food-land-and-water-systems/The Agroecology Initiative (AE-I) follows the High-Level Panel of Experts' (HLPE)'s (2019) definition of agroecology, which in essence holds that it is a dynamic concept encompassing a scientific discipline, an array of sustainable agricultural practices and a social movement.The HLPE (2019) recommends thirteen principles for the agroecological transition of food systems involving technological and institutional innovations that go beyond the farm scale (see Table 1, and Figure  1 and Figure 2 below). AE-I's third work package (WP3 -\"Inclusive business models and financing strategies\"), constitutes one of AE-I's two adaptive scaling strategies, i.e., along with WP4 -\"Strengthening the policy-and institutional-enabling environment\". One of AE-I's WP3 tasks is to identify the potential for co-developing/upgrading business models (and the value chains (VCs) they are part of) through the integration of HLPE's agroecological principles. In order to do so, one has to first analyze the selected VCs and diagnose their current agroecological status, which constitutes the main objectives of this Rapid Agroecological Value Chain Analysis (RAVCA) guideline.  (HLPE 2019). Source: Biovision Figure 2: Linking FAO's 10 elements, Gliesmann's 5 levels of food system transformation and the 13 HLPE principles (Atta-Krah et al., 2021) An Agroecological VC is an environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable VC that incorporates agroecological principles at the farm, business, and institutional levels to foster the transformation of the whole food system, by:• including and promoting the participation of all relevant stakeholders in the co-creation of a common VC vision. • strengthening stakeholder engagement and agency, empowering vulnerable and marginalized groups, and addressing power inequalities. • supporting diversified, nutrition-sensitive and resilient production systems, including mixed livestock and agroforestry, which preserve and enhance biodiversity, as well as the natural resource base. • promoting diversified and healthy diets as a pathway to support transitions towards more sustainable, diversified and resilient food systems. • adopting agroecological innovations (both technological and institutional) that foster co-creation and co-learning through the integration of science and local knowledge. • creating strategic partnerships with food VC innovation platforms, incubators and aggregation mechanisms in which private and public sector actors invest in and reward sustainable food producers and the production of public goods. • supporting the development of local and regional markets, processing hubs and transportation infrastructures to increase employment and business opportunities, and to promote circular economies.Table 1: HLPE consolidated set of 13 agroecological principles (HLPE, 2019) The RAVCA framework presented in this document has been tailored to contribute to achieving AE-I's WP3 main outcome, namely \"Investors, trading partners, NGOs, and farmer organizations participate in at least one strategic business partnership established in each Agroecological Living Lab (at the end of the first three years) that leads to the co-development or adaptation of business models linking agroecological innovations to markets\". It has been further designed to respond to two of the Initiative's specific objectives, which are a) to determine the extent to which agroecological principles are currently being incorporated along the VC (i.e., an agroecological VC assessment), and b) to assess the scaling potential of agroecological innovations currently in place in the VCs.A VC encompasses all business operations related to a particular product, including the provision of inputs and services throughout the value adding process, i.e., from primary production (i.e., of the selected/prioritized agricultural products), through transformation and marketing, until the sale to the final consumer, (cf. definition at the end of this document) 1 .Multiple tools are available for conducting in-depth VCA, and this guide does not attempt at reproducing nor replacing any of them with this guide. Instead, the goal of this guide is to integrate an agroecological lens into a rapid VCA framework, while limiting its scope to the achievement of the Initiative's outcomes in the expected timeframes. For this purpose, we have adapted and simplified elements from various well established VCA guides, mainly: Participatory Market Chain Analysis for Smallholder Producers (Lundy et al., 2007), ValueLinks (Springer Heinze, 2018), Making Value Chains Work Better for the Poor (M4P, 2008), Developing Sustainable Food Value Chains -Guiding Principles (FAO 2014), and MarketLinks (USAID, n.d.), which we suggest using as complementary references. It is important to note that these guides use different terms for similar concepts. Therefore, we have included in the annex a glossary of the terms employed in this document to avoid ambiguities and facilitate its use by VCA practitioners with different backgrounds.While all the actors in a VC should be considered when carrying out a VCA, the work from WP3 should focus on the actors and potential partners identified for the establishment of the Agroecological Living Landscapes (ALLs), following AE-I's WP1 Guiding Principles for engaging with national & local stakeholders. This set of actors will be henceforth referred to as core stakeholders. Accordingly, the starting point for the analysis should be the predefined group of farmers in a prioritized region along with its current trading partner(s), or an enterprise with operations in the region of interest and with a solid commitment to adopting agroecological principles (i.e., current exporters, processors, local market representatives, institutional market representatives, among others). It is important to mention that the group of core stakeholders will be expanded as additional relevant actor groups for the establishment of ALLs are identified during the RAVCA process.In view of the above, this document offers a general framework and guidelines for the development of the following three products that together make up the RAVCA:The VC map is a graphical depiction of the VC structure that, among others, encompasses the different processes, actor groups and product flows along the VC. VC maps are living documents that can and should be permanently updated to e.g., include newly identified actors or production flows as well as changes in descriptive statistics.The VC characterization presents a detailed description of each VC element by providing quantitative and qualitative information on the number and type of actors in each stage (the generic stages being production, aggregation, processing, commercialization, and consumption), their main characteristics, activities, input and product flows, market demand and prices, the type of business relationships, and value chain governance. It thus complements the VC map, by providing relevant contextual information of each value chain stage.The VC diagnostic provides key intervention points by presenting the results of a participatory assessment of underperformances and opportunities for upgrading based on the inputs from experts and local stakeholders.The VC assessment according to agroecological principles provides information to describe and assess the activities and elements along the VC that relate to HPLE's (2019) three agroecological operational principles (i.e., not to be confused with HLPE's 13 agroecological principles), namely i) improvements in resource efficiency, ii) resilience strengthening and iii) securing social equity and responsibility, as well as the identification of gaps and opportunities for improvements and scaling.This is a document (typically a spreadsheet) with strategic information on the actors currently involved in the VC at the micro, meso, and macro levels (see definitions in the glossary). Besides the actors currently involved in the core VC, the stakeholder map should include information on further actors along the VC that may be of interest due to their potential agroecological alignment with the Initiative or that could significantly influence the Initiative (i.e., among others, potential customers, producers, input and service providers and NGOs who are, or have expressed interest in applying agroecological principles in their operations/consumption).While the following sections separately describe the content of the products, the activities for data collection and analysis are deeply interlinked and many occur simultaneously. Most of the primary data collection will be carried out through semi-structured interviews, focus groups discussions and stakeholder workshops. Therefore, the VCA country teams should plan and prepare the activities and adapt tools in advance to avoid duplication of efforts and respondent fatigue. In the annex, we provide examples and recommendations for the development of tools, which should be adjusted for each specific context. In addition, the country teams should look out for potential collaboration and/or synergies between work packages. Such potential for collaboration and synergies is highlighted in italics throughout this document.The goal of conducting a rapid VCA implies limiting the exercise to the core stakeholders and to the actors directly relevant to both upstream and downstream operations. One must be wary that some of the actors identified during the mapping process will likely be engaged with other actors (e.g., producers and trading partners) beyond the operations that immediately concern the core stakeholders, whose assessment may add unnecessary complexity and require further resource-consuming information. The team may nonetheless be interested in obtaining a broader understanding of the VC in the prioritized geography/food system, or of a particular VC stage, e.g., when presuming inefficiencies that can be turned into opportunities. This is particularly important, as root causes for underperformances and key binding constraints that affect the core stakeholders may emerge from different stages of the value chain and from the meso and macro levels. In such cases, the approach for data collection and analysis will be the same but, as suggested above, may amount to a substantial cost and time increase. What is more, extending the scope of the analysis may also reduce the specificity of the results and their derived recommendations. At any rate, a widening of the RAVCA scope should be justified by a strengthened contribution to attaining AE-I's WP3 main outcome.Based on the principles of synergy and economic diversification, it is almost certain that some core stakeholders (e.g., group of farmers) are or will be involved in more than one value chain, or that an agroecological upgrading strategy involves incorporating additional crops/products in the prioritized productive systems. It is therefore important to conduct a rapid VCA and agroecological assessment for each VC that is (or will be) commercially relevant for securing the farmers income and food security. Crops and products destined exclusively for self-consumption should thus not be included in this analysis.VCA results are commonly used as a base for the co-creation of a common VC vision. In turn, this common vision, together with the VCA results, serves as a guide for the co-development of VC and business model upgrading strategies. Potential synergies from the overall rapid VCA: A common VC vision can be cocreated in collaboration with AE-I's WP1, which in its activity plan includes the \"application of participatory methods to build collectively a vision of the desired agroecological transition pathway(s) in each ALL\".A VC map is a visual representation of the analyzed VC and the foundational element of VCAs. It provides a panoramic view of the VC, by illustrating the different VC stages, identifying the position of the VC actors, visualizing product flows and indicating linkages between VC actors. VC mapping is an iterative process where the design can be subject to updates as more information is found throughout the analysis phase.To prepare the VC map, a round of consultations with key informants should be carried out, who can share their knowledge on the structure of the VC, product flows, actor types, end markets, governance mechanisms, input and services provision and enabling environment. To this end, semi-structured interviews will be carried out, starting with representatives from the core VC, followed by their key input and service providers, and other sectorial experts if necessary.With the information obtained through the semi-structured interviews, the following steps can be followed to develop a VC map:1) Determine the end products, distinguishing between characteristics such as fresh, processed, conventional, organic, etc. 2) Identify end markets, determining different end market segments, e.g., domestic vs. export market. 3) Identify the successive VC stages, starting with production and ending with consumption. 4) Identify actor types per VC stage, by strategically categorizing businesses (e.g., organic vs. conventional producers, small vs. large producers, industrial vs. artisanal processors, etc.). 5) Visualize the product flows, from production to consumption using arrows. 6) Identify main channels, based on the end markets and the different actor types involved at each stage (e.g., the informal vs. the formal channels, the fresh vs. the processed channel, etc.). 7) Map the indirect actors, using a separate map that only shows the value chain stages (i.e. not the value chain actors), to include the input and services providers as well as governance institutions that play a key role in each step.Because value chain mapping is an iterative process, we recommend carrying out the seven steps listed above during the following three phases:• Using information collected from the desk research (e.g., literature review) and current knowledge of the sector, draw an initial draft map, illustrating stages, direct actors, indirect actors, and relationships in the VC. The assessment team should not be excessively concerned about the accuracy and level of detail during this phase.• After the fieldwork phase, update the map using the collected data and insights.• As a third step, the VC map should be validated with key informants that have a broad overview and knowledge of the value chain. This validation can be done either in a multistakeholder workshop or through individual meetings and interviews with key informants.The ValueLinks methodology (Springer Heinze, 2018) proposes a useful set of conventions (see Fig. 2) that can be employed to illustrate the different elements of the VC. In their conventions, VC operators correspond to the direct actors, which in our case would be limited to the individuals and enterprises performing the core functions within the VC of interest (i.e., the core stakeholders). The VC supporters and enablers correspond to the indirect actors in the meso and macro levels, which in our exercise should be limited to those directly affecting the core VC. The map can use various types of arrows to display relevant differences in business linkages (i.e., primary vs. secondary channels, formal vs. informal business linkages, commodities vs processed products, etc.).The VC map should depict the end-market (and different market channels if applicable), VC stages (the generic stages being production, aggregation, processing, commercialization, and consumption; depicted in Figure 3 as white arrows), actors, and business linkages. The end-markets (depicted as white circles at the top of Figure 3) subdivide the VC into different sequences of business operations (i.e., sub-VCs or market channels), highlighting the different supply flows and their corresponding actor types involved in each channel. In the case of production systems with multiple products, we recommend drawing a map for each VC as many of the actors and channels will differ.The example shown in Figure 3 depicts a maize VC map, with a first channel conducting to a domestic food market, a second channel to an intra-regional export market, the third channel to the domestic flour market, and a fourth channel to the animal feed market. It is important to note that in our case, the VC map will be a more simplified version, as the channels will only be differentiated according to the end markets reached by the products of our core stakeholders.Key input providers (such as seeds) may be mapped at the micro level (as shown in Figure 3), together with the core stakeholders, but we recommend mapping all input and service providers as actors representing common interests of the VC at the meso level. The VC map usually depicts meso level actors (coded as yellow rectangles with the upper left corner cut off) and macro level actors (coded as yellow octagonal rectangles) placed adjacent to the relevant VC stages they serve. VC mapping can, but does not necessarily, include the macro level of a VC. Moreover, additional relevant information may be included in the map, such as the number of actors, traded volumes and traded values per end-market as shown in Figure 3. mapping key policy stakeholders and key food system actors in each of the ALLs, which could complement the VC map and thus be carried out in collaboration with WP3.The objectives of the VC characterization and diagnostic are a) to obtain a deeper understanding of each element of the VC, b) to identify underperformances and key binding constraints, and c) to identify upgrading opportunities at the micro, meso and macro levels.As a first step of the process, the team should conduct an end-market analysis, which provides a rough understanding of the existing and potential end-markets, and should broadly cover the following items: market sizes and growth rates (i.e., a 5-10 year trends analysis), (import and export) trade flows, prices and price trends, market drivers (including demographic changes), market segments (price, quality, niche), order specifications (including standards, volumes, payment mechanism), critical success factors (CSFs), unique selling propositions (USPs) for the domestic and competing products (competitive benchmarking), and consumer perceptions and behavior.The characterization and diagnostic of the rest of the VC should be guided by the VC structure, including a description of the main characteristics, key challenges, risks and opportunities for the following VC elements:• At the micro level, for each relevant core stakeholder along the different VC stages.• At the meso level, focusing on the provision of inputs and services with highest strategic importance for the VC core stakeholders and for the agroecological transition.• At the macro level, identifying actors and characteristics of the enabling environment that critically affect the VC performance, distinguishing between natural elements (climate, soils, water quantity and quality, biodiversity, etc.) and societal elements (including infrastructure, institutions, organizations, and socio-cultural norms).For the diagnostic, specific questions will be included in the semi-structured interviews and workshops to identify challenges, risks, and opportunities for improvement. Challenges and risks are identified by asking \"why\" questions, following up on replies such as \"things are not functioning well\" that may be mentioned during the semi-structured interviews (i.e., to understand the root causes of key binding constraints). These questions may, for instance, be directed at understanding: why production is low; why there are limited capacities for maintenance despite trainings; why access to spare parts remains a constraint and equipment endowment; why local small-scale producers have no land titles, etc.Note: Given that we are interested in the core stakeholders, it is likely that most of the information will be obtained from interviews and workshops. Nevertheless, it is important to include secondary information and regional / local statistics, when available, on area, production, prices, practices, weather, and traded volumes, as they will allow triangulation by comparing the data with the information collected from the core stakeholders. In the annex we provide a set of recommended questions for each type of actor to guide the VC characterization and diagnostic.In the following, guidance is provided with regards to the sections and content of the VCA. However, because this guide presents a rapid appraisal approach, it is important to stress that not all listed items need to be covered, while it is important to focus on the challenges and risks.Discussing the different topics listed below during key informant interviews, one is likely to quickly find out which of them are critical for a more sustainable functioning of the VC and should, therefore, consequently be studied in more detail. On this account, one should follow the rough structure presented below but also adapt the focus to the specific characteristics of the VC and the needs of the local team.General description of the production system based on the three AE operational principles (i.e., i) improving resource efficiency; ii) strengthening resilience; and iii) securing social equity/responsibility), as well as the product characteristics of all derived products.General description of the region and/or area of interest, with relevant social, economic, and environmental indicators (main economic activities, relevant agricultural products, area, production, prices, and yields of relevant crop/products, poverty indexes, land distribution, education level, yearly temperature, and precipitation). It should include maps displaying the locations of the productive areas and major markets for each product of interest. Any existing special markets for the agroecologically produced, traded or processed products should be highlighted. Highly relevant contextual information such as the presence of ethnic/religious minorities, land use conflicts, armed groups, political instability, among others, should be mentioned.This section should briefly describe how the crop entered the region, key moments in recent history related to the expansion of the crop and relevant social dynamics.The VC map with a brief description of the depicted VC stages, actor types and product flows should be presented in this chapter.A short analysis of the main end market opportunities and market dynamics should be presented here.This characterization should include a diagnosis and recommendations regarding the identified challenges, risks and upgrading opportunities for an agroecological transition at the product/crop level (i.e., following the instructions for an agroecological assessment provided in Section 4).Micro level (core VC): includes all relevant information organized per VC stage. Below we suggest a list of generic stages which should be adapted and described taking into account production, processing, procurement and marketing practices, infrastructure and equipment used, competitiveness, general business skills, and main challenges, risks and opportunities.• Production: The different identified actor types should be described in terms of number of producers, socio-economic characteristics, volume of production, farm gate prices, productive practices, seasonality, business arrangements. A description of gender roles, governance and participation mechanisms should be included. A diagnostic of challenges, risks and upgrading opportunities should follow.• Aggregation: This section should describe the different types of aggregators, agents, practices (i.e., purchasing, product handling, grading and sorting, transport & cold chain logistics), factors affecting quality and losses, compliance with handling standards. A diagnostic of challenges, risks and upgrading opportunities should be included. • Processing: The different identified actor types should be described in terms of number of processors, trade volume, product specification, buying and selling prices (inputs and outputs) and type of business arrangements. A description of gender roles, governance and participation mechanisms should be included. This segment may include various stages of formal and informal processors and distributors as part of the core stakeholders VC. A diagnostic of challenges, risks and upgrading opportunities should be included. • Commercialization: the identified formal and/or informal aggregators should be described in terms of number of traders, trade volume, product specification, buying and selling prices, and type of business arrangements. A description of gender roles, governance and participation mechanisms should be included. This VC segment may include various levels and type of actors such as fresh markets, institutional markets, and wholesalers or retailers of fresh or minimally processed products if part of the core stakeholders VC. A diagnostic of challenges, risks and upgrading opportunities should be included.• Final consumer (from fresh and/or processed products): describes the different identified consumer groups, together with information on estimated market size, locations, characteristics, purchasing prices, and product preferences.Meso level (actors providing inputs and/or regular support services or representing the common interest of the VC):• Input providers (e.g., seeds, fertilizers, packaging material, etc.): the type of inputs, regulations, availability and access, quality and prices should be briefly described. A diagnostic of challenges, risks and upgrading opportunities should be included • Operational service providers: this section focuses on transport and logistics service providers and should describe the service, regulations, availability and access, quality and prices. A diagnostic of challenges, risks and upgrading opportunities should be included • Support service providers, mainly:➢ Financial services providers: describes financial products offered, access by VC actors, products adapted to the needs of the VC, informal financial services providers. A diagnostic of challenges, risks and upgrading opportunities should be included.➢ Technical assistance and training: describes the type and quality of services offered, financing schemes (public, private, NGO), costs and prices, scope. A diagnostic of challenges, risks and upgrading opportunities should be included• Other key support service providers: Highlight services that are important to the different VC actors (e.g., quality control, soil analysis, etc.), briefly describe services providers, describe availability, costs and quality. A diagnostic of challenges, risks and upgrading opportunities should be includedMacro level: This section should only include highly relevant information, as a more thorough analysis of the enabling and policy environment falls under the scope of AE-I's WP4 -\"Strengthening the policyand institutional-enabling environment\".• Societal enabling environment:➢ Policies, regulatory bodies and other institutions: what are the main challenges/opportunities regarding laws, regulations, norms and standards, support programs, etc.? Which elements are obstructing the functioning of the VC (e.g., ensured access to land)? Which elements are missing? Are regulations, etc. effectively enforced? Are policies aligned or in conflict?➢ Socio-cultural elements: what are main challenges/opportunities regarding religion, presence of ethnic minorities, conflicts and levels of crime, gender and youth norms, entrepreneurial spirit (openness to innovation), dietary habits, etc.➢ Infrastructure: what are the main challenges/opportunities regarding roads, public markets, railroads, water supply, wastewater management, ICT networks, electricity supply, etc.?➢ Organizations and projects: identify and describe relevant organizations (e.g., ministries, public agencies, R&D centers, universities, industry and trade associations, etc.) and projects that impact or could impact the VC and describe how.➢ In addition to the characterization and diagnostic per VC segment and level, a rapid governance analysis is also critical, as governance mechanisms oftentimes explain actors´ behavior. A governance analysis should cover the following types of linkages: Horizontal linkages: describe the nature and dynamic of formal and informal relationships, levels of coordination and information exchange, levels of competition, collective action and economies of scale, roles of associations, cooperatives, levels of trust, corruption, etc.➢ Vertical linkages: describe the nature and dynamic of formal and informal relationships (e.g., in the channels identified in the VC map), which actors have the power to influence price setting, nature of the dominant transaction arrangements, nature of market/transaction structure (competitive market, oligopoly, monopoly), dependencies and power imbalances, asymmetries in knowledge and information, political power, level of trust, corruption, etc. Follow steps outlined in example above for other value chainsThis chapter should cover the potential challenges and opportunities that an agroecological upgrading of the analyzed VCs could signify at the food system level. At the field scale for instance, if applicable, the report should mention how integrating various products (i.e., VCs) in a mixed crop-livestock system may generate synergies (and/or trade-offs), the necessary conditions for such synergies to take place, etc.Applying the holistic agroecological lens, the challenges, and opportunities of integrating HLPE's thirteen agroecological principles at the food system level, through the analyzed VCs, should be discussed.The key challenges, risks, and opportunities of the RAVCA should be briefly discussed and summarized and next steps should be presented.This assessment should be made at the product (i.e., VC) level, including the information on the actors, products and practices that align with agroecological principles in each VC stage (e.g., production, aggregation, processing and commercialization) and level (i.e., micro, meso and macro), as well as the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) identified at the food system level of furthering the agroecological transition, followed with a general discussion and recommendations.The agroecological assessment should be included in the different sections of the VC characterization and diagnostic (i.e., within the description of each VC stage and level). Potential challenges and opportunities associated with an agroecological upgrading should be summarized in chapter 3.4. of the RAVCA report.In the annex we provide a set of recommended questions and guiding topics for each type of actor that may help with the agroecological assessment.The agroecological assessment should also include questions regarding potential challenges and opportunities, and existing strategies/mechanisms for scaling up.A stakeholder map is usually developed along with the VC mapping exercise, and thus, the identification of stakeholders and the characterization of actor categories can be considered a VCA by-product. This byproduct will populate the stakeholder map that will be led by AE-I's WP1, which will also be complemented by the political actors and institutions identified by WP4.Actors of potential agroecological relevance that are currently not involved in the core stakeholders VC can be identified through a combination of desk research and snowball sampling (i.e., requesting references and contact information to the interviewed actors). During this exercise, one should also consider identifying different types of actors along the VC, such as input suppliers, operational service providers and support service providers 2 with agroecological potential.For ease of access and use, the information collected can be systematized in a spreadsheet file (e.g., MS Excel). While the information may vary according to each ALL's objective, the file should at least include names and descriptions of the mapped actors (including core activities, services, and role in the VC), interest in the Initiative and power to influence the Initiative, location and contact information. The stakeholder map may also include further information regarding the identified actors, among others, their alignment with the Initiative and with national/regional objectives, their strengths and weaknesses, potential synergies with other efforts, and conflicts of interests.synergies between WP3, WP4 and WP1.Once the information has been analyzed and systematized, a workshop should be conducted with all relevant stakeholders. The workshop will provide a space to present, discuss and validate findings and fill information gaps. Based on the VCA and AE assessment, a SWOT analysis should be conducted with all stakeholders, considering the AE principles and VC stages in each of the quadrants (i.e., strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats). Specialized facilitation is key in this activity as it will be the facilitators' role to bring up and streamline the AE principles in the discussions in order to prevent the conversation from deviating or overemphasizing e.g., commercial aspects.The results of the SWOT analysis will be used in later workshops and WP3 activities to determine courses of action that may be prioritized by VC actors according to their roles and capacities (i.e., VC upgrading strategy). In particular, the results of this process will be key inputs for the participatory assessment and codesign/upgrading of the AE business model.The role of an AE facilitator is to promote participation and inclusiveness in the discussions as the AE principles are mainstreamed in every step of the process. As reflecting on these discussions requires time and the conclusions drawn will have important implications on the core stakeholders' businesses and livelihoods, we recommend dividing the different validation and participatory planning activities in various sessions, giving enough time in between for the actors to ponder, discuss and validate the shared results.7. AnnexesDirect actors are those directly involved in productive processes, postharvest handling, processing and commercialization. These actors take direct possession of and are owners of the product in one or more links in the chain, therefore running direct risks linked to the product (Gottret, 2011). These actors are also called Micro Level Actors (Springer-Heinze, 2018).Indirect actors are those who offer operational services and/or support services to the direct actors at various points in the chain. Even though the product may well pass through their hands at some link in the chain, they do not assume possession of it at any time. They are therefore also facing indirect risks regarding the product. Indirect actors include suppliers, operational service providers, support service providers and regulatory bodies (Gottret, 2011). The indirect actors that provide inputs, operational and support services to direct actors are also called Meso Level Actors, whereas regulatory bodies are categorized as Macro Level Actors in the ValueLinks guide (Springer-Heinze, 2018).Macro level, encompasses the enabling environment, distinguishing between natural elements (i.e., climate, soils, water quantity and quality, biodiversity, etc.) and societal elements, including infrastructure, socio-cultural norms, and institutions and organizations (i.e., financial system, insurance companies, and relevant government institutions that together with the judiciary and, among others, major providers of public utilities, determine policies and regulate the conditions for doing business in a country or region). Only some of these institutions are particular to a specific value chain.Governance: is the setting, monitoring, and enforcing of norms and rules with which the stakeholders in a collectivity manage their common affairs. The collectivity can be a value chain (thus value chain governance) or a local, national or global community of people interested in resolving a common problem or promoting a common goal. Basic types of governance include markets, networks, and hierarchies (Springer-Heinze, 2018).A value chain stage constitutes a categorical instrument that allows to group direct actors with similar characteristics, to facilitate its visualization in the value chain and subsequent analyses. While these stages are specific for each value chain, there are some generic stages common to most agricultural value chains that can be used as reference and adapted as required:1. Primary production: Includes producers of the VC commodity, which may be further categorized by size of the enterprise, technification, marketing channel, etc. 2. Intermediary trade: Includes formal and informal actors whose main activity is aggregating and traders the VC commodity, (i.e., intermediaries, traders). 3. Processing: Includes formal and informal actors involved in the processing of the agricultural commodity. May involve first or further transformations into higher added value products.4. Exporters: Includes primarily the exporters of the agricultural commodity in its raw state or with low value addition. In the case of exporters of processed products, these actors may be better located in the processing stage. 5. Wholesalers and Retailers: Actors who trade the commodity or value-added product directly or almost directly with the final consumer.The differentiation of stages depends on the actor's characteristics and their business operations; it may be the case that the producers in a particular VC trade directly with processors and wholesalers, making it irrelevant to include the stage of intermediary trade. The differentiation of stages should only be displayed when they correspond to business operations specific to a relevant group of existing value chain actorsFinally, as mentioned before, indirect actors may be grouped into four: suppliers, operational service providers, support service providers and regulatory bodies. We suggest that the assessment team considers the following indirect actors in the analysis:1. Input suppliers: Includes suppliers of relevant agricultural inputs, machinery, seeds, propagation material, etc. 2. Operational service: Includes transport and logistic service provider 3. Support service providers: Financial and insurance services, rural extension, technical assistance and training, agricultural research, setting of professional standards, provision of information, trade fairs and export marketing, quality control, political advocacy, representation of common interest of a set of actors. 4. Regulatory bodies: Phytosanitary and zoo sanitary control, environmental agencies, agricultural agencies, trade agencies.The following guide contains a list of leading questions and topics for inquiry to explore with key informants for the purpose of conducting a rapid VCA, with specific questions and themes for the different stages and levels of the value chain The themes are divided in different modules as follows:    • Encourage and sensitize for seasonal and regional demand: action supporting a stronger seasonal and regional demand • Support healthy, diversified and culturally appropriate food traditions and diets: build food systems based on the culture, identity, tradition, social and gender equity of local communities that provide healthy, diversified, seasonally and culturally appropriate diets, support and protect cultural identity and values tied to food systems • Support the right to adequate and culturally appropriate food: support the ability of people to make decisions about the quality and type of food they hunt, fish, gather, grow and eat • Education program on sustainable, seasonal, and local consumption, campaign on the benefits of local and seasonal consumption, seasonality chart • Assessment of cultural values around food system, promotion of local breeds/varieties/products for their specific taste and nutritional value, scheme that protect cultural identity (territorial approach…), subsidies for traditional/cultural performances in food system 10. Fairness Does your organization support dignified and robust livelihoods for all actors in the food system (trade, employment, intellectual property rights, transparency) If not, why? If yes, how does it happen (example). How does it contribute to your organizations objectives, mission, and financial results?• Targeted investments and subsidy programs, access to finance to smallholders, barriers and opportunities to regional value generation, public procurement schemes targeting regional demand • Living income indicators • Fair trade certifications • Distribution of profits or royalties among producers.• Fair and short distribution networks, embedding food systems in local economies 11. Connectivity: Does your organization ensure proximity and confidence between producers and consumers? If not, why? If yes, how does it happen (example). How does it contribute to your organizations objectives, mission, and financial results?• Fair and short distribution networks, embedding food systems in local economies • Business support for re-establishing the connection between producers and consumers: assisting in the development of local food systems, short value chains and webs, developing trading relationships with local growers • \"Supporting regional value generation: embedding food systems into local economies, connecting local producers with other value-adding activities at the local or regional level, including postharvesting, processing, packaging\" • Community-supported agriculture (CSA), re-localization of food systems and markets within same territories, engagement of communities and businesses in sustainable operations, new innovative markets, participatory guarantee schemes (PGS), local producer's markets/more traditional territorial markets, denomination of origin labelling and certification, e-commerce schemes 12. Land and natural resource governance Does your organization strengthen institutional arrangements to include the recognition of farmers as managers of natural and genetic resources? If not, why? If yes, how does it happen (example). How does it contribute to your organizations objectives, mission, and financial results?• Community-supported agriculture (CSA), re-localization of food systems and markets within same territories, engagement of communities and businesses in sustainable operations, new innovative markets, participatory guarantee schemes (PGS), local producer's markets/more traditional territorial markets, denomination of origin labelling and certification, e-commerce schemes • PES Schemes.• Price premiums and profit sharing with ethnic groups • Royalties","tokenCount":"6254"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b7e89a826a56f2989ca7007d1a06202e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/d51e5e71-3732-43f1-8fd0-969ab3d468f6/content","id":"1612553813"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f0b4ce4e-d794-4cca-96db-31bf9391a067","pagecount":"7","content":"Bread wheat covers over 240 million hectares globally and is considered a staple food of around 40% of the global population and contributes one-third of total world grain production. It is projected that world wheat production must increase by at least 60% to meet the estimated wheat grain demand in 2050. Among biotic factors, plant parasitic nematodes, diseases and insects are important constraints leading to substantial reductions in per unit area production. Cereal cyst nematodes (CCN), root lesion nematodes and seed gall nematodes are significant species on wheat in most regions of the world and are present in the Central Western Asia and North Africa (CWANA) (Dababat and Fourie, 2018;Seid et al., 2021). In the CWANA regions, wheat yield is negatively affected by a complex group of Heterodera species. Heterodera avenae, H. filipjevi and H. latipons are the most important CCN. The damage caused by CCN is not well known to those working in these countries.This chapter emphasizes the economic importance, distribution, biology, symptoms of CCN in addition to recommended integrated nematode management (INM) tools to control CCN in wheat.Wheat produced in the rainy winter season in the semi-arid regions of CWANA is highly vulnerable to CCN and considerable yield losses of up to 50% can occur (Dababat and Fourie, 2018). H. avenae is also the most destructive plant parasitic nematode of wheat in the climatic conditions of Northern Europe where it causes an estimated 10% loss in grain yield. Wheat in CWANA is a monoculture in most countries and CCN are serious problems with wheat grown in the cool rainy winter seasons across North Africa all the way to Northern Europe.Although the true level of losses across all of CWANA is poorly worked out, the average yields in the region are very low when compared to the world average. This could be due to the lack of INM. Yield losses can exceed 50% under the harsh climatic condition characterized by low precipitation and high temperature in the region. Nevertheless, the reports regarding wheat grain yield losses do not accurately portray the magnitude of economic losses at the regional or national level because documentation has been mostly based on research plots located in infested areas of fields, i.e. sick plots (Smiley et al., 2017).  (Dababat and Fourie, 2018).Heterodera avenae infects graminaceous crops especially wheat, oats, barley and rye. Other hosts include grasses from the genera Agropyron, Alopecurus, Agrostis, Arrhenatherum, Anisantha, Brachypodium, Avena, Bromus, Dactylis, Echinochola, Festuca, Hordeum, Koeleria, Lolium, Lhalaris, Poa, Polypogon, Phleum, Setaria, Sorghum, Secale, Triticum, Trisetum, Vulpia, Zerna and Zea. Senebiera pinnatifida belonging to the Brassicaceae family is the only non-graminaceous host recorded so far.Major hosts of H. filipjevi include bread wheat, oat, false wheat, barley, rye and quack grass. However, Triticum discocoides, T. durum, T. tauchi, T. monococcum, T. ovatum, T. turgidum, T. umbellatum, and T. ventricosum are well characterized experimental hosts of H. filipjevi. Maize is a weak host of H. filipjevi. The J2 are able to invade maize roots but females fail to reproduce and therefore the crop is used in India as a trap crop.Heterodera avenae is the most widely distributed CCN around the globe (Fig. 3.1). Wheat producing regions with temperate climatic conditions in Asia, Africa, North and South America, Europe and the Mediterranean are typically CCN occurrence zones (Smiley et al., 2017).CCN species establish their feeding sites called syncytia on the roots of wheat plants and this blockage of the vascular system leads to weakening of the root system. The damage caused is primarily characterized by patches of plants showing poor growth and chlorosis, which are unevenly distributed in the field. In a large field cultivated with a susceptible cultivar (monoculture is standard in the CWANA region), these patches merge and can cover the entire field within a few years. Severe infection of CCN in wheat leads to stunting, leaf chlorosis, reduction in leaf area, lower numbers of productive tillers and shorter spikes with fewer grains. Below ground symptoms caused by H. avenae include enhanced production of roots, i.e. root proliferation (Fig. 3.2A), and knot-like formations due to induction of syncytia containing multiple females (Fig. 3.2B). These root symptoms are usually noticeable 1 to 2 months after sowing in the CWANA region.Both H. avenae and H. filipjevi complete one life cycle in a year. In most cases they require a diapause of up to 4 and 2 months, respectively, before the juveniles can emerge. The life cycle is illustrated in Fig. 3.3. Important is the fact that juvenile emergence only takes place when ample amounts of moisture under favourable soil temperatures are prevailing, which triggers the release of specific root exudates by the host plant. However, not all the J2 emerge at the same time, which is an important survival strategy harboured by CCN in the semi-arid regions.Heterodera avenae infection in the root-tip region leads to growth inhibition, induction of typical branching and swelling of roots. Formation of syncytia differs between H. avenae and H. latipons; however, the impact of H. avenae on wheat growth and yield is more pronounced than H. latipons. This is due to different hatching behaviour of these two species and H. latipons juveniles penetrate at sites more distant from the root tip.CCN have considerable intraspecific diversity in the form of its pathotypes or biological races. The race system for CCN has been developed on the basis of the ability of the local populations to reproduce on barley cultivars containing different resistance genes according to ICCNTA (International Cereal Cyst Nematode Test Assortment). This system could be used to identify various races with distinct characteristics present in the CWANA region. The H. filipjevi pathotypes were tested for several populations in Turkey and fortunately were found to be similar. However, the race spectrum in the region for all CCN species needs to be collaboratively studied among the nematologists in the CWANA region so that different pathotypes can be identified and considered in the wheat-breeding programmes. The soil-borne pathogens programme at CIMMYT annually screens thousands of wheat lines and the most resistant lines are shared with the International Winter Wheat Improvement Program (IWWIP) who distribute those materials to more than 150 collaborators representing around 50 countries in the CWANA and beyond.Although interactions among various plant pathogens are well established, such interactions regarding CCN are not well studied. This is the reason why only a few reports concerning complex interactions of CCN with other nematodes and pathogens are available in the literature. Cook in 1970 observed the first interaction of H. avenae with a fungal pathogen, Gaeumannomyces graminis var. tritici, the causal organism of take-all disease in wheat and described severe symptoms of take-all disease that are always associated with low population densities of H. avenae in the field. Smiley et al. (1994) further Similar nematode-fungus interactions were reported for H. filipjevi and Fusarium culmorum pathogens in winter wheat in Iran under rainfed conditions. However, the effects of these two organisms on plant growth were additive rather than synergistic (Hajihassani et al., 2013).Wheat growers in CWANA basically do not recognize nematodes as a problem. In fact, most of them do not know that what nematode species are in their fields affecting yield, which is why the term 'hidden enemy' perfectly applies to the problems in the region. INM is therefore not practiced in the entire region and nematodeinduced yield losses are simply accepted. The yield reduction in wheat due to CCN in CWANA could be lessened by improving and understanding the concept of INM in the region where the practice of winter monoculture of wheat is the norm. Management of cereal nematodes, especially CCN, could involve an integrated approach that includes crop rotation, genetic resistance, crop nutrition and appropriate water supply.The following control measures are being used by some progressive wheat farmers in the CWANA region.Damage from CCN is greatest when monoculture practices exist especially with susceptible crops. Yield losses become very high in 2-year rotations of cereals even with the traditional summer fallow as well as in 3-year rotations such as winter wheat, spring cereal and a non-host broadleaf crop or fallow. Crop rotations that include broadleaf crops (tobacco), corn, fallow and resistant wheat, barley or oat cultivars reduce nematode density. For the most part, farmers in the CWA-NA region still perform summer fallow for two reasons, firstly to help the soil maintain high moisture levels and secondly to reduce diseases. CCN may also persist on a wide range of weed grasses. Grassy weeds such as quack grass, crabgrass, brome grass, foxtail, wild oat, rat-tail fescue and others should not be allowed to grow during any phase of a crop rotation in a field that is infested with CCN. Weed control is a commonly used practice in the CWANA -not to reduce nematode densities, but instead to keep the soil moisture content at higher levels to boost the establishment and growth of the next crop with ultimately better germination.The use of host resistance is an effective method of controlling CCN. Resistance is defined as the ability of the host to inhibit nematode multiplication.In some cases nematodes still penetrate resistant cultivars and cause damage even if not able to multiply. The benefit of resistance is that it reduces the intensity of risk to the next crop of barley, oats or wheat. Ideally, resistance should be combined with tolerance to nematode penetration. The development of cultivars with only tolerance, which is the ability of the host plant to maintain its yield potential in the presence of nematodes could also be used in management where resistance is not known.There are no wheat, barley or oat cultivars currently available that are fully resistant to CCN in CWANA.Tolerance and resistance genes by CIMMYT for CCN were recently identified (Pariyar et al., 2018;Dababat et al., 2016). The most effective wheat resistance gene for controlling CCN and their pathotypes is Cre1 which has been crossed into local varieties. The Cre1 gene appears to suppress but not eliminate production of CCN.Planting winter wheat rather than a spring crop of wheat, barley or oat cultivars can favour strong, deep root development before the majority of J2 emerge from cysts during the spring. In addition, where sufficient water is available, planting a susceptible host as a trap crop during the fall or early spring can reduce CCN densities in soil. The trap crop is invaded when J2 migrates from the cyst into the soil during early spring. The trap crop is then killed during mid-spring before new egg-bearing cysts can be developed. This strategy is particularly useful where growers plan to produce a warm-season crop such as chickpea or bean that can be planted during late spring after the trap crop has been killed in an infested field that will be planted to wheat or barley the following year.Since the greatest crop loss occurs when nutrients or water are scarce at important growth stages, supplying optimal plant nutrition and, where possible, supplemental water during intervals of drought can minimize (mask) crop damage, particularly when the nematode damage is only slight or moderate. However, crops that are severely damaged by CCN usually do not respond well to additional applications of nutrients or water. If severe damage becomes evident early enough in the spring, it may be more profitable to destroy the crop and replace it with a non-host (broadleaf) crop.Non-fumigant, in-crop nematicides especially the use of seed treatments is effective and widely used on other crops and has been used to reduce losses by CCN (Dababat et al., 2014). However, the use of nematicides is not economically feasible on most grain crops.Applications of currently available biological nematicides have not been effective for increasing the productivity of wheat in the region. However, in some locations, naturally occurring fungal or bacterial parasites invade and kill some of the CCN eggs that are still inside the cyst. These 0005182346.INDD 24 9:12:29 PM natural parasites of eggs reduce the density of CCN, but even in fields where they are known to be present and active, reduction in yields of wheat and barley continue to occur. Ways to amplify the benefit of these natural biological agents in commercial agriculture have not been identified.Tillage does not have an appreciable effect on the density of cereal nematode species. Populations are likely to be similar in both cultivated and till verses non-tilled fields.There is a need for more research to develop high-yielding and disease-resistant wheat cultivars adapted to a wide range of environments.In addition, improved technology for sustainable management of plant pathogens including CCN is needed (Ali et al., 2015). The major requirements for the future management of CCN are:1. Create awareness among the farmers in the developing countries especially through educating researchers at the extension services to support growers. The accessibility to genomic resources like genome sequences and high throughput data on genomes and transcriptomes provides a huge array of information that could be used for wheat improvement for grain yield and CCN resistance.For instance, survey of complete genome sequences of different CCN may help to identify novel effector coding genes which could be manipulated through host-induced gene silencing technology. Likewise, recent release of complete wheat genome offers enormous opportunities to study and understand molecular wheat-nematode interactions leading to development of CCNresistant wheat. Similarly, worldwide wheat germplasm collections of wild and cultivated wheat accessions provide unique opportunities for wheat genetic improvement. Furthermore, the availability of several genome-wide association studies could enable the wheat breeders to identify genomic regions associated with CCN resistance in wheat. Ali et al. (2019) recently reviewed and summarized the transgenic opportunities to enhance CCN resistance in wheat, which included employment of R-genes, host-induced gene silencing of vital effector CCN genes through RNAi, anti-feedant proteinase inhibitors, antiinvasion chemodisruptive peptides and manipulation of gene expression specifically in syncytia. One of the potential future directions to develop CCN resistance could be the pyramiding of two 0005182346.INDD 25 9:12:29 PM or more of these strategies which may lead to complete control of CCN in wheat.Targeted mutagenesis through the application of CRISPR/Cas9 system could be deployed for non-transgenic and targeted deletion or addition of sequences in wheat genome for induction of CCN resistance in bread wheat.","tokenCount":"2346"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f09f81fe3ecb1c8f91a42cc6c3d62cf7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/507e2e3b-7a39-4aba-82c3-a8e6c25600c5/retrieve","id":"89308312"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"041dc6f4-c454-4c9a-aeb9-3480a27f25d7","pagecount":"52","content":"Bioversity's modus operandi is based firmly on working with others, leveraging our funds and abilities so that we not only achieve results, but also help to build capacity in those we work with and for. So strong and plentiful are these links, however, that to list them all in every case would make for a very long and dry document. In the following stories some of our partners have been mentioned by name while others have not, but we would like to take this opportunity to thank them all. Bioversity depends on partnership and partners to get the job done. We also acknowledge the support of all our donors, especially those that contribute unrestricted funds. Agricultural biodiversity covers a vast array of topics, and Bioversity neither could nor should try to research all of them to the same extent. Instead, the organization has chosen to focus its attention on six circumscribed areas, and with the successful adoption of these Focus Areas we feel we are well on the way to becoming the kind of organization we need to be to make a greater difference in the fight against hunger and poverty.It has been a long journey, with many twists and turns along the way. Thanks to steadfast input from staff and the valuable support of our stakeholders we now have the structures, focus and vision to renew our commitment. We should stress that Bioversity will not be abandoning its roots. Working on ex situ conservation, researching better methodologies and improving access to information will continue to be central to our work. But we will also be expanding our efforts to show how agricultural biodiversity can deliver better nutrition and health, improved livelihoods and more sustainable production systems. Commodity crops, such as banana, cacao and coffee, are another area of special concern where we will pursue a research agenda tailored to the specific needs of poor farmers.Bioversity has also been proud to take its place on the global stage, drawing attention to the importance of agricultural biodiversity. Through our Global Partnership Programme we were asked to coordinate inputs for the first International Technical Conference on Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture in Switzerland in 2007. We played a similar role of honest broker and provider of unbiased technical information in the various meetings and consultations that led up to the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and look forward to mobilizing our relevant expertise to address problems of animal and microbe diversity.Aside from its research programme, Bioversity has also been paying attention to codifying and implementing the best practices of governance as suggested by the Secretariat of the CGIAR. In 2006 the Board formally adopted a policy on gender and diversity that ensures we will pay as much attention to workplace diversity as we do to agricultural biodiversity. And while we have long published our risk management statement, this year we add a narrative explaining changes in our financial position to provide a context for the balance sheet. These are little things, but they mean a lot, and they send a clear signal that Bioversity is focused not only on carrying out research to improve the lives of the poor but also on ensuring that our donors and stakeholders can rely on us to conduct the research they need in a clear and transparent manner.In essence, all Bioversity's research is directed at sustainability: the sustainability of farming systems, the sustainability of natural resources and the sustainability of human lives. We are now in an ideal position to deliver lasting solutions to many of the problems of hunger and poverty.Board ChairDiversity of plants and animals offers unparalleled opportunities not only through breeding but also by delivering a raft of far-reaching benefits. Some are direct, such as the better nutrition and greater sustainability that come with locally adapted crops. Others are more indirect, like the ecosystem services delivered by healthy populations of pollinators, biological control agents and soil microbes. Bioversity seeks not only to provide the necessary compelling evidence of the wider benefits of agricultural biodiversity for human well-being, but also to explore what types of diversity can make the greatest contribution and in what ways this can be done. However, because the field of agricultural biodiversity is so broad, the organization has chosen to focus on six well-defined areas.Focus Area 1: Managing agricultural biodiversity for better nutrition, improved livelihoods and more sustainable production systems for the poorWe see: Accumulated evidence for the many benefits of agricultural biodiversity informs policies and practical activities that together improve the productivity, resilience and resistance of farming systems, thereby improving the lives of poor farmers, especially in marginal areas.Agricultural biodiversity is always associated with a body of local knowledge about how to use and manage it. The two aspects of this asset-the diversity itself and the accompanying ability to make use of it-are being lost or used suboptimally because they are not properly understood, valued or managed. Poor people themselves may not make best use of agricultural biodiversity, perhaps because knowledge about it has already been lost. Other sectors of society, notably decision-makers and professionals, also may be unaware of the value of agricultural biodiversity, particularly under conditions of rapid economic development and cultural change. What is needed is evidence.Enhanced understanding of the broad benefits of agricultural biodiversity is crucial to promoting its wider use to advance the well-being of the poor. Nutrition, income and sustainability can all be improved with agricultural biodiversity; clear demonstrations of these benefits, with better management of the resources, will result in improved conservation as well as increased use. An important activity will be to understand how systems work in one place and under one set of circumstances and then to use that knowledge to tailor solutions in other places. This will help to build a body of widely applicable approaches, rather than off-the-shelf solutions that may not succeed. There is also a need for greater efforts in public awareness and advocacy to ensure that politicians and other agents of change are aware of the ways in which agricultural biodiversity can improve the well-being of poor people.Among the outputs of this area will be greater recognition of the nutritional and health benefits of agricultural biodiversity and the identification of options for increasing incomes, especially for the most marginalized people who need it most. These will be linked to the use of agricultural biodiversity to improve productivity, resilience and resistance in farming systems and to strengthening areas such as the informal seed sector that enable communities to make use of diversity. This is particularly important in marginal areas, where the greatest poverty occurs. As a result, agents of change at all levels, from the international to the local, will mobilize in support of the use of agricultural biodiversity. Most importantly, as farmers see the benefits of agricultural biodiversity they become selfmotivated agents of change, making better use of their resources.Focus Area 2: Conserving and promoting the use of diversity in selected commodity crops of special importance to the poorWe see: Smallholders use a wider range of commodity crops and locally processed products to meet the food security, income and health needs of their communities. Formal and informal networks link farmers, extension workers and researchers, who learn from one another and improve livelihoods further.Certain crops play a special role among poor rural communities.Commodity crops such as banana, coconut and cacao (specific Bioversity targets) are often the mainstay of poor communities, but to date research and development on these crops has been for the benefit of consumers in industrialized countries and of industrial producers and processors in developing countries. The poor people who grow and depend on banana, coconut and cacao require a research agenda that meets their needs and that will help farmers and their families to derive maximum benefit from effective use and management of biodiversity.A pro-poor research agenda for banana, cacao and coconut needs to address two intertwined issues: low incomes and sub-optimal use of genetic diversity. Genetic diversity is threatened by market forces that sideline traditional varieties, by epidemic diseases that attack the crops and their wild relatives and by the loss of habitat that supports wild relatives. Research needs to identify traits of value to poor people, such as the ability to withstand biotic and abiotic stresses and also to deliver better nutrition. Conventional research is predicated on low-diversity highinput production systems that deliver a uniform, low-cost product. Bioversity will develop and promote alternative approaches using diversity to enhance productivity and sustainability. Higher incomes for smallholders and their communities will also follow from research on biodiversity to provide novel products, novel processes and novel ways to capture a greater portion of the income stream, for example by finding new ways to link traditional varieties to markets.Breeding-as well as conserving the diversity on which breeding dependsare important activities in commodity crops. Bioversity maintains the ex situ collection of banana diversity in trust for humanity, and works with partners to secure collections of coconut and cacao. Bioversity also gathers the information breeders need to use these resources, and conducts and coordinates multisite trials of improved material. Effort is devoted to using biodiversity to deliver ecosystem services such as healthy soil and resistance to pests and diseases, so that production is improved with lower inputs. Work will also continue to devise, develop and disseminate high-value products based on the commodity species.A successful pro-poor research agenda for commodity crops will see smallholders use a wider range of those crops to meet their food security and health needs while conserving the resource base. Linking a range of partners, encouraging collaborative research, promoting information exchange and supporting formal networks will contribute to these outcomes and build national capacity to conduct independent research.Focus Area 3: Enhancing the ex situ conservation and use of diversityWe see: Genebanks effectively conserve fully representative collections of the genetic diversity of useful species, which farmers and scientists use to create varieties that help to deliver better and more resilient production systems.Even if people are aware of the benefits that agricultural biodiversity can deliver in general, they may be unable to make use of it in specific cases, either because the diversity itself has been lost or is unavailable or because information about it is lacking. There is thus a need to ensure that properly maintained ex situ collections of diversity are both representative and well characterized and that people have the capacity to make use of the resources and information in the collections. This need assumes greater urgency in the face of the challenge to feed a population that is still increasing on land that is increasingly degraded and subject to other stresses, such as those caused by climate change. Useful and potentially useful diversity must be collected, evaluated and conserved and then made known to researchers, breeders and others who can use it to help people feed, clothe, heal and shelter themselves.In the wake of the Green Revolution strenuous efforts were made to build collections of crop diversity and hundreds of thousands of varieties are currently conserved in genebanks. However, many of the collections were assembled hurriedly and ad hoc and as a result contain gaps and duplications that diminish their efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Furthermore, many important species are not conserved in genebanks, either as a result of scientific neglect or because their biological characteristics do not allow them to be dried and stored at low temperatures. Another challenge is inadequate management of many genebanks. Research on conservation and additional well-targeted collecting missions will ameliorate the situation, as will disseminating best practices and training genebank staff to make use of them. Research is also needed to improve ex situ storage, in particular for species, including forest trees, with seeds that require specific storage techniques. Bioversity will work with partners to conduct this research.Conservation, however, is not enough. If it is to yield benefits, the diversity conserved in genebanks must be reintegrated into agricultural systems. Thousands of accessions need to be screened and information about the accessions and their characteristics made available to all who can make use of them to improve sustainable agricultural production. Research will show how new molecular tools can best be used to reveal useful characteristics. Other tools will enable subsets of collections to be assembled and will assist in pre-breeding. Bioversity will also work to strengthen the links among genebanks, breeders and farmers so that each is better able to make use of the others' resources. The end result will be more material conserved more effectively and more widely used to improve the overall performance of poor farmers' agriculture.Focus Area 4: Conservation and sustainable use of forest and other wild speciesWe see: In situ conservation in protected areas and managed forests and ex situ conservation in genebanks and botanic gardens stem the loss of useful wild species. The widespread planting of wild species improves livelihoods.There is a continuous spectrum between the utterly wild and the thoroughly domesticated, and while domesticated crops receive the lion's share of attention, people also make use of thousands of wild species for subsistence and for income. Chief among those that people use directly are forest species that supply timber and non-timber products. The wild relatives of crop species are also valuable to breeders for the many useful genes they possess. Wild species are often useful in themselves, for example as medicinal species, forages and sources of timber and living fences. Farmers may also select and then make use of diversity introduced accidentally into their crops from the wild. Bioversity has a clear interest in the diversity of wild species, which are especially important to some of the world's most marginal groups of people living in forests and woodlands where agricultural production is uncertain.Wild species are vulnerable in part precisely because they are wild; they usually have no property rights associated with them and so fall prey to overexploitation, environmental degradation, climate change and other impacts, human and otherwise. If the importance and value of wild species were better appreciated, that might help in their conservation, so Bioversity works with partners to analyse and document those values. One obstacle is that the thousands of important wild species differ in so many ways, for example in their biological characteristics, geographic spread, conservation status and type of use. This makes it essential to identify priorities and criteria so that insights derived from the careful study of a reasonably small number of species can be applied much more broadly.Wild relatives of crops need to be conserved in the wild, where they can continue to evolve the characteristics that make them such important sources of traits to improve agricultural plants. Tree species must also be conserved in the wild, because most of them cannot be conserved in ex situ collections. Bioversity works with partners to develop strategies and mechanisms to conserve populations of useful wild species and, equally important, to promote them to relevant stakeholders. Forest trees pose particular challenges, partly because reafforestation efforts commonly reduce the diversity of the cut trees they replace. Also, plantations typically replace diverse multispecies forests with monocultures. Bioversity will work with partners to address these issues, and also to domesticate some species that are threatened by overexploitation in the wild.Through this work, Bioversity expects to integrate criteria and indicators for sustaining the diversity of species harvested in the wild and to work with other players to ensure that they place sufficient emphasis on within-species diversity. It will also contribute to the protection of important populations, especially crop wild relatives, in protected areas. As a result these species will be better conserved and used and will thus make a more effective contribution to sustainably improved livelihoods.We see: An improved system of global conservation and use, as foreseen by the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, is supported by robust and effective policies, a sound and sustainable funding framework and the necessary knowledge and evidence.Agricultural biodiversity is essential to global food security and it cuts across national borders; no country's agriculture is independent. Global interdependence on the diversity of species important for food and agriculture requires the entire world community to be concerned about threats to such diversity, regardless of where they occur. Similarly, a global response is often appropriate. Cooperation at national, regional and global levels is needed to address scientific, policy and practical constraints on efficient conservation and equitable use of genetic resources. Bioversity's role is to support such processes and to ensure that the specific requirements of agricultural biodiversity are understood and acted upon in international and regional plans and programmes.Over roughly the past 35 years, collaborative initiatives on genetic resources have sprung up all around the world, often associated with a significant level of international participation. One such initiative is the collaboration of CGIAR-supported centres through the System-wide Genetic Resources Programme. Bioversity has hosted the SGRP Secretariat since its inception, and will build on that experience to ensure close collaboration and representation in global efforts concerned with agricultural biodiversity. One of the most important efforts will be directed to developing the Global System envisaged by the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.At the moment several elements of a global system exist, among them the genebanks of the CGIAR-supported centres and information systems such as SINGER, the System-wide Information Network for Genetic Resources. Bioversity will contribute to the development of a rational global system that can underpin the effective and efficient conservation and use of important plant genetic resources.The negotiations of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture were successful at least partly as a result of Bioversity's provision of unbiased and technically sound policy analysis on behalf of the CGIAR centres. Work on policy will grow in importance as Bioversity helps countries to implement the Treaty and works with a range of stakeholders to ensure that they are able to take full advantage of the Treaty's provisions. In other areas too, Bioversity will use its policy expertise both to inform and to influence discussions. A more general aspect of policy is the need to ensure that potential participants do indeed appreciate the benefits of joining larger collaborations. Bioversity will work to facilitate processes that optimize collaboration, and will go beyond plants to become increasingly involved with international collaboration for the conservation and use of animals and microbes.As a result, influential people around the world will be informed of the importance of the conservation and use of genetic resources and will respond with supportive policies. Mechanisms to encourage collaboration in the conservation and use of genetic resources will reinforce global political efforts, and increased awareness will prompt greater support. A more effective Global System, able to deliver the benefits of agricultural biodiversity, will result.Focus Area 6: Status, trends and valuation of agricultural biodiversityWe see: Bioversity makes available information on the status and trends of within-species diversity of economically important plants and promotes strategies and actions that will sustain this diversity and, better yet, reduce its loss.Agricultural biodiversity continues to be lost around the world, and yet the extent of the changes and their causes are not fully understood. A key problem is that while the conventional benefits of biodiversity have been measured and recognized, especially in terms of the value of ex situ conservation, the broader range of benefits are not properly valued by decision-makers or societies. Complicating the matter, much of the value is shared between private and public goods. Thus, poor farmers maintain agricultural biodiversity and derive private goods from it, but they are neither recognized nor compensated for the wider public benefits to society at large-now and in the future-that flow from their efforts. To a large extent this is because tools for capturing these values are lacking. Assessing the status of genetic diversity and monitoring erosion and other trends is also hampered by lack of tools. There are currently no tested procedures for collecting, compiling, analysing and interpreting data on diversity over space or time for crop and forage production systems (as opposed to for specific genebank holdings or production areas).Bioversity will work to fill the gaps, developing tools that can be applied locally, nationally and regionally. Case studies at regional and national levels will address selected target crops and wild species of socio-economic importance. Bioversity will also work with partners to ensure that they are able to use these tools to deliver the information on which sound policy decisions can be based. For banana and coconut, where it has a special mandate, the organization will play a more active role in carrying out global evaluations of status, trends and values.Limited resources require rational decisions on what to conserve, where and how. Many international decisions and programmes of work have stressed the need not only to understand more fully the current status of genetic diversity but also to be able to monitor genetic erosion and other trends. Vital partners in all this area's activities will be national agricultural research systems, especially of developing countries, who will need training and tools in order to implement their obligations under the various agreements.Bioversity expects to see countries able to report on status and trends among important crops and wild species and for this information to feed directly into various global commitments. Along with information from valuation studies, this will help policy-makers to take steps to reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity. However, real progress will occur only if societies develop a greater appreciation of the services and benefits delivered by agricultural biodiversity; raising public awareness is thus another crucial activity for this area of work.Currently, few people around the world are able to make optimal use of diversity to meet their aspirations for the future. Bioversity is focusing on providing the scientific tools and approaches needed. Ultimately farmers and others will have access to the resources they need to adapt their systems to better meet their needs.The Science Council of the CGIAR has established five sets of priorities to guide centre research.This table shows in dark green how each of Bioversity International's Focus Areas links with the CGIAR's priorities. Nepal is one of the least developed countries in the world, with adult literacy less than 50%, half the children underweight or stunted, and very low incomes. And yet the combination of in situ conservation, participatory plant breeding and strong policy work has put Nepal at the forefront of developing and formally recognizing farmer varieties.Official approval for an improved traditional rice variety in Nepal B. Sthapit/Bioversity International all these reasons, 'Jethobudho' fetches a premium in the market. As a result, and against a background of threatened rice diversity, 'Jethobudho' remained popular. It was grown by 15% of the farmers and covered almost 10% of the agricultural area in Pokhara.It does, however, have problems. Farmers told Bioversity, working in partnership with LI-BIRD, a local NGO, and the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) that blast, a fungal disease, and the tendency to lodge, or fall over as a result of weak stems, were the two problems they most wanted to eliminate. They also wanted higher yields. Accordingly, the project began in 1998 by collecting 338 samples of 'Jethobudho' from farmers in the area. These were grown side by side for three years and assessed by the farmers and other team members. That whittled the number down to 46. These were assessed again for so-called post-harvest traits, most notably: did they smell, taste and feel right? Six lines were chosen as the 'authentic' 'Jethobudho'. (As an aside, although the six varieties are outwardly very similar, molecular profiling revealed that they are genetically distinct. When dealing with landraces and farmer varieties, a name does not necessarily uniquely identify a breeding population.)A mixture of the six lines constitutes the new variety, 'Pokhareli Jethobudho'. Seed producers sow a mixture of the six as their foundation stock, the harvest of which is sold to others farmers to grow for food. In addition, LI-BIRD is maintaining the six varieties separately so that it can make the mixture for the foundation seed afresh each year. As Sthapit explains, \"This approach maintains the diversity within the 'Jethobudho' population and helps in coping with the vulnerability created by crop uniformity.\" Most importantly, perhaps, the selected 'Pokhareli Jethobudho' meets the farmers' expressed needs: they recorded grain yields of up to 3.35 tonnes per hectare, as against 2.4 tonnes per hectare in 1999 before the selection started.That's the research side of the story: farmers and scientists joining forces to improve an old landrace. Commercializing it brings in the policy experts.Nepalese seed law is complex. The formal sector consists of two closely cooperating channels. NARC focuses on crop improvement, while the Department of Agriculture and private companies deal with the multiplication and sale of seed. In practice, Nepali farmers get roughly 90% of the seeds they sow through informal sources, but the team decided it would be appropriate to be able to disseminate 'Pokhareli Jethobudho' through official channels.The project, along with the government agricultural extension office of Kaski district, set up Fewa Seed Producers Group, a community-based seed production system to supply farming communities throughout the Pokhara valley. They also named the farmers who had maintained the six chosen lines as custodian farmers. But while the Nepalese Seed Act allows anyone to apply for variety registration and release, the National Seed Board requires the applicant to have at least an MSc degree and to have a breeding infrastructure that meets a number of stringent criteria. That makes it effectively impossible for farmers to apply for registration for their varieties. The application for 'Pokhareli Jethobudho' was therefore submitted by the project in the name of all the stakeholders and specifically included the Fewa Seed Producers Group and the six named custodian farmers.It was this application that the Variety Approval, Registration and Release Committee approved in June 2006, recognizing farmers as co-owners of a new variety for the first time in Nepal's history.Step one in the recognition process requires that the variety is distinct, uniform and stable, although stability is assessed over only a single season and traditional knowledge is fully acceptable as evidence of distinctness and stability. However, step two-commercialization of the variety-has much more stringent requirements for uniformity and stability, including results from trials over three growing seasons. In this case, the VARRC adopted the view as that as one of the key agronomic aspects of 'Pokhareli Jethobudho' is its diversity, the uniformity criterion could be relaxed somewhat, as long as it was uniform in the important factorsA little boy and his father pose with a bouquet of rice in a community seed production site in Pokhara valley, Nepal.of plant height, time of maturity and grain quality. Having overcome this hurdle, 'Pokhareli Jethobudho' can now be sold, and three seed production groups around Pokhara, including the original Fewa Seed Producers Group, are growing it.Challenges and problems remain. The farmers will be growing a couple of tonnes of seed outside Kaski district in 2007, to see how it performs and how other markets will respond to the variety. There is also a pressing concern that better market opportunities will tempt some seed farmers to adulterate 'Pokhareli Jethobudho' with inferior varieties. The seed producers plan to tackle this by packing seed from individual farmers separately, with a label that gives the name of the farmer. In this way, they hope to hold each seed farmer accountable, because it will be easier for other farmers to connect quality issues to a particular source. In addition, people have raised the argument that the intense concentration on 'Jethobudho' will diminish rice biodiversity in the Pokhara valley. But the project points out that, if nothing else, the six selected lines will be more likely to hold their own against improved varieties from elsewhere. Furthermore, the farmers of the valley grow 70 different varieties, which they are unlikely to abandon.(An impact study on the multiple values that farmers accord their varieties has just been published in a book of impact assessments. See New light on the value of old rice, Annual Report 2002, p. 23.) 'Jethobudho' matures later than other traditional varieties. The farmers grow other varieties partly as insurance against an abnormally short season.On the policy side, the detailed question of ownership remains undecided. The Seed Act does not refer to the ownership of varieties, but it does reference a set of rules that establish ownership if the breeder applies for it. Indirectly, the Seed Act touches on ownership by defining the breeder, the only person who can apply for registration, as \"any person, organization or body which brings into use any variety of the crops by producing or selecting it for the first time\" (emphasis added). That phrase, \"for the first time\", suggests that once a variety exists, proof being that the breeder registered it, a second person cannot apply for registration because they could not logically be the breeder.The person who first registers a variety would thus be the only person who has the right to commercialize it. This de facto ownership, say Bioversity's policy experts, is probably the most important objective of any intellectual property protection mechanism and it seems that Nepal's current Seed Act does indeed give the applicant effective ownership.The case of 'Pokhareli Jethobudho' has aroused intense interest from farmers' groups, NGOs, policy-makers and others, and was discussed extensively at a workshop on protection for farmers' varieties organized by the Genetic Resources Policy Initiative in Hanoi, Viet Nam, in October 2006. The proceedings of that workshop will be published soon.Further information b.sthapit@cgiar.orgJethobudho', an improved rice variety developed with the help of Bioversity International and local NGOs.Banana xanthomonas wilt (BXW) is an unforgiving disease. Rather than just reducing yield, as many diseases do, it causes the fruit to ripen prematurely and rot. Eventually the plant dies. Moreover, direct challenge by injecting the disease bacteria straight into plants has so far uncovered not one resistant variety, only differences in the speed and severity of the disease. BXW, also known as banana bacterial wilt, started making headlines in 2001, when it was seen for the first time in Uganda. Since then it has turned up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania. In heavily affected areas of Uganda, losses of up to 80% have been observed. Among the worst affected varieties is 'Kayinja', a juice banana known elsewhere as 'Pisang awak'.Given the importance of cooking bananas as a staple food and of juice bananas as a source of income in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, the consequences of letting BXW run rampant would be devastating.Fortunately, the spread of the disease can be contained. Frederick Kisegerwa discovered as much in 2004 when he first noticed the symptoms on his 'Kayinja' plants. The Ugandan farmer had heard about various control measures on the radio and from his local agricultural extension office and he started to put them into practice. He dug up all the sick plants on his farm and chopped them into pieces, which he buried. He also started to remove the male bud from all his plants because that reduces the number of new infections by reducing the attractiveness of the plant to insects. As a result, he rarely runs into infected plants anymore, even though his field is surrounded by the sick plants of other farmers. With fewer bananas to supply the local market-'Kayinja' bananas are used to make beer and a type of gin called waragi-staying ahead of the disease Above right Banana leaves are often cut and sold as a food wrapping but this practice is now being discouraged, for fear that contaminated tools may spread BXW.Right Frederick Kisegerwa with the forked stick he uses to snap off male buds. That reduces the risk of insect transmission, but he has to remain vigilant not to spread BXW with contaminated tools.A new banana disease that takes no prisoners has emerged in East Africa. Bioversity's experience with bugtok, a very similar disease in Asia, gave it an opportunity to promote simple yet effective control techniques to local partners. After some persuasive efforts Ugandan authorities agreed to trial those techniques and put them to work in farmers' fields.Dealing with a deadly banana diseaseA. Vezina/Bioversity International A. Vezina/Bioversity International has enabled Frederick Kisegerwa to double his income.Bioversity is also actively trying to rein in the disease on a broad front. For the past few years, the regional office in Uganda has been involved in efforts to coordinate a two-pronged regional strategy. There is a management component to help farmers to sustain production in affected areas and to prevent the spread of the disease, and a surveillance component to spot new outbreaks. And to ensure that the advice they offer is based on sound evidence, Bioversity scientists in collaboration with colleagues at the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) in Uganda have also been testing control options as part of the USAID-funded Uganda Agricultural Productivity Enhancement Program.BXW is caused by the bacterium Xanthomonas campestris pv. musacearum. Bacteria normally get into the plant through a wound of some sort. Inside the plant they multiply rapidly and, when the plant is wounded again, they emerge as an exudate that is the source of fresh infections. This bacterialaden ooze may be carried to healthy plants by flying insects or by farm tools, if farmers move from infected to uninfected plants without cleaning their tools in between.A common type of wound is the opening on the flower stalk made by a fallen bract, the modified leaf that rolls back to reveal flowers. Some varieties have persistent bracts and flowers that stay on the flower stalk and these are less prone to infection from insect transmission. The majority of currently used varieties do lose their bracts, but it is possible to disrupt insect transmission by removing the male bud at the end of the flower stalk as soon as the last fruits have set.Removing the male bud, however, carries its own risks. Farmers must take care that they do not actually spread the disease. They are advised to use a forked stick to break off the male bud rather than cutting it off with a knife attached to a stick, which might transmit the disease if the blade has been in contact with the bacterial ooze of an infected plant. This simple measure, and the vigilance of farmers who promptly take action at the first sign of the disease, has prevented BXW from getting a foothold in the region that produces most of the cooking bananas that Ugandans eat at almost every meal. It also helps that the East African highland bananas areThe invisible hand of technology will soon allow Ines van den Houwe, curator of the International Musa Germplasm Collection, to inform online database users of additions to the collection by simply keeping her own records up to date. The genebank management system installed at Bioversity's International Transit Centre (ITC) in Belgium is scheduled to feed information into Bioversity's Musa Germplasm Information System (MGIS), which is itself hooked up to the SINGER online database of all accessions of crops held by the centres supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).Each plantlet carries a barcode that is the key to its identity. The computerized system makes it easier to manage the in vitro genebank by storing daily records of everything that was done to each plantlet. Online users of MGIS and SINGER will be spared that level of detail. But every time a new accession is officially added to the collection, the usual information on its identity, its main characteristics and whether it is available for distribution will be automatically sent to the databases. The system will also keep track of where plantlets have been sent. When it comes to bananas, the SINGER database gives data only on ITC accessions, but users wanting to browse the holdings of other banana collections can use MGIS to do so.I. van den Bergh/Bioversity International less susceptible to insect transmission than other varieties such as 'Kayinja'. But even though debudding is easy to implement and has been shown to reduce the incidence of new infections due to insect transmission almost to zero, its uptake is uneven. At the regional level, a recent survey conducted by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) indicates that debudding is not yet routine. Even though more than 60% of the respondents said that they remove the male bud, less than 25% do so regularly and less than 10% do it with the intention of managing BXW. Indeed, it is proving difficult to persuade 'Kayinja' farmers to debud healthy plants and destroy infected plants. Farmers are not in the habit of fussing over their 'Kayinja' plants, which are normally very hardy. Some farmers also resist debudding because they think it will reduce the potency of the waragi spirit they distil from the fermented fruit.Misunderstandings about the process of debudding also abound. Some farmers are not aware that they should use a forked stick rather than a knife, or that timing is important. Waiting too long after the emergence of the last hand of fruits means that wounds from fallen bracts will form, increasing the likelihood of insect transmission.Removing a shrivelled male bud, the first sign of insect transmission, is also counter-productive. It will not prevent the disease from following its course because the bacteria are already on their way to infect the other parts of the plant. The best solution is to destroy the plant.The standard recommendation is to dig up the entire mat-the mother plant and its offshoots, called suckerschop it up and bury the pieces. \"This is hugely labour-intensive and has not been readily adopted by farmers,\" notes Frank Turyagyanda of Bioversity. Looking for a less cumbersome alternative, Bioversity and NARO scientists tested the effect of removing only the mother plant by simply cutting it off at the base as soon as the male bud started showing signs of being infected. \"It does not save the bunch,\" Turyagyanda admits, \"but it saves the mat.\" Unfortunately this simpler procedure will not work if the fruits have started to ripen and rot or if some of the leaves are already wilted, because by that time the bacteria will have invaded the entire mat. Cutting up infected plants is, in any case, a double-edged sword as it may spread the disease if farmers do not disinfect their knives before using them again on healthy plants.To avoid transmission through cutting tools, farmers are also asked to refrain from pruning their plants and not to let outsiders, such as traders or brewers, use their own tools when they harvest bunches. The exchange of planting material is also discouraged unless the source is reliable, as healthy looking suckers may come from infected Right Selling surplus bananas production is a vital source of income for farmers in East Africa.A shrivelled male bud and rotting fruits come first, but even if the farmer notices them, it may be too late to save the plant. Prevention is the answer.1 mats in which the infection has gone undetected.In an unexpected twist, anecdotal evidence suggests that rich farmers may contribute disproportionately to the spread of BXW because they can afford to hire workers who, by moving between fields, may inadvertently help spread the disease. Rich farmers also tend to introduce more planting materials into their fields than smallscale farmers. On the other hand, they are better placed than poor farmers to implement the recommendation to use disease-free, but more expensive, plantlets produced through tissue culture.Despite the glitches that inevitably arise when coping with a new disease, more and more success stories show that the disease can be contained. In similar situations, resistant varieties would usually be offered to farmers, but none has been found so far. As with other diseases and pests of banana, breeding for resistance to BXW is a testing process that will require years of dedicated work because of the high levels of sterility of most domesticated bananas. Genetic engineering is an alternative and scientists at a NAROrun biotechnology centre are working on BXW-resistant 'Kayinja'.These and other options may become available in the years to come, as scientists identify the solutions that best meet farmers' needs. In the meantime, the responsibility for safeguarding the livelihoods of banana farmers rests in their own hands, through careful management of their own banana plots.Their communities and governments need to support the farmers' efforts at local, national and regional levels.Further information g.blomme@cgiar.org MGIS is at http://mgis.inibap.org SINGER is at http://singer.cgiar.org/Until it showed up in central Uganda, the disease was restricted to Ethiopia, where it also attacks ensete, a close relative of the banana. Nobody knows how the disease jumped from Ethiopia to Uganda, given the large distances that separate the producing regions of the two countries. The most likely explanation is the introduction of infected suckers because the other means of transmission do not have the same reach. But as the disease has spread, so have misconceptions.Q: Are the recommended control measures too costly and labour intensive for smallholders? A: NO! Early removal of the male flowers-which is the best way to prevent insect transmission from infected to healthy plants-is quick, easy and effective. Keeping a field of one hectare free of the disease takes only a couple of hours of work twice a week. Excluding the disease in this way reduces or eliminates the need to uproot and bury infected plants (which is indeed too labour intensive for many farmers to contemplate).Q: Does debudding make the plant immune to infection? A: NO! A debudded plant is less susceptible to insect transmission but is still at risk of transmission through contaminated tools.Q: Have resistant varieties been found? A: NO! None of the cultivated varieties tested so far have shown signs of resistance when inoculated with the bacteria.Q: Are plants infected with BXW poisonous to humans and animals? A: NO! No evidence has ever been found that the bacterium is harmful to humans or animals.Q: Can bananas be replanted in a heavily infected field? A: YES! Even in the worst situation, when an entire field has been infected, bananas can be replanted after allowing enough time for the bacteria in the soil and infected plant debris to die. Current knowledge suggests that a period of about six to eight months is sufficient.Q: Can the disease be controlled using chemical products (e.g. pesticides)?A: NO! Since the disease infects the vascular system of the plant, a chemical product that kills the bacteria would be hard to administer. It is also impossible to kill all the insects visiting banana plants.Don Pedro has about 1000 cacao trees on his farm in Venezuela. He sells the beans to local buyers but the price fluctuates widely. The farm he inherited from his father used to have many Criollo trees-a traditional type renowned for the flavour of its beansbut over the years he replaced many of them with hybrids because these yielded better than his father's trees.But that was before some people in the West developed a taste for premium chocolate made from Criollo beans and started to pay up to three times as much for them, and before diseases became the problem they are today.He would like to take advantage of the new markets, and to produce more from his trees; a new project may help him to do so.The project, funded largely by the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC) and coordinated by Bioversity, is a follow-up to one entitled 'Cocoa Germplasm Utilization and Conservation, a Global Approach.'The main aim of that effort was to encourage international collaboration in breeding after a decade of low cocoa prices that caused producer countries to scale down their breeding activities.The new project brings farmers into the process of developing new varieties, hence its name: Cocoa Productivity and Quality Improvement, a Participatory Approach. Twelve cacao-producing countries are collaborating on it, together with research institutes in France and the UK.Farmers still predominantly rely on traditional cacao types, which fall into three groups: the increasingly rare Criollos, Forasteros and Trinitarios (see photos, p. 15). Breeders started to offer improved varieties to farmers in the 1950s, but uptake was very limited; only about a quarter of the trees on the average farmer's holding are improved varieties. The main reason for the low uptake was that farmers did not have access to highyielding varieties that were also disease resistant, in part because not all breeders were targeting diseases and in part because distribution of improved varieties was patchy. So the farmers took to collecting seeds from their own trees, often the improved varieties, and growing them on to replace old trees.One of the best ways to improve farmers' livelihoods, in addition to selecting the best-performing varieties, is to train farmers to manage their trees more effectively.Smallholder farmers grow 90% of the world's cacao, and they often struggle to make a living in a market characterized by boom and bust cycles. High losses caused by pests and diseases also make it hard for them to take advantage of business opportunities. A five-year project that started in 2006 aims to reduce the vulnerability of farmers by working with them to select and distribute improved varieties.B. Eskes/Bioversity International 1 \"But because the seeds are the product of uncontrolled pollination, stands of farmers' materials tend to be a mixed bag of trees,\" says Bertus Eskes, the Bioversity scientist who coordinates the project. \"Still, farmers are good at spotting the ones that have high disease resistance and yield.\" The promoters of the project hope that, in addition to identifying the best performers, the farmers involved in selection and in the evaluation trials will also accelerate the delivery of superior varieties to other farmers.The normal procedure for improved varieties fresh out of the breeding programme is first to have their performance evaluated at a field research station. The ones that make the first cut are then shipped out to other stations around the world to be further tested across a range of growing conditions. But because these conditions are rarely in farmers' fields, breeders run the risk of having their improved varieties rejected when they finally reach the farmers. If farmers are going to reject some varieties-and they are-it's better that they do it sooner rather than later. \"Some breeders thought it would be lower,\" says Eskes. \"The fact that it is not suggests that farm materials offer a great potential for obtaining better varieties.\"The true potential of the selected trees will take some time to evaluate as they are still young, but so far the screening of selections from the farmers' materials has uncovered some individuals in Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana that are resistant to Phytophthora pod rot, an economically important disease.In Papua New Guinea, where selection of farm materials started earlier, some of the advanced selections yield up to 60% more than even the best improved varieties.Many farmers have enthusiastically welcomed the chance to participate in the evaluation of new material and large numbers applied to host a trial on their farm. Where droughts and pests and diseases threaten the survival of the young seedlings, the project gives farmers irrigation equipment and pesticides to help them cope.Above Cacao flowers.Below The three basic types of cacao pod-Criollos, Forasteros and Trinitariosdiffer in colour, size, shape and, most importantly, the quality of the beans they contain.The breeders also need support.Eskes notes that in some countries the number of experienced cacao breeders and scientists has not recovered from the neglect and lack of investment of the 1990s. Moreover, the fact that in most countries extension and breeding services fall under two different administrations makes it difficult for extension workers to help breeders to cope with the extra workload of supervising the on-farm trials in addition to their own trials at the research stations.Despite these and other obstacles, the project has opened up a previously neglected channel of communication between farmers and breeders. When all the results are in it will be hard (and probably unwise) to go back to excluding farmers from breeding programmes. It may also speed up the advent of the new, and profitable, cacao varieties that many farmers, including Don Pedro in Venezuela, would like. Seedlings growing in the nursery prior to planting out and evaluation.1In the developed world quinoa is something of a novelty, an exotic grain with a slightly fringe reputation for good nutrition and environmental friendliness. In the Andes, where people have cultivated quinoa for around 5000 years, quinoa has been the breakfast, lunch and dinner staple, not to mention snacks and sweets.The rise of quinoa in developed countries created opportunities for poor farmers in one of the harshest agricultural environments in the world, but it brought problems too. Damiana Astudillo, a Mickey Leland Congressional Hunger Fellow, has been working with Bioversity for the past two years to understand the challenges of commercial quinoa cultivation in the southern Bolivian Altiplano.Conditions on the Altiplano are tough.Temperatures can range from -18°C to 27°C in a day. There is overnight frost 225 days a year, rainfall averages less than 25 mm a year and soils are sandy with very little organic matter. Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) is one of the few crops that thrives there, and it provides excellent nutrition. Protein content ranges from 11% to 19% and is of very high quality, containing all eight amino acids essential for human health. The seeds are rich in vitamins and minerals too. In fact the United States' Academy of Sciences describes quinoa as \"the most nutritious grain in the world\".Above Roasting the quinoa seeds is an essential first step in processing, to loosen the layer of bitter saponins that cover the seeds.Left Quinoa is one of the few crops that will thrive at high altitude and in thin soils.Promoting neglected and underutilized species can be a double-edged sword. A recent project with the communities that surround the Uyuni Salt Flat in Bolivia showed that although farmers' incomes rose, their use of crop diversity decreased and there may also have been bad nutritional consequences for farm families. But the study also showed ways to improve matters. Although the communities of the southern Altiplano lack education, basic infrastructure such as roads and running water, and capital, they have not been slow to respond to demand for their wonder grain in Bolivian towns and cities and in the developed world. Production increased from about 5600 tonnes in 1980 to more than 13 500 tonnes in 2001, the result not only of doubling the area of land under cultivation, but also of a 25% increase in yield per hectare. In her study, Astudillo identified four major impacts of this switch from subsistence to commercial production.Quinoa diversity is being lost. A single variety now makes up 37% of production, and the top three account for 72%. This is the flip side of market demand; although it has boosted the total amount of quinoa being grown, it has also created a focus on commercially valuable varieties that are homogeneous and large-seeded. Smaller-seeded and more variable varieties are no longer being planted as much.Flowing from this have been changes in dietary diversity and impacts on the environment. Farmers and their families used to eat quinoa at almost every meal. Now, with the money they earn from quinoa sales, they can afford to buy other sorts of food. One reason they buy these foods is that they are much easier to prepare, while quinoa is time-consuming and laborious. With the demands on their time that commercial growing makes, it is no surprise that many women have turned to pasta, rice and processed foods. Dietary diversity has increased but, paradoxically, nutrition may have suffered, because the substitute foods are not nearly as nutritious as quinoa.The shift to commercial cultivation has also impacted on the environment. Previously, family farms were small and quinoa was grown mostly on the slopes. Villagers reap larger harvests by moving quinoa off the hills and onto the flat lands, but this has promoted the use of inappropriate technology, such as disc harrows, that promotes wind erosion. In addition farmers are not leaving the land fallow as long as they once did, leading to further erosion and a depletion of the few nutrients present in the soil.Finally, there has been an impact on the social life of the community. Before, although plots were family-based, families helped one another when needed and often worked together. Now, with increased mechanisation, the work tends to be much more solitary and families do not need one another's help. The result is that they are more isolated.Astudillo did more than merely record what was going on in the communities of the southern Altiplano. She also worked with the people to see whether things could be changed. Workshops aimed at parents with young children focused on the importance of good nutrition and raised awareness of the value of local quinoa, but one of the perennial complaints about quinoa is that it is boring. Working with the parents, Astudillo helped to develop new recipes that made quinoa more appealing, including a quinoa pancake that had children queuing up for more. Even the best recipes, however, do not address the fundamental problem: preparing quinoa is a pain.Quinoa seeds are coated with a layer of saponins; exceedingly bitter, toxic chemicals. To get rid of this layer, women first toast the seeds on a metal tray over a fire. This helps to loosenGrowth in planted area and yield of quinoa in the southern Altiplano.  Above After roasting and treading the seeds, the saponin dust is removed by winnowing in a steady breeze.Left Just some of the quinoa diversity, much of which is disappearing from farmers' fields as they concentrate on a few more marketable varieties.Right The quinoa harvest drying in the fields.1 the saponin layer and, while it may not be strictly necessary, enhances the flavour of the seeds. Then the hot seeds are tipped into a stone basin and the women tread them with their bare feet.The friction loosens the saponin coat and reduces it to dust. Treading also often gives the women blisters and chronic lower back pain. The saponin powder now has to be cleaned from the seeds, which is done by waiting for a day with the right kind of steady wind and then winnowing the seeds repeatedly so that the wind blows the dust away. Finally the seeds are rinsed in a couple of changes of water and set out to dry.Quite apart from the sheer drudgery and discomfort of the work, which is usually carried out in the bitter cold of winter immediately after the harvest, it can take 6 hours to process 12 kg of quinoa.In some ways, this proved an easy nut to crack. Astudillo worked with Rolando Copa, a local mechanic and inventor, to build a quinoa processing machine that duplicates all the necessary steps and that reduces the time it takes to process 12 kg of seed from 6 hours to 7 minutes. The communities were at first deeply sceptical that the machine would produce acceptable quinoa. To overcome that, Astudillo arranged for blind tastings in five different communities. Not only did the families find the machine's quinoa totally acceptable, they even said they would be willing to pay up to 75 US cents to process 12 kg. This is crucially important, because the machines cost around US$ 800, more than a family could afford. There are, however, precedents for making a machine available as an incomegenerating opportunity to a family or an entire community, not least from Bioversity's work in the Kolli Hills of India (see Annual Report 2005, p. 23).As Astudillo notes, \"the machine will reduce the burden of women's work, have a positive impact on their health and potentially improve nutrition by facilitating the consumption of a nutritious grain. This is a lowinput, high-impact opportunity for any organization committed to practical rural development and the improvement of livelihoods of marginalized populations.\"That leaves the problem of quinoa diversity in the field. Although the local genebank stores samples of essentially all known quinoa varieties, so that they will be available for future use, for the farmers those varieties appear to have little value at the moment. Nevertheless, diverse quinoa varieties do have different agronomic and nutritional properties. Some are more frost resistant, for example, while others mature early. Nutritionally, there is the overall difference in protein quantity, which varies from 11% to 19%, and there are almost certainly differences in other components, like vitamin and mineral contents. These differences were probably much more important when farmers were growing quinoa as an element of their survival strategy. These days, farmers are freely abandoning most varieties to concentrate on the few that have the greatest value in the market. That may one day prove to be an error, in which case the samples stored ex situ will have earned their keep.On the other hand, many families are using the extra money they are earning to educate their children, and those children may well decide to abandon the hard life that quinoa cultivation represents. In which case, there might be no immediate need for the genebank samples. But where, then, will the developed world get its quinoa? Coconut trees can live 100 years or more, but only neglected individuals are allowed to reach such an age. In commercial plantations, the 'useful' life of a tree is usually 50 years, after which it is replaced. Field genebank specimens are also taken down, either when they start producing fewer nuts because they are too old or when they have grown too tall to work with easily, generally when they exceed about 10 metres.In Côte d'Ivoire, Bioversity is working with local partners to implement the Global Crop Diversity Trust's decision to support the regeneration of 50 coconut accessions designated most at risk of being lost from the field genebank. Each accession held at the Marc Delorme Research Station of the Centre National de Recherche Agronomique (CNRA) is represented by tens of trees, many of which date to the establishment of the collection in 1967, although some go as far back as the 1950s. At the time, the number of trees planted was dictated more by circumstances than by any desire to represent adequately the genetic diversity of an accession. As a result the number of trees per accession can be as low as 69 or as high as 359. From now on, says Jean-Louis Konan, the project leader and curator of the coconut collection, each accession will be represented by 100 trees.The CNRA collection is one of the five regional field genebanks that make up the International Coconut Genebank For all the useful services they provide, field collections cannot afford to be retirement homes for coconut trees that have passed their productive peak. As part of its strategy to support important genebank collections, the Global Crop Diversity Trust is funding the regeneration of half of a field collection in Côte d'Ivoire.Controlled pollination of coconuts is a complex procedure. Hervé Lomoh, a technician, prepares to climb the tree, which can be 30 metres tall, in order to cut off the male flowers. These are buried to prevent accidental cross pollination.A special bag protects the female flowers, which will be fertilized with pollen from the same variety. Months later the ripe nuts are collected and set to sprout in nursery beds, ultimately to replace the older trees.Regenerating an accession is all about making sure that the genetic integrity of the variety is maintained. That means ensuring that the female flowers are not fertilized with the pollen from another variety. This is easier for Dwarf types than for Tall types (most cultivars fall into one of these two groups), and not just because they are short. Dwarf types tend to have male and female flowers that mature at the same time on a given tree, so it is a reasonably simple matter to pollinate the female flowers and then prevent other pollen getting to them. Tall types are protandrous; the male flowers generally shed their pollen before the female flowers on the same tree are receptive.To control pollination, some trees are chosen to be the females and others the males. For each accession, the project team tried to select a maximum of 100 females and 30 males, based on their health status and past agronomic performance. On the female trees, the male flowers are removed three months before the start of pollination and the female flowers bagged to keep them pure. Male flowers are also bagged to prevent accidental contamination, and the pollen collected. Fortunately, coconut pollen can be easily frozen until the female flowers are ready. When they are, the pollen is thawed and placed on the receptive females, which are then bagged again.The harvest begins about a year later. The nuts are sown in a nursery where they stay until the best seedlings can be planted out in the field. The project started in 2005, and in the first two years 37 accessions were carefully pollinated. By the end of 2007, the final 13 accessions slated for regeneration will be growing in the nursery.So far, 6000 nuts representing 22 accessions have been harvested. That's many more than strictly necessary for regeneration but Jean-Louis Konan quotes a local saying: \"There is no such thing as too much meat in a sauce\". He recalls an instance when he was able to replace losses incurred in another project because he had produced more seedlings than needed for regeneration alone. p. 9). The impact, particularly in Kenya, has been considerable. On the practical side, thanks to a broad-based partnership and tightly focused efforts, awareness of the benefits of traditional leafy vegetables is substantially higher than it was three years ago. More to the point, people in Nairobi are buying and eating them more often (see Assessing the impact of our work, p. 24).The project also helped to create a platform that enabled a wide range of stakeholders to come together to discuss the ways in which dietary diversity and traditional foods could be incorporated into national policies.In Kenya, the project was able to influence the content of two Bills being prepared for parliament. One covers nutrition and dieticians and the other addresses Kenya's policy on food security and nutrition. Both are progressing with support from several ministries and other important players with an interest in better health and better use of biodiversity. The building of such alliances, which are now able to take things forward with wide support, has been a valuable result of the project in each of the four countries in which it operated. These networks will be able to tackle national policy questions more effectively, but the business of gathering data and evidence has not been neglected. At the Institut de technologie alimentaire in Senegal, the emphasis was on analysing specific varieties and dishes made with them. The study focused on two crops, Moringa oleifera, known locally in French as nébédaye, and Hibiscus sabdariffa, roselle or bissap.Moringa, also known as drumstick tree for its pods and horseradish treeThe use of traditional and local crops to boost nutrition and income has become a core element in Bioversity's efforts to research agricultural biodiversity to improve livelihoods. A project on dietary diversity came to an end in 2006 and provides a sound basis for expanded work in this area.A tasty approach to dietary diversityAbove The fleshy calyces of roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa) flowers are generally made into a refreshing drink, but they and, more importantly, the leaves are also an important traditional vegetable.Left The project team in Senegal. Meissa Diouf, local project leader, is on the far left.for the taste of its roots, is a source of many important resources, including leafy greens and seedpods for human consumption and animal forage. It is generally grown as a shrubby, shortlived perennial that is highly resistant to pests and diseases and does well with no fertilizers and with fluctuating availability of water. The study looked at three varieties, one produced by the World Vegetable Centre (AVRDC), one from the Centre pour le développement de l'horticulture (CDH) in Dakar, Senegal, and a more traditional variety known as 'Kothiary'.Hibiscus, like moringa, is grown for many purposes and goes by many names, among them roselle, kakade and bissap. The flowers and, especially, the calyces that enclose and support the flower petals, go into refreshing drinks and teas, but in Senegal it is the leaves and flowers that play a primary role in the diet. As with moringa, the study looked at three varieties, called 'Pied 22', 'Vert de Fatick' and 'PS24'.People, of course, eat meals, not leaves. So in addition to sampling the leaves for chemical analysis, the Senegalese team also mounted missions to two rural areas and one urban centre specifically to collect traditional recipes. They spoke to women and collected information about the sorts of foods they prepared for their families and recorded detailed recipes for dishes that used moringa or hibiscus leaves. The recipes were then prepared in the laboratory for biochemical analysis and testing.At this stage, the measurements remain very basic, as even that information is not very plentiful. Nevertheless, two impressions emerge. One is that these species are rich in nutrition, as has always been said. The other is that there are differences between varieties with respect to some constituents. Quantities of some minerals were two or three times higher in one variety than another. The differences showed up in meals too. For example, a dish called gnankatang made with hibiscus cultivar 'Vert de Fatick' contained four times as much zinc as the same dish made with cultivar 'PS24' (0.88 vs 0.22 mg per 100 g), although the dishes contained identical amounts of iron at 0.42 mg per 100 g. Dishes made with different varieties of moringa did not show great differences in mineral contents, although couscous with 'Kothiary' sauce contained only 1.67 mg of iron per 100 g, compared to 2.33 mg of iron per 100 g in the same dish made with the CDH variety. Samples are too few at this stage for the observed differences to be statistically significant, but the results are certainly indicative of important differences among varieties and recipes, a topic that would probably repay further study.In addition to the biochemical analyses, and to extend that information, the team also asked a panel of tasters to assess dishes made with the different varieties. Again, some interesting and suggestive differences emerged. For example, an overwhelming 11 out of 12 (92%) panellists preferred the hibiscus variety 'PS24' over 'Pied 22'. In a larger test of moringa, 12 of 22 (55%) panellists preferred the sauce made with the CDH moringa, while 7 (32%) preferred the same sauce made with 'Kothiary'. Why remains elusive, although the Senegalese scientists note that \"the CDH variety is richer in protein, vitamin C, zinc, potassium, sodium and iron\". (The AVRDC variety was first choice of only 3 (13%) of the panellists.)Patrick Maundu, an ethnobotanist at Bioversity who has worked closely with the project, points out that while moringa seems to be more nutritious than hibiscus, hibiscus is good as a source of zinc. \"There is no one species that is better in everything,\" says Maundu, \"hence the need to diversify diets. Many cultures have a tendency to mix vegetables because they complement each other. It helps with bioavailability too. The essence of all this is 'we should diversify'.\"Given the insights and practical impact of this first project, a second proposal has been prepared for possible support by the International Development Research Centre. This second phase will extend the findings to more countries and seek to promote policies that will support and sustain the use of dietary diversity.Composition of Moringa oleifera and Hibiscus sabdariffa varieties.For each species, three different varieties were measured. This table shows maximum and minimum average values, regardless of variety, for some constituents. For absolute measures, the quantity is per 100 g fresh weight. Bioversity has long extolled the multiple virtues of traditional African leafy vegetables (ALVs) across sub-Saharan Africa. They are nutritious, they thrive in marginal environments, they can be a source of income, especially for women, and they are environmentally friendly. Developing the sector, however, requires not only that farmers be able to supply traditional leafy vegetables but also that shoppers, especially in urban areas, want to buy them. Alas, early indications were that urban shoppers did not think much of traditional leafy vegetables. They were considered unattractive and backward, and many urban dwellers did not know how to prepare them properly. They were also often sold under unhygienic conditions. Project partners developed a multipronged campaign to address these concerns, and a study by Bioversity staff member Elizabeth Obel-Lawson discovered that the campaign had worked. \"Between 2003 and 2005 there was a tenfold increase in consumer demand for ALVs in supermarkets despite their high cost in comparison to exotic vegetables,\" Obel-Lawson's report notes. But there is far more to her report.The campaign used several channels of communication to get the message across, including media such as newspapers, magazines and radio.But it turned out that word of mouth may have been the most important. Roughly 60% of respondents said that they got information from their family (especially mothers) and other social relationships. However, there may well be a multiplier effect at work here, with some people who are receptive to messages in the media and who then distribute those messages further through their network of interpersonal relationships. Obel-Lawson cautions that future campaigns cannot afford toThe sons of Josephine Osea, Programme Assistant to Bioversity International's Regional Director, shop for traditional leafy vegetables in a supermarket in Nairobi, Kenya. African leafy vegetables are very nutritious, containing high levels of folic acid, iron, calcium and magnesium among other nutrients.Bioversity's intention is to use research on agricultural biodiversity to improve lives. Good intentions, however, are not enough. We need to do what we set out to do, and then show that it has the desired effect on people. Impact assessment studies indicate that the organization is on the right road.Assessing the impact of our work ignore broadcast media, and that for maximal effectiveness the messages should be credible, consistent and of high quality. The campaigns provide the information; interpersonal communication then helps to drive changes in behaviour.There is evidence, too, of such changes in behaviour (or at least selfreported changes). About 14% of the people surveyed said that they had changed their diet by replacing red meat, cabbage, kale or spinach with traditional African leafy vegetables. Government too was responsive. Legislators introduced a Bill for a nutrition policy for Kenya and the National Food Policy was reviewed with the possibility of including traditional foods; these initiatives are making progress.Obel-Lawson's study, for which she was awarded an MA in communications studies, formed an integral part of the African Leafy Vegetables project and added to the value of the project by pinpointing some of the project impacts and helping to identify the drivers of change. Bioversity intends similar impact assessment studies to be a feature of all future projects.Further information e.obel-lawson@cgiar.orgOne of the problems that bedevils plant breeding work is that farmers may not show any interest in the improved materials developed. Getting farmers to participate in breeding and selection activities can help (see Participating in better breeding efforts, Annual Report 2002, p. 19). It can also be helpful to study the various factors that influence a farmer's decisions to adopt the varieties on offer. In 1997 the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL), which hosts the Bioversity banana collection, began a project to multiply pest-and disease-resistant varieties obtained by Bioversity from the Fundación Hondureña de Investigación Agricola (FHIA) and to introduce them to farmers in the Kagera region of Tanzania through the Belgium-funded Kagera Community Development Programme (KCDP). Impact studies by Bioversity scientists with colleagues at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) shed light on farmers' choices and preferences and the impact on their lives.In its first three years the project distributed about 2.5 million suckers of the new varieties, which on-farm tests had established would produce bunches that weighed an average of 18.9 kg, compared with 9.7 kg for local varieties. In 2002, a survey in Kagera region revealed that 29% of households had planted at least one new banana variety. However, in high-rainfall areas, where pests and diseases put farmers under more pressure, adoption was 100%. In medium-rainfall areas, only 6% of the farmers had grown one of the new varieties. A more recent study of 260 households in Kagera extends these findings considerably. For example, even outside the specific area where the project was distributing the new varieties, about one in five farmers was growing one of the new varieties. This reflects the strength of farmer-based informal systems for exchanging new planting material. Exchanges like this generally do not involve money, depending instead on social relationships; the fact that varieties spread from farmer to farmer, even when this was not a formal part of the project, suggests that this mode of dissemination should be deliberately incorporated into future projects.The hybrids were intended to reduce the vulnerability of households to losses from banana pests and diseases, which they did. Households in areas where the project had operated lost about 3% of their expected yield to pests and diseases, compared with losses of about 8% suffered by households outside the project area. What really matters, though, is not whether the farmers were actually in the project area, but whether they were growing hybrid bananas. Those outside the project who had obtained the hybrids from friends or relations enjoyed the same yield benefit, pointing up again not just that hybrids do what they were intended to but also that informal farmer-to-farmer distribution channels are really important.Because the hybrids yield larger bunches, they enable a household to meet its needs with fewer banana mats (the mother plant and offsets from it). The family can eat more bananas themselves, while their consumption is actually a smaller proportion of their harvest, so their nutrition should be improved at the same time as they can earn more. The additional productivity of the FHIA hybrids also frees land that can be used to grow other crops and to support livestock. Farmers who take advantage of this can earn twice as much as non-adopters each year and are less dependent on bananas.One of the crucial differences that the impact study identified concerned visits from extension agents. Farmers who received more visits from extension workers were much more likely to grow the hybrid bananas. While this requires further study, it does suggest that concentrating on extension and targeting relatively deprived households (in terms of income and of wealth), at the same time as strengthening informal exchange, may be the most effective means of improving the livelihoods of banana farmers in East Africa.  The award recognized the efforts of all concerned to conserve and manage collections of plant genetic resources as global public goods. It is hard to overstate how important the collections are. Centre genebanks contain more than 650 000 accessions of some 3000 species of staple crops, forages and agroforestry species essential to human food security and nutrition. These genebanks are fundamental to the CGIAR's work on plant improvement, and they hold the world's largest collections of plant diversity for food and agriculture. The genebanks are repositories not only of plant diversity but also of information and expertise unique in the scientific and agricultural spheres. This information, and the plant accessions 2006 was a truly significant year for the world's food security. Genebanks were upgraded and new agreements on access to materials and information were signed. The System-wide Genetic Resources Programme collected an award for managing the upgrade, just one of several honours conferred in 2006. The crop genetic resources held by the centres are vital to the CGIAR's achievement of its objectives. An investment in securing the collections is thus an investment in the CGIAR's chief goals. Over the past ten years, the centres have taken serious measures to review their genebank operations and to ascertain the costs of effectively and efficiently conserving the collections under their care. This allowed them to identify practical and strategic actions to ensure that they continue to be able to meet their obligations.These costing studies provided the sound basis needed to secure World Bank support to upgrade the facilities of genebanks holding these collections.  Being part of the SGRP has greatly enhanced the capacity of CGIAR centres to meet the policy and technical expectations that their intrust role has created. The policy dimension goes back to the 1990s, when the centre genebanks signed agreements with FAO that placed their collections in trust for humanity. As the partnership award recognized, the SGRP has brought coherence, effectiveness and efficiency to the genetic resources activities of the CGIAR system in support of its development goals. Jane Toll, SGRP coordinator, collected the award on behalf of the entire community, and was at pains to point out that it really was a team effort, and, as she put it, \"teamwork is the essence of SGRP\".Further information j.cherfas@cgiar.org Bioversity's Board of Trustees has responsibility for ensuring that an appropriate risk management system is in place which enables management to identify and take steps to mitigate significant risks to the achievement of the centre's objectives.Risk mitigation strategies have been ongoing at the centre and include the implementation of systems of internal control which, by their nature, are designed to manage rather than eliminate the risk. The institute also endeavours to manage risk by ensuring that the appropriate infrastructure, controls, systems and people are in place throughout the organization.The Board has adopted a risk management policy that has been communicated to all staff together with a detailed management guideline. The policy includes a framework by which the institute's management identifies, evaluates and prioritizes risks and opportunities across the organization; develops risk mitigation strategies that balance benefits with costs; monitors the implementation of these strategies; and reports, in conjunction with finance and administration staff and internal audit, semi-annually to a Task Group of the Board and annually to the full Board, on results.The Board is satisfied that Bioversity has adopted and implements a comprehensive risk management system.   ","tokenCount":"13016"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f75625ff2701a5dd855936747fdf57b6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/63a4bb59-cb85-44af-96cf-74382e37a750/retrieve","id":"79720952"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"736330ae-ddf9-4a28-8c68-e3471dbcf6e0","pagecount":"2","content":"The livestock sector is a major contributor to food security in sub-Saharan Africa. It is a vital source of income to most of the rural poor as it is the largest employment sector in the region. Livestock also provide nutritional benefits through animal source foods that are protein dense and contain key micronutrients not found in plant-based foods.However, livestock production is especially vulnerable to climate change because it relies heavily on precipitation and stable temperatures. In drylands, livestock systems are often challenged by scarce water and vegetation and suffer from droughts that are becoming more frequent and intense with ongoing climate change. Vulnerabilities caused by climate change underscore the importance of pursuing adaptation strategies in livestock systems.Livestock production is not only affected by climate change, but also contributes to it. In many countries in the region, the agricultural sector is the largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, a large proportion of which comes from livestock production. Such emissions are released during the digestive process of ruminants, storage and application of manure and production of fodder. These high GHG emissions are mainly due to poor animal health and lowquality feed, which lead to low productivity.The concept of climate-smart agriculture has been widely adopted in the agriculture development community to contribute to food security by increasing agricultural productivity, adapt agricultural systems to future climate change and recognize possibilities to mitigate GHG emissions by closing nutrient cycles in agriculture.The program for climate-smart livestock systems (PCSL) will support interventions to increase the contribution of livestock production to the three key pillars of climatesmart agriculture: increased productivity, mitigation of GHG emissions and adaptation to climate change.The program will be implemented across major livestock productions systems in three focus countries-Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda-and will run from 2018-22.The program works to direct the practices, sector strategies, policies and investments of livestock stakeholders towards climate-smart livestock systems.PCSL will support governments, the private sector and local stakeholders in realizing their development objectives, while also fulfilling their commitments to achieve climate change adaptation and mitigation goals.The program will support countries to improve the reporting of their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) in the livestock sector within the frameworks of the Paris and Katowice agreements.The program is implemented by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in partnership with the World Bank. Activities focus on combining scientific data collection with solution-led field research on climate-smart livestock production. By doing this, PCSL will contribute to the creation of new insights, knowledge and evidence related to climate-smart livestock development. ","tokenCount":"415"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c68d76fe6db05c85c1141bf76a84b2ad","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/246b85ad-b1be-4931-bdfb-7e4a927281f2/retrieve","id":"-1440398166"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a56f7ce2-909b-4e76-8739-605a7aec1656","pagecount":"4","content":"The Paris Agreement opens the door for more adaptation and mitigation in the agriculture sector  Countries must take urgent action to reduce emissions from the agriculture sector in order to limit global warming below 2 degrees C. Funding and political will are needed to support developing countries to implement their plans to combat and adapt to climate change in the agriculture sector The global agriculture community, including CGIAR, must step up and engage in key UNFCCC processes between now and 2020 to drive action and innovation on issues related to agricultureIn December 2015, parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreed on a global climate change agreement to replace the nearly expired Kyoto Protocol. The Paris Agreement aims to limit the increase in global average temperatures to \"well below two degrees C\" and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees C, and will come into force in 2020. Food security and agriculture are not overlooked in the Paris Agreement. In fact, the collective outcomes of COP21 offer many opportunities for action on food and farmingto be seized by the global agriculture community.Food security, food production, human rights, gender, ecosystems and biodiversity are explicit in the Agreement  The preamble of the final agreement text makes specific reference to \"the fundamental priority of safeguarding food security and ending hunger, and the particular vulnerabilities of food production systems to the adverse impacts of climate change\". The preamble also refers to human rights, gender, ecosystems and biodiversity, all issues that are central to agriculture. The preamble also \"recogniz [es] the importance of the conservation and enhancement, as appropriate of sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases referred to in the convention\" which makes mitigation in agriculture possible. Article 2.1 of the agreement outlines its \"aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty\". This includes actions for \"increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production\".An entrepreneurial farmer in Ethiopia has restored her soil by harvesting rainwater. COP21 has created new opportunities for farmers like her. Photo: G. Smith (CIAT)The ambitious 1.5 degree C target offers some hope for farmers and food security  The Paris Agreement aims to limit global temperatures \"well below\" two degrees C, and pursue a 1.5 degree target. As outlined by Campbell (2015), the debate between a 1.5 or two degree C target means different future scenarios for agriculture. For example, staple crops maize and wheat both show a trend towards greater yield losses at two degrees C than 1.5 degrees C. If global warming can be limited to 1.5 degrees, this will also produce fewer climate extremes than a two degree C temperature rise. This is good news for farmers in the tropics, as they will be on the frontline of heatwaves, droughts, floods and cyclones.On the whole, country commitments to reducing emissions will not limit global temperature rise to two degrees  The text also notes that \"much greater emission reduction efforts will be required\" than what have already been put forward. As noted by Campbell (2015) a 1.5 degree C target will require even more mitigation effort from the agriculture sector than a two-degree target. But even with a two degree C target, by 2050 we will likely run out of viable options for reducing emissions from the industrial, transport and energy sectors. Reducing emissions from agriculture will be imperative as it will be impossible to stay within either a 1.5 or two degree C target if agriculture does not contribute to emissions reductions. A comprehensive analysis of agriculture in national climate plans by Richards et al (2015) reveals that agriculture is discussed in 80% of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). Considerable finance is needed for agricultural adaptation and mitigation by Least Developed Countries (LDCs)in the order of USD 5 billion annually (Richards et al. 2015). This sum, which may be an underestimate due to the small sample, is much higher than current commitments to climate funds for agriculture and is at least ten percent more per year than multilateral climate funds spent on agricultural projects in the last decade. It remains unclear exactly how developing countries will be supported to implement their INDCs. The Paris Agreement commits developed countries to set a new collective financing goal of at least USD 100 billion per year, \"taking into account the needs and priorities of developing countries\" (para 54), but does not include binding requirements on financial contributions by individual countries. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) are entrusted to administer support for developing countries, particularly to implement national adaptation plans and actions. It remains to be seen if there is sufficient political will to move from business as usual to necessary action, and if countries will channel the much needed funding to where it is needed. Issues related to agriculture are being discussed in a slow-moving parallel process under the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), a process initiated in 2014 Now is the time for countries and observers to prepare their submissions on agriculture to SBSTA. In SBSTA discussions held in parallel to COP21, discussions were on issues relating to agriculture. The resulting SBSTA conclusion notes the two agricultural workshops that took place in June 2015, and the two that are scheduled for June 2016, and decides to discuss the workshop reports at its upcoming sessions in May and November 2016. Countries and observers to the UNFCCC have until 9March 2016 to make submissions on the identification of adaptation measures, and identification and assessment of agricultural practices and technologies to enhance productivity in a sustainable manner. The SBSTA will work on a report to be presented at its November 2016 meeting, which will form the basis for a decision on agriculture, for example a possible work programme, at the SBSTA 45 inThe Paris Agreement opens the door to further work on agriculture between now and 2020, when the agreement takes hold. This is the chance for the global agriculture community, including CGIAR, to step up and drive action: Support countries to implement INDCs in agriculture and food systems, via robust technical and institutional options, prioritization and metrics, and approaches for reaching scale. This includes helping Parties 'take stock' of progress on limiting emissions from all sources in 2018. Engage with the adaptation committee and LDC expert group to ensure modalities to recognize adaptation efforts can recognize adaptation in agriculture. Engage with the Paris Committee on capacity building, which will look at critical gaps and areas for action. It could also become a platform for agreeing to a common accounting methodology for agriculture, which is currently missing. Make submissions to the SBSTA 44 call on adaptation measures for agriculture, and assist Parties in reaching a consensus and plan for progress on agriculture. Contribute to the agriculture, food system, forestry and land use chapters of the IPCC's 6 th Assessment Report (AR6), and assist with the IPCC's special report on agriculture and food security ahead of AR6. Give solid technical contributions to countries' applications to GCF and GEF to undertake actions on adaptation and mitigation in agriculture. Facilitate dialogue to coordinate action across sectors, particularly between forestry and agriculture and across the food-energy-water nexus, including biofuels. ","tokenCount":"1238"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"57659a38f543e758236d33a9783ca8b3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/05698eb4-ee27-4338-876d-0e6932ed9d7b/retrieve","id":"1261649050"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c8dc10cf-e6a8-4e3d-aae9-f5351c2a2feb","pagecount":"4","content":"A growing suite of innovative low-cost decision-support tools and soil datasets produced by ICRAF and its partners through the Africa Soil Information Service (AfSIS) and are being used by 14 African governments and other investors to map soil properties and measure crop nutritional responses to different soil management regimes. These technologies are guiding the sustainable restoration of degraded lands and have results in the development of several state-of-the-art national soil information systems (in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Tanzania).Description of activity / study: Nutrient and organic matter depletion in African croplands is a significant land degradation process. This work is contributing to the restoration of degraded croplands by measuring and mapping soil properties, and plant nutritional responses, to different soil management interventions, thus enabling the refinement and better targeting of soil management measures.• GlobalComments: The speed and low cost of light-based soil-plant diagnostic tools allow soil and plant analysis to be applied and assessed at national scale (Continent level mapping in 14 African countries).Contributing CRPs/Platforms: ICRAF/WLE developed soil-plant spectral diagnostic protocols for rapid and low-cost analysis of soil properties and plant nutrients using only light (infrared, x-rays). The technology allows soil and plant analysis to be conducted faster, and at much wider scales, than previously possible, allowing quicker and cheaper sample analysis from many georeferenced sites. This in turn permits digital mapping of soil properties and measurement of nutrient constraints faced by different crops in multiple agronomic trials over large areas [1][2][3][4][5]. ","tokenCount":"241"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/1304997126.json b/data/part_1/1304997126.json
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3547139d195c13318b4a0862b57a8928","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/84101d05-ae16-4922-971c-85a42450eb03/retrieve","id":"1820211731"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"bee95045-39ac-4251-85a6-5f5e26f43d9e","pagecount":"9","content":"As part of the U.S. government's Feed the Future initiative to address global hunger and food security issues in sub-Saharan Africa, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is supporting multistakeholder agricultural research projects to sustainably intensify key African farming systems and as a way of bringing a regional focus to the CGIAR's Integrated Systems CRPs 1.1 and 1.2. The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) is the lead institute for development and implementation. This research project focuses primarily on rice-production systems in North-West Tanzania but is intended to result in spill-over effects in other similar agro-ecological zones. This region was chosen based on analysis of cropping systems, poverty, population, country development priorities, and the potential for successfully improving agricultural productivity. The north-west of Tanzania, the area between Mwanza and Shinyanga also known as Sukumaland, is considered the national rice basket as 60% of all rice is produced there. The development of this region will be based around research in best management practices for sustainable intensification of production. This will require well-coordinated efforts involving multiple donors, regional organizations, partner universities, the private sector, national and international agricultural research institutes, and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).crops can be introduced as relay-intercropping crops towards the end of the wet season and when water levels go down. These crops may contribute to the generation of income, soil fertility improvement and the reduction of weed infestation in the subsequent rice growing season. Introduction of short-duration rice varieties, such as the ones generated and disseminated by AfricaRice and partners, may result in increased time availability for the relay-intercropping crops and hence increase their productivity. Crop rotation involves growing different crops in systematic and recurring sequences on the same land, as opposed to monoculture, in which a particular crop is planted repeatedly in the same field. On a seasonal basis, rotation can take place in the wet season, with rice being the most suitable crop for the wetlands, whereas during the dry season, dryland crops such as grain legumes and vegetables can be cultivated. The economic performance of different rotations and relay-intercropping systems varies according to the distance to markets, topo-sequence position in the inland valley, and water availability during the dry season. The combination of mechanized land preparation and water saving technologies with use of storage reservoirs could significantly contribute to increased water availability. Furthermore, post-harvest and value addition options can increase product competitiveness and raise farmers' incomes. Rice is usually produced as a single crop per year under rain-fed conditions with a production cycle of between 3-6 months. Irrigation provides opportunities to increase the potential yields of rice in designated locations during the major production season while promoting diversification of selected high value crops in the off-season period by making use of residual water following harvesting of the main (rice) crop. Many paddy fields are left fallow during the 5 to 6 months off-season period despite the availability of water. Yetfield research shows that rice yields could be increased by more than 1 tha -1 when grown in rotation with other crops such as potato and horticultural crops. In this regard, vegetables are most appropriate for rice-based farming systems to diversify risks in the farming portfolio because of their higher farm gate values and ability to utilize residual water from the previous rice crop. It is estimated that growing rice with horticultural crops could procure average margins of $172ha -1 against $110ha -1 for rice alone 1 .The development of more productive and sustainable rice-based cropping systems in designated irrigated regions is a way forward to reduce the pressure on rapidly degraded uplands by shifting cultivation to lowland systems without adversely affecting the environment and compromising productivity. This is likely to lead to improved soil fertility and soil structure, reduced pressure of weeds and reduced alternative hosts for diseases and pests 2 , resulting in increased rice yield.Farm incomes are affected by low producer prices due to limited access to markets. Even in cases where farmers are able to access markets, farmers are typically affected by lower producer prices for their produce during peak production periods driven by excessive supply beyond consumer demand. This can be compensated for by the development of small-scale storage and processing enterprises to add value and reduce losses and by enhancing market access of complementary crops, such as vegetables, legumes. Diversified and increased income from non-rice crops or livestock products, especially during the off season, reduces farm household pressure to sell rice thereby ensuring year round household food security. In addition, increasing household consumption of nutrient-rich vegetables -which contain essential micronutrients, bioactive compounds, and often proteins -and animal products alongside staples would increase household dietary diversity and would serve as the most cost-effective and sustainable solution to counter the hidden food crisis of micronutrient deficiencies in human diets. The project locations in Tanzania will be identified with partners during the January 2012 workshop. Links will be sought with project locations of other, similar initiatives in both areas.AfricaRice has an extensive network in sub-Saharan Africa. Most if not all rice experts in the region have benefited from training and collaborative activities with the Center. AVRDC has established collaborative networks on vegetable research and development activities with a number of public and private sector partners and trained staff of selected private seed companies. This project uses an innovation systems approach to research and responds to the call in the Framework for African Agricultural Productivity (FAAP) developed by the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) of making a paradigm shift away from a principally technological package approach to a truly integrated agricultural research approach, ensuring that researchers (national and international) work together with smallholders, pastoralists, extension agencies, the private sector and NGOs to have impact on the ground.The current project builds on the achievements of the European funded project \"Realizing the agricultural potential of inland valley lowlands in sub-Saharan Africa while maintaining their environmental services\" (RAP). This two-year project was funded by the EU as part of the Annual Action Plan (AAP) 2008 through IFAD (Project number: SUPP-ECG 34 SWP-WARDA 2009-2010). It is coordinated by AfricaRice, and covers two West-African countries: Mali and Benin and will move in 2012 into its second phase. A similar project is planned to be carried out in northern Ghana and this will provide us with the opportunity to make cross-country comparisons which will enable scaling-up and -out excercises.The goal of this project is to improve livelihoods through sustainable intensification and diversification of rice-based systems in north-western TanzaniaTo enhance the productivity and competitiveness of inland-valley lowlands through sustainable intensification and diversification of agricultural productivity and product value chain development, while conserving land and water resources. • Farm diversity at regional level characterized (agronomic and socioeconomic data).• Constraints and opportunities for rice-based diversified production systems are evaluated on-farm • New rice-based cropping systems using participatory approaches (prototyping) are defined and proposed to MSPs to be tested to manage soil fertility, pest, and weeds Years 2-4: • Rice-based cropping systems using a participating approach (prototyping) to manage soil fertility, pest and weeds are tested. A validation study is prepared for the next year that will be conducted to assess the results with stakeholders The main target group is comprised of resource-poor smallholder farmers and their organizations in Tanzania and local entrepreneurs (product processors, traders, etc.). Change agents from NARES and NGOs will act as the main service providers and will thereby greatly benefit, as they will be exposed to new methods dealing with remote-sensing, integrated natural resource management, co-innovation, competitive product value chain development and multi-stakeholder platforms within the dynamic and diverse nature of inland valley systems.The NARS of Tanzania (Lake Zone Agricultural Research Institute) will be responsible for planning and implementation of project activities. The NARS teams will be multi-disciplinary in the domains of agroecology, agro-economy, business development and socio-anthropology.Other actors include government agencies, NGOs, and private sector and development projects. AfricaRice as the convening center of the Inland Valley Community of practice will provide backstopping with respect to actionresearch, lowland NERICA varieties, lowland rice integrated crop management, remote sensing and GIS mapping procedure, water productivity and project management. AVRDC will contribute to development of sustainable rice-vegetable systems.The typology of inland valley systems that will be developed in the first years of the project ensures that results can be scaled-out to appropriate recommendation domains (a function of e.g. degree of water control, distance to markets, degree of organization of producers etc.). The use of participative approaches and Multi-Stakeholder Platforms will ensure ownership of research results and rapid diffusion of knowledge beyond the key sites in each target country. Active linkages will be sought with development projects and the private sector. Videos will be used as a primary vehicle to out-scale results obtained. AfricaRice will also ensure that project results and methodologies are reported during annual meetings of the National Experts' Committee (attended by representatives of AfricaRice's 24 member countries) and the Inland Valley Community of practice (IVC).In each work package, training sessions are planned in different key domains like water management, conception of sustainable cropping systems, value chain analysis, gender and equity, impact assessment and overall competitiveness of the cropping systems in the lowlands, for different type of trainees (researchers, technical agents, farmers, students). A minimum of 30% of participants in these training sessions will be women.AfricaRice will work with AVRDC and other partners to assist the project in defining indicators to be monitored yearly and conduct a base-line survey. Yearly workshops will allow for evaluation of results obtained and refining annual work plans.The project will be supervised by AfricaRice as part of an on-going effort to develop inland valley systems in sub-Saharan Africa through the Inland Valley Community of practice (IVC). All activities will be conducted by national partners from Tanzania, with backstopping from AfricaRice and AVRDC. The project will have a national coordination unit chaired by a representative from LZARDI in Tanzania.See under section 5.","tokenCount":"1648"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"75d3dd2a984ff31508df398f525510fe","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c3052170-fd74-467a-81ea-c5cd5e8cfbae/retrieve","id":"1717119656"},"keywords":["CTA Practical Guide Series","No. 12 CTA Practical Guide Series","No. 12"],"sieverID":"0eaf0d70-e23d-42da-bbb7-68105b49f6be","pagecount":"4","content":"The information in this guide can be freely reproduced for non-commercial use, if credited as coming from CTA.Reproduction for commercial use requires prior authorization from CTA.Step 1: Choosing the tomatoes Select tomatoes that are ripe, red, have a firm texture and are free of disease and mould.Step 2: Washing Wash the freshly harvested tomatoes in clean water in a large bucket.Step 3: Slicing Cut tomatoes into slices 0.5 cm thick.Step 4: Drying Spread the tomato slices on a clean, raised platform to sun dry. Use a solar dryer for a better quality product. To prevent contamination during open sun drying, cover with mosquito netting. For commercial-scale production, drying tomatoes using a hot-air dryer is advisable.1Tomatoes are widely grown and used in Eastern Africa. During the peak season most farmers sell their tomatoes at throw-away prices and substantial quantities go to waste because they are highly perishable.To avoid this, farmers can process tomatoes into various products for storage and use at home or as value-added products for income generation.Tomatoes are rich in: • vitamins and minerals, which are important for health • lycopene (the substance that makes tomatoes red) which has cancer-preventing properties.Cooking pans; plastic buckets with lids; a sharp knife; clean water; a stove (charcoal, kerosene, gas or electric); wooden spoons and ladles.Package in either glass or plastic jars and bottles. Plastic is lighter, cheaper and does not break easily.You will also need crown caps for bottles and lids for jars.For commercial-scale tomato processing you may also need: pulping machine or blender; crown cork sealer or bottle capping machine; sealing machine; glass bulb thermometer; weighing scale; chemical preservative; thickening agent (pectin); solar dryer.Step 3: BoilingPlace the tomatoes in a cooking pot. Add water and boil until they are soft and the skin peels off easily -but do not peel them.Step 4: Pulping• Remove the tomatoes from the pot using a large perforated spoon and place them in another container.• Mash using a large wooden spoon.• Use a large household sieve to separate the tomato pulp from seeds and skin.• Discard the seeds and skins or feed them to your chickens and keep the pulp.For commercial-scale production, a fruit pulper (manual or motorized) will reduce the workload and increase the yield.Pulp can be used to make tomato jam and ketchup.CTA Practical Guide Series, No. 12 CTA Practical Guide Series, No. 12Step 5: Milling Mill the dried tomatoes using a hammer mill fitted with a sieve of appropriate mesh size.Step 6: Packaging and storage• Place powder into polypropylene or polyethylene bags and seal using a candle or sealing machine (impulse sealer) and label with date of manufacture and expiry date, one year later. • Pack the bags into cardboard boxes to prevent damage caused by light. • Store in a cool, dry place.Step 1: Choosing the tomatoes Select tomatoes that are ripe, red, with a firm texture and are free of diseases and mould.Step 2: Washing Wash the freshly harvested tomatoes in clean water in a large bucket.• Use one kilogramme of sugar for each kilogramme of tomato pulp.• Mix and place in a large cooking pan.• Place the pan on a stove, bring to the boil and stir continuously to avoid burning or sticking to base. Boil until mixture thickens. • Add lemon juice (two teaspoons for every kg of jam). The juice the jam to set. • Test to see if jam is set. Take some jam in a spoon and tip into a cup of cold water. If the drop remains whole, the jam is ready. If it spreads out in the water, the jam needs further boiling. • If jam does not set even after additional boiling, add pectin (a thickening agent: one gramme of pectin per kilogramme of tomato pulp). • If jam is to be stored for more than one year, you need to add a chemical preservative (sodium benzoate, added at a concentration of 100 mg for each kg of jam). Add to mixture near the end of the boiling process. • Use a sterilizing agent (sodium hypochlorite) or hot water to sterilize the jars.• Allow jam to cool and pour into the jars while it is still flowing.• Fill sterile jars to within 3 cm from brim of the jar.• Loosely cover the jars with lids and set aside for about five minutes to allow trapped air to escape. Tighten the lids and turn jars upside-down for two to three minutes to heat the lids to kill any germs. • Allow the jars to cool to room temperature before labelling. Jam can be stored at room temperature for up to one year if not opened.• To make one kilogramme of tomato ketchup place 420 grammes of tomato pulp and 150 grammes of sugar in a large pan. Thoroughly mix and then add 300 grammes of vinegar, 300 grammes of salt, 70 grammes ground onion and 30 grammes of ground garlic and any other desired spices, such as chilli powder. Mix well. • Bring the mixture to the boil, continuously stirring with a wooden spoon.• Allow mixture to cool for about five minutes.• Pour into bottles, then cap or seal the bottles with the lids using a sealing machine.• Place bottles in a pan of cold water.• Continue cooling the bottled products by changing water in the pan.• Ketchup can be stored at room temperature for six months if not opened.• Use as a tasty sauce.Causes How is the problem corrected?Jam does not set (thicken) Over-mature tomatoes were used ","tokenCount":"914"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c467ea898a5f54a12e061252528b1c30","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8e394498-6b87-4f52-9b07-9e7acbd1e356/retrieve","id":"-826786808"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a8f06540-73cc-498b-a8d6-2aabd5142f58","pagecount":"1","content":"Traditional complementary porridges are usually characterized by low energy and nutrient density below the recommended values.• The developed complementary flours may help to improve the nutritional status of children under 24 months. • The developed complementary flours can be produced and sold by beneficiaries thus create jobs and generate revenues.• Training of trainers in all sites • Training of direct and indirect beneficiaries.By using the training of trainers strategy, five (5) trainers per village will train 10 direct beneficiaries. Each of which will train 10 indirect beneficiaries. At the end, 2500 beneficiaries will be trained.• Compare the effect of three different malted flours on the viscosity and energy density of complementary porridges for children under 24 months; • Evaluate the conservation time of the malted flour on the viscosity and energy density of complementary porridges. Approaches • Malting of cereal crops and preparation of the complementary flour.• Porridge preparation and measurement of the parameters.• Maize, millet, and sorghum malts have similar effect on viscosity and energy density of complementary porridges for children. • Malting improves the viscosity and energy density of complementary porridges for children. • After 12 months of conservation, malted flours still have good effect on viscosity and energy density. • Plastic containers are better than plastic bags for cereal crop flour conservation.All cereals crops can be used to make malted flours. The malt represents a good way to improve the energy density of complementary porridges for children. It is an easy and practical technique to improve the nutritional status of malnourished children. The developed complementary flours can be produced and sold by beneficiaries , thus create jobs and generate revenues. ","tokenCount":"273"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8fec8b541af6011233bdf2c78a274ef7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ddda168f-8ff2-4358-976a-f3f8b8e1fa88/retrieve","id":"285916308"},"keywords":["Spring mapping","water availability","irrigation","climate change Agro-biodiversity","conservation","crop diversity","participation","seeds Conservation","wildlife","environmental education Cooperatives","agricultural production","commercial farming","pomegranates Rural livelihoods","goats","livestock","veterinary services Poultry","rural livelihoods","income generation activities","agribusinesses"],"sieverID":"5deff41e-7ff0-4f9a-8d83-5b25e913871e","pagecount":"80","content":"The \"Capitalization of Experiences for Greater Impact in Rural Development\" project is implemented by CTA in different parts of the world, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), and with financial support from IFAD, the International Fund for Agricultural Development. This project aims to facilitate the adoption of an experience capitalization process in rural development initiatives, where it can help improve the analysis, documentation, sharing, and the adoption and use of lessons and good practices -as an approach for continuous learning, improvement and scaling up.The cases featured in this booklet were selected and written by those participating in the project. Responsibility for the information and views set out in each case lies entirely with the authors. Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.In initiating and reinforcing a systematic approach to learning from development experiences, CTA invited a number of organisations working in remote rural parts of Nepal, Bhutan, Indonesia and India.The idea was to introduce Experience Capitalisation as a particularly effective methodology for this purpose.Participating organisations were expected to use this knowledge to document and analyse their own work over a period of 3-4 months with support from colleagues, partners and the communities they were supporting. This resulted in a set of written documents aimed at sharing findings with wider audiences. The finest twelve of these find a place in this collection.These stories go beyond what was achieved and what was not, to delve deep into lessons learnt, mistakes made and challenges addressed. They not only teach those who were part of these initiatives, but unfold rich wisdom for others still on their development journey.While all reflections relate to interventions made in remote areas -many in the hard terrain of Himalayan mountains -a few specifically target natural resources management as imperative to sustainable livelihoods. These include a novel effort to decentralize and democratise agro-biodiversity in Southern India keeping community at the centre; sensitising community members to the necessity of conserving animal -including the Snow Leopardand plant life in the cold and arid region of Ladakh to revive the symbiotic, harmonious but delicate balance between man and nature; and a communityled and community-managed exercise to map naturally existing water springs that have come under tremendous pressure due to rising population and use of water.Poor and marginal communities are the primary subject of all other project interventions covered, including strengthening current occupations like goat rearing, experimenting with alternatives like poultry, or using unused or degraded resources to create livelihood opportunity as in the case of the revival of barren lands by growing a suitable crop like pomegranate. Almost all stories -whether covering smaller geographical area, smaller populations or spread over very large population as in the case of JEEViKa in the state of Bihar in India -are dotted with innovations in institutional development, community participation, delivery of services, capacity building, financing, entrepreneurship and much more.Women and their empowerment is the subject of the two stories from Nepal and explore how access to finance and business skills can help them out of poverty.Finally, it is a treat to learn from the documentation of the three initiatives that are using digital toolsa GIS-based system to accurately and efficiently identify ponds spread over a vast area; a mobile phone-based information system for fishermenproviding from weather warnings to information about prices in the wholesale markets; and an online system to monitor project activities spread over difficult and inaccessible terrain. They discuss the challenges in the use of digital tools, their potential and real benefits, and the ecosystem needed for the success of these in supporting poverty reduction efforts.I invite you to become part of these journeys, some of which have not ended as yet. Learn from them, take what you find of use, and add back to the pool of this ever growing capitalising experience.Learning from experiences in rural poverty reductionRose Christine M. KharsyntiewThe state of Meghalaya, in north east India, suffers from water shortages due to its hilly topography and the inability to store rain water. The Institute of Natural Resources in Shillong, under the Meghalaya Basin Development Authority, is carrying out springs mapping and springshed development initiatives to enhance the availability of water from the local springs, all of which are improving the situation for the local population.• ground water recharge decreases during winters, and frequent terminal droughts cause complete drying of over 50% of the springs (where 'terminal drought' refers to the early cessation of rainfall);• early season droughts occur frequently with late or normal monsoon onset, followed by 15-20 days of dry spells;• there are few but highly intense rainy days with a long mid-season dry spell;• evapotranspiration rates and water stress is high in forests and agricultural crops, with increased dependence on springs; or that• crop management (mainly vegetable) is difficult due to flash flood-like situations during intense rains, particularly in the Garo hills.Many areas are water stressed due to the growing gap between the demand and the supply of water, leading to the population depending more upon -and exploiting -ground water. Change of land use, deforestation, quarrying, mining, soil erosion, jhum cultivation (the local term for slash and burn agriculture practiced by the tribal groups in the northeastern states), draughts and floods are perceived to be the main causes for the deterioration of springs and ground water regimes, which in turn, adversely affect agriculture, livestock and other allied livelihood activities. Therefore, springshed development M eghalaya has a population of approximately 30 million inhabitants, and is predominantly an agrarian state with about two thirds of its population depending on agriculture for their livelihood. It ranks amongst the wettest regions in the world, with an overall annual average rainfall of 280 cm. According to the estimates, the state has over 50,000 springs, and 78% of the total number of villages (approx. 6,800) depend on springs as their main source of water for household, drinking and irrigation purposes. A sample survey of the springs by the Institute of Natural Resources (INR) in 2015 revealed that over 54% of the springs had either dried up or their water content had significantly reduced in the past few years. Impaired springs have caused widespread water stress in the rural landscape. So despite heavy rainfall, the state suffers from water shortages. This is mainly due to its inability to store and capture the rain water because of its location in the hilly areas, which leads to increased surface water runoff.Another major cause of water stress in the state is its high vulnerability to climate change. The preliminary studies and hazard analyses carried out in Meghalaya by the INR to assess climate change vulnerability indicated that:• runoff is as high as 50% in exposed areas due to the loss of vegetation and a decrease in ground water recharge, even during monsoons;Cover Carefully documenting the state of all springs in the state initiatives are a priority in Meghalaya, and spring mapping -as the initial stage -is equally important. The initiative will create a positive impact by improving, rejuvenating and reviving the springs.The limited availability of quality data on water resources, hydrology and climate, especially at the local level, is posing challenges to make informed and economically, environmentally and socially appropriate decisions and plans for resource utilisation, and investment and management arrangements in the water sector. Therefore, the process of springs mapping is very important as it serves as a database for decision-making on initiatives related to the development of a springshed, as the area within the ground or surface water basin that contributes to spring flow.Springs mapping was started in 2015 by INR Meghalaya, which is one of the institutes established under the overall umbrella of the Meghalaya Basin Development Authority (MBDA). This started as part of the project called \"Rejuvenation and Climate Proofing of Springshed for Livelihood, Water and Food Security in Meghalaya\", under the National Adaptation Fund for Climate Change (NAFCC). Springs mapping exercises take place in all the 11 districts of Meghalaya: in 46 community and rural development blocks that cover around 6,800 villages.The main objective of springs mapping in Meghalaya are:• To create an inventory of the springs in the state;• To develop a Meghalaya spring atlas by sending data to the GIS lab;• To determine the vulnerability of the springs;• To rejuvenate and revive the critical springs and springsheds;• To ensure water security by integrating traditional and scientific approaches to sustainable spring protection;• To create para-hydrologist and master trainers for springs mapping and springshed rejuvenation through training and capacity building activities (as trainers who then train other members of their village or block);• To develop resource materials and tools for monitoring the springs.The information being collected during the springs mapping exercise includes the spring's name, latitude, longitude, elevation, village, district and spring dimension (their general identification details); the physical description -information on rainfall, sanitation and infrastructure; the necessary monitoring parameters, such as the level of spring discharge; and also some basic geological information, such as rock type, structural features, soil, spring type, strike dip and dip direction. The first 2 years of springs mapping was carried out in direct partnership with Arghyam, an organisation based in Pune, and with the National Springs Initiative, drawing experience and support from the initiative's diverse network.Intensive training was conducted for a set of master trainers drawn from the soil and water conservation department, the water resources department, the community and rural development department. It also considered registered volunteers with MBDA, as well as other agencies. The master trainers then conducted extensive training at the district level, focusing on decision-makers and departmental field staff, local leadership from village durbars (local self-governments) and selected members of the community who would become para-hydro-geologists. To date, 262 master trainers have been trained on springs mapping. The master trainers, along with the support from INR and the Basin Development Units (BDUs) located in the 11 districts of Meghlaya, are also conducting springs mapping exercises in different villages of Meghalaya. A total of 1,388 springs were mapped between April 2015 and June 2017, INR Meghalaya, along with the knowledge management team from MBDA, has also developed information series, booklets and newsletters related to  (www.inrmshillong.org and www.mbda.gov.in, respectively). The institute also shares information with the line departments in Meghalaya and other institutes under MBDA and the BDUs in order to avoid overlapping or duplicating the work.The process, however, faced a few challenges. Private individuals own 90% of the land in Meghalaya, so the government has very little leverage to mandate or regulate the use of resources directly. Considerable knowledge sharing with the community must be done to raise awareness and convince landowners of the value of springs management. A proper guideline and policy is not available to master trainers, which also hinders the smooth functioning of springs mapping.Another major challenge faced by the springs mapping team was the lack of available instruments, such as GPS and tracers -a device used to measure water quality parameters. One GPS and one tracer were required per block (of which there are 46) for the smooth running of the project, but INR currently only owns six GPS devices and ten tracers. Clinometer compasses used for measuring the dip and strike direction, and abney levels used for measuring slopes, are also not available.There is no baseline data on the location of the springs, the number of springs or the topography of the area in Meghalaya. It is also difficult to find the recharge location of the spring in the main city due to increased population and housing. All the work started from scratch and was thus time consuming and demanding on human resources.A sample survey of the springs mapped revealed that over 54% of the springs have either dried or been impaired. Through springs mapping, the team was able to understand the water discharge, water quality, scarcity of water and the necessary initiatives to be taken up. Knowledge about each village was also developed, i.e. whether water is in surplus or deficit supply. People were sensitised on water management to harness maximum water during the peak season.Through springs mapping, it was also observed that most of the springshed conserving villages are not users of the spring water. Therefore, villages on higher reaches were encouraged to protect the catchment and were made aware that they would be compensated for their environmental services by villages using the spring water.In addition, the team has seen:• the creation of a local cadre to map the springs. By the end of 2017, 262 master trainers were trained all over Meghalaya, and sensitisation on the springshed initiative was conducted in all 11 districts of the state;• the development of springs atlas.The coordinates of the springs mapped was provided to the GIS team of MBDA and the first edition of the spring atlas has been developed. It is a humungous task to map all the springs in Meghalaya but this will help to constitute scaled baseline data for the springshed initiative programme;• participation and ownership. When the nearby communities or villages heard about springs mapping, some villages came forward to request for springs mapping in their village too. This shows thatProper guidelines and policies for springs mapping also need to be developed and disseminated to all the blocks and master trainers so they are all working along the same lines and towards a common goal.the villagers have gained knowledge about the importance of spring mapping. The participating communities were keen to rejuvenate the springs because they are their main water supply;• the protection and rejuvenation of vulnerable springsheds. Umtyngar is one of the villages located in the East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya. The Umtyngar river has been highly affected by sand mining and stone quarrying, meaning the springs discharge around Umtyngar has drastically decreased. In order to solve the problem, in April 2017, INR Meghalaya dug contour trenches around the recharge area of the springs. The springs discharge has since increased compared to the discharge before the initiative and at present, the water discharge is around 490 l per minute. As a step forward, the tree species present in Umtyngar will also be mapped in order to identify and understand the local species for plantation in the areaIn Meghalaya, 78% of the villages are highly dependent on springs for drinking water and irrigation, but the state still has no records, data or information related to springs. The extensive springs mapping and survey is expected to provide precise knowledge and understanding of the basic characteristics of these springs and their present condition. With around 50,000 springs in Meghalaya, the team will be able to conduct the springs mapping exercise successfully and effectively if the necessary amount of instruments is supplied and circulated. Proper guidelines and policies for springs mapping also need to be developed and disseminated to all the blocks and master trainers so they are all working along the same lines and towards a common goal.So far, the process has been limited to mapping.should next be spread widely across the state in order to protect and rejuvenate the springs. Springs mapping will provide the data and information required for decision-making and will help in analysing the vulnerability of the springs, while springshed development will contribute to the protection and rejuvenation of the springs.The institute must capitalise on the experience of the project in order to grow and understand the successes and failures of the interventions. The data collected will also be helpful for other organisations who want to initiate similar activities, and will enable them to avoid repeating similar mistakes.A multi stakeholder participatory experiment Suma T.R., Radha E., Santhosh K.K., Jayesh P. Joseph and N. AnilkumarCultivated plant species and domesticated animal species, including their genetic variants and associated plant and animal diversity, are collectively called 'agrobiodiversity'. These resources are at risk with the expansion of industrial agriculture, and maintaining locally adapted native seed materials in micro agro-ecosystems will be vital for ensuring crop resilience to climate change.This study narrates the learning experiences of a 3-year participatory project -Networking traditional farmers and local self-governments for agro-biodiversity conservation and Wayanad community seed festival -implemented with local communities and local governments.The aim of the project was to democratise agrobiodiversity conservation efforts through a seed conservation movement in the Wayanad district of Kerala, India. • bringing the concept of agrobiodiversity conservation to the local development agenda;• facilitating the establishment of a public mechanism for the conservation of diverse crop varieties under the provisions of the BD Act; and• facilitating the establishment of a formal system at the local level to provide continuous support and recognition of custodian farmers. W ayanad is a hilly district of south India known for its unique climate and rich biodiversity. The social fabric of Wayanad is a mixture of 12 tribal communities (18.53 % of the population), migrant farm families from different parts of the state (71%), and the rest comprising of government officials, plantation labourers and merchants (12%). Agriculture is the main livelihood activity for all the tribal communities living in this region.A traditional farming family 20 years ago in Wayanad would have cultivated on average more than 20 varieties of vegetables, eight varieties of paddy, seven varieties of tubers and six varieties of cereals. However, Wayanad has witnessed a large scale transformation (from food crop cultivation to cash crop cultivation) in the last four decades, and diversity is fast disappearing due to land fragmentation, changing cropping patterns, government support to cash crop cultivation, and changing markets and agricultural policies. Traditional farmers still conserving agrobiodiversity are generally poor and located away from the cities.The project aimed to integrate community knowledge on cultivating diversity to the formal system of Panchayati Raj institutions (local governing bodies) under the legislative provisions of the Indian BiologicalEnvironment joined this programme as funding and organisational partners.The four major components of the programme included community level conservation activities, public awareness programmes, the Wayanad community seed festival and policy deliberations at different levels. The activities were designed to facilitate integration of learning from the traditional farming communities and custodian farmers to the formal systems.The process sensitised the general public, policymakers, farmers and local governing bodies on the need for agrobiodiversity conservation. The nutritional value of diverse food items was highlighted to the various actors; farmers' rights on seeds and related knowledge systems were discussed; and the science of locally adapted varieties and the increasing climate risks were introduced. Annual seed festivals were planned to maximise varietal conservation through the exchange of seed materials, and district and state level policy workshops were held to discuss existing policy gaps. The public awareness programmes were developed around the concepts of nutrition security and climate resilient farming systems, whilst the policy deliberations at local and higher levels where designed to generate awareness on the BD Act and issues of diversified farmlands.Farmers' questions and issues were taken to the local governing bodies, and recommendations were divided into practical farm -and policy-level issues, and taken to district and state level decision-makers. Strategic leadership by the Kerala State Biodiversity Board and the district panchayath was key in this process.Each community has different cultural preferences for food and crops, and a different set of knowledge associated with cultivation and consumption. Kurichya and Mullukuruma are both farming communities with land holdings, but while Kurichya continues with the tradition of large land holdings under collective ownership and cultivation, the agricultural lands of Mullukuruma are fragmented due to a recent shift towards individual management. Paniya residents are largely landless and live in hamlets of many houses in small land areas. Their source of food is the plants and small animals grown in the commons and agricultural landscapes. According to the data collected from the participatory exercise, Paniya residents have lost 81% of their food basket diversity during the last 60 years, Mullukuruma has lost 76% and Kurichya, 54%. The decline in the productivity of traditional varieties is due to land use changes and due to the changes seen in the wider landscape agricultural practices.In the first year of the project, 22 village level groups were formed among farming families with the objective to reintroduce the lost crop varieties through group farming. The crops were selected according to the cultural preferences and land availability of each community. Maximum diversification through seed exchange between groups was the focus in Kurichya. Rebuilding collective farming practices and diversification was the strategy adopted with the Mullukuruma community. Group building, collective planning and the promotion of organised farming were the strategies adopted in Paniya.After 3 years, the home gardens of the 22 activity groups -under the ownership of the local womenhad been enriched with 28 varieties of vegetables, nine varieties of legumes, nine varieties of leafy greens and eight varieties of taros, tubers and roots on average. There were also 11 varieties of dioscorea (root vegetable), and 12 varieties of rice being cultivated by different groups. The Paniya women, who historically were not involved in agriculture, started cultivating three varieties of rice on leased land.Prior to the project, data from the agricultural offices revealed that only 3% of the traditional and tribal farmers were involved in decisions regarding agricultural programmes. In the first year of the project, traditional farmers represented 12% of the participants at the panchayath level workshops. This increased to 21% in the second year and to 28% in the third year. These meetings helped the panchayaths hear the voices of the marginalised farmers. By the third year, a traditional farmer directory had been prepared by each panchayath.The forums discussed the possibilities of conserving agrobiodiversity under the leadership of panchayath Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCsstatutory bodies at the panchayath level formed under the provisions of the BD Act, and responsible for local level biodiversity conservation). As a result, 12 panchayath governing bodies out of 26 discussed the possibility of establishing community seed banks or genetic gardens in their development seminars, and six developed a project for community seed banks under their BMCs.Of the six, four were able to set apart budget provisions for the activity as a development project.An annual seed festival is organised as a platform for custodian farmers to come together and exhibit, sell and exchange their seeds. It is also a platform for knowledge exchange between farmers, children, the general public and the scientific community.Each year, the number of custodian farmers attending the festival increased by 23%, and under Seed Care, a group formed a network among themselves. By the third year, 226 custodian farmers were members of this seed festival collective.The socio political and policy concerns raised at the panchayath level workshops were taken to academic and policy seminars organised as part of yearly seed festivals. The academic seminars were attended by agricultural scientists, activists, farmers, policy makers and practitioners of agrobiodiversity conservation from different parts of the country.In the first year, the academic seminar discussed the ground level issues of agrobiodiversity conservation.In the second, it discussed the existing policy and legislative spaces that could be utilised to overcome these issues, and in the third year, an exercise was organised to develop a model for agrobiodiversity conservation in the formal system. The model focussed Right Seed festivals also served as a platform for exchanging knowledge and information on the structure, systems, sustainability and resources that would be involved. This led to a commonly accepted model for a community seed bank with participation of custodian farmers and under the management of BMCs at the panchayath level.Four panchayaths set aside money for agrobiodiversity conservation as subsidies to custodian farmers. The Edavaka Grama Panchayath has initiated a seed bank project with 16 rice varieties and runs farm schools to educate children on agrobiodiversity. The district panchayath has decided to take over the responsibility of conducting seed festivals in the coming years with budget provisions from the panchayath plan fund.The Kerala Kudumbasree mission, a state level programme initiated by Kerala state Government to empower women and to eradicate poverty, has adopted this people-centred model for agrobiodiversity conservation and set up a community seed bank for rice varieties.The main challenge faced by the panchayaths was the willingness of government officers to take over the responsibility of implementing the projects developed by panchayaths. The officers were not familiar with the idea of the seed banks and were reluctant to carry them on.The approach of this project was based on the decentralisation and participation agenda of present development discourse. The agenda empoweredThis participatory experiment was successful in bringing local public attention to the importance of agrobiodiversity conservation and helped placing it within the development agenda. This participatory experiment was successful in bringing local public attention to the importance of agrobiodiversity conservation and helped placing it within the development agenda. At the centre of this activity was farmer experience and knowledge.The process looked for ways to promote 'bottom-up' engagement and to better place the arguments of traditional farmers in the upper level of development strategies.At the end of the 3-year project, community seed banks have been put in place by the public sector as a mechanism for conservation. Panchayaths are ready to cultivate and conserve traditional rice and vegetable varieties, and according to the final plan evolved out of the participatory exercise, all the crop varieties of Wayanad will be conserved in at least one genetic garden in 5 years. This will be the model to conserve agrobiodiversity in its micro habitats utilising public funding. Through it, Wayanad has come to recognise agrobiodiversity conservation as a public responsibility.In Ladakh, north India, the Snow Leopard Conservancy India Trust is delivering an environmental education programme to children and adults in the area to revive a sense of harmony between communities and the local wildlife. With new-found appreciation for the plants and animals of the region, the villagers are being more rigorous in protecting the mountains and reserved pastures.system. This culture of co-existence was seen cutting across Muslim and Buddhist communities across Ladakh. However, whilst livestock rearing was the fulcrum for the livelihood options of these mountain communities, agriculture was only viable in the short summer season. Historically, Ladakh was one of the main trade posts along the silk route, however the society only adopted changes that were reverential to its landscape.Significant changes to the region during the mid-20th century included the accession of Ladakh into the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir; the invasion of Pakistan and China of parts of the state and the war with these two countries; an increased presence of defence forces in the region; unplanned development processes and a large influx of tourists. All of these events have helped break the harmonious living systems of the communities. Most school children and monastics in Ladakh are ignorant to the conservation status of the region, and to the activities that hamper the behaviour and wellbeing of the local wildlife. Today, Ladakh, like many parts of India, faces severe ecological threats due to a lack of awareness and a lost respect for the traditional ecological knowledge needed when living within a fragile landscape.L adakh, located between the Himalayas, the Karakoram range and the western edge of the Tibetan plateau, has an average altitude of 3,000m above sea level. Its continuous rugged mountain terrain and extended eastern plains harbour a variety of species, which create a unique high altitude ecosystem. Whilst elusive species such as the snow leopard, Tibetan wolf and Himalayan brown bear make up the top of the food chain, the region is also home to smaller mammals such as the Himalayan long-tail marmot, the Ladakhi pika and Pallas cat, and herbivores such as the endangered Ladakhi urial, Tibetan argali and Tibetan gazelle. The designated Ramsar site Tso Moriri, and high altitude lakes such as Pangong Tso and Tsokar, also attract diverse birdlife, including the endangered black-necked cranes and migratory species such as the brown-headed gull and the bar-headed goose.Completing this mosaic of unique high altitude systems are the local communities of Ladakh. Largely undisturbed by outside influences for centuries, the people of Ladakh have lived in harmony with its harsh climatic conditions and exotic wildlife. The frugality of resources has often led to the creation of innovative agro-pastoralist systems that are both environmentally friendly and self-sustaining. With a deep-rooted respect for nature and a comprehension of human needs, the society was largely self-sufficient and waste free, with every available resource being processed back into the Cover Villagers keep a detailed record of the wildlife in their region around their village. During the field trips, SLC-IT taught the local communities to identify the animals, birds and medicinal plant species through a structured environmental awareness programme, and explained their importance for the overall ecological balance of Ladakh. The community was given equipment such as binoculars, spotting scopes and field books to record their sightings.The programme, along with other mitigation and alternative livelihood initiatives, has resulted in the community having a deeper sense of appreciation for the biodiversity of the area. Where before they were 'just things' living on the mountain, community members are now able to identify the bird and animal species spotted around the village or in the high pastures, and this ability has changed the attitude of the community towards the local species and the ecosystem they are part of. With a growing interest in wildlife, people have now started recording their sightings and are keeping an inventory that is shared locally among the villages. This practice of maintaining inventories is also, importantly, reviving local and common names for the species,While working on addressing the issue of loss of livestock due to snow leopard attacks and other predators, and to avoid retaliatory killings of the enigmatic cats, the Snow Leopard Conservancy India Trust (SLC-IT) stumbled upon the chance to revive the deep-rooted respect for nature and harmonious living among the local communities. To change the negative attitude towards wildlife and nature in general, SLC-IT began an environmental education programme in 2014. This started in the villages in which it was already working to resolve human-wildlife conflicts, and to promote the importance of protecting all species to maintain an ecological balance.The primary objective of the project was to create awareness among local farmers and villagers about the conservation issues besetting the snow leopard and other wildlife in Ladakh, and instill in them knowledge and appreciation of the local biodiversity. The ultimate aim was to change peoples' negative opinions of the snow leopard and other wild predators.From 2014, and over a period of 3 years, a series of environmental and conservation awareness workshops were conducted to engage villagers in the Sham Valley region of western Ladakh.Various information dissemination methods, such as nature-based games, activities, talks, videos and posters, were used to instill a sense of appreciation for the biodiversity of the region. After the workshop, participants were taken on a field trip to one of the many biodiversity 'hotspots', such as the high mountain pastures and valleys of Ladakh, where they were familiarised with the birds, mammals and plants they had learned about during the workshop. The villagers were also trained in how to keep a record of the wildlife The programme, along with other mitigation and alternative livelihood initiatives, has resulted in the community having a deeper sense of appreciation for the biodiversity of the area.and is forming a baseline for monitoring, which had not been possible before. The villagers are also able to share this knowledge with tourists and local stakeholders to promote the cause of conservation in the area.With a growing sense of conscious living, the local community council is also making efforts to keep a check on the over-harvesting of burtse (mugwort) and Acantholimon (prickly thrift), which are used as fuel or food. Villagers have been made aware that the unsustainable removal and use of the plants drives wild ungulates (hoofed mammals) away, increasing the chances of a snow leopard attacking their livestock instead of these mammals. The harvesting of the burtse shrub has thus been restricted to the autumn months of late September to October by the council, leaving ungulates like the Asiatic ibex and the Ladakhi urial to feed on it before the onset of winter. Similarly, where ungulates straying into the village were previously shunned away, the locals now generally do not bother them.With a new interest in local wildlife, Mrs Rigzin Chorol from Saspotshey points out that the white tit birds she used to see every winter are now not seen, and were absent for the entirety of the last winter. Whilst anecdotal, such observations are important as there is no baseline data on birds in Ladakh, and this indicates a change in the bird visitation patterns.Villagers are also recording snow leopard occurrences near to the periphery of the village, and are informing SLC-IT of the same, thereby supporting monitoring programmes on the elusive species. Communities have also started becoming more vigilant about ensuring that no poaching or bio-piracy is taking place in the mountains and reserved pastures by questioning and recording the visits of independent trekkers or strangers to the area.The adults receiving the SLC-IT environmental education programme are able to reinforce the message of nature conservation to their children, who have also been receiving environmental education by SLC-IT for the last 6 years. The generations who witnessed a shift in the local economy and traditional practices during their lifetime are now trying to go back to the traditional ecological practices of the past, along with the village elders. There has been a revival of interest among the community to study medicinal plants due to the onslaught of unknown diseases to the area. A new-found respect can also be seen for traditional agro-practices as more people are acknowledging the harmful effects of pesticides.After undergoing drastic changes in a short period of time during the 20th century, the new generations and communities of Ladakhi have become devoid of traditional knowledge and practices. However, the SLC-IT intervention has generated a revived sense of appreciation among the villagers for the traditional culture and way of living. As Tundup Tsewang, from the village of Hemis Shukpachan, mentioned, 'Such programmes are very helpful and beneficial for people like us who haven't studied in school. They provide us will opportunities to empower the women in our village.'While the environmental education efforts are complemented with other conservation and mitigation efforts, the SLC-IT programme has inspired the community to revive its relationship with wildlife.The concepts and values of Buddhism -practised by the local communities for centuries -are at the heart of this message of revival. The local people are acknowledging the past practices and religious traditions that supported their ancestors, and are bringing back these techniques in order to live harmoniously with their environment and thrive and in the harsh terrain.Right Participants prepare themselves before a field trip to one of the many biodiversity 'hotspots'The Integrated Livelihood Support Project has piloted an initiative in the state of Uttarakhand, in northern India, to facilitate the enhancement of farmer livelihoods by cultivating abandoned land holdings in the area. Through a participatory approach, the project has helped farmers come together to develop and maintain communal orchards, increasing their personal incomes and that of the wider community.Maroda village, in the district of Pauri, proposed the establishment of a collective pomegranate orchard in the untended and abandoned lands of the village, as a way to develop an income-generating resource. The ILSP project team facilitated this initiative by providing technical support and guidance through farmer training sessions and village meetings.The present case study provides a review of the innovative efforts of the Maroda Gram Panchayat to produce a pomegranate orchard for farming, and presents the collective approach followed by the village community for regenerating the abandoned barren lands of the village, and the effect this has had on the district as a whole. For a better representation of the case, efforts have been made to describe the initiative taken by the community to enhance their livelihood situation by sustainably using their resources, and by slowing down the migration rates.The outward migration of farmers from the village is a result of the fragmentation of landholdings and also of the environmental degradation which has led to water and food scarcity. These are problems affecting the viability of agriculture and of the livestock-related livelihood options that are still the mainstay of the district's economy.T he hills of Uttarakhand are characterised by small and fragmented landholdings; the average size of a plot in the state is about 0.68 hectares, which is distributed into several patches. This is much smaller than the national average of 1.16 hectares per farmer. Communities face adverse conditions as the region is prone to natural disasters like earthquakes, flash floods and landslides.The Integrated Livelihood Support Project (ILSP) was launched by the Government of Uttarakhand and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in 2012, with most activities starting in 2014. With the main objective of reducing poverty by developing the livelihoods of the villagers in 22 micro watershed areas, the ILSP project was designed as a participatory initiative involving all community members. Under the project, the community has decided and planned the development activities to be carried out by the Gram Panchayat (village council) of the area. A Gram Panchayat watershed development plan was prepared, which lists the different activities decided by the community and the budget allocated for each activity. Along with the general watershed activities, priority was given to sustainable agriculture practices, such as crop rotations, the use of cover crops or the application of an Integrated Pest Management approach -working to increase livelihood options at the producer group level. The Gram Panchayat of the Cover Since the area was barren for decades, all cultural activities were difficult, and weeding and maintenance was necessaryThe landholdings in the hilly regions of Pauri are fragmented and the entire patch of land is not available in one cluster; so there is therefore scope for collective community efforts for horticulture-based interventions, and for the promotion of a cluster-based approach for collective production and marketing. The selected area for the establishment of a collective orchard was identified, covering the barren lands of 80 farmers in the village. This made a total of 8 hectares.This collective approach was needed to allow the village community to work together and reap the bulk harvest, and provide a social platform whereby they are able to share their day-to-day chores, whilst at the same time being more sociable. This initiative helped establish the orchard and all land preparation activities to be carried out in a collective manner, as the workload was equally divided amongst all land owners.The steps followed were as follows:1. Problem identification. After the project inception process, a series of participatory rural appraisal (PRA) exercises were carried out with the help of the community to identify different problems, issues and possibilities regarding the natural resources and agriculture. The main problems found included the scarcity of water for irrigation, the scarcity of fodder, or the need for better cultivation practices. Mulching. Since the area was barren for decades, all cultural activities were difficult, and weeding and maintenance was necessary. The application of mulch provided many benefits: it helped reduce the costs of weeding, while increasing and retaining soil moisture level by reducing the evapotranspiration levels. This helped plant growth, especially during the dry season. 9. Irrigation. Irrigation water was collected from the perennial water source located 900 m away from the project area in low density polyethylene (LDPE) tanks. With tanks at different locations across the land, this effort provided supplementary irrigation for the entire farm -with a total of 75,000 liters available. A low cost gravity-based drip irrigation system was used in the farm in order to increase efficiency.10. Watch and ward. In order to support and increase the community's efforts to reap a good harvest, the project provided barbed wire fencing to prevent any possible damage caused by wild boars, monkeys and other animals.Training. Last, and focusing on the need to develop specific skills, the team also organized an onsite pruning training course, with many villagers joining.The hamlet of Bhandaru Tok comes under the Maroda Gram Panchayat and covers an area of 8 hectares. This particular area belongs to 80 families living in Maroda. This was the site suggested for cultivation, and then selected by the Gram Panchayat and the community.4. Layout design. The orchard layout design was prepared by the community, facilitated by the multi-disciplinary team at ILSP. Pits were dug with a depth of 60-70 cm, with a spacing of 5 x 5 m. The planting distances recommended were 4 x 4 or 5 x 5 m.The entire patch of land was covered with Lantana and Parthenium shrub species and other weed; it took 8 days to clear the entire area by the community under the leadership of the Gram Pradhan. Once cleared, the community made pits and planted the pomegranate saplings.Farmyard manure and a single super phosphate fertiliser was applied to the dugout pits.Insecticides were also used on the saplings to prevent the infestation of ants and termites.7. Planting material. In August 2015, the community planted 2,000 saplings of the Bhagwa variety, high quality tissue culture plant. The ILSP team facilitated the procurement of these saplings.This initiative helped establish the orchard and all land preparation activities to be carried out in a collective manner, as the workload was equally divided amongst all land owners.The ISLP pilot project focused on the development of a collective orchard in the region. On seeing the orchard development success, farmers from neighbouring villages showed interest in developing their own collective orchards. As a result, in 2016, 26 hectares of barren land across the villages of Bidoli, Maroda, Masso Masshetha, Masso Thapliyal and Ulli were also brought under collective management.The pilot project started with the main objective of providing a livelihood opportunity to the community. Though the first commercial harvest of the plantation will only take place later in 2018, the outcomes of the initiative are already clear. What was known as \"wastelands\" are now productive fields. It is also possible to say that the region has seen as shift from subsistence farming to commercial farming. Through the restoration of these barren lands, the shrubs and resilient weeds are being removed, and the hiding spaces for wild animals has reduced. The project has helped to lower the risk and occurrence of animal attacks.And there is also a higher degree of cooperation between community members who are now working collectively. The project has seen the establishment of a livelihood collective under the name of Molyyar Ajeevika Swayatt Sehkarita, which was registered under the Self Reliant Cooperative Act of 2003. This is already helping farmers market their products, providing additional labour opportunities.The organization of a Participatory Rural Appraisal exercise helped by highlighting the major challenges in the area, and helped understand the nature of the decision making processes in the area and the factors influencing this. The regular visits paid by the ILSP team helped guide the whole process. This initiative has shown how much is possible when community members come together and work to enhance their livelihoods. Their model of collective orchard farming on abandoned land can be an example for the entire state. Agriculture in the hilly region of Uttarakhand is mainly fragmented into small land holdings. However, through collective farming, the threats of climate risk and the non availability of labourers for farm operations can be drastically reduced.The process has begun in earnest but the production of pomegranate and walnut is not sufficient to significantly enhance the livelihoods of a farming community. Village members are therefore also thinking of developing processing units at the Gram Panchayat level, which will help them obtain higher incomes. In the meantime, the new cooperative is helping them market their products -a necessary step in their path to self-sufficiency.Though the first commercial harvest of the plantation will only take place later in 2018, the outcomes of the initiative are already clear.A FISHER-FRIENDLY MOBILE APPLICATION FOR NAGAPATTINAM Velvizhi S., Nancy Anabel and E. Thamizhazhagan• Proximity to the international border line (IBL) with Sri Lanka alerts;• SOS facility that can help rescue fishers in critical situations;• Calling facility -fishermen can communicate with each other and relevant government departments such as the fisheries department and the Indian Coast Guard;• Government scheme information and daily news.FFMA was conceptualised and developed in 2007 using a Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless platform -an application development platform for CDMA-based mobiles -in partnership with Qualcomm. Technology advancements helped the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) to redevelop FFMA into an Android platform in 2013, and using a participatory approach that involved various stakeholders, including the fisher community, the pilot app was launched in Tamil, Telugu and English. A total of 1,026 fishers across three states (Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu) partook in the pilot phase to refine the app and make it more user friendly. In 2 years, the app went through 37 revisions. FFMA enables fisher folk access to timely fishing-related information; minimises their risksThe coastal fishing community is one of the most vulnerable groups among the poor in India. They confront several difficulties in their lives and livelihoods, including poverty, vulnerability to natural calamities, diminishing fish stocks, increasing competition with other users of coastal resources, exclusion from alternative employment opportunities, and poor access to markets and infrastructure facilities.However, the Fisher Friend Mobile Application (FFMA) is bringing solutions to the various issues faced by the fisher community in India. FFMA provides timely and accurate seafaring information to improve the safety and incomes of fisher folk. The app has been designed to provide easy access to relevant information and knowledge related to fishing for small craft fishers. FFMA offers the following services and information to fisher folk:• Potential fishing zone (PFZ) and GPS facility for navigating directly to fishing zones;• Specific ocean state forecast (OSF) such as wave height, wind speed and direction;• Danger zones in the sea, such as sunken boats, rock substrata and dead coral;• Better market prices for various fish varieties;• Emergency disaster alerts for e.g. tsunamis, cyclones and high waves;The fishing communities of Nagapattinam, in Tamil Nadu, India, are now using a mobile app which is helping them solve issues related to seafaring safety, low incomes and timeliness in reaching fish shoals. The Fisher Friend Mobile Application has been introduced to the community using a participatory approach, helping ensure the usefulness and accuracy of the technology.The A multi-level capacity building and awareness raising strategy is now being rolled out by FFMA's whilst at sea; and maximises their economic benefits. Hence, reach of the pragmatic pan-India FFMA model was extended to benefit fisher folk across coastal India. In 2015, FFMA was made available in all the regional languages of coastal India. FFMA is also available on the Google Play store for easy access by different stakeholders. Currently, 21,000 users have accessed FFMA, all of them living in 39 districts of five coastal states: Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Odisha, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu.To promote the application across all the 625 coastal districts in India, evidence-based ground level experiences of implementation and learnings from where the app is already being used extensively, are required. With this in mind, the Nagapattinam district of Tamil Nadu was selected for the study because the fishers have been using the app in a sustained manner over a period of 10 years. Moreover, this district is geographically situated at the head of the Bay of Bengal, and experiences frequent extreme events associated with climate change.The main aim of the study was to understand the implementation procedures of the project team to promote FFMA in Nagapattinam, and how it is benefitting fishers' lives and livelihoods. A total of 100 fishers from seven villages in Nagapattinam were randomly selected and provided with sampling questionnaires and interviews to collect information regarding the utility of FFMA. MSSRF staff involved in project implementation in the district were also interviewed to find out more about the promotional strategies of FFMA.Up to 60% of those who downloaded the app are using it on a regular basis for OSF and PFZ information, disaster alerts and weather forecasts.implementation team to increase visibility of the app, including village level meetings, one-to-one interactions, promoting fishers as FFMA ambassadors, and with social media campaigns. More than 8,223 fishers have been trained in Nagapattinam on FFMA and its features; as a result, 3,593 fishers in Nagapattinam are using the app for getting day-to-day fishing-related early warnings and other relevant information.Up to 60% of those who downloaded the app are using it on a regular basis for OSF and PFZ information, disaster alerts and weather forecasts. Around 25% fishers stated that they are also using FFMA regularly for navigating the fishing zones. Ten per cent of fishers expressed that FFMA has helped them to mark traditional fishing grounds and to store the latitude/ longitude positions. Some respondents (5%) stated that they are using the application for government scheme information and to access daily news.The overall screen view of FFMA was 1,162,933 across the three districts, of which, Nagapattinam district accounted for 411,360, or 35% of the project total screen views. This data was collected via the inbuilt Google Analytics tool within the app. When the reasons for such a high rate of adoption were further explored, it was found that 80% of the FFMA users in Nagapattinam are small-scale fishers and they don't have any other equipment/tools other than mobiles, so they rely on this technology for their fishing informationFishers have used FFMA services for planning their fishing trips, identifying fish shoals, navigating fishing grounds, avoiding danger zones, and also for avoiding crossing the IBL with Sri Lanka. It was observed that 71% of the fisher folk who used FFMA were motorised fishers using small craft for fishing up to 50 km from the shore, 27% were mechanised boat operators, and the remaining 2% were from other sectors like government officials, non-governmental organisations and other private agencies who have been involved in fishing and fishing-related developmental interventions.Almost all respondents using FFMA unanimously agreed that the application plays a very critical role in their lives. Data from the study shows that 39% of respondents reported to have economically benefited from using the app due to increased fish catch, reduced diesel consumption and by navigating the fishing zone directly. Around 44% of respondents expressed that their livelihood assets, such as boats and nets were kept safe due to early warning alerts. Some respondents (5%) also reported that the app saved their lives thanks to the timely information and disaster alerts on high waves and cyclones.I am from Nagore Pattinacherry fishing village near Nagore in Nagapattinam district. On 18 November 2016 at around 3 o'clock in the morning, myself and 3 others went fishing 35 km off the coast. Suddenly the engine cut out and we were stuck in the middle of the sea. We became anxious as there was nobody around and there were no landmarks close by to indicate to other fishers where we were. However, one of my fellow fishers told me about the FFMA GPS facility to pinpoint my boat's location. Using the app, I was able to inform my friends of our location and they were able to come and rescue us.Mr Murugan, fisherman, Nagore Pattinacherry I did not know how to use GPS prior to installing the app, but now I am well versed in it. On 9 February 2016, a friend of mine gave me the latitude and longitude points of a particular fishing zone. After reaching the point, I hauled my net for 3-5 h and caught 100 kg of seer fish. I sold my catch for Rs. 38,000 (€500). When I went to Nagapattinam during the same week, I received the information for a rocky zone from my friend who had saved it in his app and navigated to the exact location. I got 50 seer fish and sold them for Rs. 21,000 (€275). Thus, within a week I got a net profit of Rs 59,000 (€770). From then on, I have used the app to mark the places where the fish shoals are and also where the rocky areas are.Above Out of 100 respondents, 64% stated that the FFMA information helps them reduce risks to themselves and to their livelihood assetsOut of 100 respondents, 64% stated that the FFMA information helps them reduce risks to themselves and to their livelihood assets. In terms of economic benefits, fisher folk who received PFZ information through the FFMA application benefited both directly and indirectly. Direct benefits included increases in catch as well as net income. Due to increased fish harvest, there has been a rise in the wages of the fishing crew as well. Some respondents have been using their profits to pay back bank loans taken out to purchase boat assets. The fishermen also pointed out that with the advisories, they are able to decide on how much diesel/ice to take on fishing trips.At the same time, it is quite apparent from our interactions with the respondents that their expenditure on fishing inputs, particularly diesel, has been considerably reduced as a result of using FFMA.A major gain is that by using the PFZ, GPS and 'My Tracker' facilities of the app, fishers are decreasing their diesel consumption and reaching their fishing destinations on time. The boat drivers expressed that reaching the location of fish shoals has become less complicated, and the reduction in diesel expenditure is, in itself, a major economic gain.The project implementation team in Nagapattinam learnt a lot while implementing the project, which will be very helpful for further improving and scaling FFMA. The project has shown that• fishers are receptive to adopt technology if it is simple, useful, cost-effective and addresses core issues;• involving end beneficiaries as key stakeholders throughout the project -from planning, implementation and refinement of the application -is one of the keys to success;• regular meetings organised with partners at the community and government levels help the project team to understand the performance of the application and get suggestions for improving strategies for promotion, technology design and accuracy of content;• stakeholder consultation at the community, village and district levels, and periodical assessment with fishers through interviews, focus group discussions and case studies, helps collate the qualitative changes in risk reduction and income enhancement; and that• connectivity at sea restricts fishers' use of the application. This will be one of the major areas for future policy advocacy and collaborative research.Years of capacity building by MSSRF, and iteratively incorporating community feedback into the technology, have led to a wealth of learning in overcoming bottlenecks and in penetrating the community with last-mile connectivity. As a result, MSSRF has a ready package of FFMA and its implementation strategy, which can be replicated within a year, in any location.To improve progress reporting within the Commercial Agriculture and Resilient Livelihoods Enhancement Programme (CARLEP), which works to enhance market engagement and climate resilience of farmers in Bhutan, the project introduced a standardised online reporting system. The system is helping to reduce the workload of the field and implementation staff, as well as helping increase the transparency of the programme. CARLEP is built on the lessons learned and the achievements of the projects and programmes implemented in the past in Bhutan, where one of the most important lessons has been the need to improve the reporting systems to document project progress. The conventional method of reporting annual progress -whereby implementers had to manually record the progress data and submit a document to the Office of Programme Management (OPM) either by post, fax or e-mail -was tedious and time-consuming, and often created problems for the programme staff during the compilation of a report because this was not uniform.As a potential remedy, the OPM of CARLEP, working together with the Project Support Officer (PSO), developed an online reporting system using a Google sheet to produce an annual progress report (APR). This online reporting system was formally institutionalised in September 2016 among the different institutions which are part of CARLEP: the livestock and agriculture sector of the six eastern districts, the Agriculture and Research Development Center (ARDC), the Regional Livestock Development Center (RLDC) and the Regional Agricultural and Marketing Cooperative Office (RAMCO). Since then, it has been used to avoid the loss of information, save time in reporting, to build a robust knowledge repository and to have year-round access to data and information for documentation.Before the introduction of the Google sheet system, the absence of an effective data repository meant some progress data were not recorded at all, affecting the overall performance of the programme because many lessons and experiences were not captured or remained undocumented.The Google sheet is an online spreadsheet that enables authorised users to write, edit, comment, view, share and protect the intended files. The different activities of the implementing partners are comprehensively inserted into the sheet. The sheet can be shared and edited online, which is ideal for use by multiple agencies who can work on a single file at the same time, from any connected device. Other advantages include the possibility of the focal person from the three central agencies. Furthermore, a step-by-step guide to use the online sheet was also made available on CARLEP's website: http://www.carlep.gov.bt/?page_id=182. In order to further validate the system, IFAD reviewed it in March 2017, and their feedback and suggestions were also incorporated.No major challenges were faced during the implementation of the online reporting system, but there were some technical limitations, such as the poor internet connectivity experienced by several of the implementing partners. Listed below are some of the minor issues faced:1. The majority of CARLEP implementers are field staff who spend more time in the field than working on reports, therefore familiarising them with the online system took longer.The implementing partners are not only responsible for the programme, but also manage other similar programmes and activities for the ministry. The sector heads, especially the DLOs and DAOs, have different administrative responsibilities, and therefore less time to work on progress reports.• having eligible users who can enter or remove data;• editing online files in real-time;• viewing progress data of other agencies at any time;• a timely update of the progress reports;• working offline (viewing, editing and entering data); and• creating GPS-based data maps.Following the development of the Google sheet in August 2016, the OPM visited some of the implementing agencies to train them on its use, and to incorporate their feedbacks and suggestions. A round of hands-on training and operation of the system was also given to the sector heads of the six programme dzongkhags, and to representatives of the three central agencies (ARDC, RLDC and RAMCO) in December 2016.However, it was found that the implementing agencies were still facing technical difficulties, such as the inability to open files, and there was a certain degree of confusion when operating the system due to a lack of more adequate information. Therefore, an additional practical session was organised in July 2017 for sector heads (the dzongkhag livestock officers The online data can only be updated using an internet-connected device. Unfortunately, the internet connection is poor in most of the programme areas.Using the online progress reporting system, implementers can only enter numerical data. Narrative data like the description of a site selected for crop intensification, the starting date of a specific activity, and the impacts and benefits, are not accessible using the online system.The technical assistance and guidance provided by the OPM on the use of the online reporting system helped all implementers understand how the system works. The focal persons from the implementing agencies who are responsible for the reporting are now familiar with the format. In the case of emerging technical issues within the system, the OPM and PSO ensure the problems are resolved immediately.To avoid putting extra pressure on the sector heads at the end of the financial year, the OPM recommends they update the data on the same day each activity is completed. Additionally, to have consistency in reporting, the progress report for CARLEP is done on a quarterly basis. The progress reports will be done four times a year by all implementing agencies to improve accessibility to the latest updated figures, and for the creation of knowledge products such as information fact sheets, impact analysis documents and case studies.To get the narrative report, the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) section of the OPM continuously follows-up on whatever data has been reported. The CARLEP website (www.carlep.gov.bt) presents the narrative data on activities implemented in the field. The event coverage and news for most of the activities is uploaded to the website by the knowledge management (KM) section of the OPM, in collaboration with the respective implementers.There is nothing the OPM can do about the poor internet connectivity except to request that implementers update progress whenever possible. The issue of circulating progress reports, and especially narrative reports, has largely been solved through the creation of an instant messaging app by CARLEP's implementing agencies -this works even with limited or weak network coverage. Implementers use the Wechat group to share information about all programme activities and through the thread, the KM team of the OPM collects the relevant and appropriate information.Last, an important thing to mention is that viewing, editing and entering data in the Google sheets is possible offline, but updates will only register when the computer is connected to the internet. The device also has to have the Google Drive app installed to update the progress report offline.The 2016-17 annual progress reporting was done using the new system, with the OPM compiling the data to produce a set of APRs. Both the implementers and the OPM consider the online reporting system to be an effective means of reporting, especially in terms of the following parameters:In previous projects, when reports had to reach the OPM in hard copies (post, fax), it would take at least two days for the preparation (the printing and binding of all documents), one day for the report to reach the post office, and a minimum of three days to be posted to the OPM. But with the current method, the report is instantly received by the office. Similarly, if there were any errors or omissions in the data that had to be rectified, this again would take a minimum of 3 days to be corrected, whereas with the online reporting system, corrections can be made immediately. In conclusion, an average of 9 working days was required with the old method, but with the online reporting system, it takes an average of 12 hours for reports to reach the OPM.The work burden for staff, both at the implementation level and the programme management level, has been greatly reduced with the institutionalisation of the online report system. Field staff no longer have to compile, print and send annual data to the OPM, they just enter it online. Both the field and the OPM staff no longer have to travel to post offices to send their reports. With the standardisation of report formats and ease of comparison, staff members canThe work burden for staff, both at the implementation level and the programme management level, has been greatly reduced with the institutionalisation of the online report system.Karma Wangmo is the Gender and Knowledge Management Officer, Commercial Agriculture and Resilient Livelihoods Enhancement Programme (CARLEP), Bhutan. E-mail: kwangzz506@gmail.com more easily discuss programme data/progress. OPM staff no longer need to manually compile information from hand written reports as the information is accessible online.Apart from human errors when inputting data, the information accuracy of the online reporting system can be ensured because it permits the cross-checking of existing data. The data to be entered is also mostly specified by the units already added to the document, so it is easier to trace mistakes. Moreover, the information can be compared between implementing agencies, enabling them to take up the necessary actions, such as tracing of field work if, for instance, the data on agriculture activities is exceptionally high or low in comparison to that of other dzongkhags.Since the details of each activity, including the targets, fund use, beneficiaries reached (male/female), and outputs are online, the accountability, transparency and visibility aspects of the programme have increased. The system can be used as an online data repository to extract or refer to any information needed pertaining to the programme's progress, and can be shared with visiting donors and project partners.CARLEP is completing the second year of its sevenyear implementation period, and the introduction and institutionalisation of an online reporting system is a big achievement as it helps develop a robust and almost real-time M&E framework. This will also prove to be a good source of knowledge for future programmes.The online reporting system is cost-effective, efficient, user-friendly and replicable. Anybody who owns a Google e-mail account can operate the system from any internet-connected device. Except for the training of staff on how to use it, no monetary investment was incurred during the set-up of the system.Online reporting is very efficient for data transferral and information sharing. There is limited scope for loss of data; errors can easily be traced and information can be shared quickly. This system is therefore convenient and efficient for performancebased funding programmes like CARLEP.Programme progress can easily be reviewed, showing whether a project has achieved its targets and showing if funds have been used, thereby giving the donor agencies a very clear image of the status of the programme. Moreover, the online reporting system is easily replicable. The agriculture sector of Trashigang has already started running a similar tool.However, to obtain the full benefits of institutionalising this approach, there is a need for proper internet connectivity and that all staff are familiar with its application. Therefore, any new initiative needs to be communicated to all those who are part of the programme implementers, and the field staff need to be familiarised with it.43 EXPERIENCE CAPITALIZATION Fighting rural poverty in India, Nepal and BhutanIn Central India, a GIS-based geo-hydrological composite index tool has been developed to enable the selection of suitable perennial ponds for fisheries. The tool also allows users to take a comprehensive view of a district and make decisions for natural resource management interventions.F isheries and aquaculture provide livelihoods for millions of people across the world. In 2014, production from inland water capture fisheries was 160 million tonnes globally, and constituted 12.74% of total capture production. India is the third largest producer of inland fish, and the second largest producer of farmed fish. In India, nearly 65% of total fish production (presently at around 10 million t) comes from the inland sector.Madhya Pradesh is situated in the central region of India, and has a total river length of 17,000 km, and almost 4 million hectares of water area in reservoirs. Of the available reservoir area, 98% has been brought under fisheries, including 0.64 million hectares of rural ponds. Socially, fisheries have been the traditional occupation of persons belonging to scheduled caste groups such as the Bhoi, Dheemar, Kahar, Kevat, Mallah, Nishad and Raikwar. These groups live across different districts of Madhya Pradesh and are skilled in deep water fisheries.Tribal fishers have traditionally conducted capture fisheries, hunting fish by using bows and arrows, laying down fish traps and casting nets. The fisheries of tribal fishers were mostly in shallow waters and were developed for self-consumption. However, with the support of the government, these fishers have been organised and trained in aquaculture-related practices. This has led to the development of deeper pond fisheries by the tribal community. Both scheduled caste and scheduled tribal communities practice fishing, but if an area is classified as 'schedule 5', it comes under the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act, under which the tribes have first right to the resources.In Madhya Pradesh, the selection of ponds for fisheries is not by design, but is incidental to their existence. At present, the rural ponds for fisheries are selected on the basis of their ability to retain water for different periods of time, and are classified as seasonal or perennial ponds by the Fisheries Department of the government. Once a pond is selected by the local governing body, it is leased out to either cooperatives, self-help groups (community groups that function to address social issues or improve livelihood activities) or fisher groups.Supported by the United Nations Adaptation Fund Board and the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, TAAL is implementing the project called Building Adaptive Capacities of Small Inland Fishermen Community for Climate Resilience and Livelihoods Security in Madhya Pradesh. The aim of this project is to select ponds that are naturally and technically suitable, as well as socially accepted to be utilised as fisheries, through the following steps:Cover A total of 65% of the fish production in India comes from the inland sector proposal for the Jhabua hills agro climatic zone. Parts of the Alirajpur, Dhar and Jhabua districts fall in this zone. Dhar has 1,474 villages, Jhabua has 818 villages and Alirajpur has 547 villages. A total of ten administrative blocks, covering 960 villages, were considered in the project proposal.There was a need to develop a methodology that would enable an unbiased selection of the ponds most suitable for fisheries in the selected district blocks. A list of ponds was taken from the water resource department, the fisheries department and from the block level administration of the local government. The list ran into many pages and the challenge was to find the ponds that were both technically suitable as well as still physically existant.A hydro-geological assessment is a necessity before any pond is constructed. Since the project was working on existing ponds constructed by different government departments, it was safe to assume that the pond sites were naturally suitable for water impounding. However, it was important to establish that the pond sites were suitable for fisheries, and that the natural features had the potential to support the pond's perenniality -a desirable feature for fisheries.Maps were sourced from the national government. These were scanned and updated using GPS technology to determine the coordinates of the most important geographical features. The maps were referenced to village boundaries, land use and existing water bodies. GIS was used for overlaying map information onto one document. Different meetings then took place between the hydro-geologists to decide the weight of importance of the technical parameters used to determine the hydro-geological suitability of the ponds. The different parameters taken for the assessment included the drainage density and the lithology. The most favourable condition for each 1. A natural suitability analysis through the development of a GIS-based composite index tool for hydro-geological assessment (described in the subsequent sections); 2. A technical suitability analysis via visits to the pond sites and ground-truthing; and 3. Social acceptance analyses of the local community to work at the fisheries via two separate social assessments.The three districts comprising the project area, Alirajpur, Dhar and Jhabua, are predominantly rural in composition, with more than 80% of the population residing in the countryside. The districts are mostly inhabited by persons belonging to scheduled tribes, with the Bhils and Bhilalas as the major tribal groups.There, ponds under 10 hectares were chosen as they fall under the jurisdiction of the Gram Panchayat -the village governing body which is the smallest unit of local governance in India. The ponds selected were modified to increase their water retention capacity and to reduce the incoming silt load, i.e. the inlets and outlets were repaired. Structures were also built to aid fish diversity and fish handling, such as a fish pass which prevents the outflow of fish through the waste weir, and a fisherman's platform to place equipment or the fish catch.Based on the vulnerability assessment in the State Action Plan for Climate Change, TAAL developed aKalyan The tool provides a means of selecting perennial ponds for fishery activities from a list that may be based on anecdotal evidence.parameter was given priority score of 1; the least favourable received a score of 5. Soil was one such parameter to be analysed and the priority score results for the various soil types are highlighted in the table.As an example, the next table shows the overall calculations for ponds in Jhabua district.The GIS analysis and the thematic analysis of each of the technical parameters identified above provided the project an inventory of 429 suitable ponds from the 10 blocks. Out of these, 60 were selected for the project.Selecting 60 ponds became easier once the priority rankings had been calculated. The hydro-geological composite index tool was also efficient in providing accurate GPS locations for each pond. This information was useful in identifying and locating potential ponds more rapidly, and as a result, the project visited more than 150 ponds in the first year. Eighty ponds out of the 150 were selected for ground truthing and technical assessment. The remaining ponds were not selected for ground thruthing due to reasons including high irrigation, serious damage to bunds, leakage/seepage, or also because of social issues.The methodology and the results were presented to the technical advisory group made up of representatives of the Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture, the Central Institute of Agriculture Engineering, the Indian Institute of Soil Science, and the Water and Land Management Institute. Extensive discussions took place on the methodology of the exercise and this was approved by the group.The exercise resulted in the development of the tool: GIS-based geo-hydrological composite index tool for selection of ponds for fisheries.The tool provides a means of selecting perennial ponds for fishery activities from a list that may be based on anecdotal evidence. There was no strategic plan at the district level, and no priority list of ponds at the block or district levels. The tool developed allows the fisheries department to take a comprehensive view of the district and make decisions for different categories of ponds.This tool can give:a. Spatial locations of water bodies within a particular area;b. The number of ponds in that particular area; c. The water area of the ponds; and d. The technical details for the different parameters of the entire geographical unit, including the drainage density, landforms, structural information, the geology, groundwater information, the soil, slope and the perenniality.   E-mail: chitra@taalindia.org multiple purposes. For example, the groundwater maps along with the drainage density maps can be used for planning water use, specifically drinking water in districts like Dhar, where the presence of fluoride in ground water is an issue.This exercise is a robust planning tool for natural resource management interventions. It helped the project identify the maximum number of ponds in a 'Priority 3 category', which means that the area is not the best sites for ponds due to its geology. Yet there are pockets of perenniality, which need to be optimised to meet the needs of the people and to plan for those who live in isolated or more difficult regions.Smallholder farmers in northern India are turning to goat rearing to improve their incomes and food security. The Integrated Livelihood Support Project is providing training to these farmers on improved goat feeding and vaccination practices, increasing goat prices and contributing to the local economy.A joint initiative of the Government of Uttarakhand and the International Fund for Agriculture Development, the Integrated Livelihood Support Project (ILSP) is working in 11 hill districts in the state of Uttarakhand, northern India, to enable rural households to take up sustainable livelihood opportunities integrated with the wider economy. These are areas where villagers need an alternative livelihood option to ensure their food security. Since April 2016, ILSP has been working with 3,242 households from 203 villages in the Garud block of the Bageshwar district. Based on common production activities, the project has facilitated the formation of 402 producer groups (PGs) and 125 vulnerable producer groups (VPGs) in 48 villages, covering 1,012 households. Six clusters have been identified and six cooperatives have been registered under the State Self Reliant Cooperative Act of 2003.In Bageshwar, as in a large part of Uttarakhand, goats are mainly reared for meat production. In the rural areas, large numbers of male goats are kept for religious sacrifices (e.g. Navaratri) and are slaughtered locally, and their price can be very high. The key constraints to goat production include their nutrition, as villagers rarely provide food supplements. Intensification is difficult as farmers prefer to graze their animals, and if feed supplements are used, rearers are then not able to compete in the market.At the same time, selective breeding is a long term process and the investments required are high.The project encourages the formation of producer groups, and supports them with goat vaccinations and health care, breeding techniques, and by promoting fodder cultivation and stall feeding. The PGs and VPGs are formed by between eight to ten members, with composition depending on the geographical proximity of the households, the affinity amongst group members to work together, and the common interest of all members to take up similar activities. The objective has been to see the PGs and VPGs become vehicles for the delivery of services such as health care to enhance production activities. All PG members receive INR 8,000 (~€100) from ILSP (this includes a 10% contribution from beneficiaries), and VPGs receive an additional INR 1,600 (€20) as seed money for their food security improvement plan (FSIP) -the core planning document for all groups.A cluster level livelihood collective (or LC, a self-reliant cooperative) supports the PGs with inputs and also by linking them to the market. Each LC is formed by approximately 50 to 70 PGs and/or VPGs. The location of the LCs depends on the ease of access for PGs and VPGs, the market linkage potential and the Cover Producer groups are supported with vaccinations and health care PGs. The second instalment of PG support money is treated as share capital for members, and a payment of dividend system is put in place every year. The PGs are informed by ILSP that the money they receive is not for one time use; it has to be utilised as a revolving fund. They are also told that the money is not one individual's money but belongs to the PG, which has its own rules and guidelines that need to be followed by all members.But the project also focused on the need to strengthen these groups, focusing on • Monthly meetings: Every month, all PGs have a meeting to document their proceedings. Core discussions are held on production, marketing and LC activities, and savings and loan repayment;• Governance structures: A president, secretary and treasurer have been elected for every PG and training on governance issues is provided to every group. Regular monitoring and support is provided by the field staff;cluster formation. ILSP provides each LC with grant funds via technical agencies (TAs -the project partner NGOs). The Garud block has six LCs.ILSP is supporting India's Goat Trust under its innovation linkages programme to promote goat farming in the Bageshwar and Dehradun districts.The Goat Trust also provides support to 84 PGs in terms of breeding and vaccinations. They have developed community level para-professionals called Pashu Sakhi (or \"friends of animals\") at the village level and cluster level, for the delivery of timely inputs to ensure year round production.In April 2015, ILSP began providing financial support to the PGs, releasing a first instalment of INR 3,600 (€47), plus a 10% community contribution, to the PG bank account on the condition that members repay the amount within a time frame set by the members themselves, and that the funds are used for the next crop cycle. Next is the release of a second instalment of INR 3,600 (+ 10% community contribution) to the LCs to buy agriculture inputs and sell the same to the A president, secretary and treasurer have been elected for every PG and training on governance issues is provided to every group.The next level of planning above FSIP is the AUP, or the Agriculture Up-Scaling Plan. This activity is carried out by the LCs who consolidate the FSIP information developed at the PG level. This covers a three-year period.And equally important is the provision of technical knowledge. In the villages where the Goat Trust is operating, a rigorous analysis of the feed, health and kidding practices has been carried out to identify the gaps in each sector, share the latest knowledge, and convince farmers to apply it. Preventive animal health practices like vaccination and de-worming of goats, as well as the use of local herbs to treat general ailments, have been explained to the farmers. A system of limited grazing and alternative home-based complementary feeding -especially for pregnant goats and kids -was developed and shared with all participants. The Goat Trust has trained village-based women as Pashu Sakhis and as pashu nurses, and it has also trained men and women as livelihood nurses and as cluster level coordinators to support the implementation of best practices. Those trained provide animal first aid services, monitor all farming activities, and serve as a link to the government insurance schemes.• Savings: Field workers agree with each PG member on a certain amount that has to be paid into the PG account each month to encourage the groups to save. The amount agreed upon varies from between INR 50 (€0.6) and INR 300 (€4).It is mandatory that all groups open a bank account, where they keep all the money they receive from the project and the money they collect as monthly savings. Project support has to be spent on production activities specified in the group's FSIP, but the money accrued on the group's savings can be lent to group members for their other needs. In the Garud block, the 402 PGs and 125 VPGs have so far saved INR 6,252,791 (€81,730);• Documentation: Every PG maintains two registers, one for monthly meeting proceedings and the other for incomes and expenditures. The data from these registers is monitored by the project.Under their own FSIP, all groups have to plan their goat rearing activities for the year, including choice of breed, fodder practices, health and resource management, and business marketing and governance. ILSP has drafted an FSIP format and provided training to all TA field staff who help PGs plan their annual production activities. Information regarding the expected annual production, turnover and anticipated challenges are also noted in the FSIP document.PGs were formed, it became important to infuse a sense of ownership and to motivate many group members, which became a challenge.Another difficulty was that, before the project, PG members raised their animals on traditional fodder, using traditional goat farming methods. Participants were not aware of alternative feed options, or of fodder cultivation and preservation. The provision of vaccinations and health checks was not carried out regularly before the project started, and ILSP and the Goat Trust found it difficult to encourage farmers to take up these practices.Further, due to the hilly geographical location of some areas, the delivery of first aid services and health care knowledge by veterinary outreach officers was limited.There was also an absence of a transparent pricing system for goats.But in spite of these difficulties, and after a relatively short time, goat rearing has become a profitable business activity. Prior to the project's intervention in the Garud block, PG members had 1,602 goats; as of September 2017, they had 3,405. This is a 77% growth rate within 15 months. The total estimated value of the stock is INR 11.45 million (€149,900). The average stock per PG member is 3 goats with a value of approximately INR 11,000 (€145). Before the project, group members could not sell their goats other than for religious ceremonies. Since working with the project,Due to the cultural and religious links to goats, as mentioned above, goat farming was not a popular farming activity in the rural areas of the study sites.The families rearing goats as part of the project are mostly from scheduled castes (the historically disadvantaged people), and these activities have gradually isolated them even more from their communities.At the same time, and apart from the religious and social factors, the local market for both forward and backward linkages within the goat value chain was not available in the project area. Most of the households that adopted goat farming as their primary production activity were below the poverty line, and although ILSP supported the farmers financially, it was not enough to pay for the purchase of goats and inputs, to build goat sheds, and turn the activity into a sustainable business.The social structure in the project area is based on a caste system and on the economic status of individuals. The hierarchy and local politics of the area meant that it was sometimes challenging for the field staff to select eight to ten families to take part in the programme. But in general, field workers did not have major difficulties when forming the PGs or VPGs, even if at first they did not consider the necessary activities that would lead to the sustainability of the PGs. Once thetake a couple of years to evaluate the final impact of this intervention, but it is clear that goat farming can help enhance rural community livelihoods in a sustainable way if the necessary institutional systems are in place at the village and cluster level.Strong institutions are a key ingredient for development in the rural areas, especially in mountain areas where agricultural land is scattered, where the geographic conditions are challenging, and where fewer families remain as a result of migration. The empowerment of women through capacity building initiatives, and their greater participation in the different decision making processes, helps communities accept the new goat rearing systems.Clusters need to be identified in the mountain villages to promote goat farming in these areas. They will provide an opportunity to develop regular and locally-based support systems. Clusters can also help establish an input supply and marketing support system. Uttarakhand's local government will need to monitor and coordinate all activities after ILSP so as to ensure their sustainability. The state will also have to address challenges like migration, natural calamities and global warming, which need wider rage policies.group members have sold 365 goats at the Garud market through their cluster level cooperative, and have earned INR 1,055,100 (€13,815) -a total of INR 3,493 (€45) per goat.The price of goats has risen by 20%, and this figure is expected to continue to increase with the enhanced business knowledge of the PG members and the presence of the locally-based support personnel. As a result of increased goat prices and sales, the community's economy will improve, which is one of the project's core objectives.With the project's support, Pashu Sakhis have dewormed 7,799 goats, vaccinated 3,400 goats and treated 341 goats suffering from different diseases.The community pays the Pashu Sakhis and the cluster level coordinators, which makes their services sustainable, and as a result, they represent an extension of the local veternary hospital. This has led to lower mortality rates. According to the 2012 census, the mortality rate of goats in the Garud block is 13%. Data from the project shows that among the 125 PGs, 365 goats have died in the past year, which is 9% of the total. The project has helped reduce the mortality rate in Garud, most likely due to breed improvement, improved feeding practices, the provision of goat sheds, and the improved health services. It may also be due to the fact that there is now a link between the health of goats and farmers' livelihoods.Within a very short period of time, goat farming in the Garud block has shown that it is something that should be replicated in other blocks/clusters of the state. It will Anil Maikhuri, Manager-Knowledge Management, Integrated Livelihood Support Project ILSP, Uttarakhand, India. E-mail: km@ugvs.orgHari Sharma Neupane and Krishna Prasad PaudelDue to the unavailability of financial services, the lack of products, and the cost of credit, many low-income households struggle to manage their savings and invest in, and expand, small businesses. Women, as well as poor and deprived groups, are unable to manage inputs and technologies to make their farms more productive. To boost local entrepreneurship, the Improved Seeds for Farmers' Programme (KUBK-ISFP) set out to establish 30 financial institutions to increase women's financial inclusion. Membership of a microfinance cooperative has been found to improve women's empowerment and the livelihoods of poor farmers.K UBK-ISFP is an initiative funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), implemented by Nepal's Ministry of Agricultural Development (MoAD) since December 2012. The programme aims to support an inclusive, competitive and sustainable agricultural growth approach in six districts (Arghakhanchi, Gulmi, Pyuthan, Rolpa, Rukum and Salyan), working to increase the income of rural households through market-driven productivity improvements.The programme tackles two key agricultural constraints: the gaps in the formal seed sector (cereals and vegetables); and the low productivity of smallholder livestock (goats and dairy). The core components of the initiative are (i) the expansion of the formal seed sector by encouraging production of Truthfully Labeled improved seed; (ii) the commercialisation of smallholder livestock; and (iii) local entrepreneurship and institutional development.Microfinance is an effective tool for extending financial services to disadvantaged groups, but many people in Nepal are unable to access these services because financial institutions are often only located in urban areas. Loans required by smallholders are often very small, but the procedures to access these loans can be tedious, and many institutions view agricultural businesses as high risk.KUBK-ISFP explored an existing cooperative model called Small Farmer Agriculture Cooperative Limited (SFACL) to expand the outreach of microfinance services. SFACLs are member-based institutions registered under the Cooperative Act of Nepal and authorised for limited financial services -savings and credit for cooperatives members. To date, 730 SFACLs in 68 districts, all of which provide financial services for over 700,000 people, are led by the Nepal Agricultural Cooperative Central Federation Ltd. (NACCFL).In partnership with two private sector organisations -Small Farmers Development Bank (SFDB) and NAACFL -the KUBK-ISFP programme had established 30 SFACLs by March 2016. As a wholesale financing institution, SFDB provided loans to the SFACLs. KUBK-ISFP provided SFDB with a supplementary loan of US$5 million for this purpose. NACCFL established SFACLs and strengthened them through various training and mentoring activities to enable them to run their groups independently.Following a mapping exercise, potential sites were selected in consultation with local bodies. A process of social mobilisation and mentoring then began, usually lasting for 12-18 months. Newly-established SFACL's, consisting of small groups of 7-12 women farmers, were strengthened through several training and Cover Mrs Tulasha Upadhaya, one of the many SFACL members now running her own business mentoring events that focused on book-keeping and financial management, business planning, and saving and lending procedures so that the groups could function independently. The first annual general meeting then endorsed managers and a new board of directors. After the end of the social mobilisation and mentoring process, the management of the SFACL was handed over to the community. To 'graduate', each SFACL had to have at least 400 members and have accumulated NRs. 2 million (€16,440) of member savings.A mid-term review by IFAD recognised that the 30 SFACLs managed and led by women had provided microfinance services for 10,446 rural households, and collected and mobilised NRs. 36.85 million (€319,350) of internal resources (member savings). With these positive results, IFAD recommended the establishment of 45 new SFACLs, with additional funding of US$3 million (€2.5 million).At the end of 2016, 30 SFACLs had provided financial outreach services for 14,359 households (96.5% women, 19.95% dalit [socially deprived group], 24.5% ethnic groups, 61.5% below the poverty line) in 2,403 groups, and 7,965 members had borrowed money (Figure 1). On average, each SFACL has accommodated about 480 members. Clearly, SFACLs are organising vulnerable groups of people as members of cooperatives and supporting them by providing saving and credit facilities to improve the income level of the rural population.In less than 2 years, the newly-established SFACLs collected NRs. 114 million (€936,400) of internal resources, including NRs. 27.37 million (€224,850) of share capital (mandatory deposits) and NRs. 84.64 million (€695,350) of personal savings (Figure 2). SFACLs therefore collected an average sum of NRs. 7,800 (€64) per household. In total, the mobilisation of internal resources increased by more than 94% compared to the 2015/16 financial year.There was a 93% increase in annual borrowing from the SFDB to NRs. 76.8 million (€630,900) by July 2017 (Figure 2). The aggregate lending sum was NRs. 384.3 million (€3.15 million), of which 65% was for farming activities (61.84% livestock, 4.16% seed and vegetables) and 35% for non-farm activities which helped rural women to generate self-employment at a local level and increase their family income. Interestingly, the livestock sector constituted 95% of the total agriculture lending, with SFACL members focusing on milk collection and distribution, poultry, dairy and goat production.Total assets collected during the 2015/16 financial year were NRs. 105.33 million (€865,400), which increased to NRs. 209.13 million (€1.7 million) in 2016/17 (Figure 3). This is an increase of 98%. In the 2016/17 financial year, the 30 SFACLs earned a sum of NRs. 17.83 million (€146,480) (total income) and spent NRs. 11.44 million (€94,000), resulting in a gross profit of NRs. 6.39 million (€52,500). The operational self-sufficiency (OSS) ratio was 1.55:1 in 2016/17, compared to 1.47:1 for 2015/16 -indicating that the SFACLs are performing well.Different types of saving products are offered by the SFACLs. Some are planning to offer savings products SFACLs are organising vulnerable groups of people as members of cooperatives and supporting them by providing saving and credit facilities to improve the income level of the rural population. Tulasha Upadhaya became a SFACL member in 2015 and started to save regularly. She applied for a loan and received NRs. 50,000 (€410) from SFACL to purchase milking buffalo so that she could earn enough to meet her household needs. She bought one milking buffalo and started selling 7 litres of milk per day in the local market, earning NRs. 126,000 (€1,034) in one lactation period (10 months). This income enables her to pay her children's school fees, save money and pay back the loan.Deba Subedi is a SFACL board member. After the establishment of the SFACL, she borrowed NRs. 10,000 (€820) to purchase one goat with a female kid. She has also used SFACL loans to purchase a milking buffalo. With the profits, she has been able to expand her business and enable her husband, who has been working abroad, to return home and help her to diversify her business further. Deba is currently earning about NRs. 22,000 (€180) per month from her business, which also includes poultry farming and vegetable farming, and she hopes to purchase a mini tractor to further expand her business.of the SFACL board members was democratic, and that the board was working well. A total of 137 respondents felt that records are well kept and that the board is controlled by members. More than 86% of members stated that they are highly satisfied, or satisfied with the services delivered by SFACLincluding loan approval processes and interest rates.The project found that the SFACL model is better than other microfinance institutions at increasing financial access for women because:i. the programme emphasised women participation from its inception;ii. each household in selected areas was given the opportunity of joining a group;iii. women from poor and deprived groups were given priority and provided with women social mobilisers; iv. women leadership was encouraged by motivating them to lead groups and be on the board of directors;v. credits of under NRs. 100,000 (€820) did not require collateral, the poorest members did not have time constraints to pay the loan back, and loan procedures were easy to follow; vi. SFACLs are linked with SFDB which provides wholesale credit and further strengthening of the groups;vii. SFACLs offer various saving products and the cost of the credit is relatively lower than other microfinance and banking institutions; and viii. there is high social cohesion, irrespective of caste and gender, and women leaders are deemed to be trustworthy.Among the loan borrowers sampled (138 people), 97 claimed that the SFACL loan had helped to improve their livelihood. Women who received loans were also seen as being more responsible than men, repaying their interest and loan instalments on time.Concerning empowerment, the project found that 94% of women members were involved in household level decision-making processes, including property sales. A similarly high percentage of women (95%) felt that they did not face any difficulty in going to the SFACL activities, study visits or other training/ workshop events. Women claimed that their role in the family had increased since they began to manage money and be more autonomous and economically independent. Clearly, this indicates that power dynamics are changing gradually in favour of women.In the state of Bihar, India, the Integrated Poultry Development Programme has been working to improve the livelihoods of poor and marginalised rural people. By working to strengthen the entire value chain, the project has increased the income of the most marginalised groups, improved their nutritional diversity, and provided livelihoods for input suppliers and dedicated community professionals who support farmers and facilitate market linkages.and backward linkages. Once reared, the chicks are supplied to households organised into informal producer groups, where they are reared for eggs and meat. Dedicated community professionals, known as village resource persons (VRPs), support households to ensure proper feeding and vaccination for chicks. They also facilitate linkages with the local market.The mother units are owned by cluster-level federations (federated bodies of self-help groups). Each household pays a fee of INR 3,150 (€42) to their federation over a period of 18 months, and in return receives 150 chicks (six lots of 25), subsidised housing for the chicks, and VRP support. After the first 18 months, households have to procure chicks at market cost.With facilitation from JEEViKA, the federations manage the supply chain:Production:• Mother units -are operated by an experienced local entrepreneur. They rear day-old chicks up to 4 weeks of age, complete vaccinations, and then sell them to individual households. T he Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (BRLPS), known locally as JEEViKA, endeavours to develop and promote livelihood options to match the resource base and capacities of communities in the state of Bihar, India. To strengthen the livelihoods of rural households -especially women who are landless or have small land holdings -JEEViKA established the Integrated Poultry Development Programme in 2012, with support from the Bihar Government's Department of Animal Husbandry and Fish Resources.Rearing poultry does not require a high level of inputs or investment, so it is a popular choice with rural households, and the sector also provided an opportunity to meet a high demand for eggs and poultry meatas Bihar was largely dependent on supplies of eggs and poultry meat from other states. The National Egg Coordination Committee (NECC) reported that 2.5-3 million eggs were imported into the state each day prior to 2012. Average consumption of eggs per person in Bihar was therefore only six to eight eggs a year, compared to the national average of 45.The aim of the programme was to establish a network of 'mother units' -where one-day-old chicks are reared for 3-4 weeks -to provide a hub for forward• Extension -Extension services are provided by VRPs who are trained by JEEViKA. Women farmers are also able to raise concerns during their monthly group meetings that the VRPs can then help them with.• IT -Scaling up of the intervention led to the need of digitisation of poultry records such as vaccination, mortality, distribution of birds, income flow and its utilisation. A mobile application was designed by BRLPS to capture this data at the mother unit and household level.JEEViKA's backyard poultry intervention has had four notable achievements:(a) The scale of its operations: since 2012, the programme has expanded from one to 38 districts in the state, involving 180,000 households.(b) Incomes: Bihar's poorest and most economically vulnerable households have seen their income increased. On average, participating households have increased their monthly income by INR 3,500-4,000 1 (€46-53) from selling chicks and eggs. With the additional income from poultry, rural households have been able to invest in other areas, including education, health, and family savings. The project also helped generate employment opportunities for over 400 helps farmers to explore market opportunities to exchange their surplus produce. The female birds are kept to produce eggs for the market and household consumption, and the males are used for meat once they attain a weight of 2-2.5 kg (after about 2 months). The female birds are slaughtered and sold for meat after laying about 180 eggs.• Day-old-chicks -are sourced from private hatcheries. The hatcheries are identified by the Government of India, which then transports the chicks to its regional offices and sells them to mother units at market price.• Feed -is supplied by a number of private feed-sellers.• Vaccine/medicine -is regulated and controlled by community based organisations through community procurement from local markets, and community professionals are trained to vaccinate the birds.• Group formation -JEEViKA organises landless women into self-help groups, which are then federated into village organisations, and then cluster level federations. The self-help groups hold weekly meetings to discuss progress and emerging issues.• Training -All participants linked with the poultry intervention receive relevant training on poultry keeping.• Credit -JEEViKA and the Department of Animal Husbandry and Fisheries provide credit support at various levels, from mother units through to poultry producer households.For years, Saroj Devi hid her identity behind the four walls of her kutcha house (made from mud or thatch), where she lived with her children and husband, Dinesh Paswan. Dinesh migrated to nearby towns to earn money, but with their meagre income source the family was soon under the grip of money lenders. For their household, which includes seven people, agriculture is the primary source of income. With a landholding of just 130 m 2 , agricultural options were limited to one main crop and in some cases a small second crop. VRPs, and created a locally-based cadre of resource persons to provide veterinary services. These men and women earned about INR 2,500 (€33) per month for their services.(c) Coverage: The intervention included the most marginalised sections of rural Bihar, many who were landless and would not have benefited from agriculture-based livelihoods. Nearly 30% of the households involved in the programme were also from scheduled caste and tribe communities.(d) Improvements to household nutritional diversity: poultry farmers improved their nutritional status with the intake of meat and eggs, as required for a healthy diet. Studies on nutritional diversity by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and by the Government of India have shown that there is a key link between productive and income generating activities and improvements in nutritional status for landless households.In summary, three factors contributed to the success of the poultry intervention. The first one of these has been JEEViKA's approach of directly targeting and addressing the needs of landless households, and of providing households with intensive and ongoing technical support. But equally important has been the support given to the formation of producer organisations to take responsibility for bulk procurement of raw materials and aggregation.Business literacy classes are addressing the knowledge gaps between men and women in Nepal, and developing the business-related knowledge and skills of women commercial farmers. Not only has this intervention improved women's confidence when establishing agribusinesses, but their involvement in decision-making within producer organisations and households has also positively increased.P overty in Nepal is primarily a rural problem, and it is strongly associated with gender, ethnicity, caste and region. Women are among the most vulnerable in society as they are most likely to stay at home to take care of elders and children, while their husbands migrate for work. Women constitute more than 60% of the agricultural labour force but have limited access to land, production technology and training.The High Value Agriculture Project in Hill and Mountain Areas (HVAP) is a joint initiative of Nepal's Ministry of Agricultural Development and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. The aim of the project is to reduce the poverty and vulnerability of 13,500 households in the hill and mountain areas by integrating the rural poorespecially women and marginal groups -in high value agriculture value chains and markets. HVAP is a 7.5-year project and has received grants of more than US$ 18 million since its implementation started in February 2011.By July 2017, the project had supported 447 producer organisations (POs), all of which are either legally registered and function as 'farmer groups', or are not registered and are called 'cooperatives'. It had implemented more than 600 sub-projects, with committed grants of NPR 604 million (€493 million), directly benefiting more than 15,000 households. The beneficiaries of the sub-projects were women (63%) and socially-excluded groups (32%); 91% of project beneficiaries belong to poor households and 26% to extremely poor households (where households considered 'extremely poor' are those having food sufficiency lower than 3 months; moderately poor are those having food sufficiency of up to 6 months).Regarding the capacity building activities, the project has conducted 950 trainings -both social and technical -where women's participation in both was fairly high -62% and 54%, respectively. Regarding the participation of women and socially excluded groups, the project has exceeded its targets. However, there is still scope for further improvement as both demographics were slightly under-represented in the technical trainings (when compared to their membership in the producer organisations).About 49% of the women who joined these courses are holding key positions in the 447 POs, but they still lack the required level of confidence, capacities and leadership qualities to fully perform their roles and responsibilities. Besides, women's drudgery in production work is widespread in many different value chains, like goats, where it is typically women who are engaged in the different steps involved. The issue of reducing women's workload, and strengthening their Cover Manju Chaudhary on her farm voice and bargaining power within POs and households is crucial. As such, HVAP designed business literacy classes (BLCs) to address the knowledge gaps between men and women, and to develop the business-related knowledge and skills of women. Since 2013, when the BLCs were first introduced, 252 BLCs have been conducted, benefitting almost 7,000 women farmers.The level of women's meaningful participation in POs was ascertained during individual interviews conducted with 42 women participants of the BLCs, and through focus group discussions with 27 groups, with a total of 451 BLC participants. During such discussions, most women described experiences of not being able to attend meetings, trainings or workshops, and even when they did participate, they did not have the confidence/support to voice their opinions during the events. The interviewees also shared that women are frequently not considered for the key management positions within a PO, with no or very limited access to strategic discussions. When women do have a key position, they themselves expressed not being able to fully perform their roles and responsibilities effectively, and having to seek support from men for procurementrelated and record-keeping tasks.Most of those who joined the focus groups shared that, before the BLCs, they did not have adequate knowledge and skills related to commercial production management, and to the social and business aspects of a value chain, which they thought were the most important skills needed to enhance their businesses. For instance, although off-season vegetables (OSV) received the highest investment from the project, the beneficiaries -mostly women -generally lacked the technical knowledge and skills to produce them commercially. In a similar way, women farmers did not have adequate knowledge about sustainable goat management; they were reluctant to construct improved goat sheds and initiate fodder plantation.Initially, the BLC was a 6-month intervention, offering a comprehensive package of training on (i) value chain development and commercial production; (ii) gender, social inclusion and institutional development, and (iii) business and entrepreneurship development. The course focused on post-literate women farmers, and in each BLC a maximum of 27 persons were invited to participate. This ran during 48 days, with sessions taking place twice in a week for a minimum of 3 hours a day.The key strategy and intervention process considered different steps:Above BLC sessions took place twice in a week, for a maximum of 3 hours per day• In each BLC, 25-27 PO members are selected, with priority given to poor women and women from socially excluded groups or risk-averse households. However, BLC participants should be able to read and write their own names.• Financing: For the Kalikot and Jumla districts in the Karnali region -one of the poorest in Nepalthe project provided NPR 140,850 (€1,145); for the other five districts (Achham, Dailekh, Jajarkot, Salyan and Surkhet) it provided NPR 108,450 (€884) to cover all class costs, including an allowance for the BLCFs, stationary and snacks.• Follow up and monitoring: A management committee is formed by members of the same PO who have an overall responsibility to manage, and ensure that BLCs are running effectively. HVAP project staff also carry out regular monitoring of BLCs. The committee is responsible for providing documentation to the project, which they need for project payment release. Spot coaching/feedback is provided to the BLCF by social mobilisers, and the district and central level project staff.• BLC resource books were developed using in-house expertise. Volume One is about technical knowledge and skills on commercial production and management; Volume Two is on social, institutional and group strengthening; and Volume Three is on business skills, marketing and entrepreneurship development. The BLC manuals have been endorsed by Nepal's Ministry of Agricultural Development and all BLC participants receive the volumes for free.• Priority is given to women-only/women-led POs and POs with a high involvement of sociallyexcluded and risk-averse households to conduct BLCs. HVAP social mobiliser field workers are assigned to select the POs within which a BLC will be conducted.• One woman is selected to work as a BLC facilitator (BLCF); the other important criteria are that the candidate has a higher secondary level of education, gives priority to dalit and janajati women, and that is nominated by their respective PO. Each BLC has one BLCF who receives a 7-day training-of-trainers course prior to facilitating BLCs.BLCs have enhanced women's technical skills to the point where some are now working as local service providers.  f. Technical services. Most importantly, BLCs have enhanced women's technical skills to the point where some are now working as local service providers such as constructing plastic houses, seed storage, and dipping tanks, on a fee basis. For instance, Goma Budha, a former BLC participant of Devasthal, Salyan, charges NPR 4-6,000 (€33-50) for teaching OSV farmers to construct plastic houses. Taking into account the prevailing average of 16,100 people per bank branch, the banks have been able to reach 12% of their client base by servicing only 1.1% of corresponding bank accounts through SHGs.SHG-bank linkages in Bihar have undergone an inspiring transformation over the last decade. Under the programme, the community institutions have leveraged credit to the tune of €427.5 million from banks, while generating a further €53.5 million in community savings. Starting from a base of less than €836,000 in 2009, the community institutions have emerged as vital stakeholders for banks, leveraging €220 million in 2016-17 alone. Significant investments made into processes of JEEViKA have enabled the programme to replicate the lessons on a larger scale.In the last 2 years, the programme has shown a 100% annual growth in credit linkage.At the same time, JEEViKA has facilitated coverage of more than 860,000 SHG members under the government-sponsored Aam Aadmi Bima Yojana, an individual insurance scheme that insures women against death and disability. Participation in the government scheme has grown significantly, and members with children studying secondary and higher","tokenCount":"18556"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"0373ce00292ff995bb4a209dff51d61e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/13bb5596-626b-40fb-83e3-b70f6024b46a/retrieve","id":"1142545333"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"96fc7688-bc1f-42f4-a5bb-f47a9cdd582e","pagecount":"66","content":"This booklet is produced by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA). It draws on case studies documented and described by the actors involved assisted by a professional journalist. A commonality among all case studies is the fact that all actors are members of a large community of practice (Web2forDev) dealing with Web 2.0 and social media in the context of agriculture and rural development. Interactions are also maintained with them through a variety of means.Web 2.0 and social media have become part of everyday life for most people in the developed world.But they represent a life-changing encounter for many in developing countries.''CTs -in particular Web 2.0 and social mediahave transformed the way people communicate and interact. This has helped to reduce the 'digital divide' between urban and rural areas. It has also enabled rural actors with internet access not only to offer but also to benefit from a range of services that were not previously available.Farmers are promoting their products on Facebook; extension services are using social media to reach out to their clients; and NGOs are using a range of social media tools to mount advocacy campaigns aimed at influencing policymakers. Researchers are using online collaboration tools to work on joint publications and young bloggers are using new skills to tag and disseminate online content. Young entrepreneurs are excited by opportunities to develop innovative online services and launch their own start-ups. Technical advisors feel more confident in providing adequate advice when they have better skills for conducting advanced online searches or using alert systems. Educators feel gratified when they can introduce online platforms for enhancing information exchange with their students and fellow colleagues. Various actors along the value chain are exploring new ways of buying or selling farm inputs and agricultural produce.Web 2.0 and social media have become part of everyday life for most people in the developed world. But they represent a life-changing encounter for many in developing countries. Impact assessment studies CTA conducted in 2011 and 2013 on its Web 2.0 and social media capacitybuilding activities have shown that adoption rates are very high, and that positive impact occurs at personal, institutional and ultimate beneficiary levels. The study also shows that young women are the most likely to adopt social media following a training course.In such a rapidly evolving and exciting domain, there is tremendous scope for inducing positive change and for stimulating the development of national policies that support the widespread adoption of Web 2.0 and social media within the agricultural sector. This publication documents some of the success stories in Web 2.0 and social media that CTA has supported over the years. We are committed to building the capacities of our partners to make better and greater use of ICTs to advance food security and nutrition across the developing world.18 Stories of change I t would be hard to exaggerate the speed at which technological innovation is moving. Web 2.0, social media and M-Apps for agriculture play an increasingly important role in agriculture and rural development policy processes and value chain development.Web 2.0 and social media allow development actors to link up easily with peers and other stakeholders, strengthen networks, access valuable information, produce and publish their own content and redistribute content released by others.Over the period 2010-14, in partnership with selected host institutions, CTA supported more than 120 face-to-face training events known as Web 2.0 and social media learning opportunities (LOs) in 37 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. Events were either funded by CTA or run in franchise mode (with CTA support and branding). Training was given to more than 3,500 individuals.CTA also partnered with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) to offer distance-learning courses on social media for development to selected staff from host institutions and CTA key partner organisations. Other Web 2.0 customised training workshops were organised as part of the Agriculture, Rural Development and Youth in the Information Society (ARDYIS) project. The training of trainers approach was central to activities over the period 2012-2014, with a focus on setting up national and regional training hubs. In 2013, a new business modelEnglish-speaking traineesFrench-speaking trainees EN FR was tested, aimed at ensuring the repeated delivery of the curriculum by the host institutions in franchised mode.Regular monitoring and external impact assessments conducted in 2011 (for 2008-2010) and 2013 (2011-2012), and event-specific evaluations done for the distance-learning courses yielded extremely positive results. \"Many people have told us that the training sessions have not only changed their working behaviour, but their whole lives,\" said Giacomo Rambaldi, Senior Programme Coordinator at CTA. In 2013, the Web 2.0 and social media LOs earned the prestigious WSIS 2013 Project Prize in the e-Agriculture category.Featuring a range of examples from ACP countries, this booklet includes testimonies on how Web 2.0 and social media have contributed to policy dialogue and advocacy (Chapter 1), value chain development (Chapter 2) and provision of information services (Chapter 3).The booklet features 18 stories covering all ACP regions, documenting the transformative power of these innovative technologies.Feedback from beneficiaries, together with the results of impact assessment exercises, has guided CTA in increasing the breadth of services delivered and their geographical scope. n CHAPTER 1W hat are effective ways of stimulating policy dialogue on agricultural and rural development in ACP countries? What are the best tools for putting ARD issues in the spotlight to stimulate change? These are some of the questions explored in this chapter on policy dialogue and advocacy. It includes five testimonies on how Web 2.0 and social media can be used to encourage interaction on these key issues among as many stakeholders as possible -from farmers, researchers and young ICT innovators to extension officers and employees of ministries. In Uganda, for example, a young trainee-turnedtrainer is trying to persuade the government through social media to support the use of ICTs in agriculture and develop policies to involve the rural youth. He is also using an open-source crowdmapping platform to highlight incidences of poor service delivery in communities. The issues posted on the platform are used to generate advocacy and policy change.In another example, a social media consultant in Tanzania is providing social media consultancy services for a range of events aimed at driving policy change in favour of agriculture. One of them, the Farmers Radio Poll, is an innovative mobile phone and radio-based survey that aims to make farmers' voices reach policymakers. The poll is part of a larger campaign to encourage African leaders to invest more in agriculture.In Madagascar, ICTs are proving a powerful tool to influence policymakers. An e-discussion platform launched in 2012 has encouraged interaction on topics linked to agriculture and rural development, attracting large numbers of contributors, including researchers, extension agents, farmers' association representatives and even a number of staff from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries and Environment. Indeed, this story shows that by sharing information collected from a variety of channels, social media can really help to shape agricultural policy. nUsing social media to shape policy Throughout the world, internet has become part of everyday life.T here are changes happening in Madagascar.Agriculture and rural development, and the policies that will govern their future, are moving further into the spotlight. The shift is partly due to the introduction of new ICTs, says Andrianjafy Rasoanindrainy, widely acknowledged as the driving force behind the adoption of Web 2.0 and social media among agriculture and rural development (ARD) actors in Madagascar. These new technologies are helping to push the frontiers of communication and exchange of informationand are drawing a wider range of players into the ARD debate.Rasoanindrainy is executive director of Farming & Technology for Africa (F TA), a Madagascar-based platform for sharing ideas and opportunities in the field of agriculture and rural development, especially through ICT4D. He was lead trainer for five CTA-supported LO courses on Web 2.0 and social media held in Madagascar from 2012 to 2013. Participants included researchers, extension agents, trainers and farmer leaders. FTA has since organised separate training sessions in Web 2.0 and social media for women and farmers' organisations and it is planning to hold more training sessions for rural development actors. It teamed up with CTA again later in 2014 to hold a one-month distance-learning course, followed by a \"One day to build your website or blog\" programme.The training courses held to date have been quick to make an impact, on several levels. Most obvious has been the change for the players on the ground -the farmers and the extension agents and the researchers who serve them. New and faster methods of communication have created linkages between the various groups, bringing real benefits to the end users -small-scale farmers.Search engines have proved the most popular tool, followed by blogs and Facebook to increase visibility and share best practices. Some farmers and extension agents have started talking by Skype, especially when they live in remote areas. E ver since he took part in the CTA YoBloCo context, blogging has become a way of life for Jean Takuete. He uses his blog to share information about his work as an extension agent in Cameroon, passing on tips to farmers. He also uses the space to publicise details of job or training opportunities, and to express opinions on issues of agriculture and rural development, particularly where young people are concerned. \"These days, keeping a blog has become part of my daily routine,\" says Takuete, who attended a CTA-supported online UNITAR/FAO training course in April 2013, followed by further CTA Web 2.0 face-to-face training later in the same year. \"The skills I learned have completely changed the way I work, as well as increasing the impact of my activities.\"Part of Takuete's job involves training members of farmers' organisations in the field, teaching them how to make the most efficient use of inputs, diagnose crop disease and access markets for their products. Nowadays, he uses Web 2.0 tools to research up-to-date material and then posts them on his blog for farmers.\"First of all, Web 2.0 tools enable me to see the experiences and solutions of people in other loca-tions, by searching websites and subscribing to RSS feeds. Then I post them on my blog,\" he explains. \"That is far more effective than the traditional way of sending a report by post or as an attachment to an email. One thing that has been very striking has been the level of adoption of good practices by beneficiaries. I see this when I go out in the field.\"In a practical sense, Takuete's new knowledge has helped him to work from a distance, planning field visits -which often involve long journeys -so as to make them more effective. It has also proved invaluable in preparing the annual agriculture day for farmers in Nda'a, a rural area of western Cameroon, which he helps to promote, using Web 2.0 tools and social media. The agriculture day that Takuete helped to organise in March 2014, the second of its kind, attracted more than 420 exhibitors, nearly three times as many as the first one, a factor that he attributes to better preparation using distant working Web 2.0 tools such as Google Apps and greater awareness due to social media platforms. ICT4Ag plays a fundamental role in developing agriculture.Information is power for small-scale farmers STORY 3 An umbrella association for producers' organisations in Central Africa is mainstreaming Web 2.0 and social media to improve coordination between staff, members and partners. But at the end of the day, the real winners are the farmers.A t the Regional Platform of Central African Farmers Organisations (PROPAC), which groups together ten national producers' organisations, staff know that their ultimate responsibility is to serve small-scale farmers.\"PROPAC covers the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS)-Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC) area, where 70% of the population practices family farming,\" says Michel Atangana, who is the manager of information and communication at the Cameroon-based organisation. \"The real beneficiaries of our activities are smallholder producers.\" With this in mind, Atangana and his team are working to ensure that information about issues affecting smallholder farmers is made available to them; whether it is innovative farm practices, market opportunities or changes in agricultural policies, farmers' views are sought and shared. Web 2.0 and social media tools are making that task easier, changing the way PROPAC staff inter act with each other and member organisations, so that information and knowledge sharing is filtered down to farmers.Crucial to the process have been the new skills learned by Atangana. In April 2012, he was introduced to Web 2.0 and social media at a LO course held by CTA. In November 2013, he honed his skills further with his participation in a CTAsupported online course run by UNITAR. \"I have learned to use RSS feeds, improve production and collaboration through Wikis, use Google Drive, Twitter, Skype, online maps, blogging tools and social media such as Facebook and LinkedIn,\" he says. Following the training, Atangana passed on some of his new skills to other staff members at PROPAC. \"That made a big difference in the way we were able to work,\" he observes. Specifically, all physical documents have been digitised and staff now share electronic documents using collaborative tools, with each other and with PROPAC member organisations, who are encouraged to take part in online communities, meaning greater knowledge sharing and more discussions.A PROPAC Facebook page enables information and updates to be shared with the organisation's communities.\"It also allows us to present a more attractive image of African agriculture, to share different opinions on agricultural policies and programmes and spread the word about innovations and practices used in other parts of the world,\" says Atangana.Twitter helps PROPAC staff to issue real-time updates on activities and the organisation's position on critical policy issues. Slideshare, a Web 2.0 tool, is used to make documents available online, Google+ to share photos and information on agricultural policy and YouTube to post interviews. A blog run by PROPAC for rural women posts regular articles on policies that may affect them and highlights achievements by women farmers. The organisation has also begun designing a regional database containing up-to-date information on prices and production quantities for various sectors in the region.\"The Web tools have enabled us to have extensive media coverage and significantly increase our visibility,\" says Atangana. \"Members of PROPAC are better informed on policies and programmes which affect them and can access techniques, practices and innovations used elsewhere. Our partners are more able to follow the programmes and activities we implement. Communities have a deeper knowledge of PROPAC and are in touch with us on a regular basis.\"As part of the new focus on information management, Atangana was closely involved in 70% of the population in Central Africa practices family farming developing a CTA-supported knowledge platform for the Pan African Farmers Organisation (PAFO), to stimulate exchanges on agricultural policy in the run-up to the African Union summit in January 2014. PAFO, whose members include farmers' organisations in five regions, used the platform to plan a continental briefing in Yaoundé, Cameroon in December 2013. The initiative made use of GroupSpaces as a discussion platform to share views on how to improve farmers' organisations and help PAFO to formulate policy ideas.Tasked with handling gender issues within PAFO, PROPAC is helping to raise awareness of the potential of social media platforms for rural women. In December 2013, it organised the African Rural Woman Forum (ARW2013), with a special session for more than a hundred women on the innovative role of social media and the opportunities they offer to producers' organisations. The forum, which will be held again in 2014, seeks to involve rural women in developing agricultural policies and strategies.Passing on ICT skills to young farmers is crucial and PROPAC is planning knowledge management, Web 2.0 and social media sessions for young people at CHASAADD-M, a centre near Yaoundé, which trains up to one hundred people in agriculture and sustainable development each year. Says Atangana: \"We are going to introduce them to tools that will give them access to information about innovative techniques and productive agricultural practices, show them how to take part in online networks and discussion forums, how to publicise their activities and J uma Ngomuo is a busy man. With CTA support, he has learned to use ICTs to promote farming as a business, and influence policy so that young people have a better chance of making a successful career in agriculture.Twenty-eight-year-old Ngomuo, who has a degree in rural development, confesses to being 'addicted to social media'. He currently runs three blogs, seven Facebook pages and a handful of Twitter accounts. He regularly posts videos on YouTube. He learned about the tools at a Web 2.0 Learning Opportunity course run by CTA in 2013.In his day job -though his work spills over into all hours -Ngomuo is Programme Support Officer for the Tanzanian Graduate Farmers' Association, a member-based organisation working to promote entrepreneurship for farmers, especially youth. Part of his work involves managing the organisation's social media accounts, to drive interest in the sector among young people and link agripreneurs with service providers and markets.He also runs several projects and pages of his own. Over the past few months, Ngomuo has provided social media consultancy services for a range of events aimed at driving policy change in favour of agriculture. Among them was the Regional Youth Green Growth Forum, held in Kenya in December 2013, which brought together African youth representatives to discuss ways of increasing sustainable opportunities for young people. Another was the Farmers Radio Poll, an innovative mobile phone and radio-based survey conducted in June 2014 to help farmers' voices reach policymakers.The poll was part of a campaign called Do Agric that was launched to encourage African leaders to invest more in agriculture. It goes without saying that Ngomuo has been active in that too, as campaign youth ambassador and social media reporter. \"I am addicted to social media,\" he says. \"We are living in a digitised world where information is power and as information is everywhere, the power is there to switch on and get updated.\"As assistant social media reporter for the Advancing Land Rights for Women-TZ campaign, Ngomuo is helping to promote land access for women, using Facebook to bring the issue to light.Committed social media consultant Juma Ngomuo strongly believes in the power of ICTs to influence agricultural policy. From better land access for women to more sustainable opportunities for youth, this young Tanzanian is working to ensure that important issues reach the ears of policymakers.following for his social media outlets. And he believes strongly in the power of web-based tools to advocate for better policies. W ith the world's second youngest population, and 83% of 15-24 years olds without jobs, Uganda urgently needs to galvanise its agriculture sector and attract young people to a career in farming. Social media trainer Moses Owiny is convinced that this is the best solution for tackling poverty and high youth unemployment.\"Agriculture development practitioners, policymakers, the private sector, government agencies and other professionals must articulate a new vision of agriculture that can be attractive to young people,\" says Owiny, who is Programme Manager for information sharing and networking for Ugandan NGO the women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET). He believes thatA young man who received CTA training in Web 2.0 and social media has gone on to become a trainer himself. Working for Ugandan NGO WOUGNET, which promotes the use of ICTs by women and women organisations, Moses Owiny is a firm believer in the power of Web 2.0 and social media for policy change.Olive Namoso, widow and mother of six, picks coffee berries from her garden.\"ICTs are essential coordinating mechanisms in the agricultural and rural development field, and hence their integration in the delivery of agricultural information, markets and all the processes across the value chain is significant.\"Owiny's involvement with CTA dates back to 2009 when he was working on a WOU GNET project helping rural women to access ICTs in northern Uganda. He was invited to attend a CTA international knowledge for development workshop in Namibia, followed by a CTA-fun ded training course for management of electronic portals developed by CTA for partners in Accra, Ghana a year later. Those courses whetted his appetite for ICT4D.\"I became fascinated by these tools and did everything I could to find out more about how to use them. My skills developed quite fast and I learned a great deal,\" he said.After He cites the use of other social media platforms, such as Facebook, to engage policy makers.\"If you set up a page, then you can share issues and experiences to make government officials be more transparent and deliver better services. I think the more we use social media to encourage engagement between the local community and service providers, then the stronger the impact will be.\" now can Web 2.0 and social media help farmers, producers, and other stakeholders strengthen their position in the agricultural value chain? Which specific tools are best suited for finding information about crops, accessing markets and sharing new technologies? The five testimonies in this chapter focus on the full range of activities required to move an agricultural product from the farm to the market and the consumer.In one case, an agronomist in Madagascar turned to Web 2.0 and social media in an attempt to save the island's bee population, which was being devastated by disease. He started writing a blog and contacted foreign beekeepers for advice; he was subsequently invited to attend training in France. Soon he was travelling throughout France and Belgium gaining more valuable knowledge, which convinced him that there was scope to develop the honey value chain in Madagascar. The agronomist has now set up a fair trade association for beekeeping and is using social media tools to promote his initiative.In Samoa, a media specialist at a womens' organisation launched a programme for village women to revive the traditional craft of weaving mats from Pandanus (screw pine). Another of the programme's aims was to teach more users about the benefits of ICTs, especially in rural areas. Training in social media such as Facebook and Twitter for marketing purposes has helped weavers reach clients in Toga, for example, which is Samoa's second biggest market for mats.In another example, a district cocoa technical officer in Ghana has been using Web 2.0 tools to promote the development of products rooted in a local geographical and cultural environment by means of a 'geographical indication'. A geographical indication is a sign used on certain products that corresponds to a specific location to certify that a product is made according to traditional methods and has a verifiable geographical origin. n \"I remember that day very clearly,\" she recalls. \"I had never even heard about the terms Web 2.0 and social media. We were using what I then called knowledge-sharing applications to implement our projects.\"Once back in Uganda, where BROSDI is using ICTs for knowledge sharing to improve rural livelihoods, Karamagi developed the NGO's use of Web 2.0 and social media applications and began training farmers and other users, as well as passing on the skills to BROSDI staff.One of them was Programme Manager Maria Nakirya. Within just one month of a short introduction from Karamagi to Web 2.0 and social media tools such as blogs, search engines, Twitter and Facebook, she had learned so much that she was designing blogs herself, teaching others to use them and putting them to work for Ugandan farmers. A number of farmers have connected to new markets. After training, one farmer in Mbarara who wanted to increase sales of apple bananas (Latundan bananas) identified a market in Europe and connected with other producers to engage in collective selling. Another, who had never used a computer in his life, has used Blogging for farmers STORY 6 In Uganda, producers and community-based organisations are discovering the benefits of Web 2.0 and social media. Local NGO BROSDI is using ICTs to support producers, processors and other actors in agricultural value chains. And it has devised an ingenious way of linking farmers who still have no access to the internet. W hen a devastating disease began spreading through beehives in Madagascar, threatening the indigenous breed Apis mellifera unicolor, Fidy Andriamamonjy knew that outside help would be needed to halt the scourge. He decided to draw attention to the plight of the island's beekeepers using social media tools he had learned at a CTA LO course in 2012.Andriamamonjy's decision to create a blog about the varroosis bee disease started a chain of events that no one could have foreseen, least of all this agronomist, who worked in communications at the Technical and Economical Information Centre (CITE) in Antananarivo, using radio to disseminate information about the agricultural sector. By 2014, the quest that started out as a mission to save the island's bee population had developed into a wide-ranging strategy to develop the country's apiculture value chain, including exports of local honey to Europe. \"At the time I didn't know much about beekeeping. And this was the first time I had ever used a blog, Facebook or any of the other tools. I had never done anything like that before,\" he recalls. \"But the disease was continuing to spread, so I started to contact foreign beekeepers who might be familiar with it, and asked their advice.\" Andriamamonjy posted photographs, videos and articles about the disease on his blog, then used Google+ and email to discuss the situation with beekeepers in France and Belgium, with whom he had been in touch through social media platforms. \"They told me about possible remedies. It was really the blog that enabled me to find and offer some solutions to the disease,\" he says. \"I wrote about some of the solutions that had been used in France.\"A French beekeeping association contacted Andriamamonjy and offered to host him for a training course on bee diseases. An exchange visit soon followed to other beekeeping associations, with Andriamamonjy travelling all over France and Belgium to learn about best practices. The experience convinced him that there was scope to develop the apiculture value chain in his home country, and he launched a Fairtrade association called Beemada -using social media tools to attract interest.An agronomist from Madagascar has used Web 2.0 and social media to develop knowledge about apiculture. International contacts forged through blogging have led to training and exchange visits in Europe. Now, a Fairtrade beekeeping association is promising to help local beekeepers to develop the honey value chain.Money was urgently needed to help local beekeepers restore their hives, so Andriamamonjy turned to crowdfunding platform Ulule to launch a save a hive campaign, posting information and videos about the challenges of beekeeping in Madagascar. The appeal raised € 2,842 more than the target figure.Spurred on by the success, the agronomist decided to develop his blog, expanding it to deal with apiculture in Madagascar in general, and adding pages with information about other aspects of beekeeping.\"The idea was to bring the people I knew who had a passion for beekeeping together,\" he explains. \"I created a Facebook page and through this I tried to develop the apiculture sector in Madagascar.\"Today, Andriamamonjy's blog offers an information service on beekeeping in Madagascar, with advice on production and on preventing disease. \"As a result I have been contacted by many people, within Madagascar and from abroad, wanting information on prices, production and training and to know more about marketing. It's really beginning to take off, thanks to the blog and Facebook,\" he reports.Andriamamonjy is confident that there is strong potential for apiculture in Madagascar. He is now planning to devote his energies fulltime to the sector. He is co-writing a book on bee disease and beekeeping in Madagascar. And he is launching a Fairtrade social enterprise called Happy Madagascar, to provide support to local beekeepers and develop the honey export market. Bringing actors in the value chain together is the key, he believes.\"The problem with the bee product value chain in Madagascar is the lack of information and links between all the various actors. There are producers who are making products, but who are not in contact with other players upstream and downstream in the value chain,\" he says. \"There are people wanting to buy honey and other products who can't do so because the market is not well developed as it is in some other countries. So Web 2.0 and social media can help create links between the different actors in the value chain, not just between the beekeepers themselves, but also those working in research. I am now in touch with them, in Madagascar and abroad.\"In 2011, Madagascar was able to lift a long-standing embargo on honey exports to Europe, its main market. In January 2014, the country exported a shipment of 1.8 tonnes of lychee honey to Europe, for a price of € 14 per kg.\"That is still a relatively small volume, but the price is good, compared with normal honey prices, because you don't find honey like that anywhere else in the world,\" says Andriamamonjy.He is convinced that local organic honey produced from eucalyptus, baobab and lychee flowers can continue to fetch premium prices.\"The plan is to work on export sales of honey from Madagascar, but we are also going to be supplying beekeeping materials to local producers,\" he adds. \"I already know how I'm going to develop all this. I will be using my social networks of course.\" n I gnatius Pumpuni, who works as a district technical officer for the Ghana Cocoa Board, believes that one good turn deserves another. So when he was invited to attend a workshop on geographical indications (GI) in June 2014, he offered to share the knowledge he had acquired about Web 2.0 with other participants. The CTAsupported training on capacity strengthening for GI products, held in Akosombo, Ghana, sought to boost interest in the potential of developing products that are rooted in local geographical and cultural environments and command a price premium as a result.Firmly convinced of the scope for a stronger value chain approach to agricultural production in Ghana, Pumpuni knew he had his own contribution to make. \"During the training, I negotiated some time to share with other participants on how to use Google Alerts and other Web 2.0 applications to get useful information on Geographical Indications,\" he said. \"They were all amazed at the things these tools could do and how these could help them with their work. Immediately after the presentation, one of the participants from Gambia had already received three alerts on topics of direct interest to him.\" At the end of the workshop, participants were divided into groups for follow-up practical work. Pumpuni's team opted to focus on identifying and promoting potential GI-linked products in Ghana. As part of the project, team members decided to design a database for possible GI products. Scattered throughout various parts of the country, they are now using Google Alerts to conduct research and Google Drive to collaborate and share their work online.Ghana has a range of agricultural products that could be developed into GIs, including: Ghana Fine Flavor Cocoa, Shama shea butter, Shama yam, Sugarloaf pineapple, Chocho tea and Zomi palm oil. Challenges include setting up institutional, legislative and organisational frameworks and mechanisms to establish, monitor and control production methods to ensure that products are GI-compliant.A district cocoa technical officer is using Web 2.0 tools to find and promote potential geographical indication (GI) projects in his native Ghana. Ignatius Pumpuni explains how his ICT training is helping him to collaborate on GIs with other colleagues -and how it helped him to identify a mysterious cocoa disease in a farmer's field.Pumpuni himself learned to use the innovative ICT applications during a Web 2.0 LO course conducted by CTA in Accra, Ghana, in 2010. \"That training was an eye-opener to me. Before, I did not know anything about LinkedIn, Blogger, RSS Feeds, Google Drive, Google Maps and Google Alerts,\" he said. \"But as soon as I learned about the tools and used them, it linked me to the international world and opened new opportunities for me.\"He started by using LinkedIn to make professional contacts and get his name and profile more widely known, before moving on to Blogger to create and share information, and search engines to help with his research work. After creating his social network account and registering on various platforms, the young cocoa extension officer invited his colleagues to follow his example and showed them how to do it. Pumpuni estimates that he has trained several hundred extension agents over the past three years, many of whom have gone on to train other people.As well as working for the Ghana Cocoa Board, Pumpuni carries out research and consultancy work in rural development in areas that include rural entrepreneurship, cocoa value chain management, geographical indications and marketing.Aminatu Kasim, a Kuapa Kokoo farmer, spreads her cocoa beans out to dry in the sun. Kuapa Kokoo is a Fairtrade-certified cocoa farmers organisation with 45,000 members spread across the forests of Kumasi, Ghana.\"Web 2.0 has facilitated the easy flow of information among all the actors in the value chain, including information generation and research work,\" said Pumpuni. \"For example, the information gap between researchers, extension agents and farmers can be bridged by the use of platforms such as LinkedIn and Google Alerts. These days, I get invitations to attend workshops via LinkedIn, RSS Feeds and Google Alerts,\" he said. \"I use Dropbox to share information at work.\"Google Alerts soon became Pumpuni's favourite tool, helping him to receive up-to-date and relevant information that would have been impossible to obtain as quickly through other channels.\"For example, when I wanted to find out about climate change, I created a tailored query on Google Alerts and every policy and other information about what was happening globally on climate change was directed to my pc,\" he said. As a direct result, after using various Web 2.0 applications to conduct desktop research and write a proposal, Pumpuni won a US$ 12,000 contract from multinational chocolate manufacturer Mars Inc. The project was to assess the perception of cocoa farmers on the impact of climate change on cocoa production in six cocoa growing regions of Ghana. \"After I wrote the report, a stakeholder forum was held to discuss the findings and it has really helped in the formulation of policies in the cocoa sector,\" said Pumpuni. \"For example, as part of the coping strategies for climate change proposed by the project, farmers have now been given free fertiliser to improve their soil fertility and most of the cocoa farms have been rehabilitated.\"Pumpuni says he sees the benefits of the ICTs in his work on an almost daily basis. He cites the example of a fellow extension agent who recently went to a field and saw a strange disease on some of the cocoa pods. The colleague forwarded the picture of the diseased pod via his mobile phone to Pumpuni, who immediately searched for answers using the Google search engine. T he social media platforms run by Kibaya are a busy mosaic of photographs, videos and articles. There are images showing rural school children taking delivery of books and other educational materials, as well as using new computers in their classrooms. Other posts show children looking after chickens as part of a commercial poultry-keeping project to help young people pay their school fees, improve their nutrition levels and increase their entrepreneurial skills. This committed rural development actor from Uganda estimates that he spends at least five hours each day contributing content to a series of e-discussion lists on Dgroups, and managing the blog, Facebook page and other platforms he uses to help keep his Kikandwa Rural Communities Development Organisation in the spotlight. \"I spend a great deal of time online because Web 2.0 and social media applications give you the chance to engage with other people on a global level and reach the resources you need,\" he says. \"At first it took longer because I was building up communities on social media platforms. It takes a great deal of time, but it's very productive.\"Over the past five years, Kibaya has benefited from a range of CTA services, including distance learning -a UNITAR/FAO Web 2.0 and social media course -a face-to-face Web 2.0 LO course and sponsorships to attend workshops and conferences. The skills he acquired have changed the way he works.\"The practical skills I developed from CTA's Web 2.0 training opportunity course have enabled me to innovatively use online networks, fund raising and blogging platforms,\" says Kibaya, who is much in demand as a trainer for other civil society organisations, teaching them how to develop social media platforms to increase their outreach. \"Transforming information into opportunities for both personal and community development is now my day-to-day business.\" Kibaya launched the NGO of which he is executive director after spotting a serious need for initiatives to drive rural development in his area. He soon became convinced that ICTs could help.\"Agricultural development or improving the lives of rural small-scale farmers is not all about providing agricultural inputs,\" he said. \"Use ofUgandan development actor Robert Kibaya, 2015 NetSquared Regional Ambassador for East Africa, spends a large chunk of his long day blogging about the activities of the rural NGO he founded and engaging with contacts worldwide. The results to date show he is making excellent use of his time.ICTs for agricultural and rural development is key for combating rural household poverty. Some 80% of the population in Uganda is engaged in agriculture, so unless you develop it, you will keep a large age of people in poverty. ICTs need to be developed, to bring agriculture to a certain level.\"Blogging is one of the most valuable tools, says Kibaya. He now writes posts on his blog to give updates on his NGO's activities instead of laboriously writing, printing and distributing quarterly reports by hand. He has designed the blog so that it is automatically linked to other social media platforms.\"My blog connects with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+, so when I publish, it is distributed to these networks too,\" he said. \"It helps to target a wider audience. If I want to reach 5,000 people, I can do it within a minute or so, with one single posting.\"Kibaya has found from experience that Web 2.0 and social media can be powerful tools for mobilising resources, both technical and financial.Rural school children in Uganda receive books and other educational materials. Social media platforms were used to make this donation possible.He cites the case of one of his most active donors, from Texas, USA, who spotted a post that Kibaya had made on his blog and which had then been automatically posted through LinkedIn.\" A s media specialist at Women in Business Development Inc., Faumuina F. Maria Tafuna'i was familiar with many of the Web 2.0 and social media applications. But she was keen to extend the benefits of these ICT tools to more users, especially in rural areas, where the organisation works to promote organic agricultural enterprises.Sponsored by CTA to attend a UNITAR/FAO distance-learning course in 2013, Tafuna'i says the training has helped her organisation pursue its goal of becoming a national trainer for social media.\"We wanted to show leadership in this area, so as to roll out use of these tools throughout Samoa,\" said Tafuna'i, who in 2012 won CTA's international and regional (Pacific) agricultural journalism award. \"It's important to us because Women in Business Development is a pioneering organisation and by doing the training through CTA, we now have a platform to share these tools.\"In 2014, Women in Business Development held two workshops, to train staff from agricultural and media organisations and other NGOs in using social media. Tafuna'i was one of the trainers. She also runs the organisation's website, Fa cebook page, Twitter and YouTube accounts.Women in Business Development uses social media platforms such as Facebook to tell in spiring stories about people who are carving out a sustainable livelihood from rural enterprise, even if those people do not have a Facebook page themselves -or any other social media account or presence. Access to the internet access is still expensive in Samoa, thus not widely used by the country's population of 180,000.\"One of the problems we have in Samoa is telling our story, especially our story regarding agriculture. So what we are hoping is that by spreading the use of these tools, we may encourage more people involved in naturalresource based activities to let the world know what they are doing,\" said Tafuna'i.Social media has already generated a substantial amount of e-commerce for the organisation's members, creating a window where potential buyers can connect with local products, especially traditional and indigenous ones.In the Pacific Island State of Samoa, an NGO is helping to give visibility to remote communities and value to their time-honoured rural skills. The strategy has paid off, with a Facebook and Twitter marketing campaign producing impressive results for women weavers of ceremonial mats.Master weaver Vilealava Vaipa'e helped revive fine mat weaving throughout Samoa.One example is the production of fine matsie sae -soft, finely woven, traditional Samoan mats woven from the leaves from a particular species of Pandanus. The ie sae has a special place in Samoan culture and heritage and is highly prized in Samoan and Tongan culture, used during important ceremonies and rites of passage such as weddings, funerals and the investiture of chiefly titles.After launching a programme to revive the ancient craft of weaving the mats among women in Samoan villages, Women in Business Development recently turned to social media for marketing. It has used Facebook and Twitter to target potential clients in Tonga, its second biggest market for this product, with considerable success.\"The finest mats sell for WST 7,000 (€ 2,290) each, and often initial inquiries are made through Facebook. We have been able to do quite a bit of marketing in this way,\" said Tafuna'i.In common with many ACP countries, reluctance by youth to engage in agriculture is a serious problem in Samoa, and Tafuna'i hopes that working with social media can help to address the challenge. \"If we want our young people to stay on the land and enjoy agriculture as an occupation, we need to show them that it is dynamic, fun and has great potential for innovation,\" she said. \"We can only do that by telling more of the stories. I think social media can be one of the tools that allow that to happen, because it enables less formal communication.\" n H ow can Web 2.0 and social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Wikis and RSS feeds reduce your budget by more than half and simultaneously increase efficiency? Why bring specialists together under one roof when you can do the same work online using Google Drive and Skype? The eight testimonies in this chapter on how to effectively provide information services illustrate the different ways that farmers, researchers, youth and many others in the agricultural sector in ACP countries can create and share information more easily, efficiently and at a lower cost. In Benin, for example, an agronomy student who recently trained in Web 2.0 and social media is now improving access to information for farmers in her country, through podcasts recorded in local languages. She uses Twitter, LinkedIn, Hangout and Skype to encourage interaction and cooperation between professionals online, and is involved in a web platform that provides agricultural information for young people and allows them to share and exchange resources and ideas. More than 1,000 people have signed up to the platform, and that figure is growing.In Madagascar, a development researcher trained in Web 2.0 and social media is helping to put a women's organisation -with no previous presence on the web -on the map. People are now contacting the organisation to ask about partnerships, offer their services or request information. This researcher also runs a personal blog. It provides highly specific information on aquaculture, for example, or beef and poultry farming.In Trinidad and Tobago, an agricultural blogger, journalist and social media reporter established a company that aims to empower the youth and provide better wages in the agricultural sector. Through Facebook and other social media tools, he has shared information about opportunities for young people in agriculture in the hope of persuading them to become agripreneurs. nThe impact of knowledge sharing An online presence is now crucial for organisations wanting to increase their reach and visibility. In Madagascar, ICT training is helping two NGOs to become more dynamic and enabling young people to obtain useful advice about agriculture and opportunities.STORY 11N ot so long ago, the National Council of Women in Madagascar (CNFM) -an organisation working in the gender and development sectorwas little known outside its immediate circle. It had neither a website, nor a blog, and its activities received virtually no coverage on the Web. That all changed in December 2012, when Haingo Rasolofomanana, a development researcher working as a volunteer for the organisation, took part in a CTA LO course on Web 2.0 and social media.Her first move was to set up a website and a blog for CNFM, focusing on women's empowerment. A Facebook page for the organisation soon followed, to debate gender issues and give updates on the organisation's activities. Within a matter of weeks, the blog had drawn several hundred visits. Now, less than two years later, the CNFM blog has had thousands of visits from 63 countries and its Facebook page has attracted hundreds of \"likes\". \"If you don't have a presence on the Web these days, you simply don't exist,\" says Rasolofomanana. \"CNFM has managed to increase the visibility of its activities at national and international level. A great many people involved in the gender and development sector have seen the blog and contacted the organisation to ask for partnerships, offer services and request information.\"The use of Web 2.0 tools has enabled the organisation to place useful sources of information on gender and development online, including research reports and national and international documents.As an example, Rasolofomanana cites the Baromètre Madagascar 2012, which charts gender and climate change in the country. Use of ICTs has also helped the organisation to link with others for a common cause, for example to launch a petition, raise awareness and advocate for gender and development issues.The training she received has improved her career prospects. Partly as a result of her new skills she was named as secretary general of Farming and Technology for Africa (FTA), an NGO working in Madagascar. She has since been made programme coordinator for FTA.It seems a distant memory, but Rasolofomanana can recall the days when she knew very little about Web 2.0 tools that now form part of her daily life and work.\"I already used some Web 2.0 and social media tools, but not to any great extent and I had no idea that you could, for example, create your own blog,\" she says. Today, Rasolofomanana runs an active personal blog about agriculture, and was a YoBloCo finalist in the 2014 CTA contest. The focus of her blog is attracting young people to the sector and answering their questions. Although she is only 30 years old, she is seen by many as a role model and a valuable source of information. Rasolofomanana encourages young people to share their views about agriculture, and provides information about opportunities, including the potential of certain sectors, such as aquaculture, beef or poultry farming. She uses Facebook on a daily basis to post news about agricultural techniques, practical information and openings, as well as to promote her blog.\"I have become a sort of online counsellor to the young (and not so young),\" she says. \"I am often asked for information on agriculture -things like 'where is the livestock ministry?', or 'how can I find markets for pork products?' or 'where can I find someone to supply 20 tonnes of vegetables?' I receive at least five messages about agriculture each day on my Facebook page.\"For both CNFM and FTA, the new tools have helped to improve working methods.Staff now use collaborative tools, such as Google Drive, which gives users access to cloud storage, file sharing and collaborative editing. The new methods have filtered down to a number of farmers' organisations, through training offered by FTA, sometimes with CTA support.\"The thing that changed has been the way the organisations work, and especially the way they communicate,\" says Rasolofomanana. \"For CNFM, for example, information is now published in a systematic manner. The member associations, which are mainly for rural women, have begun accessing the information we share.\"Connectivity and training remain the biggest hurdles to overcome if the ripple effect of Web 2.0 and social media is to spread more widely. Nowhere is this more challenging than in Madagascar's rural areas, especially for women. Some 80% of the country's women live in rural areas and 87% make their living from agriculture.\"We need a critical mass if Web 2.0 is to benefit everyone, and not everyone can take part at the moment, due to lack of training or access to the internet,\" says Rasolofomanana. \"Who can I share my collaborative files with if not everyone is connected? And how can we ensure that women and men living in rural areas, and not just the organisations, can take advantage of the information that we are sharing?\" n © CTA I t is 5 a.m., and Diana Adongo is up early as usual, making fruit wines at her home in Mbale town, Uganda. She painstakingly washes, cuts and dries passion fruit and pineapple sourced from local farmers, before extracting the pulp. It will be at least six months before the wine is ready to drink, but this graduate of Makerere Business School is confident she will sell every bottle, using a Facebook page, WhatsApp, Google+ and Twitter to reach her customers.Adongo learned how to use social media platforms for marketing from training conducted by Joan Apio, herself a beneficiary of the Web 2.0 training course run with CTA support by the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM).RUFORUM staff member Apio has her reasons for being enthusiastic about Web 2.0 and social media. She believes her promotion from training assistant in ICT skills to communications officer at RUFORUM was partly the result of her training in innovative web-based ICTs. She was selected to attend a CTA-run Web 2.0 LO course in 2009, followed by a UNITAR distancelearning course held with CTA support in 2012.\"I would like to think my promotion was in part due to the confidence I got with my communica-tions skills and working with the different platforms,\" said Apio, 32. She says that her knowledge has helped her to show other people, especially women, how ICTs can lead to greater opportunities.Apio describes herself as passionate about using social media for showcasing youth initiatives in Africa and building capacity for young people in using web-based platforms for collaboration, research and development.\"I realised that most youths do not under stand the real impact that social media can have when used properly,\" she said. \"When I did the training, it gave me a different understanding of social media. For me, when you can access information, and be able to communicate it to someone who needs it, and improve their livelihood, it is a big impact.\"As communications officer, Apio coordinates the RUFORUM network platforms, linking users and development partners. She uses a range of tools that include the website, social A new look for agriculture STORY 12 A passion for social media is helping a young woman to build capacity for other young people in using ICT platforms for agriculture. She describes how training in Web 2.0 and social media has opened new opportunities for herself and her family.A passion about using social media for showcasing youth initiatives in Africa and building capacity for young people in using web-based platforms for collaboration, research and development media channels such as Twitter and Facebook, a monthly newsletter and MailChimp, an online tool to manage subscribers.An active blogger, she was a finalist in the CTA 2013 YoBloCo blog contest. Apio's 'Creating impact through ICT in agriculture' blog, sets out to encourage more young people to explore agriculture's potential using ICTs. Last year, Apio was named by the CTA ARDYIS project -Agriculture, Rural Development and Youth in the Information Society -as one of the 15 most promising young women advocates of ICT and agriculture among YoBloCo Awards participants, as part of International Girls in ICT Day.By posting inspiring stories on her blog, Apio encourages youth in various communities to give agriculture a try. A case in point is the story of Martha Otieno, a savvy young Kenyan woman who persuaded local farmers to lease land to her. She used ICT tools to research soil management and crop production and now grows pepper, groundnut, watermelon and practices aquaculture, earning KES 500,000 (€ 4,160) a month.Apio has taught her brother Moses Sikhu, a young rural entrepreneur, to use Web 2.0 and social media tools on his farm. The farm's Facebook page now has more than 900 followers. Sikhu has put the farm on Google Maps so that suppliers and buyers know where to find him, and he regularly communicates using WhatsApp. The moves have led to a direct increase in business, including contracts from hotels to supply fish from the farm's ponds.In February 2013, Apio was involved in the CTA-sponsored training of 24 female RU FORUM graduates, showing them how to be productive online.\"To be able to use your online social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs to share your research interests and get free online peer reviews is very useful for these young women who may have limited resources,\" said Apio. \"They use Google Maps to contribute to content creation by adding missing locations or information. Through joining and using LinkedIn, a professional online platform, some of the graduates have joined professional groups such as AWARD to get career guidance and share ideas.\"Apio is happiest when she can help other young people to realise the benefits of using Web 2.0 and social media tools at first-hand. She is currently advising a young woman who grows pumpkins. \"At present, this woman's price is determined by market forces. I have suggested she uses social media to upload photos of her pumpkins when they are ripe and Google Maps to show where she is located, then offers to deliver them to the buyers,\" said Apio. \"That way, she creates a brand name and relations with her customers, adding value to her products that will set her apart from other suppliers.\"One thing I realised during my training was that we need to market agriculture in a much more attractive way for young people. We need to show them what it can do for them. I strongly believe that Web 2.0 and social media can help with that.\" nWe need to market agriculture in a much more attractive way for young people. We need to show them what it can do for them. I strongly believe that Web 2.0 and social media can help with that R wandan horticultural entrepreneur Ezron Ngamije used to have only the most basic knowledge about computers. Nowadays, he is often on the internet, updating the Facebook page he has created to market his products and advertise his small rural enterprise. He uses search engines to find inputs at the best price and regularly trawls the web for practices that can help him to improve his crop and business yields. He uses Google Drive to share photos and documents with other members of the horticulture cooperative he heads, and with his customers. \"With Web 2.0, it is easy now to search online for markets for my products,\" he said. \"I have also created web pages for my company at no cost.\" Small-scale poultry farmer Denise Mukamana is also making good use of her new knowledge of the internet. Before, she always had to ask telecentre staff to help her search the internet for any material she needed. Now she can easily do searches herself, quickly finding information that can help her solve production problems and increase her business. She makes regular use of Facebook for marketing and Google Alerts to track news stories about the poultry sector and monitor her competitors. She sends e-mails to potential customers, and reaches hundreds in just a few minutes.Both Ngamije and Mukamana were trained in Web 2.0 and social media as part of a joint initiative between CTA and the Rwanda Telecentre Network (RTN), a social enterprise working in the field of ICTs and the development of small and medium enterprises.  After their training, they could do advanced searches and be more active in finding agricultural material, such as market or product information. I know some farmers' cooperatives that have been able to create their own Facebook pages and post information on the Web to market their products and share their activities.\"For the telecentres, it has meant more business since farmers and other users visit more regularly and spend more time using their computers and internet services.Said Barera: \"After the training, we found that the number of users has increased because people in rural communities are able to use the internet more effectively and efficiently, so they spend more time at the telecentres. They will go and search for information relating to agriculture, which increases the telecentres' revenue and therefore makes them more sustainable. Before, people would just stay for a few minutes.\"For RTN itself, the introduction of Web 2.0 and social media applications has changed the way staff work and interact. They now communicate more effectively and cheaply using Web 2.0 tools, such as Google Drive. Paid-for telephone calls are a thing of the past. These days, the Monday staff meeting between RTN head office in Kigali and telecentre managers in rural areas is conducted using a free Skype conference call.As well as making regular use of Twitter, the network uses Facebook to post news and updates and to communicate with its telecentre managers; it also has a blog to share information about its activities.  New horizons for youth in agriculture STORY 14 Training in Web 2.0 and social media has led an NGO working for sustainable food security to highlight ICT4Ag as a key strategy. An online network developed by the Republic of Benin-based organisation is proving especially popular with young people.Online networks are popular among young people.Afokpe, who lives in the Republic of Benin, says that the training she received exposed her to Web 2.0 and social media tools that can be leveraged to develop agriculture. \"These applications can be used for facilitating access to information for our farmers, for example through podcasts recorded in local languages, to show them new agricultural practices,\" she said. \"They can also help to facilitate interaction, communication, cooperation and collaboration between professionals on the Web, using tools such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Drive, Hangout and Skype.\" Afokpe's call for more young people to use ICTs for agricultural development was posted on AgroDev, a collaborative blog set up by Actions pour l'Environnement et le Développement Durable (ACED-BENIN), an NGO which seeks to improve sustainable food security and nutrition in Benin. The aim of the online platform, which is rapidly gaining a huge following, is to improve access to agricultural information for young people from the Republic of Benin and other francophone countries and allow them to share and exchange resources and opportunities in the agricultural sector. By mid-2014, more than 1,000 people had signed up to the platform, and that figure is growing constantly. For telecentre staff and managers, Otieno recommends Facebook and Twitter -the first for creating pages to share information and photographs from events and the latter for coverage of real-time functions. \"Most of the telecentres do not have their own websites, so social media platforms are a goodAfter passing Web 2.0 and social media skills on to telecentre staff throughout the country, Cleopa Otieno has turned his attention to introducing community radio stations to Facebook and Twitter users. Now, together with a friend, he has set up a consultancy firm to leverage social media. \"If an organisation has an event, it wants as many people as possible to know about it. And one way to do this is through social media. These tools offer a low-cost way of doing all those things,\" said Otieno. \"My ambition is to grow organisations into entities that can support communities. This is what I wake up every morning to work on.\" n \" F aster, more efficient and much, much cheaper!\" That is the verdict of Eddy Fofana on the changes brought about by the introduction of new ICTs at the agricultural consultancy firm he heads in Côte d'Ivoire. Fofana is manager of FENCO, which seeks to promote agricultural enterprise, especially for young people and women. He undertook radical overhaul of the company's information and communications methods after attending a CTA Web 2.0 LO course in October 2013.Out went long-winded and costly ways of assembling material and expensive face-toface meetings or telephone calls. In came online collaboration, Skype conferencing and Lower costs, better service STORY 16 An agricultural consultancy firm has revolutionised the way it works and delivers information to its users. The result has been dramatic cost savings for the company and a marked improvement in service delivery, especially for women and youth interested in a career in farming.Using ICTs in agriculture can result in cost savings for farmers. Staff also use social media platforms to interact with sources to request information about research, training and agricultural materials for its clients, and they relay the results to users through the same channels.Future plans include the launch of agricultural information days aimed at encouraging young people to make a career in agriculture, a market information system to help farmers sell their products and an enterprise resources centre for rural and peri-urban women. Web 2.0 and social media will play a pivotal role in managing and communicating all three initiatives. nThe most popular applications: Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Advanced Search and Google Maps K eron Bascombe was doing an MSc in agribusiness and marketing at the University of West Indies (UWI) in Trinidad and Tobago when he received an e-mail that would change the course of his working life. As the winner of the Caribbean section of the CTA YoBloCo blogging contest in 2012, he was invited to be part of the social reporting team for the second Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD2) conference in Punta del Este, Uruguay. Sponsored by CTA to attend the event, Bascombe was given training in social media tools, communications planning, digital communication and online advocacy.It was at that moment that Bascombe, 26 realised he wanted to be an agricultural journalist. Realising that other young people in the Caribbean also lacked direction for a dynamic future in agriculture, Bascombe joined several fellow graduates from the University of West Indies to launch a venture that would help both youngsters with their careers and local farmers who often lacked skilled labour. The result was AgriWorks4U, a partnership company set up to provide a wide range of services in the agricultural sector and match young people with decently paid jobs and other openings.By using an active Facebook page, together with various Web 2.0 tools, Bascombe's initiative has provided greater opportunities for young people in agriculture. He also set up Tech4agri, a blog that serves as a platform for ICT4Ag, flags innovative agri-information and offers support to young agripreneurs in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.\"We are trying to be as innovative as we can and show young people that the stereotypes that agriculture faces are not always true,\" says Bascombe, who is also the Trinidad and TobagoAgricultural blogger, journalist and social media reporter Keron Bascombe is convinced he has found the right career path at last. He is now determined to help other young people to plan a future in farming.AgriWorks4U is a partnership company set up to provide a wide range of services in the agricultural sector and match young people with decently paid jobs and other openings \"Agriculture is a passion for me. I love writing about it and blogging and using social media,\" he says. \"Agriculture is extremely important, simply because we all need to eat. If I get to promote something that is as crucial as this, then I think I will have a happy life.\" n ICTs increasingly attract youth to engage in agricultural enterprises.A s an agricultural journalist, Inoussa Maiga has always been deeply interested in issues of agricultural and rural development, including food security, land access, sustainable fisheries and traditional knowledge. Increased Web 2.0 and social media skills have boosted a young journalist's professional reputation in Burkina Faso. As a result, he has been commissioned by two rural development organisations to help them with communications projects.\"As a journalist I had already been using Web 2.0 and social media to some extent for my work, but not in a very organised manner,\" he said. \"The training I received helped me to improve the way I used blogs, Facebook and Twitter and showed me how I could make greater use of them for agricultural and rural development.\" Not long afterwards, the young journalist -who worked as a freelancer, contributing to publications that included CTA's Spore magazine -received an unexpected call. He was contacted by a Canadian NGO, Farm Radio International and asked to prepare a practical guide for community radio journalists on its behalf. The eight-page publication would be designed to help radio journalists to find useful and reliable information about agriculture on the internet.Inoussa is in no doubt that his new skills played a role in helping him to get the contract.\"That commission was partly due to the training I had received,\" he said. \"It was as a result of my social network pages and my updated profile on LinkedIn that caught their attention.\"The radio guide is now ready for publication and is due to be made available online later in 2014. In the meantime, Inoussa has been commissioned by the Belgium-based Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements (CFFA), a platform of NGOs that documents the development and environmental impacts of EU-ACP (European Union -African, Caribbean and Pacific) fisheries' regulations on small-scale fishing communities. This time, the request was for help in developing a communications strategy.Inoussa took up the challenge and travelled to Rome in June 2014 to present his ideas to CFFA about how to improve the organisation's visibility, using social media platforms and other channels. The following month he went to Kenya to take part in the finals of the CTA YoBloCo contest. One of 12 finalists, Inoussa won the prize for best blog on family farming.Earlier this year, Inoussa launched a small media agency called MEDIAPROD, producing agricultural news and videos, as well as social media training for clients such as rural community radio stations. He is full of plans for the future, and most of them involve harnessing ICTs to improve coverage of the issues of agricultural and rural development about which he cares so deeply.In March 2015, together with the Association of Agricultural Journalists and Communicators (which he heads) Inoussa is planning to attend the Festival of Documentary Films on Food and Agriculture. The event will be held in Ouagadougou and Inoussa is busy exploring how to use social media to attract the interest of young people.\"Mobilising youth is going to be very important for this event as they are a priority target audience,\" said Inoussa. \"I can't think of a better way of reaching them than using social media. ","tokenCount":"11264"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"0fa70ed35151a4b398442a1dc0d192fa","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H016400.pdf","id":"1865948919"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"59311653-d49e-4eea-936a-f548792d5df5","pagecount":"7","content":"Como ya se anunciara en el numero anterior de este Boletin, tenemos sumo agrado en compartir con Uds. los resultados del taller celebrado en Dhaka, Bangladesh, entre los dias 18 y 21 de mayo de 1992.En este Taller de la Regi6n Sudasiatica sobre Sistemas de Riego con Aguas Subterraneas Administrados por los Agricultores y el Manejo Sustentable del Agua Subterranea participaron 57 representantes de 10 paises, incluidos 5 profesionales del IIM!. Una vez concluidas las actividades propias del taller, cinco participantes de Indonesia fueron llevados a una visita de campo de una semana de duraci6n. Las actividades del primer dia comenzaron con una sesion inaugural seguida porpresentaciones de sintesis de los trabajos 9H 1(04-° 0 quese habian preparado. Luegoseformarongrupos de discusi6n y se les asign6 la tarea de identificar temas de interes especial para tratarlos en el curso del taller. Los grupos de discusi6n se organizaron en torno a los siguientes temas: i) Los acuiferos y caracteristicas de abatimiento ii) Servidos de apoyo a los FMIS con aguas subterraneas (GWFMIS por sus inidales en ingles);iii) Sustentabilidad de los FMIS en condiciones de exceso de agua; iv) Sustentabilidad de los FMIS en condiciones de escasez de agua; y v) Sustentabilidad de los FMIS en sistemas de riego superficial.Durante el segundo y el tercer dias se realizaron visitas guiadas para observar c6mo trabajan diversos tipos de FMIS bajo diferentes condiciones de manejo en el norte de Bangladesh. El ultimo dia se volvi6 al trabajo de grupo -esta vez para formular recomendaciones sobre algunas de las areas de interes identificadas previamente. Estos tres grupos se centraron en los siguientes temas: consideraciones tecnicas, aspectos institucionales y aspectos socio-econ6micos.El primer dfa los cinco grupos de discusi6n presentaron una serie de temas de interes a ser tratados en mayor profundidad, a saber:Los acufferos y el abatimiento. Existe la necesidad urgente de reunir y difundir informaci6n tecnica sobre las caracteristicas de los acufferos, cantidad y calidad del agua subterranea y las caracteristicas de el abatimiento de los acufferosi sobre variaciones en la napa freatica provocadas por precipitaciones, recargas de agua superficial y bombeo; y sobre mapas de aguas subterraneas a nivel micro y sistemas de informaci6n sobre disponibilidad de aguas subterraneas y mecanismos de extracci6n. Asimismo son importantes los aspectos organizativos de la recolecci6n y diseminaci6n de la informaci6n sobre aguas subterraneas.La sobreexplotaci6n de las aguas subterraneas conduce a napas freaticas deprimidas, a la interacd6n entre acufferos profundos y poco profundos y a desequilibrios en las interfaces de agua dulce y agua salada. Esto provoca problemas de inequidad y falta de sustentabilidad ala vez que aumenta los costos de extracci6n del agua subterranea. Por 10 tanto, es necesario emprender un cuidadoso monitoreo de las fluctuaciones de las napas freaticas e introdudr mecanismos de regulaci6n adecuados para excavary espaciartanto pozos profundos como no profundos.A menu do la valiosa agua subterranea se usa en forma inefidente y en algunos casos se la desperdicia. Por 10 tanto, es necesario integrar un uso eficiente del agua subterranea a traves de mejores practicas junto al aprovechamiento de las precipitaciones y el uso de aguas superficiales.Es menester adecuar la selecci6n del tipo de pozo, su instalaci6n, operaci6n y manejo a las caracteristicas del acuffero y de la depresi6n.Es imperioso promulgar mecanismos adecuados para la regulaci6n de las aguas subterraneas que combinen tecnologfa y manejo en forma apropiada a fin de conservarlas en los niveles deseados e impedir el deterioro ambiental. Seria conveniente encontrar soluciones para los problemas relacionados con:.. los crecientes costos deconstrucci6n, reposici6n yO&M;.. el deterioro de la calidad del agua; y .. los efectos dfferenciales del mercado del agua en los sectores pobres de la poblaci6n.Se necesita contar con estudios sobre el impacto del retiro de la asistencia estatal a la explotaci6n de aguas subterraneas y sobre la manera de formular medidas que mejoren el desempefio de la explotaci6n de las aguas subterraneas.Los servidos de apoyo para aguas subterraneas. Existe la necesidad de brindar servicios de apoyo para los GWFMIS en las siguientes areas:.. creditos f,kilmente accesibles para la construcci6n de pozos, adquisici6n de equipos yrepuestos ypara operaci6n y mantenimiento;.. mantenimiento de precios, informaci6n sobre mercados y servicios de comercializaci6n y servicios para el aImacenamiento y transporte de sus productos; y subsidios para operaci6n, mantenimiento y reposici6n.Es necesario: i) Desarrollar un marco institucional para la formaci6n de grupos y sodedades yy un marco legal para el grupo de aguas subterraneas.ii) Proporcionar capacitaci6n en las areas de manejo, mantenimiento de registros, contabilidad y manejo en el predio.iii) Brindar servicios de apoyo tecnico referidos a informaci6n sobre el agua subterranea disponible, criterios de selecci6n, manejo del agua en el predio y mantenimiento de pozos y apoyo mecanico. iv) Proporcionar repuestos durante la vida uti! recomendada de los pozos.v) Analizar e identificar el impacto de los servicios de apoyo para aguas subterraneas en:. . el mejoramiento de las areas de influenda, la efidenda en la operadon de las bombas, la recuperacion de las tasas de agua, la recuperadon de prestamos y la rentabilidad de las inversiones;.. las politicas macro-economicas (protecdon 0 mercado libre; politicas de predos, induidos el costo de la energia y los subsidios para la explotacion de las aguas subterraneas);.. el estilo de manejo / organizadon (el tema de la propiedad -manejo individual 0 grupal, publico 0 privado); y .. la funcion del sector privado; mitigadon de la pobreza a traves del credito y los mercados de agua; la funcion de los pozos y de las bombas operadas manualmente.La sustentabilidad de GWFMIS en areas con exceso de agua. Se tiene que mejorar la efidencia econ6mica y rentabilidad del riego con agua subterranea. Por 10 tanto, es necesario: i) Introducir politicas macroeconomicas para que el riego con agua subterranea sea rentable y eficiente;ii) Proporcionar subsidios para la explotacion de las aguas subterraneas (aumentar el precio del producto, subsidios a los insumos, creditos y <> seguros); ill) Equilibrar la explotacion de aguas superficiales y subterraneas a los efectos de alcanzar su optima utilizacion; iv) Fomentar la fabricadon local de equipos para el aprovechamiento del agua subterranea; v) Asegurar el credmiento economico mediante un mejor desempefio de los mercados del agua y un mejor acceso al agua y a los creditos para los pobres;vi) Definiry demarcarobjetivos parala explotaci6n del agua subterranea en relacion con los temas de crecimiento, sustentabilidad, equidad, mitigacion de la pobreza y genero; vii) Discutir e identificar las condiciones en las cuales el abatimiento de los acuueros adquiere importancia tanto en el corto como en ellargo plazo; hay que estudiar la contaminaci6n de las aguas subterraneas por los productos agroquimicos y la degradacion del recurso.La sustentabilidad de GWFMIS en areas con escasez de agua. Es necesario:i) Reconocer que las prioridades pueden ser distintas para las tecnologias de bombeo en diferentes ambientes y condiciones soao economicas.ii) Identificar los niveles de manejo de recursos y desarrollo institucional necesarios en diferentes regiones; elaborar objetivos institucionales y orgarrizaciones de manejo pertinentes dados los intereses de los agricultores.iii) Comprender y planificar la conservadon del agua, una mejor recarga y el uso conjunto; las implicaciones sociales y economicas del agotamiento de las aguas subterraneas; nuevos mecanismos para mejorar el manejo de recursos induido el estudio de la eficacia relativa de los mercados de agua y laregulacion y los controles a llevar a cabo. iv) Desarrollar relaciones de socios-no clientesentre los agricultores y los organismos estatales; fortalecer la capacidad de las organizaciones (los agricultores, organismos estatales) para adaptarse e innovar dadas las diferentes condiciones de las aguas subternineas; capadtar a los agricultores y operadores y mejorar los servicios de extension.v) Integrar las actividades del riego con agua subterranea a nivel institucional y sectorial (agricultura, energia y transporte) para el uso sustentable del agua subterranea y de otros recursos.vi) Recolectar y organizar datos y tecnicas para el manejo de tecnologia, sobre las necesidades de los agricultores y el manejo de recursos y mejorar la accesibilidad a esta informacion.La sustentabilidad de los GWFMIS dentro de sistemas con riego superficial. Es necesario:i) Elaborar metodologias y tecnicas para un manejo eficiente de los recurs os; seleccionar una tecnologia de pozos apropiada profundos 0 no profundos-para el uso conjunto de aguas superficiales y subtemineas; integrar las actividades relativas al uso de agua subterranea con la utilizad6n de aguas superfidales; considerar al agua subterranea como un bien comun tanto en normas como en disposidones legales.ii) Comprender la interacci6n entre el agua subteminea y la recarga con agua superficial en b~rminos de extracci6n de agua subtemmea y calidad del agua; sugerir medidas para controlarlas.iii) Identificar las fuentes de contaminaci6n de las aguas superficiales y subterraneas y poner fin al deterioro de su calidad.iv) Comprender los Vlnculos que existen entre los grupos de usuarios de GWFMIS,los de FMIS que utilizan aguas superficiales y los organism os publicos y sugerir medidas para mejorar sus relaciones y desempeno.v) Desarrollar y comprobar en campo una estructura organizacional adecuada para el uso conjunto de aguas superficiales y subtemineas.vi) Estipular mecanismos de regulaci6n y control apropiados para controlar las napas freaticas y prevenir el revenimiento y la contaminaci6n.vii) Brindar capacitaci6n adecuada, tecnologia costo-efectiva, insumosapropiados y servicios de comercializaci6n y mdito.Aspectos ttknicos. Los prindpales temas tratados se agruparon de la siguiente manera: i) Evaluad6n del recurso;ii) Exploraci6n de aguas subterraneas;iii) Conservaci6n y manejo de las aguas subterraneas; y iv) Consideradones ambientales en la extracd6n de agua subteminea.Dados los aetuales metodos para la evaluad6n de aguas subterraneas y recolecd6n de datos, en la mayona de los paises los objetivos y el analisis de la evaluaci6n aSl como de la recolecci6n de datos no estan bien definidos. Ademas, casi todos los datos se recopilan a nivel macro y no pueden ser directamente aplicados a nivel micro por los agricultores, que son quienes mas los necesitan. Por 10 tanto, se recomienda 10 siguiente:Los objetivos de la recolecd6n de datos y la confecd6n de mapas de los recursos de agua subterranea al igual que los mecanismos de analisis de la informaci6n deben ser claramente definidos.No es sencillo para los agricultores a nivel de aculfero pequeno (a nivel de aldea) obtener los datos referidos a las aguas subterraneas y su evaluad6n. Se deben realizar esfuerzos para obtener datos a nivel de aculfero pequeno dentro de la unidad agro-eco16gica existente a traves de procedimientos costo-efectivos y aprovechando los conocimientos de los agricultores de la localidad. Tambien se deben establecer mecanismos para que los agricultores puedan acceder a los datos cuando los necesiten. Se debe promover la recolecci6n participativa de datos.Los datos existentes deben ser sintetizados; se debetratar de recolectar datos adidonales para llenar las brechas existentes; sedeben actuallzar la base de datos yanallzarlos para que puedan ser usados porlos agricultores, los organimsos publicos y los planificadores.Actualmente, los gobiemos de muchos paises dependen de expertos y de asistencia tecnica extranjera para desarrollar las bases de datos requeridas y evaluar sus recursos de agua subterranea. Es necesario desarrollar la capacidad local para hacerse cargo de estas tareas.Con respecto a laexplotaci6n de aguas subterraneas, se recomienda recurrir a la zonificaci6n establedendo en que areas solo se pueden hacer pozos, pocos profundos, en que areas solo se pueden permitir perforaciones de pozos profundos y en cuaIes se perrniten ambos tipos para extraer agua subterranea. En base a datosambientales pertinentes y zonas agro-ecol6gicas, se deben formular y difundir pautas apropiadas para la extracci6n de aguas subterraneas, que se adecuen a cada zona a traves de normas tecno16gicas para la extracci6n de esas aguas.Hubo una animada discusi6n respecto del uso de los dos tipos de pozos como mecanismos de extracci6n. Se expusieron razones a favor y en contra del uso de los profundos. Mientras se discutia el uso de estos, se identificaron dos temas prindpales. El primero se refiere a los existentes. Solo en Bangladesh hay mas de 30.000. Es necesario investigar el proceso y los resultados de la transferencia y del manejo a nivel local de estas perforaciones. Ademas, la mayona de dichas perforadones, por 10 general, son propiedad de unos pocos agricultores particulares quienes invariablemente gozan de una buena posici6n econ6mica. El segundo se relaciona con lainstalaci6n de nuevas perforadones. Se argument6 contra el empleo de bombas de turbina instaladas en las perforaciones. Se sostuvo tambien que, con estas I grandes perforaciones en areas con escasez de agua ---como son las areas de rocas duras---los niveles de agua subterranea estan descendiendo rapidamente, 10 que hace que innumerables propietarios de pozos poco profundos deban 0 bien profundizarlos 0 abandonarlos. Por consiguiente, es imperioso regular el uso de las perforaciones profundos en esas areas.Finalmente, se recomend6 adoptar un enfoque en tres etapas que, en primer lugar, ponga enfasis en los pozos poco profundos y en un manejo del agua subterranea destinado a estabilizar el nivel de depresion a una profundidad adecuada mediante la regulaci6n del uso de dichos pozos; segundo, preferir bombas instaladas en el fondo de los pozos poco profundos y, por ultimo, optar por perforaciones profundas en aquellos lugares donde otros metod os de extracci6n hayan fracasado 0 sean ineficientes.En 10 que respecta a conservaci6n y manejo de cuencas, se recomend6 que la unidad para la conservaci6n del agua subterranea sea el acuifero pequeno. Se sugiri6 llevar a cabo un estudio del balance hidrico del acuifero pequen6 para determinar el impacto del agua superficial en el agua subterranea y para disenar mecanismos de extracci6n adecuados.Para mejorar la eficiencia en el uso de las aguas subterraneas y manejarlas de manera sustentable, se sugiri6 10 siguiente: i) Brindar servicios adecuados;de extensi6n tecnica ti) Establecer unidades poderosas y bien organizadas para el mantenimiento de los equipos de extracci6n de aguas subterraneas;iii) Suministrar energia adecuadamente; y distribuirla iv) Diversificar cultivos para un uso eficiente del agua;v) Proporcionar facilidades de credito adecuadas;vi) Realizar un correctos; monitoreo y una evaluaci6n vii) Mejorar los sistemas de distribuci6n y el manejo del agua en el predio; y viii) Realizar investigaciones sobre la equidad de la distribuci6n.Con relaci6n a los aspectos ambientales, se recomienda que en todos los sistemas de riego, se controle la extracci6n y el uso de aguas subterraneas a fin de minimizar los problemas ambientales, tales como revenimiento y salinizaci6n, intrusi6n de agua de mar, disminuci6n de la productividad agricola, riesgos para la salud, deterioro de la calidad del agua subterranea por pesticidas y fertilizantes, hundimiento de tierras, etc. Se sugiri6, ademas, que era necesario mantener el equilibrio eco16gico para la sustentabilidad de los sistemas de riego que utilizan aguas subterraneas.Aspectos institucionales y organizacionales. Se identificaron seis temas funcionales:i) Aspectos politicos y legales;ii) Planificaci6n;iii) Participaci6n en los costos, movilizaci6n de recursos e inversiones; iv) Creaci6n de la infraestructura adecuada para la explotaci6n de aguas subterraneas;v) Manejo de la operaci6n y del mantenimiento; y vi) Producci6n y comercializaci6n agricola.Se sugirieron las siguientes estrategias para desarrollar mecanismos institucionales y organizacionales adecuados: i) Charlas sobre politicas ii) Organizaci6n de talleres iii) Pruebas piloto iv) Investigaciones Para los aspectos politicos y legales se recomend6 desarrollar las instituciones necesarias y formular politic as destinadas a: integrar el uso de aguas superficiales y subterraneas; asegurar mecanismos de regulaci6n, concediendo personeria juridica a las asociaciones de usuarios (AU), brindcindoles incentivos, haciendo participar a los agricultores sin tierras y sancionando energicas disposiciones legales que consideren al agua subterranea como un bien com un.La planificaci6n del agua subterranea requiere de una evaluaci6n de su potencial y de la demanda; de un decidido enfoque participativo que incorpore a los agricultores que se beneficien; del fortalecimiento de los organismos publicos, los ONGs Y AUs. Se sugiere hacer los arreglos necesarios para coordinar las actividades de todos ellos.Enlo que respecta al tema desuministroeinstalaci6n de equipos de extracci6n, se recomienda permitir la competencia en la adopci6n de tecnologias a fin de permitir la participaci6n deorganizaciones privadas en las actividades mencionadas precedentemente y de brindar la capacitaci6n necesaria a los AUs. Debe haber disposiciones legales que garanticen la disponibilidad de repuestos para los equipos importados.En el tema de manejo de O&M se recomienda tener en cuenta el manejo tanto del agua subteminea como de la tecnologia de extracci6n. Ademas, en aquellas areas que dispongan de agua superficial, es necesario recurrir al uso y manejo conjuntos. Si bien los beneficiarios son los responsables de la adecuada operaci6n y mantenimiento, los organismos publicos deben responsabilizarse por el adecuado suministro de energia.Conrelaci6nala producci6nagricola, se recomienda establecer instituciones adecuadas para la diversificaci6n de los cultivos y mecanismos crediticios y de comercializad6n. Es menester fomentar una estrecha colaboraci6n interministerial para tratar todo 10 referido a aguas subterraneas, agricultura y otros temas afines.Aspectos socio-econ6micos. Si la agricultura irrigada con agua subterranea ha de ser econ6micamente viable, la extracci6n y el uso de aguas subterraneas deben estar efectivamente integrados en la macroeconomia nacional. Al respecto, el grupo consider6 importantes los siguientes puntos: i) La infraestructura debe estar disponible. Algunas de las areas que debieran estar correctamente desarrolladas son: electrificaci6n rural, serVlClOS de transporte y almacenamiento, suministro de equipos y repuestos, agroindustrias, un marco legal y administrativo para el uso y manejo de las aguas subtemineas y la estabilizaci6n de las tasas de cambio.ii) La politica de precios debe actualizarse. Se recomienda brindar un subsidio selectivo para los equipos de pozos de riego, precios adecuados para aguas superficiales y subterraneas, energia, insumos y productos y formular reformas a las politicas crediticias.iii) Debe considerarse la interacci6n de aguas subtemineas y superficiales para un uso conjunto 6ptimo.IV) Equidad. Se recomienda efectuar un seguimiento de las equidades regionales, sociales, intergeneracionales y de genero y orientar hacia grupos especificoslos beneficios del riego con agua subterranea.v) Arreglos institucionales. Se recomienda promover los mercados de agua. Sin embargo, tambien es necesario crear y consoli dar instituciones para ayudar a regular las actividades de compradores y vendedores de agua. Es necesario contar con instituciones que permitan un eficiente uso y manejo conjuntos.Otras recomendaciones. Las siguientes recomendacionesseentrecruzan con los temas ya mencionados. Las mismas surgieron en la ultima sesi6n plenaria: i) El agua subterranea debe ser considerada como un bien comun. Un marco legal unificado debe integrar a las aguas superficiales ysubterraneas. Todas las perso nas, inc1uso quienes no poseen tierras, deben tener derechosinalineables alagua parabeber ycon finesreligiosos en primer lugar, seguidos por los usos agricolas e industriales, en order jerarquico. EI agua subterranea debe considerarse como un bien legalmente comercializable sujeto a regulaci6n para evitar la sobreexplotaci6n. EI uso del agua subterranea debe planificarse en forma conjunta con el del agua superficial.ii)Las perforaciones profundas son costosas y, por 10 general, son administradas por los grandes agricultores. Es necesario que existan mecanismos institucionales adecuados antes de que esta tecnologia comience a aplicarse.iii) Prohibir las perforaciones profundas no es una solud6n factible, pero su uso debe regularse a traves de disposiciones institucionales locales viables. iv) Los peones que no posean tierras deben tener prioridad para manejar pozos de manera sustentable.v) Algunos acufferos abarcan mas de un pais (por ejemplo, el acuffero del Ganges). Es necesario realizar esfuerzos a nivel regional para evaluar el potencial y la interconexi6n del agua subterranea.vi) Las politicas estatales referidas al manejo del agua subteminea deben apuntar no solo al propietario individual de una bomba sino tambien a la red de pozos que interactuen en el presente 0 en el futuro.vii) La propiedad de los pozos puede ser indi vidual, pero las comunidades de un area deben organizarse y tener el derecho de tomar decisiones sobre nuevas inversiones individuales en pozos dentro de su area . Todos los propietarios de pozos deben adoptar tecnologias de conservacion. Es necesario adquirirenforma grupal y distribuir la energia entre estos propietarios y hacer cumplir el cobro I la devolucion de los prestamos que les hayan sido acordados.viii) Las caracteristicas de los acuiferos y las velocidades de recarga varian mucho incluso dentro de areas pequenas; por 10 tanto, las politicas estatales deben disenarse\" a medica\" seglin las condiciones de cada zona ecologica (es decir, de cada region que cuente con agua subterranea). Las politicas nacionales generales 0 las politicas estatales para areas con gran heterogeneidad ecologica tienden a ser ineficientes y conducen a un derroche de capital del estado cuando existen subsidios directos.ix) Cuando el costo del bombeo exceda los limites dados a conocer y acordados localmente, se debe suspender todo otro credito oficial para inversiones extractivas: Jirofundizaci6n de pozos, electrificacion de bombas, construcci6n de nuevos pozos, etc.x) La elecci6n de tecnologia debe ser tal que se prefiera a los equipos pequenos para extracci6n de agua subterranea cuando el recurso 10 permita. Si existe agua subterranea a poca profundidad, se debe prom over el uso de pozos pocoprofundos antes que de perforaciones mayores. ","tokenCount":"3392"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3e300d6622790fa64315b4b1951e319b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/eba5febf-cc61-4274-823b-9557a6a84036/retrieve","id":"993501195"},"keywords":["Pandemic","Conflict","Peacebuilding","Risk-adapted strategies","Cooperation"],"sieverID":"9c308873-735d-4883-995d-a86f4277b422","pagecount":"17","content":"National and international cooperation and development projects (CDP) are fundamental for peacebuilding. However, unforeseen global crises, like COVID-19, can endanger such projects, requiring rapid adaption. In Colombia, the coronavirus outbreak threatens to slow the implementation of peace-related projects, while simultaneously violence over control and ownership of land increases. Although the mid-to long-term consequences for peacebuilding are unknown, exploring riskadapted strategies of national and international CDP can help identify crucial aspects for future processes and implementations. This study explores the key challenges and coping strategies of implementing agencies and stakeholders to COVID-19, thus helping to derive and improve risk-adapted strategies. After reviewing academic and grey literature, and implementing a semi-structured survey, peacebuilding riskedadapted strategies to COVID-19 are explored with respect to conflict-affected and vulnerable areas of Colombia. Findings show that increasing complexity rooted in top down governmental measures, the rise of new local power relations (e.g. armed groups, illicit activities), and social alienation are negatively affecting peacebuildingNational and international cooperation and development projects (CDP) play a fundamental role in peacebuilding processes (Fischhendler and Tenenboim-Weinblatt 2019;Amego Korbla Penu and Wellington Essaw 2019;Lemon and Pinet 2018;Jaruma 2013). Managing CDPs, challenging under normal circumstances, requires agility and flexibility when confronting unforeseen global emergencies, like the outbreak of coronavirus . Without rapidly adapting management approaches, CDP might be endangered. UNDP (2020) notes the impact of COVID-19 is likely to be worse in conflict-affected countries, where past and present vulnerabilities in health and governance could be amplified, thus exacerbating violence.Further, seven of the ten most-vulnerable countries to pandemics are in conflict zones (Moore et al. 2017), places where cross-cutting and chronic dimensions of violence, like illicit markets, unemployment, economic disparities between regions, marginalisation, displacement, exploitation, conflicts over local issues, lack of access to public services (e.g. health, infrastructures), and corruption increase risks and the duration of conflicts (Sánchez-Zamora et al. 2017;Flores and Vargas 2018). Yet, health, humanitarian, and cooperation strategies should be stimulated simultaneously to sustain the most vulnerable during the pandemic-like displaced populations-to both the virus itself and those measures enacted to fight it (San Lau et al. 2020).The forthcoming COVID-19 depression could result in funding cuts to peace operations, endangering their ability to achieve benchmarks, while hampering critical peacebuilding actions like the protection of civilians, protection of social leaders, financial support to ex-combats, and the protection of key infrastructure (Garzón et al. 2020). Reduced funding can also affect local organizations based on projects. Furthermore, the shrinking of peace related budgets limits CDP capacity to hire highly-qualified personal if not keep pre-COVID-19 personnel employed. CDP support to governments, institutions, and conflict parties is likely to be limited in the mid-to long-term (de Coning 2020; Dorussen 2020). At the administrative level, COVID-related constraints oblige peacebuilding CDP organizations to shift to an \"essential\" frame of mind, forcing a re-examination of activities and interventions, while identifying new threats developing alongside the pandemic and evolving governmental measures. This is challenging due to the multiple and changing faces of the COVID-19 pandemic. Among other aspects, coordinating activities is difficult due to poor internet access, low penetration of mobile networks, electricity cuts, and digital illiteracy in conflict-affected rural areas. In this context, additional funds are being requested to invest in online communication and information systems (Ansorg and Strasheim 2020).In Colombia, the COVID-19 pandemic is worsening the underlying roots of conflicts, especially in rural contexts beset with unsecure land distribution, poor access to public services, and high levels of inequalities (Peace Direct 2020). In some places, physical and psychological violence is increasing, especially against social, indigenous and environmental leaders, former guerrillas and Venezuelan migrants (Sandoval et al. 2020). Besides, public health measures, including social distancing, lockdowns, and public virtual attendance, trigger delays, slowing the implementation of the 2016 peace agreement between Colombia's government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Two immediate consequences exist: First, scarce human and financial governmental capacities show that they are failing to control and monitor isolated and remote regions endowed with natural resources. This not only facilitates the expansion of the drug trafficking business, but is also multiplying practices of violence such as forced recruitment, displacement, land grabbing, and deforestation (Garzón et al. 2020). Second, the COVID-19 outbreak reveals emerging obstacles to the effective implementation of governmental peacebuilding strategies, such as the Programs of Development with a Territorial Focus or Programas de Desarrollo con Enfoque Territorial (PDET) or the Municipal and Departmental Development Plans (rural roads, productive and community infrastructure, schools, health facilities, etc.). The lack of funding, the low degrees of political and policy processes at the regional and local level, methodological inconsistencies in the design of participatory approaches and the increased violence against community leaders are preventing the effective implementations of these programs and their cooperation with CDPs.Notwithstanding these developments, COVID-19 also provides opportunities to promote peace and to advance peacebuilding. Examples include the global ceasefire campaigns (United Nations Press 2020), the immediate impacts on environmental and climate change resulting from lockdowns (e.g. exceptional drops in carbon dioxide emissions) (Eufemia and Hussein 2020), community-based initiatives (e.g. indigenous COVID-19 prevention and containment, focusing on voluntary collective isolation and contact-tracing) (Kaplan et al. 2020), reorientation of ex-guerrilla combatants' productive projects (e.g., from textile production to mask manufacturing), and the use of ICT in transitional justice processes (UN 2020). Although the veracity, impact, and transferability of these advances is unclear, the visible manifestation of the COVID-19 crisis in post conflict scenarios reflect increased complexities and changes in peacebuilding scenarios that also affect the planning and functioning of CDPs.By investigating the key challenges and coping strategies of implementing agencies and stakeholders to COVID-19, the main aims of this work are to find (i) how CDPs adapt to perceived risks, central government management plans, and funding agency requirements; and (ii) which impact the pandemic has on peacebuilding and corresponding CDP responses. In the following sections, we present our methodology formed by the case study areas and the semi-structured interviews, the results visualizing the main findings, followed by the discussion that addresses key insights against the current situation of both the peacebuilding endeavour and the COVID-19 crisis. Finally, the conclusion summarizes the whole content and it offers suggestions to improved risk-adapted strategies.Since the 2016 peace agreement, Colombia's peacebuilding process has experienced numerous and complex challenges and changes of power structures regarding land use and ownership; resulting risks include the strengthening of old and new armed groups (Graser et al. 2020). For this reason, our methodological take includes territoriality, as we develop a visualization of conflict-affect areas. We investigate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on national and international CDPs, targeting projects in some of the most conflict-affected and vulnerable areas of Colombia. Fig. 1 overlays the \"Areas Most Affected by Armed Conflict\" (ZOMAC), as listed in governmental decree n. 1650 on October 9, 2017 (Republic of Colombia 2017), with the applied 10 surveys, addressing 13 CDPs implemented across multiple regions as shown by dots (a complete list is in the Appendix), including 7 large (with a budget of over 1 million C), 3 medium (with a budget less than 1 million C and K Fig. 1 ZOMAC and applied surveys. (Source: Adapted from © ZOMAC, Sistema Informativo del Gobierno de la Republica de Colombia-SIG) implemented at a national scale), and 3 small (with a budget less than 1 million C and implemented at a local scale) projects.A list of running CDPs was obtained through internet and institutional networks. Emails and phone calls with key actors evaluated their willingness to participate. An interview protocol was developed to guide semi-structured interviews with project managers and stakeholders of Colombian CDPs. The questionnaire comprises four main blocks: (i) context: expertise (e.g. peace-related, national, and international) gender, and age; (ii) information about the reference CDP: scale (e.g. local, regional, or national), duration, approximate funding, project role, and project team; (iii) the perceived impact of COVID-19 on project implementation: immediate perception of issue extent, proximity, immediate responses, first effects, and perception regarding governmental responses at all levels (local, regional, and national), as well as of funding agencies and direct donors; and (iv) risk-adapted strategies: evaluation of existing strategies, adoption of new strategies and assets, and the future outlook on desirable risk-adapted strategies. Survey participation was voluntary and personal data kept anonymous. While using qualitative methods to categorize each block, quantitative approaches were used for descriptive statistics to present numeric values. In total, 10 interviews were conducted, addressing the work of 13 CDPs, covering most ZOMAC. The interviews were conducted in Spanish via phone or skype, each lasting between forty-five minutes and two hours. Each interview was recorded for further data analysis.Relevant findings concerning COVID-19 impacts, CDP responses, and risk-adapted strategies are collected in blocks (iii) and (iv) of the survey (see 2.2 Methods, Step 2. Survey). Tables 1 and 2 present the key interfaces and relations. Grey boxes indicate overlapping perceptions between large, medium, and small CDPs.The analysis of CDP responses and risk-adapted strategies offers critical perspectives about peacebuilding. In discussing survey results, we highlight key challenges and coping strategies of implementing agencies and stakeholders. Using peacebuilding theories, we focus on specific world experiences (e.g., COVID-19) and its aspects (Heft 1997). Sample composition-affect by finite time and financial capacity-is the main study limitation. Only a few medium and small CDPs were involved. Additionally, with the continuous development of the pandemic, perceptions are changing rapidly. Thus, the results may be biased. Another possible limitation relates to the degree to which our analysis tends to generalize. For example, most of our data regards local perspectives and sample size is small. Thus, results might not translate or be transferrable to a broader context. A larger sample size across more regions, a more heterogeneous set of stakeholders, and the inclusion of donors' perspectives could have strengthened this work.The perspectives and approaches of implementing agencies and stakeholders show similarities and differences. Our findings show universally substantial impacts of COVID-19 on CDPs. While project self-evaluation remains positive before and during the pandemic for large and medium CDPs, small CDPs are negatively affected. Further, the initial perceptions of large and medium CDPs included elements of surprise and scepticism, while small CDPs responded with immediate collective paranoia, especially with respect to the health emergency. Because COVID-19 stands out for its speed of spread, driven by today's global society, remote rural communities, where small CDPs are implemented, may feel more exposed due to its lack of health services and infrastructure. Historically, poor law-implementation, limited state presence, weak implementations of conflict-prevention measures (e.g. conflict early warning and response mechanisms), high corruption, and inequitable access to services and resources are conditions that make addressing COVID-19 even more challenging (Jayawickreme et al. 2017;Quinn 2016;Rossi et al. 2006). Ultimately, K globalization's negative consequences primarily affect the poor and marginalized in developing countries (Jenkins 2005).As a result, internal adaptation plans included both the interruption, in some cases preventatively (e.g. small CDPs), and/or the transformation of CDP. Under COVID-19, most projects shifted field activities from physical to virtual. While, some cases demonstrate how CDPs in rural areas can transform and continue, supported by governmental incentives, social cohesion and new conflicts may arise from \"digital fatigue\", electricity cuts, and the lack of internet access. Although increased misinformation sharing is a problem rooted in increased internet access, mental disorders are also caused by physical distancing and social/community isolation (Burgess and Fonseca 2020;Islam et al. 2020;Monteith et al. 2020).Informal measures are re-shaping power relations at the local level with the rise of new and old armed groups contending territorial control (e.g. access entry-exit). Paramilitary and criminal groups are expanding their influence in rural areas, further exploiting natural resources and pursuing illicit activities (e.g. drug production). With the excuse of lockdowns, the consolidation of territorial control increases the vulnerability of civil society and, in particular, those in indigenous communities (Sandoval et al. 2020). Two aspects of trust are emerging: a renewed internal trust in rural community (e.g. solidarity) and a decreasing trust toward institutions and their measures. The latter represent external adaptation components that continue to be enacted. CDPs perceive a top down, central system that delegates functions to regional and local governments, providing funding to assist the most vulnerable communities. In most cases, actions promoted by the central government are perceived negatively, increasing bureaucracy that overlaps with perceived increases in (institutional) corruption, environmental deterioration, food insecurity, human rights violations, and violence against social and environmental leaders.While large CDPs have greater financial and human capacities to meet such challenges, relocate funds, and implement biosecurity programs, especially in rural contexts, great resilience is also shown by medium and small CDPs, which find creative ways to cope with reduced field activities. Yet, government responses actually increase the complexity of the emergency situation by adding multiple challenges that directly affect the peace, thus hindering direct and indirect protection mechanisms against violence.Because of lockdown, social alienation might be the main component undermining CDP peacebuilding efforts. Empirical studies show that COVID-19 lockdown measures are affecting mental health and collective trauma (Montoya 2020;Van Bavel et al. 2020); especially problematic for existing post conflict communities. Further, COVID-19 is perceived as negatively affecting Colombian peacebuilding. These challenges and changes in power relations reflect a centralized system unable to support those who are most marginalized, threating CDPs located in rural, remote areas.Most CDPs are optimistic about the continuation of activities and funds for development and cooperation. Small CDPs are less optimistic, since they face new structural approaches for project implementation. Our findings show that, in times of emergency, learning opportunities arise. First, schemes for territorial planning to foster environmental projects need reconsideration. An increasing literature argues that sustainable development is the only way to achieve long lasting peace (Holden et al. 2017;Mansell and Tremblay 2013;Rieckmann 2017). Second, in facing the forthcoming COVID-19 depression, investments in private-public cooperation to sustain small-and medium-scale economic activities is needed, especially in rural areas. Third, strategies for preventing and controlling future pandemics are needed.Future ideas for CDP risk-adapted strategies include creating new categories of unpredictable externalities (e.g. reorganize priorities based on local needs and interests), educational and pedagogical tools, as well as specific biosecurity protocols for locals. From a local perspective, increasing investments in environmental and conservation projects (e.g. biodiversity and environmental services as prevention mechanisms to future pandemics) is perceived as a key coping strategy that encourages peacebuilding and the implementation of CDPs in times of unexpected externalities.Finally, the development of project strategies that address risks and uncertainty can be better guided by social learning processes. In this sense, social learning facilitates the integration of different kinds of knowledge (Wals 2007), especially when collectively deciding on actions to cope with crisis situations, unpredictable externalities, or future uncertainty. As proposed by Morin (2002), learning to confront uncertainty is essential knowledge for the future.This work highlights key challenges and coping strategies of implementing agencies and stakeholders during the COVID-19 pandemic. The increasing complexity caused by top down governmental measures, effective or not, along with the rise of new local level power relations (e.g. armed groups, illicit activities, environmental deterioration etc.) and social alienation are negatively affecting peacebuilding in Colombia. Remote rural communities (e.g. where small CDPs are implemented) are the most exposed due to the lack of infrastructure (e.g. health services, presence of the state, electricity etc.) and their historic vulnerability (in case they are economically autonomous). Further, the increasing erosion of trust between locals and institutions, along with food insecurity and expected unemployment scenarios due to the COVID-19 depression will not only increase the risk of violence and social unrest, but also the survival of CDPs. In the midst of a crisis, policies and economic efforts should target rural contexts, where peace is most at stake; supporting initiatives historically carried by CDPs such as ceasefires, the mutual assistance and intercommunity cooperation; thus preventing immediate violence and contributing to a construction of more lasting peace in the future. While investments in privatepublic cooperation and in environmental projects are perceived as key coping strategies against COVID-19, future implications for peace and peacebuilding remain unclear. Thus, further research and monitoring approaches are needed.ture Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) supports this initiative on the basis of a decision adopted by the German Bundestag (https://www.international-climate-initiative.com/). Funding Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4. 0/. K","tokenCount":"2821"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c0230d0aec8c59dae30db6d939da4e2d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/1178bcae-fdaf-406a-90c3-ea0b8e679ad3/retrieve","id":"262360681"},"keywords":["Plant descriptors 9","Abiotic stress susceptibility 10","Biotic stress susceptibility 11","Biochemical markers 12","Molecular markers 13","Cytological characters 14","Identified genes"],"sieverID":"f5bcd8e7-31b6-4821-9523-8a553e0923b5","pagecount":"66","content":"Inte rn a ti o n a l P la n t Ge netic R e s o u r c e s In s ti tu teIPGRI now uses the following definitions in genetic resources documentation:Passport descriptors: These provide the basic information used for the general management of the accession (including the registration at the genebank and other identification information) and describe parameters that should be observed when the accession is originally collected.Management descriptors: These provide the basis for the management of accessions in the genebank and assist with their multiplication and regeneration.Environment and site descriptors: These describe the environmental and site-specific parameters that are important when characterization and evaluation trials are held. They can be important for the interpretation of the results of those trials. Site descriptors for germplasm collecting are also included here.Characterization descriptors: These enable an easy and quick discrimination between phenotypes. They are generally highly heritable, can be easily seen by the eye and are equally expressed in all environments. In addition, these may include a limited number of additional traits thought desirable by a consensus of users of the particular crop.Evaluation descriptors: Many of the descriptors in this category are susceptible to environmental differences but are generally useful in crop improvement and others may involve complex biochemical or molecular characterization. They include yield, agronomic performance, stress susceptibilities and biochemical and cytological traits.Characterization will normally be the responsibility of genebank curators, while evaluation will typically be carried out elsewhere (possibly by a multidisciplinary team of scientists). The evaluation data should be fed back to the genebank which will maintain a data file.The following internationally accepted norms for the scoring, coding and recording of descriptor states should be followed:(a) the Système International d'Unités (SI system) is used;(b) the units to be applied are given in square brackets following the descriptor name;(c) standard colour charts, e.g. Royal Horticultural Society Colour Chart, Methuen Handbook of Colour, or Munsell Color Chart for Plant Tissues, are strongly recommended for all ungraded colour characters (the precise chart used should be specified in the section where it is used);(d) many quantitative characters which are continuously variable are recorded on a 1-9 scale, where:1 Very low 6 Intermediate to high 2 Very low to low 7 High 3 Low 8 High to very high 4 Low to intermediate 9 Very high 5 Intermediate is the expression of a character. The authors of this list have sometimes described only a selection of the states, e.g. 3, 5 and 7 for such descriptors. Where this has occurred, the full range of codes is available for use by extension of the codes given or by interpolation between them, e.g. in Section 10 (Biotic stress susceptibility) 1 = very low susceptibility and 10 = very high susceptibility;(e) when a descriptor is scored using a 1-9 scale, such as in (d), '0' would be scored when (i) the character is not expressed; (ii) a descriptor is inapplicable. In the following example, '0' will be recorded if an accession does not have a central leaf lobe:Shape of central leaf lobe 3 Toothed 5 Elliptic 7 Linear (f) absence/presence of characters is scored as in the following example:Absence/presence of terminal leaflet 0 Absent 1 (or +) Present (g) blanks are used for information not yet available;(h) for accessions which are not generally uniform for a descriptor (e.g. mixed collection, genetic segregation), the mean and standard deviation could be reported where the descriptor is continuous. Where the descriptor is discontinuous, several codes in the order of frequency could be recorded; or other publicized methods can be utilized, such as Rana et al. (1991) or van Hintum (1993), that clearly state a method for scoring heterogeneous accessions;(i) dates should be expressed numerically in the format YYYYMMDD, where YYYY -4 digits to represent the year MM -2 digits to represent the month DD -2 digits to represent the day.This number serves as a unique identifier for accessions and is assigned when an accession is entered into the collection. Once assigned this number should never be reassigned to another accession in the collection. Even if an accession is lost, its assigned number should never be re-used. Letters should be used before the number to identify the genebank or national system (e.g. IDG indicates an accession that comes from the genebank at Bari, Italy; CGN indicates an accession from the genebank at Wageningen, The Netherlands; PI indicates an accession within the USA system). Any additional information may be specified hereCollecting institute(s) Name and address of the institute(s) and individuals collecting/sponsoring the collection of the sample(s)Site number Number assigned to the physical site by the collectorCollecting number (1.1) Original number assigned by the collector(s) of the sample, normally composed of the name or initials of the collector(s) followed by a number. This item is essential for identifying duplicates held in different collections. It should be unique and always accompany subsamples wherever they are sent.Collecting date of original sample [YYYYMMDD] (1.3)(1.4) Name of the country in which the sample was collected. Use the three-letter abbreviations from the International Standard (ISO) Codes for the representation of names of countries, No. 3166, 4th Edition. Copies of these are available from DIN: Deutsche Institut für Normung e.V., D-10772 Berlin, Germany;Tel. 30-2601Tel. 30- -2860;;Fax 30-2601-1231, Tlx. 184 273-din-d. Province/State (1.5) Name of the primary administrative subdivision of the country in which the sample was collectedDepartment/County Name of the secondary administrative subdivision (within a Province/State) of the country in which the sample was collectedLocation of collecting site (1.6) Distance in kilometers and direction from the nearest town, village or map grid reference point (e.g. CURITIBA 7S means 7 km south of Curitiba)Latitude of collecting site (1.9) Degrees and minutes followed by N (North) or S (South) (e.g. 1030S). Missing data (minutes) should be indicated with hyphen (e.g. 10-S).(1.8) Degrees and minutes followed by E (East) or W (West) (e.g. 07625W). Missing data (minutes) should be indicated with hyphen (e.g. 076-W).(1.7) Information on associated biotic and abiotic stresses and the accession's reaction. Specify stresses in descriptor 2.27 Collector's notes.Additional information recorded by the collector or any specific information on any state in any of the above descriptors  Site (research institute)Degrees and minutes followed by N (North) or S (South) (e.g. 1030S). Missing data (minutes) should be indicated with hyphen (e.g. 10-S).Degrees and minutes followed by E (East) or W (West) (e.g. 07625 W). Missing data (minutes) should be indicated with hyphen (e.g. 076-W). The landform refers to the shape of the land surface in the area in which the site is located (adapted from FAO 1990) Estimated slope of the siteThe direction that the slope on which the accession was collected faces. Describe the direction with symbols N, S, E, W (e.g. a slope that faces a southwestern direction has an aspect of SW)  The following descriptors will be recorded at planting In each case, it is important to state the origin of the infestation or infection, i.e. natural, field inoculation, laboratory. Record such information in descriptor 10.4 Notes. These are coded on a susceptibility scale from 1 to 9, viz.:1  This list of multicrop passport descriptors has been developed jointly by IPGRI and FAO to provide consistent coding schemes for common passport descriptors across crops. These descriptors aim to be compatible with future IPGRI crop descriptor lists and with the descriptors to be used for the FAO World Information and Early Warning System (WIEWS) on plant genetic resources.The list should NOT be regarded as a minimum descriptor list, since many additional passport descriptors are essential for the description of crops and need to be recorded. This document lists an initial set of common passport descriptors at the multicrop level. At a later stage the list could be expanded with additional multicrop descriptors. For example, descriptors dealing with the use of germplasm are currently not included, but their suitability for inclusion at the multicrop level will be investigated. Future expansion could even result in the development of more specialized lists of common descriptors at the crop group level.Printed here is the latest version of the list (1997) which contains two sections. The latter one (FAO WIEWS DESCRIPTORS) lists a number of optional descriptors used in the FAO WIEWS. The list provides descriptions of content and coding schemes, but also provides suggested fieldnames (in parentheses) that can assist in the computerized exchange of this type of data.Institute code (INSTCODE) Code of the institute where the accession is maintained. The codes consist of the 3-letter ISO 3166 country code of the country where the institute is located plus number or an acronym as specified in the Institute database that will be made available by FAO. Preliminary codes (i.e. codes not yet incorporated in the FAO Institute database) start with an asterisk followed by a 3-letter ISO 3166 country code and an acronym.This number serves as a unique identifier for accessions and is assigned when an accession is entered into the collection. Once assigned this number should never be reassigned to another accession in the collection. Even if an accession is lost, its assigned number should never be reused. Letters should be used before the number to identify the genebank or national system (e.g. IDG indicates an accession that comes from the genebank at Bari, Italy; CGN indicates an accession from the genebank at Wageningen, The Netherlands; PI indicates an accession within the USA system).Collecting number (COLLNUMB) Original number assigned by the collector(s) of the sample, normally composed of the name or initials of the collector(s) followed by a number. This item is essential for identifying duplicates held in different collections. It should be unique and always accompany subsamples wherever they are sent.Genus (GENUS) Genus name for taxon. Initial uppercase letter required.Species (SPECIES) Specific epithet portion of the scientific name in lowercase letters plus authority 1 . Following abbreviation is allowed: \"sp.\" 6. Subtaxa (SUBTAXA) Subtaxa can be used to store any additional taxonomic identifier plus authority 1 . Following abbreviations are allowed: \"ssp.\" (for subspecies); \"var.\" (for variety); \"convar.\" (for convariety); \"f.\" (for form).Accession name (ACCNAME) Either a registered or other formal designation given to the accession. First letter uppercase. Multiple names separated with semicolon.Country of origin (ORIGCTY) Name of the country in which the sample was originally collected or derived. Use the ISO 3166 extended codes, (i.e. current and old 3 letter ISO 3166 country codes) 9.Location of collecting site (COLLSITE) Location information below the country level that describes where the accession was collected starting with the most detailed information. Might include the distance in kilometers and direction from the nearest town, village or map grid reference point, (e.g. CURITIBA 7S, PARANA means 7 km south of Curitiba in the state of Parana) 10. Latitude of collecting site (LATITUDE) Degrees and minutes followed by N (North) or S (South) (e.g. 1030S). Missing data (minutes) should be indicated with hyphen (e.g. 10-S).Location of safety duplicates (DUPLSITE) Code of the institute where a safety duplicate of the accession is maintained. The codes consist of 3-letter ISO 3166 country code of the country where the institute is located plus number or an acronym as specified in the Institute database that will be made available by FAO. Preliminary codes (i.e. codes not yet incorporated in the FAO Institute database) start with an asterisk followed by a 3-letter ISO 3166 country code and an acronym. Multiple numbers can be added and should be separated with a semicolon.Availability ","tokenCount":"1898"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2ef13cc7578384173147caea71d22f25","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/87a2e44c-ecbe-4f4e-b885-d460e516989b/retrieve","id":"-2036306341"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d4831c17-a1d5-4dcf-bdd8-f562f486b79e","pagecount":"4","content":"Rift Valley fever (RVF), a viral zoonosis found in sub-Saharan Africa, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, causes abortion and stillbirth in livestock and can cause serious conditions such as haemorrhagic fever and encephalitis in humans. ILRI's work, implemented in collaboration with multiple stakeholders, aims to identify key drivers for RVF occurrence and transmission, and develop decision support tools to guide responses at various stages of the RVF epidemic cycle. Developed following the last devastating outbreak, which occurred in Kenya in 2006-07, these research outputs are designed to enable decision-makers to take timely, evidence-based decisions to prevent and control RVF epidemics, reducing the impacts of the disease. In particular, the decision support tool has been incorporated in the Kenyan government's RVF Contingency Plan, and local governments in Kenya regularly use outputs from ILRI's work to assess their level of preparedness.Rift Valley fever (RVF) is a mosquito-borne viral disease that affects sheep, goats, cattle and camels, causing stillbirth and abortion. Humans can also become infected through direct contact with acutely infected animals or contaminated tissues, or through mosquito bites. In people, the disease manifests itself as a mild, influenza-like illness in the majority of cases (over 80%). However, it can also cause more serious conditions marked by haemorrhagic fever, encephalitis, or retinitis (Soumare et al. 2012).• Rift Valley fever, endemic to Africa, was first reported in the Arabian Peninsula in 2000.The last major RVF outbreak in 2006-7 cost the Kenyan economy around US$32 million• Sheep appear to be more susceptible than cattle or camels; over 90% of lambs infected with RVF die, whereas mortality among adult sheep can be as low as 10%.The public health burden of RVF during the 2006-7 outbreak in humans household costs was about US$120 for every human case reported.• A worldwide investment in One Health, including for RVF and also other zoonotic diseases, of US$25 billion a year for 10 years could generate benefits worth at least US$125 billion per year.RVF epidemics typically occur after a period of abovenormal, persistent rainfall, and have significant impacts on both human health and livestock production; it is estimated that the 2006-07 outbreak in Kenya led to losses valued at US$32 million (Rich and Wanyoike, 2010). However, such epidemics are also relatively uncommon, occurring on average once every ten years. This makes it difficult for governments to develop clear interventions in the face of an outbreak after a period of no visible cases (Martin et al., 2008). Between epidemics, there is usually a decline in the levels of awareness, and resources are often shifted to other more pressing challenges.For those seeking to protect animals and people from RVF, the task is complicated by the fact that the virus can be found in several host species (including livestock and wildlife) and can be transmitted by a range of mosquito species. It is also thought that the geographical range of the disease is expanding and that any future outbreaks that take place in newly affected areas are likely to have more devastating impacts, compared to those in areas that have had multiple exposures.As a zoonosis, RVF belongs to the 60% of human diseases that are also carried by animals, and are capable of being passed from animal to human. When it comes to controlling these diseases, many believe that traditional divisions between human and animal health are counterproductive, and instead advocate an approach known as 'One Health', which includes greater cooperation and sharing of services, such as laboratories and monitoring. RVF research has always used the One Health framework.In addressing a complex challenge such as RVF, research has needed to be carried out in progressive and incremental stages, each designed to address specific problems. Building on these research activities, ILRI has worked with Kenya's Department of Veterinary Services and other stakeholders to refine their national RVF Contingency Plan. Importantly, this calls for results of livestock monitoring to be provided to human health workers, and for relevant information on human health to be shared with livestock authorities. Encouragingly, the decision support tool developed by ILRI and its partners now forms a chapter of the Contingency Plan, defining activities that ought to be implemented at various stages of an RVF epidemic cycle. The tool has also been used at the regional level to inform the development of standard methods and procedures for managing RVF, under a project managed by the African Union Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR).Recently, outputs of the mathematical model demonstrating optimal periods for vaccinating cattle and sheep were reviewed in a stakeholders' forum. The participants offered practical suggestions which are being used to develop the model into a more useful tool for assessing RVF interventions. This, and similar models, will aid decisionmaking on control strategies, helping to ensure that the disease can be effectively managed. Hazard maps produced by the ILRI research team have also been used to guide interventions such as risk-based surveillance and the placement of sentinel herds.Evidence of impact ILRI's work on RVF is designed to enable public health and animal health officials to replace the current 'all or nothing' approach to RVF monitoring and control with a risk-based approach. Given that RVF epidemics recur after a long period of time (and in fact none has occurred after the recent one in 2006-07 when RVF decision support tools were developed), it is difficult to judge the impact of this research work on disease incidence and impacts on livelihoods. However, table-top simulations of outbreaks that are periodically conducted in the region by local governments often use the outputs from ILRI research (e.g. RVF decision support tool, risk maps) to assess their levels of preparedness. The Kenya Directorate of Veterinary Services is also using ILRI's sentinel flocks for their own surveillance needs.In February 2012, ILRI hosted a multi-stakeholder workshop for eastern African partners in order to review its RVF research strategy, explore potential collaborations and discuss options for controlling the disease. The participants identified a number of research gaps, including the need for climate models and a vector profile, to enable the mapping of most affected and high risk areas and better understand how the disease interacts between livestock and wildlife. In addition, a cost-benefit analysis of vaccination, vector control, surveillance, and sanitary measures was scheduled. Results from this analysis will give much needed evidence to support the creation of policies and strategies for appropriate surveillance, prevention and control of RVF in eastern Africa.The ","tokenCount":"1063"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c842b1093af4ce0633474dec888ddbfc","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/99c3effa-8ee2-45d2-bc00-b65fc19d588f/retrieve","id":"-1539439024"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"765bc572-ba5c-46ae-a4dd-4947a071a1fb","pagecount":"20","content":"This study was conducted in Remera cell, Boneza sector, Rutsiro District in Western Province of Rwanda. The main objective was to characterize the crop-livestock farming system using the Feed Assessment Tool (FEAST). Focus group discussions (FGD) and individual farmer interviews were conducted with the aid of semi-structured questionnaires for data collection. The FDG involved a total of 15 participants comprising eight female and seven male farmers. In Rutsiro District, animals are kept under a zero-grazing system with cut and carry feeding method. The availability of feed in Rutsiro District is limited due to poor quality feeds, poor knowledge on using locally available feeds and climate change, leading to a shortage of feed for animals during droughts. The area has challenges in low genetic merit of dairy stock, water problems in the dry season, animal diseases and low milk prices.1. MINAGRI (Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources). 2012. Strategy and investment plan for small animal industry in Rwanda. Kigali, Rwanda: MINAGRI.Rutsiro District is one of the seven districts located 150 km from Kigali and making up the Western Province. The altitude of the district varies between 1,400 metres at the edge of Lake Kivu and 2,600 metres beyond the top of Mount Crete at the Congo-Nile divide. It is located at -1°57'36'' latitude and 29°23'22'' longitude. This diversity offers the opportunity to grow a multitude of crops suitable for each climate zone. Farmers in Rutsiro District practice livestock farming with species such as cows and small ruminants (Table 1). Local breeds with very low productivity make up the majority of livestock kept by farmers. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) through RDDP has the objective to improve the livestock production system in 12 districts in Rwanda, Rutsiro being among the selected districts (Figure 1). Rutsiro was chosen due to its high livestock population density and potential to produce more milk. Currently, livestock production is one of the fastest growing agricultural sub-sectors, with extensive, semi-intensive and intensive systems of livestock farming all practised within the country. However, the availability of animal feed resources in the district varies greatly throughout the year both in quantity and quality. It is also highly dependent on climatic conditions, particularly rainfall and the length of the growing season. In addition, shortage of farmland, insufficient and non-controlled commercial feeds and limited use of agroindustrial by-products in animal feeding are common constraints in livestock production (MINAGRI 2012) 1 .The study was conducted in Rutsiro District, Boneza sector, Remera cell, by the Rwanda Dairy Development Project (RDDP) in collaboration with International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to assess the challenges that livestock farmers face and opportunities they have in the crop-livestock farming system using the Feed Assessment Tool (FEAST). It is anticipated that by the end of the RDDP, farmers will better organize in cooperatives, practise proper feeding of animals and supply enough milk to cooperatives.The assessment was conducted in the Remera cell from 11-15 February 2019. Remera cell was selected with the help of a sector veterinarian and socioeconomic development officer (SEDO) of a cell in Boneza sector. The FEAST methodology developed by researchers at ILRI was used. It involved conducting focus group discussions (FGD) with 15 participants (eight female and seven male) and subsequent individual interviews with nine farmers (three farmers each from the small, medium and large landholding categories). This was done to get farmers' inputs on local conditions, animal feed-related problems and potential solutions. Both exercises were conducted with the aid of semistructured questionnaires and data was imputed into the FEAST data template and analysed. Results are presented in tables, graphs, and pie and bar charts. Farming systemIn both cells, the majority of farmers are classified as medium farmers with farm sizes ranging from 1-2 ha (74%). Large landholding farmers having more than 2 ha make up just 1% of the population while smallholder farmers with less than 1 ha make up about 20% of the population. About 5% of the population can be considered landless (Figure 3). In Rutsiro District, just like in most parts of Rwanda, there are three agricultural seasons (A, B and C) depending on rainfall patterns. The first season (A) is from September-December, the second season (B) from January-May and the third season (C) from June-mid-September. The longest season is B (5 months), followed by season A (4 months) and season C (3 months) (Table 2).  The main sources of water in the district are Lake Kivu, rain and tap water. Lake water is available throughout the year while rainwater is available during the rainy seasons. Due to distance, Lake Kivu supplies only about 1% of the water needs of livestock and most farmers depend on rain and tap water to meet the water requirements of their animals. Farmers do not practise rainwater harvesting.Crops that are grown in season A include banana, coffee, maize, common beans, cassava and soybean. In season B, soybean, common beans, maize, banana, cassava and coffee are cultivated. In season C, crops grown are mainly vegetables, sweet potato and yam in marshy or riverine areas (Table 2). The five most important crops by area cultivated are common beans, maize, banana, cassava and coffee (Figure 4). The main forage crops grown in the area are Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum) and Kikuyu grass (Pennisetum clandestenum) on an average of 0.075 ha and 0.025 ha respectively.The sources of credit are the same across all cropping seasons. The most important sources of credit in the area are saving and credit cooperatives (SACCOs) and informal groups which cover 95% of the total credit provided. Credit from formal markets accounts for just 5%. Credit is mostly sourced for agricultural activities during seasons A and B. Farmers require some form of collateral to access credits from the informal credit markets. This may include providing some form of property as collateral or another group member staking his or her savings.Farmers own various livestock species which include improved cattle (crossbreed of Friesian cows), goats and pigs (Figure 5). Animals are kept for various purposes. Cattle are primarily raised for milk, manure and cash income while goats are raised mainly for cash. In the surveyed area, most farmers in medium and large farm categories keep on  The average daily labour rate ranges between FRw600-1000 2 and depends on activity, gender and season. Duties like ploughing and harvesting are shared among both genders and are paid equally. Predominant male activities include manure transportation and milking while weeding crops and cleaning of cowsheds are mainly done by females.Agriculture constitutes the major source of household income with food crops contributing the most (70%) followed by livestock (20%). Off-farm income accounts for just about 7% of the household income (Figure 6). Most households practise a semi-intensive livestock production system. Feeding troughs are constructed with wood, the floor is cemented and bedding is provided. Animals are housed together according to species, sex and type, except dairy calves which are separated from the cows. Zero-grazing is practised by most of the farmers with seasonal variation hardly influencing the feeding method. Feed particle size is reduced by manual chopping of collected fodder (Napier grass and crop residues) with traditional machetes (panga). Based on gender, farmers involved in feed processing are 60% male and 40% female. In Rutsiro, the important diseases affecting animals are East Coast fever (ECF), Dystocia and Anaplasmosis. The different types of animal health care services available to the farmers are presented in Table 3. The cost of service depends on the nature of the service provided and farmers reported using mostly (95%) natural bull services.Collected fodder accounted for the highest proportion (44-57 %) of livestock diets in Rutsiro in terms of dry matter (DM), metabolizable energy (ME) and crude protein (CP) (Figure 7). Cultivated fodder (17-20%) and purchased feed (16-28%) also contribute significantly to the dietary requirements of livestock in Rutsiro District. On average, crop residues account for less than 10% of diets for livestock while grazing is not a common feed resource. Various feed types purchased and the quantity Farmers reported purchasing mostly Kikuyu grass (Pennisetum clandestinum) and Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum) fodder to feed their animals (Figure 8). Also, farmers in Rutsiro purchase grain residues from breweries at an average of about 16 kg per household per year. Mineral blocks are purchased in small quantities at an average of 3.6 kg per year.  • Optimal use of various types of feeds and crop residues, supplementing with agroindustrial by-products, molasses and dairy concentrates to mitigate low quality and quantity of forage in the dry season. The least cost ration based on available local feeds resources should be formulated, tested, validated and promoted in the area.• Plant leguminous forage shrubs to provide browse. Also, grass splits into ridges and intercropping forages such as Lablab in mixed farming with crops for cut and carry systems, as well as the growth of annual fodder crops such as oats, vetch, maize and sorghum should be promoted through extension services to farmers.• Supplementation with energy-rich supplements, e.g. molasses and the use of protein by-products, e.g. meat, blood and bone, fish, and legume leaf meals, as well as biofuel co-products, oilseeds and poultry litter are all recommended in the area. • Backyard intensification to utilize available resources (land, water and labour) efficiently. This would include the planting of high-quality leguminous forages such as perennial crops, leguminous forage trees, hedgerows and fences.• Optimizing the use of locally available feed resources including cultivated forage, collected fodder and crop residues through optimal mixing practices and supplementary feeding of concentrates.• Establishing concentrate sales points in the area.The farming system in Rutsiro District is primarily dominated by a subsistence-based mixed farming system.• Farmers perceive that the low genetic potential of available dairy cows for milk production, low quantity and quality of feeds and lack of enough water for watering animals (especially during the dry season) are major constraints to livestock production.• Lack of enough capital to invest in water harvesting facilities, coupled with inadequate experience and skills on water harvesting, are some of the contributing factors.• Animal feed availability in both quantity and quality is one of the most important problems faced by farmers. This problem is caused by limited land to grow forage crops due to very high population density.• Low milk production and productivity of cows was attributed to poor quality and quantity feeds and low genetic merit of dairy stock kept by farmers.• Introduce appropriate water harvesting and utilization technologies for multiple purposes including water for livestock and backyard forage production.• Identify niches to integrate high-quality leguminous forages, grasses and fodder trees in the cropping system.• Design and test optimal ration options for farmers using collected fodder, cultivated fodder and crop residues.• Target farmers with large landholding to produce forages as cash crops.• Farmer cooperatives should organize and do bulk purchases of feeds and distribute to other members in the area.• Upgrade local cows with improved AI service delivery by promoting private AI practitioners so that animals respond to improved nutrition and management. ","tokenCount":"1826"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/1401480073.json b/data/part_1/1401480073.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..723920a91d8842a94c8890193cc2a57c0f35a5bd
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1679273a13d7c72c5ae6e15c21152df9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/22f56932-ad07-440e-9064-5d101eb927f7/retrieve","id":"627948841"},"keywords":["Vigna sp.","Striga¸ rhizobium","biocontrol","inoculant","BNF","cowpea *","**","*** and ****: P < 0.05","P < 0.01","P < 0.001","and P < 0.0001","respectively; NS: Not significant"],"sieverID":"23e61a21-f717-42c0-8b7d-33ea55cd5c10","pagecount":"27","content":"Cowpea is a grain legume of major importance in sub-Saharan Africa where it is cultivated by smallholder farmers on poor soils and production is often constrained by the parasitic weed Striga gesnerioides. Experiments were conducted to assess the potential of rhizobium inoculation in mitigating Striga infestation and increasing cowpea productivity. We tested under basal P application and arti cial S. gesnerioides inoculation the impact of cowpea genotypes (G) (nine Striga-resistant and 11 Strigasusceptible genotypes) and bradyrhizobium inoculation (N) (two bradyrhizobium strains USDA3384 and IRJ2180A, and uninoculated control) on Striga dynamics and cowpea yield. Additional treatments included N supplied as urea (with and without), and no input (i.e., soil inherent N and P) that served as negative check. A rst experiment was carried out in potted sterile soils in the screen house excluding addition of N-fertilizers. Signi cant G x N interactions were observed in counts of nodule (P = 0.012), Striga attachment (P < 0.0001) and emergence (P = 0.005), and cowpea shoot growth (P = 0.016). Cowpea nodulated poorly across host lines, Striga counts were the lowest for resistant varieties with no emerged plants. Rhizobial inoculants depressed Striga counts with consistent differences found across cowpea genotypes. Inoculation with IRJ2180A performed the best against Striga attachment in resistant genotypes, and its emergence in susceptible genotypes. In the eld trial, nodule numbers were lowest in cowpea without inputs (P < 0.0001). The G x N interaction was signi cant in emerged Striga plants (P < 0.0001). Resistant genotypes were free of emerged Striga while for susceptible ones, Striga emergence was the highest without any input addition. Signi cant G x N interaction was observed in cowpea grain yield (P < 0.0001). Yield response to inoculation was most obvious for resistant genotypes inoculated with the strain IRJ2180A (P = 0.0043). The integrated use of Striga-resistant cowpea lines and elite bradyrhizobium inoculant under moderate application of P-based fertilizer could be a promising approach for mitigating Striga infestation and increasing productivity.Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.) is a grain legume of high agronomic, nutritional and economic importance in the semi-arid tropics where it is mainly cultivated by resource poor farmers. It constitutes a valuable source of protein in the diets of millions of people (Boukar et al., 2016). About 7.4 million metric tons of cowpea are annually produced worldwide on about 12.6 million hectares (FAOSTAT, 2017). Yet the productivity of cowpea on farmers' elds remains poor due to numerous abiotic and biotic constraints. For instance, cowpea is often infested by parasitic weeds including Striga gesnerioides, which is a major biotic constraint to crop production in the Savannah and Sahel agro-ecologies of West Africa. The degree of infestation is greatest when soil fertility is poor, sometimes causing complete loss of yield and forcing farmers to abandon their cultivated lands (Ejeta, 2007;Kamara et al., 2014). S. gesnerioides is an autogamous parasite with a life cycle typical of other agriculturally important Striga spp. (Berner and Williams, 1998). Adaptations to parasitism of Striga species include the ability to produce a large number of tiny seeds with prolonged viability and special germination requirements (Siame et al., 1993). Seeds germinate only after exposure to exogenous germination stimulants, usually strigolactones (SLs), which are derived from root exudates of host and often non-host plant species (usually referred to as trap crops) (Bouwmeester et al., 2007;Yoneyama et al., 2009;Cardoso et al., 2014).Strigolactones are plant hormones which regulate plant shoot and root architecture in response to the environment (Gomez-Roldan et al. 2008;Cardoso et al., 2014), which also function as host recognition signals for arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (Akiyama et al., 2005) and rhizobia, and trigger seeds of parasitic weeds such as Striga spp. to germinate (Soto et al., 2010;Foo and Davies, 2011;Foo et al., 2013).Farmer practices to combat Striga weeds range from hand pulling emerged Striga plants, crop rotations / intercropping to improve soil fertility, the use of trap crops that stimulate suicidal germination of Striga seed, to the selection of resistant crop varieties. Promising methods to manage Striga arising from research include the use mineral fertilizers (Kureh et al., 2003;Jamil et al., 2011), chemicals (Kanampiu et al., 2001(Kanampiu et al., , 2003;;Kountche et al., 2019), intercropping (Rusinamhodzi et al., 2012), improved tolerant/resistant germplasm (Lane et al. 2003) and biological control (Mabrouk et al., 2007a). However, yield loss attributable to Striga is increasing because many promising Striga control methods suffer from limited adoption and utility (Ronald et al., 2017). Low uptake of agricultural technologies is driven by multiple socioeconomic constraints at the farm or higher levels, resulting from lack of/or competing use of land, labor, cash, or organic resources, and reluctance of farmers to experiment with new methods (Oswald, 2005;Giller et al., 2011;Kanampiu et al., 2018).African farming systems exhibit large variability at agroecological, socioeconomic and individual farm scales, such that there are no single solutions as silver bullets to address the numerous constraints to farm productivity (Giller et al., 2011) including the challenge imposed by Striga (Midega et al., 2014;Ronald et al., 2017). An integrated approach is required using direct and indirect measures in a concerted manner to prevent damages of parasitism, and ultimately to eradicate seed bank (Rubiales and Fernandez-Aparicio, 2012). Integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) (Vanlauwe et al., 2010), including incorporation of legumes into cropping systems (Sanginga and Woomer, 2009;Kamara et al., 2014) can contribute to reducing Striga infestation. Many leguminous crops including cowpeas can stimulate suicidal germination of seeds of Striga spp., and are used as trap crops to reduce Striga spp. in cereallegume rotation and intercropping systems. Control of Striga spp. in cereals accounts for 'non-N orother rotational effects' of legume crops as part of their bene cial impacts on soil biological, physical and chemical (except N) properties (Sanginga et al., 2002(Sanginga et al., , 2003;;Yusuf et al., 2009;Rusinamhodzi et al., 2012;Franke et al., 2018). However, major impacts of legumes result from their ability to improve N nutrition of subsequent non-legume crop, referred to as 'N effects', leading to reduced needs in N fertiliser (Giller, 2001;Franke et al., 2018).Strains of rhizobia have been identi ed with potential for controlling the parasitic weed Orobanche crenata in inoculated pea (Mabouk et al., 2007a,b). Inoculation of pea with compatible rhizobia was reported to affect O. orobanche by reducing seed germination, and decreasing root infection with limited capacity for tubercle development and necrosis of attachments (Mabouk et al., 2007a,b). Like most BNF traits of legumes (Ronner et al., 2016;Van Heerwaarden, 2018), control of S. gesnerioides can be anticipated to depend upon multiple component interactions between and among integrated technologies. Considering that the key factors determining productivity/ or performance of legume technologies range from the genotypes of both the legume (G L ) and the associated root nodule rhizobia (G R ), the test climate and soil environments (E), to the agronomic management used (M), such relationship can be expressed as -(G L × G R ) × E × M (Giller et al., 2013). For a given environment, understanding in the same way the relationship between the effectiveness of various combinations of symbiotic partners (G L × G R ) and managements options (M), and the variability in legume infestation by Striga spp. can be of major interest in view of explaining the potential of matching legume variety and inoculant strain in controlling S. gesnerioides. Striga-resistant varieties and promising lines of cowpea have already been identi ed (Lane et al., 2003;Boukar et al., 2016), which provide a key entry point for testing integrated Striga management options. In this paper, we present the results of an integrated evaluation of BNF technologies consisting of crop varieties, rhizobium inoculants, and the application of phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) fertilizers.The objectives of this study are (i) to evaluate under screen-house conditions the potential of rhizobia as biocontrol agents against S. gesnerioides in Striga-resistant and susceptible cowpea varieties, (ii) to assess the relative performance of rhizobial inoculants to control Striga infestation of cowpea in the eld as compared with standard mineral fertilisation, and (iii) to identify the most effective combination of rhizobia, cowpea genotype and fertilizer for optimal control of S. gesnerioides leading to increased cowpea productivity.Two sets of experiments were conducted in 2014 in Kano (Kano state, northern Nigeria) under screen house and eld conditions. A screen-house trial was carried out under arti cial irrigation during the dry season at the Kano Station of International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). A subsequent eld trial was conducted under natural rainfall during the following rainy season at the IITA research farm (12°10'42''N, 8° at 500 m above sea level), located at Minjibir village 45 km north of Kano. Both locations fall under the Sudan savanna agro-ecological zone, where climate is dry with a unimodal distribution of 690 mm annual rainfall over a short growing season (about 120 days) from July to September. The mean monthly rainfall and temperature in 2014 at Minjibir are shown in Figure 1.Soil samples were taken at random in the eld from 0-15 cm depth before land preparation. These were bulked and thoroughly mixed to provide a composite sample, and a sub-sample of this composite was analysed for physical and chemical properties according to standard procedures (IITA, 1989). The abundance of soil bradyrhizobia was determined by the plant infection technique (Vincent, 1970) (Table 1). The soil was coarse textured and texture fell within the loamy sand and sandy loam class (Table 1).Soil organic carbon (9 g kg -1 ) was relatively low and total nitrogen (0.36 g kg -1 ) in the very low N fertility class. The concentration of available Cu (1.07 mg kg −1 ) was low and there was relatively high concentration of Mn (46 mg kg −1 ) and Fe (178 mg kg −1 ) due to the slightly acidic pH (5.6) of the soil (Table 1). Available soil P in the eld (8.6 mg kg −1 ) was low, which is common in sandy Sudan savanna soils with low organic matter content (Kwari et al., 2011).Twenty cowpea genotypes (Table 2) were compared in both screen-house and eld station experiments. These lines had contrasting responses to Striga (Muranaka et al., 2011) and were obtained from the Genetic Resource Center (GRC) of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria. The Striga seeds were harvested in 2010 from a research farm at Malam Madori in Jigawa State, a Striga hot-spot where cowpea is widely cultivated. Striga seeds were manually threshed, cleaned to remove chaff and then were sterilized with a diluted Sodium hypochlorite (NaOHCl, 3.0%) for 3 minutes. Thereafter, the seeds were soaked in detergent for 5 min, thoroughly rinsed with tap water through a ne sieve and left to air-dry in the laboratory.Bradyrhizobium sp. strain USDA 3384 (National Rhizobium Culture Collection, Beltsville, Maryland, USA) and B. japonicum strain IRJ 2180A were obtained from the soil microbiology laboratory of IITA. These are reference broad host-range rhizobia (Foster et al., 1998;Hashem et al., 1997) and elite soybean inoculant strain (Sanginga et al., 2002;Okogun and Sanginga, 2003), respectively. Each strain was grown in yeast extract mannitol medium for ve days to reach 10 ^9 cell ml -1 , which was used as liquid inoculant in screen-house studies. Bradyrhizobial broths were used to prepare peat-based inoculants to coat seed for eld experiments. Standard peat carrier (APT, USA) was sterilized by gamma irradiation (Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, Accra, Ghana) in bags containing 50 g of peat each. Upon radiation, each bag was aseptically injected with 50 ml of the appropriate rhizobial broth, injection hole sealed, contain thoroughly mixed and then cured in the same bag at 28°C for two weeks to obtain at least 10 ^9 cell g -1 inoculant.In a rst experiment, responses of 20 cowpea genotypes to three inoculation options were assessed under screen-house conditions. Inoculation treatments comprised of the two bradyrhizobial inoculants used separately, and an uninoculated control. Sixty treatments were studied consisting of 20 × 3 factorial combinations of both factor levels. Treatments were established in three replications using a split plot arrangement where inoculation options were randomly assigned to main plots and cowpea genotypes to sub-plots as to minimize cross contamination. Cowpea plants were grown on potted-soil infested with Striga seeds using a modi ed protocol of Singh and Emechebe (1990). A mixture of top soil and river sand (2:1; v/v) was prepared and sterilized by autoclaving (120°C 1 h) prior to incorporating Striga seed.Growth units consisted of plastic pots (13 cm, height and width) containing ca. 2.5 kg pot -1 soil mixture.Four seeds of cowpea were planted and inoculated with 1 ml of bradyrhizobial broth pot -1 . The growth units were subsequently irrigated with tap water as necessary on alternate days to ensure adequate moisture and good germination. Pots were thinned to two seedlings at 2 weeks after planting then fertilized with 180 mg P as single super phosphate (SSP, 18% P 2 O 5 ). Seedling leaves were further sprayed with a combined insecticide (35 ml of Lamda cyhalothrine and 75 ml of Cypermethrin plus Dimethoate in 15 liters sprayer) to control insect pests.In a second experiment conducted in the eld, responses of the same cowpea varieties to ve N including the above inoculation treatments were monitored. The N treatmemts were urea fertiliser, the two inoculants, a control, and a negative check with no input (inherent soil fertility). Except for the negative check, all N treatments were tested under basal P application as described bellow. A total of 100 individual treatments were de ned as factorial combinations of the cowpea genotypes (20) and Nsources (5), and replicated thrice in eld-testing using a split design as previously described. Cowpea was planted on land heavily infested with Striga ( ve plants m -2 on average). The eld was mowed, the soil harrowed and the plant debris removed. The eld was then ridged at 0.75 cm apart. Cowpea seeds were pre-treated with fungicide-insecticide Apron Star (20% w/w Thiamethoxam, 20% w/w Metalaxyl-M, 2%w/w Difenoconazole) to prevent soil-borne pests attack on seeds and seedlings. Plots (6 ridges x 4 m) were planted manually at the rate of three seeds per hill with 0.2 m intra-row spacing. Immediately before planting, cowpea seed was costed with peat-based inoculants (10 g kg -1 seed) using a solution of gum Arabic (ca. 20 g l -1 ) as sticker. Pre-emergence herbicide Paraquat and Pendimethalin (3 l ha -1 ) was sprayed immediately after sowing to control weeds. Two weeks after planting, plots were thinned to two plants per hill and SSP fertilizer was applied at the rate of 30 kg P ha -1 . Lamda cyhalothrine 25 EC (0.7 l ha -1 ) and Cypermethrin, plus Dimethoate (1 l ha -1 ) was applied at owering stage to control insect pests.The eld was maintained free of weeds except Striga plants by regular manual weeding at three, six and eight weeks after planting.In the screen-house study, plants were harvested at 64 days after planting (DAP). Potted plants were cut at the soil level and pots were gently ushed with tap water to discard soil from the root systems for count assessment of nodules, Striga attached to roots and emerged Striga. All plant parts were oven-dried separately at 65°C for 48 hours for biomass. In the eld trial data were collected from the owering stage onward. Twenty plants were randomly uprooted from border rows of each plot, nodules recovered, counted and oven-dried as above for dry mass assessment. Number of emerged Striga plants was monitored three times from the two central rows of plots until 70 DAP and cumulative number calculated. At maturity, the same inner rows were harvested, shoots, pods and grains air-dried and weight recorded.Biomass data (cowpea and Striga dry weights) from the screen-house trial, and grain yield from the eld study were analysed using a linear mixed model where genotype, strain, and genotype x strain were considered as xed effects, and replicate, genotype x replicate as random effects. Count data across screen house and eld experiments (number of nodules, Striga attachments and emerged plants) were analysed using a generalized mixed model (McCullagh and Nelder, 1989) assuming a Poisson distribution. Least-squares means and the associated standard errors derived from the mixed model were computed. Custom hypothesis tests were used to perform contrast comparisons between speci c groups among cowpea genotypes and N-sources (see Table 3 and Table 5). All data were analysed using MIXED (linear mixed model) and GLIMMIX (generalized linear mixed model) procedures in SAS/STAT software, Version 9.4 of the SAS System for Windows (SAS Institute, 2019).3.1 Striga infestation, nodulation and plant growth in screen-house bioassay At harvest 64 DAP, a majority of inoculated cowpea plants poorly nodulated as it has reached physiological maturity. (Fig. 2). The occurrence of nodulation appeared to be inversely-related to infection of cowpea roots by Striga, with most plants exhibiting either nodules or Striga attachments (Fig. 3A-B). In addition, nodulation, cowpea growth and Striga infection traits showed signi cant inter-correlation (Fig. 3; Fig. 4A-D).There was a differential response of cowpea genotypes to inoculation treatments in shoot dry weight (P=0.0155, Table 3). Resistant varieties grew the best, yet were not responsive to inoculation in pots; Opposite to this, susceptible lines showed substantial responses to inoculation gaining on average up to 63% shoot growth improvement (P < 0.0001, Table 3; Fig. 5A). Similarly, there were large differences between susceptible cowpea varieties which had signi cantly larger counts of emerged Striga plants (P=0.0047) and number of Striga attachments to cowpea than resistant varieties (P < 0.0001) (Fig. 3;Table 3; Fig. 5B-C). The number of emerged Striga plants from pots was the higest (2.5 plant -1 ) for susceptible genotypes grown without inoculation (control treatment) (P=0.0168; Fig. 5B). Moreover, inoculantion with strain IRJ 2180A was the most effective totally in preventing emergence of Striga plants in the potted susceptible genotypes (P=0.0246; Fig. 5C). On average, the smallest numbers of Striga attachments to cowpea roots were observed in resistant varieties (P=0.0046), and in inoculated plants (P=0.0065, Table 3; Fig. 5D-E). When compared with the uninoculated (control) treatments, addition of rhizobial inoculants was more effective in reducing Striga attachments on resistant (90%) than susceptible (80%) varieties (P=0.0168; Fig. 5D). Resistant genotypes performed best against Striga attachment to root with strain IRJ 2180A inoculant (P =0.0246; Fig. 5E).At early owering the eld-grown cowpea genotypes had 14.9 nodules plant -1 on average with signi cant differences among varieties (P=0.0315), and between nutrient management options (P < 0.0001; Table 4; Fig. 6A-D). Nodule number was the least (5.3 nodules plant -1 ) for cowpea managed without any input (P < 0.0001; Fig. 6A). The application of P fertilizer alone improved nodulation (13.1 nodules plant -1 ), but to a lesser extent than when combined with nitrogen sources (P+N) (P < 0.0001; Fig. 6B). Addition of urea resulted in less nodules (13.3 nodules plant -1 ) than when rhizobial inoculants were applied (21.5 nodules plant -1 ) (P < 0.0001; Fig. 6C). Among the inoculant treatments, the largest number of nodules was found in the presence of the strain IRJ 2180A (29.8 nodules plant -1 ; P < 0.0001, Table 4; Fig. 6D).Overall, strong positive relationships were found between nodule number and cowpea yield and negative relationships with Striga emergence (Fig. 7). Emergence of Striga plants decreased with increasing nodule number, which led to improved cowpea yield (Fig. 7A-C). The density of Striga plants was highest for the less nodulated cowpea plants managed without any input (≤5 nodules plant -1 ) and lowest for the abundantly nodulated plants under P+ IRJ 2180A treatment (≥25 nodules plant -1 ) (Fig. 7A). Cowpea grain yield had a signi cant (negative) correlation with Striga count (Fig. 7B).Signi cant variety x management interactions were observed in the cumulative count of emerged Striga plants (P < 0.0001, Table 4). Plots with resistant cowpea varieties were remarkably free of emerged Striga almost throughout the eld experiment (Fig. 8A-D). Susceptible varieties had stronger infestation with Striga count dependent upon the management option (Fig. 8A-D). Sprouting of Striga was densest without any amendment (no input) compared with nutrient addition (P < 0.0001, Table 4; Fig. 8A). On average, managing susceptible cowpea varieties with various combinations of P and N-sources led to more than 2.6-fold reduction in the number of Striga plants relative to plots without any input (Fig. 8A). Effectiveness in the control ranged from the least with P alone to the highest for P combined with Nsources (Fig. 8B). However, emerged Striga count when fertilized with urea was comparable with that for rhizobial inoculants (Fig. 8C-D).The differential responses of the cowpea genotypes to management options resulted in large grain yield differences at harvest (P < 0.0001, Table 4). Grain yield as well as its response to input additions was consistently stronger in resistant than susceptible lines (P < 0.0001, Table 4; Fig. 9A-D). Overall, grain yield was more than doubled in response to nutrient supply compared with no input treatments, with increases being greater for resistant (128%) than susceptible (119%) lines (Fig. 9A). On average in addition, grain yield in susceptible varieties was more responsive to P alone (+16%) than P+N treatments (P < 0.01, Table 4; Fig. 9B). Under P supply however, yield response of the cowpea varieties to N was signi cantly higher (ca +10%) with inoculant than urea (P=0.0174; Fig. 9C). Overall, cowpea yielded substantially more grain (31 -34 % more) with inoculant strain IRJ 2180A than USDA 3384 (P < 0.0001; Fig. 9D). Also, resistant varieties outperformed susceptible lines in yield responses to inoculation, which was most obvious in the presence of inoculant strain IRJ 2180A (P = 0.0043; Fig. 9D).Our results demonstrate that integration of resistant varieties, fertilizer application and inoculation with Bradyrhzobium could effectively control Striga in cowpea. A potted-soil system was used rst to investigate genotypic variability in cowpea responses to co-inoculation with rhizobia and Striga in the screen-house. In the presence of viable Striga seeds, rhizobial inoculants were unable to trigger an adequate nodule formation in cowpea plants (< 1 nodule plant -1 on average), but strongly reduced plant infestation by Striga as compared to the control without inoculation. On average, the resistant cowpea varieties had the least number of attachments to root and emerged Striga shoots and dry weight. Surprisingly, resistant varieties were also found to be the most responsive to rhizobial inoculants for the control of Striga: compared with the uninoculated control plants of these varieties, there was as high as a tenfold reduction in the number of Striga attachments which resulted in cowpea plants almost clean of parasites. For the susceptible cowpea lines on the other hand, Striga infestation was best controlled by inoculation contributing to a better shoot growth.In comparison with some practices recommended against Striga such as hand or hoe-weeding and conventional biocontrol, which operate only when the parasite has already switched the crop and subsequently developed emerged shoots, eradicating the seed bank and preventing root colonization by Striga may be the ideal solution to its control (López-Ráez et al., 2008;Kountche et al., 2019). In this regard, our ndings compare well with effective control methods described for S. hermonthica management in maize, which consist of the application of herbicide chemicals (imazapir) to herbicideresistant maize hybrid (Kanampiu et al., 2001(Kanampiu et al., , 2002)). This maize technology is reported to induce death of Striga organs including attachments and germinating seeds around maize roots over several weeks after planting, therefore leading to host plants clean of Striga, depleting Striga seed bank and improving crop productivity (Kanampiu et al. 2002(Kanampiu et al. , 2003)).Cowpea lines grown in elds infested with S. gesnerioides readily formed root nodules without inoculation, demonstrating the presence of adequate native populations of compatible rhizobia. Unlike other legume crops such as soyabean which have a symbiotic requirement for speci c rhizobial strains, cowpea is a promiscuous host, able to form root nodules with a broad range of highly diverse rhizobia (Giller, 2001). On the other hand, poor soil fertility is a major constraint to the proper establishment and function of legume symbiosis in sub-Saharan Africa (Vanlauwe et al., 2019). The improved nodulation of cowpea with addition of P is indicative of inadequate soil P supply, as also reported on various legumes in sub-Saharan Africa (Ronner et al, 2016;van Heerwaarden et al., 2018;Belete et al., 2019;Rurangwa et al., 2018). It appears that cowpea generally needs fertilization with P, except in some favourable sites such as in Ghana where eld-grown cowpea genotypes nodulated well without any nutrient addition (Adjei-Nsiah et al., 2008).Cowpea nodulation was enhanced by the combined application of P and rhizobial inoculants, which gave better nodulation then when urea was, applied (Fig. 5). Combined nitrogen is often recommended for legumes as starter N at moderate rates not inhibitory for nodule formation (Streeter, 1988;Sylvester-Bradley and Cross, 1991;Thies et al., 1991;Waswa et al., 2014;Giller et al., 2016). The slight improvement in nodule number observed with N addition suggests the rate of 20 kg N ha -1 to be suitable to serve as an effective starter N. In a eld study conducted in Brazil by Freitas and Silva (2012), however, the same rate of urea was reported to have negative effects on the symbiotic performance of indigenous rhizobia in cowpea. There is little justi cation to use starter N on legumes in sub-Saharan Africa.This study reports the rst investigation of the potential bene ts that can be derived from the management of rhizobial inoculants under pressure of S. gesnerioides pest on eld-grown cowpea. As expected from previous genotypic characterization studies (Lane et al., 2003;Muranaka et al., 2011) the results revealed a consistent varietal effect on Striga infestation with a clear discrimination between resistance and susceptible lines. Striga plants were not observed in the plots planted to resistant lines and signi cant interactions between the variety and the management option were evident. Nodule abundance increased in the eld with the strain IRJ 2180A demonstrating its high competitive ability, as also reported by earlier studies conducted in the semi-arid zone of Brazil with various inoculant strains (Martins et al., 2003). Competitive Brazilian strains were observed to improve nodulation of eld-grown cowpea in Ghana (Boddey et al., 2016) and in Mozambique (Boddey et al., 2016;Kyei-Boahen et al., 2017), leading to improved productivity.Nutrient addition options, either P alone or in combination with N also supressed Striga emergence. The positive effects of both fertilizers can partly be explained by the alleviation of nutrient de ciency (N and/or P), as poor soil fertility is known to favor the spread of S. gesnerioides (Sanginga and Woomer, 2009). Jamil et al. (2011) showed that N and P de ciencies induce increased secretion of Striga spp. seed germination stimulants (SLs) by maize resulting in increased infection of the host plants, which was reduced with the application of fertilizers. In our study, emergence of Striga was best controlled with rhizobial inoculants (as bio-fertilizers), and this was clearly due to the striking performance of the strain IRJ 2180A. By contrast strain USDA 3384 performed poorly in suppressing Striga infestation, possibly because of it being a poor competitor compared with native soil rhizobia. Besides being a good competitor, the inoculant strain IRJ 2180A appears also to be highly effective in N 2 -xation, which together P fertilizer, led to a better nutrition of the host. Taken together, our ndings suggest that the improved nutritional status of cowpea, indicated by better vigour, as the most likely major mechanism through which Striga infestation was mitigated. In addition, colonization of the roots by rhizobia and nodule formation may compete with Striga for potential colonization sites as a barrier contributing to reducing the infestation by the parasite.The effective reduction in the number of Striga plants in the eld always resulted in better grain yields and differences were consistent with trends in the repression of the parasite (Figs. 6 and 7). Unless supplemented with rhizobial inoculants and P fertilizer, productivity of cowpea was generally very poor. This demonstrates that the comparative advantage of varieties bred speci cally for resistance to Striga was insu cient to ensure good yields. The increase of cowpea yield obtained here with the combined use of fertilizers, rhizobial inoculants and improved germplasm is a clear application of the concept of integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) needed for the sustainable intensi cation of African agriculture (Vanlauwe et al., 2015).We have demonstrated the potential of using bradyrhizobial inoculants as effective biocontrol agents as part of an integrated strategy against S. gesnerioides weed infestation of cowpea. Infestation of eldgrown cowpea by Striga was strongly reduced by rhizobial inoculants together with moderate P fertilization. Further, evidence of a strong genotypic host plant x rhizobia strain interaction highlights the possibility for further selection of combinations to counter Striga damage.Soil property Value pH (H 2 O) 5.6 N (g kg -1 ) 0.36 Bray P (mg kg -1 ) 8.61 C (g kg -1 ) 9Sand (g kg -1 ) 800Silt (g kg -1 ) 80Clay (g kg -1 ) 120Ca (cmol kg    ","tokenCount":"4804"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"86aab276160fe334cc2bacc96444966f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/caabef37-40fd-43d5-a68d-89d0a3f58c32/retrieve","id":"908083022"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"9fce327e-1935-4418-b56d-ad8fd28c8f93","pagecount":"37","content":"This work was carried out with support from the CGIAR Initiative on Low-Emission Food Systems. We would like to thank all funders who supported this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund.Wetlands cover 6% of the global land surface, and they account for 12% of the global carbon pool (Erwin 2008). Various definitions of wetlands are provided in the literature. RAMSAR (2007) defines it as \"areas where water is the primary factor controlling the environment and the associated plant and animal life. They occur where the water table is at or near the surface of the land, or where the land is covered by water.\" Another definition provided by Wetlands International (Nd) states that they \"occur wherever water meets land. These unique habitats include mangroves, peatlands and marshes, rivers and lakes, deltas, floodplains and flooded forests, rice-fields, and even coral reefs.\" Total wetlands in Vietnam encompass nearly 10 M ha (Thanh and Yabar 2015). The Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD) is a significant wetland ecosystem that contributes to Vietnam's biological diversity and economy. There is a strong co-dependence across the delta-from the flush of sediment that moves through the system, the tidal flows, and the interconnectedness of these. Modern modifications to water movement within the system risk its functionality, and very little research has been done to understand the long-term impacts of these. Water resources in the area and the livelihoods dependent on the system are at risk due to the anticipation of climate change. Unique habitats such as mangroves, which provide valuable ecosystem services, are threatened by land use changes. However, the national food security and the national budget of the VMD benefit from the income of large industries based around fisheries and aquaculture. The present review here seeks to collate the literature around land use within the VMD and likely management scenarios, allowing us to explore the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions potential of land use activities. The key objective of this review is to inform discussion around climate mitigation opportunities, as well as the long-term sustainability of the system. This report consists of five main sections after this introduction: Section two -Wetland characteristics in the VMD; section three -emissions from wetlands in the Mekong Delta; section four -review of models for estimating GHG emissions; section five -GHG emissions from potential land use change in the Mekong Delta, and section six -conclusions.Vietnamese Mekong DeltaThe Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD) wetland area covers nearly 5 M ha of land (Table 1). It consists of an ecosystem abundant with tidal floodplains, peatland marsh, coastal marsh, and estuaries within the territory. These wetlands could be split into different types based on their characteristics. Typically, the majority of VMD wetlands are freshwater wetlands, and their area is nearly 40% of the total wetlands in VMD. Saline lagoons are found least in VMD, and it is only 2521 ha as an area (Tung and Dap 2020). The following table (Table 1) illustrates the areas of typical wetland types in VMD. Source: Tung and Dap (2020) Other studies have used different names for different wetland categories and reported different numbers, e.g., Table 2 (Torell et al. 2001). Some studies further break this classification down to specific uses, such as open water, mangrove, deciduous forest, evergreen forest, mixed forest, built-up, single rice crop, double rice crop, triple rice crop, crops other than rice, barren land, aquaculture, grassland, and wetland (Mondal et al. 2022). According to the Mekong Delta Plan, the VMD is generally divided into upstream delta flood plains and downstream delta (Tran et al. 2019). The upper area of the VMD is dominated by rice cultivation. In between this area and the coast lay areas of seasonally flooded grassland (Triet nd). The lower coastal region of the delta is characterized by aquaculture and intact mangrove systems and has been broadly categorized as dense mangroves, sparse mangroves, aquaculture farms, arable land with crop cover, arable land without crop cover, settlements, and water bodies (Hong et al. 2019). Seasonal flooding ensures significant sediment deposition into the delta, which is vital for continued successful production. Dikes, sluice gates and water supply canal infrastructure were installed to prevent flooding and inundation from salt water, thus maintaining the suitability of the area for cropping (Mondal et al. 2022). Therefore, the government planning over the regulation of freshwater hydrology is one of the critical factors that have led to the successful development of the area (Mondal et al. 2022). Vietnam's fishery and aquaculture industry accounts for approximately 5% of the national Gross Domestic Product (GIZ 2021). Fisheries within the VMD are dominated by both subsistence and small-scale fisheries, with fishermen in the rivers and reservoirs or rice farmers making use of their fields and small canals for fishing (Torell et al. 2001), as well as large-scale industrial fishing and processing of products. Marine fisheries of the VMD are located within both the river estuaries and the South China Sea (Tuan et al. 1998). Alongside fisheries, other aquatic-based food is derived within the VMD-such as frogs, snails, crabs, shrimps, and insects. Aquaculture, specifically shrimp farming, has shown significant growth over the past decades (over 50% from 2010-2017), often integrated with agriculture systems in some areas within VMD (Dang 2020).The cultivation of rice in the delta plays a key role in the country's (and region's) food security (Torell et al. 2001). Rice can be grown in up to three seasons in the year-Winter-Spring, Summer-Autumn, and Autumn-Winter (Clauss et al. 2018). Within the delta, the dike management (and farmer preference) tends to figure out whether farmers grow rice either once, twice, or thrice in the year. Double rice cropping and aquaculture are the top two land use categories in the VMD (Mondal et al. 2022), although areas of triple rice have been shown to increase significantly in recent years as it replaces double rice (Vu et al. 2022). However, there are sustainability issues around the expansion of triple rice, especially in relation to climate, water, and land (Mondal et al. 2022). The construction of dikes to sustain triple rice cropping in the upper areas of the VMD appears to have a significant impact on the annual flooding regime, which could lead to disastrous effects on the broader use of the delta (Vu et al. 2022). Temperature and precipitation particularly limit the viability of triple rice going forward, as there has been a 31% reduction in rainfall in the triple rice crop area (over 2000-2018) in A Giang and Dong Thap provinces, aligned with the general precipitation decline across the delta (27% over the same time period) (Mondal et al. 2022). Some farmers have already been reported to have changed their cropping practices in 2015-2018 away from rice entirely-potentially due to drought, which affected rice productivity (Mondal et al. 2022).Drivers of change in land management across the VMD can be attributed to increased exportation of food products produced within the delta, population growth and urbanization, intensification of agriculture (increased fertilizer and pesticide use), changes in sea level and increased salinization (Drogoul et al. 2016).Installing high dikes encourages the intensification of rice production, preventing flood waters from entering fields during flood season. While this allows farmers to access a third yield and thus improve their income, there are noticeable determinantal effects from this intensification and change in hydrological management. The installation of high dikes has led to reductions in water retention capacity, increased flood risk, diminished dry season flows (exacerbating saltwater intrusion), disrupted ecosystem service flows, and prevented refreshing of fertile sediments and wild fish into rice fields (Tran et al. 2018). In addition, the productivity of triple rice farming systems has been shown to diminish over time, as farmer profits have been reported to reduce over a 15-year period (Tran et al. 2018).The costs of production, 58-91% higher in triple rice compared to in the lower dike/double rice crop areas due to the higher level of fertilizer and pesticide inputs required, increase over time as the system becomes less productive. While the profitability of the triple rice system was shown to be 57% higher initially, this was reduced to just 6% higher after 15 years (Tran et al. 2018). Tran et al. 2018 also examined the benefits of alternative farming and found that mixed farming systems (e.g., rice and vegetables or fisheries) could increase farmer income by 12-268% whilst maintaining the environmental integrity of the system.Along the coastal areas dominated by aquaculture, expansion of shrimp farming causes increased loss and degradation of mangrove systems (Hong et al. 2019). Other drivers of mangrove loss in this area are the collection of wood for fuel, cutting trees for house construction materials and rapid urbanization. The continued mismanagement of these systems has hampered the government's efforts to encourage sustainable mangrove use.We can broadly classify critical ecosystems and land management within the delta based on the dominant land use and future scenarios (Table 3). From these, seasonally flooded grassland and mangrove areas are currently under the threat of conversion to rice and shrimp aquaculture, respectively.Within each of these wetland types, a level of heterogeneity can be expected, e.g., due to different species, soils, and history of land management. Significant variability in the level of disturbance, recovery from disturbance (both natural and plantations), species and coastal versus inland environmental influences within mangrove areas can be identified from the remotely sensed data of mangrove systems (Vo and Kuenzer 2012), although this will likely still require some element of ground-truthing. The greenhouse gas emissions of the wetland types described in Table 2 can be explored in this section.Driven by national policy (Linh and Thang 2015), there has been extensive, long-term expansion of rice production within the VMD, facilitated through hydrological management of the area with dams, canals, sluice gates, saline intrusion flood gates and monitoring of water quality, sedimentation, and soils (White 2002). Recent policies, such as the \"1 Must Do and 5 Reductions' have also influenced rice management and expansion in an attempt to adjust unsustainable rice production practices such as poor water management and overuse of pesticides and fertilizers (Flor et al. 2021).Under its Nationally Determined Contributions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Vietnam states its efforts to reduce GHG emissions and include the withdrawal of water in the middle of cropping cycles to reduce methane (CH4) emissions, as well as improved conversion of rice land (Socialist Republic of Vietnam 2022). Measures to reduce CH4 emissions in subsectors of agriculture, especially wet rice farming, is a key focus for implementing Vietnam's stated efforts to reduce CH4 emissions by 30% of 2020 levels by 2030 over at least 1.2 M ha of land (Torbick et al. 2017;Socialist Republic of Vietnam 2022). Conversion to more diversified systems, especially higher value crops and allowing for the natural flood regime to be restored are also promoted, with examples of evidence-based suggestions for diversification including single rice with a four-season squash, double locus crop with tourism, floating rice with vegetables, or triple rice but with a fishpond or vegetables (Tran et al. 2018). Land use for rice cultivation classified into single, double, and triple rice crops in VMD mapped using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellite data is represented in Figure 1. Substantially higher rates of agrochemical use for rice production in triple cropping rice systems have been reported, with 30% of fertilizer use higher than in low-dike farming systems, equivalent to 100-200 kg ha -1 crop -1 , and up to 90% higher in some areas [300-500 kg ha -1 crop -1 (Tran et al. 2018)]. The use of pesticides has also been reported to be higher in high dike systems, in one study rising 5% (4-12 bottles ha -1 crop -1 ) to 39% (16-25 bottles ha -1 crop -1 ) (Tran et al. 2018). The application of nitrogen (N) fertilizer in the form of N-N2O (nitrous oxide) for continuously flooded rice results in an emission factor of 0.3%, as determined by the Intergovernmental Panel (Vo et al. 2020). Consequently, it can be inferred that the elevated usage of N fertilizer is unlikely to have a substantial impact on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Low or negligible N2O fluxes have been reported from multiple studies in the rice systems of the VMD (Drogoul et al. 2016;Vu et al. 2022)., including studies that captured seasonal variability in emissions (Oo et al. 2013) likely due to suppression of nitrification-denitrification processes due to anaerobic conditions.There are some key influencing features for consideration when exploring the GHG dynamics of rice in the Mekong Delta.Season-based GHG emission factors have been found to be more significant than agrozone based emission factors. This could be likely due to both land management decisions, such as the avoidance of adverse seasonal effects through adjusting cropping calendars, protection of rice-grown areas from adverse seasonal effects through improved infrastructure in canals and sluices (Vo et al. 2020), management of soils [such as incorporation of straw (Nauditt and Ribbe 2011)] as well as greater difference in seasonal environmental conditions such as temperature. Based on a study of 36 sites across the rice growing areas of Vietnam and covering 73 different cropping seasons, daily emission rates were found to be not significantly different between the edapho-hydrological zones of the Mekong Delta, with season-specific effects superseding zone-specific effects on CH4 emissions (Vo et al. 2020). The same study identified that there were significant differences between emission factors in the seasons for both the Northern and Southern regions (although not the Central region) and recommended that different emission factors should be applied for different seasons in the North and South and not needed for the Central region (Vo et al. 2020). Several studies based on the seasonality of rice crops identify the significance of applying the emission factors rather than one emission factor for the whole region.In a study in northern Vietnam across three crops in the year (rice-maize-rice), total cumulative CH4 emissions were between 2 to 2.5 times higher during the summer rice season than during the spring rice season, with no emission peaks in the initial period after transplanting in the spring season (compared to the summer season which had a pronounced peak in emissions 9 days after transplanting the rice (Vu et al. 2015). This was assumed to be due to the low air temperature during the spring season. Contrasting seasonal patterns of CH4 emission were also observed in another study in Northern Vietnam, this time in a double-cropped rice system where CH4 flux peak occurred in the initial period after planting in the summer, but the peak was not as high in the spring rice crop and was observed in the middle to later growing periods (Oo et al. 2013). This was likely due to high soil temperature and, therefore, high soil organic matter turnover due to increased microbial activities, decomposition of recent decaying plant residues from shed leaves and root turnover, and high availability of root exudates in the rhizosphere (Oo et al. 2013).CH4 emissions are significantly lower in the spring season than in the summer season, and rice yields are higher (Vu et al. 2015). It has been identified that total cumulative CH4 emissions were between 2 and 2.5 times higher in the summer rice season than in the spring rice season (Vu et al. 2015). This can give a much lower yield-scaled global warming potential (GWP) in the spring rice season than in the summer; the yield-scaled GWP for spring rice was approximately 1 kg CO2 e lower per kg of rice grain than in the summer across multiple organic amendments treatments in a northern Vietnam study (Vu et al. 2015). A study in a double rice cropped system in the Red River Delta, Vietnam, also reported CH4 emissions to be higher in the summer than in the spring but found higher N2O fluxes observed in the spring than in the summer, which generally coincided with fertilization and drainage events (Tariq et al. 2017). Tirol-Padre et al. in Nauditt and Ribbe (2011) observed seasonal variability in CH4 emissions, but also between the same seasons in consecutive years, which was attributed to farmer management through the incorporation of incompletely burnt rice straw residues prior to the summer season and then the removal of rice straw from the field the following year (Nauditt and Ribbe 2011). In addition to seasonality, other factors related to rice cultivation, like water table, soil type, etc., affect GHG emissions.The water table is a key environmental feature that significantly affects CH4 emissions due to the anaerobic digestion of organic material (Tariq et al. 2017). Hydrological management of rice paddies has the potential for significant CH4 emissions reductions. A study (Tariq et al. 2017) comparing inefficient and efficient water management in rice paddies demonstrated higher GWP (through CH4 and N2O emissions) in inefficient systems compared to efficient ones. Continuous flooding in the inefficient water management scenario resulted in the highest GWP of all other scenarios (mid-season drainage, pre-planting plus mid-season drainage and early season plus mid-season drainage). A noticeable dynamic modification of conventional water practices is essential for mitigating CH4 emissions, for example, managing water levels after incorporating rice residues, which can generate higher CH4 emissions if allowed to decompose anaerobically (Tariq et al. 2017). Other water management techniques such as Alternative Wetting and Drying have been shown to reduce CH4 emission significantly across all seasons, with one study demonstrating an average 71% reduction in emissions compared to those from continuous flooding (with no significant effect on N2O emissions, Nauditt and Ribbe 2011).Soil conditions and environmental variables can also significantly affect CH4 emissions. Oo et al. 2013 demonstrated a significant correlation between CH4 emissions and soil temperature in a study in northwestern Vietnam. They also demonstrated significantly negative correlations between CH4 emission and soil Eh in almost all treatments and a negative correlation between surface water pH and CH4 emissions (Oo et al. 2013).Studies using a model-based approach to estimate CH4 emissions likely highlight other features of significance due to the model structure and key parameters. Researchers applied the Denitrification Decomposition (DNDC) model to the Red River Delta and found that the most significant drivers of rice methane emissions in continuously flooded areas as soil texture (clay fraction), soil organic carbon, and temperature and residue fraction to a lesser extent (Torbick et al. 2017).Carbon inputs from organic amendments such as fresh manure, composted manure, digestate, biochar and composted digestate with rice straw, as well as N fertilizer, can all lead to increased CH4 emissions due to the increased C input to the soil. Vu et al. reported this influence in their 2015 study, although the specific amendments based on a combination of liquid digestate, biochar and nitrogen did not lead to as significant CH4 emissions compared to others (Vu et al. 2015).The use of daily emission factors allows accurate estimation of GHG emissions from rice cultivation, but data on cultivation periods is also required. While cultivation periods can be spatially variable (Vo et al. 2020), data on lengths of cultivation periods could be obtained from interviewing farmers or from earth observation data (Torbick et al. 2017;Vo et al. 2020). Alternatively, seasonal emission factors could be used if assessing regional emissions estimates, although this would result in less refined results (Vo et al. 2020). Land use classification and GHG emissions information derived from existing literature are presented in Table 4. Mangrove forests are specifically found along coastal areas with tree species specially adapted to their environment with substantial woody root structures supporting the tree's growth in waterlogged soils. Mangrove systems provide multiple ecosystem services, including the dissipation of ocean wave energy (particularly valuable in minimizing the impact of extreme events such as tsunamis), the build-up of sediment over time, the absorption of pollutants, and habitat for unique fauna.Specifically, within the VMD, the mangroves cover approximately 1,000 km 2 of area, with a linear coverage of 23%, or 3,612 km of the coastline (Global Mangrove Watch 2022). The extent of mangrove coverage within the VMD has decreased by 82 km 2 from 1996 to 2020.The following map shown in Figure 2 indicates the mangrove extent in VMD (Global Mangrove Watch 2022). Degradation of VMD's mangroves has been significant, with a 50% reduction in the mangrove forest area since the mid-1900s (Do and Thuy 2022). There are a few activities which impact on Vietnams mangroves, including:o Extraction of wood (for timber, charcoal, or firewood)o Seaport construction and pollution o Shrimp Farming o Salt Production Seaport construction has led to the degradation of coastal ecosystems through habitat destruction and pollution of both air and water. A recent awareness of seaport impact has led to a novel approach to \"green seaport development,\" which protects the environment while still delivering on economic development. Its development includes both the prevention of environmental damage (from pollution), as well as the conservation and enhancement of coastal ecosystems so that they can continue to provide ecosystem services and absorb and mitigate seaport impact (Tinh et al. 2022).Vietnam is one of the world's largest producers of shrimp, with farms often found in mangrove areas. Shrimp farming has been shown to impact marine-based catch, with changes to hydrological processes, soil acidification and GHG emissions, and loss of mangrove habitat (Tue et al. 2014). Integrated, climate-resilient mangrove shrimp farming in the VMD, involving the restoration of mangroves and protection of mangrove biodiversity and ecosystems, is currently being supported via donor-based project development in partnership with the Government of Vietnam (IUCN 2016; SNV 2023). Emission estimates from shrimp farming are limited in the literature and appear to vary depending on the type of shrimp farming used. Shrimp farming methods include intensive, semi-intensive, improved extensive, mixed mangrove concurrent systems. Mixed mangrove systems have the highest CH4 emission amount per volume of shrimp due to the land cover changes (up to 61% deforestation) for installation of this system (compared to the rice paddy system) (Järviö et al. 2022).Human activities also cause mangrove degradation due to deforestation. Whilst mangrove wood extraction for construction and firewood is illegal in protected areas, it is a common cause of mangrove degradation by households (Vo and Kuenzer 2012).Salt farming is concentrated in areas where seawater is most prevalent and is based on the construction of large evaporation ponds from which the salt can be collected. Installation of these ponds also results in completely removing the mangrove vegetation.While the degradation of mangroves is an issue in the VMD, restoration in some areas has taken place, restoring both damage due to the war (Nam et al. 2016) and other developments (Tinh et al. 2020). Restoration is either done through natural regeneration or planting mixed mangrove species or monoculture. A study comparing naturally regenerated versus assisted regeneration found no significant difference in vegetative carbon stocks between the two restoration approaches (Nam et al. 2016). However, impacts of restoration on soils show a variability (potentially due to higher variability in soils) with differences reported in soil carbon stocks in the soil surface in restored mangrove forest versus intact mangrove forest (driven by lower bulk density and higher carbon content reported in the intact mangrove forest) (Tinh et al. 2020).There are some key influencing features to consider when exploring the GHG dynamics of the mangroves of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta.Soil carbon stocks have been shown to vary not only between locations, ranging between 186 to 1575 t C ha -1 in Vietnam (Järviö et al. 2022) but also at depth. A study in Northern Vietnam reported a significant variability in soil carbon at depth increments down to 100 cm (Pham et al. 2020). In addition to this, the total depth of the highly organic mangrove peat soil (and thus the potential total carbon loss from land use change) also varies from location to location.Hydrology is an important feature of the mangrove system-determining the rates of sedimentation, salinity intrusion and potential exposure of soils to aerobic conditions. Hydrological impact on mangroves also influences their soil condition and movement of carbon from the system, with a 50% difference reported in mangrove soils between provinces attributed to how well protected the wetlands were from waves (Tinh et al. 2020). This is also applicable to other particulates, including trace metals, whose precipitation and movement within and from mangrove systems is influenced by tidal movement (Nho et al. 2020).A review of the current Voluntary Carbon Market Standard registries 1 returned over 50 mangrove-based carbon projects, either under development or validated by the Standards, that involve either restoration or protection of mangroves. While this demonstrates a strong potential for conservation and restoration efforts to avoid the loss of carbon volumes and sequester carbon, only limited data is available on these projects' actual carbon benefit numbers.Carbon storage in Vietnamese mangroves has been shown to range from fringe to interior forests between 719  38 into 802  12 Mg C ha -1 [in the above and below ground biomass, woody debris and soils (Tue et al. 2014)], although this sits outside the lower bounds reported by global estimates of between 437 to 2,186 Mg C ha -1 and a mean value of 1043 (Nally et al. 2010). There is variability in the carbon storage in mangrove soils, depending on soil depth and organic matter contributions and the impact of coastal processes. Carbon stocks and other physiochemical properties within the soils can vary within a single mangrove system (for example, across a forest gradient), with inner forest areas exhibiting higher contributions of mangrove-contributed soil organic matter and higher carbon stocks in plant biomass than the mudflat zone (Vinh et al. 2021). Literature on above and belowground biomass in mangroves reports considerable variability depending on location and species, while degradation of mangrove systems would result in a loss of these carbon stocks from vegetation and soils.Mangrove restoration has the potential to sequester significant carbon, more commonly measured by the change in the woody plant material (both above and belowground biomass), as soil carbon measurements are more complex. A generalized estimate for the potential for mangrove plantations in Vietnam projected sequestration rates of up to 32 t CO2e ha -1 yr -1 in the above and belowground biomass over a 30-year timeframe (Nally et al. 2010).While the existing literature would not provide a better overview of the GHG emissions from mangroves, dissolved inorganic carbon from mangrove systems should also be considered when considering fluxes from these systems. Spatial variability of these has been shown (Borges and Kone 2008), particularly correlated with salinity (influenced by rainfall dilution). More rainfall and water flushing through the system may increase benthic and water column heterotrophy, as well as dissolved CO2 originating from soil respiration, which strongly increases O2 released to the atmosphere (Borges and Kone 2008). The impacts of climate change are therefore essential to consider on these emissions sources, particularly the increased intensity of rainfall.Several models have been introduced based on different studies to determine the GHG emission amounts from different land uses. The applicability of these models must be identified before they are used in any study related to GHG emissions.Several process-based biogeochemical models exist that can be applied to waterlogged ecosystems (Mack et al. 2023). Some of the most suitable of these include MERES (Methane, Emissions from Rice Ecosystems), CERES (Crop Environment Resource Synthesis), MEM (Marsh Equilibrium Model), PEPRMT (Peatland Ecosystem Photosynthesis, Respiration, and Methane Transport), DNDC (Denitrification-Decomposition) and DayCent. While these models typically require site-specific data (which is beyond the focus of this review), it is important to note their potential for use (Farmer et al. 2011).MERES was developed to model CH4 emissions from rice production systems with saturated soils in tropical regions (Matthews et al. 2000). It is a process-based model of CH4 production, CH4 oxidation, and fluxes of CH4 from the soil (i.e., diffusion, ebullition, plantmediated transport) and includes the effect of O2 concentration and alternative electron acceptors in the soil. Paddy water depth is simulated using inputs from irrigation, precipitation and outputs from drainage and evapotranspiration.CERES rice simulation model is used to simulate crop growth and rhizodeposition and the influence of crop management practices (Singh et al. 1993). Overall, the model has successfully predicted seasonal patterns of CH4 emissions associated with various rice crop management scenarios in Iran, China, the Philippines, India, Indonesia, and Thailand, which were also used for upscaling to the national level (Matthews et al. 2000;Mirakhori et al. 2017).The DNDC model is a process-based model for application at the field scale to model the decomposition and denitrification of soil under agricultural practices, delivering estimates of N2O, CH4 and CO2 emissions (Li et al. 1992). Wetland-DNDC is a further development of the original DNDC model-specifically to apply on wetland sites and includes additional biogeochemical processes specifically related to soil hydrology, temperature, decomposition and CH4 production (Zhang et al. 2002). The model requires relatively precise inputs to deliver precise outputs. Currently, the DNDC model is most applicable for forested and emergent systems, compared to the vegetation in the Mekong Delta.The MEM model is a mechanistic model suitable for application in salt marsh and mangrove settings and estimates aboveground biomass (AGB), belowground biomass (BGB), soil organic carbon (SOC) and surface elevation. The model was developed to describe the interactions between the physical and biological processes that govern tidal wetland response to rising sea levels and the resulting equilibrium elevation (Morris et al. 2021). The productivity outputs can then be converted to CO2. The PEPRMT model is applicable to freshwater systems and provides estimates of CO2 and CH4 emissions. The two models are currently being merged, allowing a better accounting for net sequestration, but it is only applicable in non-forested emergent wetlands (both salt and fresh), and thus it is not currently applicable to a mangrove forest (Mack et al. 2023). Model application is currently limited to applications within the United States.DAYCENT is a biogeochemical model used to estimate ecosystem responses to changes in climate and agricultural management practices in crop, grassland, forest, and savanna ecosystems on a daily time step (Mack et al. 2023). DAYCENT uses a number of sub-models for soil water content, temperature, plant production, net primary production (NPP), nutrient cycling and gaseous emissions, including adding a component for methane emissions from saturated paddy rice soils (Cheng et al. 2013). The DAYCENT model has been applied globally and across multiple ecosystems and requires daily weather data, soil data and crop management data.There are several calculator-based tools available to estimate emissions from waterlogged soils, which can run on more generalized data. These include Sector, TROPP-CAT and AFOLU CARBONThe Sector tool 2 was developed by the International Rice Research Institute and estimates field emissions under farm management based on the IPCC methodology to estimate CH4 emissions from rice cultivation. The tool can be applied from national to project level scenarios and allows comparison between different land management practices.United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Winrock International developed the AFOLU Carbon Calculator 3 and estimated the carbon impacts of project activities based on basic information shared about the project activities-location, size, and management practices. The calculator uses the basic IPCC approach of combining activity data with emission factors.The Ex-Ante Carbon Balance Tool (EX-ACT 4 ) is based on the IPCC methodology and provides estimates of agricultural interventions on GHG emissions. It covers the full spectrum of land uses under Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) and includes inland and coastal wetlands, fisheries, and aquaculture.The Tropical Peatland Carbon Assessment Tool (TROPP-CAT) (Farmer et al. 2013) is an Excel-based tool to estimate soil carbon loss from organic peat soils. The tool is based on a function of subsidence due to drainage impact and has been applied within an Indonesian context under oil palm and Acacia plantations. A calibration would be needed for a coastal mangrove context.Considering the desk-based nature of this review, estimates of GHG emissions from the VMD under different land use classes were conducted using the tools outlined in sections 4.2.1 to 4.2.3.Climate change predictions for some parts of the Mekong Delta indicate a 1.4 C increase by 2050 (or 0.7 C by 2030. Additionally, there will be an increasing rainfall in rainy months up to 25% but decreasing rainfall by 30-35% by the end of the century causing the climate to be more intense in each season and resulting in an average rainfall change of 1.3% by 2030 and 2.4% by 2050 (Mackay and Russell 2011). Climatic extremes of more rainfall in the wet months and extended drier periods around the dry seasons are also predicted. Sea level is predicted to rise by 15-16 cm in 2030, to 28-32 cm by 2050 and up to 63-88 cm by 2090 (Mackay and Russell 2011).Impacts of hydropower development along the Mekong River are anticipated to reduce sediment load in the lower stretches of the river system by 60-96%, and while the impact of a reduction in sediment load is poorly studied, it is anticipated that the long-term effects of this will influence river morphology, fish communities and access to nutrients for agriculture production, which will impact on land use and emissions from the delta (Baran et al. 2015).Land use change scenarios of the delta are presented in Table 5, based on the previously identified wetland and land use types.  Miller et al. (1999) We used the Sector 5 model to explore management scenarios under the rice farming systems, testing differences in emissions when changing from triple to double rice crops, changes in the timing of straw incorporation, and changes to the irrigation system. Standard input variables on a per-season basis can be found in Table 6, as well as the alternative input variables used under management changes. Percentage of total straw usedEmissions results are found in the table below (Table 7), with the total emissions made up of both the CH4 and CO2 contributions. The greatest opportunity to reduce emissions was found when making changes in management practices-delayed incorporation of straw and increased drainage periods led to a more than halving of emissions in the double rice cropping system. The CH4 emissions values presented here (Table 7) are within the range presented in the table above. Using the EX-ACT carbon tool (v 9.4 6 ) it was estimated that over a 30-year period, the conversion of grassland to rice would give emissions of 214 t CO2e ha -1 , which could be mitigated by the avoidance of this conversion. This value considers both the loss of biomass and emissions associated with the change in hydrology.Global Mangrove Watch (2022) estimates the total organic carbon stored in Vietnam's wetlands at 180.13 Mt CO2e, most of which is stored belowground in the upper 1 m of soil (158.15 Mt CO2e). The potential for emissions mitigation within mangrove areas is estimated at just over 1,000 t CO2e ha -1 through reduced mangrove loss (assuming complete deforestation per hectare) and approximately 700 t CO2e ha -1 through mangrove restoration.Using the AFOLU Carbon Calculator 7 , 30-year simulations were run for both forest protection and forest restoration for the mangrove area of Ca Mau Province of Vietnam. Specific input values used in the model are presented in Table 8. All other input values were provided by the calculator in the geography. The estimated forest protection greenhouse gas benefits represent the benefits of reducing deforestation from a mangrove forest area. Forest protection activities were simulated to result in an annual average of 0.7 t CO2e ha -1 (between 0.5-0.9 t CO2e ha -1 ) and a cumulative benefit of 21.1 t CO2e ha -1 over a 30-year period for this area (Annex)-this being the gross rate of deforestation that would have been avoided. The carbon benefits can also translate into monetary benefits. Average prices for 1 t CO2e (i.e. one carbon credit) averaged USD 6.97 across the voluntary carbon market in 2023, with credits generated from land use and forestry averaging USD 11.21 in 2023 per t CO2e (Donofrio and Procton 2023).Forest restoration activities were simulated to result in an annual average of 13.7 t CO2e ha -1 (between 1.2-21.0 t CO2e ha -1 ) and a cumulative benefit of 412.3 t CO2e ha -1 over 30 years (Annex).There is no doubt that the VMD is a valuable natural resource for Vietnam and its people, with the considerable livelihood and ecosystem services provided by the region. Land use dynamics of the region are complex, with trade-offs and balance in decision-making needsto consider the sustainability of use, biological value, and economic outcomes. One example of this is from the impacts noted on the use of triple-rice cropping systems, which generate additional cash in hand for farmers but, over time, require increased inputs due to loss of environmental quality of the system, and thus become more costly. Payment for ecosystem services are one option that could be developed to support transitions to sustainable land use. Design of climate mitigation activities must view the VMD through a holistic lens, with future scenarios considering the social, carbon and biodiversity benefits of activities that support sustained use and ecological functioning.Emission scenarios vary across the delta due to differences in ecological and hydrological conditions-and this is clear from the range of rice emission values reported in Table 4. Limited data exists in the literature on the carbon storage impacts of mangrove loss or degradation and the emissions associated with conversion to aquaculture (especially shrimp farming). Further studies are required to document carbon stocks and fluxes associated with the diversity of ecosystems and land use types within the VMD-especially in the under-researched land uses such as grassland areas. A focused research strategy with coordinated research efforts can fill these gaps, and it is critical to provide decisionmakers with more insight and information. ","tokenCount":"6246"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"31c45163f5f8aca58cd0ff660e6e2a85","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/6b6efb27-71dc-4318-bbb3-51f1b29ba765/retrieve","id":"-660394894"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d648187b-dbcc-408d-ab50-e1e53839d5f2","pagecount":"1","content":"We thank farmers and local partners in Africa RISING sites for their contributions to this research. We also acknowledge the support of all donors which globally support the work of the CGIAR centers and their partners through their contributions to the CGIAR systemThe integration of improved forages into smallholder crop-livestock systems aims to facilitate the intensification of mixed crop-livestock systems by providing livestock feed while mitigating climate change effects and reversing environmental degradation.High yielding improved forages produce 5 times more biomass than the natural grasses which can help alleviate persisting feed shortages in smallholder systems The intervention has proved that it is important not only to select forages based on empirical evidence of yield but also based on participatory farmer evaluations using the gender lens to ensure farmer preferences are considered in order to enhance adoption.  At least one Napier grass (Pennisetum purpereum) accession was outstanding, in terms of dry matter yield or quality attributes, in each agro ecological zone which gives farmers options to choose from.In high attitude wet areas, accessions ILRI 16837, ILRI 16835, ILRI 4984, Kakamega (KK)1, and KK2 gave yields of 12.1, 9.3, 8.5, 6.4 and 4.9 t DM ha-1 respectively. In the mid altitude wet areas, accessions KK2, ILRI 16835, KK1 and ILRI 16803 gave yields of 7.0, 6.1, 4.9 and 4.3 t DM ha-1 respectively. In lower altitude drier area, accessions KK2, ILRI 16837 and KK1 gave yields of 4.9, 3.2 and 3.1 t DM ha-1 respectively. In terms of quality, KK2, ILRI 16837 and ILRI 16803 consistently higher quality averaging 9.7, 8.7 and 9.0 CP%. While KK2 and ILRI 16837 were the most digestible with 45 and 43% OMD.  Farmers preferred accessions ILRI 16835, ILRI 16837 and KK2 in that order. These varieties were preferred due to high leaf: stem ratio (leafiness), ability to endure drought and rapid generation after cutting indicating that farmer preferences need to be accommodated.Runoff results indicated that the control had significantly higher runoff regimes (>60%) than the grass-legume combinations and the forage grasses and forage grass-legume interactions had a significant influence on water productivity. Clearly graphical trends depicted that some Napier grass accessions were superior, both with Lablab and as sole components, over the two year period. Scaling of improved forages has very huge potential across different agro ecological zones since we identified options suitable for each zone.  Planting high yielding improved forages on different farm niches such as hedges, terraces and in the landscapes may have multiple beneficial effects of reducing feed scarcity, nutrient losses and water pollution.  Improved high yielding forages have potential (i) to reduce costs of purchasing feed (ii) to shift practices towards more zero-grazing based systems and (iii) to increase milk production.  ","tokenCount":"453"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e705adc5408079cd2ba95325e41a194f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/e737ec98-6732-48f2-aaf7-7bd7c8aebbd5/content","id":"-1077583429"},"keywords":["pathogenomics","population genomics","Puccinia striiformis","wheat yellow rust","plant pathology"],"sieverID":"d3761d19-4837-4fc8-a557-016829ab2341","pagecount":"15","content":"Recent disease outbreaks caused by (re-)emerging plant pathogens have been associated with expansions in pathogen geographic distribution and increased virulence. For example, in the past two decades' wheat yellow (stripe) rust, Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici, has seen the emergence of new races that are adapted to warmer temperatures, have expanded virulence profiles, and are more aggressive than previous races, leading to wide-scale epidemics. Here, we used field-based genotyping to generate high-resolution data on P. striiformis genetics and carried out global population analysis. We also undertook comparative analysis of the 2014 and 2013 UK populations and assessed the temporal dynamics and host specificity of distinct pathogen genotypes. Our analysis revealed that P. striiformis lineages recently detected in Europe are extremely diverse and in fact similar to globally dispersed populations. In addition, we identified a considerable shift in the UK P. striiformis population structure including the first identification of one infamous race known as Kranich. Next, by establishing the genotype of both the pathogen and host within a single infected field sample, we uncovered evidence for varietal specificity for genetic groups of P. striiformis. Finally, we found potential seasonal specificity for certain genotypes of the pathogen with several lineages identified only in samples collected in late spring and into the summer, whereas one lineage was identified throughout the wheat growing season. Our discovery of which wheat varieties are susceptible to which specific P. striiformis isolates, and when those isolates are prevalent throughout the year, represents a powerful tool for disease management.Disease outbreaks caused by (re-)emerging plant pathogens have frequently been associated with expansions in pathogen geographic distribution and increased virulence of known pathogens. One example is the wheat yellow (stripe) rust pathogen, Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici (PST), that is present in all wheat growing areas of the world. The resulting disease can cause high yield losses, even in countries where resistant wheat varieties and/or fungicides are used (Wan et al. 2004;Wellings 2011). In the past two decades, new, more aggressive, P. striiformis races adapted to warmer temperatures and showing expanded virulence profiles have caused widespread epidemics (Milus et al. 2009). As a case in point, two highly aggressive P. striiformis strains (PstS1 and PstS2) were present at epidemic sites across five continents in 2009, reflecting the most rapid and extensive spread of any important plant pathogen to date (Hovmoller et al. 2010). The emergence of high temperature-tolerant P. striiformis races has enabled the disease to proliferate in new geographic regions. As these races continue to evolve in their new habitats, this epidemic will likely continue (Hovmoller et al. 2010).In Europe, P. striiformis has re-emerged as a major constraint on wheat production; races recently arising in Europe have overcome many of the major resistance genes in European germplasm. For instance, in 2011, two new P. striiformis races collectively known as Warrior (based on the virulence of one initial variant of this group to the wheat variety Warrior) and Kranich (based on the virulence of one variant to the wheat variety Kranich) emerged as serious threats to wheat production (Hubbard et al. 2015;Hovmoller et al. 2016). The Warrior race was identified in many countries across Europe in the first year of detection, whereas reports of the Kranich race have been largely confined to Denmark, Poland, Sweden, and Finland (Hovmoller et al. 2016). These two emergent races differ from the older European races; they produce unusually high quantities of sexual teliospores, induce more pronounced disease symptoms on wheat varieties harboring long-lasting adult plant resistance, and have higher degrees of genetic diversity (Rodriguez-Algaba et al. 2014;Hubbard et al. 2015;Hovmoller et al. 2016). The high levels of genetic diversity within these races is attributed to the fact they originated from sexually recombining populations in Asia, reaching Europe via long-distance aerial dispersal (Hovmoller et al. 2016). As is common among rust pathogens, P. striiformis is heteroecious, requiring two hosts to complete its life cycle; P. striiformis undergoes asexual reproduction on wheat and sexual reproduction on Berberis, where recombination can lead to the emergence of novel genotypes (Jin et al. 2010;Rodriguez-Algaba et al. 2014). Puccinia striiformis populations in Europe are highly clonal, with signs of sexual reproduction limited to Asia (Ali 2016). However, longdistance spore dispersal can rapidly spread novel P. striiformis genotypes generated in Asia, with the expansion of the fittest genotype driven in new territories by subsequent asexual reproduction (Brown and Hovmoller 2002). In addition, there is a strong indication that humans contribute to the dispersal of wheat yellow rust. For example, humans initially introduced this pathogen into Australia in 1979 (Wellings 2007). Such factors have escalated the frequency of long-distance transmission for P. striiformis and led to increasingly unpredictable changes in its population diversity and dynamics in recent years. However, how diverse environments in new habitats such as host genotypes and ecological conditions influence the population dynamics of P. striiformis has yet to be truly explored.Advances in sequencing technologies provide new opportunities to investigate the complexities influencing genetic variation in plant pathogen populations (Guttman et al. 2014). For instance, genome sequencing helped uncover the role of somatic hybridization and gene gain and loss in driving the emergence of host-specialized isolates of Blumeria graminis and Magnaporthe oryzae, respectively (Menardo et al. 2016;Yoshida et al. 2016). Genomic studies should be particularly valuable for analyzing rust pathogens, which are frequently obligate biotrophs that cannot be axenically cultured in the laboratory environment. Historically, most population studies of rust pathogens have used polymorphic simple sequence repeat (SSR) loci to differentiate pathogen isolates (e.g., Puccinia triticina, Kolmer and Acevedo 2016;Melampsora larici-populina, Xhaard et al. 2011;P. striiformis, Thach et al. 2016). However, the number of SSR loci required to accurately differentiate a population structure can be quite high (Garke et al. 2012). As an alternative, the genomic revolution has enabled the use of hundreds or thousands of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) sites, markedly improving the resolving power of population analysis (Singh et al. 2013). A recent study used SNP markers to develop a new RNA-seqbased genotyping technique termed \"field pathogenomics,\" and detected a complete shift in the UK P. striiformis population in recent years (Hubbard et al. 2015). The field pathogenomics technique is so named because it allows the analysis of pathogen population dynamics directly from the field, providing insights into pathogen biology, population structure, and pathogenesis (Derevnina and Michelmore 2015).Here, we used the field pathogenomics genotyping technique to examine the European P. striiformis population in 2014, and through comparative genomics determined the distribution of the emergent Warrior and Kranich race groups on a global scale. A unique feature of the field pathogenomics technique is the ability to investigate the genotypes of both the pathogen and host within a single P. striiformis-infected field sample. We used this feature to identify a potentially direct association between P. striiformis genotypes and the particular wheat host varieties they infect in the field. This association we uncovered is likely linked to the distinct virulence profiles of P. striiformis isolates in different genetic groups. Furthermore, we found that certain P. striiformis genotypes appeared to display seasonal specificity with a number of lineages identified only in the late spring and into the summer and one lineage being identified throughout the growing season. This new knowledge regarding potential varietal and temporal specificity for P. striiformis lineages was only possible due to recent advances in high-resolution genotyping techniques. Our discovery of wheat variety susceptibility to specific P. striiformis isolates that are prevalent at certain times of the year can have considerable impact on directing future disease management approaches.Transcriptome Sequencing of P. striiformis-infected Leaf Samples A total of 246 P. striiformis-infected wheat, triticale, and rye leaf samples were collected from December 2013 to August 2014 across 16 European countries and stored in RNAlater solution (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Paisley, United Kingdom) as described previously (Hubbard et al. 2015) (supplementary table S1, Supplementary Material online). Additional current and historical P. striiformis-infected samples from Pakistan, Ethiopia, Chile, and New Zealand were also obtained. A subset of 133 of these samples were subjected to RNA extraction using a Qiagen RNeasy Mini Kit according to the manufacturer's instructions (Qiagen, Manchester, United Kingdom). Quality and quantity of extracted RNA were assessed using an Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer (Agilent Technologies, United Kingdom) and cDNA libraries prepared using an Illumina TruSeq RNA Sample Preparation Kit (Illumina). Libraries were sequenced on the Illumina HiSeq 2500 machine at the Earlham Institute, United Kingdom. The FASTX-Toolkit (version 0.0.13.2) was used for adapter and barcode trimming and quality filtering. The 101-bp (HiSeq) pair-end reads were aligned to the PST-130 assembly as described previously (Hubbard et al. 2015). SAMtools (version 0.1.19) (Li et al. 2009) was used for P. striiformis SNP-calling, considering only sites with a minimum depth of coverage of 20Â. SNP sites with allelic frequencies ranging from 0.2 to 0.8 were classified as heterokaryotic sites, and those with other allelic frequencies were classified as homokaryotic sites. The 0.2-0.8 boundaries were selected by calculation of the MAF (Major allelic frequency) for all isolates from 2014, which indicated that the number of positions that fall within the 0.8 and 0.9 boundaries represent just 0.59% of the total number of positions considered. Read frequencies were calculated for biallelic heterokaryotic SNP sites and plotted using ggplot2 in R (Ginestet 2011). SnpEff, version 3.6 (Cingolani et al. 2012) was used to identify homokaryotic and heterokaryotic SNP sites that induced synonymous and nonsynonymous substitutions. Illumina reads from all RNA-seq runs were deposited in the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA; PRJEB15280). Genome Sequencing of the UK P. striiformis Kranich Isolate Genomic DNA was extracted from dried urediniospores of P. striiformis isolate 14/106 using the CTAB method (Chen et al. 1993). A gDNA library was prepared as described previously (Hubbard et al. 2015) and library quality confirmed before sequencing using the Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer (Agilent Technologies). The library was sequenced on the Illumina HiSeq 2500 machine at the Earlham Institute, United Kingdom. Data filtering was carried out as described earlier and the 101-bp (HiSeq) pair-end reads aligned to the PST-130 assembly (Cantu et al. 2011) as described previously (Hubbard et al. 2015). SNP-calling and SNP analysis were performed as described earlier. The gDNA data were deposited in the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA; PRJEB15280).A maximum likelihood approach was used for all phylogenetic analyses of P. striiformis isolates. To identify and record a nucleotide residue, a minimum of 20Â depth of coverage was required for sites that differed from the PST-130 reference, with 2Â coverage if they were identical to the reference. These sites were used to generate synthetic gene sets for each isolate using the method described previously (Hubbard et al. 2015). Unrooted maximum likelihood trees were constructed using the third codon position of these genes using RaxML 8.0.20 with 100 replicates using the rapid bootstrap algorithm (Stamatakis 2006). Phylogenetic trees were visualized in MEGA6.06. The results from STRUCTURE analysis for the European population were incorporated into the phylogenetic tree using iTOL (Letunic and Bork 2007).The genetic substructuration of P. striiformis isolates was assessed using both model-based Bayesian and nonparametric multivariate clustering methods. The Python program StrAuto, version 3.1 (Chhatre and Emerson 2017) was used to execute the Bayesian model-based approach implemented in STRUCTURE, version 2.3.4 (Pritchard et al. 2000). First, sites that introduced a synonymous change in at least one isolate were listed. The nucleotide at this position was then extracted for all isolates. The \"admixture\" model was used with three to five replicates of 220,000 Markov Chain Monte Carlo generations for a range of K values, where K is the number of genetic groups. For each run, the first 110,000 generations were discarded as burn-in before collecting data. To identify K values, the average log probability (LnP(D)) of each K value was calculated. However, as STRUCTURE is sensitive to asexual reproduction (Gao et al. 2007), the subdivision of genetic groups was also analyzed with multivariate analysis using discriminant analyses of principal components (DAPC) implemented in the Adegenet package in the R environment (Jombart et al. 2010), a nonparametric approach used without any predetermined genetic model. Using the synonymous sites extracted for STRUCTURE analysis, the number of maximal genetic groups (Kmax) was assessed based on decreasing Bayesian information criterion (BIC) values, as suggested by Jombart et al. (2010).The diversity within and between all P. striiformis genetic groups was assessed by generating synthetic gene sets for each individual isolate that incorporated all heterokaryotic and homokaryotic SNPs from alignments of each isolate to the PST-130 reference. Synthetic genes were combined for all P. striiformis isolates within a genetic group, and used to calculate the degree of nucleotide diversity between isolates within a single genetic group using the EggLib software package, version 2.1.2 (De Mita and Siol 2012). The number of SNPs identified within a genetic group from this set of genes was then used to assess the number of SNPs/kb per genetic group.P. striiformis has intra individual polymorphisms due to differences between the two nuclei caused by its dikaryotic status. To assess the divergence between our genetic groups based only on inter individual polymorphisms, the genotype of each isolate was generated using an in-house Python script by merging both haplotypes into just one sequence without phasing (AA->0; AC/CA->1; AG/GA->2; AT/TA->3; CC->4; CG/GC->5; CT/TC->6; GG->7; GT/TG->8; TT->9; missing data ->X). The genotypic diversity was then calculated corresponding to the interindividual diversity within a genetic group and the genetic distance (D A and D XY ) of these genetic groups using the Egglib software.To define total genetic variance attributable to intergroup differences, a total of 36,921 synonymous SNP sites were used in Genepop, version 4.2 (Rousset 2008) to calculate the Wright's F ST statistic. This was carried out for all 2013 and 2014 European isolates combined. To further characterize the different P. striiformis genetic groups, 427 genes with at least 80% breadth of coverage for all isolates (representing 407,421 positions with an average of 1,256 polymorphic sites) were selected, and their sequences concatenated using an in-house Python script. The excess of heterozygotes (F IS ) and nucleotide diversity (P) were calculated for all genetic groups using Egglib version 2.1.2 (De Mita and Siol 2012). The number of SNPs between two genetic groups identified for this set of genes was used to compute the number of intergenetic group SNPs/kb.Primers were designed as described previously (Hubbard et al. 2015), carrying standard FAM or HEX compatible tails (FAM tail: 5 0 -GAAGGTGACCAAGTTCATGCT-3 0 ; HEX tail: 5 0 -GAAGGTCGGAGTCAACGGATT-3 0 ), with the SNP at the 3 0end. Assays were carried out as described previously (Hubbard et al. 2015) and data were analyzed manually using Klustercaller software (version 2.22.0.5, LGC).Virulence Profiling of P. striiformis Isolates Puccinia striiformis isolates were screened for compatibility across a set of wheat cultivars possessing known resistances to P. striiformis and a subset of cultivars possessing resistances that have yet to be fully described. Infection assays were undertaken with ten technical replicates on seedlings under controlled environmental conditions. Infection reactions were assessed on the first seedling leaf using a 0-4 scale with infection types 3 and 4 considered to represent a compatible interaction between the host genotype and pathogen isolate. Host resistance genes included in the differential set were Yr1, Yr2, Yr3, Yr4, Yr5, Yr6, Yr7, Yr8, Yr9, Yr10, Yr15, Yr17, Yr24,  Yr25, and Yr32, as well as Spaldings Prolific, Robigus, Solstice, Warrior, KWS-Sterling, Claire, Crusoe, Ambition, Vuka, Cadenza, Ambition, and Brigadier.For adult plants, five isolates were tested using an extended variety set. The varieties consisted of the current UK Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board Recommended List, representing commonly grown UK wheat varieties. Each variety was sown as a 30-cm diameter tussock in two replicates in each of five separate trials. Each trial was inoculated with one of the five selected isolates by transplanting infected seedlings into spreader plots within the trial. The spreader plots subsequently provided naturally dispersed inoculum into the variety plots. The percentage leaf area infected was assessed at weekly intervals once the value for the susceptible control (Robigus) reached 5%. An average of these assessments was then taken to represent disease progression throughout the season. The seedling tests were also extended to include the same variety set used in the adult plant tests under controlled environmental conditions. A subset of differentials from the initial pathotype screening was also included to check consistency between tests. Varieties were tested and assessed as described earlier.From the set of $90,000 SNP markers genotyped using the wheat Illumina iSelect array (Wang et al. 2014), 21,505 nonredundant SNP loci were selected, including 1,831 that could be used to differentiate wheat varieties where SNP information was available (genotype data, developed by NIAB within the \"WAGTAIL\" project, are freely available from NIAB upon request). The wheat varieties of the field samples were confirmed as previously described (Hubbard et al. 2015). First, reads were aligned to sequences flanking the 21,505 SNP markers. The SNP sites were then determined using VarScan (Koboldt et al. 2009), with a minimum base quality of 20, and homozygous SNPs reported when the allele frequency exceeded 0.80. A scoring system was used to determine the most likely wheat variety in a particular sample as described previously (Hubbard et al. 2015). In short, if a P. striiformis-infected wheat sample matched the SNP site for a particular variety, the position was scored as 1, and if the site partially matched, the score was 0.5. Otherwise, the position was scored as 0. This analysis was carried out for all SNP markers in a sample, and the cumulative score for all varieties was determined. The final score per variety represents the similarity between the P. striiformis-infected sample and a particular variety. The highest score corresponds to the most similar variety across varieties where marker data were available.  S1, Supplementary Material online). We extracted total RNA from a subset of 115 European P. striiformis-infected samples and subjected it to direct RNA-seq analysis using the field pathogenomics method (Hubbard et al. 2015). This method allows the genotypic diversity of P. striiformis to be characterized directly at the field level. Samples were selected for RNA-seq analysis to maximize their temporal, varietal, and spatial distribution (supplementary table S1, Supplementary Material online). Following quality filtering, reads were aligned to the PST-130 reference genome (Cantu et al. 2011), with an average of 36.87% (19.736SD) reads aligned (supplementary table S2, Supplementary Material online). To ensure each sample comprised a single P. striiformis genotype without bias in allele-specific expression between the two haploid dikaryotic nuclei, we analyzed the distribution of read counts for biallelic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), determined from alignment against the PST-130 genome, as described previously (Hubbard et al. 2015). The P. striiformis mean of read counts at heterokaryotic positions had a single mode at 0.5 for all samples, indicating that each sample had little bias in allele expression and likely represented predominantly a single genotype (supplementary figs. S1-S3, Supplementary Material online).To determine the relationship between the European 2014 P. striiformis field isolates and the current and historical P. striiformis genetic groups, we carried out population genetic analysis. First, we performed RNA-seq analysis of additional P. striiformis-infected wheat samples that were sampled in 2014 across three additional continents to place the European population in a global context (supplementary table S3, Supplementary Material online). In addition, to determine the relationship between the 2014 P. striiformis population and older archived isolates, we included RNA-seq and genomic data sets for archived isolates from the United Kingdom and France for comparison when available (supplementary table S3, Supplementary Material online). Finally, we carried out RNA-seq analysis of four historical New Zealand P. striiformis isolates (supplementary table S3, Supplementary Material online). Following quality filtering and data trimming, high quality reads were aligned to the PST-130 reference genome (supplementary table S4, Supplementary Material online).We then carried out phylogenetic analysis of all P. striiformis isolates using the third codon position of 18,023 PST-130 gene models (5,771,054 sites) via a maximum-likelihood model (supplementary data S1 and S2, Supplementary Material online). We found that the European P. striiformis isolates were genetically related to the emergent P. striiformis populations that were previously identified in the United Kingdom in 2013 (Hubbard et al. 2015). Additionally, this emergent P. striiformis population, which until now had been described only in Europe and at its putative origin, in the center of diversity in the near-Himalayan region of Asia (Hovmoller et al. 2016), was also genetically similar to isolates identified across Australasia, South America, and Africa (fig. 1). To further investigate the genetic structuration among these isolates, we selected P. striiformis isolates representing isolates from Europe (collected in 2011-2014), Australasia (2006Australasia ( -2012)), South America (2014), and Africa (2014) that were classified as belonging to the emergent P. striiformis population based on phylogenetic analysis (fig. 1; \"Emergent PST population\"). We then generated a list of 70,712 synonymous SNP sites, 70,565 of which were biallelic, and used multivariate discriminant analysis of principal components (DAPC) to define subdivisions within the population. Analysis of the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) indicated eight to nine as the optimum clustering solution (supplementary figs. S4 and S5, Supplementary Material online), with isolates clearly assigned to six definable homogeneous groups of individuals (fig. 2A). These genetic groups consisted of 1) the four genetic groups that were previously identified in the United Kingdom in 2013, 2) a group containing P. striiformis isolates from the United Kingdom and France sourced in 2011 and 2012, and 3) an additional subgroup of Group 1, which gave rise to Group 5-1. We also sought to confirm the number of groups independently using the average log probability (LnP(D)) of each K value in the model-based clustering program STRUCTURE. The average log probability stabilized at K ¼ (supplementary fig. S6A, Supplementary Material online); however, no isolates were assigned to three of the genetic groups (supplementary fig. S6B, Supplementary Material online). Nonetheless, by considering P. striiformis isolates that were previously assigned to the four clearly defined genetic groups identified in 2013 and the phylogenetic analysis, we concluded that the STRUCTURE analysis supported division of the emergent P. striiformis population into four homogeneous groups of individuals (supplementary fig. S6B, Supplementary Material online). The discrepancies in the results between the two analyses are likely due to assumptions incorporated into the later model-based analysis regarding the underlying population genetics model, particularly Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium or linkage equilibrium, which are ill-suited to an asexually reproducing population (Jombart et al. 2010). Overall, these analyses indicated that the emergent P. striiformis population identified initially in Europe is in fact similar to isolates identified on a global scale (fig. 2B) and consists of a number of distinct lineages.A Shift in the Overall UK P. striiformis Population between 2013 and 2014In 2013, we identified four distinct emergent lineages within the UK population (Hubbard et al. 2015). To determine the prevalence of these lineages across Europe in 2014, we carried out a comparative analysis with the 2013 data set (Hubbard et al. 2015). First, we undertook a phylogenetic analysis of 39 P. striiformis isolates from 2013 and 115 from 2014 using the third codon position of 18,023 PST-130 gene models (4,041,039 sites) via a maximum-likelihood model (fig. 3; supplementary data S3 and S4, Supplementary Material online). Next, we generated a list of 36,921 biallelic synonymous SNP sites. We used the average log probability (LnP(D)) in the program STRUCTURE, which supported the division of the combined 2013 and 2014 P. striiformis isolates into five genetic groups (fig. 3 and supplementary fig. S7, Supplementary Material online). We confirmed the number of groups independently using DAPC analysis, which also discriminated five genetic groups (supplementary fig. S8, Supplementary Material online). One lineage was only found in the 2014 P. striiformis genetic group (Group 5-1). Pair-wise comparisons of the five genetic groups generated a range of F ST values, with Groups 3 and 1 being the most distantly related (F ST 0.65) and Groups 3 and 4 being the most closely related (F ST 0.20) (fig. 4A). To determine the level of asexuality in the various genetic groups, we calculated the level of intrapopulation differentiation using the excess of heterozygotes F IS and linkage disequilibrium of intrapopulations using rbarD. This analysis tended to confirm the asexuality in the European P. striiformis population, with Groups 1, 2, 3, and 4 having a very negative F IS (À0.65, À0.62, À0.64, and À0.67, respectively; table 1). All four genetic groups had positive rbarD values (table 1), which indicates an association between alleles, thereby confirming clonality. We then calculated the number of SNPs/kb within and between genetic groups (supplementary table S5, Supplementary Material online). As expected the average number of SNPs/kb was higher between genetic groups (3.1) than within (2.14). Interestingly, Group 5-1 had the highest F IS value (À0.44), indicating a smaller excess in heterozygosity than the other were biallelic were used to define subdivisions within the population using multivariate discriminant analysis of principal components (DAPC) of the 172 P. striiformis isolates belonging to the \"Emergent PST population.\" The optimal predicted number of population clusters K for this data set was eight to nine, giving rise to six clearly definable genetic groups that consisted of 1) the four genetic groups that were previously identified in the United Kingdom in 2013 (Groups iii, iv, v, and vi); 2) a group containing P. striiformis isolates from the United Kingdom sourced in 2011 and 2012 (Group i); and 3) an additional subgroup of Group 1, which gave rise to Group 5-1 (Group ii). Bars represent estimated membership fractions for each individual. (B) The population clusters identified in the \"Emergent PST population\" were identified across four geographic regions: Europe, Australasia, South America, and Africa. Numbers indicate total number of samples analyzed from that region. genetic groups, with the smallest number of SNPS/kb (0.79, supplementary table S5, Supplementary Material online). This group was newly identified in the United Kingdom in 2014 and together these results could indicate a bottleneck leading to a decrease of diversity following the emergence of this genetic group.Due to the recent identification of Group 5-1, we calculated the net pairwise genetic distance between genetic groups (D A distance; Nei et al. 1983) and the pairwise distance (D XY ; Nei and Kumar 2000) using the genotypes of these isolates to avoid intraindividual diversity. The largest genetic distance was identified for the pairwise comparisons between Groups 1 and 3, Groups 5-1 and 2, and Groups 5-1 and 3 (D A : 1,100.5, 1,037.8, and 1,102.5, respectively; D XY : 1,158.9, 1,132.7, and 1,149, respectively), with an average D A of 793.1 (295.06SD) and D XY of 885.3 (286.76SD) for all pairwise comparisons (fig. 4B and supplementary table S6, Supplementary Material online). The smallest genetic distance was found for the pairwise comparisons between Groups 3 and 4 (D A : 350.3; D XY 462) and between Groups 1 and 5-1 (D A : 373.6; D XY : 407.7; fig. 4B and supplementary table S6, Supplementary Material online). The particularly low D A and D XY distances displayed for Groups 5-1 and 1 and Groups 3 and 4 could indicate the recent divergence of each pair of groups from a recent common ancestor. Alternatively, diversification within one genetic group might have led to the genetic differentiation of the second group. Next, we calculated the genotypic diversity of these genetic groups (p) and compared it with the nucleotide diversity calculations (table 1). Interestingly, Group 5-1 displayed very low genotypic diversity compared with nucleotide diversity (table 1), indicating that this group might have undergone a founder event.Finally, we investigated the prevalence of these five genetic groups of P. striiformis specifically in the United Kingdom in 2014 and compared the results directly with the 2013 UKspecific data. Groups 2 and 3 were absent among the UK samples selected in 2014 (fig. 4C). However, P. striiformis isolates belonging to Group 2 were previously only identified on triticale, and no triticale samples from the United Kingdom were analyzed in 2014. Furthermore, we noted a significant enrichment (v 2 , P < 0.005) of P. striiformis isolates in Group 4 when comparing isolates between 2013 and 2014. These findings suggest that Group 3 may have (at least in part) been displaced in 2014 in the United Kingdom and that Group 4 isolates increased in prevalence (44% in 2013 vs. 84% in 2014) and diversity during this time (nucleotide diversity 1.25Â10 À3 2013, 1.39Â10 À3 2014; table 2).To determine how the observed population structure in the 2014 P. striiformis population was reflected in the phenotypic characteristics of the P. striiformis field isolates, we purified and cultured a subset of isolates for virulence profiling. Two P. striiformis isolates from Group 1, nine from Group 4, and one isolate that could not be clearly assigned to any genetic group (\"mixed\") were inoculated on a series of 46 differential wheat varieties. Disease severity was recorded in seedling tests at 16-to 20-day postinoculation (fig. 4D and supplementary table S7, Supplementary Material online). Consistent with our previous analysis (Hubbard et al. 2015), we identified a direct link between the genotype and pathotype of the genetically distinct lineages in the UK P. striiformis population. However, P. striiformis isolates belonging to Group 4 appeared to have lost virulence to Rendezvous in 2014 compared with isolates within the same genetic group from 2013. This finding suggests that Group 4 isolates may have diverged between 2013 and 2014.In addition, since we selected only a subset of the UK P. striiformis isolates that were subjected to phenotypic analysis for complementary genotypic analysis, we also explored the virulence profiles of the full set of 29 UK P. striiformis isolates from 2014 in seedling tests and investigated five of these more comprehensively using a wider set of varieties (supplementary table S7, Supplementary Material online). We identified a notable P. striiformis isolate (14/106) with virulence on a broader set of varieties at both the seedling and adult plant stages (supplementary tables S7 and S8, Supplementary Material online), which may represent the emergence of a new P. striiformis race in the United Kingdom in 2014. Subsequent independent evaluation of this isolate indicated that the virulence profile was consistent with that of the recently reported Kranich race FIG. 4.-Puccinia striiformis isolates assigned to genetic Group 4 were the most prevalent in the United Kingdom in 2014. (A) Pair-wise comparisons between the five European P. striiformis population groups indicated that Groups 3 and 4 were most closely related (F ST 0.20), while Groups 3 and 1 were the most distantly related (F ST 0.65). (B) Analysis of the genetic distance (D A ) between groups illustrated that Groups 3 and 4 and Groups 1 and 5-1 had the smallest genetic distance (350.3 and 373.6, respectively). (C) Group 4 P. striiformis isolates dominated in the United Kingdom and were widespread in 2014, while Groups 2 and 3, which were prevalent in 2013, were absent among the 2014 UK P. striiformis isolates analyzed. Pie charts indicates prevalence of P. striiformis genetic groups in each county sampled; doughnut chart shows cumulative prevalence of genetic groups for the United Kingdom per year with numbers indicating the total number of isolates analyzed per year. (D) Virulence profiles for the genetic groups were largely conserved between isolates belonging to the same group. Two P. striiformis isolates from Group 1 and nine from Group 4 were inoculated onto a series of 46 differential wheat varieties; the six discriminative results are shown: Yr7, AvocetS-Yr7 near isogenic line; Sp, Spaldings Prolific; War, Warrior; Amb, Ambition; Ren, Rendezvous; Ap, Apache. Disease severity was recorded 16-to 20-day post inoculation. Scale: 0 (green) to 4 (red), with 0-2 being resistant (R) and 3-4 being susceptible (S). (Hovmoller et al. 2016) (Hovmoller M [GRRC], personal communication), including avirulence to Yr4 and the variety Spaldings Prolific and virulence for Yr8 (supplementary table S7, Supplementary Material online). To investigate this P. striiformis isolate further and to compare it with the genetic groups we defined in the European P. striiformis population, we carried out full genome resequencing of isolate 14/106. Following alignment to the PST-130 reference genome, we performed phylogenetic analysis of P. striiformis isolate 14/ 106 and representative isolates from each of the genetic groups identified in the 2013 and 2014 data sets. We used the third codon position of 18,023 PST-130 gene models (5,636,425 sites) and a maximum-likelihood model for the phylogenetic analysis (fig. 5A).We then generated a list of 33,482 synonymous SNP sites, 33,431 of which were biallelic, and used both Bayesian clustering in the program STRUCTURE and DAPC analysis to assign the P. striiformis isolate (14/106) to a particular genetic group within the European data set. A total of 29 representative isolates from 2013 and 2014 were selected for analysis of P. striiformis 14/106, which represented an average of five isolates from each of the five genetic groups identified previously (fig. 3). Analysis using the program STRUCTURE identified only four distinct genetic groups, as indicated by the average log probability (LnP(D)) (supplementary fig. S9, Supplementary Material online). However, DAPC analysis resolved all five genetic groups (supplementary fig. S10, Supplementary Material online). The lower number of genetic groups identified using STRUCTURE was likely due to the lower sample number, which caused isolates from genetic  -The UK Puccinia striiformis Kranich race isolate belongs to genetic Group 5-1. (A) The UK P. striiformis Kranich race isolate 14/106 was genetically similar to two isolates from Poland. Phylogenetic analysis was carried out with the UK P. striiformis isolate 14/106 and representative isolates from each of the genetic groups identified in the 2013 and 2014 data sets. We used the third codon position of 18,023 PST-130 gene models (5,636,425 sites) and a maximum-likelihood model for the phylogenetic analysis. Genetic groups are delimitated by dashed ovals; scale bar indicates nucleotide substitutions per site. (B) Multivariate analysis using discriminant analyses of principal components (DAPC) assigned the UK P. striiformis Kranich isolate to genetic Group 5-1. A total of 29 representative isolates were selected for analysis with isolate 14/106, which represented an average of five isolates from each of the five genetic groups. DAPC analysis was undertaken using 33,431 biallelic synonymous SNP sites. Bars represent estimated membership fractions for each individual.Pathogenomic Analysis of Wheat Yellow Rust Lineages GBE Genome Biol. Evol. 9(12):3282-3296 doi:10.1093/gbe/evx241 Advance Access publication November 21, 2017 Group 3 to be clustered with the relatively closely related Group 4 isolates (F ST 0.20; fig. 4A). However, in both instances, we showed that P. striiformis isolate 14/106 was grouped with two isolates identified in Poland belonging to genetic Group 5-1 (fig. 5). This supports the assignment of Group 5-1 as the Kranich race and is the first, to our knowledge, report of a Kranich race incursion in the United Kingdom.In the 2014 growing season, we collected P. striiformisinfected samples from December 2013 to August 2014. Isolates belonging to Groups 1, 2 and 5-1 were identified only in samples collected in May, June, and July (fig. 6A), whereas P. striiformis isolates from Group 4 were identified throughout the growing season (fig. 6A). This result was independent of the geographic locations of the samples; for instance, $50% of samples from 2014 were collected from various locations across the United Kingdom. To further investigate the apparent seasonal specificity for certain genotypes of P. striiformis and rule out yearly bias, we generated a PCR-based assay using SNPs specific to each genetic group to rapidly screen P. striiformis-infected wheat samples collected across the United Kingdom in 2015. A total of 42 samples were genotyped from December 2014 to July 2015 and as noted in the 2014 field season, P. striiformis isolates from Group 1 were only identified late in the spring and into the summer, whereas isolates from Group 4 were identified throughout the season (supplementary table S9 and fig. S11, Supplementary Material online). No isolates from Groups 5-1 and 2 were identified in the sample set from 2015. We speculate that the ability of P. striiformis isolates in Group 4 to infect wheat throughout the growing season may have (in part) led to their predominance in the United Kingdom.Next, we investigated whether particular P. striiformis genotypes showed any preference for wheat varieties that they infected in the field. Where possible, we used our data sets and a set of 1,831 differential wheat SNP markers to confirm the wheat variety in a particular P. striiformis-infected sample, as described previously (Hubbard et al. 2015). Thirty-eight P. striiformis-infected samples were collected from wheat varieties with available SNP markers and thereby could be used to confirm the wheat variety in each sample. Of the 38 P. striiformisinfected wheat samples, we could confirm the variety for 32 (84.21%), where in multiple cases the variety was distributed across different geographic regions (supplementary figs. S12-S14, Supplementary Material online). Next, we assessed all 108 P. striiformis-infected samples for which the wheat variety was reported and (where possible) confirmed. We found that 98% of the 56 wheat varieties harbored P. striiformis isolates from a single genetic group. Only the Kranich variety harbored genetically distinct P. striiformis isolates (Group 1 and 4; F ST 0.37; figs. 4 and 6B). Therefore, we detected a direct association between P. striiformis genotypes and the wheat host pedigrees they infected, which is likely linked to the distinct virulence profiles between isolates in different genetic groups.FIG. 6.-Particular Puccinia striiformis genotypes display seasonal and varietal specificity. (A) Puccinia striiformis isolates belonging to Groups 1, 2, and 5-1 were only identified in samples collected in May, June, and July. In contrast, isolates from Group 4 were identified throughout the growing season. (B) A total of 98% of the 56 wheat varieties analyzed harbored P. striiformis isolates from a single genetic group. Stars indicate wheat varieties that were confirmed using single nucleotide polymorphism marker analysis.High-Resolution Genotyping Reveals the Emergent European P. striiformis Lineages Are in Fact Part of Globally Distributed PopulationsRecent advances in genomic-based sequencing technologies have provided opportunities to explore plant pathogen populations at an unprecedented resolution. For instance, such advances in molecular epidemiology can be exploited to rapidly identify the source(s) of harmful genotypes (Lyon et al. 2016), disease reservoirs (Vanhove 2016), origin and lines of descent (McCann et al. 2013), and population structure and its relationship with the emergence of new virulent genotypes (Gladieux et al. 2015). Here, we used RNA-seq-based field pathogenomics to investigate wheat yellow rust population dynamics directly in the field, exploring the diversity of P. striiformis within Europe and beyond. This topic is of particular interest given the complete shift in the yellow rust population reported in Europe in recent years, with the emergence of a number of new lineages, including the infamous \"Warrior\" and \"Kranich\" races (Hubbard et al. 2015;Hovmoller et al. 2016). In this study, we compared these European P. striiformis lineages with isolates from Ethiopia, Chile, New Zealand, and Pakistan. These emergent European P. striiformis lineages likely originated from the potential center of diversity in the near-Himalayan region (Hovmoller et al. 2016). This finding, combined with the current data, suggest that this newly emergent P. striiformis population, which had only previously been reported at its putative origin in Asia and in Europe, is in fact similar to isolates identified on a global scale, across at least five out of seven continents (Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, and Australasia). However, a previous analysis of isolates collected pre-2008 from East Africa and South America showed that these areas harbored races that were genetically different to the European lineages at that time (Hovmoller et al. 2016). Therefore, our study indicates that the incursion of the emergent P. striiformis lineages into Ethiopia and Chile is likely relatively recent. This favors the notion that long-distance dispersal can rapidly spread novel P. striiformis genotypes into new territories on a global scale.Traditionally, the pre-2011 European yellow rust population propagated asexually, with mutation driving race variability within the confines of Europe, thereby leading to a single clonal genetic group (Hovmoller and Justesen 2007). However, one feature of the emergent P. striiformis populations in Europe is the unusual scale of inter-and intradiversity (Hubbard et al. 2015). Furthermore, our comparative analysis of the UK genetic groups between 2013 and 2014 revealed a potential shift in the genetic diversity of the P. striiformis population, with considerable diversification within one genetic group, Group 4. This could be due to 1) rapid diversification and expansion of Group 4 between 2013 and 2014 in the United Kingdom, 2) a new exotic incursion of P. striiformis isolates with a similar genetic background and/or 3) the small sample size in 2013 not being truly representative of the existing P. striiformis diversity. Regardless, such high levels of diversity within Group 4 may reflect differences in life history strategies of the new P. striiformis lineages, such as an increase in the rate of somatic hybridization, which would enhance genetic variability.For rust pathogens, intraspecific and interspecific hybridization can contribute to genetic diversity (Park and Wellings 2012). In addition, somatic hybridization is more likely to occur between allopatric pathogen lineages or species that are brought together from geographically separated epidemiological areas (Stukenbrock and McDonald 2008). The high level of genetic differentiation between the different emergent P. striiformis lineages identified in the United Kingdom (F ST range 0.20-0.65) is consistent with the notion that the P. striiformis population recently arose from multiple exotic incursions from distinct geographical sources (Hubbard et al. 2015). The loss of isolation by distance, which may have previously maintained reproductive isolation, could then lead to more frequent outcrossing between these emergent lineages (Stukenbrock and McDonald 2008). However, the role of hybridization in contributing to the unprecedented widescale diversification of certain emergent P. striiformis lineages remains to be established. In addition, the low D A and D XY distance between Groups 1 and 5-1 is consistent with the idea that either the divergence of both groups from a recent common ancestor or diversification within Group 1 led to the genetic differentiation of Group 5-1. This could indicate a potential bottleneck leading to a decrease of diversity following the emergence of this particular genetic group.High-resolution pathogen genotyping allows pathogen populations to be rapidly defined and tracked in exceptional detail. For instance, the field pathogenomics genotyping technique was recently employed in the rapid response to the first severe outbreak of wheat blast in Asia. Using this approach, the causal agent was confirmed to be a wheatinfecting lineage of Magnaporthe oryzae, and the origin was determined to be South America, within just a few weeks of sample collection in the field (Islam et al. 2016). For P. striiformis, the ability to accurately genotype both the pathogen and host directly in the field using this technique enabled us to study the coexistence of P. striiformis genetic groups and their hosts. The coexistence of distinct genetic groups of a plant pathogen on the same host is widespread (e.g., Melampsora larici-populina, Persoons et al. 2016;Botrytis cinerea, Fournier and Giraud 2007;Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici, Hubbard et al. 2015).The niche theory implies three methods of coexistence: 1) space partitioning, 2) time partitioning, and 3) resource partitioning (Amarasekare 2003). Of these three, time partitioning has to date been less well studied. However, evolutionary invasion analysis did reveal that divergence of plant pathogens can be due to time partitioning based on periodic host absence (Hamelin et al. 2011). Seasonality can also play an important role in the management of host-pathogen interactions based on contact rates, variation in encounters with infective stages in the environment and changes in the host immune system (Altizer 2006). In this study, we determined that P. striiformis may use both resource and time partitioning. For instance, we provide evidence that specific genetic groups of P. striiformis display a high degree of wheat varietal specificity in the agro-ecosystem, allowing the coexistence of specialized genetic groups of P. striiformis on the same host species. Furthermore, we also identified a degree of time partitioning for P. striiformis isolates in Groups 1, 2, and 5-1 that were only identified in late spring and summer compared with isolates in Group 4 that were present throughout the growing season from December through to August. This may have in part contributed to the increased prevalence of Group 4 isolates in the United Kingdom between 2013 and 2014. These observations could suggest an association between certain pathogen genotypes and warmer environmental conditions later in the season. In Southern and Northern France in the 1980s and 1990s, P. striiformis isolates were recovered that displayed clear temperature-specific adaptation (Mboup et al. 2012). Alternatively, these observations could reflect more effective resistance-mediated control of Group 4 isolates by adult plants late in the season, thereby restricting Group 4 prevalence and enabling Groups 1 and 2 isolates to thrive. These possibilities should be explored in future studies.As global trade continues to expand and people increasingly vacation in more remote locations, the spread of pathogens into new territories is inevitable. For wheat yellow rust, we have already witnessed the devastation caused by the humanassisted introduction of P. striiformis into Australia (Brown 1984). Therefore, there is an urgent need for robust, rapid, high-resolution genotyping techniques to track and define a pathogen population's structure and dispersal on a global scale. Here, we leveraged recent advances in field-based genotyping to generate high-resolution data on P. striiformis genetics. This analysis revealed that races of P. striiformis that recently emerged in Europe are in fact similar to populations identified on a global scale. Furthermore, we uncovered the possibility of seasonal and varietal specificity in genetic groups of P. striiformis. Knowing which wheat varieties are susceptible to specific P. striiformis isolates prevalent at certain times of the year could help agronomists fine-tune disease management strategies accordingly. The scale and frequency of emerging diseases will continue to increase, making the integration of high-resolution genotyping into international surveillance programs important as emergent plant pathogens become increasingly unpredictable.","tokenCount":"7588"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"429758ecebe8d2970130a4064e217992","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/c5132fd4-d9e6-4587-8c3d-81a5297e9f16/content","id":"-1530303285"},"keywords":["Identification","Heterodera spp.","phylogeny","phytophagous nematodes","wheat Teşhis","Heterodera spp.","filogenetik","bitki paraziti nematodlar","buğday"],"sieverID":"de3c464f-df16-4e00-a53e-f78ac52f8428","pagecount":"11","content":"This study evaluated the occurrence and incidence of phytophagous nematodes and identified the cereal cyst nematode species by morphological and molecular tools in the main cereal-growing areas in Niğde in 2018-2019. Phytophagous nematodes within twelve genera were detected in 95% of soil samples. The most common phytophagous nematodes in cereal soil were in the genera Heterodera, Ditylenchus, Merlinius, Pratylenchus, Aphelenchus, Aphelenchoides, Tylenchus, Helicotylenchus, Trophurus, Pratylenchoides, Filenchus and Xiphinema (in decreasing order of incidence). In particular, 75% of the soil samples from surveyed fields were infested with the cereal cyst nematodes (Heterodera spp.). Morphological characteristics of cysts and second-stage juveniles were calculated within the expected ranges for Heterodera filipjevi (Madzhidov, 1981) Stelter, 1984, however, two populations from Çamardı was determined as Heterodera latipons Franklin, 1969 (Tylenchida: Heteroderidae). Intraspecific variation was not observed within the populations of H. filipjevi which could be in the same genotypic group. In addition to the high incidence of these Heterodera spp., intensive cereal cropping systems with/without non-cereal rotations in wheat production areas of Niğde also resulted in high incidence of root lesion nematode, Pratylenchus species.Wheat (Triticum spp.) is the third most important crop after rice and maize in terms of global production with an average annual production of almost 772 Mt in 2017 (FAO, 2018). As the most important food crops of many countries, bread wheat [Triticum aestivum L. (Poales: Poaceae)] and durum wheat [Triticum durum Desf. (Poales: Poaceae)] provides an important nutrition to the feeding both humans and livestock, and contribute nearly one-third of the total food grain production in the world. A complex of biotic (i.e., diseases and insects) and abiotic factors (i.e., soil and climate) affects directly wheat grain yield in the important wheat-growing areas of the world. Among the biotic factors, the plant parasitic nematodes (PPNs) are a major biotic constraint to wheat production systems worldwide, especially where the plants under stress by other biotic and abiotic factors, particularly drought. PPNs cause severe annual economic losses of up to 216 billion USD worldwide when simultaneously exposed to drought (Nyaku et al., 2017). Cereal cyst nematodes (CCNs) [Heterodera avenae Wollenweber, 1924 (Tylenchida: Heteroderidae) group], among the PPNs, are most commonly found in wheat cropping areas (Rivoal & Cook, 1993;Dababat & Fourie, 2018).Heterodera avenae group occurs widely throughout the wheat-growing areas of the world (Dababat & Fourie, 2018). Cereal cyst nematodes are causing yield loss of about 3.4 million USD annually in the Pacific Northwest region of the USA (Smiley & Nicol, 2009). The main species of cyst nematode pests of cereals are H. avenae, Heterodera filipjevi (Madzhidov, 1981) Stelter, 1984and Heterodera latipons Franklin, 1969 (Tylenchida: Heteroderidae) within H. avenae group, which contains 12 nematode species (Rivoal & Cook, 1993;Nicol, 2002). Accurate identification of the species causing the loss is critical for determining the most effective method to control cyst nematodes, and requires both morphological and molecular methods. The vulval region of cysts and second-stage juveniles (J2s) are the most common features used for identification of Heterodera spp. (Handoo, 2002;Subbotin et al., 2010). However, the use of these morphological characters of Heterodera spp. is difficult and needs experienced scientists. Currently, molecular identification techniques are used overcome the taxonomic difficulties with morphological species identification (Dababat et al., 2015;Imren et al., 2020). Determination of the genetic variation in cyst nematode populations also aids the development or improvement of resistant host plants.Turkey, with an average annual production of about 20 Mt and a planted area of about 7.3 Mha, is one of the important wheat-growing countries of the world, but the average yield of around 2.7 t/ha is relatively low (FAO, 2018). The Central Anatolian Plateau (CAP) produces about 5 Mha wheat annually under rainfed conditions with only a limited area of irrigation. Located on the CAP, Niğde Province produces around 230 kt of wheat, barley and rye grain on over 125 kha (TurkStat, 2020). In Niğde, wheat crops are frequently exposed to drought stress due to insufficient annual rainfall (200-300 mm) and scarcity of supplementary irrigation. Several studies were conducted between 1974-2020 to detect the diversity in H. avenae group in the root zone of various crops in different areas of Turkey (Yüksel, 1974;Rumpenhorst et al., 1996;Abidou et al., 2005Abidou et al., , Şahin et al., 2009;;Dababat et al., 2015;Imren et al., 2018). In Turkey, cyst nematodes in the H. avenae group were first found in associated wheat in Erzurum in 1974 and since then H. avenae group nematodes have been increasingly found in the other wheat-growing areas of Turkey (Imren et al., 2012;Dababat et al., 2015). Heterodera avenae group populations from the CAP have mainly been identified based on their morphology and morphometrics; therefore, limited information is available on the variation in their morphometrics in relation to their genetic structure (Şahin et al., 2009). This research was conducted to reveal the status of phytophagous nematodes including the H. avenae group in the cereal-growing areas of Niğde by completing an intensive survey in wheat fields in Altunhisar, Bor, Central, Çamardı and Ulukışla Districts. The objectives were to (1) determine the incidence of the important species of PPNs in Niğde Province, (2) determination and evaluate both cysts and J2s of CCN populations with morphology, morphometrics and molecular assays including sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) of ribosomal DNA fragments, and (3) investigate the phylogenetic relationships with and between populations found.The survey was conducted in 2018 between physiological maturity and harvest stage of wheat from the cereal-growing areas of Altunhisar, Bor, Central, Çamardı and Ulukışla Districts in Niğde. In total 64 cereal fields (wheat and barley) were sampled (Figure 1 & Table 1) about 10-20 km apart with soil samples were taken arbitrarily along a zigzag transect. A minimum of 10 cores was taken per sample using 2.5 cm diameter soil corer, the soil mixed and a representative subsample of 2 kg was kept for nematode extraction. Details recorded included crop, district and geographic coordinates.Migratory nematodes were extracted using a modified Baermann funnel from 100 ml of soil as described by Hooper (1986). After extraction, nematode suspensions were placed in measuring cylinders and allowed to settle for 8 h, the supernatant discarded, and the concentrated nematodes (plus debris) were transferred in 15-ml tubes. Nematode identification was made to genus under a light microscope at 100× magnification (Leica 5500, Wetzlar Germany). Cyst nematodes were extracted from 250 ml of soil using a modified decanting and sieving technique (Dababat et al., 2014). At least 20 full cysts were selected from each population, and stored at 4ºC for later morphological and molecular analysis. Cysts were morphologically identified to genus under a stereomicroscope at 20× magnification. The incidence of the nematodes was determined for each field as the quantity of the samples with nematodes as a proportion of the total number of samples.Each Heterodera population was identified based on the vulval cones structure and J2 dimensions as well as their morphological features. Vulval cone slides were used to identified cyst nematode specimens according to Hooper (1986). Vulval slit length, vulval bridge width, fenestra width and length, and underbridge width and length were measured. The presence of underbridge and bullae of the perineal area were also determined (Handoo, 2002).  '31.2\" 34º69'18.7\"; 38°26'73.1\" 34º67'91.2\"; 38°27'52.7\" 34º65'80.2\"; 38°26'66.3\" 34º71'62.6\"; 38°28'54.7\" 34º72'90.6\"; 38°28'06.6\" 34º73'69.8\"; 38°27'11.2\" 34º74'23.6\"; 38°26'95.8\" 34º73'42.7\"; 38°26'71.4\" 34º73'72.5\"; 38°28'03.8\" 34º69'51.3\"; 38°27'15.4\" 34º33'20 To prepare permanent slides, 15 juveniles from the individual cysts were heated, fixed in TAF solution (7% formalin and 40% formalin) and put in glycerol (Handoo, 2002). The most important features of J2s including stylet length, length and width of body, length, width and hyaline part of tail were measured. The morphometric ratios a, b', c and c' were determined (Handoo, 2002). Heterodera spp. cyst and J2 were identified using previous studies and identification keys. (Franklin, 1969;Mulvey & Golden, 1983;Handoo, 2002). At least 15 J2s and 15 cysts from each population were examined and photographed using a Leica DFC295 optic camera installed on a DM5500 B light microscope (Leica, Wetzlar, Germany) and measured by Leica software v.4.1.0.Data were analyzed with SPSS 22.0 for Windows (IBM, Armonk, NY, USA) to determine any significant differences between the 48 populations (P≤0.05).Genomic DNA of each population were isolated from one cyst according to method in Holterman et al. (2006). The primers were used for sequencing, AB28 (5ʹ-CGTAACAAGGTAGCTGTAG-3ʹ) and TW81 (5ʹ-TCCTCCGCTAAATGATATG-3ʹ) to amplify the ITS region of nematode DNA according to protocol of Joyce et al. (1994).A total of 48 ITS sequences were identified using a BLAST in the GenBank database. After identification of CCN species in Niğde, six population from each district of Niğde were used for phylogenetic relationship DNA sequences of were aligned with Clustal X (Kimura, 1980). Phylogenetic analyses of the CCN populations and reference population available in the GenBank database were performed with MEGA v 7.0 software using ITS regions (Kumar et al., 2016). A neighbor-joining tree was constructed as Tamura & Nei (1993) using 1000 times bootstrap. Gaps were considered as missing data in the sequences. Heterodera schachtii Schmidt, 1871 (Tylenchida: Heteroderidae) was used for as an outgroup for character polarization.Only 48 samples were evaluated for PPNs because soil samples were hard and dry during harvest. Specimens of motile phytophagous nematode genera were obtained from soil from 46 (96%) of the 48 infested fields sampled (Tables 1 & 2) with an average density 840 nematodes/100 g soil. The PPNs were identified in the samples as shown in Table 2. The highest incidence was for Ditylenchus species. (25 fields) followed by species of Merlinus (21 fields) and Pratylenchus (13 fields). The least common genera were Filenchus and Xiphinema each only found in a single field. Heterodera cysts were found in all of these 48 sampled fields. The economically important PPNs found were Heterodera (CCNs) and Pratylenchus (root lesion nematode). The cyst nematodes in found in 48 of the 64 fields (Table 3). The species were determined to be H. filipjevi and H. latipons, both in the H. avenae group, based on the morphologic, morphometric and molecular analysis. The fields in which cyst nematodes were detected were mostly used for cereal monocultures without fallow or crop rotation. The highest cyst incidence was in Altunhisar and Çamardı Districts and the lowest in Ulukışla District (Table 3). The average cyst density (cysts/250 g of soil) was calculated for each district, with the highest density in Çamardı District being threefold that found in Bor and Central Districts (Table 3).  The survey yielded 48 Heterodera populations, with 46 determined to be H. filipjevi and two H. latipons.Forty-six populations of H. filipjevi were detected across the five districts sampled. The morphological and morphometric characters were consistent with those reported by Handoo (2002). The CCN has lemon shaped cysts and their vulval area protruding at the posterior. Fenestral area was bifenestrate and horseshoe shaped with heavy bullae and underbridge (Figure 2). Measurements (mean and range, n = 15) for specimens from four districts (Table 4) were: body length without neck 599 μm (550-632 μm), neck length 85 μm (72-108 μm), fenestra length 50 μm (47-55 μm) and width 21.2 μm (20.4-21.8 μm). J2s head were slightly offset head and its body cylindrical with conical hyaline tail tip. The juveniles have strong stylet and moderately concave basal knobs (Figure 2). The body of H. filipjevi varied from 550 to 632 μm long and stylet from 24.2 to 25.7 μm. The body has four lateral lines but usually the two inner lines were prominent. Only two populations of H. latipons from Çamardı District were examined. The morphological and morphometric characters were consistent with those reported by Handoo (2002) (Table 4). The cyst color was light brown, lemon shaped with ridges in a zigzag pattern (Figure 3). Fenestral area was bifenestrate and strong under bridge with no bullae body 470 μm (451-532 μm) without neck, body 293 μm (250-390 μm), neck 65 μm (60-80 μm), fenestra 64 μm (47.3-66.5 μm) and width 21 μm (18-25 μm), underbridge 96 μm (85-115 μm), vulval slit 8 μm (7.4-8.5 μm), vulval bridge width 12.4 μm (9.4-13.4 μm) (Figure 3). J2s (n = 15) had cylindrical body and head with conical tail extended with short hyaline terminal compared with H. filipjevi bodies. J2 body had four lateral lines, length 470 μm (412-482 μm), width 19 μm (19-21 μm), length of stylet 24 μm (23-25 μm), tail 60.2 μm (56-63 μm) and hyaline terminal 25 μm (23-29 μm) (Table 4).The nematode ribosomal gene of ITS(ITS1-5.8S-ITS2), region of all 48 Heterodera populations were successfully amplified for sequencing using AB28, TW81 primers pair and PCR product of nematodes were about 1060 bp. Forty-six sequences were identified as H. filipjevi and two H. latipons using BLAST program in GenBank database.   A phylogenetic tree was constructed with six population of Niğde from ITS region sequence of CCN populations (Figure 4). Samples from the four different locations; Altunhisar, Central, Bor and Ulukışla Districts in Niğde Province were grouped as H. filipjevi and one population from Çamardı as H. latipons and the outgroup of H. schachtii (Figure 4). Heterodera filipjevi populations was compared to international genotypes in the phylogenetic tree. Results indicated that a clear separation of the cyst nematodes, H. filipjevi and H. latipons, and confirmed the link between genotyping and phenotyping traits. Intraspecific polymorphism was not observed within H. filipjevi populations, which were in the same group within the phylogenetic tree and representative isolates from GenBank, supported by a moderate to high bootstrap value (Figure 4). This survey was completed in order to determine the incidence of PPNs in cereal fields in Niğde Province. Phytophagous nematodes were detected in 96% of soil samples, and 12 PPN genera were determined, namely Heterodera, Ditylenchus, Merlinius, Pratylenchus, Aphelenchus, Aphelenchoides, Tylenchus, Helicotylenchus, Trophurus, Pratylenchoides, Filenchus and Xiphinema (in decreasing order of incidence). Amplimerlinus, Merlinus, Paratrophurus, Pratylenchoides and the other tylenchid nematodes were the predominant genera of phytophagous nematodes including Pratylenchoides sheri Robbins, 1985 (Tylenchida: Hoplolaimidae), Merlinius brevidens (Allen, 1955) (Tylenchida: Belonolaimidae), Amplimerlinius vicia (Saltukoğlu, 1973) Siddiqi, 1976 (Tylenchida: Dolichodoridae), Paratrophurus striatus Castillo, Siddiqi & Gomez- Barcina, 1989 andParatrophurus acristylus Siddiqi &Siddigi, 1983 (Tylenchida: Belonolaimidae) previously determined in wheat-growing areas of the Southeast Anatolian Region of Turkey (Imren & Elekcioğlu, 2008). Öcal & Elekçioğlu (2015) reported that the most common phytophagous nematodes were Aphelenchus avenae Bastian, 1865 (Tylenchida: Aphelenchoididae), H. latipons, M. brevidens, Pratylenchus thornei Sher & Allen, 1953 (Tylenchida: Hoplolaimidae) and Scutylenchus quadrifer (Andrássy, 1954) (Tylenchina: Merliniidae) in the cereal cropping system of Adıyaman Province, Turkey. Consequently, the reported genera are potentially of economic importance for cereal production in Niğde Province.The high incidence of Heterodera (H. filipjevi and H. latipons) is a key finding of this study, 76% of sampled fields having cyst nematodes. The fields where cyst nematodes were not detected were generally rotated with other crops. The highest incidence (100%) was found in Altunhisar and Çamardı Districts but the lowest was still over 70% in the three other districts sampled. Sahin et al. (2009) were found CCNs (H. filipjevi and H. latipons), and root lesion nematodes [P. thornei and Pratylenchus. neglectus (Rensch, 1924) Filipjev & Schuurmans Stekhoven, 1941], were the most widely distributed species. Toktay et al. (2015) reported that 56% of wheat fields were infested with H. filipjevi in Elazig, Erzincan, Erzurum, Igdir, Kars, Malatya and Sivas Provinces in the East Anatolia Region of Turkey. Imren et al. (2016) reported that 83% of wheat fields were infested with H. filipjevi, in Bolu Province, Turkey. Therefore, cropping practice and environmental conditions in Niğde Province are particularly suited to the persistence of H. filipjevi which poses a risk to wheat production. The incidence of H. latipons was low, so it must be less competitive than H. filipjevi in this context. This study indicated that there was no polymorphism in the populations of H. filipjevi according to the morphological parameters, which confirm differences in measurements of cysts and J2 bodies.Heterodera filipjevi is similar to H. avenae with some minor differences such as less bullae and thinner underbridge in H. avenae (Handoo, 2002;Subbotin et al., 2010). However, H. latipons is quite different from H. filipjevi with a particularly prominent underbridge and no bullae in the fenestral area. Heterodera filipjevi and H. latipons can be easily separated using differences in underbridge structure and presence of bullae in the fenestral area of H. latipons (Wouts & Sturhan, 1995;Rivoal et al., 2003;Subbotin et al., 2003). Heterodera latipons J2s have a shorter tail, stylet and hyaline compared to H. filipjevi J2s. Briefly some morphometric features are easily distinguishable in these species such as cyst length, color and shape, fenestra length, J2s tail and hyaline length (Madzhidov, 1981;Valdeolivas & Romero, 1990;Wouts & Sturhan, 1995).This study confirmed the functionality of CCN cysts and J2 body dimensions, and rDNA sequences for identifying populations of H. latipons and H. filipjevi. Specimens within the H. filipjevi population can be clearly grouped by morphological and molecular data. Likewise, Bekal et al. (1997) did not found any genetic differentiation between populations of H. filipjevi and H. latipons. Similarly, Imren et al. (2015) did not found any genetic differentiation between H. filipjevi populations in the Mediterranean Region of Turkey. However, Subbotin et al. (2010) reported intraspecific polymorphism between H. filipjevi populations and Toktay et al. (2015) also found intraspecific variation between populations in H. filipjevi from the Eastern Anatolian Region of Turkey.This study determined the incidence of phytophagous nematodes in the five main cereal-growing districts, Altunhisar, Çamardı, Bor, Central and Ulukışla, of Niğde Province, particularly the high incidence and population densities of H. filipjevi. These findings indicated that detailed investigation of the pathotypes of H. filipjevi and H. latipons in comparison to other areas of Turkey would be justified. It is therefore recommended that policymakers and researchers consider diversification of wheat genotypes cultivated in Niğde, including durum wheat given its higher resistance to cyst nematodes; follow cultural practices especially crop rotation. Also, the is a need to breed wheat germplasm adapted to the areas with high levels of resistant to the cereal cyst nematodes, and to increase the awareness of advisors and growers of the potential impact of phytophagous nematodes on cereal productions in the province.","tokenCount":"2998"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8e984c2ce85478f0b410056def2d4381","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/43de338b-8fc9-4a2a-89c1-4626e03e2ad9/retrieve","id":"189889701"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"787b0edb-85da-4d9f-b7b2-a9eddcee97b0","pagecount":"11","content":"Titles in this series aim to disseminate interim research on the scaling of climate services and climatesmart agriculture in Africa, in order to stimulate feedback from the scientific community.Seasonal climate forecasts play a crucial role in adapting to climate variability (Hansen et al., 2011;Guido et al., 2020;Vaughan et al., 2019), particularly in regions characterized by a strong inter-annual rainfall variability such as the Sahel (Zougmore et al., 2023). Seasonal forecasts are routinely generated at various operational weather centers worldwide, including AGRHYMET Regional Climate Centre for West Africa and the Sahel. AGRHYMET develops these forecasts through a Regional Climate Outlook Forum (RCOF), which brings together experts from National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) and world climate centers. Seasonal forecasts provide information on the upcoming season, with rainfall and temperature being the key parameters. Actionable recommendations associated with the seasonal forecasts for users in specific sectors such as water and agriculture are often based on expert judgment and assessment of the forecasts. This approach can be subjective and misleading, thus limiting the effectiveness of adaptation planning decisions. For instance, it is often assumed that a year with below normal rainfall will result in poor agricultural production and scarcity of surface water resources, while a year with above normal rainfall is expected to result in good agricultural production. Such interpretations tend to be biased and can lead to ineffective adaptation planning decision-making. An striking example is of such situation is the case of Niger in 2021 for which the national crop production was significantly low in 2021, despite the seasonal rainfall being well above the average.To enable effective adaptation planning decision-making, we propose that to use seasonal forecasts as inputs to sectorial biophysical and process-based models to generate actionable information that are less sensitive to expert interpretation biases. In this Info Note, we present this novel approach for translating seasonal forecasts into climate impact information for agriculture and water sectors. The approach is novel in the sense that it is the first application in the region. Integrating seasonal forecasts in biophysical and process-based models, such as crop simulation models will add value to seasonal forecasts for agriculture and increase effective use of climate information in agriculture (Hansen, 2005). The approach is illustrated with a case study application in Niger using crop and hydrological models. It concludes with some reflections and perspectives for expanding the approach in the NMHSs in West Africa and Sahel and improving RCOF outputs.In the literature, several approaches have The initial approach involves the disaggregation of West African RCOFs' seasonal rainfall forecasts (Houngnibo et al., 2023). This approach was used only for the crop model. Other parameters (temperature, radiation, etc.) are then disaggregated in accordance with rainfall, based on whether a particular day is rainy or not (Figure 1). A probabilistic seasonal crop forecast was issued, comparing the distribution of crop parameters (Table 1) obtained from the climatological period (1991-2020) with the distribution of crop parameters obtained from the disaggregated seasonal forecast.Figure 1. Flowchart for disaggregation of West African RCOFs' seasonal rainfall forecastsThe second approach entails using the daily series of seasonal forecasts obtained from Atmospheric-Ocean Global Circulation Models (AOGCMs) of global meteorological centers (ECMWF, NOAA, UKMO, etc.) and historical data (observations, satellite data, or reanalysis) to drive the biophysical models (Figure 2). Historical data is used not only to produce reference crops and hydrological parameters but also to better estimate the initial conditions required to produce a forecast. Thus, hindcasts and forecasts are produced for crops and hydrological parameters. A probabilistic crop seasonal forecast is produced, taking into account the variance (variance error) calculated as the error between crop reference parameters and hindcasts for crop parameters. Only the results associated with this second approach are presented in this info note. The Système d'Analyse Régionale des Risques Agro-climatologiques-Ocelet (SARRA-O) is an agricultural process-based model for analyzing agro-climatic risks (Baron et al., 2003) Its primary purpose is to assist decisionmakers, including farmers, agricultural extension agents, and policymakers, in making informed choices regarding crop management and risk reduction. SARRA-O also serves to provide timely alerts concerning potential crop failures and to determine the most suitable adaptation strategies for farmers. The model simulates three key processes: i) water balance, ii) carbon balance, and iii) the progression of plant (cultivar) phenological phases, encompassing photosensitivity (Figure 3). In summary, SARRA-O is an agronomic model that enables the monitoring of crop conditions throughout the growing season, making it valuable for early warning systems (Castets, 2015). SARRA-O has been assessed and validated in various West African environments through experimental trials and on-farm surveys (Dodds, 2010;Kouressy et al., 2008;Akponipke, 2008). These trials focused on the selection of varieties of crops such as millet, sorghum, or maize. They also investigated optimal sowing dates and densities.The main inputs of this crop model are climate data, soil data, mean rainfall onset and cessation grid data, and crop data to allow the activation of the correspondent crop and its fertilization option in SARRA-O.Figure 3. Crop growth stages (Baron et al., 2003) The selected outputs from the SARRA-O model are those that best estimate the water balance, biomass (carbon balance), and yield. They are summarized in Several hydrological models had been set up to simulate one or more basins in West Africa (e.g., HYPE, GeoSFM, SWAT, SOBEK, VIC, etc.). The first activity relating to hydrological modelling was to select the model(s) to be applied. Several criteria influenced our choice, including 1) model type, 2) model accessibility, 3) past achievements and regional expertise on models, 4) model performance. The hydrological model that best met the criteria is HYPE (Hydrological Prediction for Environment). HYPE is a semi-distributed hydrological physically based catchment model that simulates water flow and substances on their way from precipitation through different storage compartments and fluxes to the sea (Lindström et al., 2010). Its spatial division is related to catchments and sub-catchments, land use or land cover, soil type and elevation. Within a catchment, the model will simulate different compartments: soil including shallow groundwater, rivers, and lakes. It is a dynamical model forced with a time series of precipitation and air temperature, typically on a daily time step. The delineation of the West African version of HYPE is based on Global Width Database for Large Rivers (a digital elevation model with 3 arc-sec resolution). This delineation has been revised to match the 97 stations located within the West Africa region. Sub-basins for the islands of Cape Verde were also prepared and added to the model. The number of sub-basins in the West African HYPE model is 4581 and the average sub-basin size is 1870 km2. The outputs of the FANFAR system mainly include discharge, evapotranspiration, reservoir levels, infiltration, soil moisture. The schematic description of HYPE model is shown in Figure 4. The results of the seasonal forecast of the actual yields showed that, except for the southern part of the Dosso region, where below-average actual yields are highly probable, other locations in the agricultural belt will experience above-average actual yields (Figure 5). Comparing this result to the seasonal rainfall forecast issued by the ECMWF global center for the JAS season, it was predicted that there would be above-average seasonal rainfall over the entire agricultural belt of Niger (Figure 6). Hence, one could interpret these seasonal rainfall accumulation forecasts directly as a potentially successful agricultural season across this entire belt. However, this interpretation does not align with the results obtained throughout biophysical model in the more southern regions of the country (Figure 5). In addition to providing information on annual agricultural production, biophysical models have the propensity to inform about potential risks that the crop may face during various developmental phases. Consequently, for the year 2022, we present forecasts including optimal sowing dates (Figure 7) and satisfaction index for water requirements at different developmental stages (Figure 8). An early to normal sowing date was expected, with minimal risk of re-sowing in most locations within the agricultural belt for the 2022 season for the two cereal crops considered (Figure 7). However, crops will experience high levels of water stress in the eastern and southern regions of Niger during the vegetative phase and, to some extent, the reproductive phase (Figure 8). The main objective of this case study was to assess the ability of the HYPE hydrological model to make hydrological seasonal hindcasts and to produce hydrological seasonal forecasts for 2022. To properly characterize the initial conditions of the model, the model was run over the historical period up to the seasonal hindcast/forecast date using ERA5-Land re-analysis data. The ECMWF seasonal forecast ensemble (system 5) from 1993 to 2022 (hindcast) and 2023 (forecast), available in the Climate Data Store (CDS) catalog was used. Daily flows at the main hydrometric stations of the river basins crossing the Niger were used to evaluate the performance of the model. Figures 9 and 10 present the relative (for precipitation) and absolute (for temperature) errors between the ERA-5 data and the ECWMF climate forecasts over the period.  The use of AOGCMs as input data for HYPE and SARRA-O models provides more information to end users to facilitate decision-making in water resources management and crop production. The methodology was used in Niger to develop seasonal forecasts, and the results obtained are promising. The main challenges we faced were the estimation of the initial conditions of the models and the bias correction (the reference data to consider and the appropriate method). The work is in progress and further investigations in these areas should continue with a view to improving the quality of the output.Furthermore, the method related to the disaggregation of West African RCOFs' seasonal rainfall forecasts constitutes a valuable alternative, and the results associated with it will be presented in a working paper.Next steps include expanding the capacity of NMHS on the proposed approaches and contributing to improve RCOFs.","tokenCount":"1628"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"0dc78819545c01d94e0568d9d393c684","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H047882.pdf","id":"1967290839"},"keywords":["Ecosystem services","land and water management","landscape","exclosures","nutrient loss"],"sieverID":"e01cd031-3a6a-4ceb-a01b-1b29229ff95c","pagecount":"1","content":"Human induced changes in runoff, sediment and nutrient flows is directly affecting the benefits that ecosystems can provide. This study was conducted in Gomit watershed to investigate the effectiveness of land and water management (LWM) practices in reducing runoff and soil erosion. Within the Gomit watershed, two nested watersheds located in the upstream (196 ha) and downstream areas (163 ha) were selected. In both watersheds, LWM practices were implemented to harvest water, and reduce soil erosion. Over 80% of the upstream watershed is covered with exclosures, while the downstream watershed is dominated by cultivated and grass land (57%). Leptosols and Luvisols are the dominant soil types in the upstream and downstream watersheds, respectively. Runoff, sediment yield, and sediment associated nutrient concentrations were determined during the 2015 rainy season. Considerable differences in runoff and sediment yield between the two watersheds were observed. The seasonal runoff in the upstream and downstream watersheds were 10.4(1.5% of the total rainfall) and 58.6 mm (8.8%), respectively whereas the sediment yield was 1 and 4 t ha-1.The loss of sediment associated phosphorus and nitrogen in the downstream watershed was estimated at 0.2 and 7 kg ha-1 whereas 0.1 and 1 kg ha-1 for the upstream watershed, respectively. The low runoff in both watersheds could be attributed to the implemented conservation measures, low rainfall and possible transport of water out the watersheds through fissures. The relatively larger sediment yield in the downstream watershed could be resulted from disturbance due to tillage and existence of gullies in cultivated land. Differences in the amount of loss of soil nutrients could be related to agricultural practices and differences in direct runoff of the watersheds. The results support that integrating exclosures with LWM practices is effective in reducing runoff and soil erosion and enhancing the productivity of degraded landscapes.","tokenCount":"298"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/1498633516.json b/data/part_1/1498633516.json
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a90391a2c4f421aac896472bf04863c3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/7d204695-9376-4b9c-afd8-88e4d2bff674/content","id":"532161566"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6ab2ec87-0062-4578-9780-020e43320447","pagecount":"39","content":"This Wheat Special Report analyzes the effects of radiation and temperature on the date of flowering and grain yield of spring bread wheat cropped under optimum conditions. The experiments were conducted at Ludhiana, Punjab, India, over 7 years and using a range of genotypes. The optimum flowering date for maximization of wheat grain yields is confirmed to be when the ratio of radiation to temperature (PTQ) is at its maximum. The individual effects of radiation and temperature on yield and yield components at various stages of crop development are also examined.We hope that the concepts validated here will be useful elements of wheat component agronomy in the development of new spring wheat varieties and better agronomic practices for wheat grown under irrigation (Mega-environment 1). This short version (No. 23a) does not include the raw data that may be of interest to some scientists. This information (Le., correlation coefficients for the three genotypes used in the experiments, means averaged across reps, and climatic data) is provided in Appendices 2 through 5, which are included in No. 23b.Effect of genotype, planting date, and year on yield, yield components, and phenology , Effect of PTQ, temperature, and solar radiation on yield and GM2 during pre-anthesis Absolute and relative losses with delayed sowing Results and Discussion Statistical analysis , Effect of genotype, planting date, and year on yield, yield components, and phenology Effect of PTQ, temperature, and solar radiation on yield and GM2 during pre-anthesis Effect of temperature and solar radiation during post-anthesis period on grain yield and TGW Use of the PTQ for explaining year effects Absolute and relative losses with delayed sowing Conclusions References Figure 1. Yield response of three spring wheat genotypes to seven dates of planting Figure 2. Yield response over 4 years to seven dates of planting Figure 3. GM2 response of three wheat genotypes to seven dates of planting Figure 4. Changes in TGW and days to heading of three wheat genotypes over 4 years and seven dates of planting Figure 5. Changes in days to maturity and grain-filling days of three wheat genotypes over 4 years and seven dates of planting Figure 6. Relationship between grain yield and PTQ2 and grain yield and mean temperature in three wheat genotypes Figure 7. Relationship between grain yield and solar radiation and grain yield and GM2 in three wheat genotypes Figure 8. Relationship between GM2 and PTQ2 and GM2 and mean temperature (-20H to +lOH) in three wheat genotypes Figure 9. Relationship between GM2 and solar radiation and yield and PTQ (+ lOH to +40H) in three wheat genotypes Figure 10. Relationship between grain yield and mean temperature (+ lOH to +40H) and grain yield and solar radiation (+ lOH to +40H) Figure 11. Relationship between grain yield and TGW and TGW and PTQ (+ lOH to +40H) in three wheat genotypes Figure 12. Relationship between TGW and mean temperature (+ lOH to +40H) and TGW and solar radiation (+10H to +40H) in three wheat genotypes Figure 13. Relationship between TGW and mean temperature (+ lOH to +40H) over 4 years in three wheat genotypes i i Contents (continued) 28 Figure 14. Relationship between PTQ2 and yield and PTQ2 and GM2 over 4 years in three wheat genotypes 29Figure 15. Changes in relative grain yield with different dates of heading (Julian) in three wheat genotypes 30Figure 16. Changes in relative GM2 with different dates of heading (Julian) in three wheat genotypes 31 Appendix 1. Correlation coefficients for three genotypes between yield and GM2 vs four different PTQ values during 7 years at Punjab Agricultural University in Ludhiana, India Introduction Wheat is the main cereal crop of the Indian Punjab. The main objectives of the India's wheat production programs are to increase production to achieve self-sufficiency in food grains, and to step up and establish production at a higher level. During 1965-66, wheat acreage in India was 12.79 million hectares; this area increased to 24.0 million hectares during 1991-92, an 88% increase. Wheat production for this same period increased from 10.7 million tons to 54.5 million tons, 409% increase. As shown in Table 1, yield increases contributed significantly to the production increase.Similarly, in the Punjab, while the area has doubled since 1965-66, production has increased more than sixfold (Table 2). This is explained by the increase in yield from 1104 kglha in 1965-66 to 3715 kglha in 1990-91.Table 1. Area, production, and yield or wheat in India rrom 1965 to 1992.Rice-Wheat Cotton-Wheat Maize-Wheat Rice-Wheat-Sesbania (Green Manure) MaizelRice-Potato-Wheat Ground nut-Wheat Rice-Pea-Wheat Maize fodder-Brassica-Wheat Khari f Pulses-WheatDepending upon the maturity and harvesting of the previous summer crop, the time of sowing wheat is extended from the end of October to the end of December. Losses in grain yield with delayed planting have been reported in Punjab (Randhawa et al. 1981).The wheat crop is greatly influenced by temperature and radiation prevailing during the season, particularly when water and nitrogen are not limiting. Nix (1976) showed that temperature and radiation influence plant processes differently, but there combined effect can be usefully described as a photothermal quotient (PTO). PTO is defined as the ratio of daily total solar radiation in MJ/m 2 /day divided by the mean daily temperature minus 4.5 0 C (base temperature). Midmore et al. (1984) and Fischer (1985) observed that grains/m 2 (GM2) in wheat was associated with PTO over 30 days preceding anthesis.Grain yield reductions with delayed sowing under optimal conditions of water and nitrogen have been attributed to reduced GM2 caused by higher pre-anthesis temperatures (Fischer and Maurer 1976) and to reduced thousand grain weight (TGW) caused by higher post anthesis temperatures (Sofield et aJ. 1977, McDonald et aJ. 1983), even though the irradiance levels also increased in each case. The wheat crop seems to be source-limited during the pre-anthesis phase when GM2 is being determined--particularly during the phase of rapid spike growth and development, which occurs 20 to 30 days prior to anthesis.It has been demonstrated that the number of grains is determined by the carbohydrate supply to the crop during this phase. Specifically, it has been estimated that 10 mg of carbohydrates directed to the growing spike are required during rapid spike growth to keep a potential grain from aborting (Fischer 1984), for wheat crops that do not suffer from nutrient or water stress and without competition from weed, diseases, and pests. The theory behind the PTO is based on the assumption that radiation (assuming close to full light interception) and temperature are the driving forces in assimilate production and development rate, respectively, during this critical phase. High radiation values, through a larger assimilate production and low temperatures, by extending the crop duration during this critical phase. Therefore, high PTO values should result in a larger number of GM2. Fischer (1985) specifically applied the PTO concept to explain the effects of radiation and temperature on kernel number in wheat crops. He confirmed that dry matter accumulation under conditions at Ciudad Obregon, Sonora, Mexico (January to March) was linearly related to absorbed photosynthetic radiation (slope of 3 g/MJ PARA; PARA = 0.45 * incident solar radiation for full ground cover). He also inferred mainly from the literature that rate of development during the terminal spikelet to anthesis period was linear with respect to average temperature (max + minl2) minus a base temperature ofThe PrO was calculated on a daily basis with the following algorithm: The last relationship means that, for a given solar radiation, maximum PTQ is reached at T mean =10, but PTQ rapidly and linearly drops to zero at T mean =4.5.The field studies in Ludhiana were undertaken from 1985-86 to 1991-92 with three objectives:• To find the optimum planting date for wheat in the Punjab.• To find the absolute and relative losses in grain yield, GM2 and TGW, with delay in sowing from the optimum time.• Understand the first two objectives in terms of the effect of temperature and radiation combined and separately on yield, GM2, and TGW.Field experiments were conducted from 1985 through 1992 on a loamy sand soil at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana. Ludhiana is situated at 30 0 54' N latitude and 75 0 48' E longitude and 247 mas!. Sixty-six genotypes having spring growth habit and ten dates of planting were studied, although not all genotypes and planting dates were studied each year. The genotypes and planting dates sown each year are given in Table 3. The plots were managed under optimal conditions of fertilizer and irrigation. Broad leaf and other grassy weeds were completely controlled by hand hoeing. The net plot area harvested for each genotype was 7.36 m 2 in each year. The seeding density used in all genotypes, planting dates, and years was 100 kglha. Heading date was defined as the date when about 75% of the spikes had fully emerged from the boot and maturity date when 100% of the spikes were without green color. GM2 was calculated from grain yield and TGW. The treatment design was a factorial combination of planting dates and genotypes arranged as a split-plot design with three replications. Main plots were planting dates and subplots were genotypes.Effect of genotype, planting date, and year on yield, yield components, and phenologyThe statistical analysis was done first by years for all the planting dates and genotypes. Then a combined analysis of an orthogonal subset of data was done for 4 years (1987-88, 1988-89, 1989-90, and 1991-92), three replications, three genotypes [PBW 34 (long season), PBW 154 (medium season) and PBW 226 (medium to short season)], and seven planting dates (Oct. 25,Nov. 5,Nov. 15,Nov. 25,Dec. 5,Dec. 15,and Dec. 25) to study the interactions of genotype x year, planting date x year and genotype x planting date x year. Replications and experiments were considered as random effects and genotype and planting dates as fixed effects.Effect of PTQ, temperature, and solar radiation on yield and GM2 during the pre-anthesis period To evaluate the effect of temperature and radiation on yield, GM2, and TGW, the complete data set (all years and dates) of the selected genotypes was used. Weather variables, such as temperature, radiation, etc., were recorded at a weather station less than 1 km from the experimental plots. The following PrQs were generated by calculating the daily PTQ and averaging them for different periods:PTQ1: -30 days to heading, PTQ2: From -20 days to heading to +10 days after heading, PTQ3: -20 days to heading, PTQ4: From -20 days to heading to +20 days after heading, PTQ TGW: From heading +10 days to heading +40 days.The PTQs were expressed as MJ/m 2 /dayf'C. The correlations between PTQs for the above periods and yield and GM2 are given in Appendix 1. Out of the four PTQs, PTQ2 calculated in the pre-heading phase was more consistent for predicting GM2 and was selected for further use. The post-anthesis photothermal quotient (PTQ TGW), calculated from heading +10 to heading +40 days period, was used with TGW.Absolute and relative losses with delayed sowing To calculate the absolute and relative losses caused by delayed planting date, only data from the optimum planting date to 25DEC were used. The optimum planting dates were 05NOV for PBW34 and NOV15 for PBW154 and PBW 226. Then absolute and relative losses were calculated from that date to 25DEC for all three genotypes. The 25DEC date was selected because there are basically no farmers planting beyond this planting date. Data from a different number of years were available for each genotype; PBW 34 (average of 6 years) PBW 154, (average of 7 years), and PBW 226 (average of 5 years).The method of analysis to estimate yield losses due to delays in planting date was done with the following regression functions:where Yi is the yield in kg/ha of planting date i, In(Y j) is the natural log of Y i' and PDi is the Julian date for the planting date i. The linear speCification (function 1) provides an estimate of the yield reduction due to delays in planting dates in absolute terms (Le., b measures kg/halday yield loss) while the logarithmic specification in function (2) gives the relative yield reduction (i.e., 100 (dq/dVi)ri =100b measures the percent per day yield loss) (Gujarati 1988).  The statistical analysis of individual years for yield, GM2, and TGW revealed that sowing dates and genotypes had significant effect on yield and yield components in all the years (Table 5). However, the interaction between sowing dates and genotypes was not significant for yield in three years (1985-86, 1986-87, and 1991-92) and GM2 in 2 years (1987-88 and 1990-91).The combined analysis of the orthogonal subset of data for four years, three genotypes and seven planting dates revealed that planting date x genotype interactions were significant for yield and GM2 (Table 6). Also the year x planting date interaction was significant for grain yield. The year x planting date x genotype interaction was significant   for TGW, days to heading (Days H), days to maturity (Days M), and grain-filling days (Days H-M).Effect of genotype, planting date and year on yield, yield components, and phenology Yield--As the combined analysis shows, the three-way interaction between year, planting date, and genotype was not significant. This suggests that the genotype by planting date interaction, which was significant, was independent of the year effect. The mean grain yield across years at the earliest planting date (250CI) was 4354, 4505, and 4133 kglha for PBW 34, PBW 154, and PBW 226, respectively. By delaying the planting date to 05NOV and 15NOV, the yield of all three genotypes improved except for PBW 34, which produced the highest yield on the 05NOV planting date (Figure 1). The 15NOV  1). Therefore, the genotype by planting date interaction can be explained by the earlier optimum planting date of PBW34 as well as the faster decline in yield of this genotype compared to PBW154 and PBW 226. A significant interaction for yield between years and planting date revealed that 1988-89 was the highest yield year for all genotypes at all the planting dates except 25DEC. At this planting date, 1991-92 produced 3502 kglha compared to 3351 kglha in 1988-89 (Figure 2). As mentioned before, 1988-89 had the lowest temperature and the highest radiation and PrQ in the pre-anthesis period.Yield componenls--The response of GM2 was very similar to that of yield, in contrast to TGW. The three-way interaction for GM2, between year, planting date, and genotype was not significant. However, the genotype by planting date interaction was significant.The number of GM2 for all three genotypes, averaged across the years under different planting dates, had a similar trend to that of yield, which shows the predominant role of GM2 in determining final yield (Figure 3). For TGW, the genotype by planting date interaction also interacted with year. TGW for all three genotypes decreased with any delay in planting date after 150CT in all the years (Figure 4a). However, among years, 1988-89 produced heavier grains compared to others in all genotypes at almost all planting dates. In addition, 1987-88 had a different pattern of TGW reduction with delays in planting date compared to the other years. The ranges ofTGW across years and dates were 45-56, 44-52, and 44-48g for PBW 34, PBW 154, and PBW 226, respectively.Phenology--The interaction between genotype, planting date, and year was significant for days to heading, days to maturity, and grain-filling days. The ranges of number of days to headi ng across years and dates were 99-111, 90-100, and 88-93 for PBW 34, PBW 154, and PBW 226, respectively (Figure 4b). It is also clear from the data that PBW 34 took the maximum days to heading when planted on 250cr; for the other two genotypes, the maximum was reached usually on 15NOV. The number of days to heading was reduced with further delays in sowing in all the genotypes. The number of days to maturity were drastically reduced with any delay in planting after 150cr for all three genotypes and in all four years (Figure Sa). In general, the number of grain-filling days was reduced with any delay in planting date for all genotypes, however, for PBW 34 the rate of reduction was slower than for the other two genotypes (Figure 5b). Undoubtedly, PBW34 reached heading later than the other genotypes in early plantings. The steadily increasing maximum and minimum temperatures (Table 4) during February, March, and April may have caused the late planting date to produce lower number of GM2, lower TGW, and ultimately lower yields. Radiation increases should, however, have compensated to some extent for the increase in temperature. The next section examines these relationships.Effect ofPTQ, temperature, and solar radiation on yield and GM2 during the preanthesis period Effect on grain yie/d--Grain yield across planting dates was linearly and positively correlated with the pre-anthesis photothermal quotient (-20 H to +10 H) for all three genotypes (Figure 6a).  226) where the PTO values were relatively high, but grain yield was not. It is believed that in the 15JAN planting the crops were exposed to high temperatures around meiosis and anthesis causing spike sterility, resulting in a lower number of GM2 and, in turn, yield for a given PTO value. The other possible explanation is that, in the 15JAN planting, PBW34 and PBW 154 did not reach full light interception, therefore they could not efficiently use the available radiation. Thus, although PTO values were relatively high, yield and GM2 were low. The effect of temperature during the pre-anthesis period (-20 H to +10 H) was found to be negatively correlated with yield across planting dates for all the genotypes, PBW 34 (r = -0.92), PBW 154 (r = -0.86), and PBW 226 (r = -0.86) (Figure 6b). Similarly, yield was also found to be negatively correlated with solar radiation during the pre-anthesis period for PBW 34 (r = -0.86), PBW 154 (r = -0.71), and PBW 226 (r = -0.40) (Figure 7a). PBW 34 was found to be relatively more sensitive to higher temperature and solar radiation conditions. We would expect solar radiation to be positively correlated with yield, however, due to the high autocorrelation between solar radiation and temperature, this correlation becomes negative (Table 7).Effect on GM2--For all three genotypes, GM2 was positively correlated with grain yield across planting dates. The correlation coefficients (r) were 0.97,0.97, and 0.84 for PBW 34, PBW 154, and PBW 226, respectively (Figure 7b). GM2 was positively correlated with PTO during the pre-anthesis period (-20 H to +10 H). The number of GM2 ranged from 3790 to 11,550 and PTOs from 1.08 to 1.58 MJ/m 2 /dayPC. The correlation coefficients (r) were 0.89,0.72, and 0.94 for PBW 34, PBW 154, and PBW 226, respectively (Figure 8a). GM2 increased as PTO increased, except for the 15JAN planting. See the above explanation on yield.GM2 was negatively correlated with mean temperature during the pre-anthesis period (-20 H to +10 H) for all three genotypes, PBW34 (r=-0.81), PBW154 (r=-0.73), and PBW 226 (r =-0.48) (Figure 8b).The number of grains were also negatively correlated with solar radiation during the preanthesis (-20 H to +10 H) period, for PBW 34 (r = -0.73), and PBW 154 (r =-0.55). However, in the case of PBW 226, the number of grains was not much affected by changes in solar radiation (r = 0015), so PBW 226 was found to be relatively more tolerant to the changes in temperature and solar radiation compared to PBW 154 and PBW 340 Solar radiation was expected to have a positive effect on GM20 However, due to the high correlation between temperature and radiation, i.e., 0.98, 0.94, and 0.78 for PBW 34, PBW 154, and PBW 226, respectively (temperature having a negative relationship with GM2, Table 7), there was a negative relationship between solar radiation and GM2 in two of the genotypes studied (Figure 9a).The above analysis shows that GM2 is affected by both solar radiation and temperature during the pre-anthesis period. This can be observed by the improvement in the relationship between GM2 and PTQ (which uses both solar radiation and temperature) when compared to either solar radiation or temperature alone.Effect of temperature and solar radiation during the post-anthesis period on grain yield and TGW Effect on grain yield--For all three genotypes, grain yield across planting date means was positively and linearly correlated with the combined effect of temperature and solar radiation (PTQ) during the post-anthesis period (+ 10 H to +40 H). The correlation was stronger for PBW 34 (r = 0.90) than for PBW 154 (r = 0.71) and PBW 226 (r = 0.77) (Figure 9b). Grain yields ranged from 1393 to 4356 kg/ha, 1545 to 4555 kg/ha, and 2933to 4905 kg/ha with the corresponding ranges in PTQ values from 1.08 to 1.43, 1.09 to 1.50, and 1.00 to 1.55 for PBW 34, PBW 154, and paw 226, respectively.The increasing mean temperature during the post-anthesis period had a strong effect on grain yield. The yield of all three genotypes decreased with an increase in mean temperature. However, increasing mean temperature had more a negative effect on yield Effect on TGW--Grain yield was positively correlated with TGW for all three genotypes (Figure 11a): paw 34 (r =0.94), paw 154 (r =0.92), and paw 226 (r = 0.60). In PBW 34, TGW was found to be positively correlated with the photothermal quotient during the post-anthesis period (H +10 to H +40), however, it was highly negatively correlated with the separate effect of temperature and solar radi ation; the correlation coefficient (r) values were 0.99, -0.99, and -0.97 for TGW vs PTQ, mean temperature, and mean radiation, respectively. A similar trend was observed in PBW 154 and paw 226. The correlation coefficient (r) values were 0.92, -0.95, and -0.93, for TGW vs PTQ, mean temperature, and solar radiation for paw 154 and 0.74, -0.99, and -0.88 for paw 226,   respectively (Figures lib, 12&, 12b). The best correlations with TGW occurred with mean temperature, without any improvement by adding radiation alone or together with mean temperature (PTQTGW), suggesting that TGW is solely affected by temperature under Ludhiana conditions. When the relationship between TGW and mean temperature was plotted by year, we can still observe a strong relationship between these two factors (Figure 13).Use of the PTQ for explaining year effects PTQ was useful in explaining part of the year x planting date variability in yield and GM2. Although the correlations were not as high as with date of planting means, the values are significant and demonstrate how variability among years can also be explained by PTQ. This can be seen in Figures 14a and 14b where the year 1988-89 had higher PTQ values with correspondingly higher GM2 and yield values. The higher variability observed by using the yearly data could be explained by soil differences over the years.The grain yield of all three genotypes decreased with a delay in sowing. However, the optimum date varied with the genotype. Calculating for delays after the optimum date, grain yields decreased at rates of 41,35, and 36 kg/ha/day for PBW 34, PBW 154, and PBW 226, respectively; the corresponding values on a relative basis for these genotypes were 1.2,0.9, and 0.9%/ha/day. For PBW 34, TGW was reduced at a rate of 1.52 g;Oc with a corresponding increase in mean temperature from 18.70 to 24.52 0 C during the post-anthesis period (H+ 10 to H+40). For PBW 154, TGW decreased at a rate of 1.03 g;Oc with a corresponding increase in mean temperature from 18.47 to 23.68 0 C during the post-anthesis period.Similarly, for PBW 226, TGW was reduced at a rate of 1.05 gjOc with a corresponding increase in mean temperature from 17.26 to 22.23 0 C.The results of these studies suggest that time of sowing is a very important factor for determining yield. The optimum planting dates were 05NOV for PBW 34 and 15NOV for PBW154 and PBW 226. Delay in sowing beyond these dates caused severe reductions in GM2, TGW, and yield. High post-anthesis temperatures had a highly negative effect on TGW and yield on all genotypes.All three genotypes maximized their yield when the PTQ value was highest between 20 days before heading to 10 days after heading. This suggests that all genotypes should maximize their yield by flowering during the highest PTQ in the growing season. PBW 34 is a longer season genotype compared to the other two and the highest PTQ value occurs at a given time during the year. Therefore, PBW 34 will have to be planted earlier than the other two so that all three genotypes flower at about the same time to take advantage of the high PTQ values. It can be seen clearly that this was the case for PBW 34 and PBW 154 (Figure 15). However, that did not hold true for PBW 226 (shortseason genotype).If we analyze GM2, we can observe that PBW 34 and PBW 154 have a period of 10 days (between Julian dates 50 and 60--about 20 and 28 Feb.) when GM2 is maximized (Figure 16). However, for PBW 226 the optimum is around Julian date 40 (Feb. 10) and then there is a sharp drop after this date. This may be explained by a possible inability of PBW 226 to reach full light interception after Julian date 40.GM2 could be better explained by the combination of solar radiation and temperature (PTQ2) than by either of the two alone during the pre-anthesis phase, while TGW could be better explained only by temperature in the post-anthesis phase.These results suggest that it would be useful to look at long-term climatic data and calculate probabilities of when the highest PTQ occurs and use that as the target optimum flowering date from which the optimum planting date could be calculated.The PTQ2 pre-anthesis seems to be able to predict which will be high yielding years.There is a 1.2, 0.9, and 0.9%/ha/day yield loss after the optimum planting date for PBW 34 (long season), PBW 154 (medium season), and PBW 226 (short season), respectively. .O.\"\\7\"-----' ,  -- Planting Date \"\"'''''''''-0 ~f:.. ........   ..     ----,-----,--------,.----,----  ...  ","tokenCount":"4311"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"118b7308c080534e8f4dc4bd47f9fb53","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f2539b33-8745-467b-b48a-43832bbc0d2d/retrieve","id":"59017225"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f1921b95-63ba-475f-8d0a-4b4e548204b1","pagecount":"6","content":"production departments at the district level to tackle climate risk effects on food and nutrition security. This can be done through structured regular meetings between the actors.◼ Political and economic priorities tend to overshadow food and nutrition security concerns. Special care needs to be taken during planning and budgeting phases not to lose focus of value chains that promote nutrition and resilience.◼ Mbale district is experiencing a shift from coffee and banana to emerging resilient food and nutrition value chain commodities such as onions, poultry, cabbage and ground nuts. The district planning and budgeting processes should prioritize them.This info note summarizes findings of climate risk and nutrition profiling conducted by researchers from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) as part of a situation analysis for the second phase of the CCAFS project on Policy Action for Climate Change Adaptation (PACCA), which seeks to stimulate adoption of gender-and nutrition-sensitive climate smart agriculture by aligning the national level agenda with implementation.The findings are based on 18 key informant interviews and 14 focus group discussions, conducted between June and August 2018, with district level experts (bothpublic and private) and farmer representatives from two sub-counties in Mbale (Lukhonge and Bungokho Mutoto). The same district level experts and farmer representatives were gathered together in January 2019 at Wash and Wills Hotel for a stakeholder workshop to give feedback and validate the findings of the climate risk and nutrition profiling. During the three-day workshop, stakeholders prioritized four food and nutrition security value chain commodities, identified key risks across the value chains, and related these risks to underlying vulnerability factors of specific groups of people and adaptation options that addressed the vulnerabilities and risks.Demographic and agricultural context information was gathered to describe the socio-economic situation of the district. Mbale has a population of 492,804 of which 237,610 are male and 255,194 are female, according to the National Housing and Population Census 2014. The district has a total land area of 538 square kilometers and population density of 915 persons per square kilometer; this is much higher compared to the national average of 207 persons per square kilometer (World Bank). The main economic activity is agriculture, supported by bimodal rainfall mainly March-June and September-November, with average rainfall of 1500mm per annum. The district is divided into three agricultural zones, i.e., lowlands, midlands, and highlands. The lowland areas mainly have sand to clay loam soils that support crops such as beans, maize, rice, cassava and horticulture while the highland areas have volcanic soils that support perennial crops such as coffee and banana. The crops grown in the midland areas are similar to those of the highlands.Mapping of priority food and nutrition security value chain commodities was part of the description of the Mbale district context. Initial mapping of food and nutrition security value chain commodities such as maize, millet, beans, bananas, onions, cabbage, cassava, coffee, sweet potatoes, piggery and dairy was based on existing literature, key informant interviews and focus group discussions. During the workshop, selection of priority value chain commodities was based on climate resilience, gender, nutrition and population involved. Four priority key value chains emerged. These were: poultry, onions, cabbage and groundnuts.But the process of selection was contentious and very dynamic, with the district leaders suggesting that the crops prioritized may be resilient and contribute to income yet overall they were not key for food security in the district. A new list of priority value chain commodities was agreed upon by the stakeholders and these included bananas, onions, maize and beans.  Perceptions of climate change by district level experts and farmers related to increase in temperature, changing rainfall patterns, prolonged dry spells, and delayed on-set of the rainy season.Historical precipitation and temperature changes for Mbale district from 1980 to 2015 showed that 1990 and 1987 were high precipitation years for the first and second seasons respectively while 1984 and 1992 were low precipitation years respectively for the first and second seasons.Though the first season is predominantly the rainy season of the year, there has been an increase in precipitation and extremes such as floods, reduction in crop cycle and increase in mean temperature. The uncertain second rainy season has changed slightly, with a moderate increase in precipitation and mean temperature and reduction in the crop cycle.   Notable in both scenarios was the temperature increase. Following the scenarios discussion, hazards identified for the priority value chain commodities included: dry spells, drought, soil erosion, excess rain, hail storms, storms, and late start of rainy season. For banana, onion, maize and bean value chain commodities, the consequences/impacts of agro-climate indices were identified along the input supply, on-farm production, postharvest, and output markets. The types of value chain actors most impacted by these consequences were differentiated in terms of gender, age and economic status. Additional factorssuch as climatic, biophysical, social, economic, and institutionalthat make some people affected by these consequences fare worse than others were identified.On-going and potential/new adaptation options to value chain specific risks were identified. Who implements the adaption option (individual, organization, or department)? Who benefits most from the adaptation option (role of value chain on gender, age, economic status and/or education)? Adaptation options to manage climate risks and underlying vulnerabilities for banana, onion, bean and maize value chain commodities ranged from on-farm practices to government policies/strategies, as well as public/private services.Dry spells and late start of rain season were hazards mapped for the bean commodity. The consequences/ impacts of dry spells on bean commodity included: lowand poor-quality yields, inability of farmers to have steady seed supply, delayed land preparation, increased cost of land preparation, delayed planting, and delayed weeding. Hazards identified for the banana commodity were drought, storms and hailstorms. The consequences of drought on banana commodity included: poor quality of suckers because drought makes them less available and suitable for planting, organic manure becomes less available as bananas are fed to animals during the drought, land preparation is slowed down and delayed, reduced availability of nutrient to plants, the suckers die due to desiccation, drought may reduce the prices as a result of ripening that leads to short shelf life, transportation reduces the banana shelf life, and drought results in bunches getting low prices. The consequence of storms and hailstones identified for the banana commodity were soils erosion, limited availability of suckers, manure is eroded, poor banana fingers hit by hail storms reduce marketability, delayed transportation due to impassable roads, hail hit bananas fetch lower prices at the market, and delayed transportation leading to losses due to impassable roads.Banana value chain actors most affected by drought, storms and hail storms were men, women, and youth of all economic and education levels. The underlying factors contributing to severity of drought included: women are more constrained in terms of mobility while looking for suckers; sourcing for manure also becomes a problem because farmers have to travel long distances. Women are more affected because they constrained by other household multiple roles. Women are taken advantage of by middlemen hence lower value is realized. The economically poor are more vulnerable, especially in the transportation process in hard to reach areas. Underlying vulnerability factors contributing to severity of storms and hailstorms include: women are affected when it comes to sourcing for suckers during the rainy season. The less privileged financially are not able to afford manure and tissue culture plantlets. Economically the poor are vulnerable because they fail to buy manure to replace in case of erosion and they cannot afford tissue culture plantlets. When roads become impassable, it becomes difficult for women to buy transportation equipment like bicycles yet culture in the area also disagrees with a woman riding a bicycle. The poor also get handicapped for failure to afford better transportation means to the market.Women lack confidence when it comes to selling and they are limited in mobility making it hard for them to secure better prices and majority end up selling at home.On-going adaptation options to drought for banana commodity included: using tissue culture plantlets, sourcing from farmers near the streams, storing of organic manure during times of planting, slashing, application of herbicides, mulching, waiting for rain, transportation during cool hours of the day, improving shelf life by storing in cool places, sprinkling water on them, wrapping with banana leaves, and storing under shades to cool them. On-going adaptation options of banana value chain to storms and hail storms include: manure, sourcing from unaffected areas, promoting the recommended needle shaped suckers, using tissue cultured plantlets, mulching, contour farming and terracing, transporting bananas on the heads, selling at lower prices than expected, and calling middle men as a means of promotion. Mbale and the entire Elgon region is also known for coffee and banana intercropping.The bananas provide the shade and self-mulch to coffee. (van Asten et al. 2011, Jassogne et al. 2012). This address both climate adaptation and also the income generated.Most households in the highland and mid altitude own dairy which improves household nutrition.Beneficiaries of the adaptation options are women, men and youth.Potential/new adaptation options for banana commodity to drought include: using tissue culture plantlets, application of organic fertilizers and advanced storage of manure, using ox ploughs and hand tractors, mulching, use of irrigation through simple water harvesting technologies, collective transportation using cold chains to transport bananas, construction of advanced markets with cool conditions to allow prolonged shelf life of bananas, construction of cold chains to preserve bananas for longer time periods, value addition and collective marketing, establishment of community markets for bananas, collective selling to monopolize the market, and storage in a cool environment. Potential adaptation options of banana value chain to storms and hail storms include: mulching, using the small needle shaped suckers, using tissue cultured plantlets, contour farming, early cropping (planting grasses along the contours), terracing, proper storage of harvested bananas, using trucks hired through collective transportation, protecting bananas from being affected by constructing a shade, storing under shade, and collective marketing to take better advantage of the market.The hazards mapped for the maize commodity were dry spells and excessive rain. Consequences for dry spells and excessive rain identified for maize along the input supply, on-farm production, postharvest and output markets included: wrong selection of land as farmers select land near water, and land becomes expensive to hire. Farmers tend to go for inferior sends in anticipation of dry spells. Farmer demonstrations are spoilt, and training programs are changed as farmers lose morale in attending trainings.Men, women, youth, people with disabilities, and elderly are the most vulnerable maize value chain actors to dry spells and high temperatures. Underlying vulnerability factors contributing to severity of dry spells include: poverty and production land is expensive for a farmer who would like to hire such land. Access to quality seed is expensive for farmers in rural areas.On-going adaptation options to drought for maize commodity included: dissemination of extension services on radio, farmers use their knowledge, field visits, farmers use home saved seeds, farmers suspend planting seeds, and farmers eat seeds. Government, NGOs, farmers, and local leaders benefit most from the adaption options.Potential/new adaptation options to drought for maize commodity included: establishing small irrigation facilities, training on irrigation and alternative livelihood options like bee keeping, and government provision of improved seeds.Workshop participants discussing adaptation options. Photo: John Francis Okiror (IITA)Based on climate information analysis (Fig 2 ), there is a steady rise in temperatures as well much less predictability for the onset of rains. There is an increase in dry spells as well as storms. This was further corroborated by the participants of the three-day workshop. The findings also reveal a link between climate, income, food, and nutrition risk in the district.There is a clear lack of connection between the production, natural resources and health departments to be able to address the tripartite challenge of climate, income, and food and nutrition security in the district. One of the pathways that was encouraged was making sure that there is better collaboration between actors so as to learn from one another, avoid duplication and build synergies. Establishment of a forum to bring together actors for discussion, sharing and accountability is recommended.","tokenCount":"2017"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c9a04589e1c869dcda20af34ed4b5204","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/87eed949-e33e-434c-87f1-5901b797ffa1/retrieve","id":"126340250"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d4440db5-13b8-4a40-87e0-77c6d37fb959","pagecount":"88","content":"De notar: qualquer melhoramento do seu actual sistema de produção avícola implicará investimentos adicionais de tempo, equipamento e recursos financeiros, que nunca devem ser subestimados. Antes de começar, deve-se tomar o devido tempo para considerar quem fornecerá os insumos adicionais de mão-de-obra e como os melhoramentos serão financiados. Não se deve nunca actuar de improviso!Este manual trata das práticas de incubação de ovos e criação de pintos em pequena escala, com ênfase na criação bem sucedida das aves de capoeira mais comuns em quintais.Revimos, meticulosamente, as edições anteriores deste manual, produzindo uma versão completamente nova em conformidade com os conhecimentos mais recentes sobre as práticas eficientes da incubação e criação de aves domésticas ao nível da aldeia. O manual trata de incubação e criação tanto de modo natural como artificial, tendo ambas as práticas o seu valor específico consoante os objectivos do avicultor.Muita da informação e a maior parte das ilustrações são provenientes da Rede para o Desenvolvimento da Exploração Avícola em Pequena Escala (Network for Smallholder Poultry Development) e do Livro sobre Galináceos na África Austral (The Southern African Chicken Book) de Ed Wethli. Gostaríamos de expressar os nossos agradecimentos por nos ser permitido utilizá-las no presente manual.Também gostaríamos de agradecer a Farzin Wafadar, Gerd de Lange, Ineke Puls, Salimata Pousga, Janna de Feyter e Adri Vink pelo seu valioso tempo e empenho dedicados à elaboração desta versão revista.Desejamos ao leitor uma boa leitura e bons negócios.As aves de capoeira desempenham um papel importante na maioria dos países en desenvolvimento, visto que contribuem para o sustento dos pequenos produtores rurais que criam galinhas a nível da comunidade. São vários os manuais que fornecem uma informação geral sobre a criação de galinhas, tal como o Agrodok 4: Criação de galinhas em pequena escala.O presente manual concentra-se no melhoramento das práticas de incubação de ovos e criação de pintos no sistema de criação das galinhas em liberdade (ou avicultura em regime divagante) de forma a: ? Obter-se um número óptimo de galinhas ? Implementar uma substituição regular do bando avícola ? Criar, com bons resultados, os pintainhos durante as primeiras 8 semanas de vida.A incubação de ovos e criação de pintos podem ser efectuados de forma natural, por uma galinha, ou ave-mãe de subsituição (perua, pata), ou de modo artificial numa incubadora (incubação) ou criadeira de pintainhos (choco).Podem distinguir-se três sistemas de criação avícola a nível da aldeia consoante as definições da Organização das Nações Unidas para a Agricultura e Alimentação (FAO): ? Sistema tradicional de criação em áreas livres (também denominado de avicultura divagante) (1-10 aves) ? Sistema melhorado de avicultura divagante (5-50 aves) ? Avicultura de pequena escala em áreas confinadas (50-200 aves) As aves criadas a nível da comunidade (as duas primeiras categorias descritas) não recebem, praticamente, quaisquer cuidados. Isto implica que quase a metade dos pintos morrem dentro de 8 semanas após o seu nascimento. Pode-se evitar esta mortalidade elevada com simples medidas de maneio, como sejam a alimentação e o alojamento melhorados.No Capítulo 2 descrevem-se os factores que influenciam a escolha entre a incubação natural e a artificial.No Capítulo 3 fornece-se informação básica sobre os ovos em geral, o armazenamento de ovos fecundados, as práticas de manuseamento e o desenvolvimento dos pintainhos durante a incubação.Nos Capítulos 4-7 discutem-se a incubação e a criação dos pintainhos, quer seja por galinhas chocas ou com uso de incubadoras ou criadeiras. Implementando simples medidas de maneio e selecção, poder-se-á obter uma melhoria considerável dos resultados da incubação e criação para a exploração avícola familiar.No capítulo 8 apresenta-se um resumo do maneio de alimentação e cuidados de saúde, enfatizando a importância das práticas sanitárias.Para começar a incubação de ovos ou criação de pintos, é melhor utilizar as raças locais que demonstraram ser apropriadas nas condições locais. Para além disso, é imprescindível recorrer ao aconselhamento dos agentes do serviço de extensão agrícola, presentes na zona, sobre quaisquer medicamentos/vacinas contra doenças infecciosas. Informese também sobre a época mais apropriada para começar a criação de galinhas.Recomenda-se, por vezes, que as galinhas sejam substituídas cada ano. As galinhas velhas põem menos ovos, mas consomem a mesma quantidade de alimentos do que as jovens. Em geral, pode-se obter um bom preço pelas galinhas velhas, visto que os consumidores gostam do seu sabor. Contudo, algumas galinhas mostram ser mães excelentes, não sendo sensato abatê-las precocemente. Nunca se devem substituir as galinhas poedeiras antes de se dispor de galinhas poedeiras novas!A escolha entre a incubação natural (por uma galinha) ou a artificial (numa incubadora) depende, em grande medida, da estratégia de produção e da quantidade de ovos a ser incubada num certo momento.Os factores que devem ser levados em conta, ao decidir entre o emprego de uma galinha choca ou duma incubadora, são: 1 Sistema de produção e quantidade de ovos a ser incubada 2 Necessidades de mão-de-obra 3 Investimento na compra ou construção duma incubadora e a sua operação. 4 Os resultados comparados das galinhas chocas e incubadoras Figura 1: Abrigo nocturno que fornece protecção contra predadores e mau tempo Quando a galinha acaba de criar os pintainhos, começa a pôr ovos durante um período de 8-10 meses. Sob condições normais, uma galinha tem uma duração de vida de 5 anos. Para além da alimentação das galinhas, o avicultor deve protegê-las e os pintainhos contra predadores, ladrões e mau tempo.O sistema melhorado de produção avícola caseira é em maior escala do que a dos sistemas tradicionais de avicultura divagante, contando, portanto, com um bando de até 50 aves, tanto de raças locais como de raças melhoradas, uma alimentação ligeiramente melhorada, um alojamento simples e alguns cuidados médicos.A produção de ovos e de carne aumentam de igual modo, permitindo ao produtor um modesto nível de venda dos ovos e/ou das aves nos mercados locais, para além do consumo no agregado familiar.Sob estas condições pode-se utilizar as galinhas chocas para a incubação de ovos, visto que tal permite ao produtor espaçar a produção de ovos e carne, uniformemente, durante todo o ano. Avicultura de pequena escala em áreas confinadas, com uso duma incubadora artificial As explorações avícolas intensivas (com um bando de mais de 50 aves) criam raças comerciais para a produção de ovos (galinhas poedeiras) ou de carne (frangos de engorda). Ao criar muitas aves no mesmo espaço, é imprescindível que a sua habitação seja mantida limpa e que a sua dieta tenha um valor nutritivo adequado.Um bando de aves de idade homogénea facilita o maneio, isto implicando que a eclosão de todos os pintos do bando tenha lugar, aproximadamente, ao mesmo tempo. Como as galinhas não entram em choco simultaneamente, será necessário empregar a incubação artificial se se criar uma população considerável de galinhas de idade homogénea.Em algumas zonas, podem-se obter, regularmente, pintos de um dia em centros de incubação comerciais. Às vezes, os produtores avícolas que aprenderam como se opera uma incubadora, também fornecem 'serviços de incubação' a outros criadores de aves de capoeira.Uma galinha pode incubar, simultaneamente, 8-14 ovos. A produção anual de ovos por uma galinha limita-se a 30-90 ovos. Portanto, se a produção de pintos apenas se destina à substituição das galinhas velhas, o emprego de galinhas chocas será suficiente. Se o objectivo for a eclosão simultânea de uma maior quantidade de ovos, dever-se-á dispor duma incubadora, que pode ser empregue quando for necessário. Uma pequena incubadora pode conter 20-50 ovos. Para além disso, podem-se incubar dois ou três lotes de 50 ovos em alguns meses.Quando se emprega galinhas chocas, o tempo investido no cuidado destas limita-se à alimentação e à supervisão. As galinhas necessitam de um local seguro, limpo e tranquilo, dum ninho ou caixa-ninho, e de ter acesso fácil a alimentos e água. Embora possa parecer uma tarefa simples e fácil, não se deve subestimar o tempo e os cuidados requeridos para o bom maneio dum bando saudável com galinhas chocas.Figura 2: As práticas de maneio e saneamento adequados previnem o surto de doenças e levam a galinhas saudáveis O emprego duma incubadora custa mais tempo. Para além da sua aquisição ou construção, operar uma incubadora requer uma meticulosa atenção, aptidões e experiência de modo a poder levar a cabo as seguintes tarefas: ? Efectuar o controlo e ajuste da temperatura e humidade da incubadora ? Virar os ovos regularmente até ao dia 19 (preferivelmente três vezes por dia) ? Verificar, frequentemente, o funcionamento adequado de todos os aparelhos e equipamento: as lâmpadas ou o equipamento solar e acrescentar combustível ao queimador e/ou água ao reservatório ou bacias de água ? Limpar e desinfectar regular e meticulosamente a incubadora logo após cada eclosão do lote de ovos e prepará-la para o seguinte lote.Para além dos deveres ou ocupações já existentes, as tarefas supramencionadas requerem um investimento de uma ou duas horas de trabalho por dia, no mínimo, para uma pequena incubadora que contém até a 50 ovos, e também aptidões especiais e exactidão.Os custos da incubação por galinhas chocas apenas implicam as despesas de rações e vacinas e o material necessário para a construção dum abrigo e ninhos ou caixas-ninhos adequados. Em geral, o abrigo e os ninhos podem ser construídos à base de materiais locais. Portanto, as galinhas chocas são mais económicas em tempo e dinheiro do que as incubadoras artificiais, visto que para incubar, simultaneamente, 8-14 ovos apenas é necessário fornecer-lhes um abrigo seguro e limpo e rações (apropriadas) e água limpa.Os custos da posse e operação duma incubadora artificial são muito maiores e dizem respeito aos seguintes aspectos: a aquisição ou construção duma incubadora, o equipamento necessário e a sua operação.Pode-se escolher entre a compra duma incubadora ou a sua construção. Isto depende do tipo de incubadora que se queira empregar, da sua disponibilidade e das aptidões pessoais do produtor. O preço duma incubadora eléctrica simples e pequena (para 20-30 ovos) pode ser de 150 até $218. Uma incubadora solar (para 50 ovos) pode custar, aproximadamente, $500.Se decidir pela construção de uma incubadora, é necessário comprar vários materiais, como sejam madeira, rede de arame, chapa, recipientes de água e equipamento: um termómetro e um higrómetro. É possível que se possa comprar a maior parte do material nas proximidades da exploração.Figura 3: Uma incubadora de fabrico caseiro O aquecimento da incubadora requer o uso de querosene, gás ou electricidade, proveniente de lâmpadas ou dum painel solar. Portanto, antes de se decidir pelo uso duma incubadora, é preciso calcular os custos (ou os custos do investimento preliminar, caso se planifique o emprego dum painel solar)! Exemplo: a incubadora à base de querosene descrita na Secção 6.1, estudo de caso 2, gastará, aproximadamente, 0,5 litro de querosene por cada 24 horas para 40 ovos. Se 70% dos ovos eclodirem, produzir-se-ão 28 pintainhos (machos e fêmeas) dentro de 21 dias. Será preciso de 21 x 0,5 litros de querosene. Por conseguinte, pode-se concluir que cada pinto gasta, aproximadamente, meio litro de querosene.Uma galinha a chocar os ovos fornece exactamente a temperatura, humidade, ventilação e frequência de viragem apropriadas para os ovos se desenvolverem adequadamente. Os riscos que se correm pela incubação por choco são reduzidos, visto que se uma galinha choca abandonar o seu ninho perder-se-ão apenas 8-14 ovos.Uma incubadora de fabrico caseiro não cumprirá tão facilmente com as normas requeridas no que diz respeito à temperatura, humidade e ventilação. Para optimizar os resultados da incubação, é necessário ter alguma experiência para operar cuidadosamente a incubadora.Mesmo assim, os resultados podem mostrar-se inferiores aos resultados previstos. Caso o combustível se esgote ou se houver um corte de energia prolongado, perder-se-ão, pelo menos, 40 a 100 ovos, consoante a quantidade de ovos presentes na incubadora e o tamanho deste aparelho.No quadro 1 apresenta-se um resumo dos vários factores que devem ser levados em conta ao escolher o método de incubação.Quadro 1: Escolha entre incubação por choco ou por incubadora As aves de capoeira podem produzir durante a sua vida enormes quantidades de ovos. Adiante apresenta-se alguma informação elementar sobre os ovos.Estrutura dos ovos O ovo é uma estrutura complexa que é constituída por: a casca (conquilha), as membranas da casca, a clara do ovo (albúmen), dois cordões torcidos (calazas), a gema e o óvulo (gérmen). Ao óvulo não fecundado também se chama oócito ou gâmeta feminino, enquanto que o fertilizado é conhecido como blastoderma ou embrião.Podem-se distinguir os seguintes componentes: ? Casca, uma camada calcária, dura e rija que protege o interior do ovo. ? Duas membranas da casca (a membrana externa e interna); estas membranas ficam separadas na ponta mais arredondada do ovo, onde formam a câmara de ar. Como se perde humidade através de evaporação, a câmara de ar é maior nos ovos maduros. Esta é a razão por que os ovos velhos flutuam na água enquanto que os ovos frescos se afundam. A câmara de ar desempenha um papel importante durante a eclosão (ver a Secção 3.4). ? A clara do ovo (o albúmen) é uma massa gelatinosa que se torna branca quando cozida. Nos ovos velhos a clara de ovo é menos viscosa (mais fluida), de modo que ao partir um ovo velho sobre um prato, o seu conteúdo cobrirá uma superfície maior do que um ovo fresco, recém posto. ? Dois cordões torcidos (as calazas) de clara de ovo contêm a gema no centro do ovo. ? A gema é a substância amarela que é envolta pela membrana da gema. A cor da gema depende das rações consumidas pelas galinhas. ? O óvulo (oócito/gâmeta femenino) encontra-se na superfície da gema. O desenvolvimento do embrião galináceo começa quando o oócito é fecundado.A gema e a clara do ovo contêm substâncias sumamente nutritivas (proteínas e gorduras) aproveitadas pelo embrião em desenvolvimento e o pintainho recém eclodido.A produção de ovos começa quando as galinhas atingem a maturidade sexual. Para as raças poedeiras comerciais, isto sucede a uma idade de, aproximadamente, 20 semanas. No caso das raças locais é mais tarde (24-32 semanas). A galinha não precisa da presença dum galo para começar a postura, mas dos ovos apenas nascerão pintainhos se foram fecundados!Os órgãos que produzem os ovos dentro do corpo da galinha são: o ovário onde se desenvolvem muitas gemas (e óvulos), antes de sairem para o oviduto.O oviduto é um tubo onde numa extremidade entra uma gema e, depois de 24 horas, sai um ovo completo -com casca -na outra extremidade.Pouco tempo depois de o ovo ser posto, soltar-se-á uma nova gema do ovário. Portanto, uma galinha é capaz de continuar a pôr ovos durante vários dias. Uma galinha de raça local põe 8-14 ovos entrando depois disso em choco. Uma poedeira comercial põe até 30 ovos e continuará a postura de ovos depois dum só dia de pausa. Portanto, não ficará choca de nenhuma maneira.Durante o período de postura de ovos, o oviduto duma galinha é bastante comprido (de 65-70 cm). Quando uma galinha não está no período de postura, o oviduto será muito mais curto.Modo de determinar se uma galinha está em postura Um método para distinguir entre as galinhas poedeiras e as nãopoedeiras consiste na examinação do orifício da cloaca e medir a distância entre os ossos púbicos e o esterno.A galinha é provavelmente poedeira: ? se o orifício da cloaca está húmido e rosado, e ? há amplo espaço (de 4 dedos) entre a extremidade pontiaguda do esterno e os ossos púbicos e (de 2 dedos) entre os 2 ossos púbicos.A galinha não é poedeira: ? se o orifício da cloaca está seco e amarelado, e  As galinhas das raças tradicionais e locais põem ovos durante 8-14 dias e, depois, sentam-se em cima deles para os incubar. Depois de 3 semanas de choco e várias semanas de cuidar dos seus pintainhos, a galinha começa a pôr, de novo, 8-14 ovos. Isto significa que a produção anual duma galinha de raça local se limita a 30-90 ovos.Se os pintainhos forem afastados da galinha antes de este período terminar, começará a pôr ovos mais rapidamente, de modo que haverá um aumento ligeiro da quantidade de ovos produzida anualmente.O choco é uma característica herdada. As galinhas poedeiras comerciais, modernas, perderam o instinto do choco por terem passado por uma criação selectiva. Isto implica que, depois de pôr um conjunto de 30 ovos ou mais, começarão a pôr ovos de novo depois de um período de descanso de, apenas, um dia. Desta forma, a produção anual das poedeiras comerciais será muito superior à das galinhas de raças tradicionais, atingindo níveis de produção de até 300 ovos por ano.O peso dos ovos depende da raça criada, variando de 35-50g para as raças locais até 50-70g para as poedeiras comerciais. No caso das galinhas novas, os ovos serão mais pequenos no início da postura comparativamente a alguns meses mais tarde. Ovos de diferentes galinhas É possível que uma galinha ponha ovos inférteis ou menos férteis do que os das outras galinhas. Portanto, ao usar uma galinha-mãe adoptiva ou uma incubadora, é recomendável empregar ovos de diferentes galinhas, de forma a reduzir-se o risco de perda.Os ovos provenientes de diferentes raças de galinha variam entre 30-70g de peso. Os melhores resultados de incubação são obtidos com ovos de tamanho normal, postos por boas poedeiras. Os ovos provenientes duma boa estirpe produzirão pintainhos de boa qualidade, visto que as boas características da galinha são herdadas pelos pintos através do seus ovos.Nunca se deve usar ovos com uma forma esquisita (demasiadamente compridos, redondos, pequenos ou malformados) para incubação, visto que é pouco provável que destes ovos saiam pintainhos.Alguns ovos contêm duas gemas (as chamadas gemas duplas). Estes ovos são maiores do que os normais e ao serem incubados deles não sairão pintainhos.Às vezes produzem-se ovos muito pequenos. Estes nunca contêm uma gema, nem um óvulo.A ocorrência de cascas deformadas ou de qualidade deficiente pode ser causada por doenças, falta de cálcio e perturbação das galinhas durante a formação da casca (em 20 horas).As cascas dos ovos não podem conter rachas, visto que se perderia uma quantidade excessiva de humidade durante a incubação, provocando a debilidade ou morte dos pintainhos. Para além disso, as rachas fornecem uma oportunidade de acesso às bactérias e outros agentes patogénicos.Deve-se reduzir o risco de contaminação por doenças usando apenas ovos limpos. Deve-se evitar o uso de ovos contaminados por dejectos, sujidade ou o conteúdo dum outro ovo partido, visto que estes podem conter patogénicos. Para além disso, a sujidade obstrui os poros da casca, restringindo assim a respiração do embrião através da casca. A casca é porosa, quer dizer que permite que o ar a penetre. A sujidade e os organismos patogénicos também são capazes de penetrar pela casca se esta estiver molhada.Nunca se deve empregar para incubação ovos que estão muito sujos. Os ovos um pouco sujos podem ser limpos com um pano seco ou uma escova. Nunca se deve lavar os ovos em água, visto que isto forneceria oportunidades aos microrganismos para penetrar a casca, provocando a morte do embrião. A humidade durante o armazenamento O nível óptimo da humidade relativa para o armazenamento de ovos para incubação é de 70-85%. Se aparecerem gotas de água ou bolores nos ovos, isto implica que a humidade é demasiadamente elevada.Nunca se deve usar ovos bolorentos ou molhados para a incubação!Todos os ovos de galináceos devem ser armazenados com o ar presente no interior do ovo (a câmara de ar) para cima. Quer dizer, deve-se colocar a ponta mais fina para baixo e a ponta mais arredondada para cima. Se se permitir, durante a estação fresca, a uma galinha choca recolher os ovos no seu ninho, dia a dia, até que ela comece a sentarse em cima deles, a galinha vai virá-los regularmente, de modo que não será necessário um armazenamento separado dos ovos.Figura 7: Ao armazenar-se os ovos, estes devem ser colocados sempre com a câmara de ar para cima (quer dizer, com a ponta mais fina para baixo e a ponta mais arredondada para cima)Caso forem empregues tabuleiros para o armazenamento dos ovos para incubação, recomenda-se utilizar, preferivelmente, tabuleiros de plástico, em vez de tabuleiros de papel. O plástico pode ser lavado, desinfectado e seco ao sol, o que reduzirá fortemente o número de germes nele presentes. Contudo, nos tabuleiros velhos de papel os germes podem desenvolver-se provenientes de todos os locais onde estes tabuleiros foram empregues e transportados (incluíndo as capoeiras), de modo que nos tabuleiros de papel existe sempre um maior risco de contaminação.É muito importante evitar as mudanças repentinas da temperatura, visto que provocarão a morte dos embriões.Portanto, os ovos que devem ser armazenados a uma temepratura abaixo de 20 °C, primeiro devem ser aquecidos a uma temperatura de 23-27 °C durante 12 horas, antes de serem mudados para a incubadora. A este método chama-se 'pré-aquecimento'. Um aquecimento gradual também reduz fortemente o risco de condensação que molharia os ovos, dando oportunidade a que bactérias penetrem a casca e a estraguem.Quando os ovos fecundados são armazenados a uma temperatura inferior a 20 °C, haverá uma estagnação do desenvolvimento embrionário. O processo de incubação começará, de novo, com uma galinha choca ou numa incubadora.Quando a incubação começa, o disco branco (óvulo fecundado) que se encontra em cima da gema começa a crescer e desenvolve-se num embrião.Formam-se o coração e as veias. As veias podem ser observadas à luz duma lanterna, depois de 7-9 dias de incubação (ver a Secção 3.5: Supervisão do desenvolvimento dos ovos).Durante a incubação, o embrião de pinto continua a crescer dentro do ovo. Consome a maior parte da clara do ovo e parte da gema. Figura 9: Tamanho da câmara de ar em relação ao número de dias de incubaçãoAlguns dias antes da eclosão, o pintainho deve usar o seu bico para perfurar a membrana debaixo da câmara de ar, de forma a começar uma respiração normal através dos pulmões (ver a Figura 8). A partir de esse momento, pode-se ouvir o pintainho piando no interior do ovo.Quando o pintainho estiver acostumado a respirar normalmente começará a fazer um pequeno orifício na casca (perfuração da casca).Se a quantidade de humidade presente nos ovos não for suficiente, os ovos secarão, mas se houver demasiada humidade a câmara de ar ficará muito reduzida assim que não conterá espaço suficiente para o pintainho poder sobreviver a incubação.Durante o processo de eclosão dos pintainhos é essencial que o ambiente contenha alguma humidade. Se o ar estiver demasiadamente seco, os pintainhos ficarão pegados no interior da casca, podendo morrer facilmente.É importante que haja uma supervisão meticulosa do desenvolvimento embrionário durante a incubação dos ovos para que se obtenham melhores resultados na incubação. Para tal deve observar-se o ovo à luz duma lanterna (iluminação), procedimento que é discutido mais adiante. Existem dois outros métodos para supervisar o desenvolvimento dos ovos: pesar os ovos e medir a câmara de ar. Estes métodos são discutidos na Secção 6.4, embora sejam usados principalmente para controlar a humidade.Podem-se detectar os ovos inférteis e os embriões mortos através da observação por iluminação, por exemplo à luz duma lanterna. Este tipo de observação é muito útil durante a incubação, visto que determina se o embrião está a desenvolver-se.Pode-se comprar um aparelho para a observação de ovos por iluminação ou pode-se empregar uma lanterna. Manter uma lanterna pequena contra o ovo num recinto escuro. Olhando através do ovo, é possível ver-se uma parte do seu interior.Figura 10: Aparelhos para observação de ovos por iluminação, de fabrico caseiro, empregando a mão ou uma caixa de madeira e uma lanterna num local escuroNum ovo branco as veias devem ser visíveis depois de 5 dias de incubação. Se a casca for castanha, é preciso esperar vários dias mais para as veias se tornarem visíveis. Se não houver nenhum desenvolvimento, ou bem o ovo é infértil ou há um problema de incubação.Recomenda-se começar as observações por iluminação no dia 9 da incubação. No dia 8 ou 9, a luz da lanterna pode assustar o pintainho, de modo que se pode observar o seu movimento. Depois de ter obtido alguma experiência pode-se começar alguns dias antes. Os ovos inférteis e os ovos rachados com embriões mortos devem ser removidos imediatamente.Pode-se efectuar uma segunda observação à luz duma lanterna depois de 14 a 18 dias de incubação. Deve-se remover, de novo, todos os embriões mortos.Depois do dia 18 já não se deve efectuar observações com lanterna, de forma a não incomodar os pintainhos em desenvolvimento. Como o processo da eclosão é muito cansativo, os pintainhos necessitam de repousar e não devem ser incomodados durante estes últimos dias. Para além disso, a abertura da incubadora durante os últimos dias da incubação provocará uma queda não desejável da humidade relativa.Na Figura 11 apresenta-se o que se pode ver durante uma observação dum ovo à luz duma lanterna, depois de 8 dias de incubação.? A -num ovo infértil pode-se distinguir apenas a sombra da gema e a câmara de ar. ? B -num ovo fértil podem-se distinguir as veias estendidas e observam-se com maior facilidade perto da câmara de ar. O embrião pode ser visto, na forma duma sombra escura. A câmara de ar é mais fácil de discernir do que num ovo infértil. ? C -num ovo que contém um embrião morto, as veias contraem-se num anel em volta do embrião, que é visível como uma sombra escura. A câmara de ar é claramente visível.Remover, imediatamente, todos os ovos inférteis e ovos que contenham embriões mortos, visto que estes decompor-se-ão, podendo partir-se e, portanto, estragar os outros ovos. Depois de se ter removido da incubadora todos os ovos frios, a sua temperatura interior será mais estável.Não só se deve remover os ovos inférteis e rachados, mas também tentar averiguar por qual razão os ovos não se desenvolveram devidamente. A melhor maneira para fazer isto é através do registo de dados.As directrizes apresentadas no Quadro 5, na Secção 6.8 e no Apêndice 3, com informação mais detalhada, podem fornecer alguns indícios a respeito.Nos sistemas de avicultura divagante tradicional ou melhorada (ver o Capítulo 2), a opção mais eficiente para se obter novos pintainhos é, geralmente, deixar a uma galinha saudável fazer a incubação de ovos e criação de pintos.Figura 12: Incubação e criação naturaisEscolha da galinha Deve-se escolher uma galinha que é evidente que ficará choca. O seu comportamento típico inclui os seguintes aspectos:? Produz sons típicos das galinhas chocas ? Ao ser aproximada, a galinha choca levantará as penas no pescoço e no dorso ? A crista fica enrugada ? A galinha choca fica no seu ninho, recusando-se a abandoná-lo Se este comportamento continuar durante dois dias, pode-se concluir que a galinha está pronta para o choco. As galinhas chocas devem ser saudáveis e não demasiadamente pequenas. Mais adiante apresentamse sugestões para melhorar as condições da incubação.Nem todas as galinhas são igualmente adequadas para o choco, mas é possível fazer com que uma galinha choca se sente nos ovos de outra. As seguintes raças e espécies avícolas produzem aves chocas e são boas mães: ? Galinha duma raça local ? Perua ? Pata * *De notar: deve-se ter cuidado para que a pata não empurre os pintainhos recém eclodidos para a água de forma a fazê-los nadar.Em geral, as poedeiras comerciais não ficam chocas.Os ovos de patas e peruas necessitam um período de incubação mais prolongado do que os ovos de galinhas. Se se quiser incubar no mesmo ninho tanto ovos de galinha como, por exemplo, ovos de perua, os ovos de galinha devem ser colocados uma semana depois dos outros ovos, de forma a sincronizar-se a incubação.Para melhorar os resultados da incubação, deve-se começar com a escolha de ovos de boa qualidade. Ver os critérios para a escolha de ovos, apresentados na Secção 3.5.Não se deve deixar os ovos postos no ninho da galinha até que fique choca e, particularmente, não se deve deixá-los num ambiente quente e sujo. Armazenar os ovos num local escuro, fresco e seco, como seja um vaso de terra cheia de areia húmida ou aparas de madeira, ou num aparelho de arrefecimento. Pôr os ovos, de novo, no ninho ou na caixa-ninho quando a galinha ficar choca.Uma alternativa é colocar, (de noite), os ovos debaixo de uma outra galinha, pata ou perua choca, para completar o seu lote de ovos (8 -14 ovos, no máximo)Quantidade de ovos O tamanho da galinha e a temperatura durante a noite determinarão a quantidade de ovos que a galinha é capaz de incubar para se obterem bons resultados. As galinhas grandes com uma plumagem adequada podem cobrir e aquecer cerca de 14 ovos, mas as galinhas locais de porte mais pequeno apenas serão capazes de cobrir, adequadamente, 8 ovos no máximo.Pulverização da galinha Deve-se pulverizar a galinha choca com um insecticida contra pulgas e piolhos. Estes produtos devem ser usados com cuidado, visto que se forem administrados em doses incorrectas serão nocivos para as aves e também para as pessoas! Se as pulgas e os piolhos continuarem a ser um problema, dever-se-á repetir o tratamento depois de 10 dias.Após a pulverização, deve-se colocar a galinha choca numa caixaninho ou ninho limpo (ver mais adiante) com os ovos escolhidos para incubação.Podem-se usar diferentes tipos de ninhos: cestos, vasos de terra, caixas de cartão, caixas de madeira, etc.Os ninhos devem ser colocados um pouco afastados entre si (a aproximadamente 1 metro de distância) para evitar que as galinhas lutem. Colocar os ninhos ou caixas-ninhos num local seguro, escuro e seco, fora do alcance de cães, ratazanas e cobras.Antes de usar uma caixa-ninho (ou vaso-ninho), deve-se limpá-lo meticulosamente e secá-lo ao sol.Cama do ninho Deve-se encher o ninho até um terço (1/3) com areia misturada com cinzas e colocar palha fresca, aparas de madeira, feno ou folhas secas em cima, mas não se deve enchê-lo para além de três quartos (¾), de forma a prevenir que os ovos rolem para fora.Uma caixa-ninho (de madeira) deve medir, aproximadamente, 35 x 35 cm 2 e 40 cm de altura.Se for possível obter folhas de tabaco, um punhado de folhas secas, esmagadas, ajudará a manter o ninho isento de parasitas (a nicotina é um insecticida!).Figura 14: Preparação dum ninho limpo e atractivo para galinhas em chocoDeve-se separar o ninho ou cesto com a galinha choca do bando para prevenir que as outras galinhas a incomodem.A galinha sai do ninho para beber, comer e defecar. No começo, quase não sai do seu ninho, mas depois de 2 semanas já sairá com mais frequência e por períodos mais prolongados.Devem-se colocar, perto do(s) ninho(s), quantidades suficientes de rações, água fresca e areia limpa (para polvilhar). Se a galinha se recusar a sair do ninho, poderá pegar nela, suavemente, e colocá-la diante das rações. A galinha não deve deixar o ninho durante mais de 15 minutos.Por instinto, a galinha levanta-se, frequentemente, para mudar e virar os ovos, visto que o melhor local, mais quente, se encontra no centro do ninho. A viragem regular dos ovos também é importante para que sejam aquecidos uniformemente (em vez de serem aquecidos num só lado), e também para que o embrião em desenvolvimento se mantenha no centro.Os ovos podem ser examinadas por iluminação no dia 9 da incubação (ver a Secção 3.5). Os ovos inférteis e os que contêm embriões mortos devem ser removidos imediatamente.Os ovos inférteis podem ser vendidos ou consumidos. Os ovos que contêm embriões mortos podem ser empregues como ingredientes das rações, contanto que previamente sejam cozidos e esmagados junto com as cascas. Constituem uma boa fonte de proteínas e cálcio para a galinha choca ou para os pintainhos novos, que crescem rapidamente.Os pintainhos saem dos ovos depois de, aproximadamente, 21 dias (no caso de ovos de galinha). Se os pintainhos tiverem dificuldades de eclodirem, é provável que a humidade seja demasiadamente baixa. Para ajudá-los a sairem dos ovos, poder-se-á humedecer, levemente, com água a cama do ninho, de modo a que haja alguma evaporação, aumentando a humidade do ambiente.Descrição dum caso da Índia em que se mostra que a produtividade da criação avícola em quintais pode ser melhorada com algumas simples intervenções de baixo custo.Observação dos ovos por iluminação, no período inicial da incubação (natural) (depois de, aproximadamente 7 dias)Podem-se remover os ovos não fecundados para vendê-los ou consumi-los: \"Os avicultores compreenderam rapidamente a tecnologia da observação de ovos por iluminação, e também reconheceram que esta medida faz com que estes ovos fiquem disponíveis para consumo sem ser deixados para se incubarem e, eventualmente, se estragarem. Alguns aldeões, que foram instruídos no uso, agora fornecem o serviço dessa observação de ovos a outros produtores, pelo qual os clientes lhes pagam em espécie, dando a metade dos ovos inférteis que foram 'salvos' através da observação dos ovos por iluminação. Recomenda-se que as pessoas envolvidas no fornecimento de aconselhamentos e formação aos avicultores estimulem, vigorosamente, a prática da observação de ovos por iluminação. Esta prática tem várias vantagens em comparação com muitas outras intervenções avícolas: ? Trata-se duma tecnologia simples e relativamente pouco dispendiosa. ? Os seus benefícios são visíveis e bastante imediatos, podendo assim contribuir significativamente para a alimentação do avicultor e da sua família.O armazenamento a frio dos ovos logo que são postos até ao momento em que se inicia a incubação pela galinha é um método para melhorar os resultados da incubação: haverá um aumento de pintainhos que saem dos ovos.Os ovos foram postos em vasos ou cestos que continham uma mistura húmida de terra/areia. Pedaços de pano/juta foram postos em cima da areia para evitar o contacto directo dos ovos com a humidade. Particularmente nos meses quentes e secos do Verão, quando a temperatura pode atingir os 40 °C, este tipo de armazenamento previne que os ovos fiquem desidratados e, posteriormente, deteriorados devido à morte destes embriões.Fonte: Agren Network paper 146 (Julho de 2005)Quando saídos dos ovos, os pintainhos devem ser criados e receber cuidados. A galinha-mãe aquece os pintainhos até eles terem penas. A galinha-mãe cuida dos pintainhos, fornecendo o abrigo e a protecção das suas asas contra o mau tempo e os predadores. A este período chama-se o período de criação.Nos climas quentes, o método mais adequado e barato para guardar os pintainhos recém eclodidos é o chamado 'sistema de cesto'. Com o sistema de cesto o avicultor pode fornecer rações aos pintainhos sem competição de outras aves e também mantê-los protegidos contra os predadores. Os resultados são o crescimento mais rápido dos pintainhos, menos despesas em rações e um maior número de pintos que sobrevivem.Devem-se manter os pintainhos, durante a noite, com a sua mãe debaixo de um \"cesto de noite\", que é uma gaiola cónica com um chão. Um \"cesto de noite\" pode ser construído de bambú ou pedaços finos de madeira. Este cesto deve ser fechado para prevenir que entrem predadores e para as aves se manterem quentes durante a noite. Para fazer uma cama de base de 5 cm pode-se usar simplesmente palha seca, cortada, cascas de arroz e aparas de madeira.De manhã, os pintainhos devem ser tirados do cesto e mudados para um \"cesto de dia\". O \"cesto de dia\" é uma gaiola cónica sem chão, ver a Figura 17. Se o solo estiver húmido ou molhado, dever-se-á colocar uma esteira seca de juta ou de palha na gaiola. A esteira deve ser limpa ou substituída cada dia. Da mesma forma, o \"cesto de dia\" deve ser mudado, diariamente, para um local limpo, de modo a prevenir a ocorrência de doenças. Os dejectos podem ser usados na horta.Figura 16: O \"cesto de noite\" deve ter um chão ou ser posto numa esteira para protegê-lo contra o frio. A esteira deve ser limpa diariamente.Podem-se distinguir quatro fases de maneio 0-1 semana depois da eclosão Manter a galinha-mãe com os pintainhos durante 4 a 7 dias depois da eclosão para protegê-los e ajudá-los a regularem a sua temperatura. Piando os pintos guiam a galinha.Mantêm-se os pintainhos, permanentemente, na gaiola, mas permitese à galinha sair para buscar alimentos durante o dia. É necessário que a galinha possa ouvir os pintainhos donde ela se encontre e entrar na gaiola quando quiser. É necessário pois que alguém vigie a situação. Devem-se manter a galinha e os pintainhos juntos durante a noite.Deve-se continuar a manter a galinha e os pintos juntos, de noite, mas deixar os pintos sair, de dia, para buscar alimentos com a sua mãe. Primeiramente durante algumas horas pela manhã e, depois, gradualmente durante mais tempo. É preciso que os pintos continuem a ter acesso fácil a água limpa e rações ricas em proteínas no cesto, e a abertura de entrada deve ser demasiadamente pequena para que as aves maiores possam entrar. O cesto e o chão devem sempre ser mantidos limpos.Figura 17: Maneio de pintos com uso do sistema de cesto Mais de 6 semanas depois da eclosão: Neste momento pode-se remover o cesto e deixar os pintos à solta para buscarem alimentos com a galinha-mãe. Devem-se fornecer rações suplementares, durante a noite, a todo o bando, consoante as suas necessidades.Deve-se fazer com que haja um acesso fácil a água limpa e rações com um teor elevado de proteínas para os pintainhos. Verificar se o chão do cesto é mantido limpo. Colocar uma folha de papel ou uma esteira tecida debaixo do cesto, de modo a que os dejectos e as rações derramadas possam ser removidos facilmente.Uma galinha pode lidar com uma quantidade dupla dos pintos que ela mesma incubou, contanto que se acrescentem os outros pintainhos com um dia (preferivelmente de noite) aos seus próprios pintos. Sob circunstâncias normais e consoante o seu tamanho, uma galinha é capaz de cuidar até 15 pintos. Também se pode comprar pintos a um avicultor que fornece serviços de incubação, ou a centros de incubação comerciais.Os centros de incubação comerciais só fornecem pintainhos em grandes quantidades (venda por atacado) e, muitas das vezes, vendem raças melhoradas (híbridas). As raças cruzadas ou híbridas são criadas quer para a produção de ovos, quer para carne. Estas raças requerem, geralmente, níveis mais elevados de alimentação e maneio (medicação) do que as raças locais, mais resistentes. Portanto, os custos adicionais da compra de pintos de alta qualidade somente se justificam caso estes requisitos possam ser cumpridos.Os pintainhos podem ser incubados tanto por uma galinha choca como numa incubadora. Uma incubadora é um espaço confinado com temperatura, humidade e ventilação controladas. Este capítulo fornece informação sobre as pequenas incubadoras, a sua montagem e operação.Há incubadoras de diferentes tipos, formas e tamanhos. As pequenas incubadoras são caixas feitas de contraplacado, fibra de vidro, plástico, etc. (com material de isolamento nas paredes), com uma porta na parte dianteira ou uma tampa na parte de cima e orifícios de ventilação para arejamento. Estas podem conter até 50 ovos. Os ovos são colocados em estantes, tabuleiros ou gavetas. Os ovos são virados à mão.As pequenas incubadoras podem ser compradas, mas também é possível empregar incubadoras de fabrico caseiro. As grandes incubadoras estão providas dum ventilador e têm a capacidade de incubar uma maior quantidade de ovos, requerendo menos atenção. Estas incubadoras ditas de arejamento forçado podem estar equipadas com viradoras automáticas.Para controlar a temperatura deve-se usar uma fonte de aquecimento.Pode ser uma lâmpada ou queimador de querosene, uma ou várias lâmpadas eléctricas ou um elemento de aquecimento eléctrico. Podese empregar um painel solar com acumulador para fornecer energia às lâmpadas ou ao elemento aquecedor.As lâmpadas Led não geram calor e, portanto, não servem para o aquecimento duma incubadora.Nas incubadoras com querosene põe-se, muitas das vezes, a lâmpada ou queimador de querosene abaixo dum recipiente ou reservatório metálico cheio de água. Depois de algumas horas o reservatório cheio de água aquecida acaba por aquecer o ambiente.A maioria das incubadoras eléctricas estão providas dum termóstato que desliga automaticamente o aquecimento quando a temperatura ultrapassa um determinado limite e volta a ligar quando a temperatura desce.As grandes incubadoras eléctricas, particularmente as que têm mais dum tabuleiro de ovos, têm orifícios de arejamento e também um ventilador no seu interior para distribuir, uniformemente, o ar quente. No caso das incubadoras de tabuleiro único, este aspecto é menos importante.A excepção da fonte de energia utilizada, há incubadoras de energia solar dos mesmos tipos das incubadoras regulares de energia eléctrica supramencionadas.Como a energia solar é facilmente disponível nas regiões tropicais, a sua aplicação constitui uma solução adequada e rentável. Embora a sua aplicação tenha começado em 2003, particularmente na África e na Índia, o custo das incubadoras de energia solar ainda é bastante elevado. No decorrer do tempo a energia solar tornar-se-á uma fonte de energia segura, limpa e barata para operar uma incubadora ou criadeira em zonas onde não há electricidade.Alguns casos de incubadoras de fabrico caseiroTrata-se duma simples incubadora aquecida por uma lâmpada de querosene e apenas há uma maneira para controlar as condições internas: um termómetro. Esta pequena incubadora pode conter 50 ovos e foi construída pelo gerente dum centro de pecuária em Mwatate, Quénia. Para a sua montagem usaram-se apenas os materiais locais mais baratos. Foram abertos três orifícios de arejamento em dois lados da incubadora.Colocou-se o reservatório cheio de água, acima da lâmpada. Para regular os níveis de humidade, pode-se encher um prato de plástico com água.Madeira: 200 cm x 5 cm x 5 cm para a armação, 100 cm x 2,5 cm x 30 cm para o suporte do reservatório de água. Painéis de isolamento: 2 m 2 para todos os lados da caixa da incubadora Painel duro: 1 m 2 para os lados da caixa da incubadora Lâmpada: lâmpada de querosene com uma capacidade de meio litro Termómetro: termómetro veterinário + postigo de observação na incubadora Reservatório de água quente: uma lata vazia de óleo alimentar de 4 litros à qual foi soldada um tubo (1,2 cm de diâmetro, 1 metro de comprimento). O tubo é transparente na extremidade, de modo a que se possa verificar o nível de água. Mangueira: 2 m Tabuleiro para ovos: rede metálica coberta com um pano de algodão Recipiente de água: prato de plástico Uma lanterna: para a observação dos ovos por iluminação Incubaram-se 20 ovos. Foram virados 3 vezes por dia até ao dia 18 da incubação. Empregou-se uma lanterna para observar o interior dos ovos. Colocou-se um termómetro ao lado dos ovos, no tabuleiro, de forma a verificar a temperatura.Os resultados: Foram postos 20 ovos na incubadora, destes eclodiram 11 embriões, 6 embriões ficaram mortos na casca, 2 ovos eram inférteis e 1 estava partido. Embora estes resultados não sejam excelentes, são suficientemente estimuladores para justificar outras tentativas. Quando se estabeleça uma rotina adequada para o uso da incubadora, é quase certo que a taxa de eclosão aumentará.A Agromisa desenhou e testou uma incubadora de fabrico caseiro, aquecida com querosene, que foi descrita detalhadamente nas edições anteriores deste Agrodok e num AgroBrief recente.A incubadora é constituída por um suporte para um reservatório de 10 litros de água quente, aquecida pela lâmpada (altura total de 55 cm, incluindo o reservatório) e uma caixa de incubação sobreposta, de madeira, de 25 cm de altura, para o tabuleiro de ovos. Um lado tem 3 entradas de arejamento na extremidade inferior, enquanto que o lado oposto está equipado com 3 saídas de arejamento, na extremidade superior. Deve haver um espaço de 10 cm debaixo do tabuleiro de ovos para permitir a colocação de recipientes de água que regulam a humidade.Os lados da caixa da incubadora devem ser construídos, preferivelmente, com paredes duplas para possibilitar o seu isolamento, que são enchidas com feno, algodão ou fibras de coco.Embora o poliestireno (proveniente, por exemplo, duma caixa frigorífica fora de uso) seja um material com excelente capacidade isoladora, nunca se deve usar perto duma lâmpada de querosene, visto que é muito inflamável.Deve-se instalar um termómetro no interior da caixa (com o bolbo ao nível da parte de cima dos ovos). Preferivelmente, instala-se uma porta de vidro que desliza para cima e para baixo, de forma a reduzir-se a perda de calor ao abri-la.O tabuleiro de ovos, feito de rede de arame, pode suportar até 30 ovos se as dimensões internas forem de 35 x 35 cm, até 50 ovos com 45 x 55 cm, e até 70 ovos com 50 x 60 cm.Quando aquecida, a água actua como armazenamento de calor, amortecendo leves variações do aquecimento (do interior) e da temperatura exterior.Como é o caso para todas as novas incubadoras, dever-se-á operá-la durante 1 semana, no mínimo, sem ovos, para se familiarizar com o seu uso e fazer as adaptações necessárias.Recomenda-se consultar o AgroBrief mencionado anteriormente para informação mais detalhada sobre a construção e operação deste tipo de incubadora (O agroboletim ' AgroBrief' pode ser encomendado na Agromisa.)A incubadora de caixa tipo Kuku (que significa galinha em swahili) é um simples desenho faça-você-mesmo, desenvolvido na Tanzânia. As instruções de montagem e operação podem ser descarregadas, gratuitamente, da Internet: http://www.the-testament-of-truth.co.uk/web/incubat2.htm A incubadora é constituída por uma caixa de 60 x 40 x 23 cm (dimensões externas) feita de madeira, madeira contraplacada, ou um painel aglomerado de fibras de média densidade (MDF) e 1 tabuleiro de ovos suportado por ripas instalado a 7 cm abaixo da parte de cima da caixa.O tabuleiro é feito duma rede de aço galvanizado, com malhas de 12,5 x 12,5 mm, com um mosquiteiro de nylon em cima. O tabuleiro tem capacidade para 30-35 ovos. A caixa pode ser isolada com 1,5 cm de espuma (de borracha) colada no seu interior, de modo que a eficiência do aquecimento aumenta, mas nesse caso poder-se-ão incubar menos ovos devido ao tamanho mais reduzido do tabuleiro.A caixa da incubadora é equipada com uma porta dianteira, com dobradiças na sua base, e uma porta na parte de cima (60 x 16 cm) com dobradiças a uns 2/3 da tampa, em cima. Os orifícios de arejamento são furados nos 2 lados. Os recipientes de água para regular a humidade do ar podem ser colocados abaixo do tabuleiro de ovos.A incubadora é aquecida por 2 duas lâmpadas de 60 watt ou um aquecedor de 100 watt instalado na parte traseira, alguns centímetros acima do fundo. No interior da incubadora instala-se um termómetro de bolbo para medir a temperatura do ar na parte de cima dos ovos. Pode-se usar um termóstato (p.ex. o tipo 'Ether Wafer'), com a sonda instalada ao nível dos ovos, para regular a temperatura. Recomenda-se manter uma temperatura dos ovos de 38-38,5 °C.(Se a temperatura do ar ambiente ultrapassar o nível de 38,5 °C o autor recomenda que se coloque a incubadora numa cave, ou num buraco escavado no chão num local sombreado, a uma profundidade mínima de 15 cm. Contudo, tudo isto não parece muito prático. Provavelmente será melhor adiar a incubação dos ovos para uma estação com temperaturas mais baixas).É possível atingir uma taxa de eclosão de mais de 60%.A incubadora deve ser colocada num local fresco, sombreado e sossegado (sem tremores provocados por camiões ou máquinas pesadas que passam na vizinhança). Portanto, a incubadora não deve ser colocada no galinheiro! O recinto deve ser arejado adequadamente mas sem correntes de ar.Antes de empregar a incubadora pela primeira vez, deve-se operá-la sem ovos lá dentro, durante uma semana, no mínimo.Os seguintes quatro factores são essenciais para a incubação de ovos: ? Temperatura ? Humidade ? Arejamento ? Viragem dos ovos A temperatura é o mais crítico destes factores. Contudo, também se tende a não levar em conta a humidade, que caso não seja controlada adequadamente pode provocar muitos problemas de incubação. Uma incubadora deve fornecer condições térmicas comparáveis com as fornecidas por uma galinha choca que mantém os ovos quentes através do seu calor corporal.Para regular a temperatura numa incubadora é necessário fazer uso dum termómetro -preferivelmente um que possa ser lido com exactidão (0,05-0,1 °C) dentro da escala de 35-40 °C. O calor no interior duma incubadora é regulado quer manualmente quer através dum termóstato.Uma incubadora bem isolada não só reduz os custos de energia mas também evita a ocorrência de flutuações de temperatura no seu interior, provocadas por mudanças da temperatura do ambiente onde a incubadora foi colocada.Não se devem incubar ovos durante as estações do ano em que a temperatura diurna normal ultrapassa os 40 °C. Em tais condições não será possível incubar, visto que o calor extremo destrói os embriões.Durante a incubação (particularmente durante a primeira semana), a temperatura reveste-se de importância primordial. Uma temperatura óptima nas duas semanas iniciais é de 38,5 °C com uma variação máxima de meio grau, quer a mais, quer a menos. As variações da temperatura que ultrapassam 0,5 °C afectam a quantidade de ovos que serão incubados com bons resultados. Uma subida da temperatura pode ter resultados desastrosos. Se a temperatura ultrapassar 40,5 °C, o efeito nos embriões será fatal. Uma descida de temperatura faz com que a incubação se atrase, mas tem efeitos menos nocivos do que uma subida de temperatura.Logo que os ovos sejam postos na incubadora, é provável que a temperatura da incubadora desça, enquanto que os ovos levam 6-8 horas para aquecerem e atingirem a temperatura de incubação. Não se deve aumentar o fornecimento de calor à incubadora durante esta fase de aquecimento.Primeiro deve-se deixar a incubadora funcionar sem ovos de forma a verificar-se a regulação óptima da temperatura.Nas incubadoras de fabrico caseiro, a temperatura variará consideravelmente entre a parte de cima e a parte de baixo dos ovos.Para se obterem leituras fiáveis, o bolbo do termómetro deve encontrar-se à mesma altura que a parte de cima dos ovos (o nível onde se desenvolvem os embriões) e afastados da fonte de calor. Deve-se veri-ficar se o bolbo do termómetro não está em contacto com os ovos ou as paredes da incubadora, visto que isto daria um valor incorrecto da temperatura do ar. Um ovo com um embrião vivo é, sempre, mais quente do que um ovo com um embrião morto.Usando dois termómetros, pode-se ter a certeza duma leitura exacta e pode-se verificar se o calor se difunde uniformemente no tabuleiro.Os ovos perdem humidade durante a incubação. A taxa da perda de humidade depende da humidade relativa mantida no interior da incubadora. Para se obterem resultados óptimos, a perda do peso depois de 18 dias de incubação deve ser 11-13 % do peso inicial do ovo. Para atingir isto, a humidade no interior da incubadora deve ser mantida entre 50 a 60% (HR) até os ovos começarem a ser perfurados.Quando os pintainhos começam a eclodir (quando 1/3 dos ovos foram furados) é importante aumentar, gradualmente, a humidade até atingir um valor de 70%. Isto sucederá, em parte, de maneira automática: logo que os pintainhos tiverem feito o primeiro furo na casca, muita humidade evaporará do interior dos ovos. Para que o vapor de água fique dentro, dever-se-á manter fechada tanto quanto possível a porta da incubadora.Figura 18: Verificando a temperatura dos ovosPara se obterem os níveis correctos da humidade colocam-se tigelas com água no interior da incubadora, abaixo do(s) tabuleiro(s) dos ovos. Pode-se empregar um higrómetro para medir a humidade relativa, mas também há outras maneiras para verificar o nível de humidade (ver mais adiante).Os níveis de humidade também são influenciados pela intensidade do arejamento e pela humidade do ar que entra.A humidade elevada é rara nas incubadoras que dependem da evaporação das panelas de água. Contudo, se houver pintainhos completamente desenvolvidos que não conseguem eclodir, devido a um excesso de água no interior das cascas ('pintainhos afogados'), isto indica que a humidade é demasiadamente elevada. Previne-se este problema mantendo uma temperatura correcta e um arejamento amplo e adequado.Uma humidade baixa provoca a ocorrência de pintainhos pegajosos durante a perfuração das cascas, originando pintainhos muito pequenos, débeis, que não são capazes de se levantar, andar ou orientar-se para atingir alimentos e água, ou a pintainhos com as articulaçãoes do quadril deslocadas.Existem vários métodos para se verificar a humidade relativa na incubadora.? Uso de um higrómetro (aplicável apenas nas incubadoras equipadas com um ventilador!) ? Uso de um jogo de um termómetro de bolbo húmido e um de bolbo seco ? Estimativa do tamanho da câmara de ar ? Pesagem dos ovos Um higrómetro é um aparelho para medir a humidade relativa (HR) do ar. Os higrómetros são instrumentos muito susceptíveis a influências externas como p.ex. a poeira, que afecta a sua exactidão.No momento da eclosão, libertar-se-á muita poeira das cascas partidas. Portanto, é muito importante verificar o funcionamento adequado do higrómetro, cobrindo-o com um pano molhado. Depois de 30 minutos, no mínimo, o valor deverá ser de 95-100%. Se não for assim, o higrómetro poderá ser regulado com uma pequena chave de parafusos.Um jogo de termómetros de bolbos húmido e seco é uma boa ferramenta para determinar a humidade relativa do ar. Quanto mais elevada a evaporação, menor será a leitura da temperatura no termómetro de bolbo húmido e maior a diferença entre as leituras do bolbo húmido e do seco.Nas incubadoras equipadas com um ventilador, o uso dum termómetro de bolbo húmido conjuntamente com um termómetro de bolbo seco é uma boa alternativa ao uso dum higrómetro dispendioso e susceptível a influências externas.Para construir um termómetro de bolbo húmido, basta embrulhar um pano de algodão ao redor da extremidade do termómetro e molhar a extremidade desta mecha de algodão na água. O algodão absorve a água. Devido à evaporação, o termómetro de bolbo húmido apresenta uma temperatura inferior à do termómetro de bolbo seco no mesmo compartimento. Para calcular a humidade relativa deve-se comparar a leitura do termómetro de bolbo húmido com a do termómetro normal de bolbo seco (ver o Quadro 3).  Sempre que for possível e prático, recomenda-se usar um jogo duplo de instrumentos de bolbos húmido e seco para cada incubadora.As mechas velhas e sujas tendem a resultar em leituras superiores aos valores reais, fazendo com que se sobrestime a humidade relativa. Por conseguinte, podem-se reduzir os resultados da incubação. Deve-se mudar, regularmente, as mechas.Na Figura 20 apresenta-se o tamanho correcto da câmara de ar do ovo em relação ao tempo de incubação. A câmara de ar pode tornar-se visível com uso duma lanterna, tal como foi descrito anteriormente na Secção 3.5. Logicamente que há uma forte correlação entre o tamanho da câmara de ar, a humidade relativa (HR) e a perda de peso.Durante a incubação, um ovo perde certa quantidade do seu peso devido à evaporação de Figura 20: Desenvolvimento da câmara de ar do ovo após vários dias de incubação água do seu interior através dos poros presentes na casca. Se a humidade relativa não for a correcta (demasiadamente baixa ou elevada), os ovos perderão mais ou menos peso, respectivamente do que é devido, dificultando-se a obtenção de resultados adequados. A perda de peso depois de 18 dias de incubação deve ser de 11 a 13%. Se a perda de peso for mais elevada, dever-se-á aumentar a humidade.Pode-se obter uma humidade correcta colocando pequenos recipientes cheios de água no interior da incubadora. A humidade no interior da incubadora pode ser regulada modificando-se a superfície superior dos recipientes de água: uma maior superfície leva a um aumento da evaporação e, por conseguinte, também ao aumento da humidade relativa (HR). Para prevenir que haja uma descida de temperatura, devem-se encher os recipientes com água à temperatura do corpo em vez de água fria.Se não houver suficientes recipientes de água, deve-se colocar uma esponja molhada ou pano molhado no interior da incubadora.Os pintainhos que se desenvolvem no interior dos ovos necessitam de absorver oxigénio e libertar dióxido de carbono. Enquanto os embriões se desenvolvem, devem ser abastecidos com uma crescente quantidade de ar fresco. Portanto, é importante que haja um arejamento adequado, particularmente tendo em conta que se produziram, possivelmente, outros gases venenosos se houver ovos podres presentes na incubadora. Para se obter uma ventilação adequada deve-se equipar a incubadora com orifícios de arejamento, tanto abaixo como acima do nível dos ovos.Quanto maior for a quantidade de ovos presentes na incubadora e quanto maior a idade dos embriões, tanto maior é a quantidade de oxigénio requerida. Por conseguinte, deve-se aumentar, gradualmente, a intensidade do arejamento no decorrer do período de incubação!As incubadoras com querosene e as eléctricas de tamanho reduzido dependem do 'arejamento natural' através dos orifícios de arejamento com um diâmetro de, aproximadamente, 1 cm. Os orifícios podem ser abertos e fechados com uso de tampas.As incubadoras eléctricas encontram-se, frequentemente, equipadas com um ou mais ventiladores. De notar: um ventilador provoca uma distribuição uniforme de ar quente dentro da incubadora, mas apenas aspira ar fresco quando os orifícios de entrada e saída estão abertos! Ao aspirar o ar fresco, um ventilador pode abastecer mais ovos dentro dum espaço encerrado.É difícil de determinar o número de orifícios de arejamento que devem ser abertos. Em todo o caso, devem-se manter dois orifícios permanentemente abertos (um para a entrada do ar ao nível inferior e outro para a saída do ar ao nível superior). Cada vez que se abre a porta da incubadora, entra ar fresco. Portanto, depois de 18 dias, quando termina a viragem dos ovos, talvez se deva abrir orifícios adicionais.Ao usar um aparelho de viragem automática dos ovos, devem-se abrir mais orifícios de arejamento.Para manter centrados os embriões em desenvolvimento e prevenir que fiquem pegados às cascas, devem-se virar os ovos 3 vezes por dia, durante os primeiros 18 dias. A viragem regular do ovo mantém centrado o embrião, que está a desenvolver-se.É mais importante virarem-se os ovos a intervalos regulares do que virá-los mais de três vezes por dia. Se os ovos não forem virados, os resultados da incubação serão deficientes.Virando os ovos um número ímpar de vezes (quer dizer: 3), alterna-se o lado do ovo que fica para cima durante a noite. Isto é importante e útil, visto que o intervalo entre duas viragens é mais prolongado de noite do que é durante o dia.Ao virar os ovos, devem-se mudar para uma parte diferente do tabuleiro de forma a minimizar os efeitos de variações da temperatura dentro da incubadora.A melhor maneira é retirar todo o tabuleiro, virar os ovos 180° e, se for possível e o tamanho dos ovos o permitir, remeter o tabuleiro ao contrário. Ao virar os ovos, deve-se manter a porta da incubadora fechada.Antes de começar, deve-se verificar que se trabalha com as mãos limpas. Se sujidade e gordura ficarem a parar na casca provocarão que a casca fique fechada hermeticamente, de modo que o ar não poderá passar através da casca, provocando a morte do pintainho.Figura 21: Viragem manual dos ovosRecomenda-se usar o método de marcação `X e O´ para facilitar uma viragem apropriada. Consoante este método, deve-se marcar, com lápis, um lado de cada ovo com X (ou um número) e o outro lado com O (ou com outro número). Quando os ovos são virados 180°, as marcas devem mudar de lugar. Deve-se ter cuidado para que os ovos NÃO sejam virados sempre na mesma direcção, visto que assim se reduziriam os resultados da incubação! Virar os ovos no sentido dos ponteiros do relógio e, a seguinte vez, no sentido contrário aos ponteiros do relógio, e assim por adiante.Entre as viragens não se deve mover os ovos de nenhuma forma.A viragem termina depois de 18 dias Depois de 18 dias, já não é necessário continuar a viragem. Os ovos já não devem ser virados a partir de quatro ou três dias antes da eclosão.Os pintainhos devem posicionar-se para a perfuração das cascas e é mais fácil se ficam no mesmo lugar durante o processo. Nesta altura, o embrião é suficientemente grande e já usou a maior parte da gema, de modo que já não corre o risco de ser esmagado entre a gema e a casca.Alguns produtores abrem a incubadora, tiram um tabuleiro raso, e passam a mão nos ovos. Para eles, é o mesmo que virar os ovos. Em realidade, desta forma os ovos apenas ficam mexidos. Assim não é possível saber de certeza se os ovos foram apenas movidos para o outro lado ou se foram mudados, realmente, de posição. Deste modo, muitos ovos não são virados mas apenas mudados para outro lado. Para além disso, esta forma de viragem inadequada também pode provocar a ocorrência de cascas rachadas.Embora muitos pintainhos possam desenvolver-se em ovos com cascas rachadas (não as membranas), nestas circunstâncias poucos poderão furá-las e eclodir de forma bem sucedida, visto que o ambiente se torna pegajoso devido à desidratação. E o pintainho não terá suficiente força para furar a casca e libertar-se, por si mesmo, do ambiente pegajoso.Nas pequenas incubadoras, os ovos são colocados, geralmente, na posição horizontal ou, se for possível, com a ponta mais fina ligeiramente para baixo (que é como a galinha choca coloca os ovos no ninho). Os ovos são virados 180º segundo o eixo mais longo.Se a incubadora estiver equipada com tabuleiro(s) de ovos em que os ovos ficam erguidos, é essencial que sejam posicionados com a ponta mais arredondada para cima (que é o lado onde se encontra a câmara de ar do ovo) e a ponta mais fina para baixo. Caso assim for, os ovos devem ser virados 90º segundo o eixo curto, quer dizer, a primeira viragem deve ser de 45º para a esquerda (ou direita) e cada viragem seguinte deve ser de 90º na direcção contrária. De notar: a câmara de ar do ovo deve ficar, sempre, posicionada para cima, de modo que a ponta fina do ovo fique para baixo (ver a Secção 3.3).Os pintainhos não eclodem todos no mesmo momento. Possivelmente haverá um intervalo de 40 horas entre o primeiro e o último pintainho a eclodir! Para não se perturbarem as condições climáticas, não se deve abrir a incubadora antes de a maior parte dos pintainhos terem eclodido. Caso contrário, dificultar-se-ia a eclosão dos pintainhos mais lentos. (Os pintainhos recém eclodidos podem sobreviver durante 1-2 dias sem alimentação, embora seja melhor alimentá-los logo desde o início).Logo que a maioria dos pintainhos estiverem com a penugem seca e fofa, devem-se remover, imediatamente, todos os pintainhos da incubadora. Não se deve esperar a eclosão dos ovos restantes, mas estes devem ser removidos e depois bem cozidos, podendo ser empregues como rações para as galinhas.O registo de dados é muito importante! Pode-se usar o Quadro 4: ? Apontar a data de quando os ovos foram colocados na incubadora. ? Apontar, duas vezes por dia, a temperatura e a humidade. ? Na última coluna (Observações) deve-se apontar a observação dos ovos por iluminação (ver a Secção 3.5) e as perdas assim como as causas: ovos inférteis, embriões mortos, ou outras.Se os resultados forem deficientes no final do período de incubação, pode-se verificar, com base nos dados registados, se isto foi provocada pela temperatura ou a humidade. Em geral, a taxa de eclosão varia entre 50 a 70%: de 100 ovos eclodem apenas 50 a 70 pintainhos. Usando incubadoras de fabrico caseiro, é raro que se consiga uma taxa de eclosão de 80% ou mais.Quadro 4: Exemplo duma folha de registo Os pintainhos que eclodiram numa incubadora devem ser mantidos quentes durante as primeiras semanas da sua vida. Embora sejam capazes de deambular e aguentar uma temperatura baixa durante um período curto, é importante que possam aquecer-se quando esfriarem.O equipamento que fornece calor e abrigo chama-se uma criadeira.Os pintainhos com uma temperatura do corpo muito baixa não morrem imediatamente, mas sofrerão distúrbios digestivos (diarreia) e morrerão dentro duma semana.Podem-se empregar diferentes fontes de calor para se manter uma temperatura adequada: uma estufa de carvão, uma lâmpada infravermelha, uma simples lâmpada de 100-Watt, ou uma lâmpada de óleo ou de gás.As lâmpadas Led não geram calor e, portanto, não servem para aquecer uma criadeira ou incubadora.Figura 24: Caso não se disponha de uma fonte de calor externa, uma caixa isolada é uma boa alternativa para manter os pintainhos quentesDeve-se colocar a criadeira num ambiente em que não haja predadores. Embora, não seja uma prática aparentemente comum, a colocação da criadeira numa mesa ou banco serve para protegê-la de predadores e também facilita o seu maneio.A criadeira deve dispor dum chão circular para evitar a presença de cantos onde os pintainhos possivelmente podem ficar presos ou são pisados. As paredes podem ser construídas de cartão (ondulado) ou de rede metálica. Quando os pintainhos crescerem, dever-se-á acrescentar simplesmente pedaços adicionais de cartão para aumentar a superfície total da criadeira.Na Figura 25 apresenta-se um exemplo duma criadeira de cartão com uma lâmpada de 100-watt que serve como fonte de calor. A lâmpada pode ser coberta com uma forma cónica, dirigindo o calor para os pintainhos. A lâmpada deve ser pendurada no centro da criadeira, de modo que o calor se difunda para toda a criadeira.Áreas frescas É de igual importância que haja espaços frescos para os pintainhos. Os pintainhos devem dispor de uma fonte de calor localizada e também ter acesso a um espaço mais fresco, não aquecido. Desta forma, permite-se aos pintainhos determinarem as suas próprias necessidades de aquecimento, circulando entre os espaços aquecidos e frescos.Figura 25: Criadeira simples construída com cartão. O chão circular deve ser coberto com uma cama seca, limpa, p.ex. de cascas de arroz, capim seco ou folhas secas. Deve-se evitar o uso de papel (de jornal) ou apenas usá-lo como uma subcama e cobri-lo com um pano ou papel absorvente (lenços).O espaço da criadeira deve ser preparado, adequadamente, (quer dizer, limpo e aquecido) e pronto para receber os pintainhos recém eclodidos.Durante a primeira semana, a lâmpada deve ser pendurada a uma altura de 10 cm acima do chão. Durante os primeiros dias, deve-se manter a temperatura a 32 °C. Verificar a temperatura ao nível dos pintainhos, quer dizer, a 5 cm acima do nível do chão. No final da primeira semana, deve-se começar a baixar a temperatura 5 °F ou 2 °C por semana, até se atingir uma temperatura de 70 °F ou 20 °C, procurando-se manter este nível (ver o Quadro 6).Os próprios pintainhos funcionam como excelentes termómetros, visto que o seu comportamento indica se a temperatura deve ser regulada (Ver a Figura 25): ? Quando os pintainhos se amontoam num ponto, piando, deve-se fornecer-lhes aquecimento adicional ? Os pintainhos que se abrigam numa só direcção sofrem de correntes de ar. ? Quando os pintainhos se espalham contra a parede do espaço, piando fortemente ou arquejando com os seus bicos abertos, deve-se baixar a temperatura ? Os pintainhos espalhados, uniformemente, no espaço da criadeira, emitindo sons de contentamento, sentem-se cómodos Figura 26: Comportamento dos pintainhos em resposta à temperatura (visto de cima)Deve-se subir a lâmpada 5 cm cada semana, visto que os pintainhos necessitarão cada vez de menos calor, à medida que crescem. Quando os pintainhos ficarem melhor protegidos pelas suas novas penas, poder-se-á baixar, levemente, a temperatura. Ver o Quadro 6:Quadro 6: Temperatura recomendada numa criadeiraIdade em semanas Temperatura em °C (ao nível do pintainho) 0-1 32-30 1-2 30-28 2-3 28-25 3-4 25-22 4-5 22-20 5-6 20-18Deve-se cobrir o chão da criadeira com uma cama seca, p.ex. de capim seco ou folhas secas, aparas de madeira, serradura grossa, palha picada ou cascas de arroz.Para a cama da criadeira não se devem usar papéis de jornal, que é demasiado escorregadio para os pintainhos. Correriam o risco de obter 'spread legs' (deslocação das articulações do quadril), que é um problema de saúde fatal.Se a cama estiver húmida ou suja por água ou rações derramados ou dejectos, deve ser removida e substituída por material seco e limpo. Qualquer humidade presente na cama provoca e estimula o desenvolvimento de bolores. Se os pintainhos inalarem os bolores, morrerão da 'pneumonia de criadeira', que é incurável.Deve-se evitar o uso de serradura muito fina, visto que os pintainhos que o consomem poderão acabar sofrendo duma obstrução do tracto intestinal (tubo digestivo). Espalhar, diariamente, alguns grãos na cama da criadeira de forma a estimular os pintainhos a esgravatarem.No interior da criadeira deve haver bebedouros, comedouros e uma caixa com areia seca para os pintainhos se banharem nela. Deve-se permitir a todos os pintainhos comerem e beberem no mesmo momento. Os requisitos do espaço do comedouro variam consoante o seu tipo e a idade dos pintainhos. Provavelmente também consumirão alguma areia, mas isto não é prejudicial. Os comedouros e os bebedouros devem ser limpos e enchidos, diariamente.Todos os pintainhos devem poder beber e comer, simultaneamenteDuas semanas após a eclosão dos pintainhos, devem-se instalar poleiros no interior da criadeira. Os pintos e, particularmente, as novas poedeiras devem habituar-se a dormir nos poleiros. Se as temperaturas forem adequadas, pode-se ajudá-los a dormir nos poleiros, em vez de no chão, colocando-os nos poleiros à noite, 2 semanas após o seu nascimento.Deve-se vigiar os pintainhos para se ter a certeza de que estão cómodos ou se mostram sinais de amontoamento ao redor da fonte de calor ou se afastam dela. Caso assim seja, dever-se-á regular as condições da criadeira. Quando os pintainhos se sentem cómodos, espalham-se por todo o espaço da criadeira e emitem sons de contentamento. Após duas semanas os pintainhos devem ser capazes de sair e entrar na criadeira. Depois de 4 semanas poder-se-á desligar o aquecimento artificial, contanto que a temperatura de dia seja superior a 20 °C. Se as noites forem frias, dever-se-á manter a lâmpada acendida.Os pintainhos recém eclodidos necessitam de uma dieta equilibrada de forma a poder crescer bem. A partir do terceiro dia, deve-se começar a alimentá-los com puré mas espalhar sempre alguns grãos na cama da criadeira para mantê-los activos.Deve-se fornecer o puré em pequenas quantidades, três ou quatro vezes por dia. Desta forma, estimulam-se os pintainhos para comerem mais, levando a um crescimento mais uniforme e à redução de desperdícios. Ao final do dia, deve-se deixar alguns alimentos nos comedouros dos pintainhos.Depois de pouco tempo, os novos pintainhos começam a mover-se em busca de alimentos. Precisam de ser alimentados com rações de boa qualidade (ricas em proteínas), ainda de melhor qualidade do que as das galinhas. Se fizer bom tempo e o local for seguro no que diz respeito a predadores, como sejam ratazanas, aves grandes e cães, podese permitir aos pintainhos alimentarem-se na vegetação ou pode-se deixar algum material vegetal na criadeira como ração adicional às suas rações concentradas normais.Figura 27: Quando os pintos crescem, pode-se aumentar, facilmente, o tamanho da criadeira, acrescentando pedaços adicionais de cartão.Deve-se abastecer, continuamente, os pintos com água fresca e limpa. Como muitas aves se recusam a beber água quente, deve-se verificar se a água não se torna demasiadamente quente devido ao calor irradiado pela fonte de calor presente na criadeira.Presas potenciais para vários predadores, os pintainhos tornam-se vulneráveis quando começarem a sair da criadeira. Recomenda-se adoptar o costume de inspeccionar, frequentemente, o local da criadeira e o terreno adjacente, para se ter a certeza de que os predadores não se aproximam dos pintos.Os pintos novos devem ser vacinados a tempo contra várias doenças, pelo menos contra a chamada doença de Newcastle (ND). Portanto, deve-se manter contacto com o assessor local de avicultura sobre o programa de vacinação dos pintainhos e cumpri-lo meticulosamente.Quadro 7: Programa de vacinacão (para raças comerciais) Existem várias vacinas contra a doença de Gumboro, de muitas estirpes diferentes. Informe-se no centro veterinário sobre as estirpes recomendáveis e os dias de vacinação mais adequados.Na maioria dos casos, as vacinas são vendidas apenas em frascos em quantidades de 500 ou mais. Recomenda-se associar-se a outros produtores vizinhos que também têm pintos que devem ser vacinados e comprar conjuntamente as vacinas. De notar: as galinhas de origem local são vacinadas, geralmente, apenas contra a Doença de Newcastle (ND).Durante os primeiros dias alimentam-se os pintainhos espalhando grãos partidos no chão da criadeira. A partir do terceiro dia, começa-se a alimentar os pintainhos com puré, mas continuando também a espalhar alguns grãos na cama da criadeira, de forma a mantê-los activos.Fornecer puré em quantidades reduzidas, três ou quatro vezes por dia.Isto estimulará os pintainhos a comerem mais, levando a um crescimento mais uniforme e à redução dos desperdícios. Ao final do dia devem restar alguns alimentos nos comedouros dos pintainhos. Deve haver sempre água fresca disponível para os pintainhos. Deve-se fornecer suficientes comedouros e bebedouros para todos os pintainhos poderem comer e beber, ao mesmo tempo.Manter a criadeira e o terreno adjacente limpos. Lavar, diariamente, os comedouros e bebedouros. Deve-se prestar atenção especial à cama que se encontra perto dos bebedouros. Virar, regularmente, a cama para prevenir que fique pegada ao chão. Os bebedouros também podem ser postos sobre tijolos ou arame, de forma que a água derramada não molhe a cama. Substituir a cama molhada.Se se encontrarem piolhos, ácaros e/ou pulgas, deve-se pulverizar a criadeira vazia com um desinfectante adequado (recorrer ao aconselhamento do seu assessor local). Se os pintainhos sofrerem duma doença (p.ex. coccidiose), deve-se consultar o veterinário para obter tratamento rápido e adequado. Consultar o seu assessor local no que diz respeito ao programa de medicação/vacinação dos pintainhos.Na 2ª semana devem-se instalar poleiros e caixas de areia na criadeira.As novas poedeiras devem aprender a usar os poleiros o mais rapidamente possível.8 Cuidados geraisAs galinhas da comunidade num sistema de avicultura de criação em liberdade ou em regime divagante não necessitam de rações comerciais. Podem-se fornecer-lhes as sobras de comida e outros alimentos domésticos, materiais vegetais verdes como sejam capim, confrei ou consolda (Symphytum officinale L, da família das Boragináceas), luzerna e ervas daninhas como seja a ansarina branca, catassol ou quenopódio branco (Chenopodium album). Deve-se dar-lhes apenas um bocado durante a manhã -visto que devem ter fome durante a manhã antes de deixá-los sair para esgravatarem -e outro bocado durante a tarde. Depois, deve-se dar-lhes outra vez um bocado, de noite, de forma a atraí-los para entrarem na criadeira.Os pintainhos recém eclodidos podem sobreviver durante 1-2 dias sem alimentação. Contudo, de forma a poderem atingir o seu pleno desenvolvimento potencial, precisam de serem alimentados rapidamente.Por conseguinte, devem ser abastecidos com rações e água pouco depois da sua eclosão. Os pintainhos comprados num centro de incubação também devem ser abastecidos de rações e água, logo após a sua chegada à exploração do avicultor.Nunca se deve comprar rações baratas de má qualidade, visto que estas carecem de vitaminas, minerais e proteínas essenciais para se prevenirem doenças. Ao comprar rações comerciais de boa qualidade, deve-se ter cuidado para que não sejam velhas (quer dizer, armazenadas durante mais de 3 ou 4 semanas), ou bolorentas.Mesmo se todos os factores de incubação, como sejam a temperatura e a humidade, são apropriados, uma limpeza deficiente pode provocar maus resultados de incubação. Uma limpeza deficiente não só provoca uma eclosão deficiente mas também aumenta a mortalidade durante a criação. Reveste-se de importância primordial que se coloquem apenas ovos limpos, que foram bem cuidados, em incubadoras meticulosamente limpas.Para a limpeza necessita-se apenas de água, sabão e um esquema adequado de trabalho regular!Com uma limpeza meticulosa, pode-se remover 95-99% dos micróbios. Se se procede a uma limpeza regular, praticamente não é necessário utilizar desinfectantes adicionais (partindo do princípio que só se utilizam ovos limpos).Recomenda-se limpar sempre a(s) incubadora(s), meticulosamente com água e sabão, logo depois de os pintainhos serem removidos (dentro de 24-48 horas). Repetir antes de se colocarem novos ovos.O restante equipamento, como sejam os tabuleiros, as panelas para água e os termómetros, também tem que ser limpo e desinfectado e as mechas do(s) termómetro(s) de bolbo húmido devem ser substituídas.Devem-se raspar e remover todas as cascas e sujidade ainda presentes. Limpar, meticulosamente, as superfícies com um pano humedecido em amónio quaternário, Clorox ou outra solução desinfectante.A mesma regra aplica-se à limpeza das criadeiras. Sempre antes de chegar um novo bando de pintainhos, devem-se limpar e desinfectar, meticulosamente, os bebedouros e comedouros ou substituí-los. Isto efectua-se para além da limpeza diária de rotina.A cama deve ser removida completamente, o chão e o ambiente adjacente devem ser limpos com abundante água e sabão. Antes de chegarem os novos pintainhos, devem-se substituir as placas que protegem contra as correntes de ar por novas ou devem ser limpas e desinfectadas, meticulosamente, e postas a secar.Os desinfectantes não podem compensar uma limpeza deficiente, visto que é impossível desinfectar um ambiente sujo.Contrário à opinião da maioria das pessoas, o uso de desinfectantes só em si não efectua a limpeza. Todos os desinfectantes perdem a sua eficácia logo que se põem em contacto com matéria orgânica, quer dizer, quanto mais suja a superfície, tanto menos eficaz a aplicação do desinfectante.Se se quiser aplicar um desinfectante depois da limpeza com detergente, os compostos de amónio quaternário ('QACs') são os produtos mais adequados para isso. Os QACs constituem o desinfectante de uso mais geral para equipamento como incubadoras. Os compostos de amónio quaternário são relativamente não-irritantes, não-corrosivos, de baixa toxicidade e razoavelmente eficazes.Anexo 1: Conversão da temperatura Anexo 2: Os ovos de outros tipos de aves de capoeiraOs ovos de outras aves não são incubados da mesma maneira que os ovos de galinhas. Adiante apresenta-se uma explicação concisa da incubação dos ovos de dois tipos da pata doméstica, perua, codorniz e pintada. Quando os ovos são armazenados, devem ser colocados com a câmara de ar para cima, quer dizer que se põem com a ponta mais fina para baixo e a ponta mais arredondada para cima. Tal se passa para quase todos os tipos de aves de capoeira.Alguns dias antes de se colocarem os pintainhos, deve-se limpar a criadeira, meticulosamente, com um desinfectante adequado.Manter a criadeira seca e evitar correntes de ar durante a criação.Deve-se cobrir o chão com uma cama seca, limpa (palha finamente cortada, areia seca, etc.). Deve-se começar com uma cama de 2 cm e acrescentar-lhe, diariamente, materiais secos e limpos, gradualmente, até atingir 7 cm.Para a incubação artificial, recomenda-se manter uma temperatura de 38 °C. Durante os primeiros 24 dias da incubação de ovos de patas, a humidade relativa deve manter-se a um nível de 70% (temperatura de bolbo húmido = 31 °C). Durante a eclosão a humidade deve ser aumentada até atingir um valor de 80%. A viragem dos ovos deve ser efectuada várias vezes por dia, até o dia 26 da incubação.A maior parte dos ovos das marrecas Pequim não eclodirão antes do dia 28 e para a pata muda a incubação chega a levar 35 dias. Como os ovos de pata são mais sujos do que os de galinha, devem ser limpos o mais rapidamente possível, preferivelmente sem serem humedecidos.As condições de armazenamento dos ovos de pata são iguais às dos ovos de galinha. Uma galinha choca preparada para sentar-se sobre os ovos, pode incubar quase a mesma quantidade de ovos de pata que dos seus próprios ovos. Se a galinha não tiver acesso directo a água, os ovos da marreca Pequim devem ser borrifados, diariamente, com água morna, a partir do dia 15 até ao dia 24 e, de novo, no último dia da incubação. Os ovos da pata-muda devem ser borrifados a partir do dia 15 até o dia 32 e também no último dia da incubação.Adiante apresentam-se as condições de incubação dos ovos da marreca mandarim:Quadro 9: Condições de incubação dos ovos da marreca Pequim Criação dos pintainhos durante as primeiras semanas, quando devem ser mantidos quentes. Criadora de frangos Galinha reprodutora usada para pôr ovos para a produção de frangos de engorda ('broilers').A pequena protuberância córnea na parte superior do bico do pintainho, com a qual pode furar a casca ao eclodir do ovo. Eclosão Saída de pintainhos, dos ovos, perfurando ou rompendo a casca.Estado primitivo de desenvolvimento dum pintainho dentro do ovo.Estudo da formação e do desenvolvimento de embriões.A célula reprodutiva masculina, de tamanho microscópico: o gâmeta masculino.A união duma célula reprodutiva masculina e uma feminina.Galinha na fase entre pinta e podeira jovem, antes de começar a pôr ovos, geralmente até a 18-20 semanas de idade.Galinha criada para a produção de carne.Aves como a galinha, peru, codorniz, faisão e perdiz Galinha poedeira Galinha criada para a produção de ovos.Um galo com, geralmente, menos de 18 meses de idade ou um peru macho com menos de 12 meses de idade.Célula reprodutiva microscópica dum animal feminino; o gâmeta feminino Incubação Processo de manter os ovos à temperatura adequada para provocar a eclosão. A incubação natural é a incubação efectuada por uma galinha choca. A incubação artificial è feita com uso duma incubadora (eléctrica) Membrana da casca Os ovos têm duas membranas finas. A membrana interna envolve a clara (albúmen), e a membrana externa reveste o lado interior da casca. As duas membranas estão unidas entre si, à excepção da ponta mais arredondada do ovo, onde estão separadas, formando a câmara de ar do ovo. As membranas são permeáveis aos gases -como seja o oxigénio -, mas não aos micróbios.Fase inicial do óvulo (ver mais adiante).Orifício externo das aves de capoeira através do qual se esvaziam todos os resíduos e ovos. ","tokenCount":"13354"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"19fb00fb96f8b56833a4935c3e14758e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ccc2faf9-e61e-4ae1-a0ff-64445f4c6685/retrieve","id":"526079234"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c87d7fe6-a593-4514-a3b6-df0cf38a043f","pagecount":"101","content":"The International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) is an autonomous international scientific organization operating under the aegis of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). IPGRI's mandate is to advance the conservation and use of plant genetic resources for the benefit of present and future generations. IPGRI works in partnership with other organizations, undertaking research, training and the provision of scientific and technical advice and information, and has a particularly strong programme link with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Financial support for the agreed research agenda of IPGRI is provided by the Governments of Australia,The organizers had requested the participants to prepare a country presentation where seven topics should be discussed.The overviews provided in the country reports show that Norway spruce forests are important in all countries. The natural distribution area of Norway spruce covers most European countries. In some countries, Norway spruce was planted outside its natural distribution range. The abundance and population structure of spruce forests vary considerably among countries. Large continuous populations in the Nordic countries and the scattered small populations in Central Europe require different conservation approaches.The aims and the present state of gene conservation were not expressed very clearly in all reports (which actually influenced the contents and outcome of the workshop).Information on various types of gene conservation populations shows that a lot of work has been done. Because of a lack of standardized terminology, a comparison of in situ and ex situ gene reserves in various countries is difficult to complete from the reports.The topic of threats to genetic resources is only vaguely touched on in several reports, and is missing in some others. However, the threat is very real in many Central European high-altitude populations exposed to air pollutants. Many other factors cumulatively increase the adverse effects of pollution.Research activities and needs are well introduced, and are obviously considered essential components of gene conservation.The public awareness of forest genetic resources (and concern about their future) is not mentioned in several reports. This is, however, a matter that is to be taken seriously. Public opinion is a necessary driving force. On the other hand, wrong signals to the public may cause much trouble.Finally, the information needs are not dealt with in all reports. This may reflect a low demand, or indicate that the information needs have not been assessed.In conclusion, although the importance of gene conservation has been recognized, and considerable activity has been done so far, a considerable effort will be required to properly address the needs of Norway spruce genetic resources conservation in Europe. In this context, it is felt that a harmonization of conservation methodologies is desirable.Following a discussion on the objectives of the Norway spruce Network, the meeting agreed on a main goal of the network activities:To promote the maintenance of a broad genetic variation in Norway spruce in order to ensure the necessary evolutionary adaptability to a changing environment over many generations.It was recognized that the situations vary greatly among different countries and that each country needs to develop its own conservation strategy. A number of different objectives for Norway spruce genetic resources conservation which could contribute to the overall goal were identified:-to conserve representative populations of all ecogeographical regions -to conserve marginal populations -to conserve endangered populations -to save still unknown genetic variation -to conserve characterized genetic diversity for enhanced breeding -to ensure sufficient genetic variation in the reproductive material -to conserve reference populations for future research.Individual countries will put more emphasis on some of these objectives according to their particular situation. The objective of the gene conservation activity should be stated first and an appropriate method should be selected accordingly.It was agreed that Technical Guidelines for Norway spruce genetic resources conservation will be developed by the Network. These guidelines will provide a useful input in the development of national strategies for Norway spruce conservation.The development of an international database for Norway spruce genetic resources was discussed. The objective is to develop a tool to identify gaps in the coverage of Norway spruce genetic resources conservation in Europe.Dr Skmppa presented his experience with the maintenance and use of a database with experimental data from IUFRO provenance experiments. As major benefits of the existence of a database in the conservation of genetic resources, he stressed the joint analyses of data as well as the identification of gaps in a system of conservation activi ties.It was felt that it is not useful to duplicate at the European level the national registers of basic materials, many of which cannot be considered as being part of a conservation strategy. The lack of funding is also considered to be the major constraint to the successful development of a database. Dr Nanson described an example of an internationally maintained database in Douglas-fir and its use in the conservation of genetic resources. The discussion then focused on the type of information most urgently needed for the conservation network in Norway spruce. The difficulties of including various types of material in one uniform database were mentioned by several participants.All countries were encouraged to set up national databases and take the responsibility to further maintain them. The Network will produce a minimum list of descriptors which will enable the description of all populations irrespective of national programmes in a simple and uniform way and will facilitate the exchange of data.The meeting decided to consider populations with relevance to conservation purposes as basic units of the database. To meet the different targets of different countries it was recommended that, as a first step, populations in situ actively included in national conservation programmes be basic entries in the European database.The terminology in describing passport data will be standardized. Genetic information or characterization data for each entry will be in the passport data. The meeting recommended the use of suitable commercial software and development by the Network of common formats for data exchange.The participants of the meeting presented the criteria for selection of populations used in their respective countries. The Network listed the following criteria for the selection of populations for genetic conservation:For in situ conservation -autochthonous (indigenous) populations, well-adapted introduced populations, -representativeness of selected populations for all ecological zones (Norway), or natural forest communities and altitudinal zones (Austria), or seed zones (Finland, Slovakia), -good yield, phenotypic quality and vitality of populations, -good conditions for natural regeneration, minimum size of selected populations varies in individual countries from 10 or 30 ha to 2000 ha. The size of 100-200 ha was usually given. The dynamic aspect of gene conservation in large complexes (more than 500 ha) should be considered, -good vitality in the case of endangered stands in air-polluted areas (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia) or marginal stands.For ex situ conservation -endangered populations of in situ conservation are to be conserved in ex situ conditions, -good yield, phenotypic quality and vitality of populations, breeding populations containing sufficient genetic diversity.In the case of ex situ conservation there is no unanimity on the minimum size of long-term breeding populations. Two hundred genotypes per unit or 500 genotypes per breeding zone are frequently used. It is also recommended that multiple populations be maintained in different sites.The discussion of this topic has reflected the research needs of individual countries and it was agreed that the necessary and urgent research tasks could be summarized as follows:-to carry out the genetic inventory using compatible morphological and adaptive traits and/or genetic markers (e.g. isozymes, DNA markers) as the basis for selection of populations (core or endangered and marginal ones) from the entire distribution range, -investigation of the relationship between the genetic diversity measures and morphological and adaptive traits, -investigation of the influence of the silvicultural practices on the changes of genetic structures of populations, -investigation of mechanisms generating the observed variability in phenotypic adaptive traits, -development of long-term storage techniques for reproductive material, cryopreservation of tissue cultures and investigation of the biological and genetic consequences of these conservation methods, -further studies of ecophysiology and ecological genetics, including provenance research, -studies of reproductive biology and dynamics of Norway spruce populations.The concrete actions of gene conservation of Norway spruce and other forest trees are undertaken by each country according to its own systems and facilities. EUFORGEN is a coordination mechanism through which advice can be given to participating countries, but the implementation of conservation activities is the responsibility of each participating country. In order to facilitate the establishment of a gene conservation network, it is necessary that in each country one person acts as a prim us motor. This person shall be the link or contact point to EUFORGEN. The contact persons can be backed by EUFORGEN in their efforts to enhance gene conservation in respective countries.It was agreed that the EUFORGEN coordinator should identify a contact person in each country of the distribution area of Picea abies. This contact person should be familiar with gene conservation issues, and in addition the ability to communicate with ministries and forestry organizations is necessary. A fair knowledge of English is desirable in order to facilitate communications.Six major tasks to be carried out during the next year were agreed upon by the Network members and a workplan identifying responsible persons and deadlines was agreed upon. Introduction It was agreed that a list of contact persons for matters relating to Norway spruce genetic resources conservation should be compiled by IPGRI for all European countries. TASK:• J. Turok should compile a list of contact persons, as complete as possible, for inclusion in the report of the meeting, by 15 June 1995.The history of the conference and the process leading to it were presented by Dr Frison. Preparation of the conference is carried out by a secretariat at FAO through a project entitled International Conference and Programme on Plant Genetic Resources (ICPPGR).The revised versions of the ICPPGR Briefing Notes No. 1 and 2 were distributed to the participants. The importance of the Global Plan of Action, which will be endorsed at a Ministerial level at the Conference in Leipzig in June 1996, was stressed. IPGRI is closely collaborating with FAO in the preparation of the Conference and an agreement defining the role of IPGRI has been signed between FAO and IPGRI. The preparation of country reports was the first step in the process and several countries have already sent draft copies of their report to IPGRI. According to this agreement, IPGRI is responsible for the contacts with individual countries to facilitate the production of the country reports.A regional meeting will be organized in Europe in October 1995 in Nitra, Slovakia at which time a synthesis of the country reports will be discussed. This meeting will also address common problems and discuss approaches to overcome them, and will identify priorities at a regional level. Regional collaboration will also be discussed at this meeting.It was recommended that EUFORGEN should play a role in the development of the Global Plan of Action and that EUFORGEN should be given sufficient visibility in the ICPPGR process and in the Global Plan of Action. It was recommended that the meeting of the steering committee of EUFORGEN, which is planned for the end of 1995, should be tjlken as an opportunity to organize a workshop addressing European forest genetic resources issues and that this should be done as an input to ICPPGR.Dr T. Skmppa presented the objectives of the workshop on Boreal Forest Genetic Resources which will be held in Toronto, Canada from 19 to 22 June 1995. A copy of the tentative agenda and additional information was distributed to the participants.This meeting, which is organized by the Canadian Forest Service, is a supporting activity and an integral component of the ICPPGR.Several European countries have already confirmed their participation (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Russia and Sweden).Dr Skmppa conveyed the wish of the organizers to also have participants from Alpine countries such as Austria and Switzerland as well as from Poland.It was agreed that a presentation describing EUFORGEN and more particularly the Norway spruce Network should be prepared by J. Turok and be presented at the meeting.The meeting unanimously elected Dr V. Koski as chairman of the Norway spruce Network.The report was discussed and amendments were incorporated. The report was then endorsed by the participants.It was agreed to hold the 2nd EUFORGEN Norway spruce Network meeting in 1996 and the participants asked IPGRI to organize that meeting in consultation with the chairman. Dr Koski thanked the local organizers and IPGRI for the nice organization of the meeting and praised the participants for the hard work which made the meeting successful.E. Frison thanked the local organizers and the participants for their contribution to this successful meeting.The Finnish Forest Research Institute, FIN-01301 Vantaa, Finland Norway spruce (Picea abies L. Karst.) is a relatively new tree species in most parts of the country. After the latest glaciation spruce returned later than birch and pine. Probably spruce occurred sporadically earlier, but no more than 5500 years ago it began to spread from the east. It took some 3000 years to reach the western and northern parts of Finland. It is also worthwhile to mention that a large proportion of the present land area has risen from the sea rather recently. Later on, some 100 to 200 years ago, human impact on forests, especially pine and spruce forests, used to be exploitive. Shifting agriculture with prescribed burning, deliberately ignited forest fires, tar burning, grazing of cattle, and merciless cuttings resulted in treeless areas, which primarily turned to broadleaved forests. Owing to early legislation, education and silviculture, forests recovered and are now a dominating component of the Finnish landscape.The total area of forest land of Finland is 20 million hectares, which is 66% of the total land area. Norway spruce is the second in abundance, after Scots pine (Table 1). In terms of growing stock the proportions of tree species in 1983-1993 were as follows (Yearbook of Forest Statistics 1994):Pinus sylvestris 45.6% Picea abies 36.8% Betula spp.14.5% Other broadleaved 3.1 %The earlier land use, mentioned above, had favoured broadleaved species. More recently spruce has reoccupied fertile sites, and even penetrated to rather poor 'pine sites'.For the time being nothing seems to threaten Norway spruce and its genetic resources. However, gene conservation is a matter for the unforeseeable future. Our tree populations are close to the northern margin -the tree line of many species goes across Finland. Thus, in respect to climatic adaptability the populations must represent extreme variants of the species in question. On the other hand, a wide genetic variation has been revealed within populations. The goal of gene conservation is to ascertain that this kind of natural resource is neither aCcidentally nor deliberately lost. The global change of environment is a potential threat to genetic resources. Cultivated forests with foreign seed sources and genetically improved material will gradually alter gene frequencies, if there are no counteractions. The need for gene conservation was recognized by forest geneticists as early as the 1970s. Consequently, the number of trees subject to breeding has been large since the beginning. The establishment of gene reserve populations did not get started until the Strasbourg Ministerial Conference and UNCED had an impetus.As the first step, establishment of a network of in situ gene reserve forests was started in 1992. By March 1995 we have registered six spruce forest areas, the total area being 886 ha (Fig. 1). The distribution and coverage of the gene reserves is not satisfactory yet. The target is to find and establish some 10 more gene reserve forests, especially in the southwestern part of the country. There are also gene reserve forests of Pinus sylvestris, Betula pendula + B. pubescens, and even of Tilia cordata. The total number over all species is 29, and their area 5188 ha (March 1995). Besides gene reserve forests, genetic diversity has been stored in clonal archives. There are altogether close to 1600 clones, both plus trees and special forms in the clonal archives.  A national long-term tree breeding program of 1989 suggests establishment of longterm breeding populations for all main species by breeding zones. For P. abies six breeding zones have been delineated in Finland. The basic material of these breeding zones would be phenotypically selected plus trees. The designing of the factual populations is still underway.Finland is in the fortunate position that the genetic resources of the main forest trees, P. sylvestris, P. abies and B. pendula + B. pubescens, are not subject to direct threat. The challenge of gene conservation is how to justify necessary actions now in order to maintain the wealth even in the far future. Biodiversity and gene conservation are favourite issues, as long as your own money is requested. After a few years people may have new topics in their minds and selling the idea of gene conservation may be much harder than it is today.The main stream of gene conservation is by means of gene reserve forests. Based on the conditions of efficient pollination and the need of parcels of various age classes the minimum area of one unit ought to be 100 ha, Le. 1 km 2 • Finding this large area of naturally originated forest in public ownership is not always easy. In the southern part of Finland forests are mainly privately owned and consist of rather small holdings. Plantings with transferred, and even unknown, origins interfere with the natural population structure. The frequency of nonindigenous provenances and genetically improved stock will gradually increase in the future.Rather than giving up the purity requirement and the target area of 100 ha, we could start with smaller 'kernels' and then later on enlarge the population with plantings. Seed must, of course, originate from the nucleus. Extra costs of artificial enlargement may cause difficulties, and it requires sincere effort to carry through this kind of action. The advantage of gene reserve forests is that they are managed and merchantable timber may be harvested, as well as seed.For the time being we do not see urgent research needs in our spruce gene reserves. I consider the project a practical operation, where we must not waste any more time. Selection and documentation of the missing samples is the main goal. Characterization of populations by means of genetic markers would be desirable, but is out of the question because of economic restrictions. On the other hand, gene reserves provide excellent reference and study material for genetic studies.Public concern on nature protection and biodiversity has been efficiently promoted by the mass media. An emotional attitude readily leads to an all-or-nothing approach to conservation. The need for gene conservation is certainly well accepted and understood. Some contradiction occurs as regards the methods of conservation. Old forests and strict nature reserves appeal to laymen, whereas forest geneticists prefer actively managed genebanks.We have to keep on saying that conservation of forest genetic resources is the duty of the present generation. We still have large areas of native (spruce) forests in our country. As the first step a covering network of in situ gene reserve forests should be established. A guidebook for the handling of gene reserve forests is anticipated.The establishment of ex situ long-term breeding populations is still on the planning desk. Breeding zones have been delineated, and there are sufficient numbers of phenotypically selected plus trees in each zone. Every breeding zone will have a breeding population of its own. As the composition and the physical location of the breeding populations determine the mode of action into the far future, the planning has been thorough and time consuming. The choice between closed or open systems, large entities or substructures, basic population versus nuclei, are under discussion. Information on possible experiences on Small Multiple Population Breeding Systems or other advanced models of breeding/ conservation would be useful.To my mind, gene conservation proper and effectively functioning breeding populations do not necessarily cover each other. After a few generations of selection a broad variation in breeding populations may become a 'genetic load' instead of a 'hidden treasure'. My final statement is: Let us start with simple and inexpensive measures, such as gene reserve forests, now. If we wait for a perfect universal method, it may be developed too late.The forest is one of Latvia's major assets, its most important and valuable natural resource, covering 2.82 million hectares (i.e. 44% of the total land area). This illustrates the great importance of the forest for the economy, landscape, environment, flora and fauna of Latvia. For many, the forest also has significance for leisure activities, recreation and hunting.During the last 70 years, the forest cover area has had a stable growth trend: from 25% in 1923 to 44% in 1994. Despite that, there are significant regional variations; for example a higher forest coverage is in the central part, in the northeast as well as in the western part, where forests cover 50-60% of land area.The various forest-growing conditions in Latvia are subdivided into five edaphic types: dry mineral (58.0%), wet mineral (10.4%), wet peat (12.0%), drained mineral (9.6%) and drained peat soils (10.0%). The distribution of tree species over the edaphic rows is not homogeneous.The ecological position of Norway spruce in Latvia's flora has been stable since the postglacial era. As evidenced by pollen analyses and the data for forest resources today, the species covers about 530 000 ha or 20.6% of the total forested area. In accordance with the forestry development programme for 1992-2000 and 2030, the optimal share of Norway spruce is estimated to be about 24%. It means that the present occurrence of spruce in Latvia is close to an ecological optimum, particularly on dry mineral soils with fair productivity potential (oxalidosa site type), on wet mineral soils (myrtiloso-politrichosa site type), on drained mineral soil (myrtilosa mel) and on drained peat soil (myrtilosa turfmel site type).The share of Norway spruce in the structure of natural forests appears to reflect the selection pressure of the environment on the species. Latvia's forest resources data show the Norway spruce to predominate (33-37% of the total forest area) in the upland areas of Kurzeme (west) and Vidzeme (east-central part of Latvia). When comparing these figures with the data of K. Bambergs' paleobotanical studies, it can be shown that the pollen curves for spruce over the whole postglacial era, except for occasional fall-offs, show similar patterns. So, it appears that these areas are favourable for Norway spruce owing to the amount of precipitation and the temperature.Geographical differences within a species may be attributed to both its migration route during the postglacial era and the natural selection controlled by the environment in the course of evolution. The immigration of spruce into the Baltic area during the postglacial era is believed to have followed two alternatives: either from the central Russian plains in the east or from the north, from the Baltics. In the latter case the related pattern is likely to become complicated owing to factors such as climatic conditions and distinct origin.The conservation of forest genetic resources was initially started in 1986 by tree breeders at the Latvian Forestry Research Institute in Silava. The main aim was to conserve sufficient genetic variation for present purposes and future challenges. Among other species, two rather large (considering Latvia's forest conditions) overmature Norway spruce populations in the east and west part on 493 ha and 197 ha, respectively, were established as genetic reserves (see Table 1). The data were analyzed in 1990. Among others, the species age structure was evaluated, results from previous studies summarized and, taking into account the geographical distribution and differences, the first attempt at forest gene conservation as a separate research project was initiated.The main objective of gene conservation in Latvia is to maintain genetic variability among breeding material as well as to preserve the genetic potential of species for adaptation to future environmental conditions.As it was stated in the gene conservation project, the most important and pressing task is a purposeful conservation of the spruce stands of natural origin. Silvicultural treatment of stands began at the end of the last century. In the 1970s, large areas were reforested with Norway spruce reproductive material of unknown origin. However, natural origin populatlons for the related research and conservation of the forest tree genepool are still common among older stands (more than 50 years). The following steps are to be taken:-establishment of genetic reserves for in situ conservation of Norway spruce as a priority in Kurzeme and Vidzeme upland regions, known as the areas of optimum growing conditions for sprucei a large extent of spruce forests was destroyed by storm of 1990 and subsequent insect damage, -special attention is to be paid to the spruce from the Latgale upland area (in the southeastern part of Latvia)i the stock from these high-yield stands is noted for its high adaptability and productivity (the most significant features in future forests), -in situ conservation of populations on wet mineral and drained peat soils, -in situ regeneration, by using methods stimulating natural regeneration or by artificial methods in the overmature or endangered stands of the existing gene reserves, -in cases of ex situ conservation, the material of nonidentifiable or foreign origin must be avoided in the surroundings of plantations, -collection of material for seed bank with different aims (until now the existing Norway spruce seed bank contains 15 seed sources each representing 50 logged or still growing trees).At present, the gene conservation project is underway. In accordance with the. mentioned guidelines, significant work has been carried out during the last two years in establishing new conservation areas (see Table 2) of Norway spruce genetic resources. Without surroundings. Small conservation areas were accepted in most important regions.The previous tree-breeding activities with Norway spruce were: -292 phenotypically selected individuals (plus trees) represented in 170 ha of seed orchards, -ex situ conservation of 73 provenances in provenance field trials, -ex situ conservation of about 100 plus tree progenies in seedling progeny tests.The phenotypic composition of stands of natural origin was investigated at the Laboratory of Forest Tree Breeding during the 1960s and 1970s.The forms acuminata-europaea and europaea were identified. Types of branching largely depend on the site conditions, with pectinata branching being typical for higher productivity stands. The analysis of the related field data showed that this type of branching increased relatively in a west-east direction, but reached a higher proportion in the upland areas of Kurzeme and Vidzeme. They appear to be the most favoured regions for Norway spruce growth. Genetic differences were evaluated in progeny tests or by isozyme analyses.Suitable markers for the assessment of geographical and genetic differentiation of Norway spruce were: time of spring flushing and growth termination, ability to develop lamma shoots, juvenile growth as well as shape of branching. The geographical differences were studied following the changes in climatic factors for different regions, with the total sum of active temperatures and the amount of precipitation as principal indicators.In provenance trials in the country and abroad, Latvia's spruce is usually ranked among the provenances that are late flushing and fairly fast-growing, when tested against geographically diverse backgrounds.The local provenances are distinguished by a higher degree of survival and better stem quality. When comparing progenies set into favourable site conditions, the provenances coming from the south of Latvia fall, with a few exceptions, under the group of fast-growing ones, while those coming from the north of Latvia are distinguished by lower survival and smaller stem dimensions. If the spruce coming from the southwest of Latvia is cultivated on frost areas and unfavourable soil conditions, the provenances of this region lose their advantages. So, the Remte seed orchard progeny (southwest of Latvia), which in provenance trials under favourable site conditions outperformed Dorna Cindreni (152 and 128 m 3 /ha at the age of 17 years, respectively), nearly died away on peat soils with late frost after repeated frosts. The Ranki provenance (Ogre region) survived and showed normal performance, while progenies coming from the southeast (Daugavpils, Rezekne, Jekabpils) showed a similar reaction to adverse environments. Fast-growing spruce showing a good adaptability to varying conditions has thus been found in the southeast of Latvia. The clonal breeding, underway since the late 1970s, is based on the material of this region. The related seed reforestation is recommended for all Latvia.A pilot study on genetic structure, level of diversity and degree of differentiation at isoenzyme gene loci in five stands of Norway spruce was carried out. Eighteen enzyme systems were electrophoretically analyzed and 78 allele variants at 26 loci observed. Three rare alleles (at the gene loci controlling Aat, Lap and Dia), which had not been observed in earlier studies, were found in one of the studied populations (Ranki, central part of Latvia). It was shown that:-the genepool in analyzed stands is practically identical, genetic distance does not exceed 0.008, the differentiation is less than 1 %, -the studied stands from different regions of Latvia have a high level of variability and fairly uniform genepool observed at isoenzyme loci.On the contrary, differences of Latvia's Norway spruce populations in traits such as flushing time, juvenile growth rate or adaptability are significant and linked with geographical origin or ecological conditions.To ensure a responsible approach and to raise the public awareness of plant genetic resources conservation in Latvia, discussion of the necessity of a National Plant Gene Conservation programme was started, which would include state authorities, research and NGO representatives. It should also be noted that there is an urgent need for an internationally accepted forest gene resources database, e.g. as a contribution to EUFORGEN.The Lithuanian forests are situated throughout the territory and cover an area of 1.86 million hectares. The total wooded area of Lithuania is 30.1%, in which coniferous forests comprise 61.6%, and spruce stands 24.2% (Table 1). During the last two decades, intensive reforestation has had a tendency to increase the area of spruce stands. Mature spruce groves are the most productive (285 m 3 /ha) of all stands growing in Lithuania while they suffer the most from negative natural and anthropogenic factors such as storms, droughts, insect pests, fungus disease, frosts, animal damage and, finally, industrial pollution.In Lithuania, spruce stands are situated mostly in the western, northern and central parts of the Republic. Scots pine forests take up a large area but there are no clear big spruce forests. The forests of Rietavas-Taurage and Birzai are somewhat larger. The ckaracteristics of spruce groves are presented in Table 2. The spruce groves of Piceetum myrtillosum and Piceetum oxalidosum forest types prevail in Lithuania. Mostly, mixed spruce stands with pine, birch and aspen are noted. Mixed spruce stands with birch and aspen produce about 650 m 3 /ha of timber at the cutting age. They distinguish themselves in better stability and resistance to storms.The area of spruce stands in Lithuania has been decreasing continually (Fig. 1). True, it began to increase during the last two decades because of young stands. At present, young stands until 10 years of age make up 15.4% of the total area of spruce stands. It is known how many disasters the spruce groves suffer during their ontogenesis. Continually recurring storms (in 1967, 1982 and 1993) destroyed most spruce stands. Usually a big invasion of spruce bark beetles, which destroy what is left after windfalls in spruce groves, follows the storms. The latter process was particularly severe after the storm in 1992. One of the main measures at present being used in Lithuania for cleaning defaced and damaged spruce stands is to cut the damaged stands and remove the stem together with spruce bark beetles. It is impossible to determine the losses which we will suffer.Another significant factor destroying the spruce stands is industrial air pollutants. According to the data of our specialists who are carrying out ecological monitoring activities (Ozolincius 1994), defoliation of spruce groves continually increases. For instance, in 1989 the spruce stands damage class was 0.7 while in 1994 it was 1.1. General spruce stand defoliation level at present comes to 21.7%. ....  At present the spruce stands of natural origin in Lithuania make up more than twothirds of total spruce forest area. Annual spruce cutting woodlots consist of 2000 ha on average and the stands of natural origin are cut. Therefore, the situation of the natural spruce grove genofund will change owing to the artificial reforestation. The necessity arose to conserve the valuable natural genofund of spruce as well as of other tree species.Main Norway spruce populations and their status Six natural forest regions are selected in Lithuania in which different populations of separate tree species, among them Norway spruce, have formed. The main object of forest tree selection is natural populations, because populations are a primary link of genetic information. Valuable genotypes which are adapted to the local conditions are best and genotype conglomeration forms in natural stands, while the crossing of separate individuals acts as natural selection under certain environmental conditions.Elucidation of population bounds is a long and intricate process but it is possible to choose and evaluate the populations most distant from each other and separate due to the climatic differences and origins of specific structural traits.Diversity of genofund decreases because the area of stands of artificial ongm increases, reforestation does not always use the seed of the best trees and sometimes there are separate genotypes of low value. All potential elements of a genofund participate in reproduction of new generations in naturally formed autochthonic stands.At present there are no big spruce forests in Lithuania. They are situated in the western, central and northern parts of the Republics and divided by larger or smaller deciduous stands. Larger spruce groves remain in four parts of the country and make up the following spruce accumulations: southwestern Zemaitija, northeastern Zemaitija, forest of Birzai and central southern part. However, these spruce stands are cut by woodlots and damaged by windfalls. There are some spruce stands in other parts of Lithuania as well but they do not form big forests. Mostly, they are mixed with big forests of other tree species. Therefore, it is necessary to conserve the genofund or remaining spruce groves and to utilize them rationally in reforestation (Gabrilavicius and Pliura 1993).At present, the following best Norway spruce populations are selected in Lithuania: Survilai (1st forest natural region); Rokiskis (2nd forest natural region); Ignalina (3rd forest natural region); Mociskis (4th forest natural region); Sakiai, Kazlu Ruda, Punia (5th forest natural region); Trakai (6th forest natural region). Investigated populations differ significantly in most structural traits. Height differences of separate populations make up 21.4%, and ones of crown width comprise 35.8%.It is important to ascertain the limits of population transfer, using them to establish new spruce stands. The influence of environmental conditions on trait variability must be studied, and the progenies transferred into new ecological conditions; other studies include determining the influence of genetic characteristics (Gabrilavicius 1992).Ecological adaptability of populations is the genetic result of different reactions of each population to site fertility, humidity and micro-and macroclimatic conditions so it is pOSSible to get additional selection effect by selecting specifically adapted populations.Studies have evaluated reliable growth and adaptability differences between some Lithuanian Norway spruce populations (DanuseviCius 1993;Gabrilavicius 1992). Adequa te popula tions (their progenies) are being recommended for reforestation in every forest natural region.In the winter of 1993 the storm turned a Significant part of the spruce stands upSide down. A dry summer followed and also in 1994 was an unforeseen drought. For this reason, the spruces became significantly weaker and the pest Ips typographus has spread.At present, there are 60000-70000 ha of spruce stands being damaged by the abovementioned pest; this area makes up 32-38% of middle-aged and older stands. It is planned to clear-cut an area of 35 000-40000 ha of the damaged spruce stands, which represents more than a 2-year cutting rate.Primary evaluation of forest genetic resources is carried out during forest inventory, when middle-aged and older stands are divided into three selection groups: Group I-stands of la and I bonitet, high productivity and quality, healthy, normal thickness; Group II-stands of II-Ill bonitet, average productivity and quality; Group Ill-stands of IV and lower bonitets, low productivity and quality. At the present moment, Lithuanian middle-aged, premature and mature spruce stands are of good selection value (Tables 3 and 4). Stands of the Group I cover 41 000 ha, or 22% of the area of middleaged and older spruce stands (KenstaviCius and Brukas 1993). They make up the most valuable genofund of Lithuanian spruce stands, and therefore more attention is paid to their conservation and regeneration. In Lithuania two methods of genetic resources conservation are applied:In situ -genetic reserves, when highly valuable stands are singled out and conserved up to natural maturity, allowing the removal of dying or damaged trees, to fight against pests and to protect the main species from overtopping by others; natural regeneration is used, -plus (elite) individual trees, when individual trees are supervised and kept until their death, while progenies are transferred into archives or plantations, -seed orchards, when the stand is left until maturity, and the seed crop is gathered from standing trees. Regeneration is natural.Ex situ -clone archives, when 15 ramets from each clone are grown in special sites, -seed clone orchards, -test plantations from plus (elite) tree seeds or genetic reserves and seed sites.  5 are from work carried out in the field of genetic resources conservation. In agreement with the Law of Lithuanian Forests, genetic reservations in the future will acquire the status of genetic reserves, because in the first case man's interference is prohibited. Genetic reserves comprise 0.5% of the total area of middleaged and older spruce stands (Baliuckas et al. 1994).This year additional selection is still foreseen, while damaged ones will be reassessed. Additional seed reserves also will be singled out. At present, standards for selection, management and utilization of the abovementioned conservation objects of genetic resources are being specified and therefore an international experience here would be of great help.Some plus trees are dead or damaged, and therefore in the near future their additional selection and evaluation will be carried out. Clones of most of dead plus trees are concentrated in archives, so that their genotypes are not lost.  6). More detailed studies were performed concerning phenotypic and genotypic structure of populations, selection efficiency of provenances and families in situ and ex situ, including adaptability and stability indices; investigations of genotype by environmental interaction and geographical changeability, as well as peculiarities of reproductive biology in seed orchards and interspecific as well as intraspecific hybridization.In the field of applied sciences, recommendations and standards for stand selective evaluation, for selection of plus trees, genetic and seed reserves, as well as for establishing seed orchards and clonal archives, and for increasing seed crop productivity, have been prepared.It is foreseen to continue the inventory of forest genetic resources, studies and compiling of catalogues, work on tree assessment and genotype identification, as well as to work out criteria for the selection of plants under conservation.The quality and extent of these works depends considerably upon international collaboration which is carried out by the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, and upon our united efforts in the EUROFORGEN programme, as well as on financial support. Analysis of the phenotypical and genotypical structure of populations and provenances.Methods for selection of the plus trees and stands.Efficiency of selection of families and provenances, grown in situ and ex situ.Limits of provenance transfer.6.Methods of the early prediction and evolution of genotypes.Bioecological peculiarities of flowering and bearing in seed orchards.Creation of new hybrids.The network connected with gene conservation of forest tree species started in 1991 when the Programme of gene conservation and tree breeding for 1991-2010 was formally confirmed by Officials. This Programme was mainly prepared for conservation of genepools of the species in economical forests (State Forests). In this Programme the strategic aims of gene conservation were estimated. Conservation of the forest gene resources is necessary to sustain:-continuity of fundamental ecological processes, -maintenance of forests and utilization of ecological systems, -restitution of forests destroyed by anthropogenic factors, -preservation of biological and genetic variety for future generations, -increased natural resistance of the future forests.To the main factors causing threats to genetic variety of native populations belong:-decrease of participation of same species in next generations by their substitution by foreign provenances or species, -pollen contamination of other provenances or species, -biotic factors causing forest decline (insects, fungi, game), -abiotic factors (greenhouse effects, air pollution).Depending on the threat to the forests it is planned to use different methods of gene conservation. For these reasons the forests (areas) are classified in three groups:Areas without threat (mainly in situ preservation) -choose the stands and trees for gene conservation, -initiate natural regeneration in these stands, provide additional protection of very old stands and trees, -provide secondary protection where necessary on ex situ plots, -progeny plantations, seed orchards, -clonal archives, -seeds in genebank.In situinitiation of natural regeneration in chosen stands, choose threatened populations and trees for preservation ex situ.progeny plantations, seed orchards, seedling seed orchards, clone collections, long-term storage of seeds, pollen and parts of plants.-vegetative propagation of populations and single trees by cuttings and tissue cultures, -progeny plantations, -seed orchards from vegetatively propagated materials, -long-term storage of plant materials.Spruce exists in Poland in three subranges (or regions Giertych), separated by areas where spruce does not occur naturally. It is probably connected with glacial epoch and spruce refugial regions from which spruce migrated mainly in northerly and westerly directions. Spruce growing in northeast Poland (northeast sub range) is connected with the northern and eastern ranges of this species in Lithuania, Latvia and Byelorusia. Hercynian West Carpathian sub range is the part of natural range connected with spruce growing in Germany, Czech Republic and part of Slovakia. Spruce growing in the southeast part of Poland belongs to the southeast Carpathian subrange.On the basis of this macrodivision were delimited the areas where existing natural populations of spruce should be included in a long-term gene conservation programme. Between these populations there are also well-known and valuable Polish provenances such as: Bystrzyca, Lgdek, Istebna, Wisla, Nowy Targ, Tarnawa, Zwierzyniec, BialowieZa, Augustowo, Knyszyn and Borki.Apart from these populations, other spruce stands located in central and northwest Poland were included in the programme of long-term gene conservation of spruce. In total, 52 populations (stands) of spruce were chosen for gene conservation in Poland (Table 1). All of these stands will be managed as normal stands and at the proper time the natural regeneration for establishing in situ progeny plantations will be started.Parallel ex situ progeny plantations were established artificially from seeds collected in these stands. The size of the work connected with ex situ gene conservation of spruce in Poland is shown in Table 2. Until 1993, 623.7 ha in situ and ex situ progeny plantations had been established.Also, clones of spruce (about 500) existing in seed orchards are treated as an additional source of genes for conservation.Short-term activities in gene conservation of spruce are connected with the threat of populations growing in Sudety region.For this reason, field work was done, which let us choose natural or probably natural stands in 11 Forest Districts (about 670 ha) for ex situ gene conservation. In these stands 2 years ago was begun the first clone collection and 49 samples of seeds (1.5 kg each) were put in a genebank for long-term storage (Table 3).Additionally, a special short-term programme for gene conservation of spruce for the oldest natural stands and trees growing in our protected areas is managed by Dr A. Korczyk in northeast Poland, mainly for Bialowieza National Park.In the first phase of this work one natural stand of different ages (40-240 years) and 73 trees older than 200 years, growing in different soil conditions, were chosen for conservation of our premanagement natural population of spruce. These trees were used for establishing ex situ clone collections (4.16 ha) in two different places. At the same time as networks connected with gene conservation were started, the Gene Bank Laboratory was created in the Department of Genetics and Physiology of Woody Plants of the Forest Research Institute. This laboratory carries out the studies which are necessary for practical realization of gene conservation, including:-genetic diversity of natural populations of spruce in Poland, -influence of the anthropogenic factors on genetic structure of populations, -methods of long-term storage of seeds and pollen, -consequences of long-term storage of seeds on genetic structure of seed samples, -methods of propagation by: -cuttings, -organogenesis, -embryogenesis, -soma clonal variation of seedlings from somatic embryos, -cryopreservation of embryos, callus and 'artificial seeds', -monitoring changes in stored seed, pollen and embryo samples. In view of an uncertain climatic future, the preservation of genetic adaptability of tree populations is crucial for the long-term stability of forest ecosystems (Committee on Managing Global Genetic Resources 1991). Global conservation efforts have to lay emphasis on those forest tree species that are close to extinction. In Austria, no forest tree species is threatened to such an extent. It is not the whole species that is being driven to extinction, but diminishing local races or ecotypes are the main concerns. This also holds true for Norway spruce (Picea abies).Austria is a mountainous country influenced by different climatic regions and manifold geological conditions. Thus, because of the various environmental factors, different ecotypes can be expected within a forest tree species. However, besides these natural environmental conditions, postglacial immigration and, beginning in the early Middle Ages, indiscriminate extensive cuttings for ore and salt mines, have long-lasting effects (population fragmentation, seed transfer, species shift) on the genetic composition of today's forest tree populations. These peculiarities have to be borne in mind if the existence of certain forest tree populations is at stake and means of conservation is discussed.Austria's total wooded area amounts to 3.88 million hectares, i.e., 46.2% of the land area is covered by forests. Therefore, Austria is rich in forest resources compared with other European countries. However, governmental implementation of conservation activities is intricate. Only 30% of the forest is publically owned and a high proportion (69%) of private owners operates nonindustrial forest enterprises or owns small woodlots « 200 hectares) (Anonymous 1993).Natural range A meticulous depiction of the native range of Norway spruce was published by Tschermak in 1949. Here the range is only briefly described. In Austria, Norway spruce is widely distributed. The Alps, mountains of the Bohemian massif [Miihlviertel (Upper Austria) and Waldviertel (Lower Austria)], and higher elevations of the alpine foreland (Hausruck, Kobernauerwald) are naturally covered by Norway spruce. The Danube basin separates the Austrian range into the alpine and the range on the Bohemian massif with a sparsely covered link in the Strudengau between the cities of Grein and Ybbs. The eastern natural limits are indicated by a connection line starting from the cities of St. Pal ten over Wiener Neustadt to Graz and then south along the eastern slope of the Koralpe. Some natural stands are also found in the mountainous region called Bucklige Welt.Pure spruce stands are found in the Piceetum subalpinum. In this forest community the range varies in the Central Alps between 1400 and 2100 m and between 1100 and 1400 m in the Bohemian massif. In the northern alpine transitional zone, an elevational range of this forest community is typical at 1400-1900 m, and in the southern alpine transitional zone at 1500-2100 m. In the Piceetum montanum, Norway spruce is also the prime tree species. Elevational zones vary strongly from ecoregion to ecoregion (Central Alps 650-1700 m, northern transitional zone 500-1700 m, southern transitional zone 500-1800 m, Northern Limestone Alps 700-1600 m, Southern Limestone Alps 1000-1700 m).Together with common beech and silver fir, P. abies is found in the (Abieti)-Fagetum with varying proportion between 600 and 1700 m along the northern and southern edge of the Alps and between 600 and 1300 m in the Bohemian massif. A detailed description of the natural forest communities is found in KHian et al. (1994). Figure 1 shows the actual and the natural distribution of Norway spruce in Austria.By the end of the Middle Ages high timber demand for ore and salt mining caused extensive clear cuts in the Limestone and Central Alps. Uncontrolled natural regeneration often turned out to be extremely difficult. If regeneration did not fail, larch and spruce were favoured and caused a reduction of the natural distribution area of broadleaved species.The first, more extensive artificial sowing of Norway spruce was reported at the end of the 18th C in Upper Austria. Later, significant regenerations by planting were carried out in forestry. During the 19th C, extensive pure spruce forests were artificially established, especially in mountainous regions, e.g. south of the city of Steyr. Later, these spruce stands were devastated by heavy storms and bark beetles.After World War I, Austrian forests were intensively utilized (Tschermak 1934). Restocking of these areas and smoothing out damage due to World War Il, in total an afforestation area of 384 000 ha, favoured the artificial distribution of spruce. Today it is extremely difficult to differentiate between autochthonous and nonindigenous spruce stands. Even within the native range of this conifer, cutting and uncontrolled restocking have covered over the natural geographic differentiation. This especially holds true for lower and middle elevational ranges. In Austria, approximately 29% of the natural forest communities are pure coniferous forests. However, the actual proportion amounts to 69% of which pure spruce stands have a great share (45% of all coniferous stands) (Kilian 1985). As the Austrian spruce forests are found from lower to sub alpine regions, appropriate adaptedness of spruce populations is highly desirable for practical use. By the end of the 19th C some Norway spruce field trials had been launched. One of the more comprehensive common garden experiments comprised 80 Austrian Norway spruce populations originating from different elevations and forest communities (Cieslar 1907). Today elevational adaptedness in forest tree species is taken as a self-evident truth, but at the turn of the century, Cieslar's conclusions were striking in forest science. Later, early tests to identify spruce populations by different growth rhythms in phytotrons were developed (Holzer 1975). Like other spruce provenances originating from the alpine range, Austrian populations are not characterized by outstanding field performance in field trials established outside the natural range (e.g. Krutzsch 1974). This is in accordance with biochemical investigations in Norway spruce (Lagercrantz and Ryman 1990). Consistently, alpine populations are genetically highly adapted compared with other native populations and result in poor performance if planted outside the alpine range.Austrian provenances originating from lower elevations of the Bohemian massif (Waldviertel, Miihlviertel) have a yield performance which is typical of provenances of the Hercynic-Carparthian region (Guenzl1979).Severe forest decline in Austria made conservation efforts inevitable. In 1986, a programme for the preservation of forest genetic resources was launched at the Federal Forestry Research Centre, Vienna (Nather 1990;Litschauer 1994). Owing to Austrian peculiarities (see above), the ultimate goal was the conservation of genetic resources and in doing so restricting forestry as little as possible. For principal forest tree species, such as Norway spruce or silver fir, emphasis was laid on in situ conservation.In Austria, forests aiming at the preservation of gene resources of Norway spruce are classified as (1) gene reserves and (2) small-scale conservation units. At least 5% of the wooded area is intended for in situ conservation. Relic populations and stands close to the timber line are over-represented in the conservation programme. As these stands are declared as conservation stands on a voluntary basis, a harmonious relationship between the Federal Research Centre and the owners is mandatory. There are no official means to declare and protect gene resources without the approval of the owner. Logging in these stands is the rule rather than the exception. However, there might be certain management restrictions. For instance, it can be agreed on that exclusively natural regeneration is permitted, cutting of undesired forest tree species will be necessary, and among other restrictions, a supplemental planting with forest reproductive material originating from the in situ population is mandatory if artificial regeneration is a must. The fulfilment of these agreements and the status quo of the in situ stands is periodically revised every 5-10 years. From an owner's perspective it is not obvious at first glance that a declaration might be advantageous for his forest enterprise. However, in declaring a resource there will inevitably be close links to silvicultural experts who contribute their expertise and a declaration may open the way to applying for federal funds.Austrian gene reserves are forests that comprise an area of at least 30 ha. As pollen contamination fwm outside sources is unwanted, the core area should be framed by a 300-500 m wide buffering zone. The identification and declaration of Norway spruce gene reserves have been completed in the province of Carinthia. In the provinces of Lower Austria, Salzburg, and Tyrolia declaration has commenced (Table 1). Up to now (as of early 1995), more than 3000 ha of Norway spruce gene reserves have been declared.Exceptionally, single stands « 30 ha) were selected to preserve special populations.Approximately 1100 ha of small-scale conservation units are identified (Table 1). In Austria, ex situ measures to preserve gene resources of Norway spruce have mainly been restricted to the storage of seeds originating from different ecoregions. Seed storage is a static conservation means and does not allow a change in the genetic composition of the resource in the course of environmental changes. This means does not significantly contribute to the ultimate goal to preserve the genetic adaptability in Norway spruce. Therefore, seed storage has to be assessed as a back-up measure. However, if this measure is a supplemental part of the conservation programme, for instance to bridge periods of lacking or insufficient seed crops, it is an important means.As the conservation of high elevated spruce stands (Piceetum subalpinum) requires special attention, those seed sources are especially maintained (Table 2). Up to now, no seedling or clonal conservation orchards have been established. However, two clonal Norway spruce orchards are in preparation. One orchard will represent populations of the ecoregion 'Northern Limestone Alps' (elevational range: 1350-1750 m); 107 clones have been propagated. Norway spruce of the subalpine region of Central Alps (elevational range: 1680-2050 m) will be represented by a second conservation orchards, for which 99 clones are selected. Besides the preservation of high-elevation Norway spruce populations, the seeds originating from these orchards are intended for additional seed supply for high-elevation afforestation (avalanche and torrent control). However, it must be considered that progenies of high-altitude parents do not completely retain the annual growth rhythm of their parents when parental trees have been grown at a low-altitude site (Johnsen 1989;Skroppa 1994).An important but indirect means to preserve the adaptability of Norway spruce is the fact that meanwhile many spruce forests are regenerated naturally. For a long time restocking was predominantly performed after small clear-cuts by artificial planting.Today, approximately 53% of the final cut area is naturally regenerated. Since natural regeneration offers many genetic advantages over artificial reforestation (Geburek and Thurner 1993;Muller 1993) naturally regenerated forests are a prime choice for genetic resources. Even without identification and declaration, many naturally regenerated forests are potentially valuable gene resources.According to the Austrian Forestry Act of 1975, spruce seeds have to be harvested in selected stands. In 1995, an area of 33038 ha of spruce stands has been selected and declared as seed stands. It is clearly mentioned that these stands have been selected under criteria to improve forestry yield. Therefore, it is self-evident that the selection criteria to identify gene resources are not necessarily identical with those applicable to genetic conservation.To get a better insight into the geographical genetic variation of Norway spruce, biochemical investigations have been started. Up to now, 22 presumably autochthonous populations (100 trees per individual population) have been sampled and genetically analyzed in part. Preliminary results of the federal genetic inventory indicate that the Austrian Norway spruce populations exhibit moderate genetic variation (for instance, mean of observed heterozygosity Ho = 0.15) with very low among-population differentiation (FST = 0.01) (for more details see Geburek 1994). This genetic inventory lays emphasis on native populations; however, nonautochthonous spruce stands also will be studied in the coming years.In the long term, declaration of gene resources should be based on ecological criteria, biochemical variation (isozymes, molecular markers), and the results of stress experiments. Then a meaningful identification of populations of high adaptability could be performed, as already performed by the USDA-Forest Service (Miller and Westfall 1992).It is extremely difficult to assess the public awareness of the necessity of forest genetic resources. In Austria, no opinion polls have been held on this issue. If the recent number of reports in public media (newspaper, TV, radio) is considered to indicate the public awareness of genetic diversity in forests, Austria is probably above the European average. This might be connected with the fact that in an alpine country the protection of forests has always been important because of erosion, torrents, avalanches, etc. Most of the forest owners are aware of the urgent need to conserve gene resources and contribute on a voluntary basis to the federal conservation programme. Also indirectly, the public awareness of the importance of genetic diversity can be concluded from the following:In the draft bill of the Austrian Forest Reproductive Material Act, besides the standard EU-categories (selected and tested reproductive material), the hallmark 'high genetic diversity' is introduced.In 1988, a Swiss joint working group initiated a programme which suggested the in situ conservation of genetic variation of significant forest tree species (Anonymous 1988). Within this programme, the study of genetic structures was considered to provide necessary criteria for the declaration of genetic resources. The knowledge of the geographical differentiation of genetic structures among populations within the natural range was considered to help in the determination of the minimum number and the spatial distribution of the future gene reserves.Since a forest genetic working group had been established at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) in 1991, a monitoring programme on genetic structures of tree populations could be performed. The main focus of the first period was the characterization and quantification of levels of genetic variation within and between high elevated Norway spruce popUlation stands in Switzerland. The present paper will briefly survey material and methods and include some preliminary results.Within the natural range of Norway spruce, 20 indigenous populations were chosen from high-elevation stands located in the Swiss Alps and the Jura region. For geographical distribution of the majority of stands see Miiller-Starck (1994). For each stand, 100 adult trees were selected on an area of 10 ha.Using bud tissue, the genotype of each of 2000 trees was determined by isoenzyme gene markers at 18 polymorphic gene loci (see Miiller-Starck 1995).For each popUlation and each gene locus, allelic and genotypic structures were compiled. To compare the genetic structures, genetic parameters were calculated using the GSED programme: heterozygosity, genetic multiplicity, diversity, differentiation and genetic distance (for general concept of measuring genetic variation see Miiller-Starck and Gregorius 1986;Hattemer et al. 1993;Miiller-Starck 1993;Gillet 1994).A detailed description of all results of the investigation will be given separately (Miiller-In Table 1 the given values per population were calculated as hypothetical gametic multilocus diversities. This measure is equal to the number of genetically different gametic types which can be produced by each population at the level of the studied number of gene loci. This parameter has been accepted as an essential measure to characterize the ability of forest tree populations to adapt to changing enviromental conditions (see Gregorius et al. 1986). It is used to select populations for the conservation of genetic resources because the ability to adapt to changing enviromental conditions is expected to increase with the level of this parameter. This level depends on the diversity of alleles at each of the gene loci. Assuming equal allelic multiplicity, large diversities show that the alleles are more equally distributed than in the case of low values. A high level of hypothetical gametic multilocus diversity will reduce the risk of losses of genetic variation under different enviromental impacts.  1 indicates that population 1 (Le Brassus) can be considered as one of the most suitable populations for the in situ conservation of genetic resources. Compared with the mean of the hypothetical gametic multilocus diversities of all other populations, its level is more than double the value. This is one example for the declaration of a population as a gene reserve area of Norway spruce.Generally, the following trend is indicated: in contrast to silver fir (Abies alba Mill.), Norway spruce reveals smaller interpopulational but larger intrapopulational genetic variation (Hussendorfer and Miiller-Starck 1994;Hussendorfer 1995). For the present, a larger number of gene reserve areas appears necessary for silver fir than for Norway spruce.The analysis of the genetic structures and the quantification of the level of genetic variation revealed significant deviations among populations of Norway spruce. Genetic parameters provide essential criteria for the selection of populations to be suitable for the declaration of gene reserve areas. The hypothetical gametic multilocus diversity is regarded as an important parameter for evaluation. Other genetic parameters (e.g. occurrence of geographically unique alleles) will be taken into account in order to facilitate the declaration and conservation of genetic resources.The purpose of this paper is to present a short account of the present situation of the conservation of Norway spruce (Picea abies) in Belgium.It has to be recalled that Norway spruce is not indigenous in Belgium and that it was introduced around the middle of the last century from central Europe (Austria, Germany and possibly Poland). The precise origin of every stand is, however, almost never known.Norway spruce is planted almost exclusively in Wallonia, the southern and most forested region of Belgium (80% of total forest area), mainly in the Belgian Ardennes. This last subregion is a 'Region of Provenance' in the sense of OECD IEEC regulations. It is characterized by an elevation ranging generally from 300 to 700 m (mean around 450 m), a rather harsh climate (mean temp. -7°C; annual rainfall from 1000 to 1400 mm) and acid soils (pH -4.5).The total area of Norway spruce stands amounts to around 200 000 ha, about onethird of the total forest area of Belgium (-620000 ha).The mean annual increment amounts in average to 12 m 3 ha-l yr-l with extremes lying from under 9 m 3 ha-l yr-1 on the high boggy plateaux up to around 20 m 3 ha-1 yr-1 on the best sites.From the economic point of view, Norway spruce is the most profitable forest tree species because it is easy to plant in the open and to manage in evenly aged stands. Moreover, all products find easily a profitable output (small roundwoods-poles, excellent paper; medium woods-poles; large woods-valuable timber for sawmills and possibly veneer).It is criticized by 'Ecologists' mainly because it is not indigenous and it forms dark homogeneous stands that may degrade the soil. This last point has never been proved in spite of many studies; the 'darkness' and homogeneity of the stands are being solved by heavier thinnings than in the past.So far, no pure conservation has been practised. Genetic conservation has only been done in the frame of the present breeding programme for which it is a sort of byproduct.Therefore, the classical scheme of presentation used in forest tree breeding will be followed hereafter.Provenance experiments are indirectly a means to cons~rve many provenances outside of their range.In a number of cases, the original stands from which seed was collected have disappeared or their trace has been lost. When these provenances are outstanding, a way to try to restore the original population is to collect material from provenance experiments. For example, this has been done for the Polish provenance Zwierzyniec Lub., the original stand of which having been cut down, cuttings and grafts were sent from Belgium to Polish colleagues.For Norway spruce in Belgium, there are more than 20 provenance experiments covering more than 20 ha (Table 1) and comparing more than 600 provenances from the whole European range (a certain amount of these provenances is common to different experiments). The first experiment was planted in 1931.Among them are the three International Provenance Experiments in Norway spruce (Promoters: First: Schmidt, 1938;Second: Langlet-Krutzsch, 1964;Third: Tyszkiewicz-Kociecki, 1972). Some of them have been assessed in detail in Belgium (no1 : Delevoy 1949;Gathy 1960;Nanson 1964cNanson , 1965a;;Verstraete 1993).The transformation of some of these old provenance tests into Provenance Seedling Seed Orchards (Nanson 1972) through severe selective thinnings, leaving only the best trees of the best adapted provenances, is contemplated. This could be envisaged for replicates of experiment n02 that have a one-tree plot structure. According to definitions (e.g, OECD/EEC regulations), a 'seed stand' is a stand that is phenotypically superior for most forest characteristics and that has been officially selected and included in an official Register of Basic Materials. In Belgium, Galoux and Reginster (1953) first began this selection around 1950; Gathy continued up to around 1960 and N anson after that. At present in Belgium, 29 seed stands of Norway spruce covering a total area of 230 ha are officially registered. So far, these seed stands are not really protected against normal felling (around 60-90 years in usual practice).This should be envisaged in the future. Difficulties are, however, present due to the kind of ownership (private seed stands are almost outside any measure) and to the limited longevity of Norway spruce in Belgium (practically not more than 100-120 years).Active ex situ conservation in 'conservation plantations' is then a good opportunity but needs some supplemental financial means and human resources as well as a longterm follow-up organization.So far, 198 plus trees ('mature clones': phenotypically selected at forest stage after sexual maturity: more than 30 years), 148 'juvenile clones' (selected in early forest stage: between 5 and 30 years) and 878 'infantile clones' (selected in nursery), so a total of 1224 clones, have been selected.Mature and juvenile clones are conserved in situ but not over the normal forest exploitation term (60-90 years). The best of them are conserved ex situ in seed orchards (see below).Infantile clones are conserved in four propagation clone parks, either of ortets, or of ramets, or both. These propagation clone parks have, however, a limited lifespan (10-15 years) and should be then re-propagated.Two grafted clonal seed orchards of respectively 1.50 ha (in Halle) and 8.7 ha (in Fenffe) are settled; they now contain respectively 54 and 135 clones, so 189 clones in total. The last one is an 'evolving seed orchard' that, besides its functions of seed production and a source of 'clonal mixtures ll , is also a conservatory of one of the best clones (Nanson 1986;Nanson et al. 1992).The lifespan of such seed orchards is expected to be between 50 and 100 years. The conservation of these seed orchards and thus of component clones is dependent on their performances and their economic justification.So far, at least 20 comparative experiments are planted; they are composed mainly of genetic materials from the Ardenne Region of Provenance. They contain at least 300 genetic elements (progenies, clones, standards) and cover at least 25 ha in total. This represents a considerable source of genetic diversity of high value.The lifespan of these tests is again some 60-90 years. Their further conservation depends on the general breeding strategy but has not yet been truly envisaged from the pure conservation standpoint.A precise updated inventory of this resource would be a first step.Classical clone parks: Classical clone parks are pure collections of clones represented by 2 or 3 ramets of every clone planted at rather large spacing (4 x 4 m at least).In Belgium, there are no such parks because they are too expensive to create and maintain. They are replaced partly by evolving seed orchards which merge the functions of clone park and seed production on the same site. Note that these evolving seed orchards are conserving only the best clones. The number of these clones is a compromise between the importance of the genetic gains requested and the need of genetic diversity within the synthetic variety produced by the evolving seed orchard.Propagation clone parks: Propagation clone parks are made of ortets or ramets of infantile clones, with the main purpose of producing cuttings en masse for the vegetative propagation of clonal mixtures. At present, two propagation clone parks of ortets and two propagation clone parks of ramets are planted and hedged to produce cuttings: 878 infantile clones are thus conserved. With a present spacing of 1 x 1 m (a bit too low), they cover about 0.30 ha.The lifespan of such propagation clone parks is expected not to exceed some 15 years. Therefore, a conservation policy and actions will be soon necessary. However, this needs time, money and labour.In our Research Station, 295 scientific seed lots (provenances, progenies) with a total weight of 21.4 kg are stored in refrigerators (at +2 or -17°C). In our conditions, 1 kg of seed of Norway spruce can create around 10 to 15 ha of plantation at the standard spacing of 2 x 2 m. Therefore, this seed amount represents at least 214 ha of plantations.No pollen has yet been stored.Because of the present failure of the in vitro propagation of Norway spruce, no such conservation is envisaged.Usual forest plantations can be a source of genetic diversity within the species because every plantation can be from a different provenance (population). In Wallonia, the Forest Service is using in principle 'Recommendable Provenances' from Belgium and from some other countries (Nanson 1978). This should bring a genetic gain in total production of around 20% compared with a random use of provenances.So far, however, the identity of the provenance has not been frequently registered in the Forest Management Plan. It is hoped that this measure will be generalized by the Wallonian Forest Service and it should be the rule within a few years (see Trace keeping in forest management, below).After inputting this information to an adequate database, these data can be the basis for long-term management of Wallonian genetic resources, making the balance between genetic gains and genetic diversity.In the Belgian Ardennes, many Norway spruce stands can be regenerated by natural seeding. However, foresters are finding it simpler to use plantations.Natural regeneration can be worthwhile when the mother trees have a good phenotype and a genetic base sufficiently large to prevent further inbreeding. For more detailed aspects of natural regeneration from the genetic standpoint, see Nanson et al. (1991).Natural regeneration can be very useful to conserve exceptional seed stands, for example. However, conservation plantations with the reproductive material collected in these seed stands are another more flexible opportunity.In Belgium, Norway spruce as a forest species is not threatened 2 thanks to its profitability. However, the trace and identity of many very good seed stands (e.g., OECD/EEC blue labels or equivalent) have been lost because of the lack of active conservation measures. In fact, much seed has been collected on these 'elite seed stands' and later commercialized and this has led to numerous plantations. But we do not know where these plantations are situated. From the conservation point of view it is as if they were lost!In this way, some very good populations have been lost after the severe windfalls of January 1990!The public and even foresters are not aware of this situation. Forest Geneticists are a bit concerned but, up to now, their means were so restricted that they were directed almost exclusively toward Forest Tree Breeding in the short term.Let us hope that the evolution of ideas on gene conservation will bring them some additional means in order to preserve the future!This matter needs further consideration, deep reflection, extended exchange of ideas and a deeper literature survey (e.g., Arbez et al. 1987;Kleinschmit et al. 1989;Martin 1986;Namkoong et al. 1980;Nanson 1993Nanson , 1994;;Palmberg 1987;Steinmetz 1991).However, it seems that the follOWing tentative guidelines could be open to discussion.One of the first steps to consider is surely to do a survey and an updating of present known genetic resources and to include them in an adequate database.In this respect it should be noted that the embryo of such a database does exist. Through the FOREST EEC Research Project, Belgium, France and Germany agreed on a European common database structure for seed stands and conservation plantations with the example of Douglas-fir (Riboux 1993;Servais 1993;Servais and Riboux 1993). This database, with a decentralized structure and needing only personal computers, was tested and partly fulfilled: it is thus operational and maintained at our Station de Recherches Forestieres in Gembloux. It can be extended easily to Norway spruce.Projects are to extend this database to other objects such as plus trees, seed orchards, clone parks, family mixtures, clonal mixtures, seed and pollen collections, etc. and to other species.As mentioned earlier, the provenance (or variety) of every usual plantation in public forests will be identified and reported in the Forest Management Plan.Three levels of reliability are to be distinguished in ascending order: 1. identification through the standard EEC certificate of provenance for commercial plantations made with plants provided by private nurseries, 2. identification through a State certificate of provenance for plantations made with plants provided by State nurseries, 3. identification through the direct control of the Forest Research Station.Once reported in the Forest Management Plan, with their own level of reliability, these data can be transferred to the conservation database, at least for the most outstanding or typical provenances. There they could join data coming from breeding programmes (plus trees, seed orchards, etc.). This will be the raw material for the development of long-range management of forest genetic resources.This last should optimize the balance between genetic diversity against genetic gains in long-term plantation programmes. For example, a sufficient amount of diverse outstanding provenances and varieties for productivity, quality, resistance-adaptation, could be favoured without excluding special provenances or varieties to maintain a sufficient genetic diversity between stands.Of course, this management should ensure the long-term preservation of the chosen materials through adequate special actions programmed over a century at least. For example, present seed stands and seed orchards should be conserved through several conservation plantations (1 to 4 ha each) perfectly registered, controlled (thinnings, etc.) and renewed in due time.In Wallonia, the Forest Tree Seed Centre named 'Comptoir Wallon des Materiels Forestiers de Reproduction' will be soon established in the centre of the region, in Marche. Besides its main mission of providing Walloon nurseries with the best genetic materials, it can also play a major role by collecting adequately such basic materials and distributing them to state nurseries for conservation.All these actions should be set up with definition of priorities in a general Long-term Management of Forest Genetic Resources programme under the control of the Forest Service and prepared by forest tree breeders with the collaboration of relevant tree seed centres.In Belgium, Norway spruce is one of the most valuable and profitable forest tree species. The conservation of Norway spruce as a species is in no way endangered but some concern can appear at the level of populations. As a matter of fact, some outstanding ones have already disappeared.A very important but indirect genetic conservation has taken place in breeding programmes. Many provenance experiments,seed stands, plus trees, seed orchards, progeny and clone tests, clone parks, scientific seed collections are maintained in situ or ex situ. But because of lack of means that, of necessity, are allocated by priority to genetic improvement, no consistent and comprehensive active long-term management of forest genetic resources has been implemented yet.In order to develop such long-term management, it seems that construction and management of databases and filling them with updated genetic resources represents a prerequisite. Trace keeping in forest management of the provenance or variety used in plantations is a second one. Then should follow the development of a programme for long-term management of forest genetic resources, using accepted principles and at the level of practical implementation. At this stage, long-term management of forest genetic resources and long-term strategy of forest tree breeding should probably merge into a unified philosophy.The forest land in Slovakia is about 1.94 million hectares, out of which 90% belongs to the Carpathians. In the Polish Carpathians, the forests cover about 480 000 ha, in the Ukrainian Carpathians about 1 500 000 ha and approximately 5 500 000 ha belong to the Carpathians mountain range in Romania. This means that the Carpathian forests cover about 9 million hectares in total.The present distribution of trees in European forests has been influenced by several factors:-the natural migration of tree species in the post-glacial period (different refugia and geographical conditions -mountain ranges -influence migration), -long-lasting human activity before the period of modern forestry, -a short period of modern forestry (in Europe about 100-200 years), -the influence of human activities and human-caused processes during the period of industrialization.The forest stand area of Slovakia covers in total 1 904339 ha (Table 1). The proportion of Norway spruce is 27.5% and that of conifers is 43.1 %. The most common broadleaved species in Slovakian forests (European beech) covers in total 29.8%. The present proportion of Norway spruce is higher than the original one. It is estimated (Hancinsky 1972) that originally Norway spruce covered about 10% and during the last century it replaced the silver fir (e.g. 15% in 1920 and 5% at present). Natural distribution of the Norway spruce forests in Slovakia is in altitudes between 600 m and the upper tree limit, which is usually in the altitudes of 1400-1500 m. The upper tree limit is usually created by the mixed Norway spruce and larch stands (e.g. the southern slopes of the High Tatras or Norway spruce with the admixture of rowan or stone pine). In all mountain ranges the Norway spruce creates the upper tree limit except in the Eastern Beskydes where in the Carpathian disjunction the Norway spruce is missing and the beech reaches the highest altitudes.Indigenous occurrence of the Norway spruce populations is in all mountain ranges of central and northern Slovakia. It is missing in the Little Carpathians and Stiavnicke vrchy and in eastern Slovakia. In eastern Slovakia the Norway spruce's natural range is disrupted by the Carpathian disjunction, i.e. from Kosice toward the Ukrainian border and further into Carpatho-Ukraine a 200-km zone is without spruce. From the northern side of the Carpathians, the limit of natural occurrence of Norway spruce reaches Tarnawa, i.e. more or less the border of Slovakia.One of the classifications of forest vegetation cover was elaborated on by Prof. A. Zlatnik who, on the basis of an intensive investigation of the Carpathian forests in Slovakia and in Carpatho-Ukraine, described the natural character of forest cover in eight vegetation levels, which could be defined as the climax geobiocenoses which are conditioned by certain geography, macro-and mesoclimate in given altitudes. The forest vegetation zones are usually named according to prevailing tree species and correspond with the first five altitudinal geographic zones usually applied in geobotany (planar, colline, submontane, montane, oreal, subalpine, alpine and nival):• Oak forest vegetation zone The ecological characteristics of the forest vegetation zones are given in the paper of Vancura (this volume). The natural range of Norway spruce covers the following forest vegetation zones: beech-fir, beech-fir-spruce and spruce forest vegetation zone. In the first two forest vegetation zones, the occurrence of mixed forests is prevalent (broadleaves with spruce admixture or spruce with silver fir admixture), while in the last forest vegetation zone the pure spruce forests prevail.In Table 3 is shown the proportion of the individual stand formation of spruce forests and mixed forests with spruce: spruce-silver fir-beech and silver fir-beech according to individual forest vegetation belts. From this table it is clear that the proportion of the spruce forests within the beech-fir, beech-fir-spruce and spruce forest vegetation belts could be considered as more or less natural. The occurrence of Norway spruce in the 1st to 4th vegetation belts is not natural and partially also that within the beech-fir and beech-fir-spruce forest vegetation belts could be considered as the replacements of silver fir in the mixed stands. The first regulation aimed at the seed procurement only from approved stands originated in the territory of Slovakia in 1938 and in the Czech Republic in 1939. In the sense of this law, the seed of conifers (Norway spruce, silver fir, Scots pine and European larch) could be procured only in approved forest stands of A and B category and seed transfer was allowed only within silvicultural zones. The silvicultural zones were defined according to their geographical distribution and the length of the vegetation period:sub alpine regions with the vegetation period shorter than 100 days, mountains with cooler climate with the vegetation period 100-129 days, mountains with mild climate and vegetation period 130-165 days, lowlands and hills with plain climate and vegetation period longer than 165 days.Subsequently, this regulation was renewed in 1965 and since 1985 and 1988 there are new regulations valid for the Slovak and Czech Republics. It has to be noted that these two different regulations for both republics of former Czechoslovakia were necessary due to different ecological conditions and history of the forest stands.Following these regulations there are two different categories of approved stands, A and B, and a new term was introduced for the territory of Slovakia-'seed zone'. The seed zone is defined as the zone with similar conditions within which seed transfer is allowed. Exceptionally, seed transfer is allowed between individual zones (as stated in the regulation).For Norway spruce there are seven seed zones in Slovakia (Fig. 1), five of which are within the natural range and two are outside the natural range. Vertical transfer of seed is allowed for altitudes up to 1200 ± 200 m and over 1200 ± 100 m in the Tatra seed zone and in other zones over 1200 ± 150 m from the altitude of forest stands.It has to be noted that there are two seed zones into which it is prohibited to import seed: the Tatra seed zone (Tatra National Park) and the Beskydy-Orava seed zone which is adjacent to the Polish Beskydes (Istebna and Rycerka) and also to the Moravian Beskydes.At present there are in total 6075.25 ha of approved Norway spruce stands of the A category and 16328.81 ha of stands of the B category, selected 345 phenotypically superior plus trees (in total 3171) and established 4.50 ha of clonal seed orchards and 2 ha of seedling seed orchard (Stara Lesna) (in total 202.82 ha of seed orchards of all species). The highest proportion of the Norway spruce approved stands is in Northern Slovakia (2958 ha of A category and 7907 ha of B category) and in Central Slovakia (1668 ha or 2887, respectively), while in the Tatra National Park alone there are 722 ha of the approved 'stands of the A category and 1554 ha of stands of the B category. The gene reserves (bases) are, in the forestry practice of Slovakia, a new item aimed at genepool conservation in situ. The gene bases are in general units of the gene conservation practices established in the regions of the most valuable genepool and the size is usually several hundreds of hectares (200-2000 ha). In comparison, the size of approved stands is equal to the size of a stand as a forest management unit, which is usually a maximum of 10-15 ha. The gene bases usually include the forest stands of different age classes with the aim to maintain the dynamic aspect of genepool conservation. From the forest management point of view, the gene bases are forest stands with a special management regime, in which natural regeneration is the principal method of regeneration allowed (the artificial regeneration with plants originating from the local seed sources is allowed). At present 44 gene bases are established in Slovakia (in total 12 673 ha) of which 3154.46 ha are declared to conserve the genepool of Norway spruce. From those seed orchards should be mentioned those which are aimed at the gene conservation of Beskydy spruce (region adjacent to Polish Beskydes), those in the High Tatras and in the Low Tatras.Seed stands are special units established mainly for genepool conservation in situ or ex situ for the purposes of conservation and future procurement of seed. In general the seed stands are progenies (from natural regeneration or artificial regeneration as openpollinated progenies) of the approved stands of A category.In total 127 seed stands are established in Slovakia (not identical with seed stand according to the OECD/EEC regulations) with the area of 635.5 ha and of this number 37 seed stands of 196.5 ha are established for Norway spruce. Forty percent of Norway spruce seed stands are established ex situ and 60% in situ. From those established in situ 40% again originate from natural regeneration and the remaining 60% originate from artificial regeneration.In Slovakia there are in total seven provenance trials (12 to 49 provenances) established from the material of the IUFRO 1964/68 Norway spruce Inventory Provenance Experiment (HolubCfk 1980) and four provenance trials being part of the IUFRO 1972 provenance experiment with Polish Norway spruce provenances. There exist only single-progeny tests with 42 open-pollinated progenies of a single stand from the Tatra National Park (considered also as a seedling seed orchard).In the seed bank established in Liptovsky Hradok there are in total 75 seedlots with Norway spruce (363.5 kg). They are stored with the aim to cover the seed needs in the period of lower crops as well as for scientific and genepool conservation purposes. In Slovakia all seed used in forestry practice has to originate from approved stands only. Each seedlot has a 10-digit code which should be maintained also in the nurseries and planting stock. In the Semenoles, Liptovsky Hradok, there are at present 332 units (8996.65 kg) of Norway spruce seed from approved stands. At present, there are no pollen and tissue banks established in Slovakia.There are in Slovakia in total 292 state nature reserves and 74 protected sites with the total area of 79415 ha. The proportion of Norway spruce in the state nature reserves is 37.74% and in protected sites 20.64%; almost 48% of all state nature reserves are found in the spruce-fir-beech and spruce forest vegetation zone (Voloscuk 1993). In contrast to many neighbouring countries there are in Slovakia several remnants of spruce or mixed virgin forests with spruce occurrence. The best known of them are Pod Chlebom (222.77 ha) and Rozsutec (650 ha) in the Little Fatra, Cierny Kamen (34.40 ha) in the Great Fatra, Babia Hora (530.33 ha) and Pilsko (580 ha) in the West Beskydes and Kotlov ZIab (46.94 ha), and Podbanske (1800 ha) in the High Tatras (Korpel 1995).Several factors affect negatively the genetic resources of Norway spruce in Slovakia: air pollution, game grazing, abiotic damages (e.g. drought) and subsequent biotic damages (e.g. bark beetle), and improper forest management practices not supporting natural regeneration.High-elevation Norway spruce populations are usually damaged by air pollution. Most affected are the populations in the Beskydes and the High Tatras on the western to northern slopes facing Ostrava and Katowice industrial regions from which the long-distance transported pollutants are the main damage factor. Also other air pollution sources are negatively influencing the health state of Norway spruce populations in the Spis region and the Low Tatras. Along with the decreased vitality and damage of the assimilatory organs the air pollution affects the regeneration processes and decreases flowering intensity and seed production.Browsing by excess populations of larger ungulates (red deer) is the main factor negatively influencing natural regeneration and the healthy state of middle-aged Norway spruce stands. The worst situation is when the combination of several damage factors (air pollution, insects, deer) occurs.The negative impact of forest management practices (higher proportion of the artificial regeneration, improper seed transfer, simplification of forest management practices (e.g. replacement of mixed stands by one-species spruce stands, etc.) is also known from the territory of Slovakia and owing to these activities the high proportion of very valuable indigenous Norway spruce stands disappeared.At present there is not very much information about the genetic diversity of economically important tree species in the Carpathians. However, there are tree species in which the genetic structures and genetic diversities have been systematically investigated, also in the Carpathians, during the last decade. Among these species are the Norway spruce, silver fir (Abies alba) and European beech (Fagus sylvatica). Rather scarce information is available on the genetic structure and diversity of other economically valuable tree species (e.g. oaks, European larch, Scots pine, etc.).In the abovementioned tree species, research has been predominantly on the geographic variation of allelic frequencies in natural populations, with an aim to understanding the differences between individual regions and/or populations and to understand the migration of individual tree species from the different post-glacial refugia or selection processes. Three examples of intensive investigation of genetic diversity and differentiation in which our team has participated can be given.The first investigation of the genetic structure of Norway spruce populations from Slovakia was done by Paule et al. (1990). They investigated the genetic structure of adjacent populations and found insufficient genetic differences between adjacent populations but in some cases also between the more distant populations.The investigation of the geographic variation of Norway spruce in Eastern Europe, including the Carpathians, was done by Bergmann and Gomory (in preparation) and another investigation of the differences between the Norway spruce virgin forest and naturally and artificially regenerated Norway spruce forest stands was done by Gomory (1992). Results of this investigation give insight into the structure of the natural Norway spruce forests of Slovakia and show that naturally regenerated forest stands do not significantly deviate from the natural forest of virgin character. Significant deviations could be expected only in the case of artificially regenerated forest stands in which significant narrowing of the genetic diversity could also occur (Gomory 1992).The practical gene conservation in Slovakia is carried out in the Forest Research Institute, Zvolen, Research Station Liptovsky Hnldok, where the central register of approved stands, seed stands and gene bases is localized. Experts from this research station (Hoffmann, Piovarci and earlier also Chudik) are responsible for approval of forest stands for seed procurement and also of the approval of genebases (reserves). The coworkers of the Faculty of Forestry of the Technical University in Zvolen (Paule, Gomory) are involved mainly in basic population genetic research.The public awareness of the importance of forest genetic resources has been reflected in the updating of laws on the approval of forest stands (1985) and gene reserves (1991) as well as in the preparation of the Law on Plant Varieties which is prepared for approval in the Parliament. This is the first time in the legislation of this country that the Law on Plant Varieties (common with agricultural crops) will be a part of the legislation. It will be compatible with EC and OECD rules.The next updating of law regulations is under discussion and has considered recent ownership changes in Slovakia.Reconstruction of the forest seed bank in Liptovsky Hradok is planned for the near future. It will be aimed not only at the technical reconstruction and replacement but also the new regulation on the content (the selection of samples and their quantities) of the Seed Bank will be updated.The topics of gene conservation are permanently a part of the research programme of the Forestry Research Institute in Zvolen and their research stations in Liptovsky Hradok and Banska Stiavnica. In Liptovsky Hradok there is also a central database on gene resources (approved stands, genebases, seed stands and seed orchards). A part of this research station is Seed Control, an organ of the Ministry of Agriculture which aims to control the forest seed procurement and business in Slovakia.There are several urgent needs for the conservation of the Norway spruce genepool in Slovakia. Among them, there is the danger of air pollution in several regions with very valuable Norway spruce populations (e.g. Spis and Beskydy), the grazing by ungulates (e.g. red deer) and the simplification of forest management activities (e.g. replacement of mixed forest by Norway spruce monocultures).Last but not least there is danger from forest owners themselves. Within the reprivatization process of the Slovak forests the highest proportion of small private forest owners is in the region of the best Norway spruce populations of the Beskydy ecotype of Norway spruce, i.e. Orava and Kysuce.Ukraine is considered to be a republic with scarce woodland, the total forest area being only 14.3% of its territory. The Carpathian mountains is the most wooded region of the republic (37.5%). It occupies 7.4% of the Ukraine territory with about 21 % of the forests concentrated there. The total area of the Ukraine woodland is 6 151 000 ha. Owing to favourable forest-growing conditions, the forest productivity in the Ukraine is much higher than in many other countries of eastern Europe: the average wood stock on 1 ha is 194 m 3 , and in the Ukrainian Carpathians, 373 m 3 ; an average increment per 1 ha is, correspondingly, 3.9 and 5.1 m 3 . However, as investigations have shown, these indices cannot be considered sufficient for the Ukraine (Chernyavskij and Shvadchak 1994). At the same time, the problem of increasing forest productivity should be considered together with solving the problem of genepool conservation of forest tree species.These problems are of particular importance for spruce forests of the Ukrainian Carpathians, where excessive forest exploitation during the last one and a half centuries and the application of seed material of unknown origin during forest growing have led to decreases of many spruce stands and to considerable economic losses. A preference for spruce monocultures in the Carpathians led to an increase of 200000 ha in areas of spruce stands during the last two centuries (Golubets 1978). The situation was aggravated by the fact that in artificially created spruce stands, forms and races of different west European origin began to grow together (Bardecki 1909). It was in these stands that catastrophic wind damage and epidemics of diseases and insects periodically took place.Spruce forests in the Ukrainian Carpathians and in Polissya presently occupy an area of about 570500 ha (9.3% of the lands covered with forests). In modern forest cover of the Ukrainian Carpathians, forests formed by common spruce occupy about 533 000 ha, or a third part of the forested area of this region. Taking into consideration all the forests where spruce occurs, the total area will amount to 1 million ha. The area of flat spruce forests is about 37 000 ha.The area of natural distribution of Norway spruce in the Ukraine consists of two parts: unbroken spruce forests in the Eastern Carpathians and small island places of this species growing on the plains of the northern part of the Ukrainian Polissya.Owing to a long exploitation period of the Ukrainian Carpathians spruce forests and considerable spruce cultivation, the current limits of distribution of this species have been considerably changed. On vast areas, beech, beech-spruce, beech-fir-spruce groups of uneven age and composite structure have reformed into pure spruce cultures. That is why two categories of spruce forests-natural and artificial-are singled out in the forest cover of the Ukrainian Carpathians (Fig. 1).Natural spruce forests of the Ukrainian Carpathians are adapted to the climatic zone with the sum of active temperatures from 1000° up to 1600°, the general vegetation period duration not more than 136 days and total annual precipitation up to 1500 mm.Natural spruce forests (Piceeta abietae) occupy the highest elevation zones of the forest cover of the Gorgan, Chernogory, Chyvchyn, Marmarosh and Grynyav mountains. In the spruce forest zone two ecologically and cenotically different levels are singled out: the upper level with pure spruce forests (higher than 1200 m) and the lower level with mixed spruce forests that include fir and beech. The average value of the lower border of an unbroken spruce forests is 1030 m (minimum 700 m), and the upper value is 1470 m (Golubets 1988). Composite natural spruce forests prevail in the northeast and occur in the southwest microaspects of the Ukrainian Carpathians at elevations of 900-1200 m. It is there that a lot of research of the Carpathian forests determines optimum conditions for spruce growing (Vincent 1936;Gensiruk 1957;Tyshkiewich 1962), and conditionally the same-age spruce stands under the same conditions give over 1000-1100 m 3 /ha at the age of 100 years (Tsuryk 1981).Spruce formation in the Ukrainian Carpathians is divided into six subformations: Piceeta (130 000 ha), Cembreto-Piceeta (2000-3000 ha), Fageto-Piceeta (35 000 ha), Abieto-Fageto-Piceeta (100 000 ha) and Fageto-Abieto-Piceeta (50 000 ha) according to Golubets (1988).About 40% of the total spruce forest area in the Ukrainian Carpathians is occupied by artificially established spruce forests. Their simplified structure, one layer, lower age of natural maturity (than in natural spruce forests), low endurance to windbreakage, diseases and harmful insects are characteristic features of these forests.Reconstruction of spruce mono cultures, regeneration of mixed forests, increase of spruce forest endurance and improvement of their useful and protective functions remain actual problems of the Carpathian forestry.Reserve territories organization; selection of forest genetic reserves (representing the best populations of species), plus stands (stands with the highest productivity and qualitative characteristics) and plus trees (trees with high economical characteristics); creation of clone and archive-parent plantations (in order to preserve and space plus trees by means of vegetation); creation of forest seed plots (to provide seeds); creation of clone and family plantations (in order to obtain seeds with higher genetic-selection characteristics); creation of test cultures of plus trees; population cultures, and initial sort tests are the main methods of forest genetic conservation.There is a developed network of natural reserve fund in the Ukraine including State reserves, natural national parks, protected localities, etc. The network of especially protected territories including mainly spruce forests at present consists of 74 objects with an area of 39550 ha or 6.9% of the total area of spruce forests of the Ukraine.Natural flat spruce forests are protected in Shatsk National Park (the total area is 67000 ha) and in 14 protected localities in Polissya. The area of the latter is about 700 ha. In most cases they are mixed forests of an island type which overcame a significant anthropological influence.The biggest stands of native spruce forests in the Ukrainian Carpathians have been preserved in Grynyav, Chyvchyn and Marmarosh crystal mountain mass. Practically, all of them are now in different reserves and protected localities. About 28 230 ha of natural spruce forests have been included in Carpathian National Park (21 350 ha) and Carpathian State Reserve (6880 ha), 1610 ha of them being represented by the groups of a virgin type. In 20 protected localities representing different forest-growing conditions of the northeast and southwest microaspects of the Ukrainian Carpathians, 5126 ha and 4194 ha of natural spruce forests, respectively, are protected. The total area of spruce forests of a virgin type, according to our estimates, is about 5740 ha.The main method of improvement in forest growing of the past lies in a wider implementation in forestry practice of up-to-date achievements of seed procurement and selection.Seed application in the Ukraine is regulated by 'Instructions on Forest Seed Growing' (Molotkov et al. 1993). Seed procurement should be done in plus stands and specially accredited to seed departments. Seed collection in artificial stands or in unapproved forest seed regions or subregions is forbidden. There is the following division into districts in the Ukraine concerning common spruce:Carpathian forest seed district a) high mountain subdistrict (higher than 1250 m a.s.l. The total area of spruce seed procurement departments is 1260 ha, including 1043 ha under mountain conditions. Spruce plus stands of 221 ha European area are singled out only in the Carpathians.Creating a network of forest gene reserves in 1983-1985 became a specific method of genepool conservation of forest tree species in the Ukraine. Genetic reserves were selected in all geobotanical and forest districts, high-altitude ecological belts in the mountains and the main forest types. It should be noted that only well-preserved natural forests were taken as a basis for selecting genetic reserves. That is why in some cases genetic reserves were included in already exisiting reserves and protected localities. Therefore, there exists a double control on these objects.Any economic activity which can affect genetic structure and natural development of these reserve plantations is forbidden. Seed and vegetation material procurement in a genetic reserve is allowed only in exceptional cases (scientific research, conservation of a given population in situ or ex situ), when reliable natural regeneration is available and only in high-productive years (Shvadchak 1990).A reserve needs a protection zone not less than 100 m in width. The main task of management in a protected zone is conservation and regeneration of the native genetic reserve plantations. Complex cutting combined with intermediate fellings is allowed in this zone. If natural regeneration in the protected genetic reserve belt is bad, creation of forest cultures with the help of native material is sometimes allowed.In order to preserve and rationally use the valuable genepool of common spruce in the Ukraine, 43 genetic reserves with an area of 2773 ha amounting to 4.9% of spruce forests have been selected (see Table 1).Among other objects directed at spruce genepool conservation one can name plus trees (211 plus trees in total) and creation from their vegetative material of clone plantations and test cultures. In all, 2 ha of archive-parent plantations of spruce and 47.8 ha of clone plantations of the first order have been formed, 2.5 ha of which were planted under the flat conditions of Polissya. By means of seed material one spruce family plantation with the area of 1.8 ha has been created. One clone plantation with an area of 12.2 ha has been entered into a constant seed base where seed procurement is done in productive years.Wide experiments with geographical origin (provenance trails) with spruce in the Ukraine, despite the species' significant spreading, have not been carried out. Some investigations of five west European provenances (planted in 1963) proved unsuitable for the Ukrainian Carpathians (Golubets 1978). Also, the data about parent stands in this investigation were absent. The results of European international experiments with common spruce in 1938 and 1964-1968, including some provenances from the Ukraine, indicate the prospects of east-Carpathian ecotypes for Central Europe. Spruce provenances from Chornogirya stands should be of particular interest. Certain trends to unification of spruce population from Chornogirya stands have been noted in our investigations (Shvadchak 1989). It is interesting that the Chornogirya, according to some scientists (Srodon 1948;Kozij 1963), was one of the most important refuge locations of spruce, from which it spread after the post-glacial period. Despite the mistaken actions during forest spruce growing in the Ukrainian Carpathians, a valuable genepool of this species is still conserved having significant importance for further investigations as to European spruce improvement, not only for the Ukraine but also for many countries of central and western Europe. It is expedient to carry out an international experiment in order to study the provenances of common spruce.There is a necessity to create an all-European database of common spruce genetic resources and to develop a strategy of assessment and conservation of genetic resources of Picea abies in Europe.Norway spruce (Picea abies) is a young species in Norway. After the ice age, birch, poplar and Scots pine were the first tree species to establish. During the warm and dry period that followed, high-temperature demanding species such as lime, beech, oak, ash and hazel spread, and the timber line was 200-300 m higher than at present. It was not until approximately 2500 years ago, during a cooler and more humid period, that spruce started its introduction into the Norwegian landscape. The Nordic spruce populations have their origin in the taiga in northern Russia and Siberia. During a period of 3000 years the species spread through Finland and northern Sweden. The earliest identified establishments are from the years 500-400 BC in the border areas close to Sweden in Central Norway (Hafsten 1991(Hafsten , 1992)). The invasion of the southeastern lowland area took place during the following 1000 years, but the migration up the valleys to the species' present altitudinal boundary was not completed until the period 1000-1500 AD. The coastal spruce forest in Central Norway was established rather late (approximately 1300 AD). The species never established naturally in western Norway, except for a few scattered populations, which have a late establishment and most likely are spread from the nearest source stands east of the mountain range (Hafsten 1991).The present natural occurrence of Norway spruce is in southeastern Norway from sea level and up to 1000 m, and in Central and North Norway, north to lat. 67°N, at decreasing altitudes in the north. Outside this area the species has in this century been planted both in western Norway and north of its natural boundary in northern Norway. In both regions it has become an important timber species.The Norway spruce forests have been strongly influenced by human activities. An excessive harvest started more than 300-400 years ago and strongly depleted the forest resources in some regions. At the beginning of this century the annual harvest in Norwegian forests exceeded annual growth, while the harvest is at present only around 50% of the gross annual production.Norway spruce is the most important species in Norwegian forestry. The total forest area is 12 million hectares or 37% of the total land area. Productive forests cover 23% of the land area (7 million hectares), half of which is spruce forest. More than one-third of the forest is older than 80 years. The total annual harvest is 10 million m 3 , of which spruce amounts to 70%.Norway has no laws or regulations specifically dealing with the conservation of the forest genetic resources. The Norwegian Forestry Act, however, provides general measures for the long-term preservation and sustainable utilization of the forests, which also relate to management of the genetic resources. Special recommendations are given for forestry activities in areas which have such location, conditions or characteristics that they should be managed with particular care. Where restrictions are deemed necessary, such areas may be classified as protection forest and be subject to regulations. Protection forests comprise approximately 20% of Norway's total forest area and are in particular located at high elevations, along coasts or in the far north. The Forestry Act is administered by the Ministry of Agriculture.The maintenance of genetic diversity is one of the main motives in the regulations for the classification, trade and use of reproductive materials in forestry. Specific recommendations are given for the transfer of provenances and use of vegatatively propagated materials. Seed from native Norway spruce stands should not be transferred more than 200 km in the northern or southern direction. Vertically, transfers should be within the range of 300 m. Close to the altitudinal and boreal timber line only local provenances should be used. Seeds from Norway spruce seed orchards should be tested for growth rhythm and frost hardiness, which should determine their regional use.Two other components of Norwegian legislation, administered by the Ministry of Environment, have importance in the management of the forest genetic resources. These are the Building and Planning Act and the Nature Conservation Act. The first one provides fundamental principles for land management limiting nonforestry development and urban expansion on forest land. The Nature Conservation Act provides for the classification of specific areas which are to be protected as national parks, nature reserves, landscape protection areas and natural monuments. Opportunity is given, moreover, for combining species protection and the conservation of areas in the form of what is called habitat preservation.The Norway spruce genetic resources are not considered to be threatened in any part of its native range in Norway. Large areas of old-growth natural stands still exist, even if their abundance has been reduced, in particular in the lowlands in southeastern Norway. New forests are being established by natural regeneration over large areas and this method has gained importance during the last few years. Under certain ecological conditions, however, natural regeneration will not be sufficient for the establishment of a well-stocked Norway spruce stand, and planting is necessary.Owing to a lack of Norway spruce seeds of local origin, seedlings of Central European provenances were planted in southeastern Norway during a 20-year period starting in the mid-1950s. In one county, 0stfold, 35% of the total number of seedlings planted in the period 1960-1980 originated from provenances in Austria and in Schwarzwald, Germany. It was thought that the high altitude of the seed stands, between 800 and 1400 m, would compensate for the southern latitude. However, both practical observations and a recent survey in planted stands (Skmppa et al. 1993) have shown that these stands are not well adapted to the northern climatic conditions. While 30% of the trees in 3D-year-old planted stands of native origins were classified as having saw timber qualities, only 7% of the trees in the Central European stands obtained the same classification. These provenance transfers had a negative effect on timber quality, particuarly on sites where frosts commonly occur in late spring or early autumn. The stands established with seedlings from introduced provenances are in many cases mixed with stands of local seed origin and are often not recognizable. The seeds harvested in such areas, even in healthy stands, may be partly from local and partly from provenance hybrid crosses. Critical factors are the abundance of flowering in the stands of introduced provenances, the range of pollen migration and how fast the natural selection process proceeds.Transfers of Norway spruce provenances from southern to northern latitudes and from low to high altitudes also have been made within Norway. Such transfers have in some cases resulted in plantations that show lack of adapation to the climatic conditions. However, as these plantations in many cases have failed and are rather scattered, they will in a few cases produce pollen or seeds in large enough quantities to have a practical consequences, either for natural regeneration or for seed collections.The concept of genetic diversity of forest trees has not been an important topic in public discussions in Norway. The introduction of Central European Norway spruce provenances has been criticized, but on grounds of the reduced timber quality in the planted stands and not so much because of a possible threat to the local spruce genetic resources. The introduction of spruce and its replacement of Scots pine and deciduous tree stands in western and northern Norway outside its natural range are debated locally. The negative voices are based partly on ecological considerations from naturalist groups as well as a general reluctance to accept changes in the landscape.Public awareness of forest genetic resources and the considerations of their importance for the future forests are generally missing.The forest tree genetic resources have generally been managed through the reforestation strategies employed after harvesting. Natural regeneration is encouraged where it is a feasible and optimal regeneration method. Thirty-five years ago the annual volume of forest tree seedlings planted exceeded 100 million. This number has been drastically reduced, and in the last 10-year period 50-55 million spruce seedlings have been planted annually. During the last 5-year period there has been a reduction in the number of seedlings planted.The gene conservation activities of forest trees in Norway are accomplished in three different ways: by nature conservation areas in national parks, protected landscape areas or nature reserves; by recently established conservation areas in productive coniferous forests, and by matedals preserved in clonal archives or seed orchards as part of the tree breeding program.The conservation of forest genetic resources has not been a motive for the establishment of nature conservation areas. Most national parks and nature reserves are located far north and at high altitudes and do not sample representative areas of the Norwegian coniferous forest. In total 20 000 ha of coniferous forest are conserved in these areas. They cannot be considered to play a major role in the conservation of the Norway spruce genetic resources.Based on a national plan to conserve coniferous forest, altogether 25 000 ha of productive forest have been protected. Norway spruce is the main species in the larger part of these areas. The main intention was conservation of biological diversity in general, but conservation of the genetic resources also was a motive. These areas are distributed in different parts of the country and are stratified to be representative for all major ecological zones. The different areas vary in size, from 10 to several thousand hectares.The more active gene conservation work is performed by the establishment of clonal archives or seed orchards of grafted Norway spruce clones. Selections of plus trees have been made in natural stands covering the entire distribution throughout the country to be included in breeding populations. More than 3000 selected trees have been grafted, most of these at several localities. They were grouped in breeding populations according to the latitude and altitude of the origin of the natural stand. However, it was soon realized that progeny tests are necessary to assess the genetic value of a selected plus tree, and more than 2000 of the selected trees have been tested by family tests planted in trials at several sites. Traits that have been measured include height and diameter growth, annual growth rhythm characteristics, climatic damage and stem and branch quality. In addition, a large number of families have been tested in artificial freezing experiments.The grafted clones and their offspring in progeny tests are an important part of the gene conservation activities, as they are the only materials from which specific genetic information is available.So far, no studies of isozyme or DNA genetic markers have been performed to characterize the genetic variability of the Norwegian spruce population. The genetic information available comes from quantitative genetic studies in provenance trials and family and clonal tests. The largest efforts have been made to characterize adaptation to the climatic conditions. Therefore measurements have in particular been made of annual growth rhythm traits: the timing and duration of the annual growth period, frost hardiness development in the autumn and dehardening in the spring, and the occurrence of climatic damage under field conditions. All studies demonstrate a clinal variation in growth rhythm characteristics of natural populations from the south to the north and from low to high altitudes. The southern and low altitude populations have the longest duration of the growth season, and, as a consequence, the highest growth potential. They also have the latest development of autumn frost hardiness. The only well-known characterizations of the adaptative process of spruce populations are the responses to temperature and photoperiod.The genetic variation is large within all natural populations studied, also for traits that shown clinal variation at the provenance level. Genetic correlations between traits may change dramatically, depending on the genetic level, whether it be based on population, family or clonal means.The general intentions with the genetic research in Norway spruce are: to describe and understand the genetic variability of the species, to develop stategies for breeding for better quality in well-adapted, high-yielding plantations, and to assure that sufficient genetic variability is conserved for the future evolution of the species.At present the main research interest is focused on the genetic mechanisms behind the variability observed in phenotypic traits having importance for adaptation to the climatic conditions. Based on experimental evidence, our hypothesis is that genetic variation in such traits is not only regulated by classical (Mendelian) gene frequency differences, but also by other mechanisms (e.g. gene regulations), and that these factors are triggered by environmental influences during the generative reproductive process. If this is the case, then it will have large implications both for understanding the evolutionary process and for the conservation of the genetic resources of the species.These effects were brought into focus by the location of seed orchards in warmer climates. The seedlings produced in Norway spruce seed orchards in Norway where the par,ental clones are transferred to seed orchard sites 6-8 degrees of latitude southwards or to 500-600 m lower in altitude, do not retain the annual growth rhythm of their parents, see Johnsen (1989a,b) and Skmppa and Johnsen (1994). Progenies after controlled crosses in such orchards, as well as the open-pollinated orchard offspring, have in particular a later growth start in the spring, a delayed growth cessation and a later development of autumn frost hardiness than their sibs born in their native environment. The effects have been shown in freezing tests of 1-or 2-year-old seedlings, but are verified by growth rhythm studies in experiments with 10-year-old trees (Skmppa 1994) and after clonal propagation (Johnsen 1989a). The population mean of seed orchard offspring is changed, but the genetic variation between different families for the traits seems to be retained. The environmental influences during the reproductive process have been verified by making identical crosses in a greenhouse and in a nearby seed orchard (Johnsen et al. 1995), and early and late in the spring in a heated greenhouse and outside the greenhouse (Johnsen and Skmppa, unpublished).Results from field trials and in practical plantings indicate that the observed effects may have practical consequences under extreme climatic situations in the field (Skmppa, unpublished). The effects may either be positive or negative for the survival and quality of the plantation, depending on how the climatic extremes are related to the annual growth rhythm of the material. The situation seems to be similar to that of a provenance transfer. It will be adavantageous under certain environmental conditions, but the opposite under other conditions.Norway spruce is a young species in Norway and shows large flexibility to a wide range of environmental conditions. Its genetic resources are not considered to be threatened, both because of the existence of old-growth natural stands and the extensive use of natural regeneration. When new stands are established by planting, seeds are transferred over rather short distances or are of local origin. An extended use of seed-orchard seed in the future may change the genetic composition of the planted stands. As long as the seed orchards contain a relatively large number of parents, this should not be considered a threat to the genetic resources. However, a combined strategy for the long-term breeding and gene resource conservation should be developed. An understanding of the genetic mechanisms behind the environmental influence during reproduction on the adaptive properties of the offspring will be of fundamental importance for both the breeding and conservation activities.Forestry Research Institute of Saxony, D-01827 Graupa, GermanyIn Germany, Norway spruce is the most important timber tree and covers about 35% of the forest area and about 60% of the total fellings in 1993. Beginning in the eastern part of Germany in the 1960s and continuing in the western part of Germany in the 1980s, severe damage of Norway spruce stands caused by air pollution and forest decline could be observed. Recording of these damages started in 1984. In 1994, Norway spruce had the largest area damaged of all tree species because of its big proportion of the total forest area. The heaviest damages could be observed in the higher altitudes of the mountainous regions and the Alps which are mainly part of the natural distribution area of Norway spruce. Stands over 60 years old showed the worst damages. In 1985, the working party Conservation of Forest Gene Resources was established to coordinate the efforts of federal and state institutions concerning the conservation of forest gene resources. Among other tree species, Norway spruce has the first priority. Based on the conservation work already done by different tree-breeding institutions, the working party developed a 'Concept on the Conservation of Forest Gene Resources in the Federal Republic of Germany' in 1989. In the concept, several in situ and ex situ measures were planned which should be realized within the next decade. The conservation work done since 1989 was mainly concentrated on the in situ conservation of Norway spruce stands, the establishment of ex situ conservation stands, the collection and storage of seeds and the vegetative propagation of single trees. Finally, research needs and tasks were identified related to the conservation activities planned.After the last ice age, Norway spruce most probably remigrated into the area of today'S Germany from two refugial areas, the Balkan Peninsula and the Carpathian Mountains. One of the main migration streams led obviously from the Beskides over the Sudeten to the Ore Mountains which were reached about 6500 BC. The other mainstream started in the refugial area on the Balkan Peninsula, followed the edge of the eastern Alps, crossed the river Danube, went west and northwest and came over the Bohemian Forest to the Bavarian Forest in the southeast of Germany. Both migration streams may have met in the Fichtelgebirge, the Frankonian Forest and the Thuringian Forest. About 4000 BC, the Harz Mountains were reached. The southern part of Germany was remigrated by Norway spruce parallel to the northern edge of the Alps, coming from the eastern parts of the Alps and finally reached the Black Forest in 1500 BC (Fig. 1).In Germany, Norway spruce occurs naturally in the mountainous and subalpine regions. Its natural distribution area covers the Alps, the higher altitudes of the Black Forest and of the Middle and East German Mountains. In the natural forest societies, pure Norway spruce stands can be found on extreme sites only, e.g. at the high mountainous and subalpine level of the northern edge of the Alps, on cold, wet sites of the Black Forest and the foothills of the Alps, and at the higher altitudes of the Bavarian, Middle and East German mountainous areas. Apart from these particular sites, Norway spruce normally contributes to mixed beech, fir or pine forest societies in different percentages. In total, Norway spruce is associated on about 25% of the natural forest areas.• . . In consequence of the thorough devastation of the forests until the end of the 18th C and the enormous timber demand in early industrial times, natural forests were 2hanged to artificial forests. Because of its wide ecological range, fast growth rate and ability to cope with clear-cut conditions, pure Norway spruce stands were promoted by forestry apart from Scots pine. These led to an:-increase of Norway spruce up to 100% on sites on which Norway spruce was represented only partly, -extension of Norway spruce on sites which were not suitable for Norway spruce within the natural distribution area, and -extension on sites outside of the natural distribution area.The promotion of Norway spruce by forestry for two centuries was accompanied by the transfer of reproductive material. In many cases, the origin of this material was not known or not suitable in the long term. These facts make it difficult to identify and delimit natural autochthonous Norway spruce forests from nearly natural or artificial formations of Norway spruce forests. Apart from these, Norway spruce showed good yield and quality performance on very different site conditions which favoured the planting of this species over a long period.In 1993, about 30% of the total land area of Germany was covered by forests, i.e. the forest area added up to 10.7 million ha, and 3.8 million ha of the forest area (35%)In the past, the structures and the character of natural forests in Germany were heavily influenced by exploitation, deforestation, change of species composition, etc. Since industrialization, forest decline caused by air pollution influenced Norway spruce populations locally and regionally. In the eastern part of Germany, the damage of Norway spruce stands began in the 1960s and took dramatic dimensions, especially in the Ore Mountains. In many cases, the locally adapted populations disappeared within the shortest time. Since the beginning of the 1980s, the damages caused by forest decline also increased in western Germany. As opposed to the damages in eastern Germany, these damages could only be related in single cases to a certain emittent of air pollution.Since 1984, the damages to the forests have been ascertained and published in a yearly report in the western part of Germany and since 1990 in the whole of Germany. The results of visible damages of Norway spruce (loss of more than 25% of needles) show clear differences in the percentages and in the development of the damages in the northwest, east and south of Germany (Fig. 2). In 1994, the highest average damages could be observed in the eastern part of Germany. Norway spruce stands in the higher altitudes of the Thuringian Forests and the Ore Mountains were particularly damaged. Norway spruce stands with more than 30% of damaged trees could be found in the Alps, the Black Forest, the northwestern Hessian Mountains and the southwestern part of Schleswig-Holstein. The distribution of the damages on age classes showed a clear difference between stands over 60 years and under 60 years of age (Table 1). Mixed stands were damaged as well as pure stands.In summary, Norway spruce has the largest area damaged of all tree species because of its large proportion of the total forest area. The heaviest damages were observed in the higher altitudes of mountainous regions and the Alps, which are part of the natural distribution area of Norway spruce, where stands >60 years old had the worst damages.In future, climate changes caused by global warming could lead to a threat to Norway spruce populations. However, the consequences are very difficult to estimate. In particular, an increase in temperature connected with higher evaporation and lower precipitation could result in higher susceptibility to pests and diseases.  Because of the heavy damages by air pollution in the German Democratic Republic, a special programme for the conservation of Norway spruce was established in 1985. In the Federal Republic of Germany, the working party 'Conservation of Forest Gene Resources' was established in 1985 based on a resolution of the Bundesrat (upper house of the German parliament) and an agreement among the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry and the different State Ministries responsible for Forestry. The working party is composed of appointed representatives of the Federal Government and of the different state governments. The task of the working party is the development of a concept for the conservation of forest genetic resources and the coordination of gene conservation activities. The implementation and realization of gene conservation activities is the responsibility of each state and its research institutions and forest services. After the reunification of Germany, the new estabilished states joined the working party.The general objective of forest gene conservation is to conserve and save the genetic variation of tree and shrub species in the following generations. In the medium term, in situ conservation of Norway spruce stands and their natural or artificial regeneration by sowing or planting will not be possible in many regions owing to the continuing air pollution. Consequently, ex situ measures will be of great importance, e.g. the establishment of seed orchards and clone collections, the storage of seeds or parts of plants, and vegetative propagation. The following remarks are based on the concept of the working party Conservation of Forest Gene Resources which was published in 1989 before the re unification of Germany in 1990. The figures mentioned below for the planned conservation measures were extrapolated to consider also the Norway spruce forests of the five newly established states of Germany.It is planned to cover about 1 % of the Norway spruce area, i.e. about 38 000 ha, with conservation measures within the next decade beginning in 1989. From this area, 80%, i.e. 30800 ha, will be conserved in situ. It is assumed that it will not be possible to conserve the remaining 20% in situ owing to the increase of forest decline. For these 7200 ha, ex situ measures will be used. To minimize the risk of loss, it is planned to take double ex situ measures for about 3100 ha of the in situ area. Norway spruce stands which should be conserved by sowing or planting, i.e. 15 200 ha, will also be conserved by storage of seeds.In total, 30 800 ha of Norway spruce stands will be conserved in situ. The soil of 75% of these stands should be improved by application of lime. The vitality of all in situ stands should be increased by regular stand maintenance, thinning and fertilizing. The change in vitality has to be monitored by regular analysis of the soil and the needles. The results of the analysis will be used as a decision-making aid for future management.On condition of the fructification being sufficient and the soil conditions still suitable, about 300 ha/year of Norway spruce stands have to be regenerated naturally, after having reached a suitable age. The natural regeneration is promoted by specific silvicultural management, e.g. by fertilizing. Additionally, about 300 ha/year should be regenerated artificially using material from stands worth conserving.About 10 300 ha of Norway spruce stands are to be conserved by ex situ measures; 3100 ha out of these are included in double measures. This area should be conserved representatively on an area of about 1000 ha. The establishment of seed orchards will be one priority of the ex situ conservation.Especially in the higher altitudes of the mountainous and subalpine regions, various Norway spruce populations have already disappeared. Some of these populations are part of different national and international provenance trials or conserved in clone collections established for breeding purposes. This material can be used to assemble clones in collections or seed orchards.In the first decade, about 6000 trees should be selected from the 7200 ha to be conserved ex situ. These 6000 trees have to be conserved representatively on an area of 600 ha. Additionally, clone collections should be established for the conservadon of endangered relict populations and single trees which represent rare genotypes or material important for breeding. For this, 1000 clones can be estimated, thus requiring an additional area of 20 ha.It is planned to conserve about 13 200 ha of Norway spruce stands by sowing and planting in situ and ex situ. Together with the procurement of seeds for these measures, seeds for storage purposes have to be collected. In Germany, seed collection of Norway spruce is possible every 3 years on average. In the first decade, about 12 000 ha of Norway spruce stands should be collected with 4 kg seeds per stand.As an additional conservation measure, pollen of about 5000 selected breeding trees has to be collected and stored. In the first decade, the storage of plants or parts of plants is not planned for. It is much more effective to store seeds. If starting material is limited and cannot be propagated in a different way, macrovegetative propagation is used. For this purpose, about 6000 clones with an additional area of 10 ha will be needed. The microvegetative propagation using tissue culture is not developed yet. But this method is of special interest for the conservation of old trees which are difficult to propagate by cuttings or grafting.The current state of activities Among other species, the conservation of Norway spruce gene resources has the highest priority. Because of the different levels of damages, regional priorities have to be set. Generally, the conservation measures are mainly concentrated on Norway spruce stands which are approved according to the federal law on forest reproductive material. In 1993,44466.2 ha of Norway spruce stands were approved for the production of selected reproductive material. About 62% of these stands were the property of the states. The remaining stands were mainly distributed between private (19%) and corporate owners (18%). Only a marginal percentage belonged to the Federal Republic of Germany (1 %).Additionally, several in situ and ex situ measures were taken to conserve Norway spruce gene information until the end of 1993. The emphasis was laid on in situ conservation of Norway spruce stands, the establishment of ex situ conservation stands, the collection and storage of seeds and the vegetative propagation of single trees by cuttings (Tables 2, 3 and 4). Activities in 1994 and ongoing activities in 1995 will be published in the next report of the working party Conservation of Forest Gene Resources at the end of 1995. In the past, research activities in forestry were mainly concentrated on the growth and yield of forest stands, silvicultural measures and genetic characterization of populations by provenance and progeny trials. Because of the extent of the forest decline, research was started on forest ecosystems but focused mainly on biogeochemical and energy cycles. On the other hand, a certain lack of knowledge could be observed in the field of gene conservation. Normally, measures should be based on scientific results, but gene conservation measures had to be established immediately to avoid the loss of a significant amount of genetic information. In this case, research should accompany the measures of gene conservation.The research activities and needs can be divided into two categories, the research on practical gene conservation measures and the research on specific problems which are the genetic variation of Norway spruce will be influenced and possibly reduced in the medium to long term by more intensive use of genetically improved material.There is a risk that the increased use of genetically improved material will supersede land race material. This development may result in an unfortunate situation where it will be impossible to retrieve useful basic material for breeding purposes.Norway spruce genetic resources will be protected as described above. Research activities and needs relevant to the survey of genetic resources for further development of conservation strategies Research concerning forest genetic resources in Denmark has so far been focused on indigenous species. However, there is a need for research on the important exotic species, i.e. scientific verification of whether evolvement of landraces actually has taken place and how the genepool has been affected by strong selection under the environmental conditions in Denmark. Further, significant genetic variation in fertility has been observed and there is a need for information on causes as well as the long-term consequences of this phenomenon.Intensive breeding activities and provenance trials have contributed greatly to the current knowledge about Norway spruce.Finally, much research regarding forest dieback is currently being carried out in Denmark, and Norway spruce plays an important role in this research since it is one of the species that is most threatened by forest dieback.Generally the public awareness of the importance of conservation of forest ecosystems as a whole is very large and it has grown over the last few decades. The public interest in forests has led to various government initiatives, e.g. a strategy for conservation of natural forests and other forest types of high conservation value in Denmark.The overall objective of the strategy is to conserve the biodiversity of the Danish forests, including the forest genetic resources. The preparation and implementation of the strategy has been covered by the news media and followed closely by all major Danish NGOs interested in environmental issues.However, conservation of genetic resources of trees probably has lower priority among the public than conservation of forest ecosystems.As Norway spruce is not a native species in Denmark, the conservation activities in the species' natural distribution area are obviously regarded as very important.It follows from this view that information on specific conservation activities concerning Norway spruce in other European countries is very important from Denmark's perspective.Czech Republic forestry has the following problems limiting all activities and also the conservation of genetic resources:-large-scale air pollution damages and dieback of thousands of forests, not very convenient tree species composition, -too high a deer population (mainly red deer, Cervus eZaphus), -the present transformation of forestry including restitution and privatization process and changes in administration of forest management.The stability of most spruce stands has decreased to various levels because of emissions and acid rains. In total, 60% of all Czech forests are affected by air pollution at the present time (forested area was 2 641 000 ha in 1994).Forest tree species, mainly coniferous, are damaged to a catastrophical extent. Gene sources in some localities and regions-mainly in the northwest and the northern borders of Bohemia-are damaged and destroyed, industrial pollution being the main cause. The negative impact of dryness, destructive effect of abiotic agents multiplied by some insect pests and parasitic fungi and some incorrect silvicultural measures are also important causes of forest damage.The 10-year forecast predicts further dieback, mainly of spruce stands as Norway spruce represents the main timber-tree species.Spruce covers 55% of forest land (Table 1). Results of regional palynological investigations indicate that postglacial immigration of Picea abies into Czech lands occurred in the East Carpathian region. Norway spruce probably could be found only at two areas in 11 500 BC: in Eastern Bohemia (Broumov bassein) and along the north Moravian borders with Slovakia. Norway spruce probably spread in our territory in two main streams: Carpathian-Sudeten and Hercynian. The first one came from the Tatra region, Hercynian way and started probably around the Vienna Forest. The contact of both streams occurred in the Ore Mountains region about the Atlantic period and in the Subboreal the maximum extent of spruce occurred. Several regions are discerned as well as local ecotypes (Picea hercynica, -bavarica, -saxonica, -harcyniana, -corcontica, -silesiaca, P. carpatica -beschidiaca).Originally, pure stands were created mainly in higher elevations of border mountains with optimum altitude between 600 and 1000 m above sea level. Norway spruce was the most frequent companion of beech and European silver fir (so-called hercynian mixture).Secondary distribution began in the 18th C as a result of the Czech Directive for Forest and Timber (1754) which recommended cultivation of conifers mainly. Residues of natural forests were preserved only in inaccessible localities. Planting of Norway spruce monocultures outside its natural range resulted in increasing wood production, but forest calamities of various origin became more and more frequent. Unsuitable spruce ecotypes, repeated planting of the same species resulting in deprivation of forest soil, and spruce stands on labile soils affected by underground water are the main reasons for considerable problems. It is supposed that originally in the natural species composition Norway spruce covered 12-15% of the forested area. The current extent is 55%, an objective derived from management models (52%), the Comprehensive Forest Management Plan, 1991 (48%) and the supposed optimum (40%).Information about the current status of Norway spruce is presented in Table 1 and Fig. 1. Norway spruce is present in various levels in several Forest Vegetation Zones (FVZ; based on climatic characteristics, elevation above sea level, average temperature, annual precipitation and length of vegetation period), usually from FVZ 2 (beech-oak) to FVZ 8 (spruce). Conservation aims and the current state of conservation activities Application of thG principle of sustainable development in all forests (through special management and use of forests in such a way and extent that their stability, biodiversity, production and regeneration capacity fulfill useful roles in the forest) is one of the basic strategic continuous targets of the Czech forest policy. Current results of provenance research gave us information on geographical variability of qualitative and quantitative characteristics and reactions of various populations to different site conditions. These results are used in forestry practice as 'Directives for certification and ensuring of reproductive material sources and its transfer' (valid from 1988), taking into account the use of different provenances in the Czech Republic and following a definition of seedcollection regions and recommendations for the transfer of seed material within and among the regions. Slight modification of the respective rules is in preparation.The basic principle for designation of seed zones and seed material transfer is to use certificated reproductive material of local origin. Transfer of seed material, seedlings and transplants to other forest regions is realized in the same seed zone and vegetative forest type (admissible tolerance is ± one degree). Seed zones are defined for Norway spruce; the Czech Republic adopted respective regulations many years ago. There is a fear that all these principles could be neglected in the present period of transformation.The Ministries of Agriculture and Environment are responsible for conservation of genetic resources of all forest tree species. The Forestry Research Institute has a special charge by a MoA to solve tasks relevant to gene resources conservation.The concept of gene-resources preservation of existing institutions administering state forests (Forests of the Czech Republic -LCR) is based on standard approaches and longterm experience and research recommendations. Considering the economic limitations the concept is minimal; nevertheless it is the base that should be used in legislation focused on preservation and improvement of forest gene resources. Besides natural regeneration, which is preferred, there are other measures (both in situ and ex situ) for protection and reproduction of gene resources of forest-tree species which have been realized in practical forest management and investigation programmes in individual Forest Zones: Newly planted stands representing, in our view, certified stands approved for seed collection of the best A category. Their role is to save the genepool and later to be a source of seed; 2337.70 ha of such seed stands (1583.42 ha by artificial planting, 750.04 ha through natural regeneration) have been established for Norway spruce.Concerning the aim of preservation of the whole genetic spectrum, not only partial populations and important single trees are subjects of our interest. Populations from marginal areas and extreme localities also have to be preserved. Such populations and single trees can be provided by genes important for breeding (adaptability, resistance). Different experimental plots, e.g. provenance ones, are also the form of preservation of spruce gene sources.Provenance research is important from the viewpoint of the choice of suitable provenances, of their transfer and following deSignation of seed zones. FGMRI JfloviSte-Strnady takes part in the most important international Norway spruce trials (IUFRO 1938, IUFRO 1964/68) and, including bilateral collaboration in spruce provenance research, a total of 1522 populations (791 Czech ones) on more than 76 ha of plots are tested.Of course, the Nature Preserves are of great importance for the revitalization and regeneration of natural or seminatural, and thus more stable, forest communities. Improving collaboration of employees and experts on nature protection and representatives of the forests of the Czech Republic resulted, in addition to other effects, in refusing demands to prevent any intervention in National Protected Regions. Some valuable elements of the protected zones often could be barely preserved without minimal management interferences. Seed collecting, self-seedlings and advanced growth can be used in other stands, often under the special management regime as gene bases (see above).The protected areas at the present time are listed in Table 2. In two-thirds of them the Norway spruce plays an important role. The areas most affected by industrial pollution are in the northern part of the country, in the infamous Ore Mountains. As reintroduction of the Norway spruce local populations is possible only after a substantial change in the current ecological conditions, an ex situ breeding programme was started 10 years ago. Where seed collection was still possible, cultivated seedlings were used as ortet for the next cutting propagation. From so-called 'resistant trees', grafts were prepared; about 150 clones are available.Breeding programmes represent one form of genepool preservation. Their aim is preservation of autochthonous spruce populations. They are gradually prepared for individual regions.Allochthopous populations also are taken into consideration. The first programmes prepared by Sindelar for the Krkonose-Giant Mountains and the Bohemian-Moravian Uplands were based mainly on cuttings. Later the FGMRI started with complete programmes in<:luding testing of cultivated material (Ore Mountains, Jizerske hory Mountains and Sumava Forest regions).The unsuitable situation of our forests necessitates development of new methods of vegetative propagation. In vitro propagation of trees by organ cultures and somatic embryogenesis is being tested and used for rapid multiplication and production of individuals with desirable genetic traits. These biotechnological methods are also used for production of more resistant or the most threatened trees.It is supposed that cryopreservation is not the method which should be used for conservation of Norway spruce or other species genepools in the Czech Republic. Ongoing tests, e.g. with Norway spruce from Jizerske hory Mountains in 1993, seem to be too expensive. A seedbank with deep freezers is probably the best method. Before storing, the seed material is treated and then stored in vacuum polythene containers and kept at 25-35°C below zero. Experiences by others suggest that for Norway spruce the storage period should be 30-40 years. A larger number of smaller samples of regionalpopy.1ation seeds should be stored in the genebank of the Crop Production Institute.Mainly around developing industrial agglomerations the symptoms of emission impact are visible. Usually higher elevations have been damaged heavily and local spruce populations in some regions are seriously threatened.It could be stated that all high-mountain and mountain ecotypes are threatened in every forest region. Their situation is usually critical because they are the remainders of original populations and have decreased ability of fructification. (On the other hand, we can find the fructification on some exposed localities but collection is not economical.) Considering the insufficiency of spruce seeds in the highest areas, part of the planting stock is grown vegetatively, usually through cuttings. FVZ 5-6 Ecotype of mid-elevations is the best one from the productivity point of view. Original populations are also rare; many labile monocultures of unknown origin prevail here. forests in our country (small forest means less than 50 ha, but unfortunately the average area of such 'small forests' is about 2 ha).We are afraid that the public has other troubles in mind. In this situation foresters need more competent and skilled access to public education and information at all levels (from schools to MPs). It seems that in the present transformation period nobody has an interest in forests-after all, they grow by themselves and for a long time-except new owners and their lobby groups.As there are too many other money-consuming problems, forests are usually put off as in the past (GDP of forestry is less than 1%). Consequently, long-term activities, research and education are in a bad state because of drastic cuts in research budgets and huge staff reductions.Devastating anthropogenic impact on forests, in spite of the better conditions of air pollution in the last 2 years, is continuing.The transition to multiple-resource management of forests is additionally complicated in consequence of current economic reform, especially restitution of private and public ownership and changes of organizational structure in forestry management.The realization of necessary forest management practices is more expensive and budgetary problems can make difficulties during implementation of all respective needs.The most important common needs of Czech forestry are:-solving the ongoing problems mentioned above air pollution (and depositions), -unsuitable tree species composition of forests, -too many hoofed game in forest stands, -finishing the transformation processes, adopting a new Forest Act, changing the approach to the forest and forestry in general, -step-by-step solving of the problem of the relationship between foresters and environmentalists, -creation of a stable and long-lasting system of education and research activities funding.The establishment of the 'forest seed bank', prepared by the Forests of the CR Seed Enterprise in TyniSte nad Orliel, will be an important measure. Recently its status is under discussion, and collaboration with the genebank of Crop Production Research Institute (WRV Ruzyne) is expected.The preservation of gene resources and the use of proper genetically suitable seedlings by the new forest owners has to be ensured by continuing education programmes, but mainly by the new Forest Act and Directives, which should be finalized as soon as possible.An important part of current forestry is finishing the process of reprivatization and ensuring management control of all forest stands by experts. Failure to do so will have negative impact also on gene resources, bearing in mind that, in forests not professionally managed, overlogging, insufficient management of calamities, c1earcutting, neglecting the regeneration, and generally deterioration of forest state and stability can occur.The creation of a functional system of state administration that associates small owners, expert consultations and control of management, instruments for motivation and compensation of forest owners' interests will be of importance.All the abovementioned items may be considered as too general but it concerns mainly Norway spruce, which has a wide distribution and occurrence.Last but not least, moral and financial support of people dealing with the forest problems is necessary, considering that forests, in which the Norway spruce plays an important role, whatever their current state, are an important part of the state welfare.• preservation and improvement of species variability • rational use of gene resources (national system for better forest seed use, organization of forest seed supply and creation of seed inspection is recommended) • support of natural regeneration • education of foresters and the public • approaching the positions of nature protection bodies and foresters at all levels.• own forest seed material sources • selection of plus trees and populations not considering the species origin • closing of the programme of clonal archives establishing the mountain spruce.All measurements have to be based on the new legislation reflecting social and economic changes but respecting the forestry ecological approach in forest management. Following common principles, foresters must overcome the pressure of economic lobbies or / and too green ideas to be able save our forests as the most important part of the environment and a heritage for future generations.Oudara Souvannavong Forestry Resources Division, Forestry Department, FAO, Rome, ItalyAccording to its Constitution, the main functions of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) are (i) to serve as an international forum and secretariat for food and agricultural matters (including fisheries and forestry), (ii) to provide technical assistance in its field of competence, and (iii) to promote exchange of information and know-how between nations. Assistance to member nations in the conservation and wise utilization of natural resources is clearly mentioned as being the responsibility of the Organization.Plant genetic resources have been a concern of FAO since its early years. A Panel of Experts on Plant Exploration and Introduction was established in 1962 and the Organization housed the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (IBPGR) from its establishment in 1974 until 1994 (IBPGR is now the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, IPGRI).This paper briefly presents FAO's activities related to forest genetic resources, with emphasis on activities related to the European Forest Genetic Resources Programme (EUFORGEN). They all have wide-ranging experience and knowledge of activities and issues related to forest genetic resources in their country, subregion or region of origin. The Panel meets every 3 or 4 years. In addition to its recommendations for action in the short, medium and long terms, the Panel draws up and regularly updates a list of priority species by region and operation (exploration, collection, evaluation, conservation, utilization). The last (8th) session of the Panel took place in June 1993; its report is available in English, French and Spanish.In essence FAO works through, or in cooperation with, the national organizations of its member countries. Although FAO is a technical assistance organization rather than a financing agency, modest Regular Programme funds are available for use as 'seed money' to support actions in response to needs identified by the Panel. In addition, externally procured funds contribute importantly to FAO activities, particularly in technical assistance projects in the developing countries. FORTIP is a good example of such projects.FAO cooperates closely and regularly with other international organizations (such as Unesco, UNEP, IPGRI and IUFRO), with regional and subregional organizations and with bilateral cooperation agencies.Technical support, especially to developing countries, for the conservation and wise use of forest genetic resources is an important task of FAO's Forestry Department. This support includes all aspects of work, from programmes for the in situ conservation of forest genetic resources to assistance for the development of sound tree improvement programmes, the establishment of seed centres, and advice on sustainable forest management, incorporating conservation concerns, and on appropriate seed sources for tree planting and reforestation projects. Assistance is provided, on .request, directly to the national organizations or via field projects.In addition to its supervision of and contacts with approximately 200 forestry field projects, the Department maintains close relations with over 60 seed centres and a similar number of research institutes and departments concerned with forest genetic resources conservation and improvement in developed as well as developing countries. The quality and wide range of contacts the Department maintains with institutions active in the field contribute to the fulfilment of its information and coordination mandate and helps it promote cooperation between developed and developing countries, as well as among developing countries.FAO has over the years prioritized the dissemination and exchange of information to avoid overlap and duplication of efforts on a global level. Coordination of activities is facilitated by the work of the FAO Panel of Experts on Forest Gene Resources, which considers reports and information on ongoing and planned activities of all relevant organizations. The FAO Forestry Department Newsletter, Forest Genetic Resources, published annually in three languages, is a valuable additional medium in this regard, and regularly includes contributions from a range of institutions active in the forest genetic resources field.Workshops and symposia are other means for information exchange, coordination and collaboration. FAO regularly organizes, cosponsors or contributes to such meetings in cooperation with other national and international institutions, including IUFRO.One of the first internationally coordinated works in the field of forest genetic resources which convincingly demonstrated the value of systematic exploration/ evaluation was the wide-ranging collections of Eucalyptus camaldulensis, carried out in the 1960s by the Forestry and Timber Bureau in Canberra, Australia, with technical and financial assistance from FAO's Forestry Department. FAO-coordinated provenance trials were subsequently established on 32 sites in 18 countries. Subsequent seed collections, followed by internationally coordinated provenance trials, include collections of pines and hardwood species in Central America and Mexico, Tectona grandis, Gmelina arborea, Acacia, Casuarina and Eucalyptus species, Azadirachta indica (neem), and moist and arid-zone hardwoods in West Africa. All these collections have systematically been made in cooperation with national institutes, and where moderate funding has been available from FAO, such funds have been channelled to permit the full and active participation of such institutes in the work.Comprehensive trials are of little value if the tested provenances have disappeared by the time the results are known. FAO has given due attention to conservation of forest genetic resources both in situ and ex situ.In collaboration with CSIRO, OFI and DANIDA, 'semi-bulk' quantities of seed of proven provenances or provenances in danger of genetic depletion have been procured for the establishment of ex situ conservation stands in interested countries, as a mediumterm conservation measure. The species concerned so far are mainly tropical pines, eucalypts and Acacia and Prosopis species.Through a recent UNEP-assisted FAO project on in situ conservation of forest genetic resources, pilot in situ conservation areas have been established in collaboration with the Governments of Cameroon, Malaysia, Peru and Yemen.Wise and appropriate use of forest genetic resources requires building up or strengthening the national expertise and facilities in developing countries, including assistance in establishing/strengthening national or regional tree seed centres and related improvement/ conservation programmes. A large proportion of FAO's field projects includes these activities within the framework of wider development programmes. Exchange of know-how, information and genetic resources, and technical collaboration between countries, are also promoted, i.e. through the establishment of regional and international networks, as well as networking of institutes working in similar ecological conditions.The European Forest Genetic Resources Programme (EUFORGEN) was established as a follow-up to resolutions of the Ministerial Conference on Forest Protection in Europe, in its meetings in Strasbourg (1991) andHelsinki (1993). FAO is participating in the management committee of EUFORGEN, chaired by IPGRI. The general link between EUFORGEN activities and follow-up to the FAO Panel of Experts on Forest Gene Resources is evident. Furthermore, the activities of species-based EUFORGEN networks (the first four networks concern black poplar, cork oak, Norway spruce and 'noble hardwoods') are undertaken in coordination with other relevant FAO programmes. For instance, the first meeting of the black poplar network took place in conjunction with a meeting of the Executive Committee of the International Poplar Commission, a Statutory Body of FAO. FAO further provides coordination with relevant activities undertaken by research networks of Silva Mediterranea, a Statutory Body of FAO, concerning species which are found on both sides of the Mediterranean Sea, such as cork oak or the Mediterranean conifers.The Fourth International Technical Conference on Plant Genetic Resources, which will be convened by FAO in Germany in June 1996, is another framework where activities of EUFORGEN should produce useful inputs. The International Conference and Programme for Plant Genetic Resources (ICPPGR) coordinates the preparation of the Conference. During the preparatory process, a costed Global Plan of Action for plant genetic resources will be developed, based on a Report on the State of the World's Plant Genetic Resources. Country Reports, requested from each country, will provide the foundation of both documents. The process is integrating Regional or Subregional meetings and scientific studies on important issues. The International Conference will formally consider the adoption of the Global Plan of Action. IPGRI is collaborating in the preparation of the Conference at the national and regionallsubregionallevels.Two workshops, taking place in June 1995, will provide inputs to the international Conference: (i) the Workshop on Genetic Resources of North American Temperate Forest Species organized by the US Forest Service, and (ii) the Workshop on Genetic Resources of Boreal Zone Forest Species, organized by the Canadian Forest Service, which is of particular interest to the EUFORGEN Norway Spruce Network. Both workshops are organized in technical collaboration with FAO. They are very timely for providing inputs to the next session of the FAO Panel of Experts on Forest Gene Resources, planned to be held in October 1995, and in the International Technical Conference on PGR. EUFORGEN would be a good framework to undertake similar regional syntheSis for European forest species.","tokenCount":"26147"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"530f7ea020b09c243f0e854609e52c3a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H005540.pdf","id":"-1362353964"},"keywords":["r•?••• •••• J:",".7:","?:. ....... ~urf~~E:!~!rrigation"],"sieverID":"19cf995f-9168-45ae-b955-392eda0e60df","pagecount":"180","content":"• l':! t~IQ.f\"!d9f~ri~ntf!ti ofl . ..t..r!_tl!LChaJ'18'i!:!,g~.l!.text Th(~ irrigation employees, fanners and agricult\\lre extension people need to be exposed the process and procedures of functioning of water users association. High level government officials and policy 1TL'' 1.h:ers are interested to see the Hater Users associations be properly fonned and ma1{e them functional for hptter irrigation management. 100 ma.lte them capable of collecting information at short period of time (c) to mal{e them prepare the report on site (d) to expose the farmers on the organization and function of the irr'igation organization. This will be farmers to farmers training programme .(e) t.o malre the agriculture extension people aware on the water management under different Hater situation like water scarcity system, Hater ablmdanee system etc and show the relationship behleen the crop choice and ,.,rater availability. 1.00 5.00 6 • 00 -8. 00 11'1.R.OO PM . February, 1989 ( 1 2 Fagun, 2(H 5 ) 7.00 Nt.8.00 Nf 12.00 -1.001.00 -5.00 5.00 -7.00February, 1989 (13 Fagtm, 2015)   7.00 N1.8.00 Nt.12.00 -1.002.00 February, 1989(14 Fagun, 2045) 8.00 AH.12.00 - 1.00 Briefirut on Pithm-la by the Hembers of f'1anagement Commi ttee of Pi thtn\"a Irrigation System.N('TJ:11's i t'I'll4aLiotl s,\\'stems C11n twoadJy be categorized into tHO types hlSPc\\ upon l\"hf.~I'(~ thf' r('spOflS i hi Ii ty for management 1 ies: a~ency~manap;ed .. '~~.st.elHs and fmmer-malJllp;('(i S;\\'stPnls. In BUS, the fanners tal{e the I'psponsi hi I i I'~' for Hater' aCfllJis i I.j on, Hater allocation and distribution I and thl\" ovel'nl1 mcmagemPllt of t,he system 011 11 continuous basis. Any external rtssist::lnep tn fanner-lfk,)lla~ed syst.ems is occasional as specific needs arise. Tn agc'ney-mrlllagpd systems ,govermllf'llt. personnel are responsible for the manngem'~flt of t11f~ s:,>'stem Id til varyi ng J evels of fanner participation. Mlile t hI\" fn l'IW'1'S lila;\\' \\)(' respol)sbi 1f~ for asppets of O&'H, (as in jointly-managed sys t !,~ms ), g(W(\"l'IlOletl tass i s tarw(~ and presence is ongoing. Approximate ly :1 GO, 000 !ree L~u'ps (1m) a rp undpr ngelwy mnllngf:ment and 608,000 ha are managed [J.Ii the f:lIl1l!~rs. The i\\griC'IIILIIf'Hl DevelopTlPnt T13.nl{ of Nepal (ADB/N) has df~\\'e 1 o)Y'd a hout. lOr\" oon ha. I i\\ 1 t.houi:!h Lhen~ has not been agreement on the f\"xh\"lIt nf t hp 81'(\"n 1I11der f8l'mel'~mnnaged irrigation, it can safely be ('()I1C'IIl(k'd thnt R£1:re[ltpt' alea is nndpr far'mer management. It is estimated Iltnt npplo':imaLely 1 , iO() FNJS e~:ist in the Tarai and over 15,000 of these s\\sl('ms 81'e funel,inning ill the hills of Nppnl.Thc' 1<)1:11 cu]1 ivatr,,<i nl'en ill Nepnl is estimated to be 3.1 million ha.The \\<Inter and Energy Commission Secretariat (\\\\lEeS) \\Vater Resource Tmpntol';'o-of 1'I1rn1 lJistl'iet l'f'port,s the pxistence of 1158,000 ha of FNIS jn I lip Tnra i.11 '. is estimat.ed Lhat in thp hi Us of NepaJ there are more than FiO.OOO lin of FNIS. I\\DB/N Im8 thus far dew'l oped 106,000 ha employing diff'f'l'r'lli forms of irTig:ltioll t('dmology (Gorh:hapa,tra. 29 September 1988:\\).- -------------------------------------------------------------------------The irrigable area is 1.9 million ha. Out of this area, 1.6 million ha are in the Tarai and 0.3 million ha in the hills. If we combine the farmer managed systems and agency-managed systems, the total area tmder irrigation comes to 1,058,000 ha, which indicates that about 33 percent of Nepal's cultivable land is under irrigation. Thirty-three percent of this total area is presently tmder agency management and 66 percent is farmer managed • Jt is estimated that 350,000 ha, or only one-third of the irrigated area in the country has perennial irrigation. Others have facilities lasting only one season.AGRlCUL'IURAL IroDUCTIVITY TARGETS With the adoption of the policy for the fulfillment of basic needs by the year 2000, two important interrelated targets were set: wheat production Hill be increased from 1.25 metric tons (mt)/ha to 2.5 mt/ha and paddy from 2 mt/ha to 3.5 mt/ha. The total production per year is targeted for 6 mt/ha t.;rhich is almost double the amount of the present production level. HOl4'eVer, production trends during the late sixties and seventies are not very encouraging. Not until the mid-eighties has there been some improvement in paddy production (see Table I LookilIg at productivity by district, 69 districts produce about two metric tons of paddy per ha. (See Table 2, Ranking of districts by paddy production.) Only six districts have higher production; Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, and Lali tpur top the list, producing between 4-5 mt/ha. There are reasons for this: the Kathmandu valley has access to more agricultural inputs and markets, extensive irrigation facilities, and productive soil. The higher productivity of the Kathmandu valley highlights the fact that irrigation alone is not sufficient to increase productivity but irrigation is a contributing factor, provided other conditions are also available. In the sectoral program, the rehabilitation of farmer-managed irrigation systems is also identified as a potential area for investment that may provide a quick return. However, several questions need to be answered before embarking on a large-scale rehabilitation scheme for FMIS. Some of the questions are: 1) What should be the objectives? 2) How can rehabilitation be best achieved? 3) Who can do it best? 4) How would the farmers be involved? 5) What factors inhibit farmer participation? Some of these questions will be reexamined in the later section on institutional developnent.Ground water utilization for irrigatio~. There have been several studies on the potential for ground water development for irrigation in the tarai regions in Nepal.Both shallow tube wells (STW) and deep tube wells (DTW) are installed in tarai regions. By 1986, the ADB/N and other agencies had installed over 14,000 STW units in the Tarai and about 17,000 ha receive irrigation water from DTW in the Tarai. The total potential of ground water for irrigation has yet to be fully explored.The ADB/N is planning to install 74,000 units of STW in the Tarai by the y~ar 2000. The Ground Water Development Board is also exploring the '\" possibility of expanding DTW and conjunctive use of ground water (World Bank 1987:8-32).The same study suggests that the per hectare cost for developing STW is beb-leen Rs 4,000-6,000  and the per hectare cost of IYI'W is approximately Rs 21,000 (US$ 1,050) at 1986 prices.The potential for increased ground water irrigation needs further exploration because it provides services quicker, promotes the participation of the beneficiaries both in cost sharing and management, and has tremendous potential for improving cropping intensity, agricultural productivity, and expansion of irrigated area • Current Hl'fGN policy gives priority in irrigation developnent to 10H-cost projects of short gestation period that do not create a heavy recurrent cost Inlrden. In this context, World Bank reports indicate that the most attractive option is offered by STW developnent by the private sector with support from an institutional credit system. In this program, small farmer ownership of the facilities has to be encouraged. However, deep tube well systems would be jointly managed by the agency and beneficiaries. A higher subsidy level may be required to encourage investment by the small farmer groups. Compared with capital investments in all public sector irrigation development which are wholly subsidized, these subsidies would be very small on a unit area basis (World Bank 1987:44-45) • (U3T RECOVERY ISSUE Cost recovery is an important issue in financing irrigation systems. Most of the irrigation systems are financed through loans to be paid over a period of time. There are two types of cost recovery: direct and indirect. Direct cost recovery collects the charges or tax directly from the beneficiaries. Costs may be indirectly recovered through a land development tax or increases in land revenues. In Nepal, cost recovery has been considered only during the time of loan negotiation when donor agencies express their concern for recovering the costs of the investment. The financing of irrigation developnent in Nepal has been basically from external resources through loans as compared to grants. (See Table 4, Foreign aid in the irrigation sector in Nepal.) Since dependency on external resources is very high, Nepal must develop a policy which will enable it to recover the costs of expenditures in the irrigation sector so that the loans can be repaid.Ta.ble 4. Foreign aid in the irrigation sector in Nepal (reported in Rs in millions a) • ---------------~-----------------------------------------------------------  ------------------------------~-------------------------------------------- ------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------:.t\" . Source: HMGN, Ministry of Finance. 1987/88:62-63. Water fees are fixed but the collection rate is very low. In some cnses, the collection cost is higher than the actual fees collected (Pradhan 1985:71-77). Even the o&M of the completed systems are subsidized by the government. It has been proposed that at least the o&M contribution be collected from the beneficiaries. This requires institutional rearrangements to transfer o&M responsibilities to the farmers.The cost recovery issue is concerned with the cost of development of the system. The cost requirement per hectare for irrigation development varies, depending upon the agencies involved and the type of irrigation system developed. The Department of Irrigation in the Sectoral Lending Strategy paper suggests a cost of Rs 50,000 per hectare for medium and minor irrigation development and Rs 5,OOO/ha for the rehabilitation of farmer managed irrigation systems.In the irrigation sectoral program, ADB/Manila took responsibility for irrigation development in the central and eastern regions of Nepal where it estimated a cost/ha of Rs 30,000 for the Tarai and Rs 60,000 for hill systems.The experiences of the ADB/N and Farm Irrigation and Water Utilization Division (FIWUD) in gravity irrigation systems indicate that with the farmers' participation, irrigation systems have been developed at a per hectare cost of around Rs 5,000/ha to Rs 15,000/ha (US$ 250-750 at the 1986 exchange rate).The cost aspect becomes an important issue when one talks about the enormous acreage to be developed in 13 years. Will the very high cost/ha encourage the farmers in general to participate in irrigation development? Will the government alone be able to pay the cost of expensive irrigation development? Examples from other countries have indicated that giving the farmers loans for the design and construction of irrigation facilities has tremendously reduced the cost/ha of irrigation construction.The cost recovery issue raises a number of questions needing resolution: What kind of development is expected? How much infrastructure is necessary per hectare? How can the investment on high-cost structures be balanced with the reliability of water in the system? Table 5 reports the funding requirements designated in the Sector Loan Plan according to scheme. The Sector Lending Strategy paper defines small ...  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------scare projects as irrigation systems of 50 ha or less in the hills and 500 ha or less in the Tarai. Medium-size projects include systems of 50-510 ha in the hills and 500-6,000 ha in the Tarai. Projects covering hill systems over 510 ha and Tarai systems larger than 6,000 ha are defined as large-scale (Department of Irrigation. 1988.) Table 5. F\\mding requirements under the Sector Loan Plan, according to scheme (reported in Rs in millions a ).Seventh Plan Cost Eighth Plan Cost Ninth Plan Cost (1985-1990) (1990-1995) (1995-2000) New Area to New Area to Net-t Area to Irrigate (ha) Irrigate (ha) Irrigate (ha)-----------~----------------------------------------------------------------- Source: DOl 1988.In order to increase production through irrigation, FMIS must be considered as a valuable resource upon which the nation can capitalize. Many ~IIS could increase their production if provided with appropriate assistance for structural or managerial improvements. However, farmer-managed irrigation systems have a tradition of mobilizing resources from within their communities. The resource mobilization methods of these systems need to be better understood before undertaking a rehabilitation assistance program. An appropriate assistance strategy that provides external support as needed but encourages the farmers to continue to manage their systems should be formulated. (For a description of resource mobilization in FMIS see Appendix 2.) -10The emphasis on small-and medium-scale irrigation systems focuses on immediate return and results on investment. Water resource development needs to be considered from a long-term perspective. The choice of projects should no longer be supply driven by funding from donor agencies. The Sector Loan strategy clearly states that the selection of irrigation schemes for assistance must be determined on a demand driven basis, in accordance with the needs of the country and the beneficiaries.Effort needs to be made to mobilize internal resources and gradually build up the schemes which will serve posterity after 20-30 years. If we caIDlot embark on this line, Nepal will be only the water course for big rivers, but Nepal will not have right to use them. The nation needs to harness its water resources using its own resources. This requires a new strategy for resource mobilization from within the country and outside the country.Looking at resources allocated between the development budget and the regular budget in the irrigation sector, 99 percent of the budget is allocated under development. Table 6 provides the figures for expenditures in irrigation allocated through each of these budgets. ---------------------------------------------------~-----------------------~ aDS! 1.00 =Rs 24.00 in 1988. Source: HMGN, Ministry of Finance 1988:56-58.-11 trend.construction.new areas, already exist. 9,500 ha (ADB 1987).net new from bringing aNinety-nine percent of the government's expenditures in the irrigation sector in the country comes from the development budget. In any plan period, 60-70 percent of the development budget comes from donor funds, hence, irrigation development and its regular maintenance is heavily dependent on external resources. There is a world trend of decreasing investment in the irrigation sector and Nepal will not be excepted from the effects of this This will have an adverse effect on the whole program of basic need fulfillment if Nepal is not careful. Furthermore, few resources have been available for operation and maintenance of systems as compared to funds available for the creation of new infrastructures. These issues raise the questions of not only ho~v to mobilize external resources, but also how to mobilize internal resources to keep the system productive after As much as possible, loan money should be used to bring presently unirrigated areas under irrigation. Unless we enter into the development of we will be investing money in areas where irrigation systems For example, the East Rapti Irrigation Project has several components including the installation of irrigation facilities for aboutThe command area of this project happens to be in the area where there are already a substantial amount of FMIS,2 therefore, the irrigated area to be developed might be very nominal. The people in this area might benefit from improved rural roads or river training but not large, previously unirrigated area under irrigation.What could be an alternative investment area? What policy shifts regarding investment are required, keeping in mind the objective to fulfill basic needs? One argument against investment in rehabilitation is that this provides greater opportunity for increased production to the section of the population that is comparatively better off already. Irrigation facility means access to higher productivity with improved seed and fertilizer. The Rasuwa/Nuwakot rural development program impact indicates that the World Bank-funded Rasuwa/Nuwakot Project helped the farmers of the river valleys more where they have access to irrigation. Equity considerations need to be considered. Why not go to new areas? Technology appropriate to providing irrigation facilities to new areas and to less privileged people needs to be developed. Along with the fulfillment of basic needs, extension of the means of production to the less privileged should also be considered in the selection of projects.TIvo agencies are directly involved in small-scale irrigation development: the ADB/N proposes to promote irrigation development through private initiatives, and the Department of Irrigation provides grants for irrigation development. ADB/N makes financing available to the individual or 2.About 55 farmer-managed irrigation systems with high productivity and water users organizations functioning were identified within this command area. See Khatri-Chhetri, T.B. et al. 1987. individuals through loans. rff\" \\ Sl:1~ Keeping in view the overall strategy for irrigation developnent, a uniform policy enforced by both the Department of Irrigation and ADB/N would be useful. The uniform policy should provide for the following:1) Beneficiary participation should be made compulsory in the identification, design, development and maintenance of a system.2) The grant/loan ratio needs to be uniform irrespective of the implementing agency.3) Irrigation development activities should be undertaken through a ~ter users' group in which all beneficiaries hold membership. 4) A minimum size command area or the number of beneficiaries qualifying for assistance needs to be specified with the objective of providing benefits to a larger group of people.5) The willingness of the beneficiaries to contribute labor/cash should be considered. 6) A ceiling for grant/loan assistance must be fixed based on either the total amount or per hectare cost.7) The responsibility of the district or the regional office must be spelled out regarding the amount of resources that can be spent for particular projects.At present one of the issues in irrigation developnent is how to bring technical and institutional development together. For the last 30 years irrigation agencies have focused on the technical questions of construction of systems. Limited attention was given to strengthening and developing institutional and management capacity through water users associations and the participation of the farmers in irrigation management. Institutional development aims at improvement of the systems through farmer participation. One of the major thrusts of the 1988 Sectoral Loan Strategy is to promote the participation of the farmers during the identification, construction, and O&M of the system.The institutional development question hinges on the legalization of water users associations (WUA) , farmers sharing responsibility for O&M of the system, establishment of a water fee collection mechanism, and for some systems, joint management or transfer of management responsibilities from the agency to the farmers. This implies that a new relationship must be established between the agency and the water users. Government must assume a supportive role and convince the beneficiaries that by sharing the responsibility for O&M they are assured of a more reliable water supply because they have more control over their system.Water user associations do not have legal status. They cannot enter -13 . ., \" , into any meaningful interaction with the agency. There has been a recent realization that in order to promote the participation of the farmers, legal status must be given to the water users associations.Besides legal recognition for water users associations, there is a need to organize and train the farmers to make the association functional. The formation of functional water users associations requires the dedication of a.gency time and energy. Not only is there a need to educate the irrigators to achieve a viable irrigation organization, ~lt agency technical support staff have to accept the WUA as resources for better management of systems.A national policy to promote the participation of the farmers in the design, construction, and O&M of the system needs to be established. Policy level officials must be committed to such a policy.The Department of Irrigation has been reorganized with the prov1s10n of five Deputy Director Generals to look after specific division activities. These are: 1) Small Irrigation and Water Utilization Division, 2) Large and r-fedhun Irrigation Division, 3) Ground Water Division, 4) Planning and Management Division, and 5) River Training and Environmental Division.The irrigation development responsibilities of FIWUD (Agriculture Department) and the irrigation activity responsibilities of the Panchayat and I~~l Development Ministry is amalgamated in the Department of Irrigation. AnB/N is given greater responsibility for irrigation development. Previously, ADB/N activities were confined only to small farmer development projects (SFDP). With the reorganization of the irrigation agencies, ADB/N can undertake activities throughout the districts and it does not have to confine its activities only to SFDP.The Regional Directorates, five in number, are strengthened to provide technical assistance and supervision to the District Offices.District Irrigation Offices (DIO) were established in 70 districts. Wherever the Regional Directorate is located, it functions as the District Irrigation office as well. The DIO has the responsibility of carrying out the principles of the Decentralization Act. It is responsible for tmdertaking feasibility studies, construction and implementation of district-level projects once they have received approval, river training, and organizing the beneficiary groups to manage the irrigation systems after completion.The District Irrigation Office also provides assistance for repair, rehabilitation, and improvement of farmer-managed irrigation systems. In doing so, local resources will be mobilized and the participation of the beneficiaries will be promoted (Gorkhapatra 11 May 1988).The irrigation sector is going through a rapid transformation from a construction to a management orientation. However, the transition will take Rome time and a 140 percent increase in the 1988/89 budget has again forced the Department to give priorities to construction activities because evaluation of the Department and its personnel is based on the arnotmt of project expenditures made. Construction of infrastructure usually costs more, therefore compelling the Department to give more emphasis to this aspect with the result that management developnent and other lower cost nlternatives receive little attention. Nevertheless, if the irrigation sector is going to achieve its target growth and then sustain the O&M of the .. expanded irrigated area, policy directives and resources must be directed to encourage the participation of the beneficiaries and a management perspective for the DOL There are several tmconventional types of projects in the DOl. They are the Irrigation Master Plan and Irrigation Management Project. Both these projects aim at strengthening the capacity of DOl to respond to the new challenges mandated by the new government policy.The Irrigation Management Project (IMP) is based on the premise that better management of already-developed systems will produce faster benefits than will the developnent of new, larger schemes. This suggests that improved management of already-developed medium and small systems will help develop irrigated agriculture in Nepal.\"To mrunm1ze gain in overall agricultural production, top priority should be given to improving operation and maintenance in irrigation systems ,.;rltich are government operated. This means working both with irrigation department managers and with groups of farmers who manage water at the tertiary levels of the government systems\" (Svendsen, et 0.1. 1984:vi).Under an agreement between HMGN and the USA, the Irrigation Management Project carne into existence. It created two important elements for better mrulagement of the irrigation systems: the System Management Division (SMD) and the Irrigation Management Center. The System Management Division's mandate is to devise and monitor improved O&M methods. For the first time, a division has been created under the DOl that is responsible for issues related to irrigation system management. The Irrigation Management Center has the mandate to train irrigation personnel and tmdertake applied studies in order to improve the quality of training and provide input in decision making.Sirsia-Dudhaura at Parwanipur was selected as the pilot site for the application of the irrigation management system. A water users association and t~ter user groups were formed among the beneficiaries and farmers were regularly consulted in structural improvement activities. Both physical and non-physical improvements took place in the system. Many useful lessons have been learned from this exercise at the Sirsia and Dudhaura systems.The Sirsia-Dudhaura farmers organized themselves to clean about 32 krn .., of field channels within the command area. After many years of neglect, the increased volume of water available from the clean canal helped to decrease ~ter-related conflicts, improve the reliability of water, and allow a greater area of wheat to be irrigated than in the previous year. Better communications were also established between the farmers and agency personnel.This project suggests that non-physical aspects such as organizing the a WUA, . farmers in an association and including them in the management of their system are very important. The project sent association organizers (AOs) to the field to promote the formation of WUAs. The AOs work as facilitators, Catalysts, and links between the agency and the farmers. After fonnation of the association organizers are moved out of the system. The Sirsia Dudhaura system is going through the process of being jointly managed.In addition to this joint-management exercise, IMP is experimenting ,vith t.he turnover of the system at Hadetar from agency management to management by the beneficiaries.There are systems of 100-200 ha lVhich are being managed by the agency that can be handed over to the farmers for management. The farmers have proven on many occasions that they are capable of managing even larger FMIS. In order to activate this program, legal provisions and procedures need to be established to identify the candidate systems and work out the process of handing over the system.The DOl has to work in two fronts at present in order to achieve the objective of fulfilling basic needs. It is true that only addition of new hectarage under irrigation is not going to increase agricultural productivity • Programs need to be Horked out to improve the management of the existing systems as well. Examples from many countries have proven that non-physical improvements in irrigation systems have contributed to increased agricultural production. This raises the question of how the DOl can establish a responsive management system in the already-developed area. Farmer participation must be instituted in order to achieve better management, cost sharing, and resource mobilization. The approach of the DOl must balance construction activity and non-physical improvements.There has been little research on physical, hydrological, or social science aspects of irrigation systems in Nepal. Interaction between national research institutes and the irrigation agency needs to be established and a strong relationship encouraged so that research findings C~ be transferred and applied. Research activities of the Institute of Engineering (IOE), Institute of Agriculture and Animal Sciences (IAAS), Centre for Economic Development and Administration (CEDA), and Agriculture Projects Services Centre (APROSC) should be coordinated with the needs of the irrigation sector of Nepal. At present there is no dialogue between these research agencies and implementing agencies.The International Irrigation Management Institute (IIMI) is undertaking research activities in collaboration with the Water and Energy Commission Secretariat (WECS). One of their research activities is to identify appropriate procedures for assisting farmer-managed irrigation systems in the country. This action research has relevance in the Nepal context because over 60 percent of the irrigation systems are farmer managed and many could benefit from some government assistance. An inappropriate assistance procedure might make them dependent on the government, hence, care must be tal{en to learn how these systems might be best assisted without hindering their capacity, organization, and work procedures. HMGN must enCO\\1rage the research institutes to participate in important research activities relating to irrigation.At the policy level, there has been frequent reiteration that farmer participation is to be encouraged in the management of irrigation systems. t)lrectives issued by His Majesty the King Birendra also emphasize beneficiary participation in irrigation system management. However, there are manY intrinsic factors that inhibit the promotion of the farmers' participation.The number of farmer-managed systems in Nepal that have informally organized l.m.ter users groups runs in the thousands. There is a long tradjtion of these informal groups performing the important functions for irrigation on their own. Government has to be careful to safeguard the potential and resources of the people and provide the legal support that will mnke it possible for them to continue to function, perhaps more effectively. Tn order to promote WUA and farmer participation in management, the following concerns should be carefully considered and action taken to promote a positive environment that will capitalize on the farmers as a resource:1) Institutional and technical development must relate to each other. Engineers have to help develop the institutional strength of the farmers. This requires reorientation of engineers to accept the farmers' organization aR a resource for better management of the irrigation system. Lessons learned from Sirsia-Dudhaura and the WECS/Ford project in Sindhupalchok provide methods for encouraging farmer input during survey, design, construction, and monitoring of progress.2) The present accounting procedure and contract prOV1S10ns enforced ,menever government aids a project discourage the active and organized participation of the farmers. The farmers are allowed to work as individuals but not as an organized group during irrigation construction activities. If the farmers are encouraged to organize for structural improvement activities they would learn valuable lessons which would help prepare them to manage the responsibility of O&M.The deployment of association organizers to organize .~ the farmers into water users associatioins is not sufficient for achievement of effective participation of the farmers in system management. Changes in accounting and contracting procedures also need to be made, and an innovative approach is necessary.3) There is no legal recogrii tion of the WUAs so they are not allmved to participate actively. This is the case both in FMIS and agency-managed systems.4) Dialogues are initiated between the agency and organized groups of farme'rs but there is no way to implement or enforce any agreements reached between them. 5) Frequent employment of outside contractors for the essential structural improvements weakens the farmers' interest in participation. Outsioe contracting does not provide them opportunity to learn management skills as a group of farmers or as association members. Hence, essential -17 i ' .. structural :i mprovement should be part of the process for promoting pa.rticipatj on.Two sets of recommendations regarding agency-managed systems and farmer-managed systems are given below. Options for Agency-Managed Systems 1. Increase the level of farmer participation in joint management of large systems, and insure that agency staff and farmers each have speci fically defined o&M tasks.Turn over ownership and management of small systems to fanner organizations.3. Shift from an administrative to a management mode in large systems.Recommendations for o&M in Jointly-Managed Systems 4. Routine maintenance should be considered a part of operation and separate from emergency or catastrophe maintenance.A mobile team and a centrally-funded budget should be established to respond to catastrophes.6. Farmers should be given the major responsibility for o&M. 7. Effective farmer organizations need to be formed including federation of field channel groups at the sub-system and system levels. ~ATIONS FOR FARMER-MANAGED IRRIGATION SYSTEMS Since irrigation systems constructed, operated, and maintained by farmers account for the major portion of irrigated agricu1ture in Nepal, and conservative estimates indicate that production from FMIS is feeding over 30'\" percent of Nepal's population, the farmer-managed irrigation sector deserves due consideration. The contribution of FMIS to the basic needs of the count.ry is already high but it can be increased further if carefully conceived and implemented government assistance would be provided to strengthen the infrastructure and farmers' management. In both the hills and Tarai farmers are facing increasing difficulty in operating their systems due to deforestation and government policies protecting forests. Furthermore, as the nation seel{s to bring increasing areas of new lands under irrigation, \" government resources will be insufficient to cover operation and maintenanceTo compensate, the DOl needs to integrate the participation of the farmers at appropriate levels in the management of irrigation systems. Investment in strengthening FMIS to increase their productivity can be achieved at a cost lower than that of agency management. The following are recommendations concerning farmer-managed irrigation systems. (Refer to Appendix 1 for a detailed description of FMIS. Appendix 3 provides the rationale for each of the recommendations outlined below.)Recommendations to Give Appropriate Recognition to FMIS 1. Provide legislation that establishes the legal identity and rights of the beneficiary groups operating irrigation systems. 2. Identify existing FMIS in the area of each new agency project and incorporate their physical and organizational structure into the system with minimum disruption.Recommendations for Providing Assistance to FMIS 3. Establish uniform assistance policies for each geographical region of the country. 4. Systematically identify all FMIS in the country on a watershed basis by making an inventory that establishes a database giving pertinent details about each system. 5. Establish criteria for selecting systems for assistance. 6. Enable beneficiaries to improve the effectiveness of operation and maintenance activities in their system and to fully participate in any physical improvements that are made by providing assistance in strengthening their organizational and management capacity.Beneficiaries should be encouraged to take responsibility in SSg] sting wi th selection of the design and in implementation of physical improvements that are to be made to their system. 8. The design process for improvements to FMIS should be simple and :field baSed.  The limited functions of the government and the tradition of non intervention in irrigation water management at the community level for hundreds of years led to the development of farmer-managed irrigation systems in Nepal. Over 60 percent of irrigated agriculture in Nepal is covered by farmer-managed irrigation systems. By and large, these systems are autonomous, self-governing entities.The role and functions of farmer-managed irrigation organizations differ according to the type of system: hill irrigation systems, river valley irrigation systems, and tarai systems. The physical characteristics influence the intensity of a particular task to be performed by the irrigation organization.Size of FMIS. Farmer-managed irrigation systems are not restricted to smalJ \\Uli ts. Systems as small as 10 ha to as large as 15,000 ha have been identified in the country.Jrri~ation tasks performed by FMIS: By and large, irrigation Organi7.ations perform water acquisition, water allocation and distribution, resource mobilization, system maintenance, and conflict resolution tasks. These are interrelated irrigation tasks. However, the level of organizational sophistication differs in accordance with the type of task to be performed by the organization.Organizing forces. The force to keep the organization functioning does not necessarily depend on the performance of all tasks. The organization might be forced to come into existence and continue its existence only for the performance of one or two tasks. For some systems, water distribution alone might be the cementing factor for organization and in others, it might be only resource mobilization, while yet in other systems, the preservation and safeguarding of water rights at the source might be the compelling force. IIm.;ever, irrigation tasks might be performed through contractual arrangements employing other people. Hence, the cementing factor for organization in each system differs.An irrigation organization comes into existence to perform certain tasks for making the system work. However, the organization may also degenerate and disorganize or change its role ,.;hen change takes place in the . resource endowment within the environment of the system. In one system, seepage water from another irrigation system built in the upper reach supplemented w~ter to the main canal; this extra resource--water in the system--made resource mobilization of labor or cash unnecessary. Previously, the irrigators' organization had to organize for water acquisition and when this was no longer a major task the organization gradually degenerated.In another system, access to a road and movement of the young people in \" -23 of opportunities elsel~ere prompted. distribution ~f water and ~noe tasks to be carried out through contractual arrangements.Cash ions instead of labor contributions were required to obtain the services. This has changed the whole complex task of labor ~bilization for maintenance.-~~. Irrigation systems in Nepal are geared for paddy cultivation and ~~ngement of irrigation is intense for this season. Most of the committees are active from July to August. After paddy harvest, many of the irrigation organizations become inactive. During the winter season the farmers act individually or in small groups to divert water to their fields as needed with little involvement of the system's irrigation organization • Flexibility to respond to ch~~s and needs. The intensity of the task that an irrigation organization has to perform is sensitive to the environment. Change in one environmental factor, whether physical or socio economic, influences how that task is performed by the organization. Farmer managed organizations are flexible, tailoring their methods for water acquisition, labor mobilization, and water allocation and distribution to the needs of the farmers.Farmer irrigation organizations can be the result of deliberate government efforts to establish such organizations. There are also examples 1mere farmer irrigation organizations came into existence because of government neglect of the system: In Pithuwa water used to be delivered by government employees. Since the government was in charge of the water resource the individual farmers believed there was no harm in extracting more resources from the government. This situation created anarchy in the system. Some enlightened farmers thought of organizing thernselves to achieve an equitable distribution of water. As the farmers organized they came to regard the irrigation resource as community property. This transformation in the concept of property helped to form the farmers' irrigation organization in Pithuwa. Government did not play any role in this process.Annual meeting. Decisions regarding irrigation t<later management are made by the irrigators as a hlhole at their annual meeting. At the annual meeting the farmers decide on the plan and program for different irrigation tasks, review the performance of the previous year, audit and settle accounts, and elect officeholders. The decision is made in the general body.Management committee. The irrigation management committee carries out the decisions of the general body of irrigators. The performance of the officeholders is reviewed each year. Officeholders are accountable to the farmers as a whole.The mnnber of members in the committee is determined by the size, intensity of the l<later distribution tasks, and the amount of labor to be mobilized. Where water distribution or labor mobilization is not a problem, systems may even be managed by one person assigned by the community. However, in a small system wi th only a 17 ha command area (Tallo Kulo), a t.en-member committee manages the system. Here the intensity of task perfonnance in water acquisition, distribution, labor mobilization, and -24 Resource mobilization, the degree of organization required for operation and maintenance of a system, and water allocation and distribution are interrelated ~qpects of the operation and management of farmer-managed irrigation systems. A better understanding of resource mobilization in FMIS can help develop an appropriate strategy for assisting these systems and examples of the practices in these systems can also help government to develop policies for resource mobilization in the irrigation sector as a Hhole.The types and kinds of resource mobilization are categorized on the basis of case studies of 21 farmer-managed irrigation systems in Nepal. Information gathered from the 21 systems indicate that resource mobilization can brOAdly be grouped into internal and external resource mobilization. Resources mobilized from Hi thin the system itself are categorized as internal resources. These may encompass local labor, cash, materials, natural rf'sources, animal p01.fer, and enterprises operated by the system. External resource mobilization is the use of resources from outside the community for l'ellAbilitation or operation of the systems. These may include cash, materials, and tecrulical expertise.1abor ~biilzatio~. The primary resource that almost all farmer managed systems must mobilize is labor for operation and maintenance. The basjs for labor mobilization is different among the systems of Nepal. The si7..e of landholding within the irrigated area, number of households in the irrigation community, or water share may be the basis upon which labor mobilization is assessed. In some systems committee officeholders are exempted from labor contributions as compensation for performing their official duties. Labor contributions are not voluntary; the right to use irrigation Hater is obtained by contributing labor for O&M of the system. If the user fails to contribute the labor assigned to him, he is fined or deprived of irrigation water.CB!31tJ!lObilization. In lieu of labor, some systems collect money to hire laborers from outside of the system. This cash mobilization is assessed on the msis of crop yield from the irrigated land or in proportion to size of the area irrigated. Some systems collect cash for the construction of physical infrastructure, to pay fees to the forest department for the right to cut forest products used for river diversion work, or to pay salaries to their irrigation officials. Cash is also accumulated from the fines imposed Upon the members of the irrigation system who had not fulfilled their irri gAtion obligations.Mobilization of forest products. FMIS usually have temporary structures made out of stones, boulders, tree branches, logs, and bamboo. These materials are used for river training, diversion dams, and intake and check dams for raising the water level. These materials are heavily relied upon in large-scale farmer managed irrigation systems in the Tarai.-27   .,Mobilization of bullock carts. In some places, forest and rivers for forest products, stones, and boulders are located at some distance the temporary dam site. Hence, bullock carts are also necessary for \"~ransporting these materials. The FMIS at Tedhi Gurgi, Kulariya and Jamara, '~Id Sabai mobilize bullock carts for transportation of materials.Irrigation enterprises. The Chherlung Thulo Kulo system is an example of a PHIS establishing a system-owned l~ter mill. This hill system requires frequent maintenance during monsoon. Profits generated from the operation of the mill are applied toward the operation and maintenance costs of the irrigation system so that the labor contributions of the beneficiaries can be reduced.Similarly, one of the irrigation systems of Majuwa has permitted a pd vate party to use irrigation water for running a water mill. In exchange, the mill owner is required to maintain the canal from the intake up to the mill si te, reducing the labor contributions required from the other Hater lIRers. Similarly, hro traditional water mill (ghatta) owners in the Kodku irrigation system helped to maintain a portion of the canal. With the introduction of electric-powered mills, the ghattas went out of business and the irrigators have since taken over the responsibility for maintenance of the Rystem.When the volume of l~ter available is in excess of the system's needs, the excess water can be sold and the funds used for improvement or maintenance of the system. This has been done in Chherlung. The Argali Raj Kulo has also sold water to raise funds for improvement of the local school.Water share transaction also occurs among individual shareholders. The additional beneficiaries must also contribute to labor for system o&M, thereby increasing the system's labor resource.t1Q.t!.!J. . ~atio~of J:~..l~~~rtise. The knowledge of local leaders and elders gained from years of experience with system operation and maintenance is a valuable resource existing Hithin many systems. For example, the expertise of tunnel makers has been utilized in some hill irrigation systems. Also, farmers in one irrigation system may have useful knowledge about o&M practices in another system and they have helped to disseminate and transfer knmdedge from one system to another.Cash mobilization. Funds received from either the national, district, or village panchayat government, from voluntary organizations, or from . international agencies come under external resource mobilization. These funds have been used for the improvement of an irrigation system and sometimes for regular maintenance costs. The Chher hmg system in Palpa District received a cash grant from the District Panchayat for the improvement of the system. The Satamohane irrigation organization near Pokhara has lobbied the Kaski District Panchayat for money for regular system maintenance.opnent Research and Corrnnunication Group, a voluntary organization, ven money to the Gharaphant irrigation system for tunnel repair. Bread World and the German Voluntary Organization are other examples of organizations providing funds to FMIS • . In the government-funded FIWUD program the agency provides 70 percent of cash needed for irrigation rehabilitation or construction and the farmers ~t provide the rest of the resources, usually contributed as 5 percent cash end 25 percent labor.Material mobilization. Materials such as gabion wire, cement, pipes, or rood for t~ork have been provided by government and various international agencies for system improvements.Technical expertise. Government engineers, surveyors, and association organizers are some of the external technical resources utilized by FMIS. This resource is usually provided by the technical agencies of the government. Farmer-t.o-farmer training programs and farmer consultancies have also been recent programs providing opportunities for farmers from one irrigation system to learn about improved irrigation practices from farmers in other systems. There have also been examples of individuals in the irdgation field providing their personal expertise to an irrigation community. Dr. Robert Yoder has provided assistance to the Chherlung conmnm i ty regardi ng the operation of a water mill.Technical people may also supervise work performed by the local people.Nachjn.ery mobil.izatioD' Bull dozers or excavators may be brought into the system at the time of desil ting or canal repair. This occurs in Pithw.J8. for regular desilting of the canal after each flood and in Chhattis Mauja for desilting during annual canal maintenance. A bulldozer provided through the Til\\apur Developnent Board was brought in to desilt the East Kailali irrigation system in 1987.Credit mobilization. FMIS have received different types of credit from agencies outside their corrnnunity for irrigation developnent. The ADB/N provides credit for shallow tube well system developnent. The ADB/Small Farmers Development Program and the ADB/CARE Nepal Program have provided credi t to irrigators. Under the ADB/CARE program, CARE provides a grant to coyer 50 percent. of the costs and the farmers must provide the rest. This might be in the form of labor cont.ributions plus credit from the bank. The ADB/N provides loans to farmers for irrigation developnent. OOLICY IMPLICATIONS . . The political strength of an irrigation organization and its capacity to mobilize external resources are closely related and need to be considered in the government's total political and economic policy. Is the government prepared to take over all of the farmer-managed systems or will it provide assistance as and ,men it will be necessary? In the absence of a policy for assistance, non-irrigators are being incorporated into irrigation organizations in order to pressure the government for more resources. 'I1lIIODll.ize A strategy of government assistance needs to be fonnulated Hhich Hill into account the irrigation systems' existing capacity and ability to resources. In many cases, the strength of the existing irrigation .'orgnnization is closely tied to the nature and extent of the resources that the system must mobilize. Therefore, in the plan to strengthen Hater users organizations, resource mobilization must be considered, and any plan for government intervention must trure this relationship into account.The resource mobilization perspective can be used as a tool for understanding hOI, FMIS function and at the same time it can identify areas in need of assist8nce.THE IMPORTANCE OF ASSISTING FARMER-MANAGED IRRIGATION SYSTEMS 3In the past ten years awareness of the scope of FMIS in Nepal and the contribution these systems make to the national economy has been increasing. These systems are spread over all districts of the country and range in size from less than one hectare to the federation of systems, managed by a central committee, covering more than 15,000 ha.The total number of systems is unknown. Extra}X>lated information from a detaHed inventory of one river basin in a hill district and land resource ma~ indicates there are likely over 17,000 FMIS in the hills. Inventories of all the tarai districts identified over 1,700 farmer-managed systems in that region providing some Jevel of irrigation to at least 450,000 ha.These systems and the farmer organizations which operate and maintain them are a unique national resource which must be preserved and improved. By a conservative estimate, the production from farmer-managed irrigation systems is feeding over 30 percent of Nepal's }X>pulation.Farmer-managed irrigation systems in Nepal present a wide variation in the type of organization and management style, methods for both internal and external (to the system) resource mobilization, maintenance practices, and water allocation and water distribution methods. Each FMIS has a distinct character which is determined by adaptation to the environment and needs of the people it serves. In most systems the low quality of physical structures is compensated by careful management of the available human resource.'~ile some of these systems are well managed and achieve a high level of agricultural production, many systems could benefit from assistance from the Department of Irrigation (DOL). In both the hills and Tarai farmers are facing increasing difficulty in operating their systems due to deforestation and government }X>licies protecting forests that have traditionally provided the materials necessary for maintenance.The contribution of FM1S to the basic needs of the rural }X>pulation is already high but can be increased further. The unique resource of human organization and extremely diverse physical infrastructure represented by FMIS should be preserved and assisted in developing further. In determining ways to improve the functioning of FMIS and to devise appropriate ways to assist them, the following recommendations should be considered under the master plan.   :01' t:,~~I~~±;!:,:-~~:!:'J'__ Et!_':'.':9.-':?~.J\"atJJ]gJrrigatjQrL §z §tems. At present, the '~r organizations managing irrigation systems have no clear legal status. 'Ibis makes it difficult for them to mobilize resources external to their organization. For example, it is difficult for banks to give loans to a group of farmers to make improvements in their system. Frequently hundreds, even thousands of families are members of the association, with their own \"fonnal\" rules and regulations for operation and maintenance of a system. HOh'ever, these associations of farmer irrigators are informal in terms of legal rights. They should be able to register their association and receive rights over the water which they are using and be able to deal as a formal enterprise ,..,i th banks and government agencies. 2. IdentifY existi~IS in the area of each new agency--.p.rojeQ..t_BDg incorRQrate their physical and organizational structure into the new system with-mi.!!!!!l:!I!Ldi_s~ption. Whenever a new irrigation project is proposed, one ~f-the first steps should be to identify all of the existing FMIS in the projected command area. To insure this, the terms of reference (TOR) of the consultants or agency staff that does the preliminary investigation should require an inventory of the existing FMIS in the project area. For each system, they should report the name, location, water source, estimated area irrigated, cropping pattern, water rights among systems, number of farm households in the association, and method of water allocation among users for each crop.For a subsequent feasibility study the lDR should call for detailed information about the existing management, operation and maintenance procedures, and production of each system. A requirement for approval to proceed to a design study for a new system should be a clear indication that irrigation services will actually improve in the areas already served by PHIS and that incremental increase in agricu] tural production of the improved service and expanded area ,..,ill justify the cost of the project. This requires that careful consideration be given to the water rights of existing systems and discussion wi th present and potential beneficiaries to determine the level of cooperation there ,..,ill be in expanding irrigation services.The TOR for the design study should request details on how the existing systems and their organization will be incorporated into the new design. To the extent possible with the given topography, the farmers' distribution l'lystems should be kept intact to cause the least disruption to the association's organization and management capacity. One way of doing this is to augment the supply at the headworks of the existing system, and continue to use the existing distribution neb..,ork. It may be necessary to make improvements to the headworks and within the distribution system, but this should l~ done in the spirit of assisting a farmer-managed system instead of 'overlaying it with a completely new design .If the existing farmer organizations are effective, they should not be forced to adapt to some rigid standard format but should be allowed to retain their mID organizational form and management procedures. Weaker organizations should be strengthened as a part of the assistance effort. This effort should start with the experience and capacity the farmers already have and build on their existing rules and methods rather than int,roduci ng a standard water users association format which may be inconsistent with local conditions.•-~ATIONS FOR ~DING ASSISTANCE 'IO FMIS 3. Establish uniform assistance policies for each geographical r~gion of the countr~. Previously four agencies were involved in providing .~stance to farmer-managed irrigation systems. Each used different policies and strategies for implementing their programs ranging from 100 percent subsidy and little participation to significant contribution and participation by the beneficiaries. Since all irrigation development activities have come under one l~hrella, a uniform policy, at least on a regional basis, will need to be applied. This policy should be formulated only after a careful study of the experience of all of the agencies in the past has been completed. The study ., should include field investigation to determine the impact the different levels of beneficiary input under various programs have had on the operation and maintenance of systems and ultimately on agricultural production. The study should also examine the strategy each program used and recommend the most cost effective and viable implementation procedures. 4. ~ste~tically identify all FMIS in th~~9~try on a wat~~~h~ ~!s by maldl}g an inve~t:orDh1!u?tablishes_!L~tabas~_giving pertinent. g~tail.!Labout each system. Comprehensive planning for improving the performance of FMIS cannot be done without detailed information about the statUR of individual irrigation systems. An inventory should be prepared by systematic~lly investigating each watershed in a district to generate the first level of this information. Using the watershed as the basis of investigation allol4s clustering of systems that are related to each other with respect to water rights.The inventory should identify all systems in the watershed with information such as: a) the name of the system and source; b) location; c) irrjgated area; d) number of households using the system; e) extent of land and water resources utilization (How much cultivated land is unirrigated under the command of a each canal? Is there water in the source that is not utilized?); and f) problems of operating the system identified by the beneficiaries. Preparation of the inventory work should include establishment of a database for easy retrieval of information and modification and updating as assistance is given to specific systems.Es~l:!~Jsh_ crt ter_t~__f9r seJ-ect!!!g~stems for_!i~~j:. §..tance. The inventory information should be used to identify systems where assistance is most needed and will be most beneficial. The criteria for selecting systems for further investigation and ultimately to assist should include: a) potential for expanding the irrigated area; b) opportunity to intensify the cropping pattern by better water delivery; c) willingness of the \" beneficiaries to invest a specified proportion of the improvement cost and to add new members to their association in return for their assistance in mru{ing improvements and in operation and maintenance; and d) opportunity to reduce the maintenance cost of the system.Enable beneficiaries to improve the effectiveness of operation and ~ill1:.~naf!Q.!u!c-.ti vities in their system and to fuili particiI!!t.e in any -33After a system is selected for ~~-~~e, there should be an in-depth investigation to determine the management capacity of the beneficiaries. This should include the roles, methods of conflict management, and records that they keep as the extent and method of resource mobilization for routine and ~~ency maintenance. Where improvement in their management capacity is existing practices should form the foundation for expanding theirThe use of association organizers, farmer consultants with experience well-managed irrigation systems, and training programs that include visits to other systems where different practices are used would be methods that could be used to strengthen management capacity.:,',. 7. Benefj.ciaries ~h()uld be encouraged to take r~nsibility il1.assisting with selection of the design and in implementation of physical iimrnYements that are to be made to their system. The farmers themselves are ~rthe best source of information about crop preferences, soil conditions and ~~iation over the area, stream flows, and stability of land forms, and can :provide this input to the planning and design process. Where cadastral surveys have been completed farmers can assist in compiling accurate area eRtimates of the existing and potentially irrigated area to be used in designing the canal. The beneficiaries can quickly point out difficulties 'and bottlenecks in the system and priorities for necessary improvements in a 'd'wBlk-through\" of the system. The management capaci ty of the beneficiaries will be reinforced if they are encouraged and assisted to share responsibility for the planning, design, and implementation of physical improvements.8. The design process for improvements to FMIS should be si~~_8l!g field based. Where assiBtance is being given to upgrade existing structures that typically carry a discharge of less than 100 liters/second (liters/s) and seldom more than 300 liters/s the lengthy process of topographic field survey office design, and carefully inked drawings greatly delays the implementation process and is not cost effective. Procedures need to be developed (and where possible adapted from the past experience of the various agencies that had been assisting FMIS) to simplify the design process to make 1t prompt and less costly.Where rock cutting is required or simple structures are to be improved, ftCCurate sl{etches in a fieldbook and analysis of costs should be prepared on the-spot. If the beneficiaries are to be responsible to contribute to the cost of the improvements and operate and maintain them in the future they should help select among alternative designs and set the priorities for making improvements.~ATIONS FOR AIliINISTRATlVE REORIENTATION 9. Assistance toFMIS should be in the form of loans (subsidized to !he~~nt__~ecessa.rYLiBitf'!!3.&i of grants. Assi~t.a.nce to farmer-rna.na,gErl-R}\"stems should be in the form of loans, not grants. The loans could be subsidized by the government, but the principle that the farmer organization < , ..~ \": \" ~;;;;,~ significant proportion of the investment is important. If this is case, the organization will set priorities according to what will really t them in terms of improved performance and/or reduced maintenance The organization should decide how much of the cost of the project it to pay for wi th its labor and how much in materials and cash. There ~;h~uld be a means by Hhich the organization as a whole can take a loan for the cash investment if necessary. 10. ~g:iyision should be established in the 001 responsible for assis~e to FM1S. The approach and necessary manpower for assisting ~ng FMIS is sufficiently different from the design and construction of new systems that a separate division is warranted. It should be the responsibility of this division to formulate policies and procedures and to provide overall guidance in assisting FMIS. '!he division should consider the importance of both physical and \"non-physical\" assistance to FM1S and employ personnel qualified, trained, and interested in working with farmer groups.11. All levels of 001 staff dealing wi th FM1S need orien~ti_ql},,~~ traini~ to be able to i!!IP.lement a pa.rtici~tor~proach to assisting<j:hes~ ~itel1 §. Assistance to FM1S is a shift from considering primarily design and eonstruction issues in which 001 staff have considerable expertise. If the approach is to be predominantly participatory, the staff will need a neH orientation that will require a substantial training effort. '!he training ~.ill require exposure to the farmer's point of view of the cropping pattern, lm.ter rights, and Hater requirements, and emphasize methods for organizing ~~ter users into effective management units. To reduce the financial burden to mKiN, investment in construction of irrigation faeil Hies and in the promotion of fanner participation and sense of beneficiary oHnership, HMGN shall contribute 75 percent of the construction cost in the form of a grant and the farmers shall contribute five percent cash and 20 percent in either labor contributions or as cash obtained through loans from the ADB/N if: 1) the project is feasible, 2) there is a formal Hater users association, and 3) the estimated cost of the project is not more than Rs three million.For schemes ,-lith an estimated cost above Rs three million, the DOl shall be responsib1 e for the construction of headworks and the main and branchThe beneficiaries shall provide land for canal construction, pay the cost for tertjary channels and farm ditches, as Hell as be responsible for O&M of the scheme.HHGN should undertake the construction of largeand medium-size irrigation proJects. The 'vater user association will be responsible for the construction of field channels covering a block of ten ha, and operate and maintain the irrigation f8ciH ties for a block of 50 ha. Government will subsidize the capital cost recovery of the project.The beneficiaries of farmer-managed systems will contribute 25 percent of the cost for improvements in cash and vohmtary labor. Seventy-five percent of the total cost will be granted by the government. The users group l-1ill be responsible for system maintenance and operation.Groundwater Development ~hfl:.llow_tul:~L'i-eJls.For the construction of shallow tube wells, 75 percent of the capital cost of the project should be borne by the farmers and 25 percent will be made available as a grant. Loans from the ADB/N to the farmers will be facilitated. Should individual farmers want to construct shallm-l wells at their mm expense, they can also apply for the 25 percent government grant. The same cost-sharir)g formula will be followed for construction of ponds and Hells for irrigation purposes. 'Q!;ep tube wells. For deep tube well systems, the 001 shall be responsible for construction up to the tertiary canals. The users group t<1i11 ~ responsjble for the construction of the distribution system for a block of ten ha. They should take the responsibility for operation and maintenance.-36After the project is completed, the beneficiaries should contribute to help pny the cApi tal cost. In the case {,mere an individual fanner or farmer group ~eelu~ t.o construct a tube l-lell using their own financial resources, 25 percent of thE! total cost Hill be provided a..q a grant from fM:lN.The principles that Hill be adopted for the collection of water charges ~ccording to category are: • ~at~9F~~.In case of the schemes constructed and completed by the government Hjthout beneficiary contributions. water charges Hill be collected by the govE!rnmE!nt as ~r the set rules and regulations.c~t~gQry n. Tn thm;e schemes Hhere the beneficiaries contribute to p.<lrt of the construction costl'l and the whole of the maintenance and operation costs. no Hater charges will be collected by the government.~B.-J;,.~EorY._I!l. In those schemes where the main and the trunk systems are constructed and maintained by government and the beneficiaries contribute only to the construction and maintenance of the distribution systems limited HUhin the block area, some concession in water charges will be made.'!be amolJnt of the concessi.on Hill depend on the size of the block.These categories have been proposed in an effort to collect water charg~s i.n ordE!r to meet operation and maintenance costs. Past experience in Hater charge collection has influenced this proposal, however adjustments may have to be made in the context of changes in the overall sector policy.        The present. status of the sector, a,i!enc;'l or,i!anization, trends, and donor a.ttenc;v involvement are highlighted Hithin the of a long t.radi tion of benefi ciary-ma.naged irrigation systems and developments in g(wernrnent policy on irrigation de,'elopment and ~'::'.. Q:p.mpnt .This 1'Qxwt is prepared on the basis of my visit to Bhutan 18-25 June , Flinn I had the opportuni ty to intervieH people directb c involved in i/:!nUon dc\\'elopment and lTt.~nagement in the country. This report draHs on lion ohtained from hey informnnts, pUblications of the Ro:val \"'('rnmPllt of Rhutnn, ~.nd ot.her doclnnents and 1iterature on Bhutan. 1\\ revi(,I':]it<'ratllre on the country and its irrigation and agricultural sectors Has ted pd or 1.0 m~' vi s i L SillCf~ 19G1 t.he f'.<wcrll!lIent of Bhutan has mnde substantial inyestmonts in he (l9:ricul tura) and i IT.i!1:atioll sectors thro1lgh plannf\"d development•cis('s. ,\\s nCH df\"\\'elopment.s have evolved, gO\"ernment has chanp;ed its jC'y ill t.he irrigation seatoI' to l'espond to the changes. 1his report hopes () prosrnt t.he evolvin,i! trend in ,irrigation development in Bhutan.T lJ(lu](l ] il\\(~ to thank ttl<' n~pnrtm~nt of Agriculture, Ro;r-al Governm~nt of tRlI fnt' inviting me to OhS01'\\'P some of the irrigation syst~ms in the '-\"\"\"lItr.\\'. !'II'. H(>:,;l7,ml.l~ Tsering, Assist.ant En2:ineer, h'ho accompanied me on my field dp to Pllnnldm, Tldmpu, and ''''alJgdipodran,~, deserves special thanks. His 10 as itrierrn'ter Has ,'ita 1 to my ability to communicate Hith the Bhutanese Last but not. least, I Hould 1 iJie to thank the farmers of those s~'sterns I \\'i sH.E'rl during my field trip. TI1~Y Here very kind to tal{e time off (hpi t' bllsy agricultural schedules to provide information on their '::f if PART I BACKGROUND ON BHUfAN is a mountainous Idngdom cornprisinJ'! 18,000 square miles. The Gaylegphug hns the only flat t,errain. Ninety-five percent of the on is dependent on agriculture. Half of the gross domestic product fourth of the countl'Y's total export earning is derived from this HOlvever, Bhutan's population density is 25 per square kilometer and ation grm.;th rate is 2 percent annually. In fact, the small on sj7.:e and resultant labor shortage constrain the development effort . -------------------------~---------------------~---~---------------------- .Statistical Thndbooli: of Ahut: Ln. 1986. Bhutan: Central StatisticaJ Office, Planning Commission.i\\rroraing to the Sbltistical Handbool!: of J986, J.G percent of the nl]e~-s nre cuJtjyated and tJ.tI percent of the land is tmder terraced Combined, thcs(> areas represent the total of the land tmderThe [rril4ation Dhision is part of the Agriculture Department in Bhutan.Iliar<111, Prf\\ayumna P. J987. Developrnent issues in Sikkim and Bhutan.NO! m ta hl Rpsea rch and Deve I opmCn t. Un i ted Nations Un i vel'S i ty, August.Iti\\'aUon.:l):27fi..; I!.•.f \"..1Fifth Fi\",\"-Year Plan (1981/2-1986/7) of Rhutan, the Irrigation inll Ha..~ m:mdat.ed to 1) construct neH irri~ation systems; 2) to renovate ht..!! irri~atioJl systems; 3) to protect river banks from slides and i om::; nnd !~) to construct feeder roads in order to open rural farm areas input Stlppl ~7 • lInder' the current Sixth Five-Year Plan, the objectives of the Irrigation ,sion hR.,;e been modifiNi to emphasize new construction and renovation of jng irrigation systems.The approach of the Irri~ation Division in relation to assistance to farmer•-marm.ged i rrigaUon systems has changed after the introduction of a derf'ntr'aLi7:nlion poUcy beginrdng in 1981. 'This policy has emphasized c;trengLhenill/r l(}('~:ll institutions, including farmer irrigation or/ranizaUons, llntil 1981, the Hnyal Government of Bhutan Has subsidizing the irrigation s\\'stems. Enrh system rereived Ngul tTum (Nil) 2 10,000 to 20,000 per ;'t'ear. sill('!' I ~81, RS rl<'lrt of the IX)] icy to ha\\'e the beneficiaries operate and illLnin 1.h(' irri!!ntion s~rstems themselves. government has not allocated fund~ fOl' nil operation and maintenance (0&1'1) subsidy to beneficiary-m::maged irrLr;!ation systems.Thl\" Irrigation Division rame into existence in 1967 under the In the di stricts, puhl ic Horks, agriculture, education, basic health, irri/rlllion units administrnLe government funds. The d~Qtlgd.h'3., appointed tl\\(' Ninistr•:v of Home Affairs. is the head of district administration.D7.nngs, or forts, Here constructed for defense purposes in ancient imes. Thry contained motll1st.eries and srrved as the administrative center the r0gion. In those da:;:s, rx~rsons Hho resided in the dzon!!s Here . . id(>n'd Ul(\" nut-hari ties. Instead of cr(>ating a ne'\" /rovernmental l.mit in distri cLs, effor•t h'as made to moderni::>:e the trndi tional institutions in an. In 1960, dzongs \"ern converted into district administrative  Each dzonglrhag irrigation unj t has l-fi sec'tioll officers, a riraftsman, and construction \" The section officers, an~ overseeJ'S appointed by the government, irrigation unit of f-l p. l'psource allocation to agriculture and irrigation from the First Ypnr Plan period  to the Fifth Five-Year Plan period 0981/2 in Table 2.Resollrre allocation to at:!dcultun~ and irrigntion from Bhutan's Pl !HlS.of Total Investment (196 J-fl6)1.9 1.8 (1966-71) 21.6 10.7 (1971-  [.l'lrger s~'st0ms are to be cf'lltraJly administf\"rcd. Some 1::1':(> more t0f'hnical difficultips and ne(~d c0ntra] management support.Wilh tll0 introducti0tl of th(~ decpntrali7.ation policy in 1981, a neH lj)l'ow'h W1.S ;l(lnptm hy the Trri,e;ntion Division nf the Agriculture r'tmf'lIt. '111(' Divi!=don pnllf'Y sought tn stTf'~n~then the system by proddin~ li tn 1 d0,'P 1npllK'nt flJnds for. i rd gation improvements.Ttl(' prospert in' sYBtem for imprm'emcnt is selected b~' the dzon~khal'( \\f'vf'lopment committee. This rommjttee consists of district level inlsl,'nto\"s, national representatives, and villa~e leaders. 1his iH.(\"0 is J'(~spollsihle for th0 developmf'nt of the t.:hole district. fif'lf'lries s{'ddn~ t.o be considered for aS1':;jstance by the dzorl,!~kha~ .1opmf'1lt. f'ommi UPf' fO)'\\-lnrd thei r r0quest through the villa~e leader. Once Ih!~ iJTigDLiotl system is selected for renovation and improvement, the hTigatinll Di\\'ision provides assistl1llce to design the syst.em. Since the glrhflg i n'igatioll units do not have sufficient teehnieal sltill and \" ('cntTal support is pl'ovided in survey and design of the system.~e the des i gn is approved, it is the responsibj li ty of the di.strict it'l'igatinn lmit to su~rvjsf' t,hf' construrtian \\-lorl{. Construction proceeds on f'nrr'fY.i a(~f'nlll ,I. h'.ls is. Con t rflC t s a re no t g i Hm out for the Horh:. l\\'crnm\"l1l r)l'nvid{~s thf' mntf'l'inls and technical sldlL TIle beneficiaries flre Pquit'pd In pr'ovide th0 Illbnr for the construction Hork, thereby ensurim{ Ihnil' pnrl jeipnl.ion. Alt.hnugh lahor mobilization is often a problem due to I hl' 101-1 popul nt ion densi ty, th is condi ti on j s uni form Iy enforcerl.On(,e til\", S~'s tems have heen renovat.ed [lnd improved I they are managed by Ihf' 1)(~npfif'iaJ'ies (Hith the exeeption of centraU:v artministered projects).Royal GO\\•(~t'flmt:llt of Bhutnn is (~nactin~ Ip~islation giving the 'psponsihi 1i ti0S for o&M to t.ht: h~lwfieiar.ies.The Irrigation Division is in the process of strengthening the district irrigation unit to supervise the beneficiary organization and O&M activities. The district irrigation unit makes periodic checks of the beneficiary organization and if it finds that the system is not properly ~intained, the beneficiary organization could be punished. In order to implement these provisions, the Irrigation Division is in the process of preparing an O&M manual for the beneficiaries.The O&M responsibility will belong to the beneficiaries. No grant or subsi~v will be given by the government for annual O&M activity. However, there are provisions to provide assistance in the event of damage from natural calamities. A request for such assistance would originate in the dzongkhag development committee.Irrigation systems can be classified by three management types: agency managed, joint-managed and farmer-managed. Large irrigation systems such as the Takalai and Gaylegphug Lift Irrigation Systems are agency-managed systems.The Bajo irrigation system in Wangdiphodrang is an example of a system lmere farmer and agency share in the management and maintenance.The majority of the irrigation systems in Bhutan are farmer-managed systems. Now that these systems no longer receive an annual O&M subsidy from government new legislation has been proposed to form water users associations which \",ill be responsible for the O&M.These systems would receive assistance for physical infrastructure improvement. The beneficiaries are required to contribute voluntary labor and the agency provides technical ~sistance and materials such as cement and gabion wire. Once the system is rehahili tated it would assume management responsibilities. The district irrigation tIDit \",auld provide supervision and advise but the beneficiaries I~uld have to mobilize resources from within their system.File Name: lImI  .  19th and 20th centuries noted the agricultural practices. Narendra Singh the irrigated agriculture thus: \"British travelers to Bhutan in the 19th as well as visitors and experts who now visit the Himalayan Kingdom have not . . to observe the presence of Bhutanese skill in manipulating irrigation channels the natural obstacles. Both Pemberto and Rennie, the renowned British of the Bhutanese scene during the 19th century noted: 'The fields of both of the rivers were neatly fenced and water was conducted by an indigenous system channels.' Sir Claude White, the British Political Officer in Bhutan in the d~e of the present century l~ote in his memoirs: 'I have particularly noticed my travels in the country, how remarkably skilful the Bhutanese are in laying and irrigation channels, and the clever way in which they overcome what to people \",ould seem insurmountable difficulties in leading water over steep, places on bridges or masonry aqueducts, often built up at a great height.' further corroborated by Nari Rustomji, a discerning and learned observer who Bhutan in the '60s. He said, 'It was a delight to see such well terraced and irrigated fields in so many areas I visited. I do not think the Bhutanese to learn in the matter of agricultural irrigation '. \"7 ON PRESENT IRRIGATION SYSTEMS of the Systems Observed visited five irrigation systems to gain insight into the dynamics of the of the systems. Information was collected from the beneficiaries. more extensive documentation on Bhutan's irrigation systems is needed, these indicate a trend in the development and management of irrigation systems country. The following systems \",ere observed: 1) Simtokha, Thimpu district; 2)Ptmalma district; 3) Bajo, Wangdipodrang district; 4) Lapchaka, Punakha ; and 5) YUHawon (Lobesa), Thimpu district. Table 3 gives the specific of each system.Characteristi~s of the irrigation systems observed during my visit.  hold land in this place as well as in Thimpu valley. Yuwawon has many absentee . .Irrigation l~ter serves several villages along the canal. Hence, water ~tion. distribution, labor mobilization, and water right practices must take into the various villages served by each system.of Management 'I11e systems visited are managed either by the farmers, by the government agency, by both farmers and agency.Farmer-managed systems. The Simtokha and Chavana systems are among the many in Bhutan that are farmer-managed. Simtokha and Chavana received assistance the government for renovation and improvement but management is the bility of the beneficiaries. Once a system has been identified for ion, the irrigation agency (dzongimag irrigation unit) negotiates with the es regarding their labor contribution. Prevalent practice in Bhutan is for to provide the technical supervision and materials and the farmers to the labor. Joint-managed systems. Among the systems observed, Bajo falls under joint t, l~ere agency and beneficiaries work together. Not all of the in this system are farmers and the water is used for various purposes. , irrigation water was used only for agricultural purposes. With the ishment of a Center for Agriculture Research and Development, water is also to this agriculture farm. Over time, the township of Wangdipodrang was and an Army barrack t~ established, creating more demand for water. A l~ter project was constructed about 20 years ago, using the water from the canal. Because of the numerous beneficiaries and mUltiple uses of the water, the 1'lmt>n+. has provided support to strengthen the canal at its weak points. The ,-'!\"\"VJlLe and fat1iers l.;rork together to maintain the canal and have received support~e Army as well. The district administration has also given attention to the enance of the system. Hence, the system is jointly managed.Agency-managed systems. The Lapchaka system seems to be dependent on agency ~nan~e and operation. One s~ction officer is assigned to this system and he is of repair, maintenance, and operation. Government has allocated Nu 100,000 lllaintenance. The person in charge of irrigation management, elected by the ' . es, is known as the~. The responsibility of yopen rotates among the lClaries and is usually an unpaid office. The canal is divided into 13 sections a yopen is placed in charge of each section. All 13 yopens in Lapchaka meet twice Any problems that the yopens cannot resolve are referred to the section , \\.;rho passes the matter to the district administration for resolution. The fine is fixed at Nu 25 per day during the paddy planting season, and Nu 35 ill out of the season. In the past there have been abuses of the rules and lill governing water distribution so that punishment and fines are imposed., lPinst transgressors.. . , In June 1988, the section officer stationed in Lapchaka reported that a separate Ii! was opened with the district administration. The beneficiaries have deposited 97,000. The interest from this account will be used for the maintenance of the , subject to the approval of the dzongkhag...The district administration is considering accumulating sufficient funds in the ~~naka account to enable the beneficiaries of the irrigation system to use the int.erest from the account for t.he O&M of the system, in lieu of a subsidy from the .-\"\"rrunent.'\" The prominent role of the section officer and the support of the dzongkhag to system give the impression that this is an agency-managed system. However, Mr. Dorje, Superintendent Engineer in the Irrigation Division, suggested that this~ not an agency-managed system in a true sense. He asserted that the beneficiaries active in maintenance and operation. The section officer assigned to Lapchaka the beneficiaries with the ultimate goal of having the system managed by the of the Systems the systems observed, annual desilting and maintenance of the canals are fanners. large systems, either the mandaI, gup, or yopen lead the annual of the system. The mandaI or gup is the head of the village elected by people for a period of three years. The mandaI or gup is assisted by the febe.febe is responsible for transmitting messages from the mandaI or gup to the The yopen is in charge of the maintenanace of the system. In small i~stems, the fanners decide Hhen and how to undertake the annual maintenance of the Simtokha. In the Simtokha system, according to the informant, the mandaI fixes date and mobilizes the beneficiaries for the desilting and repair of the canal. system serves five villages plus the government agriculture farm. The five awU.ltlges are Simtokha, Olakha, Jalu, Luthe, and Zigithana. Labor mobilization is on the number of households in each village. The command area and the number of i8D~eholds in each village are different. All the beneficiaries from all of the lages contribute labor at the time of desilting and repair, starting at the intake, tm.;ard the tail. Each vi llage contributes labor from the intake up to the The Simtokha people help to desilt the canal only from the intake to The Zigithana village, at the tailend, contributes labor to clean the length of the canal. Should breaches in the canal occur, repair is done by the in the area of the breach. Chavana. In Chavana, annual maintenance is done by the farmers. They have only ~ beneficiaries and all of them participate in the maintenance work. Because various groups use the water for different purposes, contributions desilting and maintenance of the Bajo system are more complicated. The dzongkhag the townspeople to contribute to the maintenance of the system up to the tanl{. The Anny provides manpower for maintenence up to the water tank. The for Agriculture Research and Development (CARD), established in 1982, is in Wangdipodrang. Before the establishment of this center, it was a ~v,,~~~--t agriculture farm. At present, the Center is engaged in collaborative in paddy cultivation with the International Rice Resea~h Since CARD uses water from the Bajo irrigation system it contributesmachiner:v,;.~~ cash for the maintenance of the system from intake to water tank.,:itc Until the present, the farmers have had to provide labor for maintenance work , the intake to their farms, which are situated beyond the water tank. Because so people use the l~ter from the canal, the farmers have petitioned that the Army, , and townspeople be responsible for o&M of the canal from the intake to the water The farmers would then take responsibility for o&M from the water tank to their To this date, no decision has been made regarding their petition. Lapchaka. Lapchaka has a long canal. Annual maintenance is the responsibility til; beneficiaries, who are usually supervised by the section officer assigned to system. The yopens of each section make sure that their sections are desilted. The Yuwawon system (Lobesa village) is a large system with a large number of ... landowners are required to contribute five man-days per acre to the maintenance l-lork. Each system appears to have developed a management method to accomplish annual Yopens perform important roles in mobilizing people, maintaining the supervising l~ter distribution, and resolving conflicts regarding irrigation ~ement.Labor mobi lization is compulsory in many places except in Lapchaka where fines are collected from persons who are absent from the annual maintenance work.Water allocation and distribution are two important elements in farmer-managed '.~tems lmich shape the nature and strength of the irrigation system.distribut~,on methods varied among the systems that were observed, each having ve characteristics. Water distribution in Simtokha. In the Simtokha system water is allocated to the cipant villages. Hence, each village has to contribute labor for the maintenance llie system. This labor contribution ensures the village's water right.Water distribution practices are related to the principle of water allocation. desilting the canal, the total volume of water in the canal is used by the first until planting is complete. When that village has completed planting, the volume of water is diverted to the second village. Each village receives the amolmt of available water for plantation in turn.Once the whole command area has completed plantation, the principle of water ion changes ,so that water flows continuously in the canal and all of the receive a share. Each village has its own method of water distribution. During the time of ;t.tation, each village decides the rotation system for water distribution. The said that the basis of rotation within the village during plantation and on the basis of the number of households. The mandaI supervises the The villages have practiced field-to-field irrigation and there are not many channels and control devices in the command area of the Simtokha irrigation Water distribution in Chavana. Chavana, with only eight beneficiaries and a 1 command area, has some interesting features regarding water allocation w1d ion. Water is distributed using different methods depending on its lity. This system received government assistance for canal improvement. Since water is during the early part of the season, the farmers decided to install wooden ing weirs, called g'l:!hs in the local language, across the canal at two The water share appears to be based on number of beneficiaries, not on size ldings. Water is allocated according to the number of original beneficiaries the second Heir. .,The second wooden proportioning weir is installed at a point in the canal l-1here five beneficiaries receive water, hence there are five notches of equal size cut However, the amotmt of water flowing through any one notch is not \" sufficient for agricultural purposes. Therefore, the farmers receiving water the notches in the second weir have established a rotation system whereby all ,ater is diverted through three notches for a specified time, then the other tl-lO receive all of the water for a specified time. This system has been in for two years. The Chavana system adopted the use of the wooden proportioning weir after ng about its ftmctions from one of the beneficiaries who had seen a .~~rtioning weir in the village of Dhawakha where he l-las formerly a resident.to the farmer, a High Court judge, Mr. J. Dorje, initiated this scheme to IAsolve water-related conflicts in the Dhawakha system.interesting concept related to oHnership of water share was observed in this It seems that water share is not attached to the land but considered property the individual beneficiary. One farmer in the Chavana system brought his share of from the neighboring Dha~d1a system to his fields in Chavana by digging a from the Dhawakha canal to the Chavana canal. He runs the water from Dhawakha his fields in Chavana whenever the Chavana system is not running water in its Hence, this beneficiary can use his share of water in whichever system he long as he can get his share of the water from the other canal to his Bajo system's method for distribut~~ter. Because various groups use the from the Bajo system, formal agreements regarding water allocation and ion are enforced.Water from the Bajo canal is used by the tOHnspeople, and the farmers. However, the farmers are the primary users of the A proportioning weir divides the water flow between the irrigation canal and l.,rater tank. The dzongkhag and the farmers have an agreement regarding this However, as the tmm. of Wangdipodrang has developed, its need for {-later farmers also have a written agreement, registered in the dzongkhag, Hith the ture farm and CARD that specifies that the agriculture farm receive 3x3 inches ; day and night, irrespective of season. Despite being a government farm, it enti tled to receive more than this amotmt.The Bajo system serves two Bajo Wangukha and Thango. The two villages rotate the flow of water. One l-lill receive water for 12 hours in one night; that village will take water for during the day in the next rotation. Within the village, water is distributed according to the size of landholding, ..  primary \" Ii control devices to measure the water are used. The yopen and the villagers the fields and determine the amount of water to apply. ' Lapghaka ~ystem. The Lapchaka system is evolving a method for water allocation distribution through trial and error. The management of a 22-kilometer canal aloM a mountainside is a big challenge to the farmers and administrators.The yopens get together twice a month to determine the water distribution and schedules. Observation of the canal reveals many places where damage has because attempts have been made to divert all of the water through one Other damage to the canal indicates that farmers have attempted to open zed outlets. Yuwal<1at1 system. YUl<lawan is a large system serving seven villages. Water characteristic of this system. Water is distributed on the basis of Each village is entitled to get water for a day and night, usually 24 hours.there is plenty of water. But when water is scarce the people guard l<later against water stealing attempts day and night. The rotation schedule is and each village receives water during its turn. Within a village, water is buted according to landholding size. No devices are used to control the flow of at the farm level. Water allocation and distribution are implemented in different ways in the that were observed. However, in each system the farmers have worked out to assure that water is available to the paddy crop when it is required.'Wlesource Mobilization for the Operation and Maintenance of the System Two categories of resources may be mobilized by an irrigation system: internal Internal resource mobilization means that the beneficiaries utilize from wi thin the system. These could be labor or monetary resources. resources refer to resources obtained from outside the system. External such as construction materials and technical expertise are sometimes by government. Construction is directly under the supervision of a technical This assistance is usually aimed at improving the physical condition of the Internal re. §ource mobilization. In the five systems that were obse~, ,labor is resource that exists l•dthin a system. Labor contributioruJ may'be assessed one of tHO ways: according to size of landholding, or according to the number of However, to be more equitable, the farmers have agreed that labor butions should be based on. size of landholdings.The Simtokha, Chavana, Bajo, Lapchaka, and Yuwawon systems mobilize labor for tion and maintenance of their irrigation canals. Because of the short supply of wmpoHer, many systems do not accept money in lieu of labor. If one household cannot the required manpOl..er it is held responsible for finding a laborer from 'pwhere to do the work. If a beneficiary fails to appear for work on a specified he is required to present himself on another day. Peer pressure is important in iog compliance with the labor requirement. In some cases, the absent ciary is denied water for the season. This occurs in Simtokha, Yuwawon, andIn Lapchaka, farmers who are absent during maintenance and repair work are fined. fine is collected by the section officer and deposi ted in the dzongkhag. This is only system wi th a hmk account. In the Bajo system, materials, tractors, and cash are mobilized from CARD for \"n<>...\",~ of the system. The tOlmspeople and Army also contribute manpower for the effort. External resource mobilization. All of the five systems observed had assistance the government for the renovation of physical structures. system can be a candidate for such improvement. The farmers, through the gup, In some cases, ies talres a _lllag~ head.especially plays an for renovation.tudes, red rice is grown, valleys, chili, mustard, important crop.As part of a cultivation of early paddy.l*lter conflicts. petition with the irrigation tmit of the dzongkhag. The distri~t puts the proposal before the dzongkhag developnent committee. Once ~roved by the dzongkhag developnent committee, the petition is sent for approval from the Irrigation Division, which checks the technical feasibility of the system.the irrigation unit of. the dzongkhag. ~ce approved, ~e ~Jrnag un1t 1S 1n charge of the renovabon work. In all 1mprovement proJects the .. ~~rs provide the labor for the construction work.Although very few conflicts are reported in Bhutan, mechanisms exist for the ... mlen conflict arises within the village regarding irrigation water, it is settled the gup, or the dum, who is the caretaker of royal lands. bigger dimension, it will be referred to the dzongkhag, Sometimes the case is referred to the judiciary court in order • Some form of irrigation organization exists in ~he beneficiary-managed Yopens are elected by the beneficiaries to carry out certain they are paid, but this is unusual. Each of the turn at holding the office of yopen. The gup or mandaI is the He is paid by the government but elected by the villagers. The gup important role during the time of renovation and selection of the He keeps the record of landholdings and organizes the farmers desilting and maintenance of the canal. The dum is the caretaker of the royal lands. Since he is close to the royal he is influential in resolving irrigation-related conflicts within aThe systems observed are in the valleys and terraces close to the valleys. Irrigation activities are primarily geared toward paddy cultivation. At higher and in lower altitudes white rice is cultivated. Around and wheat are grown as second crops. Wheat is not yet a Wheat straw is used as animal fodder. program to increase paddy production, experiments are going on for Depending on the availability of water in an area, Agriculture Department will designate areas where two paddy crops may be grown. irrigation systems will not be allowed to have two paddy crops because this may CARD is introducing row plantation hlith the objective of introducing roter ~o~n as part of an extension program that includes farmers in the Bajo system.are subsidized, and insecticides are free in the Thimpu, Wangdipodrang, and \"•\"\"'ll(;l. districts.In order to increase the area under paddy, government has encouraged people to hill slopes into terraces and is providing Nu 300 per acre for such terrace\"1. Some form of irrigation organization exists in all systems that were ,,~ , .The irrigation organizations perfonn the tasks of water ~isition, loI8.terand distribution, and resource mobilization, especially labor mobilization .maintenance of the irrigation systems.Annual maintenance is the responsibility of the beneficiaries of the system. the yopen or gup decides when desilting and repair of the canal is necessary. on management officials are found in the villages. The Royal Government of Bhutan provides material and technical support to the on systems designated for assistance. Usually the government provides ion materials and technical manpower but the beneficiaries contribute the for the construction activities. Labor mobilization has become a difficult task IIIfll1Y of the farmer-managed systems because canals are long and manpower is scarce. constnlction works are performed under the supervision of the irrigation Contracts for construction are not allowed when the government assists a <I ...irrigation system. The irrigation organizations that were visited do not keep written records of activities apparently because the number of beneficiaries is small in many Except in one system, monetary transaction in the irrigation organization exist. labor has a higher value than money since Bhutan is a country with a shortage. Foreigners are not allowed to work as agricultural laborers. Irrigation organizations are not legal entities.Because of labor shortages, government should consider the canal length and of beneficiaries in a system when detennining which systems should receive ~'I\\'E>rnment subsidies.The irrigation systems observed in Thimpu, Wangdipodrangj and Punakha have flexible systems adapted to the local topography and terrain. Hence, ~vernment regulations pertaining to the beneficiary organizations should be flexible.rules applied to all systems might render the irrigation organizations Issues on tenancy rights create problems for management of the systems. In of the villages of the Bajo system, tenancy changes each year, requiring water location and labor mobilization quotas to be readjusted according to the number of iciaries using water that year. In the Lobesa system absentee landlords are predominant. The tenants on these have no assurance from one year to the next whether they will remain on the same Where there is no sense of security, the tenants have little incentive to or improve the irrigation system beyond immediate necessity.Bhutan has a variety of irrigation systems with diverse arrangements for ning !~ter share, water allocation and distribution, and labor contributions. ,ariItAt-iOn organizations are a strategic resource enabling better management of on systems. The irrigation organizations which are presently in operation in need to be properly understood before water users associations are introduced the country. 5. In many systems, the roles of the yopen, gup, and dzongdha are spelled out These leaders presently play important roles in making the irrigation functional. The government plans to create water users associations to the O&M of the irrigation systems. Any irrigation organization which is needs to capitalize upon existing local expertise and integrate the already leaders and management practices into the new organization.Over time, the demand for water for other purposes such as new settlements, I industrial use, and for government agriculture farms will increase. Hence,  ---------------------------------------------------------------------Areas Wet cultivation Dry cultivation  \"iThe I{ingdom of Bhutan is a small, rather isolated state, with a total area of •500 square kilometers and a total population of 1.165 million, situated 'between the Plateau and Himalayan crestline to the north and the Brahmaputra plain to the In 1961 Bhutan launched a planned process of economic developnent. The First Year Plan (1961-66) primarily concentrated on developnent of infrastructures. Of the government departmental outlay, the construction of roads topped the priority accolmting for 66 percent of the total $10.7 million budget. Some of the funds for the construction projects went to local contractors who made rapid and formed the core of today's affluent group.Another major thrust of both the First and the Second Five-Year Plans was onIn this way the government established a number of primary and secondary and also provided scholarships for brighter children to study abroad. This the government, both at home and abroad, with educated school graduates who 1970s were able to shoulder government responsibilities. Thereafter, the sp.ctor found public popularity and created momentum to form today's the dal./tl of developnent broke the kingdom's traditional homogeneous society classes and u!=lhered the people into a new era--an era of business opportunities, free medical care, and job prospects outside the traditional sphe~e.AID SYNDRCME\" The total outlay of the Second Plan (US$ 20.2 million) was 90 percent larger than First, and the Third (US$ 47.5 million) was 139 percent larger than the Second. three Five-Year plans were developed entirely by foreign expertise; and, in fact, total outlay of the First and the Second plans came as grants from the Government I~ia.As a result the peopJe knew little about what these early developnent Hould mean to them in the future. Furthermore, the continual aid of the Government of India, the availability of the United Nations (UN) wc!Upnent assistance when Bhutan joined the UN in 1971, and the kind gestures of (such as Switzerland, Japan, and Australia) to participate in Hork escalated the confidence of the people in external aid.of the bilateral and international aid, the Government continued to add projects, rehabilitate settlements, reduce taxes, and subsidize prices on commodities, fertilizers, agricultural implements, and cement. This made D. N. S. 1987. Twenty-five years of developnent in Bhutan. In Mountain and Development, United Nations University and International Mountain Colorado. 7 ( 3 ) August. The Tramd tion Phase began once the ne'ldy ordained Planning Commission toolt '.0 ibi Hty for preparation of the Fourth Five-Year Plan 1976-81). Until then, no N?sponsible government body had existed to co-ordinate developnent plans for and planning; most tasks had been undertaken on an ad hoc basis. The Planning ~ ssion established statistical units, channelized information from audit and accotmt units to generate at least the basic data deemed necessary for ng on progress towards its goals. Having routed most information through its trative units, the Planning Commission latmched a $101.6 million fourth Five Plan in 1976.Although the format of the Fourth Plan differed little from that of earlier , emphasis this time shifted to agriculture, which was allocated 29 percent of total budget. The Government hoped to boost agricultural yields, and thereby the already staggering dependence of the people on the Government • ..w~~neously, large investments, outside the plan outlay, were made in a 336 hydroelectric project, various industries, and major irrigation works, in to estahlish the revenue generating base of increasing the internal contribution ilie Fifth Plan outlay. The capital investment came from the Government of India in grants and loans.But upon evaluating the feedback from the Fourth Plan in 1982, the Government a record food deficit of 25,000 metric tons, tmbalanced regional developnent, a huge overhead cost due to the burgeoning bureaucracy which consumed most of the from capital investment. This convinced the Government that there was a basic in t.he system, and it was decided thereafter to slowly lead the people away from \"Perpetual Aid Syndrome\" towards \"self-reliance\".The self-reliance policy of the Fifth Plan (1981-87) required a structural change the bureaucracy. As the first step, the Government decentralized the developnent tion into districts (dzongkhags). In the dzongkhags, Dzongdhas (district ) were entrusted to constitute district planning committees (Dzongkhag Tshokchtmgs) to decide upon the nature and quantity of aid required by the in each district. Every developnent proposal was to be suhnitted through the people. The ~mmpnt officials would help the people to understand the feasibility and cost of projects. Also, it t~S made mandatory for the public to contribute either cash, or materials. Only upon meeting these conditions can the Dzongdha plan proposals to the National Planning Commission for final approval. Another obligation requires that the district plan must conform with the general ines stipulated in the National Plan document. Also, once the plan has been no interim alteration is permitted without the prior approval of an authority. In addition, the progress of the plan would be periodically and evaluated by an expert team deputed by the National Planning Commission. ~ongdha is accountable for mismanagement or slow progress. This Hork format was intended to streamline responsibility and bring general' to the people of the amount of money the Government had been committing to I07.()hglthag. Also, the villagers would become cost conscious and be encouraged to free developnent support facilities in agriculture, animal husbandry,• and health. In addition, the dzongkhag's elites would become familiar \\.ith ing expenditures from t.he developnent infrastructure, and would comprehend _J>';'t:>I\"Pssi ty that someday the people should be left alone to manage their own reforms in the Fi fth Plan lolere concerned wi th reorganizing the \",\",1\"nr\"V, cutting dOlm tmnecessary staff, and commercialization of public These refonns helped the Government reduce overhead expenditure and \",,~8e lolorking efficiency, and they produced significant annual revenues. It is that the revenue generating sources, such as tourism, industry, power, and will continue to improve in efficiency and will provide a significant contribution to the budget of the Sixth Five-Year Plan . The estimates total revenue at .2 million during the Fifth Plan period.It seems that everJ~hing that could be accomplished by the bureaucrats has been But there are remaining taslrs of a scientific nature if Bhutan is to pursue a ;.lSwined, holistic approach to complex motmtain developnent. Of the many important , the follOloling require immediate attention: -To investigate scientifically whether or not a subsistence community tolith an of about one hectare of land per family can become self-sufficient wi thin a n time period.-To suggest an alternative approach to tackling the household problems of self if the present milieu inhibits the society from moving towards this goal. -To determine the present status of soil erosion, and integrate a new village soil management system based on agro-climatic data.-To assess the present status of environmental degradation from road cuttings, logging, industrial developnent, hydroelectric dams, and mining, and then establish a regular moni toring body to record the environmental changes wi thin a time period. -To create facilities for recording time-series data on rainfall, temperature, 1.ind and also on stream-flow and sediment transfer. This information is important deciding Hhether or not a cycle of catastrophic events would effect developnental capital projects in the specified time period. 'Robert Yoder and SoB, UpadhyaylThe first official rccogni tlon and estimate of the extent of farmer managed irrigation systems (FMIS) in Nepal was made oy the \\.laler and Energy SecretarIat (WEGS) ill 1981, The size of systems ranges frolll a far:mer's plot consisting of a fr\"ctlun of a hectan~ (11lI) to the federation of several organizatiolls and dIversions iutu ,I system whIch as much as 15,000 ha, However. it is tl1e sheer: mlluber of systems than their size that makes the greatest Impact 01, IIT!gated Fanners ill Nepal have been active for 11k1ny generatIons In the technology available to them to Its limit, They have tapped all easily accessible water and l\"nd reSOliL-ces to develop irrigaled agricultIlL-e, Excluding tile systems in lhe till-a!, simple eXlI:apolill iOIl uf th\" [\"stll tsIn this paper along wi tit information from the I.alld Resource f-Iapping (l986), ludicates that thc,'e lIIay hl. well OVt'r I J ,uon LUlU,,' 111:\"\",£,,,,1In the hills of NepHI.The impact of FHIS in ICIII.S of suusistell\"\" hence the national econolllY has not ueen \"\"H-L\"I Iy slll<licd, f,lill-UII alld Yoder (1986) present data from several COIIIIOllllitl..,s with IH\"(\"llIbl elevations I>clow 1,000 meters (III) which prod\\lce three CI'OpS IH'\" rhe net allnual illcrease ill cer\"al productioll .... itll ill igatJolI UVt'L lhal of nearby ulIlrrigated land was found 10 Le well 0\",,1' 6,()()() kiloglillflS 1\"'1'(kg/ha), ,As a conservati ve estfmate olle call \"~S'IIIiC oil average in production of at least 2,000 kg/\"\" tlirotlgh I'I-IIS Using tids yield Increase and lile IJECS estimate t1wt rOllghly 390,OO() II\" al\" such systems in all of t/ep,11, olle call sl\",w til\"! the ill<:l\"\"\"L'lIlal in pruduction due to nHS Is provldillg the toull sl\\],sislc.,,'c It:vel cereal production for at least 30 percellt of Ilepal's 1'''1'\\1),,1 iOIl, lids calculation is hased Oll tile average cereal COIISlIIIII'tioli of I ()I, kg/I'U sUli/yr (I:\"adl<a and GaUlam 1981), \\.lECS is presently condllcting\" \"'''leI' \\lS(' ill'.'('II!.ory I\" tlte tarai districts which ul II give a Leller: estilUCitc of i nigutcd lallel area, Prelimillar:y analysis indicates lhat the are\" in igated by nils 111\"-)' In: as much as douole tl.e earJler estima!:\"s, III tid\" \",lSI.: til\" <I\"I\":II.1\"II<'Y \"1'''11 FHIS for food production In\"y he lIIuch hlgheL-than the \"I\",•:t! \"\"aly,,i,; !lIdlcates, IRobert Yoder is a resident s<:i''' It.ist ill Nepal [or tile I 1I1elllal 1011,,1 Irrigation Management Institute (IiHI) and SoB, lJl'\"dllyay is tI,,, execulive dlrectur of the Water Resu\\lrces ill,-ec!un,le ill lIis H,t;csty',; (:ovenllll<:l1! of 11\"I'\"l'5 IJater and Energy Commission Secret\"rla! (11H1;II/IJECS)_The action research project l-\"porled 01\\ in this p\"pcl' is ,Hllllill!,;«,r..,\" hy IIEeS ulld I\",rtlally fUlldcd by II\", FUld FOllud,,! lOll, 'IIIV vi\",,,; \"lid lliter'prerallolls ill this Pili'''L are thl' ,JIlt \"\"L'S' alld ill< II<,{ ilttli\"\"t,,!dc III tl ... llllen,at!ollal Irrigation Nallag\"lIIel1t IlIstl(II((., IJ,del \"\".I Ellvrgy Cumlllissiull S~crctariat, or the Ford FOll!l,l:il iotL II!TEn 11 Ell II 011 III 1111 S Tit ... \"1'1'''''''''''''''' \"r \",,,,,I: nll~ hf'll,,!'; thl'lr 1'0!'('nt1.,l l'f'r[ormallce.r.\"I.. \"\"/~:I\"\"\" tli':\",•:!,.,,<: .11.,1 \".,nh 1111\"\" \",. 1\".,15 1<'111: 1111\" 1'(''l\"II'C frf'quf'nt lIl\"i,,\"''''''''''', 'lId\" \"11\" I,,\" df'\\'\"lnl',nr\"t .1r,!'II('if'll, \"lid (,1Ip;ill('('rs in 1'1Irti\",nllll' , I,•.,,,,,.,,,,,, II,,,,• ,,11'1\"\"\"1':>1 illll'ro,\"\",\"('\"',, 111 th\" \"''1tf'r \"c'l\"lsltioll nnd d('llvery r;y.':I•\"1Il will 1\",1\" fI'!\" 'I,,• ':y~' \"m \"fffcl ... \"cy, Furthf'r, th.,t nffici('nt opr.Iltloll '<ill nIl\"\", rp,' \"\"\",, , .. I'\"\"',,, i\"'\"\"\"I\"\" I rrlr\",t 1011 of .1\", ('xisti\"B commll\"d .\"\"\", \",,,I «.':\":\"\":1,,,, (If I\" .. Inlf,l1tr,\\ .,rr.1 101\"('1'\" l.1ml Is .,v.,lIahle,r.1..,' .. ff\",,~ .. r 1\", .. , '.'('Ill h,\" ,,, FillS to Imrrovc thrlr Ilgrlcultur(ll I\"\" r\"'m.'I\"'~• I\"\"•,, \",, ' 1\",,,,,\"11'.loIy \"\"cc\"~;d,,l. lid\" Is r:lT'I'I.,lly du(' to ml\".fI,1f\"\",,,I,,f. 'ltr ,\"\"\"\" .. I '''r shortcoml\"r,s.FtHS 111'1' ge\"\"rI111y built with In . .. :d m.11\".-I,11\" th\"l' <I,•c,,)' 'l'.dddy wh\"\" not III u<:('.(\"\"p('ctio\" of syst('ms by 1\"dlfllcl.-l!1o. '•\"\"I''Jwdhl,.. (\"I' 1\"''','v,,\",loII \\lsu.,lly t.,K('S rl:oce I,ll th(' willter \"\",1 dry .~(,'''''Oll 1\\1 th.,1 tim\" m.,toy $y~t('ms do not Ilv.1ilable In '''IV(' w\"t('r I \"\"I!' ~\"\"n'(' '11,,1 f.'nn~l•s ,I\" nol' w.,stl' \"ffort I .. trylllg to mlllntnin II syst('m I hat <.'I1,,\"t I\", \",,,,(1 rr>\" \"\"{',,son, T\"\"lml\"{,,ns of1',,\" d('cl.,re such systE'ms to h,. II! In',,1 '1i<:!\",!,,,lr \"ilho\"I' fh(' \"\"r1{,l',,,\"ndillg th:ot tfll'y will b(' transform('d Illln vl,,'d .. \"'Y\"\"'III~ hv fh\" h,,!!,,(lcl.1I'I,,<: \".S \"OO\".,s wtll\"r Is \"vl1ilnhle. II! \"\"\"'\" <,;t':.\", {;l!IU\"n: \"f(' \\\"I11inr, 10 IIl\"'''s!' I1S milch :os 50 p('u;r>I1•d:oys/h\"/YN,r ill m\"illf\"lnl\"f. Ih.. lI' SV\"'''ln,'' (Y,,<I(,I' I'Hl/'i), l'bY\"!('.,1 im!'t ..... '•'\"rnl.., In., roy\"frm rn\"y h,,:o n(,cl'ss.,ry condition for \"('1'11'1' p\"rfol\"ln.'11Cf' hIlt tnlll'lnp. stn,ct!!r.,1 lrnpr{lv('m(,I1ts 1110lle s('ldom brings th(' ,lpslr('(I1'(,,,\"lts.Th\" \"I'I•rnf.'h or .111 Irrlr,,,tlon s},stl'm with sc\"rce rE'sources III\"f p . .. rforrns ,\" ... 11,Is 11r; JII'l I 1,1 g\"'\"1' II I'Improving th(' tn.1l1:ls('ml'nt CIlpllbllity or I'\"orly 1'(,\"(01'111111/\\ \"y..,I\"Ifl\" \"'.1Y h!' \"'l\";'!IJy Import.111t to m.,king {mprovemenU; fn i,,, ,.hvsi,•,,1 \",;,,1\"10 III \"\"IH\" C.1S('S \"s\"Ist<1l!r(' from OI,'I'sld(' nil'! community h.,,, ('r\"d\",1 1,,,,.11 \"';ll!:'r!'''''' II I .1!1f! ,,,SOl\",,, rnoblll7..,tIOll c.,p\"billty, 'lit\" rn;lr ... It ..\"\" nl1<! 11\"...1'\" \"f rrs()\"I'Cf' mnhill:c.1t.ion hy tit\" brneflci.,r1('s lCo \",,1'1<,,11 h,\"\"\" nl' U\"'.... r';lnn'l. Thr Idp;h ['('dorm.'Ilc\" of som... HtlS l,s \",1.,'1\"\"1,,,110 II .... c\"I'\"I,llllv In III\"hlllzl' !'rrm\"ndous I\"hor \"n\" c(lsh r('sources (nl \"l'\"r.,!•!\"\" n\"d IO.1Inl•\"'1.1I1\"(' C,,,d,,r loR\").On(' .~ysl:('m In Gulml. two In 1'1111'\" ,111d 0\"\" In '11r 11.1\\•,,11\"'''.1<:1 Itill\" werl' Intl'nslvely monil:orNi for 18 m\"nths III I'lR? R3, 111 ,-yslrtn,; \"'''('r'' tll(' w.,rer sourcr W(lS Ildf.''l''(ltl'. all WE're l'u,d\"... II1p. th,\"!' in if.n!,..,1 I'rnp'\" rM'\" )'1 '.11'. U~lng c/'or cuts to ('stlm<lte the \\,!r•ld. lltf' \"ysIPm wilh 1\".1~;' W:11\"r• [,\"o,lncllIg two crop~ .. h.,\" II to!:\"l min\"\" I l',ndlll'l in\" or 'i,7(JO I'r/l,:, \"\",1 IIH'\"'' will. thrrr c,'ops 1'''1' Yl'(lr r<1l'r,('d frorn !.'i(l(l 10 \",oon \"r./h\". S'I(•I, f':•:.~mpl\"s of intl'llsi\\'(' \"I',rlculture production In nos .1l (' not• I \"01.,1 ('<I ('nsf'S (1\"'.1\"\"1111 198/'i) , lIow('v\"r, somr nils ,'1'(' \"I'rr\"tlttg f.1l• h('low the production l('ve1 th\"t th\"y \",ould rol•f'l1ti.,lIy .1chl\"\\',,, wilh tltl' .1\\,.1IJ\"bJE' wlltl'r \"nd Imld rE'sourcf'S (I':on!' 19R5; Th\"\"ri IQR\").I\" .MlIY C,''-;f'\" fnnn('r.s \"(lv(' good C\"USf' for !'r'l,,{'slllIg \"\",1 \"\"llv\"l.,. cllml '.1ir,!!in\" 10 :1ltl'(lCI: olll'sidr \"\"slstIlIlCE' [or sln,('l'lIr.,1 imr!•o\\'('!nrnl,\" In :\"Idllin\" 10 mor! ' 1',,11.1111(' .111(1 I'xt('nsive it'rl\"\"IIr>n, f.1r,\"(',-,,, \"r(' irtf.\"!\"\"I\",I In 1'{'(llICillg1h(' ('[fort, ,11lbor <lfld in SOtn(' \"'<;\"\". c\",h •tl.nt th,,¥ Ilr\"d 10 IIlv('sl' in m.11Iltf'''(lflC(, of tl,,,ir systE'ms, \\.Iilh incrr;lSirtF, lllt('rr'''! nmollr, ,'r,f'llcl(',<; to t•.1rg('!• poorly performing \"),<;Ir,,,,,, (01' 1,,1('1\\'''''' j,,\". <;p\\\"'r,,1 rr\",.II\",1I '1l1\"sl lOllS \"1U('rr,\". It is c)l'\"r th.,t HlIS h\" ..,,, h\"\"fl \"\",.\"('\",,f,,1 in illf'I\"\"\"ill/!, \"erlndtllfr rroduction, Somr <;Y\"I\"\"'\": r\"\"rorm wf'11 \" \",! The underlying rationale for the IJEGS action-research project is the is that farmers in the hills of Nepal have already, to some extent, most of the sites with potential land and water resources for agriculture, Few new systems will be built where there is not at s~e existing irrigation activity. IDlere Irrigated agriculture already farmers have some irrigation management experience_ They also have about the stream discharge, diversion and canal maintenance , soils, irrigated agriculture practices, and benefits of irrigatedIt is expected that food production gaills can hest he made hy the existing (running) systems to identify, and to the extent e. release the constraints that farmers f,lce In increasing tural production through intensification or expansion of their sation sys tem, IJEGS project is to examine the physical, bydrologlc, • economic, and soc ia I/ol'ganl za tiona I aspec ls of ex I st i ng i rr igat I Oil to first Identi fy if there arc water and land resources in a ity that are not fully utilized, and then attempt to uncover lh~ reasoll than full exploitation of the inJgatlon potenlial. Another ailll is lop and test processes to Ovel'come the probl\"\",s.Emphasis is placed loping the necessal'y methods and tool s lor coliecting lIseful tion as quickly aud cheaply ,1S possible, I\\lter eVilluaLing till! lves, recoIDlneudations for upgrading and Improving i,ndivldual system Ion will be made and carried out as II pal't of lite jlroject,The intent Is to carl:Y out all activities In SIIC), a way as to enable lI,e clarles to contInue to lake ful I 1'('sponsll>llll y tor the Opel\"iitloll alld of their I rrigatioll system, TIll s Implies mil:dlllum participation rmers in the idelltiflcation of the constL'coint!>. examination of ves, choice of the appropL'iate action, and Implemelltation of the Tioe aclioll research mode of carrying out LI,e 1010.\" allows specl fie to be addressed as they an~ idenllfled, R\"collllnended act lOllS Call lJe .lIented immediately, offerillg an opportunity to furthCl' ~tudy the illlpact activities and to 1lI.lke additional recolllluclld<.tiolls .:lIId carry th<'1lI olll ry.the Proj cc tPrimary ohjectlve of this actlon-n'seilL'c11 Ploj,:ct Is to <,xauollle ways t fanner managed systems thill wi Il iii low tlwlII to overcome the lilts limiting intensification and expansion of Irrlgilt;,d agriculture, tides testing lower-cost techniques illld technologics and maximizing rtlcipation and resource Inobilization of the t,\"\"l<diciari\"s, It also developing and testing IO\\J-cost processes, pr()c\"dll[('s, methods, alld ogy fOl-developing 1II1dct'-utilizcd h'\"I1'1l1 and physical rcsouu-es,Th\" Is to do this without shifling the l'espollsibi I ity for opel-a! ion aud the goverllment,The \\lEeS action-research project proposes to assist irrigation systems in the project aren. Uowev('r, success of th(' project will not be Measured by the int('nsiflcation or expansion of irrigated area, but by the degree to which the objectives of developing processes and procedures are accomplished • The impleml'!ntntion of the project is being carried out In two phases. The first phnse con!'ists of information gathering, analysis, and recommendations of steps for initiating the second phase. The second phase will involve intervention in Irrigation systems selected as a part of the first-phase nctivity. Monitoring and evaluating the intervention will be an Integral part of the act! vi ty.The chronological steps taken to carry out the first phase include:1. Project site selection.And rapid appraislll study of the project area.3. Selection of a local consulting firm to carry out the first phase field studies.Deve lopment of a procedure for the reconnaissance/inventory study and carrying out the field work nnd report writing associated with it. \\lith the exception of developing a work plan in the last step, the first phas(' is complete. The remaind('r of this paper will examine and analyze the proc('dure and results of the reconnaissance/inventory st('p of this activity.The project site was envisioned to encompass a large river basin and include all of its numerous minor tributaries. The criteria for selecting the site were: accessibility frolll Kathmandu for supervision and representativeness of the hill areas of Mepal. The Indrawati River basin in Slndhupalchok fit these criteria. To furth('r define the boundaries of the project, only the area above Sipa Chat, extending four kilometers (km) on each side of the Indrawati River, was included. This excluded the Melaunche River, a major tributary, but included allllost all of th(' r('maining Irrigated area in the basin.The consultants were given background materials, including check-lists and write-up guides developed in different parts of the world, and available materials from Mepal. From this material th('y developed th('ir own lists and guides for both the reconnaissance/inventory and rapid appraisal study.To carry out the fie Id work the consultants were to use an interdisciplinary team consisting of at least an engineer, a social scientist, and an agriculturalist. However, the nature of consulting firms does not lend itself to fielding such a team.Few persons can be employed full time by consul ting fi rms. therefore individuals who can take leave from their regular jobs are recrui ted. Frequently the best -qua 11 fled persons on the roster are not available and others must be substituted. This allows little flexibility in selecting disciplines.The reconnaissance/inventory field work was carried out by a civil engineer, an agriculture specialist, one junior hydrologist and two helpers. Some assistance was provided for part of the time In the field by an IIMI social scientist.The reconnaissance/inventory team visited each irrigation system In the basin. The most important activity was to walk along the length of the canal from the intake to the command area. One or a group of farmers was invited to accompany the team. lJhlle walking along the cana I the farmers were questioned about the operation and maintenance of the system and the organization that was In place to carry out the various Irrigation activities. Problems with the diversion and along the canal were discussed while making this inspection.Water in the source was estimated While Inspecting the intake. Farmers were also asked to estimate the discharge in the stream and relate the observed discharge to that in each irrigation season.In addition to the consultant's estimate of discharge by visual inspection, he asked the farmers to make their own estimate by asking them how they measure water. Usually the response was in Ghatta of water (discharge required to drive a locally built water-powered flour mill assumed to average about 28 liters per second flps» or um (water pot used for carrying domestic water holding about 20 liters) or samaha (water basin 5•10 liters). !Jater for driving a ghalta was further differentiated by asking if the water was sufficient for grinding all types of grain.If at some periods of the year it could only grind millet, the discharge was clearly lower than at other times. Half or one-fourth ghatta of water were also typical responses for discharge estimates.For lower discharges, farmers were asked how long it would take to fill a gagri or samaha. Since time is not generally measured in minutes and seconds by the farmers, they were asked how many times the gagrl would fill in the tilne that it took to smoke a cigarette, which was estimated to I>e al>out four minutes.The error in this type of estimate is high. A mill can grind grain with 0.25 -1 kilowatt (kw) of power and power is a function of both the discharge and head (height the water is dropped) as well as the efficiency of the particular ghatta. However, it does give an idea of the relative dIscharge and of the variation over the year. Coupled with Information from the farmers about the adequacy of the wate,r supply for Irrigating different: crops and whether there was sufficient water to expand the area irrIgated, the discharge information provided insIght Into the extent that the water resource had potential for further utilization.To the extent possible the command area was also inspected. ThIs was a difficult task among the mallY ridges and valleys and not always possible in the time available. The farmers were asked to estimate the atca ill the hydraulic command of the canal, how much of that area Was actually irrigated, how much was cultivated but not irt'igated, alld the extent uf the waste at'ea.Uhll(' (,l\"\".illillr; th{> cOIJI'a11nd ilr{>a, fllrm{>rs w('re also asked about their :lr.\" I clIII'lIrill prilC t I.e\"s . !':\"tilMt\"\" of 1n (ld .1[('.1 WE!re morE' difficult for farmers to make than \"\"t'I . ..11'<>\" of W.1!'(' I' dl!lchnrr;\", The clIdnstra1 survey of this area is complete :I,,\" '1\\(lIvt(hl:1l~ hllv(' Imowl.E!dge ilbout th{>ir own holdings but not of the \"I',r.n•r.\"I\"\" tnt I .. , syst\"lJI. Th!' most common mf'lIsurE' of land area used by the f.1nn\"I\"\" fn tit!\" ,1r\"il is the volume of lleed required to plant the area. A ,\"\"\"gh \"~tlmnl\"\" for cOllv{'rsion Is 20 (J.Iltti of seed/ha (91 liters of seed/ha).I!IoI 11:(' most sy:Hf:'IJI>; >;tudt!'d ill western Nepal. few of these systems had ,,'!'IIIt! fi\"d th{' r\"soure\" mob11i%atl on or water allocation of the system on the h.,~t\" of 1.1I,t! IIr\",\"\" Th('r\"fore, farm('rs have not needed to compute the, total 1\",,,1 IIr('n or s\"\"d r(\"I\\tlred for a system alld found it difficult to do so. The 1I('{\"\"''',.y of I It(' 11II1d .11:\"''' information could be improved wi th good quality air rhotos.Slnc\" m:lr>; of .1 slIltllble sCllIE! are not available, the consultants were :I\"J:I\"<1 to milk!' II sketdl 'MP of the ar{,B showing the irrigation water source, \"OIlC\" \"II!'.\",.\"\"I (If tit\" cmllll, lind lllyout of the command area. The map fl1r1wfl\"t! tit\" \"\",.\"\" :md rd\"tiv\" loelltions of the intake, canal, and command .1' \"\" of \".,ch ~y~tNn f'\"oro thllt plIrticular water source.TIt{' r,'oj\"ct I1r,,\" covers about 200 square kilometers (km 2 ). The 'mll\".,.~\"tf Rtv\"r ... \"\"not b\" \"~,,d extensively for irrigation because it is 'f\"\"ply In('{\"NI. fili'I I\" 1 fir/';\" , wIth vioIf>nt floods, Almost all of the inlr,,,t,,,, fl\"ld\" III thl\" PI'oj\"ct I1r\"\" receive their water from the 25 trlhllL1ry \"I'r\".1\"~, IIn<;t of n.\"\"e ~tr\",1m~ lire stef>p-stoped having highly <1,,>;1 ,\",lcl \"'''. ~hflr! -rllIl:l1 Ion flood\" durlllg til{' rainy season and very little ...1t\"r III th ... dry \"'''''''''\". Til\" r\"coIIII\"I\"\"'\"IIcf'/lnv,,ntory study identified 119 irrigation systems in th\" rroJf'ct \"r,,11 with cnnals longer than 0.5 km. These systems irrigate \"hollt 2,100 hll of hlld lind loIcre foulld to benefit approximately 10,100 hml\"f'hold\".I\" \"ddltloll thf>re arf> ml1ny systems with shorter canals and small ... o!nrn:1I1d ,1r\"IIS III til\" v\"ll\"y hottoms loIhich hllve easy Rccess to the available w.11\"r T\"\"~,, \"\"1'\" IIot I\"dud\"d '\" the Inventory because they have little 1'01 f\"ltl\" , for It,t''lI':lfl ...,,tloll or ('xp\"l1sIon, Tit\" 10ll[;\"\"t \"'''1..,1 w\"s foulld to be 5.5 km from the source to the command lII'{', 1. 011 th\" flv\"rllg(' the <'I1,,\"1s Are 1.9 km long and serve 100 households.S\"v\"r,,! \"y,'t\"ms i,'rlellt\" over 100 hR, Up to 800 households own portions of latld f 11 the Inl\"e\"r sy\"tf'ms, The aVer\"ge land Rrea served by the systems in Ih\" \",r:udy I1reo1 Is 18 hll. However, the median area covered by a system is IIhout 10 hll.Of the I1rrro:dlMtd,y 3,800 ItI1 within the boundaries that can be Irrigflt\"d by grl1vlty (hyd'\"\"lIl1c or gross command areR) from the canals, 30 pl\"rr,,\"t Is too st\"\"r 01' rorky for cultivation. Of ~,e gross area, 56 percent is Irrlg:l!\"d .111<1 o1l\",,,t If. pE'rc(,IIt is cultivated but not Irrigated because of It,suffld\"nt wilt\"r In the !louree or Inl1bility to deliver the water to the I\"!l(f , Til....1r\",1 II I I r,,,t,,,' \"\"rr\",~E'lIts lIhout 11 r\"rc\"nt of the total 200 km 2 P,\"oJ\"\"!' \"1'('01 t\\lth\"tlr.h I'h\" project ,,[('a is sml1l1 and no claim can be made that it is average for the hills. this is possibly the best data presently available for estimating the area irrigated by fMIS in the hills and for estimating the total number of such systems. Extrapolation of the number of systems and percentage of area covered by fMIS in the project. to all of the hills and mountains of Nepal, yields an estimate of at least 17,000 systems covering 300,000 ha. The basis for land area in this calculation is taken from the Land Resource Happing Project (1986) and only Class I, II, and III land (land classified as supporting cultivation) from the siwallks, mid mountains, and high mountains was included.Out of the 119 systems identified. 25 have received some form of outside assistance in the past 20 years. For some the assistance was a certain tonnage of grain for working 011 the improvement or rehabilitation of an existing canal.In such cases the beneficiaries did most or all of the work themselves. Eleven systems in the study area have been built (about half are still under construction) by the Department of Irrigation, Ilydralogy, and Meteorology.A major accomplislunellt of th\" reconnaissance/inventory work is a detailed listing of the potelltial for either intensifying the cropping pattern or expanding d~ area irrigated by each system. Out of the 25 basins of the minor streams tapped for irrigation in the study area, only 11 basins with 21 different irrigation systems \\.Iere identified by the cOllsultant as having land and water resources wilh potential for expansion of the irrigated area. A more reliable water supply would allow more intensive cropping in many systems beyond these 21 physical system would assist 21 systems identi fled by the to the largest gain in food and impn,vements in both the management and in making this possible. However, assisting the reconnaissance/inventory study is likely to lead production.In addition to the physical re'soul'ces, lhe study examlnetl operallon and maintenance (O&H) activities of the irrigation systems and agdcultural practices.Even by spending very little extra lillie in caeh system the leam collected valuable information about lhe hi.slorlcal dev,,)opment of tt.\" system, the current organization for O&H. and the capability for resource mobilization. This information was considered along with information ahout the physical system in determining the pOlential for eXI'<lutlillg water anti lalltl resource utilization.A summary of the effort that wellt into carrying out the reconnalssOlnc,,/ inventory work is presented In Table 1, lIere It is seen that the repoll writing was more time consuming llwn the field 1.101'1,. Allenlloll shollld be given to making the report wdting simpler without compromising content anti also to making it more readilble thall the present two VOIUllleS totaling 500 pages.By maklng II comparison of river basins it is estimated that the same level of intensive field work to cover the ent ire Slntlllll(lillchok District would require one team to spend about 18 14eeks In the flt\"ItI.Although the estimates of watel' discharge anti land ,nea are 1I0t accurilte ill absolute terms, the reconnaissalll~e/illventol'y work is eXll'eme]y v\"luaole in determining the irrigation development potentiai III a relative sense. The study has successfully Identified the existing j rrfgatcd );md t'e1. Information on the agriculture system, management practices, and physical system. giving an insight into the constraints that must be overcome to make the systems more productive..~If this type of study were to be carried out on a district-wide basis it ,)would nUow plnnllers and poHcy makers to set priorities that would maximize '\"returns on investmcnt in deveiopment. The cost for completing the reconnnissance/inventory study in Sindhupalchok would be approximately six tImes what has been invested in studying the Indrswati basin.Two limitations of the present study should be addressed in future work. lllnd Area estimates need to be Improved and potential areas where farmers have not been Able to develop irrIgation should also be examined. Both of these could best be addressed by using good quallty, large-scale air photos in the fIeld. The possibility of using existing Air photos by enlarging .   GI','(>II <;ou\"trnilln; of tim\", mOllE'Y, ::md manpower, rapid appraisal is a u,,<'flll 1'001 for n!'\",\"s!'illr, ('xisting irrigAtion system!!. It can be used to 1,I(>III'/.fy k<!y is\"u('s nil\" probl('m ar<!as and to give direction for further in,,\"~t:lgfltlon, 111(' ('ffort of rapid apprai\"al should lead to a wide variety or option\" 111ld posslill .. nlt<!rtlative arrangE'ments for irrigation management.TIi(' \"quIrk nnd dirty (mnr,('\" often l1!!sociated with rapid appraisals can h\" o\"<'n'''me loll th n 101,,11•<1\"0'('101'(>(' frnmework lind a tE'am thllt is integrated in It '\" (,Hon:. Intnllr.lvn Illt('rllctloll of thE' tl'lIm wh111\" in the field leads to rHl\",,,•,,h,,,,klllr. of \",form;,I•lon I1ml an opportunity for follow•up questions.0\"\" mU!'It r\"cof,IlI;:(' I\"nt rnpld nppraisal hns limitations. Not all '1'1(' \" t lOllS ('''II hp :11l\"w('l•nd by it. CompIE'x issues cannot be unraveled in a short tIme, SomE' rpsllits nnd concludolls will inevitably be wrong. 1/1('I'('.,s(''' ski 1 t III crns\"\"chE'cking can reduce thls problem but there is always <I.111f,,,r Ih:1t thl' IlIv\"\"I•tgntor will b(' mls1t'd by one or a few informants. It Is Imrort.1l1t to \".nmlne rnpld :1ppralsal results Wi~lill the context of its Ilml fit!' J 0\":;, This eul\"\"I!\".., for r:1plo :1ppmis:1l of irrigntlon systems was largely I't('p.'I'{'{1 nn Ih.., h\"~I,,, of ('''p\"rlc-nee with fnnn\"r•m.,nag('d irrigation systems in IIf'r.1I, IHth som,mn,1I flcntion it could be used to Inve\"tigllte agency-managed \"yst('m\" n\" w('ll. fNTROJ)lJCTION TO RI\\I'IO II.rrRAISlI.t 1\\1',1 '.11'1:111 rh.1l1l',(' nlHI IIgrlcuitur:11 d('velorm('nt lire quite intimately \"\"\"0<' 1.11,,,1 wllh th\" \"I nl'lIs of I rrlgntlon in Nt'pn!.Irrigation systems are ('01\"1'1\"\" \"orlo,tndml('.,1 IIl1ft\". nltd d('velopmellt activities have directly and j,,<llrectly nfr\"cted tlt(' st:1tu\" of these sy\"tp.ms. Due to resource constraints of n d('v('loplng ('ounl•ry, :1 detnUed and in•depth study of each irrigation sy\",l('m tlmler COil\" IO(,HI t lOll Is lIot pos\"ible, This is certainly not possible In N('pnl where It Is e5tim.,t\"d that there are over 20,000 irrigation systems .E[[\"('tl\",, rnpld ;'l'prni5:11 stud!ps cmmot be conducted by simply putting tog('th('r 11 cnmr\"pht'\"\",lvp qupstioll gUldt' lind tnking it to the field for sy\"tpmntk IIIV<,,,tff,,,tloll, 8eforp. a team goes to the field it is important thnt (':left mpmb('r uml('r\"t.,nd \"whnt\" th\" nature of a rapid appraisal study is, \"why• rnpId nppl'\"I\":l1 m\"thods h:1ve bpell sp.lected, \"how\" it will be applied, .'Iltl whnt tit\" tI\"tun' of Ih(' \"rrod\\lrt\" or the study will be.'l'r.1rh,'I\"'\" 1 '1,,,,111:\"1 nlHl Roll('rt Yod('r :Ire r('sidellt sch'lltists In Nepal for th\" Il1t('rn.1t/on\"l Irril',.,tion H\"Il:1gp!P('Ilt Institutp (11M!), Ujjwal Pradhan Is a r\"s('.,rrh rei low \"rrll i.,t('d with lUll .1110 CortlP.l1 University, .2/, ' \" if ~ • ::. f:. .Rapid appraisal is a methodology for collecting information quickly. ~raisal is used In the general sense to mean investigation and analysis, ~primary attention is given to practical investigation. Since the time frfor field investigation is shortened, there is an attempt to compensate intensive preparation and carefully planned procedures in the field.It : particularly well-suited for studies of irrigation systems since there is lI\\I811y more than one system to examine, and time, funds, and skilled IInpower are often a constraint to conventional studies. The output of rapid IPPraisal studies is generally a report for a specific purpose. The purpose f.r the study must be well defined in advance. The study is usually carried ~tby an interdisciplinary team.A rapid appraisal study can be used for various purposes. In some cases It can be used as a way to identify and describe systems for which there is 110 written documentation. It can be used to assess the physical system and problems associated wi th it such as identi fying the need for rehablli tat ion. It can be used to assess the organizational strength and weaknesses of a l1'teill. A study can be used to layout the socio-technical processes Involved in the operation of a system and this information used to solicit ticipation in organizational activities or collabol:ative resource Uzation fOI: improving the system. The utility of rapid appl:aisal methods vary depending on the type and depth of information that is needed and the resul ts are to be used.A series of rapid appraisal studies can be used to provide a comparative ture of irrigation operation across systems. By Identifying pel:tinent les such as maintenance labor mobilized per hectare, sanctions for theft. leadership roles, etc., it is possible to make cross system sons and in some cases rank the strengths and weakness of each system.A general picture of a single system or a comparative understanding of a of systems helps decision makers focus on key issues. It might poillt the need for more in-depth research or identify the physical areas 01:that require further study. It may thus be a tool for research needs.to Undertake Rapid Appraisal?Since hdgation is mul tidimensional with interacting physical, \",uulgical. and social envirotunents, all interdisciplinary team has a definite age. This assumes, however, that the telllu wili work together alld t; it is an ideal that cannot be takcn for granted. A balance is the team members to insure that the tlecesS<lI:Y multitude of are properly Integrated and incoq}orated into the report.Thel:e should be a conscious effort to cover the I:allge of disciplines to understand the complex interaction of the biologIcal, social, and environments. A valuable contribution that should not be ovcl:looked opportunity for cross-fertilization of r'esearch methods among the .1I!erpnt disciplines I:epresented on the team.-25 Urlstructurcd, !'lm:111'grl:'up int!'rviews and careful observation are r(>wl'rf,,) tool!'l f<'r collecting lIccurltte informntlon and should be used 8S much m; rO!'l!'llble.Jntl'rd.ew!'l should bf' conducted wi th a checklist to ensure that thf' fmportnnt rolnts fire not missed. Open-ended discussion should bE'! f'tlcotlrngl'd hy avohllllg formnl qUE'!stionnalr!'s. Since time is a factor in rllr1d nprrnl!!.,l. choo!'le a gUide who knows the people and is familiar with the pnrt of the Syt'!t-!'m to bE'! vlsit!'d. This w111 IIssist in moving about and mpptlng kpy Informants, allowing for rapid investigation. Use maps or aerial \"hotos to l'Ipl<'ct locations and pick out key categories of information to determine which peopl.<, to visit. Key informants to interview should be l'I!'l<'cted for. thpi r specialized knowledge: irrigators (head, middle, and '•nU). women, nf';ri<-lIttllre workers, and project staff. When different ~'('rl'lloll!: of il'lsUE's arE'! given by dlfff'rent informants. they must be interpreted fr\"m the rersrective of the different interests within the community. On senllitive issues one must be careful to remain neutral.ror mnlly irrigatIon syst!'ms in \"!'pal, what one sees in the field visit will 1)(' dpp('f1(''''nt \"rnn thp timp of thl? yE'ar. Some systems are not orerating ill thp dry S('I1S011. liost systems hllve been built for irrigating monsoon rice. It would bp dell I table to visit thpm during the monsoon even though that Is thp time wl!pn I tnvpl is most difficult. If a system is visited whlle it is 1I0t orpratlng 011{' must look for cluE'!s to how the system might function. for ('''flmrle, thf' ctopping pllttf'rn and the extent and location of fallow land would If'ad to qu!'stions about water adequacy and the management of dhtdbutlon. TIll\" logic for type and location of physical structures like \"'lI1(>ducts, siphons, 'mel gntes, or lack of structures, llre easiE'r to undrrstflnd If th... systpm is seen in operation but can also be visualized by imaglnntivE\" qU\"'J=:tiollfng. rr~ara~~t~~~~~~ef~r~~id appraisal study. Gathering all nvallablp informfltlon such as maps, rrevious reports llnd air photos, is the logical wfly to h...gln any study. To become f~mlliar with the study area, there is no suhstltute for desk work. If a large area or large number of systems nre as~lgned ror study, it may be necessary to do a reconnaissance. It is not nl'cP!'lsllry thllt all team members participRte in this step. One or two pprsont'! can do the rf'connnissance. nle purpose of the reconnaissance is to h... lr in spl ...ctlng, or limiting, the type and number of systems for furth!'r r.t ...,y.It-shout.1 l'.lv... fill (lvE\"rvlpw of the situl1tIon llnd th!'! reconnl1issllnce t!'pOtt sho1lI(1 rtnvl,lr v.,ll1l1hle background mllterial for hrieHng the team. fQFmatj.Q!L2.LJ;.l!e tea!!!. For {rriglltion studies it is useful to have at l!'nst 11 mix of four discirlinary skills on the team--organizationnl, cultural/social, teclmical, /tlld agronomic. However, even more important than the discirlinl1ry mix is mutual respect /tnd an attitude and desire to learn from ench other's point of view. Three to six members on a team allow easy internction and discussion. If a portable computer is available, an expf'ri!'!nccd typist with the tellm in the Held would help reduce the drudgery of writing and speed ur the report writing.Rapid apJ?1:ahal activities. There should be an organizational meetil1g where ~nforml1tion is shared and roles for the study are established. A team lender should b!' selected to assIgn tasks: logistics. public relations, sch!'duling. All of the background materilll available should be shared among all of the team m('mbers. There should be discussion about the purpose of the study nnd the fotm.,t of the rerort. The checklist or question guide should be disCUSSE'd and I1m!'ntiE\"d by consensus. It is useful if this checklist can be arranged in thE\" dE\"\"lred outline for the Held notes. This facilitates ~ rging each individual tealn \",cmher' s not\"es into OlW cOlllplete sel 01 n ..n rehensive fIeld notes containing all observations and data collected.a set of notes can be more easily checked for corlsislellcy than each r's separate complete set of notes. A sample dwckllst that doubles as outline for merging the field notes Is Included ill Appendix I.A useful exercise for the team in the first meeting would be to discllss interaction of the various irrigation activities.This would help to rscore the need for different perspectives to eslabl ish a comprehensive rstanding of the irrigatIon systeln alld how I t operates.A matrix shO\\~illg inten-eiatlonsidp of organizational, physical and watcl-llse activities is in Appendix 2. This matrix co~ld be used to faci Iltate discllssioll.If at all possible the team should be resident In the command area while the field.There should be as much Interaction as possible wi til fanners DO an Informal basis. The team must be disciplined in not displaying lIuthoritative behavior. They should answer questions asked by faL-mers about the reason for the study as soon as they are raised wi th as Inuch detail as necessary but without giving false assurances abollt assistance.Sensitivity '\"about intruding upon the farmer's time is Imput'tallt.Foucl aud services should be pa ld for.The team should tL'avel tlll'ough the system tugether the first lime (walking, If possIble) to share ohscrvations ,HId Jointly condu\"t (nnllel: 'Interviews Theil the gl\"OUp sltou1<1 break into small el\" uni ls ot two <)l\" tltn'e -for subsequent vislts.Useful suggestions from CIIUUlilc,s <111<1 Carruthers (1986) for offsetting ft-equent appraisal biiJses wId Ie \"ilHylng Ollt field \\JOII< given III Table I.In addition to wdlillg notes I\" thc field (wlli Ie \"',,;e''.'ing the sy';lelll discussing with Ilifonnan(s). th\" t\";UII \",,,,,,ilel's sit .. ul,\\ spcnd time ,iIul,,' each day rewl\"ltillg the noll'S ilcconlillg 10 tit(' aIP-\"\".! \"1\"\"' \"\"I I ille ;il.d lIuLillg -certain the lIotes iJre cOlllpl,,«'.I[ a typisl Is pan ol Ihe li<dd tcalll tit\" __ teIlID members should have tltese rewritten field noles \",.Iered illlo tlte wonl processor.The emphasis should be 011 simple statellll,uls illIll plll'a\"\"s ,-all,,-, than polished sentences and par;lgral'lts ill order to 1I.:<.:0Id tile r<lW datiJ quickly and make it avallalde [or disClIsslolI with tlte Lt'sL of tl,e tedlu_The most important group activi ty Is to have frequent 1I't'ellllgs Lo sl'<lL'\" alld discuss what has been measured, observed, and \"eanl.Iliflclent ami contradictory points o[ view need to be aln'd amI hYPOlil<•sc,; I,HIIIIII<lle(\\ (0\" testing In order to Id.mtify gaps ill undr•rstanding ilml inteL/HeL\"tlon_ This Intensive discussion will help the ICitlll LO cOlllpn:hentl the n!LILlollsl\\il' 'iII.OIIl\\ the physical. socl<ll, anti iJglollOJllic elivinllUII\" .. ts_ TIot' \",nil.!' tll:.;\"o,;,;lolI sessions wi 11 gellerate IIL'W 'I\"esllolls lo he lab-\" hac\\; to th.. ii.dJ \"\" the lIextvisit_ Before leaving a system j( is <'>:;s(\"ntial thdl c:ich {,,-~.JUI IjH\"W~h:l•-S lloteS Lt...' compiled Into a master not,\" [i Ie accordillg to the \"bre,'\" \"I\"''' \"oLtille _ This can be done by each tealll mC'lIIbe, or Oil\" illdi\"ld\",,1 \"\"d Is g,,,\"lly Llcilil . Th(' product of r.,plrl npp1-\"I,snl I~ .1 report which refl(\"cts a well IlIt<:>grntpd tp.,m effort.TIl(' Int(\"grntion bpglns with the organizational m\"e t I \"g wh\"n tasks amI ro I f'S are n<;s igltl'd 11l1d cont Inues in the fie ld as notes of \"1\"clI~~lons m'f> comI'11('d_ The .. ffectivpnE\"s<; of rapId appraisal Is due to thf' !\"\"m \"ffort nnd uti I izn! 1,,\" of input from all te\"m members on all issues.-28The style of the report should reflect the purpose for which the . . tion is intended to be used, If the primary purpose is identification description of systems, the report will be mostly nat'ration, 1I0wever, if ison of systems is planned, the variables to be compared should be if1ed before the report is written so that the material lo be cOlnpat'cd different reports 1s presented in an identical format aud is easi ly fOllnd each report, TIle structure of the final report should be decided uy the group and not need to follow the organization of the question guide, To ensure  -Yater quality: salt, lime, etc.-Other uses of water: power, fire protection, animals, etc.-Yater constraints to expansion/intensification of irrigation.Canals: main and branch -Type of construction, materials, quality, and condition.-Seasonal and long-term changes.-Sketch or map of layout.-Distance from source to first fields_ -Length of roain canal in command area.-Design capacity of main and branch canals.-Density: including field canals (m/ha).-Condition of rock and soil along allgl~ent.-ConditIon (specify In which season). Boundaries of the irrigated area -Irrigated area for each crop. -Changes in system over time: amalgamation, expansion, Ot loss.-Limitation of expansion for each crop' ~Iyslcal, wuter rl~lts.Drai nage -In command area.-Escapes from canals.Salls.-Type: head. middle, tail.-Fertility and sultabl I i ty for Irrigated agticllllllL\"e.-31 -Committees: regular and ex officio.-Informal leaders.-Relationship of panchayat and political leadership to system.•Federat ion/unitary.-Central.-Regional/distributory.-Village/farm channe 1 (mauj a) .-Regular: time, place, who calls.-Extra.-Purpose: resource mobilization, accounts, maintenance, conflict.•Attendance: landlords, tenants, women.•Penalty for not attending.-Leadership: moderator, minute keeper, how selected.•!tow are resolutions passed? vote. consensus.•Records of meeting.Conflict and conflict managementExtern\"l -Purpo!;e.-Source: -l4ho.CI\\II~E'. nnturt>. freql1t>ncy of conflict, .Specific to cropping sea~oll? InternAl or t>xterlllli to the system . . Among systt>ms, .tJon-Wtlt!'r issHes .  of rt>sOUrc<,: cM;h. inhor. in kind (rf'munprntioll. t>tc.). animal, bullock c\"rt, locnl b.owlp,Ir,(>, -Ore\",,1 z\"tloll to mmlllge -Accounts of rf'sourcf'!; dut> mId contribut£>d.-AllIlu(ll quantity of ellch typt> of resource.for not contributing. amount rt>\"lized from fin!'!;, how collected and used? is conseqll(,lIce of not p\"ying flne? are funds and in-kind resource!; held? Is there intermediate (short-tt>rm loans) use? -Discrimination agllin!;t contribution: enste, sex, age.if family does not have male m('mber? -Contractu,,! arrllllg('m£>nl's for rna intf'n,mce: m('thod, reason, -Resource generating activity: mill. over time in: rules, roles, resource mobilization, processes lecting functionaries, etc. •. '.wsnges in decision-making process. '.process of allowing new outlet from main canal .•Te[Jlls and conditions of external agency for providing aid and resolvIng conflict .•Change in involvement of panchayat or district offices .•Changes in re lationships wi th other systems: water sharing when temporary damage in canal, sharing resources for maintenance. All Irrigation systems require .1<~r.ompllshpd if the system is to function productively. ml'lII:'1f.,t'ml'llt ,act-Ivl t f ps focuses dl rectly on the :!Ilo(,: 'Itt'd, dfstrifmtE'd, nnd, if there is exces,\",. m:'ln,'gt'ment activities dt'als with the physical structures watpr, A final SE't of activitiE's focusses on 101al't'r and structures and includes decision mRking, that certain essential tasks be One set of water. \\later must be acquired, drained. A second set of for controlling the organization which manages the resource mobilization, CO,\"Immicnt ion, and conflic t management.There is internction among the activities of t:he three sets; for example, the organization must decide how to operate the structures to distribute the water. Thf! matrix shown in the figure illustrates these interRctions, Not all activities are equally important in each environment, :' 111(1 tilt' farmers' irrigation management institutions will reflect the relative Importance of activitIes in a particular location.For n rapid Rppraisal study it is instructive to use the matrix to formulate questions ahout the management of the system. Each of the 64 boxes is a potentially important interaction. For example, one might ask what dt'clsions need to be mRde about the operation of the system as it relates to watt'r nllocation, Often whole blocks of interactions \"boxes• are not Tl'lev:mt for n particular system. This mRtrix is useful for examining the :'Ir.tlvltll's IlItprnal to the irrfgation systE'm .  .,The Pl'OV1SlOn of fanner-to-fanner training of Sirsiya-Dudhaura farmers thuwa brought a turning point in the activities of the tolis. The irrigation system is now largely operated and maintained by farmers..\" ~ assisted by IMP in preparing a training program for the visiting fanners. This program helped them in three ways. First, it ~ them to ask themselves, if the fanners of Pithuwa can do tilis, why we also assume more operation and maintenance responsibUi ty'! Second, them to broaden their kriowledge base about how to carry out ~8nization activities. Third, they had the opportunity to learn skills for ~rce mobilization, keeping records, for water allocation and diStribution, etc.,d Fanners in Sirsiya-Dudhaura engaged in numerous channel cieaning , of' .;iivities for the winter crop. The number of people involved, and the amount ordesilting of field channels was substantial. Along with this, there was a f~ation of rules and regulation by the tolis fo~desilting tile field dlanne1s. This represented an important step forward in the InStitutionalization of WUAs.The physical il1lpICt of this acti vi ty was an increase in the extent of IofIeat planted in Sirsiya-Dudhaura during the 1987 winter season. This was fBrtJy due to a greater water avaiJabUi ty in that season but farmers also .ttribule it to the organized efforts of the toils in desil ting field mannels. They allowed an easy flow of W'dter to fields, thus water scarcity 'minimized. Also because of the toJis~, fanners had more confidence that would be shared fairly. Fanners are 'expecting to increase the extent wheat coverage even more in the next winter season (1988).In the second year of ESI aclivities, it became relatively easy to get , input in deciding on essential iUlprovements. Negotiations took on the basis of groups along branch canals. As pat of the involvement fanners in the rehabilitation process and in preparation for tileir taking responsibility for Q&M, petty contracts for construction were awarded to 1'hrough this means they are tmdertaking a large portion of the ESI The experience gained from worldng wi th tolis in construction ties ,,,nl be a guide for plaIUling this year's ESI activities in Dudhaura and in other IMP projects.The farmers are sutrting to feel a sense of responsibility and ownership the channels. Regulations were enacted by the tolis prohibiting damage the canal bunds or outlets. Reenforcement of this sense of ownership by is important in order to promote their participation in irrigation inter-group association (Sangh) has been fonned from representatives tolL 'Ihis association will work to establish inter-group tion, to /flake inputs to decisions at the main canal level. and to suggestions for water deli very ard distribution. The conduct of monthly IIg, keeping record.q, and ma1dng inputs to the decisions of the system Cl'Oll1 this ,.ill be taken care of b,v lhe associations. Requests for water clb'livery ,.ill be made on behalf of the WUA and group interests. Group input QJ' t! group interaction are increasirl,l!l,\\' shaping the t.mter lIl8l'l8gement 8ctiv.~lies jn S-D systems.wtwn MJAs Here started ini tially t.here 'JaS a confrontational ~illt.iow;hip \",ilh lhe a~el1cy. UnRlet IIL'Loda mad demands were frequently I\\.d'isclIsscd lJy ranum's. Once thpi r inputs Here t . .a..lten into account, hmo/ever, tile confrontational 9i hmlion gradually \"chBll,l(ed. into a cooperative one bell~een t.he fanners mId agency. 'Ille follm.ing episode is an example of the ol'ganizlll i\"m:~1 maturity of the WUAs and Ule agency. In tile second year of en, it \",as decided by Ute WUA that the main canal would be closed for rehabilitation work during March. This decision conflicted with the practice of Tajpur fanners of' cuI ti va ting early paddy. These farmers went to the agency to press their demand for water release in the main canal. They were referred to lhe inter-gi:'oup WUA concerning any decision to release water. 1he WUA stood by its initial decision. This broke the tradition of water being lDonopol ized by a few head-end fanners and gave tile agency time to lRIerlake main canal repai r work.The IMP is continuing its fieldwork wi th WUAs in Sirsiya-Dudhaura in order to strengthen organizational capacities to contribute to operational Improvements in :those Rystems. An unresolved issue is Hhen and how to withdraw, or reduce, ADs without adversely affecting the perfonnance and Ilinlenance of WUAs.At the end. of the second year of irrigation Management .ProJect (IMP) 1Ip1emenlation , a secooo field si te Was selected in the hills', Handetar Irrigation Project in l..runJung District. This si te who selected to Wlderstand trooess of handing over the system for management by the beneficiaries. This I78tem already had a WUA formed by the Lamjung District Pancha,vat which had II!en active in mobilizing resources f'rOfll the government for repair. however. Irwater users are to playa fuller role in system O&M. fielded in Handetar. to colleel basic Infonnation on socio c, agricultural and coomunity aGlivities as well as on the physical itself. After information is available on the water users at the level, AOs arel helping f~rmers to form outlet-level groups. La WlJAs so they can receive fund.. .. Wld mobHi~ and manage resources within the system. WUA fonnation i.s now accepted as one of the responsibilities of' the 001 in order to promote effective and sustained fanners'participation in water numsgement.WUA fonnation is now accepted as one of the l'esponsibili ties of the 001 in order to promote effective and sustained fanner's participation in water ~n~ement.Consequently the DepartJuent. of Irrigation is in the process of l'f;'CI'uititlR AOs to initiaLe WUA activities in other projects \\4UA activit.y is accepted us an inb!ltral part of the Mahakali Irrigation Project supported by the World Blmlt. in the line of credit program of the World Bank and tile sectoral lellding program of the asian Developnent Bank use of WUAs Hill be one of the prime activities to be promoted in other to ensure farmers' participation in water management. '('.-an the WUA experience gained hy the IMP be shared with other projects? 'Ibis ,./tIS the original expectation when the IMP was planned. With two-and-a half years of accumulated experience the answer is yes. The knowledge gained lll¥J Jesser learned can be shared wi lh oLhers. so they do not have to repeat Ole slUne experimtmt.ution as IMP ha..q in t.his initial phase. Evidence that physical improvements alone do not solve all of the ;problems causing poor performance of irrigation systems has resulted in increasing farmer participation in irrigation lIJ8.l'l8gement However. it has been difficult to find ways to encourage farmer Research in Nepal in farmer-ma.naged irrigation systems has have highly developed irrigation management practices while others are very weak in their ability to manage. They have arrived at these practices through the experience gained in a long process of trial and error.valuable resource of knowledge about the process in arriving at their practices and the reasons for them.However. farmers in many systems have not been as successful in arriving at viable management practices and have not been able to exploit the full potential of their resource base. Hence. they face problems in acquiring in mobilizing resources to maintain their canal, in allocating and distributing water equitably, and in resolving conflicts. This results in less area being irrigated with a lower cropping intensity than the available land and irrigation water would support.In Nepal. as elsewhere, irrigation development by various agencies has been a construction oriented process. The view has been that if the harcbvare of the physical system is correct the system will function. '\\n important step in farmer participation is the tion ()f knmrLed.l;te and the ability to select amoM the alternatives and Ims flvni lable for the multitude of activi ties that must be preformed to T,,'o hU I. i r-ri e:ation communi ties Chherlung and Argali \",ere selected as a tr:linin~ centre because of the similarity of the physical environment of these sys t,pms. Traj neel\": !.]ere Sf\"lected by the users t.hemselves. Not all of the IllernberR of 11 poor1y mann,e:ed system can be taken on a training tour. Trainee !l~If'('tiotl is \\,('ry CT'11f'lal and the degree of success of the training largely  the trnininll visits. the attitude of the trainees changed and ident.ifierl many Healm€ 'ss in their mm systems. Most became confident many of the principles t.hey had learned were suitable for their system that they could adopt thf'm. When they returned home they organized IIlI'magement, rommi ttf\"e meetings and conducted assemblies where all \\.l(>neficiaries Here requested to attend in order to convince those who were on t.he tour of t.he value of building a stronger management In one ~ase a tra inee fanner assisted three other systems to set up mnn(l,~ent('Ilt. commi ttee and to bef.{in the process of formulating rules for ClIX'rn ti n~ the s ys tems .Tahle 2 presents some prelimjnary indicators of the management changes after training. These indicators show that nelV-activities are being adopted.  - --------------------.------.-•• -------.------------------------------------------.------------------------.-- ----...-----------'------.I : Irrifation lanatelllent activities executed and will continoI'.0: Rither the activity does not exist. or D!llit has been followed.,\" , Om.' IX)S!'! i bi I. i ty tha t ('ou Id be explored would be to make several of the r~i tes that have already been frequently utilized into training centers. The \"\" trainers alread;v have a great deal of experience in explaining their irrigation management practices and have only been paid on an ad hoc basis '/1 f, .   The des1gned command area of the system 1s about 600 ha, but farmers have bul1t ffeld channels and branch canals to feed about ha. S'nce the canal's capacity does not allow enough water flow supply all 1300 ha, the farmers rotate the paddy biannually. With present capacity of the maln canal, the farmers can 1 rr1gate about ba of late paddy. The water ava11able in the river can supply one gatlon for the wlnter crop.Pfthuwa Irrfgatlo11 Project 11es mostly on the Kaler River lain, whIch makes the head of the system vulnerable to flooding 09 the monsoon season.OIN~ACl HUSTles NW f'[nrOI1J.tN~a: OF THE PHYSICAL SYSTEM 1 • llli1r.o.lWlY.The wattw sourco for Plthuwa Irrfgation Project Is the Kafer , which flows seasonally. lhe river dIscharges about 200 lis at intake fran June tr.' Oecoolbor. After December the rlver has a ver'Y 1 flow which 1s diff1cult to tap hecause tr,O dver 1s about 200 m There are \\:hnw fdflller-managod Irrigation sysltnlS upstream of Plthuwa intake, \"flU Illt<'lko5 for two othur farmer-managed systems close to the fntake of Pfthuwa. Onu 1ntake 1s for Bud1 Kulo. ch was dug by the Tharu ethnic group long ago, dnd the other Intake for Cha1 npur Ku 10. All f fVll of lhe~e Sy~tOO15 are 01 der than o to share water every 12 hours. the agreement is seldom followed.5 water sharing problem has forced the P1thuwa irrigation committee be strong and effect1ve.No pennanent intake structure exists at the Ka1er River. Every yea-r water 15 diverted by an approach canal wh1 ch 1 s about 75 m long from rfver to head regulator and by a boul der and sand we'r a~5S the r1ver. After every flood, the approach canal and the tanporary wet r are washed out. It takes two to three days to con struct a new approach canal and wet\". One earth mover (bulldozer) has beon prov1ded to ptthuwa by Chitwan Irr1gat10n Project to repa'r the approach canal durfng the ra1 ny season.One head regulator ex1sts at the fntake of the ma'n canal to control the water flowing fnto the main canal. The ma1n canal's about 7.5 krn long. A serv fee road runs along most of the 1ength of the ma'n canal. The main canal ts about 3.0 m wfde at the 'ntake and the IllAX'mlll1 depth of water in the canal 1s about 1.0 m. The capacf ty of the main canal at the head reach 15 about 1000 lis, but because of 5f1 t deposits (a t an average depth of 40 cm) the ca na 1 may not draw than 150 1/s.There are 19 falls tn the main canal of about 1.5 m each. The lain canal does not have any cross dra1 nage. The maf n canal and the branch canal s are earthen.There are 16 branch canal s that d1 vert water fran the ma' n The ma'n canal runs north to south and tile branch canals east or west. The average length of the branch canals is about 2.0 km. Ibst of the branch canal s f rr1 ga te a bout 30 ha. except for branch canals 1 00 hal. 2 (100 ha). and 14 (20 hal.There are no regulat1ng structures at the fntakes of the branch canals. All of the branch canc!ls receive water fran the mafn through hume pipes averag'ng 300 mm 1n diameter.Because of the large amount of 511t deposfted 1n the canal bad, the capacity of the ma'n canal 15 reduced. To get the required .ater, the fanners try to bring more water in without leaving any s~ce for free board. In several places, water sptlls over the banks.ratfng the canal this way has created a greater fall depth at the .~ -urop structures than the structures were des1 gned for, which is caus Ing erosion of the downstream canal banks and the launching apron (downstream canal bed) of the fall structure. In most places. the do\"'''''+''eam bank has been reconstructed of dry boul der masonry to its 123 1 , 1 f\"origtnal shape and size, but some of the drop structures need immediate maintenance.The recent alluvial 5011s of the area range 1n texture from 11ght to medfum and show ltttle prof11e development. Sot15 of deep sandy loam (high tn humus) were observed, and 5011 fert111ty is good.The command area of this system slopes from north to south an average of about .2 percent, and the watertable lies about 70 ft below the surface. The Ptthuwa 1rrtgatton system fs a relat1vely prosperous and progressfve settlement area. fields are rectangular and well attended. Rather than ltving 1n dtstinct vfllages, farmers dwell tn houses scettered throughout the command area. The houses are well kept, and a few are made of brfck. During the study of P1thuwa Irrigation Project, at least two women were observed w1th more modern, urban haf rstyles. Another woman tn the command area wore stylish glasses, obvfously purchased outsfde of P1thuwa. These proxy indicators led us to bel feve that the farmers at Pfthuwa are more urban-oriented and economically advantaged than farmers in some other areas in the Terai.Most farmers in Pfthuwa appear to own 1.2 to 1.8 ha of land. There were, however, dffferences 1n landholdfng size between the head and tatl. The largest landhol ders at the head owned from 3.0 to 3.6 hat At the tafl, one landowner was safd to hold 60 haJ and three or four other famers appa rently each own about 14 ha of land. larger landholdings at the tail might be related to the tatl farmers' proxi.ity to the Bharatpur-Hetauda highway.Approximately 20 percent of the farmers at PI thuwa are sharecrop~rs, 10 percent are owners-cum-sharecroppers .nd 10 percent are landless famers. The sharecroppfng arrangement fs usually done 50150, with the owner and sharecropper equ.lly sharfng the cost of all fnputs (fertIlIzer, seeds) and also the agricultural output. In many other systems we saw in Nepal, the owners did not share the cost of the fnputs.Sharecropped land was scattered throughout most of the command area except for the head, where there was more sharecropped land on the east sf de of the mafn canal than on the west. The land on the fs closer to the rlver and more susceptible to f100dfng. ndowners may prefer to rent out th1s less valuable land to others an to rent out other landhol df n9s.There are many absentee landlords at Pfthuwai some of than resIde as far away as Kathmandu. Very large landowners often rent thefr land on contract. sometimes on a three-tiered arrangement. For fnstance, one landowner at Pfthuwa leases h1s land to another farmer for Rs. I,SOalb1ghA (I bfgha = 0.66 hal and Rs. 30,000/20 bighas. The ~'contracting farmer then does what he wishes wfth the land. In this 'case, the contracting farmer divides the 20 pfghas into smaller par cels and sharecrops the land wfth several other farmers. As with other sharecropping arrangements, the cost of all inputs. Ind the yfe1d, are dfvlded 50:50.~A!l~_.uuJ Ethnic GroupsSeveral df fferent castes and ethnic groups farm I n the Pf thuwa Irrigation Project --Brahmfns, Chettrfs, Magars, Gurungs, and Newars. nle castes and groups seam equally scattered throughout the command area, though some people estimated that 75 percent of the tall farmers were Brahmfns or a.ettrfs. At the head, Brahmfns, Chettris, Magars and Gurungs were encountered along branch canals 2 and 4.There appears to be a great deal of interactfon and coopera tfon among the different castes and ethnic groups. At the head of the system, Chettris and Gurungs were observed socfalfzfng together, and Brahmfns and Magar. were freely enter1ng each others' houses to dis cuss Irrigation.A f811al e Brahmin far'mer whose husband works f n Kathmandu stated that she felt no dlscrfminatfon In water dfstrlbutfon, even though she lived only with her children. She did say, however, that she waul d not go out alone at nf ght to I rri ga te her crops, and she was reluctant to ask her nefghbor to help her wtth nfght irrigations. She said that her crops suffered as a result.As tn other locations fn Nepal, large landholdfngs were fden tiffed as a prfmary sourco of power. Farmers at Pfthuwa stressed, however, that educatfon and OOfng ftconvfnc1ng\" also added to an indfvfdual's power. Ono Chottrt farmer declared that power at Ptthuwa could be gafned through communfty fnvolvement and honesty and applfed these terms to an fmportant 1 rrf gl1 tfon commfttee m811ber.At llnother househol d, two farmers sta led that the three most Powerful peoplo at P1 thuW4 lIore the 1argest landhol dor f n the area, the JU'4dhdO PdnctJ, and a wallen who' 5 the Ch1twan Of strict reprosentative to the Nepal Women's Organization. The Inclualon of a woman on this list was unexpected and an interesting feature of the P1thuwa irrigation system.Except for the small vIllage at Khalrate, the rest of the command area was forested untIl 25 years ago. The forest land was dfstrlbuted to the h1ll people under the Rapti Zone Development ProJect. These settlers from the h11ls of Nepal had to clear the forest. Most of the settlers fn thfs area are from the hfll dfstrfcts of Dhadf ng, Gorkha and LamJ ung.Khirate vfllage was on the route to Thor1 from Kurlnghat of Gorkha. In those days, the people of Gorkha and Dhadlng took tM s route to Thorl to buy salt for domestic consumption. At that tfme, the Chltnn dfstrict headquarters was located at Upaidang Gadf, whfch was on the route between Gorkha and Thori. The dIstrict headquarters of Chitwan was shIfted In 1961 to Bharatpur, which was a newly deforested area wIth few physIcal facIlitIes.The early settlers In P1thuwa had d1fffculty gettfng drinkIng water. At that tfme, the only Irrfgatfon system was farmer-managed and was known as Khafrate 1rr1gat10n system. It commanded about 40 ha outside Khalrate vfllago. The water supply for thfs system was used for drfnkfng water until recently. Comparfng the accounts of the early settlers and the observatfons of the current agrfculture and growth of the v 1114ges around Ptthuwa f rrl ga t10n system, one wftnesses a large transformatfon that occurred wfthfn only the last 25 years.Prfor to 1913, the lack of water wfthin the current command area of Pithuwa allowed farmers to grow only maize. In 1970, farmers were gfven Rs. 15,000 under the Minor Irrlgatfon Development Program to construct an frr1gatlon system tn Plthuwa. UsIng voluntary labor and this fund, the mafn canal was dug. However, the canal did not functIon properly and the people again approached the government. Finally, DIHM undertook the construction of Pithuwa Irrfgatfon Project 1n 1973.After DIHM completed the main canal, frrigatlon water was released. At fIrst, water dlstributfon was lalssez-fafre. \"Might 15 rfght-prevailed fn the system resultfng fn conflfcts and feuds over water share.Then, one promfnent farmer took the Inltfatlve to organfze the other farmers on Branch 14 Into a commIttee, whtch formulated rules for water allocation and dfstrfbutfon along Branch 14. WIth farmer partlctpatton fn commIttee activtties, conflicts over water sharing approv lug or dt sapprov tng the accounts of the system presented by the secretary d) decIdIng the outcome of outstandfng conflicts wfthln the systom e) reviewIng whether the decisions made during the previous assembly meeting were duly undertaken or not.The matn commIttee has 18 members. OrigInally, the chairman was elected f,'an among the assembly membersJ today, the pradhan JUUJ.s:l:l of Pithuwa v111age pandlayat is the Qx-o{flctg chairman of the ~mlttoe.The secretary of the matn committee Is stfll elected by the assanbly durIng the annual meetIng. The other sIxteen manbers are the chal mon of the branch committees.from late June until late October the commIttee Is active and holds at least one meeting each month, dependIng on the Issues that have to be decfded. The major functions of the committee are to Implement the ded slons of the assanbly and superv.se the overall operatloR of thematn canal. The specific responslbllltles of the matn canal ccmml ttee are: a) to supervise and malntatn the maIn canal. b) to allocate approxtmately Rs. 18,000 for the fuel and operatton costs of the bulldozer that Is used for mel t n tenallce.H\";:!.I~ 1 c,ppro'i.:ll i fG\\I:,J..... ':\"l . ... ,.. ,. , ,~ c) to communfcate the dectstons of the maIn committee to the branch canal and determine the water al10catfon for the branch canals.d) to contract wtth and establ1sh relattons with external agenctes (e.g., the government or other IrrigatIon systems upstream of the fntake).e) to allocate the area fn the maIn canal that must be destl ted by the branch canal farmers and to mobf Hze 1 abor as needed to otherwise clean the main canal.f) to keep proper accounts of fncome and expendftures.g) to resolve conflicts over water a110catfon among the branch canals.araocb Caoa] CommIttee AOd farmers' Assembly Inftially. there were IS branch canals. but one more was added later to expand the irrfgatfon command area at the tatl of the system. The raptd apprafsal team fntervfewed the secretarfes of branch canals 1, 2, 3. and 16. All of these branch committees have wrttten rules, account books, and minutes of the meetings.There are two organlzatfonal units tn each branch: the branch canal farmers' assembly and the branch canal commfttee.aranch Canal fArmer,' 6~semb]x: Once a year, usually fn June or July, all the farmers along a branch meet to dfscuss: settling the annual account of the branch; and g) the water allocation for wfnter crops • aranch Committee. The branch commfttee consists of a chaf rman, a secretary and representatfve members from the branch. These members are elected for one year durfng the branch farmers' assembly. Once a member Is elected, he can contfnue tn that posftton several years as long as he receives annual approval from the 5embly each year. The number of members on the committee varies om branch to branch, but averages five or six members per branch.nle branch chairman presides at the assembly meeting and the branch committee meet1ngs, represents the branch committee, and com _unlcates the decisions of the main committee to the branch committee ~, and the farmers of the branch.The secretary keeps records and Implements the decisions of ~ ;!;: the branch canmlttee. The secretary supervises the water rotation :' schedule and 15 expected to prevent damage to the branch canal bunds \" durtng rotations. The secretary of the branch canal seems to be the _ost wanted person fran late June to late October. He has to be present in the system dt\\y and night to monitor the rotatfon and prevent c.unflfct. One secretary's wife complained that his office has taken so much of hi s tIme tha t hi s own farming operations have 1)suffered. The secretary receives no renumeration for the job he performs for the conmunfty. In the four branch canal s we looked at closely, the socretarles have six to seven years of work experfence and the farmers want th(lIn to continue as secretaries.E1De Itll~os 1tI 00TIle farmor' who breaks the rotatfon schedule 15 ffned Rs. 25 the first time. If he dIsobeys the rules a second tIme, he fs ffned Rs. 50 and hf s tur'n for water 15 cancel 1ed. For a th1 rd offense, he Is not allocated any water at all. These rules are strIctly followed, ind few problems tn water distributIon and water allocation are reported.In general, commIttee system seems qufte effectfve in Pfthuwa. Wfth tho introduction of fndf.\".Idual branch commfttees, the system is more flexfble for meeting fanners needs. Also, effective rules are formulated and enforced. D. a~N\\ACrERISTICS NlO PERfOHMNHl: OF SYSTEM OPERATION, MAINTENAN(£:, HID WATER DEL IVERYThe Department of Irrf ga tfoo, Hydrology, and Meteorology bunt the approach and mat n canal s at Pfthuwa Irrfgation ProJect. After the water poasses the headworks, tho fanners are raspensf bl e for allocatlon. local OIUM offictals compared the allocation and dls trf butlon system at Pf thuwa with nearby Panch Kanya, and all off1cl4l s stated that the Ptthuwd syst6TI has a better source and there are fewer confl f cts wfth farmers. ,arranges\" rota tlon system. They then allocate water to the tan to?.. outlets first for a set nunber of days, and then to the head outlets.: I• Fanners al so plant thefr crops on dffferent dates, whfch means that Irrlgatton water h requt red at dffferent tfmes. A kfnd of rotation system ts fnstftuted to take advantage. of ~aryfng plantfng dates.Fanners regtster for water for pad~ transplantation during the general assembly. At thIs tfme, water ts allocated accordfng to the ~regfstratton 11st --no consideratIon 15 ghen for the location (head or tatl) of the fIelds fn the system.Along the branch canals, water fs allocated to fann outlets by the branch canal comtfttee. Fanners request water fran the branch canal secretary .. and they are ghen a token that guarantees them a t water turn. The token I s returned to the secretary when the I rrf ga l' tion fs complete.,r fttne allocations dtffer fran branch to branch. In branches 1,~( and 2, four hours of water per..b. 1.u.bl (0.66 hal are allocated,. whereas l fn branches 3 and 16, two hours per ~are allocated. The tIme for t allocatfon 15 based on the nature of the sofl, the sIze of the fIelds, the voluqe of water avaIlable, and the frequency of watering requfred for the crop. On some branches, daytime water Is allocated for ptransplantatlon, and nIghttIme water Is allocated for ftelds that are ,transplanted. Each canmfttee has a<bpted rules that suft thet r 5011, . : crops,. Ind the avatlabl1 fty of water fn the branch canal.Pipe outlets and wooden gates are used to distribute water . along the branch canals. Representatives of the branch canal f canmfttee, as well as the I rrf gators thanselves, make sure that the ttfme allocated for an frrfgatfon turn fs not exceeded.On f1.1 d channels, whfch are shared by several fanners, the farmers collectfvely dfstrfbute water. Then, fndfvfduals dfstrlbute It to the1 r own fann channel s. All farmers reported that there fs no prfortty system, and all water ts delfvered by rotatfon.UnU 1 1983, the mal n canal maIntenance was done by Chttwan IrrIgatIon Project. MaIntenance money was made avaflable to the Chftwan Project by the Irrigation Department. and Chltwan Irrfgatfon Project contracted the maIntenance work. last year, the mafntenance money allocated for Pfthuwa was made avaflable to the matn commIttee ltsel f.A few years ago the funds were as hfgh as 1 1Jkb of rupees (Rs. 100.000). lately, however. the budget has steadfly declf ned.I the project will receive only Rs. 31,000. The commit tee 15 requt red to keep books showt ng how these funds are spent. DIHM offtcla1s are allowed to examine these books whenever they wish.Every year the committee must set as1de at least Rs. 15,000 to pay for diesel fuel for a bulldozer. The bulldozer 15 used to repatr ~ the diverston structure on the Ka1er Rtver, because every year the ~ 1ntake 1s damaged by floods. The funds left over must take care of all other maintenance tasks. Thts year the money available wtl1 come to about Rs. 31.000. This 15 a relatively small SlIn for a 60o-hec tare irr1gation system which delivers some water to over 1,000 ha.Local farmers, however. ~ntend that they can perform 1 .l.Ak.b rupees worth of work for only Rs. 25,000.;J farmers matntafn the m~in system are delayed maintenance due to lack of funds. and repaIring the approach canal every year. Repairtng or r~placing structures along the branch canals 1s almost imposstble due to the shortage of money_ Fanners stated that if no money for repai r was forthcomfng. they would attempt to repatr the structures as best they could ustng thetr own resources and sktlls. The fuel cost for runn1ng the bulldozer 1s also a cont1nu1ng problem for DIHM.-Currently, DIHM does not charge the comm1ttee to use the bulldozer.Accord1ng to OII'If.f.. the recurring costs of fuel and mach1ne operatton are problans that need to be solved.Once a year, Just before the pad~ season. the main canal 1s partially cleaned under the superviston of the 1rrigatton commtttee. Sanetimos the commfttee sfmply contracts with a group of fanners or laborers to perform the c1eanfng and repair work.The branch canals are also cleaned at least once a year. suporvl sed by the branch canal c<Kumi ttee. There are two methods for malntatntng the branch canals. Branches 2 ~nd 16 contract the main tenance to a third party. Interested contractors submtt a btd, and the lowest bt door Is awarded the contract. The funds for the estimated b1d are rat sed based on the stze of the farmers' holdtngs. A sub-commtttee of area manbers superv t ses the job. On branches 1 and 3, the f~rmers des11t and mai ntat n the branch cana15 thEIIIse1 ves. Here farmers work1ng 1ndependently may clean the branch canal as many as three or four ttmes a year dependi ng on thet r t nd1 vi dual needs. Voluntary labor ts contributed.All farmers consider the cleaning of farm channels to be a routine accompltshed from once tn a season to once tn a year. Farmers on the channel 1n1t1ate the work, and nonparttcipation t5 ftned Rs. 15 to 25/day of work mtssed. All farmers tnterviewed reported that the ftne 1s enforced and collected.Conflict is reported by all farmers to occur over wlter dis tribution Ind is reported to be started by farmers whose crops Ire 1n need. The committee members of the branch canal mediate disputes, and differences among tndividuals are settled by discussion during meet ings called for that purpose.Five of twenty head farmers interviewed reported water fnade quacy and untimeliness in the monsoon pad~ season. Very few head farmers reported water inadequacy and untimeliness fn the winter season.Eleven of twenty tal1 farmers contacted reported water fnade quacy and untfmelfness durfng the monsoon paddy season. Five of the twenty tal1 farmers reported inadequate and untimely water supply for the wtnter crop.Many farmers a150 report that the temporary Pithuwa dfversion structure ~akes the water supply unreliable. Head farmers on the east sf de o( the maf n canal name monsoon flooding as a major probl .... for cropping, par•tfcularly during harvest. Sane ta11 farmers reported the need for a drain to remove water. By providf ng a suppl ementary 1 rrigatl 011 source, the P1thuwa l>~frr1gatfon system appears to have had a profound fnfluence on agrfcul ~tural activities. Multlpl. cropping. the development of a more re11 able cropping pattern, and the gradual adoptation of improved tech nologies has resulted not only in hfgher yield/unit of land, but also higher total yf el ds annually. In the winter, farmers grow mustard on IIIOre than 90 percent o( the command area and grow wheat on more than 5 percent of the cOMIand area.Intensfve cultivation practices have allowed little time between crops for land preparation and sowing. As a result, farmers Use tractors, especially for mustard cultivation, and draft animals . for maize and pad~ cUltivatfon. Most farmers broadcast mustard and corn seeds. Pulverised or wet seed beds are used for pad~, and early Varfeties are preferred. Mixed cropping and green manure practices have been Introduced recently. Buffalo are invariably rafsed by every household for additfonal fncome. At the head of the system, some farmers reported reduced tn the spring, and they all reported some matze production Water supply limited cropping to 61 percent of the farms studied. Tall farmers also reported spring Instead of early paddy. The cropped area was 67 farms studied.In the monsoon paddy season. cropping was reported on 81 head farms studied. At the tall, all 20 farmers summer monsoon paddy, with 67 percent of the area In the winter season, most head farmers produced wheat andThe cropped area In winter was 79 percent of the total area for the 20 farms studied. All tall farmers reported growing mustard, but very 1t ttl e wheat. The wi nter cropping area at the ta 11 was 94 percent of the farm studt ed. More than 90 peroent of the total cropped area (except for that in mustard) grows improved varieties. Farmers prefer early maturing varieties to fit the cropping patterns. Fine padqy Is liked It commands I good price.Farmers use fertilizers on most crops, except for maize, In the followtng rattor  ,jThe services of a Junior technical assistant and cropping f;personnel stationed at the town of Tadl are avallable, and the f r thf.llllsel ves appear to be agr 1cul turally advanced. Farmers get through the Tadi cooperative and private dealers. The service. Ided by the local cooperative Is poor.Production credit is available from the Tadf market and the I!j IThe cooperative in the command area is non-functional because s were not repaid satIsfactorily. Ilgl.d5 The average yield as reported by the farmers is presented 1n following table. Fanntlrs said tJlat mar'ket1ng through mfddlOOlen and low prices for produce are growing probl€ fRs. f. SlRErlllHS.hND WEAKNESSES 1. Strengtb!j a) P1thuwa irrfgatlon system has a strong, disciplined farmer organizatfon which the farmers consider the1r own. The rules and regulatfons of the organ1zation are effective, and farmers' participation seems quite hfgh.b) The farmers' organfzation has effective control and dis~ trfbutlon of water and, if necessary, enforces water ratfoning and budgeting. The overall management of the system is very effectfve.c) There is little conflfct among the different castes and ethnic groups, or between head and tafl farmers. Most of the farmers have harmonious relationships with other farmers in the system. d) Though the system was deSigned to serve 600 ha and it is officially referred to as a 600-hectare system, farmers have desfgned management procedure. and channels to increase the command area to over 1,000 ha. We estimate that 1,300 ha receives some irrlgatfon water.e) The mafn canal and ffeld channels seem to be functionfng quite well.f) Most of the command araa has a high croppfng Intensity, sometimes as high as 250 percent.g) The cropping pattern Is well adapted to the water supply.Water is usually ava1lable throughout the system. b) The sol1 s at the head of the systOO1 are sandy and not 1deally sut ted for I rrfgated agl'tcul ture.c) There are no drafnage outlets at the tan.d) The mai n canal bela. the drop structures f s badly eroded.e) As there are frrfgation systems upstream from the Pfthuwa frrfgatfon system, conflict exists between the upstream farmers and the PI thuwa farmers.f) Large, absentee landlords control much of the land In the system, particularly at the tail.g) Fanners depend on a shrfnkl ng maf ntenance budget from DUm. Much of th1s budget must be used for bull dozer operatf on.h) There is no clear responsibility bet~een OIHM and the fanmers concernfng the maintenance of the main canal and the structures.And Conc]usigns ..Pfthuwa Irrfgation Project was constructed by OIHM, but is ted by a-fanmerts committee. The 9.5 km mafn canal has 16 branch r;, 5 and irrfgates about 475 ha of paddy and supplies one irrigation the winter crop. Fanmers have developed enough branch and field ls to supply about 1300 ha. However, the current canal capacity provide water for more than about 475 ha for late paddy. The under paddy could be increased by tmproving the canal sections structures.A serfous problem on Plthuwa fs not having a penmanent fntake ure. During monsoon the system may suffer havfng fts temporary version washed away by flood at any time.Sfnce there is no silt control at the intake, frequent silt al from the canal bed fs needed. S1lt depos1ts reduce the cfty of the mafn canal.Pithuwa irrfgation systom is functIon1ng well, and many thfngs can be learned from H. The vol ume of water at the fntake has forced ~ithuwa to operate effectively to make agriculture profitable. ~thuwa is a ~brid system. neither completely DIHM-operated nor •~i:ompletely fanmor-managed, al though farmers have taken more respon .sibf1ity for operating the system. P1thuwa irrigation system could be a model for many medhll'l-s'zed OIHM-operated irrigation systems.Additionally, despite the disparity in landholdfng sfze, farmers of all castes and ethnic groups seem to cooperate on irrfga tfon tasks. Few serf ous confl f cts were noted. and most features of .the sochl system fndicated that ft was relatively egalitarian and harmonious.The agr1cultural undertak1ngs of the P1thuwa 1rrigat1on system appear to be satisfactory. When compared with the nearby DIH ' .....operated Panch Kanya 1rriglltf on system, Pi thuwa has a more rel1 able water supply, more effect1ve farmer participation, better adop tIon and intensificat10n of improved agriculture practices and land use patterns.  S1I growing literature which examines farmer-managed irrigation systems 2 in a number of countries lind a recolosical environments. Studies from the Philippines (Lewis, 1971;Siy, 1982), Indonesia (Geertz. 1980\" fill (983), .Sri Lanka (Leach. 1961). andPeru (Mitchell, 1976) have described a variety of systems which are managed by farmer groups. This article describes and analyzes the institutiollS by rarmers ror abe manaaement or ,ravity irrigation systems in tbe hill n:sinn or western NCfllll. be. It must be used when it is availab~e or it is lost. Farmers generally canllot transl':llt \\',,11\\:, over great dislances, and the locations to which it can be conveyed are limited by the lovography. IliIlmplication of these characteristics is that institutions are needed for the development and operation of il:iga. \" 16i' 1fscems. The form and function of these institutions vary depending on the physical, social, and ccoll~mic have been defined as \"complexes of norms and behaviors that persist over time by serving collectively purposes (Uphoff, 1984).\" Institutions regulate individuals' actions and consist of significant practices and lfaIionships within a society_ In some cases, institutions may be formalized in organizations like cooperatives, local _rnents, or banks. Examples of institutions which are not organizations are land tenure systems and customary exchange relationships.!;UtiollS of both kinds contribute to production and development processes in several ways. They racilitate the or resources beyond an individual's capacity and the application of resources to the solution of problelns benelit or many. They reduce uncertainty by the predictability of behavior that they encourage and enforce spheres including the distribution of benefits rrom coUective investments.Iatbis paper we eonline institutions that have evolved to enable the collective management of water for agricul• production. One institution is the Carmer organization itself, an organization which has been VC'ltoo with by the local community.4 Another important institution is the convention or property rights in water. and ooneeplS presenkd here were discussed with him 00 many occasions. They are also grateful ror the I/Serul critical oommentsofDolI{:las lnd Mark Svendsen. Both Authors with 10 express their appreciation 10 the editorial and production SIafJ of 11M!.PII1er-Qllnaged irrigation systems are operated and maintained oollectively by groups or ranners. Managemellt of the wholt system from 0( \",aler 10 Ihe fields where il is used is Ibe responsibility of tbe rarmers. Irrigation systems of this type are often ,derr~.' 10 as unitY'manamtsystems (Coward, 1980). The Iemt \"wmer•managed\" is used 10 avoid the ambiguities inherent in Ihe term •oommUtlity.\" iIIese characteristics do not apply 10 Ihe case of inigalion rrom ground waler sources, bul ground water is not an importanl source of in hill environtnellls.of formal lqitimation by civa authorities varies among countries.-I ~1Jt\"Slnk:lurl\",\\ om\" :lbl' he,: dl•;<.Il!flt.. 'J and (On...llth h:J, hUl ~'1(1i\"\" or the rhy,id SI'\\lflur.-, ,.:rlaiuly haH' \"\"l'li,:.\",,\", 1,,( II,,' 1lI'''''I~CIII''OI ~cs aI<' \"''''ihl< \"ilh eVl'r~ o ...  IIIat ecn:lin C5.'lCntial tasks be accollIplishl'u ir the system is to function productively. One sct of manag<:ml'lIl uircrlly Oil thc Imla. Waler IIIl1st be IIH/llin 'tl. (li/oalll'li. di.llrihuled  -all\"calioo« allo -.h,lril\",l;o,,-,II\" ollm II'\"' II ;IIkrdulI/!1 \"hi. IlIlhe lidd\"\",J mayor may \"olc\"\"I\".\", 10 Ih,' '\\;lIn alloca!;,,\".Iht'~l' aH~ nol t ....uaU)• nUI\",idl'H.'J 1o h.: manal!l:fHl'nt adi\\ it;..\". Tht: dt\"'gu and ..r a 'l,I.'m, h\"\"e,<:( Nol all In\"\" 01 n'an,,~,'m~ll( ..,igll. alld holh Ihe tk.,i~\" \"\",I 'I\"\"I'IY \"I II,.. \"'''''\\rU, tio\" til,,) limillh,' .-Ikeli,,• \"1i\"la~\"\"'''1II ..ra ',y'I.'m.:.;j, ~  \" '\" './   . .Argall lllCIC alt: IOUI IIlIgalloll ~y~lC(II~, CilUI U.JIIbl~tulg 01 all IlIUU\\C Oil UIC hUIUlIg hllUia ~~UCiUIl) auo a G'.Hill conveys water to a command area on the Arg:lli river terrace. The four systems range in area irrigated dming ...nn<:non season from about II to 47 hectares and in membership from 28 to 159 households. Since there is in the four organi7.ations, we will limit the discussion to the largest system; the RajKul~' (Roy,,1 systems irrigate the land in Chherluflg. The smallest system serves less than 10 hectares and is supplied water by a spring near the command area. Little labor is required to operate this system, and it Itas an inr ;~mal It . .. other two systems have intakes on the Brangdhi Khola, They are called the Thulo Kulo (large canal) and Kulo (lower canal) systems and irrigate 35 and 17 hectares of rice, respectively, in Chheriung. The Thulo ulo has 105 members and the Tallo Kulo, 60 members. They employ a principle of water allocation which is Co 5,tinctively different from that used in Argali. Because the Thulo and Tallo Kulo organizations and their historical .&velopment are similar, we will focus on the Thulo Kulo system a~compare it with the Raj Kulo of Argali.both sites the soils are well-drained with high percolation rates. Measurement of the rate of water subsidcntc in rice paddies yielded estimates of the seepage and percolation (S&P) rate which increased over the ~{,:l ..about 10 to 80 millimeters/day in fields which were continuously saturated and from 10 to 160 millimeters/ in fields which cracked due to drying during rotational water distribution (Yoder, 1986).10 Consequently, water rates for rice cultivation are extremely high. The average over the monsoon season when rice was '.ittltivate.d  ~ Ji farm sizes are small in both villages. The average size of irrigated landholding (khel)12 per bou~ehold in buth mtems is about 0.3 hectares. Agriculture is extremely intensive in both locations, which is made possible by l~.'ive irrigation systems. Farmers in both systems have developed the same cropping pattern on their irrigated . Most farmers grow three crops: monsoon rice, winter wheat, and pre-monsoon maize. Several farmers in 1 igali planted rice on some of their land in the' pre-monsoon season. In Chherlung, however, tile water supply is so ited in the pre-monsoon season Ihat ir rice were grown, only one-third of the area could be cultivated, leaving l!.e remainder fallow. In order to provide equitahle irrigation benefits among the members in Chherlung, wa,er is IIIocated on a priority hasis for maize. Since maize is a less water-intensive crop than rice, all or the hydraulic Cnmand area can grow irrigated maize. Total grain production per year from a hectare of land in each sysl(m heraged approximately 8 tons. Table I presents the results of crop cuts that were taken in the two systems.[Figure 3 shows the crop calendar that was observed in Argali in 1982183. The calendar for Chherlung was irtually identical to that of Argali. Whereas during the monsoon season all of the khet is used for growing rice~ in die winter season some farmers grow potatoes, cabbage, or other vegetables in place of wheat on some of the area. \"the pre-monsoon season maize is grown on most of the khet with a lentil crop, usually cowpeas, intercropped lith the maize as a vegetable, fodder, or green nlllnure. 1 J A few farmers with larger holdings leave part of their khet Wlow in the winter and plant a longer-season, higher-yielding maize variety before the time of w\"eat harvest. • No crop cuts taken.! figure 3. The Argali i982183 crop calendar.    MallY of the farmers also have sOllie upland fiekL~ (hllri). Thesc mayor Illay not be irrigated d.dng the wheat maize seasons depending on their location relative to the canal. If the bari is irrigated. farmers usuallJ plant wheat followed b)' a long-season mnize va,.iety which is not harvest~ until near the end of the mOllSCi-:'ll in ,.,&ptcmber. Most households plant potatOt.'S and vegetables for household consumption on part of their irrigated Inri .,during the winter wheat season. A legume is intercropped with the maize and harvested for household consumption ;.lId animal fodder. After the maize is harvested, mustard may be planted, but this is not irrigated. A long-season \"variety of maize is the comlfllm crop planted 011 unirrigated bari in both villages.Oral tradition in Argali st:lles that the Raj Kltlo was iaitiated by Mani Makunda Sen, the first Sen rajah of PI1:pa. This would make it over 300 yellrs old. It was originally construeted to irrigate land to support a temple which he lIad built .on the batik of the Kali Galldaki River at Ridi. Part of the production from a small section of the present command area is still given 10 the lemple. Since the original construction took place so long ago, nothing is known or how r(~()urc..'eS were mobili7cd and Wll. k can it'd out.Much more is known about the history of the 'I hulo Kulo ill Chherlung because construction began in 1928.Men who worked on it ill thdr youth arc ~tilll;tl mi.lg land which it irrigates and remember some of the details of the original construction. Two individuals, a Brahmin and a Chhetri l4 , are crc..-dited with initiating and organizing the collstruction and contributing 'he bulk of the initial resources uc:edcd to dig the canal. An additional 25 households provided some support, bUI olher families in the community doubted the feasibility of delivering waler rrom all intake more th,m six kilomelers away hy mcans of a canal which had 10 be cut through dense jungle, hard rock, and along the face of sheer cliffs.. To build the canal a contract of Rs. 5,000 alltl len I/W(lIo mil'; (ahoul O. J2 hectares) of potential khet land was ~ven to four Agris from the village of Damuk Khanec in Gul.ni District l5 . These four skilled canal builders hired laborers, including people from Chherlullg. alld each supervised 25-30 workers. Construction was begun it. 1928 and continued for 10 months cach YC<II. The \\\\(lIk was interrupted when people from Tansen. the District (:enter, IIfcsted several workers Oil the chnrge Ihat they wCle taking wood from the jungle without authorintion and hurning it to heat and break rocks. Tansen rt'SI&:IIIS were also concerned that the canal would leak and ruin the road to Ranighat. the place \\\\ hell: the} tfaditillll.lliy l-rcmated their dead. A selliement was reached when the Chherlung farmers agreed to repair any damage tu the road, receivcd permission to cut firewood, and were granted lile right•of-way for thc callal. Waler first flowed through the Thulo Kulo to the Chherlung command area in 1932.Farmers ill Argali and in Chherlung have cootiullcd developing the irrigation potential of their respective water Ilk! land resource.,. In Argali they have huilt tlil'{:e more canals parallel to and below the Raj Kulo. These three, lnown as AlaiJi (second daughtcr), .S'aili (third daughter), alld Khanchi (youngest daughter) irrig1te an additional 42 Itoctal~ of khel.After construction of the 1 hulo Kulo ill (,hher/ullg had delllonstrated the feasibility of irrigation from the lItangdhi Khola, two Magarsl6 organized the colISlluctioll of the Tallo Kulo parallel to Ihe Thulo Kulo. The  showed that in regarding wllter righl~ required this SC;COIIU ('alial's intake to he bdow tltat of the Thulo Kulo even command mca wus highcr. Thus thc tWI) ('allals rro:;sjuSI before they rt'uch lhe command area. The same callal builders who had constructed the Thulo J{ulo were given a conhuet to build the Tallo Kulo. dillerlung the contractors WCIt: ...tained ror an aliditillllul four vears to maillt .. in and improve the Thulo Kulo. is thc prcfclfcd staple food iu Algali alld ('hht'dung :111<1 is the lIltl) lor which irrig,l\\ion has been developed. Iktltllology and organization, i.e.• the ll'dmiqllLs, IIlks an,1 tolll'l'fliioll.'. developed by the farmers arc primarily cultivation. Melllhership in the inigalion orgauilatioll i, ;;... i{c'd to those who have the right to water for ricc in tile monsoon s::ason, cvcn though olher falllll.'fS II:. ve acccss to water from thc system in other ror olher cmps. According III \\ol'alt'aditioll ami Nepali law, thc fi,st farmn or group of fanncrs to develop murcc can claim thc right, al the poilll of the diversioll from the stream, to all of tbe water that they need .lIvation (Muluki Aill, 1964).  , water or innuencing the timing of water delivery. When the members in systems like the Raj Kulo were questioned about allowing those using drainage water to Ix.•come members, the answer was universal !'Jat since they h:l1 not invcsk-d in the system they could ~ot become members. Even acquiring access to the canal water for a noncon sumptive usc, such as a water-powered mill, WIlS sometimes nol possible (Scheuer et at, 1980). A frequently expressed fear was Ihal if irrigation access or other uses were allowed, rights would be established to the water. U rights were established, then in the event of a drought the crops of the original members would be stressed and they would not be able to deny water to the new users.Additional irrigation development from the same stream can usually only take place by other falmer groups con structing their own diversion and canal downstream of the existing intake. The only exception is if the new cana: docs not diminish the discharge in an exi~ting canal with an intake below it. Many communities have three or four canals conveying water from the same stream into a command area. Frequently the canals can be seen running parallel along a hillside, separated by only a few meters of elevation but serving distinct areas within the command. The construction of multiple intakes and canals is often a result of the allocation of rights of access to water by prior appropriation. This principle was enunciated in the Law on Reclamation of Wasteland in the traditional legal code of Nepal, the Muluki Ai,l. as follows, \"'Water shall not be available for others until the requirements of the person who constructed the irrigation channel at his own expense or with his own physical labor are finil met N (Regmi, 1978:244).Water allocation, i.e., the distribution of entitlements to water from an irrigation system, consists or two dimen sions. The first dimension, discussed above, distinguishes the farmers or fields which have access to the s}stem's water from those which do not. The second dimension is II quantitative allocation of the water in ttle system among the fanners or fields which have been granted access to it, i.e., the designation of the quantity and timing of water to which each farmer or field is enlitled.The Argali Raj Kulo and Chherlung Thulo Kulo org:Jni7.ations have clearly defined both aspects of water alloca tion. III Argali during the monsoon rice season, only certain designated fields are allocated water. Fields which have no water allocation, but on which irrigation is hydraulically feasible, have nu claim on the water rt\"Source rrom the time seedbeds are established for the monsoon rice•crop until the rice is harvested. The amount of water to which each field with an allocation is entitled is defined in terms of its area relative to the total irrigated area. Formerly the unil of area measurement was a maala muri (about 1/80 or a hectare), and each field's allocation is still referrt-d to as WS() llIany muri of water: Only those households farming land that has a water allocation for monsoon rice are members of the Raj Kulo organization, .The allocation during the winter wheat season and for maize planting is much less strictly defined and limited. Any farmer whose fields are located where they can receive water from the Raj Kulo is entitled to water in exchange for working on the system one day for each water application. The area that is irrigated during the dry season for wheat and maize is nearly double that which is irrigated during the monsoon rice season.Access to water for growing rice in the Chherlung Thulo Kulo system and membership in the organiz.ation i~ limited to households that own at Icast a fraction of a share in the system. At the completion of the Thulo Kulo colistlUction, the Rs. 5,000 construction contract was divided into 50 shares of Rs. 100 each. Shares in the syslcm were dislributed among the 27 contributing househulds according to the investment each had made and became the hasis of the water allocation.Ownership of one share entitled a member to 1/50 of the discharge in the system. Several houscholH$ had contributed enough to receive more shares than they needed to irrigate their fields, while other households received less than needed. In addition, many people who had been unwilling to risk investing in the initial construction now wanted access to irrigation, This It-d to the initiation of buying and selling shares. The ownership of transferable shares was thus established and continues as the method of water allocation in the Chherlung Thulo Kulo. Now there are lOS member households, and the range of share holdings is from one-eighth 10 four shares. On the average in 1983, a share of water irrigated one-half hectare of rice. The price of a share has increased over the years with transactions taking place in 1985 at the rate of Rs. 10,000 (USSS75) per share. l1 ln the same year the price or irrig:lled land was 000 (US$2,600) per ropal/i.11I In t 985 the cost of water for irrigatillg rice '~~ :Ibout 2 pelC\\:llt of the cost of the best rice land in Chht~rlung.:~ '~The price of shares is sct by the organi7.ation's 1I\\:lnaging committee ami is ~id 10 ~olllewhat r<'neLi the total ~vestlllent in the systtllU. Even though the price of a share has increased tremendously, shares arc still denominated .'cc<lIding to the original price like the par value of stock, i.e., olle share is referred to as Rs. 100 of water even o dtoUl:h its curlent price is Its. 10.000. ..\"'Over the years, improvements have been made to thc main canal, significlOtly increasing the totd now in II,' systt' IIl.19 Since a share is a fixcd proportion of the now and not a spcdfic volume, increasing the discharge in the OIl1al illcreases the amount 01 water in a sharc, A member who initially needed two shares to adequatcly inibah: his land lTlay at a later tillle require only one share. The member is therefore allowl'd 10 sell all or part of a share to loot her farlller who has no water or k'Ss than he wants for irrigating his land. When 8 sale takes place, the \\l1n~t:lion is recorded by the secretary and the water distribution changed to meet the Ilew allocation pattern. This ilvolws changing the size of a notch ill a sa:ll:ho 20 if the waler is transferred bet wecn secolldary Clnals and ft(.lIkul'lting the lillie intervals for rotational di-;tlibution. The Thulo Kulo farmels arc adept at readju~ting the water distrihution to match a new allucati(lll of sh:m:s.On one occasion (in 1978) a grouJl of fanners ill Chhcdung with land in all unirrigated area walUtd to purchase !har,•\" but no individual was prepared to sell the number of shares the)' wanted. The Thulo Kulo or!;allizati.JIl dct:iJcd thaI improvements to the diversion weir and canal were necessary before enough water ululd be delivered ~sene an expanded cOlllmand area. A decision was made by the organization to sell ten addilional shares at the ate of Rs. 2,800 (US$233) per share, thercby increasing the tolal nnmber of !>harcs in the syslem frolll 50 10 60. lb. 28,000 ren:i\"ed by the organization fmm the sail' was then invested in improvements in thediversion a,ld main canal to sUIXcssfully expand the irrigated alca by more than 25 percent in olle year.,0!2anization for Irrigation Management I.kmocrship in the irrigatioll organi/atiolls in bOlh Algali and Chhl'rlII1I3 is hydraulically determined. [\\\"ell in both locations there is more than one canal rrom the same soulee serving a contiguous command area, Ulnal has a separate organiza:ion for its operation. In Argali, the membership of the Raj Kulo irngatioll tioll mnsists only of thll,C farmers operating land that receives a water allocation from Ihe Raj Kulo hlf rke. All farmers ill Chhcrlulig owning shares or a fraction of a share in the Thulo Kulo s],,;telll ar' of the organization.Ik~h mganiz.ations have a lIlukhiJa (lc. 1.dcr) and a secretary \"I,,) ale ekncd hy the members. The current oflic{'rs scrvL-d for a lIumber of years but cuuld be rcplaled if lIIcmbers were di')SlItislied with their performance. an irrigalion sy~I('1II has an abundant supply 01 water allowing all fields to be adequately i1.ig:lted witll'.)ut for insuring that di~tlibution of water is consisknl with the 1Il1ocation. some method of rationing the watel to each farmer's allocation is rcqUJIed. III Argali and Chherludg till~ is accomplished through the use of and rotational distribution. farmers in Argali ani Chherlur.g irrigate rice by continuous-flow distrilmtion \"~Jenev('r the supply is sullicicnt. Water flows conlilluousl~ in :til dlannels of the system, and farmers apply water iht'ir fields at any time they want. With the exception 01 the days when they weed the field and apply fertilizer, 'mlers preft.:r sl:lOding water in their fields until near the cnt! of the season when tht.:y dry the fields for harvest.t:4'Saachos arc used to distlibule water by continllous nt'W in accordancc with the pattern of waler allocation. A ~kho is a wcir that Ihe farmcrs install ill the callal with two or more lectaHgular openings for the water 10 flow Uuough. Uy having Ih,.: il<,ttoJn of each opening lit Ihe ~:lIne ltevaliGlI, tl.e now in Ihe canal can be divided inlo parts 1I11t equal the ratio of the width of each optning to the IOUtI width of all the openings. Because of its notched shape, !he proportioning weir is caHed a saacho (key) in the A\\:\"li and ChberlulIg systems. figure 4  In both systems, when the supply is insufficient to provide conlinuous now to the entire area at once, a till!ed IQIalioo system of distribution is initiated. In the 1982 rice season, rotational distribution was not required in the Kulo system in Argali. Italfway through the sallie season in Chherlung, however. the water supply had dimin 10 the extent that continuous-now distribution to all of the fields was no longer possible. It was possible to continuous now through the sa:lchos into all of the secondary canals, but farmers within each secondary rotational units and decided independently when they wanted to initiate rotational water distribution among ficltls served by their secondary.For water distribution within the secondary, Ihe number of minutes per share was computed by dividing the total of shares served by the secondary into the number or minutes in the rotation cycle. Each farmer would then .•iJ,f,;.I«tive water for the time period represented by the number or shares he had allocated to his field served by that rcolldllry. A typical rotation cycle was 36 hours. By selling the length of the rotation cycle at 36 hours, the turn for each farmer alternated from day to nighl. Although irrigating at night has always been an practice in Chberlung. it is both more dillicult (disrupting sleep) and expensive (requiring the purchase or for a torchlight).Waler distlibution in Argali during the wheat and maize seasons is less precise and formal because the water is sufficient to irrigate more than the comllland area. Water is applied seveml days before land preparation to it suitable for plowing and planting. Wheat is then irrigated two or three more times during the season. Maize be irrigated only at planting for quick germination. At the most it is given only one or two additional .i!atiolls, depending on the rainfall. Wheat and maize irrigation is done turn-by-turn with the farmers informally upon the order. From long tradition, farmels wanting water on a particular day will meet at the main at the head of the system at \\0:00 a.m. to decide the order of irrigation and to do any minor repairs to deliver the desired amount of water.In Chherillng, the most demanding irrigation period c<tcll year is at maize planting time in mid-A;:ril. MO!\". arc ready to plant maize at the same time, and they mllst irrigate to initiate germination. Discharge in tht ~ Ii Khola in April is very low, requiring that the total now of the canal be rotated from one farmer's field to next at the system rather Ihan secondary c<1llal level. Therefore, full lillthority for the allocation of water for planting--both in quantity and liming--is given to the mukhiya. AIIIl!quests for water must be made to him, as nearly as possible he assigns water delivery to each farlllcr's field in the order in which requests are received.usually consists of several terraeL'S depclluing 011 the slope anu size of the field. In order to allow equity in plantillg of every farmer's maize, the mukhiya decides, on the basis of requests for water each day, what of each farmer's field, i.e., how many terraCL'S, will be irrigated in his turn. In this way water is alloatted by In farmers, and a portion of their land, depending Oil the terrace size. is irrigated. The farmer must then wail for one or more turns to complete his mail,e planting, an irrigatioll system to function well, the distribution of water must be done according to the allocation . The precise definition of farmers' waler allocation is only useful ir the system can actually deliver 10 each Ihe share of the supply to which be is entitled. Measurement and comparison between the amount of water distributed and the amount allocated to diflercnt parts of an irrigation system provides an evaluation of the pelrormance. The portion of the supply delivered to parts of the Thulo Kulo system was measured and with the amount allocated to those parts of tIll: systems. The sallie measurements were made for the Kulo system in Argali which distributes water in the Slllle manner as the Raj Kulo. As Table 2 shows, the distribution closely ma«;hcd the allocation, an indication of good system performance. of this was spent to build a masonry wall several meters bigh to support a section of lined canal a severe landslide.~ one exception to the rule of proportionality in resource mobilization is when an emergency is declared. Each honsehold must then supply one man, irrespective of its water allocation. At the annual meeting in May in Argali, some members with small water allocations strongly protested that it was unfair for them !o have to the same number of workers in an emergency as: households with a much larger water allocation. Arter discussion the decision was made to leave the rule unchanged but to be careful about when an emergency is:i.e., only when there is a real emergency.order to mohilize the resources needed to maintain the system in effective working order, the organil.:w,Jn have sanctions which can be applied alld enforced when members fail to contribute thdr share of labor and Doth systems levy cash fines against members who are absent from work. The fine for missing a day of maintenance is sct near the local daily wage rate in Chherlung, Rs. 10 (USS.75) in 1982 and somewhat in Argali, Rs. 6 (USS.45), In Chherlung when a major emergency is declared, the fine rate is increased to a higher rate of attendance. If a persOIl is absent from the community when the emergency is declared or _ ....\"...~. acceptable excuse such as illness, the fine is reduced to Rs. 6 per day, even for a major emergency.when levied, are paid because as: one farmer in Argali said, \"'If the fine is not paid, the organization c'm the offeuder water.'\" Also, the community of members can exert social, as well as physkal; pressure on to pay fines. (II Chherlung it was reported that in an early year of operation of the system, one man did for emergency maintenance for several days. When his fine was levied and he refused to pay, a group or confiscated his cooking pots and threatened to sell them to pay his fine. Within a day or two, he paid the recovered his cooking pots. Other members witnessed how serious the organization was about enforcing its ~nd collecting fines, and payment has been 100 percent of all fines levied. a Dccember 1982 meeting of the Raj Kulo organization, two members were appointed to collect the fines the previous monsoon season and any that were outstanding from previous years. As remuneration ror this they were entitled to keep 6 percent or the amount collected. In both organizations, the cash that is raised fines is illvested in mail1tenance and improvement of the system. Until it is spent, the money may be loaned who pay interest to the organization.'1'hc principle or allocation has important implicatiolls for the efficiency of water use and the expansion unhe area. Allocation or water in proportion to orca irrigated provides no incentives for efficient water use nor a Ikdtanism for expanding the area irrigated. 24 In ArgaJi there have been significant improvements made in the !IlIa1, and Ihe amount of water supplied 10 the command area has increased t\"Onsiderably in the past 25 yems. IJowever, there has been little increase in the area irrigated. DIHM invested approximately Rs. 400,000 in the system in 1982 with no change in the irrigated area or cropping intensity. The main impact of made over the past 25 years, i~cJuding those by D1HM, has been 10 reduce the water distribution approximately half a bcdare.elchangc rate at the lime was Rs, 13.2 =lISS I.eXrrlltion to tllb ~lattment is tilt waraband. systems of NOllhwcslern India, In these systems wattt is allocaled i~ proporlinl1 to land arCI, fa 111\"', rcceivts considerably less warc! Ihall ncrJcd 10 ill'igatc his whole farm Farmer;, thus. h3v~ an incentive to use wat~r cUkiently' toexp3nd Iheir irrigated area. 25 Much less effort is now required to manage the system. Whereas the farmer!> once had tf; use a rl.'lation of distribution and go out to irrigate at night. sometimes sleeping in the lidd to guard their water. n::w the flows continuously to alllieids. It is recognil.ed that there is plenty of water to irrigate additional laIlJ,:''i hut lJlembcr.; have no incentive to alloolte water to lields owned by nonmembers. Tu maintain their yield$. Ihey have to work harder to manage a smaller amount of water more efficiently. i.e., change to a rotation system rillSlribution, and would receive not~ing in return. the other hand. allocation hy purchased shares in Chherlung provides both the individual incentives for water management and a mechanism for expanding the irrigated area. As the system improved. the amount delivered and, consequently, the amount of water per share increased considerably. Shareholders can whether to keep all their shares and reduce their management input or to sell part of the additional water.:5:a U :iC the individual can sell part of his water, he is. aware of the opportunity cost of his use of water, and there is 'Jinancial incentive to manage his water efficiently. In addition, if an individual sells part of his allocation, the of labor that he must contribute to maintaining the system is reduced. Since the Thulo Kulo requires a large of labor each year for maintenance. this provides another' incentive to reduce the number of shares one and to use the water more efficiently.comparison of the seasonal relative water supply for the two systems gives an illlJication of the efficiency of use. The relative water supply is estimated by dividing the total waler supply by the total demand for water the sea ..c;on. 27 Seepage and percolation in both systems was measured to he approximalely the same. with the average over the rice season being approximately 35 millimeters. Computation using data collected twice daily III'CI the rice season gives a seasonal relative water supply of approximately 1.0 in the Chherlung Thulo Kulo sJSicm and 1.3 in the Argali Raj Kulo system. In neither system was there any indication of moisture stress, but the 11Iul0 Kulo farmers had to practice rotational distribution while Raj Kulo farmers were able to distribute watcr Iiiotinuously. The relative water supply calculation suggests that water was managed more efficiently in Chherlung 6aP in Argali, lendin~ support to the hypothesis that allocation of waler by the S!lle of shares results in more management of water than allocation in proportion to area irrigated.sale of shares, either by individuals or from Ihe systclII at large, proviues a mechanism for expanding the \"rea Water is not tied to a specific land area but is distributed to wherever, within the area commanded, those ~hares want it. In Chherlung the system has expanded through the sale of water shares to the point where it irrigates 85 percent of the potentially irrigable area. The chairman of the Thull! Kulo organization estimated the area that is irrigated during the monsoon season doubled between 1967 and 1982 as a result of continual i.orovements to the system and subsequent sales of shares. In comparison, only 45 percent of the Raj Kulo's inigable area receives irrigation for the monsoon season iice crop..latercstingly, the Raj Kulo organi7.ation has recognized that the sale of water shares would be an effective means ~Qpanding the area served. Most members accept that there is surplus water in the system, and that the work. the ~lment of Irrigation, Hydrology and Meteorology did in 198~ 'has made the supply more reliable, i.e., less to major interruptions by landslides. In 1983. it appeared that the government was going to reduce by.!talC Icnntribution to the local school's budget. precipitating a financial cri~is for the school. A dt,\"Cision was made, after debate within the Raj Kulo organization. that the Raj Kulo organiMtion would sell 200 muri of water (about percent of the supply) and give the money to the school as J permanent endowment. Requcsts for the water CUsI or mainlrnancc wa~ also reduced, bUI Ihe data in Table J do not .how this. COII\"ructi.,n (If a mad above and p;lfall eJ 10 Ihe Raj i s largely the ,ause or Ihe higher maintenance labor between 1979 and 198.1 RuckI and mud excavated by the contractU! during \"ere dumped down the hillside inlo thc <.:anal. Sin,c Ihe cuI for th\" ioad \\\\ as made. thc hilbidc is Itoss \"able r~ulling in more The Rs. 400,000 (llSS 30,300) invcsted by DIIIM \"\", u'-Cd maiuly 10 inslall hum.; pipe through this ,\"ulncrable a,,::!. farmers rcpmlcd Ihal ir Ih,'y owned all or the pOlenlially irrigable land, Ihey \"ould iorifate the entire area by mtational distribution, thus area of irrigakd ri~ land. While some meml>crs did nOl agree Ihal all or the polenl;,,1 area ,ouM be iHigalcd, all accepted thai some area could be served wilh Ih,' present supply without any wluction in yidds ..... 01 ~upr!y are irrigali(>n and rainfall while demand consi'!5 \"f evapotran'pi.atilln .Ind \"'''P''fC and percolation. the price or conditions of payment could be rcnegotiated, the gtvernmenl restored its contributiol,l to the budget to the original amount, and members of the Raj Kulo organization losl interest in the sale of water.allocation principle also has equity implic1tions. In Argali the only way thllt a person can irrigate rice is for household to have inherited khl'l land \\~ith a water allocation or to buy some irrigated land. II is, thus, nearly 'ble for the poor and low C:ISle people to acquire access to irrigation for the important monsoon rice season. past, no low caste households h:Id lan4 wilh Ull allocation of water. One Damai 28 has been able to buy a parcel of khet with earnings from work in India. Ill' is the only low c1sie person in all of Argali with land Ihat a water allocation for monsoon rice. Irrigated land is extremely expensive (Rs. 400,000 (USS27, SOO, per in 1983), and (he poor have little possibility of buying any. .In Chherlung 20 percent of the members of the Thulo Kulo organization are low caste households, am! gaining to irrigation is much more feasible. A (It'rson with utlirrigated land in the hydraulic command area has only . . purchase a fraclion of a share of water in the system and through hard work gradually convert his bari ~() khet realize more production on it. He docs nOl need to buy expensive, already irrigated land to acquire access to the of irrigation as he would in Algali. Most of the low Cllste members' fields arc in the area to which irrigation lirst supplit'd after the number of shares in the sYS(Cl't was incrensed by the sale of 10 additional shnres in 1978. this paper we have described and analyzed the institutions utilized for irrigation management ill a number of irrigation systems in the hills of Nepal. rarmer control of the entire irrigation system and the need Or farmers to rely on themselves for (he operation and maintenance has resulted in the development of sophisticated 'ifnstitutions fm management of the water resour(•e. These institutions have enabled effective use of irrigation, making utremely intensive agricultural produelion possible with three crops cultivated per year in many systems.'ii:~The institutions examined included both the organization which manages the irrigation systems and the tradi• \"Iional convention of property rights in water. 110th types of institutions ilre essential for the effective operation of ~tion systems. Irrigation institutions are designed to enahl\\'.! the accomplishment of certain activities related to I) die water, 2) the physical structures for control of the water, and 3) the organization of farmers which manage the irigation system. In the hill environment of Nepal, the activity of resource mobilization for maintenance of the I)'SIem for acquisition of water was found to be the most critical activity which innuences the structure of an irigation organil.3tion. The principle of water allocation was found 10 have extremely significant implications for die efficiency and equity of utilil.3tion of irrigation resources.Two specific systems, the Raj Kulo of Argal; and tll(~ Thulo Kulo of Chherlung, were described in detail. These IWo systems exhibit many of the institutional characteristics common to a number of irrigation sy.~tems which were observed in Wesl Nepal during the 20-montfI periOll of field research in 1982-83. The structure of th farmer organization in both systems is similar. Membership is limited 10 lhose households with a righl to usc water during die monsoon rice season, officers arc elec:ted by the members, regular and special meetings of the members are COnvened, resources are mobilized according to members' water allocation, sanctions are applied for failing to provide Ihe re4uired amount of labor for maintenancc, and wrillen records of attendance at work. accounts, lllembcrs' water allocation, and minutes of meetings are mainlained by the secretary. Both systems require a large lrIIount of labor to maintain int:Ikes, which arc orten damaged by floods, and the main canal which must traverse iletp, landslide-prone hillsides. Between 1,500 and 2,500 man-days of labor are mobilized annually in each system .. routine and emergency maintenance.lln. e Oamaj are an untullchahle casee who lfatlilionally work ns l:lil(lr~.~ \\\\alcr allocation of cach mcmber is precisely defined in both systeJll~,1 he Raj Kulo OIganizatioll allocates each lIIember for monsooll rice ill proportion 10 the area of irrigated h .. ud owned. To acquire water rights , 1I0llSOOU season, households must buy land which already has water allocated to it. In Chherluog, Ihe Thulo ganization allocah.'S water by the 5,11e of shares, and plOperty rights in water are, thus, separate from ~ of land, Most transactions 'of water shares take place belween indivi:.IU.:ls, but on one occasion, the '-tOlzauun sold shares, increasing the total number of sJlares in Ihe sysle~: 'comparison of Ihe Raj Kulo and Thllio Kulo systems demonstrates Ihe importance of lhe principle of water for efficient and equitable development of irrigation resources. If water is to be ut.ilized efficiently and area increased, there must be incentives for elTicicnt waler management and mechanisms for expanding '10 Ihe water. Waler allocation by purchased shares, as practiced in Chherlung, provides the individual e and an organizational mechanism which enable the elTicielit dev,eloplllent or resources, while allocalion in 10 area irrigatcd docs not. In contrast 10 the Raj Kulo system, Ihe lllUlo Kulo system has I) expanded irrigaled during the monsoon season 10 a grcaler exlent, 2) achievcd more eUicielll water utilizatioll thwugh intensive managemenl or the distribution, and 3) rt '.a1izcd greater equity in access to the irrigation ;esou~ce. In order to irrigate expanded area, they have enlarged the main a.nd also extended it up to market area of Pithmva. To improve the tern, they constructed the head regulator, branch canals and field With these improvements, the command area was increased from 600 HOHever, due to high flood level, their intake gets destroyed So they have not constructed permanent structure at intake. contribute labor for repairing the intalre eyery year and also get grant from government either in cash or kind (like bulldozer).system is Hell functioning, and managed by the farmers. distributed to all 16 branch canals in the 8ffiOlU1t that each branch Allocated. The method of distribution is based on hume pipe outlet. .system) . Sometimes, they also followed the time rotation system.As a result of committee and regulations, conflict among the farmers was l'wU\\Ct:~u. and farmers could transplant their paddy in time. By seeing No.8, the branch no.9 and 10 also fonning commi ttees. In couple of years all 15 branch canals fonned (:ommi ttee. After havinl'! formed all hranch committees, they felt ' \"1.0 form central commi ttee.main committee has 18 members. Originally, the chairman was elected among the assembly members. At present, the pradhan panch of Pi thw-nl lage panchayat is the ex-office chairman of the committee. The secretary the main commi ttee is still elected by the assembly during annual meeting. To resol ve conflicts over the water distribution in the branch canals.To rna] ntain link ,....,i t.h the government and other a.s;encies.To Iteep touch t-li t,h the branch canal over the equitable water distribution to every outlet.Previously they have only 15 branch canals, but at present, they have 'one more canal at the t.ail point t-lhich is branch no. 16.Once in a calendar year (June or July) each branch canal committee meeti ng ,....,i th their respective beneficiaries. They all meet once to the fo1101\"j ng:  :'JThe branch chairman presides at the assembly meeting and the branch commi ttef' chairman repr~sents the branch committee at the main .' /1 oThe popu I a t ion of the Pi thm7a vi llas:te panchayat as a tmole is estimated to be 10, 000 HUh a literacy percentage of about 40%. Most of the beneficiariPH hH\\'f~ ellough forxi from their respective farms and they also use to sell the product.s in TacH Ba~ar.The In courses of time, the length of this branch canal was a reI\" hundred meters to the tail reach of the command. There is no regulator in this branch-canal and no siphons Here used for to;construction. There is no drop structure along the tmole alignment.There is one branch-canal committee for the operation and maintenance.members, including one chairman, one secretary and 5During our field visit, He got chance to meet the chairman, the and some beneficiaries of this branch-canal. The main problem of sil tation . Every beneficiary has to contribute labor-for lUng Hhich is on the basis of the size of landholdings and they also to contril~lte Jabor for desilting of the main canal (parts of the main upRtream of the inlet of branch-canal). There is no regular system of contrjbution.At the time of toater scarcity if some farmers steal the Hater, they he penaU zed up to an amount of 50 rupees and this money will be used operation and maintenance of the canal. But there is no such cases last fel\" years. Contribution from the beneficiaries will be made r necessary.' I\" Beneficiaries get Hater two hours a day in a rotational order. 1heis enough for irrigation at the intake and middle portions of the Rut the farmers at the tail never have enough water for cultivation.the crops would have been increased by three times, if t.hey enoll,gh l-later. Near the tail, branch-canal No.9 comes to meet with 3.nt the tai I said that there is a possibility of getting g prevalent in Pithmm.. We interviel..ed four farmers in the field. They that there has not bPen problem in the system. They have some of penalty t.o the beneficiaries. Those l.Jho violate the rules and by t.he organi zation, they l-lill be punished. Some of the and regulations are ;Tf some one utilizes the water in other's turn, he will be fined Rs.50 on the spot.(bl If some one damages the bund of main branch canal for crossing of tractor or for some domestic purposes and does not repair during i cultivation and does not. respond the organization, in this case his membership Hill be discharged from the Hst and get no water for his 1and.(e) If some one misses the turn and ask the organizer for other turns then he is not aUOHed to use Hater at this time but got to wait tUl next turn.hlhi Ie mmrjng along the alignment, the team observed the channel being sands, gravel etc.To overcome this, they use to contribute after the decision of the chaired by the branch committee. The desil ting work is give on basis to some other individuals who are expert in clearing the they find to be quite a typical job. For this, they don't have prohl(~m in r~ontributing E'sT~cially for maintenance of canal purpose. Although no one guides them in the managerial aspects from the t or by the outsider, it is quite interesting to note that in two in no 42, they have the system made by the farmer that Hooden Oll1y nt the tail points, the system is not in a position to supply sufficient Hater for the field. A farmer stated that his land could be irri gated only half hecause of insufficient l.Jater floH in the system. Instead of p<\"lddy, he cuI ti vateR mal ze. ~1ustard and sesame are grown as second crop.Even t.hen he has fu1 I satisfac1 lon about the system management.This proves that they have got a very strong unity among themselves.Seeing their managr:rial activities, it is interesting to ImoH that without anybody guidance and thiR Rystr:m has been run very smoothly and we Here very liIuch i mprC's!-lpd by i f .• mpmbers of the committee.During the ~'/O['ldng period, if there occurs death in a family of any benefjciary, the family members will be exempted from works for 13 days. Besides, one assistance Hill be provided for this family and thi s f1ssistance wj 11 a1 so be exempted from ,,,orlts.Secretary has t,o keep the records of all beneficiaries, records of income and expenditure. Secretary can keep up to 500 rupees for f~mergency casps.Spcrf>Lary and cha irman Hi II be exempted tHO labors Horks (80 ~1ato !'furi ) .One Hater-supervisor can also be employed by the committee to check t,he canal s~istem (to make sure if there is continuous Hater flOH on the canal, leakage, to see if the concerned people has gone to the intake for its daily maintenance and repair). Two watch men (one each for 10l\"er and upper ends of the canal) can be appointed during monsoon.At lhe time of water scarcity, if one steals the water, he ,,,ill be penalized up to 100 rupees at first. And if the same beneficiary onee ugain steals the water, he will be punished more (up to 500 rupees). In case of third time, he Hill be kicked out from the beneficiaries' organi:mtion. Such case has not happened yet in t.hat system. At the time of Hater scarcity (usually in winter), olle can use the water. For this he has to go to the main canal illiakr, repair it and then gain water.Tr t.he chai rmfm lmd the secretary and even the members of the commi ttee do not perform their duties properly, they can be dismissed from the committee at any time on the approval of 2/3 of the \"hole beneficiaries.. I:::","tokenCount":"37012"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7a506fa69b5e753f4ff44f4d9fcb6c21","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8cde2662-0d8a-44ba-96e8-92b0e508e9e6/retrieve","id":"-133813379"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e5edc52e-4a18-47b8-9a60-bcbb65e0bcf9","pagecount":"12","content":"La creación de incentivos para promover las acciones de conservación y uso sostenible de la agrobiodiversidad y los recursos fi togenéticos para la alimentación y la agricultura empieza a formar parte de una agenda política nacional. A nivel del discurso, las políticas, proyectos y medidas diversas, así como varias normas legales, se busca generar incentivos para motivar al pequeño agricultor y campesino a mantener y continuar desarrollando cultivos, muchas veces sub-utilizados, pero crecientemente importantes para garantizar la seguridad alimentaria. Todo esto ocurre en un contexto en el que, en paralelo, se producen también políticas e iniciativas que tienen como resultado afectar negativamente estos esfuerzos de conservación. Dada la importancia global y nacional de la agrobiodiversidad y los recursos fi togenéticos para la alimentación y la agricultura, se ha desarrollado un documento que explica de forma sencilla cómo funcionan en el Perú los incentivos para promover la agrobiodiversidad y los recursos fi togenéticos para la alimentación y la agricultura, especialmente en el contexto de los pequeños agricultores y campesinos andinos.El proceso de conservación in situ de recursos fitogenéticos para la alimentación y la agricultura (RFAA) que realizan pequeños agricultores y campesinos en el Perú, organizados generalmente como comunidades campesinas o nativas, no deja de sorprender. Pese a condiciones de vida históricamente adversas, estas comunidades han logrado continuar conservando y desarrollando sus RFAA a lo largo del tiempo, con benefi cios locales, nacionales y globales ampliamente reconocidos. 1El creciente interés en los RFAA ha llevado a la búsqueda de mecanismos e incentivos que promuevan su conservación y utilización sostenible, especialmente en el ámbito de los pequeños agricultores y campesinos. En los últimos años, se han desarrollado en el país una serie de normas e instrumentos de planifi cación que incorporan mandatos y obligaciones relacionadas 1 Solamente por mencionar dos: seguridad alimentaria y el mantenimiento de un stock genético saludable y vigoroso para la investigación y desarrollo de nuevos cultivos (I+D). Se puede válidamente argumentar, por ejemplo, que los Centros Internacionales de Investigación Agrícola (CIIA) y el Centro Internacional de la Papa en particular en el Perú, existen gracias al trabajo milenario de conservación y desarrollo de estos agricultores. Los aportes de los CIIA y el CIP son, a su vez, inconmensurables. Ver, Graves, C. (2005)  En ese sentido, el presente documento, identifica y sintetiza algunos los diferentes incentivos que actualmente existen en el país para fi nes de conservación y uso sostenible de los RFAA. Se centra principalmente en incentivos establecidos en leyes y normas diversas.El documento se ha dividido en cinco secciones. La primera sección describe el escenario actual en relación a la riqueza de agrobiodiversidad en el país y lo que esto implica desde la situación de la pequeña agricultura familiar. La sección segunda, plantea el marco conceptual bajo el cual se desarrolla esta investigación y lo que se entiende por \"incentivos\" en el contexto de la conservación de la agrobiodiversidad, los RFAA y cómo operan estos incentivos en la práctica. La sección tercera, revisa las diferentes maneras en la que, en la normativa nacional, se manifiestan y proponen incentivos para la conservación, de los RFAA en particular. Esta sección incluye alguna referencia a la jurisprudencia existente en relación a incentivos fi scales y parafi scales. La sección cuarta plantea algunos de los retos que la conservación de los RFAA enfrenta en esta parte del nuevo siglo y cómo los incentivos pueden jugar un papel catalizador de procesos y acciones orientadas a la conservación de los mismos. Finalmente, se ofrecen algunas sugerencias y recomendaciones para consolidar un régimen dinámico y coherente de incentivos. 3 La idea de este documento no es ofrecer una mirada exhaustiva de todos y cada uno de los incentivos y medidas que pueden actuar como incentivos para la conservación de los RFAA sino de aquellos que resultan más saltantes y que permiten entender la varias formas en las cuales estos incentivos se pueden materializar.El Perú es un país megadiverso, especialmente rico en diversidad cultural, agrobiodiversidad y RFAA. 4 Una ancestral tradición agrícola que se remonta a etapas pre-Inca tiene su refl ejo actual en una pequeña agricultura familiar, especialmente andina, que mantiene potentes rasgos culturales y prácticas que, a lo largo de los siglos los agricultores y campesinos han implementado e ido adaptando ante las circunstancias ambientales y socioeconómicas complicadas.Con el paso del tiempo, se han ido desarrollando en el Perú diversas agriculturas que coexisten, enfrentando mayores o menores difi cultades dependiendo de una multiplicidad de circunstancias.No hay una tipología ofi cial de los tipos de agriculturas, pero se podrían dividir en pequeña agricultura familiar (en costa, sierra y selva), pequeña agricultura familiar ancestral (especialmente andina y en algunos casos amazónica), 5 mediana agricultura (organizada en cooperativas y asociaciones que producen para el mercado nacional y en algunos casos internacional), y una agricultura industrial e intensiva orientada a la exportación. Dentro de estas categorías, hay a su vez diferentes formas de organización, niveles de efi ciencia, ubicación geográfi ca, relacionamiento con la extensión y tecnologías, entre otros.2 El Perú, en cumplimiento del Convenio sobre la Diversidad Biológica (CDB) (1992), tiene la obligación de \"en la medida de lo posible y según proceda, adoptar(á) medidas económicas y socialmente idóneas que actúen como incentivos para la conservación y la utilización sostenible de la diversidad biológica\". (Artículo 11. Incentivo). Estos podrían materializarse como apoyos e incentivos fi nancieros para alcanzar los objetivos del CDB, que incluyen, entre otros, la conservación de la biodiversidad y sus componentes (p.ej. RFAA).3 El Programme on Incentives for Ecosystem Services from Agriculture de la FAO trabaja para estos fi nes. Para mayor información ver, http://www.fao.org/in-action/incentives-for-ecosystem-services/collaborators/en/ 4 Borrador de Tercer Informe Nacional sobre el Estado de los Recursos Fitogenéticos para la Alimentación y la Agricultura.5 La pequeña agricultura familiar ancestral es aquella que realizan agricultores y campesinos especialmente andinos, donde la cultura, tradición y prácticas (p.ej. culto a la tierra, implementos de cultivo, prácticas de conservación, etc.) se basan en un muy fuerte apego a lo ancestral. Por lo general, se trata de los agricultores y campesinos más aislados y marginados, casi desconectados de los circuitos comerciales, viviendo en condiciones de pobreza y pobreza extrema, pero contando con una enorme riqueza en cuanto a su agrobiodiversidad y diversidad de RFAA. En la zona andina son parte y descendientes directos de los pueblos aymara, quechuas o keros. Sin embargo, esta situación, ha ido cambiado lentamente en las últimas dos décadas con un paulatino proceso de reconocimiento de la importancia de la pequeña agricultura familiar y de la agrobiodiversidad y los RFAA. A través del \"boom\" gastronómico, de la creación de un registro de cultivos nativos, el reconocimiento de semillas \"no certificadas\" como posible de ser comercializadas sin sanción, el interés de los medios en el tema, y el efecto del debate sobre el cambio climático y la adaptación, han impulsado una creciente discusión y visibilización de estos temas en diferentes niveles. 13 Por otro lado, la declaratoria del Año de la Agricultura Familiar (2014), el desarrollo por primera vez de una estrategia de agricultura familiar (2015) 14 y las recientes declaraciones del gobierno de turno en el sentido que su apuesta es por la pequeña agricultura, especialmente andina, ofrecen alguna indicación de cambio, al menos en lo formal.Los incentivos son, en términos generales, medidas de diferente tipo que inducen a las personas o instituciones a actuar de tal o cual manera, a partir de recompensas/ retribuciones o el temor a castigos o penalidades. El análisis de los incentivos contribuye a predecir comportamientos en todos los ámbitos del quehacer humano y, en ese sentido, ayuda a entender los posibles impactos y efectos que pueden tener políticas públicas, leyes, regulaciones y otras medidas. En el caso de la conservación y uso sostenible de la agrobiodiversidad, y de los recursos RFAA en particular, los incentivos están dirigidos a motivar al agricultor o campesino (p.ej. a través de un premio o una compensación económica inmediata o condicionada, la promesa de compra de sus cultivos nativos u otras) a que realice acciones que efectivamente conserven esta agrobiodiversidad y RFAA. En algunos casos, las normas o políticas son per se un incentivo y en otros, contienen elementos que actúan a modo de incentivos. Un ejemplo de las primeras sería el reglamento que regula cómo se crean y establecen zonas de agrobiodiversidad, mientras que ejemplos de las segundas serían la ley de biodiversidad o la ley de retribución por servicios ecosistémicos, que más bien, contienen algunas disposiciones que debieran incentivar la conservación y uso sostenible de los RFAA. Aunque no hay defi niciones universalmente aceptadas sobre lo que son incentivos o desincentivos, hay algunas definiciones \"oficiales\" que ayudan a entender sus alcances.En el ámbito del CDB, \"un incentivo positivo es una medida económica, jurídica o institucional diseñada para fomentar actividades benefi ciosas.\" Ver, https://www.cbd.int/incentives/positive.shtml Por su parte, los así denominados incentivos \"perversos,\" … \"surgen de políticas o prácticas que inducen comportamientos perjudiciales para la diversidad biológica, frecuentemente como efectos adicionales no previstos de políticas diseñadas para lograr otros objetivos.\" https://www.cbd.int/incentives/perverse. shtmlPor su parte, la OECD señala que los incentivos pueden definirse, en general, como incluyendo \"aquellas medidas que usan el sistema de precios y las fuerzas del mercado para alcanzar sus objetivos. Al trabajar a través del sistema de precios, las medidas de incentivos mejoran la toma de decisiones sobre la biodiversidad al reducir las diferencias entre el valor de la biodiversidad para los individuos y para la sociedad en su conjunto. Las medidas de incentivos aumentan los retornos a actividades que conservan o restauran ecosistemas valiosos e incrementan los costos o reducen los retornos para actividades que dañan el ecosistema.\" https://1drv.ms/b/s!ApMK-qPglelvyy5cqlEKlcZEVpU7La manera más obvia de promover la conservación y uso sostenible in situ de la agrobiodiversidad y de los RFAA, es respondiendo a los intereses y necesidades de los agricultores y campesinos, y asegurando que esas respuestas sean por factores culturales, sociales y de mercado, sostenibles en el tiempo. Es decir, que puedan reproducirse y mantenerse en el tiempo. Esto que parece bastante sencillo, no lo es tanto, y en el pensamiento económico implica la necesidad de hacer converger lo que conviene al público y conjunto general (\"el bien público\"), con lo que interesa y benefi cia específi camente al individuo (o colectivo, si se toma en cuenta a la organización comunal o campesina como ente individual con intereses comunes). Es decir, se requiere contar con incentivos adecuadamente alineados para que los agricultores y campesinos consoliden sus esfuerzos y actividades de conservación y aprovechamiento sostenible particulares como acción que los beneficia directamente y adicionalmente, contribuye al bien común.¿Qué significa esto en la práctica? Básicamente que los agricultores y campesinos cuenten con formas de compensación (ej. acceso adecuado a mercados y precios justos, esquemas de pagos por servicios ecosistémicos), reconocimiento (ej. premios o reconocimiento social), apoyo (ej. extensión culturalmente sensible, capacitación, campañas de promoción, etc.), o condiciones habilitantes (p.ej. contar con las semillas e insumos disponibles), que los estimulen a continuar haciendo y profundizar lo que históricamente han hecho en términos del manejo y gestión, conservación y aprovechamiento de su diversidad de semillas y cultivos, con mejoras resultantes en sus niveles de vida y desarrollo. 15 Hay una extensiva literatura relacionada con los incentivos para la conservación y uso sostenible de la biodiversidad en general, y crecientes artículos y experiencias focalizadas en los incentivos relacionados a la agrobiodiversidad y los RFAA. Hay cierto consenso en el sentido que los incentivos para la conservación son en esencia directos o indirectos. Los directos incluyen compras de tierras para conservación de ecosistemas, deducción de impuestos, subsidios, o pagos por servicios ecosistémicos, mientras que los indirectos se centran en el apoyo a iniciativas de manejo y gestión del ecosistema, y la provisión de bienes y servicios que estimulen acciones de conservación. 16 Específi camente en el caso de la agrobiodiversidad y los RFAA, los incentivos directos son aquellos que inciden de forma inmediata sobre las acciones y actividades in situ de agricultores y campesinos. Por ejemplo, un pago o subsidio regular estatal condicionado a una meta de conservación de ciertos RFAA o agroecosistemas, o un esquema de pago por servicios de la agrobiodiversidad que benefi cie directamente al campesino que mantiene una determinada cantidad de RFAA o conserva ciertas \"chacras\" o campos particularmente ricos en RFAA, o un pago \"extra\" por la producción de cultivos nativos como parte de una cadena de valor dirigido a un sector de consumidores, entre otros, son formas de incentivos directos, orientados específi camente por el mercado y el pago en concreto. Los incentivos indirectos por su lado pueden también tener un efecto sobre las actividades de los agricultores y campesinos, pero de manera mediatizada, muchas veces a través de la propia acción de terceros y actores que intervienen (ej. a través de investigación, o proyectos de desarrollo/conservación, o premios y reconocimiento social, etc.) y que contribuyen a la conservación de la agrobiodiversidad y los RFAA.Dependiendo del objetivo que se persigue (p.ej. mantener la chacra, mantener un cierto tipo de cultivo, mantener la comunidad como productora de agrobiodiversidad, etc.) se diseña el incentivo correspondiente y que responda a las particularidades sociales, económicas y culturales específi cas.A continuación, se presentan algunos ejemplos de incentivos desarrollados en diferentes normas nacionales, alguna experiencia piloto e interesante precedentes del Tribunal Constitucional, legitimando el eventual desarrollo de tributos e incentivos tributarios para fi nes ambientales, cuestión que durante los años noventa y parte de la década del 2000 era un asunto absolutamente tabú y proscrito como opción de promoción de la conservación y protección ambiental en general. Esta lista de \"tipos\" de incentivos responde a la naturaleza esencial de las medidas y no tanto a una clasifi cación o taxonomía rigurosa. Por ejemplo, los incentivos tributarios/fi scales son ciertamente de naturaleza económica, sin embargo, los distinguimos por la fi nalidad que persiguen y el ámbito (o sector) fi scal o tributario en el que se promueven.Desde hace mucho tiempo, la doctrina internacional 1715 En una conversación personal con Miguel Holle, reconocido experto en cultivos andinos y con décadas de trabajo con comunidades andinas en toda la región, a propósito del tema de los incentivos, nos manifestó que \"nadie tiene claro por qué lo agricultores [especialmente ancestrales] mantienen y preservan sus semillas tradicionales … es un poco un misterio … hay al parecer un factor cultural extremadamente potente que condiciona a los agricultores a conservar, mucho más allá de la economía y las reglas del mercado.\" (Conversación personal, ofi cinas del CIP, Lima, agosto de 2007).16 Ferraro y Kiss muestran que los incentivos directos -incluyendo pagos directos a pequeños agricultores -tienden a tener un impacto mayor en la conservación, aunque sus observaciones se centran en experiencias en países desarrollados. Su aplicación en los países en desarrollo enfrenta retos considerables a nivel de institucionalidad, aplicación de la ley, etc. Agregaríamos que, en el caso de pequeños agricultores y campesinos andinos, el factor cultural podría igualmente tener un efecto no predecible. Si bien es posible concebir programas orientados a la conservación de los RFAA a través de la entrega de dinero, algunas experiencias en materia de retribución por servicios de conservación de la agrobiodiversidad (ReSCA) lideradas por Bioversity International en comunidades de Puno, 21 advierten sobre la necesidad de considerar cuidadosamente los efectos de este tipo aproximación, en la medida que se desplacen motivaciones morales e intrínsecas de los agricultores u campesinos -que históricamente y culturalmente los han motivo -para realizar las acciones de conservación que regularmente efectúan. 22La ley que declara de necesidad y utilidad pública la promoción, producción, transformación, comercialización y consumo de productos alimentarios agrarios nativos de origen andino de 1986, 23 incluye taxativamente cultivos como maíz, oca, olluco, quinua, tarwi, kañiwa, arracacha, mashua, papa, entre otros cultivos nativos y que le dan la característica de megadiverso al Perú.Esta norma establece que todas las entidades estatales, incluyendo centros de readaptación social, comedores populares, colegios, y todas las organizaciones de prestación social (p.ej. programas sociales), consumirán \"de preferencia, productos alimenticios agrarios nativos al estado natural o transformado que se ofrezcan en el mercado interno y cuya adquisición se hará, en lo posible, en forma directa de las unidades de producción agraria organizadas\". Finalmente, la norma establece que las universidades y centros educativos deben dictar cursos orientados a promover el consumo de alimentos y cultivos nativos, y además realizar investigación sobre sus ventajas nutricionales y formas de mejor aprovechamiento. Se alienta además su consumo en todos los organismos públicos.Aunque no se han traducido a nivel de medidas de incentivos específi cos necesariamente, muchas normas imponen obligaciones al Estado la obligación de promover la conservación de la biodiversidad y de sus 18 Sentencia del Tribunal Constitucional, recaída en el Expediente No. 00031-2010-AI/TC.19 No se entrará al detalle conceptual de esto principios: pero se pueden resumir básicamente en el sentido que similares situaciones económicas deben tratarse de manera igual y situaciones diferentes, requieren tratamientos diferenciados; por otro lado, en el caso de la solidaridad, se alude a una serie de deberes de los integrantes de una sociedad para alcanzar un fi n común y de sus líderes de distribuir adecuadamente los diferentes benefi cios aportados por sus integrantes. En primer lugar, la ley y el reglamento de biodiversidad, 24 hacen referencia específi ca a la noción de \"incentivos\" para la conservación y uso sostenible de la biodiversidad y sus componentes. 25 Pero también se refiere a incentivos perversos -aquellos que contribuyen a la pérdida de la biodiversidad -y su eliminación. El reglamento estable que las autoridades sectoriales (p.ej. INIA, MINAM, otras) deberán diseñar un programa nacional para la determinación e implementación de incentivos para promover la conservación y el uso sostenible de la diversidad biológica. Para ello, se insta a la participación e involucramiento directo del Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas y el sector privado. Aún se encuentra pendiente el desarrollo de un programa comprehensivo de incentivos que trascienda del sector ambiental propiamente.En segundo lugar, la ley que declara como patrimonio nacional una serie de cultivos y crianzas nativas, 26 plantea que el Ministerio de Agricultura, en coordinación con los Gobiernos Regionales y Gobiernos Locales y otras entidades públicas y privadas, tienen la responsabilidad del registro, la difusión, conservación y promoción del material genético, el fomento de las actividades de producción, industrialización, comercialización y consumo interno y externo de los cultivos, crianzas nativas y especies silvestres usufructuadas detalladas en un Anexo a la ley. 27 La idea es que a partir de estas acciones estatales se incentiven acciones de parte de agricultores y campesinos que conlleven a un proceso de afianzamiento de la conservación in situ de los RFAA. Esta norma complementa positivamente el espíritu y la letra de la ley que promociona el consumo de alimentos andinos.Un tercer ejemplo de norma promotora de la conservación in situ de RFAA lo constituye la ley de la pequeña agricultura familiar. 28 Esta ley busca la promoción de la agricultura familiar, partiendo del reconocimiento de la agricultura familiar y su importancia en cuanto a la seguridad alimentaria, la conservación de la agrobiodiversidad (incluyendo los RFAA), el uso sostenible de los recursos naturales, la dinamización de las economías locales, entre otros. Esta ley también propone lineamientos generalesen realidad son medidas que debieran actuar como incentivos-incluyendo la titulación de tierras y predios, acceso de los pequeños agricultores a los programas de mejoramiento de capacidades técnicas y uso de tecnología, el uso efi ciente y racional de los recursos hídricos, así como al fomento de la asociatividad, acceso a mercados y créditos. Se espera que estas medidas impulsen mejoras en las condiciones de vida cotidiana de estos pequeños agricultores y campesinos.Finalmente, la norma que crea el registro nacional de papa nativa, 29 plantea una posibilidad para revalorar la papa nativa -el cultivo andino (RFAA) más importante en términos de seguridad alimentaria local y nacional. Esta revaloración implica, por ejemplo, que los agricultores y campesinos tengan una motivación particular -un incentivo-para conservar y mantener determinados RFAA que, por razones varias (p.ej. cultura, reconocimiento social, economía local, investigación), resultan importantes.La ley de semillas y su reglamento alientan y regulan la producción y comercialización de semilla certifi cada, pero han abierto la posibilidad para que semilla no certificada (p.ej. semillas de cultivos nativos, que forman parte del intercambio \"informal\" entre la mayoría de agricultores y campesinos) puedan ingresar Luego de varios años de incesante trabajo de incidencia de varias instituciones nacionales, se aprobó el reglamento que regula la manera en la cual se reconocen las zonas de agrobiodiversidad. 32 Esta noción proviene de una idea establecida originalmente en el reglamento de la ley de biodiversidad del 2001, en el cual se determina que se trata de zonas establecidas para la conservación de los RFAA (p.ej. cultivos nativos) y su utilización sostenible .33 30 Esto es irónico en tanto, en la práctica, menos del 10% de la semilla comercializada en el Perú es certifi cada. En algunos casos como la papa, el porcentaje es mucho menor. Ver, Lapeña, I. La Nueva Legislación de Semillas y sus Implicancias para para la Pequeña Agricultura Familiar en el Perú. Serie de Política y Derecho Ambiental. No. 26, octubre de 2012, Lima, Perú. Disponible en https:// www.spda.org.pe/?wpfb_dl=227 31 Lapeña, ob. cit. p. 18   32 Decreto Supremo 0020-2016-MINAGRI, Reglamento que Aprueba el Reglamento sobre Formalización de del Reconocimiento de Zonas de Agrobiodiversidad Orientadas a la Conservación y Uso Sostenible de Especies Nativas Cultivadas por Pueblos Indígenas, del 13 de diciembre de 2016.33 El reglamento de la ley de biodiversidad precisa que las zonas de agrobiodiversidad están \"orientadas a la conservación y uso sostenible de especies nativas cultivadas por parte de pueblos indígenas no podrán destinarse para fi nes distintos a los de conservación de dichas especies y el mantenimiento de las culturas indígenas. Podrán destinarse a actividades turísticas orientadas a conocer y promover la agrobiodiversidad nativa y las prácticas y costumbres tradicionales de los pueblos indígenas, tales como ferias de semillas y otros mecanismos. Corresponde al Ministerio de Agricultura formalizar el reconocimiento de dichas zonas.\" (Artículo 38 del reglamento).Tabla No. 2 Zonas de agrobiodiversidad en proceso de reconocimiento y adecuación al reglamentoRegión Cajamarca (Zona de Sorochuco, Huasmín y Celendín)Expediente técnico en etapa fi nal de la elaboración. El Gobierno Regional se encuentra elaborando una Ordenanza Regional de reconocimiento.Conservar variedades locales de papa y tubérculos andinos.Ordenanza Municipal 043-2006-MPSMque declara la necesidad de crear una zona de concentración de agrobiodiversidad.Conservar variedades de cultivos nativos de agricultores conservacionistas.Región Junín (Zona de Pariahuanca) Extensión del área que se va a reconocer: 617 km2Expediente técnico concluido (por el INIA) con una propuesta de Ordenanza Regional (de reconocimiento) en elaboración.Valores ecológicos; valores fl orísticos; valores ambientales y ecológicos; valores científi cos; valores turísticos; Región Huancavelica (zona de la Laria Y Conayca) (Microcuenca de Pachachaca y Alauna) Extensión de la zona que se quiere proteger: 10302 has.Región Cusco Ordenanza Regional 010-2007-CR/GRC. CUSCO que regula la condición de centro de origen de agrobiodiversidad y domesticación de variedades de cultivos y que prohíbe la introducción de organismos genéticamente modifi cados (GORE Cusco).Protección de especies cultivadas nativa por el posible fl ujo génico producido por OGMs.Región Cusco Parque de la Papa, en Pisac, Cusco -creado por comunidades de Paru Paru, Sacaca, Chawaytire, Pampallacta, Amaru y la Asociación Andes en 2006.Diversidad de papas nativas (500 variedades); tecnologías agrícolas tradicionales; artesanía; ferias de semillas y multiplicidad de platos típicos; paisaje y restos arqueológicos.Región Huánuco Ordenanza Regional 097-2014-CR-GRH por la que el Gobierno Regional crea y reconoce la Zona de Agrobiodiversidad de Quisqui.Conservar variedades de cultivos nativos de agricultores conservacionistas. Revalorización de Festival Muru Raymi, gran feria de cultivos nativos en Quisqui.Región Puno (Distrito de Cuyocuyo, al norte del Lago Titicaca)Expediente técnico para reconocer los Andenes de Cuyocuyo como una zona de agrobiodiversidad.Conservación de cultivos andinos en aproximadamente 7,000 ha, de extensión, incluyendo algunos de los sistemas de andenería más importantes de la región andina.El reciente reglamento de zonas de agrobiodiversidad tiene por objetivos -entre otros-promover la conservación de la agrobiodiversidad nativa, incluyendo los RFAA, conservados y gestionados por los pueblos indígenas en particular. El reglamento establece además una serie de medidas de incentivos para la conservación de la agrobiodiversidad, incluyendo: la declaración de Persona Meritoria de la Cultura por parte del Ministerio de Cultura (MINCU); 34 reconocimiento formal de la diversidad genética de cultivos nativos por la autoridad competente (p.ej. MINAGRI e INIA); promoción de marcas colectivas; promoción de productos en ferias gastronómicas y otros; promoción de Mecanismos de Retribución de Servicios Ecosistémicos; entre otros.Este reglamento es un instrumento que ofrece un incentivo concreto para propiciar, a través de un reconocimiento legal a un espacio o sitio, acciones para la conservación in situ de los RFAA, tanto a partir de la intervención de actores internos como mediante la acción directa de los agricultores y campesinos, particularmente aquellos ancestrales, descendientes de pueblos indígena andinos y amazónicos. Las prohibiciones o actividades incompatibles con estas zonas están referidas principalmente al uso de organismos modifi cados genéticamente, la realización de actividad minera, o actividades que sean notoriamente incompatibles con las características y valores sociales, históricos y culturales de estos sitios.La ley y reglamento sobre mecanismos de retribución por servicios ecosistémicos (MRSE), plantean un mecanismo novedoso para compensar por la conservación de la biodiversidad en general. 35 Estos instrumentos legales, han abierto la posibilidad para diseñar mecanismos de retribución por la conservación de los RFAA en particular. Comunidades, sitios, espacios o agricultores o campesinos podrían verse compensados por mantener y conservar RFAA. Esto podría hacerse a través de fondos comunales, asignaciones directas, proyectos o programas de desarrollo local u otros.Como parte del listado de los servicios ecosistémicos que pueden formar parte de un MRSE se encuentran: la regulación hídrica; el mantenimiento de la biodiversidad; el secuestro y almacenamiento de carbono; la belleza paisajística; el control de la erosión de suelos; la provisión de recursos genéticos (p.ej. RFAA); la regulación de la calidad del aire; la regulación del clima; la polinización; la regulación de riesgos naturales; la recreación y ecoturismo; el ciclo de nutrientes; y la formación de suelos. En buena medida, se trata de elementos de servicios o provisiones que la propia agrobiodiversidad puede proporcionar.El reconocimiento de un derecho determinado puede, en ciertos contextos, empoderar y generar incentivos para actuar de una u otra manera. En el caso de los RFAA, el Tratado internacional de la FAO sobre los Recursos Fitogenéticos para la Alimentación y la Agricultura (TIRFAA) 36 contiene disposiciones para el reconocimiento de los Derechos del Agricultor. Estos derechos se pueden viabilizar de diferentes maneras en el ámbito nacional, incluyendo mediante: la protección de los conocimientos tradicionales relacionados con Fuente: Adaptado de Ruiz, 2009  los RFAA; la participación justa y equitativa de los pequeños agricultores y campesinos en los benefi cios derivados del uso de los RFAA; la participación de estos agricultores y campesinos en los procesos donde se toman decisiones sobre la conservación y usos sostenible de los RFAA; y mediante el respeto al derecho de ellos a resembrar, reutilizar e intercambiar RFAA (de conformidad con la legislación nacional). 37 Este reconocimiento de los Derechos del Agricultor en sus diferentes dimensiones, no constituye un incentivo per se, pero sí una base a partir de la cual, mediante su materialización e implementación, se pueden generar incentivos para que los agricultores y campesinos conserven sus RFAA.Los incentivos pueden diseñarse para, entre otros muchos fi nes, promover la conservación y uso sostenible in situ de la diversidad de recursos fi togenéticos, como valor en sí, apuntando a la acción específi ca de los agricultores y campesinos. La agrobiodiversidad y los RFAA se ven continuamente amenazados por diversas fuerzas. Patrones de consumos, pérdida de saberes ancestrales, abandono del campo, proyectos de infraestructura y extractivos que impactan en los agroecosistemas, liberación de organismos vivos modifi cados (OVMs), y el propio cambio climático, tienen efectos muchas veces negativos, en las actividades y vidas cotidianas de los pequeños agricultores y campesinos. 38 Afortunadamente, en las últimas dos décadas se ha producido un paulatino proceso de mejor comprensión, revaloración y posicionamiento de la biodiversidad, 39 agrobiodiversidad (incluyendo los RFAA) y el rol de los pequeños agricultores y campesinos en la conservación, como parte de la en la agenda social y económica del país. El conjunto de la arquitectura política, legal e institucional es un ejemplo evidente de ello. La conservación in situ de los RFAA genera importantes benefi cios que podrían escalarse en el ámbito nacional. Desde la dimensión social (p.ej. el reconocimiento y aprecio por los pequeños agricultores y campesinos), pasando por los potenciales benefi cios económicos que pueden generarse por los RFAA (p.ej. a través de adecuadas estrategias de incorporación a cadenas de valor en el ámbito local, regional o nacional), o las posibilidades de desarrollar una agricultura efi ciente y altamente diversifi cada en pequeña escala (p.ej. mediante extensión focalizada, apoyo económico, etc.), la conservación in situ de los RFAA hace sentido en múltiples dimensiones.1. Es necesario consolidar la incidencia política y propuestas desde la sociedad civil en favor de la conservación in situ de RFAA, aprovechando los avances en políticas y normas ya existentes, y las propias declaraciones de altos funcionarios del gobierno en el sentido que se va a prestar especial atención a la pequeña agricultura familiar, incluyendo la ancestral, para viabilizar opciones de desarrollo local compatibles con la cultura, organización y expectativas económicas de los pequeños agricultores y campesinos. 2. Se hace igualmente necesario mejorar los niveles de aplicación e implementación de muchas de las normas y medidas descritas a lo largo de esta investigación. Para ello, se requiere especialmente, inversión pública y el involucramiento de los Gobiernos Regionales y Locales como instancias inmediatamente cercanas a los pequeños agricultores y campesinos y con posibilidades de articulación mayores. En ese sentido, los programas sociales, alimentarios y las acciones de compras públicas, podrían tener un efecto positivo importante en la promoción de la agrobiodiversidad y los propios RFAA, en la medida que la variable \"diversidad\" sea parte de las condiciones de compra. Esto exige igualmente niveles considerables de organización entre los agricultores y campesinos. 3. Es necesario mejorar sustantivamente los niveles de coordinación entre diferentes entidades que impulsan medidas e incentivos, especialmente en relación a arreglos por la provisión de servicios ambientales y ecosistémicos. La experiencia de Bioversity International en Puno solamente, identifi có entre 2012-2015 hasta 28 proyectos e iniciativas entre las cuales no hay mayor coordinación y sobre las cuales casi no es posible encontrar información centralizada para su análisis. La fragmentación de las intervenciones debe dar lugar a una aproximación más integral y comprehensiva. 4. Para un buen funcionamiento de iniciativas de ReCSA se requiere facilitar y habilitar mecanismos de fi nanciamiento que permitan a las autoridades nacionales (MINAM, Gobiernos Regionales y Locales) transferir recursos públicos u otros directamente a los agricultores y campesinos como parte de los mecanismos contractuales y condiciones establecidas para este tipo de arreglo. 5. La medición y monitoreo de los efectos de las normas y efectividad de los incentivos establecidos es una tarea pendiente que debe realizarse para entender mejor sus impactos cualitativos y cuantitativos en el pequeño agricultor y campesino. Esto presupone un proceso de mapeo comprehensivo de los diferentes incentivos y medidas que actúan como tales en el ámbito nacional. Para ello, se podría proponer desarrollar una suerte de programa específi co de medición y monitoreo del impacto de los diferentes tipos de incentivos existentes para propiciar conservación in situ de los RFAA por los agricultores y campesinos. 6. La nueva iniciativa y propuesta de proyecto GEF de conservación in situ que está siendo elaborada por el MINAM (en su etapa de PIF), debe considerar acciones en el campo de los incentivos y medidas específi cas tendentes a propiciar, reforzar o consolidar la acción directa de conservación de los RFAA por parte de los agricultores y campesinos. La magnitud de esta propuesta que bordea los US $ 60 millones de inversión, ofrece una oportunidad para explorar formas creativas para implementar los incentivos ya existentes en el país en sus diferentes modalidades. 7. Sin embargo, es claro que no hay un adecuado fi nanciamiento desde el sector público para promover las distintas intervenciones necesarias para garantizar niveles óptimos de conservación de la agrobiodiversidad y los RFAA; promover un mercado de escala, diferenciado, que permita viabilizar la economía de pequeños agricultores y comunidades, dedicadas a la agrobiodiversidad; y transverzalizar la agrobiodiversidad en otros sectores. Si se compara la inversión pública para estos sectores frente a la inversión hecha para favorecer la agricultura de gran escala (p.ej. subsidios a través de obras de irrigación, venta de terrenos, acceso al crédito, etc.), la magnitud de las limitaciones se hace evidente. 8. Desterrar la idea errada desde el Estado de que una única opción política o normativa solucionará los problemas de la agricultura en el país es una lucha constante. Históricamente, la mega obra y subsidio a la agricultura industrial de la costa, debe dar paso a una mirada más comprehensiva de las diferentes agriculturas y sus problemas específi cos. Esto implica llamar la atención específi camente a los incentivos perversos que, más discretamente, pero de manera continua afectan acciones e iniciativas tendentes a la conservación y uso sostenible de la agrobiodiversidad y los RFAA. En ese sentido, la incidencia y sensibilización del sector público y, especialmente de los decisores de políticas funcionarios del MEF es fundamental para el desarrollo de normas y políticas habilitadoras de incentivos y de medidas que actúen como incentivos.  ","tokenCount":"5546"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a6f2c47e5a00eafa188be307714dc6c2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0d90cd5a-1aea-4f86-a1d9-81bbb8e81f30/retrieve","id":"1120896052"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8a35d153-20a1-48fe-89b6-8be7c1f1892f","pagecount":"65","content":"is due to the Rese.ren and Training Network of the Agricultural Development Council (AOC/RTN) and CIAT for cesponsoring and financing the worksnop. Special tnanks are due to Dr. Abranom Weisblat and Dr. Vernon Rullan for thelr continuous support of tne workshop. The principal contributlon to tne succes. of tne workshop wa. provided by the workshop participants tnrough their preparation of papers and entnusiastic participation in worksnop discusslons. In particular, tnanks are due lO the discussion openers Lucio Raea, Hernán Chaverra and Helio Tollini and the moderators David Franklin and Barry Nestel for their elfective discussion guidanca.The critical role of agricultural researen in expending food produetion and aeeeleraling agrieul'tural end economic development is now widely reeognlzed.In view of the vast range of goals to whieh developing countries aspire and the magnitude of researehable problems in agrieu:ture, how does Ihe agricultural researeh manager establish priorilie. and alloeale I imited human, financial and physkal resOurces among researen programs and projects lo assure the greatest beneflts from research investmerlts? Thls real and persistent challenge to coneerned indlvlduals in bolh the developlng and developed world led the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) and the Researeh and Trainlng Network of the Agrlcultural Development Council (RTN/ADC) in November, 1974 to eo-sponsor a workshop aimed at 'Ihe eonsideration of this issue.Participating in the workshop were sorne 35 agricultural research managers, agricultural scientlsts, donor ageney representativas, national planners, systems angineers and economists.The workshop explored current decision-making proeesses for resource allocalions in applied agricul~ural researeh in Latin Amerie •. Then, the workshop participanls were asked lo assess the needs for activities aimed at assisling In establishing priorities and a!locating resourees within agricultural raseareh programs in Latin Americe. Finally, the workshop eonsidered aetivities ;xpected to be most effective and the possible role of nalional and interoationel entilies in earrying them out.The purpose of this publication is lO m.ke .vaílable a summary of the workshop papers and diseussions, to highlight workshop findings and conclusions, and to sugges't posslble follow-up aetivltles. While ¡his publleation previdas short summaries of the principal papers presen'ted, texls of Ihe papers in their original language may be obtaíned free as long a,s available from CIAT, Economics Unit, Apartado Aéreo 6713, Cal!, Colombia, South Americe.P. Pinstrup-Arnkrsen F. C. BymesA summary of the workshop diseussions is presented in the following sec'tion; hence this discussion is limited to a brief presenlation 01 sorne of the conc:usions that were r\"ached.Workshop presentations on methods currently used to establish priorities and ellocate research resources in four national and international research organizatlons dearly demonstrated a desire for more information on Ihe relative expected pay.off from alternative research stretegies. The scarcity of information on Ihe relative importance of existing researchable problems at Ihe farm level and the techno:ogy characteris~ics preferred by the farmer was obvious. Furthermore, information seamed almost completely lacking on the expected contribution of alternative Jines of researcn to accomplish socioeconomlc goals.Workshop discussions indicated that in sorne cases, national research agencies had ce~aln potentiallv useful data at their disposal, whieh could net be used beca use ne effectíve framework existed for analvsis. In otner cases, attempls were made lo develop sucn frameworks without the most essential data beíng available.Participan'ts clearlv expressed not only the need for more and beller informallon, bul also tne desirability and expecled high pay-off of activ!ties providing such information. Tney cauIloned, however, tha! graat caTe must be taken in selecUng the acUvitíe., Iheir eonten'!, and the method of putling them into eHect in arder lo as.ure Ine developmenl of useful Information . with direc:1 applieation to the al local ion of resource. for agricultural research.Discussions indiea'led Ihal a few national research institutions are attemptíng to develop method. for improved researen resouree elloeation. These attempls .&em lo soffer from elther excessively bureaueralic procedures for projecl selection or analytical framework 100 general to provide useful information. In both cases, it appeared Ih.t relevant basic data are éX'tremely scarce. Haw to avoid tnese problems in order 10 a.sure that effective agricultural researeh i. facilitated rather than hampered remains a vivid ehallenge.Tha workshop eonsidered a number 01 othar methodological frames 01 reference for assisling the researeh manager in establishing priori'ties. Some are still eilher too preliminary to evaluate or too general lor direct utility; others seem to olfer great promisa on specific issues, depending upon the avai:abllity 01 data.Participant. agreed thal additional work is needed to adapt availab:e methods to the spaciflc need. 01 research managers and to develop certain methodological components that are 5till mlssing. Elforts are needed to intagrate relevant socioeconomic and agrobiological issues into a viable methodology; and interactien among researcn managers, agricultural scientists and economists is essential. Such work would inelude the intagration of the \"macro\" and \"micro\" approaches so that priorities among (1) commodities and (2) discipllnary input. within commodities eould be established simultaneously.The work is expected to facilitate effective decision-making. Participants warned that no attempt should be made to develop a eomprehansive model to raplace the decision-maker but rather to develop one deslgner to imprové nis effactlveness tnroogh more and belter information on the cost-benefit ratios of alternative researeh actlvities.In addition to tha foregoing, a number of otner issues were introdueed. A discussion group On research responsibilities between national and international institu1ions eoneluded that this issue should reeaive additional attention to ensure that internationa! eenter objectives witn respeet to specific eommodities correspond to national goals. On the question as to whether international centers compete with national programs for researeh funds, eomments indlcated that a relatively small amount of the \"intemational community\" funds currently allocated to the international centers would have gone to national institutions in the absence of tha former. Diseus.ants agreed, nowever, that more analysis is needed te estima te the optimum distribution of external funds between the two types of institutions, taking into accoun! their interdependence. Sueh analysio would need lo conoider ,ha influenea that researeh ¡nvestmants meda by intemational centers for specifie eommodities have on the amount of natlonal funds a country decides to inves! in researeh in these same eotnmodities.The question as to who actually sets researeh prioritie. in national instl'tutions arose frequently; it appears that external donor agencies and lnternational centers play a significant role through earmarked and/or commodity-specifiC funds and technical assis'tance. This situation places greal responsibility on thase external agencies to ensure that their priorities do I~ fael eorrespond 10 national needs and thal external and related national resourees are Invested eorrectly.Where external lunds are not obtained, il appears that lew deeisions are aetually made on realloeation of research resources. Budget flexiblllly tends to be low and the total budget lor one year and its allocation tend to be determinad by multíplying the previous year's budget by some eonstant, with little consld.ration 01 changing technlcal and socioeconomic factors. One specific eonclusion was that many national institutions do not appear to have efleetive mecnanisms for decidlng when to stop a certain program or project.Tlle lack of adequete delivery sys'tems, supporUng insUtutions and public poliey .re generally eonsidered the principal limitations to Ihe adoPllon of new teehnology. Bul discusslons on means of acce~erating the rate 01 adoption ':>f new teehnology suggested the possibility that the inadequacy 01 technology to solve farm-Ievel problems in a way aeceptable to the farmer might well be tne mos! importan! limitation to .doption. This limitation might be reduced or eliminated through efforts to provide the researen manager with more and belter Information on actual larm-Ievel problems and technology preferenees,The workshop suggested that agricultural and social scientists work togetner to help assure that (1) rasearen is relevant to the farm-Ievel prob!ems and farmer preferencas and (2) adequate teehnology is adoptad rapidly and ex'tensively. It was also recommended that measures be taken to ensure that fesearch and public policíes reinforee one another in an eflort to maximize Ihe eontribution to the achiavernant 01 development goal5.Whlle eflort. to improve researeh resource alloeation in national inslitutions are national responsibilities to be resolved within natlonal contexts, the workshop elearly pointad out the need and desirability for eertain intemalional activities which migh! inelude 10 l. Facilltatlng effeetlve interaclion among individuals and instilutions (within and outside Latin America) currently working on research resource alloeation methodology or capable of and interested In doing so in order to (a) integrate the work, (b) reduce duplication, (e) promote additional work and (d) enhanee Ihe effactiveness of the total eflort 2, Carrying out eertaln parts of the researen aimed al developing methodological frames of reference Providing assistanee to national institutions in earrying out data eollection and ana/y.i.Beeause the suecess of international researeh and researeh support depend to a great exlent on effective national researeh programs and sinee \"strenglhen/ng natianal institulions\" is an objeetive eommon to many international agendes, \"the above acUvities dear:y fal! within the mandate of sueh agencies and could greatly enhanee the eontribution of the oversll ' internatlona/ researeh and training efforts. Furthermore, the aforementioned Betivities and the resulting information wou/d be usefu! to eaeh individual international agency in alloeating its own resources.Frequent/y, internatlonal support to national re.eareh is commodity-oriented. Funding agencies, nationa/ government and international researeh eenter • • rrive al deeision. to carry out (through contractual projeets) research, training, and other development activities a.soeiated with one or more commodl'ties. Work.hop partidpants .tressed the need to eon.ider carefully the possible problem. thal funding agencies and center. may create for national governments if appropriate a!tenUon is not finl direcled to how the national authorit;\". determine their priori'ties and make their decisions to support a specific effort in the long runo I! is possible far external agencies lo usurp the priority-setting funetion. This can happen when external agencies mount majar international projects and draw scaree researeh talent away from problem. of more current importanee in thase particular eounlrles than those externally se!eeted.The national research director is faoed with the problem of interaeting with externa/ funding agencie. and enthusiastie commodrty teams from various internatlonal research centar., while dealíng with the pressures generated by within-country production, eonsumption or marketing groups. He must pick and ehoose before finally designing a national agricultural researen program. Up to now, external agencies may have eontrlbuted lo the decision-making problems rather than helping to solve them.Many of the issues most importan! Initiall, for inleraction bet_n eOuntries and international agencies are not ~moclity specific although they are usually commodity releted and may involve commodities of no concern lO the international raseareh centers. Thi. suggests that international agencies migot seek ways to help natione.1 agencies esteblish new or revised mechinery for researeh resource allocation, evaluate presenl crileria and develop new ones, collee! and analyze data, and provide experience and guidance in lhese new approaehes. TOe immediate goal. would be the development and strengthening of researeh managers' decision-making proeesses.Country representatives reminded the workshop that it is important thal these actions be taken on an individual-country bas!s because the effective solutions of many development problems depend upcn their congruence w:+h the economic, social, political and cultural environment in which they an' introduced.The summary of our dlseusslons over the last three and a half days Is presented within the framework of the workshop objectlves as speclfled In the program documento The flrst of these four objectlves sla'tes that we mellO exp.lore how declsions are presently made on Ihe allocation of resources In appJied agricultural researeh in Lalin America. Emphas!s was to be p.laeed on who made the declsions, what criteria were used, whether pressute groups inflvenced researeh demands, .nd finally what quantity and quality of information were avai.lable and/or utlllzed for decision.maklng. Secondly, we were asked to as_ess the efficlency of 'Ihe present decislon•making framework and the availabllity of relevant information to maxlmize the contrib)Jtion of agricultural researeh to the achievemenl of development goals. The thind objective of the work_hop was to consider whether there was a need for improved decision-making tools and/or more and belter Informatlon. The final goal of the workshop was to sugge.t ways to assist the decision•makers in appliecl agricultural researeh in improving researeh resourCe aUoeation. influenced researeh demanc:ls, and fina(,ly what quantlly and quallty of provic:ling more -and better information aod/or analytleal lools for the decislonmaker. Finally we were asked to diseuss poten!ial benefils from collaboralive lnlendisciplinary researeh, training and olher possible aelioo, and the role of CIAT in sueh action.In hi. welcome address Nickel suggesled Ihal in order to have a more produelíve researeh approach, Ihere was a need for a more effec!ive use of resour-ces in terms of orienlalíon, organizalion and efficiency.In terms of orlentatlon, lhe eonventional dichotomy between basic and applied researen was unforlunate and cou:d be regarded as a conslraint. Nlckel SuggeSled thal in place of the term \"basle,\" ellher \"opportunity\" or \"inlerest-orienled\" researeh would be preferable; and \"mission\" or \"problem-solving\" would be preferable to the lerm \"applied.\" In ¡he latter case, there was a need for more emphasis on aetion by inlerdisciplinary teams of biologisls and social ,cientists rather than on descrlptive raseareh alone.In the organizational field, Nickel decried the tradltional division between researen and exlension wilh Ihe low prestige tradltlenally afforded lO tn. latter aetivlty. He stressed the naed for a strongar two-way flow between researen and extenslon and the naed for a dynamie approach lo rasearch wlth recurrent program revlews and mulual reports of outeomes.In daating witn efficlency, Nickel stressed tne sta'tic nature of many oHiclal and university researeh insti'lulions that were often well endowed with bot\" finaneial and human resources which were underutilized. Frequently, the besl tralned human resources in a developing eountry were found in Lts universitles, but there was often no meehanlsm for channaling the researeh earried out by these people Into natlonal development programs. Indeed, In many cases university researeh did not relate to national problems, even in countries where universities eonstltuted practlcal:y Ihe sole eenler of agrieultural research activitles.Flshel polnted oU'! that the decislon-making proeess Invalvas three dlstinet levels: the national plannlng or policymaklng level, Ihe sectorial or \"secloral\" level: and the aetivity or operalional level. In discussing the decision-making process, it seems that we have focused fa¡rly heaviJy on decislon-making at the \"sectoral\" level; that Is lO say, we have not talked very much about \"policy\" declsion-making in terms of the Intersectorial cholces thal confront 10p policymakers at tne Cabinet or National Planning Office level. With the exceplion of the contribution of Andersen et al. and Brady we have not talked very muen .bou! decision-maklng at Ihe level of the actual research leader or direetor-be he national or international-although this observation Is perhaps less valid in the case of the private sector where Grobman's presentation did deal with the decision-making proeess .. 1 the operational leveL It is nol surpri,lng that we did not discuss decision-making at the hlghest levels sinee we are a group of seetorially oriented people. However, a number of speakers appeared 10 have been surprised and perhaps di.appointed thal there was some reluctance lo enter into detailed discussions of decision-maklng at the operatlonal level involvlng people who would aetually.have to implement the decisions. We ,hall return to thls later, but essentially il seems that we may ndt yet• have suflicient background to discuss thi. theme adequately.Many of our discussions en the decision-making proees. appeared to be focused on Fishel's \"sectoral\" level, allocating priorltles between eommodltles.• Th& word US\"Ktot'al\" was usBd by the auth(u: In, ptéf.r.n~ to \"sectorial\" or \"secular\" beeause he felt lt w.$ mor. In acc:ordlnca wIth economic terminofogy (Editor'$; not.) , ¡ 'H did seem Irom the diseussions that tnis was Ihe level al which commodily prlorities generally tended 10 be a!located, and a number of speakers ,ecognized Ihal at thi. level the decision-makers had a duly lo develop priorities wi'lhin Ihe broad framework laid down by the Nalional Planning Offic •.Allhough most eounlries have pianning agencies and prepare seclorial plans, it was pointed out Ihal .TI too Irequently Ihere was little or no eorrelation between agrieultural researeh acUvitie. and nalional deve:opmenl plans, and il appears Iha! a greal deal 01 past agrieultural researeh has hael a very limited socioeconomic impacto Guerra was particulariy critical 01 university researeh and cited a study 01 peslgraduste theses which indicated thal a very high percenlage bore no relationship to the realities of agricultural problems In lhe region.It was pointed out lorcibiy by Brady 'Ihat the scientilic administralor had a role to play in attempting lo leed information nol only inlo Ihe secloral level bul olso inlo the highest politieal level, regarding both the developmental petential of researeh programs and the fe.sibility 01 their goals. In more basic langu.ge we might express this by saving that it seemed that the scientists in many agricu:tural researeh institulions play, or feel thal they play, only a llmited role in the orientation of ~hat institution's researeh program although a strong suggestion has been made by both Brady and Sleppler Ihat scientists snould adopt a more aelive role in this process. As far as decision-maklng al the oper.tional level was concerned, we did not really discuss thls ful:y.The discussions on the ICA and INIAP presen~ations indieated that budget allocations for Ihe previous year were a very strong determinant In the budget alloca'tion for the next yaar. This may be a symptom Ihat nol enough conslderation is being given to a review of raseareh alternatives. This le.ds to a discusslon of the second point of 'the first maio objective of tnis meeting; name:y, the eriteria used In decision-making. Here again we looked at two levelo, the \"sectoral\" and lhe \"operational,\" the diseusslon focusing mainly on the former. There was a general consensus that agricultural researeh could nol be eonsidered separate!y from naticnal 9O.:s and that it was impertant that national leaders and decision-makers should provide the basis for determinlng the direction 01 researeh programs and for identifying priorities wlthin these. Brady and Andersen él al. both stressed the importance of identifying constraiots through the use of an interdisciplinary team includíng both biological and social sclentists.Brady highlighted lour issues reJating to the removal of constraints: (1) the relative significan ce of dillerent eonstrainls in order to identify those whose• removal eou:q be most meaningful, (2) Ihe feasibility of eonstrain't removal (or the ehances of sucees.), (3) the COSI of eonstraint remov~1 and ils eomparative advantage in relatíon to other strategies, and (4) the probability that oihers might do the researeh and the need to avoid duplieatíon or operating in a vacuum. This last point was taken up by a number of speaker., and full diseussion was given to Ihe relative roles of national and international institutes and toe prívate sector.The importance of Ihe profil motive in private sector objectivas was brought out by Grobman, and there seamed to be a consensus of opinion that international institutes were better equipped than national ones to undertake longer term rasearen with a higher element of risk than many natienal Institlltes Were prepared to take. It was also suggested that in high risk or speeulative researeh 'the decision to go ahead was often based on the human rescurees availab:e as muen as on the potential value of the project or ils chances of suecess.Schuh and others indieated that tnere might be some element of competition for funding between national and international institutes because of Ihe finite amount of resources avallable. It seemed to be genera:ly fel! tha! Ihese activitias eould and snould be complementary and that the whole justification fer the exilltence of intero.tional institutes was to provlda a strong backstopping service to national institutes. There seemed to be a consensus Ihat through outreacn programs there should be a strong feedback from national to internatlonal Institutes which would ensure that the latter were responsiva to national program needs.It was also indlca'ted that in discusslng resource alloeation between different types of inslilutes, Ihe prlvate sector could play on important role, particularly in those eountries where Ihe markets were large enough and sufflciently well developed for It to be able 10 ma~ket Its produels effectlvely. [n Brazil the new national research institute EMBRAPA is strudured as a private company and plans to operate very mueh along the lines of an inlernatlonal instilute. In additlon, II will subcon!rae! work to universilias and prlvate institutes. In this way, it Is endeavoring to combine Ihe comparativa advanlages of all three Iypes of institutes into one organlzation.Both Valdarrama and Dow presented preliminary work on researen resource alloeation at the operational level In their Institutes and endeavored to indude equlty as well as productivity goals in their devalopment of decision-making indexes. Tne state of the art in tnis field Is obvlously at a very early phase; and even In the Uniled States, whieh probably has the world's largest pub:ie agricultural research service, the development of effectlve eriterla for defining nalional researen goals Is stlll at s very early slage. Fishel presented lhe approacn belng adoptad in the United Sta te •. Thls approacn is a fairly simple one and Invalves a grest deal of subjecllve ¡udgment. Páez destrlbed a more complex model being developed in collaboration wítn nis colleagues for the allocatlon of I'\\I$OUrces. The model is basad en Ihe premise that research funds are flrs! assigned lO a preselectad group of commodities and then assigned to problem areas within each commodity. Thís model is slill in the testing phase.Earlier reference has been mede lo the specifícity 01 Ihe objoctives 01 the private sector's decision-making process. In elaborating on ~his, Grobman placad particular stress on the imporlanee 01 rnarket rasearch and consumer aeceptabilily in Influencing the decision-rnaking process. He pointad out Ihal al various stages 01 Ihe raseareh and developrnent aetivi'ty these marketing inflvences eould lead lo the eaneellation 01 a project. At many points in the discussion on public sector researen, the fleor cornmants focusad on the problems 01 low adoption rate and the weakness 01 the \"extension\" process.To sorne degree ft was possible to draw a close analogy belween exlension and adoplion on the one hand and market research and consumér aeceplability on the olher; and il would seem that there may be an evident weakness in a grest desl 01 public sector researeh which separa tes the carrying out of the researcn from its aclual delivery 10 the farmer. Indeed this may highlight 8 fundamental weakness in the crlteria for defining researeh príorities In many institutions where all the emphasis is glven to carrying out researen on objectives defined by people at a nigh level who may be oblívlous of ¡he consumer's n..oo., particularly when tnat consumer is a smal! farmer. This subjecl was covered in ~he spacifically producer-orientad model by Andersen el al., wnicn had a strong feedback to aequaint the researcher. wilh farmers' prelerences.1I would seem tnat tnere is • (acuna In the Ihinking of many public sector research lnstltutions in Ihat tneir seledlon crileria at the projecl level do not take adequate eognis.nce 01 wnat the cónsumer wants. Thls does not mean thal Ihe researcn consumer O. s., Ihe farmer) does nOI want a crop variety Ihel will triple his yield; but if this involves a four-or fivelold rlse in the cash cosl 01 produetlon, he may rejeet It in favor of a variety whlcn gives hlm only 8 50 pereenl rlse in produclion but involvas a eash outlay only 20 pereent more than his Iraditional'costs because casn is often his mast limillng (escurce.Thls observation appears to be particularly relevan! In the light of Rullan'. commen! on ehanging lertilizer/erop price relatlonships, since the fertllízer applicatíon has played a very signiflcant role in the transfer 01 agricultural tecnnology in developing eountries durlng the lasl decade. let us move on now lO sOrne eomments on the third factor in this list of initla' objectlves; namely, tne influenee 01 prassure groups In lnlluencing the decision-making proces •.We really did not have much in the way of hard data to discuss on this theme. It was $uggestad thal donors may represent a prassure group; on the l7 mher hand, nobody discússee! donar motivation and whether or not donan, were more effieienl Ihan researeh Inslltules In defining how resources mlghl be allacated. An interesting. observation was made that 'Ihe disclplinary Iralnlng of nalional planners and agricultural planners in particular mlght Introduce a strong bias inlo the decision-making process. There may be some validl'ly In Inls remark even al Ihe e experimental station level slnce In mas! developlng counlrles the flrst agriculturallsls to be sent overseas for doctoral studles are usually cereal breeders and lI 15 much more common to find people with thls background direcUng boto na'tlonal and International cenlers Ihan it is lo flnd, for example, an agricultural economist. A number 01 speakers stressad Ihe need for a betler dialogue belween biological and social scientisls in arder lo achleve more effeclive resource alloeation.In his presentallon on CIAT. Alvarez-Luna lookad a't Ihe questlon of pressure groups from a somewhal dlfferenl angle. In Ihe two programs tha! he specilicaUy described-namely, beans and cassava-CIAT has endeavored lo deliberately develop pressure groups at Ihe operalional level, wilh different disciplinary and geographical orientallons, which feed in information and advice lo ils program committee and direclor general who are then ab!e to utilize a wide range of differenl experlise lo make ¡heir operationa! decisions, In many inSlilutions Ihe mosl important pressure influencing Ihe decislonmaking process may be Ihe effecl of an existing, fnequent!y long.standing budgelary slructllre and the difficulty in making majar short-term changes in the use of financia! resources. This problem seemad lo exist in al1 Ihe organizations discussad allhough in the long run Ihere did appear lo be a great des I of flexibility in both national and ¡nternationel canlers' budgets. The problem of pruning or even ampurating long-standing programs that appeared lo serve Iit'tle objeclive purpose was one Ihal seemad lo confronl most agenci .... Fin~lIy, al Inis s'lage of Ihe program, we came lo the queslion of lhe quality and quantily of informal ion which is availab:e bUI which is often nol utilized for declsion-making. Here again, Ruttan pinpoinled the Issue when he relalad to Ihe specification of the informalion base on whlch lo identify lhe naeds for shlfls in researeh programs. In particular he raisad the qllestion of how the teehniques usee! for coneeptualization 01 the measuremenl 01 pasl benafils from research mlghl be utilizad for the analysls of benefits from fulure resesrch. This lalter issue was lakan up by Hertford in his paper describing Ihe ulility of ex post methodology for ex ante analysis.These presentalions, togelher with the data presen'tad by lhe national and international ¡nstilulas representad al Ihe meeting, did Indicate Ihal en absence of adequale analylical data was a major conotraint on ,the decislon-making :>rocess. From the presentallons given. il appearad that we are .Iil! quile a long way from knowing wnat dala we naed, lel alone knowing how to handle il; In trying lO lnlerprel lhe discunion on our lirsl objective, we have really covered many of the point. also diseussed ln the second and third objeclives, which de.lt with. assessing lhe efficíency of the decision-making framework presently usad and <onslderlng whether there was a nead for improved decisionmaking tools. There are, however, a few supplementary poln', which might be added.The firsl relatee! to the economy 01 scale in resouree a!!ocatien and declsionmaking, nol only in relation to Ihe location 5pecilicíty 01 biological research bUI .150 to the type of institutions tha't shOuld be earrying out thal researeh. This comes back to .the point abouI the relative eonlribution 01 Ihe publie and private sector, and there was en in'teresling diseussion on Ihe degree lo which the public sector 5hould 5upporl research on ecmmodlties, particular:y exporlorientee! ones, which tended to be produced on large eommereial farms. The history of the private seelor's suecess in flelds sueh as cereal and sugar cane breeding would seem lo indicate thal public policymakers mlgh~ nead to take a doser look al thi. problem in some counlrl\" •.Anolher Issue, inlllally hlghlighlee! by Rullan, related 10 the limitatlons in our knowledge as lO how 10 brlng resources to bear on institutiQnal innovation and transfer: Thls relatee! back agaln to lhe queslion of the transfer of technology. and il was of parllcular Inlerest to hear Soto's presentalion regarding Ihe In'teramerlcan Development Bank's new policy of attempling to ldentify their role in strenglhening national agricultural researeh Inslilullons from the Instltutional standpoint.Returnlng to the question of the efficiency of lhe decislon-making process, it was clear frcm discussion Ihal researen resources musl be .IIocatee! aecordlng lo lhe nead. of a country and wlthin tne framework of the curren! state of development of Ihal eoun!ry; If Ihere 15 no clearly definad developmenl program, Ihe decíslon-maklng process with regard to resouree alloealion eannOI be properly earriee! out. 1t was suggesled that the decislon-making process at lhe farmer level might need to I.ke Into aceounl the differences belween tradillonal, transitional and commereial farmer. and that more a!tention might nead to be paid 10 researeh policíes speclfically orientad lo do this.of priorities within a commodity budget. The impression was given Ihal lhe adequacy of lhe deeision-making process for alloeating researeh resourees al Ihe operational level in most of tho institutlons represented al ¡he meeting was Iimited and offered considerable opporlunities for improvemenl.In vlew of thls, Ihe workshop passed on fairly logicaUy lo ils four'lh objective, which was to suggesl how 10 assist the decision-makers in applied agricultural research in terms of Improving researeh resource allocotion. We were asked 10 explore the pOlential benefjts and casI. of providing (1) mere and better information and (2) analylical tools for the decision-maker. The potential benefits from collaborative interdisciplinary research, training and other possible aelion and Ihe possible role of CIAT in sueh eollaborative action were also Usted for discussion.Agaln there Is a certaln amount of overlapping wilh Ihe earller objeetives. Tlle first poin't deall with the provision of more and beller information whieh we dearly naed. Thls polnl was brought oul forcib:y by Solo, who indiealed thal Ihe Interamerlean Development Bank's lending aetivlties were hampered through en inadequa'te informatlon base although thl. situation had been worse in the pasto A series of models were presented to us for improving resouree a!location In researeh. Tollini classified tnese inlo quantitativá and nonquantitalive, but there was in effect a sequential range of aetivltles from complex poacy declsion-making models sueh as those described by Ramalho de Castro and Senuh and by Páez (through ~he Hertford and Fishel models) and thl> approaches of Dow and Valderrama, to Ihe l6$s complex type of analytieal tool. presentad by Anderoen e! al. and Senuh, lO the totally unquantitative approaen of Brady.We had an inleresting sehernalíe presentation from Guerra rogardlng the type of information one needed to be able to make better judgments. This subjeel was also referred to in the paper. by Valderrama and Ardila, Dow and Ampuero, Páez, Hertford, Ramalho de Castro and Fishel. However, we did not really get into a discussion on Ihe potenti.1 benefits and costs of providing a better informatien base, and there are some doubts as to whether we are equipped to do ,nis .. The paper by Ramalho de Castro and Senuh was particularly interesting In the way that it hlghlighted the relationship between different goal. of agricultural re.earch and commodity and equity policy. Aithough il wu suggested that the Ramalho/Schuh model waS of particular relevan ce to SrazU, tnis poin! was dispuled; and the approach would .eem to warr.nl further exploratlon. Il wovld .150 be inleresling to relate some of lhe analysis in Inis model to the data from lhe.x post-.x ante comperison presented by Herlford since it appears that at the present time _ know how to be wise after the event bul not before.The final paper by Andersen et al. proposed a model for improvlng the informatíon base for research resource allocalion based on agro-economic surveys. Again we had an extremely interesling paper deseribing work in progre •• but as yet untested. Certainly the paper seemed a fitting concJusion to the earlier series and indicated some concrete proposals for answering the questions posed at thls worksnop. It .150 indicated that for thls type of work, this approach could be used effectlvely by an lnternational agricultural center in -.cUng as the fecal polnt for coordinating tnis type of activity on a regional basls, particularly through 'he physical and financial resources that an institution sueh as CIAT possessed, whlch gave lt a eonslderab:e eomparative advantage from the standpolnl of the trainlng 01 personnel.In the final discusslon sesslon, the participan!s concluded Ihat the workshop had presented a useful exchange of experlences. The dialogue suggested that thls was a lield that warran!ed more earelul study and that perlodlc exchanges 01 tllis nature would be useful. II was recommended that future workshops should have narrower objectlves and shou!d focus on Ihe decislon-makíng precess al a very .pecífle level. CIAT's tralning and conferenee rasourees lent themselves well lo hos'tlng this type of meeting, and íl was raeommended Ihal CIAT should lake the ¡nillative in follow-up acUvitles. Presenl requiremenls for increased foed produclion are sych Ihal lhe agricultural researcn services of m'any of Ihe deve:oping nalions mus! slep up performance. There are many reasons lO believe Ihal Ihese agencies can improve lheir effactivoness and ralher rapidly. The environmenl for improvemenl is betler Ihan in Ihe past. Some of Iheir needs are more dearly evidenl Ihan Ihey havo been previous:y, and steps can be idenlifíed whereby olhers may help Ihem.These slalemenls oUli;n. Ihe conclusions reached at the Bellagio VI conference. At Bellagio V (May, 1972) atlention was given to Ihe need to prolect Ihe unique character of Ihe inlemational cenlers, their f!exibility, and Iheir freedom from political conslraints. linkages between Ihe cenlers and national groups and gaps in the woridw;de nelwork were also subjects of :oncern.When Bellagio VI was being planned, a summary of the deveJoping nelwork showed that Ihe CG* system was becoming increasingly effactive in dealing with researeh gaps and in marshal,ling support for agricullura; research and development al Ihe international level. The greatesl need seemed to lié in Ihe area of slrengthening national agencies.The eommon thread runníng Ihrough Ihe BelJagio VI discussion. was the nead for vast!y improved technologíes. Three aspects of the current siluation received attention: (a) world food supply, (b) interaClions be'tween inlemational and national agricultural researeh organizations, and (e) Ihe stalus of national agencies. Th. consensus al Bella9io VI was thal the currenl food problem wi 11 cause new rescurees lO be brought into use and Ihal this time some mOre lastíng gains can be expected io terms of conlinued supporl for the deve:opmenl and applieatioo 01 new lechoology. While the intemational centers are a source of great satisfaelion lO lheir founders and sponsors and a basis of hope and reassuranee for many otners, several eencarn. have besn expressed, chiefly conceming the ¡nteraetions between the centers and the national agencies. There is some feeling that the centers' rescurces are being sprsad too thin. They are being asked to take on too many respansibilities or projects where their particular organizational advantages do nol come into play.The sharp focus 01 a mullidisdplinary te8m on a e:early defined range of problems is recognizad as one of Ihe reasons for the centers' success. !ns'titution-buílding projects, whelher Ihey are carried out as outreaeh or cooperativ!' efforts, must be selectad wlth care so thal thay wili nol lead the center away from this sharp focus.Another problem may be ¡he overlapping of several cenlers' outreach programs. For example, some of the small teehnieal groups in Southeast Asian countries have reeeived enthusiastic overture. from intematienal center representativas interested in deep-water rice, corn, cassava, potatees and vegetables. The propasa:s haya besn aeeeptad with appreciatíon but also with SOme perplexity. Tllese smal! countries, often with eomplex agricultural patterns, are precisely the ones that must rely most heavily on the centers for mueh 01 'their new teehnology; but thay may need help in puttlng togather a míx 01 teehnieal assistance whleh meets thair needs and is withín the reaeh of their resourcas. Also, they may urgently need he:p with cotton or jute or some otner crop that has no advocate from en international eenter. lt seems dese that the centers wlll be funded generously so long as thay produce resulls. The national researeh agencies are not mere:y 90lng to be fundad more edequately; they are 90lng to be requlred by thelr counlr!es to make unprecedented conlributions in the years aheed.Tr.inecl scientifi~ m.npow .... Is still in short supply in most countries. Evan those that have unemp:oyad seienllsts are not overslaflad so mueh as thay are underflnancad. As Ihe organizalíons expand, the shallowness of tIle manpower supply becomes evident.Crop and animal production speciaUsts, who can do Ihe integrated type of researen needed lo increase produetion, are ín sllor'! supply ín essentlal:y all the developing eountrles. Thís is a type of traíníng thal mosl graduate programs do nol empllasíze and that many organizational eharts fail even to identify.Intermedlate and top-level managément penonnel, who can analyze problems, plan and implement programs, are badly needed in 811 developing countries.Funding of national programs Is obviously well below the optimum. Tne real question is not how muen snould be spent by the developing countries under optimal condítions but rather what rate of ¡ncreesed expenditures can be afficiently utilized, given the manpower restrictions end olher cons'tralnts of a spacifico siluation.Eaeh counlry should examine i'ts agricultural researeh services and make Ihe indicated adjustments. We might add that the surp!us producers among the developed n.tions are not ¡mmune 10 this naed.The developing eountry that wishes lO upgrade ilS researeh system must \"be prepared at the top leYel to make e long-Ierm, suslained commilment to the jobo In making some of these determinations, nationa: agencies may wish to seek assistance from outside. Technical and financlal assislance from muitinational end bilateral sources should be utilized when rsquired.Careful planning will help to make effective use of current budge'ts end of new funds whlch wlll likely become availab!e. Sueh planning might inelude the following steps, among others: The individual nations must consider resource allocation lor every crop or commodity that Ihe nation produces. They must de.1 with the whole ranga 01 social, economic and political problems faeing agricultura in their particular situation.F<>Od production, and not research for its own saka, musl be the aim of the national agricultural agencies 01 the developing countries. Too otten the researchers have tended to be out 01 toueh with the ¡armer and even with researchers in related lields.It is incre.singly clear that the researeh structure must deal with more than the various disciplines _nd individual eommodíties. It mus! deal with integrated larming systems. The deyeloping countri .. are lacad not merely with achieving production increases on a nationwide basis, but with achieving Increased incomes far large numbers of smal! farmers.Farmer. cannot use new technology wi'lhoul Ihe necessary inputs and credit. They must also have reasonable market facilities and prices that offer a reasonable return on their investment in new technology. AII of Ihese factors require decisions and aelions by a number of agencies, both public and priva te. In additlon to a brief mention of the impact of agricu:tural researeo and public poliey in the United States, the paper foeuses on four issues: (1) tne importanee of dealing as explicitly and as operationally as possible with goals. We nave to ask and answer the question of \"researen for what,\" (2) possible goals that might be considered, (3) the role sodal scientists and particularly eeonomists can play in identifying these goals, (4) the need for eeonomic policy and teconologlcal changa to eomplement eaeh otoer.New technology Is ereated as an input In toe development process and not as an end in itself. Moreover, technology has an Instrumental role in at'tainlng a larger set of goals and objectives; ils maln goal is not to entertaln the researehers.Once the idea that knowledge oas tnis instrumental role in goal attalnment i. recognized, the specification of these goals becomes important. In toe case of agricultural researeh, this would require a specification of the goals sociéty or the government would have wi'th respeet to the agricultural sector.In order to obtain any degree of préCision in researeh priorities, it is importan! fer broad social goals to be transhlted ioto a more operational and objective set of goals in term. of which individual researen prejects can be evaluated. If tnis can be done, more foeus will be provided for the researcn program, a mOre efficient researeh effort will result, and there will be a more objective means of evaluating tne researen in an ex post sense. Tha problem is to arrive at tnis more operational set of objectlves.One way to proceed is to take the three fundamental goa:. specified for the lowa State program and see what can be made of them. In addition, I would lik to add a fourto goal-nutrition. Therefore, we have as possible goa/s (1) growth or developmen't, (2) equity, (3) security and (4) nutrition .On the basis of a discussion of researeh goals, three propositions are identified. First, the nature of the objectives for the research program wil! be determinad in part by the stage 01 economie development. Second, the objectives of the researeh program should be relaled to the particular development model the government is implementíng and the specific economie polieies it uses to implement Ihis modeL Third, with an adaquele understanding 01 the development precess and the set of policies being pursued by the government, the goal. and objectives of the researen program t can be specified at a quile operational leveL , I E.ch of these threa proposition. providas sn important analytical ro!e for the economist in determining researeh prioritias. His contribution is partly • to identify goals and objectives in the light of tha general policy malrix. IfIhis is done at en operational level, there should be sn inerease in the efficiency with which research resources are usad since they will be focused more directly on policy objectives. In addition, a sounder basis will be laid for evaluating the rasearch program in en ex post contextoThe aquity issue is one that has long been neglected by both economists and prodvction scientists. Economists have neglected it because of the difficulty in stating categorically whether one distribution of income is belter than enother. Production scientists have neglected it because of a hilure to recognize that (a) much of their production technology was not uniformly adopted by different sized farms, (b) the benefits of production technology could accrue uniquely to one or another ealegory of resouree owners, and (e) that the ultimate beneficiary of teehnieal change could be the consumer ralher than the farmer.Four aspects of the aquity or income distribution Issue are Importan'!. Tha first is the distribution of the benefits of technical change between the produeer and the consumer. The second is the functional distribution of the benefits among the various resource Owners. Third is the distribution of the benefits among the various sizes of farms. Fourth is the impact on regional income 1istribution within !he country.On !he distribution of benefits between the consumer and the producer, two sllt. of eonsiderations are important: (1) Ihe relative conditions of supply and demand and (2) economic policy. If agricultural researehers want to benefit producers, the presumption is tha! they should concentrate on products tha! have a high priee elasticity of demando Examples of these are export produc!s. If !hey wan'! to benefit consumers, they should concentrate on producto that have a low priee elasticity of demando Typically these will be food staples or necesslties I ika rice, edible beans, wheat, etc.On the distribulion of benefits between Ihe land owner and the laborers, it Is assumed that in mos! cases il ls the land cwners who will beneflt at the expense of the laborers. This is not a straightlorward case, however, and mueh depends on the relative elaslicity of the supply and demand lar the factors and Ihe elasticity of substitutions among the produclion faelor •.Regarding the distrlbution of benefils among dlfferent sizes of larms, the lssues have lO do wilh Ihe extent to whleh Ihe new produclion tochnology is adapted to the resource endowmenls and other eondltlons 01 the various slza groups and the efficiency 01 the various eeonomic instltulions serving these groups. 'The paper concludes by stressing three point •. Flrst, deve:opment needs are not Ihe same for eaeh country or aven lar diHerent regions within the same country. Moreover, these naeds will generally changa ove~ a period 01 time; therefore, Ihe problem 01 analysis lo determine what researeh prioritles .... oughl lo be is almost never ending. For Ihe same reasons il is dlfficull lo \"generalize among eounlrle •. The analysis does have lo be large:y loeation speciflc. Because of Ihls, there is an importanl need for strengthening natlonal researeh eapabiUlies.Second, researeh priorities naed to be defined in lerms of lhe particular deve'opment model Ihal a country is using as a basis for policy and in terms of !he particular measures used lo implemenl il. To fail to do Ihis is to run the risk of having economlc pollcy negote the results of the researeh efforl ond/or to forago a potential eonlribution that the research eHorl cou:d have made.Goals may well be in confllel; for example, the attempl to 'atlain a higher rate of groW'th in the aggregate may well aggravale the equily problem. It is wor'lh noling that had plan! scientis!s and social scienlis!s worked closely al ¡he beginning lo think abou! what Ihe goals ought lo have been, what weigh'ts lo atlaeh to tham, and how Ihe goal$ might have been attalned, Ihe counterproductlve controversy over the Green Revolution might never have happened. Biological and social scientisls do have a responsibility lo atlempt lo understand eaeh other and lo work towards the commOn goal of improving the well-being of !he large fraetion of the world's popu:ation Ihat is disadvantaged.During Ihe pas! decade we have witnessed the development of a 'two-pronged approach to agricultura, researen aimed at solving food production problems in the developing world. One approaeh is that of the network of intemational agricultural researeh can'ters; the seccnd i. that of the national researeh organizations in developing eoonlries.The lotal need for new knowledge to he:p farmer. produce more foad dwarfs the resources available lO support and carry out the researen needed. Priority selling beccmes paramount. There is mueh to be deslred In agricultural researen priority setting, especially Ihat of national researen organizations. The imitation of researchers In Ih. more developed counlries ls evlden!.Research at unlversltles and researeh Instltlltes eomplemants applied researeh trlals earded out at .mal! outlying stations. Charaeteristieally, these stations are poorly staffed and equipped. Some regional researeh stalions may have smal! plant braeding programs, but their efforts are nol usual:y coordinaled In a national erop improvement programo There are some notable exceptlons. In these cases, ther. Is goad natlonal research coordination. Eftec!lve long.range plans have been developed and are being implemented. Trained re.earcher. are effective!y utilized and are tralning olMe.s to lake thei. places.If overall national policíes do nO! g!ve higher priorlty to agricu:tural researcn, the .etting of researeh prioritles may be meanlngless, Agrlcul!ura1 .eseareh eanoot be eonsidered apar! from the basie human naeds of society and, perhaps more important, from Ine pereeptlon of those nseds by national leade.s. Natlonal social goals as percelved by national leader. 1lInc1 dec:1.¡0mmaurs must provide a bas!s for determ!ning the direction of resea.ch program5 and of lhe spedfic prloritles withln these programs.Researeh administrators have a responsibility to help decision-makers identify national goals relating to agricu!ture and, more specifically, those relating to agricultura! raseareh. One 01 'Ihe most significant ehallenges is to force national leaders to think in terms 01 the fulure. Preoceupation witn eurrenl problems lorees tnem to think only of tnose researen inputs which promise immediate results. They Inerefore bypass or eliminate long-range researeh planning and eoneomitantly the set'ting 01 meaningful researeh prioritie •.An important task of researen administrators and olner decision-makers is to identify clearly the extent to which agricultura! researeh can contribute to the atlainment of a nation'. or region' •• ocial goal •.The desire for national self-sufficiency, e.pecially with respeet lO lood eraps, sometimes lead. lo Ihe eSlabllsnment 01 unreaHstic and economically unsound produetion goals. Economists, as well as biological scientist., can he:p identily agricultural areas in whicn a given eountry has a campara'tive advantage.To idenlily means 01 meeting social goals, agricultural researcn administrators must know the limitations society imposes on the agriéullural industry.The generalizad procedure for determining appropriale resouree allocation for agricultoral research assumes thal overal! social goal. will inelude goal. Ihat can be met only through Ihe agricultural sector. In lurn, agriculture's goal5 will require input. from agricultural research, as well as dther components 01 thi. industry.Using tnis genaral eriteria, it is possible to select a series 01 researeh alternatives and to assign tnem different. levels of priority. Wilhin eaeh alternativa, specific researeh projects can then be prepared and pe'rtinent researen metnodo!ogias developed. Thase beco me the resesreh instruments to which funds and human resourees are alloca'ted.Four major eriteria are important in setting researeh priorities and in ascertaining projects to be ¡nitiated.Relativa signlf'¡cance of dlfferent constr.ints. The extent to which the removal of a given constrainl would eontribute to the aehievement of importan! agricultural and, in turn, social goals is pernaps the most significant long-range criterion. Tha relative socioeeonomic signifieance of lhe constraint is of paramount importanee.More specific factors that must be considered are the size of populatións and of crop and land areas and the number of in5titutions potentially affected by the proposed research. Also, effects on income distribution, effective land utilization and other socially worthwhile goals should receive a!tentioo.Feasibility of constrainl removal. The feasibility of removing, through research, different constrain'ts on agricultural produc!ion, processing and marketing is an ímportan! criterion. Determination of tnis feasibilíty will depend upon a number of factors íncluding the nature of the constrain! to be removed, the availability of seienti.ts sufficiently well trained to carry out the researeh, and progress already made in related researen areas. Limitatíons in finances and their rate of delivery can adverse:y affeet a scientist's ability to perform, as can an ineffident procurement system.Cost of rethrc:h lO remove !he constrain!. The required inputs in terms of financial and numan resources and of time needed to aecomplish the researeh are important criteria. The financial eost-benefit ratio has been used eommonly. Unforlunately, benefits from agricu:tural researeh eannol always be quantified in economie lerms.Aside from tne eost-benefil analyses, researeh cosls alone are important eriteria. Even with high probable ultima!e returns on researeh inveslment, poor eountries may nol be ab!e to afford large inputs for agrieultural researeh.The time requirement for researen accomplishment Is signifieanl. Researeh administrators mus! insist Iha! some funds and manpower be ellocated lo proje<.:ts tha! have high, long-term potential even though the immediate returo probabilities may be low.Probability !hat other. wlll do ¡he research. Eseh researeh organ izatioo lends nol lo lake into consideration the researeh eapabilities 01 others. Developing country organizations musl eonsider the researeh which is being done and whieh can be done elsewhere. Regional eooperation permits ¡nlerchange 01 elop and animal strains, as well as of published researeh results.There are a number of olher practical criteria; for example, the urgency 01 the researeh. Administrators must prevent \"urgent\" problem-solving projeets from dominating researeh programs.II is no! difficult to identify th. general procedures by which eriteria and, ín turn, prioritias can be determined. TIJe difficulty arises in implementing the procedures.The setling of bread social goals Is generally Ihe function 01 soclety and Is usuaJly aceomplished by political leader. and national planners. Scientisls and scienee administrator. should provide background information for Ihese decision-makers, not oniy to dEitermine the soeial bUI agricultural goal. as well.Agricultural scientists and researcn admlnistrator. should be intimately involved in .etting agricultural researeh goals with prime responsibility for identifying agricultural constraints, tne role of researen in removing Ihese eonstrainl., and Ihe specific criteria to be used in deve:oping priorities. likewise, they should nave major responsibillties for developing prlorities and in deciding resource alloeation lo implement tne priority research programs.In most instances, rasearen admlnistrators use tneir own judgment in sEilting criteria and researen prioTillas; In Olner\" pane:, advi,e the administrator. In stil! olhers, panel s of experts decide on the criterla lo be used and Identify the priorilles.Despite the weaknesses of criteria and priorlly-setting procedures involving scienlists, the advanlages oulweign the disadvanlages. Wnile il may be inappropriate lo give the scientisls the sole responsibility for criteria and priorily setting, Ihair know:edge of the pOlenlial. of sdence for problem soiving musl be fully exploited. The syslem whereby resources are allocated for agricultural researehln Colombia Is par! of a natíonal plann!ng process, whose line of authorlty ¡neludes the National Council of Socioeconomk Policíes (CONPES), the Planning Office of Ihe Agricultural Sector (OPSA), and the Colombian Institu!e of Agriculture (ICA) ¡!salt. The infermation related to thís systern is íncluded in 'he annual budget proposals and in the tour-vear investment plans of the aforementioned institutions.Competitlon for researeh resourees beglns al the Intersectorlal and sectorial k>vels (heal'th, public works, agrio ... llure, etc.) and al lhe level of entllles (INCORA! IDEMA! ICA, etc.). Nevertheless, a't the level of entitíes, researeh resourees must also compete wíth resources for other programs tha! ICA carríes out (such as Ihe adoptien of technology and edue.tion) in addilíon• lO operatlng expenses.In the area of researcn alone, resources compele among dlfferent projects (rice, beef caftle, etc.); and within these projects, the same Occurs at the aclivity level (breading, crop practices, etc. l.At the ¡ntersectorial leVél (agriculture, publíc works, etc. l and al the sectorial level (IDEMA, ICA, etc.), the criteria for a!loeallons are primarlly assoelatad wlth (1) the relative yield of ¡nvestments In the socloeconomic sectors, (2) the availability of resources, (3) allocations made in previous year., and (4) Gov .... nment ob¡i!Ctives and goals as expressed In development plans.Al the program level (raseareh, adopllon of technology, etc.) and at the project level (rice, cotton, etc.), the eriterl. are prescrlbed by sectorial ( policies and Government goals, prlmarily In rel.tion to 'n Increase in productive employment and\" inceme, the equitable dlstribution of the same, improvement in productivlty and lOn increase in the productlon of agricultural commodities, improvement of commodity marketing, inerease and diversification of exports, trainlng of smal! farmer. and the promotion of Iheir organization, and the adequate development and censervation of natural resources. Tne aforementioned criteria are complemented by specific commodity-oriented studies and aspeCts related 10 o!loc.tions made In prevlous years and resulls obtained In researeh programs.At the level of activllies and regions, the eriterla refer 10 (1) the degr .. of <lrgency of the research, (2) the time needed to carry out thi. research, (3) Ihe cest of the same, (4) the possibililies and costs of its adopllon, (5) Ihe technicel feasiblllty of earrying it out (personnel, equipment, methods, etc.), ( 6) the number of farmers, aperations and areas benefl'led, (7) Ihe impllcallons of production resulls (posslble benefits).Assuming Iha! there is a high eorre:ation between researeh priorities and rescuree allocalion, Ihe present Tisl of priorilie¡ at ICA is given here: T op priority: tubers, maize and sorghum, grain legumes and annual oitbeariog crops, vegetables and frulls, cacao, perannial oil-bearlng craps, besf and dairy cattle.Secondary priorily: cotton, rice, wheat, paslure grasses and forages, swine, sheep and poultry.Low priority: oats, susar cana, barley, plantains and bananas, and tobaceo.An attempt has been made lo establi.h a pattern of syslematic measurement Ihat will show whether or not budgel a!ioeations are m.de in accerdance with budget measures.The eriteria used for resource a!loeation are based upon prioritie. eslablished by lhe national Governmenl: (1) nUlrition, (2) employment, (3) lneome distribution, (4) Ihe balance of payments, (5) lhe eomparative advantage of the erop, (6) lhe importanee of the erap in the economy, (7) the demand for the commodllY, and (8) the needsfor doing research. These eriteria are applied to eaeh of Ihe crops selecled to determine the pallern (maiz8, wheat l beans. soybeans, potatoes, cotton l rice l cacao, sugar cane, barley and tobaeco). The variable is quanlified and then used to establish an Ordinal Inde. of Priorilies \\1p¡' As 'Inese eharacleri.lÍcs have a different relative importance, a lable is constructed of Ihe relatlve weights of these eharaclerlstics. The inde\" l. as follows:Pi i& the relati\\'!i weight of charecteristic i so P = 1: Pi = lOO, and Vi is lhe total 1=; quantified value for eeeh character;stic, and vij ;s the value of eharacter;st;c i of crop j.Indices 1pi are in desoending order $O as 10 compare them with the Ordinal Indices 01 Budget Allocat;ons (1.,. Index Ila) was also obtained by arranging in descendlng In Bccordanee wilh Ihe pallern of measurement eonstrueted; the .forementioned index shows that the buclget atlceations for the croP& sludied were made in accordance with established priorit;e!. The aulhor. would .like to caU a!tention lo Ihe vulnerabilíty of Ihe method at lhe level of relatlve we;ghls. The presenl attempt should be taken simply as en ;,Ilustrallon of whal can be done but requires furlher analy.;. as far as lhe validity of lhe melhod employed is eoncerned.The National Institule for Agrlcultural Research (INIAP l, formed In the year 1962, Is responslble for all agrlcultural researeh, Before its creatlon, researeh work was divided among several public entitles, eaeh focusing Its work on areas of its own interest; and research was a subordinate activity. In lIS Inllial slage, INIAP had three maln objectives: (1) the formellon of lechnical personnel, (2) the developmen't of en infrastructure for research, and (3) the ereation of an atmosphere of instltutional stability.In ellocating the resourees necessery for accomplishing ils objectives, INIAP has maintalned a flexible policy, evaluetlng eaeh projecl accorolng 10 the qua lit y of Its technical personnel, its result. and those needs arlsing durlng jts duration.Yearly meeting. for reviewlng programs, as weil as five-year meetings for evaluating objectives, serve as criteria for the institule's dlrectors lo estimate a program's needs and to adjust the asslgnment of human and physical resourees. Agricurtural leaders, managers of agricultural institutions and internationel advisors take part in these meetings.Based on the budget olloeations made by the central government, INIAP's technical committee--formed by station directors, subdirectors and the administrative director--meets at the beginnlng of the yaar to make the necessary adjustments in aeeordenee with established prioritles. At leas! once a yeer, the budget is modified, transferríng resourees from programs that have surplus funds to those that have none. The reforms mede by the Technieal Commíttee must be epproved by the Administrative Counsal and the National Budget Office. At the statlon level, eaeh director has the autonomy to distribute the resourees in aceo,dance with eurrent needs.There are diverse groups whose demand for resBarch is reflected in the priorities alloeated by INIAP. For instonee, the Nation.1 Planning Board asks toe insti'tution to carry out certain programs the eountry needs within the eontext of the National Deve:opment Plan.Through the chambars of agrieulture, agricultural eenters and national conventions, the farmers request INIAP 'to undertake researeh programs they consider to be of priority or to establish additional experiment stalions.In addition, the institutions of regional devolopment-sueh as the Commission for Studying the Development of the Guayas River Basln (CEDEGE), the Center for Reconverting the Manabf (CRM), the Center for Reconverting the Austro (CREA)-and regional projects present INIAP with r¡¡quests for research on the behavior of new varieties, crOP practices and the deve~opment of produc'tion syslem, designad for their zonas in particular.INIAP continually receives a great deal of pressure from farmers and government institulions lo instal! new experiment stations and crea te new researeh programs; navertneles\" INIAP has been careful nol to mulliply the number of its aetivi'ties before finishing the development of its present stations and arriving al acceptable lavels of productivity in existing programs.Once this has been aecomplishad, the institution can expand on the basis of socioeconomie criteria with davelopment priorilies.INIAP is aware that the essentlally subjective crlteria usad so far are no! entirely adequate to control resource allocation in the long run, not only because allocations of previous yaars influence in one yaar's results, but olso beca Use many times that allocation obeys externa I factors, such as the availability of external funding and the scarcity of qualifiad personnel al different I avel s.In arder to give the decision-m<lking process a certain degree of objeetivity, an attempt was made lo indude a series of soeioeeonomic criteria.The firsl affort to inelude these criterio was a paper tha! usad the following model: The criterio usad were the following: (l) the number of operations, (2) Ihe implications in tne balance of payments, (3) future growth of demand, (4) production costs, (5) labor, (6) social impact.For the assignmant of relative welghrs to the alternativas within each criterion, Ihese were grouped into three categorles: 10p, secondary and low priority, For applying welghls lo the dlfferenl criterla, their relative \"bjectivity, Ihe possibility of quantificatlon, and Iheir importance within Ihe national development plans were taken into account, On the basis of TNIAP's experience, it Is suggested Iha! !he following points be diseu.sed al Ihi. and otner workshops: 38 1 , Devel<>p a refined modal for eomparing alternatives and detarmlnlng priorities in rasearcn resource allocation 2, Make tnis general modal adaptable for differenl cases according to the availabllity of Information; Ihat is, it should not be a rlgld model.3, Explore new criteria to be used In determlning priorilies 4, Explore alternate crlteria, wniéh althougn orlented towards fulfilling the same goals, may have belter eharacterislics of objectMty or measurablllty 5. Develop eriteria permltting belter assignment of relativa weights for Ihe differen't alternatlves wilhin eaeh criterion, as well as for eseh eriterion 6. Discuss possible wsys of quan'tifylng (wlthln the framework of the crlterla) the Importance of the different \"support programs\" that play sueh an importanl role In agricultural researeh. For obvious reasons, II Is more difficult to inelude these programs as measurable alternatives lo be eompared with produclion programs. Their priority Is, in many instances, condltloned lo prlorillas of o'!her programs, where they recelve different emphasls. For this reasoo, 'prioritlas for support programo are determined after priorities for production programs have been defined, 7. Highlight the need for finding better ways of measuring the raturn to research in such a way that eost-benefil eriteri. can be used more frequently to evaluate different alternativas, lt would be useful to develop the lools fer determining the function of the benefits of researeh in dlfferent cases.Tne Brazilian Agricultural Researen Company (EMBRAPA) is the Mlnistry of Agriculture's tool for promoting the coordinatlon of all applied researeh in Brazil..At present, Inis is a historie moment in whieh bolh institutional and operatlve transformations are radical and profound. Tnese transformations are being earried out Ihroughoul Ihe exisling structure at lhe national level, at Ihe same time as a new approaeh was being adoPled in agrieultural researeh. Nevertheless, EMBRAPA's managers are Irying lO minimiza rlsks and disseminale, as far as possible, new ideas that are being introduced.In addition lo nol hindering the continuity of on9Oing researeh, it was considered essential Ihat the company implanl two point.: the effectiveness of the operative system and the definition of a policy in regaro to human resources.Tne operative system is supporled by two olhers: Ihe institutional 'ystem and the planning syslem, whích were already intreduced at ,Ihe nalional level and together form the new approach of applied agricultural research systams in Brazi!. These two sys'tems are explained in detall In the papér presented during the workshop.In addltion to thls, Ihe original paper presents a historie synlhesls of the evolution of Brazilian agricultural researeh and the bases for the ereation of EMBRAPA.It should be mentloned thal EMBRAPA was inslitu'ted on Mareh 28, 1973, and ls therefore a very young enlerprise. As far as decision-making ls concerned, the following basie policy tools orlenting national agriculture stand out: (1) The National Plan for Socloeconomie De_elopment and (2) The Basic Plan for Scientifie and Technological Development.On the basis of these two plans, EMBRAPA defines its course 01 aetion and priorities at the national, regional, state and local or institutional level. EMBRAPA's plan of work and its budget are analyzed and approved by the National Agricultural Researen, Teehnical Assistance and Rural Extension Commission (COMPATER). As regards mechanism~ for resource alloeation at the level of EMBRAPA, the documen't altempts to define the Indicativa Plan 01 Agricultural Researcn and the National Program 01 Agricultural Reseoreh.During the workshop, it was put on record Ihat EMBRAPA has limited experience as regards mechanisms for resouree alloeation. In the interim, they are in the process of defining parameters and methods on a scientifie basis in order to carry ou't this allocation.As far as defining researeh priorilies is con cerned, Ihree basic and closely related factors are taken into consideration: growth, equity and reduction of risk. In addition to Ihese, fourteen addilional critefia were considered importan! in the definition 01 priori'ties and resouree allocation for researeh. These were ¡he importance 01 the eommodity, its ro!e in nutrilion, price elastieity of demand, its ro:e in the balance of payments, the possibility 01 en immediate response (margin of return l, the industrial demand, price movement, aveilebllfty and use of rescurces, possible beneficiaries, regional equity, risks and uncertainties, the technology empioyed (known and potential l, the competitive capacity in the produetion of teehnology, and the possibility of importing and adapting technology.At presen!, EMBRAPA is attempting to obtain the data necessary to be able !O utilize all the aforementioned criteria, as we:! as lO define aclaquate methodology lor the evaluation and control 01 researeh activit!es carried out in Brazil.Tne prlvate flrm In Ine agribusiness sector undertakes researen far the express purpose of developlng marketable produets, which eontrlbute to Its growth through addad revenues.Competition creates the need for Innovation and researeh, but the seareh for new produets transcends 'this simple explanation. This continued quest in research in the modern firm is par! of its very reaSOn for existence nowadays, as research has beeome en integral part of ¡he operational structure of the firm and one of the foundations of its profit expeclations, which should be considerad as society's payment for the firm's service in carrying it out. New product development 15 not a simple proposition; it entails risks. Management is aware of il and tries to evaluate the nature and magnitude of the risk. After quantifying il and eomparing il 10 profit opportunities, management makes the decision on en acceptable level of eommltment of the firm's resourees In researeh and development leading lo the production of neW praducts and proeesses.Products or processes are objectives of private researeh; but as opposed to resulls of publie or institutional researeh, the requirement of selabillty of the produet or process is essentiaJ.The product ha. alife cycle eharaeterized by v.rious phases or stages-sueh aS (a) In!roduetion, (b) growth, (e) ma'turity, (d) saturation, and (e) decllne--<luring which volume of saJes and profit margins evolve gradually, reachlng independen! peak. and declining later. Provisions for product improvement or substltution are figured out so as to prevent total profit evolution from dropping off.A premise that has becn established in R 8. D operations in a company is e \"new product policy\" which, as statad by Gregg in 1958, \"should define the limits within which lhe business will opera te in 'the new product aClivity,\" These policíes snould be so clearly defined that \"they can be understood and carried out by each company faction witnout constan! referr.1 to higher aUlnorily.\"Polícy, however, is not a fíxed body 01 Ihought and actíon, rather íl experiences a constan! reevaluation and adjustment to círcumstances and opportunities. 1I takes the form of determining (a) the acceptanee, eontinualion and duration of rasearen eommítments; (b) the allocation of research funds On a selective targat basis; (e) the levels of specialization or expansion in procuct lines; (d) return faclors; (e) investment factors; (f) the maintenance of researeh capability in the company; and (9) the company's researeh imaga.After po:icy delineation and establishment of eorporate goals has been aeeomplished, research management is ealled upon to establish what Víl-Iers (1964) has ealled the alternatives of Programmatic Ind Nonprogrammatic Research. Certain eorporations define the former as those that are scheduled, and a beginning and end are es'tablished within a flexible plan of eetion. Nonprogrammalie researeh is not schedvled.Researen management must be on the alert, eollecting, collating, storing and dislribuling facts and information within Ihe organization, maintaining an awareness of researeh opportunities within the researeh communi~y 01 the eorporation. The opposite flow •of information occurs 8150.As ideas for the development of new procluets or Ihe improvement of old ones appear (originating either in Ihe R & D Division, in Ihe Marketing or Produetion Divisions, or al the level of top management) and as projects are presented for evaluatlon and approval, an overall deeision-making setup is established; and several phases of an evolutionary precess leading to th~ deve'opment 01 a produet take place.The problem of resource allocation to a R & O project involves considerations of resources needed, as well as rasourees available, and their partial and proportional distribu'tion throughout the spectrum 01 produets the projecl aims to develop.Final procuct performance created througl1 R & O is subjected to experimental tests, market tests and ultimate:y 10 consumer acceptanea, whieh is the final and only valid te.t of final performance.11 is not often realizad how dependent a firm is on thi. final measure 01 performance and acceptance of its procucIs, whích transcends intermediate certifieation by public institutions. Th!. io why lhe firm doing R & D work in the agribusiness sector needs a final confirmation of acceptance by the consumer; market tests, ,Iaboratory and plo't tests cen approach and predict re.ctions but cannot ever really substitute thls. The consumer usually finds valva In a produet wnere otners do not; conversely, he may flnd faolts that could nol have been predkted aceurately by the R & D group, were It not for lhe response and interaetion of the consumer and the produet during Its use.Thus, decision-making in resource a:location at the firm ,Jevel i. a highly critkal preces., unique among the different types 01 research institulions bocause it deals no't only with the produelion of oulputs as a resull 01 allocation of inputs, but Is also highly sensitive lo eonsumer response, the feedback of eonsumer-produet Inleraetion lo ils own organizallon and Its foture actions, to the performance of life expectation of the produc't, and to the marketing and economical outlook of lhe firm as a whole.Fa,ad with the worldwide threat of famine, 'Ihe need was sean in 1966 for creating two international centers in the lowland tropies of the worlcJ.-CIAT in Co:ombia and liTA in Nigeria. These centers would develop research designad lO aeeelerate Ihe utilizatlon of new areas in Latín America, Afrlca and Asia to produce food mOre efficiently and wi'th better nutrlllonal quality.At the end 01 1966, Roberts and Hardln drew up a document proposlng the creation of CIAT; they suggested the simultaneous Initiation 01 two areas of research actlvilies: one in crops and one in beef cattle. They reeommended also that 'the center's actlvities should concentrate on the improvemenl of a few well-selected erops, rather than worklng on too broad a range of spacies which wouid les sen the effectiveness of researeh. The premise was established that crops that were finally selected should have great potential for widespread utilization in the humid 10w,land tropics 'throughout the world and should be important for human nutritlon. These criteria servad as a basis for suggestlng initlal areas of researeh. Durlng CIAT's formatlve phase, the decision-making mechanism was helplul in developlng the content 01 the program that shou,ld be the basls of the center's operatlons; and to complemen't the first document presentad by Roberts and Hardln, several outstanding scientists were employad lO carry out feaslbility slUdies on some of the areas 01 aetivlty suggested in the reference documento These sludies and the original phi,losophy proposad for CIAT by Roberts and Hardin servad as a base for CIAT's Board of Trustees to define the Ini'tlal structure of the instltution's programs.Wlthln the development 01 dlfferent programs, a series 01 adjustments has' been made among teams and wlthin eaeh multidisciplinary team In response to the needs expressed by the external review teams, program leaders, Individual .clentlst., CIArs director and the Board 01 Trustees ftself.Each of the programs has a similar makeup and a research component oriented towards improving specific aspects according to well-defined characteristics or priorities, such as yield capacities, resistance to insetts and diseases, economic aspects of production, ecological adapta'tion, planting and fertilization systems, methods of insect and disease control, economic aspects of production, and training to deve:op production specialists, to give graduate students the opportuni'ty to do field work for their theses, and to prepare researchers for national centers. Theoretically, these components concur to develop systems that w¡'¡1 increase agricultural produetion on farms at all levels and scientists trained for national programs. This is just a broad ou'tline of the organization's development and the structure of CIArs research programs. The rest of the work reviews the development process for two of the program's priorities--cassava and beanswith the purpose of deseribing the mechanisms used in both cases to establish the general objectives of each program, the eontent and work objectives for eaeh of these programs, resouree allocation for eaeh research project and the mechanisms used to make any neeessary adjustments within eaeh of these eomponents to aceomplish their goals.The principal objective for both programs has been to inerease produetivity and produetion as a means of inereasing the availability of food for the inhabitants of the humid lowland tropies.International eonferenees and advisory eommittees are two of the meehanisms utilized for establishing priorities in the eassava and bean programs, Basically, the objeetives of the interna'tional eonferenees are (1) to study the status of the researeh up to that time, (2) to identify priorities for future I eseareh, and, (3) to study possible programs of international eooperation at the institutional level for researeh development and for 'the interehange of ideas and improved materials. The participants at these eonferenees are seientists highly qualified in the areas dealt with.The main purpose of the Advisory Committee is to identify eonstraints, to make a critical evaluation of the progress macle in researeh and the value of scientific eontributions, to review the specifie objeetives of the researeh projects within eaeh discipline, and to suggest the adjustments that should be made in the emphasis of eaeh discipline and therefore in the assignment of personnel and financing.The Advisory Committees for the eassava and bean programs are mechanisms of eontinuous evaluation that have ample bases for deeisionmaking and suggesting ehanges of emphasis in priorities of ongoing researeh. The final decision to aeeept these sugge.tions always remains in 'the hands of CIArs director and the institution's researeh teams.From the aforementioned descriptions, one faet stands OUI in éommon: The decislons regarding lhe allocalioo of available resources for research al CIAT have Íjeen made by diverse components of the sys'tem and have been based on diverse criteria. The Board of Trustees, directors, I .. ders of scienUfic teams, the scientific teams themselves, as well as the individual sclentisls, have in one way or another participated in this comp~ex, bul interesting and valuable process.In addition, il is evident that diverse entities oulside Ihis institution have also been influential in Ihe establishment of priorlties and in resource allceation. Donor Institutlons, the Consultive Group for International Agricu:tural Research (CGIAR) and its Technlcal Advlsory Committee (TAC), the speciflc Advisory Committees, the Special Study Committees, and the nalional institutlons Iha! also have Ideas and needs to be considered, are jusI a few example. of the entilles Ihat have in one way or another ¡nfluenced and contrlbuted to the present formation of CIAT'. programs. as relative termo; (b) those larmers who ere more orlented' towards marketing thelr commodity obtaln Informatlon on new Inputs more rapldly and at a lower cost than those who are sell.sufflcient; (el Ihe commercialization 01 agrlculture also Implies thal farmers become more dependent on purchased Inputs; (d) there Is a better supply 01 complementary agricultural Inputs for new varietles in Ihose areas where agriculture js belng carrled out on a commarelal sea le, as opposed 10 those where It io s!ill selfsufficient,In lhe monlh 01 May thls year, Ihe Executlve Director of IDS approved a contribution equivalent to 2 mili Ion dollars In national currencles in order to contribute to the basic budgel 01 the internatlonal agrlcultural researeh centers localed In Latin America, Nevertheless, in view 01 the facI that research per se Is not sufficient, the Executive Director authorlzed in August 01 tnl. year additional sums also equlvalent to 2 mili ion dollars in na'tlonal currencles to flnance in par! these training programs and the transler 01 technology in countries where the centers themselves could develop them in beneflt 01 the Latln American end Carlbbean countrle$,The bank recognizes that Improvements in food crops and ealtle production depend a great deal upon the qua lit y end quantity of servlces that Ihe national ínstltutions 01 the member countries offer farmers, Al the sama time, the capacity of these natíonal agricultural research instltutíons for obtalnlng the most productiva varieties 01 food crops and cattle production depends to a great extent upon the interchange of inlarmatlon whlch t\"kes place between national Institu'tlons wlthln \"nd amang eountries, related to research technlques and lheir results, Through many of its loans, the bank has helped to flnanee the training 01 professionals Irom national agrlcultural research Instllutions, has funded research and equipment, and has eollaboraled in the organlzation and operatlon of natlonal raseareh and extension programs, For Ihe aforementioned reasons, the bank has bagun its actlvities In this directíon. A teehnical aid mission vlsiled the soutnarn cona 01 Latin America in an atternpt to eslablish en ol/Ireaeh research and transfer of techno!ogy program, malnly in regard to cereals, On the other hand, a misslon forrned by International experls, as well as bank offlcla!s, visitad the Central American coontrles and Panama In an attempl lo identlfy priority progrems of Ihe natlonal resaarch Institutions of these countries sO Ihat wllh nonrelmbursabla technical aid, they can establish true food produ,ction packages, In a speech given before the World Food Conference sponsored by the Unlted Natlons In Rome, Italy, Antonio Ortiz Mena, Presiden! of IDS, stated Ihat \"in answer to Ihe requlrements of the member countrles and in view of the world's present economic situation, the bank wiil orient Its activlties In the agricultural field towards the followlng objectlves In the Immediate ftlture: 1. To increase foad productlon for International consumption and bettar Income levels in rural sectors by means of production actlvilias fo, them 2. To encourage export-orlented foad production. Takíng irito account these objectives, the bank wlll allocate Its rescurces for technical and financial cooperation, glving preference too the following areas:a. Integral rural development. The bank feels ;' 1 can cooperate more dosely with member counlrles lO Improve living standard. of the rural populatlon.b. Water and fertlllzers, Consldered essentlal components for the success of the Green Revolution, the bank wlll contlnue stimulating the grea!er tltilization of multipurpose hydraulic resources.c. Improvement of productivity and increases In agrlcultural production. This snould be supported by Installations for storaga and marketing, installations for proC&ssing toods as well as produclng essential inputs including fertilizars, pesticidas and agricultural machinery.\"Finally, al Ihe same conference, Ihe 'President of IOB indiealed Ihal \"Ihe bank would, in Ihe eoming years, give fjrm $UpPOrl lO those activilies related 10 applled agricultural researeh through the international center. in Latin Amarica, as well as regional and national ¡nsti'tutes.\"(The Agricultural Research Servlce of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is currently initiating action to establish effectlve national agricultural research programs, Thí. paper describes the general organization and program structures of ARS, dlscusses the baslc factors which must be reflected in any resultlng national program, presents a strategy for implementing the development of national programs, and propases procedures for their development, Condensed here are 'those sections of the paper dealing most dlrectly with considerations, principies and procedures.)In developing national programs, Ihere are six general areas to consider:(1) Background consideratlons including diagnostics abauI organizational and power relationships and the basic reosons for concern abau't nationa] programs in Ihe flrst place, (2) the clariflcation of general concepts involved In specifying national programs and plans, (3) the factors thal dislinguish one national program from another or Ihat speclfy Ihe dimensions of any particular national program, (4) the practical limitations or prior conditions Ihat may have significant effect on both natlonal program characteristics and development procedures, taking care not to mistake the act 01 reflectlng these factors for simple expediency, (5) the probable characterístics 01 such a national program or plan, and (6) ~he probable procedures for implementing the development 01 the national program and the best strategy to carry out the procedures.National programs are unified stratagies encompassing all e:ements in the nation contributing to the achievement of certain goals. Many 01 lhe problems in specifying national programs srlse beca use thay may be defined in several ways, However il may be defined, lhe national program is in a very real sense a contraet between society and a research agency. This role. of national programs can be a difficult thing to gel across 'to practicing sdentists and even lo research managers, Tlle besl we can expect is to understand beller the precess 01 which we are a par!.Both po!icymakers and .cienti.t., stripped 01 all political subterfuge on the one hand and professional $vbterfvge on the other, are fundamentally concerned with the problems 01 soeiety. The diflieul•ty in allocating (eseareh resourees arises Irom the dilference in perspectives the policymakers and the seienti.ts have. The policymakers' interest in problems is in terms 01 thelr Impaet on society; scientlsls vlew the same prob!em. In terms 01 cause-andeffect relationships. Someone must he!p bridge thl. communieation gap.How do we get from one slde of thi. gap--say, a statement by Ihe Pr&sident that we as a nation musl be a$Sured a plentiful supply of lood-to the other side 01 the gap--say, a scientls!'. proposal to conduct pholosynthesis researeh on corn? The framework lor the proeess is the program slructvre; the proeess Itsell Is one 01 communication. Program structvres are predominantly researeh management devices; nationa! programs are predominantly administrativa and policymaker deviees. They are not devices 01 tha ,cientists.There are IwO extreme point. of view about how nationa! programs and program struetures should evolve. One I esll Ihe \"informatlon demand\" principie and the other 'the \"researeh management\" principie.The information demand principie of information disaggregatlon assumes tha! there are clearly distinguishable categories of Information which are required by the grealer environment within which any level 01 raseareh activity operates. The program management principie of informatlon aggregation may recognize ,he ideal status of the aboYe princip:e eoneeptually, but stresses the practical aspects of dealíng with people in implementing researeh programs. The former reflect. social need., while the latter reflects eonsiderations about the effeetiveness of implementing raseareh plans. Hence, both viewpoints should be reflected in definiog national programs. Four area. of eommunication are important for nationa I programs: (1) within the agency to eommunieate with eaeh other io selling priorities and the direetion of major tnrusts in researeh, (2) among agencies in the Federal Government so the agency can more effective!y relate to action agencies and vice versa, (3) with legisla10rs to belter eommunicate our naeds and they to belter evaluate where we are, where we are goin9, and what we need to get there, (4) with various \"clientele\" groups in industry to better communicate our mutual interes'ts.One essential !eatvre 01 the national program, however it is defined, is that il should reflec! a \"unified strategy\" for achieving goal •. II is not merely enough to previde sorne kind 01 taxonomy of objeetives and subobjeetives; there must be some plan for logieal progression 'oward some goal or goals.These new national programs will be Implemented by agency personne! while they continue lO conducl an effecllve researeh programo AI,o, as lhey are deve!oped, the national progrems must be $Old to the national communlty of rasearch as a whole; therefore, some stralegy for implementetion Is requlred. Al lhe base of the one tnl. agency has adopted is a simple proposition: slarl demonstratlng raal leadership and see If anyone foll_1We shou!d begin to deve!op national programs only in those areas in wnich ARS has a legitimate right to be leaders because of the existing base of highly competenl scientists and the exislence of persons having leadership qualities. For other areas, leadership can be exerled in a catalylic role, encouraging otner organizations and persons to follow our lead in developing national programs and leadership roles.With respec! to en internal strategy, we migftt starl by running a pilot sludy in one area only, selected on the basis that il would not lend lO create muen eonfliol or discord eitner within or oulside Ihe agency.A s'trueture Ihat has been proposed for deve:oping the national programs would eonsist of three components: (1) The Secretariat, (2) the Advisory Board, and (3) the National Program decomenl ilself. Tne Secretariat would be en assemblage of expert staft and clerical. located at headquarters. Th;s group would direel Ihe study, oversee data collection, make the final analysis, assemble raports and communicate witn Ihe Advisory Board.A ten-man Advisory Board would be composed of representatives of the agency, industry and otner USDA agencies, all having expert;se in the subject area of national programs. It is important Ihat Ihis be an advisory group and nO! a task force.The slruclure of Ihe Nalional Program document wOl>ld ;nelode (1) goal$ of rasearcn, (2) Natíonal Program logic, (3) delínaalion of researeh areas, (4) background enelysis, (5) researcn program analysis, and (6) summary and anelysis.While en approaen to ereating nalíonal programo is suggested, Ihe principal guide must be one of flexibility. A strong central control of the proc:_ is recommended, bul identificalian af rasearen needs and Ihe data for analysis must be supplied en'tirely by the experls.,1l. Ardila, R. Hertford, A. Rocha and C. Trujülo This paper presants resvlt. of ovr studies of tha economie ralvrns to varietal improvement of rice, cotton, wheat and soybeso. io Colombia. Following recerrt aoalyses which indicated that social rates of returo to public iovestmeot io agricultural researeh have been exceediogly high in the Uoited States, as well as in Brazil and Mexico, the maio hypothesis tested was that retvrns to the four Colombian programs had been eqval to at leasl 50 percant. Rates of tnis magnitvde, of eourse, wovld point to significant vnderinvestment in agricvltural researeh sinee the opportvnily cost of public funds in Colombiareally the rate of return the Government eovld anticipate earning on additional pvblic investment in the average, already active projeel-has been estimated to eqval 10 percant.The methodology vsed to tesl lhe hYPolhesis of high returns was developed by aconom!st. a ,long time ogo and was used in 011 previous studies of returns to agricullural researeh. 1I associated the benefits of a researcn program wilh a .hift io product supply or a dacrease in the eosls of producing a given output as a result of farmers adopting higher yielding, improved seeds geoerated through a program of varlelal improvement. Total benefits inelude galns to eonsumers resuJting from Ihe commodity's lower priee, as well as gains to producers <$ssociated witn lower production eosts. For porposes of exposition, tnase tolal benefits for any year can be approximated by the term kV, where k is the supply .hift parameter or the percentage change in average, on-farm prodvetion cosls due to researen and V is eonstant priee measure of the total value of produetion of the commodity under examinaUon. This measure of benefits is reduced eaen year by the price-adjusted cests of the r_reh program (C), and a rale of interest is then found which makes discounled net beneflls (kVe) zero valued over lhe relevanl time perlod. That rate is Ihen taken to be Ihe net internal rate of return to the researenThe supply shift p.rameter, k, was estimated as the product of two separate ' \\ variables: a difference in yields, termed lhe yield advantage, betweén Iwo \\ farm plots (one belng planted enlirely with Ihe impreved ,eeds and the other with the unimproved varieties) and the percentege of cropland planted wlth improved varletie •• The yie:d advantage was actually estimated from ragressions of yields (from on-farm trials edministered by the research progrem staff) On a series of key independent variables, including the variety of seed planted. ln this way the yield effects of different seed types were not mistaken for effect. of other production factors. The second variab:e, the parcentage of cropland planted wlth improved varieties, was calculated as a function ef available data on annual sales of certifjed seads.Given this estimatlon procedure, larger yleld advantages and/or higher parcen'tages of cropland p:anted with improved varíetie. are obvlously associated with larger values of k, as well as larger net benefits and higher rates of retum. Thus, differences in rates of return among programs can be a!tributed directly to differences in yield advantages of improved varieties and observad levels of usa or adoption of the new seeds. The yield advantage, of course, is technically and biologícally determined, while socioeconomlc factors and the structure and organization of produclion are usually primary determinants of the amount of cropland planted with improved seeds.Within this framework, two other variables also assist I~ explaining differenees in ea!eulated rates 01 nlturn to individual research programs. These are revealed by rewriting the simple definition of net benefits as V(k -C/V). It Is seen that an agricultural research program whích is costly -in relation to the value of the fina' output of the eommodity worked on will be associated wi'h lower net benefits and a lower rate of raturn, other conditions being equal. Similarly, the less important the commodity in terms 01 its domestic value of produelion, the lower is its rate of return.The main results of the paper are summarized in Tab:e 1. Aithough rates 01 return calculated for the rice and soybean researeh programs were found to have exceeded the 50 parcent level by a wide margin, it is sean that returns to wheat improvement turned out to be rather modest and that those for cotton research were negligible.The high returns to soybean researeh were attributed prineipaliy to the rapid and hlgh levels of adoption of 1he Improved vaÑetles. Thls striking adoption pattern was, in turn, attributed to a strong demand for the product, the geographie eoncentratíon of producers whích facilitated rapid diffusion of information about the new seeds, and the fae'!: that soybean farmers are among Colombia's most progressive.Although the high returns to varietal improvement in rice were partly explalned by the yield advantage of the new varle'tles, their levels of adoption and the overal! Imporlance of rice production. 'they were mostly credited .0wer returns 10 wheal researeh dld not rellect obvious technlcal lallures in plant breedlng. On Ihe contrar\\!, the estimated yleld advantage of lhe improved wheat variet;es was the highest among lhe programs analyzed. However, adoption of the new varietles was laggard; from the lime thay were flrsl sold commercially in 1953 unlil they were plantad on 25 percenl of all whealland, fully 12 vean elapsed. Furlhermore, rates of adoption peaked al 50 pereenl in 1968 and then began a downward trend. Thls slow uptake 01 lhe new saeds, thelr currently low levels of use, and the dlstressing downward trend In reeent adoptlon paltern. were attributed to certaln socioeconomic conslraints on wheat production, nOI Ihe least 01 which were large and suslained Imparts 01 wheat under P. L. 480, which depressed the domestic market. The higo relative costs of the program In Its later life, the 10w value 01 wheat production in Colombia, and a long \"dry perlod\" of pub:ic Investments in research before new var'ieties were released also foreed down Ihe estimated rate of return.Colton was a spacial case. On-farm ylelds inereased sharply, partly as a resull 01 the rapid adoption of Improved U. S. varletle •. Ye'!, it was eoncluded that the natlonal researen program should not ba credited with these galns, essentlally beca use of the nature of Its actlvities and objectives. It was deslgned only to impart, tastlocallv and distribute to Colomblan farme,. the hlghest yieldlng U. S.' vadetles. The premisa was tha! yie:ds 01 U. S. colton grown in Colombia would vary by type or varlety; thus, a payoff was anticipated Irom an effort which Identlfled Ihose variatie. yielding best under local conditions. However, careful examlnation of over 500 cornmercial field trials performed in Colombia dld no! uncover significan! differences in yields of the improved U. S. varietles. Therefore, it was concluded that the main activity of Ihe researeh program was unneeessary. U. S. va,ielles could jusI as well have been selected at random lor dislribution to local farmers.The ba.ic ana!ytical modal i. bullt up within a framework that considers lhe dis'tribution of the benefits from tedmical change between producer. and consumers and their distribution among the faetors of productlon, given Ihe producers' share of beneflls. The direction of research is postulated as a funetion of relalive factor prices. A two-sector general equílibrium model is used to analyze the adjustmsnt problem among sectors as technical change proceeds,• Allocation decisions with raspeet to agricultural researeh are generally made on a crap basls, taking into aecaunl whether and in what proportions resourees should be allocated to speeific erops, The analysis of the present $!udy i$ designed in par! to previde information which will help in declsionmaking based On the assumption that the 10lal flow of benefils expected from a given technological change is importanl and tha! policymakers or research managers have some nolion of the exlent thay desire 'to benefit producer. and consumero.The principal conclusions of the analysis are 1. The choice of products which should have priority in the researeh effort will depend upon government goals: a, If the goal is to increase income in Ihe agrieultural sector, the products to be .elected are Ihose w;,h a high price elasticity of demand, An important group of 5uch products are those with a comparative advantage in world markets, 5uch as cOlton and sugar eane.b, II the goal is to inerease the income and employment 01 farm labor, the choice would be the same product •.e, I f Ihe goal is to increase COnSUmlír welfare, the producls to be considerad must be those witn a low price elasticity 01 demand, such as eorn, rice, edible beans and cassava, d, If the goal is lo enlarge agrículture's eontribution lO general' economic development, Ihe choice will depend upon the prevailing eonslraint al the particular time. 11, for example, the constraint is capital, the producl' to be selected ara those which give the greater Ilow of gros. benefit.; namely, coro and rice, On the .other hand, jf the constraiot is foreign exhange earning., cotton and sugar cane would be higher on Ihe priorily list, 2, The resull. $uggeot thal the bulk 01 researen should 90 lO increase land produetivity, However, there is room for research on 'the subfunetion of labor if the researeh is dlrecled 'to aetivities which are not strongly labor displadng (for example, researeh wilh traetors to improve land preparation l.3. The resvlts obtained In estimatlng the parameters of the produetion funetion with time series dala svggest a ba.lc changa look place in production tecnnology In the early 1960's. Modern inpul. sveh a. fertilizar and machlnery have suootituted Ine primary Inputs whien they prevlously complementad.4. Finally, the problem of adíustment In the labor market between the agricultural and nonagricultural sectors Is expectad to be sizable if researeh Is directed to the erap. with • low priee e:astícity of demand, sueh as eorn, rice, adible beans and cassava, even If the researen is basically designad to improve land produclivi'ty. On the olher hand, il researeh is diredad to expon-oriented erops, such as cotton and sugar cane, the demand for labor wlll be expactad to inerease even if the researeh is focusad on land subfunction. It could also increase the demand for labor If focusad on the labor subfunction as well, as long as the technic.1 changa tha! resulls Is nol strongly labor displacing.Attempts are made to describe certaln key aspects of tne structure, performance and results of tne production prOCess, the farmer's objectives, and ¡he inleraclion among tnese faclors. Emphasis is plaeed upon identifying the principal factors limi'ting production and produetivity and estimating the implications of ehanging these factors.A small specialized team of agronomists and e<:onomists oblsin primary data f, om a panel of farms expected lO be representative of the farms for which agrobiologieal researen is ¡n tended. The field team makes periodie visits (normally :J..4) lO eaeh farm throughout a complete erop cyele. About half of ¡he time on the farm is spenl in the freid, eollecling dala on agroblological issues (by direct observation), wnile tne otner naif is used 10 inlerview-\\he farmer.Direct participation of a highly qualified muJlidisciplinary research team in the training and field execution phases is essential to the suecass of the survey. The field teams working on the on90in9 CIAT agro-economic surveys have reeaived three to four montns of presurvey training in direct contael with the sdentists from the relevanl disciplines.The agro-eeonomic survey provldes an estimate of the area affected by each of the problems iden'tlfied. Furthermore, it gives an indicalion of the yield depressing affect. However, il Is frequently difficult to estimate the yleld impact from survey data wlth a grea! deal of aceuracy; henee conlrolled experiments are earrled out 'to help quantify the yield Impact of the problems.In addi'tion to aggregaling the data for the purpose of presenting a de.criplion of the process, emphasis ;s plaeed on estimating the eeonomic ,Ioss caused by eaeh of ¡he agrobiological and ecological factors, sueh as disease, inseets, weeds, soi! deficiencies and adversa rainfall eonditions, and the implicatlons of changing these factors. Furthermore, eslimatlon Is made of (1) production coslS and labor absorption by production aetivi'ty, (2) net returns to the process for each of the principal cropping systems, (3) the contributlon of each of Ihe principal resourees to nel returns and (4) the faetors influencing the fermer's decision-making in referenee lo 'Ihe adoptíon of new technology and the choice of eropping \"ystem.Projects are eurrenlly under way in Co:ombla to field tesl the above methodology for malze, cassava and beans. Allhough Ihe information obtalned from these empirical slUdies is expected to be us&ful to Co!ombian nalienal \" inslitutions and CIAT, the primary purpose of Ihe work Is to develop and test a simple methodology for usa by nalional researeh agencies in Latín America a~ eloewhere. The paper presento a few preliminary results of this work to illústrate 'the kind of information provided by Ihe agro-economic survey.In addition lo the expeeted utility of the information made avaHable by the 8gro-economic analyses, the work provides a valuable training opporlvnily fur young agronomisls and economisls inlerested in produclion.No claims are made Ihal the agr<:>-economic survey is a new ¡nvention. However, cerlain aspects of the work discussed aboye tend to distingvísh il from tradilional farm surveys and hopefully make il more useful for establishing priorities In applied agriculturai research. These aspeels are (1) A considerable proportion of 'he data are obtained from direct field observalions made by agronomists pnevlou~ly traíned for tnls ¡ob; (2) each farm ls vlslled perlodically during a complete growing seasotí; (3) the work Is mvltldisclplinary in nature and involves direct participatlon by professlonals from all the relevant disciplines; (4) the work Is .pacifically fucused on provlding information needed lO eslablish researeh prioritles. Although the information may be useful for olher purposes, such utility is considered secondary.","tokenCount":"16512"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c617204d3c1c5853089a53a97d8c1d58","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/60c412c7-8bda-4e6b-a274-44df7ecbdffb/retrieve","id":"1749773386"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1b88f158-c604-4441-bd1d-ce5019ce17de","pagecount":"4","content":"En 1970, 24 % de la population mondiale souffrait de faim chronique en raison d'insuffisances en apports caloriques. Ce chiffre est aujourd'hui passé à 13 %. Cela étant, 925 millions de personnes souffraient toujours de la faim en 2010. Beaucoup d'autres s'alimentent presque exclusivement de glucides et de féculents et manquent de nutriments essentiels.La malnutrition toucherait 186 millions d'enfants de moins de cinq ans dans le monde. N o 3 : juillet 2011 CTA Note politique NOURRIR LA PLANÈTE : UN COMBAT INACHEVÉ Améliorer la nutrition dans les pays ACP -le rôle de l'agriculture OPTIONs POLITIqUEs Tirer les enseignements des expériences menées dans les pays qui sont parvenus à réduire la malnutrition Renforcer la collaboration entre les secteurs de l'agriculture, de la santé et de la nutrition Investir dans des mesures qui permettent d'améliorer la qualité nutritionnelle des aliments, y compris la biofortification Stimuler la production agricole à petite échelle grâce à des actions ciblées, comme les programmes alimentaires en milieu scolaire, qui augmentent aussitôt la demande localeCes enfants ont une taille insuffisante pour leur âge et présentent un retard de croissance qui entrave leur développement mental et leurs capacités intellectuelles. Les carences en vitamine A causent chaque année la mort d'un million d'enfants dans les pays en développement. L'anémie provoque le décès de 50 000 femmes enceintes ou en couche chaque année dans le monde.Si la faim demeure un problème majeur en Afrique subsaharienne, les habitants des régions des Caraïbes et du Pacifique souffrent d'un apport excessif de calories. Les maladies chroniques non transmissibles, souvent dues  La mise au point de variétés culturales riches en micronutriments et en vitamines constitue une solution technologique importante. Ce procédé, dénommé « biofortification », exige un investissement de départ considérable mais peut s'avérer plus rentable que de fournir des compléments nutritifs aux groupes vulnérables. En Ouganda et au Mozambique, la culture de la patate douce à chair orange, riche en vitamine A, connaît d'ores et déjà un énorme succès.Au Brésil, la campagne « Faim zéro » (Fome Zero) a permis de réduire considérablement la malnutrition infantile. Entre 2003 et 2008, le nombre d'enfants de moins de cinq ans affectés a chuté de 12,5 % à 4,8 %. Ce succès repose sur un engagement politique fort : faire de l'éradication de la faim l'élément central de la politique nationale ; promouvoir une protection sociale des familles via les femmes ; et stimuler la production des petites exploitations agricoles par la mise en place de programmes alimentaires, en milieu scolaire par exemple. L'agriculture peut fortement concourir à éradiquer la faim et la malnutrition. Pour nourrir une population mondiale qui devrait passer de 7 à 9 milliards d'individus d'ici 2050, il sera nécessaire d'augmenter la production des denrées alimentaires. La sécurité alimentaire, toutefois, ne consiste pas seulement à fournir davantage de calories, mais aussi à produire des aliments possédant de réelles qualités nutritionnelles, comme à s'assurer qu'ils sont accessibles à tous à prix abordables. Il convient, à cet effet, de modifier radicalement les politiques et pratiques agricoles.Pour produire des aliments de haute valeur nutritive, un certain nombre d'interventions Traditionnellement, les secteurs de l'agriculture, de la santé et de la nutrition fonction-Robert Mwadime, FANTA-2, Ouganda \" nent séparément. Pourtant, les programmes agricoles auraient de bien meilleures chances d'atteindre leurs objectifs sanitaires et nutritionnels si les trois secteurs travaillaient ensemble à leur conception, mise en oeuvre et évaluation.Il convient aussi d'encourager les professionnels des secteurs de l'agriculture, de la nutrition et de la santé à collaborer avec la société civile, les agriculteurs, les associations de consommateurs et l'ensemble du secteur privé pour formuler des politiques appropriées. Les pays africains, tels que le Malawi et le Rwanda, où la malnutrition est reconnue comme un frein au développement, plutôt qu'un simple problème de santé publique, ont été les premiers à adopter une approche multisectorielle.Les femmes contribuent fortement à la production alimentaire et à la nutrition familiale. Les politiques qui consistent à renforcer le contrôle des femmes sur la terre et les actifs financiers, mais aussi à améliorer leur accès aux services de vulgarisation et d'information, concourent à l'accroissement de la productivité agricole, à l'amélioration de la santé infantile et la situation nutritionnelle de toute la famille.Nous avons encore beaucoup à apprendre sur la façon dont les différents systèmes agricoles affectent la nutrition et la santé, et en conséquence sur la manière d'orienter nos investissements. Quelles mesures incitatives faut-il prendre pour s'assurer que l'augmentation des revenus agricoles se traduit par l'amélioration de la santé ? Quel type de croissance agricole améliore la diversité des régimes alimentaires ? Les réponses à ces questions, et à bien d'autres, pourront guider les politiques agricoles et alimentaires. Il faut donc investir davantage dans la recherche et mieux comprendre les liens entre agriculture et nutrition.Source : UNSCN Tél. : +31 (0) 317 467 100 -E-mail : cta@cta.int -www.cta.int S'intéresser aux chaînes de valeur alimentaire, où toutes les étapes de la production, de la transformation et de la distribution d'un produit ont des implications en terme de nutrition, est aussi un exercice riche d'enseignements pour les décideurs politiques. Dans de nombreux pays ACP, le manque de spécialistes de la nutrition, surtout dans les zones rurales, est à prendre en considération. L'objectif visant à éradiquer la faim et la malnutrition ne peut être atteint faute de personnel suffisamment qualifié à tous les niveaux.Les politiques suggérées dans cette note pourraient contribuer à réduire considérablement la malnutrition dans les pays ACP. En","tokenCount":"902"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"057b378af044bae1be175bb3b267e413","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://dataverse.harvard.edu/api/access/datafile/:persistentId/?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/ID0MPE/3GV4QI","id":"482225945"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f9487b16-ebb8-4286-a580-9ef376615eba","pagecount":"29","content":"Only use in Research purpose No Question Respond Code C7. Aside from your work as an AWW, are you presently engaged in any other work for which you receive compensation? 1. Yes 0. No C8. What was your primary reason for becoming an AWW? 1. Income generation 2. Want to be involved in the community/help or serve others 3. Bored/ have unoccupied time 4. Only opportunity available 95. Other (specify) C9. How long have you been working as AWW in this community? Years Month C10. Prior to becoming an AWW, what was your occupation? 1. Housewife 2. Teacher 3. Agricultural labourer 4. Private sector job 5. No prior occupation 6. Anganwadi helper 95.Other (specify) C11. Do you live in the village where the Anganwadi Center is located? 1. Yes 0. No C12. How far away do you stay/live from the AWC village where you work? Km C13. Do you have a job description or manual that describes your AWW work responsibilities?K26. The people in the community value my efforts to improve their lives. K27. I am contributing to improving the conditions of the communities I am working in. K28. I have a lot of pressure as an AWW. K29. It really seems like the workload keeps increasing K30. I find my work as an AWW to be motivating, and I like to do it. K31. I feel confident that I am performing very well as an AWW.","tokenCount":"237"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"19cdfbf1de35d59957ad144b24287742","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/de276055-78bb-485d-87bc-12674716aee7/retrieve","id":"755553741"},"keywords":["El Gataa, Z.","Samir, K.","Tadesse, W. Genetic Dissection of Drought Tolerance of Elite Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Genotypes Using Genome Wide wheat","drought stress","GWAS","MTA"],"sieverID":"c5bd7b6e-5fe5-4882-8972-fdf1dceda057","pagecount":"19","content":"Drought is one of the most important yield-limiting factors in Morocco. Identification and deployment of drought-tolerant wheat varieties are important to cope with the challenge of terminal moisture stress and increase wheat productivity. A panel composed of 200 elite spring bread wheat genotypes was phenotyped for yield and agronomic traits for 2 years (2020 and 2021) in Morocco under rainfed and irrigated environments. The panel was genotyped using 20K SNPs and, after filtration, a total of 15,735 SNP markers were used for a genome-wide association study (GWAS) using a mixed linear model (MLM) to identify marker-trait associations (MTA) and putative genes associated with grain yield and yield-related traits under rainfed and irrigated conditions. Significant differences were observed among the elite genotypes for grain yield and yield-related traits. Grain yield performance ranged from 0.97 to 6.16 t/ha under rainfed conditions at Sidi Al-Aidi station and from 3.31 to 9.38 t/h under irrigated conditions at Sidi Al-Aidi station, while Grain yield at Merchouch station ranged from 2.32 to 6.16 t/h under rainfed condition. A total of 159 MTAs (p < 0.001) and 46 genes were discovered, with 67 MTAs recorded under rainfed conditions and 37 MTAs recorded under irrigated conditions at the Sidi Al-Aidi station, while 55 MTAs were recorded under rainfed conditions at Merchouch station. The marker 'BobWhite_c2988_493' on chromosome 2B was significantly correlated with grain yield under rainfed conditions. Under irrigated conditions, the marker 'AX-94653560' on chromosome 2D was significantly correlated with grain yield at Sidi Al-Aidi station. The maker 'RAC875_c17918_321' located on chromosome 4A, associated with grain yield was linked with the gene TraesCS4A02G322700, which encodes for F-box domain-containing protein. The markers and candidate genes discovered in this study should be further validated for their potential use in marker-assisted selection to generate high-yielding wheat genotypes with drought tolerance.Drought is the most significant abiotic factor impacting wheat yield and production, particularly in West and South Asia, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa [1]. Climate change reduces precipitation, worsens drought stress, and has a significant influence on wheat production. Drought stress affects wheat grain production and quality at all phases of development and reduces wheat grain yield by around 30% [2,3]. Understanding drought-tolerance processes and identifying loci relevant to drought tolerance are essential for developing breeding tactics that promote drought tolerance [4]. In season 2022/2021, Morocco harvested 5.06 million tons of bread wheat on 3.2 million hectares, with an average of 1.5 tons per hectare.Using molecular markers such as single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and diversity array technologies (DArT), marker-assisted selection (MAS) has become an essential strategy in wheat breeding for the development of novel adapted lines to biotic and abiotic stresses. Based on linkage disequilibrium (LD), a genome-wide association study (GWAS) is a strong method for identifying marker-trait associations (MTA) and quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with the trait of interest [5]. GWAS employed a variety of statistical models, although the Mixed Linear Model (MLM) and the General Linear Model (GLM) were the most often used. Several studies use MLM as an appropriate model because of including kinship (K) among individuals and population structure (Q) [5].The primary goal of plant genetics and breeding research is to improve agricultural productivity and stability in order to provide food security for the world's rapidly rising population. Plant breeding methodologies, genetic designs, genomics, statistics, and bioinformatics must all be combined to adjust adaptive, agronomic, and economic qualities to meet this challenge. Gene identification and complex trait dissection are two linked components of this effort. Complex trait dissection emphasizes genetic contribution and modes of action from numerous loci, which contributes to phenotypic variance, whereas gene identification focuses on individual genes. The two common goals of any QTL mapping in plants are: (1) to increase our biological knowledge of the inheritance and genetic architecture of quantitative traits, both within a species and across related species, and (2) to detect markers that can be used as indirect selection tools in breeding programs [6].In recent years, significant efforts have been made to complement traditional plant breeding methods based on a phenotypic pedigree with molecular genetic techniques for the discovery and application of QTLs for marker-assisted breeding and genomic selection (GS). Linkage mapping (also known as genetic mapping) and association mapping (linkage disequilibrium (LD) mapping) are the most commonly used approaches in dissecting complex traits and identifying genes underlying trait variation in plants, animals, and humans [7].Recently, research on association mapping in several agricultural plants has been conducted to address the constraints identified in linkage-based QTL mapping. Fast improvement in genotyping methods, such as genome sequencing and high-density single nucleotide polymorphism, allowed for the creation of association mapping, the mapping of complex characteristics, and the discovery of contributing genes [8,9]. In this study, we carried out GWAS on 200 spring bread wheat genotypes that were phenotyped for grain yield and yield-related traits and genotyped with SNP markers to identify markers as well as to identify putative genes associated with grain yield and yield-related traits under drought and irrigated conditions.Figure 1 shows scatter plots of grain yield under rainfed and irrigated conditions at Sidi Al-Aidi station of 200 bread wheat genotypes grown during two seasons (2020 and 2021). The statistical analysis of 200 bread wheat genotypes for grain yield and yield-related traits is presented in Table 1. Grain yield ranged from 3.31 to 9.38 t/h with a mean of 5.93 t/h and the heritability value of 0.45 for irrigated conditions at Sidi Al-Aidi station and grain yield for a rainfed experiment at Sidi Al-Aidi station ranged from 0.97 to 6.16 t/h with a mean of 4.19 t/h and the heritability value of 0.32. While grain yield at Merchouch station ranged from 2.32 to 6.85 t/h with a mean of 4.09 and a heritability value of 0.42. Irrigated conditions at Sidi Al-Aidi station recorded the highest value of grain yield followed by rainfed conditions at Merchouch and Sidi Al-Aidi stations, respectively. All traits showed significant results, wherein the irrigated conditions at Sidi Al-Aidi the NTP value had the highest coefficient of variance (CV) with a value of 23.28% followed by biomass and NSS with a value of 22.68 and 20.59%, respectively. While days to maturity (DMA) recorded the lowest value of CV (2.41%). In the rainfed experiment at Sidi Al-Aidi station, the number of seeds per spike (NSS) had the highest CV with a value of 22.85% followed by biomass and grain yield (GY) with a value of 20.39 and 15.04%, respectively. While canopy temperature (CT) recorded the lowest value of CV (3.57%). In the rainfed experiment at Merchouch station, the GY had the highest CV with a value of 18.29% followed by biomass and number of plants in m 2 (NP/m 2 ) with a value of 16.85 and 14.39%, respectively. While DMA recorded the lowest value of CV (2.97%). Traits in irrigated conditions recorded a higher heritability than in rainfed conditions. Under irrigated conditions at Sidi Al-Aidi station, NSS recorded the highest value of heritability with 0.80 followed by biomass and plant height (PLH) with 0.77 and 0.72, respectively. While GY traits showed the lowest value of heritability. Under rainfed conditions at Sidi Al-Aidi station, PLH recorded the highest value of heritability with 0.65 followed by NSS and days to heading (DHE) with 0.63 and 0.62, respectively. While the GY trait showed the lowest value of heritability. Under rainfed conditions at Merchouch station, Biomass recorded the highest value of heritability with 0.70 followed by PLH and DHE with 0.67 and 0.64, respectively. While the GY trait showed the lowest value of heritability. The top 10 elite genotypes for grain yield are indicated in Supplementary Table S1. The genotypes G-146 (SUDAN#3/SHUHA-6/4/BOW/PRL//BUC/3/WH576) and G-145 (STAR *3/LO-TUS 5//TNMU/MILAN/3/QAMAR-2) were recorded the highest grain yield under the rainfed condition with a value of 6.16 and 5.75t/h, respectively.   Principal component bi-plot analyses show the association between grain yield and yield-related traits (Figure 2). Under the rainfed regime at Sidi Al-Aidi station, the two principal components explained 20.5% and 13% of the total variation for grain yield and yield-related traits. Under the irrigated regime at Sidi Al-Aidi station, the two principal components explained 17% and 15.5% of the total variation for grain yield and yield-related traits. Under the rainfed regime at Merchouch station, the two principal components explained 22.3% and 15.8% of the total variation for grain yield and yield-related traits. Figure 3 shows four groups under rainfed and irrigated regimes at both stations. Figure 4 shows the correlation between agronomic traits under rainfed and irrigated regimes at both stations. Under the rainfed regime at Sidi Al-Aidi station, DHE was positively correlated with days to maturity with a value of 0.53 and biomass was positive with PLH and biomass with a value of 0.31. Whereas, canopy temperature showed a significant negative correlation with grain yield and biomass with values of −0.21 and −0.20, respectively. Under the irrigated regime at Sidi Al-Aidi station, days to heading and days to maturity were correlated with a value of 0.65, grain yield is correlated with biomass with a value of 0.49; also, grain yield was positively correlated with plant height with a value of 0.32. Whereas canopy temperature was negatively correlated with NPM and NSS with a value of −0.18 and −0.15, respectively, and also, grain yield was negatively correlated with days to heading with a value of −0.18.    Figure 5 shows the LD decay of A, B, and D genomes. Genome B had the highest linkage disequilibrium, with an average r 2 value of 0.18, followed by genomes A and D with r 2 = 0.17 and r 2 = 0.15, respectively. Figure 6 shows the density of markers over 21 chromosomes of 200 bread wheat genotypes. For all traits under the rainfed regime at Sidi Al-Aidi station, a total of 67 significant marker-trait associations (MTAs) with p < 0.001 were found (Table 2), the A sub-genome has the most MTAs (28), followed by the B and D sub-genomes, which had 26 and 13 MTAs, respectively. For all traits under the irrigated regime at Sidi Al-Aidi station, a total of 37 significant marker-trait associations (MTAs) with p < 0.001 were found (Table 3), the A sub-genome has the most MTAs ( 16), followed by the D and B sub-genomes, which had 12 and 9 MTAs. For all traits under the rainfed conditions at Merchouch station, a total of 55 significant marker-trait associations (MTAs) with p < 0.001 were found (Table 3), the B sub-genome has the most MTAs (21), followed by the A and B sub-genomes, which had 20 and 13 MTAs. The GWAS results is the mean of two years (2020/2021). Figure 5 shows the LD decay of A, B, and D genomes. Genome B had the highest linkage disequilibrium, with an average r 2 value of 0.18, followed by genomes A and D with r 2 = 0.17 and r 2 = 0.15, respectively. Figure 6 shows the density of markers over 21 chromosomes of 200 bread wheat genotypes. For all traits under the rainfed regime at Sidi Al-Aidi station, a total of 67 significant marker-trait associations (MTAs) with p < 0.001 were found (Table 2), the A sub-genome has the most MTAs (28), followed by the B and D sub-genomes, which had 26 and 13 MTAs, respectively. For all traits under the irrigated regime at Sidi Al-Aidi station, a total of 37 significant marker-trait associations (MTAs) with p < 0.001 were found (Table 3), the A sub-genome has the most MTAs (16), followed by the D and B sub-genomes, which had 12 and 9 MTAs. For all traits under the rainfed conditions at Merchouch station, a total of 55 significant marker-trait associations (MTAs) with p < 0.001 were found (Table 3), the B sub-genome has the most MTAs ( 21), followed by the A and B sub-genomes, which had 20 and 13 MTAs. The GWAS results is the mean of two years (2020/2021).         The results of significant marker-trait associations for grain yield and yield-related traits under rainfed and irrigated conditions at Sidi Al-Aidi and Merchouch stations are shown in Tables 2-4, and Figure 7 as well as Supplementary Figures S1-S3. For rainfed conditions at Sidi Al-Aidi station, seventy-four MTAs were recorded (Table 2), where 11 MTAs were recorded for biomass, these markers are located on chromosomes 2B, 2D, 3A, 3B, 5D, and 6D, on the same trait the markers \"BobWhite_c2988_493\" and \"Ex_c14755_1362\" located on chromosomes 2B and 2D, respectively, with a value of −Log10(p) = 4.17. Twelve markers were significantly associated with canopy temperature located on chromosomes 1B, 2B, 3D, 5B, 6A, 6B, 6D, and 7A, where the marker \"AX-94463982\" recorded the highest −Log10(p) = 7.03 located on chromosome 7A, whereas the marker \"Bob-White_rep_c64068_241\" recorded the lowest −Log10(p) = 3.09 located on chromosome 2B. Chlorophyll content recorded three significant markers located on chromosomes 3A, 5A, and 1B. Days to heading recorded two significant markers located on chromosomes 1B and 2B. Days to maturity recorded two significant markers located on chromosomes 5B and 7D. Grain yield recorded three significant markers located on chromosomes 4A, 2B, and 2D. Fifteen MTAs were recorded for NPM, which are located on chromosomes 1A, 1D, 3A, 3D, and 4A, where the marker \"Ra_c29200_300\" recorded the highest −Log10(p) = 3.63 located on chromosome 1A. For the NSS trait, 11 MTAs were recorded located on chromosomes 1A, 1B, 1D, 5B, 6B, and 7D. The marker \"Excalibur_c5329_1335\" had the highest −Log10(p) = 4.85. The number of tillers per plant (NTP) trait recorded one significant marker located on chromosome 3B. Seven MTAs were recorded for plant height located on chromosomes 1B, 3B, 4A, 5A, 5B, 5D, and 6A. The marker \"RAC875_c41731_321\" located on chromosome 2A was recorded for canopy temperature and chlorophyll content.  For irrigated conditions at Sidi Al-Aidi station, forty-eight MTAs (Table 3) were recorded, where 5 MTAs were recorded for biomass, these markers are located on chromosomes 5B and 7A. Chlorophyll content recorded seven MTAs located on chromosomes 1D, 2A, 3A, 3B, 5B, and 7A, where the marker \"IAAV5819\" recorded the highest −Log10(p) = 3.95 located on chromosome 3B. Seven significant markers were associated with canopy temperature, where the markers were located on chromosomes 1D, 2A, 3A, 3B, 5B, and 7A. DHE recorded one significant marker located on chromosome 1D with −Log10(p) = 3.81. DMA recorded 3 MTAs located on chromosomes 2A and 2D. Six significant MTAs were recorded for NPM located on chromosomes 2A, 2D, 5A, 5B, and 6A, where the marker \"Excalibur_rep_c69730_391\" had the highest −Log10(p) = 4.87 located on chromosome 5B. NSS trait recorded 5 MTAs located on chromosomes 4A and 5D. NTP trait recorded two significant markers located on chromosome 1B. Plant height recorded one MTA located on chromosome 7A with −Log10(p) = 3.07. The marker \"AX-94513795\" located on chromosome 3A was recorded for chlorophyll content and biomass.For rainfed conditions at Merchouch station, fifty-five MTAs were recorded (Table 4), where 3 MTAs were recorded for biomass, these markers are located on chromosomes 6A, 6B, and 6D. Chlorophyll content recorded 12 MTAs located on chromosomes 1A, 1B, 2D, 3B, 3D, 6A, 6D, and 7A, where the marker \"AX-94419426\" recorded the highest −Log10(p) = 4.34 located on chromosome 1B. Eleven significant markers were associated with canopy temperature, where the markers were located on chromosomes 1A, 1B, 2D, 3A, 3B, 3D, 6A, and 7A. DHE recorded 14 significant markers, the marker \"IAAV2346\" For irrigated conditions at Sidi Al-Aidi station, forty-eight MTAs (Table 3) were recorded, where 5 MTAs were recorded for biomass, these markers are located on chromosomes 5B and 7A. Chlorophyll content recorded seven MTAs located on chromosomes 1D, 2A, 3A, 3B, 5B, and 7A, where the marker \"IAAV5819\" recorded the highest −Log10(p) = 3.95 located on chromosome 3B. Seven significant markers were associated with canopy temperature, where the markers were located on chromosomes 1D, 2A, 3A, 3B, 5B, and 7A. DHE recorded one significant marker located on chromosome 1D with −Log10(p) = 3.81. DMA recorded 3 MTAs located on chromosomes 2A and 2D. Six significant MTAs were recorded for NPM located on chromosomes 2A, 2D, 5A, 5B, and 6A, where the marker \"Excalibur_rep_c69730_391\" had the highest −Log10(p) = 4.87 located on chromosome 5B. NSS trait recorded 5 MTAs located on chromosomes 4A and 5D. NTP trait recorded two significant markers located on chromosome 1B. Plant height recorded one MTA located on chromosome 7A with −Log10(p) = 3.07. The marker \"AX-94513795\" located on chromosome 3A was recorded for chlorophyll content and biomass.For rainfed conditions at Merchouch station, fifty-five MTAs were recorded (Table 4), where 3 MTAs were recorded for biomass, these markers are located on chromosomes 6A, 6B, and 6D. Chlorophyll content recorded 12 MTAs located on chromosomes 1A, 1B, 2D, 3B, 3D, 6A, 6D, and 7A, where the marker \"AX-94419426\" recorded the highest −Log10(p) = 4.34 located on chromosome 1B. Eleven significant markers were associated with canopy temperature, where the markers were located on chromosomes 1A, 1B, 2D, 3A, 3B, 3D, 6A, and 7A. DHE recorded 14 significant markers, the marker \"IAAV2346\"Plants 2022, 11, 2705 13 of 19 recorded the highest −Log10(p) = 3.63 located on chromosome 5B. DMA recorded 6 MTAs located on chromosomes 2B, 4B, 4D, 5A, and 5B. Six significant MTAs were recorded for NPM located on chromosomes 3D, 5B, and 7D, where the marker \"IACX11794\" had the highest −Log10(p) = 4.04 located on chromosome 7D. Thousand kernel weight (TKW) trait recorded 2 MTAs located on chromosomes 2B and 5A. The marker \"BS00003816_51\" located on chromosome 3A was recorded for canopy temperature and chlorophyll content.Under rainfed conditions at Sidi Al-Aidi station, out of the two highest significant MTAs found for grain yield, BobWhite_c2988_493 and Ex_c14755_1362 located on chromosomes 2B and 2D, respectively, (Figure 8) expressed the highest frequency of favorable alleles for grain yield in the population. The results showed that wheat genotypes carrying the cytosine and guanine bases at the BobWhite_c2988_493 and Ex_c14755_1362 markers combination, respectively, significantly out-yielded the other base combinations. The combination of the cytosine and thymine bases is shown to have low-yield performance and that is linked to the low cumulative number of favorable alleles of the two significant markers. Under irrigated conditions at Sidi Al-Aidi station, two of the highest significant MTAs found for grain yield, AX-94653560 and wsnp_Ex_c6748_11659366 located on chromosomes 2D and 2B, respectively, (Figure 8) expressed the highest frequency of favorable alleles for grain yield in the population. The results showed that wheat genotypes carrying the cytosine and thymine bases at the AX-94653560 and wsnp_Ex_c6748_11659366 markers combination, respectively, significantly out-yielded the other base combinations. The combination of the thymine and cytosine bases has low-yield performance, which is linked to the low-cumulative number of favorable alleles of the two significant markers. Under rainfed conditions at Sidi Al-Aidi station, out of the two highest significant MTAs found for grain yield, BobWhite_c2988_493 and Ex_c14755_1362 located on chromosomes 2B and 2D, respectively, (Figure 8) expressed the highest frequency of favorable alleles for grain yield in the population. The results showed that wheat genotypes carrying the cytosine and guanine bases at the BobWhite_c2988_493 and Ex_c14755_1362 markers combination, respectively, significantly out-yielded the other base combinations. The combination of the cytosine and thymine bases is shown to have low-yield performance and that is linked to the low cumulative number of favorable alleles of the two significant markers. Under irrigated conditions at Sidi Al-Aidi station, two of the highest significant MTAs found for grain yield, AX-94653560 and wsnp_Ex_c6748_11659366 located on chromosomes 2D and 2B, respectively, (Figure 8) expressed the highest frequency of favorable alleles for grain yield in the population. The results showed that wheat genotypes carrying the cytosine and thymine bases at the AX-94653560 and wsnp_Ex_c6748_11659366 markers combination, respectively, significantly out-yielded the other base combinations. The combination of the thymine and cytosine bases has low-yield performance, which is linked to the low-cumulative number of favorable alleles of the two significant markers.  Forty-six putative candidate genes were discovered for all significant markers related to the grain yield and yield-related traits (Supplementary Table S2), where 34 candidate genes were recorded for rainfed conditions and 12 genes were recorded for irrigated conditions. In rainfed conditions, for biomass, the highest significant marker on chromosome 2D, 'Ex_c14755_1362' was linked to the TraesCS2D02G053300 gene, which encodes the Receptorlike serine/threonine-protein kinase protein involved in serine/threonine/tyrosine kinase activity. Seven genes were identified for canopy temperature, where the highest significant marker 'AX-94463982' on chromosome 7A was linked to the TraesCS7A02G088800 gene, which encodes Pre-mRNA-splicing factor 38 involved in the mRNA splicing, via spliceosome. In irrigated conditions, the gene TraesCS5B02G032700 was linked to the marker 'AX-94826800' located on chromosome 5B which is associated with chlorophyll content, the gene encodes for Kinesin-like protein involved in microtubule binding. The gene TraesCS5B02G300100 was linked to the marker 'wsnp_Ex_c6748_11659366' located on chromosome 5B which is associated with biomass the gene encodes for Trigger_N domain-containing protein involved in peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerase activity.Bread wheat is a major crop in many parts of the world, particularly in Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) as well as in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In the CWANA region, water shortage is becoming a severe challenge for wheat production. The creation of novel drought-tolerant bread wheat genotypes might be a long-term solution for increasing wheat yield in challenged regions. ICARDA's bread wheat breeding program targets generating genotypes that are abiotic and biotic stress-resistant and have acceptable end-use quality. Grain yield is a complicated property governed by numerous genes, the expression of which is controlled by environmental conditions. Therefore, this study was carried out to evaluate the drought-tolerance capacity of 200 bread wheat genotypes and to discover markers that are strongly related to grain yield and yield-related traits. Phenotype observations showed that wheat in rainfed conditions had lower GY and fewer DHE than wheat in irrigated conditions. The days to heading and maturity exhibited greater heritability than grain yield at all conditions, as previously reported [35,36]. As a result, grain yield heritability is often lower than that of other characteristics [37]. The correlation between days to heading and maturity was strongly positively correlated in both conditions which were consistent with previous research [38]. Biomass was positively correlated with grain yield in both conditions, but the correlation in irrigated conditions was upper than in rainfed conditions, this result is due to the ample irrigation and optimum conditions.GWAS has been used in several studies on bread wheat to uncover novel MTAs and QTLs linked with distinct traits in different conditions. We found a total of 104 significant markers under rainfed and irrigated conditions associated with agronomic traits across chromosomes in this study, where 44 MTAs found on the A genome, followed by the B and D genomes with 35 and 25, respectively, similar to another study that found the majority of MTAs for grain yield and yield-related traits on the A and B genomes, followed by the D genome [39]. Drought-stressed environments often have more major MTAs than non-stressed environments, which explains why drought tolerance is highly influenced by genotype by environmental factors [38]. Sixty-seven and thirty-seven MTAs at p < 0.001 were found associated with grain yield and agronomic traits under rainfed and irrigated conditions, respectively.The highly significant marker for grain yield in rainfed conditions was identified on chromosome 2B with −Log10(p) = 3.81 at position 338 Mbp. We identified two other significant markers on chromosomes 2D and 4A. Several studies detected many MTAs/QTLs for grain yield in the same chromosomes [5,35]. In this study, we identified five MTAs for biomass in irrigated conditions, which are located on chromosomes 7A and 5B where the highest marker was 'BS00022169_51' located on chromosome 7A with −Log10(p) = 4.14 at position 691 Mbp, a previous study found the same marker on chromosome 7A [40]. On chromosome 5B, a highly significant marker associated with a number of seeds per spike under rainfed conditions was discovered with −Log10(p) = 4.85. Several MTAs/QTLs on chro-mosome 5B have been linked to NSS in dry conditions, according to a previous study [41]. Five MTAs were found under irrigated conditions located on chromosomes 4A and 5D for grain number per spike. Using 192 bread wheat genotypes planted at the same study site in Morocco, Alemu et al. [42] discovered that the marker 'wsnp_Ex_c20386_29451037' was linked to grain number per spike on chromosome 4A. Twelve MTAs regulating canopy temperature traits under rainfed conditions were found on chromosomes 1B, 2B, 3D, 5B, 6A, 6B, 6D, and 7A. MTAs for canopy temperature on chromosomes 7A and 2B were previously reported using different wheat panels cultivated in various settings [43]. Utilizing a population of 287 advanced elite lines of spring wheat, Sukumaran et al. [44] discovered the QTL RAC875_rep_c114561_587 associated with canopy temperature on chromosome 6A. The investigation was conducted using 90,000 wheat SNP created by Infinium iSelect SNP assays. The marker 'BS00037225_51' was associated with plant height on chromosome 3B with −Log10(p) = 7.1 at position 590 Mbp. Previously, numerous MTAs/QTLs associated with plant height were discovered on the same chromosome that we discovered [5]. The important markers were mapped to the bread wheat genome reference database at Ensemble Plant and UniProt in order to discover the probable genes linked with the many assessed features previously published. The findings indicated 46 genes involved in ATP binding, mRNA binding, protein serine kinase activity, protein heterodimerization activity, defense response, and oxidoreductase activity, among other biosynthetic pathways [45][46][47].This study employed a population of 200 bread wheat genotypes from the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) (Supplementary Table S3). The field experiment was conducted at ICARDA's experimental stations in Sidi El-Aidi, Morocco (33 • 07 27.6 N 7 • 37 43.8 W, 406 m a.s.l.) and Marchouch, Morocco (33 • 36 26.8 N 6 • 42 43.9 W) during the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 cropping seasons. The genotypes were grown in a 3 m 2 plot following an alpha lattice design with two replications. In Sidi EL-Aidi station the experiments were carried out in two different water regimes, rainfed and irrigated. For Marchouch station, the experiment was carried out under rainfed conditions. During the growth cycle in the irrigated experiment, the plots were watered by drip irrigation with three irrigations each week. The Sidi El-Aidi station is characterized by vertisol soil type with annual precipitation of about 300 mm over the two years. The Marchouch station is characterized by cambisol soil type with annual precipitation of about 400 mm over the two years. The stations are characterized by moderate humidity with an annual temperature ranging between 10 and 40 • C. The panel was seeded at a rate of 100 kg ha −1 during the first week of December.The GWAS panel was phenotyped for 11 traits: grain yield (GY), days to heading (DHE), days to maturity (DMA), plant height (PLH), number of tillers per plant (NTP), number of plants in m 2 (NPM), number of seeds per spike (NSS), biomass, chlorophyll content (CC), canopy temperature (CT), and thousand kernel weight (TKW). After threshing each plot, GY was measured in kg/plot and then converted to t/ha. When 50% and 90% of the plants reached the heading and maturity phases, respectively, DHE and DMA were recorded for each plot. When the plants reached maturity, the PLH in centimeters was recorded in each plot by measuring the distance from the soil surface to the top of the spike, without measuring the length of the awns. The biomass was measured for all plots in kilograms. The leaf chlorophyll content was measured on the flag leaf using a SPAD-502Plus chlorophyll meter at the heading stage on a clear day between 9:00 and 12:00. Canopy temperature was measured at the booting stage using a thermometer. TKW was calculated in grams using a grain counter. The \"RcmdrMisc\" package in R was used to determine the means, maximum, minimum, and standard deviation, as well as the coefficient of variance.","tokenCount":"4617"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"96a7f6351171adf57c014b9ffb8ccbaa","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ceb280d5-65b4-4b4e-a745-de93f0f71e97/retrieve","id":"2014251877"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8343964e-c4f7-412f-8406-01307e29af0a","pagecount":"8","content":"El sector agropecuario en Guatemala es uno de los más vulnerables al cambio climático en el país. Se prevén cambios importantes en los patrones de lluvia y temperatura al 2030, los cuales tendrán un efecto negativo en los cultivos de maíz y frijol, los cuales son los de mayor importancia para la seguridad alimentaria de la mayoría de la población del país (CCAFS, 2014;Bouroncle et al., 2014).Actualmente, entre 40-70% de las pérdidas del producto interno bruto (PIB) agrícola asociadas con la variación y cambios en el clima se relacionan con la infraestructura productiva nacional, especialmente con los sistemas de granos básicos (maíz y frijol).La zona más afectada por la variabilidad climática, particularmente por sequías, es el Corredor Seco, en donde el MAGA ha identificado que alrededor de 300.000 familias rurales no poseen la capacidad productiva suficiente para subsistir por un tiempo prolongado frente a un evento climático extremo.El interés y compromiso del Gobierno de Guatemala de abordar el tema de desarrollo agropecuario desde el punto de vista del cambio climático ha sido evidenciado por su participación en varias iniciativas internacionales y nacionales, que a su vez permiten potenciar discusiones sobre ASAC en el país. A nivel internacional, Guatemala ratificó la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre Cambio Climático (CMNUCC) en 1995, y el Protocolo de Kioto en 1999, además es un actor importante dentro de los Convenios Centroamericanos sobre cambio climático (1993, 1996)  y la Declaración deLa seguridad alimentaria en Guatemala cada vez se ve más afectada por eventos climáticos extremos como sequías prolongadas, precipitaciones intensas e irregulares, heladas entre otros. En este contexto, el Ministerio de Agricultura, Ganadería y Alimentación de Guatemala (MAGA) ha contemplado en sus políticas y estrategias de trabajo el vínculo entre la agricultura y el cambio climático, buscando fomentar la resiliencia de los productores frente a los desafíos climáticos. Estas acciones han coincidido con debates mundiales sobre el concepto de Agricultura Sostenible Adaptada al Clima (ASAC), que hace énfasis en el incremento sostenible de la productividad, mientras que se aumenta la capacidad adaptativa de los agricultores y se disminuyen las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero (GEI) del sector. Con el fin de apoyar el proceso de priorización de inversiones en ASAC en el país, el programa de investigación del CGIAR en Cambio Climático, Agricultura y Seguridad Alimentaria (CCAFS, por sus siglas en inglés), el Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) y MAGA han establecido una alianza estratégica que permite potencializar las capacidades institucionales y el desarrollo de programas y proyectos sistémicos en temas ASAC. El presente documento hace referencia al estado actual y el pilotaje del proceso de priorización de inversiones en ASAC iniciado por CCAFS y CIAT en Guatemala.Al nivel nacional, en el marco de la propuesta del Plan Estratégico del Cambio Climático, el MAGA ha canalizado esfuerzos en tres ejes estratégicos de trabajo directamente relacionados con la ASAC: la adaptación, la mitigación y el fortalecimiento institucional. A partir de la entrada en vigencia de la Ley Marco para Regular la Reducción de la Vulnerabilidad, la Adaptación Obligatoria ante los efectos del Cambio Climático y la Mitigación de Gases de Efecto Invernadero (LMCC) (2013) se ha establecido el Consejo Nacional de Cambio Climático (CNCC), que regula, supervisa y da seguimiento a la ejecución de acciones concretas como la Política Nacional de Cambio Climático y el Fondo de Cambio Climático. Además, el Consejo genera el entorno propicio para el desarrollo y apropiación por parte del gobierno nacional de herramientas de apoyo a la toma de decisiones tales como el marco de priorización de inversiones en ASAC (Gobierno de Guatemala, 2013).Para impulsar el debate sobre disyuntivas y sinergias entre sectores y objetivos de desarrollo (desarrollo económico, aumento de la productividad agrícola y la sostenibilidad ambiental), se han venido desarrollando conceptos y procesos que abordan la sostenibilidad agrícola desde un punto de vista social, económico y ambiental. Por lo tanto, el concepto de Agricultura Sostenible Adaptada al Clima (ASAC) se formuló como una respuesta a estos desafíos globales entrelazados. ASAC se define entonces como \"la agricultura sostenible que aumenta la productividad, mejora la resiliencia, reduce/ elimina las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero (GEI) y permite el logro de la seguridad alimentaria y de los objetivos de desarrollo nacionales\" (FAO 2010).Las prácticas ASAC pueden facilitar la creación de paisajes sostenibles e impulsar la productividad, la adaptación al cambio climático y la mitigación de GEI. Una práctica puede generar impactos diferentes dependiendo del sistema de producción, así como la combinación ideal de acciones ASAC puede variar de un lugar a otro. Por lo tanto, los tomadores de decisiones necesitan herramientas y procesos que permitan la identificación de las intervenciones más adecuadas para cada contexto agroecológico y socioeconómico. Éstas deben guiar la inversión agrícola hacia soluciones a largo plazo, con el fin de reducir la vulnerabilidad de los pequeños agricultores.CCAFS y el CIAT están trabajando de forma conjunta en un marco de vanguardia para la priorización de inversiones en ASAC. Este marco hace énfasis en las sinergias y las disyuntivas entre la consecución de los tres pilares de la ASAC: la seguridad alimentaria, la mitigación y la adaptación. Este proceso está constituido por cuatro fases que se adaptan a las necesidades y contextos nacionales y locales de países.En el caso de Guatemala, este marco de priorización ha sido apropiado por el MAGA siendo adaptado a sus necesidades particulares, y cuyo proceso de involucramiento puede servir como ejemplo para otros países de la región interesados en abordar aspectos de la ASAC.El MAGA ha sido muy receptivo frente a la discusión sobre ASAC, y aunque cuenta con planes y estrategias nacionales y regionales para enfrentar los desafíos climáticos, es necesario fortalecer el acompañamiento y articulación con otras instituciones en temas de recursos financieros y humanos, que permitan concretizar de manera oportuna acciones y protocolos de respuesta ante estas amenazas. Con este fin, la cooperación CCAFS/CIAT-MAGA busca constituir, con el apoyo científico, alianzas estratégicas que permitan potencializar las capacidades institucionales para el desarrollo de programas y proyectos en la temática de cambio climático, implementados a través de iniciativas como el Programa de Agricultura Familiar En el marco del proceso de priorización de inversiones en ASAC, se establecieron varios objetivos: Identificar sistemas productivos claves para la seguridad alimentaria del país y localizados en áreas geográficas vulnerables, relevantes para acciones futuras; Recopilar información local sobre prácticas ASAC en sistemas productivos y regiones claves seleccionadas, para luego identificar y priorizar prácticas ASAC basadas en la evaluación de los costos y beneficios económicos, sociales y ambientales que brindan estas prácticas; Generar resultados que puedan apoyar a los procesos de planeación participativos al nivel nacional y regional, y a procesos de monitoreo y evaluación en el futuro; Apoyar a la canalización de fondos en ASAC, de manera más eficiente y eficaz, a través del fortalecimiento de relaciones existentes con los donantes y de la facilitación de nuevos marcos de trabajo con agencias de cooperación externa; Desarrollar y compartir conocimiento en aspectos técnicos de prácticas ASAC en la región y en los trópicos.El marco de priorización co-diseñado por CCAFS/CIAT y MAGA constituye una respuesta a la necesidad de respaldo y orientación de la política pública en temas de agricultura y cambio climático en zonas afectadas por sequía, vulnerabilidad socioeconómica e inseguridad alimentaria, como lo es el Corredor Seco.Los beneficiarios directos de este proceso de priorización son segmentos de usuarios que desarrollan programas y proyectos vinculados al tema en los territorios priorizados y conformados por el sector público, el sector académico, el sector nogubernamental (organizaciones sociales y ONGs), el sector privado y agencias de cooperación externa. Dentro del proceso, cada uno de estos grupos de actores tiene el doble papel de informante y beneficiario de la información, puesto que la investigación busca co-crear conocimiento relacionado con la ASAC y a la vez socializarla para su uso en campo (por parte de productores y técnicos en las zonas de estudio), en la política pública (MAGA) y en la financiación o apoyo a la implementación de éstas prácticas (FAO, CATIE, Oxfam, etc.). A su vez, existen beneficiarios indirectos que vienen de otros sectores de trabajo, quienes pueden usar este proceso y herramientas como puntos de referencia para la priorización de sus actividades relacionadas con la ASAC.El acuerdo y respaldo político e institucional del MAGA hacia el trabajo desarrollado por la unidad de Cambio Climático (UCC) y CCAFS/CIAT en el marco de este proyecto, como legitimación de la iniciativa con autoridades nacionales.El involucramiento y participación activa de los actores y sectores productivos representativos para el tema ASAC dentro del proyecto, a través de encuestas, entrevistas y de un taller consultivo sobre la identificación y la priorización de prácticas ASAC.La identificación, junto con el MAGA, de resultados esperados de interés e indicadores para la evaluación de impactos.El desarrollo de un listado corto de prácticas priorizadas, a través de la evaluación de impactos en la productividad, adaptación y mitigación y a partir de una línea base de 29 prácticas establecidas previamente.El desarrollo de una metodología para el análisis de costos y beneficios de las prácticas ASAC identificadas, alineada a las prioridades y políticas nacionales y que permite su uso en otras regiones y sistemas productivos en el país. Figura 3. El gráfico muestra el desempeño de las prácticas ASAC en Guatemala, en relación con los indicadores de productividad, adaptación y mitigación validados por los participantes en el primer taller. La gráfica de barras muestra el valor promedio del desempeño de las prácticas en cada grupo de indicadores (productividad, adaptación y mitigación). El número situado en cada triangulo indica el promedio de la inteligencia climática de cada práctica ASAC, con base en el desempeño de la práctica en los tres grupos de indicadores. En el eje X, las prácticas están ordenadas según la priorización de los participantes (las prioridades más altas se encuentran a la izquierda). Se puede observar que en general las prioridades de los participantes no coinciden con los valores de la inteligencia climática de las prácticas. Esto demuestra que los criterios adicionales para la priorización de las prácticas, como el conocimiento existente sobre barreras a la adopción, iniciativas en curso, etc., destacado a través del taller participativo, debe ser incluido en el análisis y priorización de las prácticas ASAC, para garantizar relevancia y transparencia del proceso.La creación de una base de datos cuantitativos y cualitativos relacionados con temas de ASAC en el Corredor Seco, para servir al análisis costo-beneficio, a la evaluación de los impactos de las prácticas en los pilares ASAC y a otras iniciativas futuras de MAGA en la región.La articulación institucional CCAFS/CIAT-MAGA para el aprovechamiento de la información generada en el proceso de priorización para fortalecer programas existentes, tales como el PAFFEC, el Programa \"Triángulo de la dignidad\", el Programa \"Corredor de Oportunidades\", etc., que pueda servir como punto de referencia para los países interesadas en la promoción de ASAC .Un mejor entendimiento del tema ASAC adquirido por los participantes en el proceso, que puede fomentar acciones y estrategias relacionadas con ASAC en el futuro.* Basado en los datos de la encuesta sobre prácticas ASAC en el Corredor Seco (n=200). CCAFS/CIAT, 2014 ** Nivel de inteligencia climática con base en la evaluación cualitativa (0-5) de los expertos sobre impactos esperados de las prácticas ASAC Nivel de inteligencia climática de la práctica (0-5) ** Figura 4. Asociación de maíz-frijol en Guatemala. Foto: Andreea Nowak (CIAT)La mayoría de los productores en el Corredor Seco (75%*) implementan sistemas productivos maíz-frijol, lo que indica que la planeación de ASAC debe tener en cuenta, en la medida de lo posible, conjuntos de prácticas, para aprovechar co-beneficios.•El análisis costo-beneficio de las prácticas priorizadas en el primer taller, destacando beneficios económicos de la productividad y co-beneficios para la adaptación y mitigación.•La socialización de los resultados del análisis costo-beneficio con actores nacionales y locales en un segundo taller participativo.•La discusión de las disyuntivas, beneficios para los tres pilares de ASAC, sinergias entre prácticas y barreras a la adopción, que busca informar sobre iniciativas existentes y potenciales tanto en la región del Corredor Seco, como en otros sitios de interés en el país.•La retroalimentación sobre la priorización de las prácticas seleccionadas, a partir del análisis costo-beneficio y de la evaluación de los impactos en indicadores de interés.•La creación de fichas técnicas de prácticas ASAC basadas en la información recopilada en todas las fases del proyecto, y adaptadas a varios usuarios: productores y redes de productores (e.g. Centros de Aprendizaje para el Desarrollo Rural -CADER), servicios de extensión en el campo, gobierno y donantes. Estas fichas serán útiles para las acciones e inversiones de estos actores en la promoción de ASAC.¿Qué sigue en el proceso de priorización?Alrededor del 64%* de los agricultores del Corredor Seco que implementan prácticas ASAC disponen de algún esquema de incentivos institucionales, principalmente capacitación técnica y asignación de recursos económicos representados en insumos, alimentos y pago de mano de obra como estímulo a la implementación de prácticas ASAC. Instituciones y organizaciones que proveen estos incentivos son MAGA, FAO, Copanch'orti' y CATIE, entre otras, construyendo las bases para la generación de capacidad de adaptación y fortalecimiento de seguridad alimentaria en la región.* Basado en los datos de la encuesta sobre prácticas ASAC en el Corredor Seco (n=200). CCAFS/CIAT, 2014 Actualmente el 91%* de los agricultores en el Corredor Seco implementan más de una práctica ASAC (figura 6.), siendo la agricultura de conservación (cobertura del suelo con rastrojo), sistemas agroforestales (barreras vivas), rotación de cultivos, zanjas en contorno y barreras muertas las de mayor frecuencia. Estas intervenciones se alinean con la política pública de MAGA y pueden servir de referencia para posibilitar su réplica en otras regiones vulnerables del país. Hasta el momento se pueden destacar algunos aspectos relevantes del proceso de priorización de ASAC en Guatemala, experiencias que pueden servir como puntos de partida para la implementación de ASAC en otros contextos o a otras escalas.El acoplamiento de metodologías científicas a la metodología muestral nacional es necesario para poder garantizar la extrapolación de la información y el uso de herramientas y resultados científicos en la construcción de estadísticas nacionales, como el censo nacional agropecuario.En muchos casos, las prácticas ASAC han sido implementadas desde hace mucho tiempo por parte de los productores. Por esta razón, es importante identificar las iniciativas que ya existen, analizando las oportunidades e incentivos asociadas, para poder replicar estos casos exitosos en otros contextos similares.Los procesos de priorización en ASAC tal como este, requieren un entendimiento mutuo de los objetivos y relaciones de cooperación estrechas entre los socios.Para que los aportes de la cooperación sean relevantes deben estar enmarcados en necesidades sentidas principalmente de los gobiernos locales; La apropiación del proceso para su sostenimiento en el tiempo debe ser promovida a través de la creación de espacios para el co-diseño del proceso desde el principio, incluyendo a las partes interesadas en la determinación del alcance, objetivos, usos del proceso y beneficiarios.La experiencia del pilotaje del marco de priorización de ASAC en Guatemala, a través de la colaboración entre CCAFS/CIAT y MAGA, demuestra que este es un proceso útil para orientar a los actores interesados en análisis complejos que son necesarios para comprender disyuntivas entre las prácticas de ASAC como también para priorizarlas a partir de su relevancia e importancia al nivel nacional y local.Implementación del procesoCCAFS. (2014). Estado del arte en Cambio Climático, Agricultura y Seguridad Alimentaria en Guatemala.Copenhague, Dinamarca: Programa de Investigación de CGIAR en Cambio Climático, Agricultura y Seguridad Alimentaria.","tokenCount":"2561"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"779895d5fe9c614b8b79e2e5b5e3b2a9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/981ab7f3-71d3-4c47-a556-2d66a02b040f/retrieve","id":"995682383"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"63a70c9f-4e50-4cfa-bfb8-9e31396ebfc5","pagecount":"40","content":"Empresa Bno:;1lf'11a d( r'\\.-;.1 f~'nfl1 11\\n• 1 e fxten 10 Fh•r.JI V nculn<h 1 M m(H~ d1 .Ar¡ 11t1 1 OF NO ofk' /78-MandlOCa Bras'ílla, 'tde JU1ho de 1 978 Prezado Senhor Em dnexo, conforme promet1do, urna copla xerox do seu traba1ho na versao em Portugues e que fo1 d1str1buido para todo os tecn1cos que trabalham com mand1oca no Bras11 Sem ma1s para o momento, subscrevemo-nos mu1 Atenc1osamente, Ckzao (_:¡J;f.ActÚ ({~ (/ < (lng 0 cff[:r 0 ,?nlr< 1]:!¡/tiro ele <'!!f.w. Gorento 1 acHH\" 1 d;t Mandioca I 1m o Sr Dr RAFAEL O DIAZ CENTRO NACIONAL APARTADO AEREO CAL! -COLOMBIA JRS/msrs DE AGRICULTURA 6713 TROPICAL -CIAT rr\"~'P Ernprf'l 8r1dcrra rJc \\ r hn•J ltlllllll l;..hn •u fhrrrl Vmc\\lhdl 11M 1 t~ u fh 1\\ 1 ult 1 Autores fll'lTO<;_F_I!l_!LI7/\\~}IO _ _!Jf INSIIMOS _P_A_IVI 1\\ PRODUCIIO IJ[ 11.\\ND!Of/\\ N/\\ COl OM[ll/\\ Ratael O Olaz, Pen P1nstrup-/\\ndcr~cn e qub5n Oario Estrada Publ1ca~io CLntro !nlernac1onal de /\\gr1cultura Ttop1ral-S~r1e ES no 05, Julho de 1975 1 ~ I R o o ~ e A o 1\\ t~ ha oouco tcmpo, a m a nd, o~.-a et a 11111 cult110 que receb1a Lxrassa atcn~io pot porte dos p•squ1sadores 1gric~ las e polítJcJs No cntretanco, esta sltUd<,ilo esta m11dando ao ser perceb1da a sua 11rportanc1a como al lmPnto b)s,co 11~ plc.\"s ttop.!_ ca1s e scu potPnc1al como alJmPnto para gado No espa~o de c1nro anos, do1s 1nst1tutos 1nternaL1ona1S de 1nVLSl1ga~io a~,f~ola formaram grupos mul.JdlSClpllnat para 1nvest1gar mand1oca (1) (1) O Cento Internacional de /\\qrJcultura Trop1cal (CIAT), Colom-bJa e o In~t1tuto InLernac1onal de Agrnultu¡a TtopH.al ' (liTA), N1'Jena (*) lraduz1d1 P preparada ••elo [ngo /\\gro J/\\IRO R!Bl!RO 0/\\ SILVA, Gerente Nac1onal de Mand1ocaAlquns progr1mas o1C1ona1s de Jnvrst¡ga~oes e>cdO recebendo um ma1or apoto e est3o se cr1ando novos ptogrdmas nac1ona1s 1 2 1 A 1ndGstr1a pr1vada e os bancos 1od1cam que ex1ste um crescente 1n teresse na produ~ao, processamento e exporta~io de mand1oca po1s ela i cons1derada um 1nvest1mento rentivel e 1lguns governos es tao comP~ando a tomJr conc1~nc1a de seu potrnc1al para promover o desenvolv1mento agr1cola t obter d1v1>as 1 3 1T~do parecr 1nd1car que nos fttluro haveri urna grande demanda de mand1oca srca para a allmLttla~io nos pa1se> produtorcs romo nos nao produtore,1 4 1 do yado,tanlo Por um sa demanda i o resultado do aumento dos pre~os dos grio~ lado,e~ usados para a al1menta~ao an1mal e, por out1o da Pf1c1inc1a da mand1oca na produ~io de catbO-hldratos No entretanto, para sa t 1 sfa1er a dema'lda poter•qal, dcve aumentar-se a sua produl1V1dade, que i a meta da ma1or1a das pesqu1sa~ sobre produ~io desta planta estas pesqu1sas drvem en focar problemas a ntvel dr un1dade de ptodu~5o Al~m do ma1s,po~ co se >abr sobre o processo de produ~~o de Mand1oca e a 1mporta~ c1a relat1va do~ fatores 111111 tantes <.la produ~ao l' produ11v1daae' dev1do a pouca infase que se deu a esse cult1vo ati agora Ass1m sendo, os economtstas do Programa de Hand1oca do l!AT tcm concen trados os seus esfor~os nert1 pesqul~d Anal1sP empregadd nestc(2) --~ Alem de receber fundos publ1cos dos pa1sP~ produtores, a pP>-quJ>a sobre mand1oca a nivel nac1onal e 1nternac1onal, i pa troc1nada por v~r1as 1genc1as, entJP outras o Centro Interna= cJona1s de lnvestJga~ocs pata o Desenvolvlttrento (IDRC) do C1 nada e a OversLas Developmrnt Adm1n1strat1on (ODA) da Ingla = terra 1 3 1Em pa1ses como a Indonis1a e Malas1a, estio se desenvolvcndo' esquemas para aumentar a produ~ao de mand1oca para exportacio e al1mentacio de gado dentro de cada pa1s 1 4 >um e>tudo rerente fe1to Trumn Ph1lllps, 1nd1ca r¡uc haveri urna r¡rande de manda de mand1oca seca na Europa (\"Cassava Ut111zat1on and Potent1al T 11ar~ets\", Internat10nal Researrh Centre Otta1va, Carnda, 1974) O Japao e outro mercado que oferece potenc1al para o futuro AJemalS, na ma1ona dos paises produtores de mand1oca, ha uma demanda crescente de ahmento para o gado trabalho descreve brevunLnte os s1stcmas rll produr:;d\"o, o uso de recurso~ e custos para os produtore~ de H1nd1oca na Lolomb1a Fs te i um 1nforme prel1m1n1r, mas atualmentP ~e est~ preparando um estudo ma1s amplo e completo sobre e proLesso de produ~io e J 1m portanc1a relat1va dos fatores que l1m1tanr a produ~io e produt1-v1dadeDepo1s deu~a breve expllc,~io da metodolog1a, e fe1ta urna descr1r:;io da aMo~tra lngo ~e apresPntlm o~ yesultados e o 1nforme ternnna com ••m brPve 1 esumo u111 aniil1se das lmpllcar:;6es que podem haver na ppsqu1sa e polft1c1 governamental no fu tu ro No CIAT pode obter-se um g1 1po de qtndros 4ue resumP os dados obt1dos nas entrev1stas 11ETODOI Ot.III E lli:.S~RICJ(O 01 Ar!OSTRA COLFT,, 01:. DADOS Baseando-so um dados secund~r1os d1sponfve1s, se recolheu 1nformar:;oes sobre os agr1cultores de 18 departamentos 1 da Colomb1a (f1gura 1) As entrev1stas se efetuaram durante 19/1 Alnda que os dados secundarlOS dP p~odur:;io (! area plantada de mand1oca nao seJam prec1osos, parere que os departamentos sele -Clonados representam aprox1madamente 92 por cento da produ~io na c1onal e 80 por cento da iirPa total (1969) Como nio ex1ste 1nforma~io q11e pe1m1te 1dent1f1car todos os produtores de mand1oca no pais ou nos departamentos selec1onados, nio fo1 possivel fazer urna amonstra ao acaso Com base na 1nforma~io fornec1da pelos extPnSlOnlstas e agentes de crid1to da local 1dade e por dtacad1stas e vareJlStas, se prep~ rou urna l1sta parc1al das reg1oes produtoras e dos produtoresque nelas trabalham Dessa l1sta, se selec1onou urna amostra de 300 produtes e se obtevP 1 nfonnat;1o PntrPVl st 1nrln 1 r,Hh 1gnru 1 tnr 1Como os dados sio prel1m1nares, a anil1se se l1 mltOU aO Calculo de m~d1as SlmplLS e pondetadas de d1str1bU1~io' total e percentual Pela dnil1se dos dados, as un1dades de ptodu~io da amostr1 se dov1daram em tr~s grupos segundo a topograf1a, da manPlta segu1nteI Produtores de Mand1oca em terreno plano (fora da Rcg1io da Costa Notte) Zona II Produtores de MandloLa em encostas Zona III Produtores de ~and1oca na Reg1io da Costa NortP Dentro de cada zona se estrat1f1caram as um1dades de produ~io da 1mostra sLgundo o tamanho da irea cult1vada EstraLo 1 wenos de 2 hectares Estrato ?2,0 -3,99 hectares Estaato 3 4,0-9,99 heLtares Estrato 4 10,0 ou ma1s ltectares t1nalmLnte, em algumas sec~~es de anil1ses, as un1dades de ptoducio da amostra se d1V1d1ram em do1s grupos em um se 1ncluira•• aquPlas em que a prepata~io do solo i fe1ta ma nualmente e em outro, as que executam tal prepara~io mecan1camen te DESCRI~KO DA AMOSTRA 421 das un1dadPs de pr~du~io estio local1zados' na Reg1io da Costa Norte, 30% em terrenos em decliVP e 28% cm ateas planas AprOXlmadamente 401 das Unidades de produ~io tem menos de do1s hectares de mand1oca e 151 possu1 10 ou ma1s Por razoes ev1dcnte, a ma1or1a dos agr1cultores que cult1vam arcas ' decl1vosas, preparam o terreno manualmente Resulta menos ev1de! te que so urna t~r~a para dos agr1cultores de mand1oca local1Ladus ,.cm irca~ planas t ncnos da mctade dos agr1cultorcs da Rcg1~o da Costa Norte uscm maqu1ndr1a para a preparacSo do terreno, pritlca que e mu1tocomum em un1dades de produ~io de grande extensao O tamanho m~d1o das un1dadcs de produGio da amo~ tra i de 5 hectares na 7ona I e o tamanho m~d1o da unrdade de produGio e o 9 hectares na zona 11 e de 3,5 hcctares na lll,apr! X1madamente ~o redor de 20/ dos mand1ocultores entrev1stado~ plantam mand1oca em tPrrenos de sua propr1edade Quasr do1s ter ~os sao parce1ros e os restantes paga arrendamento em d1nhe1roSISTFIIfiS DE ClJI TIVO flprox1madamentP um ter~o do~ 1nand1ocullores rn trPVl~laclos lm cada urna das zonas plantam mand1oc1 cm consorc1o com ou tros cult1vos O m1lho i o cult1vo que ma1~ frequentemente se rn contra 1ntercalado com mand1oca, segundo em 1mportanc1a por bana na, cati 1nhame e felJio (f1gura 2)Com frequenc1a, a preparaGaO manual do terreno i trad1c1onal e sr l1m1ta a l1mpeza e a cap1na do mesmo Cerca de St dos cult1vadores na zona 1 planta mand1ora em camalhaes, ao passo que essa prit1ca i mu1to excassa em outras zonas Aprox1m! damente urna tPr~a parte dos cult1vadores plantam as man1vas hor! zontamente, pril1cas que i comum fora da Rcg1io da Costa Norte 1 /1 den~idadP mrdlu e dP 8 000 planta~ por hectarP mas o nGmero var1a ~ons1deravelmente entre as un1dades de produ r;ao (quadro 1) 0 espat;amento mJlS COmum e de l metro X 1 mPtro, segu1do de 1,2 metro x 1,2 metto A ma1otia dos cultivadores en trPVlstados planta urna s6 estara em cada lugar (83X)ao pas~o quP 17% coloca no soto du1s man1va~ JUntas Esta Glt1ma pr3ticas i ma1s frequente na Lona I (35% dos agr1~ultores) menos ltnportante na Zona I I (25t) e 1 nex 1st< nte na Lona I I I, aondp nenhun dos agr1cultores entrev1stados planta duas estac1s Juntas Aptoxlmadamente 27% dos cult1vadores dP todas as zonas fazem replant10 e nenhum trata as man1vas contra doenr;as Cerca de um terr;o dos mand1ocultorP~ entrevistados plantam do1s ou ma1s Lultl/OS de mand1ora SL1 usar rotar;Ko Os dema1s prat1cam a rotar;io o~ cult1vam a mand1oca em tctrLnos aonde Pla nunca hav1a s1do plantada 51 dos ~gr1cultorcs cult1vam a var1edadP \"LlanP r1'' Os dema1s plantaM var1e~1de que se 1dent1f1cam com 56 nomes loca1s  .--A colhe1ta se efetua totalmente da for,a manual A duta~ao do periodo VPgetat1vo depende das condlc;5es ecol6g1ca~ varledade, dlsponlbllldade de mao-de-obra para a colhelta,prec;os da mand1oca e outros fatores A ma1or1a dos dgr1cultores das zo nas 1 e Il colheu mand1oca com urna 1dade de 12 a 14 meses mu1 to embora 13% a colha entre 10 e ¡¿meses e outros 13% entre 14 e 16 meses Na Reg1io da Costa Norte, urna terc;a parte dos produtores col he aos 6-8 meses cnquanto o rest<~ntt o faz entre 8 e 14 meses (f1gura 4) A 1dade med1a de colhe1ta P de 12,7,12,5 e 9,1 meses nas zonas !, II, Ill, respPct1vamenteO nivel de mrcan1za~lO na prndu~~o dP mand1oca 1 na Colomb1a e ba1YO e esli l1m1t1do a prepara~io do trrreno cm urna pequena propor~ao da• un1dades prorlutnra• de mand1oca Ade -ma1s, como sera v1sto ad1antr, o uso da tecnolog1a qulm1ca tal como herb1c1das, pAra Pconom1zar mio-se-ob11 ~ quase nula E1s o porque da produ~io de mand1oc1 reguera urna quant1dadP cons¡der~ vel de mio-se-obra Os quadros ? e 3 mostram a m~o-de-obra usa da em cada at1v1dade de produ~io, por zona, lomanho de un1dade 1 de produ~io e método de prPpara~ao do terreno O uso total de m~o-de-obra se e~t1mou em 88 homens d1as por hectares quando pr! paro do terreno fo1 mecin1to e Pm 110 homens dlas/hettares quando se fez manuJlm2nte A rap1na 1ue utll17J aproA1madamente 40• da necess1dade total de m~o-de-obra i a at1v1d1de coma ma1or percentagem neste 1nsumo (f1gura 5) Segue a colhe1ta e a ~mbala gem com um pouro menos dP 301 da mio-de-obra, a prepara~io do terreno (22) e o plant1o (10) O uso da miio-de-obr a por 111 e 1 are, aumPnta a mPd~ da que cresce a area plantada com mandioca Este e, pnnc¡paliiP.!!_ te, o resultado do aumento no uso da m~o-de-obra para trabalho~1 de caplna a medida que a irea e ampliada As ma1ores necess1dades de mio-de-obra por hect! re na produ~io de mand1oca se apresentam nas ireas em decl1VP P aonde a prepar1~io da terra se faz manualmentr (119 homtns d1a/ hectare) A menor necess1dade de mio-de-obr1 se reg1stra na re g1ao da Costa Norte, aonde o preparo do solo se faz mecanlcamen-tP (67 homens d1a/ha) Cre-se que as razoes pr1nc1pa1s dessa grande dlferen~a sao 1-os d1versos m~todos de ptLpara~do do solo, l-um periodo vegetal1vo ma1s curto na RP91io da Costa Norte, 3-Cond1~ors ma1s d1fice1~ de trabalho nas arcas em dccl1ve, , 4-um solo ma1s favorivel na R• g1io da Costa Nor te lis neccss 1 da des de miío-de-obt a na Costa Norte sao nenores que em lcrtenos planos dev1ao ao m~lndo de prPpara~io do solo e pt1nc1palmerte a d1feren~a nos cuslos dr colheltd Encontrou-se urna var1a~ao cons1deravel na neces-Sldade de mio-de-obra entrt> d1versas at1v1dades em cada zona Apr~ Xlmaddmente 38% dos cult1vadores empregam 10 a 20 homens d1as por hectare para o preparo do terreno, 61 usa n1enos, 301 ut1l1za 20 -30 homPns d1as/hectarc e aprox1madamente 25% usa ma1s Todos os mand1ocultotes cntrev1stados na Reg1ao da losta Norte empregam entre 10 e 30 homens d1as/ha Aprox1mad1mcntP a mrtade dos agr1cultores empreya 5-10 homens d1as/ha para o plant10, 161 usa menos e 341 ma1s Somente 71 emprega menos de ¿o homen• d1as/h~ para as cap1nas, 39~ d~ 20 d 40 nomens d1as por hectare e um ma1s aa metade dos mand1ocultores emprega ma1s de 40 homens d1a~ ha A ma1or1a dos plantadores de mand1oca na zona 1 e 11 empoega 20 d 40 homens d1as/ha pata trabalhos de colhn¡ta e embalagcmmas a ma1or1a dos mandJocu1tores da Zona IIIusamcnosde20homens/d¡as'h¡¡, A preparo mccaolCO da terra rrquer aproxlmadame! te 8 homens d1as para produz1r urna tonelada de mand1oca enqu1nto a manual necess1La 10 homens d1as pata a mesma opera~io A necPs s1dade de mio-de-obra por tonelada de mand1oca vat1a cons1deravelmenle segundo o tamanho da un1dade de produ~io (quadro 4) Es ta var1a~io e causada em parte pela d1ferenya em quant1dade de mio-de-obra pot hectare e em parte por var1a~~es no rend1mento  En':lalagenPl n 10   ~Jl1carJo de rert lZilntes 1 2 Enprego de mio de-obra na produ~io de mandioca (hornens-d1a/h•) ~ed1a por tamanho de A est1mat1va de cu-;tos var1avr1s de produ~ao aparecr nos quddros 5,6,7,8 e 9 Part1u-se da >upors1~io que a d1ir1a era de 20 pesos Colomb1anos em todas as 7ona> Desse mo do se calcular1m os cu>tos de mio-de-obra m1rlt1pl1c1ndo por 20 a d1ir1a do empregado Os custos dos 1nsumos foram obt1dos du rante as entrevistas Ao custos de mio-de ohta representam x1madamente 60% do total dos custos var1iVLlS nas un1dades apr~ de 1 produ~~o cm quP se cmplega maqu1rJr1a par~ a prepara~ao do terreno e 90 a 95 1 aonde tal preparar,ilo e fc1ta manualmente As Jnvers5es em fertlllZJntcs e 1nset1C1das se fa zem ma1orcs 1 med1da que aumenta o tamanho da un1dade de prod! r,ao Isto refletP um md1or ntvel de tecnolog1a nas un1dades de produr,io de ma1or extensio e serve de expl 1car,ilo parc1al aos melhores rend1mcntos em un1dadcs de produr,io malares, como ~era v1sto a segu1r O total de custos var1ivcl~ ~ ma1or nas un1dades de produ~ao aonde a terta ~ prepdrada mecanJcamellte Isto se deve em patte, aos ma1ores custos dL prcparar,io mecan1ca do terteno, e tambem a m1101es nlvc1s de emprego de 1nsumos Os custos var1ive1s na Reg1io da Costa Norte silo mu1to ma1s ba1xos que Pm outras regJ5es Calcula-se que o custo var1ivel m~d1a nas unldadPs dP produr,ilo e de 2400 pesos Colombianos/ha Para calcular o total dos custos de produr,io pa~ t1u-~e da SUplSlr,io qtiC O VH10• mediO da terra e de 15000 peSOS Colomblanos/IIJ e que o aluquel anual da me~ma e de 12, Ao Pm pregar O valor med10 do terreno em lugar do valor rral de Clda un1dade de produr,io ~o obtcm um valor alto e d1storc1do de (US tos de produr,i1 nas rBgl5es aonde a terra custa pouco, e u1n valor ba1xo em rcgl5es com alto custo de terras No entretanlo nio fo1 posslvel obte1 d1dos conf1ive1s sobre o valor da terra em un1dades de produr.io da amostra Ass1m senda, os custos to ta1s foram est1mados como mPdla de todas as un1dades de produ -~ao Os cus tos de transporte foram obt1dos nas entrev1stas e as taxa~ de Jllros do cap1tal de opera~5es foram est1madas em 24% ao ano Finalmente se ad1c1onou urna quant1dade 1gual a ?0% dos custos tota1s est1mados para cobr1r os custos nao Jncluldos prcv1amente, ta1s como, adm,n1strar,io, proter,io contra roubos ' da colhe1ta, etc L a:J oo 3 , 7 6 00 1 8 320 00 13 1 ¿o oc 5 le. . ( -)  2 oo8 1 7 100 21520 00 20136 00 5'1 OSo 00 41 153 6 00 1 212 278,00 1 964 00 1 1 4,   _f~ E R_C 1}_ D--=0--\"-E ----' P-' R.;_;:I:. <.:_O S Pot1co ma1s da metadc dos m1nd1ocultorrs vendcu a mand1oca na un1dade de p1 odu~ao ao pouco q•ll o restante levou a produto ao mercado Sete mand1orultores ILndcram mand1oca P! ra processamcnto e o rcsL1nte vendLU d1retamrnte ao consumo hu mano S~ tr~s mantllocultorr~ (da lona I) vcndrram a m111d1ora an tes de colh~-la ~esse caso o comprador se LJIC1rregou da colhe1 ta rom frequcnc1a 1 man<hoca e produz1da a grandes d1stanc1as do~ centros de con~umo e as v1as ~e acesso sao d1ferentes ou nio cx1stem AdPrndlS, a so Ass1m sendo, hi com f1<qucnc1a ~and1oca ~ um produto volum~ problemds de transportP e se reg1strem altos custos O veTculos ma1s usado pdra o transporte e o cam1nhio m~~ mu1tos m1nd1ocultorcs \"mpregam an1ma1s , espec1almentc burros para transportar wand1oc¡ ao mLtLado ou a e~trada aonde a Larga e tran~ladada para L~minhao, on1bus C\\0 consum1dor A medla dos pre~os pagos aos mandlOCUltores da amostra antes de real1zar o lcvant1mcnto fo1 de 769 pesos/t En controu-se urna d1fcren~a cons1derivel entre o~ precos pagos aos pequenos produtores em cump1ra~ao com os rLceb1dos pelos grandes Os produtores que t1nham urna irra plantada menor que do1s hectares recebcram 70% do prc~o pago iqueles que possu1am 10 ou malS hectares (qlladro 11) Os dados obtidOS no levantamPnto nao 1nd1cam claramente a causa dcssa d1fcre~a de preGO~ Urna expll-ca~ao pode ser a 2co.1om 1 a que reprL>PII ca o tdnanho da carga no transporte e outras at1~1dade~ de mercado Adema1s, e possivel que as pequenas un1dades de ptodu~io tPndam a encontrar-se' local1zadas a m11or d1stanc1as das estrados e dos centros de consumo que as un1dadcs de produ~ao ma1ore~. detetm1nartlc altos • -----------9SS,07 7b9 3( -------------------------------------------------Tendo-se em conta a dados obt1dos, a ampla v1r1a.;ao dos tos entre as d1fetentes un1dade~ de natu1e1a prel1m1nar dos custos, pre~os e rend1mPn -ptodu~ao e a fdltd de c51 culos prec1sos sobre o valor da terra, qualquer calculo que se f1zesse das ut1l1dades lfqu1das para o mand1ocultot ser1a ~u perf1c1al Adema1s, tantos os pre~os como rr1stos aumentaram cons1deravelmente depo1s do levantamento ter sido conclufdo flo entretanto, pa1ece que os pre~os da mandioca aumentaram ma1s que os custos de produ~ao Oessa mane11a, os lucro~ liqu1dos aqu1 est1mados podem ser menores que as rea1s no momento em que este 1nforme esta sendo red1g1do Este 1nforme de~crPVP o proc ~so dP produ~io de mandiOCa na Colombia A dL~Crl~io e breve e a lnforna~io i dP cariter prcl1m1na1 Fo1 dadJ enf1sc a rlcscr1~io das prat1cas de produ~ao e ao uso e custos de 1nsumos Os resultados dessc cstu do derdm subsld1o~ p1ra rcal1zar urna an~l1sc ma1s ampld e compl! ta dos fatores que l1m1tam a produ~ao e pro• 1 ut1v1dade da mand1o ca, 1 qual esta senda plPsentemente real1z1da Os dados Pmpregados para esta analiSe forar1 obt1dos em 300 un1dades de produ~io de 17 departamentos Colom -b1anosAs prat1cas de cult1vo na ,,,,,or1a das un1dades de produ~io da amost1a consrstem cm 1) preparo do solo, em mu1 tos casos de forma l u d1mentar, 2) plant1o, 3) caplnds, 4) colhe1ta 1 \"dema1s, se faz 1eplant1o e se aplFdlll 111~el1cl das e fert1l1zantes em algtJma~ un1dades de ¡Jtodu~ao \"mandlOLa é produz1da como cultl•/o Intercalar com m1ll.o, banan1, 1nhame ou felJaO numa tet~a parte da un1dadc de ptodu~ao amostra cd fe da \" nTvel de tecnoloy1a para a produ~ao de mand1~ ca foi aba1xo Vcr1f1cou-~c que o preparo do 'erreno se faz tiiL can1camente cm r• duz1do numet o de un t<hde~ <le pt odur;1o Nao se constatou o uso de nenhuma outra rlas<e da míqtllnas 111 produt;ao' de m a n d 10 e a O e m p re g o de fe r t 1 11 7 d n tes e 1 n s\" t 1 e 1 da~ f o 1 11 m_1 tado e herb1c1da nao e apl1cado Nenhum do~ agncullores usa 1rr1ga~ao 0 USO de cred1t0 e ass1stenc1a lccn¡ca para a produt;io de mand1oca fo1 l1m1tadoConclu1-~r que a produ~io le mand1oca na Colom b1a se base1a em met¡dos trat11cton11S e que il terra e mao deobra tepreSPIItam a grande h1a1orta dos rccutsos emprcgJdos O uso da I'IJo-de-obt el IJOr hcr tal e, va1 1 ou les de 67 homens d1a, na qeg1ao da Costa Norte ondeo trtrtno é preparado rnPcanlcamentP, até 119 homens d1a nas rncostas, ondeo pr~ paro do terreno~ manual Em med1a os mand1ocultotcs que preparam o terr~nomrcan1C111Lnt?, gastat am 88 l•nmem-d1a/ha enquanto que com preparo manual do tert~no se gastaral'l 110 homens-dla/ha As cap1nas fo1 a at1v1dade que emprcgou urna ma1or quant1dade de mio-de-obra, segu1da pela colhe1ta e rmbalJgcm, preparo do solo e plant1o Calcula-se que o emprego de mio-dr-obra por tonelada de mand1oca é aprox1madamcnte 8 e 10 homens-d1a com ptcparo ma nual e mecanlCO do terreno, respeCllvamente 0 rend1ment0 med10 de mandlOLa foi P~t1mado Cm 11 t/ha mu1to embora se reg1strasse urna var1n~io cons1deravtl entre as un1dades de produ~io Nio fo1 encontrada nenhuma rela-  ","tokenCount":"3459"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"062a9b7bd42efa734cd55c016c34433b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/77d78156-3972-45cf-b46c-9392a58dbf6a/retrieve","id":"252068940"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"06ddb8c8-0a84-429b-9e98-e7f6eb6c96d0","pagecount":"8","content":"Managing the sustainability of digital agriculture projects 3) verify that indicators of sustainability have been achieved during the project close-off process. The recent CTA workshop on 'catalysing actionable knowledge to enhance next-generation ACP agribusiness through digitalisation' identified five intersecting drivers that explain what farmer-oriented agribusiness expect to achieve by investing in digitalisation: reduce risk, raise productivity, increase efficiency, improve decisions, and enhance market access. Participants argued that digital interventions all serve one or more of these, depending on specific local needs and situations. A critical factor underpinning what works in all these areas is the economic sustainability of the business models used to deliver value and services. This brief by Valarie Pilgrim argues that the sustainability of digital agribusiness projects can be enhanced through three main steps: 1) plan for sustainability in the initial project design, 2) monitor sustainability readiness throughout the life-cycle of the project, and Experience capitalisation series18 CTA Technical BriefAgriculture in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries faces numerous constraints to competitiveness, including weaknesses in extension services, market access and supply chains, disaster management and early warning systems, food safety and traceability, financial inclusion, insurance and risk management, and policy management. It also suffers from low yields, high post-harvest losses and high cost of labour and other inputs. Many of these can be addressed through digital technologies such as cloud computing, mobile networks, Internet of things, artificial intelligence, aerial images from satellites or drones, weather forecasts and soil sensors. This has the potential to boost the performance of the agriculture sector.The typical approach to digital agricultural interventions in ACP countries has been for donors to support agri-tech start-ups, including testing of business models to deliver fee-based digital agriculture services to farmers. Many of these efforts have focused on smallholder farmers but few have proved sustainable.Reviews point to some key issues that influence the sustainability of projects: project design, implementation arrangements and post-completion arrangements (Table 1). Addressing these should enhance the sustainability of digital agriculture projects. A recent CTA publication (Shepherd, 2016) evaluating the performance of digital agriculture projects using agri-tech start-ups found several factors that influence sustainability of these projects. These included poorly designed business models; technology-focused rather than user-centric design approaches; poor implementation arrangements; and inadequate post-completion arrangements.The studies found that project business models commonly were not based on a sound understanding of:n client segments, how products/services can be targeted to each segment, each segment's ability and/or willingness to pay;n appropriate product pricing and product bundling strategies;n the most effective payment methods for each customer segment; and/or n benefits of strategic partnerships.There is also inadequate attention to 'non-technical' business processes such as product introduction, marketing, customer communications and financial management.Some digital agriculture solutions are not appropriate to the needs of the target farmers, leading to farmer dissatisfaction with the digital agriculture services delivered by the start-up. This may stem from a technology-focused approach rather than a user-centric approach to designing solutions (and business models) where there is inadequate participation by customers in the design of the services and in the testing and validation of business models before business start-up.Experience capitalisation series 3Managing the sustainability of digital agriculture projects \"Some digital agriculture solutions are not appropriate to the needs of the target farmers, leading to farmer dissatisfaction.\"The most common failing in implementation arrangements is inadequate attention to monitoring and evaluating business performance. Projects commonly allocate insufficient resources to monitoring operating costs, revenue, customer satisfaction, managerial capacity, operating systems and such like. They also fail to adjust levels of business development support provided under the implementation phase to ensure that the start-up is sufficiently robust by the time the project ends.The reviews found that projects are paying too little attention to the business environment and strategic linkages. There is also too little emphasis on creating a moreenabling policy, legislative, regulatory and institutional framework for the operations of the start-ups. This might include, for example, policies and/or legislation related to drones or public-private partnerships for the delivery of e-extension services.Projects are also not giving adequate attention to establishing the strategic partnerships or linkages that are important to the survival and growth of the start-up, including with public-or private-sector partners, financial institutions and policy-makers.Managing for sustainability includes:1. developing a sustainability plan (or exit strategy) during the design phase that is aimed at achieving the conditions necessary for sustainability (sustainabilityreadiness) before the completion of the project;2. executing the sustainability plan during the implementation phase, taking any corrective actions necessary to achieve sustainability readiness by project completion; and3. verifying sustainability readiness (including the adequacy of postcompletion arrangements) as a part of project close-off.Managing for sustainability is a participatory process that includes all stakeholders with a role in achieving readiness.The promised revolution of the agriculture sector through private-sector-led introduction of digital technologies will only be realised if digital agriculture interventions give more attention to managing for project sustainability. Sustainability is not easy but neither is it unattainable. We can, however, build on the lessons learned to date and plan for sustainability, monitor sustainability readiness and verify achievement at close-off.The steps involved in planning for sustainability include the following:1. Assess (i) the needs and/or expectations of all key stakeholders, including each customer segment; and (ii) the environment (policy, legislative, regulatory and institutional) in which the digital agriculture start-up will operate.2. Identify the results to be achieved by the start-up and the project by project completion.3. Identify the conditions that are required to sustain the delivery of services to each customer segment, including smallholder farmers, beyond project completion (i.e. conditions that represent sustainability readiness). These may include political support; strong customer satisfaction and commitment; financial selfsufficiency; fully functioning business systems; a more-enabling business environment; and strategic partnerships.4. Identify the risks to achieving sustainability readiness by project completion and actions to mitigate these risks.5. Formulate a sustainability plan detailing the conditions that represent sustainability readiness, indicators to signify that these conditions have been achieved, and the actions to be taken to achieve these conditions on or before the point of project completion.6. Integrate the elements of the sustainability plan into the project design (which may lead to changes in original decisions related to scope and duration of the project, or changes to the criteria for the selection of entrepreneurs to ensure achievement of sustainability readiness at project completion).Progress towards sustainability readiness should be actively monitored during the implementation phase, taking any corrective actions necessary to achieve readiness at project completion. For the agri-tech startup, one indicator might be the level of customer growth. During implementation, the team should be asking \"What is the current level of customer growth and how does it compare with projections to achieve sustainability?\" If the growth rate is seriously lagging projections, it may mean that there is a requirement for more research on customer needs and for tweaking the business model to improve the service and approach to reaching the customer.The final step is to check for and verify that sustainability readiness has been achievedas part of the project close-off process. It is important to check all the conditions for sustainability, including the softer/nonfinancial ones such as \"strategic linkages established\" or \"all related intellectual property is adequately protected.\" Sometimes a project must be brought to a close before all conditions for sustainability have been achieved. When this occurs, a list of follow-up actions should be prepared for implementation by the start-up post-project.We are trying a bold experiment to further transform the agricultural sector. We are injecting agri-tech start-ups into (formal or informal) agricultural value chains with the expectation that these enterprises can make a sustainable contribution to improving competitiveness. A sustained contribution, however, means that the start-up must itself be sustainable. As we move forward with this bold experiment, it is incumbent on us all to realise that the future competitiveness of the agricultural sector may well be determined by how well we grasp these fundamental concepts related to project sustainability as we explore the potential benefits that digital technologies can bring to the agricultural sector.CTA Technical Briefs document experience and learning in topical issues of interest to the ACP agricultural development community. They are intended as a practical guide for people involved in an issue professionally or for people with a strong interest in the topic.Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation P.O. Box 380 -6700 AJ Wageningen -The Netherlands Tel: +31 (0) 317 467 100 | E-mail: cta@cta.int | www.cta.int","tokenCount":"1391"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2e26c0f38b6b9d08d52dd0a5a3bfaa3d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c97e1907-04d3-4b76-babf-d4581f1857bf/retrieve","id":"-513507904"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2f976bb9-9d95-4524-bbbb-6eaf2f5ce734","pagecount":"113","content":"The authors thank the farmers, fam ilies and users of the small watersheds Los Zanjones, and Guadualito, en the village La Laguna, and the small watershed of the Guaricoché, made up of the villages Primavera and Buenavista ofthe Municipality ofCalcondo, Cauca (Colombia).In this same manner, we appreciate the fieldwork of Marleny Aranda who participated in the calling the communities together.The Figure represents the set of methodological instruments in the series. In the centre are seen eight instruments that can be grouped in the following way: in green, Participative Method for Identifying and Classifyíng Locallndicators of Soil Quality at the Small Watershed Level; Analysis of Land Use Tendencies; Mappíng, Analysis and Participative Monitoring of Natural Resources in a Small Watershed, are the instruments that permít the identification, analysis and prioritisation of biophysical components, that is, the natural resources at the level offarm, small watershed and subwatershed.In blue, the instrument for Methodological Analysis of Interest Groups for Collective Management of Natural Resources in Small Watersheds and the one that refers to Identification of Lifestyle Levels for the Construction of Local Profiles of Rural Poverty, are tools that permit the identification of relations between different natural resource users. The identification of lifestyle levels perm its the classification of socioeconomic components at the level of villages, towns and regions.In yellow, Atlas of Yorito and Sulaco, Yoro (Honduras), is the instrument that typifies the integration, analysis and presentation, through the use of maps, of data generated by the instruments represented in green and blue.In orange, Identification and Evaluation of Marketing Opportuníties for Small Rural Producers and Utilisation of Simulation Models for Ex-ante Evaluation, are the instruments that facilitate the design of alternative panoramas tor planning production at the farm and small watershed level.Enclosing these eight instruments and in purple, Development of Organisational Processes at the Local Level for Collective Management of Natural Resources, is the tool that permits: (a) the definition of the col/ective use of the other instruments, and (b) the popularisation of the results obtained by their use. It is the instrument useful for community organisation in order to improve decision-making about the collective management ot the natural resources at the watershed level.This Guide has two objectives. The first is to present a methodology stimulate and adopl collective action (CA) in Natural Resourees Management(NRM). The second is lo allow readers, researchers, and trainers to develop and multiply Ihe methodology in other training events or similarworkshops. This guide is addressed lo lechnicians and researchers that work with farmers and other users of natural resourees foeusing NRM beyond Ihe farm, woodlol or water souree, to deal with the larger context of the watershed.Knowledge of semi-structured interviews and group dynamics are considered prerequisites for Ihe use of this guide. Therefore, when these techniques are laking, a previous training must be earried out to enable participants in the workshop to complete the tasks thal refer lo theiruse.The cenlral premise of this method is that natural resource management is nearly always sel within the context of multiple interests that may be in conflict. Therefore, il is fundamental that any initiative towards improving natural resource management be based on the understanding of interests of all the users involved in their management.The method presented in this Guide has been developed with the aim of identifying these divergent interests and facilitating a process through which the different stakeholders can negotiate their interests in an open manner, and achieve agreements and concrete proposals aboul how to improve natural resource management. It consists of a process tha! begins wilh meetings, interviews and analysis during which the technician or researcher plays the role of a facilitator. Natural to this process is getting NR users to know each other to be able to come to consensus around !he need for and the potential returns from a collective, agreed upon NR management. This Guide describes the stakeholder analysis process up to the point at which the perceived problems and conflicts related to natural resource management are identified. The process will need to include the negolíation of these interests and theformulatíon and implementabon of concrete proposals for improving Ihe management of said resources.When a process of analysis and discussion between the users of natural resources is undertaken, there is an increase in Ihe expeclations among the participanls Ihat some improvement is going lo be seen. Facilitators or leading instilulions in this process should be aware of Ihis, and avoid creating false expeclations to avoid frustration of well-meant expectations. This implies a great responsibility in the facilitators (persons and institutions) that use the methodology to hold the process of problem analysis and negotiation un!il they are prepared to follow through to the end and obtain concrete proposals.The series of Guides dealing with Methodological Instruments for Decision Making In Natural Resource Management addresses to two types of users.The first, made up of professionals and technical personnel that work for organisms and institutions in the private and public sectors, dedicated to research, development and training in natural resource management. This level of users can take advantage of the guides to support planning, execution, follow up, and evaluation of their initiatives in their areas of action. It is expected that this group, once trained in the use of the methodologies will exercise a role of multiplier for hundreds of professionals, technicians, volunteers, and producers in promoting, analysing and adapting these methodologies towards decision making in natural resource management at the local, regional and nationallevels.The second group of users is made up of those who are the legitimate inheritors of the proposals for natural resource management, developed through research and presented in the guides: the inhabitants of the watersheds in tropical America. These people, through training, consulting and support by a variety of non-governmental organisations and state agencies, will be able to make the methods and strategies presented herein their own, in order to actively participate in the management and conservation of natural resources.These materíals are especially dedicated to teachers in the faculties and schools of agricultural and environmental sciences and those ín schools of natural resources. Theyare the ones that form the professionals who will accompany the agricultural communities, in the immediate future, in the difficult task of maintaining or recuperating the natural resources placed in their custodyfor generations to come..~'.' The series Training Guides about Mefhodologícal Instruments for Decision-Making in Natural Resource Management, follows an educational model based on learning by doing. This model proposes trainers, a training path in which the input information,(left square} resulting from field research, serves as raw material for developing abilities, skills, and attitudes (center square) required by the ultimate users in making the proper decisions related to natural resource management.The users of these guides will observe that the methodological components differ from other materials for dissemination of technologies. Each one of the sections into which the guides are divided contains design elements that allow the trainer to exercise his job as a learning facilitator.The Guides are oriented by a set of objectives that enable facilitators and participants to direct the leaming process. This is accomplished through exercises from the field or other practical work, in which the processes of analysis and decision making are practised, using walks, simulations, roleplays, and applying different instruments for information collection and analysis.Other components include the feedback sessions, (right square) in which the training participants, together with the trainers, have the opportunity to review the completed exercises and consider in more detail those aspects !ha! should be reinforced. The feedback information constitutes the last portion of each session in the guide and is the preferred space for the trainer and the participants to accomplish conceptual 'and me!hodological synthesis of each aspect.In summary, the model is made up of three elements: (1) the technical and strategic information, that is the product of research and constitutes the technological content necessary for making decisions; (2) the exercises, presented in the form of exeriences to be performed in the training site and field activities, directed towards the development of abilities, skills and altitudes for decision making; and (3) the feedback information that is a kind of formative evaluation to ensure that the participants master the underlying theoretical principies and their proper application.Exercises are the central axis of the training and stimulate the reality lived by those who use the decision making instruments presented in each guide. Through the exercises the participants in the training apply the instruments, ha ve a chance to face the difficulties that arise from their application at the locallevel, and observe the advantages and opportunities they offer in the different decision making environments in the local or regional context of each country.The exercises inc/uded in the guides were extracted from the local research experiences of the authors in small watersheds in Honduras, Nicaragua and Colombia. However, the trainers from other countries and regions will be able to extrae! excellent examples and cases from their own research projects to redesign the exercises and adapt them to the local context. Each trainer has in hand guides that are flexible instruments that can be adapted to the needs of different audiences in different settings.It is important that the users of these guides (trainers, facilitators and end users) understand the funclional role offered by their didactic structure. It is the didactic format that makes a difference in training people to use the decision support instruments. En usersare the ones who decide to introduce these instruments in the development process at the locallevel.The methological model emphasizes the use of flowcharts and diagrams to help Ihe Irainers in the presentation of the diffe1-ent sections. A series of teaching aids are included: the opening questions, which allow the establishment of a dialogue and promote the motivation of the audience before entering into theoretical detail; originals for transparencies that can be adapted for different needs, inlroducing adjustments in their presentation; the appendices cited in the text will help study in depth those aspects briefly treated in each seclion; the recommended exercises which can be adapted or substituted by others about problems relevant lo the local audience; the feedback sessions, in which il is also possible to include local, regional or national data to make them more relevant lo the audience and to fix knowledge. Finally, didactic appendices are included (post-test, evaluation of the trainer's performance, evaluation of the event, evaluation of the material, etc.) that help lo complementthetraining activities. The figure shows the dynamics of the methodology for stakeholder analysis. Five steps are described that need be completed to understand the problems and conflicts about natural resource use and to identify the stakeholder groups and their interrelationships. These are the steps:1. Selection oftheworkarea. In order to follow the logic of the Figure, these five steps or actions imply the answers to essential questions that may arise when the purpose and objectives of the methodology for stakeholder analysis are presented. To apply the methodology to a real situation, with the aim offacilitating the process of col/ective NR management, the first question will be:Where is the application ofthis methodology possible?To achieve the besl results from col/ective action that represents all stakeholder groups, it is important to improve personal contact. This can be achieved following the considerations for selecting Ihe work area that appear below:-Contiguous natural areas -Between 25 and 150 hectares -Between 20 and 40 fam ilies -Additionally, other criteria of selection related to specific local conditions.After identifying the work area, the next questíon will be:How can we present the idea of collective management of NR to the farmers and how can we identify their interests in order to solve the problems and conflicts in a collective manner?It is necessary lo organise a meeting wíth the farmers. In the guide thís ís called approach and survey of interesls -firsl meeting, wíth the following points:-Presentation of the participanls.-Clarifieation oflhe expeetations and objeetives.-Colleetive analysis of a fietitious drawing.-Survey ofthe present problems of NR managemenl tha! exist in the watershed.-Clarification about the contributions ofthe leading instítution.-Survey of user interes! in participating in the project.-Proposals forfuture aetions (second meeting and personal interviews).-Aeknowledgements and elosure.If an interest exists among the farmers in continuing the col/aboration among themselves and with the facilitators, the next question will be:How do we understand the use, problems and conflicts of NR management and how do we ensure that stakeholders are identified, with the aim of involving them in the process of decision making?The answer will be to undertake personal interviews and to make an interpretation, based on the analysis of the data obtained in the personal interviews.The logical process to do the interview will be:-An interviewwith a user randomly chosen (Iocalleader, well known family) -Analysis of the central ideas, perceptions, and concerns regarding NR management in the watershed with the aim of making a preliminary interpretation of the central ideas.-An interview with users suggested by the first family interviewed that have different perceptions. Presentation ofthe interpretation based on the interviewwith the first family.-Analysis of the central ideas, perceptions and concerns regarding NRM second interpretation.-An interview with the users that have different points of view suggested by the second user. Presentation of the interpretation based on the first interviews.-End of the interview process, if the same families are repeatedly named and there is no more variation.Keeping in mind the analysis of the information collected during the personal interviews, the interpretation ofthis information should respond to the following questions -\\/\\/hat are the uses given to natural resources? -\\/\\/hat are the problems perceived regarding the use of natural resources? -\\/\\/hat are the conflicts or disagreements present in the watershed? -\\/\\/hat are the stakeholder groups and what are the factors that define these groups?The personal interviews have the objective of identifying hidden information and their interpretation is designed to organise and illustrate the version used by the facilitators about the problems and conflicts related to NRM. But the question is still the same: How do we present these results to the farmers, how do we make the conflicts known without compromising the persons interviewed and how do we facilitate the analysis and discussion among the farmers?We suggest that a second meeting with farmers to identify the stakeholder groups. In this meeting, we follow these steps:-Clarification of expectations.-Presentation ofthe interpretation made by the institution.-Discussion and modification ofthe interpretation, in plenary meeting.-Discussion and modification of the interpretation, in groups. In plenary meeting, unification of the interpretations modified earlier in the interest groups.-Proposal forfuture actions.-Final survey about interest in the project by the watershed users.-Commitments and planning forfuture actions.The foregoing clarifications present the dynamics of Ihe methodology for analysis of stakeholder groups. In Ihis guide, in addilion lo presenling the sleps for the analysis, we argue in favor of colleclive action, and Ihe identificalion and participation of all of stakeholder groups. Finally, the manual is designed with exercises and illustrations Ihat can be utilised lo present the analysis of Ihe slakeholders lo other facilitators.Below, you are asked lo answer a few questions. This is not a tesl, ralher an exercise that will allow you to know your perceptions and knowledge about the topics and problems related to natural resource management, collective action and stakeholder analysis.What can be done to solve problems related to natural resource management, such as water sources, erosion control and insect plagues, and others that farmers are not able lo solve individually?Why do some attempls al collective action fail?How can we discuss calmly about conflicls of inleresl between farmers?How can we ensure thal all stakeholder groups are represented?How can we achieve a basis for negotiation for the col/ective management of N R?Now you have examined your perception and knowledge about collective action, conflicting interests, and solutions to problems. Now compare your answers with our suggestions regading each questioin. The guide will respond these questions in depth.For question 1The problems about natural resource management require the combined action of the farmers, because this affects other farmers. This is what is called collective management of natural resources.There can be various answers, for example:-Agreement takes time; time that Ihe farmer prefers lo invesl in somelhing he considers more productive or that will give more immediate results.-The farmer is not sure that if he does something, his neighbour will do the same.-The differences, and even the conflicts, between neighbours make it hard to communicate.-It is nol known which problems are common to many or ail of them.-They do not know or appreciate the advantages or retums of coilective action. Thus, each one tries to solve his own problems.Additionally, it is necessary to emphasise that the attempts to organise farmers often fail, given that not all stakeholders are included. Thus, some interests are not represented and the people who have not been included will not participate in Ihe aclion, even though the idea is that all are involved in the search for solutions.The recommendation is to present to ail of the farmers with an interpretation of the problems of natural resource management, based on a collective analysis and on personal interviews.First, it is important to identify the stakeholders in the region. The consulting institution should work withín an integrated natural area, not more than 25 to 125 hectares that hold 20 to 40 families. Second, the interviews should be made applying a sampling method for maximum variationThe method of presenting an interpretation of the personal interviews is a good basis for a collective analysis and for specifying common action.The objective of the methodology for Stakeholder Analysis is to stimulate collective action of natural resources and identify those groups thal have contradictory opinions aboul their use.The objectives ofthis Guide are:./ To improve the understanding about collective management of natural resources . • What can be done to solve problems related to natural resource management, such as water sources, erosion control and insect plagues, and others that farmers are not able to solve individually?• Why do sorne attempts at collective action fail?• How can we discuss calmly about conflicts of ¡nterest between farmers?• How can we assure that all stakeholder groups are represented?• How can we achieve a basis for negotiation for the collective management of NR?Groupín -1.4  After studying this section, the participants should be able to:v' Recognise the importance of col/ective action in natural resource use.v' Identify the main objectives of col/ective action.v' Describe the col/ective action facilitation process.Orientation Questions After studying this topic, the participan! will be able lo define 'collective action' and explain how it can be used lo attack problems relaled to natural resource management.Problems related to natural resource management in agriculture generally extend beyond a plol or a farm. Events that taking place in one sector of the watershed are influenced by the management practices in every other sector. Problems of water quantity and quality, soil erosion, crop disease and insects are all examples of this interdependence in space and time. Some form of collective action among landusers is required to co-ordinate the different management schemes in the shared space and time.In the agricultural systems and hillsides in Latin America many watersheds are managed by small farmers who are landowners. These areas, together with other natural resources and the day labour work on otherfarms, make up Ihe economic basis of subsistence.Decisions about how to manage the land, water and other resources tend to be made individually and depend on particular decisions related to family subsistence, rather than depending on a vision of the entire landscape and of the other users in the same system. This implies that users of a watershed lose the perspective of the land resource including the flow of water, the movement of organic materials in the soil, and the diversíty of the landscape, which could be managed in a shared manner.The objective of collective action is to search for ways to promote actions tor day-to-day resource management based on agreement between the landscape users. In this manner, it is possible to approach natural resource management problems that cannot be solved efficiently by indivíduals workíng alone.Co/lective actíon in the management of a watershed is developed within the context of diversity. In hillside zones of the Andes, for example, we find large quantities of resources, both prívate and offree public access. Each resource is assocíated with a series of complex and generally conflicting interests, perpetuated by those stakeholders that hold them unlawfully, both withín and outside of the watershed.Example ofvariability in a small watershed Why Do We Want to Promote Col/ective Action? 1 -3Due to the biophysical interdependence that exists between land resources, their successful management depends on the identification and understanding of the different stakeholders and the use they make ofthem. To ascend in scale from crops to natural resourcesand, at the same time, from fields to landscapes il!1plies that to charactarize land use bythe same dimensions traditionally used in agricultura(research is not enough. Diverse methodologies are useful to work with farmers who make decisions in a participative way, but at the end of the investigation the recommendations, adoptions or adaptations of the technologies are implemented in an individual manner, solving isolated problems that do not necessarily involve thecommunity to which these farmers belong.Several aspects come to play in researching agricultural systems:• the use of nonagriculturalland,• the position of a particularfield,• a crop or a practice within the landscape,• the degree of farmer's involvement in the use of land,• the religion to which he or she belongs,• the ethnic group.From a methodological point of view, the problem is that the specific factors that define the existence of different stakeholders in a watershed vary from site to site, depending on each individual case in the management of the landscape. This makes difficult the identification of stakeholders based on a predetermined list of possible factors.Due to the biophysical nature of the problems related to natural resource management, it is of utmost importance to work in neighboring areas and with all their users.To determine the proper size ofthework area it is important lo analyse again the factors that normally impede collective action. These include the time needed for the farmers to communicate wilh each other, the lack of trust, and Ihe lack of knowledge about the conditions and the problems faced by other neighours. An important element for building mutual confidence between the users, and to evaluate if everyone is fulfilling the community agreements, is to facilitate for them the opportunity to meet personally and get to know each other. Forthis strategy to be practical, it is convenient thal the area not be too large --implying a lot of time in transportation --and also that the groups of users be relatively small, say between 20 and 40fam ilies.Why Do We Want to Promote Collectíve Actíon? 1 -5Stakeholder ro, Analysls Collecüve Management of Natural R&souTCes ... ; .... ,• . . Once the work area and its users have been identified, one of the first tasks in the process of promoting collective action is to cultivate the idea that through collective action viable solutions can be found to some of the problems in natural resources management in the watershed.One concrete way of increasing the appreciation of the importance of collective actíon is through a drawing of an imaginary landscape Jike the one shown in Figure 1.2. The drawing shows a series of activities tha! different people are carrying out within the landscape. One person is fishing, but apparently without much luck, another person is happy, fum igating his tomato crop; meanwhile, black water is flowing from the outhouse directiy to the river. Across the way, aman is resting as he burns his lot, while a lady neighbor appears to be very worried about what may happen to her corn crop. This drawing lends itself to collective analysis of the situations that can occur in an area, and about how different people are linked with it. This study is the starting point towards the analysis of the real situation in the watershed. It is proposed that the analysis of the drawing of the fiticious landscape and the that of the real situation constitute the central topic of the firsl meeling wilh neighbours in Ihe watershed.Before extending invitations to the meeting it is necessary to make rapid survey about possible meeting sites. II is almost inevitable that a particular place be favorable for one sector of the watershed and less favorable for other sectors. Additionally, the site may be associated with an ethnic group, an aspect that makes it difficult or uneasy for other groups willing to participate in the meetings. It is therefore recommended to seek neutral sites and altemate between them avoiding to favourthe same sector of the watershed.Why Do We Want to Promote Collective Action? 1 -7Stakeholder for Analysis Ca/lectiV8 Management of Natural Resources The objective of this meeting is to present the collective action initiative to the watershed users and emphasise the importance of collective action in natural resource management. A first response is sought from the group of users about their interest to participate in the project.At the time of the first meeting it is most likely that all of the participants will not have a clear understanding ofwords such as 'natural resources' and 'collective action'. Therefore, some of them might request more information about these concepts. However, according to experience, it may be premature to make this clarification in the first meeting. An effort to do so might be biased in favour of those participants who are more extrovert and who are more educated in these topic. For this reason, it is premature to try to reach a clarification about problems related to natural resource management, because this may inhibit opiníons of some participants regarding problems and possíble solutions presented by the most vocal participants. The idea in this first meeting os to make it easy for all to have an opportunity to participate in the process of problem definition and planning possible solutions.In summary, the first meeting is not to analyse problems, but rather to present the inititiative, to explore the interest it awakens for collective action, and to motivate participants so that they ponder over natural resource management problems individually, without imposing fixed concepts and perceptions.The total time recommended for the first meeting should not exceed 2 hours.StepsTo beging with, it is important to create a relaxed atmosphere, thereby breaking down the protocols, the fears and the distance between the participants and between them and the facilitators. This can be achieved by referring to each other by their first names --no! by title-placing a small name tag on each person's shirt/blouse and involving them in a game or in a group dynamics exercise. Researchers and technicians also introduce themselves, presenting their background and institutional affiliation, and making reference to previous work experiences in the zone. Immediately thereafter, due to the fact that all present live in the same small watershed, it is important that each user tells where his farm or land is located within it. The facilitaror can invite themall to draw a map of the watershed using different kinds of materials such as sticks and stones. This may be first thing participants do at the meeting. As other community members arrive they can become integrated into the group around the map. In this way two purposes are served:1. take advantage ofthe time (until all arrive), and 2. involve all atendants in the topic to be dealt with during the meeting.1 -8 Why Do We Want to Promote Collective Action?Required time: Time varies depending on the number of participants. For groups of 20 people, introducing themselves may require from 15 to 20 minutes. The mapping of the watershed is optional and may take up to 25 minutes.Leading questions:-Who invited yo u? How did you find out about this meeting? -What motivated you to aUend this meeting? -Do you know the what the purpose ofthis meeting is? -What are your expectations for this meeting?Given that the participants may have different expectations regarding the objective of the meeting, it is important to clarify what is expected from them, and what is expected of the facilitators (their possible antendance in the future, for example). The opinions of those participants knowledgeable about the topic are solicited with the idea of reinforcing Ihe objective. Also, by means of the same responses the facilitators can clarify those topics that will not be dealt with in Ihis meeting.Requiredfime: 10minufesParticipants are asked to observe a drawing of a ficticious landscape (overhead Iransparency or drawing), hopefully painted in colour (Figure 1.2) and are asked questions in order to stimulate conversation about the topic. To obtain belter results from the drawing, it should contain the greatest possible number of conflicting situations, problems and interdependencies. Other alternatives for presentation include facilitating copies of the drawing to groups of 3 lo 4 participants lo elicit contrasting opinions. 1I is importanl that the participants state them according to their original perceptions. If this is difficult, the facilitator may utilize the following questions:- In this step, the farmers are asked to comment whether there are problems in their watershed similar to those observed in the drawing. This is to say, problems about natural resource management that can not be solved individually, bul require some sort of agreement, coordination, or collective action among users. They are asked lo brainstorm to allow each farmer lo mention those problems they face in real life in regards lo natural resource management.Ideas coming from the group are written on a flip chart. In this way, a first interpretation is built about those problems. It is important to point out that it is the audience and not the facililalors who are making the suggestions. The ideas should be clearly written and made visible lo all, using the same words expresed by the participanls, urging the participalion of everyone, especially the more passive ones. Facilitators should not try lo achieve a consensus, rather Ihey should collect the different opinions and points of view It is important to specify that collective problems are those that will be analysed for they involve more than one person--.Other problems and solutions will be laken into consideration during the following meelings . The firsl meeting is only a survey of interesls and a firsl opportunily lo estimate collective problems.Required time.' 20 minutes.In this step il is necessary to clarify the expectations farmers have, taking into consideration the survey made. It is necessary to state that Ihe organization responsible lo lead the collective action initiative, can carry out the technical solutions to problems identified, or facilitate Ihe contact with other institutions that may provide these solu!ions playing the role of intermediary. The responsable organizalion can also facilitate access to information Iha! may serve lo find solutions, and facilitate the organization and negotiation be!ween watershed users. It is important lo explain Ihat the agreemenl on collective action among users makes an essential part of the solution lo many problems related lo natural resource management. For example, the control of ants: this may be technically feasible, but if a farmer controls and his neighbor does not, the ants from Ihe neighbouring farm will cross over to the farm where the farmer has controlled. In this example, although the control of ants on one farm is technically efficient, it may not be effective due to lack of previous agreement among neighbours.Required time: 10 minutes. The aim here is to make a preliminary survey about the interest tha! the users may have to participate in the project. Participants are invited to express their opinions about the project. At this time a final decision is not made, ratherthe participants are encouraged to think about i with their families and neighbours after retuming home. It 5hould be made clear that the facilitators will accept lhe responsibility of motivating the participation of those neighbours who are not inclined to do so. It is not necessary to clearly define a particular problem, only to emphasise the collective action. A proposal is made to have another meeting to decide on participation.Required time: 5 minutes.In addition to plan for another meeting to ventilate opinions about the project in particular, permission is requested so that facilitators may have interviews with some of the watershed users conceming their opinions on natural resource management. This is done lo further strengthen Ihe analysis Ihat has jusI been carried out and to lisIen lo differing opinions, as is always the case in a particular zone. II is proposed that Ihese inlerviews be made belween the first and second meetings The projecl personnel promises lo presenl Ihe resulls of these interviews in the next meeting. A reminder is made aboul the place for Ihe next meeting, with the idea of altemating the places preferred by the different participants.Required time: 3 minutes.At the end of the meeting it is important to thank participants tor dedicating Ihe lime to altend, especially, to those who had to travel from far locations. It is al50 recommended to provide an additional opportunity for participants to formuate their final perceptions and expectations for the following meetings. At the end of this exercise, parlicipants will be able to identify reasons that justify the collective action when managing natural resources.This exercisecan be applied in twoways (a) y (b).(a) A short way, answering the True I False questionnaire, followed by a discussion by the entire group (Required time: 15 minutes), and(b) a more complete way, involving participation in groups (Required time: 30 minutes). At the end of the section for individual questions and answers, the participants meet in groups and compare the answers to each question.-Ifthe answers coincide, participants should write down under each topic, why it is true or false.-If the answers of the different members do not coincide, then they should discuss the reasons for their disagreement. If the discrepancies continue, they should be carried over to the larger plenary meeting where the answers are to be discussed. If there is a consensus, once again the reasons for each item to be true or false should be written down.• Worksheet True. In the same watershed resources can be used in different ways, depending on the situalion in the landscape, the social level of people, their believes and so on. This is how otherfarmers can be affected by their neighbours without noticing.Fa/se. Some farmers, for example, have have an acueduct, while others gel waterfrom other sources and, in many cases, do nol knowwhich resources are held bytheir neighbours.False. The problems relaled lo resource management cross farm boundaries and require agreement between farmers concerning decisions about how, when and where a natural resource needs to be collectively managed.True. They may coexist, nevertheless, an effort for participalion needs lo be foslerd.Fa/se. Nol only small farmers but grand land owners and cattle growers, may also cause erosionoFa/se. Many people are not aware they are affecting others with their actions. Farmers are not so sure thatlheir actions will have a collective response lo back them up. Afler completing this exercise, participants will be able to identify topics related to col/ective natural resource management.1. Ask participants to organize themselves in couples.2. Give each couple a copy of inslruclions tor the exercise.3. Ask the participanls lo be prepared lo share the resulls of Iheir work wilh the whole group.  where we receive all the contaminated water when they spray their gardens\".Do you also have problems with the cutting of the forest? Doas the water dry up in the springs?Why Do We Want to PromoteCollectíve Action? 1 -17  The possible topie is: Cutting of the forest.The possible topies are: Cutting the forests and spraying inseets.The possible topies are: Spraying inseets and flies and eutting the forests.The possible topies are: Cutting the forests, inseet spraying, flíes and eontamination of the water by sewage.The possible topies are: Cutting the forests, insect spraying, fijes, contamination of the water by sewage, and ants.The possible topics are: Cutting offorests, inseet spraying, flies, eontamination ofthe river by sewage, ants, andfires.Egon, G. Guba; Yvonna, S. Lineoln. Why 00 We Wantto Promote Collective Actíon? 1 -21 Opening Questions In order to successfully manage natural resources in a watershed, it is important to identify and understand the different kinds of users, and stakeholders present in the watershed. In their book Eva/uation of the Fourth Generation, Guba and Lincoln (1989) propose that the identification and analysis of stakeholders should be done as a constructivist open investigation. In the context of landscape management this is a process by which the users state theiropinions, perspectives, fears and anxieties; tha! is, their interpretations related to the landscape and to the resources there in.How can we obtain interpretations based on the personal problems of each user?Personal interviews are recommended to explore what different stakeholders think about a given situation. Generally in large meetings with farmers, the whole community is invited, but (he same people altend and, in the end, the burning problems can no! surface lhe social barriers and group pressures. There is afear of social punlshment or public repression for having expressed or carried out actions that run against the established order. In many occasions, those who think counter the majority or against powerful individuals, or pressure groups, are not bold enough to participate or express their opinions in meetings. Also, there are shy farmers or those who culturally are not permitted to speak in public, such as women.Ali ofthe opinions and conflie!:;; perceived by !hemwould not be taken up in a large. meeting.Experience has shown that in collective meetings or assemblies, opinions are oriented to show that all of the users sufferthe same problems, are homogeneous and are in agreement with all of the decisions. However, reality is differenr and disagreements are detected later over the use of resources from other stakeholders no! represented in Ihe meetings For example, slash and burn near river beds or the uncontrolled use of chem icals are hidden in large meetings Also, treating the conflicts of interest in a large meeting implies getting appart from the neighbours present, something that is not socially acceptable. In the Table 2. 1 so me of the characteristics of groups and p&rsonal interviews are compared.In order to facilitate personal interviews, we will use a format with six questions, (A.nnex 6.2). The first two questions explore persona! use of resources and the perceived related problems. The next two, explore the way each of the interviewees sees his resources to be affected by others as a result of the interdependence with neighbours. In a fifth question, we try to motivate the interviewee to think about the possibility of collective action. The last question makes sure that all of the stakeholders are identified.Method for Identifying Contrasüng Percepüons: The Personallnterview 2 -3Table 2.1Characteristics of personal and group interviews.Simple method.Underlying confticts are nol broughl to light.Less demanding with regard to leehniques for The more shy do nol voice their opinions. facililalion, discussion and managil1g groups.Dala are easier lo colleel and manage. Some sectors are afraid lo stand up lo the opposilion.The information shared lends to be more Those who have taken diffenng posilions reliable.againsl (he establishment are afraid lo be singled out.Not subject to group pressure. 1I is nol socially acceplable lo debale problems in public belween neighbours and risk making enemiesThe reliability of Ihe information can be easily verifted.Each person ínterviewed is asked to name another watershed user wr,o would be willing lo present a personal different oerceptioll to that of the interviewee. By interviewrng this person, the sample becomes what is called \"contras: sampling or maxlmum variation sampling\". The process of interview!ng and asking for nominations of new interviewees is repeated until the information becomes redundan! or gíves origin to two or more unrelated or unpaired interpretations.After each interview, the central topics, concepts, ideas, values, fears and proposals presented by the person interviewed are analysed by the interviewer and placed as the initial formulation of an interpretation. Aflerlhe following interviewee voluntarilyformulates his own perception, the toples suggested by the preeeeding interviewee are introduced as interview material and the new interviewee can eomment about these topies. The continual comparison and the analysis of contrasting and divergent points of view is one of the essential characteristics of the constructivist investigation and is a key factorwhen the aim is to identify the existence of conflicl of interests.For example, In La Recuparación, a small watershed of the Cabuyal River (see the example of variation between to neighbouring watersheds, No. 1.2), it was detected that the conflicts present in the area were related to the use offores! resources, the distribution of land caused by the variety of elevations and agroecological conditions in the area and the distribution of drinking water, including the sabotage of water pipes. The majority of those interviewed related these problems to the lack of effective organisation among the resource users.Sometimes, the meaning of the term \"natural resources\" is not very clear lo farmers. It may be that Ihey perceive the term \"resources\" in its economic meaning, or perhaps they think that it only refers to trees (fores!) or to water, leaving out resources such as soil, vegetalion and fauna. In order to overcome this problem, it is advisable lo begin the interview talking a bit about what natural resources are. It may be convenient to look for a place with a good view overlooking the watershed so that the talk is focused on what can be seen and about what natural resources are. Another way would be lo use a drawing in order to ¡IIustrate a landscape (Figure 2.1)It is convenien! to mention !hose resources tha! are no! perceived al a first glance by the eye, for example:• What do you think aboutlhe birds, and their effec! on the crops?• lMlat are lhose insects and what do they relate to?• Climatic phenomena (wind, rain, drought) \\Nhen the interview process is finished, il is time for the interviewers to sil down and formulate a brief interpretation about the uses, the conflicts and the different stakeholders related to natural resouree use, based on the perceptions that have resulted from the personal intervíews, This version should keep the same framework as the inlerviews,\\/l/e try to establlsh whal are the uses given to natural resources in the area,\\lIJe describe natural resource use problems that are perceived in the area and the eonflícls or disagreemenls present Thírd \\lIJe establish the way in which watershed users can be grouped according to the use they make of natural resources, lhe problems they perceive and their role or position in the conílicts 01 disagreements, In otherwords, we try to eslablish the different sakehoider groups that exis! with respect lo natural resource management in the area Sometimes stakeholder groups, coincide with other factor s (hat characterise the natural resource users in the area such as, elhnic origin, sex, or area where they are located, high, middle or lower par! of the watershed, Very often, there is no such coincidence of interests and characteristics, or at least this is no! easy to perceive, Nevertheless, what is important is that the stakeholder groups are defined by the perceptions expressed in the personal interviews about natural resource use and related problems.It is important lo c\\arify that lhe fact thal one group of users does not mention a problem, for example water conlamination, does not mean that this group is no! related to this problem. On the contrary, il may the case that this group of users is lhe one that is aclually causing the problem, no! for !hemselves, bu! for other users of wa!ershed resources, One of the challenges in the analysis of stakeholder groups is to clarify, not only who has problems bu! also who is causing them due to poor use of natural resources and, in this way, make evident the interdependence among users in an area. It is expected tha! from this analysis the need for collective action arises.After completion of this exercise, participants will be able to elaborate an interpretation of the local situation, based on personal interviews.1. Ask the participants to form coup/es.2. Give each couple a copy ofthe exercise.3. Ask participants to be prepared al the end of the exercise to share their resulls wilh Ihe rest of the group. Read each portio n of the interview. Imagine that you are listening to a farmer. Each paragraph is marked by a number preceded by the lelter F (farmer). Elaborate the interpretation (contrasting concepts/divergent topic/new contribution/conflict) and write it in the space provided for interpretations (1).Save your interpretations for analysis with the group. How do you and yourfamily use natural resources in this watershed?The water is our own, we have a pipe for each family. Our pipe comes down some 30 metres and brings water from our neighbours the Quilindos. But since we don'l have the (economic) resources lo build a collecting tank, we have made a reservoir in the ground.How do you use the waterfrom Ihe streams? Forwashing? For irrigation?\\Nhen the water gets lo us, yes, we use il. Or when the plastic pipe breaks. Sometimes we also use it lo wash the few clothes that we have.Are there anyfish in the stream?The people who have agave fibre crops kili the fish. Also, the neighbours who live down below here, bu! they are outside the watershed. The neighbour above washes clothes in Ihe house. The water we use is clean; it comes from the spring.\\Nhen there are problems, do you drink waterfrom the stream?Yes, but the neighbours above wash their clothes and the water comes to us dirty. The ones who wash the agave fibre, farlher over there, do not affect uso People complain tha! sometimes the water doesn't come 2 -8 Method for Identifying Contrasting Perceptions: The PersonallntervíewThere is no agreement; everybody has his own opinion. For example, a fellow named Juan goes to the meetings, then later he returns and tells us something different. When he translates from Spanish to his own language, he does it according to his own convenience.F2:We have a hose, but sometimes it breaks; we should have a steel pipe. The water isused for cooking and washing. It comes from the spring at Santa Barbara. People have dumped agave fibre into the water in this stream (la Colorada) and we don't understand why nothing has happened to the new neighbours who have lakes with fish. They found wads burlap in the lakes. No one does anything because there is no agreement and we don't meet to discuss this problem. They just have their hoses that burst. Before, there was a problem of throwing rocks al the hoses, but not recently. Some 8 years ago, the waterwas coming with ground glass.For me, the lack of water is worse in summer; before 1 had problems with the hosesbursting and I fixed them with innertubes, but now 1 have my own independent water. In the summertime, my water gets scarce beca use people are cutting the trees near the spring. The contractor who cuts the trees doesn't leave 10 metres without cutting around the spring. The local council said that they had some money to help up, but only ifwe joined with another community. But we have not been able to agree.Mefhod for ldentífylng Contrasting Perceptions: The PersonallnteNiew 2 -9Stakeholder for AnalY$;s CoUective Management Df Natural Re$ources F4:1 have to do everything by myself. We have water problems, we don't get enoughwater. At the spríng there is water, bu! since we lack a hose, there is no water in our house. Pedro ¡¡kes to disconnect the hose from the water tank and then it doesn't come. This also affecls the neighbour below. The hose breaks and they splice in another piece lo reconnect it. Since I live in the upper part and the water comes from down below, ít doesn't make it up to me. In summer it gets scarce. We don't havea walertank.We don't go to the meetings becausethe Council can never agree.Befare, people drank conlaminated water because they took it from down below. Now1 take clean waterfrom myownwefl. Sometimes 1 goto clean thewell so that thewater flows and the water pressure separates the hoses. I don't like the aqueduct because other people disconnect the hoses and there are lots of problems, but when they invite me to work 1 do partícipate. There have been problems about splicing the hoses. It has been necessary to have meetings and even reprimands. For this, some people have even tried to hit me; 1 don'! want to use the water from the water systems lo avoid having problems. It is the same community Ihat Ihrows dirt into the tanks. Two years ago, they also accused me of stealing, bu! I was found innocen!. The problem is that these Indians are lazy. They are not like the Guambianos that really work. I am a Paez, but I don't like lo associate with these people.They are reforesting with \"nacedero\", pine, and \"carboncillo\" in order to bring back thewater. They lhough about raising físh in lhe lake because the water ís clean. They bríng the water by hose. The problem is to make a tank. Before they planned to make a fam ily water system but now they want to make a tank for the whole community (some 50 famílies). A problem has been generated by people líke Sofía. They don'! accept to buíld the tank because they already have theír own wells, but ín the near future the water system project wíll be a necessity. For example, for washing coffee. I have been living in Cali and working in factories; Ilike to work with the instítutions, to do what the new technologies recommend.The community needs help with the pipe lo make thewater system. The main pipe had2 km of branches and was broken. I don't have water shortage problems. I have a house in the high part of another watershed; I have no water problems in summer, or contamination. Some other neighbours do not have the money to buy the hoses. I would prefer to work individually, I don't want a group credit beca use some people don't follow through with the work. Before, someone was throwing ground glass in the water but after talking to some boys from the area that was solved. People haven't been able to agree about the water system because some people say that the stream where they plan to lake the water is too small. Others say lo take it from the Cabuyal river, but that would raise the costs. Those people are in agreement with the Council bul made a water supply project and the others ignored them even though they participate in all the meetings.Method for ldentifying Contrasfing Percepfions: The Personallnterview 2 -11Exercise: 2.1 -FeedbackBelow a series of possible answers is presented for each of the interpretations asked from the participants. It is important to note that there is no one correct answer. These are some of the various possibilities.Some people have lheir own water and others do no!. One has a water-collecting tank and others dig wells. There is a problem with the hoses that burst. Those in the upper part pollute the water of those below by washing in it. Those who wash the agave fibre kili the fish with the contaminated water. In summertime, very little water comes and doesn't make it to those down below. There is criticism of the Council for favouritism and a lack of agreement between themselves. There are some leaders who manipulate the community.The hoses that bring the water oflen fail, they break. Those who grow agave for fibre, wash it in the water and kili the fish. No one has met to deal with this problem. There was a problem with glass and it was solved in several meetings.In the summertime, the water gets scarce beca use some people have wells nearby for their needs and do not need the hoses. Other users cut the trees, which reduces the waterflow in summer. They have difficully in gettíng together and reaching agreements.The women who are alone have more difficulty in solving their water problems. The problem of the hose s and the access to the water sources depends on the topography. Not everyone has a tank. Some have accused other users of sabotaging the water system pipes.This man accuses another of disconnecting the hoses, but according to what he says he was accused of the same thing in the past. It appears that he does not consider himself a par! of the community and has conflict with them. He also contributes the idea that the water that they take lower down is already contaminated.This is a leader who has had outside contacts with institutions, and experiences in other departments. He likes to innovate. On the other hand, other users say that he manipulates the community.This user is not interested in assocíation. He tends to be more selfish. Once again we see that those up aboye have sol ved their water problems in contrast to those down belowHe contradicts the other opinions about the Council for Community Action. Problems about organisation are in evidence as are criticisms toward local institutions. The hoses are in bad shape and for this reason burst so frequently. Those in the upper part understand the problem of washing the agave fibre that kills the fish in tanks. But, once again, the people do not meet in order to find solutions, despite the fact that previously they had success in dealing with the problem of glass thrown in the water by those up above.There are some sectors or interest groups in favour and others against the aqueduct.Egon, G. Guba; Yvonna, S. Lincoln. Fourth generation evaluation. 1989. Sage publications. United States of America. >/ After studying the concepts in this section, participants will be able to use the personal interview technique to elaborate an interpretation related to natural resources management in a small watershed.    At the end ofthis seetíon the partícipants wifl be able to:~ Identify and evaluate the differing and opposing interests that determine natural resouree management..¡ Demonstrate the ability to bring eonflicts about natural resources into the open, without geopardízing the interviewees.~ Demonstrate the ability to open a dialogue about an adequate use of natural resources.1. How can we present the problems and conflicts in a small watershed?2. How can we analyse the problems and conflicts related to natural resources in different stakeholder groups?3. VVny is it necessary lo continue the process we have begun?This section refers to the way the interpretation or construction made by the institution in a meeting with the participation of all watershed users is presented. This will be done during the second meeting.As was mentioned previously, it is diffieult to freely diseuss in a large meeting any eonflicts among neighbours. In many cases, this is simply not soeially aeeeptable. Forthis reason, it is important not to eommit the interviewees when the interpretation is formulated and presented. It is neeessary to respeet the faet that people in an interview may say things thal Ihey would not say in a large meeting.On the olher hand, the same social rules that prevenl walershed users from speaking explieitly about existing conflicts do not apply to the institution that comes in from the outside. Therefore, one importanl role of the faeilitating institution is to bring to light in front of all the users the eonfliets that exist about natural resourees, with the aim of opening dialogue and negotiation about proper use. The interpretation formulated by the inslitution is useful in this eontext.The interpretation made by the institulion should not be presented in the seeond meeting as a final interpretation. On the eontrary, during the presentation, Ihe instilution should emphasise that it has to do with an interpretation made by persons that do not live in the watershed, it may inelude misconceptions and mistakes. As in the first step, after having presented the interpretation or viewpoint of the institution, the participants are invited to make observations and comments about said interpretation, firsl in the plenary meeting and later in smaller groups, wilh the aim of modifying it. As a part of the interpretation, the institution propases a definition of what stakeholder groups are present, in its own perception. This proposal also is included for discussion among the participants in the second meeting. According to the results of this discussion, the users are divided into subgroups, already defined as ¡nterest groups. The challenge for these inlerest groups is to revise once again and to modify the interpretation presented by the institution. With the interpretations of the interest groups it is possible to arrive at a final version or interpretation, orthe shared version or interpretation.In this portion we explain how it is possible to arrive at a shared interpretation about natural resource utílisation and the problems that arise from natural resource use.The objective of this meeting is to present and modify the institutional interpretation about natural resource use in the watershed and the conflicts related to this use. This aims at creating a final or shared interpretation among all users. This shared interpretation serves the purpose of building the bases on which a lan of action can be developed to improve natural resources managemenl as agreed upon by stakeholders. The following are the steps forthe second meeting.The facilitator greets participants and clarifies the objective, both of Ihe project in general and of the meeting in particular. If inhibitions lo participate or fear to express opinions is perceived among the participants, a group dynamics exercise is resommended.Required time: 20 minutes.The facilitator presents the interpretation that has been based on personal interviews. This is done without compromising the interviewees, preferably without mentioning who was interviewed. II is convenient to use a graphic manner to present the institution's interpretation. If participants know how to read and write, part of the interpretation can al so be presented in large titles followed by explanations. The graphic presentation should be as representative of the selected zone as possible. This is done by means of a drawing that shows the problems and conflicts related with natural resource use in each site, the location of the users affected and the causes of conflict. The writlen interpretation can be divided according to the different natural resources in the area or according to different stakeholder groups, and how these relate to each other because of the shared use of natural resources. The presentation of the institutional interpretation should provide an answer to the this question: In Ihe presentation of its vis ion regarding the use and conflicts aboul nalural resources, (he instilulion placés emphasis on the faet that Ihey are dealing with an interpretation made by them and, therefore, it may contain mistakes and misinterpretations.Requiredtime: 15minufes 3.3.3 Discussion and modification of the institutional interpretation Plenary session.The facilitator invites the participants lo make their observations and eomments about the institutional interpretalion with the purpose of modifying it. Any comment, positive or negative, is welcome. Due to the fact that this is done in plenary meeting it is possible tha! participation does not involve all people present. For this reason, the process should continue in the next step. According to the results of !he discussion in plenary session about the institutional interpretation and references made to stakeholder groups, the participants are asked to divide into groups that assamble the different stakeholders present.The challenge for these subgroups is to discuss and modify once again those aspects of the interpretalion that relate to them as stakeholders. The purpose is that lhe interpretation made by the institution corresponds, as much as possible, to their own interpretation.The following questions serve to slir up the discussion in subgroups.1 . \\l\\lhat is the nalure of the problem s described in the interpretation? 2. \\l\\lhat are the causes of these problems? 3. What has been done lo solve these problems? 4. What can be done now to solve these problems? Once eaeh stakeholder group has modified Ihe institutional interpretation, a shared interpretation of all stakeholders is presented. Al! participants are invited to make comments about the modificalions in search tor a shared interpretation by all stakeholders.In case difficulties to come to a shared interpretation are perceived a proposal is presented for negotiations to continue among stakeholders. A new meeting should be conveened at another date lo work on the shared interpretation.Required time: 15 minutesThe facilitator from the leading instilulions thanks the participants for having completed a difficult task. Comments are made on the importance oflislening and Irying lo understand the problems, pereeptions and eoncerns that sometimes are opposite to one's own. Having arrived at a shared interpretation of natural resource management problems in their watershed is a first step to attempt joint efforls for an improve use of theis resources. Once this mutual understanding has been reached, the challenge now is to develop an aclion plan lo improve natural resource management, Ihis time not in an individual basis, but in a coordinated manner. The facilitator also clarifies the ways in which his institution is willing to help out in this process.Required time: 10 minutesIn the first meeting a survey was made about the possible ínterest of the watershed users to partieipate in the project. Now is the lime lo run a new survey, in which participants state if they are interested in continuing with Ihe project Ihe inslilulion has proposed to improve natural resources management through consensual, colleclive aclion. If participants say thay are not ready to undertake this projecl, skip lo point 3.3.9.Required time: 10 minutes.In this part, the next sleps lo continue inlo anolher phase are defined. II is necessary to develop and implemenl an aetion plan related to the problems that have been identified. Al limes, it is necessary lo make an inventory of the resources ofthe watershed and Iheiruse, or lo evaluate the stalus of the resources. Sometimes new information from outside is required about possible solutions. Obviously, what to include in Ihe foflowing steps depends on Ihe specifie siluation of each site. Sometimes, when meetings are too long and the audience feels tired, it is recommended that a small group be elected representing all stakeholders to elaborate a work agenda for the next meeting.Requiredtime: 5 minutes.At the end ofthe meeting it is important to thank afl, for taking the time to attend, especially to those who had to travel farther. It is also good to open a space so that the participants express theirfinal perceptions and their expectations forfuture meetings.Requiredtime: 5 minutes.The shared interpretation is the basis for the formulation of consensual action proposals that intend to improve natural resource management. It takes into account not only the perceptions and priorities of Ihe local \"e lile\" or the dominant groups, ralher Ihe perceplions and priorilies of all watershed users. Involvement of all stakeholder groups is a 'sine qua non' requiremenl for consensual natural resource management. Ensuring participation requieres facifitation lo walershed users and lo facifitators themselves. This is Ihe beginning of a long process lo improve the management of said resources. Now, negotiation begins among watershed users lo formulate and implement concrete proposals lo improve natural resource management.Negotiation processes can be cumbersome and complicated. To really measure up to the problems perceived by stakeholders, it is not enough to work on proposals aboul which there is full consensus among Ihe users. On Ihe contrary, many limes it is necessary lo slimulale a negotiation aboul more controversial issues. The aim of Ihis negotiation should be the search for commitmenl between conflicting interests and Ihe associated mechanisms of compensalion.The role offacilitators is to keep negotiation going. They need lo be creative so thal users feel Ihey have gained somelhing out oftheir participation in the process. Gains may be in terms of changes in nalural resource management, or in lerms of Ihe recognition they receive from Iheir neighbours for having participaled in the process, for their personal abilities, or for Iheir willingness to make personal sacrifices to serve others in the communily.Facilitation and consensual processes have been Iittle understood. There are no proven methodological proposals about their successful aplication.Recording concrete experiences, working together, and providing feedback across organisations that work on local capacity development may help build knowledge in regards to !he identification of new methodological proposals. To practice the analysis of opinions by different slakeholder groups, in relalion lo natural resource managemenlThis exercise can be carried out by differenl work groups, in different contexts and countries, where Iraining on this lopic is being done. For example, the exercise can be oriented so as to apply lo the steps in the analysis of different inleresls and opinions about the managemenl of a small watershed, wilh persons or groups Ihat share the same problems. In some cultures words such as 'natural resources' are not understood and it is necessary to begin the interviewwilh a surveyto clarifythis termoThe methodology lo be utilised consists of the playing of roles and is based on a case study.Examples usedin this exercise were taken from reallife, bul can be replaced by examples m ore fam i liar to the specific context where the workshop is being held.In Ihe following chart there is a distribulion of the different steps, methods, procedures an time lo allocate lo each step. Step 1: Identify the Groups Guidelines for the Instructor 1. Seleet tour members from the group (two males and two females) who will represent four stakeholder groups in the area. Stakeholder groups are defined by their relation to the use of resources (each stakeholder relates more closely to one natural resouree) and lhe managemenl of related problems. Seleet actors aeeording to their previous experienees and their ability to act in an artieulate and creative manner Hand out the case sludy and the agenda to the four representatives of stakeholder groups one day before the exercise and dedicate enough time to discuss the roles with them.2. Hand out the case study to all the participants.3. Allow enough time so they can familiarize themselves with the case (15 minutes).4. Distribute tables and chairs for the actors according to Figure 1 (or according to the physical Iimitations of the room). Divide the rest of the participants into four groups of interviewers by counting from 1 to 4.5. Tel! participants they will do an interview to the person in each table. Each interview should not last more than 15 minutes. The instructor will keep time and signal the time to begin.6. Hand out the interview guide to the groups of interviewers.  This case deals with a small watershed in Latin America. The watershed 'Simuland' has 140 hedares and is home to 40 families with an average offive people per family. The watershed is heavily populated in the middle and lower zones, but is less populated in the upper parto The watershed holds different stakeholder groups in terms of culture, land ownership, gender and natural resource use. Analysis focuses on the latler aspect, although it relates to the others.Regarding ethnic cultures, one group is made up of Indians, another of \"mestizos\" (people of mixed blood, white and Indian), and another group of whites. Most of the Indians and the whites have their own land, whiJe some of the mestizos must rent land that belongs to the whites. AII of the Indians and most of the mestizos depend on agriculture as their only income, while the poorest and those without land must work on someone else's farm as a source of income for survival.The white people live in the upper part of the watershed, the mestizos in the middle and the Indians in the lowest part ofthe watershed.During the analysis, two main conflicts over natural resource management were identified, in addition to two les ser conflicts. The two main ones deal with quality and shortage of water, erosion and soil degradation. Person in favour of soil conservation practices You have been selected to represent one of the stakeholder groups in a small watershed called 'Simuland'. Below you wil! find the description of the role that you will have to represent. This description is based on the needs of the roleplay. However, we invite you to develop your role in a creative way, obviously without changing completely the character of the person represented. We appreciate your collaboration.You represent an Indian woman that shares interests with the rest of the Indian population. You have worked hard al! of your life to apply soil conservation techniques to protect the land. You and your family have benefited form the technical and economic assistance obtained from the locallndian bureau. Bu! !his is nol enough to stop the f10w ofwater and soil from the upper part of the walershed. Things are getting worse due to pressure from population growth. The land is being washed away and the water is contaminated. You think that the mestizo women and children should be torced to work, and to use conservation measures, or that all of the inhabitants of the watershed should join to receive economic and technical support form the municipal government. You do not understand why it is so hard lo organise the people in the watershed. Nor you understand why your people have to tolerate the problems caused by other people.Regarding water, you are in favour of building an aqueduct, because the children get sick by drinking water from the lower river. It is contaminated. You share interests with the rest of the population in the lower and middle parts of the watershed, except for those who have direct access to the water aboye. You think that the organisation of all the people in the watershed, both mestizos and Indians, would help to solve the problem. You know that your husband is opposed to the idea, because the Indians invaded part of his land many years ago. Even so, you think that if there is organisation therewill be pressure on the politicians, because elections will be held within a year. Also, you think that it is time to forget old conf/icts, and mention in passing that your best friends are Indian women.You think that soil eros ion is a problem and that conservation practices should be adopted, but do not know how this can be achieved.This exercise has been designed to be carried out by different work groups in different contexts and countries, where training is done. For example, the exercise can be carried out to apply the steps of a process for the analysis of different interests and opinions about the management of a small watershed, with people or groups that share the same problems.The methodology used in the exercise is that of a case study. The examples have been taken from real life, but we encourage you to replace these with examples related to the specific context where the workshop is held.1. Dividethe participants in subgroups of3 t06 people trying toget a good mix of sex, age and educationallevel.2. Pass out the case study and the questions tha! are to be answered.3. Encourage participants to share their opinions. The differing opinions should appear in the final analysis.4. Collect theforms with the tallies.• Copies ofthe case study • Copies of the questions to be answered This case deals with a small watershed in Latin America. The watershed 'Simuland' has 140 hectares and is home to 40 fam ilies with an average of five people per fam ily. The watershed is heavily populated in the middle and lower zones, but is less populated in the upper part.The watershed holds different stakeholder groups in terms of culture, land ownership, gender and natural resourca use. Analysis focuses on the lalter aspect, although it relates to the others.Regarding ethnic cultures, one group is made up of Indians, another of \"mestizos\" (paople of mixed blood, while and lndian), and ano!her group of whites. Most of the Indians and tha whites hava their own land, while some of the mestizos must rent land tha! belongs to the whites. AII of the Indians and most of the mestizos depend on agriculture as their only income, while the poorest and those without land must work on someone else's farm as a source of income for survíval.The white people live in the upper part of the watershed, the mestizos in the middle and the Indians in the lowest part of the watershed.During the analysis, two main conflicts over natural resource management were identified, in addition to two les ser conflicts. The two main ones deal with qua lit y and shortage of water, erosion and soil degradation.The population has access to water provided by two rivers. The first comes from a spring in the upper part and is clean, while the sacond flows through tha lower part and is contaminatad. This lowar river has its origin in another area, more densaly populated, outside this watershed.Everyone prefers the water that comes from the upper part of the watershed, because that from the lower river is hazardous to health. The main problem has to do with the fact that the good waterfrom the watershed's river is in short supply, especial1y in the summer. The spring is located on the property owned by a white, but he allows hís neighbours and the people nearby to collect as much water as they wish. These people, living in the upper part have sufficient water for their houses and for their animals, but it is in short supply for the people in the middle and lower areas. In summer, these peopla have to drínk the water from the contaminated river. They suggest the construction of an aqueduct in order to distribute the clean water from the watershed river in a fair manner. They have presented their plan to the municipality and are willing lo support \\he project, both technically and financially. The people in the upper part claim Ihat Ihey need the water for their houses, crops and animals. On the other hand, they do nol have access lo the river in Ihe lower portion and ifthe aqueduc! is build, they will not have enough water for their crops and animals. As a result, their production will be reduced and they will not have enough money to employ the landless people who come from the lower part of the watershed.The area around the spring has forests that protect the water. However, the small farmers who Uve in the middle part and use all of their land for crops go to the forest and cut the trees for firewood. Therefore, each year there is less water in the river and the problems due lo lack of pure water are becoming more intense.The soil in Ihis area is Iight and fragile; Ihere is a lot of rain during the winter, which increases eros ion. To control erosion, the Indian populalion in the lower portion of Ihe watershed has applied some conservation techníques, such as live barriers and terraces. The technical and economic support to do this has been directed by the Indian bureau. Work related lo soil conservation and to most of the crops is done by women and children, while weeding and harvest are the responsibility of meno On the other hand, the mestizos in the middle portion of the watershed do not practice soil conservation techniques. When it rains, the water and the soil it carries accelerate erosion, not only for this middle part but also for the Indian farmers lower down. AdditionaJly, this water runoff contam in ates the watershed river.The mestizo men do all of the fieldwork, while women take care of the home and children according to their culture. Children over 8 years of age go the local school. The mestizo men do not have enough money to practice soil conservation measures, and day-Iabour work is scarce. This is especial/y true for the poorest farmers, who must seek work on the farms of the more wealthy people in the upper part of the watershed. The municipal govemment is wil/ing to offer technical and economic assistance to these farmers, if they will organise. Bu! the mestizos do not want to organise with the Indians, because of their different culture and religion, and because the Indian population has been on the land for 15 years. Addilionally, the mestizos do nol want lo organise themselves intemally, due to conflicts over water access.If the land were left fallow to rest it would be possible to solve the problem, but the mestizo farmers have only small plots of land, because mos! of the land is owned by the riches! , farmers in the upper par! ofthe watershed. In Step 1 participants express and analyse their opinions about the way to resolve conflicts related to natural resource management in a small watershed.Two conflicts related to natural resources will be selected. The participants will be grouped according lo age, sex and educational level. The opinions expressed should be included in the formal provided. The opinions Ihat arise about the two cases in which there are conflicts aboul natural resources should be put forward.1. F orm groups of three to six members.Have them read the case study and select one person lo record opinions.3. Discuss and respond to the three questions on the following page.4. The díffering opinions within the groups should be expressed on the form with Ihe names of Ihe persons who disagree.Give the tallied answer sheel to the facilitator.The synthesised interpretation is elaborated using the perceptions that have come out of the personal interviews. In formulating and presenting it any mention of the names of the people involved (interviewees) should be avoided. The interpretation should bring to light, in the presenee of all participants, the disagreements that exist with respeet to the subject The aim is to open a dialogue and negotiation about an improved situation of natural resouree management, or about a solution to the problem.After interviewing two people that represent different stakeholder groups, each leam of interviewers should make an interpretation. To do this:1. The representatives of the stakeholder groups form groups with their interviewer.2. The interpretations are written on the attached form.3. A speaker is selected who presents the elaborated interpretation to the rest of the group. • This is a simulatiOn exercise, a model of a real situation. Participants do not know each other. In order to really work through collective action it ís fundamental that they know each other and that they have a common ¡nterest. For example, in a small watershed the users can be related by family, by the land; can share Ihe same habitat, common inlerests and social activities; what each one does affects the others. They also have common ancestors and history that are sources of identification for them.• It is difficult to fínd different interests and objectives given factors such as fear, not knowing each other, and distrust. In a watershed, for example, due to cultural reasons some farmers tend to be individualistic and interact only wilh their c10se family members, and within ethnic groups. II may be that the tradition of conflict resolution does not exist in some communities, nor the organisation to do so. Other people may not know how to read and write, or how to speak to large audiences.• It may be that there are no real confticts, merely differences of opinion. For example, two neighbours may use organic fertitiser in different ways; one thinks that it should be covered, but the other doesn't care. They think differently, but there is no conflict, but the second one will suffer the consequences of not covering fertilizer.• In solving problems there may be a real conflict. The same happens is the field if, for example, a farmer does not wish to participate in the control of ants. Everyone has the problem, and it affects them all. When a solution is desired tor this problem, the one who does not participate in the control enters in conflict with the rest because his attitude affects them all.• The importance of giving importance to all points of view• The need to dialogue to solve common problems.• To Appreciate differing and opposing interests. ,¿ Identify and evaluate the differing and opposing interests that determine natural resouree management. ","tokenCount":"13280"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6f85eb8ab99a6db6559a63f068e3ae2f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ce912594-d4c9-4fc1-a8d4-072293f27b08/retrieve","id":"116599284"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a1472836-aa4b-4794-9958-972b0dcbcb6c","pagecount":"12","content":"Les prix mondiaux du riz élevés et la demande croissante des consommateurs dans les pays ACP ont stimulé les efforts des gouvernements pour promouvoir la production de riz. Dans certains cas, des objectifs très ambitieux ont été fixés, avec un certain succès obtenu dans l'augmentation de la production. Cependant, compte tenu de l'accroissement rapide de la demande dans certains pays, les taux d'autosuffisance ont chuté. C'est particulièrement le cas en Afrique de l'Ouest, où la croissance de la consommation dépasse celle de la production dans de nombreux pays, entraînant une hausse des importations. Des politiques commerciales et des objectifs nationaux divergents pour l'expansion de la production nationale compliquent nettement la formulation de la politique commerciale régionale pour le riz en Afrique de l'Ouest.En 2012/13, les prix mondiaux du riz étaient « exceptionnellement stables » par rapport à la volatilité dans d'autres marchés céréaliers. Dans l'UE, un régime commercial géré du riz a été retenu, autorisant : des importations en franchise de droits de neuf variétés de riz basmati décortiqué d'Inde et du Pakistan sans aucune limite quantitative ; de maintenir des droits variables sur des contingents tarifaires (CT) par pays pour d'autres variétés, avec des licences d'importation permettant une gestion attentive des volumes et des prix d'importation.De plus, la production de l'UE est soutenue par un système de paiements de l'aide directe aux producteurs de riz équivalant à 177 €/tonne (pour plus de détails, voir le rapport à la une Agritrade « La boîte à outils de la politique agricole européenne : un examen secteur par secteur », section 6, 13 décembre 2011). L'utilisation de ce système sophistiqué de CT pour gérer les marchés du riz de l'UE permet une croissance des importations afin de répondre à la hausse de la demande dans l'UE, tout en soutenant et en promouvant dans le même temps la production intérieure de l'UE.Néanmoins, la croissance continue de la consommation ouvrira la voie à une hausse des importations de riz de l'UE jusqu'en 2022. Les exportateurs ACP sont, cependant, mal placés pour tirer parti de cette tendance, sauf en visant des segments du marché du riz différenciés en termes de qualité. De nouvelles teneurs maximales de l'UE pour le cadmium, qui est présent dans le riz, pourraient potentiellement encore réduire l'attrait commercial du marché de l'UE, qui a déjà été sensiblement érodé par le passage du soutien des prix aux paiements de l'aide directe dans le secteur rizicole de l'UE.Les exportations de riz des Caraïbes vers l'UE ont baissé de manière importante à la suite des réformes du secteur rizicole de l'UE et l'importance du Venezuela et des marchés régionaux s'est accrue. Dans l'ensemble des Caraïbes, les efforts se poursuivent pour stimuler la production de riz, avec un certain succès, mais la gestion efficace des mesures gouvernementales de soutien du secteur du riz constitue souvent un défi.Dans le Pacifique, des efforts soutenus visent à encourager les investissements dans le secteur du riz et la production, mais avec une approche plus prudente des concessions commerciales envers les engagements d'investissement.Développements mondiaux du secteur du riz Il semble y avoir d'énormes potentialités de développement pour le commerce régional l'analyse de l'USDA mettant en évidence la grande variété de types de riz produits en Afrique de l'Est pour différentes composantes de marché. Par exemple, les producteurs kényans cultivent semble-t-il une « variété non aromatique à rendement élevé pour le marché ougandais, ainsi que pour le marché du riz \"mélangé\" (qualité au Kenya ». Le KenyaQuelques défis communs rencontrés dans la production de riz en Afrique de l'EstLes problèmes communs identifiés dans de nombreuses régions d'Afrique de l'Est et qui doivent être traités sont les suivants :• faible accès à des variétés de semences améliorées ;• manque de connaissance des pratiques améliorées en matière de riziculture, en particulier en ce qui concerne la prévention face à une recrudescence des ravageurs et des risques de maladies et la manipulation post-récolte pour réduire les pertes ;• absence de stratégies durables pour l'organisation des agriculteurs et la prestation de services ;• manque d'investissement dans l'amélioration de l'irrigation pour réduire la vulnérabilité aux sécheresses ; En tenant compte des différentes approches du développement du secteur du riz adoptées en Afrique, une évaluation comparative de ces expériences pourrait donner des informations précieuses sur les manières les plus efficaces de promouvoir une production compétitive de riz. L'initiative de la CARD pourrait potentiellement fournir un cadre pour cette analyse comparative.Dans des régions comme l'Afrique de l'Est, l'expérience à ce jour suggère qu'une implication gouvernementale importante dans la production agricole réelle n'aboutit pas forcément à de bons résultats. Cependant, quand les agriculteurs jouent un rôle majeur dans leur propre organisation et s'engagent dans les activités de la première transformation et de la commercialisation associée, les initiatives tendent à avoir plus de succès. Autrement dit, l'État pourrait jouer davantage un rôle de facilitateur, en mettant l'accent sur la réglementation des activités commerciales du secteur privé, afin que les intérêts des consom-mateurs et des producteurs primaires existants soient respectés.Dans la mesure où la croissance des importations de riz d'Afrique du Sud reflète une expansion du commerce de transit par rapport aux pays voisins, cela pourrait donner lieu à des conflits com-merciaux intrarégionaux, étant donné que les gouvernements des pays voisins cherchent à développer la production locale pour répondre à la croissance de la demande locale. Cet aspect doit être surveillé attentivement, en particulier quand les gouvernements négocient des concessions tarifaires dans le contexte de l'investissement dans le secteur de la distribution par les entreprises basées en Afrique du Sud.","tokenCount":"919"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4e3aa1018ef17eb9eb47c5cacd3004cf","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e2f7ea66-773a-4809-8df2-9b178ffcdb92/retrieve","id":"-410994259"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2d4d3abb-f0c6-4244-81a7-8b21784ae218","pagecount":"14","content":"Plan activities and target survey regions and districts. Increase awareness of mycotoxins. Survey districts; Morogoro, Iringa, Ruvuma. Provide linkages to MSc students and teaching curricula Omari Mponda Happy Daudi Legume breeder, research scientistThe Africa Research In Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation (Africa RISING) program comprises three research-for-development projects supported by the United States Agency for International Development as part of the U.S. government's Feed the Future initiative.Through action research and development partnerships, Africa RISING will create opportunities for smallholder farm households to move out of hunger and poverty through sustainably intensified farming systems that improve food, nutrition, and income security, particularly for women and children, and conserve or enhance the natural resource base.The three projects are led by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (in West Africa and East and Southern Africa) and the International Livestock Research Institute (in the Ethiopian Highlands). The International Food Policy Research Institute leads an associated project on monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment.This document is licensed for use under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported LicenseIn Tanzania, several indicators allude to high mycotoxin exposure levels among maize and cassava-growing rural households, such as (1) erratic rainfall, high temperature and humidity levels in crop production areas (2) presence of predominantly small farm holdings (85% of maize in Tanzania is grown on less than 1 ha) that produce for informal, local markets and that escape regulation mechanisms and (3) a general lack of awareness about mycotoxins and their effects. Quantification of mycotoxin contamination is a critical first step to address the problem. Management options to mitigate mycotoxins during growth and storage of maize and cassava can be publicised in those regions identified as being the worst affected, thereby ensuring that the staples consumed locally become safer for consumption and also eligible for regulated trade opportunities.To quantify mycotoxin contamination levels on maize and cassava in Tanzania, and provide an objective basis for commissioning interventions to dramatically improve the health and livelihoods, and increase income of rural households. In detail to;1. quantify key mycotoxins among toxic microbial metabolites in maize and cassava in rural households and markets 2. sensitize stakeholders in Tanzania about occurrence of key mycotoxins, allowing targeted mycotoxin mitigation strategies 3. establish a prevalence database that can guide mycotoxin risk assessment and risk mapping activities in the country and hence strengthen standards and regulation mechanisms.Outputs 1. contamination from over 200 mycotoxins (including aflatoxin, fumonisin, ochratoxin, zearalenone, deoxynivalenol) in maize and cassava quantified in 1,000 geo-referenced samples collected from African RISING intervention areas 2. effect of mycotoxins affecting maize and cassava in Tanzania communicated to stakeholders 3. key mycotoxins, agricultural practices and risk-prone areas (hotspots) requiring immediate intervention identified.At project inception partners were selected based on their strategic role in Tanzania to influence research, raise awareness and to develop and regulate policies to determine prevalence of mycotoxins and to use this information to mitigate their impact. Particular attention was made to link both the research and crop development sections of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives (MAFSC) with the Tanzanian Food and Drug Agency, Tropical Pesticide Registration Institute with research and development partners. A workshop was held for 2 days to refine activities and to reach consensus on which areas should be targeted for surveys. The surveys were a massive undertaking and aimed to collect samples for mycotoxin analyses and also knowledge on farmer / market vendor practices and their perceptions of mycotoxins. Key responsibilities for the surveys and other project tasks were also assigned and shown in Table 1, below. Planning and execution of surveys was successfully achieved. A protocol and standard questionnaire were used to ensure commonality of approaches between survey teams led by different institutions. The questionnaire was designed to harness information from household and markets on details of samples provided i.e. cultivar, pre and post harvest agricultural practices, and processing and storage techniques plus awareness of mycotoxins. The protocol and questionnaire are shown in Appendix 1. The intended number of samples (1000) were collected and processed and forwarded to IFA-Tulln for thorough analyses of mycotoxin levels. An important output was to increase awareness (but not alarm) and this was achieved through handing out a factsheet in Swahili to everyone that provided a sample and to anyone who expressed an interest i.e. local extension officers and village elders. 3000 of these factsheets were distributed (Appendix 2). Further, to provide a little more detail a double sided factsheet in English was provided to DALDOS, collaborating scientists and partners. 1000 of these were distributed (Appendix 3).A total of 525 samples of maize (234 from the field and 291 from stores and markets) and 404 samples of cassava (113 of fresh/dried and 291 processed) were collected against the plan of 540 for maize (250 from the field and 290 from stores and markets) and 480 for cassava (180 of fresh/dried and 300 processed). The total samples collected for the two crops from all 19 districts, therefore, were 929 against 1020 planned as shown in Table 2.IITA has ensured all samples are dry, milled and sub-sampled and cross referenced with codes linking them to accompanying questionnaires.All of the cassava samples were sent directly to IFA-Tulln for analyses of mycotoxin profiles. The LC-MS analytical equipment was successfully calibrated for mycotoxin evaluation in cassava substrates. The analysis of each sample requires up to a few hours and hence months are required to complete the full analyses but Appendix 4 describes available results from preliminary cassava samples. For maize samples it was agreed that positive pre-testing of aflatoxins through serological kits at a threshold of 4 ppb was necessary before samples were sent to IFA-Tulln in order to avoid time being wasted testing samples that were unlikely to be contaminated with mycotoxins. For the 315 samples that have been pre-tested for 4 ppb aflatoxin; (from Kiteto (100), Babati (100), Hanang (85) and Dodoma (30) districts) -11% from Kiteto, 34% from Babati, 16% from Hanang and 40% from Dodoma tested positive for aflatoxin. All of these aflatoxin positive samples have been dispatched to Department IFA-Tulln, BOKU Vienna, Austria for detailed analyses of mycotoxins. The remaining maize samples are in the process of being tested for aflatoxin and those tested positive will be forwarded to IFA-Tulln.IITA is finalising all data entry from the questionnaires (929) into an electronic databases (using completed copies of the questionnaire shown in Appendix 1).Once results of mycotoxin profiles are known based on results from IFA-Tulln, IITA will interrogate the database to identify the key geographical areas, agricultural practices, storage and processing methods that increase mycotoxin contamination.A wrap up workshop will be held to share results and to reach consensus from partners as to how and who to disseminate information to in order to take appropriate action. The goal will be to provide an objective basis for commissioning interventions to dramatically improve the health and livelihoods, and increase income of rural households for the areas already targeted. Links between detected mycotoxin levels and consumption patterns for humans and livestock will be correlated in order to determine absolute risk of poisoning through mycotoxin exposure. For regions and districts with high mycotoxin contamination levels; more thorough follow up surveys with more detailed sampling per unit area, will be undertaken to better understand factors responsible and to mitigate these in an appropriate manner.The partnerships and methods developed during the jumpstart project will be out-scaled to Africa RISING FtF targeted action sites to quantify mycotoxin prevalence with a focus on vulnerable crops such as maize and grain legumes to then justify management interventions. for maize based systems.Bureaucracy by the administrative authorities of partner institutions significantly slowed down the signing of agreements and distribution of funds to enable agreed activities to be undertaken.Delayed surveys meant delayed processing of samples and pre-testing of maize samples for aflatoxin by IITA and full mycotoxin profile analyses by IFA-Tulln.Stored cassava samples were infested with post harvest insects. This was to be expected for maize but was a surprise for cassava. Each sample required to be cleaned to be free of insect pests prior to milling and sub-sampling which was an additional time burden and delayed despatch to IFA-Tulln.Staff hired as consultants to process samples for this jumpstart project were lured away to other positions as they favoured the more long term job security offered elsewhere.The intention was to also test maize samples using serological methods for fumonisin but the required reagents could not be procured within the time frame of the jumpstart project (we are still awaiting delivery).Delayed analyses of results and as a consequence, the wrap up workshop to plan how to use this information to improve the livelihoods and income generation potential of farmers.The total number of samples, of each desired type, collected was less than intended; Cassava: while a target was to collect processed cassava as it is more likely that this would be more contaminated by mycotoxins (due to fermentation process) it was observed that some farmers prefer fresh cassava (boiled or fried) and these were the only samples available or dried samples that were of inferior quality to that eaten fresh. In some districts, cassava was too young to have been harvested at the time of surveys. In some areas targeted for sample collection due to high cassava production the cultivation of this crop was reduced because of the invasion of diseases such as brown streak disease -CBSD and mosaic disease -CMD).Maize: during the time when surveys were undertaken it was difficult to collect maize samples from the field as the growing season had ended. Conversely, stored maize was scarce as it had been consumed prior to recent harvest of current maize crops.List of geo-tagged locations/sites were activities took place Every sample collected was GPS linked and this data was recorded onto questionnaires and entered into an electronic database and is available to all FtF partners. The dates when surveys were completed is also shown in Table 3 below.The outputs from this jumpstart project will directly support the longer term objectives of Africa RISING. The partnerships and methods developed can be targeted to the identified action sites in order to quantify mycotoxin prevalence with a focus on vulnerable crops such as maize and grain legumes to then justify tailored management interventions. Risk-prone sub-sites (hotspots), agricultural practices, cultivars, processing techniques and storage conditions that contribute towards mycotoxin contamination can be identified. Furthermore, other initiatives such as the development of a Tanzanian specific biocontrol technology for the control of aflatoxins (Aflasafe -www.aflasafe.com/ ) has recognised partnership opportunities with Africa RISING FtF i.e. if the action sites quantify the prevalence of aflatoxin and identify the most vulnerable sites, crops and practices then this would justify interventions later to apply Tanzanian specific Aflasafe). Similarly Abt Associates have praised the work led by IITA and the profile of partners included and as a consequence has provided TFDA with funds to further analyse samples using their HPLC detection system for comparison of results with the more technologically advanced LC-MS system used at IFA-Tulln in order to calibrate protocols and support precise quantification, in country, for aflatoxin testing in the future.Continue present partnerships, increase awareness and demonstrate results generated to policy makers to ensure livelihoods and incomes are increased through the mitigation of health destroying mycotoxins.To extend partnerships and methods to targeted action sites and to include prominent crops and livestock in maize based cropping systems, to justify and prioritise control interventions, to ensure food is not poisonous to animals or humans and is therefore also safe to trade.Conduct studies to show impact of mycotoxin poisoning (blood and milk samples) on health of humans and animals and to quantify negative impacts on health for specific and targeted areas. This information then can be scaled out to represent similar cropping systems / trading patterns to justify interventions elsewhere.Increase awareness of the problems caused by mycotoxin contamination and the on farm methods to manage these.Regulate markets through the development of policies to test for mycotoxin contamination.Implement certification system to recognise high quality food products without mycotoxins.Extend and link to neighbouring regions and countries in order to safeguard trade and food safety (and prevent dumping of mycotoxin contaminated products into local and non regulated markets, where those with the least money become the mot poisoned).Deploy nationwide and regional solutions such as biological control through Aflasafe at action sites and to those crops and situations most vulnerable to mycotoxin contamination. Planning for surveys needs to be done with consideration of the seasons and harvesting time of the crops in question to allow availability of the type (field vs. stored) of sample intended. Most of the members of the households/markets who delivered maize and or cassava samples have not heard about mycotoxins nor do they know that they cause health problems but when shown photographs with crops infected with toxigenic fungi, most of them recognize to have seen such problem in their crops. There is therefore a need to raise awareness of mycotoxins among these communities followed by knowledge of the control strategies. In many places where samples were collected, it was learnt that bad maize (possibly including those infected with toxigenic fungi) are used to make local brews or animal feeds. This is concentrating mycotoxins and causing severe health risks to consumers. The native terms used for processed cassava in Tanzania vary greatly among the communities visited and a similar term may have different meaning (i.e. makopa) across two or more communities so definitions need to be clarified and used routinely. In this study any dried cassava which was not subjected to any process other than pealing and directly sundried was considered as freshly prepared and those subjected to other processes like dry or wet fermentation and smoking over the fire place were considered as processed. Despite the discrepancies observed of bureaucracy in some of the partner institutions towards signing agreements and implementing activities the trust now created can be capitalised upon in the future. Should there be no further continuation of partnerships through subsequent activities then the trust created will be lost.This jumpstart project has attracted significant publicity starting from the inception workshop; where a suite of journalists were invited to attend and there was even a designated Q and Q session with the media and lead scientists from each of the collaborating institutes and continuing through to now. This interest from the media I partly as a consequence of the importance of mycotoxins on human health and trade and will be capitalised upon when the full set of mycotoxin results are processed and correlated with farmer practices and other factors that cause high contamination. Nutrients wasted when used to produce maize based cropping system products that are contaminated with mycotoxins as they are unfit for consumption by humans, animals or for trade.Output 4.1 Desk study of key nutritional and food safety issues of the target population Activity 4.1.1 Prevalence of key mycotoxins determined for the first time in Tanzania for maize based cropping systems. Partnerships and methods developed to out-scale this approach and to increase awareness of the problems caused and how to mitigate them. 3000 farmers and local extension officers briefed and received factsheet in Swahili and 1000 DALDOS and partners received more comprehensive factsheet in English.Output 4.3 Increased availability, utilization and consumption of high nutritious foods ( fruits, vegetables, legumes, meat, and milk) Activity 4.3.1 Mycotoxin contamination prevents uptake of other nutrients in food and suppresses the immune system of both humans and livestock. Therefore the impact of the availability of highly nutritious foods will not occur if mycotoxin contaminated products are also included in diets. Links with other research and development projects PACA -see above and in particular note opportunity for PACA to apply Aflasafe at target sites for maize based cropping systems within Babati, Kiteto and Kongwa districts if shown to be the most vulnerable to mycotoxin contamination by prevalence data collected during next phase of Africa RISING?Excellent foundation developed for further targeted studies at action sites.","tokenCount":"2652"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"32cd598bf667442d59ee585e0cdddc11","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/2945ad5c-daf8-4612-851b-1bc0074605ea/retrieve","id":"-149769480"},"keywords":["JEL classification codes: Q12, Q16 Spatial analysis","soil fertility","market access","technology adoption"],"sieverID":"4c76a79b-4f49-47d1-b910-e8cc656ab295","pagecount":"15","content":"Although soil fertility is recognized as a primary constraint to agricultural production in developing countries, use of fertilizer in Sub-Saharan Africa is declining. Smallholder farmers still rely heavily on livestock manure for soil fertility management. To explore the determinants of soil fertility management practices, including both the use of cattle manure and inorganic fertilizer, data are used from a sample of 3,330 geo-referenced farm households across Central and Western Kenya. A bivariate probit model is applied to jointly examine the use of the two technologies. Particular attention is given to measures of location related to market access and agroclimate, which in the adoption literature have typically been addressed using crude proxies.To avoid such proxies, GIS-derived variables are integrated into the household decision model.Their use also allows the spatial prediction of uptake based on parameter estimates. The results show clearly the derived-demand nature of soil fertility services, based on markets for farm outputs. They also illustrate that supply of manure for soil fertility amendments is conditioned by demand for livestock products, especially milk. The integration of GIS-derived variables is shown to better estimate the effects of location than the usual measures employed, and offers scope to wider use in technology adoption research.Soil fertility is one of the primary constraints to agricultural production in SSA (Gruhn et al, 2000). Increasing population pressure on the continent has contributed to this constraint, leading to reduced sizes of land holdings and consequently to reduced fallow periods. This is particularly true where population densities are high, such as highland areas of East Africa, and parts of humid and sub-humid West Africa. This has led to concerns over the long-term sustainability of agriculture. The reduced ability to use traditional soil fertility management practices such as fallow and rotation to restore soil fertility limits farmers to the main other option, that of increased soil fertility inputs. These include organic inputs (either green manure, or livestock manure) and inorganic chemical fertilizer.However, in comparison to the rest of the world, fertilizer use in SSA is low, and continues to decline. In 1996, SSA consumed on average only 8.9 kgs of fertilizer per hectare of arable land, compared to 97.7 kgs globally. While fertilizer use per hectare grew in developing countries overall by a rate of 3.1 percent annually, it declined in SSA (Gruhn et al., 2000).Partially as a consequence, per capita food production has been declining since the early 1990s (de Jager, 1998). In SSA livestock continue to provide a large share of soil fertility amendments, as they do globally in developing countries. In developing countries overall, more than half of total fertilizer is provided in the form of livestock manure; this rises to 70% in lower income countries (Fresco and Stienfeld, 1997). Given the low use of inorganic fertilizer, and the significant changes in output markets and technology that would be needed to increase demand for fertilizer, the dependency on manure for soil fertility inputs is likely to continue for some time.Kenya is typical of this situation. Most agricultural production occurs in the medium to high potential highlands, in the context of small (1-5 ha) mixed farms growing maize and beans, tea or coffee, over half of which keep either traditional Zebu cattle or crossbred dairy cattle.Due to good bimodal rainfall (over 1200ml in highland areas) and so intensive annual cropping, soil nutrient balances are negative on many farms (de Jager 1998), and sloped terrain in some areas contributes further to soil degradation. Fertilizer use is low (39 kg/ha in Central Kenya, Omamo et al., 2002), and so livestock have to play a key role in soil fertility management. This is particularly true in the crop-dairy systems that dominate much of Central and Western Kenya.Strong market demand for milk allows farmers to keep dairy cattle on small holdings, with a significant proportion of feed brought or bought from off farm. Milk and animal sales provide economic sustainability of the enterprise, which through manure provides a key input to nutrient sustainability of the soil on the farm. Use of off farm feed insures that new nutrients are continually imported into the farm system through the cattle and manure. Use of manure is somewhat dependent on cattle keeping system. The more intensive systems that use cut-andcarry of fodder to stall-fed animals allow easier collection of manure. However, there is observed wide heterogeneity in soil fertility management practices, even among neighboring farms.To better understand this heterogeneity, and particularly to understand its spatial components, this paper examines the use of soil fertility management practices of manure and inorganic fertilizer application in mixed crop-livestock farms across a range of market, agroclimate and household settings. An integrated household and GIS model is used to examine the determinants of the rate of adoption of these practices at the farm plot level in Central and Western Kenya.Soil fertility can be viewed in an economic framework, in the context of derived demand emanating from farmer objectives for utility through farm product sales and consumption. The demand for the services that farm land or farm soil offers is thus largely derived from the need for that land as an input to farm production, whether of crops directly or indirectly of livestock through pasture, planted forages or crop residues. Soil fertility management practices can be seen as management of soil services, to increase the quality and durability of those services.Increased demand for soil services is likely to lead to increased use of soil fertility management practices.In that conceptual context, the spatial location of a specific plot of land has several important aspects. If demand for soil services is derived from marketed outputs, then level of market access, and associated transfer and transactions costs will influence that demand, as well 4 relative prices of outputs, factors, and inputs. Every location will of course have particular market access characteristics that are associated with distances to demand and supply centers and quality of transport/road infrastructure. Omamo et al (2002), in another study of soil fertility management in Kenya, show that level of fertilizer use is significantly related to market access costs. As well as on the output side, market access will also affect the real price of fertilizer or soil nutrients sourced from the market to be applied on farm. Within the farm, increased distance of a plot from the farm household may alter demand for soil services, either through lowering the effective prices of outputs or increasing input costs, both through increased withinfarm transport costs. Location of the farm land also has obvious supply side characteristics, particularly in the form of agroclimate; in the absence of climate change, rainfall and temperature patterns will be fixed on average, and soil type and characteristics only partially amenable to change. These affect the quality of soil services, and their marginal productivity.An area where economists have put a lot of effort, yet where they have systematically under-represented spatial factors, is in the understanding of choices in farm practices, among which soil fertility management is an example. This despite the fact that processes such as the diffusion of information and agricultural technology are dynamic and often spatial (Bockstael, 1996). Household-level statistical analyses of farm practices in developing countries have long suffered from having to use poor proxies variables to represent spatially-related factors.Although the basic economic activity of production and exchange have a large spatial component, the market access indicators typically employed in farmer choice analysis are generally coarse, and typically consist of proxies. Locational dummy variables are the most commonly used. Such measures have shortcomings, in that they proxy a variety of spatial factors ranging from market and institutional access to agro-climate, cultural and historical variation.The interpretation of the results obtained requires a fair bit of speculation as to which of these factors are associated with the observed outcomes. Even when distance or time to market outlets are used, they are often based only on farmer judgement and recall in survey questionnaires. While some studies employ such locational dummy variables (Kaliba et al., 1997), or conduct separate estimates for different locations (Lapar and Pandy, 1997). At the end of the scale, many farm technology uptake studies include no explicit spatial variables at all (e.g. Nkonya et al, 1997;Adesina et al, 2000). The same picture is seen in studies more specifically of uptake of soil fertility or conservation management technology. While some have used explicit measures of market access (Omamo et al., 2002), others have included no measures of location (Ali, 1996). Some include measures ostensibly of agro-climatic zone (Shiferew et al., 1998), but they are likely to proxy a wide range of factors related to location. Some studies of nutrient flows on farm use a farm enterprise defined measure of market orientation (A. de Jager et al 1998).Relatively recent advances in GIS tools now offer to social scientists better measures of location, in all its manifestations of market access, agro-climate, etc. Most have been applied to land use analysis, using only GIS derived data, either in the form of grids or road networks. (e.g. Chomitz and Gray, 1996;Nelson and Hallerstein, 1997). Market access is typically included in a relatively coarse form compared to environmental and agro-climatic measures, where a great deal of effort is placed on achieving high resolution. These data are typically generated from remote sensing, or compiled from administrative-level aggregate data interpolated over a landscape surface. However, such data cannot easily capture socieconomic features of locations that cannot be obtained from remote sensing, and assume a certain level of homogeneity among economic agents, such as households. In order to better measure those, a few studies have linked survey-based data with these GIS data applied to agricultural development, such as Mertens et al. (2000) and Swallow et al. (2000). Mertens et al. use household-derived data linked to remotely sensed data to examine the impact of macroeconomic changes on deforestation in Cameroon, while Swallow et al. used GIS tools applied to household survey data to examine livestock disease control technology uptake in Ethiopia. In a study related to that being 6 presented here, Staal et al (2002) use integrated GIS and household data to assess the effects of location on uptake of livestock production technologies. For more detailed description of the principles of measurement of location in agriculture, and of examples from the literature, refer to that paper.The key is to more effectively integrate spatially-differentiated measures of both the nonphysical social and economic landscapes with the physical. The approach employed in this paper for addressing this is to integrate spatially referenced household data with point data derived from digital surfaces and infrastructure maps.Diagnostic surveys to characterize smallholder production systems were conducted in across 16 districts in Central and Western regions of Kenya by a collaborative team from the Ministry of Agriculture, the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), and ILRI, during the period 1996-2000. Using a stratified random sampling procedure, based on market access, human population density, and agro-ecological zone, a total of 3,330 geo-referenced households were sampled.The primary new GIS coverage needed was a detailed road network, for which digitised maps at the level of resolution required were not available. Using topographic maps, three classes of roads were digitised: 1) all weather, bound surface, 2) all weather, loose surface, and 3) dry weather only, supplemented by local auxiliary grids. Additionally, a human population density layer was developed at ILRI based on the 1989 Kenya census. The agro-climatic information (precipitation / potential evapotranspiration or PPE) was taken from the database contained in the Almanac Characterization Tool (Corbett 1999). See Staal et al (2002) for details.A farmer's decision to apply a technology such as soil fertility management can be explained by a set of factors that influence the welfare criterion of expected utility. These factors are related to both the characteristics of the technology, its environment and the potential adopter. The set of factors that influence the technology choice can be broadly categorised into four major groups, technology attributes; farmer's resources; policy and institutional environment; and farmer's attributes, including preferences, risk profile, and ability to use information. In this case the specific attributes of the soil fertility management technology are assumed to be uniform across the sample, such as how manure is managed and applied, and the type of inorganic fertilizer used. To represent the above factors, a number of variables were derived from both the household survey data, and from the GIS surfaces. Household variables include sex, experience and education of the household head, access to extension, land holding and herd size, and details of the farm plots. GIS-derived variables include the human population density around each farm, an index of climatic potential (PPE), general soil type, and high resolution measures of distances to the main urban area (Nairobi) and to the two nearest urban areas. Distances to the latter are separated into the three road types mentioned above, in order to capture differential effects of road quality. See Staal et al (2002) for details on use of these multiple measures of market access.The decision variable is measured at the farm plot level, and in the case of manure takes a value of 1 if the farmer reports applying manure currently to that plot, and 0 otherwise. A separate decision variable is derived for use of inorganic fertilizer in the same manner. Some 58% and 75% of plots were found to have manure and fertilizer applied, respectively. However, the decision to apply manure to farm land is clearly not independent of the decision to apply inorganic fertilizer (Omamo et al, 2002). Although the two technologies have different characteristics in terms of the level and availability of nutrients, organic matter, etc, they are both aimed at raising the quality of soil services demanded by the farmer. To accommodate this nonindependence, a bivariate probit model is used to simultaneously estimate the effect on the probability of use of the two technologies of a common set of explanatory variables. The model can be expressed as:where Y 1 and Y 2 are the two decision vectors, x i is a vector of explanatory variables derived from household surveys, with  1 as a the corresponding regression coefficients, and z i is another vector of explanatory variables derived from GIS surfaces, and  2 the corresponding coefficients.Both types of variables are evaluated at the farm plot level, with non-independence of multiple plots from individual farms controlled for through clustering.When using spatially-differentiated data, the existence of spatial autocorrelation can reduce the efficiency of otherwise unbiased parameter estimates. Spatial autocorrelation is simply the lack of independence which may be present among neighbouring or proximate observations. However, spatial econometrics for limited dependent variables is a developing field and as Bockstael (1996) indicates, no satisfactory methods are available for addressing spatial autocorrelation in such models. One way to control for spatial dependence is to include variables that account for interactions among farmers. In this analysis, the argument is made that the GIS-derived distance variables control for the occurrence of spatial autocorrelation by capturing the interactions between neighbours. See Staal et al., (2002) for more details.The results from the bivariate probit model for probability of use of manure and inorganic fertilizer on farm plots are shown in Table 1, expressed as the marginal effect of the base change indicated for each variable. Overall, the fit is good, with over 70% of correct predictions in both technology cases. Some household head characteristics have important implications for use of soil fertility management practices. Male-headed households have some 7% higher probability of using manure than female-headed households, although there is no difference in fertilizer use. This result is curious and unexplained, in that women manage much of the farm production. Greater farming experience leads to significantly more use of manure, while more education is associated with more use of fertilizer. Availability of extension leads to significantly higher probability of fertilizer use; such use is likely a common extension message, which appears to be heard. Having more cattle is as expected associated with using manure, but is independent of the probability of fertilizer use. This suggests that farmers do not regard manure as a substitute for fertilizer: those with easy access to manure still use fertilizer. Within the farm, the distance to the plot from the homestead significantly lowers the probability of manure use, but has no effect on the use of fertilizer. Given the low nutrient content per kg of manure, in the context of transporting to distant plots, this is expected. The type of crops planted have a significant association with both manure and fertilizer use. Compared to a base of food crops, both planted fodder and cash crops are significantly more likely to receive manure application. Since fodder is mainly used for milk production, this follows closely the hypothesis that demand for soil services is derived from marketed output. The tenure of a plot has large and significant effects on manure use. If the plot is a farmer's own, rather than borrowed or rented, s/he is 37% more likely to apply manure on it. The comparable effect on use of fertilizer is only some 5%. This is expected, given that soil fertility effects of manure and organic matter use are known to be longer lasting than inorganic fertilizer (Ali, 1996), and longer term investment in soil services are unlikely applied to temporary land holdings. The measure of positive climatic and rainfall conditions, PPE, has a large and significant effects on use of both technologies, but particularly in the case of fertilizer. The marginal returns from fertilizer use, given crop choices, are likely to be highest in high potential areas.The market access measures are all significant. In the case of manure, distance to urban areas uniformly is associated with lower probability. The effect is stronger on the worst roads (Type 3), where every additional kilometer of poor feeder road separating a farm from main roads reduces the probability of manure use by some 1.5%. In the case of fertilizer, distance by main tarmac road actually increases likelihood. This may be a locational effect related to a ruralurban interface, and was similarly found in the cases of some other technologies (Staal et al 2002). For the poor road types 2 and 3 however, the negative market access effect is significant and strong.The bivariate probit model also calculates a correlation coefficient (rho) between the two decision variable that reflects the degree of remaining association after the variation represented by the independent variable has been removed. In this case, the value is 0.37 which suggests a somewhat positive remaining association between the two soil fertility management technologies. This is expected, given the known benefits of the interaction of the two (Hoffman et al., 2001).However, it differs from the results of Omamo et al (2002), who found a negative relationship from a smaller sample in one Kenyan district.Given the good overall predictive power of the model, and the fact that GIS surfaces provide measures in zones other than those sampled, the GIS-derived variables can be used to make spatial predictions. Spatial predictions of probability of use of the two technologies were made using only the significant GIS-derived variables, including PPE, population density, the soil categories and the distance measures, with all other variables held constant at their mean. The resulting probability of uptake maps are shown in Figures 1 and 2, for manure and fertilizer use respectively. The spatial patterns of manure use show close correspondence with markets and agroclimatic potential, and probabilities are high only in areas of their intersection. Fertilizer use, on the other hand, is more widely dispersed into a range of settings. The manure results are likely to be closely tied to dairy cattle keeping, which is characterised by stall-feeding of cattle and thus the easily collection of manure. Such systems are in turn closely associated with markets for perishable milk, while fertilizer supply variability is dependent mainly on transport costs, which will be lower than those for milk. The spatial variation may thus reflect mainly supply of soil fertility technology, and underlines the fact even though demand for the two technologies may be similar, that while fertilizer supply is independent, manure supply is conditioned by the market and household demand for livestock and their outputs.The results of this analysis confirm expected effects on demand for soil services, and thus on the use of soil fertility management technologies, of farmer human capital, characteristics of the farm land and crop choices, and of the location of the farm, including climate and market access. While derived demand for soil services is hypothesized to be the principle driving factor in uptake, the results show clearly that uptake is conditioned by demand for other products (milk and livestock), the production of which generates soil fertility inputs. The integrated household and GIS model further demonstrates the ability to better measure the effects of spatiallydifferentiated attributes of location on farm/household technology decisions than standard survey-only models, and to take a further step in providing spatial predictions of uptake.  ","tokenCount":"3482"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"67a3ed9122f51e421e20fd9da55824a9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b7bfe7c6-adbc-4307-ab19-1bd2169293bf/retrieve","id":"2142792109"},"keywords":["UNFCCC","climate change","food systems transformation","social equity","just transition","agricultural systems"],"sieverID":"898e53a4-f498-46ee-bda3-047b52a93585","pagecount":"17","content":"Introduction: From to , the Koronivia Joint Working Group on Agriculture (KJWA) was the key forum for debating global agricultural change and integrating agricultural transformation priorities into the mechanisms of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). As a forerunner to the landmark decision at COP to initiate the Sharm El-Sheik Joint Work on Implementation of Climate Action on Agriculture and Food Security, it provided an opportunity to further the (as yet underdeveloped) discourse around social transformation and just transformation in agriculture. At the conclusion of this year process, we ask: to what extent and in what ways has a just agricultural transformation been envisioned within the Koronivia Joint Working Group on Agriculture and what are the implications for the Sharm El-Sheik Joint Work on Implementation?Methods: The paper presents a textual analysis of written submissions, workshops, and concluding statements from across the full programme of KJWA workshops, meetings, and consultations.Results: We find that references to just transformations in agriculture within KJWA are largely implicit, but not absent. We argue that justice has been most obvious and evident when it comes to discussion about who is (and where are) the most vulnerable to climate change and variability, and how access to climate smart technologies and information is distributed. Less evident have been discussions about just representation in the governance and visioning of agricultural transformation, and there have been few explicit appeals to address the historical injustices that have shaped agricultural and rural livelihoods in the Global South.Discussion: We argue that following its conclusion, there is a danger that the outcomes of KJWA become reduced to a focus on the scaling up of a technocentric vision of agricultural transformation. To counter this, there is need for ongoing dialogue to develop a shared and more complete understanding of justice that should be central to how agricultural transformation is integrated into the UNFCCC. We highlight some recommendations of how a justice agenda could be taken forward under the Sharm El-Sheik Joint Work on Implementation.\"The discussions about agriculture in the climate change context have long focused on massification and technological approaches to increasing unsustainable food production with insufficient consideration of how inequality shapes access to land and other resources needed for productive healthy sustainable and resilient livelihoods particularly for women and how climate change will exacerbate the existing unequal access to adequate nutritious food for all.\"[Quotation from Representative of Women and Gender Constituency, Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture Workshop on improved livestock, November 2020].The above quotation comes from a statement made by Women and Gender Constituency at the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture's (KJWA) Workshop on improved livestock held in November 2020. It outlines an important gap in the way that agricultural change has predominantly been framed and discussed within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and petitions for new attention to be paid to bringing about a just transformation in agricultural and food systems, in the context of climate change. The interrelationships between agriculture and climate change mean that there is an increasingly urgent focus on agricultural transformation both as a means to meeting emissions reduction targets, and to adapting to climate variability and change. The Koronivia Joint Working Group on Agriculture (KJWA) was established at the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP) 23, with a purpose and mandate to integrate agricultural transformation more fully into the UNFCCC, and in the commitments and actions taken by UN member states under the Paris Agreement.The imperative to transform our environmental, economic and social systems has become increasingly popular discourse in international development contexts. Arguably the catalyst for this has been the United Nations' (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which have mainstreamed the idea that fundamental and global change is needed if we are to achieve a vision of sustainability globally. This transformation discourse has been equally reflected in the UN Food Systems Summit process (UNFSS), which was oriented around the vision of \"transforming the way the world produces, consumes and thinks about food\" (UNFSS, 2021, p. 1), and in the UNFCCC itself, which states that \"the implementation of the Paris Agreement requires economic and social transformation\" (UNFCCC, n.d.). In this paper, we adopt a broad perspective on transformation, understanding it as \"fundamental change in circumstance occurring to, for and by people within agriculture and food systems\" (Whitfield et al., 2021, p. 383). We do so to allow alternative language and concepts (such as transitions, adaptations, incremental changes) to fall within the scope of our analysis (Hölscher et al., 2018).Across the UN genre of \"transformation\" in particular there is an inherent message of systemic change and this is not void of recognition of the need for equity and justice to be central (von Braun et al., 2021) at least at a rhetorical level. However, beyond this surface level discourse, it is clear that the transformation called for in the UNFSS is not the same kind of radical structural change that is being campaigned for within political social movements, such as Fridays for Future or within agroecology and peasant movements such as La Via Campesina. Such movements have a stronger and inherent focus on seeing changes in political and economic structures that can bring about social justice and equity. Blythe et al. (2018) argues that mainstream transformation discourse pays insufficient attention to politics and power. An imperative to transform has the potential to come at the cost of recognizing that radical change is often brought about through exclusionary processes, with inequitable outcomes (Nightingale, 2017). In describing low-carbon energy transitions, for example, Jasanoff (2018) highlights the socially differentiated consequences of low carbon pathways and differentiated participation in planning and policy processes, which act to exacerbate rather than alleviate energy poverty. When compared with the energy sector, the concept of a just transformation in agriculture comes with some added complexities owing to the reality that producers are also themselves consumers and are themselves amongst the most vulnerable to climate change impacts (Bezner Kerr et al., 2022). This is particularly true of small scale rain fed agricultural production systems and family farms, which in turn contribute least to greenhouse gas emissions.Unless agriculture and food systems transformation redresses pre-existing inequalities, it will likely favor the most powerful stakeholders, and deepen existing inequalities and social injustices. If attention is not paid to the politics of such change, we may fail to recognize that it is those with the least political voice and power that most commonly lose (McShane et al., 2011;Anderson and Leach, 2019;Rice et al., 2019). As such, there is need to pay more attention to both emancipatory governance (Scoones et al., 2020) and the social justice implications of systemic transformations.The concept of a just transformation, particularly within the UNFCCC, has so far been less well-developed in relation to agriculture than it has been in the energy sector. In this context, KJWA has represented a forum and timely opportunity for developing a shared vision and understanding of a just transformation for agriculture, and one that can be reflected in and have influence over the distribution and use of climate finance, and the agricultural sector strategies set out in national adaptation plans and mitigation commitments. Therefore, we examine the extent to which inequalities are considered and The Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) makes explicit the objective of lowering greenhouse gas emissions to an extent that global warming is limited to 1.5 • C above pre-industrial levels. Agriculture is not directly referred to in the Paris Agreement and has been considered in a piecemeal and often contested way through working groups of the UNFCCC, such as the Warsaw Framework for REDD+. In an attempt to redress this omission, in 2013, the Scientific Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) held five in-session workshops to provide opportunities for Parties to exchange their views on issues relating to agriculture.At the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties 23 (COP 23), a landmark decision was taken for the introduction of an agenda through which the two permanent subsidiary bodies [the on Science and technological advice (SBSTA) and on implementation (SBI)] would jointly address and report to COP on issues related to agriculture within the framework convention. KJWA was the first and only agenda item to focus specifically on agriculture and food security under UNFCCC. Representatives of UNFCCC constituted bodies, parties and observers admitted under the UNFCCC (see Supplementary material for full list of organizations) set out a roadmap of focused workshops, and an open consultation for the submission of written views and recommendations regarding six key topics selected for the Koronivia process to the UNFCCC secretariat:• Modalities for implementation of the outcomes of the five in-session workshops on issues related to agriculture and other future topics that may arise from this work;• Methods and approaches for assessing adaptation, adaptation co-benefits, and resilience;• Improved soil carbon, soil health, and soil fertility under grassland and cropland as well as integrated systems, including water management;• Improved nutrient use and manure management toward sustainable and resilient agricultural systems;• Improved livestock management systems;• Socioeconomic and food security dimensions of climate change in the agricultural sector.The Koronivia roadmap provides a timeline of in-session workshops to be conducted under KJWA and determined how the joint work would be organized (see Figure 1). Workshops for each of the six KJWA topics were to be held during the 2018-2020 Subsidiary Body sessions, which take place twice a year: in May/June in Bonn and in conjunction with the Conferences of Parties (COP), in November/December. Due to COVID-19, changes were made to the original road map, according to which Parties were to submit the final work plan to the COP in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2020. Although COP 26 was formally held in 2021, the agenda of the Koronivia working group continued with further workshops focusing on \"strategies and modalities, the scale of implementation of best practices, innovations, and technologies that increase resilience and sustainable production in agricultural systems according to national circumstances.\" In June 2022, at the SB56 in Bonn, the Koronivia working group held a workshop with a focus on the finalization and implementation of the decision (https://unfccc. int/event/sbi-56).Workshops comprised of invited presentations from a variety of Experts, Parties, and Observers, with the KJWA chairperson offering and facilitating an opportunity for Parties and Observers opportunity to ask questions or make comment. Workshop video recordings, written contributions by Parties and Observers and COP and SBI/SBSTA statements (including workshop conclusions, drafted, and agreed by negotiators from each all Parties) are all documented online at the UNFCCC website (https://unfccc.int/cd2020/schedule#eq-2).A protracted series of formal informal meetings of KJWA at COP27 resulted in the decision, formalized through the COP27 President, to establish the 4-year Sharm El-Sheik Joint Work on Implementation under the SBI and SBSTA. The role of this work would be to take forward the implementation of Koronivia, with the following stated objectives: \"(a) Promoting a holistic approach to addressing issues related to agriculture and food security, taking into consideration regional, national, and local circumstances, in order to deliver a range of multiple benefits, where applicable, such as adaptation, adaptation co-benefits, and mitigation, recognizing that adaptation is a priority for vulnerable groups, including women, indigenous peoples, and smallscale farmers;(b) Enhancing coherence, synergies, coordination, communication and interaction between Parties, constituted bodies and workstreams, the operating entities of the Financial Mechanism, the Adaptation Fund, the Least Developed Countries Fund, and the Special Climate Change Fund in order to facilitate the implementation of action to address issues related to agriculture and food security;(c) Promoting synergies and strengthening engagement, collaboration and partnerships among national, regional, and international organizations and other relevant stakeholders, as well as under relevant processes and initiatives, in order to enhance the implementation of climate action to address issues related to agriculture and food security;(d) Providing support and technical advice to Parties, constituted bodies, and the operating entities of the Financial Mechanism on climate action to address issues related to agriculture and food security, respecting the Party-driven approach and in accordance with their respective procedures and mandates;(e) Enhancing research and development on issues related to agriculture and food security and consolidating and sharing related scientific, technological and other information, knowledge (including local and indigenous knowledge), experience, innovations, and best practices;(f) Evaluating progress in implementing and cooperating on climate action to address issues related to agriculture and food security;(g) Sharing information and knowledge on developing and implementing national policies, plans, and strategies related to climate change, while recognizing country-specific needs and contexts.\"Extract from UNFCCC (2022) Joint work on implementation of climate action on agriculture and food security, Proposal by the President, Draft decision/CP.27.We start from the understanding that agriculture and food systems connect individuals and institutions (for example, through the flow of goods) across scales and sites, but that these systems are themselves embedded within economic, political, and institutional structures. Transformation, then, broadly refers to a fundamental change in circumstance occurring to, for and by living beings within these systems and structures (Scoones et al., 2020;Whitfield et al., 2021). The processes that generate transformations can result from incremental, carefully planned interventions made often by policy actors (Schot and Steinmueller, 2018), or they can be an emergent property of large-scale political-economic forces and social mobilization (Stirling, 2015). In other cases, transformation is outside the control of any actor or group, triggered by exogenous biophysical forces such as climate change (Kates et al., 2012). Scoones et al. (2020) draw a distinction between three perspectives on transformations: structural, systemic and enabling (Scoones et al., 2020). A structural approach focuses on fundamental change in underlying ideologies, political regimes and market structures that shape society and lock us in to conventional growth-centered, visions of agriculture (D'Alisa and Kallis, 2020). It is an \"all-in\" perspective on transformation, based on the understanding that disruption to these regimes has foundational knock-on effects across all of society, often with notions of justice and equity as central philosophy, but arguably de-emphasizing the desirability of more incremental changes ( Wezel et al., 2020;Wilson et al., 2020). In contrast, a systemic transformation perspective focuses more on the components and interconnections of specific systems, such as food and agricultural systems, and the potential for these systems to be altered and disrupted through changes to these components and relationships (Sachs et al., 2019). This could be in the form of changes in consumer behaviors, the introduction and adoption of technologies, or new public-private partnerships, for example. Such perspectives arguably pay less attention to the issues of politics and power, but can also be somewhat blind to micro-level, autonomous and ad-hoc process of bottom-up change (Anderson et al., 2019). By contrast, from an enabling perspective, individual agency and action is not only seen as a driver of change but as a vision or objective of transformation in its own right. From such a perspective, emphasis is less on a pre-conceived vision of an altered systemic or structural future, and more on the enabling of individuals to mobilize, have an active voice in the governance of their own contexts and environments and continually shape the future trajectories of these. Here the focus is on recognizing and challenging unequal power dynamics that act to marginalize or exclude voices in the governance of agriculture and food systems (Pereira et al., 2018).There is an important time dimension to transformation. Individuals, systems, and structures have a history that has shaped contemporary experiences and to some extent sets the parameters of imagined alternative futures. We might think of there existing a certain path dependency in that future systems are intrinsically connected to historical ones (D'Alisa and Kallis, 2020; Whitfield et al., 2021). Structural, systemic and enabling approaches are not mutually exclusive (Scoones et al., 2020). They offer alternative analytical lenses on transformative change that we seek to hold in balance and tension with each other as we explore the ways in which transformation has been conceived of within KJWA.We draw from the framework of Whitfield et al. (2021), and prior work on just transformation (e.g., Jasanoff, 2018;Bennett et al., 2019), which argues that it is important to adopt at least three different justice lenses when considering what justice means in the context of agriculture and food systems transformation (Figure 2).Firstly a historical justice lens focuses our attention on how deep-seated inequalities experienced over time, both inform the contemporary state of food systems and often become replicated and reinforced through trajectories of change into the future. Although the technologies and strategies proposed in current agrarian policies for the global south countries differ from those of the colonial era and of the green revolution of the 1960s, issues of elite capture of benefits, marginalization of alternative knowledge, pre-existing ideologies and paradigms and northsouth transfer of knowledge and technologies continue to be reproduced (Patel, 2013;Whitfield, 2015). Adopting a historical justice lens helps to analyze how current policies of agriculture and food systems may exacerbate inequalities already experienced by various groups of people (women, youth, indigenous people, and other vulnerable groups) over time and reinforced through future trajectories.Secondly a representational justice lens turns our attention to governance processes and the voices that do or do not speak into the visioning and governing of transformation. It forces us to recognize that priorities and perspectives on agriculture and food system are many and varied and that there are perspectives that are marginalized and do not have an adequate voice for a variety of reasons. People, systems, and structures may all be represented in the discourse on agriculture and food systems, from community-based governance, social movements, donor-driven research, and development efforts to multilateral agencies. However, there is a potential that interests that emerge from different spaces and at different levels may be conflicting. At the same time, ideas can be subordinate to, or co-opted by, the power of elites, patriarchy, and wealth (Whitfield et al., 2021). Furthermore, Newell and Taylor (2018) argued that there is a macro-level regime complex of powerful institutions that have merged around the technological promise of \"climate smart\" agricultural transformation, with implications for the type of innovations that may be promoted and its profits for intended beneficiaries. A representational justice lens might also encourage us to recognize that some stakeholders cannot speak directly for themselves-we might think about non-human actors (i.e., plants and animals) or future generations, and the ways in which they are represented.The third lens is a distributional justice lens, which turns our attention to the outcomes of transformation and how goods and risks are distributed-the distribution of access to and security of food, but also nutrition, waste, energy, land, income, employment, ecosystem services, and more (Bennett et al., 2019). Although access to these benefits or risks are likely to be shaped by geography, race, ethnic group, gender, age and more, it is important to recognize the intersectionality and multifaceted nature of identity that individuals hold (Nyantakyi-Frimpong, 2019;Tavenner and Crane, 2019). It is equally important to recognize that imagined transformation trajectories potentially become realities for future generations. Neither those of the past nor future can speak directly into the governance of imagined transformations or lay claim to their rights. The potential for the diversity of contexts and the intersectional identities of individuals to be overlooked within the ambitions of agriculture and food systems transformation represents one of its greatest risks from a distributional justice perspective (Whitfield, 2015). A distributional justice lens encourages us to recognize that different individuals might differently prioritize and place different value on these goods and risks.Analyzing food system transformation through multiple justice lenses (historical, representational, and distributional dimensions) can help expose hidden injustices across transformation trajectories. Translating this concept into key principles, then, we argue that in the visioning and governing of agricultural transformation there is also a need: to engage with power and political regimes; to represent multiple sites and scales; and to give a voice to the complex histories and complex intersectionalities that shape individuals' experiences of, and perspectives on transformation. We adopt these three justice lenses-historical, representational, and distributionalin analyzing the ways in which justice has been framed and discussed within KJWA, particularly to understand if certain framings predominate over others.The research presented below is based on a deductive discourse analysis of secondary data that sought to identity and categorize the dominate framings and narratives of justice within a large body of textual and audio-visual archived material (Janks, 1997;Fairclough, 2013). We applied the above described analytical framework to identifying justice language and concepts within the KJWA. Submissions to KJWA, workshop presentations and recordings, meeting minutes, press statements, and meeting reports were collated from the FAO and UNFCCC web portals, screened and transcribed for textual analysis.A total of 1,441 unique data sources were originally collated from 2013 SBSTA's five in-session workshops to the Koronivia workshop held in Bonn, 2022. Audio and video files were transcribed and all filed screened on the basis of: (a) having reference to terrestrial agriculture and/or food; (b) including one of the following keywords and their variants: \"Equity, \" \"Equality, \" \"Justice, \" \"Distribution, \" \"History/Historical, \" \"Compensation, \" and \"Representation.\" This initial screening reduced the total number of data sources to 155, of which 23 were transcripts of video recordings from KJWA workshops and meetings, and 129 were written submissions and statements from bodies contributing to KJWA.The documents were uploaded into the NVIVO software and coded, using a hierarchical coding structure (Table 1) based on the analytical framework on social justice and transformation. We applied critical discourse analysis to examine the text, interpret framings, and discourses and construct a narrative description.  .We begin by unpacking how transformation has been framed within Koronivia discussions, from discourses around technological fix and incremental agri-system change to more radical re-imaginings of political and market structures as well as more emancipatory forms of transformation, focused on enabling social movements and tackling inequalities. In the following sections we explore how equity has been discussed within Koronivia, in particular we unpack framings of who faces inequity and who a just transformation is for (the community of justice); and what equality and justice means in the agricultural context (highlighting references to distributional, representational, and historical justice).A familiar tension is evident across submissions to the Koronivia workshops between those advocating for the adoption and upscaling of modern agricultural technologies and practices (such as improved crop varieties, precision fertilizer usage, irrigation, and more) and those calling for a more radical, but rooted in traditional knowledge and practice, rethinking of production oriented agricultural development. The former is closely associated with well-established coalitions of international agricultural research institutions, donors, and intergovernmental institutions (such as the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, CGIAR, IFAD, the World Bank among other donor organizations), and is exemplified in the ClimateShot: Accelerating Agricultural Innovation Agenda which was launched at COP26. The latter is more commonly associated with grassroots and non-governmental organizations (such as Consumers International, The Indigenous and Peasant Coordinating Association of Central American Community Agroforestry, 4 per 1,000, Regenerative International etc.) who have widely denounced the conventional discourse around climate smart agriculture, arguing that this reinforces unsustainable agricultural intensification:\"We must recall that Climate-Smart Agriculture is not an approach that can contribute to the identification of agricultural practices and technologies in climate actions in any meaningful way, since this discourse issued to promote models and practices inherited from the past and which pose serious threats to long-term ecological and economical resilience.\" This distinction is associated with alternative understandings of the challenge of agriculture in climate change. A technical fix framing that has underpinned discussions within Koronivia on access to finance and research and development, whereas as more politicized understanding of the challenges has underpinned an explicit focus on institutions and governance. However, the battle lines between these alternative visions for agricultural transformation are arguably less distinct among Koronivia participants than they have been historically. Proponents of Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) and innovation rarely refer to single or narrowly defined technologies, but rather have incorporated principles of knowledge and information sharing, innovation platforms, and participatory resource governance into a broadening and increasingly inclusive vision for future agriculture [see for instance, Submission from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) on issues relating to SBSTA] on behalf of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFs). Koronivia has seen the language of CSA adopted by representatives of a broad range of Parties from both develop and developing countries.Similarly, the explicit inclusion and prioritization of agroecology have been put forward by a variety of Parties and observer groups, and is particularly central to the advocacy of the YOUNGO, ENGO, and Farmer observer groups within the UNFCCC:\"It is critical that we engage an ambitious agroecological transition.\"[Excerpt of written submission by YOUNGO to the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture, undated].Agro-ecology is a term that has been used to represent a spectrum of ideals, from nature-based and low intensity land management practices through to more structural reconfigurations toward degrowth and food system localization. However, the explicit inclusion of agro-ecology in the text of Koronivia documents has not garnered sufficient consensus, and remains a political issue. This is in part because it directly challenges the agricultural commercialization and industrialization agendas to which many governments and private sector interests are aligned, and in part because of ongoing debate about the ability to feed a growing population, a point that has been vehemently argued from multiple directions throughout Koronivia.What is common, or at least seemingly less contested, across these different perspectives is a focus on transformation at the level of the individual; the notion that systemic change can be brought about through the cumulative effect of changes among individual land users and consumers. This is particularly evident in the emphasis that is being placed on the \"upscaling\" of agricultural solutions, which many have argued should be the emphasis of post-Koronivia efforts:\"We really need a systemic shift that focuses on 100 million farmers.\"[Quotation from presentation by the Head of Partnerships and Outreach of the CGIAR, at KJWA workshop on Strategies and modalities to scale up implementation of best practices, innovations, and technologies that increase resilience and sustainable production in agricultural systems according to national circumstances, October 2021].As the Secretariat's report on the Socioeconomic and food security dimensions of climate change in the agricultural sector Workshop indicates, these discussions around upscaling not only cross the agro-ecology and CSA camps, but also extend to individual contexts, vulnerabilities, and inequalities which can represent constraints on achieving upscaling: \"General guidelines for action in the agriculture sector should be developed under the KJWA that focus on adaptation and take into account how power imbalances in agriculture constrain the upscaling of sustainable agriculture and agroecology.\" This discourse on scaling up gives rise to a broad consensus, albeit coming from a predominantly instrumental perspective, around the need to build capacities, and address the needs of the most vulnerable. Submissions from the Women's Environment and Development Organization, Care International, UN FAO, and others similarly stated that effective transformation requires that women, youth, local communities and indigenous people are granted greater access to education, inputs, other resources, and services. This is illustrative of a broad recognition that inequality is a root cause of challenges in the agricultural sector and resonates with notions of emancipatory transformation that focus less on effecting socio-technological change, and more on the empowerment of individuals.This focus on individual transformations can be contrasted, although is not incompatible, with calls for institutional transformations, which have been similarly evident in Koronivia. This institutional focus is arguably drawing greater attention to the root causes of inequality and vulnerability rather than the symptoms. At the workshop focusing on socioeconomic dimensions of climate change in agricultural sector, some parties, and observers advocated for policies that can regulate land price and illegal land use, for example. Others have pointed to the need for creating enabling environments for farmers to form cooperatives and access markets and finance. These calls for institutional change, extend to advocates for change in the UNFCCC and its associated processes (such as in commitments and national adaptation plans of Parties) itself, and in many ways, this is central to the broad objective of Koronivia, to reposition agriculture within the framework convention.As mentioned above, reference to inequalities and uneven responsibility for, and impacts of, climate change are evident throughout the submissions and workshop discussions of Koronivia. However, collectively they represent a relatively narrow conceptualization of the community of justice. Strong emphasis on gender and age-related inequalities in climate impacts is particularly evident and discourse predominantly emphasizes the compounded vulnerabilities to climate change of female-headed, poor, rural households in the Global South. This is a perspective that has been exemplified in the submissions of the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization: \"Impacts of climate change are expected to disproportionately affect the welfare of the most vulnerable in the poor and marginalized in rural areas, such as femaleheaded households and those with limited access to land, productive assets, infrastructure, and education.\"[Excerpt of written submission by the World Food Programme to SBSTA on views related to the identification of adaptation measures and assessment of agricultural practices and technologies to enhance productivity in a sustainable manner, food security, and resilience, undated].Discussion about intergenerational inequality has focused on children and youth, and specifically on youth unemployment and rural-urban migration. Less evident are references to past or future generations. Of course, there are many references made to the projections that populations will grow, and climate impacts will intensify into the future, thereby exacerbating challenges of achieving food security. However, this rarely translates into a discussion of the novel vulnerabilities or uneven distribution of risks within future generations compared with those of the present-the inequities between those currently living with those yet to exist. As we go on to discuss, the Koronivia process has also been surprisingly void of discussions around historical and differentiated responsibility.There is an equal focus, although largely coming from a different group of contributors, on indigenous peoples. A close counterpart to arguments about the disproportionate vulnerability of these groups is a clear call for greater representation and voice and the need for indigenous knowledge-centered approaches to climate governance. This broad and increasingly conventional narrative of participation encapsulates both the normative values of representation and rights, as well as pragmatic virtues of indigenous and women's knowledges in addressing climate challenges:\"Indigenous peoples should take the lead on deciding what should be done on a global scale.\"[Quotation from presentation by the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food by the Human Rights Council of the United Nations at KJWA workshop on strategies and modalities, the scale of implementation of best practices, innovations, and technologies that increase resilience and sustainable production in agricultural systems according to national circumstance, October 2021].Geographically, across the Koronivia programme, we observe references to the shared and global nature of climate change impacts and food system challenges, which speak directly to the UNFCCC as a global institution and its cooperative, shared responsibility agenda. But Koronivia has also been a platform for countless appeals and presentations from member states and negotiating groups such as AOSIS, the African Group, and G77 and China, around context specific climate impacts on agriculture and uneven geographic distribution of these, particularly between the Global North and Global South.\"Pastoralists in Kenya, rice farmers in India, and industrial feedlot operators in the U.S. are all contending with increased frequency of drought and erratic weather.\"[Excerpt from written submission by Brighter Green submission on agriculture to SBSTA of UNFCCC, 2013].An (arguably superficial) intersectional perspective on vulnerability-acknowledging the interrelated demographic, geographic, and institutional contexts in which climate impacts are experienced-represents a broadly accepted convention across the UNFCCC. However, within Koronivia this understanding of intersectionality has not often translated into an interrogation or focus on the underlying causes of these vulnerabilities. This point, raised by a smallholder farmer who was an expert panelist at the Koronivia workshop on improved nutrient use and manure management toward sustainable and resilient agricultural systems (November 2020), represents a rare exception: \"Women farmers in Malawi face additional challenges because they cannot own land there, their participation in decision-making processes, where they could communicate their needs, is limited and they are poorly represented in development structures in the country because of their high illiteracy level. They also lack access to agricultural public extension workers.\"[Quotation from participant in the workshop on improved nutrient use and manure management toward sustainable and resilient agricultural systems (November 2020)].More often, this focus on multifaceted vulnerability, has simply served to support the argument that there should be more resources, or improved representation, for vulnerable and marginalized groups within climate action and solutions.There has also been a fundamental anthropocentrism to Koronivia discussions. In the workshop organized around Livestock Management there was an inevitable and implicit emphasis on animals as livestock, with discussion around animals largely focusing on their productivity, nutritional value, and emissions. Very rarely have concerns over animal welfare been expressed within the Koronivia. Rarer still have been more biocentric views concerned with the rights of animals or their identities and welfare beyond their role as productive units. Although agroecology has been proposed by many as a solution for enhancing biodiversity and restoring carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorous cycles, across the Koronivia dialogues, there is a seemingly accepted and unchallenged framing of agriculture as distinct from natural systems. As such broader ecological and philosophical perspectives on nature fall somewhat outside of the accepted, although rarely debated, scope of Koronivia.Discussions on who is represented within agricultural transformation were inevitably entangled with critical reflections on who is represented within the Koronivia process itself. An often raised self-critique of these dialogues is that there is a disconnect between those negotiating on behalf of UNFCCC Parties and the farmers on the ground, who do not have a direct voice into these discussions.\"We are arguing about mitigation and adaptation but the farmers who are affected and who are causing this are not here. Their voices are not being heard, their situation is not being projected directly.\"[Quotation from representative from Uganda at the WWF side event at COP26: \"Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture: What next Lessons learnt and perspectives, \" November 2021].Across the Koronivia workshops and in the submissions of written statements, however, there has been input from a wide variety of representatives: of farmer groups, civil society, and non-governmental organizations as well as research institutions (see Tables 2, 3).This has helped to reinforce a common narrative across the Koronivia dialogues, and one that it is recognized in the draft decision text for COP27, about the need for inclusive, multilevel and co-ordinated process of action-planning, policy and No. of submissions with relevance to reference to justice UN systems 32Regional and economic blocs 2Parties 137Observes 170Constituencies under the United Nations framework convention on climate change 7 investment in order to leverage transformative change that is at the same time context-specific and delivered at scale:\"Our intent is that farmer voices are not only heard but that they have an opportunity to provide significant input to national, global and local agricultural policies.\"[Quotation from Representative of Farmers Constituency at the KJWA workshop on Socioeconomic and Food security dimensions of climate change in the agricultural sector, December 2020].\"Highlighting that each food and production system has its own challenges, and solutions must be contextspecific and country-driven, and that, for strategies and their implementation to be scaled up, they must be customized for local conditions.\"[Excerpt from Enhanced consideration and implementation of elements related to agriculture-Elements of a Draft COP Decision, June 2022].Despite the calls for more context-specific action, investment, and capacity building at local scales, as Koronivia has progressed, frustrations have also been expressed about lack of ambition in these plans, and the desire to see agricultural innovations and support structures scaled up. The language of scaling up has been often repeated as parties express their ambitions for an implementation-focused post-Koronivia process, and this is reflected too in the commitments by many Parties to the Action Agenda for Innovation in Agriculture made at COP26. Some parties also expressed concern about low uptake of project or scalability of agricultural innovations. Some discussants mentioned that bottom-up approaches are rarely applied in the agricultural innovations while the selection of farmers for the interventions is also crucial in the adoption of innovation and upscale. The governance of agricultural transformation occurs at different scales and decision contexts. In the Koronivia process, discussions about the governance of transformation were dispersed throughout the roadmap and points raised about the need for engagement from multiple actors in driving change in finance, land, innovation, resources, and other decision-making processes were reiterated throughout. National governments were identified as key actors in the governance of agricultural transformation, but there was also recognition of the need for multi-level and participatory governance and public-private partnerships, to bring about effective agricultural change in different contexts. Other discussions within Koronivia focused on how to make choices and highlighted the absence of, and need for, consistent monitoring and evaluation metrics, data, and information sharing platforms to inform decision making at different scales.Distributional justice has been implicitly discussed throughout the Koronivia dialogues, in ways that are largely consistent and compatible with the UNFCCC's underlying principle of common but differentiated responsibility. This has included discussions on the distribution of agricultural and food-related emissions, the distribution of agro-climatic risks (including indirect risks such as pests and diseases), and the distribution of adaptive capacities (Table 4).Across Koronivia workshops on technical aspects of agricultural practice (such as those focused on Soil, Water Management and Integrated Systems and on Nutrient Use and Manure Management) a variety of participants have raised issues around uneven access to finance, as well as to technologies, land, and natural resources that constrain agricultural practices and limit adaptive capacities. At the Koronivia workshops, presentations shows that the amount of global finance available to agricultural sector is minimal compared to other sectors such as energy and transport. Similarly, there is less funding available for adaptation particularly in the area of agriculture.There has been some debate within Koronivia workshops about the extent to which support, and resource is directed to large commercial vs. small scale farms. Additionally, smallholder farmers often face challenges accessing credit required to invest in long term adaptation practices. The argument goes further that most smallholder farmers Climate risks (75) • Agricultural inputs (seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, etc.) • Agro-processing technologies • Rural infrastructure (roads, electricity, etc.)Bracketed numbers indicate the number of data sources to which each sub code was assigned.in the global south depend on imported farm inputs. The limited finance available to the sector coupled with high inflation in most countries affects the adoption of innovation for mitigation or adaptation. Concerns have also been highlighted that even where there is an intended flow of finance (e.g., through the Global Climate Fund) that this does not necessarily reach the farmers themselves. \"There's definitely that lack of targeting in terms of funding going for small scale farmer.\"[Quotation from representative from IFAD at KJWA workshop on Strategies and modalities to scale up implementation of best practices innovations and technologies that increase resilience and sustainable production in agricultural systems according to national circumstances, October 2021].\"We need to make sure that the funding flows on the ground I mean directly to the communities.\"[Quotation from the representative of the Adaptation Fund at the Koronivia expert dialogue on channels to unlock climate finance for adaptation and resilience-COP 26/IFAD Pavilion virtual event, November 2021].There has been a notable variety in the sites and scales at which this distribution of risks, resources, and responsibilities is considered. Throughout the dialogues and workshops, there are well-rehearsed and much-repeated statistics about the main sources of GHG emissions. But choosing to highlight geographic and historical differences in emissions (e.g., between the Global North and South) acts to frame any consideration of distributional justice in a very different way to those contributions that highlight differences within sectors (e.g., across different parts of the supply chain, or different systems of production). One might compare, for example, these two statements that differently describe disproportionate emissions firstly on a Global North vs. Global South basis and secondly on a livestock vs. non-livestock production system basis: \"Urgent action is needed now, primarily due to the historical emission of GHGs, which reflect the pattern of wealth inequality globally, with almost 75% of all historical emissions coming from just over 20% of the global population in the North.\" \"Around 75% of agriculture's emissions are produced by livestock, including the production of feed for livestock and the associated land use changes.\"[Excerpt from written submission by Isis Alvarez, Global Forest Coalition, Colombia on behalf of the Women Gender Constituency, Speaking points, to the KJWA: \"Improved livestock management systems, including agropastoral production systems and others\"].Beyond a focus on nation states, contributors to Koronivia have also repeatedly highlighted the unequal distribution of risks and resources at more local and micro-scales. In many cases, such interventions highlight gendered differences in access to resources and adaptive capacities, but they have also highlighted how interventions and support programmes can become concentrated in desirable regions and localities for funded pilot programmes.Beyond a recognition of the unequal historical contributions to emissions of Parties, there has been very little discussion of historical injustice, in agriculture and food systemssuch as injustices related to dispossession and land grabbing, slavery, and workers' rights and corporate take-over of intellectual property and markets-throughout the Koronivia workshops. Furthermore, while this recognition of differentiated responsibility helps to align Koronivia with the NDCs and adaptation finance mechanisms of the UNFCCC, the language of Article 8 of the Paris Agreement on Loss and Damage has been notably absent from all of the discussions and outputs of Koronivia. This signals an apparently conscious decision to separate out the issues of climate impacts and adaptation in agriculture from the most politicized and contested aspects of the UNFCCC negotiations.One notable exception to this was the intervention made by Michael Fakhry, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food by the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, at the Koronivia intersessional workshop on strategies and modalities, the scale of implementation of best practices, innovations and technologies that increase resilience and sustainable production in agricultural systems according to national circumstance (October 2021). The quotation from the Special Rapporteur states:\"How people eat is not just an economic decision it really is historical and cultural and being told what to eat has a long history of power dynamics. So right now unfortunately the relationship is not between consumers and producers working out based on these cultural and historical traditions and being dynamic as things change how we eat always changes even traditional ways are evolving but again it has to be about that relationship. Unfortunately now most food systems, most people the choice of what they get to eat is dictated by corporations.\"[Quotation from Michael Fakhry, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food by the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, Workshop on strategies and modalities, the scale of implementation of best practices, innovations and technologies that increase resilience and sustainable production in agricultural systems according to national circumstance (October 2021)]. This workshop briefly opened up a rare (within the Koronivia context) discussion about the ways in which industrialization and capitalist interests have shaped production practices, food access and supply, and shaped agricultural research agendas, in all cases exacerbating inequalities and locking resource-constrained producers into the mono-crop production of foods with low nutrient value and poor resilience to climate variability. This discussion, remained at a largely ideological level rather than unpacking specific examples or experiences from any of the Parties, and it was only briefly referred to in the report of this session. It was also notable that this discussion did not extend to explicit acknowledgments of the way that histories of colonialism and occupation in the Global South have driven the spread of capitalism-oriented agriculture as well as shaping inequitable land rights and eroding indigenous and traditional knowledge and intellectual property rights.The importance of taking a Rights-based approach to agricultural transformation was raised at the Workshop on \"Socioeconomic and food security dimensions of climate change in the agricultural sector\" at which the International Union of Food Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco, and Allied Workers Associations delivered a statement on behalf of trade union NGOs that proposed that the universal right to food should be central and guiding principle around which food system transformation is oriented:International Union advocates a rights-based approach to addressing the socioeconomic and food security dimensions of climate change, whereby the right to food must frame the shift to climate-friendly agricultural practices.[Excerpt of report by the UNFCCC Secretariat on in-session workshop on improved soil carbon, soil health, and soil fertility under grassland and cropland as well as integrated systems, including water management, June 2019].However, it is not only the Right to Food that is highlighted in relation to a rights-based approach, also raised were the Rights to Decent Work and the Universal Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The latter was often interpreted as a right to land access and ownership as well as the protection of indigenous knowledges and the right to practice indigenous forms of agriculture. The Co-chair of the Facilitative Working Group of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform emphasized the importance of a rights-based approach that builds on existing agreements, such as the 2002 Declaration of Atitlán, the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the recognition of their rights in the Paris Agreement, which set the minimum standards for the survival, dignity and wellbeing of indigenous peoples. They mentioned further that a temperature increase of as little as 2 • C would put them at risk of losing land and cultural and natural heritage and disrupt cultural practices embedded in their livelihoods.. . To what extent and how is justice framed within Koronivia?We find that references to just transformations in agriculture, within the Koronivia Joint Working Group on Agriculture are largely implicit, but not absent. Justice is arguably most obvious and evident when it comes to discussion about who agricultural transformation is for and who is (and where are) the most vulnerable to climate change and variability. Such discussions come from an instrumental perspective as much as an ethical one. Appeals about where, and to whom (i.e., the most vulnerable) technologies, information, and finances need to be directed are as much, if not more, about how to achieve scaled-up agricultural transformation than they are about addressing distributional injustices in agricultural resources. Even less evident have been explicit appeals to address the historical injustices that have shaped agricultural and rural livelihoods, to provide compensatory finance for loss and damage from climate change in agriculture, or from colonial and exploitative land ownership, labor conditions, and market and power asymmetries.One of the successes of the KJWG is the number and variety of submissions and inputs that it generated over its 4 year process. These represent the contributions of varied interest groups with global coverage. Broad representation within KJWG translated into a significant emphasis being placed on the theme of representation and, in particular on participants highlighting the importance of different voices and knowledges governing and guiding agricultural transformation. However, workshops and negotiations under KJWG rarely critically interrogated issues of politics and power, with contentious issues (such as corporate control of food systems, and reducing meat and dairy consumption) mostly avoided, aside from rare debates over agroecology vs. agricultural modernization and over the use of the language of \"mitigation\" vs. \"adaptation co-benefits, \" for example. This is arguably symptomatic of the UNFCCC process and the importance placed within UNFCCC negotiations on consensus building. The consequence of this is that more fundamental structural change, which is inevitable contentious, came to be understood as somewhat out of the scope of Koronivia and in turn this squeezes the discursive space for recognizing and addressing historical injustice.References, again often implicitly made, to rights-based understandings of agricultural transformation arguably offer the most comprehensive framing of justice within Koronivia. A rights-based framing of justice reflects a historical dimension, as well-distributive (e.g., right to food) and representative (e.g., indigenous rights and rights to political voice). However, while the recognition of these rights within discursive forums is important, discussions within Koronivia have not gone as far as identifying and determining how these rights could or should be recognized and protected through the mechanisms of the UNFCCC.We have unpicked KJWG discussions and the multifaceted ways in which they have intersected with different notions of justice. We note that to date KJWG has largely been a forum for discussion and ideas. As diverse and productive as the KJWG discussions have been, dialogue around what a just transformation in agriculture is and how it is achieved has been incomplete. Post-Koronivia there is undoubted pressure to convert discussion into implementation and action, but there is a danger that this implementation phase becomes oriented along conventional \"green revolution\"-type agricultural development lines, focusing on the adoption and upscaling of agricultural technologies and practices, rather than on addressing historical, representative and distributive injustices, and their underlying causes.. . What next for agriculture in the UNFCCC and how can it promote just transformation?\"Determining the next steps for agriculture while building on the work done so far is crucial to ensure the practical implementation of KJWA outcomes. . . KJWA will only be a true success if and when it creates the conditions to deliver concrete actions that benefit and strengthen the resilience of those most vulnerable while protecting the environment we all depend on\" (Drieux et al., 2021, p. 17).Throughout the KJWA, Parties and Observers have continuously stated and agreed upon the need for robust, ambitious and urgent climate actions for mitigation, adaptation, and adaptation co-benefits for agriculture and food systems transformation. Particularly in the final 6 months of KJWA, Parties requested that the Koronivia process turn discussions into concrete actions at national and global scales, and during intersessional workshops held in June 2021 as part of the UNFCCC workshops toward COP 26 Parties proposed that \"implementation\" became one of the recurrent terms of future dialogues. The language of implementation is purposeful evident throughout the Sharm El-Sheik Joint Work on Implementation, and its objectives are largely action-oriented, aiming for greater integration of agriculture into the workstreams and operational mechanisms (particularly around finance) of the UNFCCC and the development and monitoring of national policies and plans.It is broadly recognized that there is still much to be negotiated over competing visions for future agricultural systems and the ways in which agro-climatic impacts, adaptations and mitigation should be reflected and integrated within the Articles of the Paris Agreement and in national commitments. There is a need, for example, for discussions and decisions about how loss and damage in agriculture is defined and how these are compensated for, under Article 8 of the Paris Agreement (and operationalised through the newly agreed Loss and Damage fund). However, there has also been a much-voiced sense of urgency in the need to move beyond negotiation toward the implementation of actions that will enhance the climate resilience and climate smartness of agriculture on the ground. In the elements for a draft COP decision on Koronivia collated at Bonn in June 2022 include the potential recommendation that the UNFCCC Parties:\"Emphasize the urgency of scaling up action and support, including finance, technology development and transfer, and capacity-building.\"[Excerpt from Enhanced consideration and implementation of elements related to agriculture-Elements of a Draft COP Decision (SBSTA/SBI, Bonn, June 2022)].Importantly, the recommendations of Koronivia are not limited to the mainstreaming of agriculture within the framework convention but focus more systemically on the imperative of creating enabling environments for implementation, within and beyond the governance and jurisdiction of UN member states. To this end, KJWA presents itself a powerful coalition of ideas, actors, and enables, coalescing around a shared vision of climate smart agricultural transformation.As Blythe et al. (2018) points out, one of the latent risks of transformation discourse is that the imperative to see upscaled change is prioritized over the mechanisms, governance, and politics of such change. Arguably, one of the reasons why KJWA has been silent on issues of loss and damage is that they are too political and difficult to reach consensus around. There is a danger that in emphasizing the importance of implementation finance and technology transfer that certain actors and perspectives have a privileged position in the bringing about of agricultural transformation and that historical power asymmetries are reinforced. Propositions of knowledge and technology transfer and participation of certain actors like the private sector in the climate change context can reinforce the dominance of capital, continuance of classic economic models and neocolonial processes that have so far created a dependency model of development in the Global South, and exacerbated gender and social inequalities. As Koronivia moves toward an implementation stage, it is arguably even more important than ever there is an acknowledgment of the historical injustices brought about through past technology-transfer centric green revolutions and more important than ever that different perspectives and knowledges are identified and represented in the visioning and governing of agricultural transformation. It is important that in the imperative to move to implementation, and to produce consensual general statements, the focus does not become too technocratic and that the contributions on justice (however fleeting, and however implicit/indirect they have so far been) are not set aside.It would be easy to write off this discussion of justice and equity as overly theoretical or discursive, to be set aside once the real work of implementation kicks in. However, we argue that distributional, historical, and representational justice should be fundamental guiding principles, embedded within action plans, compensatory mechanisms, and financial agreements, and our concern is that they have not yet been well enough established and agreed upon through KJWA to serve as such.We propose that the Sharm El-Sheik Joint Work on Implementation is used as opportunity to better address the issues of justice and agricultural transformation that have been underserved within Koronivia. Among other things, this might include:• Identifying governance and representation in agricultural transitions becomes as a core agenda item of the Sharm El-Sheik Joint Work on Implementation to allow space for a broader consultation with, and about, whose voices are represented in agricultural governance and why. This should include the development and incorporation of monitoring and evaluation tools for the Implementation Plan that capture representation, and more institutional and structural perspectives on transformation, in an authentic way.• Translating the explicit acknowledgment in the first objective of the Sharm El-Sheik Joint Work on Implementation that \"adaptation is a priority for vulnerable groups, including women, indigenous peoples and small-scale farmers\" into an emphasis on social equity within national policies and strategies and the targeted prioritization of transformation strategies, safety nets and support that redresses distributive injustices.• Using the opportunity presented by the coincidence of the Sharm El-Sheik Joint Work on Implementation and the establishment of a Loss and Damage Fund (and operationalization of the Santiago Network) under the UNFCCC, for integrating these processes. This in turn could manifest in an effort to better unpack the ways in which historical injustices are experienced within agriculture and food systems and to design compensatory mechanisms that redress these.Although we do not dispute the need for implementation and action, we argue that there is a need for continued and ongoing dialogue within the UNFCCC, through the Sharm El-Sheik Joint Work on Implementation, around the meanings of and mechanisms for achieving social justice in agriculture and food system transformation.","tokenCount":"9188"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a1097751fd31c6e3bc2effe6bb0770ec","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a63b28ac-36b7-4c7f-9265-fe0231dd300e/retrieve","id":"915837300"},"keywords":["National and county State and non-state institutions. Data sources: County website","Ministry of Agriculture website","CSA-MSP website National and county levels. Data sources: County websites","Ministry of Agriculture websites","CSA-MSP websites OUTPUT 3.1 Practices","gender. Data source: Reports. INDICATOR 3.1.2 Actors","type of information. Data sources: Organizations. INDICATOR 4.2 Existence of functional CSA information management systems To build synergies","trigger necessary action and improve information access. Disaggregated by: Information system. Data sources: Organizations","CSA MSPs websites. INDICATOR 4.3"],"sieverID":"d007e54d-7315-4e08-affd-96f21d3b8eba","pagecount":"48","content":"The views expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, FAO, UNDP or UNOPS.An analysis describing the situation in a project area -including data about individual primary stakeholders -prior to a development intervention. Progress, including results and accomplishments, can be assessed and comparisons made against the baseline study. It also serves as an important reference for the completion evaluation.An approach to developing the technical, policy, and investment conditions to achieve sustainable agricultural development for food security under climate change. CSA integrates the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development by jointly addressing food security and climate challenges. It entails three main pillars: sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and incomes, adapting and building resilience to climate change, and reducing and/ or removing GHG emissions, where possible.A measure of how economic inputs such as funds, expertise, and time are converted into outputs.A systematic and objective examination of a planned, ongoing, or completed project. It aims at answering specific management questions and judging the overall value of a development intervention. Evaluations offer information about lessons learned to improve future decision making and commonly seek to determine the efficiency, effectiveness, impact, sustainability, and relevance of the project's or organization's objectives.The higher-order program or sector objective to which a program or project is intended to contribute.A quantitative or qualitative factor or variable that provides a simple and reliable basis for assessing achievement, change, or performance.It is a unit of information measured over time that can help show changes in a specific condition. A given goal or development objective can have multiple indicators.The financial, human, and material resources necessary to produce the intended outputs of a project.A combination of program or project elements or strategies designed to produce behavioral changes or improve the status of value chain actors to achieve intended project objectives.A modification of an existing technology for a different use than the original intended purpose, or the application of new or existing knowledge or technology in a fresh way or context, to do something better or differently.The systematic management of an organization's knowledge assets for the purpose of creating value and meeting tactical and strategic requirements; it consists of the initiatives, processes, strategies, and systems that sustain and enhance the storage, assessment, sharing, refinement, and creation of knowledge.A system of inputting, collating, and organizing data to provide management with selective information and reports in order to assist in monitoring and controlling a project's organization, resources, activities, and results.It is a log design that provides means for determining the progress of a programme or a project or set of activities in regard to achievement of the program/project aims/objectives. It is a table that describes verifiable indicators used to effectively measure a program or project progress.A table presenting the following information: performance questions; information gathering requirements, including indicators; reflection and review events with stakeholders; and resources and activities required to implement a functional M&E system. This matrix lists how data will be collected, when, by whom, and where.Metadata means \"data about data\". Metadata is defined as data that furnishes information about one or more aspects of other data; it is used to summarize basic information about data which can make tracking and working with that data easier.The regular collection and analysis of information to support timely decision making, ensure accountability, and provide a basis for evaluation and learning.A specific statement detailing the desired accomplishments or outcomes of a project at different levels in the short or long term. A good objective meets the criteria of being impact-oriented, measurable, time-limited, specific, and practical.The results achieved at the level of \"purpose\" in the objective hierarchy. It is part of impact, a result at purpose and goal level.Indicators at the output level of the objective hierarchy, usually describing the quantity of outputs and the timing of their delivery.The immediate, intended, and tangible-that is, easily measurable and practical-results to be produced through sound management of agreed-upon inputs. Outputs may also include changes resulting from interventions that are necessary to achieve outcomes at the purpose level.Something that is not conveyed in numerical form, such as minutes from community meetings and general notes about observations. Qualitative data often describe people's knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors.Something measured by, measurable by, or concerned with quantity and expressed in numbers or quantities.The capacity of a system or people to recover quickly from a difficult situation such as a prolonged drought.The measurable output, outcome, or impact-intended or unintended, positive or negative-of a development intervention.Safeguards against possible hardships or difficult circumstances arising from foreseeable or unforeseeable events.An agency, organization, group, or individual that has a direct or indirect interest in a project or program, or who affects or is affected positively or negatively by its implementation and outcome.Active involvement by stakeholders in the design, management, and monitoring of a project. Full participation means all representatives of key stakeholder groups at the project site become involved in mutually agreed-upon, appropriate ways.The likelihood that the positive effects of a project, such as assets, skills, facilities, or improved services, will persist for an extended period after the external assistance ends.A specified objective that indicates the number, timing, and location of that which is to be realized.The The KCSAIF has four objectives:1. To develop a sustainable system for achieving coordinated, coherent, and cooperative governance of climate resilience and low-carbon growth in the agricultural sector.To mainstream CSA to support the transformation of Kenya's agricultural sector into an innovative, commercially oriented, competitive, and modern industry that contributes to poverty reduction and improved food security in Kenya.To reduce the vulnerability of agricultural systems by cushioning them against the impacts of climate change and to reduce GHG emissions where possible.To strengthen communication systems pertaining to CSA extension and agroweather issues.The objectives of the KCSAIF will be realized by implementing actions designed around the following four components.This component supports the establishment of an inclusive institutional framework for improved agricultural-sector CSA coordination and harmonization, and an enabling policy and institutional environment for the realization of the CSA objectives in general. It involves strengthening the coordination on CSArelated issues of inter-ministerial, national, and county governments, the private sector, CSOs, development partners, and other non-state actors. Institutional coordination will enhance the capacity for cross-sectoral planning and communication within and between ministries and government institutions with different mandates regarding CSA. Further, this component will enable sectoral institutions to contribute to and take responsibility for sector-wide coordination and implementation for more effective delivery of their CSA-related mandates.Aimed at building resilience along different agricultural value chains through adaptive technologies and enhanced market linkages, this component can play a major role in ensuring improved agricultural productivity. It will also promote commercialization, food safety, and quality control standards along the value chains.This component aims at building resilience through adaptation and appropriate mitigation measures through improved management of the natural resource base and through the development of safety nets along value chains. It will also support the identification and deployment of appropriate measures that minimize GHG emissions in agricultural production systems.This component aims to strengthen and mainstream communication systems pertaining to CSA, extension, and agro-weather issues among agricultural-sector stakeholders. In addition, it will promote generation of, access to, and enhanced application of CSA knowledge among value chain actors. Further, this component will help strengthen systems for timely provision of climate forecasts to different value chain stakeholders.Institutional arrangements for M&E relate to the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders and partners and how they work together. These arrangements typically provide the context in which the institutions in charge of coordinating climate action in agriculture carry out their M&E roles-in this case, the MoALF&C and county government departments. An effective M&E institutional arrangement fosters the implementation of a robust M&E system, such that each institution undertakes its functions efficiently and in a timely manner to ensure seamless working between relevant institutions.The following institutions will play a pivotal role in the M&E of CSA.The National Climate Change Council has a broad-based membership among both state and non-state actors and is chaired by the president; it provides an overarching national climate change coordination mechanism. As the principal decision-making organ on climate change issues in Kenya, the council is a key consumer of M&E reports to track the progress of resilience building in the country. The council does the following:» Ensures the mainstreaming of the climate change functions by the national and county governments.» Sets targets for the regulation of GHG emissions and resilience building. » Coordinates events and functions to follow up about CSA with the national and county governments; and » Uses its forums for joint planning of CSA programs.The CCCU is the coordinating body of the climate agenda for all the sectors within a county. Each CCCU is domiciled at the county department of the environment. As a reflection of the county climate change agenda, each sector is expected to provide plans, interventions, and policies to be carried out in the departments responsible for climate action.The CASCFP fulfills the following expectations: Implementation of this M&EF will require sufficient financial, human, and infrastructural capacity to empower relevant institutions, organizations, managers, and staff to effectively carry out the M&E tasks.A capacity needs assessment will be conducted to identify the required skills and enable the development of a capacity building program to ensure the availability of adequate human resources for M&E. Sufficient capacity building will be conducted among all implementing institutions and partners for effective implementation of this M&EF. Implementing organizations and partners shall retain a critical mass of experts to support the M&E system, who will include M&E specialists, MIS experts, and statisticians, among others. Qualified trainers will roll out the capacity building plan, which will cover the following factors, among others: Implementation of M&E activities requires sufficient infrastructure, including buildings, office equipment, furniture, vehicles, power connections, computers, printers, communication devices, and an internet connection. Other requirements are Global Positioning System equipment, weighing scales, and survey equipment. Implementing partners will develop the necessary infrastructure based on the capacity needs assessment. The CCU will develop a CSA MIS and standard monitoring tools for data collection and analysis.The implementation of this CSA M&EF will involve several stakeholders and will therefore require adequate resources. Based on the budget estimates of the KCSAS strategy at K Sh 500 billion, this M&EF will require a total of K Sh 25 billion in a period of ten (10) years, equivalent to 5% of the KCSAS budget. Resources will be mobilized from a wide range of partners that shall include the national government through exchequer allocations, the county governments through Efficient tracking of the climate actions being undertaken in the agricultural sector is a prerequisite to demonstrate progress towards enhanced productivity, increased resilience, and the mitigation of GHG emissions outlined in the KCSAS. Consequently, this M&EF has been developed as an integral component to ensure that strategic objectives are achieved in a cost-effective, coordinated, and harmonized approach at both the national and county levels.This M&EF aims to guide coordinated and efficient data collection, analysis, and use, and the provision of information that includes indications of impact, outcomes, and outputs. Monitoring will entail gauging the progress of sectoral climate actions at the activity and output levels, while evaluation will involve measuring achievements at the levels of outcomes and impact. This M&EF is expected to foster effective planning to attain optimal utilization of resources, achieve set goals, and transform the agricultural sector towards resilient, lowcarbon agriculture.The objectives of this M&EF are as follows:i. To guide M&E of progress toward KCSAIF goals, outcomes, and indicators, in order to ensure efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability during implementation; andii. To enforce a culture of results-based M&E and provide a foundation for an evidence-based decision-making process.Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Paris Agreement sets out an enhanced transparency framework for climate change action and support. Kenya is expected to provide information on mitigation, adaptation, and the support received.Kenya's transparency framework is based on the MRV+ system defined in the National Climate Change Action Plan 2013-2017 as \"an integrated framework for measuring, monitoring, evaluating, verifying, and reporting results of mitigation actions, adaptation actions and the synergies between them.\" The MRV+ system generates information for national and international reporting requirements.The purpose of this M&EF is to track whether the scheduled KCSAIF goals, objectives, outcomes, outputs, and other factors are proceeding as planned. An effective M&EF will help guide the implementation of the KCSAIF and by extension the KCSAS. The purpose of this M&EF, therefore, is to ensure that the implementation of the KCSAIF is efficient and stakeholders can measure the progress of initiatives arising from the KCSAS and the KCSAIF.This M&EF is a useful learning tool and will inform potential investment actors for onward planning. Corrective actions will be instituted on an ongoing basis using the annexed monthly, quarterly, and annual reporting formats. Reports will be compiled, analyzed, and shared during the implementation period which will be used at a mid-term review before the second M&E framework is developed. During the M&E process, implementers will identify data gaps and institute mechanisms to rectify any anomalies.The scope of this M&EF is broad enough to accommodate all stakeholders implementing CSA interventions including farmers, public-and private-sector actors, academia, researchers, and CSOs. Elaborate metadata is part of this framework to enhance understanding of the indicators monitored, how they will be measured, and reporting formats.The stakeholders implementing CSA at all levels of government are expected to use this M&EF to report to their sectoral CCU through the communication flow about all CSA interventions as outlined in the M&E tool which shall be online. Subsequently, the CCU will collate the sectoral data on CSA interventions and submit the same to the Climate Change Directorate in the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. Institutional coordination of Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) policy and implementation strengthened. The aim of Outcome 1 is to demonstrate the existence of a sustainable system for achieving coordinated, coherent, and cooperative governance of climate-resilient, low-carbon growth in the agricultural sector through improved inter-ministerial and county government coordination; through deepening partnerships between state and non-state actors; and through improved linkages between actors in the agricultural research system, advisory services, and producers. Definition: These are funds in Kenya Shillings invested by the state and non-state stakeholders (government, CSOs, development partners, private sector, researchers, academia, and others) in CSA activities annually. These are the funds invested by the implementing organizations.Rationale: This will allow progressive increase in climate smart agriculture investments.Disaggregated by: Source (government, CSOs, development partners, the private sector, researchers, academia, and others) and category (loans and grants).Data source: Funding/implementing organizations. Definition: Presence of CSA coordination mechanisms that are discharging their mandates of coordinating, planning, implementation and reporting. There will be need for coordination between the two levels of government.Rationale: This will solve the problem of duplication and build synergy.Disaggregated by: Governance level (National and county). Definition: These are the national guidelines aimed at increasing productivity and resilience of farming systems through low carbon pathways. These guidelines are expected to be domesticated at the county level.Disaggregated by: Governance level (National and county). Definition: These platforms bring together the three actors in the technology generation, dissemination and adoption. The platform will set the agenda for research, dissemination methods and factors to facilitate adoption.Rationale: This will create demand-driven research and efficient extension for technology adoption.Data sources: Reports, journals, brochures, county websites, Ministry of Agriculture websites, CSA-MSP websites etc. Definition: These are communication tools developed through synthesis of research, studies to inform policy makers for decisionmaking.Rationale: This will accelerate implementation of the recommended CSA policy actions by informed decisions.Disaggregated by: Governance level (National and county). Definition: This is the number of programmes that will be undertaken at national and county levels, bringing together CSA stakeholders to disseminate and share CSA knowledge and technologies. Stakeholders refer to individuals, groups, organizations and agencies that have an interest in CSA. These programmes will enable stakeholders to interact with experts who will share latest CSA knowledge and technologies.Rationale: These programmes will provide an avenue to capacity build stakeholders on CSA knowledge and technologies and centralized reporting.Disaggregated by: Governance level (National and county). Definition: This indicates the category of membership in farmerresearch-extension linkages during the reporting period. This indicator will show the extent of representation of farmers, researchers, and extensionists in the linkage.Rationale: Diverse membership of stakeholders in the linkage will help increase knowledge exchange on CSA. A strong linkage should have representation from farmers, researchers and extension personnel.  Definition: These are the number of research products (technologies, innovations and management practices) that are developed during the reporting period. These products are based on user needs and target specific agro-ecological/ production systems such as pastoral systems, or targeting specific value chains such as pulses, or specific objectives such as provision of feed and fodder through research in multi-purpose crops.Rationale: This will help in mapping the state of research on CSA and progressively increase research for context-specific CSA needs.Data sources: Reports, research papers, patent certificates. Definition: These are financial resources in Kenyan Shillings that are used in developing new knowledge and technologies specific to CSA annually. They include financial resources directly from government (public funding) and from other partner organizations.Rationale: This will facilitate the mapping of available funding for CSA research and inform progressive increase in investments towards climate risk research and development of new knowledge and technologies for CSA.Disaggregated by: Source (government, CSOs, development partners, private sector, researchers, academia, and others) and category (loans and grants).Data sources: Financial reports, voted estimates, funding agreements. Definition: These are the CSA legal and institutional frameworks that have been developed/reviewed during the reporting period to facilitate an enabling environment for CSA planning and implementation at the national and county levels.Rationale: Sound policies, strategies, guidelines and regulations are critical in outlining the vision, planned actions and mandates in the implementation of CSA. They will create a conducive environment for CSA implementation at all levels of government.Disaggregated by: Types (policies, strategies, guidelines, or regulations); level of government (national, county).Data sources: Kenya Gazette, Kenya Law Reporting, Kenya Law Reforms Commission, sector departments. Definition: This indicator shows the trend in the number of people within state and non-state organizations with knowledge and skills to support the implementation of CSA during the reporting period. This indicator will show the adequacy of specialists with knowledge and skills on CSA.Rationale: Adequacy of human resource is critical in supporting CSA implementation and will inform continued capacity building efforts.Disaggregated by: Value chain. Definition: This is the trend in number of value chain actors conforming to certain market standards (e.g. GLOBAL G.A.P , GAM, GAP).  Definition: Stocks of human food and livestock feed items set aside for use in times of scarcity.Rationale: To maintain food and feed supplies at six months national requirements and six months cash requirements.Disaggregated by: Food and feeds.  Definition: These are technologies and innovations in crops, livestock and fisheries that are promoted to increase agricultural productivity, build resilience and adaptation to climate change.The aim is to increase accessibility to CSA innovations and technologies for increased productivity and resilience to climate change.Disaggregated by: Value chain, subsectors, type of technology. Definition: These are farmers using efficient irrigation systems. Efficient irrigation in this context is in relation to water use efficiency (e.g., drip, sprinklers, or if by furrow or basin, the water is conveyed to the farm by closed canal or pipe) and use of renewable energy solar, wind, geothermal, gravity, biomass (bagasse, biogas etc.) or small hydro sources in an irrigation system.This indicator aims at tracking access of the efficient irrigation technologies to small scale farmers.Disaggregated by: Water use system, renewable energy, gender.  Definition: Renewable energy in the context of this indicator is energy obtained from solar, wind, geothermal, gravity, biomass (bagasse, biogas etc.) or small hydro sources. The indicator measures area in hectares under irrigated crops and/or pasture where renewable energy is being used as the main source of energy supply to drive the irrigation system.Rationale: Use of renewable energy emits less of CO 2 therefore contributing to reduction of effects of climate change from agricultural systems.Disaggregated by: Power sources (solar, wind, geothermal, gravity, biomass, small hydro sources) and water use systems/methods (e.g drip, sprinkler).  Definition: This refers to the green technologies that are used for value addition across the value chains. Definition: These are entrepreneurs using technologies that use green energy like wind, solar, biogas, bagasse to change primary agricultural commodities to higher value products and longer shelf life.Rationale:This is to track transitioning from fossil fuels to use of green energy. Use of green technologies will reduce emissions hence mitigating climate change.Disaggregated by: Value chain, green technology. Definition: This is the change in the annual volumes of commodities in tonnes produced through climate practices that increase productivity without polluting the environment causing more GHG emissions that are sold both locally (in the county/country) and exported outside the country during the reporting period.Rationale: This will provide information climate cautiousness of the consumers and their demand for climate-smart products.Disaggregated by: Type of market (local and export); value chain. Data sources: Agriculture marketing reports, marketing organizations, certification bodies, KEPHIS, DVS. Definition: This is the number of market outlets, which trade in climate smart products over a given a period.Rationale: This will progressively track the diversity of markets outlets trading in Climate smart products for Disaggregated by: Value chains; types of markets (wholesale, retail, local or export).Data sources: Sub-sector reports, market surveys. Definition: This indicator looks at the number of actors (producers, traders, aggregators and processors) who are trading in climate smart commodities during the reporting period.  Definition: This indicator is meant to track the number of agricultural value chain actors adopting approved grading and standardization systems for climate smart products within the reporting period.The purpose is to increase competitiveness and market access of climate-smart products.Data sources: Sub sector reports, standardization data base, KeBS. Definition: This indicator intends to measure the trend in the number of climate smart food and feed storage technologies in use within the reporting period. The technologies are value chain specific and use technologies that ensure food and feed preservation using renewable energy, for instance crops (silos, hematic bags, zero energy cooling chambers etc.), fisheries (solar drying oven and racks, icing, cooler boxes, etc ) and livestock (pasteurization, chillers, etc.).Rationale: Use of climate smart food and feed storage will contribute to adaptation to climate change with mitigation co-benefits.Disaggregated by: Actor types (producers, processors); Value chain (crops, livestock, fisheries).Data sources: Sub-sector reports. Definition: This indicator measures the trend in the number and capacity of food and feed distribution technologies that have been used during the reporting period.Rationale: Use of climate smart food and feed distribution facilities and equipment will contribute to preserving the quality of agricultural produce and can indicate the capacity of producers to take perishable produce to the market. Distribution facilities and equipment are also key in ensuring that the feeds can reach the farmers in a timely and cost-effective manner.Disaggregated by: Actor types; type (public, private); storage capacity (small, medium, large); value chain (crops, livestock, fisheries).Data sources: Sub sector reports. Definition: This is the change in volume of food reserved according to value chain. e.g. Kilograms of rice, maize, beans, milk.Rationale: This is important in capturing the ability to retain food reserves.Disaggregated by: Type of value chain, household, county.Data sources: NCPB, county government and national government. Definition: This is the change in volume of livestock and fish feeds strategically put aside for use during period of scarcity during the reporting period.Rationale: This is to increase the availability of livestock and fish feed during hardship periods.Disaggregated by: Feed types (roughages, proteins, energy, minerals and additives).  Definition: This indicator seeks to track the number of nonconventional livelihoods that are considered in the integrated watershed management. These are considered as an addition to conventional livelihoods leading to socio-cultural and economic diversification. These include use of gums and raisins, herb and medic.Rationale: Progressive diversification of livelihoods opportunities in water sheds motivates natural resource conservation.Disaggregated by: Watersheds. Definition: This indicator tracks evidence of agriculture sector contingency plans that support prompt and appropriate responses in the event of climate related risks and hazards. They are designed to reduce the negative impacts and support recovery.Rationale: Functional contingency plans ensure adverse negative effects to human and environment are minimized and there is fast bounce back to normal situations. Hence, there is need for these plans to be in place to mitigate against negative effect of climate change.Disaggregated by: County.   Definition: These are activities planned ahead of time to ensure effective response to climate related disasters.Rationale: Climate risk mitigation and disaster preparedness measures contributes to overall resilience therefore, this indicator assesses our preparedness for dealing with climate disasters.Disaggregated by: Type. Definition: An early warning system is a climate change adaptation strategy that uses integrated communication systems to assist individuals, communities, governments or businesses in take timely action to reduce climate related disaster risks.Rationale:Functional early warning systems will help planners protect land, infrastructure economies and save lives, jobs etc. therefore this indicator assesses sector preparedness for dealing with hazardous climate related events. Disaggregated by: Types. Data sources: Organizations. 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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4efe5ef04f627c4b0eb5d6f6b77077cb","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/e8fd744f-8881-4e2f-a1f5-490a15c3b715/content","id":"-1661388239"},"keywords":["Mexico","Guanajuato","Maize","Zea mays","Land races","Varieties","Germplasm conservation","Seed characteristics","Innovation adoption","Yields","Yield factors","Plant products","Production possibilities","Input output analysis","Small farms","Households","Research projects Genetic diversity","CIMMYT AGRIS category codes: E14 Development Economics and Policies E16 Production Economics Dewey decimal classification: 338.16"],"sieverID":"64a89d5e-fcff-4a9e-9dfb-b849b9e613b6","pagecount":"24","content":"CIMMYT (www.cimmyt.mx or www.cimmyt.cgiar.org) is an internationally funded, nonprofit scientific research and training organization. Headquartered in Mexico, the Center works with agricultural research institutions worldwide to improve the productivity, profitability, and sustainability of maize and wheat systems for poor farmers in developing countries. It is one of 16 similar centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The CGIAR comprises over 55 partner countries, international and regional organizations, and private foundations. It is co-sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Financial support for CIMMYT's research agenda also comes from many other sources, including foundations, development banks, and public and private agencies.CIMMYT supports Future Harvest, a public awareness campaign that builds understanding about the importance of agricultural issues and international agricultural research. Future Harvest links respected research institutions, influential public figures, and leading agricultural scientists to underscore the wider social benefits of improved agriculturepeace, prosperity, environmental renewal, health, and the alleviation of human suffering (www.futureharvest.org). International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) 1999. Responsibility for this publication rests solely with CIMMYT. The designations employed in the presentation of material in this publication do not imply the expressions of any opinion whatsoever on the part of CIMMYT or contributory organizations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city, or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.The land races grown by farmers in centers of crop origin and diversity have social value because they are sources of novel alleles or gene combinations. Farmers and professional plant breeders use land races and other sources of genetic diversity to adapt crops to changing production environments and improve their genetic potential to produce the food, feed, and fiber on which societies depend. Land races are heterogeneous crop populations that continue to evolve genetically in response to the selection pressures of farmers and nature, retaining their potential to adapt (Jackson, 1995). By contrast, crop populations conserved in ex situ gene banks, while useful for many purposes, are \"frozen\" on the evolutionary clock at the time of their collection.Among conservators and funding agencies there is a growing interest in the prospects for enhancing farmers' management of genetic resources as a strategy that complements their conservation ex situ (Maxted, Ford-Lloyd and Hawkes, 1997). Assuming that modern varieties will inevitably replace traditional varieties, critics have raised concerns about the economic costs of implementing such programs because they would necessarily entail foregone development opportunities. Brush (1995) and others have argued that the persistent cultivation of land races in centers of crop origin and diversity such as Turkey for wheat and Mexico for maize, termed de facto conservation, attests to their continued private value to farmers or their competitive advantage relative to modern alternatives (Brush and Meng, 1998;Perales, 1998). As long as farmers find it optimal to grow and manage these genetic resources, the social costs of mounting programs to encourage them to do so is minimal since private and social optima appear to converge.Whether de facto patterns of cultivation reflect an equilibrium or a momentary lull in the process of replacing traditional varieties with the products of plant breeding programs is unclear. At least 80 percent of the maize area in Mexico is still planted to varieties of maize land races or \"creolized\" varieties (CIMMYT, 1999), which are improved varieties whose seed has been saved and re-selected by farmers to suit their own farming conditions. Maintaining maize genetic diversity is not solely a question of planting traditional varieties, however. Not all land races are equivalent in terms of the private benefits they generate for farmers or the conservation benefits they bestow on society. This implies that the private and social optima for genetic resource conservation may diverge even if farmers in crop centers of diversity still prefer to grow land races.This study has two principal purposes. The first is to examine farmers' demand for varieties of maize land races by applying a choice model in which variety attributes and regional features, in addition to the farm household characteristics that are usually studied, determine area shares planted to traditional maize varieties. Variety attributes are their performance characteristics as evaluated by farmers who have grown them for many years, and generally cannot be observed in the shelled grain found in marketplaces. They are also \"fixed\" at a point in time by the genetic code embodied in the seed that determines their expression. By stratifying the analysis on potential productivity and infrastructure development of regions within the study area, the study enables us to test hypotheses related to the dynamics of development.The second purpose is to investigate empirically the relationship between farmers' demand for variety diversity and the genetic diversity of maize land races in their communities. The theory of impure public goods shows why farmers may not choose to grow varieties with the level of crop genetic diversity that society in general views as desirable. Even if farmers were aware of changes in the supply of distinct maize materials in their community and considered the decisions of other farmers in their own, they could not completely control the level of genetic diversity among populations of open-pollinated species such as maize.The framework we use also explicitly recognizes that de facto conservation is a complex process of interaction between biophysical, biological, and socioeconomic factors, each operating at different levels of aggregation or \"scales\" of analysis. The importance of \"scale\" has been well established in ecology and environmental sciences (e.g. Allen and Starr 1982;Michener et al. 1994).The next section presents the background to the study, followed by the conceptual approach. The section on the empirical estimation procedure and hypothesis tests includes detailed descriptions of the data source, sample design, and variable definitions. Results are then reported. Conclusions, methodological and policy implications are summarized in the final section.Mexico is the center of domestication and diversity for maize. The southeast segment of Guanajuato, the study area, is located on the fringe of the Bajio, one of the most commercialized agricultural areas of Mexico. Despite its location, the cultivation of modern varieties in the survey zone is negligible and during the field research reported here, several unique land races and land race mixtures were identified and collected from among those grown by farmers for ex situ storage in the national genebank.Many small-scale farmers in Mexico, like those in other areas of crop diversity (e.g., Brush, Carney and Huaman, 1981;Dennis, 1987), plant several maize varieties in one season. In a neoclassical model of decision-making, an unconstrained, risk-neutral farmer who maximizes profits would choose to grow only the variety with the highest profits per hectare. Understanding why a farmer grows more than one variety has motivated economists to propose a number of competing explanations that are extensions to the neoclassical model. Broadly categorized, alternative explanations include farmer attitudes toward yield, price, or consumption risk (Carter and Wiebe, 1990;Fafchamps 1990;Hammer 1986;Herath, Hardaker and Anderson, 1982;Just and Zilberman, 1983), experimentation and learning under uncertainty (Hiebert 1974;Tsur, Sternberg, and Hochman, 1990), missing markets (de Janvry, Fafchamps, and Sadoulet, 1991) or imperfect markets for fertilizer (McGuirk and Mundlak, 1991), or a jointly-produced output, such as fodder (Renkow and Traxler, 1994). Alternative explanations were recently reviewed and tested by Meng in her study of decisions to grow wheat land races in Turkey (1997), tested for maize in Malawi in Smale, Just and Leathers (1994), and tested within the class of risk models by Herath, Hardaker and Anderson (1982).From the perspective of human ecology, variety choice can be viewed as a process by which a farmer assembles various bundles of traits to satisfy consumption preferences, satisfy specific production conditions, or fulfill marketing requirements (Bellon, 1996). Small-scale farmers with multiple objectives often consider several attributes of varieties when choosing among them, including traits related to yield of grain and fodder as well as those related to their home consumption of staple and specialty foods. Any single variety typically has both desirable and undesirable attributes, and no single variety is likely to possess all of those demanded by the farm household. For example, Bellon and Taylor (1993) have shown that differences in the adaptation of varieties to soil quality can explain partial adoption.Many of the attributes that small-scale maize farmers in Mexico care about are unobservable in the shelled grain sold in a village marketplace-they are known only through years of growing the crop in variable climatic or soil conditions and consuming the output. When markets are missing and households cannot specialize through trade, they must meet their demand autarkically (de Janvry, Fafchamps, and Sadoulet, 1991). This implies that farmers allocate land among varieties according to the shadow values of their attributes, which are determined by household production processes and utility parameters.Seed is unique as a commodity in that it has both private and public attributes (Morris, Rusike, and Smale, 1998). The private characteristics of seed are those that cannot be consumed by two farm households at once, such as those related to food and feed products. The public characteristics of the seed are its non-rival or non-exclusive genetic attributes, including its contribution to genetic diversity. The genetic diversity of maize grown in Mexico has been shaped for centuries by farmers' seed management and variety choice. Since maize is an open-pollinated crop and pollen flows across a landscape at flowering, the genetic diversity of maize populations in a community is also influenced by the spatial pattern of populations and their planting and flowering dates (Bellon and Brush, 1994;Louette, 1994). Farmers can influence the genetic structure of their varieties through allocating maize area and choosing the amount of seed to save from the harvest or mix with seed procured from other sources. In some cases, they may even be able to influence the variety choices of their neighbors. They cannot, in any case, control the pollen that flows from the fields of neighbors into their own and vice versa.Our approach draws conceptually from two types of models, both derived originally from Lancaster's model of consumer characteristics. The first type is an applied variety choice model (Adesina and Zinnah, 1993;Barkley and Porter, 1996) in which farmers maximize the utility from multiple attributes of the crop produced by their choice of varieties, rather than the varieties themselves or only a single trait such as grain output. The second is the theoretical model of impure public goods described by Cornes and Sandler (1986), and applied to the analysis of crop genetic diversity by Heisey et al (1997). According to this approach, each area allocation decision jointly produces or supplies characteristics of use to the farmer as well as a characteristic of social interest-a contribution to maize genetic diversity in the farmer's community.We can view the choice as a model of decision-making in the farm household, using maize farming in southeast Guanajuato as an example. The household maximizes utility over a set of total maize attributes, represented by a 1 x m vector q. For example, consumption attribute j might be ease of hand processing or taste of tortillas. The household can vary the total amounts of each element of q by changing the area allocations among n varieties (represented by an n x 1 vector α), since the grain output of each variety i jointly supplies, in fixed proportions, different amounts of each consumption attribute. The greater the total land area planted to maize (L), the higher the utility level that can be attained. The varietyspecific supply of attributes is determined by a set of technical coefficients {q ij } that maps n stochastic outputs (vector X) into m total attributes, and vice versa.This technical relationship means that we can represent the utility function indirectly as V(α, L). The function V is conditional on a set of exogenous parameters which may change over time and location (W), including household characteristics, the productivity potential of the region and its level of infrastructure. The household chooses variety area shares (α) and the amount of total maize outputs to retain on the farm (X c ), maximizing V subject to a budget constraintand a technology constraintOutputs X are a function of their production attributes and non-seed inputs K. A functional relationship also maps levels of production attributes in the set of seeds for each variety x into outputs X by fixed technical coefficients x ik . The quantities of seeds planted for each variety are determined by α and L. Production traits include, for example, tolerance of abiotic and biotic stresses, and performance on a specific soil type.In most variety choice models, X is treated as a single homogeneous grain output or as the output of a modern or traditional variety. Here, it is represented by a set of distinct outputs of traditional varieties of maize land races, each produced and transformed into consumption attributes through a set of technical coefficients {q ij , x ik }. In applied characteristics models these coefficients are constant marginal products of a production or consumption technology and the problem is treated as in a linear programming algorithm (Ladd and Suvannunt, 1976). Here, the working parts of the technology are the gene combinations and alleles the seed embodies. These are fixed at a point in time and are exogenous to the farmer's decision in a single-period model. They are modified over time, through the deliberate decisions of farmers and plant breeders, natural selection processes, and genetic mutation.Expenditures on maize production C cannot exceed exogenous income I (such as income from off-farm labor or migration that is earned before planting) and returns from sales of maize varieties 1 . The elements of (X -X c ) may be positive or negative, depending on whether the household is a net seller or net consumer of maize. While there are local grain markets, there may not be markets for all attributes over which utility is defined. A commercial farmer producing maize varieties whose attributes are valued by the market might specialize and gain from trade. Since commercial producers are not concerned about consumption attributes unless they are reflected in price premia, they maximize utility over expected profits. Even when quality differences among varieties are not recognized in the market, however, production traits may affect the decisions of commercial farmers.The impure public attribute of maize, its genetic diversity, is reflected in both the technology constraint and the utility function. Choice of any set α generates not only maize outputs (X), but the farm household's individual contribution (z) to maize genetic diversity in the community (Z). As argued above, maize genetic diversity in a community is influenced by the area allocation decisions of all farmers in the community:A key analytical result of the impure public goods approach, developed fully in Cornes and Sandler (1986) and adapted to crop production in Heisey et al. (1997), is that farmers as a group are not likely to choose seed amounts and variety combinations that are socially optimal, because individuals do not take into account the choices of others. Mathematically, under the Nash-Cournot assumption that they take the decisions of other farmers as given, the private optimum deriving from the first-order conditions for H households diverges from the social optimum by a term that includes the interrelationships among all farmers' choices.A concrete example of this divergence is when farmers assume that others are growing a variety they have ceased to plant, and the variety is planted in such small populations that frequencies for certain alleles become too low for effective survival. Once a farmer ceases planting a variety, he or she must rely on other farmers of the community for seed.Community seed banks are one social mechanism for shifting the private optimum closer to the social optimum, as defined by the collective needs of that community. In other cases, we might define the social optimum according to the conservation goals of national or international policymakers, as expressed in a social welfare function, with Z measured by an indicator of genetic diversity in a targeted region.Whether the genetic diversity of the maize land races grown in a community is considered by farmers in their decision-making is a testable hypothesis. When genetic diversity is defined in terms of allele frequencies observed at a molecular level, for example, the household's individual contribution to diversity is not observable and we would not expect the utility function to be defined directly over Z. However, utility may be conditioned on Z when genetic diversity is observable as pheno-morphological variation, which is genetically and environmentally determined. In Mexico, the variation in color and texture of maize is exploited to produce specialty dishes that are of importance for participation in fiestas. Farmers classify their maize according to observable ear characteristics (morphology) and growing period (phenology). Z can then be interpreted as the supply of distinct pheno-morphological characteristics associated with the different maize populations found in the community. Aguirre (1999) has found in these Guanajuato communities, as has Dennis (1987) among rice farmers in northern Thailand that some farmers choose to grow a variety simply to ensure a supply of the seed type.The reduced-form equation of this conceptual model depicts the area share of variety i as an indirect, constrained demand:(4)The indirect demand for variety i is determined by it's capacity to supply the attributes demanded by the farm household, prices and costs of production, income, and total maize area. There are local maize markets, although not all attributes are reflected in market prices. Farmers' preferences over attributes, as represented in the parameters of their utility functions, depend on the socio-demographic characteristics of the household, economic and physical environment in which they grow maize (Ω). The supply of attributes in the varieties from among which they choose is constrained by the genetic diversity of maize in their community, the impure public good Z.Estimation of the reduced-form equation ( 4) provides information about land allocation among varieties of maize land races and farmer demand for variety diversity. The lower the area share predicted by the regression equation, the greater the predicted number of varieties the farmer grows. Area shares are bounded in the [0,1] interval, but predicted area shares may lie outside that interval. To correct for that problem, we use a two-limit Tobit procedure. The equation is estimated in LIMDEP.With likelihood-ratio tests, we use regression results to test statistically whether the set of (a) variety-specific attributes, (b) household-specific characteristics, or (c) characteristics related to the productivity potential and infrastructure of the zone in which the farmer grows maize are jointly most likely to explain area shares. Each type of variable represents a different \"scale\" of analysis (variety, household, community, region) and is addressed by different types of policies. For example, technical incentives provided through breeding programs could be used to influence variety attributes. We also use specific hypothesis tests on individual coefficients. The test on the coefficient of productivity potential suggests how variety diversity may be maintained in areas that are \"favorable\" versus those that are \"marginal\" for production; the test on the coefficient of the infrastructure variable suggests how infrastructure development may affect average area shares. The coefficient of Z shows the nature of the association between the choices of individual farmers and the impure public attribute, maize diversity in the farmer's community.The data source, variables, and hypotheses on individual coefficients are described in the following subsections. The definitions of variables used in the regression are summarized in Tables 1 and 2 and descriptive statistics are shown in Table 3.The study was conducted in Rural Development District 004 in the southeastern part of Guanajuato State. The data set combines: (1) a regional classification of the study area into four strata according to secondary data on productivity potential and infrastructure development;(2) survey data from 160 farm households located in 21 communities in the four strata;(3) a taxonomy of the maize land races they grow based on ear samples Four strata were delineated based on contrasting maize yield potential and levels of infrastructure. First, two municipalities with contrasting maize yield potential were identified according to the classification of the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agrícolas y Pecuarias (INIFAP) in that state (García 1989). The classification is based on the probability that a growing period of a given length will occur, where growing period is defined as the number of days during a year when moisture and temperature are favorable for maize development, controlling for soil depth. The longer the growing period in an area, the higher its potential productivity. The municipalities selected for the study, Apaseo el Grande and Jerécuaro, are located in areas with the greatest contrast in length of growing period (within the 80-day and outside the 140-day isolines, respectively).Next, secondary data on road surface, electricity supply, and numbers of schools, health centers and business establishments for the communities within each municipality were used to identify the zones with the greatest and lowest level of infrastructure development (INCA RURAL 1987;FMDR 1987).A recently compiled census 2 of maize-farming households in Guanajuato State was then employed to enumerate approximately 400 households in each stratum. From each list of 400 households, a systematic random sample of 10 percent of households were selected, for a total of 160 households located in 21 communities in zones 3 . Socioeconomic characteristics of the household were elicited in on-farm interviews from August 1995 to January 1996.After harvest, samples consisting of 6 ears that the farmer considered as representative of the variety were collected for each variety grown. A specialist in maize genetic resources from the INIFAP gene bank classified the 257 maize samples by race, using ear samples and information from farmers 4 .Variety Area Share Understanding the term \"farmers' varieties\" is important for interpreting the estimating equation. Since maize cross-pollinates and farmers seed management practices vary, Farmer López' \"Blanco Delgado\" is not the same genetically as Farmer Gutiérrez' \"Blanco Delgado\", even though they may share the same name. The dependent variable α is a vector of area shares stacked by household, where each variety area share is treated as a single observation 5 . An area share for variety i is the proportion of maize area the farmer allocates to it. Large (small) expected area shares express the demand for fewer (more) varieties and or less (more) varietal diversity.2 Secretaria de Agricultura y Recursos Hidráulicos. 3 There was no apparent periodicity in the sample. The sample is self-weighting, since the probability of selection for a household is equal across across zones. 4 Juan Manuel Hernández Casillas. 5 For example, the first six observations in α might be [0.5, 0.25,0.25, .80, .20] where the first three observations are for household 1 and the second two are for household 2.The term \"land race\" refers generally to crop populations that have become adapted to farmers' conditions through natural and artificial selection. In maize, farmers' varieties are classified by genetic resource specialists into a larger grouping called a \"race.\" The taxonomy used to classify races, originally developed by Wellhausen et al. (1952) and still used today, is based on ear criteria such as grain color, size, and form, ear breadth and length 6 . Ear criteria are also those used by farmers to select the seed of their varieties and to group them into what they refer to as \"classes of maize\"(clases de maíz). About 59% of the 257 maize samples were classified as pure races, 33% were racial mixtures, 4% were 'creolized' (acriollados) varieties and 4% were improved varieties 7 . In open-pollinated crops such as maize, acriollados are defined as improved varieties that have mixed with land races in farmers' fields for at least several years, either through deliberate farmer practices, or natural outcrossing, or both.We represent maize diversity in the community (Z) with three variables. The first two are diversity indices adapted from those commonly employed in the ecology literature (Magurran 1988) to summarize inter-species diversity and applied to the classification of maize races (Table 2). The Margalef index expresses richness, or the number of species (races) encountered in a given sampling effort. A count of species, even when standardized as in the Margalef index, assumes that all species at (races) a site contribute equally to biodiversity (maize genetic diversity). \"Evenness,\" also called \"equitability,\" refers to the degree of equality in the abundance of the individuals, or the relative uniformity of the frequency distribution across species (races). When all species (races) in a sample are equally abundant, evenness reaches a maximum (Ludwig and Reynolds, 1988).Since the ear characteristics used to classify farmers' varieties into broader racial categories are observable to farmers, we interpret diversity indices constructed from them as Mathematical construction for Margalef and Pielou indices as defined by Magurran (1988) and adapted in Aguirre, Bellon, and Smale (1999).6 \"..a race is a group of individuals with a significant number of genes in common, major races having a smaller number in common than do sub-races\" (Anderson and Cutler 1942:71). Despite the development of more powerful taxonomic tools, race remains an important concept for understanding maize in Mexico (Bretting and Goodman 1989; Doebley, Goodman, and Stuber 1985; Sanchez and Goodman 1992). 7 For detailed analyses of these populations see Aguirre (1999)  and Aguirre, Bellon, and Smale (1999). indicators of the richness and evenness in the \"supply\" of maize characteristics that distinguish one category from another. Two-tailed hypothesis tests on these variables indicate whether the supply of distinctive materials in the community, which is exogenous to individual farmers though shaped by their choices in the aggregate, constrains the number of varieties they grow.The third indicator of Z is a binary variable measuring whether a farmer reported that varieties had been \"lost\" in his community and also stated that he grew a variety in order to \"conserve\" it. The two-tailed hypothesis test on this variable indicates whether farmers take the outcomes of the decisions of others into account when they allocate maize area among varieties.The hypotheses motivating the stratification of the sample into four study zones are that agroecological and infrastructural conditions (Ω) in a region are associated with maize diversity, although the direction of the effect is difficult to predict a priori. Agroecological conditions are the climate and soils that determine the yield potential for a crop in an area; infrastructural conditions include the presence of roads, stores, clinics, and schools. The presence of infrastructure delimits the potential of households and their members to participate in markets as consumers and producers as well as to acquire new ideas and information.The four study zones can be represented conceptually along two axes of maize yield potential (favorable or marginal growing environment) and infrastructure (relatively isolated or developed), as in Figure 1. While maize yield potential does not change over time, infrastructure generally increases with the economic development of an agricultural region. Among other factors, the presence of infrastructure may contribute to cultural change in the region. Movements along the infrastructure axis may therefore be interpreted as representing changes in time. The two axes are represented by dummy variables in the regression, and hypothesis tests are two-tailed. In informal interviews and field research that preceded the formal household survey, farmers were asked to identify the attributes of varieties (q, x) that they considered important. The most frequently cited attributes including suitability for: market sale (p in Table 1), consumption of the staple food (called tortillas), preparation of food consumed on special occasions (called culinary), avoiding disastrous harvests (called security), and quality as feed or forage for livestock (called feed/forage).During the formal survey, farmers then assessed the relative extent to which each of the varieties they grew each supplied the attributes previously identified, or the technical coefficients {q ij , x ik } 8 . Two-tailed tests of significance were conducted for the estimated coefficients of all variables representing attributes.Suitability for market sales generally reflects a combination of quality and yield attributes.A variety rating high for market sales produces a lot of heavy, white grain, which makes it more attractive to CONASUPO (the government's food marketing and distribution agency) or to private traders purchasing maize for industrial processing. While informal markets exist for farmers' varieties, including colored maize, the official prices for white maize were artificially set and were uniform across white maize types during the period of the study. Though some differences in grain color, health, and form may be reflected in price variation for shelled grain in farmers' markets, farmers' varieties as we have defined them on phenomorphological or genetic criteria are not observably distinct.The producer price during the year of the study began to decrease under the liberalization policy of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1995. Although the consumer price was set below the world market price during the period of the study in urban areas, Levy and van Wijnbergen (1992) have argued that with both rural producers and rural consumers obtained most of their maize at the producer price. They differentiate between urban and rural prices for white maize, rather than producer and consumer prices.As shown by Taylor, Yuñez-Naude and Dyer (forthcoming) in their analysis of the effects or NAFTA on maize production, transactions costs in village and town economies of Mexico lead to price responses that are contrary to those predicted by conventional analyses. Farmers' assessment of the suitability of a variety for market sale (p) indicates its commercial attractiveness and is used here as a surrogate for gross profitability.Farmers' assessments were also used to measure the relative cost of production (K) among varieties. K refers to both the purchased inputs and labor time used to produce the variety. We expect these differences to be minor among farmers' varieties, but they are often assumed to be major between farmers' and improved varieties. Less than 3 percent of survey farmers planted first-generation hybrids or open-pollinated varieties improved by plant breeding programs, however.Seed prices are not measured as separate variables. Although some survey farmers also purchased or exchanged the seed of traditional varieties and improved varieties of advanced generations, the seed price for these maize types varies little by variety. Again, these characteristics are not fully observable in the marketplace. In exceptional cases, local farmers are known as suppliers of high quality seed for a given variety. In these cases, the farmers who purchase can observe the seed growing in the field of its producer and assess the genetic characteristics that determine its performance.Whether or not the household head contributed cash earned through non-farm or off-farm activities in the preceding year (I) varied by zone (Table 3) and was associated with mean variety share. This variable, and the percent of the 1994 maize harvest sold by the farm household, were used to capture key differences in farming objectives 9 . No direction of effect was hypothesized for these factors, and their coefficients were evaluated with twotailed tests.Numerous tenure arrangements facilitate farmers' access to irrigation and soil type in the survey sites. Compared to rainfed fields, irrigated fields reduce the variability in yields due to moisture conditions, enabling a farmer to control with water what he might have controlled through growing varieties with different moisture response. Farmers often report that they grow a maize variety on a specific soil type. Bellon and Taylor (1993) have demonstrated the importance in land allocation decisions of differences in soil types on farms in Chiapas, Mexico. One-tailed Z-tests were used to estimate the significance of the whether the farmers had irrigated plots or rainfed plots, and the number of soil types on the farm as determinants of variety area shares. These variables are classified as household variables because they vary by household, but they are agroecological variables because they represent water regimes and differentiation in soils. For variable definitions see Table 1.Household size and sex of household head were retained in the regression equation to control for essential demographic factors, even though descriptive statistics reveal little variation among zones for household size, sex and age of household hold, years farming or years of education (Table 3). Only a minority of households were headed by women.Regression results for the variety choice equation are shown in Table 4. Z-tests demonstrate the relevance of several of the individual agroecological parameters, variety attributes and household characteristics in the decision to allocate area among varieties of maize land races. The greater the development of local infrastructure, the lower the expected area share per variety and the lower the varietal diversity per farm. This effect is counteracted by the productivity potential of the region, as indicated by the coefficient of the interaction term between productivity and infrastructure. A greater number of soil types per farm increases the number of maize varieties grown. Clearly the agroecology of the production Of variety attributes, those of statistical significance are related to the family's consumption of maize, rather than to the suitability of the variety for market sale or its cheapness to produce. While farmers cited the suitability for market sales and cost of production as important variety attributes, these do not contribute statistically to explaining variation in area shares. The expected area share of varieties best suited for producing the staple food (tortillas) is 0.29 percentage points higher than that of other varieties. Given that off-farm work, remittances, and non-farm activities are common sources of cash among survey households, this finding reflects the premium they place on the quality differential between homemade and industrially-processed tortillas. A variety most suited for the preparation of a special dish tends to occupy significantly less of the farm's maize area, since it is consumed less frequently.In estimating equation ( 4), groups of explanatory factors vary differently according to the scale of analysis they represent and at which they were measured. Area shares are explained by characteristics that vary by farmer variety, as well as factors that vary by household, stratum, and community. Log-likelihood ratio tests were conducted on each of the sets of coefficients representing the different \"scales\" of factors. While the sets of variety attributes, community, and regional characteristics are each jointly significant, the set of household characteristics is not. Variety attributes are jointly of overriding importance in determining the area shares that survey households allocate among varieties of maize landraces, as indicated by the relative significance level of the test 10 . As the dependent variable is defined in this regression, this result implies that differences among varieties in the provision of attributes that farmers identify as important most explains the demand for different maize land races, and therefore the number they grow. Productivity potential and infrastructure development are jointly significant at the 1 percent level of significance.The results of the joint hypothesis tests are of interest for several reasons. First, as has been argued by Adesina and Zinnah (1993), adoption studies may have focused on household characteristics to the exclusion of variety characteristics. Considering varieties in terms of their attributes rather than their improvement status may provide additional insights into adoption. Second, the importance of stratifying by agroecology and infrastructure points to the utility of keying adoption studies to a sampling frame such as those provided through geographical information systems (Hassan, 1998).Third, the joint hypothesis tests have implications for policies. Variety characteristics, unlike household characteristics and the agroecological parameters that define a production zone, are amenable to plant breeding and other technical interventions. A finding of this type may assist in the development of policy incentives for conservation of crop diversity. In these communities of southeast Guanajuato, the cultural significance of food and culinary practices explains how farmers allocate their maize area and as a consequence, the number of varieties of maize land races they grow on their farms. While a variety that is best at the provision of good tortillas tends to occupy a larger percent of maize area, varieties that are used in the preparation of special dishes occupy smaller niches.The hypothesis tests for the impure public attribute Z also have policy implications for conservation. As a group, the effects of three Z variables have jointly significant effects on the number of varieties farmers grow 11 . Neither the richness nor the evenness index constructed at the community level from the classification system of the genetic resource specialist is associated significantly with the variety area shares of individual farmers. By contrast, farmers' perceptions that materials have been \"lost\" from their community do appear to affect their choices. We may interpret this result in any one of several ways. First, while farmers may observe variation in morphological characteristics of the maize ear and 10 The test-statistic for the log-likelihood ratio test, λ, is distributed χ2, d.o.f=number of restrictions. For variety characteristics, λ=53.2301 with 6 d.o.f.; for household characteristics; λ=5.2358 with 5 d.o.f.; for stratum, λ=13.3492 with 3 d.o.f. 11 Again, a log-likelihood ratio test was used. For diversity indices as a group, λ=9.9936 with 3 d.o.f., which is significant at the 2.5 percent level. The absolute value of the correlation ceofficient between any pair of these variables is less than 0.23.use them to define the classes of maize they grow, they may not be able to observe the distribution of these characteristics across many farmers in their community. This interpretation is consistent with the Nash-Cournot assumption that farmers do not take into account the decisions of others-because it is physically impossible to discern the combined effects of simultaneous decisions taken by numerous farmers. On the other hand, the positive effect of farmer perceptions on the number of varieties they grow conflicts with the Nash-Cournot assumption. This finding suggests that maize farmers grow more varieties when they recognize that the germplasm base in their communities may be narrowing.Another related, methodological point is that the number of maize varieties as recognized by farmers is not necessarily related to the diversity of land races as recognized by geneticists, since these represent two taxonomies. Often, in empirical literature on crop genetic diversity, the number of varieties and genetic diversity are taken (incorrectly) as synonymous with diversity. Maize varieties and races of maize in Mexico are metered differently, as are any two taxonomies used to measure crop genetic diversity.The approach used in this paper draws in two ways from Lancaster's model of characteristics. First, we have argued that the area allocation among varieties of maize land races in Southeastern Guanajuato is determined not by the utility of the varieties themselves but by the attributes they provide. Many of the attributes that matter to farmers in these communities cannot be observed in the market for shelled grain, but must be evaluated by observing their performance across soils and seasons. Regression results support this notion. Of the explanatory factors, the group of variables representing the relative provision of attributes among varieties is jointly most significant in explaining variation in the number of varieties of maize land races grown by farmers. Furthermore, suitability for marketing and relative cost of production did not appear as significant.Second, we have argued that the area allocation decisions of individual farmers contributes to an impure public attribute, maize genetic diversity in the community. The public attribute is \"impure\" because the utility functions of individual farmers may be conditioned on it, even though it is simultaneously determined by the decisions of many farmers. Under the Nash-Cournot assumption that farmers do not take the outcome of the decisions of others into account, however, the private and social optima will diverge. Hypothesis tests indicate that while the geneticists' definition of maize diversity in the community either does not mesh with farmers' or does not affect their decisions, farmers' perceptions do. Perhaps there are farmers who choose to be \"conservators\" in Mexican communities such as these. If so, stimulating farmer awareness or working directly with self-proclaimed \"conservators\" may in contribute to reducing the divergence between the private and social optimum.The signs and significance of the stratum variables provide a glimpse of the dynamic process of development occurring in Guanajuato. While growing periods may not change in the near future, infrastructure will. As roads, transportation, communication and educational systems change, the allocation of maize area among different varieties of land races may diminish as farmers purchase the attributes they value on the market or their utility parameters change. The regression results support this hypothesis. At the same time, they suggest that productivity potential counteracts the effects of infrastructure development in southeastern Guanajuato, influencing positively the numbers of varieties grown per farm.In general, facile assumptions about the relationship of market changes to maize production in Mexico may not be borne out. Taylor, Yuñez-Naude and Dyer (forthcoming) have argued that the high transactions costs present in rural maize markets has eroded the predicted negative impact of liberalization and free trade on Mexican maize production. A recent study of an ejido in Chiapas demonstrates that both the area planted to land races and numbers of farmers planting land races was higher in 1997 that in 1988, even though the community enjoyed good access to infrastructure during that period (Bellon, unpublished data).The scope of this study is necessarily confined to one region in Mexico and to the analysis of farmer behavior, ignoring the institutional issues concerning the roles and incentives for other players to participate in on-farm conservation programs. To answer pivotal policy questions regarding the potential for on-farm conservation, more is required than demonstrating de facto conservation by individual farmers-even though these studies serve the important purpose of inverting common misperceptions about genetic erosion. In the context of genetic resources with both private and public attributes, we will need to further develop our understanding and better specify the relationship between farmer behavior and community-based incentive mechanisms.","tokenCount":"6915"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"dd84186b37a28b69bfb72ebc30471be8","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://data.cimmyt.org/api/access/datafile/:persistentId/?persistentId=hdl:11529/10548760/2","id":"299766300"},"keywords":["USAID","International Fund for Agricultural Development","European Union","Irish Aid","CGIAR Fund Council","Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grant/Award Number: OPP1052535"],"sieverID":"93b2e653-882a-44b5-a318-b98228d1dc27","pagecount":"17","content":"Globally crop production is impaired by soil salinity and sodicity and to maintain the sustainability of the production systems under such degraded lands, conservation agriculture (CA) may be an alternative in arid and semiarid regions. An experiment was initiated with different agri-food systems with CA-based practices to understand the reclamation potential of sodic soil after continuous cultivation for 4 and 9 years. This included: (i) conventional tillage (CT)-based rice-wheat system (Sc1); (ii) partial CA with puddled rice-zero tillage (ZT) wheat and mungbean (Sc2); (iii) ZT rice-wheatmungbean (Sc3); (iv) ZT maize-wheat-mungbean (Sc4). Soil samples were collected from 0 to 15 and 15 to 30-cm depth after 4 and 9 years of wheat harvesting. Results showed an 18% decline in pH 2 with Sc2 and ~30% decline in EC 2 with Sc2 and Sc3 at upper soil depth after 9 years. Higher cation exchange capacity by 35% and 89% in Sc2 and 38% and 58% in Sc3 after 4 and 9 years was found, respectively, over initial levels. A decrease in exchangeable sodium percentage was recorded in Sc2 by 43% and 50%, after 4 and 9 years over the initial level, respectively. The oxidizable carbon and total organic carbon were increased by ~76%, 69%, and 64% in Sc4, Sc3, and Sc2, respectively, over initial values at 0-15 cm soil depth. Results showed that the CA-based rice-wheat-mungbean system had more reclamation potential than other studied systems. Therefore, long-term CA practices involving ZT with crop residue recycling and efficient crop rotations have the potential to reduce the sodicity stress and improve soil organic carbon thereby bringing the sodic lands under productive crop cultivation. K E Y W O R D S conservation agriculture, long-term experiment, sodicity, soil carbon pools, zero tillage 1 | INTRODUCTION Soil salinity and sodicity are one of the major and prevalent challenges in the current era that hampers global food security and environmental sustainability in the arid and semi-arid regions of the world and adversely affect the global agricultural production and biodiversity.Globally, more than 900 million ha of land, accounting for nearly 20% of the total agricultural land and 33% of the irrigated agricultural lands is affected by salinity (Shrivastava & Kumar, 2015). The salt stress in the soil is becoming prominent due to the ever-increasing global population pressure (projected to be 9.3 billion by 2050), anthropogenic activities (e.g., intensive cultivation, over-application of groundwater and synthetic fertilizers), and climate change over decades (Mukhopadhyay et al., 2020). About 40%-60% of the World's saltaffected lands are saline and sodic in nature (Tanji, 1990). In India, the total salt-affected area is 6.74 million ha out of which approximately2.95 and 3.79 million ha area is covered by saline and sodic soils, respectively (Sharma et al., 2015). Sodic soils are characterized by high pH (>8.5), high exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP, >15%), and low salt concentration electrical conductivity (EC, <4.0 dS m À1 ). In India, annual losses of INR 230 billion (1USD=75 INR) occur due to the adverse effect of salinity/sodicity on crop growth and productivity (Sharma et al., 2015). This is likely to increase manifold by 2050 with a projected increase in salt-affected soils to 16.2 million ha (CSSRI Vision 2050, 2015). In India, the population is increasing day-by-day and to feed this huge (1.67 billion by 2050) population, salt-affected soils should be reclaimed and brought under productive cultivation. Moreover, at the current time, climate change together with soil salinity/sodicity will considerably affect crop productivity (Datta, Basak, et al., 2017).Conservation agriculture (CA), having three principles of minimum soil disturbance, crop rotation, and soil cover, is endorsed as a practice for sustainable crop production that simultaneously conserves soil and water resources while reducing input costs (Jat et al., 2021;Margenot et al., 2017). The application of CA practices enhances soil quality by reducing the breakdown of soil aggregates, enhancing the infiltration rate, nutrient cycling, and soil organic carbon (SOC), which improves soil physical and biochemical properties while reducing soil erosion (Jat et al., 2018;Jat, Choudhary, et al., 2020;Jat, Datta, Choudhary, Sharma, et al., 2019;Jat, Datta, Choudhary, Yadav, et al., 2019;Zhang et al., 2018). CA practices also have higher energyuse efficiency compared to conventional tillage (CT) (Jat, Jat, et al., 2020;Rusu, 2004). The increase in SOC and aggregate stability under CA plays important role in regulating the movement of water and gas, and nutrient cycling (Liu et al., 2015). It is also reported that CA practices improve nutrient availability and soil fertility (Choudhary, Datta, et al., 2018;Choudhary, Jat, et al., 2018;Dang et al., 2015).Consequently, increased levels of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) were found in the surface layer under CA compared to CT treatment (Martínez et al., 2016). Recently, CA is gaining momentum because of saving in labour, water, and energy with higher systems' productivity and profitability (Jat, Choudhary, Nandal, et al., 2020;Jat, Datta, Choudhary, Sharma, et al., 2019;Jat, Datta, Choudhary, Yadav, et al., 2019). CA also showed promise in improving soil quality and savings of fertilizer nutrients in reclaimed alkali soils (Choudhary, Datta, et al., 2018;Choudhary, Jat, et al., 2018;Jat et al., 2018;Jat, Datta, Choudhary, Sharma, et al., 2019;Jat, Datta, Choudhary, Yadav, et al., 2019).Reclamation of sodic soils is mostly done by chemical amendments such as gypsum which supplies Ca 2+ thereby replacing Na + from clay exchange complex leading to lower soil pH and ESP. In arid and semiarid regions, sodic soils mostly contain an ample amount of native CaCO 3 which serves as a potential Ca 2+ source but its lower solubility makes it difficult for reclamation of sodic soils. Soil pH, partial pressure of CO 2, and its hydrolysis reaction in soil solution control the CaCO 3 dissolution rate in soil (Plummer et al., 1978). Several researchers have shown that growing trees or crops has the potential in reclaiming calcareous sodic soils with or without chemical amendments application (Chorom & Rengasamy, 1997;Dagar et al., 2001Dagar et al., , 2014Dagar et al., , 2016;;Dagar & Minhas, 2016;Dagar & Tomar, 2002;Garg, 2000;Mishra et al., 2004;Qadir et al., 2006;Qadir & Oster, 2002;Singh, 2009). In sodic soils, the application of organic material significantly increased the partial pressure of CO 2 into the root zone which leads to the production of carbonic acid and helped in the dissolution of native CaCO 3, and supplied Ca 2+ to soil solution (Amini et al., 2016;Fahu & Keren, 2009;Noori et al., 2021;Tan, 1994). In an extensive review, Leogrande and Vitti (2018) emphasized the important role of organic matter in improving the quality of salt-affected soils by supplying cations and improving soil structure.Organic substances upon decomposition produce organic acids (Trivedi et al., 2017) thereby helping in calcite dissolution and reducing soil pH by supplying Ca 2+ to soil solution (Filho et al., 2020;Prapagar et al., 2012).There is hardly any study on how CA mediates soil sodicity through zero tillage (ZT) (or no-tillage) and crop residue recycling.There is speculation that higher crop residues have the potential to reduce the soil pH in long term. Upon decomposition, crop residues produce organic acids and subsequently H + ions and thereby reducing soil pH. Another possible hypothesis is through the dissolution of CaCO 3 mediated by organic acids that are produced during crop residue decomposition (Figure 1). Therefore, we hypothesize that longterm CA-based management practices with diverse crop rotation significantly reduce soil pH through higher organic matter build-up in the soil. The objectives were: (i) to study the soil salinity and sodicity parameters under CA practices; and (ii) to evaluate different SOC pools under long-term CA management.A field experiment was started in the year 2009-2010 at ICAR-CSSRI (Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Central Soil Salinity Research Institute) Karnal, India (29 42 00 20.7 0 N latitude, 76 57 00 19.79 0 E longitude) at an elevation of 243 m above msl (Figure 2). The region has a semiarid and subtropical climate, with a hot and dry spell from April to June to wet summer spell in July to September, and a cool and dry winter spell from October to March. The mean maximum temperature was 31.68 C during the month of June, whereas the minimum temperature was 11.62 C in the coldest month of January. The average rainfall of the area is 670 mm, 75%-80% of which occurred during the monsoon season. The soil was highly sodic during the 1970s with high pH (pH 10.3 in 1:2.5) and exchangeable sodium percentage (97% at 0-5 cm depth) (Bhumbla et al., 1973). After the establishment of ICAR-CSSRI, the soils were reclaimed through gypsum application, and later on cultivation of crops started (Datta et al., 2015). The soil of the experimental field was silty loam in texture (sand 34%, silt 46%, and clay 20%), low in Walkley and Black organic carbon (0.45%) with alkaline pH (ranging from 7.5 to 9.5). In this study, the treatments are termed scenarios (Sc), which were designed to address various drivers of current as well as a future agricultural production system in the western Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) of India. Four scenarios with a diversified cereal-based cropping system, tillage and crop establishment, residue management, and water and nutrient management were evaluated. The experiment was laid out in a randomized block design (RBD) with three replications in production-scale plots (2000 m 2 ; 20 m  100 m). The scenarios included: Sc1-conventional tilled transplanted rice-conventional tilled wheat (CT-RW) called farmer's practices; Sc2-conventional-tilledtransplanted rice-zero-till wheat-mungbean (CTR-ZTWMb); Sc3zero-tilled rice-wheat-mungbean (ZT-RWMb) and Sc4-zero-tilled maize-wheat-mungbean (ZT-MWMb). The details of the treatments along with management practices were given in Table S1. The best crop management practices for nutrient, weed, and pest was followed in all scenarios except Sc1, where farmers' practices were followed.2.3 | Crop managements (crop establishment method, planting, fertilization, etc.)In Sc1, rice was grown by performing two harrowing plus two cultivator operations followed by wooden planking in dry tillage, whereas puddling was done by passing two harrowing followed by one-time planking. Rice seedlings (20-25 days old) were transplanted manually in the main field after puddling. In CT-wheat, the field was prepared by passing two harrowings and two cultivator operations. Wheat seeds were manually broadcasted in the soil followed by harrowing and planking. In Sc2, rice was transplanted in the main field after puddling and the field preparatory dry tillage was performed by three harrowing and one planking operation. The ZT rice (direct-seeded rice; DSR), wheat, mungbean, and maize were planted by 'Happy Seeder' machine in all CA-based scenarios (Sc2, Sc3, and Sc4). The distance between rows was maintained at 22.5 cm for ZT-rice, wheat, and mungbean, whereas for maize row to row distance was maintained at 67.5 cm. Both rice and maize were sown during June before the onset of the monsoon season, wheat was sown between the last week of October and to the first week of November, and mungbean was cultivated between April to mid-June (between wheat harvesting and rice sowing) every year. The best management practices were followed with the standard seed rates in all crops.Recommended doses of fertilizers (150-60-60 kg ha À1 of N-P 2 O 5 -K 2 O for both rice and wheat) were applied in all CA-based scenarios (Sc2-Sc4). In Sc1, farmers' practices were followed with higher N (175 kg N ha À1 ), medium P (46 kg ha À1 ), and no K fertilizer in the plot. The nutrient N was supplied mainly through urea (46% N), however, P and K were supplied through di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) (18:46:00) and muriate of potash (MoP, 60% K 2 O), respectively. NPK complex fertilizer (12:32:16) was also used in different scenarios as per recommended dose. In all the scenarios, P and K along with ~17% N were applied as basal, and the remaining N was supplied by urea as a top dressing in three equal splits. In mungbean, no fertilizer was given in Sc2-Sc4.In Sc1, 100% rice and wheat residues were removed from the field. In Sc2, 100% rice and 30% wheat residues (anchored wheat stubbles of 20-25 cm height) were kept and 100% mungbean residues were incorporated during the puddling operation in rice. In Sc3, 100% rice and mungbean and 30% wheat residues were kept on the surface. But in Sc4, 65% (anchored stubbles up to cob position) maize, 30% wheat, and 100% mungbean residues were kept on the soil surface. During the experimental period, about 159 Mg ha À1 crop residues (including maize, wheat, and mungbean) were recycled in Sc4 whereas in Sc2 and Sc3 about 153 and 139 t ha À1 crop residues (including rice, wheat, and mungbean), respectively were recycled (Table S2). For rice and wheat residue, carbon (C) input was calculated assuming a concentration of 0.45 kg C per kg dry matter (Johnson et al., 2006) and for maize residue, 0.40 kg C per kg dry matter (Sawyer & Mallarino, 2007) and for mungbean residue, 0.44 kg C per kg dry matter (Zang et al., 2015). During the experimental period, in Sc2, 41.9, 10.9, and 15.5 t C ha À1 were added through rice, wheat, and mungbean crop residues, respectively. Whereas in Sc3 and Sc4, it was 37.1, 10.2, 14.8, and 40.5, 10.7, and 14.8 t C ha À1 through rice/maize, wheat, and mungbean, respectively were recycled.In the year 2009-2010, rice was grown as uniformity crop for maintaining the residues. Soil samples were collected after harvesting of common crop wheat in all the scenarios during years 2010 (initial level), 2014 (after 4 years), and 2019 (after 9 years) from 0 to 15 and 15 to 30 cm soil depths using auger with 5 cm internal diameter. The said experiment was started on the partially reclaimed sodic soils where sodic patches have prevailed with varied pH ranging from 7.5 to 9.5. During the wheat season 2009-2010, the sodic spots were identified by observing the patchy growth of the wheat crop (peculiar symptoms of sodic condition) and confirmed by measuring the pH and ESP in each plot. A sizable area (size: ~25 m 2 ) was earmarked in each plot based on the soil pH. Within each plot, sub-samples were collected from three locations for each pH range, and then a composite sample was prepared for each depth. Part of the soil samples was airdried in shade, ground to pass through a 2-mm sieve, and stored in plastic containers for analysis of selected soil chemical properties.Soil pH 2 (soil:water 1:2 ratio) and pHs in the aqueous paste of the soil and water were determined using a digital pH meter (USSL, 1954).Electrical conductivity of soil suspension (soil:water 1:2 ratio) (EC 2 ) and saturation extract of soil paste (ECe) were measured using an EC meter (USSL, 1954). Sodium and potassium concentrations were determined in soil saturation extract by a flame photometer (Bhargava, 2003;USSL, 1954). Calcium and magnesium concentration were estimated by EDTA method (Schwarzenbach et al., 1946). Carbonate and bicarbonate were determined by titrating the sample against standard acid. Chloride was determined by titrating the soil extract against silver nitrate solution using potassium chromate as an indicator (USSL, 1954) and sulfate was estimated by the turbidimetric method (Chesnin & Yien, 1951). Cation exchange capacity (CEC) and ESP of soils were determined by the method of Tucker (1985). The sodium adsorption ratio (SARe) of soil saturation extract was calculated by the following equationWhere: [Na + ] represents the concentration of cation in cmol (p+)L À1note halving the sum of [Ca 2+ ] and [Mg 2+ ] before taking the square root.The oxidizable organic carbon (OC) was determined following the wet oxidation method of Walkley and Black ( 1934). Very labile carbon (VLC) was measured following Datta, Mandal, et al. (2017) using12 N H 2 SO 4 . Total carbon (TC) was measured using the Elementer CN analyzer (Elementer Vario EL Cube). The CaCO 3 content of the soils was measured following Collins Calcimeter (Allison & Moodie, 1965). Inorganic carbon (IC) was calculated from CaCO 3 content by multiplying 0.12 on a mass basis. Total organic carbon (TOC)was calculated by subtracting IC from TC.Data analysis was done with the help of SAS 9.1 software (SAS Institute, 2001). The treatment means were compared by the least significant difference (LSD) test at p = 0.05 (Gomez & Gomez, 1984). A Pearson's correlation matrix was constructed among the soil properties studied to determine the common relationships between parameters.Conservation agriculture-based scenarios showed a significant decline in soil pH 2 (soil:water; 1:2) with the increasing years of management at 0-15 cm soil depth (Table 1). A lowest decline in pH 2 (6.98) was observed in Sc2 at 0-15 cm soil depth among the scenarios. At 0-15 cm soil depth, about 8% decline in soil pH 2 after 4-years (year 2014) and 18% decline after 9 years (year 2019) was observed in Sc2 over 2010 level (8.53, initial level). In Sc3, about 8% and 14% decline in soil pH 2 was observed after 4 and 9 years, respectively, compared to the initial level (year 2010) whereas, in Sc4, the decline in soil pH 2 was 4.5% and 12%. At 15-30 cm soil depth, the highest decline in soil pH 2 was observed in Sc2 (15.5%) closely followed by Sc4 (14%) after 9 years (year 2019) over the initial level. A similar observation was also observed in pHs under different scenarios. The lowest pHs were observed in Sc2 (6.37), whereas conventional management did not exert any significant effect on soil pH reduction (Table 1).Significant variation in EC (EC 2 and ECe) was observed across the years although the values are much lower than the critical level of 4.0 dS m À1 above which significant impact on plant growth manifested (Table 2). With progress in cultivation practices, EC 2 decreased (about 28%) significantly after 9-years, the lowest being associated with Sc2 (0.34 dS m À1 ) and Sc3 (0.33 dS m À1 ) at 0-15 cm soil depth.However, ~33% decline in EC 2 was observed in Sc3 at 15-30 cm soil depth. A similar observation was also observed in ECe across the years. In the first 4 years, the decline rate of EC was slower (25% of total reduction) and after that the rate was increased exponentially in the last 5 years (75% of total). At 15-30 cm soil depth, about a 29% decline in ECe was observed in CA-based management after 9 years over 4 years (Table 2).Significant variation in cations was observed among the scenarios except for K + ion. With progress in CA-based management, Note: same upper-and lower-case letters are not significantly different at p < 0.05 among the scenarios in a column and the years in rows, respectively, according to the LSD test for separation of the mean. Values are the average of three replicates (n = 3). Abbreviation: LSD, least significant difference.extractable Na + ion concentration decreased significantly over the years (Table 3). After 9 years, the highest decrease in extractable Na + ion concentration was observed in Sc4 (49.3%) followed by Sc3 (46%) and Sc2 (45%) at 0-15 cm soil depth over the initial values. Similarly, at 15-30-cm soil depth, a significant decline in extractable Na + was recorded in Sc3 (49%) and Sc2 (47%). Extractable Ca 2+ concentration decreased across the years with the progress of cultivation practices except for Sc3. The highest decrease was observed in Sc1 (19%) followed by Sc2 (8.1%) and Sc4 (5.4%), whereas Sc3 showed a reverse trend with 24% higher after 9 years over the initial level at 0-15-cm soil depth. A similar trend was also observed at 15-30 cm depth except for Sc1 where Ca 2+ ion concentration increased with years.Extractable Mg 2+ ion concentration showed significant variation among the scenarios across the years. With progress in cultivation practices, extractable Mg 2+ ion concentration decreased significantly except for Sc1, the highest and lowest values were associated with Sc3 (20.2%) and Sc2 (3.3%) at 0-15-cm soil depth after 9 years. In Sc1, about 54% higher extractable Mg 2+ ion concentration was observed after 9 years at surface soil depth. At 15-30-cm soil depth, Sc3 and Sc4 registered a significant decrease in Mg 2+ ion concentration whereas Sc1 showed a significant increase (54%) after 9 years over the initial level (Table 3).Extractable anions varied significantly among the scenarios across the years. Except Sc1, extractable carbonate content decreased significantly with progress in CA-based management (Table 4). Sc3 showed a 100% decline in CO 3 2À content followed by Sc2 (88%) and Sc4(81%) at 0-15-cm soil depth after 9-years, whereas about a 98%  4).Long-term CA-based practices resulted in significant increase in CEC of soil across the years compared to CT-based agriculture (Figure 3). At 0-15-cm soil depth, Sc2 and Sc3 recorded 35% and 38% higher CEC after 4 years and about 89% and 58% higher CEC after 9 years over initial level (CEC of 9.06% and 7.73%). Whereas, after 9 years, Sc4 showed 24% higher CEC at 0-15 cm soil depth. At 15-30 cm soil depth, about 21.3% and 21.6%, and 48% and 50% higher CEC was observed in Sc2 and Sc3, respectively, after 4 and 9 years. Sc4 recorded 19% and 30%higher CEC after 4 and 9 years, respectively (Figure 3).With progress in CA-based managements, ESP decreased significantly over the years (Figure 3). The highest and lowest decrease in ESP was 43% and 4% in Sc2 and Sc3 after 4 years and goes up to 50% and 18% after 9 years compared to the initial level, respectively.At 15-30-cm soil depth, Sc2 recorded the highest decline in ESP after 4 years (49%) and 9 years (60%). Scenario 3 and Sc4 registered 24% and 29% after 4 years and a 37% and 32% decrease in ESP after 9 years, respectively (Figure 3). Across the years of cultivation, both CT and CA practices resulted in significant decline in SAR at both the soil depths. The decline in SAR was in the order of Sc1 > Sc2 > Sc3 > Sc4 at 0-15-cm soil depth, whereas at 15-30-cm soil depth, the order was Sc1 (55%) > Sc3 (52%) > Sc2 (47%) > Sc1 (17%) after 9 years ( Note: same upper-and lower-case letters are not significantly different at p < 0.05 among the scenarios in a column and the years in rows, respectively, according to the LSD test for separation of the mean. Values are the average of three replicates (n = 3).T A B L E 3 Changes in extractable cations (me L À1) under different management scenarios  Note: same upper-and lower-case letters are not significantly different at p < 0.05 among the scenarios in a column and the years in rows, respectively, according to the LSD test for separation of the mean.Values are the average of three replicates (n = 3).T A B L E 4 Changes in extractable anions (me L À1) under different management scenarios  Note: same upper-and lowercase letters are not significantly different at p < 0.05 among the scenarios in a column and the years in rows, respectively, according to the LSD test for separation of the mean.Values are the average of three replicates (n = 3).Significant variation in CaCO 3 content was observed among the scenarios except Sc4 (Figure 4). After 4 years, a similar magnitude of the decline in CaCO 3 content was recorded in Sc1 (53%), Sc2 (50%), and Sc3 (50%) at 0-15-cm soil depth. However, after 9 years, the highest decline was associated with Sc3 (46%). At 15-30-cm soil depth, after 4 years, Sc3 (41%) and Sc1 (38%) recorded a significant decline in CaCO 3 content whereas Sc4 showed a 25% increase over initials.However, after 9 years, a significant decline in CaCO 3 content was observed in Sc3 (24%) followed by Sc1 (19%) at 15-30-cm soil depth (Figure 4).A significant decline in IC was observed under CA-based management (Figure 4). After 9 years, at 0-15-cm soil depth, Sc2 registered a significant decline (59%) in IC followed by Sc3 (52%) compared to initial values. After 4 years, Sc3 showed a 45% decrease in IC content over F I G U R E 3 Variation in cation exchange capacity and exchangeable sodium percentage of soil under different management scenarios. Sc1: conventional rice-wheat system, Sc2: conventional rice-zero tillage wheat and mungbean system, Sc3: CA-based rice-wheat-mungbean system, Sc4: CA-based maize-wheat-mungbean system. The error bar represents the standard error of the mean. Similar lower-case letters above error bars are not statistically significant at a 5% level of significance between different scenarios. Similar upper-case letters are not statistically significant at a 5% level of significance among the years of experiment. Note: same upper-and lower-case letters are not significantly different at p < 0.05 among the scenarios in a column and the years in rows, respectively, according to the LSD test for separation of the mean. Values are the average of three replicates (n = 3).the initial level. In both the years, the lowest decline was associated with Sc4 (9% and 18%) in surface soil. At 15-30-cm soil, Sc1 recorded highest decline (30%) followed by Sc3 (29%) and Sc2 (14%) after 4 years. In 2019, IC decreased significantly in Sc1 (36%) followed by Sc3 (29%) and Sc4 (19%), whereas Sc2 recorded 27% higher IC at 15-30-cm soil depth compared to the initial level (Figure 4).Year's together practice with CA had resulted in significant increase in VLC across the scenarios (Figure 5). After 9 years, Sc3 recorded, about 175% higher VLC over the initial level at 0-15-cm soil depth.Sc1 (114%), Sc2 (59%), and Sc4 (55%) also showed significant increase in VLC over 9 years of continuous cultivation. After 4 years, increase in VLC was in the order of Sc1 (50%) > Sc4 (41%) > Sc3 (31%) > Sc2 (28%) at 0-15-cm soil depth over the initial level. At 15-30-cm soil depth, Sc4 showed higher VLC by 24% and 57% after 4 and 9 years, respectively. Sc1 also showed 21% and 26% higher VLC at 15-30-cm soil depth after 4 and 9 years. Sc2 and Sc3 showed similar VLC across the scenarios and over the years of cultivation (Figure 5).After 4 years, a significant increase in Walkley and Black carbon (WBC) was observed in CA-based scenarios, the highest being associated with Sc3 (62%) followed by Sc4 (60%) and Sc1 (52%) at 0-15-cm soil depth. Whereas, after 9 years, Sc4 (76%) showed thehighest increase in WBC followed by Sc3 (69%) and Sc2 (62%). At 15-30-cm soil depth, about a 14% decline in WBC was observed in Sc1 after 9 years over the initial level of 0.36%. After 9 years, the highest increase in WBC was observed in Sc2 (66%) at 15-30-cm soil depth followed by Sc4 (47%) and Sc3 (38%). In 2014, 14%-38% higher WBC was recorded as compared to 2010 irrespective of scenarios (Figure 5).Total organic carbon also showed a similar trend as WBC among the scenarios across the years (Figure 6). With progress in cultivation, Sc4showed higher TOC (77%) followed by Sc3 (69%) and Sc2 (65%) at 0-15-cm soil depth after 9 years of experimentation. After 4 years, TOC was 61% higher in Sc4 and Sc3, and 54% in Sc2 over Sc1. At 15-30-cm soil depth, Sc1 registered a 13% decline in TOC after 9 years, whereas Sc2 recorded the highest TOC (65%) followed by Sc4 (46%)F I G U R E 4 Variation in CaCO 3 and inorganic carbon content (%) in soil under different management scenarios. Sc1: conventional rice-wheat system, Sc2: conventional rice-zero tillage wheat and mungbean system, Sc3: CA-based rice-wheat-mungbean system, Sc4: CA-based maizewheat-mungbean system. The error bar represents the standard error of the mean. Similar lower-case letters above error bars are not statistically significant at a 5% level of significance between different scenarios. Similar upper-case letters are not statistically significant at a 5% level of significance among the years of experiment. CA, conservation agriculture. [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] and Sc3 (40%). After 4 years, Sc1 showed 39% higher TOC followed by Sc3 (28%), Sc2 (26%), and lowest in Sc4 (13%) over the initial level (Figure 6).After 4 years, a similar increase in TC was observed in Sc3 (60%) and Sc4 (61%), whereas Sc2 registered about 51% increase at 0-15-cm soil depth over the initial level (Figure 6). Whereas, after 9 years, Sc4 recorded 74% higher TC followed by Sc3 (63%) and Sc2 (61%) at 0-15-cm soil depth. CT-based practices (Sc1) did not show any increase in TC content over the years. At 15-30-cm soil depth, Sc2 recorded significantly higher TC (64%) after 9 years followed by Sc4 (44%) and Sc3 (35%), whereas Sc1 showed a 15% decline in TC compared to the initial level. Whereas, after 4 years, Sc4 and Sc3, recorded 14% and 24% higher TC compared to Sc1.Significant interactions were observed among the scenarios, years, and scenarios  years (Table 6). Extractable Ca 2+ showed a significant effect (p < 0.001) of scenarios at 0-15-cm soil depth, whereas the scenarios effect on K + and Mg 2+ was significant (p < 0.001) at 15-30 cm soil depth (Table 6). Different carbon pools such as VLC, WBC, IC, TOC, and TC were significantly influenced by scenarios except at 15-30-cm soil depths for WBC, TOC, and TC. CaCO 3 , ESP, and pH 2 were significantly influenced (p < 0.001) by scenarios at both the soil depths. Different CA-based management scenarios significantly influenced EC 2 , EC e , extractable Na + , CO 3 2À , HCO 3 À , Cl À , SO 4 2À , VLC, WBC, TOC, IC, TC, CaCO 3 , CEC, ESP, pH 2 , and pHs at both the soil depths except IC and CaCO 3 at 15-30-cm soil depth and Cl À at 0-15-cm soil depth. Significant positive interaction was observed for extractable Mg 2+ , WBC, TOC, and TC at 0-15-cm soil depth (Table 6).Pearson's correlations matrix has been constructed among the soil properties studied (Table 7). Significant correlations were observed among the soil properties. Soil pH 2 was significantly positively correlated to pHs, EC 2 , Na, Cl À , ESP, and SAR, whereas negatively correlated to Ca 2+ , CEC, TOC, and VLC. Soil EC 2 was significantly positively correlated to pHs, ECe, Na + , CO 3 2À , HCO 3 À , Cl À , SO 4 2À , SAR, and negatively correlated to CEC and VLC. ECe was significantly positively F I G U R E 5 Variation in very labile and oxidizable organic carbon content in soil under different management scenarios. Sc1: conventional rice-wheat system, Sc2: conventional rice-zero tillage wheat and mungbean system, Sc3: CA-based rice-wheat-mungbean system, Sc4: CA-based maize-wheat-mungbean system. The error bar represents the standard error of the mean. Similar lower-case letters above error bars are not statistically significant at a 5% level of significance between different scenarios. Similar upper-case letters are not statistically significant at a 5% level of significance among the years of experiment. CA, conservation agriculture. [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] correlated to Na + , Mg 2+ , CO 3 2À , HCO 3 À , Cl À , SO 4 2À , and negatively correlated to CEC. Extractable Na + was significantly positively correlated to CO 3 2À , HCO 3 À , Cl À , SO 4 2À , ESP, SAR, and negatively correlated to CEC and VLC. CEC was significantly positively correlated to TOC and VLC, whereas negatively correlated to ESP of soil. TOC was significantly negatively correlated to ESP, SAR, and positively correlated to VLC. ESP was significantly negatively correlated to VLC (Table 7).With progress in CA-based management, soil pH (pH 2 and pHs) declined significantly which might be due to the decomposition of crop residues recycled over the years (Filho et al., 2020). During the decomposition of crop residues, partial pressure of CO 2 increased significantly leading to the production of carbonic acids which declined soil pH and subsequently enhanced the dissolution of native CaCO 3 (Fahu & Keren, 2009;Prapagar et al., 2012)  (Gura & Mnkeni, 2019;Jat et al., 2018). The lower pH in CA might be due to the accumulation of soil organic matter (SOM) and soil with crop residue, increasing the number of electrolytes and then decreasing pH (Rahman et al., 2008). The inclusion of legume crop (mungbean) between rice and wheat and incorporation of its residues also facilitated a reduction in soil pH as reported by many researchers (Dhar et al., 2014;Islam et al., 2019). Higher crop residue retention in CAbased managements resulted in the production of organic acids upon decomposition which diluted salt concentration leading to lower EC in soil (Rahman et al., 2008). SOC also improved the soil's physical structure which facilitated the leaching of salts from the upper soil layer. A higher decrease in soil pH and EC was recorded with Sc2 compared to other scenarios where residues were incorporated during puddling (churning of soil in presence of water) of soil for rice transplanting.Incorporation hastens the crop residue decomposition process and secrets more organic acids.Crop residue retention is the main factor in the scenarios to improveCEC in this study. The increase in CEC (Murphy et al., 2016) and Ca 2+F I G U R E 6 Variation in total organic carbon and total carbon content in soil under different management scenarios. Sc1: conventional ricewheat system, Sc2: conventional rice-zero tillage wheat and mungbean system, Sc3: CA-based rice-wheat-mungbean system, Sc4: CA-based maize-wheat-mungbean system. The error bar represents the standard error of the mean. Similar lower-case letters above error bars are not statistically significant at a 5% level of significance between different scenarios. Similar upper-case letters are not statistically significant at a 5% level of significance among the years of experiment. CA, conservation agriculture. [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] after the retention of crop residue were previously reported (Mohanty et al., 2015). Although, the increase in the availability of Mg and K was reported by Yang et al. (2017) and, Gura and Mnkeni (2019) under no-tillage (NT) with crop residue retention compared to the CT practices but in our study, this trend was not observed. Many researchers (Godde et al., 2016;Haruna & Nkongolo, 2020) reported that crop residue retention increases the SOM which is the main factor in the increase of CEC and available Mg, K, and Ca. Our study suggests that in marginal soils CEC and Ca 2+ are also more sensitive toward crop residue retention than Mg 2+ and K + . Organic acids produced upon decomposition of crop residues (Filho et al., 2020;Prapagar et al., 2012) and carbonic acids generated from higher partial pressure of CO 2 during microbial and root respiration had resulted in dissolution of native Ca 2+ from CaCO 3 concretions (Fahu & Keren, 2008;Qadir et al., 2005) which replace thee Na + from exchange phase and good soil structure facilitated leaching of Na from upper soil layers. As a result, soil ESP also declined under CA-based management over the years. Availability of Na was lower under NT but not at the cost of good crop production than in CT, supporting previous studies (Loke et al., 2014). Good soil structure due to higher Higher VLC in CA-based management practices was due to long-term crop residue retention at the soil surface which upon decomposition releases labile carbon into the soil. Jat, Datta, Choudhary, Sharma, et al. (2019) also reported higher labile carbon content in surface soil under CA-based management. Higher microbial activity in surface soil under CA-based management also contributed to higher production of VLC in those scenarios (Choudhary, Datta, et al., 2018;Choudhary, Jat, et al., 2018). Parihar et al. (2018) also reported higher VLC as MBC at surface soils under CA-based management in Northwest India. All CA-based managements resulted in higher SOC in comparison with CT. The increased SOC is likely related to the redistribution of SOC within aggregates, which increases its stability under CA (Sheehy et al., 2015). The greater soil aggregation would slow down the SOM decomposition rates in CA practices (Jat, Datta, Choudhary, Yadav, et al., 2019;Sauvadet et al., 2018). The improvement of SOC stock in the topsoil (0-15 cm) is greater than in the subsoil (15-30 cm) is in line with the positive effects of CA practices on SOC stock being mainly limited to surface soil layers (Badagliacca et al., 2018;Hubbard et al., 2013;Sun et al., 2020). In the subsoil T A B L E 6 ANOVA of soil properties and interactions effect  physical accessibility of the organic C to microorganisms was a major control of carbon (C) dynamics (Salome et al., 2010). Higher microflora and fauna resulted in higher C content in CA-based management systems (Choudhary, Datta, et al., 2018;Choudhary, Jat, et al., 2018).The results of SOC stock in the subsoil are thus probably due to the reduction of soil disturbance in CA systems, affecting the vertical separation of decomposers and the substrate in the subsoil (Li et al., 2018;Mondal et al., 2020). At the field scale, spatial heterogeneity in C content was also greater in the subsoil than in topsoil (Salome et al., 2010). Collectively, as compared to the topsoil, subsoil has less potential in gaining SOC stock with the application of conservation tillage practices (Mondal et al., 2020). The SOC pools under different scenarios depend upon the organic residues recycled over the years. Across the soil depth (0-30 cm), the SOC content is more or less the same under different CA-based scenarios but it varied with management (retention vs. incorporation) in upper and lower layers.With progress in CA-based management CaCO 3 and IC content decreased in soil. In addition, higher partial pressure of CO 2 due to higher microbial activity and root respiration during decomposition of crop residues facilitated the production of carbonic acids which mainly attack native CaCO 3 (Qadir et al., 2005) and causes its dissolution and release Ca 2+ ions into soil solution (Fahu & Keren, 2008, 2009). As a result, CaCO 3 , as well as IC concentration reduced and soil pH and ESP, decreased through natural reclamation of sodic soils. In CA-based management, a higher fungal and bacterial population and higher abundance of copiotrophs resulted in the accelerated crop residue decomposition (Choudhary et al., 2020;Choudhary, Datta, et al., 2018;Choudhary, Jat, et al., 2018;Choudhary, Sharma, et al., 2018). Kim et al. (2020) observed increased CaCO 3 dissolution due to increased soil water storage and transport resulting from agricultural management such as crop cultivation. The acids released by the microbes helped to the dissolution of CaCO 3 and subsequently lower IC (Pal, 2013). The full CA-based rice-wheat-mungbean system (Sc3) is more effective in the reclamation of sodic soils as compared to the maize-wheatmungbean system (Sc4). In CA systems, ZT with crop residue recycling helped in improving the SOC by ~65%-75% over initial values after 9 years of continuous cultivation. So, it is evident that CA-based scenarios improved the soil chemical conditions which is required for the good soil health for getting higher yields. Thus, the present findings confirm the benefits of CA in enhancing soil quality in degraded ecosystems. In the rice-wheat system of IGP, about 1.8 million ha area is affected by soil sodicity and it can be reclaimed by following the CAbased management practices as plenty of crop residues are available freely and may be used for productive purposes. Therefore, CA is an excellent supplement that can be used for the reclamation of calcareous sodic soils to improve the reclamation efficiency and deserves further investigation in highly sodic soils.","tokenCount":"6514"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/1728379103.json b/data/part_1/1728379103.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..9df16a13ea2592cfeb19d4d5267460a881d7a778
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d2129c7e30fb1ba3237f3a8122d5a51b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a70835ea-e1cc-4a8a-973c-2a9571c29aea/retrieve","id":"783067407"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6a1ac15f-1048-4d80-b08d-8638d12693ab","pagecount":"36","content":"Un desafío común en las ciencias agrícolas y ambientales es el de recolectar datos meteorológicos detallados, espacialmente y a intervalos de tiempo. Diferentes tipos de estaciones meteorológicas y registradores de datos (data loggers, por su equivalente en inglés), se encuentran disponibles comercialmente, pero la mayoría de estos recursos son muy costosos lo cual limita su utilización en el campo. Por ejemplo, si no se ejerce una adecuada supervisión, los instrumentos y demás componentes pueden deteriorarse o ser o dañados accidental o intencionalmente. Sin embargo, existen en el mercado sensores ambientales sencillos que son relativamente baratos, se reemplazan fácilmente cuando se pierden y pueden instalarse en zonas de difícil acceso, por ejemplo, en bosques y en fincas de agricultores. Otra ventaja es que se pueden utilizar varios sensores en una misma zona lo cual permite obtener datos con una alta resolución espacial. Es importante anotar que estos sensores no son tan exactos como las estaciones meteorológicas. Sin embargo, generan indicadores ambientales muy útiles cuando la información se combina con datos de las estaciones meteorológicas lo cual mejora las interpolaciones espaciales.Esta Guía Técnica explica cómo recolectar datos de temperatura y humedad utilizando el registrador de datos (data logger) denominado iButton, Referencia DS-1923 Hygrochron. Este dispositivo mide la temperatura y/o la humedad y registra el resultado en una sección de la memoria.Se requieren los siguientes seis componentes para registrar datos de temperatura y humedad utilizando el dispositivo iButton:1) Registrador de Datos (Data Logger iButton). Esta guía describe el iButton modelo DS-1923 Hygrochron.2) Un artefacto para sujetar el iButton cuando se utiliza en el campo. Para este propósito utilizaremos tubos de PVC blanco.3) Un computador portátil o de escritorio.4) Un receptor Blue Dot más el adaptador 1-Wire para configurar el dispositivo iButton.5) Un dispositivo lector para extraer e ingresar información al iButton. Esta tarea puede realizarse conectando el Receptor Blue Dot directamente al computador.Este puede ser un procedimiento dispendioso si se desea descargar los datos directamente en el campo (en un cultivo por ejemplo). Para este caso explicaremos como usar el dispositivo manual TDHC 400b: Handheld Thermochron Downloader para descargar la información de los iButtons directamente en el campo.6) Un software para descargar los datos del iButton. Pueden ser utilizados diariamente en diferentes aplicaciones, por ejemplo, para el control de acceso a edificios y a equipos, y en general, para el registro de los datos de diversas tareas La línea de productos iButton cuenta ahora con más de 20 productos diferentes, con diferente funcionalidad incorporada a los iButtons básicos. El iButton® temperature/humidity logger (Ref: DS1923) es un sistema robusto y autosuficiente que mide la temperatura y ó la humedad y registra el resultado en una sección de memoria protegida. El registro de los datos se realiza a espacios de tiempo definidos por el usuario. Se pueden almacenar un total de 8,192 lecturas de 8 bits ó 4,096 de 16 bits, tomadas a intervalos equidistantes con un rango que va desde 1 segundo hasta 273 horas. Por otra parte, este dispositivo está dotado de 512 bytes de SRAM para almacenar información relacionada con la aplicación misma y 64 bytes para datos de calibración. La recolección de datos puede programarse para comenzar inmediatamente, después de un lapso de tiempo definido por el usuario, o después de una alarma de temperatura. El acceso a la memoria y a las funciones de control puede protegerse mediante una contraseña. El DS1923 se configura y se conecta a un computador a través del protocolo 1-Wire, el cual sólo requiere de un cable de datos y un retorno a tierra. Cada DS1923 se fabrica con un número único de registro de garantía de 64-bit que permite su total trazabilidad. Funciona con baterías de metal de litio. El 1-WireViewer es una aplicación Java que permite, desde un computador, el acceso a las funciones y operación de los iButtons. Esta aplicación se conecta automáticamente al iButton y despliega su número de serie y una descripción de las funciones y menús. El software 1-WireViewer es compatible con la mayoría de los dispositivos 1-Wire, incluyendo el registro de temperaturas, humedad, conversión de analógico a digital, y funciones de memoria. Antes de instalar el programa 1-WireViewer es necesario descargar e instalar el programa Java Runtime Environment (JRE) de 64-bit. Visite el siguiente sitio Web para descargarlo: http://java.sun.com/. La mayoría de los computadores vienen ya con Java instalado de fábrica pero para su correcto funcionamiento el 1-WireViewer requiere el Java (versión 5, actualización 8 ó mayor). Para verificar si tiene Java instalado en su computador y qué versión, visite el sitio web. Si su versión está desactualizada siga los vínculos para descargar e instalar una nueva versión. Como se muestra en la siguiente figura, esta opción permite copiar los datos del iButton al portapapeles pero sin etiquetas. Sólo se despliega el valor de la temperatura.El archivo .csv es un formato muy común, relativamente simple y es ampliamente soportado por los sistemas de gestión de bases de datos y hojas de cálculo. Microsoft Excel puede abrir archivos .csv, pero dependiendo de la configuración regional del sistema, se puede esperar un punto y coma como separador en lugar de una coma. Esto se debe a que en algunos idiomas se utiliza la coma como separador decimal. Además, muchas versiones regionales de Excel no permite el manejo de Unicode en formato .csv. Una solución sencilla si se presentan estas dificultades es cambiar la extensión del nombre del archivo de .csv a .txt y luego abrirlo desde Excel mediante el comando \"Abrir\". El TDHC 400 Data Downloader es un descargador portable de datos. Es pequeño y fácil de manejar; es recargable y se puede conectar a cualquier computador a través de un puerto USB. Cuando hace contacto con el iButton, el descargador de datos indica el estatus de la alarma y almacena la información. Estos datos pueden ser transferidos después a una PC para ser analizados y archivados.Características generales del TDHC 400 generales del TDHC 400 generales del TDHC 400 generales del TDHC 400Es pequeño y portátil: 82 x 50 x 19 mm (3 ¼ x 2 x ¾ \"), peso: 55 g La descarga completa de los datos del iButton DS1923 toma menos de 5 segundos Con 4 MB de memoria, el dispositivo almacena los datos de un equivalente aproximadamente de 400 iButtons DS1923Los datos se almacenan en una memoria flash y están protegidos, incluso si la batería se ha descargado o extraviado La batería es recargable y tiene una duración de aproximadamente 3 días entre cargas. El TDHC 400 se conecta al computador y se recarga a través de un puerto USBEl TDHC 400b utiliza una batería de litio ion recargable que, bajo condiciones de uso normales, debe durar por lo menos 5 años (típicamente por lo menos 500 ciclos de carga y descarga). Sin embargo, el usuario no puede reemplazar la batería el mismo; en caso de falla total, el dispositivo tiene que ser enviado al fabricante para que este la reemplace. La luz verde titila a medida que ocurre la descarga de los datos. Al final de la descarga, la luz verde permanece encendida durante 5 segundos para indicar que el proceso fue exitoso.Error en la descarga de datos Durante la descarga de los datos, la luz amarilla titila una sola vez para indicar una falla en la descarga de un registro. Al final del procedimiento, la luz amarilla permanece encendida durante 5 segundos para indicar que la descarga falló totalmente.El descargador de datos TDHC no despliega ningún tipo de mensaje verbal o escrito; sólo utiliza ledes (LEDs) de colores que se encienden para alertas específicas. Cada luz tiene un doble juego de indicadores dependiendo de si el TDHC está conectado al puerto USB o no.La luz roja indica que se activó la alerta de alta temperatura. Al final del proceso de descarga, la luz roja puede que titile simultáneamente con la luz verde.La luz azul indica que se activó la alerta de baja temperatura. Al final del proceso de descarga la luz azul puede que titile simultáneamente con la luz verde. Los datos que muestra esta figura fueron registrados en el campo fuera de la Oficina de Bioversity en Pusa Campus, New Delhi, entre las 9.48 AM y las 2.28 PM a una rata de muestreo de 1 minuto. Las resoluciones de la temperatura y de la humedad fueron 0.0625°C y 0.04% respectivamente.El programa despliega los datos descargados e información relevante incluyendo el identificador del iButton y los parámetros de la misión","tokenCount":"1406"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/1735801589.json b/data/part_1/1735801589.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..c90ab564a3101524567c79ebec32d991cbc6192b
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ba063d629eb0fea04c63c146c0382398","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/80915a03-8d8f-44ad-a486-a9ed8efddb4e/retrieve","id":"1666398359"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1a65214c-87fb-479d-8028-33fccccefc6f","pagecount":"23","content":"Les publications du CIP fournissent au public des informations importantes sur le développement. Les lecteurs sont encouragés à citer ou à reproduire des documents de ces publications dans leurs propres publications. En tant que titulaire du droit d'auteur, le CIP demande un accusé de réception et une copie de la publication dans lesquelles figure la citation ou le matériel. Veuillez envoyer une copie au service de communication à l'adresse ci-dessous.Cet instrument a été spécialement développé pour une utilisation en extérieur avec des qualités d'étanchéité et de portabilité.Ce plus petit appareil possède un seul bloc de chauffage, prenant la même bande de 8 microtubes développée pour GENIE II.La bande de tube maximise l'efficacité optique et thermique avec un capuchon de verrouillage fournissant un système à tube fermé. Les bandes présentent les avantages suivants:• Mécanisme de fermeture pour prévenir la contamination Le mastermix isothermique permet de détecter en temps réel la fluorescence de l'ADN et de l'ARN amplifiés sur Ne pas stocker les oligonucléotides dans de l'eau distillée stérile à 4°C car ils peuvent se dégrader à cette température pendant un stockage à long terme. Il est préférable de stocker à -20°C dans de l'eau tamponnée TE qui épuise la disponibilité des ions positifs nécessaires à la dégradation enzymatique de l'ADN.Pour chaque essai, différentes concentrations des amorces sont requises pour une amplification optimale, comme le montrent les tableaux 1 et 2. Préparer 100 microlitres d'amorces 10x pour utilisation comme matériel de travail (tableau 3 et tableau 4).Vous pouvez utiliser cette formule pour les calculs.  Le master-mix contient tous les composants d'une réaction qui doivent être maintenus constants, en le répartissant dans une bande individuelle, puis en ajoutant la variable (p. ex., la matrice).    bouilli (figure 3). Le PEG alcalin est préféré dans les conditions de terrain car il abaisse la température de fusion qui est favorable parce que vous allez utiliser la batterie de la machine.Les semences certifiées sont un moyen infaillible pour booster la production de pommes de terre en Afrique subsaharienne. Le test LAMP est un outil polyvalent et rentable qui apporte la fiabilité des diagnostics aux conditions les plus nécessaires. Il peut être utilisé aux points d'entrée et dans les champs agricoles, aidant à diagnostiquer rapidement l'infection latente du flétrissement bactérien et aidant à atténuer sa propagation dévastatrice. Cette approche peu coûteuse est un outil essentiel pour renforcer le système semencier de pommes de terre et rendre le processus de certification des semences pommes de terre plus accessible.","tokenCount":"409"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/1736090271.json b/data/part_1/1736090271.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..b8512b97d2c0a382deb81669ed393c26abc05bc6
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+++ b/data/part_1/1736090271.json
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"59b8dc05e399f9b31722889c777f2d7f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/019871fb-4c99-42d3-9d4f-1696f8ab4a85/retrieve","id":"-1482225207"},"keywords":["• PIM -Policies","Institutions","and Markets • Livestock -Livestock"],"sieverID":"7b828a09-4cb0-4729-b688-fb4f199b0775","pagecount":"2","content":"P1636 -Product Line 5.1.1: Macro level analyses of livestock markets and systems at global and regional scale Description of the innovation: This research activity is developing and piloting tools and practical implementation of integrated economic-environmental modeling at the value chain and livestock sector level. This tool and evidence aim to enable public and private sector decision-makers to understand, plan, act, monitor, and report on trade-offs and synergies between livestock-specific socio-economic and environmental outcomes and incentives. A journal article on livestock and environmental impact scenarios for Vision 2030 (D17985) describes a first analysis using Kenyan data.","tokenCount":"95"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/1748749648.json b/data/part_1/1748749648.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..e5963e5c799471edd51da8c01a15aaef3ba78f55
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+++ b/data/part_1/1748749648.json
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"763ef60d4a5c402ff85a0288e74636cb","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/4bf25909-3038-4476-a896-f8b3356dfffe/content","id":"1584283427"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"40965910-6aa3-49e8-a023-42799aa18c0e","pagecount":"54","content":"• Individual infection with each virus can also cause disease • Typically, infection with one virus results in milder symptoms than MLN but reaction depends on germplasm and viral strain.Transmission:1. Primarily through Insect Vectors:-Thrips (Frankliniella williamsi) -Chrysomelid beetles -RootwormsVectors can often survive on a wide variety of cultivated crops and weeds. 2. Mechanically 3. Seed : 0.04% (18 plants per 44,0000) -Jensen et al., 1991 Recent studies indicate that the transmission rate could be much, much higher by seed.Alternate hosts: grasses in Poacea -73 species including wheat, sorghum, oats, johnson grass (Sheets, 2005) SCMV and MDMV • Alternate host include Sugarcane, Johnsons grass, sorghum and various grass species (oats, millet, sudangrass)• Chlorotic spots/mosaics on lower leaves developing into streaks along leaf veins. • As plants approach maturity, leaves become yellow • Slight stunting (higher incidence of ear and stalk rot if early disease infection) • Seed set is affected.  ","tokenCount":"149"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/1760758020.json b/data/part_1/1760758020.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..b1635c9bcaad951f05575548e51b8500201e2385
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a4ed763a4097f9533590f9e710e7f3a2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/97932034-25b3-48ff-a455-a842ab0bc0a5/retrieve","id":"1837724162"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"30308b8d-8ffc-409f-aa54-85ecf85882c8","pagecount":"36","content":"N°149 OCTOBRE-NOVEMBRE 2010 NuMéRO hORs-séRiE -AOÛT 2011 Le magazine du développement agricole et rural des pays ACP http://spore.cta.int © G. Stubbs/Africamediaonline.com partageons les connaissances au profit des communautés rurales MOdERNisATiON dEs ExplOiTATiONs AgRiCOlEs Les chemins de la réussite La solution : l'entrepreneuriat est le magazine bimestriel du Centre technique de coopération agricole et rurale (CTA). Le CTA est régi par l'Accord de Cotonou entre le groupe des pays d'Afrique, des Caraïbes et du Pacifique (ACP) et l'Union européenne, et financé par l'UE. • CTA • Postbus 380 • 6700 AJ Wageningen, Pays-Bas • Tél. :Alors que, pour certains, le concept de chaîne de valeur appliqué au développement agricole n'est qu'un simple phénomène de mode, il promet en fait de transformer l'agriculture en modernisant les pays ACP. En effet, les perspectives économiques de ces pays dépendront de leur capacité à moderniser leur secteur agricole, facteur déterminant pour réduire la pauvreté et stimuler la croissance. La transformation agricole exige de s'adapter à un nouvel environnement et de relever des défis qui évoluent en permanence. L'une de ces principales gageures consiste à passer de l'agriculture de subsistance à une agriculture commerciale et d'entrepreneuriat. Bon nombre de débats récents dans les pays ACP portent sur le type d'agriculture à promouvoir, agriculture familiale ou agrobusiness. Alors qu'il peut y avoir de bonnes raisons de soutenir un modèle plutôt que l'autre, l'expérience internationale montre clairement qu'il n'existe pas de solutions toutes faites ni universelles. Par exemple, l'expérience de l'UE prouve que, même si l'industrie agroalimentaire joue actuellement un rôle majeur, l'agriculture familiale est toujours très active et exerce encore une fonction essentielle en assurant la sécurité alimentaire et en soutenant le développement régional. Il faut absolument reconnaître le besoin de rassembler toutes les parties prenantes, y compris les gouvernements et institutions publiques, pour développer une vision commune, définir des objectifs et adopter une feuille de route. Pour atteindre tous ces buts, l'entrepreneuriat est la clé du succès. Nous espérons que ce numéro spécial de Spore sera une source d'inspiration pour vous. Vous y découvrirez que la transformation agricole et la modernisation sont déjà en cours dans de nombreux pays ACP. D'importantes leçons peuvent être partagées à travers les pays et les régions.  moderniser l'agriculture, qui les fait vivre et emploie l'essentiel de leur population, est le défi à relever pour la plupart des pays ACP dans les décennies à venir. mais les petites exploitations, largement majoritaires, peuvent difficilement y arriver seules.ire que la majorité des pays ACP sont des pays essentiellement agricoles semble une évidence. Pourtant, jusqu'à une date récente, cette prééminence de l'agriculture dans l'économie et dans la vie sociale de ces pays a été quelque peu occultée. Gouvernements et bailleurs de fonds s'en sont peu préoccupés, préférant laisser agir un marché mondial libéralisé. Aujourd'hui, ce secteur revient sur le devant de la scène et il lui est beaucoup demandé : assurer la souveraineté alimentaire ; employer une population en croissance rapide, particulièrement en Afrique, et la faire vivre décemment ; exporter pour faire rentrer des devises. Pour relever tous ces défis, la préoccupation centrale est d'augmenter très fortement la production, donc la productivité, en \"modernisant\" l'agriculture. Des mutations qui peuvent prendre des formes aussi variées que le sont les situations de départ, les diversités géographiques ou les régimes politiques.Ces changements d'orientation prennent en compte les chiffres marquants qui font de l'agriculture le pivot du développement de nombreux pays actuellement et pour les décennies à venir. Le secteur agricole emploie toujours une large majorité de la population : 63 % en Afrique subsaharienne, jusqu'à 83 % en Éthiopie, 81 % au Rwanda et encore 78 % au Kenya, selon les chiffres 2009 de la Banque mondiale. Dans les Caraïbes, ce taux est de 60 % en Haïti et seulement de 9,8 % à Trinité-et-Tobago, beaucoup plus industrialisée. Il en est de même dans une grande partie des îles du Pacifique, comme au Vanuatu, où l'agriculture occupe 70 % de la population active.Malgré un fort exode rural qui a fait rapidement enfler les capitales africaines depuis une trentaine d'années, l'essentiel des habitants vivent dans les zones rurales, principalement de la culture, de l'élevage, ou de quelques activités autres qu'agricoles. Or, la population africaine va doubler dans les 40 ans à venir et il faudra trouver des emplois aux 10 millions et bientôt 20 millions de jeunes qui arrivent chaque année sur le marché du travail. À condition de leur permettre d'accéder à un certain bien-être, de valoriser socialement cette activité et de mieux s'intégrer dans la vie économique du pays, l'agriculture restera pour eux un vivier d'emplois très important, qu'il soit familial ou salarial.C'est aussi un secteur qui contribue fortement au PNB, à hauteur de 30 % en moyenne en Afrique : 44 % au Mali, mais 7,8 % en Angola, riche en pétrole (cf. carte). En Haïti, il représente 35 % du PNB, mais seulement 9,8 % aux Fidji. Dans de nombreux pays, sans ressources minières, les exportations agricoles restent la principale source de devises :Forme d'agriculture intégrée à l'économie, dont la production est essentiellement ou exclusivement destinée à être vendue. Son efficacité suppose de fréquents investissements. Elle s'oppose à l'agriculture vivrière.Agriculture essentiellement tournée vers l'autoconsommation et l'économie de subsistance. La production n'est destinée ni à l'industrie agroalimentaire ni exportée. Elle est en grande partie autoconsommée par les paysans euxmêmes et la population locale.Selon la FAO, c'est l'accès de tous les êtres humains, à tout moment, à une nourriture leur permettant de mener une vie saine et active. réaliser la sécurité alimentaire consiste à faire en sorte que des quantités suffisantes de nourriture soient disponibles, que les approvisionnements soient relativement stables et que les personnes ayant besoin de nourriture puissent y avoir accès.Droit international qui laisse la possibilité aux populations, aux états ou aux groupes d'états de mettre en place les politiques agricoles les mieux adaptées à leurs populations sans qu'elles puissent avoir un impact négatif sur les populations d'autres pays.manière dont les hommes s'organisent et organisent l'espace à différentes échelles afin de produire et consommer leur nourritureCombinaison des cultures, des activités d'élevage et des moyens de production (terre, capital, travail)  Partout, ce sont les petites exploitations familiales qui dominent et assurent 90 % de la production… Ces exploitations vont de la petite agriculture de subsistance, qui nourrit juste la famille et pourvoit à ses besoins de base, à de petites agro-entreprises insérées dans des circuits commerciaux qui font parfois appel à des salariés. Leur caractéristique commune est qu'activités économiques et structure familiale sont intimement liées : les champs sont cultivés par la famille, surtout par les femmes qui assurent aussi souvent la vente dans les marchés, les terres se transmettent surtout par héritage, les décisions sont prises par le chef de famille… Selon le Réseau des organisations paysannes et de producteurs de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (ROPPA), en Afrique ces exploitations familiales, que d'autres appellent unités de production familiales, produisent avant tout pour \"vivre\" plus que pour \"vendre\", c'est-à-dire qu'accroître leurs revenus n'est pas la priorité. Il faut aussi assurer la sécurité alimentaire en limitant les risques, entretenir les relations sociales, sauvegarder les terres.De tels objectifs correspondent à des modes de vie, mais surtout à des contraintes. Majoritairement, les fermes sont de petite taille, souvent moins de 2 ha, qui ne procurent qu'un faible revenu et où il est dangereux de miser sur une seule culture. Les producteurs ne disposent que de quelques outils aratoires simples, mais très, très rarement de tracteurs ou de motoculteurs, parfois de pompes à eau si elles sont installées près d'un point d'eau. Acheter des semences améliorées, des engrais et des produits phytosanitaires est difficile, voire impossible, La croissance agricole a augmenté de 50 % en Afrique depuis 1980Les villes sont les premiers débouchés des agriculteurs. Ces marchés les poussent à accroître leur production de produits frais et à moderniser leurs exploitations pour répondre aux exigences des entreprises agroalimentaires et des distributeurs, parfois difficiles à suivre. Les marchés, sauf pour les producteurs proches des villes, sont souvent restreints, en particulier dans les régions enclavées où les coûts de transport sont deux fois plus élevés qu'ailleurs. Les marchés régionaux et de filières bien structurées ne fonctionnent que sur certains produits comme l'oignon de Galmi au Niger ou les pommes de terre du Fouta-Djalon en Guinée, toujours donnés en exemples, ou sur des produits d'exportation. Sinon, seuls les producteurs les plus importants arrivent à intégrer des filières. Les petits ne le peuvent que s'ils sont accompagnés. Au Sénégal, par exemple, constate l'étude RuralStruc, les agriculteurs de la région du fleuve -qui a bénéficié d'importants investissements, est proche des sur les marchés des villes majoritairement constitués de produits locaux, contrairement à des idées souvent répandues.Quel rôle joue la demande des consommateurs urbains dans la commercialisation et la transformation des produits agricoles ?Le secteur agroalimentaire est la courroie de transmission entre la production agricole et la consommation. Il permet d'adapter l'offre agricole à la demande et de la valoriser. C'est un secteur dans lequel les femmes se sont investies pour proposer des produits transformés tels que les huiles, les semoules, les produits séchés, fermentés. En Afrique de l'Ouest, ce sont généralement de toutes petites entreprises. Certaines femmes cependant investissent pour proposer des produits emballés, par exemple. Mais la faiblesse du pouvoir d'achat des citadins paupérisés et sans emploi limite les débouchés des industries agroalimentaires. Ils ont du mal à payer la valeur ajoutée des produits qui en sont issus. C'est donc un cercle vertueux de modernisation qu'il faut engendrer, qui doit toucher autant les producteurs agricoles et les transformateurs que les acheteurs. Le développement d'une classe moyenne attirée par des produits faciles d'emploi, disponibles toute l'année et de qualité régulière pousse au développement d'entreprises agroalimentaires plus modernes.Quels sont les effets de la modernisation du secteur agroalimentaire et de la commercialisation sur celle de l'agriculture ?Les petites et moyennes entreprises agroalimentaires qui se multiplient -de cinq petites minoteries de mil en 1990, le Sénégal en est à 50 -veulent répondre à ces besoins des consommateurs, remplaçant la vendeuse du marché dont on connaissait bien le produit et son origine. Elles deviennent exigeantes pour assurer la régularité et la qualité de leurs productions. Les agriculteurs ont un cahier des charges précis ou signent un contrat d'achat avec les grosses entreprises. Des contraintes insurmontables pour les petits agriculteurs qui accélèrent la concentration des exploitations agricoles. Ils doivent se moderniser pour y répondre. Des organisations de producteurs peuvent parfois le faire mais c'est souvent difficile. Le développement des supermarchés risque de précipiter cette concentration et de laisser de côté les petits exploitants qui ne pourront pas investir pour respecter les normes requises par les distributeurs. Cette volonté de rationaliser la commercialisation menace de nombreux emplois dans la vente et dans la production agricole. Une évolution trop rapide risque de faire de gros dégâts. En Europe, elle a pris des décennies…Oui, la valorisation et la distribution des produits locaux à destination des marchés locaux apparaissent comme un créneau rentable pour des investisseurs, locaux comme étrangers. Mais il n'est pas évident que ces industries génèrent plus d'emplois qu'elles n'en suppriment. Les enjeux ne sont donc pas seulement de produire plus et mieux. Ils sont aussi de gérer le rythme de l'industrialisation qui s'opère en fonction des besoins d'emplois.1 % 90 %Source : Banque mondiale 1 | LES DéFIS marchés côtiers et dispose d'une usine de transformation de tomates industrielles -ont des revenus beaucoup plus élevés que ceux de Casamance, enclavée et peu organisée.La répartition du travail entre les sexes freine aussi les investissements. Les hommes se consacrent plus volontiers aux cultures de rente qui rapportent de l'argent tandis que, dans de nombreux pays, les femmes se cantonnent aux cultures vivrières mais sans moyens. Ceux qui ont l'esprit d'entreprise et cherchent à innover pour accroître leurs revenus ne sont pas toujours bien vus de leurs proches ou de la communauté, à plus forte raison s'il s'agit de femmes.La plupart de ces exploitations sont fragiles et à la merci des aléas climatiques, voire commerciaux pour certaines. Une sécheresse prolongée, des pluies trop fortes qui emportent les cultures -ce qui est de plus en plus fréquent dans certains pays comme ceux de l'est de l'Afrique -ruinent ces agriculteurs qui ne bénéficient pas d'assurances pour pallier ces calamités.Pendant longtemps, ces unités familiales de production ont été considérées comme archaïques et incapables d'évoluer. Pourtant, durant les 30 dernières années, elles ont su s'adapter aux besoins. La croissance agricole en Afrique subsaharienne est passée de 2,3 % par an dans les années 1980 à 3,8 % par an entre 2000 et 2005, dépassant bien souvent celle des autres secteurs. Dans la même région et sur la même durée, la productivité de l'agriculture a crû de 50 %.Les capacités d'innovation de ces exploitations sont importantes et leur adaptation aux opportunités locales rapide. Au cours des dernières décennies, le maraîchage a connu un boom sans précédent autour des villes et aussi comme culture de soudure dans les zones sahéliennes ; le maïs a connu une large expansion dans de nombreux pays avec l'introduction de variétés adaptées aux différentes régions ou à la sécheresse en Afrique australe ; il en est de même pour le manioc et l'adoption de nouvelles variétés mises au point par la recherche. La petite irrigation s'est développée, la culture attelée aussi dans les pays sahéliens. Les organisations de producteurs se sont multipliées dans la plupart des pays d'Afrique, surtout dans l'Ouest. Au Burkina Faso, presque tous les villages en comptent au moins une.Les nombreux systèmes d'information sur les marchés, le développement de la microfinance rurale, du conseil de gestion… tous ces outils développés à l'origine le plus souvent par des projets touchent une frange de ces petits exploitants, mais ne sont pas suffisants pour enclencher une véritable modernisation de l'agriculture qui permette aux ruraux de vivre correctement et aux pays de produire assez pour se nourrir et exporter. C'est de politiques agricoles cohérentes et structurées qui traitent l'ensemble des problèmes que les petits producteurs ont besoin pour passer des caps décisifs. De la formation professionnelle des futurs agriculteurs à la construction ou à l'entretien des routes et pistes rurales, à l'électrification des campagnes en passant par l'aménagement du territoire, la mise à disposition des intrants à un coût abordable, l'accès au crédit, la sécurisation des terres… le chantier est très vaste pour la plupart des pays ACP qui veulent que l'agriculture continue à être le fer de lance de leurs économies et le principal bassin d'emploi de leurs habitants.Une multitude de petites exploitations, quelques entreprises agricoles et de puissantes sociétés étrangères composent actuellement le paysage agricole des pays ACP. Toutes n'évoluent pas au même rythme. I ngénieux, inventifs, courageux, travailleurs, les agriculteurs et surtout les agricultrices des pays ACP ne manquent ni de qualités, ni d'atouts. Ils ont su le prouver durant les dernières décennies. Cependant, malgré leurs efforts, ces millions de petits agriculteurs restent pauvres, voire très pauvres. Selon l'étude RuralStruc, en Afrique, 75 % des ménages interrogés gagnent en moyenne moins de deux dollars par personne et par jour. Au Mali, ils sont même près de 90 %. De quoi juste assurer leurs besoins primaires, à peine de quoi se nourrir parfois. En dépit du nombre de personnes qu'elles font travailler, ces petites exploitations familiales n'arrivent pas non plus à assurer la sécurité alimentaire de leurs pays, en Afrique comme aux Caraïbes et dans les îles du Pacifique. Elles ne peuvent non plus créer des richesses suffisantes pour se développer.Tout le monde s'accorde ainsi à dire que la \"modernisation\" de ces agricultures est urgente et indispensable, inéluctable disent d'autres. Mais tous ne l'entendent pas de la même façon. Certains y voient une évolution de l'agriculture de subsistance vers l'agriculture commerciale, d'autres l'implantation de grandes entreprises agricoles fortement mécanisées employant une main-d'oeuvre abondante. Ces deux visions s'affrontent ou se superposent au sein d'un même pays, donnant des évolutions contrastées. Entre la toute petite exploitation familiale qui peine à survivre et les énormes exploitations commerciales de plusieurs milliers d'hectares, la gamme est large et les formes de modernisation variées.Certains pays estiment que l'arrivée massive d'investisseurs étrangers attirés par les réserves foncières, en particulier africaines, est une intéressante opportunité de modernisation rapide de leur agriculture et de sécurité alimentaire pour leur population. L'Éthiopie a ainsi déjà loué plus de 600 000 ha de terres à des investisseurs étrangers qui financent quelque 800 projets agricoles. Le gouvernement de ce pays espère ainsi nourrir sa population et insuffler un vent de modernisation chez les agriculteurs locaux.Tout récemment, certains pays des Caraïbes, très dépendants des importations alimentaires, ont décidé d'ouvrir leurs terres aux investisseurs pour mettre en place de grandes entreprises agricoles.La productivité des terres gérées par ces entreprises qui ont les moyens d'investir est forte, souvent sans mALiVaste plaine irrigable de 960 000 ha au centre du pays, l'office du Niger est le grenier à riz du mali, mais seuls 85 000 ha sont aujourd'hui aménagés. manquant de moyens pour étendre les infrastructures d'irrigation, le gouvernement malien a cédé 100 000 ha à la Libye. Les autorités libyennes ont signé un contrat de bail de 50 ans, sans contrepartie financière, s'engageant à réaliser les travaux d'aménagement nécessaires pour mettre en valeur ces terres et permettre la mise en culture de 100 000 ha supplémentaires pour les agriculteurs maliens. Il s'agit d'y cultiver des variétés de riz à haut rendement (8 t/ha), en collaboration avec le Centre national chinois du riz hybride. Le riz produit sera destiné à la consommation locale et à celle des Libyens. malibya Agriculture, la société créée par la Libye pour le projet, a confié les travaux d'aménagement démarrés en 2008 à une entreprise chinoise. malibya a déjà réalisé l'agrandissement du canal d'approvisionnement en eau et le bitumage d'une route de 40 km à Bougouwéré, dans la zone de macina. Ce premier volet devrait aboutir à l'aménagement d'une tranche de 25 000 ha. Un autre canal à fort débit sera réalisé par les Libyens et offert au mali pour la mise en valeur de nouveaux casiers rizicoles. mais, pour cette campagne agricole, seuls 6 000 ha seront mis en valeur, car les travaux sont arrêtés depuis avril à cause de la guerre en Libye. Ce projet avait fait l'objet de virulentes critiques au mali, car de nombreux petits paysans ont dû être déplacés et ont perdu leurs terres. L'Association des organisations professionnelles paysannes (AOPP) a cependant obtenu l'indemnisation des agriculteurs, aujourd'hui réinstallés.Soumaïla Diarra commune mesure avec celle des paysans locaux. Elle fait rêver les responsables de ces pays. Ainsi, les Chinois prévoient des rendements de riz de 60 à 75 quintaux à l'hectare, deux à trois fois plus que ceux des paysans de Tanzanie où la Chongqing Seed Corp s'est installée.Parfois, ce sont aussi des entreprises privées locales qui se développent grâce à ces cessions massives de terres. Au Kenya, c'est la société Mumias Sugar Company Ltd, la plus grande entreprise sucrière du Kenya, et l'Autorité pour le développement du fleuve Athi-Tana (ADFTA) qui veulent créer une plantation de canne à sucre de 16 000 hectares pour la production d'agrocarburants. Pourtant, le delta de ce fleuve Tana est actuellement cultivé par des milliers d'agriculteurs et les éleveurs viennent y faire paître leurs troupeaux.Ces entreprises modernes montées par de grandes sociétés privées ou publiques sont violemment contestées. Elles ne garantissent pas, loin s'en faut souvent, la sécurité alimentaire. Une grande partie des productions de ces terres cédées est, en priorité, destinée à nourrir des pays comme la Chine, la Lybie, l'Arabie saoudite, etc. ou à être exportée sur les marchés mondiaux (fleurs, légumes, etc.). La part qui reste sur les marchés locaux est souvent faible et peut contribuer à les déstabiliser au détriment des petits producteurs.Ce qui inquiète le plus les organisations de producteurs, c'est que ces ventes ou ces locations de terres touchent souvent des zones fertiles déjà cultivées dont les paysans sont expropriés. Ils deviennent alors des salariés agricoles qui ne touchent guère plus d'un dollar par jour. Amélioration du niveau de vie des paysans et emploi décent des jeunes ruraux sont donc rarement au rendez-vous.\"Personne ne recommande de grandes plantations et un modèle capitaliste de l'agriculture en Afrique. Il est évident qu'un tel modèle ne résoudrait pas les problèmes d'emploi et de pauvreté de centaines de millions de familles. La question est : comment aider des centaines de millions d'acteurs à s'engager dans le marché ?\", disait déjà il y a quelques années Michel Petit, ancien directeur du département Agriculture et développement rural à la Banque mondiale.C'est le passage de l'agriculture de subsistance à l'agriculture commerciale ou, mieux, d'entreprise qui est recherché. Commerciale, elle l'est déjà souvent à très petite échelle, car rares sont les exploitations familiales qui ne vendent jamais rien. Ce qui caractérise une agriculture dite \"moderne\" et d'entreprise, c'est qu'elle a recours à divers facteurs de production tels que les capitaux, la main-d'oeuvre salariée, la terre. Les exploitations sont gérées comme des entreprises : coûts, revenus, rentabilité sont calculés. Une exploitation familiale peut donc tout à fait devenir une agro-entreprise.Pour faire cette mutation, les petites exploitations doivent à la fois agir sur la production -augmenter leur productivité et les quantités produites -et sur la commercialisation -connaître les marchés, les prix, les créneaux rentables -, voire sur la transformation de leurs récoltes pour en tirer un meilleur profit.Les agro-entreprises peuvent aussi être le fait d'entrepreneurs qui créent des exploitations, les gèrent et utilisent de la main-d'oeuvre pour les travaux, ou encore de propriétaires lointains qui en attendent juste des revenus.En Afrique, de nombreuses exploitations agricoles de taille moyenne, de plusieurs dizaines d'hectares, ont vu le jour ces dernières décennies. Elles sont souvent la propriété d'hommes politiques, de fonctionnaires, de commerçants qui ont acheté des terres bien placées et y ont investi pour répondre aux besoins des marchés proches ou lointains. Le plus souvent, elles sont situées à la périphérie des villes qu'elles approvisionnent en fruits, en légumes, voire en volailles. Au Bénin, par exemple, les agents de l'administration et hommes d'affaires achètent couramment des terres pour produire du bois de teck ou des fruits et plus récemment des produits d'exportation comme l'ananas.Cependant, de petites exploitations familiales arrivent aussi à grandir et se moderniser. Même si elles sont encore très minoritaires, elles sont des exemples à suivre pour les autres. C'est le cas de Korka Diaw, une petite rizicultrice sénégalaise de la vallée du fleuve, qui a mis toute son énergie à étendre son exploitation par l'acquisition de terres. Grâce à l'appui du ministère de la Femme et de l'Entreprenariat féminin, elle a aussi créé deux puis trois petites rizeries pour décortiquer le paddy. Aujourd'hui, elle emploie une vingtaine d'ouvriers, dont huit femmes, et participe aux grandes foires agricoles du pays.Souvent c'est le coup de pouce d'un projet ou l'organisation collective en groupements de producteurs qui permet ces évolutions. Car l'investissement de départ est le premier obstacle auquel se heurtent les exploitants ; l'accès au crédit est donc souvent la condition initiale d'une modernisation pour acheter des terres, du matériel, des intrants, des semences améliorées… (cf. partie 3).En République démocratique du Congo, les petits maraîchers de cinq grandes villes qui manquaient de crédits abordables, d'eau et de semences de qualité ont ainsi été aidés par un programme de la FAO. En quelques années, leurs revenus ont quadruplé et ils produisent plus de 500 000 t de légumineuses et de légumes améliorant très nettement l'approvisionnement de ces villes et le régime alimentaire de leurs habitants.Dans le nord-ouest du Cameroun, NOWEFOR, une fédération d'unions de groupes d'initiatives communes (GIC) qui compte plus de 1 500 paysannesIl y a moins de cinq ans, Allen Kitooke, 45 ans, se lança dans l'élevage de volaille, avec seulement 10 poulets. Aujourd'hui, elle est connue dans tout le sous-comté de Busukuma, district de Wakiso, en Ouganda, et a diversifié ses Ce dernier exemple montre bien que la gestion de l'aval est tout aussi importante que les évolutions techniques des modes de production. Marchés locaux, nationaux, régionaux voire internationaux sont autant d'opportunités qu'il faut savoir explorer et valoriser, individuellement ou collectivement, en fonction du produit, des conditions de transport, des normes requises... L'intégration régionale, qui vise la suppression des barrières douanières, peut ainsi s'avérer un puissant facteur de modernisation de l'agriculture en favorisant la complémentarité entre les productions des différents pays. Entre 2006 et 2008, les échanges commerciaux, en grande partie agricoles, entre les trois premiers pays de l'East African Community -Kenya, Ouganda, Tanzanie -ont, selon cette organisation, augmenté de près de 40 %. Les décisions politiques jouent donc un rôle primordial pour accroître ces échanges régionaux (voir partie 4).Le développement du secteur agroalimentaire qui fait le lien entre les producteurs et les consommateurs est aussi un facteur important poussant à la modernisation des exploitations pour augmenter la productivité et la qualité des produits.Le respect de normes exigées pour l'exportationqualité sanitaire, traçabilité… -pousse les agriculteurs à moderniser leurs itinéraires techniques. Ces changements bénéficient aussi aux productions locales, comme l'a constaté le COLEACP/PIP (Pour un développement durable du secteur fruits et légumes ACP), qui a formé aussi de nombreux formateurs dans ce domaine.Pour rentabiliser les investissements, une gestion économique et financière de l'exploitation s'impose. Il ne s'agit plus seulement de gérer les risques alimentaires de la famille, mais de savoir établir des diagnostics technico-économiques, évaluer la rentabilité, planifier les besoins financiers, organiser le travail (besoins en main-d'oeuvre, coûts, etc.). Autant de formations nécessaires aux agriculteurs, souvent uniquement dispensées par des projets ou des organisations de producteurs.Plusieurs programmes s'emploient actuellement à favoriser le développement de l'agriculture d'entreprise. Tout récemment a été lancé UniBRAIN (Universités, business et recherche dans l'innovation agricole), qui veut lier enseignement universitaire, recherche et secteur privé, et regroupe des institutions telles que le Forum pour la recherche agricole en Afrique (FARA), le Réseau africain pour la formation en agriculture, agroforesterie et ressources naturelles (ANAFE) ou le Consortium panafricain pour l'agrobusiness et l'agro-industrie (PanAAC). Il s'agit de élevage lui rapportent actuellement un revenu net mensuel de 1,6 million UGX (470 €) sur lequel elle épargne chaque mois un montant de 400 000 UGX (117,5 €). Elle vit dans une maison confortable et se déplace en voiture. La croissance régulière de sa petite exploitation lui a permis d'embaucher créer des consortiums d'incubateurs d'entreprises agricoles pour favoriser l'apparition de petites ou moyennes entreprises agro-commerciales compétitives : expertises d'étudiants diplômés spécialisés en agrobusiness, services pour favoriser leur démarrage, repérage des marchés… Les premiers pays concernés sont le Bénin, le Burkina Faso, le Ghana, le Kenya, le Mali, le Mozambique, la Tanzanie, l'Ouganda et la Zambie.Depuis quelques années, le Centre international de développement des engrais (IFDC) a aussi développé les programmes \"Systèmes et entreprises agricoles compétitifs\" pour intégrer davantage les agriculteurs et les entrepreneurs locaux, les services de développement technique, financier et commercial impliqués dans une filière spécifique. Cette approche a déjà bénéficié à environ 60 000 exploitants, dont beaucoup de femmes en Afrique de l'Ouest, et s'étend en République démocratique du Congo.Au Ghana, c'est la filière du poivre à Tamale, dans la région Nord, et celle du maïs à Wench, dans la région Brong Ahafo, qui ont fait l'objet d'une concertation entre tous les acteurs afin de développer des pôles locaux d'entreprises agricoles sur ces deux produits.Les initiatives de ce type se multiplient même si elles ne touchent pour l'instant qu'une infime partie des exploitants. Il y a deux ans, vous avez quitté votre métier de journaliste pour devenir agriculteur à part entière. Un parcours peu courant. Était-ce un projet de longue date ?Je n'ai pas changé sur un coup de tête. Cette reconversion, je la mûrissais depuis 2003, quand j'ai acheté mes quatre premiers hectares de terre à Ita-Djèbou dans le département du Plateau, à 65 km à l'est de Cotonou. L'agriculture a toujours été une passion pour moi, dès l'école. Bien que ni mes parents, ni mes grands-parents ne soient agriculteurs, ils ont toujours cultivé eux-mêmes de petits champs. Pour moi, il est important d'avoir deux cordes à son arc. J'ai donc mené parallèlement une maîtrise de droit privé à l'université et une formation agricole au centre Songhaï, complétée par des stages dans des fermes au Bénin et à l'étranger. En 2004, j'ai commencé à planter des palmiers à huile sélectionnés et des arbres fruitiers -agrumes, manguiers, avoca-tiers… et entre eux des cultures intercalaires : maïs, manioc, haricots, sésame… Occupé toute la semaine comme journaliste, pendant six ans, je suis venu travailler mes champs deux dimanches par mois. Peu à peu, avec mes économies et le soutien de ma famille, j'ai agrandi mon exploitation. Aujourd'hui je cultive 9,5 ha.Comment écoulez-vous vos productions ? Qu'envisagez-vous à l'avenir ? Pour l'instant, seuls trois de mes huit hectares de palmiers sont en production ; les fruitiers commencent à donner leurs premiers fruits. Les marchés locaux absorbent sans problèmes ces petites quantités vendues aux femmes. Mais je ne compte pas en rester là. J'ai en projet de transformer mes produits : de fabriquer de l'huile de palme, des jus de fruits, des biscuits que je vendrai dans les magasins de Cotonou ou exporterai. J'ai déjà été contacté par un gros commerçant nigérian prêt à m'acheter de l'huile de palme. Je suis aussi en train de tester des produits inhabituels pour les Béninois. Un restaurant a accepté d'offrir à ses clients de la grenadine et du jus de fruits de la passion issus de mes arbres.Votre formation vous a-t-elle incité à utiliser de nouvelles techniques de culture ? Grâce à ce que j'ai appris au centre Songhaï, j'essaie d'utiliser au maximum des intrants naturels peu coûteux et qui respectent l'environnement. Pour fertiliser les agrumes, je mets du compost ; sur les palmiers à huile, de l'\"engrais végétal\", c'est-à-dire des feuilles sèches qui, en se décomposant, enrichissent le sol. Je n'utilise pas de pesticides mais des poudres de nem pour lutter contre les insectes. Pour accroître la résistance de mes plantes à la sécheresse, je capte l'eau de ruissellement grâce à des trous que j'aménage autour des plants. Mes diverses formations m'ont par ailleurs aidé à acquérir une bonne expérience en gestion : plan de distribution spatiale, organisation du travail, suivi des activités, des coûts… J'échange aussi beaucoup avec mes voisins, des paysans traditionnels venus cultiver ici quand ils ont vu que même un citadin s'y installait ! Nous échangeons nos conseils. Je fais de même avec mes ouvriers agricoles, d'anciens amis qui ne s'en sortaient pas sur leurs petites exploitations. Là, ils gagnent de l'argent et exploitent de petits champs. Je les pousse à voir plus loin. Quelles sont les relations entre l'agriculture à petite échelle et l'agriculture industrielle au Kenya ?Puisque la plupart des agriculteurs du Kenya sont de petits producteurs, les gros exploitants ont tendance à passer des contrats avec eux afin d'augmenter leur volume de production à l'export. Dans la plupart des cas, les gros exploitants fournissent des intrants (engrais et pesticides), participent au renforcement des capacités de production et offrent parfois des semences. Les petits producteurs font de leur mieux pour cultiver des produits de qualité et les vendre aux gros exploitants pour l'exportation.Que devraient être ces relations dans un \"monde idéal\" ? étant les \"pères nourriciers\" de la nation, les petits producteurs devraient être considérés avec le plus grand respect. Les politiques devraient donc favoriser la production, la transformation et la commercialisation de leurs produits. Les agriculteurs devraient être associés aux travaux de la recherche, afin d'éviter que ces travaux ne soient publiés dans le seul but de rendre leurs auteurs célèbres. Le gouvernement devrait aussi éviter d'importer des biens produits dans le pays car cela pénalise la production locale et accentue les désillusions des agriculteurs en termes de production. Cette situation nous conduit tout droit au désastre alors que les niveaux d'insécurité alimentaire sont de plus en plus élevés.Quels sont les enjeux de la transition de la petite exploitation à l'agriculture commerciale ?Si les petits exploitants passaient à l'exploitation commerciale, cela serait tout à la fois positif et négatif. L'impact positif étant qu'ils seraient capables de tirer de meilleurs profits de leur production. Cependant, la plupart des exploitants industriels pratiquent la monoculture. Cela menace la biodiversité et la majeure partie de la production est destinée exclusivement au marché européen. Ainsi, le consommateur d'Afrique de l'Est souffrirait gravement de la hausse des prix, car toute la production devrait être réimportée, après transformation à l'étranger. Il n'y a pas de formule magique pour passer d'une vie de subsistance à une existence pleine de promesses de rentabilité et d'expansion. mais l'expérience montre que les petits propriétaires des pays ACP qui y sont parvenus ont tous dû surmonter de grands obstacles.ans la plupart des pays en développement, les petits propriétaires représentent plus de la moitié de la population et les chiffres montrent que leurs exploitations disposent d'opportunités de croissance considérables. Le rapport sur la pauvreté rurale 2011 du Fonds international de développement agricole (FIDA) révèle qu'il existe un \"énorme potentiel\" pour améliorer les revenus dans les zones rurales en mobilisant les petits agriculteurs. Mais de quoi un petit producteur a-t-il besoin pour passer de l'agriculture vivrière à l'agriculture commerciale ?Trouver les fonds pour acheter les intrants principaux comme les engrais et le matériel agricole peut être le premier obstacle pour un exploitant souhaitant développer sa production. La difficulté la plus souvent évoquée en matière d'entreprenariat est un accès insuffisant aux capitaux, selon la Conférence des Nations unies sur le commerce et le développement (CNUCED). Les systèmes bancaires formels se montrent souvent réticents à appuyer les petits entrepreneurs ruraux en raison des risques commerciaux perçus et de l'absence de garanties, un problème encore plus aigu pour les jeunes et les femmes. Les solutions de financement proposées aux petits propriétaires agricoles sont souvent trop coûteuses pour répondre à leurs besoins à moyen et long terme.Avec le soutien de FARM-Africa, les petits agriculteurs d'Afrique de l'Est ont acquis des compétences commerciales et ont pu accéder aux marchés rentables des légumes africains indigènes traditionnels. Les paysans ont été affectés à des unités d'aide aux entreprises (BSU) et ont reçu des formations en matière de leadership, de gestion financière et de comptabilité avant de passer à la commercialisation des légumes locaux. Au Kenya, la demande a augmenté de 135 % en deux ans.Le volume des ventes s'est élevé à 9 000 t, avec des revenus financiers de 80 millions KES (660 000 €) sur les marchés informels et de 150 millions KES (1,2 million €) sur les marchés formels. L'introduction des légumes africains indigènes a rapporté à l'agriculteur moyen des revenus nets de 1 120 €/ha. Les paysans doivent trouver de nouveaux moyens pour développer leur production agricole et leurs élevages s'ils veulent que leurs exploitations soient rentables. Les services de vulgarisation et de conseil ont aussi un rôle déterminant à jouer pour les aider à adopter de nouvelles techniques. Augmenter la productivité agricole par le biais de croisements, par la sélection de nouvelles variétés ou l'adoption de technologies innovantes, est un moyen de produire plus sur une même surface. Mais si l'agriculture doit s'intensifier, cela doit obligatoirement se faire de manière durable. Une étude des Nations unies sur l'agro-écologie, publiée en mars 2011, révèle que les petits paysans peuvent doubler leur production d'aliments en dix ans en adoptant des méthodes écologiques simples comme le recyclage des nutriments ou la fixation de l'azote biologique. Le rapport fait état de projets agro-écologiques qui ont enregistré une augmentation des rendements moyens des cultures de 80 % dans 57 pays en développement. Le Rapport prévisionnel sur les avenirs agroalimentaires publié en janvier 2011 détaille 40 études de cas portant sur l'intensification durable dans 20 pays d'Afrique. En moyenne, les rendements ont plus que doublé sur une période comprise entre 3 et 10 ans. La production durable peut avoir d'autres retombées. Au Burkina Faso, un pas vers la conservation des sols a donné naissance à un réseau de jeunes travailleurs journaliers qui vont de village en village pour creuser des poquets de zaï et construire des murs et des structures en voûte. L'implication du secteur privé peut être un puissant moteur de croissance, surtout en l'absence de soutien du secteur public. La sous-traitance agricole n'est qu'un des nombreux modèles commerciaux qui permettent aux agriculteurs de bénéficier d'aides en matière de production, d'intrants et d'accès au marché. Transformer les produits et les présenter de manière attractive sont de bons moyens de générer des revenus. Mais pour le moment, moins de 20 % de la production agricole des pays en développement est transformée, contre 80 % dans les pays développés. Certaines cultures vivrières des pays ACP, comme le manioc, sont volumineuses, périssables et ne peuvent pas être commercialisées sans subir un processus de transformation et de conditionnement important. Cela entraîne des disparités frappantes. Le Nigeria est le plus grand producteur de manioc du monde, mais il représente 0 % des exportations mondiales de manioc transformé, alors que la Thaïlande, qui ne représente que 10 % de la production de manioc mondiale, détient 80 % du commerce mondial car elle transforme sa production.Le processus consistant à ajouter de la valeur aux produits agricoles a un effet boule de neige, car il ouvre de nouvelles possibilités. Selon la CNUCED, chaque dollar US (0,70 €) de valeur supplémentaire caramboles et tamarins. Elle vendait également des piments broyés, en vrac, aux fabricants de sauce au poivre. Grâce aux revenus de son entreprise, marion a pu inscrire cinq de ses enfants à l'université. L'un d'eux, ingénieur chimiste, l'aide dans ses travaux de recherche. marion hart croit fermement à l'appui aux agricultrices. Consciente de la nécessité de réduire le gaspillage élevé de la production agricole, elle enseigne aux autres comment développer des produits et les exploiter pour générer des revenus plus élevés. Dans plusieurs pays, elle a formé des femmes à mieux utiliser les aliments qu'elles cultivent. Son travail consiste à promouvoir la cuisine locale en développant des produits et des recettes et apprendre aux agricultrices à commercialiser leur production. Elle consacre sa vie à aider les femmes à s'émanciper. De façon simple et directe, elle résume : \"Je suis heureuse quand les gens apprécient ce que je fais.\" Et elle conclut : \"J'ai beaucoup travaillé.\"Andy Taitt ajoutée dans le domaine agricole rapporte 30 à 80 cents (0,20 à 0,55 €) de revenus supplémentaires dans d'autres secteurs de l'économie. De plus en plus de petits producteurs des Caraïbes ciblent les touristes et les marchés d'exportation avec des chutneys, des sauces épicées et des condiments. Nelva Magloire a créé une petite entreprise de fabrication de chips de plantain dans la cuisine de sa mère, en Dominique. Elle dirige aujourd'hui une unité de transformation à l'échelle commerciale. Le Réseau des femmes productrices rurales (NRWP) de Trinité-et-Tobago organise un festival annuel autour des activités conférant de la valeur ajoutée aux produits. L'an dernier, le festival a mis la mangue à l'honneur, avec des démonstrations de techniques de transformation et de marketing de ce fruit et de ses sous-produits (savons à la mangue, papier, boissons et même bijoux).De nombreux agriculteurs des régions ACP ont amélioré leur production et leurs revenus en se diversifiant dans plusieurs secteurs, comme les cultures, l'élevage et la pisciculture (voir reportage ci-dessous). Identifier et accéder à un marché de niche peut faire toute la différence entre gagner modestement sa vie et sortir du lot, en dégageant des bénéfices suffisants pour planifier et étendre son exploitation. Les fermes de demain ne doivent pas obligatoirement être basées sur une agriculture rudimentaire. L'économie rurale non agricole est un moyen de sortir de la pauvreté, surtout pour les femmes, et présente des opportunités dans les secteurs du commerce, de l'agroalimentaire, de suite page 24PAPouAsie-NouveLLe-guiNéeLes producteurs de café du plateau isolé de Managalas, en Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée, se sont tournés vers la très lucrative exportation de café biologique. Encouragés par leur succès, ils se sont lancés dans la culture de piments.Le relief accidenté du plateau volcanique de la province d'Oro en Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée (PNG) ne facilite pas la culture et fait de la commercialisation de la production un défi encore plus dur à relever. Cependant, et contre toute attente, un réseau de petits producteurs de café de cette région s'est associé à une entreprise locale. Ce réseau faisant partie d'une chaîne de valeur opérationnelle, ils reçoivent une aide essentielle pour les intrants, la gestion des cultures et, peut-être le plus important de tout, pour la vente de leurs produits. À présent, ils produisent un café certifié biologique destiné aux marchés australien et américain, qui leur assure des revenus largement supérieurs à ceux auxquels ils étaient habitués. Cette étape cruciale a permis aux agriculteurs de se lancer dans une nouvelle culture qui génère encore plus de revenus, celle du piment. Cela leur garantit désormais des rentrées régulières tout au long de l'année. La plupart d'entre eux dirigent des exploitations de 1 à 10 ha et n'ont aucune autre source de revenus.Ce réseau informel de 2 345 caféiculteurs bénéficie du soutien de la société papouasienne Earth and Spirit Products (ESP) pour fournir un café satisfaisant aux normes d'une production bio de haute qualité. \"Ce café est ensuite traité et exporté vers des marchés certifiés biologiques en Australie et aux états-Unis\", précise Mme Fiona Tanner, fondatrice et directrice générale de la société. En 2010, ESP a exporté un total de 3 000 sacs de café avec une augmentation nette des recettes de 40 % pour les cultivateurs par rapport à l'année précédente.Pour faire la soudure entre les saisons de récolte du café et aider son réseau de petits producteurs ruraux isolés, en 2010, ESP a étendu ses activités à la production de piments oiseaux (Capsicum frutescens) biologiques. Pour cela, la société a réaménagé ses entrepôts pour installer un séchoir solaire, afin d'obtenir le taux d'humidité requis pour le stockage et la vente des piments. \"Nous tirons un revenu régulier de nos piments\", confie Tom mesa, un agriculteur du village de Tabuane, chargé du contrôle qualité et de la production des piments. À la fin de l'année dernière, l'entreprise a exporté son premier conteneur de piments en Australie et elle envisage d'en expédier plus de dix au cours de cette année.Vinesh Prasad Qu'est-ce que la \"modernisation\" de l'agriculture au Mozambique ?La modernisation intègre les différents segments et opérateurs des filières agricoles. Cette intégration n'est porteuse de modernité qu'en cas de création de synergies et de valeur entre les parties prenantes. La modernisation ne peut être perçue d'un seul point de vue financier. Elle doit impliquer les petits agriculteurs, leur accès aux technologies améliorées et aux marchés. Notre vision entend rompre avec les stratégies et concepts de l'économie dualiste. Il faut considérer l'agriculture et l'économie de manière globale. On peut parler de modernité lorsque les capacités du secteur commercial s'articulent avec celles de l'agriculture familiale, au sein de chaînes de valeur bien organisées. Pour cela, l'accès à un réseau bancaire commercial est indispensable, mais insuffisant. Il vise les principaux acteurs de la chaîne de valeur. Un réseau d'institutions de microfinance crédibles et durables, proches du marché des petites et micro-entreprises rurales, est également nécessaire. C'est pourquoi nous sommes impliqués dans la création d'un réseau d'organisations d'épargne et de crédit communautaires, ainsi que de caisses rurales, afin de répondre aux besoins des petits producteurs.Les résultats sont visibles à l'échelle nationale. Le secteur avicole est désormais dirigé par des entreprises nationales. Il y a dix ans de cela, ces entreprises, fragiles, ne disposaient que de petites fermes d'élevage. En contrepartie de notre financement, nous avons exigé que les propriétaires s'approvisionnent en matières premières chez les producteurs locaux pour la fabrication d'aliment, tout en leur fournissant des poussins d'un jour et des aliments, afin de faciliter la mise en oeuvre d'un réseau de petits élevages familiaux. Actuellement, le pays dépend moins des importations de poulets congelés et des milliers de familles participent à cette filière, assurant ainsi leur survie et contribuant de manière effective à la sécurité alimentaire du pays. Cette industrie a permis de remplacer les importations, tirant profit des ressources locales, tout en créant des micro-entreprises et des emplois. Un autre exemple de réussite est l'une des organisations coopératives que nous avons contribué à créer pour commercialiser les produits des paysans -Ikuru. Ikuru, qui fait du commerce équitable et biologique, assure des profits supplémentaires aux producteurs. À Londres, on trouve désormais des noix de cajou, des cacahouètes et du sésame exportés par des coopératives qui représentent environ 10 000 familles associées à Ikuru.Au cours de ces dernières années, Gapi-SI a diversifié ses affaires et consolidé ses résultats économiques et financiers. Toutefois, une compréhension limitée de ce qu'est une IFD persiste. Nous devons surmonter cet obstacle en communiquant mieux. Une partie de la classe politique nationale, des techniciens et des responsables pensent toujours que les IFD sont des banques d'État qui fonctionneraient comme des distributeurs d'argent (accordant des crédits en fonction de motivations politiques, sans responsabiliser les emprunteurs). Certains croient qu'il suffit qu'il y ait davantage de banques pour que le système financier soit plus efficace. Ils ignorent que la première étape consiste à promouvoir la solvabilité des emprunteurs potentiels. Le manque de ressources humaines expérimentées est également un obstacle. Nos écoles n'offrent pas encore l'ensemble des compétences nécessaires pour le développement socioéconomique. Pour survivre, les exploitations laitières doivent modifier leur manière de fonctionner, déclare Pitso Sekhoto, propriétaire de l'Entreprise agricole de makolobane à Senekal, en Afrique du Sud. L'exploitant se sert de trayeuses modernes et également d'un logiciel de détection des mammites qui lui permet de gagner du temps en évitant de palper manuellement les vaches laitières. \"En tant qu'exploitants laitiers, nous devons être à la pointe de la technologie, cela nous permet aussi d'évaluer en permanence la qualité la fabrication, de l'artisanat et des activités commerciales et de service. Dans plusieurs îles des Caraïbes et du Pacifique, l'écotourisme offre de nouvelles opportunités aux communautés rurales, tandis que le patrimoine exceptionnel de l'Afrique avec ses paysages, sa faune et son artisanat se prête idéalement à l'agrotourisme. L'an dernier, une entreprise ougandaise fabriquant du papier à partir de déchets agricoles s'est vu décerner le prix SEED (Supporting Entrepreneurs for Environment and Development). Au Guyana, North-West Organics associe protection des tortues et vente d'huiles de massage, de savons et de cacao biologiques. Toute la gamme de produits de cette entreprise communautaire florissante est fabriquée par des femmes autochtones.La TTABA est une force en plein essor dans le secteur agroalimentaire de Trinité-et-Tobago ; elle offre des services de conseil et de coordination afin que les producteurs puissent augmenter leurs marges bénéficiaires. Elle intervient à chaque étape de la production, y compris l'après-récolte, l'emballage et la commercialisation. Elle veille aussi à la qualité des produits. Comment aidez-vous les paysans à améliorer la qualité de leurs produits ?Nous sommes au service des paysans par le biais de nos agents de vulgarisation. Nous veillons à ce qu'ils respectent les normes de qualité en suivant des procédures appropriées. Il est difficile de concurrencer les producteurs internationaux, subventionnés par leurs gouvernements, aussi devons-nous insister sur la qualité et répondre également aux besoins spécifiques des consommateurs. Nous mettons l'accent sur la chaîne de valeur et demandons aux agriculteurs de suivre des méthodes de production de qualité. Parfois, nous les aidons aussi à améliorer la qualité de leurs produits en mettant à leur disposition de nouvelles variétés, mieux adaptées aux conditions locales. Ainsi, nous attendons l'autorisation d'importer de Colombie 15 variétés de manioc à haut rendement.Allister Glean est directeur de l'appui institutionnel au sein de l'Association pour l'industrie agroalimentaire de Trinitéet-Tobago (TTABA). Celle-ci a été créée en 2006 par les acteurs du secteur privé agroalimentaire, avec l'aide du gouvernement, afin d'accélérer le développement national grâce à la croissance durable de ce secteur. Le rôle de la formation est-il important ?Nous formons les cultivateurs à mieux produire, mieux gérer les étapes de l'après-récolte. Des choses simples comme dire aux producteurs de laver leurs patates douces avant de les vendre pour enlever la terre et les rendre plus attrayantes, car ils croient à tort que cela les protège. Nous les formons aussi à l'utilisation de nouvelles technologies. La TTABA a acquis une planteuse de manioc et une machine à récolter que nous louons aux cultivateurs pour leurs parcelles. À présent, certains d'entre eux envisagent même d'acheter leurs propres machines.Oui, nous essayons d'aider les agriculteurs à trouver des débouchés, ce qui est vital pour eux. Ils peuvent produire tout ce qu'ils veulent, mais sans marché ils n'iront nulle part. Aussi travaillons-nous en étroite collaboration avec la société nationale de commercialisation agricole. Le ministère de la Production alimentaire a beaucoup oeuvré pour trouver des marchés à l'export et nous travaillons avec lui sur un accord pour ravitailler localement une chaîne de fast-food internationale en manioc et patates douces. Nous sommes très fiers de ce projet, pour lequel nous avons oeuvré sans relâche pour un partenariat public-privé.L'accès au crédit reste un défi, mais nous continuons à rechercher de nouvelles sources. Le gouvernement s'emploie à aider les producteurs et des fonds importants ont déjà été alloués par la Banque de développement agricole de Trinité-et-Tobago. Mais il reste beaucoup à faire en matière de financement ; les agriculteurs eux-mêmes doivent s'efforcer de trouver de nouvelles sources de financement à l'extérieur de la région.Qu'en est-il de l'accès à la terre ? C'est un réel problème. Certains paysans ne sont que locataires des terres qu'ils cultivent. Néanmoins, depuis le changement de gouvernement, le ministère de la Production alimentaire a multiplié les efforts pour offrir aux cultivateurs un accès à la propriété. Mais les démarches peuvent être compliquées ; parfois ils ne disposent pas de toutes les informations nécessaires ou ne peuvent pas faire les démarches. Dans ce cas, la TTABA les aide et nous les encourageons aussi à se porter acquéreurs de grandes parcelles à cultiver en coopératives. Trois groupes se sont déjà lancés.Les groupements sont composés de paysans réunis selon leurs besoins. Cela peut être simplement le partage de techniques ou de ressources, y compris la main-d'oeuvre, dans un domaine où les producteurs travaillent dans des conditions similaires, confrontés aux mêmes problèmes. Un groupement, l'association Rio Claro Farmers, a déjà connu une belle réussite dans la production de manioc et réduit les coûts en partageant financements, équipements et main-d'oeuvre. À présent, c'est l'un des groupements les plus fiables avec qui nous avons passé des contrats.Trouver de la main-d'oeuvre de qualité est un vrai défi. D'ailleurs, certains producteurs recrutent actuellement de la main-d'oeuvre dans un programme initialement conçu pour l'entretien des routes et canalisations. Aussi la TTABA travaille-t-elle à introduire un volet agricole à ce programme afin de former des travailleurs à répondre aux besoins des agriculteurs. La formation qui a eu lieu jusqu'ici a d'ailleurs donné de bons résultats. L'association Tableland Pineapple Growers va bientôt embaucher environ 300 ouvriers. À long terme, les agriculteurs devront toutefois se tourner vers la maind'oeuvre étrangère. Que sont les crédits bonifiés à Madagascar ? La bonification des taux d'intérêt est un instrument de politique agricole utilisé au Nord pour soutenir l'investissement et la modernisation agricoles. madagascar, avec l'appui de l'UE, puis du Japon, a expérimenté cet outil, à travers un projet pilote. Mis en place entre 2005 et 2007 dans plusieurs régions de madagascar, ce projet visait à appuyer l'achat d'intrants et d'équipements agricoles. L'état intervient en bonifiant les taux des crédits. La bonification bénéficie aux emprunteurs sous la forme d'une prime, transmise par l'institution de microfinance (IMF) partenaire une fois leur prêt remboursé. À madagascar c'est notamment le réseau mutualiste CECAm, Caisses d'épargne et de crédit agricole, né en 1994, qui a distribué les crédits bonifiés. L'appui au financement devait être accompagné de conseil technique.L'expérience, lancée en 2005, a pris fin en 2007, tandis que des fonds demeurent sur le projet. Des résultats positifs ont été observés : la demande en crédit intrants et équipements a augmenté, les prêts bonifiés ont été bien remboursés, l'IMF a gagné de nouveaux adhérents ; des équipements agricoles ont été acquis par cette voie. Des limites demeurent. L'appui technique n'a pas été réalisé, les pratiques paysannes ne semblent pas avoir été durablement modifiées. La mise en oeuvre du projet par les CECAM n'a pas toujours été aisée, l'outil bonification étant difficile à intégrer dans le fonctionnement d'une IMF.Les états interviennent dans le financement de l'agriculture de diverses manières, par exemple en intervenant dans la régulation des marchés ou en fournissant de l'information sur les marchés. Avec l'expérience des crédits bonifiés, l'état malgache est allé plus loin, revenant à des outils de type plus \"interventionnistes\" abandonnés lors des plans d'ajustement structurel. Un autre apport de cette expérience est le partenariat public-privé initié entre l'IMF et l'état pour l'appui à l'agriculture. Les résultats du projet laissent à penser qu'une extension de l'expérience pourrait réellement soutenir la modernisation agricole. Cette expérience re-questionne la légitimité de l'intervention publique par l'appui à l'investissement agricole, élément clé de la modernisation de l'agriculture.Les systèmes de warrantage ou systèmes de certificat d'entrepôt sont conçus pour aider les agriculteurs à éviter de vendre leurs récoltes au prix le plus bas lorsque l'offre est au plus haut. Dans le cadre de ces systèmes, les agriculteurs donnent une partie de leurs récoltes comme garantie en échange de crédits pour financer le cycle de production suivant ou pour investir dans d'autres activités rémunératrices. La récolte est généralement stockée dans un entrepôt communal ou auprès d'une organisation de producteurs. La période de warrantage s'étend généralement de 3 à 6 mois, entre deux cycles saisonniers.Ce principe s'applique surtout aux céréales, même si certaines cultures commerciales comme le niébé, l'arachide et certains légumes sont également entreposées.Au Niger, où le système est très répandu, l'impact sur les revenus des agriculteurs est significatif. outre les répercussions immédiates d'un flux de trésorerie amélioré, les avantages du système incluent la réduction du prix des matières premières et équipements, grâce aux achats groupés, et des perspectives de valeur ajoutée grâce à un meilleur stockage. Mais le warrantage ne fonctionne que pour les produits pouvant être stockés sans s'abîmer. Il n'est intéressant que si l'écart entre les prix au moment des récoltes et les prix en période de pénurie couvre les coûts d'entreposage et autres frais. La gestion des stocks doit être rigoureuse.Les politiques agricoles sont les clés de voûte d'une modernisation agricole cohérente et durable qui touche la majorité des producteurs. Au sein des entités régionales, les pays ACP les bâtissent peu à peu. La tâche est immense. S eule une volonté politique accompagnée de moyens adéquats permettra la modernisation des agricultures ACP. Ce leitmotiv, sans cesse répété au sein des instances régionales ou internationales, donne aujourd'hui ses premiers résultats. Tous les pays se dotent peu à peu de politiques agricoles qui dénotent un nouvel intérêt et de fortes ambitions pour un secteur longtemps délaissé par les pouvoirs publics.Peter Hazell, directeur de la division Environnement et Technologie de la production à l'IFPRI, compare la situation actuelle de l'Afrique avec celle de l'Asie dans les années 1960. En 25 ans, le continent indien est sorti de la famine, générant même des surplus de production. Pendant cette révolution verte, les petits paysans ont bénéficié de nombreuses mesures : technologies adaptées, distribution de terres et sécurisation foncière, intrants modernes et abordables, crédits pour les petites exploitations et politiques garantissant des prix stables et justes pour les petits producteurs. Autant de points sur lesquels les gouvernements ACP doivent aujourd'hui agir, dans le cadre d'une vision du développement agricole de leurs pays. Il s'agit d'opérer des choix cruciaux entre plusieurs options, plus ou moins libérales, prenant en compte les agriculteurs, les besoins des citadins, le respect de l'environnement, les contraintes de la mondialisation... Des politiques agricoles volontaristes, élaborées conjointement avec les principaux intéressés, les paysans, accompagnées de financements et qui s'articulent avec les autres politiques sectorielles sont indispensables. Mais ce n'est pas si simple, car celles-ci doivent aussi s'intégrer dans des politiques régionales de plus en plus prégnantes et dans un environnement international qui tient peu compte de leurs difficultés.Communauté caribéenne (CARICOM), Communauté d'Afrique de l'Est (EAC), Communauté économique et monétaire de l'Afrique centrale (CEMAC), Communauté de développement de l'Afrique australe (SADC), Communauté économique des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (CEDEAO) : chaque région a défini sa politique de développement agricole.Le décollage du Programme détaillé de développement de l'agriculture africaine (PDDAA) du NEPAD a redonné, pour les pays africains, une cohérence aux différentes initiatives des pays (cf. Spore 153). Le PDDAA a inspiré les orientations des politiques régionales africaines, contribuant à la mise en place de règles et principes reconnus. Pour bénéficier de financements des bailleurs, chaque pays est tenu d'élaborer son propre projet en s'intégrant dans ce programme. Le PDDAA vise une croissance agricole de 6 % par an, objectif déjà dépassé par neuf pays (Angola, Burkina Faso, Érythrée, Éthiopie, Gambie, Guinée-Bissau, Nigeria, République du Congo, Sénégal et Tanzanie). Mais seuls le Burkina Faso, l'Éthiopie, le Ghana, la Guinée, le Malawi, le Mali, le Niger, le Rwanda et le Sénégal consacrent 10 % de leur budget à l'agriculture, comme ils s'y étaient engagés en 2008 à Maputo.Les objectifs globaux sont donc ambitieux et les pays mettent peu à peu en place des stratégies de  Les leviers d'action des gouvernements sont multiples. La sécurisation des droits fonciers est un des principaux leviers qui permettent l'investissement. Elle nécessite des mécanismes transparents, équitables et accessibles à tous. Un enjeu d'autant plus fort que les pressions sur les terres augmentent. Au Mali, la politique foncière constitue une priorité, car seuls 15 % des terres cultivables sont effectivement cultivés. Au Burkina Faso, l'État a tenté de réconcilier des approches différentes du foncier en faisant une place aux coutumes locales (cf. encadré). Dans les Caraïbes, les gouvernements affectent de nombreuses terres inexploitées à de grandes exploitations commerciales.Permettre une hausse rapide de la production est l'autre urgence. Nombre d'États ont pris la mesure de l'enjeu et mis en place des politiques de subvention des engrais : Malawi (cf. encadré), Bénin, Burundi. Au Mali, grâce aux engrais, les rendements du riz sont passés de 1,4 à 2,4 t. Dans le Pacifique, sur les atolls aux terres appauvries, les États prônent l'utilisation des charbons en combinaison avec du compost pour accroître la productivité.Un important chantier qui attend le continent africain est celui des infrastructures, les routes en particulier, indispensables à une commercialisation fluide. La plupart des bonnes routes desservent les grandes villes alors que les pistes rurales qui désenclavent les zones de production, en terre, sont peu entretenues. De vastes projets transfrontaliers sont à l'étude -corridors autoroutiers, chemins de fer -pour faciliter les échanges de produits. En RDC, la réhabilitation de 10 000 km de routes fait partie des cinq grands chantiers ouverts par le gouvernement en 2006.Beaucoup reste à faire pour valoriser la gestion de l'eau pour l'agriculture, c'est l'ambition déclarée de l'assemblée parlementaire ACP. Dans une étude récente intitulée \"Quel est le potentiel d'irrigation pour l'Afrique ? Une approche combinée biophysique et sociodynamique\", l'IFPRI affirme que les problèmes d'irrigation en Afrique sont liés à un manque de politiques éclairées et d'investissements ciblés, réalisés sur mesure en fonction des paysans et de l'économie locale. L'ECOWAP prône ainsi le développement de l'irrigation à petite échelle, la réhabilitation des grands périmètres irrigués et une gestion intégrée de la ressource en eau. Le Guyana, très sensible aux changements climatiques, doit adapter ses infrastructures pour faire face aux faibles quantités d'eau pendant les périodes de sécheresse. L'irrigation au goutte-à-goutte est une solution prônée par le gouvernement.La formation et la recherche sont deux piliers indispensables à une modernisation réussie, négligés depuis deux décennies. Selon Chris Tufton, ministre jamaïcain de l'Agriculture, les institutions agricoles ont été délaissées dans les Caraïbes. L'Institut caribéen de recherche et de développement agricoles (CARDI) n'a pas reçu, de la part des États membres, de budget, autre que de fonctionnement, depuis au moins cinq ans.La recherche agricole d'aujourd'hui doit se faire en lien avec le monde universitaire, les organisations paysannes et le secteur privé. Ces \"nouveaux acteurs\" sont ainsi désormais pleinement associés aux événements internationaux, comme la Conférence mondiale sur la recherche agricole pour le développement. Certains sujets, comme les OGM, déjà adoptés dans trois pays d'Afrique, sont particulièrement délicats. Le NEPAD a mis en place trois centres de recherche sur les biotechnologies au Burkina Faso, au Kenya et en Afrique du Sud.La remise sur pied de services de vulgarisation, publics ou privés, utilisant les nouvelles technologies de la communication est aussi nécessaire pour favoriser des évolutions rapides des techniques. De même qu'un enseignement agricole valorisant et efficace qui touche un grand nombre de ruraux.Financer l'agriculture et réguler les marchés L'argent reste cependant le nerf de la guerre pour les agriculteurs comme pour les États. Les petits producteurs ont bien du mal à en obtenir, car les crédits sont souvent insuffisants ou très coûteux. En ce domaine, les initiatives gouvernementales sont rares. En février 2011, le Niger s'est doté d'une banque agricole, la BAGRI-Niger, qui apportera son soutien aux groupements de producteurs, à l'agro-industrie et l'agrobusiness et aux structures d'accompagnement du monde rural. Ailleurs, ce sont surtout des projets ou des partenariats entre secteur public et secteur privé qui assurent cet indispensable service.Les \"couloirs de croissance\", qui concentrent sur une zone déterminée un ensemble d'investissements publics et privés pour y attirer des entreprises agricoles rentables, affichent des résultats concluants. Le couloir de croissance agricole de Beira, au Mozambique, a ainsi été réalisé grâce à un partenariat public-privé (avec de grosses firmes telles que Monsanto et Syngenta) : les investisseurs publics financent les routes, l'irrigation, l'électrification, les privés les activités. Dans ce couloir, 190 000 hectares d'agriculture commerciale irriguée ont permis de créer 350 000 emplois, 1 milliard $ (700 M€) de revenus agricoles par an, et d'apporter l'électricité et l'eau dans 150 villages.Les États aussi ont besoin d'argent pour financer les politiques agricoles. Mais, de manière générale, les financements ne sont pas à la hauteur des enjeux : 5 milliards sont investis chaque année dans l'agriculture, alors que 16 milliards seraient nécessaires, rien que pour l'Afrique. Les ressources des États et les aides des bailleurs restent insuffisantes.L'intégration régionale représente un espoir pour les agricultures ACP. La création de marchés communs, comme celui constitué en Afrique de l'Est, fluidifie les échanges et ouvre de nouveaux marchés. L'établissement d'entités régionales fortes se fait peu à peu et est fortement soutenu par les organismes internationaux. Les tracasseries administratives rencontrées aux frontières constituent des obstacles à l'intégration régionale et renchérissent les coûts. Les États africains et les Communautés régionales s'emploient peu à peu à les faire disparaître.Mais les pays ACP sont aussi perméables aux importations des pays extérieurs qui entrent avec de faibles droits de douane. La signature des APE soulève ainsi de nombreuses inquiétudes et rares sont encore les pays d'Afrique qui les ont signés et mis en application, craignant la concurrence des produits européens. Ainsi, pour protéger le marché de certains produits, les pays de la CEDEAO veulent ajouter une cinquième bande tarifaire de droits de douane à 35 %.Au ont permis à l'industrie laitière de se renforcer. Ces mesures ont été complétées par des politiques d'aide et de formation pour les éleveurs. Les industriels privés ont su investir dans des industries de transformation comme les mini-laiteries implantées localement pour développer les filières locales. Aujourd'hui, le pays est autosuffisant en lait.Le choix des stratégies politiques à mettre en place ne relève plus aujourd'hui des seuls gouvernants. Dans de nombreux pays, ils doivent compter avec les organisations de producteurs : coopératives, unions de coopératives, organisations à la base, organisations faîtières et organisations régionales qui offrent des services à leurs membres et ne veulent plus être laissées pour compte. Organisées, utilisant les TIC, sachant communiquer (EAFF e-Newsletter, Roppaveille, le réseau Jeunes en agriculture du Pacifique sur Facebook, etc.), les organisations régionales sont devenues les interlocuteurs incontournables des ministères de l'Agriculture. Dans certaines régions, elles sont armées pour débattre et faire avancer leurs idées, mais elles manquent encore souvent de moyens pour se développer. En octobre 2010, elles ont créé le Forum panafricain des producteurs agricoles (Pan-African Farmers' Forum, PAFFO). Des réseaux thématiques voient aussi le jour, comme le Cadre régional de concertation des organisations des producteurs de riz (CRCOPR), créé en janvier 2011 au Mali. Dans les Caraïbes, l'Association des agriculteurs des Îles-sous-le-Vent (WINFA), représentant les petits producteurs, a su mobiliser ses membres lors des négociations sur les APE pour mieux informer la société civile et les producteurs. CaFAn, réseau des agriculteurs des Caraïbes, s'efforce de former toujours mieux les organisations membres.Parfois, la place croissante occupée par ces organisations est vécue comme une menace par les rwANdALe gouvernement rwandais a, depuis cinq ans, imposé, parfois durement, une révolution verte aux agriculteurs de ce petit pays très peuplé. Elle a permis une forte augmentation de la production mais a créé, en contrepartie, des difficultés d'écoulement.Nombre d'agriculteurs rwandais ont vu leur production de maïs plus que tripler depuis cinq ans, passant de 1,5 t à 5 t pour la variété dite \"Tamira\". C'est le résultat de la politique de régionalisation des cultures et de consolidation des terres (mise en commun des terres afin de ne cultiver qu'une seule plante sur de grandes étendues) démarrée en 2007 par le gouvernement rwandais, qui vise à augmenter la production et à faire passer les paysans d'une agriculture de subsistance à une agriculture plus commerciale. Cette révolution verte est nécessaire dans ce petit pays de collines où environ 87 % de la population vit de l'agriculture et où la densité atteint aujourd'hui 433 habitants au km 2 , 1 000 par endroits. En 20 ans, la surface cultivable par famille a été divisée par deux, certains ménages ne disposant que de 3 ares. Chaque province doit cultiver uniquement ce qu'a décidé le ministère de l'Agriculture en fonction des spécificités de ses sols et de son climat : café, bananes, maïs, ananas, manioc. À condition qu'ils soient membres d'une coopérative, les agriculteurs ont alors droit à des intrants subventionnés et des semences sélectionnées. Ils doivent aussi suivre de nouveaux itinéraires techniques, en particulier planter en lignes pour augmenter l'espace cultivable et respecter la rotation des cultures. La construction de terrasses dites \"radicales\" regroupe les parcelles des paysans et limite l'érosion très forte sur les collines. Suivre ces règles est obligatoire et les autorités locales doivent y veiller. mais leur mise en place, en particulier la construction des terrasses qui prive les producteurs d'une ou de plusieurs saisons culturales le temps des travaux d'aménagement, a été mal vécue dans de nombreux districts. Là où ces mesures sont effectives depuis plusieurs années, la production a fortement augmenté (riz, maïs, manioc, etc.). Mais les agriculteurs sont aujourd'hui victimes de leur succès car l'organisation des filières et de la commercialisation n'a pas toujours suivi. Au nord et à l'est, les marchés sont ainsi saturés de maïs. Ne pouvant les vendre, ni acheter de quoi manger, les producteurs ont faim. Les agriculteurs d'ananas, eux, voient avec peine leurs produits pourrir dans les champs. C'est pourquoi le gouvernement facilite désormais l'installation de petites unités de transformation d'ananas, de maracuja… et de hangars de séchage des maïs.Albert-Baudouin Twizeyimana© AB Twizeyimana gouvernants. Au Sénégal, l'État a ainsi créé un nouveau syndicat paysan (SYNAEP-Japandoo), censé devenir l'interlocuteur privilégié du pouvoir aux dépens des organisations préexistantes.Pour renforcer ces organisations, les aider à être une force de proposition et à convaincre, l'Union européenne et le FIDA ont mis en place un projet d'appui aux capacités et au renforcement des organisations paysannes (PAOPA), qui concerne quatre réseaux d'organisations paysannes d'Afrique (ROPPA, SACAU, EAFF, PROPAC) et le PAFFO (voir page 34).Leur présence aux côtés des gouvernements est indispensable pour assurer la défense de tous les agriculteurs, en particulier des petits exploitants, et donner leur avis de professionnels. Car c'est grâce à une vision stratégique et politique à long terme, qui tienne compte des productrices et producteurs d'aujourd'hui et de demain, que l'agriculture des pays ACP prendra un nouvel élan.Alors que les subventions aux intrants, et plus spécifiquement l'usage qu'en fait le Malawi, continuent à faire débat, leur impact direct a généré d'impressionnants résultats.Pendant la majeure partie de sa vie d'agriculteur, Willard Katosa, un petit exploitant du Malawi, a eu du mal à obtenir les rendements qui lui permettraient de gagner décemment sa vie. Comme de nombreux agriculteurs du Malawi, il dépendait lourdement de la production de maïs (une culture nécessitant peu d'intrants), même si  ","tokenCount":"11317"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"250cdf21bb603fbc249ac158fb613e0a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b746a8f6-7b95-4de3-acf3-f8e4a441ed21/retrieve","id":"-1488402614"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"3e96498c-d77a-4464-bfd7-2d40ed0c5ee5","pagecount":"32","content":"LPAP working papers contain results of research done by ILRI scientists, consultants and collaborators. The author(s) alone is (are) responsible for the contents.In the 1990s there has been a marked shift in the composition of grains and livestock trade in favour of processed livestock products. The value of coarse grains trade peaked in 1981 at about US$ 20 billion. By contrast, global trade in cattle and other meat products amounted to US$ 10.8 and US$ 11.7 billion, respectively in 1981, but by 1995 their value had risen to US$ 22.6 and US$ 29.0 billion, respectively, substantially surpassing trade in coarse grains (McDougall et al. 1998). There are a number of factors driving this changing profile of world trade.The first is on the demand side. As per capita income grows, people tend to prefer a more diverse diet, and expenditures on some food items such as meats, beverages and fruit tend to grow faster than for staple food such as cereals and legumes (Figure 1). Delgado et al. (1999) observed that the less than one-quarter of the world's population living in the developed countries presently consume an average of three times the meat and five times the milk per capita as people in developing countries. Yet it is in developing countries where massive annual increases in the aggregate consumption of animal products are occurring. From the beginning of the 1970s to the mid-1990s, consumption of meat and milk in developing countries increased by 175 million tonnes, more than twice the increase that occurred in the developed countries. For the year 1990, Delgado et al. (1999) calculated that the market value of the increase in meat and milk consumption totaled about US$ 155 billion, more than twice the market value of increases in cereal consumption under the green revolution.Source: Cranfield et al. (1998).A second factor driving the changing composition of world trade derives from the supply side, particularly in East Asia, where competition for scarce labour and capital with rapidly growing manufacturing activity, as well as environmental constraints, have limited expansion of livestock production (Coyle et al. 1998).Thirdly, innovations in international transportation of livestock products via refrigerated containers and refrigerated bulk vessels have also contributed to the growth.Finally, in some cases, such as beef imports into Japan, policy reforms have stimulated additional trade. Coyle et al. (1998) ascertained that, of these four forces, the basic demand and supply-side forces were most important in fuelling the changing composition of world food trade over the 1980-95 period.But can we expect this relatively rapid growth in livestock trade to continue? Recent work by Cranfield et al. (1998) and Delgado et al. (1999) suggests that demand side forces are indeed in place to fuel such growth. They argue that the population growth, urbanisation and income growth that fuelled the increase in meat and milk consumption are expected to continue over the next several decades. These demand side forces could explain the rapid growth in livestock product trade in the 1980s and 1990s. But what about the supply side? Why not just import grains and raise the livestock locally? Clearly this depends on a whole host of factors, including local environmental constraints, transport costs and relative levels of productivity in livestock production. One would guess that eventually developing countries will catch up with, or at least approach, productivity levels in Japan, the United States and Europe. Wouldn't it then make sense to ship the lower cost grains and grow the more labour-intensive livestock products locally? Sector-specific productivity considerations were absent from the Coyle et al. (1998) historical analysis, and those authors cite this as one of the possible explanations for the large, unexplained residual in their predicted shift from bulk to high value food trade.Rae and Hertel (2000) tested for convergence in livestock productivity among the Asia-Pacific economies. They found evidence of recent convergence in productivity levels for pig and poultry production, but generally not in ruminant production. At the country level, significant 'catch-up' to North American levels was demonstrated for China (poultry and pigs), Australia (pigs, beef and milk), Korea (pigs and beef) and South-East Asia (pigs). For non-ruminant production, the speed with which the technology gap had been closing was greatest for China. The authors then attempt to draw out implications for trade in livestock and grains. However, their projections are simple extrapolations of past catch-up trends. Clearly there is a limit to the amount of catching-up that can occur, and this needs to be taken into account when making projections. In this paper we seek to improve on the Rae and Hertel (2000) effort by decomposing productivity growth into two parts. The first is an underlying trend in the technical frontier, while the second represents an individual country's movement towards that frontier. This calls for a different approach to productivity measurement, which will be developed in the next section.This paper places particular emphasis on East Asian countries, and especially in China. While considerable past research effort has been directed at quantifying China's possible future role in international grain trade (Fan and Agcaoili-Sombilla 1997), a similar question arises with respect to trade in livestock products. China is a net exporter of pig meat, but in 1991 switched from a net exporter to a net importer of poultry meat. By 1995, China's pig meat exports were 230 thousand tonnes and net imports of poultry meat had reached 235 thousand tonnes, making China the third largest poultry meat importer in the world. On a value basis, China had a positive trade balance for livestock products in aggregate in 1995. Delgado et al. (1999) projected net exports for 2020 of 300 thousand tonnes for each of pig and poultry meat. Wang et al. (1998)  Thus there seems to be a general agreement that China will remain a net exporter of pig meat in the absence of tariff reductions, but that the volume of such exports will diminish. However, the above findings would not hold true when it comes to China's future trade status with respect to poultry meat.2 Background and review of literature Modern science has developed, and continues to develop a large number of technologies for enhancing the productivity of livestock production, processing and marketing activities. The use of exotic breeds has enabled genetic improvement within herds and flocks to be speeded up, and genetic improvement has been enhanced even further with the aid of biotechnology. The latter involves the use of living organisms to produce improvements within animals, such as the various genetic engineering (DNA) techniques to manipulate genetic material and to transfer genes from one organism to another. In such ways, animal quality may be rapidly upgraded through improvements in genetic make-up and in the rate of reproduction. Biotechnology has also supported improvements in feed efficiency, milk production, and in the development of vaccines. Numerous compounds and improved feed efficiency, such as the use of anabolic steroids in cattle have been developed to promote faster growth. Also becoming well known is the elevation of natural levels of somatotropins (naturally-occurring protein hormones) in cattle, pigs, poultry and sheep. Growth rates, feed efficiency and milk yields may all be increased.In the area of animal health, biotechnology offers promise for the improved diagnosis and treatment of animal disease. Livestock health research will also benefit from the increasing resources available to human health research. For example, genomics is a new science applicable to both humans and livestock that permits sequencing and mapping of the genome (a genetic map of a living organism). Genomics takes advantage of the work of the genomes of disease organisms and permits the development of new generations of vaccines, including those that use recombinant antigens to pathological agents (Fitzhugh 1998;Delgado et al. 1999). Farmers in the developing regions typically lack low-cost, easy-to-use diagnostics, vaccines, and control strategies for disease organisms and vectors. Among the parasitic diseases, trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) transmitted by tsetse flies, poses an enormous constraint to cattle production in most of the humid and sub-humid zones of Africa. Other important parasitic diseases groups include helminthiasis and tick-borne diseases. Although helminths are rarely fatal, they become a limiting factor in the intensification stage. Ticks transmit diseases such as theileriosis (East Coast Fever) in eastern and southern Africa. An effective vaccine for this disease may soon be available with a potentially large impact in ruminant productivity in those countries (Delgado et al. 1999).To improve feed quantity and quality, research to reduce costs and improve efficiency will have to be highly targeted. The identification of suitable traits and their molecular markers derived from crop breeders who use the markers to develop dual purpose crops with improved grain and protein content for humans and non-ruminants and higher quality crops residues for ruminants help improve the quality of tropical feeds. Plant genomics and phytochemistry will tackle anti-nutritional factors, some of which can be poisonous to ruminants. Microbial techniques also exist that can help enrich ruminant ecosystems with microbes that can better detoxify anti-nutritional factors.Artificial insemination (AI) is a well-known reproductive technology, but recent developments in embryo transfer raise the possibility that it might replace AI. A range of associated techniques has been developed. The transfer of embryos from donor to recipient animals allows the buildup of genetically superior animals using lower-grade and inexpensive recipients. Thus herd improvement can be achieved at faster rates than with natural mating or AI. But this form of reproduction will not become widespread in the developing countries within the next 20 years (Cunningham 1997). Other techniques include the splitting of embryos to produce multiple copies of genetically identical animals, embryo cloning, in vitro fertilisation and sex determination. Recent advances in cloning of embryos could potentially have a large impact on livestock production, particularly of dairy cattle in the developed world. But this is still an area where a number of complex ethical issues have yet to be resolved (Cunningham 1997).Numerous mechanical technologies have been developed for application on farms, and within processing and marketing systems. Some examples include electronic monitoring of individual animal performance and the use of computers to control feed rations and the animals' environment. Advances in herd health management through adjusted weaning age, animal flow and housing design have cut expenses on medications while increasing growth rates and feed efficiency. Robotic techniques are increasingly used in processing operations, and other techniques allow product shelf life to be extended and product quality to be enhanced. Such developments are likely to continue rapidly in the future. Simpson et al. (1994) referred to a 1992 report (US Congress, OTA 1992) that lists 42 potentially available animal technologies as of 1992, of which 22 were expected to be available by 1995 and all but 9 by the year 2000. Of course, the success with which these can be brought into commercial use in the country of origin (in many cases the USA) to recipient countries in Asia, and the rate and success with which they may be adopted, will be influenced by many factors. Empirical research by economists typically focuses on estimating, and possibly extrapolating, the overall rate of adoption as evidenced in aggregate productivity indexes. This is the approach adopted here.The basic concept in productivity measurement is total factor productivity (TFP), the ratio of an index of aggregate output to an index of aggregate input. Changes in TFP can be decomposed into components measuring changes in technical efficiency, scale and the state of technology (Capalbo 1988). The literature on TFP measurement has historically been divided into two strands, namely: the growth accounting (index number) approach and the econometric approach (Capalbo 1988;Capalbo and Antle 1988;Capalbo et al. 1991).The index number approach involves the use of detailed accounts of inputs and outputs, aggregating them into input and output indices, then in turn using these indices to calculate TFP indexes. The literature seems to prefer the Divisia index, because it is defined in continuous time and is exact for the case of homogenous translog functions (Capalbo and Antle 1988). There are many ways to get a discrete approximation to the Divisia index. The Tornqvist approximation is the most commonly used because of the popularity of second-order approximations to cost and production functions. More specifically, if the logarithm of the cost function is quadratic in the logarithm of prices and output, then the Tornqvist index is the 'true' index. The translog function does not require inputs to be perfect substitutes, but rather permits all marginal productivities to adjust proportionally to changing prices. Hence the prices from different periods being compared enter the Divisia index to represent different marginal productivities.The econometric approach to productivity measurement is based on statistical estimation of the production technology. It allows the researcher to relax some of the assumptions implicit in the index number approach, including neutrality of technical change, industry equilibrium, and (generally) constant returns to scale. Most studies use a flexible functional form to represent the technology (production or cost function) and econometrically estimate this function, its derivatives, or both. Technical change is generally specified using time-trend variables (Capalbo 1988;Capalbo and Antle 1988). However, this comes at the cost of new assumptions. For sufficient degrees of freedom, and to mitigate multicollinearity problems, it is generally necessary to aggregate input data into a relatively small number of categories thereby implying input separability. Another strong assumption is that, with a few exceptions (Dorfman and Foster 1991;Rudstrom and Foster 1993;Kalirajan et al. 1996), technological change is represented as a function of time. Additional assumptions of competitive pricing and efficient input utilisation must be made when estimating cost or profit functions. Finally, assumptions about the statistical properties of the data must be made.Index numbers have been extensively used in the analysis of agricultural production. The US Department of Agriculture uses this methodology and the Department's Economic Research Service routinely publishes total factor productivity measures from production accounts (Ball 1984;Ball 1985;Ball et al. 1997). Jorgenson and Nishimizu (1978) have extended this methodology to cover inter-country comparisons of TFP. This has led to a literature on multilateral, total factor productivity indexes including applications to agriculture by Capalbo et al. (1990) and Capalbo et al. (1991). Ehui and Spencer (1993) have used the Divisia approach to TFP to measure the sustainability and economic viability of alternative farming systems in Africa. Developments in international comparisons of TFP can be found in Ball (1997).Recently, a different approach to the use of index numbers has been developed, based on the pioneering article of Caves et al. (1982). Caves et al. (1982) proposed a framework for input, output and productivity measurement that does not proceed from a continuous time representation. As stated in Färe et al. (1996):They revolutionised the index number approach to productivity measurement by abandoning the idea that these indexes were at best a discrete (and therefore inaccurate) approximation to the continuous time derivatives used in econometric approaches. Instead, they showed that index numbers could be based directly on very general representations of technology, namely distance functions. Färe et al. (1996) named these indexes after Sten Malmquist who first applied this methodology, in the context of consumption behaviour, in 1953. Färe et al. (1994) implemented the Caves et al. (1982) distance function approach to productivity measurement using non-parametric methods. The Färe et al. (1994) approach does not require a specific functional form (Caves et al. (1982) assumed a translog structure), it does not require prices, and it can be implemented in a multiple-output setting with many inputs (no separability assumptions are required). Further-more, since they adopt a frontier function approach based on linear programming, inefficiencies are permitted, thereby relaxing the requirement for long run industry equilibrium. The resulting measures of efficiency are unitfree, so there is no problem in extending the methodology to wider comparisons.For our purposes, the most important part of the Färe et al. (1994) work is that it offers a convenient decomposition of productivity changes due to changes in efficiency (catching-up), and changes in the frontier, 'technical change'. This decomposition, in turn, enables us to formally estimate the frontier, compared with the earlier assumption of Rae and Hertel (2000) that North American productivity levels defined that frontier.Following Färe et al. (1994), we present here a simple decomposition of productivity growth assuming a single input (animal stock) producing a single output (meat) represented respectively by x and y in Figure 2. The technology is represented in the Figure by the production frontier S t for period t and by the frontier S t + 1 for period t + 1. The frontier is the boundary of technology in each year and is defined as the maximum feasible output given input x. The Figure also shows two production points representing animal stock and production for a specific country in period t (x t , y t ) and t + 1 (x t + 1 , y t + 1 ).A partial factor productivity (PFP) measure in period t and t + 1 for this country can be defined as:Similarly, productivity on the frontier in period t and t + 1 for the same amounts of inputs used in this country is defined as:(2) Using productivity values as defined above, a simple index of productivity growth between period t and t +1 for our problem country is estimated as:(3) This index takes values greater than one if productivity between t and t + 1 is growing and values less than one if productivity is shrinking. Productivity growth as measured by this index can be decomposed in a catching-up (efficiency) and a technical change effect by simply multiplying the right hand side of equation ( 3) by (F t + 1 /F t )*(F t /F t + 1 ) = 1 with F being productivity at the frontier as defined in equation ( 2). Rearranging terms we obtain:(4)The first term on the right hand side of equation ( 4) is an index measuring catching-up in terms of the rate at which the problem country is approaching or moving away from the frontier. This is the case because the ratios PFP t /F t and PFP t + 1 /F t + 1 measure how far the country is from the frontier in period t and t + 1, respectively. The second term of equation ( 4) is an index of technical change, measuring productivity growth in the frontier between t and t + 1. The catching-up index takes values greater than one if the country is catching-up to the frontier. Values greater than one for the technical change index imply that the sector is experiencing technical progress.Our data on the global livestock sector are drawn from FAOSTAT 1998. In particular, data on livestock production and animal stocks covering the period 1961-97 for ten countries/regions were used to estimate the Malmquist index and the two components of productivity change identified above. Note that since we do not have a complete inventory of inputs used in livestock production, our measurement of 'output per head of livestock' is only a partial, not total, factor productivity indicator. (It is very difficult to obtain input allocations for the production of agricultural commodities, since most farms produce multiple products.) From this point on, we will refer to our measure of partial factor productivity simply as 'productivity'. However, it should be borne in mind that this measure is fundamentally limited and will be inaccurate in the face of substantial factor substitution.The Malmquist index and its components are estimated for each region and for the period 1961-97 using the distance functions as explained in the previous section. Table 1 reports the average annual rate of productivity growth over the sample period, for each country/sector pair in the sample, reported as a ratio of productivity in the year t + 1 and t.  1991-97 1961-97 1991-97 1961-97 1991-97 1961-97 1991-97 1961 We can see that poultry production was on average the most dynamic sector with ruminant production showing lower productivity growth. Most of the regions show smaller growth rates in the last 10 years. Exceptions are China in poultry production and South America in pigs, milk and poultry production. In the case of poultry production, China exhibits the highest rate of productivity growth over the last period (11.78% per year). Beef producers in sub-Saharan Africa actually experienced technological regress over the 1961-97 sample period.However, examination of Table 1 raises more questions than it answers: Can we expect the high rate of productivity growth in China's pig production to continue? How much of this rapid growth was due to catching-up, which is eventually doomed to diminish in significance?  1991-97 1961-97 1991-97 1961-97 1991-97 1961-97 1991-97 1961 Poultry and milk productivity offer a very different picture from developments in the pig sector.Here, it is movement in the frontier that has been dominating the industry over the past three decades. Indeed, despite reasonably rapid productivity growth, many of the regions have been falling further behind, as indicated by a value for catching-up index that is less than one. These are clearly the most dynamic sectors and the ones where there is the greatest future potential for growth due to catching-up. Of course, there are some notable exceptions. Poultry production in China has been catching-up at a remarkable pace (more than 8% per year) in the 1990s. Korean catch-up in beef production over the same period shows a similar growth (8.1% per year).It is quite enlightening to also examine the time path of cumulative Malmquist indexes calculated as the sequential multiplicative products of the annual indexes. Figures 3a and 3b display these charts for pig and poultry production in China. In poultry production, it is clear from Figure 3b that technical change has been driving growth in productivity until the 1990s. Note, however, the sharp upturn in catching-up at the end of the sample. This is why we picked up the high growth rate for the 1990s in Table 2. Because China was falling behind the frontier during most of the sample period, the technical change (frontier) index is above the total Malmquist index until very recently. China's pig production, shown in Figure 3a, offers a striking contrast to the case of poultry. Here, there is very little growth in the frontier, with virtually all of the growth fuelled by catching up. This evidence suggests that modernisation of the pig sector in China may have commenced around a decade earlier than was the case for poultry.  In this section we seek to develop projections of technological change in livestock productivity to the year 2005. We do so by making separate projections of the catching-up and technical change portions of productivity.In the case of catching-up, we assume that the observable growth in productivity can be modelled as a diffusion process of new technologies. Previous studies (Griliches 1957 andJarvis 1981) have shown that the cumulative adoption path often follows a logistic curve. Initially, productivity changes slowly because new innovations take some time to be adoptedusually there is the need of adapting the new technologies to different conditions to those of the country that generated the innovation. After this, a period of rapid growth is expected (e.g. as the risk of applying the new technology is reduced). This is illustrated by the case of China's pork production in the 1990s. Finally, productivity growth slows when nearly all producers who will find the technology profitable have adopted, and the process reaches a stable ceiling.We specify the following logistic function to represent the catching up process for each of the regions in the sample:(5)In this equation, the parameters and determine the shape of the logistic relationship for each region. The parameter K determines the ceiling, or maximum productivity level, to which the region in question is expected to converge. In estimating this relationship, we use actual observed values for K. These are equal to the maximum productivity value for each sector among all countries in each year.The parameters of the logistic function are estimated by the following transformation:(6) using an iterative Cochrane-Orcutt (C-O) procedure to correct for autocorrelation when necessary. First, a logistic functional form is assumed for all regions and the parameters estimated for periods of different length (all including the last year). The period for which the R 2 is higher is considered the period for which there is evidence of technology diffusion following the logistic pattern. For some of the regions, the logistic functional form clearly does not describe the diffusion process. According to the results, the regions can be classified in one of the following categories:Regions with a good fit of the logistic (high R 2 , highly significant and positive coefficients) were assumed to exhibit diffusion processes of new technology following this pattern.Regions with high productivity that resulted in poor fits of the logistic (low R 2 and nonsignificant coefficients) were considered 'frontier regions'. The regions under this group are Japan, EU, North America and Korea in pig production; Australia, New Zealand, North America and EU in poultry production, and Japan in beef production. In pig and poultry production, all the 'frontier' regions differ by less than 20% from the region with the maximum productivity value. Productivity in these regions is assumed to grow at the frontier growth rate.Regions that resulted in poor fits of the logistic but cannot be considered as being at the frontier, where the exponential functional form is the one that best represents the diffusion process of new technology in general. This is the case of Japan, South-east Asia and sub-Saharan Africa in poultry production and Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia and North America in beef production.None of the commonly used functional forms show a good fit for the diffusion process of beef production in sub-Saharan Africa, where there is little evidence of productivity growth in the past three decades (Table 1). For this particular case, the mean productivity value for the period is used as the forecast, using the errors with respect to the mean to generate a distribution for the forecast.While we are able to use actual observations of the frontier in estimating the logistic function, when it comes to forecasting, we need some way of predicting the evolution of this productivity ceiling. We choose to make this a simple function of time, as follows:(7)Results from estimation of the different models are provided in Tables 3, 4 and 5. The bottom portions of these tables show the results of the estimation procedure of the productivity frontier for pigs, poultry and beef. The coefficients of the logistic and of the exponential reflect the diffusion speed of the technology. The high speed of diffusion of new technology in China, Australia and New Zealand in pig production; China and Korea in poultry production and Korea in beef production can be related with the efficiency gains and catching up of this regions. The relatively high coefficients for Australia, New Zealand, North America and EU in poultry production can be interpreted as the speed of diffusion of new technology in the frontier. The speed of the logistic diffusion process of technology in poultry production in South America is very low probably reflecting the fact that the production ceiling for this region is far below the fitted frontier.   For purposes of forecasting, it is useful to have some idea of the possible distribution of outcomes, not just a single point-estimate. A distribution of the forecasts for each sector was approximated using the Efron bootstrapping method (Dorfman et al. 1990). The methodology proceeds in the following steps:i. The residuals from the regression of Y t on t (equation 6) are scaled by a factor of (T/(Tk)) 1/2 and assigned mass 1/T. ii. ε t * is chosen by random draw with replacement from (i) and added to the right hand side of equation ( 6) to generate a new vector of quantities Y t *.iii. New parameter estimates (a * , b * , r * ) are generated from regressing Y t * on t and then used to generate a forecast. iv. Steps (ii) and (iii) are repeated many times by redrawing from (i) and used to create a distribution for the forecasts. v. To consider the effect of the frontier's forecast in China's productivity forecast, steps (i) to (iv) are used to generate a distribution of the frontier's forecast. Values of K are chosen by random draw simultaneously with ε* t in step (ii) and used in (iii) to generate the forecast.Tables 6, 7 and 8 summarise the mean, standard deviation and implied growth rates for productivity in these sectors. Table 9 decomposes these growth rates into the portion attributable to catching-up and further decomposes that attributable to movement in the frontier. Catching-up in productivity growth is relevant in pig production in China and South-East Asia, in poultry production in China and in beef production in Korea. The change in the distance to the frontier as shown in Table 10 confirms this. In particular, productivity in China's poultry production is expected to grow twice as fast as for pigs (9.81% vs. 4.5% per year) over the forecasted period. Compare this with the forecasted developing world total production annual growth rate of 3.0% and 2.8% for poultry and pork, respectively for the period 1993-2020 (Delgado et al. 1999). Poultry production is higher on both counts by about three timesthat is, the frontier in poultry productivity is projected to grow three times as fast as for pigs over this period-and China is expected to continue rapid catch-up in poultry productivity as well. In the case of pigs, slower growth in the frontier, coupled with current levels of productivity, which are closer to that frontier (66% in 2005), translate into slower overall productivity growth.    Following the study of Rae and Hertel (2000) we incorporate the previous projections of productivity growth into a slightly modified version of the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) applied general equilibrium model (Hertel 1997) to project national and regional production, consumption and trade flows between 1995 and 2005. This is a relatively standard, multiregion model built on a complete set of economic accounts and detailed inter-industry linkages for each of the economies represented. The GTAP production system distinguishes sectors by their intensities in five primary production factors: land (agricultural sectors only), natural resources (extractive sectors only), capital, and skilled and unskilled labour. In trade, products are differentiated by country of origin, allowing bilateral trade to be modelled, and bilateral international transport margins are incorporated and supplied by a global transport sector. The model is solved using GEMPACK (Harrison and Pearson 1996).The 50 commodities in the version 4 GTAP database have been combined up to 14 commodity groups, of which 6 commodities (rice, wheat, other grains, oil crops, other crops and processed food) compete for use in the feedstuffs composite. (We modified the model to incorporate feedstuff substitution into the livestock production functions.) Livestock farming is represented by three aggregates: beef cattle (i.e. ruminant livestock), other livestock (i.e. non-ruminants) and raw milk production. These farming sectors provide inputs to the beef processing (ruminant meat), other meat (non-ruminant meat) and dairy products industries in each region. All remaining production sectors are aggregated into manufactures and services, or other natural resource based commodities.Regions are aggregated to match the regions reported in previous tables.The productivity catch-up, which we have projected here, is only part of the story of what will be happening in the world economy in the coming years. Other sectors will also be experiencing technological change. Income growth will tend to boost the demand for livestock products relative to grains, and in some regions there will be a strong shift away from food products altogether. On the supply side, the accumulation of skilled labour and capital in China can be expected to continue to promote the shift of activity away from agriculture, in favour of manufacturing and services.As has become standard with the GTAP model, following the work of Gehlhar et al. (1994) projections are made through exogenous shocks to each region's endowments of physical capital, skilled and unskilled labour, population, and technology. 1 Table 11 reports the shocks to population, endowments and productivity that we assume in this paper. Forecasts for population, investment (capital stock), and labour force are based on the latest forecasts from the World Bank as of spring, 1999. Projected changes in skilled labour are based on expected increases in the stock of tertiary educated labour and are taken from Ahuja and Filmer (1995) for developing countries while projections for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries are based on World Bank (1997) report. The stock of farmland in each region is simply held constant. Forecasting productivity growth is notably difficult. Therefore, we adopt a rather simple approach which is transparent and which can be easily modified. First of all, based on the work of Bernard and Jones (1996), we observe that productivity growth tends to be more rapid in agriculture than in manufacturing, which in turn has a higher productivity growth rate than services. (They find virtually no evidence of productivity growth in mining where quality of reserves confounds the usually difficult measurement problems.) Based on their averages for the OECD as a whole (Bernard and Jones 1996, Table 1), we obtain the following multiples of the manufacturing productivity growth rate for the other sectors: (non-livestock) agriculture = 1.4 * manufactures, services = 0.5 * manufactures, and mining = 0 * manufactures. In this way, we are able to link productivity growth in each sector of the economy to a common metric-namely the rate of manufacture's productivity growth.We then divide economies into four groups according to their overall rate of productivity growth: low, medium, high and very high. The assumed annual growth rates productivity in manufacturing valueadded for these groups are as follows: 0.25, 0.75, 1.25 and 1.75% per year. As can be seen from Table 11, the low growth group includes Japan, South-East Asia, and New Zealand. The medium group includes the US, sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the world. Higher productivity growth rates are foreseen for Australia, the EU and South America. Finally, Korea and China's productivity growth rates are expected to remain quite high-although somewhat lower than implied by the period prior to the Asian crisis. As a check on the plausibility of these assumptions, we compare our baseline cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) growth to that forecast by the World Bank (Table 11).Apart from China and Korea, all of these GDP projections are reasonably close. In order to hit the World Bank targets for these regions, we would have to raise the very high growth category still further. In light of the current macroeconomic uncertainty in that region, we opt for our more conservative projections.Forecast distributions presented before are used to project livestock productivity in the different regions. Following Rae and Hertel (2000) 2 we apply these productivity shocks to both value-added and to the feed composite, to maintain a constant ratio of feed use per animal. Provided these shocks are positive, feed consumption per unit of output (the feed conversion ratio) will decrease. If this is the case, then the implications for feed demand, and hence for trade in grains and oilseeds as well as livestock products could be substantial. There is considerable evidence to support this assumption. A recent survey conducted by Wailes et al. (1998) gathered data on feed use across a range of enterprise and livestock types in seven provinces of China where the trend is towards development of specialised livestock production units and larger, more intensive management systems. They concluded that such structural changes would contribute to a declining demand for feed grains per kg of meat production. Another set of livestock and feeds projections for China are those of Simpson et al. (1994, Tables 7.6, 7.7 and 8.1), covering the period 1989-2000. Their projections imply little increase in feed inputs per animal so feed per unit output (the feed conversion ratio) shows negative growth, indicating increases in feed efficiency especially for poultry. This is consistent with the projections of Wang et al. (1998) who assume improvements in feed efficiency for all animal types and technologies. Finally, Tweeten (1998) reported projected annual USA growth rates in output per feed of 0.2% (beef and pigs), 0.6% (milk) and 2.0% (poultry). If USA is the source of much of the new livestock production technology that is transferred to China, then such improvements will eventually be felt in China.2. Sub-Saharan Africa was omitted and the historical trends are used.We focus here on the impact of alternative livestock productivity scenarios on the changes of regional trade balances. Table 12 reports the change in sectoral trade balances for each region in our global simulation of the period 1995-2005. For convenience, Table 13 compares the trade balance of livestock products in 1995 with the projected trade balance of 2005. Even though productivity growth in livestock products is very high for China, there is little change in its trade balance between 1995 and 2005. This is because China's demand is also increasing sharply. All other Asian countries show negative impacts on the trade balance of livestock products. Among the developing regions, South America appears as a major exporter of beef and other meats with a five-fold increase in the trade for other meats and a two-and-a-half-fold increase in the trade for beef. On the other hand, sub-Saharan Africa shows deterioration in the trade balance for all livestock products. Developing regions all show negative trade balances in dairy products.   There are many uncertainties implicit in the productivity forecasts (Tables 6, 7 and 8) and in the macro-economic forecasts (Table 11). We now focus on the uncertainty associated with productivity growth in livestock production. This analysis revolves around the uncertainty associated with the change in sectoral trade balance. The average productivity shock, standard deviation, minimum and maximum shocks for non-ruminants and beef production are shown in Table 15. Mean and standard deviations are derived from the forecast distributions generated using the bootstrapping procedure.The maximum and minimum values are calculated as the mean ± 4.5 times the standard deviation and a triangular distribution is assumed for the shocks. We use the Gaussian Quadrature approach to Systematic Sensitivity Analysis (SSA) proposed by de Vuyst and Preckel (1997) and automated by Arndt (1996) and Arndt and Pearson (1998) to draw a weighted sample from this distribution and generate standard deviations for our simulation results. Using the standard deviation associated with the simulated change in trade balances we can obtain Chebychev's 95% confidence intervals on the projected trade balance in 2005. These are reported in Tables 16, 17 and 18. The results for China suggest that it is not likely to be a net importer of livestock products in the year 2005. Results for other countries confirm that Asian countries will mostly be importers and the developed countries plus South America will be net exporters of livestock products.   The particular goal of this research is to decompose the historical-and projected-changes in livestock productivity into two components: shifts in the global technology frontier, and movement towards that frontier by individual regions.Our historical analysis shows that the situation can be very different across products for the same country. Mainly efficiency growth or catching-up can explain productivity growth in pig production in the developing regions since 1961. China's growth in efficiency explains most of its productivity growth in pig production. Movement in the pig frontier was relatively low and appears to be slowing down. Poultry and milk productivity offer a very different picture from developments in the pig sector. Here, it is movement in the frontier that has been dominating the industry over the past three decades and many of the regions have been falling further behind. These are clearly the most dynamic sectors and the ones where there is the greatest future potential for growth due to catching-up. However there are several important exceptions to this general trend. Poultry production in China and beef production in Korea have been catching-up to the frontier at a remarkable pace in the 1990s.To assess the likely consequences of future changes in livestock productivity on international trade in livestock and related products, we used a modified version of the GTAP model of global trade to make projections to the year 2005. Uncertainty in future productivity growth rates was also taken into account. Our findings are that Asian countries show negative impacts on the trade balance of livestock products with the exception of China that will need high productivity growth rates between 1995 and 2005 to avoid deterioration of the trade balance in livestock products. In general, for the Asian countries we can see the trend toward increasing imports relative to exports in most of the agriculture-related sectors especially in the case of grains and other crops. Among the developing regions, South America appears as a major exporter of beef and other meats and sub-Saharan Africa shows deterioration in the trade balance of all livestock products. All developing regions will keep negative trade balances in dairy products.By recognising the uncertainty associated with the estimates of livestock productivity growth worldwide, we obtained confidence intervals for the trade balances which show that China will still be a net exporter of livestock products in the year 2005 (in the absence of any major policy changes). Our results suggest that other East Asian countries will mostly be net importers and the developed countries and South America will be net exporters of livestock products.","tokenCount":"6875"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9f327dcd508a67fdb1d2e9728d3e1e56","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/dad00db3-84f7-4b5a-be5e-e0c790608299/retrieve","id":"1387726893"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"32d72cfa-ab53-4738-a885-63ec81d03535","pagecount":"4","content":"The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) is working with communities to develop 'Climate-Smart Villages'. These are sites where researchers, local partners, and farmers collaborate to evaluate and maximize synergies across a portfolio of climate-smart agricultural interventions. We aim to improve farmers' income and resilience to climatic risks and boost their ability to adapt to climate change.Although global food production has substantially increased in the past few decades, the Millennium Development Goal that aims to halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger between 1990 and 2015 appears to be beyond reach. Nearly 870 million people still live in hunger today, most of them in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. These highly-populated regions with widespread poverty, have large areas under low agricultural productivity. They are prone to high climatic stresses which further compound the problem. These are regions which have been identified as climate change 'hotspots'.Global food production must double by 2050 to match population and income growth and much of this must happen in Asia and Africa. But even as food insecurity has increased in several regions because of competing claims for land, water, labour and capital, the need of the hour is to improve production per unit of land and water, as these resources are shrinking.Sustainably increasing agricultural productivity is therefore central to the future of global food security and the realization of the Millennium Development Goals. Now is the time for action, as practices to adapt agriculture to climatic risks take time to root and become effective. Strategies that enhance climate-smart agriculture are the most appropriate starting point for sustainable agriculture.To address this challenge, the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), in collaboration with national programmes, is partnering with rural communities to develop Climate-Smart Villages as models of local actions that ensure food security, promote adaptation and build resilience to climatic stresses. Researchers, local partners, farmers' groups and policy makers collaborate to select the most appropriate technological and institutional interventions based on global knowledge and local conditions to enhance productivity, increase incomes, achieve climate resilience and enable climate mitigation.Climate information is an important part of Climate-Smart Villages and consideration is always given to integrating village developmental and adaptation plans together with local knowledge and institutions (Figure 1) into the project. There is no fixed package of interventions or a one-size-fits-all approach. The emphasis is on tailoring a portfolio of interventions that complement one another and that suit the local conditions. Photos: Nirmal Sigtia (CCAFS SA) ; K. Trautmann (CCAFS); N. Palmer (CIAT) ; S. Odeyo (ICRAF) Climate-Smart VillagesClimate Smart Agriculture aims to sustainably increase productivity and income, build resilience to climate change, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance achievement of national food security and development goals. Setting up a Climate-Smart VillageThe location of a Climate-Smart Village is selected based on its climate risk profile, alternate land-use options, and on the willingness of farmers and local government to participate in the project.Community involvement is integral to the success of a Climate-Smart Village. CCAFS forms, or works with existing community groups, consisting of farmers, researchers, rural agro-advisory service providers and village officials. They are briefed on the objectives of Climate-Smart Villages and encouraged to formally register with the government (if they have not already) to benefit from subsidies on government schemes.Researchers conduct a comprehensive baseline study to capture the current socio-economic situation, resource availability, average production and income and risk management approaches of village households. This enables an assessment of the impact of the interventions after a certain period of time.Stakeholders convene to prioritize and test which climate-smart technologies and approaches are best suited to their local conditions. Focus group discussions involve farmers in a choice experiment using dummy money to indicate which actions they would most willingly carry out.To promote the community's involvement and motivate farmers, a range of tools and approaches are sometimes offered up front. These include rain gauges, improved seed varieties, new livestock breeds, tree seedlings, simple machinery such as zero-till machines, subsidies on index-based insurance premiums and discounts on cellphone SIM cards. Scientists, private sector representatives, and local government organize regular training sessions for farmers on good agricultural practices. At some sites a small farm is used by the researchers to demonstrate the complete portfolio of interventions.The lead partner in the village appoints a site coordinator and assistant to provide technical inputs and liaise with CCAFS resource persons. Participating farmers maintain a daily diary of their farm activities and work with the site coordinator to monitor and evaluate the progress of their chosen interventions. These results are digitized and analysed by researchers at the end of every crop season.To spread the message of climate-smart agriculture, participatory videos on success stories and testimonials from the pilot villages are screened in nearby villages. Success stories are also widely publicized through local, national and international media. Local government partners organize regular 'farmer field days' to motivate farmers, address their questions and improve on existing strategies.what's the difference? Carbon content in the soil can be increased through agricultural practices such as agroforestry, livestock and manure management, conservation tillage, diversified land-use systems and residue management.In Climate-Smart Villages, farmers use leaf-colour charts, handheld crop sensors, and nutrient decision-maker tools to decide the most appropriate dosage of nitrogen fertilizers for their crops. This saves on costs and also cuts down on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.CCAFS promotes fuel-efficient agromachineries, residue management and reduced tillage as interventions to conserve energy and reduce GHG emissions. In some cases, biogas systems are promoted using manure slurry from intensive dairy enterprises as part of the portfolio of innovations.  In Rajapakkar village in Bihar, India, for example, CCAFS identified study regions for establishing the villages and an NGO facilitated the formation of farmers' communities for this project.• The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) works with these communities to prioritize adaptation and mitigation options using a simple cost-benefit analysis.• The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) is addressing issues of seasonal waterlogging through vertical drains.• The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is providing the knowledge base for conservation agriculture and the precise use of fertilizer nutrients.• Bioversity International works with farmers to evaluate crop germplasm and seed varieties.• Private sector partners provide rainfall and temperature insurance.• Information and Communication Technology (ICT) service providers in collaboration with Indian Meteorology Department and NARS disseminate voice messages about weather, market prices, and related information through mobile phones.• Government officials offer institutional support and advice on various schemes.One of the great strengths of the Climate-Smart Village approach is its inclusiveness in bringing together farmers, policy makers, scientists and local organizations to work on a portfolio of practices to adapt agriculture to climate change. ","tokenCount":"1114"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"0f712c4f4f2ec99059727d8e4d8aae60","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://apps.worldagroforestry.org/downloads/Publications/PDFS/2022027.pdf","id":"280442500"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"dfd9bb87-bcde-4c69-81f9-70d0846e7d0b","pagecount":"3","content":"Agriculture is the most common form of human-environment interaction. Numerous studies show that increasing duration of cultivation with inadequate replenishment of soil nutrients results in nutrient mining, hence lowering the capacity of such soils to produce sustainably. Moreover, leaching and soil erosion experienced in high rainfall landscapes results in further nutrient loss. On the other hand, areas receiving low rainfall such as the drylands may experience for crop growth. soils can be a barrier to attaining land productivity in Inputs are commonly used to improve productivity, however, it is challenging for farmers to purchase inorganic fertilizers because of their prohibitive costs. Additionally, there are some soils known as nonresponsive soils that fail to improve with fertiliser addition. Therefore, the degraded and non-responsive soils exacerbate the soil fertility problems. A decline in soil fertility hampers crop production in Sub Saharan Africa. For example, kale and potatoes are among the crops which are valued by farmers for food and income generation in Kenya. Potatoes are the second important staple food crop in Kenya, after maize, while kale commonly known as \"sukuma wiki\" in Swahili is considered one of the most important vegetables consumed and used to generate income for the farmers in the country. However, these two crops face many challenges due to soil infertility as well as diseases such as black rot and kales and potatoes Sustainable land use, through agroecological in preventing soil degradation, erosion and the loss of valuable land by promoting practices that enhance soil structure formation and improved nutrient recycling. Biochar -a charcoal-like substance soil amendment agent with multiple to increased productivity. A study was conducted in Kapchorwa, south Nandi, Kenya to assess the yields.Biochar is produced through a controlled process called pyrolysis where organic matter from agricultural and forestry waste is burnt under limited oxygen. Biochar may be produced using simple to complex methods for example, use of Kon Tiki soil pits, barrel/drums as well as complex industrial processes. Every farm generates residue, which could be used for biochar This includes maize uprooted tea plants, leaves and branches from pruned trees, cow dung, animal bones, waste, rice husks, sugarcane bagasse and many others. Biochar used in Kapchorwa on-farm demonstration plots was produced from bagasse collected from Kibos Sugar Factory and the charring process (pyrolysis) carried out using barrel drum stoves. Bagasse was air dried to <11% moisture content and about 16-17 kg were manually fed in each barrels and pyrolyzed for 45-50 minutes at about 500°C. When ready, biochar was allowed to cool by spraying it with water. After production, it was packed in bags for transportation to a central location within Kapchorwa catchment. It was bulked and thoroughly mixed for homogeneity to ensure that biochar had the same quality and properties before being used. After mixing, it was weighed to determine the wet weight before calculation of total dry weight. Biochar was applied at the rate of 1kg/m 2 or 10 tons/ha.On the demonstration plots, the following treatments were suggested for kale and potato crops: biochar, biochar + DAP and DAP, with only one level of 10 tons/ha (1kg/m 2 ) of biochar. All the trials were replicated three times. After land was prepared, biochar was evenly broadcasted on each plot at a rate of 1kg/m 2 and covered with topsoil using hand hoes.(Sherekea variety) and kale (Collards variety EA) planted. Potato planting was on furrows with the spacing of 75cm between rows and 25cm between tubers while kale was planted in holes spaced at 60cm between rows and 40cm between seedlings.Weeding was done once for potatoes and twice for kale to rogue out weeds.stage, they were sprayed using Dithane M45 every for prevention of late blight of potatoes which is common during wet season.The results showed that plots treated with biochar + DAP had higher potato yields as compared to the other treatments. With Kale it was the same (Table 1). In both cases, biochar + DAP had 48% and 114% higher yields of potato and kales respectively above those from DAP alone treatments.  which is availed to the crops during periods of water scarcity resulting in higher yields where biochar + DAP was used (Budai et al., 2016). This is a good climate-smart agricultural practice as dry spells become frequent following climate change.• The synergies observed between biochar and diammonium phosphate (DAP) led to increased kale and potato yields which contributes to food security and income generation• Use of biochar is important especially now that farmers are faced with the challenges of recurrent drought as it improves soil water and nutrient retention•Methods used in biochar production are simple and can easily be adopted by farmers on their farms to process waste biomass such as tree prunings and crop residue.•For environmental management purposes, biochar should only be produced from sustainably sourced where yield increase was persistent maize-soybean rotations over 10 years after biochar application in sub-humid of Kenya (Kätterer et al., 2019). This persistence in yield increase indicates that biochar performance and nutrient retention last long implying its application could reduce the amount of inorganic and or organic fertilizers to be used. During high rainfall seasons, nutrients are normally leached beyond the crop roots, however, where biochar is used, it captures nutrients making them available for use by the crops. The process by which biochar in combination with DAP increased potato and kale yields (Kätterer et al., 2019) is mostly due to its physical and chemical properties which play a role in increasing cation exchange capacity (CEC) (Major et al., 2010). Biochar surface properties allow it to capture cations from soil solutions as well as ammonium from DAP fertilizer and avail them slowly overtime thus sustaining higher crop yields over a longer period. The pH was higher in the plots treated with biochar and these may have resulted to increased availability of the phosphorus in the soil. Addition of biochar into the soil changes physical properties such as water holding capacity and soil aggregation hence an increase in retained soil moistureBiochar + DAP played an important role in increasing yields compared to the DAP alone (Martinsen et al., 2014). This is attributed to the biochar properties of retaining nutrients over a longer period. This means that a single biochar application can improve yields in the next season. This has been proven Biochar Kon Tiki soil pits","tokenCount":"1052"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ad6677cbcf1f6fe4d4a56d2d3d1b79b9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/54645dae-d34b-4626-9fba-5be5a5b6a790/content","id":"390149568"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"3527e613-8e7b-49e4-9fd0-7a9ac7eb77cf","pagecount":"5","content":"The International Crop Science Congress (ICSC) is a regularly held event allowing crop scientists from around the world to integrate current knowledge into a global context and international applications. The 7th ICSC was held August 14-19, 2016 in Beijing, China, with the theme \"Crop Science: Innovation and Sustainability\". The congress included eight thematic areas: crop germplasm and evolution, crop genetics and genomics, crop biotechnology, breeding and seed production, agronomy and crop physiology, climate change and sustainability, crop quality and processing, and crop production and socioeconomic aspects. As a companion production for this great congress, the nine papers collected in this special issue feature important fields of crop science in China. This editorial first briefly introduces the 7th ICSC, followed by a brief discussion of the current status of, constraints to, and innovations in Chinese agriculture and crop science. Finally, the main scientific points of the papers published in this special issue are surveyed, covering important advances in hybrid rice breeding, minor cereals, food legumes, rapeseed, crop systems, crop management, cotton, genomics-based germplasm research, and QTL mapping. In a section describing future prospects, it is indicated that China faces a full transition from traditional to modern agriculture and crop science.Crops provide human with important products, including food, feed, vegetables, cooking oil, fibers, woods, and medicines. As the global population increases, we face great challenges in providing more crop products to feed the world from decreasing arable land with insufficient water and frequent natural disasters. Crop science has gained increasing importance in meeting these challenges in a globally warming environment, and ensuring food security through scientific and technological advances has become the goal of all countries worldwide. Sustainable crop production and global food security depend on innovation in multiple fields of crop science and technology, including genetics, breeding, agronomy, crop physiology, germplasm resources, grain chemistry, grain storage and processing, crop management practices, crop biotechnology, and biomathematics.As the Olympics of crop science, the International Crop Science Congress (ICSC) is a regular event allowing crop scientists from around the world to integrate current knowledge into a global context and international applications. It provides an excellent opportunity for participants to share the latest global progress in crop science and develop recommendations for future thrusts in research, development, and technology transfer. The congress has been held every four years, beginning in July 1992. The first ICSC was held in Ames, Iowa state, USA in 1992, and subsequent events were in India (1996), Germany (2000), Australia (2004), South Korea (2008), andBrazil (2012). Hosted by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) and Chinese Society of Crop Science and organized by the Institute of Crop Science, CAAS, the 7th ICSC was held on August 14-19, 2016 in Beijing, China. As indicated by the congress theme, \"Crop Science: Innovation and Sustainability\", the 7th ICSC featured 19 plenary speeches, over 300 workshop talks, and more than 900 posters and was attended by over 2000 participants from over 70 countries. The scientific topics covered crop germplasm and evolution, crop genetics and genomics, crop biotechnology, breeding and seed production, agronomy and crop physiology, climate change and sustainability, crop quality and processing, and crop production and socioeconomic aspects.As a large country with many crop scientists, China has a wide range of climatic and ecological environments, diverse plant species and cropping systems, and different regional needs for food supplies and crop products. As a companion production for the 7th ICSC, we invited representative scientists from China to address important issues in crop science research, publishing their contributions as a special issue of The Crop Journal (Volume 5, Issue 2, 2017). In this paper, we will first provide a general discussion of agriculture and crop science in China, including current status, constraints, and scientific innovations. We will then summarize the articles published in the special issue.As a Chinese saying goes, food is heaven to the people. As a large country with a population exceeding 1.36 billion, China considers feeding its people to be the most important priority in its national economic and social development. Agriculture is a foundation industry, and agricultural modernization is essential for enhancing integrative agriculture production capacity, establishing a mechanism for ensuring long-term food security, and promoting environment-friendly and sustainable The Crop Journal development. To reach the strategic objective of innovation-driven national development, it is fundamentally important to further promote agricultural scientific and technological innovation and to guide modern agricultural development toward efficient production, product safety, resource economy, and environment-friendly improvement.Chinese agriculture started during the Neolithic period and this farming culture has persisted for thousands of years. Rapid development in agriculture and rural economy has been achieved since the founding of the People's Republic of China. China now produces 25% of the world's food, feeding about 20% of the world's population with b9% of the world's arable land, and has completed the transition from a food-aid recipient country to a food-aid donor.In the past five years, China has made a series of notable achievements in modern agricultural production. First, integrative production capacity has reached a new plateau, with an annual grain production of over 620 million tons in 2015, marking 12 consecutive annual increases. Second, farmer income has reached a new level, with a rural per capita disposable income of 1739 US dollars in 2015, the sixth year in which this income increased at a higher rate than either gross domestic product or urban per capita disposable income. Third, agricultural production and technical equipment have developed to a new level, with over 56% of the advance having been contributed by science and technology, indicating the transition of Chinese agriculture and crop production from a resource-input-driven enterprise to one driven largely by science and technology. Integrated mechanization of farming, including land preparation, planting and harvesting, has been realized for 63% of production processes, indicating a transition of the way agricultural products are produced from an operation driven largely by human and animal power, lasting for thousands of years, to one driven largely by machines. Over 52% of farm land has been effectively irrigated, and the situation of dependence on chance for rainfall is changing. Fourth, further reforms in crop production and land-use systems, establishment of new agricultural management models, and development of moderate-scale agrobusiness in multiple ways have contributed to the sustained increase in rural development potential.However, China is still at a critical point of agricultural transformation from traditional to modern methods. Compared with rapid development in industrialization, informatics deployment, and urbanization, progress in agricultural modernization has been relatively slow. It should be noted that crop and food production capacity in China is still not stable and has limited support from science and technology, innovation and informatics remain at a relatively low level, and agricultural equipment needs improvement. Agricultural development in China should focus on the holistic approach of ensuring national food security and building a moderately well-off society in all aspects. Agricultural modernization and structure reform must be sped up. Specifically, strenuous measures should be taken to increase crop and food production capacity continuously to ensure national food security, broaden approaches to improve farmer income, improve both production and management processes to ensure the quality and safety of agricultural products, strengthen environmental protection with efficient use of agricultural resources to provide support for sustainable agricultural development, promote agricultural system transformation and structure adjustment to accelerate agricultural modernization, and balance urban and rural development by transferring the surplus rural labor force to cities.Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, scientific and technological innovation has received great attention, and innovation capacity in agriculture, particularly in crop science and technology, has been greatly improved. To be more specific, major crops are now largely represented by cultivars with improved quality and yield potential, and livestock and poultry breeds have been increasingly replaced by improved breeds. As a result, improved high-quality cultivars and breeds have contributed over 43% of the production increase in agriculture. Application of new technologies and scientific products has resulted in a reduction of nitrogen and phosphorus emissions by over 60% and of soil and water loss from sloping cropland by over 50%. It has also contributed a greater than 20% increase in overall farmland productivity.Progress in agricultural science and technology can be summarized under three headings. First, agricultural innovation capacity has been substantially enhanced. The establishment of research platforms for functional genomics, proteomics, metabonomics, and other molecular techniques has facilitated deciphering the molecular bases of important agronomic traits such as yield, quality, and biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, contributing to the development of theories and methods for crop improvement. Advances in building mathematical or computational models for crop growth and development, organ morphogenesis, assimilate partitioning, and yield formation have improved agricultural simulation and computational technology. Progress in finding new materials, designing new potential targets, and elucidating the functional mechanisms of medicinal components has greatly boosted the discovery of livestock medicines.Second, key industry technologies have experienced repeated breakthroughs. Construction of platforms for chip-assisted genomic selection, cell engineering, and breeding informatics has stimulated the development of a modern seed industry. Breakthroughs in developing monitoring and warning systems for integrated management of major diseases and insect pests in agriculture have helped to establish new and environment-friendly approaches for prevention and control of epidemic diseases in major crops and livestock. Development of a series of slow-release fertilizers has made China the largest country for their production and consumption. Large combine harvesters and intelligent technologies such as those supported by the Beidou satellite navigation system have revolutionized the agricultural machinery industry. Breakthroughs in processing techniques such as high-throughput, automatic extraction and separation of agricultural products, and environmentfriendly and low-energy drying technology have driven advances in the food processing industry. Key technologies in agricultural internets, including wireless sensor networking, cloud communications, intelligent information processing, and cloud computing, have resulted in end-to-end tracking systems for major agricultural products.Third, technical innovation has greatly improved the utilization of agricultural resources. Establishment of theories and methods for water saving and deployment of high-yield and improved-quality crops has contributed to the development of an integrated technological system for agriculture in arid and semiarid regions. Straw briquets, biomass pyrolysis oil, and biogas have been used as fuels on a large scale. Rice straw mulching technology adopted in the southern hill regions, including Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, has reduced water and soil loss on sloping land by 70% and increased soil productivity by 20%.Although encouraged by the progress made by science and technology, we need to recognize the challenges in front of us. As it becomes increasingly difficult to ensure food security and a reliable supply of agricultural products, we need to achieve breakthroughs in a series of agricultural technologies, including breeding, sustainable and efficient crop production, healthy livestock and poultry rearing, agricultural mechanization and standardization, and preparedness for and mitigation of agricultural disasters. To promote agricultural production, we need to accelerate development of modern breeding technology, achieve breakthroughs in agroinformatics technology required for precision agriculture, and strengthen research in and development of technologies for full mechanization and standardization in agriculture. Because of the increasing challenges posed by resource shortage and consumption, we need to strengthen key technical innovations in efficient use of agricultural resources, water-saving agriculture, medium-and low-yield cropland improvement, and farmland ecological environment protection and restoration. To catch up with the rapid development in agricultural industries, we need to accelerate research and development in key technologies for seed production, medicine, vaccines, fertilizer, feeds, and next-generation agricultural facilities and informatics equipment.As the leading agricultural research institution at the national level, CAAS has played an important role in agricultural development and crop science in China, including original innovation in science and technology, breakthroughs in key technologies, and industry support and development. To achieve the development goals of a world-class agricultural research institution, CAAS needs to adhere to its development strategy, reaching for the heavens while keeping its feet on the ground. In this context, we need to make innovative contributions to meet major national demands while seeking international academic excellence in the frontiers of agricultural science and technology. We need to make breakthroughs in the current challenges of agricultural development while facilitating \"meristem differentiation\" in key areas for the future. We need to solve the global, strategic and key scientific and technological issues in rural economic development while playing a leading role in regional agriculture to solve regional bottleneck issues and support changes in regional agricultural production modes. We need to lead agricultural science and technology innovation and discovery while promoting the transformation and commercialization of scientific and technological achievements. Since the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), science and technology innovation in CAAS has been accelerated by many major scientific research achievements, greatly enhancing industrial support capacity. During the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan (2016-2020), CAAS will continue to play a key role as a reform pioneer, national innovation team, and decision advisory board by constructing a modern academy, strengthening collaboration with international partners, and building up a world-class agricultural research institution. CAAS aims to lead agricultural innovation in both China and the world.Crop science is an important component of agricultural science and also the key to ensuring world food security, promoting sustainable utilization of agricultural resources, and effectively protecting agricultural environments. As an addition to presentations and talks delivered at the 7th ICSC, nine papers are included in this special issue addressing innovation and sustainability in crop science. These articles describe advances in crop science and technology in the following representative fields: hybrid rice breeding, production and genetic improvement of minor cereals, food legume production, rapeseed research and production, cotton evolution and domestication, cropping system innovation, rice agronomic management, genomics-based germplasm research, and QTL mapping. In this section, we will highlight the main scientific points of the papers.As one of the major Chinese crop science contributions to the world, hybrid rice has been planted on over 50% of the rice land in China. It has experienced innovations from three-line to two-line systems and from indica × indica to japonica × japonica and indica × japonica hybrids [1]. In this special issue, Professor Longping Yuan reports the progress in hybrid rice breeding through four phases of high-yield breeding to achieve yield improvements from 10.5 t ha −1 in phase I to 15.0 t ha −1 in phase IV [2]. He expects that hybrid rice will continue contributing to world food security.In addition to major cereals such as rice, maize, and wheat, many minor cereals contribute greatly to Chinese agriculture, enriching Chinese food supplies. Planting areas and relative importance of minor cereals, compared with each other and with major cereals, have risen and fallen with government policies and changes in consumer preferences and lifestyles. Given that several minor cereals show strong drought tolerance and high fertilizer use efficiency, they provide new opportunities for developing environment-friendly crops and a more diverse food supply for humans and animals. In this special issue, Diao [3] describes the distribution and ecoregions, origin and domestication, and landmark varieties of six minor cereals in China, including foxtail millet, sorghum, oat, barley, common millet, and Job's tears.Legumes are grown primarily for their seeds for food or oil, for livestock forage and silage, and as soil-improving green manure. China has a great variety of legume species because of its vast territory and complex ecosystems. Food legumes in China include those used for dry grains and vegetables, excluding soybean and groundnut, which are treated as oil crops. As an important crop category in Chinese traditional and sustainable agriculture, food legumes provide substantial dietary protein and vitamin B and diverse food dishes, ensuring the basic health of Chinese people. Li et al. [4] review the areas and production, cropping systems, and export and import of six major Chinese legume crops including pea, faba bean, common bean, mung bean, adzuki bean, and cowpea. Regular cropping systems used for food legumes involve rotation, intercropping, and mixed cropping. As the world's leading producer of peas, faba beans, mung beans, and adzuki beans, China faces an increasing demand for food legumes as a healthy food for improved living standards. Because of increased imports and reduced profits, the planting area and total production of food legumes in China has decreased of late. In contrast, vegetable legumes, as healthy foods with attractive market prices and flexibility in cropping systems, have increased sharply. To increase food legume production, the key is to increase yield potential but reduce production cost. The authors highlight six important issues that should be addressed in the future.Vegetable oils are triglyceride-based and extracted from plants. Edible vegetable oils are used in food, both in cooking and as supplements. China grows five major oil crops: rapeseed, soybean, groundnut, sesame, and sunflower. As the largest oilseed crop and also the fourth largest crop in China after maize, rice, and wheat, rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) accounts for about 20% of world production. Hu et al. [5] reviews rapeseed research and production in China, including functional genomics and marker-assisted selection, breeding of rapeseed varieties, and production techniques. The whole-genome sequencing of rapeseed and its two parent species, B. oleracea and B. rapa, has greatly facilitated functional genomics research including identification of genes for important agronomic traits, with molecular markers having been developed and used in breeding programs. New cultivars have been developed by intergeneric hybridization, pyramiding of superior alleles, microspore culture, and directional selection, particularly for high oil content. The authors also review mechanization throughout the process of rapeseed production and modern techniques for rapeseed field management. It can be expected that with advanced breeding and production technologies, oil yield and quality will be greatly improved, and desirable traits, such as early maturation, high yield, strong resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, and suitability for mechanization, will be introduced.China has a long history of developing favorable cropping systems in agriculture, including intercropping and crop rotation, leading to a sustainable ecological system. As global warming becomes increasingly important, cropping systems are undergoing innovation through new variety development, cropping region adjustment, and cropping practice optimization. Deng et al. [6] first analyze the climate warming tendency, indicating a faster climatic warming in China than the worldwide average with large uncertainties in precipitation change. Second, the authors provide evidence that climatic warming will influence major staple crop production in China negatively or positively, depending on specific cropping regions, seasons, and crops. Third, successful adaptation to climate warming has been achieved in China, with greatly improved crop yield and resource use efficiency along with greatly increased soil organic carbon content and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. With the increasing challenge to food security in the face of climatic warming, the authors suggest that further efforts should be invested in new agricultural policy development, knowledge and technology innovation, and climate-smart agriculture practice, with more investment in field infrastructure development to increase cropping system resilience.As one of the most important food crops, rice uses about 50% of the water used by agriculture worldwide. In Asia, about 80% of the fresh water used for irrigation is used for rice. Rice fields contribute to greenhouse gases with 15%-20% of global anthropogenic methane emissions [7], plus nitrous oxide as a combined effect of nitrogen fertilization and water management. Changes in water management can be used to address the concerns associated with emission of greenhouse gases in the rice field. Yang et al. [8] report that alternate wetting and drying regimes increase rice yield while reducing water use, grain arsenic levels, and methane emission. The increase in grain yield water use efficiency is due largely to reduced redundant vegetative growth, improved canopy structure and root growth, elevated hormone activity, and enhanced carbon remobilization from vegetative tissues to grain.Cotton is the most important fiber and economic crop in China. Its production area has experienced a large transition from the lower and middle reaches of the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers to northwest China, leading to various changes in cotton production, processing and utilization, and thus cotton science and technology. As a model system for cell fate determination, cellulose biosynthesis and polyploidization, cotton is of broad interest in plant science and crop breeding and has received increasing attention in genomic research. Such efforts will facilitate our understanding of evolution and domestication in cotton and thus promote the development of strategies and methods for cotton breeding and production. In this special issue, Lei et al. [9] report asymmetric evolution and domestication in the A and D subgenomes of allotetraploid cotton. More structural rearrangements and correspondingly more transposable elements, more lost and disrupted genes, and faster evolution have been identified in the A subgenome. Asymmetric domestication is revealed by identification of more positively selected genes for fiber yield and quality in the A subgenome but more for stress tolerance in the D subgenome. By highlighting the asymmetric subgenomic evolution and domestication of allotetraploid cotton, the authors provide valuable genomic information for cotton research.Many basic and applied studies have been driven largely by genomics and related technologies. Plant germplasm as the treasury of agriculture has played a critical role in providing resources for long-term crop improvement, which has been revolutionized by the incorporation of genomic tools and methodologies. Jia et al. [10] coin the term \"genoplasmics\" to describe genomics-based plant germplasm research (GPGR) through integration of germplasm research with genomics. The authors first describe challenges and opportunities in plant germplasm research, based largely on the concept of a core collection, including the establishment of crop core collections based on genomic information, genomics-based germplasm enhancement, and genomics-based gene discovery through map-based cloning, genomewide association studies (GWAS), allele mining, and comparative genomics. As the authors predict, genoplasmics is opening a new era in germplasm research.Crop improvement has been driven largely by genetics and its associated breeding methodologies. As most agronomically important traits are quantitatively inherited, genetic manipulation of quantitative trait loci (QTL) has received great attention, including the development of statistical methods and tools for QTL mapping. Several research groups in China have contributed to QTL mapping, including dynamic QTL mapping strategies [11][12][13], genetic mapping of QTL × environment interactions [14], and a modified algorithm for composite interval mapping [15]. Recent developments in sequencing, high-throughput genotyping, and GWAS have revolutionized genetic mapping. Chinese scientists have embraced these developments by using new mapping strategies for gene discovery and crop improvement. Xu et al. [16] summarize advances in and limitations of family-and natural population-based mapping, describe statistical methods for improvement of detection power and computational speed, and outline emerging fields including largescale meta-analysis. New technologies such as next-generation sequencing have created challenges and urgent needs for powerful population design, advanced statistical strategies, and precision phenotyping.China is now facing great challenges in a full transition from traditional to modern agriculture and crop science. Three major innovations must be realized: a transition of agricultural production from partial to full mechanization, a transition of resource utilization from low to high efficiency, and a transition of crop management from high to low input. Such transitions can be achieved only with the development of new cultivars and crop management systems for fully mechanized, resource use-efficient, and management-efficient crop production. The basic requirements for these innovations include increased farm size, reduced production cost, and integrated product pipelines. Diverse crop products with high and stable yield and improved quality will be required to meet the future challenges in agriculture. Integrative use of modern agriculture and crop science and technologies will secure our food supply.","tokenCount":"3870"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"63e332a29959ed1646023206c6fa815a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/50170907-7f71-43c6-8f19-ac1ae8022367/retrieve","id":"28575474"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"551ede83-3dca-45a5-b8cd-738e5cd1a719","pagecount":"52","content":"Representatives of the four Centers (CIP, CIAT, Bioversity, IITA) and other partners, comprising the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB) got together in Cali, Colombia on 20-22 March of 2013 to establish the foundations for results based management and to improve impact of RTB. The summary below presents the objectives the organizers aspired to achieve, with commentary on how far each was met.1. Shared understanding of shift to results based management including a balanced research portfolio of \"quick wins\", medium term research and longer term research with potentially higher pay offPresentations were given about the CGIAR Consortium's shift to results based management, the orientation to outcomes and impacts and the building up of flagships to adapt to the new thinking. On the basis of an RTB draft list of flagships, discussion centered on the balance of the portfolio as it stands, and around the scope, timeline, and issues of upstream/ downstream stages of the flagships. The \"new\" thinking regarding outcomes, etc., is widely accepted, however, several doubts remain as to how to operationalize some of the ideas.With the work carried on in preparation for the workshop, and during the same, there is now a pared down portfolio of around 20 draft flagship projects for RTB. The list still needs more discussion considering trade-offs, information coming from the priority setting, gender strategy, consortium guidance and others; what will happen as part of an iterative process in the coming months. More thought is needed on how each of the proposed flagships contributes to RTB IDOs.Ample time was dedicated to working group sessions for the development of 4 flagships and to discussions of issues surrounding each flagship. These discussions will be useful for other flagships to be developed during 2013. Issues of gender, capacity strengthening and knowledge management and partnerships were considered and included in the 4 flagships.Current RTB IDOS were presented and considered, in essence, to be well formulated, and very relevant to the RTB body of work. Some further improvement will also be carried out in the coming months. Due to the shift to intensive work on flagship development and discussion, time was limited for an in-depth discussion of RTB IDOs; also considering that this workshop was carried out immediately before a consortium meeting on the definition of CGIAR wide CRP-IDOs.The presentation of the undergoing priority assessment (expert surveys) offered participants to understand the process and address some concerns about methodological tools etc. and recommendation for further analysis (for example, about including farmers to give a broader consensus and address potential blind spots of respondents). Also, it revealed an approximate alignment between priorities identified and the provisional set of flagships under development.The presentation in the following chapters mostly follows the program (see Annex 1). However, where appropriate, information was brought together/merged/consolidated and presented in a comprehensive way in one chapter -as mainly the case with the work on \"flagship elaboration\".The first session of the workshop was devoted to a presentation by the Program Director, Graham Thiele, of the conceptual overview of the shift to results based management of CGIAR, its implications for CRPs and the main concepts to be used during the workshop (presentation can be found here). A forum for Questions and Answers (Q&A) followed, with the main topics discussed being: Flagships as CGIAR-wide concept o It is crucial that other CRPs also take the concept and development of flagships into consideration and have to see how this is integrating into the consortium system. o RTB has already influenced Consortium level thinking on the inclusion of flagships as one indicator in annual performance monitoring. RTB should be pro-active in developing its own conceptual framework within the parameters given and not passively wait for guidance from the Consortium.o What is the limit of attribution to RTB? If many organizations are working on a given product, there may be more impact, and thus, it is worthwhile to continue working on it, but it will be harder to attribute to RTB's research. o What is our (research) comparative advantage as we move from upstream to downstream research, closer to end users? Are we better placed doing things only we can do/flagships that have a high comparative advantage for CGIAR? o What about attribution if a flagship product is already very advanced (downstream)? If it is already too spread out into next user groups? It is harder, then to specify the contribution of RTB  Inclusion of stakeholders and partners in flagship development o Flagships have a fairly high level of abstraction and their development is currently limited to a small/closed well informed group. However, as soon as possible, the flagship concept as such as well as their development has to be communicated and harmonized with stakeholders and partners. o An important next step is: move forward on involving stakeholders.o Flagships may not be equally applicable to all CRP's, maybe only for some of the commodity-based CRPs.Presentations were given by each of RTBs main crops' teams, showing the work that had been done until then regarding the development of flagships and the shift towards outcomes-thinking and results based management.The first presentation was by Dietmar Stoian (Bioversity) on banana & cross-cutting flagships (presentation can be found here). The main Q&A and discussion topics regarding Dietmar's presentation were: Consistency of flagships o One of the challenges will be to have a consistent approach for flagships in different RTB crops. All of RTB should be consistent on how to approach the \"grouping\" of the central product and the linked products in flagships. o The presented banana flagship is rather \"constraints oriented\" (as banana have a lot of disease constraints) and it is less geographic, or end user focused.o Zoom lens allegory: how much do we \"zoom-in\" or \"zoom-out\"? If we zoom-out too much (wide focus), we will end up recreating flagships, cutting across, creating a new generic flagship. Cross-cutting flagship on \"knowledge management\"o Thinking of flagship products in terms of knowledge mobilization is very useful and makes a lot of sense. o We have to work on this with the consortium, so we can be linked to the bigger knowledge management initiative. Flagships on output level vs. outcome-thinking o Up to the moment the output level is our comfort zone. We have to stronger focus on analyzing the development challenge. o We have to try to quantify the flagships as much as possible, o We need to define a next user group with a clear demand. o It would be very useful to have a map that shows to what extent a flagship is in different or overlapping geographical zones and value chains. o The notion of flagships is important, but poses the need for a real market analysis.o What products are we excited about? And which are exciting for donors? o There are many game-changing traits we are working with already which we should look at: Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) trait to address bacterial wilt, for example-we have partners, and it can be a really important product for banana.Clair Hershey (CIAT) presented the cassava flagship (presentation can be found here). Some of the follow-up discussion ideas were: We have to take care not to only focus the characterization of the RTB flagships on \"production systems\" (with reference to slide #10). We should not leave the perspective of \"livelihood system\" aside. Understanding time frame of flagships and what we already have as products in our existing product portfolio is a concern.o When we talk about niches, we are trying to respond to a challenge or demand in a specific part of the world. For example, there is a major demand for starch in South East Asia (SEA), which is a great opportunity for small farmers to increase their incomes. Decision is taken by the argument: \"This is the best bet, we will focus on this.\" However, we should rather orient the decision via defined strategic objectives.o We seem to be looking at niches, and not the big picture, narrowing the scope to one problem out of a plethora of opportunities. The Development Challenge (problem statement) has to have a strong explanation linking it to System Level Outcomes (SLOs) We must avoid having flagships look like they are oriented to benefit the bigger Agribusinesses, when the poor are supposed to be the main beneficiaries.o To what extent are we using the information generated by the ex-ante analysis priority setting group into defining flagships? o The idea of flagships and outcome rather come from a management background.Priority Setting is coming from different disciplines and is based on different methods; based on economic theory. There is however an iterative process between management representatives/units and priority setting representatives of each informing the other. o Some key questions for the flagship design and analysis of development challenges are:What are the trends? What are the demands? In \"old fashioned CGIAR\" economists would present this type of background analysis: \"Are we building on the ex-ante analysis in priority assessment?\" \"Are we not mentioning it because we know it (it is obvious to us), or because this analysis has not been done?\"The cassava flagship presentation was followed by a presentation by Philippe Monneveux (CIP) on potato and sweetpotato flagships (presentation can be found here) . Below are some of the Q&A that followed:o We should not be too tied to the idea of impact pathways to define flagships. We do need to ensure that the flagships are aligned with what we need for \"upstream\" research.It is crucial that our upstream research also gets resources.. o Not everything we do needs to be in a downstream flagship. In upstream flagships, we could have \"high potential clusters\"; something we know is a good bet, but in a much longer timeframe. o Will the priority assessment exercise go far enough upstream to be able to inform us about which are the most important of these flagships? Denomination of flagships o More than the word \"flagships\", the word to worry about is \"product\". Due to already observed differences of flagships, we might find better \"wording\" to be able to define and characterize the various types of flagships.The yam flagship was presented by Peter Kulakow (IITA) (presentation can be found here). Some of the Q&A were: Clean yam seed systems seem to be very ready to deliver, but some of the linked products of the flagship require a 10 year effort to achieve major advances. We want to achieve some products in 3 years. How will we include these? The statistics on yam in Africa are not very trustworthy as there is only poor data availability. The major challenge for research on yam is the design of sustainable intensification systems. The system carries the commodity, not the other way around. So, integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) should be the central product of the flagship, and the yam seeds as linked product. We may think of the commodities that produce well in the system in which they are, and then at the ones that need to be introduced or replaced.To finalize the session of presentations of proposed flagships, Graham Thiele reviewed the list of all flagships with a special focus on cross-cutting (across crops) flagships (list of flagships can be found here).In the afternoon of the first day, participants separated into four working groups to characterize four flagships and their linked products:1) Improved technology and knowledge for small to medium scale cassava processing centers targeted preferentially toward rural women (see flagship in Annex 2)2) Global RTB Development Store (see flagship in Annex 3)3) Next Generation RTB Breeding Systems for accelerating genetic gains (see flagship in Annex 4)Pre-emptive, emergency and ongoing response capacity to bacterial diseases affecting smallholder banana and plantain systems (see flagship in Annex 5)Working groups were asked to reflect about: What is the development challenge (development problem being addressed, \"demands\" and opportunities and if possible, define the development challenge geographically)? Why is THIS Product (as opposed to others) needed to contribute to solve the problem (best fit)? The definition of the product and the linked products (4-6 products), taking into consideration gender, knowledge management and capacity building products? What are the target regions and key countries of the flagship? Who are the research partners and the possible other CG Research Programs to cooperate with? Who are the next users? How can next users use the products? How will the products reach the end users?On the second -day, each \"flagship group\" continued to work on the development of their flagship, especially on the definition of impact pathways (theory of change) and outcomes. This was followed by short presentations of the work advanced, and Q&A and discussion, the main ones were: Can one flagship address such a high diversity of situations, products, issues and regions the same time? Maybe if it is well prioritized? This concept of \"flagships\" presents a good chance for technology transfer between countries. Make good use of existing opportunities; for example the Yam global network. RTB management is trying to come up with an architecture (with outside support) for a data management system which includes and provides for example all the GIS work that needs to take place, to make the geographic dimension much more explicit, as well as the M&E supporting data. This would be a \"to-go-place\", not just a website, not just another database, but including the brokerage function. It has to be an active, not passive repository. We might need to find a way to include market prices information in a repository/database by feeding all the information into a market information system. The question however will be: Will we do the market analysis by ourselves, or go through secondary information? Some needs are provided by partners, but not all. Therefore the question is: how can we bring in partners? Gender issues in the move from small scale processing to industrialization. There is a broader strategic set of issues around gender equity that is not reflected in the flagship until now. Is this a flagship, or an \"impact support\"-type product? It is not quite clear if it would have the kind of impact we expect from other products (such as methods). This -a platform for following up, making accessible and supporting the outputs from other parts of the RTB work.o There are people who can provide research-to-development functions/ linkages to translate the products into outcomes. o It would be like a clearing house, a broker-to meet the needs and demands of technology users and those who generate technology (researchers). For this, Social Network Analysis (SNA) can be very useful.The afternoon of Wednesday started off with a presentation by Gordon Prain for RTB Gender Focal Points about on the RTB gender strategy (presentation can be found here). Some of the follow-up discussion ideas were: It is impressive how the gender thinking has matured over last few months in RTB. The behavior change we will measure in IDOs necessarily has a strong gender dimension. We always have to think who is adopting or changing and that means considering gender. There is a need to embed gender in a kind of an \"outcome support unit\", looking at the gender dimensions of communication and capacity strengthening. We need to look at the strategic gender research cluster. Who will do the integration research? This needs discussion; although this was already included in the detailed work plan with the Gender Strategy.The Priority Setting group presented the results of the Priority setting exercises that have been carried out for each of the main crops, and also for cross cutting aspects of RTB. Guy Hareau, Focal Point for the Priority Setting (CIP) presented an overview of the Priority Assessment process (presentation can be found here) including the results for potato. The RTB crops yam and cassava were presented by Bernardo Creamer (CIAT) and Joseph Rusike (IITA). The results for the Priority Setting Exercise on banana was shared by Diemuth Pemsl (Bioversity) via webcast (presentation can be found here). The main topics discussed regarding the priority setting exercises and the results were:o Constraints focused on by the priority assessment mainly refer to the production constraints of the different crops. o Each crop offers the opportunities to reduce poverty. Economic surplus (labor/data intensive) is used because it is amenable and we have used it in the centers historically, but we do want to use a different measure for poverty that goes beyond the common definition of \"$1/day\". o As a system, we have not gone out of our way to target poverty from the start. We even treated the question if targeting the better-off farmers, for trickle down would be an approach. This idea however has been reevaluated, because unless we target poor from the start, they will be bypassed. o Are we talking about sheer economic returns, or of economic returns by category (poverty)? We must define this well, to make results comparable across CRPs. Target group of the survey o This has been a valuable exercise, even with not having been able to identify end users better. It is focused on a study of our next users upstream and downstream actors, and what they favor and want. o The other great value is the aspect of legitimacy of priority setting through the engagement and consultation of a large group of stakeholders. o Interviewees of the surveys were mainly experts as farmers often show difficulties doing problem/needs-ranking, so we are kind of biased, and only opinion of next users were captured. However, if we would add the dimension of end users (is there something included to get this ground truth?) will this affect the actual results and priorities? o In this expert consultation we have only one part of the story. Is the expert opinion maybe just continuing with the priorities of scientists? Gender aspects o Gender disaggregated analysis has been done. o 26% of experts who responded to the banana survey are women. This seems fairly high. It turns out that 50% of respondents from Philippines, LAC and Africa were women. o There are different ways of scoring: for example female experts seem to be more generous, while geographically seen, women from Latin America are more rigid in their scoring.o Across the whole globe, getting gender-disaggregated data that is consistent is hard. However a lot of information is already collected (like household surveys, demographic information by household, etc). The problem is that in most cases only data for one area is available, but getting consistency is always very hard. This is a huge issue and should be seen in the light of the same data requirement of most of the CRPs? The Consortium has to look at knowledge management across CRPs and how to take advantage of the thematic overlaps and needs as for example with reference to gender-data. Thematic focus of the surveys o Maybe we should focus not only so much on breeding but much stronger on value chains. The major thrust right now is to change characteristics of the crop to sell better in the market. The value chain is something that comes all across the crops. We need to do much more analysis on that. o It is interesting to organize by data of respondents (by breeder, scientist, etc.). Question is, how we can include categories of more basic beneficiaries? Therefore we need an initial categorization of beneficiaries; we need to find data of current distribution of benefits and how different technologies affect each beneficiary group. Baseline information o Is there anybody who is looking into baseline studies, understanding what farmers are saying about their constraints and their needs? Is there any work on the ground, trying to quantify? We can find similar surveys that we can use and we can include this as an activity for June or July. o How to assemble, compare baselines? How to rank? We recognize the need to address this, and we need to prove that we are trying to do something about it. o This is a good place to collaborate with the Systems CRPs. CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions and Markets, for example, has a funded project to map what is already there. Baselines have been done which could be used to ground truth the expert surveys. o Maybe we need a Consortium wide initiative, to bring information in from end users; from the field. Stakeholders meetings can also be a chance to get more data from stakeholders that we didn't get through surveys. In this whole process of flagships and impact pathways we keep saying we need to talk to the stakeholders; therefore we need to take advantage of these kinds of meetings to engage with stakeholders.Based on discussions and questions from the workshop sessions and mainly in the working groups on flagship elaboration Graham Thiele offered a suggestion for classification of flagships (presentation can be found here):1 o We can classify flagships as \"current\" or \"future\". We now have to start with the \"ready for the future\"-flagships.Sophie Alvarez presented a \"refresher\" on Impact Pathways and conceptual definitions (presentation can be found \"here\" ) and Graham Thiele presented the RTB specific IDOs and indicators in their current definition (presentation can be found here). Comments following this presentation were regarding the following aspects: The revision and adaptation of RTB IDOs is to respond to the request from Consortium and donors to do better Monitoring and Evaluation of outcomes  Indicators do net yet carry numbers (SMART criteria). Eventually we will have it down to the number of beneficiaries, and corresponding geographic scale, all assembled into an outcome monitoring system. All the IDOs seem to be in the right direction  production and processing\"). Each deal with one side of things: production end and the NRM end. The trade-offs between the two IDOs, such as the side effects of land use are not coming through clearly enough. o There are a lot of trade-offs in IDO 2, and they are extremely aggregated. We must try to capture trade-offs in the indicators. Not everything will maximize simultaneously. IDO 3: \"Increased food and nutritional security from use of RTB varieties\" o Is food price included in food security? Should we separate and make explicit? Resilience (in IDO 2) includes also food price. o The IDO should make more explicit \"for whom\", as well as the scale (household-level, national, regional)?8After a last group work session on flagship elaboration and a short presentation of the work realized so far, the workshop was to be closed on the third day in the afternoon. Before the closure of the workshop, Anne-Marie Izac, Chief Science Officer of the CGIAR Consortium and Jacqui Ashby, Senior Gender Advisor of the CGIAR Consortium shared their recommendations and ideas derived from the presentations and the work being carried out in the RTB program, as seen in this workshop. They didn't have formal presentations, some notes of their presentations can be found in Annex 6.The workshop closed with the definition of the \"next steps\" for the finalization of the four flagships and the elaboration of others.  a Globally, most cassava is processed in small and medium scale 1 centers, with:• low labor productivity and drudgery --especially for women, which translates to low income and limited options to improve quality of life; • lack of capability to supply products to the market in a timely manner, with consistent quality and quantity, and at competitive prices; • low energy use efficiency;• detrimental health and safety effects on processing center workers and product consumers;• negative environmental impact, especially surface water pollution.b RTB is addressing this challenge because:• unlike the cereals, raw cassava is bulky and highly perishable. Effective and efficient processing is essential to value chain development that adequately supports producers and processors; • improving small and medium scale cassava processing can contribute at scale to positive impact on the four system level outcomes of the CGIAR, related to poverty alleviation, food security, nutrition and the environment; • the CRP RTB has comparative advantages in linking diverse partners at local, regional and global levels (and especially South-South) and in integrating the necessary linked products related to production and marketing; • the CGIAR has wide experience in the relevant geographical and socioeconomic conditions;• small and medium plants that provide family and community income often will not compete with large processing plants unless their efficiency and output is improved.c Evidence of demand for flagship:• the large majority of cassava processing at the global level is by small to medium processors, which provide a source of jobs and income in rural areas and villages; • inefficient systems diminish the potential for profitability, for payment of fair wages to workersespecially women, and for payment of a fair price for raw product to farmers; • health and well-being of workers at cassava processing plants around the world is frequently at risk due to use of dangerous machinery, due to onerous physical work, and due to air and water pollutants; due to the gender division of labor, health impacts can be gender-specific.In the cassava-growing regions of SSA, Asia, NE Brazil, the Caribbean, and the Andean zone:• higher income and better health and safety for owners, managers and workers -especially women -as a result of eco-efficient, ergonomic plant modifications and added value of by-products; • increased revenues for cassava growers due to access to more profitable processing plants;• improved environment due to recycling and management of waste;• better access to higher quality and affordable food by consumers.Table 1. Regional examples of processing, products and associated challenges.Scaling up from micro to small and medium processes for gari, chikwangue and other local products, including starch Appropriate varieties and efficiency in production; processing efficiency, especially peeling; processing machinery and equipment innovations; product recipes; industrial standards and business models for commercialization targeting specific end users and markets; multi-stakeholder platforms for coordination; understanding the impact of mechanization on women; cyanide effects during toasting; packaging Although there is a trend toward scaling up of processing to take advantage of efficiencies and opportunities to enter growth markets for cassava products, most cassava processing at the global level is still small to medium scale. At least in the next decade, the best opportunities to improve livelihoods and the environment will be through interventions to support producers and processors at this scale. Assessment systems and technology exist to make these improvements in processing, but diffusion and adoption have been limited. Because of the very wide range of local situations and diversity of products, the interventions to improve processing efficiencies need to be equally diverse. Interchange of knowledge and experience across regions and sectors has been limited.Policy in cassava-producing countries varies from indifference to the cassava sector, to strong support of small and medium scale production and processing, to support for large scale processing. In the priority regions noted in Table 1, there is typically little policy influence that directly impacts the size of processing operations. Nonetheless, in Nigeria (the world's largest cassava producer), government promotion of cassava use in industry and for export is encouraging a move toward large scale processing. But this still involves only a very small segment of total production, and is likely to remain the situation for years to come, given the country's very large production and the multitude of processing and marketing systems.Environmental regulations are increasingly impacting the profitability of small and medium processors. For them to improve their environmental record, and to optimize their contributions to rural and community development, they will need to have access to the means of economical anti-pollution measures, including the development of value-added by-products.Small and medium scale processors typically are labor-intensive, and employ large numbers of women. In most cases the working conditions and compensation are not gender-equitable and rectifying this needs to be a major outcome of this flagship.Flagship: Improved technology and knowledge for small to medium scale cassava processing centers targeted preferentially toward rural womenLife cycle assessment/waste management: Specific interventions will be guided by surveys and SWOT analyses, and by experiences in small and medium scale processing within and across regions. Financial viability, and especially the equitable distribution of benefits for women, will be a fundamental and necessary criterion of any recommendations on inputs and strategies.Protocols for high product quality: One of the great challenges of many small and medium processors is to produce a consistently high quality product that will achieve premium market prices. Implementation of quality control procedures and appropriate machinery can add value for processors, and to the producers from whom they purchase.Varieties with appropriate processing traits: Most plant breeders have a broad sense of the traits that producers, processors and consumers desire in their varieties. But the combination of factors that determine acceptability is very complex, and further, there may be conflicts between the desired varietal traits of these different \"users.\" For example, a grower may prefer varieties with thin peel, because they produce more usable product (the root flesh), while processors may prefer thick peel, easier to remove during processing. It is well-known that breeders of horticultural crops have often selected for traits favorable to the processing and shipping industries, but that these varieties are not the most preferred by consumers. Especially, breeders and processors need to be aware of the gender implications of changes in varietal traits that affect processing, since a large part of the labor force in small to medium processing is women.Value chain integration/new products, innovation platforms, and research on access to gender responsive credit: Coordination and integration along the value chain are critical for successful processing -supply from producers, processing capacity, marketing channels and consumer demand all need to be in synch. For the most part, new products arise in the private sector, but public-private collaboration can be a cost effective way to accelerate the process and provide new opportunities to processors and growers. Investments in plant expansion and improvements will often depend on access to credit. Steps should be taken to assure that men and women have access to credit in order to make these investments.Production and seed systems to meet processor demand: Production systems need to meet quantity and quality requirements for processors, according to pre-programmed schedule. These also include logistics, materials management and physical distribution systems relating to the number, size and location of plants to minimize assembly, transport, processing and distribution costs; and to induce competitive behavior among processing firms. This coordination has been one of the main challenges to the scaling up of cassava production and processing. Seasonal harvests often create large inefficiencies in processing. If processors cannot access raw material during most of the year, their operations often cannot operate profitably. At the same time, producers need to grow varieties and employ management practices that are highly productive and are adapted to the full range of biotic and abiotic constraints.Training in best practices; knowledge dissemination: South-south knowledge sharing among processors is one of the most effective means of improving efficiencies and developing new products. There is a long history of this kind of sharing -most of Africa's processing techniques arose from indigenous practices in Brazil several hundred years ago, for example. RTB can play an effective role in improving the effectiveness of this process of knowledge dissemination and training. Small and medium-scale cassava processing plants, especially in Africa and Asia, are largely staffed by women workers and often by women managers. Benefits that accrue to the overall plant operations should therefore be preferentially skewed toward women. Women especially stand to gain when processing plants invest in and apply technologies that reduce the heavy physical labor often associated with cassava processing facilities, such as heavy lifting to move roots from one part of the plant to another, washing, peeling, and handling the product from the processing. In cases where processing plants are able to distribute additional income to plant laborers, plant managers should understand the social value of favoring women. On the production side, efficiencies and improvements in income can differentially favor women in Africa and Asia, since the majority of production is by women. In Latin America, the gender effects will be highly regionally influenced. The actual effects on women of these processing plant improvements needs to be studied and monitored as part of strategic gender research, since the benefits to women will not be automatic.Annex For RTB crops, numerous information systems, databases, and platforms for knowledge sharing and capacity strengthening exist. However, information is dispersed, knowledge and data are scattered, and existing expert networks are largely confined to researchers, reflecting a lack of a clear orientation towards development outcomes and impact. As a result, synergies across crops and centres have not been realized, development brokerage with downstream partners has been limited, and political advocacy has largely been absent.The problem addressed by the Global RTB Development Store can be summarized as follows:• Fragmented information systems and expert networks, not including downstream partners• Lack of synergies between crops and centers for producing outcome orientated resources/materials• Lack of skills of staff to do outcome orientated research• Need for a dynamic, user-orientated and gender-responsive outlet for accessible RTB products The lack of a common platform and framework for user-specific RTB knowledge products and services, along with underdeveloped capacities of RTB staff and downstream partners for engaging in shared impact pathways with joint metrics systems, is a principal challenge for RTB's delivery on development outcomes and impact. In the Musa community, however, there are concrete examples for knowledge sharing platforms (ProMusa), information systems (MGIS), and expert networks (MusaNet, GCMG) that illustrate how international, regional, and national researchers and, albeit to a lesser degree, downstream partners can effectively exchange information and knowledge and build social capital for collective action.The proposed Global RTB Development Store will build up on these experiences to strengthen existing and create new information systems, knowledge platforms, and R4D networks for the Musa, cassava, sweet potato, potato and yam communities.In a recently concluded expert survey among more than 1,500 RTB experts, there was clear evidence of a high need for crop and client specific knowledge products, information systems, training materials and capacity strengthening (for more details, see preliminary results of expert surveys).The Global RTB Development Store helps understand and influence policies affecting uptake of RTB products, an area that has been identified as a priority by donors, the Consortium office and participating centers. The interactive nature of the flagship will allow proactively identifying new user groups and engaging with downstream partners in a two-way process, facilitating brokerage at the interface between science, policy and developmentThe strategic objective of this support flagship is to help the delivery and discovery flagships achieve their livelihood resilience, nutrition and health, income, and natural resource management goals by:• bringing together multiple information resources• creating synergies across crops and centers• strengthening the capacities of RTB staff and next users• stimulating continuous interaction with next users for social learning• marketing RTB products• proactively engaging with downstream partners in a two-way process.Due to its nature as a support flagship with a global community of practice and web-based access to knowledge products the Global RTB Development Store is of global reach. However, crop-specific knowledge products, advocacy and capacity strengthening have well-defined target regions and key countries that are described in detail in the given flagships.Information systems, knowledge sharing platforms, and expert networks are well established for the Musa community, though this flagship will help to bring the different elements together in a concise and userfriendly way. For the other RTB crops, certain systems, platforms and networks also exist, but there is a clear need for upgrading and higher synergies.A cross-cutting community of practice will be established that builds up on existing crop-specific platforms and networks. Similarly, a joint portal will be developed that allows quick access to user-specific knowledge products, information systems, and capacity strengthening and advocacy services. This combination of a virtual platform and a connection to global, regional and national networks will allow for client-specific products and services and delivery mechanisms.Existing and future RTB knowledge products will be packaged according to the needs of differentiated next and end users. For example, downstream partners such as government agencies and NGOs have different information needs and absorption capacities than private sector bodies. Information for researchers, on the other hand, will be processed and made available in a different way. Where possible and needed, knowledge products will respond to gender-differentiated realities and needs.Capacity strengthening will be offered at two levels: training materials for strengthening outcome orientation will be developed for RTB staff and partners and client-and product-specific training will be offered for better uptake of RTB products and services.Support services for virtual consultations and crowd-sourced diagnosis, such as a banana plant clinic, will be developed based on an existing repertoire of photos (Musarama) and an interactive platform that allows uploading field photos which will be diagnosed by a group of experts and discussed with users.Findings of policy analyses will be made available in formats and forums appropriate for decision makers in the public and private sectors and civil society (policy briefs, fact sheets, roundtables, etc.).A system for monitoring and evaluation (M&E) will be established that permits ongoing monitoring of RTB outcomes, both for internal and external use. Evaluation and impact assessment reports will also be made available to stimulate discussion with users and allow for joint learning and continuous improvement.The products linked to the Global RTB Development Store are shown in the illustration below.Due to its nature as a support flagship, a full-fledged impact pathway is not required for the Global RTB Development Store. The principal value of this flagship lies in its support function to delivery and discovery flagships in their pursuit of development outcomes and delimitation of future options for development outcomes, respectively.It is envisioned that on the short term the Global RTB Development Store will reach out to at least 10,000 next users in the RTB R&D community. Over the long term, up to 50,000 next users are expected to make use of the knowledge products and services made available through the Community of Practice and a web-based portal. Access to crop-specific information and knowledge products packaged according to their needs and capacities; strengthened capacities for product uptake and reaching out to end usersThis support flagship will help the delivery and, to the extent possible, discovery flagships to contribute to the overall IDOs of RTB (for specifications, see proposals of these flagships).Packaging of gender-differentiated knowledge products is a central element of the Global RTB Development Store strategy. For example, manuals and guidelines for integrated management of RTB pests and diseases will take into account different realities and needs of men and women in terms of preexisting knowledge and capacities, access to resources, and response capacity.Capacity strengthening for RTB staff and research partners will emphasize the importance of gender for reaching development outcomes and impact and provide access to methods and tools for genderresponsive and strategic gender research.Capacity strengthening for downstream partners will help sensitize government agencies, NGOs and private sector bodies as regards their role in contributing to improved gender equity when rolling out RTB knowledge products and services.Policy analyses and briefs will highlight the need for gender-sensitive policies in the public and private sectors and civil society.The M&E system will allow drawing on gender-specific information in RTB's move towards development outcomes and impact. The development challenge is to continuously improve yields and user-preferred quality traits of RTB crops in farmers' fields. An analysis of yield trends shows that for most periods in most countries, yields of RTB crops have been flat. The exception is cassava in Asia where a combination of industrialization, demand for starches and a user responsive breeding and selecting scheme led to increasing yields. Thus, the priority for the RTB program is to use innovative technologies to increase the rate of genetic gain that will guarantee RTB resource poor farmers access to highly nutritious climate-change proofed varieties that yield on average 2.5% more per year. This rate of genetic gains in the RTB breeding objectives will ensure that there is enough food to feed a growing population by 2050.Thus, our value proposition is to support the development of user-preferred varieties that will meet global food demands by 2050. Attaining this goal will require the development of superior plant ideotypes or otherwise elite varieties. This will accelerate the achievement of impactful trait levels and combinations in superior bred cultivars which if based on phenotypic selection alone can take several decades. In particular, the high level of heterozygosity and ploidy in RTB crops complicates their improvement, reducing the rate of genetic gains.For RTB crops, new breeding strategies and planned population sizes will enable full exploitation of general and specific combining abilities that could result in high hybrid vigor. Next Generation RTB breeding systems will improve trait targeting, enhance breeding capacities, shorten variety development time frames and increase precision to deliver genetic gains in productivity. Hence, our enabling flagship product will support other RTB product-opportunity flagships -particularly those that will deliver biotic and abiotic stress protection, nutritional or user-preferred traits. With the implementation of a modern transformational bio-platform, increasing crop yields in a short lifespan is an attainable goal. RTB breeders will develop varieties that can provide more food, feed, fiber and fuel without increasing the need for land, water or fossil fuel. Cereal crop breeders are using technologies such as marker-assisted breeding, biotechnology, genomics and metabolomics coupled with high-precision and high-throughput field phenotyping technologies (phenomics) to better measure and understand DNA alterations and thus increase the precision with which changes are achieved, particularly genetic gains in yield under biotic or abiotic constraints. This supportive, RTB cross-cutting advanced breeding flagship will contribute to develop new strategies for more efficient breeding systems integrating precise and efficient tools into RTB breeding programs by complementing accelerated population improvement and variety selection schemes with genomic, phenomic and information management approaches.This enabling flagship will work with partners at advanced research institutions and national research programs to avail and adapt technological options and develop the new breeding strategies needed and realistically achievable for the RTB breeding programs. To close the gap between breeders and farmers and ensure that new varieties satisfy RTB farmers' preferences in Africa, Asia and Latin America, Next Generation RTB breeding systems will devise and implement integrated gender-responsive participatory variety selection approaches. The output will be well-planned abd efficient RTB breeding programs with detailed lists of tasks and actions to be undertaken at each stage and a description of the roles that the various actors involved will play to maximize return from investment.The strategic objective is to accelerate genetic gain in populations and advanced breeding lines whilst ensuring user orientation in RTB crops by 1, 2 and 3% in banana, potato/sweetpotato, and cassava. Our flagship will increase RTB breeding program responsiveness and effectiveness by addressing the need for precise and efficient tools complementing accelerated population improvement and variety selection schemes with genomic, phenomic and information management approaches that will provide a full picture of yield optimization in RTBs. Additionally, emphasis will be given to participatory plant breeding methods and gender responsive approaches to enhance adoption of improved RTB varieties. This toolbox will contribute to modernize RTB breeding programs, strengthening national breeding programs and partners.A strong student and mentoring program will be integral to this platform.This research flagship will be developed mainly by scientists and breeders in international and various national research centers whereas the beneficiaries of the platform are expected to be RTB CRP and non-RTB CRP CGIAR centers and breeders in National breeding programs in Africa, Asia and Latin American CRP RTB-targeted countries.This is a cross cutting product which feeds into and responds to RTB crop-specific flagships as market ready products. The platform will start contributing to other flagships and RTB products from the planning stages. c. RTB transformational bio-platform for translating \"omics\" into breeding technologies: Develop efficient and high-throughput phenomics and genomics platforms, analytical genetic and biometric tools to integrate \"omics\" data, and biostatistical models for implementation and validation of genomic selection and genome-wide association studies that will address constraints imposed by the polyploidy, heterozygosity and clonal propagation of the RTB crops.In crop improvement programs, well-organized breeding schemes are important tools for selection of elite materials and for benchmarking breeding values between breeds and in different environments. Full implementation of accelerated nulti-ste and decentralized breeding schemes, genomic selection and genome wide association as novel methodologies for breeding RTBs e. Integrated and federated RTB breeding data management systems: embedded analytical tools and workflow for genetic analysis and variety selection and geographic targeting using agro-ecological niches based on weather and soil data; SMART KPI/Balanced scorecards, and include access to relevant publications and tutorials in the form of webinars. Information assets will be annotated using ontologies and made available using open access licenses and enabling data harvesting technologies for automated third party uptake using standards like OAI (Open Archive Initiative) for data asset discovery and other web standards for 'linked data'.f. Delivery Systems & Impact: establish in vitro propagation capacity/ facilities for RTB crop planting material multiplication, diagnostics and distribution in and among key locations in Africa and Asia for timely and safe materials exchange, variety testing and development.Thanks to Next Generation RTB breeding systems, RTB scientists working in the four CGIAR partner centers, as well as those working at NARES, universities and ARIs, will have easy access to better parental breeding materials including more complete knowledge of the genetic makeup of superior germplasm and new tools for monitoring and selecting on diversity. With this in hand, RTB scientists will be able to develop sound experimental designs for genetic analysis in novel breeding systems/methods to accelerate genetic gain for priority technical and customer-oriented traits. This will allow RTB scientists and practitioners to implement better crop development models to release varieties in a more efficient and targeted way attracting government investment to NARES and Farmer groups. Next Generation RTB breeding systems' outcomes will be realized through working with CGIAR partner-centers' scientists (Bioversity, CIAT, CIP and IITA) and the ultimate beneficiaries (scientists, breeders and practitioners at NARES in Africa, Asia and LAC) to shorten breeding cycles and increase genetic gain per unit time. This will improve availability of varieties with higher trait levels and wider trait combination in shorter time by increasing genetic gains from less than 1% to nearly 3% a year. The increase in breeding efficiency of improved RTB varieties and improved cooperation among institutions including on exchange of information and capacity-building/ education will enhance opportunities for more government investment in national breeding programs. 1. Identification of superior parental (high nutrient levels or high productivity) germplasm and systematic introduction into breeding schemes. 2. Release of varieties that with a net genetic gain of nearly 3% per year.IDO 5 -Broader and deeper impact through effective partnerships and better targeted and gender equitable research (specifically-what will this platform contribute to in this IDO?)1. Make global commitment to effective gender sensitive trait targeting through participatory variety selection. 2. Focus on collaborative solutions across crops and specialists in Centers, NARES and ARIS for solving complex RTB agricultural issues 3. Draw clear goals and timelines to build and profile effective, transparent and successful partnership with NARES.To close the gap between breeders and farmers and to ensure that new varieties satisfy farmers' preferences, this Next Gen breeding platform will define interventions through the use of an integrated gender-responsive participatory variety selection method to identify farmers' RTB preferences in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Men and women farmers representing different social groups from Africa, Asia and Latin America will evaluate the traits of RTBs that are important to them during exploratory trials. By analyzing the importance of traits differentiated by gender and other key social characteristics, one assess how the improvement of certain characteristics could benefit or harm some groups more than others. The data will make it possible to adjust breeder's selection indexes to make them more responsive to both male and female farmers' preferences, for ultimate increased adoption of improved varieties, improved availability of high value varieties and enhanced seed-selection practices among RTB farmers  2010). The rapid spread of the disease has endangered the livelihoods of over 20 million farmers who rely on banana as a source of food and cash. Overall economic losses were estimated at over 2 billion US$ over the past decade in east and central Africa (ECA), arising from price increases, significant reductions in production and losses of revenues. The pathogen infects all cultivated banana varieties in ECA, including East African Highland bananas, plantains and exotic types. However, a diploid Musa balbisiana (BB) has shown resistance to the disease. Under field conditions, some cultivars with persistent male/neuter flowers and bracts escape insect-mediated infection, while insect vector preference can also influence infection level. The further systematic screening of exotic Musa cultivars and wild diploids is needed. Xanthomonas wilt is mainly transmitted via contaminated farming tools, vectored by insects and infected planting material. Yield collapses of up to 100% have been observed in e.g. ABB-dominated production systems (ABB genotypes are highly susceptible to insect vector transmission) in central Uganda. Since 2001, management options which were in place for wilts (e.g. Moko and Bugtok) caused by Ralstonia solanacearum in Asia and Latin America, were evaluated and fine-tuned with the aim of obtaining a simple, low-cost control package that can easily be applied in a collective manner across the affected regions of ECA. However, the adoption of such practices has been inconsistent as they are labor intensive and time consuming. Farmer feedback and increasing knowledge on epidemiology of Xcm has led/will lead to further fine-tuning of the control options. Development or selection of resistant varieties is a useful and cost-effective method of managing bacterial diseases. The lack of resistance to Xcm amongst edible cultivars in ECA, labor intensive management practices, and the difficulties of conventional breeding with this highly sterile crop favor a transgenic approach. Transgenic work is under way to obtain resistant banana cultivars.Banana is a core staple food and income source for small-holder farming families in ECA and Xanthomonas wilt poses a huge threat to livelihoods and food security. Since 2001 the disease has spread throughout all banana growing areas in the East African highlands including Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, western Kenya, and Eastern DR Congo, which together have 7.5 million bananagrowing poor household. BXW infections generally result in 80-100% yield loss. Unchecked, the disease can wipe out entire banana plantations. In affected areas, banana production has declined by more than 50% with an average 25% drop in household income with much greater negative impact on livelihoods of households that are highly dependent on banana. Many farmers are still unfamiliar with disease symptoms and control options. In addition, the current control options are highly labour intensive and time-consuming, limiting adoption. The results and impact-oriented framework of RTB is ideally placed to leverage previous BXW efforts of IITA and Bioversity in ECA (e.g. in the CIALCA-, Mcknight-, ASARECA-, FAO-funded BXW projects). In addition, the research expertise of CIRAD, IRD and FERA-UK as well as the regional banana networks in Africa and Asia, and the research and development organizations operating in the affected countries (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo and Ethiopia) will contribute to reaching grass-root level impact.The yield reducing effects of Xanthomonas wilt have been duly reported and further spread, especially in DR Congo and Burundi, can be expected without concerted action with national research, national and international development, and private sector partners:• Yield decline of 80-100% in ABB-dominated production systems in central Uganda during period 2003-2008, with corresponding income loss and higher prices of banana beer;• Catastrophic effects on AAA-EA highland production in the Kivu provinces of eastern DR Congo, due to lack of institutional infrastructure and knowledge dissemination networks; further spread of the disease towards the southern parts of South Kivu (Uvira and Fizi) and towards Oriental province in DR Congo has been reported;• Spread of Xanthomonas wilt across 15 of the 17 provinces, over a 2 year period, in Burundi.In Uganda there have been numerous research and development projects over the past decade, including the formation of a national BWX taskforce, clearly reflecting demand for solution from the grassroots. Across all affected areas in ECA, farmers are voicing their cry for help through farmer associations, extension agents, NGOs and researchers in the field.Build an effective research in development alliance with international and national partners for halting disease spread and reducing yield losses through quarantine, surveillance and the use of an integrated disease control package (comprising cultural practices, diagnosis and surveillance and resistant cultivars).• By 2018, strategies are in place for surveillance and quarantine based on improved risk assessment, strengthened human resources and institutions and more effective diagnostic tools to limit the spread of Xanthomonas wilt within country and between countries.• By 2020, around 20 million resource-poor households across east and central Africa reduce yield losses caused by Xanthomonas wilt by 85-100% through the use of more farmer friendly integrated disease control packages;• By 2020, at least 3-4 million resource-poor farmers grow resistant or infection-escaping cultivars Quarantine and containment strategies, surveillance and diagnostic tools and capacity development: Field diagnostic tools (e.g. LFD) are currently under development using Ugandan Xcm isolates. Knowledge on Xcm strains (patho-variants) diversity across the affected countries is urgently needed for the development/fine-tuning of diagnostic tools, and host plant resistance screening. To identify effective BXW sources of resistance and potential pathogen targets for disease control, understanding the mechanisms underlying genetic diversity and how Xcm evolves is mandatory. A regional Xcm strain collection with systematic geo-referencing needs to be established.The availability of Xcm genome sequences will provide new insights into diversity and new tools for diagnostic purposes. The development of a Multiple Locus Variable (of Number of Tandem Repeats or VNTRs) Analysis (MLVA) will be proposed for population studies of Xcm. A VNTR scheme for Xcm should be particularly useful for further epidemiological studies like inoculum tracking. There is need for developing \"neutral\" and virulence-related markers used for diagnostic and molecular epidemiology. An accurate detection method will be important for the identification of clean planting materials produced through tissue culture and by farmers, also to monitor BXW in the field and to inform disease control. One method that has been recently adopted for plant pathogen diagnostics is loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP). We propose to develop a LAMP assay for Xcm detection and develop physical resources to test, conserve, store strains or DNA of the pathogens in the region.Mapping of the geographical distribution of cultivar groups, cropping systems, cultivar vulnerability and the disease are critical for quarantine, prevention and the deployment of system-specific management practices. There is need for increased public awareness and capacity building, infrastructure and targeted surveillance where Xanthomonas wilt is expanding. About 4-5 years needed to obtain field diagnostic kit with dissemination phase of 3 -5 years once output ready.A better understanding of the host-pathogen interaction is needed for more easily adoptable control packages. The cultural control package (including uprooting diseased mats, restricting the movement of banana materials from BXW affected areas, decapitating male buds, and using \"clean\" tools) has been used across the region since 2002 and has been fine-tuned though feedback from farmers and research results. Although some further assessments need to be carried out, the single diseased stem removal technique could replace the laborious complete mat uprooting which was previously advocated. It has also been observed that some contaminated mats have survived and continue to produce bananas 'normally', indicating the possibility of antagonism (endophytes) in the pathogen-host interaction. Further research on type of annual crops/specific varieties to be planted after the removal of diseased stems in heavily diseased Musa plot needs to be conducted (this can be linked to Humidtropics work). The ultimate goal is to obtain a simple low-cost control package that can easily be adopted/applied in a collective manner by large numbers of small-scale farmers. This ever evolving control package can be considered a low hanging fruit or quick win. Dissemination of this research option would start at the onset of the project (with continuous fine-tuning of package during project duration) with a dissemination phase of 3 -5 years. Coordinated action amongst the development partners and widescale training will be paramount during the dissemination phase. Constraints to adoption will be further assessed and additional socio-economic impact assessments will be conducted. The role of gender in the adoption of control option packages will be assessed across the affected countries for more targeted interventions.Low cost supply strategies for clean planting material: Low-cost macro-propagation units are being developed/evaluated for the on farm multiplication of clean seed. In addition, stakeholders' platforms for the delivery of clean and/or resistant planting materials will be developed/expanded.Developing and deploying resistant varieties (GM) and the evaluation and dissemination of genotypes escaping insect vector transmission: Scientists have transferred two genes from sweet green pepper to bananas in order to confer resistance to BXW. These transgenic lines have been evaluated in confined field trials in Uganda. In addition, gene constructs of these green pepper gene homologs in banana are under development. The GM varieties will be ready for dissemination to farmers in 7 years with a dissemination phase of 10-15 years. This technology is in tier 2. Researchers are also testing several R genes and homologs from banana. Several exotic cultivars with persistent male bracts and flowers or cultivars which are lacking the male inflorescence part (i.e. cultivars that \"escape\" insect vector transmission) are currently being evaluated in ECA. There are also plans to screen Musa germplasm for resistance/susceptibility against Xcm.Reaching scale for the mass uptake of BXW knowledge will require active development of partnerships, investments in outreach, and active policy advocacy/support. Knowledge products, including posters, factsheets, videos, radio emissions, have been developed in multiple languages and are available for dissemination e.g. via the CIALCA Knowledge Resource Centre in Bujumbura, Burundi. Further translations and innovative (e.g. using pico-projectors in rural settings) and wide-scale dissemination of these products is envisaged.Flagship Product: Effective and efficient technologies, management practices and preventive measures for the control of banana bacterial wilt disease.1. Awareness raising and capacity strengthening in quarantine and prevention• Regulatory agencies and policy makers trained 2. Gender-specific management -several sanitation/control measures for within-field eradication and to limit further disease spread and crop rotation• Enabled farmers to immediately respond to disease outbreaks and contain the spread of the disease• Enabled farmers to expand, amend surveillance systems to their local conditions, and efficient control of disease on an expanding scale 3. Diagnostic tools for detection and guidelines for surveillance The impact we ultimately want to achieve: avoided yield loss; yield recovery/system resilience where disease has already reduced yields; yield increase due to improved cultural practices; small-scale banana-based industries revived.The time needed to reach specific outcomes and impact will vary according to flagship component. For example, the cultural control options package can be considered a low-hanging fruit/quick win, while the developing resistant cultivars will need more time (see also section 4). An integrated monitoring and evaluation framework is needed for maximum grass-root level impact.1. Regulatory Agencies and policy makers trained Adoption:• GM variety: adoption starts in yr 8, ceiling of 75% will be reached in 5-10 yrs after first adoption;• Infection-escaping varieties: adoption starts in year 5; 75% ceiling reached in 3-5 years after adoption;• Improved IPDM packages: starts in yr 1, ceiling of 75% reached 5-7 yrs after first adoption. • Disease diagnostic tools and their application.• Production of clean planting materials.• Capacity to accept and multiply planting material for GM banana resistant to BXW.Enabling policy environment supporting development and use of BXW control technologies At least 3-4 policy changes relevant to BXW control technologies Reduced risk of losses from bacterial diseases in banana cropping systems• Changes in cropping system patterns and yield gaps • 50% reduction in probability of yield loss due to bacterial diseasesMuch of the work in controlling XW will be through educational campaigns raising awareness of the disease at the grass-root level. Approximately 25% of banana growing households are female-headed in the Lake Victoria region of Africa. There will be a specific effort to integrate gender analysis into our approaches. The role of female farmers in decision making and its association with adoption of various control options will be documented. While developing resistant varieties, gender specific preferences in variety selection will be considered.  What are the partnerships that this CRP has to have along the impact pathways  Which are the absolutely essential ones to be able to get measurable impact? o We are accountable for outputs, but responsible for the whole impact pathway, for putting in place the partnerships that are needed to achieve the impact. o Partnerships budget issues: Researchers for many CRPs are not very aware at this point in time of the way the budget is shared. This will create problems when the partnerships outside the system are going to be initiated. It is an indication that the cultural changes the CRPs have to bring along are not completed / happening yet.o Now is a good time to start thinking about and start/going drawing linkages with other CRPs. o You have not been thinking of these linkages in an idle manner. You will have to interact and build up linkages more systematically. The Fund Council has funded an External review of governance and management across all the CRPs, by Price, Waterhouse and Cooper (PWC). Hopefully soon we will have useful recommendations about how the overall management can be improved so we can have directors and scientists that are empowered. Great job in integrating gender. There is much improvement compared to the initial program plans. Having an IDO with gender equitable income is very important for the framework, but it is not mentioned explicitly in the SLOs. Gender strategic research is the \"canary in the mine\". It is there to detect \"poisonous results\" it is there to ensure achievement of the SLOs. We must avoid ending up with a \"scattering\" of gender work inside RTB. Gender work represents a huge agenda for the social scientists and we have to start focusing on a coherent body of research that has strategic impact for the whole RTB, linking it to IDOs and designing it at a scale that is useful. Gender research has to be used for the benefit of the entire CRP.o People are quite worried about how we are going to do gender work. We can hire more staff, sure, but you also have to use your gender expertise efficiently; make sure the studies are linked together coherently, not that we have a lot of scattered pieces. o Capacity to do the research AND capacity to use the results is important. We all need to know how to factor in the results of gender analyses into our research. o One of the issues to address is how do you supply and create capacity to USE gender research results. I am concerned about seeing the PhD-level-research-capacitypersonnel designing workshops to make colleagues understand the gender results. o Maybe we have to do this gender capacity building at the center level? o The type of training would start with awareness building: Basic understanding of gender equity and basic appreciation, usually done on a broad sweep across all staff.  Then there is an \"intermediate level\": how to collect gender-disaggregated data.  Finally, there is a very technical 3rd level (very specialized capacity). We should do this with an external supplier, with the Consortium to develop gender training curriculum.","tokenCount":"10523"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"16d20be37aed1efc2e1135de1e53d183","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/31cb6cc2-82d8-4a59-a954-dba7b0834622/retrieve","id":"1007209275"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8451ce7f-3276-4646-bd36-e384aa9b9278","pagecount":"68","content":"the UK, the USA and the World Bnk.Introduction 'The year 1990 promises to be at least as exciting as 1989.' This quote from the 1989 Annual Report proved to be very true during 1990, with negotiations leading up to the signing of the Memoranda of Understanding on programme cooperation and administration with FAO, a consolidation of IBPGR in its new headquarters and the decisions which will lead to administrative independence, intensive consultations on developing the Strategic Plan, the activities of the External Programme and Management Review, and the continued search for a new director.During 1990, IBPGR's activities were still largely divided administratively into three programmes: Field, Research, and Communications and Library Services. Throughout 1989 and 1990, the programmes have become inceasingly integrated, an approach that will be reflected in the institute's new Strategic Plan.Within the Field Programme, the crop networks concept launched by IBPGR in 1988, continues to develop, with networks for 11 crops, barley, maize, groundnut, medics, banana, sweet potato, okra, beet, rice, buckwheat and coconut, in operation. Meetings have been held and seven international crop databases have been established or strengthened. Eventually crop networks will be established for all of the world's major crops and many of the minor ones as well.IBPGR-sponsored research projects yielded valuable results in 1990, particularly in ultradry seed storage, and in vitro collecting and storage. The IBPGR-CIAT Pilot In Vitro Active Genebank successfully completed its three-year test of model standards of operation. IBPGR and FAO continued to cooperate in producing technical guidelines and developing the technology to assist the safe movement of germplasm around the world.An important activity in 1990 was the initiation of the development of a new strategic plan for IBPGR, and extensive consultations around the world have allowed us to produce a challenging outline for the future. The Third External Programme and Management Review of IBPGR started in September 1990, to culminate in Headquarters in January 1991. The members of the Review team travelled to almost every IBPGR Regional Office and had many chances to interact with workers in the field of plant genetic resources. Both of these important processes are described in more detail within this report.IBPGR's relationship with FAO was formalized during 1990 when both parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Programme Cooperation, and a Memorandum of Understanding on Interim Financial and Administrative Arrangements. Progress was also made in establishing the new institution, on administrative separation from FAO and in developing an agreement with a country to host the Headquarters. CGIAR congratulated FAO arid IBPGR on having developed formal Memoranda of Understanding covering their collaborative working relationships and endorsed the concept of an administratively independent IBPGR, with its Headquarters in Rome. Great strides forward were made in the process of establishing IBPGR as an international institute under international law and in the negotiations with the Government of Italy on concluding a Headquarters agreement.During 1990, IBPGR operated under severe budgetary constraints that restricted many of its programme activities. Nevertheless, the Institute is benefiting from the soul-searching necessitated by the Strategic Plan development. The next few years will be a time of radical change for IBPGR, both programmatically and administratively. IBPGR is confident that its contribution to the global genetic resources effort will continue to grow throughout the foreseeable future, and with the generous support of its donors, continue to make a real difference to the conservation and use of biodiversity for the welfare of mankind.Chairman, Board of Trustees Highlights 1990 was an extremely busy and productive year in the history of IBPGR, a year of 1990 in which much of the groundwork was laid for the establishment of a new and independent institute. In September, IBPGR and FAO formalized their relationship at the programme level when both par ties put their names to a Memorandum of Understanding on Programme Cooperation. This agreement establishes a framework for collaboration between the two organizations within their respective mandates and will remain in force after IBPGR becomes independent. The two organizations also signed a Memorandum of Understanding or, Interim Financial and Administrative Arrangements regarding the operation of IBPGR until administrative independence has been attained. A crucial activitiy in 1990 was the start made in developing a Strategic Plan for IBPGR. The plan, which draws heavily on input from staff and National Programmes around the world, will be finalized in early 1992. The Third Meeting of the CGIAR Inter Centre Working Group on Plant Genetic Resources was held in Rome to discuss the IBPGR Strategic Plan, thus ensuring the input of the commodity centres.The Third External Programme and Management Review, which commenced during the last part of 1990 and was scheduled to conclude in early 1991, had extensive interactions with outposted staff and with National Programme personnel.Field Programme IBPGR further consolidated its network of regional offices in 1990 when the liaison office in Washington DC was closed and its duties were transferred to the Regional Office in Mexico. Although seriously hampered by shrinking budgets, IBPGR's remaining seven outposted offices continued to develop and maintain direct contact with national programmes of genetic resources. In addition to the Regional Offices, IBPGR ma .ntains three seed handling units, two of which began operations in 1990: in Turrialba, Costa Rica and in Singapore.Collecting was reduced in 1990 due to a shortage of funds, but IBPGR was able collecting and to execute or support collecting missions in 14 countries, yielding nearly 5000 distribution germplasm samples, this germplasm has been deposited in genebanks world ~ wide. Herbarium specimens collected previously as germplasm vouchers were located and labelled, and arrangements were made for all voucher specimens to go, in future to one of three herbaria (Singapore, Mexico or Berlin).In 1990, IBPGR continued to support documentation activities in National characterization Programmes while also placing significant emphasis on the development of the Sinstitute's in-house documentation capabilities. IBPGR published a number of descriptor lists and continued to revise its se.ies of 'Directories of Germplasm Collections'. IBPGR and IDRC entered into a formal agreement to produce a self learning manual that will assist mid-sized to small genebanks in documenting their genetic resouices. IBPGR continued in 1990 to emphasize the importance of central crop databases to the global genetic resources effort. This took the form of support for a Musa database (in conjunction with INIBAP) and for the second year of a maize database (with CIMMYT). IBPGR encourages the description of genetic resources by supporting characterization trials utilizing relevant descriptors. Three character.zation projects were initiated in 1990, a relatively low number due to the lack of core funds.Plant pathology and quarantine J Communications and Library Services ~In 1990, IBPGR continued its work on invitro conservation, spor'soring projects to develop techniques for i\"vitro collecting and for storage of in vitro germplasm by slow growth and cryopreservation. The stability of in vitro cultures was also investigated. The IBPGR!CIAT project to develop a Pilot In vitro Active Genebank came to the end of its main three-year phase although the cultures in storage continue to be monitored. An IBPGR visiting scientist continued research at CIAT to develop DNA fingerprinting techniques for cassava.Technical Guidelines for the Safe Movement of Germplasm, in the series co published by FAO and IBPGR, were developed for cassava, citrus and grape.The project to develop a diagnostic probe for banana bunchy top virus was completed in 1990. Other projects included developing an in vitro system for therapy and indexing of rosaceous fruit crops, rapid indexing methods for viruses, a nonradioactive hybridization test, and non-destructive seed health testing.The IBPGR Library cormp!eted its first full year of operations in 1990. In addition to the task of organizing the collection, the Librarian addressed the immediate information needs of staff by providing a basic current awareness service, bibliographic research service, document supply and reference services.The Latin American Public Awareness Project on Plant Genetic Resourcesa collaborative effort between CIP, CIAT,CIMMYT, IBPGR, Inter Press Service and Diversity magazinp, was launched in June 1990. The second issue of Geneflow was published, as were Spanish and Italian versions of earlier public affairs materials.During 1990, IBPGR produced a total of 26 publications, including issues of the FAO/IBPGR Plant Genetic Resources Nevisletter and several numbers of IBPGR Regional Newsletters. IBPGR continued to distribute its publications free of charge and, during the year revised its mailing list as a means of maximizing the impact of its publications. FAO and IBPGR established a oint Editorial Committee in 1990 to oversee the technical content of the joint Newsletter.Phase IV of the European programme began in 1990 under the new title, 'European Cooperative Programme on Crop Genetic Resources Networks'. This title reflects the importance of the development of European Crop Networks to the latest phase of the project. Nearly every European country participates in ECP/GR, including the USSR, following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between IBPGR and the Vavilov Institute, Leningrad, in June 1990.All of IBPGR's Regional Offices operated at full strength during 1990, although hampered by restricted budgets. The primary task of the offices is to make direct contact with National Programmes and to link them with the entire programme of IBPGR.Most of the 1990 activities of the Mexico Office took the form of working with National Programmes in the region. Staff travelled extensively within the region to provide advice, identify needs such as training and equipment requirements, participate in activities such as collecting missions, and help in planning processes, such as establishing of National Programmes in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Jamaica.The Office staff contributed to activities in the crop networks for barley, maize, Musa and sweet potato in the region, as well as in the CGIAR public awareness campaign on plant genetic resources in Latin America, which includes badly needed popular publications in Spanish.Since the Office is located in CIMMYT, very close relations have been established with that Centre on the joint IBPGR-CIMMYT project on developing a global maize germplasm database, and the maize network.During 1990, the IBPGR Office in Mexico assumed liaison responsibilities for USA and Canada, following the closing of the Washington Office, and staff visited some of the key institutions in those countries to establish and maintain contact and communication.This Office, which opened in Sept 1988 in IFPRI, closed in February 1990. The Liaison Officer separated from IBPGR in June 1990. The Office served a valuable role in IBPGR/USA communication, but by 1990, most of the work could be accomplished in more cost-effective ways. One legacy of the Office is an extensive list of contacts in the USA that will be even more useful if IBPGR becomes involved with forest genetic resources and in situ conservation. This Office has concentrated on fostering the development of plant genetic resources in the South American countries. As a result of this work, plans are under way to implement Natioiial Programmes in Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. Staff also visited Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru to promote actinities at conferences. An important contribution by rBPGR has been tile training of staff in the basic skills relevant to plant genetic resources work. Lack of trained personnel is a severe limitation in the region. Towards the end of the year the Office moved into new, larger premises provided by CIAT. This will allow the Office to operate with greater efficiency in its efforts to promote self sufficiency within the National Programmes of the region.The major activities in this region were the provision of technical and scientific advice through visits to the National Programmes of Bulgaria, Pomania, Albania, Cyprus, Egypt, Syria, Kui%ait, Jordan, Morocco, Yugoslavia and Yemen.The Office was also involved in work on the Svalbard International Seedbank (see box).Tile Coordinator continued his close involvement in developing crop networks and assisted in identifying needs for training in many of the countries in the region.Major events in the region in 1990 were the IBPGR/UNEP/INPT regional yam germplasn characterization course in Togo and technical visits by the Regional Coordinator to Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Togo. National Programmes are active in most West ak? UAfrican countries, but all still face constraints in equiplent, staff, operational funds, institutional arrangements and planning.No direct support to National Programmes could be provided in 1990 and no collecting or characterization projects vere carried out during the year. Tile programme of ecogeographic surveys in the Sahel, which started in 1984, continued and wvill benefit from more detailed studies of the distribution and patterns of variation in target species and improved survey methods that are being developed. Following a training course on yam germplasm characterization, a 'round table' recommended the implementation of a yam network to coordinate collaboration on future collecting, conservation in field genebanks and in vitro characterization, documentation and evaluation, research and the improvement of yams. A planning meeting is scheduled for early 1991. An informal meeting to discuss collaboration on Sahelian forage resources agreed that more should be done to safeguard these resources, in particular the perennial species, in the face of desertification, but that first information must be collated on tile botany, ecology and distribution of the key species.The Nordic Gene Bank for Agricultural and Horticultural Plants (NGB) started to C.Q p look inthe early 1980, :or a cost-effective storage facility inwhich to duplicate its base collection. NGB chose a disused coalmine inSvalbard, Norway, deep in the permafrost, because it had a constant temperature of -3.7°C. Itwas subsequently suggested that IBPGR investigate asimilar facility as a method of low-cost additional security storage in permafrost for IARCs, national and regional plant genetic resources programmes.In1988 and 1989, IBPGR looked at the legal aspects and technical possibilities Svalbard of storing orthodox seed samples in permafrost. A fleeting with Norwegian specialists was followed by avisit to the site and detailed technical evaluation.Seedbank ISIS) lnte. national would be afeasible additional security storage area for r pcricds of 50 years and The preliminary conclusion was that the Svalbard beyond.The Working Group of the FAO Commission on Plant Genetic Resources ICELAND showed great interest inthe proposal when it met in Rome inSeptember 1q89, NORWAY and itwas agreed that IBPGR and FAD would jointly work on this project. During 1990, an IBPGR-FAO questionnaire was distributed to 750 Atlantic Ocean scientists/irstitutes to determine interest in such a facility. Positive responses came from half the respondents. Approval of the other half was mostly conditional on the clarification of minor issues. InDecember 1990, an FAO/IBPGR Expert Consultation was held at IBPGR headquarters. Itwas agreed that Svalbard isuniquely qualified as the site of an international storage facility. Sovereignty belongs to Norway but rights of access will be guaranteed to signatories of the Svalbard Treaty. The site lies well within the Arctic Circle, at 780, yet has regular scheduled flights from Norway and USSR. SIS would guarantee the physical security of deposited samples and unrestricted access of depositors to their material.In June, a project was started with the ISC Resource Management Programme to evaluate indigenous and exotic forage germplasm, undertaken by a scientist on attachment to the ISC sponsor2d by ODA. Tie Regional Office provides space and administrative backup and ISC provides scientific guidance to the project. Much of the material under evaluation is from IBPGR collecting missions in the reg;on.The Regional Office also provided advicL to FAO for one of its projects for genetic resources conservation in Bein.During 1990, thc Regional Office worked with National Programmes, SADCC and NGOs to stimulate activities on plant genetic resources, and work in the region ha,; steadily intensified. The Office has been monitoring germplasm collecting in the various countries, with IBPGR actively involved in collecting in Kenya, Madagascar and the SADCC countries (see Table 1). Evaluation work continued in Sudan, and viability testing in Zaire and Kenya.Conservation equipment was shipped to Somalia, Uganda and Zaire, and funds were released to the Zambian National Programme to rehabilitate conservation facilities. During the year, staff made 13 visits to National Programmes and attended a number of meetings and conferences.The Office for this region is primarily concerned with development of plant genetic resources activities on a fundamental level. During 1990, the Office assisted the Royal Government of Bhutal to prepare a proposal to establish a plant genetic resources centre as an integrated part of its agricultural research system. A comprehensive plan for exploration and collecting in Sri Lanka was submitted to the plant gcnetic resources centre at Peradeniva. Planning discussions were held with the National Programme in Viet Nam. The Japanese Government (through JICA) funded a verv modern and complete genebank at Yezin, Mvanmar. The Regional Office assisted in developing a project proposal that will train local personnel to run the programme there.Within India itself, assistance to the National Programme varied from curriculum development at agricultural universities, delivering lectures, and advising on strengthening plant genetic resources units, to distributing literature, equipment and supplies. The Office also assisted NB*PGR prepare a number of collecting missions to Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka.The Office participated in okra and rice workshops to develop crop networks, and organized a meeting of south Asian national plant genetic resources coordinators in New D'_1lhi. Agreement was reached on needs for training, publications, networking, and forming a South Asian Plant Genetic Resources Committee.The Office in Beijing deals with China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Mongolia. During 1990, a visit by regional staff to Japan elicited agreement for two IBPGR workshops to be 'inanced in 1991, one on regional coordination on underutilized crops inr East Asia and the other to start a buckwheat genetic resources network. The visit also served to strengthen relations with thi:; important donor.Increased collaboration resulted from a visit to the Republic or Korea, and a follow up visit to DPR Korea produced planls for IBPGR-sponsored training ,ald led to discussions on seed conservation facilities that the country requires, and for which IBPGR may be able to assist in identifying funding.Within China itself, the Office continued to assist in implementing the eight IBPGR projects running in 1990 (described in the relevant sections of this report), as well as taking part in the activities of the National Programme by Collecting was reduced during 1990 because of shortage of funds. Table I shows the missions that IBPGR was still able to sponsor during the year.In a joint effort between the field and the research programme, during 1990, a consultant investigated tl',. handling of voucher specimens collected by IBPGR missions and documented the whereabouts of the 25 296 voucher specimens that had been collected in the past. Voucher specimens are used to confirm the identity of the species soon after collecting and should be used to update the naming of germplasm samples.IBPGR voucher specimens have been lodged in dozens of different herbaria and, in most ca.,es, they have merged into the general collections. In the future, herbarium specimens from IBPGR-sponsored missions will be lodged in one of three herbaria with which agreements were concluded in 1990: the Herbarium, Botanic Gardens, Singapore (for Asia and the Pacific); Herbario Nacional de Mexico (for the Americas) and Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum, Berlin-Dahlem (for Africa and Europe). Centralizing the specimens will mean that the naming of germplasm samples in genebanks can be verified and that the names do not become outdated. IBPGR's two Collectors based in Cyprus mounted missions to Egypt, Guinea, Madagascar and Yemen (see Table 1). They also produced a steady stream of papers for journals and much effort went into planning the joint 1BPGR/FAO/IUCN collecting manual that should meet a badly felt need around the world. A survey of browse collections in the Sahel has been made to identify priority species, and contact maintained with the relevant National Programmes and CGIAR Centres to exchange information on collecting plans and other activities. The IBPGR collecting database was used to identify foraoj;e species that may need to be collected in countries around the Mediterranean basin.The IBPGR Collector based in Harare, Zimbabwe focused on two areas of operation in 1990: collecting with a view to the likely effects of global warming; and attempting to meet the linked but sometimes conflicting needs of conservation and agriculture. This is accomplished by finding out the specific needs of endusers such as breeders, evaluators and agronomists, and incorporating these needs into collecting strategies for wild genetic resources.Three main collecting trips were made, to Lesotho, Namibia and Madagascar, see Box and Table 1.As the SADCC regional plant genetic resources programme has developed and each country outlined a strategy, the need for collecting wild relatives has become increasingly clear, particularly in view of their impact on local economies. The IBPGR Collector has become more involved in training local collectors in their own contries and in broadening the experience of collectors with cross-border trips. In 1990 the IBPGR Collector trained nine individuals through their participation in !BPGR-organized collecting missions. The Collector has been collaborating actively with National Programmes, as well as the SADCC programme. Gernplasmn is being held at the SHU in the UK until the germplasm conservation facilities of Lesotho and Namibia are ready to store it. A concerted effort is being made to ensure that collecting and characterization are viewed by the National Progrannes as components of an integrated process.Apre-emptive missin in Namibia IBPGR mounted acollecting expedition to Jamibia only five days after the world's newest nation became independent. The mission took advantage of exceptionally high rainfall in the Central Namib Desert and Damaraland which produced luxuriant vegetation in areas often completely harren for many years at atime.As development aid pours into the country, so the threat of genetic erosion increases. IBPGR mounted its mission at such an early stage after independence to try to raise awareness of the potential problems in acountry that has had no previous exposure to any genetic resources wolk, to pinpoint areas likely to be worst affected by genetic erosion, and to start appropriate preventive action.Most of Narnibia isdesert or semi-desert, Despite this, the country has high agricultural productivity, with 92% of national agricultural income coming from products derived from natural pastures. The vast areas of pasture are a treasure Route followed by IBPGR collecting trove of genetic diversity. Evolved under harsh selection pressure, the mission indigenous plant species are finely tuned not only to survival but also productivity in one of the toughest and most unpredictable environments inthe world. It isbecause these ecosystems have remained relatively undisturbed that they are of such vdlue from the genetic resources point of view. Many Namibian species and genotypes could be successfully used inthe rehabilitation of similar areas that have lost many of their own genetic resources and much of their groundcover. The Sahel isone such example.The current low stocking and utilizbtion rates of many of Namibia's marginal Wi e areas could soon change. The consequent threat to the genetic resources can be minimized by action on three fronts: increasing national awareness of the consequeaces of such changes; pinpointing areas of particular importance worthy of insitu protection; and instigating a comprehensive germplasm collecting and conservation plan.The desert regions of southern Africa are the centre of divarsity for watermelons and various other Cucurbitaceae. The mission itself collected 15-20 different taxa. Amongst the cucurbits, of particular interest were Cucumis (cucumbers), Citruilus (watermelons), Cucumella (sweet melons) and Ac ,fnthosicyos Ijelly melons).Germplasm 1990 was the first year of operation of the Seed Handling Unit at CATIE in Costa distribution Rica. The Unit's building has been remodelled and fitted with all the necessary equipment/supplies to start its operation. The Office has hosted a number ofIBPGR visitors and has secured the cooperation of CATIE and the Costa Rican Rica 0 quarantine authorities in preparation for future activities.During 1990, the Singapore Unit received and cleaned tl; .first seeds originating Singapore from the region. In total, 2889 accessions were received. 1700 were a set of the world okra collection. The Unit also holds a number of sets of the core collection for okra. Another significant shipment was the 240 accessions of eggplant and okra seeds sent from Bangladesh. The SHU serves as a valuable liaison point for IBPGR.The Unit at Kew operated at full capacity during 1990, continuing its heavy programme of processing seeds, mainly from IBPGR-sponsored missions. Over 900 accessions were received from, among others, the Central African Republic, Guinea, Lesotho, Namibia and USSR. Over 1200 accessions were cleaned and sent for final storage, and over 300 were being held temporarily in the Unit, pending completion of pas3port data, or on a longer-term basis in the Kew facilities until suitable storage space can be made available in the country of final destination. One problem that slows forwarding of material is the difficulty or time associated in obtaining phytosanitary certificates from the country of despatch.Management and use of information facilitates effective collecting, conservation and utilization of plant genetic resources. Within the broad area of information management, documentation includes all the functions related to acquisition, classification, storage, management and dissemination. In 1990, documentation activities were supported directly in National Programmes but significant emphasis was also given to developing a plan for advancing IBPGR's in-house documentation capabilities.Standardization of data increases its usefuiness by allowing ..sers in different locations to use commonly understood information. IBPGR has to work in this area by producing expanded, standardized descriptor lists. In 1990, lists fo, wild Arachis, Brassicaand Raphanu.:;, and eggplant (in French) were published. Pineapple, Beta, annual Alchdicago (French and English) and maize (Spanish, French and English) were also finalized. Consultations continued for sweet potato (trilingual, in cooperation with CIP and AVRDC) and Capsicum, and work began on yam, white clover, walnut, potato, guava, buckwheat and avocado. Collaboration continued with ICRISAT on sorghum, pearl millet and pigeonpea (French/English) and groundnut (English, French and Spanish). Progress was also made on the joint revision (with ICARDA and ICRISAT) of chickpea descriptors. Relatively few new characterization projects were initiated in 1990, principally due to the lack of core funds. Projects that were supported were chosen because of crop network activities or as a follow up to prior commitments (Table 21.IBPGR and IDRC entered into a formal agreement to produce joinily a self learning guidebook/manual that will assist mid-sized to small genebanks in the documentation of their genetic resources. Using the guidebook/manual, personnel will develop basic and some advanced documentation skills. Three National Programmes have agreed to act as models and personnel from these genebanks will receive documentation and computer training during the two year project.IBPGR published in its series 'Directories of Germplasm Collections' revised volumes on cere-als .,td vegetables. Work also began to revise the tropical fruits and forages volumes. Software development has begun that will enable easy access to information in the database of germplasm conserved in genebanks. This will be available for distribution in late 1991.The shift to disseminating genetic resources data on magnetic media has decreased support for printing of catalogues. However, IBPGR did fund the publication of a wild bean catalogue in conjunction with CIAT.Databases that incorporate all (or a large subset) of known accessions for a regional or global holding of a crop are referred to as central or international crop databases. This information provides the basis within a crop network on which to develop priorities for action. IBPGR's support for these efforts continued with the support of a Musa database (in conjunction with INIBAP) and the second year of support software and database development for maize in conjunction with CIMMYT).Plans were formulated to enhance IBPGR's in-house information processing capabilities. These include the purchase of new computer equipment and software capable of handling large databases and memory-intensive applications. IBGR also took an active role in the 'Network Futures Meeting' held by CGNET International which helped solidify a network of computer systems manage s at the IARCs. It is hoped that increased standardization throughout the CGIAR will develop over time as a result of this meeting and subsequent communications among these managers. Participants from 15 rice-growing countries attended the Rice Germplasm Workshop held in IRRI in May. The Workshop recommended a network approach to strengthen further existing linkages and to stimulate collaboration on key activities, particularly the conservation and management of genetic resources.A Rice Germplasm Committee was formed to continue work between meetings. The Committee is composed of representatives from China, India, Indonesia and Thailand, and international organizations.Participants from 13 countries attended the International Okra Genetic Re-,aurces Workshop hosted by NBPGR, New Delhi, India. The Workshop reviewed the status of okra genetic resources, adopted a new classification of the genus Ab~eoschits including nine species, and recommended amending the determination key for testing in existing collections. Participants established collecting priorities and recommended the promotion of ba'sic studies on cytogenetical/biochemical aspects of the nine species to verity the taxonomical classification and to elucidate species relationships for more effective utilizationof genepools. The meeting endorsed the existing scheme to establish an okra base collection centre in NBPGR, India with a safety duplication base collection in USA. Active collection centres will retain responsibility for regeneration, evaluation and distribution of germplasm. The meeting goals called for the implementation of an okra network; as a first step, the establishment of an International Data Base for Okra was proposed in NBPGR, the location of the okra base collection.In the framework of the EUCARPIA section for genetic resources CGN, the Netherlands organized with IBPGR a symposium entitled 'Crop Networks: Searching for New Concepts for Collaborative Genetic Resources Management'. The Syrup,-;ium, held in Wageningen, was divided in two main parts: the first dealt with objectives and strategies as well as legal, teclhnical and scientific aspects of collaborative activities, while the second focused on cooperation, at an international, regional, national and ultimately, crop-specific level. Crop networks were recognized as the best means to rationalize collections, establish a better understanding of genetic diversity and enhance the use of genetic resoLrces.The Beta Network Coordinating Committee met in Turkey to review network activities, which include exchange of passport and seed stock data, regeneration, collecting and research. The good progress of The International Data Base for Beta under the auspices of CGN, the Netherlands was recognized and the BCC decided to convene the second Beta Workshop in FAL, Braunschweig, June 1991.Informal consultation during the year concerning an international barley network led to arrangements for an International Barley Genetic Resources Workshop in 1991, in Sweden.Interactions between IBPGR, CIP and sweet potato national programmes in south and southeast Asia led to the planning of a Sweet Potato Genetic Resources Workshop for Asia and the Pacific in China in 1991 with the aim of creating a network for the region.As a follow-up to the IBPGR/ICARDA workshop held in 1989, a pamphlet entitled 'Forum for Medics Genetic Resources Activities' was produced by IBPGR in April 1990. In 1990 ICARDA endorsed the concept of developing a genetic resources network for all annual legumes. ICARDA will assume responsibility for 'he\"Forum', which will appear Linder the title 'Forum for Annual Legume Germplasm Activities and Applications'.Germplasm IBPGR has reached agreement with a number of national gellebanks, IARCs, conservation regional and olier institutions for the conservation of plant genetic resources.Tables 4 and 5 in the 1989 Annual Report listed the so-called register of genebanks, i.e. genebanks that have concluded an agreement with IBPGR. Because of space constraints it was decided not to reprint these tables in this report, but only to give an update on genebanks that have entered into an agreement with IBPGR during 1990.New last,colltions inthe IBPGR rcister * Landraces of maize native to Western Hemisphere, spring wheat, spring durum wheat and triticale -Global -CIMMYT, MexicoTraining In 1990 IBPGR continued its efforts to enhance human resources through Straining for the benefit of National Programmes in developing countries.The University of Birmingham, UK continues to organize, with IBPGR support, a 12-month postgraduate training course on exploration, collection, conservation and utilization of plant genetic resources. Ten students successfully completed the 1989/90 course, eight of whom received IBI'GR Fellowships (Fig. 1, page 24, IBPGR Annual Report 1989). Five of the ten trainees attending the 1990/91 course received IBPGR support (Fig. 1).Argentina; 1 Zaire; 1 Uganda; 1 China; 1 Papua New Guinea; 1 99 9A Short-specialized technical courses Four short courses were organized during 1990 (Fig. 2). In collaboration with CATIE, Costa Rica, IBPGR organized a training course in Spanish o tile use of in vitro collecting methodology for tropical/subtropical plant germplasm. Researchers attended from Colombia (2), Brazil, Mexico (3), Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, Costa Rica (2), Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru (2).The Soybean Rcsearch Institute, Jilin, China held a course in Chinese, with IBPGR support, on tile characterization and documentation of soyabean germplasm. 37 trainees attended from provincial academies, research institutes and agriculture universities that work with soyabean germplasl in China.With the support of UNEP, IBPGR and INPT, Lon.6, Togo organized a specialist training course for researchers and technicians of francophone Africa National Programmes on tile characterization of yam genetic resources.Participants represented the National Programmes of C6te d'lvoire (2), Gabon(2), Cameroon (2), Congo (2), Burkina Faso, Benin (2), Guinea and Togo (4).The Philippine National Programne and the PCA organized, with IBPGR support, a training course on the collecting, conservation and utilization of coconut genetic resources at the PCA research stations of Bicol and Zamboanga, Philippines. Researchers attended from Indonesia (2), Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Viet Nam, Myanmar, Tanzania, Malaysia (2) and the Philippines (4).Practical on-the-job programmes. In response to well defined needs for specific skills of researchers and technicians working at genebanks in developing countries, IBPGR arranged for two technicians from Pakistan and Yemen to receive training in genebank management at ICARDA's plant genetic resources unit. It also organized and supported a study tour of genebanks in NGB, Sweden, IIPGR, Bulgaria and Istituto del Germoplasma, Bari, Italy for three scientists from DPR Korea to acquaint them with the operations and management of genebanks.Intern Fellowship Programmes These are detailed in Fig. 4. A number of research projects were completed in 1990 and produced very significant results. Application of these results will begin in 1991. By contrast, virtually no new research projects were started because of lack of core funds, and initiatives developed during tile preceding year were postponed. Greater attention was given instead to developing project proposals suitable for 'complementary funding'. Five research staff visited Bonn to take part in a svm posium with German scientists and identify potential areas for research collaboration. As a result three proposals were submitted to the government for consideration for funding.A new officer appointed to work on wild species at headquarters and a Research Associate in Mexico enabled IBPGR to increase its activities on ecogeographic surveys and to work as a team in planning research. Staff undertook major surveys in-house on regeneration methodology, core collection practices and breeding systems of crop relatives. Staff participated, with regional staff, in training assignments, and provided scientific and technical advice to National Programmes.Contacts with other conservation bodies were pursued further. In particular,IBPGR sent an observer delegation to the 18th General Assembly of the IUCN in November-December. Scientific links with Italian institutions were further developed, with several staff visiting agricultural research institutions in Italy to explore opportunities for collaboration. Two members of the Research Programme took active roles in the writing of the new Strategic Plan and research staff contributed to several workshops, conferences and training courses throughout the year.Scientists who received IBIPGR Visiting Scientist Awards in 1989 completed their assignments in 199( but no further awards were made because funds were not available.Programme were endorsed by the Board of Trustees as a framework for the next few ,ears. One important recommendation was a direct focus on genetic diversity in collecting, maintenance and utilization of germplasm. The Review stressed the need to develop improved methods for studying genetic diversity, improving ecogeographic surveys, regeneration methods, and developing procedures for core collections.Genetic diversity and systematic studies were carried out with Cornell University, USA, using cultivated cowpeas (VOni iepiiczilata subsp. unguiculata),weedy subspecies and closely related wild subspecies. In a preliminary study, DNA polymorphism from six different species in three different subgenera related to Vigna was investigated using allozyne polymorphisn data. Variation in banding pattern was observed among species, but no variation within species was detected.The third year of a project on the system.tics of Thinopilrtt1mt set'si lato, carried out at Utah State University, USA, concentrated on analyzing electrophoretic data, RFLP analysis using cpDNA probes from wheat, and gathering information for a field guide to the group. Molecular genetic studies tested the use of non-radioactive labelling techniques. These would be advantageous in developing countries where facilities for handling radioactive materials and waste products are not available.IBPGR-supported work on surveying wild Triticeae in China continued for a fifth and final year. Collecting was done by the two teams involved in the project (from the Triticeae Research Institute, Sichuan Agricultural University and the Institute of Crop Germplasm Resources, CAAS, Beijing). Studies on accessions collected previously continued. More detailed investigations of the distribution, ecology and cytology of various species were made at Sichuan Agricultural University. Crossability of some of the material with wheat was tested at the Institute of Crop Germplasm Resources, Beijing. Five new hybrid combinations between Chinese Agropiron species and wheat had already been obtained at Rennes, France as part of an IBPGR Internship linked to the survey. In a follow up study, the resulting Fl hybrids were backcrossed to wheat and treated with colchicine to promote chromosome doubling.Progress was made in the study of genetic diversity in clonal material of Musa at the University of Georgia/USDA, Griffin, Georgia, USA. Two separate analyses of Musa clones were completed using different restriction enzymes and  and 6). The first shows considerable cytoplasmic diversity within M. tcuininata. Variation within group AAA is greater than between groups AAB and ABB. The second analysis indicates that M. bal!usialm and M. textilis have similar cytoplasms, even though they belong to different sections (Eumnusa and AustraliInusa,respectively) and have different chromosome numbers. This inconsistency can be explained by the fact that morphological characteristics are a product of nuclear genes and interactions between nuclear and cvtoplasmic genes, while the second type of classification is based only on cpDNA variation.Fie study of diversity in Musa will focus on using nuclear encoded sequences isolated froim genomic libraries of M. acuminatasubsp. ntalaccensis and M. balbisiana.The combination of organelle and nuclear DNA RFLP analyses will not only further detect and quantify genetic diversity in Musa germplasm but may also be used to reconstruct the pattern of the ancestral hybridizations or mutations which gave rise to today's cultivars.A taxonomic revision of the genus Allimn (section Allium) continued at the Roval Botanic Gardens, Kew and a survey of edible Alliwm species cultivated in. southea!;t Asia was concluded.Work on the management of genetic diversity in Phaweolus, an inter-Centre research project carried out jointly with CIAT,progressed. Eighteen enzyme systems were tested for use of which six gave clear bands in starch gel electrophoresis and revealed isoenzyne polymorphisms. Frequencies of different isoenzvmie bands were estimated and will be used to monitor changes in gene frequencies over several regenerations. The frequencv of allogamv in IPhas'olhsis under study using both morphological and biochemical markers and should provide the information needed to establish better regeneration practices for beans.Efforts to produce crop-specific regeneration guidelines continued. Genebanks were visited in Brazil, Germany, India, Italy and the Netherlands. A preliminary evaluation of information from a questionnaire indicated a high degree of variation in regeneration practices in genebanks, even for the same crop species. Most of the variation reflected differences in the resources and information available, underlining the importance of developing suitable crop-based guidelines for germplasm regeneration. A preliminary draft of such guidelines for barley germplasm was circulated for comment, and guidelines for okra regeneration are being finalized in consultation with the participants of the Okra Genetic Resources Workshop.A large number of the characters of interest to users of plant genetic resources, particularly plant breeders, show significant genotype x environment interaction. A project continued in 1990)to determine whether. in soyabean (GlIuci sp.), a simple linear model can be used to replace the environmentally sensitive evaluation descriptor, 'time from sowing to flowering', with env'ironmentally independent characterization descriptors . The project involved collaboration between the Plant Environment Laboratory, University of Reading, UK, the Cunningham Laboratory, CSIRO, Australia and AVRDC, Taiwan, China. Previous work had shown that 'progress to flowering' (the reciprocal of 'time to flovVring') was related in a linear manner to temperature and photoperiod. During the year, a wide range of cultivated and wild GlIycim' accessions were grown in extensive field trials in Australia and at AVRDC under a range of photoperiodic conditions to test the robustness of the model and to determine the minimum data required to derive characterization constants. Software that would meet genebank requirements for data analysis and calculation of constants is also being developed. Core collections-the rationale Increasing the use of garmplasm collections depends, amongst other things, on making the wide range of genetic variability present in the collections available in a manageable number of accessions. Preferably these accessions should represent groups of accessions and thus provide astratified sample of the total collection, A core collection, which represents with a minimum of repetitiveness the genetic diversity of a crop species and its wild relatives, provides a possible way of achieving this objective and, therefore, of improving the management and use of collections.IBPGR conducted a worldwide survey in 1990 that revealed widespread interest ill core collections (see below). A number were under development, particularly in CGIAR commodity centres with large germplasm collections and in developed countries. Wide differences in approach were found, for example, in the criteria used to group genetically similar accessions to select the core, in the sampling procedures used and in the practical aspects of developing and maintaining a core. The survey showed that there was a widespread demand for infcrmation, and a need to develop both an appropriate approach for use by developing country National Programmes, and suitable methodologies for identifying accessions to be included in core collections and for maintaining such collections.IBPGR's work on wild species in 1990 included preparing a list of plant genera important to mankind for food, beverages, clothing, etc. Advice was sought from IBPGR Regional Offices and from National Programmes in compiling a check list of current conservation efforts for wild species in various crop genepools. The check list will draw attention to taxonomic problems requiring further work.Wild relatives of certain cultivated cucurbits, notably in Latin America, and their relationship with crops have been poorly understood. Therefore, during 1990 an ecogeographic survey and taxonomic revision of the Cucurbitaceae of Latin America were undertaken by a newly appointed IBPGR Research Associate at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. This survey looks at four genera, Cucurbita, Sechium, Ciclaythera and Sicana, which include cultivated species such as pumpkins and squashes, achojcha and melon de olor, as well as their wild relatives.detailed literature survey was carried out in 1990 and material held in 18 major herbaria and in germplasm collections in Veracruz, Guanajuato, Mexico and CATIE, Costa Rica was analyzed. Field surveys took place in central and southern Mexico (Mexico, Veracruz, Puebla and Oaxaca) and in several regions of Costa Pica, to verify previous botanical observations and to collect living material and herbariuml specimenis. Inl Cucurbita,the wild relatives of C. peplo, C. maximia and C. a, eyrospelra had been previously identified but the wild relatives of C. noschata and C.ficifolia are still unknown. They may be found in South America during this survey.Previous reports of populations of wild Sechium duh' in Veracruz and Oaxaca, Mexico were confirmed, and some new populations found. Another wild species, Sechi m hintonii from the state of Mexico, was rediscovered after more than 50 years. In Sicana, a critical study showed that S. trinitensis from Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela is the closest wild relative of the cultivated S. odorifera. A number of wild species were identified as endemic and endangered.The study also concluded that germplasm collections of tile different wild species are poorly representative of the distribution and variation of these species inthe field.A iurvey of wild Lens, Cicer, Vicia, Pisun and Lathyrus species in Soviet central Asia provided useful information on appropriate procedures for ecogeographic surveys prior to collecting missions, and also supplied mch-needed data on an important group of crop relatives. Herbarium material in key international and in the regional herbaria was studied and information sought on the accessions of the target taxa originating intie area and already present ingenebanks.The survey proved remarkably successful. Tile herbaria in the region provided valuable information on the occurrence of different taxa at various locations and th e survey of genebanks confirmed they' held almost no accessions from the region. A collecting mission organized in collaboration with VIR, Leningrad, USSR, was able to visit some of the localities indicated from the herbarium il Pisum survey but had to be curtailed on the advice of Soviet authorities. However, significant genetic erosion in the area was confirmed and a further joint coliecting mission wvill be attempted in 1991.Information obtained from IBPGR projects on wild species is used in computerized mapping. Contacts have been established with IUCN, WCMC and WRI to pool information from which to estimate threats to wild crop relatives and risks of genetic erosion. The duplication of databases in National Programinmes will help in identifying risks, defining conservation strategies and monitoring activities. research An IBPGR research project on ultradry (less than 57( moisture content) seed storage was started in 1986 at the University of Reading, UK. The potential outcome of this project is the devilopnient of practical methods for establishing a 'loiv-technology genebank', in which seeds would be stored hermetically sealed and ultradry at ambient temperatures, or at least with considerably Ultradry seed lighter refrigeration loads than currently used. Experimental results on a total of storage 25 species have been published and show that in certain crops, longevity at 65°C is considerably increased by reducing the moisture content of stored seed belowv the 5(.1; previously recommended by IBPGR. Seeds vith high oil contents, which tend to have poor longe'ity, particularly benefit from ultradry storage.Another project yielding good results has been under way in the Beijing Botanical Gardens, China. Brassica seeds have been dried to 1-21k moisture content over limestone on silica gel. This ultradrying had no adverse effects on germination, vigour or cell structure. The ultradry seeds tolerated artificial ageing better than the control. Furthermore, the accumulation of lipid products such as volatile aldehydes was significantly lower than in the control. Ultradry seed storage is clearly very promising. Pilot studies have been initiated in several national and international genebanks to develop protocols for routine use of this technique.A research project on the genetic stability of seeds in ultradry storage was initiated at the University of Reading, UK in late 1989. Preliminary results indicate that greater chromosome aberration in root tip cells accumulates for a given loss in viability in barley (Hordeuiun vtgare)seeds under ultradry conditions than at normal storage moisture content. This is apparently due to the longer time taken for ultradry seed to reach the same viability level as the control, and thus the longer time available to accumulate such damage. It has been suggested, however, that the chromosome aberrations accumulated are not inheritable.Recalcitrant seeds are seinitive to desiccation and low temperature. Appropriate technology for long-term storage of recalcitrant seeds has not yet been developed. A project at the Universiti Pertanian Malaysia has shown that excised embryos from jackfruit seeds can be dried to 141/( with about 60'/ surviving liquid nitrogen storage. This pe centage falls short of acceptable levels, but the approach is still very promising.IBPGR support cortinued in 1990 for a project at Zhongzhan University, Guangzhou, China to investigate conservation techniques for longan, lychee and mango seeds and their excised embryos. The mango embryo is difficult to handle since it contains phenolic compounds that kill the excised axis. Now a satisfactory medium for growing the embryo has been developed. The project has also shown that reducing oxygen concentration improves the storage life of mango seeds. Excised embryos of longan were successfully stored in liquid nitrogen and subsequently showed growth on culture medium.? A cooperative project by the Boyce Thompson Institute, Cornell University, USA, tile National University of Mexico and CIMMYT, Mexico, aims to improve the understanding of genetic control of storage characteristics in maize and pea. The project had previously reported that tile content of polxamine il embryos was correlated with seed longevity between the C-2 (long storage life) and C-6 lines (short storage life) of maize. However, studies involving large numbers of maize lines did not reveal such a correlation.Preliminary hybridization studies ini peas indicated that a 'good storage' character was controlled by the genes closely associated with tile flower colour gene. White-flowered plants produce seeds with a shorter storage life than the seeds from coloured-flower plants.Al ilvestigation of go nomic change in long-term storage continued in 1990 at Ohio State University, USA. 30-year-old seeds of soyabeans showed 9-10 times more damage to the gene that controls the synthesis of glycinin than fresh seeds.A project at the Agricultural University, Wageningen, the Netherlands seeks to study changes in gene expression through storage-induced deterioration in seeds, and to determine how much damage is repairable during imbibition and germination. After one year of investigation, the project produced very interesting results using califlower seeds (Brassicaol'racea). The continued synthesis of three particular proteins during early germination is required for a rapid germination, and these three proteins are found ini tile dry seeds.Drying coffee for home use in West Sumatra. (Photograph by Ilona de Borgheyi) .. tSeed dormancy Dormancy-breaking methods developed by JAAS in Nanjing, China were tested on 263 accessions of five different Brassica species with seed dormancy levels ranging from 20 to 73%. The methods successfully broke all dormancy and the lowest germination level after the treatment was 9817.Dormant seeds scattered from Brassica plants before harvest could cause contamination during regeneration of the same crop in later years. JAAS discovered that flooding the field for 10 days killed some, but not all of the dormant seeds of 263 accessions. Resistance to flooding was positively correlated to the degree of seed dormancy.In 1990, IBPGR continued its involvement in vdrious aspecis of in vitro research conservation research, conducted around the theme of developing integrated Stechnology 'packages' both within iin vitro conservation itself and among different approaches to conservation. In vitro conservation should be regarded as part of an overall conservation strategy appropriate for the genepool in question, which balances its own advantages and disadvantages against those of other conservation methods. Three crops (cassava, coconut and Musa) are currently serving as models for the development and use of in vitro conservation systems, although activities in 1990 were not confined to these models. Research was continued at the University of Florida, USA on the culture and storage of somatic embryos of mango. Methods were developed to induce somatic embryos from nucellar explants and their continued proliferation in both liquid and solid culture systems. Maturation aitd germination frequencies were adequate at 20 to 50'7, but subsequent establishment of transplanted plantlets was poor (about 10'; ). This was thought to be due to a lack of e.ldonwcorrhizae. The effects of the treatment of embrvos with abscisic acid and the efficacy of different controlled dehydration methods were assessed with a view to storing the embryos in a desiccated state.Ill vitro storage methodologies were explored in five research projects covering the three model crops, plus Allililn and Prunus. Significant advances were made in improving cryopreservation techniques for cassava in an IBPGR project conducted at CIAT, in which a ,imple method yielding almost 10017, recovery of In tile case of cultured shoot-tips, research has continued to refine all stages of the cryopreservation procedure. Pregrowth in mixtures of sorbitol and dinmethylsulphoxide followed by cryoprotection and slow cooling before transfer to liquid nitrogen yielded viable cultures. In some cases, shoot regeneration was achieved as well as callusing. IBPGR and ORSTOM/IRI-lO (Montpellier/C6.te d'lvoire) have collaborated for several years to develop an in vitro collecting method for coconut zygotic embryos. This work has logically progressed into improving culture methods for immature zygotic embryos suitable for cryopreservation and to cryopreservation methods themselves. Experiments confirmed that only embryos weighing less than 10 ng could survive freezing. Survival levels were low and no clearly superior method has yet emerged. However, promising results were achieved using pregrowth on solid medium containing glucose and several cryoprotectants, or pregrowth on glucose medium alone and dehydration in air, both pretreatments being followed by rapid freezing.Efforts to cry( preserve germplasm of Mitsi in a project at CATIE, Costa Rica concentrated on starting and maintaining cultures of a wide range of genotypes, determining non-toxic pregrowth and cryoprotectant conditions for cultured shoot apices, and cryopreserving zygotic embryos of M. acuminata and M. balbisiana. Preliminary findings demonstrated that zygotic embryos can survive desiccation and rapid cooling, recovery occurring through the formation of i.,.somatic proembryos. Interaction with the Laboratory of Crop Physiology and Tropical Crop Husbandry, Catholic University of Leuven,Belgium on the development of cryopreservation methods for somatic embryogenic suspension cultures of Musa produced results that were published in 1990.Research on Allimn (-lebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel), took a broad approach and provided useful data on the various component technologies of in vitro conservation. Procedures for efficient in vitro propagation of A. trifoliatinnand A. anpelopwasunl were developed, and cultures of A. trifoliatlunhave been successfully stored in slow growth at 4-6 0 C for at least two years. Morphological and isozyme data confirmed genetic stability. Cultured explants can survive and produce callus after classical slow cooling based cryopreservation procedures but not after vitrification involving loading with high concentrations of cryoprotectants and rapid cooling.A further in vitro storage project on Prunus,based at the the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, was completed in 1990. Techniques ir the cryopreservation and post-thaw grafting of cold-acclimated buds were established early onl in the project. More recent research extended the possibility of cryopreservation to very cold-tender species, involving the use of controlled temperature reduction and desiccation treatments. Injury to vascular tissues prevented successful grafting in some cases but recovery could then be attempted in vitro. Research on the cryopreservation of shoots propagated ill vitro focussed onl P. pennsylvanica and P. fruticosa. lardening by culture in the presence of high levels of sucrose and frosting, e.g. at -4'C, enhanced low temperature tolerance, particularly in P. pennsilvanica. In the latter species, shoots could survive cryopreservation with about 75(; recovery if held at -30'C for 24 hours before transfer to liquid nitrogen. Higher holding temperatures were not suitable. Unusually, exogenous cryoprotectants were not used in this work.Two projects using both clas3ical methods and molecular technologies to assess ill vitro stability were completed in 1990. Studies using a maize model system, carried out at the University of London, Ontario, Canada confirmed the need to avoid relatively 'high risk' culture systems such as callus, which are su3ceptible to somaclonal variation. Proliferating axillary bud cultures could be maintained for up to 14 generations without any clear evidence (based on phenotypic markers, pollen and ovule sterility and fecundity) being found for culture-related instability. However, embryogenic callus did produce plants exhibiting instability. Mature maize grains were stored in liquid nitrogen for periods of Ip to 15 months. No evidence was obtained of phenotypic variability attributable to cryopreservation. Selected plants derived from proliferated axillary buds and from cryopreserved zygotic embryos were used to isolate DNA for restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis involving five restriction enzymes. In no case were -ny variations observed in band sequences.Research at the University of Nottingham examined the stability of stored potato cultures. Ribosomal DNA (6DNA) probes were applied to shoot cultures of cultivars Golden Wonder and Desiree recovered from cryopreservation. The latter cultivar was found to be relatively difficult to cryopreserve and exhibited RFLP when recovered on callus induction medium, unlike the more freeze tolerant Golden Wonder, which produces qualitatively unchanged rDNA profiles. One of 16 Desiree plants recovered fron, cultures maintained in slow growth on mamnitol-supplemented medium showed the same RFLP. The intensity of the DNA hybridization signals was variable in some recovered plants of both cultivars. A rapid method for the non-radioactive detection of rDNA fragments by chemiluminescence has been developed during the project.rhis could be used in both characterization and assessment of stability without the precautions, equipment and limitations involved in radioactive labelling deveoincontres.DAMAG EIN procedures that hamper their application, particularly in developing Countries.During 1990, IBPGR published a report entitled 'Free Radical Damage inStored Plant Germplasm' prepared by a consultant, Erica E. Benson, which looks .........at the role of free radicals in storage-related injury during storage of orthodox and recalcitrant seeds, culture initiation, slow growth storage and cryopreservation.The three year IBPGR-CIAT project to develop a pilot in vitro active genebank ended during 1990, although some activities will continue to complete the monitoring of cultures in storage. It is hoped to utilize the findings of this successful project in training exercises during 1991/1992 and to prepare generally applicable guidelines for the establishment and management of in vitro active genebanks. An IBPGR Visiting Scientist is continuing research at CIAT in association with this project to develop DNA fingerprinting methods for cassava\" for application in both characterization and stability assessment. A genomic library was constructed using DNA extracted from three cassava cultivars. DNA from green leaves of the three cultivars was digested with 10 restriction enzymes. Methvlation-insensitive enzymes were most effective in cutting the cassava DNA, suggesting that it is highly methylated. Electrophoresis and Southern blotting were carried out followed by probing with labelled whole plasmids. The probes exhibited a limited but useful ability to discriminate between the three cassava clones. It was concluded that the three cultivars of cassava have very similar DNA except for an insertion detected in one of them. The project to develop a complementary (c)DNA probe for BBTV based at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, ended in 1990. Isometric virus-like particles, 18-20 nm in diameter, were consistently pur.: J from BBTV-infected bananas but not from healthy bananas. These particles contained cir,-ular single-stranded (ss)DNA about 1.13 kbases in size. Part of this was rdned and used as a probe to demonstrate that the circular ssDNA is consistently associated with BBTV and is transmitted with the disease by aphids.The probe has detected BBTV in all infected samples tested so far, including samples from Australia, Burundi, Egypt, Gabon, the Philippines and Taiwan.The probe is able to detect BBTV in very small amounts (4 micrograms) of infected tissue.The project to develop an in vitro system for therapy and indexing of rosaceous fruit crops, carried out at tile Volcani Centre, Bet Dagan, Israel, involves two model systems: peach infected with Prmus necrotic ringspot virus and strawberry infected with strawberry mild yellow-edge virus (SMYEV).Experiments to confirm preliminary results showed that high temperatures were more effective in decreasing virus levels if imposed during the light hours than in darkness. Survival, however, w.is higher when temperature was raised in darkness. These results were obtained with two cultivars; their generality needs to be confirmed. Raising the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 1000 1500 ppm during thermotherapy resulted in a considerable increase in both plantlet survival and a decrease in virus lvel. Strawberry Grafting leaflets from in vitro plantlets onto greenhouse-grown indicators produced typical symptoms in about 707 of the indicator plants within 20-25 days. Such grafting can be used as a first screening to eliminate the majority of infected plantlets. A protocol has been developed that will detect tile filamentous particles associated with SMYEV by immunosorbent electron microscopy in in vitro-grown plantlets. This method allovs reliable detection of rod-shaped particles in leaf homogenates of infected plantlets. In five virus isolates from different countries, the concentration of particles was higher in leaf tissue than in root tissue. 100 mg fresh weight leaf samples, or the equivalent in dry powder samples, were sufficient for reliable testing. This protocol was reliable in all tested samples and allows rapid testing of a relatively large number of samples.Agriculture Canada Research Station, Vancouver, Canada is developing a rapid indexing method for a sweet potato virus disease (SPVD) from Nigeria. Two viruses are thought to contribute to this complex disease: sweet potato feathery mottle virus has already been thloroughly investigated but little is known of the other agent.In 199(1, SPVD was established in tile greenhouse of the Research Station and propagated in lpomo'a batatas as well as in other Ipoinoea species. Initial experiments to identify and isolate tile virus-like agent focused on isolating double-stranded (ds)RNA and detecting aberrant ss-and dsDNAs to test for the presence of ssDNA viruses. So far, no disease-specific dsRNA has been found in SPVD-infected Ipoioea batatas. Experiments to detect DNA virus indicate that a geminivirus infection can be ruled out. Further experiments using larger amounts of plant material and including different lpomoea species are being done to elucidate the identity of the virus-like agent and to establish an adequate detection system.The objective of another project based at Agriculture Canada Research Station, Vancouver is to investigate different approaches to developing broad spectrum tests for viruses. The first approach, which concentrates on the nepovirus group, is to produce monoclonal antibodies (MCAs) to detect a wide range of viruses belonging to that group.A fusion carried out with a 111ouse immunized with Arabis mosaic virus (AMV) produced ten clones that reacted with AMV and one or more other nepoviruses. After recloing, a number of heterospecific hybridomas were produced. Some hybridomas reacted to more than one nepovirus. Four have been extensively tested, confirming that they reacted with viruses belonging to different subgroups of the nepovirus group that were believed to be serologically unrelated. It is unlikely that an MCA detecting all nepoviruses can be obtained. Hlowever, the screening strategy has real potential to produce broad spectrum tests. As a byproduct, specific MCAs have been produced for AMV, tomato blackring virus, raspberry ringspot virus, cherry leafroll virus and tobacco ringspot virus.The second approach consists of producing MCAs specific to a conserved region of the coat protein of tombus viruses and carmoviruses. Two oligopeptides of 12 amino acid residues, which correspond to a well-conserved sequence in the coat protein gene, have been synthesized and used for immunizing mice. So far, no immune response has been observed. A segment of the coat protein gene of cucumber necrosis virus was ligated into an expression vector and a fusion protein was produced. The protein will be used for immunization.The John lnnes Institute, Norwich, UK used African cassava mosaic virus (ACMV) as a model in a project to develop a sandwich hybridization test. Subcloning of the coat protein gene led to the development of two adjacent, non overlapping probes, complementary to ACMV DNA. A commercially available reporter group was used and a solid phase sandwich hybridization test developed. This technique is now ready to be modified to a liquid phase test that will make it more quantitative and allow it to be performed in a similar way to an ELISA test. This project, based at the Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA, was completed in 1990. It investigated the feasibility of non-destructive assays for seed-borne pathogens of a number of species. Non-destructive assays were developed to detect bacterial pathogens in common bean, soyabean mosaic virus in soyabean and fungal pathogens in maize. This is a feasible approach for large seeded species, but each host/pathogen combination should be tested before wider application. Preliminary experiments showed that there is potential for nion-destructive testing with some small-seeded species, but the viability of the embryo was affected. The small amount of tissue obtained from lettuce seed could not be assayed for lettuce mosaic virus using ELISA, because the reaction produced was not strong enough to give a discernable result. In October 1990, IBPGR convened an Inter-Centre Meeting on Germplasm Health and Movement. It was attended by plant-pathologists and/or virologists from the commodity centres of CGIAR in charge of the phytosanitary aspects of germplasm movement, and the Plant Protection Service of FAO. The meeting underlined the importance of the subject and, considering the fact that the nature of the problems relating to germplasm health is very similar in all CGIAR Centres holding germplasm collections, stressed the fact that close collaboration in this area would bring great benefits. The report of the meeting will be presented at the Centre Directors Meeting in June 1991.____ lIIi 351990 was the first complete year of operations for the IBPGR Library. The objective of the Library is to develop a strong information service to support the Institute's programme activities and to meet the needs of the plant genetic resources community. Its immediate aims are to provide information, primary documents and bibliographic data on plant genetic resources and to store, preserve and disseminate documents resulting from IBPGR's own work.In 1990, the Library addressed the immediate information needs of IBPGR staff through a current awareness service, a bibliographic research service, document supply, and reference servicesThe colossal task of organizing the mass of material which IBPGR had accumulated over the past 16 years continued in 1990. Presently, the IBPGR collection consists of IBPGR project reports, reports and publications of CGIAR centres and other organizations, a number of books, and a small serials collection. Acquistions made in 1990 aimed at building up the fragmentary book collection. Subscriptions to a number of serials are intended to satisfy the immediate needs of Institute staff.With the purchase of a CD-ROM reader and the major agricultural databases on compact disc, the Library was able to offer a literature research service. CD-ROM databases available in the Library include AGRIS, AGRICOLA, CABI Abstracts, SESAME and the prototype CGIAR Food, Science and Agriculture. Current Contents is circulated to enable staff to access current information. Both of these services generated a large number of iequests for documents, most of which were satisfied in-house or fron FAO resources. Links were established with the British Library Document Supply Centre in the UK to obtain documents unavailable in Rome.The Library is in the process of compiling a database of its holdings using REPDOC, an application of CDS/ISIS written by the Library and Documentation Division of FAO. Another CDS/ISIS database available in the Library is the fruit of an ICRISAT project -'The Union Catalog of Serials in International Agricultural Research Centers'.Journalists from some of Latin America's most widely respected newspapers signed their names in 1990 to a resolution declaring their support for the work of the CGIAR system on plant genetic resources and stating their intention to promote and publicize this work in the Latin American press.The signing of the 'Declaration of San Jos6' capped off a week-long seminar involving senior genetic resources scientists and the Latin American press which took place in June in San Jos6, Costa Rica. The seminar, 'Genetic Resources and Food in Latin America', was the opening event in a year-long public awareness campaign organized by CIP, CIAT, CIMMYT, IBPGR, Diversity Magazine and Interpress Service (IPS) under the auspices of the Public Awareness Association on International Agricultural Research. The campaign, which is sponsored by the Government of Italy, seeks to educate journalists from influential Latin American media as a means of reaching the campaign's target audience:Public Affairs policymakers and those who influence them. A principal aim of the campaign is to stimulate a permanent flow of information on all aspects of genetic resources scientific, economic and politicalthrough the creation of a corps of journalists with a thorough knowledge of genetic resources issues. A secondary objective is to establish direct links between IARCs working on plant genetic resources in Latin America and journalists in the region.A total of 23 journalists, representing 12 countries, attended the seminar, which was held in June at the headquarters of IICA in San Jos6. Afterwards the participating journalists split into three groups, each of which spent a week visiting the genetic resources programmes at one of the three CGIAR Centres in the region -CIP, CIAT and CIMMYTand the IBPGR Regional Offices for North and Central America and the Caribbean, and South America. Follow-up activities will continue throughout 1991, including the institution of a grant fund to allow journalists to pursue additional stories and the production of information materials tailored for policymakers and non-governmental organizations.Other public affairs activities in 1990 included the publication of the second issue of 'Geneflow', IBPGR's magazine about the Earth's plant genetic resources, with a special section highlibhting genetic resources in eastern Europe and the USSR. A Spanish language version of the first issue of 'Geneflow' appeared in  1990  revising the mailing list, started in 1989, was virtually completed so that distribution of IBPGR publications is accurately targeted to interested audiences. As well as the initial distribution of publications to addresses derived from the mailing list, IBPGR despatches titles in response to the continuous stream of requests it receives from around the world.The FAO/IBPGR Plant Genetic Resources Newsletter experienced considerable production difficulties during the year. Nevertheless, four issues were produced and manuscript submission continued at viable levels. One trend that became apparent was the increasingly technical nature of the material submitted, necessitating expert refereeing and peer review. This led to the establishment by IBPGR and FAO of a joint Editorial Committee to oversee the technical content of the Newsletter. The Committee will begin operations in In June 1989, CGIAR established a Committee (commonly called the 'Brady Committee', after its Chairman, Dr Brady), to assist IBPGR in attaining independent status. Dr Brady and a few other members of the Brady Committee met with the Board's Location Committee on 18 January 1990 in Rome, to examine possible Headquarters locations for an independent IBPGR. The recommendations of the Location Committee, endorsed by the Board in March 1990, listed five countries as suitable locations for the IBPGR Headquarters. In priority order these are: 1. Italy; 2. Thailand; 3. Costa Rica, Denmark and Malaysia (in no particular order of priority).The 'Brady' Committee met again on 19 May, and subsequently presented an interim report to the mid-term meeting of the CGIAR, 21-25 May, The Hague, The Netherlands. The meetings in May concentrated on developing the final text of the Programme MOU with FAO and on starting the process of legally establishing the new independent Institute. The MOU on Programme Cooperation between IBPGR and FAO, which will continue to be valid when IBPGR becomes an independent Institute, was agreed upon by the CGIAR, and was approved by the Board by mail vote in June. The final signing ceremony took place on 21 September. During the mid-tern meeting, Dr Brady requested donors to assist IBPGR in obtaining legal international status.The 'Brady' Committee met for the last time on 27 October, and subsequently presented its final report to Internationai Centres Week, 29 October-2 November 1990 Washington DC, USA, where the following resolution was adopted by all members of the CGIAR:\"We support the dual approach that would provide for (a) a formal, collaborative working relationship between FAO and IBPGR on plant genetic resources and (b) a separate and independently managed status for IBPGR.\"The Group congratulates FAO and IBPGR on having developed a formal Memorandum of Understanding covering the collaborative working relationships between these two institutions. With the goodwill of these two parties, this memorandum should provide the basis for collaboration that the Group requires.\"The Group appreciates the acceptance by both FAO and IBPGR of the concept of an independently managed IBPGR working closely with FAO in planning and implementing its activities.\"In accordance with this concept, the Group supports the establishment ofU 'Brady Committee' in 1990 IBPGR as all international institution, independently managed and located preferably near FAO headquarters in ital and urges individual members to provide 11BPGR appropriate assistance in establishing its international status.\"Establishment To be able to operate as a fully independent institution, it will be necessary to Agreement establish the new Institute as a lcgl entity under international law. This requires the development of an 'Establi:hment Agreement' to be signed and ratified by a minimun of three countries.During the second half of 1990, a considerable effort was made, in consultation with numerous legal advisers, to develop the basic element of such an 'Establishment Agreement', which will be ready for negotiation and signature in 1991.The Board, management and staff, after careful examination and consultation, are suggesting that the new institution be called the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), immediately after full administrative independence from FAO has been obtained.Headquarters On 9 July, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs directed a letter to the Agreement with Chairman of the CGIAR indicating that: '... Italy is ready to host IBPGR and Italy grant it international status according to the existing Italian regulations'.During the second half of 1990, intensive negotiations have taken place to develop an appropriate lHeadquarters Agreement for IPGRI, and these negotiations are likely to be concluded in 1991.Strategic Plan An important activity in 1990 was the initiation of the development of a new SStrategic Plan for IBPGR.Extensive feedback from National Programmes, CGIAR commodity centres aid others was considered a crucial means to gain information on the perception of IBPGR's performance by these bodies and the role that they would like to see the Institute play in the future. In the three-month period from March to June 1990, six meetings were held in the regions specifically for the purpose of consulting with National Programme representatives. These meetings were organized by the IBPGR regional coordinators in New Delhi (for the South Asia region), Los Bafios, Philippines (for East and Southeast Asia), Bouak6, C6te d'Ivoire (for West, East and Southern Africa), Turrialba, Costa Rica (for North and Central America and the Caribbean), La Paz, Bolivia (for South America), and Rome (for North Africa, Southwest Asia and Europe). IBPGR staff and management were represented at each meeting and IBPGR Trustees from the respective regions were also involved. The consultation process was an enormous success, with more than 80 scientists from 40 countries taking part. The meetings resulted in widespread approval of the general strategic principles proposed by the Institute, and generated both new and very positive suggestions, and uninhibited discussions conducted in a cooperative and cordial atmosphere.By the end of 1990 a preliminary draft had been prepared for consideration by the Board of Trustees and the External Programme and Management Review Panel. It is anticipated that a final plan will be ready for submission to TAC and the CGIAR in 1991 /early 1992. The External Review Panel, which was appointed in mid-1990, was directed to conduct an independent appraisal of IBPGR's activities. Its Terms of Reference included assessing the recent evolution of IBPGR, its mandate, strategy and activities, and the manner in which activities are organized and managed. The Panel was also expected to review the mechanisms and processes being used by IBPGR to ensure quality and relevance of its activities, services and outputs. Furthermore, the Panel was asked to assess management effectiveness including leadership, Values and culture. The Panel was asked to review the extent to which IBPGR collaborates with other institutions within and outside the CGIAR and to assess its achievements and impact. Finally, the Panel was expected to evaluate new activities, and to assess the adequacy of the facilities and resources available to IBPGR in relation to its current and future scale of activities.In September 1990, the whole Panel attended the Board meeting in Rome in order to observe the conduct of the Board and to discuss plans for an External Review, as well as to interact with the Board on key strategic issues. Panel members received a briefing from the CGIAR and TAC Secretariats and, in FAO, from Mr Mahler and Dr De Haen. The itinerary allowed the Panel to be briefed by FAO staff in the Plant Protection and Production Division, the Secretariat of the FAO Commission on Plant Genetic Resources, and the Forestry Division. The Panel received a presentation from IBPGR management on the draft Strategic Plan, and had a meeting with IBPGR professional staff to discuss issues of concern to the Panel.Subsequent to the briefing in Rome, the whole Panel visited Kenya, where the Regional Office for East and Southern Africa (IBPGIZ's oldest Regional Office) is located. The Panel then split into three subpanels: the Africa subpanel, whih visited Ethiopia and Zambia; the Latin America subpanel which visited Mtexlc Costa Rica and Brazil; and the Asia subpanel, which visited India and China. A Panel member also visited Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines,and two Panel members visited the United Kingdom.The main phase of the review was scheduled to take place from 7-25 January 1991 at IBPGR Headquarters.Throughout this report, reference is made to the many contacts of IBPCR, especially with national genetic resources programmes, the major partners of IBPGP.. In this section, we highlight the specific programme contacts with FAO, the CGIAR system and some international conservation agencies/initiatives. On 21 September 1990 FAO and IBPGR formalized their cooperation on the programme level when they signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Programme Cooperation. Under the terms of this agreement, IBPGR will continue to provide scientific and technical advice to FAO and to the FAO Commission. FAO will provide support to IBPGR by facilitating access to its Member Nations. It should also be noted that this MOU will remain valid when 1PGR attains administrative independence. Collaborative activities will be implemented whenever possible and a number of these were taken tip in 1990; for example, the joint effort to investigate the establishment of a permafrost facilitythe Svalbard International Seedbank (SIS)as an additional secure storage space for the world's germplasm. IBPGR also made a substantial input in the preparation of papers for the 4th Session of the FAO Commission on Plant Genetic Resources, which will be held from 15-19 April 1991. In March 1990, TAC paid its first formal visit ever to IBPGR. A detailed review of the Institute's activities was arranged and featured presentations by management on strategic and programme issues. The presentations were attended by several observers from FAO, the CGIAR Secretariat and donor countries.Within the CGIAR, IBPGR's strategy in recent years has been to work with other Centres where their work on maiidate crops can usefully be extended to general principles for wider application. IBPGR recognizes the Inter-Centre Working Group on Plant Genetic Resources as a valuable mechanism for promoting collaboration in such areas as collecting, training, strategic research, duplicate storage, germplasm exchange, seed health, publications, public awareness, germplasm evaluation and collaboration with National Programmes. The Third Meeting of the Working Group took place in August in Rome for the specific purpose of discussing the IBPGR Strategic Plan, a process undertaken to ensure the input of the commodity centres. Other issues were considered by the Working Group as well, for example, safety duplication of IARC collections, and this has led to the institution of a task force on this issue at IBPGR Headquarters.Interactions took place with the CGIAR in the mid-term meeting and at International Centres Week 1990 (ICW90) when the reports of the 'Brady' Committee were considered (see p.39). Also at ICW90 IBPGR's programme was introduced by the IBPGR Chairman and described in full by the Acting Director in a slide presentation. The presentation was also distributed at Centres Week in printed form. It wais very well received and contributed to the building of confidence in the steps 1BPGR is taking towards consolidating its future role and identity. Donors expressed their strong support for including forest genetic resources activities within the IBPGR programme and voiced their expectation that IBPGR would take a lead role in the development of CGIAR policy on the questions of Breeders' Rights, Farmers' Rights and Intellectual Property Rights.This has already resulted in the formation of a task force on these issues within IBPGR.Based on an appreciation of the important role to be played by non governmental organizations in promoting conservation objectives and in generating action at both the grassroots and policy levels, IBPGR sought throughout the last year to significantly strengthen its links with the major conservation agencies. As part of this effort IBPGR attended in November an independent review of the plant conservation elements of the programmes of IUCN and WWF, which was held in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. In December, IBPGR participated in the 18th General Asse.nbly of IUCN to assess the advantages and possible means of increasing collaboration between our two organizations.IBPGR was also invited to become a member of the Working Party on Biological Diversity of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development and participated in the first meeting of the Working Party in December. This extremely important United Nations Conference, to be held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, will undoubtedly set the scene for activities worldwide on biological diversity (including plant genetic resources) over the next decades.The full Board of Trustees met twice in 1990, both times in Rome (8-9 March and 19-22 September). The Executive Committee met three times, in Rome on 7 Nlhrch and 20 September a!,d in Washington, DC ol 5 and 6 November. Tile 1 th l'iogramme Committee was held in Rome on 5 and 6 March, and the 12th meeting of tile Programme Committee took place from 8-10 August in Beijing, China. The Board's Location Committee met once on 18 January and the Director Search Committee met three times in 1990, on 10 March in Rome, 19-20 June in Washington, DC and from 17-19 September in Rome. Dr J.M. Menyonga (Burkina Faso) joined the Board in 1990, replacing Dr R.V. Valmayor (Philippines) who completed his term of office. The Board also elected Dr N. Murata (Japan) to replace Dr F. Kikuchi (Japan) in early 1991.Towards the end of 1989, most of the staff positions had been filled and very few 44-45.z changes occurred in 1990. For details, reference is made to the table on pages With the move to 'semi-independent' premises in August 1989, IBPGR's administration has become more and more self-supporting. Most of tile administrative support previously provided by the Plant Production and Protection Division of FAO is now being handled by IBPGR's own administration. The Institute still relies on general back-up services provided by FAO however, such as personnel, travel, visa, etc., and IBPGR still operates within the rules and regulations of an FAO Field Project.IBPGR's reduced core programme was fully funded in 1990, with a diminishing reliance on the World Bank contribution, the donor of last resort ($300 000 or 4%7 of the core budget). Several donors (some new to IBPGR) contributed to the complementary programme (special projects), an area that is rapidly expanding. Details can be found in the financial report on the next pages. Yugoslavia 10000Ev6nements Dans l'histoire de I'IBPGR, 1990 a 6t une annie extr(ment mouvement~e et productive, durant laquelle les bases pour la creation d'un institut nouveau et ind~pendant ont &6 en marquants grande artie jet6es. En septembre, I'IBPGR et la FAO ont officialis6 leurs rapportsau niveau des programmes en signant un Protocole d'accord de coop6ration pour ces programmes. Cet accord 6tablit le cadre de collaboration entre les deux organisations, dans les limites de leurs mandats respectifs et il demeurera en vigueur, une fois que I'IBPGR sera devenu ind~pendant. Les deux organisations ont 6galement sign6 un Protocole d'accord sur les dispositions financiires et administratives provisoires relatives au fonctionnement de l'IBPGR jusqu' Ace qu'il ait obtenu son ind6pendance administrative. Une activit6 cruciale entreprise en 1990 a &6tl' laboration d'un Plan strat~gique pour I'IBPGR. Le plan, qui fait largement appel aux apports du personnel des bureaux regionaux et des programmes nationaux dans le monde entier, sera d6finitivement arrt en 1991. Le Groupe de travail intercentre du CGIAR sur les ressources phytogenetiques, A sa troisibme reunion tenue 1 Rome, a examin6 le Plan strat6gique de I'IBPGR, assurant ainsi l'apport des centres de produits.Dans le cadre du troisi~me examen externe du Programme et de ]a gestion, qui a commenc6 au deuxi~me semestre de 1990 et devait se terminer au debut de 1992, de nombreux contacts ont 6t6 pris avec les fonctionnaires d~tach~s et le personnel charg6 des programmes nationaux.Programme de L'IBPGR a encore renforc6 son r6seau de bureaux r6gionaux en 1990, lorsque le Bureau de terrain liaison AWashington a 6t6 ferm6 et ses fonctions transf6r6es au Bureau re'ional au SMexique. Bien que gravement entrav6s par la reduction de leurs budgets, les sept bureaux ext~rieurs restants de I'IBPGR ont continu6 d'6tablir et de maintenir des contacts directs avec les programmes nationaux de ressources g6n6tiques. Outre les bureaux r~gionaux, I'IBPGR dispose de trois unites de manutention des semences, dont deux ont commenc6 ?I fonctionner en 1990: ATurrialba (Costa Rica) et ASingapour.Collecte et Faute de fonds, les activit6s de collecte ont diminu6 en 1990, mais I'IBPGR a &6 en mesure distribution de d'ex6cuter ou de soutenir des missions de collecte dans 14 pays, pour un total de prbs de materiel g~netique 5 000 6chantillons; ce mat6riel g, netique a W d~pos6 dans des banques de genes dans le m monde entier. Des sp6cimens d'herbier, r6colt~s pr~c~demment comme sp6cimens t~moins de mat6riel genetique, ont W rep6r~s et 6tiquet~s et des dispositions ont 6t prises pour que tousles specimens t6moins soient destines Al'avenir i un des trois herbiers (Singapour, Mexique ou Berlin).Documentation et En 1990, I'IBPGR a continu6 d'appuyer les activit~s de documentation dans les caracterisation programmes nationaux, tout en faisant une large place au d~veloppement des capacit~s de documentation interne de l'institut. L'IBPGR a publi6 un certain nombre de listes de descripteurs et a continu6 de reviser ses 'R6pertoires des collections de mat6riel genetique'. L'IBPGR et le CIRDI ont conclu un accord officiel en vue de produire un manuel d'auto-apprentissage qui aidera les banques de ge'nes moyennes et petites A 6tablir Ia documentation de leurs ressources g6n~tiques. L'IBPGR a Anouveau souligii6 en 1990 l'importance que les banques centrales de donn~es sur les plantes cultiv~es revtent pour les travaux concernant les ressources g6n6tiques menses dans le monde. C'est pourquoi un appui a t6 accord6 Aune banque de donn~es sur Musa (conjointement avec 1INIBAP) et pour ia deuxiime annie Aune base de donn(es concernant le mafs (avec le CIMMYT). L'IBPGR encourage Ia description des ressources genetiques en appuyant les essais de caract6risation i l'aide de descripteurs pertinents. Trois projets de caract6risation ont tt lanc6s en 1990, chiffre relativement faible en raison du manque de fonds ncessaires.Reseaux sur les L'initiative concernant les r~seaux internationaux consacr~s aux plantes cultiv~es, que plantes cultiv6es l'IBPGR encourage vivement, rassemble au sein de r6seaux fondus sur des pools de g~nes ~ sp6cifiques Achaque culture les responsables de collections de materiel g(n6tique, les Plusieurs projets relatifs i la diversite genetique se sont poursuivis en 1990, dont une enquire 6cog ographique sur les espces spontan~es apparent6es aux agrumes et hla mangue en hidon6sie, une 6tude sur la diversit6 g~n~tique du mat6riel clonal de Musa, et un Prolet de recherche intercentre avec le CIAT sur la conservation de la diversit6 de Phaseolus. Les travaux de 1'IBPGR sur les espces spontan~es ont port6 notamment sur la dttermination de ]a r6partition gographique et sur les modes de diversit6 gn~tique de certaines espces, ainsi que sur I'identification des efforts actuels de conservation pour les espces spontan6es dans divers pools g~niques de cultures. La recherche sur la conservation des semences s'est poursuivie en vue d'am~liorer les technologies pour la conservation hlong terme des ressources phytog~n~tiques. Des projets relatifs au stockage des semences en milieu ultrasec ont continu6 en 1990 de donner des risultats prometteurs. Dans ]e cas d'autres projets, on a 6tudi6 les m6thodes de conservation ex situ des semences r~calcitrantes, la stabilit6 g~n~tique des semences en cours d'entreposage et de r6g~n6ration et les problimes de dormance des semences.En 1990, l'IBPGR a poursuivi ses travaux sur la conservation in vitro, en parrainant des projets visant Amettre au point des techniques de collecte in vitro et de stockage de mat~riel g~n~tique in vitro par ralentissement de la croissance et cryoconservatn. Des 6tudes ont 6galement W effectu~es sur la stabilit6 des cultures in vitro. Le projet IBPGR/CIAT visant i crier une banque pilote de g&nes active in vitro a termin6 sa princi ale phase de trois ans, bien que les cultures conserv~es continuent d'tre SureillTes. Un chercheur invit6 del'IBPGR a poursuivi ses recherches au CIAT afin de mettre au point des techniques d'empreinte gen~tique pour le manioc.Des directives techniques concernant la circulation sans risque de materiel g~n~tique, publies conjointement par ]a FAO et I'IBPGR, ont 6t6 6labor6es pour le manioc, le citrus et Ieraisin. Le projet visant Ar6aliser une sonde pour diagnostiquer la virose du bunchy top du bananier a pris fin en 1990. Parmi les autres projets, on peut citer ]'6laboration d'un systime in vitro pour la th~rapie et l'indexation des cultures fruiti6res rosaces, les mthodes d'indexation rapide des virus, des essais d'hybridation non radioactifs et des methodes non destructives de contr6le sanitaire des semences. En 1990, Ia biblioth que du IBPGR fonctionnait depuis un an. Le biblioth6caire est charge non seulement d'organiser la collection, mais aussi de r6pondre aux besoins imm~diats d'information du personnel, en assurant un service d'information courante, un service de recherche bibliographique, ainsi que des services de fourniture de documents et de r~f~ iences.Le Projet latino-am6ricain de sensibilisation du grand public aux questions ayant trait aux ressources phy togietiques -r6alis6 en collaboration avec le CIP, le CIAT,le CIMMYT, I'IBPGR, L'Inter Press Service et le magazine Diversity, a 6t6 lanc6 en iuin 1990. Le deuxi~me numro de 'Geneflow' est paru ainsi que les versions espagnole et italienne de publications anterieures pour relations publiques.En 1990, I'IBPGR a produit au total 26 publications, y compris plusieurs num6ros du Bulletin FAO/IBPGR sur les ressources phytog6n~tiques et plusieurs num6ros des bulletins r6gionaux du IBPGR. L'IBPGR a continu6 de distribuer ses publications gratuitement et, pcndant cette ann6, il a r~vis6 sa liste de distribution pour en maximiser l'impact. La FAOet I'IBPGR ont cr66 un Comit de redaction conjoint en 1990, charg6 de contro6ler le contenu technique de leur bulletin. Le phase IV du Programme europden a d6bute en 1990 sous le niveau titre 'Programme coop6ratif europeen pour les reseaux sur les ressources phytog ntiques'. Ce titre reflIte l'importance du d~veloppement des r6seaux europ~ens sur les plantes cultiv6es pour la phase plus rcente du projet. Pratiquement tous les pays europeensparticipent a ce programme, y compris I'URSS, apres ]a signature en juin 1990 d'un Protocole d'accord entre I'IBPGR Iet l'Institut Vavilov (Leningrad). de los programas, con la firma por ambas partes de un Memorando de Acuerdo sobre cooperacion en materia de programas. En dicho acuerdo se establece un marco de colaboraci6n entre ambas organizaciones en el Smbito de sus mandatos respectivos, que seguiri en vigor cuando el IBPGR adquiera su independencia. Las dos organizaciones firmaron tambin un Memorando de Acuerdo sobre disposiciones financieras y administrativas provisionales relativas al funcionamiento del IBPGR hasta que adquiera la independencia administrativa. Una actividad fundamental durante 1990, fue el comienzo de ]a preparaci6n de un Plan Estrat6gico para el IBPGR. El plan, para el cual es importante la aportaci6n de personal y de programas nacionales de todo elmundo, se concluirS a comienzos de 1992. Be celebr6 en Roma la tercera reuni6n del Grupo de trabajo intercentros del CGIAR sobre recursos fitogen6ticos, para examinar el Plan Estrat6gico del IBPGR, asegurando asi la partici aci6n de los centros de roductos basicos.En eltercer Examen externo del programa y la gesti6n, que se inici6 durante la 6iltima parte de 1990 y estaba previsto que terminase a comienzos de 1991, fueron considerables as interacciones con personal destacado fuera de la Sede y con personal de los programas nacionales.Programa de campo En 1990, el IBPGR reforz6 a6n m~s su red de oficinas regionales, cuando se cerr6 la Soficina de enlace de Washington DC y sus funciones se transfirieron a ]a Oficina Regional de M6xico. Aunque con serias dificultades, a causa de la escasez del presupuesto, las siete oficinas situadas fuera de la Sede siguieron fomentando y manteniendo el contacto directo con los programas nacionales de recursos gen6ticos. AdemSs de las Oficinas Regionales, el IBPGR mantiene tres unidades de manejo de semillas, dos de las cuales comenzaron a funcionar en 1990, en Turrialba, Costa Rica y en Singapur.En 1990 se redujo la actividad de recolecci6n debido a la escasez de fondos, pero el IBPGR distribuci6n de pudo llevar a cabo o apoy6 misiones de recolecci6n en 14 paises, con la obtenci6n de cerca germoplasma de 5 000 muestras de germoplasma. El germoplasma se ha depositado en bancos de genes de todo el mundo. Se localizaron y etiquetaron los ejemplares de herbario recogidos anteriormente como material de comprobaci6n del germoplasma,y se dispusola incorporaci6n en el futuro de todos los ejemplares dle comprobacion a uno de los tres herbarios existentes (Singapur, M6xico o Berlin).Documentaci6n y En 1990, el IBPGR continu6 prestando apoyo a las actividades de documentaci6n de los caracterizacifn programas nacionales, concediendo al mismo tiempo una importancia considerable al im aumento de la capacidad interna de documentacion del Instituto. El IBPGt public6 varias listas de descriptores y sigui6 revisando su serie de Guias de Colecciones de Germoplasma. El IBPGR y el IDRC concertaron un acuerdo oficial para preparar un manual de autoaprendizaje que sirviera de ayuda en los bancos d: genes de tamafio mediano y pequefio en la documentaci6n de sus recursos gen6ticos. El IBPGR continu6 concediendo ran importancia en 1990 a las bases centrales de datos sobre cultivos para Ia labor de Ambito mundial sobre los recursos fitogen6ticos. Como expresi6n de ese esfuerzo se prest6 apoyo a una base de datos sobre Musa (conjuntamente con INIBAP) y por segundo aflo consecutivo a una base de datos sobre el maiz (con CIMMYT). E IBPGR fomenta la descripci6n de recursos gen6ticos mediante el apoyo a ensayos de caracterizaci6n en los que se utilizan los descriptores pertinentes. En 199 se iniciaron tres proyectos de caracterizaci6n, nilmero relativamente bajo debido a ]a falta de fondos para ello.La iniciativa de las redes internacionales de cultivos, que el IBPGR ha promocionado Sdecididamente, agrupa a recolectores, encargados, investigadores, fitomejoradoresy otros usuarios de germoplasma en redes basadas en los acervos g6nicos de los cultivos. En 1990 se celebraron reuniones a fin de establecer redes para el arroz y el gombo. Siguieron adelante las actividades de preparaci6n de ]a base internacional de datos para Beta y se hicieron planes para convocar seminarios prActicos sobre la cebada y la batata. Como actividad complementaria del seminario pr~ictico IBPGR/ICARDA celebrado en 1989, se p, ublic6 en 1990 un folleto titulado 'Forum for Medics Genetic Resources Activities' y el CARDA aprob6 un plan de organizaci6n de una red de recursos gen6ticos para todas las leguminosas anuales. En un simposio FUCARPIA/IBPGR celebrado en Wapeningen, Paises Bajos, se reconoci6 que las redes de cultivos constituian el mejor medio de racionalizar las colecciones, mejorando el conocimiento de la diversidad gen6tica y fomentando ]a utilizaci6n de los recursos gen6ticos.En 1990, el Instituto contribuy6 a la capacitaci6n de m~s de 100 cientificos y t6cnicos mediante cursillos t6cnicos especializados, becas de postgrado y programas individuales. Entre ellos figuraban ocho estudiantes que recibieron becas del IBPGR para el curso de licenciatura de 1989/90 en la Universidad de Birmingham y cinco que recibieron ayuda para el curso de 1990/91. El IBPGR financi6 en 1990 tres programas de pricticas. En 1990 se concluyeron varios proyectos de investigaci6n del IBPGR, cuyos resultados se espera poder aplicar en 1991. Debido a las limitaciones financieras, practicamente no se comer.zo ningun nuevo proyecto, y se han retrasado las iniciativas aesarrolladas el afio anterior. El programa se fortalecio en 1990 con el nombramiento de un oficial encargado de especies silvestres y de un investigador asociado para Mexico. Cuatro cientificos que habian recibido en 1989 becas del Programa de Cientificos Visitantes del IBPGR concluyeron su actividad en 1990, pero no se han concedido nuevas becas. Dentro del IBPGR se realizaron estudios importantes sobre la metodologia de ]a regeneraci6n, las colecciones b~isicas y los sistemas de mejoramiento de plantas afines delas cultivadas.A comienzos de 1990 se examin6 el Programa de investigaci6n sobre ]a diversidad gentica. Se insisti6 en la necesidad de que el IBPGR preparase m~todos perfeccionados para estudiar ]a diversidad gen6tica, para realizar estudios ecogeogrficos y para desarrollar procedimientos destinados a las actividades b~isicas de recolecci6n. Se consider6.que la biodiversidad y la conservaci6n in situ eran temas importantes que habfa que examinar.En 1990 prosiguieron varios proyectos sobre la diversidad gen~tica, entre ellos un estudio ecogeogrMico de ]as plantas silvestres afines de Citrus y del mango en Indonesia, un estudio de la diversidad gen~tica de material clonal de Musa y tin proyecto de investigaci6n intercentros (con el CIAT) sobre el mantenimiento de la diversidad en Phaseolis.En relaci6n con las especies silvestres, el IBPGR trat6 de determinar la distribuci6n geogrMica y las caracteristicas de ]a diversidad gen6tica de determinadas especies, asi como identificar las actividades actuales de conservaci6n de especies silvestres en diversos acerves g6nicos de cultivos. Se sigui6 investigando sobre la conservaci6n de semillas, con el fin de mejorar la tecnologia para la conservaci6n a largo plazo de recursos fitogen~ticos. Los proyectos relativos al almacenamiento de semillas ultrasecas siguieron dando resultados prometedores en 1990. Otros proyectos se ocuparon de los m~todos de conservaci6n ex situ de semillas recalcitrantes, de la estabilidad entica de las semillas durante el almacenamiento y la regeneraci6n y de Ia latencia de las semillas.En 1990, el IBPGR sigui6 ocup~indose de la conservaci6n in vitro, patrocinando proyectos sobre la preparaci6n de t6cnicas de recolecci6n in vitro y de almacenamiento del germoplasma en dichas condiciones mediante crecimiento lento y crioconservaci6n.. Tambi~n se investig6 la estabilidad de los cultivos in vitro. Se concluy6 la fase principal de tres ahios del proyecto IBPGR/CIAT para el establecimiento de un Banco experimental de genes activos in vitro, aunque se contiln6an supervisando los cultivos almacenados. Un cientifico visitante del IBPGR sigui6 investigando en el CIAT para desarrollar, tcnicas de identificaci6n del ADN en la yuca.En la serie de Directrices T6cnicas para ei Transporte Seguro de Germoplasma que publican conjuntamente la FAO y el IBPGR, se prepararon las correspondientes a la yuca, Citrusya la uva. En 1990 se concluy6 el proyecto de preparaci6n de un sondeo de • diagnostico para el virus del cogollo racimoso del banano. Otros proyectos fueron la preparaci6n de un sistema in vitro para la terapia e indizaci6n delos cultivos de ros~iceas ara la obtenci6n de fruta, m~todos ripidos de indizaci6n para virus, una prueba de ibridaci6n no radiactiva y pruebas no destructivas para determinar ]a sanidad de las semillas. En 1990, la biblioteca del IBPGR concluy6 str primer afio completo de funcionamiento. AdemAs de la labor de organizaci6n de la colecci6n, el bibliotecario atendi6 las necesidades inmediatas e informaci6n del personal mediante un servicio b~sico de actualizaci6n permanente, un servicio de investigaci6n bibliogrifica y servicios de suministro de documentos y de referencias.En junio de 1990 se puso en marcha el Proyecto de America Latina de Sensibilizaci6n de la opini6n publica sobre los recursos fitogen6ticos, en el cual colaboran el CIP, el CIAT, el CIMMYT, el IBPGR, el Servicio de Interprensa y ]a revista Diversity. Se public6 el segundo mmero de 'Geneflow', asi como versiones en espafiol y en italiano de publicaciones anteriores sobre asuntos de inter6s piblico. Durante 1990 el IBPGR prepar6 un total de 26 publicaciones, entre elias los ndmeros del Noticiario FAO/IBPGR sobre recursos geneticos vegetales y de los noticiarios regionales del IBPGR. El IBPGR continu6 distribuyendo gratuitamente sus publicaciones, y durante el aiio revis6 su lista de distribuci6n con objeto de aumentar al mAximo su influencia. La FAO y el IBPGR establecieron en 1990 un Comit6 de redacci6n mixto, encargado de supervisar el contenido tcnico del noticiario conjunto.En 1990 comenz6 la IV Fase del Programa Europeo con el nuevo titulo de 'Programa Europeo de Cooperaci6n sobre Redes de Recursos Gen6ticos de los Cultivos'. Este titulo pone de manifiesto la importaicia de la evoluci6n de las redes europeas de cultivos hasta la Ciitima fase del proyecto. En el ECP/GR participan casi todos los paises europeos, incluso la URSS, despu~s de la firma de un Memorando de Acuerdo entre el IBPGR y el [nstituto Vavilov, de Leningrado, en junio de 1990. Beschaffung und Die Sammeltitigkeit wurde 1990 aufgrund von Mittelkiirzungen reduziert, doch das IBPGR Verteilung von konnte in 14 Lindern Sammelaktionen durchfiihren oder unterstiitzen, die fast 5000Genmaterial Neuzuginge genetischen Materials einbrachten; dieses Pflanzenmaterial wurde in Genbanken auf der ganzen Welt deponiert. Herbariuri-Specimenes, die ursprunglich als Belege des .Genmaterials gesammelt worden waren, wlrvden lokalisiert und beschriftet, und man traf Vereinbarungen ffir alle welteren Belegexemplare, urn diese in Zukunft in einem von drei ausgewiihiten Herbarien zu deponieren (Singapur, Mexiko oder Berlin).Dokumentation und 1990 setzte das IBPGR die Fbrderung der Dokumentationsarbeit in den nationalen Merkmals-    (1990-1992) because of the success of the original programme and the new fields of collaborative activities, e.g. network development, core collections, enhancement of wild species and in situ studies which will be tackled in the future. The project was retitled 'European Cooperative Programme for Crop Genetic Resources Networks' to stress the importance of the development of European crop networks to the programme, but the well-known acronym was retained.Members began formalizing the roles and responsibilities of participants, especially the Country Coordinators and the European database holders in order to ensure improved continuity. Country Coordinators will be clearly identified by their sponsoring Ministries as acting on their behalf in ECP/GR; European database holders, in collaboration with the Chairs of the respective Working Groups, will monitor the development of Working Group activities, and IBPGR, as well as fostering the project, will administer, through its Crop Genetic Resources Network, the project budget. This will mainly facilitate the convening of each Working Group.Three additional Working Groups, for 0:it!:. Brassicaand Pisum, were to be set up provided the required minimum budgetary level was reached to finance the continuation of the six existing Working Groups (Allium, Avena, barley, forage Resources Networks","tokenCount":"16830"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9dec375506ec339b452141cf6e288bba","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/ed9b2dfd-0e71-4081-b784-514a42484a7e/content","id":"816222516"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"4bba6a7f-6e92-4ff4-a845-9bf640168fdd","pagecount":"7","content":"In 2015, the governments of 193 countries agreed on \"Agenda 2030,\" a charter of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They also committed to \"Leave No One Behind\" (LNOB) in order to ensure that everyone is able to benefi t from sustainable development processes. No goal is deemed to be met unless met for all. Bangladesh has translated Agenda 2030 at the national level by formulating a Perspective Plan (2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020)(2021) and by bringing the SDGs into its 7 th Five Year Plan (2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020). A \"Whole of Society\" approach involves all development partners-multi and bilateral agencies, NGOs, civil society, the private sector, and the media-in interpreting and implementing the SDGs. An SDGs Implementation and Monitoring Committee has been formed at the Prime Minister's Offi ce to facilitate implementation of the SDG Action Plan.The SDGs and the principle of leaving no one behind has clear implications for the work of international agricultural research organizations, as well as national agricultural research partners, rural advisory services, and other partners in the public and private sector in Bangladesh. CIMMYT is committed to optimizing the use of research resources, accelerating the uptake of innovations, and enhancing impacts and their social inclusiveness for poor producers and consumers of wheat and maize in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. 2 Working ever more eff ectively with women and socially marginalized farmers is part of this, as is working with farmers with small land parcels who are often excluded from project interventions on the basis that their lands are too small. Our research shows that many such farmers strongly seek inclusion in innovation processes and that if they succeed they have the potential to lease additional land and thus improve their economic status. This Guidance Note for scientists and research teams acknowledes the complexity of marginalization processes and provides recommendations for making sure no one is left behind. To do so, we draw on GENNOVATE 3 fi ndings 3 http://gender.cgiar.org/themes/gennovate/ Box 1: Gender and social inclusion in Agenda 2030 Goal 5 commits to \"achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.\" It highlights the importance of linking access to technology with women's empowerment. Policy recommendations include secure and equal access to productive resources, inputs, knowledge, fi nancial services, markets, and opportunities for value addition and non-farm employment for rural women.Goal 10 commits to the social, economic, and political inclusion and empowerment of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion, economic, or other status, and recommends eliminating discriminatory laws, policies, and practices and developing empowering legislation, policies, and action. from a community which we call Kalipara (a pseudonym) where the indigenous Santals, Bengali Muslims, and Hindus live and work together (see Farnworth et al., (in press), for full details).Research shows that it can be extremely difficult to unlock the multiple drivers of marginalization that people left behind experience because these drivers fuse together in a complex process whereby outcomes fuel causes of exclusion which in turn create further exclusionary outcomes (Kabeer, 2016). Mittal et al. (2016) explain that four structural drivers underpin marginalization processes:(1) an inadequate asset base, (2) poor access to services and infrastructure, (3) weak political voice, empowerment, and institutional governance, and (4) identity-based exclusion and social norms. The converse of the first three structural drivers-assets, services, and voice-equally act as \"enablers\" to lift people out of poverty. However, the processes of identity-based exclusion, and the social norms which underpin and \"rationalize\" this, are an underlying driver hampering marginalized people from accessing and utilizing the first three drivers to their advantage. This interlocking process is depicted in Figure 1.Identity-based discrimination operates at group level and thus creates groupbased \"horizontal\" inequalities (Kabeer, 2016). The most enduring forms of horizontal inequality are associated with identities ascribed from birth such as gender, race, caste, and ethnicity. Kabeer highlights how \"personal\" the articulation of social hierarchies can be. Cultural norms and practices can \"disparage, stereotype, exclude, The Santal people in Bangladesh score very low on multiple indicators. One study conducted in six villages showed that over a period of 50 years the number Santal families holding more than 15 acres (6 hectares) of land diminished from 72 to 0. The Santal are \"losing their existence with regards to their economic, social, and political lives\" and now work as day laborers on the land they previously owned (Rahman and Bhuiyan, 2009; see also Brandt, 2011;Uddin, 2009;Barkat et al., 2009 for similar findings). However, ethnic Bengali and indigenous women, including Santals, have a long history of active militancy and passive resistance to land expropriation, for example for mining, and in favour of more equitable sharecropping arrangements (etc.), in Bangladesh over many decades (Alam, 2015;Harrington, 2013;Priyadarshini, 2012) and are active in the Bangladesh Adivasi Forum, the Bangladesh Indigenous Peoples Forum and as members of the Citizens Platform for the SDGs (http://bdplatform4sdgs.net). The Citizen's Declaration 2017 has a special focus on LNOB (Citizen's Platform for SDGs, 2017). ridicule, and demean certain social groups, denying them full personhood and equal rights to participate in the economic, social, and political life of their society\" (Kabeer, 2010: 13). Understanding how different types of group-based horizontal forms of marginalization overlap, layering disadvantage upon disadvantagefor example being economically poor, a woman, a widow, aged, and a member of a discriminated-against ethnic minority-enables us to almost viscerally perceive what it means to be left behind, and how difficult it can be to escape that situation.Figure 2 illustrates some of the different opportunities and obstacles that women in Kalipara face. Constraints that typically apply to ethnic Bengali women also apply to Santal women, such as time-consuming responsibility for household and care work, and an inability to sell agricultural produce at formal markets. These constraints are shown in blue. However, the position of Santal women is worsened through identity-based discrimination, the loss of land, general lack of targeting in development programs, and even lower literacy than the average for Muslim women. Constraints specific to Santal women are shown in orange. Low-income Muslim women also share some constraints with Santal women, particularly engagement in low paying daily labor. The constraints shared by Santal and low-income Muslim women are shown in green. Taken together, these drivers of marginalization can meld together to create a downward spiraling trajectory, whereby negative outcomes are simultaneously causes of further negative outcomes. The outcomes are unevenly distributed between women, with Santal women experiencing the most intense overlapping of drivers.This understanding that indigenous people, and rural women more generally, are being left behind by institutional actors in wheat-maize innovation projects served as our starting point for exploring the participation of Santal and low and middle-income women in one maize and wheat growing village of northern Bangladesh. The findings were surprising.All women have strong interests in wheat-maize innovations Middle-income Muslim women do not work on field crops. However, they want to be able to discuss agricultural knowledgeably with their husbands and to take decisions together. Whilst in such families men are expected to be the chief wage earner, effective household budgeting, including spending money wisely (and other responsibilities such as raising children well, being religious, and maintaining the family's honor) are considered important skills for women. Women argued that if they were able to participate in training on wheat and maize and thus understand the costs and potential implications of the innovations involved they could help to \"improve their household's position.\"Low-income Muslim women from families with small amounts of land experience substantially more freedom of movement. They work as daily hired laborers and on their family fields alongside men, and have clear interests in improving household income through using new technologies themselves. The use of machinery promises considerable labor savings in their own fields as well.Middle-and low-income Santal women in households with land work in fieldbased agriculture and indeed appear to be taking over from men in many activities as men start to seek off-farm income generation opportunities. A \"good\" Santal wife is expected to be knowledgeable about improved seeds, inorganic fertilizers, irrigation practices, and the use of herbicides and pesticides. They have strong interests in all agricultural innovation processes including wheat/maize. Ensuring that Santal and other marginalized groups retain control over their land is a major issue in Bangladesh; ensuring they are officially included in innovation processes will help to strengthen recognition of their presence as farmers and community members. Women's strategies to secure inclusion in wheatmaize innovation processes CIMMYT's partner in Kalipara is a large NGO called Rangpur Dinajpur Rural Service (RDRS). RDRS is active in hundreds of communities across northern Bangladesh and forms farmer clubs. It establishes women-only Union Federations in order to train women in new agricultural technologies. Since Santal women are strongly active in fi eld crops, they were a clear target for training in wheat and maize innovations. These include improved wheat and maize varieties, inorganic fertilizer, and machinery including the power tiller operated seeder (PTOS).The PTOS is attached to a small twowheeled tractor to simultaneously drill, sow, and fertilize crops in lines.The data show that Santal women quickly took advantage and started demanding inclusion through ensuring support from husbands, children, and extended family members. Their success inspired low-income Muslim women to join the Union Federation and likewise secure training. One of these women started her own group of 25 women who mutually support each other on rolling out the technologies. A Santal woman, Joytee (a pseudonym) was elected head of the Union Federation due to her success in adopting, and adapting wheatmaize technologies. She has inspired a large number of women to follow her example. The only group which remains marginalized are middleincome Muslim women who have not yet secured male support for the participation.The fi ndings indicate that women, including those suff ering from multiple layers of disadvantage, can take a lead in innovation processes. The enabling environment, which was crucial to this, was supplied by a rural advisory partner organization directing technical training on wheat and maize through a women's organization. The fi ndings further suggest that the transformational power of women's agency has been underestimated in conceptualizations of how to reach people who are left behind. The Santal women in Kalipara managed to fl ip the four drivers underpinning their marginalization (Figure 1 above) to bring themselves and low-income Muslim women into innovation processes.Photo: Sam Storr/CIMMYT.A farmer using broad bed maker.All recommendations address people with small land areas rather than landless people.Find creative ways to involve marginalized people with small lands in wheatmaize innovation processes Do not set minimum targeting criteria, for example land area managed by a farming household, as entry criteria for participation in wheat-maize innovations. Rather, fi nd creative ways to involve women and men in hard-to-reach households and ethnic communities. These strategies need to be nuanced according to the forms of marginalization experienced. Strategies include institutional innovations, for instance by forming small mutual self-help support groups of women.The key is to commit to developing a targeting and outreach strategy as an organizational response to the SDGs and the commitment to LNOB.Recommendations for making sure no one is left behindWomen, as much as men, are interested in and passionate about innovations and improving their own and their family's lives. They want to take part in technical training. Recognition and promotion of women and their capacities by external actors will facilitate the ability of women to overcome gender and other disadvantages they may face themselves and to transform their futures.Women's organizations provide a space for women to come together in a community. The headquarters of such organizations can provide a venue for training events, and allow women to socialize, share constraints, and obtain solutions.Targeting a large number of people in a small community is more successful than attempting to cover a large geographic area. This enables a critical mass of women and marginalized innovators to be developed and can facilitate cooperation across ethnic and religious affi liations. Obtaining a critical mass will help to break down cultural norms which can isolate people from each other and from participating in innovation processes.A specifi c eff ort needs to be made to work with middle-income couples, where the wife does not work directly in fi eld crops, to obtain the support of husbands for their wives' participation in training in such crops. This will allow women in such couples to provide informed input into intrahousehold discussion processes, and it may promote women's participation in other activities over time. This will also strengthen women's capacity to manage household budgeting eff ectively. Women's informed participation in decision making around innovations is likely to support the successful adoption of these innovations by such households.In some communities husbands and the wider family do not allow women to interact with male extension workers. Measures to overcome resistance include locating training events close to women's homes in order to facilitate their participation. Involving men and other relatives in discussion processes around the benefi ts of women securing training in fi eld crops, even when they do not work in the fi eld, is important. Appointing a woman facilitator and training women on their own can be a useful strategy as well.GENNOVATE fi eldwork: Women's focus group discussion in Bangladesh, . Photo: Anuprita Shukla/ CIMMYT.","tokenCount":"2187"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"dc6d4c71a79df7e51d9224ffad13847d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9fb30dad-8306-44fe-8466-da28e865578c/retrieve","id":"-1367888090"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6b074bfd-36de-45d5-a1c1-2b3eb20d5d81","pagecount":"1","content":"Farms are very diverse in size, structure and production orientation. Farmers' households strongly differ in ownership, division of tasks and benefits and in power relations. Moreover, the role of the farm enterprise in relation to off-farm activities and income differs. These differences have implications for:  The window of opportunities for farm households to adjust their farm configuration and management, and the trade-offs that they face.  The most appropriate sequence of steps to implement new practices and technologies to build up human, economic and natural capital.  For the project the farm households to target to be efficient and effective in obtaining the desired project outcomes and to reach adoption and systems improvement at scale.The main objectives are to characterize the existing diversity among smallholder farms and households, and to identify appropriate innovation pathways. In the first phase of the Africa RISING project we have analyzed the diversity among smallholder farms and households, and performed analyses of trade-offs and synergies, using multi-objective optimization in FarmDESIGN. In the second phase of the project this work will be continued and broadened to analysis of trajectories of change, using scenariostudies in FarmDESIGN. Moreover, we will assess the suitability of practices and technologies for individual farms, using statistical techniques in FarmMATCH.A large diversity of farms was found in the Africa RISING communities in Ghana, Mali, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia (illustrated for Eastern Zambia; Figure 1). The analysis showed that larger farmers had more room to maneuver and to improve farm performance (Figure 2). They would need different technology packages than smaller farms.The classifications that have been developed and the analyses that are performed allow targeted innovation in smallholder farms, based on an understanding of requirements, possibilities and potentials. The FarmMATCH approach will inform project members, extension workers, researchers and policy makers about scaling and supports large-scale data collection (Figure 3).    ","tokenCount":"307"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9cb3aebc97eae1e99151ecfada221d57","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/2db08300-6c84-499e-bd68-48fcf1d3d59f/content","id":"2049093049"},"keywords":["Number of farms","distribution of farms","agricultural census","2030 projection","targeting"],"sieverID":"dbf10820-f4e4-4fab-9417-011de99fb14a","pagecount":"9","content":"Rural development objectives are often framed relative to a targeted number of beneficiary farms and farm households. Yet the data available on the number and distribution of the world's farms has been surprisingly fragmented and coherent estimates of the number of farms in a given region for a given year have not been available. We take a set of simple rules to use existing data sources to generate a harmonized set of farm number estimates at the national level. We estimate there are 656 million farms globally in 2020, with a projected decline to 624 million farms globally by 2030. These estimates can be used to better inform policy and large-scale investment programming and design. We also articulate the need for further investments in basic agricultural census data, and outline an agenda for the generation of farm distribution data that would be most useful for further policy guidance.The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Agenda 2030) provides an ambitious international development agenda that revolves around 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs; UN, 2015). The SDGs are aspirational and encompass all areas deemed relevant to sustainable development, with early concerns being raised about the choice of targets, indicators, and roadmaps (Colglazier, 2015). Linkages among SDGs also imply the need to take into account interdependences and trade-offs between alternative goals (Colglazier, 2015). A case in point is agriculture, which is a primary conduit for achieving many of the SDGs and, as the primary livelihood for the majority of the world's poor, occupies a central position within overall Agenda 2030 (Omilola and Robele, 2017). Agriculture's pivotal role in ending poverty (SDG1) and achieving food security (SDG2) is widely acknowledged (e.g. para 24, UN, 2015). Progress toward many of the other SDGs-including health outcomes (SDG3; Poole et al., 2021), gender equity (SDG5), water management (SDG6), economic growth (SDG8), reduced inequality (SDG10), sustainable consumption and production (SDG12), climate change (SDG13) and sustainable land use (SDG15)-is also difficult to conceptualize without explicitly invoking the instrumental role of agriculture in achieving them. Yet, surprisingly, we know relatively little about the number and distribution of the world's farms, particularly in the developing world.Representative estimates of the number of farms and derived indicators such as farm types and size are key indicators to help inform and prioritize agricultural development strategies (Lowder et al., 2016(Lowder et al., , 2021)). The original Agenda 2030 makes three explicit references to \"farmers\" and once to \"small-scale food producers\" and its intention to double their agricultural productivity and incomes by 2030 as part of SDG2 (para 2.3, UN, 2015). Others have in turn built their strategies on the Agenda 2030. A case in point is the CGIAR (formerly known as the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research), \"a global research partnership for a food secure future . . . dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources and ecosystem services\" (CGIAR, 2016: 42). Its 2016 strategy included the ambitious targets of inter alia \"350 million more farm households have adopted improved varieties, breeds or trees, and/or improved management practice\" by 2030 (CGIAR, 2016: 5). A recent strategy update refers to \"equip 500 million small-scale producers to be more resilient to climate shocks, with climate adaptation solutions available through national innovation systems\" (CGIAR- SO, 2021: 19). The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), an international financial institution and a specialized agency of the United Nations, also articulated its strategic framework in the context of contributing to the Agenda 2030, with smallholder agriculture-led growth as key entry point for enabling inclusive and sustainable transformation of rural areas (IFAD, 2016). IFAD variously refers to estimates of some 500 million smallholder farms in the developing world supporting the livelihoods of almost 2 billion people and being responsible for often more than three-quarters of the food produced there (IFAD, 2013(IFAD, , 2021)).The ambitious targets and calls to action are laudable. One challenge though is that there is a surprising lack of information on many key indicators, including the number of farms, their size distribution within countries and their global distribution (Lowder et al., 2016(Lowder et al., , 2021)). Over the years, investments have been made to address some of these challenges. Particularly noteworthy is the World Programme for the Census of Agriculture coordinated by the FAO which just released the latest instalment for the 2010 round (2006-2015;FAO, 2021). This latest effort included 127 countries and territories, a new record for the program, and steadily increasing over the rounds and up from 81 in the 1950 round (FAO, 2021). Still, this is far short from the 195 countries generally recognized (Worldometer, 2021), and the 235 countries and territories globally (UN, 2018). Lowder et al. (2016) estimated the number of farms worldwide to amount to at least 570 million, based on a compilation of 167 countries and territories, including and building on FAO's efforts. This compares to an earlier estimate of 525 million farms of all sizes in the world (Nagayets, 2005). Lowder et al. (2019Lowder et al. ( , 2021) ) subsequently updated their estimate to at least 608 million farms in the world, based on a compilation of 176 countries and territories. The efforts of Lowder and associates are a welcome addition to the data available for guiding policy targets. However, this dataset still represents an incomplete set of countries. Furthermore, estimates for various countries are variously dated, in accordance with the source data available for each country, with the latest data for individual countries ranging from 1960 to 2017. Indeed, they acknowledge that their \"estimates are limited by the data available\" (Lowder et al., 2016: 16) and call for \"continued efforts to enhance the collection and dissemination of up-to date, comprehensive, and more standardized agricultural census data\" (Lowder et al., 2016: 16).Unfortunately, the data are particularly patchy where agriculture plays the largest role in livelihoods and economies, such as in the low and low-middle income countries. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is a case in point. An early recent estimate put the number of farms there at 51 million (9% of global farms; Lowder et al., 2016), which was soon updated to 75 million (12%; Lowder et al., 2019) which this paper will show still to be a substantive underestimate. An earlier study estimated there to be some 41 million farms in SSA (of which 80%, or 33 million were smallholder farms; Wiggins and Keats, 2013). Africa's rapidly changing land and demographic situation should shape its agricultural and rural development strategies and take into account the challenges of mounting land pressures, unsustainable agricultural intensification, a rapidly rising labor force and limited nonfarm job creation (Jayne et al., 2014). Land constraints could help induce Boserupian agricultural intensification, whereas surplus arable land is concentrated in a few countries (Jayne et al., 2014). Land distribution patterns can also constrain intensification and limit surplus and poverty alleviation potential (Jayne et al., 2010). There is an ongoing need for agricultural development and smallholder farms are a key development option in low income countries (Hazell et al., 2010), even if \"the future of all smallholders may well not lie in farming\" (Wiggins et al., 2010(Wiggins et al., : 1341)).The prime objective of the present perspective is to review and update estimates of the number and distribution of farms, now and into the future, conditional on currently available data. In contrast to Lowder et al. (2016Lowder et al. ( , 2019Lowder et al. ( , 2021)), we generate global and regional estimates which are harmonized for a given year, along with projections through 2030, to inform the Agenda 2030. After presenting the underlying data and methods, we summarize our main findings and their implications for targeting of Agenda 2030 investments. We then outline ways in which coordinated data collection investments may enable more accurate and detailed estimates going forward, and discuss why that matters for policy and investment targeting.The farm is the basic unit of operation in agricultural and food production, although the specific entities may vary greatly from one country to another as well as within each country (Lowder et al., 2016(Lowder et al., , 2021)). Agricultural holdings as reported by the agricultural census are generally used as a proxy for the total number of farms in a country (Lowder et al., 2016(Lowder et al., , 2021)). Ideally each country regularly establishes its number of farms through an agricultural census using comparable methods. That is the basic premise of the World Programme for the Census of Agriculture (FAO, 2021), which compiles data in roughly 10-year rounds, with the latest being the 2010 round (2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015). We used the reported farm numbers across rounds and linked them to the actual underlying survey year. These data were complemented with additional data from other sources, particularly Lowder et al. (2016Lowder et al. ( , 2019)).The resulting database of 175 countries and territories has some important gaps. To begin with, reference periods differ across countries. The last available census estimates for specific geographies ranged from 1964 (Brunei) to 2017 (Brazil, Jordan). To harmonize this, we estimate national totals for 2020 as a common reference year, and then extrapolate to 2030 in relation to the Agenda 2030. To do so we used two key indicators: (i). rural population estimates by country by year (1960-2030;UN, 2018): These estimates from the most recent version of the UN's World Urbanization Prospects (UN, 2018) account for country-specific urbanization projections alongside disaggregated urban and rural population growth rate estimates; and (ii). the rural population to farm ratio (RP-F ratio): The ratio was estimated for all census years and captures the country-specific rural transformation process (see e.g. Masters et al., 2013). For low and low-middle income economies we used the RP-F ratio from the last census year for 2020 and 2030. For upper-middle and high-income economies, one would assume the RP-F ratio to potentially increase over time with economic and rural transformation, basically implying a lower participation of rural populations on farm and more in the non-farm sector. For upper-middle and high income economies we used the linearly extrapolated RP-F ratio to 2020 and 2030 when this indeed showed a positive trend; and otherwise used the RP-F ratio from the last census year.The extrapolated farm numbers based on only the geographies with data (i.e., with original farm census data) are referred to as the \"extrapolated\" series. These provide a lower bound estimate (based on real data but with missing geographies) and are comparable to Lowder et al. (2019Lowder et al. ( , 2021)).A second gap is that there are no farm data reported for 30 geographies with active farming, ranging from very small (e.g. Andorra, Tuvalu) to very large (e.g. various countries from the former Soviet Union-including Ukraine, Belarus, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan-as well as Sudan and South Sudan). These geographies do have estimates, however, for other indicators such as rural population and agricultural area. We therefore used the RP-F ratio from the nearest representative neighbor to provide the corresponding imputed farm number. The farm numbers for all geographies including those with imputed data (i.e., without original farm census data) are referred to the \"imputed\" series. These provide our best estimate to the number of farms and will be the main focus here.Farm size is another key indicator but nationally representative farm size data are often lacking, and confounded by imprecise estimates and ambiguous categories (Lowder et al., 2016). As proxy for the national average farm size we associate the estimated agricultural land area with the corresponding estimated number of farms. For \"agricultural land\" we use the FAO reported annual data for the last 25 years per country (1994-2018;FAOStat, 2021) and extrapolate to 2020 and 2030 using an exponential triple smoothing algorithm. In 2018 the global agricultural land area amounted to 4.80 billion (10 9 ) ha (FAOStat, 2021).For presentation purposes we present the data by regional groups (following Lowder et al., 2019) and the latest income groupings (WorldBank, 2021).We estimate the number of farms in 2020 to amount to 656 Million (M, 10 6 ) globally (imputed, Table 1). Our lower bound estimate would be at least 628 M (extrapolated, Table 1), which can be compared to the 608 M farms in the world by Lowder et al. (2019). Two-thirds of the 2020 farms (imputed) are located in Asia (39% in East Asia & Pacific [EAP]; 29% in South Asia [SA], Table 1), reflecting the two regional giants with over half the global farms: China with 189.6 M (29% of global farms) and India with 148.5 M (23%). As a region, SSA comes third with 111 M (17%), followed by Europe & Central Asia (ECA, 62 M, 10%), Latin America & Caribbean (LAC, 21 M, 3%), Middle East & North Africa (MENA, 19 M, 3%) and North America (NA, 2 M, 0.3%). The most marked divergences between the extrapolated and imputed estimates (Table 1) occur in ECA (16 M), SSA (7 M) and EAP (4 M) reflecting data availability.The rural population in 2020 is estimated at 3.4 billion globally, with over a third in SA and over a quarter in EAP (Table 1). The global agricultural land area is estimated at 4.8 billion ha, with 24% in EAP and 21% in SSA (Table 1). Globally, this implies an average imputed farm size of 7.3 ha-albeit with marked regional divergences (Table 1). Densely populated SA stands out with an average imputed farm size of only 1.4 ha, followed by EAP with 4.5 ha whereas SSA averages 9 ha. NA sits on the other extreme, with an average of 222 ha-with intermediate imputed farm sizes for the other regions (Table 1). India and China again play prominent roles. India has 26% of the global rural population, but only 4% of the agricultural land area with an imputed average farm size of 1.2 ha. China fares somewhat better with 16% of the global rural population and 11% of the agricultural area, and an imputed average farm size of 2.8 ha.We provide similar estimates for 2030 in Table 2 and the relative changes over the decade in Table 3; and map the imputed farm estimates in Figure 1. We estimate the number of farms in 2030 to decline to 624 M globally (imputed; 595 M extrapolated-Table 2), a substantive decline of 5% (Table 3). At the same time the global rural population in 2030 is projected to decline by only 0.9% and agricultural land to remain constant at the global level (Table 3). The global aggregates however hide regional heterogeneity and diverging underlying drivers. Indeed, whereas the number of farms in 2030 is projected to decline globally and in a number of regions, it is projected to markedly increase by 16% to 129 M in SSA and to a lesser   the MENA and SA are projected to increase at even larger rates than the predicted farm number increases. The diverging plight of China and India, the two global giants in terms of farm numbers (Figure 1), is particularly noteworthy. China's projected rural population decline implies its farms are projected to come down to 146 M (23% of global farms) in 2030. In contrast, India's rural population is projected to continue to increase with 0.6% over the decade to 2030 with its farms projected to increase to 149 M (24% of global farms), overtaking China in terms of the country with the largest number of farms.Whereas agricultural land is projected to remain constant at the global level (Table 3), this again masks regional heterogeneity. As a region, only LAC (þ4.4%) and SSA (þ3.4%) are projected to increase the agricultural land by 2030. Other regions are projected for marginal area declines to substantive declines in EAP (À3.9%) and ECA (À2.2%) by 2030. Globally, these changes imply a projected increase of 5% in the average imputed farm size to 7.7 ha by 2030-albeit again with marked regional divergences (Table 2). In SSA the projected area increase is insufficient to keep up with the surge in rural population and farm numbers, implying a marked decline in imputed farm size (À11%) by 2030. The two other regions with projected increases in rural population and farms also see a decline in imputed farm size by 2030, albeit less pronounced (MENA À3.5%; SA À1.4%). The most marked increases in projected average imputed farm size by 2030 are for EAP (þ17%, albeit from a low base, to 5.3 ha) and NA (þ12%, to 249 ha), both reflecting primarily consolidation given marginal area declines; followed by LAC (þ11% to 38 ha, via a combination of land expansion and consolidation).We provide similar estimates by country income groups for 2020 (Table 4) and 2030 (Table 5); and the relative changes over the decade (Table 6). Needless to say, the global headline figures remain the same-so we focus here on some of the noteworthy income group implications. The prominence of Lower-Middle Income Countries (LMICs) and Upper-Middle Income Countries (UMICs) comes to the fore. Between the two they comprise 86% of global farms in 2020, evenly split between the two groups. However, this split overlays a remarkable contrast between the two groups. Compared to the UMICs in 2020, the LMICs have double the rural population (1.8 billion, 52% of global), half the agricultural land area (1 billion ha, 20% of global) and half the average imputed The projections to 2030 (Table 5) and the relative changes over the decade (Table 6) show marked contrasts between income groups. By income group, rural population growth and the increase in farm numbers by 2030 is limited to the LICs and LMICs, with both indicators projected to decline in UMICs and HICs. The increases are most marked in the LICs (þ18%) with a more modest increase of 3% in LMICs by 2030. Overall, the LICs and LMICs combined are projected to comprise 61% of global farms in 2030, up from 55% in 2020. Agricultural area in 2030 is projected for a substantive contraction in HICs (À5%), modest increases in the middle-income groups (þ1%) and the most substantive increase in the LICs (þ4%). The increases in agricultural area in LIC and LMICs, combined with the expected growth in number of farms, implies decreasing farm sizes, particularly in the LICs, by 2030 and highlights the need for (sustainable) intensification. In contrast in UMICs, the projected declining farm numbers and modest area increase imply substantive imputed farm size increases by 2030, albeit still remaining a fraction of the those in HICs.Our estimate of 656 M farms globally in 2020 and projected decline to 624 M farms globally by 2030 remain estimates. In no way are they intended to replace the substantive efforts needed to run regular censuses in all countries to keep track of this key indicator. Our projections rely on actual empirical validation of the underlying data-and they are likely to increase in robustness as data become available from more countries. Our study can be taken as a clarion call to action: our collective insights into the number and distribution of the world's farms requires better data, which in turn requires increased public investment. Priority attention should be paid to those countries yet to implement any agricultural census, followed by those that have done so to continue to do so regularly. Without such a key indicator as the number of farms, an important guidepost for agricultural policy and development remains absent.In the meantime, our global and disaggregated estimates provide a useful reference to frame our development efforts toward the Agenda 2030 and beyond. It allows us to temporarily fill in the gaps, be they spatial or temporal. Indeed, the agricultural censuses by themselves are Herculean tasks. Compiling them across the globe into reference decades provides an additional layer of complexity-illustrated by the \"2010\" round (2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015) just being published (FAO, 2021). Estimates such as those provided here allow for temporary estimates as we update the censuses. Although some countries increasingly align with the census rounds (e.g., much of the EU used the same 2010 year), the 10-year period covered by each round can still imply substantive time lags between individual countries. Our paper inter alia illustrates that even in a 10-year period many key indicators can change substantially. Estimates such as those provided here increase the comparability between countries by using common reference years and comparable projections. And importantly, estimates such as these allow to generate proxies to fill in the still substantive gaps in terms of spatial coverage and come up with global estimates.Whereas agricultural censuses are the foundation, two additional key variables underlying our estimates are the rural population projections and the rural population to farm ratio (RP-F ratio). Substantive new information in relation to any of these key variables would allow us to revisit the assumptions and refine the estimates. In uppermiddle and high income countries the data generally support an increase in RP-F ratios with economic development, reflecting the underlying economic transformation and decreasing role of agriculture in GDP and employment (Christiaensen et al., 2021). In low and lower-middle income countries the situation is less clear cut-and we kept to the most recent estimates. As data quality improves, we can revisit the underlying trends in RP-F ratios. Still, the observed trends and assumptions imply quiet substantive changes over our 10-year projection to 2030. When we consider the diverse pace of economic and rural transformation across countries-some making rapid progress, while others stagnate or even regress-it is clear that we need to be careful not to extrapolate too far into the future, and also need to continuously update and ground truth the key indicators as we go forward. The recent economic shocks imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and associated economic fallout suggest that further adjustments may be needed even in the short term.The heterogeneity in countries in terms of size and farm numbers also implies the need to at least have up-to-date and reliable estimates for those with the larger farm numbers for global estimates (Figure 1). China and India are a case in point (Figure 1)-the two Asian giants comprising more than half the global farms in 2020 (52%) and slightly less than half in 2030 (47%), with China being a major contributing force to the projected decline in global farm numbers (Supplementary material, Table S1). Recent research starts to shed light on China's ongoing rural transformation (Zhang et al., 2021). Rural households increasingly work off-farm and rent out their land to remaining farmers, with farm size steadily increasing (from a low base; Huang and Rozelle, 2018). Taken together, the 10 countries with the largest farm numbers comprise 70% of the global farms in 2020 (and 67% in 2030; i.e. China, India, Indonesia, Russian Federation, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Pakistan and DR Congo-Supplementary material, Table S1).We have presented our findings in this paper by regional and income groupings. Each provided specific insights and some of the big-picture implications. Additional groupings may be of interest, including the overlay of region by income but were out of scope of the current paper. At the same time having a proxy of the number of farms at the national level is a useful entry point. However, most policy and development efforts would benefit from more disaggregated data (e.g. Masters et al., 2013). A future challenge remains to estimate the spatial distribution of farms of different sizes within countries. Some advances have been made to estimate the spatial distribution of key indicators at the subnational level-particularly useful where robust statistics and georeferencing are patchy (Ricciardi et al., 2018a;Samberg et al., 2016). Cases in point are efforts to map population (FCL and CIESIN, 2016;Linard et al., 2012), field size (Fritz et al., 2015;Lesiv et al., 2019), crops (Lu et al., 2020) and development outcomes (Burke et al., 2021) where advances in remote sensing, machine learning and crowdsourcing have drastically increased spatial resolution and acquisition time as well as repeatability (Masoud et al., 2020). This also opens the door to overlays and indicator combinations. Actually knowing the number of farms in a specific country in 2020 would be an achievement compared to our current estimate. Still, agricultural research and development and their funders increasingly call for more granular data. The CGIAR again is a case in point, with an increased emphasis on innovation profiles, associated market segments and investment cases. In the case of germplasm products this implies the need to know not only the number of farms in a specific country, but the number of farms cultivating crop X within market segment Y in that country.The current paper also touched on the imputed farm size in 2020 and 2030, reflecting the overall agricultural land by farm numbers for the geographic entities. At the global level, we project the average imputed farm size to increase by 5% by 2030. However, particularly in low income countries and SSA the imputed farm size is projected to substantially decrease by 11-12%. This highlights the urgency of making real progress on inclusive and sustainable intensification in the developing world. Sustainable intensification thereby calls for the need to raise land productivity through agricultural intensification (in order to offset further extensification/area expansion) in a durable way with minimal external costs (limiting e.g. short term productivity gains which cannot be sustained over time like soil nutrient mining and environmental externalities like nitrogen leaching/run-off). Our projections for low and lowermiddle income countries largely align with the farm size dynamics reported elsewhere (e.g. Masters et al., 2013), even if not directly comparable given those estimates relate to a subset of countries with actual data (Lowder et al., 2016(Lowder et al., , 2021)). This includes the often increasing concentration of farmland among large farms as economies grow and reiterates the need to consider economic and rural transformation processes.The current paper focused primarily on farm numbers and remained largely silent on farm types. From a development perspective much of the interest revolves around family and smallholder farms and their roles in facilitating a broadly shared rural transformation. Lowder et al. (2016Lowder et al. ( , 2021) ) estimate that >90% of global farms are family farms occupying around 70-80% farmland and producing 80% of the world's food in value terms. They also distinguish family farms from small farms (i.e., <2 ha). They estimate that 84% of all farms worldwide are small farms albeit operating only around 12% all agricultural land. Ricciardi et al. (2018b) estimate such small farms (<2 ha) to occupy 24% of agricultural gross area based on 55 countries. Care is needed when comparing studies, as other label farms <2 ha as \"very small\" farms (Herrero et al., 2017;Samberg et al., 2016). Samberg et al. (2016) used such a broader definition for small farms (<5 ha) and estimated these to produce more than 70% of the food base calories and use 30% of the agricultural land in their target countries in the Global South. Herrero et al. (2017) estimates farms <2 ha to contribute 30% to most food commodities; and farms 20 ha to produce >75% of most food commodities in much of in SSA and Asia. Following Lowder et al. (2016) ratios, we would estimate the number of family farms to amount to 590 M in 2020; with small farms amounting to 551 M. However, the ongoing changes in farm structure in many parts of the world are an important, if complex, phenomena that would be useful for extensions of this work to engage with. For example, in SSA, the increasing share of production under medium-scale farms has been documented for relatively land-abundant countries (Byerlee and Deininger, 2013;Chamberlin and Jayne, 2020;Jayne et al., 2016Jayne et al., , 2019;;Sitko and Chamberlin, 2015). While the drivers and impacts of these changes are still not entirely clear, it seems clear that estimating their spatial distribution now and into the future would be very relevant for targeting interventions and monitoring changes in the agri-food system.This analysis set out to get a better handle on some of the key indicators for the global development agenda. We have focused on the number of farms and harmonized estimates for 2020 and projections to 2030, although we have also argued that this is just a starting point for assembling the data required to guide strategic policy priorities and investments. We have articulated some of the improvements needed to enhance the robustness and utility of such estimates.Our analysis may prompt doubts about our collective ability to achieve Agenda 2030: the already ambitious SDGs appear increasingly out of reach in light of the ongoing pandemic, and further challenged by climate change. Yet in the end, farms are set to remain the foundation for much of the rural populace in low and low-middle income countries to safeguard and improve their livelihoods for the coming decades. Reliable estimates of farm numbers and associated indicators thereby merit more attention in global sustainable development efforts and our quest to understand and support economic and rural transformation.","tokenCount":"4782"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"42d8ae18d0868a33bcbb7111c20a412a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/3cd0e103-d7e4-4385-893f-402abe49deb1/content","id":"1838201717"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"47b94753-07e4-41a0-809c-7967ae0efb4a","pagecount":"43","content":"of the Government of the Republic of Zambia in 1978. CIMMYT's Eastern African Econbmics Program, established in 1976 and funded by UNDP, was mandated to work with East African Governments to strength~n the contribution of agricultural economics research tó the generation and diffusion of new agricultural techniques. The Government of Zambia, aware of a lack of relevance in research to the problems of small farmers in the traditional agricultural sector, expressed interest in a demonstration of the procedures developed by CIMMYT to plan relevant agricultural experiments. They selected the Serenje area for this work.An economist from the Rural Development Studies Bureau at the University of Zambia was linked with biological scientists from the Central Research Station, Mount Makulu, and the procedures were implemented in the Serenje area.The work was coordinated by CIMMYT's Regional Economist under the guidance of a Steering committee of the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Development, Government of Zambia.In cooperation with researchers in many national agricultural research programs, CIMMYT has sought to develop procedures with help to focus agricu1tura1 research squarely on the needs of farmers. The process invo1ves collaboration of biological scientists and economists to identify the groups of farmers for whom technologies are to be developed, determining their circumstances and problems, screening this information for research opportunities, and then implement-' ' ' ....ing tAe resul ting research program on experiment stations and on the fields of representative farmers.CIMMYT's Economics Program has emphasized developing procedures for the first stage of this process, throuqh to establishing research oportunities. The evolution of the procedures, now synthesized in a manual \"Planning Technologies Appropriate to Farmera: Concepts and Procedures\" has been strongly influenced by collaborative research with many nationa1 programs and with CIMMYT's wheat and maize training programs. Our efforts with national programs began in 1974 with Zaire's national maize program, then moved to work in Tunisia, Pakistan, and Egypt. The pace df work accelerated notably in 1976 with assignment of regional economists stimulating similar work in Kenya, Tanzania, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Panama, El Salvador, and India. Cooperation with sti11 other national programs is now under way. We believe that the resu1ting procedures offer cost effective and robust guide1ines to nationa1 programs.We are now preparing reports that i11ustrate the imp1ementation of these procedures in various national programs. While not a11 such work can be reported, we take this opportunity to thank a11 of those who have collaborated with USe This report presents work conducted in conjunction with the Zambian agricu1tural research program with the objective oí describing farmer circumstances in a maizeproducing region. It emphasizes the use of secondary data and informal and formal survey techniques for identifying potentia1 research avenues for improving maize techno1ogy in the region. This chapter describes the general circumstances of Serenje farmers' as we1l as their cropping patterns and timing of agricu1tura1 activities throughout the year. With this general understanding of the natural and economic circumstances that shape farmers' decisionmaking, the diagnostic approach advocated in this report indicates potentia1 areas for research that fit farmer circumstances.1.1 GENERAL DESCRIPTIONThe Serenje District covers an area of about 23,000 square ki1ometers, with a population of 53,000 in 1969. The paved Lusaka/Tanzania highway crosses the District touching the study area. The Tanzania/Zambia railway passes through Serenje town. A network of feeder roads link agricultural camps, marketing and input depots, and sm&ll settlements with the main road. In the wet season, access to the rural areas often becomes difficult.With about 40 percent of its population in urban areas, Zambia's population distribution is the exception in East and Central Africa. Urban consumers provide a large market for rnaize and the National Agricultural Marketing Board (NAMBOARD) has a network of buying centers to meet this demande NAMBOARD depots purchased nearby 4,000 tons of maize in the District in the 1976/77 season (see Figure 1.1). About 45 percent of this carne from the six depots located in the study area.Smal1 quantities of groundnuts, sunflowers and soya beans also were purchased by NAMBOARD. The prices NAMBOARD pays the farmers are fixed by government and reviewed annually. Maize, beans, and groundnuts are also traded local1y, but prices in this informal market are not well established.Distribution points are found at small centers in study area, including the NAMBOARD buying depots. These depots play a particularly important role in input supp1y. Table 1.1 shows inputs normally available at NAMBOARD depots and the prices fixed by government for the 1978 season, including subsidized fertilizer prices. Depots also stock hoes, buckets, plows, and other farm equipment.Although the poor feeder road network creates in the wet season, input distribution is relatively effi-  cient. Orders are collected in April, immediately after the rains, and distribution is scheduled for the dry period before the next rains in November.The farming of the Lala people of Serenje has changed tremendously since the 1940s. A major turning point occurred when the hoe and plow cultivation began to replace the traditional Chitemene method--a form of ash cultivation (and soil fertility management) in which trees are cut at chest height and the cuttings gathered into small circles and burned. Finger millet, the main starch staple, was planted on this ash without plowing and grown without weeding. Lala farmers also prepared supplementary gardens for sorghum, maize and cassava, beans, and groundnuts. Plowed farms are now dominant, and maize is replacing finger millet as the main starch staple.Because of restricted acceSs to urban markets and a poorly developed retail distribution system, the primary objective of Serenje farmers is to ensure an adequate food supply for their families; the satisfaction of cash requirements may be subordinated to this need in their management decisions.The predominant food among the Lala people is a stiff paste, or porridge, called bwali. Finger millet, the traditional starch staple, and maize, a newer staple were heavily favored when farmers were asked to express their first and second preferences for bwali made from the main starch crop (see Table 1.2.). Nine out of ten farmers had a first or second preference for finger millet, with about the same percentage preferring maize. Farmers prefer to eat beans with finger milletbased bwali, but prefer pumpkin leaves with maize-based bwali. Other important vegetables used with bwali are bean and cassava leaves, cowpea leaves and seeds and groundnuts. Banana and sweet potato are important supplementary starch sources and are used with groundnuts as 'convenience' foods--easily prepared and satisfying. The percentages of farmers growing the main food crops are shown in Table 1.3.Pumpkin and cowpea, usually intercropped at very low densities in the maize fields and tended by the women, were not always recognized as crops, and are probably grown more widely than the data suggest. Land in the Serenje District is abundant and can be used by farmers without any formal arrangements for ownership. User rights predominate and the original user has some hold over the land while it is fallow.Two of the three broad soil types in the district are found in the study area. Skeletal soils of the Muchinga escarpment are dominant in the east. These are poor, shallow soils that sometimes show severe signs of erosion. To the west and north coarse grain sands and loamy sands are found, varying from yellowish-red to light yellowish-brown in color. The soils generally lie over permeable sub-soils, but tend in this higher rainfall area to have a low base saturation. Both types are low in natural fertility and soil fertility is rapidly degraded with use. Although burning is now much reduced, shifting to new land is still the main means of fertility maintenance. The La1a also supplement shifting rotation by the purchase of chemical fertilizers, used mainly on the maize crop. Soil fertility maintenance is in a state of transition. Over the long term, management of these poor soils will be an increasing problem.The average population density o~two persons per square kilometer is very low and within the carrying capacity of the original Chitemene system. However, the tendency for people to settle close to the road network, plus the concern of the authorities' with soil degradation if Chitemene is continued, nav~effectively halted the traditional system.' .The farmers who were surveyed had an average of almost three hectares under cultivation. Twenty one percent of farmers reported using land for two years, 40 percent for three years, and 17 percent for four and five years. A common crop sequence is two crops of finger millet followed by two or three crops of maize or maize mixtures. About eight out of ten farmers reported having cleared new land in the five: seasons from 1974 to 1979. \"Dambo margins\" are sought out for their special characteristics of water re~entiqn that allow an extended growing season for both early and late plantings. The margins are low-lying areas, often of clay soil, with a high water table.Maize, finger millet and beans are the chief staple crops. The maize fields are often interplanted in patches with low densities of sweet potatoes as well as pumpkins and cowpeas. About 18 percent of the traditional maize varieties were mixed with beans. Groundnuts, bananas, and pumpkins are grown by the majority of farmers, although only on small areas. About 30 percent of the farmers own cattle. Table 1.4 lists approximate areas and number of plantings for the main crops. Table 1.5 shows the spread of plantings of these crops over the year from July to June. It also shows the timing for immediate fresh consumption of maize, beans, and sweet potato, as well as the timing of the main harvest.Several features of the calendar are noteworthy:(1) The concentration of plantings of the major crop areas between November and January.(2) The concentration of harvest in May and June.(3) The incidence of early planting and early fresh usage of both maize and beans.(4) The concentration of the planting and harvesting of the traditional crop of finger millet.(5) The use of cas~ava as food in the period before the new grain harvest.Table 1.6 shows the sequence of crop establishment for the five major crops from November to March: it also reflects the farmers' allocation of labor over this period. Maize receives initial priority at the start of the rains, then finger millet takes over in the course of December and continues through January. Sweet potato becomes important in January and early February. Beans and cassava dominate planting in February and March.Farm labor in the study area is provided mainly by family. The average family size is just over seven persons, with one-half of these over 15 years old. About three out of five households reported members working away from the farm.The key resources constraint in the Serenje farming system is seasonal labor supply. This constraint imposes compromises both in present management and in the way management of the system can be adjusted.Table 1.7 lists the fa~me~s' responses when asked when they and their familie~work hardest on their farms. Clearly the land preparation and planting period immediately after the start of the rains when maize and finger millet are being established is the busiest time This cultivation peak immediately after the beginning of the rains is critical, and is a relatively new problem for the Lala. Historically, labor constraints in the traditional Chitemene system were in May and June, when harvesting needs clashed with the need to cut branches for new ash gardens. Although finger millet was planted in December, little or no cultivation was done as the seed was broadcast directly into the residual ash and no weeding was required. Serenje farmers have a range of strategies, some traditional and some new, to help alleviate1this new constraint on family farm activities.(1) Spreading the planting effort; although there is a concentration of effort in December and early January, planting start before October (5 percent) and lasts until April (6 percent), a period of seven months. Management compromises make this possible, including:(a) Both early plantings of beans and maize before the rains set in, and late planting of beans in March and April, are often on dambo margins. These low-lying locations with water-retentive soils allow plants to use water accumulated from scattered showers before the main rains start, and to use residual moisture after the end of the rains.(b) Cassava, as a drought resistant crop, will carryover the dry season if established at the end of the rains. Plantings are made mainly from February to the end of April.(c) Beans, as a short-term crop, are suitable for late planting. When planted late, so as to mature in the dry season in June, they avoid disease problems associated with fruiting and maturing while the rain is falling.(d) Farmers tend to retain their traditional December planting time for finger millet. However, this December planting was originally dictated by the delay required after burning to allow beneficial nitrifying organisms to re-establish. With burning becoming less common, planting time may become more flexible.(2) Use of capital to augment family labor in land preparation. This takes three forms.(a) About 15 percent of farmers reported owning and plows, and most hired them out to plow for others. An additional 13 percent of farmers owned oxen, but no plow.(b) About 28 percent of farmers reported hiring either tractor or ox plows, mainly in the November/January period.(c) One-half ~farmers reported hiring labor, and 65 percent of all hirings were for land preparation.Within the sample, over half of all farmers supplemented their family labor resources by one or more of these methods to extend their scale of activities.When farmers were asked if they prepared land at the end of the rains in April or May in re&diness for the next season, 78 percent said they always did so, while 13 percent said they were too busy with the current crop. Land preparation at the end of the current ¥7et season is mainly done on newly cleared fields, most of which are planted to finger millet. Only 13 percent of total maize plantings were established on fields prepared at the end of the previous rains.The Serenje farmers now use the above strategies to alleviate the lpbor peak during crop establishment. Expansion of the farming system and of farmer incomes will depend heavily upon better ways of handling this peak, or upon improved crop management practices that are compatible with it.Very limited equipment is used in Serenje farming. All families have axes and hoes, the basic tools used in traditional farming. Fifteen percent of farmers reported owning oxen and plows, and an additional 13 percent owned oxen only. Most farmers also use cash to purchase inputs. Table 1.8 shows four income groups, their level of expenditure on inputs, and the proportions in each group using the major inputs purchased in the area.There is widespread use of yield-increasing inputs particularly of fertilizer on maize, with uniform adoption across income groups. This contrasts with the modest adoption of labor-augmenting expenditures such as machinery. However, within a system of shifting cultivation, fertilizer use c~n reduce labor needs by reducing the frequency of clearing new land, a highly laborintensive activity. The majority of Serenje farmers live relatively close to subsistence level, thus a reliable family food supply is a top priority that cannot be met through the current retailing channels.Asked what problems arose when seasons were poor, about three-fourths of the farmers specified acute food shortages that occurred before the new harvests. The pattern of starch consumption over the year is related to the poor storage ability of maize, particularly the hybrid varieties. Maize consumption begins immediately after the crop is harvested. Finger millet stores well and is preserved until the stored maize is eaten. If necessary, cassava flour is used to supplement either maize or finger millet flour before the new harvest period. Total scarcity of starch sources is a serious, although infrequent, problem. Over one-half of farmers claimed never to have finished their finger millet before the new harvest. In years when yields are poor, there are some inter-farm transactions in finger millet, beans, sweet potatoes, and groundnuts.The dual role of maize as both the major food and the ,..ajor cash crop gives farmers the flexibility to divert the crop to cash or food, depending on the season. In the informal-survey, although farmers were critical of the poor storage performance of the improved maize varieties, many reported holding part of the crop for food in addition to local varieties and finger millet. Another management strategy, early dambo plantings of maize on dambo margins (particularly the earlier-maturing local varieties), can provide maize as early as December.Finger millet is also a dual-purpose crop. It is made into both bwali and beer. Brewing of beer is a common custom in the Lala household. If there is a danger of food stock running low, a poor maize harvest, or even poor germination of the new season plantings, the brewing is slowed to provide continuing stocks of finger millet for making bwali. Families recognize the superior storage qualities of finger millet, which has almost complete immunity from weevils. Their consumption pattern treats finger millet as an insurance crop. Finger millet matures before maize and families in need will begin to eat it. Once the maize crop is harvested, however, consumption imme<liately switches to maize, leaving finger millet in store until the maize is finished. This practice ensures that maize will have a relatively short storage period, thus reducing losses from insects.Gassava is not a preferred food for .the Lala ; it is basically an insurance crop. Flour frorntl1'eroots ,is used to supplement flour from the preferred grain staples, partic~la~ly in the period prior to the new, grain harvest. Fresh cassava leaves are used to supplement relish supplies through the dry season as other 'sources ,of greens dry, up. As, an insurance crop, cassava does not have a high priority; it is not usually plant~during the November'to January labor peak. However, planting does compete with the planting of beans and the weeding of maize and finger millet.Since the establishment of local NAMBOARD deppts on the road network, cash is playing a larger role with Serenje farmers. Improved maize is the roajor cash ahd food source, and these factors plus its high yield are probably th,e major reasons for its adoption ,by Serenje farmers. Table 1.9 ranks the major cash sources and approximate revenue levels among the surveyed, farmers. The average cash income reported was US$374 per farm, with an average of US$299 from on-farm souces. Cash sources for a major proportion of farmers'~ere maize, beans, groundnuts and chickens, wi th ban~l)as, fru~t, vegetables, and eggs less important. Of these pr~ucts, maize and gr6undnuts were marketed throu'gh offici,al channels. The 1978 official price were US$ 9.00 per 90 kg bag for maize and US$ 31.50 per 80 kg bag for groundnuts. About one out of four households were receiving funds from family members working away from home, mostly in the mine s •Survey farmers were asked about their worst season for farming i,n recent years and to describe its effects. About nine out ,of ten farmers said the major effect was an acute shortage of food supplies for the family before the new harvests. Three reasons predominated-~labor shortage (18 per cent), too much late rain (43 per cent), too little rain (18 percent). There was'no mention of pest and disease problems and no reference to low market prices.A number of specific problems relating 'to rainfall uncertainty had been iDentified during the exp~oiatory survey, thus farmers were asked about these p~oblems and in which recent season they had arisen. Responses are shown in Table 1.10. .The study area is in the high rainfall belt of the country. Data for Serenje Boma, at the northern edge of the area, shows an average annual rainfall of 1,033 mm. Table 1.9. Sources of cash income in serenje survey area Records for the period 1947-71 have been used to calculate probability levels for the wet months. Table 1.11 shows the average monthly rainfall over the wet season and the probability distribution of this rainfall.The reliable period of rainfall is from November through March. Records are inadequate to analyze the variability of rainfall across the study area, but discussions with the agricultural staff suggest no major differences. The probabilities indicate no problems of reliability after rains have begun in November until they cease in March. April rain is generally insufficient for crop growth.The exploitation of dambo margins for moisture reserves in this typically low-lying area is designed to offset the uncertainty of the early rains, and as insurance against a premature ending of the rains. They are used for early plantings of maize and beans as well as for late plantings (particularly of beans). This practice is beneficial in extending the useful planting time and it complements the labor peak rather than aggravating it.Maize damage from pests appears to be common, but of relatively low severity. Although no farmers indentified pests or diseases as primary causes of poor harvests, farmers were asked which pests and diseases were most serious for crop losses. About one-half of the farmers named maize as the most seriously affected crop, and an additional 25 percent named maize as the second most seriously affected. Most farmers named maize stalk borer as the most serious cause of losses on maize. About onefourth of the maize plantings were treated for stalk borer, usually when plants were 100-125 cm high. This description and evaluation of present maize management forms the basis for planning an adaptive onfarm maize research program for Serenje farmers. Interrelated groups of management practices are described and the reasons for present methods discussed.Three types of seedbed preparation are currently used for maize: mounding, 22 percent of plantings; ridging, 32 percent; and flat, 46 percent. In the field many variations were noted between the extremes represented by traditional mounding, characterized by small (often elongated) hills carrying between five and twenty plants and the more usual parallel ridges.Land preparation is done by hand and by oxen and tractors in the November-January period, with a small proportion prepared in the March to May period at the end of the rains. Table 2.1 shows the method and time of land preparation.Ridging and mounding are all completed by hand hoeing, whether based on initial plowing or hoeing. Flat seedbeds that were initially plowed are knocked down by hoe before planting. A high proportion of land is ridged after plowing by oxen or tractor, while a high proportion is left flat after hand hoeing. If farmers wait for the rains before land preparation, plantings tend to be staggered they prepare a piece and plant it. If the land is prepared in anticipation of the rains, they plant and then add new pieces. No dry planting was observed.The type of seedbed is closely related to the time of planting, as shown in Table 2.2. Local maize varieties are traditionally planted on mounds in low-lying lands before the rains start in November. In November ridging dominates, whereas flat planting is most common in December, which is the main period for finger millet establishment. Mounding and ridging also are used in late plantings in January. Farmers pf~en use more than one type of maize seedbed.' , , Traditionally all cultivated seedbeds were mounded however, the concentration,of land preparation efforts within the November~January periQd has required less labor-intensive land preparation techniques. Flat seedbeds usually provide poorer weed and water control than do the mounded or ridge seed beds. Most maize is planted in rows, although 27 per cent of plantings were broadcast. The majority of mounded fields were broadcast with local varieties. The variation in inter-row spacing was fairly low, with an average of 80 cm, thus more closely spaced than the 90 cm recommended. Inter-plant spacing in rowed fields was about the recommended 25 cm. Density of rowed plantings is estimated to average about 50,000 plants per hectare. For row planting, the rows are lined with a string and planting holes marked by the use of a stick cut to the recommended 25 cm. A shallow, wide hole is made and the seed is put at the front of the hole with the seedbed dressing of fertilizer at the back. Only one seed is placed per hole. Some pumpkins, cowpeas, beans and sweet potatoes are found as intercrops in small parts of the field. Pumpkins and cowpeas are usually planted at very low densities. Local maize planted on mounds is heavily intercropped with the local vegetables. Often maize and bean or groundnut seeds are placed in the same planting hole.The planting method with string and planting stick and close spacing of 25cm between hills is advocated by the Extension Service and used by most farmers. Acceptance represents something of an anomaly; the method is very labor intensive, yet labor is scarce when planting has to be done. The Lala apparently have accepted improved maize as a new crop and have adopted the recommended management on spacing, planting, and fertilizer use as far as is compatible with their resources.The Serenje farmers have shown widespread acceptance of improved varieties: 92 percent of farmers have tried them and 88 percent bought NAMBOARD seed for the 1977/78 plantings. About 72 percent of these plantings were made with NAMBOARD seed and 28 percent with traditional Lala varieties. The higher yielding characteristics of the improved varieties were the major attraction. Seven out of ten farmers also thought that improved varieties made the best bwali.When farmers were asked their opinions on the advantages of traditional varieties, 30 percent mentioned better taste when green; 25 percent said heavier weights; 7 per cent said earlier maturity, 5 percent reported better storage; 18 percent felt that traditional varieties had no advantages. There is a variety/time planting interaction with 65 percent of the plantings of the traditional Lala varieties established before mid November, and 75 percent of the improved varieties established after that time.Early planting of the Lala varieties is a traditional practice that persists because families need early food before the new harvest. The tala varieties are preferred for eating while green. The local variety Namulenga has about the same maturity as the hybrids; however, Tunserika (115-120 days) and Tunjere (90 days), also local varieties, were reported as earlier varieties. The hybrids SR52 and ZH1 require about 170 days to maturity. Thus, farmers feel they must plant hybrids as early as possible, and as the data show, maize takes priority over all other crops for land preparation and establishment after the start of the rains in November. In mid December, however, a major clash arises between the establishment of finger millet and the 60ntinuing planting of maize; maize planting declines in January.Major compromises are evident in the times of planting the improved maizes. Rainfall from mid November to the end of March gives 135 days of moisture with perhaps 20 additional days of residual moisture on the upland soils, thus a total of 155 days of expected moisture. However, 50 percent of improved maize plantings are made after the ehd of November, with expectations of only 140 days moisture, and 26 percent are made after mid December with expectations of 125 days moisture. The potential of varieties with a 170 maturity period is seriously compromised by December and January plantings.Although 47 percent of farmers weeded their maize plantings two or more times, 67 percent of the plantings received less than two weedings. Within all maize plantings 12 percent were not weeded, 55 percent were weeded once, 29 percent were weeded twice, and 4 percent three times. Table 2.3 shows maize height at first weeding. The average height of first weeding was 62 cm. Plantings weeded twice tended to be weeded earlier: 61 percent were weeded before the maize was 50 cm high. Plantings weeded once were weeded very late, 71 percent when the maize was over 50 cm high and 41 percent when it was over 70 cm high. Maize planted in late November, just before the onset of finger millet planting, showed a strong tendency to be weeded very late. The compromises in management dictated by the labor bottleneck in the November to January period-explain present maize weeding practices. The farmer has to choose between increasing his planted area or weeding his earlier plantings. Finger millet and sweet potato planting continue to be intensive until mid January; however, by this time all maize plantings made prior to mid December (almost 80 percent of the total) should have been weeded. Thus the o major part of the maize crop is inadequately weeded, the frequency of weeding is too low, and the timing too late to achieve high yields. The farmers' current priorities are to continue planting because this gives higher returns to his scarce labor than extra weeding on his early plantings.Virtually all of the Serenje farmers were using fertilizers and 97 percent had tried them. In 1978, 95 percent of the farmers applied fertilizers at planting; 93 percent top dressed. On the average farmers spent about $72 on fertilizers for maize. Levels of fertilizer applications are shown in Table 2.4.A distinction is drawn in the table between plantings of 0.8 ha or less and those over 0.8 ha. Heavy applications were concentrated on small plantings, reflecting efforts to concentrate capital on better management of a small area.All of the farmers understood the method of fertilizer application and claimed to use it as recommended. However, on the average, top dressing was made when the crop was 75 em high. Only 7 percent of plantings were top dressed before reaching 30 em, while 56 percent were top dressed when over 70 em high. The high proportion of Serenje farmers using fertilizer on their hybrid maize plantings is probably due to Extension Service demonstrations emphasizing that the hybrids require fertilizer. However, it also indicates that farmers see a clear benefit from using fertilizer on the rapidly degraded soils of the area. The fact that farmers can obtain their fertil1zer on credit against future maize sales encourages higher levels of usage. The application of top dressing when the crop has reached an average height of 75 em seems to be closely related to the 'timing of the first weeding. There is some evidence that farmers make more effort to weed fertilized fields; 45 percent 0+ plots fertilized at planting were weeded before 50 emf as yompared to 24 percent of those without seedbed fertilizer application. Of top-dressed plantings, 37 percent received two or more weedings as compared to 24 percent of those with no top dressing. (This may be due to the effect of fertilizer on weed growth, prompting farmers to apply their labor more intensively.)The relatively poor storage quality of the improved maize varieties was often raised as an issue by farmers. Field workers saw extensive damage from stalk borer in the field and bad weevil damage on cobs was observed in grain stores. About 18 percent of farmers purchased dust for field use against stalk borer and 23 percent of the plantings were treated, usually when plants were at a height of 100 to 125 cm. Only 13 percent of farmers used insecticides (malathion dust) in their stores. A number of others reported storing the improved maize in bags instead of traditional stores to help guard against weevil damage.Present stores are relatively open, whereas sealed stores are recommended to hold down the moisture content and maintain the viability of the insecticide. The cost of insecticide treatment, both for stalk borer in the field and for weevils in the store, is low compared to the amount being spent by Serenje farmers on other purchased inputs. The low level of usage is difficult to explain. Farmers apparently are either not informed about the methods, or they are not convinced of the value of the treatments. Their traditional storage methods may not be conducive to the effective use of insecticides on the stored maize.The Serenje system is rapidly evolving and the direction of its evolution is important in planning its improvement. Plans that interrupt or seek to reverse trends work against forces presently motivating farmers and require careful evaluation. Plans that reinforce trends are usually more readily acceptable.Government pressure against Chitemene as an inefficient land use system, coupled with the restricted access to new land created by the tendency for grouping of rural families, has forced changes in finger millet management. Finger millet is now grown mainly on cleared and plowed fields; however, experimental work has shown that results are very poor with such seedbeds. Such fields lack the benefits from burning which 17 0ntrols weed emergence, and produces soil nutrients-.Even when fertilizer is used weed interference is severe and difficult to control on land that is repeatedly used for finger millet. During the pre-survey, finger millet stands observed in the field were extremely poor. Farmers complained of poor germination in plowed seedbeds and said that growth was slow and weed competition severe. Farmers were asked if they were producing more or less finger millet, sweet potato, and cassava than they did ten years ago. Answe~s were divided evenly between \"more\" and \"less\". When asked reasons for growing more, the common answers were: \"more.food\" for all these crops, \"more beer\" for finger millet, and \"as a dry season food\" for cassava and sweet potato. Reasons for growing \"less\" showed more insight: 37 percent of farmers mentioned the shortage of labor and 18 percent mentioned that maize was taking over.The following comments are extracted from work done in the 1920s: \"Control yield s on hoed field s run at about 25% of the yield levels under Chitemene. The results show the value of heat and ash in finger mille.t cultivation. After hoeing, germination is poor and weed growth is heavy and difficult to control. Millet produced by a method other than Chitemene but at the same yields, would require; (1) reduced weed infestation, (2) improved surface soil structure, and (3) the equivalent of 270 kg/ha of calcium ammonium nitrate added. \" The evidence from experimental work and from farmers, discussions suggests that, as in most parts of Eastern Africa, finger millet will be replaced by maize. The labor required to grow finger millet by conventional management methods is very intensive, it has only a local market for limited quantities, and it cannot earn cash to cover the costs of fertilizer required to give viable yields. In addition, the women's task of grinding finger millet flour is very difficult; maize can be carried to the hammer mill for grinding.Improved maize has become,a major crop in the survey area with 88 percent of farmers reporting buying maize seeds for the 1978 season. Farmers were asked the year in which they first used purchased seed from NAMBOARD; the solid line in Fig. 3.1 shows the cumulative seed adoption curve based on their responses. The broken line that closely parallels that line is a similar curve showing the increasing number of maize farmers using purchased fertilizer.These curves accent the very rapid increase in the use of both maize seed and fertilizer after 1971. Improved maize appears to have moved into the area as a response to several factors, including:(1) Problems of access to new land created by people clustering on service points and consequent difficulties in finger millet production.(2) Improved access to NAMBOARD outlets for maize and distribution facilities for inputs.(3) Increased cash demands generated by improved access to the distributive network.(4) Better focused extension efforts through the improved service network.The increasing dominance of maize is accompanied by a change in seedbed preparation tecPn~ques. The use of ox plows and availability of tractors for hire encourage a transition to flat seedbeds, which now dominate in the finger millet and maize enterprises.Finger millet seems likely to disappear from the Serenje farming system, with the rapidity of its disappearance governed by how far new developments can replace its current role in the system. This role now has three main facets: (1) as a preferred base for making bwali, (2) as an insurance grain that stores well, for use after all maize is consumed, and (3) as a highly preferred base' for home-brewed beer. (For this use, finger millet and sorghum have persisted in many East and Central African farming systems; they bring a taste to the beer that is not present when maize is used.)The demise of finger millet as a low-productivity crop would bring wide benefits to the Serenje farming system:(1) The release of labor in December and January would allow for an increase in area of more productive crops, or the improved management of existing areas of crops.(2) The release of labor from the intensive harvesting and threshing operations in May and June would allow for an increase in cultivation at the end of the rains, further relieving the pressure on labor in the November to January period.(3) There would be more flexibility in the planting time of sweet potatoes, which is now closely geared to maturity of the finger millet harvest in May and June.The major thrusts identified for the development of the Serenje farming system are:(1) Managing the labor bottleneck in the November January period to allow a larger cultivated area or more intensive management of the existing crop areas.(2) Improving the reliability'of maize production and storage, thus reducing the need for finger millet as an insurance crop.(3) Introduction of new cash crops.Strategies for relieving this labor bottleneck are already much in evidence in the area.-Government action can reinforce those strategies, bringing benefits to an increasing proportion of the farm population. However, overall popUlation density is so low, and homesteads so scattered, that agricultural services can reach farmers only through a carefully thought out settlement strategy. The establishment of NAMBOARDdepots and rural centers has encouraged the concentration of population. Further incentives could be offered to encourage the development of a viable settlement pattern. Concentrations of about 100 families would allow a bush fallow rotation system that could support 10 persons per square kilometer, a much higher level than that of £hitemene. Within this situation there are several strategies to relieve the November to January peak.(1) Tractors for Land Preparation--A full discussion of the pitfalls of planned tractor services is beyond the scope of this report. With a fourmonth main season, October to January, and a supplementary season at the end of the wet season, April and May, a tractor should have perhaps a two hundred hectare capacity including the supplementary work of carrying maize to market. This would allow reasonable hire rates. There are private operators already active in the area, usually, however, with cheaply purchased ex-government owned machines. It would seem preferable to encourage private operators by finance and service arrangements rather than through direct government hire services. Criteria for finance and service arrangements should be part of any overall settlement strategy for the area.(2) Oxen--The official promotion of oxen husbandry among people who have not traditionally kept cattle has oftert been unsuccessful. However, on their own initiative, the people of the area have begun to bring in oxen as an answer to the pressures for land preparation. Enabling services could be a help in arranging for a stock of equipment and spares needed for use with the oxen, and for allowing credit for purchases. Sources of working animals and arrangements for training in their maintenance and management could be identified.(3) Encouragement of Winter Plowing--A campaign to encourage farmers to cultivate lands during the April to June period would help develop this feat~re of the traditional system. Timing of such cultivation, and the yomplementary operations required at the beginning of the rains, should be based on past research and new research done locally to evaluate the altern~tives. Subsidizing plowing rates for a few seasons may encourage both farmers and local contractors to further the practice after an appropriate sequence is established.The development of appropriate practices for improved maize production (which is the crop absorbing the most labor over this period) could make a significant contribution to the development of the Serenje farming system. Two areas of improved maize management are pivotal and could form a framework for an on-farm experimental program on maize for Serenje zone farmers.(1) Improvement of the reliability of maize production as the major crop for food and cash in the Serenje farming system, within the prevailing natural circumstances of the zone.(2) Complementary management to exploit the high levels of purchased inputs being used on maize by Serenje farmers. Amore appropriate management package should be developed, based on achievable planting times and weeding regimes.Currently maize is the dominant cash crop in the system and is the only crop produced specifically for the market. Successful strategies to alleviate the November-January labor peak and to improve the reliability of maize production and storage would release labor from finger millet production in late December and January. If maize becomes the crop with the highest productivity for the use of January labor, more would be grown for cash. On the other hand, an alternative cash crop with a higher return for labor employed in January may be found.Beans could be a more profitable alternative to maize (yield ratios are presently about 1:5, price ratios about 8:1) if January labor demands for beans are not excessive. Its present usage as a major protein source in the Lala diet provides the possibility of the same dual role, for food and cash, that has helped popularize improved maize. An assured market outlet at a known price would be an important pre-requisite to successful development of beans.Sunflower and cotton, both currently being promoted in the area, are also new crops to be considered. Compatibility with the existing system would demand planting in the first part of January with a 100-120 day growing season. A comparison of the economics of maize, beans, sunflower and cotton under such a regime would be an important planning requirement.The research proposals can be grouped at two levels: first, longer-term work designed to relax system constraints and to be relevant to large numbers of traditional farmers in Zambia, and second, immediate priorities for increased maize production on the majority of farms in the Serenje zone.Land Preparation and Planting and Weeding Sequence--Research efforts on methods of land preparation could improve maize productivity both directly and indirectly. Most farmers recognize waterlogging of seeds as a problem. The compatibility of Serenje soils for tractor and ox ridging seems an appropriate research area. Parker and Vernon (1978) have initiated a program of on-farm trials to alleviate problems faced by small farmers in timely planting and weeding of maize. The program is useful to small farmers throughout Zambia (and elsewhere) faced with acute labor shortages in the new season--shortages that can delay planting and add to the difficulty of weed control.Parker and Vernon are concentrating on methods and timing of land preparation, planting, and weed control (inclUding end of s~ason land preparation and the use of herbicides) for farmers using oxen. The program would have wider utility to most Serenje farmers if it were extended to include farmers who cultivate by hoe. The benefit from the program would be an overall area expansion due to an easing of the labor constraints early the season. This benefit may be significant enough to outweigh lower yields of maize realized in some of the treatment alternatives. Thus it would be important to record the amount and timing of c~pital and labor required by the various treatments, as well as the yield levels, to properly assess their potential in the system. Bush Fallow as a System of Fertility Maintenance--Whereas the human carrying capacity of the Chitemene system is limited by the rate at which forest regeneration can provide branches for the burn, in a bush-fallow system the limitation is the rate of soil degradation of the fallow when put under cultivation. It seems likely that the use of fertilizer can be balanced with the fertility accumulated during the fallow to optimize the use of cash spent on fertilizers over the period of cultivation. This is an attractive possibility nationally as the importation of fertilizers absorbs scarce foreign exchange, bush fallowing, if worked as a rotation, uses local natural resources. The method is also attractive to the traditional farmers who are short of cash resources and at certain slack times of the year can provide labor for land clearing, a labor-intensive prerequisite to tapping the fertility of the bush-fallow. The period of cultivation of the cleared land can be extended by using available cash to buy chemical fertilizers to supplement natural fertility. As incomes improve, higher capital will allow sufficiently high levels of fertilizer purchase to sustain permanent farming on the same land.In an on-farm experimental program on maize for the Serenje study area, the immediate priority is to arrive at improved practices that are (1) compatible with the management compromises made by local farmers because of their circumstances, and (2) to improve the reliability of maize production and storage, reducing the need for finger millet as an insurance yLQin.Varieties and Planting Time--Late planting of the present available imprOVed maize varieties is a compromise in management forced onto Serenje farmers by the high labor requirements of the current system during the November to January period. As finger millet loses its traditional importance, maize plantings in late December and early January are likely to increase, giving a higher proportion of total plantings with expectations of 125 days of moisture or less.There is a crucial need for establishing the relationships between variety, days to maturity, time of planting, and yield to find the crossover points in the yielding ability of available selections. As the available moisture period becomes shorter, the normal time-of-planting effect will be reinforced by a scarcity of moisture for filling the grain and the effect will be more serious for the longer-term varieties.The Lala are accustomed to handling a variety of crops and a range of crop varieties; there is no obvious barrier to asking them to manage two varieties of improved maize--with an earlier-maturing variety to complement present hybrids. Such a variety, planted in late December and early January, would be an appropriate adaptation to the labor supply problems of Serenje farmers and would give more reliable results from these later plantings. At the same time, it could provide more productive early plantings to obtain food more rapidly. Serenje farmers were asked if an improved type which produced in four months would be useful to them; 96 percent answered that it would, and 63 per cent mentioned the advantage of early food.Weeding and Fertilizer Use--Taking into account (1) the relatively high average levels of expenditure on fertilizer by Serenje farmers, (2) the low levels of weeding, unlikely to be increased in the short-term, and (3) the high level of interaction between fertilizer application and weeding, fertilizer response should be studied under the weeding regimes being employed by Serenje farmers. The key seems to be the timing of first weeding-with an early first weeding, a second weeding (outside of the peak November-January labor period) poses less of a problem. The timing of the first weeding is also a major factor in both the effectiveness of the seedbed dreSsing and the timing of the top dressing. Experiments could evaluate the economics of fertilizer response, ranging across present and recommended levels of both fertilizer management and weed control.An alternative approach to weed control, which could be particularly attractive to the Lala and could bring wide benefits to their evolving farming system, is the use of fast maturing, shade-tolerant beans as an intercrop. Extensive research on maize/bean intercrops in both Tanzania and Kenya has shown that beans can be intercropped into maize with little or no loss of maize yield and with overall productivity of the intercrop often 50% higher than the monocu1ture. The use of a shade-tolerant, fast maturing bean variety also serves as a weed suppressant and reduces weeding labor requirements.Maize Pests--Field and storage losses from insect attack on maize appear to be significant in Serenje and prevention would make an important contribution to improving the reliability of maize production. Also, the cost of treatments appears to be low compared to the farmers' present expenditure on purchased inputs. Two lines of research seem justified: (1) testing the effectiveness of insecticide use in the field against stalk-borer, with special attention to the time of application, and (2) examining the compatibility of present storage practices and the use of insecticide in the stored maize.A prerequisite for storage experiments would be further special surveys to describe farmers' traditional storage methods and to examine modifications farmers have introduced to offset the increased VUlnerability of the improved v~ri~ties.TARGET FARMERSThe maize experimental program outlined here is designed to exploit two sources of benefit to Serenje farmers:(1) Improved Reliability in Maize Production and Storage:(a) Improved storage; (b) selection of. a shorter-season variety which stores as well or better than traditional maize varieties, is a more productive source of early food in the new season, and is less vulnerable than present full term hybrids to the end of the rains when planted in late December and early January and (c) control of stalk borer.(2) Varieties and Practices Compatible with Target Farmers' Management Compromises;(a) selection of a productive short-season maize variety that does relatively well when planted in late December and early January, (b) appropriate fertilizer recommendations for this short-season variety when planted late, (c) compatibility between fertilizer recommended for ZH1 and SR52 and low levels of weeding achieved by farmers on these full-season improved varieties when planted in November, and (d) study of less labor intensive planting techniques which do not penalize yields.Present farmers' practices should be a baseline for measuring responses to changes. Practices that farmers are willing and able to change should form experimental variables in the work. Treatment levels on these variables will cover the range felt to be feasible for Serenje farmers. Practices that farmers cannot (or do not need to) change will be held at present levels in the experimental work.The specificity of the program requires that the work be conducted in the study area on farmers' fields. In describing the experiments, reference will be made to farmer management practices that will be used for nonexperimental variables. Fixed components are:(1) Flat or ridged seedbed •(2) Flexible date of planting, October to January, f\" to be specified •(3) Row spacing 80 cm into 25 cm. between plants.(4) One weeding when maize is 60 cms high.(5) Seedbed fertilizer three 50 kg bags of compound (20N, 10P 2 0 5 , 5K 2 0, lOS) per hectare.(6) Top dressing three 50 kg bags of Ammonium . Nitrate per hectare.Experimental variables will be tested against this base to measure potential improvements in productivity over farmers' methods.Ob;ective: to select a maize variety that will minimize yield losses from plantings as late as mid January.Criteria: high yield under late planting. Better storage ability than that of ZH1, with low transfer of pests from the field, but equally as palatable as ZH1.Selection approach: 12D-140 day selections grown in a variety trial with ZH1 as control. Planted on December 25, January 5, and January 15 to establish yield crossover points with the established improved variety.Management: the trials should be located in the study area and planted on flat seedbeds. Shorter season selections with reduced plant height should be sown at a greater planting density. Density should be increased by increasing the number of plants per stand and varying the inter-stand distance.Records: data should include: yields, days to maturity, insect damage in field, insect infestation of cobs, in field stand count at harvest, ear rot and number of ears harvested per plant.The short-term selection should also be tested for early planting in low-lying areas to provide an early food supply. Planting should be done in October and compared with local varieties Namulenga, Tunserika and the improved ZH1. Experimental approach: a 3x2x2 factorial experiment planted about the middle of November with three levels of fertilizer and two times of application under farmers weeding management~viz., once when the crop is 60 ems high.Varieties: ZH1 and SR52.Fertilizer levels per hectare:(1)(2)(3) -10 kg N, 5 kg P205' 2.5 kg K 2 0, 5 kgS, + 17 Kg N.-30 kg N, 15 kg P 2 0 5 , 7.5 kg K 2 0, 15 kg S, + 51 Kg N. -50 kg N, 25 kg P 2 0 5 , 12.5 kg K 2 0, kg S, + 85 kg N..25Times of application: (1) all in the seedbed at planting time, and (2) in the seedbed at planting time with the additional Nitrogen applied immediately after weeding.Management: the trial should be located on farmers, fields in the study\" area and planted on a ridged seedbed.Records: yields and levels of weed infestation• prior to weeding.The objective is to evaluate the economics of fertilizer use on the short-season selection, planted about December 25 and weeded at farmer levels. The experimental approach, management, and records to be kept are the same as for the previous trials.Objectives: To specify density differentials for ZH1 and the shorter-season.selection when planted late, and to investigate the effects of spacing on yield and on labor requirements for planting and weeding.Experimental approach: A 2x3x3 factorial experiment, with ZH1 and the shorter-season selection as the two varieties planted about December 25.Three levels of density 30,000 plants, 45,000, and 60,000 plants per hecta~e.Three spacing treatments at 80 cm between rows.Single plants in the row; two plants per hole; and three plants per hole.Management: The trials should be located on farmers' fields in the study area and planted on a flat seedbed using large plots.Objectives: (1) to compare the productivity of maize grown in pure stands with maize when mixed with beans, (2) to begin to test ways of raising bean production in the system with a view to farmers producing a surplus for sale, and (3) to begin to assess the value of beans as a weed suppressant.Experimental aeproach: to compare performance of the short-season ma1ze selection grown in pure stands versus performance when mixed with a bean variety suitable to the area.The cropping systems to consist of a)a short-season maize selection planted with between rows, and at 25 cm in the row, with one plant per stand.b) Short-season maize selection planted in 80 em rows, at 50 cm in the row, with two plants per stand. c) Short-season maize selection planted in 80 cm rows, at 50 cm in the row, with two plants stand, and with two stands of beans planted maize stands and two bean plants per stand.Three weeding regimes: no weeding, (2) one weeding when the maize is at 60 cm, and (3) two weedings first with the maize at 30 cm, second with maize at 70 cm.Management: the trial should initially be planted on large plots of one hundred square meters at suitable locations in the study area. It should be planted on ridges, with the beans established three to five days after the mai~e.No fertilizer should be applied. The trial should be planted at two distinct times in the season, following present farmer practice for bean establishment and for early maize plantings~(1) early October on the margins of low lying areas to use collected moisture from early showers, and (2) early January.Records: yields of maize and beans, and level of weed infestation in all treatments just prior to weeding.In the first year, the agronomy program should examine the responses to stalk borer control in farmers' fields, with particular reference to the timing of application. After a shorter-season variety is selected, it should be. entered along with ZH1 or SR52 and local varieties in a storage trial. ~he trial should be designed to establish the response to each component of improved storage practice with a view to basing a storage extension effort on components that are relatively compatible with Serenje farmers' traditional farming practices. Four alternatives should be examined, with traditional practice as a control, and with Lala, full-season and shortseason varieties involved:(1) With store house cleaned before new crop is put in.(2) With store house cleaned and insecticide on cobs in traditional sealed store.(3) With store house cleaned and insecticide on shelled maize in traditional sealed store.(4) With insecticide on shelled maize stored in sacks.This work should be preceded by local observation to carefully identify traditional practice and to document measures farmers have adopted to counter ~he poor storage characteristics of the full-season hybrids. Observation will improve the relevancy of treatment details in the final design of a storage trial.This outline of an on-farm experimental program for maize for farmers in the study area of Serenje District is planned to show productivity improvements that could be obtained from new management practices diagnosed as appropriate to the circumstances of the mass of farmers in the area.","tokenCount":"9409"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e1936dd7d23e2ef3ff1d4e56f86f5782","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/cb434743-808b-44da-a156-e72a5e8e11cb/retrieve","id":"-1002536"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"30fa3c9e-609d-4cf6-bad3-69dc1539ff3e","pagecount":"21","content":"Transfer of Technology Models (TOTEMs) are focussed educational tools providing relevant information and distance training on one specific area of bamboo/rattan management, processing or utilization. They are a means of technology transfer between similar regions throughout the world, with the emphasis on South-South transfer for livelihood development. They enable those involved in the management and use of bamboo and rattan resources to more efficiently and effectively develop and use skills relating to these resources.TOTEMs are primarily intended as practical information resources and teaching aids for those at the local extension level in their communities, who can utilize them to assist local community development. Each TOTEM consists of a detailed written report of the technology, a PowerPoint presentation, a film, and, where relevant, a set of technical photographs. They also include information on target users, financial analyses of sample set-ups from the partner country preparing the report and information on where to source particular technologies (such as equipment). The TOTEM thus provides all the information required for establishing similar technologies within interested countries and regions.• The report contains all the technical details of the particular processes involved, as well as other relevant information for establishing the technology such as costs of business establishment, running costs and cash flows.• The PowerPoint presentation contains details of the relevant technologies and their applications, and is intended to provide an overview of the potential of the technology for development.• The film provides a visual guide to the processes involved and helps to bring them alive in the minds of the learners.The different parts of the TOTEM are targeted at slightly different audiences, via the local extension workers. The report and film are intended to be the main means of extension to the individuals and communities who will implement the technology and who will directly benefit from it. The PowerPoint presentation is primarily intended as a tool for the extension worker to sell the technology and its role in development to those who provide the infrastructural, policy and financial support for its implementation, such as government departments, donors and NGOs. There is considerable flexibility, however. Local extension workers will be able to incorporate the TOTEMs in their own work as they wish and adapt and develop them to suit their particular requirements and conditions. This TOTEM on manufacturing woven bamboo products has been produced by Xiao JiangHua and Wu LiangRu at the Research Institute of Subtropical Forestry, Fuyang, China. It may be used alone, or in conjunction with the TOTEM on the bamboo splitting and slivering unit, which has been produced by the Indian Plywood Industries Research and Training Institute, Bangalore, India.The report part of this TOTEM describes the technology for producing and establishing woven bamboo product-manufacturing facilities for rural development in regions where bamboo is available as a raw material. It is intended to be used in conjunction with the illustrative film included in this TOTEM packageThe first part of the report introduces the technology, discusses its history, its development attributes, its benefits and it's applicability. The second part of the report provides detailed information on the technical aspects of producing woven bamboo products in a small scale unit. Appendix I gives information on a case study in China. Appendix II lists source companies and prices of the main pieces of equipment. Appendix III explains assumptions made in the financial analyses. Appendix IV is a short bibliography.This TOTEM is one of the first to be produced by INBAR/ RISF and your feedback is most welcome -kindly contact INBAR or RISF with your comments or suggestions.Note 1: This TOTEM has been edited at INBAR and differs slightly from the form in which it was received from the authors.All financial calculations are in Renminbi (RMB). At the time of writing RMB 8.25 = USD $1.Woven bamboo products are produced from thin strips of bamboo. There are a wide variety of such products and they have been closely associated with the development of civilisations in bamboo growing regions of the world for many millennia. The products may be primarily intended for agricultural use, such as baskets for vegetables or animals and winnowing trays for cereals, or they may be household products such as baskets, trays, jars, cases, lampshades, fans and mats.Bamboo culms are split longitudinally to produce pliable, thin sections of the culm. These are then used to weave the products. The techniques require considerable skill and experience on the part of the weavers and the designs require innovation on the part of the designers.The market for bamboo handicrafts is large and ever-expanding. Handicrafts are very popular in many countries of the world where their natural appearance and their environmentally friendly production methods are major selling points. There is also a stable market for agricultural-use products in many countries.A woven bamboo products unit provides income generation and skills development to those that it employs. The work is gender sensitive and often favours women. Weaving can be done on site or at home in spare time. Increasing the use of local bamboo resources also encourages their sustainable management and benefits the bamboo cultivators.A woven bamboo products unit can be established very cheaply. If splitting is done by hand then the costs can be limited to land, raw materials and labour. The unit can be established at any scale, from a single person enterprise to a community cooperative. Proprer links to markets and feedback on market demands are very important, and continued innovation and development of new product designs will help maintain sustainability of the enterprise. The production of woven products is a traditional technology that has been practiced for more than a thousand years, and is widely distributed in southern China. Manufacturing woven products combines traditional weaving skills with modern technology. The majority of the remaining mills are grouped as cottage and small-scale enterprises.In China, there are various bamboo woven products including baskets, trays, jars, boxes, cases, vases, folding screens, models of animals and figures, buildings, furniture, lamps and lanterns, bags, toys, fans and mats. Some are graceful pieces of art for decoration or enjoyment and some are indispensable commodities. The styles of the products often varies according to place of production. For example animal models are characteristic of Shengxian in Zhejiang province, the household utensils from Dongyang, Zhejiang province are famous, gaily decorated baskets are produced in Gutian, Fujian Province, bamboo pillows are speciality products of Ningde, Anhui province, woven surrounds for porcelain articles are from Chengdu, Sichuan Province, famous fans come from Zigong, Sichuan Province, and the mats from both Yiyang, Hunan Province and Shucheng, Anhui province are well known.China has long history of cultivation and utilization of bamboo resources. Bamboo has a distinctive status in Chinese culture and history and bamboo has deeply colored the lives of the Chinese people. The usefulness of bamboo in daily life especially in the rural areas, has been well eulogised in literature, both scientific and popular.The history of bamboo weaving in China can be traced to the Neolithic Age. More than 200 bamboo woven articles have been unearthed in both the primeval Hemudu Ruin in Yuyao City and the Yanliangchu Ruin of Zhejiang Province, which show comparatively skilled weaving techniques. Baskets and other appliances for food storage were woven from bamboo, rattan, willow and straw, which were cut with stone knives and axes.During the Yin and Shang Dynasties the technology of bamboo weaving developed rapidly and various products were woven from bamboo culms. The colored bamboo mat and small suitcase found in the Chu Ruin from the Warring States Period (403~221 B.C.) in Hubei Province are highly ornamented and delicately woven. Various woven bamboo products such as mats, shades, suitcases, fans and baskets, were widely used in daily life or as decorations. The weaving methods differed considerably. For example, mats were woven by placing bamboo strips across one another either diagonally or longitudinally and baskets were loosely woven in three directions or in a circular pattern. These methods continue to be applied even now. The woven bamboo products form Shen County, Zhejiang Province enjoyed a high reputation early in the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317~420 A. D.), and were famous for their use of exceptionally thin bamboo strips. Woven bamboo products diversified during the Ming (1368 ~ 1644 A. D.) and Qing (1644 ~ 1911 A. D.) dynasties, the techniques improved and they became popular among ordinary people.As the technology of weaving continued into modern times, it has been further developed in the southern provinces of China. Various products such as boxes, cases, trays, fans, lanterns, folding screens, jars, and baskets are produced, some of which are exported to countries in Europe and America. These various colored products are more widely used than before. Zhejiang, Fujian and Sichuan Provinces are the front runners in the bamboo weaving industry in China. As an example, in Shengxian county in Zhejiang Province over 5, 000 varieties of woven products have been produced and more than 200 new products are developed annually. Ninety-five percent of the total output is exported.The main development attributes of the technology are as follows:• It is labour intensive The technology is suitable for all areas that grow bamboo that can supply the raw materials for the unit. This includes sustainably managed natural bamboo forests and plantations. Management of plantations and natural stands is highly desirable to guarantee a standard level of supply to the unit and to maximise the benefits of the plantation to the owner and cultivators. The woven bamboo products unit is especially suitable for areas where bamboo plantations are desirable for the restoration of degraded lands such as abandoned shifting cultivation areas, or where bamboos can be grown to reduce soil erosion, particularly on steep slopes in high rainfall areas.The main target group are the rural poor. Weaving can be done as an additional activity during spare time or outside the cropping season and thus the farmers can maximise their productivity. Bamboo weaving is a traditional labour intensive industry. Although the weaving of handicrafts involves high levels of skills and creativity on the part of the weavers, in general, the technology for making commodities such as mat and baskets, is not so intricate such that unskilled workers and those with lower levels of education require only short periods of training before they are competent in it. Bamboo weaving can be done in a very decentralised manner and is easily done by homebound women and those that are unable to do manual labour. The unit may be established on a small scale as private household businesses or on a larger scale as a cooperative or government enterprise. Therefore, bamboo weaving generates employment, especially for women and other disadvantaged groups, ensures better income distribution, and earns valuable foreign exchange through exports. The development of bamboo weaving-based industries will not only generate income for both men and women, but also will create more economic activities and benefit the growth of the rural economy in bamboo growing regions and countries. Woven products, particularly woven handicrafts, have high value addition and their production does not damage the climate or environmentIn addition, manufacturing woven products consumes a large quantity of bamboo materials that lead to more income activities based on bamboo forestry, which promotes cultivation and management of bamboo stands and generates incomes for farmers.Additionally, bamboos can be intercropped with food crops and thus enhance the food security of the growers.The bamboo weaving industry will play an important role in poverty alleviation in bamboo growing regions, which are in mountainous areas with poor transport, lack of energy, technology and finance. These all present some difficulties in developing other industries, yet there are rich bamboo resources and sources of labour available. Woven handicraft units would be ideal for this type of location.The essential requirements for a successful unit are:• Regular supply of bamboo culms • Unskilled and skilled labour • Small amount of start-up capitalThe land requirement for setting up the unit is negligibly small and the investment required low. As a micro enterprise it can be established near the resource, and can form a significant part of both the monetary and non-monetary economies in bamboo growing regions. However, technical assistance for production, organizing seminars and training courses (management, production and maintenance), conducting relevant research and development are all required to ensure success, especially in the establishment phase.Manufacturers rarely conduct market surveys to keep abreast of business trends and accepted products. In the export markets, the low prices offered for relatively high quality products deter them from entering these markets and so assistance is required to disseminate information on marketing.Institutional and economic policy support is also required to guide new products into markets, to introduce preferential financial investment policies and to set up networks of technical and information services to train workers.In China the majority of the bamboo weaving industries are one-man businesses, family oriented or part-time and thrive on traditional manual work procedures. The procedures are relatively labour intensive and performed with on traditional devices that are of low technology and production capacities. Efficient mechanization is still limited and confined mainly to the export oriented manufacturers who boast of their products based on quality and prompt delivery. In addition, product designs fail to receive sufficient attention. The local designers have tried to meet local tastes but without impact. Most of the local manufacturers cannot afford to engage qualified designers and have to rely on existing ethnic designs or copying ideas from other sources for the development of new product designs.Although bamboo has numerous uses, most of the woven commodities are traditional and low-value products, partly due to the wide utilization of plastic and metal products. The potential for high value addition has not been fully explored. In order to produce woven products from bamboo materials on a commercial scale, development of new technologies in this sector are not normally needed to start the project. Once the bambooweaving unit is in operation and requires further development, new products should be developed and value addition improved so as to enhance the competence and ease of access to international markets.Additionally, in order to transform what used to be looked upon as a lowly material into attractive woven handicrafts that caters to the sophisticated tastes of urban consumers, the designs and creativity put into new products and certain technologies such as preservation and protection against decay and pests should be improved. Aside from obtaining information and designs from other sources that can be delivered to the interested local work-force, more diversified value-added products integrated from different cultures may also be expected. It is also necessary to continue research and development in response to dynamic changes in markets, and to address medium and long term objectives.A woven bamboo products unit is an excellent option for rural development in bamboo growing regions. Weaving is gender sensitive and can be done by people in their own homes in spare time or at the unit itself. Because of the need for initial expert inputs in training weavers and seeking markets, it may be appropriate to establish the unit with the support of state agencies or NGOs.The technical stages involved in manufacturing woven bamboo products are:• Conception and design of handicrafts,• Strip and split making • Weaving skills • Methods of colouring, preservation and protection against pests and relevant facilities.Bamboo woven articles are made with various widths, thicknesses, lengths and sizes of bamboo splits made from bamboo culms, based on the design of the products. There are two kinds of bamboo splits used for weaving: bamboo threads and bamboo strips. As their names imply, the thickness and width of threads are approximately equal. Strips are much broader than they are thick.Bamboo culms are hard and flexible but can easily be split lengthwise into strips and threads for weaving. Many different bamboo species can be used, but the best are those with long internodes such as B. textilis and B. chungii.Strips and threads are the basic materials for weaving various bamboo crafts. Proper treatment of raw materials is a very important procedure that affects the final quality of the goods. The processing techniques for making bamboo splits are briefly described below:Smoothing Width-sizing Stripping a.The narrow tip of the culm and the stout bamboo rhizome are removed before the culms are cross cut to length.Remove the waxy epidermis and nodal flange: The waxy epidermis and nodal flange should removed from culm surface preferably on the day of cutting to guarantee the brightness and smoothness of the culms. The nodal flange is removed first and then the culms are fixed to a frame and the waxy epidermis removed by scraping gently and evenly with a sharp knife, without damaging the surface appearance.There are two procedures for splitting bamboo culms. The first involves marking out lines 2~3cm apart, and then splitting into pieces with a knife. The other method is to split the culms in half longitudinally and then further split them into sections based on size of splits required. Attention should be paid to ensuring smooth passage of the knife through the nodes. This operation can be carried out manually or on a machine. Bamboo splits should be put on frames in the open air and dried under the sun with the green skinside upward. The air-drying process continues until the bamboo skin turns light yellow or yellowish white. To retain their natural beauty the bamboo splits should not be exposed to rain.Production of bamboo strips and threads: Split bamboo parts vertically along the radius of the cross section into bamboo strips. Bamboo strips can then be cut into bamboo threads according to the requirements for the final products. All the bamboo strips should be of same width and same thickness and each strip should be of equal width and thickness throughout its length.Strips must be straight and smooth.Bamboo threads are mostly used for making articles such as baskets, boxes, bottles, jars and dolls. All these goods are woven from their base upwards. After the base is finished the weaving continues spirally upwards. Bamboo strips are used for making bamboo mats and curtains. These types of goods are usually woven from the middle outwards to the borders and corners.Bamboo is traditionally used in rural areas for weaving products or handicrafts. Manual crosscutting, splitting and slivering of bamboo culms is normally done by men with various tools like knives. Women, disabled or infirm people usually work as weavers.It is possible for people to weave products such as mats and baskets after short-term training. Much more experience and higher levels of skill are required to weave superior quality handicrafts and these can only be learnt from master craftsmen and women, ideally under an apprenticeship scheme.The main raw materials are bamboo culms. Auxiliary raw materials include dyes, bleaching agents and preservatives.Bamboo culms are tough, flexible, straight, pressure-resistant, tension-resistant and corrosion-resistant. However, culms of different bamboo species, or of the same species of different ages, or under different site conditions, have different mechanical strengths.The material for certain bamboo woven products should be selected in accordance with the design requirements. For delicate products bamboos with flexible compact culms, and long internodes that split well should be selected. This is important due to the ease with which the thin bamboo strips breakdown at the node. Additionally, green-yellow bamboo culms growing exposed to the sun should be selected due to their pliability, greater flexibility and strong stretch resistance, while bamboo culms growing in the shade loose these properties, although they are usually larger. Culms should be straight, free of mechanical damage, insect damage and disease. They should be cut on cloudy days in summer. Harvesting on sunny days should be avoided if possible. The culm skin should not be damaged while harvesting and transporting.Because there are various bamboo species with different processing characteristics distributed widely in the world, the selection of bamboo species with culms of suitable ages will depend on local bamboo resources and quality requirements for products.The auxiliary raw materials in common use are as follows:• The dyes are: direct dyes, electropositive and acid dyes;• The bleaching agents are: hydrogen peroxide, sodium hydroxide, sodium silicate, oxalic acid, and sodium sulphite. • The preservatives are: PCP, alum, boric acid, sodium borate, and sodium fluoride.The tools required for weaving bamboos are strip knives, saws, striking planks, sharp knives, shaving knives and hand drills. These tools can easily be purchased from any tool supplier or can be made by the weavers themselves.Although cross-cutting, splitting of bamboo culms and making strips and threads can be done manually, machines are normally used to increase productivity, reduce wastage of raw materials, increase the yield of bamboo strips and remove drudgery in the primary processing of the culms.The main machines are crosscutting machine, sliver-making machine, splitting machine and width sizing machine. The types of machines, numbers required, suppliers and approximate prices are listed in Appendix II.Many farmers in some developing countries are illiterate and live in small villages under conditions of perpetual poverty. Some rural peoples who take up weaving in their spare time to supplement their income from seasonal agriculture are economically strong and have the capacity to organize themselves into cooperatives or aided institutions to benefit from schemes funded and aided by government agencies.The cost of investment for this project includes fixed capital and flow capital that is essential to ensure project implementation and management activities for production. The input supplies should contain technological service fee, training fee and exploitation fee for new products, as well as investment costs.The main outputs of this project are bamboo-weaving products for both commodity and handicrafts such as mats and baskets, as well as processing waste which can be sold for papermaking materials, for energy production, or for making activated charcoal.The average price of one Moso culm with 8 cm DBH was 7~8 RMB Yuan in 1998. The woven products made from one Moso culm with 8 cm DBH are valued at about 60~100 RMB Yuan in China, yet the benefits, value and costs of different bamboo weaving products varies widely.Based on the costs of various woven products, which include raw materials (bamboo culms), other materials (chemicals for preservation, bleaching, staining etc.), energy, water, and the outputs mentioned above, the Net Present Value, Internal Rate of Return, Benefit-Cost Ratio, Breakeven Period will be 15.33%, 30.13% and 5.01 years respectively (For calculation of internal rate of return and net present value please refer to Appendix III).","tokenCount":"3716"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7a93721e73743b8a445cee3d32d6513d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/521ba842-ac3c-4201-a892-85d386539008/retrieve","id":"584550936"},"keywords":["Menace with Hope 2. Water-Related Impacts of Climate Change 3. Adaptation Principles: Applying Climate-Resilient Water Management 4. Action on Adaptation for Water 5. Choosing a Future We Want: Water","Adaptation","and Equality"],"sieverID":"3f6b729d-2162-4afb-83de-8b37cb3ef817","pagecount":"42","content":"This paper is part of a series of background papers commissioned by the Global Commission on Adaptation to inform its 2019 flagship report. This paper reflects the views of the authors, and not necessarily those of the Global Commission on Adaptation.Water has long been recognized as a central component of climate change impacts as well as a tool to ensure effective adaptation. In the words of Carter Roberts, CEO, WWF-US, at the 15th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen in 2009, \"The language of water is the language of climate change.\" Nevertheless, miscommunication and misunderstanding remain an issue between the water and climate change communities.Indeed, there has been a fear that water may come to dominate climate change adaptation. In 2015, in the run-up to the UNFCCC's COP 21 in Paris, the French Ambassador for Climate Change confronted the world's water community gathered at the World Water Forum in the Republic of Korea, and asked: \"Water is already mentioned in 80 percent of the national climate change plans. What more do you want?\"The problem may have been more broadly articulated at COP 22 in Marrakesh in 2016, when Morocco sponsored the first-ever official Water Action Day. Some 50 groupsnational, United Nations, multilateral and bilateral donor, nongovernmental and civil society organizationsparticipated in the event. In providing guidance to the event's moderators, a UNFCCC official suggested two questions: what can the water community do to help advance climate change targets, and what can the climate community do to help advance water resilience targets? Today, these questions remain the core issues for the intersection of policy and decision-making on water and climate change.The challenge for both defining and implementing answers to these questions is that water is both the \"water sector\" as well as profoundly cross-sectoral. Simplistically acknowledging that water is important for climate change or that the \"water sector\" must be resilient to climate change impacts misses the critical need for system-wide coherence on water across many agendas and, indeed, the opportunities made possible by that coherence. What people commonly call the \"water sector\" addresses water supply, storage, and sanitation, especially for cities, but water is also a resource critical to and embedded within many other sectors, development goals and communities, including: health; energy; agriculture; cities; equality and poverty alleviation; ecosystems and natural resource management; forestry; and disaster preparation, recovery, and management.Clearly, we must continue to manage water beyond and across sectors. Can we also harness the ubiquity of water as a tool to advance climate change adaptation for many communities of practice? Is there a shared vision for water and climate change? Can the dual nature of water flip from being a challenge to becoming an opportunity to align policy and implementation for water and climate change adaptation agendas around water resilience?The UNFCCC's guiding questions for the water and climate change communities are more relevant today than ever before. This background paper points to evidence of a growing and convergent synthesis that the space shared by the \"water sector\", other sectors that critically rely on water, and the policy and practice of climate change adaptation is climate-resilient water management. Climate-resilient water management should be the common ground and a unifying agenda for water and climate change adaptation. The emerging practice of water management for resilience is well founded and can be implemented today.Climate-resilient water management has been developing as a strategy, target of investment, and body of practice in climate change adaptation since about 2007. It contains two key elements: defining robust actions that perform well across a wide range of possible future climates, and defining flexible actions to climate shocks and stressors and long-term uncertainties in future climate change impacts. Clear priorities for policy and action on climate change adaptation can be defined through the combination of robust and flexible approaches in building resilience through water management.The goal here is to answer the fundamental two-audience question posed by the UNFCCC in 2016: what can the water community do to help advance targets for climate change adaptation, and what can the climate community do to help advance targets for water resilience?The language we use for climate change paints a grim picture, in which vulnerabilities overwhelm our infrastructure and institutions, and, even if we can slow the rate of climate change, we face a fast-rising tide of climate crises. In this drama, the water cycle amplifies our peril, menacing us with floods, droughts, tropical cyclones, extreme precipitation, lost snowpack, drained aquifers, polluted rivers, and parched wetlands. Damaging and destructive impacts are occurring and will continue to occur-populations will be displaced, livelihoods abandoned, agriculture and food security imperiled, the human right to water and sanitation undermined, and beloved cultural and natural expressions lost. Water will be the claws and teeth of climate change, now and in the future.But, in its real telling, the story of water and climate change is both more complex and more hopeful. The world's community of water professionals has come largely to share the insight that water is the key to climate change adaptation. If we can build resilience by managing water, we can move from a reactive, defensive approach to climate change to imagining how we can thrive. Yes, big changes must occur, and some of these will even be radical. But much of what we need to do is pretty clear. Our response to climatic uncertainty and looming impacts should be neither despair nor inaction but courage and hope; we should be choosing the future we want to move toward, and finding valid and realistic means of reaching that future. In this vision, the future we choose is resilient to climate change, and water is not solely a menace but also a source of solutions, enabling adaptation.The global water cycle is embedded in the global climate system. Most often, we view water narrowly and locally: our river or lake, our irrigation system, our flood levee, our cooling reservoir or wastewater treatment plant. The water cycle is far more, however, than the water we can see. It is a complex system that interconnects uses of water in rural communities, towns and cities with struggles for dignified lives, health and equality; that couples the energy, agricultural and industrial sectors with nature and the future survival of ecosystems; and that embeds risks from flows of water on land, below ground and in the atmosphere within multibillion dollar decisions taken in corporate boardrooms and at cabinet tables in world capitals. Climate change is reconfiguring this water system. Accelerating evaporation, shifts in the seasonality of precipitation or rates of groundwater recharge, or changing risks of unexpected deluge are unravelling basic assumptions about how we manage water in agriculture and cities or for public health, rural livelihoods and nature conservation. But therein lies opportunity -through adaptation of water management, we can build resilience to climate change across these priorities.Seen through a resilience lens, adaptation to climate change is not a quest for a single fix for a static problem; adaptation is putting in place levers and tools for adapting a complex system to a dynamically changing future. Resilience emerges by managing interconnected changes in institutions, knowledge, incentives, infrastructure, ecosystems, and social constructs. The goal is to equip people and societies with the means to make the adjustments across systems, sectors, and scales that are needed to withstand, recover from, and anticipate the impacts of climate change. Water management provides these vital levers and tools for resilience.Seizing this opportunity will be made possible by matching institutions and infrastructure to new climates. The perils of failing to do so were recognized in the 19 th century by John Wesley Powell, director of the U.S. Geological Survey between 1881 and 1894. He made the radical proposition that the western part of North America would be damaged and disserved by having \"wet climate\" institutions that had evolved in humid eastern North America-and by extension in Great Britain-imposed on an arid landscape. He knew that forcing farmers to work in small increments of land that assumed ample rain-fed water supply for row crops rather than larger parcels to support dry-range livestock or collective irrigation schemes would doom those farmers to fail. He saw that defining political boundaries that did not match hydrological basins would plant deep seeds of lasting conflict between farmers, corporations, cities, and indigenous populations. Powell saw that institutions and infrastructure must match their climate carefully to facilitate success, growth, and resilience.As old assumptions about a stable climate are replaced by dynamic and changing climatic uncertainty, contemporary water managers around the world have much in common with Powell. They must align water management with emerging understanding of new realities. They must design new policies to guide institutions, strategies, planning, and investment as the climate continues to shift. They must do so while recognizing that water infrastructure built now will effectively lock in our choices for decades or centuries while the climate continues to change, and that regulatory frameworks, cross-sectoral water allocations, and watersharing agreements, if not well structured, will cause water management to be rigid when it needs to be adaptive and agile.Fortunately, there are many Powells today, reminding us of the need to align our institutions and infrastructure with a shifting climate and a dynamic, uncertain water cycle. The agendas for both water and climate security are converging as a result. We have effective, powerful lessons to build on and, despite high levels of uncertainty, enough knowledge to know that big changes have already occurred and larger changes will be coming. Every decision we make now about water management is also a chance to build resilience more broadly. We can take effective action, and we can prepare.A warming atmosphere holds more water vapor. Observed warming has been linked as a result to changing precipitation patterns, intensity and extremes, and to changes in runoff to rivers, lakes and wetlands, in addition to melting of ice and reduced snow cover. These changes cause many of the most serious and most high-profile projected risks from climate change: 1,2 • Intensification of the global water cycle, bringing about changes to fundamental hydrology, such as precipitation, runoff, tropospheric water vapor, soil moisture, glacier mass balance, evaporation, evapotranspiration, and growing season length. Over varying timescales, these changes impact water resource availability, in both quantity and quality. • Variability in seasonal patterns of rainfall, onset and length of seasons, heat waves and extreme cold, associated with sea-surface temperature changes and changes in atmosphere-ocean dynamics linked to observed anomalies in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). 4,5,6 • Increased human exposure to flooding, because of more frequent heavy rainfall events, projected particularly in South, Southeast and Northeast Asia, parts of Africa and South America. 2 Flood risks will expand as warming increases, with three times more people exposed to the equivalent of a 20 th century 100year flood event by the end of the 21 st century for highemission than very low-emission scenarios. 2,7 • More frequent and intense extreme events such as tropical storms. 7 Tropical cyclone rainfall has increased, which has resulted in increased flooding and saltwater intrusion in coastal regions. 8• Increased frequency of drought, with a higher proportion of land in extreme drought at any time. 1 The area of land subject to increasing water stress is projected to more than double by 2050, while for each degree of global warming, approximately 7 percent of the global population is projected to be exposed to a decrease in renewable water resources of at least 20 percent. • An estimated 0.5-3.1 billion additional people will be living with water scarcity by 2050 because of climate change. 9• Reduced water availability in warm and dry periods for the one-sixth of the world's population that live in regions dependent on meltwater from major mountain ranges, and possibly reduced summer flows downstream because of less snow cover and loss of glacier ice. • Reduced river runoff leading to reduced water availability by mid-century in arid and semi-arid areas such as the Mediterranean basin, Southern Africa, Western USA and North-eastern Brazil. River runoff is projected to increase at high latitudes and in some wet tropical areas. 1,2 • Sea-level rise leading to increased salinization of water supplies in estuaries and from coastal aquifers. 2 Sea-level rise imposes higher risks of coastal erosion and inundation of coastal wetlands, while bringing about rapid changes in coastal hydrodynamics and morphology. 10• Lower water quality because higher temperatures strongly influence increases in organic matter, nitrate and phosphorus levels in river water. 8 Record levels of harmful algal blooms have been observed in lakes and reservoirs in different regions, triggered by high temperatures. 11• Increased water pollution, because of the effects of more frequent extreme events and higher runoff of sediments, nutrients, dissolved organic carbon, pathogens, pesticides, and salt, and higher water temperatures. 1,2 • Significant changes in flow patterns in rivers and hence the habitat of aquatic biota. Particularly in low-flow conditions, climate change is predicted to cause stream macroinvertebrate species abundance to decrease by up to 42 percent as a result of transformative ecological droughts. 12 • Impacts on groundwater availability because of direct and indirect effects of climate change. Groundwater storage in the Murray-Darling basin in Australia declined substantially and continuously from 2000 to 2007 in response to a sharp reduction in recharge during the multi-annual Millennium Drought. 13 Long-term loss of glacial storage in mountain ranges is estimated to reduce summer baseflow in many regions and groundwater recharge.Impacts from changes in hydrology caused by climate change are faced across society. Drinking water supply is at risk from damage to infrastructure by flooding, reduced water availability because of lower rainfall, and changes in water quality. 14 In agriculture, crop water stress is a major driver of yield loss. Increased frequency of drought, unpredictability of the onset of rainy seasons, and flooding caused by more intense rainfall can all lead to seasonal crop failures, long-term loss of production and food insecurity. 15,16 In the energy sector, thermoelectric power and hydropower, which contribute 98 percent of electricity generation worldwide, are both highly dependent on water. Modeled estimates show reductions in usable capacity for 61-74 percent of hydropower and 81-86 percent of thermoelectric plants worldwide for the period 2040-2069 because of reduced water availability and higher water temperatures. 17 Spatial and temporal changes in the distribution of water caused by climate change have multifaceted implications for ecosystem services (Figure 2.1). 18 Evidence is growing that climate change is also a major driver of water quality impacts. 19,20 Water is a connector for climate change adaptation, linking impacts felt across sectors, by all social groups, in cities, in factories, and on farms. Therefore, approaching adaptation to water-related impacts of climate change as a problem limited to the water sector is a mistake. Water is not a sector. It is a resource managed across economies, from local to national and higher levels. The impacts of climate change on water are systemic, with interdependencies and linkages across sectors. They cascade across systems in complex ways, with consequences for economies, food systems and ecosystems, for the movement of people and the security of communities, and for the eventual success or failure of sustainable development. 21,22 Where water is reliably available, economic opportunities are enhanced. Where it is variable and unpredictable, global analysis shows that it creates a drag on economic growth, especially where agriculture accounts for a large share of the economy. 23,24,25 Annual water availability has a measurable effect on economic growth each year across all sectors, with more predictable runoff related to higher growth in gross domestic product (GDP). 26,27 The costs of inaction on water-related climate change impacts are therefore expected to be high.Cost estimates for water-related impacts of climate change, however, tend to vary widely because water resources are entangled and embedded in so many ways in our economies and societies. Global analysis suggests expected annual flood damage of US$120 billion per year from property damage alone, 26 and in the absence of adaptation, coastal flood risk could increase fourfold, while fluvial flood risk could double by 2030. 26 Such estimates do not factor in the economy-wide and indirect damages caused by flooding, such as through loss of investor confidence or disruptions in supply chains, and hence the true picture is likely worse. Economic impacts of drought are even more difficult to circumscribe, but are thought to December 2019 account for about one-fifth of the damage caused by all natural hazards and amount to at least US$80 billion per year on average. 28,29 The costs of water insecurity extend well beyond those quantified in economic assessments. For instance, although drought might lead to temporary negativeTiming of runoff Amount of runoffChanges in...Cascading Effects of Climate Change on Water-related Ecosystem ServicesSource: Chang and Bonnette. 18 economic growth, the consequences for human development and women's empowerment among other issues can be long-lasting and permanent. 30 In sub-Saharan Africa, women exposed to drought conditions during their early childhood are significantly less wealthy as adults, have reduced adult height, and fewer years of formal education. 30 Even more worryingly, evidence suggests that these impacts may be transmitted across generations, with children of women affected by drought more likely to be born at low birth weight. 31 Water-related challenges in the face of climate change may also have spillover effects on the stability of social and political systems. Where populations are particularly vulnerable to the direct impacts of water insecurity and where water insecurity can intensify perceptions that the government is unwilling to or unable to meet the needs of its citizens, water acts as a destabilizing force and risk multiplier. 32 Evidence does not suggest that there is a direct causal linkage between water crises and conflict, social tensions and unrest, migration, or other manifestations of fragility. What is clear, however, is that institutions and policy choices can reduce water-related impacts on people and economies, and that failure to address these impacts plays into the complex and more fundamental dynamics underpinning social, economic, and political stability.The systemic nature of water creates challenges for climate change adaptation. Water is both a sectoral and a multi-sectoral problem in climate change that cannot be resolved without both sectoral and multisectoral interventions. Just as impacts of climate change are connected by water, so is action taken on adaptation. Adaptation in one sector can have impacts on other sectors because of water. If irrigation expands to reduce crop yield loss as temperatures rise and rainfall patterns shift, for example, then less water is available for hydropower, which would increase demand on thermoelectric power plants and hence water for cooling. In response to shifts in the timing and intensity of precipitation as well as patterns of water consumption, the mayor of Udon Thani, Thailand, has had to try to balance increased urban flooding, dry-season trade-offs between hydropower and rice irrigation, and urban water quality. 33 The new complexities of climate require more crosssectoral solutions and synergies; effective adaptation requires that systemic chains of cause and effect are understood and managed. Otherwise, poorly planned or ill-conceived adaptation can inadvertently lead to higher exposure to climate change risks. Failure to account for water and the interconnections it creates across sectors and systems puts the efficacy of climate change adaptation at risk.The converse is also true: the systemic nature of water creates vital opportunities to make adaptation strategies more effective. If floods, water scarcity, more intense storms or melting ice cause vulnerabilities for livelihoods, infrastructure, health, and peace and security, for example, then well-designed and well-planned action on water-related adaptation can synergize solutions. Water management is therefore an enabler and amplifier of adaptation.Recognition of water as an enabler of adaptation is being increasingly mainstreamed in action on climate change.The Green Climate Fund (GCF), for instance, explicitly prioritizes water management as a mechanism for joining sectoral and multi-sectoral adaptation. 34 Indeed, the GCF hierarchy of adaptation funding priorities describes how adaptive water resources management serves as a vehicle between adaptation actions in agriculture, land use and forestry, and more transformative approaches in infrastructure and urban resilience. GCF also supports \"transformative resilience\" within its adaptation portfolio, linking disaster risk reduction (DRR) with both hard and soft solutions for resilient integrated infrastructure (transport, energy, water networks) and resilient cities. Such hard and soft resilience solutions need to incorporate Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) with ecosystem management and restoration in order to ensure sustainability. Water management is the bridge linking adaptation and \"transformative resilience,\" and natural and built infrastructure. 34 The mayor of Udon Thani used similar insights in plotting a way forward for adaptation in the city, and chose a set of green solutions to reduce flood risk, increase water quality, and reduce competition for water supply, as well as improve long-term quality of life in the city. 33 Water-centric adaptation demands management of water risks across systems where, as climate change unfolds, hydrology is no longer stationary and uncertainty is increasing. Strategies for adaptation must therefore combine robustness-through measures that work well because they help us to adjust to and prepare for many possible climate futures-as well as flexibility to ensure we retain the capacity to adjust course and overcome hazards, impacts, and vulnerabilities that may arise in the future. Both strategies contribute to and can be embedded in resilience.December 2019Applying Climate-Resilient Water ManagementWater is naturally variable, and that variability has always challenged human interactions with water-will we have water when and where we need it, with suitable quality? Can we endure, resist, and recover from short-term shocks, such as flood events or droughts? Can we identify and compensate for long-term stressors?Throughout human history, we have tried to manage water to reduce the impact of variability-lowering the risk of potential disasters, making sure water was available when and where we needed it, with the right level of quality, for the services we needed, for energy, agriculture, drinking water, drought and flood protection. In most cases, we have reduced variability by building infrastructure and institutions. Archeological evidence suggests that controlled rice irrigation began in eastern China about 7000 BCE. Evidence of sophisticated water infrastructure in Mesopotamia, South America, Pacific Islands, South Asia, and North Africa goes back many millennia, implying long-term governance, adaptive management, and the ability to alter course in the face of shifting conditions and needs, including climate changes over the past 5,000 years. Waterschappen or \"water authorities\" in the Netherlands, for instance-which continue to form the basic unit of water governance in the country in the modern era-were first formed about 800 CE by small settlements to organize reclamation of land from rivers and the sea for agriculture and communities, and to control flood risk through dyke management.For at least two centuries, however, the basic premise for managing water variability has been the assumption of stationarity 35,36   The Hoover Dam and its reservoir, Lake Mead, on North America's Colorado River Photo credit: Bart Wickel..One the largest dams in the world, it was built in the 1930s for flood control, drinking water supply, and hydropower generation. The white strip along the reservoir's shore is over 100 m high and represents that increasing gap between the design parameters for the dam and its current climate. The original intake tunnels are too high above the reservoir level to receive water. Extensive renovations have been carried out in recent years to attempt to retain the dam's storage and hydropower functions. The false assumption of a stationary climate now threatens the power needs and water supply and, by extension, the agricultural and urban development plans, for a large section of the southwestern USA.The Kariba Dam on East Africa's Zambezi River sectors and needs, such as cities, agriculture, and DRR. Can we continue to generate hydropower or purify drinking water or maintain reliable transport networks, if precipitation patterns deviate significantly from those assumed in their design?As stationarity breaks down, using only past data to guide plans and decisions can lead to maladaptive results. For example, defenses designed to withstand a 1-in-100year flood will foster a false sense of security, leaving vulnerabilities unrecognized and unaddressed. Precipitation levels during Hurricane Harvey in the Houston, Texas region in the USA in 2017 surpassed a return period for three-day extreme precipitation of 1-in-1,000 years for most locales, and in one city, 1-in-9,000 years. Similar patterns are emerging for droughts as well. Cape Town's \"Day Zero\" drought that ended in 2018 has been estimated as a 1-in-300-year event as documented by 400 years of historical records. Much younger than the Hoover Dam, it faces problems similar in scope, with electricity production reduced to a few hours a day for much of the year, and straining regional economies as a result. Repairs and adaptation options are limited, and mechanisms to replace the lost capacity will be challenging and expensive for Zambia and Zimbabwe.  38 Many working in the fields of planning and design of longlived assets now refer to \"deep uncertainty\" in decisionmaking. Deep uncertainty reflects the widespread situation of decision-makers unable to determine the credibility of widely divergent visions of the future: will conditions grow drier, wetter, or wetter and drier? Will the current timing of seasonal monsoons be maintained, become more variable, arrive earlier or later, or arrive both earlier and later? Will snowpack reliably continue to accumulate and act as dryseason storage, or will there be a shift to a rain-fed system with little natural storage? Highly optimized management of water resources, as conventionally sought, may result in inflexible, \"brittle\" solutions prone to sudden and potentially catastrophic failure, such as floods that overtop flood defenses and inundate communities that had assumed they were \"safe.\" These situations are no longer theoretical; such conditions have become so endemic and disruptive in Jakarta, Indonesia, that authorities discuss less how to reduce flood risk and instead openly discuss relocating the nation's capital. iiiNew approaches are needed urgently for anticipating and reducing threats resulting from the high levels of uncertainty associated with a climate-altered water cycle.To cope with increasing uncertainty and more extreme and unexpected weather events, we need to be resilient, which requires that we are able to adjust to and recover from climate change impacts and, when recovery cannot be achieved, to reorganize ourselves to meet needs for development and well-being in new ways. Resilience depends on the performance of engineered infrastructure and functions of ecosystems, as well as institutions and decisions made locally and at higher levels.Building resilience to water risks in uncertain future climates balances robustness with flexibility. Deep uncertainty is critical in decisions about long-lived institutions and infrastructure, sustainability, and services whose loss or disruption would be debilitating, such as, for example, energy systems, food systems and irrigation, or ecosystems. As deep uncertainty emerges, our ability to identify the most likely and credible future water regime among a wide range of possibilities recedes. It is becoming harder to assign probabilities of future events with confidence limits and to then weigh alternative decisions. Instead, the best options for managing water are those that are robust because they show satisfactory performance across a wide range of possible futures. 39 If such robustness can then be complemented by flexibility, we also retain the ability to respond to unexpected future events, changes in climatic and hydrological patterns, and residual risk. The critical need addressed by strategies based on robustness and flexibility is to avoid traps that limit future choices as conditions (and needs) evolve over time and that are expensive, difficult, or impossible to undo, modify, or adjust over time.Water decisions that build resilience address robustness and flexibility in concert (see Box 3.1). Robustness and flexibility can be applied to all aspects of decision-making for water resources management, including infrastructure design, institutional analyses, and policy formulation. The iii. Englander, J. 2019. As Seas Rise, Indonesia is Moving Its Capital City. Other Cities Should Take Note. Washington Post, May 3.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/03/seas-rise-indonesia-is-moving-its-capital-city-other-cities-should-take-note/ concept of \"sponge cities\" used in China attempts to do this by bringing together urban stormwater engineering with flexible approaches to using green spaces to buffer flows of water during extreme events. 40 In the Netherlands, increasing flooding is expected in the coastal city of Rotterdam across a wide range of future scenarios for climate change as a result of higher river flows and sealevel rise, and thus robust interventions for flood defense can be taken now to ensure that the city remains livable, and shipping and port functions can continue far into the future. Alongside these solutions, ways of retaining flexibility are needed to respond to multiple potential futures, and indeed Rotterdam is considering how flood patterns may shift in the future in ways that are hard to predict and unexpected. 41 Similarly, South Africa, for example, has developed a strategic policy framework for water-related decision-making that includes strong elements of both robustness and flexibility 42 for use in a diversity of sectors, including cities, agriculture, water, energy, and natural resources.In a climate-resilient future, economies, livelihoods, and ecosystems are able to withstand or recover from the impacts of climate change and, in time, transform so that they thrive under new climatic regimes. As decisions are made about policies, strategies, plans, and investments for managing water, they will need to coordinate and ensure complementarity between:• robustness-for measures that perform well in a wide range of future climate change scenarios, and in which, as a result, there is high confidence from analytical studies; 43 and• flexibility-for measures that ensure that, when climate change results in impacts that were not expected, or when choices between alternative credible futures cannot be made, societies have the ability to adjust, change course and reorganize as conditions evolve and information about the future becomes clearer. 44 The need for both robustness and flexibility requires an assessment of future climatic risks and the levels of risk we can tolerate. Adaptation decisions that are robust are needed where we have low tolerance to failure for threats from climate change that emerge across future climate scenarios and therefore we have (relatively) high confidence will occur. For example, decisions need to be robust for the design of a long-term manufacturing supply chain that crosses a number of regions or countries, because failure or disruption due to climate change may not be easily tolerated without severe economic impacts. In contrast, a policy framework for sharing of water among communities, corporations, and different ministries can incorporate flexible designs for water allocation mechanisms (see Figure 3.3). 45 Levels of confidence hence shape adaptation strategies. In the case of water, our challenge is that while the scientific basis for confidence in future water regimes is relatively weak, many of the decisions we make about water management, institutions, and infrastructure can predetermine our future decisions for decades or centuries to come. As stated by Hallegatte et al. with regard to future climate uncertainty: 46 \"Many investment decisions have long-term consequences. Infrastructure in particular can shape development for decades or centuries, a duration that often extends beyond infrastructure's lifetime because the economic system reorganizes itself around them.\"A bad decision may not be forever, but it can have a very long-term impact on ecosystems, communities, critical systems, and even whole economies. As a result, the temporal period for assessing uncertainty and risk and our responses to them is key. Uncertainty increases as we look farther into the future, with more diverse and more unexpected events likely to occur as climate change continues to intensify the water cycle (Section 2). Generally speaking, adaptation decisions should aim for robustness to high-confidence, short-term risks while ensuring a strategic emphasis on retaining flexibility in the long term.Defining Resilience: Robustness + FlexibilityFor example, are there modular or extensible solutions to managing drought? The European Union Water Framework Directive and more localized water management agreements such as in Tanzania's Pangani basin both convene periodic re-normalization of water conditions as a way to reduce climate risk by shortening the time horizon for management, allocation, and sharing. 47 An alternative approach is to look at longer periods of time, such as the Dutch approach to develop a 1-in-10,000-year failure standard for severe flooding, 48 the Washington, DC, USA, public utility's choice to share climate risk with investors over the operational lifetime of a major climate change adaptation investment, 49 or the development of guidelines for green bonds that specify the use of 100 years for evaluation of nature-based solutions when evaluating and planning green and hybrid investments. 50Examples of the Relative Sensitivity to Uncertainty of Broad Categories of Water-Related Decisions for Climate Change AdaptationUncertainty plays a much larger role when technical water management decisions need to be made Drivers of uncertainty include: Social, Economic, Demographic, Climatic Source: Matthews et al. 45 For governance and policy coordination, low confidence (high uncertainty) can be tolerated by provisioning flexibility and periodic revisitation of agreements to take account of changing climatic conditions. Some decision-making, however, requires more quantitative knowledge and relatively high confidence. In general, a lack of confidence should result in a greater emphasis on flexibility for long-lived institutions, agreements, and infrastructure, or when the potential impacts of failure or loss of function would be catastrophic or severely damaging, such as when critical ecosystem services may be lost. December 2019The opportunity now is for climate change adaptation practitioners to embed robustness and flexibility into their water-relevant decision-making and planning, and for the broader water community to modify standard water management practices-used across sectors-to include climate awareness within practical ways of implementing resilience. Climate-resilient water management (CRWM) is an integrated approach to building resilience for wateriv Water is a renewable resource that is recycled relatively rapidly through the natural environment of which it is an integral part, above and below ground. It is essential for all social and economic activity, and often has deeply embedded cultural values. Furthermore, water resource systems comprise engineered and natural infrastructure, institutions (governance structures) and a large number of social actors. As such, water resource systems are the epitome of complex social-ecological systems.related decision-making to address short-and long-term impacts of climate change. 51,33 As shown in Figure 3.4, this can be summarized in four domains for action, based on principles for increasing resilience 52  The Action Framework on Climate-Resilient Water Management (Figure 3.4) provides a guide for action on water in adaptation. Policies, strategies, plans, investments, and project interventions should address or be coordinated with action in all four action domains. By doing so, they will align building blocks for resilience, from governance and institutions, information and learning to enhancing diversity and choices about infrastructure and technologies and their management and operation. Robustness and flexibility play out in different ways across each of the action domains, as well as across different sectors and scales. Application of the Action Framework ensures that approaches to water-related adaptation are equipped with a broad range of levers and tools for adapting complex water resource systems to uncertain and dynamically changing future climates.Water governance is full of inherent complexities, even without the added challenges of non-stationarity and deep uncertainty. No universal blueprint for how to govern water resources exists (nor would one be useful), but there are principles, drawn from both conceptual frameworks and pragmatic experience, that outline a basic architecture for water governance needed for climate change resilience.Water governance that builds on these principles is the foundation for action on adaptation.Viewed simplistically, water governance sets the rules of the game for how water is allocated and managed (and inherently, therefore, which water users stand to benefit most) as well as how conflicts over water can be avoided, negotiated, reduced, and resolved. Such simplicity is deceptive, however, and in a changing climate where uncertainty is expanding, a rigid framework of rules for water management will be brittle. Water governance, in reality, is shaped not only by law and policy and concepts such as IWRM, but also by social and institutional norms and the intersection of culture and both informal and formal institutions; 53  Action on adaptation requires that people and institutions have the skills, knowledge, and capacities for learning that they need to manage water while stationarity breaks down and uncertainty expands. This challenge goes far beyond the familiar need to develop knowledge and capacities for water management. It is inevitable that, if the historical record and past experience can no longer be used to guide water management, better information, regularly updated, and new types of information are needed (see Box 4.1).Applying this information demands, in addition, new skill sets and capabilities in water management that are in part radically different from the past. Given how pervasively climate change impacts on water cut across sectors and social groups, action to upgrade the knowledge, information and skills used in water management is urgent.Non-stationarity in hydrology has not gone unrecognized in climate change adaptation. Until recently, the response has typically been to attempt to substitute the outputs of climate models for statistical analyses of past weather and Increased acceptance and ownership over developed plans and strategies (B) COLLABORATIVE MODELING FOR DECISION SUPPORT Information has always been a vital resource for reducing uncertainties in water management; scarcity of data can be a major constraint in making the investments needed to lower water risks. As uncertainty expands under climate change, and past data (even where available) become a less reliable indicator of future conditions, the importance of water information and regular updating of water-and climate-related data only grows. A key component of climate change adaptation and building resilience is therefore investment in hydro-meteorological monitoring and information systems together with innovation in technologies for data acquisition, management, and analysis.Planning and decision making for climate change adaptation needs information on water resources and how they might change under future scenarios for climate change. Innovations that help to get this information into the hands of decision-makers are increasingly emerging. One example is water accounting, a technique that assesses the balance among water flows, storage and consumption in a basin. Water accounting-plus (WA+), developed by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and IHE-Delft, integrates satellite-derived data, modeling and ground-based measurements to generate spatially-distributed information on how much water is available, when and how it used, and how this changes over time. WA+ can be applied where conventional hydro-meteorological data are scarce to provide hydrological baselines for adaptation planning and assessment of future changes, and that can then be updated regularly over time. For example, IWMI used WA+ to assess changes in water availability in future scenarios for climate change to guide investment in new irrigation infrastructure in the Nam Phoung, Nam Mat and Song Ma watersheds of Lao PDR. Results showed that as a result of increasing risks of low water availability in the dry season, management of dry season flows will be critical to the success of planned irrigation investments.The World Resources Institute's (WRI) Aqueduct suite of tools makes global water-related risk data available online to companies, governments and international organizations, using the best available global datasets and indicators for physical water risk. Since its launch in 2011, Aqueduct has been used by hundreds of global companies, investor information providers, and international organizations, such as the IEA (International Energy Agency) and the Red Cross Red Crescent to provide a comprehensive overview of water-related risks. A new version of Aqueduct was released in 2019 including monthly data, better groundwater modeling and specific tools for flood and food-related water risks.Adaptation is also benefiting from new, rapidly emerging digital technologies for drought monitoring. IWMI, working with the CGIAR Research Programs on Water, Land and Ecosystems and Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, developed the South Asia Drought Monitoring System (SADMS), which uses a multi-criteria integrated drought severity index, based on data from remote sensing, to generate district-level drought bulletins for droughtprone Indian states. Updated weekly, authorities use this information to better target drought-relief efforts. SADMS has been used, for example, by authorities in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra since 2017 for real-time drought contingency planning, supporting village-level coordination of drought-response actions such as distribution of drought-tolerant seed varieties, supplementary irrigation, rainwater harvesting and spraying of potassium nitrate to reduce drought stress. Digital Innovation for Water Management and Climate Change Adaptation climate in assessments to support decision-making on future water management. By itself, this would be a viable approach if there was sufficient confidence in these models for quantitative applications to water resource planning and management. In situations where high-confidence quantitative data have traditionally been needed, riskbased approaches can instead be used that begin with understanding the operational limits of the system or problem in question and then use climate projections to help constrain the credibility of threats and drivers (described in more detail in Section 4.4). Groups as diverse as the World Bank, the Dutch Ministry for Infrastructure and Water Management, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are mainstreaming these approaches to assessing and reducing climate risks, often in conjunction with shared-vision, bottom-up stakeholder engagement approaches. 61,62,33 What, then, is the way forward? The precautionary principle, because it asserts a societal preference for risk aversion under uncertainty, is a key starting point for rethinking management of water risk under climate change. 51 This tells us that adaptation for water should be based on higher rather than lower risk projections. For instance, planning should be designed around high-risk (low-frequency) floods and droughts, to provide a degree of redundancy in water management systems. With higher uncertainty and non-stationarity, therefore, actions taken to enhance climate change resilience-and critically so for high-value, long-lived infrastructure-should build in spare capacity, or safety margins, to buffer against residual risk.Action on adaptation that increases options for water management helps to build resilience to climate change. As a principle, therefore, there are benefits for adaptation from actions that strengthen diversity in how water is managed. However, because water interconnects sectors and uses and different groups in society, connectivity in water systems can, in some contexts and unless managed appropriately, reduce the effectiveness of adaptation.Diversity in water systems is a result of diversity in the economy, in ecosystems, and in the history and culture of the institutions, businesses and groups engaged in water management. The diversity these provide in water systems increases flexibility in management responses to unexpected events and changes. Maintaining diversity increases redundancy or \"fail-safes\" within a water system by allowing some components to compensate for the loss or failure of others. For example, with diversity in the economy, vulnerability to drought or flood of one sector can be offset by other, less-vulnerable sectors. With diversity in agricultural systems, the costs of extreme events to livelihoods may be lower than where farmers and communities rely on a single crop or value chain. In the case of managing water storage, utilizing a range of different options-including both surface water and groundwater, and natural as well as engineered infrastructure-ensures that in interconnected systems, failure occurs only when concurrent shortfalls arise in multiple storage types. 63 Connectivity can, however, both enhance and reduce resilience to climate change. Yes, in the case of water storage, overcoming and recovering from disturbances can be more rapid for well-connected systems, by making it possible to switch from one source of stored water to another. In other contexts, however, connections across water resource systems may lead to the rapid spread of disturbances or unpredictable consequences from change. Increasing connectivity in water systems can therefore be maladaptive and the systemic effects of changes in connectivity across water systems should be assessed as part of planning for climate change adaptation. For example, while maintaining the ecological integrity and connectivity of river systems helps to protect the benefits of biodiversity and ecosystem services within a basin, engineering of connections between basins-for example, for inter-basin transfer of water-can be maladaptive if this leads to the introduction of non-native or invasive aquatic species, with unpredictable consequences for fisheries or other sectors.Conventional water management, premised on stationarity, has typically aimed to provide optimized solutions for water resource constraints and risks. Put simplistically, risks of scarcity have conventionally been tackled by expanding water storage, and risks of flooding by construction of dams, levees, and barriers, with the dimensions for each based on historical hydrological and climatic data. Now, in a changing climate, this ageold, received wisdom on how to plan, build, and operate water management infrastructure and technologies has to be redeveloped. Their purpose, to reduce water-related risks and secure water services, remains the same. However, to cope with deep uncertainty and unexpected, extreme events, alongside coordinating strategies to build resilience across the Action Framework (Figure 3.4), water managers need to incorporate robustness across a wide range of credible futures and flexibility into their plans and designs.Options for water management address a range of vulnerabilities, and are integral to a variety of \"action tracks\" for adaptation. This is consistent with the role of water management as an enabler of adaptation. Table 4.1 lists practical examples of water-related adaptation measures for these action tracks. While not comprehensive, these examples include measures such as water storage, irrigation and insurance that are frequently highlighted as priorities for adaptation (see Box 4.2 for an example for smallholder farming). New methods are emerging to help decision-makers identify which of these options are most appropriate for the vulnerabilities and contexts they are trying to address. Critically, these methods incorporate assessment of how to enhance robustness and flexibility.As outlined in Section 4.2, in the past decade, a new generation of uncertainty-tolerant approaches have emerged to confidently diagnose risk and to prepare for a range of possible futures in water-related planning and investment. These approaches can provide highconfidence quantitative assessments by understanding how the system in question functions rather than by assuming that downscaled climate projections can provide a high level of confidence in future water patterns.These systems-oriented approaches focus the attention of stakeholders and decision-makers on the challenge of action on adaptation and climate-resilient water management. Examples include robust decision-making, 64 many-objective robust decision-making, 65,66 stochastic and robust optimization, 67 dynamic adaptive policy pathways, 68 information-gap decision theory, 69 and decision scaling. 70 They have been designed explicitly to help make robustness and flexibility in adaptation practical, by helping decision-makers identify decisions that have satisfactory performance across a range of possible futures-i.e., that will be robust-as well as to help them make plans that can be flexibly adapted over time in response to how the world actually unfolds. 44,71 Tools such as the Decision Tree Framework (DTF) 72,73 -developed by the World Bank and increasingly emulated-integrate systemsoriented risk assessment and reduction within existing decision-making systems at operational level (see Box 4.3) These methods fully respect the uncertainties and risks associated with shifts in the water cycle, the increasingly complex economic and social objectives for planning and management, and the risks and insights that have emerged from the climate change communities.In the Lower Save Catchment of Zimbabwe, climate change has impacted water supply, health, and livelihoods of local agricultural communities. Due to decreasing rainfall, smallholder farmers' crop productivity has come under pressure, increasing risks to food security in their communities. In response, farmers have expanded cultivation of land closer to water sources, which in turn has had a detrimental impact on river health (e.g., increased erosion and river siltation). Communities also lack proper water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) facilities. Low rainfall and reliance on river water for bathing, cleaning, and drinking has resulted in water contamination and disease incidence.Abstraction, pumping, irrigation, and WASH infrastructure offer a solution. The Climate Resilient Infrastructure Development Facility (CRIDF), a donor-led program, works toward enhancing resilience to climate change in Southern Africa through water infrastructure projects. It works with local partners to couple financing with development of the capacities and institutions needed for implementation. The challenge was to create mechanisms that would allow local communities to pay for water infrastructure and maintain it on their own. CRIDF worked with local communities and organizations to set up a community-managed fund to operate and maintain water abstraction and irrigation infrastructure. A local seed company partnered with CRIDF to provide smallholders with agricultural inputs and access to markets through a contract farming agreement. Pumped irrigation allowed communities to farm land closer to their villages and away from rivers, leading to improvements in river health. Climate resilience was further improved by increased access to safe drinking water at WASH facilities. The secondary benefits (especially for women and girls) included time saved in fetching water for consumption and irrigation.Notes: More information at www.cridf.net/livelihoods-projects.3. Measures to enhance robustness 45 4. Measures to enhance flexibility 45  In 2017, the World Bank commenced a multi-year effort to analyze the robustness and resilience of investments in water infrastructure for Mexico City, the surrounding Valle de México, and two other basins that provide supplemental sources of water to the city. 74 The project applies the World Bank's DTF approach to mainstreaming adaptation in decision-making on investments in water-related projects, with much of the technical analysis performed by the Hydrosystems Research Group at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Mexico City and the wider Valle de México are projected to see continued population growth combined with anthropogenic and climatic pressures exacerbating water scarcity. Natural groundwater reserves are being overexploited while illegal capture and water system leakages lead to additional losses. Meanwhile, Mexico City continues to slowly subside, making it especially vulnerable to urban flooding and-as seen in 2017-devastating earthquakes. The World Bank, Mexican water management agencies, and dozens of other governmental, civil society, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and community groups recognize the growing need for a more comprehensive approach to water-centric resilience. When systems such as these face limited financial resources and uncertain future conditions, investments must be proven to demonstrate robustness and resilience under many future scenarios.Unlike traditional water resource planning, which uses cost minimization as the single or most important metric, the DTF seeks solutions that are more robust to climate stressors, inclusive of social equity issues, and considerate of environmental conditions and needs. Project cost is still included in the analysis, but projects are prioritized if they are found to produce the best results for cost and resilience of social, economic, and environmental goals across multiple future scenarios.Defining resilience is an integral part of the analysis. Through intensive stakeholder engagement and collaborative modeling, performance metrics to gauge and measure resilience were defined for distinct social, economic, and environmental elements. The variables ranged from agricultural output to environmental flows to aquifer depletion. Equality and inclusion, and protection of poor people from climate change impacts emerged as critical components of the long-term shared vision of the region.DTF analysis involves testing each performance metric through systems analysis as inputs such as governance, demographic or climate changes alter system conditions. Numerous management interventions and/or infrastructure options are being tested in order to help decision-makers better evaluate investment options with an understanding of how resilient or robust each is relative to multiple possible future scenarios. Results of the study are expected later in 2019, with the expectation that a staged multi-institutional approach to implementation over the coming decades can ensure the long-term resilience of Mexico City and its environs.Resilience by Design in Mexico City and the Valle de MéxicoClimate Risk Informed Decision Analysis (CRIDA) emulates the DTF approach for situations where there is high uncertainty and low technical capacities. 33 CRIDA guides a technical analyst in working with stakeholders and decision-makers to define the decision context and performance indicators for resilience, and for success and failure that are applicable in standard engineering and economic analyses. These indicators are used to develop a set of robust solutions for high-confidence risks using decision scaling, and a set of flexible solutions for lowconfidence risks using adaptation pathways. 33 New methods for decision analysis go hand-in-hand with adaptive management, to enhance resilience by ensuring that flexible and adaptable systems are prioritized over static solutions. Adaptive management has been explicitly adopted as a central organizational framework by many water management institutions, focusing on learning and adapting through partnerships of water resource managers, scientists, water users and others. 75 They learn together to create and maintain sustainable systems in the face of shocks and stresses.While the Action Framework (Figure 3.4) can guide overall strategies for managing adaptation through water, the impacts of climate change do not fall on all groups equally; climate change creates new winners and losers. The burden of negative impacts such as water scarcity, flooding, salinization or eutrophication differ among countries as well as among different groups in the same locality. How people experience climate change depends on wealth, social status, and other issues affecting their ability and capacity to adapt, such as education, water infrastructure, health services and governance structures. Debate among developed and developing countries on application of the principles, enshrined in the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement, of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities for climate change have focused mainly on mitigation and carbon markets, 84 the global architecture for climate finance, 85 and the need for \"loss and damage\" policies within the UNFCCC. 86 However, vulnerabilities are largely experienced at subnational and local levels. An overarching objective of adaptation should therefore be reducing the gap in vulnerability between developed and developing countries as well as between different groups in local communities. A key test for building resilience is inclusion of those who are most vulnerable to climate change impacts. This implies that implementation of the Action Framework (Figure 3.4) should empower self-organization and provide space for vulnerable groups to work toward their \"desired outcomes.\" 87 The goal of ensuring that climate change adaptation integrates the needs of groups with the highest vulnerability should be addressed by incorporating action to strengthen equality and inclusion into the Action Framework (Figure 3.4), through:1. Balancing scientific and local knowledge. Local communities on the frontlines of climate change are monitoring impacts as they emerge, and building knowledge and perspectives that help to reveal and identify thresholds of change in water availability and risks, agriculture, ecosystems and well-being. 88 Local communities are therefore a vital source of knowledge for planning and action on climate-resilient water management and climate change adaptation, which should be drawn into the national and international debate on adaptation. 89 Farmers' knowledge of local water resources is being used, for example, in adaptation strategies in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. 90 In Indonesia, paddy farmers are adjusting to locally observed changes in climate using centuries-old systems for managing irrigation water (e.g., the Balinese subak system). Local knowledge hence brings to light different views in communities on climate change and adaptation as well as technological and management response options. The benefits of local knowledge for building resilience are then strengthened through multi-level water governance, which enhances local participation in decision-making, opens access to local knowledge from higher levels, and enables local and scientific knowledge to be used together. Valuing water in a shifting, uncertain climate presents new risks for allocation of water resources as well as for how we prioritize and choose between alternative adaptation options. Economics as a discipline is central to how we evaluate most policy and investment decisions, but economists are only now starting to come to terms with the valuation of assets in the light of new metrics, such as the value of resilience in the context of disruption, high levels of uncertainty, and new types change in nonstationary contexts.Finance and funding mechanisms more generally are also going through a transition period. While the broad topic of climate finance has received much attention, how risk associated with water and climate change is communicated to investors, donors, and other types of funders remains uneven. However, new patterns are beginning to emerge that hold the promise of diverting financial flows toward resilience, and to more robust financial risk assessments that articulate expectations for those seeking finance as well as those looking for \"good\" investments.Economics, as the science of value, should help in navigating complex decisions and become an enabler of adaptation across sectors, groups, and scales. While the risks associated with failure to adapt our economies to a shifting climate have been well documented-notably in the Stern Review 91 and a follow-up study 10 years later 92 -the use of economic analysis as a tool for adaptation is much less well developed.New approaches are needed that recognize the costs and benefits across a range of systems rather than for single investments in isolation. Climate change presents special problems for traditional economic analyses, which normally assume high confidence and certainty when evaluating costs and benefits, especially for long-lived investments that interact with or use uncertain water resources. When considering distant or potential impacts, the science of economics is far more optimistic than the discipline's dismal reputation: traditional economic evaluations heavily \"discount\" impacts and trends that are not major drivers or issues in the present but may (or will be) in the future. In effect, climate adaptation interventions are typically considered poor investments when using traditional economic assessment methods. Using standard cost-benefit approaches, the additional costs associated with building a higher flood levee or developing a secondary source of water supply are unlikely to be justified if the need is not both certain and imminent.Most project-scale cost-benefit analyses, for instance, tend to be highly optimized for short-term needs, minimizing the benefits that follow from the \"extra\" costs designed to reduce potential impacts that may (or may not) occur over longer terms. Traditional economic methods for assessing costs and benefits work best with the assumption of a single known or knowable climate.Moreover, in many cases, when the period for evaluating costs and benefits does not match the operational lifetime of the asset, the longevity of many water investments represents a very significant climate risk. Traditional economic methodologies tend to devalue or discount uncertainty about resources, distant risks, potential (rather than certain) benefits, and the costs of learning (i.e., maintaining additional options until more definitive information is available). Nature-based solutions-such as restoration of forested watersheds to reduce flooding and improve filtration and water quality benefits-present another challenge because the value of the investment appreciates over time, and over longer timelines, as compared with traditional engineered solutions. 93,94 Thus, options for including robustness and flexibility may be excluded from planning and design choices using traditional economic analyses.Although hydrologists and engineers may have declared that stationarity is dead, many economic tools cling to the assumption. A hydropower dam or irrigation facility optimized only for current climate conditions will be much more difficult and expensive to modify as, or after, the climate shifts beyond the design parameters. Maladapted investments are probably widespread, especially those that have not considered the potential risks associated with a rapidly evolving water cycle. 95 The legacy of decisions made today about water-dependent infrastructure can easily extend over centuries.Recognition of these challenges is growing rapidly, and has given rise to a range of approaches for water investment decision-making and economic analysis under uncertainty. 96,97 These share the principle that a narrowly defined cost-benefit analysis or return on investment, especially over short timescales, will not lead to adaptation. 98 Extending cost-benefit analyses over longer time periods and evaluating performance in terms of non-traditional costs and benefits, including robustness and flexibility metrics, can help attain climate-resilient water management. For instance, by including the transfer expenses associated with switching to alternative options as new conditions materialize and certainty and confidence about emerging impacts grow, we can arrive at a much more realistic assessment of the timing and potential benefits of flexibility. 99 Decisions on potential investment are most often made, from an economic point of view, using estimates of potential profitability based on the net present value (NPV) or the economic internal rate of return (EIRR). The period of evaluation for profitability (e.g., 10-20 years) and the discount rate used in both NPV and EIRR are normally specified at a high administrative level rather than for the needs of a particular project, where uncertainty or risk associated with a specific investment might lead to reconsideration of the evaluation term and discount rate. More adaptive approaches therefore explicitly address robustness and flexibility in economic analysis of investments.Real options analysis links flexibility with a decision tree assessment, a method which predates by decades any awareness of anthropogenic climate change. Real options analysis addresses the challenge of economic assessment of flexibility in investment decisions, where:In a context of increasing knowledge-and thus decreasing uncertainty-the decision on an investment project is not between \"investing\" and \"not investing,\" but between \"investing now\" and \"investing later with more information.\" 46 Real options and similar methods emphasize when to reconsider costs and benefits as the level of security and confidence change, often in conjunction with other insights, such as the lead time necessary to secure approval, financing, and construct major infrastructure investments.Robustness is often a more familiar strategy in a costbenefit context. Comparisons of the incremental costs and benefits of alternative robustness strategies can be evaluated, 33 assuming that all comparisons are made on the basis of the same set of climatic data.Recent innovation in economics for climate change adaptation has included efforts to use climate-related resilience or robustness metrics alongside NPV or EIRR in investment analyses. 100 Similarly, multi-objective \"resilience assessments\" allow economists to compare the impact of an array of objectives on resilience and the implications of uncertainty in this valuation, including the sensitivity of traditional economic variables. 101 Quite different investment priorities can emerge through such multi-objective analyses than might occur through traditional economic analyses.Climate finance can accelerate the mainstreaming of climate-resilient water management, and interest has been growing in aligning water and climate issues through finance. 102 Design and implementation of investments should be guided by the Action Framework (see Sections 3.3 and 4), actions to strengthen equality and inclusion (Section 5), and application of tools for decision analysis under uncertainty and dynamically changing risks (Sections 4.4 and 6.1).Many of the basic parameters around water, climate change and finance are in dispute. What is the pool of finance at play? Should we consider only water-related investment in adaptation or also adaptation-related investment in water? And, given the systemic nature of water, is there really a meaningful distinction between climate finance and the much larger, more general pools and targets of water finance?\"Climate finance\" refers to labeled, formal channels through which aid is directed for climate change mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage, and other specific targets of climate change action. Development banks, aid agencies, some foundations, and a few commercial and private sector sources have tended to make up the bulk of climate finance. In a few cases, wholly new multilateral institutions such as the GCF and the UNFCCC's Adaptation Fund have been created to directly fund climate changerelated activities, specializing in climate-directed grants and loans. Bilateral climate financing initiatives are also an emerging source of funding in both developed and developing countries, though they too focus predominantly on mitigation. National governments, through their expenditures on Nationally Determined Contributions, have also been a growing source of climate finance since the ratification of the Paris Agreement.Water-related projects make up a substantial proportion of the projects funded through formally labeled climate finance, but no consensus standards exist for assessing their effectiveness relative to climate-resilient water management, and most institutions do not ask for or evaluate the water-climate risks and opportunities in their water portfolio. Historically, the Global Environment Facility's adaptation funds have not required detailed documentation of strategies to assess or reduce climate risk, while groups such as the UNFCCC's Adaptation Committee and many development banks may not recognize that the success of an irrigation project or ecosystem restoration is, in fact, contingent on the application of knowledge on water and resilience, and they may be unlikely to make good use of water expertise. Climate finance is often a domain of highly sectoral and siloed approaches. Therefore, highlighting the wide overlap between water and climate-related sectors can serve to open up the broader climate finance pool to resources for water management. 101 Moreover, formal climate finance mechanisms often require \"additionality\" as a means of targeting their support.To the donor community, additionality in the context of climate change adaptation means that adaptation should not bleed into or replace existing \"traditional\" development aid programs and should be \"additional\" and above and beyond such aid. The assumption behind additionality is that we can distinguish clearly between adaptation projects and non-adaptation projects or that specific aspects of a larger project are designed to address specific climate change impacts, such as increased flood risk or greater storage capacity to address increasing water scarcity.Additionality is a problematic term for water-related investments. In theory, we could easily specify that an urban stormwater system needed to have an additional 20 percent capacity to cope with forthcoming climate change impacts. In practice, additionality often creates tension between different types of projects (for instance, disaster relief and reduction versus water supply and sanitation for the urban poor). Even within individual waterrelated projects, additionality is difficult to document. The uncertainties associated with the water cycle mean that effectively running two types of analyses-an investment in a world without climate change and the same investment in a climate-shifted world, with the differences constituting the additionality-seems strained and sometimes even impossible to calculate. Several institutions such as the GCF have recognized these concerns, and have highly modified or eliminated the requirement to document additionality very strictly. The major development banks have, in contrast, created an additionality reporting framework so that their reports follow similar reporting criteria and standards in how they track and document additionality. 104The pool of international climate finance available remains relatively small in comparison to other flows of development-relevant finance. The Asian Development Bank has recently set a target of several billion U.S. dollars for annual adaptation funding, while the GCF is expected to capitalize at US$100 billion by 2020, with half of their total funding going to adaptation. In contrast, the global bond market-which loosely represents privately sourced funding for many infrastructure projects-is of the order of several trillion U.S. dollars in size. The green and climate bonds market-which are bonds that target climate mitigation and/or adaptation-was more than twice the GCF's target for 2020 and approached US$200 billion in 2017.The broader pool of money available globally for water resources is difficult to tally, but is probably of the order of several trillion U.S. dollars if we consider water-related investment across sectors. Single groups such as the European Investment Bank, the World Bank or national agencies such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have collective portfolios spending tens of billions of U.S. dollars per year. Although much harder to estimate, the private sector too spends very large sums on water management. For example, the energy sector is the largest consumer of water in the USA, France, and Japan and, as a result, is a major investor in water management. In middle-and lower-income countries, agriculture (including livestock and aquaculture)-because it often typically accounts for 50-90 percent of national water consumption-similarly has a major impact on water investment.All of these human and institutional resources should be aligned to building climate change resilience. Can we convert the budgets of an irrigation ministry, an electrical utility or a mayor into instruments for implementation of climate-resilient water management?A few institutions have begun to move in this direction.The DTF developed by the World Bank's Global Water Practice 72 (see also Section 4.4) has been applied to localscale facilities such as water utilities as well as basinscale planning processes, with the intention of developing thoroughly robust investments; and applications to, for example, hydropower are in development. The Asian Development Bank is expected to launch a comparable methodology for their water portfolio in 2019, while groups such as the International Hydropower Association are looking to apply DTF-based approaches to help private sector developers reduce water-climate risks. The DTF does not emphasize additionality as in formal climate finance methods.Public utilities and private sector investors have not been silent or inactive either on these issues, as can now be seen in the growth of green and climate bonds. This market was launched in 2007 by the European Investment Bank and the World Bank to demonstrate to private investors that funds were being applied to \"green\" projects-or in the lexicon of bonds, to environmentally friendly \"use of proceeds\"-typically for low-impact infrastructure projects and/or climate mitigation and adaptation projects. Typical investors in green and climate bonds are large institutional investors such as pension funds, which are interested in steady returns, long term lengths, and (increasingly) credibly \"green\" credentials for the investments.The climate and green bonds market remained quite small (a few billion U.S. dollars annually) until about 2013, when many other categories of bonds issuers began to move into this space, often mediated or led by commercial banks. For several years, the green and climate bonds market underwent exponential growth, reaching almost US$200 billion by 2017. Europe and North America were the most significant issuers in this market until 2016, when China launched its own domestic green and climate bond market. Since then, growth has spread to South Asia, Africa, and across Latin America.However, these bonds have largely been self-labeled, with little or no verification about their use of proceeds or if the climate change adaptation benefits are indeed credible and accurate. Concerned about the systemic risks to the green and climate bonds market associated with a lack of transparency as well as the potential to leverage very large sums of money, the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI) began creating a set of principles, verification standards, and sectoral criteria to ensure that investors could trust the climate promises made by issuers-and that the projects being financed had thoroughly accounted for climate risks. Netherlands Finances Nature-Based Solutions through Green BondsThese criteria explicitly evaluate flexibility, based on governance and regulatory frameworks related to water allocation, as well as robustness, based on the thoroughness and sophistication of the climate risk assessment. To date, these criteria have been applied and certified for at least US$7 billion in assets for projects in the USA, Nigeria, South Africa, China, and Australia, inclusive of climate-related risks with drought, inland and coastal flooding, snowpack changes, and other potential and realized impacts. This type of reporting should be promoted across all industries facing climate and water challenges, to allow regulators and investors to better evaluate the future performance of investments. 100 The green bond market is only expected to grow as more emerging economies begin to issue their own certified climate bonds. Conservation finance as a whole is seeing further expansion beyond just climate bonds. New tools such as \"sustainability bonds,\" \"blue bonds,\" \"social bonds,\" and other standards are being developed to address the mounting set of global development challenges associated with water resources. 103The role of finance in climate-resilient water management goes beyond providing resources and measuring and managing climatic risks in water-related investments.Insurance provision is a key role for finance, helping to make societies more resilient to the impacts of climate change, especially those related to extreme water risks. Some water risks will exceed society's risk reduction measures (the so-called \"residual risks\"), and insurance and risk transfers can hence support adaptation and recovery at multiple scales, from insurance for smallholder farmers to re-insurance.Models for risk transfer are undergoing rapid innovation, including, for example, payment mechanisms based on drought, flood and precipitation intensity index monitoring, credit rescheduling, risk-contingent credit, and crop insurance linked to the purchase of core inputs such as seeds and fertilizer, and livestock insurance. Especially for smallholder farms, trust in shared risk systems and networks will be essential to ensure that many agricultural economies can persist and adjust to increasing variability and large-scale change (see Box 6.2).Insurance also plays a role in assessing, communicating, and signaling risk through premiums and payments, thus promoting resilient behaviors and investments. 106 In addition, insurance is closely related to investments in assets that can reduce physical water-related risks, contribute to resilience, and also reduce insured losses, resulting in lower insurance premiums. 100 These benefits are Farmers in the state of Bihar, India, face frequent flooding, leading to loss of crops and livelihoods. To help reduce financial losses caused by flooding, IWMI, through CCAFS and WLE, developed and piloted Index-Based Flood Insurance (IBFI) for farmers in cooperation with government agencies and the global reinsurer Swiss Re. Satellite images were used to identify historic floods and develop a flood-risk map, which when combined with a hydrological model based on 35 years of observed rainfall and discharge data, enables prediction of where runoff will travel and collect, and where flooding is likely. When used with contemporary rainfall data, the model indicates the location, depth, and duration of flooding in farmers' fields, providing a flooding index that can be used as the \"trigger\" for payments to insured farmers. The use of an index in this way helps to keep the cost of insurance low and administration efficient. The scheme went live in 2017 and 2018, covering 650 households, with a total insurance payout of Indian Rupee 814,030 (US$11,500).Bundling of IBFI with dissemination of stress-tolerant crop varieties is now being trialed in a new public-private partnership initiative focused on post-flood recovery. Good access to seeds just after the flood season means farmers can take advantage of excess soil moisture for crop production, strengthening their resilience by further reducing vulnerability to flooding and enabling farm households to recover more quickly after flood events.Index-Based Flood Insurance for Smallholder Farmers in Bihar, India critical for affordability and increasing insurance coverage, particularly in developing countries, and arguably to reduce some of the increasing stress on disaster-risk finance due to the joint occurrence of water-related disasters over large spatial scales, such as continental scale floods. 107 It is important to emphasize that insurance alone, without consideration of efforts to finance risk reduction, is not a sustainable solution for adaptation. In fact, financing to build resilience is essential to maintenance of the insurability of the residual risks of climate change.Financing for risk reduction and insurance are therefore mutually reinforcing measures for resilience to waterrelated impacts of climate change. 109 Water may be the claws and teeth of climate change, a cause-as stories about floods, droughts, storms and drying reservoirs, rivers and wetlands make headlines-of deepening anxieties about a climate crisis, but it is also by managing water that we will adapt.Policy frameworks that set priorities for action on climate change or management of river basins guide decisions that shape approaches to resilience. For instance, transboundary water-sharing agreements that do not include tools for anticipating and updating the means of sharing water resources as the timing, quantity, and quality of those waters shift may foster conflict and discord, weakening economies, ecosystems, and even reducing the ability of institutions and communities to respond to shocks and stresses. Policies and processes in global finance (Section 6) can signal to investors and private and public sector decision-makers the need to assess and reduce climate risks in water-intensive investments, such as through certified green bonds. Policy frameworks can make effective water-based resilience much easier-or much harder.As of 2019, national and global policies that directly target water and climate resilience remain rare, but recognition of water as a crosscutting mechanism for improving the effectiveness of global and national climate change policies is expanding (as briefly described in a history of advocacy for water coverage in climate policy through COP 22 110 ). Globally, three policy frameworks in the 2030 Agenda are helping to align water management with the complex, systemic challenges of building climate change resilience across sectors and scales:December 2019• Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) form the world's agreed roadmap for transformation to sustainable development, including through integration of sustainable management of water and sanitation for all (SDG 6) across the other social, equality, economic, and environmental goals. 111• the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 calls for proactive strategies for the prevention of disasters, and advocates strongly to \"build back better.\" With the overwhelming majority of disasters related to water, the Sendai Framework can help steer priorities toward climate-resilient water management as a way to address long-term stressors such as drought, and prevent and buffer communities from water-related disasters.• the UNFCCC Paris Agreement, while making no mention of water, is viewed by some as the largest agreement on water in human history because water is inseparable from implementation of the commitments made to both climate change mitigation and adaptation.While these frameworks are not formally linked by design, water (and especially resilient water management) has been suggested as a vehicle for ensuring coherence among them-to align the SDGs and the Paris Agreement, for urban resilience and agriculture for example, or the Sendai Framework, the SDGs, and the UNFCCC. Given that new investments for clean energy and resilient cities, ecosystems, agriculture, and disaster management will be with us for decades, if not centuries, failure to integrate resilient water knowledge into climate policy and finance could promote many years of ongoing conflict over water allocation and governance, and could limit our ability to reduce poverty and sustain green growth. While these global frameworks acknowledge the interlinkages between their agendas, they stop short of providing mechanisms for improving coherence; as such, these processes are largely happening in parallel. New efforts by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and the UNFCCC's Subsidiary Bodies, in particular the Adaptation Committee, are working to address the gap.As countries turn their attention toward implementation of the Paris Agreement, water will play an implicit and explicit role in meeting their national commitments, or NDCs. Water is both a vital asset and a systemic risk to be considered in national climate change plans and activities. To ensure that NDCs, National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), and other commitments are effective and successful in meeting their goals, a cross-sectoral consortium of NGOs and parties to the UNFCCC has begun to develop recommendations on \"watering the NDCs.\"Below are five guiding principles for resilient water management under climate change adapted from AGWA. 114 They are designed to help parties strengthen their respective country's commitments for adaptation and mitigation.1. Create national-level, cross-sectoral water governance mechanisms for monitoring water consumption.2. Create national-level mechanism in charge of adaptive and flexible water allocation.3. Create a national ministry or comparable department for managing water use within and across sectors.4. Conduct a nationwide analysis of explicit and implicit water commitments (domestic and transboundary).5. Understand and respect the value of intact freshwater ecosystems and source waters.Driving the Global Agenda toward Water-Wise Climate Policies Within the U.S. part of the Colorado River basin (that is, excluding the part of the basin in Mexico), sharing the river's waters between states is managed under a collective agreement signed nearly a century ago. The Colorado River Compact was drafted during a time of tremendously different climatic, demographic, and political conditions. Due to a critical lack of understanding concerning the Colorado's average flow at the time of the agreement, the river is now massively over-allocated. On top of that, this region of North America is currently in the midst of a 16-year drought, reducing the Colorado's annual flow by nearly a third. While such periods of drought have been common over the river's paleoclimatic history, climate change, economic transformation, and massive population growth since the signing of the Compact have exacerbated drought conditions. Over concern that these trends will continue, all seven signatory states agreed in April 2019 to a contingency plan that would reduce water allocation to each of them during drought conditions, helping to stave off more draconian cuts should water levels continue to fall.The new drought contingency plan represents a shift in the Colorado River Compact from a rigid framework to a more adaptive management policy. The plan is based on shortage sharing among the states with an emphasis on reducing the number of water users exposed to risk during drier periods-an effort to boost conservation and manage demand. In part, the new agreement is designed to use smaller-scale cutbacks in order to avoid larger federally imposed restrictions. Predetermined triggers will set the contingency plan in motion. In this case, cutbacks begin when water levels at the Lake Mead reservoir drop below 328 meters above sea level. • Make the need for radical changes in approaches to decision-making for water management under climate change explicit through setting of goals for managing water under \"deep uncertainty,\" especially in policy frameworks, regulatory systems, infrastructure investments, and planning processes.• Use water management to build resilience to climate change through coordination across four action domains: governance and participation; information and learning; system diversity and connectivity; and infrastructure and technology.• Embed robustness and flexibility in water-relevant decision-making across all action domains. Robust decision-making, used for threats and opportunities that can be identified with high confidence, must work alongside ways of retaining flexibility to respond to multiple potential futures.• Reinforce water governance and intensify reform processes to strengthen inclusion in decisionmaking and to promote self-organization through decentralization. Build multi-level water governance in which institutions at higher levels empower robust and flexible decision-making at lower levels.• Invest in information management, data collection, analytical capabilities and hydro-meteorological monitoring to provide decision-makers at all levels with the new information they need to incorporate dynamically changing risks into water management.• Disseminate information at all levels, support training and skill development for use and application of water and climate knowledge, and ensure broad participation to stimulate learning on water and adaptation, and improve knowledge sharing among different groups in society.• Develop opportunities to expand and reinforce diversity across water-related systems, through support for diversity in the economy, conservation and restoration of ecosystems, and institutions and infrastructure, as a means of increasing flexibility and redundancy in management options for responding to unexpected events and changes.• Identify vulnerabilities to water-related impacts of climate change for critical \"action tracks\" including agriculture, rural livelihoods, cities, water supply, and public health, and measures to reduce risks through infrastructure development (including both engineered and nature-based solutions), applications of technology, and water management. Apply systems-oriented methods for decision analysis that use participation of stakeholders to develop robust solutions for high-confidence risks and flexible solutions for lowconfidence risks.• Ensure inclusion of those most vulnerable to climate change in all action domains for climate-resilient water management, with the goal that adaptation does not exacerbate inequalities, for example, based on wealth, ethnicity, social status, or between women and men. Promote equality by balancing use of local and scientific knowledge in adaptation planning and action, linking local adaptation practices to decision-making, and application of rights-based approaches to action on adaptation.• Require economic analysis of water investments appropriate to decision-making under uncertainty. Recognize that assuming future water risks can be discounted is not appropriate under climate change, and instead evaluate investments over longer periods of time and include robustness and flexibility in analysis of cost-benefit and returns.• Combine climate finance and more general financing for water resources to expand the pool of finance available to accelerate mainstreaming of climate-resilient water management, including public and private investment.Complement scaled-up financing with expansion of access to insurance products for residual risks of waterrelated disaster losses.Hence, while the story of water and climate change is complex, the action needed on water in climate change adaptation can be made practical. Using structured frameworks for policy and action based on principles of building resilience, people and societies can be equipped to make the adjustments needed to withstand and recover from the menace of the shifting water cycle under climate change. Through water, we can prepare.Climate change is changing the water cycle, with impacts that are cascading through economies, food systems, ecosystems, and communities, and affecting the eventual success or failure of sustainable development. Every decision we make now about water management is also a chance to build resilience to climate change.Longstanding practices for managing water resources and the delivery of water services will not necessarily meet our needs for effective climate change adaptation; climate change has humbled many of the hard-won guidelines, truisms, and strictures from decades past about sustaining water, managing risks, and matching water institutions and infrastructure to the climate. New evidence, practices and strategies for resilient water management have arisen, however, that provide a solid footing for adaptation.Water-related adaptation to climate change should be coordinated through the four system-wide action domains of water governance and participation, information and learning, system diversity and connectivity, and infrastructure and technology. Building on this basic organizing framework for action on climate-resilient water management, we recommend the following:Traditionally, and in popular perception, action on water management has been reduced to isolated pieces of physical infrastructure. In a changing climate, planners, funders and community, sector and political leaders must think differently about water. Their goal must be to build climate-resilient water management across sectors, groups of water users and scales. To do so, we need to: a. Reform or reinforce multi-level water governance (regional, national, provincial, local) as the foundation for action, to strengthen selforganization and ensure that higher-level institutions empower decision-making at lower levels;b. Use watersheds and basins as a critical unit of management for adaptation on water, but recognize that, pragmatically, action must be coordinated across hydrological as well as political, administrative and sectoral boundaries; c. Link stakeholder priorities to decision making for adaptation using bottom-up risk assessment methodologies in cross-sectoral planning that takes account of existing adaptive capacities and helps to build consensus on a vision for resilience; and d. Ensure inclusion of those most vulnerable to climate change in all action, to avoid adaptation widening inequalities based on wealth, ethnicity or social status, or between women and men.The emergence of unfamiliar, novel, and \"transformational\" water regimes is well under way in many regions as a result of progressive climate change. The basic, centuriesold premise that past experience is a reliable predictor of future water risks is dead. We face new uncertainties, and the depth of those uncertainties is increasing. Highly optimized, \"single-solution\" infrastructure plans and designs may be maladaptive and dangerous in future, or force destructive tradeoffs. Adaptation should thus respond decisively to impacts in which there is high-confidence, but avoid action that is difficult to undo, modify or adjust over time. Therefore, we must: a. Design infrastructure options that perform well across a wide range of possible future climates while retaining flexibility in water-related adaptation, especially for long-lived infrastructure, investments, and institutions; b. Embed the core concepts of robustness and flexibility across all action domains for climateresilient water management, using risk-based approaches to identify and manage uncertainties; and c. Ensure that water-related policies, regulatory systems, infrastructure investments, and planning processes explicitly acknowledge and structure decision making to respond to \"deep uncertainty\" resulting from climate change, such as in situations where it may not be possible to distinguish between highly divergent futures.Longstanding practice has assumed that we can optimize water management decisions through cost-benefit analyses in which low-probability and future water risks are heavily discounted or ignored. As water regimes shift in dynamic and uncertain ways, a fixed view of risk can lead to bad investments or decisions that cannot be easily reworked or modified. New methods of economic analysis are emerging for evaluating investments in water management with the aim of enabling clearer trade-offs about future choices and that can make costs and benefits under climate change transparent to decision-makers. This requires that we:a. Recognize that assuming future water risks can be automatically discounted is no longer appropriate and ensure economic analysis of water investments are suited to decision making under uncertainty;b. Evaluate investments in water management over longer time periods (e.g., extending evaluations to the operational lifetime of an investment) and across non-traditional costs and benefits to enable inclusion of robustness and flexibility in analysis of returns; c. Plan for what might occur after an investment's operational lifetime ends to reduce the risk of inadvertent maladaptation; and d. Scrutinize water investments using real options analyses, decision trees and multi-objective resilience assessments to help reconsider costs and benefits as knowledge, risks and the climate changes.Governments, communities, development organizations, and businesses have little control over how the climate is changing, but they do control their own decision-making processes, and they can ensure that decision-making is able to consistently support resilient water futures. As water regimes shift, they need to be able to adjust or replace strategies as baselines and risks of scarcity, extreme events, and pollution conditions change. As uncertainty grows, the need for high-confidence and up-todate information on water and climate-and the skills to use it for resilient solutions-is greater than ever before. To provide this, we must: a. Invest in monitoring, remote sensing technologies, and data management and analysis to provide decision-makers with high-confidence water information that they need on dynamically changing risks and that informs management for resilience;b. Disseminate information at all levels, support skills development for use and application of data, and promote broad participation to stimulate learning on water and adaptation across society; c. Apply data to prioritization of action in places or sectors with high current and future vulnerability to water-related impacts of climate change; and d. Adjust decision-making processes to account for limitations or low confidence in data, based on the sensitivity of risks and outcomes to the scarcity or unreliability of data, by giving priority to flexibility and making strategic goals more conservative.  ","tokenCount":"14806"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f1eb4d201bd85a4e121266bd7690b686","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/50b35620-9e23-4b76-a1ea-4cb1565111bb/retrieve","id":"1497724133"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"686bdefe-cfbf-4f44-b409-79740c7e15f7","pagecount":"25","content":"0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 6,000 7,000 8,000 9,000 10,000 11,000  Cuando inicia la diferencia entre este pariente silvestre y su derivado cultivado?• antiguos granos de almidón de mayor tamaño en comparación a los silvestres de hoy• fitolitos cristales de silicium, en tejidos vegetales (e.g. Gramineae); propios de especie y hasta tejidos; fitolitos resisten a la cocción (Thompson 2006) 8/25La aparición de la cerámica puede ser 2,000 años después del inicio de la domesticación pero en esta tabla los restos de plantas fueron encontrados en capas sin cerámica ECUADOR, Chimborazo, Huigra, en el lugar llamado \"Pagma\". Long. 78 o 58'W. Lat. 02 o 16'S. Alt. 1,710 m. 22 Junio 1989. En matorral de barranco mi soleado abierto con pendiente muy fuerte; con P. polyanthus n o . 2770 y P. lunatus (áun verde!). Con Compositae (Bidens), Lamiaceae, Desmodium. Suelo detrítico franco orgánico pardo derivado de andesitas. Escaso: 10-12 plantas. En vainas verdes. Tallos trepadores 1-2 m largo. Flor rosado intenso, alas prominentes, estandarte pequeño. Col. DG Debouck no. 2769.• \"fríjol de paloma, fríjol de pichón\"• presupuesto para \"pajarear\"!  Freyre et al. 1996;Gade 1999;NRC 1989;Tohme et al. 1995;van Beem et al. 1992;Zimmerer 1992 • gran número de tipos de faseolina en las nuñas: mayor presión de selección para este carácter?• interés para el tostado: facilidad de preparación, posibilidad de transporte, valor nutricional colecta de Junín, Perú colecta de Cajamarca, Perú• tostado antiguo: con pedazos de cal para distribuir el calor (relación con geofagia?!)Progreso lento en la domesticación del maíz • la domesticación del teocintle arrancó hace 9,000 años: Piperno 2012• la 1 ra migración del maíz a Suramérica hace 7,000 años: Dickau et al. 2007 6 cm teocintle hoy mazorca de 5,300 años (Mex.) mazorca de 3,900 años (Mex.) mazorca de 6,600 años (Perú)Vallebueno-Estrada et al. 2016Lecturas adicionales: Brothwell 1969; Grobman et al. 1961, Iltis 2000, Katz et al. 1974;Wellhausen et al. 1952 Una selección lenta que tuvo que tener un elemento 'adictivo'• dulce → tallos 'machacados' en sitios arqueológicos: Mangelsdorf et al. 1967 • mazorcas de teocintle consumidas en verde: Beadle 1977 • granos de teocintle consumidos tostados: Beadle 1939 todas las razas primitivas fueron 'popcorn': alimento fácil de tostar y de llevar ","tokenCount":"364"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2eed1127b3f307d97b51601fb7c96295","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/55e107d0-f3c1-4764-8311-c3081a435154/content","id":"2033675149"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"15ee64df-8265-4f21-8a01-198c32900703","pagecount":"36","content":"The purpose of the Context Assessment is threefold: first, to characterize the environmental, social, and economic context of each Agroecological Living Landscape (ALL); second, to understand the data and information currently available in each ALL; third, to characterize the extent to which agroecological principles are already being employed in each ALL. The Context Assessment is not meant to be a quantitative baseline or an exhaustive report but rather a broad overview of the situation in each ALL. The data collected during the Context Assessment can be used during the visioning and assessment phases and is fundamental to describing the situation in each ALL and will inform the impact assessment. It will also be valuable to all other WPs as it will provide foundational data for their investigation. This report contributes to Output 2.1. Baselinecurrent conditions of agricultural systems of smallholder farmers in each ALL.The CGIAR initiative Transformational Agroecology across Food, Land, and Water Systems develops and scales agroecological innovations with small-scale farmers and other food system actors in seven low-and middle-income countries. It is one of 32 initiatives of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future, dedicated to transforming food, land, and water systems in a climate crisis.The key findings show that Murewa comprises mainly family farmers characterized as being resource-poorThe key findings show that Murewa comprises mainly family farmers characterized as being resource-poor. The community is largely patriarchal, with chiefs and herdmen managing natural resources. The main production constraints include, but are not limited to, weather risks (droughts and floods) and low access to improved technologies. Many farmers participate in market gardening and produce tomatoes, onions, butternut, and cabbages. Their proximity to Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe, improves access to markets, but the lack of proper postharvest handling decreases profits. Maize, groundnut, and sweet potatoes are the main field crops produced while farmers keep cattle, goats, pigs, and poultry. The main environmental hazards are soil erosion, gullies, and deforestation.Communities in Murewa have good access to diverse foods across the different food groups, most of which are sourced from home gardens. However, better food availability occurs from February to September, while the peak lean period is experienced by communities in January and from October to December.Findings from KIIs and FGDs across Murewa District revealed that several farmer groups and committees have been formed. Farmer groups are small and formed on their own initiative or through development agencies with specific objectives, such as strengthening food security and improving household income of group members. Many of the groups formed are not concerned about diversity but rather making a contribution to the group cause.  Overview of the Agroecological Living Landscapes There have been an increased number of years with belownormal rainfall since 1980 and increases in the intensity of mid-season dry spells and/or droughts occurring back-toback in the same season. In addition, the longest dry spell was recorded in 2021 and it lasted for 31 days. Zimbabwe is also experiencing an increased frequency of flooding. \"The country's mean ambient surface temperature since 1933 has shown changes in net warming of +0.3 to 0.6 °C (Unganai, 1996) Temperature extremes are also being experienced in Murewa. Very cold winters with frost that have greatly affected banana production have been experienced, as well as high maximum temperatures of 42 °C (Manjengwa et al., 2014). Temperature data from the CGSpace (Zimbabwe profile document) showed that there are hotter and fewer cold days than before. The country's mean ambient surface temperature since 1933 has shown changes in net warming of +0.3 to 0.6 °C (Unganai, 1996). These changes have an impact on cropping seasons and hence food security and nutrition. In Mashonaland East, where Murewa is situated, projections up to 2070 indicate that average temperatures are expected to increase by up to 2.1% (Figure 3).Drought vulnerability varies substantially across the country (Figure 4). In this instance, we define drought vulnerability as the degree of susceptibility of a region to drought, which can be represented by relevant factors comprising exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity (Saha et al., 2023;Tripathy et al., 2021). Low levels are particularly observed in far-east regions. Regions with high vulnerability scores include much of the southwest of the country. The Murewa area has moderately high drought vulnerability (Frischen et al., 2020). Source: (Frischen et al., 2020).The soils in Murewa District are predominantly granitic sandy soils of low inherent fertility and classified as Lixisols (Zingore et al., 2011). Farmers in Murewa District highlighted that \"70% of soils in Murewa are sandy soils, and the remaining 30% are clay patches. However, rich soils are being eroded due to reduced vegetation cover caused by an overpopulation of humans and livestock.\"Because of increased population pressure, Murewa District has observed an accelerated and indiscriminate cutting down of trees. The cutting down of trees coupled with stream bank cultivation has led to the siltation of major rivers in the district. In 2010, Murewa had 1.19 kha of tree cover, extending over 0.34% of its land area; in 2021, it lost 4.25 ha of tree cover, equivalent to 1.48 kt of CO 2 emissions (www.There is thus a need to improve vegetation cover, especially in the woodland ecosystem, through enrichment planting, woodlot establishment, and construction of fuel-saving stoves.Wetland loss and fragmentation are among the district's greatest threats to water resources. The wetland size in 2010 was 17.38 ha, and it was noted that it had shrunk by 11.69% by 2014, which translates to an average of 2.92% decrease annually (Chikodzi & Mufori, 2018). Chikodzi & Mufori (2018) attributed the result to impacts from anthropogenic drivers such as deforestation, open grazing, marginal cultivation, and sand mining. While slight increases occurred in total seasonal rainfall, the distribution within and between seasons was uneven (UNDP, 2017). Rainfall pattern was also identified as a key driver of wetland fragmentation, soil type and condition, vegetation, and slope (Chikodzi & Mufori, 2018).Murewa has three major rivers: Hunyani, Angwa, and Musengezi. During the FGDs, it was reported that \"Angwa River is being greatly affected by siltation and its capacity has largely decreased over the years, causing it to only have water in summer and dry up in winter in some areas along its course. Smaller rivers such as Dande, Mururuzi, Shange, Hambe, and Nyakambiri only have water in the rainy season. Riverbank cultivation is very prominent in both wards, which causes soil erosion and results in siltation. Perennial rivers are not accessible to everyone due to distance.\"Murewa also has plenty of gullies. Communities through Village Development Committees (VIDCOs) are responsible for reclamation of the gullies. The villagers usually carry out gully-filling-up exercises every Friday. The food-for-work program prompted some people to fill up the gullies and the situation improved a little. However, there is a projected increase in gullies due to gold-panning activities in the area.According to family sizes in Murewa range from 3 to 12, and the average family size is 5.19. Women outnumber men owing to men leaving the area searching for work in Harare, the capital city. Polygamy is practiced by some community members, more so in religious sects, with the husband providing for the whole family and the wives mainly working on farms. Extended families are also highly regarded, with responsibility for older family members being undertaken by the younger members. Biparental families are also found, and single-parent families are found in smaller numbers. Muhoyi et al. (2014a) showed that household size, farmland size, farmland quality, availability of draft power, and climatic adaptation had a significant impact on the food security status of households. Household size was found to have a negative relationship with food security, while the other four variables positively affected food security. Gender, age, education, and employment status of the household head and fertilizer application by the household were found to be statistically insignificant in determining the food security status of households (Table 1).Clinics, schools, and hospitals are few. In Murewa District, a substantial proportion of the population had no or only limited access to a first-line health facility able to provide comprehensive, integrated, and continuous care. The catchment populations using health centers ranged from 3,000 to 12,000, the maximum distance by road to the health center varied from 8.5 to 16 km, and the surface area covered varied from 32 to 200 km. Farmers in Murewa own small farms (1-3 ha) and continuously cultivate them (Masvaya et al., 2010a).\"Agriculture is the backbone of the district's economy, and most community members derive their livelihood from agriculture and other related rural economic activities Agriculture is the backbone of the district's economy, and most community members derive their livelihood from agriculture and other related rural economic activities. Although agriculture is a common source of livelihood, the level of agricultural dependency and its importance to overall household income and food security are decreasing (ZimVac, 2021). This is because of the challenges facing smallholder farmers, such as low and erratic rainfall, low and declining soil fertility, low investment, shortages of farm power (labor and draft animals), and poor physical and institutional infrastructure. The political and economic instability in the country has exacerbated conditions, making farming difficult. This has forced people to engage in non-agricultural livelihoods such as salaried jobs, cross-border trading, migration, and casual labor to ensure food security.Polarization of the national political landscape in Zimbabwe occurred following the formation of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in 1999. Local governance is along a political party dimension, directly linking local resource management to national politics. Chiefs and headmen in local governance are important in the governance of the community. According to the Traditional Leaders Act (Chap. 29:17), which has been realigned with the new constitution, a village head (VH) is nominated by a headman; approved by the area chief; appointed by the secretary of Local Government, Public Works, and National Housing; and receives an allowance from the Rural District Council. His role is to assist the chief and headman of the area in doing their lawful work, mainly to preserve the extended family, promote traditional family life, and prevent unauthorized settlement while authorizing new settlers in a clearly defined village. The village, in this context, is the smallest unit of community organization above the family unit and is central to all development activities in rural areas. { Type 1: medium-sized farms (in terms of cultivated area and livestock), own production as the main source of food, main source of income off-farm (but also the type with the highest number of farms depending on livestock sales), and intermediate food security.{ Type 2: medium-sized farms (in terms of cultivated area), small livestock herd, own production not the main source of food, main source of income off-farm (casual labor in particular), and intermediate food security.{ Type 3: dominance of female-headed households, smallest farms (in terms of cultivated area and livestock), own production as the main source of food, crop sales as the main source of income, and lowest food security.{ Type 4: largest farms (in terms of cultivated area and livestock), own production as the main source of food, crop sales as the main source of income, highest food security, and the main livelihood strategies evolve around agriculture.The determining features for these typologies are land cultivated, livestock, and food source.A study conducted by Pindiriri et al. (2021) during the 2016-2017 cropping season revealed that 14% of the plots are under free seed and, according to ZimVac (2021), 49% of the households used certified seeds.In Murewa, the main sources of water are protected wells, followed by boreholes, unprotected wells, and piped water (Makokove et al., 2022;Mudombi & Muchie, 2013). Rivers and ponds are mainly used for livestock (Makokove et al., 2022;Mudombi & Muchie, 2013). Crop production mainly depends on rainfall, while farmers mentioned using protected or unprotected wells for their gardens (Mudombi & Muchie, 2013). According to Mudombi & Muchie (2013), many individuals within Murewa experience water shortages, especially for livestock during the drier season (June to October). In terms of water saving, Nyamwanza, (2018) and Baudron et al. ( 2022) pointed out that different forms of in situ rainwater harvesting (RWH) methods are being employed. These include digging Zai pits (planting pits, planting basins, micro-pits, or small water-harvesting pits), mulching, and contouring. An evaluation for an eco-training conducted in Murewa by Chikukwa Ecological Land Use Community Trust (CELUCT) revealed that farmers had adopted and established water-harvesting schemes and compost heaps from crop residues that could have been burned (https://bit. ly/3GN9QQA). However, for household use, FGD participants mentioned that they did not practice ex situ RWH. \"According to Mudombi & Muchie (2013), many individuals within Murewa experience water shortages, especially for livestock during the drier season (June to October)Considerable recycling of biomass also occurs in the area, mostly in the form of using crop residues for mulching and livestock feeding. Although the use of mulch has been reported, the FGD participants stated that most of the plant residue is often consumed by livestock during the dry season. Postharvest crop residues (sometimes called stovers) are a secondary but important nutrition source for ruminants. The main source of crop residue is maize, but biomass yields are usually too low to produce significant excess residue for feed and mulching (Tavirimirwa et al., 2019). In some instances, these residues are spread within the kraals (enclosures), and farmers regard this as an important management practice that helps keep kraals dry. The practice also increases the amount of manure and prevents excessive loss of nutrients such as nitrogen.According to Baudron et al. (2022), sampled farmers (n = 306) in Murewa use about 50 kg of inorganic fertilizer. The ZimVAC 2021 report indicated that 45% of the households in Murewa were using manure. Baudron et al.(2022) quantified the use and indicated that, on average, 922.02 kg and 365 kg/ha of manure are used in the fields. Masvaya et al. (2010) indicated that wealthy farmers used more manure because they had access to livestock, whereas poor farmers applied less manure because they didn't have access to livestock. Nitrogen-fixing green manure cover crops such as velvet beans, lablab, and jack beans have been introduced to improve soil fertility.Renewable energy use in Murewa is mostly based on biogas generation from latrine waste and pigsties, with Murewa mission as a pilot with a 20-m 3 biodigester. The biogas digester is cost-effective, environmentally friendly, and sustainable. As waste is reused, it produces renewable energy, thus decreasing deforestation for firewood due to electricity shortages.Oxfam has been working with smallholder farmers, mostly women, to strengthen farmer seed systems in Murewa through their community seed-banking, seed and food fairs, and farmer field school programs (OXFAM, 2016). Details of management of breeds in the area were not readily available in the literature.Recycling biomass and nutrients is essential for promoting sustainable agriculture and diminishing waste in Zimbabwe's rural and peri-urban agricultural areas. Priority innovations in Murewa could focus on the following:1. Biogas production involves the anaerobic digestion of organic waste to produce a renewable source of energy and a nutrient-rich fertilizer. This can help to promote sustainable agriculture by decreasing waste, providing a source of energy, and promoting soil fertility.2. Nutrient cycling through agroforestry: Agroforestry involves integrating trees into agricultural landscapes.Trees can be used to cycle nutrients and improve soil fertility. For example, nitrogen-fixing trees can be used to enhance soil nitrogen content and improve crop productivity.3. Integrated livestock and crop systems: These systems can help to recycle nutrients between the two systems. For example, livestock manure can be used to fertilize crops and crop residues can be used to feed livestock. This can help to promote sustainable agriculture and decrease waste.There is a significant relationship between the quantity of manure applied and resource endowment, with wealthy farmers applying more manure (3.5-9.0 t/ha) to their fields than intermediate farmers (applying up to 1.5 t/ha) and resource-constrained farmers (applying less than 1 t/ha) (Masvaya et al., 2017a(Masvaya et al., , 2017b)). Studies by Mujeyi et al. (2021aMujeyi et al. ( , 2022a) ) showed that 21.6% of the sample population used manure, and the ZimVAC 2021 report asserted that 45% of the households used organic fertilizer or compost. According to (Dury, 2007) farmers in Murewa have five strategies for crop residue management:Strategy 1: They collect it directly and store it for the kraal, and they use it for bedding, composting, and feeding.Strategy 2: They collect it, directly place it in the kraal, and use it for bedding and compost.  According to the farmers who participated in the FGD, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has encouraged farmers to embrace sustainable farming systems, benefiting from higher yields, new sources of income, and improved soil fertility. The crop-livestock integration initiative taught farmers conservation agriculture practices such as minimum tillage using direct seeding, crop rotation, mulching, weeding, intercropping, and crop rotation with legumes such as soybean, pigeon pea, and velvet beans. The use of green manure cover crops such as velvet beans, lablab, and jack beans can provide a cheaper way for smallholder farmers to manage organic matter, enhance soil biological activity, and bring back soil fertility by adding nitrogen into the soil and thus making soils responsive to mineral fertilizer again. Masvaya et al. (2010) asserted that other nutrient resources used in Murewa were compost, leaf litter, and anthill soil, and these were targeted to homefields. AGRITEX extension officers indicated that \"only 5% of the farmers send their soil samples for testing as most cannot afford it. However, AGRITEX sometimes offers free soil testing to encourage farmers to do this often.\"The Chivake Gully Reclamation Project was implemented in Murewa. The reclamation of Chivake gully involved community members installing 25 gabions (baskets/cages).During the FGD, farmers in Murewa indicated that there were plenty of gullies in Murewa, and communities, through the Village Development Committee (VIDCO), are responsible for the reclamation of the gullies: \"The villagers usually carry out the gully-filling-up exercises on Fridays, which are their resting days. The food-for-work program prompted some people to fill up the gullies, and the situation improved slightly. However, there is a projected increase in gullies due to gold-panning activities in the area. Non-conservative farming methods, such as using tractors and ploughs, also contribute to the erosion of fertile topsoil. However, fruits are now being grown in lands that have pit sands dominating as a way of reclaiming the soils.\"In Murewa, pure breeds are seldom found, as farmers do not have a clear breeding strategy pursuing this objective. All animals were crossbreds and were separated into breeding groups based on their main traits. Mashona is the traditional breed in this part of Zimbabwe and was found in higher numbers than the other breeds. The Mashona breed is popular in the area because of its hardiness, resilience, and high productivity in milk, meat, and tillage. The Africander breed was the second most common, whereas Brahman and Tuli are also present but in smaller numbers. \"The Mashona breed is popular in the area because of its hardiness, resilience, and high productivity in milk, meat, and tillageRainfall is thought to be a more important determinant of grass production and species composition than stocking rate (Behnke & Scoones, 1992). Nevertheless, high stocking rates sustained for long periods introduce more variability in the grass strata characteristics within the range defined by abiotic factors (Illius & O'Connor, 1999). The dominance of grasses such as Sporobolus pyramidalis and Hyparrhenia dissoluta was used as an indicator to distinguish between over-and undergrazed areas, respectively (Van Oudtshoorn, 1999).FAO in Zimbabwe worked with extension officers from the Government's Department of Veterinary Services (DVS) to collect farm-level data on antimicrobial use and develop an economic case within the broiler value chain while promoting good animal husbandry practices. This was done to decrease antimicrobial use in the broiler value chain (https://www.amrinsights.eu/). The intervention supported poultry farmers in Murewa. Smallholder farmers in Murewa have also teamed up to confront the impacts of climate change by taking up the innovation platform approach (in the ZimCLIFS project), which has introduced high-protein, drought-tolerant legume fodder crops such as velvet bean (Mucuna) as a solution for marketing livestock, thus benefiting 60,000 farmers. In Ward 4, most farmers produce their feed using Mucuna and lablab, and, in Ward 27, only a few farmers are doing this. All farmers supplement their feed with cattle stover.Amblyomma is now present in most parts of Murewa District, and is more pronounced in the southern parts (Dhliwayo & Matondi, 2012). Amblyomma is associated with heartwater and dermatophilosis in cattle, goats, and sheep (Jongejan et al., 2020). Periodic surveillance and monitoring are being done to decrease the spread of ticks into the current free areas. However, challenges in the dipping program have exacerbated the presence of Amblyomma. It is also possible that the Amblyomma tick might have mutated for it to cope with Highveld conditions; as a result, further studies are recommended to establish why and how the tick is coping with Highveld conditions (Dhliwayo & Matondi, 2012).According to the ZimVac (2021) report, January disease (Theileriosis), a disease for cattle transmitted by ticks, outbreaks were highly concentrated in Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland East (where Murewa is located), and Manicaland. To improve animal health and welfare, the communities have increased the number of times they dip their cattle because of the January disease outbreak. Stakeholders and farmers indicated that most cattle died due to January disease. Farmers could not afford the chemicals to treat January disease, and most did not want to sell their cattle. Communal dips have fluctuating concentrations of chemicals on different days, with some days having insufficient chemical concentrations to destroy ticks. However, farmers have now invested in personal acaricides in addition to taking their cattle to the communal dip.The natural vegetation in Murewa is Miombo woodland dominated by Brachystegia spp. and Julbernardia spp. (Rufino et al., 2011). The grass cover in the woodland is dominated by species of the genus Hyparrhenia and is therefore termed Hyparrhenia-veld type (Rufino et al., 2011). Andropogon, Digitaria, and Heteropogon spp. are also common, especially where tree density is high (Rufino et al.,  2011). Sporobolus pyramidalis dominates where grazing intensity is relatively high and in the wet vlei area (Rufino et al., 2011).During the FGD, farmers indicated that \"trees had been chopped off for firewood, for use as garden fences, for making bricks, and for use in tobacco barns. The remaining bushes and other vegetation have been overgrazed. Wetlands have been cultivated due to a decrease in rainfall amounts and changes in rainfall patterns, thus drying them up and leaving a few wetlands in wards 4 and 27. Much wildlife is now not found in Murewa due to the urbanization of the area, which prompts the cutting down of trees and the erection of buildings in forests that were previously animal habitats. Animals such as lions and leopards are now very few to none in the area.\" \" Animals such as lions and leopards are now very few to none in the area The district's primary economic activity is agriculture. The main portion of all households' cultivated land is used for the staple crop, maize, which also provides most of their income from farming. To increase nutritional functional diversity, the cultivation of groundnuts, sunflowers, and various vegetables is also a common practice. Most households try to cultivate vegetables all year long, frequently employing irrigation pond water in the dry season. Common farm animals are cattle, goats, and poultry.Improving biodiversity in Murewa is essential for promoting sustainable agriculture, enhancing ecosystem services, and building resilience to climate change. Key innovations for improving biodiversity in Murewa are the following:1. Community-based conservation: This involves engaging local communities in the conservation of natural resources, including biodiversity. This can involve the establishment of community-managed conservation areas, the promotion of sustainable resource use, and the integration of traditional ecological knowledge.2. Conservation of pollinators: Pollinators such as bees, butterflies, and birds are essential for the pollination of crops and the maintenance of biodiversity. Innovations for conserving pollinators are the creation of habitat, the use of appropriate agrochemicals, and the promotion of diverse cropping systems.3. Agroforestry: Agroforestry involves integrating trees and shrubs with crops and livestock. This can help to improve soil health, provide habitat for biodiversity, and promote carbon sequestration.Synergy Dunjana et al., (2012b) noted that the farming system in Murewa exhibited much interaction between crop and livestock production. Livestock provide draft power for cropping and manure for soil fertility improvement, while crop residues provide an important source of feed for livestock during the dry season when natural grazing is scarce and of low quality (Dunjana et al., 2012). Cattle constitute the main livestock, although some farmers own goats and donkeys (Mupangwa et al., 2016;Mutsamba et al., 2020). The fields are individually cropped but are communally grazed during the dry season. Farmers and stakeholders during the FGD pinpointed that, in Ward 4, farming is integrated and has synergistic cycles in most cases. In an illustration by farmer Ben-Ben, the farmers grow fruit trees next to their kraals. Some crops (e.g., tomatoes) are grown between the trees, and manure from the cattle is used as fertilizer with little labor required because of the proximity. Watering the tomatoes also ensures that trees, which provide fruits for the family, benefit from the watering. Leaf litter is used for mulching vegetable gardens. In the field, Mucuna, lablab, and maize stover are used as mulch and livestock feed. Farmers in the district indicated that they used maize stover as mulch and practiced conservation agriculture on five plots through pfumvudza 1 . Boreholes and wells are used for irrigation. \"Some crops (e.g., tomatoes) are grown between the trees, and manure from the cattle is used as fertilizer with little labor required because of the proximityAccording to Tamburirio & Dorah (2020), many households within the rural community of the district are engaged in agricultural activities as a way of living. During the FGD, the most common strategies mentioned were selling maize grain, market gardening (horticulture), and medium and small livestock (Table 2). According to Cairns et al. ( 2022), casual labor and market gardening were the dominant sources of livelihood for the communities in Murewa. Households were also active in non-farm-based livelihood options such as general trading, cross-border trading, and brick molding, and these were more prominent during the off-peak farming season, which starts in June and ends in October (Tamburirio & Dorah, 2020). The marketing window for field crop sales is normally from June to September; therefore, the proportion of households engaged in field crop sales was expected to peak during June but was not consistent.According to Muhoyi et al. (2014), only 33% (n = 117) of the sampled female-headed households in Murewa were food insecure; male-headed households had a higher proportion of 55%. Households dependent on agriculture had a higher prevalence of food insecurity (53%) than those employed outside agriculture (41%). Muhoyi et al. (2014) also found that, although 69% of the households owned good fertile land, more than half of them were food insecure. This would suggest that soil quality alone does not guarantee food security. Then again, Muhoyi et al. (2014) noted that many sampled households with sandy soils were food-insecure. It was interesting to note that, of the 70% of the households that adopted conservation agriculture, 63% were food-secure (Muhoyi et al., 2014).Maize is the most important food crop, and this aligns with it being the cereal staple in Zimbabwe. Results from the FGD exercise showed that different types of meat are available at any time. However, when asked about the frequency of consumption, stakeholders in the FGD stated that they consume meat at least twice a month. Livestock were kept and sold for basics and to pay important bills, especially during the lean months (August to December). Leafy vegetables were more available during the peak of the rainy season (January to April), whereas, for legumes, it was from March to July (Table 3).   Work done by Work Package 3 of this Agroecology Initiative has mapped the value chain actors for 10 crop and livestock commodities: sorghum, tobacco, maize, groundnut, sweet potato, vegetables (tomato and onion), cattle, goats, and poultry. Most of the crop and livestock commodities are channelled to the main markets in Harare. The Grain Market Board (GMB) is the major actor in maize marketing in both wards. Groundnut, sweet potato, and horticultural produce are sold to both rural and urban markets. Goats and cattle are mostly supplied to the Harare market by middlemen collecting livestock from village markets and moving doorto-door to buy enough quantity to transport to Harare. Below, we summarize the main attributes of the core value chains in Murewa (Figure 5).Nearly all farmers produce maize. Production is supported through the presidential free-input initiative, but farmers supplement the 5 kg of seed and 50 kg each for basal and topdressing chemical fertilizer provided under the freeinput programs. Farmers buy additional seeds, fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. Most farmers grow hybrid maize seeds in the district. Men and women in the household participate in maize production and have a stake in maize grain marketing. Farmers mainly sell their maize produce to the GMB directly or through middlemen. At the farm gate, maize fetches about USD 0.15/kg.Groundnuts are a common crop produced by nearly all the 2,043 households in Ward 4 and 2,730 in Ward 27 of Murewa District. However, only about 25% of the households produce enough to sell (Figure 6). All farmers mainly use recycled or local groundnut seed. Inputs are readily available in sufficient quantities in the district, except for improved groundnut seed. Farmers mentioned that there is scope to increase the use of improved groundnut seed for improved productivity. However, the rising costs of seed and other production inputs was mentioned by FGD participants as a concern for profitable production. There is a need for awareness raising and demand creation for improved groundnut seed in the district. Farmers indicated that, if there is access to improved seed, they are willing to buy it and produce what buyers demand. Although it is often believed that groundnut production is for women, the FGD carried out by WP 3 indicated joint decisions on production and marketing arrangements. The main buyers of groundnut are private processors, and they are often from within the wards and district. Other farmers prefer to process their groundnuts into peanut butter, later sold in distant markets such as Harare and Marondera. At the farm gate, groundnut will go for USD 0.25/kg, while a jar of peanut butter (400 g) will go for the same amount within the wards and USD 0.50 when marketed in Harare and Marondera. According to the report made by WP 3, farmers can buy improved breeds from Chivhu at Zvikomborero farm, and there is also an initiative to provide farmers with improved goats through the Zimbabwe Agricultural Growth Program's Value Chain Alliance for Livestock Upgrading and Empowerment (VALUE), in which they source their goats from Zvikomborero farm, which also supplies improved goat breeds to farmers (Figure 8). Zvikomborero farm also supplies Boer goats. In addition to conventional pen fattening that involves inorganic supplementary feed purchased in shops, communities in Murewa use homemade pen fattening from organic crop residues. The improved goat breeds, especially the Boer goats, are not browsers. So, supplying them with purchased feed is important. Farmers barter goats for pesticides, herbicides, household supplies, or clothes. Goats are bought at USD 15-20 from Murewa. To improve fairness in natural resource use in Murewa, priority innovations could involve the following:1. Participatory land-use planning: This involves engaging local communities in the planning and management of natural resources, including land, water, and forests. This can help to ensure equitable access to resources, promote sustainable land use, and diminish conflicts.This involves promoting linkages between small-scale farmers and markets and supporting local agribusiness development. This can help to improve market access, enhance income, and promote social equity.3. Gender-sensitive approaches: These involve recognizing and addressing gender inequalities in rural agricultural areas, such as access to resources, participation in decision-making, and control over income. This can help to promote social equity and decrease poverty.4. Farmer-to-farmer extension: This involves the use of local farmers as extension agents, who can provide advice and support to other farmers. This can help to build local capacity, promote knowledge exchange, and enhance social equity.The Zimbabwe smallholder agricultural cluster project connects farmer groups to profitable venture capital. Cassava Smartech hosted the Murewa Eco-farmer Expo event, taking farming to the next level by creating a platform for farmers to reach out to various stakeholders and markets previously not within their reach.Freehold and leasehold types of tenure systems are predominant in Murewa. Under freehold, communal or customary systems are the most common. Communal lands are an inheritance of the colonial system of marginalizing black indigenous farmers to the periphery of economic activities. Most of these communal lands are located in natural regions III to V, known for high temperatures, low rainfall, and poor agricultural activities. The dominant economic activity is subsistence and small-scale farming. The land area varies from as small as 0.1 ha to less than 2 ha (Matondi & Dekker, 2011). The majority of the inhabitants in Murewa fall under communal holding. Zimbabwe's Fast-Track Land Reform Program (FTLRP) formally began with the Land Acquisition Act of 2002. The FTLRP, which effectively co-opted the farm occupations since 1998, redistributed land from whiteowned farms and estates and state lands to more than 150,000 farmers under two models, A1 and A2. The A1 model allocated small plots for growing crops and grazing land to landless and poor farmers, while the A2 model allocated farms to new black commercial farmers with the skills and resources to farm profitably, reinvest, and raise agricultural productivity. The FTLRP has shifted land tenure systems from private landholdings to state land. Land redistribution also significantly changed land rights, access rights, and their administration. There is, however, uncertainty surrounding the form and security of tenure in both A1 and A2 schemes.In the new resettlement areas, the tenure form provided to A1 farmers is akin to communal areas based on \"customary\" forms of allocation, regulation, and adjudication. Tenure insecurity has been identified as a strong disincentive in the current land reform program, especially for those on A2 plots.Findings As revealed by stakeholders during KIIs and FGDs, other establishments are the various groups of farmers formed through their initiative and agenda and farmer groups that the development partners have started to facilitate working with project beneficiaries. The findings revealed that farmer groups are not multiple stakeholders in nature -just farmers with a specific challenge to address (e.g., marketing for livestock, horticulture produce, or addressing household income). The findings from WP 1 showed that development partners form groups for beneficiaries of their projects.Regarding power and influence, WP 5 showed that women within Murewa had limited power and freedom to make foodrelated decisions. During group discussions, the participating women told WP 5 that women are often oppressed and oppress each other, and, even when it comes to putting fellow women in power, they do not vote for each other. It was also mentioned that culture and religion had been used to keep the women submitted to the men.The results show that the role of community members in development planning in Murewa Rural District (MRD) remains constrained and fragmented. This constrained development, communities argue, is designed and implemented by a few elites. Decentralized and participatory development is evident within the structures in the district but it has not translated to the practical engagement of community members. This is an opportunity to establish working local government systems. The communities are limited to financial and political involvement through budgeting and the election of leaders. However, community involvement is a development goal critical in ensuring that community-rooted development is achieved.Some of the Murewa women were UN women involved in \"building back\" after COVID-19. This initiative was put in place to involve women in economic matters that needed attention after the pandemic peaked.Murewa is a resource-constrained area with low potential for agriculture, yet most of its inhabitants depend on agriculture as a livelihood strategy. The following constraints have been noted.{ Farmers or communities have limited access to improved seed varieties, thus affecting their yield as they rely on retained seeds.{ Their production costs are too high because of high input prices.{ Even though they have abundant natural resources such as cattle manure and leaf litter, they don't have ways to transport manure to their fields.{ Less fertile soils characterize the district and, because of numerous human activities, soil fertility is deteriorating, which is affecting their yields.{ Poor local livestock breeds don't fetch higher prices in the market.{ There is an increasing number of elephants, and they are destroying crops in Murewa.{ High livestock predation by hyenas, crocodiles, wild dogs, and lions exists.{ The decrease in the amount of rainfall received affects the growth and maturity of crops.{ Prolonged dry spells and uneven distribution of rains also affect crop growth as communities depend on rainfed agriculture.{ Rivers dry up quickly because they aren't receiving sufficient water during the rainy season and livestock must travel long distances for water, leading to livestock predation.{ Streambank cultivation is causing rivers to dry up fast, thus depriving livestock of their water sources.{ ALL members indicated that they lack knowledge or information on identified value chains, production, appropriate use of natural resources, and suitable seed varieties.{ Communities don't have access to a diversified input and output market for the targeted value chains.To address these challenges, the following interventions have been identified as entry points to test agroecological innovations of interest based on the knowledge gaps.The introduction of conservation agriculture helps infield water retention and improves soil fertility. CA has several economic and environmental benefits that help buffer farmers from the effects of climate change. The improved soil structure, mulching with crop residues, and the associated increase in soil organic matter improve rainwater infiltration and decrease evaporation from the soil. The higher waterholding capacity of the soil enables crops to reach maturity using residual soil moisture even if the rains cease before the crops have reached physiological maturity (Nielsen & Vigil, 2018 Over the past decades, a drive toward more sustainable agriculture has seen the increased advocacy and use of mechanized reduced tillage systems in much of the developed world (Jaleta et al., 2019). Mechanization (especially power units, seeders, rippers, and sprayers) is a key input for CA and smallholder farmers (Mechanization of Conservation Agriculture for smallholders | FAO https://bit.ly/4anHQAI). Two-wheel tractors (single axle, a.k.a. power tillers) are small, versatile, mobile agricultural machines and are often heralded as appropriate mechanization for smallholder farmers given their more appropriate size for operations in small fragmented plots, the less substantive investment needed, and the lower operating costs and multiple uses (Jaleta et al., 2019). Over the previous decade, planter attachments to two-wheel tractors have been developed, which permit seed and fertilizer placement with minimum to zero tillage in a single pass. Recent tests have demonstrated that these implements can produce crop yields equal to or higher than those of conventional tillage involving hand broadcasting of seed and fertilizer (Johansen et al., 2012). Increasing the power supply to agriculture means that more tasks can be completed at the right time and larger areas can be farmed to produce larger quantities of crops while conserving natural resources (https://bit.ly/472aCUC).Push-pull involves intercropping cereal crops with insectrepellent legumes in the Desmodium genus and planting an attractive forage plant such as Napier grass as a border around this intercrop. Push-pull has recently been adapted to drier areas by incorporating drought-tolerant companion plants, such as greenleaf Desmodium as an intercrop and Brachiaria cv. Mulato as a border crop. Push-pull also controls maize ear rots and mycotoxins, thus improving soil health and providing high-quality fodder since the companion crops are superior forages. Therefore, the technology facilitates croplivestock integration (https://bit.ly/3RpXPW7). According to Guera et al. (2021), in addition to controlling pests and weeds, push-pull improves the soil, allows the production of other resources (forage), and doubles maize yield. These additional uses of push-pull in another dimension make it an attractive agroecological management method and not just one of pest control.Seed fairs are a special type of agricultural show in which a temporary market is set up so that small-scale farmers can obtain good-quality seeds and seed companies can showcase their different varieties. These fairs aim to promote the development of a seed market for stress-tolerant varieties by forming partnerships with primary seed suppliers, who can provide information on types of crop varieties, their management requirements, amount of yield, and associated risks (https://bit.ly/41hdyLR). Community seed fairs allow farmers to exchange knowledge and experiences on the old and new crops they grow and to generate information about local-level seed production capacity. They also enable the trading, exchange, and sharing of propagation material among farmers and the creation of market linkages (https://bit.ly/3tvRL6u). Seed fairs also create awareness, appreciate local crop diversity, exchange seed and related knowledge, and celebrate farmers' efforts to conserve agrobiodiversity (https://bit.ly/3v5x7e8).In Zimbabwe, the feed-related factors that limit productivity vary at different times of the year. Early in the dry season, feed quality deteriorates, followed by a decrease in quantity because of high-density grazing. In the dry season, the grass in Zimbabwe deteriorates in quality to less than 3% crude protein. The severity of undernutrition worsens during drought, an integral part of southern African farming systems. Developments in feeding strategy are necessary to overcome this constraint (https://bit.ly/3v0E3cu). Velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens) is one of the herbaceous legumes that can be incorporated within the smallholder farming sector to improve ruminant animal production during the dry season (https://bit.ly/3v7iqY4). Mupangwa et al. (2016) assert that improved grasses show great potential to alleviate the problem of feed shortages during the dry season. Improved grasses are generally bulky and high-yielding crops with high residual soil fertility, use capacity, and broad environmental adaptation.Formulating diets with the appropriate contents of minerals and amino acids can help improve dietary protein and energy efficiency and decrease nutrient losses (https://bit. ly/3NwUZhb). Feed formulation is the tool to value any raw material or feed additive to support performance and to meet sustainability challenges (https://bit.ly/3RJJ6a6).","tokenCount":"6993"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"575c1342bab3e43ab24f89e559c32b56","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://dataverse.harvard.edu/api/access/datafile/:persistentId/?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/LDCXIZ/J7419X","id":"307266567"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"93b7b90e-b381-4b14-a92f-345f8a4e2d2f","pagecount":"10","content":"No regulation enforcement to secure high quality Post larvae. There is no certification for the quality of PLs Water pollution due to discharge of rice field and shrimp and also for industry: upstream downstream relationship Climate change and climate variation on daily basis (temperature variation between night and day). System cannot cope with climate fluctuation Market price fluctuation, lack of bargaining power against middlemen Limited access to credit for their investment, the bank does not allow loansa) Main changes in the production system and the sector in past 5 years? Post larvea quality with too many company providing PLs with no quality controlNo technology for sustainable production system that does not need to change every crop High operational cost due to input cost, especially for aeration and pumping with high electricity cost. Need more efficient system Access to credit for farmers: constraining policy with limitation from the formal credit systemNo regulation for inputs price and fluctuating market prices (too much power of processing companies that fix the prices)  i. And why is there such issue?ii. What could be done to solve quality issues? c) Over use of anti-biotic was identified as a problem? Can you give details in terms of main anti-biotic use and how much it increase cost of production? b) What are the constrains to increase the quality of the production? c) How these barriers could be overcome? d) Low bargaining power of small farmers against middlemen was mentioned? Do you agree and explain this issue? e) Price fluctuation was mentioned as key issue? Do you agree? How do you think to influence farmers way of rowing shrimp?--------------------------------------------------------------------Not efficient land use planning and/or not enforced (too high concentration of farms).Lack of disease control management, including bio-physical aspect with climate (temperature) and salinity variation.  No or lack of coordination between research institution and extension service to reach farmers. No applied research or not enough applied. Lack of connection between university and reality, not enough foresight of upcoming issues. Not efficient seminar to farmers Price fluctuation of the inputs, especially the feed due to international market, increasing production cost and combined with low awareness of farmers and no collective farming to reduce cost and price fluctuation Disease in extensive system due to : limited technique to screen PLs , and chemical pollution, high salinity and temperature Lack of interaction and coordination along the value chain (e.g. hatchery are not responsible for the quality they provide).Lack of awareness regarding waste discharge in canals and lack of regulation and political will to fix this issue, less natural food and combine with overfeeding in the pond leading to over nutrient discharge. ","tokenCount":"438"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"61b65316720b60e5a7d7c4c3e31b3f2e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/95719d4e-df0a-44cc-ad0c-63866326dfe7/retrieve","id":"1315615078"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"fdb7f17b-ca69-4a1d-bc34-5562325ecfb8","pagecount":"20","content":"4/5 Michael Hailu, directeur du CTA, met en lumière l'importance des partenariats et des investissements multisectoriels dans le numérique pour améliorer la productivité et les profits des agriculteurs. 8/9 De jeunes agripreneurs dévoilent les leviers permettant de mettre en place des stratégies efficaces pour les start-up et les pièges à éviter. 16/17 Les forfaits de services verts, adaptés aux besoins des agriculteurs, favorisent l'adoption de pratiques climatointelligentes et renforcent la résilience. CMYK LOGO Numéro 91 Mai 2019 ICT Update http://ictupdate.cta.int L'agriculture ACP de nouvelle génération -Les innovations qui marchent Un bulletin d'alerte pour l'agriculture ACP 2 Mai 2019 | ICT Update | Issue 91Table des matières 2 Éditorial Peter Ballantyne et Jorge Chavez-Tafur 4 La digitalisation, une formidable opportunité pour les agriculteurs Entretien avec Michael Hailu 6 Le téléphone mobile au service de l'agribusiness : un outil, plusieurs bénéfices Pierre Ricau, Hermann Tossou, Osseni Senou et Marc Ghislain Bappa Se 8 Diversifier pour favoriser le développement de l'agriculture numérique Hamza Rkha Chaham, Brian Bosire et Pierre Ricau 10 Diffuser une plateforme en ligne de produits agricoles en Afrique de l'Est : retour d'expérience et bonnes pratiques Samwel Rutto 12 Le mentorat, un coup de pouce aux jeunes entrepreneures agricoles Claire Pedrick 14 L'agriculture biologique, un tremplin pour les femmes entrepreneures Busani Bafana et Nawsheen Hosenally 16 Les forfaits de services verts, une ouverture aux pratiques climato-intelligentes Jemima Afari-Kwarteng et Oluwaseun Adedeji 18 Investissements climato-intelligents, promesses tenues !L'innovation au service de l'agriculture de nouvelle génération dans les pays ACP Peter Ballantyne et Jorge Chavez-Tafur L 'innovation est essentielle au succès de l'agriculture dans les pays en développement de la zone ACP. Actuellement, les opportunités -qu'elles soient numériques, techniques ou institutionnelles -se multiplient et encouragent une nouvelle génération de jeunes « agripreneurs » à s'attaquer aux défis du secteur agricole (résilience face au changement climatique, amélioration des moyens de subsistance, etc.).Ce numéro de ICT Update met en lumière une sélection d'expériences menées par des professionnels de l'agriculture travaillant au plus près du terrain. Leur point commun ? Ils combinent leur savoir-faire et l'innovation pour développer des projets avant-gardistes au bénéfice des petits producteurs, avec l'ambition d'enclencher un changement durable.Tous ces récits trouvent leur origine dans quatre programmes de « capitalisation d'expérience » menés par le CTA, dont le but était d'identifier et de documenter des connaissances applicables à l'agriculture des pays ACP. Chacune de ces initiatives a été articulée autour d'un atelier incluant le personnel, les partenaires et les collaborateurs du CTA. L'objectif consistait à tirer des enseignements dans quatre domaines d'intervention stratégiques concernant l'agriculture de nouvelle génération au sein des pays ACP :1. le renforcement des agro-entreprises à travers la digitalisation ; 2. le soutien à l'entrepreneuriat des jeunes et à la création d'emploi ; 3. l'inclusion des femmes ; 4. la promotion des solutions climato-intelligentes.Le premier atelier avait pour thème l'industrie agro-alimentaire et le numérique. Les participants ont identifié cinq objectifs qui incitent les entreprises à investir dans le digital : la réduction des risques, l'augmentation de la productivité, la recherche d'efficacité, l'amélioration de la prise de décision et l'accessibilité aux marchés. Afin d'évaluer la réussite d'un projet, il a été démontré que l'un des principaux révélateurs résidait dans la stabilité économique des modèles utilisés pour fournir des services et générer de la valeur.A travers un entretien, Michael Hailu, directeur du CTA, promeut l'idée d'une transformation de l'agriculture par le Éditorial numérique, au bénéfice d'exploitants qui pourront accroître leur production comme leurs revenus. Il insiste sur l'importance des partenariats et des investissements multisectoriels qui sont indispensables pour déployer à grande échelle les interventions reconnues comme efficientes.Trois autres articles explorent les défis rencontrés par les start-up africaines qui mettent en oeuvre des initiatives pour appuyer les agriculteurs et producteurs.La contribution de Pierre Ricau, Hermann Tossou, Osseni Senou et Marc Bappa Se s'intéresse à un système d'information sur les marchés agricoles au Sénégal qui favorise l'autonomisation des agriculteurs. Ce modèle bénéficie à tous les producteurs, clients ou non, dont le pouvoir de négociation se trouve renforcé par l'accès à l'information.Les modèles d'affaires adaptés aux start-up agricoles numériques sont abordés dans l'article rédigé par Hamza Rkha Chaham, Brian Bosire et Pierre Ricau. S'appuyant sur leur propre expérience, les auteurs estiment que la diversification représente la clé pour répondre à la variété de besoins des clients et des investisseurs.L'importance de la prise en compte de l'utilisateur dans les modèles d'affaires numériques est au coeur de la réflexion menée par Samwel Rutto. Selon lui, les plateformes de commercialisation en ligne peuvent sensiblement aider les agro-entreprises. Pour cela, elles doivent toutefois être pensées pour les clients cibles -les agriculteurs et leurs représentants -afin que les services proposés correspondent bien à leurs besoins, capacités, possibilités financières et systèmes de production.Les participants à l'atelier sur le thème de l'entrepreneuriat des jeunes ont identifié sept facteurs capitaux dans la réussite des entreprises rurales et la création d'emploi : l'accès des jeunes à l'investissement et au financement ; des approches et modèles pouvant être aisément déployés à l'échelle ; des environnements politiques favorables aux jeunes ; un secteur agricole attractif pour la jeunesse ; un accès facilité aux marchés pour les jeunes ; des modèles d'affaires efficaces ; et l'accès à un socle de compétences, capacités et connaissances, assorti des moyens nécessaires pour les exploiter.En se reposant sur les articles du premier atelier évoquant les start-up, Clare Pedrick dévoile l'importance du mentorat dans le développement des connaissances et compétences commerciales nécessaires aux agripreneurs. Elle l'illustre avec plusieurs exemples de jeunes entrepreneurs ayant bénéficié de cette opportunité.Sept critères de succès ont également été identifiés par les participants à l'atelier « Rendre l'agriculture accessible aux femmes dans les pays ACP » : l'accès à l'investissement et au financement ; l'accès aux marchés ; le renforcement des compétence, le travail en réseau et le développement des capacités ; l'accès à l'information, aux connaissances et à la technologie ; l'accès à la terre ; la suppression des obstacles socioculturels ; et la juste reconnaissance du statut des femmes (dans la société et la politique, à travers des programmes ciblés). Plusieurs exemples, évoqués dans cet atelier, révèlent le potentiel des marchés de niche pour développer des activités durables qui contribuent à l'émancipation et l'autonomisation des femmes. L'article de Busani Bafana et Nawsheen Hosenally présente ainsi deux projets d'agriculture biologique, aux Samoa et en Jamaïque, ayant trouvé des débouchés à l'international. Ces initiatives permettent aux femmes d'initier un changement au niveau des pratiques locales tout en bénéficiant à l'ensemble de leur environnement. L'adoption et la pérennisation des solutions ayant déjà fait leurs preuves a été un thème central des discussions autour de l'AIC. Par exemple, en Afrique australe, la mise en place de partenariats entre organisations partageant la même vision ou l'élaboration de modèles innovants pour la commercialisation et la fourniture de produits, ont notamment été identifiés comme des approches à reproduire.Dans le même esprit, l'article de Jemima Afari-Kwarteng et Oluwaseun Adedeji établit que les agriculteurs doivent avoir accès à des offres groupées de produits, centrées sur leurs besoins, pour tirer profit de l'AIC. Des exemples, issus de différents projets, viennent illustrer ce constat.La conception de ces forfaits implique généralement l'association de plusieurs organismes qui vendent des produits et services complémentaires. Par ailleurs, l'accès au financement devient de plus en plus crucial pour la réalisation de ces projets. Quant au deuxième article de Busani Bafana et Nawsheen Hosenally relayé dans ce numéro, il expose une forme novatrice d'investissement qui mobilise des fonds du secteur privé au profit de l'AIC. Cet « investissement à impact » a pour but de générer des retombées à la fois sociétales et financières, particulièrement en faveur des agriculteurs qui cherchent à renforcer leur capacité de résilience face au changement climatique.   J'ai récemment participé au forum de l'Alliance pour une révolution verte en Afrique (AGRA, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa) à Kigali. Le thème de la digitalisation figurait très haut à l'ordre du jour, preuve que le potentiel du numérique dans le secteur agricole est clairement identifié. Il a notamment été précisé qu'il était indispensable de faciliter l'accès des décideurs politiques aux différents types de données sur la production agricole. Plus largement, nous devons utiliser les technologies afin de rendre les données accessibles à un maximum d'utilisateurs.Q Parmi toutes les initiatives du CTA liées aux TIC pour l'agriculture, certaines ont-elles échoué ? C'est un fait : quand vous expérimentez de nouvelles technologies, le taux d'échec est toujours supérieur au taux de réussite. Plusieurs raisons peuvent expliquer ces revers comme l'utilisation d'une technologie non appropriée, l'absence de mécanismes de soutien, etc. Les échecs sont constants, mais chaque innovation qui fonctionne dévoile un potentiel significatif. Par exemple, nous avons travaillé avec des partenaires en Ouganda afin d'établir les profils des cultivateurs de thé en recueillant des informations sur leurs exploitations et coopératives à l'aide de drones. A la faveur de ce projet, les exploitants ont doublé leur productivité. L'objectif est désormais de déployer ces succès à plus grande échelle. Chaque semaine, l'équipe de N'kalô collecte des informations en téléphonant et en envoyant des e-mails à un vaste réseau d'acteurs privés -agriculteurs, négociants, transformateurs -au niveau local et international, ainsi qu'en discutant avec eux sur WhatsApp. Après avoir analysé la situation du marché et les perspectives, l'équipe envoie des conseils à des milliers d'agriculteurs, principalement par SMS. « Lorsque je reçois ces messages, je me sens plus fort. Je dis aux intermédiaires : \"c'est à prendre ou à laisser. Si vous n'achetez pas, ce sera pour quelqu'un d'autre\", et ils n'ont pas d'autre choix que d'accepter », déclare André Sadio, un utilisateur de N'kalô originaire de la région de Ziguinchor, au Sénégal.N'kalô a permis à tous les agriculteurs, y compris ceux qui ne sont pas abonnés aux bulletins, de faire de meilleures affaires. En effet, les négociants ne peuvent pas deviner quels producteurs reçoivent ou non les SMS. Par conséquent, ils n'osent pas proposer de prix trop bas par crainte de perdre leur crédibilité.Avant, nous recevions des informations uniquement de la part des intermédiaires, qui fixaient les prix entre eux , explique Karamouko Toure, producteur de noix de cajou de Un service d'information sur le marché via téléphone portable contribue à promouvoir la transparence au Sénégal, en permettant aux agriculteurs -y compris ceux qui ne sont pas abonnés au service -d'obtenir des prix plus justes pour leurs produits. L amine Sagna, producteur de noix de cajou dans la région de Sédhiou, au Sud du Sénégal, a appris que savoir, c'est pouvoir. \"La clé, c'est d'avoir un pouvoir de négociation, raconte-t-il. Avec ces SMS, nous nous sentons mieux armés et plus confiants. Lorsqu'un bana-bana (intermédiaire) offre un prix inférieur à celui indiqué sur mon téléphone, je dis à tous les autres agriculteurs de ne pas vendre. Je laisse le bana-bana parler et, quand il a terminé, je lui indique que je connais le prix réel.\"Lamine est l'un des agriculteurs -de plus en plus nombreux -à s'être abonné à N'kalô, un service d'information sur le marché disponible au Burkina Faso, en Côte d'Ivoire, au Mali et au Sénégal, et qui a bénéficié du soutien du CTA durant sa Image : Pierre RicauPierre Ricau est un économiste français spécialisé dans les marchés agricoles. Il travaille pour Nitidae, une ONG qui, avec plusieurs partenaires, a developpé le service N'kalô. p.ricau@nitidae.org Hermann S. Tossou est un expert en entrepreneuriat des jeunes, il est aussi spécialisé dans l'agriculture climatointelligente. Au cours de ces trois dernières années, il a acquis une expérience considérable dans le domaine des TIC pour l'agriculture. tshrmann@gmail.com Senou Osseni a, en tant que conseiller en développement d'entreprise, collaboré avec plusieurs organisations à but non lucratif, ainsi qu'avec des institutions privées. senouosseni@hotmail.com Marc Ghislain Bappa Se est consultant au sein de la division Gestion des connaissances, sensibilisation et renforcement des capacités de l'évaluation indépendante (IDEV) de la Banque africaine de développement. semarc27@gmail.com la région de Kolda, au Sénégal. « Aujourd'hui, ajoute-t-il, le simple fait que le bana-bana, qui vient ici régulièrement, sache que nous recevons des informations via N'kalô, contribue à garantir qu'il offre un prix plus juste dans tout le village.De meilleures informations sur le marché font gagner du temps et réduisent les frais de transport, puisque les négociations sont facilitées et plus susceptibles de se conclure favorablement.« Cela aide à accélérer les choses , affirme Bacary Mangdien, coordinateur de la coopérative de cultivateurs de sésame AJAC, dans la région de Sédhiou. Nous négocions moins et les discussions se déroulent sur une base plus saine.Les messages envoyés via N'kalô incluent des conseils et des prévisions basés sur l'évolution des prix, ce qui aide les agriculteurs et organisations paysannes à peaufiner leurs stratégies de commercialisation à court et moyen terme, et à décider s'il est judicieux d'attendre avant de vendre leurs produits.La récente décision d'Ibrahima Diop, cultivateur de maïs, de reporter ses ventes en raison de la hausse prévue des prix, en est un parfait exemple. « Cette année, nous avions un petit stock de maïs que nous avons conservé plus longtemps que prévu, parce que nous avions reçu des SMS nous prévenant d'une possible hausse des prix », déclare Ibrahima Diop, trésorier de la coopérative Yachalal, dans la région de Sokone. Il révèle avoir vendu son stock en avril, à un bon prix (210 CFA / kg ou 0,32 € / kg), ce qui a permis à la coopérative de réaliser des profits. La Fédération nationale des producteurs de sésame (FENPROSE) a signé un contrat avec un exportateur étranger pour la saison 2018-2019, stipulant que les prix utilisés pour chaque transaction seront basés sur les chiffres de N'kalô.De nombreux utilisateurs de N'kalô estiment avoir de meilleures relations avec les clients tout au long de la chaîne de valeur, en raison de la grande disponibilité d'informations fiables et objectives sur le marché. Les dirigeants d'organisations paysannes indiquent que le service les aide à gagner la confiance de leurs membres et à lancer la discussion avec ceux-ci. Globalement, les agriculteurs sénégalais sont d'avis que le service d'informations sur le marché a créé un meilleur climat commercial.« N'kalô me rappelle le proverbe chinois selon lequel \"Quand un homme a faim, mieux vaut lui apprendre à pêcher que de lui donner un poisson\" » observe Amath Diouf, cultivateur et négociant en noix de cajou dans la région de Sokone. En effet, N'kalô apprend aux petits exploitants à comprendre les marchés. Mais le service les aide aussi directement, car les agriculteurs obtiennent souvent des prix plus élevés rien qu'en mentionnant les N'kalô a permis à tous les agriculteurs, y compris ceux qui ne sont pas abonnés aux bulletins, de faire de meilleures affaires. La création de produits dérivés, imaginés sur une technologie de base identique qui contribue à la proposition de valeur, permet à l'entreprise de gagner en efficacité tout en explorant les marchés interconnectés. Par exemple, si vous utilisez les technologies de télédétection pour conseiller les producteurs de blé sur l'utilisation des engrais, pourquoi ne pas utiliser ces mêmes technologies pour aider les entreprises de production d'engrais à évaluer l'impact des engrais qu'elles vendent ?Si ce modèle d'affaires diversifié peut aider des start-up africaines à survivre et même à se développer, il comporte cependant des risques en matière de marketing et de communication, risques dont les entrepreneurs numériques devraient tenir compte. Nous nous sommes appuyés sur l'expérience acquise dans la gestion de nos start-up afin d'offrir une série de conseils pour l'orientation vers d'autres activités, en mettant en avant certaines difficultés qui peuvent apparaître pendant ce processus : La diversification, une clé pour les start-up numériques africaines...  Notre expérience montre que la diversification nous a permis d'atténuer le risque lié au revenu, d'améliorer le retour sur investissement en optimisant les actifs et d'explorer de nouveaux segments. Toutefois, ce processus a aussi entraîné une série de difficultés.La diversification n'est pas seulement déroutante pour les investisseurs, qui y voient généralement une incapacité à s'implanter sur un marché principal. Elle peut également être une source de confusion pour les clients. Viser différents segments représente un défi sur le plan de la communication. Les ressources des start-up étant limitées, elles n'ont pas toujours intérêt à répartir leur budget marketing sur plusieurs segments, puisqu'il est déjà assez difficile de promouvoir un seul produit ou service.La plupart des investisseurs que nous avons rencontrés ont préféré investir leur capital dans des modèles d'affaires simples, à l'image de modèles similaires qu'on retrouve dans des économies plus avancées. En outre, beaucoup d'investisseurs ont généralement mis l'accent sur les technologies à la mode, plutôt que sur les solutions. Même les donateurs et les institutions préfèrent s'intéresser à l'intelligence artificielle, aux drones ou à la blockchain plutôt qu'aux solutions visant à diminuer le coût des engrais pour les agriculteurs.Nous estimons au contraire que la technologie doit permettre de répondre de la façon la plus évolutive et flexible possible aux attentes des agriculteurs, comme apporter une solution à leurs problèmes les plus urgents, liés au manque d'efficacité. Nous répondons aussi aux préoccupations des investisseurs en mettant en place une gestion solide et en dissipant les confusions que peut entraîner la diversification. Nous nous assurons ainsi que chaque produit développé exploite toujours notre technologie ou notre savoir-faire de base et contribue directement à notre proposition de valeur principale. Lorsque nous communiquons avec un marché spécifique, nous traduisons notre proposition de valeur principale pour l'adapter à ce marché afin de nous assurer de bien parler le langage du marché et éviter toute confusion. Enfin, nous mettons en place des processus de gestion du temps et du budget afin d'affecter les ressources de l'entreprise aux différents segments de marché et lever toute ambiguïté.En tant qu'entrepreneurs, nous devons absolument respecter une discipline rigoureuse d'affectation des ressources. Nous devons aussi accorder toute l'attention nécessaire au renforcement de nos compétences en communication et en gestion, non seulement pour prouver aux investisseurs les avantages d'une diversification « contrôlée », mais aussi pour préserver durablement L es investissements dans des solutions numériques liées à l'industrie agroalimentaire dans la région d'Afrique de l'Est ont considérablement augmenté au cours de la dernière décennie. Cependant, peu de ces investissements se sont avérés viables après la phase pilote ou ont eu un impact durable. Beaucoup sont encore confrontés à des obstacles majeurs qui entravent la croissance. Mon expérience en matière de conception et de gestion d'un système électronique d'échange de céréales -le système GSoko, propriété d'EAGC -m'a appris beaucoup de choses à propos du soutien et de la diffusion des plateformes de commercialisation en ligne dans le secteur de l'agroalimentaire.La centrale des céréales -qui est intégrée au système Gsoko -soutient les agriculteurs en leur fournissant des services de pointe. Par exemple, avant d'investir un marché, les producteurs doivent connaître précisément les besoins de celui-ci. Nous travaillons donc directement avec les acheteurs de céréales afin de savoir quelles variétés ils souhaitent et en quelle quantité. Ensuite, nous communiquons ces informations aux agriculteurs : ils peuvent donc optimiser l'achat de semences et s'adapter au mieux au marché visé.Conception du logiciel La phase de conception et de développement du logiciel est souvent longue -les financements doivent être étalés sur une période de 5 ans environ. Le développement de GSoko, par exemple, a duré 4 ans, principalement en raison de la nécessité de consulter régulièrement les utilisateurs finaux afin de s'assurer que la solution était facile à utiliser et répondait à leurs besoins de commercialisation. Le système a dû être repensé et amélioré de nombreuses fois. Sans surprise, ce processus finit par coûter cher, ce qui influe sur la diffusion des plateformes à plus grande échelle.L'adoption de solutions numériques dans le secteur de l'agroalimentaire joue un rôle crucial pour déterminer la mise à l'échelle et la durabilité d'un projet. Cependant, le taux d'adoption est impacté par les difficultés techniques non prévues et non voulues, comme le manque de maîtrise des technologies de l'information et de la communication (TIC), en particulier chez les agriculteurs. Pendant le déploiement de GSoko, j'ai découvert que certains petits agriculteurs n'avaient jamais utilisé de téléphone portable Android et ne savaient donc pas comment utiliser le système. Les difficultés d'accès à Internet affectent également le fonctionnement des systèmes en ligne. Par exemple, la coopérative agricole ougandaise de Katine exporte des céréales au Kenya via la plateforme GSoko, mais la connexion Internet limitée a empêché ses membres de participer à certaines sessions d'échange en ligne.En gérant la plateforme GSoko, j'ai compris que les plateformes régionales d'échange en ligne doivent être durables et viables sur le plan commercial. Cela implique de se doter d'un modèle économique qui génère des revenus pour compenser les obligations en matière de coûts. D'un autre côté, la génération de revenus dépend de la capacité de traitement du système / de la valeur et du volume des produits de base échangés chaque saison via le système. D'après mon expérience et une analyse des autres plateformes présentes dans la région, les volumes échangés sont parfois trop faibles et irréguliers, tandis que les coûts du développement et d'entretien des systèmes sont extrêmement élevés et dépassent souvent les bénéfices générés. Parmi les principales causes à l'origine d'une baisse des volumes échangés sur les plateformes en ligne que j'ai moi-même pu observer, il y a notamment les mauvaises conditions météorologiques et les sécheresses -qui font baisser les rendements -, le manque d'entrepôts liés aux agriculteurs pour le regroupement et des problèmes de qualité, comme des niveaux élevés d'aflatoxines, des récoltes de produits pourris, malades ou cassés, des variétés mélangées, etc. J'ai aussi constaté que le caractère saisonnier des cultures influe sur les performances des systèmes, en particulier des systèmes basés sur des cultures annuelles comme le maïs. De plus, les autorités et l'administration des pays d'Afrique de l'Est font souvent obstacle aux plateformes en ligne en imposant des taxes, des droits de douane et des réglementations pour les exportations.Les activités de promotion et de marketing jouent un rôle de plus en plus important pour diffuser les plateformes d'échange en ligne à plus grande échelle : elles contribuent à développer la clientèle et à augmenter le volume de produits échangés. Je pense que la gamme de services proposés et les frais facturés aux utilisateurs devraient être abordables, car la plupart des utilisateurs ne sont pas en mesure ou pas disposés à payer des montants élevés. Voilà pourquoi il convient de réaliser une analyse de la rentabilité assortie de consultations approfondies avec les parties prenantes pour fixer des frais raisonnables. Les agriculteurs se sont habitués à bénéficier de services gratuits, offerts par des ONG et des donateurs, ils sont donc réticents à l'idée de mettre euxmêmes la main à la poche. Tant les agriculteurs que les négociants peuvent refuser d'adopter une plateforme en ligne s'ils ont le sentiment que cette plateforme est trop complexe à utiliser. Enfin, l'existence de diverses plateformes concurrentes qui ciblent les mêmes utilisateurs -en particulier les agriculteurs -peut également avoir une incidence sur l'adoption des solutions numériques.Je suis convaincu que les plateformes de commercialisation en ligne peuvent contribuer de manière significative à l'amélioration des performances, de la compétitivité et de la rentabilité des agro-entreprises. Cependant, les difficultés liées à la conception de ces systèmes, à leur production de revenus et à leur adoption ont un impact négatif sur leur mise à l'échelle et leur durabilité. C'est pour cette raison qu'il est essentiel, lorsqu'on investit dans des solutions numériques liées à l'agriculture, de réfléchir à des modèles économiques qui présentent un intérêt manifeste pour les utilisateurs. De même, il est crucial d'associer les utilisateurs potentiels au processus de conception afin de développer des solutions faciles à utiliser et de diversifier la gamme de produits agricoles couverts par la plateforme. Négliger l'un de ces aspects risque de compromettre l'avenir à long terme de la plateforme d'échange en ligne elle-même, ainsi que les avantages potentiels pour ses utilisateurs. • Cet article a été rédigé dans le cadre d'une initiative menée par le CTA visant à documenter et à partager les connaissances exploitables sur les approches agricoles efficaces pour l'agriculture des pays ACP. Il capitalise sur les connaissances, les enseignements et les expériences pratiques afin de documenter et d'orienter la mise en oeuvre de projets axés sur l'agriculture pour le développement.Samwel Rutto est directeur régional au sein de l'organisation Eastern Africa Grain Council (EAGC); dans cette fonction, il a développé des systèmes d'échanges structurés pour la région Afrique de l'Est, ce qui a permis la standardisation et l'harmonisation des instruments financiers de la chaîne de valeur céréalière. rutto@eagc.org « En gérant la plateforme GSoko, j'ai compris que les plateformes régionales d'échange en ligne doivent être durables et viables sur le plan commercial », insiste Samwell Rutto.Une idée lumineuse d'agribusiness ? Comment la concrétiser ? Se faire aider et conseiller par quelqu'un qui est passé par là peut être très utile, en particulier pour les jeunes entrepreneurs peu aguerris. L e mentorat, c'est-à-dire l'accompagnement par un professionnel ou par quelqu'un qui connaît, pour les avoir vécus, les problèmes qui peuvent se poser au moment de la création d'une entreprise, peut faire toute la différence entre la réussite et l'échec pour les jeunes entrepreneurs agricoles -souvent appelés agripreneurs -, en particulier dans les premiers temps.Les participants à un atelier du CTA ont expliqué comment la supervision et l'accompagnement pouvaient aider les jeunes à acquérir les compétences requises pour créer et gérer un agribusiness rentable, susceptible de créer des emplois pour d'autres par la suite. Le soutien peut porter sur un large éventail de domaines, par exemple l'élaboration d'un business plan, le développement de produits, les aspects financiers et l'accès aux marchés.« Lancer son entreprise peut être difficile. De nombreux jeunes ont de bonnes idées, mais il faut des compétences particulières pour transformer des idées en une entreprise viable », explique Tony Nsanganira, qui travaille au Ghana dans le cadre du programme de réduction de la pauvreté rurale de la FAO. Ce programme vise en particulier à promouvoir la création d'emplois décents en milieu rural pour les jeunes en Afrique grâce à l'agribusiness. « Il faut suivre une formation pour créer son entreprise, puis être régulièrement conseillé. Il faut non seulement aider les jeunes à gérer leur entreprise et leur trésorerie, mais également les exposer à la réalité des faits pour qu'ils puissent prendre leur envol », poursuit-il.Au Kenya, des mentors professionnels ont aidé, dans le cadre du programme de la FAO, un groupe de jeunes femmes venant de créer leur entreprise d'agrotransformation à concevoir et à peaufiner leur business plan et à accéder au financement et aux marchés. Des conseils allant de la valorisation au conditionnement en passant par l'étiquetage de produits à base de fruits les ont aidées à développer un petit agribusiness rentable.Idéalement, l'accompagnement devrait se poursuivre, avec des objectifs à atteindre régulièrement, disent celles qui ont reçu cette aide. Litia Kirwin a bénéficié de plusieurs initiatives de mentorat, qui ont contribué à la création de son entreprise de développement durable, Loving Islands, aux Fidji. Cette entreprise vise à garantir que les petitesClare Pedrick communautés insulaires puissent commercialiser leurs produits, dont de l'huile biologique de noix de coco, des cosmétiques, des bougies et des tissus.« Personnellement, j'ai trouvé que le mentorat était réellement important, en particulier à mes débuts, car il m'a aidé à valider mes choix. C'est extrêmement précieux d'être rassuré par des gens plus expérimentés », explique Kirwin. Son entreprise en est à sa deuxième année et a déjà embauché trois personnes, toutes jeunes, et Litia Kirwin est désormais le mentor d'un agripreneur fidjien, un étudiant qui essaie de créer une petite pépinière à Suva. Le réseau de producteurs The Loving Islands Farmer Enterprise (LIFE) organise des formations en agriculture biologique et apporte un soutien au développement commercial et à l'accès au marché dans les communautés insulaires rurales.Kenya Lilian Mabonga, directrice des programmes de la fondation kenyane Ustadi, qui tire son nom du mot « compétence » en swahili, distingue clairement la formation du mentorat. Cette ONG établie à Nairobi est axée sur le développement des capacités des jeunes et des femmes en milieu rural dans un éventail de chaînes de valeur agricole et propose du mentorat dans quatre domaines essentiels : la planification, le financement, le marketing et le service à la clientèle.De nombreux jeunes échouent lorsqu'ils créent leur entreprise parce qu'ils n'ont pas bénéficié de mentorat, mais uniquement de formations, explique Lilian Mabonga. La formation ne suffit jamais à elle seule. Il faut un suivi pratique aussi. » Lilian Mabonga tient à rendre visite aux jeunes agripreneurs dans leur magasin ou autre point de vente pour voir comment ils s'y prennent avec leurs clients. Elle les suit aussi lorsqu'ils développent leurs produits, du début à la fin. Grâce à cela, plusieurs milliers de jeunes entrepreneurs ont réussi à financer leur initiative d'agribusiness dans 23 comtés au Kenya, dans diverses filières, notamment le manioc, la noix de cajou, l'ananas et la volaille, ainsi que dans la production d'énergie à base de déchets.Le mentor peut être une personne plus âgée qui a une longue expérience, mais les jeunes entrepreneurs peuvent aussi avoir des connaissances précieuses à partager entre eux, selon Michael Sudarkasa, fondateur de la GAAAP, qui vise à aider des jeunes à créer leur agribusiness dans quatre pays d'Afrique.« Je crois aux échanges intergénérationnels, mais aussi aux transferts de connaissances intragénérationnels, déclare Sudarkasa. Cela peut par exemple impliquer de réunir de jeunes agripreneurs de différentes régions d'Afrique, que ce soit par l'intermédiaire de Snapchat, d'Instagram ou de WhatsApp, pour qu'ils partagent des solutions qui se sont révélées efficaces », ajoute-t-il. • Cet article a été rédigé dans le cadre d'une initiative menée par le CTA visant à documenter et à partager les connaissances exploitables sur les approches agricoles efficaces pour l'agriculture des pays ACP. Il capitalise sur les connaissances, les enseignements et les expériences pratiques afin de documenter et d'orienter la mise en oeuvre de projets axés sur l'agriculture pour le développement.Clare Pedrick est une journaliste britannique spécialisée dans le développement international et les questions environnementales. clarepedrick@gmail.com Le mentorat par un professionnel des affaires peut faire la différence pour de jeunes agripreneurs en manque de repères.Image : CTABusani Bafana et Nawsheen Hosenally partenariat marketing avec une chaîne de café haut de gamme en Nouvelle-Zélande, C1Espresso. « Les dirigeants de The Body Shop ont réalisé qu'ils aidaient les petites exploitantes samoanes à améliorer leur niveau de vie en achetant leur huile vierge, poursuit Mme Apa. Notre huile est assez chère, mais l'enseigne a choisi de privilégier la qualité et de soutenir, en même temps, notre travail avec les agricultrices. » Miser sur la qualité, pas la quantité WIBDI fait la promotion d'autres produits biologiques dans ses programmes de développement, comme les fruits et légumes frais ou le café. Avec le soutien du CTA, l'organisation a pu participer à différentes foires commerciales et réunions politiques autour du monde afin de promouvoir ses actions.« Le travail de WIBDI avec les agricultrices est exclusivement centré sur le biologique. Pour les petites îles, cette stratégie fonctionne très bien, compte tenu de la concurrence de l'Australie et de la Nouvelle-Zélande », souligne Isolina Boto, responsable du bureau du CTA à Bruxelles. « Si vous ne pouvez pas rivaliser sur la quantité, vous pouvez par contre miser sur la qualité et la valeur ajoutée. C'est la voie empruntée avec succès par WIBDI, qui a en outre intégré les communautés dans le processus, ajoute-t-elle. L'organisation a, de plus, ouvert aux exploitantes les portes de l'international , tout en opérant en parallèle une diversification de la gamme de produits à valeur ajoutée commercialisés : bananes séchées, fruits et légumes frais, café, savon, objets d'art. » Le biologique, ça fonctionne ! Des agricultrices jamaïcaines sont également impliquées dans la production de café biologique, une activité devenue source d'emploi et de revenus. L'une d'entre elles, Dorienne Rowan-Campbell, est propriétaire et gérante de l'entreprise Rowan's Royal Coffee. Elle produit et exporte la célèbre variété de café jamaïcain Blue Mountain, « du grain à la tasse », vers les marchés internationaux, de l'Europe au Japon en passant par l'Amérique du Nord.« Le biologique est la seule forme d'agriculture régie par des principes d'équité, de justice et de respect de l'environnement. Pour moi, c'est l'aspect le plus fondamental, car cela signifie que vous contribuez à bâtir un avenir durable », déclare Mme Rowan-Campbell, inspectrice spécialisée en agricultrice biologique et coordinatrice de la certification pour le JOAM (Jamaica Organic Agriculture Movement), un organisme fondé en 2001 qui a formé 150 femmes originaires de la région Caraïbes depuis sa création. « D'une manière générale, nous constatons un intérêt croissant des gens pour le biologique. Cette tendance incite donc les producteurs de café à s'investir et à respecter les normes. En Jamaïque, les femmes choisissent elles-mêmes de se lancer dans le biologique, y voyant une chance de garantir la bonne santé des communautés, tandis que les hommes y décèlent, eux, de bonnes opportunités commerciales. Le biologique, ça fonctionne ! » Elle conclut : « J'ai commencé par la café mais, très rapidement, je vais diversifier ma production avec du gingembre et du curcuma. Avec le changement climatique, je redoute les éventuelles conséquences d'un ouragan sur mes plants de café. Il me faut une assurance, que je vais cultiver sous terre. J'encourage les agriculteurs de mon entourage à faire preuve d'initiative, à diversifier leurs activités et à ne plus abattre autant d'arbres. Le café est un produit forestier : il a besoin d'ombre, et de plus en plus à mesure que les journées deviennent plus chaudes et moins pluvieuses. • L'agriculture biologique représente une opportunité pour les productrices dans les pays ACP. En effet, elle leur permet d'accéder à des marchés de niche, au niveau mondial, et d'y écouler des produits à forte valeur ajoutée. Amélioration des conditions de vie, levier pour faire évoluer les pratiques au niveau local, impact positif sur l'environnement : deux exemples, aux Samoa et en Jamaïque, vont venir illustrer le potentiel et les séduisants résultats de ces méthodes novatrices.A ux Samoa, pays caractérisé par un accès aux terres limité à cause de l'agriculture extensive, la production d'huile de noix de coco vierge biologique a offert une véritable bouée de sauvetage aux agricultrices grâce au soutien de WIBDI (Women In Business Development Inc.). Cette organisation locale de développement des entreprises à vocation sociale, soutenue par le CTA, aide les femmeset par extension les autres membres de la famille -à mettre en place des projets rentables. Fondée en 1991, WIBDI propose notamment une formation sur l'amélioration des compétences et des capacités d'encadrement. Elle facilite par ailleurs l'accès des agricultrices à des marchés internationaux centrés sur les produits biologiques haut de gamme. Impliquée dans 183 villages à travers le pays, WIBDI promeut et soutient la certification biologique des entreprises agricoles qui permet aux exploitantes de générer 200 000 € par an.WIBDI offre aux productrices d'huile de noix de coco vierge les moyens de leurs ambitions (procédés, certification, etc.). Ces actions révèlent l'immense potentiel de l'agriculture biologique pour soutenir l'activité des femmes, explique Taaloga Apa, directrice de programme au sein de l'organisation. « Nous sommes parvenus à introduire l'huile de noix de coco vierge sur les marchés internationaux. La chaîne The Body Shop, au Royaume-Uni, est par exemple l'un de nos principaux intermédiaires sur ce produit », précise-t-elle. La société britannique, spécialisée dans les cosmétiques, les soins de la peau et le parfum, achète l'huile samoane depuis 2008 et les agricultrices perçoivent 80% de la recette des ventes. WIBDI a également permis la mise en place d'unBusani Bafana est journaliste spécialisé dans le développement international. busani.bafana@gmail.com Nawsheen Hosenally est originaire de l'île Maurice. Elle est la co-fondatrice d'Agribusiness TV, une web TV, basée au Burkina Faso, qui met en lumière les histoires et les réussites des jeunes agripreneurs d'Afrique. nawsheen@agence-mediaprod.com Le récent atelier du CTA sur le thème Rendre l'agriculture accessible aux femmes dans les pays ACP a identifié 7 critères de succès essentiels pour permettre aux femmes de tirer réellement profit de l'agriculture : l'accès à l'investissement et au financement ; l'accès aux marchés ; le soutien aux compétences ; le travail en réseau et le développement des capacités ; l'accès à l'information, aux connaissances et à la technologie ; l'accès à la terre ; la gestion des problématiques socioculturelles; et la juste reconnaissance du statut des femmes.Jemima Afari-Kwarteng et Oluwaseun Adedeji contrepartie est cependant élevée : pour produire du charbon de bois, il faut abattre de nombreux arbres, un procédé qui impacte sévèrement l'environnement en accélérant la déforestation et le réchauffement climatiqueCes deux histoires illustrent bien la situation de nombreux agriculteurs des pays ACP soumis aux effets du réchauffement climatique. Selon la FAO, la population mondiale approchera le seuil des 9,8 milliards d'individus en 2050. La croissance démographique sera très soutenue dans les pays en développement, des zones particulièrement touchées par les changements environnementaux. Dans ce contexte, l'agriculture climato-intelligente semble une alternative intéressante à explorer. Mais que pensent les agriculteurs de ces pratiques ? Et comment peuvent-ils acquérir les compétences nécessaires à la mise en place de ce type d'agriculture tout en maintenant une rentabilité satisfaisante ?De plus en plus, il apparaît que les connaissances techniques, seules, ne suffisent pas à stimuler l'adoption des pratiques intelligentes face au climat. L'approche doit être holistique pour fonctionner : on ne peut se contenter de fournir un seul « service vert » sans prendre en considération d'autres paramètres. Par exemple, en aidant Fatima à adopter de bonnes pratiques agronomiques, elle pourrait vraisemblablement améliorer ses rendements. Toutefois, afin de pérenniser son activité, elle aura également besoin d'une aide financière en plus d'un réseau de télécommunications fiable pour profiter des services de vulgarisation. Ces services, devront, en outre, être impérativement adaptés à son environnement pour être réellement efficaces. Enfin, elle devra pouvoir compter sur une ouverture facilitée aux marchés afin de lui assurer un niveau de revenus suffisant, condition sine qua non pour l'inciter à poursuivre dans la voie d'une agriculture climato-intelligente.Les services groupés d'AIC peuvent prendre différentes formes mais doivent être pensés et conçus pour se compléter mutuellement afin de produire les résultats escomptés. Une combinaison d'efforts incluant à la fois le secteur public et le secteur privé n'est ainsi pas à exclure. Le projet initié par le CTA afin de promouvoir la compétitivité des chaînes de valeur agricoles en République dominicaine, en coopération avec ADOPEM, une banque de micro-crédit, est un bon exemple. Les agriculteurs participant au programme ont bénéficié d'un financement, d'une formation sur les pratiques durables et d'un accompagnement tout au long de la chaîne de valeur des tubercules (commercialisation, entreposage, manutention pendant le transport, etc.). L'expérience a été couronnée de succès : le taux de rejet des bananes a baissé de 40 à 30 % alors que le nombre de caisses exportées a connu une augmentation substantielle (de 1080 à 5200). Le projet « Déployer à plus grande échelle des solutions d'agriculture intelligente face au climat pour les agriculteurs d'Afrique australe » est une autre initiative démontrant tout l'intérêt d'opter pour une approche globale. Les agriculteurs bénéficient de forfaits de services qui incluent un accès facilité au crédit, des services de vulgarisation par SMS et des informations sur les pratiques AIC traduites en langues locales. Au Zimbabwe, par exemple, ces forfaits sont fournis par l'Union nationale des agriculteurs pendant que l'opérateur de télécommunications privé Econet la prend en charge la diffusion de l'information et l'enregistrement numérique des personnes. Concrètement, les avantages sont multiples : le projet incite les agriculteurs à souscrire une En matière d'agriculture intelligence face au climat (AIC), l'expérience nous a appris une chose : les services verts, lorsqu'ils sont fournis de manière isolée, sont inefficaces et produisent des résultats très décevants. En revanche, quand ils sont regroupés dans des « forfaits » adaptés aux besoins des agriculteurs, ils favorisent davantage l'adoption de pratiques climato-intelligentes. Plusieurs exemples, tirés de projets initiés par le CTA, viennent appuyer ces observations. F atima est une petite exploitante qui vit dans la communauté rurale d'Ayigbe, dans le district de Wenchi, au Ghana. Elle cultive la terre, élève des bêtes et vend sa production sur le marché local. Sa pratique de l'agriculture pluviale est toutefois affectée par l'imprévisibilité croissante des précipitations : il lui devient ainsi difficile de déterminer le meilleur moment pour planter et éviter les pertes dues à la sécheresse.Manti, producteur de cacao, est confronté à des problèmes similaires. Afin de compléter ses revenus, il s'est lancé dans la production de charbon de bois. Cette source d'énergie, abordable, est prisée dans sa communauté rurale, confrontée au manque d'électricité et au prix élevé du gaz. La  Face au changement climatique et à ses conséquencesen plus de la prise de conscience des consommateurs qui militent pour un environnement plus sain et se dirigent vers des produits éthiques -, un nombre croissant d'entreprises adaptent leurs stratégies d'investissement. Un virage s'opère : les risques environnementaux, sociaux et de gouvernance sont davantage pris en considération, une tendance qui pousse les investisseurs à se détourner des secteurs dits nuisibles. La notion d'investissement bénéfique devient dès lors très importante dans les choix opérés. La SFI (Société financière internationale) précise que ces investissements à impact consistent à investir dans des entreprises, organisations, véhicules ou fonds dans le but de générer des impacts sociaux, économiques et environnementaux, positifs et mesurables, tout en assurant des retours financiers.« Nous pensons qu'investir dans des modèles économiques durables est une stratégie judicieuse, et nous sommes convaincus que l'agriculture a un rôle clé à jouer pour doubler la production mondiale, une nécessité afin de nourrir, demain, une population en constante hausse, précise Mme Popova. Considérant sa propension à produire des effets négatifs sur l'environnement et sa vulnérabilité face au climat, l'agriculture doit devenir plus durable sur le plan environnemental. » En collaborant avec des organismes de microfinance, des associations de producteurs et d'autres acteurs de la chaîne de valeur, Incofin cherche à déployer le potentiel de l'agriculture sur des marchés identifiés comme stratégiques.Nous parlons d'investissements climato-intelligents car nouscomprenons que pour répondre aux défis auxquels font face les agriculteurs, il ne suffit pas d'améliorer la productivité : il faut aussi les aider à renforcer leurs capacités de résilience », indique Mme Popova. En Colombie, par exemple, Incofin a appuyé une coopérative de café afin qu'elle devienne plus intelligente face au climat en finançant la construction d'un broyeur humide centralisé, qui permet d'optimiser le processus de transformation de la production. « Grâce à cet appareil et à son système de gestion améliorée, nous sommes parvenus à réduire de 40 à 4 l la quantité d'eau utilisée pour produire 1 kg de café. En outre, la source d'eau n'est plus contaminée par le processus comme auparavant. Quant aux coques de grains, à la pulpe de café et aux autres déchets, ils servent à alimenter le broyeur. C'est donc un bon exemple d'une initiative positive sur les plans environnemental et social, qui améliore le bien-être des producteurs tout en assurant en même temps un solide retour sur investissement », explique-t-elle.Pour améliorer la productivité, la qualité de la production et le niveau de revenus, Incofin soutient des organisations de petits exploitants en les aidant à diversifier leurs cultures et à adopter de bonnes pratiques agricoles. La société travaille aussi avec des organismes locaux de microfinance afin de renforcer les capacités de résilience d'une région donnée aux chocs climatiques. Au Nicaragua, cette collaboration a par exemple permis le lancement d'un produit assurantiel basé sur un indice climatique. Les organismes de microfinance jouent ici le rôle de preneur d'assurance et d'agrégateur, pour, et avec leurs clients agriculteurs. Nous sensibilisons également au changement climatique afin de soutenir les actions qui aident les agriculteurs à devenir plus résilients et à mettre en oeuvre des pratiques intelligentes face au climat, ajoute Mme Popova.Depuis 2001, Incofin a investi plus de 1,7 milliard € dans 65 pays, travaillant avec plus de 300 clients, notamment desBusani Bafana est journaliste spécialisé dans le développement international. busani.bafana@gmail.com Nawsheen Hosenally est originaire de l'île Maurice. Elle est la co-fondatrice d'Agribusiness TV, une web TV, basée au Burkina Faso, qui met en lumière les histoires et les réussites des jeunes agripreneurs d'Afrique. nawsheen@agence-mediaprod.com  institutions financières, des petites organisations de producteurs ou des petites et moyennes entreprises agricoles. Actuellement, Incofin détient quatre fonds actifs et plusieurs structures de conseil, gérant au total 881 millions € d'actifs engagés. Sur le volet de l'assistance technique, la société a, depuis 2010, mobilisé plus de 6 millions € afin de soutenir 90 projets dans 35 pays, y compris en Amérique latine et dans les Caraïbes, en Afrique, en Asie, au Moyen-Orient et en Europe de l'Est.Les défis rencontrés par les entrepreneurs ruraux et les petits exploitants sont au coeur des objectifs de développement qui, au final, nous concernent tous. En tant qu'entreprise d'investissement à impact, il est de notre devoir de nous impliquer auprès de ces institutions qui peuvent faire avancer les choses et d'investir dans des secteurs dits \"à risque\". Incofin agit en ce sens en combinant l'appui financier et l'assistance technique »,  ","tokenCount":"7446"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"48e83d370b6fdc7aeb2aba3914bd3a5f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5c454d15-317b-4354-b42c-8f545ae8807f/retrieve","id":"-748378697"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"81683b83-1018-40d2-9bfc-28b4b4382d56","pagecount":"52","content":"1.1.1.2 Collect local popular bean cultivars , clean and test and characterize and submit for release• Local popular bean cultivars were collected in August 2015 in 5 provinces (Kirundo, Muyinga, Makamba, Gitega, Ngozi and Rutana). • A total of 34 out of 50 cultivars collected were being cleaned and characterized on research station during 2016A.MCA lines ( tolerant to ALS ) :  AYT was conducted at Murongwe and Gisozi during 2016AMAC lines: 9 lines selected for further evaluation at Murongwe.BFS lines (Tolerant to low soil fertility):  9 lines were selected out of 15.  Since 2016A, selected lines were evaluated at multilocation sites (Murongwe and Moso).• In December 2015, 7 varieties were officially released• Those varieties include MAC44, RWV1129, MAC70, MUHORO, RWV1272, GSZ611 and CODMLB003  prototypes with farmers (eg, tripple bagging)• Since 2013 CRS initiated bean Hermetic storage techniques, in response to the storage problems faced by small farmers showed positive effect. • Hermetic jercans showed positive effect.• More effective and affordable by small farmers with limited income. • However, there was a lack of extension of this technology.• Since July 2015, a test was conducted by ISABU bean program • Hermetic plastic bottle were used on farm level by using participatory approach. • 2 sites identified: Moso and Gisozi • A ToT of seed producers and extension staff from Kirundo and Muyinga in pre-post management was organised in November 2015.• A total of 37 were trained from which 30 farmer's leaders and 7 extensionists. 1.4.1.8 Assess the efficiency of seed and ICM delivery systems in reaching women and smallholder farmers (including cost/benefit analysis)• In Kirundo province (Bugesera), trading channel is the most utilized for improved seeds dissemination. • The existing pilot bean platforms constitute the second channel of improved seeds dissemination.• Yellow bean varieties are considered as cash crop and attract more men for producing more for trading. 2.1.1.6. Support partners to promote released and pre-released bean varieties ","tokenCount":"321"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"475696d6c19f02acf384f14b961b68f2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f930da81-cba0-4e62-a74a-7ec92afd1247/retrieve","id":"43395112"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"19f20780-e0c3-4aeb-91c6-999ba5390964","pagecount":"14","content":"While there is now widespread acceptance of the need for Impact Assessment (IA) of Agricultural Research, its implementation is limited. Problems have been identified not only with regard to methodology, but also concerning institutional capacity and organisational learning. By realising the potential of regional co-operation, the Workshop aimed to improve the implementation of Impact Assessment of Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa.Strategic elements for implementing IA were identified with regard to institutional aspects, processes, and methods. related impact -, environmental and institutional impacts. Both quantitative and qualitative indicators are considered useful.\"Impact culture\" was identified to be a useful guiding principle for institutionalizing IA, with an orientation towards organizational learning, and improved accountability to donors, governments and beneficiaries. Adequate resources and capacity development are necessary but not sufficient conditions to institutionalize IA. In addition,  A conceptual framework that distinguishes institutional levels of IA stating the responsibilities, tasks, frequency and resources should be developed;  An organizational framework to generate and use impact assessments should be developed and integrated into the existing research process and decision-making system;  Internal responsibilities for IA up to the top management level, irrespective of discipline should be defined;  The motivation to do IA by sensitising managers and scientists for the usefulness of IA should be enhanced; and  Development-oriented research by rewarding scientists for their contributions to development objectives as well as for their scientific output should be encouraged.Recommended IA processes include establishment of a relation between IA and strategic planning/policymaking. Participation and systematic feedback of beneficiaries and other stakeholders should be ensured; e.g. indicators to assess attainment of research objectives should be negotiated with them. Direct benefits should be assessed at the research programme level (3 to 6 years after the start). Development changes should be assessed at the institution or strategic level (4 to 10 years after start of research activities). Such impact assessment clearly differs from project evaluation which measures project output in shorter intervals, most often annually.In order to improve research accountability towards donors and beneficiaries and credibility of IA results, the need to be explicit on assumptions underlying IA results is stressed. Moreover, it is recommended to assess not only economic but also social -including gender-It was recommended to ASARECA to integrate the follow up activities resulting from the Workshop into its five year strategic plan. A task force on IA within Eastern and Central Africa should be initiated, and guidelines and criteria for IA, data base of external experts, and inventory of methods elaborated. Within each NARS and regional networks an appropriate organisational structure to implement IA should be developed, and the necessary IA capacity should be developed through training and practical experience.The need for external support to institutionalise IA within NARS and regional networks and for capacity building should be identified and potential donors approached.It was recommended to initiate similar workshops in other regions, especially CORAF and SACCAR. Regional and international co-operation in implementing IA should realize efficiency gains to address common IA issues, adhering, however, to the subsidiarity principle.Half of the invited participants were from ASARECA networks and NARIs, and the other half from international institutions (ECART members including ATSAF, CIRAD, GTZ, IAO, KIT, NRI; CTA; CGIAR Centers; The World Bank; FAO; USAID; IDRC) and NGOs. CORAF and SACCAR were also invited.The programme included a keynote address by Alex McCalla, The World Bank, a lead paper by the Workshop Preparation Group, a state of the art paper by the CGIAR/IAEG and a commissioned regional paper. Six case studies were presented. Working groups supported by facilitators analysed the situation, developed recommendations and identified next steps with regard to improving accountability, organisational learning, institutionalising IA, and regional and international co-operation to implement IA of Agricultural Research. Limited resources, together with questions about the social, economic and environmental impact of new technologies have increased the need for impact assessment and evaluation to an extent rarely experienced in the history of agricultural research. Demonstrating clear and positive impacts of research could help to reduce these pressures, but impact assessment is not yet well developed and not widely implemented. Within the CGIAR, the topic is addressed through a specialist Impact Assessment and Evaluation Group (IAEG), as well as through activities at individual Centres. Other institutions have intensified their work on impact assessment and related topics such as monitoring and evaluation. ASARECA, ECART and CTA have organised this regional workshop in order to improve the implementation of impact assessment in Eastern and Central Africa, and to strengthen partnerships between institutions in the ASARECA region and in Europe.Improve the implementation of impact assessment in Eastern and Central Africa Specific Objectives  Strengthen partnerships between institutions within Eastern and Central Africa and with institutions in Europe  Synthesise available knowledge and analyse the current situation of impact assessment in the region  Identify key strategic elements for implementing impact assessment in the region  Provide operational guidance Outputs  Improved collaboration between various groups of the research community in the region and with European institutions  Recommendations to policy makers, funding agencies, research institutions and research managers concerning  The principles and practice of impact assessment  Incentives to encourage impact assessment and the use of their result  Agreement on next steps, especially with respect to ASARECA's strategic plan for regional co-operation  Publication of results in a workshop report together with short reports published in a number of relevant newslettersThe The Workshop programme included a visit to the Kawanda Agricultural Research Institute.Four working groups supported by facilitators analysed the situation (first session), developed recommendations and identified next steps (second session) with regard to improving accountability, organizational learning, institutionalising IA, and regional and international co-operation to implement IA of Agricultural Research.All four working groups went through two sessions, the first session to analyse the situation, and the second to develop recommendations and identify next steps. Their work was guided and visualised on pinboards by professional facilitators. Moreover, each working group had a rapporteur and a presenter of results to the plenary.In a first step, the stakeholders of agricultural research and their expectations with regard to accountability were listed. Their expectations were explored, as well as the ways in which NARS account to these stakeholders. The problems that have occurred in accounting were analysed. In a second session, approaches to solving these problems were discussed, recommendations to researchers, research managers, governments, donors, extensionists, NGOs, and IARCs were formulated and next steps suggested. They address measures to increase motivation of researchers to be accountable, to improve the co-operation between farmers and researchers, and to improve credibility of IA results:In order to develop a sense of need for IA within research organisations, the NARS managers should demonstrate the value of IA. Through negative and positive reward mechanisms, researchers can be made more accountable. NARS managers should fully involve scientists in IA regardless of discipline, including biophysics. Researchers should report on failures as well as success stories, so that all stakeholders can learn from them. This working group analysed the case studies and other ad hoc IA studies with regard to organisational learning, and went on to define the scope and focus of IA which is institutionalised, as opposed to ad hoc studies. Recommendations were formulated in order to foster an \"IA culture\" within a learning organisation, integrating IA into research management.Numerous examples for positive impacts of AR are known to experts; however few of these are analysed through formal and comprehensive studies. The focus and level of aggregation of data collected is most often determined by the use of IA results. Presently, institutions are often \"compartmentalised\"; IA is carried out for specific projects. This prevents a focus on the impact of the institution as a whole and on organisational learning. Internal studies using simple models are sufficient to give insight into adoption rates and direct benefits; these are more useful for management decisions. For research organisations, a \"culture of IA \" is more urgently required than additional formal studies conducted as response to external demands. In addition, the impact on the research system itself should be assessed. Research organisations should not measure indirect or secondary impacts e.g. on other regions, at national level, on other beneficiaries, or on highly aggregated development objectives (Figure 1). Specialised organisations should conduct such IA studies.In order to improve organisational learning, the working group recommended to 1. Define the supply of as well as the demand for IA for the research organisation, commodity program or research network. 2. Work towards consistent and common understanding of concepts and terms. 3. Raise awareness of managers for use of IA; demonstrate practicability to them; conduct sensitisation programs. 4. Implement a participatory approach to planning and IA which ensures information sharing with all stakeholders and their involvement in all stages. 5. Clearly define intended impacts of research projects or programs, and indicators or milestones, and make this a precondition for funding. 6. Define data required for IA during the program design, and implement regular low-cost data collection with partners. Guidelines for defining required data sets might be necessary. 7. Make IA mandatory for all projects and programmes; IA should become part of reporting requirements; provide for IA as part of project proposals; and provide for the required budget. 8. Ensure an internal discussion of IA results within the organisation as well as with stakeholders (e.g. through regular workshops); make sure that stakeholder perspectives are incorporated in IA. 9. Assign responsibilities for IA and specify this through job descriptions. The working group listed the most important constraints in institutionalising IA at their organisations, and found a lack of motivation as well as a lack of appropriate concepts.In order to improve motivation to institutionalize IA, the following recommendations were formulated:-Managers and scientists need to be sensitised to the role of IA as a learning process and in accountability. As a first step, managers and scientists should be informed of the results of this workshop. They should identify needs, and define and operationalise a strategy, e.g. training workshops, study tours.-NARS managers and donors should incorporate impact considerations into planning as a funding requirement. Therefore, guidelines for IA in the planning process should be defined.-Scientists should be assessed not only on the basis of publications but also of the relevance of their work to development goals. Therefore, research managers should define criteria to decide on the relevance of research to development.-Responsibility for IA studies must be clearly defined. NARS managers should identify staff to undertake IA studies and give them clear ToR.With regard to developing a concept to institutionalize IA, the following suggestions were made. Figure 2   The working group tackled the subject of co-operation by assessing the current status of IA in the ASARECA member NARS from which recommendations were drawn. The findings were summarised as follows. Ethiopia and Sudan are relatively far ahead, while others are in early stages of including IA in their research activities. Whereas NARS directors are willing to do IA, so far very little has been done to develop strategies, especially with regard to small NARS. Where IA is carried out, it is part of broader socio-economic studies. It is often a once off activity, not an in-built part of research programmes. IA efforts are mainly carried out using external funds, normally contracted out and hence very expensive.Among the reasons for the dismal performance were listed:  Lack of both human and financial resources  Little priority accorded to IA  IA is a very new idea to the systems  The main motivation of IA is externally driven  Research planning does not include indicators for different levels of impact  Most programmes are too young for impact assessment  The appropriate timing to put up an IA strategy is not clear.Problems in pursuing regional and international strategies were identified:  Lack of a common regional concept and strategy on IA  Limited capacity for IA and to support IA at regional level (MEPU has two positions only)  Considerable differences in the sizes of NARS in the region  Regional activities depend on the active contribution from NARS for success  Poor information flow amongst NARS members in the region caused by poor communication system and language differences (English /French)  Duplication of activities due to poor co-ordination in the region  ASARECA networks not fully owned by NARS and strong co-ordinating position of CG centersThe comparative advantage for co-operation at regional level and the role of ASARECA in implementing IA was described:  Learn from each other  Facilitate networking and information sharing amongst NARS  Reduce duplication of efforts (e.g. methodology, regional benefits)  Develop common tools and joint programmes to solve common problems  Facilitate technological transfer through the regional level  Use spill over effects to increase efficiency  Regional level to act as entry point for external expertise and international co-operation  Strengthen negotiation position for funding and other donor support  Increase the efficiency of resource use in the region  Adhere to the subsidiarity principle: ASARECA should carry out only those activities which can't be done by NARS Recommendations with regard to regional aspects included:  Regional activities should address NARS directly, not through the networks  ASARECA should formulate a support programme for NARS (including forming international alliances) following the principle that ASARECA member organisations should take over roles in areas where they have specific competences  In addition to its current mandate, MEPU should assume a role in strengthening capacity of NARS for IA  MEPU should assist in impact assessment of regional research networks Across the recommendations generated by the working groups, the following general issues were distilled. Four main areas require attention in developing the relevant strategies for IA in the Eastern and Central African countries: 1. Institutionalisation, 2. Processes, 3. Methods, and 4. Regional and International Co-operation. Next steps were summarised as an immediate follow-up to the Workshop. Use the idea of an \"impact culture\" as the guiding principle for institutionalising IA  Integrate IA into the existing research process and into the decision-making system  Develop a conceptual framework that distinguishes institutional levels of IA stating the responsibilities, tasks, frequency and resources  Enhance the motivation to do IA by sensitising managers and scientists for the usefulness of IA  Encourage development-oriented research by rewarding scientists for their contributions to development objectives as well as for their scientific output  Define internal responsibilities for IA up to the top management level, irrespective of discipline  Provide for adequate resources to do IA at the relevant institutional level  Strengthen IA capacity by training staff and by improving the organisational framework to generate and use impact assessments Observe the general requirements for organising the process of IA, i.e. stakeholder agreement up front, adequate participation and systematic feedback from beneficiaries and other stakeholders, while maintaining sufficient flexibility  Negotiate indicators for the research objectives among key stakeholders before you start  Assess impacts at various levels  Improve the use and learning from IA results  Relate IA to strategic planning and policy making Observe the general requirements for the quality of IA results, i.e. clarity of indicators, transparency of method, being explicit on assumptions, as well as the usefulness and cost-effectiveness.  Use quantitative as well as qualitative indicators  Consider economic, environmental, social (including gender-related) and institutional factors Observe the subsidiarity principle, i.e. invest in regional IA activities only if there is a comparative advantage in doing so  Realise efficiency gains by co-operating at regional level to solve common issues regarding IA  Integrate workshop results into ASARECA's five year strategic plan  Use the regional level as a contact point for strengthening the bargaining position for support to IA research through international co-operation  Identify possibilities for research co-operation on IA between European and African partners in the framework of \"Confirming the international role of Community research/Developing Countries\" (INCO/DEV) programme. ","tokenCount":"2645"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"36177bd9c69b383f296ddceb5b86b185","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/bc6e0898-ea86-453b-a0c0-8ce6c69dc7b2/retrieve","id":"1704591216"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"719bfe53-42b0-4947-8b43-dabb9b27a0ae","pagecount":"13","content":"In light of agricultural researchers' and geographers' need for high resolution surfaces to assess climate change impacts on agriculture and biodiversity-related matters, downscaling of GCM (General Circulation Model) outputs has taken on particular importance, and several downscaling methods have been developed to date. These methods have a range of mathematical and/or physical formulations. Some researchers, however, state that downscaling of GCM forecasts is not possible and that the process might substantially and systematically increase uncertainties while reducing the accuracy of the forecasts. Higher resolution surfaces do not necessarily mean a higher accuracy. They rather suggest disaggregation of GCM forecasts. Disaggregation differs from downscaling in that it is unlikely that the former affects the original spatial or temporal GCM variability. Consequently, disaggregation is less vulnerable to criticisms that it alters original GCM patterns.Here we present a set of disaggregated GCM predictions, as well as a global database on climate change data that can be used for crop modeling, niche modeling, and more generally, for assessments of climate change impacts on agriculture at fine scales. The dataset is applicable for any approach that might require monthly maximum, minimum, mean temperatures and monthly total precipitation (from which a set of bioclimatic indices were be also derived). This database (with a total of 441 different scenarios -sum of 24, 20 and 19 GCMs, times 7 time-slices) complements other existing databases that use downscaling, by providing a complementary method through which future climate scenarios can be developed at higher spatial resolutions than the original GCM spatial resolution.. The datasets are available online at http://gisweb.ciat.cgiar.org/GCMPage.In light of agricultural researchers' and geographers' need for high resolution surfaces to assess climate change impacts on agriculture and biodiversity-related matters, , downscaling of GCM (General Circulation Model) outputs has taken on particular importance, and several downscaling methods have been developed to date. Methods have a range of mathematical and/or physical formulations, from smoothing and interpolation of future climates or changes in climates, to neural networks, and Regional Climate Modeling. Some researchers, however, state that downscaling of GCM forecasts is not possible and that the process might substantially increase uncertainties while reducing the accuracy of the forecasts. Higher resolution downscaled surfaces do not necessarily mean more accurate forecasts derived products (i.e. products from impact assessment models).The choice of using GCM data \"as is\" or attempting to increase GCM resolution turns into a paradox since (1) GCM outputs are not useful for impact assessment in most landscapes, and (2) downscaling methods might create a false sense of greater accuracy while in actuality they may be increasing uncertainties and reducing the accuracy of impact assessment models. In view of all this, spatial disaggregation of GCM outputs has been used by some researchers in order to maintain the gross representativeness of a GCM pattern in both space and time (Buytaert et al., 2009). Spatial disaggregation consists of adding coarse GCM cells to either local measurements of climate (from weather stations) or high resolution interpolated surfaces. The process uses anomalies or deltas, such as the so-called delta-method for downscaling climate surfaces, but does not use interpolation (either between weather stations or GCM cell centroids). It is therefore less likely to alter original GCM patterns.Disaggregation provides an easy-to-apply and much more rapid method for developing high resolution climate change surfaces for high resolution regional climate change impact assessment studies, with a lower likelihood of altering original GCM patterns. Since disaggregation does not involve any downscaling, but rather the aggregation of 'big' GCM cells into either points (weather stations) or fine resolution cells, it constitutes a highly conservative method unlikely to draw criticism from climate researchers.Using WorldClim (Hijmans et al., 2005) as the baseline climate ('current climate'), we applied spatial disaggregation to 24 different GCMs from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (2007), directly downloaded from the Earth System Grid (ESG) data portal, for the emission scenarios SRES-A1B (24 GCMs), SRES-A2 (19 GCMs), and SRES-B1 (20 GCMs), and for 7 different 30 year running mean periods. A total of 441 future climate scenarios were produced at four different spatial resolutions (30 arc-seconds, 2.5 arcminutes, 5 arc-minutes, and 10 arc-minutes). Each climate scenario or dataset (SRES scenario -GCM -timeslice) comprises 4 variables at a monthly time-step (mean, maximum, minimum temperature, and total precipitation) and a set of bioclimatic indices (Nix, 1986;Busby, 1991). The data is freely available on http://gisweb.ciat.cgiar.org/dapablogs/dapa-climate/Here we applied the simple disaggregation method based aggregation of anomalies (deltas) of original GCM outputs to a high resolution baseline climate. Anomalies were calculated as the difference between future 30-year averages to the 1961-1990 average of GCM outputs in three variables (maximum and minimum temperatures, and total precipitation). These anomalies were then applied to a baseline climate given by a high resolution surface (WorldClim; Hijmans et al., 2005). The method does not make any particular assumption, but simply 'updates' current climates to future climates by adding the corresponding changes to each variable.The process consists of the following steps:1. Gathering of baseline data (current climates corresponding to WorldClim) 2. Gathering of full GCM timeseries 3. Calculation of 30 year running averages for present day simulations  and 7 future periods (2010-2039, 2020-2049, 2030-2059, 2040-2069, 2050-2079, 2060-2089, 2070-2099) 4. Calculation of anomalies as the absolute difference between future values in each of the 3 variables to be disaggregated 5. Addition of anomalies surfaces to the current climates from WorldClim, using absolute sum for temperatures, and addition of relative changes for precipitation 6. Calculation of mean temperature as the average of maximum and minimum temperatures WorldClim and full GCM timeseries are freely available in the internet, and all other calculations were carried out by means of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software. Used formats are NetCDF (for GCM outputs), ESRI-GRID (for WorldClim and final disaggregated data), and ESRI-ASCII grids for providing standard and easy-to-use outputs to potential users of the data.With an eye to providing credible future high resolution surfaces, we used WorldClim (Hijmans et al., 2005, available at http://www.worldclim.org/), a global database of climate surfaces at 30 arc-second spatial resolution (~1km at the Equator). This database was developed from compiled monthly averages of climate as measured at weather stations from a large number of global, regional, national and local sources, mostly from the 1950-2000 period, using the Thin Plate Smoothing Spline (TPS) algorithm (Hutchinson, 1995) that yielded climate surfaces for monthly maximum, minimum, mean temperatures and total monthly precipitation.WorldClim contains data from the Global Historical Climate Network Dataset (GHCN; the WMO Climatological Normals (CLINO); the FAOCLIM global climate database; a database assembled by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT); and additional databases from Latin America and the Caribbean (R-Hydronet), the Altiplano in Peru and Bolivia (INTECSA), the 'Nordic Countries' in Europe (Nordklim), Australia (BOM), New Zealand, and Madagascar.WorldClim climate surfaces were developed from 47,554 locations with precipitation records, 24,542 locations with mean temperature records, and 14,835 locations with minimum and maximum temperature records. Other global datasets have been produced using fewer locations for both temperatures and precipitations (New et al., 2002), but WorldClim has the advantage of having higher spatial resolution, whilst maintaining accuracy (Figure 1). While we recognize that the dataset might not be perfect and/or accurate in all parts of the world, it does represent to a considerable degree current climates, as reported by instrumental records, at a scale that allows for the application of any modeling technique at a site-specific level. Critical areas where very low number of locations were used for interpolations are: the Amazon, the Sahara, Russia, Greenland, and some places in the mid-east, among others (see Hijmans et al., 2005 for further detail)In addition, WorldClim has been employed considerably by modelers, conservationists and agricultural researchers because of its high resolution. The dataset has been cited more than 500 times in peer reviewed publications. For all the above reasons, we chose to use WorldClim for our baseline data, representing the 1961-1990 period (current climates hereafter).GCMs are representations of earth processes and are performed on powerful computers by climatic research centers over the world. To date, a variety of GCMs (with their respective versions) have been developed, tested, and their results have been made available to the public (IPCC, 2001(IPCC, , 2007)). 24 Different GCMs were used in the Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC, 2007), each with different parameterization (Table 1, see atmosphere and ocean columns indicating resolutions). These GCMs were run under different, but not all, SRES emission scenarios (IPCC, 2000).. Outputs were produced for the SRES A1B, A2 and B1 emission scenarios. Different Coupled Models Intercomparison Projects (CMIPs) have been created in order to support and enhance the knowledge on GCM-related science. The last existing CMIP is the CMIP-3 (PCMDI, 2007;IPCC, 2007), comprising the evaluation of some 22 to 24 different GCMs on a global scale. CMIP-3 also set up a platform for providing GCM outputs to the public, under the Earth System Grid (ESG) online platform (https://esg.llnl.gov:8443/index.jsp).The IPCC-data portal (http://www.ipcc-data.org) provides some GCM outputs as well, but the most comprehensive dataset is provided by the ESG, including complete timeseries of: future simulations (2000-2100) at monthly time-steps, daily data for specific periods (e.g. 2020s, 2050s), yearly data, and 30 year running averages. The IPCC-data portal only provides the last one.We downloaded data from ESG corresponding to full timeseries (1850-2100) of all available GCMs (24), at monthly time-steps, for the same 4 variables of interest to us (minimum, maximum, mean temperature, and total precipitation), for the 20CM3 (20 th century simulation), and the SRES-A1B, A2 and B1 emission scenarios. Not all GCMs were run under all emission scenarios (Table 2). An additional issue regards the availability of GCM outputs. Due to a lack of a clear agreement, not all research centers provided outputs on all variables; rather, each selectively decided which variables to provide, creating unfortunate date gaps for nonclimatic research centers hoping to use these data. As such, minimum and maximum temperatures were not available for all GCMs--only for 11 (20C3M, A1B, B1) and 9 (A2). For those GCMs for which no maximum and minimum temperature data were available, we used the Multi Model Mean (MMM) of all the other GCMs. While we acknowledge that this process might have reduced variance among the different GCMs, we preferred to provide MMM-based outputs over not providing data for those models at all.Using the full present day (20C3M) monthly timeseries, we calculated 30 year running means around 1985 (1961-1990) as a baseline, for each of the GCMs and the 4 variables of interest. We then calculated 30 year running means for each of the emission scenarios andseven periods, so that the complete timeseries were reduced to 8 different 30 year averaged periods, as follows: For each of the 7 future periods, the anomaly or delta with respect to the baseline climate was calculated for each of the variables and months. These surfaces were then applied to the baseline climates from WorldClim. In the case of temperatures (minimum and maximum temperatures), for each pixel, the anomalies in degrees Celsius were simply \"added\" to the actual value in degrees Celsius reported in WorldClim. Differences in baselines were neglected for temperatures (Eqn. 1), but taken into account for precipitation [Eqn. 2].Where, i F X . is the future value of the pixel for the variable X (i.e. precipitation, temperature), in the month i, i C X . is the current value (i.e. from WorldClim) of the pixel for the variable X, in the monthis the interpolated value of the delta or anomaly corresponding to the pixel, for the variable X, in the month i,We added 1 millimeter to the denominator in Eqn. 2 in order to avoid indetermination in areas where current precipitation equals 0. In Eqn. 6, we used the absolute value of the change relative to the baseline period (i.e. WorldClim) to avoid monthly precipitation values going below 0 and to maintain homogeneities with WorldClim.After calculating the corresponding future values for each of the 36 coarse resolution anomaly surfaces, we calculated mean temperatures, assuming a normal distribution of temperatures during the day (Eqn. 3). Where, i M T . is the mean temperature in month i, i X T . is the maximum temperature in month i, i N T . is the minimum temperature in month i, All these calculations were performed in Arc/Info (ESRI, 2008); however, they can be performed under any other automatable GIS software or any other package with the proper libraries (e.g. R, GRASS, Python, Java).Our datasets therefore comprise the most up-to-date (with climate science) and comprehensive disaggregated set of climate change scenarios, with a total of 441 different scenarios (sum of 24, 20 and 19 GCMs, times 7 time-slices) at 30 arc-seconds spatial resolution. As a whole, original GCM uncertainties were maintained in future surfaces, so any uncertainty analysis done with original GCM data provides insights into the disaggregated surfaces. The method is highly conservative, keeping variability among GCM forecasts and providing 'updated' surfaces by assuming only that interactions between variables do not change in the future.We acknowledge the risk of providing 30 arc-seconds future climate data, but we applied the disaggregation method to the original WorldClim dataset in order to maintain its original condition. However, since 30 arc-s future climate scenarios might cause a false sense of accuracy,, after all these calculations, we aggregated the 30 arc-s future data to 2.5, 5, and 10 arc-minute resolutions using nearest neighbor interpolation (Figure 3). We still provide 30 arc-s data, but users of these data should be aware of the risks of using these data, given the assumptions we made in producing them. We suggest that the uncertainties in GCM forecasts always be taken into account, and that all users of these data dutifullyreport the assumptions involved in disaggregation.Processing and storage capacity in research centers making use of these datasets might also be a limiting factor when using these data. We therefore suggest that research centers download the resolution datasets appropriate to their studies. This avoids overprocessing.A webpage has been created for any global user to download the datasets we produced. This webpage is hosted in Cali, Colombia, on CIAT's web server (http://gisweb.ciat.cgiar.org/GCMPage/) and includes a brief description of the data. It also contains links to information about all GCM patterns that were disaggregated (provided by the IPCC-CMIP3 data portal), as well asto the datasets in the following formats:-ESRI Arc/Info binary grids for data at 2.5 arc-m, 5 and arc-m spatial resolution -ESRI ASCII grids for data at 30 arc-s, 2.5 arc-m, 5 arc-m, and 10 arc-m spatial resolutionBeyond the monthly data, we also calculated 19 bioclimatic indices (see Nix, 1986;Busby, 1991), which are often used for niche and crop modeling and are related with biology and geography of species. These indices provide descriptions of annual trends (i.e. annual mean temperature, total annual rainfall), seasonality (temperature range, temperature and precipitation standard deviations), and stressful conditions (precipitation during dry or wet periods, temperatures during hot and cold periods). These data are also presented on our webpage.Disaggregation appears to be a useful alternative, and more conservative, method to downscaling. Disaggregated future climate surfaces avoid misrepresentation of original GCM uncertainties. Of course, as with all methods(and even with theoriginal GCMs), disaggregation still does make several assumptions that must be taken into account when using the data as inputs for impact assessment models.We used spatial disaggregation with WorldClim as our baseline and created a set of 441 different future climate scenarios at four spatial resolutions (including 30 arc-second [~1km]). The datasets are up-to-date and freely available, but should be used carefully (particularly those at 30 arc-s spatial resolution), given the assumptions we made in creating them. Coarse GCM cells were maintained, so uncertainties were maintained in their original forms.One key caveat to keep in mind is that changes in climates may occur at regional and local scales (particularly in highly heterogeneous landscapes) that at coarse scales (~100-200 km side cells) may not reflect.","tokenCount":"2632"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2a9c91aac0575121abd3aeda0426a156","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/7a487015-5948-400e-bdc8-4341c717427c/retrieve","id":"-2057488094"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"57f6183a-fc16-4ae2-990d-bb6bdcaa4ace","pagecount":"1","content":"The BecA-ILRI Hub is currently undergoing an upgrade to its research facilities as part of the BecA ongoing implementation phase. In addition to renovating existing laboratories to meet current safety and design standards, new facilities are being added, including bio-containment labs (BSL2 and 3), plant facilities (screen house, green house & tissue culture), a new small animal lab, new molecular diagnostics suite, a training laboratory to host 40 trainees, new offices and a renovated conference hall. The Upgrade Project, which is funded by CIDA and in part by ILRI, will be completed-with the labs fully commissioned-by mid 2009.The areas of scientific and technical core competencies and the associated infrastructure that are available through the BecA-ILRI Hub are summarized below. Researchers can also access the InfoCentre for printed and online journals and books, and other multimedia.  ","tokenCount":"135"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/2015211010.json b/data/part_1/2015211010.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..e38377f37c93e42b85a34e19cca2d11689867055
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"101f004bd3f406ae98b5bf47bb56c98f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/36ad2e39-5006-4134-9547-8e2a0f5c6283/retrieve","id":"-306867509"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"518d7414-526e-472f-9eb5-eb96d94f234a","pagecount":"4","content":"We report the complete genome sequence of a field isolate of a novel bipartite secovirid infecting cassava in Colombia, provisionally named \"cassava torrado-like virus\" (CsTLV). The genome sequence was obtained using Oxford Nanopore Technology, and the 5' ends were confirmed by RACE. The RNA1 is 7252 nucleotides (nt) long, encoding a polyprotein of 2336 amino acids (aa) containing the typical \"replication block\", conserved torradovirus motifs, and a Maf/Ham1 domain, which is not commonly found in viral genomes. The RNA2 is 4469 nt long and contains two overlapping ORFs encoding proteins of 226 and 1179 aa, showing the characteristic genome arrangement of members of the genus Torradovirus.Cassava torrado-like virus (CsTLV) is a partially characterized member of the family Secoviridae [1,2] that was originally detected in cassava plants (Manihot esculenta Crantz) displaying root symptoms of cassava frogskin disease (CFSD) [3], an endemic disease of cassava in the Americas that can severely affect the root yield of the crop [4]. The virus is found in mixed infections [3,5] and can induce leaf chlorotic spots symptoms in single infections in cassava [2]. Maf/HAM1 proteins are nucleoside triphosphate (NTP) pyrophosphatases that reduce mutagenesis by intercepting non-canonical NTPs and preventing their incorporation into DNA or RNA. They are highly conserved in prokaryotes and eukaryotes [6], but there are only a couple of examples of their presence in viral genomes [7,8].The complete genome of CsTLV was obtained from a cassava plant of the commercial variety Melua-31, collected in August 2020 in Yopal, Colombia, and total RNA extraction with CTAB was done as reported previously [9]. For library preparation, we followed the SQK-DCS109 protocol (Oxford Nanopore Technologies), which uses RNase Cocktail Enzyme Mix (Thermo Fisher) to eliminate ribosomal RNA. The library was loaded onto a FLO-MIN106 R9.4 flowcell and sequenced for 48 h in a MinION using MinKnow software v2.0. Basecalling was performed using Guppy v5.0.11, and assembly was performed as described by Leiva et al. [10]. The quality of the consensus sequence obtained was checked using Qualimap v2.2.1 [11], and lowcoverage regions and 5' ends were confirmed by sequencing of overlapping RT-PCR products and using a 5' RACE System for Rapid Amplification of cDNA Ends (Invitrogen).Excluding the poly-A tail, the RNA1 (OK040225) is 7252 nt long and has a single open reading frame encoding a polyprotein of 2336 aa (260 kDa). It contains the typical \"replication block\" and a Maf/Ham1 domain at its 3' end at aa 2165 (Fig. 1A). The RNA2 (OK040226) is 4469 nt long and contains two ORFs: RNA2-ORF1 is 678 nt long and encodes a predicted protein of 226 aa (25 kDa). RNA2-ORF2 is 3534 nt long and overlaps with 44 nt of the 3' end of RNA2-ORF1; it encodes a predicted polyprotein of 1179 aa (131 kDa) containing the 3A/RNA2 movement protein domain (A3) and three coat proteins domains. The sequence obtained showed more than 98% aa sequence identity to all other partial CsTLV sequences available in the GenBank database, and BLASTp analysis revealed the highest aa sequence identity to squash chlorotic leaf spot virus (NC_035221; NC_035222), with 37.75% aa sequence identity and 82% coverage for RNA1 and 45.53% sequence aa identity and 77% coverage for RNA2.Maf/Ham1 domains have only been reported in potyvirids. The first one was discovered by Mbanzibwa et al.[7] while working on the characterization of a Tanzanian isolate of cassava brown streak virus (genus Ipomovirus) (GenBank accession no. FJ039520.1), and a second one was reported by Knierim et al. [8] in a German isolate of euphorbia ringspot virus (genus Potyvirus) (GenBank accession no. NC_031339.1) (Fig. 2). Recently, Tomlinson et al. [12] demonstrated the activity of the potyvirid Maf/Ham1 in yeast and uncovered their role as a necrosis determinant in Nicotiana benthamiana, and James et al. [13] have suggested possible functions for this domain. In conclusion, CsTLV is an atypical secovirid encoding a Maf/Ham1 protein domain, which has been described so far only in viruses infecting euphorbiaceous hosts [2,7,8]. Further studies are underway to determine the biological role of CsTLV Maf/Ham1 in the virus infection cycle in cassava. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http:// creat iveco mmons. org/ licen ses/ by/4. 0/.","tokenCount":"806"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4b929e407ef228823836d1ef4a8f24b9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/3258ea85-3f87-47ec-a7df-e809ed78dd16/retrieve","id":"-100413460"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d5cccdf3-3d33-484c-beb6-e7fe875d4125","pagecount":"40","content":"1. Forsa, which means \"Opportunity\" in Arabic, is a new economic inclusion program of the government of the Arab Republic of Egypt. Implemented by the Ministry of Social Solidarity (MoSS), one major goal of the program is to graduate beneficiaries of Takaful to economic selfreliance by enabling them to engage in wage employment or small-scale productive enterprises.2. The Forsa program began in 2023, after significant delays. Obstacles to implementation included the Covid-19 pandemic, nationwide inflation subsequent to the Ukraine-Russia war resulting in funding challenges for asset purchases, and administrative challenges with procurement approvals by the Ministry of Finance. Forsa implementation was conducted under MoSS supervision by local non-governmental organizations (NGOs). While a few NGOs received their first payments in the first quarter of 2022, most NGOs received their first payments in October 2022, delaying program implementation to February 2023. According to the MoSS, in the second half of 2023, households receiving assets through the program increased from around 3,000 (9%) to 10,302 (29%) out of a target of 35,000 households through 49 contracted NGOs and two private hiring firms, and the number of participants receiving a job has increased from 3,324 (23%) in August to 5,392 (38%) by end of November of 2023 out of a target of 14,314 households through 22 NGOs and two private firms.3. IFPRI designed a cluster randomized control trial of Forsa. In partnership with the Ministry of Social Solidarity, eligible communities were randomized at the sub-village level between control and treatment to determine where Forsa was offered (treatment) or not (control). According to the original design, only individuals meeting the Forsa eligibility criteria in treatment villages were invited to enroll in Forsa.4. The wage employment modality targeting criteria changed. While Forsa originally targeted enrolling households in selected pilot sub-villages, there were major challenges with enrolling households in these predominately rural villages to wage employment, both due to the location and because the profile of potential Forsa participants was difficult to match to employer requirements. Instead, the wage employment implementation opened eligibility criteria to nearby areas, including district centers.5. In this midline report of the impact evaluation of the Forsa program, we summarize the progress on implementation and present evidence on the impact of a randomized messaging experiment on household interest in Forsa. These findings provide immediate policyrelevant guidance for MoSS regarding the operation of the program and are intended to contribute to global evidence on effective graduation program design.6. Of the 7,754 households interviewed at baseline for the evaluation, the midline survey successfully re-interviewed 7,545 households (97.3%) and supplemented the sample with 210 replacement households (2.7%). The sample spans across eight governorates, contained 3,798 households (49%) surveyed in Forsa treatment communities, and 4,599 households (59.3%) that self-reported as Takaful beneficiaries. The midline household survey data was collected by the survey firm Gawab from October 22 to November 14, 2023, one and a half years post baseline data collection. The midline household survey included questions about asset ownership and employment that were asked at baseline. In addition, the midline survey also asked about experience with Forsa program implementation, including sign-up and participation in the self-employment asset modality, the wage employment modality, trainings, and mentoring. The survey also contained a video intervention as part of a randomized messaging experiment.7. Of the 3,798 households surveyed in treatment communities, 68 percent had not signed up for Forsa, citing unfamiliarity with Forsa and uncertainty over Takaful program continuation as their main reasons. Specifically, 78 percent of these households reported reasons related to unfamiliarity with the program, such as not having heard of Forsa, wanting to sign-up but lacking the knowledge of how to, believing that the program is unavailable in their village or that they are not eligible. Additionally, around one-third of Takaful recipients indicated they fear losing Takaful benefits upon joining the Forsa.This section reports on the 1,201 households that signed up for Forsa so far.8. Individuals who signed up to participate in Forsa are 83 percent female, an average of 37 years old, and have completed 6.3 years of education on average. Relative to the average adult from an eligible household at baseline, individuals who signed up for Forsa are much more likely to be women, slightly less educated, and earn significantly less monthly income. 9. Takaful-recipient households have signed up for Forsa at very similar rates as Takafulrejected households. Among Forsa-eligible households in the sample, the proportion of non-Takaful recipients who signed up for Forsa is around 32 percent compared to 31 percent for Takaful recipients.10. The majority of households (81%) signed up for the self-employment modality and, of these, 37 percent had received the asset by the time of the midline survey. However, rates of sign-up and asset receipt vary across the eight governorates. For example, Beni-Suef has the most sign up (167 hhs) but only 9 percent have received assets, while Luxor has had lower sign up (55 hhs) but 69 percent have received assets.11. On average, households receiving assets reported negative monthly profits, highlighting the need for monthly transitory support as households work to make their assets profitable. Of households that had received a Forsa asset, the vast majority had received sheep and goats (85%), followed by poultry (7%), sewing machines (5%), and food retail equipment (4%).Most households (78%) received assets alongside complementary support packages. Further, households reported that 78 percent of assets remained in good usable condition while 22 percent of assets were in bad condition or, in some cases, livestock had gotten sick and died.12. Only six households indicated having received a job through the wage-employment modality, out of which four have already left the job citing long commutes, childcare responsibilities, and low wages. Participants left the job in the first five days of employment or of the on-the-job training. Wage-employment participants reported that employers did not offer transportation despite more than a 60-minute commute, and the offered salary was between 500 and 2000 EGP, a low wage for a regular seven-to-eight-hour workday job.13. Training offered through the Forsa program received positive feedback with 89 percent of participants reporting they found it useful or very useful. Of households in the asset selfemployment modality, 48 percent had received training of one to two sessions that mostly covered asset-specific skills or project management, and 40 percent received at least one (and an average of three) follow-up session. Of those in the wage employment modality, 17 percent had received training of two sessions covering mostly job skills and possibly financial literacy or business management.14. To test the effect of new messaging strategies on interest in the Forsa program, we implemented a stratified randomized controlled trial (RCT) by embedding a video message produced by MoSS at the end of the midline survey. Households were randomly assigned into one of the following treatment arms, which determined the contents of the video message to be viewed by the respondent: 1) Basic Information: a brief description of Forsa containing information already shared in informational sessions and previously in the survey; 2) Takaful Duration: Basic Information + note that Takaful beneficiaries who join Forsa will continue to receive cash transfers for at least 6 months (the first time that MoSS communicated this new policy to eligible program participants); and 3) Testimonies: Basic Information + four testimonies from Forsa participants (3 asset modality, 1 wage-employment modality), who described their experience with the Forsa program thus far.15. The new messaging strategies had a positive impact on interest in Forsa overall and particularly on recommending it to others. Relative to Basic Information, we find that additional information on Takaful Duration had no statistically significant effect on interest in joining Forsa and increases interest in recommending it to others, countering predictions of a strong negative effect. Moreover, we find that Testimonies increase interest in joining Forsa and in recommending it to others. These findings suggest that both messaging strategies, and particularly testimonies, are effective at increasing interest in and likely take-up of the Forsa program.16. We also find likely mechanisms that explain the positive effects of the video treatments by comparing respondent beliefs about Forsa across treatment arms. For the Takaful Duration treatment, the positive impact was likely driven by an increase in beliefs that individuals could drop out of Forsa and re-enroll in Takaful if necessary. For the Testimonies video, the positive impact was likely driven by increasing beliefs about the monthly income one could earn from a Forsa asset. These findings highlight the importance of designing Forsa in a way that provides compelling economic incentives relative to Takaful.17. We estimate the causal impact of access to the Forsa program on asset ownership by comparing communities that were randomly assigned either access to Forsa programming (treatment) or not (control) as part of the Forsa impact evaluation. 7,755 households were randomly selected from the pool of eligible households in the selected treatment and control communities. The random assignment generates unbiased intent-to-treat (ITT) estimates of the offer of treatment that are calculated based on an ANCOVA regression specification.18. Households in Forsa treatment communities are more than three times as likely to own sheep or goats than households in control communities. Specifically, only 3.7 percent of households in control communities own any sheep or goats in the midline survey, while 11.4 percent of households in treatment communities own sheep or goats. Given that a similar share of households in these communities owned sheep or goats in the baseline survey, we can confidently attribute this increase in sheep and goat ownership to the Forsa program. Households own an average of 2.2 sheep or goats, leading to a sizable increase in small ruminant ownership in these communities.19. Demand exists for a poverty graduation program like Forsa with nearly one-third of households eligible to sign up for Forsa signing up so far, and with very similar rates between households receiving Takaful benefits and those that do not. However, sign up is more limited than previously expected and, indeed, not all households may be ready to transition from Takaful cash transfers to a poverty graduation program. Therefore, we think that MoSS should likely adjust expectations for the scope of participation in the Forsa program, especially at the beginning of implementation.20. Moving forward, the Forsa program should likely focus on the self-employment modality rather than the wage-employment modality. First, there was significantly more demand for the self-employment modality, likely driven by women participants who prefer earning income at home through the Forsa asset. Second, our analysis already identified an increase in household ownership of sheep and goats in Forsa communities (relative to control communities where Forsa is not available), demonstrating early success in the asset transfer program. Third, relative weak demand for the wage-employment modality was also accompanied by low rates of job matchingwe only found six households that had received Forsa jobs and, of these, four had already left due to low wages and long commutes.21. Forsa program implementation, especially at the beginning, should be accompanied by monthly cash transfers that offer transitory support. Among households that have received assets through the self-employment modality, the vast majority reported negative profits in the last month. Whether this is due to the seasonality of livestock revenue or that households were \"saving\" their assets for a time of greater need, this fact suggests that assets do not necessarily provide a stream of income to meet monthly cash needs in the same way that Takaful does. Thus, households may still need Takaful early in the Forsa program so that they are not forced to \"eat into\" their Forsa assets to pay for required monthly expenditures.22. New messaging strategies can help MoSS increase interest and awareness of the Forsa program. First, informing households that Takaful benefits will last for six months following the successful start of the Forsa program does not deter interest in Forsa and, in fact, increases the likelihood of recommending it to others. Moreover, showing eligible households testimonies from actual Forsa participants who describe their experience with the program both increases interest in joining Forsa and in recommending it to others, likely by updating their belief in expected monthly income they can earn from a Forsa asset.A persistent challenge with the use of large-scale safety net programs as a policy tool to address poverty and its causes in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) is that the programs often do not lead to substantial reductions in the national poverty rate, despite having significant impacts on several dimensions of household wellbeing, including on food security and asset holdings (Hidrobo et al. 2018). As a result, safety program registries remain large, with limited turnover and a persistent fiscal burden. Graduation model programs are designed to address this problem through a big push approach, providing large asset transfers, financial inclusion and skills training to promote greater success against poverty reduction. Evidence so far suggests that graduation programs can be effective at increasing household consumption, food consumption and livelihoods and contribute to lower probability of being poor at the household level (Banerjee et al. 2015, Balboni et al. 2022, Bandiera et al. 2017, Brune et al. 2022, Bossuroy et al. 2022), but impacts on other outcomes may be limited.The Government of Egypt has designed a graduation model program, called Forsa (which means \"opportunity\" in Arabic), to directly provide a mechanism to support graduation from the national Takaful safety net program. Takaful provides beneficiaries monthly cash transfers, and while the program has been successful, the cost of providing indefinite cash assistance to all poor households in Egypt is not fiscally feasible and would eventually displace more growth-enhancing investments (Breisinger et al. 2021). Therefore, the Forsa program has the strategic goal to promote economic inclusion by enabling Takaful beneficiaries and other individuals with low income to better integrate into the economy and transition from poverty to prosperity through participation in new economic activities based on sustainable partnerships with NGOs and the public as well as private sectors, thus creating space in the Takaful program for newly eligible households.A unique feature of Forsa is that the transition from the Takaful cash transfer program to the Forsa graduation program is voluntary. Households choose whether or not to participate in Forsa and, if so, in one of two modalities: (1) an asset transfer modality, which includes the transfer of a significant productive asset for starting an income generating activity (IGA), financial literacy training, and business and technical training on how to start an IGA; and (2) a wage employment modality, which provides job matching and training for employment in the private sector. Both modalities include a behavioral change session, financial literacy and technical training, and ongoing mentoring. However, making Forsa voluntary has also led to challenges in the design of Forsa and in its messaging about its benefits to attract Takaful beneficiaries to take-up the program. In a household survey conducted at the baseline of an evaluation of Forsa, respondents expressed only modest interest in joining the Forsa program, and subsequent administrative reports confirm that initial take-up of the Forsa graduation program is low, with many households preferring the stay on Takaful.In this midline evaluation of the Forsa program, we report on the status of implementation thus far and present the result of a randomized messaging experiment that sheds light on possible strategies to increase interest and take up of the Forsa moving forward.The overarching objective of the Forsa program is to foster economic inclusion by facilitating the integration of TKP beneficiaries and individuals with limited income into the economy. The program aims to propel these individuals from poverty to prosperity by engaging them in new economic activities through sustainable partnerships with NGOs, the public sector, and private enterprises. Comprising two distinct modalities, the Forsa program offers (1) an asset transfer approach, involving the provision of significant productive assets to initiate income-generating activities (IGAs), coupled with financial literacy and business/technical training. Additionally, it features (2) a wage employment modality, which entails job matching and training for private sector employment. Both modalities incorporate behavioral change sessions, ongoing mentoring, and a comprehensive curriculum covering financial literacy and technical skills.The World Bank is supporting a pilot implementation of the Forsa program in eight governorates: Fayoum, Beni Suef, Assiut, Sohag, Luxor, Al-Minyah, Al-Minufiyah, and Al-Qalyoubia. The pilot initiative aims to engage 50,000 participants across 161 sub-villages. The selection of these pilot communities is based on factors such as the prevalence of poverty, the extent of informal employment, the concentration of TKP beneficiary households, the proportion of TKP beneficiaries within the 19-to-35-year age bracket, the presence of industrial zones or employment hubs, and the potential for self-employment ventures in the community. Seventy percent of pilot program participants will be drawn from existing TKP beneficiaries, with the remaining 30 percent comprising TKP applicants who narrowly missed qualifying for the cash transfer program due to marginally higher economic well-being. This intentional inclusion of two distinct participant groups facilitates a comprehensive assessment of the Forsa program's impact. Moreover, the selection process ensures that 50 percent of beneficiaries fall within the 19-to-35-year age range, and 30 percent are females.The eligibility criteria to participate in the Forsa pilot stipulates that households must satisfy the following conditions: Have at least one member of working age (19 to 55 years).  Have a household head without formal employment and, if present, a spouse also without formal employment.  Own less than 0.5 feddan (0.52 acres) of agricultural land.  Not be a participant in any other transfer or asset program of the Ministry of Social Solidarity or other local or international non-governmental organization (NGO).  Own no more than four medium-sized livestock or one large animal.  Own a house with no more than one floor.  Have no access to remittance income from a household member working outside of Egypt.  In relation to Takaful, household must either be a: Takaful beneficiary household starting their second or third year in the program (at least 80 percent of targeted households).  Or be an unsuccessful Takaful applicant household with a score on the Takaful application proxy means test used to determine program eligibility that falls within 2000 points of the eligibility cutoff.  Greater priority in enrollment for the Forsa pilot is given to unsuccessful Takaful applicant households whose scores are within 1000 points of the eligibility cutoff, as well as to households with younger heads (up to 20 percent of targeted households).Using these eligibility criteria, households were contacted and invited to select one individual per their household to potentially participate in the program and to attend a behavioral change session organized in the community. The purpose of the behavioral change sessions was to encourage participation in the asset or wage employment programs by promoting a mindset of transitioning into productive incomegenerating activities. However, other individuals from these eligible households were able to sign up for the Forsa program through local implementing partners.The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) conducted a baseline analysis of the Forsa program, which was delivered in November 2022. In order to set up a long-term impact evaluation of the force of program, surveyed households were asked to select or \"nominate\" one individual in the household who was most likely to join Forsa. The baseline report found that Forsa nominees were predominately female with most being household heads or spouses rather than sons or daughters. Only 8 percent of Forsa nominees had prior work experience, with significant gender disparities-50 percent of males attempted to find employment in the past, compared to 15 percent of females. In terms of job preferences, Forsa nominees indicated a preference for informal jobs, attaching higher value to local employment and expressing a reluctance to accept formal employment outside their local area. Moreover, self-reported work skills reveal low literacy skills, medium-level management and interaction skills, and limited advanced technological abilities. The baseline report also characterized Forsa-eligible households. Approximately 25 percent of adults in Forsa eligible households were employed at baseline, primarily engaged in irregular wage employment (73%). Of those not currently employed, only 12 percent express willingness to work within two weeks, with housewife duties cited as the main reason for unwillingness.Several key policy recommendations emerged from the baseline report aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of the Forsa program. First, clearly define and communicate the Takaful eligibility timeline, addressing the current belief that transfers are indefinite, which acts as a disincentive for Forsa enrollment. Second, allow self-selection into Forsa, enabling households with low confidence in profit generation from asset transfers to opt for the certainty of Takaful transfers. Third, maximize Forsa's attractiveness through clear communication of benefits, ongoing mentoring commitments, and potentially extending cash transfers. Fourth, offer training sessions open to all household members, dispelling misconceptions about participant selection and encouraging broader participation. Lastly, increase effort to meet participants at their current skill level-recognizing the limited literacy and business experience of Forsa participantsby maximizing mentoring efforts and promoting the value of women's participation in Forsa to avoid conflicts within households.The actual implementation of the Forsa pilot program started in the first quarter of 2022 shortly after the baseline evaluation was conducted and one month after the contracted NGOs have received their first payment. However, many obstacles rapidly emerged in the face of program implementation that caused at least 10 months of delays to the program. These challenges range from the global economic situation resulting from the long haul of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine-Russian war to local demand and supply side challenges, as well as administrative issues between ministries.The instability of prices and escalation in inflation rates between January 2022 and December 2022 had a detrimental impact on the Forsa program. Much of this can be attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian-Ukraine conflict, which disrupted the global flow of commodities. Since Egypt's economic situation was already vulnerable due to low foreign exchange reserves, high debt interest payments and rapidly rising inflation rates, the global crises have resulted in further worsening of its unstable economic situation and a continuous rapid increase in price levels. These crises also highly affected the supply of a variety of goods, including the type of assets to be transferred through the Forsa program. Vendors refused to sell at the price levels that had been anticipated during contracting given the rapid inflation. Additionally, several NGOs reported that the requirement of the program for the vendor to provide an electronic tax receipt which implies the legal position of the vendor to be formal and official limited the pool of vendors. Even during processing procedures of vendor contracting, price of assets would continually increase which resulted in further delays to complete another cycle of paperwork as well as to replan for program budgeting for each beneficiary. For instance, the initial budget per beneficiary was 15,000 EGP, including training and all complementary items. However, due to inflation the budget increased differently for each type of asset to be between 16,000 and 18,000 EGP per beneficiary. Up until August of 2023, sheep was the only type of asset that was successfully transferred through the program; however, other types of assets started to be provided later on, ranging from other types of livestock, such as poultry, to sewing machines and fodder manufacturing.Another challenge that faced Forsa implementation was long delays in NGOs receiving their payments due to issues relating to payment releases restrictions by the Ministry of Finance and some banks due to other unclosed projects with the World Bank. Thus, although a few NGOs received their first payment in the first quarter of 2022, most NGOs have only received their first payment by October 2022. The result of this delay was that in the wage-employment modality, for instance, the first program beneficiary hiring did not take place until February of the following year. The same applies to the asset transfer modality, where most NGOs have started the actual participant training and asset transfer between February and July 2023.The Forsa program additionally faced weak demand from the target beneficiaries, especially from Takaful recipients. Implementation delays and fear of losing Takaful cash transfers and non-monetary benefits upon joining Forsa caused mistrust in the program and a high dropout rate in the first year. There was no clear unified message about the relationship between Takaful and Forsa during behavioral change sessions which opened the floor for rumors to be spread about the discontinuity of Takaful visa cards upon joining Forsa. Due to pressure to graduate beneficiaries and limit duplication of benefits, an original policy design choice was that Takaful benefits only last for six months after enrollment in Forsa. Governmental unit heads in villages, who serve as go-to persons for the village community to get information about governmental programs, such as the Takaful and Karama program, were not trained to disseminate a clear message on this decree, however, resulting in further rumors. Later in September 2023, the ministerial decree was modified to clarify that Takaful benefits will continue for an additional six months after the household's financial situation is proven to be stable through Forsa, rather than, as feared in the rumors, immediately on enrolling in Forsa.After the bottleneck of NGO payment delays and prolonged vendor contracting was surpassed, the Forsa program made progress at a much higher rate starting in the second half of 2023. From August to end of November of 2023, households receiving assets through the program increased from around 3,000 (9%) to 10,302 (29%) out of a target of 35,000 households through 49 contracted NGOs and two private hiring firms, according to the MoSS announced figures. For the wage employment modality, the number of participants receiving a job has increased from 3,324 (23%) in August to 5,392 (38%) by end of November of 2023 out of a target of 14,314 households through 22 NGOs and two private firms in 83 villages.The communities for the Forsa baseline evaluation sample were drawn from a listing of 740 potential sub-villages selected by MoSS as locations for the Forsa pilot. From this sampling frame, the baseline sampling was limited to only sub-villages with at least 500 Takaful beneficiaries as this was an important feasibility criterion for implementation. The final sample size consisted of 160 treatment sub-villages and 163 control sub-villages. The baseline household sample was drawn from a list of eligible households for the Forsa intervention prepared by MoSS based on certain eligibility criteria and the administrative databases of the Takaful program showing all Takaful beneficiaries and registrant households. In each subvillage, 24 households were selected for inclusion in the study using simple random sampling in each of two main strata: 16 households from the list of current Takaful beneficiaries and 8 households from the list of Takaful registrants rejected from the program. This resulted in a total sample size of 7,754 households. Data for the baseline evaluation were collected from a final list of 7,754 households, of which 14.4 percent households were replaced sequentially by households in a reserve list sampled using the same approach as the main sample. This percentage of households were replaced either due to the inability to locate them or due to their refusal to participate in the interview.For the midline evaluation, the 7,754 baseline-interviewed-households constituted the main household list for the data collection plan carried out by the survey firm. Additionally, the replacement list created at baseline was also used as the reserve list for replacing unavailable or unreachable households in the midline data collection process. This way, the original representation of Forsa eligible households in all eight governorates of the program was preserved. In the end, of the 7,754 households interviewed at baseline, the midline evaluation successfully re-surveyed 7,545 households (97.3%) and supplemented the sample with 210 replacement households (2.7%).The midline household survey data was collected by a survey firm \"Gawab\" from October 22 to November 14, 2023, one and a half years post baseline data collection. The four-day enumerator training started two weeks prior to the start date of data collection, from October 9 to October 12. Different teams of 88 enumerators were used in each governorate as the data collection plan was based on an in-parallel rollout approach across the eight governorates. As anticipated, some households from the main listing of baseline-interviewed households relocated, were not available after several trials to reach them, or refused to participate in the interview. In these cases, households in the main sample list were replaced in a random order by households of the same reserve list used for the baseline. Only 2.7 percent (210 households) of sampled households have either relocated, were unavailable after many trials to reach them, or have refused to participate in the interview.  The baseline household survey originally consisted of three sections and 12 modules that were meant for different members of the household. The first seven modules were addressed to any knowledgeable member of the household, in practice usually the female head or the wife of the male head. These modules covered general characteristics and the economic situation of the households. Another four modules were specifically targeted to the potential Forsa participant, covering work history and other employmentrelated details, preferences, financial inclusion and skills assessment. Finally, the last section consisted of a single module on intra-household decision-making that was addressed only to women.The midline survey was shorter than the baseline survey and added questions asked of Forsa participants and nominees. Gender-related work norms perception questions as well as Takaful and Forsa programs relationship perception questions were also added in addition to a video messaging intervention. The following Table 2.3.1 briefly points out the topics and outcomes of the baseline survey that were recollected and remeasured in the midline survey and evaluation as well as outcomes that were only measured in the midline evaluation: Since the midline evaluation was conducted only several months after the actual implementation of the program, the midline survey focused on outcomes that could reasonably be expected to measurably change as a result of the implementation so far.The midline survey consists of four sections and 14 modules. The following modules were addressed to the main respondent in all interviewed households, who is preferably the same respondent of the baseline interview: Identification  Brief Update of Household Roster  Assets  Shocks  Takaful and ForsaIf the baseline respondent was not available, then the modules were addressed to the eldest knowledgeable member of the household present at the time of the interview. Most of the above module's questions were asked in the baseline survey; however, some additions were made to the Takaful and Forsa module to reflect developments in the implementation of the Forsa program and some questions were removed due to budget and time constraints. These modules covered general characteristics and captured part of the economic situation of the households, especially pertaining to asset ownership and shocks faced in the previous two years.Some other modules were addressed to those household members that were nominated at the baseline interview as potential Forsa participants but were not necessarily the same household members that have then participated in the program. These modules are as follows:  Employment and Time-Use  Video Messaging  Pre-and Post Intervention Questions  Willingness to join Forsa (only for those household that did not participate in Forsa in treatment communities)  Perception of Forsa (only for those household in treatment communities that did not participate in Forsa)If the Forsa nominated member was not available at the time of the interview, the main respondent would continue answering the questions about the Forsa nominee member. The employment and time use module questions were previously asked more extensively in the baseline survey; however, the video messaging intervention section is a completely new section for the midline evaluation in an attempt to test the effect of different messaging about the Forsa program and its relationship to Takaful on the willingness to join Forsa and how the program is perceived. Again, if the Forsa participant was not available for the interview, the main respondent would answer the questions about the Forsa participant. All the above-mentioned modules are new modules for the midline evaluation that were not asked in the baseline, except for the employment and time use module which was answered even more extensively by all working age family members of the family in the baseline.Individuals who signed up to participate in the Forsa program are 83 percent female, are on average 37 years old, and have on average completed 6.3 years of education, as shown in column 1 of Table 3.1.1. It is noteworthy that women's share in Forsa far exceeded the initial targeting design that planned for women's share in the program to be at 30 percent. As also shown in Table 3.1.1, individuals who signed up for Forsa are much more likely to be women, slightly less educated, and earn significantly less monthly income relative to the average adult from an eligible household at the baseline. In Table 3.1.2, we conduct a comparative analysis of Forsa participants and non-participants in treatment communities to provide insights on the likelihood of participating in the Forsa program. For this analysis, we compare the outcomes variables collected at baseline to ensure that they were not affected by participation in the Forsa program; thus, the analysis is limited to main households and does not include new \"replacement\" households that were added to the midline survey. We find that, relative to non-participants, individuals choosing to participate in Forsa are overwhelming female-83.0 percent of Forsa participants are women compared to 43.4 percent of non-participants, a large and statistically significant difference as revealed in column 3. We also see no significant difference in age between the two groups, but a significant difference in education with Forsa participants having slightly fewer completed years of schooling. Additionally, we observe a large and statistically significant difference and employment rates-21.8 percent of Forsa participants were employed in the last seven days compared to 40.6 percent of non-participants (almost twice as much). Further, just looking at those who were employed, individuals choosing to participate in Forsa were making about 26 percent less in monthly wages. These analyses suggest that Forsa mostly appeals to unemployed women or employed women with an insufficient income who hope that Forsa can provide an income-generating opportunity. Of households surveyed in treatment communities, 31.6 percent (1,201 hhs) have signed up for Forsa so far, of which almost one third have already started the program, as shown in Figure 3.2.1. Of those who have received an asset or a job through Forsa, 75 percent did so in the second half of 2023 in the 5 months prior to the midline interview. It is also worth noting that 90.6 percent of Forsa-signed-up households have indicated that they are still participating in the program regardless of whether they have already received an asset/job. Of the remaining 9.5 percent, half are unaware of their participation status. Takaful recipients signed up for Forsa at very similar rates as Takaful-rejected households. Although 57 percent of those who signed up for Forsa are Takaful recipients, the proportion of non-Takaful recipients who signed up for Forsa is around 32 percent (507 hhs) compared to 31 percent of Takaful recipients (694 hhs). The unequal proportion is mainly due to the disproportionate representation of Takaful recipients in the population and accordingly in the sample, where only 41 percent are non-Takaful recipients. Sign-up rates varied by governorate, as shown in When the remaining 69 percent of households in treatment communities were asked about the reasons why they had decided not to sign up for the program, unfamiliarity with Forsa and uncertainty over Takaful program continuation were the most prominent answers. In fact, around 78 percent reported programunfamiliarity-related reasons, such as not having heard of Forsa, wanting to sign-up but lacking the knowledge of how to, the belief the program is unavailable in their village or that they are not eligible for the program. Moreover, around one third of Takaful recipients indicated they fear the loss of Takaful benefits upon joining the program, as is shown in Figure 3.2.3. However, program-specific complaints, such as assets being insufficient or the training program is not enough, were the least mentioned reasons.  The ratio of households in the sample who signed up for self-employment (80.4%) vs. wage-employment (9.2%) is not equal to the previously intended ratio of the Forsa pilot goal of 70 percent self-employment vs. 30 percent wage-employment registration. As will be discussed further in the coming sections, the wage employment modality does not seem to be attractive enough for the target households, where only 9 percent know they have signed-up for wage employment. Additionally, the wage employment modality faced several challenges that will also be discussed in further details in the coming sections, where only 5 percent (6 hhs) of those who signed up for Forsa have received a job (see Figure 3.2.5). It is also worth noting that 10 percent of those who signed up for Forsa do not know to which modality they are assigned. The self-employment modality, which features a large one-time asset transfer, was the most desired modality among those who signed up for the Forsa program, as 80.4 percent of the sign-up households registered under the self-employment track. Of those households, 37 percent have already received the asset (N=355 households out of 966 households). Looking at the up-take and asset receipt rates at the governorate level, it is apparent that there is high variation across the Forsa governorates. As shown in Table 3.3.1, Beni-Suef has the most sign up (N=167) but only 9 percent of the households received the asset. On the other hand, Luxor has the highest percentage of assets received (69%) but a low sign up overall (N=55). Figure 3.3.1 highlights that that the asset delivery rate in Luxor, Sohag, and Al-Sharqiyah is around 60 percent, which is much higher than the average of all governorates (31.3%).Figure Asset types under the asset transfer modality are mostly sheep and goats. As shown in Table 3.3.1, the sheep and goats category includes 84.5 percent of all assets delivered, followed by poultry, sewing machines, and food retail projects at 6.8 percent, 5.0 percent, and 3.7 percent, respectively. For sheep and goats projects, households received on average three livestock animals, and for poultry projects, households received on average 69 units. Looking at the self-reported conditions of the Forsa assets, 78.3 percent of the households, across all asset types, reported receiving the assent in a good usable condition, while 21.7 percent of the households reported receiving it in bad or a dead condition. Forsa assets are mostly received with complementary support packages as reported by 81.4 percent of households who have received an asset. The complementary packages included fodder, food and water containers, animal feed, medications, and sewing supplies kits. Looking at the profitability of the Forsa project, the self-reported costs and revenues suggest that households are not generating positive profits in the short-term. Table 3.3.2 and Table 3.3.3 report on the average profits across all asset types for all households that have received the Forsa asset at any point of time, and for households who have received the Forsa asset more than or equal to two months before the midline interview, respectively. The average profits are calculated based on the self-reported past month's revenues and costs generated by the Forsa projects. Looking at the results, all asset types recorded negative profits last month averaging -744 EGP, except for sewing machines projects that had average profits of 194 EGP. Limiting the sample to households who had received the assets from two months or more slightly increased the reported losses for livestock and poultry projects and positively revised the performance under sewing machines and food retail projects. Self-reported negative profits are highest among poultry projects and are mostly driven by the high average of self-reported costs. One possible explanation for this is the increasing prices and limited availability of animal feed in some of the local markets. As for goats and sheep, the negative average profits are mostly due to the high incidence of zero revenues, rather that the high costs on average, which is justifiable due to the seasonal nature of livestock projects that do not necessarily generate a consistent flow of monthly revenues. Based on anecdotal findings from livestock households, it was reported that some households decided to forego selling any animals this year for possibly higher profits next year.Self-reported profits are positive among households reporting earning any revenue in the past month. Table 3.3.4 looks at the small sub-sample that reported non-zero revenues past month (N=42 out of 285 households which show that the average profit levels drastically change for livestock (sheep and goats) and sewing projects. Livestock profits became positive reaching an average of 1,244 EGP per month.While the average profits of sewing projects more than doubled, reaching 391 EGP per month. On the other hand, poultry projects still report negative profits on average as this is mostly driven by the high self-reported costs on average in comparison to the self-reported revenues. Turning to participant expectations for the future, estimated annual income to be earned from the Forsa asset is positive, on average. Table 3.3.5 presents the average estimated annual income of households who have received the asset, which is about 3,900 EGP overall. It also compares the estimated annual income between households who received their assets more recently (below the median of 3.7 months) to those households that received theirs a while ago (above the median of 3.7 months) and does not find a statistically significant difference between these two groups, suggesting this result is not correlated how long households have had the asset so far. To contextualize these results, it is important to accentuate that the reported performance is only reflective of the short-term status as the sampled households received the Forsa asset on average only 4.5 months prior to the midline interview. Lastly, a key takeaway from analyzing the financial performance of the Forsa project is that, in the short-term, the Forsa projects do not provide a sufficient substitute for the monthly consumption support that some households are receiving under the Takaful program.Only six households indicated having received a job through the wage-employment modality, out of which four have already left the job in the first week of employment/training. All participants were offered the job in 2023 between April and October, out of which four have left the job in the first five days of employment or of the on-the-job training. The main reason of leaving the job as indicated by participants is the long commute accompanied by expensive transportation and family care responsibilities since all participants are female. None was offered transportation by the employer, while all participants had a 60 mi-nute+ commute to or from work. None of those who left the job were offered another job. More details about each participant are listed in Table 3.4.1 below: Salaries as reported by wage employment modality participants are remarkably low for a regular sevento-eight-hour workday job and consequently all participants indicated that they would prefer a nearer job with a higher salary. The wage employment participants reported the offered salary by the job is between 500 and 2000 EGP as is shown in the table above. Not only is this salary figure below the 3,800 EGP (as opposed to 3,000 EGP for a job inside the village) average acceptable pay indicated by those participants who signed up for Forsa wage-employment modality for a job that requires at least one hour of commute, but it is also below the minimum wage in Egypt, which was increased from 2,700 EGP per month to 3,000 EGP in July 2023. According to Forsa program leaders, it is common practice, however, for some companies in Egypt to offer a starting salary that is lower than the minimum wage as companies know that social insurance enrollment will not be immediate. This allows companies to offer lower starting wages for the first few months until the candidate is well trained. Only then will they be offered a salary that is equal to or above the minimum wage with social insurance and a proper contract.In treatment communities, 77 percent of Takaful recipients prefer receiving Takaful cash transfers over having a job that pays 3,500 EGP per month. The greatest challenge that faces the wage-employment modality is to match Forsa participants, who on average lack required skills by the private sector employers, to jobs that offer a salary that is high enough to compensate for the risk taken to join Forsa. This is especially the case when there is uncertainty over the continuation of the Takaful cash transfer program. On top of that, participants, who are predominantly women and are taking the majority of family care responsibility, will hardly accept jobs that require long travels, which for them need to provide at least an average of an extra 800 EGP to compensate their time away from home, their physical exhaustion and the expensive commute.While only 37 percent (355 hhs) of those participants who signed up for asset transfer have received the asset, almost one half (460 hhs) have already received training. Most participants received one to two sessions that mostly covered asset-specific skill set or project management training on average around one month before receiving the asset. Overall, a 90 percent satisfaction rate is indicated through participants' responses for rating the training to be either useful or very useful. More details about the self-employment modality training can be found in Table 3.5.1 below. As noted in the introduction, a unique feature of Forsa is that the transition from the Takaful cash transfer program to the Forsa graduation program is voluntary. Households have the option to decide whether they want to participate in Forsa. However, the voluntary nature of Forsa has presented challenges in its design and messaging, particularly in effectively communicating its benefits to attract Takaful beneficiaries to enroll in the program. In a household survey conducted at the baseline of an ongoing multi-year impact evaluation of the Forsa program, only one-third of Takaful recipients expressed preference for enrolling in Forsa versus remaining on Takaful (Gilligan et al. 2022), and subsequent administrative reports confirm that initial take-up of the Forsa graduation program among Takaful beneficiaries is low, with many households preferring to stay on Takaful.One key concern about Forsa participation voiced by respondents to the baseline survey was how Forsa participation affected Takaful monthly cash transfers. During the roll-out of Forsa, messaging to prospective participants on how long the Takaful benefits would continue after joining Forsa varied widely. Anecdotal evidence from the field found that different local implementing partners were sharing different information. Consequently, some beneficiaries may have believed that they would last indefinitely, while others had heard rumors that the benefits would end immediately. Indeed, 50 percent of Takaful recipients have been receiving Takaful for 5 years or more and, in the midline survey, we find that 88 percent of Takaful recipients think they will get Takaful forever.Therefore, after MoSS decided on a policy of continuing Takaful benefits for six months after successful Forsa participation, the question arose of how informing the Takaful beneficiaries of this policy would affect their interest in Forsa as, depending on the direction to which expectations were updated, receiving clarity on this previously uncertain detail may either increase or decrease interest in Forsa.This experiment aims to test messages that encourage the uptake of Forsa, aiming to uncover and address the uncertainties and information gaps that hinder participation in the program. Specifically, we ask: What are the determinants of take-up of a poverty graduation program (i.e., Forsa), especially among current cash transfer beneficiaries (i.e., those on Takaful)?We implement a stratified randomized controlled trial (RCT) to identify the causal effect of new messaging strategies on interest in joining and recommending the Forsa program. The intervention is a video message produced by the Ministry of Social Solidarity (MoSS) providing information relevant to households' decision to participate in the Forsa poverty graduation program. The objective of the video messages is to provide credible information that targets specific concerns that respondents report having about participating in Forsa, as determined through the aforementioned baseline survey and various reports from the project implementers. In particular, the video message contained new messaging strategies that MoSS wanted to test prior to organizing a larger public campaign-namely, stating the duration of Takaful benefits after joining the Forsa program (a recommendation from the baseline Forsa report) and testimonies from real-life Forsa participants detailing their experience with the program thus far.To test the effect of these new messages, households were randomly assigned into one of the following treatment arms, which determined the contents of the video message to be viewed by the respondent: Basic Information: Brief description of Forsa containing information already shared in informational sessions and previously in the survey. Takaful Duration: Basic Information + Note that Takaful beneficiaries who join Forsa will continue to receive cash transfers for at least 6 months. This was the first time that MoSS communicated this new policy to eligible program participants. Testimonies: Basic Information + 4 testimonies from Forsa participants (3 asset modality, 1 wage modality) revealing their experience with the program so far.Randomization was stratified by the 160 community designations and baseline Takaful status to ensure balance across these categories. Households had a 25 percent probability of being assigned into the Basic Information or Takaful Duration video and a 50 percent probability of being assigned to a Testimonies video. Within the Testimonies treatment, household were further randomized into either viewing a male wage-employment testimony or a female wage-employment testimony-hence the larger assignment probability-but these results were statistically insignificant and thus not reported here. By design, there are 24 study households in the typical community, 16 of which were Takaful beneficiaries at baseline and 8 of which were not. Therefore, within most Forsa-treatment communities, this randomization strategy assigned 4 Takaful-beneficiary households and 2 non-beneficiary households to the Basic Information and Takaful Duration treatment arms and assigned 8 Takaful-beneficiary households and 4 non-beneficiary households to the Testimonies treatment arm. Households added new to the midline survey to replace those not found from the baseline were randomly assigned a treatment status under the listed probability but without stratification. In the end, households in Forsa treatment communities were assigned to a video messaging treatment as detailed in Table 4.2.1 below. The video message intervention was embedded into the end of the midline survey, following the collection of all previously reported data. Only households in Forsa treatment communities (i.e., where Forsa was available) were eligible to receive a video message.Outcomes for the video messaging experiment were collected in a post-intervention module at the end of the midline survey. The two primary outcomes measure interest in the Forsa program. First, \"Interest to Join Forsa\" is an indicator equal to one if a respondent answers \"Yes\" to either of \"Are you or someone from your household interested in joining Forsa's self-employment modality?\" or \"Are you or someone from your household interested in joining Forsa's wage-employment modality?\", and zero otherwise. Thus, the first primary outcome is the household's interest in joining Forsa through either modality. Second, \"Recommend Forsa\" is an indicator equal to one if a respondent answers \"Yes\" to \"Are you likely to recommend Forsa to a friend or neighbor?\", and zero otherwise.Secondary outcomes include beliefs about the implementation of Forsa and its relationship to Takaful. These questions were designed to measure perceptions of how Forsa functions in order to test what information was communicated through the video message that affected household interest in Forsa.The variables include: Duration of Takaful cash transfers either with or without joining Forsa  Value of and expected monthly income from the asset transferred through Forsa's self-employment modality  Time cost, expected monthly income, and expected longevity of the employment opportunity offered through Forsa's wage employment modality. Perceived potential monthly income from asset-based or wage employment -(gender specific?) Expectation of non-monetary benefits either with or without joining ForsaIn our primary specification, we run the following regression:where \uD835\uDC66 \uD835\uDC56 is the outcome for respondent \uD835\uDC56, \uD835\uDC7B\uD835\uDC82\uD835\uDC8C\uD835\uDC82\uD835\uDC87\uD835\uDC96\uD835\uDC8D \uD835\uDC6B\uD835\uDC96\uD835\uDC93\uD835\uDC82\uD835\uDC95\uD835\uDC8A\uD835\uDC90\uD835\uDC8F \uD835\uDC56 and \uD835\uDC7B\uD835\uDC86\uD835\uDC94\uD835\uDC95\uD835\uDC8A\uD835\uDC8E\uD835\uDC90\uD835\uDC8F\uD835\uDC8A\uD835\uDC86\uD835\uDC94 \uD835\uDC56 are indicator variables representing the treatment arms specified above, and therefore \uD835\uDEFD 1 and \uD835\uDEFD 2 measure the differences in responses relative to the Basic Information group. Specifically, relative to only receiving basic information about Forsa (which is included in all three videos), \uD835\uDEFD 1 measures the impact of receiving information on the duration of Takaful cash transfers after joining Forsa (i.e., at least 6 months), and \uD835\uDEFD 2 measures the impact of watching the Forsa testimonies. We estimate robust (heteroskedasticity-consistent) standard errors.In this section, we present the results of the Forsa messaging experiment. Relative to only receiving a video with basic information on Forsa, we find that getting additional information on Takaful duration has no statistically significant effect on interest in joining Forsa but increases interest in recommending it to others, likely because this information does not seem to update respondents beliefs about the duration of Takaful benefits after joining Forsa but does increase beliefs that one can drop out of Forsa and reenroll in Takaful at a later date. Moreover, we find that testimonies increase interest in joining and recommending Forsa, likely by increasing respondents' perceived expectation of monthly income they could earn from the Forsa asset.Results are visually presented using bar graphs that highlight the difference in means between treatment categories. Specifically, each figure below plots means of each outcome across treatment categories with first (green) bar in each grouping representing the Basic Information treatment, the second (blue) bar representing the Takaful Duration treatment, and the third (yellow) bar representing the Testimonies treatment. The bounds of the 95 percent confidence interval estimated from running the regression above are depicted as vertical black lines on the Takaful Duration bars and Testimonies bars, which test how these treatments compare to the reference group. Therefore, if the range of the vertical black line does not overlap with the top of the Basic Information bar (i.e., the mean for the Basic Information group), this signifies that the corresponding mean is statistically significantly different then the Basic Information group at the 95 percent confidence level, and not otherwise. Asterisks are also placed near the top of the vertical line to signify statistical significance at the 0.01, 0.05, and 0.1 levels.Figure 4.1 presents the main results of the effect of the messaging treatments on interest in Forsa. The figure looks at treatment effects on the two primary outcomes: 1) Interest in joining Forsa, measured as the share of households not already signed up for Forsa (N=2,614) answering \"Yes\" to \"Is your household interested in joining Forsa (either modality)?\", and 2) Willingness to recommend Forsa to a neighbor, measured as the share of all sample households (N=3,838) answering \"Yes\" to \"Would you recommend Forsa to a neighbor?\". Overall, households are more likely to recommend Forsa than express interest in joining it themselves, though keep in mind that because each outcome looks at a different sample, a quick visual comparison is slightly deceiving. While the figure shows a 13-percentage point gap between the Basic Information bars for the two outcomes, this falls slightly to a 10-percentage point gap when only looking at households not already participating in Forsa.Figure 4.1's results suggest that the new messaging strategies had a positive impact on interest in Forsa overall. First, we estimate the treatment effects on a household's interest in joining Forsa. We find that Takaful Duration has no statistically significant effect on this outcome, assuaging fears that this information would largely deter eligible households away from Forsa. We also find that the Testimonies video increases interest in joining Forsa with marginal statistical significance (p-value=0.106). Second, we estimate the treatment effects on willingness to recommend Forsa to a neighbor. Here, we find that both Takaful Duration and Testimonies significantly increase interest in recommending Forsa to a neighbor at the 95 percent confidence level. Together, these findings suggest that both messaging strategiesproviding clarity on the duration of Takaful benefits under the Forsa program and using testimonies to show household real-life examples of people succeeding on the Forsa program--have a positive impact on overall interest in Forsa.   Second, Figure 4.3 shows treatment effects estimated on willingness to recommend Forsa to a neighbor for the sub-sample of Takaful recipients (N=2,251) and the sub-sample of non-recipients (N=1,587). The figure shows that average interest in recommending Forsa is lower among Takaful recipients, but by less than expected with only a six-percentage point gap in the Basic Information group. Among Takaful recipients, impacts on willingness to recommend are not significant. Among non-Takaful recipients, both treatment effects are statistically significant at the 90 percent confidence level, suggesting a positive impact of the information treatments on interest in Forsa in this sub-sample. However, treatment impacts are across the two sub-samples are not statistically different from each other. We now test how these new messages affect beliefs about the Forsa implementation and its relationship to Takaful to better understand the mechanisms through which messages increase interest in Forsa, as such insights can aid in the design of future messaging and policy.We looked at several belief outcomes, as described in Section 4.2. Of these, only two produce statistically significant results, presented in  ** **Interestingly, Figure 4.5 shows that the Takaful Duration video did not change beliefs about the duration of Takaful benefits after starting the Forsa program. Even though the video message communicated that the policy was made to continue benefits for 6 months under Forsa, households on average did not update their beliefs down towards 6 months or downwards at all. Taken together, these results suggest that the mechanisms for the positive effects of the video treatments are singular and straightforward. For the Takaful Duration treatment, the positive impact was likely driven by an increase in beliefs that individuals could drop out of Forsa and re-enroll in Takaful if necessary. For the Testimonies video, the positive impact was likely driven by increasing beliefs about the monthly income one could earn from a Forsa asset.This impact evaluation of the Forsa program in Egypt is intended to contribute to the global evidence on effective graduation program design as Forsa includes several unique design features such as a wageemployment modality and decentralized implementation via NGOs. Here, at midline, we do not aim to assess the program's impact on consumption levels or income, as the program has only just been implemented. However, we do think it is worthwhile to measure whether the Forsa program has had a significant effect on project deliverables within treated communities. Findings from Section 3 suggest that the primary project deliverable were sheep and goats distributed through the asset self-employment modality.Therefore, in this section we test: what is the impact of Forsa on asset ownership-primarily of sheep and goats-and treatment versus control communities? Inability to detect treatment effects may warrant skepticism that the evaluation will detect household welfare effects at endline. Conversely, large treatment effects will provide evidence that the Forsa indeed is making significant contributions to asset ownerships and treatment communities and motivate further survey rounds of evaluation to look at long-run changes to household-level consumption and income.To estimate the causal impact of the offer of access to the Forsa program, this study utilizes a cluster randomized controlled trial. Prior to baseline data collection, communities were randomly assigned to receive the Forsa program. We randomly sampled 165 treatment and 165 control sub-villages after stratifying on the number of Takaful beneficiaries and district. The random assignment ensures that unbiased intent-to-treat (ITT) estimates of the offer of treatment can be calculated through ANCOVA regression specifications of the form:with \uD835\uDC66 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC501 being the outcome for household \uD835\uDC56 in community \uD835\uDC50 measured at midline, \uD835\uDC47\uD835\uDC5F\uD835\uDC52\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC5A\uD835\uDC52\uD835\uDC5B\uD835\uDC61 \uD835\uDC50 is the Forsa treatment indicator, which is based on the random assignment of Forsa treatment between treatment and control communities., \uD835\uDC66 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC500 is the baseline value of the outcome for household \uD835\uDC56, and \uD835\uDF16 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC501 is the error term, which we will cluster at the community level. The ordinary least squares (OLS) estimate of \uD835\uDEFD 1 is an unbiased measure of the average impact of the offer of access to the Forsa program.The intermediate outcomes we analyze at the midline evaluation include 1) livestock ownership (sheep and goats); 2) quantity of sheep and goats; 3) poultry ownership; and 4) quantity of poultry owned.We detect statistically significant impacts on livestock ownership of sheep and goats, as shown in Figure 5.3.1. The results show that sheep and goats' ownership (binary variable 1/0) has approximately tripled in treatment communities relative to control communities. This is also reflected in Table 5.3.1 column 1 from the treatment coefficient estimate and the mean differences of livestock ownership status between treatment and control groups. It is also noteworthy that households who owned any livestock at baseline were more likely to sign-up for livestock interventions and self-report having any livestock at midline. Looking at Forsa treatment effects on the quantity of sheep and goats owned, the results are also consistently positive and significant. The magnitude of treatment effects is large as well, as Forsa treatment has increased the average number of sheep and goats owned by 0.167 goats making the average number of sheep and goats owned in treatment 3 times higher than the average in control, despite being balanced at baseline.Table 5.3.2 shows a positive and significant interaction term between treatment and Takaful status at the 90 percent confidence level, indicating that the Forsa treatment effect on any ownership of sheep and goats was higher for Takaful households compared to non-Takaful households. This is likely explained by Takaful households being less likely to own livestock at baseline as we do not see a similar interaction effect for impacts on the number of livestock owned.As for poultry ownership and quantity of poultry owned, Table 5.3.3 shows that the model does not detect statistically significant treatment effects under the poultry outcomes. This is unsurprising due to the very small number of poultry households reported in our sample, amounting to only 24 households.   This report summarized the main findings from the midline survey of the impact evaluation of the Forsa program, a novel poverty graduation program implemented by the Government of Egypt's Ministry of Social Solidarity (MoSS). Through the Forsa program, eligible households are able to receive either a large one-time asset transfer via the self-employment modality, or job matching and skills training via the wage employment modality. The objective of the program is to increase economic self-reliance and resilience among vulnerable households and, in doing so, reduce dependence on the national cash transfer program Takaful.Using data collected from a midline survey implemented in October and November 2023, this report draws its findings from three types of analysis. First, we summarized descriptive statistics from households in communities where Forsa was piloted to assess current participation and program implementation. Second, we implemented a randomized experiment to test new messaging strategies on households' interest in the Forsa program to inform how to motivate interest and take-up of the Forsa program moving forward. Third, we utilize the community-level randomization of the Forsa program established at baseline to test if access to the Forsa program has a causal effect on asset ownership-namely sheep and goats-for the typical Forsa-eligible household.Together, these analyses reveal important insights about the design and implementation of the Forsa program during this piloting period. Based on the findings of the midline evaluation, a few key policy recommendations emerge:1. Demand exists for a poverty graduation program like Forsa with nearly one-third of households eligible to sign up for Forsa signing up so far, and with very similar rates between households receiving Takaful benefits and those that do not. However, sign up is more limited than previously expected and, indeed, not all households may be ready to transition from Takaful cash transfers to a poverty graduation program. Therefore, we think that MoSS should likely adjust expectations for the scope of participation in the Forsa program, especially at the beginning of implementation.2. Moving forward, the Forsa program should likely focus on the self-employment modality rather than the wage-employment modality. First, there was significantly more demand for the self-employment modality, likely driven by women participants who prefer earning income at home through the Forsa asset. Second, our analysis has already identified an increase in household ownership of sheep and goats in Forsa communities (relative to control communities where Forsa is not available), demonstrating an early success in the implementation of the asset transfer program. Third, relative weak demand for the wage-employment modality was also accompanied by low rates of job matching-we only found six households that had received Forsa jobs and, of these, four had already left due to low wages and long commutes.3. Forsa program implementation, especially at the beginning, should be accompanied by monthly cash transfers that offer transitory support. Among households that have received assets through the self-employment modality, the vast majority reported negative profits in the last month. Whether this is due to the seasonality of livestock revenue or that households were \"saving\" their assets for a time of greater need, this fact suggests that assets do not necessarily provide a stream of income to meet monthly cash needs in the same way that Takaful does. Thus, households may still need Takaful early in the Forsa program so that they are not forced to \"eat into\" their Forsa assets to pay for required monthly expenditures.4. The tested messaging strategies can help MoSS increase interest and awareness of the Forsa program. First, informing households that Takaful benefits will last for six months following the successful start of the Forsa program does not deter interest in Forsa and, in fact, increases the likelihood of recommending it to others. Moreover, showing eligible households testimonies from actual Forsa participants who describe their experience with the program both increases interest in joining Forsa and in recommending it to others, likely by updating their belief in expected monthly income they can earn from a Forsa asset.","tokenCount":"10948"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fd1f33b0f3550af59440ad76262e5dc2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/1a99a884-715a-450f-acd3-f4e4e5664511/retrieve","id":"127238286"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"4b46b4ce-2f9c-47fa-8706-2595e769e9b1","pagecount":"14","content":"Atelier de renforcement des capacités du groupe d'experts du ministère de l'Agriculture, de la Souveraineté alimentaire et de l'Elevage sur l'outil Agdatahub. Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA).Afin de faciliter la compréhension, le présentateur est revenu sur le processus de conception de l'outil avec quelques points essentiels notés :Prise en compte des deux sous-secteurs agriculture et élevage, compte tenu de nos systèmes de production et modèles d'élevage, des paramètres importants sont pris notamment la variabilité interannuelle et intra saisonnière des données climatiques ainsi que les dates de débuts et de fin de saisons.Toutefois la diffusion reste un challenge pour toucher les acteurs finaux d'où l'utilisation de multitudes de canaux de diffusions parmi lesquels les radios communautaires, les plateformes, les relais, les bulletins… at-il évoqué.Pour être le plus exhaustif possible, il est revenu sur les données prises en compte celles hydrométéorologiques, les données de sol, de marché, d'observation satellitaires et sectorielles pour bâtir un tel outil.Suite aux différentes prestations les membres du groupe d'expert pour rappel qui a pour rôle de valider et/ou améliorer les conseils agricoles produits par outils en fonction des zones agro écologiques et des spécificités des cultures et des sols, ont eu des échanges fructueux avec les experts développeurs de l'outil.Les échanges ont tourné autour sur comment prendre en compte dans le conseil produit les spécificités des zones agro écologiques dans l'opérationnel tant pour la production que pour la gestion des productions dans les aires des stockages et de conservation. Pour rappel les Sénégal comptent six (06) zones agro écologiques qui sont le bassin arachidier, la vallée du fleuve, la zone des Niayes, la Casamance, le Sénégal oriental, la zone sylvopastorale.Sur le plan politique, l'outil sera un atout pour le planning de mis en place des intrants par exemple il pourra permettre de voir quelle spéculation mettre en place en premier et quelle variété ;Cependant des propositions pour l'amélioration de l'outil est effectué. Ces propositions vont à l'encontre d'une meilleure prise en compte de tous les maillons du secteur agrosylvopastoral et halieutique.Cependant quelques interrogations se sont soulevées :• • Compléter les données en rapport avec nappe pour une meilleure articulation avec les orientations avec les objectifs du secteur en matière de maitrise de l'eau pour se faire, il est proposé de se rapprocher de la DGPRE et de la DBRLA pour qu'elles puissent accompagner par la mise à dispositions d'informations et de données.• Le rôle du producteur qui est utilisateur final• Problèmes donnés de l'élevage pour aider sur la transhumance (mares temporaires et pérennes, disponibilité de forages fonctionnels e non …)• La prise en compte des différentes campagnes agricoles (hivernages, CSC, CSF)• Élargir les informations sur les paramètres comme la température, les vents et ensoleillement surtout pour les campagnes horticoles et la gestion des ravageurs avec la DPV, la DMERLa clôture a été faite par Monsieur le conseiller technique du MASAE et Mesdames Gueye du COMNACC et Nadine Worou de AICCRA.Après avoir demandé d'ajouter l'aspect « connaissances endogènes » dans les mesures du possible, le CT a remercié l'ensemble des participants avant de féliciter toute l'équipe de la CCASA pour leurs engagements remarquables dans ce processus. Il a réitéré également la nécessité de renforcer les interactions dans cette initiative avec les autres outils. Il a conclu en invitant AICCRA à montrer au niveau international, la convergence par rapport aux orientations politiques du pays en matière climatique.Le COMNACC a magnifié le travail exceptionnel de la Plateforme CCASA ainsi que les experts. Pour terminer, il a remercié les partenaires au développement pour avoir participé à cette rencontre.Quant à AICCRA, Ils ont salué l'organisation et la participation de qualité des acteurs avant de réitérer leur engagement à toujours accompagner le secteur agricole pour accroitre sa résilience.Pour recommandations majeures :• S'appuyer sur la plateforme CCASA pour faciliter l'adoption de l'outil ;• Impliquer le comité technique pour accompagner tout le processus ;• Organiser de telles initiatives avec l'ensemble des services techniques déconcentrés du secteur ;• Mener une réflexion sur un financement pour pérenniser l'initiative,• Accompagner l'élaboration de notes pour les autorités.\"Grâce à AgDataHub, le Ministère a désormais en temps réel toutes les informations spécifiques pour prendre des décisions stratégiques ».Bouna Dieye, Conseiller Technique au MASAE aiccra.cgiar.org info@cgiar.org CGIARAfrica","tokenCount":"699"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"24141d628a15f0e821fcb8fa1a8d0b39","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5ac31665-ec9a-4b6c-b984-079bb106bb1b/retrieve","id":"-1890785337"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"31350078-b28d-45c5-b22c-47faeaadb0fe","pagecount":"4","content":"A informação contida neste guia pode ser livremente reproduzida para fi ns não-comerciais sob condição que se mencione a fonte. Caso a reprodução se destine a fi ns comerciais, é necessária uma autorização prévia do CTA.1Os tomates são muito cultivados e utilizados em África. No entanto, trata-se duma cultura muito sazonal, extremamente perecível assim que, no pico da temporada, a maior parte dos agricultores vende a sua cultura ao desbarato, perdendo-se grandes quantidades da cultura. Para reduzir ao máximo estas perdas, os agricultores podem transformar os tomates em diversos produtos conservados, para uso doméstico ou em produtos de valor acrescentado, como fonte de rendimentos.Os tomates são ricos em: vitaminas e sais minerais, que são • importantes para a saúde licopeno (uma substância que dá a • cor vermelha aos tomates), que possui propriedades anticancerígenas.Tachos para cozedura, baldes em plástico com tampa, uma faca bem afi ada, água limpa, um forno (a carvão de lenha, petróleo, gás ou electricidade), colheres e conchas de madeira.Como recipientes de embalagem podem-se utilizar boiões e garrafas tanto de vidro, como de plástico. O plástico é mais leve, mais barato e não se parte facilmente.Também é necessário cápsulas para as garrafas e tampas para os boiões.Para o processamento do tomate a uma escala comercial, também será necessário um extractor da polpa ou uma batedora, uma máquina para pôr as cápsulas nas garrafas, uma máquina para selar, um termómetro de vidro, uma balança, um produto químico de conservação, um agente de engrossamento (pectina), um secador solar.2Escolha tomates maduros, vermelhos, com uma textura fi rme, sem doenças nem bolores.Lave os tomates recém colhidos, num balde grande, com água limpa.Corte os tomates em rodelas com uma espessura de 0,5 cm.Espalhe as rodelas de tomate numa plataforma elevada e limpa para que sequem ao sol. Utilize um secador solar para obter um produto com uma melhor qualidade. Para evitar a contaminação dos tomates durante a secagem ao sol, cubra-os com uma rede mosquiteira. Para produção à escala comercial, recomenda-se a secagem dos tomates por meio dum secador de ar quente.Moa os tomates secos com a ajuda dum moinho de martelo, apetrechado com um crivo com um tamanho de malha apropriada. Esmague-os com a ajuda • duma colher de madeira.Utilize um passador de • cozinha para separar a polpa das sementes e das peles.Deite fora as sementes e as • peles ou utilize-as como alimento para as suas galinhas e guarde a polpa.Para uma produção para fi ns comerciais, um extractor de polpa (manual ou mecânica) diminuirá a carga de trabalho e aumentará o rendimento.Com a polpa pode-se fazer compota de tomate ou ketchup. Utilize um quilograma de açúcar por cada quilograma de polpa de tomate.Misture o açúcar e a polpa e ponha esta mistura num tacho grande.Coloque o tacho ao lume e ferva, mexendo constantemente para evitar que a mistura se • queime ou pegue ao fundo do tacho. Continue a ferver até que a mistura engrosse. Acrescente sumo de limão (duas colheres de chá para cada quilograma de compota). O limão • ajuda a endurecer a compota. Teste para ver se a compota está bem fi rme : retire uma pequena quantidade de compota • com uma colher e mergulhe-a numa chávena de água fria. Se esta porção fi ca inteira, a compota está pronta. Se se esparrama, dispersa na água, a compota necessita de mais fervura. Caso a compota continue líquida mesmo depois da fervura adicional, acrescente-lhe pectina • (um agente de engrossamento : uma grama de pectina por cada quilograma de polpa de tomate).Se a compota é para ser guardada por um período superior a um ano, deve-se juntar um • conservante químico (benzoato de sódio, à razão de 100 mg por cada quilograma de compota).Junte este conservante no fi m do processo de cozedura da mistura. Esterilize os boiões com um produto esterilizante (hipoclorito de sódio) ou com água quente.Deixe arrefecer a compota e vaze-a em boiões enquanto ainda está sufi cientemente líquida • para ser vertida. Encha os boiões esterilizados até cerca de 3 cm da boca do boião.Cubra os boiões com tampas, sem os fechar e deixe-os a repousar durante, aproximadamente, • 5 minutos para permitir que o ar se escape. Feche em seguida as tampas e vire os boiões ao contrário durante dois ou três minutos para que as tampas aqueçam e desta maneira matar qualquer germe existente. Deixe os boiões arrefecer até atingirem a temperatura ambiente antes de os rotular. A • compota pode ser armazenada à temperatura ambiente durante um ano, caso não seja aberta.Para fazer 1 quilograma de • ketchup de tomate, ponha 420 g de polpa de tomate e 150 g de açúcar num tacho grande. Misture muito bem e acrescente 300 g de vinagre, 300 g de sal, 70 g de cebola moída, 30 g de alho moído, e qualquer outro condimento a gosto, como seja pimenta moída. Misture, mais uma vez, muito bem. Ferva esta mistura, mexendo constantemente com uma colher de pau. ","tokenCount":"826"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"21c78fcdb93c5b41e3d9865b20c353a1","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/27cd4403-adb2-4cf1-9d5e-ae2783bd1ed4/retrieve","id":"343366368"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0f77cc94-b6e1-4aed-82e1-4d3a403ad091","pagecount":"1","content":"Purpose: To engage multi-stakeholders from Kongwa and Kiteto in dialogue and networking for the design, conduct and delivery of Africa RISING R4D. Approach: The IP has been established at district level, with village level participation guided by the following principles. 1. A system wide approach that engages diverse stakeholders to jointly identify problems, device solutions, implement R4D and evaluate progress and outcomes. 2. Support demand-driven research in collectively identified focal areas. 3. Engage stakeholders at rural community and district councils to secure ownership and support for research and scaling out. Annually, review and planning meetings are held with multi-stakeholders. In 2016 strategic meetings with District councils of Kongwa and Kiteto were held to inform and secure support for research and scaling out efforts.The platform has been operational for three years with the following key results: 1. Research prioritization: Using the IP, the Africa RISING team in Kongwa & Kiteto has refined R4D focus areas and built partnerships for implementation (Table 1). Through the IP both community and policy institutions have been engaged to support Africa RISING research outcomes and impact delivery. Pilot scaling studies are under way in 2017 in both districts.  ","tokenCount":"192"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"38e5dc5bedd1c526023c3abdb95b87b5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/b7c2bfa3-94dc-49a4-8953-5b47f2e6740a/content","id":"1667761013"},"keywords":["adaptation","climate change","climate-smart agriculture","climate-smart villages","resilience","scaling out"],"sieverID":"0c986b76-a2ac-49ce-82b1-6347c3c108cf","pagecount":"15","content":"Increasing weather risks threaten agricultural production systems and food security across the world. Maintaining agricultural growth while minimizing climate shocks is crucial to building a resilient food production system and meeting developmental goals in vulnerable countries. Experts have proposed several technological, institutional, and policy interventions to help farmers adapt to current and future weather variability and to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This paper presents the climate-smart village (CSV) approach as a means of performing agricultural research for development that robustly tests technological and institutional options for dealing with climatic variability and climate change in agriculture using participatory methods. It aims to scale up and scale out the appropriate options and draw out lessons for policy makers from local to global levels. The approach incorporates evaluation of climate-smart technologies, practices, services, and processes relevant to local climatic risk management and identifies opportunities for maximizing adaptation gains from synergies across different interventions and recognizing potential maladaptation and trade-offs. It ensures that these are aligned with local knowledge and link into development plans. This paper describes early results in Asia, Africa, and Latin America to illustrate different examples of the CSV approach in diverse agroecological settings. Results from initial studies indicate that the CSV approach has a high potential for scaling out promising climate-smart agricultural technologies, practices, and services. Climate analog studies indicate that the lessons learned at the CSV sites would be relevant to adaptation planning in a large part of global agricultural land even under scenarios of climate change. Key barriers and opportunities for further work are also discussed.Although global food production has increased in the past few decades, almost 800 million people still have insufficient food, especially in South and Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa (Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 2015). Moreover, global food production must double by 2050 to match population and income growth (Alexandratos and Bruinsma 2012), and much of this must happen in Asia and Africa. These regions are characterized by high population growth, widespread poverty, and low agricultural productivity. Climate change exacerbates the problem.Agricultural production systems across the world are expected to change in response to climate change, posing major challenges to the livelihoods and food security of millions of people (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2014). Food production will be impacted due to increased temperatures, changed rainfall patterns, and more frequent and intense floods and droughts (Lobell et al. 2012, Schellnhuber et al. 2013, Rosenzweig et al. 2014). The impacts of climate change on crop yields indicate that yield losses may be up to 60%, depending on crop, location, and future climate scenario (Challinor et al. 2014, Rosenzweig et al. 2014, Asseng et al. 2015). Increasing climatic variability may further complicate agricultural production and food security as recent studies have shown that almost one-third of yield variability is related to climatic variability (Ray et al. 2015). Agricultural food systems, contributing 19-29% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Vermeulen et al. 2012), are not only vulnerable to global climate change but also the second largest contributor to its causes.There are many options to reduce the negative impacts of climate change on agricultural systems, make them resilient to climate change, and reduce emissions. In some cases, climate change may even be beneficial. Options range from change in crop management, such as sowing time, to change in cropping systems Ecology and Society 23(1): 14 https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol23/iss1/art14/ and land use to adjust to new climates (Porter et al. 2014). Many technologies and practices can increase crop yields, farm income, and input-use efficiency, and may reduce GHG emissions (Khatri-Chhetri et al. 2017).Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) aims to increase sustainable agricultural production by adapting to and building resilience to climate change. It focuses on food security and national development goals and, where possible, it also aims to reduce or remove GHG emissions (Lipper et al. 2014, Steenwerth et al. 2014). Recent analyses indicate that although several CSA programs and on-farm studies were successful, there is only weak uptake of many innovative CSA practices and technologies (Campbell et al. 2014, Westermann et al. 2015). For example, new water management practices and technologies in India were adopted by only 12% of farmers in the last 40 years (Palanisami et al. 2015). Similarly, adoption of mitigation options in agriculture is very low in the developing countries (Thornton and Herrero 2010).One factor that contributes to low uptake of new technologies is that development practitioners lack evidence of how the innovations can be practically incorporated into agricultural systems. They need to know how farmers can achieve synergies and minimize trade-offs in implementing multiple interventions on real farms. Climate change complicates this because its impacts will vary across locations. Effective implementation therefore requires an integrated approach in which science, technology, and decision making interact with local socioeconomic conditions and cultures (Steenwerth et al. 2014).To generate the evidence on the efficacy of climate-smart options, the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) is implementing a climate-smart village (CSV) approach in Asia, Africa, and Latin America (Aggarwal et al. 2013). This paper describes the conceptual framework of the CSV approach and the ongoing processes involved in designing and implementing them. The CSV approach is a key part of the agriculture research-for-development (AR4D) agenda to address climate change challenges for food security (Campbell et al. 2016). We illustrate different examples of the CSV approach across a range of vulnerable agroclimatic regions and discuss some emerging lessons learnt.The CSV approach is an AR4D approach to test, through participatory methods, technological and institutional options for dealing with climate change in agriculture. It aims to generate evidence at local scales of what climate-smart agricultural options work best, where, why, and how, and use this evidence to draw out lessons for policy makers, agricultural development practitioners, and investors from local to global levels. The testing is done through a multistakeholder collaborative platform at CSV sites. The sites are a cluster of villages, small landscapes, or 10 km² grids. Every CSV site has its own theory of change (ToC; a narrative description of the logical causal chain from research activities to impact) linked to national priorities to ensure that it is consistent with initiatives and actions across different scales. The process builds on Lipper et al.'s (2014)     An ideal CSV approach provides five types of decision support to farmers and other stakeholders:1. Village/community agricultural land use plans and contingency plans considering current and future climate risks, agroecological and socieconomic conditions, and markets.2. Portfolios of agricultural practices, technologies, and programs that do not become maladaptive in future climate and market scenarios are assessed using models.Strategic guidance before (where feasible based on seasonal forecasts) and during the planting season on the most suitable CSA practices, technologies, services, processes, and institutional options considering market and resource availability such as capital, labor, and markets. This is done in a participatory mode with local farmer groups such as farmers' self-help groups, water-users associations, local extensions systems, or local private-sector actors.Tactical guidance to farmers on using real-time weather forecasts and value-added information and communication technology (ICT)-based agroadvisories; on accessing good quality inputs and technologies for improving water/ nutrient/energy use efficiencies, and on risk transfer through insurance mechanisms in case of crop and livestock losses.Policy-level guidance on barriers and options to unlock CSA with local and national development, including consideration of financial needs to drive scaling.The CSV approach differs from existing agricultural development approaches, which usually depend on substantial external funding. When the funding ceases, the project unravels (Millennium Villages Project 2016). In contrast, the key focus in a typical CSV is on strengthening capacities and empowering the farming communities and their local organizations. In the process, partners in the CSV approach commit only limited resource support to catalyze the process.The CSV approach, which consists of four steps, guides adaptation planning and on-the-ground implementation with the objective of transforming farming communities to be more climate smart (Fig. 2). Figure 2 outlines the steps in a typical CSV AR4D site. Implementation of these steps is based on stakeholder engagement and seldom follows a simple linear model.Baseline assessment: Implementation of the CSV approach begins by assessing climate-related risks and vulnerabilities to agriculture at the household/village/landscape level. Historical climate data are analyzed to assess risks such as the probability of sowing failure due to inadequate rainfall at the start of the season. It also includes risks of wet and dry spells, and periods of heat or cold stresses during the cropping season. Future climate scenarios are analyzed to assess the likely change in risk profiles and long-term suitability of the main cropping and livestock systems. Secondary data are used to assess GHG emissions from agriculture and simple calculators in those regions where mitigation is relevant.Baseline assessment includes the natural (land, water, and soil) and physical (infrastructure such as irrigation, technology, and markets) resources available. It also includes assessment of socioeconomic resources such as human (labor and education), financial (source and amount of revenue and budget), and social (institutions and networks) resources. Local communities help guide the CSV design process, which includes their knowledge of climatic risk management.A quick participatory assessment is made of the various practices and technologies being used in the village/region, as well as the potential ones that can be adopted, guided by agronomic studies in the region or homologous regions elsewhere. Availability of climate information services-such as weather-based agroadvisories and agriculture insurance schemes in the region-is also assessed.Successful implementation of the CSV approach also hinges on strong institutions and enabling policies that can support adaptation activities at the village level. Assessment of current CSV design: This step primarily focuses on developing a portfolio of practices and technologies dealing with food security, adaptation, and mitigation and on climate-information services that need to be initially piloted in the CSVs. The portfolio includes the following (Fig. 3):.  Creating evidence: Once a portfolio has been designed, field evidence for this is developed in a two-step process. First, a narrow range of interventions/portfolios is evaluated in a multistakeholder research platform (including CGIAR, national agricultural research systems, NGOs, and private-sector players, farmers and their institutions) established in CSV sites. The process assesses the benefits, synergies, and trade-offs of the technologies from the perspective of individual farmers (men, women, and youth) as well as of the aggregate community/landscape by using wellestablished principles of on-farm and farmers field research. Detailed evaluation is conducted using surveys, farmer group evaluations, and ICT-based feedback tools. Modeling is often Horizontal scaling out is done from farmer to farmer through networking using ICT-based tools, farmers' fairs, farmer exchange visits, and participatory videos of the adopted technologies, or through engagement with local government institutions. Connecting with women's organizations is another effective scaling-out approach. Institutional and financial needs are determined, for both local and national (or subnational) contexts, often using appropriate business models. The potential for consolidation and convergence of current agricultural development schemes/plans in the region is explored. For instance, national programs/schemes on water management, alternative energy, agricultural extension, and subsidies in agricultural inputs such as farm machinery, seeds, and fertilizers can have added value to leverage resources and investments from different sources into adaptation and mitigation goals, and minimize transaction costs and maximize synergies in CSVs. Consideration of national and regional gender machineries and social development programs also helps to integrate social inclusion concerns into the CSVs as well as to orient social development programs to climate change impacts and action.Monitoring and evaluation provide feedback to the CSV design process, which is based on learning and adjustment. Finally, adaptation pathways for the CSA approach-including technology and services portfolios, capacity building programs, institutional and financial mechanisms, and potential costs and benefits of program implementation-are presented to policy makers for scaling up through replication in other sites, or provision of incentives for adoption through large-scale agricultural investment plans. Although conceptually this step is placed at the end of the sequence (Fig. 2), it can vary according to the CSV context. Individuals and institutions with policy reach are often engaged early in the process, sometimes even in the baseline assessment stage, which helps to build trust, interest, and common purpose. But it can also lead to \"messy\" processes, where external agencies may wish to promote scaling-out processes prematurely, even while baseline evidence is being collected.The CCAFS started piloting the CSV AR4D approach in 2012 in Africa (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda) and South Asia (Bangladesh, India, and Nepal). In 2014, more projects were established in Latin America (Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua) and Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Philippines).Currently, there are 36 CSV sites across the CCAFS's focal regions (Fig. 4).The global representativeness of the CSV site network is evaluated using a climate analog tool (Ramirez-Villegas et al. 2011). The similarity between the monthly climates of each CSV with those of all other pixels with the same production system was computed using WorldClim data of precipitation and temperature (Hijmans et al. 2005). We give equal weight to each parameter and account hemispheric differences (Jones and Thornton 2000). Although temperature and precipitation are not the only climatic drivers, they do explain much of the variation in agricultural production worldwide (Ray et al. 2015). We then assessed how globally representative the entire set of sites was-each of the 36 CSV sites encompasses between three to seven localities for a total of (n = 249)-by taking the maximum similarity value across all CSVs for each pixel (Fig. 5).A substantial part of the global tropics and subtropics are highly representative, especially across the Sahel and South and Southeast Asia (Fig. 5). An area of ca. 2 million ha has 80% similarity for crops and pastures with ca. 4 and 5 million ha having 60% similarity. The tropical South America sites represent few other areas. Popayan (Colombia) represents only a limited amount of the highly diverse agricultural landscapes of the Andes or of Brazilian agricultural areas. In contrast, the CSVs of Central America, which are lower and drier, are more broadly representative.Climate change is likely to alter the CSVs' climates, thus potentially altering their global representativeness. Therefore, representativeness of current CSV sites under future (2030s) climates was also analyzed using bias-corrected climate change projections from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) ensemble (Taylor et al. 2012) data for 33 general circulation models for the representative concentrations pathway 8.5. Results showed that, by the 2030s, similarities change only slightly, with most areas remaining within ±5% of historical representativeness. Therefore, changes by the 2030s are not expected to alter the global representation of the CSV network. Thus, it is clear that the current CSV sites represent a large agricultural area of the world facing diverse climatic risks, and these sites will remain crucial for adaptation learning even in the future.The CSV approach followed in Asia, Africa, and Latin America is very similar but highly contextualized in local situations. The following section provides brief details of the approach used in different regions.The CSV sites in South Asia are located in Punjab-Haryana, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka states in India, six districts in Nepal (Rupandehi, Mahotari, Nawalparasi, Dang, Bardiya, and Gorkha) and in Barisal, Sylhet, and Khulna divisions of southern Bangladesh. The CSV approach in South Asia is described for the Punjab-Haryana sites.Baseline: The region, important for the food security of all countries in South Asia, is dominated by rice-wheat systems.  Creating evidence: The short-listed options were trialled at the CSV sites to quantify trade-offs and synergies. The results showed that tillage practices and residue incorporation increased ricewheat yields by 5-37% and income by 28-40% and reduced GHG emission by 16-25% (Singh et al. 2009, Jat et al. 2014  Scaling out and up: The resultant portfolio of options proposed by CSV approach has been integrated with the agricultural development strategy of Haryana state, with the government now scaling out successful interventions to 500 other villages. These sites have become learning platforms for CSA in South Asia as well. State and even national governments have committed to scaling out the CSV approach to more than 2000 villages. In Nepal, the government has announced the implementation of CSVs to strengthen climate adaptation in the country's agriculture sector.The AR4D CSV sites in West Africa are located in Cinzana (Mali), Fakara (Niger), Kaffrine (Senegal), Lawra-Jirapa (Ghana), and Yatenga (Burkina Faso). These sites were selected based on climate risk profiles, potential land-use options, and on willingness of farmers and local government to participate in the CSV process (Foerch et al. 2013). A detailed description of the CSV approach in the Kaffrine site is provided.Baseline: Agriculture, which constitutes the main economic activity, is primarily rain fed and subsistence. Major staple crops are sorghum, millet, cowpea, and groundnut in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Senegal, whereas in Ghana, maize and yam are major crops. Intra-and interseasonal rainfall variability (Jalloh et al. 2013), declining soil fertility (Kamara et al. 2013), and land degradation are the major challenges for agriculture systems in much of West Africa. Specific climatic risks in Kaffrine CSV include droughts, floods, and winds. Poor harvests, postharvest losses due to pests and diseases, degradation of farmlands due to wind and water erosion, and decline in livestock production and availability of markets were identified as additional major constraints to agriculture.CSV  (Lo and Dieng 2015). Household modeling has also been used to create improved evidence on interventions (Rigolot et al. 2015).Scaling out and up: The CSVs across West Africa, and particularly in Kaffrine, have become learning grounds for policy makers and other stakeholders who use emerging evidence and lessons to develop and implement development plans. Farmers' field days, exchange visits, and local \"durbars\" and study tours have been conducted. Mobile phones, newspapers, and local radios have also been used for information dissemination. In Senegal, the national science-policy dialog platform has also been a useful framework for sensitization through which research results and experiences from the CSV sites are regularly shared by scientists and used to demonstrate effectiveness of diverse CSA technologies. Some evidence from the CSVs has also been used to mainstream CSA into major agricultural development programs (e.g., the Accelerated Program for Agriculture in Senegal).In East Africa, the AR4D CSV sites are located in Kenya (Nyando and Makueni), Ethiopia (Borana), Tanzania (Lushoto), and Uganda (Hoima, Rakai). All sites are mixed crop-livestock production systems, except Borana site in Ethiopia, which mainly includes pastoral land.Baseline: In East Africa CSVs, agricultural production is also subsistence and rainfed, with cropping systems dominated by maize, bananas, and beans. Livestock mostly comprises cattle, small ruminants (goats and sheep), and chicken. Rainfall variability is manifested by late onset or early cessation, and prolonged dry seasons that have become more frequent and intense (Recha et al. 2016). Incidences of diseases and pests are also increasing, affecting crops and livestock production. In addition, poverty, lost labor, and less diversified livelihoods make these communities more vulnerable to climate-related risks, with direct impacts on household food security and nutritional status.CSV design: In the East Africa CSV sites, the prioritized interventions included weather information delivery services, water harvesting and soil conservation techniques, rangeland rehabilitation, community empowerment innovation (demonstration farms, seed multiplication farms, and village savings-and-loan schemes), introduction of drought-tolerant, short-duration, and disease-resistant crop varieties, and plantation of suitable agroforestry tree species. Livestock interventions included new resilient and improved breeds of small ruminant breeds and feeding strategies (Ojango et al. 2015(Ojango et al. , 2016)).Creating evidence: Early results show a shift to on-farm diversification, with households now adopting more than three crop innovations, greatly expanding on-farm choices for resilient varieties (Recha et al. 2015). Dual-purpose crops, such as sweet potatoes for food (tubers) and livestock feed (vines), are becoming more popular. The new livestock breeds have led to about onethird of the small ruminants in Nyando to be cross-breeds that are able to withstand heat stress, better utilize low quality forage, cope with disease burden, and recover from drought with faster compensatory growth, therefore maturing to market weight within a shorter period compared with the local breeds (Gilbert 2015, Ojango et al. 2016).Scaling out and up: Scaling-out activities were mainly focused on farmer-to-farmer learning of climate-smart interventions through farmers' field days and exchange visits. These activities are supported by a range of extension service activities from the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock and NGOs. Mobile phones for seasonal weather forecast information, newspapers, and local radios were also used for information dissemination to a large number of farmers.The Sites in Latin America are located in Guatemala (Olopa), Honduras (Santa Rita), Nicaragua (El Tuma la Dalia), and Colombia (Cauca). The sites are in climatically vulnerable zones where there is increasing soil erosion, desertification, erratic weather patterns, widespread water scarcity, and high levels of poverty. The region is characterized by agroecological diversity, the production of the staple crops of beans and maize, commercial crops such as coffee and cocoa, and some extensive livestock.There are important agroecological differences between Colombia and Central America. The Cauca site in Colombia is described here.Baseline assessment: Households buy over 80% of the food they consume because the farmland is used to grow coffee and sugar cane (Paz and Ortega 2014b). But coffee is becoming less suitable due to temperature increases caused by climate change. Main climate risks include reduced rainfall, increasing frost intensity, and higher daytime temperatures. Only 14% of farmers received climate information on extreme events at the start of the rainy season at a regional level. There was little formal government presence (Paz and Ortega 2014a, c), with few links with other organizations apart from the National Coffee Federation, which provides basic technical support. In Colombia, there was important community empowerment facilitated through the \"Juntas de Acción Comunal\" (nonprofit civil, social, communitarian, and neighborship organizations that join forces to add effort and resources to work toward solving the major needs of the community (Decree 1930 of 1979, Legal Regime of Bogotá) and the women's cooperative, which catalyzed village development initiatives. Women were more likely than men to adopt CSA practices and to use climate information to plan agricultural and household activities. Both men and women perceived changes in climate as mainly related to drought and increased temperatures (Twyman et al. 2016).CSV design: Community leaders agreed to formulate a development plan considering climate as a key variable with technical support from CCAFS and the Ecohabitats Foundation (a local strategic partner). The first step was to develop vulnerability analyses at the farm level identifying each farm's hotspots of vulnerability to winds, precipitation, and drought. These were aggregated to develop farm-and community-level adaptation plans that identified potential adaptation measures and prioritize them considering their effect on costs, income, and food security. The plan included: more detailed weather monitoring; rainwater harvesting; vegetable gardens; biodigesters; and improved bean varieties. Concurrently, the project addressed youth and gender issues to strengthen their empowerment. Local research and regional government institutions provided support, and CCAFS engaged with the national Ministries of Environment and Agriculture and the Presidency Office for Postconflict.Creating evidence: Although the program is still new, the CSV model has already helped to strengthen the partnership between local communities and national agriculture research systems in adaptation planning and implementation. The CSV sites are becoming learning platforms for many stakeholders in relation to climate-smart interventions in agriculture. The site is a focus of comprehensive research on GHG emissions in agricultural systems. It also enables detailed modeling and accounting of GHG fluxes from different land-use options. Additionally, it helps to develop a cost-benefit analysis of the implemented measures to understand the economic benefit and the associated cobenefits, such as biodiversity and water conservation.Scaling up and scaling out: The \"Juntas de Acción Comunal\" have enabled community cohesion, which has been strengthened by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development's land titling process. The stakeholder platform has evolved within this environment and now includes local and regional government and other institutions. The platform supports implementing CSA technologies, consolidates a resilient community, and improves livelihoods. Youth and children are part of the process and recognize opportunities to improve the quality of life.In addition, farmers share experiences and lessons learned through farmer-to-farmer learning and exchanges among communities. Engagement with youth occurs through training in communication and GIS, which links academic institutions at the community and municipal level to national policy. For example, the Secretariat of Agriculture of Popayan is in the process of including this methodology to formulate local adaptation plans as part of the municipal environmental education process. The Secretariat will also implement a pilot in the CSV and will strengthen the Environment Youth Network at the municipality level.The CSV approach integrates technologies and services that are suitable for the local conditions. It provides multiple gains for food security and adaptation and for mitigation where appropriate. As can be expected from the baseline assessments, technological interventions being piloted in CSV regions are very different. The portfolio of options in the South Asia CSVs had synergistic effects (Jat et al. 2014, Khatri-Chetri et al. 2016). Similarly, studies in all regions showed that there is considerable yield advantage when a portfolio of technologies is used, rather than technologies being used in isolation (Govaerts et al. 2005, Zougmore et al. 2014). For example, crop rotation with legumes, incorporation of crop residues and compost with minimum tillage enhances soil nutrients and ameliorates water stress through improved soil https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol23/iss1/art14/ water relations. Crop varieties tolerant of stress, pests, and diseases, better timing and methods of crop establishment, and need-based water and nutrient applications are also promising.The CSVs provide the means by which farmers can explore these synergies. Improvement in soil properties and concomitant yield benefits due to CSA technologies take a long time (Gathala et al. 2011). The emphasis in CSVs is not on rediscovering or further testing them, but rather on evaluating and demonstrating their synergies with services such as weather forecast-based agroadvisories, crop insurance, and ICT-based knowledge and market management in current as well as future climate scenarios, and in bringing a climate lens to their evaluation to understand how well they deliver on resilience and mitigation.The literature warns about the dangers of implementing blanket adaptation strategies without careful consideration of their potential disadvantages (Magnan et al. 2016). For example, conservation agriculture can be precarious for some smallholders, because it does not work in all agroecological settings. In some cases, the benefits can only be realized by adopting them together with other technologies (Pittelkow et al. 2014, Brouder andGomez-Macpherson 2014). Unintended negative consequences can undermine CSV efforts if agronomic trials cannot be evaluated in diverse agroecologies and climate scenarios. This remains a serious challenge. The CSVs address this issue by indepth analysis of each technology in present climates and also assess their effectiveness in rapidly changing future socioeconomic scenarios (Vervoort et al. 2014). Modeling is therefore a very important tool in CSVs for supplementing technology evaluation done in on-farm research platforms. It is also essential to simulate the likely performance of technologies in future climates and to identify early any potential maladaptation. Such work is in progress (Shirsath et al. 2016).The primary unit of CSVs is generally the local administrative unit it belongs to, which makes it easier for uptake and to replicate elsewhere. South Asia and Africa sites used a \"village\" as the primary unit because scaling up and out was linked with the local and national government boundaries. This avoided the complex ownership, management, and financial issues that arise when using ecological units.In Latin America and Southeast Asia, however, the approach was applied at a landscape level as the agricultural systems are highly diverse, and communities considered that they depend heavily on resources outside the village (e.g., through ecosystem services). In Latin America, social dynamics are important in adoption of new technologies, which are codeveloped and validated by local farmers. Involving the central government has not always worked, so livelihood improvement has often originated from bottom-up self-empowerment. Therefore, CCAFS has chosen a diversity of scales to bound CSVs that focus on local concerns, thus increasing chances of achieving impact.A major objective of the CSV approach is scaling out local adaptation plans into existing policy space using strategies that are appropriate to the region concerned. In South Asia, the focus was on large-scale piloting for uptake and policy linkage. In Latin America and Africa, the focus was on value-chain linkage, science-policy platforms, and scaling out to participatory extension services. The diverse objectives of multiple stakeholders have always been included, but overall, poverty in developing countries is what forces farmers to maximize their incomes. In contrast, national policy makers focus on poverty alleviation as well as food security.National and international agencies are often interested in GHG mitigation from agriculture. Modeling can aggregate data from field trials and extrapolate them to homogenous agroecological regions, which can make CSVs a useful approach for a variety of stakeholders. Modeling can also be used to understand their effectiveness in future climate scenarios.Results from the different regions show that multistakeholder platforms and policy-making networks are key to effective upscaling. The effectiveness is increased when paired with capacity enhancement, learning, and innovative approaches to support farmers' decision making (Westermann et al. 2015). Challenges remain to promote uptake in the realities of local farming. Nevertheless, CSVs are a highly effective mechanism for bringing climate-smart options to scale and for forging links from the local level to national policy processes.Climate-smart agriculture has shown promise at the local scale, but it has still not reached scale in most countries. This could be due to several barriers. For example, agriculture is not always the main priority at the local level, where there may be other priorities such as sanitation, health, or education. Adaptation to climate change may involve nonagricultural strategies such as migration, outside employment, and diversification from agriculture. The latter is already occurring in the population-rich and resourcescarce countries of South Asia. Poor infrastructure related to agriculture, including technologies, services, inputs, and access to markets, is a major issue in subsistence agricultural systems of Africa. There is also little capital available for investment in agriculture, which limits development of adaptation options such as demand-based climate information services and crop insurance. Another key constraint could be that CSA technologies are not well targeted because trade-offs among interventions are not well understood. There is often a mismatch and lack of dialog between science and policy needs in general and specifically about CSA.Although many of these are generic barriers that prevent agriculture development, they are particularly relevant to CSVs, which are dependent on knowledge products. We trust, nevertheless, that the CSV approach is a step further to overcome some of these challenges by being more integrative and inclusive.As we have demonstrated earlier (Fig. 4), the current CSV sites represent a large agricultural area of the world facing diverse climatic risks, and these sites will remain crucial for adaptation learning even in the future. In India and Nepal, CCAFS partners have adopted the CSV approach and have expanded the number to thousands of CSVs, where results of CCAFS's AR4D approach are applied (Aggarwal et al., unpublished manuscript).There is still a need for greater evidence for the CSV approach in different agroecological environments. It is especially important to understand the trade-offs between food security, adaptation, and mitigation in current and future socioeconomic and climate scenarios. More research is needed to demonstrate that https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol23/iss1/art14/ adaptation strategies do not become maladaptive. The role of an appropriate monitoring and evaluation framework and indicators of climate smartness that can be easily measured becomes very important.It is important that agriculture in developing countries should be resilient to climatic risks as well as increase production to meet increasing food demands. This paper has presented a scalable approach that integrates agronomic interventions, climate information services, and farmers' traditional knowledge at local scales. The components contribute to both resilience and mitigation. The CSV approach can be scaled out horizontally and locally through farmer participatory processes and farmer-tofarmer communication. With appropriate institutional support, a CSA portfolio can be scaled out to large numbers of farmers and thus address national food security, adaptation, and mitigation goals. The CSV approach also brings science into farming practice and combines development goals with actionbased research. The CSV is an \"eco-regional\" approach (Rabbinge 1995) that links bottom-up farming system research with environmental issues, livelihoods, and socioeconomics and connects knowledge generation to policy processes. It is unique in the sense that it provides an AR4D platform for multistakeholder participatory evaluation of CSA options and links global and local knowledge with local and national policies, thus presenting a holistic vision for sustainable agricultural development as well as confronting climate change action in agriculture. Although evidence for this is still being accumulated, the monitoring and evaluation framework linked to the baselines already collected will establish this in future years.Responses to this article can be read online at: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/issues/responses. php/9844","tokenCount":"5439"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"03940027c20f9ade328ab8a1d60c5fec","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5a666823-4876-4723-bcd6-913328b93d32/retrieve","id":"1620301181"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"9521da97-a22e-477e-8506-ac0dc22fe396","pagecount":"5","content":"The monsoon (hereafter, South American Monsoon System, SAMS) is the most important climatic feature in South America (Zhou and Lau 1998;Vera et al. 2006;Marengo et al. 2010). The main feature of the SAMS is the enhanced convective activity and heavy precipitation in tropical South America, which typically starts in October-November, is fully developed during December-February and retreats in late April or early May (Kousky 1988;Horel et al. 1989;Marengo et al. 2001;Grimm et al. 2005;Gan et al. 2006;Liebmann et al. 2007).Although the variability of precipitation in the SAMS has been extensively investigated over the years, one of the main challenges has been the availability of data sets with suitable spatial and temporal resolutions able to resolve the large range of meteorological systems observed during the monsoon. While some stations in South America have precipitation records going back several decades, the sparseness of stations is not adequate to characterize mesoscale precipitation systems. To overcome this difficulty, some studies have developed considerable efforts to collect precipitation records from stations and develop quality-controlled gridded precipitation data sets (Legates and Willmott 1990;Liebmann and Allured 2005;Silva et al. 2007).Recently, new generation of reanalysis products have been completed (Saha et al. 2010;Dee et al. 2011;Rienecker et al. 2011). The new reanalyses, which are derived from state-of-the-art data assimilation systems and high resolution climate models, provide substantial improvements in the spatiotemporal variability of precipitation relative to the first generation of reanalyses (Higgins et al. 2010;Saha et al. 2010;Rienecker et al. 2011;Silva et al. 2011).This paper evaluates and compares statistical properties of daily precipitation in three types of data sets: gridded station data, satellite-derived precipitation and reanalyses. This study employs several analyses to determine consistencies and disagreements in the representation of precipitation over SAMS. The period 1998-2008 is selected in order to minimize missing data and develop a consistent comparison among the data sets. In addition, since the data sets are available with different horizontal resolutions, the comparison is performed in two ways: 1) all data sets regridded to a common resolution and 2) data sets with their original resolutions.The statistical properties of precipitation in the SAMS region are investigated with daily gridded data from multiple sources during 1 Jan-31 Dec 1998-2008. The following data sets are used: i) Physical Sciences Division, Earth System Research Laboratory (PSD): This data set is formed from observed precipitation collected at stations distributed over South America (Liebmann andAllured 2005, 2006). The daily gridded precipitation is constructed by averaging all observations available within a specified radius of each grid point. Two grid resolutions (1° and 2.5° lat/lon) are used in this study.ii) Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP): The daily GPCP combines Special Sensor/Microwave Imager (SSM/I), GPCP Version 2.1 Satellite-Gauge, geosynchronous-orbit Infrared (IR), (geo-IR) Tb histograms (1°x1° grid in the band 40°N-40°S, 3-hourly), low-orbit IR GOES Precipitation Index (GPI), TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS) and Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) data (Huffman et al. 2001). The GPCP data used in this study have 1 o lat/lon grid spacing. iii) Climate Prediction Center unified gauge (CPC-uni): The NOAA Climate Prediction Center (CPC) unified gauge uses an optimal interpolation technique to re-project precipitation reports to a grid (Higgins et al. 2000;Silva et al. 2007;Chen et al. 2008;Silva et al. 2011). This study uses data with 0.5 o lat/lon grid spacing. Although the PSD and CPC-uni data sets share some of the same station observations, it is worth noting that the quality control and gridding methods are distinct. In addition, it is likely that the number and origin of station data in both data sets are different. iv) Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR): Daily precipitation from the NCEP CFSR (Saha et al. 2010) is used at 0.5 o lat/lon grid spacing. It is also important to note that precipitation is not assimilated in the CFSR production and is a forecast (first-guess) product. Several statistical analysis have been applied to the daily precipitation and the reader is referred to Carvalho et al. (2011) for additional details. The annual evolution of SAMS is examined to determine consistencies and disagreements among the data sets. The large-scale features of interest are: the dominant spatial precipitation pattern, dates of onset and demise, duration and amplitude of the monsoon. These characteristics are determined with empirical orthogonal functional (EOF) analysis applied to the daily precipitation (only land grid points) from each data set separately. Before computation of EOF analysis, the time series of precipitation in each grid point are scaled by the square-root of the cosine of the latitude and the long-term mean removed (1 Jan-31 Dec, 1998Dec, -2008)). The first mode (EOF1) and associated temporal coefficient (PC1) explain the largest fraction of the total variance of precipitation over land and are used to describe the annual evolution of SAMS.To determine dates of onset, demise and duration of SAMS, the daily PC1 is smoothed with ten passes of a 15-day moving average. This smoothing procedure is obtained empirically and used to decrease the influence of high frequency variations during the transition phases of SAMS. The large-scale onset of SAMS is defined as the date when the smoothed PC1 changes from negative to positive values. This implies that positive precipitation anomalies during that time become dominant over the SAMS domain. Likewise, the demise of SAMS is defined as the date when the smoothed PC1 changes from positive to negative values. The duration of the monsoon is defined as the period between onset and demise dates. The seasonal amplitude of the monsoon is defined as the integral of positive unsmoothed PC1 values from onset to demise. Therefore, the seasonal amplitude index represents the sum of positive precipitation anomalies and minimizes the effect of \"break\" periods in the monsoon especially near the onset and demise. Active/break periods in SAMS are particularly frequent on intraseasonal time scales (Jones and Carvalho 2002).Figure 1 shows the spatial patterns of EOF1 derived from each data set with 2.5 o lat/lon grid spacing and expressed as correlations between PC1 and precipitation anomalies. Positive correlations are interpreted as positive precipitation anomalies and indicative of active SAMS. In general, all data sets show similar features such as positive precipitation anomalies over central South America and negative anomalies over the northern parts of the continent. The region of negative anomalies over northern South America is substantially smaller in the PSD due to missing data (the \"bull's eye\" at ~60 o W, 10 o S is a grid point with missing data). The magnitude of positive correlations varies slightly and is highest for PSD. The largest positive correlation in MERRA is slightest to the west relative to the other data sets.The percentages of explained variance by EOF1 are: 20.5% (PSD), 11.6% (GPCP), 8.4% (CPCuni), 10% (CFSR), 17.9% (MERRA) and 6.9% (TRMM). EOF1 captures the largest fraction of the total variance, which includes subseasonal, seasonal and interannual variations, since the EOF analysis is performed removing only the long-term mean. Main differences in explained variance are associated with how much each PC1 represents the distribution of subseasonal, seasonal and interannual variations. These percentages are comparable to the percentages obtained with the data sets at their original resolutions, which suggests that spatial resolution of the data sets is not the main issue, but rather how each data set represents temporal variations.Dates of onset, demise and duration of SAMS derived from each data set with the original resolution are shown in Fig. 2. The mean onset date (Fig. 2 top) is highly coherent among PSD, GPCP, CPC-uni and TRMM (~21 October) including the ranges of minimum and maximum onset dates. In contrast, the mean onset dates in CFSR and MERRA are off by several weeks. The variability in dates of mean demise (Fig. 2 middle) indicates agreements among PSD, GPCP, CPC-uni and TRMM and some differences in CFSR and large disagreement in MERRA. Consequently, the mean durations of SAMS (~180 days) agree reasonably well among PSD, GPCP, CPC-uni and TRMM data and is shorter and more variable in the CFSR and MERRA reanalyses (Fig. 2 bottom). These results indicate that differences in data resolution do not explain disagreements in the annual evolution of SAMS especially between CFSR and MERRA and the other data sets. Carvalho et al. (2011) compares some statistical properties of daily gridded precipitation from different data (1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008): 1) Physical Sciences Division, Earth System Research Laboratory (PSD) (1.0 o and 2.5 o lat/lon), 2) Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP at 1 o lat/lon), 3) Climate Prediction Center unified gauge (CPC-uni) (0.5 o lat/lon), 4) NCEP CFSR reanalysis (0.5 o lat/lon), 5) NASA MERRA reanalysis (0.5 o lat/0.3 o lon) and 6) TRMM 3B42 V6 data (0.25 o lat/lon). The same statistical analyses are applied to data in: 1) a common 2.5 o lat/lon grid and 2) in the original resolutions of the data sets.All data sets consistently represent the large-scale patterns of the SAMS. The onset, demise and duration of SAMS are consistent among PSD, GPCP, CPC-uni and TRMM data sets, whereas CFSR and MERRA seem to have problems in capturing the correct timing of SAMS. Power spectrum analysis shows that intraseasonal variance is somewhat similar in the six data sets. Moreover, differences in spatial patterns of mean precipitation are small among PSD, GPCP, CPC-uni and TRMM data and some discrepancies are found CFSR and MERRA. Fitting of gamma frequency distributions to daily precipitation shows differences in the parameters that characterize the shape, scale and tails of the frequency distributions. This suggests that  ","tokenCount":"1563"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"92fde25618f2834eadb55315c82d5a72","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d111931b-18a0-4cda-a0a3-d4426034d979/retrieve","id":"723733106"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"5dd0088f-f169-4b12-b4d9-6142b18252fb","pagecount":"32","content":"Analysis of ascorbic acid in fresh potato tubers 1. Sampling and sample preparation  For each genotype collect 4 to 5 potato tubers per replication. The tubers must be representative of each genotype and replications can be from the field or from laboratory, depending on the interest of the scientist.  Wash the tubers with plenty of tap water, removing any soil residue; rinse with distilled water and dry with paper towel.  Cut each tuber in four sections longitudinally; then take two opposite sides of each tuber, and with the help of a stainless steel slicer cut 3-5 slices from each section.  Cut these slices into small cubes, mix, weigh a portion and analyze immediately for the ascorbic acid concentration, as indicated below. Weigh 7.5 g of the cut and mixed sample directly in the extraction tube. Add 38 ml of extracting solution (0.4% oxalic acid and 20% acetone) and homogenize in the Ultra Turrax for 1 minute.  Rinse the mixer with the extracting solution and also the walls of the glass tube (approximately 3 ml).  Filter the extract through Whatman # 2 filter paper using vacuum pump, and rinse the walls of the glass tube and filter.  Transfer the filtered extract into a volumetric flask (protected from light), bring to 50 ml with extracting solution and mix. Mix 1 ml of the extracting solution with 9 ml of 2.6 DCIP diluted solution of and after 1 minute read the absorbance (Reagent Blank: RB) at 520 nm. Mix 1 ml of the extract (filtered solution of the sample) with 9 ml of 2.6 DCIP diluted solution, and read the absorbance (Sample Absorbance: SAbs) at 520 nm (read twice for each volumetric flask) after 1 minute.  Mix 1 ml of the extract with 9 ml of distilled water, and read the absorbance (Sample Blank: SB) at 520 nm.  Subtract the sample blank from the sample absorbance and then subtract this value from the reagent blank. This final value (real absorbance) is used to estimate the concentration of ascorbic acid. Prepare a stock solution of ascorbic acid (1000 µg / ml). For this purpose, weigh 100 mg ascorbic acid in a beaker and dissolve in 50 ml of extracting solution.Transfer the solution to a volumetric flask protected from light and bring to 100 ml with extracting solution.  Prepare ascorbic acid standard solutions (5,10,20,30,40 and 50 µg / ml) by taking aliquots of 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 and 2.5 ml from the stock solution of ascorbic acid and bringing to 50 ml with the extracting solution.  Mix 1 ml of extracting solution with 9 ml of 2.6 DCIP diluted solution, and read the absorbance (Reagent Blank) after 1 minute at 520 nm.  Mix 1 ml of each standard solution with 9 ml of the diluted solution of 2.6 DCIP, stir and after 1 minute read the absorbance (standard absorbance) at 520 nm (read twice).  Then, mix 1 ml of the standard solution with 9 ml of distilled water and after 1 minute read the absorbance (standard blank) to 520 nm. Subtract the standard blank from the standard absorbance and then subtract this value from the reagent blank. This final value (real absorbance) is used to build the standard curve: Real absorbance vs. concentration (µg /ml).5.1 Extracting solution: oxalic acid 0.4% and acetone 20% Weigh 4 g of oxalic acid and dissolve in 100 ml distilled water (stir with the help of a magnet until completely dissolved). Add 500 ml of distilled water and add 200 ml of acetone. Stir slowly and bring to pH 1.1 with concentrated sulfuric acid (to prevent evaporation of acetone, cover the beaker with aluminum foil).Finally, transfer the extracting solution to a volumetric flask and bring to 1 l with distilled water. The stock solution should be diluted with distilled water before using. When 1 ml of the extracting solution and 9 ml of diluted 2,6 DCIP solution are reacted, the absorbance obtained at 520 nm should be between 0.300 and 0.350. This absorbance value is usually obtained when 1 ml of the diluted stock solution of 2.6 DCIP is dissolved in 13 ml of distilled water.  Weigh a portion of homogenized sample in a glass tube. The weight of the sample depends on its coloration (6-8 g for the pale yellow flesh samples; 4-5 g for intermediate yellow flesh samples; and 2-3 g for deep yellow flesh samples).  Add 40 ml of cold acetone, homogenize in the Ultra-Turrax for 1 minute at 21000 rpm, filter with suction through a sintered glass funnel, and receive the extract in a flask protected from light. Wash the Ultra-Turrax and the residue with a small amount of acetone.  Repeat the extraction until the residue is devoid of color. Usually only 3 extractions are required. Place 30 ml of petroleum ether and a small amount of distilled water in a 500 ml separatory funnel. Transfer the acetone extract to the petroleum ether in 4 fractions. After each transference, add 200 ml of distilled water allowing it to fall through the separatory funnel walls. Let the two phases separate, and discard the lower aqueous phase every time.  Wash 4 times with 200 ml of a dilute solution of sodium chloride (about 1%) to prevent formation of emulsions. Let the two phases separate for 3 minutes and discard the aqueous phase. Collect the transferred ether extract in a 125 ml volumetric flask and add a few crystals of the antioxidant BHT (2,6-di-tert-butyl-4-methylphenol).  Add 40 ml of 20% potassium hydroxide methanol solution. Cover the flask with aluminum foil and let the mixture stir in the dark at room temperature for 3 hours.  After the 3 hours transfer the saponified extract to a 500 ml separatory funnel. Collect the methanolic phase in the same flask and add an equivalent volume of acetone.  Add 25ml of diethyl ether to the ethereal phase and transfer the methanolic phase into 4 fractions.  After each transfer, shake the separatory funnel and add 200 ml of distilled water, allowing it to fall through the walls. Let it stand 3 minutes and discard the aqueous phase every time.  Wash 4 times with 200 ml of distilled water. Let the two phases separate for 3 minutes, and discard the aqueous phase.  Concentrate with nitrogen gas until the ethereal extract has a volume of approximately 25 ml.  Filter the ethereal extract through a glass funnel containing anhydrous sodium sulfate, and collect in a 25 ml volumetric flask with petroleum ether. Read the ethereal extract at 450 nm and calculate the total carotenoid concentration using the recommended absorption coefficient for mixtures of carotenoids (2500).  Dissolve the standard in petroleum ether (stock). In some cases it is necessary to add a little acetone to make the carotenoid more soluble.  Read the stock in the spectrophotometer at the appropriate wavelength for each carotenoid and make the calculation of the concentration using the extinction coefficient corresponding to the wavelength and the solvent used.As described in Annex 1. Weigh a portion of freeze-dried and milled sample in a glass tube. The weight depends on the color of the sample (0.8 to 1.0 g for white or cream color samples, 0.5 to 0.7 g for yellow or red samples, and 0.1 to 0.4 g for purple samples).  Add 10 ml of 70% methanol, homogenized for 10 seconds and sonicate for 10 minutes (first extraction).  Filter the methanol extract through Whatman # 4 filter paper into a volumetric flask.  Add 10 ml of 70% methanol over the residue, homogenized on a vortex and dispensing in a water bath at 80 °C for 5 minutes (second extraction).  Filter the extract into volumetric flask and finally add extracting solution up to a final volume of 25 ml. Dispense 400 µl of sample in a test tube. In the case of a blank sample, dispense 400 µl of distilled water. After this, follow the same steps for the samples and the blank sample.  Add 8 ml of distilled water and 0.5 ml of 2N Folin Ciocalteau, mix and let stand for 6 minutes  Add 1500 µl of 20% sodium carbonate and mix thoroughly. Place the tubes in a water bath at 40 C for 30 minutes. Read absorbance at 765 nm and calculate the concentration of total phenolic compounds based on the standard curve and express the results in mg chlorogenic acid / 100 g sample. Prepare a stock solution of chlorogenic acid at a concentration of 5000 mg/l.For this purpose, weigh 250 mg of chlorogenic acid, dissolve with 5 ml of methanol, transfer the solution into a volumetric flask protected from light and add distilled water up to a final volume of 50 ml.  Prepare standard solutions with concentrations of 50, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 700, 1000 and 1500 mg/l by taking volumes of 0.25, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3.5, 5, 7.5 ml of the stock and bringing to a volumetric flask of 25 ml with distilled water.Analyze each standard duplicate.  Dispense 100 µl of each standard solution into test tubes (in the case of blank reagent use 0.1 ml of distilled water) and mix with 8 ml of distilled water and 500 µl of Folin-Ciocalteu reagent. Mix and let stand for 6 minutes.  Add to each tube 1.5 ml of 20% sodium carbonate, and mix. Place the tubes in a water bath at 40 C for 30 minutes. Read at 765 nm and build the standard curve by plotting the concentration (mg/l) vs. absorbance.Place 300 ml of distilled water into a volumetric flask and add methanol up to a final volume of 1L.Weigh 50 g of anhydrous sodium carbonate, add 200 ml of distilled water and place in the agitator heater until completely dissolved, and boil. Allow the solution to cool at room temperature and add one teaspoon (approximately 1.5 g) of sodium carbonate to saturate the solution, stir until completely dissolved. After 24 hours, filter the solution using two Whatman # 2 filter papers, transfer the filteredAnalysis of total anthocyanins in freeze-dried and milled potatoesAs described in Annex 1. Weigh a portion of freeze-dried and milled sample in a glass tube. The weight depends on the color of the sample (1.0 g for white or cream color samples, 0.2g for yellow or red samples, and 0.05 to 0.1 g for purple samples).  Add 5 ml of the extracting solution (80:20 95% ethanol: 1.5M hydrochloric acid), shake for 10 seconds and sonicate for 10 minutes.  Add 5 ml of extracting solution and repeat the extraction. Protect the sample from light and refrigerate (4 ⁰C) overnight. Centrifuge at 7000 rpm for 10 minutes at 4 ⁰C, filter the supernatant through Whatman #2 paper in a 25 ml volumetric flask.  Add 5 ml of extracting solution to the pellet, sonicate for 5 minutes, place in a water bath at 80 °C for 5 minutes, and filter.  Add 5 ml of extracting solution to the pellet and repeat the extraction. Filter the extract in volumetric flask and bring to 25 ml using the extractant solution. Read the absorbance at 700, 545 and 515 nm and calculate the total anthocyanins concentration using as reference the extinction coefficient (3.02 x 104) and the molecular weight (718.5 g L-1) of malvidin-3-pcoumarilglucoside for purple samples and using the extinction coefficient (2.73 x 104) and molecular weight (486.5g L-1) of pelargonidin-3-glucoside for red samples.  Perform autozero with extracting solution and, if necessary, dilute with the extractant solution.4.1. Extractant Solution 80:20 (95% Ethanol : HCl 1.5 M) Add about 500 ml of 95% ethanol into a volumetric flask. Add 200 ml of 1.5M hydrochloric acid and 95% ethanol up to a final volume of 1L.Add 50 ml of distilled water in a volumetric flask. Add ethanol up to 1L and mix thoroughly. Cover, mix and pour into a pre-labeled amber bottle.Add about 500 ml of distilled water and then 124.35 ml of 37% hydrochloric acid.Add distilled water up to a final volume of 1L. As described in Annex 1. Weigh 0.08 g of sample (previously well mixed) Add 5 ml of 80% methanol  Shake and sonicate for 30 minutes. Centrifuge at 5000 rpm for 10 minutes. Remove the supernatant in a plastic tube (first extraction) Add 5 ml of extracting solution to the pellet. Let stand overnight protected from light and at room temperature. Centrifuge at 5000 rpm for 10 minutes. Finally, add the supernatant to the plastic tube and bring to 10 ml. Dispense 150 µl of sample into a test tube and 150 µl of 80% methanol into another tube (Sample Blank). Follow the next steps for samples and sample blank.  Add 2850 µl of ABTS diluted solution, shake the tube and wait for 10 minutes.Repeat this step and read the absorbance at 734 nm. If the absorbance is below 0.2, make dilutions and repeat the reading to obtain values within the range.  Calculate the final concentration of hydrophilic antioxidant activity based on the Trolox standard curve, and express the results in µg Trolox equiv/g sample. Prepare a stock solution of Trolox (2000 µM / L). For this purpose weigh 0.025 g of Trolox, dissolve with 30 ml of methanol and bring to a final volume of 50 ml using the same methanol. Perform this step protected from light.  Prepare Trolox standard solutions (200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700 and 800 µM Trolox/l) by taking aliquots of 2. 5, 3.75, 5, 6.25, 7.5, 8.75 and 10 ml from the stock solution and bringing to 25 ml with methanol.  Dispense 150 µl of each standard solution into test tubes and continue with the evaluation of the antioxidant activity, as described for the samples. In this case the control sample is called standard blank.  Build the standard curve for Trolox by plotting the concentration (µM / L) vs. absorbance.Put 50 ml of distilled water into a volumetric flask and add methanol up to 250 ml. Mix thoroughly.Reagent A: 7 mM 2,2'-Azino-bis(3-ethylbezothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid (AZBT):Add a tablet (10 mg) of AZBT in a screw cap tube protected from light. Dissolve with 2.8 ml distilled water using vortex.Reagent B: 2.45 mM sodium persulfate (K 2 S 2 O 8 ): Weigh 6.62 mg of K 2 S 2 O 8 in a beaker, protecting from the light; add 10 ml of distilled water and stir until completely dissolved to finally transfer to a screw cap tube.The stock solution is prepared by mixing the two solutions, reagent A with B in equal quantities (1:1). Shake and allowed them to react for 16 h at room temperature in the dark. (This mixture can only be used up to 8 hours). The volume of the working solution depends on the number of samples to be analyzed.Dispense 3.9 ml of ABTS stock solution in a flask protected from light and diluted with 110 ml of 96% ethanol to obtain an absorbance of 1.1 ± 0.02 units at 734 nm.As described in Annex 1. Weigh 0.1 g of the freeze-dried and milled sample in a glass tube. Add 4.5 ml of the extractant solution (80% methanol, Mili Q water 19.5%, acetic acid 0.5%), homogenize in a vortex for 10 seconds, sonicate for 20 minutes, and centrifuge at 7000 rpm for 10 min.  Transfer the supernatant directly to a test tube with screw cap and reextract the pellet using 3 ml of the extractant solution and following the same procedure as described above.  Add 3 ml of the extractant solution to the pellet, mix in a vortex, heat at 80 ° C for 5 min and transfer the supernatant into the same test tube.  Place the glass tube with the collected supernatant at 36 °C and reduce the volume of the extract using nitrogen gas.  Bring the extract to a final volume of 5 ml using Milli Q water. Filter the extract through a 0.45-mm PVDF filter directly into the sample vial and inject 25 µl into the chromatograph.Symmetry C18 column: 5 um, 4.6 mm x 250 mm Mobile phase: Eluent A: 1% Acetic acid in water and eluent B: Acetonitrile with 0.1% Acetic acid Gradient elution: 97:3 to 95:5 for 7 minutes, then 60:40 for 38 minutes, then 0:100 for 6 minutes, and finally at 97:3 for 6 minutes.Flow rate: 0.7 ml/min Re-equilibration time: 13 minutes  Determine the area of each phenolic acid at its maximum wavelength of absorbance, and calculate the phenolic acid concentration using the standard curve of each phenolic acid. Weigh 5 mg of the chlorogenic acid and/or cafeic acid standards, dissolve with methanol HPLC grade, and adjust to 50 ml (Stock 1).  Take 25 ml of Stock 1 and bring to 50 ml with MilliQ water (Stock 2)  Inject 25 µl of the stock 2 into the HPLC under the same conditions mentioned for the sample.  Integrate each phenolic acid at its corresponding wavelength, and based on the area calculate the dilutions in order to cover the range of areas found in the samples.  Build the standard curve for each phenolic acid by plotting the concentration (mg /ml) vs. area.5.1. Extracting solution (80% methanol, Water Mill Q, 19.5%, 0.5% glacial acetic acid): Add 195 ml of Milli Q water and 5 ml of glacial acetic acid to volumetric glass and bring to 1L with Methanol HPLC grade.  Collect the petroleum ether phase in a 25 ml volumetric flask making the ethereal extract pass through a glass funnel containing an anhydrous sodium sulfate. Read the carotenoid ethereal extract at 450 nm and calculate the total carotenoid concentration using the coefficient of absorption for β-carotene (2592). Flow rate: 0.8 ml/min.  Calculate each individual carotenoid concentration using the formula: Cx (μg/g) = As x Cs (ug/ml) x total volume of extract (ml) As x sample weight (g) where Cx = concentration of carotenoid X; Ax = peak area of carotenoid X; Cs = concentration of the standard; As = peak area of the standard.  Cut the above parts of the plants to be harvested. Identify the plants to be harvested and cut the foliage. Harvest the tubers carefully with a garden tool (for example a fork), avoiding any tuber damage.  Separate marketable and non-marketable tubers on the field. Select a representative sample. For this purpose, 7 to 10 potato tubers per genotype, clone or variety in each replication from the field should be collected at random. The tubers should have a representative size for the genotype, clone or variety,  Avoid selecting damaged or greened tubers, tubers with extreme sizes, and tubers from plants that grew in the borders.  Place the collected tubers inside a paper bag previously labeled with the corresponding identification code of the field plot.  Place the paper bags with the potato tubers in a box and store them in proper conditions (dark, ventilated and fresh room, protected from dust, etc.) until sample preparation. The potato samples should be processed for nutrient analysis as soon as they arrive at the laboratory (maximum 1 week after harvesting). Wash the 7 to 10 potato tubers with abundant tap water (trying to remove any soil residue), rinse with distilled water, and dry the tubers with paper towel.  Place the potato tubers in a clean labeled bag and store them at 5 ⁰C. One day before processing, place the samples in white plastic trays, sorting in a correct order.  Peel the tubers with a high-grade stainless steel or ceramic peeler, wash them again with distilled water, dry using paper towel, and cut each tuber longitudinally in 4 sections with a high-grade stainless steel or ceramic knife.Peeling should be done carefully, with minimum removal of the flesh.  Obtain 3 to 4 slices of each of two opposite sections of each tuber to obtain a 50 g weighed sample. Use a high-grade stainless steel or ceramic slicer.  Put the potato slices in polyethylene bags and take note of the exact weight. Store the samples in a freezer at -20 °C and freeze-dry them until the residual moisture is less than 3%. At CIP's Quality and Nutrition Laboratory, 72 hours freeze-drying is needed for drying 350 potato samples (50 g fresh material each) in an industrial freeze dryer.  Weigh the dried samples and take note of the exact weight. Use the fresh and dried weights to calculate the dry matter content of the samples.  Mill the dried sample in a stainless steel mill (40 mesh) and place the milled sample in Whirl-Pak plastic bags.  Store the milled sample at -20 °C.Note: Tubers can be stored at 5⁰C for minerals, vitamin C, carotenoid and phenolic analysis, but not for sugar analysis.","tokenCount":"3476"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/2108710021.json b/data/part_1/2108710021.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..870ca6a82ffc7dc6cdbf8942c8242314dd3d5875
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@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"155150e7eca250296e61b1a96fbd9f06","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c5df561c-3af4-4afb-8ea6-ecbe3925fa4e/retrieve","id":"1162448599"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0d284c6e-7994-4346-9e62-d5ee9bd30066","pagecount":"1","content":"Weather shocks and inter-hemispheric supply responses: implications for climate change effects on global food markets. Climate Change Economics, 5(04), 1450010.Quantifying the impact of supply shocks on global commodity trade networks is an increasing concern for researchers under the current threats of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper proposes a novel methodology to estimate these effects across the entire trade network: we create a weight matrix based on an index that captures the extent to which two coffee-producing countries compete within consumer markets. Using this matrix, we estimate the degree to which an adverse weather shock in a coffee-producing country influences the coffee production of its competitors. Our results show that this adverse shock has a negative direct effect on the country's coffee exports and, importantly, a positive effect on the quantities produced by competitors.The degree of competition between any pair of countries \uD835\uDC56 and \uD835\uDC57 is measured based on the predicted potential coffee demand from country \uD835\uDC56, \uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC37 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC61 . We define \uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC37 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC61 as the difference between the total predicted coffee demand of the buyers of country \uD835\uDC56, \uD835\uDC37 \uD835\uDC61 , and the total predicted coffee sales of country \uD835\uDC56 at year \uD835\uDC61, that is, \uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC37 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC61 = \uD835\uDC37 \uD835\uDC61 − \uD835\uDC37 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC61 .We obtain the predicted trade between countries j and i, \uD835\uDC47 \uD835\uDC57\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC61 which equals \uD835\uDC37 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC57\uD835\uDC61 . Next, for every country i and year t, we sum up the predicted coffee demand of all buyers for which \uD835\uDC37 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC57\uD835\uDC61 > 0. As a result, we have the predicted demand of all countries that sell coffee to the same set of buyers, \uD835\uDC37 \uD835\uDC61 = σ \uD835\uDC57 \uD835\uDC37 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC57\uD835\uDC61 , ∀ \uD835\uDC37 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC57\uD835\uDC61 > 0. Then, the degree of competition between countries i and j at time t, \uD835\uDC64 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC57\uD835\uDC61 can be defined as follows:Where \uD835\uDC37 \uD835\uDC57\uD835\uDC61 is the total predicted coffee sales by country \uD835\uDC57 to all the buyers of country \uD835\uDC56 at time \uD835\uDC61. The larger \uD835\uDC37 \uD835\uDC57\uD835\uDC61 , the stronger the degree of competition between countries i and j. By construction, \uD835\uDC7E \uD835\uDC95 is a row standardized weighting matrix. That is, σ \uD835\uDC57 \uD835\uDC64 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC57\uD835\uDC61 = 1.Ignoring this indirect effect would lead us to incorrect conclusions about the effect of natural disasters on coffee production and exports. The fact that frosts in competitor countries affect local production and exports is another example of the potential compensating effect of trade after negative weather shocks (Ayala et al., 2022). Not surprisingly, the dependent variables show a very strong dependance on its lagged values, which is consistent with having a sample of coffee producing countries. In addition, there is no elasticity of coffee production, exports, consumption, nor stocks to per capita GDP, as well as no significant relationship with other weather control variables such as temperature and precipitation, possibly because we consider countries fixed effects in our regressions.Our approach consists of creating a row standardized weighting matrix of competitor countries, where the weights represent the market share of producer countries among all the producers facing the same international demand for the product each year. It is expected that a negative weather shock in a producer country that reduces local coffee production will also reduce the market segment of the same country in the international market. That segment will be captured by the closest competitors. As a result, this paper contributes to the literature by proposing a method for estimating this indirect effect of weather shocks applied to the coffee trade network.The negative direct effect of adverse weather conditions has already been shown by several empirical studies. However, the indirect effect on competitor countries has largely been ignored by these studies, which fail to recognize the interdependence between seemingly unrelated countries as they belong to interconnected supply chains (Fold, 2014). This could lead to biased estimates of the impact of climate change on global trade, as negative direct impacts of adverse weather conditions on the dyadic relationship between exporter and importer might be offset by increased production coming from competitor countries as information is transmitted via prices (Lybbert et al., 2014).The results indicate that extreme weather events happening in competitor countries significantly affect local coffee markets. Frosts happening locally do not affect total production, exports, consumption, nor stocks, whereas frosts happening in competitor countries have a positive effect on production and exports, and a negative impact on local consumption and stocks. In addition, frosts happening in neighboring countries one year before increase local production, exports, and stocks, but reduce local consumption.The increase in local production after a contemporary frost may explain why the stock is larger in the next year. Specifically, a contemporary frost in all competitor countries can increase local coffee production by 2,632 tons, exports by 729 tons, while reducing local consumption by 79 tons and stocks by 855 tons. One possible explanation can be that countries decrease their stock after a negative production shock in competitors to capture the potential demandTable 1. Gravity estimation of coffee exports: PPML results.  ","tokenCount":"826"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/2110120790.json b/data/part_1/2110120790.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..f57af6b5295006e27784b7040d21c3a856930b81
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+++ b/data/part_1/2110120790.json
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6dd5cfaf6e9990af9d1d2e0b226ac929","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8fa15b53-e165-4853-b0c2-e081c6bccec9/retrieve","id":"-7346612"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"63e31ce0-605e-413c-807e-2fbd70b09634","pagecount":"145","content":"Cuadro 'La voz del consumidor\". Datos típicos antes de procesar 105 Cuadro Simbología para la evaluación técnica competitiva 107 Cuadro Simbología y escala de valores para determinar las relaciones entre los QUÉ's y los CÓMO's 112 Cuadro Simbología para el establecimiento de correlaciones 112 Cuadro Importancia relativa de los requerimientos de diseño 114 Cuadro Afinidad fuerte entre requerimientos del consumidor y requerimientos de diseño 115 Cuadro Lista de los componentes seleccionados 121Ing. Johanna Arístizabal, directora científicadel proyecto, por su apoyo, dedicación y empeño. Su disciplina y compromiso hicieron posible la culminación del proyecto y tuvieron gran aporte a nuestra formación.Ing. Álvaro Figueroa, director del proyecto, por su apoyo e indicaciones metodológicas.A Bernardo Ospina director ejecutivo de CLAYUCA, por su respaldo y por brindarnos la oportunidad de ser parte del equipo de CLAYUCA.A Industria Química Aserquim Ltda. por su colaboración durante la realización de este proyecto.A Mauricio Reyes, Gerente Comercial de Raisio Chemical, por su oportuna asesoría e A todos los integrantes de Clayuca por su amabilidad y respeto.A DIOS A Juan Esteban porque su valiosa colaboración hizo posible la entrega de este proyecto.A todas aquellas personas, instituciones que de una u otra manera contribuyeron en la realización de este proyecto.A mi familia por su apoyo y comprensiónA mi familia por su apoyo y confianza en la realización de todos mis proyectos Aunque la yuca es un cultivo autóctono de América Latina y el Caribe esta región aporta menos del 20% de la producción mundial y Colombia el 1%; las tendencias de producción dependen fuertemente de la evolución de Brasil, principal productor de la región. Su desarrollo se ha visto perjudicado principalmente por las políticas internacionales encaminadas a fomentar la producción y consumo de cereales y por la falta de apoyo de los gobiernos de los países productores.Paradójicamente, Colombia es uno de los países más avanzados en cuanto a variedades mejoradas y manejo del cultivo; pues cuenta con uno de los centros mas importantes de investigación sobre la yuca como lo es el Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical, CIAT y dentro de este el Consorcio Latinoamericano y del Caribe de apoyo a la Investigación y al desarrollo de la yuca, CLAYUCA, entre otros organismos a nivel nacional, donde se han generado grandes avances en el mejoramiento del cultivo de la yuca que América Central, Asia y África han aprovechado más que el mismo país. Lo que les ha permitido posicionarse en el mundo como grandes productores y procesadores. En Colombia, este cultivo no se ha beneficiado de un modelo de desarrollo tecnológico que le permita ser competitivo a nivel internacional. En efecto, mientras en el mercado colombiano la yuca se destina básicamente al consumo humano de raíces frescas y a la obtención de productos de baja transformación como trozos secos, harinas, almidón agrio y recientemente su uso como snack, en el mundo entero se están buscando alternativas para darle un mejor aprovechamiento y en especial generar productos de mayor valor agregado para fines industriales en la industria de papel y cartón, textil, alimenticia y farmacéutica.Actualmente, el gobierno está apoyando el desarrollo de la yuca dentro de la cadena productiva de maíz y soya y se ha promovido la creación de trapiches yuqueros para la producción de harina de yuca, inicialmente para destino a concentrados, los cuales incentivarán la producción de la yuca, con lo cual existe la oportunidad de explorar nuevos mercados que permitan tener al sector una mayor demanda de raíces para su uso en nuevos mercados. Es aquí, donde la Ingeniería Industrial tiene una oportunidad de participación, gracias a formación y posibilidad de identificar nuevos mercados y desarrollar nuevos productos, que permitan promover la incorporación de modelos de gestión e innovación que aseguren una ventaja competitiva del sector yuquero.Recientes estudios han demostrado que los almidones modificados son una de las opciones tecnológicas más atractivas dado su valor agregado y los altos volúmenes de consumo en varios sectores de la industria. Dentro de estos las dextrinas ocupan un lugar importante. A pesar de que el almidón de yuca ha sido reconocido como la materia prima adecuada para la producción de dextrinas de alta calidad, las fuentes que predominan en el mundo son maíz y papa. Las dextrinas de yuca presentan soluciones de excelente claridad y estabilidad, son inodoras e insaboras, forman películas claras y brillantes con una pegajosidad y adhesividad superior; propiedades no destacables en las dextrinas de maíz, unido a que el almidón de yuca es más fácil de modificar que el de maíz. Las barreras de entrada impuestas por la Unión Europea y Estados Unidos a las importaciones de yuca han frenado su comercio, favoreciendo al maíz y la papa en la obtención de almidón y almidones modificados. Adicionalmente, estas potencias han desarrollado procesos de producción eficientes, posicionándose a través de multinacionales o de alianzas, lo cual les ha permitido dominar el mercado mundial. En consecuencia, el maíz, la papa, el trigo mismos no son la competencia, sino las transformaciones asociadas a estos, la eficiencia de sus procesos y las características funcionales de sus productos de valor agregado.Aunque los adhesivos para papel y cartón constituyen la principal aplicación de las dextrinas (modificadas por vía seca), estas son usadas con otras modificaciones en diversas ramas de la industria particularmente en el sector de alimentos y farmacéutico, mercados donde tienen un gran potencial dado sus usos específicos. En Colombia, existe un mercado potencial para uso de las dextrinas de yuca que no ha sido explorado y tiene una gran posibilidad de competir gracias a las ventajas comparativas de la yuca frente a sus sustitutos.Al respecto, este estudio buscó contribuir con la promoción del desarrollo tecnológico del cultivo de la yuca a través de la identificación de mercados y productos en los cuales las dextrinas de yuca tienen aplicación. También contribuyó con el diseño de un producto con base en las necesidades identificadas en el estudio de mercado y finalmente se determinó la viabilidad económica de su producción a un escalado industrial.La metodología seguida se basó en una investigación de mercado de las dextrinas que incluyó los ámbitos nacional y mundial. A partir de este estudio se logró concluir sobre aspectos relacionados con importaciones, exportaciones, consumo y producción. Para identificar las aplicaciones industriales en el ámbito nacional, se realizó un análisis más profundo de las importaciones que permitió determinar los principales consumidores de este insumo en Colombia. Una vez conocidos los usuarios, fue posible obtener los sectores de aplicación más importantes y recurrir a fuentes primarias para la identificación de las aplicaciones industriales de las dextrinas. Se llevó a cabo un estudio de campo dirigido a los principales sectores de aplicación determinando así los posibles productos que constituyen el mercado actual y potencial de las dextrinas. Posteriormente se desarrolló una metodología de selección que incluyó la consulta a expertos con el fin de evaluar las alternativas de productos frente a diversos criterios. Finalmente este método permitió la selección del producto diseñar.A través de la metodología QFD se diseñó un producto acorde con las necesidades y expectativas del consumidor y finalmente se realizó un estudio de la viabilidad económica del proyecto.El almidón es la reserva de energía de casi todas las plantas, sin embargo es muy abundante en las semillas, raíces y tubérculos. Consiste en una cadena de unidades Dglucopironasil y tiene la formula general (C6H10O6)n. Tiene dos componentes principales: amilosa (fracción insoluble) entre 10-20% y amilopectina (fracción soluble) entre 80-90%.Es la materia prima de diversos productos de la industria y es el derivado más importante de la yuca. A pesar de que el almidón nativo 1 tiene varios usos industriales, a menudo las industrias requieren almidón modificado debido a las aplicaciones y funciones del mismo.Los almidones modificados tienen una amplia gama de aplicaciones a nivel industrial, las cuales se derivan de las propiedades de los gránulos de almidón tras su transformación por diferentes tratamientos físicos o químicos. La diversidad de productos obtenidos por modificación del almidón nativo, su valor comercial y altos volúmenes de consumo hace de estas opciones tecnológicas unas de las más atractivas para el desarrollo del sector yuquero en el país.Los avances tecnológicos, en productos más desarrollados y específicos hacen necesarios almidones con mayor estabilidad tanto en altas como en bajas temperaturas, mayor resistencia a los esfuerzos mecánicos, mayor poder de adhesividad y mayor resistencia a factores estresantes. Además, muchas aplicaciones del almidón requieren gránulos solubles capaces de absorber gran cantidad de agua, dentro de este grupo se destacan las dextrinas. Durante la conversión a dextrinas del almidón los cambios más notables son la reducción de la viscosidad y el aumento de la solubilidad en agua fría, permitiendo así obtener soluciones con mayor contenido de sólidos a baja viscosidad. En este capítulo se presentan los aspectos más relevantes de las dextrinas.En su definición más simple, una dextrina es un almidón modificado, producto de la degradación del almidón obtenido por efecto químico, térmico o enzimático. Las dextrinas se obtienen calentando el almidón en presencia de enzimas o de catalizadores ácidos o alcalinos. Este es un proceso degradativo parecido a la hidrólisis pero de menor intensidad. Los cambios más notables que tiene el almidón durante la conversión a dextrinas son la reducción de la viscosidad y aumento de la solubilidad en agua fría. Las dextrinas pueden clasificarse en cuatro grupos, las maltodextrinas obtenidas por acción enzimática, el segundo grupo lo constituyen las dextrinas de Schardinger producidas por la acción del Macerans bacillus sobre el almidón. El tercer grupo lo conforman las dextrinas por hidrólisis ácida en medio acuoso, finalmente, el último grupo son las pirodextrinas obtenidas por acción de calor y/o ácido sobre el almidón. La manufactura dependiendo del tipo puede ser realizada por dos vías: vía húmeda y vía seca.Vía Húmeda. El almidón se dispersa en agua y es calentado en presencia de un catalizador o tratado con enzimas. Generalmente, las dextrinas obtenidas por esta vía reciben el nombre de maltodextrinas. En este caso se obtiene un jarabe que es filtrado, refinado y secado por atomización. Estas dextrinas son, por lo general, usadas en la industria de alimentos.Vía Seca. El almidón es calentado sólo o con pequeñas cantidades de un catalizador, son llamadas dextrinas de torrefacción o pirodextrinas para diferenciarlas de aquellas dextrinas producidas por procesos hidrolíticos. Cuando el almidón seco se calienta experimenta una serie progresiva de cambios irreversibles. El mecanismo de conversión de las pirodextrinas es complejo e involucra una serie de procesos entre los que se destacan principalmente la ruptura hidrolítica, re-arreglo de las moléculas y repolimerización, veáse la Figura 1. Todas las variaciones en la estructura producen solamente dos cambios característicos. Uno es el tamaño de la molécula; el otro es, esencialmente, un cambio en el grado de linealidad. Cada uno de estos cambios tiene un efecto específico sobre las características físicas y químicas de la dextrina. La variación en el peso molecular promedio influye en la viscosidad de la dextrina, mientras que el cambio en la linealidad influye enormemente en las características de solubilidad de la dextrina.Figura 1. Hidrólisis y repolimerización durante la dextrinización del almidón Fuente: Estudio de la dextrinización del almidón de yuca por vía secaLas pirodextrinas pueden ser de tres clases: dextrinas blancas, dextrinas amarillas y gomas británicas. Cada una tiene características propias de color, viscosidad y solubilidad. Dependiendo de los tiempos y temperaturas de proceso y de los niveles de catalizador utilizados, las dextrinas pueden ser total o parcialmente solubles en agua fría y dar soluciones de viscosidad relativamente baja. La vía seca que requiere menos etapas de proceso y consumo energético lo que la hace menos costosa y ambientalmente compatible por la ausencia de efluentes.Existen numerosos parámetros por los cuales una dextrina puede ser caracterizada y que pueden usarse para hacer el seguimiento de la conversión. Las propiedades del producto final dependen no solo de la temperatura de conversión, sino también del tipo de almidón usado, la cantidad y tipo de catalizador utilizado y su tiempo de difusión en el almidón, el contenido de humedad del almidón, la duración del periodo de tostación y el equipo de proceso. Pequeñas variaciones de estos factores pueden dar un producto con características diferentes. Las propiedades más importantes se citan a continuación y la Figura 2 muestra una representación de los cambios que ocurren en estas propiedades durante el proceso de producción de dextrinas amarillas, las cuales son pirodextrinas altamente convertidas.En las primeras fases de conversión se presenta poco cambio en la solubilidad en agua fría, sin embargo, esta se incrementa con mayor grado de conversión; cuando las temperaturas alcanzan los 130 -145°C la solubilidad alcanza aproximadamente el 100% (1). El comportamiento de pasta desaparece y se forman soluciones estables de viscosidad relativamente baja. El aumento en la solubilidad se debe a la disminución del tamaño de las cadenas por el debilitamiento de las uniones de hidrogeno. Las dextrinas blancas, de baja conversión, tienen limitada solubilidad en agua fría y muestran el comportamiento del almidón nativo, mientras que las dextrinas convertidas totalmente, son prácticamente 100% solubles.Viscosidad. La viscosidad decrece sustancialmente durante la primera hora de dextrinización, hasta lograr una curva casi plana al avanzar la tostación. Este cambio es el resultado de dos reacciones simultáneas, hidrólisis y repolimerización.alcanzan un máximo casi al mismo tiempo que la viscosidad desciende drásticamente.Durante este período, se forman sacáridos incluyendo glucosa, maltosa y oligosacáridos que pueden dar a la dextrina un valor reductor excepcionalmente alto. La repolimerización de estos compuestos de bajo peso molecular a altas temperaturas origina la disminución en el contenido de azúcares reductores. El contenido de azucares reductores de las dextrinas canarias es tan bajo, que llega a valores cercanos al 1%.Humedad. El contenido de humedad del almidón se reduce gradualmente durante el proceso de dextrinización. El rango del contenido de humedad final es de 3 a 5 % para las dextrinas blancas y usualmente menor de 2 % para las dextrinas amarillas. Sin embargo, en contacto con la humedad normal de la atmósfera, la dextrina puede recuperar la humedad hasta un contenido final de 8 a 10 %.Color. Este depende de la temperatura y el grado de acidez aplicados durante la conversión. Las dextrinas obtenidas a bajas temperaturas son blancas, a medida que se aumentan la temperatura y el contenido de ácido, el color se va oscureciendo.Figura 2. Cambios en las propiedades durante la producción de dextrinas amarillas Fuente: Modified Starches: Properties and Uses.El origen del almidón es muy importante para la manufactura de dextrinas, así como para la calidad y propiedades del producto final. Las fuentes más utilizadas son maíz, papa y yuca y algunas veces sagú. Los almidones de maíz y papa son los más usados por los países desarrollados los cuales han implementado procesos eficientes de extracción y modificación.El proceso de producción de dextrinas es esencialmente el mismo para todos los almidones, pero la facilidad de conversión cambia con el tipo de almidón y su calidad. Por muchos años el almidón de yuca fue reconocido como el almidón para obtener dextrinas de alta calidad, prime quality dextrins Las dextrinas más económicas son fabricadas a partir de almidón de maíz, en razón de su bajo costo y disponibilidad; sin embargo, este almidón requiere tiempos de conversión largos y temperaturas altas, y las películas obtenidas con estas dextrinas son opacas y con un brillo imperfecto. Las dextrinas de alta calidad se obtienen a partir de papa y yuca, cuyos almidones son relativamente más fáciles de convertir, son inodoras e insaboras, sus películas son transparentes, brillantes y poseen una adhesividad superior.Las operaciones comúnmente llevadas a cabo en la manufactura de dextrinas por vía seca son: mezcla del catalizador, maduración, presecado, tostación o conversión, enfriamiento, rehumedecimiento, y acondicionamiento. Algunas pueden ser omitidas según conveniencia en el proceso.1.3.1 Mezcla del Catalizador. Esta etapa es de particular importancia porque el catalizador debe ser distribuido uniformemente sobre los gránulos de almidón, logrando una completa penetración en todo el volumen, de lo contrario problemas de carbonización de las partículas de almidón. El método más satisfactorio ha sido el de atomizar la solución acuosa del catalizador sobre el almidón mientras es convenientemente mezclado. El ácido debe estar suficientemente diluido, puesto que la capacidad y la resistencia a la penetración decrecen con la disminución en el contenido de agua del almidón.Esta etapa es opcional. Se refiere al almacenamiento del almidón una vez adicionado el catalizador para permitir que se difunda completamente por toda la masa. Sin embargo, con una eficiente mezcla se garantiza una buena difusión del catalizador.La reducción de la humedad antes de la etapa de conversión es necesaria, dado que un alto contenido de humedad en el almidón es indeseable, particularmente a bajos niveles de pH, ya que promueve escisión hidrolítica y la consecuente formación de azúcares durante el primer periodo de calentamiento, suprimiendo las reacciones de condensación las cuales usualmente se dan sólo si el contenido de humedad del almidón es inferior a 3%. El presecado se lleva a cabo a temperatura entre 50 y 60°C, hasta que el almidón tenga niveles de humedad por debajo del 3%.La tostación puede ser llevada a cabo en un equipo diseñado para los propósitos, una de las principales condiciones es que permita un cuidadoso control de la temperatura hasta el final del ciclo de calentamiento, dado que uno de los aspectos esenciales del proceso de conversión es evitar gradientes de temperatura a través de la masa. Adicionalmente, una buena ventilación es necesaria para lograr una rápida remoción de humedad y los vapores formados durante la dextrinización. Según estudios realizados las temperaturas las temperaturas de tostación varían entre 120 y 150°C encontrándose esta última como la mejor, dado que la velocidad de reacción es más rápida, con tiempos de conversión de una hora.1.3.5 Enfriamiento. Finalizada la conversión al nivel deseado, la acción del catalizador es detenida con un rápido y completo enfriamiento, previniendo así la formación de azúcares solubles.1.3.6 Rehumedecimiento. Esta etapa es opcional. La dextrina puede ser humidificada hasta un nivel entre 5 a 12% por exposición a aire humidificado o por atomización de agua sobre ella. El objetivo del rehumedecimiento es evitar la formación de espuma cuando la dextrina es cocinada con agua, hecho que se debe a los gases adsorbidos en la etapa de tostación.Si es necesario la dextrina es molida o tamizada y finalmente empacada en sacos de papel.Dado que las soluciones con dextrinas permiten obtener soluciones con mayores concentraciones de sólidos y menor viscosidad son usadas generalmente para recubrir, adherir y encapsular. En operaciones de fundición, insecticidas, tratamiento de aguas residuales, aglomerados de carbón y otros agregados minerales, se usan como agentes de unión de componentes. Dada la gran variedad de tipos de dextrinas que pueden ser obtenidas, estas pueden ser usadas en diferentes sectores industriales, el Cuadro 1 resume las diferentes funcionalidades de las dextrinas en sectores de mayor aplicación. A continuación se detallan los más importantes.En la industria alimenticia las dextrinas se usan como mejoradores de masa en panificación, estabilizantes y espesantes, como fuente de caloría en productos lácteos y en la fabricación de gomas dulces. Estas pueden reemplazar desde 20 hasta 40 % la goma arábiga cuyo precio es muy elevado en ciertos tipos de dulces como chicles duros. Las maltodextrinas se utilizan en diversas aplicaciones en alimentos, principalmente como agentes de relleno, proveedores de cuerpo, controladores de sabor dulce e higroscopicidad, agentes de recubrimiento, de cohesividad, de secado, encapsulantes de grasa y estabilizadores de espuma. Se encuentran aplicaciones en productos como donas, comida para bebes, nueces, dulces, enlatados, tabletas comprimidas, productos de panificación, lácteos y productos congelados.Como agentes de relleno pueden:(1) Reducir la pérdida de volumen en producto almacenado ó en proceso.(2) Absorber grasas y aceites para mantener las propiedades de libre flujo.(3) Estandarizar la calidad de productos naturales (especies, sabores).(4) Diluir ingredientes de alto valor (sabores, intensificadores de sabor).Adhesivos. Es la mayor industria consumidora de dextrinas tanto blancas como amarillas en la preparación de adhesivos líquidos y en polvo, debido a su viscosidad estable, alto porcentaje de sólidos, alta solubilidad y excelentes propiedades de rehumedecimiento. Debido a su mayor poder adhesivo y fluidez, son ampliamente usadas en las máquinas que etiquetan enlatados y botellas, en cartones, fondo de sacos de papel, sobres, etc. En la encuadernación de libros, sellado de cartones, pegado de cigarrillos, fabricación de fósforos y cajas de fósforos, y en la manufactura de tubos en espiral enrollados.Cuadro 1. Funciones de las dextrinas en la industria Textiles. Las dextrinas blancas son idealmente convenientes para la industria textil debido a su gran propiedad adhesiva y penetración incrementada. En encolado, se usan junto con el almidón. En acabado, sirven como un agente de relleno ideal para producir el manejo deseado. En impresión, las dextrinas se usan como espesantes de tintas.Tinturas. En la industria de colorantes son también reconocidas, ya que las dextrinas altamente solubles se usan como diluyentes para estandarizar las tinturas con respecto a los rangos de colores. Las dextrinas se eliminan rápida y fácilmente y no reaccionan con los químicos usados en el proceso. Colombia es por tradición un país agrícola con grandes posibilidades de crecimiento económico en un sector que se ha tenido olvidado y al cual no se la ha dado la importancia que se merece. Actualmente, el gobierno esta apoyando en gran medida el desarrollo de este sector con programas como las cadenas competitivas, a través de la construcción de trapiches yuqueros 2 que permitirán mejorar la posición de la yuca en varias regiones del país. La yuca es uno de los productos de consumo más importantes del país, con 190.197 hectáreas y una producción anual de 1'980.110 toneladas en el 2001. Además, debido a sus características este cultivo no requiere técnicas sofisticadas de producción, e incluso genera buen rendimiento en condiciones de baja fertilidad del suelo, dada su tolerancia y gran flexibilidad a diferentes condiciones climatológicas.El estudio permitirá tener las bases para el establecimiento de una nueva actividad agroindustrial basada en un cultivo local; contribuyendo al desarrollo de capacidades locales, incentivando y fortaleciendo la agroindustria al generar oportunidades de empleo e ingresos al sector rural.A través de esta investigación se podría incentivar la producción de yuca y por ende facilitar la obtención de un precio estable, ya que actualmente está sujeto a muchas fluctuaciones debido a que no se presenta una demanda continua, además el maíz como producto sustituto es un fuerte competidor debido a que es importado a un precio relativamente bajo, dado que es subsidiado y producido en los países exportadores a precios competitivos con el uso de tecnologías avanzadas como la modificación genética.Con base en los estudios realizados 3 se demostró la viabilidad técnica de la producción de dextrinas, el presente estudio permitirá definir la viabilidad comercial e identificar los mercados en los cuales este producto tiene potencial.A partir del diseño de productos de dextrinas de yuca se aprovechan las ventajas comparativas que posee el almidón de yuca, frente a otras fuentes de almidón como maíz y papa, para la producción de dextrinas, como son facilidad de conversión en tiempos y temperaturas de proceso y la obtención de un producto de calidad prime. Las dextrinas de yuca poseen mayores ventajas frente a las dextrinas de maíz; tales como excelente claridad, estabilidad y formación de películas de mayor adhesividad y pegajosidad.Adicionalmente, las dextrinas de yuca son inodoras e insaboras a diferencia de las dextrinas de maíz cuyo olor y sabor es característico.Los productos obtenidos de fuentes orgánicas, se acogen a la nueva tendencia hacia aspectos como la biodegradabilidad y sostenibilidad ambiental de los productos.Estudiar las aplicaciones industriales y diseñar un producto a partir de dextrinas de yuca obtenidas por vía seca.• Identificar los usos de las dextrinas de yuca en Colombia.• Seleccionar los usos de las dextrinas de yuca más viables con el fin de diseñar un producto.• Diseñar un producto a partir de la dextrina de yuca para la aplicación definida.Dado que el proyecto involucró un estudio de mercado y el diseño de un producto, la metodología seguida consistió inicialmente en una investigación de mercado, posteriormente se llevo a cabo un estudio de campo y se seleccionó el producto a diseñar utilizando el método Delphi, finalmente se realizó un diseño de producto con la herramienta QFD.La investigación de mercado comprendió un diagnóstico de la situación actual de los mercados de yuca, almidón de yuca y dextrinas a nivel nacional y global. Se realizó un estudio del registro de importaciones de Mincomex, con el cual se obtuvieron a través de filtros las mayores empresas importadoras de dextrinas o productos afines; luego se hicieron entrevistas y visitas a las empresas obtenidas en la etapa anterior. Esta última fase se denominó estudio de campo, en esta se obtuvieron las aplicaciones más importantes de las dextrinas en el país.Para la selección de los posibles productos a diseñar se utilizó el método Delphi a través del cual un número de expertos calificó las opciones de acuerdo a distintos criterios.El diseño del producto se hizo a través de la herramienta QDF, o Despliegue de la Función de Calidad, asegurando el conocimiento completo de los deseos de los consumidores.Finalmente, se hizo una validación de los resultados por medio de un desarrollo experimental y se determinó la viabilidad económica del producto diseñado.Los logros obtenidos en el proyecto son en su orden los siguientes:Revisión del mercado global y nacional, raíces almidones y dextrinas de yuca, obteniendo así panorama de la situación actual de estos productos.Estudio de las aplicaciones más importantes de las dextrinas en Colombia.Selección de las aplicaciones más viables de las dextrinas en el país.Adaptación de una metodología de selección que puede aplicada en otros proyectos que impliquen selección.Adaptación de una herramienta de diseño útil para el desarrollo de nuevos productos en la organización que patrocinó en proyecto, CLAYUCA, con la cual es posible obtener productos de pertinencia en el sector y donde se tiene en cuenta la voz del consumidor.Diseño de un adhesivo a partir de dextrina de yuca obedeciendo a las necesidades del mercado, Estudio de la factibilidad económica de la producción de adhesivos de dextrina de yuca.En este capítulo se presentan los aspectos más relevantes de la producción, el comercio y los usos que tienen las raíces, el almidón y los almidones modificados particularmente dextrinas de yuca en las regiones más importantes del mundo y en Colombia.  El almidón se clasifica en tres categorías de acuerdo a su uso o su procesamiento: nativo, hidrolizado y modificado. Existen dos tipos de industrias consumidoras de almidón: las alimenticias y las no alimenticias. En las industrias alimenticias se destaca el uso en panadería y pastelería, sopas, helados pastas, etc., mientras que en la industria no alimenticia, el almidón se usa generalmente modificado en sectores como papel, textil, y farmacéutico.El mercado global de almidones representa alrededor de 33 millones de toneladas anuales, de los cuales aproximadamente el 10% corresponde al almidón de yuca, con un crecimiento anual de 3,1% en la demanda según la FAO. En el período comprendido entre 1980 y 1997 se registró un crecimiento anual de 4,7%. Los principales importadores de almidón de yuca son en orden de importancia: Japón, Taiwán, Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, Malasia, Singapur, Estados Unidos y Filipinas.Los mayores importadores de dextrinas y otros almidones modificados son Asia y América Latina, con volúmenes de importación que alcanzan valores del orden de US $ 3'859.000.En cuanto a las exportaciones el 95% es realizado por tres países: Tailandia, quien exporta alrededor del 85%, Indonesia y Brasil abarcan el 10% restante.Los precios del almidón de yuca dependen en gran medida de los precios de sus sustitutos, especialmente de los almidones de maíz. La Figura 5 ilustra esta situación en Estados Unidos. En esta se ve claramente que cuando el precio del almidón de maíz sube, las importaciones de almidón de yuca lo hacen también. Efectivamente, en 1996 cuando se registró una gran alza en los precios del maíz en el ámbito mundial, se dispararon las importaciones de almidón de yuca.Figura 5. Relación entre los precios de almidón de maíz y las importaciones de almidones de otras fuentes en Estados Unidos.Fuente: Business opportunities for the use of cassavaEn cuanto a los precios de las transacciones se destaca que los almidones de yuca tienen precios muy competitivos, alrededor de 0,3 US $/kg, mientras que los demás almidones se transan a precios por encima de este valor, especialmente el maíz que se compra a precios alrededor de 0,7 US $/ kg. Ver Figura 6. Sin embargo, es pertinente destacar que el precio de almidón de yuca ha disminuido considerablemente en los últimos años, ya que en años anteriores a 1996 su precio oscilaba alrededor de 0,6 US $/kg, y en 1992 alcanzó su valor más alto, 0,74 US $ / Kg. A continuación se detallan aspectos relacionados con el comercio de la yuca y el almidón de yuca en las principales regiones productoras.En África alrededor del 88% de la yuca se usa para consumo humano, sin embargo existe un creciente interés en incorporar entre los usos de la yuca el consumo destinado a la alimentación animal. Aunque la alimentación animal representa solamente 6%, este porcentaje ha venido aumentando en los últimos años paralelamente al crecimiento de la producción ganadera. Aunque en este continente la yuca se cultiva en 39 países, casi el 70% de la producción de la región procede de Nigeria, la República Democrática del Congo y Tanzania. A pesar de producir casi el 50 % de la producción mundial, los rendimientos son muy inferiores (9,5 kg /ha) a los niveles que podrían alcanzarse, lo cual se debe en gran medida a que la yuca es cultivada por pequeños campesinos en rotación con otros cultivos y en zonas muy densamente pobladas.En África se han establecido recientemente industrias de almidón de yuca en países como Uganda, Tanzania y Madagascar, sin embargo, actualmente estas no están en funcionamiento. En Malawi la industria de papel y cartón ha manifestado interés en comprar 1,5 millones de toneladas de almidón de yuca diarias para adhesivos.Igualmente, las industrias de dulces y procesadoras de alimentos desean adquirir almidones locales.En América Latina y el Caribe la yuca está en una etapa de transición para convertirse en insumo de la industria y venderse como producto orientado al mercado. A pesar de ser un cultivo autóctono de estas regiones América Latina y el Caribe sólo contribuyen con menos del 20% de la producción mundial. Las tendencias de producción de la región dependen fuertemente de la evolución en el Brasil, ya que los demás países productores Fuente: Business opportunities for the use of cassavaLos estudios realizados han identificado dos oportunidades para el almidón de yuca en Europa. La primera, a través del ofrecimiento de productos a menor precio, lo cual se puede lograr con la mejora de cosechas, de suelos, y variedades. La segunda consiste en la explotación del almidón de yuca en nichos de mercado en los cuales no han sido explorados lo suficiente y que actualmente están siendo objeto de investigación. Entre estos se destacan la industria farmacéutica y el sector alimenticio, especialmente el de comidas preparadas como salsas, pudines, sopas, mermeladas y gomas. No obstante, es importante intensificar la investigación sobre otras aplicaciones en el sector no alimenticio.En Asia existe poco consumo de yuca fresca, y se produce más almidón. El 70% de la producción de yuca se origina en Indonesia y Tailandia. El 40% de la producción se destina a la alimentación humana, mientras que el 6% se destina para la utilización industrial y el 8% se desperdicia o se pierde. En Malasia y Tailandia las raíces de yuca se usan básicamente para fabricar almidones y en la industria del pienso, pero en los últimos años se ha incrementado el consumo de tallarines y productos de pastelería elaborados con yuca. En China y Vietnam la demanda de almidones ha generado aumento en la demanda de raíces. En Filipinas el uso más frecuente que se le da a la yuca es en la elaboración de trozos secos para exportación. La mayoría de las industrias de almidón de yuca están ubicadas en Asia, donde la transformación se lleva a cabo en grandes fábricas existentes en Tailandia, Vietnam y China. Efectivamente, mientras que en la mayor parte de las regiones apenas se ha explorado la posibilidad de utilizar la yuca como insumo en los procesos manufactureros, Tailandia ha promovido el desarrollo de la industria de almidón de yuca para satisfacer sus necesidades internas y con fines de exportación. Así tienen un gran potencial. Sus propiedades lo hacen adecuado para producir comida para bebes, productos no alergénicos y comida para personas hospitalizadas. Además, debido a que este almidón se puede modificar puede competir con almidones derivados de otras fuentes en la producción de alcohol, pegantes, endulzantes, productos biodegradables, butano, acetona, explosivos, y como aprestos para las industrias del papel y textil. Por lo tanto, la mayor oportunidad de competir contra almidones provenientes de otras fuentes se obtiene concentrándose en hacer productos innovadores y competitivos, en términos de calidad y costo, para lo cual es necesario invertir en investigación y desarrollo.  1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999   1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999  En las plazas mayoristas de Colombia se negocian tres variedades de yuca fresca: la chirosa, la común o criolla y la ICA. Estas se diferencian en su origen, ya que provienen de diferentes zonas del país, sin embargo la más apetecida es la chirosa, que se comercia precios más altos que las otras dos. Los datos obtenidos del Ministerio de Agricultura a través de la base de datos SIPSA, revelan que para el mes de enero de 2004 el precio promedio al cual se transa la yuca oscila entre 400 y 1200 $/kg, siendo Bogotá la cuidad donde se registran los mayores precios.Los cultivos de yuca para consumo humano se localizan en áreas próximas a los centros de consumo, en climas medios y cálidos y en suelos de todas las características. Las áreas de yuca con destino industrial y para alimentación animal se sitúan en suelos menos fértiles, generalmente marginales. En efecto, en la Costa Atlántica se produce yuca seca para producción de alimentos balanceados para animales y yuca fresca para consumo humano; en el departamento del Cauca, la gran parte de la producción de yuca se destina a la industria de almidones; y en la región cafetera y Llanos Orientales, la producción se enfoca al consumo humano.almidón en el país son almidón agrio y almidón nativo. La producción de almidón de yuca, principalmente el almidón agrio esta concentrada en los departamentos del Cauca y Valle del Cauca, con una producción cercana a las 23.000 toneladas anuales, proveídas por casi cerca de 120 pequeñas rallanderías de las 200 que habían en el año 1988 10 .Igualmente, en la Costa Atlántica se produce almidón nativo de yuca.En Colombia la utilización del almidón todavía se complementa a través de las importaciones, principalmente de maíz proveniente de los Estados Unidos y Brasil, de almidón de yuca traído de Ecuador, Brasil y Venezuela, debido a que en muchas ocasiones los precios de los almidones importados son inferiores a los de los almidones nacionales.Tal como se enunció anteriormente, existe una tendencia a usar la yuca procesada en almidón, principalmente en la producción de alimentos. La Corporación Colombia Internacional, destaca que el crecimiento del mercado nacional depende en gran medida de la competitividad del producto frente a sus sustitutos, que podría mejorar siempre y cuando se incremente la productividad por hectárea de los cultivos y se consoliden y difundan las variedades mejoradas de menor perecibilidad. Además, para que la yuca deje de ser vista como un cultivo de consumo humano, es necesario difundir los otros usos que esta puede tener especialmente, reemplazando otras fuentes de almidón tanto en el sector alimenticio como en otros sectores.El estudio del mercado global permitió tener una referencia de la situación de las dextrinas a nivel mundial. Sin embargo, es pertinente resaltar que la información existente sobre dextrinas en el ámbito mundial es escasa, puesto que la gran mayoría de documentos hacen referencia a yuca y almidones modificados en general, por lo que se encuentra poca información discriminada por tipo de almidón modificado. A continuación se describen algunos aspectos inherentes a la situación mundial de las dextrinas.De acuerdo con los datos publicados por el International Starch Institute 11 , los países que más dextrinas producen son India, China y Tailandia, independientemente de la fuente de 10 CECORA: Central Cooperativa de la Reforma Agraria Ltda.Fuente:Internacional Starch Institute.Fuente: International Starch Institute.El estudio de mercado nacional de las dextrinas incluyó el estudio de importaciones, exportaciones, compra y venta nacional, producción y consumo. Para llevar a cabo el presente estudio se consultó el registro de importaciones y exportaciones del Ministerio de Comercio Exterior a través de la base de datos BACEX y la Encuesta Nacional Manufacturera realizada por el DANE. significativo de importación que alcanzó un valor cercano a 1.409 toneladas, representando el 34,74% del volumen total importado durante los años anteriores. En las Figuras 14, 15 y 16 se detalla el comportamiento de las importaciones y las exportaciones para cada una de las anteriores categorías.Categoría 1: Dextrinas y demás almidones y féculas modificados (por ejemplo: almidones y féculas pregelatinizadas o esterificadas).En el año 2002 las importaciones sobrepasaron de manera significativa las exportaciones, en el resto de los años estos rubros estuvieron más equilibrados. Durante todo el periodo de estudio se importaron tan solo 660 toneladas. Esta categoría presentó el mayor volumen de importación comparada con las otras dos categorías durante todo el periodo de estudio; la cantidad importada de insumos de esta categoría fue 10 veces mayor que la cantidad importada de productos de la categoría 2, colas y demás productos afines y 6,3 veces mayor que la cantidad importada de aprestos y productos afines incluidos en la categoría 3. Categoría 3: Aprestos y productos de acabado, aceleradores de tintura o de fijación de materias colorantes y demás productos y preparaciones, a base de materias amiláceas.Las importaciones de esta categoría sobrepasan ampliamente las exportaciones durante todos los años. Las exportaciones tan solo representan en promedio el 13% de las importaciones en cada año, con excepción del año 2000 en el que las importaciones cayeron drásticamente; en este año solo se importaron 7,7 toneladas, cantidad muy pequeña en comparación a 300 toneladas importadas en promedio durante todo el periodo de estudio. La Figura 16 detalla el comportamiento de estos rubros. La figura 18, muestra el precio de exportación de aprestos y productos contemplados en la categoría decreció a partir del año 1999 hasta alcanzar en el año 2003 un valor similar al de las otras categorías; alrededor de US $ 0,54/kg. A lo largo del periodo de estudio, los valores FOB de exportación de las demás categorías, dextrinas, colas y productos afines se mantuvieron estables. Fuente: Encuesta nacional de manufactura. DANE.Como se puede observar en la Figura 19 las compras sobrepasan las ventas en todos los años. En 1998 el rubro más representativo de las compras de dextrinas alcanzó el valor de 1.197 toneladas sobrepasando en un 47% a las ventas realizadas en este mismo año.Durante este periodo se compró la dextrina a un precio promedio de $1.511 por kilogramo. Por otra parte las ventas mostraron un leve crecimiento y se realizaron a un precio promedio de $942 por kilogramo. Durante todo el periodo de estudio, la cantidad de dextrina consumida mantuvo un comportamiento estable, aunque el rubro más representativo de consumo se presentó en el año 1998 alcanzando el 52% del volumen total de dextrina consumida durante los demás años. Por su parte la producción de dextrinas es de 578,7 toneladas anuales promedio que se considera bajo comparándolo con otros países.El estudio de campo permitió indagar a fondo sobre las aplicaciones industriales de las dextrinas. En la investigación se consultaron inicialmente fuentes secundarias para la identificación de los consumidores actuales y potenciales y posteriormente se usaron fuentes primarias al realizar un estudio de campo para dichos consumidores.Con el fin de conocer las aplicaciones que tienen las dextrinas en la industria, se identificaron los principales consumidores de este insumo. Para este fin se realizó un estudio mas detallado de importaciones de las tres categorías expuestas anteriormente, según el registro de importaciones de Mincomex.Dado que este registro revela la razón social de las empresas que realizaron cada importación, fue posible realizar un rastreo para identificar a lo largo de las tres categorías los diversos usuarios de dextrinas y productos afines.Las empresas que importaron durante el periodo comprendido desde 1997 hasta el 2003, fueron clasificadas según sector de aplicación 16 con el fin de facilitar la identificación de las aplicaciones industriales de los insumos importados.Para la clasificación de las empresas según sector de aplicación, se tuvieron en cuenta aquellas empresas más representativas en cuanto a consumo, es decir las empresas con mayor volumen de importación.La herramienta implementada para obtener las empresas cuya importación fue significativa fue el análisis de Pareto 17 . El análisis de Pareto consistió en determinar qué empresas representaron la mayor participación (alrededor de 80%) en las importaciones totales durante el período comprendido entre 1997 y 2003. Esta técnica resulta muy útil para el análisis de datos correspondientes a importaciones, pues permite enfocarse únicamente en los principales usuarios, al separar las \"pocas vitales 18 \" de las \"muchas triviales 19 \".Los pasos para obtener los principales sectores de aplicación y consecuentemente las empresas a visitar se presentan a continuación, estos se llevaron acabo para cada una de las tres categorías estudiadas anteriormente.El criterio base para la selección de las empresas fue cantidad importada; se eligieron inicialmente aquellas empresas cuya importación total de un año fuera igual o superior a 1.000 Kg.Posteriormente se obtuvo un consolidado de empresas con su respectivo total de importaciones realizadas durante todo el periodo de estudio (1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003) y se calculó la cantidad total importada por empresa.Se realizó un Análisis de Pareto a partir del cual se obtuvieron las empresas significativas, es decir las que representaron el mayor porcentaje de participación en las importaciones realizadas durante el período de estudio.Las empresas significativas fueron clasificadas de acuerdo al posible uso que le dan al insumo, obteniendo así los diferentes sectores de aplicación a los cuales se dirigió el estudio de campo.Es importante resaltar que el análisis corresponde a una gran gama de productos comprendidos en la categoría, los cuales no están clasificados por fuente de proveniencia del almidón, ni por tipo de modificación del mismo. Además, se espera, dada la naturaleza de la partida arancelaria encontrar más empresas que contribuyan al estudio de campo en la categoría 1, ya que contiene explícitamente el término dextrinas, mientras que las otras dos categorías hacen referencia a productos derivados de estas y otros almidones modificados y por ende representan un consumo indirecto del insumo objeto de estudio.La Tabla 4 presenta los resultados obtenidos en cada categoría según el análisis de Pareto.Tabla 4. Resultados del análisis de Pareto de las importaciones de las tres categorías Fuente: Las Autoras. La tabla anterior permitió concluir que pocas empresas (el 33%) fueron responsables de aproximadamente el 87% de las importaciones de insumos de las tres categorías; por esta razón se consideró estratégico enfocar el estudio de campo a esas empresas cuyo consumo es significativo.De la misma manera el análisis permitió concluir individualmente por cada categoría. El 35% del total empresas de la categoría 1 importó el 82% de la cantidad total. De la misma manera en la categoría 2 el 98% de las importaciones fue realizado por el 23 % de las empresas y en la categoría 3 el 38% del total de las empresas de esta categoría, importó el 97% de la cantidad total.La agrupación de las empresas significativas por categoría y su respectiva participación en cada sector de aplicación se observa en la Figura 21.Figura 21. Participación de las importaciones de cada categoría por sectores de aplicación. El Cuadro 3 complementa la información suministrada en la figura anterior.Este presenta un consolidado de la participación total de los diversos sectores de aplicación en cada una de las categorías arancelarias. Estos valores se calcularon con base en las importaciones realizadas durante los seis años que componen el período de estudio.Cuadro 3. Participación de las importaciones de cada categoría por sectores de aplicación durante el periodo de estudio Fuente: Las Autoras. Con base al registro de importaciones de MincomexLa información del Cuadro 3 permitió seleccionar los principales sectores de aplicación para la posterior realización del estudio de campo. El criterio base para esta selección fue cantidad importada, es decir se tuvo en cuenta el porcentaje de participación en las importaciones realizadas durante el periodo de estudio. La selección se sustenta en el siguiente análisis:Los sectores de aplicación con mayor participación son el sector Químico (41,05%) y el sector Papel y Cartón (35,41%).Los sectores farmacéutico, textil y otros fueron excluidos del estudio debido a que presentaron participaciones comparativamente bajas; 3,64%, 1.37% y 4,27%, respectivamente.El sector alimentos presenta un porcentaje importante (14,26%). Sin embargo es superado ampliamente por los dos sectores con mayor participación en las importaciones.El sector papel y cartón lo sobrepasa 2,5 veces en su participación e igualmente es superado 2,8 veces por el sector químico.Finalmente el análisis anterior permite concluir que los sectores de aplicación con mayor participación son el sector Papel y Cartón y sector Químico Dado que el sector químico es tan amplio, se recurrió a fuentes de información primarias con el fin de obtener información más precisa y detallada acerca de las características técnicas y comerciales de los productos importados por este sector. Se realizó un sondeo telefónico que permitió concluir que las empresas pertenecientes a este sector no constituyen usuarios de dextrinas o almidones modificados, sino que son distribuidoras de productos químicos o representantes de grandes firmas productoras de los mismos.El sondeo permitió identificar que este sector distribuye la dextrina y/o productos afines principalmente a empresas del sector papel y cartón en un 60% y a empresas del sector alimentos y textil en un 25% y 15% respectivamente.Finalmente, de acuerdo a los juicios anteriores, se procedió a realizar el estudio de campo a aquellas empresas que suministrarían información relativa a las aplicaciones industriales de las dextrinas puesto que constituyen verdaderos usuarios de estas.En consecuencia, el estudio de campo fue dirigido a los siguientes sectores de aplicación:Sector Fuente: Las AutorasDado que la encuesta se aplicó en el marco de una entrevista a profundidad, se obtuvo información general relativa a cada sector. Al analizar la información obtenida a través de las encuestas no solo se obtuvo información relacionada con el uso de las dextrinas si no también con aspectos asociados a almidón nativo y almidones modificados.El Anexo D muestra todas las aplicaciones industriales a nivel nacional que se identificaron en el estudio de campo. Esta expone los diversos tipos de almidón que se consumen en cada uno de los sectores visitados y además permite asociar el tipo de almidón con la función que cumple en la elaboración de los productos.Nativo.Si bien muchas empresas usan almidones modificados, en otros casos, se siguen requiriendo almidones nativos en los procesos. También existen algunas empresas que compran almidones nativos para modificarlos luego en su proceso de producción. El estudio de campo permitió obtener los siguientes resultados asociados a este tipo de almidones.En general, los almidones nativos provienen de tres fuentes amiláceas, maíz, papa y yuca. El maíz es la fuente que predomina, puesto que el mercado nacional de almidones está abastecido por la empresa, Corn Products International, Inc, la cual basa sus productos en esta fuente y cuenta con alta tecnología y gran capacidad de producción.La yuca ocupa el segundo lugar y es cada vez mas utilizada en varias aplicaciones. La papa es un cultivo principalmente europeo, y aunque presenta buenas propiedades, enColombia se dificulta la obtención de productos a partir de esta.La tecnología asociada a la obtención del almidón de maíz permite lotes más homogéneos que aquellos de yuca que se obtienen de manera artesanal. Por ejemplo, en las rallanderías del país, el secado del almidón de yuca se hace en patios por secado natural generando un almidón de baja calidad y producto de mezcla con otros lotes.La falta de abastecimiento en los lotes de almidón de yuca se debe a la carencia de grandes productores, lo que hace que los usuarios de almidón tengan que abastecerse de pequeños lotes de distinta procedencia; haciendo que se inclinen hacia almidón de maíz suministrado por la multinacional anteriormente mencionada. La ausencia de un enfoque empresarial en los productores de almidón de yuca, pone a los productores de almidón de maíz en una posición ventajosa.La yuca es más perecedera que el maíz y otras fuentes, lo que obliga a los productores de almidón a ubicarse hacia los centros de producción en sitios cercanos a las áreas de cultivo, dificultando el aprovisionamiento.La investigación y desarrollo de nuevos insumos a partir de almidón se ha llevado cabo en grandes potencias mundiales, por lo general al interior de las grandes multinacionales en las cuales la fuente que predomina es el maíz. La investigación a nivel nacional en este campo es muy incipiente aún.El mayor rendimiento en la obtención de almidón de maíz, a diferencia de la yuca que contiene 65 % de agua, hace que para producir la misma cantidad de almidón se tenga que consumir mayores cantidades de yuca.La producción de almidón de yuca en Colombia ha estado enfocada hacia el sector de alimentos principalmente en la producción de almidón agrio por su uso en productos tradicionales de panadería como pandeyuca, pandebono snacks, rosquillas para los cuales no existen sustitutos lo que hace que el almidón agrio tenga un buen mercado. El maíz subsidio del maíz en Norte América hace que los almidones provenientes de esta fuente se obtengan en el mercado a precios más competitivos que los almidones de otras fuentes.El 98% de las empresas visitadas ha ensayado alguna vez almidones de yuca. A pesar de sus mejores resultados y buen desempeño, su uso en Colombia no ha sido intensivo debido al difícil aprovisionamiento.En las empresas productoras de cartón corrugado se usa generalmente, un almidón perla de nativo y en el transcurso es modificado con soda (almidón carrier) y mezclado posteriormente con almidón nativo. Este almidón sirve para la formación del cartón ya que permite unir el \"liner\" 20 al cartón corrugado acompañado de un almidón nativo. Este almidón sirve para en la formación del cartón ya que permite unir el \"liner\" al cartón corrugado, es decir pega las partes exteriores del cartón a la lámina central. En las grandes empresas su consumo oscila alrededor de 20t/mes.En este sector el almidón nativo es usado como lecho sobre los moldes y lechos para la formación de las figuras en la producción de gomas de almidón o gelatina. Este tipo de aplicación genera un consumo significativo, ya que en el moldeo se debe hacer reposición continua del almidón utilizado como lecho. Sólo es posible reutilización del 10% del almidón inicial, puesto que van quedando en el lecho residuos de goma. En las grandes empresas productoras de gomas su consumo varía entre 15-20t/mes.En primer lugar, el estudio de campo reveló que los almidones modificados tienen una gran variedad de usos muy diferenciados entre sí. No existe un consenso sobre el tipo de modificación más adecuada para las diversas aplicaciones en la industria. Se identificó que al interior de los sectores seleccionados, las aplicaciones varían en cada empresa debido por una parte a la actividad productiva de cada una y por otra a las condiciones de operación y sus procesos.Los almidones modificados se usan principalmente como encolantes para la fabricación del papel y como principal insumo para la fabricación de adhesivos. En el sector de alimentos se utiliza como mejorador de masa para pastelería y agente gelificante para confitería. En el sector textil se usan como aprestos para dar encolado a la urdimbre.El 70 % de los insumos contemplados en el estudio son almidones nacionales, de los cuales el 60% son proveídos por la multinacional (Corn Products Industrias del Maíz).Muchas de las empresas manifestaron cierta insatisfacción con los insumos de este proveedor, particularmente ya que no poseen calidad estándar y presentan problemas asociados a la falta de homogeneidad de los lotes. Todas las empresas que son abastecidas por esta empresa, sin embargo por tratarse de un único proveedor las empresas usuarias no tienen otra opción para adquirir los insumos necesarios. El 30% de los insumos utilizados por las empresas encuestadas son importados, con lo cual las estas esperan obtener una mejor calidad. Desafortunadamente, lo anterior implica una importante fuga de divisas para el país y revela que en Colombia el desarrollo de almidones modificados es incipiente.A continuación se describen los diversos tipos de almidones modificados encontrados en cada uno de los sectores estudiados.En el sector papel y cartón se consumen almidones con diversos tipos de modificación, esta varía en cada empresa de acuerdo a factores entre los cuales se destacan la aplicación particular que a este se le dé, los tipos de papel producidos, las condiciones de operación, materias primas, costos y las preferencias de cada una. Así por ejemplo, los insumos usados para la fabricación de papel a partir de fibra de madera son diferentes a los insumos necesarios para la fabricación a partir de bagazo de caña. Dentro de este se usan principalmente como encolantes de masa o superficiales y por otro lado en la fabricación de adhesivos para diversas aplicaciones. Los almidones mas usados en la industria de papel y cartón se citan a continuación.Se usan como encolante en masa o interno, ya que su función es unir internamente todos los componentes que forman en papel, por lo cual se agregan en la mezcla inicial. Estos actúan como aglomerantes, uniendo las fibras de celulosa a los demás componentes mezclados, proporcionando resistencia en seco y rigidez al papel o cartón, evitando además que las tintas se rieguen y dando opacidad al papel en el caso de los papeles blancos. Los almidones usados en esta etapa buscan mejorar las propiedades del papel, y compensan los faltantes ocasionados por fibra mal refinada o inadecuada para la producción. Su consumo varía entre 30-100t/mes y se requieren en promedio entre 6 -14 kg/t de papel. Sin embargo, en una de las empresas visitadas su uso es de 130 kg/t de papel. En el mercado se encuentran almidones importados provenientes de maíz, papa o yuca.Se usan para el encolado superficial del papel, consiste en un recubrimiento final de acabado que se le da a este. Estos almidones cumplen funciones como dar lisura al papel, mejorar su apariencia, evitar el desprendimiento superficial de fibras, impedir que la tinta se despegue en escritura o impresión, mejorar la resistencia a la humedad, y preparar el papel para un posterior recubrimiento como esmaltados o demás acabados.Su consumo depende de la cantidad de papel producida, esta oscila entre 10 y 700 t/mes y se necesitan alrededor de 40kg/t de papel. Los almidones importados de este tipo provienen de la papa o el maíz.En la industria textil los almidones se usan para engomado de la urdimbre, evitando así que los hilos se deformen en el proceso de fabricación de la tela.Este es un almidón modificado por hidrólisis con ácido láctico. Se utiliza con frecuencia para engomar la urdimbre de tejido plano, generalmente, se usa para fibras de algodón, mientras que para poliéster y acrílicos se requieren aprestos sintéticos. Según las encuestas realizadas en el país se pueden adquirir almidones esterificados de yuca de buena calidad, estos son producidos por una cooperativa industrial ubicada en el departamento del Tolima. El consumo de este tipo de almidones es bajo comparado a los demás almidones modificados, ya que oscila entre 0,15 y 2t/mes.En la industria de alimentos se utiliza almidón entrecruzado; por un lado para la fabricación de batidos en la elaboración de ponqués y por otro lado como relleno en la fabricación de ciertos panes. Este almidón es producido por la reacción entre un almidón nativo de maíz y oxicloruro fosforoso. Su principal función es dar estructura, disminuyendo la actividad de agua presente en la masa. La presencia de este insumo aumenta la vida útil del producto final y produce un mayor rendimiento en el batido. Su consumo no representa un rubro muy alto, tan solo es el 3 % del consumo de harina de trigo en pastelería. Este almidón debe importarse por cuestiones relativas a la calidad y desempeño. Su precio es alto e inestable ya que está sujeto a los cambios de la tasa representativa.Se usa en la producción de gomas de almidón y masmelos como agente gelificante y constituye entre 10 y 15 % del contenido total del producto final, por lo cual su consumo es relativamente alto, alrededor de 10-12t/mes. Este almidón gelifica más rápido, no altera el sabor de la goma. Su costo es relativamente alto. Ver Figura 23. Actualmente, este almidón es usado sólo en la producción de gomas dulces, pero se desea usarlo en la fabricación de masmelos como sustituto de la gelatina de origen animal En la Figura 23 se presenta el precio promedio de los almidones modificados usados. Otra aplicación interesante de este producto es la sustitución de la goma arábiga por este tipo de dextrinas. Esta goma, a pesar de ser utilizada en pequeñas cantidades posee un costo alrededor de 10.000 $/kg. La maltodextrina es utilizada para el grageo en confitería en recubrimiento de chocolate u otros materiales. Antes de aplicar el recubrimiento del centro se le agrega este insumo que actúa como barrera ante la grasa o agua que migra hacia la superficie. Adicionalmente, las maltodextrinas se usan como sustitutos de grasa en la producción de helados y se usan para dar cuerpo a la cerveza y de relleno en embutidosEl estudio de campo encontró que la principal aplicación industrial que tiene la dextrina en Colombia esta en el sector papel y cartón y principalmente en la elaboración de adhesivos industriales. Estos se usan en diversas aplicaciones entre las cuales se destacan fabricación de cajas plegadizas, cierre de cajas corrugadas, elaboración de tubos de cartón en espiral, sacos multipliegos y bolsas de papel, y etiquetado de botellas.Adicionalmente, el estudio encontró aplicaciones interesantes para la pirodextrina en el sector de artes gráficas como componente principal para la fabricación de goma conservante. Esta goma es usada en las planchas de impresión litográfica para conservar la parte que no lleva imagen y protegerla de bacterias, corrosión, y rayones.En cuanto a productos sustitutos, el estudio de campo reveló que un gran porcentaje de las empresas contactadas usan PVA o derivados de PVA para el pegado de las cajas, bolsas y tubos. Lo anterior se debe a que los adhesivos sintéticos tienen menor tiempo de secado, no obstante el uso de adhesivos a base de dextrina no ha declinado dado que son menos costosos.El estudio reveló además, que el mercado nacional de dextrinas es proveído en gran medida por las dextrinas de maíz, proveídas por la multinacional Corn Products. También se indagó que debido a los altos aranceles de importación al país, resulta difícil adquirir dextrinas provenientes de otros países.Las pirodextrinas se transan a precios que oscilan alrededor de 2000$/kg. Ver figura 23.El consumo de dextrina en las empresas estudiadas es muy variado debido a que cada empresa usa la dextrina para pegar diferentes volúmenes, no obstante en promedio las empresas grandes consumen alrededor de 100 t/mes, mientras que las pequeñas pueden llegar a consumir aproximadamente 2t/mes.Dado que el estudio de campo reveló que el gran uso de las pirodextrinas se encuentra en el sector papel y cartón y principalmente en la elaboración de adhesivos industriales se realizó un análisis más riguroso para esta aplicación. Con el fin de indagar los tipos de adhesivos más usados en la industria se realizó el Cuadro 5 que resume la relación entre el uso industrial del adhesivo y el tipo de almidón usado como principal materia prima para su fabricación. Adicionalmente, la tabla muestra la cantidad de veces que se encontró los diversos usos de los adhesivos en cada tipo de almidón; en otras palabras el cuadro permite ilustrar de manera cuantitativa el número de veces que se presentó la relación \"uso industrial del adhesivo / tipo de materia prima\" en las empresas visitadas durante el estudio de campo. Finalmente se realizó la sumatoria horizontal con el fin de identificar la aplicación de más frecuente de los adhesivos industriales de éste tipo.Cuadro 5. Usos Industriales de los Adhesivos de almidón y dextrina. El Cuadro 5 resalta que los adhesivos de dextrina se usan principalmente en el cerrado de cajas corrugadas; fabricación de cores o tubos de cartón; fabricación de bolsas de papel y sacos multipliegos y etiquetado de botellas de vidrio.En el estudio de campo se indagó sobre la aplicación de la dextrina en los demás usos industriales y se concluyó que para la elaboración del cartón corrugado se utiliza es un almidón carrier muy especializado y que la dextrina resulta muy lenta dadas las altas velocidades asociadas a las máquinas corrugadoras. De igual manera, el desempeño de la dextrina no es muy favorable para la fabricación de cajas plegadizas debido a la utilización de cartones mas sofisticados (superficies menos porosas como cartón plastificado, o parafinado) que impiden que el adhesivo penetre en el sustrato. Algo similar ocurre con el uso del adhesivo en la fabricación de bolsas de boutique puesto que se utilizan tintas especializadas que no son compatibles con este tipo de adhesivo.Así mismo a través del estudio de campo se logró identificar el gran potencial de las pirodextrinas en primer lugar por que muchas de las empresas consumidoras de almidón nativo lo dextrinizan para lograr mejores propiedades adhesivas y en segundo lugar por que es posible sustituir las maltodextrinas por las pirodextrinas logrando mejores beneficios. Finalmente, del anterior análisis se logró concluir que principal aplicación industrial de las pirodextrinas se encuentra en la elaboración de adhesivos para:Cerrado de cajas corrugadas Fabricación de cores o tubos de cartón Fabricación de bolsas de papel y sacos multipliegos Etiquetado de botellas de vidrioEn el presente capítulo se presenta el desarrollo de la metodología para la selección del producto a diseñar.En el capitulo anterior, el estudio de campo permitió concluir que la principal aplicación de las pirodextrinas es la elaboración de adhesivos industriales. A continuación se describe brevemente cada uno de estos adhesivos. Generalmente las capas más externas se pegan con PVA y las más internas con adhesivo a base de dextrina. Se utilizan principalmente como centros para enrollar papeles industriales, textiles, plástico entre otros. Además pueden ser utilizados como tubos rotatorios en maquinarias para operaciones como enbobinado.El adhesivo constituye la base para un buen core, los cuales están sujetos a altas velocidades (rpm) y a la presión que ejerce el peso del material enrollado en el mismo. Su consumo depende del ancho de la pared, que varía de acuerdo a la necesidad de resistencia que se requiera. Entre los aspectos más relevantes en la elaboración de tubos en espiral se encuentran: el grueso de las paredes (el número de sustratos o capas enrolladas), peso del tubo, resistencia requerida, revoluciones a las que estará sujeto el tubo, material del cual está elaborado (tipo y gramaje del cartón) y material a envolver en el tubo. principalmente. Estos tienen un alto contenido de soda cáustica y un contenido mínimo de sales con el fin de evitar la decoloración de las etiquetas y la corrosión de las máquinas.Para la selección del producto a diseñar se procedió a desarrollar una metodología de selección, basada en métodos utilizados en proyectos de grado, bibliografías y opiniones de diferentes asesores. Se desarrolló y estructuró la metodología de selección ajustando varios métodos de acuerdo las diversas necesidades del proyecto. Se recurrió al Método Delphi 21 para la evaluación de ciertos criterios y posteriormente se siguieron varios pasos obtenidos de métodos de decisión multicriterio.La metodología desarrollada busca que a través de un procedimiento organizado y estructurado, se filtre(n) el(los) posible(s) producto(s) a diseñar por medio de diferentes niveles de selección, llegando finalmente a elegir aquel producto, que de resultar viable para ser comercializado, pueda incursionar en nuevos mercados y permita fomentar la utilización industrial de la yuca en el desarrollo de materias primas. Los componentes de la metodología se describen a continuación.Problema: el problema hace referencia al asunto que se quiere resolver mediante la consulta. Para el presente caso corresponde a un marco decisional en el que se pretende seleccionar un producto entre varias alternativas. Se elegirá aquella que mejor se ajusta a ciertos criterios establecido con antelación.Criterios: término general que engloba los conceptos de atributos, objetivos o metas que se consideran relevantes para el problema decisional. Para la presente metodología de selección se consideran criterios todos aquellos aspectos relevantes para el Centro decisor.Centro Decisor: persona o grupo de personas que toma finalmente la decisión a partir de la consulta realizada. Para el presente caso, el Centro decisor 22 esta conformado por tres personas directamente implicadas el diseño del adhesivo.Grupo de Expertos: es el conjunto de personas conocedoras del tema a quienes se les realiza la consulta.Alternativas: son las diversas opciones que se tienen en el marco decisional. Para el presente caso, las alternativas de decisión corresponden a las cuatro principales aplicaciones de las pirodextrinas halladas en el estudio de campo realizado. (Ver numeral 3.5: Conclusiones del estudio de campo)La metodología se divide en tres niveles de trabajo independientes pero interrelacionados los cuales se materializan en cuatro etapas que componen el proceso de decisión. La metodología desarrollada se esquematiza en la Figura 24.Figura 24. Estructura de la metodología de selección del producto a diseñar.Análisis Análisis de las Alternativas. Se analiza en este nivel el comportamiento de cada una de las alternativas frente a los criterios planteados. Se califica el desempeño de cada alternativa de acuerdo a cada criterio de selección.Las etapas requeridas para llevar a cabo los anteriores niveles de trabajo son las siguientes:Delimitación del Problema y Definición de las Alternativas. Esta etapa es realizada por el centro decisor, quien delimita el problema y define las alternativas disponibles para la solución del mismo.Definición de los Criterios de Selección. En esta etapa se determinan los criterios de selección que reflejan los aspectos que son relevantes para el centro decisor en el marco de la elección de la mejor alternativa.Ponderación Preferencial de los Criterios. Esta etapa de la metodología hace referencia a los indicadores de preferencias relativas del centro decisor de unos criterios frente a otros. Es una etapa decisiva pues refleja la orientación del centro decisor y por ende las prioridades para la selección de la mejor alternativa de acuerdo a los criterios anteriormente establecidos.Evaluación de las Alternativas de Adhesivos. Etapa que consiste en la calificación de las alternativas frente a cada uno de los criterios. Esta evaluación es realizada por un grupo de expertos.Resultados de la Calificación. Una vez obtenidos los puntajes, en esta etapa se procede a tomar la decisión basados en la(s) alternativa(s) que hayan obtenido el mayor puntaje.A continuación se describe lo que se realizó en cada nivel de trabajo y en sus respectivas etapas.Este nivel de trabajo fue realizado por el centro decisor quien se reunió para definir claramente el problema y posteriormente definir las alternativas disponibles a la solución del mismo.Problema Decisional: Seleccionar el adhesivo más viable para fabricar a partir de pirodextrina de yuca desde el punto de vista comercial, técnico, económico y ambiental.Se pretende elegir el que mejor se ajuste a ciertos criterios que han sido establecidos con antelación.Alternativas Disponibles: Las alternativas disponibles corresponden a cuatro posibles aplicaciones de la pirodextrina en el campo de los adhesivos que fueron halladas con base al estudio de campo realizado en el capítulo anterior. Se selecciona la mejor alternativa de producto con el fin de promocionarlo el uso de este y ampliar las posibilidades de mercado para la pirodextrina de yuca.Alternativa A: adhesivo para el cierre de cajas de cartón corrugado.Alternativa B: adhesivo para la fabricación de cores o tubos de cartón.Alternativa C: adhesivo para la fabricación de sacos y bolsas de papel.Alternativa D: adhesivo para el etiquetado de botellas de cerveza. Esta etapa, a diferencia de las demás, es realizada por un grupo de expertos cuya selección se describe posteriormente. Para la obtención de la evaluación de las alternativas se suministró al grupo de expertos el problema previamente identificado y se les pidió que calificaran cada una de las alternativas de producto de acuerdo a los criterios suministrados. Para la calificación se asignó una escala numérica de 1 -5. Donde 1 corresponde a la peor calificación que puede obtener la alternativa y 5 la mejor. Para ello se diseñó un formato (Anexo F) que contempla los diversos criterios de selección, su respectiva explicación y las alternativas disponibles (los cuatro posibles adhesivos a diseñar). Adicionalmente se diseñó una hoja de soporte (Ver Anexo G) en el que se le suministra a cada experto información relevante para llevar a cavo evaluación.Para diligenciar este formato se realizaron reuniones personales e individuales con cada uno de los expertos con el fin de calificar cada uno de los adhesivos frente a los criterios definidos. Además, con el fin de estructurar la información relevante suministrada en la consulta se diseñó un formato en el que el experto escribe la justificación asociada a la calificación que ha otorgado. Este método de evaluación justificada permitió estructurar la información suministrada por los expertos logrando así aprovechar mejor la consulta y obtener más información relacionada con el producto a diseñar. El formato para la justificación de la evaluación se presenta en el Anexo H.En el Cuadro 7 se registran los niveles de calificación para cada uno de los criterios de selección.Cuadro Fuente: Las Autoras Expertos Participantes. La selección de los participantes del método Delphi es un factor de particular importancia puesto que de esto depende en gran parte la eficacia del método y la calidad de los resultados.Los expertos se seleccionaron a partir del grupo de personas con las que se estableció contacto durante el estudio de campo realizado en el capítulo 3. En dicha investigación de mercado se realizaron visitas que pretendía indagar libremente sobre las aplicaciones de las pirodextrinas en la industria. Este contacto con personal relacionado con el tema, resultó estratégico para la identificación del grupo de expertos para la presente etapa del proyecto.Se identificaron las personas conocedoras del tema de los adhesivos, y fueron elegidos teniendo en cuenta los siguientes criterios Nivel de experiencia. Hace referencia al nivel de conocimiento que posee el experto frente al tema, esta es una condición de partida, pues el conocimiento sobre la materia le confiere la autoridad necesaria para que sus opiniones contribuyan de manera efectiva en la selección. Este requerimiento se puede medir con base al tiempo que lleva la persona vinculada al tema de los adhesivos.Nivel de actualización. Contacto permanente del experto con las tendencias tecnológicas de los adhesivos. Este criterio garantiza el diseño de un producto no obsoleto, ya que se supone que por su experiencia estas personas posean una amplia visión frente al tema objeto de la consulta.Imparcialidad del experto frente a la aplicación. La satisfacción de este requisito, se basa en asegurarse que los expertos no posean una inclinación hacia una aplicación en particular. Para ello se prefirió expertos que manejaran el tema de los adhesivos en todos los campos de aplicación. Se concluyó que para efectos de este requisito no era conveniente seleccionar expertos que constituyeran\"usuarios\", pues es muy probable que estos solo manejen el tema relativo a la aplicación a la cual pertenece. Lo que llevaría a que estos tuvieran una clara inclinación hacia el producto que manejan. En consecuencia, los expertos seleccionados para la calificación fueron personas vinculadas a la producción y/o comercialización de adhesivos y de esta manera se garantizó que las opiniones no fueran sesgadas o parcializadas hacia ninguna aplicación en especial.Apertura del experto frente al suministro de información: con la aplicación de este criterio se pretende conseguir opiniones sinceras y abiertas frente a la posibilidad de desarrollar nuevos productos. Este criterio se tomó en consideración dado que es factible que las personas pueden oponer ciertas barreras que dificultaban el levantamiento de la información y por ende sesguen el puntaje otorgado a las alternativas de producto.Finalmente, basados en los anteriores criterios se eligió un grupo de ocho participantes que mejor cumplieron con los aspectos requeridos para la presente selección.En el Cuadro 8 se exponen los expertos que se eligieron, la empresa a la cual están vinculados y su respectivo cargo que desempeñan.   2 7,55% B 2,75 2,88 3,63 4,50 1,38 2,88 3,38 2,75 2,88 4,00 4,88 3,00 4,63 4,00 3,13 3 7,31% C 4,13 4,38 4,25 4,50 2,88 3,75 4,00 4,38 2,88 3,63 4,88 3,13 4,25 5,00 5,00 4 6,25% D 2,13 2,63 2,13 3,00 3,88 2,63 1,75 4,00 1,25 1,88 4,00 4,25 4,88 4,00 5,00 5 7,87% 6 7,06% 7 6,49% 8 5,11% 9 8,12%10 4,87% 11 5,11% A 3,91 12 6,74% B 3,31 13 6,74% C 4,03 14 6,74% D 3,13 15 6,74%Tamaño: 4 x 15Tamaño: 15 x 1 Tamaño: 4 x 1 Fuente: Las Autoras De acuerdo a la matriz resultante (matriz [C]), el adhesivo para la fabricación de sacos multipliegos obtuvo el mayor puntaje 4,03, seguido del adhesivo para el cierre de cajas corrugadas que obtuvo una calificación de 3,91. Por su parte, el correspondiente a la elaboración de tubos de cartón en espiral obtuvo 3,31, y el de etiquetado de botellas obtuvo el menor de los puntajes, 3,13.Se puede observar que la alternativa A obtuvo un resultado muy cercano a la alternativa C. A diferencia de las otras dos alternativas B y D que resultaron con puntajes relativamente lejanos, 3.31 y 3.13 respectivamente.La similitud entre los puntajes de A y C dificultó la elección de una única alternativa, por esta razón, según este método cuantitativo se optaría por el diseño de las dos alternativas de mayor puntaje. No obstante, para no basarse únicamente en el método de matriz de decisión fue necesario realizar un análisis mas profundo de los resultados y de esta manera llegar a la decisión más favorable.La metodología de selección permitió ver de manera consolidada los resultados totales obtenidos en la evaluación. Sin embargo, los resultados no presentaron diferencias significativas como para basar la decisión únicamente en estos valores. Por esta razón se realizó un análisis más riguroso de las calificaciones obtenidas en la evaluación y además se tuvo en cuenta toda la información obtenida a través de la evaluación justificada.Primero se realizó un análisis parcial de las calificaciones y posteriormente un análisis estratégico de la información suministrada por los expertos.Con el objetivo de evaluar de manera mas completa el desempeño de cada producto frente a los diversos aspectos, se realizó un análisis mas detallado basado en las calificaciones parciales obtenidas por cada producto.La Figura 26 ilustra el comportamiento de cada adhesivo frente a los diversos criterios.Figura 26. Comportamiento de los productos frente a los criterios de selección Frente a criterios de mercado, tanto el adhesivo para el cierre de cajas corrugadas como el adhesivo para fabricación de bolsas de papel manifestaron un gran potencial de mercado y alto crecimiento, además ambos proyectan una demanda atractiva. Basándose en el ciclo de vida del producto, ambas alternativas corresponden a productos en crecimiento y se podrían sostener en el mercado pues los usuarios para esta aplicación no estarían dispuestos a fabricar su propio adhesivo. De igual manera los sectores respectivos a penetrar no oponen barreras significativas.Por otro lado, en cuanto a criterios de orden técnico todas las alternativas resultan favorables con excepción del adhesivo para el etiquetado de botellas. Este aspecto se debe principalmente a los altos requerimientos de calidad por tratarse de un producto muy especializado y además dadas las propiedades técnicas de los adhesivos en base dextrina, es difícil competir con los de caseína que son los pegantes idóneos para esta aplicación.Por el contrario, el grupo de criterios de orden económico manifiesta que el adhesivo para etiquetado de botellas es la alternativa que mejores márgenes de utilidad proyecta.Finalmente los criterios de orden ambiental resultaron comparativamente iguales en todas las alternativas con excepción del adhesivo para cores, ya que en su fabricación incluye adhesivo sintético tipo PVA que dificulta la eliminación del adhesivo para el proceso de reciclaje. A continuación se exponen los aspectos más relevantes de cada producto.Gran tamaño de mercado: todas las empresas que empacan sus productos en cajas corrugadas constituyen mercado potencial para este producto; las empresas que actualmente utilizan grapas, papeles y cintas adhesivas para el sellado de cajas también constituyen mercado potencial La demanda que se proyecta para este producto puede llegar a ser muy atractiva, pues, aunque se trata de un mercado institucional, es la alternativa que más se acerca a un consumo masivo Bajo costo hace que sea un producto de interés para el consumidor La fácil eliminación del adhesivo permite el reciclaje de las cajas corrugadas.Biodegradabilidad.Tiempo abierto largo o baja velocidad de pegado Bajo margen de utilidad: por tratarse de un insumo para el proceso de empaque, los usuarios no estan dispuestos a pagar altos precios por el producto.El mercado de este producto se podría beneficiar por la implementación de regulaciones relativas al empaque de productos alimenticios que prohíben el uso de grapas o adhesivos que puedan resultar tóxicos. Esto constituye una oportunidad de mercado para el producto, pues la cantidad de instituciones interesadas en adquirirlo aumentaría significativamente.La creciente tendencia de las instituciones hacia procesos y productos más sostenibles desde lo ambiental constituye una oportunidad de mercado:La baja probabilidad que tiene el usuario de desarrollado su propio adhesivo, hace que este siempre tenga que adquirir el adhesivo como producto ya elaborado.La disminución de precios de cintas adhesivos, emulsiones de PVA y demás adhesivos sintéticos hace que este producto no presente un crecimiento de mercado considerable.Ciclo de vida aceptable: los cores o tubos de cartón son un producto en crecimiento.El adhesivo para la fabricación de cores es de gran importancia para el producto final; este, junto con el cartón son los únicos componentes del tubo en espiral.Alta competitividad en precio: dado el bajo costo de este insumo, los productores de cores lo utilizan para abaratar costos de materia prima.La demanda que se proyecta para este producto no es muy atractivaEl alto contenido de humedad hace que el cartón pierda resistencia Tiempo abierto largo o baja velocidad de pegado La baja competitividad en sus propiedades frente a emulsiones de PVA, hace que no sea posible lograr una sustitución total de su principal competidor para esta aplicación.Lo anterior se debe a las debilidades inherentes al producto de dextrina anteriormente mencionadas.Bajo margen de utilidad: los cores constituyen productos intermedios como empaques cilíndricos y componentes para otros productos (por ejemplo los tubos para papel higiénico y tubos en los que se enrolla textiles o papeles para uso industrial). Por otra parte, también constituyen insumos para otros procesos como es el caso de los tubos rotatorios en maquinarias para operaciones de enbobinado entre otras. Dada la naturaleza de estos productos, el costo de este insumo no puede encarecer el precio del producto final. Este aspecto hace que el producto genere estrechos márgenes de utilidad.El sector no opone barreras significativas ante la introducción del producto dada la buena capacidad de este adhesivo para competir con el PVA desde el punto de vista económico.Los expertos aseguran que técnicamente es posible sustituir el PVA de manera parcial para la fabricación del tubo. Esta sustitución del insumo permite reducir costos de matera prima para esta aplicación.La anterior sustitución parcial del insumo, deriva altos volúmenes de consumo del adhesivo. En cuanto a proporciones, el 70% del adhesivo usado para la fabricación de este producto es a partir de dextrina y es usado para pegar las capas mas internas del tubo. Mientras que el 30 % es PVA y se usa para las capas más externas Fabricar un core o tubo en espiral basado únicamente en adhesivos de PVA u otros sintéticos, encarecería enormemente el valor de este producto y por consiguiente no sería posible sostenerse en el mercado. En consecuencia los adhesivos a base de dextrina se hacen indispensables en esta aplicación.Existe una gran posibilidad de que los productores de cores opten por fabricar su propio adhesivo, situación que ocasionaría la suspensión de la compra del adhesivo de dextrina.La gran competitividad de las emulsiones de PVA en sus propiedades constituye una amenaza para el producto. Dado que son adhesivos mucho mas rápidos, estables y resistentes a la humedad.Hoy en día es posible encontrar en el mercado emulsiones de PVA y demás adhesivos sintéticos a precios bajos, situación que amenaza el mercado de los adhesivos a partir de dextrina.Producto C: Adhesivo para la Fabricación de Bolsas de Papel y Sacos MultipliegosFrente criterios de mercado este producto manifiesta un gran potencial, una demanda atractiva y el mas alto crecimiento de las cuatro alternativas Alta competitividad en sus propiedades: a partir de dextrina de yuca se pueden fabricar adhesivos que forman película mas transparente y brillante comparada con los provenientes del maíz cuya película en ocasiones resulta opaca y quebradiza. Así mismo es posible obtener propiedades superiores como mayor adhesividad y estabilidad comparada con otras fuentes amiláceas. Esta característica constituye una fortaleza ante los fabricantes de sacos multipliegos, que requieren ciertas caracteristcas de calidad.Bajo costo comparado con emulsiones de PVA y demás adhesivos sintéticos Facilidad de eliminación permite el reciclaje de las bolsas y sacos para repulpar el material.La implementación de estos insumos en la fabricación de sacos multipliegos hace que los efluentes vertidos por el proceso de lavado de tanques no sean tan perjudicialesLos adhesivos a partir de dextrina requieren un tiempo abierto largo, aspecto que resulta desfavorable para los productores de sacos ya que lo ideas es que el proceso que secado ocurre mientras el arrume de los mismos. Un tiempo adicional para esta operación atrasaría de manera significativa los tiempos de entrega.Por tratarse de adhesivos de baja resistencia a la humedad, en ocasiones humedece el sustrato causando el rompimiento de la fibra Bajo margen de utilidad: los productos como sacos multipliegos para el empaque de cemento, azúcar, harina son productos cuyo valor unitario es considerablemente bajo. Por esta razón el costo de los adhesivos para dicha aplicación no debe encarecer el valor final de las bolsa o el saco multipliegoLas instituciones que han optado por desarrollar su propio adhesivo han destinado esfuerzos considerables para el desarrollo con el objeto de reducir costos asociados a la compra de este. Estos han tenido problemas para lograr las especificaciones requeridas, por lo que gran parte de ellas han tenido que acudir de nuevo a la compra de este ya elaborado por empresas especializadas y de gran experiencia en el campo de adhesivos.La tendencia de la producción de papel para empaques reciclables Regulaciones ambientales que exigen materias primas con contenido total o parcial de fibra reciclada, hacen que este tipo de adhesivos posee gran ventaja por su facilidad de eliminación dada la alta solubilidad inherente a la dextrina Existe una marcada preferencia hacia este tipo de adhesivos ya que se prefieren sustancias de fácil eliminación para el proceso de lavado de los tambores o rodillos engomadores.Existe cierta posibilidad de que los productores de sacos multipliegos y bolsas de papel opten por desarrollar su propio adhesivo con el objeto de reducir costos asociados a la compra de insumo. Por consiguen, estos suspenderían la compra del adhesivo ya elaborado.El sector opone barreras considerables dado que los adhesivos utilizados para la confección de bolsas son muy especializados y por lo tanto el sector exige altos niveles de calidad.Las máquinas que elaboran sacos y bolsas de papel manejan altas velocidades para realizar el engomado, esto exige adhesivos de óptimo desempeño y sobre todo tiempos de secado muy corto.Disminución de precios emulsiones de PVA y demás adhesivos sintéticosEl bajo costo de los adhesivos de dextrina hace que sea un producto muy competitivo en cuanto a precio, para esta aplicación la diferencia en precio frente al principal competidor (adhesivos de caseína), es muy significativa.Los adhesivos para etiquetado de botella se pueden vender a muy buen precio, generando amplios márgenes de utilidad Esta aplicación requiere adhesivos muy especializados, pues la etiqueta debe estar adherida a la botella el tiempo requerido y también debe ser resistente a la humedad para resistir a la refrigeración de la bebida. Además la etiqueta debe ser removida con facilidad de la botella durante el proceso de lavado para dar inicio a un nuevo ciclo de la botella. Esta es sin duda, una característica atractiva para los productores de bebidas líquidas que realizan logística reverciba 23 para el reuso de los envases como es el caso de la cerveza.Al tratarse de un adhesivo de origen vegetal y de fácil eliminación los efluentes generaos por el lavado de botellas no son tan contaminantes Biodegradabilidad 23 Logística Reversiva: proceso gestión y disposición de mercancías que después de su comercialización requieren que sean devueltas desde el destino final hasta su origen, es decir, en dirección opuesta al flujo de actividades normales de la LogísticaEl adhesivo a base de dextrina para el etiquetado de botellas se encuentra en cierta posición de desventaja competitiva frente a los adhesivos de caseína. Lo anterior se debe principalmente a que los adhesivos de caseína son de alta resistencia a la humedad y requieren tiempos de secado.Baja demanda: el consumo de este producto resulta moderado mas por las pocas empresas que componen el mercado que por volumen requerido en la aplicación.La escasez y el alto costo de la caseína hace que los usuarios de adhesivos para etiquetado tengan que buscar insumos que sustituyan este producto.Es poco probable que los productores de cerveza desarrollen su propio adhesivo para el etiquetado de botellas, pues esto los alejaría de su principal actividad productiva.Los adhesivos requeridos para la fabricación de etiquetado son muy especializados y requieren altos niveles de calidad. Este aspecto no solo dificulta la penetración al sector, sino también hacen que su elaboración sea un poco mas compleja.Además de ser pocas las empresas que constituyen el mercado de este producto, es escasa la conformación de nuevas empresas productoras de bebidas líquidas, las barrearas de entrada a este sector son muy altas. Para el caso de las productoras de cerveza, que es el principal consumidor de adhesivos para etiquetado, las firmas más pequeñas tienden a unirse a las grandes como el caso Leona y Bavaria S.A. Esta situación hace que el tamaño potencial del mercado sea muy pequeño y que no se vislumbre un crecimiento de mercado significativo.Las pocas empresas que conforman este mercado hacen que hayan pocos demandantes frente a muchos oferentes. Esta situación dificulta la competencia entre proveedores potenciales para ganar las exigentes licitaciones expedidas por estas grandes firmas consumidoras del producto Los requerimientos técnicos tan exigentes asociados a los adhesivos para etiquetado de botellas, hacen que sea muy difícil penetrar en este sector.Finalmente no se diseñará un producto correspondiente a una única aplicación, si no que se procederá a realizar el diseño de un adhesivo para las dos aplicaciones que, de acuerdo al anterior análisis, resultaron más viables. En consecuencia los adhesivos a diseñar son los siguientes:Adhesivo basado en pirodextrina de yuca para el cerrado de cajas corrugadas.Adhesivo basado en pirodextrina de yuca para la fabricación de sacos multipliegos y bolsas de papel.Estos dos productos obtuvieron los dos mejores puntajes según el método de selección y además presentaron el mejor desempeño frente al análisis parcial de los criterios y adicionalmente frente al análisis DOFA estos también resultaron favorecidos.Las organizaciones han reconocido la importancia de mejores productos, procurando explotar al máximo el potencial de las nuevas tecnologías. Sin embargo, en la actualidad las exigencias han aumentado, el surgimiento de una economía global, caracterizada por la competencia internacional, mercados fragmentados por diversos consumidores y los cambios acelerados en las tecnologías usadas han generado una nueva forma de ver los mercados. En la actualidad se requieren compañías efectivas en el diseño y desarrollo de productos, los cuales deben no sólo satisfacer las expectativas del consumidor, sino ser competitivos a nivel de costos y calidad, superando a los productos de la competencia.Por lo tanto, se hace necesario dedicarle mayor atención y reflexión al desarrollo de nuevos productos. Existen diversos métodos, muy variados y enfocados a diferentes etapas del proceso de desarrollo, dentro de las mas usadas se encuentran la Ingeniería Concurrente y Despliegue de la Función de Calidad. Para la selección de la herramienta mas adecuada para los propósitos del estudio se realizó una evaluación de las dos herramientas con base en la definición de criterios de selección y evaluación de cada una de las herramientas frente a estos. Una vez seleccionada la herramienta se procedió al diseño del producto.Se evaluaron las dos alternativas para el diseño. Para ello se definieron criterios de evaluación a los cuales se les asignó un peso relativo. 1 a 5 de acuerdo al grado de aplicación en el presente estudio (1= deficiente, 2= malo, 3= regular, 4= bueno, 5= excelente). Los criterios tenidos en cuenta fueron los siguientes:Criterio 1: Relación con el objetivo general del proyecto. Este criterio busca analizar el grado de similitud que existe entre el objetivo del proyecto y el objetivo de la herramienta, es decir en que grado la herramienta seleccionada ayuda a cumplir con los objetivos del proyecto.Criterio 2: Procedimiento. Hace referencia a que tan estructurada es la metodología y que tan claros están definidos los pasos para poder llevar a cabo un diseño efectivo Criterio 3: Manejo de información. Permite determinar la cantidad y calidad de los medios para el manejo de la información.Criterio 4: Flexibilidad. Determina la posibilidad de aplicar los conceptos teóricos de la metodología al caso práctico del proyecto.Criterio 5: Cuantificación de datos. En este criterio se evalúa si la metodología permite valorar numéricamente la información procesada, traduciéndola de una forma cualitativa a una forma cuantitativa.En el cuadro 9 se presenta la evaluación de las herramientas de diseño frente a cada criterio de selección. El resultado demostró que QFD es la metodología que más se ajusta a los objetivos del proyecto, dado que obtuvo el mayor puntaje, por lo tanto se seleccionó para el diseño se llevó a cabo usando esta herramienta.Cuadro 9. Evaluación de las herramientas de diseño de producto Debido a que utiliza herramientas costosas su aplicabilidad no es posible en todas las organizaciones.Permite cuantificar varios tipos de información, pero requiere de metodologías diferentes para cada proceso analizado.Matrices, tablas, diagramas de funciones y árboles, lluvia de ideas, diagramas de interrelaciones, diagramas de afinidad.Su aplicación parte de la necesidad de encontrar los deseos del consumidor, por lo cual se puede usar para varios tipos de productos Permite cuantificar la información obtenida de los usuarios a través fases con el mismo proceso.Reducir el tiempo de respuesta (Time to market) a través de un enfoque sistemático e integrado, teniendo en cuenta todos los aspectos del ciclo de vida del producto.No sigue una metodología pero sugiere una forma de trabajo: § Definición de la misión / Definición del concepto / Ingeniería y análisis Diseño del producto / Fabricación del prototipo / Ingeniería de producción y planeación / Operaciones de producción y cPrincipalmente requiere el uso de software, hardware y sistemas de redes.Según el cuadro anterior la herramienta QFD tuvo mayor puntaje en el criterio 1 dado que en este caso no se desea reducir el tiempo de lanzamiento al mercado o los costos de un producto sino aprovechar una materia prima obedeciendo a las necesidades del mercado.En el criterio dos las fases para el desarrollo de QFD son más sencillas y de fácil aplicación, lo mismo ocurre en el criterio flexibilidad dado que esta herramienta puede ser aplicada para el diseño de diferentes tipos de productos.La herramienta QFD (Quality Function Deployement), se originó en Japón en 1972 y fue desarrollada por Kobe Shipyard en las industrias Mitsubichi. Sin embargo, los mejores resultados se dieron en Toyota a partir de 1977. Luego fue adoptada por varias compañías de Estados Unidos entre las cuales se encuentran Ford y Xerox.El Despliegue de las Funciones de Calidad (QFD) es una forma sistemática de diseñar nuevos productos o servicios que se basa en el conocimiento completo de los deseos del consumidor. En ella se identifican los requerimientos del consumidor y se proporciona una metodología para asegurar que esos requerimientos estén presentes en el diseño del producto y en el proceso de planeación. En pocas palabras, QFD significa oír la voz del consumidor y plasmarla a través de acciones concretas. En muchas ocasiones se fabrican productos o diseñan servicios con unas excelentes presentaciones, a un bajo precio y, sin embargo, fracasan por no tener la acogida esperada en el mercado, lo cual implica que el diseño se ha hecho a espaldas del consumidor potencial o que aún conociendo las expectativas de éste, la traducción de estas a características no ha sido eficaz.Desplegar la calidad del producto o servicio. Es decir, el diseño del servicio o producto sobre la base de las necesidades y requerimientos de los clientes.Desplegar la función de calidad en todas las actividades y funciones de la organización, es decir precisar qué funciones debe desempeñar el recurso humano para obtener una calidad que satisfaga las necesidades de los clientes.QFD se pregunta \"QUÉ\" necesitan y esperan del o producto o servicio los usuarios.También se interroga por \"CÓMO\" conseguir satisfacer necesidades y expectativas.El despliegue de la Función de Calidad se compone de una fase preliminar y cuatro fases sucesivas similares. Las cuatro fases son: Planificación del producto, Despliegue de los componentes, Planificación del Proceso, Planificación de la Producción. Para el desarrollo de estas fases se requiere cuatro matrices 24 (casas) que interrelacionan las necesidades del consumidor, las características del producto, las operaciones de manufactura y los controles del proceso. En cada matriz se desarrolla una etapa pasando de un nivel subjetivo a un nivel objetivo.Cuadro 10. Pasos del Despliegue de la Casa de la CalidadDeterminación del objetivo Consiste en definir los lineamientos y el objetivo del proyecto de QFD. Formación del equipo QFD Se seleccionan los miembros del equipo que estarán a cargo del desarrollo de la herramienta.Determinación del consumidor Se seleccionan los segmentos de usuarios adecuados para recoger los datos e informaciones necesarios para el despliegue de la Casa de la Calidad.Determinación de la competencia Se definen los principales competidores del producto a diseñar.Se obtienen los requerimientos que los consumidores desean tenga el producto a diseñar. Estos se denominan requerimientos del consumidor. Traducción de los requerimientos del consumidor Consiste en organizar, consolidar y traducir los requerimientos dados por los consumidores en el paso anterior. Determinación del grado de importancia Consiste en asignar valores que determinen el grado de importancia de cada requerimiento del consumidor.En este paso se determina la opinión de los consumidores frente a los productos competidores incluidos en el estudio. Desarrollo del historial de quejas Se registran las no conformidades declaradas por los consumidores o usuarios de adhesivos.Establecimiento de los requerimientos de diseño (COMO's)Se traducen los requerimientos del consumidor en características del producto medibles, que se denominan requerimientos de diseño.Se identifican todos los requerimientos de diseño y se genera una lista final con sus respectivos valores objetivo.En esta etapa se determina la situación del producto a diseñar frente a sus competidores, no desde la óptica del consumidor sino del productor.Realización de la matriz de relaciones entre las necesidades del consumidor y los requerimientos de diseño Esta es la etapa en cual se identifican las relaciones entre los QUE's y los COMO's, analizando en que forma el requerimiento de diseño satisface la necesidad, preguntándose: ¿Cómo el requerimiento de diseño soluciona la necesidad del consumidor? 10 Establecimiento de los objetivos para los requerimientos de diseño (CUANTO's) Consiste en determinar los valores para los requerimientos de diseño que logran la satisfacción de los consumidores y proporcionan una manera de medir objetivamente. Estos hacen referencia a un nivel de desempeño que se considera permitirá satisfacer al consumidor.Realización de la matriz de correlaciones Consiste en establecer la relación entre cada requerimiento de diseño.12 Determinación del grado de dificultad organizacionalEn esta etapa el equipo QFD identifica el nivel de dificultad para satisfacer los requerimientos de diseño. Se debe valorar qué tan factible es llevarlos a cabo.Clasificación por importancia técnica de los requerimientos de diseño Consiste en asignar un valor de peso relativo que permite entender y organizar los requerimientos de diseño que satisfacen las necesidades del consumidor.14 Análisis de la matriz de planificación de productoSe realiza una revisión de la matriz con el fin de definir los requisitos esenciales del producto para cumplir las necesidades del consumidor.Se seleccionan los requerimientos de diseño que se obtienen después del análisis de la matriz de planificación de producto, transfiriéndolos a la matriz de despliegue de los componentes. Estos requerimientos son los QUE's de la matriz.Se completa la matriz de despliegue de los componentes con requerimientos adicionales que no han sido tenidos en cuenta inicialmente por el consumidor.Concepto de diseño determinado Se define si el diseño del adhesivo ya tiene un concepto claro o si por el contrario es necesario compararlo con los diseños de la competencia. Desarrollo de la lista de materiales Se determinan los componentes del producto. Estos componentes son los COMO's de la matriz.Se definen las características de los componentes del producto y sus valores objetivo para que satisfagan los requerimientos de diseño.Se seleccionan los componentes de las partes que se obtienen después del análisis de la matriz de planificación de producto, transfiriéndolos a la matriz de Planificación de procesos. Determinación de restricciones del proceso Se determinan las restricciones que pueden presentarse en la elaboración del producto.Se define el proceso de producción del adhesivo.Planificación del Proceso Determinación de los parámetros críticos del proceso Los parámetros más importantes de cada operación para asegurar que esta se lleve a cabo correctamente.Transferencia de los parámetros críticos de proceso Se seleccionan los componentes de las partes que se obtienen después del análisis de la matriz de planificación de producto, transfiriéndolos a la matriz de Planificación de procesos.Evaluación de la operación Se evalúa cada parámetro crítico del proceso en cuanto a su dificultad de ser controlado, la frecuencia de ocurrencia, la severidad y la habilidad para ser detectado Establecimiento de requerimientos de planificación Se definen el tipo de controles que deben llevarse en la producción con el fin de cumplir los parámetros críticos de proceso. Fase IV: Planificación de la Producción Desarrollo de instrucciones de operaciónSe definen las actividades que el operario debe realizar durante el proceso.Fuente: Las AutorasEn esta fase se definen los objetivos y el procedimiento a seguir.El propósito de esta etapa del proyecto fue diseñar un nuevo producto que permitiera aprovechar una materia prima existente generando así una alternativa para sustituir el maíz en la producción de adhesivos.El equipo QFD esta conformado por la directora científica del proyecto y las autoras.En este caso los consumidores son todos aquellos usuarios de adhesivos para pegado de cajas corrugadas y bolsas de papel y sacos multipliegos.De acuerdo con la revisión bibliográfica se consideraron tres principales competidores para los adhesivos a partir de pirodextrina de yuca estos son los adhesivos a partir de dextrina de maíz, PVA y Hot-Melts.Consiste en traducir las necesidades de los usuarios en características medibles del producto, donde se identifican los QUE's o requerimientos del consumidor y se determinan los requerimientos de diseño para satisfacer estas necesidades.La Figura 29 muestra la matriz de Planificación del Producto. La matriz correspondiente a esta fase se expone en el Anexo J. El objetivo de esta etapa es identificar las necesidades de los consumidores y definir las características de calidad básica de un adhesivo. Además, se obtienen los requerimientos que el consumidor considera debe tener un adhesivo. Con el fin de obtener la información requerida se diseñó una encuesta que se muestra en el Anexo K, la cual fue dirigida a los consumidores identificados en el numeral 5.3.3 vía telefónicamente y en ocasiones se utilizó la entrevista personal. Como el principal objetivo de la encuesta era identificar las necesidades, preferencias y demás información relativa al consumidor, se realizó un diseño muestral para garantizar la representatividad de la información recolectada. Diseño Muestral. En el diseño muestral la poblacón hace referencia a la totalidad de instituciones que representarán los clientes meta del producto. Debido a que el adhesivo a diseñar en el presente capítulo va dirigido diferentes usuarios cuyas necesidades difieren entre sí, fue necesario considerar poblaciones diferentes conformadas por los distintos usuarios para cada aplicación. En la siguiente figura se describen las poblaciones consideradas.Figura 29. Poblaciones para el diseño muestral Fuente: Las AutorasAdhesivo para cierre de cajas corrugadas Instituciones que empacan sus productos en cajas corrugadasInstituciones que fabrican bolsas de papel Adhesivo para la fabricación de boslas de papel y sacos multipliegis Población 2Instituciones que fabrican sacos multimpliegosPoblación 1Población 1: totalidad de instituciones en Colombia que empacan sus productos en cajas corrugadas. Las instituciones que sellan con cintas autoadhesivas y grapas también constituyen la población para este producto.Marco Muestral. Por tratarse de una población conformada por instituciones de todos los sectores productivos, se usó como marco muestral el directorio industrial 25 y para la selección de la muestra se procedió a hacer el sorteo a través de generación de números aleatorios.Por tratarse de una población muy grande es necesario un muestreo probabilístico aleatorio simple donde cada elemento de la población tiene la probabilidad de ser seleccionado.Cálculo del Tamaño de Muestra. Se trabajó con máxima varianza: probabilidad de éxito, (p) = 50% y probabilidad de fracaso, (q) = 50%.Error de muestreo= 10% Formula de muestreo ( ) ( ) ( ) Población 2: hace referencia a la totalidad de instituciones cuya actividad productiva consiste en la fabricación de bolsas de papel y sacos multipliegos en el país. La siguiente tabla indica el numero de instituciones pertenecientes a esta población. Tabla 6. Numero de establecimientos, producción, empleo, valor agregado por tamaño de empresa. Envases, bolsas y cajas de papel y cartón Fuente: DANE, Encuesta Anual Manufacturera (1995,2000) Marco Muestral:. El listado 26 total de empresas clasificadas bajo el código CIIU 3412 expedido por El Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística, DANE, fue la base de muestreo para esta población. Para extraer la muestra del listado se procedió a hacer el sorteo con generación de números aleatorios.Tipo de Muestreo: Para establecer el tipo de muestreo fue necesario dividir esta la población en dos grupos: la Población 2a conformada por aquellas que elaboran bolsas de papel y la población 2b constituida por los fabricantes de sacos multipliegos.Para la población 2a que tiene un tamaño de población finito (N = 99), es necesario un muestreo probabilística aleatorio simple mientras que para la población 2b no fue necesario hacer muestreo pues a esta la conforman tan solo cuatro instituciones en todo el país, Colombates, Smurfit Cartón de Colombia, Ansa, y Odempa. Para ese caso se abarcó la totalidad mediante un censo poblacional 26 Encuesta Nacional Manufacturera, Octubre de 2003.Cálculo del Tamaño de Muestra: para el cálculo del tamaño de muestra de la población 2a, se trabajó con máxima varianza, donde la probabilidad de éxito (p) = 50% y probabilidad de fracaso (q) = 50%.Margen de Confiabilidad = 90%, Z α/2 = 1.645 Error de muestreo = 10% Formula de muestreo:  Fuente: Las Autoras 5.4.5 Desarrollo del Historial de Quejas. Para obtener el historial de quejas se recurrió a la información obtenida a través de la encuesta, la cual pretendía que la persona contactada asignara una escala a las no conformidades de acuerdo a la frecuencia y severidad para determinar el grado de importancia del problema de calidad. Para el desarrollo del historial fue necesario complementar la información con documentos suministrados por productores de adhesivos, como registros de no conformidades, historial de llamadas por queja, sugerencias por parte de los clientes entre otros.Finalmente con esta información se asignaron valores ponderativos de 1 a 5 permitiendo llenar el historial de quejas e identificar los requerimientos más importantes y aquellos en los cuales es pertinente enfocar los esfuerzos para obtener un adhesivo de óptima calidad. (véase Anexo M, actividades del Grupo Focal). El equipo de QFD realizó inicialmente una presentación de la herramienta y luego se distribuyó a los participantes un paquete con cada de las actividades que se llevaron a cabo con el fin de obtener los requerimientos de diseño. En primer lugar, se les pidió a los asistentes que definieran el adhesivo ideal.Luego, se les suministró una hoja con los requerimientos del consumidor obtenidos a través de las encuestas y los definidos por ellos, para que los calificaran de 1 a 5 determinando así el grado de importancia. La tercera actividad consistió en calificar de 1 a 5 los productos competidores de la dextrina de yuca según cada requerimiento del consumidor. En la siguiente actividad, se suministró una tabla con todos los QUÉ's en la cual los integrantes debían registrar los requerimientos de diseño para cumplir con el requerimiento del consumidor, teniendo en cuenta que cada CÓMO debe ser cuantificable. Finalmente, se solicitó a los integrantes del grupo focal que escribieran el Valor Objetivo (CUÁNTO) para cada requerimiento de diseño.Una vez determinados los QUÉ's finales se registraron en la matriz de planificación del producto 5.4.7 Organización de los Requerimientos de Diseño. Dado los requerimientos de diseño COMO'S, se obtuvieron de dos maneras (vía Matriz Causa -Efecto y grupo focal), en este paso se procedió a consolidar y analizar los resultados obtenidos. Una vez identificados todos los requerimientos se generó la lista final de las características de diseño y sus respectivos valores objetivo. La lista final de requerimientos de diseño se presenta en la Tabla 9. Igualmente, en esta etapa se definieron los valores de orientación de cada CÓMO. Lo anterior implica determinar si el requerimiento de diseño debe ser maximizado, minimizado o si lo que sí por el contrario se busca es un valor. Esta orientación permite comprender mejor los CÓMO's y resulta muy útil para establecer los valores objetivo.Adicionalmente, se realizó la matriz de correlaciones entre los requerimientos del consumidor, (QUE's). Esta se presenta en el Anexo N. 5.4.12 Determinación del Grado de Dificultad Organizacional. Para evaluar la factibilidad de los requerimientos de diseño, se deben evaluar variables como: inversión en tiempo, dinero, recurso humano, maquinaria y equipo, cambios en las políticas, etc. Debido a que este proyecto no se lleva a cabo en una organización este paso se realizó haciendo la suposición de que el proyecto se va a llevar a cabo. La valoración se hizo usando una escala de 1 a 5, siendo 1 la calificación asignada a los requerimientos más fáciles de implementar y 5 a los de mayor complejidad o imposibles de implementar. En este caso, todas las características de diseño fueron viables.Clasificación por Importancia Técnica de los Requerimientos de Diseño. Este paso, se efectuó multiplicando el factor de importancia para el consumidor por un valor signado según la relación definida en el cuadro 11. Así, se obtuvo el valor jerárquico de la importancia técnica de cada característica de diseño con su respectiva importancia absoluta, importancia relativa y sumatoria, como se aprecia en el cuadro 15.Cuadro 15. Importancia relativa de los requerimientos de diseño y su importamcia relativa recurrentes o de uso mas frecuente en las formulaciones. En consecuencia, basados en este criterio se seleccionaron aquellos aditivos mas comunes, presentes en la formulaciones típicas y que son indispensables en la preparación de un adhesivo de este tipo. Esta lista se determinó con la asesoría de personas con experiencia en formulaciones de adhesivos industriales. No obstante, debido a que la formulación de un adhesivo sólo puede ser validada evaluando diferentes niveles de componentes, en esta etapa sólo se definió la típica formulación de un adhesivo de esta clase. La identificación de la formulación más adecuada requiere un alto contenido experimental y está fuera de los objetivos del proyecto. Por esta razón el principal aporte de esta etapa radica en contribuir desde aspectos relativos al diseño a un eventual proyecto que así lo requiera. demostrando que ese componente es de vital importancia para el diseño ya que satisface de manera fuerte más de un requerimiento de diseño e indirectamente más de una necesidad del consumidor. En la matriz de despliegue se muestran los componentes en orden de importancia relativa. Según los resultados mostrados la dextrina de yuca es el principal componente, ya que es esta quien proporciona la mayor cantidad de propiedades y la que por su naturaleza da el carácter adhesivo. Se destaca el papel del aceite de ricino, quien esta en la tercera posición, debido a sus múltiples funciones, antiespumante, plastificante y lubricante. También se destaca que el bórax es de suma importancia, esto se debe a que por sus propiedades es un mejorador de viscosidad y de tack, da un color adecuado y mejora la resistencia a los microorganismos. En el caso del particular del agua, cabe aclarar que su puntaje es bajo debido a que sus funciones no se relacionan con los requerimientos de diseño, pero debido a la naturaleza de un adhesivo su presencia es indispensable.La selección final de los componentes se llevó a cabo teniendo en cuenta los puntajes obtenidos y las funciones que desempeña cada componente. Los aromatizantes a pesar de su bajo valor, se tuvieron en cuenta ya que los consumidores manifestaron en repetidas ocasiones quejas relacionadas al olor del adhesivo.La definición de las cantidades que debe tener cada componente se presentan en la matriz de despliegue de componentes sin embargo, para poder determinar con exactitud el porcentaje de la mezcla y evaluar adecuadamente el desempeño de cada componente es necesario realizar pruebas de laboratorio, por lo tanto estas se expresan en rangos.El diseño del producto identificó que los dos tipos de adhesivos elegidos, se diferencian entre si en dos características en la viscosidad y en el contenido de sólidos. Para las cajas corrugadas varía entre 1.000-3.000 CP y para la formación de los sacos multipliegos entre 2000-5000 cP y el contenido de sólidos para los primeros es de 18% y para los segundos en el caso del pegado de los fondos es de 30% y para la costura lateral es de 22%. Dado que la formulación de los adhesivos es similar la herramienta se desarrolló simultáneamente para los dos tipos de adhesivos ya que los demás aditivos son agregados en pequeñas proporciones.Para la validación de la selección de los componentes del adhesivo se realizó una prueba a nivel experimental, en el marco del desarrollo del proyecto que apoya a este estudio y se obtuvieron los siguientes resultados:El adhesivo de dextrina de yuca presenta alta pegajosidad inicial.Presenta baja tendencia a cambiar de viscosidad en almacenamiento. La prueba de estabilidad a las 24 horas es bastante aceptable.La película del adhesivo es brillante y transparente.No presentó olor desagradable comparado con un adhesivo de dextrina de maíz.El adhesivo presentó buena fuerza adhesiva y rompió el sustrato en menos de un minuto de ser aplicado sobre la base de papel kraft. 30La tercera fase tiene como propósito diseñar el mejor proceso para producir aquellos componentes determinados como críticos en la fase II. Debido a que el proceso de producción de un adhesivo es sencillo, y no se compone de una gran cantidad de etapas, sino que consiste en una mezcla y agitación de los aditivos controlando variables tiempo de agitación y temperatura, no hay características de los componentes definidas como críticas, a pesar de que la dextrina es el componente esencial, el resto son también importantes.Lo anterior implica que el desarrollo a profundidad de las dos fases posteriores de QFD estarían fuera del alcance de los objetivos, debido a que no hay lugar a una selección de combinación de procesos ni una determinación de parámetros críticos de manufactura. La esencia de la fabricación de un adhesivo radica en obtener una mezcla adecuada de componentes, por lo que es necesario llevar a cabo un diseño de experimentos para validar los porcentajes en la mezcla. Sin embargo, se desarrollaron ciertas etapas de las fases que se detallan a continuación.Al realizar el análisis de la matriz 2, o de despliegue de partes se seleccionaron aquellas características de las partes que se consideraron críticas. Esta selección se llevo a cabo teniendo en cuenta la importancia absoluta y relativa, los objetivos de diseño considerados importantes en la fase I. En este caso se seleccionaron todos los componentes ya que son esenciales en la fabricación del adhesivo.Restricciones del Proceso. Las restricciones que pueden presentarse en la elaboración del adhesivo, están asociadas a la capacidad de producción, más adelante se presentan los equipos con sus características. Para el posterior análisis de factibilidad se supuso que se trabajaría un turno (8 horas).5.6.3 Determinación del Proceso. El proceso de producción de adhesivos se definió con ayuda de la directora científica del proyecto y del Gerente Comercial de Raisio Chemicals.Este es un proceso sencillo cuyas variaciones residen en la cantidad de aditivos agregados. Este es particularmente el caso de la dextrina, que define en gran medida el porcentaje solidos del adhesivo.Antes de iniciar el proceso de producción del adhesivo, se debe definir la formulación especificando los componentes, condiciones y proporciones requeridas en la mezcla. Una vez definidas las materias primas se procede a pesar las cantidades, utilizando las balanzas adecuadas para obtener exactitud en las medidas. Se inicia con la adición del mayor componente del adhesivo, que es al agua, una vez el tanque alcance la temperatura deseada (85ºC), se vierte la dextrina y se agita a una velocidad aproximada de 120 rpm. Luego se adicionan el antiespumante y el bórax por una tubería y alimentados al reactor por medio de una bomba dosificadora, que los bombea al tanque auxiliar y los descarga al tanque reactor. Debido a las propiedades del bórax, se realiza un control de viscosidad y se adiciona el NaOH, controlando el pH. Una vez la mezcla obtenga la viscosidad deseada, se agregan el biocida, los lubricantes y demás componentes definidos para la preparación del adhesivo. Obtenido el adhesivo, se enfriar el reactor hasta una temperatura de 37ºC. Finalmente, se mezcla el aromatizante y se empaca en bolsas de polietileno y tambores de 200 Kg.Además de realizar control continuo por parte del operario durante todas las etapas del proceso, también se realiza control de calidad al producto, se recolectan muestras que son llevadas al laboratorio de calidad quien las analiza y expide una ficha técnica de las características del producto final. Los tambores son colocados en estivas de madera y almacenados en bodega de producto terminado para su posterior distribución.Las variables críticas que deben ser evaluadas durante el proceso son la temperatura y la viscosidad. Es importante tener en cuenta que el bórax debe agregarse primero que el NaOH, y que la temperatura debe ser controlada, ya que los componentes se mezclan adecuadamente si la temperatura es elevada.Además, se definieron los equipos accesorios y elementos auxiliares para la producción industrial de un adhesivo. Estos se describen a continuación:Tanque Reactor. Recipiente de acero inoxidable 316, con capacidad de 1 tonelada, donde se llevan a cabo los procesos de calentamiento, mezcla y enfriamiento del producto. Está provisto de una chaqueta de calentamiento de serpentín interno, que permite las operaciones de calentamiento y enfriamiento, y de una tubería en la parte inferior para descarga del producto.Motor de12 a 25 HP (caballos de fuerza). Se usa para el accionamiento del agitador.Consta de un eje provisto de paletas, el cual se utiliza para el mezclado de los aditivos.Este debe manejar rangos de velocidad entre 80 -120 rpm (revoluciones por minuto).Es usada para el suministro de vapor, para el calentamiento del tanque reactor. Posee una potencia inferior a 25 HP (caballos de fuerza). Se usa como combustible ACPM, que es un combustible más barato que el carbón y fue sugerida por los fabricantes de este tipo de equipos.Tubería en espiral para suministro de vapor indirecto alrededor de la chaqueta del reactor, con diámetro de 1\".Usada para bombear el aditivo desde el tambor que lo contiene hasta el tanque auxiliar.Esta bomba requiere una potencia aproximada de 1,5 HP ya que maneja aditivos de baja viscosidad.Tanque Auxiliar.Tanque de acero inoxidable con capacidad de 200 litros para el suministro de aditivos con mirilla transparente para el control de niveles.Bomba para el envasado. Se requiere una bomba para descargar el adhesivo y bombearlo a los tambores. Esta debe estar en la capacidad para manejar fluidos de alta viscosidad hasta de 25.000 cP y la potencia debe ser de 12 HP.Tubería para suministro de agua.Tubería de acero inoxidable de 1\" de diámetro.Tubería de acero inoxidable con un diámetro de 1\"pulgada., la cual se conecta al serpentín que enchaqueta el tanque reactor.Tubería de acero inoxidable de 3\" de diámetro. Esta sale del tanque reactor hacia el envase, y además posee un tramo para la recirculación del adhesivo hacia el tanque reactor.5.6.4. Construcción del Diagrama de Flujo Maestro. En esta etapa se describe el proceso de obtención de un adhesivo. El Anexo Q presenta un esquema ilustrativo del proceso productivo. Además los Anexos R y S ilustran el flujo del proceso de obtención del adhesivo.aseguran que la operación se esta realizando correctamente, es decir que se lleva a cabo de acuerdo con las especificaciones de los clientes dadas en la fase I. En la fabricación de un adhesivo los parámetros que deben tenerse en cuenta son la agitación de la mezcla, al igual que las mediciones de temperatura, pH y viscosidad.La cuarta fase recoge todas las matrices desarrolladas anteriormente y las traduce en acciones con el fin de definir los controles que se deben aplicar al proceso para satisfacer las necesidades del consumidor.7.1 Transferencia de los Parámetros Críticos de Proceso. Se seleccionaron todos los parámetros críticos de proceso, debido a que todos son esenciales en la preparación de un adhesivo.A continuación se describen las pruebas que deben hacerse a un adhesivo con el fin de evaluar la calidad.Esta se evalúa por primera vez al adicionar el bórax, sin embargo debe ser controlada constantemente. Una vez finalizado el proceso se toma una muestra que es entregada al laboratorio para medir la viscosidad final del adhesivo.Una mezcla adecuada de los componentes depende en gran medida de la agitación, por lo cual esta debe ser constante.La temperatura debe ser controlada en todo momento, ya que si el calor de la mezcla no es adecuado, los aditivos no podrán mezclarse correctamente. Inicialmente, la temperatura del agua debe estar alrededor de 85 C, y al final de la preparación el adhesivo debe estar aproximadamente en 37 C. pH El pH es de gran importancia para el adhesivo, los controles de ph se realizan una vez se adiciona el NaOH y al finalizar la preparación.Las pruebas para determinar la calidad de un adhesivo buscan definir el estado de unión en el momento de la prueba. Generalmente, se aplican las siguientes pruebas.Es la medida de fricción interna de un fluido o su resistencia a fluir a una temperatura determinada. Esta prueba se lleva a cabo con un viscosímetro Brookfield y el resultado se expresa en centipoises (cP).Mide el contenido de sólidos que posee el adhesivo luego de su preparación. Se determina por lo general con un refractómetro.Esta prueba mide la basicidad del adhesivo. Dado que aditivos como el bórax o el NaOH son bases, el adhesivo es de naturaleza básica. Se determina por medio de un pHmetro.Esta prueba se determina por apreciación organoléptica de la persona encargada de realizar la evaluación.Esta propiedad se determina por esparcimiento de una película delgada del adhesivo sobre una lámina de vidrio. Una vez esparcida la película, se deja secar y luego se levantar la película del vidrio, probando así la facilidad de la película para mantenerse firme o hacerse quebradiza. Además la prueba permite evaluar si la película es brillante, opaca o transparente.Esta prueba se determina por esparcimiento de una película de adhesivo sobre dos hojas de papel kraft. Esta prueba determina la fuerza que tiene el adhesivo para unir los dos sustratos 31 y al tratar de separarlos romper alguno de ellos. Adhesivos con buena fuerza adhesiva presentan un mejor rendimiento en procesos de pegado de alta velocidad.Esta prueba mide el tiempo que demora el adhesivo en secar y por ende en unir los sustratos. También es llamado tiempo abierto. Se realiza por esparcimiento de una película del adhesivo sobre una lámina de vidrio y una vez esparcida se determina el tiempo en minutos en la cual la película seca completamente.31 Superficie sobre la cual se aplica el adhesivo.Es una prueba que determina la pegajosidad que tiene el adhesivo y su capacidad para formación de hilo. Es una prueba cualitativa y se realiza tomando una muestra del adhesivo entre los dedos pulgar e índice y se evalúa la capacidad de formar hilos y la resistencia que opone el adhesivo a la separación de los dedos.Esta prueba determina la tendencia del adhesivo a cambiar de viscosidad luego de su almacenamiento. Puede evaluarse dejando en reposo el adhesivo a temperatura ambiente o en ambientes estresantes de calor o frío por tiempo de 24 horas y luego determinando su viscosidad y comparándola con la medida inicial luego de su preparación.Este capítulo recopila los aspectos financieros del proyecto con el fin de evaluar la viabilidad de la producción de adhesivos de dextrina de yuca. A continuación se presentan los análisis de los flujos asociados a los costos, gastos, inversiones, ingresos, egresos y la rentabilidad del proyecto.La simulación se llevó a cabo para un periodo de cinco años con una inversión inicial de $138.804.000, de los cuales el 55% corresponde a maquinaria, 33% equivale a muebles, enseres y equipos de oficina y el resto por concepto de instalación.6.1.1 Demanda Potencial. En el caso del adhesivo para el cierre de cajas corrugadas (ref: CC) resulta muy difícil asociar el consumo a alguna actividad productiva en particular pues cualquier empresa que empaque sus productos en cajas corrugadas constituye mercado potencial. Por esta razón resulta muy difícil dimensionar el mercado total de este producto. Además los adhesivos comparten este mercado con productos sustitutos como cintas, papeles autoadhesivos y grapas. Sin embargo, de acuerdo a datos suministrados por la gerencia comercial de una empresa productora de adhesivos, el mercado nacional de adhesivos para esta aplicación equivale aproximadamente a 500 toneladas mensuales.A partir de lo anterior, se estimó que en el primer mes del año 1 se venderán 5 toneladas de adhesivo de esta referencia, lo que equivale al 1% de participación en el mercado, este valor se aumentará progresivamente hasta terminar el primer año con una participación del 20%, ajustada al crecimiento del mercado.Por otro lado, para la aplicación correspondiente a bolsas de papel y sacos multipliegos (ref: BP y SM), se definió como marco muestral para el cálculo de la demanda potencial todas las instituciones contempladas en el subsector Envases y cajas de papel y cartón (Cod. CIIU 3412). La Figura 31 muestra que la producción de bolsas de papel representa el 4% y la de sacos multipliegos el 9% de la producción total del subsector. Esta participación en la producción es proporcional a la demanda de insumos que se genera, por lo que estaría directamente relacionada con la de la compra del adhesivo. Según cifras de la ANIF 32 , se estima que el consumo de adhesivos en instituciones dedicadas a la fabricación de bolsas de papel es de aproximadamente 60 t/mes. mientras que el 30% para laterales. Para determinar el comportamiento de la demanda se tomó como marco de referencia Colombates S.A por ser la más representativa dentro del subsector en ventas de producto y de consumo de materia prima 33 .6.1.2 Demanda Específica. Para la referencia BP se estiman ventas de 5 ton/mes, con un aumento progresivo hasta alcanzar 20 t/mes según el crecimiento estimado del mercado.La situación del mercado de los sacos multipliegos es similar al de bolsas de papel. Para el primer año se espera obtener ventas de 10 t/mes en los dos tipos de adhesivos. En la referencia SM-F se espera un mayor crecimiento los primeros meses pasando a 30 t/mes el segundo mes, mientras que en el adhesivo para laterales se espera vender 20 t/mes en el segundo mes de acuerdo a las tendencias estacionales del mercado.El comportamiento de las ventas asociado a la demanda específica estimada anteriormente, se incrementará en un 5% anual el segundo año y 10% anual durante los tres siguientes años, en todas las referencias. La Tabla 12 resume lo anterior.Tabla 11. Ventas estimadas en el período de evaluación uente: Las Autoras 6.1.3 Precios. En lo que se refiere a precios, se ha estimado un incremento anual Tabla 12. Precios de venta en el período de evaluación os ingresos de este proyecto provienen de los ingresos por venta de las cuatro referencias de adhesivos. La tabla 14 muestra los ingresos por venta en el horizonte del proyecto acorde con las cantidades y precios estimados para el período analizado.    39 VAN HORNE, James. Financial Management and Policy, Prentice Hall. 9na Edición, 1992. p. 144. • En el ámbito global, las principales industrias de almidón de yuca están ubicadas en Asia, siendo Tailandia quien posee la industria productora más dinámica e importante, seguida de las industrias de Indonesia, China, India y Vietman. Las exportaciones están concentradas en tres de estos países, siendo el 85% realizadas por Tailandia y 10% por Indonesia y Brasil. Los principales importadores son Japón, Taiwán, Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, Malasia, Singapur, Estados Unidos y Filipinas. Así, los mayores productores de dextrinas son India, China y Tailandia, y los mayores importadores son Asia y América Latina.• En el ámbito nacional, la producción de almidones y almidones modificados, incluyendo dextrinas, está monopolizada por la empresa Industrias del Maíz S.A., filial de la multinacional Corn Products International. Aunque esta empresa basa sus productos en el maíz, recientemente ha incluido en su portafolio productos a partir de yucca. Existen también en la zona rural, alrededor de 11.000 plantas procesadoras de almidón de yuca a pequeña y mediana escala, llamadas rallanderías, manejadas principalmente por mano de obra familiar o pequeñas cooperativas de campesinos, las cuales procesan un almidón de forma artesanal, utilizando procesos de secado solar. Sin embargo en calidad, el almidón no es comparable con el obtenido por empresas de alta tecnología o con los almidones importados, los cuales provienen principalmente de Estados Unidos y Brasil.• Los esfuerzos realizados por los centros de investigación y en general por los programas gubernamentales, para la incorporación de paquetes tecnológicos en la cadena agroindustrial de la yuca, todavía no se ven reflejados en el desarrollo del sector.Es notoria la deficiencia en tecnologías para la obtención de productos de mayor valor agregado; centrándose los esfuerzos en la obtención de yuca, harina y almidón agrio, destinados principalmente a la industria de concentrados para animales.• El estudio de campo permitió determinar que los principales sectores de aplicación de las dextrinas son papel y cartón y alimentos. En el sector papel y cartón, son usadas las pirodextrinas para la fabricación de adhesivos, particularmente en cuatro aplicaciones: para cerrado de cajas corrugadas; para la fabricación de cores o tubos de cartón; para la fabricación de bolsas de papel y sacos multipliegos y para el etiquetado de botellas de vidrio. Adicionalmente se usan otro tipo de dextrinas modificadas por vía enzimática para la producción directa del adhesivo. En el sector de alimentos, son usadas las maltodextrinas principalmente como barreras ante la grasa o agua (confitería), como sustitutos de la gelatina o goma arábiga en las gomas, como sustitutos de grasa en los helados, como promotores de cuerpo (cerveza) y como estabilizantes y espesantes en las salsas y embutidos.• La metodología utilizada para la selección del producto permitió determinar que los adhesivos para cerrado de cajas corrugadas y fabricación de sacos multipliegos y bolsas de papel son las alternativas más viables para un posterior diseño o desarrollo.• El Despliegue de la Función de Calidad permitió determinar que los adhesivos a partir de pirodextrina se caracterizan por su bajo costo, buena formación de película, excelente pegajosidad, biodegradabilidad y capacidad para no cristalizarse. Los aspectos en los cuales son deficientes son en la tendencia a deformar el sustrato, el tiempo abierto de secado largo y la tendencia a cambiar de viscosidad en almacenamiento.• La matriz de Planificación del Producto permitió traducir las necesidades de los consumidores de adhesivos en requerimientos de diseño cuantificables y a su vez determinar cuales de ellos son indispensables en el desarrollo del producto según su importancia, dificultad y beneficio. Las variables que se deben tener en cuenta son la penetración en el sustrato, la buena formación de películas, y la buena adhesividad, mientras que aquellas características que deben ser potencialmente mejoradas son las relacionadas con la formación de grumos, la estabilidad en viscosidad y la disminución del tiempo de secado.• La Matriz de Despliegue de componentes permitió un acercamiento hacia la formulación más adecuada para el diseño del producto. Se identificaron los principales componentes teniendo en cuenta su viabilidad de acuerdo con costos, toxicidad, estabilidad y disponibilidad. Adicionalmente, se identificaron las características críticas de calidad, aspectos a fortalecer y posibilidades para crear ventaja competitiva de los adhesivos a partir de pirodextrinas frente a sus principales sustitutos.• La validación del diseño del adhesivo a nivel experimental permitió comprobar que es posible la obtención de adhesivos a partir de pirodextrinas de yuca con características aceptables. Lo que da las bases para posteriores estudios en el diseño de adhesivos que satisfagan los requerimientos del mercado, con la evaluación de niveles y tipo de los componentes.El proceso se escaló a nivel industrial, a través de la definición de los equipos necesarios para la preparación de los adhesivos y se determinó que la producción de adhesivos es un proceso sencillo que sin embargo, debe ser controlado cuidadosamente, principalmente el porcentaje de aditivos, la temperatura y la viscosidad de la mezcla.• La creciente tendencia de las instituciones hacia procesos y productos más sostenibles desde lo ambiental, representa una excelente oportunidad para diferenciar los adhesivos de pirodextrina de yuca de los adhesivos sintéticos. Aunado a las regulaciones ambientales, cada vez más exigentes, sobre el uso de contenidos totales o parciales de fibra reciclada y de la eliminación de grapas para el cierre de empaques, lo que les da a estos adhesivos una ventaja competitiva.• El estudio de factibilidad económica mostró que dadas las condiciones planteadas, la producción de adhesivos es viable ya que cada peso invertido retorna 0,91.Con miras a orientar estudios futuros cuyo objetivo sea profundizar en el tema del proyecto, se recomienda:• Difundir a nivel nacional los diversos usos de la yuca y sus ventajas competitivas, especialmente como alternativa para reemplazar otras fuentes de almidón tanto en el sector alimenticio como en otros sectores, no sólo enfocándose en la alimentación animal y el consumo humano si no también en su utilización en nuevos mercados.• Dado el gran mercado de las dextrinas en el sector de los alimentos, se propone estudiar el uso de las pirodextrinas en este sector, como potencial de uso, con ajustes en los procesos de producción que permitan obtener pirodextrinas con propiedades de funcionales similares a las de las maltodextrinas, lo que haría los procesos m'as competitivos económicamente dado las ventajas que presenta la obtención de dextrinas por vía seca.• Fomentar el desarrollo y la investigación de productos innovadores, de alta calidad, bajo costo y de alto valor agregado que satisfagan las necesidades del mercado y aprovechen las ventajas competitivas y comparativas que tiene la yuca, incrementando así el portafolio de productos que posee el centro de investigación que patrocinó este proyecto.• Implementar modelos de transferencia de tecnología que permita a los pequeños cultivadores de yuca beneficiarse no sólo de la investigación aquí propuesta, sino de otros proyectos relacionados con el tema que los centros de investigación realicen en torno al cultivo de la yuca.• Algunos de los requerimientos del consumidor presentan correlaciones negativas, lo que implica que llevar a cabo algunos afecta negativamente el cumplimiento de otros, por lo cual una validación profunda a escala experimental del adhesivo es primordial para optimizar los componentes del adhesivo que permita satisfacer las características requeridas.• Los adhesivos industriales son desarrollados específicamente para satisfacer las necesidades puntuales de cada cliente. Por esta razón, es indispensable la cercanía con el cliente que se refleja finalmente en la amplia satisfacción de los deseos del consumidor, no sólo por haber sido partícipe en el proceso de investigación y desarrollo sino también porque se fortalece la asistencia técnica y respaldo por parte del proveedor.","tokenCount":"21945"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b060f0c640d048195d2cbb54669741be","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/7de7e756-3533-4309-a68b-034b3bb70f16/retrieve","id":"492826230"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"98bfb9f6-e346-4043-8dfc-495d10f9b4e4","pagecount":"23","content":"Climate change is becoming one of the most serious challenges to Kenya's achievement of its development goals as described under Vision 2030. Kenya is already extremely susceptible to climate-related events, and projections indicate that the impacts are likely to affect the country even more in the future. In many areas, extreme events and variability of weather are now the norm: rainfall is irregular and unpredictable; some regions experience frequent droughts during the long rainy season, others severe floods during the short rains. The arid and semi-arid areas are particularly hard hit by these climate hazards, thereby putting the lives of millions of households and their social and economic activities at risk.In 2010, Kenya developed a National Climate Change Response Strategy (NCCRS) which recognized the importance of climate change impacts on the country's development. This was followed by the National Climate Change Action Plan in 2012. Since the focus of these initiatives has been the national level, there is a need to mainstream climate change perspectives in programmes and development plans at the county level.To strengthen local capacities to reduce the near-, medium-and long-term vulnerability to current and future climate variability, the Kenyan Government, through the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries (MALF) is implementing the Kenya Adaptation to Climate Change in Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (KACCAL) project. The project is funded with a grant from the Global Environmental Facility (GEF)/ Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF) through the World Bank. The present study is part of the KACCAL project; it aims to inform the county government and stakeholders on the climate change risks and opportunities for agriculture so that they are able to integrate these perspectives into their development plans and processes. This document presents the Climate Risk Profile for Nyeri County. The county is prone to both drought and floods since some areas are semi-arid (those lying on the leeward side of Mt. Kenya) and others very wet. Rain patterns in Nyeri County have changed, with amounts decreasing after every 3-4 years (Karienye et al., 2012). Drought is common in the semi-arid Kieni West, East Mukurweini, Mathira West and Tetu where the consequences include crop failures (if crops are still in the field), or no planting at all (if the drought comes before farmers plant) and reduction in milk production following a decrease in quantity and quality of pastures. For instance the drought of 2014 that resulted to crop failure in the constituency exposed 180,000 people (33,000households) to food insecurity (Kenya News Agency, 2014). This saw food prices go high especially for beans where a kilogram was selling at 90 Kenya Shillings from 75 Shillings, a kilogram of tomato at 60 shillings from 50, and Capsicum selling at 100 a kilogram from 70 shillings (Business Daily, 2014), making it hard for farmers to procure supplies for planting and consumption; necessitating food aid interventions. The same was witnessed in 2016 when there was a remarkable decrease in water volumes in rivers, water pans and dams, increase in distance to water sources, decline in milk production, increase in food prices and increase in malnutrition cases (NDMA, 2016). In addition to the droughts, Nyeri County residents also suffer loss due to floods. For example, the floods of 2015, which destroyed crops, livestock and assets, displaced thousands in Kanyagia location in 2015 (Star, 2015). These extreme events compromising the livelihoods of thousands of people in Nyeri call for deliberate efforts in building resilience and adaptive capacity of the vulnerable.The Profile is organized into six main sections, each reflecting an essential analytical step in studying current and potential adaptation options in key local agricultural value chain commodities. The text first offers an overview of the county's main value chain commodities key to food security and livelihoods, as well as major challenges to agricultural sector development in the county. In the next section, the main climate hazards are identified based on the analysis of historical climate data and climate projections. This includes scientific assessment of climate indicators for dry spells, flooding, and heat stress among other key hazards for agriculture. It continues with an analysis of the vulnerabilities and risks posed by the hazards deemed to be potentially most harmful to the respective value chains. Based on these vulnerabilities, current and potential on-farm adaptation options and off-farm serv ices are discussed. The text also provides snapshots of the policy, institutional and governance context that can enable adoption of resilience-building strategies. Finally, it presents potential pathways for strengthening institutional capacity to address potential future climate risks.Nyeri is one of the 47 counties of Kenya located in the Central region of the County. It covers about 3,337 km 2 ] 1 (KNBS, 2014) and borders Nyandarua County to the West, Kirinyaga County to the East, Muranga County to the South, Laikipia County to the North, and Meru County to the North East. The county is rich in natural resources with main features being the Mount Kenya, the Aberdare ranges and hills like Tumutumu, Nyeri, and Karima. The main rivers in the county include river Chania, Sagana, Ragati and Gura whereas the wetlands include Thuti, Kandune, Njengu, and Kianjogu swamps. The terrain is rugged, making exploitation of the rivers for irrigation a challenge (see Annex 1 for a description of the administrative division of the county).The monthly mean temperature in the county is about 12.8-20.8 o C (GoK, 2013). Rainfall is bimodal, with the Long rains, normally 1,200 -1,600 mm, coming between March and May and the Short rains, normally 500 -1500 mm, coming between October and December (Ibid) 2 . There are year-to-year variations of amounts of rainfall received as well as variations across regions within the county. Some regions for instance in Agro-ecological Zone LH2, LH3 and LH4 receive trimodal rainfall where the middle rains come between July and August.The county is parceled out into 15 agroecological zones (AEZs) (Jaetzold et al., 2010) (see Annex 1): TA0, which is under National Park (Othaya, Tetu, and Kieni) TAI, which is also under National Park (Mt. Kenya; Mathira and Kieni). UH0, also known as the Forest Zone, is under Forest Reserve (Othaya, Tetu, Kieni, and Mathira). rainfall and lies between 2130 and 2380 m above sea level (Kieni). UH3, also known as the Upper Wheat-Barley Zone, receives 900-1050 mm of mean annual rainfall and lies between 2130 and 2200 meters above sea level (Kieni and a bit of Mathira). LH1, also known as the Tea-Dairy Zone, receives 1400-1800 mm of mean annual rainfall and lies at an altitude of 1950-2070 meters (Tetu Othaya and Mathira).LH2, also known as the Wheat/Maize-Pyrethrum Zone, receives about 950-1050 mm of mean annual rainfall and lies between 1830 and 2100 meters (Kieni, Tetu, and a small section of Mathira).LH3, also known as the Wheat (Maize)-Barley Zone, receives 850-1000 mm of mean annual rainfall and lies at an altitude of 1980-2130 meters.LH3-4 is a transitional strip which receives about 830-930 mm of mean annual rainfall and lies between 1900 and 2100 meters above sea level. LH4, also called the Cattle-Sheep Barley Zone, receives 770-820 mm of mean annual rainfall and is 1800-1980 meters above sea level LH5, also known as the lower Highland Ranching Zone, receives about 650-850 mm of mean annual rainfall and is 1890-1950 meters above sea level (Kieni). UM1, also known as the Coffee-Tea Zone, receives 1100-1600 mm of mean annual rainfall and is 1710 -1780 meters above sea level (Othaya and Mathira). UM2, also known as the Main Coffee Zone, about 950-1500 mm of mean annual rainfall and is 1460 -1710 meters above sea level (Mukurweini, Mathira, Othaya, and Tetu). UM3, also known as the Marginal Coffee Zone, receives about 870-1000 mm of mean annual rainfall and lies at an altitude of 1220-1780 meters.UM4, also known as the Sunflower-Maize Zone, receives 850-900 mm of mean annual rainfall and is at an altitude of 150-1780 meters (Kieni and Nyeri Town).Out of the total arable land in Nyeri, 61% (60,662 ha) is under food crops whereas 22% (21,593 ha) is under cash crops 5 (GoK, 2014). In 2014, maize occupied approximately 62% of land under food crops whereas Irish potatoes occupied 7% 6 .Agriculture in the county is largely dependent on rainfall since only 16% of the potential land for irrigation has been exploited (Kenya Open Data). Some of the factors Nyeri County had a population of 707,003 persons, with almost equal percentages of females and males (51 and 49% respectively) in 2012 (GoK, 2013). A large proportion (87%) of this population is rural given the small number (six) of urban areas in the county (GoK, 2013). The population is projected to be 721,791 in 2017, growing at an average rate of 1.5% based on the 2009 census 3 (GoK, 2014). This growth rate is relatively smaller compared to the national rate of 2.9%, a factor that can be attributed to the high acceptance (63%) of birth control measures.3 These figures for the projected population in 2017 are slightly different from those in GoK (2013) of 720,708. The growth rates in the CIDP of 0.48 significantly with the mentioned rate of 1.5.4 This is the percentage of people who are unable to get nutritious and enough food due to financial constraints.5 This is slightly different from what is mentioned in GoK (2013a).6 The percentages were obtained from data provided in GoK (2015).The agricultural sector is the mainstay of the economy of Nyeri County. Agriculture comprises mainly cultivation of cash and food crops, and rearing of livestock and fish. It employs approximately 66% of the labour force and contributes roughly 57% to household incomes (GoK, 2013). The major cash crops grown in the county include tea, mostly grown in Mathira, Othaya and Tetu, coffee is mostly grown all over the county except in Kieni, and horticultural crops (carrots and kales) mostly in Kieni. Arable land in the county accounts for 70% (987.5 km2) of the total land area (GoK, 2013). Agricultural production in Nyeri is mainly for subsistence purposes.The average farm size is between 4.5 ha for small-scale farms and 22.5 ha for large-scale farms, though the land holding is larger in areas such as Kieni (GoK, 2014). A majority of farmers (85%) have title deeds, a factor that might be traced back from independence (Nyeri being one of the white settlement areas in Kenya) as well as the sedentary lives of the people in the county. Secure land tenure is an incentive for farmers to invest in longterm soil and water conservation measures.28% of the people live under the poverty line (KNBS, 2013a). Poverty rates are higher in the urban areas (57%) compared to the rural areas (32%) (GoK, 2013). This is despite the fact that the unemployment level stands at 21% (Ibid). Low incomes from the economic activities undertaken in the county may be a contributing factor to the high urban poverty level. Nevertheless, the county is characterised by a high quality of life given that the Human Development Indicator (HDI) is higher than the national figure (0.58 and 0.52 respectively For instance, about 31 , 6, and 3% of the farmer households using top dress fertiliser were male-, female-, and youth-headed respectively in 2013 (Ibid). This factor may be attributed to the fact that men have better access to resources such as credit and are the custodians of the household resources. Interventions such as Input Subsidy Programmes should therefore be more targeted to benefit the gender and age groups that are most disadvantaged. This may be done through addressing contributing factors to low input utilization like high input prices and unavailability of certified seeds.Agricultural Productivity Programme (KAPP). For the development of this County Climate Risk Profile, four major value chain commodities (VCCs) were selected for in-depth analysis, based on their contribution to food security, productivity characteristics, and importance to the economy. These VCCs, validated by local stakeholders, have been selected from a list compiled from the above-mentioned documents, using the following prioritization indicators: harvested area (hectares), production (90-kg bags where relevant), variation in production (in the past five years), value of production (KES/bag), dietary energy consumption (Kcal/capita/day), protein content (g of protein/100 g of product), iron content (mg of iron /100 g of product), zinc content (mg of zinc/100 g of product), and Vitamin A content (IU Vitamin A/100 g of product). The selected value chains were dairy, Irish potato, banana, and local poultry.The dairy cow is a vibrant value chain in Nyeri especially in Nyeri South where every household has at least a dairy cow -either local, interbreed and/or exotic breeds (mostly Friesian, Guernsey, Jersey, and Ayrshires. The dairy cow population in the county was estimated at 173,075 in 2014, with a production of 175,747,872 kg of milk (GoK, 2015). Dairy production in Nyeri is mainly under zero grazing given land constraints.Of all the total milk produced, approximately 27% is consumed, 62% is sold, 7.7% fed to calves, and about 3.5% lost during handling (Nassiuma andLocal poultry (chicken)The poultry sector ranks third in the county after dairy and beef sectors in terms of income generation in livestock production (GoK, 2014). The chickens are kept for eggs as well as meat. Farmers are mostly small scale (all over the county); every household has at least a chicken, though production is concentrated in Othaya. Input suppliers are mostly small scale with a few exceptions of companies such as Kenchic, Kuku Chick, and Brade Gate (supplying chicks) and Maisha Millers who supply feeds. In 2014, there were about 298,666 local poultry chicken in the county; production in the same year was 250, 471 kg of meat and 9,345,349 trays of eggs 8 (GoK, 2015).Productivity varies across age and gender due to different levels of access to markets and resources by the different groups. For instance in 2013, youthheaded households had the highest number of eggs sold for the indigenous chicken (2,596), whereas maleheaded households sold the most eggs for improved indigenous chicken (103) (GoK, 2014). The high number of eggs sold by the youth-headed households is attributable to the likelihood of having contractual arrangements for selling the eggs as shown in the ASDSP survey of 2013. It also shows that the age group is more dependent on local poultry compared to the female-and male-headed households. Ability to purchase and utilize commercial inputs may be a contributing factor for the many improved indigenous chicken eggs sold by the male-headed households.Value addition activities undertaken in the value chain include de-feathering, differentiation of parts, fertilizing eggs, and boiling. The major challenges for the poultry sector include diseases such as Newcastle, Gumboro, fowl pox, and coccidiosis. Scarcity of chicken feeds especially when there are no rains is a major problem for the value chain. The alternative is for farmers to use commercial feeds, which are sometimes unavailable and expensive.Irish potatoes are mainly grown in Kieni East and West, and Mathira West and East. Production is dominated by small-scale farmers, who grow for both household consumption and income earning. However, more than 60% 7 of their produce is mainly for selling (Muthoni et al., 2013); farmers sell mostly to brokers.Farmers use recycled planting material; the local varieties are the most preferred due to lack of certified seeds. In 2013, productivity was highest among the female-headed households in the Short rain season (3433 kg/ha) and among the male-headed households during the Long rain season (5580 kg/ha) (see Annex 2). The higher productivity among the male-headed households in the Long rain season was likely due to the high input utilization (GoK, 2014).The major challenges to the value chain is lack of planting material and the pest Tuta Absoluta that can cause up to 50% decline in yields. The pest is becoming hard to control, considering that it can stay in the soil for up to 30 years. Due to land fragmentation, farmers are not able to practise measures such as crop rotation. Marketing is also a challenge, more especially in packaging. By law, potatoes are supposed to be packed in 50-kg bags and sold at 2000 Kenya Shillings each, but most of the time, brokers use bags that weigh more than 100 kg hence exploiting farmers.Nyoike, 2014). The common marketing outlets include processors like the New Kenya Cooperative Creameries, Brookside Wakulima Dairy and Raka, traders and individual consumers. Approximately 37% of the farmers sell directly to processors and about 32% sell to traders (Ibid). There exist a number of marketing channels for milk in the county, where the producer may sell directly to the consumer, or producer to hawker to consumer or producer to processor to consumer. It has been observed that the shorter the channel the better the prices for the producers and the consumers.Productivity has been observed to be highest among the female-headed households. For example, in 2013, female-headed households had the highest productivity in both the Long and Short rain seasons compared to the male-and youth-headed households. THis was despite male-headed households having better access to livestock technologies, extension, veterinary and Artificial Insemination (AI) services (GoK, 2014). This may be due to the fact that women are the ones most involved in activities such as feeding and milking, making them more conversant with farm operations. Some of the major challenges include diseases such as mastitis and decline in pasture quantity and quality especially during periods of rain scarcity. It has been observed that feed scarcity can lead to up to 60% reduction in milk production in the county.Bananas Farmers rarely pay attention to their bananas so yields are low. For example, in 2013, productivity was found to be highest among the male-headed households (1047 kg/ha) compared to the female-and youth-headed households (704 and 951 kg/ha respectively) (GoK, 2014). This difference in production may be associated with the likelihood of male-headed households to use inputs such as basal and top dressing fertilisers (which both the female-and youth-headed households never used), and more manure (14543 kg/ha) relative to the quantities used by the youth and female headed households (3347 and 440 kg/ha respectively) (Ibid).Poor access to resources by the youth-and femaleheaded households is a contributing factor to the low input utilization. Therefore interventions in the value chain should seek to promote input access mostly to the youth and the adult females.The major challenges for the value chain include high pest (banana weevil and nematodes) and disease (cigar end rot and fusarium wilt) incidences, lack of certified disease-free planting material, and postharvest losses.In the past, Nyeri County was among the counties that received food aid, despite its agricultural potential. This potential has not been achieved yet due to institutional, economic, political, geographical and climatic challenges.Unfavourable climatic conditions impose serious consequences on the agricultural sector in Nyeri. This is worsened by over-reliance on rainfall amid weather unpredictability especially in areas such as Kieni where droughts and floods are common. Extreme weather events tremendously reduce the quantity and quality of produce, factors that not only compromise food security and income generation capacity in the area, but also reduction in cultivated land. For example, it has been observed that areas under potato, wheat, sunflower, and beans have been reduced by 40, 70, 30 and 40% respectively due to unfavorable weather (GoK, 2013). This factor is likely to increase rural urban migration and unsustainable exploitation of natural resources for alternative livelihoods. Inasmuch as unfavorable weather is a problem in the county, good weather is equally disastrous as over-supply results in market distortions. Lack of adequate storage facilities, given that there are only eight main storage facilities in the entire county and lack of capacity to add value aggravates the problem since farmers cannot store their produce.Population growth in the county has led to sub-division of land into small pieces that cannot permit sustainable rain-fed agriculture (Ekin et al., 2009 pp10). This is more evident in the wetter areas of the county such as Mathira, Nyeri central, some parts of Mukurweini and Othaya where the population densities are very high (648, 711, 470 and 501 persons/km2 respectively) (GoK, 2013). The women and the youth are the most affected; women in the sense that culture sidelines them when it comes to inheritance and youth in the sense that they have limited access to land since the male-headed households are the ones who own title deeds. Consequently, the youth are forced to depend on leased land that constrains undertaking long-term soil and water conservation investments. Agricultural intensification through practices like irrigation is also challenged by the rugged terrain and lack of financial and technical capacity by most of the small scale farmers.Pests and diseases challenge agricultural production in the county. The common pests include Tuta Absoluta that attacks mainly potatoes and tomatoes. Poor access to agricultural services such as AI, credit, extension and inputs especially by the female-and youth-headed households is a hindrance to high agricultural production. According to the ASDSP survey of 2013, male-headed households had better access to the services, a factor that may be attributed to better access to resources (GoK, 2014). Poor access to credit persists in spite of the large number of financial intermediaries in the county (Kalunda, 2014). This has been mainly attributed to lack of financial literacy among farmers and the allegedly high interest rates which make farmers shun seeking credit. This therefore calls for farmer sensitization on credit. Access to extension is expected to improve owing to the contracted extension service delivery strategy by the Kenya Agricultural Productivity and Agribusiness Programme (KAPAP) that has so far benefited 10,107 farmers in the county (Ngugi et al., 2014).Poor farmer organization also deprives farmers of bargaining power that can facilitate efficient marketing. As a result, farmers mostly sell individually especially for horticultural crops such as cabbages, potato, and kales, and hence get exploited by middlemen. Due to the poor organization, legislations like the Potato Production and Marketing Bill of 2014 are never adhered to as farmers still fall victim to the extended bags preferred by brokers. Mismanagement of most of the cooperatives for cash crops such as coffee and tea that leads to delayed payment has significantly contributed to farmers uprooting the crops hence reducing productivity. Therefore, farmers should be encouraged to add value and to organize into groups to facilitate access to agricultural services as well as markets. In addition, poor road conditions in the county that impair transport during the floods season is also a contributing factor to poor access to the services and markets.Climate variability is a reality in Nyeri that has manifested itself in many forms as farmers reported. A number of climatic hazards are evident in Nyeri as discussed above, the most remarkable being drought and extremely low temperatures. The most problematic with regard to the prioritized value chain were identified as drought and variations in extreme temperature/frost. These hazards affect the value chains differently as discussed below.Irish potato in Nyeri is mostly affected by extremely cold temperatures (frost), and drought. The impact of frost on input supply is minor to major, moderate on on-farm production, major on harvesting and storage and minor to major on output marketing.Frost reduces the quality of planting material, causing poor establishment when planted. As a result, planting material becomes unavailable due to increased demand. On-farm activities affected include land preparation and disease control. It was reported that land preparation and disease control costs increase significantly during the cold season due to harsh working conditions and an upsurge of pests (millipedes) and diseases (bacterial wilt, early and late blight). Consequently, farmers are required to use more fungicides, or harvest prematurely to salvage the crop, with the yields being below normal and of poor quality. The prematurely harvested potatoes are of poor quality and hence cannot be stored. Low produce volumes increase the per unit packaging and transporting costs.Drought on the other hand causes a major decrease in availability and quality of planting material at the input supply stage. At the on-farm production stage, the effect can be major to severe, affecting mostly land preparation due to hardening of the soils (black cotton soils), and pest and disease control as costs increase due to increased disease and pest incidences. Farmers bypass the challenge of fertiliser use normally by using organic fertiliser and manure. Notwithstanding, these factors compounded result to low yields and poor quality produce; exposing the farmer to the same transport challenges as during extreme cold.Lack of certified seed potato and the capacity to add value are some of the factors making farmers adapt poorly to these hazards. In addition, due to land Drought and extremely low temperatures/frost are the most problematic hazards to the dairy cow in Nyeri County. The consequences of drought on the dairy cow are severe in all the value chain stages viz, input supply, on-farm production, post-harvest handling, and marketing. During dry spells, the quality and quantity of major fodder crops like Napier grass, fodder maize stalks, and in some cases oats, leaucaena, and calliandra tremendously decrease due to scarcity of water. This requires farmers to use alternative strategies such as commercial feeds (supplements) and hay which are not always affordable, considering that feeding takes approximately 70-80% of the production cost (Mbugua et al., 2012). Due to poor feeding, milk yield decreases and quality deteriorates. The cow also gets more prone to diseases such as FMD due to low immunity, consequently increasing costs incurred on veterinary services. The low quantities produced impair marketing as they increase transport costs making farmers resolve to sell directly to consumers. The high temperatures associated with dry spells have also been associated with interruption of the oestrus cycle of cows, hence reducing fertility.Extremely low temperatures/frost on the other hand also affect input supply severely, whereas the impact on on-farm production and post-harvest losses is minor to severe, and moderate to severe at the marketing stage. Extremely low temperatures/frost, also lead to poor performance of fodder crops. For instance in 2013, frost damaged 60% of Napier in Kieni East, leading to feed scarcity. Disease and pest proliferation was also reported to be common during periods of extremely low temperatures/frost. Cold temperatures also reduce milk production since the cow utilizes more energy in regulation of body temperature instead of producing milk hampering marketing, and increasing transport costs.Low resource base for instance land is a major factor that is making farmers poorly adapt to the hazards. For example, farmers are not able to undertake fodder conservation due to lack of capital which also makes farmers lack the capacity to comply with the requirements for having a certificate as milk vendors. This factor, coupled with poor farmer organization, limits marketing options. In addition, the poor road network in the county and lack of coolers are factors that impair value addition for milk in Nyeri.10 It has been observed that refrigerated eggs have a longer shelf life of 30-45 days compared to the 7-10 days for those stored at room temperature. http://articles.mercola.com/ sites/articles/archive/2013/12/07/refrigerating-chicken-eggs.aspxThe effect of drought on local chicken is moderate to severe at the input supply stage. The most affected activities at this stage are seeking veterinary services and procurement of chicks. The cost incurred for the veterinary services significantly increase due to more demand created by high disease incidences (Newcastle disease) and deterioration in quality of the vaccines. Mortality rate of chicks purchased from distant hatcheries normally increase during drought, a factor that may be associated with high temperatures common during dry spells. Severity on on-farm production, mostly feeding, is moderate. Dry spells normally result in scarcity of feeds, hence reduced feeding and low egg production. Consequently, farmers are required to use commercial feeds which increase the cost of production remarkably. High temperatures associated with drought also lead to a moderate reduction in the shelf-life of eggs and meat 10 , a problem that is aggravated by the lack of storage facilities in the county. Effect at the output market is severe to major, mostly during selling. Farmers lack bargaining power due to the low production as they have to sell to individual consumers in the local markets with an exception of a few cases where farmers sell the eggs collectively.Extremely low temperatures (frost) inflict the same consequences as drought on the value chain with a moderate to severe effect at the input supply stage, a moderate to severe effect on on-farm production, a moderate to major effect on harvesting and storage, and a major to severe effect on marketing. In addition to resulting in feed scarcity at the farms, extremely cold temperature increases chick mortality rates. This is mostly common among farmers who cannot afford equipment such as incubators. Low production during extreme temperatures also impairs marketing as farmers lack bargaining power. The same adaptation strategies used during drought are also used during periods of extremely low temperatures. Lack of capital to enable farmers purchase equipment like incubators, little know-how on good husbandry methods, and lack of storage facilities are some of the major hindrances to farmers' ability to adequately adapt to the hazards.The banana plant is known to be very sensitive to changes in the environment (Turner et al., 2007). Drought and extremely low temperature/frost are the most problematic hazards to the crop in Nyeri County. Drought severely affects the banana at input supply, on-farm production, post-harvest handling and marketing stages. At the input supply stage, the most affected activity is acquisition of planting material as drought reduces the quality of the seedlings. Poor establishment of the seedlings when planted requires farmers to purchase more planting material hence more costs. Due to the hard nature of the soil during dry spells, banana root establishment is greatly impaired. This factor coupled with scarcity of water in the banana pseudo-stem results in collapsing of the stems. Drought has also been associated with weight loss during transportation, especially when the bananas are transported over long distances, a situation worsened by lack of specialized transportation trucks. The low productivity and poor quality associated with these consequences pose marketing challenges; transport costs increase owing to the low volumes and farmers receive lower prices due to poor quality. Some of the adaptation options used by farmers include using certified planting material, water harvesting and small scale irrigation, establishment of collection centres, and group formation to facilitate value addition like making banana flour.The magnitude of the impact of extremely low temperatures/frost on the input stage is minor, minor to severe on the on-farm stage and severe on both the post-harvest and product marketing stages. Extremely low temperatures influence input prices, especially those of planting material. This arises from high demand for the input as a result of poor on-farm establishment. In addition, manure quality is likely to be low when temperatures are extremely low. This may be attributed to the poor quality of feed that animals feed on when temperatures are extremely low. As a result, banana productivity declines, considering that farmers mainly depend on manure for soil replenishment for banana. Storage of banana is also a challenge since it is highly sensitive to temperature; higher temperatures result in quick ripening and low temperatures cause rotting. Farmers therefore have to sell to local markets either as whole bunches or banana hands; the latter increases profit margins.fragmenttion in the county, farmers are unable to adopt measures such as crop rotation in disease and pest control.In general, farmers' capacity to cope with and adapt to these changing conditions in climate has been impaired by the wider social, institutional and geographical context they live in. Due to human and livestock population growth, pressure on natural resources has increased. This, coupled with the loss of land and water resources to other livelihood activities, has impaired their traditional ways of coping with drought, floods and frost. For livestock farmers these include fodder conservation, rearing improved breeds, feed supplementation, livestock intensification (zero grazing) and planting drought-tolerant fodder crops.For crop farmers these include improved seed varieties, changing the cropping calendar, use of indigenous information in controlling diseases, irrigation, and use of greenhouses. Strategies such as water harvesting and value addition are undertaken by both crop and livestock farmers. Production for subsistence by most of the small-scale farmers reduces their accessibility to credit since most financial institutions are more skewed towards cash crops in addition to requiring collateral. Adaptive measures such as irrigation are impaired by the rugged terrain. Poor investments in infrastructure, including road networks and poor maintenance of for instance milk coolers is obstructing their opportunity to access markets and add value to their products which would allow them to receive better prices and improve incomes. Poor farmer organization limits collective production and marketing as a strategy for reducing transport costs and increasing bargaining power. Lack of access to inputs such as planting material and adulteration of others like fertilisers also erode farmers' adaptive capacity.In spite of these challenges, Nyeri County is among the counties with the highest adaptation of strategies such as water harvesting (Syomiti, 2015). Results from the ASDSP survey of 2013 showed that at least 72% of the farmers have adopted several on-farm and off-farm adaptation strategies. At least 74% of male-headed households, 68% of female-and 60% of youth-headed households have some adaptation to climate change (Annex 4) (GoK, 2014). Male-headed households are more likely to apply climate change adaptation strategies on their farms. This is because they have higher access to productive resources such as land, extension and training. Adult males also have more decision-making power on household resource utilization compared to women and youth. Some adaptations are specific to certain value chains whereas others cut across value chains.Increasing scale of climate impacts presents to farmers the urgency to address climate change adaptation more coherently. Barriers to effective adaptation such as poor marketing systems, high cost of production, weak linkages between participating stakeholders to support advocacy, poor policy and coordination, limited or no access to credit facilities, low scale investment in technology, inequitable linkages between selected value chain actors and poor dissemination of climaterelated information have impaired farmers' capacity to effectively cope with the changing climatic conditions. These negative outcomes have instigated the use of adaptation strategies such as early planting, using tolerant varieties, and applying indigenous knowledge on disease and pest controlIn spite of these barriers, both livestock and crop producers have considered the use of small water harvesting techniques to conserve water for irrigation and consumption during drought. For instance, two water pans have been constructed in Kieni West and East. Value addition in milk through activities such as fermenting and making yoghurt and solar drying and frying in potatoes to make crisps and chips has helped to increase the profits for their commodities despite these erratic weather events. According to the ASDSP household survey of 2013, value addition (30.5%) was more practised as compared to soil and water conservation (12.8%). This may be attributed to the high perishability of the agricultural produce and inadequacy of storage facilities. Adding value through activities such as solar drying increases the shelf life of these commodities, which counters the lack of proper infrastructure to support postharvest processes.Potato producers have adopted practices such as using certified improved seeds and clean planting material from research institutions (such as KALRO), use of soil and water conservation measures and use of water harvesting channels especially for high water-sensitive crops such as bananas. Farmers have adjusted their cropping systems through alteration of inputs such as use of varieties/species that have increased tolerance or resistance to low and high temperatures, alteration of fertiliser rates to reduce wastage or to maintain the fruit, grain or tuber quality, timing of planting and harvesting dates and sometimes even changing the cropping locations to escape the adverse effects of these climatic hazards. Control of pests and diseases is done through use of the so much valued indigenous knowledge or by use of pesticides and fungicides. Farmers also undertake sustainable land management practices to reduce the negative impacts throughOn-farm adaptation practicesdiversification e.g. crop rotation, intercropping, mulching, and terracing.Adaptation strategies within the livestock and poultry sub-sectors vary depending on the climatic hazards. However, certain strategies such as modification of feeding times, matching the stocking density to the amount of feeds available, supplementation using minerals and reducing the stocking density through culling are widely used between these two sub sectors. For extremely low temperatures (frost) in poultry production, farmers have had to reconsider the chicken housing and install heating equipment or use saw dust to reduce the negative effects of the low temperatures on the productivity. These investments increase production costs. In response to these adverse effects, local poultry farmers keep crossbreeds that are tolerant to diseases, use conventional treatment such as aloe vera for disease control, and feed the chicken on left-overs.At the product marketing level across all value chains, farmers with financial capacity add value to their produce which in turn translates to higher profit margins. To cushion the high costs of transportation and marketing costs they sell their produce collectively through farmer groups and in smaller quantities to increase the prices so as to fetch better income.There is substantial room for improvement in the capacity to assess, plan for and manage climaterelated incidents so as to ensure that farmers are better prepared for any future climatic hazards. This will help improve access to inputs as well as planning and scheduling of on-farm production activities. Effective marketing of agricultural products is dependent on the creation of a conducive environment. Services such as development of aggregation centres as well as collection points at the ward level can facilitate market access. Interaction between the value chain actors to reach regional and national markets should be promoted.Off farm services such as Early Warning Systems (EWS) provided by NDMA and supported by KMD help to improve farmer preparedness through monthly bulletins and seasonal forecasts. Participatory Scenario Planning (PSP) facilitated by ASDSP enhances farmer knowledge on future climatic events and allows them to engage with the experts in selection of intervention. Farmer extension programmes, vaccination services, Artificial Insemination (AI), storage facilities, market information systems, credit and financing, climaterelated information, are offered to farmers to increase their adaptive capacity in the reality of increased unpredictability of climate. These services are offered by the county government, private organizations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).According to the ASDSP survey 2013, about 50% of the households accessed agriculture-related services from the public and private sector institutions. Over 50 % of the households in the county were satisfied with the major agriculture-related services with respect to research, veterinary, Artificial Insemination, and other services (GoK, 2014). However, the crop and livestock productivity was low despite these high satisfaction levels from the respondents, an indication that the actual adoption of services offered is quite low.In terms of postharvest services, the most common practices exist within the households and farming communities. These practices rely on the farmers' knowledge which is not efficient and has often led to major postharvest losses due to the use of inadequate storage facilities.Market information systems and savings were the most common financial services used by the respondents with at least 53 and 40% of the households accessing each respectively. Disaggregated by gender, at least 55% of adult male-headed households and 45% of adult female-headed households accessed market information services. At least 60% of youthheaded households accessed savings compared to approximately 40% of adult male-and female-headed households.Insurance services in Nyeri county remain limited. Only 11% of adult female-headed households accessed insurance services compared to approximately 23% of adult male-and youth-headed households. This being a developmental challenge, it decreases the farmers' financial resilience to adapt to climate shocks in the future. Agricultural credit was shown to be the least-accessed financial service with only about 10% of youth-headed households and 15% of adult maleheaded households accessing it. Less than 2% of the female-headed households interviewed indicated having accessed agricultural credit (Figure 1). This may be attributed to lack of available agricultural credit services or a rigorous process of applying for the services, or farmers have found it safer and cheaper to get the same services from their cooperatives and groups.Policies are key considerations for agriculture decisionmaking, since they affect actions and outcomes related to resource use.  Nyeri County Agriculture Development Act 2016 seeks to establish an efficient legal and institutional framework for development in agriculture through regulation and monitoring value addition and authorizing and inspecting books with regard to distribution and/or sale of agricultural produce. The benefits of the bill are yet to be realised considering the challenges experienced in the county in marketing of produce such as milk and potatoes. The same case applies to the Potato Production and Marketing Bill of 2014 that was formulated to guide potato marketing with regards to packaging. The bill stipulates that packaging should be done in 90-kg bags, a rule that is rarely followed as brokers use bags that can weigh up to more than 100 kg. The Bill if well implemented can help farmers maximize returns from potato production.The county also implements the National Animal Disease Act CAP. 364 of 1989 (revised in 2012). The statute, which is implemented by the County Veterinary Department, imposes quarantines for disease control during outbreaks. be a potential avenue to explore for funding of new project proposals with high priority ranking.These institutions are curtailed in delivering the interventions due to constraints in human and financial capacity. There is evidence of poor coordination within and without these organizations, a contributing factor to the ineffective delivery of services and other agriculture-related information.Nyeri County has been depicted to be well off relative to other counties considering, the low poverty levels, the high literacy, better access to health services, high HDI and a low climate change vulnerability index. However, the future of the agricultural sector is blink following the adverse impact of climatic hazards. The low climate vulnerability index doesn't necessarily mean that the county is well cushioned against the negative impacts of climate variation, considering the high inequality in the county. Fifty-two percent of the land area is semi-arid (Kieni); floods, frost, and droughts have compromised the food security and livelihoods of thousands; and there is a high likelihood of climatic conditions being more unfriendly in the future as seen from climate data simulations. These factors compounded make climate variation an important subject in the county.Adoption of adaptation strategies to climate change such as water harvesting techniques, soil and water conservation, and value addition has been shown to be relatively high in Nyeri County. However, they are not adequate in addressing the climate shocks. This may be attributed to several factors such as the low utilization of off farm services like extension, credit, and insurance; land fragmentation; poor road infrastructure; and farmers being more aligned to shortterm rather than long-term interventions thus increasing their susceptibility to the climate shocks. The indigenous knowledge system should enable farmers to withstand these climate-related shocks, risks, and other stresses. However, these are not adequate due to the vulnerability of agriculture to recurring climatic hazards. This predisposes them to food insecurity and exacerbated levels of poverty, which weaken their coping strategies. There is the need to integrate indigenous knowledge systems and scientific knowledge to increase acceptability of adaptation interventionsExisting programmes and projects aligned to support of increasing resilience complement and are in harmony with existing frameworks, policies and initiatives in the county. They therefore reinforce climate intervention activities and build the farmers' adaptive capacity to cope with stresses and shocks. These programmes are jointly coordinated and managed by the county government in collaboration with the implementers to ensure shared accountability and sustainability of the progress. However, there is a disconnect between the policies and programmes. For instance, the Nyeri Climate Change Policy Framework could be a platform to improve effective response to climate change adaptation and mitigation as it supports integration of climate change adaptation into the county economic and development policies. The level of its adoption and implementation is unclear and undefined. The same case applies to other legislations such as the Potato Marketing Bill which is rarely adhered to. In addition, collaboration with the key stakeholders in charge of climate risk management is limited.","tokenCount":"7306"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"60d2889f773d32ff95bd47016cf79ab2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://apps.worldagroforestry.org/downloads/Publications/PDFS/WP20041.pdf","id":"1380317891"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a35fb915-290f-4705-8b66-3a1a02bbb579","pagecount":"56","content":"Documento de Trabajo No. 305 Este documento enumera los usos reportados de las especies de árboles agroforestales nativas y exóticas del Perú, o de sus productos derivados. No implica que World Agroforestry o los autores aprueben la efectividad o seguridad de dichos usos, ni que World Agroforestry o los autores sean responsables de las consecuencias negativas que resulten de dichos usos.Las opiniones expresadas en esta publicación son las de los autores y no necesariamente las del Centro Internacional de Investigación Agroforestal.iii Esta publicación puede ser citada o reproducida sin costo alguno siempre que se cite la fuente. Todas las imágenes son propiedad exclusiva de su fuente y no pueden ser utilizadas para ningún propósito sin el permiso escrito de la fuente.Fotos en portada, izquierda a derecha: Prosopis pallida (algarrobo), Bixa orellana (achiote), Sambucus peruviana (sauco) (Jonathan P. Cornelius / World Agroforestry).El Perú es un país megadiverso, con tres macrorregiones ecológicas distintas (la Costa, la Sierra y la Selva). La agroforestería se practica ampliamente y es promovida por organismos gubernamentales y no gubernamentales que trabajan en la agricultura, la gestión ambiental y el desarrollo rural. Entre las limitaciones de una agroforestería eficaz en el Perú figuran la falta de conocimiento de toda la gama de especies agroforestales (y, por consiguiente, de las diferentes opciones agroforestales) y de las amenazas a los recursos genéticos agroforestales. Esas limitaciones dan lugar a un establecimiento ineficaz de prioridades, a la reducción de la gama de opciones de especies disponibles y a la erosión genética. Por ello, esta publicación ofrece una lista de las especies agroforestales peruanas con 185 especies nativas y 53 especies introducidas importantes. Entre las especies nativas figuran las de alimentos, madera, servicios agroecológicos y especies de uso múltiple, utilizadas en las regiones de la Costa, la Sierra y la Selva. Las especies introducidas son, en su mayoría, especies alimenticias, pero también incluyen eucaliptos y pinos. Enumeramos, además, 40 especies agroforestales nativas peruanas, consideradas en peligro de extinción en toda o parte de su área de distribución. Se identificaron las siguientes prioridades para futuras medidas: establecimiento de fuentes de semillas o bancos de genes de especies arbóreas agroforestales peruanas en peligro de extinción; establecimiento de fuentes de semillas locales de una amplia gama de especies agroforestales pertinentes para diferentes localidades o agroecologías; aclaración de la situación de las fuentes de semillas en relación con la legislación peruana sobre semillas y otros instrumentos jurídicos; investigación de la diversidad genética intraespecífica de las especies agroforestales peruanas; síntesis y publicación de información sobre las técnicas de cultivo y los beneficios, incluidos los ecológicos, de las especies agroforestales peruanas; medidas para fomentar que los elementos clave del programa nacional ambiental y agrícola reconozcan la gama completa de especies agroforestales y sus beneficios; y elucidación y difusión de información sobre la diversidad genética y la procedencia de las principales especies agroforestales introducidas.Muchas especies agroforestales de importancia mundial son nativas de los países neotropicales (Tabla 1), donde los agricultores valoran y utilizan cientos de otras especies de importancia local, nacional o regional (Sotelo y Weber 1997; Shanley y Medina 2005). El Perú, en particular, es rico en recursos genéticos agroforestales debido al gran tamaño del país 3 , a su diversidad ecológica 4 y a su larga historia de utilización y domesticación de plantas (Brack 2003). Este documento tiene dos objetivos: proporcionar una lista de referencia de las especies agroforestales peruanas, y contribuir al establecimiento de prioridades para la conservación de los recursos genéticos agroforestales.Una lista de especies agroforestales tiene varias aplicaciones. En primer lugar, la agroforestería, como uso de la tierra, se superpone y, en cierto modo, trasciende a la agricultura y a la silvicultura; por ello, considerar las especies desde una perspectiva meramente agrícola o forestal puede conllevar al descuido de especies que no caen en una de estas dos categorías de manera natural. En segundo lugar, una lista sirve de referencia para proyectos de agroforestería y restauración del paisaje que, de otro modo, podrían no tomar en cuenta todas las opciones disponibles (conocer todas las opciones permite establecer prioridades de conservación, restauración, investigación, etc., y ayuda a no pasar por alto las especies de interés potencial). Por último, ayuda a comunicar la amplitud conceptual de la agroforestería y la diversidad de funciones que puede desempeñar en el uso sostenible de la tierra. En la actualidad, esa comunicación puede verse obstaculizada, en algunos casos, por la persistencia de conceptos estrechos de la agroforestería (p. ej., como una simple combinación de árboles y cultivos agrícolas).Este documento amplía el contenido de la publicación de Cerrón et al. (2018), que se limitaba a las especies nativas, para incluir las especies exóticas. La inclusión de especies exóticas permite considerar un número de introducciones antiguas, incluyendo algunas previamente (o todavía) consideradas nativas por científicos, practicantes o agricultores. También permite una comparación instructiva de la Tabla 1. Lista ilustrativa de especies agroforestales neotropicales de importancia a nivel mundialGrandes cultivos alimenticios y/o comerciales Cacao función y las características de las especies exóticas y nativas en la agroforestería peruana.En el ámbito mundial, el ICRAF mantiene un banco de genes con 162 especies agroforestales, que incluye tanto las existencias de semillas como las plantaciones de campo 5 . Las especies neotropicales están bien representadas en esta colección (42 especies). Sin embargo, sólo dos especies (Bactris gasipaes y Jatropha curcas) se mantienen en bancos de genes de campo. Todas las demás especies, excepto siete, y >99% de las accesiones neotropicales individuales, son especies leguminosas mesoamericanas. Por consiguiente, el ICRAF (y, en particular, el ICRAF-América Latina) está interesado en ampliar sus existencias de especies neotropicales, sobre todo con respecto a especies y poblaciones agroforestales de América del Sur en peligro de extinción. En consecuencia, en 2017, el ICRAF inició un proceso de establecimiento de prioridades con el fin de orientar sus futuras actividades para el banco de genes en el Perú. Este documento contribuye a este proceso, así como a la priorización del proyecto FuenteS 6 , cuyo objetivo es mejorar la capacidad del Perú para establecer bancos de semillas con fines de restauración y conservación genética, y guiar las actividades de otras organizaciones gubernamentales y no gubernamentales.Este documento incluye algunos métodos utilizados por Cerrón et al. (2018), así como otros elementos metodológicos.Al generar la lista, adoptamos una definición amplia de agroforestería, es decir, \"cualquier especie de árbol, palma o arbusto que sea manejada activamente por los agricultores\". Esto refleja conceptos prevalecientes; por ejemplo, que la agroforestería es un uso de la tierra que combina aspectos de agricultura y silvicultura, incluido el uso agrícola de los árboles (van Noordwijk et al 2016).En el caso de las especies autóctonas, se elaboró una lista inicial (basada en fuentes publicadas e inéditas) del uso de estas especies en la agricultura;incluyendo libros y artículos (Brack 2003;Fernández y Rodríguez 2007;Meza y Cornelius 2006;Reynel y Felipe-Morales 1987;Reynel et al. 2003Reynel et al. , 2006Reynel et al. , 2016;;Whaley et al. 2010a;Reynel, Pennington y Pennington 2016), bases de datos bibliográficas como Scopus y Google Scholar, informes inéditos (Cerrón et al. 2017;Robiglio et al. 2018;Valdivia-Díaz y Mathez-Stiefel 2015a, 2015b) y bases de datos inéditas derivadas de investigaciones anteriores del ICRAF.Este proceso dio lugar a una extensa lista inicial. La inclusión de muchas especies reflejaba más el uso que el manejo activo, excluyendo quizás, de forma arbitraria, a otras especies utilizadas por los agricultores. Para evitar esta arbitrariedad, se excluyeron aquellas especies que no cumplían con al menos uno de los siguientes tres criterios:• Utilización para servicios agroecológicos específicos (p. ej., sombra para cultivos perennes, cortavientos, cercas vivas, forraje para ganado) • Plantadas de manera regular por agricultores en pequeña escalaLa lista resultante se publicó en Cerrón et al. (2018), y se presentó o distribuyó en reuniones públicas 7 y consultas con expertos convocados en la Selva (Pucallpa), la Sierra (Huancayo) y la Costa (Tumbes). La lista final de especies nativas se elaboró con base en los aportes recibidos, un estudio específico de la zona norte (Cerrón et al. 2019) y fuentes adicionales (i.e., Levis et al. 2017;Whaley et al. 2010b).Las especies fueron clasificadas según las principales regiones ecológicas: la Costa, la Sierra y la Selva. La parte montañosa de la Selva (también denominada \"Andes tropicales\" 8 ) se clasificó como Selva; por lo tanto, las especies clasificadas como de la Sierra incluyen las de la cuenca del Pacífico y los valles interandinos.La categorización por uso de cada especie no es sencilla, ya que abarca tanto conceptos de producto final como de servicio agroecológico, y la mayoría de las especies ofrecen más de un producto o servicio. Por lo tanto, nuestras clasificaciones se basan en el uso principal o dominante conforme a fuentes anteriores, y observaciones y experiencias propias, según siguientes categorías: servicios agroecológicos, alimentos (frutas, especias, bebidas), madera, medicina, usos múltiples (cuando es difícil identificar un solo uso dominante) y \"otros\".Por último, se identificaron las especies comerciales que aparecían en la lista oficial de especies madereras (Serfor 2016), y en la de especies o productos derivados de la Clasificación Nacional de Productos Agrícolas (MINAGRI 2016).Las principales especies exóticas se identificaron a partir de los resultados del IV Censo Agrícola (INEI 2012) 9 y de la lista oficial de especies madereras (Serfor 2016), ya que la mayoría de las fuentes antes mencionadas solo abarcan especies nativas.Denominamos \"especies principales\" a las listadas por Serfor o registradas por el censo como presentes en forma dispersa en más de 1 000 unidades agrícolas o en plantaciones de >100 ha (éstas últimas en unidades de <50 ha). Se utilizó la Clasificación Nacional de Productos Agrícolas (MINAGRI 2016) para confirmar los nombres científicos de las especies del censo, el cual utiliza nombres comunes.La lista de especies introducidas únicamente incluye las principales especies exóticas utilizadas en la agroforestería peruana, según los tres criterios para especies nativas antes mencionados. Cabe señalar que, al estar incluida en la lista de Serfor o MINAGRI, la especie cumple, al menos de forma implícita, con uno o más de los tres criterios.Las especies agroforestales son, por definición, especies útiles para la población rural. Por lo tanto, el concepto de \"especies agroforestales en peligro\" podría parecer contradictorio: si un taxón se utiliza y valora, entonces puede no estar claro cómo o por qué puede estar en peligro. Si bien es cierto que muchas especies de agroforestería no están amenazadas debido a su amplio uso y propagación, hay por lo menos dos factores que plantean amenazas a la integridad y a la supervivencia continua de las especies de agroforestería.En primer lugar, no es sólo la especie como tal la que tiene interés y valor. La preocupación del presente estudio se centra en la conservación de los recursos genéticos, haciendo hincapié en conservar la variación dentro de la especie, incluyendo la variación de origen natural, de las razas y de los cultivares autóctonos. Esta diversidad puede verse amenazada por la destrucción del hábitat debido al cambio de uso de la tierra 10 , o a la fragmentación en partes o en toda la zona de distribución de las especies o, en el caso de los cultigen (sensu, Spencer y Cross 2007 11 ), por el desplazamiento de las variedades tradicionales y los cambios en las preferencias de los consumidores.En segundo lugar, la recolección insostenible puede conducir a extinciones locales.Las especies útiles o valiosas suelen ser objeto del manejo no sostenible. Pueden prevalecer las necesidades a corto plazo o los intereses de las élites locales (p. ej., en el caso de las especies de maderas preciosas).La evaluación del estado de conservación se basó en la lista oficial actualizada de especies de plantas peruanas en peligro de extinción (MINAGRI 2016), y se complementó con la información de guías dendrológicas (Reynel et al, 2003(Reynel et al, , 2006)), las observaciones y los conocimientos de los autores, y los comentarios sobre Cerrón et al. (2018), entre otros.No se evaluó el estado de conservación de las especies exóticas porque, por definición, no tienen poblaciones naturales en el país. Sin embargo, se mencionan brevemente algunos aspectos relacionados con su diversidad genética.Se registró un total de 238 especies agroforestales (nativas y exóticas) de 59 familias botánicas.Se registraron 185 especies nativas en 56 familias botánicas: 33 especies en la Costa, 76 en la Sierra y 96 en la Selva 12 . Las familias más frecuentes fueron las Fabaceae (39 especies), las Asteraceae (14 especies) y las Solanaceae (12 especies). Las especies nativas están enumeradas por familia botánica y nombre científico en el Apéndice A (Tabla A1). En la Tabla A2, las especies se enumeran por nombre común.De los usos dominantes, el más común fue servicios agroecológicos (53 especies), seguido por usos múltiples (50), madera (39) y alimentos (31) (Figura 1). En la Figura 2 se presenta el número de especies por uso y región. Las cifras ocultan la versatilidad de la mayoría de las especies (p. ej., más de la mitad de las especies reportan algunos usos medicinales). Setenta de las 185 especies nativas fueron clasificadas como comerciales: 40 debido a su inclusión en la lista Serfor de especies madereras comerciales, 20 debido a su inclusión en la clasificación nacional de productos agrícolas, y 10 que estaban en ambas listas.Número de especies por uso (se excluyó la categoría \"Otros\", con tres especies) Figura 1. Usos dominantes de especies agroforestales nativas del Perú.Se registraron 53 especies exóticas (Tabla A3): 45 especies productoras de frutas o nueces, 6 especies maderables (eucaliptos y pinos) y 2 especies agroindustriales (café y palma aceitera). Las 45 especies comestibles incluyen 10 especies de la familia Rosaceae (principalmente Prunus spp.) y 14 de la familia Rutaceae, incluyendo 13 del género Citrus. Están representadas las especies nativas de todos los continentes, excepto la Antártida. Sin embargo, alrededor del 75% son originarias de América del Norte (sobre todo de Mesoamérica) o Asia (Figura 3).Algunas especies exóticas americanas estaban presentes en el Perú antes de la invasión española y, a menudo, han sido consideradas nativas del Perú (ver Brack 2003). La distribución de las especies alimenticias y madereras por región se muestra en la Figura 4.Especies maderablesEspecies proveedoras de servicios agroecológicos Especies de uso múltipleSe excluyeron las especies medicinales y la categoría \"Otros\"Figura 2. Número de especies por uso dominante y regiónOceanía incluye Australasia; América del Norte incluye Mesoamérica y el Caribe) 13   Figura 3. Lugar de origen de especies agroforestales introducidas al Perú, clasificadas según el Geoesquema de las Naciones Unidas 1413 Los totales no suman 53 porque algunas especies son nativas de más de una de las regiones de la ONU.14 Modificado por la presentación separada de América del Norte y del Sur. Nuestras listas incluyen muchas especies conocidas de las tres regiones; por ejemplo, aguaje (Mauritia flexuosa), algarrobo (Prosopis pallida y P. limensis), aliso (Alnus acuminata), caoba (Swietenia macrophylla), castaña (Bertholettia excelsa), guaba (Inga edulis), lúcuma (Pouteria lucuma), palo santo (Bursera simaruba), pijuayo (Bactris gasipaes), sauco (Sambucus peruviana), shiringa (Hevea brasiliensis), tara (Tara spinosa) y uña de gato (Uncaria tomentosa).Todas las especies anteriores (y otras cincuenta más) están incluidas en la Lista Oficial de Especies Maderables, en la Clasificación de Productos Agrícolas o en ambas. Se considera que son las especies con más posibilidades de ser seleccionadas para proyectos agroforestales, de reforestación o de restauración.Sin embargo, muchas especies agroforestales importantes de nuestras listas no estén incluidas en esas dos categorizaciones oficiales (p. ej., docenas de especies proveedoras de servicios agroecológicos y de uso múltiple). Además, subraya la importancia de aclarar los objetivos antes de seleccionar las especies para proyectos de agroforestería, reforestación o restauración.Nuestro inventario de especies ilustra la diversidad de la práctica agroforestal peruana, y cómo el uso de las especies se relaciona con los contextos sociales y15 Suman más de 40 porque algunas especies son amenazadas en más de una región.ambientales. El efecto del medio ambiente en las especies utilizadas se puede observar en los números y tipos de especies nativas de la Costa, la Sierra y la Selva.El número de especies es mayor en la Selva, intermedio en la Sierra y menor en la Costa. Esta tendencia es, en parte, \"impulsada por la oferta\", ya que el número de especies nativas de flora es mucho mayor en la Selva que en la Sierra, y mayor en la Sierra que en las condiciones muy secas de la Costa. La tendencia también está \"impulsada por la oportunidad\", ya que las condiciones (agro)ecológicas de la utilidad en la chacra y el comercio de todas las especies enumeradas (excepto los eucaliptos y los pinos, por ser domesticadas). Muchas especies están ampliamente distribuidas en países de todo el mundo, y sería extraño que el Perú fuera una excepción.No es inusual que, en los países neotropicales, incluido el Perú, se critique el uso de especies exóticas; es decir, considerando la amplia diversidad de especies nativas disponibles. La crítica al uso de algunas especies en algunos sitios o micrositios está bien fundada (p. ej., el uso de \"opciones fáciles\" en proyectos de reforestación y similares, como el eucalipto o el pino, que están ampliamente disponibles y son muy conocidas). Sin embargo, muchas de las especies exóticas enumeradas, de las cuales el 85% son especies alimenticias, tienen propiedades únicas y no son sustituibles por otras especies. Inclusive, su éxito en satisfacer las necesidades comerciales y de subsistencia podría justificar una mayor promoción de especies nativas que prometan tener un éxito similar. Dicha promoción sería parte de una agenda de diversificación, en lugar de una agenda asociada al reemplazo de especies exóticas ampliamente utilizadas.En total, el 21% de las especies nativas incluidas en la lista se consideran amenazadas; disminuyendo de forma proporcional en la Costa (26%), la Sierra (22%) y la Selva (18%), quizás debido a los diferentes grados de pérdida de hábitat.Cada especie incluida en la lista está en peligro en al menos parte de su distribución. No obstante, como base para la priorización de las actividades de conservación, destacamos que es necesario tener en cuenta una serie de consideraciones.Primero, puede ser que la inclusión de algunas especies en los listados oficiales peruanos refleje una amplia conciencia o utilidad de determinadas especies. Por ejemplo, el palo santo (Bursera graveolens) es una especie icónica del norte del Perú, cuya tala ilegal ha sido reportada en los medios de comunicación peruanos 16 .Sin embargo, recientes estudios ecológicos en el bosque seco de Lambayeque encontraron que B. graveolens era la segunda especie más común en 186 transectos 17 . Esto no quiere decir que B. graveolens no esté en peligro, sino más 16 https://elcomercio.pe/peru/piura/piura-autoridades-decomisan-15-toneladas-de-palo-santo-de-procedenciailegal-noticia/17 Comunicación personal de Tobias Fremout a Cornelius y Cerrón,13.19.19. bien que otras especies no incluidas en la lista y menos visibles pueden estar igual o más amenazadas.Segundo, el caso del algorrobo (Prosopis limensis y Prosopis pallida) requiere ser mencionado. Su inclusión en la lista de especies en peligro (crítico) quizás refleja la actual alta incidencia del síndrome de muerte regresiva. Aunque la amenaza del síndrome al algarrobo es real, debe aclararse que los árboles sanos de algarrobo todavía son abundantes en la Costa.Tercero, la lista de especies en peligro incluye pocas especies domesticadas.Algunos casos para los cuales hay más información (p. ej., Pouteria spp. y Theobroma spp.) podrían haberse incluido en la lista.Finalmente, la falta de información sobre diversidad intraespecífica en las tres regiones implica que estas listas representan estimaciones mínimas del número de especies agroforestales amenazadas. Existe el supuesto de que las poblaciones no están muy diferenciadas, pero es poco probable que esto sea correcto. Las consecuencias de ignorar una posible diferenciación genética podrían ser mucho mayores cuando se ha perdido gran parte del área de distribución de una especie determinada o un tipo de hábitat distintivo. La preocupación por la falta de información sobre la diversidad genética también se aplica a las especies domesticadas. Parece poco probable que la población de pijuayo de Pampa Hermosa sea la única raza local en peligro de extinción de las especies agroforestales nativas del Perú (p. ej., existen variedades de Theobroma bicolor con diferentes morfologías del fruto, pero desconocemos su estado de conservación).Una lista definitiva de especies agroforestales cuyos recursos genéticos estén amenazados requeriría mucha más información y análisis, tanto de la estructura genética como de la ecología reproductiva. De hecho, la falta de información sobre la situación de las especies, aunque en sí misma no sea indicativa de especies en peligro de extinción, puede considerarse un motivo de preocupación.Como se ha indicado antes, no pretendemos presentar información sobre el estado genético de las especies introducidas. Sin embargo, un estudio de la base genética de las especies introducidas sería de gran interés y podría contribuir a evitar problemas genéticos (p. ej., debido a la endogamia o a la falta de respuesta al cambio climático) y a mejorar la productividad. En las especies frutales, dicho estudio podría caracterizar el alcance y la distribución de las variedades comunes injertadas, así como la diversidad genética y las características de cualquier raza local. En el caso de las especies maderables (Eucalyptus, Corymbia y Pinus), sería beneficioso disponer de mejor información sobre la procedencia del material que se utiliza actualmente.Hemos identificado 185 especies leñosas nativas del Perú que cumplen nuestros criterios para ser definidas como especies agroforestales. Entre ellas, se encuentran especies frutales, maderables, de uso múltiple, proveedoras de servicios agroecológicos y medicinales, de la Costa, la Sierra y la Selva.Sugerimos que el personal a cargo de proyectos que promuevan la agroforestería, la reforestación o la restauración sea consciente del uso que hacen los agricultores de esta amplia gama de especies y que, en el diseño y la ejecución de los proyectos, consideren sistemáticamente cuál de estas especies satisfará mejor los objetivos de los agricultores y del proyecto.También hemos enumerado 53 importantes especies agroforestales introducidas y sugerimos que el personal a cargo de los proyectos las examine sistemáticamente;en particular, en lo que respecta a su potencial para generar ingresos. No obstante, los profesionales deben evitar la opción fácil de usar especies exóticas ampliamente disponibles cuando las especies nativas son más adecuadas. Esta recomendación no debe interpretarse como un apoyo a las prácticas insostenibles con las que suelen asociarse algunas especies -las especies introducidas, al igual que las especies nativas, pueden emplearse como parte de una práctica agroecológica bien diseñada.Asimismo, hemos incluido en la lista, de manera provisional, 40 especies candidatas a intervenciones de conservación genética. Cuatro de ellas están en peligro de extinción crítico, según la clasificación de MINAGRI: Loxopterygium huasango (en la Costa), Bursera graveolens (en la Costa y la Sierra), Prosopis limense (en la Costa) y Cedrela angustofolia (en la Sierra y la Selva).El establecimiento de fuentes de semillas es un enfoque eficaz para facilitar un uso más amplio de las especies agroforestales peruanas y conservar las que se consideran amenazadas. En este sentido, el estado de conservación es sólo uno de los muchos criterios relevantes en la planificación y priorización de la conservación multifuncional ex situ y las unidades de producción de semillas. Otros criterios incluyen: demanda local de semillas y plántulas, costo-eficiencia de las intervenciones, y existencia y condición de las fuentes de semillas establecidas.Estos criterios también deben tenerse en cuenta al planificar las intervenciones.Con base en estas y otras consideraciones mencionadas en el texto, recomendamos las siguientes acciones a los agentes gubernamentales y no gubernamentales:1. Establecer o consolidar fuentes de semillas o bancos de genes de especies agroforestales peruanas en peligro de extinción (en particular, las 40 especies en peligro de extinción enumeradas en este documento).2. Establecer o consolidar las fuentes locales de semillas de la amplia gama de especies agroforestales pertinentes para diferentes localidades o agroecologías, y aclarar la situación de estas semillas conforme a la legislación y a otros instrumentos jurídicos del Perú.3. Seguir investigando la diversidad genética intraespecífica de las especies agroforestales silvestres y domesticadas del Perú, incluida su distribución espacial con respecto a la pérdida de hábitat, como base para identificar los recursos genéticos agroforestales amenazados.4. Difundir la lista de especies agroforestales peruanas, con el fin de promover la utilización de especies adecuadas para las necesidades y oportunidades de los agricultores.5. Investigar, sintetizar y publicar información sobre las técnicas de cultivo y los beneficios (incluidos los ecológicos) de las especies agroforestales peruanas.6. Garantizar que los elementos clave del programa nacional ambiental y agrícola (p. ej., PNREST, NDC, Plan de Acción sobre la Diversidad Biológica) reconozcan toda la gama de especies agroforestales y sus beneficios, y que éstos se reflejen en los planes operacionales correspondientes.7. Aclarar y facilitar información sobre la diversidad genética y la procedencia de las principales especies de agroforestería introducidas.Apéndice ","tokenCount":"4054"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"356f326883978668b7323a74762382c4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/cb9981c9-4eb1-4f7d-862a-c8ef09ed2c2a/retrieve","id":"261410529"},"keywords":["heat tolerance","common bean","pollen structure"],"sieverID":"4c9e1181-d48e-4ff2-b25e-f668d9353166","pagecount":"15","content":"The common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is an important nutritional source globally but is sensitive to high temperatures and thus particularly vulnerable to climate change. Derived from a breeding program at CIAT (Colombia), a heat-tolerant breeding line, named heat-tolerant Andeantype 4 (HTA4), was developed by a series of crosses of parents with a small-bean tepary genotype (Phaseolus acutifolius L.) in their pedigree, which might be the donor of heat stress (HS) tolerance. Importantly, in HTA4, the large, commercially desirable Andean-type beans was restored. To assess underlying tolerance mechanisms, HTA4, together with a heat-sensitive Colombian variety (Calima), was exposed to HS (31 °C/24 °C HS vs. 26 °C/19 °C day/night) under controlled environment conditions. Vegetative growth and photosynthetic performance were not negatively impacted by HS in either genotype, although senescence was delayed in Calima. HS during the reproductive stage caused an increase in pod number in Calima but with few fully developed seeds and many pods aborted and/or abscised. In contrast, HTA4 maintained a similar filled pod number under HS and a higher seed weight per plant. Pollen showed high sterility in Calima, with many non-viable pollen grains (24.9% viability compared to 98.4% in control) with a thicker exine and fewer starch granules under HS. Calima pollen failed to adhere to the stigma and germinate under HS. In HTA4, pollen viability was significantly higher than in Calima (71.1% viability compared to 95.4% under control), and pollen successfully germinated and formed pollen tubes in the style under HS. It is concluded that HTA4 is heat tolerant and maintains a high level of reproductive output due to its ability to produce healthy pollen that is able to adhere to the stigma.In 2022, the global mean temperature was estimated to be 1.15 °C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average [1]. Some areas are already experiencing extreme weather events, such as droughts, floods, and heat waves. Both chronic heat and acute heat shock have been shown to impact plant performance and reduce yield with each degree of warming in some of the world's most economically important crops, including maize (−7.4%), wheat (−6.0%), rice (−3.2%) and soybean (−3.1%; [2]).The common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), harvested either before physiological maturity as green pods, or as mature dry beans, is an important source of dietary protein, complex carbohydrates, and micronutrients in many areas globally. Around 27.5 million tonnes of dry beans are produced annually, over an area of 34.8 million hectares globally [3]. Common beans are mainly consumed in countries, where they are produced and are cultivated by smallholders, and on an industrial scale. Countries with high rates of bean consumption per capita (mostly in Central and South America, the Caribbean, East Africa and some Asian regions) also import beans, to meet demand. The Americas and Asia are the most important producing regions [3].It has been established that heat stress (HS) can alter flowering time, cause asynchrony between male and female reproductive development, and trigger the abortion of buds, flowers and seeds, all of which lead to reduced yield [4,5]. Both chronic and developmental stage-specific HS can reduce fertilization, and therefore seed set [6][7][8] by damaging the sensitive reproductive organs and developing gametes. Male gametophytic development is particularly sensitive to heat in a wide range of crop plants, including wheat [9,10], cotton [11], tomato [12] and beans [4,13], with the development of the meiocytes and microspores being disproportionately affected [14][15][16]. Pollen sterility and anther indehiscence are common in HS plants [5,13]. It has been reported that while pollen becomes less sensitive to heat as it matures, the stigma becomes more sensitive towards anthesis [17]. Such effects have been observed in the common bean at temperatures exceeding 30 °C during the day, and 20 °C at night [18]. These effects were previously attributed to an imbalance in sugar homeostasis and damage to the membranes of the tapetum and developing pollen grains [19].Bean crops are negatively impacted globally by adverse weather conditions, and one of the goals of the CIAT (Cali, Colombia) extensive breeding program is to develop heattolerant breeding lines. Modern Phaseolus vulgaris derive from two gene pools of Andean and Mesoamerican origin [20]. While Mesoamerican varieties are generally more tolerant to various environmental stresses, they produce smaller beans that are less popular with consumers. Heat-tolerant Andean-type 4 (HTA4) is a promising new genotype which was developed at CIAT using three accessions with a complex pedigree, including a small-beaned tepary genotype (Phaseolus acutifolius L.; G40020, GID 284). Tepary bean germplasm contains heat tolerance [21], and HTA4, whilst producing the desirable, large, Andean bean type, has displayed heat tolerance under field conditions (CIAT).Here, we aimed to confirm the heat tolerance of HTA4 in controlled cabinet experiments, and move towards elucidating the mechanism(s) of tolerance in this genotype. To achieve this, we measured a range of phenological and physiological factors and contrasted the results with the popular heat-sensitive Colombian Andean type, Calima.Under chronic heat stress at 31 °C/24 °C day/night, vegetative growth was not affected for either genotype, compared to plants grown under control conditions of 26 °C/19 °C (Figure 1a). In the intolerant genotype Calima, plant height increased more rapidly under HS, averaging 250 mm at day 20, compared to 150 mm under control conditions (Figure 1b). HS Calima plants remained taller than their control counterparts throughout their life cycle. HTA4 did not show such a rapid initial height increase, but heat-treated HTA4 plants were significantly taller than the control plants (300 mm vs. 250 mm, respectively) by day 35, when measurements ceased (Figure 1b, Table A1). Total vegetative dry weight (DW) increased significantly for both cultivars under heat stress (Figure 1c, Table A2). DW increased by 13% in HTA4 (from 9.75 g to 11 g) and by 35% (from 8.5 g to 11.5 g) in Calima. Both cultivars switched to reproductive growth around 2 days earlier under heat stress compared to control conditions. There was a significant interaction between plant age and genotype (p < 0.01), and between genotype and treatment (p < 0.01). (c) Boxplot of total vegetative dry weight per plant, summarized by genotype (Calima and HTA4) and temperature treatment (blue fill = Control, orange fill = HS). In a linear regression of vegetative dry weight predicted by genotype, treatment, and the interaction between them, treatment was the only significant variable (p < 0.01).The estimated maximum chlorophyll density (µmol m −2 ) was higher in Calima compared to HTA4 but decreased under heat stress in both Calima (hlheat: 59.97 µmol m −2 ; control: 72.21 µmol m −2 ) and HTA4 (heat: 40.55 µmol m −2 ; control: 47.97 µmol m −2 ; Figure 2a). A decrease in chlorophyll density, indicating the start of leaf senescence, was observed earlier under HS (36d) compared to control conditions (56d) in HTA4, but not in Calima (47/46 d heat/control; Figure 2a).Fv/Fm, representing chlorophyll fluorescence-related photosynthetic efficiency, was significantly different over time under the two treatments but not between genotypes, demonstrated by a significant interaction between plant age and treatment (Figure 2b, Table A3). Initial Fv/Fm was, on average, higher under heat stress compared to control conditions, as the predicted intercept was significantly different for both genotype and treatment. However, a lack of significant interaction between genotype and treatment intercepts shows that the response of Fv/Fm to heat did not differ between the genotypes. The quality and position of seeds within the pods remained proportionally similar for HTA4 under HS and control. In contrast, Calima showed a reduction in the number of healthy seeds, as well as overall seed number per pod under HS (Figure 3a,b). All plants had greater success filling the seed positions closest to the stigma/furthest from the peduncle (position 1). HTA4 was able to produce more fully developed seeds under HS compared with Calima and filled up to five seed positions within pods. Representative images of HS and control pods can be seen in Figure 3c.Under HS, both Calima and HTA4 showed a greater variance in pod number per plant. The mean number of pods per plant increased in Calima (from 13.5 to 21.4) but not in HTA4 (average pod number 15.1; Figure 3d, Table A4) under HS. Pod length under HS was reduced in Calima (Figure 3e), where the most abundant pod length fell from approximately 12 cm in control plants to a maximum of approximately 4 cm under HS. It is important to note, however, that we often observed pods less than 1 cm which had fallen from heat-treated experimental plants, and although these were collected and stored, it is not inconceivable that some were missed. Therefore, the data for final pod numbers and average pod lengths do not include pods that were excised at a very early stage and, as a result, were missed from the respective counts. As pod excision was higher under HS, it could be that the total pod numbers of Calima and HTA4 were higher under HS than reported in our data. In HTA4, the most common pod length decreased from around 14 cm to 11 cm (control and HS, respectively), reflecting the reduction of seeds in the sixth pod position, but overall, the larger pods remained more abundant than those aborted at an early developmental stage. Beans produced under HS were visibly different from the control beans in both cultivars, being generally misshapen and discolored (Figure 4a). The total bean weight dropped significantly from a mean of 12.5 g to 5 g in Calima under HS, whereas HTA4 maintained a mean total bean weight of 10.5 g under HS, compared to around 13 g under control conditions (Figure 4b, Table A5). Where Calima did produce healthy-looking beans, they were at the end of the pod proximal to the stigma (position 1).Taken together, these data showed higher reproductive success in HTA4, whilst Calima showed an intolerant response as indicated by an increased number of pods with few fully developed beans under HS.Staining with Lugol's iodine solution showed a lack of starch in HS Calima pollen, whereas HTA4 had a significantly higher proportion of starch-filled pollen (see Figure 5a for representative images). Starch levels can be used as an indicator of pollen viability because starch biosynthesis is the final step of pollen development [22]. Pollen viability data show that Calima pollen was more severely affected by heat than HTA4 pollen (Figure 5b). Calima pollen viability significantly decreased to 24.9% from 98.4% under control conditions (Figure 5b, Table A6), and the variability between samples was greater. Pollen viability was also reduced in HTA4, but to a lesser extent, from 95.4% to 71.1%, and showed less variability compared to Calima. When assessed microscopically, anthers of HS plants appeared similar to those of control plants and anther dehiscence was unaffected.Microscopic TEM analysis of pollen grains showed that the fertile-looking pollen (i.e., the 30% classified as viable) of HS Calima plants had a thickened exine (Figure 6), which could hinder pollen rehydration, and/or the formation of pollen tubes from the pores. These pollen grains were also generally smaller compared to controls, and their starch granules appeared structurally different and less abundant. As starch provides energy for pollen tube growth, this would have negative implications for the ability of HS pollen to reach the ovary and fertilize ovules. Pollen of HS HTA4 looked more like control pollen, with a similar exine structure and cytoplasmic constituents. SEM analysis showed an absence of pollen on the stigmas of heat-treated Calima plants (Figure 7a). This was because pollen failed to adhere to the stigma and was easily washed off the stigma during sample processing. In contrast, HTA4 pollen germinated and formed pollen tubes in the style under control and HS conditions (Figure 7b).   As HTA4 is the result of a breeding program that aimed to incorporate the heat tolerance of tepary beans (Phaseolus acutifolius) into the Andean race of Phaseolus vulgaris, and as HTA4 had exhibited heat tolerance in the chronic stress field and pot trials at CIAT, Colombia (personal communication Steve Beebe, Milan O. Urban), we expected it to be tolerant to the HS applied in this chronic high temperature cabinet experiment. The data presented show that this is indeed the case, and HTA4 not only performed well under HS compared to the control during vegetative development (as measured by plant height and final dry weight), but it also successfully made the switch to reproductive growth, maintained high percentage pollen viability, and fertilized and filled more seeds than its heat-susceptible counterpart. HTA4 switched to reproductive growth two days earlier under HS than the control, and its leaves began to senesce around 20 days earlier than under the control conditions. It is thereby efficiently flowering, setting seed and (re)mobilizing resources to fill the developing seeds, and avoiding prolonged exposure to HS.Calima, meanwhile, grows rapidly in the vegetative stage, and similarly makes the reproductive switch early, but is unable to translate that into a successful reproductive output. Calima plants continue vegetative growth, do not senesce earlier, and do not mobilize enough resources due to the absence of a strong sink. Where Calima did fill seeds under HS, they were often smaller and/or misshapen and discolored, traits that are actually much more related to their market value than yield. Due to seed/pod failure under HS, Calima continuously produced many pods, the majority of which were aborted or abscised early in development. This early pod abortion and extended reproductive phase has been observed in heat-sensitive Phaseolus species previously [5,23].The high rate of pod abortion in Calima under HS, coupled with the negative effect of HS on all pod and seed characteristics measured, indicates that it is the early reproductive stage that is sensitive to HS in Calima, and it is at this stage that HTA4 has a tolerance mechanism. We observed that, where Calima had successfully filled seeds, they were located at the end of the pod proximal to the stigma, suggesting that seed failure might be a consequence of failed fertilization. This phenomenon led us to consider the effects of HS on pollen viability and pollen-stigma interaction.While the temperature ranges that plants can grow in without suffering heat stress are distinct to each plant species and genotype [24], they are generally narrower for male gametophytic tissues [25]. The morphology of anther tissue was previously shown to be impacted by HS, leading to the decreased or unsuccessful production of pollen grains, and/or anther indehiscence in bean [5] and other crops [26]. Anther indehiscence was not observed under the conditions applied in the current study; however, interestingly, the HT anthers from both cultivars appeared to be morphologically similar to the controls. This indicates that if male sterility causes the differences observed between Calima and HTA4 under HS, pollen viability and stigma receptivity rather than anther indehiscence could be responsible.Common bean pollen viability has been shown to reduce under HS, particularly when HS is applied during meiocyte and microspore formation [4,13]. Overall, this leads to reduced pollen number, and percentage viability. In this study, pollen viability assays showed a greater drop in pollen viability and an increase in variability between flowers, under HS in Calima compared with HTA4, explaining, to an extent, the reduced reproductive success in this cultivar. In Calima, there was a large proportion of pollen that was small and was lacking cellular contents, including, in some cases, nuclei, indicating that development was arrested at an early stage. Where Calima pollen appeared viable, it showed morphological changes upon closer inspection by TEM, often being smaller and misshapen, with a thicker exine and fewer starch granules. Pollen starch granule size and number decreased in maize under HS [8], and pollen malformations, such as disordered tecta, absent nexine, and uneven surface sporopollenin, were observed in HS rice pollen [27], as well as a thicker exine in HS soybean pollen [28]. Field pea pollen was also shown to be smaller, with reduced interior contents under HS [29]. Non-viable HTA4 pollen was mono-nucleate, while viable pollen appeared structurally similar to control pollen.High variability in pollen viability within a single anther locule under HS was previously attributed to the amplification of initially small developmental or metabolic differences between microspores by competition for limited nutrients [30], resulting in a mixed population of viable and non-viable pollen within a single anther locule [31]. This could explain the huge variability of data observed in Calima. While the plants in this study have sufficient resources (as photosynthesis and vegetative growth are unaffected or improved), developing pollen could be starved of nutrients because of a problem with nutrient mobilization in the anther, such as loss of integrity of the tapetum, which has been observed under HS previously [28,32]. Soltani et al. [33] previously reported that moderate HS does not negatively affect photosynthesis in a heat-sensitive Phaseolus vulgaris cultivar, Redhawk, but HS disrupts the source-sink balance, impacting pollen development and pod filling, with a four-fold reduction in free hexoses in HS beans. Wang et al. [8] showed that the leaf assimilate was remobilized but was not converted to starch in HS maize pollen. Disrupted sugar metabolism was also reported in tomato anthers, leading to reduced pollen viability under HS [16,34].Although pollen viability drops in HTA4, it is to a lesser extent, and the range is similar to that of the control pollen samples. This demonstrates that HTA4 is able to maintain pollen development under HS and its ability to retain similar levels of variability could be a key trait for tolerance in this genotype.Scanning electron microscopy showed an absence of pollen on the stigmas of heattreated Calima plants, and any pollen present was easily dislodged from the stigma during sample processing. This fits with a previous observation that reduced yield under HS is associated with problems penetrating the stigma [17]. Considering that Calima does have a proportion (c25%) of apparently viable pollen, it might be expected that it could maintain a higher yield than was observed, considering the necessity of only six viable grains to fill each pod. The altered morphology of apparently 'viable' HS Calima pollen could explain why this is not the case. The lack of pollen adherence to the stigma might be due to differences in the structure of the exine and/or impaired rehydration as a requirement for germination. So far, it is also unknown if some feedback effect of the pollen grain presence itself affects the stigma receptivity.Previous studies found morphological and/or biochemical changes in the pistil under HS [35,36], which could be a factor in the failure of pollen to adhere to the stigma surface. Our TEM images, and observation during imaging for pollen viability, show that the stigma appears structurally normal in HS Calima plants but further analysis would be required to rule out the role of stigma damage in the failure of fertilization. However, Monterroso and Wien [4] showed in reciprocal crosses that, in Phaseolus vulgaris, applying control pollen to HS stigmas rescued yield to some extent, indicating that the problem is with the pollen and not the stigma, or to a lesser degree due to the stigma. A small pilot study to replicate this in our lab with Calima and HTA4 showed the heat sensitivity of both pollen and stigmas, and plants that had experienced HS to either the male or female reproductive organs showed higher pod abortion rate than controls.Understanding how HTA4 pollen has avoided or overcome the effects of HS suffered by Calima could be a key to understanding the molecular and physiological mechanism of heat tolerance in common beans.Calima and HTA4 seeds were provided by Alliance Bioversity International and CIAT (CIAT, Cali, Colombia). HTA4 is a breeding line derived from a cross involving the parents DAA9 × (DAB295 × SAR4). Calima was selected as a control because it is representative of the most important commercial grain class in East Africa and has been released as a variety there. Thus, it is representative of what is currently in the field in production. There are also extensive physiological data on it.Seeds were sown in 8-inch pots containing custom compost, comprising 75% medium grade peat, 12% screened sterilized loam, 3% medium grade vermiculite, 10% grit (5 mm screened, lime free), 3.5 kg m −3 Osmocote Exact (total N 16%) (supplier: Scotts UK Pro-fessional, Ipswich, Suffolk, UK) and 0.5 kg m −3 PG compound fertilizer (supplier: Yara UK Ltd., Harvest House, Europarc, Grimsby, N E Lincolnshire, UK). Plants were kept in Sanyo cabinets under 26 °C/19 °C day/night cycles, with 11 h nights, 7 h days and 3 h ramping periods between the two. All plants were maintained at control temperatures until 7 days post germination to control for germination effects. At this point, plants allocated to the HS condition were transferred to 31 °C/24 °C day/night cycles as specified above. Control plants were transferred to a cabinet, which was maintained at control conditions. Plants were kept well watered and cabinet humidity was maintained at 70% RH. Lights (Phillips T5, 840 W cool white dimmable fluorescent lamps) provided 400 µmol m 2 s −1 set at 100 cm height. At the end of pod elongation and the beginning of seed ripening (BBCH stage 80), plants were moved to a glasshouse under ambient conditions for drying until harvest. A total of 60 HTA4 and 60 Calima plants were grown, half under HS and half under control conditions, and plants were allocated either for destructive sampling for imaging or for chlorophyll, yield component and dry weight measurements (plant numbers for each measurement are outlined in the relevant sections below).The position and quality of seeds in a total of 922 pods from 24 plants grown in temperate conditions (13 Calima and 11 HTA4) and 28 plants grown in heat stress conditions (14 Calima and 14 HTA4) were measured. Positions in the pod were marked from 1 to 6, starting with 1 at the distal end and going to 6 at the proximal end. Seeds at each position were scored by eye as healthy if the seed was full and without visible defects or discoloration, shriveled if the seed was very small, having a shriveled seed coat or visibly deformed, or absent if no seed was present. Subsequently, the total weight of seeds was measured from each plant. Seed weight was predicted by genotype, treatment and the interaction between genotype and treatment in a linear regression; the significance of the model terms was estimated in an ANOVA framework. All analyses were performed in R (version 3.6.1). For pod counts, all developing pods on each plant were collected; however, in the case that pods were abscised very early, it is possible they were missed from the final count.The chlorophyll content of the central leaflet of the first fully emerged trifoliate leaf of 16 plants under temperate conditions (10 Calima and 6 HTA4), and 23 plants under heat stress conditions (12 Calima and 11 HTA4), n = 39, was measured in situ using the optical method with the MC-100 Chlorophyll Concentration Meter (Apogee Instruments Inc., Logan, UT, USA). Measurements were taken in the morning, on two to three days each week, between 19 and 64 days of growth for the control condition plants, and between 19 and 57 days for HS plants. Measurements were stopped earlier in the heat-treated plants, as the oldest leaves had started to drop.The maximum potential quantum efficiency of Photosystem II (Fv/Fm) of the first fully emerged trifoliate leaf was measured in 143 plants under temperate conditions (76 Calima and 67 HTA4) and 147 plants under HS conditions (78 Calima and 69 HTA4), n = 290. Black leaf clips were applied to the leaves 20 min for dark adaption before Fv/Fm was measured in situ, using a Pocket PEA continuous excitation chlorophyll fluorimeter (Hansatech, Norfolk, UK). Measurements were taken regularly in the morning, between 23 and 64 days of growth for the control condition plants and between 23 and 57 days for the HS plants. Measurements were stopped earlier in the heat-treated plants, as the oldest leaves had started to drop. A third-order polynomial regression was fitted with Fv/Fm predicted by plant age in days interacting with both genotype and treatment. The significance of these predictors was estimated using an F test in an ANOVA framework. The model was fitted in R version (3.6.1).Chlorophyll parameters of the maximum chlorophyll density (µmol m −2 ), plant age at senescence onset, and senescence rate were estimated using generalized additive models (GAMs). Chlorophyll was predicted by a smooth function of plant age (days), with a separate smooth function fitted for each combination of the cultivar and temperature treatment. The optimal number of basis functions was determined to be 9 using REML. The maximum chlorophyll density (µmol m −2 ) was estimated from the fitted predicted model, the age of senescence onset was calculated as the plant age in days that chlorophyll density fell to 95% of the maximum. The senescence period was calculated as the beginning at senescence onset and ending after 14 days or the end of the experiment, whichever was sooner. The senescence rate was calculated as the change in chlorophyll density over the senescence period. GAMs were fitted in R (version 3.6.1) using the mgcv package (version 1.8-35) [37]).The plant height was measured using the same plants used for chlorophyll density measurements (Section 2.2). Height in mm from the base to the top of the main stem was measured on seven occasions between 19 and 35 days after planting. Linear regression with plant height predicted by plant age in days interacting with both treatment and genotype was fitted. The significance of each of these predictors was estimated using an F test in an ANOVA framework. The model was fitted in R (version 3.6.1).Mature anthers were collected from three flowers from each of four plants from the various treatment conditions described above. Anthers were disrupted on a microscope slide using forceps to release the pollen, which was then stained with Lugol's iodine (1:2 Iodine:KI solution). Stained pollen was imaged and photographed using a Zeiss Axioimager, and viable pollen was quantified using ImageJ software [38].Pollen samples were fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde, 2.5% glutaraldehyde in 0.1 M Sorenson's Phosphate (SP) buffer at pH 7.2 overnight (Ruzin, 2000). They were washed 4× with SP buffer and centrifuged at 35,000 rpm for 5 min. Pollen was embedded in 2% low melting agarose before dehydration through a series of increasing concentrations of ethanol and infiltration with LRWhite resin (AGR1281, Agar Scientific Ltd., Stansted, Essex, UK). Samples were embedded in capsules and polymerized in a 60 °C nitrogen oven overnight. The resin blocks were cut into 100 nm slices and placed onto Pioloform-carbon-coated copper grids for staining with 2.5% uranyl acetate for 20 min [39]. Samples were rinsed with dH 2 O, stained with 3% lead citrate for 3 min and rinsed with dH 2 O again. Imaging was done using a JEOL 2100Plus transmission electron microscope (JEOL, Tokyo, Japan) at 200 kv. A range of representative pollen was imaged, from fertile-looking to non-viable. Particular attention was paid to pollen from heat-stressed plants that appeared viable to explain why it was unable to adhere to the stigma and form pollen tubes.Stigmas from three flowers, from each of three individual plants per treatment, were mounted onto the stub using a 1:1 mixture of tissue tek and graphite, earthed with carbon tape to reduce charging. The sample was then rapidly frozen in slushed liquid nitrogen (−207 °C) before being transferred into the Quorum cryo-preparation system. Each sample was etched at −95 °C for 5 min and coated with platinum for 2 min at a current of 5 µA. Cryo-SEM imaging was conducted on the JEOL 6360 LowVac Scanning Electron Microscope (JEOL, Tokyo, Japan) using a 5 kv beam current, spot size 30 and a working distance (WD) of 15 mm.Newly opened flowers were collected in the morning and fixed in FAA (formalinacetic acid-alcohol) or 70% ethanol. The pistil was dissected out and washed twice in boiled distilled water, and then placed in a boiling water bath for 1 h. Samples were removed from the water bath and cleared at 60 °C for 1 h with 4 N sodium hydroxide. The samples were washed with dH 2 O, stained with 0.1% Aniline blue in 0.1 M potassium phosphate for 30 min in the dark and mounted on a slide with decolorized Aniline blue. Images were taken with a Zeiss Axioimager fluorescent microscope (Zeiss, Oberkochen, Germany), with 455 nm excitation and 520 nm emission.Our data confirm the high temperature tolerance of HTA4 and show that this is related to the maintenance of pollen viability and to the ability of pollen to adhere and germinate on the stigma. This is the first report of a high-quality heat-tolerant P. vulgaris genotype with large commercially desirable beans. Genotyping and mapping are ongoing to provide more information for breeders and facilitate the development of heat-tolerant bean cultivars. ","tokenCount":"4783"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8f2a8175f5548e5b168baeed2c5f6794","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/07372467-4170-4412-bb2c-761175daa79f/retrieve","id":"348504634"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7278cac5-291d-4c68-a782-a393b91f213a","pagecount":"64","content":"1 3 continuación. Especial mención merecen los agricultores entrevistados por la forma desinteresada y gentil con que suministraron la información que hoy permite presentar este diagnóstico.El conocimiento de la problemática que rodea al cultivo de frijol en Perú es importante para que los investigadores y extensionistas puedan priorizar sus actividades teniendo en consideración los recursos con que cuentan. Sobre todo, deben tener en cuenta que los resultados que se obtengan sean a corto plazo benéficos para los productores de frijol, as{ como para la población peruana.Con tales propósitos el Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) programó el Primer Curso Intensivo Postgrado de Investigación en Chacra en coordinación con la jefatura del Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Promoción Agropecuaria ( !NIPA) y con apoyo económico de la Fundación Ford. Su objetivo fundamental fue adiestrar a un grupo de agrónomos, funcionarios del !NIPA, provenientes de 12 regiones del Perú, sobre la realización de diagnósticos que sirvan como base para el diseño de pruebas de tecnología de frijol a nivel de chacra en sus z onas de trabajo, pruebas que buscan solucionar los problemas de los productores dentro del marco de sus recursos y restricciones.El curso comprende tres fases:. 1) entrenamiento para formulación de diagnósticos de la producción de frijol, selección de soluciones y diseño de ensayos en chacra; 2) formulación de diagnósticos, soluciones y diseño de ensayos en chacra para sus zonas de trabajo; 3) análisis agronómico y económico de los ensayos realizados y formulación de planes de investigación de frijol a nivel de chacra a partir de los resultados obtenidos.La primera fase del Curso Intensivo sobre Investigación en Frijol en Chacras de Agricultores se cumplió en la provincia de Chota entre el 18 de febrero y el 4 de marzo de 1985. El grupo estuvo conformado por 12 extensionistas, 11 investigadores y un agroeconomista. Aun cuando su propósito fue fundamentalmente didáctico, fue posible obtener, como producto de la práctica realizada, información sobre las circunstancias de la producción de fr!j ol en Chota y el diagnóstico preliminar de sus problemas.Chota está situada en el Departamento de Cajamarca (Fig. 1), el cual ocupa el primer lugar en área sembrada con frijol en Perú y muestra los más bajos rendimientos. Durante la primera fase del curso se realizaron 140 encuestas en 4 de las localidades o distritos con mayor área productora de frijol. Son éllas Lajas, Sivingan, Conchán Alto y Conchán Bajo.Este informe presenta el análisis de la información recolectada en las 140 encuestas, la cual permitió una identificación preliminar de la problemática del frijol en Chota. Con base en élla y en la Metodolop#a sobre Investigación en Chacras se presentan algunas recomendaciones de tipo técnico. La investigación económica que contribuye al diseño y la evaluación de la nueva tecnología de producción comienza con la identificación de los factores limitantes críticos de la productividad actual de los agricultores, como también de su capacidad para adoptar tecnologias alternativas.El estudio cuidadoso de la situación de los agricultores permite la identificación de los factores limitantes.El objetivo de este diagnóstico de la producción de frijol en Chota, Perú, es ayudar a planificar los ensayos a nivel de chacra (2, 3, 5). El conocimiento sobre los sistemas actuales de producción de los agricultores se considera esencial para asegurar que las tecnologías evaluadas en ensayos a nivel de chacra son adecuadas.Asimismo, es útil tanto para establecer apropiadamente las tecnologías testigo como para sugerir algunos factores claves en la respuesta de los ensayos.Encuesta exploratoria. Para realizar la caracterización del sistema de producir frijol en Chota, Perú, se utilizó una encuesta exploratoria.Un reconocimiento breve con entrevistas informales puede proporcionar una impresión inicial sobre la naturaleza general de un sistema de producción. Sin embargo, no es suficiente para establecer con seguridad razonable la frecuencia de las características que pueden no ser universales (por ejemplo, la fecha de siembra o la presencia de un problema) ni para medir variables claves cuantificables (por ejemplo, distancia de siembra, dosis de fertilizantes). Para éllo es necesaria la recolección sistemática de datos de una pequeña muestra de agricultores. Por eso en este estudio se utilizó una encuesta exploratoria.La información reunida en la encuesta exploratoria incluye parámetros tales como problemas principales del cultivo, variedades locales, fechas y métodos de siembra, cultivos asociados, rotaciones, dosis y métodos de aplicación de pesticidas y fertilizantes, disposición de la cosecha de frijol y de otros cultivos producidos. Además, la encuesta incluye una evaluación sanitaria del cultivo realizada por el agrónomo en el lote del agricultor.Los temas tratados generalmente no son ni delicados ni controvertibles, y los agricultores por lo general se sienten relativamente cómodos divulgando tal información. En esta etapa, los investigadores no son bien conocidos en el área de estudio, y por ellose evitan discusiones detalladas sobre los rendimientos, la rentabilidad, el endeudamiento o los recursos de las chacras. Aunque esta información puede ser útil, no es esencial para la preparación del primer ciclo de ensayos a nivel de chacra, y el traerla a colación en la primera reunión con los agricultores bien puede suscitar resistencia por su parte. La entrevista es relativamente breve, tomando alrededor de 30 minutos por agricultor.Se realizaron 140 encuestas en 2 1/2 dias en cuatro localidades de la provincia de Chota (Cuadro 3). Se anexa una copia de la encuesta al presente documento. La información recogida en 70 preguntas, más las observaciones agrobiológicas de los lotes de frijol, fueron procesadas con el propósito de realizar un diagnóstico de la producción de frijol en Chota. Además, este estudio podrá ser utilizado en futuros diagnósticos de la producción de frijol en cada una de las regiones productoras en Perú.Ubicación y Recursos. La provincia de Chota está ubicada en el Departamento de Cajamarca, comprendido dentro de la región natural de la Sierra peruana (Fig. 1). Del área total en frijol en los 16 distritos de Chota, el 52.5% se encuentra en los distritos de Chota y Lajas, los más importantes, productores de frijol.1Este informe describe y analiza las características más importantes \"de los sistemas de producción de frijol en las cuatro locali dades estudiadas. Aun cuando los cuadros agrupan toda la información por localidad, el análisis de los resultados generalmente se presenta para la provincia de Chota como un todo.Si bien se observan algunas diferencias entre local idades (como son hábito de crecimiento del frijol --mayormente volubles en Conchán y mez cl a de arbustivos y volubles en Sivingan y Lajas--menor frecuencia de rotación de cultivos, de compra de semilla y de ventas de frijol en Conchán Alto y Bajo), aquéllas no son absolutas; solamente cuando se observan diferencias marcadas entre localidades se hace un análisis parcial.Rotaci ones y fechas de siembra. Las características de las diferentes chacras y sus sistemas de producción de frijol se resumen en el Cuadro 4. En Chota el frijol lo producen pequeños agricultores, en su mayorí a propietarios de la tierra, con cbacra•S de un tamaño en promedio de 2 .2 ha. El frijol se produce en asociación con ma{z, asociación que es la actividad más importante en la chacra, ocupando en promedio el 59% de su área total. La asociación es cultivada por el 100% de los agricultores de la zona. A pesar de la importancia del frijo l par a estos agricultores y sus familias, sus rendimientos son muy bajos , --aproximadamente 180 kg/ha--o, en los términos de los agricul tores, un kilo de sembradura rinde en promedio siete kilos.El segundo lugar en cuanto a frecuencia en las chacras estudiadas lo ocupa la papa y el tercero la arveja. La tierra se usa consecutivamente en la asociación maíz-frijol en un 60% de las chacras.Solamente .26% de los agricultores cambian cada año de cultivo, y 14% hacen rotación cada dos años. Esta se hace principalmente con papa, quizás buscando aprovechar los residuos de la fertilización en la producción maíz-frijol. El orden de importancia de los cultivos de rotación es: papa 47%, arveja 20%, descanso 21%, trigo y cebada 10% . Es de anotar que el descanso consiste en dejar crecer las malezas y los pastos para pastoreo del ganado.En las rotaciones se observan marcadas di ferencias entre localidades. Aparentemente en Conchán Alto y Bajo es mínimo el cambio de cultivo entre años, mientras que en Sivingan es la situación más frecuente. Es posible que condiciones micro-climáticas, por ejemplo, temperaturas más bajas , no favorezcan la práctica de cultivos alternativos en Conchán.El sistema maíz-frijol ocupa el terreno durante unos 8 a 9 meses.El período restante, antes de la preparación para la próx ima s iembra, se usa en pastoreo del ganado, aprovechando los residuos vegetales y las malezas que han proliferado después de la última des yerba.La siembra de maíz y frijol se efectúa princ ipalmente en los meses de octubre y noviembre, aprovechando la llegada de las lluvias (Figura 2 , Cuadro 2). Al terminar esa siembra hay una emigración de mano de obra des de Chota hacia la selva peruana, e spe cíf icamente ha ciaJaén, para trabajar en el cultivo de arroz. Los trabajadores vuelven a Chota en febrero para la siembra en marzo, y para aprovechar el comienzo de la cosecha de frijol, que dura desde marzo hasta julio.Preparación del suelo. Se observó que la preparación del terreno la realizan predominantemente con bueyes y que un 61% de las yuntas son En términos absolutos, el número de plantas (de frijol) por hectárea parece baja, comparada con poblaciones experimentales (6).Sin embargo, es posible que en relación con la disponibilidad de semilla y la fertilidad y humedad del suelo, y/o la competencia con el maíz, siendo éste el cultivo principal de la asociación, la densidad encontrada sea la deseable. Este punto merece ser estudiado en más detalle.Las relaciones entre la densidad y el sistema de siembra y entre la densidad de siembra y la procedencia y clase de semilla fueron examinadas (Cuadro 7 y 8). Se observa que no hay relación entre la población de plantas de maíz y plantas de frijol, pero si hay unatendencia a mayor población de frijol en las siembras en surcos:29,160 plantas/ha contra 24,500 en siembras al voleo. En cuanto a la procedencia de la semilla, los agricultores que la compran tienen en promedio una población mayor de plantas que los que la guardan de la cosecha anterior. La práctica de selección de la semilla no muestra correlación con mayores poblaciones de plantas de frijol.Obtención de la semilla. El mayor número de chacras (79%) guardan su propia semilla de la cosecha anterior, y un grupo menor la obtiene de comerciantes y/o de otros agricultores (Cuadro 9). La consecución de la semilla es fácil en Concbán Alto y Bajo donde la mayor parte de los agricultores guardan su propia semilla; sin embargo, en Lajas la mayor1a consigue una parte de su semilla fuera de la chacra, y casi la mitad informa que a veces es dificil obtener semilla por falta de dinero. Sólo 38% de los agricultores realizan selección de la semilla como una práctica cotidiana. (Cuadro 10). Generalmente los volubles tienen un periodo vegetativo más largo que los arbustivos, pero dentro de los volubles se encuentra un rango amplio de variación de 6 a 9 meses. Este parece ser utilizado por los agricultores de Conchán Alto para obtener cosechas escalonadas, as! como en las otras localidades (Lajas y Sivingan) las obtienen al mezclar hábitos de crecimiento. Las mezclas de semil la parecen tener varias finalidades:Reducción de riesgo ante situaciones de falta de agua, el problema más ampliamente mencionado por los agricultores (véase Cuadro 23) .Reducción del riesgo por diferencias en resistencias o tolerancias ante incidencia de diversos problemas sanitarios.Cosechas escalonadas que permitan disponibilidad prolongada de frijol verde. (Un alto porcentaje de los agri cultores informó que consume principalmente frijol verde, ver Cuadro 18.)  Tales soluciones pueden no estar acordes con los objetivos y las restricciones del agricultor y, además, no es seguro que resultaran en un aumento en rendimientos que justifique los mayores costos. Sin embargo, en el momento en que se efectuó la 1 1 1 Destino de la producción de frijol y otros productos de la chacra El frijol se produce más para el consumo del agricultor y su familia que como una fuente de ingreso (Cuadro 18). ~olamente un 20% de los agricultores venden parte de su cosecha. Se estima que, en promedio para Chota, el porcentaje de frijol vendido por chacra no supera el 6%. La casi totalidad (90%) de los agricultores realizan cosechas de frijol verde; parece haber entre éllos una preferencia por consumir el frijol en este estado.Aunque el cuestionario no entraba en detalles sobre consumo de frijol en la chacra, en vista del alto autoconsumo identificado, se realizó un sondeo con algunos agricultores y/o sus esposas (14 en total) para recopilar mayor información. En 9 de las 14 chacras se encontró compra de frijol cuando se agota la provisión de la cosecha.Esto permite presumir que la producción de frijol por chacra no alcanza, en muchos casos, a abastecer el consumo de la familia campesina de Chota.Por lo tanto, una tecnolog1a que incremente marginalmente la productividad de frijol no tendr1a que ser necesariamente evaluada en términos de mercado.Por ejemplo, los precios de una nueva variedad y los retornos monetarios no tendr!an importancia a corto plazo. Este hecho puede señalar una gran flexibilidad en cuanto a aceptación de variedades de rendimiento alto y estable, sin importar mucho el color y tamaño de grano.Con base en los rendimientos estimados en la encuesta general y las compras estimadas con la submuestra, se pudo estimar en promedio un consumo per capita anual de 30 kilos. El consumo promedio en Perú es de 2 kilos per capita por año. No obstante la importancia del frijol en el consumo de la familia campesina, es más importante el ma1z. Este se consume todos los d!as en las tres comidas y bajo diferentes preparaciones. Se estimó que el consumo de ma1z ~s 5 a 6 veces el de frijol. Esto implica que las soluciones tecnológicas que se formulen para el cultivo de frijol, dado que se trata de un sistema asociado con el ma!z, no deben provocar reducciones en los rendimientos de éste.1El destino de la producción de otros cultivos sembrados en las chacras se presenta en el Cuadro 19. Un 80% de los agricultores que producen papa venden su producto, representando para éllos principalmente una fuente de ingreso monetario. La producción de los demás cultivos es predominantemente para consumo familiar, pero con pequeñas ventas.Uso de la mano de obra Es común contratar mano de obra durante el proceso productivo del frijol (Cuadro 20). Un 35% de los agricultores pagan con trabajo, lo cual se expresa en el dicho \"ayúdame que yo te ayudaré\". Este implica que el número de d!as que un vecino labore en el lote de un agricultor es retribuido por éste de la misma manera. Se contrata mano de obra principalmente (90%) para las labores de aporque y desyerba, y en menor porcentaje para las labores de siembra, preparación del terreno y cosecha (Cuadro 20).La baja productividad de los cultivos y el pequeño tamaño de los predios (2.20 ha en promedio) no proveen al agricultor de la provincia de Chota un ingreso monetario suficiente. Esto se evidencia en la Esta es una economía de canje, no de mercado, lo cual crea restricciones para nuevas tecnologías.El ingreso que se recibe por trabajar en el cultivo de arroz es relativamente alto comparado con la productividad de la mano de obra en Chota (medida por el salario diario allí). Igualmente, el ingreso que recibe una persona en 60 días de trabajo en la selva alcanza un total equivalente al valor adicional de duplicar el rendimiento del frijol en el área cultivada con éste en una chacra de tamaño promedio en Chota . Estos hechos hacen recomendable que cualquier nueva tecnología propuesta para el frijol no involucre aumento en requerimientos de mano de obra durante la época en que emigra a trabajar en la Selva.Uso de recursos en frijol y en otros productos de la chacra El 60% del área de la chacra está ocupada por el sistema maíz-frijol.Por eso se puede concluir que este es un cultivo importante, en términos del área destinada a frijol dentro del sistema maíz-frijol. En términos de uso de recursos monetarios es una actividad secundaria si se la compara con la papa, dado el hecho de23 que ésta es un cu.ltivo principalmente para la venta » mientras el frijol es casi totalmente para el autoconsumo.Como ejeuq)lo» los agricultores de Chota no utilizan crédito para cultivar frijol» pero un alto porcentaje (78%)» st lo usan para otros cultivos» espec1ficamente para el cultivo de la papa (Cuadro 21). En ' relación con el uso de abono en el frijol» sólo se usa el abono orgánico proveniente del pastoreo del ganado, y ningún agricultor utiliza abono qu{mico. En cambio el 72% usa abonos qu{micos durante el proceso productivo de la papa.La aplicación de riego» considerando sólo aquellos que tienen disponibilidad del mismo» es un poco más frecuente en otros cultivos que en frijol. Sólo el 7% de los agricultores fumiga el frijol; en cambio un 57% fumiga otros cultivos y un 93% la papa.Además de las observaciones y evaluaciones de campo realizadas por los agrónomos que formularon la encuesta, y de las preguntas especificas sobre problemas acerca de cada tema tratado con el agricultor, se obtuvo un diagnóstico por parte de éste sobre sus problemas con el frijol. Para ésto se hicieron tres tipos de preguntas:a.Problemas en el establecimiento del cultivo (se refieren a la etapa desde la germinación hasta antes de la floración).b.Problemas generales en la producción de frijol y su orden de importancia.c. Problemas generales en la producción de frijol en la última cosecha.Los agricultores expresaron que el principal obstáculo para el buen establecimiento del frijol es el ataque de insectos trazadores (Cuadro 22). En segundo lugar, pero con menor frecuencia, mencionaron la sequ!a . La pudrición de ra!ces también es importante,•especialmente en Sivingan. Otro problema importante es el descrito por los agricultores como \"apenas germina se muere\". Si ésto tiene relación con pudriciones de la raíz, éllas tendrían especial importancia en el buen establecimiento del cultivo. La calidad de la semilla es un problema escasamente mencionado, con excepción de Conchán Alto.Con respec to a los problemas del cultivo después del establecimiento, obviamente el problema más grave para el agricultor de Chota en general es la escasez de agua ( Cuadros 23 y 24) . Pero de otro lado, el exceso de agua en algunas etapas del cultivo también parece ser un problema muy importante.Dado que la situación puede variar entre cosechas, se preguntó a los agricultores cuál había sido su principal prob l ema en la 'última cosecha' y sus respuestas muestran diferencias con los problemas cotidianos, pues en 1985 no se menciona la escasez de agua como el problema prioritario sino la incidencia de pl agas y enfermedades (Cuadros 25 -y 26 , Fig. 3) especialmente en Conchán Alto y Bajo. Este dato es muy consistente con las observaciones hechas en los lotes del a gricultor en e s te período.1Con base en la información recogida por la encuesta exploratoria, es posible definir una serie de problemas que pueden estar incidiendo sobre los bajos rendimientos de frijol (180 kg/ha) en la provincia de Chota, tanto según el criterio del agricultor como según el concepto del investigador (Cuadros 27 y 28).Existe mucha coherencia entre los problemas percibidos por los agricultores y los observados por los investigadores, aunque existen también ciertas diferencias por el simple hecho de que los investigadores observaron el cultivo durante una sola siembra, mientras que los agricultores tienen una perspectiva de años de experiencia con él.Para éstos los tres problemas principales son agua, enfermedades, y falta de capital. Para los investigadores son densidad, enfermedad y fertilidad.Analizando algunas soluciones tecnológicas a los problemas (la lista de soluciones no incluye todas las posibilidades que se pueden considerar), tres sobresalen: variedades mejoradas, cambios en siembra, y uso de agroqu!micos.La introducción de nuevas variedades resistentes o tolerantes a los problemas sanitarios identificados y al estrés de agua seria posiblemente la solución más expedita, sin acompañarla de modificaciones en las prácticas de siembra. La escogencia de variedades para la zona tendría cierta flexibilidad en cuanto a caracter!sticas fenot{picas de la semilla, dada la amplia gama de colores, formas y tamaños que actualmente se cultivan. Es posible que cierta preferencia por los frijoles blancos de tamaño grande sugiere darle mayor énfasis a éstos en una escogencia de variedades. Esta solución no requiere cambios ni en las prácticas de siembra ni en las mezclas de variedades. Tampoco necesita ir más allá de abastecer el consumo de la chacra sin pretender mayor participación en el mercado.Los cambios de densidad y de arreglos de siembra tienen potencial como nuevas tecnologías en Chota debido al bajo número de plantas de frijol por hectárea. Sin embargo, es posible que en relación con la fertilidad del suelo, la disponibilidad de agua, la escasez de semilla y la competencia con el ma!z --siendo éste el principal cultivo de la asociación--la densidad encontrada sea la deseable para el agricultor dentro de sus circunstancias y restricciones de producción. El cambio de arreglos de siembra buscando la mejor ubicación de los volubles con respecto al soporte del maiz, conlleva quizás limitaciones similares a la anterior solución, ésto es, posiblemente más frijol y menos ma{z.Cambiar el sistema de siembra al voleo por sitios, que también modifica los arreglos de siembra, implica mayor cantidad de mano de obra en la siembra del frijol que quizás los agricultores no quieran o no puedan emplear por no ser eficiente dentro de sus objetivos 1 en el cultivo comercial de papa, y la causa de que no los apliquen en frijol no es por su desconocimiento, sino quizás por falta de un retorno económico adecuado o por su propia orientación como productores de frijol. Tradicionalmente el cultivo de papa fue, como el cultivo de frijol hoy en d1a, un cultivo producido sin el uso de agroqu1micos con destino al autoconsumo. La comercialización de la papa conllevó el inicio de la aplicación de agroqu{micos. Por eso, para considerar su uso en el frijol, es imprescindible analizar la posibilidad de comercializar el cultivo.Posibilidades de comercialización. Existen ciertas posibilidades para ,.la comercialización del frijol en Chota. La zona tiene la ventaja de ' que la cosecha de frijol llega durante los meses de abril a junio, antes de la siembra de frijol en la costa y cuando su precio es el más alto durante el año. Por eso los productores de Chota podrían recibir precios altos por su producto en los mercados de la costa. Sin embargo, debido a la precaria infraestructura vial de la región, Chota enfrenta un costo de transporte muy alto y está aislada de los mercados principales del país. A pesar de éllo, se comercializa papa en Chota, por lo cual el problema del frijol podría solucionarse también.La posibilidad de comercializar el frijol en Chota depende de factores económicos: los precios del mercado, los costos de comercialización y los costos de producción.Aun incrementando los rendimientos y generando excedentes para el mercado que produzcan flujo de dinero, queda otro problema por s~perar:las mezclas. En este momento éllas significan para el agricultor ventajas frente a los riesgos climatológicos y de incidencia de plagas y enfermedades, además de disponibilidad de frijol verde durante un buen período de tiempo. Pero es claro que las mezclas de variedades, como las usadas en Chota, tienen seriosproblemas cuando se pretende llevarlas al mercado. Probablemente su precio seria fuertemente castigado.Como se ve, la introducción de insumas encuentra una serie de tropiezos que en el corto plazo parecen difíciles de superar. Existe en este momento un círculo vicioso: no hay inversión en frijol porque no hay ingreso monetario y no hay ingreso monetario porque no hay inversi6n en tecnologías que produzcan excedentes para el mercado.Sin embargo, es importante anotar que, dado el déficit de oferta de Con esta clase de estudio de diagnóstico del sistema de p roducción y de la problemática del cultivo no se pretende dar una solución a los problemas de los agricultores. Es apenas el primer paso en un proceso de investigación, tanto agronómica como socioeconómica. El objetivo principal de la encuesta exploratoria es hacer un análisis preliminar del cultivo para orientar futuras investigaciones.La encuesta exploratoria identifica ciertos problemas para estudio agronómico a través de ensayos en chacra.A veces es necesario seguir la etapa del diagnóstico con ensayos exploratorios para precisar la importancia relativa de los problemas identificados por la encuesta exploratoria. En otros casos, es posible comenzar con ensayos de niveles económicos o de verificación para probar directamente soluciones a los problemas. De todos modos, los resultados de la encuesta exploratoria ayudan a orientar al agrónomo en el diseño de ensayos en chacra, i ndicando problemas principales, definiendo el testigo de los ensayos y los niveles de las variab les no-expe rimentales, y llamando la atención a factores económicos que l imitan el uso de una solución potencial.Con base en los resultados de la presente encuesta exploratoria, se definió así el testigo de los ensayos en chacra: la preparación de todo el lote se realiza con bueyes; el maiz se siembra primero en sitios sobre surcos, y después se siembra el frijol al voleo ; no se aplican ni fungicidas, ni insecticidas, ni abono quimico y sólo se usa exiguamente de abono orgánico procedente del pastoreo del ganado en el De estas nuevas alternativas, algunas, como la introducción de variedades de frijol, e_stán al alcance del agricultor y se prueban directamente en ensayos de verificación. Otras, como la introducción del tratamiento de la semilla o el uso de fertilizante químico, se prueban en ensayos expioratorios para determinar si los problemas de suelo y semilla son realmente limitantes a nivel de chacra (7).Mientras se adelanta la realización de ensayos en chacra, muchas veces es necesario realizar paralelamente estudios socioeconómicos.En el caso concreto de la presente investigación en chacra, se pueden mencionar algunos temas para estudios socioeconómicos: l.3.Un análisis en más detalle sobre los conceptos acerca de las variedades de frijol usadas actualmente por los agricultores , para entender por qué prefieren sembrar mezclas y cuáles son las características deseables que buscan en una variedad.Un análisis más profundo del por qué los agricultores siembran frij ol al voleo y en una densidad baja.Un estudio del potencial y problemas de la comercialización de frijol en Chota. Tal comercialización permitiría el uso de una tecnología que incluya agroquímicos. Además, afectaría la variedad de frijol apropiada para la zona.Determinar los costos y retornos del sistema maíz/frijol, y de otros cultivos, de los cuáles el más importante es la papa. Es ta información es crítica para la evaluación económica de nueva tecnología para frijol.Determinar los patrones de consumo de frijol en Chota y medir el balance entre producción y consumo. Esto daría un estimativo de Sistema de producción de frijo l (ma1z-frijol)Cultivos principales (% de agric.)Rotaciones más frecuentes (% de agric.)Ma1z.Frijol-ma1z-frijol-ma1z-frijol 21 Maiz.Frijol-ma1z-frijol-otro cultivo -31Otro cultivo-ma1z frijol-otro cultivo -Rendimiento del frijol:. 2/ Se refiere a la rotación anual . Caracter1sticas del sistema (% fincas)Provincia ~~----~~----~L~o~ca~l~i~d~a~d 7 e~s~----~--~~~~~ a Los porcentajes totales pueden sumar más de 100% cuando los agricultores citan más de a Los totales suman más de 100% debido a que los agricultores obtienen la semilla de frijol de más de una procedencia y las dificultades para conseguirla son dos o mas.b % sobre el grupo de agricultores que mencionaron tener dificultades para la consecución de la semilla.Cuadro 10. Selección y tratamiento de la semilla de frijol en Chota (% fincas), 1984-1985. Provincia ----------------~L~o~ca==l~i=d~a=d=e=s~----------~--~--- b Porcentaje sobre los agricultores que tratan la semilla. 1Cuadro 11. Variedades: per{odo vegetativo, color y tamaño de la semilla y uso de soporte en el cultivo de frijol en Chota (%fincas), 1984-1985.   Variedades: Per{odo vegetativo, Provincia Localidades Enfermedades e insectos en el cultivo de frijol en Chota (% fincas), 1984-1985.(Observación en campo por los agrónomos.)Enfermedades 8• Ascochyta a Calculado con base en aquellos que venden una parte de su producción de frijol.  3 31 3 a Los totales suman más del 100% porque los agricultores citan más de un obstáculo para el buen establecimiento del frijol.1  Cuadro 26. Orden de importancia de los problemas en la \"última cosecha\" de frijol en Chota (% fincas), 1984-85.Problemas   Informe sobre planificación de ensayos en el primer curso sobre investigación de frijol en campos de agriéultores en el Perú. CIAT.1 1","tokenCount":"4723"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1c5c14e37325b4a1b066e484b51f7c33","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/000848ad-e1d2-4017-b5f5-7fb0e2c63024/retrieve","id":"1947825006"},"keywords":["(l~A)","N-;:.C:.t.'\"_d_ l•-ve.rs! ... ..r","e~.-.:","a-~-~ pr~~~~t"],"sieverID":"d06fcfdb-ab99-4566-aeca-b576aecbac49","pagecount":"60","content":"As part of the invclvernert of the Prograrn Study legro in the planning of e•e ~raining and Communication F=cg=wn of C!A:, Dr Byrnes ~~ggested the followirg as tentative cbjectives 1 ~e ~El< ~IA~ Eo~akl_ \" e-:• ~-a for wa~irg decisions telating to tr-e CC ... ,..e-\\.., . . . . p-c:.-d\"\"i~\"\"lS, ard trS~ttods, acmi\"\":f.Stratior, b~dget, facilitie~, a~d eval_a~!on of tre C!AT trairing and communication programa 2 To help CIAT sasess present and projectcd training need~ for agricultura! developmenr in t~e lowla~d tropics taking into account present and projected plara cf other organizations 3 To idertify sources of informstic~, eq~ipmz~t, re-so~rces, snd personnel relevant to the trai~irg and ccmmunication prcgram 4 To acreen related experiences in training and communication, in the United States ard ab=oad, for ideas, approaches, problem areas, alternativa bOlutio~s, etc 5 ctje,_ti\\.._s, \"'Z'J help CIA: esta~!:!..sr c .. te::'!.a fct\" walt:!.\"\" § dec!.~!ors telat1ng hot~ t~gibly a~d inta-gibly to tr~ lo~ ra-ge s~~cesa oí CIAT's efíc~ta, ~-~ t~e Team stands 1~aay to serve as a contin~ing resc~~ce to assist in t~e identifi~aticn of !nformatio~, material, and perac-u;el relevant and _set~l to the XraiLirg ard Comm-nication Prcgram oí CIA:. as well as to provide a screen for evaluating relatad experienees in the Ucited States a~~ s~road as ttey apply to CIAT's activities '!i>e iLi!!.era~ of the Program S'!.udy '!:eam !s listed below '!.res Jan. 7Ardve Mex:f.co City, meeti'\"!g o\"l proceduree; meet with Director, Irte~ationsl c~nter for Improvement of Co= and wreat (CIMMYT) Wed Jan 8 Meet wit~ Dire~to~ and De~artment heads, National Se~ool of Agri~~lture, C~apingo, on present and projected scademic end training programs. Iour tezilitiea Evening informal reception, offi~~als of CIMMYl and National Sc~ool of Agricult~rero relp CIAr eetablisr affective rapporc with various national ed~ational and exteneicn orga-!zations leadir~ to tre developme~t of close working relatio-e~!ps and cccperative prcgrams 6 To help CIAr increase t~e i~volvernsnt of the senior staff mem!ler!l ir. p!=ir.g, development• and execution of training and communication programa 7 To identiiy ways of developing cooperativa activities bctween CIAT a~d vs~ious centers for continuing educstion in the United Statea and elsewhere That theae were wall chose~ and practical objectives became readily apparent to the Program Study Team During the first week of ita investigation, the Tesm visited with leaders in various national educational and extension organizations throughout Central America and fo~d t~at t~e s~le fact of ita visit prcmpted conversations which resulted in the enthusiastic suggestton by all psrties of ways in which CIA? could develop cloee wnrking relationships with each organization As it proceeded, the Program Study Team soJght to elic!t from thc orga~izations it visitsd t~eir plans, bct~ p~esent and projected, for program trainirg in ag~icultural dsvs~op~ct trro~ghout tre lowla~d tropics, thus, the Team prcvided CIAT witP a base f~r ddSessing preae5t and projected trair.ing reed~ 1 beginr~g of the secord ~e¿~ of ita i•vesti&ctior, ber,ior stsff reembers of CIAT, cnder the lesdership of Director Ulysses J Crant, gave freely of their time and ~owledge in irdividual and eeminar discuasior, tre result was not only the provision of useful i~formaticn to the Team, but the senior memberd of GIAT staff elso imoediately becaiDe increasingly involved in the planning of the ITaining and CommJnication Programs, their contributiona, togetPer with the information and in&ights already obtained from visita with othe~ organizationa, provi~sd tte basis for tre Program Study Team to help CIA! establish criteria for ~a~i~g dacisiccs re1sting to the details of ita Tra!nir~ and Commuricatior ?rogram Throughout ita investigations, t~e F~ogram Study Te~ sought to ideatif} sources of information and material and personnel resources relevant to GIA!'s Traintng end Comm~!=stior P~ogreo, ard to screen, through the Program Study Team's members' own experiet!.Ces &nd aasociations in the United States and abroad, ideas and app~cacpes to problem areas and the development of 3lternative scl~tiens tv the p~blema that were identified Thua, beca~se of the wide r~•ge of opportunities for information sampling and personal contaet with leadership, the Program Study Team was able to a~hieve some meaau::oc of st.ecess in relation to each of the tentative objeetives set forth for its investigation        In the area of natural ecology for example, would be the response to the use of a sprayed insecticide, in relation not only to crop production but also to birds, an$.mals, and human beings, as well as forest products and non-cultivated vegetable matter In the category of social ecology might be the effect on the community of increased buying power resulting from increased prod~tion following t~e application of the insecticide, the social ~cology would also be affected by the increased buying power resulting from the sale of the insec~icide ' to the farmers and payments to the insecticide appl1cators 8 ~teClosely related to the ecological subjects would be ~e content areas embraced by the humanities as defined by the Program Study Team Among the matters of concem in this category In a later section of this report, under \"Priorities\", the Tcam has made sorne very specific suggestions aboLt personnel, activities, and equipment which it feels are vital l1nks in the planning process At this point, however, the Team's intent is to set down the larger considerations with Which it feels the planners must be constantly co~cerned if crucial eventualities are to be anticipated and viable solutions developedFirst of all, the facility (consisting of laboratories, administrative buildings, green houses, conference center, library, etc ) will be the only clearly visible evidence of CIAT 1 s existence It wUl also be a symbol of what CIAT stands for Because it is both the tangible and symbolic representation of a project based on high aspirations and dependent upon excellence in all of its aspects, the total facility must, in its appearance, in its construction, and in its use, unmistakably demonstrate achievement of these qualities Moreover, despite the fact that flexibility is essential if maximum use is the mode of the facility, once conetruction starts, thie symbol and this tool will be cast in concrete, it will be either a monument to achieved aspirations or a marker for lost opportunities, more than that, either it will be an operationally viable inetrument or it will First of all, the Te~ ia abundantly aware of the aperational complexity oí thia particular residential continuing education facility, stemming from the wide range of people to be served as well as from the wide range of activities to be undertaken * Since this is ~n international center, people from vastly varied cultural backgrounds and socio-economic situations need to be provided for * The juxtaposition of policy-making VIP's and peasant farmers may well be the rule rather tnan the exception in this Center * There will be trainees coming for long term courses involving residence for six months to a year 0 and there will be seminar participante or casual viaitora coming in for a day or even lpss.* There will be amall group teaching, perhaps individual tutoriala, and there will be large lectures or demonstrations involving several ~undred students.* There will be practical 0 on the farm 0 work courses, and there will be formal clasaroom &essions, there will be informal seminars 0 detailE~ laboratory studiea 0 and complex demonstrations * There may be the need to move livestock or eqpipment, ranging from heavy machinery to delicate scientif~ inatruments,• into the instructional area, and therc may be the necessity to move groups of people from one site to another as part of the learning activ1ty* Sorne staff me~bers ~ay reed to live permanently on site, other staff members may need to be accomn~dated occasionally on site for a felJ days at a t1.me Staff and students undoubtedly will comprise both men and women, perhaps even an occasional family with children Provision will need to be made for non-participant personnel such as the drivers for distinguished visitors * There will be special dietary considerations for people from particular cultures, and there will be need to provideo for separate food availabilifY for field hands, professional staff, and the several categories of trainees, with feeding The need for careful space analysis, depending on the anticipated numbers of staff and trainee personnel, is implicit in the charts above Theae points need to be stressed 1 Adequate office space, storage space and operational space is requisita for each ares of activity 2 Each activity needs specially structured space, and it needs to be sited in proximity to related activities 3 For both staff and trainees, the walking distance between probable stations of activity needs to be minimized (and wslkwsys sho~ld all be covered) Advise international agencies of plana and seek their consultation (international congress) 9 Work with national agencies for development of facilities for training in lowland tropicsThe Training and Communication Progran StLdy Team for CIAT has found ita involvement in this project to be a most valuable learning experience for ita members, and it wishes to expresa agsin ita thanks to Dr Francia Byrnes for bis careful prior planning and his constant attention to detall while the study was going on, it also wishes to make special note of the contribution of Mrs Edna Sheets, Conference Assietant, whose gracioua presence made each meeting and each stage of the jo~rney a special event, and whose intellectual and linguistic capabilities helped members of the ","tokenCount":"1533"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/2133341042.json b/data/part_1/2133341042.json
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7df3b5893eca609d5d41d0d11f0d4f19","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a36a6aeb-cb4d-4f8a-9799-dd17f928684d/retrieve","id":"268041179"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a1fc57b5-5e90-4afc-ae12-8e95b3a35a95","pagecount":"54","content":"Washington, D.C. in September and once in Colombia in December. They moved quickly to approve a new vision and strategic direction for CIAT and hired a new Director General, Ruben Echeverria, who takes over the position in March 2009.In conclusion, 2008 has been a year of considerable change and renewal for CIAT. We would like to thank all our many friends and donors who have continued to support the center so strongly throughout this period. With new top leadership recruited, a new Board, new strategic directions and more effective management systems, we believe CIAT can face the future with confidence. With continued strong funding support, CIAT can expect to make a substantial contribution to the achievement of its newly adopted vision: a more ecoefficient agriculture that better serves the needs of the rural poor in Latin America and throughout the tropical world.For the years ended as of December 31, 2008 and2007 (expressed  Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT)For the years ended as of December 31, 2008 and2007 (expressed in thousands of U.S. dollars) Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT)For the year ended as of December 31, 2008 (expressed in thousands of U.S. dollars)Incomes and expenses in currency other than U.S. dollars, as well as those related to properties, spare parts, plants, and equipment, are initially recorded at the official exchange rate on the dates of the transactions. Profits and losses arising on exchange are included in the results of operations .The major accounting practices followed at CIAT are summarized below:The Center prepares its financial statements, except for cash flow information, under the accrual basis of accounting.Under the accrual basis of accounting, transactions and events are recognized when they occur (and not as cash or its cash equivalent is received or paid) and they are recorded in the accounting books and reported in the financial statements of the periods to which they relate. Expenses are recognized in the Statement of Activities on the basis of a direct association between the costs incurred and the earnings of specific items of revenue.Under an agreement with CIAT, signed on 5 May 1987 and ratified by Law 29 of 18 March 1988, the Colombian Government recognizes CIAT as a not-for-profit international organization and grants it certain prerogatives, including exemption from Colombian taxes.Beginning February 2006, the Center prepares its financial statements in accordance with the new accounting policies and reporting practices prescribed by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) for international agricultural research centers. These policies established to Centers fully adoption and complying with all relevant IFRS.All new facilities provided by host countries to the Center or constructed for the use of the Center, which will revert to the host country in the event the Center ceases to operate, are recognized as assets.Subsequent expenditures relating to property, plant and equipment that has already been recognized are added to the carrying amount of the asset only if the expenditure improves the condition of the asset beyond its originally assessed standard of performance. All other subsequent expenditures are recognized as expenses of the period where incurred.Property, plant and equipment acquired through the use of restricted grants are recorded as assets and fully (100%) depreciated, and the depreciation expense is charged directly to the appropriate restricted project in the same year of acquisition.Acquisitions of property, plant and equipment less than US$500 are expensed.Property, plant and equipment acquired through non-monetary grants are recognized at fair value at the date of the grant. Such grants are presented in the Statement of Financial Position as Deferred Revenue and are taken to account as revenue on a systematic and rational basis over the life of the asset.The contract signed with the Colombian Government related to the land on which CIAT has its headquarters to the Center in commodatum was renewed until July 2010. This contract may be extended thereafter by mutual consent. CIAT will initiate the process with the Colombian Government to renew the commodatum for the land on which CIAT has the headquarter. At the end of the contract, CIAT is to return the land with its improvements, buildings, and installations, free of any kind of judicial actions or embargoes and without receiving any compensation. This land is not considered a contribution to \"property, plant and equipment\".Investments acquired with the purpose of keeping them for more than one (1) year as from their acquisition date are to be classified as long-term investments.Inventories of materials and supplies are stated at cost, using the moving average price method. Cost represents the purchase price of supplies and spare parts, plus freight and handling charges. Materials in transit are stated at invoice cost.Grants in the form of inventories are measured at fair value at the time of receipt.Inventories held at the end of the financial period are stated at cost or net realization value, whichever is lower.Cash comprises cash on hand, petty cash funds, currencies awaiting deposit and local or foreign currency deposits in banks which can be added to or withdrawn without limitation and are immediately available for use in the current operations.Cash equivalents are short-term, highly liquid investments that are both: i) readily convertible to known amounts of cash; and ii) so near their maturity date that the risk of changes in value due to changes in interest rates are insignificant.CIAT investment policy is established by the CIAT Board of Trustees. Investments are initially recorded at their acquisition cost (including brokerage and other transaction costs) if they were purchased, and fair value if they were received as a grant. Investments in equity securities with readily determinable fair values and all investments in debt securities shall be measured at fair value as of the date of the Statement of Financial Position. Investments received as grants from donors are to be recorded at their fair market value.Interest, dividends, losses, and gains relating to financial instruments are reported in the Statement of Activities as expense or revenue.Investments acquired with the purpose of disposing from them within one year or less after their acquisition date are to be classified as current investments. Furthermore, investments classified as current, as distinguished from cash equivalents, are those that are acquired with original maturities of more than three months but not exceeding one year.  Depreciation of assets owned by the Center is computed by the straight-line method over the asset's estimated useful life, except assets acquired with restricted grants. The basis for computing depreciation is the asset's acquisition cost, less its estimated salvage value.These are claims held against donors for the future receipt of money, goods or services. Receivables due from donors can arise from: Unrestricted grants which are due and receivable by the Center and amounts due from restricted grants that have been negotiated between a donor and the Center.In order to adjust the cost of fixed assets to reflect the actual market price, the Board approved to change the useful life and salvage value in different categories of fixed assets. The loss originated by this change was included in 2007 and beginning January 1, 2008 the depreciation is calculated taking into account the approved changes.The following list indicates the useful lives and estimated salvage percentages of the Center's fixed assets:Physical facilities:Unrestricted Grants: Are those received from the unconditional transfer of cash or other assets to the Center.Restricted Grants: Are those received from a transfer of resources to the Center in return for future compliance relating to the operating activities of the Center. Restricted Grants include Intercenter Activities and Challenge Programs.These funds have been provided by donors and are managed by CIAT for an ultimate beneficiary other than the Center.Unrestricted Grants: Receivables from unrestricted grants are recognized in full in the period specified by the donor.Restricted Grants: Receivables from restricted grants are recognized in accordance with the terms of the underlying contract. Restricted Grants include Intercenter Activities and Challenge Programs.These include grants received from donors for which conditions are not yet met and amounts payable to donors when donors in respect of any unexpended funds received in advance for restricted grants.\"Accounts payable -donors\" are classified as follows: The Center enters into a derivative financial instrument to manage its exposure to foreig n exchange rate risk. Further details of derivative financial instrument are disclosed in Note 22 to the financial statements.Derivatives are initially recognized at fair value at the date a derivative contract is entered into and are subsequently remeasured to the fair value at each balance sheet date. The resulting gain or loss is recognized in profit or loss immediately unless the derivative is designated and effective as a hedging instrument, in which event the timing of the recognition in profit or loss depends on the nature of the hedge relationship. The Center designates certain derivatives as either hedges of the fair value of recognized assets or liabilities of firm commitments (fair value hedges), hedges of highly probable forecast transactions or hedges of foreign currency risk of firm commitmments (cash flow hedges).The Center designates certain hedging instruments, which include derivatives and nonderivaties in respect of foreign currency risk, as either fair value hedges or cash flow hedges. Hedges of foreign exchange risk on firm commitments are accounted for as cash flow hedges.At the inception of the hedge relationship the entity documents the relationship between the hedging instrument and hedged item, along with its risk management objectives and its strategy for undertaking various hedge transactions. Furthermore, at the inception of the hedge and on an ongoing basis, the Center documents wheter the hedging instrument that is used in a hedging relationship is highly effective in offsetting changes in fair values or cash flow of the hedged item.Note 22 contains details of the fair values of the derivative instrument used for hedging purposes. Movements in the hedging reserve in net assets are also detailed in the statement of changes in net assets.The CGIAR Accounting Policies and Reporting Practices Manual encourages to adopt with all the requirements applicable IFRS and IAS. CIAT utilizes the IAS 39 for recognition of its derivate financial instruments.Unrestricted grants are those received from the unconditional transfer of cash or other assets to the Center.Unrestricted grants in currencies other than U.S. dollars are recorded at exchange rates in effect at the time of receipt or, if outstanding at December 31, at the exchange rate in effect at the year's end.Restricted grants in currencies other than U.S. dollars with specific request for the partner's funds to be paid in that currency, are recorded as income and expenses at exchange rate in effect at the time of the payment.Temporary net asstes are those that are the result of hedging operations accrued but not realized with the objective to protect the budgeted exchange rate.Undesignated net asset, the use of which is not designated by CIAT Management for special purposes.Designated net asset, are those that have been restricted by CIAT Management as reserve for replacing property and equipment, retirement of national staff and other activities or purposes.Indirect cost recovery is income from restricted funds based on rates agreed in grant agreement that cover the institutional indirect costs of executing grants.Derivatives not designated into an effective hedge relationship are classified as a current asset or a current liability.Restricted grants are those received from a transfer of resources to the Center in return for past or future compliance to the operating activities of the Center.The grants, whether restricted or unrestricted, are recognized until there is reasonable assurance that the Center will comply with the conditions attaching to; and the grants are received.Net assets comprise the residual interest in an entity's assets after liabilities are deducted. Cash flow hedge: The effective portion of changes in the fair value of derivatives that are designated and qualify as cash flow hedges are deferred in net assets. The gain or loss to the ineffective portion is recognised immediately in a profit or loss.Amounts deferred in net assets are recycled in profit or loss in the periods when the hedged item is recognized in profit or loss. However when the forecast transaction that is hedged results in the recognition of a non-financial asset or a non-financial liability, the gains and losses previously deferred in net assets are transferred from net assets and included in the initial measurement of the cost of the assets or liability.Hedge accounting is discontinued when the Center revokes the hedging relationship, the hedging instrument expires or is sold, terminated, excercised, or no longer qualifies for hedge accounting. Any cumulative gain or loss deferred in net assets at that the time remains in net assets and is recognised when the forecast transaction is ultimately recognised in profit or loss. When a forecast transaction is not longer expected to ocurr, the cumulative gain or loss that was deferred in net assets is recognized immediately in profit or loss.Forward contract COP/USD (see Note 22) Standard Chartered Bank -Time deposit (1)Asset-Backed Colombia Government Issues (1)The cash and cash equivalent balances include the following amounts considered restricted Cash. See Notes 13 and 14:Imprest accounts outside HQ Time deposit operations at market rate 2007 and 2008.During 2007 CIAT adjusted the estimated useful live and residual value of all the fixed assets to reflect the fair value conditions. This adjustment implied a loss of US$2820 affecting the net result of the year, however it did not affect the operational reserves. (2)Reserve for future local staff indemnity payments in case of unilateral termination of long term contracts according to the Colombian labor law and to cover bonus for retirement pension according to CIAT's policy. French funds canalized through CIAT for others non CGIAR institutions.Net assets as of December 31 are unrestricted net assets. These funds are available for the following purposes of periods:Other provisions consist primarily of self-insurance reserves for theft, accidents, provision for national outposted staff.The international staff reserves correspond to the estimated costs of repatriating members of the senior staff to their home countries, as specified in their appointment letters.CGIAR Collaboration funds correspond to resources administered by CIAT to be paid to third parties.Agreement The fair value was calculated converting COP at the exchange rate of $2.014,76/1USD on December 31, 2007.The IAS 39 requires to assess the changes in the fair value of the financial instruments. Risk containment must be expected to be effective in offsetting the changes in the fair value of the hedging instruments where actual results being within a range of 80% to 125%. After the assessment of the financial instruments, they are qualified as effective. Due to the hedge effectiveness, the forward contracts were recognized in net assets in the Statement of Financial Position.The amount of US$2,117 corresponds to the variance accrued but not realized as of December 31, 2008.The forward foreign exchange contracts are detailed below:The forward foreign exchange contracts are detailed below:The amount of US$230 corresponds to the variance accrued but not realized as of December 31, 2007. ","tokenCount":"2463"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"261e69acba760a1975792fc45b76ead1","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b7ca8d92-ac83-4454-8ca7-bd5df057592f/retrieve","id":"48051505"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"958deae0-d9ac-4956-b4d6-a512b19701a3","pagecount":"1","content":"Quelle est la valeur ajoutée que le big data peut apporter aux agriculteurs en termes de rentabilité, de productivité et de renforcement de la résilience ?Le big data est devenu très important. La recherche et de nombreuses initiatives de la société civile et du secteur privé ont permis de développer des produits et des solutions qui permettent aux agriculteurs de bénéficier de ces \"données massives\", directement et partout, pour autant qu'ils aient une connexion Internet. Ils peuvent ainsi recevoir sur leur téléphone des informations générales, comme des données météorologiques ou en rapport avec l'agriculture, ou alimenter eux-mêmes la source de big data. Par exemple, en cas d'infestation parasitaire ou de maladies des plantes, l'application permet généralement de prendre une photo. Quelques secondes plus tard, l'agriculteur reçoit un message identifiant le problème ainsi que des suggestions pour y remédier.De nombreux problèmes doivent être réglés pour que l'utilisateur final puisse exploiter efficacement les données agricoles. D'abord, les agriculteurs n'ont pas toujours accès à toutes les données qui pourraient leur être utiles. Ensuite, dans les régions reculées, l'accès en ligne aux données peut être problématique. Il y a aussi les défis liés à la protection de la vie privée. Il faut trouver un équilibre entre l'exploitation d'un maximum de données et la nécessité de protéger la vie privée des agriculteurs, en garantissant la confidentialité des données. Il faut parvenir à une situation win-win pour les agriculteurs, les décideurs politiques et les bailleurs de fonds. Les gouvernements reconnaissent à présent que les données qu'ils recueillent sur leurs citoyens sont essentiellement financées par les contribuables et appartiennent donc au domaine public. Ils reconnaissent aussi que les agriculteurs peuvent tirer de réels avantages des informations compilées par les chercheurs et les universitaires, également connues sous le nom de \"données de haut niveau\". Les données météorologiques et relatives au marché aident les agriculteurs à acheter leurs intrants au prix le plus bas et à obtenir le meilleur prix pour leurs produits. Les grandes entreprises sont toujours à la recherche de nouveaux fournisseurs, ainsi que de données sur l' efficacité et la résilience des petits producteurs pour les aider à prendre des décisions d'affaires éclairées. Les données -à tous les niveaux -sont très précieuses pour la chaîne de valeur.Pour GODAN, le défi est de faire en sorte que les agriculteurs aient accès à des données pertinentes, en temps opportun et dans un format adapté. Nous coopérons avec un plus grand nombre de gouvernements pour mettre en oeuvre des feuilles de route visant à faciliter la diffusion de ces données. Nous coopérons aussi avec le secteur privé afin de l'aider à participer à cet effort de diffusion, car ces données stimulent le développement des activités le long de la chaîne de valeur. Nous travaillons déjà en partenariat avec quelque 760 organisations et gouvernements du monde entier, qui sont de plus en plus conscients de l'importance des données et de la nécessité d'en faciliter l'accès aux agriculteurs. Nous pourrions encore nous rapprocher de bien d'autres acteurs afin de les impliquer.André Laperrière : \"Les données sont très précieuses pour la chaîne de valeur\" ","tokenCount":"512"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9de78e46dc5dd6039d0a05e166f909a7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5c4a6941-cf9f-4c45-a4e1-82c3f95ec6ea/retrieve","id":"-196232825"},"keywords":["plant breeding","cassava","gender","trait preferences","Nigeria"],"sieverID":"6833b0c9-7317-470e-b075-a75e57880918","pagecount":"15","content":"Nigeria is the world's largest cassava producer, hosting a diverse array of cassava farmers and processors. Cassava breeding programs prioritize Bcommon denominator^traits in setting breeding agendas, to impact the largest possible number of people through improved varieties. This approach has been successful, but cassava adoption rates are less than expected, with room for improvement by integrating traits in demand by farmers and processors. This paper aims to inform breeding priority setting, by examining trait and varietal preferences of men and women cassava farmer/processors. Men and women in eight communities in Southwest and Southeast Nigeria were consulted using mixed methods. Women and men had significantly different patterns of cassava use in the Southwest. Fifty-five variety names were recorded from the communities demonstrating high genetic diversity maintained by growers, especially in the Southeast. High yield, early maturity, and root size were most important traits across both regions, while traits women and men preferred followed gender roles: women prioritized product quality/cooking traits, while men placed higher priority on agronomic traits. Trait preference patterns differed significantly between the Southeast and Southwest, and showed differentiation based on gender. Patterns of access to stem sources were determined more by region and religion than gender.Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) is a major staple crop in Nigeria, engaging over four million farmers in production and providing food for over 100 million persons (FAOSTAT 2016). Cassava storage roots provide an efficient source of carbohydrate food energy, cultivated widely for its ability to withstand harsh environmental and agronomic conditions as well as to its utilization as raw material for many uses and food products (Akoroda 1995). Major cassava based food products consumed in Nigeria are gari, fufu and lafun. Most of these cassava food products are made by farmers themselves, who process and consume the crop (IITA 2012). This joint small-scale farming and processing represents by far the largest cassava food product production in Nigeria (Forsythe et al. 2016;Onyenwoke and Simonyan 2014).Studies of farmers' preferences for crop variety traits of food crops, many of which are economically important, show that such preferences are not uniform but vary in relation to the agronomic, technical, and socio-cultural context of the modes of production and processing (Smale et al. 2001). Differential trait preferences also follow gender divisions of labor and market access, observed across multiple crops in sub-Saharan Africa (Christinck et al. 2017). In most parts of rural Nigeria, division of labor for agricultural production is gender-specific and varies by age (Mohammed and Abdulquadri 2012). However, these roles vary by ethnic groups and regions (FAO 2011). Women play a central role in Nigerian cassava production, processing and marketing (Enete et al. 2002), and provide much of the labor associated with cassava production. In particular women perform the majority of cassava processing in Nigeria (Curran et al. 2009;Walker et al. 2014). As such, cassava is often defined as a Bwoman's crop ( Forsythe et al. 2015). For example, as commercialization of cassava increases, men's participation in production and processing increases (Nweke et al. 2002), necessitating greater gender analysis of cassava production, processing and in particular commercialization to ensure new interventions are gender equitable (Forsythe et al. 2016). Examining the gendered roles within social groups, the trait and variety preferences related to these roles, while documenting access to resources for cassava production and processing, are therefore important, especially from an equity perspective.Nigerian cassava breeding programs prioritize Bcommon denominator^traits in setting breeding agendas, designed to impact the largest possible number of people through improved varieties. Traits such as yield and resistance to pests and diseases have been prioritized over and above others. This Bone size fits all^approach has been successful, with the proportion of improved varieties in farmers' fields largely increasing over 1998-2009(Oparinde et al. 2016;;Wossen et al. 2017). Further increases in adoption rates can lie with responding to more nuanced, and contextual needs and associated traits, which have been hitherto largely low in breeding priority. Tensions between breeding paradigms that tend to reduce the number of traits targeted, and the wide array of traits emerging from diversity of uses and users is a challenge for breeding programs, which can be overcome in part by careful diagnosis of needs, goals and livelihood strategies of women and men involved in production and processing of the target crop (Christinck et al. 2017). Yet, gender specific crop trait preferences are seldom studied or prioritized in breeding programs (Asrat et al. 2010). If the preferences and needs of an under-served group are included in new varieties it can contribute to food security equity and empowerment of a leading food producing sector composed of many small businesses. Prior studies in farmer preferences in cassava varieties (Chiwona-Karltun et al. 2015) and gender-differentiated trait preferences in cassava showed linkages between traits and livelihood strategies (Chiwona-Karltun et al. 1998). Gender analysis of trait preferences in small scale Nigerian farmer/processor systems is relevant in this complex production/processing/ consumption axis, as sex, religion, age, education, ethnicity, and marital status can all have an impact on how different men and women relate to the crop (Shields 2008).The objective of this study is to diagnose genderdifferentiated preferences around cassava traits and varieties, while examining gender based constraints in accessing and adopting cassava planting material. This study will inform gender responsive breeding strategies, specifically to help set breeding priorities and to expand the potential impact of improved varieties. We worked with eight communities in Nigeria engaged in joint small-scale farming and processing to identify: the varieties cultivated by men and women and the factors that influence these choices; traits preferred by men and women in the varieties that they grow; mechanisms for accessing cassava planting material, and challenges/ opportunities related to these.The study was carried within six villages in the Southwest, Pontela-Akinola and Elere Adeogun (Oyo state), Oba Oke and Agodo Owode (Osun state) and Ibooro and Agbetu (Ogun state), and two villages in the Southeast, Umuoso and Imerienwe, in Imo state. These villages were randomly selected based on a scoping study conducted to identify villages within each state with high rates of cassava production, processing activities/ centers, and marketing outlets for fresh roots and products.Prior to the main study, 29 villages were randomly selected from Osun (10), Ogun (7), Oyo (6) and Imo (6) states. Key informant interviews were held with extension officers. Focus group discussions were held with farmers and processors in villages in the selected states. Vital information elicited assisted in identifying key cassava producing, processing, and marketing areas within each state. Village leaders were contacted for community engagement and the mobilization of farmers and processors for focus group discussions and individual interviews.Quantitative semi-structured individual in depth interviews (IDIs) and focus group discussions (FGDs) were both used for data collection. All the respondents from the IDI's in this study were either small scale farmers or farmer/processors. We define a farmer/processor as an individual who farms cassava, but is also involved in the processing into local food products. Data collection for the main study took place between August 2014 and January 2015. A total of 16 FGDs were conducted. In each community two FDGs were held: one with women and one with men. FGDs had 10 participants, with some minor deviations in some cases. A total of 150 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with individual men and women to obtain quantitative information on household demographics, varieties cultivated, trait preferences, as well as access to and control of productive resources. Each respondent was asked which varieties he/she cultivated, then for each variety the respondent indicated what particular traits motivated them to cultivate that variety.Similar patterns of responses from all interviews on preferred traits were coded into themes. Themes were based on the type and diversity of the traits provided, using a coding tree. Frequencies and percentages of the number of times a coded trait was mentioned were calculated. Stem sources were precoded into: BOwn farm,^Bgift from other farmers in same village,^Bgift from other farmers in other village,^Bbuy from farmers in same village,^Bbuy from farmers in other village,^Bresearch stations in the state,^Bresearch stations outside the state,B from extension/ ADP,^Bfrom NGOs, projects, cassava multipliers.^Quantitative data on traits and stem source from the individual interviews were analyzed using Chi-square tests and in the few cases where more than 20% of the counts where less than five, a Fischer exact test was used to correct the Chisquare test. Significant differences between ratio variables were calculated using an independent t-test. FGD narratives relating to the rationale for preferred varieties were analyzed using context analysis, to complement findings from individual interviews.The respondents (for both IDIs and FGDs) had cassava-related agricultural (farming, processing) activities as their primary occupation as this was the criteria for selecting the participants, as well as a few civil servants who had farming as their secondary occupation. For women secondary occupations included trading, operating milling machines, tailoring and hair dressing. With the exception of a few single men and a few widows all respondents were married. The secondary occupations for the men included artisanship, livestock rearing, hunting, butchery, and commercial motorbike riding business. From the FGDs, it was clear that each community cultivated different fruit, tree, cash, food, and vegetable crops, but cassava cultivation formed the bulk of the food products produced across all communities.Analyzing all study sites together, significantly more women processed and sold cassava products then men, while men mentioned sale of fresh roots significantly more often (Fig. 1). Closer examination of trends in the Southwest and the Southeast separately revealed this effect to be more pronounced in the Southwest (Fig. 1). There was no evidence of differences between women and men for processing involvement in the Southeast. Processing activities in the Southeast are more integrated with the whole household usually involved in home level processing. This situation is reversed in the Southwest, where processing centers outside the home are common, and cassava producers go to these centers to process their roots for a fee (Abdoulaye et al. 2015). In West Africa, especially in Nigeria, women dominate cassava processing and are largely responsible for marketing products (Walker et al. 2014). Yet, this gender role has different effects depending on the regions, markets, and resources available to women. It appears that when the processing centers are located outside the home (such as in the Southwest), the gendered roles in cassava production and processing are more pronounced.Using names provided by respondents, a total of 55 varieties were identified across the eight sites included in this study (Table 1). Interestingly, while 34 varieties were identified from six sites in the Southwest region, 23 varieties were identified from only two sites in the Southeast. Comparing data from the IDIs for the Southwest and the Southeast, farmers in the Southwest cultivate significantly more varieties per farmer (an average of 3.41 compared to 2.63, p < 0.001 independent t-test). This indicates a greater diversity and range of varieties grown in the Southeast, compared to the Southwest of Nigeria.The study sites in the Southeast were proximal to the National Roots Crops Research Institute in Umudike, where all officially registered new cassava  varieties are available after release. These communities may therefore have greater opportunity to participate in on-farm trial evaluations and thus have access to new varieties as they are released (Oparinde et al. 2016). Larger socio-cultural factors could also be at play. Cassava production in Southeast Nigeria largely takes place on small plots of land owned by resource poor farmers. Korieh (2010) shows the size of farm holdings in Imo State (0.07 ha average) were below the national average of 0.57 ha. Land scarcity is driven by traditional lineages of communal land ownership, under which lineage heads allocate land each year to the households making each household more and more dependent on a smaller piece of land. Seeking actively for higher yielding varieties can therefore be an extra incentive under these constrained conditions. Women in the Southeast are more empowered compared to women in other regions of Nigeria (Ayevbuomwan et al. 2016). This is reflected in cassava production; cassava in Imo state (Southeast) has been an important crop for women since the 1920's as a food security and subsistence crop, but also as a means to generate income independently (Korieh 2010). Yams used to be the Bking of crops^in the Southeast and have traditionally been associated with masculinity, reflected in typical male names such as Ezeji (Yam king) (Korieh 2007(Korieh , 2010)). Yams have been largely replaced by cassava production by women, and cassava is now referred to as the Bmother of all crops.^Genetic diversity of cassava has been linked to marriage exchanges, where kinship structures influence seed exchanges and diversity of cassava in Gabon (Delêtre et al. 2011). The Bfeminization^of cassava farming in the Southeast, coupled with high levels of women's empowerment and access to diverse sources of planting material through kinship structures may finally explain the larger diversity and range of cassava varieties grown in the Southeast.FGD participants were asked to rank the varieties grown in each location. Comparing the ranking of varieties between men and women FGDs revealed different patterns based on location (Table 2). These results show that farmers cultivated several varieties at a time and allocated their largest fields to their most preferred variety. There was mostly agreement between women and men in ranking preferred varieties within each location. Reasons for selecting and growing preferred varieties differed between men and women farmers (Table 3). In Pontela-Akinola, the reasons for women and men tended towards preferred traits such as high yielding and early maturity in Molenkanga:BAt 6-9 months the variety is good enough to harvest and it gives quick money at a profitable price. That is why it is called 'Molekanga' i.e., a lazy person can make furniture from the income.P ontela-Akinola women FGD.In Elere-Adeogun, Dangaria was ranked first by women; they explained that its young leaves were used to prepare soup/sauce. While women focused on the taste and early maturing traits, men preferred high yields because they use Dangari for livestock feeding (Table 3). Men and women both preferred its cooking quality traits. A similar result was seen for the variety Nwaocha in Umuoso. While men mentioned the product quality, the description by women of the quality attributes for products was more informative:BNwaocha is good for food products such as abacha, akpu and gari due to its fine white color. Unlike gari and akpu that may sometimes have dull white color, abacha must have bright white color which can only be got from Nwaocha variety.Û muoso women FGD.The rationale for preferences of the variety IITA was also interesting. Men preferred IITA for its inground storability and high yield. This was different for women, who largely focused on early maturity, taste, and dry matter content (Table 3). While men and women did mention similar traits in varieties, the way these traits were expressed was often different. For example, while men just noted that they liked the variety that suppressed weeds, women went on to explain how it reduced the labor required for weeding:BIt [Idileruwa] suppresses weeds because of the canopy. It helps in reducing weeding cost gbetu women FGD.Results from FGDs in Table 3 show that even though women and men often ranked the same variety similarly, their reasons for doing so were different. Women more often expressed product quality for gari, eba, fufu and lafun as a criterion, while men more often mentioned agronomic traits. This is in agreement with trait rankings from the IDIs (see below), and indicate a higher priority women place on product quality traits, reflecting the different roles men and women play in production and processing. Furthermore, the descriptions women gave to explain their preferences were often richer and more informative than men. The gendered division of labor in cassava production in Nigeria (Curran et al. 2009;Walker et al. 2014)  likely equips women with superior tacit knowledge of cassava production and processing, akin to the folk taxonomic knowledge attributed to women as keepers of crop biodiversity (Howard 2003), including for cassava (Boster 1985).Unsurprisingly, cassava farmers across all study sites attached substantial weight to traits such as high yield, root size, early maturity, and dry matter content (Table 4). The yield of storage roots constitutes an important basis for farmers to cultivate the various varieties identified in the study sites. This finding supports the assertion that high yield is one of the primary traits in farmers' varietal selection (Abdoulaye et al. 2013). There were however significant differences in the extent that classes of traits where mentioned by women and men (Table 4) across all study sites. Women attached greater importance to cooking/processing traits then men (P = 0.039). Statements coded in this category included: BMakes good products gari, fufu and lafun;B Products made from it swell and draw and mold fine;^BIt 'fills' the stomach when eaten and fufu and gari made from it draws;^BGari made from it is appealing.^These statements closely follow and validate the FGD data for reasons of preference when ranking varieties (Table 3). Conversely, men attached greater importance to agronomic traits than women (P = 0.033). Statements coded in this category included: BSuppresses weeds;^BGood canopy formation;^BBeautiful, appealing in the field.^Together these findings validate the assumptions that gendered divisions of labor in cassava production and processing directly drive trait preferences and accumulated knowledge, as described above. There were interesting differentiations between men and women's preferences within regions. In the Southwest, flesh color and agronomic characteristics had significantly higher frequency amongst men (P = 0.023 and P = 0.003 respectively). This could directly reflect the high significant proportion of fresh sale of cassava roots by men (Fig. 1), who would therefore pay greater attention to fresh market traits such as flesh color. In the Southeast, fast cooking had higher incidence amongst women than men (P = 0.047). This could be related to the overall higher rate of home consumption in the Southeast (Fig. 1), together with the importance of cassava products typical of the Southeast such as abacha, that involves cooking (Etejere and Bhat 1985;Iwuoha et al. 1996). Abacha is grated fermented thin cassava pieces often consumed as snack or made into a salad.Variations in time to maturity played an important role in the farming systems of cassava farmers across study sites and therefore constituted one of the major traits for which farmers cultivated varieties. FGD results indicated that even though late maturing varieties store longer in the soil and serve as collateral or savings for income in times of necessity, earlier maturing ones were preferred among all respondents across sites as a source of quick food and income. The rationale for early maturity for women was linked to the underlying food security for the household in mind:BFew varieties have been abandoned because they don't mature fast, taking about three years to mature before harvest. We cannot wait for that long before we feed our childrenP ontela women FGD.The role of women as processors and sellers of cassava products can be considered leading in relation to their trait preferences for cooking/ processing quality aspects. However even though men were much less involved in processing activities they also give high priority to these, illustrating that men were also well informed about the importance of processing traits as almost all the fresh cassava was bought to be processed. Both men and women farmers also considered profitable prices/ marketability as the same and beneficial. This finding is similar to Asrat et al. (2010) who found that the ability of a variety to fetch a good price was an incentive to farmers' selection of that variety. The CMS reports (Wossen et al. 2017) showed that one of the most important traits mentioned, especially by women, was Bease to peel^a task mainly performed by women. The fact that this was not mentioned as a trait in this study was probably related to the way variety trait preferences were assessed in the study areas. Instead of asking for preferred traits directly, this study asked farmers which varieties they grew, and asked which traits they liked most within that particular variety. This could be indicative that ease of peeling might not only be variety independent but more related to the season when harvested and to the age of the root. However, the large importance given to root size (Tables 4 and 5) can be related to the peeling work. Larger roots have a smaller surface to root weight ratio and therefore demand less peeling work.When comparing trait differences between regions (Table 5) there were significant differences in the manner two major traits were valued: respondents in the Southeast attributed more value to Bhigh yield^and Bearly maturing^. Both can be understood by the limited available land and the relatively smaller plots in the Southeast (Korieh 2010) necessitating preference for better value in unit space and time. When land is scarce early maturing varieties facilitate more harvests per time unit and optimizing yield is the only possibility to increase production. The scoping study reveals that this is also reflected socially in the presence of specific harvesting/processing/marketing days in certain parts of Imo and Abia state related to cassava creating a social 'effervescence' (Collins 2004) to get heavy work done effectively. Persons harvesting outside of such days are sanctioned.Fast cooking is mentioned more in the Southwest than the Southeast. This might be ascribed to the greater role of boiled, pounded, or roasted cassava in the Southwest. Proximity to the international border between Nigeria and Benin hosts a substantial amount of immigrant farmers and farm laborers from Togo and Benin who play a substantial role in sustaining the agricultural sector through direct production and as source of farm labor (Agbonlahor and Enilolobo 2013). In Benin and Togo freshly boiled and pounded cassava is common (Nago and Hounhouigan 1998). Some varieties, like Atu, were sometimes also referred to as 'Cotonou' and are suitable to boil/roast and to pound. Only two of the respondents for the quantitative individual interviews in our study were from Togo. The influence of the immigrants from Benin and Togo might have made boil, pound, roast, or even eat fresh in the field as a snack or even as a meal at home more popular in the Southwest.Table 5 shows that Bdry matter content/swells,B flesh color,^Bgood price/marketability,^and Bagronomic characteristics^were more frequently mentioned in the Southeast. This lays credence to the larger role that cassava takes up within the livelihoods of farmers and farmer/processors in the Southeast. The more frequent mention of agronomic characteristics is comprehensible in a setting where small scale farmers and especially women are involved in cassava cultivation. This reasoning is strengthened as the specific role of women in cassava production and processing in the Southeast is illustrated when we consider only women (Table 5): Bdry matter content/swells,^Bflesh color,^Bgood p r i c e / m a r k e t a b i l i t y , ^a n d Ba g r o n o m i c characteristics^almost all become even more significant or at least do not lose in significance. When only considering men, we see that the general observed trend when considering men and women together is maintained, but that the trait Bpostharvest shelf-life^is significantly more important for men from the Southwest. This can be explained by the larger markets and larger-scale production present in the Southwest involving transport over longer distances in which usually more men than women are involved.The main stem source for men and women farmers was their own farm and neighbors through gift or purchase (Fig. 2). A similar study in Uganda on cassava farmers' source of seeds indicated that about 89% obtain seeds from informal sources, for the most part from their own saved seeds, the local market, and neighbors (ISSD Uganda 2014). This reliance on informal seed systems held in an analysis of five countries across sub-Saharan Africa (Mcguire and Sperling 2016). Figure 2 shows that stems were mostly obtained from Bown farm^and as a gift from other people in the village. Within these two categories there were no significant differences when comparing regions for both sexes together. However, significant differences appear for the sources BBuy from farmers in the same village^and BBuy from farmers in another village^that were both mentioned more often in the Southeast. This is hard to explain other than that plant material is scarce as all plots are intensively cultivated while in the Southwest extensive cultivation for stems is possible as land is less scarce. When only considering men, the same pattern appears which is understandable as men will not be much involved in rotating working groups that provided labor for each of the members' plots without any money or in-kind transaction. In the Southeast, women form such work groups along the lines of kinship, age grades, friendship circles, or social or finance clubs, and provide an important means of labor for cassava production (Korieh 2010). These work groups could provide a conduit of exchange for planting materials, and among such women groups free exchange of stem material would be more common than among men.Keeping intersectionality in mind, we disaggregated stem sources by religion. Respondents in the Southeast were all Christian while respondents in Southwest included both Muslim and Christian. For the stem source within the Southwest, Muslim women mentioned BGift from another farmer in the same village^less often than Christian women. Furthermore, Muslim men mention BGift from other farmers in the same village^more often than Christian men (Table 6). When only considering Muslim respondents, a very significant difference appears between Muslim women and men: Muslim men mentioned BGift from other farmer in the villagem uch more than Muslim women. Muslim men also mention BBuy from other farmers in other villagef ar less than Christian men. This suggests that Muslim men may maintain very strong reciprocal relations while this is not as true for Muslim women, who often buy stem material. Adekunle et al. (2016) indicates the role of religion as having a possible large influence in the adoption and success of innovative technologies especially for cassava that is on the rise in popularity and significance. Taking note of religious norms and roles in relation to technology development and seed dissemination can therefore be important from an equity perspective as religion often sets specific norms and rules. These results are interesting, but difficult to explain with the current data set, and require significant further study.There was a greater agreement on variety ranking in Umuoso and Imerienwe in the Southeastern region, than Pontela-Akinola and Elere-Adeogun in the Southwest between women and men (Table 2). A general norm for married women to consult their husbands before deciding on planting a new variety may inform women in the Southwest and may influence their decision to adopt and utilize it for cassava products:   BIf there is something new that is being introduced, we may not be quick to do those things but if our men do them, then we too will do them^.Pontela women FGD.BMen mostly decide on where to plant which variety because they gave portions of their lands to women to plant as well as the varieties to plant. Men also decide when to plant because it is unsafe for women to go to farm alone. Men have access to new varieties. If they are old varieties, the women take their own decisions on which one to plant because they source from the previous harvest dogo women FGD However, this norm is less pronounced in the Southeast:BWe don't consult anybody before planting anything. Men don't know anything about the cassava we are plantingÎ merienwe Women FGD This tendency for more autonomy in production, and decision making around planting material reflects the higher levels of empowerment experienced by women in the Southeast (Ayevbuomwan et al. 2016), especially around cassava production. These Bcassava queens^ (Korieh 2007) hold an important place in the social fabric of the communities, and may experiment and introduce new varieties. Our results concerning greater varietal diversity in the Southeast can also be linked to this increased decision-making power of women around planting materials.This study appears at an opportune moment in cassava breeding in Africa: unprecedented investment in cassava research, coupled with greater donor interest and insistence on gender responsive agricultural research (BMGF 2012). By filling a niche in current knowledge around cassava varietal and trait preferences in two key cassava producing regions in Nigeria, we provide information to help breeders answer the question: what other traits can we breed for? With the application of latest technology advances to cassava, such as genomic selection (Wolfe et al. 2017) and high throughput processing technologies (Ikeogu et al. 2017) cassava breeding stands at the dawn of major advances and greatly accelerated breeding cycles, leading to more rapid development of improved varieties.It is at this juncture that setting the Bnext generation^of breeding priorities is critical. New breeding methods offer the opportunity to expand the range of traits prioritized. Technologies such as genomic selection, increasingly applied to cassava breeding, allow for a greater number of traits to be included in selection indices (Jia and Jannink 2012). Combined with advances in cassava product quality phenotyping (Sanchez et al. 2014), traits such as Bcooking/processing quality^that are highlighted by this study become realistic targets for cassava breeders. This could lead to new breeding populations that introgress cooking/processing quality onto high yielding, early maturing backgrounds. Currently cooking/processing traits are low in breeding priority but by highlighting their importance, especially for women, this study builds a case for specific breeding targets, and incentivizes breeding programs to invest resources in these around this.Lastly this study reveals interesting findings on differential varietal and trait preferences between men and women, as well as impacts of crosssectional factors such as region and religion on traits and stem source. Given existing evidence of a large task division between men and women within cassava production and processing, differential trait preferences could be expected as evidenced by this study. Breeding programs can use this evidence to meet donor, national, and regional requirements for gender responsiveness, by targeting traits such as cooking/ processing quality. Furthermore, differences in access to stem source amongst men and women, and the impact of religion on this process, can help inform targeted dissemination strategies and delivery packages. Ensuring equitable access to new products of cassava breeding programs would therefore include a two-pronged strategy of incorporating traits important for women, together with identifying entry points into local seed systems to ensure the new material reaches the fields of those who need it the most.","tokenCount":"5061"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7a55231d90ad9d1166107fba29f7c1c0","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e0d96860-9d36-47fb-ba31-a00d8991ceb9/retrieve","id":"-1772637766"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b89e1b86-0485-4d4f-ada4-ee56deb5585b","pagecount":"10","content":"Since 2020, Grace has been on an incredible journey of growth and empowerment. All thanks to her involvement with Feed the Future Nigeria Integrated Agriculture Activity (IAA) in Borno state. What started as a series of engagements quickly transformed the mother of three into a shiny example of dedication and success in multiple fields. Grace' s participation in the IAA' s women and youth interventions has been nothing short of transformative.Through various programs, she gained expertise in diverse areas including crop production, poultry farming, and tailoring. These opportunities have not only broadened her skill but have also ignited her entrepreneurial spirit.One of Grace' s proudest achievements is her journey from an eager learner to a certified sewing mistress. Today, the proud entrepreneur not only runs a successful tailoring business but also mentors two young apprentices. Her dedication to passing on her skills showcases her commitment to not just her own growth, but to nurturing the talents of others as well.In the nearest future, Grace plans on establishing a poultry enterprise with 200 chicks by 2024. She feels she can take this bold step after she had successfully raised 30 chicks in 2022. Her ambitious plans showcase her unwavering commitment to continuous growth and development. \"With all the training I received from IAA, I must raise 200 chicks next year. It is a big risk, but I am willing to give it a shot. I have been taught the kinds of feeds necessary for chickens and the right proportions to help them grow. I also learnt the needed vaccination to present diseases. I am indeed grateful for the privilege to learn from IAA.\"Grace' s story is a testament to the power of opportunity, determination, and the impact of donors like USAID.In Azare, Hawul LGA, Borno State, a story of tenacity and growth has blossomed. The story of Mrs. Mary Samson, also known as Mary Royer, is an example of passion and empowerment. In 2020, she participated in the Integrated Agriculture Activity (IAA) enterprise training in Tomapepo processing (a mix of blended tomatoes, peppers and onions) and entrepreneurship. Little did she know that, this would be the spark that would ignite her path to prosperity.Armed with a new-found knowledge and fueled by an indomitable spirit, Mary seized the opportunity to venture into the world of Tomapepo processing. Today, her products not only grace tables across Borno State but are also well-known beyond the state. How did she achieve this? The answer lies in her ingenious approach to packaging, a visual testament to her innovation.preparation for the production of Tomapepo.Tomapepo production is the best thing that has happened to me. People come from far and near to ask for the product. I make sure I produce as much as possible when there are plenty of tomatoes in the season. Then, I can sell with added profit later. My gratitude to USAID, IITA and IAA does not end there. I have suddenly become a trainer myself. 50 different women have learnt how to make Tomapepo through me. I am so happy seeing them take this important step in making money through Tomapepo processing.\"However, Mary' s journey isn' t without its challenges. She faces hurdles like sourcing packaging materials and navigating the ebb and flow of raw material availability. But just as she' s turned obstacles into steppingstones before, Mary stands undeterred. With unwavering resolve, she' s not only registered her business with the local government authority but has set her sights on grander horizons. Aiming to secure a CAC registration, Mary Royer embodies the spirit of progress.In every jar of processed tomatoes, in every woman she empowers, Mary' s story is a reminder that determination and innovation can turn dreams into reality. ","tokenCount":"618"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4b8fc5d0950260609210e915c9b18b64","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/385904ea-8479-4932-8047-ff3396502f13/retrieve","id":"532008285"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"247be5ad-1b1d-4ef9-bf90-8eac5d866cf6","pagecount":"48","content":"Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above. The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used.When and how to plant sweetpotatoes How to manage sweetpotatoes during the growing periodTables Table 1: How to reduce postharvest losses during harvesting, transportation, and storage   Furthermore, we acknowledge funding through the International Science Partnership Fund, via the Institutional Grant Support Funding, HEFCW W23/32HE, and The Global Centre on Biodiversity for Climate (GCBC), an Official Development Assistance (ODA) programme that funds research into natural solutions to biodiversity loss, climate change, and poverty. The GCBC is funded by the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and managed in partnership with DAI Global (Fund Management Lead) and the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (Strategic Science Lead). While this material has been funded by UK International Development Funds, the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK government's official policies.Livestock feed shortages in smallholder dairy system in Kenya pose a persistent challenge that is exacerbated by unpredictable rainfall patterns, prolonged dry seasons and other climate change impacts. To address these issues, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), through the Livestock and Climate Initiative, Harnessing Pasture Biodiversity and Productivity in the Kenyan Highlands (HABITAT), and previously the Program for Climate Smart Livestock (PCSL) is conducting research to understand how smallholder livestock farmers adapt to climate change.In Kenya's Nandi and Bomet counties, the most prominent response to climate change among dairy farmers is feed diversification and conservation. This is a strategy that compensates for dry season feed shortages. Pioneer Positive Deviance is an approach we use to identify farm households who are more successful in implementing feed management technologies and practices than others in the same circumstances. We call these households adaptation pioneers. Some of their more specific adaptation strategies include use of crop residues, management of surplus feeds, and the ways they manage feed quality and quantity to maintain dairy production in different seasons. This booklet on feeds and feeding practices for dairy presents the adaptation strategies used by these adaptation pioneers. The information it contains was co-designed in a process of iterative interviews and workshops with adaptation pioneers, extension workers and researchers in Nandi and Bomet counties. The contents reflect the best practices of the adaptation pioneers, as well as inputs from the feed and forage experts who worked with them.Each of its three chapters emphasizes specific feed or feeding practices for dairy in challenging climatic conditions. The first chapter focuses on the management and use of crop residues as livestock feed. The second chapter provides more information on feed conservation, in particular haymaking and silage making. The third chapter highlights the cultivation of sweetpotato and Desmodium as protein source feeds and their importance in dairy farming.Written in simple language and complemented by illustrations, this unique and valuable resource targets small-scale dairy farmers. The booklet can also be used by extension agents and adaptation pioneers for scaling locally led innovations. Use of the booklet and accompanying posters will ultimately enhance the economic efficiency and effectiveness of feed management in smallholder dairy production in Kenya.Crop residues are the crop plants' remains after the valuable grain is harvested for human consumption. They form the main feed for livestock during the dry seasons, especially on smallholder farms in Kenya. They have high fibre and low protein content of between 6-7%. Most crop residues have low fermentable energy and minerals. They are not highly edible, therefore leads to low intake, particularly when fed as the only roughage.Examples of common crop residues found on farms in Kenya include dry maize stover, green maize stover, bean haulms, sorghum stover, sugarcane tops, millet stover, wheat straw, vegetable waste (cabbage leaves, kales etc.), banana pseudo stems, leaves, and others (Figures 1-2).  Crop residues have low protein but can provide maintenance feed during times when pasture is scarce. These residues are readily available and cheap fodder since they are by-products of existing food crops. On average, crop residues provide 10-15 % of the total feed intake and in some cases, this could increase up to 50 % depending on the season, farming system, the type of crops grown and the intensity of cultivation.Depending on the type, crop residues may be left on the field either as grazing for ruminants or as mulch, or they may be transported to the homestead for stall feeding or other alternative uses such as fencing, building, and roofing materials or as fuel.To make the best use of crop residues as feed, farmers must understand ways to make the residues more digestible for the livestock. These basic feed resources for cattle, goats, and sheep among others should be chopped before being fed to the animals and combined with green fodder and concentrates or compound feeds for best results.Maize stover and bean haulms are among the most commonly found and most used crops residues in Kenya. Many farmers intercrop the two crops to maximize the use of available land, especially in smallholder systems. Maize stover and bean haulms help meet animal feed needs especially during prolonged dry seasons and periods of drought.Farmers can harvest, process, and feed animals in confinement or they can graze crop residues in the field. When grazing crop residues, animals usually select the parts of a plant that are nutritious. But in the process animal trampling destroys other edible material of the crops. Collecting the residues and processing them (e.g. chopping) increases the amount of residue eaten by the animal, but the quality of this material is lower. Some factors that affect the quality of residues include:i. Proper harvesting, handling, and storage to reduce loss of leaves and sheath helps to maintain the quality of crop residues. Leaf and stem shattering reduces the quality of crop residues. Therefore, farming households are advised to harvest and store the crop in time just before the stalks, sheath and leaves dry up (Figure 3).ii. Rains wash away nutrients and can severely reduce the quality of crop residues. Especially where crop residues are left in the field for a long time before harvesting and storing or allowing grazing to begin immediately.Harvesting on time also avoids destruction by termites, trampling, molding, dung contamination and shattering of leaves. Therefore, farmers are advised to quickly remove crop residues from the farm to a storage facility or allow animals to graze immediately after harvesting before quality drops. Where crop residues must be left in the field, then proper stacking should be done to allow rainwater to easily drain off and reduce the draining of nutrients. a. Crop residues can be conserved in the field in round heaps that reduce the chances of penetration by rainwater and direct sunshine (Figure 4). There are high chances of pests, especially insects attacking stored maize stover. This method is low cost but it results in losses of up to 50% of dry matter and nutrients due to spoilage. b. Crop residues collected and stored under a shade and raised platform in dry conditions are protected from rainwater and sunshine and retain more nutrients and dry matter. But crop residue stored for too long lose colour and may decompose and deteriorate in quality. Use crop residues before spoilage sets in.c. Crop residues can be chopped and stored in gunny bags or poured directly into the store. It is advisable to place the bags under a shade or inside a roofed structure and off the floor to prevent the material at the bottom from becoming damp, mouldy and eventually rotting. The risks associated with crop residue as animal feed include:i. Crop residues can be contaminated with mycotoxins (aflatoxins) if they are kept in moist conditions. The risks are increased if the crop residues come in contact with dung, soil, water and poisonous weeds. The crop residues most likely contaminated by aflatoxin are maize stover, cottonseed, copra, and groundnut cake.ii. Dust allergies during the crushing of crop residues can affect animals and feed handlers.iii. Poisoning from urea that is used improperly when treating crop residues (see more in Table 1). iii. Ensure the sorghum stover is thoroughly dried to reduce the tannin content.i. Transport crop residues from the farm to the store soon after harvest.ii. Carry fitting loads to avoid spillage.iii. Use a closed trailer that is free from oils, soil, and water to prevent contamination of crop residues.iv. Transport material in bundles. It is easy to bring into the store.i. The storage facility should have a raised platform (Figure 5).ii. The storage should be waterproof and wellventilated.iii. The store should be protected from termites and rodents.Harvesting and transportation. Standard feed store.Feed processing is the changing of either physical or chemical properties of feed to make feeding easy and efficient. Processing crop residues (e.g. by chopping/pulverizing/crushing) can improve crop residue quality.Some of the equipment used in feed processing include a pulverizer, chaff cutter, chopper, feed mixer, improved machete and tractor-mounted forage harvester. Farmers may share the cost of buying and managing these machines and equipment to afford them.Benefits of processing crop residues include:• Increases feed acceptance and palatability (intake) resulting in improved performance.• Improves feed quality (starch availability and protein use) and digestibility.• Reduces the amount of waste during feeding. Aim to chop lengths of 2-3 cm.• It kills material in feed ingredients that reduces feed use and uptake.• Preserves the quality of feed ingredients.• Reduces transportation expenses.• Saves on storage space.• Surplus can be sold to other farmers for income.• Avoids loss or wastage through selective grazing of more palatable crop parts, e.g. leaves.• Mixing processed crop residues with other feed ingredients makes ration balancing easier.• Increases the speed and success of conservation (ensiling).• Enhances the storage of crop residues.Strategies for preparing and using chopped crop residues.• Pre-fermenting: Soaking chopped dry stover with or without salting/ molasses. Chopped stover or straw may be sprinkled with or soaked in plain water or a dilute salt or molasses solution before feeding. Farmers who practised it reported it led to an increase in feed intake.• Ensiling: Smallholder farmers often harvest green maize at its milk stage and green cobs are sold for roasting. Green maize harvested at milk stage produces green and fresh stover, which is more nutritious and palatable for livestock than dry stover. The green maize stover can be processed with a mechanical feed chopper and conserved as silage.• Mixing with green forages and other feeds: Mixing crop residues with fresh grasses, legumes or concentrate feeds greatly improves feed intake and animal performance. Mixing with urea, molasses, yeast, and salt provides both energy and nitrogen to the microorganisms in the rumen and thus improves the digestion of crop residues.• Urea treatment: Treating crop residues with 4% urea solution at 45-50% moisture improves the nutritive value by increasing the digestibility, palatability, and crude protein content. Though the process is simple, and farmers can easily practice it, care must be taken to avoid urea poisoning.Urea treatment procedure i. Weigh 100 kgs of crop residue and spread on a polythene sheet or tarpaulin.ii. Mix urea and water in a watering can or garden sprayer at the rate of 4 kg urea (fertilizer grade) in 100 litres of water (4%) i.e. 400 g urea should be mixed with 10 litres water, (urea readily dissolves in water).iii. Sprinkle the solution on the material on the ground (Figure 6), then mix thoroughly by hand or use a shovel.iv. Compact material firmly inside a polythene or plastic bag preferably the thicker gauge (1.5-2 m in size, tied at lower end with sisal twine).v. Repeat steps 2, 3, 4 and 5 until the polythene bag is filled up.vi. Tie the polythene to ensure it is airtight (1.5-2.0 m bag can hold about 150 to 200 kg feed material). After 21 days the urea treated material is ready for feeding to the animals. Caution: Follow the above procedure strictly when using urea treatment. A wrong application of the procedure could lead to urea poisoning and death of animals! If you are uncertain about the procedure or if it is the first time you are using urea treatment, consult the local livestock extension officer. Urea treated material is ready for feeding after 21 days (after 3 weeks).In this chapter, you will learn about silage and hay-making technologies for the safe preservation of excess forage produced in the wet rainy season and ways of making it available during feed shortage periods. Farming households experience long and short dry seasons every year.Farmers have surplus green fodder available in the wet seasons but lack the knowledge to conserve feed for use in the dry months when forage is scarce.It is necessary to conserve the surplus green fodder when it is plentiful for use during dry periods. Without these measures, it is not practical to support livestock keeping during the dry periods.After reading this chapter, you should be able to:i. Provide surplus forage/fodder to reduce dry season feed shortages.ii. Identify the various crops that can be used for hay and silage making.iii. Explain hay-and silage-making methods and their processes.Feed is available on farms seasonally. Preserving fodder makes it available for future use without it losing too many nutrients. Cutting fodder before maturity ensures that most nutrients are not lost. Fodder can be preserved by sun drying (hay) or in airtight bags (silage). Preservation is necessary because it not only provides feed for feed shortage periods, but also preserves nutrients. It makes feed handling easy, and reduces the need for storage space.Farmers should start planning for hay and silage making early enough before the harvest time. They should consider the required financial resources, labour, equipment and storage facility.Haymaking is a method o..f drying the cut grass/crop to reduce the moisture content from 70-90% to 20-23%. The crop/grass should be harvested at the pre-flowering stage so that the maximum nutrients are preserved, but in most cereal grain crops, the stover and straw is dried into hay after the grain matures.Providing enough (quantity and quality) year-round feed to support higher livestock production is critical. The major aim of making hay is to reduce feed shortage during the dry periods. Most of the animals in Kenya are kept in mixed farming systems where crop residues are dominant. Therefore, storing forages, straw and other crop residues as animal feed when they are available is very important.Hay is considered as roughage, having more than 18% crude fibre and less than 20% crude protein. It is rarely a complete feed and must be used as part of an overall feeding system. Crop residues, straw and stover are also important as dry season feed for ruminants. They are often used together with hay. Hay may be classified based on the level of technology used and crop from which it is made.Main types of hay based on the technology used:i. Stacked hay: This type of hay is made by tying the dried grass or straw in small bundles and storing in stacks -temporarily or long-term under shade or in the open before feeding.ii. Chopped hay: This type of hay is prepared where drying conditions are good and mechanization is possible. It is less bulky and better for mechanical handling. It is usually stored in gunny bags.iii. Baled hay: Either prepared by hand (manually) or by mobile or stationary machines. Round bales are gaining popularity in Kenya. Their shape sheds rain and resists water better than conventional (rectangular) bales.iv. Hand-trussed hay: Farmers practice this method unknowingly. It is manual hay making, where hay or straw is tied in round bundles for storage or transportation often to reduce leaf shattering thus maintaining quality. This type of hay is not widely prepared.v. Dried grass (loose hay): This type of hay is made up of grass or crop residues that are sun-dried and stored to continue air drying under shade.Dried hay is commonly found on smallholder farms.Main types of hay based on the crop used:i. Legume hay: This hay is made from leguminous plants like lucerne and other clovers. It is generally rich in proteins, vitamins and minerals as compared to non-leguminous hay. This hay is usually fed to young calves in calf-starter rations.ii. Non-legume hay: This type of hay may be made from green grasses or cereal by-products (straw). Hay made from green grasses like Rhodes, or Brachiaria is usually rich in carbohydrates. Hay made from straw contain less protein, minerals, and vitamins compared to non-legume hay from grasses.iii. Mixed hay: This is made from a mix of leguminous and non-leguminous plants or mixed grasses only. Such a crop is generally cut early before flowering. The nutritive value of such hay will depend on the proportion of leguminous and non-leguminous plants.Crops with thinner and soft stems are more suitable and convenient for haymaking unlike crops with hard thick stems. Grasses including Rhodes grass, ryegrass, Brachiaria grass, Italian ryegrass and legumes such as lucerne, cowpea, sunhemp, Stylosanthes, Siratro, red clover, white clover, oats, barley, and wheat straw is best suited for haymaking. Hay from leguminous crops is more nutritive and usually used to supplement the straw and stover and other fibrous feeds fed to animals. Annual and perennial crops (mainly grasses) also form good hay if harvested at the optimum growth stage.Two main factors that affect hay making are:i. Season of the year 'Make hay while the sun shines' says it all. Pasture (natural or sown) can be managed for haymaking so that the grass reaches a suitable stage for harvesting and curing when good weather is expected. This will require having a good knowledge of the growing range of grass species and knowing the peak season for haymaking, to make the best use of the available equipment and labour.ii. Stage of crop maturity One of the major factors determining the quality of the haymaking is the stage of maturity of the crop. The quality of grass reduces rapidly with increasing maturity, especially after flowering. However, very young and leafy grass is more difficult to handle than more mature grass. The protein and energy contents of fodder are high at early stages of crop growth, but yield is less. Therefore, a compromise between yield and quality must be made, and usually, cutting at early to mid-flowering will give good hay.The following basic steps are involved in all the methods of haymaking:i. Selection of suitable plant varieties and good management: The seed-rate during planting should be high to ensure dense stand of the crop, which will result in fine stems, heavier yield, and less weeds.ii. Cutting the fodder at proper stage of maturity: For legumes at the early bloom stage or when the crops are in bloom or when new shoots begin to develop from the crown. For grasses, cutting is done when they begin to head out. For the grain crops, cutting is done when grain is in the milk stage or when pods are nearly mature.iii. Curing hay helps to preserve maximum nutrients and removes moisture sufficiently to avoid mouldiness and spoilage: It also prevents leaf shattering, bleaching and further fermentation processes.iv. Maintaining of the moisture content: The moisture content of hay needs to be maintained as follows: for loose hay 20-25% moisture, for baled hay 18-20% moisture, and for chopped hay 19-22% moisture.v. Proper storing: Enough care must be taken to protect hay from rain and sunlight.Haymaking methods vary depending on crop and circumstances, but the main operations are the same in all cases. The field drying and curing method which is discussed below is the most suited method under Kenyan conditions. With this method, the crop is harvested and cured in the field to make hay.Table 2: The steps and description of the haymaking process.Steps Description Step 1: Harvesting or mowing • The standing crop meant for haymaking is harvested by tractor using a mower.• In smallholder settings, this is done by hand using an instrument (scythe, sickle, or machete).• Mow or cut in one direction.• Harvest in the morning hours when the dew has dried up and the sunshine is rising.Steps DescriptionStep 2: Turning and spreading• The crop is left in the field for 2-4 days depending on intensity of the sunshine and crop type to partially dry.• During this period, the grass should be raked up in rows to dry thoroughly. A tractor and rake are required.• Allow the grass to wilt evenly until the moisture content comes down to about 40% to minimize shattering of leaves.Step 3: Windrowing or lining up grass• Putting the cut grass into rows for further handling and collection and sometimes protection at night. In hot dry conditions, windrowing protects the crop from shattering and bleaching. A raking machine is required.• Baling is done using tractors. Baling grass using tractors is better as it also reduces the volume of the hay.A tractor and balers are required.Steps Description Step 4: Trussing or putting grass into small heaps • On small farms where hay is made manually, the grass can first be rolled into small loose fluffy bundles or heaps which can be transported to an aerated hay barn or stored as loose hay.Step 5: Transportation and storage.• The hay is transported with or without baling and stored in hay barns or feed store. A trailer or truck can be used.• Depending on the type of store, you may cover it with plastic sheets to prevent wind and rain damage.• Good hay should have a high leaf to stem ratio. This can be achieved if leaf shattering is minimized during haymaking, hence increasing hay quality. Hay should be made of thin-stemmed crops which are soft and palatable.•The greenish colour of hay is an indication of high quality. It means that a greater proportion of the leaves have been preserved and losses due to fading of colour, draining of nutrients, fermentation, etc. have been minimized.• Good hay should be free from weeds and poisonous plants.• Hay should have less than 20% moisture at storage. If there is high moisture, fermentation will take place, generating a great amount of heat. Ultimately, it may lead to spontaneous combustion. Even if fire does not result, the nutritive value will be seriously affected.• Good hay should be free from dust and mould.• Good hay should have a pleasant aroma, which increases its palatability.• Once the hay is made, it can be stored properly for long periods of time.The aim during storage should be to keep it dry and protect it from damage by rats, pests, stray livestock, fire, or wind. If possible, it should be stored close to the point of use.• Many farmers in Kenya offer the hay directly from the stack. Pulverizing or chaffing reduces wastage and improves intake and digestibility. Thus, chaffing and mixing hay with green fodder / feed is required for higher livestock production.Silage making is another important method of conserving green fodder. Silage is a product of fermented green forages where the acids produced by anaerobic fermentation of the sugars present in these forages are preserved in an airtight silo. Forage conserved this way is known as 'silage' and will keep for up to three years without getting spoilt. Silage is very palatable to livestock and can be fed at any time. Silage quality is very important for good animal performance.• The feed composition of silage does not change for up to six months or more so long as the airtight conditions are maintained.• Silage retains more nutrients than hay because losses from leaf shattering, and washing away by rain are reduced.• Silage preserves 85% of feed energy. While hay can preserve between 50-80% of feed energy depending on prevailing conditions.The fermentation in silage reduces harmful nitrates accumulated in plants during droughts and in over-fertilized crops.• Silage can be made in almost any kind of weather.• Silage requires 10 times less storage space than hay.• Silage is more palatable, digestible, and slightly laxative.• Silage is not easy to sell as its value is difficult to determine.• It is costly to transport it for long distances.• It has much lower vitamin D content compared to hay.Right stage for harvesting silage crop• Late milky stage for maize and sorghum.• Napier grass should be at 1 metre high.• Legumes should have young pods but not dry.• Almost all forage crops are suitable for silage making.• Even some crops known to have bitter or bad flavour seem to lose these qualities during ensiling.• Weedy crops and crops with thick stalks can be ensiled equally well.However, more commonly, crops with 35-40% dry matter (DM) sugar content, and moisture content of 60-65%, are suitable for silage making.• Some common crops which can be used for silage making include maize forage, sorghum, Napier grass, oats, etc.• Grasses and legumes used for silage are also known as mixed feed silages.There are many methods of making silage. In this brief, we focus on two ways of making silage. They are:• Polythene bag and plastic drums silagePolythene bag and plastic drum silageSilage bags are made from smaller tubes of heavy-duty polyethene plastic tubing. The tubing is cut into small silos that can accommodate 50 kg of silage or even less. The ends of each tube are double tied making a bag with a handle at each end. This enables smallholder farmers to make silage based on the available forage material, making this a convenient and less expensive method. The process of making silage in plastic drums is similar to that of making silage in plastic bags. But plastic drums are better in preventing damage from rodents, termites, animals and others (Table 3).• Plastic silage bags are an economical alternative to usual silage storage methods, such as pits and silos. When related, harvest and storage costs are considered.• It is an effective way for preserving feed with minimum nutrient loss. Spoilage caused by yeasts, moulds and adverse bacteria' growth is eliminated while essential proteins and nutrients are preserved.• Allows farmers to store silage anywhere they need it. A level and welldrained surface is required.The silage is completely sealed in the bag. This means all the acid is retained in the silage, while in pit silage it seeps out through the pit's bottom as effluent.• Silage made in plastic bags is easy to remove daily during feeding.• Reduces exposure to air during feeding because each bag is fed to animal as at a time. Other bags are not exposed to the air. The bag is easily stored and easily portable so that any member of the family can carry it to the feed trough for the cow.• Damage to the bags due to rodents, vermin, birds, poultry, children and other agents resulting in spoilage loss.The bags get punctured if bigger pieces of chopped forage material are used.• Damage due to gaseous/seepage losses may occur due to excess wet conditions.Table 3: Steps and description of the silage making process.Steps DescriptionStep 1: Storage area • It is advisable to keep silage bags or drums relatively close to feeding areas, and in an area with suitable shade, drainage, and easy access.• Keep the bags away from other feed sources, to reduce damage from birds, rodents and other animals.• Stacking them can help protect them against rats, mice, and other pests.• Covering them with a thin plastic sheet to prevent damage from birds is sometimes most effective.• Store silage bags concreate or hard gravel surfaces.Step 2: Chopping, filling and compacting the silage Packing the silage bag correctly is the most important factor that will influence silage quality. Hence, follow these guidelines when selecting the packing materials:• Select strong bags. Strong highdensity plastic bags reduce the chances of tearing. Examples include nematic bags (cereal bags) and polythene silage bag with capacity from 5-50 kg of fresh chopped green fodder can be used. Select bags that do not have obvious holes.• If holes are present along the seal, sticky tape can be used to repair seals as the bags are tied.• Inner bags -you may use two layers of bags to reduce the chances of damaging the bags.• Plastic fertilizer bags make good silos. The fertilizer bag will last for at least three seasons.Steps DescriptionWhen filling your silage bags:• Ensure forage is ensiled at proper maturity stage and moisture content• The entire process of filling should be completed in one day.• Fill rapidly and pack uniformly. Each bag should be filled in one or two hours at maximum to maintain forage consistency.• Do not allow the forage material to be soiled.• The silage must be packed as densely as possible to avoid air pockets that can interfere with proper fermentation. Air pockets can develop more frequently when longer chop lengths are used.• The fodder can be hand-chopped or chopped using a chaff cutter or a motorized chopper.• 5-50 kg of chopped green fodder is carefully packed into a bag, to avoid making any holes in the bag; the bag is gently but firmly squeezed by hand to expel air, and after compression, the bag is closed.Stage 3: Sealing the bag • Gently but firmly press the bag then tie as tightly as possible the remaining plastic as close as possible to the ensiled material. This will compact the silage and seal it from the air. Make sure there is enough plastic to tie up, so that it does not come free from the twine.• Hay baling twine can be used for tying up the plastic bag and it should be twined around the top of the bag several times to ensure the bag is completely sealed. Remember to seal tightly.Stage 4: Maintaining silage bags in storage The silage bags can be damaged during storage for various reasons, i.e. birds, rodents, and other animals can puncture the plastic bags. This will let air in the bag and can result in spoilage. Children and cattle can do the same. To maintain the stored silage bags the following recommendations should be followed:• Inspect the bags on a regular basis and if possible, repair holes if any.• If the damage is large, the silage needs to be re-bagged as soon as possible.• Do not allow dogs, cats, and other animals to climb the bags.• Label and date the bags for easy identification and remembrance of forage materials bagged.• Do not leave the silage bags open after removing silage.• If maintenance is right, after three to five weeks, excellent lactic acid fermentation will form and bags will keep well for six months, with no or little fungal spoilage.• After emptying the bags of silo, carefully wash, dry, and store them in a safe place for use later.Stage 5: Feeding silage to cattle • Silage should be fed as soon as it is removed from the silo, preferably within a few hours. After feeding, the feed troughs must be cleaned out to prevent any spoilt silage from mixing with the next feed ration.• Silage can be provided to animals in several different recipes based on its composition and the breed and use of the animals. In general silage should be used up to 25 kg per day for a 550 kg animal and up to 5 kg for sheep and goats.Practical ways to overcome obstacles in silage makingSpoilage begins when holes are formed in the silage bag. Repair holes as soon as they are noticed. It is critical to control pests to prevent damage to the bags.• Avoid ensiling very wet material. Wilt the forage to about 30% DM.• Chop the material as short as possible (1-3 cm).• Compact the bag as well as possible such that fingers cannot be inserted in the compacted forage.• Seal the bag as tightly as possible. To ensure a tight seal, twist the neck then tie or tape, then double over, and retie or retape.• Put some weight on top of the sealed bag to keep it airtight between the tied rope and the forage material.• Seal the bag as soon as possible after filling it with material.The top of plastic drums should be covered with a sheet of plastic before the lid is placed on topTo ensure airtight seal, once screwed or clamped in place, plastic tape should be placed all around the lid.• Plastic drums should be stored upside down on their lids. This way the silage drops down inside the drum and minimizes the entry of air in the drum.• This is a short-term option with a storage life of up to 2-3 years.• As there are no side walls, the height of the stack is limited and the surface area to volume ratio is higher. The greater surface area increases potential spoilage.The area used should have a slight slope for drainage and be away from trees to minimize potential damage from falling branches and birds.The forage is dumped onto the ground, rolled/compacted and covered with a plastic sheet, which is weighted down with soil. An above ground silo is made on slightly slanted ground.• When finished, the silage stack should be dome-shaped so that it does not allow water to settle at the top but rather collect at the sides and drain away down the slope.Advantages of above ground silage makingNo material construction costs.• Easily sealed by sealing plastic bag under the soil.• Removing silage from the side minimizes loss of silage, reducing air penetration into the silo.• Size of silo can be adjusted to suit rate of feeding.Multiple separate silos can enable better quality and use control.• Much of the silage in above ground silo has been found to be spoiled due to poor sealing and exposure to air every day when the silage is removed for feeding.Can pose health and safety risks for tractor operators during stack formation and compaction.• Not suitable for long term storage unless the cover is protected from sunlight exposure (UV degradation).Above ground silage making involves the following steps:Step 1: Harvesting and transportation of crop (ensiling)• Harvesting at the proper stage of growth and timely transportation to avoid excessive moisture loss.• Field testing of the moisture content: chop a small bunch of the silage crop, grab a handful of chopped material, and squeeze it in your hand as tight as possible for about half a minute. If juice drips from the sample, it is too wet for ensiling. If no juice drops out, open your hand slowly. If your hand is wet inside and the squeezed material does not drop quickly, it is an indication that the crop has the right moisture content. On the other hand, if your hand is barely wet and the material drops quickly, it is too dry to ensile and needs to be mixed with another fresh crop.Step 2: Chopping • Forage must be chopped into small pieces preferably 2-4 cm (about 2 in) length using a chaff cutter or forage chopper (Figure 7). This improves the packing density which favours the growth of lactic acid bacteria, naturally present in plants. Level the chaffed/chopped pieces evenly and press it hard so that all air comes out. Step 3: Selecting and preparing the siteAbove ground silage should be in an area sheltered from the wind and have a 15-30 cm (about 12 in) slope away from the silage stack location (Figure 8).The selected ground should be treated with Magadi salts (soda ash or sodium carbonate) to control termites before laying the polythene sheet.• Spread dry grass or any other plant materials on the polythene sheet before silage forage material is added to minimize silage losses from the bottom of the silo.• Spread a polythene sheet (at least 1,000 gauge) over the treated area.The silage stack width should fit the size of the plastic cover to be used. For example, a plastic cover of 13 x 33 m will allow a pile width of 9-10 m to be sealed by burying, or overlapping, the edges of the sheet (Figure 9). Figure 9: Spread dry grass where the silage material will be added.Step 4: Filling, and compaction of siloThe most efficient shape of the stack is a dome. This also permits tractor packing over the entire surface.• Chopped material should be spread evenly over the entire surface of polyethene bag and then compacted through trampling (in case of small silo) (Figure 10 and 11).• In case of large silo, the compaction can be done using a tractor. It helps in rapid evacuation of air from the silo, thus checks the aerobic respiration and nutrient loss.• Compact after 6 inches if using manual system, or after every 10-15 inches if using a tractor. Ensure proper compaction to remove air (oxygen) (Figure 12).The base of the pile should be wider than the average pile width. The pile should be at least 4-5 m wide at the top to allow proper packing and reduce the possibility of the tractor rolling over (Figure 12 and 13).• Please note that the standard rule is that you cannot over-pack the pile (ensure the polythene bag on the side is enough to cover the pile). After all the silage has been unloaded, slope the sides and crown the top of the pile to finish. Figure 11: Filling using a wheelbarrow in small scale farms.Figure 12: Compacting using a tractor.Figure 13: Compacting using a weighted drum.Step 5. Properly sealing and covering of siloCovering should be done in such a way that neither air enters the silo nor gases leak from it.• Cover the pile with thick black plastic sheeting when the final pack is completed. The plastic should be pulled tight and sealed along the sides by piling soil, or any other dried material up to 6-8-inch thickness to avoid the damage of polythene sheet by animals (Figure 14).• Hold plastic sheet tightly against the pile, the plastic eliminates air spaces and reduces spoilage.• Make sure water does not enter the silo during rain by making a drainage trench around the silo (Figure 15).  Step 6: Curing of the silage and opening silo• The silage will be ready in 45 to 60 days (about 2 months), depending on the types of material used.• After completion of incubation period the silo is opened for feeding. The ideal silage is golden yellowish green colour with good aroma.The whole silo should not be disturbed, and it should be opened from one end and used systematically to maintain its nutritional value and minimize spoilage. Preferably open silo from the lower side of the slope, then remove the amount needed for the day and cover immediately taking care not to trap much air inside the silo.• Depending on the type of animal, stage of production and availability, the silage can be supplemented in the ration (5-25 kg per animal) during lean period.• It has no foul smell.• It is golden brown or greenish yellow.• It has no mould or slime.Additives are substances added to silage to enhance the fermentation process or prevent the formation of molds. The use of additives is not a prerequisite for making good silage, but it is good for crops such as Napier grass, oats, green maize stover and star grass which have low sugars. Additives include:• Molasses or starch which enhance fermentation process.• Inoculants i.e. (lactic acid), which promote faster and efficient fermentation.• Acids, which inhibits growth of mould.• Enzymes, which improve digestibility.• Absorbents i.e. straws, which absorb excess moisture.There are various protein sources for livestock but this brief focuses on sweetpotato and Desmodium since they are cheap and easy to grow. The two forages are also good quality supplement feed with high protein content which is recommended for dairy cows.Importance of sweetpotato vines in smallholder systems• Sweetpotato plays an important role in livestock feed in Kenya where it is used as partial replacement of other basal feed mainly for dairy cows and goats, and pigs.• Many parts of the sweetpotato plant are edible, including the root, leaves, and shoots, and can be used as a source of nutritious food in smallholder households (Figure 16 and 17).• Sweetpotato vines also provide the basis for a high-protein animal feed.• Protein is important for the growth of young animals. It helps to increase milk production and to boost the immunity in dairy animals. What you need to know about sweetpotatoes • Once the harvest season ends the vines become scarce.• Ensiling sweetpotato vines and tubers during the wet season converts surplus highly perishable materials with low marketability into a muchneeded feedstuff that is available throughout the year.Why do farmers prefer sweetpotato vines as livestock feed?• It is a dual-purpose crop (used for human food and animal feed).• It is a cheap source of protein.• It is resilient to drought.• It is easy to establish and maintain.• It is readily and locally available and can be shared among farmers.• It increases the growth rate of calves by promoting rumen development.• It increases milk yield and quality.• It is good for recently calved and sick animals.• It is leafier compared to other leguminous crops. Photo credit: Nathan Maiyo.It is important for farmers to choose sweetpotato varieties that perform well in their area and fit target markets (Table 4). Why do farmers prefer dual-purpose purpose sweetpotato varieties?• Farmers prefer dual-purpose varieties of because they can be grown for human consumption, supporting household food and nutrition security, and can also provide vine biomass for feeding animals without competing for human feed resources.• Sweetpotatoes can be planted in rotation with other crops to minimize weed competition and pest and disease losses.Where can sweetpotatoes grow?Sea levels up to 1,700 m above sea level are the best altitudes for sweetpotato plants. Some varieties grow even up to 2,500 m above sea level but have poorer taste and lower dry matter (Figure 18).• Sweetpotato can adapt to different soils, but deep, sandy, moderately fertile loam with a slightly acid pH is optimal.• Sweetpotato plants like potassium, which can be obtained from ash.• High nitrogen soils are not optimal for growing sweetpotatoes because they lead to excess foliage growth and limited root production.• Using the same plot for sweetpotato only one year out of three is best. Fallow periods and crop rotation fight disease build up. • Sweetpotatoes are planted on mounds, ridges, or flat beds.• Good soil aeration is needed for root storage, initiation and growth; hence, for higher yields, the height of the mound or ridge is important.• Mounds and ridges ensure good drainage and make it easier to harvest the mature roots, especially when harvesting is done in a piecemeal fashion as is often the case with sweetpotatoes. The vines are fed to livestock.• Farmyard manure, compost, or green manures can be very beneficial.If available, apply before planting. Ash is rich in potassium and can be incorporated into soils to help improve sweetpotato root formation.• Farmers rarely add fertilizer to their sweetpotato crop, but the crop benefits from remaining fertility when it follows or is intercropped with a fertilized crop such as maize.• Sweetpotato vine cuttings or sprouts are planted with at least 3 nodes (about 20-30 cm long at a spacing of 25-30 cm spacings between plants and 60-100 cm between ridges. Farmers, however, like to experiment with different spacings.• At a spacing of 1 m x 1 m between mounds, 30,000 cuttings are required per hectare if 3 cuttings per mound are used. Plant cuttings 30 cm long with a spacing of 1 meter between rows and 1ft between plants.• A stick, machete, or hoe is used to make holes for planting. Plant the cutting with at least two nodes under the soil to enhance establishment and increase the number of roots that form while leaving only the tip exposed.The soil is firmed into place to ensure good contact between nodes and the soil.• Farmers sometimes hold cuttings for a day or two in a cool, shady place to encourage root initiation before planting.Weed control• Weeds must be controlled during plant establishment and within the first two months after planting, otherwise, they compete with the sweetpotato plants for nutrients and water and may harbour pests and diseases.• Mulching can reduce weed emergence significantly.• Crop rotation also helps prevent the build up of weeds. Intercropping two plant types together can reduce weed problems due to the increased shade and crop competition with weeds through dense crop spacing. Harvesting sweetpotato vines for livestock feeding• After the third week of planting, the sweetpotato crop starts growing vigorously. If leaf growth is more, tuber production decreases. Excess vines and leaves are pruned for optimum tuber production. Pruning 15 cm of the top vine after 75 days of planting is done to prevent excessive vine growth and to harden the tuber. On week before digging up the tuber, the vines are cut at least 10 cm above ground. During harvesting also, a huge amount of sweetpotato vines and leaves are produced (Figure 19). Photo credit: Nathan Maiyo.To reduce the chances of your crop getting infected with virus disease:-Always use planting materials cut from healthylooking plants. Try and make sure the whole field that you take your planting materials from is healthy. • After harvesting, sweetpotato vines can be pre-wilted 2-4 hours in the sun to restrict moisture content to between 40% and 45%, chopped, and fed directly to dairy animals. The vines can also be mixed with other types of dry fodder. They can also be conserved as silage. To make silage, the pre-wilted material is thoroughly mixed with 10% rice bran, wheat bran, maize meal, or cassava meal with 0.5% salt. The mixed contents can be preserved in a plastic bag using the normal silage making procedure.• Silage can be made with chopped vines and tubers at a ratio of 70:30 or mixed with other fodder like Napier grass. Fermentation can be increased by using molasses or sprinkling with maize flour. The conserved silage can be used during dry season feed shortages (Figure 20 and 21).•The inclusion rate in a daily ration depends on the type of the animal, its nutritional requirement, and specific formulation of the feed. For ruminants, it ranges from 10-30% of the total DM in a daily ration.  Photo credit: ILRI/Ben Lukuyu.Desmodium is a legume commonly used as a protein supplement in dairy cattle. Many Kenyan farmers grow it to cut animal production costs. The nutrient content of the legume ranges from 15-18% crude protein (CP) and between 25-30% dry matter (DM). Desmodium is rich in minerals and vitamins.Why should farmers plant Desmodium legume?• It can be established in form of splits and therefore planting materials are easily available within the farmers' networks.• Once fully established, Desmodium forms a complete ground cover that suppresses weeds.• It helps control soil erosion, fixes nitrogen, improves soil fertility and increases yields of intercrops while reducing the use of nitrogen fertilizers.The legume can be intercropped with Napier grass, fodder trees, Rhodes grass, bananas, avocados etc. Particularly, it can be intercropped with Napier grass and maize to help control stemborer and weeds such as Striga under the 'push and pull' technology.The legumes are a good cover crop.Desmodium has many varieties but the most common are greenleaf desmodium (Desmodium intortum), (Figure 22) and silverleaf desmodium (Desmodium uncinatum) (Figure 23). The greenleaf desmodium is leafier with oval reddish brown to purple-coloured leaves. The stem is green. The silverleaf desmodium has ovate, dark green leaves with a silvery midrib at the upper side and whitish hairs on the lower side. The stems are hairy. The legumes are found in many parts of Kenya. The legumes establish well with the addition of Rhizobia bacteria, which live in their roots and fix nitrogen from the air and make it available to growing plants.If farmers cannot find the bacteria, they mix a handful of soil from another Desmodium plot.The best time to plant Desmodium is at the onset of rains. Sowing of seeds can either be by drilling or broadcasting soon after adding the inoculant if available.• Desmodium can be established using seeds or cuttings. Drill seeds into shallow furrows (1 cm) spaced a foot apart (30 cm) then cover with little soil and press lightly. For broadcasting, spread the seeds evenly over the finely prepared seedbed. In both cases, they require adequate rain to germinate well.• Desmodium can also be established cheaply using cuttings. The cutting can be bulky, however. Cuttings should be from mature freshly harvested vines at least 2 feet long with soil still attached to their tillers. Make furrows a foot apart (30 cm) and 10 cm deep; and plant a foot (30 cm) apart with two internodes under the ground. Press lightly to increase contact with the soil.• Apply phosphate fertilizer (TSP) or DAP before planting and mix well with the soil. Farmyard manure or bio-slurry can be used as an alternative.• Desmodium once fully grown can suppress weeds. However, weeding can be done in the early planting stage. Spraying against harmful pests, especially aphids and other diseases is also recommended.Table 5: Advantages and disadvantages of using seed and cutting to establish Desmodium.Benefits of using seeds Hindrance of using seeds• Less bulk to transport to the farm• A small amount of seeds can cover a bigger planting area• Helps to overcome soil-borne diseases• Land must be prepared to fine tilt which requires more labour• Seeds are relatively expensive• Planting with seeds requires skills because the seeds are small and require more dedication and time to grow• Desmodium commonly takes longer to establish than other tropical legumes Harvest just what is needed and spread it in the sun for a few hours to wilt. Chop and mix thoroughly with other forages, such as maize stover or Napier grass, then feed to the animals. Excess Desmodium may be cut, dried, and baled into hay, and used as a protein supplement. It can also be mixed with grass when making hay.• Desmodium is cut and fed directly to the dairy animals either alone or mixed with other feeds like Napier grass and maize stalks.• It is attacked by common pests include aphids and weevils especially at the flowering stage.• Desmodium is commonly attacked by fungal diseases like leaf anthracnose.","tokenCount":"8305"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e97cc6c56827565cac6a8371afd92ef3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/6f7f742a-831d-43c4-96fd-30b5e3963284/retrieve","id":"1605075927"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"be228c8d-1379-4572-8771-d01e91b9094d","pagecount":"2","content":"Evidence link:• https://tinyurl.com/y4jcbsxsDeliverables associated:• D25127 -A prototype of TALIA, the first agricultural virtual extension agent operated entirely by AI (https://tinyurl.com/y4jcbsxs)Project Title: P2107 -Inspire Challenge Winner 2020: \"Hola Talia\"-Boosting extension service through AI Description of the innovation: We created a prototype of TALIA. Farmers need timely information, but extension services often lack the resources to serve farmers adequately. Automated digital technologies can enhance advisory services, but many farmers prefer to speak to extension agents. We created TALIA, the first agriculture virtual extension agent operated entirely by AI. We used IBM Watson a technology used to create virtual agents in banking and health sectors and put it into the context of agricultural extension. • Costa RicaWe created a small prototype that we tested among partners using Telegram. We feel that Watson has true potential to build a complete agricultural assistant to support farmers, however it is a complex endeavor where in-depth experience with Watson is required. • CIAT (Alliance) -Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT -Regional Hub (Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical)","tokenCount":"169"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9ba9d7a563f1ded82fa9c4deb0dcc545","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://data.cimmyt.org/api/access/datafile/:persistentId/?persistentId=hdl:11529/10548786/1","id":"299831647"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7e8dd29a-cf74-4b19-bbde-99921b6f606a","pagecount":"7","content":"CIMMYT is happy to announce a new, improved tropical maize hybrid, CIM19SADT-01, that is now available for uptake by public and private sector partners, especially those interested in marketing or disseminating hybrid maize seed across rainfed tropics of South Asia and similar agro-ecologies in other regions. NARS and seed companies are hereby invited to apply for licenses to pursue national release and/or scale-up seed production and deliver these maize hybrids to farming communities. Product performance and other relevant information for this promising new hybrid are linked below. A more comprehensive listing of CIMMYT maize products available for licensing can be found at the CIMMYT Maize Product Catalog 1 .Each year, CIMMYT's Global Maize Program conducts regional on-station and on-farm hybrid maize trials through a network of NARS and private seed companies in South Asia under various management and environmental conditions. A site summary showing the locations where CIMMYT conducted these trials is provided in Appendix 1, below. Promising maize hybrids developed by the CIMMYT-Asia team, along with relevant checks from private seed companies and national programs, are included in these trials.1. To identify improved maize hybrids with higher yield, stress resilience, and agronomic performance, based on \"must-have\" and \"nice-to-have\" traits included in specific product profiles;2. To provide data to support varietal nomination under National Performance Trials (NPTs), and variety registration/release of new improved CIMMYT hybrids by the regulatory authorities in target countries; 3. To help partners replace outdated, less productive, less resilient and/or less profitable commercial varieties in the target market segment with improved genetics; 4. To monitor the breeding progress and enhance regional genetic gains in maize breeding and product development.In order to be considered during the first round of product allocations and licensing, interested institutions are requested to submit an application by 26 August 2022 through the CIMMYT Maize Licensing Portal 2 . Specific questions or issues faced with regard to the application process may be addressed to GMP-CIMMYT@cgiar.org with attention to Nicholas Davis, Program Manager, Global Maize Program, CIMMYT. Any applications received after the deadline will be considered during subsequent rounds.CIMMYT's maize breeding program is designed around a portfolio strategy, such that each product is evaluated, selected and advanced based on well-defined decision metrics that are strategically aligned to a particular market segment defined by key factors, such as the crop maturity, agro-ecological zones, and key traits of importance.Following rigorous trialing and a stage-gate advancement process started in 2019 and culminating in the 2020 and 2021 South Asia Regional On-Farm Trials, CIMMYT has advanced one new elite maize hybrid, CIM19SADT-01 (previously coded as VH18571) which met the stringent performance criteria for CIMMYT's South Asian Drought Tolerance (SADT) pipeline. While there is variation between different products coming from the same pipeline, the SADT pipeline is designed around the product concept described below: The data on grain yield and other relevant traits of entries across contrasting environments in South Asia, and the performance of selected CIMMYT pre-commercial maize hybrids available for licensing to the partners, is presented in Appendix 2, below.Upon receipt of a duly completed license application for registration and commercialization, the CIMMYT Maize Product Allocation Committee will review the applications received on or before the due date and will take decisions on allocation of specific products based on clear criteria designed to promote equitable support to our valued partners 3 . Any applications received after the deadline will still be accepted for review but will only be considered during subsequent rounds of product allocation.Once CIMMYT finalizes its allocation decisions, applicants considered during the first round of allocations can expect to be notified as to the success or otherwise of their applications latest by 16 September 2022. CIMMYT will maintain absolute confidentiality of commercially sensitive information for all the allocation decisions and related data (e.g., pedigree of an allocated hybrid, data submitted as part of the annual license reporting requirements, etc.). Successful applicants will be expected to demonstrate to CIMMYT that they are making progress along the path towards successful commercialization within reasonable timeframes and are expected to sign an agreement to that effect.Further information regarding the product allocation process is available in the document,  Mean yield performance and agronomic attributes of available elite Intermediate maturing CIMMYT pre-commercial hybrids vis-à-vis commercial and internal genetic check hybrids evaluated in South Asia 2019-2020 Regional Trials and 2020-2021 regional on-farm trials, adapted for South Asia product profiles SADT and SAWLDTOnfarm Mod.Grain Yield ---------------------------------------------------t/ha--------------------------------------------------  Mean yield performance and agronomic attributes of available elite Intermediate maturing CIMMYT pre-commercial hybrids vis-à-vis commercial and internal genetic check hybrids evaluated in South Asia 2019-2020 Regional Trials and 2020-2021 regional on-farm trials, adapted for South Asia product profiles SADT and SAWLDT Grain yield DT, WL and Opt; Tolerance to FSR, TLB TLB (E. turc.) (AI)South Asia Product Profile SADT","tokenCount":"792"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"56d04e328287e9ad179228dd0044e09d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H041013.pdf","id":"1390788029"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a41a09af-dd33-48c3-8f5e-02d1fbb1e17b","pagecount":"47","content":"This report has been produced as part of the Wastewater Agriculture and Sanitation for Poverty Alleviation in Asia (WASPA Asia) project, funded by the European Commission under its Asia Pro Eco II Program. The objective of the project is to improve the livelihoods of urban and peri-urban farmers who are using wastewater in agriculture; and the communities who are responsible for producing the wastewater or consuming the agricultural produce. To do this a holistic approach and sustainable solutions are required along the whole chain of wastewater production and use; from improved sanitation to contaminant reduction, waste treatment, disposal, safe use in agriculture and promotion of hygiene behavior. At the same time a change of practice is required to integrate wastewater planning into urban water resource management, simultaneously applying technical solutions for wastewater treatment and disposal, and a range of preventive measures to mitigate health risks in the short term.Before any such changes can be proposed or implemented it is necessary to have an understanding of the current conditions prevailing in the urban and peri-urban area of the two project research cities, Kurunegala in Sri Lanka and Rajshahi in Bangladesh. These include:wastewater production including its quantity and source; the quality of wastewater being utilized for agriculture; the impact of that use on agriculture and potential risks to health; and the sanitation conditions. To achieve this, a number of related studies have been undertakenunder the WASPA Asia project, the results of which have been presented in a series of reports. This report presents the findings for the water quality assessment conducted in Kurunegala City in 2006 and 2007. It will be followed by further reports on water quality as a series of samples are taken over the project period. The findings of this study will also be combined with the findings of the agriculture, sanitation and stakeholder analysis to produce a more comprehensive report for Kurunegala City.The main objective of the WASPA Asia project is to work with relevant stakeholders to develop participatory action plans to address issues relating to wastewater agriculture in Kurunegala and Rajshahi, and to learn lessons for other similar cities across Asia. This water quality analysis report will provide important information for the development of those participatory action plans. It will also provide a baseline against which to monitor the impacts of project interventions or other changes that may take place in the city during the project period.The water quality component is divided into two parts. The first is the baseline survey which was conducted in July 2006 to provide an initial understanding of the water quality, and to test the sampling methodology and analysis. The second event was the first of a series of sampling events in the two agricultural seasons and will be refered to as the second monitoring event throughout this document. This report only presents one set of data from the regular monitoring and therefore the results cannot be said to be conclusive but only give an initial impression of conditions.The three key reasons for conducting water quality analysis were:• To monitor the quality of water in drainage canals from the city to enable the project team to consider the possible health and environmental risks posed to the communities that live around the project area;• To investigate the suitability of the water for use in agriculture, particularly in relation to the levels of nutrients and substances that may damage crops (such as heavy metals or salinity);• To monitor the impacts of project interventions in terms of improved water quality; and• To provide information to the Learning Alliances to help them to develop the participatory action plans.A survey of point sources of pollution supports the water quality analysis by providing observational evidence of the types of industries, commercial units and other potential sources of pollution that exist in within the Kurunegala city limits. The current status of the work does not give any indication of the level of the pollution but the next step in the analysis is likely to be to try to better understand the pollution produced by key commercial units such as butchers, service stations, private hospitals and hotels.About 78% of Kurunegala town area is drained by two streams, the Wan Ela and the Beu Ela  (FAO) also publishes water quality requirements for agriculture (Ayres and Westcot 1994;Pescod 1992). All these standards are refered to where appropriate in relation to the water quality analysis data for Kurunegala.Pollution sources can be categorised into two types: point and diffuse. Point source pollution is regarded as pollution released via discharges from discrete outlets such as pipes and effluent outfalls. These sources are generally man-made and mediated by man-made devices. Diffuse pollution (also known as non-point source pollution) occurs when there is no discrete or identifiable point of discharge and pollution enters the environment by a multitude of pathways, agricultural pollution from application of pesticides is one example of diffuse pollution.The pollution of the canal water in the project area can be attributed to both point and nonpoint source pollution including:• Small-scale industrial effluent discharged to canals;• Wastewater and sewage discharged into canals;• Dumping of solid waste into canals;• Open defecation on canal banks and in open areas that washes into canals;• Urban runoff and rainwater; and• Chemicals and other wastes from upstream agricultural lands.Samples were collected along the two streams, the Wan Ela and the Beu Ela in the urban area where the pollution occurs and downstream where the water is used for agriculture.The sampling locations (marked 1 -10), which are presented schematically in Figure 3.1were selected considering the point sources of pollution and the suitability of making discharge measurements. This meant that locations next to the confluence or point sources of contamination were avoided, and straight and uniform channel areas free of eddies, slack water and excessive turbulence were selected instead. The locations were established with respect to GPS (Garmin GPS III® Plus) (Table 3.1). Permanent features were noted and photographed to facilitate easy identification of sample points in the future.Ground water sample sites were selected on the two sides of the anicut where water is stored for irrigation purposes and there is the possibility of leaching from the canal (NWSDB 2005).Sample point 8 is a deep water well where the water is used for washing purposes and 7 is a shallow open well which is used for garden crops and could easily be contaminated with runoff. This well was chosen because it is close to the anicut and is an important source of water in the dry season. Most of the wells around the anicut area are not used for drinking water but the water is used for bathing, washing and cooking. Apart from the water held in the anicut there appear to be no other sources of contamination such as toilet pits close to the wells. When collecting the samples the single vertical at centroid-of-flow (VCF) method was used for sampling (ref). Discrete samples were collected from each location in the centroid-of-flow for chemical and microbiological analysis because of the well mixed conditions (vertically and laterally) and shallow flows. The parameters for which the water was sampled are provided in Table 3.2, along with the method of collection, preservation and holding times. The analysis was conducted by the Industrial Technology Institute (ITI) in Colombo, an accredited laboratory, and analyses were performed under strict quality control and quality assurance guidelines using internationally accepted methods of analysis given in Annex III.Measurements of temperature, pH and dissolved oxygen (DO) were conducted in situ using aSension TM 156 Multiparameter meter (U.S.A). The flow velocity measurements were also made. Canal discharges were measured using a portable current meter (Valeport (UK) Model: 001) to facilitate calculation of the pollutant loads. For most locations the six-tenths-depth method of measuring the velocity from the water surface was used because of shallow flows. The two-point method of measuring the velocity at two-tenths-depth and then at eight-tenthsdepths of the depth from the water surface was used where the water levels were high. The average of the two measurements was used as the mean velocity in this case. The measurements were made by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) field staff. The discharge of each ela was calculated using their cross section.Ten parameters were selected for routine monitoring based on the results of the baseline survey and studies conducted by the NWSDB and Peredeniya University. The second water quality monitoring was carried out on December 12, 2006. The water quality monitoring was done jointly with stakeholders NWSDB and Industrial Services Bureau (ISB) in Kurunegala.The samples were collected by the IWMI Field staff and the ISB laboratory staff.Exactly the same locations as the baseline study were sampled for locations 1, 3 -8, but location 2, which is after the hospital was moved to a more downstream site to include all the sources of pollution originating from the hospital as it was found that there are a number of other outlets from the hospital in addition to the outlet from the treatment plant. Location 9 and 10 were moved to a plot of paddy fields where the inlet and outlet to the plot could be easily located and where discharge measurement is possible (Table 3.3). The plot was selected such that the inflow to the selected paddy area is not diverted to other areas apart from the selected plot, which will be important for the agricultural study being conducted as part of the project. Global Positioning System coordinates were once again taken for all locations at the time of sampling. The same sampling methodologies were used but in this and subsequent sampling events, the ISB Laboratory staff made the field measurements and analysed the water for COD and TSS. The parameters BOD 5 , total P, total N, calcium, magnesium and sodium were analysed by ITI as before. The ground water samples from locations 7 and 8 were tested at the NWSDB laboratory in Kurunegala free of charge as a courtesy to the project as it has been agreed that all results will be shared with them. Three composite samples from locations 2, 3 and 6 were collected for parasite cysts and ova testing and were analyzed by the Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, as they were found to be the only laboratory that was familiar with analysis of wastewater for parasites. They used a modified analysis method by Ayres and Mara (1996).Measurements of temperature, pH, DO and conductivity were conducted in situ and the flow velocity measurements were also made as in the baseline but with adjustments for shallow flows. All the tests performed on each site are provided in Table 3.4.   Table 3.4 Color, turbidity, pH, conductivity, chloride, total Alkalinity, free ammonia, nitrate, nitrite N, fluoride, phosphate P, total hardness, total Fe, sulphate and manganesePoint sources of pollution in Kurunegala city were identified as part of the study. As most of the industrial and commercial units in Kurunegala are located along the main roads the project team drove along the roads marking them on a map. The drainage network also runs along the road network and all units along the roads are draining into this system.All units were be categorized with respect to the nature of business (such as hotels, hospitals, schools and vehicle service stations). The likely pollutants for each category will be identified.This will give an indication of the pollutants likely to reach the irrigated area but more importantly will enable the project team and stakeholders in the Learning Alliance to identify solutions to reduce or treat the pollution.This chapter summarizes the water quality results of the baseline survey and the first set of samples from the proposed water quality monitoring programme. The chapter discusses the implications of the results for agriculture, as well as possible explanations for the presence and concentrations of certain parameters.Electrical conductivity (EC) is a measure of the ions present in water as the conductivity increases with the number of ions. It is also effectively a surrogate for total dissolved solids (TDS) and is important for irrigation because it is a measure of the salinity of the water (Metcalf and Eddy 2003). The conductivity test does not identify the dissolved salts or the effects they may have on crops or soil, but it does indicate fairly reliably the degree with which a salinity problem is likely to occur. Salinity restricts the availability of water to plants by lowering the total water potential in the soil. Salinity also has an impact on crop physiology and yield with visible injury occuring at high salinity levels. Usually crop yield is independent of salt concentration when salinity is below some threshold level then yield gradually decreases to zero as the salt concentration increases to the level which cannot be tolerated by a given crop. Rice is a crop which is moderately sensitive to salt.The FAO has developed guidelines for the evaluation of water quality for irrigation and suggests that there need be (Ayres and Westcot 1994):• No restrictions on the use of irrigation water with an EC of 0.7 dS m -1 (700 µS cm -1 ) or a TDS concentration of less than 450 mg l -1 ; • Slight to moderate restrictions if concentrations are in the range 0.7 -3.0 dS m -1 or a TDS concentration of 450 -2000 mg l -1; and • Severe restrictions for irrigation water with an EC of greater than 3.0 dS m -1 or a TDS concentration of more than 2000 mg l -1 .The proposed irrigation water quality standards for Inland Waters in Sri Lanka for EC and TDS are 0.7 dS m -1 (700 µS cm -1 ) and 500mg/l respectively (Annex II).The baseline samples taken of the wastewater used for irrigation in Kurunegala were all within the FAO guidelines for TDS and EC and the values at sample point 9, the start of the irrigated area, are 168 mg l -1 and 280 µS cm -1 respectively. Only one of the samples of ground water, which is not used for irrigation, was above the guideline values (Figure 4.1).Likewise, all the samples in the first set of regular monitoring were within the FAO guidelines and the proposed irrigation water quality guidelines in Sri Lanka (700 µS cm -1 ). The highest conductivity value reported was 457 µS cm -1 at location 5 and the EC value at the start of the irrigated area (sample point 9) was 298 µS cm -1 . The hydrogen-ion concentration is an important quality parameter of both natural waters and wastewater. The usual means of expressing this is as pH, which his defined as the negative logarithm of the hydrogen-ion concentration. The pH range suitable for the existence of most biological life is quite narrow and critical, and is typically 6-9 (Metcalf and Eddy 2003). High pH values above 8.5 are often caused by high bicarbonate (HCO 3 -) and carbonate (CO 3 2-) concentrations, known as alkalinity (Bauder et al. 2004). High carbonates cause calcium and magnesium ions to form insoluble minerals leaving sodium as the dominant ion in solution.Highly alkaline water can intensify sodic soil conditions, which will have implications for agriculture.The samples from all locations except sampling point 2, the Beu Ela just after the hospital outlet were within this range and within the Sri Lanka limit for industrial wastewater being discharged to irrigated land (CEA 2001). The pH of location 2 in the second monitoring event is 7.56 and is within the limit (Figure 3.2). The pH in ground water samples 7 and 8 were 8.08 and 8.14 respectively. Nitrogen is a necessary primary macronutrient for plants that stimulates plant growth and is usually added as a fertilizer but can also be found in wastewater as nitrate, ammonia, organic nitrogen or nitrite (FAO 2006). The most important factor for plants is the total amount of nitrogen (N) regardless of whether it is in the form of nitrate-nitrogen (NO 3 -N), ammoniumnitrogen (NH 4 -N) or organic-nitrogen (Org-N) but by reporting in the form of total nitrogen comparisons can be made (Ayres and Westcot 1994). If excess nitrogen is applied to the crop it can result in: over-stimulation and excessive growth which attracts pests; delayed maturity; or a reduction in the quality of the crop. The concentration of nitrogen required varies according to the crop with more sensitive crops being affected by nitrogen concentrations above 5 mg l -1 , whilst most other crops are relatively unaffected until nitrogen exceeds 30 mg l -1 . The sensitivity of crops also varies with the growth stage; high nitrogen levels may be beneficial during early growth stages but may cause yield losses during the later flowering and fruiting stages, consequently high nitrogen water, including domestic wastewater, can be used as a fertilizer early in the season but should ideally be reduced or blended with other sources of water later in the growth cycle (Ayres and Westcot 2004).Nitrogen is known to be a sensitive component in rice culture because excessive nitrogen application can cause lodging 2 of rice plants (Yoon et al. 2001).In general, the nitrogen levels in the project area were fairly low and were all below 30 mg l -1 .However, six of the samples were above the 5 mg l -1 proposed for irrigation water for Sri Lanka. The total nitrogen concentration of the ground water was among the highest of the samples but the NO 3 -N was below the WHO (1998) Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality.The highest concentration of total N, NO 3 -N and NH 4 -N was found at sample point 5 on the Wan Ela, just before it joins the Beu Ela, however, given that the pH is 7.32 the ammonia level satisfies the minimum quality criteria of 9.1mg l -1 at pH<7.5 of the proposed ambient water quality standards for Sri Lanka. (Figure 4.3). The reported value for Total N (TN) is <5mg/l for all locations in the regular monitoring, however, this seems rather low for municipal wastewater especially for location 2. There may be several factors influencing this and further analysis of the data including cross-referencing with rainfall data and discharge data is required. In addition it is likely that inter-aboratory comparison of results will need to be adopted.The ground water samples were not tested for TN but Kjeldal N was measured instead as the analysis was conducted for the project by the NWSDB. In future TN analyses the persulfate TN determination will be adopted to capture all forms of nitrogen including inorganic nitrogen.Ammoniacal N, nitrate and nitrite were tested only in ground water samples due to budgetary constraints and the greater relevance for drinking water but the results showed that they were well within the maximum desirable limit for drinking water. The free ammonia values reported are 0.53 mg l -1 and 0.31 mg l -1 respectively for locations 7 and 8. This is much higher than the maximum desirable level for drinking of 0.06 mg l -1 (SLS 614:1985 part 1).Phosphorus is also a primary macronutrient that is essential to the growth of plants and other biological organisms but quantities can be excessive and if the concentrations in water are too high noxious algal blooms can occur. Phosphates are classified as orthophosphates, polyphosphates and organic phosphates. Municipal waste waters may contain between 4 and 16 mg l -1 of phosphorus as P (Metcalf and Eddy 2003). In Sri Lanka there is currently no limit on phosphorus levels in wastewater but the proposed limit has been set at 0.7 mg l -1(Annex II; CEA 2001).The concentrations of orthophosphate and total phosphate in locations 5 and 10 are relatively higher than other locations but do not exceed the proposed standard for irrigation and agriculture, and are considerably below the typical concentrations for wastewater quoted by Metcalf and Eddy (2003) (Figure 3.4). None the less they do indicate that there is some form of contamination at these points. With the limited current information it can be surmised that the cause of the peak at point 5 is domestic waste, including toilet waste, but that the peak at point 10 is more likely to be arising from agricultural run off of fertilizers applied to the paddy. During the second monitoring event the total phosphorous was tested in all location except the ground water wells. All the values reported exceed the proposed standard for irrigation and agriculture for total phosphate of 0.7 mg l -1 . Location 2 had the highest value at 16.9 mg l -1 which is characteristic of municipal wastewater quoted by Metcalf and Eddy (2003). The most upstream locations (location 1 on Beu Ela and Location 4 on Wan Ela) also have phosphorous values greater than 1 mg l -1 which could well originate from upstream agriculture. Municipal wastewater with 6-20 mg l -1 phosphorous increases the productivity of the crops and when the concentration exceeds 20 mg l -1 the availability of copper, iron and zinc is reduced in alkaline soils (WHO 2006). The highest reported value in the survey in Kurunegala is less than 20 mg l -1 and therefore, it can be assumed that there is no negative effect.Wastewater normally contains low amounts of phosphorous, so its use for irrigation is beneficial and does not negatively impact the environment. This is the case even when wastewater effluents with high concentration of phosphorous are applied over long periods of time although, because phosphorous builds up at the soil surface, it can affect surface waters through soil erosion and runoff (WHO 2006).Trace quantities of many metals can be found in wastewaters, particularly industrial waste but also arising from domestic waste, for example from household cleaning products. Many of these metals are necessary for growth of biological life but only in trace concentrations; if the required concentrations are exceeded they can become toxic and thus interfere with the potential beneficial uses of wastewater (Metcalf and Eddy 2003). It is important to note that however high the metal content of irrigation water, it will not be absorbed by the plants unless it first reaches a threshold concentration in the soil and the metal is in a mobile phase. Metals are bound to soils with pH above 6.5 or with high organic matter content; below this pH adsorption sites are saturated and metals become mobile (WHO 2006).The samples tested for the project were analyzed for a selection of metals that were either beneficial for plant growth, or are likely to cause damage to crops or impact on human health, these included: calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, iron, nickel, copper, cadmium, chromium, arsenic, lead, mercury and boron. Of these, potassium is a primary macronutrient, and calcium and magnesium are secondary macronutrients. Iron, boron and copper can help plant growth and development. Although boron is an essential element, it easily becomes toxic above the required level. All the others directly or indirectly affect the plant growth and development to various degrees and above different threshold levels.Potassium is not an integral part of any major plant component but it does play a key role in a vast array of physiological processes vital to plant growth, from protein synthesis to maintenance of plant water balance. Potassium is a macro-nutrient that is present in high concentrations in soils but is not bio-available since it is bound to other compounds.Generally, wastewater contains low potassium concentrations insufficient to cover the plant's theoretical demand, and use of wastewater in agriculture does not normally cause negative environmental impacts (Mikklesen and Camberato 1995).Results show small variations of 3 mg l -1 to 4 mg l -1 within the Beu Ela but much higher variations within the Wan Ela of 3mg l -1 to 57 mg l -1, which may originate from human faeces and urine disposal, as human faeces has on average 1.6% and urine has 3.7% (dry weight) potassium (Strauss 2000) (Annex VII and Annex VIII). The high potassium value in location 5 could be the result of faecal contamination from the shanty community but this is not confirmed. In the irrigation canal in the agricultural area the measured values vary between 2 and 3 mg l -1 .The relative proportion of sodium to other cations is determined by the Sodium Adsorption Ratio (SAR). This index quantifies the proportion of sodium (Na + ) to calcium (Ca in the second monitoring event. The variation within within the irrigation canal is less at 0.78 to 1.05; and 1.25 to 1.17 for the respective sampling events. These values are far below the WHO (2006) restricted limits for irrigation water. The Proposed Ambient Water Quality Standard range for SAR for irrigation and agriculture in Sri Lanka is 6-15 (Annex II).Excessive iron in wastewater can reduce the dissolved phosphorous component by precipitating the dissolved phosphate. Therefore, phosphorous might not be readily available for plant uptake in the presence of excessive iron. The concentration of iron ranged from 0.6 mg l -1 in one of the ground water samples to 2.5 mg l -1 in the in-flow to Beu Ela (point 1) and at point 5; however there was no clear pattern in the variability of iron concentrations (Figure 4.). The WHO recommended maximum concentration of Fe for crop production is 5mg l -1 and the reported values for the project samples are much below this level.Iron was tested only in ground water samples in the regular monitoring and the concentrations are within the permissible maximum level for drinking of 1.0 mg l -1 proposed by SLS 614:1985 part 1. Boron (B) is an essential element for plant growth but in relatively small amounts. For example, for some plants 0.2 mg l -1 in irrigation water is essential but 1-2 mg l -1 may be toxic, although there is a wide range of tolerance between crops and most crop toxicity symptoms occur after concentrations in leaf blades exceed 250 mg kg -1 dry weight. Typical symptoms are a yellowing of leaves, spotting or drying of leaf tissue (Ayres and Westcot 2004). The CEA proposed standard in Sri Lanka for irrigation and agriculture is 0.5 mg l -1. The water quality results indicate that boron is not detected where the limit of determination is 1 mg l -1 .A slight to moderate degree of restriction is recommened by WHO (2006) for wastewater having B levels 0.7 to 3mg l -1. There is no restriction of use for waters containing <0.7mg l -1 (WHO, 2006). Therefore, B will be tested using a lower limit of determination in future monitoring events to confirm whether it is below 0.5mg l -1 .The results of the water quality analysis showed that Ni, Cd, As, Pb and Hg were not detected in any of the samples. All samples except that from point 9 were found to contain some Cr but it ranged from 0.05 to 0.06 mg l -1 and was therefore below the national limit for Sri Lanka of 0.1 mg l -1 for effluents disposed of to surface water and below the limit of 1.0 mg l -1 for effluents disposed of to irrigated land (Annex I). Copper was only found to be present in the ground water (sample point 7) and only at a concentration of 0.01 mg l -1 which is the minimum quality standard proposed by the CEA. However, standards are not proposed for Cu for irrigation and agriculture. The WHO recommended maximum concentration is 0.2 mg l -1 , andCu is toxic to a number of plants at 0.1-1.0 mg l -1 in nutrient solutions (WHO, 2006).The DO was measured in situ and the values were found to be in the range of 0.82 to 3.06 mg l -1 in all locations except location 2 which was high at 7.35 mg l -1 . This was unexpected because this point receives waste from the hospital where the treatment plant is currently not functioning. One possible reason for this is that there was a measurement error: if the DO probe was used during the warm up period the analyst may obtain a higher value than actual value. Alternatively the high value may have arisen if the stream was receiving more aerated water from somewhere or if the treatment plant was having some effect even if it was not treating the waste completely. This will be investigated in future sampling events.The most widely used parameter to measure water quality and used in the design of effluent treatment plants is 5-day Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD 5 ). The determination of BOD 5 involves the measurement of the dissolved oxygen (DO) used by microorganisms in the biochemical oxidation of organic matter, and is a measure of organic pollution (Metcalf and Eddy 2003). In the analysis conducted by ITI the method used for BOD 5 analysis had a detection limit of 15 mg l -1 because the water was deemed to be wastewater. The results of the analysis were that all samples were below the limits of detection for the method used.However, a higher BOD 5 was expected and some other data sets from NWSDB and University of Peradeniya suggest that the BOD 5 should be in the range 90-160 mg l -1 . The concentrations may also have been low because the samples were taken during the rainy season but this does not account for the low DO which would imply a high BOD 5 . This will therefore be reanalyzed in future sampling events and the effects of season and rainfall will be considered.The current maximum limit for BOD 5 for industrial effluent discharged to agricultural land is 250 mg l -1 but this is high; the limit for discharge to open water bodies is only 30 mg l -1 and the proposed limits for ambient water quality range from 3 to 5 mg l -1 (Annex I). Therefore, in any future testing of BOD 5 it may be necessary to undertake an inter-laboratory comparison of results and also to use a method which has a detection limit of 5 mg l -1 which is the standard proposed for irrigation and agriculture. However, the proposed standard could be too stringent as municipal wastewater with BOD 5 110-400mg l -1 increases crop productivity (WHO 2006). Continuous irrigation and high organic matter contents may clog soil pores; however, this usually does not occur unless BOD 5 levels exceed 500mg l -1 (WHO, 2006).Chemical oxygen demand (COD) is often measured in addition to or instead of BOD 5 as it has the advantage that it can be measured in a couple of hours and in many \"known\" waters (e.g. fresh water or wastewater) can be used to roughly calculate the BOD. The COD test is used to measure the oxygen equivalent of the organic material in wastewater that can be oxidized chemically using dichromate in acid solution (Metcalf and Eddy 2003).There is no maximum permissible COD level defined for Sri Lanka for irrigation water for agriculture but there is a proposed minimum quality criterion of 40 mg l -1 for Class III waters (general waters). All the samples were within this limit in the baseline survey tested by ITI; though higher values were expected. Some other data sets from NWSDB and University of Peradeniya indicate that the COD could be much higher. As with BOD 5 , the quantity of rain may have been a factor and will be considered in future sampling events. The COD results for the second monitoring event are higher as expected, ranging from 64 to 142 mg l -1 and the reported low values in the baseline survey could be due to some inaccuracy. Careful attention will be given in future monitoring events for both BOD and COD especially since the BOD 5 values for the first regular monitoring were also <15 mg l -1 which is unlikely for municipal wastewater and does not agree with the COD values.The COD is within the general standards for discharge of effluents into inland surface waters, which is 250 mg l -1 . However, the proposed minimum quality criterion of 40 mg l -1 for Class III waters is exceeded. The COD to BOD 5 ratio is in the range 1:4 to 1:6 in all locations, which is unlikely, as there are no large industries in the project area. This high ratio may be due to an inaccuracy in low BOD 5 values reported. The likely ratio of COD to BOD 5 is 1:2 to1:4 for municipal wastewater. The term oil and grease is commonly used and often included in environmental or wastewater quality standards. The term covers fats, oils, waxes and other related constituents of wastewater. Oils and greases are compounds (esters) of alcohol or glycerol (glycerin) with fatty acids. The glycerides of fatty acids that are liquids at ordinary temperatures are called oils and those that are solids are called fats. They can arise from all manner of sources including meats and meat processing, butter, margarine, cooking oil and vehicle oils. They can interfere with biological life at the water surface and also cause unsightly films (Metcalf and Eddy 2003).There is no existing or proposed standards for oil and grease for irrigation and agriculture in Sri Lanka, although for bathing, aquatic life and general waters the oil and grease maximum permissible levels are 200 µg l -1, 10 µg l -1 and 300 µg l -1 respectively. All the samples tested exceeded these limits (Figure 3.6) but the tolerance limit for industrial effluent discharged on land for irrigation of 10 mg l -1 was not exceeded (Annex I). The presence of oil and grease has been one of the main complaints from the stakeholders already interviewed in Kurunegala including residents of the city, peri-urban farmers and representatives of the Municipal Council. The farmers are in contact with the wastewater and the oil and grease is undesirable. This is therefore one of the parameters that will remain in the sampling protocol and will be closely monitored. Work has also been initiated to try to determine the main sources of this pollutant.The biological characteristics of water and wastewater are of fundamental importance to human health, in controlling diseases caused by pathogenic organisms of human origin (Metcalf and Eddy 2003). Untreated wastewater that includes fecal waste contains a variety of excreted organisms including pathogens at very high concentrations (Strauss 2000).Microbial evidence can therefore be used to indicate that a hazard exists in the environment but there is no perfect indicator organism for wastewater as excreted organisms range from bacteria to helminths, protozoa and viruses (WHO 2006). The most common indicator organisms used when monitoring water quality are coliforms and faecal coliforms (Ayers and Mara 1996). The coliform group of bacteria comprises mainly species of the genera Citrobater, Enterobacter, Escherichia and Klebsiella, and includes faecal coliforms of which Escherichia coli (E-coli) is the predominant species (Pescod 1992). Ranges of values reported from different studies are given in Annex VIII for reference. Sri Lanka does not currently have any guidelines for wastewater reuse, only for drinking water, but does propose total coliform (TC) guidelines for fish and aquatic life of 20,000 most probable number per 100 ml (MPN/100 ml) and for irrigation and agriculture of 1,000 MPN/100 ml (Annex II). Guidelines set by WHO for wastewater used in agriculture originally had a maximum faecal coliform (FC) geometric mean number per 100 ml of less than 1,000 for crops likely to be eaten raw, but no standard for irrigation of cereal crops (Pescod 1992).The high level of total and faecal coliforms in samples tested in the baseline survey does not comply with the proposed water quality standards for irrigation and agriculture in Sri Lanka or the WHO guidelines for use of wastewater in agriculture (CEA 2001;WHO 2006). The highest contamination level was found in sample 5 (Wan Ela exit point from the city), which is close to the Wilgoda Line community, it may therefore be that Wilgoda Line is the source of this contamination, but further research is needed to confirm this as it could also be because it is the down stream point of the city and therefore contains the highest concentration of all the city waste. The water in the canal which takes water from the anicut to the paddy fields was found to have 5 x 10 5 MPN of coliforms /100ml. The water in the irrigation canal near the paddy lands (entry point to the paddy fields) had 16 x 10 4 MPN of coliforms/100ml, which is above the limits set by the WHO for wastewater used in agriculture (Table 4.1). The groundwater samples analyzed (7 and 8) also showed high faecal contamination. The well numbered sample point 8 is used for bathing but the water quality does not comply with the bathing water standards for Coliforms given in the CEA proposed water quality standards.The microbiological analysis was carried out with strict quality control according to ITI, however the samples were incubated after 10 hours of sample collection therefore the 6 hour holding time was not satisfied (American Public Health Association 2001). Efforts will be made to prevent this from happening in future sampling events in order to achieve accurate results and a clear picture of the water quality situation in Kurunegala. However, more recent guidelines (Environment Protection Authority (EPA) 2006) have made provisions for a 24 hour holding time for microbiological analysis although a 6 hour holding time is preferable. Therefore, it is assumed that the errors are minimal as the samples were preserved by refrigeration (cooling to a temperature of <4 o C) immediately after collection and kept refrigerated until tested. What is more of a problem is the sensitivity of the test used, as the reported results for both total and faecal coliforms are the same for all locations except location 7 but it is usual to expect the faecal coliform numbers to be lower than the total coliform numbers. Consequently, in future monitoring events it is recommended to use a technique with higher sensitivity.In the first of the regular sampling event the 6 hour holding time was satisfied and the detection limit of 1000 coliform/100 ml was used, which is the proposed standard for irrigation and agriculture in Sri Lanka. In this sampling event the results showed that the samples from all the locations from 1-6 exceeded the Sri Lankan proposed total coliform standard for irrigation and agriculture which is 1000 Coliforms/100ml. In locations 9 and 10 where the water it is used for irrigation and agriculture it is however much below the proposed standard at just 53 Coliforms/100ml and 29 Coliforms/100ml respectively. The wastewater travels some 2 km from the anicut in the irrigation canal to reach location 9 and it is likely the reduction of coliforms happens in this process. The seasonal effect and the effect of the 2 km strech of the irrigation canal and travel time are yet to be studied and understood with the future monitoring events. However, all locations except the deep water well at location 8 are fecally contaminated to some extent. The contamination levels at locations 3, 5 and 6 are much higher at >1000/100ml. These locations are the most downstream locations of Wan Ela and Beu Ela and the variation of fecal contamination from upstream to downstream are clear.Of the three sample locations tested, only one was positive for parasite eggs (Table 3.3).Only, pin worm eggs (Enterobius vermicularis) were found in the sample, indicating feacal contamination of the storage water. This was Location 6, where the water was held at the anicut for irrigation purposes. The water quality in the anicut did not satisfy the WHO quality criterion laid out in the guidelines for safe use of wastewater for irrigation and agriculture (WHO 2006). The sampling crew experienced a difficulty in collecting the sample from location 6 for parasite studies as the anicut was opened just before the sampling and much of the water had therefore drained away to the paddy fields. The sample was collected from the remaining water in the anicut and therefore, some of the content from the sediment may have been picked up as well. The open defecation practice of children in the wilgoda low income community could have contributed to this fidning. The inlet to the paddy field is some 2 Km away from the anicut and therefore, it is important to test location 9 for parasite cysts and ova in future monitoring events, to see the suitability of the water for irrigation and agriculture.The seasonal effects, effect of the 2 km stretch of the irrigation canal and flow rate are yet to be studied and understood with the future monitoring events. The discharge data was used in conjunction with the water quality data to calculate the overall pollutant loads for some of the key parameters. The discharge data are presented in Table 5.1 and in both sampling occasions the discharge of Beu Ela was greater than the discharge in Wan Ela. The discharge of Wan Ela increased approximately by an order of magnitute from location 4 to 5 indicating high wastewater discharge from the city center. The discharge of Beu Ela also increased from location 1 to location 3 however the magnitude of increase was less. 2 the anicut was opened at the time of the sampling and the flow was fluctuating.The discharges of locations 9 and 10 were not measurable with the current meter as the channel width was too small and in future another method will be used, involving floats and a stop watch. Attention will be paid in future sampling programs to select an inlet and outlet where current metering is possible. The water level and flow rate measurements will be made more frequently to calculate the amount of water available for irrigation.Calculation of the load of the various constituents is important to determine the total quantity of each constituent that passes a certain point in a given amount of time. The results from individual discrete samples can be mathematically converted to a composite value using three different weighting techniques based on time, stream flow and volume. Generally, a single set of field-measurement data is used to represent an entire stream cross section at a sampling site and can be useful when calculating chemical loads (www.water.usgs.gov).Composite values were calculated from the discrete concentration values (mg l -1 ) based on time because of well mixed conditions and shallow flows which gives rise to uniform concentrations within a particular cross section.If cross sectional data are used the following equation is required:Where t = time in seconds c(t) = Concentration at time (t) in mg l -1Load =k t ∫c(t) q(t) dt q(t) = Water discharge at time (t) in m 3 s -1This can be used to derive the following equation for single data sets, which was used in this study:)The loads of certain parameters were therefore roughly calculated, in kilograms per day (kg day -1 ), using the baseline water quality data for locations 1 to 6 (Table 5.2). This is a crude estimation to indicate the loads brought into the anicut by the two canals and load exported to the agricultural area. The loads at locations 9 and 10 (inlet and outlet to the agricultural field)will be estimated more precisely in future monitoring. The location 3 and 5 loads indicate the nutrient loads brought into the anicut by the Beu Ela and Wan Ela respectively. It is clear from the results that the nitrate, total nitrogen and potassium loads brought by Wan Ela are much higher than the Beu Ela. The phosphorous load and TSS load are almost the same in both canals while the phosphate laod is slightly higher in Wan Ela.Knowledge of the quality of irrigation water is important in judging its suitability for agriculture.The suitability of irrigation water depends upon several factors associated with characteristic of water, soil, plant and climate, and can be expressed by the following relationship (Gunawardhana 2005). It evident from the water quality concentrations and loads presented in the above results that the nutrients nitrogen and potassium are available in the water in significant amounts but how farmers utilize these incoming nutrients is yet to be understood. The values calculated do not represent the spatial and temporal variation hence more frequent analysis are necessary along the canals and even within the farmers fields, as behavior of these NPK in the field is highly complex. Phosphate levels seem to be low but continuous additions of phosphate in low quantities are more important than for agriculture than a large, sudden inflow, so this could prove to be beneficial.The industrial and commercial units along main roads within the city limits and also by-roads in the city centre dispose of their wastewater to the main drainage canals. The NWSDB has identified and mapped the major inlets along Beu Ela and Wan Ela that they consider to be sources of pollution. There are 35 inlets along Wan Ela and 21 inlets along Beu Ela, including drains from four service stations, urban run-off, drainage from gardens, wastewater from commercial units, hotels, hospitals, clinics, schools and colleges, as well as from side drains reciving waste from other point sources (Annex V).This data was complemented by a thorough study of the point sources of pollution entering the two canals, which was conducted by the project team and completed in January 2007.This survey catalogued 2727 units in the catchment area of the two canals Wan Ela and Beu Ela (Annex VI). There are no large scale industries in the project area that drain into canals; most of the wastewater appears to be domestic. The hospitals, vehicle service stations, and slaughter houses and meat stalls, hotels and restuarants, schools, technical colleges and tution classes were identified as significant sources of pollution in the area.The National Teaching Hospital of Kurunegala is felt to be a major source of pollution, as the hospital treatment plant is currently not functioning. The hospital discharges a wastewater volume of 758 m 3 day -1 (NWSDB, 2005). Fortunately, the NWSDB has an on-going, longterm project, which specifically addresses the hospital wastewater treatment. In addition twelve major private clinics and medical labs were recorded in the cathment area, which generate hospital waste.There are two large hotels, five medium-scale hotels and approximately 150 small hotels, restaurants and cafes, all of which can be assumed to be producing wastewater that contains oil, grease and detergent, as well as small pieces of food, which contribute to the organic load of the receiving waters. The hotels near the Kurunegala Tank in Wellangolla Road and North Tank Road do not drain into Wan Ela. The Hotels situated at Kurunegala Lake dispose of their waste to the lake (NWSDB, 2005).A large number of units are concentrated in the city center and there is a high degree of pollution there which is responsible for the condition of Wan Ela. The drains along Muslim Mosque Road, Dr. Silva Mawatha, Main Street, Bodhiraja Mawatha, Maliyadeva Street and Parakumba Street are not well maintained and are silted, blocked and overflowing in several places with a large number of inlets from various commercial units. The Theliyagonna area along Kandy Road has a large number of meat stalls concentrated in one area, which is likely to have an impact on the water quality in terms of BOD and E. coli.This initial data will be used to identify a selection of wastewater producers with whom to work. The team will conduct interviewes with the owners and managers to further identify the types and levels of pollutants, and to seek options for pollution reduction and treatment. This information will be provided to the Learning Alliance members and will feed into the participatory action planning process.Most of the parameters tested in the baseline water quality survey were within the the proposed Sri Lankan standards for irrigation and agriculture, and the WHO guidelines for wastewater use in agriculture. Very low if any concentrations of heavy metals were recorded, and these will not therefore be tested in future monitoring events. The most concerning factor was that biological quality parameters were not satisfied.It can be concluded that the major problem in using wastewater in agriculture in the project area is the high level of faecal contamination. The wastewater is mainly used for growing paddy and the health risks are therefore predominatly to agricultural workers and their families; consumers are less likely to be at risk because rice is always cooked. However, there is evidence that vegetables are grown occasionally in small plots which could affect consumers.That said, the total coliform count was substantially lower in the agricultural area than further up-stream. This may be due to natural treatment processes in the 2 km strech of the irrigation canal where there are very few additional sources of pollution. This needs to be studied further to see if the natural processes can be enhanced, for example by slowing the flow and increasing retention time, or enhancing oxygenation.There could also be health risks to the community that use contaminated ground water for washing, cooking and other purposes. Therefore, treatment methodologies and management strategies are needed to bring down the levels of coliform. The shanty community near location 5 (Exit point of Wan Ela) could be a significant source of pollution and are likely to be a source of faecal contamination, but further monitoring is required to confirm this. Another potential source is the abattoir that is located close-by, although it is not a large operation.The other sources of faecal contamination need to be identified, which can lead to inverventions to reduce and control the comtaminant at source.Nutrients are clearly present in the wastewater, and in the case of phosphorus are generally high, although only the phosphate form is taken up by plants. The presence of nutrients can be beneficial for agricultural end use, but the quanitities need to be known before they can be taken advantage of. This is very difficult they may vary considerably over the year and because crop requirements also change throughout the growth cycle, which means that it could be quite a complex process to calculate how much N, P or K are available at certain relevant times.The point source pollution survey identified some potential sources of nutrients but this was mainly of domestic origin -hotels, residencies, hospitals, schools and colleges. These were also the main sources of total coliforms and faecal coliforms identified. An additional source may be road run-off which would include animal faeces and effluent from abattoirs.Although oil and grease were not monitored in the water quality survey a number of farmers reported them as a problem. The inventory of pollution sources identified a number of potential sources for this contaminant, especially vehicle service stations, and hotels and restaurants.Clearly, the main recommendation to improve the quality of water in the canals that are used for agriculture is upstream intervetions to reduce pollution at source. In order to bring down the deterioration of the water quality, it is required:• To work with the industries to improve the quality of thier discharges by introducing cleaner production techniques, Best Management Practices (BMPs) including structural BMPs and institutional options, and wastewater treatment.• To improve the on-site sanitation facilities of low income communities including effective disposal. This must be appropriately designed to ensure that it is used and to avoid failure.• To prevent solid waste from being dumped into the canals by ensuring regular collections, and by increasing composting and recycling in collaboration with the existing solid waste management programs in the area.• To regularly remove solid waste from the canals.  Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), mg/l, max 250Note 1: All efforts should be made to remove colour and unpleasant odour as far as possible.Note 2: These values are based on dilution of effluents by at least 8 volumes of clean receiving water.If the dilution is below 8 times, the permissible limits are multiplied by 1/8 of the actual dilution.Note 3: The General Standards cease to apply with regard to a particular industry when industry specific standards are notified for that industry. ","tokenCount":"8654"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e2406be962ddf0e4bb8c0ed3a32a244e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/12194d85-8876-4055-adae-fe304d7b179c/content","id":"-1156359244"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2600888f-72fb-4acc-850f-28bc0402f0da","pagecount":"69","content":"Objectif L'apprenant doit être capable de réaliser le diagnostic, l'entretien et la réparation des tracteurs agricoles et moteurs avec efficacité dans le respect des normes de sécurité et de l'environnement. 1 Chapitre 1 : Notions de base en mécanique des engins agricolesÊtre capable d'utiliser les outils de travail du mécanicien des tracteurs et des engins agricoles dans le respect des normes de sécurité, de santé et de protection de l'environnement.La mécanique des moteurs et engins agricoles est un domaine de la mécanique qui s'occupe de la maintenance (réparation et entretien). la préparation du matériel ; -la gestion du parc et des chantiers à l'externe ; -la conduite des engins agricoles dans le cadre de travaux agricoles et autres.Comme tout métier, le mécanicien doit avoir diverses connaissances, compétences et qualités qui vont lui permettre d'exercer son métier.Pour cela, il doit connaître les modèles et le fonctionnement des engins agricoles, et doit être capable d'analyser, de poser un bon diagnostic et de réparer. Il doit être dynamique et doté d'une bonne condition physique (endurance).L'organisation et l'aménagement d'un atelier de maintenance comporte : l'atelier (bâtiment ou hangar) et ses composantes, les sections de l'atelier, les équipements de l'atelier et les outillages (Figure 1).Poste d'accueil et de réception, atelier avec fosses de visite, hangars, magasin de produits pétroliers et lubrifiants avec poste de ravitaillement, magasin de pièces de rechange, aire de lavage des engins, bureaux et salle du personnel, vestiaires, sanitaires, fosse de récupération, ❑ Les sections de l'atelier :Réception, lavage de pièces, montage et démontage, diagnostic, électricité, pneumatique, poste de tarage des injecteurs et pompes, soudure/tôlerie, salle de peinture, magasin d'outillage,Etabli équipé d'étau, équipement de levage (Pont, palan, portique, chariot élévateur, crics hydrauliques, etc.), meule, perceuses, cisaille, compresseur d'air, presse, enclume, forge, armoires de rangement, groupe électrogène, poste à souder, bouteille de gaz à souder,Outillage de mécanicien, outillage d'électricien, outillage de soudeur, outillage d'ajusteur, outillage de lavage, outillage de peinture.   A la fin de ce chapitre, l'apprenant doit être capable de décrire les principes de fonctionnement, les différents systèmes et les caractéristiques techniques des moteurs à combustion interne.Les moteurs à combustion interne ont pour fonction de produire de l'énergie mécanique par la transformation de l'énergie chimique des carburants. Ils utilisent généralement l'essence ou le gasoil.Les tracteurs et motoculteurs sont généralement équipés de moteur Diesel. Mais certains des motoculteurs et certains engins de petite puissance sont équipés de moteur à essence.On peut classer les moteurs suivant différents critères :❑ Selon le type de carburant :-Moteur à essence ou moteur à explosion ; -Moteur à gasoil ou Diesel ou encore moteur à combustion. ❑ Selon le nombre de cylindres :-Un (1) cylindre ou monocylindre -Plusieurs cylindres : de 2 jusqu'à 12 ou plus. ❑ Selon le temps du cycle de fonctionnement :-Moteurs à 2 temps : le cycle s'effectue en 1 tour du vilebrequin ; -Moteurs à 4 temps : le cycle s'effectue en 2 tours du vilebrequin.-Moteurs à carburation ; -Moteurs à injection. ❑ Selon la forme du bloc moteur :-Moteurs en ligne : les cylindres sont disposés l'un derrière l'autre (moteur long) -Moteurs en V : les cylindres sont disposés en 2 rangés sous forme de Vé (moteur court) -Moteurs à plat : les cylindres sont opposés les uns par rapport aux autres (moteur moins long et moins haut) Les principaux éléments sont : le bloc moteur, la culasse, le carter, l'embiellage (vilebrequin, bielles, pistons, etc.). Voir le détail à la Figure 3.La rampe de culbuteurs, la culasse, le joint de culasse, le bloc moteur et sa chemise, le carter inférieur, le collecteur d'admission, le collecteur d'échappement, le pot d'échappement, le reniflard, le filtre à combustible, la pompe d'injection, l'injecteur, la pompe à huile, les tuyauteries de lubrification et d'alimentation, les goujons de fixation, etc . .Les culbuteurs, les tiges de culbuteurs, les soupapes, les ressorts de soupapes, les coupelles et leurs demi-lunes, les poussoirs, l'arbre à cames, le piston et les segments, l'axe de piston, la bielle, le vilebrequin, les coussinets de bielles, les paliers, les organes de la pompe à huile, etc.   ❑ Le piston : coulisse dans le cylindre et transmet la pression de combustion à la bielle. ❑ Le cylindre : accueille le piston. Il participe aussi au refroidissement du moteur. On distingue des cylindres à chemises sèches et humides. ❑ Le bloc moteur/bloc-cylindres : il loge les cylindres et comporte les points de fixation du moteur au châssis, réalisé par l'intermédiaire des supports silentblocs (anti vibration). Il supporte les organes de la distribution et comporte les canalisations de l'eau de refroidissement pour évacuer la chaleur. Il existe plusieurs conceptions de bloc-cylindres :-1 ére conception : le bloc-cylindres est un monobloc dans lequel sont directement réalisés les alésages de pistons.-2 e conception : les chemises sont rapportées dans les alésages du bloc-cylindres. Les parois extérieures des chemises forment avec les alésages du bloc-cylindres les cavités d'eau, d'où le nom de chemises humides.-3 e conception : le guidage des pistons est assuré par une chemise placée entièrement soit dans un alésage du bloc, soit à l'intérieur d'un fût rapporté dans ce dernier. La chemise n'est donc pas en contact avec l'eau de refroidissement. Cette chemise est appelée chemise sèche. Note : Sur certains monocylindres de grosse cylindrée, il est prévu un mécanisme de décompression pour amorcer le démarrage.On appelle cycle l'ensemble des phases qui se succèdent dans le moteur ; dans notre cas le cycle comprend quatre phases ou temps :❑ Temps admission : aspiration d'air (moteur diesel) ou de mélange air essence (moteur essence) ; ❑ Temps compression : de l'air ou du mélange ; ❑ Temps combustion-détente : inflammation rapide du mélange provoquant une brusque montée en pression des gaz puis leur détente ; ❑ Temps échappement : évacuation des gaz brûlés. On constate que seul le troisième temps fournit de l'énergie, c'est le temps moteur, les trois autres temps sont résistants.Le carburant produit uniquement de la chaleur quand il brûle dans l'air. Il produit de la puissance lorsqu'il brûle dans un espace clos comme dans un cylindre.❑ Le temps : c'est le déplacement d'une course du piston. ❑ Cycle à 4 temps : c'est un cycle qui comporte 4 courses de piston. Un moteur à combustion interne utilise un gaz inflammable (combustible pulvérisé + air). Ce gaz produit de la combustion et libère une énergie qui pousse le piston vers le bas, entraînant un ensemble de pièces mobiles qui feront tourner le moteur.Ce processus se déroule en 4 temps suivant l'ordre ci-après :  Sur un moteur à deux (2) temps, les canaux de transferts remplacent les soupapes des moteurs quatre (4) temps (voir Erreur ! Source du renvoi introuvable.).  Un moteur, pour fonctionner nécessite que ses composantes travaillent ensemble de façon harmonieuse et synchronisée.Ces composantes sont appelées systèmes. Sur un moteur on distingue les systèmes développés ci-après.Le système d'alimentation en air a pour fonction de recueillir, de purifier l'air et d'alimenter le moteur. -Le filtre à air sec : généralement en carton ou en papier, ce type de filtre peut être de forme ronde ou rectangulaire. Il est enfermé dans un boîtier hermétique rendu étanche par contact avec une bordure en mousse ou en caoutchouc placée autour du filtre. Il s'agit du filtre à air le plus courant.-Le filtre à air humide : fabriqué avec de la mousse, ce filtre à air est légèrement humide afin de faciliter la rétention des particules nocives pour votre moteur. Ce type de filtre est assez rare et peu de voiture en sont équipées.      II dispose de différents circuits (Erreur ! Source du renvoi introuvable.) : un circuit d'aspiration , u n circuit de basse pression, un circuit haute pression, un circuit de moyenne pression qui correspond aux circuits de retour. Système de refroidissement a pour fonction de maintenir le moteur à une bonne température de fonctionnement (refroidit le moteur). On distingue deux types de refroidissement : par air ou liquide.Les moteurs peuvent être refroidis par l'air ambiant. Pour cela, un ventilateur placé à l'avant du moteur envoie de l'air contre les cylindres alors équipés d'ailettes pour augmenter la surface de contact. Ce système est plus économique. Cette solution présente quelques avantages par sa simplicité : aucune vanne, pas de durites, ni d'échangeur de température avec un coût moindre directement en rapport avec sa simplicité. Mais, il montre des limites lors de gros travaux en pleine chaleur. En outre, les cylindres les plus éloignés du ventilateur sont moins bien refroidis.Cette solution qui est largement employée par les motos et les petits moteurs ne peut être envisagée que dans un montage sur une coque totalement à découvert.  Le système de lubrification permet de : ❑ éviter les pertes d'énergie thermique dues aux frottements des pièces mobiles. La lubrification facilite les mouvements rectilignes du piston dans le cylindre ;❑ refroidir avant tout le système de combustion. En effet, la chaleur est en contact direct avec l'huile qui pourra l'évacuer assez rapidement et être refroidie par le circuit.Cette chaleur est différente selon l'endroit du moteur, le plus chaud étant autour de la tête du piston. Les filtres à huile des moteurs modernes stoppent des impuretés de 0,5 microns, soit h milliéme de mm, contre 1/100 mm pour les anciens filtres à huile . ❑ Les organes mécaniques sont surdimensionnés, ❑ Le bruit de fonctionnement est élevé, ❑ La température dans les chambres de combustion est élevée, ❑ L'aptitude au démarrage à froid est moins bonne qu'un moteur à allumage commandé.Chapitre 3 : Technologie des tracteurs et motoculteurs.Connaitre les moteurs, les transmissions, les organes d'utilisation, les organes de commande, les instruments de contrôle et l'équipement de travail (relevage hydraulique, système d'attelage, prise de force, etc.), savoir décrire leurs caractéristiques ainsi que leur fonctionnement.  Les paramètres de classification des tracteurs sont très diversifiés. On distingue :❑ Tracteurs à roues : on les classe suivant :-Le nombre de roues motrices -4 x 2 = deux roues arrières-motrices ;  Un tracteur est constitué de grands ensembles de mécanismes. Ces composantes sont aussi constituées de plusieurs sous-ensembles qui travaillent en interdépendance.La description technique du tracteur est présentée ci-dessous.Le tracteur est composé de :  Cf. chapitre 2.La    Il existe plusieurs systèmes d'entraînement de la prise de force :▪ Type 1 : entraînement par un embrayage classique, toute action de débrayage du conducteur provoque l'arrêt de la prise de force. Ce système est appelé prise de force discontinue ou dépendante ▪ Type 2 : entraînement par un embrayage double effet à commande unique. Ce dispositif permet au conducteur d'arrêter l'avancement du tracteur sans interrompre la prise de puissance. Il est appelé \"prise de force semi-indépendante\".▪ Type 3 : commandée par un embrayage multi-disques, cette prise de puissance est \"totalement indépendante\".▪ Type 4 : entrainé à partir d'un pignon placé à la sortie de la boîte de vitesses. C'est une prise de force \"proportionnelle à l'avancement\".Les prises de force mécanique tournent toujours dans le sens horaire à une vitesse de 540 ou 1000 tr/mn. Les embouts sont classés par type suivant le diamètre et le nombre de cannelures (cf. tableau cidessous).  Le démarreur a pour fonction de faciliter le démarrage du moteur à l'aide de la batterie.-L'alternateur produit et entretient le courant dans le circuit électrique ; -Le boitier de fusibles et le relais protègent le circuit ; -Le tableau de bord informe le tractoriste sur le fonctionnement du tracteur.    Le motoculteur est constitué d'un châssis supportant son moteur et reposant au sol par l'intermédiaire de 2 roues motrices entraînées par une transmission à courroies et une boite de vitesses. Sa manipulation est assurée par un conducteur qui suit la machine à pied en la contrôlant par ses 2 mancherons (guidon). Le guidon est équipé des manettes/leviers de commandes (accélérateur, embrayage, direction, sens de marche, freins, etc.)Pour une meilleure manoeuvrabilité de l'attelage, des options sont proposées. Il existe différents types de mancherons (guidons) de longueur variable (court, moyen et long), réglables en hauteur pour s'ajuster à la taille de l'opérateur ; orientables (réversibles) à 180° ce qui permet d'opérer dans les deux sens (des 2 cotés) ou en biais sur les flancs.Les motoculteurs sont équipés non seulement pour tracter les outils mais aussi pour les animer grâce à leurs prises de forces. Pour opérer dans les sols lourds ou en condition de mauvaise portance du sol (adhérence), il est prévu de roues métalliques ou roues cages ou roues squelettes, pour substituer les roues pneumatiques. La maintenance est l'ensemble des dispositions visant à conserver un matériel en bon état de fonctionnement. Elle est la somme des opérations d'entretien, de réparation, de l'observance des règles de conduite et de conservation d'une machine.Les différentes causes de dégradation sont les usures causées par les frottements des organes et pièces entre eux, ou avec le sol, contact avec des produits chimiques, les effets du soleil, vent, pluie, poussières, chocs accidentels, le vieillissement, etc.En règle générale, c'est la maintenance préventive qui est pratiquée. Celle-ci permet de ne pas être surpris par des pannes en saison de fortes activités.❑ La mise en service, le rodage et les premières opérations des 50 heures ; ❑ Les entretiens : préventifs (journaliers et autres périodiques) et curatifs (réparations) ; ❑ La conservation et le remisage ; ❑ Les opérations : nettoyage, lavage, vidange, réglage, contrôle, montage et démontage, Son importance réside dans le fait qu'elle permet d'effectuer des économies et d'assurer la continuité du travail surtout en périodes de grandes sollicitations.Dans l'utilisation du tracteur l'on doit appliquer les principes de la maintenance.La maintenance permet de réduire les pannes surprises. Car les pannes sont évitées ou détectées à temps et des mesures sont prises pour éviter les grosses réparations. Mais en cas de pannes l'on procède à des réparations généralement programmées. Ainsi, il comprend : ❑ L'entretien journalier ou tout au moins avant ou après chaque utilisation du tracteur et du motoculteur ;❑ Les entretiens périodiques qu'on effectue suivant une programmation (après un certain nombre d'heures de travail pré défini) ; ❑ En période de rodage, c'est-à-dire avant les 100 premières heures, le tracteur ne doit pas travailler à pleine charge. En cas de travaux difficiles, on adoptera une vitesse inférieure à celle qu'on devrait utiliser normalement. ❑ En utilisation normale, ne pas surcharger le tracteur, c'est-à-dire le faire travailler à une vitesse ou avec un nombre de socs, pièces travaillantes... visiblement trop grands pour sa puissance (si l'injection est bien réglée, des fumées à l'échappement peuvent être un signe de surcharge). ❑ Ne pas laisser tourner un moteur au ralenti (le gas-oil non brûlé peut diluer l'huile et entraîner des gommages). ❑ Ne pas emballer un moteur au démarrage (graissage insuffisant). Démarrer et accélérer légèrement pour faire monter la température. ❑ Lorsque le moteur ne veut pas partir, ne pas actionner le démarreur continuellement (répéter les tentatives en laissant un temps entre chaque essai). ❑ Ne jamais forcer des vitesses qui grincent, s'engagent mal. Lever le pied et débrayer à nouveau. ❑ Ne jamais conduire un tracteur en laissant le pied sur l'embrayage, ou en faisant varier la vitesse d'avancement avec l'embrayage (défaut de nombreux conducteurs, en particulier pour s'arrêter ou, pire, dans les virages !)Exercices pratiques de :     -Fournir les équipements de protection individuelle adaptés aux produits chimiques.La diversité des travaux réalisés au sein d'un atelier de maintenance peut conduire à une pollution de la zone de travail. Des mesures particulières doivent être prises pour assurer la protection des employés.Pour le nettoyage de pièces mécaniques remplacer les solvants chlorés ou produits pétroliers par des produits lessiviels ou des fontaines biologiques.-Capter les polluants à la source (fumées de soudage, vapeurs de solvants, émanation de peinture, etc.) avec des dosserets aspirants, hottes, ou bras aspirants. -Prévoir le rejet des polluants à l'extérieur (le recyclage, même avec filtration, est à proscrire).-Prévoir une extraction dans les locaux à pollution spécifique (local de stockage des produits chimiques, armoires chimiques, local de recharge des batteries, etc.) ❑ Ventilation générale :-Prévoir une ventilation générale de l'atelier qui permet de diluer les polluants non captés à la source, en intégrant une compensation d'air neuf. ","tokenCount":"2655"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d1366f67f6cd9c3e4e9ee38c33eedb87","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b4bd7268-917e-42ad-a115-99c070e5c6b2/retrieve","id":"-1266831538"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6ad39e70-b854-4369-a86f-d78f52ce51e3","pagecount":"1","content":"• Leptospira: bacteria that cause leptospirosis, a zoonotic disease endemic in the tropics• Annual global morbidity of about 1,000,000 cases 22 September 2022 ILRI thanks all donors and organizations which globally support its work through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund.• Leptospira spp identification will inform choice of vaccine & serodiagnostic profiles Research Questions• Leptospira reservoirs in Uganda… livestock or environment?• How many people are exposed?• Are people exposed to the same Leptospira species as in the reservoirs?• How do people get the infection?• Sampling of cattle and shoats completed, and lab testing is ongoing.• Collection of swine and rodent samples is ongoing at the last field site.","tokenCount":"109"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f79f7933061557b4402e07c7b83b3398","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ce207108-febf-48c7-a083-8e2d04db626a/retrieve","id":"746364810"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"25bf96a7-ee12-49b9-b472-dbc673233ce9","pagecount":"5","content":"ICARDA a mené cette recherche dans le cadre de la plateforme GENDER (Generating Evidence and New Directions for Equitable Results, en français : Produire des données probantes et concevoir de nouvelles directions en vue de résultats équitables) et de l'initiative du CGIAR De la fragilité à la résilience en Asie centrale et occidentale et en Afrique du Nord. Nous aimerions remercier tous les bailleurs de fonds qui ont soutenu cette recherche par le biais de contributions au Fonds fiduciaire du CGIAR.La région du Moyen-Orient et d'Afrique du Nord (MENA) est extrêmement vulnérable au changement climatique. C'est également la région du monde où les inégalités des genres sont les plus importantes. C'est la conclusion du Rapport sur les inégalités femmes-hommes dans le monde qui révèle que les progrès de la région vers la parité sont de 60,9 % et qu'« au rythme relatif actuel, [la parité] devrait être atteinte dans 142,4 ans selon les estimations » (Forum économique mondial, 2021 : 26).L'agriculture dans la région MENA est de plus en plus féminisée, les femmes représentant plus de 50 % de la main-d'oeuvre agricole dans certains pays (Abdelali-Martini et de Pryck 2015 ; Najjar et coll. 2018). La réduction des inégalités de genre est un important domaine d'intervention identifié comme nécessitant une intensification pour permettre à la région MENA de s'adapter et de renforcer sa résilience au changement climatique. Étant donné qu'un si grand nombre de femmes constituent la main-d'oeuvre agricole de la région par choix  Voici des recommandations actionnables sommaires visant spécifiquement à faire progresser l'égalité de genre dans l'adaptation et la résilience climatique de l'agriculture dans la région MENA : ","tokenCount":"270"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/2214940304.json b/data/part_1/2214940304.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..542c7d1b6073676a8ed963e64f88a3fdd211384b
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4b84098d6ddc6bef748d21d9f6ae8a73","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/23c7624e-cfff-440d-8312-66cfa4022751/retrieve","id":"-267092625"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2441b14c-e2ca-4862-8641-bb985a345a7f","pagecount":"31","content":"Goal: To obtain a lasting increase in food availability and income for the poor through improved bean productivity.Objective: To increase bean productivity through enhanced access and utilization of improved cultivars and management practices in partnership with NARS and regional networks, and through them, with farmers.Important assumptions: Regional bodies and national govemments continue to give priority to bean production. Partners and providers of research and extension services are willing to incorporate and commit resources to innovative approaches to reach end users. Core research capacity and budgets maintained. Continued success in attracting special project funding. Continued donor support to regional networks. Resources in challenge programs accessed.Target Ecoregions: East-Central and southem Africa. Neotropical regions of Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, Brazil and the Andean zone.Beneficiaries and users: Small farmers in tropical America and Africa (mainly women) will obtain higher and more stable yields. Poor consumers, especially women and children, will benefit from lowcost protein and micronutrients. The environment and community at large will benefit from reduced pesticide and fertilizer use. Food legume researchers will access an enhanced knowledge base and germplasm.Output Targets• 15 new large-seeded bush lines with high• NARS and NGO's• High iron lines adopted • Reduced levels of iron ~ mineral trait and resistance to 2 diseases, and zinc deficiency mainly in the red mottled and red seed c1asses (HarvestPlus).• 15 new 1arge seeded clirnbing beans with• NARS, NGO's and               We will highlight three areas of our current research portfolio:Drought has long been a priority for the CIA T bean breeding program, and in recent years we ha ve reported that levels of drought resistance have increased significantly in improved lines. Nonetheless, drought seldom is a yearly event and the question remains, do drought resistant varieties yield well in well-watered years? Yield trials of drought-selected lines were established in three different environments under well-watered and fertile conditions, to investigate the yield potential of droughtresistant materials. Lines were compared with standard commercial checks in small red, small black, and cream-striped (carioca) classes. Virtually no lines yielded significantly less than the respective checks, most yielded rnarginally more, and severa! yielded significantly more. Sorne lines also outyielded low P check cv. Carioca (G4017) under phosphorus stress. Moreover, lines were also earlier to mature and often presented significantly greater yield per da y than checks. W e suggest that selection for drought resistance has favored genes for plant efficiency, perhaps manifested as improved photosynthate mobilization, and that these genes and trait(s) have a beneficia! effect on yield across multiple environments.While genetic enhancement of iron and zinc concentrations is the focus of the bean component of the HarvestPlus program and the AgroSalud project, knowledge of environmental factors that influence mineral concentration is useful to understand the causes of instability in these traits over sites and seasons, and potentiaiiy to manipula te these factors for higher mineral content. A series of studies in Kenya elucidated the effects of macronutrients on iron and zinc in grain. Ten bean lines were grown at Thika and Kabete during the short rain season, and at Kakamega and Kabete in the long rain season. N was applied at rates of 0-150 kg ha• ', P at rates of 0-75 kg ha•', and K at rates of 0-150 kg ha•'. Fertilization increased iron concentration in grain by as muchas 63, 58 and 23% for N, P and K. Zinc increased by as much as 22, 27 and 14% in response to N, P and K. This suggests that if fertilization becomes feasible for African farmers, this could have positive effects on the nutritional quality ofbeans, as well as increasing yields. Among the ten bean lines, AND 620 and Maharagi Soja (previously identified as high iron) presented the highest levels of iron.Marker assisted selection (MAS) has been employed in CIA T headquarters for severa! years, first for resistance to BGYMV, and then for BCMV resistance. This activity has been transferred to Africa, and has been expanded significantly to include selection for resistance genes effective against other diseases. More than 1000 plants were assayed in Uganda for resistance genes (both recessive and dominant) against BCMV and BCMNV. Markers developed at CIAT headquarters to detect the Pythium resistance gene found in RWR 719 (a Rwandan bred line), were tested in Uganda on 111 backcross progeny and 54 farnilies derived from double crosses. Meanwhile, at headquarters 282 F 2derived families were tested for the presence of anthracnose resistance genes derived from G2333. This sort of targeted, selective use of markers at specific points in the breeding program will make breeding more efficient and more directed toward the deployment of recognized, highly useful resistance genes. The decentralized strategy of CIA T in A frica airns to carry out this work m laboratory facilities ofNARS, thus exposing partners to routine application ofthese techniques.PROJECT OUTCOME: LrNKING FARMERS TO BEAN MARKETS Outcome statement: Smallholder Ethiopian farmers benefit from re-invigorated intemational and regional markets for beans. More efficient seed systerns have facilitated response of farmers to this opportunity.Relevant outputs: Outputs 1 and 5, project SN-1 (2002SN-1 ( -2004)); Output 4, IP-2 (2002IP-2 ( -2004) ) Who adopted: The Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research adopted and multiplied genetic materials for distribution to small bean producers. Limited capacity of EIAR to supply seed was addressed with NGO's to develop farmer-led seed systerns. A survey (N=323) revealed that 73% of farrners so reached had never before accessed a new variety.  ","tokenCount":"895"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/2219730223.json b/data/part_1/2219730223.json
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"abd0f38714febcae57d7a45867b6ef31","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e334e210-08fb-41cb-a2a0-c5b68850d690/retrieve","id":"1474021282"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b37a5fc6-f93e-4cec-929c-9521d76dea16","pagecount":"7","content":"Productive and sustainable agriculture can only result from the sustainable utilization and management of the natural resources that carry it. This, however, is usually obstructed by conflicts among intervening decision makers and their different interests regarding the many potential forms and ends to use such resources. The risk and danger of these conflicts are increased in situations of high population or market pressures, nonresponsive policies and the resulting unaccountable decision-making, which are not uncommon regionally. Conflicts related to natural resources then, and their causes constitute central issues in the drive of ASARECA and ECAPAPA because they effectively diminish the present and potential contributions over time of those resources to the goals of economic growth, food security and export competitiveness. Thus, the search for solutions, or ways to manage these conflicts, constitutes a proper investment to improve the present and future accessibility, productivity and sustainability of the natural resource base for regional development. It was against this background that ECAPAPA, in collaboration with partner networks, programmes and projects under ASARECA and also with International Agricultural Research Centres, embarked on a competitive research grant of the project on, \"Natural Resource Management and Use: Conflict Minimising Strategies\". This Policy Brief presents some of the lessons learned from research work related to social capital, governance and conflict management in eastern and central Africa (ECA) 1 . Social capital is related to social norms, networks and trust that promote cooperation within and between communities. The paper examines the linkage between social capital and good governance; provides examples of positive and negative effects of social capital and suggests strategies for integrating social capital considerations in conflict management.In recent years the role of good governance in development is increasingly being emphasized, and the literature has focused on democracy, social equity, respect for human rights and the rule of law. At the same time, many countries in eastern and central Africa have undertaken comprehensive reforms of their public administrative systems, with decentralization as one of the major tools to improve efficiency in public service delivery and to strengthen the involvement of citizens in the local decision-making process. These developments make the debate on the roles of the state, markets and 2 community is service delivery very relevanthence the linkage between social capital and good governance.For a long time, the literature on good governance was dominated by two contending camps that emerged in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: between those who advocated laissez faire dominance of the market and those who advocated comprehensive state intervention as the ideal form of governance. The option of using social capital, or community governance has gained prominence recently as one way of solving problems that both states and the market have failed to address. For example, in situations where the nature of social interactions or of the goods and services being interacted makes contracting very costly, an effective community could monitor the behaviour of its members, rendering them accountable for their actions. In contrast with states and markets, communities more effectively foster and utilize the incentives that people have traditionally deployed to regulate their common activity, such as trust, solidarity, reciprocity, reputation, personal pride, respect, vengeance, and retribution.Research undertaken under ECAPAPA's research programme on conflict minimizing strategies gives some useful lessons related to the role of social capital in minimizing or exacerbating resource use conflicts, as illustrated by two case studies from Kabale and Karamoja.Based on the analysis of selected case studies, key informant and household interviews, the study identified over 700 conflict cases. These included conflicts between multiple local resource users (agriculturalists, livestock owners, upstream and downstream users) for multiple purposes (cultivation, grazing, income, and domestic uses, etc.), and rules (national policies, byelaws and community regulations), as well as conflicts between local communities concerns for better livelihoods and national and international concerns for environment conservation. The types and dimensions of these conflicts were complex, ranging from intra-and supra-household gender relations, land disputes to antagonist, distrustful relationships and violent clashes amongst farmers, and between farmers, local communities, government and external institutions. These conflicts were fuelled by the excessive fragmentation of very small agricultural land, and the high competition over the use of farmland. Because about one third of reported conflicts directly involved women, the study noted that a critical gender perspective is essential in any NRM conflict analysis. The endowment of both bonding and structural social capital, measured as membership in local organization and collective action significantly decreased the probability of conflict occurrence. Similarly, the endowment in linking social capital, expressed as participation in research and development activities and contact with extension and development organizations increased the probability of reporting conflicts.In some cases, aspects of social capital may have adverse effects. The literature cites, for example, strong group bonds, which can reduce tolerance of outsiders and create an undue focus on the group's needs to the detriment of broader society. It is noted that many civil or military conflicts are fuelled when strong intra-group bonding, based on ethnic, religious or national identity, results in and/or plays off suspicion and distrust of other groups. For instance, in the Manyara region of Tanzania cultural diversity is illustrated by the fact that representatives of four quite different linguistic groups are found in close proximity, including the Cushitic speakers (Iraqw and Gorowa); Nilohamites (Barabaig); Bantu (Wambugwe and Khoisan (Hadzabe). In this area, some of the tension generated by the rivalry of different ethnic groups living in close proximity is reflected in the fact that ethnic groups frequently refer to each other through more or less derogatory terms as shown below:Box 1. How the different ethnic groups refer to each other in Manyara region, Tanzania.Gorowa Fiome/Fiomi Fiomi used by neighbouring Bantu Groups. Meaning not known Hadzabe Tindiga/Kangeju Meaning of \"Tindiga\" not obvious, but used derogatively by the settled agricultural communities to denote the 'backward' life of hunting and gathering practised by the Hadzabe Barabaig Man'gati (Ol'mang'at)The Maasai labelled the Barabaig 'ol'mang'at', meaning 'enemy', possibly due to their rivalry over livestock and pasture Iraqw Mbulu \"Mbulu\" labelled by the neighbouring Bantu groups, meaning people who speak with a babbling tongue Another example of negative effects of social capital is contained in the Karamoja case study. The study established that, for a long time, violent conflicts within and between the people of Karamoja region and the neighbouring districts and countries have been raging in the north-eastern part of Uganda. Recent conditions however indicate an increase in their intensity, complexity and public profile, due to competition for scarce resources and proliferation of arms. The conflicts, which range from simple confrontations to violent armed fights have brought great misery to the inhabitants of the region and has had severe impacts on the relations with communities and districts in the region. There is however a complex and intricate correlation between natural resources scarcity, conflicts and vulnerability. For example, the aspects of cross-border movements by the pastoralists usually in pursuit of pasture and other scarce resources, often following pre-colonial patterns, has often elicited major objections and have had major consequences amongst the Karimojong and the neighbouring districts. Some of the effects include decreased agricultural production, population displacement, increasing group identity tensions, food insecurity, increasing vulnerability to natural and man-made disasters, persistent misery and frustrations and increased potentials for more conflicts.Among the causes of conflicts in Karamoja mentioned in the case study, the following could be attributed to strong internal group cohesion, associated with intolerance of others: Competition for scarce resources, especially water and pastures, has led to sporadic conflicts, mostly on cattle raids between cattle keeping groups for many years. A few groups maintain a consistent enmity.  The people of Karamoja have had arms for many years, which they have been using for defence from both the neighbours and the state and their \"enemies\" and also during times of scarcity to threaten other members of the community.  Enormous liking large herds of cattle for diverse reasons (including bride price) is considered the root cause of the inherent cattle raiding among the Karimojong and between them and the other pastoralists in neighbouring areas , including Kenya and Sudan.  In Karamoja, land in terms of individual ownership and fenced off agriculture is not a recognised tenure arrangement and has led to conflicts as these tenure implications conflict with common access and the transhumance patterns practised in the region.Government efforts to put an end to conflicts in Karamoja have not succeededconflicts still persist, and disarmament efforts have failed. The case study suggests the following solutions to address the conflicts: Compulsory primary education -to facilitate attitudinal change for the Karimojong.  Boost for NGO activitiesgiven their successes and flexibility related to democratisation, development, health, and delivery of relief aid.  Peace and reconciliation programmesthrough the organisation of intra-and inter-community consultations.  Provision of water suppliesfor livestock and agricultural development.  Securitythe setting up of permanent barracks along the border between Karamoja and neighbouring districts to minimise unlawfulness, limit cattle raiding and other related atrocities.The literature on conflict management makes a distinction between adversarial systems, which aim at punishing the wrongdoer and reconciliatory, which aim at reconciling the disputants. Another aspect of interest is the principle of conflict avoidance, whereby many institutions associated with warfare among herder communities like the Karimojong, serve to restrict violence. These institutions and rules provide a way to mitigate conflicts and to ensure the payment of reparations when damage or homicide occurs.The Kabale case study found that, while the specific mechanisms for managing conflicts vary with the conflict type, nature, levels and stakeholders or actors involved, the most commonly used mechanisms were arbitration and mediation by the village local council (LC1) members who facilitate negotiation between competing parties to reach a mutually agreed decision. Conflicts opposing local communities' livelihoods and national, and international concerns for conservation of bio-diversity and environment in communities surrounding the park were often resolved by the use of multiple forms of coercion (violence, harassment, intimidation, fines and imprisonment), resulting to antagonist, distrustful relationships and violent clashes between local communities and park authorities.Research findings show that, with respect to resource use conflicts, there can be both positive, as well as adverse effects of social capital. A major lesson that can be derived from this analysis of social capital, governance and conflict management is the need to identify the best institutional mix for good governance -clarify what class of problems are handled will by which combination of institutions. This factor was also emphasised by the World Commission on the Social Dimensions of Globalisation when it identified the following elements for improving good governance: An effective State that ensures high and stable economic growth provides public goods and social protection, raises the capabilities of people through universal access to education and other social services, and promotes gender equality. A vibrant civil society empowered by freedom of association and expression that reflects and voices the full diversity of views and interests. Strong representative organizations of workers and employers.Hence, whereas the market is appropriate where contracts may be written and enforced at low cost, the state alone has the power to make and enforce the rules of the game that govern the interaction of private agents. Communities however may solve problems that both states and markets are ill equipped to address. They rely on dispersed private information often unavailable to states, employers, banks and other large formal organisations to apply rewards and punishments to members according to their conformity.The government has a major role to play in nurturing the positive aspects of social capital. Although devising policies to create social capital generally is problematic, existing literature notes that there could be benefits in integrating social capital considerations into mainstream policy analysis. This would be through ensuring that government policies, programmes and regulations do not unnecessarily or unintentionally erode social capital, and that their beneficial side effects on social capital are taken into account. Also, integrating social capital considerations could highlight opportunities to 6 stimulate latent social capital through policy design, and to harness existing social capital where appropriate. Below, are some of the strategies have been suggested in order to build or support social capital for conflict management. A \"synergy approach\" of social capital and local policy is suggested for managing resource use conflicts. Instead of idealizing social capital and taking it for granted, or ignoring its diverse forms and dimensions, it is important to examine the ways in which social capital and local policies complement each other.  Aspects of social capital may have adverse effects -strong group bonds may reduce tolerance of outsiders and create an undue focus on the group's needs to the detriment of broader society. In such situations, it is important to promote bridging social capital (as it is done by ecumenical religious organisations).Bridging social capital brings harmony between heterogeneous groups, strengthening ties between them.  In areas like Karamoja that are characterised by violent ethnic conflicts, conflict management should consider the various causes, levels and manifestations of the conflict. Conflict resolution in such areas requires a well-guided, clear strategy and vision and it must involve different stakeholders.  In order to encourage the positive aspects of social capital in governance, there is a need to encourage the devolution of responsibilities from central agencies to local governments, the non-governmental sector and/or families and individuals.","tokenCount":"2208"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"aae16aaf14375cbb6aff67b63b36c301","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/c6dd3541-9f85-432b-8f01-8e3a28be4a51/content","id":"-651711114"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"889f41dd-f5de-4be7-b808-e323b2c865db","pagecount":"20","content":"Soil salinity is a major challenge in arid and semi-arid regions that severely affects agricultural production. Increasing global population, anthropogenic activities, unscientific management practices, and climate change exacerbate the problem. Saltaffected soils are present in over 100 countries worldwide and are more common in arid and semi-arid climates. About 932 million hectares are affected by salinization and alkalinization worldwide, with 581 and 351 million hectares affected by sodicity and salinity, respectively (Table 1). Soil salinity already covers 20% of total cultivated lands and 33% of irrigated agricultural lands worldwide. About 40-60% of the world's saltaffected lands are saline and sodic in nature. The Asia Pacific region, which includes Australia, has the highest extent of salt-affected soils. Countries predominantly affected by land salinization include Argentina, Australia, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Thailand, the former Soviet Union, and the USA. Egypt is situated in the northeastern region of Africa, between latitudes 22° and 32° N and longitudes 25° and 34° E. The country has a long history of irrigation, spanning over 5000 years. Egypt's climate is considered arid in the north (Alexandria) and highly dry in the south (Aswan). The aridity of the environment is characterized by a negligible amount of rainfall, which ranges from 190 mm along the Mediterranean coast to 20-50 mm in the south (from October to May). Annual potential evapotranspiration is about 1400 mm in the coastal zones and increases towards the south. Rainfall is not a significant water source for agriculture, except for a small area along the Mediterranean Coast in the Western Desert and the Sinai. Daily evaporation ranges from 1.5 to 8.5 mm, with a mean daily reference evapotranspiration from approximately 2.0 to 10.0.Egypt's total land area is around 100 million ha. The country is heavily populated, with 60 million people living on less than 4% of the land, primarily in the Nile Valley, Nile Delta, and sparse cities along the northern coastal periphery. The total cultivated area in Egypt is 3.36 Mha. Egypt relies entirely on water from the River Nile, which provides 95% of the country's total water supply.An early soil survey revealed that the percentages of salt-affected soils relative to the total cultivated lands were 60% in the Lower Delta, 25% in the Middle Delta, 20% in the Upper Delta and Middle Egypt, and 25% in Upper Egypt (Aboukhaled et al., 1975). A recent inventory concluded that almost 35% of Egypt's agricultural lands (approximately 1 Mha) suffer from salinity, wherein the electrical conductivity of the extract from saturated soil is higher than 4 dS/m (GARE, 1992).The main reason for soil salinity in agriculture regions is the poor management of Delta was salinity affecting its clay-textured alluvial soils. This implies that leaching may be difficult, but the extent of the drainage canals does show that it is possible to drain this soil type. Generally, the soils are more sandy on the edges of the delta and in the desert.This could imply that the ideal soil type for using saline irrigation water is more on the edges of the delta, where there is more sandy, loamy soil inside the delta or in the desert.So, the overall soil type in the delta can be suitable for irrigation with moderately saline water, in combination with drainage and leaching. However, the soil type (heavy clayey to clay) can be problematic in combination with salts. The problem of salts and clay soils consists of the fact that sodium can replace calcium in the cation clay-humus complex, and when this happens, the soil structure \"collapses\". The clay particles become more mobile and can block the pores in the soils, resulting in compact and potentially waterlogged soils (among others). Intensive cropland irrigation under an arid climate is the main reason for secondary soil salinization in Egypt. Unsuitable irrigation management, especially using salty sea and lake water, is a primary reason for increasing soil salinity in which sodium chloride (NaCl) is the dominant salt (EL-Assioti, 1992). Soil salinity is one of the significant problems for agriculture in semi-arid regions. In Egypt, plants are subjected to extreme climatic factors such as high temperatures and drought.Under these conditions, dissolved salts may accumulate in soils because of the insufficient leaching of ions (Mohamed et al., 2007). An accumulation of salt in upper soil layers may also be due to unsuitable irrigation management. Challenges faced by crop plants cultivated in the presence of excess salt are a disturbance of osmotic regulation, ion imbalance, and oxidative stress, which impair plant metabolism and growth.Internationally, soil salinity is classified based on the pH of saturated soil paste, EC of saturated paste extract (ECe), and exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP). Salt-affected soil includes saline soil, sodic soil, and saline-sodic soil. Sodic soils are characterized by high pH (>8.5), high ESP (>15%), and low salt concentration EC (<4.0 dS m -1 ) (Table 2).However, saline soils are characterized by high pH (<8.5), high ESP (<15%), and low salt concentration EC (>4.0 dS m -1 ). The saline-sodic soils are characterized by high pH (<8.5), high ESP (>15%), and low salt concentration EC (>4.0 dS m -1 ). The characteristics are as follows: Major causes of salt-affected soils and their reclamation approaches are listed in Fig. 1. Global warming due to increased concentration of greenhouse gases (e.g., CO2, N2O, CH4) which trap the heat within the atmosphere.Variability in rainfall distribution leads to changes in soil moisture contents.Increase in precipitation leads to soil erosion, groundwater recharge, infiltration and storage, whereas rise in temperature promotes the transpiration and moisture depletion from the soil profile.Rise in sea-level and sea water intrusion in the coastal areas limits their application for irrigation.Countries and populations that are already vulnerable and impacted are at the greatest risk from the effects of climate change. This includes regions that are arid, semi-arid, landlocked, or small island developing states. Climate change will also affect global trade, food markets, and price stability, which could pose new threats to human health. Urgent and extensive efforts are required to address climate change and protect the capacity of food systems to ensure global food security.Egypt is particularly susceptible to the effects of climate change, and is currently facing a variety of challenges, including rising temperatures, extreme weather patterns, water scarcity, and sea level rise. These impacts are already being felt throughout the country and are predicted to become more severe in the following decades. Some of the key impacts of climate change in Egypt are listed here:• Rising Temperatures: Egypt is currently undergoing a warming trend, and it is projected that the average temperatures will increase by 2.1°C by mid-century and 4.4°Cby the end of the century, if high emissions continue. This increase in temperature will result in more frequent and intense heatwaves, which can have a severe impact on the health of vulnerable populations.• Extreme Weather Events: Egypt is experiencing a rise in extreme weather such as heatwaves, dust storms, floods, and droughts, which can cause widespread damage to infrastructure, agriculture, and ecosystems.• Water Scarcity: Egypt, with its arid climate and growing population, is already facing water scarcity. This problem is expected to worsen due to climate change, leading to reduced rainfall and increased evaporation.• Sea Level Rise: Sea level rise is a major threat to Egypt's low-lying coastal areas, including the Nile Delta. Rising seas could inundate homes, farms, and infrastructure, and displace millions of people.Climate change is expected to have negative impacts on Egypt's agriculture.Irregular rainfall, rising temperatures, and water scarcity will lead to reduced crop yields and livestock productivity. In Egypt, irrigation is crucial for agriculture, but water scarcity will limit the irrigation process, which heavily relies on the Nile River. However, climate change is expected to alter the Nile's flow patterns, thus reducing available water for agriculture. Farmers in Egypt are already struggling with various challenges, and the reduction in water resources will only worsen their situation. Extreme weather events like floods and storms can disrupt transportation networks and damage storage facilities, hindering the movement and distribution of food. This can cause food shortages and price spikes, especially in vulnerable areas. Moreover, high humidity and warm temperatures favor the growth and spread of foodborne pathogens, leading to an increase in foodborne illnesses, which can pose a significant health risk to the population. Needless to mention that soil salinity adds to the more adversity and will have stronger impact on country's food supply.Useful techniques for reclaiming salt-affected soils in affected countries along with their major cropping systems are given in Table 3. In addition to various organic and inorganic amendments, applications of microorganisms, halophytes, tree species, land use pattern change, CSA, and innovative irrigation and drainage strategies have been employed to reclaim salt-affected soils worldwide. There are number of amendments as well as management practices available throughout the globe and some of the promising technologies which can be adopted in Egyptian agrarian system are briefly described below.Various types of amendments can be used to reclaim sodic soils with variable impacts on soil properties (Fig. 2). Organic amendments, including biochar and compost of municipal solid wastes (MSW), and inorganic amendments that are rich in calcium, such as fly ash, gypsum, phosphogypsum (Fig. 3), and marine gypsum, as well as zeolites, have been found to be effective. These amendments improve the soil bulk density, aggregate stability, and hydraulic conductivity, while reducing the pH, electrical conductivity (EC),   Other amendments include (i) Sulphur based formulations as an alternate to gypsum, (ii) municipal solid waste compost, (iii) biochar, (iv) fly ash, (v) zeolites,Salt tolerant crops are an important tool for sustaining productivity in salt-affected regions. Plant salt tolerance has been demonstrated through specificity in ion accumulation and better partitioning of accumulated ions within plant cells and tissues.The salt tolerant varieties developed by ICAR-CSSRI are given in Table 3. Agricultural drainage is crucial to eliminate excess water caused by high precipitation, remove dissolved soluble salts from the soil profile, and maintain the groundwater table.However, due to a lack of attention, waterlogged salinity remains a severe issue in many productive areas across Australia, the Middle East, the United States, and Asia. The most effective technique for removing salts from a depth of 1.5 meters is sub-surface drainage (SSD). Two types of SSD can be used for the reclamation of saline soils: (i) horizontal subsurface drainage, which operates up to a depth of 1.5-2.0 meters in the root zone and comprises a network of drains consisting of the main drain, lateral drains, and collectors, and (ii) vertical sub-surface drainage, which involves the pumping of excess water by tube well. SSD installation increases yields by 50-100% in most crops, making it a profitable solution for farmers in salt-affected areas. Investment in surface drainage is also economically viable, with yield benefits ranging from 20 to 28% in sugarcane, 20 to 25% in paddy, 32% in gram, and 50% in Indian bean. Individual farmer-based groundwater recharge structures use gravity to pass excess rain and canal water through a bore well into subsurface sandy zones, which then flows through a recharge filter made up of coarse sand, gravel, and boulders. The filter is located inside a small brick masonry chamber and can be installed in any low-lying area prone to surface water flooding. These structures are easy to maintain and clean, making them more likely to be successful. The process of bioremediation involves the use of microorganisms or microbial consortium for the restoration of salt-affected soil. The soil microbes comprise plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), bacteria, mycorrhiza, and cyanobacteria which produce various hormones and beneficial substances that improve soil quality and promote plant growth. Phytoremediation is another method that involves using plant species to reduce the concentration of salts in cultivated soil. There are mainly three approaches for phytoremediation, namely agroforestry, bio drainage, and halophytic plants.Halophytes are plants that can grow and adapt under saline conditions. There are several genera of halophytes, such as Pandanus, Pongamia, Panicum, Plantago, Porterasia, Prosopis, Rhizophora, Salicornia, and Salvadora, which are commonly used for the reclamation of salt-affected soils. Halophytes are classified based on their salt tolerance or exclusion, as shown in Table 5. Plants that have no capacity to salt permeability through cytoplasm but have limited capacity to grow in salts.These are mainly freshwater plants.Artemisia maritima.Management of nutrients is one of the most vital factors for sustaining crop production on sodic soils or soils irrigated with sodic water. Optimum supply of nutrients to plants provides essential elements and help in overcoming the adverse effects of salts and specific ions stress.Alkali soils have low organic matter and nitrogen, causing most crops to lack nitrogen. High pH and sodicity negatively affect nitrogen transformations. Applying nitrogen fertilizer correctly is essential for maximum benefit. Aside from nitrogen, phosphorus is critical for crop production. Sodic soils contain soluble phosphorus, but research shows varying responses to phosphorus fertilizer. Using amendments and growing rice under submerged conditions can decrease phosphorus levels in surface soil. Applying potassium fertilizer has no effect on rice and wheat yields. Studies suggest that application of potassium can be avoided without reducing crop productivity.Saline groundwater challenges water management in arid and semi-arid regions. Subsurface drip irrigation, controlled atmosphere storage, sprinkler irrigation, and low energy water application devices can save up to 53% of irrigation water and 40% of water compared to surface irrigation. Using saline water in conjunction with fresh water, subsurface drip irrigation can effectively reduce the salinity effects and tackle water scarcity in semi-arid and arid regions.Climate smart conservation agriculture (CSCA) works on the principles of conservation agriculture along with precise input management practices, i.e., nutrient, water, genotypes, labour, and pesticides. Conservation agriculture maintains three basic   freshwater with saline groundwater along with crop residue retention could be an alternative strategy for increasing cropping intensity under saline soils. Results in the saline soils of Haryana, India showed that integration of ZT, deficit irrigation, and mulching is effective in intensifying the cropping system and can be a candidate crop in rotation with saline water irrigated wheat in a semi-arid region.Agriculture faces several challenges worldwide, including meeting food demand while handling limited land resources and saline soils. Adopting water conservation measures and using available saline groundwater for irrigation can supplement freshwater needs. Saline groundwater management, drought and salt-tolerant crops with matching agronomic practices can overcome barriers to intensifying the system.  Following are the thrust research areas that need worldwide future attention to sustain productivity of salt-affected soils under climate change conditions:1) Climate change impact on root zone salinity, solute movement at different depths, and the impact on soil properties of various agro-ecological regions of the world need immediate research attention using hydro-salinity modelling approaches.2) Sub-surface drainage integrated with inland saline aquaculture is a new area of research to achieve sustainable management of salt-affected soils. Experiments should be conducted globally on the basis of salt-load, soil nutrients and carbon loss, and their environmental impacts over long period should be assessed.3) Halophytes have worldwide potential for salt tolerance. The genes of halophytic plants could be transferred to crop genotypes in order to improve the salttolerance capacity of crops, especially for coastal saline areas.4) Naturally available gypsum is scarce and of poor quality. Therefore, development of suitable alternative amendments to gypsum is the need of the hour.) Functionalized biochar has enormous potential to manage sodic soils.Investigations on the impact of functionalized biochar on CaCO3 dissolution in sodic soils, and associated soil properties should be pursued in the near future. ","tokenCount":"2554"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fc57a387f1ee0143e4400d9dda711d5e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e048e63d-2af5-483a-abe3-50e86ec12c7a/retrieve","id":"-2045868893"},"keywords":["Diversification pattern","institution","land pressure","production dynamics Permanent Link Enset","Ethiopia","Farmer's knowledge","In situ and ex situ conservation","Landraces","On-farm diversity and management","Phenotypic variation","Southern Ethiopia","SNP","Xanthomonas wilt"],"sieverID":"c9037575-4549-493f-bbdd-df1ada702f19","pagecount":"63","content":"Africa RISING is a multidisciplinary and integrated research project that focusses on the Sustainable Intensification (SI) of mixed farming systems. It has been designed to identify and promote outcomes in climate smart development, gender integration, improved nutrition, inclusive agricultural sector growth, private sector growth and research and capacity building; USAID Feed the Future (FtF) focus areas. The project is funded by USAID's Bureau of Food Security (BFS) through the FtF initiative.Africa RISING implements systems intensification through the engagement of CGIAR and national partners using an action research approach guided by Innovation Platforms (IPs) at different levels alongside an integrated capacity development programme. The project partners include eight CGIAR centers, two federal and four regional research institutions, four local Universities, seven zonal and 28 woreda level extension offices, NGOs, private entrepreneurs (including breweries and factories), USAID innovation laboratories and farming communities. The innovation platforms are used for cross learning, planning and evaluation purposes.The project is somewhat peculiar in that it had the opportunity to move along the whole Research for Development (R4D) continuum from problem identification through action-oriented adaptive research and scaling partnerships. Actors holding stakes in all steps of this continuum were including in prioritization and planning throughout the project, a factor that we consider to be a major contributor to its success. It explored and prioritized major issues using more than ten tools, formulated seven thematic research areas based on priority issues, which were addressed through 17 primary action-oriented research interventions, and facilitated scaling of validated innovations through co-invested development partnerships. The thematic areas include livestock and feed and forage management, improved crop varieties x management practices, horticulture -fruits and vegetables, natural resource management, and synergies, trade-offs and systems integration. In addition, the project took a crosscutting approach to nutrition, markets and value chains, gender equity, human and institutional capacity development.Africa RISING encourages elective engagement of participating farmers for the SI technologies to ensure a demand-driven focus. The Africa RISING action research interventions fall under two broad categories, namely component or system research. These are however closely linked as the systems focus often conveys important contextual information that helps in designing component technologies to circumvent unintended consequences and address multiple user objectives.The project attached 37 postgraduate students (12 PhD and 25 MSc) for their thesis and dissertation research. Similarly, more than 25,000 partners have been enrolled in training and knowledge-sharing forums. Africa RISING has also been building partners' capacity with practical support by providing consumables and other operational support as well as, in some cases, financial support for partners organizing events that facilitate learning and knowledge-sharing on sustainable intensification.Africa RISING in its second phase (2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020)(2021) has been targeting 0.7 million households with SI technologies. In the last two years (2017 and 2018) alone, the project has managed to reach and benefit more than 136,363 households with its validated technologies. This equates to a land area of 64,136 ha. The geographical and administrative coverage of the project has also increased from four to 28 woredas and four to seven zones. In the remaining three years of the project, we will seek to generate wider evidence for the benefits of the novel R4D techniques adopted, synthesize the lessons learned and deliver the tools required to support the wider employment of these approaches. Only 315 samples of national variety trial were used for analysis of nutritional value on twenty-seven testing and five control varieties using Random Complete Block Design (RCBD). Statistical analysis of the data was carried out using General Linear Model (GLM) procedure of Statistical Analysis System (SAS) software. The model developed by NIRS for the prediction of lentil haulm of crude protein (CP), metabolizable energy (ME), true in vitro organic matter digestibility (TIVOMD), ash and fiber fractions were accurate and successful method. In potential environment varieties (PE) haulm CP (11.53%), at Debre zeit, while crude protein yield (CPY)(0.42t/ha), ME (8.55MJ/kg DM) and TIVOMD (57.89%) at Chefe Donsa had the highest (P<0.05) values. In low moisture stress varieties (LMS) higher (P<0.05) haulm CP(9.90%) was obtained at Minjar, but higher values of CPY(0.38t/ha), ME(8.01MJ/kg DM) and TIVOMD (54.74%) were obtained from Debre zeit.In LMS Dz2012Ln0014 had the highest (P<0.05) CP (11.94%), TIVOMD (57.91%) and the lowest fiber fractions than controls, also higher in ME (8MJ/kgDM) contents than Alem Tena and local check. But, Dz2012Ln0013 had the highest(P<0.05) crude protein yield CPY). In PE Dz2012Ln0018 and Dz2012Ln0024 were the highest (P<0.05) in CP (10.05 and 10.19%), CPY (0.46 and 0.48 t/ha) and ME (8.6 and 8.58MJ/kg DM) contents than controls respectively. But, Dz2012Ln0019 had the highest (P<0.05) TIVOMD (59.45%) value. In the present study haulm yield and grain yield were positively correlated. CPY was positively correlated with all studied agronomic traits with the exceptions of grain yield and harvest index. ME and TIVOMD were positively correlated with yield and yield components. In LMS higher (P<0.05) grain yield was obtained from DZ2012Ln0004 (1.22t/ha), DZ2012Ln0001 (1.07t/ha) and DZ2012Ln0005 (1.02t/ha) than controls. DZ2012Ln0005 (4.83 and 2.55t/ha), DZ2012Ln0013(4.67 and 2.46t/ha), DZ2012Ln0012 (4.43 and 2.42 t/ha) had significantly higher (P<0.05) values of haulm yield and haulm digestible dry matter yield than controls respectively. In PE Derash (2.81t/ha) had the highest (P<0.05) grain yield followed by Alemaya (2.09t/ha) andDz2012Ln0016(2.01t/ha). Significantly high (P<0.05) haulm yield and digestible dry matter yield were obtained from Dz2012Ln0017(6.52 and 3.70t/ha) and Dz2012Ln0026(5.99 and 3.36 t/ha) respectively. Varieties with high haulm nutritional value were not found to be high in their potential utility index that may be, because of their lower values of harvest index due to infestation of mild parasites and incidence of diseases. Key words: Calibration, Validation, Lentil Haulm, Food-Feed  : January 2016 Abstract : Indigenous knowledge is local knowledge that exists and buildup through experiences of the local community in the day-to-day practice and it is economically inexpensive. Farmers use their indigenous knowledge from time immemorial till today, thus it gives a good solution for their problems. However, this knowledge is not well studied, analyzed and documented to be used as a basis for farming system development. Therefore, this study was conducted with the objectives of identifying and documenting farmers' indigenous knowledge in livestock husbandry, and ethno veterinary practices in Endamohoni distric of southern Tigray. The woreda was purposively selected based on its contrasting agro-ecologies (lowland, midland, and highland) and potential of being the source of traditionally knowledgeable peoples who for generations have been associated with livestock rearing. Six kebeles (two kebeles from each of the three agroecologies) were selected as study sites. A total of 175 households (55 from lowland, 60 each from midland and highland), assumed to have a better indigenous knowledge in livestock production were selected for the study. A structured questionnaire was administered to the selected households to collect data on use of indigenous knowledge on livestock husbandry and ethno veterinary practices. After completing the questionnaires for each division, group discussions have been held and an informal meeting with the key informants for triangulation. Result indicated that 88.3, 76.7 and 92.7 % of the respondents in highland, midland and lowland agroecologies respectively were males. The level of education shows that of all the respondents, 55% in highland, 50% in midland and 72.73% in lowland were illiterate. Sheep and cattle in highlands and midlands and goat and cattle in lowland dominated the livestock populations. Shortage of feed in the study areas was ranked as the first constraints of animal production. Farmers use purchasing of crop residue in the highland and midland, destocking in the midland and movement (urna) in the lowland as mitigation mechanisms. Phenotypic selections of different animal species are employed and also keeping history of pedigree is important instrument in the breeding and selection of animals. Breeding of close related livestock is discouraged in the study sites. Seventeen animal diseases and38 aliments were recorded in the study areas and 65 medicinal plants were accordingly documented to treat those diseases. About 83% of the highland, 75 % of the midland and 92.7% of the lowland farmers acquire ethno veterinary knowledge from their old parents. Of the total medicinal plants, (81 %) were wild. In the preparation of the traditional medicine leaves constitute about 51% and 47 % of the medicine was administered orally. : January 2016 Abstract : This study focused on the analysis of wheat value chain in Sinana district of Bale zone with specific objectives of analyzing the market structure-conductperformance of wheat markets; identifying the determinants of wheat supply to the market and market outlet choice of wheat producers, and wheat value addition at different stages of the marketing chain. Primary data were collected from 120 farmers and 37 wheat traders using structured questionnaires. Descriptive statistics and Econometrics models were used to analyze the collected data. Results show that the main wheat value chain actors in the study area are input suppliers, farmers/producers, assemblers, wholesalers, processors, retailers, commission agents and cooperatives. Market concentration ratio at district level was 88.7% which indicated oligopolistic market structure. The result of 2SLS indicated that size of landholding, livestock ownership, family size and quantity of wheat produced influences amount of wheat supplied to market significantly. The multinomial logit model result indicated that the likelihood to choose wholesalers market outlet was significantly influenced by frequency of extension contact, distance from marketplace, own price of the commodity and membership to cooperative compared to accessing assemblers wheat market outlet. The likelihood of accessing cooperative wheat market outlet was significantly influenced by price given to the commodity and distance from marketplace compared to accessing assembler market outlet. The likelihood of accessing processors market outlet was significantly influenced by price of commodity, ownership of transportation facilities and distance of processors from production place. Result of probit model indicated that access to market information, quantity of wheat produced, distance from marketplace access to market information, access to extension and credit services significantly affected farmer's decision to be engaged in value addition. Therefore, policies aiming at increasing farmer's awareness of producing value-added wheat produce to enhance value creations are recommended to strengthen chain development.  ). The objectives were to evaluate the varietal differences among faba bean straws and to evaluate effects of feeding different varieties of faba bean straws with concentrate (2 parts wheat bran: 1 part noug seed cake) fed at the rate 70% straws and 30% concentrate mixture on feed intake, digestibility, body weight gain and carcass characteristics of the animals. The varieties included Mosisa (T1), Walki (T2), Degaga (T3), Shallo (T4) and local (T5) which were grown at Sinana Agricultural Research Center. The experiment consisted of 7 days of digestibility trial and 90 days of feeding trial followed by evaluation of carcass parameters at the end of the feeding period.Randomized complete block design was used for the experiment. The experimental animals were grouped into eight blocks of five animals each based on their initial body weight and each animal within each block was randomly assigned to one of the five treatment diets. Yield were significantly different (P<0.001) among varieties evaluated. Crude protein (CP) contents of faba bean straws were 4.9, 5.1, 5.2, 4.3 and 6.2% for Mosisa, Walki, Degaga, Shallo and local respectively and that of wheat bran (WB) and \"noug\" seed cake (NSC) were 13 and 26.8% respectively. The DM intake of sheep in T2 (754.3 g/day) was higher (P<0.001) than T1, T4 and T5 but did not differ (P>0.001) from T3 (717.9 g/day) and sheep in T3 had higher (P<0.001) DM intake than sheep in T1 and T4. CP intake for T5 was significantly greater (P<0.001) than T3, T1 and T4 whereas no significant difference (P>0.001) from T2. The apparent digestibility of DM of T1, T2 and T3 were greater (P<0.05) than T4 but did not differ (P>0.05) from T5. The OM digestibility was significantly higher (P<0.05) for sheep in T2 than T4. The CP digestibility of sheep in T5 was higher (P<0.001) than that of T3 and T4 but similar (P>0.001) with sheep in T1 and T2 whereas CP digestibility of T1 and T2 were also higher (P<0.001) than T4. Sheep in T2 had greater (P<0.01) average daily gain (64.6 g/day) than sheep in T3 (43.2 g/day), T4 (37.5 g/day) and T5 (48.3 g/day) but no difference (P>0.01) from T1 (52.2 g/day). Feed conversion efficiency was higher (P<0.05) for sheep in T2 as compared to T3, T4 and T5 whereas similar with values obtained for T1. Slaughter body weight and empty body weight were higher (P<0.05) for sheep in T1 and T2 as compared to sheep in T4 but similar (P>0.05) among others.Apart from this, the other carcass components were not affected (P>0.05) by variety of the faba bean straws. It can be concluded that there is significant difference between faba bean straws from different varieties in feed intake, digestibility, body weight gain and feed conversion efficiency and that faba bean straws when supplemented with concentrate had higher potential as animal feed. Based on these results, Walki and Mosisa varieties could be recommended as pulse crop rotation with cereals in the study area. Gudo Beret was found to far exceed safe limits, with soil loss from rainfed cropland estimated at 47 t ha-1 yr-1 ( =82). Estimates of soil loss compared favorably with measurements and estimates from other sub-humid highland catchments in Ethiopia, but are believed to have significantly under-predicted total losses due to the prevalence of gullies in the study area.The Resource Investment Optimization System (RIOS) tool was used to locate the most \"responsive\" sites to SWC. Three scenarios were tested in which EC and BF were weighted according to the ratios 1:1, 2:1, and 1:0. RIOS performed a spatial allocation of the activities and produced a hypothetical post SWC LULC map to represent changes in biophysical parameters where activities were allocated. Soil loss was then estimated for the entire catchment for the hypothetical scenarios and a simplified water balance was performed for the rainfed cropland LULC class to assess the potential impact on baseflow, using the soil water storage/drainage term of the water balance as a proxy. The analysis that followed found that soil loss and soil water storage/drainage were not significantly different between the scenarios. The lack of significance between outcomes of the scenarios was attributed to low data quality for some inputs and the relatively small catchment size -both of which suppressed spatial variability which is needed to produce contrasting relative rankings for the ES objectives in RIOS. Recommendations for improving RIOS were given.Despite the results, the model's unique approach draws attention to both the need to target multiple ES objectives in future conservation goals as well as to account for the offsite benefits of SWC. and Ratio Performance Deviation (RPD) of chemical constituents were within the range of 0.97-0.99, 0.96-0.99 and 3.61-26, respectively. The r2c, r2v and RPD for minerals were between the range of 0.71-0.99, 0.68-0.92 and 1.58-3.55, respectively. Higher CP value was recorded in kabuli and desi type chickpea at Debre zeit, Alem Tena and Minjar locations. Dz2012ck0084 and dz2012ck0018 had higher (P<0.05) CP, ME, TIVOMD and lower in fiber fractions for moisture stress area. On the other hand, dz2012ck0036 had higher grain yield. The CP content of the haulm was significantly (p<0.001) higher and negatively correlated with days to 90% maturity (DTM), grain yield (GYLD), biomass (BM) and haulm yield (HYLD). Moreover, the ME and TIVOMD were negatively correlated to all agronomic traits, except hundred seed weight (HSW). The highest correlation coefficient with strong associations (p<0.001) were observed for BM with HYLD (r=0.90), BM with GYLD (r=0.82), GYLD with HYLD (r= 0.51) and DTF with DTM (r= 0.63). Grain yield was positively and significant (p<0.001) correlated with DTM and BM and also significantly (p<0.001) and negatively correlated with HSW. Genotypes which combined moderately high grain and haulm yield, better haulm quality traits and ultimately medium potential utility index were Dz2012ck000024, Ejere, Chefe and Dz2012ck0017 from kabuli for moisture stress area, Dz2012ck0007, Dz2012ck0001, Dz2012ck0012, Arerti and Dz2012ck0004 from kabuli for potential environment, Dz2012ck0036, Dz2012ck0031 and Dz2012ck0029 and Natoli from desi type chickpea. Generally, the present showed the possibility for simultaneous improvement of high grain and haulm yield with desirable haulm quality traits to address the high demand existing for dual purpose foodfeed traits of chickpea genotypes in mixed-livestock system of Ethiopia. : May 2016 Abstract : The effects of supplementation with graded levels of tagasaste (Chamaecytisus palmensis) leaves on feed intake, digestibility, and body weight gain (BWG) and carcass characteristics were studied using thirty yearling and intact male Menz sheep. The sheep were blocked into six blocks of five sheep based on their initial body weight and animals from each block were randomly assigned to five treatment groups with six replications per treatment in randomized complete block design (RBCD). Barley straw was fed ad libitum as a sole diet in treatment 1 (T1) and as a basal diet supplemented with 100, 200, 300 and 400g dried tagasaste leaf in the other treatments i.e. T2, T3, T4 and T5, respectively. A 90day growth experiment and 7-day digestibility trial were conducted. Dry matter (DM), organic matter (OM), and crude protein (CP) intakes increased (P<0.05) with increasing levels of tagasaste leaf in the diets. Sheep fed T1, T2, T3, T4, and T5 diets gained (P<0.05) -5.5, 19.2, 40.7, 61.8 and 71.8 g/head/ day, respectively. The apparent digestibility of DM, OM, CP, neutral detergent fiber and acid detergent fiber significantly increased (P<0.05) with increasing levels of tagasaste leaf supplementation. The hot carcass weight showed a significant increase from T1 (6.9 kg) to T5 (11 kg) with increasing level of supplementation. Dressing percentage on slaughter weight basis and empty body weight basis did not differ (P>0.05) among treatments, but dressing percentage on empty body weight basis have higher than on slaughter weight basis this imply that the influence of digesta. : June 2016 Abstract : Tagasaste (Chamaecytisus palmensis), also known as tree Lucerne, is an evergreen, hardy leguminous shrub that is adapted to high lands of Ethiopia.The objective of this study was to evaluate growth performance of tree lucerne in terms of survival, root collar diameter (RCD), plant height and biomass yield as influenced by different management. To conduct the present study three highlands districts (woredas) located in southern region (Lemo), in Oromia region (Sinana) and Tigrai region (Endamehoni) were selected. Within each woreda, two kebeles were purposely selected to be used as action sites, and from each kebele a minimum of 25 farmers were selected to participate in tree Lucerne adaptation trials. Each farmer received about 150 seedlings to plant and grow. Data were collected on feed resources, household characteristics and survival and performance of the seedlings. The tree lucerne fodder plots established and performed well were used to collect data on the effect of cutting height, and cutting frequency on the biomass yield of fodder. The fodder plants were subjected to two cutting heights (1m and 1.5m), and three cutting frequencies (2, 3, 4 times per year). The average household family size and livestock holdings were 8.08 heads and 10.35 heads, respectively. According to the result about 66% of the land was used for crop cultivation and the remaining 34% was apportioned into improved forage and other back yard trees in the study area. About 85.4% respondents perceived that the landholding size is decreasing, while about 13% of the farmers said that it remained stable over the years. Grazing (both private and communal) contributed the largest share of the feed resources, followed by crop residues. About 44% of the farmers mentioned that their main reason for engaging in tree lucerne cultivation is to produce livestock feed supplement. The maximum survival rate was observed for plants which grew around backyard on small plot followed by that grown on the contour lines, whereas the lowest survival rate was achieved from plants grown around waterlogged areas. Transplanting too small seedlings showed lower (p<0.05) survival rate as compared to the remaining agronomic and management practices. Planting space of 100cm between rows and 100cm between plants resulted in significantly (p<0.05) higher dry matter yield than 50x50cm spacing. Tree lucerne showed accelerated growth in terms of height and RCD after six months. Annual biomass production was substantially greater for six months cutting interval than for the more frequent harvests in a range of 4.17 to 8.22 t ha-1. Whereas, the two cutting height not showed significant (p<0.05) differences on biomass yield. Leaf proportion of the biomass yield consistently decreased from 63.55 to 54.52% and the stem increased from 2.38 to 16.54% as the cutting interval prolonged from three to six months, respectively. The crude protein contents for the month of June (28%) was significantly (p<0.05) higher than that of October (24.6%), whereas, the other months had intermediate value. The objective of this study was to improve the quantity and quality of forages produced from intercropping of faba bean (Vicia faba L.) with forage oats (Avena sativa L.) on forage biomass, straw, grain yields, and straw quality.Farmers have an experience of not weeding faba bean plots to get more weed biomass. The field trial involved each farmer has 2(10×30) m2 large plots and each plot divided in to (3*10) m2 for two faba bean varieties and three treatment practices. The land was selected carefully for uniformity of slope and fertility. Soil was prepared carefully before sowing. Samples were taken from each treatment plots beginning before soil samples from the upper 15 cm to lower 30cm, the final after harvest soil sample from each treatment plot. The highest (P<0.01) tiller count, number of pods per plant (PPP), seeds per pod (SPP) and grain yield was under improved management, whereas the lowest (P<0.01) was obtained from intercropping management practice. The total feed dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP) and metabolizable energy yields were greater (P<0.05) under intercropping than the remaining management practices. Gebelcho under intercropping had the highest CP content (9.53%) and the lowest CP contents were observed for Dosha under traditional management (6.84%). The mean CP content was highest (P<0.05) under intercropping and lowest (P<0.05) in traditional management practice. The NDF content was lower under intercropping than the remaining management practices. In vitro true organic matter digestibility value (%) ranged from 55.9 (Gebelcho) traditional to 65.9 (Dosha) intercropping management practice. In vitro true dry matter digestibility (IVTDMD) value was higher (P<0.05) under intercropping than other management practices. Generally intercropping management gave higher net benefit and particularly intercropping the variety Dosha (41869ETB ha-1) gave highest net benefit as compared to the remaining variety and management practices. It can be concluded that intercropping faba bean with oats could be feasible to provide reasonable nutritive value of forages without or less affecting the faba bean grain yield in the crop-livestock production systems of Ethiopia. : This study was designed to investigate the adoption of improved food legume technologies and welfare impacts of improved food legume varieties specifically on income, consumption expenditure and calorie intake in Bale highlands of Ethiopia. The study focused particularly on the identification of factors determining adoption of improved food legume technologies, evaluation of welfare impacts of adoption status and intensity of improved food legume varieties, identifying intra-household impact dynamics due to adoption of improved legume varieties and spotting out the major challenges and opportunities faced by smallholders in their adoption of improved food legume technologies.. This study used cross sectional data that acquired from a total of 600 households, which were randomly and proportionately sampled from 12 major legume producer kebeles in 3 districts of Bale highlands by using three-stage sampling technique. Probit and Clog-log binary model were estimated to identify the underlying factors that determine adoption of improved food legume varieties; and fertilizer and pesticide, respectively and separately. PSM model was estimated to evaluate the welfare impacts of adoption of improved food legume varieties. In addition, continuous treatment effects model (GPS) was also employed to estimate the welfare impact of intensity of adoption by discarding non-adopters from the analysis. The results from probit and clog-log indicate that age, livestock holding, farm size, membership in farmers cooperatives, contact with agricultural research center, household head participation in off-farm activity, distance from agricultural extension office and main market; and location (district dummy) were factors that significantly determine farmers decision to adopt improved food legume technologies. The study also indicates that adoption of improved food legume technologies can motivate farmers to shift from the monocropping system to diversified one, improve income since they fetch higher prices than common cereals and they are the major source of protein for the household who cannot acquire it from animal products. However, adoption of improved food legume technologies is highly constrained by laborintensive nature of the production, lack of improved food legume technologies especially waterlogging tolerant varieties and market irregularities. The outputs from PSM indicate that adoption of improved food legume varieties has positive and significant impact on the income and the adopter receive 25% higher income than non-adopter. The intra household analysis indicated that households with productive labor force receive better treatment effect while households with economically dependents female members receive considerably lower treatment effects from adoption of improved food legume varieties, suggesting the prevalent intra-household differences. The result of GPS also confirms the positive effect of intensity of adoption on income, consumption expenditure and calorie intake. : \"Ethiopia is mainly an agrarian nation and the rainfed system has always played a central role in supporting its society. Agriculture is the core driver for Ethiopia's growth and long-term food security. Cultivable land area of the country is estimated to be between 30 -70 million hectares. Currently, some estimates show that only 15 million hectares of land is under cultivation. From the existing cultivated area only about 4 to 5 percent is irrigated. The development of irrigation and agricultural water management thus holds significant potential to improve productivity and reduce vulnerability to climactic volatility in the country. Though Ethiopia has abundant water resources, its agricultural system does not yet fully benefit from the technologies of water management and irrigation. In mixed crop-livestock systems, irrigation can increase crop yield and livestock feed supply through increased crop productivity and residues of food-feed crops. Irrigation also serves as a buffer against drought. GISs and simulation models have contributed to the identification and evaluation of potential solutions to water resource problems during the past decade. Understanding the water resource potential of an area can help devise mechanism for efficient use and maximize benefits while minimizing potential conflicts. GIS and hydrological models can be used to understand the spatial dynamics and dynamics and distribution as well as determinants of water resources within landscape. The main objective of this research is to assess the water resources potential and examine major constraints of the present water resource management and irrigation practices in the Gudo Beret area of the North Shewa Zone of Amhara Regional State. Specific objectives include: Analysis of surface water resources, land use/cover types and irrigable area; identify the constraints of irrigation and water management practices; examine the current policy and by-laws related to irrigation water management and examine the gender and nutrition aspect of small-scale irrigation practice. Relevant spatial data were gathered from high resolution satellite image (PALADIS), soil depth base map, topographic maps and ground survey and GPSs. Non-spatial data were acquired through interview, questionnaire, written sources. Simple random sampling has been employed to select sample irrigation scheme and sample respondents. Analysis of results shows that five rivers and nine springs are available in the study area.The study also identifies six major types of land use/cover (i.e. bare land, built up, farmland, forest, grass land and water bodies). Forty percent of the farm and grass land and 29% of total area were irrigable land. : December 2016 Abstract : Feed shortage and low quality of available feeds are constraints for livestock production in the highlands of Ethiopia. Improved fodder production combined with appropriate postharvest handling practices have been practiced to alleviate the problems. The objective of this study was to evaluate the perception of farmers on improved fodder and quantify the effects of improved fodder in livestock performance, forage yield and quality of intercropped oat-vetch and benefits obtained from the fodder production. The study involved both field observation and questionnaire with 40 purposively selected livestock owners who practiced improved fodder production. The effect of cultivated oat-vetch supplementation on daily body weight gain and milk yield was quantified using 8 oxen, 7 cows and 3 sheep. Forage biomass yield on dry matter (DM) basis was calculated after drying a sample of 300g green forage in an oven at 60 0 C for 48 hours. SAS was used to carry out descriptive statistics on questionnaire data and field observation variables. Feed shortage has been a major constraint for animal production during dry periods and farmers use different coping mechanisms ranging from purchasing of feeds from the market and destocking unproductive animals. The majority of the interviewed households practice irrigation and produce cultivated fodders such as oat-vetch, alfalfa, phalaris and elephant grass. The oat-vetch mixture DM yield in Embahasti (8.71 t/ha) was significantly higher than that in Tsibet (6.48 t/ha), (P<0.05). The mean DM, Ash, OM, CP, NDF, ADF and ADL content of oat-vetch mixture were 94.4, 8.9, 91.1, 11.9, 65.9, 45.9 and 6.1, respectively. The TIVOMD (%) and ME (MJ/kg DM) of oat-vetch mixture were also 60.2 and 8.85, respectively. All respondent farmers replied that supplementation of cultivated fodders to their animals have resulted in positive impact on milk yield, body weight gain, health and coat color of their animals. On-farm observation of the performance of animals indicated that supplemented cows, oxen and sheep were able to gain 293, 265 and 88.9 g of weight per day respectively. : December 2016 Abstract : The study was conducted at Basona Werana Woreda North Shewa zone. Land degradation, which includes degradation of vegetation cover, soil degradation and nutrient depletion, is a major ecological problem generally in Ethiopia and particularly in the study area. As a response of the ever-expanding land degradation, rehabilitation of degraded lands through intervention of Sustainable land management has been practiced in the study area. Despite these efforts, there are no studies in the area, which would provide information on the effectiveness of different intervened sustainable land management practices for further up scaling in the study area. The main aim of the study is to identify, characterize and examine the performance of selected sustainable land management practices in the study area. Selected sustainable land management practices include Tree Lucerne with stone bund, Phalaris with Stone bund, only stone bund, which was introduced in the past three years and area without Sustainable Land Management practice as a control was compared with each other in selected farmlands. All 30 houses hold farmers of the watershed, 5 five key informants and 12 farmlands were selected purposively for the survey and data obtained from agriculture experts of the Kebele. Data collection method include transect work, questionnaire survey, key informant interviews and field observation. Transects were used to collect soil samples and questionnaires to gather the necessary information from the sampled households and key informants. A total of 24 soil samples were taken from selected areas. Six soil samples were taken from each practice site. The samples were compared for selected nutrient. The results of soil chemical property analysis revealed that, the status of soil organic matter, total nitrogen and available phosphorous of the soil with each selected sustainable land management practice showed significant difference. Sustainable land management practices improved farmland soil fertility through maintaining organic matter and plant nutrients and improving soil structure increasing water infiltration and reducing run off. The reason for soil fertility differences may not only be the introduction of set of sustainable land management practices but also to the difference in land management history of the farmlands. The decline in fertility of the soil without the practices may be the removal of plant nutrient by erosion and depletion of soil. The farmers prioritize sustainable land management practices phalaris with stone bund first Tree Lucerne with stone bund second and finally the stone bund are very effective in improving farm land soil fertility. Finally, based on the findings of the study, it has been recommended that farmers have to be encouraged and need to be aware from planning phase to implementation in improving the quality of measures. They have to protect bunds from grazing, practice cut and carry for stall feeding and carry out the maintenance of the structures by : Agriculture is the backbone of the Ethiopian economy and therefore this particular sector determines the growth of all the other sectors and, consequently, the whole national economy. The agricultural sector contributes 42% to the country's GDP, on average, crop production makes up 60% of the sector's outputs whereas livestock accounts for 27% and other areas contribute 13% of the total agricultural value added (CSA, 2015). The sector is dominated by small-scale farmers who practice rain-fed mixed farming by employing traditional technology, adopting a low input and low output production system. RD&E in smallholder agriculture often focuses on specific elements of the farming system, sometimes leading to the introduction of improved agricultural technologies. There has been a plenty of efforts to achieve sustainable intensification in agricultural production, but many efforts fail to map the dissemination of the crop-livestock interventions, to quantify the inputs saved and the extra amount of outputs obtained by the use of improved technologies and to identify the factors affecting the dissemination of the crop-livestock intervention. As a result, this study was conducted with the objectives of mapping the dissemination of the crop-livestock interventions, quantification of the inputs saved and extra outputs obtained and identification of the factors affecting the dissemination. The study was conducted in the eight kebeles of four districts; Lemo from Hadiya Zone, South region; Sinana from Bale Zone, Oromia region; Basona Worena from North Shewa Zone, Amhara region and Endamehoni from South Tigray Zone, Tigray region. In order to generate relevant data, 160 farm households who were participating in the Africa RISING project were selected using multistage sampling technique. This study also showed that potato (ware and seed) varieties introduced by the project propagated within and outside of the intervention locations. Farmers liked potato for its adaptability and high productivity in all four locations. The duality of the function (food and income) of the potato for the smallholders households make it the most disseminating crop across all sites. Potato yield on average was 16 tons per hectare whereas the existing national average was 10 tons per hectare. An average yield of wheat was 21.5 quintals per hectare, average barley yield was 13 quintals and average faba bean yield was 14 quintals per hectare. Interms of profitability potato could fetch on average 62713 birr per hectare when the market price is high, but due to the perishability of the potato and market fluctuation, the net return is not consistent. : Adopting agricultural technologies such as CSA which aims to improve productivity and promote environmental sustainability remains the top agenda for international organizations. Yet, the impacts of these technologies on achieving the goal of food security and environmental sustainability has not been deeply explored. This study was conducted with the objective of assessing the implications of adopting climate smart technologies on soil fertility and productivity. The study employed a comparative analysis between CSA adopters and BAU with 0 year of intervention. Soil survey, HH survey, field observation and key informant interview was used to collect data. The soil survey was conducted to determine the impact of years of intervention on the soil fertility as well as the fertility status of soil under CSA intervention when compared to other land uses. The result of the study revealed that CSA made improvements both on soil fertility and productivity. The SOM content of soil under CSA showed improvement both with intervention and time. Plant nutrients including Nitrogen and phosphorus also showed improvement. The crop and livestock productivity of CSA adopters was found to be higher than BAU. The vegetation dynamics of the area also transformed significantly. The fertility of soil under CSA intervention, however, was lower when compared to other land use systems like agroforestry and grassland. This indicates that CSA needs to be adopted at a landscape level integrating other land use systems for the overall ecological health of the area. : This investigation, through a literature review, outlines how agricultural development is an effective tool for achieving the goals of human development theory, the participatory approach to development and the sustainable development approach. In this investigation, sustainable intensification is identified as an essential part of agricultural development. Through an examination of the literature, it is made clear that there is a low adoption rate for agricultural innovations, this inhibits sustainable intensification. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the distribution of agricultural innovations favours wealthier farmers, who are less deterred by the perceived risk associated with the adoption process. Antecedent research has tried to improve adoption rates by targeting particular groups of farmers, known as farmer typologies.Traditional typologies focus on the structural characteristics of farms, such as farm size, crop diversity and livestock diversity. Despite the use of these typologies, adoption rates remain low. An emerging method for creating typologies incorporates the personal motivations and attitudes of farmers, however, these have not been empirically tested in relation to the real-life adoption of innovations. This investigation used data from the Africa Research In Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation (RISING) project based in the Ethiopian Highlands to investigate three types of typology. The ultimate aim of this investigation was to see whether a particular set of typologies can be used to identify high adopting farmers in the lowest wealth quartiles. The first set of typologies is based solely on the structural characteristics of the farms surveyed. The second set of typologies is solely based on motivational characteristics. The third set of typologies is based on both structural and motivational characteristics. Two variables are used to measure adoption: Adoption rate, which indicates the percentage of innovations which farmers continued to use after phase one of the Africa RISING program; Adoption strength, which measures how strongly farmers have adopted each innovation. The results of this investigation indicate that there is sufficient evidence to support the use of all three sets of typologies to predict high adoption rates and high adoption strength in farmers. However, there is insufficient evidence to support the use of structural clusters for predicting high adoption rates, or adoption strength, for farmers in the lowest wealth quartiles. There is also insufficient evidence to support the use of motivational typologies to predict high adoption rates for farmers in the lowest wealth quartiles. In contrast, the results indicate that motivational typologies could effectively predict high adoption strength for farmers in each individual wealth quartile. There was sufficient evidence to suggest that combined typologies could be used to predict high adoption rates and high adoption strength for farmers in the lowest wealth quartiles. This research shows the promise of using motivational characteristics to group farmers. This investigation should encourage further research which investigates how motivational typologies can be operationalized in order to catalyze sustainable intensification and make agricultural innovations more accessible to the rural poor. : Farmers have been managing agriculture systems for centuries, and trees often play a significant role within these systems. Understanding the local ecological knowledge (LEK) and perceptions of smallholder farmers about integration of trees on farms is essential to the identification of the drivers and understanding the barriers to integrating trees on farm however most times these is not taken into account during planning and research. In this study a model approach was adopted with two contrasting sites one with high adoption levels and the other with low levels of adoption. The main factors that distinguished the two sites are that in Abreha wa atsebha (Site A) practices such as free grazing are no longer being practiced and zero grazing has been adopted. However, on the other hand in Adi gudom (Site B) free grazing is a practice that the community is struggling with and farmers are not very receptive to the idea of tree planting due to the said problem. Most of the trees that farmers would prefer to plant on farm are available in the community nursery in abreha wa atsbeha which is not exactly the same for Adi gudom .Furthermore the trees they have planted are exotic and farmers have little knowledge on how to manage them and the benefits they provide. Bridging these gaps in knowledge presents an opportunity for enhancing adoption. The main drivers to tree planting common to both sites identified by farmers included income generation, ownership, government policy and direct benefits from trees. On the other hand, barriers included farm size, negative interaction, water scarcity, obstruction during ploughing and incapability to fence tree seedlings. Straw from plots of the local varieties of the trials was used to determine the effect of 4% urea treatment, dung ash treatment (0g ash/L, 100 g ash/L, 200 g ash/L 300 g ash/L) and wood ash treatment (0 g ash/L, 150 g ash/L, 200 g ash/L) on the nutritional value. All straw samples were analyzed for proximate analysis, in vitro organic matter digestibility and metabolizable energy using a combination of Near Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy and conventional feed analyses methods. Results showed that farmers prefer using crop residue from pulses over crop residue from cereals for livestock feeding purposes. Proportions of cereal and pulse residue used for soil mulch was positively affected by education level of the farmer, distance between homestead and cultivated land, extension service, awareness about soil mulch, slope of cultivated land, participation in farmer-to-farmer extension and crop residue generated in the preceding season. The proportion of crop residue from pulses that was used as feed was positively affected by education level of the farmer, livestock extension service, number of small ruminants and crop residue stack from the previous season. The effect of the variety, location and variety-location interaction on grain yield, straw yield and straw nutritive value was significant in chickpea and lentil. The correlation between grain yield and straw traits of chickpea was weak in all locations. Grain yield of lentil correlated weakly to crude protein and ME in Chefe Donsa while it correlated moderately to crude protein in Debre Zeit. Grain and straw yields were positively, strongly and significantly correlated in faba bean. Grain yield of faba bean correlated weakly to the nutritive value parameters of straw. Varietal variations in grain yield, straw yield and straw quality traits within its fractions were significant.The botanical structure of faba bean straw can be used as a reliable method for screening faba bean genotypes for straw quality. Urea treatment showed potential to improve the nutritive value of chickpea, faba bean and lentil straw. Dung ash treatment up to 300 g ash/L and wood ash treatment up to 200 g ash/L did not improve the nutritive value of chickpea, faba bean and lentil straw. Integrating straw yield and nutritive value into improvement programs of chickpea, faba bean and lentil could improve the nutrients supply for livestock and increase the amount of cereal straws allocated to soil mulching. The third essay, chapter four, examines the relationship between agricultural intensification and relative farm sustainability, and identifies four clusters of farmers depending on their relative levels of intensification and sustainability.The main thrust of this essay is to examine whether farmers who are highly productive are also sustainable, and whether systems that are relatively more sustainable are mostly on the highly productive farms. The results show that of the farms that are relatively most intensive, in terms of the gross value of crop output per hectare, only 27 percent are relatively more sustainable. Of the farms that are relatively most sustainable, about 60 percent are more intensive. Overall, only 10 percent of the farms were both highly intensive and relatively more sustainable. In order to understand the typology of farmers that are likely to embark on sustainable paths of agricultural The study was conducted with the objective of assessing and documenting indigenous knowledge and perception associated with the distribution, diversity, Enset Xanthomonas Wil, its etiology and mode of transmission, and management of enset in the country, and the genetic diversity of enset landraces that were obtained from different geographical locations in Ethiopia, using Phenotypic traits and to develop a genome sequence data, identify and develop single nucleotide polymorpHism (SNPs) and genotyping of landraces that serve as molecular markers for future marker assisted breeding. Enset genetic resource utilization and management study was conducted in eight ethnic groups in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Regional State. The data was collected mainly through individual interviews and direct on-farm participatory monitoring and observation, key informant interviews.Relevant secondary data, literature and inter-personal data were collected from unpublished progress report from National Enset Research Project, elderly people and senior experts. Enset-based farming system is one of major agricultural systems in Ethiopia that serves as a backbone for at least one-forth of country's population. Farmers used three morphological characters, two growth attributes, disease resistance and five use values traits in folk classification and characterization of enset. A total of 312 folk landraces have been identified. The number of landraces cultivated on individual farms ranged from one to twenty eight (mean of 8.08 ± 0.93). All ethnic groups in the study area use five use categories in order of importance: kocho yield and quality, bulla quality, amicho use, fiber quality and medicinal/ritual value. Of the 312 landraces 245 landraces having more than two use types. Management and maintenance of on-farm enset diversity is influenced by systematic propagation of the landraces, exchange of planting material and selective pressure. Farmers' knowledge and perception of enset Xanthomonas wilt showed that a significant number of farmers are aware of EXW, its symptoms, etiology and transmission and spread, but they are not able to readily relate modes of spread to control methods. Since 2002, EXW became prominent in Hadiya, with the highest EXW incidence and severity, followed by Wolaita, and Kembata-Tembaro. Farmers identified EXW as the major cause for declining production and productivity of enset in the region. EXW has spread widely and rapidly in southern Ethiopia, with significant socioeconomic impacts in smallholders' livelihoods. There is a need for developing knowledge-based strategies and awareness-raising campaign for EXW management. In general, the existing farmers' knowledge on naming, classification and diversity should be complemented with maintenance of the creative dynamics of traditional knowledge and transmission of the knowledge are crucial for constructing sustainable management. Assessment of genetic diversity in enset using Phenotypic markers were subjected to ANOVA and the variations among the landraces and regions were significant (p ≤ 0.01) for all the 15 traits studied.Mean for plant height, central shoot weight before grating, and fermented squeezed kocho yield per hectare per year showed regional variation along an altitude gradient and across cultural differences related to the origin of the collection. Furthermore, there were significant correlations among most of the characters. This included the correlation among agronomic characteristics of primary interest in enset breeding such as plant height, pseudostem height, and fermented squeezed kocho yield per hectare per year. Altitude of the collection sites also significantly impacted the various characteristics studied.Cluster analysis grouped the landraces into five distinct groups, with two outlying landraces. Landraces originating from regions with similar agroclimatic conditions grouped together. Principal component analysis showed that the first four principal components accounted for ~74% of the total variance of the 387 enset landraces for the 15 quantitative traits studied. The linear discriminant analyses depicted about 40.8% (160 of the 387) and 45.2% (175 of 387) correct origin-based classification of the germplasm in terms of altitude zones and regions, respectively. Six qualitative morphological traits were also analyzed using the Shannon Weaver diversity index (H'). The Shannon-Weaver Diversity Index (H') for all sampled germplasm ranged from 0.50 to 0.89, with a mean of 0.73. Analysis of variance for H' revealed highly significant (p<0.01) differences among regions for all traits. Cluster analysis grouped the landraces into four clusters. A high proportion of landraces sourced from similar altitude classes and similar regions were grouped together. This indicated that there was wide variability among landraces studied. The Phenotypic differences in these 15 traits suggest significant degrees of genetic variation and that these traits can be exploited to identify potential donors for future enset improvement efforts. The implication of the current results for plant breeding, germplasm collection, and in situ and ex situ genetic resource conservation are discussed. Seventeen (for genome sequence analysis) and four hundred eighty (for SNP catalogue development) different enset landraces used were obtained from Areka Agricultural Research Center field germplasm. We present raw sequence reads and genome assemblies resulting from the sequencing of 17 landraces of the crop plant enset. Landraces having the same names but different origin showed different reads.For SNP detection, we considered only sites either homozygous or heterozygous for all 17 data sets. We were able to identify 33,200 singlenucleotide variant sites. We generated a series of phylogenetic trees and there was no sequence variation at this locus among the 17 genomes presented here. By examining the pattern of bands in agarose electrophoresis of the product after restriction digestion, it is possible to assess the genotype at that SNP location. We applied the 22 PCR-RFLP assays to single accession of E.ventricosum. Further, we then went on to apply 5 of these assays to several hundred E. ventricosum landraces. This findings will facilitate high-resolution studies to determine the genetic architecture of traits of economic and ecological importance, to study the structure of enset populations and to apply genomic selection in breeding programs. In general, farmers cognitive, morphological, sequence and SNP output clearly distinguished between all landraces, even though they were genetically similar. ","tokenCount":"8255"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"48c7b921f54832aaaef36a172c4ec680","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/875280e9-3ddf-4d5b-9364-134ed1682dae/retrieve","id":"-1309883475"},"keywords":["Mbanjo, E.G.N.","Ogungbesan, A.","Agbona, A.","Akpotuzor, P.","Toyinbo, S.","Iluebbey, P.","Rabbi, I.Y.","Peteti, P.","Wages, S.A.","Norton, J.","et al. Validation of SNP Markers for Diversity Analysis, Quality Control, and Trait Selection in a Biofortified Cassava Population cassava","biofortification","population structure","KASP","DArTseq","markers","IITA","breeding"],"sieverID":"a1f2e487-1570-43de-89e8-8ff558714ee4","pagecount":"21","content":"A validated marker system is crucial to running an effective genomics-assisted breeding program. We used 36 Kompetitive Allele-Specific PCR (KASP) markers to genotype 376 clones from the biofortified cassava pipeline, and fingerprinted 93 of these clones with DArTseq markers to characterize breeding materials and evaluate their relationships. The discriminating ability of the 36-quality control (QC) KASP and 6602 DArTseq markers was assessed using 92 clones genotyped in both assays. In addition, trait-specific markers were used to determine the presence or absence of target genomic regions. Hierarchical clustering identified two major groups, and the clusters were consistent with the breeding program origins. There was moderate genetic differentiation and a low degree of variation between the identified groups. The general structure of the population was similar using both assays. Nevertheless, KASP markers had poor resolution when it came to differentiating the genotypes by seed sources and overestimated the prevalence of duplicates. The trait-linked markers did not achieve optimal performance as all markers displayed variable levels of false positive and/or false negative. These findings represent the initial step in the application of genomics-assisted breeding for the biofortified cassava pipeline, and will guide the use of genomic selection in the future.The diet and caloric requirements of about 800 million people worldwide revolve around cassava, a crucial food security crop and a significant cash crop in some regions [1,2]. Although cassava roots are starch-rich, they lack critical micronutrients. Several studies have linked high cassava consumption to inadequate micronutrient intake, posing a serious public health issue that hinders sustainable development due to substantial social and economic costs [3][4][5][6][7]. One strategy that has been utilized to supply the essential nutrients required for optimum health is biofortification, a process of enhancing the nutrient density of food crops [8,9]. Biofortified cassava cultivars are a good source of provitamin A and could contribute about 40% of the overall daily intake requirement of vitamin A [10]. Biofortification has been undertaken in cassava through the HarvestPlus program (https://www. harvestplus.org/, accessed on 2 July 2024) using two main approaches, namely, transgenics and conventional breeding. The latter approach is more acceptable to the general public with demonstrated success, and several biofortified cassava varieties have been released (https://www.iita.org/news-item/nigeria-releases-cassava-higher-pro-vitaminfight-micronutrient-deficiency/, accessed on 2 July 2024). For nutrient-improved cassava varieties to be widely accepted and adopted, the developed cultivars must also satisfy other essential qualities desired by end-users, such as meeting food quality preferences, disease resistance and/or tolerance, high dry matter content, and high yield, among others. Cassava productivity is quite limited by biotic constraints such as pests and diseases [11], notably cassava mosaic disease (CMD), which is one of the most widespread and serious diseases throughout cassava-growing areas in Africa and, more recently, in Southeast Asia, where it is an important limiting factor for cassava producers [12][13][14]. The yield loss due to CMD has been estimated to be between 45 and 97% [15].Breeders have been under constant pressure to improve production and develop varieties that are superior in every aspect to previous varieties [16]. The biofortified breeding pipeline, in contrast to other cassava breeding pipelines at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), has relied on conventional breeding using a recurrent selection scheme. The recurrent selection strategy is costly, lengthy, and requires several generation and cycling evaluations. Integration of innovative approaches, like molecular markers, into conventional breeding could be a game changer. Molecular markers have a critical role to play in crop improvement and the potential to boost breeding efficiency and genetic gain. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are currently the marker of choice in molecular breeding and genetics due to their widespread distribution within the genome. Their wide adoption has been facilitated by the development of next-generation sequencing and various array-based genotyping platforms. Among the genotyping platforms in use are fixed array-based SNP platforms. Their main drawbacks are their high price and lack of flexibility [17,18]. Flexible technologies have been developed as an alternative. They are easy to use, cost-effective, and offer options to mix and match different SNPs [19]. Amongst the existing flexible high-throughput SNP systems currently available (TaqMan ® , Array TapeTM, OpenArray ® , Dynamic Arrays TM , iPLEX system, Target amplicon sequencing, and KASP TM ), KASP TM has grown in popularity [18]. In several crop species, including rice [20] and cowpea [21], low sets of optimal SNPs have been successfully converted into KASP assays and have served various purposes. The KASP TM system is cost-effective, especially when few markers are used to genotype a large number of samples [22,23]. Using GBS-derived SNP markers from genotyping 1400 different cassava accessions, a small set of 36 quality control (QC) markers has recently been developed. These markers, along with trait-specific markers derived from genome-wide association studies [24], were converted for use as KASP assays (https://excellence inbreeding.org/module3/kasp, accessed on 2 July 2024).The present work aims to characterize breeding materials from the IITA biofortified cassava pipeline using both DArTseq and KASP markers and to evaluate their genetic relationships. We compare the discriminatory effectiveness between the two platforms. We evaluate the prediction ability of trait-linked markers for three key cassava traits, including total carotenoid content (TCC), dry matter content (DMC), and cassava mosaic disease (CMD). Integrating molecular markers into the IITA biofortified cassava pipeline will be a game changer by providing more accurate clone (hereafter referred to as genotypes) characterization, facilitating trait prediction and enabling more precise breeding material selection; all of which will boost the speed of product development.Plants 2024, 13, 2328 3 of 21The carotenoid concentration (TCC iCheck) was quantified using iCheck TM Carotene (BioAnalyt, Berlin, Germany), a portable photometer, while the yellowness of the root parenchyma (TCC Chart) was evaluated visually using a 1 to 8 scale. The oven drying method was used to determine the percentage of dry matter content in the roots. CMD severity was assessed on a 1 to 5 scale. The Shapiro-Wilk test showed a substantial departure from a normal distribution (p < 0.05) for the TCC Chart, TCC iCheck, and CMDs, while DMC showed a normal distribution (p > 0.05) (Figure S1). All traits showed moderate or large variations among clones (Table S1). The least dispersed trait was DMC (CV = 0.2), and the most dispersed traits were TCC iCheck (CV = 0.49), followed by CMD (CV = 0.45). Correlation between traits revealed a highly positive significant correlation (r = 0.75, p < 0.05) between the TCC Chart and TCC iCheck. A moderate and significant negative correlation was observed between the TCC Chart and DMC (r = −0.43, p < 0.05).The correlation between all quantitative traits and CMDs was weak (r < 0.29, p < 0.05). The DMC and CMDs did not correlate (p > 0.05) (Figure 1a). Most genotypes (90.85%) with parental seeds from the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) (142) showed a high dry matter content, while genotypes with parental seeds from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) (120) displayed a wider range (Figure 1b). Genotypes obtained from parental seeds from the IITA biofortified cassava breeding pipeline exhibited TCC ranging from low to very high, while genotypes originating from seed sourced from the University of Hawaii (these are either first-generation crosses between CIAT and IITA source material or open-pollination seeds involving only those two source materials) and the CIAT cassava breeding program had TCC that were primarily low (Figure 1c). Regardless of the source of the seed, resistance and susceptible genotypes were present across all programs (Figure 1d).Plants 2024, 13, x FOR PEER REVIEW 3 of 21 genotypes) characterization, facilitating trait prediction and enabling more precise breeding material selection; all of which will boost the speed of product development.The carotenoid concentration (TCC iCheck) was quantified using iCheck TM Carotene (BioAnalyt, Berlin, Germany), a portable photometer, while the yellowness of the root parenchyma (TCC Chart) was evaluated visually using a 1 to 8 scale. The oven drying method was used to determine the percentage of dry matter content in the roots. CMD severity was assessed on a 1 to 5 scale. The Shapiro-Wilk test showed a substantial departure from a normal distribution (p < 0.05) for the TCC Chart, TCC iCheck, and CMDs, while DMC showed a normal distribution (p > 0.05) (Figure S1). All traits showed moderate or large variations among clones (Table S1). The least dispersed trait was DMC (CV = 0.2), and the most dispersed traits were TCC iCheck (CV = 0.49), followed by CMD (CV = 0.45). Correlation between traits revealed a highly positive significant correlation (r = 0.75, p < 0.05) between the TCC Chart and TCC iCheck. A moderate and significant negative correlation was observed between the TCC Chart and DMC (r = −0.43, p < 0.05). The correlation between all quantitative traits and CMDs was weak (r < 0.29, p < 0.05). The DMC and CMDs did not correlate (p > 0.05) (Figure 1a). Most genotypes (90.85%) with parental seeds from the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) (142) showed a high dry matter content, while genotypes with parental seeds from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) (120) displayed a wider range (Figure 1b). Genotypes obtained from parental seeds from the IITA biofortified cassava breeding pipeline exhibited TCC ranging from low to very high, while genotypes originating from seed sourced from the University of Hawaii (these are either first-generation crosses between CIAT and IITA source material or open-pollination seeds involving only those two source materials) and the CIAT cassava breeding program had TCC that were primarily low (Figure 1c). Regardless of the source of the seed, resistance and susceptible genotypes were present across all programs (Figure 1d).  A total of 92 clones were genotyped using DArTseq and KASP markers. After filtering the 12,981 high-quality DArT SNP markers, 6602 markers were kept for analysis, and no sample was discarded. The dendrogram from hierarchical clustering identified two main clusters according to the elbow, silhouette, and gap statistics methods used to define the optimal number of clusters (Figures 2 and S2). Cluster 1 consisted of 58 genotypes, with 26 genotypes with seed sourced from CIAT, 25 genotypes from Hawaii, and seven genotypes from IITA. Cluster 2 was composed of 30 IITA genotypes, one genotype with seed sourced from Hawaii, and three genotypes that are hybrids of IITA and CIAT genotypes. A summary of each cluster is given in Table S2. Two major groups were observed using the distance-based method and the QC KASP markers. Out of the 84 genotypes that could be compared, the estimated level of dissimilarity in terms of genotype clustering was 8.33% (Table S2). One common set of putative duplicates (IITA-TMS-IBA183098 and IITA-TMS-IBA183097) was identified using both assays, while the 36 QC KASP markers identified an additional set of putative duplicates (IITA-TMS-IBA210666 and IITA-TMS-IBA210667). Principal component analysis substantiated phylogenetic analyses with two main clusters identified (Figure S3). The genotypes were categorized according to the breeding program from which each genotype originated. Breeding materials from CIAT (seed sourced from CIAT) and Hawaii (seed sourced from Hawaii, where intercontinental hybridization is conducted to facilitate germplasm exchange) could be distinguished from one another with clear delineation using DArTseq markers, but the 36 QC KASP markers failed to clearly separate the genotypes derived from seeds sourced from Hawaii and CIAT (Figures 3 and S4). A small number of Hawaii breeding materials were grouped with IITA breeding materials and vice versa (Figure 3). Admixture analysis of the 92 cassava genotypes evaluated using KASP markers supported two ancestral populations (K = 2) (Figure S5). DArTseq markers were more effective at revealing the pattern of population  A total of 92 clones were genotyped using DArTseq and KASP markers. After filtering the 12,981 high-quality DArT SNP markers, 6602 markers were kept for analysis, and no sample was discarded. The dendrogram from hierarchical clustering identified two main clusters according to the elbow, silhouette, and gap statistics methods used to define the optimal number of clusters (Figures 2 and S2). Cluster 1 consisted of 58 genotypes, with 26 genotypes with seed sourced from CIAT, 25 genotypes from Hawaii, and seven genotypes from IITA. Cluster 2 was composed of 30 IITA genotypes, one genotype with seed sourced from Hawaii, and three genotypes that are hybrids of IITA and CIAT genotypes. A summary of each cluster is given in Table S2. Two major groups were observed using the distance-based method and the QC KASP markers. Out of the 84 genotypes that could be compared, the estimated level of dissimilarity in terms of genotype clustering was 8.33% (Table S2). One common set of putative duplicates (IITA-TMS-IBA183098 and IITA-TMS-IBA183097) was identified using both assays, while the 36 QC KASP markers identified an additional set of putative duplicates (IITA-TMS-IBA210666 and IITA-TMS-IBA210667). Principal component analysis substantiated phylogenetic analyses with two main clusters identified (Figure S3). The genotypes were categorized according to the breeding program from which each genotype originated. Breeding materials from CIAT (seed sourced from CIAT) and Hawaii (seed sourced from Hawaii, where intercontinental hybridization is conducted to facilitate germplasm exchange) could be distinguished from one another with clear delineation using DArTseq markers, but the 36 QC KASP markers failed to clearly separate the genotypes derived from seeds sourced from Hawaii and CIAT (Figures 3 and S4). A small number of Hawaii breeding materials were grouped with IITA breeding materials and vice versa (Figure 3). Admixture analysis of the 92 cassava genotypes evaluated using KASP markers supported two ancestral populations (K = 2) (Figure S5). DArTseq markers were more effective at revealing the pattern of population structure with additional detected stratification. The lowest cross-validation error identified at K = 4 suggested four ancestral populations (Figure 4).        There was a modest amount of genetic diversity within each of the two main clusters obtained with DArTseq (Cluster1: He = 0.33; Cluster2: He = 0.37). Both observed and expected heterozygosity were low (Cluster1: Ho = 0.29; Cluster2: Ho = 0.26). The total Ho considering all genotypes was lower (Ho = 0.28) than the total He, which was predicted to be 0.37. A similar finding was made when the genotypes were classified into groups based on the breeding program the seeds originated from. The genotypes from Hawaii showed a somewhat higher level of variation (He = 0.36) in contrast to CIAT (He = 0.35) and IITA (He = 0.34). A comparable pattern for allele richness was seen between these groups. The inbreeding (Fis) values ranged from 0.13 to 0.25 (Table 1). Observed heterozygosity across loci (Ho). Mean allele richness (Ar). Expected heterozygosity across loci (He). Inbreeding coefficient (Fis). Population-specific genetic differentiation (FST), populationspecific FST bootstrap confidence interval (CI_2.5% and CI_97.5%).AMOVA analysis of the 92 cassava samples genotyped using DArTseq indicated that 8.50% of the total genetic variation occurred between the two major clusters, whereas There was a modest amount of genetic diversity within each of the two main clusters obtained with DArTseq (Cluster1: He = 0.33; Cluster2: He = 0.37). Both observed and expected heterozygosity were low (Cluster1: H o = 0.29; Cluster2: H o = 0.26). The total H o considering all genotypes was lower (H o = 0.28) than the total He, which was predicted to be 0.37. A similar finding was made when the genotypes were classified into groups based on the breeding program the seeds originated from. The genotypes from Hawaii showed a somewhat higher level of variation (He = 0.36) in contrast to CIAT (H e = 0.35) and IITA (H e = 0.34). A comparable pattern for allele richness was seen between these groups. The inbreeding (Fis) values ranged from 0.13 to 0.25 (Table 1). AMOVA analysis of the 92 cassava samples genotyped using DArTseq indicated that 8.50% of the total genetic variation occurred between the two major clusters, whereas 19.44% of the total genetic variation was found within each group. The variation within the genotypes was the highest (72.06%). Most of the molecular variance was also found to be within genotypes (73.29%) when they were categorized based on the breeding program from which the seeds were sourced, and very little variation was found between breeding programs (8.30%). Within breeding programs, only 18.71% of the total variation was seen between genotypes (Table 2). Genetic differentiation using DArTseq in the 92 genotypes was moderated between the two main clusters (F ST = 0.09) as well as when the origin of the breeding material was considered (F ST value ranged from 0.07 to 0.12; CIAT-Hawaii, F ST = 0.07, CIAT-IITA, F ST = 0.12, Hawaii-IITA, F ST = 0.07). The F ST between the two main groups obtained using QC KASP markers was slightly higher but still moderate (F ST = 0.11), substantiating AMOVA's finding of less genetic variation between clusters. These results demonstrated that low-density markers could depict genetic relationships among genotypes. All 376 cassava genotypes were evaluated using the 36 QC markers. No markers were excluded during the filtering process, but 19 genotypes were discarded due to the low call rate (call rate < 0.85). Three hundred and fifty-seven (357) genotypes were retained for downstream analyses. Twelve pairs of putative duplicates were identified (Table S3) and 345 unique genotypes were retained for further analysis. The distinct genotypes had genetic distances ranging from 0 to 0.64. The duplicate genotypes included CIAT genotypes from different pedigrees (IITA-TMS-IBA210720 and IITA-TMS-IBA210696; IITA-TMS-IBA210741 and IITA-TMS-IBA210738; IITA-TMS-IBA210645 and IITA-TMS-IBA210649) and occasionally genotypes from the same pedigree (IITA-TMS-IBA210666 and IITA-TMS-IBA210667; IITA-TMS-IBA210757 and IITA-TMS-IBA210756). Genotypes from Hawaii were found to have duplicates (IITA-TMS-IBA210817 and IBA210816). IITA-TMS-IBA180210, a genotype used as crossing parent in IITA, turned out to be a duplicate of IITA-TMS-IBA070593 that came from Hawaii. Duplicates were found within the IITA breeding material between the elite material preserved in the field (IITA-TMS-IBA183098 and IITA-TMS-IBA18097) and the material used for crossing (IITA-TMS-IBA182959, IITA-TMS-IBA182962). IITA-TMS-IBA011368, a genotype used as a parent for crosses sampled in Ibadan, was revealed to be a putative duplicate of IITA-TMS-IBA141098, a genotype sampled from the Ubiaja genetic gain accessions, even though both genotypes displayed distinct pedigrees.The 345 genotypes were separated into two main clusters, as shown by the dendrogram generated by hierarchical clustering, with some distinct substructures discernible within the two groups (Figure S6). PCA analysis failed to clearly separate CIAT and Hawaii genotypes, which appeared to be in the same cluster, from IITA breeding material (Figure S7). This Plants 2024, 13, 2328 8 of 21 information was corroborated by the low genetic differentiation between genotypes from Hawaii and CIAT (F ST = 0.05), as well as the higher genetic differentiation between breeding material from CIAT and IITA (F ST = 0.11). Moderate genetic differentiation was reported between Hawaii and IITA breeding material (F ST = 0.07). AMOVA analysis revealed low genetic variation between groups compared to within-group variation (Table S4).The trait-linked markers used in this study derived from genome-wide association studies. The favorable allele at each trait locus was determined by assessing the allele substitution effect [24]. The SNPs were converted into KASP markers (https:// excellenceinbreeding.org/module3/kasp, accessed on 2 July 2024).Three markers, including S12-7926132, S12-7926163, and S14-4626854 [24] were used to evaluate the 331 clones with both phenotypic and genotypic data (Table 3). At marker S12-7926132, the CMD-linked markers, the frequency of homozygote for the favorable allele (T) was estimated at 16.01%, which was also the major allele. In contrast, the highest frequency for clones was for heterozygotes (71.9%), and 12.8% of genotypes were homozygotes for the unfavorable allele (Table 3). At marker S12-7926163, the unfavorable allele (A) was detected in a homozygote state at a frequency of 11.38%, whereas the favorable alleles were present in 88.63% of the genotypes, either in a homozygous (16.47%) or heterozygous (72.16%) state. Markers S12-796132 and S12-7926163 displayed a pattern of segregation typical of dominant markers. For both markers, a significant difference was observed among the three genotypic classes. The heterozygote genotypes displayed different levels of resistance (Figure 5a,b). Among the 333 clones with genotypic and phenotypic data at marker S14-4626854, the favorable allele (A) was found in approximately half of the 333 clones (51.95%), either in a homozygote state (13.81%) or heterozygote state (38.14%), while the remaining genotypes were homozygous for the unfavorable allele (48.05%) (Table 3). Significant CMD resistance was displayed by the 46 homozygous clones for the favorable alleles (CMDs score ≤ 2.0). S14-4626854, a marker on chromosome 14, showed ambiguous discriminatory power (Figure 5c). Indeed, the homozygous genotype for the favorable allele (AA) and the heterozygous allele (AG) did not differ significantly and showed low scores of CMD compared to genotypes with unfavorable alleles (GG). It was recently shown that this marker had been misplaced in previous genome assembly and is, indeed, located on chromosome 12 linked to other markers.  Three markers, including S1-24197219, S6-20589894, S12-5524524 [24] were used to evaluate the 319 clones with genotypic and phenotypic data. At marker S1-24197219, 5.33% of the clones were homozygous for the favorable allele (C) and had high dry matter content. Half of the clones (50.16%) had one copy of the favorable allele, whereas 44.51% contained the unfavorable allele (Table 3). The allele substitution effect revealed an additive segregation pattern for the marker S1-24197219, with no significant differences between genotypes carrying homozygous favorable alleles with heterozygous genotypes (Figure 6a). Favorable alleles (G) at marker S6-2058894 were found in 77.29% of the 317 clones with phenotypic and genotypic information, whereas 22.14% were homozygous for the unfavorable allele. The favorable allele (C) linked with high DM at marker S12-5524524 was estimated to be 15.32% and 55.2% in homozygote and heterozygote states, respectively, while only 23.7% of the total genotypes carried the unfavorable allele. The segregation pattern of marker S6-20589894 was inconsistent with the phenotypic distribution of the two homozygous states (Figure 6b). Similar results were obtained for marker S12-5524524, which also displayed an erratic pattern of segregation. Neither marker S6-20589894 nor marker S12-5524524 displayed significant differences between genotypic classes (Figure 6c). Three markers, including S1-24197219, S6-20589894, S12-5524524 [24] were used to evaluate the 319 clones with genotypic and phenotypic data. At marker S1-24197219, 5.33% of the clones were homozygous for the favorable allele (C) and had high dry matter content. Half of the clones (50.16%) had one copy of the favorable allele, whereas 44.51% contained the unfavorable allele (Table 3). The allele substitution effect revealed an additive segregation pattern for the marker S1-24197219, with no significant differences between genotypes carrying homozygous favorable alleles with heterozygous genotypes (Figure 6a). Favorable alleles (G) at marker S6-2058894 were found in 77.29% of the 317 clones with phenotypic and genotypic information, whereas 22.14% were homozygous for the unfavorable allele. The favorable allele (C) linked with high DM at marker S12-5524524 was estimated to be 15.32% and 55.2% in homozygote and heterozygote states, respectively, while only 23.7% of the total genotypes carried the unfavorable allele. The segregation pattern of marker S6-20589894 was inconsistent with the phenotypic distribution of the two homozygous states (Figure 6b). Similar results were obtained for marker S12-5524524, which also displayed an erratic pattern of segregation. Neither marker S6-20589894 nor marker S12-5524524 displayed significant differences between genotypic classes (Figure 6c). Provitamin A Four markers, including S1-24155522, S1-30543962, S5-3387558, and S8-25598183 [24] were used to evaluate the clones. When TCC (Provitamin A) was assessed using the ICheck TM device, among the clones with both phenotypic and genotypic data at marker S1-24155522, the favorable allele (A), which was also the major allele, was present in 95.4% of the clones in either the homozygous state (38.49%) or the heterozygous state (56.91%), demonstrating that this beneficial allele is widespread within the clones and has been brought to fixation in the breeding pipeline. A few genotypes were homozygous for the unfavorable allele (Table 3). The TCC level was higher in genotypes homozygous for the favorable allele than in heterozygous genotypes (Figure 7). Significant differences between marker classes and an additive allelic effect were identified for marker S1-24155522 (Figure 7a). For the markers S1-30543962, S5-3387558, and S8-25598183, all minor alleles Plants 2024, 13, 2328 10 of 21 were reported as favorable alleles with a frequency ranging from 0.66 to 4.90% in the homozygous state. The remaining clones that carried the favorable allele were in the heterozygote state (21.10-44.70%) (Table 3). These markers exhibited dominant gene effects as genotypes with at least one copy of the favorable allele displayed high levels of TCC (Figure 7b-d). When the Tchart was used to assess the TCC content, markers S5-3387558 and S8-25598183 showed a dominant allelic effect, marker S1-24155522 displayed an additive allelic effect, and marker S1-30543962 did not show a segregation pattern consistent with the expression of the trait. There was no statistically significant difference between the cosegregating phenotypes of the two homozygous allelic states for each of the three markers. However, the homozygous genotype for the favorable allele co-segregates with high TCC content (Figure S8). Provitamin A Four markers, including S1-24155522, S1-30543962, S5-3387558, and S8-25598183 [24] were used to evaluate the clones. When TCC (Provitamin A) was assessed using the ICheck TM device, among the clones with both phenotypic and genotypic data at marker ure 7b-d). When the Tchart was used to assess the TCC content, markers S5-3387558 and S8-25598183 showed a dominant allelic effect, marker S1-24155522 displayed an additive allelic effect, and marker S1-30543962 did not show a segregation pattern consistent with the expression of the trait. There was no statistically significant difference between the cosegregating phenotypes of the two homozygous allelic states for each of the three markers. However, the homozygous genotype for the favorable allele co-segregates with high TCC content (Figure S8). All three CMD-linked markers had a high rate of false positives (26.42-44.23%). For markers S12-7926132 and S12-7926163, the chance of incorrectly scoring each genotype as QTL− was low (3.28% and 3.23%, respectively), while marker S14_4626854 showed a high proportion of false negatives (43.32%) (Table 3). As for DMC trait-linked markers, the risk of misclassifying genotypes either as QTL−, QTL+, or both, and advancing/discarding genotypes based on marker information, was large (17.33-75.00%) (Table 3). No ideal score (0%) was obtained when classifying genotypes as white or yellow roots. Furthermore, a high proportion of genotypes were reported as false positives (19.57-55.88%), false negatives (0-73.99%), or both. All three CMD-linked markers had a high rate of false positives (26.42-44.23%). For markers S12-7926132 and S12-7926163, the chance of incorrectly scoring each genotype as QTL− was low (3.28% and 3.23%, respectively), while marker S14_4626854 showed a high proportion of false negatives (43.32%) (Table 3). As for DMC trait-linked markers, the risk of misclassifying genotypes either as QTL−, QTL+, or both, and advancing/discarding genotypes based on marker information, was large (17.33-75.00%) (Table 3). No ideal score (0%) was obtained when classifying genotypes as white or yellow roots. Furthermore, a high proportion of genotypes were reported as false positives (19.57-55.88%), false negatives (0-73.99%), or both.The collaboration between IITA, CIAT, and the University of Hawaii has facilitated the exchange of advanced elite clones and germplasm, bringing the value of Latin American germplasm and expanding the genetic base of cassava in Africa [26]. CMD resistance genotypes were observed throughout the genotypes from the three programs analyzed, translating the introgression of CMD-resistant alleles in African and Latin American germplasms and the widespread use of CMD-resistant clones or varieties as parents and CMD donors [26]. A broad range of total carotenoid content was found in the breeding materials of IITA's biofortified cassava pipeline. This is in line with the pipeline's primary goal of increasing TCC, and translates the presence of adequate genetic variability among cassava genotypes and the complex interactions among the parental genotypes [27]. The requirement for combining high TCC with high DMC, a key determinant of product acceptance by farmers and processors, is now recognized. CIAT has generated a number of elite clones with superior and stable DMC, and other high-value traits, some of which have been introduced into IITA cassava breeding programs. The high DMC of genotypes derived from CIAT parental seeds corroborates the purpose of the crosses, which was to improve the culinary quality of the developed genotypes. A challenge to concurrently improve both traits is the negative association between DMC and TCC, which has also been documented in previous studies [27,28]. The strong correlation between the root TCC Chart and TCC ICheck suggests that visual evaluation could be used effectively as a proxy to indirectly select genotypes with adequate TCC levels. This would speed up the evaluation and advancement of genotypes, especially in the early stages of product development (e.g., seedling nursery) when a large number of accessions need to be assessed. The low correlation between TCC and CMDs, or between DM and CMDs, indicates that these traits are independently inherited and could be improved concomitantly. The breeding materials under evaluation displayed considerable phenotypic variation for all traits and could be a reservoir from which promising clones serving as parents would be selected. Realigning the breeding strategy in the IITA biofortified breeding pipeline with the application of genomic tools could add an additional layer of information, facilitate parents' selection, and indubitably address some persistent challenges, including combining yield, dry matter, and quality in biofortified lines.For the first time, the genetic relatedness between selected genotypes that make up the breeding material for the biofortified pipeline at IITA was assessed using SNP markers. The SNP markers efficiently classified the genotypes into two main groups. Genotype clustering was consistent with pedigree information and reflected the various ancestors that make up the genetic materials. Genotypes' separation was connected to the breeding program the seed came from, and substantial divergence between materials from various programs was highlighted. The distinctiveness between genotypes from various origins might translate into the presence of specific alleles within each program. Classification of breeding materials into genetic groups is crucial as it guides the selection of parents and reduces mating between related genotypes. Such analysis could be useful for planning crosses and optimizing hybridization efficiency, which could result in the generation of highly phenotypic contrasting progenies for various traits [29,30].There was a moderate level of variation and differentiation between the groups, which was likely caused by (1) the selection of similar traits by CIAT and IITA breeding programs;(2) introgression that might have occurred between genotypes as revealed by the pedigree information, which showed a considerable number of genotypes sharing common parents; and (3) germplasm movement between the three programs (CIAT, Hawaii, and IITA). Indeed, crossing efforts to combine complementing traits have been conducted between African and Latin American breeding materials. As a result, many IITA breeding materials do have a CIAT background. The materials from Hawaii represent first-generation hybrids between CIAT and IITA breeding materials, which may also explain the lower differentiation observed. Most of the variation was observed within genotypes, which is consistent with findings made by Oyesigye et al. [31]. Cassava is highly heterozygous, thus, the moderate amount of genetic diversity reported in this study may be explained by the close relatedness among breeding materials as opposed to the high heterozygosity typically found in diverse genotypes. The slightly higher heterozygosity of Hawaii (He = 0.36) and CIAT (He = 0.35) breeding material in comparison with IITA breeding material corroborates the finding of [32], who reported a higher diversity in the CIAT breeding materials compared to the IITA breeder's germplasm. A number of hypotheses might explain these differences: (1) CIAT is acknowledged as a center of cassava diversity and domestication of the crops, while Hawaii, a transit center to facilitate the transfer of alleles between continents, is where hybridization is conducted using CIAT and IITA seed sources; (2) the low diversity of IITA material might be related to the incorporation of specific traits with limited sources in the biofortified pipeline. As expected for an outcrossing crop, the amount of inbreeding was not consistently close to zero, suggesting a potential heterozygosity deficit, outcrossing of closely identical genotypes in close proximity in the field, or crosses between related individuals during the breeding process [32,33]. Some genotypes were flagged as putative duplicates. The occurrence of duplicate genotypes has been reported in several studies [29,34,35]. In cassava breeding programs, recurrent selection is routinely used, and many genotypes are evaluated through several stages and different environments, particularly at the early stage of the breeding process. Advanced lines are shared between partners and stems are multiplied. Leaves are sampled for various purposes. Through all these processes, errors could happen at any stage and might have severe repercussions for product development, including time wasting, resources, and reduced genetic gain [36]. Therefore, genotype identity must be verified at every stage of product development to prevent duplication. This justifies the implementation of routine quality control to enhance breeding effectiveness and enable efficient resource utilization. The genotype data alone cannot serve as ambiguous duplicate confirmation; this must be followed by the phenotypic evaluation of the potentially identified duplicate genotypes [37].The value of the 36 cassava QC KASP markers for routine evaluation and characterization of breeding materials was highlighted in the current study. In contrast to DArTseq markers, KASP markers overestimated the prevalence of duplicates and demonstrated low resolution in differentiating genotypes based on seed sources. This is most likely due to the lower marker number, which might be less effective in separating closely identical genotypes. Nevertheless, the general structure of the population was similar using both assays. Similar findings by earlier authors demonstrated that a minimal number of high-quality markers is sufficient and that employing high-density markers adds little value. Ertiro et al. [38] compared the correlation between low-density and GBS-based high density markers, and reported that only small subsets of preselected, high-quality markers were necessary for QC analysis in maize. Gemenet et al. [20] reached the same conclusion after comparing a high-density SNP set of 10,159 markers with a select set of 30 SNPs in a sweet potato breeding program. Both sets of markers identified relatively similar mislabeling errors. Tang et al. [23] found that both sets of 331 and 48 KASP markers were equally suitable for analyses of conventional rice varieties. KASP markers are flexible, and genotyping can be tailored by selecting specific SNPs that are relevant to the study. When using a large number of genotypes with a small set of markers, KASP markers are cost-effective. Fifty markers assessed against 1536 samples are estimated to cost about $7 per sample, compared with DArTseq, which costs approximately $21 per sample. The genotyping data from KASP do not require much bioinformatic support. KASP markers will therefore be useful for quality assurance and control in breeding trials. On the other hand, DArTseq markers are valuable tools for comprehensive diversity and recommended markers for genomic selection.We assessed the utility of individual trait-linked markers in unambiguously distinguishing genotypes with favorable alleles. All markers displayed variable levels of false positive and/or false negative, and none of them achieved the ideal rate of zero percent reported in some recent studies [39,40]. The aforementioned observations contradict some early cassava studies that found a significant association between a number of trait-linked markers and expressed phenotypes, including markers S1-24197219 and DMC, S1-24155522, and TCC, S12_796132, and S12_796163 with CMDs [41][42][43]. These significant associations were prevalent in certain families, but when pre-breeding population was used, the results were inconsistent [41,42]. False positives and false negatives happen, pose serious concerns, and have been reported in previous studies [44]. The discrepancy between marker genotypes and the plant phenotype suggests that there is a considerable risk in advancing or discarding clones based on the trait-linked marker information and limits their broad application in breeding programs. The strong marker predictability of some of these trait markers was previously attributed to their near proximity to functional genes and/or regulatory regions [41,43]. Numerous factors, such as the genetic distance between the marker and the gene/QTL promoting genetic recombination and separating the marker from the associated QTL, could explain the disparity between genotype data and the expressed phenotype seen in the current study [36,45]. Indeed, a portion of the plant materials used are hybrids between external germplasm from Latin America and elite genotypes of the IITA biofortified breeding pipeline. Hybridization has been carried out to increase the frequency of favorable alleles and to incorporate desirable traits required for the development of new varieties. Following hybridization, recombination can disrupt the linkage between alleles at different loci, produce novel combinations of parental alleles across loci, alter haplotype structure, modify allelic association between trait-linked markers and QTLs, and make it more challenging to predict phenotypes accurately [46][47][48]. While other authors have reported that trait-linked markers' optimal performance may be limited to specific crosses, Singh et al. [49] have shown that haplotype variation of markers not associated with the casual gene can result in falsely positive or falsely negative results [44,50]. This incongruency might well translate into a reduction in pathogen effectiveness [51], low phenotypic variation contributed by the QTLs and their minor effect, and epistatic interaction between QTLs that could inhibit the expression of beneficial alleles [52]. Another possible cause is the potential bias in the phenotypic evaluation process. The existence of other independent loci, not yet captured and underlying the traits or modifying factors, cannot be ruled out. Trait-linked markers used individually may not be predictive in an unknown background, despite some authors' claims that the best markers can perform as well as, or better, than marker haplotype [46]. An alternative that should be investigated is using the trait-linked markers as haplotypes [40].The evaluated breeding materials are a reservoir from which promising clones serving as parents could be selected to support ongoing population improvement. The characterized genotypes are conserved in the field, and several are at varying stages of product development. Routinely deploying KASP markers across the cassava breeding pipeline will be needed to eliminate errors associated with mislabeling before genotypes are advanced or exchanged. Another important implementation for effective use of the genotypes will be pedigree reconstructionThe set of cassava clones (hereafter referred to as genotypes) used in this study was composed of selected genotypes from clonal evaluation trials (CETs), advanced yield trials (AYTs), genotypes frequently used as parents for crosses, and a subset of the genetic gain (GG); which is a collection of elite tropical Manihot selections (TMS) selected over the past five decades and landraces. The specific samples were collected from different trials established in two different locations in Nigeria: Ubiaja and Ibadan. While some of the plant materials are breeding lines from the IITA cassava biofortified breeding programs, some plant materials are high-priority clones selected from the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the University of Hawaii (Hawaii). The average trait value for each genotype was used for downstream analyses. In Table S2, the initial set of 376 genotypes used is listed.Cassava mosaic disease, dry matter content, and total carotenoid content were among the phenotypic traits scored. Mature roots were harvested at 12 months after planting for assessment of TCC and DMC. The phenotypic data used are the mean value of each trait for each genotype. Detailed descriptions of the phenotyping approaches are provided below.The severity of cassava mosaic disease was scored at three, six, and nine months after planting on a scale of 1 to 5 [53], with 1 = no symptoms observed or mild distortion at the base of leaflets, with the remaining leaflets appearing green and healthy; 2 = mild chlorotic pattern on entirety of leaflets; 3 = strong mosaic pattern on entire leaf, and narrowing and distortion of lower one-third of leaflets; 4 = strong mosaic pattern on entire leaf, and narrowing and distortion of lower one-third of leaflets; 5 = strong mosaic pattern on entire leaf, and narrowing and distortion of lower one-third of leaflets. The average CMD severity was computed for each plant.Six healthy storage roots of varying sizes (small, medium, and large) were randomly selected from each plot to ensure representativeness. Selected roots were free of defects such as decomposition, disease, and bruises. The harvested roots were placed in labeled sampling bags and immediately transported to the laboratory for root dry matter analysis. Roots were peeled, washed under running water, and blotted dry with paper towels. The proximal and distal ends of each root were cut off. A hand grater (3-mm hole diameter) was used to shred the top, middle, and bottom sides of each selected root. Following thorough mixing of all the shredded roots from each plot, 100 g of the homogenized sample was oven-dried at 80 • C for approximately 72 h. The dry samples were weighed, and root dry matter content (RDMC) was calculated as the ratio of the dry weight to the fresh weight as follows:A color chart approach [54] was used to visually assess the root parenchyma to determine the variation in carotenoid content among cassava clones, where 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 represent white, light cream, cream, light yellow, yellow, deep yellow, orange, pink, respectively. Four healthy roots randomly selected from each plot, and the most often observed score for each genotype, were recorded.The total carotenoid content (TCC) was quantified using the protocol from Esuma et al. [27] with some modifications. Five healthy storage roots of varying sizes (small, medium, and large) were randomly selected from each plot. Selected roots were devoid of defects like decomposition, disease, and bruises. These harvested roots were placed in labeled sampling bags and immediately transported to the laboratory for TCC quantification. Once at the laboratory, roots were peeled, washed under running water, and blotted dry with paper towels. Each of the five roots was cut longitudinally into four equal pieces, with the two opposing sections chopped into cubes, homogenized, and 5 g of the homogenized root samples collected. The homogenized root sample was pounded and ground with a mortar and pestle into a smooth paste. To help grind the sample, 20 mL of distilled water was gradually added. The resulting slurry was transferred into a 50-mL calibrated falcon tube and topped up with 25 mL distilled water. The falcon tube content was shaken vigorously for 10 s, and 0.4 mL of the solution (slurry) was injected into the iExTM Carotene vial (BioAnalyt, Berlin, Germany) using the syringe and needle provided with the kit. Prior to the reading, vials were left on a stable surface for around five minutes. Two solution phases, a clear upper phase and a turbid lower phase, appeared inside the vial. Using the iCheck TM Carotene equipment (BioAnalyt, Berlin, Germany), the upper phase's absorption was measured, and the total carotenoid content in the cassava roots expressed as µg g −1 was obtained by multiplying the dilution factor (DF = sample weight/volume of slurry) with the device reading. TCC (µg g −1 ) = DF × device readingDescriptive statistics for each trait were computed using the \"describe\" function from the R package \"Pastecs\" [55]. The variation in the phenotypic data sets was visualized using histograms, and the Shapiro-Wilk test was applied to check the normality of each trait. The function \"rCorr\" in the R package \"Hmisc\" [56] was used to conduct correlations between traits and determine the significance of those correlations.Three to four leaf discs of 6 mm in diameter were collected from the young leaves of each tagged clone using a hole puncher. The leaf discs from each sample were transferred with forceps into a single well of a 96-well PCR plate (1.2 mL abGene Storage Plate, Number AB0564, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA) with the corresponding plant ID for each sample. Forceps were cleaned before and after inserting each sample into a well to prevent cross-contamination. Plant tissue was preserved on ice for transport from the field to the laboratory. Samples were stored in a −80 • C freezer before freeze-drying in a lyophilizer at −51 • C and 5.0 pa for a minimum of 72 h. Freeze-drying was performed using a LABCONCO FreeZone 18-L, −50 • C freeze-dryer (Kansas City, MO, USA). Freeze-dried samples were shipped to the Intertek-Agritek Laboratory in Australia for total genomic DNA extraction and genotyping using a KASP TM genotyping platform assay, while a subset of 93 samples was sent to Diversity Arrays Technology in Canberra, Australia, for genotyping by DArTseq technology (https://www.diversityarrays.com/, accessed on 2 July 2024). Upon receipt of the genotypic data, quality control was performed using Tassel 5 [57]. A filter was applied to remove markers with a call rate of less than 0.85 (call rate < 0.85) and/or minor allele frequency under 0.05 (MAF < 0.05). Samples with a call rate of 0.80 were retained for further analyses. Filtered KASP and DArTseq genotypic data were used for downstream analyses.A subset of 92 genotypes were randomly sampled (Figure S9) and genotyped using DArTseq. Putative duplicates were identified using an arbitrary threshold value set at 0.05 and visualized using the \"heatmap\" function of the base R package \"stats\". The population structure, population statistics, and genetic parameters were assessed using the unique set of genotypes.The genetic distance among the 92 selected genotypes was computed using PLINK version 1.9 [58]. The pairwise distance matrix was used to visualize relationships between genotypes. Hierarchical cluster analysis was performed using the \"hclust\" function and the \"Ward.D2\" method in the \"stats\" package in R. The hclust objects were converted into a tree class using the R package \"ape\" [59] and the phylogenetic tree was visualized using the \"plot\" function of the R statistical software version 4. 3.2 [60]. The optimal number of clusters was determined using the elbow, silhouette, and gap statistic methods. The maximum likelihood estimate implemented in the admixture program [61] was used to assign individual genotypes to hypothetical founder populations. A tenfold crossvalidation procedure was used to define the most suitable K value. The number of clusters (K) computed ranged from 1 to 10. The proportion of the putative ancestral population of each genotype was defined in the Q matrix. Genotypes were assigned to a group if the probability of their group membership determined by admixture was ≥80%. The level of genetic affinity among breeding materials was also assessed by principal components analysis using the R package \"rrBLUP\" [25]. PCA function in the FactoMineR package in R was used to perform principal component analysis (PCA) [62]  Several metrics were estimated, including observed heterozygosity (Ho), the inbreeding coefficient for each population (F IS ), and expected heterozygosity (He) using the R package Adegenet [63]. The allelic richness (Ar), the population-specific genetic differentiation, and population-specific F ST bootstrap confidence interval were computed using the hierfstat R package [64]. The population differentiation was evaluated using pairwise F ST estimates, according to [65], using the pairwise.betas function built into the hierfstat package [64], where F ST < 0.05 indicates low differentiation; 0.05 < F ST < 0.15 indicates moderate differentiation; and >0.15 indicates considerable genetic differentiation. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) was performed to determine the partition of genetic variation among populations and/or groups. These analyses were carried out using the R package Poppr [66]. The discriminatory ability of the 6602 DArTseq and 36 QC markers was assessed in the 92 genotypes shared by both assays. The population structure was compared, and the degree of misclassification or difference in genotype classification between the two platforms was evaluated.The initial set of cassava genotypes' genetic relationships was assessed using quality control markers. The genetic distance between the genotypes was computed using PLINK [58]. The pairwise distance matrix was used to visualize relationships among genotypes. Hierarchical cluster analysis was performed using the hclust function and the Ward.D2 method built into stats, a base R package. The hclust objects were converted into a tree class using the R package \"ape\" [59], and the phylogenetic tree was displayed using the plot function of the R statistical software [60]. Putative duplicates were identified using an arbitrary threshold value set at 0.05 and visualized using the \"heatmap\" function of R stats. The optimal number of clusters was determined using the elbow, silhouette, and gap statistic methods. Phenotypic distributions between different genotype classes for each trait were compared and visualized using the \"ggboxplot\" function built into the \"ggpubr\" R package [67]. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to assess the statistical differences between genotype classes.The false positive rate (FPR, which occurs when a marker predicts the presence of a trait (QTL+) that is not reflected in the phenotype) and the false negative rate (FNR, which occurs when a marker predicts the absence of a trait (QTL−), but the phenotype is contradictory) were the two variables used to evaluate trait-marker quality. The percentage of genotypes classified as such was quantified as proposed by Platten et al. [39], where FPR is assayed as the number of known recipients identified as not having an unfavorable allele(s) of the marker (and thus incorrectly classified as QTL[+]) and FNR is the converse, i.e., the proportion of known QTL[+] genotypes incorrectly classified as QTL[−] due to not having a favorable allele of the marker.It is crucial to integrate innovative approaches throughout all cassava pipeline breeding to satisfy the rising demand for cassava food and non-food products, and enhance the density of total carotene content. We characterized IITA biofortified cassava breeding materials using medium-and low-density markers. Mainstreaming the latter in the IITA cassava biofortified breeding pipeline will be cost-effective and enable the identification of any errors or mix-ups and mislabeling that have unintentionally occurred, and their correction. This will ensure the integrity of breeding materials and the fidelity of crosses. The prevalence of false negative and positive results emphasizes the need to assess the markers against different genetic backgrounds to ensure their stability. The knowledge","tokenCount":"8184"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1b915c4b35f4d7ec8f627a7de626324d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/bb615a87-371e-4133-864b-c603b9c51380/retrieve","id":"1733507783"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d3eb6ea3-fe74-40e0-9eef-0a9820356971","pagecount":"37","content":"LIST OF TABLES 1. Land use change statistics, northern Embu site (Mbuvori)……………………...10 2. Pattern of land use and economic change in semi-arid zones (from Olson et al. 2004) 3. Variation in the total number of plant species in different land uses arranged in increasing order of land use intensity……………………………………………………………..…21 4. Effect of soil fertility on mean percent cover in different land uses in zone-UM2…..….23 5. Effect of soil fertility on mean percent cover in different land uses in zone-LM4………23 6. Effects of land use change……………………………………………………………….25 7. Effects of land use change on species of conservation value…………………………....26 8. Shannon-Wenner diversity index('H) and evenness(j) of plant and small mammals species along a land use gradient………………………………………..……………..29Land use change in Embu/Mbeere like in other places has caused major changes in biodiversity.In the upper altitudes where cultivation started many centuries ago, it is difficult to find natural vegetation and wildlife particularly the large mammals is completely wiped out. Intensive cultivation of monocrops for cash has lead to poor soils that require farm inputs inform of fertilizers and animal manures in order to produce.In the lowland where land use change is taking place now there are patches with natural vegetation with remnants of indigenous plant species. However, in the cultivated areas the soils are bare most of the year due to planting of annual crops that are seasonal and also due to lack tree planting within the farms. Selling of animal manure, harvestable grass materials, crop residues, and charcoal by farmers in the lowland areas to those in the upper zones is a major threat to sustainability of land uses within the lowlands. The following is a summary of observations:1. Higher densities of ecosystem patches have higher numbers of total plant species but lower numbers of species of conservation value because the new species are common weeds and exotics.2. Increase in land use intensity reduces plant cover linearly; exposing soils to wind and water erosion, reducing the potential for soil organic matter, and hence increased loss of soil micro-nutrients.3. Increase in land use intensity increases biodiversity (number of species) to a certain threshold beyond which the number of species declines steadily. This has been observed in plants and small mammals.4. Despite increase in the number of plant species with increase in ecosystem patches due to cultivation in natural areas, loss of structural diversity due to removal of tree and shrub canopies cause degradation.5. Movement of organic matter synthesized in the lowlands to the uplands has contributed to nutrient rich soils in the uplands and nutrient deficiency in the lowland soils where soils are already poorer due to higher erosion.6. Grazing alters vegetation structure and composition by the removal of palatable native shrubs and herbaceous perennials. Severity of this alteration varies with vegetation type.7. Grazing induces weed invasion, but different vegetation types display different susceptibility to weed invasion.A. NTRODUCTION Embu and Mbeere districts are located along the wetter eastern slopes of Mt. Kenya, but Mbeere district located at lower elevation is much drier than Embu. Human settlement along these slopes start from about 2000m above sea level and extends down to the plains lower than 800m in altitude. Land use varies greatly along the altitudinal gradient following the different agroecological potentials. Land use varies from the tea dairy farming in the upper Embu through the mid altitude coffee cultivation zones to the lowlands where cotton and annual cereal crops are the main crops.Vegetation cover varies from montane forest in upper Embu through a mixture of agro-forestry species comprising mainly of Grevillea and Eucalyptus within the mid elevations to open fields of annual crops and scattered bushes in the lowlands. There are two frontiers of vegetation change in Embu Mbeere. One is the encroachment into the montane forest in the upper Embu where the recent Nyayo Tea Zones have been established and in some parts the widespread Shamba System is practiced. The other frontier is on the edges of hill slopes where natural vegetation still exists.Within the mid elevations land use change has taken place over many hundreds of years and many generations have passed still using the same land. The original natural vegetation within the mid elevations exist only in very few areas as protected forests mainly in hilltops and water catchments. Land use changes in the mid elevations at the present time are either changes in the crops planted or reverting to fallow for a period of time or change from cultivation to grazing. This is because conversion from indigenous vegetation to cultivation or grazing or to other uses happened much before the baseline time for this study. However, according to local respondents riverine areas were not cultivated until recently when a prolonged drought when people were allowed to cultivate in the riverine areas where the wetter conditions made it possible for crops to do better. Currently there are no new areas for the increased population to cultivate or settle. The trend is migrations to the lower zones where land is still available and to urban centers to do business and seek employment.Within the lower areas conversion of natural vegetation into cultivations and grazing lands is taking place now as compared to the mid-elevated areas. Indigenous vegetation is being cut down to give way to cultivations. Due to presence of many uncultivated areas people are migrating from the upper areas where land is scarce to the lower zones Observable implications of these migrations from Upper to lowlands is that land management is changing as new settlers bring in new ideas, crop types and animal breeds. Also since most of the settlers still have small land parcels in the upper regions movement of organic matter (livestock manure, crop residues, charcoal and grass harvests)from the lowlands to the uplands is high.Wildlife in most of the Embu District was eliminated on the advent of commercial agricultue and is currently restricted in Mt. Kenya National Park and the surrounding forest. For instance by 1909, elephants were abundant in Mt. Kenya where they lived permanently. They were, however, found to move to the bamboo forest in dry period and when it was wet, they moved onto the lower slopes and raided the farms bordering the forest (Roosevelt, 1909). Roosevelt (1909) also reported entire seasonal migrations of elephants although the movements were not regular. By 1924, however, the sighting of elephants in the open country was becoming less common and elephants had become adapted to forest life seeking refuge from man (Percival, 1924). By 1950s elephant crop raiding had become a long-standing problem warranting the building of moats to protect farms and shooting on control. Similar trends were observed for other wildlife species depending on level of conflict with human activities. However, there were fewer conflicts between human and wildlife within the marginal arid areas of Mbeere District.Most of the marginal agricultural potential areas, in much of the now Mbeere District was not inhabited before 1914 and wildlife roamed the area with several wildlife species common to this eco-climatic zone well represented (Van de Weg and Mbuvi, 1975). The wildlife kept on decreasing with increasing human populations. For instance, the area with shallow and very shallow soils, rolling topography and dense bush north and south of the Kindaruma Dam along the Tana River was considered of no agricultural value, and was only considered suitable for range activities (Van de Weg and Mbuvi, 1975). Van de Weg and Mbuvi (1975) recommended this poorly productive land to be set aside as a game reserve. Other areas for instance Masiga block, Mavuria and Riakanau were recommended for extensive range management. The Gategi area was recommended for extensive rainfed arable farming with intermediate technology and/or large-scale rainfed arable farming to large-scale irrigation farming. The northern portion of Gategi andThe Mbeere District has undergone drastic human population transformation since the 1960. The district retained much of its wildlife up to 1970s until human pressure through poaching, subsistence hunting and habitat destruction drastically continued reducing their numbers. Most human pressure was emanating from increasing agricultural activities due to more human settlements by migrating communities who were primarily from the higher altitude area where they practiced agriculture. In comparison the Embu district had lost its wildlife earlier in the century due to escalating crop raiding conflicts resulting to erection of barriers, construction of moats and shooting on control.Mbeere enjoys a hot dry climatic conditions characteristic of much of the Eastern Province. The rainfall is bi-modal and is not well distributed over the year making it a marginal agricultural potential area. The rainfall peaks in April during the long rains and again in November during the short rains when most of the rainfall is received. There are three vegetation types characteristic of this eco-climatic zone. These vegetation types are the wooded grasslands, the bushland and woodlands (Pratt and Gywnne, 1977). Changes in vegetation types within a short distance are attributed to both changes in total rainfall and soils. For instance, at regional scale, change from forest through woodlands to grasslands could be a reflection of decline in total rainfall. Similarly, changes in vegetation over a short distance on the other hand is more likely to be a reflection of changes in soils, where changes may be due to geology or topography changes or from shallow soils on slopes to deep alluvial plains. Such a change may also reflect an interaction between geology and topography.N Species exhibit considerable interspecific variation in sensitivity to habitat alteration. With the ensuing land use mediated changes in habitat conditions, spatial and temporal distribution of quality food sources, shelter and breeding sites for small to medium mammals are highly modified resulting in much intra and interspecific competition as well as escalation of human-wildlife conflicts. Vertebrate species that due to their behavioural plasticity are able to adapt to the changing ecology and survive in agricultural systems often come into direct competition with humans and are persecuted as pests whereas those that do not are forced into small marginal patches.Since increased land use replace natural vegetation with agricultural crops, most resilient foragers are forced to shift their diet to plants that are available as a strategy to minimize foraging cost. Consumption of crops is therefore high where there is high density of animals and low alternative food resources. Such areas are also the hotspots for wildlife -land use conflicts.The main pattern of land use over the past 30 years has been the expansion of area under cultivation within the lowland areas of Mbeere, extending into the much drier areas on the basin of river Tana. The expansion of the area under crops has restricted free range herding into small small isolated patches mainly within individually owned lands, resulting in increased competition of land use between cultivation and grazing. Wildlife populations have also been affected by the expansion of cultivation that has reduced the area of natural vegetation and limited access of wildlife to water. Increase in cultivation is targeting areas with key resources and unique habitats like the swamps and riverine woodlands with richer plant diversity.The text and tables presented in this section are obtained from another Lucid working paper number 20 (Olson et al 2004)  The largest land use and cover change that occurred in the Mt. Kenya region since the 1960's has been the expansion of farmland from the higher elevation areas into the mid-elevation, then low elevation and most recently to the semi-arid bush. Responses from Farmers indicate that the earliest settlements were in the mid elevation areas, later spreading to the upper elevation areas and recently to the lowland areas. This may be because farmer's reflections go back beyond the 1960s that is the baseline for satellite image records. The result is a \"ring\" of recent land cover change at the base of Mt. Kenya. The landscape of the semi-arid zones of Mbeere and Tharaka has changed from one dominated by bush savannah and woodland to one almost completely covered by farms, if not all cropped. The only large areas remaining of natural vegetation are on the rocky, steep hills, but even there many of the woodlands have been cleared or thinned. The large scale conversion from bush to farmland was precipitated in many places by the implementation of a land adjudication program of the national government, and sustained by rapid population growth due to high fertility rates and some in-migration. Land use and tenure changes that may have otherwise occurred gradually and unevenly with an increase in population densities and intensification of the agricultural system were mandated as part of the government's land program. The Mbeere and the neighbouring Tharaka people, previously agropastoralists raising herds of goats and cattle on communal clan land, have found themselves confined to family plots and to cropping. Much of the farmland in the drier zones is not intensely cultivated, however, due to low returns to labour. The crops are of low value, and risks of drought and pests are high. Indeed, these areas are the poorest despite low population densities, and many husbands and adult children have left the family farm to search for other sources of income. The semi-arid zones appear to be in danger of worsening soil degradation due to this expansion of cropping into environmentally fragile and climatically risky areas, and the land cover change has had a large impact on native vegetation and wildlife.On the other hand, the well-watered, densely populated Embu and Meru districts on the upper slopes appear to represent a success story, with the development of a highly productive, profitable agricultural system that includes intensive soil management. Governmental and parastatals programs were instrumental in the development of the tea and coffee sectors to such an extent that farmers here bought most of their food, and very high population densities have been supported primarily by agriculture. Here, too, however, farmers have been forced to respond to changing economic circumstances by modifying their farming system. Coffee and tea prices declined precipitously and many farmers eventually removed their coffee bushes to plant other, if less remunerative, crops. Land shortage is seen as a major problem and wealthy farmers since the 1970's have been renting or purchasing land ever lower into semi-arid zones. It is also being addressed by measures to reduce dependency on the land: farm families have focussed their investments on their children's education since the 1970's so that they learn a trade other than farming, many young people seek non-farm employment, and birth rates and population growth rates have declined rapidly.Table2. Pattern of land use and economic change in semi-arid zones (from Olson et al. 2004) 1950's: Grasslands and woodland, patches of shifting cultivation.Economy based on goat herding. In the small-scale farming and herding systems around Mt. Kenya, therefore, the pattern of land use and cover change appears to have followed a non-linear path of intensification and extensification, with variations in rate and with reversals. The generalized pattern is summarized in Table 2 and includes an initial intensification (sedentarisation), followed by extensification (search for land, associated with much of the visible land use change) and continued intensification (increased use of inputs and labour). Across the region, economic conditions and land tenure programs have greatly influenced how and when this has happened:• the upper zones were able to continue to economically benefit from increased intensification of their system until a drop in the international price of coffee and tea, and decline in governmental support of the coffee sector. Farmers then reversed course, changed to less intense if marketable crops, and adopted demographic and other responses to reduce land pressure and their dependence on the land. • In the mid and low elevation zones, the extensification of cropping has been dramatic.Where marketing and environmental conditions are conducive, this has been followed by an intensification of the system and development of a productive, market-oriented system. An example of this type of intensification later reversing was the arrival then departure of cotton production within a 15 year period. Maize is the current basis of the farm economy. • In the semi-arid areas where marketing and environmental conditions are marginal, however, an initial clearance of bush has been followed by low and in some cases declining intensity of use. Land adjudication initially led to bush clearance, land sales and in-migration, but after it became clear that crop production and sales were undependable, out-migration especially by members of the poorest families has reduced labour availability. Some fields have reverted to bush or were planted with lowmaintenance trees. Decisions on whether to stay or leave, or whether to work on one's own farm or elsewhere, are linked to evolving local and national economies and can change quickly.Agricultural intensification and extensification processes, therefore, have been closely tied to national and international economic and political forces, and to non-agricultural sectors (Table 3). Rather than being a uniform success story, the impacts on poverty, soil management and fertility particularly in the semi-arid zones are mixed. This is somewhat different from in neighbouring Machakos, which benefited from high capital and technological investments (Tiffin et al. 1994).Rather than population pressure being the main driver of extensification and intensification processes, population dynamics themselves have varied quickly in response to changing circumstances. First short-distance migration to clear new land, then longer-distance moves to search for land in remote or less productive, drier areas, along with high rates of temporary labour migration, were critical responses to changing economic constraints and opportunities-a familiar pattern in East Africa (Gould 1995). Migration patterns were primarily from Embu and surrounding highland areas into Mbeere and were instrumental in affecting the clearance of new land. First the mid-elevation areas, then the semi-arid lower elevation zones, were destinations for migrants especially after the privatisation of land holdings permitted easier land sales. Some migrants have found the semi-arid areas risky and untenable for agriculture and have left. Meanwhile, temporary labour migration by members of the poorest households, and particularly from the semi-arid areas, is a common response to diversity the family's income. Poverty rather than population pressure is associated with outmigration. The poorest households are investing little of their outside income in the farm. Their poverty is being perpetuated by distress land sales and low investment in children's education . The pattern of labour migration, however, is bi-modal with the poorest and the richest families most engaged. A second demographic change has been a decline in population growth rates due to a decline in fertility rates, especially in Embu. It was due to increased availability of family planning and a desire to have fewer children. Currently, the extensification of agriculture in the semi-arid zones is slowing, as both in-migration and local population rates decline. Future increases in the percent of land being cropped will be highly tied to relative returns of semi-arid agriculture vis a vis other activities. Development opportunities such as irrigation or introduction of a high value crop would change both the extensification and intensification dynamics. The other major actor affecting land use and cover in the eastern Mt. Kenya region is the Kenyan government. It directly manages around 21% of the land surface-under parks, reserves, research land, and reservoirs. It, too, has been a very active agent affecting land cover. It reversed years of how it managed the Mt. Kenya forests, and started strictly enforcing regulations restricting logging, grazing, cultivation and other uses of the forest. During the thirteen year interval between the satellite images that were interpreted, one large section of forest was cleared, cultivated, and then allowed to revert to secondary forest growth. The reasons for these turns in governmental action include: 1) as a response to international and national pressure by environmental groups and activists; 2) power reversals at the local to national level (of individuals, agencies, political groups), and 3) attempts by a politician to please voters prior to an election. These types of reasons, and thus future land cover changes, are difficult to predict. International governmental forces affecting the agricultural and other sectors, such as structural adjustment and aid, are similarly difficult to predict.These trends in land use and land cover change are altering the soil, water, and vegetation characteristics of the area. As soil, water, and vegetation interact within ecological systems, so do they within human-ecological systems. It is important therefore to identify the impact of land use change on both the individual components (soil, water and vegetation) and upon the interaction between these components. Further, it is important to investigate possible effects from these altered conditions and interactions in the soil/water/vegetation system feedbacks to the humanecological system -to cultivation, herding, and wildlife.Land degradation is here understood to be the loss of biological or economic productivity or complexity, deterioration of chemical, physical and biological soil properties, and long term loss of vegetation (Maitima and Olson 2001).The LUCID Team has examined land degradation in terms of soils, water, biodiversity, and vegetation. The team conducted surveys of vegetation (Maitima and Olson 2001) and soil characteristics (Gachimbi, 2002) along identical transects from the upper slopes of Mt. Kenya to the adjacent lowlands. Information on vegetation characteristics within land various land use categories was collected from the same plots where soil samples were collected in order to link soil characteristics with vegetation types. Animal biodiversity has bee studies in three case studies two of which focuses on the effects of land use changes on animal biodiversity (Mugatha 2002) and (Mutugi, 2003). The third study focuses on the impacts of grazing on vegetation dynamics (Kamau, 2003).The present vegetation in the upper and mid elevation areas is significantly different from the original natural vegetation because it comprises of planted trees. Within the lowland areas remnants of natural vegetation still exists and although disturbed by harvesting and grazing in many places they still show substantial amount of native plant species. At landscape level the mid and upper zones have less diverse ecosystem types as they are mainly cultivations. In the lowland areas the presence of patches of natural vegetation and cultivations makes the ecosystems to be more diverse and therefore has a higher diversity of plants and wildlife. At farm level cultivations in the mid and upper zones have more perennial crops more planted woody trees than the cultivations in the lower zones of Mbeere. Farms in Mbeere are planted mainly with annual crops and for most part of the year they are bare with exposed soils that is very prone to soil erosion. Lack of adequate vegetation cover on the farms in the lowland areas has resulted in lack of sufficient mineralization leading to deficiencies in soil organic matter. This problem is exacerbated by poor land management where palnt residues rather than decomposing to recycle nutrients into the soil they are in many cases harvested and sold to richer farmers from the upper zones.Upper areas comprises of high to medium quality rainfed intensively managed lands in the Manyatta and Nembure Divisions of Embu District. Land holdings range from 0.9 -2.3 ha and these are areas, with more than 660 people Km -2 and considerably good soil fertility areas e.g. upper zones have good stable fertile soils and reliable rainfall with annual means of more than 1000mm per year (Jaetzold and Schmidt, 1983). It has the following farming systems attributed with good fertility status.a) Small-holder mixed farming systems (with complete crop-livestock integration with subsistence farming (maize, dairy, potatoes, horticultural crops and bananas) which in most cases is dominated by cash crops (coffee, tea) b) Large scale farming with plantation crops like Nyayo tea zones.c) Integration of agro-forestry practices ('bush fallow\", home gardens and agro-forestry trees)The lower part comprises semi-arid regions with less than 100 people Km -2 . These are areas that are currently experiencing the greatest population change, compared with the high potential agricultural areas, with a natural rate of increase of 3.5 to 4% in East Africa and a higher actual growth rate due to migration from the crowded fertile areas of the highlands (Nandwa 2003). Farm sizes in these regions are thus getting smaller, ranging from 16 to 2.5 ha per household (Gachimbi, 2002.), in East Africa. Traditionally, farmers have always grown maize (Zea mays L.), beans, sorghum, millet, cowpeas and pigeon peas. The migrants into the semi-arid regions have traditionally brought along with them crops more suited to the high potential regions, with no requisite change in production technology to optimize the production of these crops in the semi-arid regions.The topography is variable and areas with slopes as high as 30% or more are commonly used for crop production despite the unstable soils exposing them to severe soil erosion and nutrient depletion. Many of the soils in the semi-arid lands (ASAL) are deficient in some essential mineral nutrients especially phosphorous and nitrogen as shown in (Gachimbi et al 2002, Nyathi et al 2003.). Declining crop yields is evident from Embu-Mbeere districts maize yield data.Many of the soils in the Mbeere are deficient in some essential mineral nutrients especially phosphorous (P) and nitrogen (N) as shown in figure 2 and as described elsewhere (Okalebo, 1987;Hikwa et al, 1998;. Low soil fertility (especially P and N deficiency) is a major biophysical constraint to successful agriculture in semi-arid areas of East Africa (Yates and Kiss, 1992;).In the past, soil conservation has been advocated as a necessary starting point to raise crop yields. Soil erosion has conventionally been perceived as one of the main causes of land degradation and the main reason for declining yields in tropical regions. Based on these assumptions, conservation measures were directed at three main components from 1950s especially in the upper zones of the transect (Wenner, 1980):• Physical works; Cut off drains and channel terraces to catch, disposal and prevent damage by run-off.Pressures to stop people from deforesting the area and to reduce the number of grazing animals by designating lower Embu (currently Mbeere) to be grazing areas.Planning of different land uses according to Land Use Capability Classifications based on the assessment of different degrees of the erosion hazards Tea and dairy with subsistence crops next to the forest, coffee, maize, dairy or a combination of these in the lower midland zones (LM 4-5 ) to grazing. Land use varies within an AEZ and across different AEZs. This is from forest, tea, coffee/ maize beans and dairy zero grazed animals to drought resistant crops like cow peas, sorghum, millet e.t.c. in the marginal areas of lower midland zones. In the lower midland areas free range grazing dominated by crossbreed dual-purpose animals becomes dominant. Specific farm slope in various land use type differs across the AEZ and within AEZ. Altitude decreases 2007-1060 above sea level from forest zone (TA)/ lower highland zones to lower midland zones. This coupled with other factors such as human population, plant cover, rainfall amount, intensity and finally soil type, contributes immensely to soil fertility and subsequent low crop yields.Studies conducted elsewhere (Onduru et al 2002) show major crop production constraints and options for increased food production Different soil conservation or improvement measures have been devised, installed and constantly improved. During the survey, major soil and water conservation practices in the district include terracing (fanya juu, cut off drains and retention ditches), stone lines, grass strips, trash lines, unploughed strips, river bank protection, contour bunds, semi-circular bunds, basins/9 seeds in a hole and plating pits. In addition to the above practices, gulley control using vegetative materials, gabbions and mixed materials are also being practiced. The dominant soil and water conservation practices in the district at farm level were fanya juu terracing and the use of trash lines in the lower midland zones and channel terraces in the upper midland zones which were not well maintained.The land use in Embu Mbeere is characterized by certain specific land management activities like ploughing and weeding, use of manure and fertilizers, use of insecticides and herbicides. These different management activities have direct impact on the dynamics of vegetation due disturbance. From a management point of view the land use could be categorized into three major types namely: livestock grazing, commercial mono-crop farming and subsistence mixed crop farming. Comparing species abundance between these systems showed that grazing systems have the highest plant diversity while cultivations of monocrops have the lowest As land use intensification increases, cultivation replaces natural vegetation in agro-ecosystems and the number of species decline due to the loss of native species as weeds start to invade.It is well known that land use change from more natural vegetation to one that is more intensively used creates ecosystem fragmentation to smaller patches that are more heterogeneous than the undisturbed continuum (Reid et al. 1997, Foran et al. 2000). However, if the disturbance is much more intensive like in cultivation of horticulture, non-desirable plant species are not let to grow due constant removal of invasive weeds and harvestable plant materials. The linear decline in the number of native species with land use change from polyculture to monoculture suggests that as land use changes from natural to grazing lands and to cultivation, there is always loss of indigenous species. Human land use is known to homogenize the distribution of bird species (Bo et. al. in prep.) and that these species are the commoners which in the case of birds are called pests. A similar observation is here inferred that the number of unique species within the samples collected in the cultivated areas was very low indicating that the rare species of conservation interest decrease with increasing land use intensity.From the results we observed that as land use intensity increases, plant cover decreases linearly. Although the number of plant species appears to increase before a continued decline as explained above, the plant cover shows a steady decline. In this analysis we note that as land use starts to intensify there is first a period of increasing plant diversity while the vegetation cover is decreasing. As dominant higher canopies (e.g, trees) are removed due to land use change there is a room for invasive species to grow in the lower canopies to cover the exposed areas but since these are structurally with less crown cover, the overall cover is generally reduced. This shows that although land use change from forests to woodlands to pasturelands appear to increase plant diversity in terms of species numbers, the loss of structural complexity and plant cover suggests a degradation. Examples highlighting the impacts of land management techniques on vegetation are discussed below.Crop cultivation in this area mostly involves clearing of natural vegetation which causes fragmentation and reduces the stature of woody layers and occasionally the number of vegetation species. In terms of species numbers, land conversion may be positive in that it could result into an increase in total number of species (Reid et al. 1997). The increase in species numbers was shown to result from conversion of uncultivated lands to cropland through invasion by weeds; augmentation of the structural diversity through planting of hedge rows and woodlots, introduction of exotic species, cultivation of crops of different stature and leaving patches between cultivated fields. These will definitely increase both vertical and horizontal heterogeneity of the environment, a correlate for high species diversity (Reid at al. 1997). Even though areas under crop agriculture showed high tree assemblages, they contained very few native vegetation species compared to natural forest stands and grazing land. In Embu-Mbeere area, the main exotic species include Eucalyptus, Grevellia, and Jacaranda species. Also those tree stands within farmlands do not support as many wildlife species compared to natural habitats.Methods of cultivation and land management also affect the vegetative structure and species within this area. In comparison with smallholder farms growing subsistence mixed crops and ploughed by oxen, the larger commercial farms of monoculture crops are structurally simpler and biologically less diverse. The efficiency achieved by mechanization in crop production is therefore achieved at the expense of natural vegetation. To support this, other studies have reported heavy use of chemicals to control weeds in large commercial farms, which in turn reduces vegetation species diversity within these systems. From our study, abundance of herbaceous and gramineae species was highest within the annual crops, coffee and fallow land use systems compared to tea and horticulture plantations. This may relate more to management aspects and field sampling time rather than land use intensity in the case of coffee and annual crops. However, low abundance of herbaceous species in tea planted areas could also be due to the nature of the tea crop itself since tea crop is usually maintained as a low shrub covering ground and leaving no room for undergrowth.From the study we can conclusively observe that in some context, conversion of land into cultivation doesn't necessarily cause negative impacts in terms of vegetation dynamics. For example, small holder agricultural systems can be compatible with high levels of wood vegetation cover and moderate levels of biodiversity (Tiffen, Mortimore & Gichuki 1994). However, the clearance of native forests for cultivation would lead to loss of native vegetation species a key concern for biodiversity conservation. Field observations showed crop cultivation insurgence into the mountain forest sections and this poses a real threat to the existing forest biodiversity both in terms of flora and fauna.ii) Livestock Grazing Land use systems From the study we do know, however, that prolonged use of native vegetation for livestock grazing results in profound ecosystem changes, including altered vegetation structure and composition changes. The most obvious changes were in under-storey composition, with a reduction or removal of the native shrubs and herbaceous perennials. But the severity of the grazing influence varies among vegetation types. Trampling by livestock also has a marked influence on soil structure, particularly in soils with relatively high clay content. Trampling can lead to significant reductions in litter and soil crust cover and increases in penetration resistance, which in turn lead to reduced water-infiltration rates and a less-buffered soil microclimate (Gachimbi 2003). This changed soil structure is thought to contribute to the inability of dominant tree species in woodland systems to regenerate. From other studies, grazing has further, subtler influences in fragmented systems. For instance, mistletoe is less abundant in grazed woodland fragments than in ungrazed fragments, presumably because of the influence of under-storey plant distributions on the birds that disperse mistletoe berries.The other major influence of livestock grazing is its interaction with weed invasion. Several studies have clearly indicated that weed invasion is much more prevalent in systems that have been grazed by livestock for long periods (Scougall et al. 1993). Different vegetation types display different degrees of susceptibility to invasion, but in all cases livestock grazing significantly increases the level of invasion. Weed invasion is enhanced by disturbance and nutrient addition in the relatively nutrient-poor systems. Some studies however indicate that weed invasion can be restricted to the edges of fragments, where nutrient deposition from adjacent farmland may occur. In Eucalyptus/Acacia woodland, Scougall et al. (1993) found that livestock grazing effectively increases edge by altering the physical and chemical properties of soil and increasing weed invasion much farther into woodland fragments than in ungrazed woodlands. Smith et al. (1996) found that grazing and weed invasion are covarying disturbance factors influencing the abundance and species richness of a number of faunal groups in fragments of Eucalyptus salubris woodland. These studies indicate that the internal condition of the fragment is as important or more important in determining the abundance of some groups than biogeographic variables such as size and isolation. The role of livestock grazing on vegetation is therefore quite remarkable and should not be overlooked.Differences in the number, diversity and cover values of vegetation patches resulted from differences in land-use systems within the study area. Land clearing for cultivation, integration of livestock and other uses have resulted into fragmentation of large and extensive areas of native vegetation. As farmers clear more land for agriculture, smaller cultivated fields coalesce to form larger fields thereby creating large homogenous patches of farmland. The rapidly growing population within the study area has likewise led to intensification of agricultural activities along the slopes of the mountain and widespread sparse cultivation on the suitable regions in the lowland areas of Mbeere. Substantial changes have been observed for different vegetation cover types such as bushed grassland, forests, pastures and cultivation. The remaining natural vegetation within the study area has become lone habitats for wildlife species outside the protected areas. As the land-use changes, fragmentation of the cover-types by human activities into smaller patches have contributed to increased heterogeneity and reduced landscape complexity (Western and Gichohi 1993;Smith 1996). It has been shown that spatial landscape pattern can strongly influence biotic community characteristics (Ellis et al. 1999), for example, vegetation composition and structure influence faunal composition and richness within any given ecosystem (O'Neill et al. 1988). Therefore, the emerging more open land use systems might result into local and regional loss of vegetation species that could have originally existed within the former intact landscape conditions.The ecological implications of the present landscape development within the study area are reflected by the initiation of vegetation succession processes and subsequent changes in cover type distribution, areas, and transitions from one type to another within the different land use systems. These succession processes may imply changes in the ecological contents of the different cover types. For example, expansion of crop cultivation into natural vegetation areas has led to fragmentation of those specific patches by splitting of the existing continuous ones. Connections between similar and dissimilar patches usually facilitate movement of individuals and propagules across a landscape (Dunn et al. 1990). If these connections are absent, the future survival of biodiversity within this landscape is threatened. In conclusion, populations of endangered plant and animal species may become vulnerable to the fragmentation of the rangeland vegetation, which will include reduced patch sizes and increased distance to similar sites due to isolation (van Dorp et al. 1997). This pattern is particularly evident in the areas being converted into agricultural use. Reduction in vegetation cover reduces the amount of soil organic carbon in the soil. Available soil organic carbon (SOC), in agronomic terms (Mehlich et al. 1964), is adequate in forest and bush lands in the upper zones but deficient in the lower zones. This is due to reduced plant cover and high rate of decomposition and mineralization of organic matter in the lower zones unlike in the upper zones. Soil organic carbon was found to be higher in annual crops, pasture and fallow as a result of the addition of farmyard manure or use of inorganic fertilizers. High nutrient status of soils in the upper zones is due to the presence of fertile weatherable soils, which have been enriched with volcanic ash dominated by Nitisosls or Andososls. Workability of the soils is in general good with exception of valley bottom soils (vertisols). Available P, SOC (%) and N decreases from forest and Lower highlands dominated by perennial crops such as tea, coffee, pasture (dairy) and horticulture to the lower midland zones under pasture, annual crops (maize, beans), perennial crops (Miraa, cowpeas, pigeon peas), woodland and other food crops as detailed inGrass cover is dominant in the pasture fields in the upper zones compared with other land uses from the lower midland zones. Herbaceous material increases from woodland to perennial, annual and fallow fields exponentially especially in upper midland zones even though soil fertility levels are all below the threshold. Shrubs in this case decreases from 1.5% to near zero in perennial, annual and fallow fields. Grass cover increases from woodland to the fallow fields from (zero to 1%). Amount of grass/herb cover decrease in the lower zones giving way to 15% shrub cover especially in pasture fields compared to near 35% grass cover in the same area. Herbs cover in pasture fields could be 3%. In the lower zones, grass/herb/shrub cover in perennial crop fields is lower than in annual fields possibly due to low fertility status and constant cultivation in perennial fields. Changes in land use from non-cultivated to cultivated affects ecosystem diversity at two scales: first as cultivated patches are introduced the new species associated with agro-ecosystems create new habitats in an otherwise extensive natural vegetation. The new habitats comprise of mainly herbaceous species that establish themselves in the opened up areas. The effects of the new habitat is an increase of ecosystem heterogeneity as long as there are still some of the natural habitats left. As the extent of cultivation continues, patches of natural habitats become fewer and fewer and agro-ecosystems become more and more. The reduction in natural habitats reduces the heterogeneity therefore making the ecosystem less diverse. From these findings we conclude that higher densities of ecosystem patches have higher densities of total species but lower numbers of species of conservation value.Our findings indicate that cultivation affects the numbers and cover of plant species. In Embu Mbeere, we found that tree cover varies significantly between land use types due to presence of more trees in the uncultivated areas than in the cultivated areas both in the upper and in the middle zones. Shrubs show significant variation in both species numbers and cover due to higher representation in the uncultivated than in the cultivated areas. Despite the fact that herbs comprise mainly of weeds our study show no significant variation in cover across the land uses.The comparison of grass species numbers between the various land use types was found to vary only in the upper zones. On the other hand a comparison in grass species cover between different land uses in the middle and lower zones in Embu Mbeere was found to vary. Inter site variability was noted in the patterns of species distribution and cover where it was greater in Embu/Mbeere than in Loitokitok. This difference in distribution and cover of plant species could be due to variation in production systems where in Loitokitok, farm sizes are relatively larger and the changes are more in extensification rather than intensification. In Loitokitok farming is more towards monoculture while in Embu farming is more towards mixed farming. Our findings indicate that a change from polyculture to monoculture reduces the number of species of conservation value. The figure below shows a continuous reduction in the number native species along a gradient of from mixed to mono crops. There is a progressive loss of native species as land use continues and as we change from mixed farming to mono-cropping. Native species here refer to total plant species that are indigenous (irrespective of whether they are of conservation value or not) to the area as opposed to introduced species. An assessment of the impacts of land use change on the number of species of conservation value (rare species) also show a linear decline similar to the native plant species. Information on the rare species was obtained from Flora of tropical East Africa (FTEA) where distribution patterns of plant species are indicated region by region and information on their distribution is given. For many species FTEA gives information on whether plants of that species are rare or common.The figure below illustrates the impacts of land use change on plant species of conservation value. Similar observations reported for birds in the LUCID study sites in Uganda (Pomeroy et al. 2003). Land use change reduces vegetation complexity by removing tree canopy cover and if cultivation continues even the shrub canopy does not re-establish itself. Removal of tree and shrub canopies reduces the number of tree and shrub species but the number of herbaceous species increase. However, most of the increased species are only to common onesThe figure below shows the number of tree species in different life forms and different land cover types. Surprisingly maize and beans cultivation followed by pastures have the highest number of tree species, more than those found in the forests. Maize and beans also have the highest number of herbaceous species and the highest number of total plant species. How do changes in soil fertility associated with LUC affect the number of plant species?The number of plant species decreases after opening up the forest to cultivation. This decrease in plant species numbers and cover results in decreases in the amount of soil organic carbon.Comparison of soils in uncultivated with soils in the areas with perennial crops, pasture or even in annual crops shoe reduced amounts of soil organic matter. Soil carbon in the cultivated areas is lowest in the horticulture areas than in any other land use. This may be due to the high intensity of land use in horticulture farming. Grass cover increases from the lowest in the in the forest to the highest in the pasture fields. This is due to a combination of many factors i.e. reduced forest cover to specific land uses like dairy in the higher altitude areas. However, in the upper zones soil fertility is not a limiting factor to land use due to the ability of farmers to many farmers make inputs in form of animal manure and fertilizers. The number of shrubs crops decreases from upper midland to lower midland zones, giving way to increased herbaceous materials and grass cover.High pH promotes release of most plant nutrients like phosphorous although its level is low due to high levels of soil erosion and conducive environment for nitrogen losses through volatilization, leaching and fast decomposition of soil organic matter.The diversity and abundance of small mammals depend on the complexity and diversity of the landscape itself. Our study in Embu Mbeere indicate that the species richness of small mammals related closely to the diversity of plant species, some of which constitute critical resources in terms of food and shelter. The intensification of land use was found to impact negatively on the resident plant community by altering species richness, plant cover regime and the related microhabitat interactions as new plant species become introduced or invade the modified sites. As a result, diverse number of small mammals species were unable to establish in sites that were undergoing intensive use. Plant sp. evenness (J) Small mammals sp. diversity (H') Small mammals sp. evenness (J)2. How have the animal populations responded to the changes? Local extinctions, grazing in cropped areas. Changes in land use in Embu Mbeere have almost eliminated wildlife due destruction of habitats and poaching. The only wildlife still present, are those that are pests on crops like primates and rodents (Mugatha, 2002, Mutugi, 2003). These remaining wild life are in constant conflicts with people due to destruction of crops. The primates are now confined to hills and riverine forests ehere there is less conflict with humans. Due to these conflicts a national reserve was established and fenced to keep the animals with in the park. The park is now with many animals ranging from elephants to antelopes.Several factors may have led to drastic decline of wildlife and in some cases, to species local extinction. Some of these mammalian species used to be abundant in the area in the 1960s and before. The factors leading to mammalian declines in the area are mainly anthropogenic starting with the burgeoning human population early in the 1970s. Some of these factors are discussed below.The district was scarcely populated by 1960s where for instance Mwea location had a population density of 10-19km -2 . Similarly, its sub-locations Gategi and Riakanau had a population of 16km -2 each (Van de Weg and Mbuvi, 1975). By 1979, Mwea location had tripled it population density to 59km -2 in approximately 20 years period (Jaetzold and Schmidt, 1983). The Mbeere communities were hunter gathers and cattle herder and had no or very little impact on wildlife and its habitats. In the later years, migration by other ethnic communities into the area predominantly occupied by Mbeere and Embu ethnic groups had become common and frequent. The main causes of these migrations were in search of land for subsistence cultivation. At the same time a few ranching schemes were established for instance the Mwea Ranching Scheme. This led to clearing of bushes and woodlands, decreasing the acreage available to wildlife. After the collapse of the schemes the ranches were subdivided for settlement driving wildlife out. A case in point is the Mwea ranching scheme where by 1989 there were a few remnant wildlife species for instance the kongoni, zebra and other plains game. None of these mammalian species are found here due to present human settlements. Currently, for instance in Makima location cultivation has extended from the riverbanks to marginal drier area. These activities have interfered with wildlife habitats to an extent where the adjacent area was declared a national reserve in 1975, to protect the remaining wildlife.Satellite image analysis shows a general decline in land cover types in the two districts where for instance the areas under bush had declined by 27.3%, those under grasslands by 13.2% while areas under woodland had declined by 17.7% in a period of 14 years. These changes are also reflected in changes in landuse types over the same period. The land use types indicate that the areas under mixed bush/crops had increased from 420.9ha to 465ha while those under grazing land had decreased from 59.6ha to 36.7ha between 1987 and 2001. Information on land use changes is corroborated by changes in land use type within the same period. For instance as agricultural activities increased in the two districts, rainfed-mixed bush/cultivation and rainfedwheat and pasture had also increased by 10.4% and 16% between 1987 and 2001 respectively. The two-landuse practices were mainly concentrated within the marginal areas of the districts where wildlife was plenty during the 1960s and 70s.Before 1914, the Mbeere district was scarcely populated. The human population gradually built up giving way to poaching and other wildlife malpractice. Hunting was a traditional activity before then but as the human population increased and land became scarce, hunting went beyond the subsistence level. In the later years poaching became a norm for professional commercial hunters climaxing in the 1970s and early 80s driving the rhinos to local extinction in this area. Although commercial poaching abated by late 80s, subsistence hunting continued wiping out some medium size mammalian species. Some of the mammalian specie wiped out were the lesser kudu, the bushpig and the kongoni, which were still common in the area up to late 1980s. The carnivores were a source of conflict with livestock herders and were mainly exterminated through poisoned allows and treated meat. At present only a few herbivore species are remaining in the reserve and hardly any carnivores at all.Population increase in Mbeere District resulted in a number of subsistence activities such as charcoal burning and clearing more land for agriculture. The two activities have since been increasing causing reduction to woodlands and other wildlife habitats. These environmentally exploitative activities were severe on government land where the people had no responsibility for the land's long-term productivity. The situation was made worse after the collapse of the cotton industry, which to an extent formed the main backbone of the communities' economy. Currently tree felling is putting more pressure around and within the conservation areas where woody resources are still abundant. This has cascade effect on wildlife species by interfering with their habitats hence reducing their numbers.  The fragmentation and alteration of natural habitats into large areas of croplands has eliminated the option of free range grazing. Grazing is now in secluded patches of within individual farms. The situation has increased livestock density with the areas designated as grazinglands, which has subjected these areas to heavy forage utilization. The situation has led to increased competition between livestock production and crop production. There are two scenarios of change in relations to implications on livelihood. First there is shift from being predominantly livestock keepers to mixed crop-livestock producers. The second scenario is that among the crop-livestock producers, changes in economics of production has forced many to adopt to new livestock breeds that are able to pay off for the extract cost required in the changed management systems.Most farmers in Embu Mbeere are small scale farmers and practice livestock keeping and crop cultivation. Livestock is seen by many as a bank and insurance for the farmer. Many farmers sell their surplus farm produce to buy livestock to keep (Bourn, and Maitima, in Press). In view of the trends in changes in land use livestock production is going to grow as a means of intensifying production in the declining land sizes. The livestock sector that may grow is dairy production because it requires less land and milk is a commodity that has market.Available phosphorous remains more or less constant in both the grazed and ungrazed plots, with an indication of possible decline in enclosed plots. Rock weathering may be the only significant source of additional phosphorous for range soils (Heady and Child, 1994). This uniformly low content is attributed to the fact that this element is stored in unavailable forms to plants Juo (1978) H 2 PO 4 which becomes available to plants at low pH. It also suffers from fixation by hydrous oxides and silicate minerals. This element is doubly critical, because of low total amount and a very low availability.Quantities of exchangeable cations were relatively low in both enclosed and grazed plots. The availability of the cations depends on the parent materials. This can be attributed to the fact that the soil in all the plots was more or less acidic with low pH values (Oba et al., 2000a). Except for calcium that showed a slight increase in the enclosed plots all the other nutrients remain relatively low. These inorganic nutrients are only made available through the active release of cations from the additional litter accumulating under the trees (Skarpe, 1991;Hatton and Smart, 1984).There was an appreciable increase in organic matter content in the enclosed plots as compared to grazed plots. Organic matter and organic carbon are correlated within any single type and as the results indicate there was an increase in the amount of organic carbon in the enclosed sites. Similar finding are reported by Hatton and Smart (1984). This was expected in the enclosed site which was dominated by trees and shrubs which deposits litter on the soil. Through decomposition, the organic matter is returned to the soil and hence the percent carbon also increases.Both temperature and moisture regime affects the equilibrium of organic matter contents of soils. Increased temperature decreases organic matter content while increased moisture increases organic matter (Sikora and Stott, 1996). Again in sites where there was no disturbance it is expected that the microbial activity and other decomposer populations would be more intense, and the role of these organisms as agents of litter breakdown and humus formation is well known (Skarpe, 1990).There was a significant difference in the percent moisture content with a range of 1.4-6.6% and 0.2-3.8 % in enclosed and open site respectively. This can be attributed to the fact that the soils in the enclosed sites are not directly exposed to the sun due to the canopy cover which prevents evaporation rates. Litter deposition/accumulation from the trees and shrubs additionally keep soil covered most of the time and hence reduces heating of the soil which would cause the reserved water to evaporate. In addition, the shade from the trees and shrubs play a major role in moisture retention (Skarpe, 1991). Again, the high amount of organic matter in the enclosed site maintains the moisture at a higher level. In most cases grazing induces shortage of moisture, reduces infiltration rate and other nutrients and to some extent causes soil erosion.Total nitrogen was higher in the enclosed site than in the open site. The increase in the total nitrogen is as a result of the increase in organic matter content of the soils in the protected sites. The low level of nitrogen content in the grazed sites can be attributed to low nitrate content which are easily lost through soil erosion (Belsky et al., 1989). The total nitrogen is often a good indicator of the degraded rangelands and in this it indicates a higher level of land degradation in the grazed sites as opposed to the enclosed sites.Bulk density was higher in the grazed plots than in the enclosed plots. The soils with high proportion of pore space to solids have lower bulk densities than those that are more compact and have less pore space. In the enclosed sites due to high proportion of organic matter the pore space is higher hence the low bulk density. The bulk density range in the enclosed site was 1.2-2.3 g/cm 3 while in the open site it was 1.3-3.0 g/cm 3 . In the communal grazing sites grazing increases bulkiness of the soil through the soil compaction and hence the higher bulk density. Due to exposure of the soils in open sites the evaporation rate is high reducing moisture content and soil density changes with moisture content (Sikora and Stott, 1996). The composition of the particle size assay was relatively uniform except slight variations in the clay contents. The high amount of clay content in the enclosed site can be attributed to the hydropower dam which spills off water during the rainy season to the adjacent enclosed site. This water is always carrying different types of soil which is eventually deposited in the study site. Again river Thiba that borders the study site is another potential source of clay soil. In general all the soils in both sites were either loamy sand or sandy loam.There was no significant variation in the soil colour. In all the soil samples the hue (the dominant spectral colour or quality was consistently 5YR. The value (apparent lightness as compared to absolute white) varies significantly from 3-8. The chroma (the apparent degree of divergence from neutral grey or white) varies from 3-7. The general colour of the soil ranged from red to brown.The comparison of the soil data from the grazed and ungrazed plots indicates nutrient enrichment of the soils in enclosed site, in part this could be due, to nutrient inputs by tree litter. On the other hand, trees transport nutrients from the surrounding surface and subsurface soils to their canopy and drop the nutrients in leaf and stem litter (Belsky et al., 1989). 12 years of grazing exclusion can conclusively be said to be useful in relation to the soil properties whereby most of the nutrients are relatively higher in the enclosed site than in the open site. Poor nutrients content, is a symptom of land degradation in the open site. This was more pronounced in the plots which were falling in the more degraded area.Low soil nutrients values indicates that natural process such as weathering are unable to replenish soil nutrients at a sufficient rate to replace those lost by the direct or indirect effects of grazing. Nitrogen and cation concentrations decline at a more rapid rate than can be explained by grazing effects (McIntosh, 1997). Processes like nutrient loss, continued grazing without nutrient inputs are unsustainable. To maintain or improve soil nutrient balance, new approaches to soil and vegetation management will be required.From the ongoing discussion, the study results are consistent with the general pattern that pastoral development enhances richness of plant species at a local scale providing opportunities for increasers species to establish. Conversely, it has the potential to decrease it at a regional scale by removing the most grazing sensitive decreasers species from the regional species pool (Landsberg et al., 2002). Those species, which were substantially less abundant in open sites than in the enclosed sites, were presumably the most sensitive to grazing overall. Some plant species, such as Andropogon greenwayi and Sporobolus ioclades (poaceae) and Indigofera cliffordiana Herlocker (1999) and I. spinosa (dwarf shrub) have adapted to grazing and browsing to the extent that they depend on it for their existence (Oba, 1995). However, overgrazing reduces ground cover vegetation, plant height, forage quality and productivity. The impact of grazing on rangeland vegetation depends on three factors. First, the type of herbivores (grazers and browsers), secondly the number and type of animals utilizing an area, and lastly the distribution of use in time and space (Pratt and Gwynne, 1977). Cattle and sheep, which are primarily grazers and goats and camels, which are primarily browsers directly affect the herbaceous and woody components of the vegetation respectively.Walker (1993) suggested that in arid rangelands lack of grazing is ineffective in inducing revegetation until the right combination of weather conditions occurs. Grazing has a greater influence on species composition, perhaps suggesting a better adaptation of vegetation of the study site to grazing as a result of the long association of plants and livestock and to some extent small mammals like rabbits and dik dik.Long term grazing exclusion studies attempt to test the hypothesis that grazing causes degradation. Several studies comparing the effects of excluding grazing with those of continuous grazing have been conducted world wide, including in arid zones of sub-Saharan Africa, for more than a century. According to the current study grazing exclusion did not improve or increase range production any more than continuous grazing. This is because forage production is influenced more by rainfall than by herbivory. . Areas of rangeland where grazing has ceased have been invaded with woody plants and a ban on livestock grazing in the rangeland would almost certainly result in the loss of this species-rich habitat. A similar trend was observed in the study site where grazing exclusion did not increase species richness though there was substantial increase in above ground biomass. The hypothesis that grazing history is the main factor determining plant community composition in the rangeland was supported by the species richness, vegetation cover and high level of organic matter and moisture contents because these factors are likely consequences of herbivory.The forage yield of the grazed rangelands was significantly less than that of the ungrazed ranges in both seasons. The most interesting fact concerning the dried forage yields of the investigated rangelands was that the yield differences in the grazed areas for both seasons (i.e.dry and wet) were negligible. This lack of difference is another indication of the heavy and uncontrolled grazing taking place in the common grazing lands in both seasons. Heavy grazing would not allow the more palatable grasses to regrow during the growing period. Dried forage yield was appreciably different in the ungrazed areas between the seasons. This difference may be explained on the basis that the enclosed site is dominated by shrubs and trees which provide high biomass during the wet seasons. In the dry season most of them are deciduous and hence shed off their foliage parts giving low biomass.Relationship between land management practices (tillage, use of fire, mulching) with soil fertility.The technique of spreading the crop residues or other materials on the surface soil is known as stubble mulching and was developed in Northern America originally as a defence against rain erosion in the grain-growing prairies. It was later used against rain-erosion, where it is equally effective as the surface mulch provides excellent protective cover.Decomposition rates of used mulch material vary. It can take from a few months to several years for the material to completely disappear, depending upon chemical composition and climate (Anderson and Swift, 1983), in the lower zones decomposition is faster due to adequate temperature and moisture than upper zones where temperatures are relatively lower.The decomposed organic matter fractions contribute to binding the aggregate structure of soils (improving root penetration, erosion resistance and water relations), increasing the exchange capacity in acid soils as is the case in the upper midland zones, reducing P fixation and aluminium toxicity.Amount of grasslands, properties of mulch and soil organic matter fractions are an important buffer to seasonal variations and nutrient cycles, particularly when virgin lands are converted to temporary or permanent agriculture. Natural forests or contain a wide spectrum, of dead plant materials with different spatial and temporal patterns of deposition and different rates of decomposition. Hence, even in strongly seasonal environments with rapid decomposition rates, the high mass and varied composition of litterfall protects the soil surface throughout the year and promotes high soil organic matter content. Clearance of natural vegetation for arable agriculture changes the amounts and qualities of organic matter inputs into soils, soil temperature/moisture regimes, and biological process affecting mulch decomposition.The most common practice of changing the forest into food production involves slashing and burning the vegetation. The use of fire modifies the biological soil environment. When fire occurs, the temperature of the surface layers of the soil is raised. The actual heating rate and depth depends on the amount of moisture in the soil and the type of fire. Temperatures during the burn at the surface always exceed 100 0 C and can reach as high as 720 0 C for brief periods of time (Fehlberg, 1989). The temperatures are dependent on the type and amount of biomass and the moisture content, all of which influence the intensity of the fire.The burning of the aboveground organic materials usually combusts most nitrogen and organic acid components, returning inorganic cations of the soil in the ash, which has a liming effect. The amount of liming effect depends on the intensity of the fire and the thoroughness of the burning. The hot temperatures can also greatly reduce the amount of organic matter in the upper layers of the soil. For example, at temperatures of 200-300 0 C for 20-30 minutes, there may be as much as 85% reduction in organic matter (Fehlberg, 1989). Generally, most of the abiotic effects are shortterm in nature. Under ideal conditions, regeneration of the vegetation rapidly begins the process of recovery. However, frequent fires can lead to more lasting change.Depending on the dryness of the biomass, the weather and the amount of biomass, burning is described as complete or incomplete. Soil organic matter (SOM) is affected by incomplete burning. SOM content in the top few cm decreases but addition from leaching of burned organic material may mask this process. As a result of these processes the carbon (C) content of the soil and the CEC may even be higher than before the burn. Burning may lead to increasing values of C, N, P, organic matter and CEC. The content of plant available P increases slightly after burning as a result of the partial destruction of SOM. The influence of burning of slashed vegetation on N content due to volatilisation has an important effect on soil nutrient supply. Gichuru et al (2003) reported that with medium burn temperatures (300 0 -400C), the total N content of the top 2 cm decreased by 20-50% but that the ammonium content increased with lower temperatures of 200-250 0 C. In addition, burning may have a positive effect on the N cycle. Nitrifying bacteria responsible for NO 3 formation are partially inhibited in converting ammonium to nitrates. These changes result in increased soil fertility and improved conditions for crops.In shifting cultivation farmers cut and burn relatively small plots of forests or woodland and produce crops in the burned-over area. They grow crops on these plots for 2-3 years, until the nutrients are depleted and /or when weeds become a problem (Gichuru et al 2003). The farmers then abandon the plots for 10-20 years, allowing the forest species to re-grow and replenish the soil fertility. The farmers move on to slash and burn another forested plot and repeat the process. A farmer may shift in turn five to ten such small plots before returning to clear and burn trees in the first one that was fallowed 10-20 years previously and restart a new cycle. After a cropping period the land is abandoned and will be re-cultivated after its fertility is judged to be restored, or sooner if other land is not available.Shifting cultivation has received a great deal of international attention because one of the suspected environmental consequences of the system is its contribution to global warming. It has been estimated that the tropical rainforests contribute substantial amounts of greenhouse gases from deforestation. Therefore, slash and burn agriculture could have global implications because of its contribution to these gaseous emissions as a result of the burning of the forests products and of the subsequent decay of trees and other unburned debris and soil organic matter. Furthermore, slash-and -burn agriculture causes disturbance, if not loss, of the biological diversity accumulated for over a long period. The maintenance of the multiple roles to play, which are increasingly being recognized, particularly in soil fertility management (Kotto-Same et al., 1997) H. CONCLUSIONS Vegetation varies significantly across the altitudinal gradient that characterizes the Embu Mbeee transect, mainly due to the different agro-ecological zones across the region. The upper zones are much wetter and are characterized by evergreen broadleafed forst species while the lower areas are characterized by dry savanna type of vegetation. Land use reflects a similar pattern ehere the upper zones are mainly used for commercial perennial cash crops and thelowere areas are used mainly for annual cereal crops. Livestock kept by farmers also varies from the predominantly diary production in the upper zones to the grazing of animals for beef in the lower zones.With the upper zones are natural vegetation is almost entirely replaced by exotic in cultivated land but in the lowlands patches of disturbed natural vegetation still remains. Wood harvesting and charcoal burning in the lowland threaten the existence of the remaining natural trees.Animal biodiversity is very rare in upper regions and where they occur they are only along the Mt. Kenya forest margin where they are protected. In lower parts of Mbeere there still exist some wildlife but mainly the pests like primates and small mammals that feed on the crops. The only place where wild animals are found is in Mwea National reserve.The composition and distribution of small mammals is significantly affected by land use change. Conversion of natural vegetation into cultivated lands causes local extinctions of rare species of animals but increases the abundance of the more common species. The number native plant species decrease as cultivation or conversion from natural vegetation to farmlands increases.All soils across all AEZ have inherent good soil fertility but do not receive (after continuous nutrient mining) adequate nutrient replenishment in form of organic manures or inorganic fertilizers or biomass transfer through agro-forestry or short fallow due to shortage of land per unit household. Soil productivity in the upper zones are constrained by acidity, which decreases as one moves to the lower areas. Although little production increase (in terms of hectarage) has taken place, this has led to cultivation of poor and marginal lands with the productivity of most existing lands has been declining.With population continuing to increase there is need to reverse nutrient mining (Smaling 1988). Improving soil fertility could trigger rural and national economic development, achieve long-term food security and improve farmers' standards of living, while mitigating environmental degradation and rural migration. This could be done through participatory introduction of integrated nutrient management technologies (Gachimbi et al 2002, Onduru et al 2001). However, soil fertility and productivity enhancement has to be supported by policies with regard to credit facilities, produce and input prices and access to markets.The diversity index (H') and evenness (J) of small mammal species increased with increase in heterogeneity of habitats, as exemplified by diversity of plant species in fallow and bushy sites. Diversity of plants relate to habitat complexity and perhaps function through modifying microclimatic conditions like humidity, temperature, shelter and availability of food favourable to the establishment of small mammal populations. However Otomys, one of the small mammal species that dominated cultivated sites, build nest below ground level in burrows. Consequently it may suffer lower nest damage and is sheltered from the effect of environmental change experienced by the surface nesting species after clearing. Nevertheless, such species may also have a narrow microclimatic range.The findings of this study demonstrate that land use practices could have resulted in the destruction of shelter and elimination of subterranean and herbaceous plants species some of which comprise food sources for the small mammals species. Therefore, land use factors influences the diversity, distribution and abundance of small mammals with diversity declining in highly used sites.There is need for urgent policy interventions to promote better farm management in Mbeere or the lower zones in general. These policy interventions should target prevention of soil erosion, promotion of more vegetation cover within the farmlands by planting of trees.","tokenCount":"12004"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6f1540be2dce5c6ddab340303db10ff3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/dc340af2-6e40-4e58-a265-6915c7e1dda0/retrieve","id":"2016574131"},"keywords":["drip irrigation","affordability","smallholder","productivity"],"sieverID":"38e0f430-fdb2-4235-97fb-186ee773ff2b","pagecount":"214","content":"Review of agricultural water management technologies…………………………………..The adoption of sustainable water management and irrigation development with strong linkage to private sector and markets together with the necessary institutions and other support condition could provide ample opportunities in terms of coping strategy against climatic externalities. They could enable poverty reduction, wealth creation, growth of economy and reducing the environmental impact of agricultural expansion to marginal land under the rapid population growth.There are considerable experiences within the country, in the region and in the world that could be adapted and replicable to enable usage of appropriate technologies to overcome the stated challenges, fight poverty, protect the livelihood and bring about the desired growth and wealth creation in Ethiopia. In line with these, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD) and The Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR) of Ethiopia and International Water Management Institute (IWMI), have initiated and organized these three days joint symposium and exhibition program.The program addresses key questions such as: what is the reason for limited technology access in terms of agricultural water management? Why promising technologies have not scaled up? What can be done for scaling up? What are the policies and institutional support conditions needing attention for scaling up? How does the private sector strongly involve in the sub-sector? What are the best implementation strategies?Based on these key questions, the objectives of the symposium are:• To bring together and share experiences among farmers, government (policy makers, technical experts), NGOs, private sector (small holder and commercial farmers, producers/distributors of technologies for water management and irrigation), international donors and financial institutions and related stake holders that are working around small scale irrigation (SSI), rain water harvesting (RWH) and micro irrigation (MI) technologies; • To review past and current practice of rain water harvesting, micro irrigation and small scale irrigation technology usage in Ethiopia; • To carry out focused discussion to explore opportunities and mechanisms through which the uptake of knowledge, application, dissemination and out scaling of SSI, MI and RWH technologies could be enhanced.The symposium and exhibition themes are subdivided in to:• Assessment of current practices of small scale -agricultural water management andirrigation development in Ethiopia • State of the art and best technologies review in RWH, SSI and MI • Private sector participation in irrigation development, technologies and equipment development, irrigation management, service provision and agro processing • Policies and institutional support conditions for small scale irrigation in EthiopiaThe expected outputs of the symposium include:• Understanding the existing status of SSI, RWH and MI technologies usage, manufacturing, supply/import in the country • Publishing and documenting resulting information including web document providing information on the best technologies, existing policies, support conditions, constraints and opportunities for up-and out-scaling. • Information on knowledge gap, framework for future further action research, and priority research and development questions • Initiation of the private and public sector for active engagement in the sector. Accordingly, the three days program include (as you may also see it in your program):• Opening remarks by guest of honors to be followed by • This morning presentations and discussions on \"Assessment of Current Practices of AWM Technologies\"• After having lunch, in the afternoon at 2:00pm we will have the opening of exhibition, and visit through out the afternoon • In the evening, at 6:00pm we will have cocktail reception for all participants • Tomorrow we will continue with presentation and discussion on the remaining three major themes • Towards the end of the day we will formulate groups for group discussions • On the third day, we will focus on group discussion around three major topics that include technology options, private sector role and policies and institutions • The discussion groups will present their findings and recommendation on plenary and way forward will be summarized towards the end of the third day. Specifics on the topics of the presentations and discussion topics are provided in the program.According to our program, I now call H.E. Mr. William Hammink to provide us an opening remark.Thank you very much.Ethiopia is one of the largest countries in Africa. Covering a land area of 1.13 million km 2 , it is the second most populous country in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) (and third on the continent) approaching 80 million people. The population has been increasing by about 2.9 % per annum. Population density, and hence population pressure on resources, varies from region to region. Eighty-five percent of the population is rural. The incidence of poverty in the rural areas is higher than in urban areas, 47% and 33% respectively. About 49% of the total population is considered 'under-nourished'. Fifteen to twenty percent of the rural households are female-headed. Average annual per capita income is around 110 USD.Agriculture is the most dominant economic sector in Ethiopian economy. Most agricultural production in the country is rain fed under highly variable rainfall conditions. There is also progressive degradation of the natural resource base, especially in densely populated and highly vulnerable areas of the highlands, which aggravates the incidence of poverty and food insecurity in these areas. The wider poverty vicious cycle of Ethiopia takes dimensions of population growth extending agriculture and livestock into less and less favorable land, deforestation to obtain more agricultural land and more energy to meet demand land and water degradation damage to ecosystem, poor productivity, food insecurity deepening poverty poor health, malnutrition inability to invest in maintaining or improving (land, water, labour) productivity further population growth, degradation and deepening poverty. How to reverse this vicious cycle in to virtuous cycle needs a number of measures through good understanding of the most detrimental factors against the most important economic sector.The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) pledge, among others, to reduce the number of chronically hungry people by half by 2015. Achieving this goal is a major challenge and requires substantial investment in the smallholder agricultural sector, which is the key occupation for the majority of the poor people in Ethiopia. The country imports about 15% of its food mostly through aid. The government has designed a comprehensive food security strategy that targets the chronically food insecure especially in highly vulnerable areas: marginal and semi-arid areas that are largely moisture deficient, including pastoral areas, with high population pressure.Ethiopia covers 12 river basins with an annual runoff volume of 122 billion m 3 of water with an estimated 2.6 billion m 3 of ground water potential. This amounts to 1530 m 3 of water per person per year: a relatively large volume. But due to lack of water storage capacity and large spatial and temporal variations in rainfall, there is not enough water for most farmers to produce more than one crop per year with frequent crop failures due to dry spells and droughts. Moreover, there is significant erosion, reducing the productivity of farmland. There is an endless variability of ways in which water is obtained and used in Ethiopia. These can be categorized for example based on production type as domestic, livestock, rainfed agriculture, supplementary irrigation, and irrigated agriculture of small, medium and large scale.Considering the agricultural sector, there are four major categories of productive use of water in agriculture: (1) 'rainfed agriculture', (2) 'supplementary irrigation', (3) 'irrigated agriculture', and (4) 'livestock'. Improving water management for agriculture could improve agricultural productivity quite substantially in all the four components. Improving water management in turn requires appropriate adoption and up scaling of technologies and need to establish the necessary market and entrepreneurship for forward and backward linkage, manufacturing and processing of the produces of both technology and agriculture.MoWR/MoARD/USAID/IWMI Workshop xivIn addition to the national agricultural sector led development strategy, there is a water policy for water resources management and a strategy for water resources development. The sub sector policy towards irrigation is to develop the huge irrigated potential for the production of food crops and raw materials needed for agro-industries, on efficient and sustainable basis and without degrading the fertility of the production fields and water resources base. The strategy deals with expansion of irrigated agriculture, water use and production efficiency, sustainable irrigation development and address pertinent problems related to irrigation such as water logging, salinity, etc. Accordingly, the irrigation sector development program stipulates to develop additional 274,612 hectares of land by 2016. According to the current plan and on going projects, this target is exceeded by two fold. Despite these efforts and achievements, it is essential to further upscale the endeavors around this development.With in the strategies and plans, as explained in above, it is important to consider the entire aspects of agricultural water management including improving agricultural productivity in the rainfed crop, livestock and irrigation sub sectors. It is paramount to tap in to the opportunities that can be obtained from rain water harvesting, surface water and ground watersources for securing production and protecting livelihood. Furthermore, the experiences of use and adoption of rain water harvesting, small scale irrigation and micro irrigation technologies are mixed. The participation of the private sector in the technology generation, manufacturing and usage is limited. The existing policies, institutional arrangement and support conditions need to be understood by various stakeholders.It is therefore necessary to bring together all the stake holders who are involved in policy and decision making, technology and knowledge generation, knowledge brokering, manufacturing, trading, use of technologies, etc to discuss, exchange knowledge and seek mechanisms through which the technologies could be accessed and the uptakes could be enhanced. The symposium and exhibition event have been therefore geared towards creating the necessary platform to achieve objects pertinent to the above concepts and explained further below.The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD) of Ethiopia, The Federal Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR) of Ethiopia, The US-Agency for International Development (USAID) and The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) had organized a three days national symposium and exhibition on the title of \"Best Practices and Technologies for Agricultural Water Management in Ethiopia\". The event took place during March 7 th -9 th , 2006 at Ghion Hotel in Addis Ababa.The objectives of the symposium have been:• Bring together and share experiences among government (policy makers, technical experts), NGOs, private sector (small holder and commercial farmers, producers/distributors of irrigation equipment), international donors and financial institutions and related stake holders that are working around small scale irrigation (SSI), rain water harvesting (RWH) and micro irrigation (MI) technologies; • Review past and current practice of rain water harvesting, micro irrigation and small scale irrigation technology usage in Ethiopia; • Carry out focused discussion to explore opportunities and mechanisms through which the uptake of knowledge, application, and dissemination and out scaling of SSI, MI and RWH technologies could be enhanced.About the symposium and exhibition MoWR/MoARD/USAID/IWMI Workshop xvThe main themes of the symposium and exhibition were designed on: 1. Assessment of current practices of small scale -agricultural water management andirrigation development in Ethiopia focusing on assessment on usage of irrigation in Ethiopia; constraints and problems related to irrigation in Ethiopia with focus on SSI, RWH and MI; review of impacts and impediments for uptake and up scaling of technologies in Ethiopia; assessment of impact of irrigation on poverty alleviation, wealth creation and growth of economy 2. State of the art and best technologies review in RWH, SSI and MI focusing on recent technologies available for agricultural water management and irrigation in Ethiopia and elsewhere; who are using them? How wide is the distribution? And what need to be done to improve availability? the types of traditional technologies used in Ethiopia; research and piloting, testing, validation and demonstration of technologies; case studies of privately owned irrigation systems using micro irrigation and small scale irrigation technologies 3. Private sector participation in irrigation development, technologies and equipment development, irrigation management, service provision and agro processing with emphasis on accessibility and constraints in producing and manufacturing the technologies; case studies of privately owned irrigation technology on import, distribution and manufacturing; the business opportunities and constraints need to be addressed for effective participation of private sector, farmers and farmers groups, cooperatives in irrigation and water management technologies 4. Policies and institutional and support conditions for small scale irrigation in Ethiopia with focus on policies related to irrigation and agricultural water management in Ethiopia; institutional and support conditions for agricultural water management; market and market network on small scale irrigation technologies; organizational issues, know how and leadership.The symposium was attended by federal government institutions, bureaus of the various regions, farmers, the private sector, donors, embassies, UN agencies, international institutions, NGOs, experts outside Ethiopia and the media and press agencies. In total about 130 participants attended the symposium and exhibition.The symposium and exhibition were addressed by H.E. Mr. William Hamink, USAID Director and officially opened by H.E. Ato Yacob Yalla, State Minister of MoARD. The exhibition was officially opened and the three days event also closed by H.E. Ato Adugna Jebessa. The focus of this event is on best technologies and practices for water harvesting, and micro and small-scale irrigation, along with what is required to accelerate the adoption and scaling up of these technologies and practices.This symposium will bring together the government, NGOs, Private sector, international donors and financial institutions and related stakeholders that are working with small-scale irrigation, rain water harvesting and micro irrigation technologies.The dominant agricultural system in Ethiopia is small holder farmers providing a mixed production of cereals and livestock under rain-fed conditions.The degradation of the natural resource base, high population pressure and low level of productivity aggravates the incidence of poverty and food insecurity in most parts of the country.The small holder agriculture system of Ethiopia is not significantly benefiting from the technologies of water management and irrigation that could significantly reduce the vulnerability of the agricultural system to climatic variability and improve agricultural productivity. The adoption of sustainable water management and irrigation development could provide ample opportunities in terms of coping strategy, poverty reduction, wealth creation, and growth of the economy.There are government policies and strategies developed to address most of the problems related to water sector development in Ethiopia.During this symposium there will be a review of past and current practices of rain water harvesting and small scale irrigation technology used in Ethiopia. Information sharing on the best technologies,MoWR/MoARD/USAID/IWMI Workshop xvii existing polices, support conditions. Constraints and opportunities for accelerating the adoption of best technologies and practices will also be discussed. The discussions will also be significant in identifying and promoting technologies necessary to assist small holder farmers in improving the quality of their lives and in the long run have an impact on the incidence of poverty and food insecurity in Ethiopia.Given the critical importance of irrigation and water management to achieving Ethiopia's food security, poverty alleviation and economic growth goals, development of an action plan that could serve as a framework for coordinated government, multi-donor and private sector investments and the interventions of other stakeholders should be encouraged.I look forward to hearing the outcome of the discussions during the symposiumMinister for Ministry of Agriculture and Rural DevelopmentIt is indeed a great pleasure for me to address this august gathering. I believe that this symposium will provide a platform for participants to understand existing status of small-scale irrigation, identify information on knowledge gap and design strategies for further research and development actions. Allow me once again to take this opportunity to welcome you all to this timely and important symposium.Excellencies,Ethiopia has been facing adverse environmental challenges and drought accompanied by famine for more than three decades. The occurrence of drought at increasing shorter intervals resulting in famine, massive starvation and displacement of people has become pronounced and a concern for the nation and the government since the last few decades.The cumulative effect of drought has resulted in hampering the socio-economic development of the country and thereby leading to widespread poverty and destitution. Hence, the Government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia has developed commendable policies, strategies and programs to reverse the situation.The present challenges of drought, declining agricultural production and the ever increasing population pressure call for turning attention to improved water resources management and smallscale irrigation development to sustain food production at household level in the country.Excellencies,Ethiopia has abundant water resources. But these resources have never adequately contributed to the economic and social goal of the nation's population.Cognizant of this, the Ethiopian Government has developed National Water Sector policy which is an essential overriding policy document for the development and management of the nation's water resources.Similarly in the realization of the attainment of food security objectives, the Ethiopian Government has committed itself to the promotion of different types of conservation -based rain water harvesting technologies both at household and community level. The primary focus is mitigating water shortages for enhancement of agricultural productivity, which is to be achieved through watershed -based small scale irrigation program. This program is directed at harvesting rainwater, developing springs, and shallow wells and other important soil-storage rainwater harvestingMoWR/MoARD/USAID/IWMI Workshop xix technologies. Moreover, the exploitation of other sources of water through river diversion, uplifting ground water at small and large scale is also underway.Ladies and Gentlemen,The Government recognizes the important role of water as a catalytic agent of development of agriculture and protection of ecosystems for the ultimate development of Ethiopia's people.Thus, the themes of the symposium are in line with the spirit of the Government's policy, strategies, programs to address poverty reduction in general and food security in particular. It is precisely for this reason that we say this symposium is timely and important in terms of contributing towards the ongoing efforts of water -centered development intervention.It is, therefore, with a deep satisfaction that I wish to reiterate our appreciation to all those who have been involved in this process.May I also take this opportunity to express my personal gratitude to the initiators of this symposium namely the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and International Water Management Institute (IWMI) who were assisted by the Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development and Ministry of Water Resources.I believe that they have done a good job in being at a forefront in facilitating this consultative symposium as well as in bringing together all concerned stakeholders to discuss on this timely agenda.Wishing you success in your deliberations and discussions, I declare that this symposium is officially open.Agriculture is the dominant sector of the Ethiopian economy and its performance has the major share of the over all GDP growth rate. On average, the sector contributed to 48% of the Ethiopia's GDP between 1995 and 2001. The agriculture sector accounts 90% of the export earning, 70% of raw material inflow into agrobased industries and as a major employer accounting for 85% of the total employment. From this, the crop sub sector accounts 60%, livestock 30% and forestry 10%. However, recent survey data shows that around half of the country's rural population is chronically food insecure.On the other hand, the country has 110-122 billion m 3 of annual runoff and ground water potential of about 2.6 billion m 3 . The irrigation potential is also estimated about 3.5-4.25 million hectares. Irrespective of these potentials and the above-mentioned food insecurity gap only a small percent of the potenial is currently tapped for irrigation.Furthermore, drought is a recurrent phenomenon in the country. Recent estimation indicates that five up to seven million people are in need of food assistance every year.To overcome the effects of drought and land degradation and thereby improve food insecurity, there is a growing interest in the promotion of water-centered development among which Small-Scale Irrigation and Rainwater Harvesting are the main interventions.Schemes initiated, planned, and implemented by beneficiaries themselves with minimum or no technical and financial support from external bodies are known as traditional irrigation schemes. These schemes do not have study and design reports. Most of them are river diversions and surface irrigations (Furrow or free flooding).The initiation of traditional irrigation schemes development takes centuries back, which is difficult to trace exactly. What is clear is beneficiaries of many traditional schemes trace that they got inherited them from their forefathers. Of course recently the recurrence of drought in the country has increased and intensified the development of these traditional irrigation schemes. Now a days traditional irrigation schemes are common all over Ethiopia.Traditional irrigation schemes have the advantages of:• Beneficiaries ownership of the physical infrastructure and the social organizations • Well known and accepted managing organizations and leaders • Independence of external support for sustainability • Labor intensive, but not capital intensive.However, traditional irrigation schemes suffer from the following limitations:• Frequent rebuilding of head works, gully crossings and canals requires large amount of labor & risk of injury or even death every year; • Very low conveyance efficiency because head works and canals leak significantly; • Inability to cross wide gullies • No irrigation water regulatory and distribution structures; • Erosion of canals on command areas;• Don't have study & design reports and difficult to trace back their history • Limited command area due to inefficient diversion and very low irrigation efficienciesTo develop these schemes farmers organize themselves into associations. With the recognition of Kebele Officials, beneficiary farmers start to construct traditional irrigations schemes, and there was no technical as well as financial input from outside. Materials used for construction of headwork are fully local. Namely-stone, soil and wood.The schemes range in size from less than 20ha -100 ha. The farm size of these schemes per family head varies from 0.25 to 0.5 ha. The beneficiaries of these schemes are well organized and effectively operate their schemes. The organizations of beneficiaries (water users) are long existed to manage these traditional schemes. It is those farmers, who know and respect each other very well, form these associations and are committed to cooperate and achieve their common goal. Such typical associations comprise up to 200 user members.Some of these traditional irrigation schemes are hundreds of years old. This indicates that such long lasting has given them good experience to manage their schemes. Irrespective of this experience, during rainy season since their abstraction is made up of weak soil, stone and wood it can't tolerate the maximum flood coming. Therefore, the flood always takes their diversion weir away during rainy season.Because of this they construct new earthen weir every year.Since most of these schemes are long lasting, most of the areas of theses schemes are covered by permanent crops like coffee, sugar cane, banana, chat etc On traditional irrigation schemes, supervision of water distribution is carried out by the leaders of their association (usually called father of water). In fact, each association is categorized into groups for maintenance of the scheme as well as water distribution. Based on this, each group is scheduled as to when to irrigate. Irrespective of the area and type of crop irrigated, time allocated is similar.The members of traditional irrigation schemes' associations don't have conflict on water, what usually occurs are the upstream and down stream users' conflict between different associations. On their farms there is no structure in which flow is controlled as well as distributed. Because of this their canals get eroded usually. This is the case where traditional irrigations are well established.There are also some traditional irrigation schemes, which are temporary. That is to say, they are working in some years and not in others.Head work and canal maintenance of traditional irrigation schemes is usually carried out once at the beginning of the year. Additional maintenance with in the year is not commonly practicedIn almost all traditional irrigation schemes, farmers carry out all operation and maintenance as well as organization and management. They get little support from development agents.According to the data obtained from regions, farmers on average develop more than 1200 traditional irrigation schemes with a command area of about 280,000 hectares national wide on annual basis on their exclusive efforts.These are generally considered to be command areas of about 200 ha or less. Modern SSI schemes are planned, designed and constructed by the government or other external body for the benefit of the farmers with minimum contribution (about 10% of the investment cost) in terms of labor and/or local materials or no contribution by the beneficiaries. Gravity surface irrigation predominates with low irrigation efficiency, probably less than 30-40%. Few micro-earth dam and pump schemes exist due to relatively high cost.These schemes have been expanded after the 1984 drought, which affected the country. The objective is to achieve food security & improve livelihood of farmers.Since then, even though the pace is slow due to different factors, the schemes expansion has been on progress as water centered development is on the prime agenda of the government.In terms of water source and abstraction methods the major models of modern SSI schemes currently used are:• River + diversion weir This model has the following advantages:• Relatively simple to study, design, construct and operate • Cost per hectare is relatively low • Sedimentation and seepage problems are minimalTherefore the river plus diversion weir schemes are more successful as compared to others. As a result, currently regions are turning to and giving high emphasis to this model. However, this model has the following limitations:• Can be applied only in rivers which are permanent and have a considerable discharge • Water harvesting in rainy seasons is not possible so that irrigation water shortages during long dry seasons• commands very limited area due to limited dischargeThe other commonly used model is river plus micro-earth dam. This model has the following advantages:• Water harvesting during the rainy season to use in the dry season • appropriate in areas where there are no perennial rivers • Increased command area due to harvested waterThe limitations of this model are:• Investment cost per hectare is relatively high • Needs relatively highly qualified professionals & heavy machineries • Increased risk of seepage and sedimentation problems • environmental impacts such as submergence of productive lands & infrastructure • Health hazards such as malaria & other water born diseases their design and those implemented some times lack quality, which in turn affect the water management of the scheme.In areas where food aid and donation has become part of life, it is handicapping farmers to strategically anticipate to it as one of their livelihood options. Therefore, they hesitate to accept any development including irrigation due to dependency syndrome.There is also lack of experience in basic irrigation water management, how to improve efficiency of irrigation water use as well as skill on improved and diversified irrigation agronomic practices. Poor land management leads to high levels of erosion, poor infiltration of rainfall and inadequate fertility management.Finally limited management capacity to initiate maintenance practices for sustainable running of the schemes by farmers and limited capacity of experts involved in irrigation development in terms of study, design, construction, operation and maintenance of irrigation infrastructure highly suppressed the development of smallscale irrigation.Prior to the establishment of regional governments, small scale irrigation schemes has been organized and coordinated at the central level. Then in 1992 the whole responsibilities of small-scale irrigation has been transferred to the regions where by several schemes have been developed so far.The institutional set up of regions to implement these schemes varies from region to region. In Tigray, Amhara and Southern region study, design and construction of small-scale irrigation schemes are under taken by Water Resource Bureaus, and operation and maintenance (Agricultural Extension) being implemented by Bureaus of Agriculture and Rural Development.In Oromia, all the irrigation activities (study, design, construction as well as its extension) are carried out by Oromia Irrigation Development Authority (OIDA). Currently; regions are undertaking a structural reform that construction works are to be carried out by governmental enterprises and private contractors. Besides these major regional government bodies, several donors, nongovernmental organizations and community organizations are currently involved in the planning, designing and construction of small scale irrigations.At scheme level, there are three types of SSI scheme managing organizations:• Traditional Organizations (TOs)• Water Users associations (WUAs)• Irrigation Cooperatives (ICs)In some of SSI schemes, the different social organizations with in an irrigation scheme exist side by side. In many schemes WUAs exist along side ICs, the member ship of which also comprises only some of the water users.Traditional water management organizations, which exist in almost all of the schemes with a history of traditional irrigation, have tended to be ignored. WUAs are usually set up initially to mobilize the community to participate in the construction work. Once construction has been completed, the focus is to the irrigation cooperatives. Lack of policy support to WUAs and traditional water fathers threatens to under mine sustainability as the irrigation cooperatives are not expected to operate and maintain the scheme and manage water distribution.Development of small scale irrigation has been continuing by the regional Bureaus & NGOs.In the previous decades, a number of SSI schemes have been constructed, completed and commissioned to the beneficiaries. However, getting updated and actual data is being difficult. As a result the number and command area of completed & commissioned SSI schemes is not accurately known. This is due to lack of exhaustive investigations and lack of institutional memory due to frequent restructuring and changing of mandates. Further more, operational and utilization status of existing SSI schemes is even more difficult to trace.There are various data and information regarding these issues. However, according to the data obtained from regions in 2004 and 2005, the total number of completed and commissioned modern SSI schemes to date are more than 477, with an estimated command area of 52,247 ha. Of the above figure, a minimum of 59(13%) schemes with command area of 5,136 ha. have been completely abandoned and out of production. Further more about 57(12%) schemes with a command area of 7,092 ha are reported partially functional or under utilized and seeking for major and minor maintenances.Structural failures (Seepage, sedimentation of head works and canals, demolishment of head works, breaching of canals, etc), shortage of water, lack of proper operation and maintenance, lack of awareness and skill of the beneficiaries are some of the problems observed in most of the schemes.Productivity and sustainability of SSI schemes is also affected by lack of participatory planning process (beneficiaries, all stakeholders), lack of proper attention to social organizations, lack of post-construction support to beneficiaries, absence of access to market and poor watershed management.The complexity of modern irrigation development makes the task more challenging. The attempt to move subsistence agriculture to intensive, diversified, and commercialized agriculture involves many changes of mind set up, infrastructures, institutional arrangements and practices.Lessons learned from previous experiences indicate that the following issues are corner stones to successful planning, implementation and sustainability of irrigation projects:Full participation of beneficiaries and involvement of all stakeholders in the planning, study & design and construction of the schemes needs to be improved for better performance.Dependency is one of the major factors that affect productivity of irrigation schemes. In some areas farmers believe that they can't live without food aid. Hence, they are reluctant to accept any development interventions including irrigation because of the fear that they will lose the aid. Hence, continuous awareness creation and attitudinal change forums are relevant to avert dependency syndromes.It is a common practice for more emphasis to be placed on physical construction than operation and management.It is also true that an irrigation scheme is not appreciated in the context of the entire catchments in which it exists. A shift from a single discipline approach to multi-disciplinary approach is crucial for sustainability & balanced emphasis is required among the different disciplines & components in irrigated agriculture. An irrigation schemes should not be treated as an isolated entity.This is important from the view point of water resources planning, assessment of soil and water conservation requirements, and the prevention of conflicts among users. Catchments water balance studies should be under taken to determine the potentials we have. Scheme based approach should be replaced by watershed approach.It is worth considering watershed management as a prerequisite to scheme development. Wherever, irrigation is proposed it should encompass upstream catchments management/treatment as the major component as it protects sedimentation and flood hazards and improves the hydrology of the watershed.Frequent restructuring and changing of mandates highly affect the development of irrigated agriculture in the country. Therefore, rectification of mandates, responsibilities, and accountability of governmental institutions involved in the development of irrigated agriculture based on current experiences is highly important for sustainability.Designing and constructing an irrigation scheme based on inadequate basic data leads to a failure. Hence, institutions working on the survey of basic data need to be strengthened and database centers should be established in all areas that can be easily accessed by all stakeholders.Access to market and market information needs to be improved in all irrigation schemes to enable beneficiaries to sell their products. Expansion of preservation and storage technologies as well as agro-processing industries in rural areas is crucial for sustainability.SSI operation and management is complex because it requires shifting from subsistence to more intensive, diversified, higher input & group farming systems. Therefore, intensive training in operation & maintenance of structures, water management, input application and the like is critical for sustainability. Besides, establishment of demonstration and trial plots, timely availability of inputs and assignment of qualified personnel at woreda & scheme level are important measures to be addressed.In most of the modern SSI Schemes traditional Water management organizations tend to be ignored in the establishment of WUAS and irrigation cooperatives. This threatens the viability of the modern organizations is disempowering. The cooperatives promotion bureaus are only on interested in the promotion of irrigation cooperatives WUAs do not have a legal status and policy support to enable them to operate a bank account and access credit Neither WUAs nor ICS fully represents the water users farming with in the command areas.Government should take responsibility for post construction, maintenance and repair when this lies beyond the capacity of the farmers. There should be a clear and transparent planning procedures and allocation of adequate budget for major (head work, main canal) and emergency maintenance works. Long term support is a necessity not an option for sustainability.A cost recovery mechanism should be established to strengthen investment capacities. This can be a long term strategy as irrigation development is in its infant stage in the country. Funding and implementation of O&M through Collection and management of water Charges is an essential component and guidelines need to be developed to ensure that irrigation water is affordable and meets the demands of O&M and also discourages over use of water.Hence, as a short term strategy beneficiaries should contribute and collect money which can be used for operation and maintenance of irrigation schemes.There is a knowledge and skill gap in the study, design, construction, operation and management of irrigation schemes. A number of schemes have been failed due to poor study, design and construction qualities as well as low capacity of agricultural extension services.There is also lack of experience in basic irrigation water management, how to improve efficiency of irrigation as well as knowledge on improved and diverisified irrigation technologies. Hence, long-term and short term training of experts is mandatory for the development of the sub-sector. Further more, periodic training in the field of irrigation water management, operation and maintenance, improved agronomic practices and marketing to irrigators & experts are highly recommended for sustainability and improve productivity.Further more establishment and strengthening of relevant research institutions is necessary for the provision of improved irrigation technologies.Yacob Wondimkun and Melaku Tefera SWHISA Project Bahirdar, Ethiopia wyacob@yahoo.comMany schemes, both Household Water Harvesting (HHWH) and Small Scale Irrigation (SSI) Schemes, have been developed in Amhara Region. In the year 2004, Regional Irrigation Land and Water Resource Inventory was undertaken by Amhara National Regional State (ANRS) to collect basic information for future planning and management of the schemes.A total of 14,976 HHWHS were counted, 13,028 (87%) of which were based on run-off harvesting and 1,948 (13%) hand dug wells. 82% of the schemes were constructed in 2003 while only 1.2% before this period. 22 % of the structures were found to be functional, 70% not functional and the rest were destroyed.Harvested water has been used for different purposes: 35.6 % for irrigation only, 31.4 % for other purposes (water supply, cleaning and construction) and 33 % for both purposes. The total area irrigated using the functional structures in the dry and wet season was found to be only 51.4 and 25.9 ha, respectively. Water from these functional structures were used to provide supplementary irrigation to an average area of only 216 m 2 in the dry season and/or 290m 2 in the wet season.A total number 6,219 SSIs were counted, of which 311 (5%) were modern and 5908 (95%) were traditional. A total of 8063 ha was irrigated by the modern schemes during the dry season, which put the modern irrigation at a rate of 80% of the planned area. This was only about 1.4 % of the potential irrigable area of Amhara Region. Irrigated area of most of the beneficiaries ranged between 0.125-0.25ha, benefiting more than 330,000 households and 1.9 million people. Use of modern inputs was seldom and minimal, with fertilizer rate of not more than 0.013 q/ha. Flooding and furrow were the most common methods of irrigation used. Irrigation intervals were dangerously too long and hardly met.Lessons learnt from HHWHS and SSI schemes in the region includes that these schemes have problems encompassing technical, social and environmental issues. The major problems with HHWH schemes were design, construction and operation related where as with SSI schemes operation was the most important problem. As a result, crop yield and income were low. It is important that the whole process of planning and management of these schemes are based on full participation of the communities so that the schemes are eventually owned and sustainably managed by the farmers and operated at their full potential providing maximum benefits to the farmers.Amhara national regional state is one of the largest regions in Ethiopia. It occupies a territory extended within a geographical coordinate between 9 0 29 `-14 0 0 ` N latitude and 36 0 20 ` -40 0 20 ` E longitude. The total area of the region is estimated to be 170152 km 2 with ten administrative zones, 106 rural woredas, 12 urban administrations and 3231 kebeles.The region is endowed with four river basins with net potential area of 0.57 million hectares. Modern small-scale irrigation development in the country as well in the region began after the establishment of the irrigation development department within the MoA at the end of 1984. Since 1995, CO-SAERAR was mandated to undertake the same; however, in both cases the progress was slow. Moreover; most of the modern schemes were poorly operated, managed and under-capacity. At tradition schemes peasant farmers were utilizing irrigation schemes date back to the last century.Lately in 2003, in the national/regional food security program, one of the strategies envisaged was the introduction of small-scale water harvesting systems. As a result there was big attempt to introduce small-scale irrigation and HHWHS in all parts of the region. A number of different structures were built all over the region. The number of structures built in the same year outstripped those built before.To identify/ know the size and distribution of the structures in the year 2005, the Bureaue of Water Resources Development (BoWRD) undertook regional irrigation land and water resource inventory study. The result of this inventory study is adapted to evaluate the current operational status of both irrigation and HHWH schemes. It also helped to develop water resource data base of the region for future planning.In the region a total of 14976 HHWH structures were counted, about 87% (13, 028) and 13% (1948)  of the structures respectively. Among the government-constructed structures, most of the structures were found to be earthen, followed by cement and plastic membrane.The status of the structures showed that those constructed before 2003 were found to be more functional compared to those constructed in succeeding years (2003 and 2004). The highest number of structures was constructed in 2004 (82%). Of the total RHS 2794 (22%) were found to be functioning, 8783 (70%) not functioning and the rest 964 (8%) were destroyed. WH structures used to supplement crop production in the dry and wet season were found to be 2382 and 896, supplementary irrigated 51.3 and 26 ha of land, respectivelyThe crops cultivated include root crops (48%) followed by vegetables and cereals. The use of modern inputs was minimal with 6.8%, 0.5% and 0.2% of the HHs utilized animal manure, Urea and DAP fertilizers, respectively. HHs utilized one or more of the different methods of water application to supplement crop growth and save it from total failure. Drip application accounted the highest (43%), followed by furrow method (26%). The harvested water has been used for different purposes: crop development only, other purposes (cleaning, construction, and livestock drinking) and both purposes with 36%, 31% and 33%, respectively. Major problems observed in HHWH structures include the following:• Design and construction related: poor awareness of the technology, poor implementation procedures (use of standard design, site selection problems and poor construction management)• Operation related : shortage of water, water lifting problems, shallow depth of irrigation water application, poor crop selection and cropping pattern problems with time and method of irrigation and limited experience in irrigation extension• Maintenance related: tearing of plastic sheets, silt up of structures, etc.• Environmental related: malaria, hazard to human & animals, stinging water, etc.In general, yield level of crops supplementary irrigated through harvested water was found to be low compared to irrigated and rain fed crop yield levels. Yield level of these crops was established and found that cereals, vegetables and root crops averaged 15, 101 and 89 qt/ha, respectively.   The significant contribution of cattle to crop farming is draught power. In modern schemes, HHs possessing two oxen was found to be the highest (42.56%) and those with no ox were (17.26%), where as at traditional schemes 45.49% of the HHs possesses two oxen and those with no ox were found to be 13.34%. In the region one can infer that oxen possession is uneven and is found to be problem to accomplish farming activities on time. HHs with no and one ox employed other means to plough their farm. Those with one ox at modern scheme used mekanajo 1 90% and hand tools 3.9%, where as at traditional schemes mekenajo accounted 82.9% and hand tools 5.4%.The extension support services provided to modern and traditional scheme HHs was found to be not satisfactory to relay upon. Irrigation packages were not properly provided and the support was not found to be complete to enhance the yield of growing crops. In both schemes HHs to DA ratio was not narrow.In the region the frequency of DA's visit of irrigation HHs was assessed once in a week, once in two weeks, once in a month and once in more than a month. At modern schemes it was found to be 49.4 %, 22 %, 15.4% and 13 % where as, at traditional scheme it was found to be 32.2%, 33.3 %, 20.5% and 14 %, respectively.Poor water management and inadequate drainage invariably increase water logging and salinity accompanied by health hazards like malaria. The most serious environmental hazard caused by irrigation schemes with water management problems were salinazion and the loss of valuable land because of it. In the region, at modern schemes water logging, mild salinity and malaria were found to be problems accounting 29.7%, 12.5% and 40.6% of the participating HHs, where as, at traditional schemes it was found to be 23.9%, 8.2% and 44.6%, respectively.The performance of irrigated schemes is far below expectation. Attempt has been made to 1 Pairing of oxen with other HH having single ox or extra ox rank the major constraints of irrigated schemes from the most sever problems to the least (1 to 8). Insufficient water supply and availability was found to be the 1 st constraint in both were the 2 nd at modern and the 3 rd at traditional schemes. Maintenance was the 3 rd at modern schemes and the 2 nd at traditional schemesCrop production under irrigation is characterized by low yield level. Attributed to the traditional water management practices, limited use of modern inputs and the depletion of soil fertility. Regional yield level of irrigated crops is low; at the dry and wet season average yield level of crops was found to be 68 and 37 qt, respectively.Improvement in planning process Shift to ground water abstraction Change of geometry of HH water harvesting structures Improvement in volume of structuresLeesons learnt include Maintenance is required to keep the schemes at top operation at all time; obtain the longest life and greatest use of the system through adequate maintenance; achieve the above two at lowest possible cost Major maintenance activities:• Identification of needs The major bottlenecks related to institutions include:• Institutional mandates and linkages • Stability of institutions • Irrigation fees and related costs • The necessity to establish regional water data baseThe problem of food security had long been in a priori importance in Ethiopia. In this paper, the experience of KGVDP in the implementation and management of irrigation systems with specific reference to pilot pressurized systems is presented. The existing situation, the potentials, constraints and proposed solutions are presented.Kobo Girana Valley Constitutes five distinct sub basins, viz., the kobo sub basis, Alewuha sub basin, Chereti sub basin, Gelana sub basin, and Hara sub basin. Despite the available potential of water resources, the valley generally is considered to be drought prone area.Based on the study document for KGVDP, the area has a potential of producing 156.2 million cubic meter surface water yield and 113 million cubic meter underground water yield, which totals 269.12 million cubic meter water yield per annum.On these basis, the study proposed irrigation developments to irrigate an area of 5665 ha by using the sub-surface water source and about 3600 ha by using the underground water source, which altogether goes to 9265 ha of land by the end of the project, which is subject to revisions and detailed studies during implementation. Since the commencement of the program, KGVDP has drilled 27 boreholes of which 21 are productive wells and 6 are test wells. Among the 21 productive wells, 4 wells are pilot wells and the installation of infrastructure on the two of these pilot wells are completed and considered as pilot projects. Until the end of 2005 only these pilot projects started proper crop production. By the beginning of 2006, pressurized systems infrastructures on additional six wells were in place to irrigate about 330 ha.Prior to the implementation of pilot pressurized irrigation systems by KGVDP, a similar 5.7 ha pressurized irrigation system was installed by Amhara Regional Bureaue of Argiculture (ARBoA) in cooperation with the government of Israel, and successive extension support was given by KGVDP. The positive effect of this system for the subsequent extension work was enormous. Including this system, the profile of the three pilot projects is given above.A crop plan document is prepared for each project and the crops cultivated by the systems are onion, tomato, pepper, maize, haricot bean, groundnut and cotton. Major Crops used to be produced in the area before project implementations were teff, maize, and sorghum. Although the yields were better than the conventional prodution levels, productivity of crops in the systems were not up to the standards of commercial productivity levels.As regards to input use, farmers don't use the required amount of inputs, especially fertilizer and pesticide, as per the recommended rates. Major costs are seed, fuel and electricity charges.Products are normally handled in an ordinary manner and sold to private traders, military camps and to Ambasel Trading House (in case of cotton & Haricot Bean). Marketing constitutes the major aspect of problems in irrigated agricultural production.From the potential point of view, the systems are not efficiently operating. As a result, income gained from the system by farmers is not to the expected level as compared to commercial farms. Even at the existing operational efficiency, however, the farmers significantly benefited from the system. The harvests showed that a net income of Birr 7500-12000 per hectare per season was gained depending the strength of the farm operators.The successful achievement in the area with respect to the promotion of pressurized irrigation system is the change in attitude of farmers on the effectiveness of the system. From the beginning, farmers were suspicious on the suitability of the system and its capacity to satisfy crop water requirements. But later, the farmers proved the potential and the capacity of the system. Moreover, it was found out that, it is possible for the farmers to manage the system technically.The system is economically feasible even at current farmers' level of practice and farmers who exercised recommended practices gain good income. Eventhough the life of the introduced practices is not long enough to perceive a significant change in the life style of the beneficiaries, farmers from the Ethio-Israel project, which operated for about eight years have gained substanical benefits and their life style is changed positively.Although it is early to talk about the sustainability of the system at farmers' level, today beneficiary farmers of Hormat Golina No-1 infrastructure have started to maintain their system and replenish spare parts. The beneficiaries of the Ethio-Israel project, which was established before the commencement of KGVDP, proved proper sustainability of such a system at farmers' level. They replenish all their spare part demand as long as they are available in the market.The challenge in the promotion of irrigation development is not easy in the area as well as in other parts of the region. As the technology is new and sophisticated, the challenges with pressurized irrigation systems are worse than others. Some of the issues are raised below.The nature of farmland distribution is uneven and fragmented. Whilst some farmers have about a hectare or more of land in the system, who might be unable to manage it properly, some other interested on the system have no access and they may get the access by renting (20-33% rented). Another problem related to land is the inconformity of the shape and size of the actual farm with the requirement of the system. While the system needs rectangular shape at a definite size, the farms of individual farmers are irregular and two to three farm plots fall in one system plot and one farm plot falls in two to four system plots.These situations lead to great conflict of interest among farmers. When such interest conflict arose and individual farmers become stumbling block to the smooth implementation of the system, land administration policy is expected to react promptly and find solution. The reaction and solution the policy element, however, is slow and process oriented, even for solutions and measures within their by-laws.Although the weakness is not entirely attributed to the farmers, there exists a great lack of leadership commitment in the farmers' organizations. Influenced by socio-cultural situations, they used to loosen their own bylaws.These infrastructures are installed by the government and sponsoring organizations. The dependency attitude of beneficiaries for support in operation and maintenance is enormous. Covering fuel, electric cost is a major operation cost where beneficiaries tend to receive especially at the beginning of the system. Shortage of capital, lack of confidence on outputs, experience different forms of subsidies and sometimes presence of different forms of subsidy in the neighboring woredas are some of the reasons for their dependency attitude.The integration and commitment of concerned bureaucratic bodies towards the promotion of irrigation extension, cooperatives establishment and strengthening, and supports in their respective tasks is weak and not to expected level.Limited coordination in backward and forward linkagesThe importance of availability and timely delivery of inputs and market outlet for farm produce is not questionable. The availability of inputs is limited and sometimes completely not available for some types of seeds. The absence of strong institutionalized market integration on farm products contributes to the fall of productivity and a shift to conventional cropping pattern.The implementation of these pressurized irrigation systems showed that the system is applicable at smallholder farmers' level with a strengthened multidimensional effort. Despite the need to undertake enhanced institutionalized multidimensional effort for the effectiveness of the system, the concern on irrigation at all levels is not to the demand. In order to improve irrigation management in the respect, the following ideas are forwarded. Farmers' Testimony about Agricultural Water Management Technologies in use in Amhara NationalAbdul Hussien and Adinew Molla 1 Amhara National Regional StateMr. Adinew Molla from Kobo Woreda and Mr. Abdul Hussien from Bati Woreda of Amahara National Regional State were requested to share their experience regarding the agricultural water management technologies and practices they are using during the symposium and their response is presented as follows.Mr Adinew is living in area which is susceptible to drought. He has to work hard every day in order to produce the required food for his family. After the Ethio-Israel company introduced pressurized irrigation system in his area his life has changed tremendously. He grows and sells different vegetables and gets good profit. He has now 40, 000 birr deposited in a bank and he also upgraded his house. He said \"improved technology has helped us a lot in changing our life\". He also passed his gratitude to Kobo Girana Irrigation Project for the support it has been providing to him and his fellow farmers. However he mentioned some of the problems which hindered him from attaining more profit from his irrigated land. These are;1. Limited market access 2. Absence of spare part for Israeli made pumps in the area which led him to travel to Addis Ababa for maintenance purpose which cost him more than 2600 Birr.On the other hand Mr. Abdul from Bati Woreda of Amhara National Regional State practices small scale irrigation using runoff harvesting. He constructed a pond by himself and he is now using it to grow papaya, mango, mandarin, tomato, chat and carrot as main crops.Moreover he has a plan to excavate another water harvesting pond in order to increase the size of his irrigation farm to two hectares. He said that he already prepared construction materials required for his anticipated water harvesting pond.Mr. Abdu reported that because of the water harvesting structures he managed to buy a pump for his irrigated field. He also mentioned that because of his success twelve households in his village are already organized to irrigate their farm using water harvesting.Mr. Abdu nevertheless indicated that the evaporation rate from his water harvesting pond is too much and it subsequently reduced the water available for irrigation use later and requested assistance in controlling and minimizing this loss. He also requested technical assistance as the technology is new and there is limited know-how in the area  This paper also deals with an assessment of the impacts of these interventions, identifies further opportunities and constraints. In some regions, there is evidence that irrigation has created some positive impacts: better opportunity for production, better income, reduction of risks and hence generated benefits for poor rural communities. Despite successes, there are a number of failures that need attention. There is a general perception in all regions of Ethiopia that the current trend of low performance of some of the small-scale irrigation schemes is related to flawed project design and lack of adequate community consultation during project planning. Since small proportion of the potential is used and most of the SSI programs are currently in the planning stages, and are yet to be implemented, these conclusions should be seen as providing a unique opportunity to learn from these drawbacks. If ignored, well-intended efforts of governments and NGOs are likely to continue falling short of their intended impacts. Ethiopia's topography can be broadly grouped into uplifted central highlands, tapering into peripheral lowlands that also include the Rift Valley. Most of the country consists of high plateaus and mountain ranges with precipitous edges dissected by numerous streams in the center, and rolling plains all along the periphery (Mati, 2004)  (Georgis, 1999).Agriculture is heavily reliant on rainfall and productivity and production are strongly influenced by climatic and hydrological variability that are reflected as dry spells, droughts and floods. Droughts and floods are endemic, with significant events every 3 to 5 years, with increasing frequency compared to two or three decades ago. Droughts destroy watersheds, farmlands, and pastures, contributing to land degradation and causing crops to fail and livestock to perish.On the other hand, Ethiopia covers 12 river basins with an annual runoff volume of 122 billion m 3 of water with an estimated 2.6 billion m 3 of ground water potential. This amounts to 1743 m 3 of water per person per year: a relatively large volume. But due to lack of water storage capacity and large spatial and temporal variations in rainfall, there is not enough water for most farmers to produce more than one crop per year with frequent crop failures due to dry spells and droughts. Moreover, there is significant erosion, reducing the productivity of farmland.Agriculture is by far the dominant sector. Most of Ethiopia's cultivated land is under rainfed agriculture. Less than 40% of the arable area (13.2 million ha, or 12% of the total land area) is currently under cultivation (ADB, 2003). There is progressive degradation of the natural resource base, especially in highly vulnerable areas of the highlands, which aggravates the incidence of poverty and food insecurity in rural areas. Ethiopia imports about 15% of its food. The government has designed a comprehensive food security strategy that targets the chronically food insecure especially in highly vulnerable areas: marginal and semiarid areas that are largely moisture deficient, including pastoral areas, with high population pressure. If such measures can be effectively and sustainably implemented can make significant difference.The current situation in rural Ethiopia is a \"vicious cycle\" that includes the following dimensions: population growth extending agriculture and livestock into less and less favorable land, deforestation to obtain energy and more agricultural land land and water degradation poor productivity, food insecurity poverty poor health, malnutrition inability to invest in maintaining or improving land productivity further degradation, etc.How to transform this \"vicious cycle\" in to a \"virtuous cycle\" is the key question that needs to be addressed.Problems and Investment OpportunityThe major problems associated with managing agricultural water include: a. Long dry spells (leading to crop failures) b. Drought (three major droughts in 30 years) c. Very low productivity of agriculture, where by productivity mainly comes through agricultural land expansion compared to intensification or improving productivity d. Large water resources potential but with spatial and temporal variability e. Unutilized due to lack of infrastructure, lack of investment capital, transboundary nature of the riversè stagnation to increase production and productivity using water resources f. Other problems related to supporting institutions, water use rights, management, etc Some of these problems are discussed belowPoor management of agricultural water leaves almost all part of the country highly susceptible to rainfall variability which depicts itself in terms of prolonged dry spells and droughts. The prolonged dry spells, may not be pronounced in wide areas in a given year. However, it could cause significant harm to production and productivity of agriculture. On the other hand, drought that occurs in a given period or year could show clear impact on the total agricultural produce that could also be pronounced through gross domestic product and gross national product   IWMI (2006). When these interventions could be applied appropriately, they could enable not only overcome the above problems, but also improve productivity of agricultural sustainable economic development.The recent history of Ethiopia shows that the country has failed to adequately feed itself. The trends of agricultural growth in Ethiopia are heavily reliant on expansion of agricultural land (extensification) and limited intensification through irrigation. In the period 1980-2001, the annual production increase for cereal, pulses and oil seeds as it is disaggregated in to productivity increase due to increase in land area and yield are found in Table 1. This shows that 1) production growth, which is at average annual value of 0.61% mainly comes from cultivated land growth at 0.47% and productivity growth of 0.14% respectively. 2)The average population of growth of Ethiopia is  growing at approximately 2.1% in the same period, and the result shows production growth is way below population growth 3) Given that majority of the population live in highland and marginal areas, the former pushes agriculture to encroach more and more to less productive, highly vulnerable to degradation and high gradient marginal land. However, the recent reports of government sources show that particularly after the 2002/2003 drought, productivity of agriculture has increased, with noticeable magnitude of over 6%.2 Ethiopian calendar is according to Gregorian Calendar, 2006 August corresponds to 1998 in Ethiopia, and new year occurs in SeptemberFigure 4 shows the potentials of water resources availability and the hydrological variability of major rivers in Ethiopia, which is also a depiction of the rainfall variability. These water resources potentials are not utilized to lack of water control and management infrastructure.Figure 5 illustrates the comparative per capita water availability of various countries in the world including Ethiopia. It is clear that the annual per capacity water storage availability in Ethiopia is just 38m 3 , compared to say Brazil which has got 3,386m 3 or North America which is at 5,961 m 3 . The major storage is yet in non agricultural sectors such as hydropower and urban water supplyOpportunities in EthiopiaRural Ethiopia exhibits a huge variation along a number of social and economic dimensions: ethnic group, religion, and economic status are just three. After infrastructure development such as roads, investments in irrigation emerge as key factor triggering rural upliftmen Moreover, the multiplier effects of investments in agricultural intensification, for example for irrigation, are considerable (Hussain and Hanjra 2004). Studies reveal that for each dollar invested in agriculture, the value of economic activity in forward and backward linkages including input supply, trade, export, and processing adds another two dollars return. However, for theses benefits to be realized especially in the African smallholder context, smallholder irrigation must satisfy the following conditions (Shah et al., 2002):• Irrigation must hold out a promise of making significant improvement in the livelihoods and food security situation of the irrigation farmers, i.e., it must be central in their livelihood strategies, and a large proportion of household income must come from irrigation (this relates to optimal plot sizes, crop choices, etc. that enhance viable production); • The cost of sustainable farmer management of the schemes (including infrastructure, technology, water user associations, etc.) must be an acceptably small proportion of the income derived from irrigation, i.e., benefit cost ratios must give incentives that facilitate rational production decisions; Irrigation is one means by which agricultural production can be increased to meet the growing food demands. Increasing demand can be met in three ways: increasing agricultural yield, increasing the area of arable land, and increasing cropping intensity (number of crops per year). Expansion of the area under cultivation is a finite option especially due to the marginal and vulnerable characteristic of large parts of the country's land. Increasing yields in both rainfed and irrigated agriculture and cropping intensity in irrigated areas through various methods and technologies are viable options for achieving food security in Ethiopia.If the problem is failure of production as a result of natural causes such as dry-spell, drought, etc., agricultural production can be stabilized and increased by providing for irrigation and retaining more rainwater for in situ utilization by plants.The challenge that Ethiopia faces in terms of food insecurity is associated with both inadequate food production even during good rain years (problem related to growth of population), and natural failures due to erratic rainfall. Therefore, increasing arable land or attempting to increase agricultural yield alone cannot be a means to provide food security in Ethiopia, due to environmental impacts (expansion into marginal land, deforestation)and unpredictable natural factors (unpredictable climate). Ethiopia has also to combine these with enhancing water availability for production and expansion of irrigation that can lead to security in terms of getting a reliable harvest as well as intensification of cropping (producing more than ones per year). This should be combined with improved partitioning, storage and soil water-retention capacity to increase plant water availability, and use of rainwater to overcome erratic rainfall especially in the relatively higher rainfall areas of highland Ethiopia. There are also important other ways to reduce risk for farmers (social, economic, spatial diversity) and for the government (trade, buffer, pricing).The estimates of the irrigation potential of Ethiopia vary from one source to the other, due to lack of standard or agreed criteria for estimating irrigation potential in the country. The earlier reports for example according to World Bank (1973) as cited in Rahmato (1999) show the irrigation potential at the lowest 1.0 and 1.5 million hectares, and the highest according to Tilahun & Paulos (2004), on the order of 4.3 million hectares. Table 1 provides the distribution according to the latter. Thus, the above variation in estimates calls for accurate review of the irrigation potential of the country.Similarly, there is no consistent inventory with regard to the developed irrigation of the country. In 1990, BCEOM (1998) estimated a total of 161,000 ha of irrigated agriculture for the country as a whole, of which 64,000 ha was in small-scale schemes, 97,000 ha in medium and large-scale schemes, and approximately 38,000 ha as being under implementation. Tilahun & Paulos (2004) report that the traditional irrigation schemes alone cover 138,339 ha, and that 48,074 ha are under modern small scale irrigation, 61,057 ha under modern large and medium scale schemes, with the aggregated sum of irrigated agriculture at 247,470. From the latter, it can be seen that small-scale irrigation contributes 75% of the irrigation (74.2% traditional and 25.8% modern small scale). Given the current household level irrigation expansion through traditional schemes and water harvesting, it is also possible that the total sum of actual irrigation development could be over 250,000 ha. One of the limiting factors of irrigation potential is water abstraction. The Ethiopian hydrographical network often shows deep and narrow gorges that make water abstraction costs extremely high. However, construction of multipurpose dams for irrigation, hydropower and flood control may help reduce the per hectare cost of development.Ethiopia indeed has significant irrigation potential assessed both from available land and water resources potential. Irrespective of the lack of knowing what is the accurate potential and what has been developed, and despite efforts of the government to expand irrigation specially on SSI, MI and RWH, the country has not achieved sufficient irrigated agriculture to overcome the problems of food insecurity and extreme rural poverty, as well as to create economic dynamism in the country.Irrigation projects in Ethiopia are identified as large-scale irrigation if the size of command area is greater than 3,000 ha, medium scale if it falls in the range of 200 to 3,000 ha, and small scale if it is covering less than 200ha. The categorization in this document is based on the size of land irrigated. In addition to the above classification according to MOWR (2002), the new classification developed by Lempérière also includes the dimensions of time and management. This system distinguishes between four different types of irrigation schemes in Ethiopia: traditional, modern communal, modern private and public. More details on the different types can be found in Werfring et al. (2004: in press). The existing irrigation scheme development based on Regions is shown in Table 2.Although the number of large and medium scale irrigation projects has remained stagnant in the last decade, in the new water sector development program, these types of irrigation schemes are considered important. Figure 6 provides information on the targeted development of irrigation schemes in Ethiopia. The development of large-scale schemes is useful as they are associated to useful infrastructure development, create job opportunities, and contribute to agricultural growth and to the macro economy.Parallel to the water sector development program, there are considerable efforts to develop master plans for the various river basins such as Abay, Tekeze, Wabishebelle. In fact comprehensive master plans for five basins are already developed. Through these master plan studies, a number of medium and largescale irrigation projects are identified. The challenge is to transform these master plans into practice through undertaking feasibility studies, design and construction, operation and maintenance in a sustainable and profitable way.Even with its limited capital for investment, Ethiopia needs to consider the opportunities that large and medium scale schemes provide as mechanisms of food security and fighting poverty. Many countries have developed irrigation schemes as public investment (e.g., India, China, Egypt, USA) and some are still developing irrigation through the allocation of public and government resources (e.g., Turkey, Brazil). Though not always designed as propoor interventions, large-scale irrigation schemes in Asia have been shown to have positive poverty impacts (Hussain, 2004). The Government could also consider other models found in for example China and build large public schemes at its expense, and then contract out the operation and maintenance (O&M) and even agricultural services to private firms; and promote farmer-based WUAs or coops at secondary canal levels to do the O&M at that level.The small-scale irrigation schemes in Ethiopia are understood to include traditional small scale up to 100 ha and modern communal schemes up to 200 ha (MoWR 2002). However, we also see a 'traditional' spate irrigation scheme in, for instance Tigray, of up to 400 ha. Traditionally farmers have built small-scale schemes on their own initiative, sometimes with government technical and material support. They manage them through their own users' association or committees (MoWR 2002). The farm size varies between 0.25 ha and 0.5 ha. Water user associations have long existed to manage traditional schemes. They are generally well organized and effectively operated by farmers who know each other and are committed to cooperating closely to achieve common goals. Typical associations comprise up to 200 users who share a main canal or a branch canal. They may be grouped into several teams of 20 to 30 farmers each. Such associations handle construction, water allocation, operation and maintenance functions.Modern Irrigation  The Federal or Regional Government normally constructs small-scale modern schemes. Such schemes have been expanded after the catastrophic drought in 1973 to achieve food security and better peasants' livelihoods by producing cash crops. Such schemes involve dams and the diversion of streams and rivers.The constructed and completed schemes of such types are usually \"handed over\" to WUAs for management, operation and maintenance with the support of personnel from Regional Bureaus. See section 4 for further discussion.Micro irrigation is not understood in the same sense in all regions of Ethiopia. Sometimes the term is used for small-sized schemes of less than 1 hectare developed at household level, such as rainwater harvesting schemes. Others consider micro irrigation in relation to the technology and refer to drip irrigation schemes.In this report, we use \"micro irrigation\" to refer to individualized small-scale technologies for lifting, conveying and applying irrigation water. It therefore includes treadle and small power pumps to lift water, and a variety of irrigation application technologies such as small bucket and drip systems, and small sprinkler systems.In general, the advantages of this category of technologies are: 1) they can be adopted and used by individual farmers, i.e., are not depending on collective action by groups; 2)3 Note that grand is total existing plus the planned schemes they are of relatively low cost in terms of their capital and operating costs (per farm, not necessarily per hectare) and therefore are potentially affordable by small farmers; 3) they are often highly efficient in use of water (high water productivity) while also improving crop quality and reducing labor costs; and 4) they can be distributed by private firms through markets, i.e., are not dependent on being provided by government institutions. This category is sometimes referred to as \"Affordable Micro Irrigation Technology, AMIT\" (ITC et al., 2003) to distinguish it from commercially available 'high-tech' irrigation application technologies such as pressurized drip systems.In Ethiopia, some private entrepreneurs producing high value crops are using the latter types of conventional 'high-tech' micro irrigation systems. All of the mushrooming flower farms (around Sebeta Hollota areas in the Oromia Region) and to some extent others such as vegetable farms (e.g., Genesis Farm in Debre Zeit, Oromia Region) are using these conventional imported irrigation technologies on relatively large holdings.The use of micro irrigation, for example under current efforts of water harvesting in Ethiopia where the harvested volume of water is small, is appropriate from the point of view of conserving water. The use of micro irrigation by poor farmers has hardly begun in Ethiopia. Its introduction is a recent phenomenon, with some attempts to utilize this concept by NGOs (such as World Vision in the South, SNV in Wello Area) and universities such as Arba Minch University (AMU) and Mekelle University (MU).It is appropriate and timely to consider introducing the wide range of technologies developed elsewhere such as in India and Kenya, so farmers can make their own selection. For example, farmers in India in 2002 could buy four types of kits: bucket kit, drum kit, customized kit and micro sprinkler.According to ITC et al. (2003), the prices of different types of kits ranged from Rs 225 (US $5) for bucket kits to Rs 3,000 (US $63) for tank kits. Individual farmers directly purchase these kits.In Ethiopia there are also local manufacturers such as Selam and Wolita Rural Development Center that are trying to manufacture and promote treadle pumps. Treadle pumps and small power pumps could provide an opportunity to lift water stored from harvested rain in underground tanks or shallow ground water wells. This type of technology could be also imported and adapted for up scaling.It should be understood that adding 'only' water to the soil increases the rate with which the crop removes plant nutrients, and when these are not replenished by chemical or organic fertilizer, the soil degrades, reducing production capacity even faster than if no water were added. In other words, a plant nutrient replacement strategy must be part of any irrigation strategy. Market-driven profitable agriculture provides farmers incentives to invest in soil fertility.The term rainwater harvesting (RWH) is used in different ways and thus no universal classification has been adopted (Ngigi, 2003).According to Critchley and Siegert (1991), water harvesting in its broadest sense is defined as the \"collection of runoff for its productive use.\" Runoff may be harvested from roofs and ground surfaces as well as from intermittent or ephemeral watercourses. A wide variety of water harvesting techniques for many different applications is known. Productive uses include the provision of water for home garden application, livestock water, concentration of runoff for crops, fodder and tree production and less frequently water supply for fish and duck ponds.An excellent overview on land and water conservation technologies and small to medium scale irrigation in Ethiopia is presented by W O C A T ( h t t p : / / w w w . f a o . o r g / a g / a g l / a g l l / w o c a t / w o c a t q t . a s p ). It lists 7 technologies specific for Ethiopia, while many others from other countries apply in some areas. Oweis et al. (1999) reviewed water harvesting methods used in winter rainfall areas (>100 mm per year) and in summer rainfall areas (>250 mm). They give an excellent overview of the theory of catching, concentrating and storing of water, and how this relates to rainfall characteristics, landscape and crop demands. The principles have been known and applied for millennia. Practical designs are given, yet the authors note that recent attempts to encourage more farmers in semi-arid zones are often disappointing, and give the following reasons: (i) people often do not understand the principles and get inadequate training, (ii) transaction costs are high, (iii) outside institutions are often needed to get started, (iv) too little focus on 'risk' and how to handle it, and (v) cooperation with different people (i.e., not worked with before) is difficult. The fact that many farmers in semi-arid regions do not own the land they farm is another reason why investments in water harvesting are low. Not mentioned in the review but likely also a cause of slow uptake is that many of the farmers in semi-arid regions have more experience of being a herdsman than being a cultivator. Kunze (2000) showed that although profitability of water harvesting can be significant at the field level, it might still be negligible if only applied to a small part of the farm.RWH systems are generally categorized into two categories: a) in-situ water conservation practices, small basins, pits, bunds/ridges, and b) runoff based systems (catchment and/or storage). The storage system is usually used in supplemental irrigation. The in-situ systems, which enhance soil infiltration and water holding capacity, have dominated over storage schemes in Ethiopia until recently. Despite the additional costs involved in storage schemes, the recent trend shows there is a relatively high degree of adoption. Surface runoff from small catchments and roadside ditches is collected and stored in farm ponds holding an average of about 60m 3 of water. This storage is not significant in volume and thus is usually used for supplementary irrigation of vegetables. The use of these systems can be extended to crop fields and larger plot sizes can be warranted through larger sizes of storage combined with efficient water application methods such as low-pressure drip irrigation methods.Hence, rainwater harvesting is a useful mechanism to overcome the recurrent erratic rainfall and dry spell conditions which often result in crop failures in Ethiopia. There is a need to effectively promote promising RWH technologies and systems; to incorporate and integrate land users' knowledge and innovations; and to build capacity of the landusers to assimilate, adopt and adapt various technologies. We address this in the following sections.The • Institutional research -research to establish clear and effective policies to minimize conflicts between upstream and downstream water users (raised as an issue in Amhara); problems of institutional arrangements in regional structures was acknowledged as relevant in all regions except Oromia; research on property rights regarding access to land and water was emphasized, particularly clear definition of rights to water to minimize conflicts between traditional irrigator and those on modern small scale scales. Low average rainfall that is seasonal, highly variable in time and space, and increasingly unreliable is the major impediment to farm households increasing their production of food, cash crops, and livestock products in Ethiopia. The impacts of this unreliable and inadequate water supply are compounded by many other problems both natural (for example poor soil fertility), and human-created (for example lack of support services and infrastructure). Improving the reliability of water supply for agriculture is therefore a necessary though not sufficient condition for reducing poverty and malnutrition and generating faster agricultural growth. There is reasonable though not conclusive evidence that some of the agricultural water management technologies reviewed in this study, under the right conditions, do lead to substantial improvements in households' food security and incomes, and that they do so in a cost-effective manner. But the tremendous diversity of conditions in Ethiopia must be acknowledged. Even within districts, there is such diversity in soils, microclimate, cultures, and access to markets that what works on one farm may not be appropriate next door. This means there is no possibility of generalizing, no cook book approaches or surefire universal panaceas that will work everywhere. Following from the diversity of Ethiopia, it is no surprise that there are no cases of successful massive scaling up and out of specific agricultural water management technologies and practices.Adoption, adaptation, or rejection decisions are a function of many factors including lack of information or access, lack of fit between the technologies on offer and the capacities and needs of households, inefficient promotion strategies, flawed assumptions about households' needs and capacities and the real costs and benefits from their perspectives, ineffective targeting, lack of capacity to manage projects offering a large array of small-scale technologies to thousands of poor households, and lack of credit.Due to progress in agriculture, globally there is enough food supply that can satisfy the needs of the world's growing population and projections indicate no global food shortage in the forthcoming decades. Investments in water resources have effectively contributed to this success of modern agriculture. However, these successes are yet to be achieved particularly in many of the sub Saharan African countries including Ethiopia. Lack of reliable access to agricultural water undermines the food security and poverty reduction objectives of the region. Without guaranteed access to reliable water, the farmers, the main actors in the food security and poverty reduction battle, lack the motivation to adopt other productivity enhancing inputs such as fertilizers, high yielding varieties, herbicides, etc, which are the bases for the green revolution of the type that had been observed in Asia and Latin America.The vast majority of the rural poor rely on rainfed land for their survival, making them vulnerable to the highly variable and unpredictable rainfall. Some authorities suggest this variability may be increasing. Even in years having \"normal\" rainfall, a period of ten to fifteen days with no rain at a critical stage in crop growth can spell disaster for thousands, even millions, of poor farmers. Periodic drought and famine are the result in many regions of Ethiopia, which is hard hit by what seem to be increasingly frequent and devastating droughts, floods and famines. In addition to the hunger and starvation that ensues, the results are drastically reduced economic growth rates, serious impacts on the nutritional status of children, compounding of the already serious impacts of malaria, HIV/AIDS and other diseases, and reduced resilience to face the next drought period.Investment in Agricultural Water Management (AWM) is often identified as one of the possible responses to this problem, and has had considerable success in Asia in terms of achieving national as well as local food security, reducing poverty, and stimulating agricultural growth (IWMI/ADB 2005). In Ethiopia, AWM investments never kept pace with those in Asia for many reasons, such that today, of all the major developing regions Ethiopia has one of the lowest percentages of cropped area irrigated (FAO 2002). Many analysts believe future increases in food supplies and economic prosperity for the rural poor in the Ethiopia will mainly come from improved agricultural water management Access to water will allow the intensification of agricultural production systems. In light of this, researchers, policy makers, NGOs, and farmers are increasingly experimenting with and promoting various innovative agricultural water management technologies and practices. It is believed that making widely available relatively low-cost AWM technologies can make a major contribution (e.g., Falkenmark and Rockström 2004;Polak 2005). There is evidence from Asia, for example that the introduction of treadle pumps has lifted millions of people out of poverty (Shah et al. 2000). Throughout India private firms and NGOs are promoting a large variety of highly cost effective agricultural water management technologies whose uptake and impacts are indeed impressive (e.g., Shah and Keller 2002;Namara et al. 2005). This paper summarizes suitable innovative agricultural water management techniques and approaches that may be applicable to Ethiopia in combating the effects of dry spells and/or droughts based on experiences from other regions in Africa and Asia. First, the definition of Agricultural Water Management is provided based on the concept of rainfall partitioning at the field level. Second, the paper provides examples AWM technologies by categories and finally some conclusions and recommendations are made.Figure 1 gives and indication of the partitioning of rainfall into different water flow components in rain-fed agriculture (Rockstrom 2000). Soil evaporation accounts for 30-50% of rainfall. Surface run-off is often reported to account for 10-30% of rainfall. The characteristics in dry lands of frequent, large and intensive rainfall, results in significant deep percolation amounting to some 10-30% of rainfall. The result is that productive green water flow as transpiration in general is reported to account for merely 5-10% of rainfall. The rest, between 70-90% of rainfall is lost from cropping systems as non-productive green water flow (soil evaporation) and as blue water flow (deep percolation and surface run-off). .The figure provides a conceptual diagram illustrating the potential for improving the productivity of rainfall: if unproductive evaporation, runoff and consumption by weeds are reduced, there will be more water available for the crop. Hence: the need for agricultural water management interventions.The term \"agricultural water management\" is a broad term covering an increasingly wide range of technologies and practices available for improving water and land management. It is now a commonly accepted term to cover the range of technologies and practices whose objective is to ensure that adequate water is available in the root zone of crops when needed. It therefore includes capture and storage (in dams, in groundwater) as well as drainage of any water used for agriculture (crops, livestock, fish); lifting and transporting water from where it is captured to where it is used for agricultural production or removing excess water from where agriculture is practiced; and in-field application and management of water, including land management practices that affect water availability to crops (Merrey et al. 2006). Infield application and management of water and land is the common denominator, regardless of the source of the water, and is a critical element of all agriculture. Therefore \"AWM\" is critical to successful agricultural production.In situ soil and water conservation technologies Soil and water conservation (SWC) refers to activities that reduce water and nutrient losses and maximize their availability in the root zone of crops: rainwater and therefore nutrients are conserved where it falls, in-situ. This distinguishes SWC from rainwater harvesting (RWH), which seeks to transfer run-off water from a \"catchment\" to the desired field or a storage structure (Mati 2006). RWH includes a range of micro-catchment systems, earthen bunds and other structures to capture and store run-off from elsewhere (hence, ex-situ) for use when needed. As Mati (2006)   (e.g., Rockström et al. 2003;Falkenmark and Rockström 2004), Hatibu and Mahoo (eds.2000), Ngigi (2003) and others that demonstrates a doubling of rainfed crop yields in the semi-arid tropical regions of SSA is possible with currently known technologies for improving water and nutrient management. Mati (2006)  Involving a process to maximize ground cover by retention of crop residues and to reduce tillage to the absolute minimum while exploiting the use of proper crop rotations and rational application of inputs (fertilizers and pesticides) to achieve a sustainable and profitable production strategy for a defined production system.In practical terms, examples of conservation agriculture techniques include the following:• Ripping only the planting line using a tractor or animal-drawn 'rippertine', rather than normal plowing;  (2006) says that in Zambia micro-basins prepared by hand hoes to capture and store rainfall lead to a doubling of maize yields to 3 tons/ha. This performance has led to accelerated adoption such that small farmers cultivating an estimated 200,000 ha of rainfed land have adopted such conservation technologies. They have the additional advantage of allowing precision planting and fertilizer applications. It makes use of tools and implements such as the jab planter and the animal drawn ripper or no-tillage planter, in combination with agronomic practices that have the potential to suppress weeds through soil cover and introduction of cover crops form a set of possibilities (SWMG 2005). Minimum tillage reduces labor requirements especially in peak seasons for land preparation and weeding, and potentially contributes to household food security by making more efficient use of rainwater and increasing soil fertility through the introduction of nitrogen fixing cover crops. Minimum tillage reduces expenditure on hiring farm power services and purchase of fertilizers, whilst generating additional revenue through the production of fodder and cash cover crops, and reduces production costs by reduced use of expensive fuel.In Namibia, the Agronomic Board promotes conservation tillage, especially in the form of planting pits dug with a hoe (de Lange 2006); the main cost to the farmer is her own labor in the first year, but the Board claims this work can be spread over a long time period in small steps, and the work load diminishes in subsequent years through fewer weeds and higher yields. In East Africa such systems are usually used for special crops like banana and fruit trees; their use for maize as in Zambia and Namibia is considered novel.There is a rather large menu of technologies and practices, and these can be packaged to create synergies among them and to adapt them to specific contexts. For example, combining various types of reduced tillage systems or pits with mulch, combining contour ridges or basins with mulch seems to provide very positive results. Several researchers emphasize the critical importance of combining water and soil nutrient management (Twomlow and O'Neill 2003;Stroosnijder 2003) indeed water conservation without combining with nutrient management often leads to no positive impact. This also suggests the importance of paying attention to agronomy and soils as well as water technology and markets.There are a variety of technologies for harvesting rainwater from roads, foot-paths and household compounds. Many of these water run-off harvesting systems have been developed by farmers themselves, for example those capturing \"sheet and rill\" runoff generated by compacted surfaces like roads, paths and household compounds. Water is harvested and directed either directly onto cropped fields, or into various types of natural or man-made storage structures (see fig 2).In this section we provide examples of small storage dams, shallow wells and boreholes, roof top water harvesting, and above-and belowground storage tanks.A large variety of storage technologies are in use around Eastern and Southern Africa. We discuss here a few types that require minimal engineering. Mati (2006) describes charco dams as small excavated pits or ponds constructed in relatively flat topography, and requiring minimal engineering. They are generally about 3 m in depth, and take advantage of areas where water collects naturally. They are used for multiple purposes including livestock water and to supply domestic water to villages and small towns. The technology can serve up to 500 households or 4,000 livestock units in semi-arid areas (SWMG 2005). Local communities are The village communities participate in the planning and construction of the dams and are responsible for their operation and management. Normally the village governments form dam management committees with responsibilities of operation and maintenance of the dams. Additionally the committees are expected to come up with by-laws and measures that are acceptable and implementable by the local communities within the catchment areas of the dams.Harvesting rainwater from roofs of buildings usually combined with either storage or, with drip irrigation kits are also increasingly common in Eastern Africa (Mati 2006). Despite relatively high rainfall, the level of activity in rainwater harvesting in Ethiopia is very low and isolated until quite recently. The most common type of rainwater harvesting is the traditional one, where families catch water falling from rooftops in drums of 200-210 liters capacity for short term use. The technology is quite novel in its formal state but it has existed for a long time. A similar type of system involves the use of gutters on buildings like schools and hospitals. Though with limited application, the system referred to as 'institutional rainwater harvesting' is quite effective and uses ferrocement tanks, which collect rainwater from roof tops via gutters. The collected water is used by the concerned communal institutions.While the collection of rainwater by a single household may not be significant in the larger scheme of things, the impact of thousands or even millions of household rainwater storage tanks can be enormous. The main components in a simple roof water collection system are the tank itself, the materials and the degree of sophistication of the whole system largely depends on the initial capital investment. Some cost effective systems involve cisterns made with ferrocement. In some cases, the harvested rainwater may be filtered. In other cases, the rainwater may be disinfected. Storage structures for roof catchments include surface tanks like ferrocement tanks and commercially available plastic tanks. Drip kits are promoted by some NGOs in combination with rooftop water harvesting, but the need for gutters and a collector tank is seen as raising the cost significantly.Underground rainwater tanks are a cheaper alternative than above-ground tanks because construction costs less; however it is then necessary to lift the water. Another problem is higher likelihood of contamination and sedimentation. The main problem, however, is lack of expertise at local level to design and construct underground tanks that are safe and functional (Mati 2006). Nevertheless, underground rainwater storage tanks (cisterns) are being aggressively promoted by several African governments, for example Ethiopia, and material on designs is available through Southern and Eastern Africa Rainwater Network (http://www.searnet.org).In South Africa, underground tanks are currently being promoted to enable food insecure households to become more resilient against hunger. With an average rainfall of 450mm/year, the increased run-off available from the homestead yard, adjacent roads and fields as compared to rooftops, is an important potential water source. In hilly areas it is possible to channel surface run-off into aboveground tanks, but otherwise, underground tanks (cisterns) are preferred.A wide range of building materials can be used, with the most popular currently being self-made cement-blocks and ferrocement. Rammed earth is being investigated as an affordable alternative, while geofabric with a bitumen coating has also been tried. A variety of plastic linings are being investigated for their durability and ease of installation and maintenance by households. They are said to be already in use in parts of Kenya because they are easy to construct and more affordable (Mati 2006). However, this depends greatly on the types of plastic available in any particular country. In South Africa, nine types of plastic lining are currently being investigated to identify the most suitable for specific applications.Clearly, there is a large range of potential small scale technologies for capturing water and directing it either onto crops or into storage facilities for later use. Many of them are quite low-cost and easily constructed by local people from local materials, with minimal technical assistance; and many of them provide water that can be used for many purposes, not just agriculture.As with other small-scale technologies, combining different ones to capture, store, and apply water is often synergistic: a small amount of water captured and stored can be used very productively and with minimal labor cost by combining with drip kits or treadle pumps. But adaptation to local conditions, with poor farmers empowered to make their own decisions rather than being passive recipients is critical to success.In many parts of SSA, shallow wells are constructed in valley bottoms and equipped with pumps or other manual technologies. The water is used for human use, livestock and some supplementary irrigation during dry spells. These are largely privately constructed.In many SSA countries, small-bore wells (boreholes) are drilled and equipped to supply community water for domestic use and animal watering. However, in dry areas, the development of community food gardens has been based almost exclusively on borehole water. Boreholes for food production are mostly equipped with diesel or electric-powered pumps. Electric pumps are preferred, because both the operation costs and the maintenance requirements and costs are less than those for diesel motors. In Ethiopia, livestock herders and remote rural communities are highly dependent on borehole water, which is often their only water source. Some regions in Ethiopia have developed effective programs for the provision of water supply based on boreholes.Often referred to as off-take systems, diversion systems are probably the most common form of irrigation system in Ethiopia. Diversion systems often utilize natural river flow; however, regulation of river flow via a permanent structure in the river bed is also a common practice to increase the off-take. Diversion systems abstract water over a sustained period of time and are able to deliver regular irrigation throughout the cropping regime. A key characteristic of diversion systems is the adequacy of water supply during the dry seasons and the ability to irrigate a dry season crop in addition to providing supplemental irrigation during the rainy seasons.Treadle pumps are a potentially high-return, high-impact AWM intervention. More specifically, they are especially appropriate where there is a water source close to the surface (less than 6 meters) and close to the field to be irrigated (less than 200 meters), and they will be especially profitable when farmers have access to markets where they can sell high-value fruits and vegetables. They can be used for supplementary irrigation during dry spells, though this is not commonly found.There is evidence that in many circumstances they can benefit very poor people and women, but this often depends on the local culture and social structure.Treadle pumps are also versatile-they can be used for many purposes where water needs to be lifted; they are not limited to irrigation (See Figure 3 for sample models of treadle pumps in different countries of Africa).The successful programs to promote treadle pumps have paid considerable attention to the manufacture, sales, and after-sales service of treadle pumps, and to training farmers in their use. It is quite likely that the additional attention to helping farmers link effectively to output markets further enhances their positive economic impacts. Providing packages that combine treadle pumps with water-efficient application technologies such as low-cost drip systems can further enhance the returns, especially where either water is scarce, or labor shortage limits the capacity to pump.Low-cost motorized pumps have had a big impact in Asia, but in Africa there is far less experience except in West Africa, especially Nigeria. Impediments to their rapid uptake include:• In most countries, they are either not available or are too expensive; • Lack of scale means that the input supply market (spare parts, maintenance expertise) is weak; • Relatively high fuel prices and rural electrification is not wide spread; and • Limited markets for high value produce.For all the reasons given above, it is likely there are limited opportunities for poor farmers to make profitable use of motorized pumps, particularly if promoted on individual basis. Communal ownership and operation may be feasible and may have substantial poverty reducing impacts.Drip irrigation enables the farmer to make use of limited amounts of water and fertilizer which can be applied together with the irrigation water to grow high value crops. Drip irrigation allows precise application of small amounts of water directly to the root zone. In terms of Figure 1 on rainfall partitioning, it reduces losses from evaporation, weeds, runoff and percolation. Drip irrigation is popularly viewed as one of the most water efficient types of irrigation, but Laker (2006) warns that in large areas the soils are not suitable for drip irrigation, notably course sands and severely crusting soils.Conventional drip irrigation systems typically cost US$ 5,000-10,000 per hectare or more, installed in East and Southern Africa. Recent advances have introduced some adaptations that make them accessible to small-scale farmers. Simple drip irrigation systems are now available which would cost a farmer US$ 15 to cover 15 m 2 , or US$ 200-400 for a bigger system covering 500 m 2 (Sijali, 2001;Sijali andOkumu 2002, 2003)1.While there are numerous individual farmers in Africa who have benefited from low-cost bucket and drum drip kits, there is no evidence of successful implementation on a larger scale. This is in contrast to South Asia, where there has been considerable success, both in terms of market-driven systems aimed at relatively better-off farmers, and in terms of targeting poor farmers. The technology is potentially very beneficial and profitable to poor small farmers but only under certain conditions. These include:• Dry area or growing season when there is a high premium on maximizing productivity of water; they are not likely to be attractive in relatively wet areas. • A reliable water source close to the garden to be irrigated. • Soils are suitable for drip irrigation or are sufficiently ameliorated to ensure their suitability. • Effective program for promotion (social marketing), training, technical support, provision of spare parts, and targeting to people who can really benefit. • They must save labor, especially small kits for poor families whose labor supply is a constraint. • Robust but simple technology, which is affordable and easy to maintain and operate. • Access to output markets for higher value fruits and vegetables.This is a low-cost indigenous sub-surface drip system achieved by use of unglazed fired clay pots that remain micro-porous and are molded by hand by rural women. There also exist molding machines that can mass produce clay pots with specifications of porosity and firing temperature to eliminate possibility of shrinking and swelling of clay which may lead to cracking. The clay pots are buried in the ground with their necks appearing above ground in a row at specific plant intervals. Plants are planted adjacent to the pot on either side and the pots filled with water and covered with a clay lid to avoid direct evaporation of water and rodents drinking the water (See figure 4). Using the principle of moisture potential, water oozes out of the pot from its high water potential to wet the surrounding soil outside the pot where the soil water potential is low. The water is instantaneously taken up by the crop from its root zone around the clay pot. The pots are made of locally available clay with optimum properties of strength (to resist crushing), permeability (to exude water into the soil at an approximately steady rate), and size (to hold enough water for at least one day's supply). Such use of soil-embedded porous jars is one of the oldest continuous irrigation methods that probably originated in the Far East and North Africa.This is a very suitable technology for poor rural women as they make the pots for sale (income generation), and because it is less labor intensive than most alternatives, it has high labor returns and suits people disadvantaged by physical handicaps or HIV/AIDS. Water as well as fertilizer productivity is also very high.Clay pots have a lot of potential for backyard vegetable and flower production even in urban areas. In a wet period, they can also be used for drainage by emptying the pots as water infiltrates back in from saturated soil.It has been well established that irrigation intervals between 7-14 days and water saving between 50% and 70% are achievable, resulting in yield increases between 30% and 45% over conventional flood furrow and basin irrigation systems. This indicates a high potential for labor saving while irrigating. Crops that prosper under this system include tomatoes, rape leaf vegetable, cauliflower, maize, beans and fruit trees. This was achieved at far higher water productivity than conventional irrigation.The potential of clay-pot irrigation has not been fully exploited by farmers in the eastern and southern Africa region, even though the technology is suitable for small-scale farmers.The value of the clay pot or pitcher irrigation is confirmed by several authors from across the globe (Bainbridge 2002).There are numerous advantages to using buried clay pot irrigation. First, pots are not as sensitive to clogging as drip emitters, although they may clog over time (after 3-4 seasons) and require renewal by reheating the pots. Second, the system does not require a pressurized water system, which is difficult to establish and maintain at remote sites. Third, animals are less likely to damage or clog buried pots than aboveground drip systems. Fourth, by selecting lids that collect rainfall, any precipitation that does fall can be conserved and used. Finally, buried pots are more robust than drip systems because they do not rely on continuous supplies of power or water to operate.We conclude that clay pot irrigation is a cost effective and easy-to-implement alternative to bucket and drip irrigation kits. The pots can be manufactured locally and therefore create employment for poor people (often women), and can be used by poor women and men to irrigation vegetables and fruit trees cost effectively. They are appropriate wherever water is scarce, or where obtaining water is expensive, putting a premium on water conservation.Sprinkler Irrigation is a method of applying irrigation water which is similar to rainfall.Water is distributed through a system of pipes usually by pumping. It is then sprayed into the air and irrigated entire soil surface through spray heads so that it breaks up into small water drops which fall to the ground. Sprinklers provide efficient coverage for small to large areas and are suitable for use on all types of crops. It is also adaptable to nearly all irrigable soils since sprinklers are available in a wide range of discharge capacity. Micro and Mini sprinkler kits are available in sizes from 100 to 1000 m 2 . Systems more than 1000 m 2 can be customized to suit specific requirements. Micro-sprinklers are spaced at 3m x 3m minisprinklers are spaced at 6m x 6m in order to produce uniform wetting. Micro-sprinklers require 5 m to 10 m operating pressure whereas mini-sprinkler requires 10 to 15 meters of operating pressure. Micro and Mini sprinklers can be shifted from one place to other to cover larger areas and thus are potentially useful for small scale farmers with varying land holdings.• Low average rainfall that is seasonal, highly variable in time and space, and increasingly unreliable is the major impediment to farm households increasing their production of food, cash crops, and livestock products in Ethiopia. The impacts of this unreliable and inadequate water supply are compounded by many other problems natural (for example poor soil fertility) and human-created (for example lack of support services and infrastructure). Improving the reliability of water supply for agriculture is therefore a necessary though not sufficient condition for reducing poverty and malnutrition and generating faster agricultural growth. • AWM technologies and practices are complementary in nature. For instance, while the water lifting technologies, diversion and storage systems are means of accessing water from a source, the application technologies are means of efficiently using the accessed water. This combination has to be appreciated in any future investment planning, particularly given the scarcity of water. • It is important also to note that some of the technologies and practices have been known to the farmers for many years or are indigenous, but the extent of their use or adoption is low. This may reflect their highly location-specific nature.• The literature on agricultural water management is usually crop-biased while the livestock production sector constitutes a vital livelihood system of the rural people in Ethiopia and elsewhere. A lot of innovative water management systems for livestock production systems that warrant further consideration are available.• There is reasonable though not conclusive evidence that some of the AWM technologies reviewed in this study, under the right conditions, do lead to substantial improvements in households' food security and incomes, and that they do so in a costeffective manner. This is especially true for treadle pumps, but there is enough case study and anecdotal evidence to suggest that the statement also applies to low-cost drip kits, clay pot irrigation, conservation farming practices that integrate nutrient and water management, and a variety of in-situ and ex-situ water harvesting and storage technologies. Further, there has been a failure to take an integrated approach, in several senses: recognition of the multiplicity of household water needs given the diversity of livelihoods (for example integration of livestock, crops, brick making, etc.); recognition of the potential synergies of integrating AWM technologies, for example combining treadle pumps with efficient application technologies with soil conservation practices; integrating water and nutrient management; and pursuing implementation strategies that integrate attention to support services (inputs), attention to production processes, and to outcomes on the demand side in terms of both household food security and nutrition and access to well-functioning markets. • Following from the diversity of Ethiopia, it is no surprise that there are no cases of successful massive scaling up and out of specific AWM technologies and practices. Adoption, adaptation, or rejection decisions are a function of many factors including lack of information or access, lack of fit between the technologies on offer and the capacities and needs of households, inefficient promotion strategies, flawed assumptions about households' needs and capacities and the real costs and benefits from their perspectives (for example the assumption of surplus labor availability), ineffective targeting, lack of capacity to manage projects offering a large array of small-scale technologies to thousands of poor households, and lack of credit. • In many regions in southern Africa where there is a water source no more than 6 meters below the surface or 200 m away from where the water is needed, treadle pump offer a potentially high-return and high-impact intervention. The pumped water can be used for many domestic and productive purposes, not only irrigation. The evidence from Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia demonstrates the potentially very high impact on food security and incomes. • Like low-cost drip irrigation kits, although so far clay pot irrigation has not been implemented on any scale, we believe this is also a low-cost technology that can result in a very high level of water and labor productivity.• The term \"conservation agriculture\" covers a large range of in-situ water and land management technologies and practices, some of which require large initial investments to implement. But some of the practices described under this heading are relatively low-cost, with very high potential returns. The critical issue is that many interventions have failed to address the necessity of integrating water and nutrient management: adding water by itself can actually lead to more rapid depletion of nutrients, while soil nutrients cannot be efficiently used by plants without water. Because of the complexity and diversity of most Ethiopian farming systems, there is no monolithic package of conservation agriculture technologies; rather farmers need to be supported and assisted to try new ideas and combinations of practices that work under their conditions. • As with in-situ water and land management practices, there is a wide range of low-cost and easy-to-construct ex-situ water harvesting and storage practices that under specific conditions are effective and can have large impacts on food security and livelihoods. As is the case for others, adaptation to local conditions with poor people empowered to make their own decisions rather than being passive recipients is critical to success. • Following from the observations above regarding the diversity of conditions and situations and the fact that no single AWM technology or practice can be a panacea, we strongly recommend that supporting the creativity of the user is essential if people are going to improve their food security and escape from poverty. Therefore, participatory approaches that encourage and support creativity and innovation, for example by offering choices and menus that can be adapted and combined as needed, participatory approaches that empower users to make their own decisions, and provision of support services that reduce risk and makes available resources that are not otherwise at hand.• While supporting the need to invest in major water (and indeed other) infrastructure at a far greater scale than seen so far in Ethiopia, we strongly recommend scaling up investments in AWM technologies and practices because it offers a relatively faster and more costeffective way to achieve the MDGs than for example major irrigation investments. Many AWM technologies are far less expensive per household than formal irrigation, their benefits begin immediately upon acquisition, and they are not plagued by all the management problems, transaction costs and negative externalities often characterizing formal irrigation. Of course, for poor people living in areas where there is no adequate source of water, infrastructural development is necessary to bring water close to the people in need.• AWM technologies are \"divisible\"; i.e., can be used by individuals or small groups directly. They also lend themselves to provision by the private sector, unlike large water infrastructure projects with large public good and common property characteristics. Therefore, we recommend that governments examine how to make their policies more conducive to encouraging private sector firms to manufacture, supply, and even experiment and innovate AWM technologies. • We recommend that NGOs and governments currently promoting AWM technologies as part of their relief efforts move away from short term relief to longterm development. We have found cases where well-meaning provision of technologies like bucket and drip kits has had no impact, because of the lack of longer term service provision and training. This is not a good use of scarce resources. It is clear that the most successful programs are those that take a longer term integrated perspective toward creating the conditions conducive to sustainability.• Finally, we strongly recommend more investment in monitoring, impact assessment, pilot testing of innovations, and sharing the lessons learned widely among government agencies, investors, donors, private firms and farmers. Creating \"learning alliances\" among interested partners to collaborate in these endeavors is one effective way to achieve this. Dr.Balasaheb Sawant Konkan Agricultural University, Dapoli, India.ssmagar@yahoo.co.inWater is one of the largest renewable natural resources but fresh water is expected to emerge as a key constraint to future agricultural growth.Globally and more particularly for many developing countries including India, Ethiopia, changing water availability and quality pose complex problems and management options are not easy. The changing situation comes partly from increasing demands such as population, industry and domestic requirements partly from consequences of climatic change. The demand for water has grown annually by 2.4 per cent.The present water stress (about 28%) of many countries is expected to be about 50% due to population growth and industry development.Indian statistics shows that per capita availability has come down from 5300 m 3 in the year 1955 to 1967 m 3 in 1997, which is projected to further decrease to 1500 m 3 by 2025 with wide inter-basin variations.Environmental scientists have categorically notified the critical water availability per capita to the extent of 1000 m 3 per annum (Selvarajan et al 2004); Water Availability Index (WAI) and Water Stress Levels (WSL) are reported in Table -1. On the background of 6.0 Billion World population with geographic river basin water availability variation, the best water management practices with location specific technology are now inevitable for sustainable rural and agricultural development.Rainfed agricultural lands are low in productivity and sustainability and are more prone to risk as compared to those in irrigated areas. This can be obviated to some extent by expanding irrigated areas through improving water management practices and enhancing water use patterns. Presently, the problem facing the country is not the development of water resources, but the management of the developed water resources in a sustainable manner. The bulk of agricultural land could be brought under irrigation provided that efficient water management practices including microirrigation would be adopted by the farmers.The best practices and technology for agricultural water management refer to application of optimum water quantity scheduled at right time with highest water application efficiency. The application of too little water is an obvious waste as it fails to produce the desired production. Excessive flooding of the land is however likely to be still more harmful as it tends to saturate the soil for long time, inhibit aeration, leach nutrients, induce greater evaporation and subsequent salinization. Therefore, apart from wasting water, excessive irrigation contributes to its own demise by the twin scourges of water logging and soil salinization.The best irrigation methods are designated to apply a small measured volume of water at desired frequent intervals to where the roots are concentrated. The aim is to reduce fluctuations in the moisture content of the root zones Moreover, irrigation system should convey water to the field in concrete line channels so as to avoid seepage losses or preferably in closed conduits that avoids pollution. The objective of water management is to provide a suitable moisture environment to crops to obtain maximum yield with high water use efficiency.It is integrated process of diversion, conveyance, regulation, measurement, distribution time and requisite quantity of water. Efficient water management is depicted in a simple manner in Figure 1.The basic principles of irrigation water management could be summarized in a simple relationship of soil-water plant atmosphere continuum (SPAC) (Fig. 2). Moreover, 'Management Allowable water Deficit' (MAD) estimated based on pertinent physico-chemical properties (FC, PWP & AM) and soil moisture stress resistance of a crop are important parameters for selecting best practice of agricultural water management. Other soil parameters of infiltration rate, hydraulic conductivity, slope, advance and recession of water front and opportunity time, etc. are also important parameters in maintaining optimum MAD. In brief, root zone soil layer should be kept at about field capacity maintaining optimum level of soil moisture, aeration and microbial load. The term water use efficiency is categorically used to analyze the best water management practices. Irrigation scientists have developed high precision technologies for achieving greater efficiencies such as 'conveyance efficiency', 'on farm application efficiency' or 'field application efficiency'. Finally, all the above indices of efficiency may be combined in a single concept, the overall agronomic efficiency of water use, Fag.Where P = Crop production (unit dry mass or marketable produce) u = Unit volume of water The quantity of water applied in each irrigation is divided in several parts such as runoff (R), deep percolation loss (DP), evaporation from soil surface and transpiration from leaves (ET), evaporation during conveyance and application (EP), etc. The total water budget in between two irrigation rotations is depicted in fig. 3. The modern technology is developed to improve water use efficiency (WUE) focused on conservation of water and enhancement of maximum quality marketable agricultural produce in terms of economics. However, soil is the media which needs to be given top priority for its assessment related to international classification to maintain its health.The agricultural water management practices are classified under surface, sprinkler, microirrigation (Drip) and subsurface irrigation.Each and every irrigation practice has got its merit, demerit and limitations depending upon water availability cropping pattern, water quality, soil types, topography, climate & socioeconomic status of the farmers.It is emphatically pointed out that irrigation system that may prove most appropriate in one country or region may not be suited in other country or region due to specific local physical conditions and cropping pattern. The economic background and government support to the farmers are also major factors. The large rotating wheel type sprinklers are common in California which rarely used in practice in other developing countries. Human factors include labor and management, training and skills are need to be given due consideration. Moreover labor cost, capital and energy availability, etc. are coupled with the expected returns. The modern irrigation methods (sprinkler and micro irrigation) are efficiently used in developed countries, but various alternatives with respect to their possible applicability in developing countries particularly in Africa need to be given special attention. The scientists are confident that low cost best practices with high WUE could be brought into practice provided that HRD component and farmers training are planned systematically.The definition of 'HELPFUL Irrigation' is very innovative from FAO Development series 2 as it denotes: High frequency (H), Efficiency (E), low volume (L), partial area (P), Farm (F), Unit (U) and Low cost (L). (Hillel Daniel (1997). How could be the farmers be brought into this ideal system? It is necessary to categories the situation for selecting best combination of HELPFUL Irrigation.   The results of pitcher irrigation system on cotton crop at MPKV, Rahuri (M.S.) India, are reported in Table 2. However, filling of pitcher or jars with high frequency is the major limitation, which could be solved by arranging limited water conveyance PVC pipeline. Good irrigation practice will be the surface irrigation with border or ridges and furrow irrigation layout:• Rotational volumetric water supply system, conjunctive water use, possible land development with precise slope > 0.6%, mostly cash crops and cropping pattern with 200% intensity.• The border or Ridge and furrow irrigation layouts are preferred with specific length, breadth, slope and discharge.• The infiltration rate is also playing important role in achieving high water application efficiency.These parameters are designed in such way that advancement of water without soil erosion and recession of water flow with high infiltration rate would be precisely adopted. The sufficient opportunity time is obtained so that soil moisture deficit in effective root zone is met out with minimum deep percolation losses at head and tail reach portions of border or furrow.The details of water applied with WUE are shown in Table 3 A and B. However, under no circumstances field application efficiency exceeds 60% and the deep percolation losses to the extent of about 10% are inevitable.Precision Technology of Sprinkler Irrigation -Any soil type, cash crop focused cropping pattern, assured water and energy supply, skill oriented, better socio-economic conditions. Sprinkler irrigation system parameters are indicated below:• Limited field layout or sometime leveled field.  • High initial investment and capital cost solid and rotating systems. • Shifting movable types are available.• Design operation and maintenance are key parameters.The details of results obtained in India for sprinkler irrigation systems with its economic parameters are reported in Table 3 A and B. However, experiences in India show that sprinkler growth is steady and micro irrigation system is being accepted and adopted by farmers on larger scale.Modern Technique of Micro Irrigation or Drip/Trickle Irrigation-This is the best world wide accepted modern technique in water management system. It has got wide range acceptability under variable soil, crop and climatic conditions. From the recent past as share of water for agriculture is declining, the judicious use of every drop of water is gaining attention.And spread and use of micro irrigation has become need of the hour. Extent of the micro irrigation in the world is depicted in Figure 6.The details parameters are as follows:• Any water resource with optimum quality. • High frequency (daily or alternate day) • Low pressure (about 1 to 2 Kg/cm2)      The objective of the project was to improve food security by sustainable utilization of natural resourcesThe approaches employed by the project were:• One of the selected and applied watershed management techniques was traditional sediment storage dam (figure 3) Semi circle terraces were also tested and it is found out that they have the following advantages and disadvantages:    It is estimated that more than 90% of the food supply in Ethiopia comes from low productivity rainfed small-holder agriculture. Hence, rainfall or access to irrigation water is the most determinant factor affecting the food selfsufficiency at household level and national food supply. Not only limited access to water has impeded the productivity of farming system but also lack of appropriate means of utilizing the available water more productively. In the history of irrigation, drip irrigation method has proven to be the most efficient technology that helps to irrigate the plants and not the 'soil'. However, the technology in its conventional design is expensive and can not be afforded by the poor. Raising the productivity of smallholders under Ethiopian condition requires a new approach to the design of simple and affordable irrigation systems. This paper describes the experiences with simple and lowcost drip irrigation system (bucket, clay pot drip irrigations) developed at Arba Minch University and successfully used by the farmers around Arba Minch. The simplicity and availability of the accessories of the system on the local market with reasonable price and the ease of assembling makes it appropriate and affordable to the poor farmers. It is also proposed to spread the technology to other parts of the country with the aim to increase smallholder farm productivity and ensuring food self-sufficiency at household level.Huge proportion of the population (more than 85%) in Ethiopia is engaged in less productive agricultural activities. This low productivity rain-fed small-holder agriculture is the main source of food supply in the country. With this regard, unreliable distribution of rainfall represents critical constraint to food production and is the major cause for food selfinsufficiency and famine in the country. Under these conditions, implementation of irrigation is considered as the only means to sustain food production.Appropriate methods of water lifting and distribution are the most important aspects that determine the efficiency and success of an irrigation system. Also in terms of cost, the water diversion, conveyance and distribution systems are the most expensive parts of modern irrigation network. The distribution of modern irrigation development in Ethiopia is mainly concentrated along the plane of perennial rivers.Neither the poor smallholders have the capacity to install the expensive modern irrigation system nor can the already implemented and planned large, medium and small scale irrigation schemes benefit the majority of the poor. From the perspectives of poor farmers alternative methods such as low-cost smallholder irrigation technologies are vital and attractive.Experiences from other developing countries show that coupling of low-cost irrigation technologies with water conservation and harvesting technologies allows better control and management of limited water resources and results in much higher returns to farmers. Small-scale, low-cost irrigation systems that can be easily afforded and managed by poor farmers contribute significantly to the endeavors of ensuring food self-sufficiency at household level.Efficient use of scarce water has gained attention during the recent years as key to crop production in arid and semiarid regions. Drip irrigation is widely recognized as one of the most efficient methods of applying water to crops. Rather than irrigating the entire field surface as with other methods with drip irrigation water can be delivered precisely to the root zones. There are reports indicating that drip irrigation brings about water savings of about 50% and reduced labour. However, the conventional drip systems are expensive and cannot be afforded by smallholder poor farmers. To solve this problem a number of innovative options have been developed in different parts of the world (references in Isaya V. S., 2001 andin Postel S. et. al., 2001). The aims of these innovations are being to improve the distribution and application of water.Attempts have been made to make them as simple as possible so that they can be manufactured at lower cost and operated and maintained easily.Low-cost irrigation systems attempt to retain the benefits of conventional systems whilst removing the factors preventing their uptake by poor smallholders: purchase cost, the requirement of a pressurized supply, the associated pumping costs and complexity of operation and maintenance (FAO, 2001). Lowcost smallholder drip irrigation system can be grouped into bucket and drum drip irrigation kits (Isaya V.S., 2001).In bucket kit drip irrigation, water flows into the drip lines from a bucket reservoir placed 0.5-1m above the ground to provide the required water pressure. Starting from 1995, International Development Enterprises (IDE) is an international NGO that has developed a variety of low-cost drip irrigation kits that are appropriately sized and affordable for smallholders (Isaya V.S., 2001). The kits operate under low pressure (up to 2m) and are successfully used for the production of fruits and vegetable as well as other row crops. The kits are expandable so that farmers can start small and scale-up as their capacity and experiences grow. The capacities of the kits vary from 20-liter bucket that can irrigate 20m 2 to customized system covering about 1000m 2 .Each comprises a 20 liter bucket installed on a pole at shoulder height. The bucket is fitted with a 15m lateral line from which 26 microtubes extend (Figure 1). By placing the tubes midway between parallel crop rows it is possible to irrigate four crops per tube.Depending upon the type of the crop and growing stage, the buckets need to be filled two to four times a day. Each bucket kit irrigates more than 100 individual plants over an area of 25m 2 . This technology helps the family not only to save water but also labour and time required to irrigate the garden which otherwise done by women. These systems consists of a 200-liter drum from which up to five lateral extend. It operates also under a low pressure head of water (0.5-5 m). The higher the drum is placed the greater the area that can be irrigated. Each lateral line is 15 meters long and fitted with 26 micro-tubes allowing each drum kit to irrigate 125 m 2 plots (Figure 2). Examples of different drum systems such as the KARI drum system from Kenya, the Waggon Wheel system from South Africa, the Family system, Plastro and Micro-Tal systems from Israel and the IDE drum used in India are presented by Isaya V.S. ( 2001).In all of these systems attempt is made to take the advantage of the benefits of drip irrigation method without requiring expensive central pressurized water system. The accessories of the systems are mostly developed and manufactured in Israel. Each bucket kit is delivered with instructions on how to assemble it, operate and manage it.  can supply water to a lateral line which is 15 m long and 16 mm diameter. On a lateral line there are about 28 micro-tubes spaced at 0.5m (spacing of most vegetables) that allow water to drip on the soil. The water enters into a 4.5mm supply hose after passing through a filter arrangement. Filtering of water from coarse materials and impurities is accomplished by outer fine mesh and perforated double plastic bottles inside the mesh (Figure 4). After detaching the hose at transparent tube and mouth sucking the flow of water in to the supply hose can be initiated. Immediately after making sure that the water is in continuous flow in to the flexible delivery hose, the hose can be reconnected.The capacity of the system to distribute the required amount of water to the plant is determined by the discharges of the drippers. To know the discharge of each dripper and the uniformity of its distribution a catch can test was conducted. The results of the experiment are presented in Tables 3.1 and 3.2 and Figures 5 and 6. As can be seen from Figure 5, the discharges of all drippers are scattered around the average discharge line along the entire distance. It can be said that all drippers along the lateral line release water at almost a uniform rate.. No significant differences in water distribution rate has been observed between drippers at the head, middle and tail of lateral line. Uniformity in water distribution is maintained throughout the systemThere is no significant difference between the average discharges of all lateral lines. Both standard deviation and coefficient of variation are very low, i.e., 0.08 to 0.1 and 0.06 to 0.08 respectively. The overall average dripper discharge is 1.326 liter/hour. This multiplied by 28 drippers is 37.12liter/hour which is the capacity of one lateral line. A 15 meter lateral line with its 28 drippers over 0.50 meter wide bed can irrigate an area of 7.5 m 2 .For a uniform growth of the plant uniform application of water along the lateral line is essential so that each part of the irrigated area receives the same amount of water. However, as the water flows from one end of the lateral line to the other, there will be head loss which results in uneven distributions of discharge from the outlets over the lateral lines. Irrigation system needs to be carefully designed so that the variation in discharge is minimized.The commonly used measures of uniformity are Distribution uniformity and uniformity coefficient. DU is a measure of a dripper's ability to apply water uniformly over the surface. A completely uniform application would have a DU of 100%. The more unevenly the system distributes water, the smaller the DU value. DU can be estimated as Where, % 25 lowest q − = average of the lowest quarter discharge  Where, q i = dripper dischargeThe results of DU and CU along the lateral lines are presented in Figure 6. The curves of both parameters of uniformity measures show similar trend with DU lying above that of DC.As can be seen the system have been observed to have consistently DU and CU above 89 % and 84 % respectively.The results of water distribution uniformity of five sample lateral lines are calculated and given in the table 3.2. In average over the laterals the distribution uniformity is 92% while the coefficient of uniformity is 90% which signify an even distribution of water throughout the system. The wetting pattern under a dripper varies according to the texture of the soil. In soils of capillary suction the horizontal and vertical infiltration will be similar and the wetting pattern will be approximate to a hemisphere. In coarse soil, with low capillary suction, the wetting pattern will be more elongated with a higher vertical movement.Water flowing from dripper is distributed in the soil by gravity and capillary forces creating the counter lines. The exact shape of the wetted volume and moisture distribution depend on the soil texture, initial soil moisture, and to some degree on the rate of water application.The moisture distribution patterns of the drippers after irrigation have been determined using gravimetric method. The results are presented in Figure 5 and 6. The results of dripper 2, 14 and 28 which are located respectively 1m, 7m and 14 m away from the bucket/ reservoir. Constant moisture content below 45 cm depth shows initial water content.Water application has brought about change in water content only in 45 cm soil layer (0-45cm) at the time of sampling. For some extent, further redistribution of water in vertical direction may take place between the wetted zone and the underlying dry soil. The distribution patters coincide with typical wetting pattern of soil under drip irrigation system. Figure 8 shows that more uniform moisture distribution pattern over the entire lateral line can be obtained when the moisture distribution of the adjacent drippers overlaps. For closely spaced vegetables the dripper distances are also close to each other so that the wetting patterns overlie and create continuous moisture zone along the row/ lateral.Moisture content in 30 cm from the dripper is higher than in 15 cm. Under single dripper the wetting front starts directly from the center of the dripper and advance both vertically and laterally (figure 7). In the practice series of drippers are arranged one after the other so that the wetting patterns of neighboring drippers overlap and produce more moist areas. This moisture distribution characteristic supply crops planted between the drippers with more water than those crops planted under the drippers.At water application rate of 1.326liter/hour the surface wetting front will take about one hour to overlap with wetting front of the neighboring dripper. Figure 7 shows how the surface wetting advances with volume of water applied. This characteristic of moisture distribution is of course, as described above, the function of soil physical properties. Under the present condition, whereby water harvesting at householder level is widely practiced in Ethiopia with the aim to fight against poverty and food self-insufficiency, appropriate means of producing food out of water is an important issue that deserves attention. Low-cost drip irrigation systems can support such endeavors as they can save and supply water to the plant more efficiently and afforded by the poor farmers. When operated properly wastage of water can be minimized with increased water productivity. In addition to its simplicity, low-pressure micro tube drip irrigation system extremely save the precious water and labour needed to water plants each plant every time. Moreover, vegetables watered with low-pressure micro-tubes drip irrigation system have higher yields.Experiences from Arba Minch shows that a single low-cost drip irrigation system of 60 -70 birr initial cost can supply family with fresh vegetable for home consumption. Figure 10 shows the cumulative harvest of fresh tomato from one row (0.5m × 15m) irrigated by one lateral line of the drip system. With the adoption of the system, a family has harvested every three days over more than one month which was enough for the family. Increasing the number of laterals or rows will increase the opportunity to produce more for local market and get more income. The system has the water supply capacity of 1.326 liter/h/dripper × 28 (total number of drippers) = 37.12liter/hour. Satisfying the water requirement of the crop, which is the function of climatic condition, crop type and growth stage, is possible through adjusting time of application. Suppose the peak water requirement of tomato growing on 7.5 square meter bed is 5mm/day. The total daily water requirement is equal to 37.5 liter/day. If the tomatoes are to be irrigated every day by the lateral that drips 37.12 liter/hour, the operating time would be . However, the capacity of the bucket is 20 liter so that the farmer needs to fill the bucket two times a day to meet the water requirement of tomato in this case.Agritec System P.L.C, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia agrsys@ethionet.etIn irrigated agriculture, water taken up by crops is partly or totally provided through human intervention. Irrigation water is withdrawn from a water source (river, lake or aquifer) and led to the field through an appropriate conveyance infrastructure.There is a marked difference in yield response and water requirements between irrigated and non-irrigated agriculture. Irrigated crops produce better yield than rain fed crops because of their higher water consumption even if those rain fed crops get optimal inputs. Experience shows that rain fed agriculture have been unable to meet the food requirement of the Ethiopian population. The present annual per capita consumption of cereals and pulses in the country is 163kg compared to UNICEF standard of 240kg and that of the average for developing countries of 230kg (2100 Calories). Even though considerable increase in production can be attained through intensification of the rain fed agriculture, it is bound to fall short of the ever increasing population.The terms \"drip\", \"trickle\" and \"sprinkler\" irrigation, common in many parts of the world in the last 15 years have been emphasized by the term \"micro irrigation\", \"low volume irrigation\". Micro irrigation includes all methods of frequent water application, in small flow rates, on or below the soil surface. This is probably the promising technology choice in terms of water management, fertilizer application, crop protection & increased yield. Considering the need to cop up with growing demands, the choice of appropriate technology is eminent. The technology choice is mainly dictated by the cropping pattern, the level of sophistication & the operational capacity of end users, the optimum combination of efficiency in water use and cost effective operation and maintenance.The terms \"drip\", \"trickle\" and \"sprinkler\" irrigation, common in many quarters in the last 15 years have been supplanted by the term \"micro irrigation\", recently adopted by the American Society of Agricultural Engineers. Micro irrigation includes all methods of frequent water application, in small flow rates, on or below the soil surfaces.Regarding irrigation development areas of cooperation between the private and public sector could be mainly in a)technology choice and adaptation b)financing and resource mobilization c)rural entrepreneurship and private sector development.Micro irrigation systems have many potential advantages when compared with other irrigation methods. These are mainly: use of smaller flow rate, controlled application of chemicals, use of saline water, improved quality of crop, adaptation to any topography.In irrigated agriculture, water taken up by crops is partly or totally provided through human intervention. Irrigation water is withdrawn from a water source (river, lake or aquifer) and led to the field through an appropriate conveyance infrastructure. To satisfy their water requirements, irrigated crops benefit both from more or less unreliable natural rainfall and from irrigation water. Irrigation provides a powerful management tool against the vagaries of rainfall, and makes it economically attractive to grow high-yielding seed varieties and to apply adequate plant nutrition as well as pest control and other inputs, thus giving room for a boost in yields (FAO, 1996). Irrigation is crucial to the country's food supplies.There is a marked difference in yield response and water requirements between irrigated and non-irrigated agriculture.Irrigated crops produce better yield than rain fed crops because of their higher water consumption even if those rain fed crops get optimal inputs. The water consumption for rain fed agriculture stops at 5,500 m 3 /ha as it is impossible for 'typical' rain fed crops to consume more water. The corresponding yield is estimated to be 5000kg/ha. Whereas the irrigation crops water consumption could go up to 6500m 3 /ha with a corresponding yield of over 7500kg/ha.Experience shows that rain fed agriculture have been unable to meet the food requirement of the Ethiopian population (See table 1). The present annual per capita consumption of cereals and pulses in the country is 163kg compared to UNICEF standard of 240kg and that of the average for developing countries of 230kg (2100 Calories). Even though considerable increase in production can be attained through intensification of the rain fed agriculture, it is bound to fall short of the ever increasing population. Table 1 with a five years interval shows the required growth of irrigated agriculture in Ethiopia. It can be seen from the table that although the production from rain fed agriculture is expected to grow still additional production is required to meet the demands, which has to come from the irrigation subsector. In order to achieve this nearly 1.5 million hectares and nearly all of the 3.5 million hectares must be developed by 2020 and 2040 respectively.Irrigation DevelopmentIn present day agricultural production system, irrigation is effectively used to compensate for permanent water deficit & to smoothen climate variations mainly caused The issue of financing is critical particularly when irrigation development is considered, since irrigation is finance intensive based on the technology chosen & the scale of intervention. The shining success in terms of food self sufficiency of India & China, the two mostly populated nations of our world, stems mainly from their use of appropriate planning & implementation together with suitable technology of irrigation including massive mobilization of their people and indigenous resources (both finance & human resource).The rural economy needs to be diversified from the mono tuned crop-livestock production system into other economic activities that are either agricultural based or in trade, service & rural industry. The introduction of irrigation yields the opportunity for diversified business activities. As income increases due to surplus production of irrigation, there will be increased demand for non -farm products & services. Hence, the private sector will be involved to handle these business activities. As these activities require financial & institutional support, the role of the government will be to enhance the rural business areas, facilitate or avail capital in a form of credit or incentive & guide in running the businesses and in general develop rural entrepreneurship & private sector participation.The terms \"drip\", \"trickle\" and \"sprinkler\" irrigation, common in many quarters in the last 15 years have been supplanted by the term \"low volume irrigation\" or \"micro irrigation\" as recently adopted by the American Society of Agricultural Engineers. Low volume irrigation includes all methods of frequent water application, in small flow rates, on or below the soil surface. Ideally, the volume of water is applied directly to the root zone in quantities that approach the consumptive use of the plants.In micro or low volume irrigation systems, water is distributed using an extensive hydraulic pipe network that conveys water from its source to the plant. Outflow from the irrigation system occurs through emitters placed along the water delivery (lateral) pipes in the form of droplets, tiny streams or miniature sprays. The emitters can be placed either on or below the soil surface.Emitters can vary from sophisticated, constantflow-rate at variable pressure types of devices (pressure compensating emitters) to very small, simple orifices. A large number of different types of emitters have been developed in attempts to find a perfect one. The main objective is to assure uniformity of water distribution. It is essential that the discharge from the emitter be uniform and that it not change significantly with small pressure variations in the system. At the same time the emitter should be constructed in such a way that it does not clog very easily (figure 1). Due to the manner in which water is applied in a micro irrigation system, only a portion of the soil surface and root zone of the total field is wetted. Water flowing from the emitter is distributed in the soil by gravity and capillary forces creating the contour lines. The exact shape of the wetted volume and moisture distribution will depend on the soil texture, initial soil moisture, and to some degree, on the rate of water application (figure 2) Irrigation water requirements can be smaller with micro irrigation when compared with other irrigation methods. This is due to irrigation of a smaller portion of the soil volume, decreased evaporation from the soil surface, and the reduction or elimination of the runoff.Since the rate of water application in micro irrigation systems is significantly lower than in other systems, smaller sources of water can be used for irrigation of the same acreage. The delivery pipes, the pump, and other components of the system can be smaller and therefore more economical.Micro irrigation system allow for a high level of control of chemical applications. The plants can be supplied with the exact amount of fertilizer required at a given time. Since they are applied directly to the root zone a reduction in the total amount of fertilizer used is possible.Other chemicals, such as herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, nematicides, growth regulators and carbon dioxide can be efficiently applied through micro irrigation systems to improve crop production.A significant advantage of micro irrigation is that water with relatively high salt content can be used by the system. For optimum plant growth a certain range of total water potential in the root zone must be maintained. The potential defines how difficult it is for a plant to extract water from the soil. Large negative numbers are characteristic of very dry soils with low total water potentials while potentials near zero reflect soils near saturation.Micro irrigated plants are supplied very frequently with small amounts of water and the stress due to the moisture fluctuation in the root zone is reduced to the minimum, often resulting in larger and better quality yield. In arid climates, or during dry seasons, the harvest ting can be controlled by proper water management.Micro irrigation systems can operate efficiently on hilly terrain if appropriately designed and managed. Well managed micro irrigation system will not create runoff even on hilly terrain.During dry seasons or in arid climates disease and insect damage can be reduced in micro irrigation system since the foliage of the plant is not wetted. With a small portion of soil surface being watered, field operations can be continued during irrigation. The water distribution is not affected by the wind for drip irrigation. However, wind can have some effect on jet spray patterns. Kenya is predominantly agricultural country. It occupies a total area of 569,000 sq km, with an estimated population of 32 million of which 80% of the population stays in the rural areas where it is engaged in agricultural production.The Agricultural sector is the backbone of the economy contributing over 50% to the GDP. Majority of the rural households (70%) rely directly on the agriculture sector for their livelihoods. About 18% of the total area is classified as medium and high potential area for agriculture production with an annual rainfall of between 750 and 2000mm. The rest of the country, about 80% is classified as arid and semi arid land with limited potential for agricultural production without some form of irrigation.Due to the growing population pressure, agricultural activities are been pushed into the arid and semi arid regions where farming with out supplementing natural rain is not profitable.Poverty in Kenya continues to be a big challenge to the Government with about 50% of the population classified as poor (living below a dollar a day). Currently, about 10 million Kenyans are considered to be chronically food insecure. It is also estimated that about 2 million people require food relief annually though the number fluctuate to be 4 million in times of drought. These occur mostly in the arid and semi arid areas where rainfall is mostly unreliable.Achieving food security has been hampered by several factors; the major one being overreliance on rain fed agriculture. Agricultural production in the country is predominantly rainfall dependent. It is estimated that about 16% of the total land area can support rain fed agriculture. Population pressure has also pushed people to the arid and semi arid areas, which receive erratic rainfall. Productivity in the high and medium potential areas has also declined.Irrigated Agriculture will continue to contribute significantly to the development of agricultural production especially in the arid and semi arid areas of the country and can contribute towards attainment of food security. The government should strive to create a conducive environment for investment in irrigation especially by the smallholder farmers.The Kenya Government has prioritized irrigation development as the key strategy to revitalize agriculture. Smallholder farmers are not such poor people, as many outsiders would want to be believed, they have land, water, time and adequate skills. If only they have access to the right technology and support for their investment they would be self reliant in food production, with sufficient surplus for local and international market to meet their basic daily needs like better health services, education, shelter and other social amenities.In the dry areas of the country the threat to human survival is evident as water becomes scarce and the need to food and other basic requirements becomes a priority for the smallholder farmers who constitute about 75-80% of the population of many African countries.In Kenya the government has not invested adequately in water storage facilities hence arid and semi arid areas are adversely affected by drought that affects their survival. In end of 2005 and early 2006, about 3-4 million people were affected by drought and hundreds of livestock died.Africans though seen as poor in reference to their capital base, are potential investors seeking for opportunities that would assist them create a sustainable business enterprise to generate wealth and job creation. The farmers have access to land, water and adequate skills. What they lack is the right business choice and the right appropriate affordable technology.It is in this background that KickStart programs operate in Kenya, Tanzania and Mali.KickStart is a Not-for-Profit International Social Enterprise founded in Kenya in 1991. In 2000 the Tanzanian program was started while Mali was opened in 2004. Since 1996 KickStart started promoting the Money Maker series of treadle pumps. Although the three aforementioned countries actively run social marketing programs, KickStart technologies especially the Money Maker pumps have been supplied to 16 African countries.KickStart's mission is to eradicate poverty by fostering sustainable economic growth and employment in developing countries. Operating more like a business than a nonprofit organization, we accomplish this mission by designing, manufacturing, and marketing equipment that is purchased and used by poor people to establish profitable small-scale enterprises.Our most successful product line is a series of foot-operated manual irrigation pumps. Because 80% of the poverty in sub-Saharan Africa is in rural, agrarian areas, irrigation is a particularly effective way to increase incomes. With a $33 to $95 KickStart pump, an African farmer can grow and sell produce, earning enough additional income to move from poverty towards middle class. Our irrigation pumps illustrate that economic and social sustainability are achieved when people have the means to provide for themselves.KickStart believes that:• Self-motivated entrepreneurs are the most effective agents of change in economies in transition • Such entrepreneurs are able to raise small amounts of capital ($50-$1000) required to start new micro-enterprises • These entrepreneurs have the capacity and skills to manage the day to day affairs of a small business But that they face two challenges:1. Business Choice: It is difficult for them to identify viable new enterprise opportunities. 2. Access to Technology: They cannot easily access or develop the technologies needed for these enterprises to functionKickStart sees poor people as potential entrepreneurs who have:• The drive and desire to get ahead,• Land , time and labor to invest,• The ability to borrow or save a small amount of money to start a business.KickStart also believes that the millions of people who live at the so-called 'Base of the Pyramid' in Africa should not be considered as a problem waiting to be solved. We see them as an opportunity waiting to happen. These people comprise a massive reserve of human and social capital, of energy and intellect, and of skills and knowledge, with millions of hectares of underutilized land at their disposal. Although cashpoor at this point in the economic development of their countries and regions, they are ready to invest their wealth of non-financial assets into any endeavor that promises a worthwhile economic and social return. They simply need practical ways of using these qualities. For a very large proportion of this huge rural population the answer is irrigation.However, the appropriate, low-cost capital equipment required to start such a business is unavailable. Private sector companies have difficulty making money in rural areas of the developing world because of the excessive marketing costs to reach poor rural buyers.While marketing low-cost consumer products such as soda and shampoo is difficult in these markets, selling high-cost capital goods is simply cost prohibitive for private companies.KickStart addresses this need using a six-step methodology:1. Research markets to identify highly profitable new small business opportunities that greatly enhance the productivity of rural Africans' primary assets -land, labor and entrepreneurial drive 2. Design the required low-cost capital equipment 3. Train private manufacturers to mass produce the designed product 4. Develop a private sector supply chain to deliver the equipment whereby every partner in the chain is profitable 5. Mass-market the equipment to rural Africans. We subsidize the development and promotion of new products until they are as well known as other income generating products in Africa, such as bicycles and sewing machines 6. Carry out continuous sales and impact monitoring to evaluate progress toward set goals.Our state-of-the-art Impact Monitoring Unit measures the impacts of our program and continually searches for improvements.After creating a \"critical mass\" of sales and awareness, we cease our marketing subsidies and leave in place a fully sustainable supply chain and growing demand. This strategic process ensures:• The highest impact is achieved in the shortest time possible • A cost effective program is achieved • A self sustainable income generating process and • A scaleable or replicable process to other areasKickStart recognizes that the sort of impact achieved to date depends intimately on getting the right product at the right quality in the right place at the right price through promotional awareness. Equally it recognizes that there are a number of useful products that it cannot promote because they do not have mass market potential.The criteria for selecting a technology to promote are based, ideally, on the following:• It must be a very profitable business model that allows entrepreneurs/investors to recover their costs in 3 -6 months • The technology must be affordable to very poor investors (our guideline is that its price be less than 3 month's gross disposable income) We also expect the new MoneyMaker Hip pump to revolutionalize the irrigation sector especially for the very poor small-scale farmers due to its affordability.Smallholder irrigation in Africa is highly valued by its users. The average holding size varies between 0.2ha to 1.0ha. Studies carried out by International Program for Technology and Research in Irrigation and Drainage (IPTRID) indicated that irrigated agriculture contributes about 25-80% of total family income annually KickStart impact studies have found that the net annual income from irrigation per family using the Money Maker pumps ranges from $800 to $1,000. In December 2005 there were 55,080 irrigation pumps that had been purchased in Kenya, Tanzania and Mali. These irrigation pumps have contributed into the development of 37,535 enterprises and created household income of $37.9 million annually with an employment of 44,343 jobs (both family and waged jobs). This new wealth has helped nearly 200,000 people out of poverty. An additional 600 to 800 pumps are being purchased every month, adding further investment into irrigated agriculture in these countries.A further indication of benefits from irrigation is the establishment of small-scale businesses within the vicinity of nearby village markets, thus creating employment. This has lead to improved access to better education, health, housing and welfare services to the farming communities. This is all achieved through individual farmer's initiatives to accelerate their own socio-economic growth. Figure 1   Ndungu's Testimony Samuel Mburu Ndungu from Kamahuha Location of Maragua district in Central Kenya lives with his wife and 6 boys and 1 girl. They live in a plot of less than 1 acre. Initially Samuel used to be a hawker in Nairobi where he was selling fruits and roasted maize. Although he was making a substantial amount of money, he realized he was spending all of it buying food for his family back at home after meeting his needs at the city. He made no savings and was living from hand to mouth. He decided to try irrigation farming by growing vegetables for household use and for sale as the family farm was near a stream. He became an out grower for Frigoken (a French beans exporting & processing co.) by planting 1kg seeds of French beans and later increased to 2Kgs. He started making Ksh 10,000 ($ 135) in one crop cycle. After a few crop cycles he started selling through a middleman, but things were not any better. That is when I started selling to another out grower company, the Everest. By this time, I had bought a cow and a goat. In 2003 he approached Everest, a fresh produce exporting firm to whom he was selling his produce for a credit facility to buy the Money Maker pumps which he had heard about from the local radio and had seen various demonstrations. He had identified the pump as a toll that would transform his irrigation business. Although he never got a credit facility he did not give up but approached the KickStart Promotion Assistant at the local retail shop who introduces him to the Dealer. The dealer to lend him the pump after he paid a deposit of Ksh.2,000 ($27) and made a written commitment to repay the balance.In the last two years Samuel has:• Increased the area under irrigation by renting land from other people. • He grows French beans throughout the year • He plant a new crop after every 2 weeks • His income is never less than Ksh 100,000/-($1,350) a year. • He has built a house for his three older boys.• He had added another cow, and in total now have 7 goats. • He has been able to pay school fees for his children one in local polytechnic and pays an annual fee of Ksh 9,600/-($130), the second one in local secondary school paying a fee of Ksh 11,000/-($150) and the third child who is pursuing an electrical wiring course at a cost of Ksh 10,000/-($135). • He has bought the three children each a bicycle to ease their traveling. The rest of the children are in primary school, while one is still at home. • He recently bought a motorized pump, which cost him Ksh 28,000/-($378) to enable him irrigate his increased 5 acre farm which he now plants 16kgs of French beans. • He has already paid a deposit of Ksh 40,000 ($540) for the purchase of an acre of land at a cost of Ksh.80,000 ($1,080) in the neighborhood.\"I am very happy with KickStart work. It has made it possible for me to make a major difference to my family. I pray for them and their supporters to always get some more to help many more who are suffering the way I used to. I am sending out an appeal to KickStart supporters and would be supporters to extend their support to this organization since the MoneyMaker pump has made a major difference to my life\"The pump can irrigate up to 2 acres. In practice we have found the average area actually irrigated is 0.3 hectare (0.7acres).KickStart's micro irrigation pumps are now being used in 17 African countries besides countries like Haiti and Philippines, USA, and Yemen. Figure 2 shows the exportation of pumps to some countries who imported about 100 pumps. KickStart's operation follows the classic private sector business chain approach in which every player in the commercial chain between raw material supplier and final investor/consumer of the finished product profits from their activity. KickStart introduces the product to the manufacturers and to the market. The principal goal is to create increased confidence amongst the manufacturers, Retailers and Buyers. In the introduction of any new product neither manufacturers nor retailers are ready to invest in making or selling the technology because it is an unproven product. KickStart's interventions are, then, principally designed to reduce perceived levels of risk without distorting the pricing structure that is needed for long-term sustainability. KickStart works directly with manufacturers and retailers and indirectly with end-users, who benefit from the KickStartbacked guarantees and are made aware of the technology through public media and below the line promotion activities. KickStart offers consignment credit to the retailers or wholesalers initially and after the product has penetrated the market, sales are made on agreed terms of credit while KickStart pays the manufacturer all its suppliers. Figures 3 and 4 shows the private sector distribution value chain.The business chain is important as a brand new product will not sell in the market for the simple reason that people cannot be interested in something they do not know about. So the development of a new market for a new product requires a major and expensive effort to launch the product, and sustain a spirited marketing campaign for as long as it takes for the product to find a place in the market. This is where a big challenge lies.In the business chain, KickStart's principal intervention is in the area of research & development (or product development) and in creating awareness/developing the market for the product. For this to happen, financial support is needed to carry out these two vital intervention areas. This is where donor financing is spent. All the private players in the business chain make profits from the outset, thus ensuring a sustainable delivery system from the beginning which can be expanded in future as demand and sales rise. Figure 4, describes the KickStart private sector business value chain showing the areas of donor subsidy to KickStart to develop and mass market the technologies.Market development describes the strategy for accelerating product uptake in the market, which is considered from a national (and sometimes international) perspective. This involves mass media, storefront and marketplace demonstrations, billboards, Leaflets etc. The rationale for this investment is that once there is a critical mass of users -a process which can take years -it becomes unnecessary to maintain as the technologies create their own demonstration effect No new technology will establish itself in the market without mass-market development and a well distribution chain from the manufacturer to the end users. Marketing and promotion of a technology to rural areas is a very costly exercise and needs to be sustained over a long period of time in order to reach a critical mass of people, and achieve a tipping point, where the need to maintain such an intensive demand creation and marketing program diminishes.Our tipping point is defined as the point where twenty percent of the potential market acquires the technology. KickStart is approaching this Tipping Point in Kenya, (perhaps 3 to 5 years A crucial element of KickStart's marketing is to ensure that the pump is absolutely reliable, durable, easy to operate, and requires almost zero maintenance. Every KickStart pump carries a 12-month, no-questions-asked guarantee of free repair or complete replacement in the event that the user has any trouble with it. This is a vitally important part of the product offer. When introducing a new technology for the first time, people will set their standards and expectations by the first examples they see. Unhappily in many parts of Africa, substandard, poorly made and troublesome treadle pumps have been distributed and promoted. This has negatively affected public perceptions of treadle pumps, as affected public perceptions of treadle pumps, as many farmers have been disappointed by these badly made pumps. And bad news travels faster than good news.The role of the governments is to create an enabling environment that would encourage investment to create:• New business enterprises to increase incomes Let us assume that a farmer invests $120 in a pump and its accessories and KickStart spends about $150 to set up the private sector distribution chain as well as promote and market the pump. From KickStart findings, one Super MoneyMaker pump practically irrigates on average 0.3ha. The investment cost for irrigating one hectare would be $900. This is a very reasonable cost compared to many planned irrigation schemes. We have the track record, capacity and core competencies needed to virtually guarantee that with $1.5 to 2.0 million funding support, we can achieve the following in two years:• By ensuring 10,000 pumps are put into productive use, 10,000 Base of the Pyramid (BOP) Investors will mobilize at least $ 1.2m from their own resources to purchase and use manual micro irrigation technologies• Over 50% of these MSEs will be run by women • At least 3,000 additional hectares will be put under irrigation • Over $8million in new profits will be generated by these small farms, annually boosting local economies assuming an average income of $800 per user. In three years period the farmers would generate $24m. • At least 10,000 new waged jobs will be created The total cost of the program for the two years would be $2.7million incurred by both KickStart to get the program running and by farmers in purchasing the pumps while the accrued income benefits to the farmers would be $16m or $24m in 3 years, the expected life span of the pump. The farmers would continue to reap more benefits for another 2-3 years as experience has shown that these pumps can last for 5 years before replacement.It is evident that micro irrigation has helped thousands of farmers from poverty. The smallholder irrigation farmers are potential investors seeking opportunities to:Although our rural farmers may be lacking in financial resources they have non-financial resources they can utilize to improve their livelihood. They have:What the farmers need is an enabling environment in which they are given opportunities in which they can operate to create their own sustainable economic development rather than relying on handouts and relief food. Smallholder irrigation is the key to this investment that creates food security, increased household income and employment.To ensure a successful promotion and marketing program in any country the following parameters are important:• IMPACTS-The highest impact is achieved in the shortest time possible The place of agricultural water management to alleviate food insecurity and poverty among smallholder producers in Africa has been well articulated in various documents and forms core tenets of the Millennium Development Goals and NEPAD's CAADP. That water, and in particular rainfall, is the premier resource associated with vulnerability among smallholder farmers is well known, including the fact that the main limitation is that the water is not distributed spatially and temporary in such a way as to make it naturally available to farmers whenever they need it. What is needed, therefore, is identification of more innovative and deliberate actions, to optimize on the utilization of all forms of water, especially rainfall, which is water at its purest form. In the past, sectorized approaches that encouraged channeling of resources, research and extension messages in such a way that the different components of water management compete rather than complement each other have not served farmers well. In addition, much of the targeted effort and investment on water for agriculture has previously gone to developing the use of \"blue flows\" such as rivers and lakes at great cost, while ignoring the vast potential of the \"green\" flows, which includes rainwater re-capitalization. It has been argued that over 90% of irrigation water in the ESA region is used to compensate for losses and/or inefficiencies in the management and utilization of rainfall. This paper therefore advocates for the green water paradigm, i.e. the deliberate actions towards institutionalizing the management and utilization of water held as green flows (harnessing rainfall, its storage and utilization, reduction of evaporative losses, optimization of soil moisture and water stored in green biomass). It calls for increased investment in holistic management of water for agriculture, with a view to enhancing agricultural productivity and environmental services especially in fragile ecosystems.The Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) region has certain common features in terms of natural biophysical and socio-economic conditions that make it possible to treat the region as a block. The 21 countries (the data quoted here excludes the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Djibouti and Somalia) of the ESA have a total population of about 350 million, of which about 260 million (73%) live in rural areas. The ESA has one of the highest poverty rates in the world, averaging 56% in the rural areas. About 85% of the rural poor people derive their livelihoods from small scale agriculture (IFAD, 2002). In general, low agricultural productivity and rural poverty are most evident in arid, semiarid and sub-humid areas, which occupy 69% of the land area in the ESA (FAO, 1999). In the past, poor harvests, food insecurity and famines were confined to the Horn of Africa countries, especially Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, but more recently, several countries from southern Africa have joined the list of those depending on relief food. For instance, the FAO estimated in February 2006 that 11 million people in East Africa were on the brink of starvation due to drought affecting Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, and some parts of Eritrea, Djibouti, Tanzania, Burundi, southern Sudan, Uganda and Rwanda due to failure of the short rains in 2005. Thus cattle, sheep, goats, wildlife and even camels died, some people had died and for instance, 70% of cattle in Wajir District of Kenya died. In some districts, not only food aid but also relief water was necessary to alleviate suffering. In most parts of the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) region, the most pressing constraint to smallholder agriculture may not be access to land, as much as access to water for crops and livestock (IFAD 2002). Thus the optimal management of water for agriculture forms an entry point towards alleviating suffering and improving livelihoods for smallholder producers in the region.Agricultural water management (AWM) is not necessary new in the ESA. Rather, there is the question of how much targeted actions are applied as opposed to allowing natural phenomena to run their own course. The main problem is that the region has seen declining crop yields and recurrent crop failures associated with 'drought', yet the real problem lies not with the amount of rainfall received, but with inappropriate management of the water. Moreover, subsistence-based agronomic practices have resulted in the \"mining\" of the natural resource base in the process of crop production and livestock husbandry due to the need to produce more from the static and declining land areas. Since land is inelastic, innovative ways that allow higher productivity will have to be adopted to meet the growing food gap. For instance, at global scales (World Bank 2005), it has been recommended that over 40% of the extra food required to meet the growing food demands by 2025 will have to come from intensified rainfed farming, for which improved water management is essential. Within the sub-Saharan Africa region, 75% of the agricultural growth required by 2030 will have to come from intensification (62% from yield increases, 13% from higher crop intensities) rather than extensification of agriculture (FAO, 2000). It has been argued that smallholder agriculture may be the major cause of, and potential solution for poverty reduction and economic growth in Africa (DFID, 2002). In this respect, management of water under smallholder agriculture is the target of the Millennium Development Goals on hunger (Sanchez et al, 2005), and is seen as one way of increasing food security and reducing poverty among poor people in SSA. It has been estimated that this will require developments in water for agriculture by at least 10% of the potential, targeting improvements by 25% in water productivity of irrigated agriculture alone by the year 2015 (Donkor, 2003). Both rainfed and fully irrigated systems are expected to contribute to these improvements.The ESA region (Figure 1  (FAO, 1993). In addition, the soils are generally highly weathered, easily erodible and having little organic matter contents. With about 36% of the land area in the ESA being desert, arid or semi-arid, poor resource base and climatic variability have been blamed for the declining agricultural productivity and rural poverty. Furthermore, the dry sub-humid climate zones include vast savannahs at varying altitudes, where rainfed cereal production dominates. At altitudes 1000 m or more, the savannahs provide relatively cool temperatures (for the tropics) allowing maize-based mixed farming systems. These take large tracts of Angola, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania,Zambia and Zimbabwe. About 32% of the region's poor people live in these maizebased systems. It is here that declining soil fertility and poor investments in inputs and machinery, and lack of targeted agricultural water management have seen agricultural production plunge down to subsistence levels. The high-rainfall and potentially highly productive areas include more than half of Uganda and Rwanda, and quite large areas in Ethiopia, Kenya and Madagascar, covering about 31% of the total land area. However, even with the high production potential, poverty prevalence in these zones is quite high, and about 54% of the region's poor live here.Climatic variability resulting in prolonged dry spells and sometimes droughts is associated wit poor agricultural productivity on the ESA. Even then, climate and natural resource base are not entirely to blame for the poor status of agricultural production by smallholder farmers. It has been shown that agricultural productivity within the same geographical region, same crop, same climate, remains much lower under smallholder agriculture as compared to onstation research and large-scale farms (Falkenmark and Rockström 2003;SIWI, 2002). For instance, in Zambia, the gross national average of maize yield on smallholder farms is about 1.3 t ha-1, but farmers with slightly larger holdings and good managerial skills obtain 4.5 t ha-1. In comparison, trials with highbrid varieties, fertilizers and timely planting and under the same rainfed systems yield 9 -13 t ha-1 (IFAD, 2002). Similarly, in western Kenya, maize yields under research yield over 6 t ha-1 compared to less than 1 t ha-1 recorded under smallholder farms and 0.5 t ha-1 for beans (Mati and Mutunga, 2005). It has been stated that low crop productivity is affected more by management aspects (of water, soils, agronomy) than by natural resource base (Place et al, 2005). Moreover, this difference shows widest gaps in areas prone to climatic variability, especially semi-arid and sub-humid areas where agricultural production cannot solely depend on the natural endowments of the land. Tackling the natural limitations to production will require access to information about technologies and approaches through which smallholders themselves can establish profitable operations, optimizing the impact of their investments, particularly labor, which is the more available resource.Green water is the portion of rainfall that finds its way back to the atmosphere, through both direct evaporation and evapotranspiration. In terms of benefit to agriculture and therefore livelihoods, green water is a water resource, usually stored as soil moisture generated from direct rainfall infiltration, before it vaporizes as evapotranspiration from plants. Green water can therefore be partitioned as (i) Green water flows, which is the total evapo-transpiration from soil moisture, (ii) Productive green flow, which is the transpiration of plants of beneficial use to people, and (iii) non-productive green flow which is direct evaporation flows from water bodies and soil surface. The balance of the rainfall therefore forms blue water which can be partitioned as (i) blue water flow, which is the surface runoff and base flow, and (ii) blue water resource, which is water stored as groundwater, lakes, reservoirs, wetlands and other bodies (Fallenmark, 1995). The importance of green water flows to agricultural productivity is linked to the fact that plant biomass is created when water is taken up from the soil, and utilized in evapotranspiration.The green water paradigm requires an understanding that water is rarely truly scarce, but the main problem is that losses and extreme variability. Therefore, maximizing rainfall storages and infiltration as well as water uptake capacity of plants is the key to unlocking existing potentials. The reduction of nonbeneficial green flows are important components of green water re-capitalization. In addition, there is need for attention to scale interactions of water functions, such as water and livelihoods, land use and degradation, carbon sequestration and water services provided through land management.In its ultimate form, green water recapitalization is achieved through holistic agricultural water management (AWM).Agricultural water management has been defined (FAO, 1995) as \"any kind of human action that influences the natural flow of water to farmers' crops, or any form of agriculture that takes advantage of naturally rising or falling water levels for crop production\". Thus, AWM is a broad term encompassing irrigation, drainage, water harvesting, water conservation, utilization of high water tables, as well as control of unnecessary evaporation, reduction of seepage losses, improving efficiency in water application, conveyance and utilization, and all aspects where water benefits the crop, livestock and ecosystems. \"Management of agricultural water\" is a better term describing the deliberate human actions, which ensure optimization of all types of water resource use for agricultural production. AWM ultimately leads back to green water re-capitalization. At the regional scale, AWM is visualized to be achievable through the following actions: (i) Working towards food security and virtual water trade, (ii) water resource development to meet competing demands (noting that rainfall is water), (iii) strategic and integrated public investments in holistic approaches to agricultural water, (iv) response to climate variability, including short-term shocks such as prolonged dry spells, (v), linking farmers to markets, enabling AWM contribute to poverty reduction, (vi) making every crop, high value, (vii) opportunities pull rather than push by potential, and (viii) managing water wisely (integrated approaches for crop, livestock and ecosystems). Thus, since agriculture is about producing plant biomass, then AWM should enable production of more useful biomass per mm of water depleted which with appropriate market linkages should lead to higher net per drop. As most of the irrigation water in the ESA is used to compensate for losses in conveyance, application, and/or inefficiencies in the management and utilization of rainfall, managing rainwater is the missing link to optimizing productivity of green water.Even with the physical presence of semi-arid zones, the untapped potential for green water re-capitalization and ultimately holistic agricultural water management in the ESA is enormous. There are about 38 million ha in the low income countries of the region classified as cultivated lands (Table 2). The total potential for targeted AWM in these countries is about 18 million ha, of which only 3 million ha are already under some form of water management (IFAD, 2002). Of these, about 2 million ha are under irrigation with full or partial control, while the remaining 1 million ha are under traditional wetland and valley bottom management systems. Madagascar, with about 1 million ha under full or partially controlled irrigation, accounts for about 50% of the total land area under controlled irrigation in the region. The share of irrigation in the other countries is less than 5%. For instance, aggregate annual runoff in Ethiopia is estimated at 122 billion cu m and ground water potential as 2.6 billion cu m (IFAD, 2002). However, only 5% of the irrigation potential is utilized, accounting for 3% of total food crop production, while a similarly small fraction of the runoff potential is utilized. It should be noted that in characterizing land as suitable or not for AWM, the estimates are based on the availability of land and water, usually available \"blue\" flows. It and does not take account of possible sources and the huge potential for green flows, such as road runoff harvesting, flood harvesting from surfaces, and rarely includes ground water potential.Thus, substantial potential for targeted water management remains largely unknown and thus un-developed in the ESA region.Another important aspect is the role of rainfed agriculture, which is the dominant from of crop production in the ESA region and is set to remain so in the foreseeable future. With the exception of Madagascar, Mauritius and Swaziland, rainfed agriculture accounts for over 95% of all croplands in each of the countries of the ESA (World Bank, 1999). However, while the potential for improving production and income from rainfed systems is considerable, there are risks associated with rainfed agriculture that must be mitigated with targeted interventions. The most vulnerable people to climate-related disasters are poor smallholder farmers, especially those in marginal rainfall areas. This is partly due to their inability to access cutting edge knowledge, afford inputs or utilize appropriate machinery and technologies that can mitigate natural disadvantages. In particular, there is need for alternative approaches to the development and maintenance of small-holder water management systems and major increases in investment in exploitation of the irrigation potential.Agricultural productivity in the ESA could be improved further, through the integrated management of the water under rainfed systems, which includes some level of irrigated agriculture. In the past, sectorized approaches to both rainfed and/or irrigated agriculture have promoted initiatives like soil and water conservation (SWC) or rainwater harvesting (RWH) with some level of success. Examples of these are scattered throughout the region and have formed the foundation of many development projects with agriculture and land  et al., 1996;Lundgren, 1993;Hurni and Tato, 1992;WOCAT, 1997). In particular RWH systems have been applied over wide range of conditions in areas where average annual rainfall is insufficient to meet the crop water requirement, with seasonal rainfall as low as 100 to 350 mm (Oweis et al., 2001;SIWI, 2000). Indigenous and innovative technologies in SWC, RWH and soil nutrient management abound in the ESA (Mulengera, 1998;Reij and Waters-Bayer, 2001, Mati, 2005, Negassi et al., 2000;Hamilton, 1997;Hatibu and Mahoo, 2000). Most of these technologies are also easily replicable. In addition, successful cases of smallholder water management have been documented in which farmers have overcome different kinds of obstacles, not only to achieve food self sufficiency, but also increase their incomes and move out of poverty ( Several questions have been asked regarding the role of policy and legal framework in the ESA region (IFAD, 2000). Such questions as government policies with regard to water rights, cost recovery on water supplied for agriculture to the poor, the roles of private and public sectors, risk management, environmental legislation, incentives for conservation etc. To date, these questions still demand answers.Even then, all the countries in the ESA have policies that touch on water, environment, agriculture, natural resources, rural development and macro-economic policies (OED 2003, FAO 2003). Most of the policies focus more on drinking water with little mention of agricultural water management succinctly. Rather, the policies are split between irrigation, drainage, flood control, water harvesting, soil and water conservation disjointedly. Since most of the countries in the ESA are in the process of formulating and implementing various components of their PRSPs, contemporary policies on AWM in most countries of the ESA are either in draft stages or not well tested to allow for balanced critique of their efficacy. An analyses of both existing and proposed policies across the countries of the ESA can be summarized as follows (OED 2003, FAO 2003;FDRE, 2002;IMAWESA, 2006;Government of Malawi, 2002;URT, 2001;Government of Kenya, 1999); most of the policies tackle (i) the development of water resources on equitable and sustainable basis, (ii) allocation and apportionment of water resources based on comprehensive and integrated plans, (iii) management and mitigation of drought s and floods, (iv) efficient allocation, redistribution, transfer, storage and use of water resources (v) adherence to optimum allocation principles that incorporate efficiency of use, equity of access, and sustainability of resource, and (vi) conservation and protection of water resources and aquatic environment on sustainable basis.There is therefore a need to overcome several obstacles in these policies due to overlapping jurisdictions, laws and regulations that sometimes contract each other. In addition, it is sometimes not clear as to who should enforce what regulation. Other obstacles include an unjustifiably large body of legislation, incompatibility between customary law and national law, lack of an agreed position on key policy issues such as in areas of land tenure, appropriate methods of tackling land degradation and an agreed position on the question of the harmonization of legal and administrative approaches to AWM. Of great interest is whether or not policies that address AWM tacitly are to be found in the national plans, legislations and programmes. There is also the question of the role of regional and international policies in affecting actions at national and local levels. However, good policies are necessary for successful promotion of land husbandry, but they are not sufficient in themselves to bring about sustainably productive local resource management. Policy simply provides a framework and gives farmers the latitude to manage their resources for the long run. It is just a first step towards local resource management for sustainable production. National AWM policies should cover land tenure, equity, rights to natural resources and the legal framework for land and water management.. Policy reform is therefore necessary to address agricultural water management in all its components. There efforts from various quarters, as with the IMAWESA project.The Improved Management of Agricultural Water in Eastern and Southern Africa (IMAWESA), is a three-year project supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), through the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) in partnership with the International Crops Research for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and being implemented by Soil and Water Management Network of ASARECA (SWMnet). IMAWESA operates indirectly in all 25 countries of the ESA for the knowledge management component, and directly in 15 countries, which includes Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Rwanda, Swaziland, Tanzania and Uganda, and including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan. The overall goal of the project is to enable poor producers in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa to increase their incomes through improved management of agricultural water. In order to achieve this goal, the purpose of the project is to enhance the development impact of public and private investments in smallholder agricultural water management. The project has four planned outputs which include:• Enhancing engagement in policy dialogue relative to smallholder management of agricultural water within the ESA region, • Enhanced understanding of key issues, in order to contribute to guiding future investments in management of agricultural water actions in the region • Capacity strengthening for program management and implementation for management of agricultural water in the region, and • Developing a robust knowledge management approach to ensure more systematic capture, synthesis, exchange and eventual utilization of experiences and lessons relative to management of agricultural water with emphasis on linking and networking those with experiences and expertise at both implementation and planning levels into a community of individuals and organizations, which will share knowledge and learn from each other, during and beyond the project period.Though project implementation has just started in January 2006, IMAWESA had a six-month inception phase during which a baseline study of policies, policy makers and policy making processes associated with AWM in the ESA. In addition, IMAWESA has been documenting key stakeholders (managers and implementers of program and projects, researchers, policy makers, extension workers, the media) who influence decision on AWM in the ESA region. Preliminary findings have revealed major gaps to be filled by further research, as well as the fact that there is quite a good but varied human resource capacity for targeted AWM action in the region. The major problem is that of poor interaction, knowledge management and weak linkages between and across the various stakeholders, within their countries and across the region. IMAWESA intends to catalyze action, first through policy dialogue, capacity strengthening, communication and knowledge sharing, and hopefully development of viable communities of practice in AWM in the ESA.The concept of green water management is not new, even to the ESA region. The green water paradigm involves activities which optimize the management and utilization of water held as green flows such as rainwater harvesting, storage and utilization, reduction of water losses by evaporation, enhanced storage of water as soil moisture and in green biomass. However, what is new is the need to raise enough consciousness about its importance, so as to influence the knowledge, attitudes and practices of all stakeholders to its immense potential impacts on agricultural productivity in the region. The difference between green water re-capitalization and conventional forms of AWM is that green water directly affects plant biomass production, which is the essence of all agriculture, including livestock production. Even though the ESA region is on average water scarce, the green water potential that has not been fully utilized, yet it is capable of closing the gap between food deficits and food security, as well as alleviating suffering resulting from crop failures caused by climatic variability. The paper thus advocates for increased focus on the \"green water\" component which comprises 57% of rainfall flows in the ESA. It has been pointed out that the prevailing policies in most of the countries in the ESA are not succinctly sensitive to AWM, but are fragmented between ministries and departments. Sometimes the policies contradict each other. There is therefore need for targeted policy reform to address agricultural water management, more succinctly. The technological options are available and the main challenge is to put knowledge into practice. This paper highlights CRS/Ethiopia's experiences in small-scale irrigation development and management and how an agro enterprise approach is integrated to small scale irrigation to make irrigation schemes profitable and sustainable. CRS/Ethiopia implements its development interventions in an integrated manner and small scale irrigation is one of the components of the integrated watershed management approach. The type of small-scale irrigation developed or to be developed depends on availability and type of water sources, topography of an area and investment required. CRS/Ethiopia and its partners developed and promoted shallow well lift irrigation, river diversion and direct motorized pumping from rivers. In areas where rivers, springs and under ground water is not accessible, water harvesting structures were developed to serve as sources of irrigation. Motorized water pumps and treadle pumps are used to lift water from shallow wells and rivers. In areas where volume of water is limited and spring and streams flow at bottom of a valley, storage structures are built on high elevation places. Water is pumped to the storage structure using motorized water pumps and then transported to irrigation fields by gravity flow. Spate irrigation system is also practiced in Dire Dawa areas. Beneficiaries participate in identification, construction and maintenance of small scale irrigation scheme through contribution of labor and provision of locally available materials such as stone, sand and gravels. It is believed that such participation enhance empowerment of the community and sustainability of the irrigation scheme. One of the possible reasons why some small scale irrigation schemes are not successful is that production on this scheme may not respond to market needs. CRS/Ethiopia and its partners are making an effort to address this problem through supporting farmers respond to market demand. In areas where small-scale irrigations were developed, market opportunity identifications were carried out and based on the results of market study tomato, potato and onions were selected and promoted on irrigation schemes. Relevant government institutions were involved in market opportunity identification. CRS/Ethiopia and its partners encourage farmers to get organized into agro enterprise groups and play facilitation role in connecting farmer groups to market actors. Water user associations were organized and assumed responsibility to manage the irrigation water. Water user associations perform water management functions and may also engaged in purchase of inputs and marketing of outputs.Small scale irrigation and innovative approach discussed in this paper were developed through the generous financial support of American People through United State Agency for International Development (USAID) and private fund raised by the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) headquarters based in USA, Baltimore. On behave of poor farmers, who benefited from the interventions, the authors would like to give special thanks to USAID and CRS. The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or CRS.Among many other factors availability and access to water is a crucial constraint limiting agricultural productivity and growth in the semi-arid and arid parts of the country. The semi-arid and arid areas account for more than 63% of the country and expanding because of climatic changes. Recurring drought is one of the root causes of the food insecurity situation in the country. A number of climatic induced shocks occurred in the past has eroded the meager assets of rural population and exposed them to malnutrition, hunger, food insecurity and in some cases for migration. As a result of recurring drought, on overage, 6.2 million people required external support during the period from 1995 to 2000. A host of factors contributed to the growing problem of drought, vulnerability and food insecurity. A major challenge in moisture stress areas is how to reverse the effect of drought and ensure adequate food supply for the rapidly growing population without degrading the limited natural resources.Ethiopia's agriculture is characterized by smallholder farming and production exclusively depends on rainfall and productivity on smallholder farm is low. Development of the agricultural sector is central to combating hunger, food insecurity, reducing poverty and generating growth (Mekuria, 2003). The low input agriculture widely practiced by millions of smallholders in the country hinder the agricultural sector to meet desired objectives. The amount of rainfall received in semi-arid part of the country is insufficient and erratic in nature. This put agriculture production and the life of people depending on agriculture at risk. Despite large water potential and irrigable land, irrigation technologies have not been exploited. Very insignificant number of smallholder practice irrigated agriculture. Among ranges of options for increasing agricultural production in Ethiopia, particularly in semi-arid and arid areas, application of irrigation and efficient use of water resource deserve great attention. Smallholder farmers have limited access to irrigation technologies due to lack of awareness, know-how and access to capital for irrigation development.Catholic Relief Service/Ethiopia has adopted small-scale irrigation as one of its strategies in supporting the poor and disadvantaged groups to support themselves. This strategy goes with Ethiopia's food security strategy and water sector strategy in tackling drought through use of small-scale irrigation. The strategy emphasizes efficient allocation, transfer, storage and efficient use of water resources (SDPRP, 2002). CRS/Ethiopia and its partners develop and promote different types of small scale irrigation. Type of small scale irrigation schemes developed and promoted depends on sources of available water, topography of the area and investment required to establish the scheme. The range of irrigation developed by CRS includes:CRS/Ethiopia and its partners develop and promote different types of small scale irrigation. Type of small scale irrigation schemes developed and promoted depends on sources of available water, topography of the area and investment required to establish the scheme. The range of irrigation developed by CRS includes:Ground water is widely used for irrigation in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and other Asian countries (Merry, 1997). This is rarely practiced in Ethiopia because of weak infrastructure development, limited capital and lack of awareness. More recently CRS/Ethiopia and its implementing partners started developing and promoting use of ground water in areas where this is technically possible and financially feasible. These types of schemes were developed in areas where ground water is found close to surface (within a shallow depth of 3-8 meters) and water is lifted to surface either with treadle or motorized pumps. Once the water is lifted to surfaces it may directly transported through canal and crops irrigated using furrow irrigation. The second option is that water is pumped to water storage structure and transported to different fields by gravity flow and water application is done using furrow irrigation method. More recently use of sprinklers demonstrated to farmers and its technical feasibility and cost comparison with other methods is being tested. This is a system applied in areas where streams/rivers flow on a surface and costs for partly blocking and raising the stream bed level for easy conveyance of the water through intake structure is reasonable and affordable. Water is transported to irrigated field through gravity flow.Such practice is put in use along rivers/stream flowing on surface and suitable for pumping.In most cases springs are found at the foot of a hill. In such case water is pumped to storage structures constructed at high elevation areas.From storage structure water is transported to irrigation fields by gravity flow. In cases where command area is below the spring points water is transported to irrigation field by gravity flow and furrow or basin irrigation methods are used for irrigating crop.This is a system where flood-water is diverted to crop field and used for irrigation. The method is applied in cases where irrigated fields are located at lower part of watershed and rainfall is received at upper part of a watershed. Such system is practiced in Dire Dawa Administration Council. Under this system farmers have limited control over the water. They only make use of opportunity of using passing by waterIn areas where rivers, springs and under ground water is not accessible, rain water harvesting structures were developed to serve as sources of irrigation. Drip irrigation was promoted along with the development of water harvesting structures. CRS/Ethiopia supports farmers to access drip irrigation kits and train them on how to use drip irrigation kits.CRS/Ethiopia promotes multiple use of water, where productive use of water is an important component of water development schemes. Spill over water from drinking water points and water from wells are used for vegetable garden production. Under this intervention, women, children other disadvantage group who efficiently manage and make efficient use of limited water are supported.  Beneficiaries are responsible for undertaking maintenance works such as canal and drain clearing, repairing farm structures and lubricating pumps and pump accessories. Once construction is completed farmers started using the scheme, CRS/Ethiopia handover the scheme to the community to allow them fully manage it by their own.The major bottlenecks for sustainability of small-scale irrigation project are profitability, water management and infrastructure maintenance.CRS/Ethiopia and its implementing partners organize and involve beneficiaries in management of schemes from the initiation of small-scale irrigation development. It also engages relevant authorities who oversee and provide technical support after the project is terminated and a scheme is handed over to the community. The whole responsibility of managing small-scale irrigation lay with beneficiaries.For effective water management water user associations (WUA) consisting of all farmers owning land within command area are established. WUAs formulate and apply rule and regulations (by-law) in managing irrigation scheme. A general assembly of WUA elects committee members responsible for allocation of time when each individual member irrigates his fields. The WUA engage in avoiding disputes among the beneficiaries that may arise due to inappropriate water utilization. The association is also responsible for coordinating maintenance, facilitation of extension activities, collection of maintenance fee1 and manage savings for future investment and replacement tools.They may facilitate land exchange/lease/sharecropping2 among members or other interested household who have insufficient or no labor to manage irrigated land. Committee members serve the 1 A case was observed where beneficiaries pay water fee at Harbu, South Wollo 2 At Harbu, South Wollo Zone, small-scale irrigation scheme, 26 farmers have plots in the command area. These farmers have leased out part of their irrigated land and the number of beneficiaries increased to 73. association on voluntarily basis and there is no extra allocation of time or payment for the service rendered. In case of schemes where traditional irrigation is rehabilitated and upgraded, irrigation water management builds on indigenous water management practice of the area.In schemes where pumps are used to lift water, pump care takers are identified and trained. Pump care takers are responsible for operating and undertaking simple maintenance works. Such individuals are compensated by WUA for their extra services they provide for WUA members.A supportive policy and legal environment is crucial for the sustainability WUA (Merrey, 1997). Most of the WUAs established are legally registered with respective Cooperative Promotion Offices and they have legal status. They are in position to sue or sued for disputes may occur during the business interaction with other market actors. Some WUA joined farmer cooperative unions and are able to access inputs or output markets through the farmer cooperative unions. CRS/Ethiopia and its implementing partners train WUA members in irrigation water management and conservation, roles and responsibility of groups, how to apply by-laws, vegetables production and seedling raising techniques, record keeping, financial management and marketing aspect. It arranges exchange visits to share experiences and learn from successes and failures of others. CRS/Ethiopia also facilitates and provides technical supports to WUA to enable them access inputs and new technologies.Community participation is critical all along the way from project identification to implementation for sustainability of small-scale irrigation scheme. Small-scale irrigation is sustainable if voices of beneficiaries are heard and their interests incorporated in the design, and they participate in construction, management and operation of the scheme. Contribution for operating cost and setting aside for expansion and replacement costs show beneficiaries commitment. In kind-labor, stone, gravel-contribution by beneficiaries also reflects commitment. Such participation and commitments are important in enhancing sustainability of the scheme beyond the project life as it creates more interest and empower them in deciding on their future better life.One of the possible reasons why some smallscale irrigation schemes are not successful is that farmers may lack know-how of management of irrigated production; and production on this scheme may not respond to market needs. CRS/Ethiopia and its partners are making an effort to overcome this problem through training farmers on technical aspects of irrigated agriculture and advising and supporting farmers respond to what market demands. This is to underline that CRS/Ethiopia and its implementing partners do not focus only on production aspects. They give due attention to where, how product produced on irrigation schemes are marketed. Efforts are made to link production with market in order to increase income of beneficiaries. It is our conviction that such effort has great impact on sustainability of irrigation scheme.The agro enterprise development strategy is developed by CIAT to address the entrepreneurial development needs of institutions that support rural communities. The approach is aimed at developing and strengthening mechanisms that link small-scale farmers to local, regional, national and global markets. The concept of agro enterprise development entails the process of working with smallholder producer to design and set up new income generating opportunity that take into account the process from production to consumption. The approach provides a means of developing new business opportunities for rural communities and integrating subsistence farmers into market led agriculture. This approach advocates production decision governed by the market. It provides method of addressing poverty and opportunity to find ways of stimulating demand for technical and social innovations and helps to identify areas that require support from research, finance and local policy (CIAT undated). CRS/Ethiopia implements the agro enterprise development approach in all of its development interventions to improve income of its beneficiaries. Territories, market opportunities and market chains were identified. High value vegetables such as potato, onion, tomato and cabbage were identified to be produced on irrigated fields. CRS/Ethiopia and its implementing partners are helping smallholder producers organized into self help groups to access and evaluate new technologies, acquire or produce needed inputs such as seed and engage in collective marketing. In all small-scale irrigation made operational interested self help groups were organized and started producing for the market.In all small-scale irrigation developed by CRS/Ethiopia WUAs have multiple functions.As their names implies they are responsible for irrigation water management: allocation, handling of disputes, management of and collection of maintenance fees. They are also agro-enterprise groups who make joint decisions to produce and market an enterprise that has market demand. The association facilitates access to different business development services (extension, researchtechnologies, credit etc.). The association also identifies and facilitating linkage with buyers arranges transport facilities. The last function of the association is not well developed yet. At present, few WUAs engaged in procurement of agriculture inputs like seed fertilizer pesticide and marketing of agricultural productsOne possible way to make small-scale irrigation profitable and sustainable is through connecting users to market. CRS/Ethiopia took an initiative to link farmers with different market actors and business service providers. CRS/Ethiopia and its implementing partners play facilitation role in linking farmers to market. To date linkage has been created with private traders, cooperative unions and exporters for onion, tomato, and potato producers. These producers are supplying products to domestic and international markets. For instances potato and onion producing irrigation water user groups in East Haraghe supply their produce through cooperatives and private traders to exporter who export these commodities to Djibouti market. There are areas where potato and onion production target domestic market. CRS/Ethiopia and its partners undertake market study and identify market opportunities and constraints in the market chain. In collaboration with national and international institutions CRS/Ethiopia and its partners train and advise farmers to produce quality product that market needs. Despite a number of constraints, there are evidences that underscore improvement in the income of farmers who practice irrigated agriculture. Small-scale irrigation beneficiaries participated in agro enterprise development has raised their income. For instance, in kersa wereda, East Hararge zone 80 farmers were organized into four sub-groups and produced potatoes and onions using irrigation scheme developed through financial and technical supports of CRS/Ethiopia. Members of this group earned an income ranging from 3,000 to 11,525 birr/household. The farmer who earned a gross benefit of 11,525 had spent about 2500 birr for fuel. Similarly, in Dugda Bora woreda, East Shewa Zone, beneficiaries who produced tomatoes and onions, using irrigation, obtained income ranging from 3000-7000 Birr/household. In Adama woredas of East Shewa zone, 40 farmers organized into group are able to generated income of 600 to 5300 birr per household per one production season. As shown in Table 2 irrigation user have obtained gross income ranging from 250 to 7486 birr per household per one production season. Some of the beneficiaries constructed a corrugated roofed house, and invested on productive assets such as farm tools, inputs and livestock (oxen, cows and goats). They claim that their life have changed and able to feed their family and afford to send their children to school.Application of irrigation technology depends on access to water resource from surface (rivers, dams, ponds etc.) and ground water. Moreover, irrigation technologies require large investment that can not be readily made available by individual household or group of household unless the groups get access to financial sources. Irrigation schemes also require group action and formation of group call for dedication and commitment from the side of members.CRS/Ethiopia experience shows that coupled with agro-enterprise development, small-scale irrigation based production have great impact on changing, for good, the lives of the poor and disadvantaged groups. Involving beneficiaries in the design and implementation of small scale irrigation scheme contributes towards sustainability of those schemes.Small-scale irrigations contribute a lot in changing the life of people practice them. This has been documented by humanitarian and government institutions. Given the size and growing rural population this will not take us no where, if we operate at the current pace. A way forward away from food crisis in Ethiopia lay with increased use of irrigation. We should examine scope of our interventions also look far beyond the small-scale irrigation which is more suitable on the highland to large scale schemes in vast and under exploited land and water in the lowland areas. Agriculture is the dominant sector of the Ethiopian economy and its performance is the major determinant of overall GDP growth rate.On the average, the sector contributed about 48% of Ethiopia's GDP between 1995 and 1999. It equally accounted for 90% of export earnings, which consists mainly of coffee, hides and skins, pulses and oilseeds and 70% of raw material inflow into agro-based industries during the period. The agricultural sector is also the major employer, accounting for 85% of total employment. The crop sub-sector accounts 60% of the sector output, livestock and forestry constitutes 30% & 10% respectively. Peasant farms at household level are the backbone of the sector, cultivating about 96% of the cropped area and producing 90% to 94% of all cereals, pulses and oilseeds.Rain fed agriculture provides the largest proportion of the total production. However, over the past few decades, irrigated agriculture has become more important. At present some 197,000 ha of land is under irrigation, the majority being in the Awash Valley. Around 68,800 1 ha were established, initially by private entrepreneurs and then by the government as State farms, principally growing cotton, citrus fruits and vegetable.Irrigated agriculture started in Ethiopia in the 1960 with the objective of producing industrial crops (sugar and cotton) on large-scale basis.Local farmers however, had already been practicing irrigation by diverting water from rivers in the dry season for the production of subsistence food crops. Productivity of rain-fed farming has dropped, and the agricultural sector is now unable to provide the basic requirement to the farming people. Traditional farming practices, environmental degradation, lack of external agro-inputs, effect to recurrent drought, and high population pressure have aggravated the present food insecurity in Ethiopia. This implies the need of launching irrigation projects development based on acute objectives of increasing crop yield, improving the living standard of the people and to provide impact on the environment.Currently government gives emphasis to develop the sub-sector to fully tap its potentials by assisting and supporting farmers to improve irrigation management practices and the promotion of modern irrigation systems. Currently, irrigated agriculture produces less than 3 percent1 of the total food production of the Country. Ethiopia's experience in largescale irrigation development and management is in state enterprises, mainly growing industrial crops like cotton and sugar cane. The experience in modern small-scale irrigation (SSI) development and management started in the 1970s by the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), in response to major droughts, which caused wide spread crop failures and consequent starvation. The sector could be used to reduce family risks that are associated with crop failures resulting from droughts.Traditional small-scale irrigation schemes (SSIs) have also existed for perhaps several hundred years, mostly developed by feudal landlords, notably in Hararge, Shewa and Gojam. These developments were usually no more than a few hectares in area and diverted water from streams, often only to provide supplementary irrigation.(Supplementary irrigation consists of irrigation during dry spells in the wet seasons; this is in contrary to normal irrigation, which is concentrate in the dry season). Over the past few decades many of these schemes have expanded as skills developed, irrigating areas of fifty or more hectares. The diversion structures are constructed of wood, stones, and grass sods. They are often washed away during high river flows and have to be remade each year. It is estimated that there are approximately 72,000 ha of land being irrigated by traditional means; the majority situated in Oromiya (41,500 ha), 12,500 ha in the Amhara NRS, 8,900 in the SNNPRS and the remainder in the other regional state. Based up on the various river basin master plans and land and water resources survey, the aggregate maximum irrigation potential of Ethiopia (small, medium and large scale) have been estimated 3.7 million hectares. Out of this estimate only 197,000 1 hectares of land under irrigation.Ministry of Water Resources is charged with aspects of water sector policy, planning, water resources regulation, development and use, and implementation of medium and large-scale irrigation. It also has the responsibility of building the capacity of regions regarding water resource development, and preparation of plans for the proper utilization of water resources. It coordinates projects that involve more than one region, or those that involve international procurement. The MoWR will render the implementation of the project by establishing a project coordination office (PCU).Under the economic policy of the Government, the private sector can play a pivotal role in the development of irrigated agriculture. The International and Local None Governmental Organizations also play a significant role in study, design and development of small-scale irrigation schemes in different regions,Administratively, the Ethiopian Federation is divided into eight self-governing regional states. The regions are further divided into zones, woredas (districts) and kebeles. The regional self-governments have legislative, executive and judicial powers in respect of all matters within their geographical boundaries, except for such matters as defense, foreign policy, economic policy etc. The Regional Council (RC) is the legislative organ of the regional state and is constituted by members elected in accordance with electoral law. It is the repository of overall political power regarding the internal affairs of the region. The President heads the Regional Council. Regional Bureaus in each region are established, which are responsible directly to the regional executive authorities. These Bureaus are almost replicas of the Federal Ministries. Thus there are Bureaus in charge of agriculture, health, water, social affairs, planning and economic development, mines and energy, transport and communication, works and urban development, trade and industry, tourism. Each bureau is responsible in relation to its area of activity mainly for: (i) the preparation, and upon approval, implementation of plans and budget; (ii) ensuring the implementation of laws, regulations and directives; (iii) undertaking studies and research, collecting and compiling statistical data, and transmitting it to the concerned federal organ.In 1998, the MoWR issued the Ethiopian Water Resources Management Policy (WRMP), which sets guidelines for water resources planning, development and management. The Fundamental principles pertaining to the formulation of the policy are:• Water is the natural endowment commonly owned by all the people of Ethiopia. • As far as conditions permit, every Ethiopian citizen shall have access to sufficient water of acceptable quality to satisfy human needs. • In order to significantly contribute to development, water will be recognized both as an economic and social good. Irrigation is one of the sub sectors included in the Ethiopian water resources Management Policy (EWRMP). The overall objective of the irrigation policy is to develop the huge irrigated potential for the production of food crops and raw materials needed for agro-industries, on efficient and sustainable basis and without degrading the fertility of the production fields and water resources base. The policy sets the following detailed objectives:• Development and enhancement of small scale irrigated agriculture and grazing lands for food self-sufficiency at household level • Development and enhancement of small, medium and large-scale irrigated agriculture for food security and food self-sufficiency at national level including export earnings and to satisfy local agro-industrial demand. The above objectives are consistent with the objectives of Ethiopian Agricultural Development-Led Industriali-zation (ADLI) economic development strategy. The ADLI strategy is essentially based on initially fostering the rapid development of small holder's agriculture, including irrigated agriculture with a view to creating demands for industrial goods and thereby fuelling the growth of industry. Thus ADLI meant to create the foundation for a virtuous cycle of mutual and parallel growth of the agricultural and industrial sectors.To translate the national water management policy into action the Ministry of Water Resources has issued Ethiopian Water Sector Strategy (EWSS) in 2001. The strategy sets the road map as how to make meaningful contribution towards: By doing so, the strategy will be able to make meaningful contributions towards achieving a broader national development objectives of poverty alleviation and sustainable human resources development.The irrigation development strategy is one of the sub-sectors dealt in the water sector strategy. The principal objective of the irrigation development strategy is to exploit the agricultural production potential of the country to achieve food self sufficiency at the national level, including export earnings, and to satisfy the raw material demand of local industries, but without degrading the fertility and productivity of country's land and water resources base. More specific objectives of the strategy are:• Expand irrigated agriculture 12. Give emphasis to water harvesting methods for small-scale irrigation development in areas where wet season runoff can be stored and used for crop production.13. Create conditions conducive to the implementation/construction of medium and large-scale irrigation schemes.14. Give appropriate consideration to past performance and technical capacity while selecting contractors and consultants for implementation/construction of irrigation projects because, in general the list bidder principle had not proven successful in construction works.15. Implement a sequential framework for project authorization for the planning (studies and design), implementation and management phases. Analyze and outline the operation and maintenance as well as management requirements with respect to the beneficiary skills, and availability of materials, budgets and technical capacities.1. Make higher budgetary allocations from the government sources for the implementation of short, medium and long-term irrigation development plan.2. Share irrigation development costs with other sectors like power, road, health, education and agriculture, etc.3. Establish and implement norms and procedures for financial sustainability and viability of irrigation schemes. For this purpose, implement a stage-by-stage cost recovery transition procedure (initial grace period; operation and maintenance costs borne by the beneficiaries from the beginning; cover cost of minor structures beyond the primary off takes; finally total cost of the scheme are to be recovered). Medium and large-scale irrigation development schemes are generally considered to operate on full cost recovery principles, although a transition procedure may be justified to stimulate development of the region. 4. Establish users' fee according to the related level of cropping patterns and farm level profits, scheme efficiency, and in simple and clear cost recovery system. Ensure that the water charges and fees are timely collected for efficient operation of the service rendering institution. Sustain the functioning of the irrigation systems through their regular operation and maintenance and gradual upgrading of the operation and maintenance capacities of the local beneficiaries.5. Implement a price stabilization mechanism to protect the producers against market risks. Facilitate producers in rationalizing their production choice by providing updated production and marketing information. Discourage import of agricultural products to protect local producers through strict enforcement of standards, quality control and high import taxation. Increasing agricultural production efficiency will be the key to bring local production costs comparable to the international prices.6. Extend credit facilities and bank loans for development of irrigation projects, especially small-scale irrigation schemes to be executed by local community groups. Provide incentives to encourage private sector investment in the irrigation schemes.7. Mobilize financial resources from external sources for undertaking the development of medium and large-scale irrigation schemes.1. Strengthen institutional and regulatory frameworks at the federal and regional levels by undertaking assessment of the existing institutional capacities with respect to the regulatory and implementation roles and responsibilities so as to develop the appropriate institutional structures for the implementation and management of irrigated agriculture. Make efforts to avoid overlap of duties and responsibilities among the institutions within the sector.2. Reactivate and reinforce the role of federal government and regional states in the development of small, medium and largescale irrigation schemes. This involves, interalia, undertaking of activities related to rehabilitation and upgrading of existing schemes, upgrading of previous studies and designs, and implementation of the new schemes.3. Enhance greater participation of the regional states and federal government in the development of large-scale irrigated schemes and farms in high water potential basins where there is low population density. Since large and medium scale irrigation areas are more in the low lands, the conflict arising from resettlement and loss of grazing land will be of prime concern. In such cases, compensation measures such as provision of irrigated pasture and livestock watering facilities may be considered.4. Ensure operational sustainability of smallsale irrigation schemes by establishing operation and maintenance departments within the regional bureaus; description of operation and maintenance requirements for these schemes; identification of means to meet these requirements; preparation of operation and maintenance manuals; and strengthening the capacities of beneficiaries before handing over the schemes to them. In this regard, ensure transitional period during which the capacity of the beneficiaries is to be ascertained with an objective to identify and remedy difficulties and problems.Provide training to farmers using pilot level demonstration schemes, experience sharing programs, and research and study tours to improve water use efficiency and product quality. The ministry of water resources is undertaking a number of irrigation projects located in different regions.They constitute approximately a total area of 510603 ha. Most of these projects are envisaged to be completed and ready for production before the end of the irrigation program-planning period in 2016. This about twofold the area planned to be developed in the irrigation development program.Introduction Amhara National Regional State, with a population of more than 18 million faces both chronic and transitory food security due to a combination of factors. About 20% of the population, who are chronically food insecure women and female-headed households, suffer more from poverty than men and male-headed households. Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy of Amhara Region as the sector contributes about 62% to the Region's GDP. More than 90% of the labor force is engaged in Agriculture. Performance of agricultural sector basically dictates the growth rate of the economy. Despite relatively abundant surface and ground water resources and presence of the four major river basins of the country and Lake Tana, more than 95% of Amhara Region's agriculture, both crop and livestock sector is dependent on erratic and uncertain rainfall.Poor performance of agricultural sector, mainly due to such erratic and uncertain rainfall, and drought erodes the capacity of rural households to withstand the declines in their income. Dependence on traditional production system, as well political and institutional neglect, has brought agriculture to a virtual stagnation. Even attempts during the recent past have not produced satisfactory results. Consequently, farmers are continuing to spiral down economically and their resilience to withstand the vagaries of nature is dwindling. Even the traditional livelihood coping strategies are continuing to dwindle. Continued poverty is leading to degradation of natural resources on which future of development depends.Degradation of the natural resources is also a root cause of the low farm productivity, directly contributing to poverty and food insecurity. A vicious cycle has set in.Continued poor performance of agriculture is also contributing to out-migration from rural areas to urban areas. More people are being attracted to live and work in the urban areas, thus a significant potion of the economically active population is being siphoned out of the rural areas. This has direct negative effect in the agriculture sector and create burden on the socio-economic development efforts of the urban centers where labor absorptive capacity is insignificant. There is an urgent need to improve the performance of the agriculture sector so that more and more jobs are created in the rural areas. However, these jobs should be economically attractive, which calls for making agriculture more profitable. There is a need to turn agriculture from subsistence to commercial agriculture. There is also need to emphasize on value addition to farm products to that poor farm families can generate additional income from agricultural products. These, however, will require creating environment so that producers have adequate access to both input and output markets.Roads, easy access to market information, policy framework for market support, enabling private entrepreneurs to play fair roles, extension and development support to enable farmers to produce marketable surplus, organizing farmers to have control over output prices, etc. are very important in alleviating rural poverty and improving the livelihood of the farm families.Agro-based rural industrialization should go hand in hand with agricultural development.The recently formulated Rural Development Policy is expected to assist the farmers to not only produce more but also gain economically.Developing the irrigation potential is an essential requirement to overcome the problem of chronic food security and poverty. There is a need to improve the efficiency of the existing traditional and modern irrigation schemes. Though Amhara region is endowed with relatively higher amount of rainfall, there is a need to explore fully the ground water potential. However, much of the rain water flows across the borders. In addition, uneven spatial and temporal occurrence and distribution of rainfall compounds the problem farming under rainfed condition. With effective planning, policy and technologies, it should be able to deal with this uneven occurrence and distribution in space and time. Harvesting of rainwater, whether through household water harvesting structures, community based ponds, small-scale irrigation projects, improving performance of traditional irrigation schemes will greatly contribute to deal with these issues. Of equal importance is the developing and using the knowledge of how efficiently the use the water could be managed so that more people can benefit from water resources.The region has four major river basins with small tributaries, which are part of Abay, Tekeze, and Awash River systems, Danakil depression with a total estimated annual renewable potential of 35Bm 3 fresh water (CoSAERAR, 2002); Lakes act also as subbasins of these major river basins. The catchment area of the region that contributes for the renewable potential surface water is more than 134,056 Km 2 (MoWR, 2003).An indicative point of the wealth of the region's undeveloped water resources are, first it is thought that most of the renewable water resources constitute surface water rather than groundwater, although the understanding and quantification of the latter is rather limited (Table1). As stated in the MoWR 15 years water sector development program, availability of groundwater in Ethiopia in hard rock formations shows great variability from location to location, depending on recharge, degree of fracture, permeability, obstacles to water movement, concentration and nature of chemical in the water, depth of groundwater level; the case is true for the region as well (Muluken, 2005).The recharge, in Abbay basin for example, expressed as an average continuous flow ranges between 250 and 300m 3 /s (BCEOM, 1999). However, the present boreholes are yielding an average of 5 litres/s, which indicates that there is a gap between the recharge and the estimation of the total abstraction through boreholes. On the other hand the Kobo-Girana valley feasibility study indicates that the estimated groundwater potential with in the valley is about 179 Mm 3 , in addition observations show that the presence of considerable potential of shallow groundwater in the region's alluvial deposits of flood plains; such as Fogera, Kobo-Girana, Borkena and Chefa plains, although no comprehensive survey of this resource has been undertaken.Second, estimated potential land for large and medium scale irrigation of the region is about 650,000 -700,000 ha and for small-scale irrigation is about 200,000 -250,000 ha (of which less than 10% has been developed), indicates the magnitude of water resources available for development (BCEOM,1999).The potential of water resource to be used for different purposes is available either in the form of surface or subsurface water. Even though the region's rainfall is known by its erratic nature, the average annual rainfall amount ranges from 600mm to 1600mm (MoWR, 1999).This being changed into surface water and enriching the groundwater, depending on the nature of geological formation of the catchments, is assumed to supply water for domestic purpose, the indicated potential irrigable land and other economic needs by constructing diversions, dams, pumping the water after storage and/or boreholes (shallow or deep). The rainfall amount in most of the region is changed into flood due to most of the catchments are almost bare; hence no drop of water get access to recharge the groundwater. However this is the case for the upland areas, some part of the flood at lowland is enriching the groundwater. Therefore, the groundwater in the alluvial deposits of flood plains should not be ignored especially for local and small-scale abstractions as well.The hydropower potential of the region is quite large; estimated generating capacity is about 6000 MW. However, high dams and large reservoirs may require to produce sufficient firm power, because of three main reasons; no steep drops, the rivers flow is high for a short period, and variability over the years is very high. Many studies reveal that the country in general is known as it stands second next to Congo by the hydropower potential. In view of the water resources available, the estimated irrigation potential of the Region is about 900,000 ha. The estimated potential with large-scale irrigation schemes is about 650,000 -700,000 ha and with small-scale irrigation schemes it is about 223,600 ha.In developing the water resources, it is important to keep in mind that there is not only need for water for irrigation to support crop and livestock production, there is need for manage water resources in an integrated manner which will also support overall social and economic development in an environmentally sustainable manner. Improving access to safe drinking water for the rural people, use of water for generating power; to support industrial growth, mining and construction and harnessing the potential for fisheries development are some of the important areas, which should be dealt with in an integrated way while developing and managing water resources. In other words, there is need for a comprehensive and integrated water resources management plan. Towards this goal, the Federal Government has recently formulated the Ethiopian Water Resources Management Policy.Another important issue that is affecting both irrigated and rainfed agriculture in Amhara is widespread prevalence of HIV/AIDS. Though the relative prevalence is low in the rural areas as compared to the urban areas, this is posing a serious threat to sustainable development of agriculture as HIV affected families suffer from shortage of farm labor. In all development programs, there is need to integrate issues related to HIV/AIDS so that the issue can deal with it effectively.Obviously, there is a need to generate technologies for irrigation water management, which will be appropriate to our predominantly small-scale and resource-poor farmers and which will help conserve our natural resources for our future generations. There is need to use appropriate approaches through which development and adoption of such technologies and knowledge at an accelerated speed is ensured. However, this cannot be done by an individual institution alone; it requires collaborative efforts of all stakeholders.Sustainable Water Harvesting and Institutional Strengthening in Amhara Region (SWHISA) is a six-year project to be implemented by the Amhara National Regional State of Ethiopia with support from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). SWHISA's purpose is to strengthen the capacity of institutions involved in water harvesting to work together effectively to strengthen farmers' associations, communities and families in planning, designing, implementing and managing sustainable water harvesting and use of water for irrigation. SWHISA will contribute to the ultimate goal of increasing food security of poor farmers through improved water management. Strengthening research and extension capabilities of partner institutions to develop and transfer appropriate and sustainable irrigation water management technologies is an integral part of SWHISA. As the project has started to implement its work plan for the first year, it is necessary to document and synthesize the state-of-the-art knowledge of irrigation water management in Ethiopia, with particular reference to Amhara in order to avoid duplication, infuse synergy to ongoing initiatives and to build up on existing knowledge base. Under these circumstances, a workshop was organized on 5 -7 December 2005 at Alma Building in Bahir Dar to discuss the recent achievements with the following specific objectives: A total of 24 papers were submitted covering research and development and 23 were presented. The workshop was organized into five technical sessions. On the first day, experiences from transferring irrigation water management technologies and on the second day, research achievements and research priorities for irrigation development were discussed. In the first session, 11 papers and in the second and third sessions, 12 papers were presented. Usually, each presentation was followed by an active discussion. Technical and policy issues were also raised and discussed in the general and summing up discussions after every session. Based on their experiences, knowledge and the papers presented, two multidisciplinary working groups were formed on the third day -one group for successful approaches and methodologies in generation and transfer of irrigation water management technologies and the second group for priority areas for applied and adaptive research on irrigation water management. In the afternoon, working groups presented their outputs and recommendations. The presentations and issues arising were discussed in details. The following were the main issues raised and recommended during the technical and the final summing up sessions included the following:Ethiopia in general are recent, and in Amhara Region in particular are in the nascent stage, there were five technologies (Table 1) identified as ready for validation, adaptation and/or demonstration in Amhara region, which include Irrigation scheduling for wheat, developed by Debre Birhan agricultural research center., for transfer in similar agro-ecological conditions in Amhara• Further analysis will be needed to decide whether the research results presented in several papers are ready for transfer or validation and to decide on their agroecological niche.Additional information on possible technologies suitable for Amhara Region will be provided by EARI. Synthesis of this information may be done by SWHISA research group or a working group.• The following priority thematic areas for research and extension on irrigation water management were identified: An analysis of the current stakeholders with respect to their objectives, organizational strengths and weaknesses were done. It was noted that the work on irrigation extension and development is fragmented and there are confusions with respect to roles and responsibilities of these organizations. It was also noted that the newly introduced Agriculture Extension Advisory Training Services might lack adequate emphasis on participation but it emphasizes on irrigation development. It was recommended that:• Community participatory approach to agricultural research and extension be used with a holistic perspective. • An integrated, scheme-based, holistic approach should be used for sustainable development and to improve the efficiency of the whole scheme and enhance productivity and income of the farmers. A scheme includes catchments area, headwork, the conveyance and distribution network, the command area, and the water users. It has also impact on the farmers and their use of water down stream. Level of adoption of improved water management technologies and improved farming systems is directly influenced by the level of access to input and output markets. The workshop brought together professionals from different parts of the country and from different institutions which helped identifying priority areas of research and development irrigation water management. This has definitely facilitated initiation of networking to learn from each other. It was recognized that well guided research and extension, with appropriate policy support, in irrigation water management for both small-scale irrigation schemes and household water harvesting schemes can contribute to:• Reduction of expansion of agriculture to marginal areas; • Generation of employment opportunities in the rural areas; • Reduce migration or rural people to urban areas; • Improving food security and reduce malnutrition; and • Having positive impact on other sectors of the economy.All these positive effects can eventually improve the rural livelihoods, and thereby, lead to equitable distribution of benefits of development. Institutionalization of networking process would be an important need.The workshop also recognized that there is a need for the researchers and extension workers to change their attitudes towards their tasks, partnerships and towards the farmers. They need to expand the horizon of their thinking so that they see their individual roles and responsibilities and their organizations roles are integral parts of a larger socio-economic system that affects the livelihoods and economy. This would require that they think outside of their boxes. This study demonstrated that there is a need for irrigation systems on the part of the farmers, but the provision of irrigation and agricultural services don't dovetail effectively with the lifeworlds of farmers. Since the mid-1980s, the Ethiopian government has responded to drought and famine through the construction of irrigation infrastructure aim at increasing agriculture production in drought-prone regions of Ethiopia. Planning of irrigation projects has been done at the center. However, not enough is known about farmers' reactions and responses to these government initiatives. This study started off by asking a central question: How do State irrigation interventions interface with irrigators' life-worlds in Tigray, a droughtprone region of northern Ethiopia? Two smallscale irrigation systems were examined through an ethnographic method. Interviews were carried out with various community members including women, priests, irrigators, Abo mais ('fathers of water'), engineers, and executive committee members of the water users association and government and NGO officials. This study documents the interfaces and social discontinuities between the live-worlds of irrigators and government bureaucrats embedded in irrigation management. Irrigation management sits uncomfortably between government bureaucracies and water users. In principle, water allocation is the responsibility of the 'water committee'. However, uncoordinated water allocation decisions on the part of local government bureaucracies have compounded water scarcity in the irrigation systems. Numerous socio-technical problems resulting from poor irrigation management frustrated irrigation interventions. These ranged from crop failure due to moisture stress, the lack of effective water harvesting strategies. Building irrigation infrastructure is less problematic than putting it to good productive use to service unmet demands. The water users themselves or an irrigation agency might better be able to appreciate the performances of an irrigation system or deal with the issue of water equity. The local government bureaucracy, involved in numerous non-irrigation activities, finds it difficult to identify internal irrigation management problems encompassing water delivery schedules, and to make fair decisions in conflicts over water. On the other hand, the institutional viability of water user associations is questionable because or the absence of clear water rights which demotivates farmers from participating in irrigation management. Moreover the distancing by the bulk of farmers from irrigated agriculture through leasing out their plots to sharecroppers provides a good indication of the lack of enthusiasm amongst them to commit themselves to irrigated cultivation. No irrigator survives from rainfed and irrigated farming alone. All still need multiple livelihood strategies to survive.In Ethiopia, government has been the main actor in initiating, planning and implementing development interventions since the mid 1950s. Modernization has been the driving ideology behind the various development plans that aimed at transforming the backward economy. Government is considered as 'the main provider of all benefits (Dessalegn, 1994) or as a Tigrian farmer conceived it 'Mengist Lehezbu Egiziabher Lefteretu' meaning 'government is for its people, and God is for his creature'. The top-down nature of major development programs including the 1975 land reform, resettlement, villagisation, cooperativization and agricultural extension programs, indicate the history of forced change in the country. Local people were either forced or mobilized to 'participate' in the implementation of such projects, which were supposed to be 'beneficial' to local people.Since the mid-1980s government has responded to drought and famine through the construction of irrigation infrastructure aim at increasing agriculture production in drought-prone regions of Ethiopia. Planning of irrigation projects has been done at the centre. However, not enough is known about farmers' reactions and responses to these government initiatives. This study concerns state irrigation interventions in a drought-prone area designed to increase crop production to achieve food security at household level, and explores the planned interfaces with irrigators' life worlds in two small-scale irrigation systems located in Tigray region, northern Ethiopia.The conceptual and theoretical framework of this study highlights the interfaces and social discontinuities between the life-worlds of irrigators and government bureaucrats embedded in irrigation management. An irrigation intervention constitutes an arena of struggle in which access to resources such as land and water provides the central point of dynamic interactions, encounters, confrontations and negotiations between different social actors. As Long and Ploeg (1989:226-227) explain, 'focusing upon intervention practices allows one to take into account the emergent forms of interaction, procedures, practical strategies, types of discourse, cultural categories and the particular 'stakeholders' (Palumbo 1987:32) present in specific contexts and to reformulate questions of state intervention and agrarian development from a more thoroughgoing actor perspective'.In the livelihood domain, interlocking relationships among the different social actors including landlords (during the imperial regime), farmers, local government administrators, development agents, and Abo mai ('father of water') are central. The concept of 'domain' best expresses the nature of these interlocking relationships. As Long (2001: 241-242) notes:and values that become central to this process of social ordering and to the establishment of certain pragmatic rules of governance. The idea of domain is also important for understanding how social and symbolic boundaries are defined and upheld, though precisely which normative or strategic principles will prevail situationally or over the longer term remains an open question. Domains should not be conceptualised as 'cultural givens' but as being produced and transformed through actors' shared experience and struggles'.In the present study, an irrigation system is considered as a 'sociotechnical system' (Mollinga, 1998;Vincent, 1997Vincent, , 2001)). Such an approach 'gives explicit attention to the multiple ways in which technology shapes social action, and is also shaped by it' (Vincent, 1997: 45). Mollinga (1998:14) outlines the social dimensions of an irrigation system in terms of three basic concepts: social construction, social requirements for use and social effects.Based on the above theoretical discussions, the following central research question has guided this study.The sub-questions are:1 In the implementation of irrigation intervention interaction takes place between the intervening actors, the government and non-governmental agencies involved in the irrigation development on the one hand, and the farmers (often called 'beneficiaries') on the other. Of particular concern is the issue of the institutional control, at farm, tabia (sub-district), district and regional levels of state officers of government bureaucracies and NGOs. In view of this, I was interested to investigate how actors adopted, transformed or rejected the irrigation intervention by adopting 'pragmatic moves' (Schutz and Luckmann, 1974). Such an approach enabled me to take into account social actors' reasons and the social context of action.A case study method was employed to conduct the research. One of the characteristics of qualitative research is the use of case studies (Stake, 1995;Neuman, 1997). Yen (1989:13) states that 'in general, case studies are a preferred strategy when \"how\" or why\" questions are being posed, when the investigator has little control over events, and when the focus is on contemporary phenomenon within some real-life context'. Thus, it was appropriate to undertake case studies that allowed me to investigate the lifeworlds of farmers within the context of two irrigation systems. The approach taken was largely ethnographic, that is, it has been concerned with understanding social life and discovering how people construct meaning in natural settings. I wanted to learn what is meaningful or relevant to the people being studied, and how individuals experience daily life. The methodology was designed to employ a variety of methods to capture different aspects of complex relationships. Thus, ethnographic interviewing, participant observation and a total of 60 household interviews were carried out in Gum Selassa and Hewane irrigation systems.The fieldwork was carried out in two phases. The first phase was between January 2000 and September 2001. During this period visits were made to ten irrigation systems to gain first hand information about the implementation of irrigation development and management of the small-scale irrigation systems in Tigray. This was followed by the selection of two irrigation systems for further in-depth study. This second phase of the fieldwork was carried out between Augusts to October 2002.Tigray region is situated in the northern tip of Ethiopia. The topography of the region is predominantly mountainous and the elevation ranges from 500 meters above sea level in the eastern part of the region (Erob) to 3900 meters in the southern zone near Kisad Kudo (Tassew, 2000). The climate includes all the three categories: kolla (lowlands), weyna dega (midlands) and Dega (highlands). The average minimum temperature is 5 o C and the maximum 40 o C.The estimated population of Tigray is 3,494,000 of which 565,000 are urban and 2,929,000 are rural inhabitants. Over 90 percent of the population is follower of Orthodox Christian Church. The total area is about 80,000 square km of which the arable land is estimated to be 15,000 square km. The average holding is about one hectare. This varies from 0.5 hectare to 0.9 hectare in the densely populated highlands and nearly 2 hectares in the lowlands. (CSA, 1997).The region is primarily agricultural and the majority of the population is employed in this sector. Agriculture is dependent on unreliable rainfall. For many years rainfall has been very low and erratic. As a result, repeated crop failure and scarcity of food have forced inhabitants to depend on famine relief in the form of food for work.The Tigray farmers have a long history of practicing irrigation to supplement rainfed agriculture. Local people's initiative has been in practice using the available water supply for irrigation purpose. As Pankhurst (1986: 137) writes, quoting Plowden and Salt:Irrigation, though far from universal, was practiced, Plowden notes, \"whenever necessary\" -or possible, and in view of the \"numerous rivulets\" was \"an easy task.\" Small channels, as Salt noted in Tigré, would be dug from the higher parts of a stream to conduct water across a nearby plain, which would be criss-crossed with small ditches to form \"small compartments.\" Irrigation of this kind on ditches about two feet wide was also used in some areas for the cultivation of cotton.Surface irrigation including river diversion, spring development and pond systems, is widely used in the region to irrigate plots. In the highlands of Tigray, farmers construct dorra (ponds) for the storage of spring water to irrigate their farms (Mitiku, et al.2001). In Tigray 15,495 ha is irrigated using traditional methods and make up 5 percent of the estimated irrigable land of 324, 286 ha (ibid: 9). Diversions structures are made simply of stones and wood. They are frequently washed away by the floods. The canals are not lined and water loss through seepage is significant.The current government believes irrigation intervention to be a drought-proofing strategy in Tigray. To this end, international organizations such as UNDP, UNECA and FAO have participated in designing of a project on 'Sustainable Agriculture and Environmental Rehabilitation in Tigray'. Nana-Sinkam (1995: 87)  This program has been developed to address not only the issue of food security in Ethiopia but also the whole area of sustainable development in agriculture and natural resources. One of its objectives is 'to increase production as quickly as possible using extensive water harvesting systems for irrigation'. Furthermore, as Nana-Sinkam explains:The design process for the Tigray region anticipates the building of 500 irrigation schemes, principally using micro-dams within a period of ten years. This undertaking, ambitious as it may appear, has been carefully targeted taking into consideration the experiences of the region in irrigation as well as in participatory labor processes. The undertaking of the proposed schemes will involve extensive watershed management as well as adequate preparatory measures in organizing the agronomy components of irrigation schemes to an extent that the region can be self-sufficient in food resources and export to other Ethiopian regions and to other countries in the Horn of Africa (such as the neighboring Eritrea) within a matter of ten years (ibid.) Upon the recommendation of the above mentioned international organizations, the regional government established the Commission for Sustainable Agriculture and Environmental Rehabilitation of Tigray (Co-SAERT) making it responsible for the construction of micro-dams in the region.In Tigray, the main institutional actors involved directly or indirectly in the irrigation intervention include the Commission for Sustainable Agriculture and Environmental Rehabilitation of Tigray, the Bureau of Natural Resources and Agriculture through the woreda department of agriculture, local government administrations, and non-governmental organizations such as the Relief Society of Tigray (REST) and the Dedebit Credit and Savings Institution (DECSI).The Hewane irrigation system is situated in Hewane tabia, on the road connecting Addis Ababa with Mekelle some 55 km south of the regional capital of Tigray. The fields of the irrigation system encompass parts of the territory of four kushets (villages) called Ayboto, Korora, Maine and Hewane town 1 . Hewane tabia is located at an altitude of 1800 -2000 m.a.m.s.l. The total area of Hewane tabia is 4558 hectares 2 . The cultivable land is 2405 ha (53%). There is no rainfall gauge in the tabia so only the regional average is available (see chapter 2). The soil types are 20% tikur (black), 19% maekl (average), 40% huthu (sandy), 5% mkeyh (red), 16% tikur+maekl (black+average). The soil fertility is classified as 5% woferam (fertile), 65% mekakelgna (average), 30% rekik (poor).The Mikorer-Betmera and Adi-Mesano streams supply water to 36 ha plots in the Hewane irrigation system during bega (dry season). Historical evidence is lacking as to when irrigation started in this area. Local people said, 'our forefathers started irrigation long ago'. The Mikorer-Betmera stream passes along the eastern side of Hewane town, whereas, the Adi Mesano stream cuts across the farms located between Hewane town and Ayboto Kushet. The two streams meet at a junction called Gudif where these rivers become the Hewane River. Apart from irrigation, the river water is used for various purposes including drinking, washing clothes, cooking and watering animals. The Hewane irrigation system starts from south of Hewane, Menkuse village, and extends to Mai Neberi tabia, which is about 12 kms in length. The stream passes along the up-hill side of sloping to moderately flat agriculture lands. Gravity irrigation is carried out using earth canals bifurcating from the main stream.Water availability in the Hewane River varies substantially from season to season, largely as a function of rainfall. This affects discharge from the spring, which is a source of its recharge. The keremt rainfall usually starts late June and peaks in August. After mid-September the rainfall stops. Farmers or the tabia agriculture office do not take water flow measurements in order to calculate the amount of discharge into the canals. Simple observation is employed to estimate the amount of water that could be obtained.There are two types of irrigators based on the 'water allocation principle' adopted by the water committee. The principle is classifying plots into mesno and hayfo. The mesno (irrigation) plot holders receive river water from January onwards because they have been under the agricultural extension program 'Sasakawa Global 20003' since 1993. In this group, 220 farmers cultivate plots ranging from 0.015 ha to 0.125 ha including 'kitchen gardens'. This group is under an obligation to use chemical fertilizers and other modern inputs and follow agricultural extension advice. The hayfo plot holders mainly depend on rainfed agriculture. This group, however, gets water until the end of December depending on the availability of river water. The hayfo group will not obtain water after January because the river water is diverted 3 Sasakawa Global 2000 project was initiated in 1993 by the Sasakawa Africa Association and the Global 2000 programme with the cooperation and support of the Ethiopian government.to the mesno irrigators. About 210 hayfo farmers cultivate 20 -25 ha of land planting barley, lentils, vetch and chick-peas which require two or three times watering between September and December. Individual land holding ranges from 0.25 to 0.5 ha. In addition, both hayfo and mesno irrigators cultivate rainfed plots within Hewane tabia.The Gum Selassa irrigation system encompasses parts of the territory of Adigudom and Arra Alemsegeda 4 tabias (sub-districts). It is located four kms east of Adigudom town. Adigudom is the main town of Hintalo Wajerat Woreda situated 39 km south of Mekelle. Gum Selassa irrigation system is at an altitude of 2061 m.a.m.s.l. The area is known for its flat agricultural land with no tree cover. Agricultural production is dependent on unreliable rainfall. During the last two decades, the agriculture of the woreda has suffered frequently from the scarcity and/or irregularity of rainfall.The Gum Selassa micro dam was the first irrigation infrastructure constructed by the current government. There was no experience on the government's part on how to select water users and how much irrigable and rainfed land should be distributed to a farming household. Thus, the regional government set up a fiveman committee to develop guidelines for land reallocation and the selection of irrigators in the Gum Selassa and Adha irrigation systems 5 .The committee recommended that a minimum of 0.2 ha and a maximum of 0.25 ha of irrigable and 0.75 ha of rainfed plot should to be allotted to farmer to achieve food security at household level (ibid: 6). The regional government approved 0.2 ha irrigable land and 0.75 ha rainfed to a household.The command area of the Gum Selassa irrigation system was taken as 120 ha. Based on the 0.2 ha allotment to an individual farmer, 600 farmers could get plots in the irrigation system. The committee suggested three different options of land allocation. One of the options was to allow '… only … those farmers with land displaced and those farmers with land currently in the command area to be allocated irrigated land. This option was rejected as it would reduce the number of potential beneficiaries to be ensured an acceptable level of food security and thus affect the achievement of the principal objective of the project Gum Selassa irrigation system was not the first irrigation infrastructure in Adigudom. Although they were short lived, the former government had constructed three small earth dams namely, Mai Genet, Mai Debleat Adi Ake and Hay Engula through food for work programs. Mai Genet earth dam was operational for one year and farmers planted tomato on one hectare. The other two dams have never been operational because of siltation and other technical problems.The Gum Selassa irrigation system started operation in 1996. The construction took nearly two years, involving time 472, 000 man days. The total cost of the dam was US $ 487 720. Local people participated in the Gum Selassa dam construction through a 'food for work program'. In addition, able-bodied people provided 20 days free labor in a year for the construction work.The total storage volume of the Gum Selassa micro dam is 1,902,000 m3 as. Co-SAERT engineers estimated 1,366,485 m3 net storage for the irrigation of 120 hectare land considering evaporation loss, dead storage, conveyance water losses, extreme rainfall that could not be captured, human consumption and animal consumption (Yigzaw, 1994: 45).The canal system is 'hierarchical' (Horst 1998), in which water is distributed from the two main canals to secondary, tertiary and field canals. The height of the concrete drop structures is about one meter. There are five division boxes along the primary canals. The longer primary canal is 3 kms while the shorter is 2.4 kms.Excess water from the fields runs to the drain where seepage water flows. In 2000, a small part of the main canal (about 100 meters) was concrete-lined by Co-SAERT.The current government has adopted an Agricultural-Development-Led Industrialization (ADLI) policy to promote rural development. The policy gives priority to the improvement of traditional agricultural practices to increase agricultural productivity. Irrigation development is one component of this policy. The government has issued a new irrigation policy whose main objective is to achieve food security at household level. Regional Commissions for Sustainable Agriculture and Environmental Rehabilitation have been established.The Commission for Tigray (Co-SAERT), which was established in order to promote irrigation in the Tigray region, did not, however, achieve its 10-year target for micro dam construction. It constructed 44 dams, only a small proportion of the dams promised. These micro-dams had numerous technical and management problems. As a result Co-SAERT has now discontinued their construction.The study shows that farmers in Hewane and Gum Selassa cultivate both rainfed and irrigated plots. While the Hewane system obtains water from a river, the Gum Selassa irrigation system abstracts water from a micro-dam constructed by the current government. Mixed farming is practiced in both irrigation systems.Over a period of six years, the average yield of maize, onion and tomato has increased significantly in Gum Selassa and Hewane irrigation systems. For instance, the average yield went from 24 to 167.5 quintals of maize for Gum Selassa, and for Hewane, from around 16 to 83.5 quintals. Although the Agriculture Department advises farmers to observe its cropping pattern, farmers do not do so. They usually plant maize, onion, tomato and wheat. Maize is a crop preferred for household consumption, and onion because of the 'good income' earned from its sale. Furthermore, there was no effective advice given on irrigation scheduling or input supply. Water was sometimes applied in such a way that instead of irrigating crops, soils became flooded.The study also finds that irrigated production interferes with rainfed agriculture and with offfarm activities. This is mainly because irrigated plots are harvested in May and June, which coincides with the need to plough both rainfed and irrigated plots that take advantage of the long rains.The study indicates that no irrigator survives from rainfed and irrigated farming alone. All still need multiple livelihood strategies to survive. In addition, marketing is so insecure that farmers can lose the investments they make in agricultural inputs, which makes irrigated agricultural practices uncertain.Although a credit service is available, the number of customers is limited. At Hintalo Wajirat Woreda level less than 50 percent took credit. Of those who did not take up credit, over 70 percent depended on local moneylenders. The leading credit institution DECSI in Tigray has high repayment rates and does not look out for the welfare of its customers, particularly with respect to the repayment schedule, whereby farmers had to deal with the negative impact of having to selling agricultural products during a low price period in order to pay back their loan. Furthermore, the study shows that the majority of DESCI borrowers settle their debts by either selling their property including their oxen and/or by borrowing cash from local moneylenders, paying 5 to 10 percent interest per month.The study documents that Woferit (sharecropping) is widely practiced in Gum Selassa and Hewane irrigation systems. In 2001, 41.5% of men and 83.2% of women in Gum Selassa, and 44% of men and 56% of women in Hewane leased out their plots. 'Uncertainty of access to irrigation water' ranked as the first reason for leasing out land. This was followed by 'not able to purchase fertiliser' and 'being a woman I cannot plough'. A large majority of the plot holders make agreements with the farmers leasing the land to collect one-third of their harvest.The study concludes that the need to access irrigable land is the main reason for tenant farmers to lease in land. Land fragmentation and landlessness have become major problems in the region. As cultivable land is limited, further land redistribution has remained difficult on the part of the government. Thus, woferit (sharecropping) has been opted for as a major mode of accessing cultivable land in the two tabias.In principle, water allocation is the responsibility of the 'water committee' (in Hewane) and 'irrigation committee' (in Gum Selassa). However, uncoordinated water allocation decisions on the part of local government bureaucracies have compounded water scarcity in the irrigation systems.The study shows that the pattern of irrigation management has remained largely the same since the imperial regime. In all three regimes, 'irrigation practices are inherently political practices' (Mollinga, 1998:30), since the local government bureaucracy has been embedded in their management. Earlier the landlords and local governors, and later the Agriculture Department and local government bureaucracies were involved in decisions of water allocation and conflict resolutions. Farmers had very weak negotiating power over their water rights.In Tigray, there has never been an irrigation agency responsible for irrigation management. In the mid-90s, the government established Co-SAERT, responsible for construction of irrigation infrastructure in Tigray. Likewise, since Imperial times, there has never been either a government-initiated water users' association or indigenous irrigators' organizations responsible for water management in the Hewane irrigation system. Farmers have been requested by the local government to elect Aferchecka and later Abo mai who handle the tasks of water distribution and canal cleaning and maintenance. The link created through Abo mai between the local government bureaucracies and farmers has made irrigation management an appendage of the local government bureaucracy.The study shows that, in the absence of a legal framework, the regional government attempted to establish a water users' association by simply handing over the micro-dam to water users. It was an imposition on the water users. Many farmers were not involved in its establishment nor did they participate in the water users' association. Representatives like the chairman were selected in their absence. As one informant noted, 'until recently it was the agriculture office that administered the irrigation system. But now we hear that farmers have taken over the dam'. The government did not discuss with farmers the conditions of its transfer, the power of the water users' association, nor the role of farmers or government support to sustain the irrigation system. As Vermillion (1995: 146) notes 'where farmer organizations lack full legal and political recognition to make all decisions necessary to manage the irrigation system they appear to have difficulty achieving cost efficiency, raising adequate revenue, applying sanctions and entering into contractual relationships with their parties'.The claims of Co-SAERT that dams have been transferred to water users' associations are bogus. In terms of governance, the status of the irrigation systems is unclear. Co-SAERT's objective to bring about sustainable agriculture and environmental rehabilitation in Tigray is questionable. Interestingly, the Commission has recently transformed itself into the Bureau of Water Resources Development by merging agencies involved in the water sector, while the management of the newly constructed irrigation systems is unknown.Every year the Woreda irrigation committee has to decide on the area to be irrigated based on Co-SAERT's measurement of the quantity of dam water. The study has shown, however, that the size of irrigated plots did not correspond to Co-SAERT's estimation between the 1998 and 2002 production years. The irrigation committee does not take account of the dam water measurement of Co-SAERT. The power to allocate water in the Gum Selassa irrigation system is mainly in the hands of the experts of the Woreda Agriculture Department. Guesswork has prevailed thus ignoring the professional support of Co-SAERT. The guesswork in the water allocation has tempted the Agriculture Department to reduce the size of irrigable plots to obviate shortages of water.Until 2002, not all of the 110 ha of farmland of Gum Selassa were supplied with dam water. The highest share of irrigated land was 78.4 percent in 2002/03 while lowest was 7.5 percent in 1998/99. It was noted that 16.3 percent of the irrigated plots in 2002/03 were 'rainfed plots', which were not supposed to get dam water. In other words, among the 550 farmers who joined the irrigation system initially, between 119 and 470 of them received no water for six years In Hewane, water allocation to users is based on the principle of classifying plots into hayfo and mesno (irrigation). The mesno plots have water priority over hayfo plots because they entail the use of improved agricultural inputs. But the switching of plots from hayfo to mesno or vice versa often takes place. In both irrigation systems Abo mais are annually elected to carry out water distribution tasks. The source of water influences their number. 12 abo mais serve at 15 diversions in Hewane while only four are assigned to do so in Gum Selassa where only some of obtain water day and night. The availability of seepage water in Hewane means day and night distribution. While the water distribution system is an established and accepted practice, it is not always accepted by individuals. Irregularities in water distribution occur that lead to petty feuds. Rotational scheduling of water regulates access to water and is based on the principle that he who sows first gets water first. Blocks get water by turn according to the requirement of each crop. While internally rotations are largely accepted, appropriateness to improve crop yields is still only poorly understood.Irrigators are involved in canal cleaning every year, although their participation is not as expected. The most serious issue in system maintenance is the disiltation of dams which is no ones work in Tigray. Experts of Co-SAERT have clearly indicated that most of the micro dams will not serve the expected life span time due to siltation.The study shows that conflict resolutions are carried out at three levels, at field level involving irrigators, elders, Abo mais and development agents, at Department of Agriculture and tabia administration level, and thirdly, depending on the seriousness of the conflict, at the Maheberawe firdebet (social court) which can impose fines. Farmers often appeal to the local administration or Agriculture Department when they cannot solve conflict over water at field level.Farmers in Hewane and Gum Selassa lease out plots to sharecroppers due to the inability and/or unwillingness to purchase chemical fertilizer. The study shows that in Hewane and Gum Selassa over two-thirds of the farmers purchased fertilizer through coercive persuasion, with the fear that they might be denied credit, food aid or employment opportunities in various construction works or with the threat of no access dam water. Local government bureaucracies did not pay any attention to farmers' unwillingness to purchase fertilizer. In contrast, since farmers were not coerced to purchase improved seed, the numbers buying it was very low.Policies that encourage farmers to participate in the implementation of agricultural extension packages represent a significant shift from the top-down approach. In theory, government officials and rural development workers support the idea of farmers' participation from technology identification to technology evaluation in the implementation of extension services. The former Minister of Agriculture is recorded as saying:'It is always important to keep in mind that it is the farmer who decides on how to manage the soil. Hence, his or her views and perceptions are central to achieving [sic] sustainable pattern of management. These views will strongly be enhanced by the prices he or she receives on marketing the products, accessibility to inputs, access to credit, training opportunities, and a reliable moisture regime. If farming is not profitable, farmers are reluctant to venture on something different' (SOS Sahel, et al 2001: 39).In Tigray, agricultural extension was based on the diffusionist model. Agricultural workers and local government officials were preoccupied with achieving the targets set for fertilizer sales to farmers and as a result, recommendations on fertilizer application to demonstration plots were 'a one-size fit-all' solution. As Chambers, et al (1989: 23) it is not uncommon to find extension staff distributing undifferentiated blanket recommendations to farmers, making no concession to their varied economic capacities and widely different farming systems.Such blanket solutions cannot work for heterogeneous farming population who Long (2001: 181) points out use a variety of strategies for solving the production and other problems they face. The perceived benefits of using agricultural packages have a marked influence on farmers' receptiveness. For individual farmers yield increase per hectare does not correspond to their technical and social conditions since local soil conditions vary a good deal, not only from one tabia to another but also from one field to another. Oliver de Sardan (1988: 222) also notes that 'the minimization of risks and the search for security are the focus of many economic strategies. Mistrust of high yield varieties (more risky if effective rainfall is below the average taken into account by agronomic researchers), reluctance to adopt new crops when marketing is hazardous'.Commenting on participatory extension practice in the dry lands of southern Ethiopia, Dejene (2000: 6) maintains that 'the participatory approach is therefore considered as essential if extension is to be more client-oriented. However, our field observation shows that these principles are not followed in the current extension system. What is being practiced is top-down'. Thus the Ethiopian governments desire to help people overcome poverty has resulted in spearheading coercive strategies in the name of 'participation'.Coping strategies with drought and famine Local people employed a combination of four categories of coping strategies with respect to the 1984/85 drought and famine. All employed one or more of the depleting, maintaining, reductive and/or regenerative strategies to cope with drought and famine. Food relief ranked first as a strategy for survival under severe drought and famine situation.The data presented earlier indicate that the Hintalo Wajerat Woreda (district) is still food insecure. Over 30 percent of the population receives food aid. Gum Selassa and Hewane tabias are located in the same agro-ecological zone. Farming has been and still remains the main source of livelihood there. Except for the irrigators in the two irrigation systems, farmers depend entirely on rainfed agriculture. The intended level of food security has not been achieved in Gum Selassa and Hewane tabias (since 66 percent of the households consumed what they produced within 6 to 9 months), and therefore many people have to combine farming and non-farming or trading activities. However this is not easy for people since in Hintalo Wajerat Woreda there is a lack of jobs available in the area. The government's decision to deploy local labor during slack period on the construction of Shelenat dams had the unintended negative effect of halting the soil and water conservation project. This work was halted for over five years, aggravating the gully erosion and slumping in the tabia. In Hewane this agroecological problem, mediated by political power, compelled farmers to find something else. Bee keeping thus became a livelihood strategy as their harvests from the shrinking farmland declined every year.Traditional bee keeping is expanding in Hewane. Conversely, the rate of adoption of government promoted modern bee keeping practice has been low. The constraints quoted were the unaffordable price of frame hives and the lack of technical assistance from the Agriculture Department.The study documents few formal and informal social organizations such as Mahber (religious associations) and equb (saving groups). These are weak social networks for developing survival strategies.I repeat here some of the implications of this study pertaining to the issue of livelihood practice, household food provisioning, irrigation access, water control, and irrigation management and governance.First, irrigated agriculture is a complex livelihood activity and thus the analysis of existing livelihood practices is essential before embarking upon irrigation intervention. Interventions that do not consider local people's life-worlds are likely to pave the road to underdevelopment.Second, the regional government assumed that irrigators cultivating their own plots could achieve household food security. However, the majority of plot holders, particularly women headed households, as I have shown, lease out their plots and collect one third of the yield. This had serious implications on food provisioning at household level since the anticipated amount of grain is not available for household consumption. Another factor was that the credit service, although an important input to increase agricultural production, operated loan repayment schedules coincide with harvest time when prices were at their lowest. This reduced their purchasing capacity at a time when grain prices were higher. In both instances household food consumption is affected.Third, numerous socio-technical problems resulting from poor irrigation management frustrate irrigation interventions. These range from crop failure due to moisture stress, the lack of effective water harvesting strategies. Building irrigation infrastructure is less problematic than putting it to good productive use to service unmet demands.Fourth, the study shows that irrigation system management is embedded in local government bureaucracy and sits uncomfortably between government bureaucracies and water users. The water users themselves or an irrigation agency might better be able to appreciate the performances of an irrigation system or deal with the issue of water equity. The local government bureaucracy, involved in numerous non-irrigation activities, finds it difficult to identify internal irrigation management problems encompassing water delivery schedules, and to make fair decisions in conflicts over water. On the other hand, the institutional viability of water user associations is questionable because or the absence of clear water rights which demotivates farmers from participating in irrigation management.Moreover the distancing by the bulk of farmers from irrigated agriculture through leasing out their plots to sharecroppers provides a good indication of the lack of enthusiasm amongst them to commit themselves to irrigated cultivation. Sharecroppers, on their part, cultivate the land for a limited period (one or two harvesting seasons). It appears that there is no appropriate incentive structure for sharecroppers to take over the irrigation infrastructure while they are cultivating on temporary basis. Under such cultivation arrangements it is not surprising that water user associations under-perform. Fifth, bureaucratic performance highlights a lack of expert knowledge and capacity in designing functional systems that provide what is needed in Gum Selassa. Furthermore, the absence of water management expertise has been noted in irrigation scheduling in both sites.The need for irrigation systems on the part of farmers of Gum Selassa and Hewane is there, but the provision of irrigation and agricultural services does not dovetail effectively with the life-worlds of farmers. Although the provision of water, land and agricultural inputs to irrigators is a big stride towards mitigating drought-induced famine, other measures must be put in place to enable irrigators to provide their families with adequate food.• Inappropriate irrigation technology contributes to social disruption and a waste of resources. Thus, technology choices should be commensurate with the capacity of the final users of irrigation infrastructure. The technology choice appears to be uncritically adopted. Faulty maintenance of the infrastructure, seepage, siltation and environmental deterioration are obvious problems, which are not dealt with adequately.• Irrigation development should take into account not only the provision of water but also the agricultural production system.• Intrusive practices, such as coercing farmers to adopt modern agricultural technologies like fertilizer packages, are inimical. Farmers are knowledgeable and struggle to reconstruct life cycles to bring about security and dignity for themselves. Acknowledging this and giving greater respect to their own potential and options can enhance development intervention. New reflections on how to maintain soil fertility and yield acceptable to farmers should be sought.• The need for more defined and coherent institutional arrangements in irrigation development is essential. There is a need to have a clear and well-defined policy on the handing over of micro dams to farmers, which should be specific as to the respective roles of farmers and government after hand over.• An area of concern is the preoccupation of government and NGOs to simply construct irrigation infrastructure to solve production problems in drought prone areas. In years of recurrent drought, rivers and micro dams dry out and groundwater levels drop. Hence, under these circumstances irrigated agriculture is more vulnerable to drought than some less intensive forms of agriculture. As farmers have smaller and smaller plots, irrigation development in these areas may not be a fully effective means to mitigate recurrent drought and food insecurity.• Differential access to water contributes to weak operation of the irrigation system. The provision for special water distribution arrangements at times of water scarcity can increase farmers' participation in irrigation management.• Considering recurrent droughts in Tigary, food aid probably needs to continue. However, there is a need to work out how to link food-for-work to sound and wider investments.This study has attempted to look into the social dimensions of irrigation with particular emphasis on state intervention and life-worlds of farmers. It is hoped that more research will be addressed to the question of farmers' knowledge, to options for irrigation that recognize the life-worlds and environment of farmers, and to the technical optimization of Recently, in Ethiopia, RWH as an alternative water supply option has received a lot of attention as development actors and scholars, has increasingly recognized the importance to mitigate the problem of physical as well as economic water scarcity. This has resulted in widespread agreement to work towards the promotion of RWH technologies and efficient use of rainwater resources. However, the attraction of many actors, on the other hand, resulted in varied perceptions over the use, management and promotion of rainwater. This in turn has resulted in a heated debate about the solution to the crisis of rainwater management among stakeholders. The stakeholders' debates over the crisis of rainwater management have usually proceeded in terms of a divergence between appropriate rainwater policy and state political commitment to implement plans, in which stakeholders are largely, followed the treatment that it would be desirable to make low political commitment, not policy, liable for the crisis of rainwater management. The author of this paper argues that all stakeholders including government have debated over the different angles of the same problem; some with the structure of rainwater policy (decentralization of policy) and others with content (specification of rainwater policy). Basically, they are all debated over a single problem that is about policy. The author, rather, believe that all the debates are justifications on the need of rainwater specific and decentralized policy, even, the wider gap in perceptions itself is the result of lack of sound rainwater policy. It is the author's strong contention that in the absence of specified and decentralized resource policy, it is unnecessary, even undesirable, to debate over crisis of a resource management. What is important is to keep an eye on the content and structure of a rainwater policy; all the other problems are the by-products of a policy defects.ERHA held its 2 nd general assembly; members, representatives of government, NGOs, donor agencies and SEARNET met in Addis to discuss the different concerns of rainwater use, management and development. A number of papers were presented on different concerns of RWH, which ranged from technical to social. Presenters forwarded quite a large number of important recommendations based on their experiences and professional background. Finally, some critical questions were raised from participants: who were responsible for the implementation of the recommendations? How ERHA and the people could monitor and supervise the implementation of the recommendations? How can we make government accountable to the implementation of the recommendations? The participants were realized that these questions could only be answered from water policy document. To this end, one proposal came out of the workshop: to conduct a policy gap analysis that would help to understand the different policy issues that hinder the use, management and promotion of rainwater.With this intention, The Ethiopian Rainwater Harvesting Association (ERHA) in collaboration with Southern and Eastern Africa Rainwater Harvesting Network (SEARNET) commissioned a policy research mandated to conduct a policy research that can examine the policy gaps and their implications in terms of rainwater harvesting, which could be used as an input for policy advocacy that geared towards addressing the problem of domestic water supply, sanitation and household food insecurity. This paper is an overview of the final policy research titled Policy Issues to the Promotions of Rainwater Harvesting: The Case of Ethiopia, which was produced by the same author in December 2005.Crisis?Water supply in many parts of Ethiopia is entering an era of physical and economic scarcity. As a result, the country is one of the most food insecure countries on the globe due to scarcity of water resources combined with frequent occurrence of drought. Today, water scarcity problem is more and more sever in Ethiopia due to the increase in the: 1) supply side problems-such as the increase in population pressure, degradation of the natural environment, increase in livestock pressure, the increase in cost of supply and the increase in demand for other uses such as industries; 2) demand side problems such as the increase in demand for different services of water by different users and sectors; and 3) structural side problems such as lack of effective and efficient water institutions that ensure equitable allocation of the nominally accessible water among users and use systems. This is exacerbated by poor performance of the water sector due to lack of effective water institutions (water policy, laws and administration). Moreover, since most rivers of Ethiopia are crossing borders; implementation requires negotiation with downstream countries, which is politically challenging not to mention the manpower and political constraints. This scarcity has contributed a lot to the social, economic, environmental and political crisis in the country. In this regard, mention can be made of the presence of: water borne diseases which account for 70% of total diseases; the fact that 40/75% of the urban/rural population has no access to clean drinking water respectively, 95% of the population has no access to electricity, the country has lost 25% of livestock due to the recent drought; and on average 6 million people are exposed to recurrent drought annually including the surplus producing areas.Agriculture consumes 86% of total water withdrawal and it is one of the sectors that have been suffering from high degree of water scarcity. The study conducted by DPPC (2001) revealed that the frequency and severity of drought seems to have increased from time to time even in the surplus producing areas mainly due to the late onset or failure of both the main and short rainy seasons. For instance, on average more than 6.3 million people are exposed to hunger on yearly basis. This has resulted in malnutrition and low level of calorie intake. CSA (2000) reported the impact of food shortage (malnutrition) on children under age five as one of the highest in the world with the level of 47% underweight, 52% stunted and 11% wasted, respectively.According to the author estimation, the net scarcity of irrigation water for cereal production is increasing at a rate of 6.6%, which is the difference between estimated irrigation water demand growth rate and estimated planned irrigation water supply growth rate for cereal production. In other words, if we assume that irrigation is the only means to fully escape from cereal deficit and diversion is the only means of accessing irrigation water, Ethiopia has to increase its irrigation water supply for cereal production by 7% annually or increasing the current plan of agricultural water supply by 6.55% annually. The estimations further reveals that given the current status and irrigation water supply plan, Ethiopia will require 77 years to fully escape from 2004 cereal deficit, which will require 4247 million m 3 of additional irrigation water. The current irrigation water supply plan for cereal production will only reduce 23% of the 2004 cereal deficit at the end of the planning period (2016). The estimation was done based on WHO standard of calorie requirement with certain assumptions like all water development plans will be realized and rainfall will be normally distributed (year 2001 production as base year). One can imagine how the late onset and uneven distribution of rainfall, and ill-performance of water development plans, which happens most often, can further aggravate the scarcity of water for agricultural production. Ethiopia?The research confirmed that rainwater has a potential role to contribute towards the multisectoral national development policies; and there is also a fertile ground (natural and utilization potential opportunities) for rainwater to play its vital role in all sectors of development. For instance, rainwater can help to achieve the national water management policy objectives through: i) improving the sustainability of water use as rainwater is a mother source of all water; ii) enhancing equity of water use across regions as the only viable water sources in moisture stress areas; iii) enhancing groundwater potential; iv) maintaining the hydrological balance (water cycle); v) mitigating over flooding due to excess rainwater; vi) improving efficiency of water uses and cost of water supply; vii) increasing the negotiation power of the country over the use of trans boundary rivers; viii) improving the success of watershed management and environmental protection interventions; and x) improving the different water services demand of users and sectors. Hence, rainwater management is the \"icecream\" of all other water resources management. It could be one of the key alternatives for the achievement of the national water management policy targets. It could also help to address both the cross cutting and sectoral objectives of the national water management policy.Moreover, rainwater could also help to addresses the five strategies, Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Development strategies that have been designed to deal with food insecurity problems of moisture stress areas of the country. These are: i) Emergency assistance, which refers to provision of food and water without being displaced either through food for work for those able to work and free handout to those who are not capable of working;ii) Resettlement program -transferring a certain section of the drought affected people to areas where there is enough water and fertile land;iii) Natural resource development and development of animal resources, which is the strategy aiming at reducing the pressure on land by shifting the livelihood of people from cultivation to rearing of animals; iv) Improving water resources utilization by promoting the utilization of ground and surface water so as to satisfy the different needs of the people; and v) Soil conservation.Thus, rainwater harvesting could be one of the most important options to address the policies and strategies of drought prone areas of the country including the settlement areas (since these are areas where there is no any form of water supply structure before). This is basically true for two reasons. First, the policy strategies create an enabling environment for the promotion of rainwater harvesting. For instance, the emergency assistance through food for work could be used as resources to finance natural resources development, soil and water conservation activities. On the other hand, conservation and efficient utilization of rainwater mean addressing food security through reducing soil erosion (increasing soil fertility), developing the environment (enhancing sustainability of resources use) and accessing the different services of water including source of water for livestock and pasture development. Besides, the major water consuming sectors, RWH can play a vital role in improving the water supply of livestock, wildlife, rangeland development and nursery site development. It can also help to mitigate emergencies created due to shortage of water (drought) and flooding.Ethiopia has a fertile land, untapped rainwater potential and use opportunities, which could make rainwater utilization less costly as compared to other alternative sources. There are plenty of concrete evidences that support Ethiopia has untapped runoff potential due to the existence of conducive climate, soil type and land surface characteristics. For instance, in some parts of Ethiopia it is common to exercise cultivation as steep as 30%. This has resulted in high yield of runoff associated with high level of erosion. Only 3% of the land is covered with forest. In most parts of Ethiopia, especially in the northeast, the vegetation cover including bush is becoming smaller and smaller for a number of reasons. This means that the country has high runoff yield as a result of low vegetation cover, among other reasons mentioned above. Most parts of Ethiopia are characterized by high amount of rainstorm amount, high yield of runoff. The rainstorm in the lowland area of Ethiopia is characterized by high intensity; meaning rainstorms intensity exceeds the rate of infiltration of the soil, resulting in high level of runoff. The distribution of rainfall is also one of the important factors that determine the yield of runoff, which is quite suitable in the case of Ethiopia.Ethiopia is also rich in rainwater use opportunities (rainwater collection, storage and supply facilities). Since 560 BC, even before, Ethiopian people used different traditional rainwater collection facilities. For instance, roof harvesting of rain such as the use of church and school roof have long time experience in Ethiopia (Thomas et al, 2004). State promotion of rainwater-harvesting structures was started in 1970s to reduce soil erosion and as alternative intervention to address water scarcity. Other organizations like NGOs and bilateral agencies have been involved in soil and water conservation activities long time ago. Currently, a total of 450,000 modern rainwater-harvesting structures (RWH tanks/Cisterns, ponds and hand-dug wells) were constructed in four regions of the country in 2002/03 and 2003/04 (FAO, 2004). Existence of corrugated iron sheet roof, for instance, according to CSA estimate more than 50% of the population is living in houses made of corrugated iron sheet roof; the current rate of urbanization (9%) and high population growth (increasing number of houses); and the progress in the construction of social facilities such as roads, schools, health centers and other institutions will also show the availability of rainwater use opportunities.Recently, rainwater harvesting as an alternative water supply has received the attention of the government, civic society institutions, NGOs and donor agencies. Accordingly, some efforts have been put in the last 3 years to the promotion of rainwater harvesting and some promising results are observed in terms of addressing the problem of domestic water supply, sanitation and household food insecurity. A number of RWH promotion activities have been undertaken in relation to food security both at national and regional levels. In the individual approach, the water is fully managed by individual water owners and the owner is also expected to cover the lion's share of the cost of the infrastructure. In the case of communal rainwater harvesting, the system is fully managed by the user community and the community is responsible to contribute labor and local material.Even though the multiples role of rainwater is widely recognized, it might be surprising that it is one of poorly managed sub-water sector in the country. The sub-sector is generally characterized by low economic, social, environmental, financial, technological and institutional performances. For the sake of simplicity, the author classified the overall crisis of rainwater use, management and development into four categories of performances namely, performances of introduced technologies, performances of technology promotions, performances of use efficiencies and performance of management.the performance of technology refers augmentation of RWH technologies, which can be measured from the deviation of the national RWH promotion plan. For instance, as compared to the 2004 national RWH promotion plan, the realized number of rainwater harvesting structures introduced during the physical year is by 50% less than the national target (MoARD, 2004) mainly because of inappropriate and unrealistic plans (quota system).Performances of Introduced Technologies:besides, the low limited number of introduced technologies (low promotion), the performances of the introduced technologies accomplishing far less than what had been expected, if not disappointing, in many areas of the country. Some evaluation reports indicate that most of the newly introduced RWH technologies had failed to achieve the physical targets in most regions of the country (in some regions up to 80%) due to low social, economic, ecological and institutional feasibility to the local context, in addition to technical problems. Accordingly, for Group A /Group B, the solution is to enhance the political commitment/the capacity of the state to put the Table 1. Core problems and root causes of rainwater use and management as identified by regional workshop I-IV = Group ID during regional workshop existing policy into practices. On the other hand, for Group C / Group D, the solution is to enhance the political commitment / the capacity of the government to develop sound rainwater policy.However, these differences have resulted in rainwater harvesting technologies and institutions to be under pressure to change in most regions of the country. Every where, there is a challenges for rainwater resources and technology management posed by efficiency, equitable and sustainability debates and a relentless reshaping of rainwater technologies and management institutions are going on both at national and regional levels. Moreover, the differences in perception among stakeholders have further aggravated the problem of RWH. This is because, the differences in perceptions has led to some confusion.The confusion has created four unintended negative outcomes. First, it discouraged policy makers from taking an immediate corrective policy action since policy is politically sensitive that requires first to check the social acceptability of a policy action. Second, it has increased the complexity of policy advocacy for civic society institutions like ERHA, difficult to create a pressure group for effective policy advocacy. Third, it has increased the demand of robust analytical methodologies before any decision so as to ground recommendation discussions and to defend options against their recommendation, which could increase the cost of advocacy and policy recommendation. Fourth, it has hindered the collaboration of efforts and resources among actors, but rather, it has promoted implementation of uncoordinated and conflicting approaches of rainwater management. It is found that breaking the dilemma between alternative solution options among stakeholders is part of a solution to the current crisis of rainwater use, management and promotion. Then, the next question will be how can we break these dilemmas?Dilemma? both part of core problems and part of core solutions to rainwater resource management. Therefore, the question would be: how can we make government politically committed to implement and develop appropriate policies? How can we improve the policy formulation and implementation capacity of a government? The author argues below that it is only through policy that we can make government politically committed and get the capacity improved.According to Len Abrams (2002) policy is defined as a set of decisions, made ultimately by the highest political level in a country after a process of dialogue and consultation, which determines what and how things will be done in any given sector. Policy in terms of resources management refers to the setout of a framework and guidelines as to how the resource in question is optimally utilized, managed, protected and conserved in a sustainable manner so as to enhance the overall economic development of the country. Thus, policy is the most important component of a water institution that influences the overall performance (economic, physical, financial and social performance) of a water sector directly and indirectly through determining the mandate of administration, the demand of capacity, legal implications and many other concerns of resource management.A resource policy can play a multiple roles; it can serve as a framework for donors, civic society institutions, the people and government itself to examine performances of plans and political commitments. Generally, a resources policy can serve as framework: i) for donors, civic society institutions and the people to monitor and supervise the political commitment of a state towards a resource; ii) to setout the strategies and plan of a resources management, which later used as standard for the people and civic society institutions to evaluate planned achievements; iii) to make leaders accountable and transparent to their plan and political commitment; iv) to check the degree of people and other actors participation, which allow them aware of a resources development and management plans and strategies; v) to influence the inclusion of people interest and preferences in the resources management; vi) for government to allocate resources and manpower in a sustainable manner; vii) for government to undertake follow up the progress and to identify gaps of implementation so as to take corrective actions; and viii) for government to set appropriate legislation, institution and resource administration set up. Hence, absence of a resource policy means that there is no way to make government accountable and transparent to its plan and political commitment; for civic society institutions, donors and the people to monitor and evaluate planned achievements; for government itself to check its performances and to take corrective actions; and to check continuity and coordination of efforts, and integration of uses etc.The above conventional argument to the demand of policy clearly indicates that policy can make government accountable and politically committed to its policy, plan and strategy. A resources policy can also indicate the areas of capacity limitations that create an enabling environment for donors and other civic society institutions to provide appropriate supports. Governments had policies in the past and they will have in the future. However, these policies too often did not translate into actions. This is mainly because they lack transparency that both the people and civic society did not know about them so as to keep their eyes on implementation of those policies. Given this experience, breaking up the current debates with the conventional argument is unthinkable. Because, this experiences force us to answer question like: what makes then government accountable to policies? Here, we are not interested to debate why some governments are accountable to their policy and others not? Rather, we are interested to know what types of policy makes government accountable and transparent? This defiantly requires in-depth analysis of a policy in question. To do this, the author employed other description of a policy to further argue inline with the debates.According to the author, a sound policy has to be evaluated from its content and structure. The content of a policy can be measured by the degree of policy specification. The degree of specification determines how the \"rules of the game\" that governs the relation, behavior and action of all stakeholders in relation to a resource use, management and promotion or development are specified and qualified. In principle, the higher the degree of a resources policy specification, the better will be the use, management and development of a resource. This is because the higher specification of a resource means a more clarification on rights, obligations and conditions of use, development and management of a resource and a resource use infrastructure. The content of a policy has two dimensions: i) incentive dimension-that provides the incentive to invest on a resources, efficient use of a resources and coordination of efforts and resources towards the same goal; and ii) regulatory dimension, which provides the security to enjoy with the pre-defined rights. The regulatory dimension of a policy imposes regulation over externalities, which in turn avoids all sort of conflict between users, use types, regions, sectors and implementers. More specifically, the specification of a policy provides an enabling environment for all stakeholders: i) For end users -it provides the incentive and security to invest on RWH technologies and efficient use of rainwater resources and technologies in a sustainable and equitable manner;ii) For implementers-it provides the incentive for collaboration and integration of their efforts towards the same goal and vision;iii) For donors -it provides a clear framework to decide where and when to provide the right support and to monitor the achievements of their contribution; iv) For civic society institutions-it provides a clear framework to keep an eye on the implementation of policies and to identify gaps of implementation for policy advocacy; so as to make government accountable to the people and its plans; v) For the private sector-it provides the incentive to invest on alternative water saving RWH technologies for end users; and vi) For government-it will be used as a guideline for strategy formulation, planning, resources allocation and monitoring and evaluation of resource sector performances. So sound policy determines the \"rule of the game\", which governs the relation, behavior and action of all stakeholders in relation to a resource and a resources infrastructure.The structural part of a policy, on the other hand, has to be measured the degree of decentralization of a policy. It is supposed to addresses the question, what type of policy structure provides incentive for efficient and effective implementation of a policy in question. Unlike the degree of policy specification (content of a policy), decentralization of a policy (a policy structure) determines the achievements of targeted development and RWH promotion plans and performances of introduced technologies. Thus, structure of a policy determines the efficiency and effectiveness of a policy; where as content of a policy influences the action and behavior of stakeholder over the use, management and development of rainwater either through providing incentive or imposing restrictions. In principle, the higher the degree of decentralization, the higher will be the efficiency and effectiveness of a policy implementation. This is because a decentralized policy provides quite a number of incentive structures to improve efficiency and effectiveness of policy implementation. Since rainwater is micro in nature, decentralized policy structure has a number of advantages over centralized policy structure.Decentralized policy structure, among others: i) creates an enabling environment for the existence of good governances at local level, so that it forces local leader to be accountable and transparent to the people in terms of rainwater development plans and strategies; ii) creates the participation of people in the process of policy formulation, strategy design and planning, which will allow people to voice their interest, demands and preferences of rainwater use, management and development; and iii) provides incentive for people to participate and to committed themselves for the implementation of RWH policies. These and other advantages of decentralized policy structure improve the social acceptability and feasibility of a rainwater policy. The social acceptability reduces the cost of policy implementation since the cost of compliances and policy enforcement will be minimal. Feasibility (economic, social, political and environmental) on the other hand has a direct implication on the achievements of planned targets (RWH promotions and development plans) and the performances (economic, social, financial, institutional and physical) of introduced RWH technologies. Therefore, decentralized policy structure is effective because it minimizes cost of policy implementation; and it is efficient because it allows achieving the targeted development plans and targeted technology performances. Surprisingly, the above analysis justifies that all stakeholders including government are concerned with the different angles of the same problem. Some are concerns about the structure of policy and others are concerns about the content of a policy, but basically they are all debated over a single problem that is policy. The dual interpretation of this is that all the debates are a confirmation to the importance of policy, even, the wider gap in perceptions itself is the result of lack of specific and decentralized rainwater policy. Policy as we have seen it above is a central framework that shapes both the structure and the content of implementation and political commitment. Hence, in the absence of policy, it is unnecessary, even undesirable, to debate over crisis of a resources management. Thus, we can generalize that the root of a resource management crisis is lack of specified and decentralized structure policy; the other problems are the by-products of the process of policy formulation and implementation, which can be shaped and managed at any time in accordance with the policy framework.Nevertheless, the optimal choice on the degree of specification and decentralization of a resources policy has to take into account both the gain and the cost of policy specification and decentralization. The gain can depend on the nature and the value of a resource to the national economy. One cannot expect the same degree of policy specification and decentralization for petroleum and water. For instance, for petroleum we might need high degree of policy specification that clarify the rights and obligations of petroleum use and management, but it has to be supported by highly centralized policy structure. This is because; decentralization of petroleum (high value resource) management policy can create inequality between regions of a country unless it is managed by the central government. On the other hand, policy specification and decentralization brings quite a number of changes on utilization, management and development of a resource and also on institutions, legislations, technologies of use, budget allocation and so forth. These changes, on the other hand, can bring both unintended and intended social, economic, political and environmental implications over the use and management of a resource. Thus, before any resource policy recommendation, one has to critically examine the net gains from a resource policy. In the coming section, we try to examine the added value of rainwater policy specification and decentralization on the use, management and promotion of RWH technologies.Generally, Ethiopia has different water related general and sectoral policies that are designed to address the sectoral demand of water through integrating the different sources with the intension that these policies can manage the different sources of water in a similar fashion. All the existing policies developed at federal level within the mandate of the respected federal Ministries. So far, there is no policy developed at regional level as far as water is concerned. Accordingly, the federal Ministries \"in consultation with the respective regional bureaus\" compile most water development strategies and plans. Thus, the regional states have to work within the framework of the federal policies, strategies and plans. These policies are, therefore, characterized by centralized structure and non-source specific in content; the policy gaps have to be examined accordingly. For instance, the only rainwater specific statement that one can find throughout the policy document is the general policy objective No.15, which states as:Promote and enhance traditional and localized water harvesting techniques in view of the advantages provided by the schemes' dependence on local resources and indigenous resources.And one statement in the document of implementation strategyEmphasis will be given to water harvesting methods to enhance small scale irrigation development in areas where wet season runoff can be stored and used for food production through constructing dams based on seasonal runoff Now, the question is: are these centralized structure and no-source specific water policies sufficient enough for RWH to play its vital roles and to manage rainwater resources and technology management crisis? In other words, does specification and decentralization of rainwater policy could lead to positive overall performance gain in RWH? Answering this question demands to understand the implications of policy gaps (lack of rainwater specific policies and decentralized policy structure) on the overall performance of rainwater resources and technology use, management and promotion. However, due to lack of empirical data on cost and benefits of rainwater policy, the analysis is limited to examine policy gaps and their implications, rather than calculating the net gain from policy. Moreover, lack of different policies structures in the country does not allow us to disentangle the gain from policy specification from policy decentralization. This has urged to use policy content as a framework of analysis and policy structure as a supporting case for explanation. But, any failure due to lack of incentive and regulation is accounted to policy specification problem, while any failure due to inappropriate plans, inappropriate strategies and infeasibility of RWH technologies to the local context is considered as structural problem of a policy. Below, six major policy components are identified to examine the detail of the policy gaps and their implications. These are: environmental, legislation, economic, technological, institutional and social component, which are discussed in a separate sub-section.Environmental component of rainwater policy is supposed to addressing sustainable use of rainwater through influencing the water conservation, utilization, protection and development action and behavior of users towards the preset standard quality and quantity. In this regard, the soundness of a rainwater policy from its environmental aspect is identified to be measured by the existence of policies related to: i) abstraction control (limit of quantity of utilization); ii) water quality control (standard of qualities); and iii) pollution control. These restrictions are believed to influence the behavior and action of rainwater users and use systems, which could reduce over extraction or over use of rainwater; and improves the equity and sustainability of water use among users and systems. A water policy that misses one or more of these restrictions on the use of rainwater would lead to poor achievements of environmental conservation efforts, unsustainable use of water, and imposition of use externalities.Poor achievements of environmental conservation efforts-there are a number of evidences that support soil erosion or land degradation in the high land parts of the country is the result of high concentration of rainfall, reaching annually up to 2200mm. To curb the problem of soil erosion, a lot of soil and water conservation program have been designed both by the government and NGOs; quite a lot of soil conservation techniques and methods have been introduced across the country; a number of soil and water conservation researches have been conducted, workshops were organized and recommendations forwarded at different levels. Despite all these efforts, the achievements are far less than what had been expected. Soil erosion and land degradation is still one of the critical problems, especially in the highland parts of the country. The country water policy stresses on the importance of basin watershed management approach. However, it is believed that micro level intervention is an appropriate strategy for RWH since it protects the land from degradation, the water from wastage. For this to happen, it entails the adoption of household-level catchments approaches and micro catchments watershed administration, which is not the case.Unsustainable use of water resources: -lack of rainwater specific policy that setout appropriate strategies and plans for unsustainable use of rainwater has reduced sustainability of water uses. In rainwater harvesting, the main interest is on the surface runoff which is the portion of rainfall that runs into rivers and finally into lakes and Oceans. The other part of rainfall is used for groundwater recharge, transpiration, and root zone of plants. Therefore, rainwater as a mother sources is the base to maintain the hydrological cycle of water, sustainability of water use. For instance, the water and soil conservation strategies adopted so far are not user and rainwater centered, rather they are land centered. The approaches have been giving little attention, if any, to the opportunity benefit of rainwater. In those approaches rainwater is considered a threat (cause of soil erosion), which has discouraged conservation of water in different forms. Today, those areas have been suffering from physical scarcity of water due to lack of ground and surface water potentials.imposing environmental externalities: -lack of limit on the abstraction of rainwater, which has resulted in lack of clear rights and obligations on run-off, has resulted in conflict over resource use that the upper catchments owner imposes externalities (over flooding or pollution or appropriation externalities) on down catchments user. For instance, provision externalities, upper users imposition of flood on down stream user, is common in Amhara regional state; and appropriation externalities, head users appropriation of more water against end users, is also a common problem in Tigray regional state.In conclusion, RWH friendly environmental policy should: define the rainwater abstraction quantity and quality rights and obligations of users; define rules and regulation that governs the limit of abstraction in environmental friendly ways; clarify the implications of micro level watershed management administration; clarify the rights and obligations of user's watershed management; and clarify catchments rights and put an obligation on the owner to bear the cost of damages created by inappropriate management of his catchments runoff. In other words, the environmental policy of rainwater harvesting should stress on the definition of rainfall catchments rights (abstraction and quality rights) and obligations (abstraction limits, pollution levels and quality standard) based on environmental friendly criteria.It is observed that rights over different attributes of rainwater and security of those rights have a significant influence to the management of rainwater resources and technologies. The two most important resource rights that hindered the management of rainwater resources and technologies are identified to be land and water rights. These rights hinder the performances of RWH through influencing the soil and water conservation behavior and action of resource users; the adoption of new technologies, techniques and practices of rainwater harvesting; and the incentive to invest on land and water resources.In Ethiopia water is the common property of all Ethiopians, and all citizens have the right to get access to water based on the rules and regulation of the government (MoWR, 2000).There are a lot of communally owned rainwater harvesting structures in the country, most of which are performing very poorly due to lack of timely maintenance and operation. Most scholars argue that the level of community participation determines the success of communal water conservation structure. In Ethiopia some actors including the government, participate and mobilize the community resources at all stages of the project so as to create a sense of ownership. Not only that they also hand over the final rainwater harvesting project formally to the community. With all these processes, the success is not attractive and researchers still recommend the continuous follow up of rainwater harvesting structures by the responsible government organs. We argue here that it is not participation per se that determines the success of RWH, but rather, the involvement of end users at all stages of the projects. Community involvement, however, requires enabling policy environment that enhance collective action. Water tenure system is one of such policy instruments that enhance community involvement for collective action. Moreover, security of the water tenure system enhances the adoption of new rainwater harvesting technologies, methods and improved soil and water conservation practices and the willingness of resources users to invest in RWH, be it in the form of capital, labor or material.Our field observation has also confirmed this fact. In Tigray, Amhara and Oromiya regions we have observed that clear definition of communal rights, individual rights with in the group and complete devolution of water management power to end users has improved performances of RWH technologies. It is observed that appropriate right should not be limited to water and the physical structures of the rainwater, but it has to also include the right of making decision at all stage of the project.The RWH rights have to be catchments right, i.e., right should be inclusive of land, water, vegetation, rights of the rainwater catchments in question. The other non-resources rights should also include the right to determine crop and method of cultivation; the right to determine the techniques, methods, technologies and practices of water harvesting; the right to protect the land against conversion to other uses, the right to determine the type of land use, method and practices of soil conservation activities, the right to determine the method and finance of rainwater harvesting structures, the right to determine the use of harvested rainwater and inter sectoral transfer.It is also observed that the traditional communal schemes have shown better performance and sustainability of physical structures (operation and maintenance of scheme are done on time) as compared to government initiated projects. The discussion we had with the communities of communal RWH users revealed that the communities does not feel a sense of ownership at all. But, they had contributed resources and labor because of government mobilization; they might call such contribution. In some areas like Fogerra district of the Amhara regional state, community members are not willing to use the structures. They rather feel that RWH structures are sources of health problem due to health officials' awareness raising. They even attached it to famine (bad luck to the future) since its promotion is attached to food security intervention with food security budget donated by aid agencies. As a result, the community felt that RWH structures are donors and/or state property and, therefore, they should be responsible for maintenance and operation. The community felt that they are only responsible to report the problems to owners (DAs or other government officials). In those areas, community awareness raising and water right clarification might be priority policy issues, before any project intervention. It is observed that the size and homogeneity of groups and capacity of leadership plays a significant role for the success of communally managed RWH structures. In the case of private RWH structures, however, land transferability right, price of water from other sources, expected benefits from rainwater and level of government intervention determine the willingness of individuals to invest for maintenance and operation of the rainwater harvesting structure.RWH not only requires transparent water right but also transparent individual and communal land tenure systems. Land tenure is a system of land ownership governed by the land law and land policies. In Ethiopia land belongs to the state and citizens. The user has the right to use the land for an indefinite time. Since rainwater harvesting involves long-term investment and the user requires a tenure system. For instance, rainwater-harvesting structures owned by private owners have shown better performance than the communal ones. This is because in the case of private RWH structures, the owners have the right to exclude outsiders and the ability to reap the benefit of labor and capital invested for rainwater collection either through sale or direct use. However, lack of transferability right of land in the form of mortgage, sell and collateral has affected the adoption of rainwater technology in three ways. First, restriction on transferability of land in those forms (mortgage, sale and collateral) reduces the incentive of farms to adopt landbased water harvesting technologies. For example, farmers in Awe zone of Amhara region are not willing to have private rainwater harvesting structure in areas, which are far from their residence places. This is because; they feel that land nearer to the homestead is the most secured area that is not affected by future land reallocation. Second, restriction on market transferability of land reduces market exchange of land and also investment values on land including rainwater-harvesting technology since its transferability right is attached to land. Third, restriction on transferability of land reduces the possibility of using rainwaterharvesting structure as collateral to get access to capital. Rainwater harvesting structures can be used as important collateral assets. However, it has value to potential lenders only if the owner is able to transfer his right to the lender to the extent that it can be sold to third parties, in case of default. Thus, what is important is not the ownership of land per se, but rather it is the completeness (the existence of the three dimensions of land property rights) and quality (divisibility of rights) of land rights that determine the success of adopting rainwater technology, techniques and new water conservation practices.Land right also affects the distribution of water. For instance, in Tigray region use of runoff from communal land exacerbates conflict, whereas in Amhara region, upper users' imposition of externalities (over flooding) on down stream catchment users is becoming the main sources of conflict. Both of them need to be tackled through incentive and/or deterrent policy measures. The problem with communal land right is very severe since users have no complete exclusion right leave alone the transferability and security right dimensions of a property right. This has reduced the incentive of individual user's collective action towards the development of rainwater structures. That is why in most of the cases the communal rainwater harvesting structures are initiated by external entities be it government or NGOs. This has resulted in low social, economic, physical and financial performances on communally owned rainwater-harvesting structures. The external actors have also ignored the policy variables and they are focusing on technical feasibility of structures. However, field experiences tell us that how technology might be feasible and sound; enabling policy variables, which determine the nature and quality of water and land rights, influences the adoption. The above facts imply that RWH requires investment on land in the form of watershed management or soil and water conservation, which demands a clear land policy. Clear land policy is an important policy measure in the country for both optimal and sustainable use of the land and water resources.To sum up, the above analysis provides strong evidence that unclear definitions and uncertainty in rainwater laws is a critical limiting factor to achieve a sustainable and efficient use of rainwater resources and technologies. Therefore, a sound rainwater policy is required to justify the need of legislation on water rights, distribution and utilization, and means of how to secure those rights. It should clarify: i) entitlement and responsibility of users; ii) the role of state and other stakeholders; iii) the process of water allocation within and between sectors and users; iv) the legal status of various rainwater user group; and v) sustainability of RWH use. It should further address questions like: i) who is bearing unwanted cost? ii) What is the prevailing institutional set up (or rights structure) that allows this situation to persist? iii) Who must bear the transaction costs necessary to resolve the situation? and iv) who gains and losses by this particular resolution of the problem? Legislative component of a water policy defines the legal environment (laws and regulations), which is required to regulate the water distribution among sectors and users at specific time, amount and space.It is recognized that rainwater has a paramount potential to reduce the current level of water scarcity. However, it might be surprising that rainwater and rainwater technologies are the most poorly managed resources in the country mainly due to the provision of inappropriate subsidy both to rainwater and other water supply sub sectors.Ethiopia has been giving support (subsidy) to promote both the communal and private RWH for the last three years. The support includes free provision of plastic sheets and other related materials. This free provision of supports or subsidies has created a number of social, environmental and economic problems. These include: increase users' dependency on public or state resources, lack of sense of ownership for the property, inefficient use of RWH facilities and irrational use of public budget. These results are the outcomes of lack of appropriate RWH promotion policy and strategy that governs the provision, monitoring and evaluation of supports. Such kind of capacity building efforts (subsidies) does not improve the efficiency and effectiveness of rainwater resources management. This is because the subsidy efforts do not take into account the capacity that the local people already have. This is called \"blanket\" subsidy approach, meaning the same type and level of subsidy is given for all communities regardless of their initial potentials (skill, resources, services, experience, and technology) accumulated throughout their life. A subsidy system that takes into account the existing local potentials is called \"thresholds subsidy\". The central approach of this subsidy is to fill the resources, technology, skill and experiences gaps that allow users to sustain the provision of water services. Hence, the amount of RWH subsidy shall be determined based on three key factors: i) the level of capacity already available with in the community or resources user; ii) the amount of water required to get access to the different services of water based on some standard criteria; and iii) the type of technology chosen for RWH. This definitely requires estimating the standard water demand of water user; and assessing the capacity and the willingness of the user to get access to the different services of water. Once we know the water demand and capacity of the user, the next step is to search for appropriate RWH technologies that satisfy the water demand of an individual water user or a group.Even though, the national water policy encourages efficient utilization of water for higher economic and social values, but most components of the water sector are still operated with subsidy for social reasons. All domestic urban (except Mekele town) and rural water supplies are still operating with government subsidies. Similarly, except in few areas of the Amhara regional state, irrigation water is supplied free of charges. The current high government subsidies both for irrigation and domestic supply reduce the value of water. Given the low preference to rainwater, subsidies and free supply of water from other sources, has further reduced the demand of rainwater, which in turn reduces the demand of RWH technologies and efficient use of rainwater resources and structures.The water sector subsidy has five implications on the economic use and management of rainwater resources and technologies. First, the current low water price for domestic supply both in urban and rural areas, and zero price for irrigation water discourage users to invest in rainwater harvesting structures even under the condition where there is no alternative water sources and the cost of rainwater supply is cheaper than other sources. Second, the low price of water supply has created a negative attitude towards the value of rainwater so that users have no interest to use the already accessed rainwater leave alone saving and conserving it. The evidence from most urban areas of Ethiopia (even water scarce areas like Harer) shows us that rainwater is not considered as a water sources at all. Third, low water price discourages efficient utilization of water (opportunity cost of water). For instance, water utilization efficiency of users in Fogerra district of the Amhara regional state is different from source to source. Efficiency is very high in the case of pump water users since access to water through pump is costly both in terms of fuel, maintenances, and operation as compared to other water sources. As a result, motor users are the ones who tried to adopt different soil moisture conservation practices and techniques to increase the per unit productivity of land and to minimize their cost of production so as to compete in the product market. Surprisingly, due to high cost of water supply, motor users in Fogerra are forced to shift their cropping pattern from high market value crops to crops that are not grown up by government subsidized irrigations scheme users. Thus, the government subsidy of irrigation scheme (low price of irrigation water supply) reduces the market competition of farmers who invest money and labor on water including rainwater harvesting.Fourth, low price of water discourages the adoption of new rainwater harvesting techniques, methods and practices. In most area of the country, users are reluctant to adopt new water conservation and rainwater harvesting structures due to the fact that government supply of water is by far cheaper than accessing water through the adoption of new technologies and method of water conservation. As a result, the most critical source of conflict in Amhara region as far as rainwater is concerned is the upper users' imposition of flood on down stream users. This is because users have no interest to invest money, time and labor in harvesting rainwater even if there is high scarcity of water. Since government supplies water in nearby areas with zero or very low price, they prefer to have the same support rather than finding their own means like rainwater harvesting.Fifth, the low price of water reduces the incentive of private sector to involve in the supply of the different services of water for users including rainwater harvesting. From this, one can safely conclude that high government subsidy of the water sector reduces the value of rainwater, the adoption of new technology, incentive for investment and efficient utilization of rainwater.The above facts indicate that how RWH is uniquely affected by water economic policy and how it is sensitive to allocation of other water sources. This is because decision on rainwater use requires taking into account other several economic variables. Generally, it is observed that other sectors water subsidy is a cause for rainwater water use inefficiency. Thus, improving efficiency of rainwater use urges to introduce appropriate water price to other water supply sectors.Institutions involved in the rainwater sub sector and the framework of rules within which they operate are so critical to the achievement of RWH vision, plans and targets. With regards to rainwater, initially it was not as such recognized as water source at federal level. It was treated under soil and water conservation packages through the Ministry of Agriculture (food for work programmes for instance) and its respective regional agricultural bureaus until today; and natural resources development bureaus in 1989. The revision of the country's food security strategy (the inclusion of rainwater harvesting) was a breakthrough event for the taking up of rainwater issues into the agenda of policy makers. From this time onwards, the agenda of water harvesting has been raised in the name of food security for the last three years both at regional and federal levels. Recently, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development established a separate department responsible for rainwater harvesting. Similarly, regional states have been using different organizational structure to promote RWH and they have undergone a number of intuitional reforms. The reform is still going on in most regional states. For instance, in Amhara regional sate, rainwater has been constantly handled by the Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Development. While in Oromiya it was managed by Irrigation Development Authority in the past, but recently it has been under the Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Development. The case of SNPP is similar to Oromiya. In Tigray the Bureau of Water Resources has implemented it. Institutional environment, users' management and institutional capacity building are identified as the three major institutional policy constraints to the promotion of RWH.Institutional environment-defines mandate of actors, which clarify the roles, responsibilities, and authority of actors. Specially, in the regional states there are so many actors including NGOs, environmental protection bureaus, water bureaus, rural development and agricultural bureaus, health bureaus, land authority and others, which have different concerns (even some times opposite concern) in the management of rainwater. However, all this actors lack clearly defined roles, responsibilities and authorities. It means there are no clearly defined framework, rules and regulations that govern the interaction, communication, planning and coordination of implementations. According to regional bureau officers, lack of this clarity hinders the promotion of RWH by: i) reducing the incentive for coordination of efforts and resources; ii) increasing conflict over roles due to confusion of roles and responsibilities; iii) hindering experience sharing on best practices; iv) reducing the level of community participation, and ignoring indigenous water management institutions and local experiences; v) reducing the sustainability of efforts, continuity of activities and efficiency of implementation; vi) reducing accountability and transparency of end users; and vii) increasing roles promoting contradictory approaches; viii) increasing institutional instability, which has created job insecurity; and x) reducing clarity between the roles and responsibilities of federal bureau and regional states.Users` management: -in the national water management policy stresses decentralization as devolution of resource management power to regional states. But, rainwater requires absolute decentralization up to end users since most of the policy concerns of RWH are micro by their nature than as stated in the national policy. Decentralization of rainwater management, therefore, requires complete devolution of rainwater catchments to end users including catchments user right, exclusion right, management right, resources mobilization right, right of selecting services and service providers and right of institutional self determination.Moreover, the management rights has to be as comprehensive as possible, it include rights over other resources of the catchments such as land, forest and wildlife of the catchments. Lack of rainwater friendly complete and comprehensive decentralization has resulted in lack of incentive for collective management, investment and sense of responsibility, which in turn resulted in poor maintenance and operation of communal rainwater structures and conflict over the use of rainwater and RWH structures. The current population centered local government administrations further hinders the promotion of communal RWH. This is due to the fact that RWH demands to have rainwater centered (micro level watershed) administration rather than structures like \"kebele\", \"gott\" and \"cell\" (in the case of Amhara region for example).Capacity building: -The national management policy also stresses on the need for enhancing the capacity of regional states. Unlike other sub sectors of water, RWH as new area of intervention might require special attention in improving the capacity of stakeholders at different levels beginning from public awareness raising. Lack of rainwater specific policy in this regard made RWH deserves little attention in all aspects of capacity building (research, information and human development) as compared to other water sources like rivers, groundwater and lakes for three reasons. Even the accomplished ones are either inappropriate or unsustainable for three reasons. First, its role was recognized very recently in the name of food security and hence its role is limited to drought mitigation. Second, instability of implementing organs, especially at regional levels has increased due to reshuffling and staffs turnover. Third, lack of awareness on the value of rainwater at all levels discourages many people from working on RWH. That is why the failure of most RWH structures is associated with technical problems due to lack of skill in installation, design and site selection at all levels.Therefore, clarification on institutional issues believed to enhance the participation of all stakeholders; avoid confusion of roles and responsibilities to reduce duplication of efforts; enhance coordination of efforts and resources; improve capacity and effectiveness of services provision; and clarify the rights and obligations of users in the resources management. Recently, Ethiopia has introduced a number of rainwater harvesting technologies from different corners of the world and there is no empirical evidence that clearly indicates one type of technology is better than the other. Even the type of technologies already introduced in the country is not certainly known. However, some preliminary studies indicate that the performance of most of the adopted rainwater harvesting structures area not achieving their intended objectives due to technical, environmental and hydrological reasons. As most engineers argue it is true that the choice of the technologies is site specific because its success is determined by a number of area specific variables like soil type, land characteristics, rainfall availability and variability and other area specific variables. On the other hand, rainwater-harvesting technologies introduced from countries of more or less similar environmental and economic conditions are not successful as intended to be. Moreover, we have observed successes and failures of the same technologies introduced under similar ecological, technical and hydrological conditions due to the difference in the socio-economic characteristics of the user, especially in the case of privately owned structures.The dual interpretation of this is that the choice of a technology is also influenced by the ability to afford and the willingness of the decision maker to buy the technology or to invest for operation and maintenances. This could also be influenced by policy incentives. Equity in water allocation refers to fairness with respect to distribution of costs and benefits of a resource among individual or group users, systems and regions. Inequitable allocation of water could be natural (due to uneven distribution of resources) and /or project oriented like the introduction of RWH technologies. The most important inequity of RWH projects can be manifested in 5 ways. These are: i) income inequality-income disparity created due to the project; ii) gender inequality-unequal treatment of the voice and the choice of men and women in the project designing, implementation; and distribution of the cost and the benefits of the project; iii) inequality of upper and downstream usersresulting from externalities of the project (when the upper stream project user imposes externality on downstream user); iv) cattle raiser and farmer inequality -when cattle damage the RWH structure of the farmer or the health hazard of cattle affects the RWH farmer; and v) generation inequity-resulting in over abstraction of rainwater without taking into account the hydrological cycle of water and ground water discharge role.The national water management policy addresses some key issues of water appropriation. The addressed policy issues are more focusing on improving the initial water inequalities created due to uneven distribution of the natural water sources, mainly to improve the inequity of water allocation among regional states. However, implementation of water projects by itself can also create inequalities; inequalities result from unequal distribution of costs and benefits of a project between poor and rich, current and future generation, pastoralists and agriculturalists, upper stream users and downstream users, men and women. This would create income disparity, externality, conflict and degradation of the water resources. Thus, policy should also highlight a framework that will urge a project planner to take in to account all those concerns. The following examples can help to examine the important of rainwater specific policies to minimize inequalities.Lack of region rainwater specific might be one of the causes for the aggravation of regional water allocation inequities. As it is known, the national water potential is distributed unevenly and mismatch with the settlement of the population. It is estimated that only 30% to 40% of the population is settled in area where 80% to 90% of the water sources are found. On the other hand, more than 60% of the population is settled in areas where only 10% to 20% of the water sources are found (MoWR, 2000). This definitely requires either to transport water from water surplus regions to water deficit regions and/ or looking for other supply options like rainwater harvesting to provide the different service of water a least at basic survivable level leave alone equity. However, with the current national capacity and uneven distribution of the water resources, addressing the issues of equity using the current approach of focusing on ground water is unthinkable, especially in those areas where population is highly dispersed and has limited access to other alternative water sources. In this situation, RWH technology has paramount role to address regional water distribution inequalities. However, due to lack of rainwater specific policy that provides appropriate region specific incentives and strategies hinder the promotion of RWH technologies in moisture stress area. Contrary to the actual fact, better RWH promotion efforts have been put in those areas where there is alternative source of water. But, the availability of alternative options and low price of water supply from other sources reduces the acceptance of RWH technologies in those areas, but rather, it increases the degree of water allocation inequalities between regions. Take for example, the price of water per truckload, which ranges from Birr 500 to 800 in Afar region, and people who are not able to afford this price that is used to travel 15 to 20 km to fetch water for domestic consumption (MoWR, 2002). Surprisingly, the efforts to promote RWH are very minimal in those areas, even; attempts are unsuccessful, due to lack of appropriate policy incentives to individuals and groups to invest on RWH technologies.Government has been promoting private RWH technologies more than communal for reasons of divisibility and addressing household level food security. The high cost of rainwater structures, however, increases the disparity of water allocation between the poor and the rich people. In most of the cases, the rich, the one who able to afford the privately owned rainwater harvesting structure, while the poor are forced to buy water at relatively high price. This is mainly due to lack of appropriate RWH micro financing policy that addresses the interest of the poor. Existing micro financing institutions are becoming profit oriented and demand group guarantee, which excludes the poor and marginalized group since group members are not willing to take responsibility for the poor. This further exacerbates the income gap between the poor and rich due to the fact that the poor have been denied access to water for production.Lack of sectoral rainwater use policy and strategy also increases the inequality of rainwater allocation among sectors. Rainwater has significant contribution in all water demanding sectors. However, except the agricultural sector (food security), the other sectors give very little attention, if any, to RWH. Others consider it as a threat to their sectoral development like health and environment. This undermines the potential roles that rainwater can play and reduces the true economic value (opportunity cost) of rainwater. Thus, maximization of rainwater opportunities entails the creation of enabling policy environments that enhance the maximization of rainwater opportunities to the sector in question.The other misleading concept in the policy document is the issues of gender. Gender does not refer to only women. By definition it refers to the qualitative and independent character of women and men's position in the society. Therefore, equal attention need to be give for both sexes in terms of incorporating their voices and choices in all stages of the project. The other policy element, which is ignored by the national water resources management policy, is management of externalities created due to the use or over use of water resources. Moreover, given water is a scarce resource, equity of RWH benefits should take in to account efficiency of rainwater uses (economic aspect). This means a rainwater policy should also keep the balance between efficiency and equity of rainwater use. This is especially important for rainwater resources management, which exhibits tradeoffs between efficiency and equity.Generally, centralized and non-source specific policies do not fit to manage all water sources in a similar fashion due to the difference in the nature of sources, which determine the technical, environmental, social, economic and political feasibilities of a water source in question. This means that different water sources require different policies due to the need to use different strategies, technologies, institutions, legislations, and environmental regulations. The difference in implications requires to recommend new approaches to administration, new roles for government officials, recognition of multiple stakeholders, new roles for civil society institutions and NGOs, administrative coordination, information sharing and communication, a legal framework, research, capacity building and strong local institutions, so and so forth. Thus, there is strong evidence on the need of rainwater specific and decentralized policy that could address environmental, institutional, technological, legal, social and economic concerns of rainwater resources and technologies; so as resolve the current rainwater resources and technology management crisis and gear rainwater utilization towards the national overall socioeconomic development. Unless some actions are taken, it is very difficult, if not unthinkable, to promote RWH technologies, to smoothly handle the current rainwater resources and technology management crisis, to fully manage externalities of unused potentials, and to fully use the potentials and use opportunities of rainwater for the development of the national economy as it has been expected, using the current general water policy. Thus, this section clearly answer the question of what type of rainwater policy do we need. Now the follow up question would be: To what extent should it be specified and decentralized? We will discuss it in the coming section,.What Alternative Policy Options Did the Research Propose? Given all the discussion in the above sections the author argues that two levels rainwater specific policy is an ideal policy in the context of Ethiopia (see the detail of the argument from below).The current integrated sector-based water policy is an overarching framework that was developed based on national demand and supply concept of sectoral uses such as irrigation, hydroelectric power, industry and domestic consumption. This has ignored regional differences in water demand coverage, availability of water sources; development targets and approaches. Similar to the national water policy goal, regions have different development approaches based on their conditions. For instance, different regions have different soil and water conservation, food security, and agricultural production strategies. That means, the water resources management has to be in line with the regions' general development strategies and water demand of different sectors. Moreover, different regions have different water potential with different levels of water constraints. They have also different sources of water, which are more or less sound under different contexts and settings. For instance, rainwater harvesting supply options may be viable for moisture stress areas where there is limited permanent water sources or if supply measures are costly.On top of that the potentials and constraints of RWH are too area-specific (land, soil, climate and topography specific) and user specific (livelihood style, economic capacity to afford the technology and culture of user), which necessitates micro-level area, and users centered intervention. The constraint of promoting RWH in one region is not necessarily the same as in other region and this is true of the solution too. Thus, all issues are difficult to be managed by uniform national water management policy.For this reason, national water policy needs to be supported by region specific water policy so as to address region specific constraints under the framework of the national rainwater policy. In this regard, the two levels RWH specific policy, national RWH specific policy coupled with region specific RWH policies, satisfies both conditions of a quality resource policy (better degree of decentralization and resource specification). The national RWH specific policy could help the country to carefully examine the different roles of RWH in satisfying the different services of water to the national economy, its linkage with other water sources and regional water use implications (hydro politics implications). Region specific rainwater policy is also important to give more attention to the specific requirements of regions, and mitigate area and user specific constraints of RWH promotion.Unlike other options, two levels rainwater specific water policy is quite important to mitigate the current problems since rainwater specific policy will: i) develop basic rainwater specific utilization, development control and conservation principles at national and regional levels; ii) develop rainwater friendly legislative and institutional reforms, and land policy that fits RWH; iii) clarify the role, responsibility and authority of actors in the promotion of RWH, and right of users in the management, development and utilization of rainwater; iv) give value for the potential role of rainwater to sustain other water sources (linkage with other sources); v) optimally allocate rainwater among users and use systems; vi) improve efficiency and equity of rainwater utilization among users and use systems; and vii) effectively implement RWH specific projects and allow continuity, and coordination of efforts; and vii) identify RWH specific capacities required at different levels such as research, human capital and information.This will allow rainwater institutions to play their vital role of improving the technical, social, economic, financial and environmental feasibility, and sustainability of rainwater harvesting efforts. It will also enhance the commitment of political leaders and other actors to allocate resources for promoting rainwater harvesting in a sustainable way. Currently, rainwater harvesting is strongly attached with food security policy, which is mostly promoted by donors and external resources like EU, IFAD. Implementation is also quota centered rather than demand driven in most regions of the country. Moreover, policy urges the development of strategic planning for rainwater resource development, protection and utilization, which makes implementation effective, efficient and sustainable. It also encourages water users to conserve rainwater and invest on alternative rainwater harvesting technologies. Generally, two levels RWH specific policy will help us maximize all the opportunities of RWH and fully tackle the aforementioned environmental, economic, social, institutional, legislative and technological constraints of RWH promotion. However, its implementation is so costly since implementation of the policy requires having separate institutional, administration and legislative support both at national and regional levels. In this regard, South Africa is the only country with rainwater specific national water policy in AfricaToday, more than 1.2 billion people live in \"extreme consumption poverty\" 1 , which the international community defines as the equivalent of living on less than one dollar a day. Seventy-five percent of these people live in rural areas, have very small plots of land and depend on agriculture for their livelihood 2 . Solutions to rural poverty must focus on these rural poor farmers. These farmers must grow high-value crops on their small parcels of land, in order to materially enhance their wellbeing and incomes. But to do this, it usually requires irrigation.Traditional surface irrigation practices have in the past been suitable for smallholders who are fortunate enough to have abundant low-cost supplies of water. However, the traditional practices smallholders use do not utilize water very efficiently in terms of crop yield per unit of the water applied. Furthermore, the income disparity between the millions of smallholders and the rest of society is widening while simultaneously there is growing competition for the world's finite freshwater resources. Therefore, since water is usually the most critical factor that directly affects the intrinsic production capacity of their land, it is critical that smallholders begin using more efficient water supply and irrigation technologies.Unfortunately, the available configurations of the modern and efficient water supply strategies and irrigation technologies, which were typically designed for relatively well financed larger farms, are not well suited for the needs of smallholders. It does not work to simply downsize a sophisticated water management technology to fit a small plot. Polak, et al. (1997) recognized that it is not sufficient to merely scale-down \"state of the art\" irrigation technologies that are appropriate for larger commercial farms. Systems must be reengineered to match smallholders' unique characteristics (e.g., small landholdings, low capital availability, low risk tolerance, and relatively low opportunity cost of family labor). Features that are important to smallholders include: 1) low investment cost; 2) suitable for various plot/field sizes at about the same cost per unit of area served; 3) rapid return on investment; 4) simple affordable maintenance; and 5) operating at very low pressure heads. Thus, greater attention must be given to developing and disseminating appropriate water technologies that will enable smallholders to have access to and better control over water for crop production. Providing appropriate and efficient irrigation technologies requires the development of new low-cost products specifically designed for smallholders. Then manufacturing them as locally and inexpensively as possible and marketing them to the smallholders.The following definition (which is from an engineering perspective) of a technology that would be appropriate for smallholders was presented by Amadei (2004): \"An appropriate technology is usually characterized as small scale, energy efficient, environmentally sound, labor-intensive, and controlled by the local community. It must be simple enough to be maintained by the people who use it. In short, it must match the user and the need in complexity and scale and must be designed to foster selfreliance, cooperation, and responsibility.\"The availability of affordable small-scale irrigation technologies (ASITs) unlocks the potential benefits of modern pressurized irrigation systems for literally millions of resource-poor farmers (even where water supplies were considered insufficient or too costly to acquire for traditional irrigation methods). With this belief, the International Development Enterprises (IDE), a non-profit organization, has taken up the challenge of developing and intensifying the use of ASITs in developing countries through a methodology it calls PRISM (Poverty Reduction through Irrigation and Smallholder Markets). PRISM envisions the smallholder as a microentrepreneur who transforms natural resources (land and water), human resources (labor and know-how), and purchased inputs, such as ASITs, into high value agricultural products that can be marketed at economically rewarding prices. IDE uses the PRISM methodology to assist in the creation of pro-poor rural market systems based on: a) exploring and identifying market opportunities, and b) good water control. Since water is an essential input in all agriculture production systems, ASITs play an important role in integrating smallholders into the market system and improving their livelihoods ( Heierli, 2000;Postel, et al. 2001).PRISM was developed by the International Development Enterprises (IDE). IDE is a nonprofit organization that employs market principles to strike at the roots of rural in the world's least developed countries. Since 1981, IDE has worked to reduce poverty in Asia and Africa by helping the rural poor increase their agricultural productivity and income. Using relatively few resources, IDE has helped empower some two million small-farm families to progress from subsistence agriculture to small-scale commercial farming and begin an upward spiral out of poverty. IDE is working in Asia (India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nepal, China, Vietnam, Mynamar, Pakistan) and Africa (Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Niger). Currently, the Ethiopian Society for Appropriate Technology (ESAT) is collaborating with IDE to introduce the PRISM approach to Ethiopia.PRISM is founded on the following key concepts and principles:• Focus on the smallholder. Effective solutions to poverty must deal with smallholders for the simple reason that they constitute the majority of the world's poor. We define smallholders as farmers cultivating between 20 square meters and two hectares of land. The term \"smallholder\" denotes a rural household operating in the context of at least under-developed market systems, with highly restricted access to land, water and capital.• Smallholders' comparative advantage in high value crops. Smallholders have an important advantage over larger farmers in that their family labor can be applied to their small holdings with little or no cost o f supervision. The smallholder can capitalize on this characteristic to develop a comparative advantage on labor-intensive farming systems where the factors of production must be closely managed.Comparative advantage is most readily developed in the production of certain high value crops, such as fruits, vegetables, flowers, etc. With concentrated, laborintensive production systems, it is possible for smallholders to achieve higher yields per unit area and better quality produce than farmers that cultivate larger areas with capital-intensive farming systems. Larger farms, on the other hand, are usually better suited to the production of staple crops, which require less intensive management and are more adaptable to mechanization than most high value crops.This comparative advantage of smallholders can be further enhanced through the provision of products and services that are suited to their unique characteristics and that will enhance their ability to grow and sell crops efficiently.• Designing solutions from a smallholder perspective. Production technologies, both hardware and resource management practices, must be designed to suit the characteristics and resource availability of smallholders (Figure 1). Smallholders are micro-entrepreneurs and they are served by other micro and small enterprises' (MSEs) in input and output markets (see Figure 2). Smallholders' profitability depends on the degree to which they are integrated with these market systems, both as purchasers of agricultural inputs and producers of saleable crops.• Market demand is the driving force. Demand for agricultural commodities provides the \"pulling force\" that drives the value chains in which smallholders participate.• Constraints to effective smallholder market participation. Smallholders, and the MSEs that serve them, face a range of constraints at the farm level and in the input and output markets. The lack of water access and control is usually a key constraint. Other constraints may relate to technology, market information, access to credit, technical knowledge, and socially prescribed gender/socio-cultural roles. The PRISM approach is based on three pillars: water control, supply chains and market access i) Water control: Water is often a key constraint to smallholder productivity. The livelihoods of the large majority of small-scale farm families are dependent on rainfedagriculture. Their options to diversify into irrigated-agriculture are constrained by lack of appropriate and affordable water control technologies. In the PRISM approach, smallholder farmers are supported to get access to water lifting, water-storage and waterdistribution technologies that are low-cost, simple and adaptable (these technologies will be discussed later in great detail).ii) Private supply chains for delivery of inputs and outputs: Experience shows that smallholder farmers must have regular access to a series of inputs and services, such as seeds, fertilizers, agro-chemicals, low cost irrigation technologies, credit, transport, etc. These inputs and services are better delivered by the private sector. The private sector comprises exporters, importers, distributors, local manufacturers, whole sellers, retailers, installers and advisors. Usually, in remote areas with predominantly poor farmers, this private sector is missing or underdeveloped. This bottleneck can be overcome through supply chain development interventions.iii) Market access: A primary cause of the persistent poverty faced by the rural poor is that they have limited interaction with markets.With less than one dollar per person per day, they cannot afford to purchase agricultural inputs or invest in production technologies, resulting in low land and labor productivity that does not raise much above subsistence levels. Consequently, they have little or no surplus production to sell to the market. The poor farmers' access to market is also constrained by many other factors, such as lack of market information on product demand and price, inadequate or no entrepreneurial skills, poor rood network and transport services. Often, small farmers get low price for their produce due to low product quality, their weak bargaining power and market glut at harvest time due to excess supply. PRISM views smallholders as entrepreneurs and enhances supports them to actively participate in markets by helping them produce marketable high value crops, access timely market and through market development interventions.For the interest of this symposium, our presentation will concentrate on PRISM's propoor water control (micro-irrigation) technologies that have been developed and promoted by IDE in Asia and Africa (Zambia and Zimbabwe).The water technologies that are described below include the following: treadle pumps and storage tanks to supply water for crop irrigation; and low-cost drip irrigation systems to apply water to high value crops. The development of these efficient and affordable water technologies provides smallholders with an essential tool for intensifying their farming practices. This allows them to grow high value crops and significantly boost their farming income.The treadle pump is a true and mature appropriate water technology designed, manufactured and marketed with smallholders in mind. It is a simple low-cost manual (footoperated) pump that can lift water from shallow groundwater sources or surface water bodies. The typical pump consists of two vertical cylinders fitted with pistons that are interconnected using a pulley (or lever) system so when using a stepping motion, as one treadle is pushed down the other treadle is moved up Basic treadle pumps can lift water from depths of up to seven meters with a flow rate ranging from about 30 to 80 liters per minute (lpm) depending on the rigor of the operator, water depth, and cylinder diameter. Pressure treadle pumps can no t only lift water, but also provide pressure heads of up to 20 m at the pump outlet.Treadle pumps are beautifully suitable for agricultural use by smallholders because:• They are inexpensive, for example, in Southeast Asia, the retail cost of a basic pump ranges from US $12 to $15 including the wood or bamboo treadles and support structure (see Figure 1). However, in Africa the typical cost ranges from $55 to $95 because pressure pumps are usually required and they generally have steel treadles and supports so they are compact and portable to facilitate moving to a secure location when not in use. The cost of a shallow borehole well (when necessary) varies according to local geological conditions, but typically ranges from $20 to $80 in alluvial soils. • The design and construction of the pumps is simple, so local craftsmen can manufacture them using readily available tools and materials; and they can be maintained and repaired easily by the users. Parts requiring periodic replacement such as plastic piston seals, which are common to many popular hand pumps, are usually available in local markets. The foot valve at the bottom of each cylinder is made from rubber that can be replaced using a discarded bicycle tire inner tube.• Because they have two pistons, water is kept in motion during the up-and downstrokes resulting in a continuous flow and efficient use of manual energy. • Leg muscles are used in a natural walking motion making it possible for an operator to pump for several hours per day delivering enough water to drip irrigate roughly 2,000 m² of vegetable cropped area. Keller and Roberts (2003) presented the following brief history of treadle pumps:\"The treadle pump was developed in Bangladesh by an (NGO), Rangpur-Dinajpur Rural Services (RDRS), and popularized by another NGO, International Development Enterprises (IDE). Beginning in 1986, IDE-Bangladesh facilitated a market network of approximately 65 manufacturers, 700 dealers, and 5000 installers and stimulated demand for the pumps through mass media campaigns in rural areas (Hiereli 2000). To date, approximately 1.5 million treadle pumps have been distributed through market channels in Bangladesh and another half million have been distributed through similar programs in other Asian countries.\" Shah et al (2000) studied the socioeconomic impact of the treadle pump in eastern India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. The research indicated that treadle pumps enabled smallholders to intensively manage water and other inputs on \"priority plots\" within their land holdings, which significantly increased their agricultural production and income. The average additional net income to land and labor was found to be more than $100 per year per smallholder, and a significant percentage of them were making an extra $500 or more per year. The extra income enabled some treadle pump owners to graduate to a higher level of mechanization by purchasing engine driven pumps for irrigation.Shah also pointed out that with treadle pumps, the cost of new irrigation development in these areas is only $100 to $120 per hectare, with the poorest farmers being the beneficiaries. In view of this success several NGOs are actively involved in the promotion of treadle pumps throughout Asia (including China) and Sub-Saharan Africa using the market creation approach to development.Drip irrigation has the potential to be the most efficient irrigation technology when evaluated in terms of crop production per unit of water applied. This is because the water can be uniformly delivered to each plant through a closed pipe system. Thus converting from traditional surface irrigation to drip irrigation can significantly increase the area of land that can be fully irrigated with a given volume of water.Figure 4 shows a schematic of an IDE low-cost micro-tube drip irrigation system. These drip systems are low-cost, require a minimum of filtration, are available in small packages, operate at low inlet pressure, and are easy to understand and maintain by smallholders. These low-cost drip systems are available with sizes ranging from 20m2 to 2 hectares (ha). They are very affordable, with an installed cost in India of between $0.03 and $0.05/m² ($300 to $500/ha) for the laterals with drippers plus the sub-main, depending on field size, lateral spacing and layout. Where as the standard commercial drip systems cost from $0.15 to $0.25/m² ($1,500 to $2,500 per ha).The affordable design of the low cost IDE system is made possible because:• The systems operate at inlet pressure heads of from 1 to 3 m, so lightweight tubing and inexpensive fittings can be used and leaks are easily repaired. • The major system components are plain tubing and simple fittings and the microtube drippers and fittings are installed in the field. • The plain tubing and simple fittings can be manufactured by utilizing inexpensive manually controlled extruders and simple molds; therefore, • the entry cost for manufactures is very low, which assures a competitive marketing environment.• The systems are lightweight and the lateral and sub-main tubing is packaged in tight rolls; therefore, transportation and handling costs are low.• The system components are simple and easy to assemble without sophisticated tools; therefore, farmers can install their own systems.Besides being affordable the IDEal drip systems have the following other attributes that are important to smallholders: 1) under low operating pressure heads (1.0 to 2.0 m) the discharge rate from the micro tube drippers is about ideal for individual vegetable plants such as tomatoes; 2) dripper clogging is minimal even with little or no filtration when using water from dug wells; and 3) on relatively level small fields the application uniformity is comparable to that achieved by conventional drip systems used in developed countries (Keller and Keller 2003).These low-cost drip systems only cost about fifth of standard commercial drip systems. The availability of these low-cost drip irrigation systems in small affordable packages unlocks their potential benefits for literally millions of resource-poor farmers. In addition, it opens the potential benefits of irrigation even where water supplies were considered insufficient or too costly to acquire for traditional irrigation methods to be practical. To date, more than 200,000 low-cost drip irrigation systems have been distributed through market channels in India, Nepal and other areas in Asia.Cost effective storage of the runoff water from small catchments or water from perennial wells or streams to use for irrigation during the dry season has been a major challenge. A recent innovation developed by IDE that looks promising is to store water in low-cost plastic lined tanks. The first level of experimentation has already been completed and the tanks are now being tested in a pilot study in India. Each tank stores 10 cubic meters of water that is completely enclosed to eliminate evaporation losses. The installed cost is roughly $40 to $50 and the life expectancy is 5 years.Ending poverty requires nothing less than four simultaneous revolutions in water, agriculture, markets and design; each centered on small farms and dollar-a-day farm families (Polak 2005).• A revolution in water is needed to open access for the rural poor to income generating, affordable, small plot irrigation and domestic water supplies.• A revolution in agriculture is needed to open opportunities for small farm enterprises to develop new varieties of fruits, vegetables, herbs and other labor intensive, high value crops optimized for small farms and the smallholder based agricultural practices required to produce them.• A revolution in design is needed, based on the ruthless pursuit of affordability, to develop a whole new generation of income generating technologies and strategies that serve the rural poor.• A revolution in markets is needed to create new markets that open smallholder access to affordable small plot irrigation and inputs, and to new markets for the high value crops they produce.The PRISM approach is conceived, developed and promoted on the basis of these underlying revolutionary ideals. In collaboration with IDE, the Ethiopian Society for Appropriate Technology (ESAT) is introducing PRISM to Ethiopia. Introduction of the methodology and implementation of the low-cost, appropriate irrigation technologies are being done in partnership with donors, NGOs and the private sector. Achievements made in less than one year are very encouraging and indicated to us that the technologies are very appropriate to the Ethiopian smallholders farming systems and, thus, are well demanded.• Redistribution of land-might bring more problem-rather land consolidation might be productive. However, it demands diversification/ to provide alternative means of the livelihoods for those who have to leave the land, part of the essence of rural entrepreneurship. • Technical and economic analysis of small scale irrigation should be carried out • Proper post-harvest technology is vital for perishable products obtained from irrigation.Market linkage must be established. • Technology development and adoption system should be created.Group 2: Private sector involvement• Roles of Private sector have been identified through the group discussion • Private sector is the investors in the forms of capital and knowledge for the farmers in small scale irrigation schemes. • The private sector has not been taken seriously, partnership is difficult because there is no role definition in sales, trade, input supply and output marketing • Private sector involvement has been limited so far yet very much needed to promote irrigation in Ethiopia. • Market creation awareness for the best tested technologies for farmer's selection and adoption. There are no established market chains: flow of information, lack of continuity and uniformity • Enabling environment for the private sector involvement. Formalizing business: bureaucratic chains has to be reduced • Farmers should be given opportunities whether to adopt the best tested technologies • Applied Research: can also play important roles: locating and important roles, royalties for innovations and patent rights are important • Lack of improved varieties, insufficient quantity, absence of seed certification, timeliness for private sector to participate in seed multiplication and distribution • Organize farmers themselves to engage in seed multiplication (in remote areas). Give incentives • Government should outsource many issues to private sector• Land distribution-land consolidation, refer above • Know-how development at all levels-policies exists but the question is whether they are implemented at the grassroots level. • Coherent policy -from federal -regional-defined roles and responsibilities are important • Institutional instabilities are highly detrimental for sustainable development, and they are particular the cause for eroding capacities for irrigation in the regions. Hence, stable structure and accountability are needed • Coordination of the efforts (public, private, donors, financial, technical etc) financial, technical should be enhanced.The following points are put forward as main highlights of the workshop: 1. Ethiopia has not yet utilized its natural resources appropriately for comprehensive agricultural development. It has been heavily reliant on rain fed agricultural production which is heavily influenced by shocks of dry spells and droughts. Ethiopian GDP is heavily reliant on rainfall variability. The country has to optimize the rain fed system and benefit out of irrigated agriculture. 2. Technology adoption, replication and out scaling in irrigation and agricultural water management are limited. The causes are limited capacity and know how, lack of the right extension, lack of network, limited market access and economic analysis and inadequate involvement of private sector 3. There have to be a frame work of thinking for sustained development of the agricultural water management and irrigation sector. It should have a comprehensive and easy to understand frame work. Comprehensive-integrated agriculture entrepreneurship development in the small scale irrigation schemes should be promoted. Commercialized agriculture, processing, manufacturing, trade create opportunities for all the actors in small scale irrigators. This strategy also allows us to take advantage of the unused resources/ investments. We have clearly understood the importance of irrigation in its forward and backward linkage, employment opportunities, implications to the GDP and the overall economic growth. 4. Irrigation should be taken as a key sector at the government, private sector, donors and financial institutions within the framework of integrated water resource management.• Need for irrigation focused institution-including in the regions • Some water Management-small scale irrigation schemes are not functioning as expected. Need to understand why and put forward recommendation for rehabilitation.• Strategy needs to be developed by the public sector • Allocation of adequate budget to the irrigation and agricultural water management is important. The sub-sector is significantly under funded. • Incentives-Tax holidays are important undertakings that need to be provided due attention for significant private sector participation • Irrigation need to be developed within the framework of implementing integrated water resource management 5. Need to build capacity to learn from experiences and acquire expertise in irrigation. 6. Rural entrepreneurship should come as the first priority. 7. Coordination of efforts is needed. 8. Public sector must create the technologies for the private sector to scale-up. 9. What are the public investment plans especially on irrigation? There are a lot of donors who are ready to fund irrigation projects. 10. How large -scale interventions/ systems incorporate small scale schemes? 11. In irrigation development, public sector should not do all the work. But there should be involvement of other sectors. 12. Large scale irrigation interventions could be an alternative to resettlement of people to virgin and environmentally sensitive areas. What are the lessons from other countries? Research Institutions could provide ample opportunities on providing lessons learnt on linkage of resettlement and irrigation1. Synthesized recommendation and policy briefs can be submitted to the donors and policy makers. 2. Enhance the established steering committee among USAID, MoARD, MoWR and IWMI with involvement of private sector and other pertinent institutions and organizations• Guide the study, compilation and information system on best practices of SSI, WH etc in Ethiopia (i.e. inventory, cost benefit analysis/ increased land and water productivity/ low cost technologies) • Steering committee will select and disseminate the best practices through regular workshops and study tours (annually or biannually).The exhibition part of the event involved display of posters, photographs, equipment, products and demonstration of operation of water and irrigation technologies. A total of 8 posters, 2 sets of photographic exhibition and over 10 different equipment that are used for water lifting and field application have been exhibited and demonstrated by institutions, organizations and companies from Ethiopia, Kenya, Egypt and Israel. It is my great pleasure to be with you at this very special moment of concluding the three days special event under the theme of \"Best practices and technologies for Agricultural Water Management in Ethiopia\".As you are all aware of, our country Ethiopia, is suffering from recurring drought due to erratic rainfall occurrence both in amount and distribution and high environmental degradation. As a result, the people loose their means of livelihood and remain in the trap of poverty, the country remain food in-secure and make it relief dependent.On the other hand, Ethiopia is bestowed with enormous water and land resource potential that can be tapped in the effort to attain food security. It is therefore, an alternative with out a choice to detach the agricultural sector from its dependency on the erratic rainfall through utilizing the resource endowments wisely and efficiently. So far, only less than 5 % has been developed from the overall potential area of 3.7 Million hectares of irrigable land. This indicates that a great deal of work is expected from all actors and professionals engaging in the water sector development works. A great deal of work is also needed to rehabilitate the degraded land and water resources for sustainable development of the water and land resources themselves. That is why all of you are gathered here together to share your collective and individual experiences and lessons that will help the development of the agricultural water management and irrigation sector.The government of Ethiopia is creating a conducive environment to foster the water sector development through setting proper policies, strategies and sector programs besides its existing efforts of expanding irrigation infrastructures.As part of this effort, the Government has planned to develop more than 400, 000 Ha of land with in the coming five years under its poverty alleviation and sustainable development program.In these respect wider range of alternative technologies and practices are required to properly develop and manage this development plan. It is my belief that efficient and sustainable development of irrigation, inter-alia, requires an integrated approach with other social, economic and environmental aspects.Therefore, this symposium made a thorough discussion on:• Current practices of SSI, MI and Rain Water Harvesting Technologies in Ethiopia • Reviewed private sector participation for irrigation and Agricultural Water Management • Reviewed policies and institutions for technology selection I have been impressed by looking at the topics that have been discussed, the number of posters and exhibition material presented during the last two days. It has been very important knowledge and experience sharing.I therefore, have a strong believe that the participants of this symposium and Exhibition have come up with very useful and practical recommendations in fostering sustainable agriculture and the expansion of irrigated agriculture in Ethiopia.Finally, I would like thank the organizing committees who have prepared this very practical and learning symposium. I also would like to thank all the participants of this Symposium for their dedication of their valuable time and shared experiences and best lessons with respect to the irrigation sub-sector.I would like to thank USAID for providing the necessary financial and technical support and IWMI for leading the organization of the symposium and exhibition. Thanks also to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to co-organize the event.Thank you","tokenCount":"62017"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e6dee9a491c7809838f418d3b0630142","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/387059c4-0d68-4ed8-a81e-265e0b86f15f/retrieve","id":"-185523160"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f0a67159-8ed1-4eb5-ae7e-2ae5144d6f7d","pagecount":"1","content":"1. Understand how on-and off-farm activities of Uganda's rural households contribute to their food availability. 2. Identify how food availability and its relationship with different activities vary across Uganda.Agricultural household survey data from the World Bank LSMS-ISA with 1927 households across Uganda (Figure 1)We used a production and cash balance based food availability (FA) indicator (Figure 2): FA =Regression models (linear & zeroinflated beta distribution) explain variability of food availability and contributing activities using environmental factors as explanatory variables • Contributing off-farm activities increase in importance with increasing food availability, while contributing crop consumption decreases (Fig. 3     Results (Objective 1)  ","tokenCount":"100"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9da2c94242ac438208eb5ae02a4faa1b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8cddc3b5-792a-49ea-9499-da6aa4af718a/retrieve","id":"-1036618471"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"99c3ba26-8930-4383-a150-bc4f9d47646d","pagecount":"17","content":"THIS PAPER studies energy flows on smallholder farms in two areas of the Ethiopian highlands. The overall farming system and the resource base in these areas are described and an outline is given of how these resources are used. The use of energy in the household system is then discussed and the prospects for improvements in energy use in these areas are assessed. The authors conclude that any major improvements in present energy use will have to rely on technologies which are simple, effective and easily implemented and maintained. Energy problems must be seen in the wider perspective of agricultural and ecological development. Changes in the overall energy use on smallholder farms will be slow unless a proper infrastructure and adequate extension and technical support services are established.Efficient management of energy resources is crucial to survival in subsistence agriculture. Although energy inputs into such farming systems are low compared to western agricultural practices, farmers are often forced into production methods which exploit current energy flows at the expense of a sustained, longer term output. In such situations, productivity is steadily declining. This, combined with an increasing population pressure makes it imperative to increase the efficiency of energy use. Efficiency gains within agricultural systems can be achieved by improving energy transformation in the use of resources and by reducing absolute losses.This paper describes energy flows on typical smallholder farms in the Ethiopian highlands. These farms are representative of a subsistence agricultural system that has remained basically unchanged for centuries. Surveys were conducted in the two main study areas of ILCA's Highlands Programme: around Debre Zeit, 50 km south of Addis Ababa at 1800 m a.s.l., and Debre Berhan, located 120 km northeast of Addis Ababa at 2800 m a.s.l. (Figure 1).Farming system and resource base Some 70% of Ethiopia's human population of 32 million live in the highland areas. The highlands are ecologically diverse and agricultural conditions vary widely.In Ethiopia nearly 80% of the population is directly employed in or dependent on agriculture. In many rural areas, people are acutely vulnerable to drought and starvation, and basic social services are seriously deficient. Ethiopia's rugged terrain is a major constraint to economic development because of the inherent transport and communication problems. It has been claimed that three quarters of the population live more than one day's round-trip walk from an all-weather road.The bulk of agricultural output in Ethiopia is produced by individual subsistence smallholders who have `farming rights' over the land they till. Land is not owned individually but is allocated by the local Peasants' Association (PA), to one of which each farmer necessarily belongs. There is an average of 250 members per PA and each PA regulates the use of approximately 800 ha of land.A subsistence mixed farming system prevails in most of the Ethiopian highlands. Rainfed agriculture is dominated by the production of cereals, pulses and livestock. Average annual rainfall fluctuates between 600 and 1200 mm, with 70% of rain falling in the period between July and September. Temperatures are generally temperate, although extreme diurnal variations can occur in the dry season. Frosts are common at altitudes above 2100 m. The size of individual landholdings ranges from 0.5 to 5 ha. In addition, farmers have grazing rights on the communal pastures of the PA of which they are members.Traditional agricultural tools and paired oxen are used for producing a wide range of crops including teff, wheat, barley, maize, sorghum, linseed, beans, peas and lentils. Annual crop yields range from 500 to 1000 kg/ha. Generally, land is scarce and the human population growth rate is high (2.2% per annum; World Bank, 1982). As a result an increasing proportion of permanent pasture land is being cultivated, fallow periods are being reduced and the pressures caused by subsistence crop production on the available arable land are increasing. This has substantially added to erosion and to the decline in soil fertility.Access to modern inputs such as chemical fertilizers or improved seeds is limited. Extension services are also very scarce and priority in the allocation of farm inputs is given to cooperatives. Most farmers own livestock: a typical inventory is two oxen, a cow, a few sheep and a donkey. Cattle (Zebu type) are kept mainly for draught power and manure. The manure is mainly used as household fuel, while a small amount is returned to the fields as fertilizer. Milk, meat and hides are relatively less important products. Sheep and goats require minimal inputs, they are kept as an investment and provide security in times of need. Donkeys are used extensively to transport agricultural inputs and farm produce.Productivity is low for all livestock species. Milk offtake from indigenous cows kept under traditional management rarely exceeds 400 kg for a lactation period of 7 months, and calving intervals average 2 years. Various factors contribute to this low productivity, including unexploited genetic stock, extended periods of nutritional stress during the dry season, diseases and endoparasites.Crops and livestock are closely linked in the smallholder mixed farming system of the Ethiopian highlands.The labour required to operate a family farm depends on the season. Although most of the labour required is supplied by the family, non-family labour commonly has to be used to overcome bottlenecks.Each farmer is required to supply labour to the cooperative enterprises of the PA with which he is affiliated. Additionally; farmers are expected to assist aged or disabled farmers and those families whose head is in military service.The most important contribution of livestock to agricultural production in the Ethiopian highlands is through the use of oxen as draught animals. Table 1 gives average holdings of livestock per farmer as determined from ILCA surveys around Debre Zeit and Debre Berhan. Around 10% of the farmers in these areas have no livestock. Goats 1.00 (0-6) 0.12 (0-2) Donkeys/Mules 0.98 (0-3) 1.81 (0-5) Horses 0.05 (0-1) 1.12 (0-2)Dung cakes, firewood and straw are the major fuel sources available for heating and cooking in rural households. Straw is used as fuel during the harvest season from October to December. Firewood resources (mainly Acacia spp. and Eucalyptus spp.) are not uniformly distributed throughout the Ethiopian highlands. Ethiopia's forested area has declined from 40% at the beginning of this century to only 4% of its land area (FaWCDA,1982).Typical weekly use of dung cakes. and firewood in two areas of the highlands of Ethiopia is given in Table 2. The annual cash income of smallholder farms in the Ethiopian highlands rarely exceeds US$ 200. Surveys have indicated an average gross cash income in the region of US$ 155 per year, with US$ 90 coming from the sale of crops, US$ 50 from livestock and livestock products and US$ 15 from other sources. This modest cash component within the system limits the opportunity for internal financing of improvements and highlights the need for an efficient use of available resources.Farmers usually possess a dwelling house, stores and livestock sheds. Farm tools and implements are made of wood fibre, leather and sometimes metal. Wood from the Eucalyptus spp. is used for ploughs, yokes, winnowing forks and spades; hides and skins are used for ropes, straps, whips and grain bags; and fibre materials are used for storage bins, and ox equipment such as ropes and whips. The value of this traditional agricultural equipment does not normally exceed US$ 60 per farm.The two most common fertilizers used are diammonium phosphate and urea, with most farmers applying less than the recommended rates.The previous section has described the resource base available to the average smallholder farmer in the Ethiopian highlands. Certain resources such as animal traction have an intermediate role when used for farm production. Others provide end-products that can either be consumed at home or sold. This section describes the intermediate roles within the traditional farming system.The traditional agricultural system in the Ethiopian highlands depends on animals for draught power for cultivation and transport of agricultural products. ILCA surveys in 1980 around Debre Zeit and Debre Berhan showed that animal power used for crop-related work averaged 1050 hr/ farm/year. Most of this power was supplied by oxen, but other livestock were sometimes employed for threshing (50 to 80 hr were contributed by donkeys). Some 60 to 70% of the total animal power input was for seedbed preparation and planting, with approximately 350 hr per oxen pair used for these purposes per season.The availability of draught power determines the size of area cultivated and the cropping pattern. Table 3 summarizes the effect of oxen holdings on crop areas among 42 traditional farmers in Debre Zeit in 1980. It should be noted that cereals are much more labour intensive than pulses. Source: Gryseels (1983).Cultivation throughout most of the Ethiopian highlands is done with a pair of oxen which pull the locallymade maresha. The power output of oxen pulling this traditional plough depends on the animal's body weight, its nutritional and health status, terrain, soil conditions, draught force required for ploughing at various depths, speed of travel, number of passes, training of the animal and skill of the handler.Studies conducted on traditional farms near Debre Berhan demonstrate that oxen with an average body weight of 280 kg produce power outputs ranging from 0.35 to 0.70 kW/hr while ploughing (Goe,1983).Energy requirements of mature working oxen vary according to their maintenance needs and actual power output over a given period. Results from trials conducted at the ILCA research stations show maintenance requirements of local oxen weighing between 300 and 350 kg to be 38.5 to 41.8 mega joules (MJ) per day of metabolizable energy (ME). Requirements for the same animals ploughing with the maresha were 3.8 MJ ME hr regardless of body weight (Abiye Astatke,1982).Ethiopia has approximately 7 million horses, mules and donkeys (FAO, 1982). Horses and mules are used primarily for transport, carting and, in some instances, for packing. Mules are more valued than horses due to their temperament and packing ability. Donkeys are mainly used for packing, although carting is not uncommon in certain areas. All are used for threshing crops. Farmers in some regions employ horses and donkeys for draught, either hitching the same species together or in mixed pairs. Horses can also be yoked together with oxen or barren cows for ploughing.A typical subsistence farm with 2.5 ha of land under cultivation employs a total of approximately 1100 hr of labour for crop production per year 1 . This gives an average labour input of around 440 hr/ha/year. Of this total, around two thirds are usually supplied by the family, about one quarter by exchange labour, and less than 10% by hired labour. Most labour for cropping is supplied by adult males.1. This assumes no quality differences between the labour inputs of the different age and sex groups.Women and children have specific tasks in crop production for which they are often as efficient as adult males.The labour inputs for different crops vary both yearly and by location because of differences in rainfall, soil and land types, cultivation practices and crop yields. A high yield can be a result of more intensive weeding and better seedbed preparation. However, higher yields in turn require extra labour for harvesting and transport. Teff is the most labour intensive of all food crops grown in the highlands, requiring an average 600 hr/ha while pulses require only half this amount.Labour inputs needed for livestock production are constant throughout the year. They involve basic management and are generally fulfilled by family members, except in cases where outside labour is hired for herding.The major role of cows is to produce male calves to be reared as draught oxen. As a result, approximately equal amounts of milk are suckled by calves and milked out for family consumption.Grazing on communal lands and fallow plots is the main source of feed for livestock in the highlands. This is supplemented with hay, stubble grazing, straw and other crop residues. Work oxen and cows in milk are given priority in supplementary hand feeding. In the dry season they are supplemented with hay and straw and in the wet season with straw. Valley bottoms and crop stubbles are grazed during the dry season from December to April. From about May to November, livestock largely depend on fodder on hillsides, in field verges and roadsides.A typical farm of 2.5 ha, with two thirds of the cultivated area sown to cereals, the remainder to pulses plus an additional 0.75 ha of communal grazing land, produces approximately 6.0 t of dry matter in a normal year. The average farm stock holding is around 3.67 animal units (AU 2 ). Assuming 8.1 MJ ME/kg fodder for 4 months and 6.6 MJ ME/kg fodder for 8 months, the annual fodder requirement for maintenance of these AUs is 6.5 t DM. The available feed resources thus fall short of total requirements by 8%. The error in estimating total production, its yearly variation, and animal requirements would indicate that actual feed resources may be adequate for maintenance. However, there are only limited periods during the year when livestock can gain weight without supplementation.2. One AU equals 250 kg liveweight.Ethiopian families in rural areas depend heavily on home production of foodstuffs for consumption. The staple food of most people of the Amhara group-the dominant social group in the ILCA study areasis injera and wat. Injera is a porous pancake, a few millimeters thick and 40 to 50 cm in diameter, its sourness depending on the length of the fermentation period. Although injera made from teff is preferred, it can also be prepared from barley, wheat, maize and sorghum or sometimes a mixture of these, depending on what is available and affordable. The ingredients of wat, the sauce which accompanies injera, also vary according to their availability as well as fasting requirements and local tastes. Meat wat is preferred, but most farmers can afford it only on feast-days. In a normal year farmers produce sufficient cereals and pulses from their own cropped land to have a modest surplus after meeting family requirements. Table 4 presents indicative total production and its allocation for an average household of five persons (two adults and three children) on a farm of 2.5 ha in an average year. a Assuming harvested yield of 800 kg/ha for cereals and 600 kg/ha for pulses. b. Values are calculated on the basis of seeding rates of 100 kg/ha for both cereals and pulses. c. Assuming a family of five with average annual consumption each of 200 kg of cereals and 50 kg of pulses.Due to the large number of fasting days each year, there is a great demand for cereals, pulses and vegetables to meet household nutritional needs. Table 5 gives daily per caput intake of common foodstuffs and their energy values.  Agren and Gibson (1968).Household duties are the responsibility of women. These duties include food processing and preparation of meals, making tella (a local beer), fetching water, collecting dung and wood for fuel, cleaning, washing, taking care of the children and making baskets. Most of the labour inputs for livestock production such as feeding and watering, milking, barn cleaning, manure collection and handling are done by women and children. Women also help to deliver goods to the market place. Younger children are responsible for herding the cattle, delivering milk to collection stations, transporting ashes to the plots near the house, running errands and minor household chores. When boys reach the age of 12 years they begin to help their father with the field work, take goods to the market, make yokes, ploughs and handles for hand implements, collect honey, and learn the management aspects of keeping livestock and general farming. Weaving of the shama or gabi (a large wrap made from cotton) is done mostly by men. The time spent performing daily household chores and the energy expended on them is given in Table 6.  Clark and Haswell (1970), pp. 12-13.A major constraint for crop cultivation in Ethiopia is the unequal distribution of oxen per farm household. Data available at the national level indicate that only 37% of the farmers have two or more oxen, 34% have one and 29% own no oxen at all (MOA, 1980). Since oxen are traditionally paired for work, more than 60% of the farmers have to rent or borrow one or two animals for cultivation.A farmer owning less than two oxen has several options available for securing animals for ploughing.Households that already have one working ox can enter into a mekanajo agreement with another household in a similar position, whereby the pair of oxen is used on the partners' fields on alternate days. However this strategy has one serious disadvantage: if the ploughing season is short, the working capacity of the animals may not allow both farmers to cultivate at the optimum time. Moreover, the changing of oxen handlers and yoking of animals not used to each other can result in a loss in daily work output.In another arrangement called minda, a farmer in need of an ox can rent it from a farmer owning surplus oxen at an annual cost of between 200 and 225 kg of grain, or in exchange for human labour. Sometimes oxen are rented on a cash basis, at US$ 1.50/day/pair or US$ 2.50/day/pair if a handler is included.Throughout most of the Ethiopian highlands the areas of fallow and permanent pasture have been reduced due to the high demand for food crops from an increasing human population. Thus it is becoming more difficult to maintain the present cattle population, as well as to prevent ecological degradation.In these circumstances, it is likely that it will become increasingly difficult for farmers to keep the breeding stock required for raising replacement oxen in addition to maintaining a working pair. However, by introducing a change in the farming system, whereby cultivation would be done by a single ox, rather than a pair, it may be possible to substantially increase the productivity of livestock and the smallholder farm. More cattle could be sold, resulting in an increase in farmers' incomes. At the national level such a development would bring more meat supplies to urban areas. Reduced grazing pressures would enable better control of erosion and would help to improve livestock nutrition. Farmers who have to rent or borrow one or two oxen will be able to practise more timely cultivation.ILCA has developed a suitable yoke and harness, as well as a modified maresha plough (Figure 2), for use by a single ox. This technology has been tested at the experimental level, and trials are currently being conducted on traditional farms to test the applicability and effectiveness of this new technology within the Ethiopian highlands. Another option which may also help to reduce cattle herd size and grazing pressures, and extend stored feed supplies, is the use of crossbred cows for both milk production and draught. ILCA studies with farmers have demonstrated that crossbred cows are able to provide adequate draught power during the cropping season, as well as a higher milk yield and a crossbred calf of higher value compared to local Zebu cows. Although the study is not yet complete, data indicate that cows can be adapted to work without any negative effects on their reproduction rate, lactation length and milk yield, provided that adequate feed supplies and veterinary care are available and proper management is maintained.The most promising area for the use of crossbred cows as traction animals would be in or around urban areas where the scarcity of land is more acute than in the rural areas. Farmers would be guaranteed a constant market for milk, access to supplements and veterinary services, and high market prices for calves. Such farmers would be more inclined to change or modify their management system since their proximity to urban services would help minimize production risks.Cultivation trials with improved implements were conducted by ILCA from 1980 to 1982. Trials were carried out on three different soil types-clay, clay loam and silty clay loam. Three cultivation systems were tested using the traditional maresha, a conventional mouldboard plough and a spring-tine harrow for the primary passes: Seed covering was done with the same implements and a zig-zag harrow (Abiye Astatke and Matthews, 1982). Dynamometer measurements were made for the three implement/soil combinations to determine the amount of draught power required.On each soil type, better weed control and crop yields were obtained using the conventional mouldboard plough and spring-tine harrow compared to the maresha. The total kWhr/ha required was highest for the mouldboard plough on all soil types, followed by the maresha on clay soils and the spring-tine on silty clay soils. In all cases, the zig-zag harrow provided more uniform seed covering in less time and required less draught power than did the three other implements.Trials to reduce waterlogging of bottomlands have also been initiated. A single winged-tine which can be fitted on the same frame as the mouldboard plough, was used to aerate and drain surface water. Results from the first season of trials demonstrated that natural forage yields (fresh weight) can be increased if the tine and winged-tine are used before the rains start. Further work will be done to better assess yield differences and kWhr/ha requirements.These improved implements have not yet been tested off-station, the main obstacle being their cost, which is beyond the means of the smallholder. For example, the basic frame for use with a mouldboard plough and a winged-tine costs US$ 100, while the costs of the plough share and the tine are US$ 20 and US$ 25 respectively. The spring-tine unit costs US$ 200 and the zig-zag harrow US$ 35-40. Compared to the total cost of the traditional maresha of US$ 15, the above represents a substantial investment for a farmer operating at the subsistence level. Thus unless an effective agricultural credit programme can be developed, most farmers will continue to rely on the maresha for cultivation.About 95% of the total energy consumption in Ethiopia is provided by wood, dung, charcoal and crop residues. Biomass consumption for fuel in 1980 was about 24 million m 3 of firewood, 7 million t of dung, 170 000 t of charcoal and 6 million t of crop residues (FaWCDA,1982). Given the current firewood consumption of 1 to 1.2 t/caput/year, it has been estimated that forests in Ethiopia will be completely destroyed by the year 2000 unless drastic measures are taken to reduce the present consumption level and to strengthen both the financial and manpower budgets of the relevant institutions (Beijer Institute, 1981). More efficient ways of firewood utilisation need to be investigated. Substantial savings in firewood consumption could be achieved by the use of improved stoves and different cooking methods.The major tree species being planted in the highlands is Eucalyptus globulus. However, even if present reafforestation programmes attain the projected planting goal of 56 000 ha per year, this will not be sufficient to maintain the existing woodlots which are being cut at an estimated rate of 200 000 ha per year (Beijer Institute, 1981). Furthermore although Eucalyptus spp. are highly suitable for woodlot establishment, they are not very effective in controlling hillside erosion.Urgent reforms are therefore needed. Possible measures to be taken include controlled livestock grazing on hillsides, which should be enforced so that slopes do not become denuded. In areas where erosion has become severe, livestock should be kept off hillsides for at least 3 to 4 years to allow the total biomass to regenerate. In addition, conifer species should be emphasized in these areas.In the Geleb area north of Lake Rudolf in the Gamo Gofa administrative region, windmills are used to supply households with water and for irrigation (Fraenkel, 1975). Prototype windmills for electrical and mechanical applications are to be built in the Melka Werer area of the Awash valley (Cocks, 1981). By employing windmills for irrigation, it should be possible to grow two or three crops a year instead of one.The potential for increasing the use of windmills or wind generators in Ethiopia depends on the altitude of the chosen site, the average wind speed and the duration for which a particular wind velocity is maintained. Even very efficient units cannot operate when wind velocities are 3 m/s or less (Earthscan, 1981). As the altitude increases air density decreases. A study done by ILCA at Debre Berhan showed that the power available from wind at a particular velocity was three quarters of what it would be at sea level. In addition, a windmill could be expected to pump the required amount of water only for 2 to 3 months a year because there would either be no wind or average wind speed would be too low during the rest of the year (Campbell, 1982).In Ethiopia solar radiation is used extensively for drying crops, animal forages, fruits and fish, for the production of salt by evaporation of seawater or inland brines, and as fuel. However, harnessing its power in the form of electricity, heat storage or mechanical energy at the village level has so far been minimal or non-existent, despite the successful research into solar cookers, heaters and distillation plants (Hobbs, 1965).Potential areas for developing solar energy should probably be limited to passive solar driers and ovens, irrigation pumps powered by photo-voltaics and flat plate collectors (Beijer Institute, 1981). However the cost of such solar apparatus would be prohibitive to smallholders, and the equipment is still complex, difficult to maintain and potentially hazardous to the ill-trained. Therefore, compared with existing sources of energy, the prospects for large-scale introduction of solar power remain poor in the immediate future.Given the scarcity of firewood and the prevalent use of dung for cooking, biogas plants would appear to be an appropriate means of reducing the current usage of these renewable energy resources. However, despite the expensive experimental work undertaken by the Ethiopian National Energy Commission only a few biogas plants have so far been established in the Ethiopian highlands. The major difficulties encountered are maintenance, proper management and public acceptance and cooperation.Most thermal plants producing electricity in Ethiopia operate on diesel fuel. While these units generated 26.6% of the total electricity produced in the country in 1970, their output in 1978 fell to 14.7%, largely due to an increase in the number of hydropower plants and problems in operating thermal plants efficiently (ECA, 1980a). It is reported that only 2.3% of Ethiopia's hydropower potential has been developed, and that of the electricity generated only 50% is being utilized, primarily because electrical appliances are beyond the reach of most of the population and electrification has yet to reach many rural areas of the country (Varet, 1978).Increased use of electrical power in the country will depend on more accurate long-term planning in all sectors of the economy (especially the industrial sector), better returns on assets and better adherence to projected time schedules for completion of new generating plants. At present, little progress has been made in tackling these problems (Beijer Institute, 1981).Geothermal exploration began in Ethiopia in 1967. Three sites were selected for drilling, two in the Afar depression and one in the Rift Valley (ECA, 1980a). Depending on the outcome of the drilling in the Lake Langano area of the Rift Valley, additional wells may be drilled (ECA, 1980b). The use of geothermal energy would extend electrification to isolated rural areas where the supply of electricity through other means may not be feasible.Any major inroads to be made in changing the present energy usage will have to rely on technologies which are simple and effective, and easily implemented and maintained. In addition, these technologies should be well tested to determine whether by improving the efficiency of one resource a reduction in another does not occur.However, although improvements in the use and availability of energy sources play a major part in improving agricultural productivity, other aspects also need to be considered. Energy problems must be seen in the wider perspective of agricultural and ecological development. The energy base necessary for this development will have to be both animal and human power. In the short term there is no scope for the mechanization of Ethiopian agriculture. Cultivation will continue to be carried out using animal traction. Improvements in the animal traction component, as discussed above, will not only lead to direct increases in agricultural productivity, but will also make it possible to drain and cultivate valley bottomlands, which are presently seasonally flooded and used only for dry-season grazing and hay production. At present food crops are mostly cultivated on hillsides. If appropriate short-seasoned or frost-resistant varieties can be found and if bottomlands can be drained, a major review of this agricultural practice could be considered: food crops could be cultivated on drained bottomlands, and the less fertile slopes could then be used by livestock, thus reversing the present situation. This would improve the fertility of soil on the degraded slopes and ensure the future survival of the local farming community. Studies done by ILCA have demonstrated that it is feasible to construct ponds with locally made earth scoops drawn by animals. Ponds would not only provide water for human and animal consumption, but could also be used for irrigation.One important area in which energy inefficiency could be reduced is that of post-harvest losses. Introduction of improved threshing and storage methods could substantially improve the welfare of subsistence farmers. Other areas where progress could be made are veterinary and extension services.Reducing livestock mortality, and improving animal nutrition and management would allow for increased energy use throughout the traditional agricultural system.Regardless of the approaches taken to improve the overall energy use on smallholder farms, changes will be slow to take place unless a proper infrastructure and adequate extension and technical support services are established. Until this is accomplished any so called improvements in energy use will be short-lived, and ultimately have a negative impact on the selected target population.","tokenCount":"4951"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"28c08e227917fd2f8fc56840536eff6d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e63c8fb9-afcf-4e27-bd02-0d0abcc968f0/retrieve","id":"1013691527"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1a97f676-f7d9-4be8-8a2b-bf689965b769","pagecount":"290","content":"Contents rid in the financial a for s allholder a riculture in a iland Contributed paper session 4: Economic valuation of value chains alue chain anal sis of oats in a ia hallen es and o ortunities of linkin s allholders to arkets alue chain anal sis of eef in a iland ro in a he case stud of the ane ills oint venture allholders and livestock value chain actors access to credit in an ania cono ic valuation of cattle value chain in o tate Contributed papers session 5: Livestock production, efficiency and marketing eef cattle fattenin usin fodder ased ration easurin i act of access to livestock services on the technical efficienc of s all ru inant roduction in rural thio ia he various ro le s associated ith financin livestock roduction in northern i eria arket channel choice decisions in ots ana s cattle arkets ocial net orks and fodder innovations to enhance ani al erfor ance in co unal areas dair value chain s ste s Contributed papers session 6: Agricultural credit impact assessment and regional trade I act of environ ental risk on livestock co odit trade in the outhern frican usto s nion isa re ated su l res onse of cattle and eef in a i ia an autore ressive distri uted la a roach actors in uencin co unal livestock far ers artici ation in the ational red eat develo ent ro ra e in outh frica the case of the astern a e rovince I act of a ricultural credit on livestock inco e a case stud of as ela istrict alochistan ffect of the a ricultural credit uaranteed sche e fund on loan accessi ilit and livestock su sectorial roductivit in i eria Roundtables Annex 1. Conference program Annex 2. List of participants 281ccess to credit often constrains the artici ation of s allholders in hi h value a ricultural and livestock value chains hile icrofinance has een ro oted as a a of alleviatin the credit constraints faced the oor it is often unsuita le for the develo ent of s all scale value chains articularl for ore ediu scale invest ents in stora e achiner trans ort and rocessin his a er revie s the different financial echanis s availa le to ro ote value chains anal sin hether such for s address the ca ital constraints faced value chain actors It also looks at the challen es faced s ecific sectors such as the livestock sector in securin a ro riate for s of ca italers ectives on i rovin financial access for livestock value chain develo ent addressin the issin iddle allholder livestock roduction and arket artici ation in outhern frica essons learnt odels of inclusive value chain financin and invest ent for livestock Contributed papers session 1: Smallholders' access to credit actors affectin household decision to allocate credit for livestock roduction evidence fro thio ia he role of contracts in i rovin access to credit in the s allholder livestock sector of a iland actors in uencin far ers u take of credit for cattle fattenin in t o districts in ast ava Indonesia icrocredit financin in rural econo or for al ankin institutions hich has etter ositioned the s allholder livestock far ers for credit access in south est i eria isk assess ent and ana e ent to ena le access to credit for livestock actorsIn uence of icrofinance artici ation on dair co erciali ation the case of s all scale dair far ers in en a nal sis of the eef cattle value chain in the forest savannah transitional one of hana allholder oat far ers arket artici ation in ho a district a ia tri le hurdle odel of s all ru inant roduction and arketin in the hi hlands of thio ia i lications for co ercial transfor ation Inclusive value chain and arketin a on s allholder oat far ers in rural i o o Province, South Africa 106Contributed papers session 3: Governmental schemes and private funding models 114 n innovative a roach to cattle fattenin in a iland a financial ers ective ural financial services and their effects on livestock roduction in thio ia an value chain financin ork for livestock in s allholder s ste s Insi hts fro the i a e ricultural evelo ent rustI rovin the livelihoods of livestock s allholders and other value chain actors throu h livestock value addition and arketin is constrained the lack of access to finance orkin ca ital afforda le ualit in uts and ell structured value chains nlike other a ricultural su sectors such as cro s fruits and ve eta les the financin of livestock activities for s allholders es eciall fattenin and finishin activities throu h financial institutions or value chain actors is ver scarce ivestock s allholders usuall cannot rovide collateral such as land title deeds or h sical assets to o tain loans fro financial institutions and value chain finance in this sector is not ell develo ed o ever there are a fe e a les fro develo in countries in frica sia and entral and outh erica here financial roducts and echanis s have een develo ed to hel s allholder livestock roducers to access orkin ca ital and to add value to their roduct his conference for s art of one of the out uts delivera les of the Innovative eef value chain develo ent sche es in outhern frica ro ect he ro ect is funded the International und for ricultural evelo ent I and i le ented the International ivestock esearch Institute I I in colla oration ith the a iland ater and riculture evelo ent nter rise ith the su ort of icro inance nit a iland he conference is also art of the research on value chains under the I esearch ro ra on olicies Institutions and arkets IIn addition to the entioned ro ect artners ed ank as the financial institution chosen to e art of the ro ect and rovide loans to the ini feedlots far ers or ore infor ation a out the ro ect e su est ou visit the ro ect e site htt s s a i eefsche es ord ress co ectives of the conference he ain o ectives of the conference ere to• e onstrate via le and financiall sustaina le usiness case odels on lo cost feedin re i es for fattenin enter riseslarif se entation of role of value chain actors and create s art linka es• hare e eriences and research involvin access to finance credit for s allholder livestock roducers and other value chain actorsu ort a dialo ue et een livestock value chain actors financial institutions scholars rivate sector co anies in ut and service roviders and overn ental institutions• iscuss ho to scale u and re licate success stories fro the sector to other develo in countries and re ions he follo in to ics ere discussed durin the conference• Institutional environ ent necessar to transfor and su ort the co erciali ation of s allholder livestock far inallholders and livestock value chain actors access to credit• he role of icrocredit institutions in financin the livestock value chain and• alue chain finance echanis s for the livestock sector in develo in countries he a ove entioned to ics ere discussed throu h the resentations and roundta les or ani ed durin the conference In total three ke note s eakers resentations si contri uted a er sessions oral resentations and three roundta les ere held hasis as laced on sessions i in interdisci linar ers ectives and a sho case of innovative a roaches fro the field he three ke note s eakers resentations aved the road for the rest of the resentations and tackled eneral issues related to the constraints on s allholders and livestock value chain actors in accessin finance and credit fro for al financial institutions and ho to i rove the access to such t es of fundin arl ich in his resentation descri es ho each or ani ational for of the value chain has its financin issues e oints out the t o a or a s in value chain finance and access to credits that rural roducers enter rises that have lo access co ared to ur an ones and that eso finance the so called issin a that corres onds to needed financial a ounts is covered neither icrofinance institutions Is a ove their ca acities nor e uit anks enned a a in his resentation focuses on s allholders arket artici ation initiatives in su aharan frica rovidin e irical evidence of otential success and failure alvin iller also focuses on issues related to a riculture and ore recisel livestock finance e outlines the nature of the livestock roduction usiness e eddin risks cli atic diseases lack of collateral etc and transaction costs for financial institutions ro iller s ers ective value chain finance hich could e either internal or e ternal is one of the i ortant a s of accessin finance for s allholder roducers and other value chain actors e oints out that lenders such as anks or icro financial institutions reduce risk financin the ost credit orth arties in a value chain such as the in ut su liers or a ri usinesses and let the rovide financin to others fro ho the u and sell In his resentation iller also resents and discusses the a ro riate financial instru ents for livestock value chain finance s outlined in the conference ro ra the ke note resentations receded or follo ed lenar session resentations and roundta les he oral resentations of the artici ants ere rou ed into si sessions coverin different to ics directl or indirectl related to livestock roduction arketin and access to finance he first session allholders access to credit included five resentations related to the factors affectin s allholder livestock roducers access to credit ase studies fro thio ia a iland Indonesia i eria and ene al ere resented and discussed he second session focused on issues related to value chains and arket artici ation and included case studies focusin on different livestock s ecies co s cattle and s all ru inants and in different countries en a hana a ia thio ia and outh frica overn ental sche es and rivate fundin odels issues ere discussed in the third contri uted a ers session ith case studies fro a iland thio ia and i a e hile a ore in de th focus on the econo ic valuation of value chains as discussed in the fourth session ith e a les fro a ia a iland an ania and i eria he fifth session rovided a focus on livestock roduction efficienc and arketin fro case studies of eef fattenin in a iland s all ru inant roduction in thio ia cattle arketin in ots ana and fodder innovation in the dair value chain in outh frica he si th and last session discussed issues related to a ricultural credit i act assess ent and re ional trade and included case stud resentations fro the outhern frican re ion a i ia akistan and i eria he roundta les allo ed ider interactions and ore o en discussions et een the conference artici ants he first roundta le ave voice to the far ers and livestock roducers ho talked a out their e erience in livestock roduction ainl cattle fattenin and the constraints faced in sourcin the feeders stock and in accessin in uts and finance for orkin ca ital In the second roundta le re resentatives of anks and financial institutions hi hli hted issues related to access to loans for s allholder livestock roducers entionin that livestock could e used as collateral if it is ear ta ed ransaction costs ere entioned as an i ortant factor ha erin s all far ers access to funds fro financial institutions and akin the costs of lendin one ver hi h he value chain should e ade inclusive of all livestock value chain actors and tailored financial roducts could e develo ed for s allholder far ers he third roundta le included re resentatives fro i le entin a encies and donors he artici ants discussed issues related to the role of donors develo ent artners and i le entin artners in ro ect such as I It as clearl articulated that their role is to facilitate the functionin of the value chains he facilitation role includes rin in value chain actors articularl roducers and feedlot co anies to a sta e here the vie o erations as a usiness rather than charit rofessionali ation of far in and arket orientation ere e hasi ed durin this roundta le he third da of the conference included a visit to t o far ers rou s involved in the Innovative eef alue hain evelo ent che es in outhern frica ro ect he far ers rou s are involved in su arcane roduction and cattle fattenin he visit hel ed the artici ants to learn ore a out the sin ularit of the fattenin odel ased on lo cost feedin rations usin su arcane to s olasses and ro n fodder like ello ai e eans a ier rass etc In one of the feedlots the artici ants itnessed cattle sales on the asis of live ei ht roach and rocessIn order to reach the out uts stated a ove an a roach that co ined standard conference and interactive orksho a roaches as follo ed Invited ke note resentations ere ade in lenar and contri uted a ers ere ade in arallel sessions in a conference st le oundta le discussions ere facilitated in a artici ator interactive for onference resentations and roceedin s or ore infor ation a out the conference and the anel of ke note s eakers and resenters e reco end ou visit the conference e site hich also includes the o er oint resentations of the acce ted a ers and the iodata of the resenters he current roceedin s ook can also e do nloaded fro the conference e site htt s virtual ilri or conference livestock finance Plenary sessions: Keynote speakers lenar sessions ke note s eakers ers ectives on i rovin financial access for livestock value chain develo ent addressin the issin iddle arl ich rinci al scientist olicies Institutions and ivelihoods International ivestock esearch Institute ast and outheast sia re ional office oo uildin an huc i lo atic o ound i a treet a inh istrict anoi ietna k rich c iar or stract Introduction ccess to credit is an i ortant constraint on the artici ation of s allholders in hi h value a ricultural and livestock value chains or e a le a recent stud innen and aertens revealed that of cotton far ers in a akhstan cited access to credit as a otivation to en a e in contract far in arran e ents ith re ortin this as their ain reason t the sa e ti e si nificant a s e ist to finance a riculture in develo in countries oran et al re ort that less than of all co ercial lendin in frica oes to a riculture des ite the i ortance of this sector as a share of in so e countries see ich and ie i forthco in ural areas are t icall disadvanta ed further in ter s of co ercial lendin ith the International a our r ani ation notin that access to finance is ercenta e oints lo er in rural areas than in ur an areas vs he reasons for these a s in a ricultural lendin are nu erous n the su l side there is often a lack of interest co ercial lenders iven hi h transaction costs articularl on the infor ation side In rural areas far ers can e ers ectives on i rovin financial access for livestock value chain develo ent ddressin the issin iddle idel dis ersed over s ace akin the a ro riate screenin and onitorin of risk costl for lenders loe in er odd and har a andin infrastructure and develo in s eciali ed lendin roducts for rural areas is costl iven uch lo er o ulation densities in rural areas and reater er loan costs ica ia arra et al here are erce tions that rural finance is not rofita le or lacks a ro riate scale to enerate ider interest eneratin lo er returns relative to ur an and ore co erciali ed activities oran et al isks in a ricultural areas the selves also revent a ro riate diversification for lenders or instance here cli ate risks are correlated eo ra hicall lendin in such re ions is costl and revents lenders fro diversif in their risk e osure loe in er odd and har a ike ise for ore co erciali ed far ers or s all and ediu enter rises s orro ers the selves are oorl diversified in ter s of their o n inco e sources chreiner and olo et inall a host of re ulator arketin and technolo ical constraints can i ede invest ent the rivate sector oran et al he net effect of these su l side a s is to reduce the availa ilit of credit for s allholders increasin its costs and akin scalin out or u radin ithin value chains ore difficult n the de and side a a or a for custo ers of financial instru ents is li ited access to collateral for loans leisi und for ricultural evelo ent I his is co ounded in areas here land tenure ri hts are also eak for livestock roducers ica ia arra et al note that in an develo in countries it is nearl i ossi le for far ers to use their stocks as collateral for loans hile this is co on lace for develo ed countries e the nited tates e ealand oran et al note that a lack of far recordkee in akes it difficult for s allholders to rovide the re uisite docu entation to secure loans oor or ani ation at the individual far level as ell as of far ers collectivel i edes the a ilit of s allholders to effectivel ne otiate for alread scarce rural ca ital icrofinance has een ro ul ated as a ossi le solution to re ed so e of the a s that the oor face in accessin for al credit uckle icrofinance t icall takes the for of s all loans for oor consu ers often lent to rou s or rural savin s associations to ensure collective res onsi ilit for re a ent s arnani notes icrofinance or ani ations often rovide ore than credit to clients includin a host of services to i rove livelihoods and orro er ca acit to use finance o ever icrofinance has historicall re ained a relativel tar eted and ri aril an ur an heno enon chreiner and olo et ilder he lack of icrofinance in rural areas can e attri uted to an of the su l and de and constraints noted a ove ven here icrofinance has tar eted oor stakeholders its record has een relativel i ed in ter s of develo ent uckle its a ilit to enerate needed e lo ent o ortunities arnani or in its rofita ilit and sustaina ilit in the a sence of overn ent or donor su ort orduch n even ore salient uestion is hether icrofinance itself is suita le for value chain develo ent activities ost icrocredit loans tend to e s all in the hundreds of dollars for the urchase of consu tion oods or s all scale e ui ent o ever the develo ent of ur eonin s all scale enter rises re uires ca ital ell in e cess of hat icrofinance can rovide invest ents in stora e achiner trans ort etc all re uire uch lar er outla s of one t the sa e ti e the a sence of for al ank lendin for eso a ounts of lendin for reasons stated earlier creates a a that ilder du s the issin iddle i ure illustrates this a distin uishin et een the financial a et een icrofinance and co ercial finance and the a that e ists et een ur an and rural areas i ure n illustration of the issin iddle in finance ource ilderIn recent ears various value chain financial instru ents have een develo ed to overco e the financial constraints associated ith s allholder and access to arkets hile different in their sco e as ill e detailed in this a er these financial instru ents all ai to i rove linka es et een s allholders and other value chain actors o ever a cou le of research uestions re ain irst iven the roliferation of value chain finance and for s does this in effect solve the issin iddle ro le or do various a s still re ain econd do certain t es of rural far in have attri utes that ake value chain finance ore or less suita le or conversel are there certain t es of value chain finance that are ore a ro riate for certain sectors In articular do the characteristics of the livestock sector resent an uni ue challen es for the use of value chain finance alue chain finance for s and odalities alue chain finance can e defined as the rovision of finance that takes into account the roader financial needs of the value chain iller and ones oon et al distin uish et een value chain finance that co es fro ithin the value chain itself direct value chain finance and that hich is sourced fro outside the value chain indirect value chain finance n i ortant attri ute of value chain finance is in its a ilit to iti ate risk throu h i rovin infor ation flo s and arketin linka es a on st value chain actors In turn this lo ers the cost of credit rovision oth ithin the chain and fro outside financial sources iller and ones o value chain finance is rovided de ends reatl on the eans hich the value chain is or ani ed iller and ones distin uish et een four different odes of or ani in value chains hich are su ari ed in a le hree of the four for s u er driven facilitator driven and inte rated are to do n a roaches in hich a chain cha ion either fro ithin the value chain or e ternal to it or ani es and facilitates arket linka es includin the rovision of credit he otivations for these cha ions can var or u er driven and inte rated chains an i ortant consideration is to uarantee ualit uantit or other for s of assurance for custo ers ee et al he use of contracts is one a to coordinate roduction et een far ers and u ers ith the rovision of credit and or in uts ade in e chan e for the sale of standardi ed out uts fro far ers to u ers he level of ualit assurance needed and transaction costs associated ith coordination deter ine hether contracts or ore hierarchical for s of inte ration are needed hile reater coordination rovides s allholders ith needed access to arkets it also akes the over de endent on one or a s all su set of u ers In ra idl evolvin value chains here chan in consu er de ands lace increasin ressure on u strea actors for innovation and co liance ith increasin standards this e oses so e artici ants to e clusion fro the value chain if the cannot kee u ith these chan es olan and u hre International conference on livestock value chain finance and access to credit ers ectives on i rovin financial access for livestock value chain develo ent ddressin the issin iddle acilitated and roducer driven chains rel on the develo ent of hori ontal linka es a on st s allholders or other value chain nodes to achieve scale and reater or ani ation oth are si ilar in sco e and ai na el to i rove the levera e that far ers have ith arkets throu h increased scale and ar ainin o er he for er is achieved throu h e ternal eans i e via the facilitation of non overn ental or ani ations s overn ent or donors hile the latter de ends on the internal otivations of the rou itself hile facilitated value chains tend to have stron er linka es to other sources of value chain finance due to dee er net orks ith u lic and rivate sector financial actors an i ortant concern of such or ani ations revolves around their roader sustaina ilit once ro ects or donor funds have een e hausted a le alue chain or ani ational for s and financin issues ran e of value chain financial instru ents e ists to link s allholder far ers to arkets ased on the anal sis in iller and ones and av s le an et al i ure su ari es a ran e of these or ani ed ra hicall ased on the de ree of value chain coordination re uired and co le it of the instru ent the selves roduct financin throu h the rovision of credit traders or other value chain inter ediaries is one of the ost co on for s of value chain finance and is often facilitated throu h contracts hese contracts reduce the cash flo constraints at the roduction end hile rovidin u ers ith assurance as to roduct su l and attri utes s noted in i ure these for s of roduct financin trade credit in ut su lier credit lead fir financin t icall re uire reater a ounts of coordination in the value chain and cannot rel holl on urel arket overned transactions av s le an et al contrast other for s of value chain finance can e ade use of ithout the need for for al coordination ith value chain actors nonetheless the still re uire the rovision of ood arket infor ation and enforcea le contracts to ensure success av s le an et al he use of arehouse recei ts for instance here roduct stored in inventor serves as collateral and uarantee for a loan does not necessaril re uire for al value chain coordination as such ut does re uire the resence of service roviders and do nstrea actors ith ho to en a e i ilarl factorin here artial a ent is advanced on the asis of sales contracts allo s ar s len th links et een far ers and u ers to e ade in conditions here traditional for s of for al finance are not availa le iller and ones oot a ital a social invest ent fund is an e a le of factorin advancin far ers u to of the value of the sales contract a ent fro the contract is ade to oot a ital directl the u er oot a ital then transfers final a ent less fees to the seller far er ilder easin is another financial instru ent here financial institutions lend h sical assets to orro ers reducin risks here finance for roduction infrastructure is re uired iller and ones av s le an et al ther ore co le for s of value chain finance includin futures arkets securiti ation and re urchase a ree ents e ist ithin the landsca e of financial instru ents althou h their ide use in develo in countr conte ts is fairl li ited iller and ones oan uarantees here a rivate or u lic entit uarantees a loan have a i ed histor ith u lic sector loan uarantees often frau ht ith olitici ation oran et al t the sa e ti e there are e a les of u lic rivate artnershi s e e ional riculture nion of roducers of ello orn and ther rains and eeds in e ico ank for riculture and ricultural oo eratives in hailand that rovide ulti le la ers of loan uarantees to reduce transaction risks iller and ones i ure alue chain financial for s and their relation to value chain or ani ation and co le it of use ource da ted fro infor ation in iller and ones and av s le an et al alue chain finance and livestock arketsIn this section e address the second of the t o research uestions osed earlier na el to hat e tent value chain finance instru ents are suita le in the livestock sector n i ortant distinction et een livestock and cro s concerns the a ilit of livestock far ers to use the various t es of financial innovations and hed in tools availa le to cro far ers articularl in the develo in orld t resent there a ears to e little e irical evidence of ore co le for s of financin such as the use of futures arkets or securiti ation arehouse recei ts or inventor stora e echanis s increasin l used for cro s are like ise li ited in their sco e ote et al rovide an e a le fro i a e hile I discusses a case stud of rain anks as a eans of s oothin out consu tion shocks that cause far ers to li uidate their stocks of livestock ica ia arra et al note that the re uisite h sical and re ulator infrastructure is issin to su ort arehouse recei ts includin the need for stron infor ation s ste s ins ection services contract enforce ent and rocessin here end roducts are used as collateral second distinction et een livestock and cro s is the ultifaceted use of livestock in far livelihoods here ani als re resent a source of ani al rotein eat and ilk drau ht la our a store of ealth and a source of social status here financial arkets the selves are underdevelo ed livestock serves as an i ortant source of easil converti le assets to one that can e used to eet various livelihood needs Indeed here financial arkets are lackin or rudi entar the fact that livestock serves such ultifaceted roles akes it difficult to co erciali e traditional roduction s ste s a iri et al oreover iven the risks faced livestock roducers drou ht disease etc this su ests not onl a need for reater financial service develo ent ut the use of financial instru ents other than credit such as savin s or insurance oran et al Inde ased insurance holds ro ise in astoral settin s hantarat et al ith e irical evidence sho in i ortant ehavioural chan es to ards risks a on those that have ado ted such services arter and an en akud e and achethe furtherInternational conference on livestock value chain finance and access to credit ers ectives on i rovin financial access for livestock value chain develo ent ddressin the issin iddle hi hli ht the role of u lic rivate artnershi s et een overn ent and s allholder focused trade associations in the rovision of credit for livestock in outh frica as the issin iddle een found ore difficult uestion is hether the financial innovations and arket linka es develo ed over the ast cou le of decades have solved the rural and eso finance a discussed earlier inkin far ers to arkets throu h value chains solves an of the ro le s that s allholders face in o tainin sufficient ca ital for o erations and e ansion oreover it is certainl the case that technolo ical and institutional innovations have la ed a a or role in roadenin and chea enin access to finance for ore stakeholders o ever three i ortant oints still need to e considered irst an i ortant a in the literature concerns issues of access to inancial services hile uch attention has een iven to the rocess of linkin far ers to arkets throu h finance its i acts and deter inants of success less attention has een aid to the d na ics of access in ter s of ho these links have chan ed or een sustained over ti e ate et al find for e a le that levels of technolo ical ado tion en endered access to finance can var de endin on the source of that ca ital su estin that ho finance is rovided can ield insi hts into so e of these overnance and u radin issues econd and related to this there are concerns around issues of overnance and o er d na ics ithin the value chain s noted earlier uch of the rovision of value chain finance co es fro to do n linka es fro u ers and lead fir s ith si nificant o er over transactional attri utes of e chan e han es in value chain coordination chan e overnance atterns in value chains hich can have oth ositive and ne ative i acts hile this can afford s allholder far ers etter ore relia le inco es it can also lead to e clusion aven n i ortant area for in uir concerns hether there has een e clusion or not and hat the attri utes of this i ht e inall uch of the focus on value chain develo ent has een led lead fir s or s or ani in su l ases rather than facilitatin the entre reneurial ca acit of stakeholders the selves Indeed as I notes there is si nificant otential in the livestock sector for value addin o ortunities in rocessin and other do nstrea activities hese could otentiall serve ne arket niches that levera e consu er attri utes for traditional roducts ut hich are outside the re it of odern value chains and those ith ider net orks of ca ital and finance In such cases the uestion re ains as to hat sources of funds e ist for such o ortunities oran et al cite the ro th of social invest ent funds and e uit ca ital in the develo in orld e ro in in outh frica ut a riculture has een noticea l a sent fro such ortfolios re there a s the financial and ca acit stren thenin needs for these ne arkets can e addressed nd hat role can s and other facilitators la to hel s allholders navi ate the social invest ent landsca e chleitner et al Introduction o a ver lar e e tent ost s allholder far ers de end directl or indirectl on livestock for their livelihoods ood and riculture r ani ation of the nited ations It is antici ated that the livestock sector ill la an even ore si nificant role in value addition and land use in future an der i et al It has een de onstrated that i roved arket access is an effective catal st for overt alleviation a on resource oor s allholder far ers ctive artici ation in livestock arkets is considered a otent strate to achieve food self sufficienc and inco e fro locall availa le natural resources ost s allholder livestock roducers are ho ever located in ver re ote ar inali ed areas ith oor road and trans ort net orks inslie et al urther ore the areas are associated ith oor arket infrastructure and oor access to su ort services he s ste is characteri ed hi h arketin costs and far ers resort to local livestock tradin hich is lar el infor al oet ee et al esearchers and develo ental scientists su est that livestock arketin is not the ri ar roduction oal of ost s allholder livestock roducers ontsh e u un u et al Instead far ers e uall lace value on other livestock roles such as the rovision of drau ht o er si ns of household ealth inheritance assets and an other socio cultural roles u a et al his artl contri utes to the non artici ation of a lar e nu er of s allholder livestock roducers in for al arkets andol h et al It is i ortant indeed essential to identif and i le ent strate ies ai ed at creatin o ortunities for enhanced s allholder livestock roducers access to for al arkets as this is considered a ate a to overt alleviation oet ee et al he deter inants and livestock arketin ehaviour of s allholder far ers are critical in desi nin alternative strate ies and olicies that are relevant to elevatin the returns reali ed s allholder far ers fro livestock In s ite of the reat financial otential inherent in s allholder livestock i rovin far ers access to arkets should not e considered in isolation as arkets need to e su orted a vi rant and consistent roduction ase oet ee et al Increased livestock roductivit i roves cattle arket off take rates and ulti atel leads to enhanced food securit and far er livelihoods lt an et al id ani reinforcin loo e ists here access to sta le and relia le livestock arkets rovides the invest ent ca acit and other incentives to drive even reater livestock roduction uccess in i le entin alternative strate ies and reali in the true econo ic value of s allholder livestock re uires dedicated institutional su ort aile et al easons for oor arket artici ation s allholder far ers arket artici ation s allholder livestock far ers is lar el influenced their ar inali ed and re ote locations ith res ect to the ain ur an arket centres oor arket infor ation and oor road and other relevant infrastructure hich results in hi h trans ort costs all herd si es and oor od conditions Individual s allholder livestock far ers kee s all livestock nu ers otentiall therefore the can sell onl a fe ani als esides e tre e cli atic conditions oor nutrition and diseases and arasites are a on the reatest li itations to increasin livestock nu ers and roductivit s allholder far ers a i e et al co ination of oor nutrition arasites and diseases leads to lo live ei ht and oor livestock od conditions onse uentl s allholder livestock fetches lo far ate rices and is either oorl raded or co letel re ected in for al arkets onsth e et al stud carried out the ational er ent ed eat roducers r ani ation and Industrial evelo ent rust re orted that ost s allholder livestock roducers in outh frica sell livestock that is too old and lean et de and hi h rices for it o arket off take rates he livestock arket off take rate for a s ecific s ecies is calculated as the nu er of ani als sold as a ro ortion of the total ani als of that s ecies er a iven eriod of ti e he livestock arket off take rate for s allholder livestock roducers in southern frica is esti ated to e less than e ce t for a i ia and ots ana here off take rates of u to ere recorded s allholder eef cattle roducers inslie et al use a et al o arativel offtake rates of co ercial livestock roducers are re orted to e u to in the sa e re ion he lo livestock arket off take rates in the s allholder sector are artl attri uted to ulti le uses of livestock ith little e hasis laced on arketin allholder far ers kee livestock for a variet of reasons such as for drau ht o er as a si n of ealth and a for of savin s a on other roles he other reason for lo livestock arket off take rates is the co le livestock o nershi atterns here one ani al in a herd or flock of ani als is o ned ore than one fa il e er of an individual s allholder household o eti es livestock o ners a e livin in ur an areas and en a ed in other for s of e lo ent he fact that the are not involved in da to da far activities akes decision akin includin arketin of livestock co licated as fa il e ers on the far a not decide on their ehalf Ina ro riate carcass classification s ste s in the for al arket allholder livestock far ers in southern frica are discoura ed fro for al arkets the unfair classification s ste s used to value eat carcasses hich favour oun ell uscled ani als his disadvanta es ost s allholder livestock roducers as the kee their livestock on far for lon er to enefit fro the ultifunctional roles of ost livestock or this reason livestock arketin is onl considered to ards the end of the ani al s life hen its a ilit to erfor other roles eco es di inished arandure et al revealed the e istence of consu ers ho refer eef to ature natural asture fed cattle It ould e rudent to esta lish the location of such arkets and develo strate ies that cater for these consu er references e and unrelia le arketin channels ost s allholder livestock roducers refer to use infor al arketin channels for their livestock ontsh e et al he arkets usuall de end on availa ilit revailin arket rices distance to the arket and the e tent of relationshi s develo ed in revious transactions a on other factors he infor al or rivate arket is characteri ed ore localised sales et een the far ers the selves or sales to other non far in individuals fro the sa e or nei h ourin co unities It a also refer to sales ade to local institutions such as clinics hos itals schools and churches Infor al arketin is hi hl seasonal ith no fi ed arket rices rices ein a result of deli erations and ne otiations et een the u er and the seller oet ee et al or this reason the rices hardl reflect revailin for al eef arket rices endani he infor al arkets thrive rior to the hrist as and aster holida s to coincide ith the cele ration ti e as ur an ased fa il e ers return ho e and these are the seasons hen ost traditional activities are conducted eculators take advanta e of their rior kno led e that ost s allholder far ers sell their livestock for e er encies for e a le to a school fees edical ills or for a funeral inslie et al he then e loit the oor ar ainin o er of the far ers and a ver lo rices for livestock hich the then resell to for al arkets ost s eculators o erate in ver re ote and the least accessi le areas here arketin infrastructure and arketin institutions are either rudi entar or non e istent use a et al use a et al descri ed this ractice as o en e loitation of s allholder far ers as necessitated oor or lack of a ro riate arketin infrastructure in s allholder areas n alternative arketin channel availa le for s allholder cattle roducers is the auction s ste hich o erates on a id and offer asis oet ee et al nder the auction s ste live ani als are sold to the hi hest idder ivestock is sold on a ei ht asis ut the a orit of s allholder cattle roducers do not full understand the ode of o eration of this auction s ste In the end s allholder cattle roducers often choose to i nore the rice er kilo ra s ste referrin their e ected rices as in infor al sales ontsh e he lo nu ers of livestock for sale has led to the failure of this arketin channel in an s allholder areas Inade uate arketin infrastructure reasona le arketin or ani ation ith a ro riate arketin h sical infrastructure includin accessi le road net orks trans ort holdin and loadin facilities ena les a s ooth flo of livestock aile et al art fro rovidin for a s ooth h sical flo of cattle at trade h sical and institutional arketin infrastructure also acts as an incentive for s allholder far ers to artici ate in for al livestock arkets use a et alIn co unities ho ever the arket infrastructure is either in de lora le conditions due to oor aintenance ontsh e et al or co letel non functional use a et al In e tre e cases so e s allholder areas are located in ver re ote areas far fro a or arkets here arketin infrastructure does not e ist at all endani or e a le a oor road net ork is associated ith hi h trans ort costs and discoura es u ers arketin infrastructure is also re arded as a ositive co unit develo ent assetInsufficient arketin infor ation ost s allholder livestock roducers in the re ion still lack sufficient and ti el arketin infor ation due to a co ination of lo literac levels and inefficient co unication s ste s ore recentl ho ever i roved co unication s ste s have een facilitated the rovision of cellular services across the ar inal areas in the re ion Infor ation such as arket o ortunities and consu er de ands is essential for far ers to or ani e their roduction techni ues to ards a tar eted roduct ualit aile et al oet ee et al added that access to sufficient relevant arketin infor ation revents e loitation of livestock roducers s eculators or iddle en here is also evidence to su est that rovision of sufficient arketin infor ation to s allholder cattle roducers hel s to create an at os here of inclusiveness that increases trans arenc and i roves arket artici ation use a et al ivestock arket access ro ra s in outhern frica he overn ent of outh frica throu h the ational ricultural arketin ouncil has introduced ro ra s ai ed at i rovin the condition of cattle throu h i roved feedin rior to arketin nder these ro ra s far ers send cattle the intend to sell to a co unal custo feedin ro ra for a su sidi ed co ercial diet for a eriod of u to four onths or until the are read for slau hter lthou h the does not connect the far ers to a articular arket the idea ehind the odel is that the cattle s ood condition ill e a le to attract for al cattle u ers to the enefit of the far ers u ort fro the overn ent co es in the for of su sidi ed co ercial feed construction of custo feedin structures and a ent of orkers e lo ed to ensure the s ooth o eration of the feedin ro ra ccordin to arandure et al custo feedin centres are dou lin u as auction ens here u ers includin local ones co e to u cattle at co etitive rices lthou h these ro ects are still on oin the are likel to face via ilit challen es once the overn ent ithdra s the su sidies urrentl o erational challen es raised include far ers rin in older e aciated cattle that are not suita le for feedlot finishin he s allholder far ers refer to kee cattle on far until a ore advanced a e for social and cultural reasons rather than sell eaners into the feedlots nfortunatel the eef classification s ste in outh frica discri inates a ainst older ani als and s allholder far ers thus consistentl receive lo er rices ince these older ani als are sold ri aril into lo value local arkets there is little incentive for roducers or value chain artners to invest in a hi h ualit asture fed eef value chain is another or ani ation founded to re resent lack far ers ith the o ective of i rovin their contri ution to for al eef arketin s ter s of reference include identif in ne arkets for s allholder far ers and settin u cattle u ers da s he or ani ation resuscitated auction ens throu hout the s allholder areas in the astern a e rovince u ers co e to auction ens here the u cattle on a hi hest idder asis he enefits of auctions include introducin far ers to an entr oint into the for al arkets servin as arket si nals on cattle t es ualit and rices and eli inatin the iddle an he auction s ste reviousl failed due to oor road net orks the oor condition and old a e of cattle and la in a ent a on other reasons oreover the fact that for al u ers still insist on u in cattle er kilo ra of live ei ht discri inates a ainst so e areas here the infrastructure does not allo for ei hin cattle oat arketin in i a e as or ani ed into en sales the ural istrict ouncil ith oat sales conducted in arallel to cattle sales lternativel collection oints are or ani ed co unit leaders such as local councillors at the re uest of u ers or sellers o anne et al si ilar arketin arran e ent as re orted for oats and shee in thio ia ocho et al he authors entioned lack of holdin and easurin facilities ut services still have to e aid for co unit leaders ho act as inter ediaries et een the u er and seller to revent e loitation of far ers ven ith these o tions availa le ost s allholder livestock roducers refer rivate far ate sales fforts ere also ade to ards securin re slau hter contracts ith a attoirs and leadin eat retailers he re slau hter contracts ensure uaranteed arkets for s allholder livestock roducers arriers to this for of arketin arise fro the ina ilit of far ers to eet set tar ets of roduction ith re ards to the ualit and uantit of eef re uired at s ecific ti es oreover arandure et al re orted that so e far ers are not co forta le ith for ard contracts as the feel inde ted he sa e authors investi ated the erce tions of all the eef value chain artners on develo in a natural asture eef rand s allholder far ers to i rove their access to for al arkets he otential of a eef rand develo ent as co ro ised lo cattle roductivit levels des ite the other value chain artners indicatin their illin ness to su ort the randhere is reat econo ic otential inherent in s allholder livestock roduction ut far ers do not reali e as an financial enefits fro their livestock as the should e u lic invest ents are necessar to increase access s allholder far ers to livestock arkets he invest ents could e in the for of uildin institutional and infrastructural ca acities that i rove the co etitiveness of the s allholder livestock roduction s ste he rovision of an ena lin environ ent throu h u lic sector invest ent to i rove the efficienc of livestock roduction ust e considered in arallel ith the arket artici ation ca ai n stract ivestock value chain financin resents hu e o ortunities for reachin s all far ers ut has often een issin in the dialo ue on a ricultural value chain finance usin a value chain a roach lenders can reduce costs and risks of oth short and lon ter financin of livestock es eciall for s allholder households includin a s ecial i act on o en arious usiness odels and financial instru ents for financin of livestock are resented and illustrated hese uild on the stren th of the arkets and arket linka es rather than ein focused on conventional collateral Keywords riculture livestock value chain finance invest ent odels ri food s ste s as drivers of roduction arketin and financin ri food s ste s orld ide are ein transfor ed in un recedented a s ar roduction and distri ution are ra idl evolvin fro the si le relationshi s and oints of interaction of the ast to the hi hl inte rated linka es and closer ali n ents a on usiness artners e itness toda alue chains are ein ro oted as the usiness develo ent fra e orks of choice in the a ri food sector uch ore attention is ein aid to inter and intra or ani ational efficienc in roduction rocessin and lo istics here is increased focus on arketin roduct differentiation and roduct niche develo ent urther ore the co etition is no lo al rices are less affected local conditions seasonalit and arkets ll these develo ents ake a solid financin structure even ore i ortant than it has al a s een arket co etitiveness and arket risks are eco in the drivers of financin decisions in the ne a ri food s ste s Inte rated food chains are heavil revalent in so e of the eat industr sectors he oultr turke and ork sectors for e a le have itnessed assive transfor ation in the ast t o decades he eef industr is follo in close ehind hat does this ean for s allholder livestock far ers household chicken raisin s allholder far ers local dairies and the like hat does this ean for financin ivestock as a culture an invest ent and a usiness he ter i ank is ell kno n as descri in a a to save for the future aisin livestock can also e a cultural a of life such as ith the asai and an other cultures o finance livestock it is first i ortant to understand its role and conte t for those involved rather than to think a out it as a si le co odit ith an econo ic value he intrinsic value is ver i ortant to understand he role of livestock for finance and invest ent is isks of financin a riculture and livestock he nature of a riculture eans financin it and those involved ith it is risk and costl It is costl ecause of its rural nature here the servicin of loans is ore difficult and ad inistrativel e ensive oreover in an countries the roducers are in the ain s allholders his increases transaction costs for lenders isks too i act lenders an erils such as cli atic risk and diseases are un redicta le uncontrolla le and s ste ic in nature affectin an at the sa e ti e he use of insurance roducts and ood roduction ractices such as diversification and invest ent in irri ation or draina e can iti ate ut not full control such risks ivestock financin holds less risk than an t es of roduction a riculture ut has si nificant risks and additional constraints such as the slo er returns to ca ital rice do nturns can also e lon er ter ealth and safet risks are i ortant and eetin standards can e costl and difficult for an s aller livestock roducers and local utcheries oreover ani als can die inall often there are no land titles for livestock ra in areas so e of hich are often co unal or ith ri hts that cannot e used as ort a e securit for loans ra in and ater ri hts can also e in dis ute alue chain financin for livestock hereas conventional financin is not availa le for an in the livestock industr financin that akes use of the value chain does fit ell value chain is the ath that a roduct follo s fro ra aterial to consu er fro the field and asture to the u er trans orter rocessor and the various actors rivate u lic and includin su ort service roviders that take o nershi of the roduct efore it arrives at its final condition and location he relationshi s et een the arties are ver i ortant he ath a e ver short fro far er to the local arket household or follo a co le ath of value addition and eo ra hical ove ent fro far er to a re ator or coo erative to ra aterials rocessor to arketin holesaler e orter etc to retailer iller and onesIn the e anded definition of the ter a value chain and its anal sis also e od the follo in service roviders socio cultural constraints ena lin environ ent and relationshi s a on st stakeholders i ure ricultural value chain rocesses and environ ento etitive a riculture is connected a riculture linkin those in a sector or ithin a value chain in hich ever one involved has a vested interest iller ovin fro conventional roduction and arketin defined as ad hoc u in and sellin transactions of roducers traders and a ri usinesses to ards focused value chains reduces the inherent uncertaint of traditional roduction and value addition of a ricultural co odities he arket is ore secure the rice or ethod for rice deter ination for the seller and u er is a reed ahead and the t e of roduce and its ualit and uantit can e si ilarl a reed hese factors ake it easier to lan and increase the efficienc hich traders or a ri usinesses can or ani e collection stora e and rocessin and for a ro industries to or ani e sales to su er arkets or e orts ll can enefit ith increased access to financin oth fro financial institutions and fro those fro ho the have contracted urchases In fact financin is enerall an inte ral in redient of value chain a ree ents and can hel lue or ond value chain arties in a for al or so eti es infor al relationshi alue chain finance refers to the flo s of funds to and throu h or a on the various actors in a value chain It is an a roach to financin that uses an understandin of the roduction value addition and arketin rocesses to est deter ine financial needs and rovide financin to those involved iller and ones he stren th of value chain finance lies in hel in to a reciate the risks of the usiness throu h understandin the risks and co etitiveness in the value chain his infor ation can then e used oth for invest ent decisions and to hel develo financial roducts for the current and otential clients ithin the value chain alue chain finance can e either internal or e ternal to a value chain or e a le hen a dealer su lies in uts on credit to a roducer or a holesaler akes an advance a ent to a trader for the urchase of ra aterials these re resent internal value chain finance Internal financin et een value chain actors is often e edded ith other services o on for s of e edded finance are trader credit in ut su lier credit arketin co an credit and lead fir financin n the other hand the flo of funds fro an outside rovider to a usiness or cate or of usinesses e roducers traders in ut su liers in the value chain is defined as e ternal value chain finance or e a le hen a ank lends one to a u er so it can finance roduct urchases or hen a icrofinance institution I rovides credit to a far er usin a arehouse recei t as collateral these are e a les of e ternal value chain finance h is livestock value chain finance i ortant enders such as ankers and Is are concerned ith cost risk and uncertaint It is also less costl to finance those in a value chain than to inde endentl assess and lend to each art individuall urther ore the can finance the ost credit orth arties in a value chain such as the in ut su liers or a ri usinesses and let the rovide financin to others fro ho the u and sell he can also increase efficienc and secure re a ents arran in for loan a ents to e directl discounted at the ti e of sale In addition the can even lend to other ise non anka le clients ithout conventional collateral usin their for ard sale contracts or inventor recei ts as collateral enders are often non financial actors such as u ers ho use finance as a rocure ent instru ent and cattle raisers or oultr roducers ho use their su liers and u ers as a source of financin for u in on credit or receivin advance a ents alue chain finance is kno led e ased financin enders re uire hi h levels of certaint of industr and arket risks in the short and lon ter s and of kno led e of roduction and rice risks and client risks et the cost of ac uirin such infor ation is hi h he leaders in a value chain ho are ost often the rocessors and u ers can rovide this infor ation he kno the industr and those involved in it enders can use this to understand the usiness nature of relationshi s and a ilit of the clients to re a a loan urther ore this understandin is needed to ensure that the financial service conditions consider the cash flo s and other interests of the additional actors ithin the value chain or chains of the orro er iller and da ilva alue chain usiness odels he nature of the roduct cash flo d na ics t e of relationshi s and risks associated ith a value chain are influenced various usiness odels defined ho is the driver of the value chain here are several t es• roducer driven odels• u er driven odels• acilitated odels• Inte rated odels roducer driven odels are ones in hich the driver and rinci al decision aker is the roducer or ani ation roducers and even overn ents often envision this odel as the ost desired as it ives roducers the reatest o er o ever this odel enerall co es ith hi her risks for financin since an s all roducer or ani ations do not have the ca acit and arket kno led e for sustaina le success and ro th o allholder roducer driven usiness odelIn olivia eifer International ith its lend a heifer revolvin in kind credit ro ra for undernourished rural fa ilies facilitated the develo ent of an villa e level dair cattle rou s throu h trainin asture i rove ent and ara vet services hese ere then or ani ed in districts and an inde endent national or ani ation as created It eca e an i ortant leader in the dair industr in the countr ith the creation of one dair shareholdin or artici atin in others and for in so e cheese roduction setu s hile is not a financier its e ers can ore easil o tain financin either fro anks or fro the dairies and re a ent o li ations can e directl deducted fro their sales u er driven odels such as contract far in or out ro er sche es have eco e uch ore co on for value chains he u ers contract roducers to su l the roduct and offer the direct or indirect credit as one i ortant tool his assists roducers to eet the deliver re uire ents of the u er and hel s the latter to secure the roduct needed for factor throu h ut and or arketin re uire ents inancin conditions are set to fit the roducer s cashflo schedule or dair ith re ular a ents it is ideal for eef cattle it is ore difficult and risk to finance or co etitiveness s allholders roducin on contract es eciall for s all ani als is eco in a nor hich o ens avenues for financin as ell as ore arket securit and sta ilit or value chains to include and enefit the oor facilitated value chain odels can e used In this case develo ent a encies facilitate or roker relationshi s for arkets or financial institutions In doin so the hel uild ca acit there reducin the costs and risks for those involved or e a le as develo ed ith the su ort and entorin of eifer International inall inte rated odels are ones in hich the lead a ri usiness has full control and therefore o er of coordination his is co on ith lar er con lo erate a ri usiness fir s and can allo the to su stantiall reduce financin and usiness risks he trend is for ore industr consolidation of the eat industr lar e inte rated usiness odels ith uilt in value chain financin o ever as sho n elo even s allholders can e a re ated and enefit i ure ank India s allholder dair a re ation services and financin odel ource iller and ones hat financial instru ents are a ro riate for livestock value chain finance an financial instru ents or tools can e used in a ricultural value chain finance hese instru ents su ari ed elo are not e clusive to value chain finance Product-linked financing involves the advance of funds or in uts to roducers inter ediaries or rocessors to e re aid at ti e of deliver his for of value chain finance is co onl ractised in a rarian societies and allo s traders for e a le to rocure roducts and rovides far ers ith needed cash or in uts as ell as a secured sale and rice s re uire ents for ualit safet and or ti eliness of roducts increase there is ore use of contract far in a lead fir or co an that often rovides technical uidance as ell as facilitatin financin he finance a e iven directl to the roducer trader etc or the contracts and value chain artner relationshi a e used the to secure financin fro financial institutions Receivables financing involves the sellin of accounts receiva le at a discount for receivin advance fundin efore collection ank or other financier advances orkin ca ital to a ri usiness su lier rocessor trader and e orter co anies a ainst accounts receiva le or confir ed orders to roducers It takes into account the stren th of the u er s urchase and re a ent histor rather than rel in on the co an s collateral thus e tendin access to credit actorin is a s eciali ed receiva le financial transaction here a usiness sells its accounts receiva les i e invoices at a discount to a s eciali ed a enc called a factor ho a s the usiness inus a factor discount and collects the receiva les hen due actorin s eeds orkin ca ital turnover credit risk rotection accounts receiva le ookkee in and ill collection services he use of factorin in a riculture is uite ne ut it is eco in increasin l valued for s all and ediu a ri usinesses Physical assets a also e used as collateral for financin in value chains ro s in uts or rocessed oods can serve as collateral as lon as the are secure arehouse recei ts uaranteein the uantit and ualit of the oods can e led ed as collateral for anks In so e countries such as ra il cro s can even e for all led ed earl in the season ith financial leasin the asset ein urchased serves as the collateral since o nershi sta s ith the financier inall risk reduction instru ents hich reduce risk for the orro er and or lender are i ortant in value chain finance Insurance reduces roduction and o erational risks hile futures and for ard contracts do the sa e for rice risk and arket risks e urchase a ree ents or re os are also used for livestock fattenin and are ver co on in Isla ic finance ther instru ents such as loan uarantees enhance financin reducin the lender s risks alue chain finance is not si l a collection of financial instru ents nor is it the use of one or ore of the financial instru ents noted a ove either does the ere rovision of inancial services to a orro er ithin a value chain ca ture the essence of value chain finance ather the ost i ortant as ect of a value chain finance a roach is to understand the value chain and its artici ants and rocesses in order to structure financin accordin l usin hatever instru ent or instru ents are ost a ro riate a le rou s five cate ories of value chain finance instru ents to illustrate their use alue chain financin offers a ro isin a roach for financin livestock at an level fro roducer to a ro industrialist It does not re lace the need for other ankin services nor does it su stitute for sound financial assess ent and ractices ather it is an avenue to i rove efficienc and access to finance as it refocuses e hasis a ro collateral to transactions of roduct and cash flo s ro client activit financin to chain focused financin c ro conventional su l driven financial roducts to efficienc and risk reduction i e tailored financinIn the harsh cli ate of the haco of ara ua the ulti ethnic s allholder association Indi enous ricultural evelo ent oundation rovides its far ers ith in uts ani al traction e ui ent and achiner ools veterinar service stora e and financin attle are the rinci al inco e alon ith fa il food and li ited co ercial cro roduction attle financin is carried out usin solidarit rou s of five fa ilies ith the cattle servin as the uarantee and the solidarit rou as a secondar uarantee he cattle and offs rin under loan are randed to ensure re a ent fter ore than ears of functionin there have een no loan defaults ource lassen d ro collateral to transactions of roduct and cash flo s e ro client activit financin to chain focused financin f ro conventional su l driven financial roducts to efficienc and risk reduction i e tailored financin ortunities and challen es alue chain finance has een sho n to rovide an o ortunities o ever in order for the financial industr to e a le to take full advanta e of its o ortunities there are an challen es to e addressed es eciall in servin s allholders in less develo ed arts of the orld s sho n in the follo in ta le ost of the challen es are due to a lack of ca acit oth hu an and h sical or e a le for s all roducers to e a le to inte rate into value chains the re uire or ani ation to have the econo ies of scale re uired he re uire technical and ana e ent trainin and the ust have roads and co unications s ste s that are ade uate to co ete in the arket lace i ilarl anks and Is need increased understandin of arket assess ent and need to ain e erience in orkin ith the various traders and a ri usinesses in the value chains in order to structure their roducts and services to their recise needs in a a that can a i i e the enefits of value chain finance clusion of s all roducers is accentuated the increasin l strict eat standards alue chain financin enefits for actors inte rated into chains ut an are not in chains he future of value chain financin for the livestock industr o rinci al oints can e concluded for a ricultural value chain finance for livestock irst the ro th of inancial services e edded into or linked ith the value chain can e e ected to continue to ro as roduction and arketin s ste inte ration intensifies econd and erha s ost i ortant the conce t and use of value chain s ste s is and should eco e even ore i ortant in infor in financial service roviders in their lendin decisions and roduct develo ent for a riculture sin the kno led e of a value chain assessin its stren ths risks and trends and assessin a loan client s osition and co etenc ithin that chain ill infor the lendin decision akin at oth the client level and that of the roviders overall ortfolio i ited access to and use of a ricultural credit has een identified as one of the constraints that ha er a ricultural roductivit discoura in technolo ado tion and a ricultural intensification s allholders onse uentl access to credit is often vie ed as ke to transfor in se i su sistence s allholders into arket oriented roducers o ever fe studies have e a ined factors that affect far ers decision to allocate credit to far activities in eneral and livestock roduction in articular in a s ste atic a that controls for selection iases In this a er e used a three sta e ro it odel ith dou le selection ias corrections to anal se the deter inants of credit use in livestock roduction he first sta e ro it odel esti ates deter inants of household use of a ricultural credit a on credit constrained far ers the second sta e ro it esti ates credit users decision to allocate the credit to a ricultural activities hile the third sta e ro it esti ates deter inants of the decisions a ricultural credit users to allocate the credit to livestock roduction sin a ro riate e clusion restriction varia les such an anal tical fra e ork ena les us to ore accuratel identif the varia les that deter ine the decision to use credit for livestock roduction he results are ased on data collected fro s allholder far ers and rural co unities in thio ia fter controllin for t o sa le selection iases e find that fe ale headed households households ith literate heads ealth far ers and far ers that have access to livestock focused e tension services are ore likel to utili e credit for livestock roduction ar er si e of land detracts fro credit allocation to livestock he stud hi hli hts the fact that lendin to fe ale household heads a lead to increased access to ani al sourced foods for rural households urther ore the stud sho s that i rovin far ers access to credit should e acco anied ith livestock focused e tension services that also consider the s ecial needs of fe ale far ers he stud s findin s should e vie ed ith caution as onl households ith e cess de and for credit ere the su ect of the anal ses Keywords livestock roduction credit access credit allocation household decision dou le sa le selection Introduction i ited access to a ricultural credit has een identified as an i ortant constraint for s allholder a ricultural develo ent in an develo in countries arter and linto ercon and hristiaensen uirkin er and oucher arlan et al iffen et al inter elson and e u onse uentl access to and use of a ricultural credit has een considered an i ortant instru ent to increase a ricultural roduction and i rove rural livelihoods dallah a atti and ove hi a ura and astarria ornhiel on et al re orted that re ovin credit constraints in hina ould increase a ricultural roductivit or su aharan frican countries increased access to credit is linked ith increased ado tion of a ricultural technolo ies dallah t a acro level li ited access to credit has een identified as a a or constraint that revents eo le fro esca in overt u ar et al s in other develo in countries des ite the ivotal role that a riculture la s in the livelihoods of thio ians and its contri ution to the national econo li ited access to credit has een identified as one of the constraints that ha er a ricultural roductivit discoura in technolo ado tion and a ricultural intensification s allholders cIntosh et al ccess to and use of credit are articularl i ortant for thio ian s allholders since s allholder far ers often o erate ith ini u ca ital and are tra ed in a vicious circle of lo invest ent leadin to lo roductivit hich in turn leads to lo inco e and lo levels of savin s and invest ent he usefulness of an a ricultural credit ro ra a art fro its availa ilit accessi ilit and afforda ilit also de ends on its ro er and efficient allocation and utili ation for the intended ur ose far ers o ever there have een li ited studies that identif factors that affect allocation of credit to a ricultural activities in thio ia tudies on the deter inants of far ers decisions to use credit for livestock roduction are also scarce his a er atte ts to contri ute to the understandin of s allholders use of a ricultural credit he contri ution of this a er is t ofold irst it is one of fe e irical studies that tr to identif factors that affect households credit allocation to livestock in s ste atic a that controls for confoundin effects usin three sta e ro it odels iven the e hasis on financial constraints in livestock develo ent ne e irical insi hts on household credit allocation are essential to desi n ore effective develo ent interventions econd the anal sis relies on a co rehensive dataset that re resents the a or a ricultural s ste s of the countr his rest of the a er is or ani ed as follo s ection t o resents our conce tual fra e ork ection three descri es esti ation techni ue and the data used for the anal sis and resents descri tive statistics of the varia les used in the odel ection four resents and discusses the descri tive and econo etric results ection five concludes the a er and dra s i lications once tual fra e ork ouseholds o tain credit ith s ecific ur oses in ind redit can e used for a ricultural or non a ricultural ur oses redit used for a ricultural ur oses can e used for cro roduction or livestock roduction ence e identif three decisions in the rocess of o tainin and usin credit for livestock roduction o tainin credit or not usin the credit for a ricultural or non a ricultural activities and usin the a ricultural credit for livestock or cro roduction ccess to and use of credit are influenced the transaction costs of o tainin the loan the household s a ilit to re a the loan and the e ected return fro the activities for hich the loan is used ence the three decisions are odelled as functions of household characteristics far characteristics access to financial institutions and a ricultural services o ortunit cost of factors of roduction and co unit level factors that a have a earin on returns to far or non far activities he three re ression odels are odelled as follo s credit i = F (hshd, farm, access, oppcost, commun) cruse_a l = F (hshd, farm, access, oppcost, commun) EQ(1) cruse_l i = F (hshd, farm, access, oppcost, commun) here credit i refers to hether the household o tained credit or not cruse_a l refers to hether the household used the credit for a ricultural or non a ricultural activities cruse_l i refers to hether the household used a ricultural credit for livestock or cro roduction hshd refers to household characteristics se a e and education of household head la our su l and total de endenc ratio farm refers to far characteristic si e of cultivated land access refers to household access to icrofinance arkets and services distance to icrofinance institutions Is and to arkets and access to e tension services oppcost refers to the o ortunit cost of the ke factor of roduction a e for off far e lo ent and commun refers to the co unit level factor co unal ra in land er tro ical livestock unit ince e used identification varia les in the second and third sta e decisions and not ever varia le is a ro riate for each decision ro le the s ecifications of each of these re ression odels are not identical cono etric esti ation data and descri tion of varia les cono etric esti ation ur ai is to identif factors that affect a household s decision to allocate credit to livestock roduction e used a three sta e ro it odel ith dou le sa le selection he first sta e ro it odel esti ates deter inants of household use of a ricultural credit a on credit constrained far ers the second sta e ro it esti ates credit users decision to allocate the credit to a ricultural activities and the third sta e ro it esti ates deter inants of the decisions of a ricultural credit users to allocate the credit to livestock roduction sin a ro riate e clusion restriction varia les such an anal tical fra e ork ena les us to ore accuratel identif the varia les that deter ine the decision to use credit for livestock roduction o construct the lo likelihood function e need the ro a ilities for the four ossi le outco es a household not takin credit at all durin the roduction ear a household takin credit decidin to allocate it to far activities and actuall usin it for livestock a household takin credit decidin to allocate to far activities and actuall usin it for non livestock roduction and a household takin credit ut usin it for non far activities o inin the a ove ossi le outco es ith their ro a ilities ives the lo likelihood function of our odel he resultin likelihood function is a i i ed usin the ethod of si ulated a i u likelihood as descri ed ood an ata and descri tion of varia les ata used in this anal sis are dra n fro a surve of households and co unities conducted in in the four hi hland re ions of thio ia hara ro ia i ra and the outhern re ion he data refer to the roduction season en ones ere selected for the stud fro hich districts 1 ere identified he stud area accounts for a out of the national area 2 or sa lin ur oses the stud districts ere stratified into a ro ecolo ical ones and far households ere selected rando l ased on the ro ortional to si e sa lin techni ue ata ere collected on household and far characteristics cro and livestock roduction access to institutional services and infrastructure co unit characteristics and inco e and e enditure on the surve ed districts are intervention districts of the ivestock and irri ated value chains for ethio ian s allholders I ro ect i le ented the International ivestock esearch Institute I I in artnershi ith other national and international or ani ations to de on strate arket oriented transfor ation of s allholder a riculture in thio ia he re ainin districts are control districts for i act evaluation or ore infor ation lease visit lives ethio ia or he national fi ures used to co ute these ercenta es e clude the lo land non sedentar ones of the far and o ali re ions escri tive statistics ercentiles eans and standard deviation of the continuous varia les used in our odel are resented in a le ookin at the socio econo ic characteristics of the household the results sho that the avera e a e of the household is ears and one uarter of the household heads are less than or e ual to ears old n avera e a household has a out e ers of orkin a e a ed ith an avera e total de endenc ratio of t ical household in the sa le o ns a out ha of land hile half the sa le households o n less than or e ual to ha n avera e a household has access to ha of co unal ra in land he avera e value of household h sical assets oth livestock and non livestock is esti ated at 3 thio ian irr icrofinance offices the nearest arket to n and livestock aterin oints are located on avera e ithin a and k radius of the households ho estead res ectivel e use a e rate for off far e lo ent as a ro for o ortunit cost of la our artici ation in off far a e e lo ent is ossi le for o en in rural thio ia ut not unlike other frican countries a inathan et al it is not as fre uent as for en ence the dail a e rate for ales is used in the anal sis he avera e dail a e rate for off far e lo ent is a out a le istri ution of continuous e lanator varia les f those households hich re orted needin credit onl ana ed to et it of hich allocated it to a ricultural activities such as urchasin in uts for cro or livestock roduction further disa re ation of credit use sho s that of those ho allocated the credit one to a ricultural activities a out utili ed it for cro roduction hile used it for livestock roduction n the other hand utili ed the credit to cover household e enditures and ade use of it to start a s all tradin usiness he re ainin households hich account for a out s ent the credit on activities other than those entioned a ove he avera e loan o tained as a out er orro er ran in fro to he credit a ount disa re ated se of household head reveals that on avera e the a ount of credit received ale headed households is hi her than that received their fe ale counter arts co ared to and the difference is found to e statisticall si nificant t ouseholds on avera e had onths to re a their de t he ter s of credit see to differ for ale and fe ale headed households onths for ale and for fe ale o ever test results sho that the difference is not statisticall si nificant t he result further reveals that households hich account for a out had to a ack their de t ithin si onths In ost cases s allholders had to ait for ore than si onths efore ettin an return on their invest ent in a ricultural activities hus far ers ho are re uired to a their loans ithin si onths have li ited o tions as to ho to use the credit he avera e interest rate as found to e and ran ed fro to ero interest rate is not unco on in a rural settin here far ers resort to fa il or friends for credit ith no interest rate n the other hand hi her interest rates such as the rate are char ed infor al sources i her interest rates induce short ter credit s a result orro ers ho face hi her interest rates have an incentive to use the credit on activities that uarantee uick returns such as ett trade rather than lon er ter invest ents o arin the ur ose of the credit ith that for hich it as actuall used reveals that a out ale and fe ale headed households did not use the credit one for the intended ur ose his accounts for of households ale and fe ale headed that took credit durin the roduction season test for the relationshi et een credit diversion and se of household head as found to e statisticall si nificant his indicates that fe ale household heads are ore likel to en a e in credit diversion ehaviour In the literature credit diversion is associated ith lack of sustaina le inco e ehrou et al and in rural settin s fe ale household heads have less access to inco e eneratin activities than their ale counter arts e anvr and adoulet odel resultsar ers decisions as to hether to allocate the credit to livestock roduction are odelled as a three sta e decision ro le o ro it odels na el the decision to take credit and the decision to use the credit one for a ricultural activities recede the ro it e uation of the decision to allocate credit to livestock roduction ro riate e clusion restriction varia les are used to identif the second and third ro it odels o identif the second sta e e uation e used distance to credit sources as an e clusion restriction varia le hich has a statisticall si nificant effect on the ro a ilit of ettin credit ut eca e irrelevant oth conce tuall and e iricall for the su se uent decision o identif the third ro it e uation of the allocation of credit to livestock or cro roduction e used a e rate for off far e lo ent as an e clusion restriction varia le a e rate for off far e lo ent is a relevant varia le in decidin to invest in far or non far activities ut once the decision is ade to invest in far activities it eco es conce tuall irrelevant for the decision to invest in cro or livestock activities his assu tion is su orted our test statistics hich sho that a e rate for off far e lo ent is statisticall si nificant in sta e ut turns out to e insi nificant in sta e he odel assu es a non ero correlation a on the three error ter s corres ondin to the three e uations in o test this assu tion a restricted odel is esti ated settin the correlation a on the error ter ero and a test is conducted ith the null h othesis of ero correlation a on the error ter s is re ected he a ove tests su est that failin to account for the t o sa le selection iases ould result in iased inferences redit arket artici ation a le resents the results of the odel esti ations ale headed households are less likel to receive credit than their fe ale counter arts his could e ecause thio ian icrocredit ro ra s hich are the a or source of credit for rural eo le are deli eratel tar etin fe ale headed households he literac status of the household head has a statisticall si nificant effect on the likelihood of securin a loan ousehold heads ho can read and rite are ore likel to et loans than those ith no education ercenta e oints his is ro a l ecause households ith ore education are ore likel to have e lo ent o ortunities hich akes the etter ets for lenders a le odel esti ate of factors that affect a household s credit allocation decision lder households are ore likel to et credit than oun er ones erha s ecause older household heads are ore likel to e rated as credit orth he ne ative coefficient for a e s uare ho ever indicates that e ond ears of a e far ers are less likel to et credit ousehold ealth has a ositive and statisticall si nificant effect indicatin that lenders refer ealth far ers ealth far ers are an attractive choice for credit institutions as the can easil rovide collateral or are ore likel to a ack the loan his findin is in line ith a recent stud uan and u in hina ho found that oorer households have li ited access to the infor al credit arket s e ected receivin an e tension service is ositivel and si nificantl associated ith the ro a ilit of securin a loan ll else ein e ual access to e tension services increases the likelihood of ettin credit ercenta e oints istance to Is hich is considered as a fi ed cost of accessin credit have a ne ative and statisticall si nificant effect on a far er s access to credit ricultural and non a ricultural use of credit lthou h ale headed households in our sa le are less likel to receive credit the are ore likel to use the credit one on a ricultural activities than their fe ale counter arts onditional on ein a credit receiver an avera e ale headed household is ore likel to direct credit one to ards far orks than is an other ise co ara le fe ale headed household his is consistent ith a inathan et al ho found that in ala i as co ared to o en the a orit of en use loans fro for al credit sources to urchase a ricultural in uts his is ro a l ecause fe ale household heads have li ited access to a ricultural resources such as land ccess to eneral e tension services is ositivel and si nificantl associated ith far ers usin credit one for a ricultural roduction ll else ein e ual receivin infor ation and kno led e su ort fro the e tension services increases the conditional and unconditional likelihood of usin the credit on a ricultural activities and ercenta e oints res ectivel ne reason is that households that have access to a ricultural e tension services are ore likel to e e osed to a ran e of ne a ricultural technolo ies and are otivated to a l these ne technolo ies anuel et al affioli et al se of credit for livestock roduction he ulti ate o ective of this a er is to identif factors that affect households decision to allocate credit to livestock roduction ale headedness decreases the ro a ilit of usin the credit one on livestock roduction ercenta e oints n a e ent in livestock roduction articularl in s all ru inant and oultr is attractive for fe ale far ers since their access to roductive resources such as o en and cro land that are needed for cro roduction a e li ited ven if the o n land fe ale headed households in thio ia are ore likel to rent out uch of it he ru and olden It is orth notin that livestock is the ri ar source of icronutrients for rural households o ined ith our results the i lication is that lendin to fe ales ould i rove households nutrition status In fact in and Iannotti usin data fro a lar e scale i act evaluation conducted in en a found that tar etin fe ales in livestock roduction leads to i rove ents in child nutrition s e ected access to livestock focused e tension services has a ositive and statisticall si nificant effect on the ro a ilit of allocatin credit for livestock roduction onditional on decidin to use the credit on a ricultural activities households hose head had received infor ation and kno led e a out i roved livestock roduction ere likelier to utili e the loan to invest in livestock roduction than those ho had not ercenta e oints all else ein e ual his is ro a l ecause access to livestock focused e tension services enhances far ers kno led e and skills in relation to i roved livestock roduction hich encoura es the to en a e in livestock roduction onclusions and i lications his a er uses a three sta e ro it odellin a roach to identif the factors that affect a household s decision to o tain credit allocate the credit to a riculture and finall to livestock activities ifferent s ecification tests of the odel sho that accountin for the selection ias is a si nificant i rove ent on the one that e cludes the ste ise selection rocess so doin this stud tries to contri ute to the understandin of households credit allocation decisions in thio ia esults are e ected to enhance the understandin of s allholders ehaviours and infor ro ect i le enters and lendin institutions ho ork ith far ers esults sho that socio econo ic and institutional factors have a statisticall si nificant effect on s all scale far ers decisions of hether to allocate credit to livestock roduction his has i lications for ro ra s and ro ects that ai to i rove s all scale livestock roduction he fact that fe ale household heads are ore likel to allocate credit to livestock roduction indicates that e tendin credit to fe ales a lead to i roved household access to ani al source foods and inco e hus efforts to develo the livestock sector should ado t a ender sensitive a roach that addresses the s ecific needs of fe ale far ers he results also sho that access to livestock focused e tension services has statisticall ositive effect on far ers decision to allocate credit to livestock In addition literate household heads are likelier to allocate credit to livestock roduction i l in that i rovin rural education and literac can enhance livestock develo ent s a final note the stud s findin s should e vie ed ith ers ective and caution as onl households ho had e cess credit de and ere the su ect of the research ckno led e ent e are rateful to lo al ffairs anada for the financial su ort e are also dee l rateful to the an far ers ho atientl and illin l res onded to our nu erous uestions en etile olile a a 1 harles achethe 2 adhe ti et 3 1 e art ent of ricultural cono ics tension and ural evelo ent acult of atural and ricultural ciences niversit of retoria retoria outh frica a a ten e ail co 2 chool of riculture and ural evelo ent at the niversit of retoria retoria outh frica charles achethe u ac a 3 International ivestock esearch Institute I I airo i en a n ti et c iar or stract he stud investi ates the role of contract far in in i rovin access to credit for s allholder cattle far ers in a iland he o ectives of the stud are to deter ine the credit access status of s allholder cattle far ers and hether artici atin in contracts leads to i roved access to credit and to identif the factors that deter ine s allholder far ers access to credit fro for al financial institutions and those that a lead far ers to eco e involved in contracts ith other actors in the value chain o sets of structured uestionnaires ere desi ned to ca ture the re uired data fro far ers o lo istic re ression odels ere a lied to the surve of res ondents ho ere selected usin rando sa lin he descri tive results indicated that of cattle roducers of cattle finishers and of cattle traders have access to credit fro financial institutions he results fro the lo it odel for artici ation in contracts indicated that off far inco e access to e tension services ein a e er of a far ers association and havin access to arket and arketin infor ation ere ositivel associated ith far ers involve ent in contract a ree ents he lo it odel on for al credit access indicated that off far inco e a e herd si e and trainin had si nificant effects on a far er s ro a ilit of havin access to for al credit It is concluded that artici atin in contracts does not lead to i roved access to credit and that access to credit relativel decreases artici ation in contracts ar ers involve ent in for al contract a ree ents should e increased articularl enhancin access to arket i rove ents in ca acit uildin and encoura e ent of collective action far ers Introduction ccess to credit is essential for the develo ent of the a ricultural sector he a ricultural sector in a iland accounts for a out of the total volu e of credit fro for al financial institutions ith co ercial su arcane far ers ein the i est reci ients entral ank of a iland o ever the co ercial anks are un illin to artici ate in the rovision of credit to s allholder far ers on a i ation and due to their lack of collateral and the hi h cost involved in its ad inistration as s allholders usuall orro s all a ounts and are dis ersed urrentl there are no non overn ental or ani ations s involved in rovidin credit to s allholder far ers in a iland si iIn develo in countries includin a iland a a or constraint on increasin the roductivit of s allholder far ers is their ina ilit to access credit fro for al financial institutions es ite an interventions involvin su lier led a roaches to credit li ited success has een achieved in i rovin access to credit for s allholder far ers in a iland ence the countr is still searchin for etter a s to i rove access to credit for s allholder far ers esearch has sho n that i rovin access to for al credit ill re uire a aradi shift to a de and driven a roach eller and har a e er ontract far in has la ed a a or role in i rovin access to credit for s allholder far ers as e irical evidence fro revious research has sho n s stated lan en et al contracts have ena led far ers to ain access to a ide ran e of services that ere other ise unattaina le such as access to credit arkets ne technolo ies and risk reduction lthou h contracts have the otential to i rove access to credit little research has een conducted in a iland to deter ine the role of contracts in enhancin access to credit esults of a stud a ilva on the ro in role of contract far in in a ri food s ste s develo ent indicated that credit is enhanced and t icall su lied throu h in ut rovision and as invest ent credit for the ac uisition of achiner and uildin s the contractin fir s or the ankin s ste asuku conducted a stud on the role of contracts in su arcane far in in a iland ut did not address ho artici ation in the contracts enhances access to credit fro for al financial institutions for s allholder far ers tudies on the role of contracts are fe in the s allholder livestock sector and focus ostl on roduction and arketin of s allholder far ers roducts rather than on livestock far ers access to services he also focus on the i act of contract far in on the household inco e of s allholder far ers atelo and ostales usara et al ainaina et al rather than enhancin access to credit fro for al financial institutions here is also scant infor ation on the deter inants of artici ation in these contracts in the case of s allholder cattle far ers ssessin the i act of contracts on s allholders access to for al credit is i ortant for the desi n and i le entation of olicies and strate ies that ai to create sustaina le arkets for s allholder cattle far ers he ain o ective of the stud is to investi ate the role of contracts in ro otin access to credit for s allholder cattle far ers cattle fatteners and traders in a iland he s ecific o ectives of the stud are to deter ine the credit access status of s allholder cattle far ers finishers and traders identif factors that deter ine s allholder cattle far ers fatteners and traders access to credit fro for al financial institutions deter ine hether artici atin in contracts leads to i roved access to credit and deter ine factors that a lead cattle far ers to eco e involved in contract a ree ents ith other actors in the value chain he h othesis to e tested in this stud is that artici ation in contract far in ill i rove access to credit for s allholder cattle far ers cattle finishers and cattle traders in a iland he rest of the a er is structured as follo s the research ethodolo is resented follo ed a resentation and discussion of the results findin s of the stud inall the conclusions and reco endations are resented ethodolo he stud involved descri tive research usin uantitative a roaches he credit access status of s allholder cattle far ers as anal sed usin descri tive statistics eans standard deviation ini u and a i u values o istic re ression as used to anal se the factors influencin credit access and involve ent in contract a ree ents ata collected ere anal sed usin version soft are o istic re ression anal sis as used to anal se the influence of inde endent varia les on a inar dichoto ous de endent varia le access to credit and contract a ree ent ccess to credit contract a ree ent takes u a dichoto ous criterion varia le that is es o he lo istic odel takes the follo in functional for reenehere is the de endent varia le takin the values of or is the vector of de endent varia les β is the vector of coefficients to e esti ated and is the lo istic cu ulative distri ution function elatin the usual re ression e uation a etc hich is a linear for ula to the lo istic re ression e uation the e uation is for ed as Logit y x = log y x 1 − y x = a + b1x1 + b2x2 + b3x3(2) uation has een lineari ed in order for the data to e easil fitted hence the follo in t o lo istic re ression s ecifications for contract a ree ent and access to credit Logit contract agreement = α + β1Gender + β2Training + β3Extension + β4AM + β5AMI + β6FA + β7Cr + β8BA + β9LF + β10Age + ε(3)(3)he varia les used in e uations and are descri ed in a le under the results and discussion section esults and discussion escri tion of a or varia les used in the stud s sho n in a le the avera e inco e level er onth of cattle far ers fro other usinesses as et een lilan eni and he inco e is derived fro su arcane far in dividends and ve eta le cotton and ai e far in ost s allholder cattle far ers in a iland are found on that is co unal land tenure he avera e land or far si e allocated er far er as t o ha ran in fro ha to ha inorit of the cattle far ers intervie ed share land ith other fa il e ers or e ers of their association and this land is used for far in l ost all far ers intervie ed ere e ers of far ers associationsLogit access to credit = α + β1Age + β2Herdsize + β3Farmsize + β4OI + β5AMI + β6Training + β7CA + β8CF + ε 4(4)International conference on livestock value chain finance and access to credit he role of contracts in i rovin access to credit in the s allholder livestock sector of a iland he herd si e of cattle ran ed fro to ani als er far er ith an avera e of cattle he standard deviation of the avera e herd si e is f the cattle far ers intervie ed a inorit ere involved in cattle fattenin this as done cattle finishers l ost half the o ulation intervie ed had ver al contract a ree ents of sale ith other stakeholders in the eef value chain or al contracts ere not used s allholder far ers and for the eef value chain to i rove this echanis is encoura ed he avera e nu er of cattle sold in the arket as five ani als ith a standard deviation of ani als ro a le it can e o served that a ini u of cattle sold as ith a a i u of sho in that so e cattle roducers did not sell their cattle in the revious ear and the a i u of ani als sold as ostl cattle finishers ho ere involved in cattle fattenin a le escri tion of varia les used in the stud ore than half the cattle far ers had access to arkets as ell as arket infor ation rainin and e tension services ere rovided to cattle far ers ut less than half the o ulation of far ers intervie ed had access to such services lthou h ore than half the cattle far ers had rivate ank accounts and had ac uired infor al loans for far in and livestock roduction access to credit fro for al financial institutions as a challen e for cattle far ers as these institutions re uire collateral hich an s allholders do not ossess ess than half the res ondents had access to credit fro anks or icrofinance institutions Is ut one as easil availa le fro friends and relatives ccess to credit ccess to credit is one of the necessar factors for successful livestock roduction and roductivit as far ers need credit to i rove their invest ent in ne and i roved technolo ies and to urchase cattle Ina ilit to access credit inhi its roduction and hence there is a need for the i rove ent of credit availa ilit ccordin to the surve results of cattle roducers of cattle finishers and of cattle traders had access to credit he ain sources of credit ere friends or relatives anks Is the a iland eat Industr I and coo eratives or associations ro the surve ta le it a ears that cattle traders had ore access to credit than cattle roducers and fatteners he ain source of finance as incor the a iland Industrial evelo ent o an I and a i ank and other sources used far ers ere the Inhlan elo und tandard ank and irst ational ank ro the surve ed sa le of cattle roducers of cattle finishers and of cattle traders had access to ankin services such as ank accounts hese accounts ere savin s invest ents and trans ission accounts actors in uencin far ers involve ent in contract arran e ents esults in a le su ari e the lo istic re ression odel to identif the factors that influence cattle far ers involve ent in contract a ree ents ith other value chain actors he odel correctl e lains of the variation in the de endent varia le contract a ree ent as re orted the a elkerke s uare verall a a orit of res ondents ere not en a ed in contract a ree ents o istic re ression anal sis as e lo ed to redict the ro a ilit that a res ondent ould a ree to e involved in contract a ree ent ith other value chain actors test of the full odel versus a odel ith interce t onl as statisticall si nificant at ith de rees of freedo and x 2his eans that the odel ith the varia les is etter than the one ith the constant onl he odel is a le to correctl classif of those ho ere involved in contract a ree ents ith other stakeholders in the value chain and of those ho ere not for an overall correct redicted esti ated odel rate of sa le cases he results of the lo istic odel althou h so e coefficients are not si nificant indicate that artici ation in contract a ree ent a far er is ositivel influenced ender off far inco e access to arket and arketin infor ation e tension services loan facilit and ein a e er of a far ers association It is ne ativel influenced access to credit a e and havin a ank account ith the e ce tion of havin a ank account the coefficients all have the e ected si ns a orit of the varia les ere si nificantl associated ith far ers involve ent in contract a ree ents ith other actors in the value chain hree varia les ank account loan facilit for a ricultural roduction and ender of the far er ere not statisticall si nificant e and off far inco e are si nificant at the level and access to credit arketin infor ation e tension services and ein a e er of a far ers association are si nificant at the level hile access to arket is si nificant at the level his sho s that access to arket rovides a reater o ortunit for far ers to e involved in contract a ree ents ostl ith u ers as this ill uarantee a arket for their roduct a le actors in uencin far ers involve ent in contract a ree ents far er ho has access to for al credit is ti es less likel to enter into a contract a ree ent ith either in ut su liers and or out ut u ers hen all other varia les are constant he result is si ilar to studies ostales et al har a and on chure and oan in hose studies the lo ic as that roducers ith relativel ore constrained access to credit ere ore likel to artici ate in infor al or for al a ree ents ith inter ediaries in order to enefit fro the contractin fir he role of contracts in i rovin access to credit in the s allholder livestock sector of a iland urther an older far er is ti es less likel to artici ate in contract far in he findin is in line ith studies har a and usara et al ho stated that the ne ative si n for the a e varia le could e due to the ne ative correlation et een a e and ado tion decision for ost technolo ies in d na ic econo ic environ ents his result is contrar to findin s ostales et al ho found that older far ers are ore likel to artici ate in contract far in ccess to arket as identified as havin a ositive and si nificant effect on far ers involve ent in contract a ree ents far er ith arket access is ti es ore likel to e involved in contract a ree ents than one ho has no arket access far er ho is a e er of a far ers association is ti es ore likel to artici ate in contract far in than one ho is not a e er of an association his varia le has the second lar est ar inal effect on contract artici ation his findin is in line ith the results of har a and on chure and oan that far ers in far ers or a ricultural associations ill artici ate in contract far in he odds ratio for off far inco e indicates that hen all other varia les are constant a far er ith off far inco e is ti es ore likel to e involved in contract a ree ent ith u ers of cattle and in ut roviders he findin s vindicate studies har a ainaina et al and ain ho found that havin other sources of inco e ill increase chances of far ers artici ation in contract far in n the contrar atelo and ostales and usara et al stated that hen s allholder far ers have hi her levels of off far and non far inco e the are less likel to artici ate in contract far in ecause the have enou h to finance their far in activities and still have enou h for contin encies i ilarl the odds ratio for arketin infor ation indicates that a far er is ti es ore likel to have access to arketin infor ation for their roduct hen the artici ate in contract far in urther ore a far er ho receives e tension services fro the overn ent and s is ti es ore likel to e involved in a contract a ree ent than a far er ith no access to e tension services at all he results are in line ith a stud ainaina et al in ter s of si nificance ut contrar in the sense that their e tension varia le as ne ative i l in that far ers ho o tain technical advice fro overn ent e tension a ents or s are likel to e ore a are and infor ed of alternative arketin channels and roduction ethods and thus less likel to artici ate in contract far in actors in uencin value chain actors access to for al credit a le resents the results of the lo istic re ression odel on factors affectin access to credit far ers he e lained variation in the odels in the de endent varia le access to credit is as re orted the a elkerke s uare his indicates that the odel re resents a fair oodness of fit et een access to credit far ers and the e lanator varia les verall a a orit of res ondents had no access to credit o istic re ression anal sis as e lo ed to redict the ro a ilit that a res ondent ould have access to credit he redictor varia les are as descri ed in a le test of the full odel versus a odel ith interce t onl as statisticall si nificant at 2 and de rees of freedo eanin the odel ith the varia les is etter than the odel ith interce t onl he odel as a le to classif correctl of those ho had access to credit and of those ho did not for an overall correctl redicted esti ated odel rate of of sa le o servations lo in a criterion of statistical si nificance the herd si e a e and trainin varia les had si nificant artial effects urther e lo in the criterion of statistical si nificance onl inco e had si nificant artial effects hile the other varia les far si e contract a ree ent cattle fattenin and arket infor ation ere not si nificant even at this criterion his result corres onds ith the a riori e ectation e ce t the ne ative effect of herd si e on access to credit ccess to arket infor ation and ein involved in cattle fattenin also sho a ne ative si n and ere not si nificant or herd si e hich as si nificant at the level a far er ith a lar er herd si e is ti es less likel to access credit fro a financial institution than a far er ith a s aller herd si e he rediction as that the lar er the herd si e the less illin a far er ill e to ask for credit fro a for al credit institution ehuala stated that as the total nu er of ani als in the household increases the household ould e less likel to o t for credit as the ani als can e easil converted into cash hen de and arises e as si nificant at the level and ielded ositive results he odds ratio for a e indicates that all other varia les ein constant an older far er is ti es ore likel to ain access to credit fro a financial institution than is a oun er far er he result in relation to a e is si ilar to a findin oha ed hich reveals a e as one of the five socio econo ic factors found to influence s allholders access to credit fro for al and uasi for al credit institutions i ilarl trainin has a ositive effect on access to credit ecause this sho s that the far er has kno led e of the usiness and there is less chance of failure t the level of si nificance the results sho that trained far ers have hi her ro a ilities of accessin credit his findin vindicates studies conducted else here such as oha ed and tonihu et al urther inco e ielded a ositive result ut as si nificant at the level far er ho receives inco e er onth fro other usinesses is ti es ore likel to receive credit fro a financial institution than a far er ith no inco e at all his findin vindicates a stud uhon a ire et al in rural anda hich found that off far inco e has a si nificant influence on far ers artici ation in credit arket onclusions and reco endations he stud has sho n that fe er than half of s allholder cattle far ers finishers and traders had access to credit and on avera e fe er than half of cattle far ers ere en a ed in ver al contracts ith other stakeholders in the value chain hile none ere en a ed in for al contracts artici ation in contract far in s allholder far ers as affected off far inco e access to assured arkets arketin infor ation e tension services a e of the far er ein a e er of a far ers association and access to credit here is at resent li ited otential for i le entin successful contracts ecause of the lack of a ro riate institutional arran e ents and incentives to su ort such innovations ccess to credit fro for al financial institutions as affected herd si e a e of far er trainin of far ers and inco e derived fro other usiness activities here is at resent a li itation on accessin credit attri uta le to the strict re uire ents for accessin loans and the li ited re ulation of for al financial institutions interest rates the he h sical a sence of re ulator enforce ent in the financial arket seriousl ilitates a ainst far ers chances of accessin credit fro for al institutions artici ation s allholder cattle far ers in for al contracts should e enhanced throu h the ro otion of access to arkets and arketin infor ation ro otin far ers involve ent in far ers associations enhancin access to e tension services and ro otin access to credit throu h contract far in ccess to credit for s allholder cattle far ers should e enhanced throu h institutional su orts i rove ent in overn ent olicies and socio econo ic initiatives ar ers involve ent in for al contract a ree ents should e increased articularl enhancin access to arket i rove ents in ca acit uildin and encoura e ent of collective action far ers here is a need to tar et the i le entation and the onitorin of credit interventions for s allholder cattle far ers in order to i rove their access to credit and artici ation in contract far in ckno led e ent he authors ackno led e the a i cattle far ers fatteners and traders ho artici ated in the surve and rovided useful infor ation his research as funded the frican econo ic research consortiu throu h the olla orative asters of a ricultural and a lied econo ics ro ra e and the International und for ricultural evelo ent I throu h the Innovative eef value chain develo ent sche es in southern frica ro ra Indonesian enter for ni al esearch and evelo ent o or Indonesia 2 chool of ricultural and ood cience the niversit of ueensland ris ane ustralia i a ahendri ahoo co stract he overn ent of Indonesia has esta lished several credit ro ra s to su ort the develo ent of cattle fattenin articularl for s allholder far ers o ever onl a li ited nu er of households involved in cattle fattenin have een a le to access that credit surve as conducted in to identif factors influencin access to credit cattle fatteners in t o districts u an and a on an in ast ava rovince Indonesia total of far ers ith and ithout access to credit ere intervie ed usin a structured uestionnaire and a lo istic re ression odel as used in the anal sis he results sho ed that a si nificant factor influencin the a ilit of s allholders to access finance as the area of land o ned far ers as land is an i ortant for of collateral in takin out ank loans oreover the ro a ilit of ein a orro er as si nificantl etter for those far ers ith ore cattle and for those far ers hose ri ar occu ation as off far or in non far industries ho enerate hi her and ore re ular inco e In addition the artici ation of far ers in rou s as a si nificant factor affectin far ers access to credit in hich case rou Introduction attle la several roles in the life of Indonesian societ s a source of inco e cattle are necessar to eet far ers needs articularl in the eastern islands of Indonesia Ifar ali et al o e researchers have found that far ers in Indonesia enerall kee cattle to cover ri ar e enses far in ut such as seed and fertili er and for secondar ite s such as otorc cles houses and or land or to a for a eddin or reli ious cere on ad un and atsir ahendri et al alan i et al oreover in rural co unities cattle la a si nificant art in su ortin far in s ste s such as cultivatin the land as drau ht ani als and roducin anure fertili er sources attle roduction also has an i ortant sociocultural role in so e arts of Indonesia such as ast usa en ara attle fattenin is one t e of cattle roduction hich is an i ortant art of the co erciali ation of the Indonesian cattle sector for a nu er of reasons irstl this usiness kee s cattle for a short eriod It also reduces the turnoff a e and increases the rate of return on ca ital faster than a co calf o eration oreover far ers ill o tain hi h rofits if the are a le to use efficient feed to ain a articular od ei ht for their cattle his o eration entails co ercial activities and rin s rural develo ent o ortunities for rural and land oor households aldron et al he ne t reason is that the fattenin o eration can la an i ortant role in tri erin the develo ent of co calf o erations due to the de and for feeder cattle fattenin o erations inall this usiness can sti ulate the connection of far ers to the cattle or eef industr o ever the esta lish ent of cattle fattenin o erations re uires hi h invest ent es eciall in the initial eriod his includes e ensive feeder cattle hi her riced feed veterinar costs hi h technical infrastructure costs and hi her de and for skilled la our In fact onl a li ited ro ortion of overall far ers have the skills resources incentives or illin ness to enter fattenin o erations In addition there are series of hi h start u costs such as ens feed stora e and a ei hin s ste and far ers have li ited access to ca ital to fund those costs ost far ers in eastern and central Indonesia as ell as fatteners in an ladesh ere una le to reach their ca acit in cattle fattenin due to li ited one to invest in in ut roduction h ed et al of that credit as distri uted to far ers irektorat e ia aan ertanian he lo invest ent in cattle fattenin and li ited nu er of households enterin this usiness ose the uestion of hat constraints and factors deter ine a far er s decision to access credit herefore this a er ai s to identif factors influencin access to credit fatteners in t o districts u an and a on an in ast ava rovince Indonesia ethods tud area and data sources ultisa lin techni ues ere used in this research stud hich ere classified into three ste s he first ste as ur osivel choosin the research areas hich ere the a on an and u an districts in ast ava rovince Indonesia ast ava rovince has of Indonesia s total cattle o ulation and these t o districts ere selected ecause eef roduction is i ortant and local overn ent develo s cattle fattenin there he second ste as a selection of a rou of far ers ho o tained credit or had not orro ed one eans of stratified sa lin he cattle fatteners ith and ithout loans ere chosen rando l ased on infor ation fro anks inas eternakan dan esehatan e an a u aten and the leaders of far ers rou s in those areas inall si le rando sa lin as used to select res ondents ho ere cattle fatteners ho had e erience of o tainin credit for their cattle fattenin o erations and fatteners ho had not orro ed one structured uestionnaire as used to intervie the far ers in re ard to their cattle fattenin ractices and also to identif the constraints on o tainin credit ata anal sis ata fro the surve ere anal sed usin the inar lo istic re ression odellin techni ue throu h soft are In this stud since onl t o o tions ere availa le na el access to credit or no access to credit a inar odel as set u to define for the situation in hich the fatteners o tained access to credit and for situations in hich the fatteners did not access credit fro either for al or infor al credit sources ssu in that is a vector of e lanator varia les and is the ro a ilit that t o ro a ilistic relationshi s as asserted ooldrid e can e considered as follo s(1)(2) ooldrid e concluded that since e uation is the lo er res onse level hich is the ro a ilit that far ers did not access credit fro for al and infor al credit sources this ill e the ro a ilit to e odelled the lo istic rocedure convention oth e uations resent the outco e of the lo it transfor ation of the odds ratios hich can alternativel e re resented asand thus allo its esti ation as a linear odel for hich the follo in definitions a l θ lo it transfor ation of the odds ratio α the interce t ter of the odel β the re ression coefficient or slo e of the individual e lanator varia les odelled and i the e lanator or redictor varia les he lo istic re ression in this stud can e s ecified as here i the de endent varia le defined as access to credit s allholder far ers and other ise α constant and interce t of the e uation 1 far ers education 2 havin off far and non far occu ations as a ri ar occu ation had off non far occu ation and other ise 3 total land o ned 4 artici ation in rou es and other ise 5 total of all cattle o ned 6 t e of trou h trou h ade fro concrete and other ise and 7 inco e fro cattle er eriodhe characteristics of far ers enerall far ers in the u an and a on an districts ere ears old had one to school for a out ei ht ears at the ti e of surve and had four fa il e ers ost res ondents in those areas ere far ers althou h a out had their ain occu ation in the off far and non far sectors ther far ers ain occu ation as as fatteners onl and traders cattle and other co odities a out he characteristics of the far in s ste ar ers ho had ears e erience of the far in s ste at the ti e of surve lanted ostl add rice t o or three ti es a ear co ined ith eanuts or left the area e t fallo n avera e far ers had a out ha of rice field ith the ran e of to ha of rice field hi her than the stud ri anti et al a in the alan asuruan and ro olin o districts of ast ava rovince hich avera ed ha and ha of rice field he lo it odel for credit access sho s the likelihood ratio chi s uare of ith value of his nu er indicates that inde endent varia les included in this odel as a hole odel fit si nificantl to e lain factors considered in the decision of far ers to access credit even thou h there are still so e ara eters outside this odel hich influence far ers decisions and assetshe si e of the land o ned far ers correlated ith access to credit he o vious e lanation is that far ers ith hi her land assets are ore a le to access credit ecause land is an i ortant for of collateral in takin out ank loans urve results ahendri et al sho ed that the nu er of res ondents ho o tained credit have ore total land ha of rice field than those ho did not orro credit ha of rice field o ever this result contradicts the stud otsoari et al ho found a ne ative relationshi et een land o nershi and the a ilit of far ers to o tain loans due to orro ers ein involved in the overn ent s credit ro ra hich did not re uire land as collateral ff and non far occu ation ar ers ith a ri ar occu ation outside cattle far in increase their ro a ilit of accessin credit ti es his i lies that those far ers ho enerate hi her and re ular inco e fro off far sources are seen as a lo er risk and ore attractive his is also related to one as ect of the ank evaluation rocess here onl far ers ho have ca ital can access loans o ever a ricultural far ers in esotho frica ho have an increased a ount of total non far inco e reduces de and for loans otsoari et al he a use their non far inco e to urchase in uts for their a ricultural activit In turn fatteners in t o research sites in ast ava Indonesia ho have an increased a ount of non far inco e have hi h de and for loans his is ro a l ecause those fatteners usuall use their non far one to su ort the far in s ste first and then for other co odities such as for cattle fattenin onse uentl the need additional ca ital throu h loan or credit for cattle fattenin activit ased on surve data ahendri et al of res ondents ith credit had a ri ar occu ation outside far in co ared to onl of far ers ithout credit rou artici ation he artici ation of far ers in far ers rou s has a ositive correlation and is a si nificant factor influencin access to credit if far ers are involved in rou s the ro a ilit of access to credit increases ti es ahendri et al re orted that three uarters of far ers ho ere successful in accessin credit artici ated in far ers rou s hile far ers ithout credit could not o tain credit ecause al ost of the did not artici ate in far ers rou rou artici ation is not a andator re uire ent to access credit as individuals also successfull access ank credit if the eet other criteria o ever if far ers for a rou accessin credit can e easier than it is for individual far ers in areas such as ro osal re aration ud et lannin and assistance fro livestock or related institutions trainin er it letters or reco endations he coo erative rou s are also considered as securit that akes anks confident in rovidin one and as concerns the eas ad inistration of credit lu asola and li i otal cattle o ned otal cattle ale and fe ale o ned far ers has the e ected ositive si n and influences si nificantl access to credit ne criterion of credit assess ent fro anks is ca acit referrin to the e istin ca ital ase of the orro er s usiness that deter ines the additional ca ital re uired he e istin ca ital could e in the for of the nu er of cattle o ned far ers hen a l in for credit such far ers ein uch ore likel to receive loans than those ho do not alread have cattle attle credit fro anks a ai to hel far ers to e and or develo their e istin cattle fattenin usiness ut not to uild a ne fattenin o eration so far ers need to have cattle alread he result sho s that a unit increase in the nu er of total cattle o ned far ers is ore likel to increase far ers chance of o tainin credit ti es a le In addition the surve re orted ahendri et al sho ed that far ers ith credit ore than ere cate ori ed as ediu to lar e scale ith ore than five head of cattle hile fe er than of far ers ithout credit ere laced in the sa e cate or Inco e fro cattle otal inco e fro cattle also has a ositive correlation to access to credit confir in that increasin this factor raises the ro a ilit of a far er accessin credit ther criteria considered a ank are conditions hich refer to the ros ects roductivit and co etitiveness of the cattle usiness ar ers and anks are ore confident in a l in for and rovidin a loan if there is a certain increasin inco e enerated cattle o ever the result is less si nificant or si nificant at the level his is not sur risin ecause even if far ers enerate less inco e fro cattle as lon as the have additional inco e fro outside cattle roduction the still have reater ca acit to a ack loans and ose a lo er risk ducation and t e of ens ducation levels do not si nificantl increase or reduce the ro a ilit of far ers accessin credit Indeed the education of far ers ho accessed credit as si nificantl hi her than those ho did not access credit ahendri et al his is artl ecause far ers ho o tained credit articularl in rou s are hel ed rou leaders or inas eternakan dan esehatan e an a u aten to rocess their loan a lication In addition havin a cattle en ith a concrete trou h as not a si nificant factor in accessin credit his is ecause the t es of credit in the t o stud districts a on an and u an consist not onl of fundin hich re uires standard ens ut other t es of cattle credit ro ra s hich do not include cattle ens in their criteriahe si e of the land o ned far ers is one si nificant factor that increases their access to credit ar ers ith hi her land assets are ore a le to access credit ecause land is an i ortant for of collateral in takin out credit oreover far ers ho have oth ore cattle and a ri ar occu ation in off far or non far industries and thus enerate hi her and ore re ular inco e have a hi her ro a ilit of accessin credit In addition the artici ation of far ers in rou s as a si nificant factor affectin far ers access to credit as rou e ershi see s to hel the et assistance fro livestock institutions or related a encies o ever inco e fro cattle had a lesser thou h still si nificant effect hile education level and the t e of ens used to fatten cattle ere not si nificant factors affectin far ers access to credit even thou h values for those factors ere different et een far ers ith and ithout access to credit ivestock far in has re ained of ut ost i ortance not onl as a eans to eetin sustenance rotein and icronutrients re uire ent in food securit ut also as a source of livelihood of s allholder far ers ost es eciall o en in the rural i eria o arner financial resources o en livestock far ers have ore often resolved to coo erative rou s here the access icrocredits hile so e have sou ht credit fro ore for al lendin institutions his stud as therefore carried out as a co arative stud to e a ine the acce ta ilit and deter inants of credit accessi ilit throu h the for al and infor al finance sources in south estern i eria he surve instru ent as a se i structured uestionnaire ad inistered to res ondents rando l selected in a three sta e sa lin rocedure nal tical tools e lo ed in the stud include descri tive statistics and inar lo istic re ression techni ue he stud revealed that of the res ondents currentl access icrocredits hile of the res ondents ill o t for for al institutions here availa le considerin the lon er re a ent eriods and oratoriu o ever still refer coo eratives icrocredit for the convenience ti eliness and ease of access t level factors that si nificantl deter ine access to credit fro for al ankin institutions include livestock far si e availa ilit of uarantor o nershi of acce ta le and erfected collateral transaction volu e in ank account and the duration for hich ankin relationshi have e isted hile at level arital status household si e stake a ount Introduction riculture is the oldest industr kno n to hu ankind and the source of food and ra aterials for an industries In fact it can e ustifia l referred to as the ri ar industr artin and a he case of i eria like an other develo in countries is eculiar in that its a riculture is lar el characteri ed the do inance of s all far holders other ise kno n as easant far ers and its lar e roduction in rural areas ctivities of individuals that fall ithin this cate or are characteri ed s all land s ace hi h cost of roduction and vulnera ilit to ests and the out reak of disease ore often than not these far ers do not reli iousl e race insurance and hence suffer severe loss hen an une ected un leasant situation arises he rural sector har ours the a orit of i erians and a successful atte t to i rove the livin standard of i erians in rural areas ill definitel have an i act on the standard of livin in i eria as a countr ivestock roduction constitutes an i ortant co onent of the a ricultural econo in develo in countries and is an instru ent of socio econo ic chan e i roved inco e and ualit of rural life in i eria ku ade a ivestock la s ulti le roles in the livelihoods of eo le in develo in co unities es eciall the oor It rovides food and nutrition ork and econo ic and social status and ensures environ ental sustaina ilit o o and ane oel e orts the orld ank and the ood and riculture r ani ation of the nited ations indicate that the a orit of the orld s esti ated illion oor eo le live in develo in countries here the de end directl or indirectl on livestock for their livelihoods ro the lo al ers ective livestock contri utes a out to the a ricultural ross do estic roduct and constitutes a out of the a ricultural in the develo in orld orld ank ivestock roducts account for a out of hu an rotein consu tion teinfield et al aters a er and ett o ined that e ond the i ortant role that livestock la s in the rovision of food and nutrition in eo le s diets it also has i ortant social functions iven that it raises the social status of o ners and contri utes to ender alance as o en and children have the o ortunit to o n livestock es eciall s all stock urther to this function livestock serves as a risk uffer in ar inal areas ith harsh environ ents rovidin a eans of risk diversification for resource oor s all scale far ers and their co unities es eciall in the event of cro failure ree an et al hornton et al anda e et al everal studies have su ested an alar in rate of rural ur an i ration resultin in the ne lect of a riculture stron oun eo le es eciall ales and leavin the older eneration and o en in char e of a riculture ith the andate of feedin an increasin o ulation a anson re orted that o en are the a or actors in all as ects of life hile unlela and ukhtar stated that the role la ed o en and their osition in eetin the challen es of a ricultural roduction and develo ent are uite do inant and ro inent heir relevance and si nificance therefore cannot e overe hasi ed nado ie and I e ah anIn s ite of the contri ution of oth se es to food roduction o en s role in ro otin econo ic ro th and social sta ilit unlike that of en continues to e inade uatel reco ni ed and under valued he factors res onsi le for this a e due to the ale do inated culture in i eria hich ives o en an inferior osition in societ custo s that for id o en fro o nin land ta oos and the se ual division of la our hich kee s o en su ordinated to en and the ro le of un aid roductive activities erfor ed o en in the do estic arena oha ed and dul uadri he a orit of rural far ers and non far er roducers are oor ar inali ed and credit starved his is attri uta le to the fact that in ost cases the lack the uch needed collateral hich is a rere uisite for accessin loans fro the co etitive one arket ccordin to oha ed and dul uadri o en are ore constrained than their ale counter arts in ter s of access to infor ation technolo in uts and credit a on other thin s ne of the reasons for the decline in the contri ution of a riculture to the i erian econo is the lack of a sta le national credit olic and a aucit of credit institutions hich can assist far ers doe ene and inne he current econo ic recession in i eria has rou ht a clarion call to diversif the econo fro its current state of over de endence on etroleu to a riculture iven the via ilit and ro inent role the sector can la in the econo o ular ada e in i eria is that hen hun er is solved as a co onent of overt then the overt level is i roved his a e likened to i rovin the food securit status of the o ulace he ini u dail rotein re uire ent of is a rere uisite alon side the dail ener re uire ent er ca ita for an individual to e classified as ein food secure ivestock contri utes an enor ous ercenta e to the ani al source rotein availa le for hu an consu tion he contri ution of o en and children in the su l of livestock cannot e overe hasi ed iven that this set of eo le is ost involved in livestock rearin es eciall in rural econo ies o ever their activities are not ithout challen es es eciall in ter s of financin hich often inhi it the fro achievin hi her levels of roduction ver the ears o en have resorted to various a roaches to fund their livestock far in activities iven the otential of their ventures in livelihood sustenance and contri ution to household u kee o e of the fundin avenues have een infor al in the for of various icrocredit financin sche es and others for al throu h co ercial anks icrocredit is an i ortant instru ent for i rovin the elfare of the oor directl throu h consu tion s oothenin that reduces vulnera ilit to short ter inco e variation fola i icrocredit is considered a le to ener i e or otivate other roduction factors It can ake the latent otentials or underused ca acities functional in such situation credit acts as a catal st hich activates the en ine of ro th in a riculture all scale enter rises includin rural far ers in i eria are confronted ith inade uate ca ital des ite the fact that the roduce the ulk of food consu ed locall and so e e ort cro s eneratin forei n e chan e to the countr a ah and u a ot addressin the issue of financin in rural econo ies ill over ti e lead to a state of er etual overt It is therefore i ortant to note that the ne lect of rural far and non far households as concerns credit is a set ack for the i erian econo o ercial anks also have o ortunities for fundin tar eted at rural far er and non far er roducers o ever as the are in the usiness of takin de osits fro those ith e cess one and lendin to those in deficit the oal of co ercial anks is clearl rofit akin and their usiness is deli eratel ske ed to ards non a ricultural usinesses hich offer ore certaint ver the ears far ers and non far er roducers in rural areas have een a le to co e to ether to for coo erative societies oolin funds fro hich the lend icrocredit to e ers to carr out their far in or usiness activities he fields of icro and rural financin are inter oven here is no clear cut distinction et een the es eciall in develo in countries here ost households are oor si ultaneousl cultivatin a s all acrea e of land and en a ed in icro econo ic activities laitan defined icrofinance as the rovision of credit savin s re ositories and financial services to lo inco e earners or oor households to create or e and their econo ic activities and i rove their standard of livin olu e i stated that icrocredit is a s all credit volu e hich is offered to s all scale enter rises to alleviate overt increasin the roductivit of the oor olu e i icrocredit is defined as s all loans to ver oor eo le for self e lo ent ro ects that enerate inco e allo in the to care for the selves and their fa ilies ider icrocredit has een variousl defined ho ever these definitions oint to the fact that it is lo volu e and tar eted at the oor ai in to rin the out of overt i rovin their roductive o ers ence onl enter risin individuals ho are considered un anka le for al credit institutions are considered as ros ects icrocredit has een vie ed as a revolution in social and econo ic develo ent that ill ull eo le out of the de ths of overt he icrocredit s ste as develo ed in res onse to the needs of s all scale far ers and rural entre reneurs ho did not have access to finance e riculturist o en are ell kno n for their ro ess and de onstration of e cellence in for in rou s tar eted at i rovin their co unal elfare his is evident in the nu er of rou s units associations clu s and the like founded and run o enIn vie of the fore oin this research as desi ned as a co arative stud of icrocredit and for al ankin institutions as a eans of livestock financin in a rural econo ecificall the stud assessed the acce ta ilit and deter inants of credit accessi ilit throu h the sources of finance aterials and ethods he stud as carried out in south estern i eria hich consists of the states of a os un o sun ndo and kiti i ure is a a of i eria sho in the south estern re ion he one lies et een lon itude and and latitude and outh estern i eria has a total land area of a out s uare k and an esti ated o ulation of a out illion he area is ounded in the east the do and elta states in the north the ara and o i states in the est the e u lic of enin and in the south the ulf of uinea he cli ate of south estern i eria is tro ical in nature and characteri ed et and dr seasons he te erature ran es et een and hile the annual rainfall ran es et een and he et season is associated ith the south est onsoon ind fro the tlantic cean hile the dr season is associated ith the northeast trade ind fro the ahara desert he cli ate is ell ada ted to a ricultural activities hence the hi h level of involve ent in a riculture ostl the rural o ulation here is a ronounced level of livestock roduction activities a on the rural o ulation of the re ion ost es eciall the o en and children ll households can e said to e livestock rearin households as this has een taken u as a eans of livelihood individuals ithin households he activit is do inated o en and children and it is even co on lace for a roo s fa il to a livestock as art of the do r akin it ossi le for each ife to o n livestock hen she ets arried ver ti e children ain access to such livestock es eciall those that sho a keen interest in lookin after the ani als harin for ulae e ist hich allo individuals to tend livestock on another s ehalf and then share the ani als offs rin he data used for the stud ere ri aril sourced ith the use of a se i structured uestionnaire he uestionnaire as desi ned to elicit the deter inants of for al and infor al credit access o en livestock far ers in the stud area three sta e sa lin techni ue as used in the selection of the sa le si e for this stud he first sta e involved the ur osive selection of one arital status 9 household si e 10 stake a ount in the coo erative ool account and 7 duration of coo erative e ershi esults and discussion a le resents the distri ution of the res ondents ased on their socio econo ic characteristics esults fro the ta le revealed that the a orit of the res ondents ere of active a e iven that ere a ed et een and out of the res ondents ere arried hich i ht e an indication that the had access to fa il la our to assist ith tendin the livestock to of the res ondents had no for of for al education his a to an e tent revent the fro ein financiall included es eciall as relates to for al ankin videntl the a orit of the o en had inco es of less than i erian naira hich is an indication that the ere lo inco e individuals his is an indication the o en ere financiall ar inali ed hich a e a a or constraint to e ansion lans in their livestock far in event three er cent of the res ondents had a household si e of si and elo his i lies that the res ondents had access to fa il la our hich the a en a e in livestock rearin It as affir ed that the accessed fundin throu h the various coo eratives of hich the ere e ers reference as indicated for coo eratives as a eans of financin their livestock roduction of the res ondents he attri uted this to the fact that accessin fundin throu h their coo erative societies as less challen in than a roachin for al ankin institutions as the ere una le to eet certain conditions re uired to access credit o ever of the res ondents asserted that the ould atroni e for al financial institutions if the strin ent rules ere rela ed since the ere sure the ould have lon er re a ent eriods than those o taina le fro their coo erative societies o identif the deter inants of for al credit access o en livestock far ers in the stud area the inar lo istic re ression odel as used a le sho s the result of the anal sis a le ara eter esti ate for the lo istic re ression odel for for al finance source aria les in the e uation a le reveals that the lo istic odel e lains of the factors deter inin access to for al credit sources the o en livestock far ers in the stud area ro the ta le it can e seen that o nershi of acce ta le and erfected collateral as si nificant at hile transaction volu e ith the ank duration of ankin relationshi availa ilit of a uarantor and livestock far si e ere si nificant at ne uestion that a e interestin is hat for of collateral ould a co ercial ank classif as acce ta le o a certain e tent this a e seen as su ective as the for of securit ill e deter ined the ank hence hat the res ondents re ard as ein acce ta le a e turned do n as unacce ta le the ank he nu er of ears of ankin ith a co ercial ank is also ositivel si nificant i l in that ne o en livestock far ers a roachin a ank ill e re uired to ait for ears efore the can start en o in fundin enefits hich is unlike the situation in coo erative societies ransaction volu e ith the ank ein ositivel si nificant ill er etuall ut lo inco e o en livestock far ers at a disadvanta e hen it co es to ein a le to satisf loan conditions i osed a co ercial ank a le ara eter esti ate for the lo istic re ression odel for infor al finance source aria les in the e uation a le reveals that the lo istic odel e lains of the factors deter inin access to credit fro coo erative societies a on the fe ale livestock far ers in south estern i eria ro the ta le it can e seen that the availa ilit of a uarantor household si e and the a ount of the stake an individual has in the coo erative societ ere all si nificant at hile arital status as si nificant at ne a deduce fro this findin that it as easier for s all scale livestock o en far ers to access credit throu h infor al sources than throu h co ercial anks icrofinance fundin a eared to e ore inte rit ased than the lendin of co ercial anks In other ords the o en far ers could ore readil access financin fro coo eratives ased on their ersonal uarantee his is a ro isin o servation iven that ost individuals in rural areas are usuall ver rotective of the fa il na e causin a lo default level a on rural o en des ite the fact that no tan i le ro ert had een led ed onclusion and reco endations avin esta lished the a or roles that coo eratives la in the rantin of icrocredits in livestock financin in south estern i eria the stud reco ends e lorin the icrocredit fundin o tion as ore a le to cater for the financial needs of o en far ers and therefore reduce this rou s e istin vulnera ilit here is a need to ut a etter structure in lace in ter s of coo erative ana e ent in order to e a le to harness the nu erous enefits of coo eratives on standin coo eratives should e assisted overn ent throu h the advance ent of loans to the societies for on ard lendin to individuals as one a enerall sa that the chances of ro t re a ent are ver hi h here is also a need to ut in lace eriodic trainin of coo erative ana e ent staff so that their skills are shar ened to ena le a etter coo erative arket redit rationin re ains a a or concern for livestock value chain stakeholders in articular for s allholders for ho oor access to credit is one of the rinci al constraints on their activities o date the is atch et een credit su l and de and is usuall tackled in su aharan frica throu h the intrinsic attri utes of credit a licants and ver seldo or never throu h the ris of unavoida le ultifaceted livestock risk ana e ent ith a vie to ovin for ard to an ena lin environ ent his is the a roach ado ted in this a er hich focuses on livestock risk assess ent and ana e ent in ene al as ell as on a thorou h literature revie secondar data anal sis and intervie s ith u lic and rivate cor orations and national and international research institutions orkin in the livestock sector fter the identification uantification i act assess ent and rioriti ation of ultifaceted livestock risks e de onstrate ho risk ana e ent contri utes to the e er ence of an ena lin environ ent and sti ulates access to credit Introduction et een and ene al s livestock sector contri uted an avera e of of a ricultural ross do estic roduct and of total ith avera e annual ro th of ian and a e ivestock roduction activit su orts nearl fa ilies e uivalent to three illion individuals ian and a e ust over a uarter of the total o ulation iven the lar e ro ortion of rural households kee in s all and lar e ru inant livestock the role of ru inant livestock in i rovin far ers cash inco e and livelihoods is li ited the eak access to technolo ies and innovations hich are the selves lar el de endent on the availa ilit of ti el and ade uate credit an s all far ers are credit rationed e es and ensink s else here in access to credit for an s allholders in the livestock sector in ene al is li ited constrainin the ro th of the sector e ond household attri utes that could see to e deter inant for credit access the risk livestock environ ent li its access to finance and ulti atel constrains its roductivit hich re uires invest ents fro value chain and financial actors he is atch et een the su l of credit and real invest ent needs hich is often attri uted to lo istical challen es is also artl rooted in the hi h level of ultifaceted risks ost of the e irical literature focuses onl on household attri utes to e lain credit rationin o ever it ould also e useful to roduce an evidence ased risk anal sis of the ahelian livestock sector to rovide useful infor ation for an ena lin environ ent he ur ose of our contri ution is to de onstrate ho livestock risk ana e ent should contri ute to ena le a livestock environ ent and facilitate access to credit ection introduces a theoretical fra e ork to credit rationin ection rovides a livestock risk assess ent in ene al and descri es initiatives develo ed for risk ana e ent ection descri es ho to ove for ard for an ena lin environ ent in order to increase the su l of credit once tual fra e ork for easurin credit rationin he su l and de and of credit are so eti es isali ned and even thou ht to e irreconcila le ccordin to the se inal ork of ti lit and eiss then the i ortant contri ution of affee and ti lit credit rationin occurs in situations ith as etric infor ation in hich lenders are not a le to discri inate et een hi h ualit and lo ualit orro er attri utes thus leadin to a non alrassian e uili riu that i lies an e cess de and for loana le funds he ter credit rationin is ainl used in t o circu stances first hen so e of a ho o eneous rou of a licants receive a loan and others do not re ardless of the level of interest rates the consent to a and second hen there are identifia le social rou s in the o ulation una le to o tain loans at an interest rates and hatever the volu e of availa le credit ti lit and eissIn other ords a otential orro er is credit rationed if their rivate de and for credit ersistentl e ceeds the loan a ount offered the lender etrick o ever linkin credit rationin e clusivel to as etric infor ation has een stron l dis uted as e iricall this situation could inversel lead to a situation of overlendin e e a and e onnet et alIn addition the literature idel addresses the causes of credit rationin e ond as etr of infor ation credit rationin a arise fro the difficulties in overco in e cessive transaction costs situations of overt costs associated ith screenin onitorin and enforce ent collaterali ation issues and a risk environ ent in rural areas ainl in develo in countries ins an er and osen ei off and ti lit hatak and uinnane etrick de uate access to credit should contri ute to ards i rovin livestock roductivit and sustain intensification activities facilitatin access to technolo and innovation i to e eller and ia ne de uate access to credit ould contri ute to far ers livelihoods and their a ilit to urchase in uts and enhance invest ents e es and ensink Inversel credit rationed a ents have ore incentives to invest in less risk and less roductive technolo ies ercon urther ore credit rationin could affect rural develo ent reventin households fro diversif in these activities and ovin out of overt eardon llisIn ost of the e irical literature focuses on the deter inants of households artici ation or non artici ation in credit ro ra s his as the case in hana here non artici ation as stron l e lained fear of loan default and lack of savin s hile the factors that si nificantl influence far households artici ation are the ender status of the household head their for al education level far si e and e ershi of associations sante ddo e contri utions ho ever found an anal sis in the linkin of credit rationin to lo al uncertainties that characteri e the rural environ ent in the ahel ivestock risk assess ent anal sis in ene al he livestock risk assess ent rovides a co rehensive and uantification of livestock risks in ene al throu h a holistic a roach lessandro et al ane and allohe ene al livestock sector consists of three su s ste s of livestock roduction a astoral su s ste ased on o ilit and e tensive e loitation of natural resources and rovidin ro ical ivestock nits s or of ru inants cattle shee oats in the erlo re ion that covers ore than one third of the national territor an a ro astoral su s ste in the southeast re ion concentratin u to of cattle and of s all ru inants fro the ear ian and a e hich are raduall develo in to the detri ent of transhu ant astoral su s ste s and an intensive and se i intensive su s ste in the ia es re ion ainl roducin oultr e s i s and to a lesser e tent ru inants articularl for dair roduction his ani al roduction activit in ene al is evolvin in a lo al conte t of severe socio ecos ste shocks as ell as a deficit in infrastructure asic social and econo ic services and a su o ti al and unfavoura le environ ent onl of invest ents in the a ricultural sector and difficulties enforcin le al rovisions ada ted to livestock d na ics In addition to these constraints the livestock su sector in ene al is facin cli ate related shocks that are oth a direct source of loss and an a ravatin factor of econo ic health and olitical and social threats ethodolo ical a roach ur stud ostl tackles risk assess ent rather than constraint anal sis even thou h there are o vious links et een constraints and risks ssessin risks in the livestock sector involves risk rofilin identification and inventor of current risk ana e ent initiatives risk uantification ultiscale i acts and rioriti ation in order to facilitate risk ana e ent decision akin e carried out a ver thorou h anal sis of the literature related to livestock d na ics in the ahel in eneral and ene al in articular e co iled secondar data collected u lic technical services national and international research institutions and rivate co anies then rocessed these data for statistical ur oses usin various techni ues onte arlo si ulations e tre e value theor descri tive statistics a in e intervie ed each se ent of the livestock value chain stakeholders to etter identif their erce tion of livestock sector stren ths eaknesses o ortunities and threats anal sis rioriti ation a roach allo ed us to classif the identified risks accordin to their severit fre uenc and otential i acts inall e ent ack to the ain livestock stakeholders throu h a final orksho held in akar in une ith the o ective of assessin reasons for otential discre anc anal sis a le haracteristics of data used and anal tical ethods e endin on the a ro ecolo ical re ions s ecificall onitored as the ain livestock areas the hierarch is chan in due to the socio ecos ste ic realities ushfires are a re etitive and ver hi h risk in all livestock areas isks related to in ut deficits are hi h in the ia es and erlo re ions e ardin rainfall variations onl the southeast re ion see s to e ore or less rotected fro this heno enon onflicts have recentl had a reater effect on the ver sensitive re ion of the erlo closer to northern ali and auritania It is also i ortant to consider the ersistent internal conflicts in asa ance the southern re ion of the countr In the risk livestock environ ent the overn ent of ene al o has historicall and successivel taken lo al and s ecific a roaches to livestock sector develo ent to hel rural o ulations in eneral and eo le livin ith livestock in articular to co e ith ersistent risksIn ter s of eneral easures u lic authorities launched t o u rella docu ents to su ort livestock sector develo ent for the ccelerated ro th strate docu ent and the cono ic and social olic a er hese docu ents develo o tions and strate ies ai ed at securin astoral and a ro astoral far in s ste s and fosterin far s ca a le of eetin the challen es of internal de and for ani al roducts ith the ain o ectives of increasin livestock roductivit roductions and inco es in ene al his as o erationali ed throu h the ational lan for the evelo ent of ivestock validated in une as a rovision of the ro lvo astoral ct ro ul ated on une isk scorin is used follo in the risk assess ent ethodolo develo ed the International und for ricultural evelo ent the latfor for ricultural isk ana e ent he fre uenc avera e severit and orst case scenario ere scored and ei hted ased on the follo in for ula to re ect the reater i ortance of avera e losses as a etter indicator for the lon ter cost of risk isk score avera e severit fre uenc orst case ther ulti sectoral initiatives ere launched in ith the esta lish ent of the ational ood ecurit ouncil attached to the ri e inister s office and res onsi le for re ular assessin of the food and nutritional situation of the ene alese o ulation In addition throu h the ational ada tation ro ra es of action s ado ted in the o is ursuin the o ective of reducin the vulnera ilit of roduction s ste s and etter antici atin risks that could arise fro cli atic distur ancesIn order to facilitate access to credit for livestock rofessionals the o set u a ta ili ation u ort und on ove er ut this did not start o erations until une easures have taken the for of various instru ents a uarantee fund to rovide the anks and financial institutions ith covera e for counter art risks of u to of loss related loans the interest rate su sid fund to ena le livestock rofessionals to enefit fro the lo est rates in the a ricultural sector a redit und to refinance the financin institutions a roved the fund and a line of credit ased on Isla ic finance o ever this coherent institutional net ork has not al a s succeeded in totall rotectin the countr fro a nu er of threats in the livestock su sector o e of these threats have een s ecificall addressedisk ana e ent rocedures and instru ents ushfires ver ear uch of ene al is affected ushfires hich have a considera le i act on the develo ent of the ve etation he a national entit hose core activities include environ ental onitorin natural resources ana e ent and conductin environ ental i act assess ents as char ed to onitor fires re ote sensin since ith a vie to hel the irectorate of aters orests untin and ildlife conservation to identif and ana e ushfires ni al diseases he has set u a ational ide iolo ical urveillance ste to onitor riorit diseases his surveillance s ste is carried out throu h a passive surveillance ased on field re orts entered in a data sheet and sent to the veterinar la orator of he ene alese Institute for ricultural esearch I for confir ation or invalidation and an active surveillance ased on the follo u of a net ork of sentinel herds and durin eriods of risk sa les are taken and anal sed follo in a ver ri orous uantitative rotocol li ate and feedin s of ul an initiative resultin fro a u lic rivate artnershi resulted in the esta lish ent of the ational und of ricultural Insurance of ene al a u lic li ited co an or the livestock co onent the ai ed to raduall cover the national herd ith an avera e unit re iu of of the ani al s value i e to e aid the far er on st instru ents there is a rainfall deficit olic that co ines traditional and inde insurance ro ra s o ever iven the ersistent intensit of cli ate shocks the o has undertaken a co le entar initiative investin in the ro ra in and i le entation of a disaster risk ana e ent s ste ased on the ivestock afe uardin eration that or ani es distri ution of feed su le ents to rotect at risk reedin livestock lactatin fe ales calves In addition so e risks have een transferred to the an frican drou ht inde insurance facilit under the ricultural risk ca acit initiative a oint venture launched the frican nion to rovide ara etric insurance to cover cli ate shocks he uses satellite data sets to onitor rain seasons follo ed a ater atisfaction Inde develo ed the ood and riculture r ani ation of the nited ations as a drou ht indicator and esti ates otentiall threatened o ulations to esta lish e er enc res onse costs arkets hile receivin technical and financial su ort fro the orld ood ro ra e the o issariat for ood ecurit develo s onthl ulletins on a ricultural arkets e anded to include rice onitorin on sentinel cattle arkets e ond this the also has the dut of re ulatin the arkets for local cereals rovidin transversal studies and takin a ro riate easures for the decision akin rocess Cattle theft ith the ro in concern over livestock theft the o has set u the ivestock heft nit a structure attached to the ca inet of the inistr of ivestock to rovide a fra e ork for the i le entation of olicies and refor s ivestock thefts are su ect to assive surveillance ased on the re orts of thefts re orted at the level of the endar erie services hich esta lish hand rails recorded on cards sent to the irectorate of ivestock on ict e ond the ulti le consultation fra e orks locall initiated throu hout the countr ene al needed a lon ter vision to secure astoral land In arch the ne authorities of ene al decided to initiate the rocess of dra in u a astoral code ith the ai of ena lin the countr to have a le al fra e ork u dated and ada ted to current realities of livestock in ene al he ene alese astoral ode ill ake it ossi le to u date all e istin la s and to for ali e the livestock develo ent fra e ork in ene al o ulation s ecific discussion and conclusion In ene al s allholders attri utes alon ith uncertaint in outco es eneral socio econo ic conte t rices rural ractices olitical and lo istical challen es environ ental risks and the otential risk aversion of decision akers contri ute oth to li it access to finance and to constrain livestock roductivit o insufflate a real ro th d na ic in the sector livestock stakeholders have to invest and in ost cases the de end on credit to do that o ever credit rationin due also to ersistent risks in the livestock sector is one reason for the is atch et een credit su l and de and he link et een overall ersistent risks and reduction of availa le credit is ver eakl addressed even if in ene al this as alread evoked durin the ankin crisis sho in ho drou ht reci itated the closure of seven anks a rio and lin e iel olic develo ents in recent ears see to e ovin for ard to ards creatin an ena lin environ ent or risk iti ation risk transfer and risk co in o launched various initiatives to address different de rees of severit on st the livestock insurance develo ent as a risk transfer instru ent should contri ute oth to reducin vulnera ilit ivin co ensation o tions a ainst econo ic losses that revent s allholders in articular fro usin su o ti al co in strate ies that further eaken a recarious food and nutritional status or kee eo le a a fro li ited asic infrastructures school health centres arkets etc and to develo in roductivit throu h revitali ed invest entsIn conce tual ter s the ti e has also co e to e in thinkin seriousl a out the est a to o e ond short ter loans and to desi n d na ic odels that allo decision akin under uncertaint and incor orate lon ter orro in ith a vie to sta ili in the e er in of a real usiness environ ent stract air co erciali ation is constrained several factors includin lack of funds In en a s allholder far ers have li ited internal ca acit and resources to urchase far in uts and face hi h transaction costs verco in the su l side constraints related to feedin reedin and ani al health is i ortant in achievin roductivit and access to icrofinance institutions Is has een identified as la in a critical role in enhancin s allholder far ers access to finance thus cur in the su l side challen es he stud sou ht to esta lish ho icrofinance artici ation influences dair far in erfor ance a on st s allholder far ers in contri utin to ards dair far in co erciali ation he stud as conducted in o et ount en a and a ultista e sa lin ethod as used to o tain the sa le of dair far ers intervie ed usin structured uestionnaires o it odel as used to deter ine the influence of icrofinance artici ation on s allholder dair far in co erciali ation and co uter ro ra s ere used to rocess the data he e tent of ilk co erciali ation s allholder far ers as si nificantl deter ined e ershi of rou s off far inco e ender a e ears of education household si e ears of e erience icrofinance access access to credit a lica le interest rates and ac uisition of a savin s account hese findin s offer insi hts on the i ortance of access to finance in facilitatin a ricultural co erciali ation he stud reco ends the need to ake Is easil accessi le to far ers for reater de th of outreach urther ore the stud encoura es dair far ers to oin far er rou s to i rove their collective action and thus increase their ar ainin o er in the ilk arket Introduction ince earl en a has develo ed a dair industr that ranks a on the lar est in u aharan frica i i It is esti ated that currentl s allholder households de end on dair for their livelihoods in en a and the dair sector e lo s over eo le in ilk collection trans ortation rocessin and sales allholder air ro ect he de and for ilk and ilk roducts has also risen in en a here the annual er ca ita consu tion is no esti ated at litres ore than five ti es hi her than ilk consu tion in the other ast frican countries ith ara le land and ra in fields eco in s aller in en a due to o ulation ressure and land su division ero ra in has ro n to e a fa ous o tion for s all scale far ers ho face land constraints arket access has also continued to e the ain constraint facin s allholder co erciali ation of a riculture oulton et al akin s allholder far ers roduce ainl for su sistence ccordin to aleta et al a ricultural co erciali ation technicall entails a shift fro su sistence roduction to a ore co le arket ased roduction and consu tion s ste leadin to a stren thenin of the linka es et een the in ut and out ut sides of the arket es ite the various success stories in the en a dair su sector there is still a i a et een actual ield and attaina le otential ield aran a his is ainl due to the fact that ilk roduction s allholder far ers is constrained a nu er of factors ani al enetics increased reliance on urchased feeds diseases and insufficient financin taal et al he ro th of this sector is ainl attri uted to the dair li erali ation of enhancin infor al ilk arket artici ation he li erali ation to include s all scale ilk vendors s led ositivel to the ro th of the dair su sector a u u et al his led to the e er ence of ne institutional arran e ents in ilk collection arketin and rocessin he success of the dair su sector is also attri uta le to the fact that ilk rovides a continuous strea of cash throu hout the ear for households ro in other cash cro s hose inco e is reali ed onl once or t ice a ear like coffee all scale and co ercial dair far in is idel ractised in en a ana ed at fa il level and ran in fro natural asture free ra in to ero ra in stall fed cut and dr s ste s su le ented ith concentrate feeds enerall s allholder far ers in en a have to acres to ha of land and a out t o to five head of cattle ieldin a out k of ilk er co er da ut roducin u to of the countr s ilk ost of the s allholder far ers ho ever o erate elo fund secure levels to hel the in eetin their roduction needs he lo credit su l li its the roductivit of the su sector ccordin to kanni the a riculture sector de ends ore on credit than an other sector of the econo ecause of its seasonal variation in returns and the chan in trend fro su sistence to co ercial far in ince ost s allholder far ers do not have collateral to access ank loans icrofinance institutions Is have ained considera le reco nition in rovidin financial services to these lo inco e far ers hrou h Is the oor can access collateral free loans at relativel lo interest rates and use the one to e and their dair far in and thus increase their inco es ccess to icrofinance services is assu ed to e leadin to increased roductivit a on dair far ers since the are a le to ac uire ualit reeds for hi h roductivit urchase of ualit feeds ro er ilk stora e facilities and the arketin of ilk rovision of financial services such as credit savin s and one transfer to s allholder far ers is considered to e an instru ent a le to reak the vicious c cle of overt and ensure food securit ha ccess to finance is therefore crucial in enhancin roductivit of dair ani als and thus increasin the inco es of s allholder far ers his stud therefore sou ht to fill the kno led e a in identif in the role and the influence of icrofinance on co erciali ation a on s allholder dair far ers ethodolo tud area and sa lin techni ue he stud as conducted in o et ount located in the southern ift alle re ion of en a k north est of airo i he count occu ies a total area of k and lies in the id altitude ran e of to a ove sea level It is divided into three a ro ecolo ical ones de endin on rainfall level and soil t e red volcanic soils lack cotton soils loa soils and sand soils ulti sta e sa lin ethod as used to o tain an a ro riate sa le si e o et ount as ur osivel selected ecause of its dair otential and the resence of an Is o eratin in the area sin a list of credit orro ers o tained fro e istin Is a stratified rando sa lin a roach as used here the o ulation as ur osivel divided into t o strata icrofinance artici ants and non artici ants list as re ared for each stratu usin the seriall nu ered na es of the far ers ro each I far ers ere selected ro ortionate to the si e of the icrofinance usin a s ste atic rando sa lin rocedure to ive a total sa le of far ers icrofinance artici ants and non artici ants nal tical fra e ork o it odel as used to deter ine the influence of icrofinance artici ation on dair co erciali ation he level of dair co erciali ation as used as a de endent varia le referrin to the ean level of co erciali ation deter ined the ean value of ilk sold divided the ean value of ilk roduced the s allholder far ers he co erciali ation level hel s to sho the e tent of arket access he o it odel is ased on the a i u likelihood techni ue u arati he structure of the o it odel is iven ashere Yi is a vector of the latent varia le that is not o served for values less than ero and reater than one ε i re resent vectors of the inde endent varia les i is a vector of the unkno n ara eters β is a vector of the error ter s that are distri uted nor all ith ean and variance δ 2 and i n re resents the nu er of o servations he i licit functional for deter inin the influence of icrofinance artici ation and other factors on the erfor ance of the dair sector in ter s of ilk co erciali ation is iven (3)esults and discussion ocio econo ic characteri ation of artici ants and non artici ants he ender of the household heads is sho n in a le he results indicate that a lo er ro ortion of far ers ho artici ated in icrofinance ere fe ales hile ales constituted o ever fe ales ere hile ales ere of non artici ants he findin s are su orted an at ho found that ale headed households in o et district artici ate ore than fe ale headed ones in credit ro ra s he a e of the household head as an i ortant de o ra hic factor easured in ears rovides a clue as to the orkin a es of households he icrofinance non artici ants had a sli htl hi her a e than the artici ants at and ears res ectivel he dair far in households in the count can therefore e re arded as oun and elon in to an econo icall active rou he a re ate ean household si e as five ersons as indicated in a le ith the ean household si e of non artici ants and artici ants ein si and five ersons res ectivel for the artici ants hile the non artici ants s ent less ears his indicates that ost eo le in the stud area had ri ar education ears of e erience on the other hand sho s that the a re ate ean in dair far in as ears ar ers artici atin in icrofinance had ore ears of e erience ears in dair far in hile the non artici ant far ers had e erience of ears on avera e he findin s sho ed that a re ate land si e easured in acres as he non artici ants had a land si e of acres hile the artici ants had a sli htl reater land si e of acres he results in a le also indicate the distance to the arket or ilk collection oint sho in that far ers en a ed in icrofinance activities travelled a shorter distance k on avera e to sell their ilk hile the non artici ants had an avera e of k to cover he a ount of ilk roduced artici ants in icrofinance as an avera e of litres er eek a out litres hi her than the a ount roduced non artici ants l he results also sho that the artici ants had hi her uantities of ilk sold and consu ed at litres and l res ectivel than the non artici ants ho sold litres and consu ed l he i lication here is that the artici ants not onl had a hi her co erciali ation level ratio of ilk sold to ilk roduced ut also consu ed ore ilk er eek than the non artici ants he co erciali ation for artici ants as hile the non artici ants had the lo er level of he results of the sellin rice sho that the a re ate ilk sellin rice as er litre he icrofinance e ers sold their roduce at the hi her rice of er litre hile the non artici ant far ers sold at er litre the hi her sellin rice a on artici ants reveals the i ortance of collective action throu h icrofinance rou s in enhancin the ar ainin o er of far ers in ter s of out ut rice ff far inco e as e ected as hi h a on the non artici ants than the artici ants ho had an annual inco e of ff far inco e co rised of annual avera e inco e fro usiness e lo ent and other inco es a art fro the far inco e actors in uencin s allholder dair far in co erciali ation redit access defined ia ne and eller as the a ilit of a household to orro fro a source or not had a ositive and si nificant influence on dair co erciali ation he results sho that access to credit increased the ro a ilit of co erciali ation his result is in line ith that of aved et al ho found that access to credit has a si nificant ositive influence on technolo ado tion hrou h rovision of credit Is hel to i rove the li uidit of the far and therefore enhance the i roved ado tion of dair technolo and household inco es Interest rate had a ne ative si nificant influence on co erciali ation he results indicate that a increase in interest rates leads to a decline in co erciali ation he i lication is that an increase in the cost of credit has a ne ative effect on a ricultural co erciali ation he lack of ca ital cou led ith hi h interest rates so e Is therefore laces dair industr rofita ilit and roductivit at stake ussain and ha a found that e ensive credit e loits the s allholder far ers rofita ilit resultin in ore reliance on infor al credit than for al credit ccordin to e er the afforda ilit of hi h interest rates even if the clients are illin to a the is uestiona le since it enerates lo er rofits to rural s allholder far ers than to lar e scale far ers ossession of a savin s account also had a ositive and si nificant effect on the level of ilk co erciali ation avin s have a ositive influence on the de and for credit his findin is su orted soro and uturi ho found that s all and ediu enter rises s increased their rofit ar in after o enin savin s account ith Is his stud further used a set of socio econo ic varia les theoreticall linked to dair co erciali ation to e a ine their influence on this e ershi of far er rou s as e ected as statisticall ositive at influencin the co erciali ation of dair far in he results indicate that e ershi of a roducer rou increases the ro a ilit of artici atin and co erciali in dair far in his i lies that elon in to a roducer rou increases the likelihood of a household i rovin its ilk co erciali ation he findin s are consistent ith ukundi et al ho ar ue that roducer rou s can e ood latfor s for social ca ital for ation and arket infor ation access ouseholds ith a hi her ro ortion of off far inco e are ore likel to increase the sale of ilk he level of ilk co erciali ation increases for each additional unit of far inco e he result i lies that households that have a hi her far inco e en a e ore in dair far in he result is also consistent ith the findin s u and I ea uchi ho stated that hi h inco e leads to an increased a ount of roduce traded and the e ansion of the enter rise ecause of reduced de endence on a ricultural roduce he ender of the household head si nificantl and ositivel influences arket artici ation ein a fe ale headed household increases the ro a ilit of artici atin in the dair arket all other factors ein constant his su ests that fe ale headed households are ore arket oriented than ale hence the artici ate ore in dair far in and arketin and have relativel hi her chances of oinin far er rou s and Is thus accessin funds to urchase dair ani als he a e of the household head also si nificantl and ositivel influences dair co erciali ation n increase in the a e of the household head one ear increases the ro a ilit of increasin ilk sales all other factors ein constant he a re ate ean a e of the sa le as ears i l in that oun er eo le are ore enthusiastic a out artici atin in dair far in arret stated that oun er eo le artici ated ore in the arket ecause the are ore rece tive to ne ideas and are less risk averse than older eo le ears of education as e ected ositivel influenced dair far in co erciali ation unit increase in the ears s ent in education the household head leads to increased co erciali ation of ilk roduced his can e e lained the fact that as an individual accesses ore education the are e o ered ith skills and kno led e a out roduction and arketin hich enhances artici ation in dair far in and arketin i on an et al also found education to e si nificant in au entin far ers a ilit to ake i ortant decisions s h othesi ed household si e as ne ativel related ith the de endent varia le si nificant at s household si e increases one erson the co erciali ation of dair roducts decreases athen e et al ar ue that household si e accounts for the su l of fa il la our and household consu tion level his i lies that as a household ro s in si e the a ount of ilk for sale decreases due to increased ho e consu tion onclusion and reco endations ccess to Is as associated ith hi her co erciali ation since far ers are a le to access icro credits and icro savin s Interest rates as h othesi ed had a ne ative influence on dair co erciali ation an increase in interest deterrin eo le fro orro in and hence reducin in uts and roductivit aintainin a savin account had a ositive influence on the level of co erciali ation a savin s account is associated ith credit leadin to an increased variet of askets of food hence an increase in the a ount of ilk sold translates into i roved co erciali ation ar ers should also e encoura ed to en a e in off far e lo ent that uffers household inco e and akes the ore credit orth to achieve reater credit access urther ore e ershi of far ers rou s had a ositive effect on dair co erciali ation herefore dair far ers should e encoura ed to oin far ers rou s hich i rove their collective action and thus increase their ar ainin o er in the ilk arket he stud reco ends olicies that e tend lo cost and ti el icrofinance to s all scale far ers and ill lead to reduced inefficienc and ro ote increased dair erfor ance stract he roduction of eef cattle is an i ortant a ricultural activit in an hanaian co unities his stud erfor ed a value chain anal sis and identified the constraints of the eef cattle value chain in the forest savannah transitional one of hana usin ri ar data o tained fro value chain actors throu h the ad inistration of a uestionnaire he e irical results revealed that the ke actors in the eef value chain ere roducers holesalers utchers and secondar rocessors he results revealed that utchers earned the hi hest ar in ut ith the least value added he e irical results of the endall s coefficient of concordance revealed that the hi h cost of roduction in uts oor arket infrastructure hi h cost of trans ortation and hi h aterial cost ere ranked the various actors as the ost ressin constraints hese results have i lications for the develo ent of the livestock value chain in the stud area Keywords eef cattle value addition value chain actors arketin constraints hana Introduction he livestock su sector la s an inte ral role in the hanaian econo and has contri uted si nificantl in su l in ani al rotein to the entire o ulation o ever the contri ution of the livestock su sector to the a ricultural ross do estic roduct is esti ated to e ver s all co ared ith that of the cro s su sector he lo contri ution of the livestock su sector to the a ricultural can e attri uted to the lo livestock o ulations caused inade uate attention ein aid to the develo ent of the su sector inistr of ood and riculture o ver the ears the eef cattle industr has re ained a ke co onent of the livestock su sector and ade a si nificant contri ution to food securit ealth and inco e in ost astoral co unities in hana ood and riculture r ani ation of the nited ations International ivestock esearch Institute I I et de and for eef and its roducts far e ceeds su l in the arket and livestock far ers can take advanta e of this fact to increase their roduction level t the roduction level of the chain different challen es facin roducers have een o served d ite identified feed and ater scarcit durin the dr season lo rolificac and oor feed conversion efficienc the hi h cost of in uts and veterinar services a hi h ortalit rate diseases and est infections as ell as theft in livestock roduction he cost of veterinar services in hana is considered hi h s allholder far ers d ite herefore the ro le of roducers ina ilit to afford the cost of in uts and veterinar services hen their ani al is sick has resulted in the incidence of a hi h ortalit rate a on roducers d ite his has resulted in the countr ein an i orter of oth live cattle and eef fro other nei h ourin countries in est frica to eet local consu er de and u erous studies have revealed that hana relies heavil on eat i orts to rid e the ever increasin eat de and in the countr hese i orts of ani al roducts have een detri ental to the develo ent of local roduction chains nota l in the countr s livestock sector d ite su in re on and antan nnor urther ore feed scarcit has al a s een ro le atic durin the dr season in hana urin the dr seasons there is lo roduction ecause roducers are not a le to rovide enou h for ulated feed for the ani als he conse uences are that hen s allholder roducers are not a le to add the needed value to the for ulated feed other inter ediate actors utchers traders and rocessors are also affected hen su lied ith these lo fed ani als inter ediate actors a thus not ain su stantial enefit fro their eat usinesses s a result roducers are li ited in ter s of their ca acit to full invest in the roduction of livestock o heir ina ilit to create the needed value has led to non i rove ent in current roduction rocessin and arketin in the eef cattle chain hich has resulted in lo roduction and increased overt and relativel has lo ered the ar in of s allholder far ers nder this sa e circu stance returns on invest ent in their roduction are not full reali ed he second o ective of the ood and riculture ector evelo ent olic II II as to link institutions and actors in the arket o es ite this o ective one uni ue ro le that has affected far ers and actors in the hanaian value chain is the ina ilit of II s i le entation to ensure the arket artici ation of stakeholders to effectivel link u in the arket chain to erfor their initiated roles activities and functions alue chain linka es can e verticall or hori ontall inte rated to eet the arketin constraints of actors in the chain it et al herefore if chain actors are not verticall and hori ontall inte rated value chain anal sis ill hel to identif ressure oints and ake arket i rove ents in eaker links here returns are lo ch it er eulen et al re orted that oth vertical and hori ontal inte ration re uire ca acit and ca a ilit that resource oor far ers and chain actors lack akin inte ration i ossi le ithout su ort lthou h there are a undant a ricultural activities develo in efficient arketin strate ies for the su l of eef cattle re uires ana e ent of the ani als for hi h off take and to a i i e their value for eat roduction ack of ro er selection of these eef cattle and arket infor ation have resulted in a lo take off rate a on astoral far ers hich has lo ered the value of eef cattle durin the value addition eriod to aintain their otential contri ution and raise earnin s fro the his i lies that roducers a not et a reasona le enefit fro their arketed eef cattle su l unless a ro riate arketin i rove ent strate ies are ut in lace o ever to reduce this lo trend of roduction efforts should e ade to develo eef cattle value chain develo ent his is ecause the value chain a roach rovides the asic understandin needed to desi n and i le ent a ro riate develo ent ro ra s and olicies to su ort arket la ers artici ation herefore understandin the value chain a roach ill e crucial to rid e the a in the eef value chain in the hanaian econo ence the o ective of the stud is threefold first to a and descri e the ain actors their activities roles and arketin channels of the eef value chain second to esti ate value added and rofit ar ins of each actor alon the ain chain and third to identif and rank the challen es confrontin the actors alon the value chain aterials and ethods ethod of anal sis ata ere anal sed usin soft are to derive the descri tive statistics In a in and descri in the various actors and roles and the direct and indirect influence the have on chain erfor ance the source ake and deliver a roach used orei n Invest ent dvisor ervices I as ado ted t ever o erational sta e a link is dra n et een the source of the a or in uts used an actor and the end receiver of the finished roduct ike ise a hori ontal linka e as dra n to de ict the olicies and institutional service roviders that affect the eef cattle industr sti atin of cost return value addition and rofit ar in of each actor a le resents a su ar of statistics ado ted in esti atin rofits and value addition in this stud It is orth notin that esti ations of roduction costs revenue and ar ins ere strictl ased on a co on standard of easure ent ll esti ations ere reduced to a er kilo ra asis to allo co arison a on actors econdl esti ations and anal sis ere ased on the individual roduction o eration c cle of actors a le ra e ork for the esti ation of cost value addition and rofits er actor in the eef cattle value chain here ROI denotes return on invest ent Po denotes the rofit of out ut and Co denotes the total cost of roducin an out ut Estimating the return on investment per day he return on invest ent er da is iven ashere ROID is ROI er da ROI is as defined a ove and T denotes the nu er of da s it takes to enerate the returns Identif in and rankin the constraints that actors face alon the chain endell s co efficient of concordance as used to test the a ree ent and si nificance levels a on the actors he for ula is e ressed ashere W denotes endall s coefficient of concordance T denotes the su of ranks for each constraint ein ranked m denotes nu er of res ondents and n denotes nu er of rankin tate ent of h otheses here is no a ree ent a on the rankin of constraints the actors a here is a ree ent a on the rankin of constraints the actorsIf t calculated is reater than t critical the null h othesis 0 is re ected in favour of the alternative h othesis a), that there is a ree ent a on the rankin of constraints ethod of data collection and sa lin rocedure re tested structured uestionnaire as used for the collection of ri ar data fro value chain actors co risin roducers traders utchers and secondar rocessors he stud a ain e lo ed the t o sta e rando sa lin techni ue and sno all sa lin techni ue durin data collection rief descri tion of the stud area he transitional one in hana is the second lar est one after the uinea and udan avannah on nane he four districts hich ake u the transitional one are enchi echi an ura ek eredu ase and te u u antin he one covers an area of k 2 ith a o ulation of he ain far in activities ractised in the ones are i ed far in ono cro in cro rotation and astoral far in he ain ani als reared include cattle shee oats oultr and i s he cro s that are also ro n include cassava lantain ai e rice and so ean he rain season occurs et een ril and cto er ith a short dr s ell in u ust he avera e annual rainfall is et een and and the dr season occurs et een ove er and e ruar esults and discussion alue chain actors characteristics he res ondents ere redo inantl ale out of cattle roducers fro the res ondents ere ale hereas the re ainder re resentin ere fe ale his sho s that ales are do inant in eef cattle roduction and arketin activities in the stud area his is ho ever not sur risin considerin the ri orous ork involved in cattle roduction and the resultant stress on arket artici ants ivestock roduction in the northern arts of hana as do inantl carried out ales re resentin as a ainst fe ales o ike ise the results sho that of the res ondents had not undertaken an for of for al education and cannot read or rite n the other hand a out of the total sa le had undertaken for al education ith at least of the ac uirin ri ar asic education ac uirin unior hi h school iddle school education ac uirin secondar education and the re ainin ac uirin ost secondar or tertiar education escri tion and a in of actors roles activities and functions i ure resents a flo chart to identif the actors their activities and functions as ell as their core rocesses and value addin activities in the eef cattle chain in the transitional one of hana he actors that ere identified are eef cattle far ers roducers traders collectors and holesalers utchers and eef rocessors he core functions alon the eef cattle value chain ere in ut su l roduction arketin and distri ution rocessin and consu tion eef cattle arketin here ere no contract relationshi s a on actors he ost co on for as the s ot arket relationshi rans ortation la s a ke role in the arketin of eef cattle he results revealed that of the res ondents trans ort the ain aterial tric cle hile trans orted their cattle truck nl a out also trans ort their ani al otorc cle hereas a out of the total res ondents used s all ick u trucks to trans ort ani als to the arket lace Interestin l a out haltered the ani al and alked it to the arket lace a attoir ro a l ecause of the a sence of eans of trans ortation or the ina ilit of actors to afford trans ortation to arket centres he co onest ode of sale as h sical esti ation out of the res ondents fro the ooled data usuall do not ei h the ani al efore urchase hilst urchased sold on live ei ht n the other hand of the res ondents rocessors urchased the slau htered eef on count ro i atel of the total res ondents sold on s ot cash hile the re ainin of the total res ondents sold their roducts on a credit asis out of the total res ondents sold their ani al for usiness in order to kee their roduction hile a ro i atel sold their ani als asicall to a their household e enses and rovide asic necessities for their fa il o e of these needs include clothin and shelter a in fees etc nl of the ooled results sold for the sake of social o li ation festivals such as hrist as a adan id dhar and others ource of arket infor ation a le resents infor ation on sources of arket infor ation for actors alon the value chain out of the res ondents indicated that the had received arket infor ation ithin the ast onths hile indicated that the had not received an arket infor ation ithin the sa e eriod he ost i ortant source of arket infor ation for the various actors roducers traders utcher and rocessors as friends re resentin hile of res ondents sourced arket infor ation on the radio out of res ondents o tained arket infor ation throu h their res ective actor associations Interestin l none of the actors sourced or received an arket infor ation fro overn ent a encies esult of access to credit out of roducers of utchers and of traders source credit fro friends and relatives ith the re ainin havin no access to credit o e far er ased or ani ations also rovided so e enefits such as advance ent of credit to far ers istri ution of value added alon the eef cattle value chain he results revealed that on avera e eef cattle secondar rocessors add the hi hest value of hanaian cedi re resentin a ro ortion of his is follo ed the roducer ith a value of er k of the eef cattle roduced ean hile collectors holesalers added a value of re resentin a ro ortion of and finall the utchers added the least value of re resentin a ro ortion of hese results are consistent ith ork done akah on s all ru inant value chain anal sis in the ado li district of hana It as reali ed in that stud that the rocessors of s all ru inants add the hi hest value of all the actors istri ution of rofit ar in In the eef cattle value chain anal sis the rofit share for the various actors roducers collectors holesalers utchers and rocessors as esti ated for the season he results indicated that the utchers accrued the hi hest rofit of ith a share of chain rofit of alon the chain on ever k of the rocessed and slau htered eef cattle he stud concurs ith findin s adi i et al ho found that eef cattle roducers o tain the lo est rices and rofit ar ins In their studies the lar est share of rofit ar ins as earned utcheries and eef sho o ners ho enerated an avera e dail rofit ar in of a out an anian shillin s er head of cattle at k of carcass follo ed traders ho fatten their eef cattle efore sellin and earn an avera e rofit ar in of er head of cattle at k of live ei ht durin the nor al season and a rofit ar in of er cattle at k live ei ht durin the eak season he also re orted that roducers accrue less rofit as a result of factors such as infor ation as etr lack of far er ased or ani ations distance to arket and their ina ilit to urchase ualit roduction i ure lo chart of the eef cattle value chain onstraints alon the eef cattle value chain a le sho s the results of the constraint anal sis oor arket infrastructure as ranked first hilst unsatisfactor arket rice as ranked third the roducers his concurs ith the findin of a ar and enin ho revealed that due to the oor association and oor access to arket infor ation roducers co lain of unsatisfactor arket rices i h trans ortation as ranked first a on traders utchers ranked hi h aterial costs and hi h arket infor ation and stora e as the fifth constraint astl rocessors ranked hi h aterial costs as the ost ressin constraint here ere a ree ents a on rankin s the value chain actors onclusions and reco endations he stud assessed the eef cattle value chain to a and characteri e the eef actors activities role and function and value addition in selected transitional one areas in hana he ke actors ere roducers far ers collectors holesalers utchers retailers and finall secondar rocessors ore functions identified ere in ut su l roduction distri ution and arketin rocessin and consu tion here as no contractual relationshi and therefore the ost co on arket identified for the sale of eef cattle roducers as s ot arket here ere no standardi ed easurin scales hence the co onest ode of sale as h sical e a ination ike ise the co onest eans of a ent at sale as cash ro the value addition esti ation secondar rocessors added the hi hest value of of the chain he ere follo ed the roducers at collectors holesalers at and finall utchers ho added the least value of ro the results roducers ho undertook the a orit of the activities ere erceived to et the least rofit ar in of k follo ed rocessors k and collectors holesalers k and utchers received the hi hest rofit ar in k er cedi invested er da utchers recorded the hi hest I of follo ed secondar rocessors collectors holesalers and roducers In conclusion utchers in the eef value chain erceived the hi hest I therefore the usiness see s lucrative and via le for other investors to venture into he ost ressin constraints on roducers and traders are oor arket infrastructure and hi h trans ortation costs res ectivel n the other hand the ost ressin constraints on utchers and rocessors are hi h aterial ani al costs he stud rovides the follo in reco endations for i rove ent of the livestock value chain in the stud area irst the overn ent of hana throu h the livestock de art ent and the veterinar directorate under the o should roll out a sensiti ation ro ra and conduct effective trainin for the actors to create a har onious o eratin s ste alon the entire value chain fro ri ar roduction to consu tion articularl at the roducers sta e of the value chain here the erceived that the received the lo est rofit ar in he trainin should encoura e roducers to set aside a fe ani als for off take in a ear undertake fattenin ractices to attract ood rices and i rove their ani al hus andr ractices to have ood ualit ani als for sale his ill ena le far ers to take eef cattle roduction seriousl in order to e a le to rea ore fro the enter rise econd it is i erative to standardi e trade a on actors alon the value chain es eciall trade et een roducers and traders as ell as trade et een roducers and utchers ransactions should e ased on live ei hts of eef cattle instead of the e istin ar itrar sales codes his ill o a lon a to ini i in the dis arities in rofit shares alon the value chain there ensurin ore e uit hird the res ective overn ent institutions should identif the eef su sector as a ver i ortant sector and take the lead in ro otin arketin and rovidin su ortive infrastructures such as a road net ork trans ortation and other incentive re i es to attract the international arket in future his arket develo ent ill also oost eef roduction a on roducers inall there is a need to stren then hori ontal inte ration a on the livestock value chain actors i e far ers utchers traders and secondar rocessors his re uires that stron action lans e ade es eciall rin in to ether all stakeholders ho can articulate their needs and to ether uild solid usiness relationshi s and etter or ani e the hole value chain allholder oat far ers arket artici ation in ho a district a ia enr hi asha 1 no a ri a ardana 2 and iranda ortilock 2 1 istrict ricultural oordinator for e a district under the inistr of riculture a ia chuchi s ahoo co 2 chool of riculture and ood ciences he niversit of ueensland atton ustralia stract ith recent increases in de and for ani al roducts s allholder oat roducers have an o ortunit to i rove their livelihoods increased arket access and arket artici ation hus this stud as carried out to identif the live oat chain actors their role linka es o er relations and ractices in the su l chain and to esta lish the institutional su ort services and ena lin environ ent under hich the s allholder oat far ers o erate in the ho a district o acco lish these tasks oth ualitative and uantitative data ere collected throu h use of se i structured intervie s focus rou discussions s and a household surve of s allholder household oat far ers selected rando l ased on this infor ation oat arket channels ere a ed and rofit ar ins calculated escri tive statistics ere used to anal se the household data he stud outco es indicate that live oats fro the ho a district are arketed throu h three a or channels na el the ur an trader rural trader and trader ho a arket channel hich are all indirect arketin channels he arket actors in these channels ere roducers traders ur an and rural holesalers retailers and in ut service roviders ith a si nificant nu er of oats channelled throu h the ur an trader channel o anal se the erfor ance of the oat arket costs rofit and arket ar ins ere calculated for each arket channel he a orit of the res ondents ere ale at hile ere fe ale the ean fa il si e as nine and of the res ondents had attained a ri ar level of education es ondents had een involved in oat roduction for an avera e of ears ith roducin an avera e of oats annuall ar ers identified hi h disease revalence lack of roduction skills lack of access to arket infor ation hi h cost of trans ortation lack of access to credit and lack of arket infrastructure as the constraints in the oat chain esults of the ruskal allis non ara etric test of inde endence revealed that there is no statistical difference et een the three arket outlets ith re ard to e erience of the far er far si e herd si e annual household inco e and fa il si e ost of roduction as si nificant across the rou s tud findin s hi hli hted that there is a need to enhance roduction throu h the i roved rovision of veterinar services access to credit and e tension services he stud reco ends the fosterin of artnershi s a on the chain actors to ensure that an ena lin environ ent is created for the eas flo of arket infor ation and infrastructure develo ent to i rove the oat arketin s ste of all livestock raisin households entral tatistical ffice oats la a critical econo ic and social role in the lives of s allholder roducers as a source of ealth in the a sence of for al financial institutions and other issin arkets e assa et al a id ur ani ation cou led ith diet diversification increased household inco e and o ulation ro th has enhanced the de and for livestock roducts includin oat eat in a ia ichaa a in ali hus it is crucial to harness these e er in arket o ortunities enhanced arket artici ation the s allholder oat roducers his artici ation has een identified as a otential ath a out of overt for illions of s allholder oat roducin households in a ia ich et al aka es ite the otential o ortunities that the livestock sector offers in enhancin econo ic ro th and overt reduction the livestock sector in a ia is et to ca ture these e er in enefits due to its oor arketin infrastructure and infor ation hi h and uncoordinated re ulator char es li ited access to livestock services and lack of credit facilities u un u and ukuka a a hus it has een ar ued that the a ian s allholder livestock sector is characteri ed lo levels of arket artici ation u un u et al herefore ado tin a value chain a roach this stud ai s to understand the factors that influence the level of s allholder oat far ers arket artici ation in a ia It is there intended to identif a ro riate develo ent intervention ro ra s and olicies that could su ort ro oor arket artici ation ethodolo he ho a district is the rovincial head uarters of a ia s outhern rovince hich is surrounded five districts na el e a alo o ina on e on e and e e i ht four er cent of the far ers in the ho a district are s allholders hile onl are considered to e lar e scale far ers ood and riculture r ani ation of the nited ations a orit of the rural households in the ho a district are involved in livestock rearin ith of the kee in oats cattle and i s inistr of riculture and o o eratives he district therefore has a hi h otential for livestock roduction hich is one of the ain far in activities undertaken s allholder su sistence roducers his stud ado ted a i of oth uantitative and ualitative research ethodolo econdar data collection involved the revie in of docu ents and u lications fro different institutions or ani ations and offices that covered issues ertainin to the stud ri ar data ere collected fro the actors in the oat arket chain ho ere involved in roduction arketin consu tion and rovidin su ort services he household surve s of oat roducin far ers focused on roduction arketin and constraints encountered therein art fro surve s ke infor ant intervie s and ersonal o servation ethods ere e lo ed to understand ho the oat chain functions in the ho a district uestionnaire as desi ned to ather in de th infor ation on socio econo ic characteristics of individual households the roduction and arketin of their oats and constraints encountered in each of these sta es Intervie uides ere desi ned to source infor ation related to actors in the oat arket chain and their relationshi s as ell as constraints encountered in the oat arket chain on o tainin the re uired ethical clearance fro the chool of riculture and ood ciences at the niversit of ueensland the uestionnaire as re tested ith ten households that ere not included in the surve end ents ere ade to the instru ents ased on the results of the re test t o sta e sa lin rocedure as ado ted in selectin the sa le fro the ho a district o o and u oka ca s ere chosen ased on their accessi ilit ith re ards to road net ork and oat o ulation n avera e the t o a ricultural ca s had nine villa es ith an avera e of households of hich four villa es fro each of the ca s ere chosen rando l sin the far er re ister aintained the inistr of riculture and ivestock of the total nu er of households of each villa e as selected rando l and the re ainder of the households ere identified ith the aid of the ca e tension officers In total s allholder household surve s ere co leted ith the assistance of trained enu eratorsIn addition to the s allholder household surve t o s ith s allholder oat far ers ere conducted ith a vie to understandin the chains in ut su liers traders u ers roviders of su ortin services constraints in roduction and arketin of oats ena lin environ ent and otential solutions to identified constraints he discussions ere carried out ith seven artici ants in t o sessions four in session one and three in session t o ased on the discussions ith oat roducers follo u contacts ere ade ith relevant u ers ado tin a sno all a roach nine oat traders ere identified and intervie ed unctions and ne otiations of one a or holesaler in hi ol a usaka ere not o served due to his reluctance to artici ate in the research In addition roviders of overn ent and non overn ent su ort services ere intervie ed so as to et a detailed understandin of the oat chain onsu er insi hts ere athered at the oint of urchase talkin to consu ers at ho a arket ri ar data collection as carried out et een ove er and anuar in the ho a district of southern a ia ualitative data ori inatin fro s ke infor ant intervie s and ersonal o servations ere used to a the oat value chains in the ho a district and to identif the functions of each actor and then the chain d na ics he atic anal sis as e lo ed in this rocess ri ar data fro the uestionnaire surve ere anal sed usin descri tive statistics and non ara etric statistical techni ues ased on the follo in for ula arket ar ins ere calculated for each of the chains identified Π Π and Π here π is the res ective arket ar in is the avera e rice aid an ur an trader at far ate is the avera e rice aid a rural trader at far ate is the avera e rice aid traders in ho a arket is the avera e cost of roduction of oats calculated ased on the surve and is transaction costs incurred s allholder far ersa le characteristics he stud revealed that of the res ondents ere fe ale of the res ondents ere ithin the a e ran e ears had attained ri ar school education or had no for al education and had a fa il si e of e ers ith re ards to land tenure of the sa le revealed that the o n the land ith o nin ha roduce oats annuall and o n on avera e oats he a orit of the res ondents had een rearin oats for nine ears he reasons for rearin oats ere for inco e eneration eat traditional cere onies and ilk hen the ere asked to rioriti e these reasons accordin to the level of i ortance the ranked inco e eneration as the first riorit hile roduction of anure and rovision of eat for ho e consu tion ere ranked as the second and third res ectivel ive oat arket chains in the ho a district icall oats in a ia are sold as live ani als due to the reli ious and cultural ractices of end consu ers It as evident that al ost all far ers sell their live oats to final consu ers in the ho a and usaka districts throu h iddle en ive oat arketin is characteri ed traders ur an and rural ho ove fro one villa e to another to u oats allholder far ers in the ho a district redo inantl use three different arket outlets ur an traders rural traders and traders in ho a to n central usiness district ho are t icall to n d ellers found at arkets ho function u in oats fro far ers that trans ort oats fro the far steads to ho a to n oth ur an and rural traders are itinerant local u ers lthou h rural traders live ithin the villa e ur an traders travel to the villa es fro ho a or usaka to ns he then u oats directl fro the local far ers and sell directl to consu ers or ur an holesalers ine intervie s ith ke infor ants and t o s ith far ers revealed that the oat chain is characteri ed in ut su liers roducers oat far ers rural traders ur an traders ur an holesalers and rural and ur an consu ers he chains are su orted service roviders in the for of trans orters district councils the e art ent of ivestock and the a ian olice hrou h a rocess of sno allin the roduct flo as traced to rural traders ur an traders and traders in the ho a district Input suppliers hese actors are ased in the central usiness district of ho a to n hich is k fro here the s allholder far ers are ased he in uts that are rocured far ers are li ited to dru s such as de or ers or dru s related to disease revention and treat ent Goat producers roduction of oats is carried out as i ed far in ith oats reared alon side cro s ar ers rovide shelter herd oats durin feed ti es and treat the hen the are sick Rural and urban traders he traders functions are li ited to rocurin stora e and trans ortation to ur an holesalers at the hi ol a arket usaka Urban wholesalers: he lar est traders of oats in the chain consolidate oats fro all s all traders he sell oats to retailers and final consu ers he rovide stora e facilities and feed oats rior to offloadin and sale to final consu ers and retailers Support services oats are trans orted fro villa es to ho a individuals ho o n li ht trucks hich carr oats er load oats are then offloaded at ho a and trans orted in i er trucks to usaka here the ur an holesaler is located eterinar services such as disease revention and curative services are rovided the veterinar officers fro the e art ent of eterinar and ivestock ervices In addition the de art ent rovides certificates to indicate that oats are not carr in an for of disease he ho a district council rovides the certificate of consent to trans ort oats across district oundaries hile the a ia olice rovides the certificate to indicate that oats are le all o ned the erson trans ortin the nne illustrates the functions of all the la ers in the oat value chainnne ives an overvie of the live oat arket channels used s allholder oat roducers hese channels attract transaction costs as illustrated thus i actin on their rofita ilit ransaction costs associated ith each res ective arket outlet as incurred individual actors in the chain durin the arketin of live oats var and it as revealed that ur an traders have the hi hest transaction costs nne arket ar ins received s allholder oat far ers ho use the three e istin arket outlets ere calculated ased on their cost of roduction and transaction costs associated ith different arket outlets nneIn addition otential ar ins that could accrue to s allholder oat far ers in the event that a far er decides to venture out and sell directl to the ur an holesaler in usaka ere calculated his could e done via t o ossi le arket channels one is sellin directl to the ur an holesaler hile the second is to sell directl to the consu er in usaka for re iu rices he ost rofita le outlet for s allholder oat far ers is the ur an trader channel follo ed the rural trader channel and lastl the ho a arket channel trader n anal sis of the ossi le rofit that can e accrued in the event that a s allholder far er decides to trans ort their oats to the ur an holesaler in usaka ould re uire the to incur a nu er of transaction costs as illustrated in nne allholder far ers incurred a ian k acha hich accounts for of the far ate rice hen the used the ur an trader channel nder the rural trader channel the far er incurred the sa e costs thou h the far ate rice as different the costs accounted for of the far ate rice he total arketin costs under the trader ho a arket channel as hich accounted for of the traders rice he results indicate that it is ore lucrative for the far er to sell their oats at far ate than usin the ur an trader channel on co utin the ar ins in the three arket outlets a ruskal allis non ara etric test of inde endence as used to find out hether the e erience in oat far in annual herd si e far si e nu er of oats sold annuall annual household inco e and cost of roduction ere si nificantl different across the cate ories of arket outlets esults indicate that there is no si nificant difference in e erience in oat far in annual herd si e far si e nu er of oats sold annuall and annual household inco e a on the three arket outlets o ever there as a si nificant difference a on the rou s ith res ect to cost of roduction 2 value his sho s that the hi her the cost of roduction the less likel it as that a far er ould use a arket outlet that re uires the to incur additional costs his validated the surve findin s that indicated that the a orit of the far ers o ted to sell their oats at far ate here the onl costs the incur are roduction costs Discussion lthou h it is co onl ar ued that livestock roduction is ostl associated ith ales ontsh e it is evident that in the ho a district of those rearin oats ere fe ale his could e attri uted to the fact that s all ru inants are eas to look after co ared to lar e ru inants he a orit of the res ondents ho rear oats are ithin the a e ran e of ears hich is considered to e the ost roductive a e of a far er i ilar findin s ere evident in a stud conducted ased on s all ru inant roduction in the southern uinea savannah i eria unna et al his hi hli hts that far ers of this a e cohort tend to ana e their far in risks venturin into other ractices such as s all ru inant roduction co ared to far ers of other a e cohorts In the sa le of the s allholder far ers had ri ar school education or no for al education his stud findin is in consonance ith other stud findin s for instance it has een found that of the res ondents ho rear i s in northern i eria had no for al education ala and desehin a he lo levels of education of these s allholder far ers could contri ute to a nu er of inefficiencies alon the chain includin their a ilit to select the t e of arket outlet and use the e istin arket infor ation unna et al have asserted the sa e ased on the conte t of i eria unna et al he lack of arket access can e attri uted to the distance to hi ol a arket here their oats are sold for a re iu rice i ilar studies have hi hli hted that so e of the a or constraints that affect the efficienc of livestock arketin include oor arketin infrastructure lack of arket infor ation hi h transaction costs and lack of access to for al credit sources ala and desehin a ene eru et al ochoa et al he lack of access to arket infor ation clearl hi hli hts that s allholder oat far ers are at a disadvanta e as the have to ake their arket decisions ithout access to u to date arket infor ation his e oses the to the risk of o tainin iased infor ation fro o ortunistic traders u ers his corres onds to the findin s of an earlier stud hich o ined that the lack of a for al s ste ai ed at rovision of arket infor ation to oat traders results in the recei t of unrelia le infor ation ludi u and okadehe stud reveals that s allholder far ers rear oats for a nu er of reasons includin household consu tion eat and ilk as an inco e eneratin activit and for traditional cere onies such as a in for ride rice hou h this has een the case a nu er of constraints ere identified res ondents as a or i edi ents to oat roduction hich ere hi h disease revalence lack of oat roduction skills and insufficient contact ith area veterinar officers allholder oat far ers use three redo inant arket channels to arket their oats far er to ur an trader channel far er to rural trader channel and far er to trader ho a arket channel oats are sold at far ate usin the first t o channels hile the third channel re uires far ers to travel to ho a and sell at the arket art fro roducers other chain actors include traders ur an and rural ur an holesalers located in the usaka district retailers and consu ers he chain receives institutional and su ort services fro non overn ental or ani ations s and overn ent throu h the inistr of riculture and ivestock hou h resent utcheries are insi nificant in the chain in that the roducts that ass throu h this channel are ne li i le hese channels ere dotted ith a nu er of constraints that i ede the efficient functionin of the arket na el lack of arket infor ation lack of access to for al credit sources oor state of roads and hi h trans ort costs hese constraints result in an increase in oth the arket and transaction costs incurred a s allholder far er es ite these afore entioned constraints live oat arketin is rofita le in the stud area this is attri uted to the hi h de and for oat eat hich is currentl not ein et roduction levels It is therefore ossi le to i rove s allholder oat far ers livelihoods i rovin the arketin s ste s eco endations ased on these stud findin s it is evident that i rove ent of the rovision of veterinar officers in the oat roducin co unities to facilitate and train far ers on technical skills in oat roduction and ana e ent ould si nificantl assist the health of the oats and thus i rove ualit in the arket chain onse uentl this ill e ui oat roducers ith kno led e on such issues as oat health re roduction housin aterin and feedin hich ould increase roductivit tension officers should e reoriented so that their essa es do not revolve solel around roduction issues ut include as ects of arketin so that s allholder oat far ers ain kno led e in that re ard I roved arketin infrastructure such as the esta lish ent of an auction arket ould rovide a latfor for s allholder oat far ers to interact ith final consu ers uch a latfor ould ensure that far ers venture into the consu er arket that offers the re iu rice he use of the ro osed auction arkets ould ensure that there are re ular sales of oats standardi ed ricin s ste s and rovision of rices eforehand ivin s allholder far ers an o ortunit to lan ahead uctions ould also contri ute to rovidin a lace for far er and trader interactions hich ould eneficiall increase kno led e across the arket chain n ena lin environ ent needs to e cha ioned and created so as to foster the develo ent of favoura le re ulator fra e orks and arket infrastructure hich ould su ort efficient oat arketin s ste s thus enhancin the develo ent of co etitive oat arkets and creatin sustaina le relationshi s a on the live oat chain actors that are ased on utual trust throu h advocatin for a chan e in the indset of the la ers on ho the vie each other durin the rocess of arketin stract he over illion shee and oats in thio ia serve as i ortant sources of cash inco e and rotein for rural households es ite the olic direction of co ercial transfor ation of s allholder a riculture for over a decade in thio ia little transfor ation has een o served in the s all ru inant su sector to date callin for a ri orous e irical anal sis of the factors that influence household decisions to roduce and arket s all ru inants he confluence of roductivit increasin technolo ies and ractices and rofita le arket o ortunities is essential to achieve sustaina le develo ent and transfor ation of the a ricultural sector e use the tri le hurdle econo etric odel to anal se household decisions to en a e in s all ru inant roduction their arket osition and the intensit ith hich the artici ate in the arket inte ratin roduction arket osition and volu e of sales the tri le hurdle odel esti ates ara eter values that can e used to ake inferences a out the stud o ulation here so e art of the o ulation are non roducers esults are ased on a data set collected fro households and rural co unities in the hi hlands of thio ia ur results sho that access to credit encoura es en a e ent in s all ru inant roduction su estin that li uidit constraint is an i ortant arrier to overco e in ro otin arket oriented s all ru inant roduction n a e ent in s all ru inant roduction is also ore likel in relativel re ote areas that are farther a a fro arkets and roads and hi her altitude areas ith ade uate ra in and ro sin resources o ever in areas here s all ru inant roduction is likel arket access stands out as an i ortant deter inant of household arket osition oun er households ith li ited land resources ale headed households and households ith a relativel hi her la our su l are also ore likel to e en a ed in s all ru inant roduction lock si e is an i ortant deter inin factor of arket artici ation and volu e of sales he s all ru inant su sector is rice non res onsive su estin that households li uidate their ani als ecause the are in need of cash not necessaril to a i i e rofit I lications to facilitate the co ercial transfor ation of roduce are dra n Keywords: ri le hurdle odel co ercial transfor ation s all ru inants arket access thio ia Introduction thio ia is endo ed ith ore than illion shee and oats o issariat for ood ecurit hich serve as i ortant sources of cash inco e and rotein for the rural households ele et al o ni ant of the i ortance of s all ru inants to the livelihoods of the rural o ulation the overn ent of thio ia o has een transfor in the su sector into a arket oriented roduction s ste for ore than a decade inistr of inance and cono ic evelo ent o ational lannin o ission o ever the transfor ation rocess of the su sector has een slu ish at est he confluence of roductivit increasin technolo ies and ractices and rofita le arket o ortunities is essential to achieve sustaina le develo ent and transfor ation of the a ricultural sector a lade et al inten and arrett iti et al he s all ru inant su sector is no e ce tion all ru inant arket develo ent is e ected to enerate i ortant arket si nals for s allholders to invest and activel artici ate in the arket and i rove their ell ein iffen et al he thio ian s all ru inant su sector falls short in oth roductivit and arket artici ation easures he ield er carcass ei ht of shee and oats for thio ia in the roduction season as esti ated at k ani al and k ani al res ectivel hile the avera e for frica as k ani al and k ani al for shee and oats res ectivel ood and riculture r ani ation of the nited ations oor ana e ent ractices and lack of ade uate health services also lead to hi h ortalit and or idit In the roduction season the ortalit rate as esti ated at and for shee and oats res ectivel hile the or idit rates ere esti ated at for shee and for oats hich o viousl ould affect co ercial off take rates he slu ish transfor ation of the traditional s all ru inant su sector in thio ia calls for a ri orous e irical anal sis of the factors that influence household decisions to roduce and arket s all ru inants uch an anal sis is i ortant in order to dra olic i lications to facilitate the transfor ation rocess everal studies have een conducted on s all ru inant roduction and arketin ractices in thio ia e ede et al ocho et al e esse et al adesse et al o ever to our kno led e no stud has inte rated roduction arket artici ation and intensit of arket artici ation decisions s allholders oreover arket artici ation studies on s all ru inants in thio ia have een ainl ased on s all sa le si es that are li ited to articular roduction areas such as a district or a fe districts akin enerali ation at national level difficult ur anal sis is ased on data collected fro a re resentative sa le si e of households in the a or four hi hlands re ions of thio ia i ra hara ro ia and outhern ations ationalities and eo les here a out of the countr s s all ru inant o ulation is roduced sin the data set fro such a road sa le of s all ru inant roducers the a er ai s at identif in factors that influence household decisions ith re ard to roduction arketin and intensit of arket artici ation usin a tri le hurdle odel that inte rates the three decision choices ur results sho that en a e ent in s all ru inant roduction is ore likel in relativel re ote areas that are farther a a fro arkets and roads and hi her altitude areas ith ade uate ra in and ro sin resources oun er households ith li ited land resources ale headed households and households ith a relativel hi her la our su l are also ore likel to e en a ed in s all ru inant roduction lock si e is an i ortant deter inin factor of arket artici ation and volu e of sales he s all ru inant su sector is rice nonres onsive su estin that households li uidate their ani als in need of cash not necessaril to a i i e rofit he a er is or ani ed as follo s he ne t section resents our conce tual fra e ork ection three descri es esti ation a roach ection four resents data and descri tive statistics ection five resents and discusses the econo etric results of the tri le hurdle odel ection seven concludes the a er and resents i lications once tual fra e ork he conce tual fra e ork follo ed in this a er is ased on the theoretical fra e ork develo ed arrett and ou hton et al he ke features of the odels are that far households access to arkets is not unifor ecause households face differential transaction costs due to household and far s ecific characteristics as ell as eso level factors related to arket infrastructures and institutions and the de ree of co etition a on arket inter ediaries artici ation in s all ru inant roduction and arketin are therefore odelled as functions of transaction cost factors tc household characteristics hc far characteristics fc asset endo ent ae access to services as co unit level varia les cc a ro ecolo ical ones a and rices ence the full tri le hurdle odel is s ecified as follo s srprod = srprod (tc, hc, fc, ae, as, cc, az, p) srmrpos = srmrpos (tc, hc, fc, ae, as, cc, az, p) netsell = netsell (tc, hc, fc, ae, as, cc, az, p) netbuy = netbuy (tc, hc, fc, ae, as, cc, az, p) here sr rod is a inar indicator of hether a household is involved in s all ru inant roduction sr r os is a ultino ial indicator of the arket osition of the household net u er autarkic net seller netsell is the net nu er of s all ru inants sold the household and net u is the net nu er of s all ru inants ou ht the household he net uantities of u in and sellin are odelled se aratel as the effects of the ri ht hand side varia les on these outco es a e different e et al clusion restrictions are ossi le so not all e lanator varia les a e included in each odel urke et al sti ation household s arket artici ation decision can e thou ht of as a three sta e decision ro le here clearance fro the revious sta e is re uired for each successive sta e he first sta e is roduction decision i e hether to en a e in s all ru inant roduction or not follo ed the decision on arket osition net u er autarkic and net seller for roducers onditional on the decision on arket osition the last sta e is the decision on intensit of arket artici ation either as net seller or as net u er he esti ates for the ara eters can e o tained runnin a relevant se arate re ression odel for each sta e urke et al ince the de endent varia le at the first sta e is inar a ro it odel is used or the second sta e an ordered ro it odel is used to esti ate the ara eters inall a lo nor al re ression odel is esti ated to e a ine the intensit of arket artici ation for net sellers 1 ll esti ations are ade usin tata version tata or e used household la our su l as an e clusion varia le to esti ate the second sta e odel since the availa ilit of la our is e ected to affect the decision of hether or not to roduce s all ru inants ut not the decision on arket artici ation e also used varia les that easure access to arket infor ation as e clusion varia les to esti ate the third sta e odels ccess to infor ation can e considered as a fi ed transaction cost factor hich affects onl the decision on arket artici ation ut not the intensit of artici ation ince e could not find effective identification varia les for net u ers e onl resent and discuss esti ation results for net sellers ata and descri tive statistics esults are ased on anal sis of data fro a surve of s allholder households and rural kebeles 2 in the four hi hland re ions of thio ia i ra hara ro ia and en ones ere selected for the stud fro hich districts 3 ere identified he stud area accounts for a out of the national area of the national shee o ulation and of the national oat o ulation 4 or sa lin ur oses the stud districts ere stratified into a ro ecolo ical ones and far households ere selected rando l ased on ro ortional to si e sa lin techni ue ata ere collected on household characteristics far o erations household asset o nershi far characteristics includin land holdin flock and herd si e and structure access to h sical and institutional infrastructure and household cash earnin s he surve as conducted in and referred to the roduction season e ale headed households account for less than one fifth of the total households a le e ale headed households also account for a out of those involved in s all ru inant roduction on net sellers are fe ale headed households or those ho en a ed in s all ru inant roduction the avera e herd si e is a out ani als ith corres ondin avera e si es of for net sellers and for net u ers ore than t o thirds of the s all ru inant stock are fe ale ani als urin the roduction ear a household on avera e lost a out of its flock ainl due to diseases hich accounted for a out of the deaths ther causes of s all ru inant deaths include a ein in uries due to accidents and redators andholdin s are s all at a out ha on avera e he value of household h sical assets hich include a ricultural tools ater cans ater u s heel arro s ani al carts o ile hones radios television ic cles otorc cles and other oods ack ani als eehives and ur an ro ert is esti ated at thio ian irr 5 and this sli htl increases for s all ru inant roducers ased on the lar e standard deviation it looks as if household ealth varied considera l out of household heads are a le to read and rite ith and of households havin for al schoolin of ears ears and ore than ears res ectivel he nearest all eather road and livestock arket are located on avera e ithin and inutes of alkin distance fro a ho estead res ectivel out of households took out an a ricultural loan durin the ear ot sur risin l a out t o thirds of s all ru inant roducers are located in the hi her altitude areas here the altitude ran es fro iles a ove sea level and here the annual rainfall ran es fro to ore than In the stud area cattle o en and dair roducts utter re resent otential alternative sources of inco e to hese are district level avera es of o served rices collected in the surve cludin s all and lar e ru inants s all ru inant roduction hus in addition to the rice of s all ru inants district arket rices of utter and o en are included in the anal sis esults and discussion his section first resents esti ation results for the tri le hurdle odel consistent ith the choice odels outlined earlier o identif the arket osition odel e i osed an e clusion restriction on the household la our su l varia le hich is found to e statisticall si nificant in the roduction decision e uation ut not in the arket osition e uation hen in order to check hether the error ter s in the first and second sta es are conditionall uncorrelated a standard t test is used on the coefficient esti ate of the I e failed to re ect the null h othesis that the coefficient esti ate for I is not different fro ero and I is e cluded fro the second sta e esti ation on arket artici ation i ilarl to identif the arket intensit odel e used access to arket infor ation varia les o nershi of radio and access to s all ru inant arket infor ation follo in oet ho ar ues that infor ation costs are fi ed transaction costs that influence arket entr ut not intensit of arket artici ation he ald test of the h othesis that the coefficients of the e find that household a e has a ara olic relationshi ith involve ent in s all ru inant roduction ith the ne ative effect kickin in at a e hich is a out the sa e as the avera e a e in the sa le households ear old the th ercentile far er has a ro a ilit of involve ent in s all ru inant roduction co ared to a ear old ho has a ro a ilit of his is ro a l ecause oun er households have relativel li ited access to other roductive resources such as cro land e u and olden and as such ould tend to de end on a ricultural activities that re uire less land such as s all ru inant roduction he avera e ro a ilit of a iven fe ale headed household ein a s all ru inant roducer is as co ared to for an other ise si ilar ale headed household his is in a ree ent ith the findin of uku et al in hana ccess to credit also has a statisticall si nificant and ositive effect on the ro a ilit of en a in in s all ru inant roduction ducation as source of o er to rocess and inter ret infor ation and o nershi of a radio as a source of infor ation see to encoura e en a e ent in s all ru inant roduction ouseholds ho kee lar e ru inants are also ore likel to kee s all ru inants su estin that there is co le entarit in roduction et een the t o enter rises such as in ra in ehaviour ch art o ulation densit detracts fro involve ent in s all ru inant roduction n increase of one standard deviation in o ulation densit three ersons er ha decreases the ro a ilit of artici atin in s all ru inant roduction ercenta e oints he ne ative effect of o ulation densit on s all ru inant roduction a e due to its effect on land de radation and thus the availa ilit and roductivit of ra in and ro sin resources i anda et al s e ected households ith s aller far land si es are ore likel e en a ed in s all ru inant roduction indicatin that those households ho face shorta e of land are likel to diversif a a fro land ased enter rises arrett et al or e a le an increase of land si e one standard deviation ha decreases the ro a ilit of en a in in s all ru inant roduction a out ercenta e oints es ite the co le entarit et een lar e ru inants and s all ru inants in roduction the t o enter rises see to e su stitutes as sources of cash inco e to the household ouseholds ith lar e cattle o nershi are ore likel to e autarkic than to e net sellers and are ore likel to e net u ers than to e autarkic Inco e fro lar e ru inants a also e used to urchase s all ru inants either for consu tion or as an invest ent e also find a ne ative relationshi et een sales volu e for a iven net seller and nu er of lar e ru inants o ever the avera e artial effect of inflo of lar e ru inants on the unconditional e ected value of net sales as found to e ositive at for each additional lar e ru inant that oins the far er s herd s e ected s all ru inant flock si e and structure have a stron and statisticall si nificant effect on the arket artici ation decision as ell as volu e of sales household ith a lar er s all ru inant flock is ore likel to e autarkic than a net u er and ore likel to e a net seller than autarkic an oike et al found a si ilar result in northern o alia for s all ru inants and u un u for cattle in a ia lock si e does have a uadratic effect on arket artici ation here the ne ative effect sets in at head of ani als under the current roduction s ste he turnin oint flock si e is al ost five ti es the avera e flock si e sho in that the current flock si e is su o ti al to ro ote arket artici ation of households holdin other factors constant he avera e roducin household in our sa le has a ro a ilit of ein a net sellin household if its flock si e is three the th ercentile as co ared to a ro a ilit for a flock si e of the th ercentile lock si e also has a uadratic effect on net sellin here the turnin oint flock si e is ani als ach additional ani al that oins the herd increases the volu e of unconditional e ected sales hese results stron l indicate that increasin flock si e needs attention in efforts ai ed at ro otin arket oriented transfor ation of the sector esults also sho that the ro ortion of fe ale ani als in the flock is si nificantl ne ativel associated ith arket artici ation iven that a household is en a ed in s all ru inant roduction a t ical household ith a third of its flock si e th ercentile ein fe ale ani als has a out ro a ilit of ein a net seller as co ared to a ro a ilit if fe ale ani als account for three fourths th ercentile i ilarl a on net sellers ro ortion of fe ale ani als has ne ative effect on the nu er of ani als sold ur results redict that on avera e a ercenta e oint increase in ro ortion of fe ale ani als decreases the unconditional e ected nu er of s all ru inant sales a out his is ecause fe ale ani als are ainl ke t for re roduction ur oses an oike et al ni al death like ise e erts a ne ative effect on the ordered arket artici ation varia le he ore ani al death a flock suffers in a eriod the ore likel it is to e autarkic than a net u er and the ore likel to e autarkic than a net seller he ne ative effect also e tends to the net sellers here each additional ani al death leads to an decrease in the nu er of ani als sold lthou h ein further a a fro arkets or all eather roads favours s all ru inant roduction conditional on ein a roducer distance to arket detracts fro ein a net seller over ein autarkic or net u er he avera e roducin household in our sa le ould have a ro a ilit of ein a net sellin household if the alkin distance to the nearest livestock arket ere inutes th ercentile as co ared to a ro a ilit if the livestock arket ere located so e t o hours a a th ercentile his is ro a l ecause re ote villa es offer less o ortunit for off far e lo ent enko et al and as such en a e ent in s all ru inant roduction eco es an attractive livelihood diversification strate e do not find a statisticall si nificant relationshi et een sales volu e for a iven net seller and distance to a livestock arket Involve ent in s all ru inant focused e tension services increases volu e of net sales all else e ual his is consistent ith other studies here e tension services have een linked ith arket orientation in develo in countries ollo a et al er an his su ests the otential ositive effect of e tension services in ro otin arket artici ation of households e find that household decision to en a e in s all ru inant roduction arket artici ation and intensit of arket artici ation in the s all ru inant arket are not affected the rice of s all ru inants su estin that s all ru inant roduction is not rice res onsive all ru inant roducers a e sellin ani als ri aril ecause of cash needs hile arket oriented roduction is lo ocho et al utter rice has a ne ative effect on oth arket artici ation and intensit of artici ation su estin that utter is considered a su stitute source of cash inco e for households e find a ositive association et een rices of lar e ru inants and volu e of s all ru inant sales erha s ecause cash roceeds fro the sale of s all ru inants is used to invest in lar e livestock In a revious stud in eastern thio ia it as o served that involve ent in s all ru inant fattenin as used as a ste in stone to lar e ru inant fattenin e re edhin et al onclusion and i lications es ite the olic and o erational direction of s allholder co erciali ation ursued the o for over a decade no the s all ru inant sector has seen little transfor ation to date he slu ish arket oriented transfor ation of the s all ru inant sector re uires an e irical anal sis of the factors influencin household decisions in the roduction and arketin of s all ru inants uch anal sis ould infor olic akin and develo ent ractice to facilitate the transfor ation rocess his a er is an atte t to res ond to the need for etter understandin of s all ru inant roduction and arketin in thio ia sin a cross sectional data set fro households in the hi hlands of thio ia e esti ated a tri le hurdle odel to anal se the deter inants of household decision to en a e in s all ru inant roduction their arket osition as net u ers autarkic or net sellers and the volu e of sales for net sellers e find that s all ru inant roduction is referred oun er households ith li ited access to land i l in that tar etin oun eo le and the landless for arket oriented s all ru inant roduction a serve as a source of e lo ent and inco e for such se ents of the o ulation he ra in and ro sin s ste of s all ru inant roduction and ana e ent also see to rovide etter co arative advanta es to ale headed households than to fe ale headed households su estin that a chan e in roduction ractice a e needed to ake fe ale headed households eneficiaries of the sector Introduction and ro otion of ero ra in can e one o tion ccess to credit encoura es en a e ent in s all ru inant roduction su estin that li uidit constraint is an i ortant arrier to overco e in ro otin arket oriented s all ru inant roduction lthou h lar e and s all ru inants see to e co le entar in roduction the tend to e su stitutes as sources of cash inco e to the household all ru inant flock si e is an i ortant deter inant of arket osition and volu e of sales ith the likelihood of ein a net seller continuousl increasin u to a flock si e of ani als co ared ith the avera e flock si e of oreover net sellin households ith lar er s all ru inant flock si e are ore likel to sell ore sho in that the current flock si e is su o ti al to ro ote a arket oriented s all ru inant sector he insi ht ained fro the effect of flock si e on arketin ehaviour of households is reinforced the ne ative effect of ani al deaths on arket osition and volu e of sales hese results i l i rove ents in fertilit roductivit ana e ent to i rove ro th rates and disease control to reduce oun ortalit are crucial re uire ents in the sector e find that s all ru inant roduction in the hi hlands of thio ia is not rice res onsive su estin that s all ru inant roducers a e sellin ani als ri aril ecause of cash needs hile arket orientation is lo he ne ative effect of utter rices on arket osition and volu e of sales of s all ru inants indicate that households consider the t o roducts as su stitute sources of cash inco e he ositive association et een rices of lar e ru inants and volu e of s all ru inant sales sho s that cash roceeds fro the sale of s all ru inants is used to invest in lar e livestock ckno led e ent e are rateful to the lo al ffairs anada for the financial su ort e are also dee l rateful to the an far ers ho atientl and illin l res onded to our nu erous uestions stract ivestock roduction is one of the ost i ortant a ricultural activities in outh frica ith oat roduction ein a via le source of livelihood ith hu e otential for elfare i rove ent his is ecause oats are ver hard and chea to raise and ield a out return on invest ent vaila le infor ation sho s that the ulk of oat roduction in outh frica is carried out s allholder far ers he usuall kee the for securit a ainst econo ic shocks his a er therefore e a ined the d na ics of the oat value chain in i o o rovince ith a vie to increasin the net returns to s allholder far ers in the stud area ata for this stud ere athered fro three villa es in the i o o rovince of outh frica usin a rando sa lin ethod ata ere anal sed usin descri tive statistics nal sis of data revealed that the avera e a e of these far ers is ith ore o en artici atin in oat hus andr than en lthou h there is an esta lished ut underserved oat arket in the stud area li ited access to infor ation lo level of education and reli ious eliefs ere the do inant factors constrainin these far ers fro accessin the for al arket hus the oat value chain in i o o rovince is characteri ed the do inance of s allholder far ers ho sell directl to consu ers and those usin it for reli ious rites hence the reference for hite oats in the stud area here are also fe co ercial roducers involved in the e ortation or sellin of oats and oat roducts to retailers ho later sell to consu ers he stud found that considera le rofits can e ade in eneratin lace and for utilit for oats in the stud area ased on the fore oin the stud reco ends ca acit uildin of s allholder far ers throu h education and the use of e tension officers in rovidin relevant ti el and u to date infor ation on arket outlets for increased rofit akin and enhanced livelihood unal far ers account for the ulk of the roduced in the rural areas ean hile there is do estic and international de and for oat eat hence the need to raise invest ents in the enter rise o ever the rofita ilit of oat hus andr is a function of trans ortation costs institutional factors olicies social constructs and cultural nor s and the illin ness of the stakeholders to en a e in usiness trade ethodolo ata sources and stud location his stud ade use of oth ri ar and secondar sources of infor ation hile the ri ar source includes the use of structured uestionnaires ad inistered to res ondents to ather infor ation on socio econo ic characteristics of oat far ers and relevant stakeholders the secondar source entails the use of infor ation athered fro ournals ast re orts and statistics outh frica u lications es ondents ere dra n fro aro ala athedin and e a en villa es in a ricorn istrict and a ase ola and a areshane in the ekhukhune district of i o o rovince usin a rando sa lin ethod ased on ro a ilit ro ortionate to si e esults and discussion e and household si e of res ondents he result resented elo is the a e and ender distri ution of res ondents he avera e a e is ears hile there are ore o en oat far ers than en as de icted in a le his sho s that the res ondents are still ithin the econo icall active eriod of their life a le istri ution of res ondents a e and household si e ource arketin outlets for oats in the stud area hile a si ea le nu er of oats and their roducts are sold infor all elo are the availa le arketin outlets for oats and their roducts in the countr he distri ution of arketin outlets as sho n in a le reveals that ore than one third of oats roduced are sold for rituals hence the reference for the hite oat ellin of live oats the side of the road a out is also ver co on es eciall around the festive seasons of the ear estaurants and su er arkets for an i ortant avenue ecause the nutritional enefits of the consu tion of oat eat have rovided ore lee a for oat eat to enter the for al arket throu h so e i su er arkets restaurants and hotels ain a out are sold at different utcheries a atoirs across the countr and these outlets are atroni ed oth lo and iddle inco e earners a le istri ution of outlets for oat arketin otential of inclusive value addition rofit akin in oat hus andr oats are kno n to e ver hard and can survive in harsh environ ents he have survived centuries of eriodic drou hts and harsh te eratures he also have the attri utes of ein resistant to the a orit of tro ical diseases and arasites oats are a reat source of inco e ecause of their s all si e ada tive feed ehaviour and lo ana e ent oats are a via le alternative in enhancin household cash flo he are also a valua le source of rich ilk and tast eat oats also rovide skins of co ercial i ortance and anure for ardens and cro fields oat is articularl useful in eetin household nutritional re uire ents ecause of its ide ran e of roducts he roducts are ilk eat o hurt and cheese hile the roducts are hides and skin naeto et al oats roduce food for hu ans and hel ith eedin and aste ana e ent es eciall in the consu tion of far roducts oats can utili e asture and fora e hich cattle find difficult to consu e his i lies that the cost of feedin a not e as hi h as the feed cost of shee and cattle oats have a short enerational interval as the are earl aturin In fact the reach u ert as earl as four onths hile it takes shee si onths to do so o ever it is etter to dela reedin till the oat is ei ht onths old to achieve etter results e art ent of riculture and ural evelo ent It therefore follo s that oats have a short invest ent estation eriod co ared to cattle and shee oats also have their lace in the culture oats are used to a do r and are eaten durin co unit eetin s tri al eetin s arties land conflict resolution and circu cision cere onies heir horns and ones are used in the traditional craft industr oat roduction re uires li ited financial resources local kno led e and the utili ation of natural resources oat roduction is co erciall via le as it ields an invest ent return of ore than I oats have received little attention in literature ut have ro n ore than the other ani al roduction sectors outh frica has one of the fastest ro in de ands for livestock roducts in the outh frican evelo ent o unities o in to stron ur ani ation rates and hi h national inco es ui et al he econo ic terrain of livestock roduction has chan ed fro e ort ased in the s to i ort driven in the s ecause of the increase in oat eat i orts outh erica and ustralia account for the ulk of the eat i orts of outh frica In the total red eat i ort of outh frica as valued at illion ui et al his i lies there is a su l a hich local far ers can rid e and rofit fro hallen es constraints faced oat far ers oat far ers in the surve ed area hi hli hted so e of the constraints challen es faced as sho n in i ure he nota le underl in constraints to oat roduction include theft of live ani als ra in land scarcit ests and diseases ater scarcit and inade uate access to funds i ure hallen es in the oat value chain  ivestock roduction is a a or a ricultural activit and cattle are the ain invest ent assets for an a i households ost cattle roduced and traded s allholders is ana ed on co on ra in land and there is considera le otential to increase the econo ic contri ution of this ver un roductive s ste inte ratin s allholders into the ell develo ed eef cattle value chain he innovative a roach to fattenin offers s allholders a via le usiness odel to en a e in the value addin activit of eef cattle fattenin he icro inance nit a iland ater and riculture evelo ent nter rise and International ivestock esearch Institute I I su orted the International und for ricultural evelo ent I ro ect s onsor have coo erated to i le ent the innovative a roach to fattenin in a iland o en a e in cattle value addition utili in the a roach s allholders re uire fundin fundin odel as desi ned dra in on learnin e eriences fro other financial sche es ast and resent at the ti e and a holistic a roach to fundin as ado ted hich included the necessar fra e ork re uired for lendin to the tar et arket he fundin odel ro osed for a ilot as structured around the critical linka es et een• financial artner for the ad inistration and onitorin of loans allocated to selected and trained rou s of orro ers here of a loan issued ould e acked a uarantee rovided the ro ect s onsor• o ercial arket artici ants for the offtake of fat finished cattle• ternal roducers and traders for the consistent su l of thin cattle oan ter s ere structured to e attractive to orro ers ut still re uired orro ers to have so e level of contri ution and risk oan ter s ere also ro osed so that the ilot fundin odel could transition into lar er si ilar and e istin financial sche es or run inde endentl of other sche es ost the ilot inancial institutions ere a roached and re uested to artici ate in the fundin odel ositive feed ack as received fro all financial institutions hich dis la ed a illin ness to artici ate hilst offerin fle i le ter s sin le financial institution as selected to artici ate in the ilot fundin odel and an a ree ent as finali ed ith this institution everal challen es ere ho ever o served durin the reli inar sta es of i le entation hich include a on st othershallen es ith ca acit availa le for the rovision of technical su ort• ela s in res onses fro stakeholders• ro le atic contractin for the su l of cattle and uarantees fro arket ith e i le ter s he ilot fundin lendin odel as then tailored to account for so e of these challen es here necessar In order to re licate the odel successfull in other re ions the follo in is re uiredocal technical ca acit and su ort are ke e universities for research ca a ilit and assistance ith activities such as construction of feedin structures a encies of inistries e for the rovision of technical su ort etcorro ers need to ossess a asic level of education• he value chain should e sufficientl develo ed e availa ilit of in uts heath services cattle su l lo istics arket etc• artnerin financial institution s ith an a etite for s all and ediu enter rise develo ent and risk is are re uired availa ilit of funds for loans financial su ort afforda le ter s availa ilit of funds es eciall initiall for uaranteeinancial and usiness e ertise in order to develo the usiness case s tailor the financial odel ased on conditions o tain fundin u in fro financial institutions ne otiate ter s to overn the fundin odel etc are neededhe on oin resence and drive of a dedicated ro ect ana er is vital he environ ent in a iland ossessed the funda ental varia les factors re uired for success and the ain challen es e erienced relate to ca acit constraints durin the i le entation of the ro osed odel challen es ere lar el overco e Keywords fundin odel s allholders cattle fattenin innovative a roach Introduction he innovative a roach to fattenin is an a roach hich offers s allholders a via le usiness odel to en a e in the value addin activit of eef cattle fattenin he a roach utili es rass or fora e ased fattenin diets ro residues articularl su arcane to s and olasses hich are currentl not ein used efficientl in a iland can also e utili ed at a reduced cost hen co ared to other fattenin a roaches It is esti ated that feed accounts for of fattenin costs so a si nificant reduction in feed costs ulti atel leads to a ore rofita le and sustaina le a roach to fattenin he and I I su orted I have coo erated to i le ent the innovative a roach to fattenin in a iland he a roach has en o ed international success It initiates a s allholder shift fro su sistence ased cattle roduction to one that is co erciall focused inall the a roach offers the countr an o tion for diversif in a ricultural inco e hich is ainl su ar related in the lon ter is a outi ue cor orate finance and actuarial advisor fir focused on financial solutions in frica and as andated I I and the to rovide the financial e ertise necessar for the ro ect to• evelo the usiness case for the innovative a roach to cattle fattenin in a iland• evelo the ilot fundin odel hich allo ed s allholders to access finance• n a e financial institutions and ac uire artici ation in the ilot fundin odel fro these institutions• ssist ith the financial as ects re uired for i le entation his a er discusses fundin odels ro osed in the ast and those that e isted at the ti e of the ro ect start in a iland to dra ke learnin e eriences and ositive takea a s fro these sche es ro these learnin s a su ar of the ke factors necessar for a successful fundin odel is rovided he ro osed ilot fundin odel the various stakeholders involved and the roles of stakeholders are then discussed he a er also descri es ractical e eriences and challen es associated ith i le entation of the ro osed ilot fundin odel hich includes e erience fro interactions ith otential funders and stakeholders involved inall the a er concludes ith the institutional environ ent necessar to re licate the odel in other re ions reli inar conte t an overvie of eef cattle roduction in a iland ivestock roduction is a a or a ricultural activit and cattle are the ain invest ent assets for an a i households i t five er cent of ho esteads o n cattle ost cattle are ana ed on co on ra in land and there is considera le otential to increase the livestock econo ic contri ution of hat re ains a ver un roductive s ste orld ank o e istin alon side the traditional s ste is a s all ut ver ell develo ed co ercial cattle industr co risin roduction of oth eef and dair roducts he ta le hich follo s hi hli hts funda ental differences et een co ercial livestock roduction on itle eed and and s allholder roduction on a i ation and o ercial roduction on land allholder roduction on land ra in on natural astures and cro residues to fatten ani als this is su le ented ith anufactured feed concentrates ate ori ed ediu to hi h in ut roduction e enses entred on rofit oriented ana e ent ractices that feature i roved enetics and nutrition attle stockin rates are carefull ana ed to ensure that ani als reach slau hter ei ht ra idl and cost effectivel o e co ercial roducers take advanta e of u lic health care services ut an e lo rivate veterinarians l ost e clusivel co unal ra in on natural astures and cro residues o invest ent ost s allholder far ers re ard cattle as assets and have een un illin to sell in the ast unless circu stances re uired it financial need ni als are late to ature reachin slau hter ei ht at advanced a es his is a co ined effect of oor enetics overstockin oor ana e ent ractices and oor nutrition attle stockin rates are e cessivel hi h leadin to land over ra in and de radation enefits fro free health care rovided a overn ent run tick di in ro ra enefits fro overn ent reedin ranches ource orld ank here are three ri ar value chain artici ants roducers traders and fatteners e cludin roviders of in ut services rocessors and arkets he a orit of cattle traded sold and slau htered s allholders are lean thin cattle raders link s allholder roducers to u ers and rovide arket infor ation for roducers as ell ean cattle are usuall sold to rural utcheries or other s allholders fro here the are taken ho e for slau hter infor al arkets In a inorit of cases s allholder traders roducers ith access to finance send cattle for fattenin efore sale attened cattle attract si nificantl hi her rices fro co ercial arkets verall the eef cattle value chain is ell develo ed co ared to other livestock value chains in a iland orld ank dia ra atic vie of the value chain is included in the a endi ection he ta le hich follo s outlines the ain artici ants in the eef cattle value chain and rovides an overvie of the role la ed these artici ants ther lar e a attoirs en a e in a co ination of holesale and retail sellin ource a a a iland could enefit fro reduced tariffs for slau htered eef e orted to the uro ean nion under the o e convention urrentl this e ort enefit is not ein a i i ed as ore than of su l is consu ed locall allholders are also initiatin cross order sales transactin ith cattle urchasers fro o a i ue ho are illin to a a re iu for cattle he arkets e ist and de and is si nificant earnin e eriences fro ast and current a ricultural financin in a iland o desi n and create a ractical fundin odel it is vital to take co nisance of fundin sche es ro osed in the ast and those that e ist to dra ke learnin oints and ositive takea a s fro the his section discusses so e of the ain sche es revie ed efore finali ation of the fundin odel ro osed for a ilot revious sche es offered in artnershi ith a financial institution he allholder credit and arketin ro ect as esta lished in to su ort s n international a ricultural fund loaned funds to a financial institution for lendin to the tar et arket s involved in a riculture he funds loaned to the financial institution ould e ad inistered as a revolvin fund ith the rovision that the ere ana ed in a sustaina le a contri ution of as initiall re uired fro the orro in ut this as often aived durin the first orro in sta es ll facilities ere seasonal and re a ent schedules ere s nchroni ed ith ro ect cash flo s ith a sti ulated a i u re a ent eriod he sche e as characterised lacklustre erfor ance and hi h levels of default In a second hase of the ro ra the allholder a ricultural develo ent ro ect as initiated he as desi ned alon the sa e rinci les as the ith the e ce tions of an e hasis on rou lendin and the introduction of orro er trainin to i rove ro ect via ilit rovision for linka es et een the financial institution and s as ade here s ere e ected to rovide rou d na ics trainin e ertise for rou s of orro ers rained rou s ere then referred to the financial institution to a l for fundin he inistr of riculture o as res onsi le for the selection and o ili ation of artici atin s rou s ere e ected to have een o eratin for at least a ear and to have a contri ution efore ein eli i le to a l he funds ere rovided at a lo interest rate to the institution ar in as added to the final eneficiar interest rate hich as ca ed he ar in on the interest as to e a ortioned et een the financial institution and the artici atin s ith a ro ortion reinvested into the revolvin loan account lthou h an initial a ree ent as si ned as earl as the financial institution onl e an activel artici atin in the in o in to its insolvenc and su se uent restructurin rocess the end of the ro ect the had e hi ited the sa e lacklustre erfor ance as its redecessor the inka es ith s and rou trainin did not ateriali e e challen es and learnin e eriences identified• orro er disci line as lo and the tar et arket as not financiall literate thro in one at the ro le ithout the re uired trainin and su ort is not a holistic solution• aivin contri ution re uire ents a e a a for orro ers to eco e eli i le for finance ut the then have no skin in the a e and little incentive to succeedoordination for the ad inistration of rou s and trainin under did not ateriali e his a e as a result of ca acit constraints ithin the o artici atin s as ell as a lack of dedicated ro ect drive and central oint for coordinationositive takea a s oan re a ent schedules ere s nchroni ed ith cash o s to reduce the cash o urden on orro ers rou lendin can increase lendin via ilit fro a transaction and risk ers ective rainin is a funda ental re uire ent iven the tar et arket ut this should not e li ited to urel trainin on rou d na ics rou s re uire other financial technical and usiness skills inancial institution and I loan roduct financial institution and I en a ed in a loan sche e to rovide credit for s allholders to ena le the to fatten cattle he asic idea as that s allholders ould a roach I to o tain a uarantee for the urchase of fattened cattle hich ould also rovide I ith a re ular su l of fattened ani als n the ack of this arran e ent the financial institution ould ste in to rovide the finance re uired for the fattenin rocess he idea had erit ut racticall the sche e e erienced several challen es hich led to its eventual colla se e challen es and learnin e eriences identified• he fattenin a roach usin cereal or co ercial ased in uts as e ensive and rofit ar ins eca e ti ht he ti hter the rofit ar in the reater the sensitivit of the fattener to ricin and ne ative rice chan es i her rices offered to fatteners fro other u ers eca e si nificantl ore attractive hich incentivi ed side sellinattle did not reach its redeter ined destination I and loan re a ents ere not aid the intended u er I to the financial institutionco etitive arket linked rice to nullif the incentive of side sellin is re uired• onstrictive oints in the value chain re uire consistent onitorin and intervention to further reduce undesira le ehaviour• ositive takea a s he odel did ake technical and sector s ecific arket su ort availa le to orro ers e onstration of arket illin ness to artici ate off take to uarantee sales could e arran ed entral ank of a iland the all scale loan uarantee sche e he entral ank of a iland s all scale loan uarantee sche e as esta lished in the earl s the a iland overn ent as a artial res onse to the challen e of inaccessi ilit of finance s hich ere faced ith a lack of collateral re uired financial institutions he sche e is ana ed the and ad inistered throu h all co ercial anks in a iland he o ective is to increase lendin to s reducin the financial risk to anks anks have si ned a artici atin a ree ent ith the he throu h the no rovides a uarantee to artici atin anks in res ect of loans for hich there is inade uate collateral oans are ade fro anks nor al financial resources he a i u uarantee is ca ed er loan a lication in a ount and ter orro ers are e ected to contri ute a ini u of if the are start u s and if e istin usinesses ne condition of the is that orro in s ust receive entorshi and entre reneurshi trainin fro overn ent accredited service roviders for a ini u eriod of four eeks for start u s he erfor ance of the has historicall een lo er than e ected e challen es and learnin e eriences identifiedu erso e rocedures for clai in a ainst the uarantee for defaultin clients ake it unattractive to financial institutions rovidin the loanshe char es for entorshi and trainin hich have to e orne the client have also een a contri utin factor to lo u takeositive takea a anks are re uired to have a ortion of funds at risk hich acts as an incentive for res onsi le lendin o n funds at risk he fundin odel ro osed for ilot n a e ith financial artners to rocess and a rove release of funds ther in ut and su ort services ssist ith technical and healthcare su ort here areas of e ertise are e ond that hich e ist at o ercial arket ree ents are not sou ht fro one lar e urchaser there rovidin the urchaser ith a ono ol on su l and the a ilit to a lo er rices hich historicall encoura ed side sellin ree ents are intended to e structured to secure off take fro a fe of the lar est co ercial urchasers in the arket on a co etitive asis there sti ulatin rice co etition and hi her rices ternal roducers traders and fattenin rou s urchase a ree ents are to e sou ht ith lar e e ternal roducers and traders for cattle su l here ossi le iven the ilot nature of the ro ect a sin le financial artner as re uired to assist ith the ad inistration of loans to selected fattenin rou s reducin the co le it of loan rocesses and rocedures and si lif in the coordination of artici ants involved in the odel undin ter s and ad inistration of I I uarantee funds I I throu h I ade availa le for the fundin odel to e used either as a uarantee or a revolvin loan account he ilot loan ter s ere desi ned to e attractive to fattenin rou s hilst not rovidin rou s ith a free chance at success i e rou s ere re uired to have so e for of contri ution at risk rovide the financial institution ith a co erciall via le roduct i e the ould e a le to continue to lend ost the ilot usin e istin uarantee sche es or introducin a collateral re uire ent etc he ta le elo outlines the ter s of the ro osed loan structure set for the ilot inancial institutions ere not re uired to o a ove and e ond usiness as usual in ter s of e istin credit rocesses and rocedures t the end of the ilot the initial rovided I as the uarantee or the re ainin value thereof ould e returned inancial institutions could then continue to lend to e istin ne rou s usin e istin sche es such as the to hich the ilot loan ter s could transition or inde endentl of a uarantee sche e reli inar o servations and the environ ent necessar to re licate the odel eed ack fro financial institutions reli inar discussions ith financial institutions ere e tre el ositive ll the institutions that ere en a ed e ressed a illin ness to e involved and ere re ared to offer ver favoura le ter s eed ack su ests that al ost all institutions have a strate ic o ective to invest in s in a a hich involves the e ansion and diversification of a ricultural ortfolios Institutions have also een searchin ith li ited success for suita le ro ects in hich to invest here a ears to e sufficient ca ital availa le for invest ent in a ricultural ro ects ho ever the availa ilit of sustaina le ro ects has een li ited sin le financial institution as selected for the ilot and an a ree ent hich overned the ter s of the fundin odel as si ned ith the institution hallen es o served durin i le entation he ta le hich follo s descri es so e of the reli inar challen es o served durin earl sta es of fundin odel i le entation ssu e so e level of risk unds availa le fro s onsor for uarantee he availa ilit of funds to rovide a uarantee for loans issued to s is a si nificant incentive for a financial institution hich could artici ate and ain e erience in the odel ith reduced risk efore takin on ore risk inancial and usiness e ertise o develo a usiness case tailor financial odel ased on conditions o tain fundin fro financial institutions ne otiate ter s to overn the fundin odel etc edicated ro ect ana e ent n oin resence of a dedicated ro ect ana er to onitor intervene and coordinate activities as necessar he environ ent in a iland ossessed the vast a orit of the re uire ents for successful i le entation of the fundin odelhe ro osed innovative a roach to fattenin offered s allholders a sustaina le eans to en a e in eef livestock value addition allo in the to en a e in the activit of cattle fattenin he ilot fundin odel as desi ned dra in on learnin e eriences fro other financial sche es ast and resent at the ti e and ada tin these learnin s to the current environ ent and a holistic a roach to fundin as ado ted hich included the necessar fra e ork re uired for lendin to the tar et arket he environ ent in a iland ossessed the funda ental varia les factors re uired for success and the ain challen es e erienced relate to ca acit constraints durin the i le entation of the ro osed odel he challen es ere lar el overco e atlou ala a 1 1 e art ent of ricultural cono ics tension and ural evelo ent niversit of retoria outh frica e o ale ail co stract he ai of this a er is to identif the t es of rural financial services and their effect on livestock roduction in thio ia inancial services are essential for rotectin and i rovin the livelihoods of rural o ulations he financial service offerin s to the a ricultural sector in thio ia face a s in ter s of de and and access to financial services hese a s are due to there ein fe financial institutions hich offer financial services to rural areas orld ank re ort in esti ates that onl of thio ian rural households aintain ank accounts he ain financial institutions that ive financial services in thio ia are anks insurance co anies and icrofinance coo erative and infor al financial institutions everal studies have een conducted to e a ine hether icrofinance can reall hel the oor o ever there is no consensus on results and studies contradict each other In so e cases icrofinance is said to have rou ht ositive i acts hereas in so e other cases it is found to la an insi nificant role he sa e is true for livestock roduction as the i act of credit on different rou s of households oor and etter off is different his is due to an ro le s that ake financial services unsuccessful articularl for the oor ack of finance li ited loans lack of fle i ilit in the re a ent eriod lo savin interest rates lack of collateral rou Introduction thio ia s econo is ased on a riculture hich contri utes of the ross do estic roduct and of e lo ent and enerates an esti ated of the e ort earnin s ational ank of thio ia hirteen illion s allholder far ers account for of total roduction he International onetar und I ranks thio ia as a on the five fastest ro in econo ies in the orld and the first fro frica he thio ian econo re istered an avera e annual ro th rate of durin the eriod to riculture re and industr and services e anded and res ectivel o ever the countr re ains one of the oorest countries and the avera e er ca ital inco e is less than half of the current su aharan avera e he lar est rou of oor eo le in thio ia is co osed of s all scale far ers his is due to the a ricultural sector sufferin fro oor cultivation ractices and fre uent drou ht herefore rural financial services are ver i ortant to i rove the livelihood of rural households he overn ent of thio ia has ade arked ro ress in a riculture over the ast decade o ever fro the oint of vie of the financial sector a riculture is a less attractive field of usiness than other sectors of the econo such as construction touris trade and other services he ain reason is lack of rofita ilit of an s all scale far in activities due to a lack of econo ies of scale in land use and the use of outdated far in ractices oreover su sistence far in is likel to e a loss akin activit and even co ercial far ers face an unfavoura le ostl eather de endent risk return thio ia is hi hl endo ed ith livestock resources rankin first in frica and is a on the to ten countries in the orld It has ore than illion head of cattle illion shee and illion oats entral tatistics uthorit ven if thio ia is hi hl endo ed ith livestock resources livestock roduction suffers fro the unfavoura le conditions ivestock is an inte ral art of the a ricultural i e and serves the thio ian econo as a source of food traction ivestock is closel linked to the social and cultural lives of illions of rural ur an and re ur an households in thio ia ecause livestock is a source of e lo ent and cash inco e for an eo le it also acts as a securit asset to credits and loans It is also considered a co on eans of de onstratin ealth ce entin relationshi s throu h ride rice a ents and as social links and i ortant in crises u a et al onse uentl an increasin trend of livestock o ulations sho s the countr has su stantial resource otential to attract invest ent and fosters the develo ent of the leather industr nited tates enc for International evelo ent I o ever livestock and its roducts constitute a fifth of thio ia s e orts his indicates that there is a hu e a et een the livestock resource ase of the countr and the ro th of the sector his is due to livestock roduction in thio ia ein affected an factors drou ht disease and others In addition overn ent and non overn ental or ani ations s have iven ore attention to cro roduction than livestock ack of ca ital is a on the ro inent factors in develo in countries hich i ede livelihood diversification i son and livia horta e of finance is articularl affectin the illions of thio ian rural households he federal overn ent of thio ia has for ulated a rural develo ent strate and underlined the role of rural finance for the overall develo ent of the a ricultural sector he o ective of this a er is to identif the t es of rural financial services and e a ine their effect on livestock roduction in thio ia revie in data fro different articles roceedin s and research out uts his a er consists of the follo in sections ection one rovides eneral infor ation ection t o identifies and e lains t es of financial institutions in thio ia ection three e a ines the i act of financial services on livestock roduction ection four entions the challen es of financial services and the final section ives concludin re arks es of financial institutions in thio ia inancial services la a critical role in sustaina le econo ic ro th overt reduction and food securit in thio ia inancial services are essential for rotectin and i rovin the livelihoods of rural o ulations he financial service offerin s to the a ricultural sector in thio ia face a s in ter s of access to financial services and roduct ualit and uantit hese a s are due to there ein fe financial institutions offerin financial services to rural areas in thio ia or instance credit is one t e of financial service used for invest ents to increase the roductivit of a ricultural o erations or to diversif the econo ic activities of rural households o ever there is a hu e a et een de and and access to credit in thio ia orld ank re ort in sho ed that thio ia ranks th in ettin credit of countries he ain financial institutions that ive financial services in thio ia are anks insurance co anies and icrofinance coo eratives and infor al financial institutions In the total nu er of anks in thio ia reached are rivate and a total of a ro i atel ank ranches thio ia is one of the ost under anked countries in su aharan frica ith a ank ranch to o ulation ratio of one ranch for custo ers ccordin to the orld ank re ort onl of thio ian rural households aintain ank accounts his is ecause of the total ank ranches a out ere located in ddis a a the ca ital cit of thio ia In other ords these nu ers indicate that illions of oor households in thio ia are e cluded fro for al financial services articularl in rural areas here over of households live due to lack of collateral he other financial institution in thio ia is insurance co anies he nu er of insurance co anies reached of hich ere rivatel o ned he nu er of ranches increased to of hich a out are located in ddis a a he total ca ital of the insurance industr increased on an annual asis and reached illion thio ian irr of hich as the share of rivate insurance co anies he thio ian Insurance or oration is the onl insurance co an rovidin livestock insurance in thio ia and ost of the far ers are not a are of Is constitute an arket share ith of the total ca ital of the savin s of the credit and of the total assets of the Is oo eratives are the other t e of financial institution in thio ia oo eratives have hi her co arative advanta es than other for s of or ani ation ricultural coo eratives hel their e ers to increase their ield and inco es oolin their resources to su ort collective service rovisions and econo ic e o er ent In thio ia a ricultural coo eratives la a a or role in rovidin far ers ith in uts hile ensurin e ers social cohesion and econo ic i rove ent ricultural ransfor ation enc he thio ian has een orkin closel ith the inistr of riculture to increase the nu er of s allholder far ers enefitin fro artici ation in coo erative enter rises here are around ulti ur ose coo eratives of hich a out are savin and credit coo eratives s he other and the ost i ortant sources of rural finance in thio ia are infor al hese da s ho ever infor al rain and cash loans are decreasin in a nitude and fre uenc he a or infor al sources of finance are relatives and friends one lenders and co unit ased or ani ations s like I u and Iddir redo Iddir is a non for al insurance rou intended to iti ate e er enc situations for the death of household e ers loss of livestock and other shocks I u is a non for al rotatin and savin and credit association esides these kee in livestock and e eller in kind are other savin o tions for rural households li he i act of financial services on livestock roduction in thio iaIn thio ia oth overn ent or ani ations and s consider icro credit a ri e olic instru ent in reducin overt and increasin the roductivit of the oor everal studies have een conducted to e a ine hether icrofinance can reall hel the oor here is no consensus on results so e of hich are contradictor In so e cases icrofinance is said to have had ositive i acts on the life of the ro ra clients hereas in so e others it is found to la an insi nificant role in iti atin the ro le s of the oor tudies esfa e and ailai on the i act of the I in the i ra re ion confir ed that the i act of households artici ation in icrofinance on reducin overt and accu ulatin fi ed assets is insi nificant artici ation in icrofinance a hel households ust to survive in ti es of shocks and vulnera ilities or for consu tion s oothenin s elash also ointed out that artici ation in icrofinance has a ositive i act on the clients overall household inco e ac uisition of ke household assets access to education and access to health facilities o ever the surve findin s did not ive stron evidence re ardin so e of the i act varia les such as o en s e o er ent food securit and co in ith difficulties ther studies have een conducted on the role of the I a laku and etaneh and a co arative stud of I and isdo as conducted assa and ekonnen I is one of the lar estIs o eratin in thio ia rovidin a icrofinance arket to the lo inco e o ulation articularl of the hara re ion ll these stud results sho ed that icrofinance has a ositive socio econo ic i act on its clients throu h hel in the oor increase their inco e asset ossession and e o er ent statusIn ost rural areas of thio ia credit is co on for urchasin livestock o ever the effects of credit on livestock roducin households are different ecause there are different rou s of households i e oor households and rich or etter off households ccordin to i ou the effect of financial services articularl credit is different in these t o rou s of households is results sho ed that credit si l hel ed oor households to cover seasonal food shorta es ith no i act on lon ter roductivit and household food securit oor households are risk averse and this revents the fro usin their loans to invest in a ricultural roductivit to i rove their food securit ar e nu ers of etter off households on the other hand re orted ositivel co ared to the oor households redit ena led etter off households to u additional o en seed and fertili er hich hel ed the to increase their roductivit or instance of the rich households ou ht livestock and onl of the oor households did so his is due to oor households divertin art of the loan to other ur oses such as seed school fees clothes reli ious and social cele rations edical e enses house re airs or a in off de ts onsu tion s oothin is the do inant use of loan diversion follo ed seed urchase and de t re a ent or instance ina ilit to a ack loans forces households to dis ose of their assets at the risk of increasin their vulnera ilit ale of livestock to a ack loans es eciall the sale of lou hin o en eans that oor households a e o li ed to rent out their land to another far er onl to et fro one uarter to half the roduce as rent his ushes oor households further into overt he other difference et een the t o rou s is source of credit redit for oor households ostl co es fro infor al sources hereas credit for rich households co es fro for al sources In addition to this the t es of livestock urchased are different et een the t o rou s he oor ac uired s all livestock such as shee and oats hereas the rich invested their one in lar e livestock such as co s and o en for reedin and fattenin his indicates credit has a ne ative i act on household asset creation and asset holdin s isease and drou ht are the ain ro le s in livestock roduction in thio ia ack of ro er clinic and veterinar services has a ravated the ro le s forcin oor households to sell their livestock to a ack their loans ccordin to i ou et al of the oor ere forced to sell the livestock that the had ou ht ith a loan or that the had o ned efore the loan in order to a the loan ack his drives ost oor households further into overt hallen es to financial services in thio ia ccess to credit is often vie ed as a ke to transfor in se i su sistence s allholder far ers into arket oriented roducers o ever there are an ro le s that ake financial services unsuccessful ack of fle i ilit in the re a ent eriod and lo savin interest rates ere entioned as ost of the clients are not illin to save in the institution ecause the interest rate on savin is ver s all as co ared to the lendin interest rate he a ount of loan clients are allo ed to take at one ti e as also another ro le ne client is li ited to orro in an avera e of his loan is onl i ortant for the urchase of ani al feed and s all e ui ent In addition so e of the are not ha ith the rou collateral arran e ents he other ro le is an s allholder far ers lack i ova le assets such as land akin it difficult for the to secure loans et an o n ova le collateral such as a ricultural achiner roducts or receiva les livestock or arehouse recei ts anks tend to e hesitant to acce t such ova le assets as collateral esfa e underlined that a si nificant nu er of clients consu ed the loan the had taken or s ent it on non roductive activities he loan as used for non roductive ur oses of the rural clients and of the ur an clients It see s that there is a si nificant difference in the actual use of the loan et een the rural and ur an res ondents ack of ro er clinic and veterinar services is another ro le and the inade uate nu er of insurance co anies in the livestock sector is another serious ro le ack of a ro riate skill trainin and lack of follo u of the clients the Is are also critical ro le s ecentl the de and for livestock and livestock roducts in the do estic and e ort arkets has increased herefore the overn ent and rivate sectors have reali ed the availa le otential of the livestock arket and taken a ro riate easures to solve the a ove entioned ro le sinancial services es eciall loans enhance the elfare and econo ic situation of clients akin ade uate finance availa le to hel the en a e in rofita le activities redit not onl has a li ited i act on household asset creation ut a ne ative i act on oor households asset holdin s forcin households to sell their livestock to a ack their loans his drives ost oor households further into overt ost of the oor far ers failed to re a their loans ainl ecause of lack of inco e fro loan financed usiness activities and oor cro erfor ance caused drou ht ests and insufficient land holdin s ecause of this oor households sell their livestock to a ack loans es eciall lou hin o en eanin that the a e o li ed to rent out their land to another far er his ushes oor households further into overt n the other hand credit ena led etter off households to u additional o en seed and fertili er hich hel ed the to increase their roductivit iverse and fle i le financial services can rovide ositive incentives to attract the oorest and reduce the likelihood of their e clusion s a result financial institutions have to look over the re a ent eriod lendin odalities and savin interest rate in order to ake the attractive and successful In addition to this financial institutions should ive attention to other i ortant activities such as trainin advice and follo u efore durin and after loans an value chain financin ork for livestock in s allholder s ste s Insi hts fro the i a e ricultural evelo ent rust lton ud a vivi and an e u uta a 1 (PhD) 1 enior s ecialist li ate chan e in the a ri usiness and arket develo ent ractice at enesis nal tics an e u enesis anal tics co stract cross southern frica ore than of the livestock is o ned s allholder far ers nlockin the full otential of this su sector is ke to transfor in a riculture in the re ion ost national livestock develo ent strate ies have ra led ith the challen e of findin via le and co erciall sustaina le financin odels that su ort the uildin of vi rant and inclusive livestock value chains inancin is re uired at all sta es of the livestock value chain fro urchase of stock and sourcin of in uts throu h to arketin ith the a orit of s allholder far ers still o eratin on the ar ins of value chains oorl conceived credit sche es for financin livestock develo ent have failed to transfor roduction s ste s In res onse to the dire shorta e of a ricultural finance in i a e the i a e ricultural evelo ent rust as created he rust delivers financin throu h financial institutions as inter ediaries to invest in various sta es of the a ricultural value chain ith a s ecific focus on s allholder far ers fter si ears of e istence a revie of the evolution of the rust s odel is rin in out i ortant insi hts into financin inclusive livestock value chains he a er interro ates the odel uestionin hether it is hel in to uild ore inclusive livestock value chains that have si nificant artici ation s allholder roducers ho are other ise constrained li ited access to ca ital he assertion that a value chain financin vehicle that delivers finance to actors ho share usiness linka es is the ost effective a roach is also tested he a er e a ines hether this odel is feasi le in ractice and hether it is co ati le ith co ercial i eratives of lendin institutions and econo ic interests of far ers Introduction his a er e lores the uestion of hether value chain financin can solve the ro le of lack of ade uate and a ro riate finance for s allholder livestock s ste s alue chain financin is defined iller as all financial and su ort services flo in to or throu h value chain artici ants to address constraints to value chain ro th inancin thou h the value chain is considered to have the otential to i rove access to finance i rove rates of a ent reduce deliver costs of finance and stren then value chain relationshi s In outhern frica of livestock is o ned s allholders his level of s allholder involve ent resents o ortunities for i roved s allholder livelihoods at scale throu h livestock value chains o ever s allholder livestock value chains often lack access to ade uate and a ro riate financin hich li its value addition and co etitiveness his a er uses the case of a trust esta lished to o ili e and rovide financin to a riculture value chains includin livestock in i a e s a local develo ent finance institution I s o ective is to i rove food securit and inco es for rural co unities rovidin fundin for a ricultural activities he I res onds to a serious lack of financin in the s allholder a riculture sector in i a e as is the case in ost frican countries Inco lete credit arkets hich anifest in s allholders failin to access oth short and lon ter ca ital stifle the develo ent of the livestock sector eal and erceived constraints to findin s allholders include a hi h risk rofile hi h costs of servin s all loans often in re ote locations and eak linka es ith the arket herefore a value chain odel that enefits fro colla oration alon the chain to infor value addin activities of roduction a re ation rocessin and distri ution of roducts is e ected to reduce risk and costs of deliverin and recoverin credit he livestock sector deserves s ecial focus and su ort lo all the sector e lo s an esti ated illion eo le and is a source of livelihood for an esti ated illion s allholders in develo in countries hornton nlike in develo ed countries here de and has sta nated de and for livestock roducts in develo in countries is ro in ra idl driven ra id econo ic and o ulation ro th eetin this ro in de and ill increasin l re uire intensification of roduction s ste s and value addition alon the chain allholder livestock s ste s ill re uire increased invest ents in order to enefit fro the increasin de and hile contendin ith the constraints i osed a chan in cli ate ro riate finance is re uired at all sta es of the value chain to ena le a transition to ore intensive livestock s ste s fro in uts such as reedin stock stock feeds and vaccines and infrastructure i rove ents u to arketin ro riate 1 financial roducts ena le s allholders to ake rofita le invest ents hich enhance co etitiveness hile enhancin s allholders a ilit to re a hristo her et al In realit this has not al a s orked as e ected nu er of ro ra s have e erienced lo re a ent rates and via ilit ro le s and ended u ith financial institutions eco in e tre el risk averse and ti htenin lendin easures for s allholders s a case in oint the orld ank o serves that des ite the ro in i ortance of trust funds such as the the have not een consistentl effective in deliverin financin u stantial ana e ent chan es have een reco ended to oost their effectiveness and efficienc his a er asserts that hen a ro riatel develo ed and delivered value chain financin throu h credit can e via le in s allholder s ste s resultin in enefits for far ers that also stren then value chain relationshi s he a er revie s ho addressed the financin a develo in and deliverin value chain finance to the a riculture sector ith s ecific focus on s allholder livestock value chains ecificall three ele ents are addressed irst the enesis and develo ent of the I s value chain finance odel over a eriod of si ears is revie ed econd the a ilit of different value chain se ents to access credit and the value chain finance induced chan es at s allholder level is assessed hird the e er in insi hts are a lied to anal se the challen es and o ortunities of value chain finance for livestock in s allholder far in s ste s he case stud rovides an o ortunit to use evidence to challen e the revailin erce tions in value chain financin in outhern frica he a er relies on secondar data fro re orts as ell as discussions ith its staff ainl the chief e ecutive officer and the onitorin and evaluation officer et een and conducted sentinel surve s 2 hich s ste aticall tracked chan es in livelihoods of s allholders in value chains financed the rust and hich could e o ectivel attri uted to its financin activities hese surve s rovided useful data on the i act of s financial services to s allholder livestock roducers as ell as erfor ance of the credit deliver odel ro riate financial roducts in this a er refers to the e tent to hich a financial roduct addresses the constraints of value chain actors includin cost tenor and ade uac entinel urve tracked the i acts of s value chain finance at the s allholder far er level he surve took a lon itudinal stud a roach of a selected sa le of households ithin a selected site trackin chan es in s allholder inco es and roduction he structure of the he is e er in as a a or la er in i a e s a ricultural financin industr or ed in the I as s ecificall eant to address the challen e of financin in s allholder ased a ricultural value chains hilst re ainin rofita le and ro in he rust received funds fro different sources ainl donors interested in fundin a riculture recover and develo ent in i a e for the enefit of s allholder far ers o or ani ations etherlands evelo ent r anisation and the u anist Institute for oo eration ivos cha ioned the for ation of the rust donatin notarial trust deed fter the re istration the I received ca ital fro a co ination of ilateral donors and rivate hilanthro as resented in i ure In the as ca itali ed to the tune of illion hich as hi her than the core ca ital levels of out of co ercial anks in i a e onetar state ent anuar In its credit fund accounted for ust over of the countr s a ricultural lendin ortfolio he rust is one of a fe hich focused s ecificall on a riculture due to erceived hi h levels of risk in the sector s such ana in the risk via ilit trade off as one of the I s a or challen es i ure ro th of funds he deliver odel he ai s to rovide value chain financin to a riculture usinesses that ork ith and for the enefit of s allholder far ers in i a e trate ic lan evie he rust s strate is to deliver finance indirectl to s allholder far ers tar etin value chain se ents ter ed indo s see i ure that re resent ke value chain activities hich are in ut su l out ut arketin and rocessin and lo istics hrou h its artner finance institutions 3 lends one to a riculture value chain inter ediaries ho have so e usiness relationshi ith the s allholder sector hese inter ediaries are e ected to ro and diversif their usinesses usin the loans leadin to increased usiness activit in the chain his chain reaction is e ected to tri er a trickle do n effect in econo ic enefits to s allholder far ers throu h increased su l of roducts and services as ell as off take o ortunities he odel of dis ursin credit throu h financial inter ediaries 4 allo s to ass the selects and contracts finance institutions ainl anks and recentl icrofinance institutions hese institutions orro funds fro at er annu and lend the one to a riculture value chain usinesses at an annual interest rate of nnual re ort vii usiness entities that connect s allholders roducts to the arket in a value chain risk of lendin to the dis ursin financial institutions he odel does not s ecif tar eted value chains u front hence reci ient value chains e er e a osteriori fro dis urse ents i ure s a riculture financin odel s financin instru ents s ain lendin facilit is a asket revolvin fund called redit for riculture rade and ansion It as ca itali ed to the tune of illion in su orted all cro s and livestock ith the e ce tion of to acco and cotton hich considers ade uatel funded e livestock related value chains that the funded throu h loans 5 are oultr stock feeds eef and dair nnual evie hese ere funded under the fund s lendin indo s 6 he I has identified the lack of ade uate and a ro riate roducts throu h hich the loans could e acka ed as a i challen e onse uentl efforts are under a to desi n and e and the roduct ran e n e a le of a roduct that as under consideration is a uarantee facilit oan distri ution value chain se ent he distri ution of loans value chain se ent see i ure at the end of revealed that fundin as concentrated at the in ut value chain se ent follo ed arketin activities and lastl rocessin i ure sho s the various t es of value chain actors that financed over a eriod of five ears e ents s loans had different tenors and si es o ever considered loan si es ran in et een and althou h hi h i act loans could e considered or orkin ca ital loans the a i u tenor as onths hile for ca ital invest ents the eriod as on avera e t o ears and three ears in e ce tional cases could also consider the o tion of a one ear race eriod on ca ital re a ents for hi h i act ca ital e enditure loans nnual re ort vi indo is a rou in of a ricultural value chain activities thun i ers that ere not funded or received ne li i le a ounts included roduction and distri ution of finished roducts he a ricultural in uts indo funded a ro in ut holesalers a ro dealers and co anies that contract s allholders ith so e ini al direct lendin to s allholders oth the in uts and out ut arketin usinesses relied on linka es ith s allholder far ers i ure oan distri ution t e of value chain actor to ivestock value chain actors accessed fundin indirectl throu h the in uts indo stock feed anufacturers holesalers and a ro dealers and directl throu h rocessors ho ou ht roducts such as cattle oats and e s fro s allholders ivestock as su lied to eat rocessors ainl throu h traders he traders also received orkin ca ital for urchasin and trans ortin stock to a attoirs out of the funds ent to co anies that contracted s allholders includin livestock ontract far in in livestock as throu h feedlots for eef and in e roduction o loans ere advanced directl to s allholder livestock roducers nl a s all ro ortion financed cro far ers s lendin to the livestock sector as concentrated in the out ut arketin indo s ecificall cattle tradin he reci ient value chain actors in the ortfolio ere eat rocessors and u ers of livestock sourcin cattle fro s allholder far ers ro dealers ho su l in uts to s allholder livestock roducers also accessed finance ortfolio erfor ance s in other outhern frican countries hi h default rates re ain a challen e in i a e s a ricultural sector he stud found that the end of s dis ursin anks o ed the rust a out of total orro ed one his as ore than dou le i a e s ankin industr avera e default rate 7 hich stood at as of e te er hese hi h default rates discoura ed artici atin anks fro orro in fro s fund for on lendin to s allholder linked value chains lthou h does not assu e risk on the orro in value chain actors it is affected reduced de and fro artici atin financial institutions facin hi h defaults fro orro ershe ain livestock value chains that ere reci ients of financin ere cattle oats dair and oultr s the odel as not desi ned to rovide financin to ri ar roduction at s allholder level no finance as advanced to on erfor in loans to total loans ratio the s allholder roduction se ent he ain value chain activit financed as livestock tradin activities under hich livestock traders and eat rocessors accessed loans to urchase cattle oats and e s fro s allholders ainl throu h local a re ators In one case livestock far ers enefited ore directl as the received stock feeds u front fro feed roducers ho received fundin fro for the ur ose of finishin off their ani als in feedlots evelo ents in the livestock industr also affected usiness relationshi s and access to finance for actors or e a le a er er of t o eat rocessors led to reduced co etition and lo er rices to livestock traders and far ers In addition risin trans ort costs due to orsenin conditions of rural road net orks reduced de and for loans channelled to livestock value chains urther the desi n of the loan facilit as dee ed ina ro riate for traders 8 a le nne resents the o nershi urchases and sales of livestock households involved in financed livestock value chains he data reveal that urchases of cattle e ceed sales ani als in he avera e ro ortion of households that o n oultr and shee fell et een and he increase in nu er of head of livestock er household over the sa e eriod su ests that livestock kee ers ere ovin to ards s eciali ation and ro th ost s allholder far ers artici atin in financed value chains had een in a relationshi ith livestock traders u ers for et een three and ears efore the value chain as financed ro a ender an le ale res ondents ere do inant in livestock tradin a le also su ests that s allholders tend to store their earnin s in the for of stock hich as reflected in increased urchases ivestock orks as a ank ith households dis osin of their stock to eet other financin necessities such as in uts food and education he chan es in livestock o nershi et een and oint to a hi h risk of financin s allholder livestock roduction he o nershi enerall sho s a di in hich can e attri uted to a severe drou ht in the season that affected southern frica reducin herd si es throu h drou ht and disease related deaths and forced sales uch vulnera ilit increases the risk of lendin to the s allholder livestock roduction sector Discussion hile atte ted to res ond to the needs of a riculture value chains s ecif in indo s of financin such as in ut out ut lo istics and rocessin indo s it does not see to have res onded ade uatel to the s ecific needs of livestock value chain actors e assert that the needs of oultr dair eef and related roducts such as ani al feeds and other in uts are too diverse to e effectivel addressed the current financin indo s urther ore the findin s sho that s lendin strate avoids ri ar roduction s allholders to reduce risk a strate also e lo ed its artner financial institutions hich under ines the via ilit of the rest of the value chain elated to this findin e also found that as not usin value chains to anal se ortfolio erfor ance ust as the roducts and services ere not s ecific to the co odit value chain financed his is a a as value chains like dair and eef have different financin re uire ents his assertion is su orted the fact that in had to encoura e dis ursin anks to restructure loan facilities that ere outstandin after notin isali n ent of re a ent ter s ith the financed usinesses odel look at the loan ortfolio et een and reveals a arado here cu ulative dis urse ents and active loans ere al a s la in far elo the availa le fundin level i ure a idst a dire need for finance in the livestock sector he un et de and in the livestock sector as confir ed in i a e s livestock develo ent olic u ust hich o served that li ited availa ilit of credit and lack of a ro riate financin echanis s ere stiflin roductivit and further e ansion of the sector he loans re uired u front a ent of interest and loan settle ent fees ostl ith no race eriod and ere dee ed traders as ina ro riate for their activities he loan tenors of three four onths forced livestock traders to sell even oor ualit stock to enerate sufficient turnover to re a the loan ith lon er durations the could add value en fattenin rior to sellin i ure fund loan ortfolio anal sis as of ece er ource nnual re ort o er u take of the rust funds is likel a result of the cost of funds hich ere at an interest rate er annu in anuar hile those of ainstrea financial institutions ere elo er annu eserve ank of i a e onetar olic state ent ke t rates at a hi her level in order to aintain the via ilit of their usiness odel he results su ests that here relationshi s are stron as in the case of over three ears of usiness relationshi s value chain finance has etter chances of flo in indirectl to s allholder roducers his ustifies s technical assistance hich oes alon ith fundin to stren then relationshi s hile stron relationshi s ere a asis for accessin internal and e ternal finance livestock traders there is evidence that the need for finance also encoura ed traders to for e stron er relationshi s ith eat rocessors as a strate to access internal financin for urchasin livestock fro far ers and stock feeds s o served earlier delivers finance throu h financial inter ediaries ithin a ricultural value chains as is the case ith other international develo ent finance institutions such as the frican evelo ent ank o ever these inter ediaries often serve lar e lue chi value chain actors leavin out s allholders and s all to ediu usinesses in rural areas he odel could e ad usted to include ca itali in financial institutions that often serve lo er se ents of the value chain such as icrofinance institutions savin s and credit coo erative societies and villa e lendin and savin s rou s onclusions and reco endations he odel is co erciall via le ut could e issin various o ortunities to a i i e its i act sh in a a fro financin s allholder roduction here the i est need is and al ost entirel rel in on traditional co ercial anks for distri ution and not e lorin all financin o ortunities alon the value chain s the odel is too eneric it disadvanta es livestock value chains hich inherentl carr ore risk and lon er ti efra es leavin s allholders too far fro the conduit of financin es ite these li itations the odel rovides so e evidence that value chain financin enefits fro as ell as contri utes to the stren thenin of value chain relationshi s astl throu h the revie of the case the a er ar ues in favour of a financin odel that e loits the value chain relationshi s and infor ation to desi n roducts and ada ts roducts and services to the usiness environ ent urther e reco end the follo in for financin of livestock value chains• undin should tar et s ecific livestock value chains to understand and a i i e the o ortunities offered the value chains he for e a le tar ets s ecific co odit chains such as livestock rice and coffee then rovides custo i ed financin and technical su ort at various levelsalue chain financin to the livestock sector needs to e acco anied ro otion of ne technolo ies to reduce the risk caused cli ate chan e throu h drou ht and diseaseshere a ents are used such as dis ursin anks in the case of to rovide value chain financin and share risk a ro riate incentives should e rovided for etter tar etin of under served value chain se ents and actors to reduce the develo ent costs of a enc ro le his re uires in de th understandin of tar et value chains i l in so e invest ents in value chain research to infor roduct develo ent fu or s 1 avid fani ela eni is the national ro ra director for the ural finance and enter rise develo ent ro ra e i le ented the icro inance nit 2 hu ile hleko tet a is the ro ra e officer research and infor ation for the i le ented the icro inance nit stract he a riculture sector la s a si nificant role to the develo ent of the countr his does not onl rovide the ra aterials for the anufacturin sector ut also account for of the e lo ent for the rural households he otential arket for far in is ver si nificant as onl of the local households roduce enou h for their o n consu tion i ited access to finance has ho ever een indicated as one of the constraints to transfor in s all holder a riculture to e ore co ercial he lessons learnt fro the ural finance enter rise develo ent ro ra e esta lished that there is a need to identif re ared far er entre reneurs su ort for these to rovide anka le usiness lans and the ca acit of the financial institutions to etter understand the sector and desi n a ro riate financial roducts he hi h risk erce tion of the sector the li ited usiness and financial skills eak icrofinance sector as ell as the hi h transaction costs associated ith the sector is a ke challen e for the financial institutions es ite these challen es there has een an increasin interestin fro the anks to enetrate the sector o address the financin a for the far er entre reneurs this a er assesses and reco ends the need to i rove and disse inate relia le infor ation on the rofita ilit of the far enter rises enhance access to the credit uarantee facilit and credit data to iti ate credit risks stren then the icrofinance sector and i rove the usiness and financial skills of the far ers to etter ana e and ro their far enter rises Keywords: ccess to finance inancial Inclusion icrofinance re ared entre reneurs ack round he inistr of inance identified the need to su ort the contri ution of the icrofinance sector to enhance access to financial services for s all and ediu enter rises s and vulnera le households he icro inance nit as then esta lished in e te er as a se i autono ous in of the inistr to i le ent the ural inance and nter rise evelo ent ro ra e hich shared a si ilar as iration to enhance access to finance he a ree ent et een International unds for ricultural evelo ent I and overn ent as that the ro ra ould e funded a total cost of illion of hich illion as I s Contributed paper session 3: Governmental schemes and private funding models contri ution and the overn ent of a iland s o in ut as illion over the si ear eriod I he ain ai of the as to achieve the follo in i o rovide the rural oor ith access to efficient and effective financial services on a sustaina le asis ii o develo an ena lin and enhanced environ ent for usiness develo ent in rural areas iii o esta lish develo icro and s all scale enter rises on and off far as ell as usiness services in rural areas n e te er the ca e to an end and the inistr of inance facilitated the transfor ation of the to the entre for inancial Inclusion I he I ill rid e the a et een the re ulators financial service roviders and s includin vulnera le households facilitatin access to relevant financial and usiness infor ation to i rove access to financial services and contri ute to overt alleviation ective of this a er he ai of the resentation is to assess the situation around access to finance for s allholder a riculture in a iland his ill hi hli ht the conte t of the sector as it relates to finance dra lessons fro the e eriences in the i le entation of the and ake reco endations to re ed the situation It ill also assess the as iration the financial re ulator entral ank of a iland and olic aker o to e race the inancial Inclusion enda to influence the financial s ste to ards i rovin its contri ution to ards sustaina le livelihoods of the otto of the ra id o ulation throu h the rovision of afforda le accessi le and ualit financial services and roducts he in e te er roduced the tate of icro finance in a iland 1 hich rovided a detailed anal sis of the sector onte t of s allholder a riculture s the traditional ack one and ke driver of a iland s econo a riculture is a crucial sector considera le ro ortion of the anufacturin sector is value added throu h the rocessin of a ricultural roducts such as su ar and ti er es ite the slo in of the countr s ross do estic roduct to co ared ith a revised esti ate of attri uted to slo ro th in the secondar sector a riculture e lo s a ro i atel of the rural household o ulation and contri utes a out to sector I orld act ook he o allocated a out illion lilan eni to a riculture durin the fiscal ear a etter allocation than the lo illion of evised fi ures for this ri ar sector indicate slo er ro th durin at o ever a ro th is forecast for ho son rou ht as a a or crisis recentl in a iland resultin in s oiled cro s and severe losses of livestock I rove ent as seen to ards the end of ith reasona le rainfall that e an to i rove da levels a iland s a riculture co rises of t o su sectors for al and infor al traditional raditional a riculture takes lace on a i ation and hich is ac uired in ter s of traditional la and custo and hile ost of the activit is undertaken for su sistence ur oses infor al a riculture far ers are encoura ed to erfor on a co ercial asis he countr continues to itness an increase of s all cane ro ers ho roduce co erciall on ith the assistance of the lar e estates and the u ar ssociation here is a need to e ulate the est ractice fro the su ar industr to sti ulate other via le and sustaina le a riculture enter rises he outsourced icrofinan a atin to conduct the assess ent and finali e the e ort attle co rise the lar est co onent of a iland s livestock o ulation ith far ers o nin a out of the national herd o ever the tradition of kee in cattle until it is e ond its co ercial value a e ersists as the traditional elief that cattle re resents ealth continues his li its eef roduction causin over ra in and soil erosion his is one of the e a les of the li itations e istin in infor al a riculture a idst interventions to co erciali e the sector allholder a riculture entre reneur he s allholder a ricultural entre reneur t icall o erates on ro in cro s and rearin livestock for consu tion ccordin to the a iland ricultural evelo ent ro ect ood and riculture r ani ation of the nited ations efforts to encoura e the s allholder entre reneur to ractise co ercial far in have een elco ed a nu er of far ers ho have thrived in the challen es encountered in s allholder a riculture he has een useful in i rovin the food securit and nutrition of the vulnera le and hel in transfor a riculture into a vi rant co ercial sector ver s allholder far ers have learned to roduce lar er uantities of hi h ualit food and connect ith ne arkets he challen e is no to docu ent and u scale the lessons learnt fro these interventions ccordin to the a iland ousehold Inco e enditure urve onl of the local households could roduce sufficient food for their o n consu tion f the an challen es facin s allholder a riculture far ers such as access to ater and shorta e of in uts access to finance re ains the i est in the effort to ro ote the co erciali ation and ro th of s allholder far ers all usiness enter rise develo ent is ke to econo ic ro th of ost countries e ir iic and ui in a ur ler his is illustrated e a les of countries such as a an ala sia and outh orea hich res onded durin the financial crisis sti ulatin access to credit for s all and ediu enter rises s includin start u s oocok and harif esu i akai and a ashiro h et al o ever to i rove the ro th of these usinesses re uires not ust finance ut other su ort such as usiness and financial ana e ent skills and the ca acit of ank staff to understand the sector I ccess to finance ccess to finance for s all usinesses is identified as a ke issue in several studies ti lit and eiss e ir u er er and dell eck and e ir u unt his is des ite the i ortant role of these usinesses as the ke en ine for econo ic ro th throu h creatin e lo ent o ortunities I eck and e ir uc unt asserted that it is not the lar e nu er of the s all usinesses that reall atters ut those enter rises that ill e a le to ro and not cease o erations ccess to finance in this sector can i rove e lo ent at a co arativel lo er ca ital cost than the i er industries and can address the ine uita le i alance et een the rural and ur an areas eck he o has rioriti ed s in order for this sector to contri ute to i roved livelihoods and e lo ent creation he oin usiness e ort identified that the a or constraints for usiness start u in a iland ere access to finance soft infrastructure teleco unication internet etc and inefficient overn ent ureaucrac his as affir ed the nited ations hich hen assessin the state of outh entre reneurshi in the countr esta lished that of the res ondents re orted that access to finance as a a or arrier to entre reneurshi develo ent I ho ever ela orated the issues in hich the indicated that lack of access to finance as a result of li ited anka le ro ects lo usiness and financial ana e ent skills fro the entre reneurs and the ca acit of the financial institutions staff to deal ith the sector off and ti lit hi hli ht the issues of i erfect infor ation ith s hich result in financial institutions o tin for strin ent echanis s for loan a roval Contributed paper session 3: Governmental schemes and private funding models urrent financial s ste landsca e ccess to finance for s allholder far ers continues to e a a or constrainin factor for the develo ent of the sector t least of adults in the countr live in rural areas here far in is a a or vocation of the o ulation is involved in far in and onl had far in as the ain source of inco e in co e a iland he nter rise urve s orld ank esta lished that onl of s re orted havin had ank loans for their usinesses o ever this i roved ith the si e of the fir as of the lar er usinesses had a loan I asserted that as uch as the local anks in a iland ere hi h on li uidit the de osits ere not ein transfor ed to credit for the rivate sector he lack of credit to s could e attri uted to several factors hich include i he erce tion of the enter rises ein ver hi h risk to lenders ii ack of collateral and insufficient docu entation to ena le the lenders to a ro riatel assess the credit risks ith each ro ect entral ank of a iland cenario for the financial s ste landsca e situational assess ent of the feasi ilit to esta lish a credit line I to alleviate lack of access to finance for the icro and s all usinesses in the countr esta lished the need to address the de and and su l side issues that constrained access to finance for the usinesses he follo in ere the findin s a le andsca e a in for local access to finance ossi le sources of finance he a iland overt eduction trate and ction lan e ressed that financial institutions in the countr vie ed icro and s all usinesses as ein hi h risk and that it as costl to ana e their loans here is a need for echanis s to facilitate enhanced access to s ecial credit uarantee sche es and e uit fundin articularl for start u s inistr of cono ic lannin overn ent fundin sche es o ade uatel assess the issue of access to finance for s all usinesses it is i erative to anal se oth the su l and de and side issues or the su l side e ir iic unt and ui in a rovide a detailed anal sis of the deter inants that should influence the rofita ilit of co ercial anks and hi hli ht that the efficac of the financial s ste in the countr ill have a ositive i act on the ro th of the econo Illustratin the de and side issues off and ti lit allude to the fact that failure of chea rural credit as a result of the lack of understandin on ho it orks etter understandin of the traits and characteristics of an entre reneur rdichvilli et al is essential to assist in anal sin the de and side issues for access to finance for s all usinesses he in its revie and refor of the o unit overt eduction und esta lished that the ortfolio at risk as he a or ke factors that led to the failure of the ere the olitici ation of the facilities lack of institutional ca acit to ana e the icrofinance activities and oor onitorin everal studies e hasi e the i ortance of tar et selection he o eration and erfor ance of credit uarantee sche es esu i et al oocok and harif h et al should rovide so e relevance even to the countr he all cale nter rise oan uarantee che e and the ort redit uarantee che e ana ed throu h the as esta lished in to rovide a credit uarantee for usiness start u s and e istin icro s all and ediu si ed enter rises off and ti lit hen addressin the issues of i erfect infor ation hi hli hted the failures of such facilities to achieve their o ectives ccordin to the assess ent loans had een uaranteed throu h the credit sche e as of e te er he total ross loan value as illion ith a credit uarantee of illion he retail sector consu es the a or share of the credit uarantee at follo ed services at riculture accounts for the lo est credit uarantee at o address the situation there is an on oin rocess to refor the uarantee sche e to etter res ond to the current revailin credit needs icrofinance sectors ccordin to the tate of icrofinance in a iland re ort the icrofinance sector in the countr re ains in a rolon ed state of earl sta e develo ent due to a nu er of challen es and eaknesses in the sector oth internal and e ternal or al icrofinance roduct offerin has een volatile over the ears ut has never een ro ust enou h to eet client de and icrofinance ortfolio is not co onl sou ht rofit seekin financial institutions in a iland so that rovision of financial services to lo inco e eo le and non salaried entre reneurs is su ect to donor or overn ent rant interventions and on oin su ort hich has not een sta le or the Inhlan elo und the avera e loan si e as ith a a i u loan of a a le over a a i u eriod of onths I ita had al ost the sa e financial roduct althou h the deliver ethod as different 2 he roviders of icrofinance services are su ari ed elo he Inhlan elo und uses the traditional structures throu h the inkhundla entres for the selection of otential eneficiaries efore rou lendin is a lied Individual lendin is ho ever ossi le for re eat loans for eneficiaries that have develo ed a ood credit histor record he I ita o en inance rust has local ana e ent co ittees s that o ili e the rou s ithin the co unities and use the rou lendin or oth roviders the loan eneficiaries ust first under o usiness ana e ent trainin efore the can e ranted credit Contributed paper session 3: Governmental schemes and private funding models he ortfolio is concentrated in financin for a riculture su ar cane roduction interco an loans and usiness loans ith onl of ortfolio in icro loans 5 It is orth notin that irst inance a su sidiar of I as created in to focus on the rovision of consu tion icro loans to salaried individuals I has an esti ated outreach to s and a roll clients 6 he I orn out of a oint venture in et een the a iland overn ent ro arco and I also rovided finance to s all scale far ers articularl cane ro ers ank finance institutions he ankin sector in a iland is oderatel develo ed ith sta le actors o eratin for decades na el ed ank tandard ank irst ational ank and a iland evelo ent and avin s ank a i ank f these anks three are su sidiaries of ell esta lished outh frican co ercial anks In addition to these anks the a iland uildin ociet is also active and focused on lon ter ort a e loans hese co ercial anks have historicall had an o eratin odel focused on traditional ankin roducts ithout activit in icrofinance even if recentl so e co ercial anks have started ovin into the a roll lendin arket ith loan si es reachin as lo as here has een an increasin interest fro the anks to increase their outreach to the sector as indicated their artici ation in the financin of the s allholder su arcane ro ers on the for ation of de art ents ithin so e of the anks and the develo ent of so e of the roducts to cater for s and far ers he rovision of ade uate infor ation on far in usinesses rofilin of the re ared entre reneurs rovision of entorin and coachin and ell structured overn ent echanis s to enhance raduation to co ercial roduction are essential rid in the financin a here has een a lo al trend to develo an all inclusive financial s ste that ill etter contri ute to econo ic ro th and the ell ein of the eneral o ulace thus alleviatin overt on st these are the orld ank the hich ent further to develo the I hich solel looks after the issues of financial inclusion the lliance for inancial Inclusion I and the ates oundation has develo ed the inancial Inclusion trate he follo in strate ies have een identified to rid e the finance a i onsu er rotection ro ul ation of the onsu er redit ct to re ulate all credit roviders rationali e credit references and rovide consu er education he intention is to rin the la on credit into confor it ith the constitution the inancial ervices e ulator uthorit ct and other la s so as to ro ote fair and e ual access to credit roducts ii rofita ilit uides develo acka e and disse inate u to date infor ation on roduction hus andr in ut su l and arket chains and ross ar ins for articular co odities that have a otential for co erciali ation he other is o ned i i o aka ane a a i invest ent co an created in the o al harter to su ort the a i ov ern ent s develo ent a enda I nnual e ort s er I s definition of icroloans contained in the nnual re ort inancial sector develo ent i le entation lan for a iland orld ank iii redit uarantee on oin revie and refor of the all scale enter rise loan uarantee sche e to i rove erfor ance and outreach to icro and s all usinesses inclusion of non ank finance institutions Is diversification of roducts to include a riculture and reca itali ation of the sche e iv rainin for ank staff rovision of a ro riate ca acit to the anks and credit staff on the o eration and erfor ance of the a riculture enter rises consu er atterns and arket d na ics v icrofinance rovision develo ent of the icrofinance olic and icrofinance undin enc to reca itali e illi uid and et insolvent icrofinance roviders s and inter ediaries to increase the current outreach vi redit data sharin to reduce infor ation as etr for the financin institutions and reduce over inde tedness esta lish the a iland redit ata harin ssociation to ensure that all credit data are re orted ontri uted a er session cono ic valuation of value chains alue chain anal sis of oats in a ia hallen es and o ortunities of linkin s allholders to arkets hel a a on e a e a 1 arrison hi a a 2 and icholas itko 3 1 esearch associate ith Inda a ricultural olic esearch Institute 2 istrict isheries and ivestock coordinator in the inistr of isheries and ivestock 3 rofessor of International evelo ent in the e art ent of ricultural ood and esource cono ics ichi an tate niversit thel a na on e ia ri or stract ivestock is one of the fastest ro in su sectors in the a ricultural sector in ost develo in countries and has een under oin hat has een ter ed a livestock revolution ane oel troe el and o o a id o ulation ro th and ur ani ation cou led ith e er in evidence of inco e ro th in develo in countries es eciall in frica have resulted in a ra id increase in de and for livestock roducts hich is e ected to continue in the future ccordin to ennett s la eo le tend to ove a a fro consu tion of starch foods to ards ani al roteins as inco e increases hese road de o ra hic and econo ic trends are creatin ne and e andin arket o ortunities for s allholder livestock roducers to invest in herefore ta in into these o ortunities in a s that are eneficial to rural roducers is a critical olic and develo ental challen e o ever ina ro riate olicies and isallocation of invest ent resources could ske the distri ution of the enefits and o ortunities a a fro the s allholders ho ould otentiall ain the ost fro these arket o ortunities ollo a and hui tudies have sho n that the a orit of the orld s rural oor kee and use livestock in a variet of a s that e tend Introduction a ia s livestock sector la s a ivotal role in the socio econo ic develo ent of oth the rural and ur an o ulation allholder far ers for the ost art do inate the sector t the household level livestock serves as a valua le ealth asset accountin for of the roductive assets u un u and of a ukuka allholder livestock roduction 1 htt data orld ank or indicator locations efer to the full a er htt ia ri or i a es orkin a ers df contri utes to inco e eneration and features ro inentl in cultural transactions such as do r a ents and settle ent of dis utes as ell as a ent of school fees and other necessities Its role oes e ond rovidin food and nutrition in eo le s diet to actin as a risk uffer rovidin a eans of reducin the risks associated ith cro failure and a diversification strate for resource oor far ers ane oel troe el and o o oats are the second ost o ularl o ned livestock ost s allholder far ers in a ia after villa e chicken iven the revailin far structures and increasin land constraints in a ia s all livestock rearin a e ell suited for ver s all far s urther the stud ichaa a and a ne has sho n that of rural far households o n less than ha of land therefore under these conditions o ortunities for inco e eneration fro traditional field cro s are li ited and declinin herefore findin a s to su ort far ers to e a le to levera e their e istin invest ents in livestock to take advanta e of e er in o ortunities is a otentiall valua le develo ent a roach esides the e er in arket o ortunities for livestock the a ilit of oats to utili e a road ran e of feed resources and ada t to ar inal conditions further resents an o ortunit for resource oor rural households to en a e in oat roduction all livestock rearin is therefore suited to the rural far households to invest in and take advanta e of the ra id increase in inco e and o ulation ro th o ever des ite the si nificant roles that livestock la s and its otential to contri ute to overt alleviation and o creation a ia s livestock sector is still underdevelo ed and over the ast decade has received less fundin than cro roduction ute a et al he li ited invest ents ade in the livestock sector are ostl directed to cattle roduction he sector is characteri ed oor hus andr ethods li ited disease control and hi h ortalit rates and lo roductivit cou led ith a serious kno led e a urther the s all livestock sector is characteri ed the li ited su l of oat eat in the for al arkets such as ell esta lished su er arkets and utcheries here is a dearth of infor ation on s all livestock roduction such as oats articularl focusin on the ke o ortunities and challen es in linkin s allholder livestock roducers to arkets iven the hi h ercenta e of rural households hich o n oats the s all livestock su sector rovides a useful case stud for assessin the challen es and o ortunities of utili in livestock arket to link s allholder far ers to arkets a ia s ross do estic roduct 1 er ca ita si nificantl increased fro er annu in to around er annu orld ank his increased inco e level cou led ith ra id ur ani ation in a ia and chan es in consu tion atterns has contri uted directl to the ro in de and for livestock related roducts ichaa a o ever des ite the hi h roduction of oats a on s allholder far ers arketin is hi hl concentrated in infor al arkets and the ercenta e of households that are sellin oats has re ained lo 2 tudies have sho n that the a orit of the orld s rural oor kee and use livestock in a variet of a s that e tend far e ond inco e eneration ivestock acts as a store of ealth and a risk ana e ent tool and as such inco e needs rather than rice chan es drive the arketin ich et al herefore understandin a on other thin s the roducers o nershi atterns and arketin ehaviour is critical in esta lishin interventions that are necessar for i rovin the s all livestock sector sin a value chain anal sis a roach this stud looks at the value chain for oats in a ia assessin the o ortunities and challen es in linkin s allholder livestock roducers to arkets he stud investi ates the factors that influence the arketin ehaviour of s all livestock roducers and ains an understandin of the factors restrictin the to the use of for al arketin channels to arket their oats his stud addressed the follo in research uestions i hat factors influence roducers choice on hether to use for al or infor al arketin channels for oats and hat factors influence their arketin ehaviour ii hat socio econo ic characteristics affect the herd si e of s all livestock a on s allholder far ers and ho can the i rove it ata and ethods he stud utili ed ualitative data that ere su le ented ith uantitative data fro the household surve s for various ears he ualitative data ere dra n fro the focus rou discussions s hich ere conducted in ei ht districts on u enan a alo o ho a u a hi ata etauke and iavon a he selected districts hel us ain an understandin of h so e areas are lo roducin hen oats are elieved to thrive in an condition he s ere held ith ostl roducers s allholder far ers and each rou had a ro i atel to artici ants co risin of oth ale and fe ale far ers total of far ers artici ated in the discussions fro all the ei ht districts e infor ant intervie s ere also conducted ith rovincial veterinar officers district veterinar officers veterinar assistants traders rocessors and in ut su liers he criteria for selectin the artici ants ere ased on households o nin or raisin oats hrou h the discussions ith the far ers and ke infor ants e ere a le to identif so e in ut su liers and local utcheries as ell as rocessors or the uantitative data the stud used data fro the ural ricultural ivelihoods urve and u le ental urve for and as ell as the ost arvest urve data for and ere conducted the Inda a ricultural olic esearch Institute I I and the ood securit research ro ect in colla oration ith the entral tatistics ffice and the inistr of riculture res ectivel he as conducted the inistr of riculture and the ll the data sets used are nationall re resentative of rural far households cultivatin less than ha of land for far in and livestock roduction ur oses he stud used descri tive anal sis and econo etric ethods such as linear re ression odel and ro it odel to anal se the factors influencin herd si e and the choice of arketin channel res ectivel he use of oth ualitative and uantitative ethods of data anal sis ives a co rehensive icture of s all livestock roduction ased on the nationall re resentative surve results and field visits alue chain a in for oats in a ia his section descri es the value chain a for oats in a ia he value chain a rovides an understandin of the different actors involved in each se ent and the rocesses involved in ovin oats fro the roducer to the final consu ers nal sin the role that each actor la s alon the oat value chain hel s us to identif oth the challen es and o ortunities in linkin s allholder far ers to arkets i ure elo sho s the various sta es in the oat value chain ased on i ure five critical sta es have een identified in the value chain in ut service su l roduction arketin rocessin retailin and consu tion i ure oat value chain a ource uthors field notes ollo in the value chain a hi hli hted in i ure for oat roduction this section descri es so e of the sta es in the roduction and arketin of oats nder in uts the ri ar in uts for s all livestock roduction include feed ater and health services veterinar services Feed oat rearin in a ia s allholder far ers is ostl carried out under the se i intensive s ste here ani als are confined in ni ht shelters and durin the da left to ra e freel in and around the far land or on near co unal land all ru inant roduction s allholder far ers is lar el de endent on natural astures and cro residues for ost of the ear and ani als rarel receive su le ents s such nutrition has een docu ented as one of the li itin factors in traditional livestock roduction i a a urther i a a hi hli hts that durin the rain season oun rasses have a ver hi h concentration of essential nutrients that are ca a le of su ortin ani al ro th ut as the rain season advances the rotein and other nutrients tend to reduce due to a ra id increase in fi re he situation orsens in the dr season as the levels of nutrients drasticall reduce thus li itin the nutritional ualit of feed availa le for the ani als to eet their rotein ener and ineral re uire ents utrition therefore tends to affect total lifeti e roductivit influencin overall ro th and ature si e leadin to lo er herd re lace ent rates and an increased eriod necessar to reach arketa le si e o ever des ite these kno n facts results fro the nationall re resentative household surve on ra in atterns for oats re ain the sa e throu hout the ear i ure o unal astures are the ost co onl used source of asture for oats a on s allholder livestock far ers or e a le ore than of households used co on astures for ra in in the hot dr season hile their o n or nei h ours cro fields ere the second ost co on ra in area for oats durin the hot and cold dr seasons hese results are in line ith hat as o tained fro the s ith the far ers he eneral erce tion a on s allholder far ers is that oats are self ana ed and ore tolerant of an diseases than other livestock his has resulted in ver lo ado tion of sustaina le asture ana e ent techni ues that can ena le the to su l the necessar feed re uired for their ani als es eciall in the dr season hen the nutrient levels are ver lo i ure oats ra in areas season ater rovision is a crucial in ut for livestock roductivit and oats have uni ue characteristics that ena le the to ithstand heat stress and rolon ed ater de rivation co ared to other ru inant ani als o ever oat roduction is often constrained ater and feed shorta es l ha a leh et al urther a stud in audi ra ia on the effect of ater restriction in lactatin oats durin the dr season sho ed that feed intake dr atter decreased and ilk roduction reduced fro to hen ater restriction as at and res ectivel eal e rau o et al Health services es ite their desira le characteristics oats also suffer fro disease out reaks such as an e diarrhea heart ater and conta ious ecth a 3 orf disease also kno as onta ious ustular der atitis hich are a on the a or constraints to oat kee in i ure sho s the ethods of disease control that s allholder livestock far ers used ased on the household surve data collected in and he fi ure reveals that nearl of the households that re orted disease incidences in oats did not treat their ani als i ilarl over of the households used veterinar dru s to treat disease in their ani als here has een a sli ht increase in the ercenta e of households treatin ani als ith veterinar dru s as ell as those that did not treat their ani als et een and raditional ethods are those least used s allholder households ith fe er than of the households indicatin havin used this ethod he results further sho a decrease in the ercenta e of households usin traditional ethods he results resented in i ure ali n ith the eneral erce tion a on s allholder far ers in rural areas that oats do not re uire an vaccines for reventin diseases or dru s to treat the diseases as the are self treated i ure isease control ethods in oats ource I I and urve ata viral infectious skin disease of oats and shee affectin the li s es eciall of oun ani als oat roduction s allholder far ers oats are roduced in al ost all the arts of the countr and currentl a out of the s allholder far ers in a ia o n oats ha oto and ulu ata hou h oats are found in all arts of the countr a hu e o ulation of oats is located in outhern rovince hich has over of households raisin oats a le sho s the chan es that occurred et een and in oat o ulation and the ro ortion of households that o n and sell oats he national o ulation of oats dou led over the ears ut the avera e household herd si e had a ini al increase over the sa e eriod he increased o ulation of oats over the ears as ostl due to the increased nu er of households o nin oats as o osed to increases in herd si e he ercenta e of households o nin oats increased over o ever this increase has not translated into a si nificant increase in the ercenta e of households artici atin in arkets i ilarl there is a reduction in the avera e nu er of oats sold the households artici atin in livestock arkets a le han es in oat roduction over ti e he stud e assa and a ar sho s that an s allholder far ers do not artici ate in the livestock arket and for those ho do artici ate the si e of the transaction sale or urchase of cattle shee or oats has een found to e ver s all he further indicate that for oth cattle and s all ru inants irth is ore i ortant than urchase fro the arket in uildin and aintainin herd si e and flocks herefore des ite the reasona l hi h share of cash inco e co in fro livestock as a source of s allholder livelihood the roduction s ste is not ade uatel arket oriented c eak also o serves that thou h livestock sales a increase current cash inco e and thus consu tion sales co e at the cost of decreased future inco e and consu tion and as such far ers tr to a i i e herd si e and li it arketed ani als to raise cash to eet i ediate e enditure re uire ents erd si e and de endence on livestock have an influence on household livestock arketin ehaviour arrett elle are and sterloh hi hli ht that ost households artici ate in livestock arketin ore activel as sellers rather than u ers hen ro ted environ ental stress he also noted that lo livestock arket artici ation as revalent a on households ith an alternative source of livelihoods and those ith lo herd si es oats are assets that are eas to sell for cash and as such an of the sales are tri ered the need to su ort fa il e enses rather than as a usiness initiative It as o served that a a orit of the households that artici ate in the arketin of oats are those ith a i er flock ince oats are roductive assets that enerate future inco e livestock arketin s allholder households res onds ainl to de ands for cash needs rather than short ter rofit akin uildin and aintainin the herd si e is therefore of reat i ortance to the s allholder far ers and affects their arketin decisions i ure arketin channels for oats s allholders ource uthors calculation fro i ure sho s that over of s allholder far ers sell their oats throu h infor al arkets hich affects the rices that the receive here is no standardi ed ricin in infor al arkets-in ost cases the si e of the oat deter ines the rices he choice of the arketin channel used the far er has a earin on the rice the receive and their ross ar ins o understand the factors affectin the choice of the arket channel to use for oats e turn to the results fro the econo etrics anal sis in a le he results indicate that herd si e and the ender of the household head and decision aker 4 affect the choice of the arket channel to use or instance households ith i herd si es are ore likel to sell to traders as o osed to sellin to individual households ince traders t icall u uite a lar e uantit of oats in each transaction far ers ith a lar e flock of oats ill refer sellin to traders co ared to sellin one or t o oats to individual households he stud ru n et al also sho s that herd si es of the ani als had an influence on the arketin channel used the far ers o ever it as o served that ith increased herd si e trans ortation cost also increased hich is another factor that influences the choice of arketin channel urther far ers in fe ale headed households are ore likel to sell their oats to traders than their ale counter arts o ever hen e control for the ender of the decision aker fe ales ere ore likel to sell to other households than to s all scale traders ne of the concerns that far ers raised durin the s as the issue of feelin e loited the s all traders all traders al a s ant to u at ver lo rices hence fe ale far ers a refer to sell to individual households rather than to traders to avoid lo rices lso fe ales are ore likel to sell a ver s all nu er of oats than their ale counter arts hence sellin to individual households fits est for fe ale far ers ther studies have found that arketin costs such as trans ort costs council fees and ani al health certification do si nificantl affect household arketin ehaviour In articular hi h transaction costs discoura e arket artici ation and also affect the choice of arketin channel elle are and arrett use a et al urther the stud hii i et al on factors influencin the decision to arket cattle via for al or infor al arkets sho s that access to arket related infor ation and i roved roductivit si nificantl affects the far er s decision of hether or not to sell throu h for al arkets ur results sho that households hich had access to co odit rice infor ation ere ore likel to sell to traders than to individual households isease revalence also li its far ers fro accessin the for al arket channels as the erceived standards of the for al arkets a disadvanta e ost far ers o are i et al hese factors therefore li it the far ers a ilit to invest in and e and their livestock roduction urther e look at the household characteristics that influence the herd si e of oats fro the results 6 ince the flock si e can e affected nu erous factors that ere not included in our re ression anal sis e li it the discussion of our results to correlation rather than causalit he results sho a ositive and si nificant correlation et een a e of household head and herd si e of oats his i lies that older household heads are ore likel to have a i herd si e than oun er household heads esults also sho that the avera e a e of far ers kee in oats is ince asset accu ulation takes ti e it is likel that older far ers ho have een kee in livestock for a lon ti e ill have i herd si es urther older far ers are ore a t to kee s all ru inants as a strate of far diversification and ana in risks associated ith cro failure ossa et al In addition off far inco e can facilitate the ac uisition of ore oats s allholder far ers hence the ositive correlation et een the herd si e and the value of off far inco e arrett et al also hi hli ht that households ith an alternative source of livelihoods a a fro livestock are less likel to artici ate in arkets as sellers there aintainin the herd si es of their ani als ana e ent ractices such as vaccination and de or in also have a ositive influence on the herd si e in the sense that the affect roductivit levels of oats In our results thou h de or in has a ositive si n on the coefficient it is not statisticall si nificant isease incidences ere cited as one of the challen es that far ers face in kee in oats and therefore ana e ent ractices such as de or in and vaccinations la a critical role in reducin ortalit rates there aintainin the herd si es aitner et al ull re ression results are availa le fro the authors u on re uest urther households that artici ate in oat arkets o n ore oats than non artici ants arket artici ation is likel to facilitate the restockin of ne ani als as inco e enerated fro the sales can e used to urchase ore ani als ith etter reeds esults also sho that fe ale headedness is not associated ith herd si e his result is sur risin ecause other studies have sho n that o en are ore likel to o n s all livestock such as oats than cattle o ever since fe ale headed households are faced ith ore financial constraints than their ale counter arts the are likel to sell their oats ore often to eet fa il e enses onclusion and olic i lications he consensus fro the field visits and ast studies is that households sell their s all livestock ri aril to eet their i ediate needs for cash he livestock arketin ehaviour of s allholder far ers is driven ore inco e needs than de and or rice ove ents hii i et al arrett et al oat arketin is ver li uid ith an u ers and sellers In the a sence of for al financial arkets for rural households kee in livestock re resents a eans of finance and self insurance and s all ru inants ein a li uid asset that can easil e converted into cash is therefore a risk co in strate of rural households arrett et al ercon o ever under the current conditions for ali ation of the oat arket is difficult ecause the herd si e of oats for the a orit of the far ers is still ver s all hus linkin ost roducers to the arkets a re uire hori ontal arran e ents such as sellin as a rou hich are difficult to achieve hen ost far ers use their livestock to eet cash needs herefore ovin to ards a for al s ste ould firstl re uire far ers to increase their overall herd si es so that individual far ers are ore ca a le of sellin directl to rocessors his ill re uire ado tin ana e ent ractices that reduce disease incidence and ortalit rates he overn ent should introduce sanitar andates anitar andates entail contractual arran e ents here the state contracts the rivate sector to i le ent certain ani al health services that are carried out in the national interest usuall at a cost to the state his can e revised to ean assistance fro other stakeholders in the develo ent of the livestock value chain hese andates could esta lish an inco e ase ena lin the esta lish ent of rivate ractisin in the areas of e tensive hus andr s ste s hich ould not t icall su ort such an enter rise econdl there is a need to have a rou of far ers hich can su l rocessors and hich have a s aller chance of defaultin on the su l arran e ents ith the rocessors use a et al also hi hli ht that the for ation of s all far er rou s and associations have the otential to increase the artici ation of s all scale livestock far ers in for al arkets arketin rou s can hel lo er transaction costs and i rove access to infor ation and far ers can achieve reater econo ies of scale hirdl the overn ent throu h related a encies ust artner ith rivate fir s institutions in the facilitation of the develo ent of facilities currentl dee ed e ensive and unattractive to the entre reneur in re ote areas to lure individuals to artici ate in the arkets hese should e esta lished in selected districts ith roduction otential ourthl there is need to esta lish ore reedin centres for s all livestock to hel increase herd si es and encoura e far ers to artici ate in the arketin of oats rants ust e ade availa le to selected individuals or institutions to create and ana e reedin centres and ro ra s on ehalf of the eo le or overn ent stract his a er resents the results of value chain anal ses for the eef su sector in a iland he o ective of revie in the eef value chain as to esta lish if it is eneficial to the far ers and to derive insi hts that can contri ute to the ra id and sustaina le inte ration of s all scale far ers into the eef cattle value chain in a iland there facilitatin the rocess of co erciali ation of s allholder eef cattle far ers ith of a is o nin cattle inte ratin the into the co ercial eef value chain ill re uire su stantial assistance he anal ses ere ased on su sector data re ardin the structure and function of the eef value chains he data ere athered throu h intervie s ith far ers and various value chain la ers and stakeholders he stud identified that eef rofita ilit is ein constrained lo roductivit at su sistence far ers level lo invest ent in technolo oor linka e et een s allholder cattle roducers and other value chain actors and lack of land and ran eland he stud further concludes that roductivit and co etitiveness increase hen fattenin is ado ted and identifies that strate ic interventions alon the value chain could address the s ecific constraints that affect the overall erfor ance of the value chain Introduction vervie of a iland s a ricultural sector a iland s a riculture sector is hi hl dualistic it entails a traditional su sector and a co ercial su sector his dualis ortra s funda ental dis arities in land o nershi he traditional su sector is esta lished on co unal land tenure on a i ation and and the co ercial su sector is ased on itle eed and hich co rises of the countr s land area is used ainl for su sistence far in hile hich occu ies the re ainin is e lo ed in co ercial a riculture characteri ed relativel hi h ca ital intensive cash cro roduction ostl su ar cane irri ation and cor orate o nershi he dualistic nature of a iland s a riculture is also reflected in the contri utions ade to e ort the t o su sectors ricultural e orts are heavil concentrated in a s all nu er of cash cro s roduced on hile eef e orts co e froIn contrast the su sistence oriented cro roduction ractised on enerates fe e orts his eans that even thou h a riculture akes a si nificant contri ution to e orts these e orts contri ute ver little to i roved inco es for the vast a orit of rural households hose livelihoods de end on s allholder a riculture oreover so e of the traditional e ort sectors su ar te tiles are facin ne challen es in e ort arkets su estin the need for diversification I ortance of livestock in a iland ossession of livestock is ides read in a iland involvin a lar e ercenta e of households i ht ercent of rural households o n cattle in a iland entral tatistics ffice un u lished ivestock and in articular cattle la s a vital role oth econo icall and culturall ost cattle are ana ed in e tensive s ste s on co on ra in land and there is su stantial otential to increase the econo ic contri ution of hat re ains a ver un roductive s ste o e istin alon side the su sistence s ste is a s all ut ver ell develo ed co ercial cattle industr enco assin roduction of oth eef and dair roducts he eef cattle value chain therefore enefits fro re ional and international e ort o ortunities and fro si nificant rivate and u lic sector invest ents in a iland u sector evie ivestock roduction la s a role in a iland oth econo icall and culturall onfir ation of this co es fro the lar e nu ers of livestock found throu hout the countr on the different livestock s ecies that are ke t in a iland cattle are of ara ount i ortance his is evidenced oth the lar e nu er of rural households that o n cattle and the e istence throu hout the countr of relativel or ani ed arkets for cattle u lic and rivate invest ents in the livestock sector are redo inantl tar etin the eef value chain ith the oal of ta in into the lar e and ro in do estic re ional and international arkets for eef a le ivestock distri ution a ro ecolo ical one for cattle are hi hl su sidi ed in a iland ntil s allholder far ers ho ke t their cattle on a overn ent ranch for ra in aid onl er ani al er onth for fattenin s a result roduction costs ade u a s all ro ortion of the final retail sellin rice a le e innin in the fattenin fee as increased to er ani al er onth It is ho ed that the hi her out of ocket cost ill induce far ers to eco e ore usiness oriented and ill influence the to ado t ore co ercial and ho efull ore efficient roduction ractices a le istri ution of costs and ar ins eef value chain chain level oes not include o ortunit cost of herdin and co unal ra in vera e sellin rice er kilo ra carcass ei ht of across the arket lthou h the eef value chain in a iland is ell esta lished o tainin infor ation on arket rices fro a attoirs and rocessors roved ver difficult as the are reluctant to share infor ation he fi ures used in co utation of ar ins are ased on infor ation collected fro a attoirs far ers and retailers ost far ers kee cattle for status and as their ca ital ealth and ill onl sell hen the need to raise finances for s ecific needs such as a in school fees his eans that the do not u cattle ith the intention of ro ra ed resale hese ani als feed on ra in land and are looked after fa il e ers and therefore incur no financial costs associated ith u in cattle for resale feed or la our edical costs are ini al as di in che icals are su sidi ed overn ent and treat ent of diseases is onl in res onse to disease out reaks reactive hese cattle ill e sold at three ears or older due to the t e of ra in and the fact that there is no su le entar feedin es eciall in inter In the co ercial sector cattle take less ti e to ature due to the availa ilit of ra in land and su le ented feedin durin drou ht and inter onths hese far ers can achieve a i u ar ins of ein usiness oriented allo s the to o erate rofessionall such that the incur roduction la our and edical costs isease treat ent is therefore ro h lactic for the eedlots o erate on oth and far s he feedlotters u eaners fro and and dair ull calves at an avera e rice of er head ith an avera e ei ht live of k he are read for sale at a live ei ht of k ieldin a carcass avera e ei ht of k and the incur feed edical and la our costs he hi hest cost contri utor is feed he cattle are either fed a full concentrate ration or a i ed concentrate ration he i ed concentrate ration is for ulated the far ers usin locall availa le in uts in order to reduce the feed costs eed costs account for of total costs for those on full concentrate ration and of the total costs for those on a i ed concentrate ration herefore the cattle value chain is not an attractive enter rise for far ers ho ant to venture into the feedlottin usiness e ce t for those co ercial far ers ho also run a attoirs and utcheries ractisin vertical inte ration ithin the value chain eedlottin far ers on full ration have a ar in of hile those on i ed ration have a a i u of he far ers ho are still in usiness either ractise i ed ration feedin to ini i e costs or have such oor records that the cannot deter ine hether the are akin a rofit or loss and are ha to aintain a ca ital reserve e challen es and constraints he eef value chain is enerall ell develo ed and is functionin relativel ell evertheless o ortunities to stren then the value chain ere identified articularl at the sta es of roduction and rocure ent our ke challen es and constraints erit attention i li ited invest ent in technolo ical and or ana e ent innovations es eciall ith re ard to nutrition needed to i rove roductivit in s allholder cattle far roduction ii oor transactional relationshi s et een s allholder cattle roducers on and other value chain actors iii inade uate and oorl coordinated u lic and rivate invest ents and iv non availa ilit of a ran eland ra in ana e ent olic i i ited invest ent in co unit ased technolo ical innovations allholder s ste s o eratin on have seen ver little innovation ni als continue to e ran e ra ed at ver hi h stockin rates on overe loited co unal land ith little effort ade to i rove nutrition his for of ana e ent has the advanta e of kee in roduction costs ver lo ut roductivit is ver lo also ortunities therefore e ist to introduce innovative ana e ent strate ies that could si nificantl i rove nutrition and eventuall roductivit for e a le the roduction of fodder ha for stora e into the dr seasons i rove ent of fora e uantit and ualit throu h the creation of ra in locks and the use of rotations and su le entation of ra in ith anufactured feed and nutritional su le ents ii oor transactional relationshi s et een s allholder cattle roducers on and other value chain actors he eef value chain in a iland suffers fro a a or ottleneck at the far arketin level he ain u ers of eef cattle includin I other co ercial utchers and feedlots face serious ro le s in ensurin ade uate su lies of hi h ualit ani als lthou h an transactions take lace around di tanks di tanks ere not intended to e arket laces and sellers do not take cattle to di tanks ri aril for sales ecause co etition a on u ers is often li ited around di tanks sellers t icall have fe o tions hich li its their ar ainin o er and often forces the to eco e rice takers rans arent ehaviour the different o erators is constrained the a sence of arket rice infor ation echanis s iii Inade uate and oorl coordinated u lic and rivate invest ents he overn ent of a iland has atte ted to create incentives to ake the livestock sector in eneral and the eef su sector in articular attractive to co ercial investors It is rovidin an oods and services needed artici ants all alon the value chain es ite these incentives roducers have not res onded ado tin a ore co ercial orientation to eef roduction and akin the co le entar invest ents needed to drive roductivit and roduction to hi her levels he ain reason for this see s to e a lack of coordination a on the overn ent s invest ents hich eans that ro ress ade in one area e herd enetics is i ediatel under ined continuin ottlenecks in other areas e overstockin of co unal lands leadin to oor ani al nutrition iv an eland ra in ana e ent olic ivestock rearin in is reatl affected the non availa ilit of a ational and olic he draft olic a art fro addressin e ual o ortunities for land allocation to o en and en ro oses a stren thened echanis to allocate fields for ro in cro s and ra in land his is currentl ein e ecuted the chiefs a on ho a areness of the needs to e raised In the a sence of this olic the ro le of over ra in ill re ain a i issueIntervention o tions nu er of intervention o tions can e identified that offer the ro ise of etter inte ratin s allholder far ers into the eef value chain hese intervention o tions hich ould not necessaril re uire si nificant financial resources fro the u lic sector fall into four road cate ories i investin in i roved far roduction in ut and ani al su l ii creatin and consolidatin arkets and arket laces for cattle and other livestock iii increasin and etter coordinatin invest ents alon the value chain and iv conductin case studies to identif s ecific issues related to the different cattle roducers on oth and i Invest in i roved roduction technolo and in ut su l allholder cattle roduction on ill not eco e a si nificant driver of ro th and overt reduction unless roductivit can e raised e innin at the far level Invest ents are needed to i rove cattle and ran eland roductivit includin invest ents to i rove herd enetics increasin ull su l invest ents to i rove nutrition enhancin feedlot roduction and invest ents to i rove ani al health increasin deliver of veterinar services ii reate and consolidate arket infor ation and arket laces for cattle and other livestock erfor ance of the cattle value chain in a iland continues to e i aired the lon roduction interval re uired and the hi h cost of conductin transactions Invest ents desi ned to i rove the cattle arketin s ste tar etin oth the hard as ects e h sical arket laces and the soft as ects e arket infor ation s ste s could contri ute to i rovin vertical coordination lo erin transaction costs reducin transaction ti es and reatl i rovin the efficienc of the value chain iiiIncrease and etter coordinate invest ents alon the value chain he overn ent of a iland has si nalled its co it ent to scale u invest ents in the livestock sector ut increased invest ents are unlikel to deliver the e ected enefits unless the are ell tar eted and a ro riatel se uenced ound u lic invest ents need to e co ined ith co le entar rivate initiatives to ca ture otential s ner ies oreover there is a need to ensure that on oin invest ents are structured in such a a that the not onl lead to increased value addition ut also ensure a sociall acce ta le distri ution of enefit shared a on value chain artici ants I roved access to a ricultural finance an livestock far ers in a iland face difficulties in atte tin to access loans fro co ercial lenders ivestock roduction is vie ed as a hi h risk activit so it attracts hi h interest rates and dauntin collateral re uire ents that ost s allholder far ers cannot eet he lack of insurance roducts ada ted to the needs of livestock roducers eans that the vast a orit o erate ithout credit hich li its their a ilit to intensif roduction ethods and or e and the si e of their o eration inancial institutions a re uire assistance fro the overn ent in develo in and introducin instru ents that can e used livestock roducers to access finance he ork of the icrofinance nit under the inistr of inance o has esta lished a a for ard Initiatives ith re ard to a ricultural finance should e channelled throu h the Regulation of beef cattle industry: he o throu h the de art ent of e art ent of eterinar and ivestock ervices needs to find a a to re ulate the eef value chain so as to allo the eef industr to ro in the countr arcass radin is carried out the u ers and far ers are rice takers hence the need to have a re ulator od to look into the issues of radin and carcass ricin his ill ensure fair enefit for the eef cattle far ers iv ase studies to identif s ecific issues related to the different cattle roducers in oth and o ercial eef cattle roducers in oth and have si ilar challen es ho ever the have devised strate ies to deal ith these challen es he i est challen es are the feed costs and arket rices he far ers in iti atin feed costs are for ulatin rations as advised the o e tension officers It is orth notin that hen it co es to carcass rices there is no ar ainin o er as the u ers collude and thus lo er rices are aid urther studies on sa le eef cattle far ers need to e conducted to esta lish the arketin channels and attri utes of oth and far ers his could rovide s ecific arket infor ation settin of cattle rice roduction etc he far ers could then e cate ori ed accordin to the nu er of cattle the o n so that ro er anal sis could e conducted ilhel van iekerk 1 a a a 2 a en i la ini 2 avid endal l a ell h ala 2 uthi la ini 2 , Sakhile aseko 3 u ani tuli 3 onnie kho e 2 anco a an e 4 and he inkosi unene 4 1 a ne ills 2 a iland ater and ricultural evelo ent nter rise 3 u an na ics 4 inistr of riculture a iland orres ondin author rendall david ail co stract sta lishin u lic rivate artnershi s is often considered to e a anacea for eak rocessin and arketin linka es for s allholder far ers he realit is ore challen in his a er traces the evolution of a ro osed a attoir oint venture to an inte rated a attoir feedlot o eration in the o er suthu s allholder irri ation ro ect I I co and area in the o veld of a iland he focus of the a er is on the need to ro a eanin ful artnershi not ust fro a usiness ers ective ut also ust as i ortantl a ro ust artnershi et een the co ercial and develo ent hiloso hies of su liers of ani al feedstuffs and a arastatal develo ent a enc Inclusion of s allholder far in co anies as shareholders and su liers to the feedlots is another ke ele entvia ilit inclusion arketin1 ossession of livestock is ides read in a iland inistr of riculture o and is carried out a lar e ercenta e of households attle in articular la an i ortant role oth econo icall and culturall ost cattle are ana ed in ide ran in s ste s on co unal ra in land of total eef cattle herd and there is considera le otential to increase the econo ic contri ution of hat re ains a ver un roductive s ste o e istin alon side the traditional s ste is a inor ut ver ell uilt co ercial cattle industr includin roduction of oth eef and dair roducts Invest ents have een ade to ena le the dair cattle value chain to rovide ull calf eaners that can e feeder stock for eef cattle roduction In addition the eef cattle value chain enefits fro re ional and international e ort o ortunities and fro si nificant rivate and u lic sector invest ents in a iland a iland eef value chain o fter ins ectin the erfor ance of the livestock value chain and revisin ke olicies and strate ies four ain sets of constraints in the eef value chain have een identified and found to e under inin erfor ance he four sets of constraints co rise i li ited invest ent in co unit ased technolo ical innovations needed to i rove roductivit in s allholder cattle roduction ii inefficient coordination et een s allholder cattle roducers on a i ation and and other value chain actors iii inade uate and oorl coordinated u lic and rivate invest ents and iv lack of a ational and olic and ran eland olicIn anuar a reli inar eetin et een the inistr of riculture o ane ills and the a iland ater and riculture evelo ent nter rise a reed to investi ate the ossi ilit of esta lishin a oint venture et een ane ills feed aster and far in co anies su orted to esta lish an a attoir and eat rocessin unit in the I I ro ect develo ent area Initiall ane ills outlined its co it ent to e tendin its o erations in the eef and i value chains in a iland as art of its vertical inte ration strate in the su re ion then e lained that it had een investi atin the ossi ilit of esta lishin an a attoir ased on its ro isin ve eta le ack house odel ane ills indicated that it anted to ensure that a trans arent o eration is esta lished that activel involves all stakeholders urther ore it as indicated that it ould e re ared to invest of the start u ca ital includin orkin ca ital of hich ould e invested ut ith the ai of allocatin so e of their shares to the livestock enter rises over a eriod of ti e u se uentl the focus as on carr in out arket assess ents e lorin usiness odels and ensurin that an ro osals et o veterinar standards eef cattle value chain stud carried out o funded technical assistance to the ational da tation trate and a red eat arket stud co issioned ane ills rovided stron evidence that there is a solid usiness o ortunit for a ell ana ed livestock rocessin and arketin o eration he o ortunit for invest ent in the eat industr h a he eat industr eef ork and oats in a iland has the otential to increase the red eat sector out ut if ti hter ualit controls are adhered to and there are fair sale contracts ith s allholders istoricall oat roduction has contri uted a a or ro ortion to the red eat volu e consu ed ut eef offers a co ellin diversification ro osition in the a ricultural sector iven a ell develo ed value chain si nificant de and that is not ein et referential uotas for e ort and the countr s s ecificall s allholders endo ent of cattle he countr cannot afford to lose these arket o ortunities he rocess needs to e led the rivate sector arket and trans arent rice incentives are re uired to encoura e far ers to increase ualit roduction International eat h iene standards and sanitar re uire ents ust e et slau hter houses sla s and a attoirs in the countr until this occurs the a to eet do estic and international de and ill re ain ll under the tree slau hters are considered ad h iene ractices s ho e consu tion is hi h over of eat consu tion is do estic an e ills this a needs to e addressed astl the assa e of infor ation fro roducers to holesalers to retailers is ver challen in ith little accurate infor ation availa le asic data are a challen e to ac uire and sharin of an infor ation is li ited his can e seen as a lo han in fruit and a ossi le uick in if trans arenc is esta lished it ill attract investors i el and accurate re ortin on the arket needs to e esta lished hich could e develo ed the e art ent of tatistics cost of livin surve s nfortunatel transferrin data et een retailers and vendors currentl re uires considera le anual la our art fro the cost of collectin ana in and trans ittin the data the anual a roach has also eant that the co unication is ver slo ovin akin the case and akin it ork sta lish ent of the arket case he ane ills funded ed eat arket stud re orted that i he co osition of the red eat sector in a iland s arket is fre uentl chan in due to o ortunistic livestock ractices ne rocessin ethods and varied roduct deliver ethods ii he red eat su l sector contri uted a ro i atel illion a iland lilan eni to the a i econo s food and evera e sector or of the countr s ross do estic roduct and throu h its roduction and distri ution linka es i acts close to retailers utcheries hotels restaurants and individuals countr ide iii he livestock industr is an i ortant su sector of the national econo he a rarian sector contri utes a out of the total do estic e ort earnin s of hich livestock account for out of this contri ution could e attri uted to cattle and the rest to the oultr su sector oats like shee do not contri ute to e ort earnin s and the i ort of eats cost the countr illion in iv nder the o ree ent a iland had a uota of tonnes of eef to e ort to the uro ean nion arket ith a lev of his as then reduced to tonnes and the countr still has not reached the tar et vIn the countr e orted eef to the value of illion ut onl e orted etric tonnes of eef his still roved insufficient as the deliver tar ets ere not et vi a iland onl roduced etric tonnes of eef in eedless to sa the current su l infrastructure is not set to kee u ith the e ected de and vii o re orts indicate that the cattle herd is esti ated at ani als there are i s and shee hile oats nu er an esti ated viii he stud accounted for so e retail outlets in a iland sta lish ent of trust uccess de ends on uildin trust et een the t o sectors and often a chan e in indsets or the u lic sector it eans ein a facilitator of ro ects rovidin u lic enefits or the rivate sector it eans ein a colla orator ne otiatin rofita le ro ects ith u lic rue er Intuitivel our orkin rou reco ni ed that e needed to develo an understandin of each other our ers ectives our otivations and a roaches to far ers o eratin on his relationshi has ro n to the e tent e stand to ether ith our usiness odel and feasi ilit stud and have shared these ith the kendi co unit and ill shortl do so ith our res ective oards his has not een a iven ut all arties have orked to ork to ether It is an indication ho do ou easure trust that as ne eo le oin the orkin rou e have had to rin the u to s eed on our oint ission and rocesses sta lish ent of the usiness case feasi ilit sharin of costs he first as ect havin satisfied the orkin rou that arket otential as availa le as to assess the su l side of the red eat industr e sho here the calculations for the eef sector si ilar assess ent as ade for ork hilst rovision has een ade for a ossi le oat rocessin odule further ork is needed to understand and uantif the oat sector e focused on the otential for oun er ale stock to enter the feedlot for finishin he indicated share of ossi le off take is considered reasona le es eciall hen the otential for dair ale calves is taken into account s e ected the via ilit of the o eration is e tre el sensitive to the u in and sellin rice of ani als and their roducts hilst urchased feed is the ke cost ara eter for the feedlot ased on these ositive indicators the orkin rou is roceedin to finali e the detailed feasi ilit stud for su ission to our res ective oards ut ut s he oint venture ill e o erated as a li ited lia ilit co an re istered in a iland and o eratin under the la s of a iland It ill e overned a seven erson oard ith an inde endent chair three directors no inated ane ills t o directors no inated and one director no inated the traditional authorit fter t o ears one of the directors ill e dra n fro far er co an shareholders ane ills ill rovide the co ercial ana e ent for the enter rise ill activel en a e in far er a areness and far in s ste su ort hilst the kh eli ill rovide co unit leadershi focussin on far er a areness res onsi le ana e ent and ro ect securit urther ore the kh eli rust is read to enter into a contract to su l a ini u of cattle i s or oats er onth ivestock su liers far er co anies ould earn the ri ht to ac uire shares fro the lot held on their ehalf ased on the follo in criteria his is land that is held in trust the In en a a is a est the in on ehalf of the a i nation ection of the a iland constitution rovides that ll land includin an e istin concession in a iland save as rivatel held title deed land shall continue to vest in In en a a in trust for the a i ation his is land that is ainl found in the rural areas here the a orit of a is liveis ad inistered chiefs on ehalf of is a est the in he a iland constitution s esta lishes the and ana e ent oard res onsi le for the overall ana e ent and for the re ulation of an ri ht or interest in land hether ur an or rural or vested in In en a a in trust for the a i nation ccordin to the constitution in erfor in its functions the oard shall e accounta le to the In en a a Acquisition of land under SNL a is access land throu h the khonta e iven land s ste he rocess follo ed under this custo is that once a erson has een acce ted the Inner ouncil andlancane to e allocated land in the co unit the are re uired to a a co as a token of a reciation he Inner ouncil re resentatives alk the oundar and tie a knot ku o ha lifindvo e ers of the co unit near the ne site are also infor ed so that the can itness the allocation he kh eli Inner ouncil has een re uested to consider rovidin around ha of unencu ered land under the khonta s ste he Inner ouncil has oved the case to the chief ith ositive su ort he site ill re uire access to a ood ualit sealed road s elia le electricit c uaranteed su l of around litres of ater er da he a for ard i ht ain lessons for a ri s have een identified ankin et al ur assess ent of here e stand is as follo s o e successful a ri usiness artnershi s need to ali n the artners dis arate interests and visions and reach consensus articularl on u lic sector o ectives and riorities for ro otin s ke factor in the rocess of develo in this has een the ti e invested in ettin to kno each other throu h focused discussions oint field learnin visits and full artici ation in the orkin rou he role of each artner should e clearl defined accordin to the uni ue skills and e ertise that each can rin to the a ri ith a ro riate incentives desi ned to re ard these roles It has een clear that rin s otential en a e ent ith far ers on hilst co ercial ana e ent is the vital attri ute of ane ills ffective a ri s share risks fairl a on artners and include risk ana e ent echanis s to rotect the ost vulnera le tructurin the shareholdin reflects the alance of risk assu ed ith the role of holdin shares in trust for far in enter rises considered a ke risk iti ation for far er enter rises here is a le sco e for the involve ent of financial institutions as an additional core artner in a ri sInitiall the invest ent ca ital ill e rovided ane ills and the overn ent of a iland o throu h orkin ca ital ill e sourced fro the do estic finance industr in a iland hile a ri s can ro ote the inclusion of s allholders and all and ediu ricultural nter rises s the are unlikel to have an i act on the oorest of the oor his is a fair assess ent as so e of ho esteads overn ent of a iland on do not o n livestock ollective action is an essential feature of all a ri s and hel s oth to ro ote inclusion and to reduce transaction costs osterin collective action and ca acit uildin increases the artici ation of s allholders in odern value chains hile reducin the transaction costs for lead rivate artners s noted earlier oth arties have een activel en a ed in develo in the usiness odel for instance the reconnection that feedlots needed to iti ate the risk of erratic su l to the a attoir as ointl arrived at ound institutional and re ulator fra e orks are essential factors in the desi n of ell erfor in s udicious land overnance s ste and trans arent decision akin and ud etar rocesses for selectin ro ects and rivate artners are critical factors that ust e considered in the overnance of a ri sIn stract stud as conducted in the lake one in an ania to assess the access to credit of value chain actors in the eef su l chain ith a focus on eef cattle fattenin hallen es and o ortunities ere also identified ata ere collected fro various actors and stakeholders in the chain throu h focus rou discussion and use of structured uestionnaire hich covered astoralists and a ro astoralists cattle fattenin o erators and ke infor ants in the hin an a and an a re ions i ht districts ere involved five districts aha a isha u eatu ariadi and as a in the hin an a re ion and three districts a a ana en ere a and a u in the an a re ion ata ere anal sed usin descri tive and ross ar ins anal sis he findin s sho that access to for al sources of finance in the countr is difficult and scarce for ost of the su l chain actors ost o erate their usinesses fro their o n fundin sources a situation hich li its e ansion of o ti al rofita le ventures hile onl had credit fro for al sources of finance and received assistance fro their fa ilies in the for of h sical ani als he challen es alon the eef cattle su l chain for roducers astoralists and a ro astoralists ere different fro those of eef cattle fattenin o erators ein ainl lack of fattenin skills lack of credit hi h cost of fattenin and li ited availa ilit of ani al feeds n the other hand eef cattle fattenin o erators co lained of hi h rices of feeds for fattenin due to alternative outlets for cotton husks and cotton seed cake shorta e of credit due to lack of collateral difficulties in securin areas for conductin fattenin and li ited availa ilit of feeds he o ortunities for eef cattle fattenin included the esta lish ent of an ricultural ank in the countr hich can no set favoura le conditions for collateral hi h arket access and rices for fattened eef cattle availa ilit of feeder cattle and the level of eef cattle fattenin a areness a on a ro astoralists and astoralists Keywords actors a ro astoralist astoralist su l chain access to credit Introduction his a er resents an overvie of s allholder and livestock value chain actors access to credit in an ania ith a focus on eef cattle fattenin in the an a and hin an a re ions an ania is a on the frican countries kno n for their hu e livestock resource ase es ite the lar e nu er of cattle availa le in the countr the livestock industr s contri ution to the national econo is lo In for e a le the industr contri uted onl and to the a ricultural ross do estic roduct and national res ectivel and the sector re onl co ared to for the cro sector nited e u lic of an ania cono ic urve his is ainl due to lo livestock ro th rates hi h ortalit rates lo roduction and re roductive rates and oor ualit of the final roducts fro the industr inistr of ivestock and isheries evelo ent ecentl there has een reat e hasis in the countr on co erciali in eef cattle roduction for the sector to contri ute ore effectivel to household inco e food securit and nutrition as ell as to the nation s econo inistr of ivestock evelo ent eef cattle fattenin has een ear arked as one a on several eans to i rove eef cattle roduction throu h value addition In the hin an a and an a re ions value as added to cattle urchased fro astoralists and a ro astoralists increasin roductivit and i rovin the ualit of eef cattle throu h su le entar feedin usin concentrates In this case ani als of lo er rades ere ou ht fro roducers at the ri ar livestock arkets traders at lo er rices and fed cotton seed cakes and cotton husks or ai e ran for three to four onths efore ein sold a ain at re iu or hi her rices to other traders or slau hterhouses he stud ai ed at esta lishin the structure of the eef su sector in the an a and hin an a re ions of an ania here fattenin of cattle is eco in increasin l i ortant ecificall the o ectives of the stud ere to i identif ri ar actors in the su l chain and oint out their roles and interrelationshi s ii assess livestock value chain actors access to credit for their usiness and iii identif associated challen es and o ortunities for i rovin the su l chain ethodolo he stud involved collectin ri ar and secondar data fro various actors and stakeholders in the chain throu h and use of structured uestionnaires hich covered astoralists and a ro astoralists cattle fattenin entre reneurs and ke infor ants in the hin an a and an a re ions he stud covered five districts in hin an a re ion aha a isha u eatu ariadi and as a and three districts in the an a re ion a a ana Ile ela en ere a and a u as sho n in i ure elo he reli inar surve as conducted fro ril to une and as follo ed the detailed surve hich as conducted fro ul to e te er ata ere anal sed usin descri tive ethods to o tain infor ation on fre uencies eans and ercenta es ross ar ins anal sis i ure ocation of the stud area esults and discussion ivestock arketin in the stud area he stud revealed that there ere and o eratin livestock arkets in the hin an a and an a re ions res ectivel f these isha u and a hon olo ere the lar est and the onl secondar arkets handlin a out cattle er onth on avera e and u to cattle durin the eak arketin season of e te er to ece er he secondar arket in isha u o erated once er eek hile the a hon olo secondar arket o erated si da s er eek ivestock arketin channels here e isted t o su l channels for ter inal do estic eef cattle arkets in the stud area he first involved a direct channel here traders ou ht eef cattle fro roducers astoralists and a ro astoralists at ri ar arkets and sold at rofit to utcher o erators he second involved so e value addition here eef cattle fattenin o erators ou ht cattle fro roducers or cattle traders at ri ar and secondar arkets In either case the cattle ere ke t in feedlots for a out three onths as re orted of the res ondents and thereafter sold to live ani al e orters or to local utcher o erators throu h livestock arkets after the ani als had ained ei ht or reconditioned ivestock rocessin industries ere found to e not ell develo ed as is the case for the hole countr nal sis of data for this stud sho s that of the livestock arketed in the an a and hin an a re ions ere sold to the u u secondar arket in ar es alaa as sho n in a le elo a le arkets for fattened eef cattle eef cattle roducers astoralists and a ro astoralists eef cattle roducers included oth astoralists and a ro astoralists ho ke t a out of the cattle found in the countr ational a le ensus of riculture he re ainin as for i roved dair and eef reeds ke t overn ent and rivate co ercial ranches he eef cattle roducers la ed a vital role in the eef su sector as the la ed the ri ar function of raisin eef cattle u to the oint here the ere sold and taken to the ne t level of the su l chain he roducers invested in ani al health nutrition and re roduction ccordin to the s re orts there ere and eef cattle roducers in the hin an a and an a re ions res ectivel raders raders in the eef cattle su l chain in the hin an a and an a re ions ere involved in urchasin cattle fro astoralists and or a ro astoralists throu h the ri ar arkets or directl fro cattle roducers ith the ur ose of resellin in other auctions at hi her rices or sellin to the utcheries o t es of traders ere identified in the stud area he first t e ere traders ho ou ht health and heav ani als fro roducers and re sold to other cattle u ers includin utcher o erators at secondar arkets or other niche arkets he second cate or of traders ter ed fattenin entre reneurs s ecificall ou ht eak ani als or se i finished ani als fro the arkets for the ur ose of fattenin addin value or finishin for at least three onths as re orted of the res ondents efore resellin to the livestock arkets for local consu tion or e ort ni als for fattenin ere nor all urchased at lo er rices ran in fro an anian shillin s to for uncastrated ulls hich ere later sold at to er iece after fattenin utchers and consu ers he cate or of utcher o erators involved all actors ho ou ht ani als fro the ri ar or secondar arkets for i ediate slau hter he la ed an i ortant role in the livestock su sector as the link roducers and consu ers throu h livestock traders here ere a out and utcheries in the hin an a and an a re ions res ectivel etailers and iddle en etailers ere involved in u in carcasses fro slau hterhouses or utcheries and distri utin the to su er arkets and other eat sho s n the other hand iddle en ere involved in u in and sellin ani als at the sa e location takin advanta e of ti e and the i norance of sellers as the could u an ani al fro one seller and i ediatel sell it to another trader at a rofit etailers and iddle en ere not found to e ro inent in the stud area ervice roviders ervice roviders in the stud area included the stockists ho su lied dru s and acaricides like su er di s inners ho o n inneries that roduced ani al feed in redients such as cotton seed cake and cotton husks and overn ent institutions that rovided e tension services inancial service roviders ere found to e inactive as a ricultural activities are re orted to e risk undertakin s althou h the usiness re uired ca ital in order to run a via le enter rise It as evident durin field visits for this stud that coordination and colla oration a on these actors as not ell develo ed eef cattle traders ivestock tradin rovides li uidit to astoralists as ell as servin as livestock outlets ivestock traders incur several costs in the rocess hese include arket fees trekkin costs herders a es food and trans ort livestock ove ent er its feeds treat ent and trans ort to secondar arkets ivestock value chain actors access to credit It as revealed that ost of the livestock value chain actors in the stud area could not access credit for their usiness as the anks in the stud area i e the ational icrofinance ank and o unit ural evelo ent ank found livestock usiness to e too risk to finance and also far ers had no collateral ost livestock value chain actors therefore o erated their usinesses fro their o n fundin sources a situation hich li its the e ansion of o ti al rofita le ventures hile onl had credit fro for al sources of finance and received assistance fro their fa ilies in the for of h sical ani als as sho n in a le elo a le ivestock traders access to financial credit here ere challen es i actin the eef cattle su l chain in the stud area of hich li ited availa ilit of credit to e and fattenin enter rises ranked hi h as ell as lack of i roved fattenin skills education oor linka es and lo colla oration a on and et een the actors in the chain es ite all these shortco in s there are also o ortunities to e and and i rove the eef cattle su l chain and foster econo ic ro th oth at local and national level on others these include the ne l esta lished an ania ricultural ank hich a no set favoura le conditions for collaterals leadin to the e ansion of the usinesses hi h arket access and rices for fattened eef cattle availa ilit of feeder cattle and the level of eef cattle fattenin a areness a on a ro astoralists and astoralists a le hese can e used to e and and i rove the recursor eef cattle fattenin enter rises ioneered a fe enter risin innovative traders into a vi rant value chain that akes a eanin ful contri ution to i rovin the cash inco e of an households ho de end on livestock kee in for their livelihoods eco endationsinancial institutions should reconsider their risk assess ent ractices to e a le to increase lendin to the eef cattle fattenin usinessesar ers skills should e i roved throu h trainin so that the are credit orth and a le to roduce hi her volu es and ore consistent ualit of eef that is etter suited to the arket re uire entshe eef cattle su l chain should e u raded to a vi rant value chain su ortin the evolution of colla oration and indin linka es ole e e i 1 deo e I osede 2 and la ide l deola 1 1 e art ent of ricultural cono ics niversit of I adan I adan i eria 2 esearch utreach e art ent ational orticultural esearch Institute I adan i eria reciousfunso ahoo co stract he livestock industr is an i ortant co onent of i eria s a ricultural sector and a ke contri utor to econo ic ro th ut it lacks effective financin his stud as carried out in o oso to n o tate to e a ine the econo ic value of the cattle value chain ith the ai of identif in nodes needin financial su ort ur osive sa lin techni ue as used in selectin astoralists roducers arketers and rocessors ata ere anal sed usin descri tive statistics and olic anal sis atri esults of the anal sis sho that three ri ar actors artici ated na el roducers ulani far ers arketers of live cattle and rocessors indin s revealed that the rocessors ere also res onsi le for arketin live cattle nal sis of the revealed that ositive rivate rofit of i erian aira head head and head ere recorded for the roducers arketers and rocessors res ectivel ocial rofits of head ere o tained the roducers indicatin that the activit can contri ute to national inco e develo ent ocial rofits for arkers and rocessors ere ne ative at head and head res ectivel indicatin that the s ste cannot survive ithout assistance fro the overn ent esults of the no inal rotection coefficient on out ut at and ere recorded for the roducers arketers and rocessors res ectivel he effective rotection coefficient and rofita ilit coefficient of cattle roducers ere and res ectivel indicatin rotection of the out ut the and of cattle arketers and rocessors ere and and res ectivel indicatin that out ut as not rotected for these actors hile in uts ere ta ed as indicated the result of the no inal rotection coefficient on in ut I at and for the roducers arketers and rocessors res ectivel inall it is reco ended that a or constraints should e dealt ith es eciall in the area of infrastructure to attract e ternal investors roducers arketers and rocessors should have ore access to credit to oost their roduction and transactions as the case a e and overn ent should rovide a safet net for arketers and rocessors to e a le to eet international arket re uire ents Keywords cattle value chain olic anal sis atri co arative advanta e Introduction i eria is a a or hu of ani al roduct consu tion in est frica It is also one of the lar est livestock raisin countries in the re ion as recorded onnet et al he countr s cattle herds are esti ated at over illion head far ahead of i er illion ali illion and had illion he livestock industr is an i ortant co onent of eneral a riculture and a ke contri utor to econo ic ro th and develo ent In addition it has the ca acit to earn revenue for the overn ent It rovides e lo ent food far ener anure fuel and trans ort uru ako a stated that livestock es eciall ru inant roduction is the ost efficient user of uncultivated land and evidentl contri utes to cro roduction fficient cro livestock inte ration s ste s have the tendenc of allo in nutrients to e rec cled ore effectivel on the far there enhancin cro ield nder such a s ste livestock can e fed on cro residues like stra da a ed fruits and rains as ell as other roducts that ould have osed a a or aste dis osal ro le ako aIt is esti ated that annual do estic and i orted slau hterin accounts for around illion cattle ith a livestock value of a out illion an cattle are arketed ell into the rain season a une hen rices are lo uch as elo arket rices he rices eak fro cto er to anuar as uch as a ove arket rices onnet et al and e e stated that cattle are the ost redo inant and hi hl valued livestock in i eria ot ithstandin its acclai ed relevance the su sector tends to la a decreasin role in national develo ent in vie of its contri ution to the countr s a ricultural ross do estic roduct ivestock as a ercenta e of a ricultural as as hi h as in and o ever the share has dro ed over ti e to in and in and i ilar trends ere recorded in the su sector s ercenta e contri ution to the countr s non oil and total here the recorded shares ere and res ectivel as at iako and la ode he cattle value chain tends to solve ro le s of une lo ent and ealth creation It has een utili ed in develo ent and research to ca ture the interactions of increasin l d na ic and co le arkets in develo in countries and to e a ine the inter relationshi s et een diverse actors involved at all sta es of the arketin channel a linsk olan and u hre itter and a linsk onte ch it and norrin a iulani et al air and eters ietro elli and aliola oreover oin e ond fir or activit s ecific anal sis value chain anal sis allo s for an assess ent of the linka es et een and a on st roductive activities arl et al noted that the a roach rovides a fra e ork to anal se the nature and deter inants of co etitiveness in value chains in hich s all far ers can artici ate It also rovides the asic understandin needed for desi nin and i le entin a ro riate develo ent ro ra s and olicies to su ort arket artici ation accordin to eutsche esellschaft f r echnische usa enar eit er an r anisation for echnical oo eration ivestock s ste s are characteri ed lon arketin chains featurin reat distances nu erous hases of ei ht ain and feedin re i es an levels of traders and transactions a ultitude of ste s and sta es of rocessin and a variet of e lo ent creatin services and in uts n the consu er side the deliver of livestock roducts throu h infor al arkets tends to serve oor consu ers creatin an even ti hter focus on the oor ica ia arra lso it a ears that overn ent intervention in the sector is lo and the effect oorl understood o oso eo le are of the oru a ethnic rou the lar est sin le ethnic rou in i eria oth ri ar and secondar data ere used in the stud ri ar data ere collected usin structured uestionnaires infor al intervie s and focus rou discussions econdar data ere sourced fro the inistr of riculture and ederal e art ent of ivestock and est ontrol u a o oso is one of three a ricultural ones in o state o oso north south and riire local overn ents ere ur osivel selected ort res ondents ere rando l selected for four actors in three local overn ents ithin the stud area akin a total of res ondents i ure lo chart of sa lin rocedureOriire local government Ogbomoso north Ogbomoso south 10 cattle producers 10 marketers 10 processors 10 Consumers 10 cattle producers 10 marketers 10 processors 10 Consumers 10 cattle producers 10 marketers 10 processors 10 Consumers nal tical tools olic anal sis atri he three rinci al ur oses of the ethodolo are to rovide infor ation and anal sis in olic akin in these three central areas of a ricultural olic he construction of a for an a ricultural s ste allo s one to calculate rivate rofita ilit a easure of the co etitiveness of the s ste at actual arket rices second ur ose of the a roach is to esti ate the a ricultural s ste s social rofita ilit the result if roducts roduced and in uts used are valued in efficienc rices social o ortunit costs he third ur ose of anal sis is to easure the transfer effects of olicies olic anal sis atri ta leCosts Profits rada le in uts do estic factors rivate rices ocial rices iver ence and efficient olic I ote to the ta le rivate rofits easures co etitiveness in actual arket rices ocial rofits easures efficienc co arative advanta e in efficienc rices ut ut transfers easures diver ences in revenues caused distortions in out ut rices In ut transfers stands for diver ences in trada le in ut costs caused distortions in trada le in ut rices actor transfers re resents diver ences in do estic factor costs caused distortions in do estic factor rices et transfers is the net transfer effect arisin fro the total i act of all diver ences rofita ilit coefficient or easures the incentive effects of all olices affectin the roduction of the selected roducts rivate cost ratio is the uotient et een the cost of the do estic factors valued at rivate rices and the value added hich is also calculated at rivate rices he s ste ill e co etitive if the uotient is lo er than or e ual to unit o estic resource cost ratio is the uotient et een do estic factor costs valued at social rices and the value added also co uted at social rices u sid atio to roducer or ratio easures the net transfer to the far in s ste as a ro ortion of the total social inco e enerated it allo s the anal st to discover to hat e tent econo ic olic is su sidi in the s ste hi h oints to a lack of co etitiveness as the s ste s financial via ilit tends to de end on olitical decisions ocial enefit cost ratio for each s ste and then co arin these ratios across all the s ste s he is e ual to the ratio of social revenues to social costs or o inal rotection coefficient on trada le out uts sho ed ho uch do estic rices differ fro social rices o inal rotection coefficient on trada le in uts I sho ed ho uch do estic rices of trada le in uts differ fro their social rices ffective rotection coefficient co ares valued added in do estic rices ith value added in orld rices he ur ose of the is to sho the oint effect of olic transfers affectin oth trada le out uts and trada le in uts he is a variant of the ffective ate of rotection a co on easure of trade distortionsud et for roducers he cattle roducer ud et sho s a cost of calves at rivate rices at a ainst a social rice of indicatin that the cost of calves at rivate value as hi h co ared to the international rice lso there is a ide difference et een rivate la our costs and social la our costs at as resented in a le elo here as little difference et een the rivate and social value of ca ital a le a le ar ud et for cattle roducers er head ru s used in de or in are an in ut used in cattle roduction he rivate value of de or er as to raise a co to salea le ei ht hile its social value as he total in ut cost at rivate value as a ainst a social value of er co he rivate out ut value er co as of k er co hile its social value as of k er co he rrofit ar in resented at rivate value as a ainst a social value of he ud et sho ed that roducin at social rice as etter than roducin at rivate rice for roducers he data entries in the first ro of a le sho the o served revenue and cost reflectin hat rice far ers actuall a or receive rivate rofita ilit as ositive and esti ated at er cattle head his sho s the rofita ilit of cattle roducers in the area and rovides a sti ulus for e istin fir s to increase out ut and for other fir s to enter the usiness ocial rofita ilit as also ositive and esti ated at eanin that the cattle roducer ained for ever co roduced and the s ste had co arative advanta e his is an incentive for the e ansion of the activities he third ro sho s the diver ences or differences et een the first ro rivate valuation and the second ro social valuation ositive out ut transfer of as o tained indicatin that rivate revenue e ceeded social revenue a ood indication that overn ent su sidi es out ut rices o ever it also i lies that consu ers are urchasin the co odit at rices reater than international arket rices there encoura in the i ort of eef roducts In ut transfer as ositive and esti ated at indicatin that rivate cost of trada le in uts is hi her than their social cost that is overn ent ta es trada le in uts and local rices ere hi her than those revailin in the international arkets actor transfer as ositive and esti ated at sho in that the social value of the do estic factor is lo er than its rivate value an indication that overn ent ta ed the do estic factor of roduction he net effect of olic as ositive and esti ated at his indicated that the overall effect of olicies as in favour of cattle roducers in the short run a le ta le cattle roducers Indicator ratio of cattle roducers he rivate cost ratio of indicates that the roduction s ste is co etitive and roducers could enter the s ste he do estic resource cost ratio of indicates that the countr has a co arative advanta e in roducin cattle and akin efficient use of do estic resources he of sho s the resence of su sid in cattle roduction he I of indicates the effect of distortions in cattle roduction as a result of the resence of su sid on in uts he of sho s a ositive effect of olic su ort in the roduction rocess he rofita ilit coefficient as reater than indicated and easured the incentive effects of all olices affectin the roduction of cattle u sid atio to roducer of is an indication that the s ste is ta ed there reducin the a ilit of roducers to e ort a le a le Indicator ratios for roducers he data entries in the first ro of a le sho the o served revenue and cost reflectin hat rice far ers actuall a or receive he rivate rofita ilit as ositive esti ated at er cattle head his sho s the rofita ilit of cattle arketers in the area and rovides sti ulus for e istin fir s to increase out ut and for other fir s to enter the usiness ocial rofita ilit as ne ative esti ated at eanin that arketers lose for ever co arketed and the s ste has a co arative disadvanta e as such e ansion under the resent s ste should not e considered he diver ence calculation sho s that a ositive out ut transfer of as o tained indicatin that rivate revenue e ceeded social revenue a ood indication that overn ent su sidi es out ut rices ut also i l in that consu ers are urchasin the co odit at rices hi her than international arket rices as such i ortation of the roduct is encoura ed In ut transfer as ositive and esti ated at hich indicated that the rivate cost of trada le in uts is hi her than the social cost his indicates that overn ent ta es trada le in ut efficienc could e achieved throu h an increase in use of these in uts he factor transfer as ositive and as esti ated at his sho ed that the social value of the do estic factor is lo er than the rivate value an indication that overn ent ta es do estic factors of the roduction he net effect of olic as ositive and esti ated at his indicates that the overall effect of olicies as in favour of arketers in the short run a le a le arketers evenue ost of trada le in ut ost of do estic factor rofitSocial values 88,000 iver ences 30,500 2,500Indicator ratios arketers he rivate cost ratio of indicates that the s ste is co etitive and ore arketers could enter the s ste do esticall he do estic resource cost ratio as ne ative esti ated at his indicates that the countr has a co arative advanta e in e ortin cattle and the cost of do estic resources used in the s ste as less than the contri ution of its value added at social rices he of sho s the resence of su sid on cattle roduction he I of indicates the effect of distortions in cattle roduction as a result of resence su sid on in uts he of sho s the ne ative effect of overn ent and its intervention in the sector he rofita ilit coefficient as less than one as indicated sho in that a ents ere transferred out of the s ste he su sid ratio to roducer of as an indication that the s ste as ta ed hich affected the arketers ne ativel in the international arket a le a le Indicator ratio cattle arketers rocessors he data entries in a le sho the o served revenue and cost reflectin hat rice far ers actuall a or receive rivate rofit as ositive and esti ated at er cattle head his rovides sti ulus for e istin fir s to increase out ut and for other fir s to enter the usiness ocial rofita ilit as ne ative esti ated at eanin that rocessors ere losin for each rocessed co the s ste had a co arative disadvanta e and should not e e anded as it is he differences sho a ositive out ut transfer of indicatin that rivate revenue e ceeds social revenue hich is a ood indication of overn ent su sid It also i lies that consu ers are urchasin the co odit at rices reater than international arket rices hich encoura es i ortation of the roduct In ut transfer as ositive and esti ated at indicatin that the rivate cost of trada le in ut is hi her than the social cost actor transfer as ositive and esti ated at sho in that the social value of the do estic factor is lo er its rivate hich sho s that overn ent ta es the do estic factor of the roduction he net effect of olic as ositive and esti ated at his sho s that the overall effect of olicies as in favour of rocessors in the short run a le rocessors evenue ost of trada le in ut ost of do estic factor rofitSocial values 88,000 iver ences 12,300Indicator ratios rocessors he rivate cost ratio of indicates that the s ste is co etitive and ore rocessors could enter the s ste he do estic resource cost ratio as ne ative and esti ated at sho in that the countr has a co arative advanta e in rocessin cattle also the cost of do estic resources used in the s ste as less than the contri ution of its value added at social rices he of sho s the resence of su sid on cattle roduction he I of sho s the effect of distortions in cattle roduction as a result of the su sid on in uts he of indicates a ne ative effect of overn ent and its intervention in the sector he rofita ilit oefficient as less than one as indicated sho in that a ents ere transferred out of the s ste he of is an indication that the s ste is ta ed hich affected the rocessors ne ativel a le a le Indicator ratio cattle rocessors he cattle value chain in i eria is a via le econo ic sector that is ca a le of contri utin to national develo ent throu h e lo ent creation attle roducers are the est rotected of all the i erian overn ent is akin ood ro ress in ter s of the availa ilit of do estic in ut in the sector and the s ste is safe for investors evertheless arketers and rocessors should e assisted the overn ent to e a le to sta in the s ste arketers need to e financed and trained to raise the standard of rocessin to international levels o estic factors used arketers and rocessors ere ta ed overn ent needs to su sidi e these factors a iland ater and riculture evelo ent nter rise a iland s du e c air or stract he vast a orit of a iland s illion eo le de end on su sistence far in for their livelihoods hich has een drasticall handica ed a stru lin econo and recent drou hts linked to cli ate chan e I hich is the onl a attoir licensed to e ort to the international arket is stru lin to et enou h fattened ani als fro local feedlots and the countr also i orts a lot eef fro the e u lic of outh frica to eet local de and i h cost of co lete i ed ration has een identified to ne ativel reduce the rofita ilit of fattenin cattle esults of trials conducted at the o er sutu s all scale irri ation ro ect I and the o ati do nstrea develo ent ro ect fattenin usin fodder cro s ello ai e a ier ucuna lucerne a ro roducts olasses ai e stover and chicken litter indicate that si nificant ei ht ains can e achieved ithin three to four onths at Introduction eedlottin involves the feedin of eef cattle ith a rotein alanced hi h ener diet for a eriod of to da s under confine ent to increase live ei hts and i rove de ree of finish and thus o tain etter rades at the a attoir e and for eef re ains stron in frica des ite ost roducers lookin to ro e orts into the uro ean nion and other international arkets ro industrial roducts fodder cro s and cro residues re resent a vast ani al feed resource hich is as et lar el une loited he livestock industr is an i ortant su sector of a iland s national econo he a rarian sector contri utes a out of the total do estic e ort earnin s of hich livestock accounts for out of this contri ution could e attri uted to cattle and the rest to the oultr su sector ation for ulation is the rocess of co inin an assort ent of feed in redients into a ration that ill eet the nutrient re uire ents of ani als for the intended ur ose of roduction alanced ration is one that rovides all the re uired nutrients in ro ortions and a ounts that ill ro erl nourish a iven ani al for hours he oal of an feedin ro ra is to rovide the correct a ount and alance of nutrients to ani als at the ro er ti e to achieve the desired level of erfor ance and rofita ilit In order to for ulate rations and redict erfor ance of ani als fed a iven ration it is necessar to redict intake hich is usuall a out of od ei ht on a dr atter asis ations are nutritionall alanced and for ulated to eet the nutrient re uire ents of ani als oth for aintenance and roduction In the case of feedlot ani als roduction refers to od ei ht ain and chan es in od condition hus feedlot ani als re uire nutrients for aintenance and od ei ht ain he ration ust e alanced in such a a that it rovides a on st othersufficient uantit of ener ieldin nutrients• ufficient uantit and ade uate ualit of roteins• ufficient ulk or rou ha e for nor al ru en function he asic o ective of this stud as to e a ine the ro th res onse of local cattle reeds finished on fodder ased rations other than usin the co ercial eef fattenin fro ei ht of entr to ei ht at arketin and to identif constraints so that i rove ent strate ies i ht e for ulated he research has een and is ein carried out on the otential of these roducts fodder cro s and cro residues and to e loit their use on feedlot ani als nutrition aterials and ethods he ta le elo sho s all the results of the three feedlots na el the de o centres in eni and utsa lo hese sho the avera es er ani al in each of the feedlots he initial ei ht avera es ran ed fro k to k he avera e da s s ent in the feedlots ran ed fro to and dail ei ht ains ran ed fro an avera e of k to k he sellin rices are also sho n as ran in fro a iland lilan eni to he feed e enses ran ed fro to he feed e enses ere ased on hich as the cost er da at er kilo ra in a feed ration of k er da he la our costs ere ased on a la our cost of er da er feedlot here one la ourer as hired er feedlot hese costs ere s read over the da s s ent on avera e each ani al and also the nu er of ani als in the feedlots e o centre in eni and utsal o had and ani als res ectivel he la our cost as hi hest at utsa lo due to there ein fe ani als and therefore the fi ed la our cost as s read over fe ani als he ost rofita le feedlot as the de o centre ith a rofit of er ani al hile in eni had a er ani al rofit utsa lo incurred a loss of a le roduction and rofita ilit anal sis actuals and ro ections o ro ection scenarios ere created to e lore the differences et een and run feedlots he initial ei hts ere set at k for oth feedlots he da s on feedlot er ani al ere set at for the and for the and dail ei ht ains of k and k res ectivel he sellin rices ere ased on er k for oth and urchase rices ere set at er k he feed e enses ere ased on a dail ration of k er ani al for oth scenarios and the feed for as and as er ration a our is costed at er da throu h the avera e da s s ent each ani al in the feedlot under each feed re i e he rofit er ani al for as ore than ore than for the feedin re i e scenario he ro ections sho that is ore via le and etter than the feedin re i e  ti al utili ation of fodder cro s even thou h the ani als take lon er to e read for arket and the ei ht ain er da is lo er than ith co ercial feed considera l increases ani al roduction hel s to reduce the ackno led ed ani al rotein deficit and lo ers the cost of feed roduction resultin in i roved net rofits eco endations e art ent of cono ics e re irhan niversit thio ia orres ondin author ir a assie h enior ricultural arket cono ist I ddis a a thio ia tesfahun c iar or stract he roductivit of the livestock sector in thio ia is constrained several factors includin lo accessi ilit of services and in uts and lack of a ell or ani ed arketin s ste ar households access to ke a ricultural services is e ected to i rove the erfor ance of the sector ocusin on s all ru inants this research addresses t o related uestions is there an considera le difference in ter s of technical efficienc et een those ho have no access to ke services and those ho have access to one or ore of the services nd is there an causalit et een these differences in the technical efficienc of s all ru inant roduction and access to services he services considered in this stud are a ricultural e tension rural credit and arket infor ation for shee and oats his research as undertaken in seven sites of different roduction s ste s coverin nine districts sa le of far households ere intervie ed to enerate ri ar data he stud e lo ed stochastic frontier anal sis to esti ate technical efficienc and ulti valued treat ent effects odellin to esti ate the effect of access to a ricultural services on the technical efficienc of s all ru inant roduction he results of the anal ses could not esta lish an relationshi ith the three ke services i e a ricultural e tension on shee and oats rural credit for shee and oats and arket infor ation on shee and oats and the technical efficienc of shee and oat roduction o ke uestions e anate fro the anal sis are the services ro erl desi ned nd are the ein delivered the ri ht a thio ia needs to look into these uestions carefull and res onsi l Keywords ulti valued treat ent effect s all ru inants stochastic frontier anal sis technical efficienc Introduction all ru inants shee and oats have eculiar econo ic i ortance in rural thio ia he rovide of the national eat consu tion and of the value of hide and skin roduction iche et al hee and oats have an advanta es over lar e ru inants for ost s allholder far ers includin lo er feed costs uicker turnover eas ana e ent and a ro riate si e at slau hter e a et al onkin ilson and orrical he also have reater tolerance to less favoura le conditions sufferin less ortalit durin eriods of drou ht than lar e ru inants esta et al alal In addition su sistence far ers refer shee and oats as the risk of losin lar e ru inants is often ver hi h iche et al o ever the erfor ance of the livestock sector has een re orted to e ver lo efekadu and erhanu he sector is do inated e tensive roduction s ste s here indi enous reeds are ke t under lo in ut lo out ut hus andr ractices he constraints that li it the roductivit of the sector are oor enetics that result in lo roduction and lo re roductive erfor ance oor ualit and var in seasonal availa ilit of feed hi h disease incidence and arasite challen es lo accessi ilit of services and in uts and lack of a ell or ani ed arketin s ste as currentl infor al arketin do inates e iIn articular the roductivit of thio ian shee and oats is lo the ro slo l and kid ortalit is hi h here is an ur ent need to increase the roductivit of shee and oats to i rove household inco e and nutrition and to eet the de ands of the ro in hu an o ulation and forei n arkets evelo in efficient in ut deliver s ste s kno led e ased ani al hus andr includin feedin reedin housin and healthcare cost effective arketin and efficient and e uita le su l chains have all een identified as i ortant interventions recent national stud has revealed ased on co rehensive data that s all ru inants are ke t essentiall as li uid assets to e uickl converted to cash at ti es of need hee and oats of s allholder far ers are su lied to the arket live assie et al hese live ani als are channelled throu h oth for al and infor al arketin s ste s ith the latter s ste do inant e i here are three channels in the do estic arket consu ers u live ani als fro a arket and slau hter the selves or consu ers urchase eat fro a arket or at utchers sho s he actors in the live ani al trade are roducers local traders iddle or lar er scale traders utchers and consu ers le a ehu he ain ani al collection oints for ost e ort a attoirs and live ani al e orters are urchasin a ents assi ned in a or arketin areas s all and lar e scale traders and livestock tradin coo eratives se ede et al e ese et alIt is ell docu ented that arket infrastructure such as live ani al trans ortation facilities i roved a attoirs sheds radin s ste s and uarantine facilities are a on the ost i ortant constraints on livestock arketin in thio ia shetu and raha avanello ue to the a sence of all eather roads and trans ortation services far ers usuall trek their ani als over lon distances ou led ith the a sence of other infrastructure such as feedin and aterin trou hs this ould result in live ei ht loss h sical in ur eat ualit loss and so eti es the death of ani als eta et al a i nother ke challen e of livestock arketin in thio ia is lack of arket infor ation and oor arket services e i roducers lack arket infor ation roducers also fail to res ond to rice chan es le a ehu nteneh et al oor arket infrastructure li its the efficienc of livestock arketin In thio ia a out arket centres are reco ni ed the overn ent ut are not ell or ani ed to rovide aterin feedin restin and uarantine facilities the situation is orse in astoral areas nteneh et al In addition lack of arket services si nificantl under ines the arket ar ins far ers enerate fro their a ricultural roducts and elevate the rices the a for a ricultural roducts hen involved as u ers he transaction costs of arkets in eneral and livestock arkets in articular are uite hi h due to a on other issues lack of trans ort facilities that force arketers to trek their ani als lack of feed and aterin services in and around the arkets lack of veterinar services around arkets lack of handlin facilities and lack of arket infor ation i h transaction costs and infor ation ro le s resent challen es in the coordination of su l chains hich often leads to underinvest ent in stora e and handlin facilities undersu l of finance and lar e intra and inter seasonal rice fluctuations hich under ine arket artici ation and co etitiveness ccess to a ro riate arket infor ation is one of the a or constraints on s all ru inant arketin identified different e irical studies in thio ia e e et al ocho et al t national level usin data collected fro selected arkets the entral tatistical enc has ut in lace a echanis to disse inate onthl avera e livestock roducers livestock rices includin the rice of shee and oats for different secondar and ter inal arkets of the countr o ever these rice data are ainl collected fro a or to n arkets to hich far ers fro re ote rural areas i ht have li ited access and hence little use is ade of the data I ivestock Infor ation et ork and no led e ste a su ro ect in the lo al livestock colla orative research su ort ro ra e also rovides arket infor ation on re uest usin radio and other edia oreover a stud conducted I hich as art of the first atte t to esta lish a national livestock arket infor ation s ste sho s the resence of an or ani ations hich collect livestock infor ation ut also the resence of overla s and unusa le infor ation ac i o et al es ite the a ove li ited efforts in thio ia there is no docu ented evidence on arket infor ation services to s allholder s all ru inant far ers i ilarl ani al health service in thio ia is considered as e tre el lo and the a orit of the services are rovided overn ental institutions e ede et al il er and ritchett u ale and aria esta In there ere four federal and fourteen re ional la oratories district and su district level clinics and ani al health osts inistr of riculture o ccordin to a surve esti ate the overn ent veterinar service satisfied onl of the veterinar service needed o he rivate sector also has li ited artici ation in the ani al health service deliver s ste ut is ainl involved in the sellin of dru s and offerin veterinar clinics i at et al or e a le in there ere onl district and su district level rivate clinics and rivate dru stores o o ared to the t e and total nu er of livestock in the countr the ualit and e tent of ani al health services rovided easured availa le service rovided and e tent of health infor ation transfer is still ini al In for instance the total covera e of s all ru inant vaccination as and for shee and oats res ectivel entral tatistics enc i ilarl the ro ortion of shee and oats that ere afflicted and treated for various diseases as and res ectivel hereas the avera e disease re ortin rate fro to as hich is reall ver lo o ivestock e tension services in thio ia is also a ne lected area of intervention and hence inade uate to the countr s livestock o ulation assa assa or instance the total nu er of livestock holders artici atin in livestock e tension acka es in as less than and of these a out ere even involved in dair oultr and hone and a develo ent acka es his i licitl indicates the availa ilit of li ited e tension acka es for s all ru inants ther e irical studies also sho that a ricultural e tension services rovided for s all ru inant roduction are ini al eta et al rainin can uild the ca acit of far ers to take technolo ies and ado t the easil u eufa and a adi lthou h various ro ect ased efforts ere ade to train s allholder roducers roadl s eakin ca acit uildin efforts in s all ru inant roduction are inade uate in the countr oreover availa le s all ru inant a ricultural e tension services in the countr ainl focus on the rovision of in uts such as i roved reeds i roved feed and ani al health services ccess to financial services has a si nificant contri ution to i rovin roduction and roductivit of livestock in develo in countries In thio ia financial services are ainl rovided for al institutions like icrofinance institutions Is co ercial anks and insurance co anies e i for al institutions like savin and credit associations and other infor al local institutions includin iddir, equb and individual one lenders are also availa le elativel a on the availa le for al and se i for al financial institutions s allholder far ers have ainl access to Is and savin and credit coo eratives s he li ited access of s allholder far ers to for al financial institutions a e e lained different reasons includin their collateral de and availa ilit in rural areas o ever strate ies that hel oor household far ers to access financial services have een develo ed the ational ank of thio ia to ether ith non overn ental or ani ations s since late ied aier fister ontri uted a er session ivestock roduction efficienc and arketin 203et al oreover the overn ent of thio ia to ether ith other s has also een i le entin different rural finance inter ediation ro ra s to i rove access to financial services oor rural households International und for ricultural evelo ent I ederal e ocratic e u lic of thio ia o ared to in uts for cro roduction like fertili er and i roved seed credit access for livestock roduction is ver scant and li ited adesse et al here is a eneral consensus that rural services should e ade accessi le to far households to i rove their livelihoods lthou h this is a trivial reco endation to ake there is rarel e irical evidence as to hether the services availa le to rural co unities are contri utin to the etter ent of the societies he case of s all ru inant kee ers in thio ia is a case in oint uch research has su ested the rovision of ti el and afforda le deliver of services to s all ru inant kee ers in thio ia ernard iel an ato et al erhanu oulton o ues o ever there has never een an effort to the est of our kno led e to investi ate hether the services availa le for s all ru inant kee ers are affectin their roductivit or technical efficienc his stud therefore ai s at assessin the i act of access to ke services on the technical efficienc of s all ru inant kee ers in rural co unities of thio ia usin nationall re resentative data ethodolo ultivalued treat ent effects odellin he ain uestion e are tr in to ans er here is hether there are an considera le differences in ter s of technical efficienc et een s all ru inant kee ers ho have access to ke livestock services and those ho have not he s all ru inant services considered in this stud are a ricultural e tension rural credit and arket infor ation In treat ent effects lan ua e those ho have access to the services are considered treated and those ho have not are called the control rou he anal tical fra e ork to esti ate the individual and co ined effects of the access to the different rural services is laid out elo usin the otential outco es fra e ork follo in attaneo et al I ens echner inden et al sal ollo in the se inal a ers u in and osen au and u in nu erous scientific efforts have een ade and e tensions of the treat ent effect fra e ork for the inar treat ent case have een develo ed I ens osen au u in I ens u in I ens ooldrid e ot all treat ents are dichoto ous hence this fra e ork as e anded for odellin the effects of ultivalued treat ents I ens echner ultivalued treat ents refer to cases in hich each su ect could receive one of several different treat ents or not receive treat ent at all I ens ooldrid e e denote the otential outco e that household i ould o tain if iven treat ent level t as ti , here ti is the reali ation of the rando varia le t et i e our ultivalued treat ent varia le hich takes the inte er values et een and and i re resents the vector of re treat ent covariates or each individual i i in the sa le i ,T i and i are o served he indicator of receivin the treat ent t for individual i is denoted dit i and takes the alues or asor each individual there is a set of otential outco es i0, iK it denotes the otential outco e for each individual i for hich i t nl one of the otential outco es is o served de endin on the treat ent status do tin the otential outco es fra e ork of u in the o served outco e i can e ritten in ter s of treat ent indicator dit i and the otential outco es i . ) (everal air ise treat ent effects ere defined echner he first is the avera e effect of treat ent relative to treat ent l et k and k l denote the unconditional ean ik and the conditional ean ik i l for k l res ectivel sin the notation e can define the avera e treat ent effect over the entire o ulation hich is the avera e effect of ivin each household treat ent relative to treat ent l over the entire o ulation as . ] [(3) i ilarl the avera e effect on the treated hich is the e ected effect for a household rando l dra n fro the o ulation of artici ants ho receive treat ent is iven as here are different a s of esti atin these ara eters de endin on the data eneration rocess hen the data are enerated fro rando i ed e eri ents can e esti ated usin the sa le eans of o served outco es o ever hen data are enerated throu h o servational studies esti ation of re uires additional conditionin on i hich is assu ed to contain all confounders associated ith oth the treat ent assi n ent echanis and otential outco es sal I ens onditionin on i is ased on t o assu tions he first is the conditional inde endence assu tion I or eak unconfoundedness hich re uires that all deter inants of treat ent level and of the outco e varia le are o served I is s ecified as he second assu tion is the overla or co on su ort assu tion In the inar treat ent case this i lies that treated and control households need to have overla in ro ensit score or likelihood of accessin the services all else ein constant aliendo o eini uo raser or ultivalued treat ent effect esti ation I ens has for ulated the enerali ed ro ensit score as the conditional ro a ilit of receivin a articular level of treat ent iven the re treat ent varia les he is esti ated asI osin the enerali ed version of the overla assu tion the strict overla or co on su ort assu tion is s ecified as sal osen au and u in refer to the co ination of unconfoundedness and overla as stron i nora ilit ence under these assu tions the conditional e ectation of otential outco e for treat ent level t identified conditional e ectation of o served outco es of households receivin treat ent t is iven ashe unconditional eans can therefore e esti ated avera in these conditional eans eanin he odels here are various econo etric for ulations to esti ate the ara eters of interest in the treat ent effects fra e ork i e otential outco es and he a roaches can e clustered as ad ust ent usin covariates orontri uted a er session ivestock roduction efficienc and arketin 205ei hts and atchin e focus on esti ation of and of ultivalued treat ents ach of the odels used in the stud area is s ecified elo e ression ad ust ent ith the assu tion of i nora ilit one of the ost co on a s to ad ust for confoundin varia les and reduce ias is throu h the use of ulti le re ression odels that re ress the outco e on a set of covariates se aratel for each treat ent level after hich the redicted outco es for each su ect and treat ent level are co uted usin data onl fro the individuals receivin the relevant treat ent level ooldrid e he avera e of these redicted values esti ates the otential outco e eans hich can then e contrasted to esti ate avera e treat ent effects inden et al sal osen au u in he si lest ulti le re ression odel for this anal sis is an additive odel hich includes the ain effects for treat ent and other covariates ut e cludes otential interactions et een treat ent and other covariates in ollo in this a roach e can define the conditional ean functions of the otential outco es as follo shere β t β 0t β 1t is the vector of unkno n ara eters and β 1t has the sa e di ension as i fter esti atin the ara eter vector β t the avera e treat ent effect Δ l and avera e treat ent effect on the treated (Γ l can e esti ated contrastin esti ated otential outco e eans et een an t o treat ent levels sa l andInverse ro a ilit ei htin I I is one the four co on a s of usin the ro ensit score to reduce or ini i e the effects of confoundin hen esti atin the effects of treat ents on outco es i e atchin on the stratification on the covariate ad ust ent usin the and inverse ro a ilit of treat ent ei htin I usin the ustin iven the ultivalued treat ent in this case e use and as sho n I ens in the inar treat ent case e can identif the unconditional eans of the otential outco es ei htin o served outco es the conditional ro a ilit of the received treat enthe treat ent effect ara eters can therefore e iven asou l ro ust treat ent effects odelsIn this rou e have esti ated au ented inverse ro a ilit ei htin I and au ented inverse ro a ilit ith re ression ad ust ent I o et dou l ro ust esti ators for the treat ent effect ara eters sal and inden et al used a ei hted re ression ethod ith the ei hts related to the ei htin identification irano and I ens use the sa e a roach to esti ate inar treat ent effects ollo in the enerali ations for ultivalued treat ents develo ed sal the dou le ro ustness for the ro osed esti ation ethod i lies that if the ei hts are esti ated ased on a correct s ecification or if the otential outco es are correctl s ecified the resultin esti ator ill e consistent he dou l ro ust esti ator of can e derived esti atin the re ression odel that esti ates the unconditional eans as ( )a ei hted least s uares re ression ith the follo in ini i ation ro leor dou l ro ust esti ation of the avera e treat ent effect on the treated Γ l the unconditional eans odel for the treated rou iven as ( )ccordin l the ei hted esti ated re ression esti ators of t and αt solve the follo in ini i ation ro le a lin his stud used a co ination of ur osive and rando sa lin he stud sites and hence the districts ere selected ith the ur ose of develo in ench arks for the interventions of the lo al research initiative on s all ru inant value chain develo ent of hich thio ia is art irstl the intervention villa es ke eles and control villa es ke eles ere identified he ratio of nu er of intervention to nu er of control villa e ke eles as decided to e or if not ossi le hen the control villa es ke eles ere rando l selected a on the set of all nei h ourin villa es ke eles he list of households in the sa le intervention control villa es ke eles as develo ed fro a health service roster or that of ta collectors ased on the total nu er of households in each villa e ke ele e deter ined ro ortionall the nu er of households to e included in the sa le of households hen e identified the households usin the lotter ethod ith re lace ent In total the stud covered seven sites in nine districts here households ere visited in ke eles f the sa le roducers ere re resented in the intervie either the household head or the s ouse of the household head out of the sa le households ere fe ale headed ere ointl headed and the rest ere ale headed his sa le can e considered as re resentative of the s allholder roducers in the countr he districts are er elle a st i e erta o o ena orro en era en era hinille and a ello i ure a hee densit and the stud sites oat densit and the stud sites esults and discussion haracteristics of the sa le households he re ional distri ution of our total sa le sho s that the hara and ro ia re ions constituted each ere fro i ra ere fro southern thio ia and ere dra n fro the o ali re ion he avera e household si e as a out si ersons er fa il ran in fro to and the la our de endence ratio as co uted to e ran in fro to allest and hi hest avera e fa il si es ere o served in the ts i and o o ena districts res ectivel allest and hi hest avera e la our de endenc ratios ere o served in the en a a and hinille districts res ectivel e ale headed households have fe er de endents e ce t in the hinille district o ali re ion iterac at household level varies fro district to district ore than of the household e ers ere found to e illiterate in er ele a one hara re ion i uala a one hara re ion a ello ro ia re ion and hinille articularl in a ello half the sa le o ulation is illiterate Interestin l in al ost all re ions fe ale headed households have a lo er ro ortion of illiterate e ers enerall the evidence sho s that the dr lo lands a ear to e la in ehind in ter s of literac vera es of re orted land holdin ran e fro ha er household hinille to ha er household er elle he fi ures i ht need to e seen fro the ers ective that cro roduction is not so co on a on the a ro astoralists of hinille and the to o ra h and ualit of the far land in er elle under ines the otential enefit of the lar er ean si e of holdin s or the entire sa le the avera e nu er of lots and the total land o ned a iven household ere and ha res ectivel ana e ent of the far land holdin is an i ortant as ect of far ana e ent in rural thio ia In the stud areas household head and s ouse of the household head o n and or ana e al ost all the lots o ned ectedl ost of the land o ned the households is allocated for cro roduction In relative ter s far ers in en era and en a a hi hlands of al ine cli ate in central thio ia allocate a considera le si e of land for their livestock feedin feed roduction and ra in In all districts the i ortance of s all ru inants for the rural co unities is uite evident n avera e a sa le household kee s nine shee and ei ht oats his is uch hi her than the avera e holdin of cattle four er household and oultr three er household In the hi hland areas households kee ore shee than an other livestock hereas in the lo lands oats are fre uent In the idlands such as er elle oth shee and oats are co on he edian herd si e for shee kee in households is uite considera le in en era en a a and er elle o arativel the edian herd si e for oat kee in households is uite hi h in er elle i uala a ello and hinille all ru inants are ainl ke t for cash eneratin ur oses In a solute fi ures all households are net sellers of shee and oats e ce t those in o o ena here oat transaction see s not to e ha enin arkets are ore of an outlet than an inlet for oat roduction e ce t in o o ena al eit s all here sa le far ers use it as an inlet onl arkets are servin oth as inlets and outlets for shee even ore than for oats et arkets are ore i ortant for outflo s of shee than inflo s ar ers e lo te orall different arketin atterns for different a e and se rou s of shee and oats ar ers have li ited sellin o tions akin the shee and oat u ers arket he decision on hat shee and oat to sell and ho to s end the roceeds is redo inantl taken ointl the household head and the s ouse ar ers trek their ani als to and fro arkets for hours the avera e trek ran in fro to k ccess to rural services for hu an ein s and livestock as e lored in this stud ells and natural s rin s are the t o ost i ortant sources of ota le ater follo ed rivers and onds throu hout the ear for the sa le households or livestock rivers are the ost i ortant source of drinkin ater follo ed ells and s rin s viousl there is heav de endence on natural sources of ater i l in hi h vulnera ilit of the livestock roduction s ste to drou ht risk cono etric anal sis fficienc easures tochastic frontier odels ere esti ated to calculate the technical efficienc of s all ru inant roduction at household level e esti ated a o ou las roduction function to re ress total ross revenue in thio ian irr fro shee and oats on land si e o ned the household in hectares hired la our for s all ru inant roduction in hu an da s er annu total cost of veterinar services for shee and oat in er annu and total cost of roduced fodder in ccordin l e ill e re ortin onl results associated ith attese and oelli rocedures for the sake of revit he roduction function sho s that far ers are s endin uch ore than the should on feed and fodder roduction he result of the stochastic frontier odel sho s that the ross revenue fro s all ru inant roduction is ne ativel related to the cost ein incurred the households ther ise there is still the ossi ilit of increasin revenue fro s all ru inant roduction if far ers e lo ore la our and land and ake a hi her invest ent in veterinar services he esti ations sho that the avera e technical efficienc of s all ru inant roduction is and it ran es fro to a le he ean technical efficienc does not sho an eanin ful difference a on the households hen e var access to the different services treat ent levels he left side of the distri ution of the technical efficienc is ver lo a on households ith no access to an of the services of the total sa le and a on those ith access to a ricultural e tension and arket infor ation services of the total sa le a le echnical efficienc esti ates of households iven their access to services i ure sho s the kernel densit esti ation of the distri ution of the efficienc ter s ased on s ecified ith inefficienc ter distri uted truncated nor all and technical efficienc esti ated usin the attese and oelli ethod a on households in treat ent levels and ernel esti ates reveal a si ilar distri ution et een the t o rou s of households at each treat ent level e ce t the eak oints here those ith access to the services de ict hi her technical i ure ernel densit esti ates of the technical efficienc of s all ru inant roduction I i ure sho s the kernel densit esti ation of the distri ution of the efficienc ter s esti ated ased on a frontier odel ith e onentiall distri uted inefficienc ter and technical efficienc esti ated usin the attese and oelli ethod a on households in treat ent levels and he kernel esti ate of the distri utions that co are households ith no access ith those hich are accessin e tension and credit and ith households accessin arket infor ation and credit services sho lo er a i a co ared to other rou s i ure ernel densit esti ates of the technical efficienc of s all ru inant roduction II ontri uted a er session ivestock roduction efficienc and arketin 211I act of access to services on technical efficienc he eneral tendenc in assessin the i act of a ricultural technolo ies includin institutions focuses on develo in a cause and effect fra e ork et een the technolo ies and indicators of i act at the far end of the i act ath a an u lished orks sho si nificant i act of use or ado tion of i roved roduction technolo ies on far inco e a un a et al e elieve that efore i actin household level inco e e enditure or food securit a iven a ricultural technolo should enhance roductivit or increase efficienc of roduction ccordin l e e a ined hether there is an cause and effect relationshi et een access to the different services that are rovided to s all ru inant kee ers and their technical efficienc earl a third of the sa le households did not have access to an of these three services and onl of the households re orted havin een a le to access all three lthou h there is a lanket a ricultural service al ost throu hout the countr onl received e tension services eant for s all ru inants i ilarl onl and of the households received arketin infor ation and credit tar eted for s all ru inants res ectivel a le ccess to rural services for s all ru inants sa le households he treat ent effect odels esti ated have t o co onents the treat ent assi n ent and the treat ent effect co onents he treat ent assi n ent odel as esti ated usin the ultino ial lo it and the outco e odel as esti ated usin the e onential outco e odel It is clear that the services i ht have a s ner etic effect on the efficienc of far households and hence all co inations of the services ere considered vera e treat ent effect he results of the re ression ad ust ent odel reveal that the the effect e ould have o served had the entire o ulation een accessin all three services is eanin lo er technical efficienc of s all ru inant roduction he result fro this odel also sho s that the aseline technical efficienc ould have een had no one een accessin these three services at a ti e he esti ated usin the inverse ro a ilit ei htin odel also sho s that hen all far ers et access to credit for s all ru inants the avera e technical efficienc is esti ated to e less than hen no household receives the credit a le a le esti ates es ite the li ited nu er of statisticall si nificant relationshi s it see s that there is no cause and effect relationshi et een the three services considered and technical efficienc in s all ru inant roduction his stud does not clai that it has ca tured all sources of variation or that all varia les ere easured ithout error his caveat can ho ever hardl under ine the stron essa e the results reveal ontri uted a er session ivestock roduction efficienc and arketin 213 he desi n rovision odalities and ualities of rural services in thio ia rarel take the interests and ca a ilities of the tar eted co unities into consideration o ues aro i et al tudies have alread re orted that rural credit services had no statisticall si nificant i acts on ke elfare indicators includin net revenues or livestock o nershi han ata and e uaninte ricultural e tension services in rural thio ia ere also re orted to have i ed i act at household level technical efficienc and elfare or instance han ata and e uaninte re orted that havin access to a ricultural e tensions eans no si nificant difference in roductivit chan es and technical inefficiencies e rehi ot also re orted that a ricultural e tension services did not hel far ers in diversif in their inco e n the other hand ercon et al and e rehi ot have indicated that access to a ricultural e tension has a ositive and si nificant relationshi ith household elfarehis stud resented e irical evidence on the lack of an si nificant cause and effect relationshi et een access to three ke services and the technical efficienc of s all ru inant roduction in rural thio ia es ite the i ortance of a ricultural e tension services arket infor ation and icrofinancin s all ru inant kee ers do not see to access these services ith the re uired ualit and content he content and echanis of deliver of rural services has al a s een an issue of concern in thio ia des ite the continuous acro level effort to enhance far ers access to such services ederal e ocratic e u lic of thio ia s stated in the t o national strate docu ents i e ro th and transfor ation lan II and the thio ia livestock aster lan ha iro et al ithin the co in fe ears the overn ent has envisioned i rovin livestock roduction and roductivit throu h access to i roved a ricultural services he lans include i rovin u lic a ricultural service su ort ro ra s ca acit uildin and as ects of arket develo ent or instance a on other issues i rovin services on enetic selection rationali ation of u lic and rivate sector role in clinical services ro otion of feed efficienc re ovin dou le and ro otion of e orts esta lishin tracea ilit and ani al health ro ra s are included o ha iro et al In addition usin the lesson learned fro ricultural ro th ro ra e I there is a lan to i rove the infrastructure of availa le far ers trainin centres and the ca acit of e tension orkers o trate ies or local level lans can onl e as ood as the effectiveness of their i le entation o far at least as seen fro this nationall re resentative sa le there is no evidence that the services on e tension arket infor ation and rural credit are hel in s allholder s all ru inant kee ers i rove their efficienc e therefore su est the follo in for research and develo ent considerations It looks as if e tension services in s all ru inant roduction and roductivit are al ost non e istent herefore in addition to availa le acka es there is a need to develo ossi le e tension acka es fro e irical findin s that need to e used s allholder far ers in different conte ts he technolo acka es develo ed and rovided to far ers need to e co rehensive so that co le entar technolo ies are ade availa le to far ers for enhanced s ner at far level he arket incentives dictate far ers decision to artici ate in enetic i rove ent feedin strate ies and health ana e ent services o ever the attention iven to arketin and arket infor ation s ste s is still inade uate even in the current five ear thio ia livestock aster lan ccess to arket and arket infor ation could e a stron incentive for s allholder far ers to ado t i roved technolo ies and ana e ent s ste s herefore there is a need to desi n sustaina le and effective national and local strate ies that i rove s allholders access to arket and arket infor ation he role rural credit la s in e o erin rural co unities in eneral and s all ru inant kee ers in articular can hardl e overe hasi ed es ite the ra id ro th in ter s of covera e rural credit services usuall disa oint oor far ers ecause of their ri id re a ent schedules lack of risk allo ance and hi h interest rates ural credit services can la a ore roductive role if the le al fra e ork ithin hich icrofinance services are rovided are rela ed so that rivate financial institutions co e into the icture and create a co etitive environ ent i erian livestock far ers cannot increase roduction as a result of the afore entioned challen es a ital sur luses ust thus e transferred fro other sectors of the econo to the a riculture sector hich can e est facilitated credit institutions o o and untade his stud as conducted to ascertain the ro le s s allholder livestock far ers are havin in accessin credit facilities to oost the actors in the livestock value chain he findin s fro the ro ects that co rise the s all scale far ers in ederal a ital erritor u a aduna and assra a states that undertake oat roduction sho that ost oat far ers visited and intervie ed did not receive an su ort fro the tate overn ent due to lack of collateral shorta e of funds and unavaila ilit of lans o ever so e of the visited oultr far ers ere receivin so e financial su ort econdar data ere used for this stud fro the eto o i and la un u re ort that of far ers o tain credit fro esusu credit coo eratives a ainst ho o tain the sa e fro co ercial anks in south estern i eria easons adduced for this reliance are an includin a dearth of rural anks distance fro loan office lo far inco e and ti e la et een loan a lication and dis urse ent fro for al sources e e re arks that the o ectives of coo erative associations are to ool ca ital resources la our for far ork rovision of financial assistance to e ers in need and co unit develo ent uch involve ent ould lead to i roved a ricultural roduction and rural develo ent urther ore it ould lead to hi her inco es and etter ualit of life for the rural o ulation and fattenin and finishin livestock activities his a er su ests that far ers need to for coo erative societies and associations to oost their de ands for livestock a ricultural loans e lore the a ricultural value chain in oat roduction and increase the ca ital ase of s allholder livestock far ers in northern i eria Keywords: ivestock financin far ers i eria Introduction oo an difficulties are e erienced co ercial and easant livestock far ers in the northern re ion of i eria in accessin funds as can e seen in the roduction reservation trans ortation arketin and ca ital needed in the sourcin of feed kick startin of livestock roduction and advanced technolo needed to e and the livestock usinesses It also oses a securit ro le to the countr as herds en ra e their cattle ovin fro one lace to another in search of fodder and rasses hich results in the destruction of far land fre uent clashes et een herds en and cro far ers and the livestock ein at hi h risk of ein ille all slau htered cattle rustlers he livestock industr rovides a eans of livelihood for a si nificant ro ortion of rural astoral fa ilies in the su hu id and se i arid ecolo ical ones of i eria ccordin to the ood and riculture r ani ation of the nited ations an esti ated rural households derived so e inco e fro the dair industr in t resent i eria has illion co s hole fresh ilk ani als head It as also noted that it rovides a eans of e lo ent for the cattle ulani here an avera e erson in the o ulace of northern i eria ill also earn fro the sales of eat and the rocessin of co s ilk or e a le the various activities of the i erian northern dair industr are centred on ilk roduction i ortation rocessin arketin and consu tion and these have een oin on for over ears hese activities are ho ever unor ani ed e ce t for the relativel fe rocessin fir s that roduce and arket reconstituted ilk roducts fro i orted o dered ilk his akes it difficult for the to access ank loans es ite the unor ani ed nature of the industr the dair industr re resents an i ortant co onent of the a ricultural sector of the econo ith reat econo ic nutritional and social i lications laloku ahu a he needs of livestock far ers ust e catered for and thus this a er ill stud and evaluate the different areas in hich northern i eria s livestock roducers need assistant in res ect to accessi ilit of funds and the various ottlenecks associated ith northern livestock far ers lack of access to credit in i eria s a ricultural s ste s he different areas in hich i eria s northern livestock roducers ill need assistance in res ect to livestock far in ike cattle s all ru inants are found al ost ever here in i eria here are esti ated to e a total of ore than illion head ith oats outnu erin shee hese ani als are ke t ostl for their eat and skins oatskin roduction as so e tonnes of fresh skins in he are slau htered for eat durin festive occasions and are slau htered dail to au ent the su l of eat in oth ur an and rural areas lthou h so e seasonal ove ent of astoral shee does take lace the reat a orit of s all ru inants are sedentar villa e livestock and their atterns of distri ution irror those of hu an settle ent he traditional s ste of feedin oats and shee in i eria is ased on the use of kitchen aste and a ricultural roducts and ro sin scaven in he various ro le s associated ith northern livestock far ers in accessin credi le loans in i eria iven the hi h rate of livestock roduction of ru inant and non ru inant ani als in northern i eria there is an ur ent need for the ederal inistr of riculture and ural evelo ent to e in to esta lish s ecial funds that ill cater for household and co ercial livestock far ers or instance the data on ru inant livestock o ulation fro the ears to clearl sho the nu er of the cattle oats shee asses horses and ca els roduced durin the ear ithout ade uatel takin into consideration all for s of the rocess of ana e ent and kee in ade uate records of the different roduction sta es of the livestock it ill e ver difficult for an avera e far er to et a suita le ank loan althou h so e far ers a o tain one for their various livestock chain ractices ithout ade uate record kee in nou h infor ation a out availa ilit and the different rocedures should e disse inated to the livestock far ers the overn ent It as also o served that an livestock far ers are scattered akin it difficult for the ederal overn ent of i eria to rovide the necessar infor ation to the on funds availa le data ase of livestock far ers is needed to evaluate their needs understand the different livestock chains and stud the various ro le s to hel address far ers ro le s na el a uita ilit of the livestock usiness risk and uncertaint here there is no evidence or roof of o nershi and it is ver difficult to rove that one lent ill e aid ack and ell s ent on the livestock usiness ack of collateral for loans to northern i erian far ers and infor ation a out ho far ers should a roach the hole rocess c he lon rocedures hich are involved in seekin and re a in loans hich are so tedious that an far ers are discoura ed fro a l in d he hi h interest rate ein de anded the anks hich so e far ers cannot afford added to the tedious docu entation rocedures eoor ana e ent those far ers ho do not have enou h infor ation a out the livestock and far roduction and oor record kee in f oor insurance olicies for far ers as ost have no insurance olic and the anks ill not take an for of risk o or non availa ilit of credi le loans for i erian livestock far ers h he lo de and for the different a ricultural roducts in the northern art of the countr and the fe eo le undertakin different t es of livestock roduction there i neven and ine uita le distri ution of ealth resources a on avera e livestock far ers in i eriahe various e lanations and issues discussed a ove have sho n that northern i eria livestock far ers are e eriencin difficulties in accessin the loans needed to su ort the his discussion is ti el ecause the various challen es faced i erian far ers are concurrentl faced ulani cattle herds en and the consu tion of all for s of dair roducts fro livestock his a er also stresses the role of coo erative societies and associations in hich funds can e dis ursed to hel the livestock far ers and the need of ste u trainin on docu entation roactivel en a in far ers in record kee in ll these ractices ill o a lon a to encoura in anks to loan one and the esta lish ent of a s ecial fund for easant far ers ill hel address the shorta e of funds in livestock rearin hile e oso 2 and oketso atsos e 3 1 International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) 2 niversit of e n land ustralia 3 ots ana niversit of riculture and atural ciences s ahta c iar or stract he ur ose of this stud is to anal se the do nstrea cattle su l chain and cattle far ers arketin ehaviour and decisions in ots ana he stud sheds so e li ht on the e istin uestion of h s allholder cattle far ers in ots ana ake relativel little use of the ots ana eat co ission livestock arkets the onl entit allo ed to e ort eef transaction cost a roach is a lied to a surve of livestock far ers fro three districts hich re resent diverse a ro ecolo ical ones of ots ana ur anal sis confir s the h othesis that transaction costs in the for of infor ation and search ne otiation and ar ainin and onitorin and enforce ent costs la a si nificant role in influencin the do nstrea cattle su l chain and arketin ehaviour of s allholder cattle far ers in ots ana he stud has otential olic i lications that hel olic akers hen desi nin olicies that i rove a ricultural arket structures and ro ote arket artici ation Introduction ivestock roduction is the ost i ortant a ricultural sector in ots ana and la s a si nificant role a on rural livelihoods and the econo contri utin ore than to the a ricultural ross do estic roduct It is also a si nificant forei n e chan e earner ith direct linka es to do estic sectors ran in fro rural su l and ur an de and of cattle to finance tatistics ots ana van n elen et al ver the ears different stakeholders includin the overn ent of ots ana have ut in lace different easures in an atte t to i rove the cattle industr roductivit enhancin easures infrastructural develo ent and i rovin arkets I rove ent of the livestock sector is vie ed as one of the otential a s to increase rural household inco es create sustaina le o s and invest ent o ortunities for the rural o ulation and drive econo ic diversification a a fro a ineral de endent econo es ite these olic efforts there is evidence that eef roductivit and rofita ilit have een declinin due to is ana e ent and the inefficient o erations of a attoirs cattle arketin arran e ents and far ers ahta and aker ahta and alo e e oso et al ven orse des ite the fact that ots ana eef en o s referential arket access in the uro ean nion there has een a decline and sta nation in eef e orts to the e tent that it has failed to fulfil its eef uota 1 van n elen et al herefore anal sis of e istin roduction and arketin structures the role of transaction costs and e istin artners is vital to understand far ers constraints in cattle roduction and arketin and e ected to rovide useful infor ation on ho to i rove the s ste o ever so far ost of the attention has focused ainl on the factors constrainin roduction and far roductivit rofita ilit e ahta and alo e e oso et al and little atte t has een ade to investi ate the constraints to cattle arketin in ots ana ast studies that investi ated the role of transaction costs in cattle arket artici ation in ots ana include khori and o el a and eleka he studies found that hi h transaction costs such as distance to arket arket infor ation and s eed of a ent affect cattle arketin decisions includin choice of arket outlets of cattle far ers in ots ana roducers ini al level of sales is also associated ith revailin hi h transaction costs for e a le far ers often co lain a out inade uate ani al trans ort dela s in issue of ani al identification related er its and slo a ents ahta et al o ever the ain dra ack of such studies is that their anal sis e edded transaction cost usin onl fe ro varia les urther ore these studies have neither investi ated arketin outlets for cattle far ers nor e a ined the transaction costs associated in far ers decision to sell their cattle in a articular arketin outlet ransaction costs are considered arriers to efficient artici ation of resource oor s allholders in different arkets andela et al oldie and u enau roducers ill not use a s ecific arketin channel hen the value of usin that arket channel does not at least co ensate the costs of doin so use a et alIn ots ana cattle far ers ho artici ate in the arkets tend to sell their ani als ainl to utcheries and the ots ana eat o ission 2 o ever in recent ti es ore and ore s allholder far ers are o tin to sell to the local arket rather than the tatistics ots ana his i ht reflect dissatisfaction far ers ith rices offered the efferis and transaction costs associated ith inaccessi ilit to arkets and hi h costs of trans ort to the collection oints are so e of the i est challen es cattle roducers in ore re ote areas face ahta and alo e he transaction costs that arket channels i ose on far ers are elieved to affect such far ers decisions in choosin a articular arketin channel oldie and u enau ransaction costs are also e ected to differ a on st households due to as etries in access to assets arket infor ation e tension services and re unerative arkets akhura ur stud seeks to understand hat factors influence far ers decisions to choose a cattle arketin channel h is arket artici ation so lo in so e arket channels hat are so e of the transaction costs that the s allholder cattle far ers in ots ana face ecificall the o ective of this stud is to investi ate the role of transaction costs in deter inin arket artici ation of s allholder cattle far ers in ots ana his stud rovides an e irical asis for identif in o tions to increase the artici ation of s allholders in livestock arkets in ots ana uch anal sis i ht hel olic akers hen desi nin olicies that ro ote arket artici ation and hence i rove a ricultural develo ent I rove ent of arkets and arket access could la a crucial role in i rovin a ricultural develo ent and reducin overt and food insecurit u a et al ccordin to arrett e irical evidence indicates that interventions directed at i rovin facilitation of s allholder or ani ation reducin the costs of inter arket trade and i rovin access of oorer households to i roved technolo ies and assets are crucial to sti ulatin arket artici ation and reducin overt a on s allholder far ers In this stud e e lo a transaction cost econo ics a roach to a cross sectional far level data 3 as the a roach allo s us to e lain the use of t o ain cattle arkets livestock far ers in ots ana an studies e lene et al akhura have used the usual transaction cost anal sis hich is tailored to understand onl h so e far ers are net sellers net u ers or autark e artin fro such an a roach the current stud is nder the cono ic artnershi ree ent the has full o ened its arket of half a illion eo le to al ost all e orts e ce t ar s and a unition fro artners free of uotas and duties or ots ana this eans uota free e ort of eef to the he is a overn ent arastatal enter rise that has ono ol ri hts over the urchase of cattle for e ort and the sale of e orted eef he allholder ivestock o etitiveness ro ect is an I funded ro ect i le ented the International ivestock esearch Institute I I in artnershi ith the ots ana inistr of riculture s e art ent of ricultural esearch ontri uted a er session ivestock roduction efficienc and arketin 224 a case of net seller households that face different transaction costs hen accessin various arket channels In such a situation the decision to ards sellin in a articular arket channel is affected the a nitude of the transaction costs the arket outlet i oses on the It is e ected that roducers ill not use a articular channel hen the cost of usin that arket out ei hs the value it can ossi l offer he assertion is that in the a sence of institutions that overn for al e chan e o ortunistic ehaviour of other chain actors is e ected to raise transaction costs hich in turn leads to the i erfection of the cattle arket differential arket rices herefore easurin transaction costs in such a arket is i ortant fro a olic ers ective as reducin transaction costs eans increasin the links et een arket channel actors increased ar ainin o er and i roved arket access oldie and u enau he rest of the a er is or ani ed as follo s ection t o details the aterials and ethods that are used to odel the transaction costs discussion of the results follo s in ection three he a er closes ith a su ar of the ain findin s and olic i lications in ection aterials and ethods here is no a vast literature dealin ith oth the theor and e irical i lications of oth the theoretical and e irical literature ackno led es that transaction costs are detri ental for the o erational efficienc of oth in ut and out ut arkets ransaction costs in the for of infor ation costs the costs associated ith the search for tradin artners h sical infrastructure and the a s institutions are for ed hich includes enforce ent of contracts are all likel to influence arketin and su l decisions households tudies that endeavoured to easure transaction costs in various arkets include a on others o s on et al and oldie and u enau or instance o s used a o it anal sis a roach to easure the i ortance of transaction costs and their effect on vertical coordination in the cattle industr e identified the relative i ortance of transaction costs that affect far ers decision to sell throu h live rin auction and direct to ackers ike ise on et al reco ni ed the i ortance of transaction costs in the arket channel choice ehaviour of eef far ers in hina sin a si ilar a roach oldie and u enau found that transaction costs in the for of infor ation ne otiation and onitorin and enforce ent costs are revalent and influenced arket channel choice of anana far ers in thio ia enerall far ers sell all a ro ortion or none of their cattle throu h a articular arketin channel s entioned a ove this stud considers cattle sales to the ain cattle arketin channels the and utcheries used livestock far ers in ots ana he uestion is ho such decisions are ade and hich factors influence the arketin ehaviour of far ers and their choice of a articular cattle arketin channel he h othesis is that the far ers decision of hether to sell to utcheries or the is influenced the transaction costs and household and far characteristics art fro these t o arket outlets other arketin outlets in ots ana include feedlots and traders hich are not considered in this stud since their contri ution is al ost ne li i le o e far ers also sell their cattle to individual u ers ho ever the lace of transaction is unclear as individuals could ean nei h ours and the transaction could involve an e chan e of ani als hus the cattle sold to individuals are not considered in the anal sis ulti sta e cluster area sa lin a roach or ila and eltonen as used to select a sa le fro the o ulation irst the entral district ots ana s lar est district as divided into four su districts to account for the differences in far in s ste ecolo and soil t e to for si clusters hen ithin a cluster e tension areas 4 ere rando l selected fro lists of all e tension areas takin into account the eneral distri ution of cattle in the stud area u se uent sta es involved a rando selection of crushes 5 or sa le of locations fro hich a nu er of far ers ere rando l selected he su ar statistics of the data are discussed in ection and ore details can e found in ahta et al esults and discussion u ar statistics a le resents a su ar of descri tive statistics on the surve ed households ousehold heads ere elderl avera e a e is ith rather lo levels of education ean ears of schoolin ousehold heads are tension areas are areas ithin districts that are classified ased on deliver of a ricultural e tension services or all the veterinar district offices kee lists of far ers crushes hus a list of far ers as rovided crushes for each e tension area in the res ective district su district ontri uted a er session ivestock roduction efficienc and arketin 226the ones res onsi le for the coordination of the household activities hence their a e and education level are crucial factors in deter inin hether the household enefitted fro the e erience and kno led e of an elder erson or has to ase its decisions on risk takin attitudes of oun er far ers out of the households ere ale headed i l in that fe ale headed households accounted for a out of the sa le onsistent ith data fro tatistics ots ana households tend to e s all ith a ean of ersons er household a le also indicates the far households access to co unication and trans ortation facilities a out and of households o ned radio and television res ectivel ur risin l a out of the surve ed households had o ile hones ccordin to aunders et al so e of the enefits accruin fro the ides read ado tion of infor ation and co unication technolo ies I s in develo in countries include increasin kno led e of arket infor ation and i rovin coordination of trans ortation n avera e a household had access to a out ha of cro land and ke t cattle and a trans ort e ui ent orth a le ocio econo ic anal sis of the far households i ure de icts arket channels used the cattle far ers in the surve ed districts out of the far ers sold their cattle to the utcheries to individual u ers and to the a attoirs hilst the rest ere sold to other arkets i e traders feedlots and rivate slau hter sla s retailers and su er arkets hese findin s are consistent ith the tatistics ots ana anal sis hich sho s that co ared to the s far ers in ots ana tend to sell ore of their livestock to the local arket than the e ort arkets i ure sho s the avera e cattle rices received fro the arket channels used far ers es ite ost of the far ers sellin their cattle to utcheries see i ure on avera e the offers relativel hi h rices ots ana ula er adult cattle follo ed traders 7 er cattle feedlots er cattle and utcheries er cattle res ectivel Individual u ers and other arket channels offered the lo est avera e rice er cattle eef cattle e uivalents ere co uted ulti l in the nu er of cattle of various t es conversion factors ollo in insi hts fro discus sions ith the the conversion factors ere calculated as the ratio of avera e slau hter ei ht of different cattle t es to the avera e slau hter ei ht of a ature eef ull is the ots ana currenc ith the rate to of irst ational ank of ots ana i ure arket channels used cattle far ers in ots ana 8 ased on i ures and e ould e ect a correlation et een the rice offered and the nu er of far ers sellin to that arket hat is e ould e ect ore far ers to sell their cattle to the and traders than utcheries since on avera e the offer etter rices o ever inaccessi ilit to arkets and hi h costs of trans ort to the collection oints are so e of the i est challen es that s allholder eef roducers in ore re ote areas face ahta ahta and alo e his eans roducers ill not choose a s ecific arket channel hen the value of usin that arket channel does not at least co ensate the costs of usin it his i ht e lain h des ite offerin hi h rices roducers still choose arkets such as utcheries close ro i it and lo er trans ort costs and there is a ossi ilit for rice ne otiation and i ediate a ent as co ared to a attoirs he hi h transaction costs such as ne otiation costs and trans ort costs distance to the arket a ent dela s and ar ainin o er that co e ith sellin to the a attoirs discoura e far ers fro accessin that arket channel o el a and eleka i ilarl ahta and auer have sho n that a on s allholder cattle roducers in outh frica distance to the arket reduces arket artici ation lso in order to sell to the a attoirs there are certain co liances that ani als have to eet such as health status cold dress ass rade and other re ulations that have een i osed the countries the e orts the a orit of its roduce to this arket hence hi h transaction costs i ure attle avera e rices various u ers ther arket channels include rivate slau hter sla s retailers and su er arkets ontri uted a er session ivestock roduction efficienc and arketin 228 a le sho s the descri tive results of infor ation search or e ante t e of transaction costs ne as ect of infor ation costs is related to search costs in findin arket s ecific infor ation and otential u ers oldie and a enau n avera e a out three fifths of the far ers in the stud area had access to arket infor ation a reason likel to e associated ith a si nificant ercenta e of households havin access to televisions and radios hich could e their sources of arket infor ation a le also resents the len th of ti e far ers had to ait for veterinar ro le s and the nu er of visits the received fro a veterinar e tension officer ar ers had to ait for a out nine da s hen the e erienced veterinar ro le s hich is inconsistent ith the annual nu er of visits the had received avera e fro a veterinar officer s stated a ove it is ver co on to see e tension officers ore reoccu ied ith the issuance of livestock ove ent er its art of the livestock identification tradin s ste I his leaves e tension officers ith li ited ti e for e tension ork such as assistin far ers in identif in diseases and curin attendin to sick ani als and introducin ne technolo ies or or ani ational odels for feed roduction and utili ation he ro le s of hu an and h sical resources such as vehicles are e acer ated durin foot and outh disease vaccination ca ai ns durin hich e tension officers are re uired to rotate et een re ions leavin the e tension offices un anned a le ransaction costs infor ation and search ex ante ccordin l cattle sales er its ust e o tained fro area veterinar e tension officers to verif the ori in and ani al health ack round of cattle for sale er its are ased on electronicall readin each ani al s olus hich as entioned a ove serves as the ain identifier under the e ort tracea ilit as ects of the ani al identification s ste he findin s fro a le sho that far ers had to s end et een and three da s or ani in a olus he lon eriod of ti e that far ers have to s end or ani in oluses for their ani als could e due to the unavaila ilit of oluses in the arkets and shorta es durin insertion his as also a conclusion reached a stud carried ladele and onkhei oreover far ers had to ait for three da s to ad inister oluses to et the sales er it and a out re orted the had e erienced an incidence of isreadin oluses his is consistent ith ahta et al ho re orted the a sence of the veterinar officer or technical ro le s ith olus readin achines hich are often a a or ro le that lead far ers to ait for lon eriods several onths dela s ere re orted to et the er its he far ers sellin to the arket had to ait on avera e a out t o da s to et infor ation on the ani als the sold or sales outside the ediated e ort s ste s itnessin of sales a villa e chief is le all sufficient and sales are ased on utual a ree ent ith the u er ahta et al o ever this re resents a lo er riced sales channel see i ures and and one su ect to s eculative urchasin hen far ers are keen to sell for cli atic reasons or hen household cash flo re uires it rust in u er• on a ent a u er is a risk ontract or a ree ent ith a u er a le sho s the varia les that reflect transaction costs ith re ard to onitorin and enforce ent e ost attle unsold due to a e affected the enforce ent costs ith an avera e of a out three cattle ein unsold due to this factor or the varia le that cattle a e as considered to e the ain ualit re uire ent the u er it as assessed hether the u er never considered cattle a e or considered it so eti es or hether the a e as al a s considered as the ain ualit re uire ent ccordin l fro the surve res ondents ho artici ated in the arket and sold cattle al ost half far ers said cattle a e as not the ain ualit re uire ent that u ers look for i ilarl a out an e ual ro ortion far ers and far ers res onded that u ers look for a e of the cattle as the ain ualit re uire ent so eti es and al a s res ectivel a le also sho s that onl of the far ers ho artici ated in cattle arkets indicated that the had dedicated u ers his is consistent ith findin s in a le that far ers had to s end on avera e a out a da and a half lookin for a otential u er ar ers had to ait t o eeks a out da s to et aid once the had sold their cattle to the his could e one of the factors that discoura e far ers ho can sell their cattle to utcheries that a durin the transaction or as re orted in a le ith an avera e of four da s o e transaction costs are i licit and difficult to o serve ut also la an i ortant role in deter inin the ethod sellers select to arket cattle uch I licit costs are related to the level of trust et een an individual u er and seller hen the co lete individual transactions aile and unnicutt he trust varia les that are considered for this stud are related to availa ilit of a contract or a ree ent durin transaction and the rate or risk of non a ent a u er once a transaction has een ade out of far ers re orted that the had si ned a contract or a ree ent ith the u er hen sellin their cattle onse uentl onl a out vie ed non a ent a u er as a risk cono etric results ara eter esti ates of the o it odel e uation are found in a le and rovide so e useful insi hts on the deter inants of choice of cattle arket channels he overall result su ests that the ro ortion of cattle sold ontri uted a er session ivestock roduction efficienc and arketin 230 throu h utcheries versus those sold to the 9 is influenced transaction costs related to infor ation and search ar ainin and ne otiations and enforce ent and onitorin costs lthou h co utin ar inal effects could ive ore insi ht into the a nitude of the effects of the statisticall si nificant transaction cost varia les on the ro ortion of cattle sold throu h utcheries this as not ossi le in this stud due to the resence of so e ero values of the o served transaction cost and household characteristics varia les on the infor ation costs varia les the coefficient of rice infor ation as found to have a ne ative effect on the ro ortion of cattle sales throu h the arketin channel of utcheries It can also e inter reted as havin kno led e on rice infor ation of alternative arkets thus the as it co onl disse inates arket infor ation to far ers reduces the ro ortion of cattle sold throu h utcheries his su ests that the reater availa ilit of arket infor ation at the utcheries than at the ena les far ers to check on the s ot rices the receive vis vis the revailin arket rices hence the est rice that co ensates transaction costs incurred his hel s far ers not to receive rices lo er than the ones the nor all kno as the a decide to seek out alternative arket outlets and in the future a ne otiate ore forcefull or tr to i rove the ualit and resentation of their roduce oldie and u enauInfor ation cost can also e esti ated the nu er of e tension visits a far er received in the ast onths ur results sho that the varia le of e tension visits had a ositive influence on arket artici ation in utcheries his i lies that far ers in our stud a e rel in on e tension officers to attain ti el and relia le arket rice infor ation hich then increases their ar ainin o er durin a transaction his ith the su ort of ell develo ed rice trans ission echanis s such as radio and television hich the a orit of the far ers a third of our res ondents have access to increases their a ilit to discover arket rice infor ation e otiation costs a ear to also la an i ortant role in arket selection a on the cattle s allholders in ots ana Incidence of isreadin of oluses and distance to co onl used arket ne ativel influence the ro ortion of cattle sold to the arket lon distance to the co onl used arket far ers sho ed a ne ative effect on the ro ortion of sales throu h utcheries hese co onl used arkets are usuall here the utcheries and u cattle after the have one throu h all ins ections the veterinar officials and olice officers certif in cattle o nershi he ani al identification related issues are also found to si nificantl increase transaction costs in artici atin in arkets articularl the cattle arket channel his i ht e lain h far ers in ots ana have een o tin for the utcheries rather than since the latter i oses ore ualit re uire ents lthou h a si nificant nu er of far ers sold their cattle to individual traders such far ers are included in the econo etric anal sis onl if the sold their cattle to utcheries or the ith re ard to onitorin and enforce ent costs s eed of a ent and incidence of non a ent u ers had a ositive influence on arket artici ation ccordin l the coefficients of s eed of a ent and incidence of non a ent u ers trust orthiness increased the cattle transactions throu h utcheries his i lies that far ers incurred fe er onitorin and enforce ent transaction costs hen sellin to the utcheries than to the s entioned a ove far ers had to ait t o eeks to et aid once the had ade transaction to the a ents fro the so eti es o e ond t o eeks hen financial circu stances do not allo far ers to e aid ithin the scheduled ti e his could e one of the factors that discoura e far ers fro sellin their cattle to the articularl at ti es hen far ers are des eratel lookin for one to cover their household e enses rade uncertaint i e the risk that cattle sold directl to the a not rade as e ected ne ativel influences ro ortion of cattle transactions throu h utcheries his is consistent ith the findin s of ahta et al ho identified the factors hich lead far ers to access distant arkets in search of etter rices as lack of a areness and infor ation a out the ualit re uire ents of arkets such as the his also leads to the reluctance of far ers to sell oun ani als or eaners hen a ents collect ani als fro far s he three household characteristics varia les herd si e level of education and a e do not have a si nificant effect on arket channel artici ation ll three varia les have ne ative coefficients hich su ests that a one unit increase in each of the varia les ould have a ne ative effect on the utcheries arket channel or e a le a one unit increase in herd si e is e ected to decrease the ro ortion sold throu h utcheries here ould e a corres ondin increase in ro ortion sold to far ers artici ation in the arket channel onclusion and i lications his stud has atte ted to anal se the do nstrea cattle su l chain and cattle far ers arketin ehaviour and decisions e lo in he a lication of the a roach allo ed us to e lain the factors that influence the do nstrea cattle su l chain and arketin decisions anal sin cattle sales to utcheries and the the t o ain cattle arkets used livestock far ers in ots ana arket artici ation decisions and transaction costs are found to e interrelated ur e irical results shed so e li ht on the e istin uestion of h s allholder cattle far ers in ots ana ake relativel little use of livestock arkets the onl entit allo ed to e ort eef ur anal sis confir s the h othesis that transaction costs la a si nificant role in influencin the arketin ehaviour of s allholder cattle far ers in ots ana he results su est that availa ilit of arket or rice infor ation reduces hile e tension visits increase the ro ortion of cattle sales throu h utcheries his i ht e hel ed the fact that far ers attain ti el and relia le arket rice infor ation fro e tension officers and the infor ation disse inated via such eans as radio and television hich a a orit of the far ers one third of our res ondents have access to he i lications of these results are that the institutions that atte t to reduce infor ation costs a have to rovide far ers ith rice infor ation of other alternative arket channels his then increases their a ilit to discover arket rice infor ation and ne otiate etter urther ore the stud confir s that the arketin environ ent does still i ose a nu er of ne otiation and ar ainin costs es eciall transaction dela s distance to the nearest arket and onitorin costs rade uncertaint on far ers he ne otiation ar ainin and onitorin and enforce ent costs a rove ore difficult to chan e therefore articular easures should e directed to addressin these transaction costs o reduce the onitorin and enforce ent costs the a consider fast trackin a ents to far ers hich in the lon ter a oost the trust et een far ers and the I rove ent of vertical inte ration et een the t o sectors ill o a lon a in hel in ots ana efficientl use the lucrative arket overn ent olicies that ini i e the transaction costs of tradin et een cattle far ers and the ould also e ver i ortant in increasin arket artici ation in that channel and i rovin the do nstrea cattle su l chain tar eted for e ort hich is ell kno n for its hi h su l fluctuations ontri uted a er session ivestock roduction efficienc and arketin 232ckno led e ents his stud as conducted as art of the o etitive s allholder livestock in ots ana ro ect funded the I and i le ented the I I and the ots ana inistr of riculture s e art ent of ricultural esearch he assistance and colla oration of local district authorities and e tension a encies in the outh ast entral and ho e districts of ots ana is ratefull ackno led ed as is the co o eration of far households selected for the surve overn ents are ain stakeholders in rural livestock enter rise develo ent o ever national institutions have li itations ith re ard to financin of infrastructure infor ation and technolo disse ination and local social net orks that are necessar for sustaina le roduction of ilk and eat he added ressure of cli ate chan e causes severe shorta es of fora e hich affects dair ilk roduction fro s allholder far s and su se uentl results in su o ti al erfor ance alon the ilk value chain Inefficienc in resource utili ation i edes values chains he focus ithin the dair value chain s ste is to uild ca acit stren thenin social net orks hich ould foster learnin and u take of fora e roduction innovations and sti ulatin net ork e ers to ool financial and h sical resources in order to access in ut and roduct arkets ar ers ith dair cattle t o to si ani als ere clustered into s all rou s of ten households er co unit that ere linked to e istin ut dor ant far er rou s involved ith cro in ithin the sa e environ ent Infor ation and kno led e e chan e en a e ents ere facilitated hich cul inated in far ers selectin and testin roductivit of rass under dr land conditions ithin their ack ards hirt three asture ardens ere lanted in three sites durin the season actus a ier rass le u es la la and co ea ere selected ost far ers and ere ada ta le aste ater and anure ere rec cled fro the dair s ste to feed the asture n avera e of far ers indicated their intention to intensif asture ardenin or co ine it ith food cro s to roduce su le entar reen fodder at lo cost ar ers tested the feedin of i roved fodder to dair cattle ut ilk roduction as slo due to lo availa ilit of su le entar fodder his challen e as addressed the e art ent of ural evelo ent hich su orted the social net orks of dair far ers ith non dair far ers he latfor created o ortunit for ilk roducers to have ore access to locall roduced fora e and cro residues out ha of dr land s ineless cactus asture ere initiall esta lished cro in rou s in t o sites ith ha er site e ected in to increase io ass roduction fro oth le u inous and rass ased dr land asture ected i rove ents in ilk and ilk roduct sales ill enerate sufficient inco e to sustain cro in of ada ta le fora e s ecies and reduce far er de endenc on e ternal icrofinance here is a need to diversif fora e roduction to include ulti ur ose trees u scalin roduction of indi enous s ecies to i rove feed ualit and fodder fla s ontinued entorshi and coachin is reco ended to i rove far er skills and kno led e unities have chan ed the ekhukhune landsca e Initiatives to i rove food and inco e securit a on the rural oor are co enda le ut i lications of a i isin natural resource utili ations for econo ic ain have not een full e lored a ainst ecolo ical conse uences he stud evaluated trends in national fora e roduction and the status of the co unal ra in lands utili ed indi enous s all stock and cattle and assessed co unit en a e ent in cultivation of cli ate s art dr land astures to o ti i e natural and hu an resource utili ation in livestock value chains ural livelihoods and ra in lands cocks characteri ed ve etation in the ekhukhune district as se i o en oodland ith a stron rass co onent i ed ushveld sour i ed ushveld and rassland ankenveld and sour veld as also noted al er and inslie his ve etation la s a critical role in livestock nutrition and roduction colo ical sustaina ilit of the ra in areas is critical to co unities as livelihoods are de endent on ecos ste services attle are the referred livestock in co unal areas he o ulations of cattle e ceed in ekhukhune alone follo ed oats ith shee nu ers lo er e er far ers o n ore than ani als ood shru encroach ent has increased over the ears off an and onnor ccordin to ie rits et al and an k and ith the ekhukhune district has rich iodiversit and a hi h level of ende is ictor et al o served variations in s ecies co osition and a undance et een under utili ed areas and ra ed areas alata le s ecies lose vi our tuft ortalit is hi h and lants disa ear ssociated conse uences includin are atches oor ater infiltration hi h soil erosion siltation of strea s and ush encroach ent are also evident andile et al ainton et al io ass roduction is reduced il an and the nutritional ualit of alata le s ecies declines his further translates into loss of livelihoods as livestock turnover is lo i ures and illustrate national roduction status of ha cro s in outh frica he ost co onl roduced dr land fodder cro s include Medicago sativa (lucerne), Eragrostis tef (teff), Avena sativa (oats), Eragrostis curvula love rass Digitaria eriantha uts fin er rass and Vigna unguiculata co eas ro residues of rain sor hu heat and ai e stover also contri ute to fora e su l es eciall on co ercial s ste s here are clear c cles in the fora e trend ossi l associated ith drou hts and econo ic recession ora e seed and ha roduction is insi nificant in co unal areas here the needs are reater he stud illustrates the i ortance of e a inin the ecolo ical histor of natural environ ents shared co unal co unities he focus is on fora es that rovide nutrition for livestock he soils in co unal areas are hi hl de raded and susce ti le to ind erosion hence a shift in land use to ard ater efficient cro s is ur ent i ures left and ri ht ational fora e roduction and ross value in outh frica atural asture assess ent hree ad acent ards of akhudutha a a unici alit the southeastern re ion of ekhukhune district hich hosts the lar est herds of eef cattle shee oats and dair cattle less than ere selected he ekhukhune district as descri ed ainton as eastern id ushveld ith a carr in ca acit of livestock unit ha ecies identification and a undance ere deter ined usin the transect line ethod id arsh and aven a hree lots of ere selected in each ard and rando transects of used to deter ine the s ecies co osition he heel oint a aratus as used he nu er of do inant s ecies as also esti ated easurin the dia eter of the cano in line ith the transect and hei ht of lant ou It is ver clear that veld condition is the first li itin factor to ani al erfor ance in the selected co unal area he livestock co osition and reeds in i o o co unal areas are transfor in as the outh frican dair industr transfor s he introduction of s all si ed dair reeds such as the erse is certainl increasin ra in ressure on the fra ile environ ents he ational ivestock trate for outh frica is ali ned ith strate ies for far fodder roduction In these scenarios ater efficient cro s are reco ended as outh frica is a dr countr and ost areas are susce ti le to cli ate chan e effects he orest and eld onservation ct the oil onservation ct the onservation of ricultural esources ct and the ational ra in trate are su ortin instru ents for i rovin carr in ca acit in co unal areas ra e orks ro osed the e art ent of riculture orestr and isheries and include the ational veld and fora e ro ra e strate and i le entation fra e ork ational veld and fora e data ank the national veld and fora e orkin rou and the Interde art ental technical orkin rou I on the sustaina le ana e ent of veld and fora e resources he olic fra e orks are not ali ned ith co unit orkin social rou s here hi h value livestock roduction is ein iloted and li ited ro ress in livestock develo ent is therefore e ected roduction of fodder in resource li ited environ ents has hi h in ut costs ainl financial inancial su ort to co unal area livestock entre reneurs is scarce ro otin ater efficient cro s on underutili ed ara le land is therefore ke in increasin carr in ca acit of co unal area astures reatin co unal area fodder value chains he ai of this case stud as to assess co unit en a e ent in u take of an innovation in collective fodder roduction ineless untia ficus indica varieties ere selected as test cro s for esta lish ent collective rou s of far ers in t o se i arid co unal areas of the i o o rovince he outh frican ene ank hosts cultivars hich ori inated fro e ico elker et al ost varieties are alata le ith annual ields of leaves lant election of far er artici ation in the fodder value ro ra as voluntar and availa ilit as used as the selection criterion ollo in focus rou eetin s ith co unit e ers a council of stakeholders and ke infor ants for the areas to characteri e far in households four scenarios ere enacted hich enerall characteri e the far in co unit Scenario 1 efunct coo erative of e ers ned ara le land that had een fallo for at least three ears eferred to as oo erative Scenario 2 oo erative of s allholder dair far ers ith a herd of ei ht ani als ra in on rivate and co unal lands and ha fallo astureland tensivel su orted throu h national ro ra s ut unsustaina le eferred to as oo erative Scenario 3 allholder far er ha ara le ut fallo land ne t to ho estead no dair cattle eferred to as Scenario 4: allholder far er ractisin i ed far in s all herd of se i ero ra in dair cattle and ara le fallo land ne t to ho estead eferred to as Scenario 5 en s allholder far ers ith erse dair cattle avera e of four ani als household ess than a ara le land for astures and did not lant cactus eferred to as ilk roducers lanned cactus u ers  onth harvest and inco e fro cro sales as i etus for oo erative hose e ers re uested further trainin and o ortunit to e and the fodder ank here as reater e ectation in oo erative and ho had direct use of the fodder for the dair herd he fodder ank at oo erative as oorl esta lished and ana e ent as oor he fodder ank as esta lished ell ut ne lected after ear far ers ere not keen to feed their cattle even thou h the had feed challen es and the cattle ere in oor condition did not harvest in oth seasons his scenario indicates that direct financial ains influence ho far er rou s in ut into a roduction s ste ethar as noted in far ers ho o ned dair cattle and see ed to have the reatest need for the fodder oo erative had no other source of fora e e ce t ra in de raded natural astures he cattle ere in oor condition and calf ortalit as hi h i ure io ass ield ear inco e and ro ected inco e for ear harvest stract he erfor ance of third orld econo ies has enerall een characteri ed oor olic for ulation and i le entation lo roduction ca acit and efficienc lo invest ents and savin s and oor infrastructure develo ent hese chains of events have not onl co ro ised their develo ent endeavours ut also co ro ised the o erations of their core industries and eroded their co etitiveness in international trade and lar e these are a result of risks inherent in develo in econo ies i e lo econo ic ro th s all fra ile and fra ented econo ies erratic eather atterns and hi h de endence on the h sical environ ent hile there is a eneral recent consensus in the e irical trade literature that risk is an i ortant i edi ent to trade there is still little e irical evidence herefore this a er statisticall anal ses the i act of a re ate environ ental risk on ilateral trade in the outhern frican usto s nion his ill otentiall hel s all scale far ers ta into forei n arkets to access uch needed funds he unit of anal sis in this a er is livestock co odit i orts et een ilateral artners ithin the trade loc he anal sis involves the construction of an environ ental risk inde I hich is then used to esti ate the effect of environ ental risk on ilateral trade in a ravit odel fra e ork ro the e irical results it can e deduced that the hi h incidence of environ ental risk events in the real reduces trade ithin the loc his result is ro ust across different esti ators and risk easures Introduction the ear it as esti ated that illion eo le ake their livin on s all fa il far s round the sa e ti e in su aharan frica it as re orted that of far ers ractise su sistence a riculture and of the active o ulation ake a livin fro a riculture o ever the esti ated invest ent into the sector as a ea re his led researchers to conclude that there as a eneral lack of fundin in s all scale a riculture oth fro the u lic and rivate sectors orld ank he challen es facin s all scale far ers are ell docu ented in the literature hese include lack of access to credit ina ilit to access forei n arkets lo roduction ca acit overreliance on the h sical environ ent s all su sistence tailored enter rises lack of insurance etc all scale far ers fro develo in countries face additional ro le s and are ost vulnera le to risk events his is ecause of the characteristics of their ho e countries lo econo ic ro th s all fra ile and fra ented econo ies and erratic eather atterns hese are a result of a ro le hich has ho ever not een full e lored in the literature risk isk affects s all scale far ers at all the levels of the value chain in ound lo istics roduction rocessin arketin and trade or a lon ti e access to credit has een headlined as the a or constraint reventin s all scale far ers fro akin the transition to ainstrea a riculture o ever the fact that a solution has not een found i ht ean that other avenues have to e e lored ne of the undis uted a s hich far ers can access credit is throu h ta in into forei n arkets his is ho ever not ithout its o n challen es s all usiness transactions involve so e de ree of risk those that occur across international orders carr additional risks eldru his is here the overn ent can la the ost crucial role in enactin olicies that iti ate the risk his a er ai s to investi ate the i act of a s ecific t e of risk environ ental on livestock trade ithin ue to the i ortant role that trade la s in the international econo ic s ste unfavoura le events e drou ht or disease out reaks in the do estic econo can ne ativel i act the econo ies of trade artners ince develo in countries are said to e less resilient to such risk events it ould not e inconceiva le to e ect that their fra ile econo ies ould e the ost affected unfavoura le events he contri ution of this stud to literature is t ofold it advances our understandin of the risk trade interaction in a outh outh trade loc settin and it contri utes to the literature that seeks to understand h s all scale livestock far ers cannot readil ake the transition to ainstrea a riculture Literature indin a universal definition of risk in the literature is an i ossi le task is ecause risk eans different thin s to different eo le in different disci lines o inson et al risk can e defined as a situation in hich there is ossi ilit of loss and volatilit of returns ith kno n ro a ilities ut the ulti ate outco e is not kno n a et al he overla et een environ ental factors and international trade as not satisfactoril e lored in the literature until recentl h and euven his is ri aril ecause the scour e of cli atic chan e had not een full understood dverse eather and cli atic conditions are likel to result in si nificant econo ic losses hese losses a e ore ronounced in develo in countries hich lack resilience orld cono ic oru esearchers have noted the i ortance of econo ic develo ent in reducin vulnera ilit to adverse environ ental factors and their effects he ar ue that a critical underl in factor for an econo s res onse to the effects of a natural disaster is the level of ealth at its dis osal h and euven ith the hi h lo al focus on cli ate chan e and environ ental issues uch of the focus in the trade literature in recent ti es has een on the effect of trade on the environ ent ana i et al rankel and ose nt eiler et al or so e ti e researchers have een anal sin ho trade intensit affects environ ental ualit and sustaina ilit o ever oth the theoretical and the e irical literature on trade econo ic develo ent and the environ ent are still lar el inconclusive a out the overall i act of trade on the environ ent ana i et al or the ost art the effect of environ ental factors on trade has een ne lected in the literature rou ht floods and other e tre e eather atterns are so e of the environ ental risks facin countries n redicta le rainfall atterns and e tre e te eratures affect and co ro ise the co etitiveness of the a riculture sector tre e rainfall and te erature atterns lead to floods and drou hts hich disru t far o erations he also increase the incidence of ests and infectious diseases hich reduce roductivit and rofita ilit in a riculture ainfall and te erature are the chosen environ ental indicators here ln i t is the natural lo of the total onetar value of livestock co odit trade at ti e t i and ν are countr fi ed effects of i and j i e du varia les for a countr ein either the i orter or the e orter in a air i t is the ross o estic roduct of the i orter and e orter at ti e t and ijt is the er ca ita of the i orter and e orter at ti e t ln ij is the natural lo arith of the h sical distance et een the ain econo ic centres usuall ca ital cities of the trade artners i and j orderi takes a value of if i and j are conti uous an i takes a value of 1 if i and j share a co on official lan ua e oli takes a value of if i and j ere coloni ed the sa e countr urri t takes a value of if the currenc of i (or j is an acce ted le al tender in j (or i at ti e t andlocki takes a value of if oth countries are landlocked φ 1 lnER i t is the i orter and e orter at ti e t it is e ected to e ne ative as risk econo ies are e ected to trade less assu in that the risk is ure risk i e the likel conse uences of a risk event are considered to e ad offerin no ros ect of a ain he anal sis involved the use of the anel data techni ue of fi ed effects esti ation usin the ethod of oisson seudo a i u ikelihood and ho oskedastic standard errors his ethodolo accounts for countr hetero eneit and ero trade flo s ost i ortantl it addresses odel iss ecification and iased esti ates accountin for ultilateral resistance ter s s ead and a er esterlund and ilhel sson antos ilva and enre ro nderson and van incoo he rdinar east uares and enerali ed east uares esti ation ethods served as ro ustness checks i ure elo resents the ro a ilit distri utions of the Is of the states fro he ost develo ed states in the loc ots ana and the e u lic of outh frica have ore sta le Is over the ti e eriod his could e due to their accu ulated resources and ore d na ic econo ies hich hel the recover ore uickl fro adverse events esotho and a i ia have si ilar I distri utions a lace his distri ution is characteri ed a shar increase for half the ti e eriod irrored a shar decrease in the other half a iland had a hi h inde earl in the data ran e and then e erienced a drastic decrease overti e i ure he distri ution of I for states across ti e a le elo resents results fro the au ented ravit odel esti ation It resents the i act of the I on livestock co odities ilateral trade for the i orter and e orter in i nificant varia le coefficients are resented in old the asterisk re resents the level of si nificance and ro ust standard errors are sho n in arenthesis his a er investi ated the i act of environ ental risk on ilateral trade volu es he odel as au ented ith an I for the i orter and e orter these are therefore the varia les of interest oth the varia les of interest are si nificant and have the e ected si ns increase in the incidence of environ ental risks on the i orter side decreases livestock trade his result is conceiva le ecause an increase in adverse eather conditions could disru t dail o erations in livestock far in his ould ean fe er ani als are availa le to eet local and e ternal de and he e orter risk varia le is also ne ative increase in the incidence of risk events leads to a decrease in ilateral livestock trade his result as e ected as an increase in risk in the e ortin countr ould ean that fe er oods are roduced and availa le for e ort orth notin is that the i orter varia le is ne ative his is lausi le as accordin to n el s la as a countr s ealth increases the ro ortion of inco e s ent on food co odities decreases ro the rest of the results i orter and e orter s are oth i ortant factors in ilateral trade the oth have si nificant coefficients al eit ith different si ns he si n of the i orter varia le is ositive his eans that an increase in ro th in the do estic econo increases i orts as do estic consu ers increase their consu tion of food co odities isa re ated su l res onse of cattle and eef in a i ia n autore ressive distri uted la a roach enned ean alundu and erdi e er 2 1 h student in the e art ent of ricultural cono ics tension and ural evelo ent niversit of retoria outh frica corres ondin author skkalundu ail co 2 ureau for ood and ricultural olic e art ent of ricultural cono ics tension and ural evelo ent niversit of retoria outh frica ferdi e er u ac a stract he non res onsiveness of su l of eef cattle roducers to rices in the do estic arket is of reat concern for the future ro th of the a i ian cattle and eef industr roduction and arketin decisions of cattle roducers in a i ia are reliant on and influenced the condition of the ran eland and land tenure s ste s cou led ith fluctuations in roducer rices he odel s ecified in this article incor orates the dualistic nature of the eef cattle sector he disa re ation takes into account the e istence of the for al and infor al eef cattle arkets in oth the co ercial and co unal roduction sector he o ective of this stud is to for ulate a disa re ated annual si ultaneous odel of the a i ian eef cattle sector that ill ca ture the su l d na ics of the eef cattle industr in a i ia he autore ressive distri uted la a roach is used to test for lon run and short run res onse of cattle arketed and eef su lied odel results sho that there e ists a lon run e uili riu he for al eef arket ad usts to e uili riu ore uickl than the infor al eef sector Introduction roduction and arketin decisions of cattle roducers in a i ia are reliant on and influenced the condition of the ran eland and land tenure s ste s cou led ith fluctuations in roducer rices f articular i ortance is that fluctuations are ostl in ran eland condition leadin to si nificant chan es in the a ount of eef roduced an eland conditions i act the eef cattle and the nu er of reedin stock retained for future roduction Indirectl the sa e factors influence the returns to the cattle sector the utili ation of slau hterin facilities a ount of cattle and eef e ort inco e ains and the sector s contri ution to the ross do estic roduct of the countr It is i ortant that econo ic theor ostulates that a i ia has a co arative advanta e in the roduction of cattle and eef on its ran eland and a disadvanta e in rain roduction he dichoto of the econo ic arado is not uni ue to a i ia In fact hornton in a stud that outlines the livestock roduction recent trend and future ros ects states that so e develo in countries have a co arative advanta e in ra in land as ell as a disadvanta e in rain roduction lthou h a i ia has ade use of the co arative advanta e analo to uild an industr that has ro n ith eanderin strides recent data fro the industr indicate that roduction arketin and e ortation of live cattle and eef has sho n a odest ro th and stead decline see i ure he odest ro th has een overshado ed the underutili ation of do estic slau hter a attoirs and the failure to eet e ort uotas ean hile rices of oth cattle and eef have sho n an u ard trend see i ure his has led to an econo ic arado educin fro the neoclassical theor of the fir here su l of a roduct is e ected to atch ith derived de and reflected in the rice of a roduct su l should have a ositive relationshi to a roduct s o n rice ceteris ari us arian herefore it is ar ued here that the is atch that e ists et een su l and rice of cattle and eef roducts should receive considera le e a ination to rovide an e lanation of the status of the cattle and eef industr in a i ia he declinin trend in the cattle industr can e artiall e lained and linked to several asic e lanator relationshi s s ecified fro neoclassical theor rainfall land tenure s ste and foot and outh disease out reaks articularl in the co unal areas in the north of the countr and recentl feed rain rices he non res onsiveness of su l of cattle and eef to rices in the do estic arket of cattle and eef is of reat concern for the future ro th of the industr ainfall deter ines the ualit and uantit of availa le ra in elo avera e rainfall results in drou ht urther ore rolon ed ears of drou hts often e tend the herd re uildin hases It is noted that durin drou ht cattle roducers can either sell cattle to reduce stock nu ers or feed ani als ith su le ent harvested fora es hich increases o eratin costs chroeder et al he ualit of cattle arketed durin a drou ht hase has i lications on the roducer rice It is reasoned that the cattle classes such as eaners ature co s ulls and o en and ualit co osition of carcass eef undou tedl chan es in res onse to rices chan es in oth co ercial and co unal su sectors echnolo ical innovation ursued the eat or oration of a i ia eat o a attoirs to allo i roved slau hter lant ca acit for ore and lar er ani als ith hi her ei hts and the introduction of a feedlot s ste throu h the eat o ned attle are seen as advance ents in attractin ore cattle to oost the su l for slau hter stock at eat o e ort a attoirs eat o re ort o ever the initiatives and efforts ursued eat o are i eded the hi h costs of i roved feedin and finishin off eaners to the re uired slau hter ei hts rain rices and ualit and uantit of the astures influence cattle roduction costs and decisions here is a t ofold land tenure s ste in a i ia freehold ith le al title deeds in co ercial areas and non freehold in co unal areas ithout le al title deeds to land o nershi inistr of riculture ater and orestr nder the non freehold s ste land is o ned the overn ent and ad inistered under custo ar la he dualit of the land o nershi s ste articularl north of the veterinar cordon fence and south of the veterinar cordon fence has resulted in dis arities in land ana e ent and far in s ste s e lo ed cattle roducers ith ore so histicated ran eland ana e ent ractices ein follo ed in co ercial areas than in co unal areas he co unal areas are ho e to lar e herd nu ers ith astures that are overstocked and over ra ed resultin in lean to oor ualit cattle herefore the land tenure s ste affects su l side roduction and the ualit of live cattle in oth the co ercial and co unal areas in a i ia ra rofessional ision re ort he ra rofessional ision re ort reveals that ost of the cattle arketed in co unal areas are classified as rade to ostl ature cattle o en ith lean ei ht hile in co ercial areas cattle are classified as to or to ostl oun cattle and ith ood confir ation and fatness or e a le i ures and sho that in the rice difference et een rades and and and and ere and res ectivel lthou h the rice difference rovides incentives for ualit ased cattle and eef roduction it ould i ede the co ove ent of rices et een the t o cattle roduction s ste s he o ective of this article is to for ulate a disa re ated annual si ultaneous odel of the a i ian eef and cattle sector that differentiates et een for al and infor al in order to esti ate eef su lied and cattle arketed and further ore to use the odel to o tain relia le elasticities for the a i ian eef cattle sector and assess the i act of olic chan es on eef cattle rices su l and de and co osition he a er is or ani ed as follo s the ne t sections rovide discussion of ethods and e lanation of results thereafter su ar and olic directives are su ested i ure arketin of live eef cattle in a i ia ource uthor s co ilation usin eat oard of a i ia dataset ethods irical research in econo ics and related fields involvin the anal sis of lon run relations has een the focus articularl the a lication of econo etrics a roaches he literature sho s that here varia les of interest have a stationar trend in a lon run relationshi the eneral a roach has een to de trend the series and odel the de trended series as stationar distri uted hereafter inference concernin lon run ro erties of the odel are carried out usin standard as totic nor al theor esaran and hin o ever a lar e volu e of alternative to esti ate and h othesis testin has een develo ed to anal se series that are inte rated of orders I and order I he utore ressive istri uted a is one a roach that has the a ilit to anal se lon run relations hen varia les are I and IIn this stud e esti ate t o s ste s co osed of cattle and eef ith each s ste consistin of t o e uations ca turin the for al and infor al su sectors of cattle and eef arkets in a i ia he e uations are develo ed in such a anner that each of the t o e uations the conte oraneous cattle and eef chan e is e ressed as a function of ast chan es and resent truncation of the e o enous deter inants and one eriod la error correction ter to ca ture the deviations fro the lon run e uili riu i ure nnuali ed real roducer rices of cattle in the disa re ated arkets of a i ia ource uthor s co ilation usin eat oard of a i ia dataset akin into consideration the narrative infor ation stated a ove the su l res onse odel is s ecified as follo s to esti ate the su l elasticities for the dual eef cattle sector in a i ia i or al arket su sector of eef roduction ii Infor al arket su sector su l res onse for ation It is h othesi ed that chan es in cattle nu ers and uantit of eef roduced could e initiated either deli erate olic on the art of the roducer or h sical factors such as ualit of the availa le ra in affected drou ht ro ied the a ount of rainfall and technical factors such as carcass ass ro ied the trend he su l res onse odel for the for al arket ca tures the volu e of cattle and eef roduced and arketed in the for al arket channels or al arket channels include e ort a attoirs utchers situated oth north and south of the veterinar fence and e orts to outh frica and the rest of the orld herefore four e uations of the follo in functional relationshi s are for ulated for cattle arketed and eef su l in each arket BH1 =f(InBPP, InIC, InSPP, InRF1, InBH1 t-1 ,)(1)here is the reedin herd in the for al su sector is the reedin herd stock in the infor al su sector is the eef su l in the for al su sector is eef su l in the infor al su sector is the eef avera e roducer rice in the for al su sector is the eef avera e roducer rice in the infor al su sector I is the in ut cost avera e ai e and veterinar costs in the for al su sector I is the in ut cost avera e veterinar costs in the infor al su sector is the avera e rainfall in the for al su sector area is the avera e rainfall in the infor al su sector area is the shee avera e roducer rice in the for al arket is the s all stock oat avera e roducer rice in the infor al arket and is the shee avera e roducer rice in the for al arket ore s ecificall is the nu er of cattle arketed heads and is the uantit of eef su lied ased on the carcass slau hter ei ht k is the eef roducer rice in the for al arket a i ian dollars er k I is the in ut cost er k is the rainfall recorded in illi etres and the inclusion of the la ed de endent varia le as e o enous varia le akes the odel autore ressive ith distri uted la s in the inde endent varia les herefore the follo in re resentation of e uation is an e ression that ca tures uations and and the sa e re resentation is a lica le to the for ulation of the infor al and rest of a i ia e uation or revit e sho onl one of the si e ressions here ∆ denotes the first difference o erator α 0 is a drift co onent ε i is the hite noise residuals β 1 to β 5 corres ond to the lon run relationshi and α 1 to α 5 re resent the short run d na ics of the odel he dataset for esti atin the su l res onse for the su sa le for al and infor al arkets and the rest of a i ia has o servations and incor orates data fro several sources such as the eat oard data ortal and the eat o records of the nu er and volu e of cattle efore and after the slau hterin rocess throu h the irectorate of lannin surve s has roduced data in statistical ulletins on infor al eef roduction arketin slau hter ei hts and rices and ra rofessional ervices esults and discussion he a roach has the advanta e that it does not re uire all varia les to I a re uire ent for the ohansen a roach ohansen ound test that ca tures oth the I and I ti e variant data series a le sho s that all the e uations for the eef and cattle su l de ict the e istence of a lon run relationshi et een the e o enous and endo enous varia les herefore the ound test ethod of co inte ration rovides oth the short run and lon run coefficients si ultaneousl he null h othesis that su ests no lon run relationshi et een the varia les at oth levels of si nificance is re ected a le ound est result of cointe ration for the eef and cattle arkets in a i ia he lon run relationshi has een esta lished therefore the ound test and lon run e uation rovide the coefficients for each co inte ratin vector ll the coefficients esti ated ossess the correct and e ected si ns ased on the value of ad usted s uared for the for al arket infor al and the arket in road a re ated al ost and of the variation in the endo enous varia le cattle arketed is e lained the variations in the e o enous varia les res ectivel i ilarl the value of s uared for the for al arket infor al and the arket in road a re ated al ost and of the variation in the endo enous varia le eef roduced is e lained the variations in the e o enous varia les res ectivel oefficient si ns and a nitudes are acce ta le in ter s of a riori e ectations ur in atson statistic ran e is fro to he lon run su l res onse relationshi he lon run rice of cattle and roducer rice of eef are si nificant in the for al arket and hen a re ated for the rest of a i ia ut insi nificant for the infor al arket or e a le the cattle su l res onse to rice for the for al arket is co ared to of the su l res onse at national level eanin on avera e an increase in rice for arketed cattle ill result in a res onse to cattle arketed in the for al arket co ared to at national level he national avera e res onse is lo ecause of the non res onse fro the infor al arket he oor su l res onse fro the infor al arket is due to a oor off take rate and oor calvin rate linked to the kee in of cattle for other ur oses he roducer rice of shee and rainfall oth have the correct si ns and are si nificant at and res ectivel a ed values of rainfall are i ortant for deter inin the ualit of ran eland a ne ative si n i lies that oor rainfall leads to drou ht and assivel affects the ualit of asture then indirectl affects the stockin rate and ualit of cattle on asture he elasticit of su l ith res ect to in ut cost I is hi her in a solute value than o n rice elasticit for the rest of a i ia he short run su l res onse relationshi he coefficients in difference ter s re resent short run elasticities iven the nature of cattle roduction in a i ia the short run elasticities are lo he short run elasticities are of and for the herd of cattle arketed in for al infor al and a i ia taken as a hole res ectivel i ilarl for eef su l the short run elasticities are and for the rest of a i ia for al and infor al cattle arketed e uations res ectivel he coefficients of and on the correction ter easure ad ust ent to ards the lon run relationshi et een cattle reedin herd and the e o enous varia les cattle roducer rice rainfall in ut cost etc and are consistent ith the a riori e ectation ecause the have a ne ative si n and are elo the value of i ilarl the coefficients of and on the correction ter easure ad ust ent to ards the lon run relationshi et een eef su lied and the e o enous varia les eef roducer rice rainfall and in ut cost n rice elasticities for eef and cattle in a i ia he o n rice elasticit of su l of cattle for arketin and roduction of eef is inelastic in oth the short and lon run in a i ia his can e e lained the factors outlined reviousl or e a le a le sho s that the o n rice elasticit for live cattle in a ell functionin for al arket is and for the short run and lon run res ectivel hich translates to a increase in the lon run eef elasticities in the sa e arket are and for the short run and lon run elasticities res ectivel co arison o n rice elasticities for the for al arket are reater than the elasticities esti ated for the infor al arket o ever taken in road a re ates the elasticities for the hole cattle sector are and for the short run and lon run res ectivel i ilarl the elasticities for eef are co arativel hi her in the for al than the infor al arket co ared to and at a re ated national level his eans an increase in the rice of cattle and eef ill result in a s all res onsiveness to the nu er of cattle arketed and a ount of eef su lied his is co on for a co odit that is ke t for oth consu tion and as a ca ital ood a le n rice elasticities verall the esti ated elasticities a le are consistent ith a riori e ectations and su erior to those reviousl esti ated on ach et al firstl ecause e took care of the d na ics in cattle and eef roduction and arketin usin the a roach and ound test for co inte ration tests and secondl ecause the elasticities results re orted here are the onl co lete set of cattle and eef su l elasticities availa le for a i ia u ar and conclusions his a er esti ates the su l res onse and lon run relationshi et een cattle and eef as endo enous varia les and reedin herd si e in ut costs rices and non rice factors such as rainfall in a i ia usin the odel It is sho n that oth endo enous and e o enous varia les e hi ited a lon run relationshi and a ear to e enerall acce ta le a riori ro erties he ound test co inte ration results indicate that there e ists an evidence of first order I a on the varia les he for is relevant for odellin inte rated series and allo s for ca turin lon run and short run relationshi s ro an e irical anal sis of the relationshi et een the reedin herd si e of cattle and eef and roducers rices rainfall and in ut costs hich are re orted here it is found that the vector error correction odel erfor s ell in ter s of the conventional criteria of coherenc and consistenc ith theor sti ated elasticities of cattle reedin herd and eef ith res ect to cattle and eef roducers rices rainfall in ut costs and rices of co etin roducts are reasona le in ter s of the a riori e ectations concernin the si ns and a nitudes and econo etricall sound herefore reco endations for olic akers should ai at i rovin the technical and ana e ent as ect of cattle far in such as firstl the land tenure s ste in the northern co unal areas s his ill i rove the land ana e ent ractices and ra in roductivit and ulti atel i rove the ualit of cattle roduced there his has a ulti lier effect on the cattle roduction in the s econdl a focus on easure ill i rove the co ratio in the co unal areas throu h i roved far in ractices urrentl the co rate is too lo at an avera e of as co ared to in co ercial areas hirdl easures to increase the co rate can lead to an increased off take fro It is kno n that each co ill ive irth to offs rin calves annuall ar ers in the s face challen es in accessin arketin facilities and auction oints on ach an eenen and irsten Supply response, demand and stocks for southern African beef orkin a er for the e art ent of ricultural cono ics tension and ural evelo ent niversit of retoria outh frica actors in uencin co unal livestock far ers artici ation in the ational red eat develo ent ro ra e in outh frica he case of the astern a e rovince a alethu otsha heki e akud e 2 indika a eki 3 i hi e an eni 1 onani hodo 1 olile etu 1 , du iso a i uko 1 oses u in a 1 hulisile ho a 1 handeka tshan ase 4 and ictor en a 1 1 ational ricultural arketin ouncil retoria e u lic of outh frica and artnershi s ith the rovincial de art ents and the unici alities the ro ra has e anded effectivel ithin the astern a e rovince and has een rolled out to other rovinces as ell hence it is no kno n as the ational red eat develo ent ro ra e he initiative e anated fro the o servation that the local de and for eef outstri s roduction resultin in the i ortation of ore eef his as a ainst the ack round that there as unta ed otential in the co unal far in areas here of eef roduction takes lace in outh frica of hich illion head of cattle are found in the astern a e alone lthou h the ro ra has so far ade a si nificant contri ution to co unal far ers artici ation in for al arkets as ell as their understandin of the value of for al arket artici ation e irical evidence to su ort this notion is still desira le ence this case stud as conducted to deter ine the factors that influence far ers artici ation in the ro ra focusin on the astern a e rovince lo istic re ression odel as used to deter ine factors influencin far ers artici ation in the ro ra and the results indicated that distance to arkets stock si e da s of fattenin and the contri ution of the ro ra inco e earned fro livestock sales throu h the ro ra si nificantl influence far ers artici ation his is an indication that far ers are slo l e innin to understand ho the can est ake use of the o ortunit resented the ro ra s re ards olic therefore it is reco ended that co unal livestock far ers e encoura ed to artici ate in the ro ra Keywords o unal far ers livestock arket access the ational red eat develo ent ro ra e Introduction ivestock in outh frica as in other develo in countries is one of the i ortant sources of livelihoods for the oor and has also een sho n to e a ood co odit for rovidin a stead and ro in inco e to oor and rural o en or households affected overt livestock roducts re ain one of the fe ra idl ro in arkets ithin the a ricultural sector It has also een sho n else here that the oor earn a hi her inco e fro livestock than the ealth el ado et al tudies in outh frica have sho n that s allholders in so e areas have a co arative advanta e in certain co odities such as livestock hich if ro erl su orted tar eted u lic invest ents could result in ulti lied inco e and e lo ent enefits for the rural oor an eni ro i atel of the a ricultural land in the countr is ainl suita le for e tensive livestock far in e art ent of riculture orestr and isheries and the co unal land occu ies a out of the total far in area and su orts a ro i atel of the total cattle e ene et al In there ere an esti ated nu er of illion co unal far ers accountin for of the total cattle availa le in outh frica o ever inslie et al found that the uantit of livestock arketed co unal far ers in the astern a e as ell elo of the total herd si e co ared to the of their co ercial counter arts o arin the t o cate ories of far in it is clear that co unal far ers have challen es in arketin their livestock on other challen es these far ers are characteri ed lack of arketin infrastructure such as re ulated ra in ca s auctioneerin facilities and rural feedlots hese challen es otentiall rohi it far ers fro full artici ation in the for al arketin of livestock and non artici ation in arkets livestock far ers in co unal areas can ean an o ortunit fore one to increase household food securit reduce overt and e ort earnin s herefore arketin of livestock is i ortant for the develo ent of the co unal sector ence the countr e arked on the red eat ro ra fter ore than ten ears since the start of the ro ra in the astern a e rovince it is interestin to undertake so e e irical anal sis of it o ever this is ust a aseline anal sis he o ective as to deter ine the factors that influence far ers artici ation in the ro ra focusin on the astern a e rovince ack round to the ro raIn outh frica e arked on the red eat develo ent ro ra as an initiative to increase the for al arket artici ation of co unal far ers his initiative as driven o ark as the astern a e red eat ro ect ai ed at increasin the artici ation of co unal livestock far ers in the for al arket his e anated fro the o servation that the local de and for eef outstri s roduction resultin in the i ortation of ore eef his is ad acent to the reco nition that there as unta ed otential in the co unal far in areas here of eef roduction takes lace in outh frica of hich a out illion head of cattle are found in the astern a e alone he su ort fro o ark ended in hus the inherited the ro ra he ro ra has since een funded the co ined effort the and has seen the ro ra e andin ithin the astern a e and ovin out to other rovinces urrentl the ro ra covers si rovinces and is effective in three as resented in a le he t o artners and ork ith the rovincial de art ents and unici alities and this so far has roven to e a stron artnershi he ro ra has so far enerated illion and fro co unal livestock sales since the took over a le he e tent of the ro ra n overvie of co unal cattle far ers in outh frica he theoretical evolution of co unal far in ith its associated difficulties so e natural and others hu an ade is resented in en a et al he authors further deli erate on the characteristics of outh frican livestock sho in that co unal far ers have a lo off take at a out co ared to their co ercial counter arts hose off take is esti ated to e a ro i atel o e of the natural courses that can cause these i alances are drou hts and disease out reaks versus the lo a ilit of co unal far ers to ada t to such hile the hu an ade ones can e associated ith historical s ste atic olicies that e cluded lack far ers fro the far er su ort services that ere availa le in the countr s a result s all scale far ers account for of the cattle herd and onl account for a share of the for al arket cattle artici ation in the countr ith livestock ein the i est enter rise in outh frica s a ricultural sector it is i ortant to take a closer look at eef as art of the red eat arket outh frica s cattle herd increased fro illion cattle in to a out illion in o ever there are ears that sa decreases in nu ers such as and durin this eriod n the slau hter side fro to the countr slau htered a out illion cattle er annu In ter s of outh frican a riculture s contri ution to ross do estic roduct co ared to su aharan frica one ould assu e that a riculture is less i ortant in outh frica than in other countries he a ricultural outlook of of the r ani ation for cono ic o o eration and evelo ent and the ood and riculture r ani ation indicates that a riculture contri utes an avera e of of total this fi ure ran es fro elo in outh frica and to ore than in had and o ever a riculture articularl livestock contri utes si nificantl to outh frica s in the sense that it is the ri ar occu ation his akes outh frica si nificantl different fro the econo ies in the rest of in the afore entioned ter s hich eans that a riculture and articularl livestock is not eco in an less i ortant in the econo of the countr includin its rural areas an eni and el ado ar ued that the relativel s all share of a riculture in outh frica s national inco e and the studies sho in the i ortance of re ittances and non far activities for rural households in outh frica hide the otential contri ution of a ricultural and articularl livestock inco e in rovidin self driven livelihoods for the oor his is es eciall true for oor and vulnera le rou s ho live in the ar inali ed rural areas ithin an other ise advanced industr ased national econo he further ar ue that rural households ove a a fro de endence on a riculture is ore as a result of lack of o ortunities in a riculture rather than increasin o ortunities outside a riculture in outh frica an eni and el ado in a stud ased in the i o o rovince of outh frica found that oorer households faced ore hurdles in artici atin in the livestock value chain than their ell endo ed counter arts in the co unal areas he relativel ealthier households also tended to o n ore livestock than oorer ones he stud sho ed that the state of ein oor affected the a ilit of households to ake invest ent decisions that actors in uencin co unal livestock far ers artici ation into the ational red eat develo ent ro ra e in outh frica he case of the astern a e rovince i ht e useful in achievin ositive livelihood outco es he constrainin factors included lack of access to financial services and infrastructure arket related challen es faced co unal cattle far ers all scale livestock hus andr re ains a ri ar land use o tion in co unal areas over ost of outhern frica ovie et al stud asika et al revealed that the roduction of cattle is the a or ani al far in in the co unal areas his is due to the ulti ur ose nature of livestock roduction and its ulti le enefits in co unal ran elands hich has een noted to ield hi h econo ic returns arrett ccordin to urner and illia s co unal far ers do not kee livestock solel for arketin ur oses ut as a eans of storin ealth that is onl converted into cash durin ti es of cro roduction failure a on other reasons his akes livestock articularl cattle the ost valued assets in rural co unities urner and illia s lthou h a lack of u ers is fre uentl iven as a reason that s all scale far ers are una le to access the arket the fact is that hen such u ers do ish to u fro s all scale far ers the oor condition of livestock results in lo er far ate rices es eciall durin dr s ells ivestock auctioneers and s eculators often raise concerns that the cannot a co etitive rices for ani als that are in oor condition or not read for the arket u no e aal indicated that oor condition of livestock is i ortant ut the a e of ani als too old e uall contri utes to oor rices hen far ers do sell oor condition of livestock is also attri uta le to inade uate ra in and the e tre e de radation of the natural resource ack of su liers of i ortant a ricultural in uts for livestock far ers such as vaccines and feed su le ents and co on ro le s of enetic inferiorit of ani als further reduce the desira ilit of ani als he lo levels of technolo ado tion further co ound the ro le ell urther ore the lar e nu ers of cattle ke t in villa es leads to overstockin and severe over ra in es eciall in inter hen natural asture is reduced to ero his results not onl in inade uate feed ut oorer ualit astures each ear ince su le entar feedin is hardl rovided due to the costs involved insufficient nutrients result in hi h loss of ei ht oun et alIn addition hi h costs of veterinar services rohi it the constant and continuous use of these services o e an et al here is also a shorta e of fa il la our and unrelia le hired la our to cover all the activities erfor ed at the sa e ti e on the far s cro roduction livestock roduction of various t es and re uire ents and off far activities his tends to result in oor ana e ent of stock ood and ricultural r ani ation of the nited ations ther a or challen es include hi h transaction costs arious researchers ari on or et al on et al hi hli ht transactional costs as arriers to the efficient artici ation of e er in far ers in different for al arkets er in far ers ill not use a articular channel hen the value of usin that channel is out ei hed the costs of usin it e et al have isolated hi h transaction costs as one of the ke reasons for e er in cattle far ers failure to artici ate in for al arkets or e a le the re ote location of ost e er in cattle far ers cou led ith oor road net orks results in hi h transaction costs es eciall trans ort costs there reducin the rice that traders are re ared to a for the cattle use a et al akhura and khori noted that even if e er in far ers are in areas ith ood road linka es the distance fro the for al arkets tends to influence transaction costs he further a a the e er in far ers are fro for al arkets the hi her the trans ort costs the incur s it is a statutor re uire ent that hen urchasin or sellin cattle roducers and consu ers ust have a valid identification certificate and trans ortin er it ational evelo ent enc far ers incur e tra trans ort costs to o tain trans ortin and sellin er its fro the olice station and veterinar offices res ectivel hese restrict far ers artici ation in distant arkets urther ore s allholder far ers tend to underesti ate the value of collective action s a result the often sell s all and var in nu ers of livestock individuall and directl to the u ers ithout linkin to other arket actors orld ank oet ee et al In other ords s allholder far ers lack collective action in arkets and this eakens their ar ainin ositions and often e oses the to rice e loitation traders ethodolo ata and sa lin desi n econdar data ere o tained fro the far ers data ase that as develo ed throu h the ro ra the sa led data constituted far ers he data covers onl one rovince astern a e hence this stud is referred to as a case stud he astern a e rovince is here the ro ra as orn and here it is ides read in ter s of o eratin custo feedin facilities and far ers artici ation he sa le as dra n rando l fro five district unici alities athole a o lfred o hris ani and acadu nal tical ethods ar ers ithin the rovince differ on ho the arket their livestock considerin the constraints en ulfin arket artici ation herefore it as o served that usin the off take rate alone to deter ine far ers arket artici ation as insufficient ence a lo istic re ression odel as used to deter ine the factors influencin for al arket artici ation here the de endant varia le is a dichoto ous varia le he odel as e ressed as follo s In addition the lo istic re ression odel as necessar to esti ate the ercenta e of variance in the de endent varia le e lained the inde endent varia les Inde endent varia les included in the odel are stock si e distance to arket condition of livestock da s of fattenin and contri ution of the ro ra ther varia les ere e cluded virtue of ein insi nificant esults and discussion escri tive anal sis he do ination of ales in the a ricultural sector is still co on in the co unal areas of outh frica ontsh e and the astern a e is no e ce tion or e a le the ender distri ution of the sa led far ers as ales to fe ales his can e attri uted to the fact that cattle herds are associated ith the social status of en in the co unal areas In addition o en can onl herd households hen the are sin le or ido s o ever there is no evidence of the contri ution of o en to household decision akin re ardin livestock ranches actors in uencin co unal livestock far ers artici ation into the ational red eat develo ent ro ra e in outh frica he case of the astern a e rovince irical anal sis a le indicates an increase in off take rate hich sho s that co unal far ers are ro ressivel i rovin their artici ation in the for al arkets his is a ainst the ack round that co unal far ers are in ossession of a out of cattle ut onl a out ake it to the for al arket o ever the off take rate resented in a le is an a ro i ation it as calculated fro the sales and o ulation of livestock data fro the sa led far ers evertheless the results indicate that the avera e off take rate for lfred o is the hi hest at he avera e off take rate for the five unici alities is hich is still elo the for the co ercial far ers o ever it is hi her than the off take rate of the co unal cattle sector in outh frica a le ff take rate eter inants of for al arket artici ation he as initiated to narro the a et een co unal far ers and their co ercial counter arts in ter s of for al arket artici ation In this a the unta ed otential of eef roduction fro the co unal areas ould not e overlooked herefore it as interestin to undertake an e irical anal sis of factors that influence far ers artici ation in the ro ra there artici atin into the for al arket o ortunities it entailed a istance to arkets he results resented in a le oint out that there is a ositive si nificant correlation et een distance to arket and for al arket artici ation he results e licitl sho that there is a fold increase in odds of for al arket artici ation for ever unit increase in distance to the arket for livestock far ers in the co unal s his i lies that there is reater artici ation in the for al arket these far ers re ardless of the distance to the arket hen other factors are ke t constant tock si e is an i ortant factor that can increase the econo ic via ilit of livestock far in ith an increase in stock si e ore cashflo is likel to e achieved far ers he results indicate that stock si e is ositivel correlated ith the for al arket artici ation of co unal livestock far ers he odds ratio for the association et een for al arket artici ation co unal livestock far ers and stock si e ad ustin distance to arket da s of fattenin and contri utin to the ro ra is his i lies that there is a fold increase in the odds of for al arket artici ation for ever unit increase in stock si e his a ears to indicate the si nificant i act the can have on the econo ic via ilit of far ers considerin its i act on the increase in stock si e a s of fattenin he od condition of an livestock in for al arkets attracts ood arket rices and therefore increases the rofita ilit of the enter rise In this stud it as found that there is a ositive correlation et een the da s of fattenin and the for al arket artici ation of co unal livestock far ers urther ore the results indicate that for al arket artici ation ill increase fold for ever unit increase in the da s of fattenin his a ears to indicate that increase in od condition of the livestock could ossi l increase for al arket artici ation the far er hen other factors are ke t constant Conclusion he odel used in this a er as fit for the anal sis and the results indicate that the co unal far ers odds of artici atin in the ro ra increase hen stock si e distance to arkets da s of fattenin and inco e received fro livestock sales throu h the ro ra are ad usted urther ore this correlation is si nificant on all four occasions o so e de ree this is an indication that far ers are slo l e innin to understand ho the can est ake use of the o ortunit resented the ro ra s re ards olic therefore it is reco ended that co unal livestock far ers e encoura ed to artici ate in the ro ra In other ords su ortive olicies and institutions could su stantiall i rove roductivit and inco e eneration and ake a a or contri ution to overt reduction in the co unal s ace I act of a ricultural credit on livestock inco e case stud of as ela istrict Balochistan halid han ula ar han au ia a a an 2 , Jalal Faiz 1 uha ad dul a al 3 and ul ar li 4 1 ssistant rofessor as ela niversit of riculture ater and arine ciences thal alochistan akistan khalidkk ahoo co 2 ssociate rofessor niversit of alochistan uetta 3 ssistant rofessor dul ali han niversit ardan 4 chool of cono ics ua hon niversit of cience and echnolo uhan hina stract his stud has evaluated the i act of a ricultural credit on livestock inco e in as ela istrict alochistan or assess ent e have used ri ar and secondar data to test the relationshi et een a ricultural credit and livestock inco e he results of the stud indicate that a ricultural credit hel s to develo the livestock sector and enhances the livestock inco e of the far ers urther ore the elasticit of a ricultural credit is hi her than the elasticit of fa il si e and education level he elasticit of the credit fa il si e and education level are and res ectivel hus this a er ar ues that if olic akers ive riorit to livestock in a ricultural credit and devise eas credit rocedures for the s all far ers it ill ulti atel result in alleviatin the ro le of overt and une lo ent in the re ion In a id to increase livestock and cro far ers access to credit facilities the i erian overn ent esta lished the ricultural credit uaranteed sche e fund his ai ed at enhancin food securit and the rotein re uire ents of the o ulace he ain o ective of this stud is to anal se the relationshi et een the fund o tained the livestock far ers throu h the sche e and their livestock roductivit his stud e lo ed ti e series data over a eriod of ears o tained fro the ational ureau of tatistics the entral ank of i eria and the ood and ricultural r ani ation of the nited ations he anal tical tools used include trend anal sis and a co inte ration test he result sho s that roductivit in the livestock su sector sho s a stead increase fro ut declined shar l et een and s of livestock roduction re ained constant ith a sli ht decline at intervals here as a rise in livestock roduction fro to he co inte ration test sho s a ositive lon run relationshi et een livestock roductivit o ulation and the a ount of loans ranted the sche e hile a ne ative relationshi e ists et een livestock roduction interest rate and e chan e rate It is therefore reco ended that the overn ent increase the fundin ca acit of the and that a ro riate dis urse ent techni ues e i le ented so that the fund reaches the a ro riate tar et Keywords: loan accessi ilit livestock roductivit co inte ration test i eria ack round of the stud ivestock rearin la s a ke role in the econo ies of est frican countries rovidin of a ricultural ross do estic roduct outh est frica o an cono ic o unit of est frican tates ith illion head of cattle and illion s all ru inants and illion oultr the ahel and est frica is an e ce tional re ion for livestock rearin In nu ers and of the entire su aharan frica re ion the ahel and est frica contain of the cattle of the shee and of the oats ivestock rearin is one of the ain econo ic activities on hich the oorest o ulations de end for food and inco e It is one of the areas of a riculture hich is a a or source of forei n e chan e in frica as it is for s a su stantial art of their e orts ala i and ra o o ccordin to a nu er of studies carried out to ascertain the ro le s of a riculture nsariet al ala i et al there is a ro le of oor access to credit facilities his is ecause credit has een identified as one of the crucial factors in a ricultural roduction and in an cases a e a li itin factor in s allholder cro and livestock roduction In a id to co at this the as esta lished ecree o of and started o erations in ril Its ori inal share ca ital and aid u ca ital ere illion i erian aira and illion res ectivel he ederal overn ent holds and the holds of the shares he ca ital ase of the sche e as increased to illion in arch he und uarantees credit facilities e tended to far ers anks of u to of the a ount in default net of an securit reali ed he und as set u ith the sole ur ose of rovidin uarantees in res ect of loans ranted an ank for a ricultural ur oses entral ank of i eria osu et al noted that the as for ed solel ith the o ective of encoura in financial institutions to lend funds to those en a ed in a ricultural roduction as ell as a ro rocessin activities ith the ai of enhancin the nations e ort ca acit and local consu tion his ena led livestock far ers to e inte rated into the ro ra ethodolo tud area i eria ca e into e istence in as a result of the a al a ation of the north ith the southern rotectorates i eria eca e inde endent in and a re u lic three ears later i eria is located in est frica It lies et een latitude orth and lon itude ast res ectivel he e u lic of enin i er had and a eroon and the tlantic cean res ectivel order i eria in the est north east and south he countr covers a land area of s uare k he ve etation ran es fro an rove and thick forests in the south savannah and the ahel in the iddle elt and the north res ectivel he ational ureau of tatistics uts the esti ated o ulation of i eria at illion he i erian econo is do inated a riculture ver of the o ulation is en a ed in this sector ith an avera e contri ution to the ross do estic roduct es ite the do inance of a riculture the crude etroleu su sector contri utes over of i eria s forei n e chan e he anufacturin sector s contri ution to the econo is ini al ith an avera e of lso the co unication sector has itnessed tre endous ro th in recent ti es ith an avera e contri ution of es of data and ethods of data collection econdar data ere used for this stud hese ere data on fund dis urse ent the taken fro s annual u lications and records on a ricultural roduction fro and the orld ank online data ase s annin Analytical Techniques rend anal sis and co inte ration anal sis ere carried out on the data collected he odel for the co inte ration test is iven as Y1, = ∑ αY t-1 + ∑βIX 1-1 +∑βIX 2-1 + ∑βIX 3-1 + ∑βIX 4-1 + ∑βIX 5-1 + U t(1) 1 = ∑ βIX t-1 +∑βIX 2-1 +∑βIX 3-1 + ∑βIX 4-1 + ∑βIX 5-1 + Ut   et u and rocess of the roundta les anel discussion sessions here ere three sets of artici ants for each of the roundta le anel discussion sessions aThe panel members or panellists consist of e erts in the field concerned he ere stakeholders ho thou h the did not ake for al ritten resentations had vast e erience and could talk a out hat the ractised he anellists for the first roundta le ere far ers five fro a iland and t o fro o a i ue he second and the third set of anellists ere financial institutions and develo ent re resentatives includin ed ank icro inance nit a iland altech enesis I etcThe audience as redo inantl scientists ho in this session had to learn so e role reversal as the ere addressed stakeholders ho the nor all resent to in conferences he listened ith reat enthusias and asked the anellists clarification uestions cThe moderator introduced the to ics initiated the discussion coordinated the uestionin fro the audience s nthesi ed and su ari ed the ke oints he roundta les ere set u as follo s erts in the field ere invited as anellists to sit in front he ere infor ed in advance ut did not have to re are a for al resentation he ere re uested to talk a out hat the do and the ere encoura ed to ust share their e eriences as the ere he or anisers introduced the the e and the oderator introduced the anellists he issue under discussion as initiated osin a set of uestions and the anellists ere called in a redeter ined order to res ond e ressin their vie s and sharin e eriences anel e ers ere also asked to react to res ond to or co le ent the vie s e ressed co anellists he audience as then encoura ed to ask clarification uestions or co ent t the end of each session the oderator inte rated and s nthesi ed the different oints of vie a of a su ar and resented to the audience he far ers roundta le here ere a total of seven far ers on the far ers roundta le five fro a iland and t o fro o a i ue a ulani tsa etse of the a iland ational ricultural nion re resented the far er or ani ation e introduced his or ani ation and its role in value chain financin tsa etse entioned that is facilitatin finance for far ers throu h initiatives that include su ort in runnin a ro sho s for ani al feed and edicines su ortin chicken far ers access to finance for the urchase of feed and achiner for a attoirs and su ort in u radin their uildin s o ever he indicated that the ain challen e the face at is ho to unite the far ers as the tend to ork in silos here is a need to co e to ether as far ers across the value chains or e a le eef far ers and i roducin rou s need to co e to ether to stren then their voice hen advocatin for overn ent su ort afta la ini re resentin a i far ers in the feedlot usiness shared his e eriences of usin his o n fodder to feed cattle e is ro in so a ai e ucuna and ele hant rass as fodder o far he has cattle in the feedlot e faces a or challen es hen u in cattle fro o ners he do not trust the scales and ant hard cash hich uts hi at risk fro cri inals hen carr in lar e a ounts of one rans ortation is also a challen e as he u s cattle fro di tanks that are scattered o address the challen e the rou e ers are lannin to have their o nThe farmers roundtable herd of co s that ill roduce for the feedlot he are alread in discussion ith the tea fro the e art ent of riculture to lend the ulls anele of e atini eats re resentin cattle u ers indicated that she slau hters a out ani als a eek he u s cattle fro far ers ut also has her o n feedlot he noted that far ers usuall sell old untreated ani als resultin in additional costs to the u er ar ers also tend to co lain a out sellin er kilo ra and the rices er kilo ra he u ers deduct the cost of treatin the ani als hich reduces the rice further anele reco ended that the overn ent should intervene in the ricin s ste s to ensure unifor it nother a or challen e is that u in fro isolated far ers in re ote locations is costl and that there are hi h transaction costs due to the lon distances travelled for s all nu ers o eti es after travellin the lon distances the failed to a ree on the rices he also confir ed the challen e indicated the feedlotter that far ers ant cash ecause the nor all sell their cattle in an e er enc anele also indicated that the issue of the a e of cattle is another a or one of contention as u ers e need soft and tender eat et far ers sell old ani als there is a need for far ers to understand these realities she la ented he also indicated that there are ver fe a attoirs around and it is the res onsi ilit of the u er to et a veterinar officer to certif the eat he concluded that as such the costs of cattle u in are too hi h ora a a ula fro the uka a a district resented the e eriences of her rou he rou kee s cattle and also has a feedlot he u fro different di tanks fro and u ards t the o ent the have cattle hich is still ver little considerin that the u er said she anted cattle er eek he rou has a vision that in three ears the should have their o n far to roduce for the feedlot he ain challen e the face in e andin their usiness is that the do not have cash in hand to u cattle as far ers refer cash hen there are dela s in ettin one cattle o ners sell to another erson the ti e a u er returns ith cash nother erson re resented co ercial far ers in a iland he indicated that she is far in on ha of rivate individual far er o ned land he is far in ith rah an and i entaler in the lo veld here ever thin does ell he e lained that of the t o reeds the rah an is hard hile the i entaler has ore eat s a co ercial far er she is colla oratin ith s all scale eef far ers sellin reedin stock to a i far ers ho ant to i rove their enetics he ain challen e is that as the far is for all re istered hen the sell cattle to s all scale far ers the have to char e value added ta to all clients includin s aller far ers his eans the have to a an additional hich ushes u the rice to e ond the reach of ost far ers he indicated that cattle in a iland are co letel in red ecause there not enou h enetics are i orted he is no chan in fro i entaler to o an ala a reed ith lon er le s as she needs the cattle to e a le to ada t to the lon alkin distances he said she sa an o ortunit of i rovin her usiness as she su orts s all scale far ers It is a in in situation hen s all scale far ers et ore cash the u ore fro lar e scale co ercial far ers here is ho ever a need to chan e the attitude of s all scale cattle roducers hile the cattle indicate ealth in a i culture there is a need to chan e ith the ti es fro far in as cultural to cattle far in as a usiness here is also a need to a share infor ation on ne develo ent in cattle far in a of conclusion she said that as far ers e are unfortunate ecause e have to u retail and sell holesale nother far er fro o a i ue is far in in the an isa district he kee s cattle oats and chicken he also o ns a fodder ank for su le entar feedin durin the dr season he far er indicated that she lants orin a leuceana and ele hant rass as fodder on t o ha he second far er fro o a i ue lorida ha an u as fro the a uti district he is a far er trader and utcher o ner he u s ani als fro different re ions and uses live ei ht hen u in the cattle Interestin l hile cattle far ers have challen es ith the arket for her as a trader the ain ro le is availa ilit of ani als she si l cannot et enou h his is orst durin drou hts hen ani als are ver fe and the fe availa le are in terri le condition nother a or issue in cattle u in is that there is no radin of cattle the sa e rice is char ed re ardless of the condition of the ani al he issue of finance is also a ro le in o a i ue as it is difficult to et a loan fro the ank es eciall for older entre reneurs u ar of co ents discussion oints he follo in ere the ain conclusions and reco endations of the session rans ort he ualit and volu e of livestock are enerall lo and road infrastructure is not ver ood s a result trans ort costs are ver hi h It as reco ended to consider or ani in far ers so that the could share trans ort hich is a ossi ilit ut ro le atic if u ers are in different locations overn ent su ort to livestock It as a reed that the livestock sector does not have the sa e su ort as the cro sector It as reco ended to lo overn ents to reco ni e the contri ution of the livestock sector and rovide ore su ort r ani in far ers for livestock far in It as noted ith concern that far ers tend to like to ork in silos s a result the lose out on econo ies of scale o e ar ued that orkin in silos is not the ro le ut a s to of oor far er or ani ational develo ent It as reco ended to closel look at the overnance issues in s ther artici ants also ar ued that there is a lot of overn ent interference in s here have een atte ts to reak the silos orkin in associations ho ever hen sharin of enefits is erceived to e unfair hard orkin e ers have tended to leave ortunities to enefit fro orkin to ether as a rou ere identified durin arketin ti e and in ut rocure ent It as reco ended to or ani e far ers to full enefit fro orkin to ether durin these ti es eedlottin here ere uestions on ho lon ani als are ke t in feedlots hat their a e should e and hat criteria are used for u in ani als ll these uestions a ear to have een ans ered in the stud as ela orated one far er ho indicated that the kee cattle in a feedlot for three onths u ani als a ed fro one to three ears old ei h the cattle ake a visual ins ection and count the teeth to deter ine a e It as noted that contrar to hat is tau ht in colle es far ers have found if the use inners in feedlots the et ne ative rofit as ualit is currentl not reco ni ed in the radin s ste s Infor ation co unication technolo I he use of I for sharin arket infor ation as identified as havin considera le otential to hel address ost of the challen es identified n e a le as shared of a ro ra called ri that uses to co unicate eef far ers can easil arket a sin le co on the latfor re ardless of their location nother far er said I use hats to sell cattle to a i far ers e ust all tr and use it to reduce transaction costs he financial institutions roundta le roceedin s ook he financial institutions roundta le he ed ank re resentative entioned that cattle can e used as collateral if the are ear ta ed sin cattle as collateral also eli inates the ro le that ost fricans have of ein so closel attached to their livestock that the ive the s ecific na es and end u treatin the like ets or e ers of the fa il urther ore he entioned that far ers should kee usiness records in order for the to e eli i le for for al credit usto ers should re e er that ank staff are like the as differences i ht arise in o inions and the hole idea is a out relationshi uildin here is a drive the inistries of riculture around the orld to address constraints that livestock far ers are encounterin ith financial institutions I ra il India and Indonesia are orkin ith Is to address constraints faced the latter in contri utin to s all enter rises In international trade Is should not co ro ise inflo s and outflo s at the sa e ti e rotectin the a i far er he uro ean nion has ut to ether a financial acka e that rovides and Is to u the re ainin o ever there is no one si e fits all in financial acka es ifferent sectors are dealt ith se aratel isks orne the anks are easured onthl and this overns the a anks ive credit to far ers van the altech re resentative entioned that he did not have uch to sa ut ould rather take uestions fro the floor o ever he noted that financial state ents need to e ut in lace to access financial su ort fro Is here is a need to understand value chains relationshi s and ro ect docu entation uta a an eu of enesis alluded to the fact that the financin of s allholder far ers is ke in akin the value chain a success ho ever he noted that there are other areas of the value chain that need to e addressed efore the odel can e via le e further entioned that the value chain should e ade inclusive of all the livestock value chain actors n o ortunit as identified related to innovative financial acka es s ecificall desi ned for s allholder livestock far ers and crafted Is If ro erl crafted accordin to the needs of the livestock far ers these acka es ould ena le increased roductivit he director of the icro inance nit avid eni ade ention of the i ortance of financial inclusion ainl of livestock far ers o ever he said the ain challen e faced co ercial anks as ho the could ini i e transaction costs e ave an e a le of transaction costs ein such that the ere the sa e or al ost the sa e for a illion loan and a loan hich ade the e enses of these anks hi h for s all a ounts here is a a or a et een the financial needs of s allholder far ers and insurance roducts tailored for the here is a need for the develo ent of a ree ents i e a ent a ree ents that ould har oni e and stren then the relationshi et een value chain actors this as identified as an i erative a that ur entl needs to e addressed o ents discussion oints Discrimination against small-scale farmers ne contri utor assionatel alle ed that Is es eciall the co ercial ones treat far ers in a discri inator anner in ter s of not rantin the loans even hen the have all the ro er docu ents and ass all the re uire ents stated the anks asicall he entioned that anks have a ne ative attitude to ards far ers It as reco ended that ank officers e trained on the t e of usinesses in hich their clients are en a ed since this ould ena le anks to desi n suita le services or roducts for s allholder far ersended that Is e onitored to see hether the are reall hel in far ers in ter s of accessin credit offerin ankin infor ation to far ers co in u ith suita le financial roducts and rantin loans to those far ers ho eet all the criteria set for accessin credit his as infor all andated or su ested to e done the icrofinance nitThe implementing agencies and donors roundtableUnfair competition for farmers ar ers felt that the ere facin undue co etition and needed to e rotected fro this throu h olic he far ers ere assured that there as indeed a need to look into olicies and re ulations so as to ensure that do estic far ers are not e loited outside co etitionhe artici ants e ressed a concern that there as no clarit on the criteria used to desi n financial roducts and s ecificall asked ed ank ho the desi ned financial roducts tar eted to their livestock clients ed ank res onded that there as no s ecific a in hich the ank desi ned services or roducts tar eted at livestock far ers It as reco ended that Is desi n s ecific roducts for the livestock sector since it is ke for a ricultural develo ent and uni ue he i le entin a encies and donors roundta le he roundta le focused on the role of i le entin artners and develo ent artners donors he conte t as the i ortance of rovidin infrastructure on a rant asis versus as art of the loan to far ers It as clearl indicated that the facilities ere rovided to far er co anies as a risk reduction easure in their artici ation and a catal st to de onstrate throu h a ilot the via ilit of a odel that involved revolvin loans in eef value addition he anellists e hasi ed that develo ent artners and i le entin a encies role is to facilitate develo ent rin in eneficiaries to a level here the vie their o erations as usiness and identif in their role alon the value chain his is done throu h the selection of usiness inded artici ants for the develo ent ro ects trainin and a areness uildin activities ithin ro ects In the case of the a i eef ro ect the fact that feedlot co anies contri uted to ards financin their o eration de onstrated their understandin of their role he i est a identified a on value chain actors as that of lack of trust he anel hi hli hted that this can e facilitated the i le entin a encies and I I la ed this role ro inentl in linkin far er co anies to arkets and to financial institutions in the a i eef ro ect here ere concerns that so eti es eneficiaries do not differentiate et een su ort and facilitation roles hen interactin ith develo ent artners and donors his is a function of the co unication strate e lo ed i le enters and develo ent artners and a histor of su ort for eneficiaries Invest ent in co unicatin clearl hat the artners and donors role in an action is ill o a lon a a to clearin u so e of these isconce tions he i ortance of co creation a on i le entin a encies and eneficiaries su orted donors as hi hli hted as a ke factor that can ield success reduce isunderstandin and lead to reater ado tion of technolo ies and function of value chains he roundta le discussion concluded that the ke to success in ro ects that are arket oriented lies in isa re ated su l res onse of cattle and eef in a i ia an autore ressive distri uted la a roach Kalundu K.S., Meyer F.I act assess ent of the ational red eat develo ent ro ra e on for al arket artici ation of co unal livestock far ers in outh frica the case of the astern a e rovince Sotsha K., Fakudze B., Ngqangweni S., Nyhodo B., Ngetu X., Mazibuko N., Lubinga M.H., Khoza T., Ntshangase T., Mmbengwa V.I act of a ricultural credit on livestock inco e a case stud of istrict as ela alochistan Khan K., Khan G., Ramazan S., Faiz J., Abdul Kamal M.,  ","tokenCount":"113860"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6687055e0b8007a9c2f88554688ebe10","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/3d03cc7c-894c-4a8d-9913-a8a0baf5dc1b/retrieve","id":"-1714430828"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"aceb7c2d-f322-4bf5-8232-8802f120b097","pagecount":"35","content":"Understanding seed systems and seed security. In Improving the effectiveness and sustainability of seed relief. Proceedings of a stakeholders' workshop, Rome, 26-28 May 2003. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization.Understanding seed systems and strengthening seed security: A background paperA BACKGROUND PAPERIn recent years, the provision of seeds to strengthen the recovery of agricultural production systems following disasters has become an important activity for many relief agencies. One rationale for this is that by providing a key input to agricultural production, dependence on repeated food aid can be reduced. Now, in light of 10 or more years of experience, a number of agencies are reviewing their seed aid activities with a view to improving both the effectiveness and the sustainability of seed-based interventions. With the current crises in multiple regions of Africa, this issue has renewed urgency.Last year, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) carried out an evaluation of the Organization's strategic objective A3: \"Preparedness for, and effective and sustainable response to, food and agricultural emergencies\" (FAO, 2002a). The results of this evaluation were considered by the Programme Committee and endorsed by the FAO Council.In the specific area of seed relief, FAO's Division for Emergency Operations and Rehabilitation (TCE) has been working with the Seeds and Plant Genetic Resources Service (AGPS), as well as other relevant services. In the light of the evaluation, FAO is developing approaches for more targeted relief as well as strengthening the links between relief and rehabilitation. This work is intended to benefit both FAO's operational activities and its normative responsibilities to facilitate the development and dissemination of best practices.These review activities are taking place at a time when the international development community is increasingly looking towards a broader combination of measures to tackle food and livelihood insecurity, including support to production, market-based measures, and provision of social \"safety-nets\" (for instance, through provision of cash in addition to more traditional food aid responses). There is increasing recognition of the distinction between lack of availability of a resource (food, seed, etc.) and lack of access to that resource because of poverty. This is consistent with Amartya Sen's explanation of contemporary famines in terms of lack of \"entitlements\" (Sen, 1981) and the framework of sustainable livelihoods, which views livelihood strategies as drawing upon different types of capital assets (Scoones, 1998).This paper provides background information on seed systems and seed relief interventions for participants at the Workshop on Effective and Sustainable Seed Relief Activities, Rome, 26-28 May 2003. In this paper we review the rationale for and goals of seed aid (section II) and provide an overview of seed systems, with particular attention to the \"local\" or \"informal\" seed system that provides most farmers with seeds most of the time (section III). In section IV, the parameters of seed security are discussed, including the distinctions between availability, access, and utilization (or quality) attributes. Acute and chronic emergency situations are also described. In section V, lessons learned from experience in the field, particularly in Africa, are summarized and discussed, and in section VI, current response options are described and compared, focusing in particular on direct seed distribution and seed fairs and vouchers. Finally, some major challenges for moving ahead are considered in section VII.This paper builds upon a number of earlier studies (a comprehensive bibliography is provided) as well as recent discussions among FAO staff involved in seed relief (the FAO seed relief discussion group). The paper does not necessarily reflect the views of FAO or its member states.Sporadic incidents of seed provision during emergencies can be traced back many decades. US government agencies and churches provided seed domestically to devastated farmers during the worst days of the Mississippi floods and the Depression of the 1920s and '30s (Red Cross, 2001). Internationally, some of the first traceable deliveries, associated with an FAO mission, show rice seed moving into Cambodia at the turn of the 1980s (www.websitesrcg.com/border/border-history-1).However, it is predominantly within the last decade, and particularly on the African continent, that relief agencies have engaged in seed aid as a routine complement to food aid assistance. Seed delivery has been seen as an innovative and effective step forward in helping farmers recover, reestablish, and sustain their farming systems. The logic of seed aid centers on the notion that communities affected by emergency (e.g., drought, flood, short-term civil disruption) should have basic seed and tools as quickly as possible, so as to hasten the process of producing their own food and/or making money from crop sales (ODI, 1996). To date, in general humanitarian practice, \"seed aid\" has been equated with \"giving seed.\" That is, the focus has been on replacing a single capital asset, seed, as the leverage point for strengthening broader structures and processes in the seed system.The goals of seed aid interventions have been variously expressed, and the nuances are quite important. For instance, even within the same country and during the same relief distribution effort (in Kenya, 1997), diverse seed aid goals were promoted by different implementers. These included filling a temporary seed gap so as to help farmers establish a self-help mode, supporting the commercial seed sector, supporting progressive farmers in generating income, and building political good will among a constituency (Sperling, 2000). The setting of goals, not always done explicitly or transparently, is key to shaping the specific approach used in providing seed system assistance. Goal definition affects, inter alia, the type of intervention chosen, the kinds of crops/varieties on offer, whether skill building approaches are promoted, and the need for and nature of beneficiary or participant targeting and inclusion.The FAO seed discussion group has determined that the overall aim of seed relief activities should be to contribute to food and livelihood security by ensuring that farmers, especially vulnerable farmers, have access to seed (planting material) of adequate quality. Seed relief activities should (a) meet the immediate needs of farmers for access to planting material and (b) contribute to long-term restoration, rehabilitation, or improvement of agricultural systems. By supporting food production, seed relief should decrease dependence on repeated food aid. These aims are nested within the broader aims of strengthening food and livelihood security, consistent with the broader aims of FAO's Strategic Objective A3: \"Preparedness for, and effective and sustainable response to, food and agricultural emergencies.\"Three features might be highlighted in this statement. First, it avoids assuming that seeds should be directly supplied from outside; instead, the emphasis is on facilitating farmers' access to seeds, through direct distribution or other means. Second, even in the short term, there is recognition of the need to adopt a longer vision where possible. Third, it implies a \"systems\" perspective, focusing on seed systems within the broader context of agricultural and livelihood systems.The seed discussion group also recognized that the aims of emergency seed aid assistance might go beyond restoring existing seed systems. Depending on the context, humanitarian relief practitioners may also work to strengthen weaker seed/agricultural systems, those vulnerable to stress, and even, in some cases, to significantly change such systems. This strategy to work toward a modified or changed system may be appropriate where the stress itself has caused a changed environment or where the management of the environment has become increasingly unsustainable-in progressively drier areas, for example, where the use of drought-prone material (varieties and crops, such as maize hybrids in Kenya) has become the norm rather than the exception.The group proposed a number of guiding principles (see box 1), several of which will be examined later in this paper.To strengthen seed systems, we need to have a comprehensive understanding of them. Farmers, particularly small farmers, are involved in multiple kinds of seed systems, which help them produce and obtain the seed they need. These systems can be broadly divided into two types: a formal seed system and a local system. The local system is also sometimes called the \"informal,\" \"traditional,\" or \"farmer\" seed system. As we shall see below, the formal and local seed systems are not always as distinct or separated as the two labels may imply.The formal seed system is the easier to characterize, as it is a deliberately constructed system, which involves a chain of activities leading to clear products: certified seed of verified varieties (Louwaars, 1994). The chain usually starts with plant breeding and selection, resulting in different types of varieties, including hybrids, and promotes materials leading to formal variety release and maintenance. Guiding principles in the formal system are to maintain varietal identity and purity and to produce seed of optimal physical, physiological, and sanitary quality. Certified seed marketing and distribution take place through a limited number of officially recognized seed outlets, usually for financial sale (Louwaars, 1994:28).The central premise of the formal system is that there is a clear distinction between \"seed\" and \"grain.\" This distinction is less clear in the local, farmer seed system.A local seed system is basically what the formal system is not. Activities tend to be integrated and locally organized, and the local system embraces most of the other ways in which farmers themselves produce, disseminate, and access seed: directly from their own harvest; through exchange and barter among friends, neighbors, and relatives; and through local grain markets. Encompassing a wider range of seed system variations, what characterizes the local system most is its flexibility. Varieties may be landraces or mixed races and may be heterogeneous (modified through breeding and use). In addition, the seed is of variable quality (of different purity, physical, and physiological quality) (Almekinders and Louwaars, 1999). The same general steps or processes take place in the local system as in the formal sector (variety choice, variety testing, introduction, seed multiplication, selection, dissemination, and storage) but they take place as integral parts of farmers' production systems rather than as discrete activities. While some farmers treat \"seed\" specially, there is not always necessarily a distinction between \"seed\" and \"grain. 8. An information system should be put in place to improve institutional learning and as a repository of information gained from cumulative experience. Such information systems should be institutionalized at national levels, to the greatest extent possible. 9. A strategy to move from the acute emergency response to a capacity building or development phase should be included in the design of the intervention. Despite, or perhaps because of, their variability and local specificity to needs and preferences, local channels (e.g., household stocks, markets, social exchange networks) provide most of the seed that most small farmers use. Common figures suggest that somewhere between 80% and 90% of the seed farmers access comes from the local seed system (DANAGRO, 1988;Cooper, 1993;Rabobank, 1994;FAO, 1998), although this varies greatly by crop and region.(For example, the figure is much lower where hybrid maize is grown in Southern Africa or, generally, where formal seed is subsidized.) In studies of seed systems, much has been made of the notion that small farmers, especially in vulnerable regions, strive at all costs to save their own seed, and that they get the bulk of what they sow from previous harvests. While this is broadly true, especially in remote or marginal areas, studies that actually quantify seedsource use find increasingly that, within the local seed system, local grain markets are also crucial in meeting seed needs, especially for poor farmers and in difficult times. Again, this varies greatly by crop (see summary of work in Uganda; Rwanda; South Kivu, Zaire; and select regions of Burundi in David and Sperling [1999]). For many farmers, local markets are the second best bet (after home stocks) as they put on offer the same varieties farmers routinely sow (Sperling and Loevinsohn, 1993). One study in southern Somalia demonstrates that where grain traders invest in obtaining good-quality \"seed\" (making a distinction from bulk grain), local markets can be a preferred source of replacement seed (Longley et al., 2001).Looking at the seed system interfaces One of the most oft-cited and useful figures diagramming seed system components appears below. It shows formal and local seed systems as distinct but intersecting.Source: Almekinders and Louwaars (1999). It is perhaps this melding of the formal and the local that is of prime interest for those striving to create stable, resilient, and dynamic seed systems-systems on which farmers can actually rely. Three aspects of the intersections between the formal and local systems are of note:1. Materials themselves flow between the two systems-and create something new and potentially useful: Varietal identities frequently become blurred through several processes (McGuire et al., 1999). For example, many successful so-called \"modern varieties\" from the formal system may be pure line selections from local landraces or may be incorporated as components of farmers' mixtures. Further, farmers may recognize that modern varieties cross with local materials, such as criollo maize in Mexico. Farmers also may come to consider the modern introductions as \"local\" and eventually group them within the local genetic heritage (McGuire et al., 1999, drawing from Budelman, 1993;Scheidegger, 1993;Bellon and Brush, 1994;Smale et al., 1995;and Richards, 1997) all unusual for a farming household to meet their single-crop needs from varied seed channels. For instance, well-documented studies show that, during a single season, bean farmers throughout Eastern and Central Africa obtain some of their bean seed from their own stocks, some from markets, and some from neighbors, and may obtai a handful of new material (to try) from the extension agent or research station. Broad strategies also frequently vary by wealth (Sperling, 1993;David and Sperling, 1999).systems are indicated below (box 2).Box 2: Some Basic Elements to Describe Seed Sources For major crops:• From which channels (where • . . . And how do they change between \"good\" and \"bad\" years?• How eed accessed? ?• . . . And how do these vary between better-off and poorer households?Source: FAO seed relief discussion group synthesis, May 2003.The aim of this brief overview of seed systems is to try to \"demystify\" them. They are ively ypes complex and dynamic, but the principal unifying trends can usually be understood relat rapidly. One system is not necessarily \"better\" or more effective than another; they meet different kinds of needs, sometimes for different environmental niches, and for different t of farmers. Moreover, there are no clear or absolute divides between the formal and local systems: seed and varieties can flow between them; farmers draw upon one or the other depending on need. Seed-related interventions, whether for \"relief,\" \"rehabilitation,\" or \"development,\" need to be based on an appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of e As several seed specialists advocate, we need to develop proactive strategies to integrate the strengths of the two (Almekinders and Hardon, 2000).ach.Seed systems comprise both material entities (crops/varieties) and institutional ones (i.e., xityHere we present some of the newly emerging conceptual frameworks that are helping curity Two broad types of concepts and tools are presented below: a seed security framework (SSF)Seed security framework ing to provide food have long used the food security framework ome y,• Access by farming households (men and women) to adequate quantities of good-• Access by farmers to adequate, good-quality seed of the desired types at the right • Sustained ability of all farmers to have sufficient quantities of the desired types ofthose interwoven by social networks, markets, companies, seed parastatals). Their comple and dynamism have been noted-yet so has the possibility of understanding the main characteristics fairly rapidly.implementers of relief aid to think practically about how to diagnose and assess seed se and farmers' seed needs. The tailoring of the support responses to specific constraints should lead to higher cost-effectiveness of interventions, as well as shorter-and longer-term gains for beneficiaries themselves (CIAT/CRS, 2001).and distinctions among acutely stressed, repeatedly acutely stressed, and chronically stressed seed systems. 1Humanitarian agencies work as a tool for thinking about issues related to food security. While the definitions of food security are many and varied (reckoned by some as being many as 200 definitions with s 450 indicators [Hoddinott, 2001]), aspects of availability, access, and utilization (the last associated particularly with quality) often figure as central elements. Formal definitions of seed security are fairly recent, yet these same three basic elements are central to its characterization. Interestingly, all of these definitions identify, explicitly or implicitl \"access\" as the main determinant of seed security.quality seeds and planting materials of adapted crop varieties at all times-good and bad (FAO, 1998) time (Scowcroft and Polak Scowcroft, 1997) seed at the right time (Louwaars and Tripp, 1999) 1 These were published first as linked and complementary concepts in a meeting in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 20-21 January 2002, strategies for reconstructing seed systems in Afghanistan were debated (Remington , Sperling, and Bramel, 2002). The seed security framework and its description draw heavily from Remington (1998) and Remington et al. (2002), where the SSF was first developed and presented. The section on the distinctions between acute, repeated acute, and chronic-and their interactions with the SSF-draws from the work of Sperling (2000Sperling ( , 2001bSperling ( , and 2002a).• Access by all farmers to sufficient quantities of seed of adequate genetic and physical quality, at the right moment, year after year (van der Burg, 1998)The first detailed seed security framework, inspired by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Food Security Framework (Policy Determination 19, 1995), was developed in 1998, and formally published in 2002 (Remington, 1998;CIAT/CRS, 2001;ICRISAT, 2001;Remington et al., 2002). The framework distinguishes among the different types of constraints embodied in the concept of seed security: overall seed availability, farmers' access to seed, and seed utilization features (that is, the appropriateness of genetic and seed quality). These elements are briefly discussed further below. Source: Remington (1998) and Remington et al. (2002).Availability is defined narrowly as whether or not seed of the target crops is present in the geographical area in question. Availability assessments need to be separated from issues of the quality of the seed or the desirability of the varieties. If seed that will grow and mature to harvest, but which is of otherwise low quality or of unwanted varieties, is available, this constraint would fall into the utilization diagnosis. Seed unavailability means just that: there is little/no/insufficient seed to plant within a well-defined zone of action. As a basically geographically based parameter, it is independent of the socioeconomic status of farmers.Seed access is specific to farmers or farmer groups/communities. It largely depends upon the assets of the farmer in question: whether or not the farmer has the cash (financial capital) or social networks (social capital) to access seed. (Arguably, land and physical assets may also be considered as determinants of access: if a farmer has sufficient land to guarantee selfsufficiency, and adequate storage infrastructure, he/she is likely to have sufficient access under most conditions.) A diagnosis of a lack of access to seed indicates that traditional methods of obtaining seed have been disrupted and that alternative means are very difficult to employ. Access could be disrupted, for example, if social networks that facilitate seed exchange collapse, local grain markets cease to function adequately, or farmers lose so many assets that they can no longer afford to buy or barter for seed.The category of utilization comprises issues of seed quality, including physical, physiological, and genetic or varietal characteristics (box 4).In terms of the issues of physical, physiological, and sanitary seed quality, many implementers define quality according to the formal sector definition (see Chemonics, 1996) and thereby equate quality with certified seed (Remington et al., 2002). This tendency stems from the requirements of donors and procurement departments to show evidence of formal sector seed certification (and often to furnish a seed grower's certificate) when purchasing seed for aid distribution (Chemonics, 1996). Seed might also be sourced from the local foodgrain markets-and then cleaned and sorted.The quality of this seed can be highly variable, and relatively few studies have actually analyzed farmer seed quality parameters (viz., Scheidegger and Buruchara, 1991;Tripp, 1997a; KARI/CIAT, forthcoming). Farmers, themselves, and grain traders may, in some cases, exert considerable effort to distinguishing between grain and seed, sorting in the field, in storage, and again at sowing time (Longley et al., 2001;S. David, personal communication). Farmers' own standards and indicators, however, tend to be different from those of formal sector producers, suggesting that quality assessments themselves may be relative.Concerning varietal or genetic parameters, formal sector standards tend to aim for varietal purity as being among the more important defining quality characteristics. However, farmers often self-consume the harvest, sell it locally, or sow in a risk-prone and variable environment, which may encourage a certain degree of varietal heterogeneity-rather than purityas the preferred strategy. So again, assessments of desired quality vary according to the assessor.It is around the issue of seed quality that the FAO Seed Group had some of its more extensive discussions. There is a fundamental concern among implementers, including FAO, that they are accountable for the product they deliver-to both donors and beneficiaries-and that, at the minimum, the product has to do no harm. Several practical recommendations on seed quality emerged from the FAO seed relief working group analyses: there should be minimal quality standards adhered to-no matter what the intervention context-and it may be possible to introduce simple methods to control for these. The group also suggested a move away from stereotyping: some supposedly certified seed is not of good quality (at least once it reaches the farmer), and some farmer-saved seed definitely is. In addition, good-quality seed can be rendered near useless by poor storage or transport conditions. One basic notion put forward merits further discussion: it is not necessary or appropriate to insist on higher quality than that which farmers would normally be accustomed to in non-emergency situations. The group outlined its recommendations for guiding seed quality parameters in an emergency (box 5).For each of the parameters mentioned above, a certain standard may be used, depending on the situation (as described below) and the crop.If the seed is obtained through formal channels (which can be the case, for example, for most vegetable seed and for hybrid maize), it would preferably meet standards of certification (e.g., national seed certification standards or those under the OECD seed schemes) or of quality-declared seed (QDS).If the seed is obtained from farmers or local markets (for example, as bulk grain) (which is often the case for staple crops, such as sorghum and millet), it should be cleaned and tested to ensure that it meets certain minimum standards for the parameters listed above.If seed is not directly supplied, but rather access to seed is facilitated through mechanisms such as seed fairs, then other approaches to quality assurance are needed, for example:• Formal suppliers may be required to meet formal certification or QDS requirements.• Seed of all suppliers should be subject to visual examination by farmers and other experts.• Samples of seed should be tested for germination and physical purity by a qualified expert (some simple tests are available for these purposes). • We need to learn further from experience in respect of these mechanisms.Note that good and bad seed can be found in both farmers' own saved seed and so-called \"certified seed.\" Seed may be of good quality when produced but be poor once it reaches the farmer, if there is inadequate attention to conditions during storage and transport.Significant seed suppliers that provide seed of poor quality may be barred from providing seed in the future, whatever the seed delivery mechanism.In all cases, rigorous ex post evaluations of seed performance should be made, after planting and emergence and after harvest.Source: FAO seed relief discussion group synthesis, May 2003.A framework is only useful so long as it stimulates reflection and facilitates appropriate action. One of the accomplishments of the SSF thus far is that it has drawn attention to some of the basic assumptions, conscious or not, on which much of current seed aid implementation is designed. Much of the seed aid response is now based on the premise that seed is not available locally---and that the intervention should aim to physically bring seed in from elsewhere to the stressed region. This diagnosis of \"lack of availability\" (which may be explicit or implicit) has increasingly been questioned.As with all tools, the SSF is also only as useful as the capabilities of those using it.Parameters of seed security are not static, and the lines between them are not always clear.For instance, the distinction between availability and access is dependent on scale. At some level, if one is willing to pay enough or to transport seed from far enough away, seed is always available. Likewise, the dividing line between the concepts of availability and utilization has to be considered in subtle terms. If seed is not really adapted, can we call it seed at all? That is, should seed be considered available if that which is on offer has little possibility of sprouting, and yielding, and being acceptable to farmers? The SSF tool has been an important advance in providing analytical concepts by which to start to analyze seed systems, but its use needs to be context-specific.Much of emergency seed aid to date has been implemented in what are assumed, explicitly or implicitly, to be contexts of acute stress. That is, some outside agent (e.g., a flood) has severely disrupted a livelihood system, including its seed system, and caused a seed intervention to become necessary. Increasingly, however, seed aid is being delivered not as a \"oneoff\" intervention, but on a repetitive basis. In the 1990s, Kenya witnessed at least 10 seasons of seed aid distribution, seemingly due to \"repeated acute\" disasters, mostly drought, with the odd 1998 staccato of the El Nino floods (Sperling, 2000;Omanga et al., 2003). Similarly, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Malawi, and Burundi (among others) have been the scenes of seed aid assistance nearly every season-for 5-10 years. Such examples of repetitive seed aid should stimulate reflection and re-examination of the underlying problems.There are multiple ways to try to characterize the emergency and rehabilitation contexts in which practitioners intervene. Key aspects of disasters have been described through sets of contrasting parameters, which have helped link the context with the planning of reconstructive measures (manmade/natural, single/complex, rapid/slow-onset, short/long duration; heterogeneous/ homogenous). Here, for the sake of discussion, we distinguish between two broad categories \"acute\" and \"chronic.\" This distinction is not always a clear one, even conceptually, but it can be a useful tool in informing appropriate seed system interventions.Acute seed insecurity is brought on by distinct, short-duration events that often affect a broad range of the population. It may be caused by the failure to plant a single season, loss of a harvest, or one-time loss of seed stocks in storage. While in \"normal times\" one might identify the seed-secure, the semi-secure, and the \"always seed-short\" households (i.e., chronically seed insecure, as per Cromwell, 1996), all may be affected during an acute event, such as a flood or short civil disturbance. Those communities and farmers who recover quickly, with or without one-off seed-distribution assistance, are often those who suffered only from acute stress.Chronic seed insecurity is independent of an acute stress or disaster, although it may be exacerbated by it. Chronic seed insecurity may be found among populations that have been marginalized in different ways:economically/socially (poverty, little land, little labor) ecologically (repeated drought, degraded land) politically (insecure areas, on land with uncertain tenure)Chronically seed-insecure populations may be characterized by (1) continual shortage of adequate seed to plant, (2) difficulties in acquiring off-farm seed because of poverty, or (3) the utilization of low-quality seed and poorly-adapted varieties on a routine basis. The result is households with a built-in vulnerability to seed system calamities.Understanding seed systems and strengthening seed security: A background paperAcute and chronic seed insecurity will very often exist together in an emergency situation. Indeed, in cases where emergencies recur, in drought-prone areas, for example, acute situations are nearly always superimposed on a chronic problem that is rooted in poverty.An analysis of situations of seed insecurity reveals two trends in the relationship between acute and chronic contexts. First, there is increasing evidence of a transition from acute to chronic seed insecurity rather than recovery, as various forms of \"quick relief\" (e.g., free distribution of improved varieties) may undermine the function of local seed systems and alter more robust crop profiles (van Oosterhout, 1997). Thus, it may be alarming, but not surprising, that farmers in the Tana Region of Kenya routinely list \"seed relief\" as one of the basic channels on which they count to access seed, season after season (T.Remington, personal communication).Second, analysis is showing that many of the aid cases that were originally considered acute situations, on closer examination, exhibit aspects of more chronically stressed populations. Seven of the eight seed intervention cases being examined under a current CIAT/CRS/CN project (funded by OFDA and MFA/Norway, 2002 onwards) were seen, after assessment, to be primarily chronic situations where acute aid was being implemented. For example, in the Nampula region of Mozambique, provision of clean cuttings of new cassava varieties has helped to address the problem of brown streak virus, which has devastated the local cassava staple crop. However, to strengthen food and seed security over the longer term, efforts might need to focus on broad strategies for crop diversification. Fortunately, the local government is moving in this direction (Berg, 2002).Certainly, populations are heterogeneous and in every community one might find some seedinsecure households. However, this is different from general community-wide stress. Case studies are showing how, too often, acute emergency measures are being implemented in lieu of possibly more effective-and longer-term-support. This is not a new insight but it is one that has yet to change major emergency seed intervention practices.Chronic seed insecurity will nearly always manifest itself as a problem of seed access; lack of the ability to access a good is usually equated with problems of basic poverty. A consequence of this is that the scope of the assessment needs to go well beyond any seed system diagnosis, towards a set of approaches that will support and strengthen basic livelihood strategies and which will help communities become more resilient in the face of real system adversity.In box 6 we briefly suggest how the seed security framework and categorization of acute/ chronic seed security can help practitioners reflect among the more effective assistance strategies. If seed availability is assessed as the problem (whether acute or chronic), seedbased interventions, such as seed importation or development of community-based seed production enterprises, may be appropriate. However, a diagnosis of \"seed access\" might wisely trigger a more holistic analysis of livelihood strategies. In the acute phase, interventions based on seed systems may still largely be appropriate for an access problemparticularly those that can also stimulate the local economy. However, identification of chronic access problems should lead practitioners to reflect on the need for approaches that address livelihood security more broadly. Either individually, as a sub-population, or as a community, beneficiaries may require rather broad-based poverty-alleviation assistance. Rigorous studies of the seed systems that farmers use are relatively new, with most studies effected in the last 10 years (Sperling, 1993;Wierema et al., 1993;Bellon and Brush 1994;Louette 1994;Teshome, 1996;Louette et al. 1997;Meitzner 1998;McGuire 2000;Longley et al 2001;Christinck 2002).Studies focused on seed systems in emergency contexts are still fewer in number, being limited to a handful of cases (in Honduras: de Barbentane Nagoda and Fowler, 2003;Haugen and Fowler, 2003;in Rwanda: Sperling, 1997a,b, 2001a, 2002b; in Sierra Leone, Longley, 1997, 2000, and Richards and Ruivenkamp, 1997;in Kenya: Sperling, 2000, 2002a; some initial work in Mozambique on genetic diversity: Ferguson, 2003). In-depth accounts by practitioners themselves can also provide valuable lessons (e.g., Archibald and Richards, 2002), but these are also the exception rather than the rule.This relative lack of analysis is disturbing given the level of seed aid. Emergency programs normally do not build in a diagnostic or assessment component, and at the other end of the project cycle, evaluations beyond the harvest are rare. This gap means that interventions aimed at rehabilitation normally cannot profit from what has been recently learned on the ground. The problem is compounded as institutional memory tends to be divided between those involved in \"relief\" and those involved in \"rehabilitation\" and \"development.\"Despite their paucity, a number of findings are emerging from this body of evidence:1. Farmers who have the conditions to sow (e.g., who are not displaced or landless) generally find ways to obtain seed of at least some key crop during crises. In bothUnderstanding seed systems and strengthening seed security: A background paper acute and more chronic contexts, the resilience of the local seed system has been documented as remarkable. For example, in Rwanda in 1994, just three months after widespread killing and displacement, with violent events peaking near harvest time, farmers managed to plant their staple crop, beans, in areas comparable to those during the pre-war period. They sourced seed from a range of channels, including their own stocks and local markets (Sperling, 1997a,b). Similarly, data from Sierra Leone, documenting a period of four years of civil strife, showed farmers in a war zone actually increasing their production of grain staples (Longley, 1997).2. To date, in contexts of emergency seed delivery, where total seed sown has been monitored, analyses have shown that aid does contribute to seed needs, but not in a major way. In Kenya during the 1997 drought, despite massive distributions of maize seed, over 85% of the seed sown came from local channels (Sperling, 2002a). There were similar findings in regard to bean seed in Honduras after Hurricane Mitch in 1999 (Haugen and Fowler, 2003) and sorghum in drought-stricken Somalia (Longley et al., 2001). This does not mean that farmers do not value or need the emergency distribution, but, rather, they also value, very much, the seed they can source themselves-of known varieties and from known channels. Emergency aid adds support to a seed system that may be weak-but which still has much to offer. The major exception to this finding concerns situations where the seed on offer is of a crop that is relatively new for the farmers.Local grain markets are of central importance as sources of seed. This is one of the real surprises arising from the studies of emergency seed systems. As home stocks of self-saved seed go down, it is the local markets that primarily fill in the gaps, at least in areas where local markets have had some prior importance (Longley, 1997;Sperling, 1997aSperling, , 2000; KARI/CIAT, forthcoming; CRS, 2003) (viz. not for sorghum in Southern Sudan, see Jones et al., 2002). From social exchange networks, farmers may get a handful of seed to show \"good will,\" but rarely the quantities needed to sow significant areas.4. Different seed channels may be affected by the crisis to different extents and in different ways. Some are more durable than others. One salient example comes from the Rwanda war and genocide crisis. Farmers, particularly in the north, had come to rely on formal sources for potato seed, as well as for accessing new varieties. The war disrupted this supply as early as 1991-92, as the parastatal responsible for bulking up was located in one of the war's first fronts. Development projects, also standard sources for certified seed and improved varieties, phased out activities early (1993) as insecurity grew. Local markets, in contrast, the main sources for bean seed, continued to diffuse local grain used as seed (and sometimes emergency seed as grain) during some of the worst of the events. So while potato production virtually collapsed (relying on the formal sector for improved varieties and clean seed), bean seed channels-and production-which were based on local farmers' systems, continued largely on course (Sperling, 1997a).It is important to analyze each crisis on a somewhat case-by-case basis: the agro-ecological and political context, the crop exigencies, and the principles on which the seed system normally functions all vary from situation to situation. In many war contexts, social relationships may be so severely strained that the routine networks of barter and exchange by which seed is passed are irreparably damaged (Richards and Ruivenkamp, 1997). The local seed system in Rwanda did not particularly suffer from this problem-as it was never firmly grounded on an ethic of gift giving.The information to-date does suggest that one widespread assumption-that of seed not being available in a crisis-frequently does not hold under closer scrutiny. Seed can be found, if one has the means. Seed access, in contrast, does tend to be a problem again and again. Victims of a disaster may have lost considerable assets (houses, doors, windows, livestock, seed stocks-and social assets, like support networks), may simply not have the margin to reaccess seeds (from markets), or may simply have priorities other than buying seed (e.g., an urgent need to hire labor or pay for badly need healthcare).In brief, the current body of seed system analyses steers us to avoid assuming that \"disaster\" equates with \"need for seed aid.\" Some sort of seed system support may be warranted, but the response needs to be more clearly matched with the constraints and opportunities at hand.Possibly because of its roots in food aid, the two major approaches currently being used to support seed systems in an emergency (acute stress) involve getting seed itself to farmers; that is, they involve asset transfers. Seed distribution, often coupled with tool distribution (\"seed and tools\") and the seed voucher and fair (SVF) approaches are described below. Additional strategies for supporting seed systems in stress are then briefly introduced.Direct distribution of seed seems to have been the earliest approach to seed-based humanitarian relief. As mentioned in the introduction, above, while it dates back some 80 years domestically and perhaps 20 internationally, direct seed distribution has only come into maturity as a routine emergency response in the last 10-15 years.Seed distribution is based on the assumption that, because of a disaster, farming communities do not have enough seed. As seed is often brought in from outside the region, a less explicit assumption, guiding procurement in these cases, is that sufficient seed is not available locally. In its classic form, \"seed aid\" involves the importation of seed, usually from certified seed sources that have become suppliers because of the requirements of donor and procurement departments. Because of this, the content of seed aid distribution has generally been limited to a narrow range of crops and varieties, those produced by government or commercial sectors and, hence, widely adapted to larger areas. For example, we find much of the relief in Southern Africa to be maize based-and often hybrid-maize based. Vegetable seed, imported from outside Africa has also proven to be a prime input into classic seed relief operations. Certified seed of cabbage, kales, onions, etc., are assessed as being useful for stimulating local agro-enterprise, as well as improving local diets.A number of guidelines have been written to inform better practice for seed provision during emergencies. Some of these aim to be holistic, discussing the rationale for and varied approaches to seed aid in the short and longer term (ODI, 1996). Some restrict themselves to the day-to-day how-to of getting seeds to beneficiaries (Johnson, 1998;Concern, n.d.). Still others are tailored to a specific crop or disaster-prone area (Chemonics, 1996;Preston, 1999).The FAO guidelines resulting from its first emergency seed intervention workshop in 1998 (FAO, 1999) specifically focused only on direct seed distribution, as that was the basic seed relief paradigm in use at the time.Since then, extensive experience in seed aid implementation has allowed refinements to be made in the approach, enhancing both its shorter-and longer-term effectiveness. Among other changes, there have been moves towards procuring locally appropriate crops and varieties (steered by specific agro-ecosystem assessments) and towards somewhat greater flexibility in seed sourcing (D. Burgeon, personal communication). Seed companies are sometimes asked to recondition food grains of crops not easily available through commercial channels (such as cowpeas), and local markets themselves might provide a chunk of emergency seed provisions, after it has passed some of the standard seed-quality tests.Evaluating the process of planning and implementing seed aid, itself, has also become more common and seems to be leading to more efficient operations (see ODI, 1996, for the \"Data Checklist for Planning and Implementing Emergency Seed Provision\" and \"Data Checklist for Evaluating Emergency Seed Provision\"). While the two major (and routine) complaints of those supporting the approach persist-that crop and variety choice are not sufficiently wide and/or adapted and that seed often arrives late at the farm level-humanitarian practice here is clearly becoming more refined through time.Ironically, despite a long and widespread history, there are relatively few real evaluations of the effects of seed aid (viz. Friis-Hansen and Rohrbach, 1993;Sperling, 2000), and virtually none have been truly independent. Little is known about the impact of the relief seed, itself, in helping farmers truly get back on their feet and in promoting system stability. Nor have the longer-term effects of repeated delivery been sufficiently analyzed. Recently, however, an edited collection of papers questioning the effectiveness of conventional approaches and proposing alternatives has been published (Longley and Sperling, 2002). The various studies in this collection show that the nature of the seed system problem is rarely assessed, and local capacity is usually not built upon in any meaningful way. Additionally, the international agricultural research centers have developed a consensus view that some seed relief, although well intentioned, may actually undermine the operation of local seed markets, stifle the potential development of commercial supplies, and create marked dependencies among the beneficiary population (Future Harvest Centers, 2001). Recognizing the major shortage of rigorous evaluations, these issues are now in the process of serious examination.2The approach using seed vouchers and fairs in an emergency context is a relatively new aid option, dating from about 2000. Neither seed fairs nor vouchers, however, are totally novel, and the seed fair antecedent, in particular, bears some mention.Seed fairs within agricultural development have a history of being associated with concerns for biodiversity and cultural heritage. Particularly in the Andean Region (Tapia and Rosas, 1993;Scurrah et al., 1999) and throughout South and Southeast Asia (Sperling and Loevinsohn, 1996;Jarvis et al., 2000; V. Jardhari, personal communication), seed fairs have been promoted to help farmers maintain their seed diversity, raise awareness of its value, and encourage associated knowledge to be maintained. More recently, seed fairs have been held in Africa (Zimbabwe, Mali) mainly to promote on-farm conservation of plant genetic resources, although in limited instances they have also been used to promote new varieties (specifically in Tanzania, see Nathaniels and Mwijage [2000]; Such market-oriented approaches are now being more widely applied in Mozambique and Zimbabwe as well). Within such biodiversity-focused fairs, many varieties are generally exchanged, but with small quantities of seed passing hands (Guerette et al., in preparation). The aim is not provision of seed, per se, but rather transfer of genetic material, with key associated knowledge.Vouchers have long been a standard practice within the realm of food aid-and beyond. The first suggestion for their use in seed aid assistance emerged in the mid-1990s. As shown above, ground-truthing research after the Rwandan civil war found that seed had generally been available within local seed systems, but farmers had few resources to access it. Selective distribution of seed vouchers was recommended as a way for impoverished farmers to get seed through these local channels (Sperling, 1997a).This voucher recommendation, together with the assessment of the access problem, led one NGO (Catholic Relief Services, CRS) to make a conceptual leap-and test voucher use in an emergency context (first in northern Uganda in 2000) (Remington et al., 2002). The voucher methodology was subsequently combined with fairs to bring potential seed sellers together at the same place, in order to simplify logistics and minimize possible misuse of vouchers. Seed vouchers, coupled with fairs, were first implemented in Kenya in 2000 by CRS through an FAO-supported project with financial assistance from SIDA.The premise of the seed voucher approach is that seed is generally available in a region after a crisis (although this assumption should be continually verified through field assessment). Farmers' constraints hinge on their not being able to access the seed, usually because of sharply depleted finances, sometimes combined with collapse of social networks. The notion of seed fairs draws on the premise that farmers are eager, willing, and capable of selecting for themselves the crops and varieties they require for sowing, especially in difficult periods.Seed vouchers and fairs are generally organized for a period of one to two days and are held in multiple local locations.To date, seed vouchers and fairs have been organized in about 10 countries (Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Burundi, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Sierra Leone) and are being implemented or supported by a range of agencies (CRS, FAO, DFID, ICRISAT, SIDA, and, the newest, World Vision). They have been tested for use in both natural (flood and drought) and manmade disasters (conflicts).Manuals have recently been issued to describe the overall philosophy behind fairs and to provide specific implementation procedures (CRS, 2002;ICRISAT/INIA, 2003). Experience has also refined operational logistics: for instance, more vouchers are now issued in smaller units to allow farmers to \"purchase\" a greater number of crops and varieties (in small quantities) as well as to give them greater leverage for bargaining with sellers. Further, the obligation of those sponsoring seed vouchers and fairs to conduct an exit interview has proved key for building in a quick and reiterative learning process for fair improvement (see CRS, 2002, for a range of specific exit evaluation forms for buyers and sellers, both during and after the fair).Those involved or interested in the seed voucher and fair approach underscore its range of advantages. It not only gets farmers seed, but seed for the crops and varieties they desire (whether local, improved, or a basket of both). It fundamentally supports two types of beneficiaries: the buyers or seed recipients, themselves, as well as the many small traders (up to 500 at an event) who may put on offer some of their own seed, along with that of the family business. The approach seems broadly empowering (allowing even poor housewives to sell), while at the same time, giving economic support to local seed system entrepreneurs -and private seed company interests willing to compete on the level playing field. It is particularly the benefits to the regional economy that are now spurring implementers to broaden the use of fairs for chronic stress contexts (65%-80% of aid resources go back to the local system during a fair) (S. Walsh, and D. Leege, personal communication; R. Jones and D Rohrbach, personal communication). Seed Fairs will soon be designed specifically to stimulate local agro-enterprise and to bring entrepreneurs (seed and otherwise) together for an \"innovation\" event. Given such flexibility, seed vouchers and fairs could help promote a seamless link from a relief to a rehabilitation to a development perspective.The seed voucher and fair approach is not without its critics, and the approach does raise a number of basic concerns, two of which are consistently voiced. First is the quality of the seed. Given that sellers from broad venues can offer their wares, how can agencies guarantee that even minimal seed-quality standards are met-and that the beneficiary is not being cheated in the process? The second basic issue revolves around logistics and scale. Seed vouchers and fairs are basically a decentralized form of relief implementation. As they have to be organized locally, the scale of impact is circumscribed-say 30,000 families for any one event. Scaling up implies that multiple fairs would have to be organized in order to have an impact on a range of agro-ecological zones and to reach a sizable number of communities.Reflections side by side: Direct seed distribution and seed vouchers and fairs Both approaches-seed distribution and seed vouchers and fairs-are presently in use. Even now, both are being implemented by the same donors/agencies (e.g., FAO, CRS). Both are sometimes programmed within a single country (e.g., the Kenya case study presented in this workshop). In initial evaluations comparing/contrasting both have started (FAO, 2002b). Without determining that one approach is \"better\" than the other, we might consider the appropriateness of each under different contexts and conditions. The FAO seed relief discussion group recently embarked on a reflection comparing and contrasting these approaches. The boxes below sketch a first round of observations, comments, and concerns.The boxes below illustrate different concerns associated with the two approaches. One set of issues is centered around how or whether the approaches are technically, economically, and socially effective. A second set of concerns question the ability of an aid agency to implement the approaches. A third hinges on \"acceptance\": will donors or special-interest groups be willing to promote implementation to gain experience and allow for critical evaluation?We end this section by acknowledging that other approaches to support small farmer seed systems-in stress and in the transition out of stress-have been tested. Our space limitations mean that we can only cite them here, but all merit further analysis and possible promotion, depending on site-specific constraints, opportunities, and capacities. Further examples, and comments on the suitability of various approaches are provided in ODI (1996) and ICRISAT/INIA (n.d.,Module 3).Voucher distribution has been used as a form of aid in a large range of contexts, for services as well as goods, and variously for medicines, tools, food, and seed, and other items that vulnerable populations might need. A recent evaluation of particular interest compares the use of vouchers in delivering seed system and livelihood support in Malawi. The effectiveness of three distribution systems were assessed: the starter-pack program (delivering high-yielding, modern seed and fertilizer), the starter-pack voucher (allowing farmers to access seed of choice at local retailers), and the flexi-voucher (permitting recipients to cash in for a range of household items, from seed and fertilizer to soap, salt, pots, pans, blankets, and the like) (Gough, Gladwin, and Hildebrand, 2002). The authors conclude that the flex-vouchers were the \"most economically enhancing tool for smallholders\"(p.15) among the options on offer. Clearly, more comparative work-and similar field-based evaluations-would be welcome, especially as seed-based approaches need to be situated among the gamut of possible assistance options. These initiatives parallel those using vouchers or cash to facilitate farmers' access to food (Peppiatt, Mitchell, and Holzmann, 2003). • Where seed economy is predominately formal (introduced crops; improved seed and varieties regularly provided from outside farming system) • Where there is total crop failure (and seed not available) e.g., drought/disease • Major emergences (where large numbers of people are affected) • Where there is long-term displacement of populations • Where insecurity prevents operation of markets • Where there is a tradition of seed giving (that is, where people are used to producing their own seed or exchanging it) Source: FAO relief seed discussion group synthesis, May 2003.Food aid is often supplied in emergency situations alongside seed aid as a \"seed protection ration\" to provide food so that the farming family does not need to consume the seed provided. Where local seed systems are functioning, but the previous harvest was poor, food aid can similarly protect farmers' own seed stocks. For example, in the Rwandan war and genocide, food aid was crucial in allowing seed stocks and varietal diversity to be maintained, particularly in the case of the staple bean crop (Sperling, 2001a).analysts (e.g., Cromwell, 1997Tripp, 1997b;Almekinders and Louwaars, 1999;Rohrbach et al., 2001), and how-to handbooks have multiplied in number, especially in the last five years (e.g., Kugbei, Turner, and Witthaut, 2000;David and Oliver 2002). What still remains to be assessed is the extent to which such enterprises are sustainable, bring direct economic benefits to those involved, and can actually stabilize and strengthen seed system functioning.As has been noted earlier, the quality of seed produced by farmers as part of their normal crop production varies considerably. Improvements in the physical, physiological, and sanitary quality of \"below-average\" seed through the wider dissemination of best practice could make a significant contribution to productivity and seed security. Improved seed treatments and storage methods could contribute. Additionally, there are many options for improving farmer access to new varieties, including participatory varietal selection and participatory plant breeding.What next? A background paper is only as useful as it helps to set an agenda, and we end by looking toward the future. The FAO seed relief discussion group has identified a number of areas where progress is needed, particularly in terms of guidelines and tool development (see box 9). Here we focus on priority areas for action for improving the effectiveness of seed system relief within the next three to five years.Box 9: Seed System-Related Tools to Be Developed• Guidelines for baseline assessments or \"seed system profiles\" for all disaster-prone countries as part of emergency preparedness• Typology of the contexts in which FAO actually intervenes in emergency situations• Inventory of possible seed system approaches• Guidelines for assessing seed security needs in emergency situations• Methods for targeting beneficiaries We need practical, usable tools for understanding what happens to seed systems in stressed situations. Tools have to be sufficiently honed-so as to guide targeted action-but need not necessarily encompass the totality of seed system attributes (both social and technical). While they need to be based on sound analysis, these tools should be practical and not overly academic.At this point, multiple survey formats exist for understanding seed security at the level of the individual farming household. These, however, are not practical for quick use, nor for use on a larger scale when quick decisions have to be made.Based on broad notions of a seed security framework (Remington et al., 2002) at present we know of two more fully developed tools for assessing seed security in periods of stress:For emergencies with rapid onset, CIAT, CRS, and Care Norway have developed a seed system security-assessment tool that is presently being tested in the field in West and East African contexts (e.g., successfully in Senegal, May 2003; T. Remington and C. Droeven, personal communication). It is basically a project-level tool, initially desk-based (for emergency preparedness), in which only a subset is field-based-to assess evolving seed system parameters (e.g., the precise function of local grain markets). It is designed to be executed by a multidisciplinary team in about a oneweek period, and its scope is a regional system (the interface between an agroecological system, its market base, and specific cultural/ethnic populations) (CIAT/CRS/CN, 2002).For locally based assessments, ICRISAT and the National Agronomique Instituto in Mozambique have recently issued a manual (available in English and Portuguese) to work with communities and district officials in assessing both short-and longer-term seed system concerns-and in helping to identify possible solutions (ICRISAT/INIA, n.d.). It is premised around the divides of access/availability/quality parameters-and whether the context seems to be acute or more chronic/systemic. The drawings and formatting make this manual particularly user-friendly.The latter includes guidance for developing a \"seed system profile\" as a baseline assessment to guide seed-based interventions. At the time of this writing, FAO is also planning the development of a broader approach, which could determine seed system security, possibly at a national level (R. China and D. Cooper, personal communication).The continued paucity of evaluations on the effects of different types of seed system relief is inexplicable. This observation is made particularly in light of the scale of operations across countries (large numbers of countries/sites) and repeated delivery in single sites/countries (that is, the giving of seed aid again and again).There is an urgent need to understand the range of effects of seed aid-both positive and negative. Does a given approach solve well-defined problems or not? Does it create new problems?We envision the need for different types of evaluations. As shown below in box 10, these embrace evaluations effected at different time periods, conducted from the perspective of different actors (minimally, that of implementer and beneficiaries), and addressing increasingly holistic sets of evaluation parameters.Longer-term evaluations, in particular, are not likely to take place unless they are required by donors and are given specific budgets by which they can be effected.Nothing tried, nothing gained-and potentially many an opportunity lost. The humanitarian practice field has a good grasp on the how-to of seed and tools and, to a lesser extent, of community-based approaches to seed production. It is time to venture forward and add to what is our (inadequate) repertoire. Seed vouchers and fairs is one fairly new approachdesigned particularly to deal with concerns about access and possibly capable of spurring on local innovation. While not a magic bullet, the bounds of its usefulness in stressed contexts deserve to be explored, as has been recommended in FAO's evaluation of its emergency relief work (FAO, 2002a). Similarly, there may be other seed-based and nonseed-based strategies emerging on the horizon, which can make a real, positive difference to shoring up seed and agricultural systems. Active experimentation, with different intervention approaches, of course, has to be accompanied by close, built-in monitoring to allow sitespecific modification, as well as to encourage a dynamic \"learning by doing\" process. Active experimentation also has to be facilitated by donors ready to fund something novel, and by program managers prepared to embrace the creative and longer-term capacity building essential for rendering seed system relief progressively more effective. This paper draws to a close with caveats reaching well beyond approaches to seed-based and seed system-based assistance. Many of the constraints related to the functioning of seed systems during periods of acute and chronic stress center squarely on problems of access. Seed may be available, even available next door, but poor farmers, as well as those made more vulnerable by a specific disastrous event, simply may not have the means to exchange the seed or purchase it outright. Seed system problems tend to be linked to the basic problem of poverty: the two need to be addressed as a unit. Vouchers, or even cash handouts, might best serve as stopgap measures during acute disruptions. In the longer term, a focus on income-generating activities and/or agro-enterprise development may be among the better ways to strengthen disturbed, weakened, and generally vulnerable seed systems.","tokenCount":"9617"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8e0e9af43f83a76b258d34274955cf1e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/616c8b7c-d8d4-407d-a2f0-b7a426e430a4/retrieve","id":"-824494068"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"98fee259-c64f-421d-9ddf-6f62f2eef6ed","pagecount":"62","content":"As part of its Feed the Future (FtF) initiative to promote global food security, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is supporting a multi-stakeholder agricultural research program entitled: Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation (Africa RISING). The program's goal is to identify and validate scalable approaches for sustainably intensifying production from key farming systems in Africa that will improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers whilst conserving or improving the natural resource base. Africa RISING is a fiveyear program comprised of three regional projects (in West Africa, central and southern Africa and in the Ethiopian highlands).A rather long situation analysis period in which a number of surveys gathered a large amount of qualitative and quantitative information resulted in some survey overload of farming communities. Despite the fact that some aspects of this component are still not documented, the project has moved into \"integrated systems improvement\" activities at the research sites. While the participatory action research has been successful in enthusing farmers and testing useful technologies, the majority of these activities have been focused on single disciplines (food crops, livestock nutrition, high value crops, soil fertility, post-harvest storage etc.), with few protocols looking at whole farm or landscape situations. Although protocols have included at least two CGIAR partners as well as local partners, it is the view of the Review Team that these multi-institutional partnerships have yet to start re-designing farming systems or bringing in radical departures from present practice or available knowledge. In commenting on the draft of this report, senior project staff felt that project efforts towards systems development had not been fully recognized and that:-Some protocols explicitly look at outcomes across several system components and will be interpreted within a systems context; -Assuming data handling can be unified successfully, then the household engagement patterns that the project has will allow it to explore complementarity amongst component interventions as well as trade-offs between them; -Farmers are genuine partners in the research. They manage their farms as a whole, and are aware of the linkages between components relating to every management decision. They scrutinize everything the project does, so that a systems perspective is, to some extent, hard wired.While the Review Team agrees with these statements, it maintains that there is opportunity (provided by the contrasting sites, the trust of the farmers and above all the presence of a multitude of local and international research organizations) to go further and explore ways to improve community nutrient flows, water-use efficiency and energy budgets, and moderate GHG emissions through technical and organizational innovation.There are some shortcomings around the planning and operation of field research activities, but farmers are very appreciative of the way that research is followed up to ensure tangible benefits to those involved. The project is covering aspects of crops, livestock and trees, but there are key areas that it is not addressing fully at present, such as human nutrition, post-harvest aspects of the value chain, animal health and livestock breed improvement. The project might also look beyond farming and enquire about the aspirations and strategies of rural families for coping with multiple external and local influences and shocks (education, social status, economic strategies, risk management etc.).The four research sites and their innovation platforms are excellent nuclei for scaling-out (spatially and to more people) and scaling-up (to more organizations) of successful innovations. This has already started on a small scale, both formally (e.g. through community-based seed production and government training) and informally though farmer-farmer exchange of information and materials.The project has a draft scaling plan, but this has a long way to go before it is a comprehensive scaling strategy, and research into scaling will need to move quickly to ensure it documents the multiple scaling processes (some already emerging) from their starting points.The project has mainstreamed gender, but so far has not been able to influence the low number of women involved directly in the IPs and on-farm trials. A gender specialist has been appointed and appropriate steps (training, gender champions, studies and a gender action plan) are being taken to improve the involvement of women. This should be extended to youth, who are often landless and who might be lost to agriculture if explicit attention is not paid to their specific needs.There is a good culture of sharing of information between researchers involved in the project. However, the data gathered by each research team is kept separately and in different formats. The plan to create a central data repository for all the data generated by the project is a good idea in principle. Researchers are unsure where the resources to make this a reality are coming from, but the potential benefits (e.g. meta-analysis of the data across systems) make it a worthwhile goal.A comprehensive baseline snapshot has been captured by the different surveys conducted (including the IFPRI Baseline survey). Unfortunately these did not look at trends, which would also be useful for guiding the research program and providing more realistic scenarios for the project to be evaluated against at intervals. Monitoring of project progress has been hampered by three main factors. Firstly a confused picture (to the outsider at least) of what progress should be monitored against (outputs, outcomes, hypotheses, components or themes are all mentioned in various program and/or project documents, and there are no quantified or time-bound indicators against which to assess progress).The lack of sustainable intensification indicators is also a concern for this and other SI projects.Secondly, the lack of a project framework for AR Ethiopia (logframe-, Theory of Change-or Outcomebased) needs to be addressed. Thirdly, the unenthusiastic involvement of researchers in providing data for the web-tool that is supposed to monitor project progress (the Project Mapping and Monitoring Tool). While the project partner monthly meetings are an excellent forum for reviewing and planning activities, the lead M&E organization is not present to discuss M&E plans and to involve research staff in them.Communication has been given an unusually high profile in this project, to good effect. Information sharing is facilitated by mechanisms such as wiki and Yammer, especially for those with good internet connectivity, and all the fundamentals are in place for good communications support to scaling as that component takes off.Project management structures are adequate to oversee and advise the project, although specific funds could be assigned for Program coordination (especially for activities such as the development of SI indicators and inter-project exchange visits). Otherwise the budget is adequate, although refinancing could be speeded up so that researchers can operate more effectively.It was unreasonable to expect a participatory, systems research project to understand the context in depth, to establish research sites and identify demand, to develop appropriate innovations and to bring these to scale in five years. It is expected that by the end of the five year phase, the project will have completed two full years of on-site experimentation. Further years will be needed to consolidate the single discipline research and to integrate that knowledge into activities that provide real improvements in system efficiencies (of water, land, labor, nutrients, cash) at the household, community and landscape scales that meet the different needs of each type of farmer in this highly heterogeneous environment.A second five-year phase is therefore recommended by the review team to build on the good work started in Phase I and to influence and document the scaling processes and structures that result (hopefully with complementary support from USAID bilateral development funding).Some 60 recommendations have been made to the project coordination team against the evaluation questions provided to the Review Team. The Review Team has selected ten of these as being those most critical for the project at the present time, as follows: Develop a theory of change-or outcomes-based rolling project framework with time-bound milestones and SMART indicators (including sustainable intensification indicators)  Develop an exit strategy (set of actions to complete Phase I) as a contingency against the project closing in 2016. This would include a synthesis of the tangible outcomes expected from Outputs 1 and 2 and how to attain them during Phase I, and a road map for Output 3.  Make more use of landscape/watershed level parameters in the system, for example nutrient, water and GHG budgets, to guide thinking and action on sustainable intensification.  Develop the draft scaling plan further to include outcomes, milestones and indicators of success, and share it with all partners so that AR's role in scaling is clearly understood  Start mapping (social and spatial) and quantification of adoption (formal and informal, planned and unplanned) as soon as possible so as not to lose information on the start of these processes  Make further improvement on the integration of different disciplinary components in the research process. The wide range of disciplinary backgrounds should make better use of the opportunity provided at the sites to investigate the interaction, be it complementary or competitive, among the different components (crops-livestock-natural resource) of the farming system  Improve the uptake of the PMMT for project monitoring and evaluation so that it is able to provide accountability to the donor, guide project management and assist learning as envisaged.The plan should enable the current flexible and adaptive approach to be maintained while providing a framework for tracking overall project progress against expected outcomes  Provide an in-country M&E presence to engage with partners at the monthly meetings, to mainstream the monitoring of project progress and to lead the development of project indicators  Expedite the elucidation of sustainable intensification indicators for the benefit of the project, the AR Program and other SI programs  Develop a second phase in order to consolidate the work of Phase 1 and further develop and demonstrate the application of practical approaches to sustainable intensification at the household and landscape scales.As part of its Feed the Future (FtF) initiative to promote global food security, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is supporting an innovative, multi-stakeholder agricultural research program entitled Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation (Africa RISING). This program's goal is to identify and validate scalable approaches for sustainably intensifying production from some key, cereal-based farming systems in Africa that will improve the livelihoods (including nutrition, income, gender and social equity) of smallholder farmers whilst conserving or improving the natural resource base.Africa RISING is a five-year program comprised of three regional projects that was launched in 2012.The three projects are: Sustainable intensification of crop-livestock mixed farming systems in the Guinea-Sudan-Savanna Zone of West Africa -led by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA);  Sustainable intensification of cereal-legume-livestock integrated farming systems in East and Southern Africa -led by IITA;  Sustainable intensification of crop-livestock farming systems in the Ethiopian highlands -led by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).This short review is concerned mainly with the Ethiopian highlands project.The program brings together a wide range of research and development partners from the CGIAR, national agricultural research and extension systems, farmers, private sector actors, and policy makers. The projects are working to develop management practices and technology combinations that integrate crop (cereals, legumes and vegetables), livestock (including poultry), tree and shrub production more effectively within their target farming systems. These innovations are also being evaluated in the wider contexts of the landscapes in which they are practiced and the value chains that they form part of in order to facilitate wider scaling of the projects' successes. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is responsible for monitoring, evaluation, and impact assessment across all three projects.The Africa RISING program is organized around three research outputs: Situation analysis and program-wide synthesis;  Integrated systems improvement;  Scaling and delivery of integrated innovation.A fourth output deals with Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E).The overall purpose of this short internally-commissioned, external mid-term review is to assess the performance of the project in terms of its implementation against the Program Research Framework (PF) and to provide recommendations, where necessary, on how to address significant deviations. It is also to assist the management and partners of Africa RISING in the Ethiopian Highlands to improve the quality of the research conducted and its relevance to wider development outcomes.The approach used by the team was one of participatory enquiry, using qualitative methods, including observation and the use of photographs. The review team reviewed selected documents held at the coordination office as well as materials assembled by project management and partners. The team held key informant interviews with Africa RISING management, Africa RISING research partners in the Ethiopian Highlands, USAID staff in Washington, USAID mission staff in Ethiopia and IFPRI staff in Washington. Interviews were also held with site coordinators and with woreda and kebele innovation platform (IP) members (for transcripts of interviews see Annex S2).A joint meeting was held with CGIAR partners during which a project time-line was developed and questioned, and a draft project Theory of Change was presented and discussed (see Figure One).Field visits were made to Lemo woreda in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region (SNNPR), and to Endemahoni woreda in south Tigray (see map). In each woreda, the two project kebeles were visited. Focus Group Discussions were held with participating farmers and woreda innovation platforms and farm visits made.Following the field visits a half-day workshop was held with project management, project CGIAR partners, site coordinators, woreda Innovation Platform facilitators and USAID Ethiopia desk staff. A round-up meeting was held on the last day in Ethiopia to present and discuss preliminary recommendations.What implications does project design have for project outcomes?\"Not being well structured is both an advantage and disadvantage. It is a problem because people could go off-track, and it is an advantage because it helps us to be innovative and dynamic\" (CGIAR Partner)\"The project is a good example of how chaos has led to flexibility and success\" (CGIAR Partner)\"Without a logframe and a theory of change it is difficult to measure progress towards outcomes\" (CGIAR Partner).The Africa RISING (AR) program is unusual in that funding 1 was released for the 'broad concept' before detailed planning occurred. The project did not go through the usual process of developing a concept note, project proposal or logframe before funding was approved.USAID decided to fund research with a greater degree of geographical focus than the Humidtropics CGIAR Research Program. It therefore allocated funding to three international centers (IITA, IFPRI and ILRI) and assigned them areas or tasks within the Program. Initially there were 3 separate projects, but these came together to form a single Program with a Program Framework in 2012.A project timeline was developed with the project coordinators and CGIAR partners. The Project Implementation Plan replaces the steering committee (described in the Program Framework) with a planned project coordination committee with a similar role. It doesn't specify who should be in this committee, and to our knowledge this committee was not set up.The project has not developed a logframe or theory of change. The Review Team has attempted to represent the theory of change as expressed in project documents and discussions with the team and partners, in Figure 1 below.The looseness and iterative nature of the design process seems appropriate for the project's participatory and integrated systems approaches. It enables adaptive management and flexibility to respond to the opportunities and challenges provided by new partnerships and the research and scaling process.Most partners appreciate the flexibility and 'freedom' of the project design. The fact that there was no rigid logframe has made it easy to bring in new partners and to respond flexibly to new opportunities and experiences. Despite the lack of logframe and theory of change, project partners described the project structure as clear and easy to implement. The work plan, themes and protocols were felt to be clear, although there is a shift from an Output framework (PF) to five components (project Implementation Plan) to seven themes (project Work Plan) that makes following project progress more complicated.Several of the CGIAR partners have been involved in the project design from the start (e.g. ICRAF and ICARDA). Others are involved in adaptive management decisions on a regular basis through the monthly project partner meetings. This has led to a high level of ownership by all partners.The provision of adequate budget for communication has been an asset to the project. Good communication is particularly important when design is loose and iterative.A result of the late and loose design process was that the integrated systems improvement activities (Output 2) directly linked to the project design and situation analysis activities, did not begin until the third year of this five-year project (June 2014). Even at the time of this Review (April 2015), not all situation analysis is available for partners (see discussion of Output 1 below). Nor have some elements of project design been completed. An example of this is the scaling plan (still at draft stage at time of this Review). The late development of the scaling design prevents this from being done systematically (though the Review Team noted that many partners were addressing scaling issues in the way they thought best).Though the Review Team appreciates the value of an iterative approach to project design, the lack of clear planning has led to a very large number of survey activities (for example an additional gender survey has been designed because of gaps in the baseline and PCA surveys). Clearer and earlier planning would have allowed integration of survey plans, increased project efficiency, reduced overloading of farmers and reduced duplication of data collection.A full project-level monitoring and evaluation plan with quantifiable and time-bound milestones and indicators has not yet been produced. As a result project-level outputs and activities are not being systematically monitored.The fact that there is no logframe or theory of change for the project creates a number of challenges. The Review Team had the impression that project partners hold different understandings of the project's theory of change. For example some felt that the project should actively engage in scaling 2 , others were under the impression that the project's role was to develop scalable technologies only. It is also hard for new people coming into the project to understand their roles.As noted above, the project has made some significant deviations from the Africa RISING Program Framework approach. While this not a problem in itself, the change of direction needs to be made explicit and linked to project goals and indicators for monitoring.The Review Team also noted that the project does not have an exit strategy in place. The Review Team supports the project's plan to develop a second phase. However as a contingency against this not coming about, an exit plan should be developed.The decision to separate the budget for monitoring and evaluation (made by the donors at the beginning of the program) is felt by all project partners to be a mistake.The lateness of design and of the Output 1 activities mean that the project has made limited steps towards the desired outcomes (as represented in the Theory of Change in Figure 1). However, these steps are very promising ones, and the Review Team feel that by the end of this stage, the project will be in a strong position to carry forward Outputs 2 and 3 to a Phase II.In order to address these challenges described above, the Review Team suggests that the AR team develop a theory of change or outcomes plan (with QQT 3 indicators). This should be done as soon as possible in order to guide the monitoring and evaluation plan and to give direction to the planning of a second phase. The Review Team feels that the above tools are more appropriate to this type of project than a logframe, as they are more conducive to flexibility and adaptive management.  Output 1: Situation analysis and program-wide synthesisThe AR Program Framework (PR) identifies the main tasks of Output 1 as: (i) ensuring that best-bet or best-fit interventions are aligned to priority constraints -within development domains -to improved livelihoods and to the prevailing livelihood and production environment conditions, and (ii) developing a program-wide synthesis related to the lessons learnt across the various target areas 4The Project Implementation Plan (2012 -2013) does not refer to the research outputs listed in the Program Framework. Figure 2 of the Project Implementation Plan shows a Research Action Plan made up of 5 components. The Review Team assumes that the 5 components contribute to the 4 outputs described in the Program Framework and will use these as the basis for review (see Figure 1, Theory of Change).The table below summarizes progress observed for each activity under Output 1. A large amount of qualitative and quantitative data has been collected. Data has been disaggregated to allow heterogeneity to be addressed effectively by the project.The use of Quick Wins gave the project on the ground experience and was useful in building good will and initiating partnerships.It can be seen from the number of incomplete or uninitiated activities in the table above that several key activities remain to be completed.To a certain extent situational analysis should be an on-going process. However some key aspects of Output 1, such as the gender analysis, household typology development, sustainable intensification indicators, landscape analysis, nutrition analysis 5 and baseline data should have been conducted and made available at an earlier stage in the project in order to guide the development of Output 2, 3 and 4 activities. The lateness of these activities has impacted negatively on project performance. This is discussed in more detail in the sections to come.As discussed above, the number of baseline surveys is larger than desirable: reducing project efficiency and overloading farmers.Most of the surveys conducted provide a 'snapshot' view of the current farming system. To enhance the ex-ante evaluation of technologies it is important to understand the broader trends. For example in demography and migration, land holdings (are household plots getting smaller?), climate-related changes, land cover, land degradation and market opportunities. In order to do this, the Review Team recommends that current survey findings are supplemented by analyses of trends. Most of this information can be found without the need for further field survey work.A second phase of the project, drawing on these findings, would maximize the benefits to be derived from the considerable work that has been put into situation analysis.What progress has been made towards testing, validating, and adapting specific interventions aiming at farming system improvements in terms of productivity, income, and natural resource status? Identification of research teams within the R4D platforms.Discussion with the project management and the research teams, and review of available reports, show that the research areas and main entry points for on-farm action research were identified and prioritized based on the various diagnostic surveys mentioned under Output 1. Though, as noted above, some key surveys came too late to guide the design of Output 2 activities. The project started work on this Output with 6 \"Quick Win\" research activities in 2012. Partnership with, and collaboration between, CGIAR centers started from the Quick Win projects as involvement of more than one CGIAR center was required. Collaboration was also initiated with a range of local partners. In October 2013, the partners held a project planning meeting in which the Work Plan was developed and seven research thematic areas were identified. Based on the Work Plan, 33 research protocols were developed and approved in February/March 2014 (in the third year of the project).The process of establishment of the innovation platforms (IPs) began in January 2014. The purpose of IP establishment was to facilitate active engagement of the local partners and their ownership of the research for development (R4D) activities in order to ensure effective implementation and sustainability. The IPs were formed both at woreda (strategic) and kebele (operational) levels. Identification of households to be engaged in the on-farm action research activities and establishment of farmers' research groups (FRGs) were accomplished in April/May 2014. Relevant research protocols were presented at kebele meetings and the farmers selected the protocol in which they wanted to be involved (rather than researchers selecting farmers based on any sort of farmer typology or sampling framework). Most farmers participated in more than one protocol and some participated in as many as five protocols. The farmers tended to be from more accessible subkebeles, and they were farmers who had the means (land and labor) to participate as well as the interest.The research team from the CGIAR centers meets once a month for information sharing on the status of research activities. However, some researchers feel that the working relationship or communication between the research teams and the IP members is inadequate and seek improvement in the planning processes for timely and effective implementation of the research activities. This requires clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of each and the terms of collaboration among the different actors and establishing clear communication mechanisms.Identification of modeling and decision-support tools for ex-ante technology identification, tradeoffs analysis, evaluation of the ex-ante sustainability and resilience of options, and guiding future research In 4 of the 33 research protocols there are indications of using modeling as decision-support tools for identification of suitable technology options for a given production setting and for evaluation of ex-ante sustainability and resilience of options. These protocols include:The plan was to use computer simulation tools (e.g. crop-soil simulation model) that provide options for fast and wide-scale assessment of soil fertility dynamics and impacts of fertilizer management practices in a predictive way. The tools are to be used in combination with other models (e.g. livestock production and household consumption models) to analyze soil fertility -agricultural production -livelihood trade-offs.  Assessing the severity, spatial pattern and major drivers of soil erosion to recommend appropriate and sustainable land management options: In this study, it was planned to use participatory and modeling approaches to map the severity and spatial dynamics of soil erosion and identify appropriate land use and management options to tackle soil loss at representative kebeles of each Africa RISING district. The expectation is that the modeling and simulation results will help identify site-specific sustainable land management and soil and water conservation options that reduce soil erosion risk and improve productivity. Furthermore, the modeling outputs are expected to allow understanding of the benefits and trade-offs of site-specific management options and may help to guide scaling up or scaling out to other sites.In this study it has been planned to use community based participatory approaches as a basis for improving food security through targeted interventions and to use hydrological model and community evaluation to assess impacts of interventions and facilitate out-scaling and/or up-scaling.  Facilitating change in cropping systems to improve nutrition and food security: This study has planned to use participatory modeling tools to evaluate household level food security and cash income, to assess trade-offs in resource (e.g. water, nutrient and labor) use while modifying the farming systems to achieve the desired objective and identify farm and landscape niches where interventions could be integrated in the system. It was also claimed that the model can be used to identify whether the communities who are the subject of the study are either below or above the poverty line with existing practices and to develop a scenario that can be used to lift them out of poverty.However, so far there is no evidence of any of these models having been developed or used as indicated in the protocols except in the last one.A large number of research protocols are being implemented in the different AR sites under this category. A total of 33 (22 action-oriented and 11 exploratory) research protocols were developed in February/March 2014 for implementation during the year. The protocols are clustered under the seven research themes identified to contribute to attainment of the objectives of the Africa RISING project.Some important features of the project:There is a strong positive feedback from the different partners (CGIAR centers, local partners and farmers) emphasizing the collaborative protocol development process and demand-driven research in which farmers are given different options from which they freely choose the protocol they want to join or test on their farm. The protocols were developed jointly by researchers from the different CGIAR centers and the local partners from the national agricultural research system as well as some NGOs and the private sector. Farmers also participated in the generation of researchable problems, a case in point being the initiation of a research project on bacterial wilt of enset, which was taken on board by the project based on the strong demand of the farmers in Lemo district. The arrangement brings different partners together for sharing knowledge and experience. Farmers directly take part in the research process and directly observe the changes brought by different experimental treatments.The research approach and modality of implementation (\"action research\") significantly contribute to an increase in the relevance of the research being conducted and its ownership by the involved parties. This is believed to have a significant positive implication on adoption and spread of the technologies. The current working relationship shows that there is strong and positive partnership within the CGIAR centers as well as between the CGIAR centers and the local partners (research centers, universities, government offices particularly the office of agriculture and the Agricultural Transformation Agency) although still there is a room for further improvement. Some CGIAR centers like CIP, CIMMYT and ICARDA have formed a mini consortium by forging a special collaboration in trial management and data collection. Accordingly CIMMYT is responsible for management of protocols implemented by the 3 Centers in Debre Berhan, CIP for Lemo and Maychew, and ICARDA for Sinana. By so doing they can make very effective use of their staff and minimize time and cost of travel by each Center for management of the protocols. The research components that each of the Centers are leading also complement one another -ICARDA leads participatory variety selection, CIP is the lead in community seed multiplication while CIMMYT looks at small scale mechanization. This is a move in the right direction towards systems integration.In each of the project sites, innovation platforms (IPs) have been established at district (woreda) and kebele levels and they are playing an active role in coordinating and supporting the research. The farmers taking part in similar research protocols are organized into farmers research groups (FRGs) to enhance communication and information sharing. However, the participation of women in FRGs and IPs is still low.Most of the action research interventions carried out at the project sites focus on some major commodities and activities like the participatory variety selection of major crops like wheat, faba bean, potato and barley and fertilizer trial on wheat. Livestock related activities include crop residue management and utilization, irrigated forage (oats & vetch) production for sheep fattening and production of a multipurpose fodder tree (tree Lucerne) in available niches in the backyard. These interventions are implemented at the household level with the aim of enhancing sustainable intensification of the crop-livestock systems in order to improve food, nutrition and income security of the farm households. Some of the protocols go part of the way to integrating aspects of sustainable intensification. Thus there is a link between nutrition and the high value protocol that includes apple and avocado which is designed to address nutrition issues in addition to income generation. On the other hand, there are landscape level intervention in soil and water conservation and management in order to conserve and enhance the natural resource base for sustainable crop and livestock production. This shows that the commodity-based household level research activities are linked with the landscape level interventions through activities dealing with soil and water management. Hence the project is looking at commodities and landscapes, and plans to work at macro level through the sustainability indicators and monitoring. The Review Team feels that the Project should make more use of landscape/watershed level features of the system, for example water budgets, to guide thinking and action on sustainable intensification.Farmers expressed their interest to the Review Team in improving the different components of their farming system, and also in working towards integration and diversification of their farming systems. They see diversification as a means of spreading risk. The AR project is unique in that multidisciplinary professionals from different institutions come together to develop collaborative research projects on different components to enhance whole farm productivity rather than focusing on a single component or commodity. The arrangement offers enormous opportunity for simultaneous collection of data needed for analyzing different components of the farming system and for increasing resource-use efficiency in implementing the research activities in a more integrated approach. However, this requires more indepth systems thinking and more integration of interrelated components in the protocol development. Apparently there appears to be no coordination between the protocols dealing with participatory variety selection (PVS) and those dealing with fertilizer recommendation. Close integration of the two aspects of the study on crops could lead to more robust findings leading to more sustainable intensification of the system. Similarly, while there are encouraging efforts in addressing the feed use aspect of crop residues, still there is room for better integration of the crop and livestock components of the systems in the design and implementation of the PVS protocols. For example, in addition to the crop residue yield currently considered as one selection criteria, palatability and softness (as indicator of digestibility) of the crop residues could be included as important additional measures of crop residue quality as animal feed. This is an area that deserves due attention because of the fact that crop residues make up some 50% of the diet of farm animals and livestock play a central role in the smallholder crop-livestock system of the Ethiopian highlands.All diagnostic surveys of the Project and other previous studies (e.g. Tolera et al, 2012) 6 show that feed is a critical constraint for livestock production in the Ethiopian highlands. In this respect, it would also be worthwhile to consider the biomass yield and feeding value of potato vines that can be harvested at the time of tuber harvest. The AR project is in a good position to design and implement research activities in a more integrated approach by making effective use of the multidisciplinary team of experts working together in the project.Although the multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional collaboration and participatory approach employed by the project has been appreciated by all parties, some have highlighted that there are some limitations with respect to timely communication and effective coordination of field activities. These appear to be minor incidences but they may negatively affect the quantity and quality of data collected if measures are not taken to improve the situation by next season.A wide range of relevant options are being tested at the project sites and the farmers are very enthusiastic about the options being tested.One of the protocols deals with analysis of the current landscape-scale level production against household food nutrition requirements. The aim is to see if the current land use and production system can meet food, nutrition and income security of the households and to determine any deficits or excesses of nutrients by assessing total amount of nutrients produced compared with the nutrient requirements of the households. It involves assessment of the current cereal dominated cropping system in the highlands in order to redesign the cropping system to improve nutrition, income and food security of the households. This research intervention aims to achieve these by assessing how to optimize nutrient availability by making some changes in the components of the farming system and using modeling tools. This requires quantifying trade-offs such as changes in water use, labour etc. The cereal dominated highland areas are expected to have an excess of carbohydrate and deficiency of vitamins, as fruits and vegetables are not commonly produced in the system. The study is employing scenario analysis; i.e. it will assess what will happen to nutrition, income and food security of the farm households if part of the current land used for cereal production is allocated for food legumes, fruits and vegetables.An example for this is the protocol on fertilizer rates according to soil response in highly variable environments. This aims at bridging yield gaps through soil-test based nutrient amendments by assessing crop responses to application of different blends of fertilizers in different niches or soil fertility conditions i.e. good soils that may give high yield even without fertilizer, areas that respond to fertilizers at variable levels, and very poor soils that do not respond to fertilizer application. The evaluation team feels that this study will have the potential of influencing the Government, particularly MoA and ATA, on a more nuanced recommendation of fertilizer blend and rate than their grid square approach that recommends a fertilizer regime for each large square. Because of its participatory nature, the farmers can also learn first-hand which blend of fertilizers to use and where to apply on their farm.The protocols on soil and water management are aligned with and contribute to the sustainable land management program of the Ethiopian government.The three livestock feed related interventions (crop residue management and utilization, supplemental irrigated fodder production, and integration of tree Lucerne in the system) are highly relevant because of the centrality of livestock in the mixed crop-livestock production system of the highlands and the fact that feed is the number one constraint affecting livestock production. This was corroborated by the fact that most focus group discussion (FGD) participant male farmers prioritized crop residue management and utilization as the most important contribution of the project so far. Farmers are very happy with the crop residues storage structure and feed troughs and we would expect that this work would be further strengthened by using the cultivated forages produced on the farms as supplements to the crop residue based diets. Improved forages, particularly forage legumes, could enhance the complementarities of the crop and livestock components of the farming system through their roles in providing high quality feed for animals and amending the soil fertility for improved crop production. It is necessary to look for appropriate niches for integration of forage production in the farming system in the face of critical shortage of land in most highland areas of Ethiopia that poses stiff competition between crop and forage production, which may not encourage adoption of forage production.Project hasn't yet addressed sustainable intensification at the whole farm level: Although the achievements in bringing multidisciplinary team of researchers to work together on the same project is very commendable, still more work needs to be done to link the different components at household level. For example, there is lack of coordination between the protocol on participatory variety selection and the protocols dealing with crop fertilizer response and development of fertilizer rates. Fertilizer recommendations should be developed for the varieties selected by PVS. In general, there is a need to assess a combination of technologies and their integration. Integration can be considered at multi-scale level including at farm or community level and between research partners.Implementation of some aspects of the work plan has been delayed due to absence of researchers who can lead these activities. Examples of such delayed activities include human nutrition and post-harvest technology. However, the project is taking measures to address the human resource gap by employing the required experts. Accordingly a human nutrition specialist has recently been employed and an animal health professional is in the recruitment process. Some of the CGIAR centers also use short-term experts as consultants in specific areas where the volume of work does not justify employment of a full time staff. Involving graduate students in circumstances of human resources limitation may contribute to alleviate the problem while at the same time contributing to capacity building.Scale of forage trials is too small to show significant change in animal performance and to understand the value of the improved forages in the system. Farmers should see improvements in milk yield or growth rate of animals to be convinced of the value of the forage and adopt it. The work also mentions use of irrigated forage for sheep fattening whereas the priority of most farmers is to use better quality feeds to milking cows and draught oxen. However, the Project has realized these limitations and has started taking remedial measures.The project focused on a limited number of commodities for the action research. From the crop aspect the focus was on limited types of crops (wheat, faba bean, barley and potato), whereas from the livestock side the focus was on sheep fattening. Such predetermined fixation narrows down the options available to the farmers for testing and may omit some crops that are important in particular areas such as field peas in Endamehoni district. The decision to use irrigated forage (oats-vetch) for sheep fattening also does not match with the interest of many of the farmers who prioritize dairy cows and draught oxen when feeding improved forages. However, it is very appreciable that the project positively responds upon identification of such problems. A good example is the additional protocol on enset that has been taken on board when the project realized its importance based on the demand of farmers in Lemo district. The project also plans to widen the options of animal type or species (dairy cows, cattle fattening) in addition to sheep fattening.At times the site coordinators are expected to handle coordination activities as well as to cover gaps in trial management. This may compromise quality of trials.Genetic improvement of livestock. This is a demand raised by farmers from all the sites. Animals that respond to improved management are necessary in order to fully realize the benefits of improvements in feed supply and feeding management. It would be unrealistic to expect the project to indulge in a large genetic improvement activity, but it can assess areas where contributions can be made (e.g. by linking farmers to breed improvement programs) in the area within the limits of time and resources available.Link household research to landscape-level action. For example, role of IPs in restricted grazing, and mobilizing soil and water conservation activities in some contexts.The project has received positive response for some of the technologies such as improved crop varieties (wheat, potato and faba bean), crop residue management and utilization and forage production and utilization just after the first season and some initial scaling has already started. The problem of seed supply for wider adoption of the technologies has been realized by the project and the community-based seed production system has been initiated as a responsive management mechanism. One of the roles of the IPs is to facilitate market linkages between farmers and traders or processors either directly or through farmers' cooperatives or unions. Accordingly the Licha Cooperative Union in Lemo and the Bokura Union in Endamehoni are members of the IPs at Woreda level.Assessment of new research challenges and opportunities emerging from the activitiesThe positive response received for some of the technologies just after one season will create a huge demand for those technologies that have got high rating. This will create a favorable condition for scaling-up and scaling-out as more farmers will be interested to access the technologies, and those who have already tested may want to expand further. The challenge will be how to meet the increased demand created for seeds and planting materials of the different food crops, forage crops and fruit trees. As feed resources and feeding management are improved, farmers will be interested to have improved breeds of animals that can better respond to improved feeds and feeding management. As more farmers participate in the project and more farmers use improved crop varieties and technologies that enhance productivity, then storage, processing and marketing of these commodities will be an area that will require research and development intervention. With increased production of some easily perishable commodities such as horticultural crops and animal products, research in post-harvest processing and handling will have a significant role to play in enhancing efficient and effective resource utilization and in improving the livelihood of smallholder farmers.Output 3: Scaling and delivery of integrated innovations.What progress has been made towards the development of appropriate approaches for scaling of innovations, taking into account the often complex nature of system interventions?The project intention to understand highly complex and variable farming systems and their contexts, to develop and test appropriate, sustainable intensification interventions in a participatory way and to make significant progress towards developing approaches for scaling these within the 5-year project period was overly ambitious, and has been shown to be so.However, the success of participatory approaches being used to achieve output 2 mean that many farmers, kebele officials, woreda, zonal and Federal staff, Research Center and University staff and others have been involved with the development and testing of technologies, processes and ideas.The field visits demonstrated the enthusiasm that this wide range of participants has for many of the interventions, and they are responsible for a localized, but rising, ground swell of scaling, some of which is explicitly supported by project activities and some of which is outwith its direct control.The efforts and enthusiasm of local partners, and the inputs of project and CGIAR partners, have been increasingly channeled and coordinated through organizational structures instituted by the project at woreda and kebele levels. At woreda level, woreda strategic innovation platforms have been established that bring researchers, University staff, woreda and zonal government staff, private sector (as yet less well represented), project coordinators and kebele representatives together. These meet once a month and are an active forum for discussion of issues and progression of project activities. At kebele level, kebele implementation platforms have been established that bring together representatives of the farmer research groups, kebele administration and DA staff to support farmer needs and project activities. Each project initiative is supported by a kebele-level farmer research group that provides a forum for farmers to share experiences, gain mutual support and have a voice at the kebele implementation platform, and through this to the woreda innovation platform. A national innovation platform is now being established that should bring in Federal-level agencies (EIAR, Ministries) and national initiatives (e.g. ARDPLAC, AGP) that have hitherto not been so actively involved in the project. Thus a structural framework is in place from farmer to national level that can be used effectively to support, guide and drive both technology development and scaling (including where necessary influence on government policy and action at different levels).The structures are locally-owned (although their agenda at the moment is predominately that of the project) and malleable at this point. They are not formally integrated into government bureaucracy, which has advantages and disadvantages for sustainability and flexibility.The working paper by Duncan et al (undated) 7 is a useful reflection on the use of IPs in scaling in complex situations, and the time it takes to work through the phases of adoption using a participatory approach that leads to local ownership and greater sustainability.Other structures (hopefully as elements of the IPs) will be needed to supply information, material inputs (including finance), service provision along the value chain and marketing support 8 . Strong feedback loops will need to be established to guard against market failure, inequity, corruption, exploitation and natural resource degradation.A conundrum faced by the project is how it can learn about scaling and have credibility on scaling without being itself involved in scaling. From the AR Scaling plan (Feb 2015) and discussions held, some pointers are emerging:7 Innovation platforms as spaces to bring about smallholder dairy improvements at scale -reflections from the MilkIT Project in India and Tanzania by Alan Duncan, Nils Teufel, Thanammal Ravichandran and Saskia Hendrickx 8 The urgent need to protect the reputation of newly established potato seed producer groups was noted during the field visits. It is important that farmers producing good, clean seed should brand their product, package it distinctively and ensure that their members conform to a strict set of standards and quality control. Similar support is required for the wheat and faba bean community seed producer groups, and for milk, apple and avocado producers in the near future.-AR, as emphasized by the project coordinator, is a research project, so that, as stated in the PF, the project will be involved in the development of appropriate approaches for scaling, rather than the implementation of scaling -which is the responsibility of local organisations including the government and the private sector -The project Scaling Plan (Feb 2015)  or what the indicators of success for scaling will be -Serious involvement in research into scaling can only be countenanced if there is a second 5year project phase -There is an immediate need to start cataloguing and following (spatially, socially and quantitatively) the formal and informal mechanisms of scaling that have already started (e.g. the quantity and destination of community-based seed production, farmer-farmer exchange of information and materials, influences on and action by DAs, woreda and zone office of agriculture staff 9 etc.) and their consequences (e.g. the use of cash gained from the sale of produce 10 , the impact on water, soils and land cover, and impacts on migration and debt 11 ) -The PF specified a strong role for development domains in the development and scaling of innovations. One clear result from the characterization of the Ethiopian highland environment is the high degree of physical variability (rainfall, temperatures, soil fertility, slope etc.) that mean that there can be as much variability within a kebele as between kebeles. While development domains might work in more homogenous environments, they are not likely to be an effective tool in the Ethiopian highlands 12 . -Project interventions at this stage of testing and \"pioneer\" scaling are appropriate to women and men farmers with a certain level of assets (especially land, labor and capital) and accessibility. Farmer information exists from the IFPRI baseline, PCA, SLATE and other studies to develop typologies of households (these will be different for each kebele). These can then be used to follow the adoption and adaptation of innovations, and the outcomes and impacts for different types of household. An important aspect of this will be to ensure that resource-poor or otherwise disadvantaged groups are not further disadvantaged by project interventions, and that there are innovations that are specifically tailored to their circumstances so that their livelihoods can also be lifted and made more sustainable. It may be that in some cases land-based agricultural livelihoods are not the best way to assist such groups 13 . -A good start has been made at understanding some of the livestock and crop value chains.The value chains for the commodities for which the project has interventions need to be 9 The head of the South Tigray zonal agricultural office is supporting training in project technologies in the 94 kebeles of his zone 10 In other countries, successful farmers have taken over the land or assets of those less able to respond to initiatives, effectively rendering them landless labourers 11Local savings and credit groups can help to reduce the need for borrowing from local lenders, who charge high interest rates 12 Similarly, the division of the country into grid squares for fertiliser recommendations by government might also suffer from wide local variability making positive fertiliser responses patchy. 13 In India, the most disadvantaged groups were assisted with preferential access to common-property resources (e.g. bamboo for making baskets for sale, trees for making disposable plates from leaves), training and materials in service provision (carpentry, blacksmithing, petty trading, raising vegetable seedlings etc.) to the landed farmers. followed and analysis made to see where they can be improved (e.g. communication and trust, efficiency through scale or timing or reduced losses, quality of products, linkages to private enterprise, competence of service providers, potential to move farming families up the value chain -e.g. through on-farm or cooperative processing). There is also the potential to improve farmer profits from production through warehouse receipt schemes, provision of up-to-date market information, gross margin analysis of management options, collective marketing and the availability of appropriate inputs through the establishment of kebele agricultural shops.-The communications component of the AR project is in good shape to make a big contribution to scaling at all levels through conventional media and innovative mechanisms (e.g. Shamba Shape-up and Digital Greening). The trick will be to support local partners in the coordination of all the components of support to value chain actors in concert (information, inputs, training, processing, storage and transport facilities, market opportunities…). -While the project has a formidable array of talent within its present international and local partnerships, it will need to seek out the best partners to help develop and document appropriate approaches and mechanisms for scaling up and out. At the global level, GFRAS (Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services) provides advocacy and leadership on rural advisory services within the global development agenda. Its functions include supporting the development and synthesis of evidence-based approaches and policies for improving the effectiveness of rural advisory services (http://www.g-fras.org/en/about-us/visionmission.html). Within Africa, AFAAS (the African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services) has the mandate to implement the Agricultural Advisory Services aspects of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP). The objectives of AFAAS include ensuring the accessibility of appropriate and up-to-date knowledge on advisory services from a range of sources in Africa and internationally, and empowering country level advisory service stakeholders to determine their own priorities and lead efforts to improve their national and local advisory service systems and building partnerships at national, regional and international levels between agricultural advisory services and other institutions contributing to sustained growth and transformation of agriculture (http://www.afaas-africa.org/about-program/). -Within Ethiopia, further alignment with the national Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) would appear to be appropriate. The GTP aims to: a) Enhance productivity and production of smallholder farmers and pastoralists; b) Strengthen marketing systems; c) Improve participation and engagement of the private sector; d) Expand the amount of land under irrigation and e) Reduce the number of chronically food insecure households. The Agricultural Transformation Agency's (ATA) programs are designed to help all partners meet these targets. The Agency will measure its contribution to this effort through the metrics established in the GTP as well as in other national strategies such as the CAADP Compact and the corresponding Policy and Investment Framework (PIF) http://www.ata.gov.et/priorities/national-growth-transformation-plan/. -One aspect of scaling is influence on policy. Examples are already starting to come through the project. A good example is the work on fertilizer responses of different soils (AR Technical Report April-Sept 2014 p4/5). The results of this work, combined with an understanding of the variability of soils and climate might lead to advice to the government on how to modify its fertilizer recommendations so that the majority of farmers see positive biological and economic responses to their investment in fertilizers. -Scaling has already started, but the indicators of sustainable intensification are still being developed. These indicators are vital for any meaningful analysis of the project's progress and outcomes, so the sooner they can be identified and assigned to the different project components the better.The CGIAR research program (CRP) most aligned with AR is the \"CGIAR Research Program on Integrated Systems for the Humid Tropics\". According to the CGIAR website (http://www.cgiar.org/our-research/cgiar-research-programs/cgiar-research-program-onintegrated-systems-humid-tropics/ ) the Program:\"seeks to transform the lives of rural poor in the humid lowlands, moist savannas, and tropical highlands in tropical Americas, Asia, and Africa. Humidtropics provides a new integrated agricultural systems approach, a single research-for-development plan, and a unique partnerships platform for better impact on poverty and ecosystems integrity….Humidtropics focuses directly on rainfed smallholder farming systems and their opportunities for sustainable intensification\".It is therefore reasonable that the AR program should seek methodological and technological interaction with the Humidtropics program. The AR program is also related to a suite of other projects under the Feed the Future initiative -such as the Innovation Lab for Small-Scale Irrigation (Texas A&M) and the Innovation Lab for Sustainable Intensification (Kansas State University). A third affiliation is with other projects on sustainable intensification, such as SIMLESA (Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume cropping systems for food security in Eastern and Southern Africa).The three AR projects also started out as independent projects and have now been subsumed into a single AR Program with the intention of cross-learning.There are therefore several directions in which the AR Ethiopia project could look in order to widen its influence, share its findings or seek information or support. At the moment there is limited interaction with the Humidtropics research program as the sites of each are different and there is little money for linkages. While research protocols should demonstrate that they have looked at what is being done in other programs such as the Humidtropics program when submitting their proposals, it is felt that there should not be a prescribed or contrived requirement to look preferentially in the direction of the Humidtropics program.Rather, the entirety of research on sustainable intensification should be kept in view, and the project should constantly assess its work against research and statements coming from different perspectives (e.g. IIED Briefing March 2015 -Sustainable Intensification Revisitedhttp://pubs.iied.org/17283IIED).How relevant and feasible is the current research approach?Aspects of the research approach used for implementation of the research activities of the Africa RISING Project in Ethiopia have been given in the following three documents: Program Framework (2012) -with 4 project outputs and 5 hypotheses (and research and development outcomes)  Project Implementation Plan -setting out 5 research components (6 with scaling)  Project Work plan -setting out 7 research themes (5 technology-based + 2 cross-cutting) Thus the project is organized around five or six research components and seven research themes that address the program-wide hypotheses listed in the Program Framework that are expected to lead to the attainment of the four project outputs (including M&E). The seven research themes of the current work plan were identified when the work plan was developed collaboratively by the CGIAR and national partners during the annual planning meeting held in November 2013. The seven research themes give a useful framework for the research, and the researchers and farmer research groups are buying into these. It has also been noted that the work plan can be reviewed periodically and may be updated depending on changing priorities.The flexibility of the project was appreciated by almost all of the project partners. There is a high level of ownership by the partners and some CGIAR centers (e.g. ICRAF, ICARDA) were involved in the design with ILRI at an early stage of the project. However, communication needs to be good for everyone in order to make good use of a flexible design. The flexible and adaptive management makes the project responsive and able to meet opportunities and challenges. A good example of such flexibility was the decision made by the Project to take on board a research activity on \"enset\" in response to the demand of the community from the Lemo district to address the bacterial wilt problem affecting the crop. It also facilitates partnership and allows more integration of systems components (crops, livestock, natural resources) in a systems approach. In addition to developing the work plan by the collaborative action of the partners, some partners further collaborated in the development of different multidisciplinary and multi-institutional research protocols (assisted by the criterion that all protocols should contain multiple partners).Although the flexibility has been much appreciated, there were also concerns about lack of clear framework for the project and its partners to follow -e.g. a logframe or Theory of Change or Outcome-based plan. There is no project M&E plan that provides a stepwise path to the Outcomes (i.e. lack of clarity on how to reach the expected Outcomes/Impacts). This leads to confusion at field level and elements of the project arriving late, thereby reducing efficiency, and it can be hard for new people coming into the project to understand where they fit.The overall research approach of the project is holistic tending towards being integrated although not perfectly so. It brings together researchers with different professional and cultural backgrounds from different CGIAR centers to work together with researchers from the National Agricultural Research System (NARS) in developing work plans and research protocols for the various action research activities being implemented in the eight AR project kebeles. The approach has significantly improved the collaboration among different CGIAR centers, and between the CGIAR centers and the national partners and enabled researchers with different professional backgrounds to work together. However, although there is collaboration among the different CGIAR centers in the planning and implementation of the research projects, still there is room for further improvement of the integration of the different disciplinary components in the research process. The wide range of disciplinary backgrounds represented in the different research centers should make better use of this opportunity to consider the interaction, be it complementary or competitive, among the different components of the farming system (crops-livestock-natural resource) in each research site.In addition to the researchers from the CGIAR centers and the national research centers and universities, the collaboration in the on-farm action research also involves active participation of farmers who are willing and able to test certain technologies on their farm. The farmers are given a basket of technology options to choose and test on their farm; this is very important as the farmers directly take part in the research process starting from the design stage up until the final results are obtained. This demand driven and participatory approach helps the farmers to develop keen interest for observing and evaluating what works and what does not work first hand. The Quick Wins helped to kick start the project and to see how to best complement what farmers are doing in addition to establishing linkages with the national and local partners.The project uses innovation platforms (IPs) to support the research and development process. The approach requires building strong links between stakeholders, with local communities, development agents, researchers from nearby research centers and universities, NGOs and the private sector as partners. The project also encourages farmer to farmer extension of appropriate technologies and new knowledge through farmers research groups (FRGs), field days and exchange visits.The choice of research activities for implementation at the different sites were based on prior site characterization studies using the rapid telephone survey, agro-ecological knowledge of the respective areas and the participatory community analysis. Different surveys were carried out in all the study sites at different times for the sake of characterizing the sites and the farming systems. This has helped in generating a large amount of information that is useful for designing an integrated research approach. On the other hand, the number of different surveys (PCA, SLATE, VC, AKT5, baseline survey by IFPRI, FEAST, etc.) conducted at each site must have been a burden on the farmers who had to respond to a number of these surveys, which are likely to repeat some questions each time to a certain extent. With prior planning and good coordination the number of surveys could have been minimized or repetitions avoided (see paragraph 26).Most of the different research protocols are implemented at each research site where some of the farmers may be involved in as many as five research activities. This is very good for integration but may overload the selected kebeles and sub-kebeles and some of the participating farmers with different research activities. Some research activities are implemented at specific sites and it is not clear how far the results can be extrapolated to different areas. Overall, the project should place due emphasis on strengthening the rigor of science while maintaining the benefits of its flexibility and adaptive management.The Program Framework and other documents show that the overall purpose of the project is to provide pathways out of hunger and poverty for smallholder farm families through sustainable intensification of the farming system that will lead to improved food, nutrition, and income security, particularly for women and children, and conserve and enhance the natural resource base. In order to attain these stated aims, the project conducted situation analysis through different surveys and exploratory studies, which have identified the current state of affairs and the main challenges faced by men and women farmers and the youth as well as at family level.Different participatory and multidisciplinary action research projects are being conducted at the research sites of the Africa RISING project in the areas of crops, livestock and natural resources management to address some of the major challenges identified in the situation analysis. However, research in some areas like human nutrition and post-harvest handling and management of crop and livestock products have lagged behind. There are reports of widespread malnourishment of the vulnerable groups, mostly children and women, in Ethiopia (www.bioline.org.br/request?nd09041). Problems of post-harvest handling and storage and lack of value addition practices pose serious limitations on smallholder farmers hindering them from making effective use of their agricultural products for income generation, poverty alleviation and ensuring food and nutritional security. These challenges have been very clearly highlighted in the draft Home Garden Assessment Report and echoed by some of the CG partners interviewed.The fact that the project has recently employed a nutrition expert is a positive development. However, the task ahead of the expert is enormous to catch up with the activities within the remaining life time of the project and to mainstream nutritional studies in the project as appropriate. Although post-harvest activities are not largely visible, there are certain aspects of postharvest components embedded in the project. These include the diffused light storage (DLS) of potato seeds and crop residue storage shed and structures. There were strong positive compliments regarding the benefits of these two post-harvest management technologies by the participating farmers interviewed both in Lemo and Endamehoni districts during our field visit. In addition, there was a participatory assessment of different Faba bean storage techniques to control storage pests (weevils).In the area of livestock research the focus has been on improvement of crop residue storage and feed troughs and some forage crops (oats & vetch and tree Lucerne). While these are very important interventions to address the livestock feed problem, the project should take this further by incorporating animal performance evaluations by supplementing the crop residues with supplementary feeds (forage crops or concentrate supplements) that are accessible to the farmers. In the work plan sheep fattening design was mentioned along with irrigated forage production. This was too prescriptive as farmers opt to use high quality fodder to feed either dairy cows or draught oxen. However, the project appears to be flexible to accommodate the interest of the farmers.The forage research in all the sites has focused only on oat-vetch and tree Lucerne. The option could be widened, depending upon the agro-ecology of the sites in the different regions. For example, other forage crops with potential for high biomass production and adaptable to the agro-ecological condition could be considered as additional options.Animal health and animal genetics are the other research areas missing from the project. Animal performance is a function of the feeding management, health and genetic potential of the animal. In addition to shortage of grazing land and limited access to feeds, animal health problems and lack of improved breeds were identified as major livestock production challenges in the Participatory Community Analysis. Again, it appears that the project has already realized research gap in the area of animal health and that it is in the process of hiring a veterinarian for this purpose.Biomass use and energy efficiency also deserve research attention to improve the efficiency of the whole system. Scarcity of fuel wood forces farm households to use manure and crop residues as sources of energy and increases the workload of women to collect fire wood. Thus research in biomass and energy saving interventions would help to address these problems and spare the manure for soil fertility improvement and crop residues for use as animal feed or for mulching.The results of the baseline survey conducted by IFPRI have only recently (November 2014) been made accessible to partners. This means the information could not be used in designing project activities contributing to output 2 prior to the 2014 main season. Moreover, no information was collected and provided by IFPRI to guide project management. There is also a concern on the content of the IFPRI baseline survey. For example, the experts in the discipline assert that the nutrition component of the survey is rather generic and won't be very useful as a baseline for designing nutritional studies. This criticism is surprising to IFPRI because they allowed two days for consultation in September 2013 on the proposed baseline survey content before the surveys were finalized and taken to the field. One of the shortcomings of the IFPRI baseline survey is that the survey did not encompass all farmers in the action research, which may make use of the baseline somewhat difficult as some of the farmers in the baseline survey are different from those in the action research. It was felt by a wider group of the CGIAR researchers that gaps in baseline data would limit the ability to fully understand the effects of interventions and the potential for fully using innovations. It is unfortunate that researchers should criticize the IFPRI baselines in this way as they were given the opportunity to contribute to the design of the questionnaires used to generate the baseline. In general, to fill the delay and shortfall of the IFPRI-led baseline survey, additional exploratory surveys were carried out to characterize the study sites and to complement the baseline for designing the on-farm action research protocols.No information on trends as assessment results focused only on snapshots. Apart from the baseline survey conducted by IFPRI, different exploratory surveys including the Participatory Community Analysis (PCA), SLATE, Value Chain, AKT5 and Home Garden Assessment were carried out to assess the situation on the ground in the project sites. Most of these studies look at snapshots of information rather than looking at trends. Thus, there is a need for looking at trends such as change in degradation index, biodiversity, soil cover, water infiltration, soil loss, land holdings, yield gap, migration etc., rather than dwelling on snapshots only (also see paragraph 42).There is a need for more clear information regarding aspiration of the farmers for their families, farms and communities. What do they aspire to happen in the next five or ten years 14 ?Attention to gender and diversity is critical to achieving the project's goals (see Figure 1, Theory of Change). In order to ensure gender and social equity of project outcomes, the project must identify and engage with members of different household types, men, women and young people at all stages (situation analysis, systems improvement activities, scaling and monitoring of outcomes and impact).Gender and diversity issues in the Ethiopian highlands which the project is aware of include:Cultural constraints on participation of women (particularly for women in male-headed households) -Number of landless people in some project areas e.g. Tigray sites -Issues faced by young people (landlessness, unemployment) -Difference in accessibility to markets and inputs (risk of exclusion of some households) -Few women in woreda level IPs (resulting from a scarcity of women in research and government positions).The project is very aware of the need to address gender and diversity. The Participatory Community Assessment held in July 2013 disaggregated results between youth, women and men. However, the project team recognized (belatedly) that more needed to be done, and the decision was made to appoint a gender specialist (appointed in August 2014).Since she has joined the project, the gender specialist has conducted a capacity building workshop on gender (August 2014) and has held training for partners (both researchers and other IP members). Tools and approaches for gender analysis have been shared 15 and a gender action plan for the project has been developed. The IP monitoring tools developed in 2014 include indicators for inclusiveness including participation by gender and representation of public, private and civil society actors.The gender expert identified some gaps in gender analysis in the initial survey activities and has initiated a protocol to look at constraints to women's participation in research (not yet implemented at the time of the review).In addition, the planned Nutrition protocol will contribute to gender and diversity analysis by identifying vulnerable households (in terms of nutritional status).The Review Team observed that these activities have resulted in a growing awareness of gender issues amongst the project partners. An example of this is shown by the on-going efforts to involve both female and male farmers in participatory research (with an -as yet unmet -goal of 30% participation of women). In Tigray (Tsibet Kebele) the project is working together with a local NGO (REST) to conduct participatory research with a group of landless youth. There has been some integration of gender analysis in value chain work (looking at stages that women are involved in, and identifying value chains which can give the greatest benefits to women).Some household typology analysis has been carried out as part of some of the surveys (PCA, SLATE). However, the project has not yet developed a standardized tool and indicators which would allow gender and diversity action to be harmonized across the sites, and effectively monitored.Areas to be strengthenedThe focus to date has been largely on women. The Review Team feels it would be useful to broaden the focus to give more attention to young people and to different household types (e.g. resource poor, less accessible households).As discussed above, household typology indicators should be used to ensure inclusion of all typologies and to monitor differential participation and adoption of different social groups.What issues exist around data management and how can they be addressed?The Review Team did not have the opportunity to look at this issue in detail. However, it was striking that project partners emphasized the excellent ethos of information sharing within the project. One partner said: \"I can send a request for information by phone in the morning and get the information I need from another partner by the afternoon\".Several data issues were noted:-Access to the IFPRI baseline data. The detailed and comprehensive surveys led to the generation of a huge amount of baseline data. While the Review Team did not see any analysis of this data or come across anyone who was using the data as part of their work (e.g. for sampling, for characterization of the farmers, for measuring progress or for identifying challenges), data has been available to researchers by request from IFPRI since November 2014. As yet no summary or synthesis of the Baseline data is available for Ethiopia (although this has been done by IFPRI for other AR countries/regions). -It appears that each combination of partners in a protocol develops its own data management system. At the moment, data is kept in different formats in different places. It is envisaged that a project-wide data repository will be developed, and that all project data from all partners will be converted to a standard format and stored in the repository. This is a major task, and project partners were unsure who would do the time-consuming formatting. The theory is that once collected and formatted in a standardized way, the data can be subjected to meta-analysis to look at systems effects. Given that the data was collected by different people at different times in different ways, the Review Team is skeptical that meaningful meta-analysis will be possible. In contrast, the project coordination team feels that assuming data handling can be unified successfully, then the household engagement patterns that the project has will allow it to explore complementarity amongst component interventions as well as trade-offs between them. -It has been noted previously that the work under Output 1 was not well coordinated so that a number of surveys collected similar data from the same farmers. Initially this put the farmers off, and their enthusiasm has only returned as they have seen the benefits afforded by the technologies and processes brought in under Output 2. -While data is being collected against each protocol, there is little data being collected centrally for over-arching, project-level monitoring to show how the project is moving towards achieving the Outcomes it has set. IFPRI have developed a web-tool for monitoring progress against outcomes, but research partners in Ethiopia have been slow to use this, despite training in its use being conducted in all three AR program regions.-There are no quantitative sustainable intensification targets or indicators. These are being developed, but belatedly and slowly. It is imperative that the project partners know what they are aiming for, and how far they have got along the way. -As noted elsewhere, scaling has already started in small and informal ways as well as through deliberate project activities. This needs to be captured. There is still the opportunity to plan this so that data can be managed in ways that produces the best results in terms of research outputs.Is monitoring and evaluation adequately staffed, financed and implemented?Monitoring and evaluation should provide information for three main purposes: accountability to the donor, feedback to project management on whether the project is doing the right things in the right way at the right time, and provision of information to project stakeholders so that they can learn and share lessons about what has worked and what has not worked.Successful M&E requires clear project objectives and a clear vision of what the project is trying to achieve. Ideally it needs to understand the situation at the start of the project, be able to track progress towards the achievement of agreed outcomes, and be able to identify the eventual outcomes and impacts of the project.Unfortunately, the Review Team feels that there are major discrepancies between this ideal and the reality.The Program Framework (November 2012) sets out a vison for the AR Program with 3 research outputs (plus an M&E output), research objectives, development objectives, program-level research outcomes, program-level development outcomes and 5 program-wide hypotheses, but these have not been distilled into a clear project framework that is easily tracked.The Project Implementation Plan 2012-3 is the first project research plan. This takes the 3 research outputs of the PF and extends them to 5 research components (6 if scaling is included). It is a 2-year plan only without any documentation of the expected outcomes or impacts of the research, or any indicators against which to measure the contribution of the planned research. It is interesting that IFPRI are not mentioned in the document as a partner, or M&E as an activity.The Project Work Plan (April 2014) changes to a technical focus, dividing activities between 5 technical themes and 2 crosscutting themes. Again, neither M&E nor IFPRI's role in these central project activities are mentioned in the document. It is understood that the research protocol partnerships monitor their own protocols at the farm/site level. However, this leaves a wider project level monitoring unaccounted for. How is the research plan as a whole contributing to progress towards achieving the project objectives and outcomes, and how can it be modified to perform better?The project design section of this report has noted that there is no project logical framework against which to track progress. The Review Team agrees that this is not the most appropriate type of framework for a process project which is both demand-and experience-led. However, some other flexible framework, such as one based on a Theory of Change or around a series of expected outcomes together with a rolling set of time-bound milestones and a clear set of indicators, is necessary for following and learning from project progress and making adjustments as necessary.The multi-institutional nature of the project makes this more, not less, necessary so that there can be coherence of activities, increasing the potential for synergy and making most effective use of the rich resources available.The continuing lack of Sustainable Intensification indicators is a serious deficiency in the ability of the project (and the Program) to be able to define if it has achieved or made significant progress towards its stated objectives. However, it is understood that the inclusion of Kansas State University Innovation Laboratory has provided impetus to the process and the recent San Jose meeting made useful progress.The Review Team notes that a great deal of effort and resources were put into situation analysis and establishing a Baseline. This included the comprehensive and complex IFPRI-led Ethiopia Africa RISING Baseline Evaluation Survey (EARBES), the Participatory Community Analysis 16 , the local agroecological knowledge studies conducted by ICRAF, and other specialized surveys, amounting to an impressive amount of qualitative and quantitative information.However, it is only in 2015 (fourth year of the project, after the Quick Wins and the first full year of field experimentation) that the Baseline data is available to research partners 17 . A possible consequence of this is that the field experimentation has not to date fully applied the PF concept of Household Typologies to select participating farmers or to assess the impact of innovations (selection and targeting of households, critical points and entry points for research, trade-offs between innovations and the targeted scaling-up and scaling-out of innovations -as noted by Jeroen Groot for other AR projects at the Arusha November 2014 meeting).The PF and the PowerPoint presentation by Naomi Sakana (Oct 2012) set out the planned M&E support to the AR Program. They include a set of suggested Program indicators (some from USAID and some additional ones from IFPRI, but none of them quantified or time-bound), and a set of M&E tools. A Program meeting was held in November 2014 to assess the M&E situation (http://africarising.wikispaces.com/moneval3), but this did not present an updated M&E plan for AR Ethiopia. However, IFPRI has been trying to get all the AR projects to adopt, contribute to and use the webbased Africa RISING Project Mapping and Monitoring Tool (PMMT) 18 . This is intended to help users understand where and how Africa RISING activities are taking place, and improve project strategies and partnerships for greater impact in their work. According to IFPRI, its features and functions have been designed to provide the following benefits:Inform strategic and project management decisions. The PMMT can help inform decisions by allowing users to take geographic information about AR sites into account, whether it is the location of markets, related projects and partners, travel time, annual precipitation, or maize crop yields.Communicate programmatic projects to key stakeholders. A primary benefit to users of the PMMT is to see the spatial layout of AR activities relative to geographic context. Users have the ability to add their projects to the PMMT database and then visualize those projects in a variety of ways.Understand how programmatic efforts relate to other projects as well as to useful agricultural and socio-economic information. Users have the ability to browse and map other people's projects alone and alongside their own projects. This functionality provides the framework for multiple organizations to communicate vital strategic information together in a coordinated fashion.The Africa RISING PMMT is composed of two functional modules which perform specific and complementary functions: • The data management component, which allows users to upload their research outputs (e.g., data, tools, documents) to a secure online catalogue in any format;• The data entry application, which allows users with the appropriate credentials to add projectrelated data (e.g., indicators as well as customs indicators) through an intuitive, step-by-step web interface;• The mapping application, which allows users to contextualize where Africa RISING research activities are taking place and provide them the opportunity to view and overlay various socioeconomic, biophysical, and agriculture-related data.However, IFPRI have received few data entries against the PMMT from the Ethiopian researchers and have therefore not been able to make a good assessment of project progress against Program indicators (N.B. there is no project monitoring plan, as the monitoring is done at Program level). A second wave of trainings is envisaged to give researchers more confidence and skills in uploading data into the PMMT.Additional monitoring tools could be considered, including the case-study approach used by the CSISA (Cereals-Based Initiative for South Asia) team. However, according to IFPRI, resources are limited and they are a small team covering six countries One specific aspect of M&E is being actioned. This is the M&E for Innovation Platforms, which has been assigned a dedicated researcher (Elias Damtew, with support from Alan Duncan), who has drawn up a participatory monitoring and evaluation plan (Feb 2015) 19 . M&E Champions have been selected at woreda level, and these appear to be functioning.A second useful tool for monitoring project progress has been the monthly meeting of project partners in which progress is reviewed and plans discussed. This would be even more valuable were there a (rolling) project framework against which to assess progress and make plans, and if there was an in-country M&E person to engage with partners on an equal basis at the monthly meetings, to mainstream the monitoring of project progress and to contribute to the development of QQT or SMART 20 project indicators (including sustainable intensification indicators) against project outputs, components or themes depending which the project decides to judge its performance by. IFPRI agreed that an in-country presence has advantages, and that this is something that should be discussed in the forthcoming AR retreat in June.Based on the assessment of M&E in Phase I, the Review Team feel that M&E should be an integral, mainstream activity of any Phase II, rather than a separate, contracted-out activity. How adequate are the available human resources for successful implementation?Wide range of skills and expertise in the partnership: The Africa RISING research project is a collaborative effort among researchers from different CGIAR centers. Thus, it brings together researchers with different professional backgrounds and different institutions for planning and implementation of the different research protocols in the project sites. In this way, the project brings together a wide range of skills and expertise from the different CGIAR centers in the partnership. By so doing the project is setting an example of how different institutions can pool together their expertise and skills to carry out integrated multi-disciplinary research projects to address the multiple challenges faced by the farming community. The fact that different CGIAR centers are working together and that every protocol is implemented by more than one Center gives a broader perspective and provides a fertile ground for further collaboration towards more integrated approach. However, because of the multidisciplinary nature of the research activities, the CGIAR centers may not have all the expertise required to address all the different components of the project. For example, some gaps were indicated in the areas of post-harvest technology, human nutrition and animal health. The project has already felt these deficiencies and has started taking corrective measures -human nutrition expert has recently been employed and that of animal health is in the pipeline.The researchers from the CGIAR centers are working in partnerships with researchers from the National Agricultural Research System (Agricultural Research Centers and Universities) located in the vicinity of the project sites. This arrangement brings additional expertise for joint planning and implementation of the research protocols. The CGIAR researchers and the NARS researchers can strongly complement each other by pooling the international experience of the former and better understanding of the local condition by the latter. In addition to effective implementation of different Africa RISING research protocols, the collaboration of the CGIAR and NARS researchers will also have a strong capacity strengthening component for the NARS researchers because of experience sharing through closely working together from the design through the implementation and reporting of the research work.The project also engages short-term consultants in certain aspects that require external expertise when the amount of work does not justify employment of a full time staff. A limited number of PhD and MSc students are associated with the project to work on some components of the project that will contribute to the fulfillment of their Thesis requirement. The use of graduate students is an effective and efficient way of implementing a research project as the students are very keen to collect sufficient and good quality data for their Thesis. It also has a strong capacity building component to nurture and shape future researchers.What expertise needs to be strengthened or added? Specialist in post-harvest technology to lead the different activities of the project on postharvest handling and management of different agricultural produces (cereals, vegetables, fruits and animal products).  Site-level, part-time accountancy support is needed (according to site coordinators)  M&E staff who are answerable to project management and who attend planning and partnership meetings  Local expertise for trial management (some protocols partner with local researchers, which works, and some depend on site coordinators, which overloads them)  Additional partners qualified for research into scaling. Could consider e.g. GFRAS -Geneva (for advisory services; scaling issues) and AFAAS-part of FARA -based in Uganda. The Project also needs to identify and involve appropriate national stakeholders (may include Federal agencies such the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Forestry and Environment, Ministry of Water and Energy, EIAR, ATA etc.)The Project has used a range of short and long-term capacity building activities for human resources development and for strengthening the capacity of local partner institutions. It has put strong focus on cross learning events through field days, workshops, experience sharing visits, regular meetings and short-term training programs as short term capacity building activities for the project stakeholders. In addition, the project is supporting MSc and PhD students to carry out their research work as part of the Project in addition to assessing and filling some gaps of the local partner institutions in basic facilities to strengthen their capacity.Is there an adequate Communication and Dissemination strategy?An effective communication and dissemination strategy is critical to the success of this project. As mentioned above, the project's loose design structure and iterative approach requires constant communication between partners. The program goal of 'embedding scaling' in all project outputs means that stakeholders who are critical to scaling need to be engaged, and communicated with at all stages. Communication at program, project, national, woreda and kebele level are all essential.Communication for scaling is an important driver for project outcomes. The ability of the project to facilitate or encourage development partners to adopt these communication approaches to take scaling further is a key driver for the project goal (see Figure 1, TOC).What has been achieved?The communication team is extremely active, and the project benefits from sufficient budget for communication. Project partners appeared very happy with the communication and information sharing mechanisms.The Review Team was impressed by the quantity, clarity and accessibility (to those with internet access) of the communication material. The project process has been clearly documented, and useful tools have been shared. This is in itself a useful project output.Communication on technical outputs and outcomes has not yet begun. However the communications team has already begun thinking about the best way to do this (see plans for dissemination above).Areas to be strengthenedThe Review Team was concerned that partners (particularly at the government and kebele level) who do not have ready access to internet might not be able to access information as easily as the research and international community. The team recommends hard copy updates e.g. quarterly newsletters for sharing information with these partners. Other options would be use of mobile phone or CD Roms.As the project generates technologies and approaches to be shared, the communication team should put resources into sharing communication approaches, and facilitating their adoption, by key development partners.How effective are the collaborations, coordination, and working relationship among key partners? Are the current research and development partners adequate for a successful project?Partnerships are essential at every stage of the project's Theory of Change (see Figure 1). CGIAR partners, national and local research organizations, farmers and their organizations, NGOs and the private sector are all key partners in situation analysis and integrated research. The private sector, development agencies and organizations with specialist skills in scaling, will become increasingly important as promising technologies and approaches are identified. Partnerships with sister projects under AR Program, the Feed the Future family, USAID innovation labs and other CGIAR Research Programs (especially the Humid Tropics program).  Partnerships with CGIAR project partners 21 for project design, situation analysis, integrated systems research and monitoring and evaluation.  Partnerships with National and regional Research Centers and Universities: joint research, capacity building and support to masters and PhD studies.  Partnership with local agricultural and other relevant government offices at kebele, woreda, zonal and regional level 22 .  Some private sector partnerships e.g. with cooperatives in Tigray.  Some NGO partnerships e.g. GRAD/REST in Tigray, SOS Sahel in Lemo.  Formation of Innovation Platform groups to coordinate partners at site level (see discussion under each output.)  Some progress in developing partnerships for scaling, for example with ATA at national level, and with zonal government staff in southern Tigray to scale promising activities.How effective are the project's partnerships?The Review Team observed that the project design and management approach is conducive to good partnerships. Project partners interviewed were extremely positive about the inclusive, 'open door' management style, the good communication and the multidisciplinary approach. Most of those interviewed agreed that the relationship between partners is characterized by an open, trusting and sharing relationship that enables good interchange of ideas and information.With regard to private sector partnerships, the Value Chain experts interviewed noted that private sector partners cannot be expected to take an interest until new products or opportunities reach a critical scale. Engagement with these partners needs to be an iterative process through regular review of partnerships and opportunities/need for new partnerships.A partnership that appears problematic is that between the project and its Monitoring and Evaluation Partner, IFPRI. Interviewees noted that IFPRI does not attend the regular monthly meetings (IFPRI says that it is not invited to these or other events). The separate budget and lack of an in-country presence make it difficult for the Project Coordinator to manage IFPRI in an integrated way.Are current partnerships adequate?While current partnerships are strong and productive, the Review Team noted that there will be a need to invite more partners to the table to embed scaling into the project's activities. The Review recommends that the project conduct a stakeholder analysis of potential scaling partners, which should include potential partners from the strategic thinking and methodology level, national level programs (e.g. AGP, ARDPLAC, ATA), and site/value chain level and communication actors.How relevant is the program and project management structure in terms of enhancing the implementation of the project?The Program Framework envisaged a Program Coordination Team, an external Science Advisory Group and a Project Steering Committee.The Program Coordination Team comprises Peter Thorne, Peter Ballantyne (communications), Jerry Glover (USAID Agricultural Systems Adviser, USAID \"Activity leader\" and de facto head of the Program), Carlo Azzarri (IFPRI lead on M&E) Bernard Vanlouwe (IITA) and Siboniso Moyo (Program leader for ASSP, ILRI). The team meets every six months (alternating virtual and face-to-face meetings). Apart from providing feedback to USAID 23 and discussing up-coming activities and strategy, cross-project issues are discussed. For example, there is a cross-project discussion group (including Kansas State University Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab) that is developing sustainable intensification indicators, which are necessary for all the AR projects. A further example of interaction between Program projects is the visit by E. and W. Africa projects to the Ethiopian work on watershed management. However, there is no project budget line for Program coordination, reducing the impact that it could have.There is a Science Advisory Group for the Program, comprising Maggie Gill, Christine Okali, Salvador Fernandez Rivora (ex-ILRI), Moses Tenu (?) and Dave Harris (ICRAF). This meets every six months and responds to requests for advice from the three projects. It also reviews important documents. The first meeting was in June 2014, and a second has been held since.There is potential to collaborate more with the CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs) and also with the relevant USAID Innovation Laboratories (successors to the CRSPs), such as the Small Scale Irrigation (Ethiopia, Ghana and Tanzania) which is using modelling methods for ex-ante analysis that could be adopted by AR (using IFPRI baseline data).There is no Project Steering Committee as this was deemed unnecessary. However, some of the functions of such a committee are fulfilled by the project monthly partner meetings that track progress and discuss future activities.The flexible, adaptive management style of project management is appreciated by most partners, and enables project responsiveness to opportunities and challenges. It is appropriate to a participatory, integrated systems approach in a dynamic and complex environment. This has to be accompanied by good communications between all partners at all levels (which is happening), and a suitably crafted M&E system that keeps all partners abreast of progress towards agreed outcomes (which is not in place -or not yet functioning if one counts the PMMT). Where management is too loose, there is a danger of some project elements being out of step with others, or not delivering a product that is needed by other partners.Funding for Africa RISING is through CGIAR Window 3 (where contributions are allocated by Fund donors -in this case USAID -to specific CGIAR Centers -in this case to ILRI for Africa-RISING).The Africa RISING project falls under the ILRI Animal Sciences for Sustainable Productivity (ASSP) program for its financial management and contracts. The Africa RISING project is a large, complex project involving seven CGIAR centers, multiple local partners and four field sites, and has got more active in terms of day to day financial management since the site coordinators were recruited and the participatory trials got underway.According to CGIAR partners, the budget for the project is adequate for the work planned and they don't feel that funding compromises the scope or quality of their work. The 2015 budget is presented in Annex 5. The total amount for 2015 is US$2.65million. 55% of the budget is earmarked for staff costs (ILRI + other Centers) and 23% for research costs by CGIAR and local partners). A further 4% is for \"gap filling\" for local partners. Through this the project provides operational support to local partners (e.g. purchase or repair of equipment, provision of transport and per diems). This means that local partners (Research Centers, Universities, Woreda offices etc.) are, in turn, willing collaborators, and are able to work effectively with the project. Salaries are not paid to local partners.2.5% is for student attachments (PhD and MSc) which helps build capacity of Ethiopian organizations and provide useful information to the project. There is no budget for Program coordination or for collaboration with other programs such as Humidtropics, but this might be added if a Phase 2 is negotiated.For the Quick Wins, funds were given to partners, but now most of the funds are handled centrally to improve efficiency, reduce duplication and improve the timely availability of funds. It also helps to increase the coherence of activities between partners. IFPRI receives funds separately to the rest of AR Ethiopia and is therefore not under the Project Coordinators control. From the project management perspective, this is not logical as M&E is a central component of project management.The ILRI financial staff feels that the system is working well, and they have received no complaints. However several CGIAR partners told the Review Team that it could be slow getting funds from the system, and that this has delayed work on some occasions. The two site coordinators we interviewed also told us that they spend too much time getting funds for site operations. They would like the cash float to be increased from 40,000Birr to 100,000Birr, especially for the busy periods of the agricultural calendar. They also ask for accountancy support (possibly part-time) to reduce the workload and free them up for facilitating the field work.The ILRI financial staff feels that it would be helpful to have a more structured budget (like other projects they manage), with the budget linked to the project objectives, as not having this link causes a problem with the auditors who request to see and scrutinize the donor budget.This short (10-day) external review of the Ethiopian AR project was given every opportunity to see and discuss project progress, achievements and challenges. The project is now in its fourth year out of a scheduled five years. It has made significant progress.The project has benefitted from a flexible management approach assisted by good communications systems that have encouraged creativity and productive multi-institutional partnerships, as well as enabling it to respond to farmer demand. This management arrangement is appropriate to a participatory, process project dealing with complex farming systems in a heterogeneous environment. The project has a wide range of CGIAR and local partners who have combined well to conduct research protocols at four contrasting sites. Innovation platform have been established at woreda and kebele levels. These have facilitated the research work, provided forums for sharing and learning, and are potential platforms for the coordination of scaling up and out of findings. Both CGIAR and local partners highlighted the multi-institutional approach and the participatory nature of the project as being two of the most important contribution of the project (see Annex One).A rather long situation analysis period in which a number of surveys gathered a large amount of qualitative and quantitative information resulted in some survey overload of farming communities. Despite the fact that some aspects of this component are still not documented, the project has moved into \"integrated systems improvement\" activities at the research sites. While the participatory action research has been successful in enthusing farmers and testing useful technologies, the majority of these activities have been focused on single disciplines (food crops, livestock nutrition, high value crops, soil fertility, post-harvest storage etc.), with few protocols looking at whole farm or landscape situations. Although protocols have included at least two CGIAR partners as well as local partners, it is the view of the Review Team that these multi-institutional partnerships have yet to start re-designing farming systems or bringing in radical departures from present practice or available knowledge. In commenting on the draft of this report, senior project staff felt that project efforts towards systems development had not been fully recognized and that: Some protocols explicitly look at outcomes across several system components and will be interpreted \"systematically\" Assuming data handling can be unified successfully, then the household engagement patterns that the project has will allow it to explore complementarity amongst component interventions as well as trade-offs between them Farmers are genuine partners in the research. They manage their farms as a whole, and are aware of the linkages between components relating to every management decision taken. They scrutinize everything that the project is doing so that the systems perspective is, to some extent, hard wired.While the Review Team agrees with these statements, it maintains that there is opportunity (provided by the contrasting sites, the trust of the farmers and above all the presence of a multitude of local and international research organizations) to go further and explore ways to improve community nutrient flows, water-use efficiency and energy budgets, and moderate GHG emissions through technical and organizational innovation.There are some shortcomings around the planning and operation of field research activities, but farmers are very appreciative of the way that research is followed up to ensure tangible benefits to those involved. The project is covering aspects of crops, livestock and trees, but there are key areas that it is not addressing fully at present, such as human nutrition, post-harvest aspects of the value chain, animal health and livestock breed improvement. The project might also look beyond farming and enquire about the aspirations and strategies of rural families for coping with multiple external and local influences and shocks (education, social status, economic strategies, risk management…).The four research sites and their innovation platforms are excellent nuclei for scaling-out (spatially and to more people) and scaling-up (to more organizations) of successful innovations. This has already started on a small scale, both formally (e.g. through community-based seed production and government training) and informally though farmer-farmer exchange of information and materials. The project has a draft scaling plan, but this has a long way to go before it is a comprehensive scaling strategy, and research into scaling will need to move quickly to ensure it documents the multiple scaling processes (some already emerging) from their starting points.The project has mainstreamed gender, but so far has not been able to influence the low number of women involved directly in the IPs and on-farm trials. A gender specialist has been appointed and appropriate steps (training, gender champions, studies and a gender action plan) are being taken to improve the involvement of women. This should be extended to youth, who are often landless (especially in Tigray) and who might be lost to agriculture if explicit attention is not paid to their specific needs.There is a good culture of sharing of information between researchers involved in the project. However, the data gathered by each research team is kept separately and in different formats. The plan to create a central data repository for all the data generated by the project is a good idea in principle. Researchers are unsure where the resources to make this a reality are coming from, but the potential benefits (e.g. meta-analysis of the data across systems) make it a worthwhile goal.A comprehensive baseline snapshot has been captured by the different surveys conducted (including the IFPRI Baseline survey). Unfortunately these did not look at trends, which would also be useful for guiding the research program and providing more realistic scenarios for the project to be evaluated against at intervals. Monitoring of project progress has been hampered by three main factors. Firstly a confused picture (to the outsider at least) of what progress should be monitored against (outputs, outcomes, hypotheses, components or themes are all mentioned in various program and/or project documents, and there are no quantified or time-bound indicators against which to assess progress). The lack of sustainable intensification indicators is also a concern for this and other SI projects. Secondly, the lack of a project framework for AR Ethiopia (logframe-, Theory of Change-or Outcomebased) needs to be addressed. Thirdly, the unenthusiastic involvement of researcher in providing data for the web-tool that is supposed to monitor project progress (the Project Mapping and Monitoring Tool). While the project partner monthly meetings are an excellent forum for reviewing and planning activities, the lead M&E organization is not present to discuss M&E plans and to involve research staff in them.Communication has been given an unusually high profile in this project, to good effect. Information sharing is facilitated by mechanisms such as wiki and Yammer, especially for those with good internet connectivity, and all the fundamentals are in place for good communications support to scaling as that component takes off.Project management structures are adequate to oversee and advise the project, although specific funds could be assigned for Program coordination (especially for activities such as the development of SI indicators and inter-project exchange visits). Otherwise the budget is adequate, although refinancing could be speeded up so that researchers can operate more effectively.It was unreasonable to expect a participatory, systems research project to understand the context in depth, to establish research sites and identify demand, to develop appropriate innovations and to bring these to scale in five years. It is expected that by the end of the five year phase, the project will have completed two full years of on-site experimentation. Further years will be needed to consolidate the single discipline research and to integrate that knowledge into activities that provide real improvements in system efficiencies (of water, land, labor, nutrients, cash) at the household, community and landscape scales, especially considering that each farmer typology in this highly heterogeneous environment will require different technologies and tailor-made recommendations (as is already being highlighted by innovative fertilizer work).A second five-year phase is therefore recommended by the review team to build on the good work started in Phase I and to influence and document the scaling processes and structures that result (hopefully with complementary support from USAID bilateral development funding).Retain the flexible approach used in Phase 1 while including a framework (discussed above) that enables monitoring, a logical phasing of activities and provides a clear and consistent vision Retain a similar geographical focus to Phase I, so that in-depth, site-specific experiences can be fully investigated and documented Link research into scaling with USAID bilateral development funding to Ethiopia This project, managed by the ILRI, is currently centered on eight communities (kebeles) in the four main highland regions of Ethiopia; Amhara, Oromia, Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region (SNNPR) and South Tigray.The main aim of the project is to identify and validate solutions to the problems experienced by smallholder crop-livestock farmers. Some problems arise from the difficulties facing farmers in managing natural resources and achieving efficiencies from managing crops, trees, water and livestock together. These efficiencies are often influenced by other factors such as access to inputs and the reliability of markets.To address this complexity, Africa RISING takes an integrated approach to strengthen farming systems. It conducts participatory research that identifies technologies and management practices that work for farmers and take account of contextual issues like markets for inputs and outputs, community and other institutions and of the policy environments that influence farm households.","tokenCount":"18106"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7a957fc95a7a43946156e80341e804b3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/31b9f8b1-8e30-4851-899c-d63d8029cb15/retrieve","id":"1471309561"},"keywords":["Kawano","Plant Breeder R. Sterling","Research Assistant P. P. Andersen","Economist R. O. Dl.\"'hz","Research Associate"],"sieverID":"a87815bb-bfef-4d7b-9b42-7dbc943a1a19","pagecount":"14","content":"The most important bacterial disease of cassava is Cassava Bacterial Blight (CBE) . Thts elisease was Cirst recoreled in Brazil (1), but later was reported in Colombia (2) and obse rved in several other cou ntries in South America and Africa.The symptoms of the disease are similar to those r e portedly induced by Xrlnthomonas manihotis(A rthau d-Berthet) 8tnrr. but studies of the morphology, physiology, serology, and phage susceptibility oí the bacteriuní isolated in Colombia, Brazil, and Venezuela suggest that it differs from xanthomonads a nd is s imilar to sorne pseudomonads (2). The ca5sava blight bacteriurn i5 distingutshed from Sorne species of El\"\\\\'inta, Pseudomonas . aod Xanthomonas by serological and phage-typing methods (2). These methods may also be ltsed to separate it from other plant pnthogenic bacteria. Si nce its taxonomic position i8 oot fully de-Cineel, thi8 baeterium has been named CBB.The symptoms of the disease can be subdi vided iot o two groups: b) The 5hoot5 produced from i!úected planting material wilt .... 'ithout 5howing any lea! blight. This is usuall y followed by die-back, often with e:\\.\"Udate on tpP \",tems (Fig. 2). .Symptoms assocíated with the spr ead of th e pathogen from a focu s of ¡nfection . This comes from infected planting materinl or is carried by a \"machete\" from a nearby Cield oC infected plants. The symptoms . appea r fi rst on the leaves ami are as fo11o\\\\'s : a) Water-soaked, grey nngular l esions appear on lhe leuf su rface. These a r e especia n y prominent on lhe undersi de of l he leaf ( Fig. 3) . b) These leaf spots grow and cause R leaC blight. Ca re must be taken not to confuse the leaf spots or leaf blig ht with those caused by fungi. Cercospora len f spots are easil}' identified by the circular lesions which are eithe r white or light 01' dark-brown in color depending on fungal species involved. Phyllosticta leaf blight can be confused with CBS; however, the symptoms differ. Phyllosticta sp. produces lesions wi.th concentric rings often spreading from the leaf ~ip or a point on the leaf ma rgin , and does not produce e:\\1.ldate trom the veins on lhe underside oC the leaveswhieh is typical oC CBB. e) Wilting fo11 ow5 blight and spreads throughout the plant, even to branches s howing no othe r sy mptom s (Flg. l). d) Fi nally t he plant defoliates a nd t he growing tipa of wilted branches die back. The fungal diseases caused by Phyllosticta sp., Cercos por a spp. ancI Colletotrichum sp. en n also cause defoliatior.. Thc le nf sym ptoms cnn gene rally be lI s ed to distinguish between the diseases . Coll etot richu m sp . causes the lenf to tum uniformly browl1 befare falling. Phvllosticta sp. and Col1etotrichum sp. c an both cause die-back during. seve re nttacks. Ca r e must be take n to prevent confusion between symptom s caused by fungt and symptoms caused by CaD .Gum exudation from the pelloles and s tem s oC infected plants is c ommon. A Iso, vascular s trands of infected pelloles and stems necrose and QPpear as brown strings . This vascular discoloration may also spread into non-inCected roots (2,3).a) The bacterium can survive for long periods in the planting pieccs . Thus infccted planting material. frequently s howing no visible symptoms, often spr eads the dlseas e from one arca to another (Fig. 4). 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ' 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 00 o 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 \" 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 • o o 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 00 O 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 0 0 0 0 .:::t e oo ooooo0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ) 0 0 ) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ) O 0')l ~\"0...9. o 0 ' -' FIgure L Wilt ln g and lesf drop of cassava caused by GBB .  b) The bacteria are casily transferred ftom plant to pla nt and field to field by using infected lools such as \"machetes, tI ¡nfected machinery or c1othing, or by personnel. c) Debns and volu nteer -plants from previous cassava c r opa are often a major source of infection. d) Once a primary infection establishes itself. the disease sprends rapidly during t he rainy season because of rain splash (Figs. 5 and 6) .Once the disease is present in a crop, complete control ls not possi ble but spread of the epidemic can be retarded by roguing out infected plants. Control  Fig. 6. Spretd of CBa in the field from init ial 'ou ree, of infection in eJlperiments conducted be-Iween $eptember 1 5 and December 31 , 197 1 . Relalion of lola! ra infall (mm) and number of diseued planls in each 15-day per;ocJ . can be achieved by eradicaling the disease from plan.tations by the foIlowing means: a) After har vesting, remove and burn all plant debris. Plough the field and do oot plant cassava f. or six months. Eliminate aH cassavn volunteer plants.Establish new plantations using only bacteriafree plantíng material obtained from disease-free plantations.Prevent the moveme nt of people, tools and planting material from infected to cIean areas. \"Disinfect tools, machinery, and footwear by using a five perce nt formalin dip. CIean arens can be kept bacte ria-free by :hese quarantine regulations . d) Use resistant culti vars that have been reported in CLI\\.T ' s cnSS8\\'11 collection (3). e) Ir in doubt, ask the opinton and advice of eIAT.\"Cassava bacterial blig ht is a senous disea s e. Thf' aboye recommendations, c arefulty and conscientiol1sl y followed could clean infected plantations and ¡ncre ase yi elds. \\Ve wtsh to express our appreciation to !\\Ir. Neil Mac Lellan (Photographer, Rockefeller Foundation) for preparing the lllustrations that appear in tMs publicatton .","tokenCount":"1169"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"5e38e6e997ff20e812c6c499d3f5cb05","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/57a9459a-a9cf-4a7d-941e-6a411fd3de78/retrieve","id":"-1856650498"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"03ad5338-67f7-4a3b-8d50-557e5b240f7d","pagecount":"14","content":"• Cashew is an important crop in Tanzania and is primarily grown by smallholder farmers in 3 regions of the country: Mtwara, Lindi, and Pwani• Men and women play distinct roles along the cashew value chain and face different constraints/opportunities o Women provide 60 and 90 percent of labor in cashew production and processing, respectively (Mpenda, 2020). o Women face greater constraints to cashew production in Tanzania (Mihyo 2019) o Women dominate small processing but face constraints to accessing raw cashew and marketing cashew (Mpenda 2020; Mihyo 2019)• The cashew VC is prioritized by the government, and several investments/interventions are ongoing 01.• Two marketing channels: domestic and export• Women are concentrated in the domestic marketing channel• This study focuses on 3 nodes of the value chain where women are concentrated: production, processing, and marketing in the domestic channel• Recent policy changes enable \"cottage\" processors to purchase larger quantities of cashew from Agricultural Marketing Cooperatives (AMCOs)03.• The Small Industries Development Organization (SIDO) of the Government of Tanzania initiated an intervention in 2007 to provide existing women's cashew processing groups with improved small-scale cashew processing technologies and training to improve productivity and the quality of their processed cashew.• The package of tools provided include: a boiler, drier, and hand operated crusher• With this set of tools cottage processors can process 4 times the amount of cashew in a day, requiring increased supply of raw cashew• The equipment also produces higher quality products (white and brown kernels)• Participants also receive market information ▪ This study uses mixed method combining both qualitative and quantitative to address the research questions ▪ Focus group discussions with women's cashew processing groups (WCPGs) (9 treatment and 9 control groups) o Control groups were selected from SIDO's list of active groups (the criteria for selection), and were adjacent to wards with SIDO supported groups (thus similar market access) o One woman from each of the selected processing groups was selected for a follow-up interview (18 interviews with women processors)▪ Other Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) were carried out with men and women cashew producers participating in AMCOs (12 men and 12 women) from wards where FGDs were conducted.▪ KIIs were also conducted with SIDO officials, street vendors and supermarket managers, Methodology 06.• Audio data were transcribed, translated, and checked for clarity prior to analysis• Transcripts were coded by theme and sub-themes using deductive and inductive coding was used to extract the themes • Regrouping of themes was done after all data were coded• Key themes identified included:Gender roles in cashew production and decision-making Choice of market channels Opportunities and constraints for women engaged in cashew processing and marketing• NVivo software (version 13) was used to code the transcribed interviews• Excel software used to analyse costs, revenues, and profits of SIDO intervention for WCPG..• Women contribute labor to cashew production but have little autonomy or decision-making authorityo Men engage in pruning, spraying of fertilizers and pesticides, and transporting cashew from the farm to the household o Women do weeding, picking, sorting, and peeling cashew• Both men and women perceived the tasks women do as less arduous even though are actually quite tedious and very time consuming• Women are less involved in input decisions-especially when inputs are purchased from agro-dealers. However, when purchased from AMCOs women are involved and have to sign purchase contract• Heterogeneity across household in the decision to sell raw cashew (Through AMCOS or keep for cottage processing) -Men prefer to sell cashew in bulk to AMCOs -Women prefer to keep cashew for processing• Men largely control income from the bulk sales through AMCOS while women retain income from the sale of processed cashew (small quantities)• One male producer indicated; Most of men manage raw nut cashew income compared to processed cashewiii .• WCPGs face challenges in getting adequate supply of raw cashew for processing despite policy change• Lack of group cohesion, experience-some WCPGs formed just to receive the intervention• Typical cottage processing uses manual technologies, is time consuming, and results in lower quality products• The toxin in the shells poses a health and safety hazard during processing, damaging the skin and eyes• Cottage-processed cashew nuts are typically sold to local retailers, such as shops, supermarkets, and street vendors in small quantities• WCPGs also sell processed cashew nuts to large traders, including businessmen from Dar es Salaam but are at a disadvantage in these market transactions because most often the male sales agents don't always return with payment.Processing Constraints.WCPG profitability with and without SIDO intervention 09.• Women are heavily engaged in production & processing nodes of cashew VC and in the domestic marketing channel • Limited opportunities for women's empowerment in cashew production-men dominate decisions, control land, income; women mainly provide household labor • Women have much greater control over small-scale processing • The SIDO intervention saves labor and increases quantity of kernels from RCN • However, there are other constraints that also need to be addressed for women's cashew processing groups to be able to take full advantage of the improved equipment: Rec #1: SIDO needs better method of evaluating groups to assess their social cohesion, willingness, and ability to work together, prior to providing them with support PI: Need for better screening by SIDO of potential women's cashew processing (WCP) groups prior to SIDO selectionRec #2: Involving younger men to be members of women's cashew processing groups that receive SIDO support PI: A need for SIDO to consider younger men to be members of women's cashew processing groups. SIDO might support this because MoA is interested in both empowering women in agriculture and also youth","tokenCount":"928"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cb2bb53fcaa8d38eb6b061631c05c7c2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b3e9fe15-633a-4db6-a8b7-220588adcff2/retrieve","id":"-637877485"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1d04ce85-abf4-41c5-9e4b-02917be34b43","pagecount":"21","content":"Reaching the unheard: multistakeholder dialogues towards resilient landscape management planning in West Africa. Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management Institute (IWMI). CGIAR Initiative on West and Central African Food Systems Transformation. 21p.Table of content  Multistakeholder dialogues are crucial in breaking down silos and bringing together diverse voices across landscapes. These dialogues ensure that everyone's needs are considered, leading to fairer and more inclusive outcomes. In the context of the CGIAR Initiative on Transforming AgriFood Systems West and Central Africa (TAFS-WCA), several MSDs were organized in targeted landscapes in Ghana and Nigeria to co-develop inclusive landscape management plans (ILMPs). The MSDs assessed the status and dynamics of natural resources and ecosystem services, validated the LSA findings, and aided knowledge-sharing, partnership-building, and community mobilization for sustainable and resilient landscapes. The approach to the MSDs in both countries was guided by a combination of collaborative and empowerment engagement methods like focus groups, partnership building, and community mobilization. The principles of a successful MSD include inclusiveness, transparency, respect, facilitation, and decision-making. All relevant stakeholders were invited to participate, regardless of their background or position. The MSDs in Ghana validated most of the LSA results, with new information on drivers of change, state, and dynamics of natural resource use in the target social-ecological landscape. Participants came with new information including disunity between farmers and miners, changes in family practices, increased postharvest losses, reduced food production, new diseases, illegal mining due to new technology, and the inappropriateness of Cinderella Trees for agroforestry. In the Doma-Rutu productive landscape, MSDs confirmed that dwindling water resources affect agricultural productivity, floods in rice fields around the Ohina River, and common livelihood activities among women contributing to forest degradation and stream siltation. The State government proposed Operation Green Nasarawa State, which networks with charcoal producers, firewood traders, tree loggers, and timber traders. By reflecting on the experiences, valuable lessons were learned that could improve future MSDs:The importance of long-term commitment: Building trust and achieving lasting results requires long-term commitment from all stakeholders.The need for flexibility: The process could have been more flexible to adapt to changing circumstances and emerging needs before and during the MSDs.The value of continuous learning: Dialogue participants and facilitators/researchers could have been more open to learning from each other. Finally, the process gave an opportunity within this mobilization effort to identify citizen scientists, especially in Ghana. The aim was to involve residents in gathering water quality and quantity data and engage them in the MSD. This approach highlights a creative and inclusive method to collect valuable information and reach back to the community for an inclusive landscape management plan.Diverse voices across landscapes (local communities, indigenous groups, etc.) often struggle to be heard when decisions are made in separate \"silos.\" Multistakeholder dialogues act as bridges, breaking down these silos and bringing everyone together to build shared understanding and find solutions that benefit everyone. Decisions about landscapes historically have not always considered everyone's needs. These dialogues ensure everyone's voices are heard, leading to fairer and more inclusive outcomes and decisions reflecting the aspirations of those who depend on the landscape. Through multi-stakeholder collaborations in local landscape research and the promotion of inclusive consultations, stakeholders/actors can expand their shared understanding, learn from each other, and build common knowledge towards improved landscape planning and management.Under the CGIAR Initiative on Transforming AgriFood Systems West and Central Africa (TAFS-WCA), several MSDs were organized in targeted landscapes in Ghana and Nigeria, aimed at codeveloping inclusive landscape management plans (ILMPs). These included MSDs carried out during landscape situational analysis (LSA) and its validation. These were carried out in the Ahafo Ano Southwest District Assembly (AASWDA) of Ghana and Doma-Rutu in the Nasarawa State of Nigeria. The MSDs were an opportunity to: assess the status and dynamics of natural resources and ecosystem services; and validate the LSA findings, which formed the basis for ILMP codevelopment. The MSDs also aided knowledge-sharing, partnership-building, and community mobilization for sustainable and resilient landscapes. The approach to the MSDs in both landscapes was guided by a combination of collaborative and empowerment engagement methods like focus groups, partnership building and community mobilization. These methods are essential tools for promoting inclusive and participation in landscape management. They provide avenues for open dialogue, foster cooperation among diverse stakeholders, and empower communities to actively contribute to decision-making processes.The West and Central African Food Systems Transformation (WCA-TFS/WP3), one of the CGIAR initiatives seek to address the increasing challenges confronting the agricultural food production environment. It consists of five work packages (WP 1 -5). Work Package 3 (WP3) is about inclusive landscape management. This is based on the premise that equal access to and proper use of land and water resources is a prerequisite to building a healthy, productive, and One Health-sensitive environment for resilient agri-food systems and livelihoods. WP3 will, therefore, combine participatory tools and citizen science to co-develop and implement inclusive landscapes owned by the communities that enable sustainable scaling of bundled land, water, aquaculture, and climate-smart agronomic and digital innovations. WP3 proposes to: i. co-establish the status and progress of landscape management for sustainable intensification.ii. design adaptive socio-ecological landscape management plans that are One Health sensitive and embedded in local and national governance systems;iii. develop a near real-time water resources decision support system (WRDSS) to strengthen landscape resilience planning and investment; iv.deploy context-specific integrated land, water, fish, crop, and agronomic innovations at scale; and v. deploy market-driven circular bio-economy innovations to reduce pressure on water and land resources while mainstreaming One-Health approaches in planned innovations.There are many challenges facing the agricultural production systems across West and Central Africa. Co-developing inclusive landscape management plans brings about a holistic view of the production ecosystem with inclusive interaction of stakeholders in resources inventory, evaluating prevailing challenges, co-designing possible interventions, and implementing innovation bundles based on identified challenges.The MSD in Ghana started with engagements with the District Chief Executive (DCE), the District Coordinating Director (DCD) and department heads on the team's mission and the landscape situational analysis (LSA) report was also discussed and a copy given to the Assembly. Preliminary activities towards the MSD involved mobilizing logistics and participants from the Mmrobem, Barniekrom, Kunsu, and Mankranso communities. Even though letters of invitation were sent two weeks before the engagement, there was a need to follow up with community leaders as traditional courtesies demanded. The MSD was held on the 21 st of March, 2023 and started with a presentation of the key findings of the LSA to all stakeholders, after which the dialogue ensued (Figure 1). Appendix A for a detailed outline of the MSD workshop in Ghana, which was replicated in Nigeria. weeks before the meeting date to stakeholders of the landscape. The objectives and scope of the dialogue were presented, and the participants were endeared to openly discuss. Two presentations were made in the plenary: an aerial video of the landscape and a presentation of key findings of the landscape situational analysis. The second section of the meeting was a syndicate grouping of participants into three: (1) the community members of the landscape in youth and women groups;(2) non-governmental organizations and commodity associations (innovative platforms) present, and (3) Government officials (Federal, State, and Local Government personnel/officials from the various ministries). Syndicate grouping and the adopted composition of groups were particularly employed, a popular method used in workshops, to promote collaboration, teamwork, and active engagement among participants. The idea was to foster a broad range of perspectives and ideas without losing commonalities and the feeling of inadequacy common among people of little means among \"experts\". In these small groups, participants had the chance to give and receive feedback, leading to improvement and increased confidence in their abilities and finding their voice.Additionally, the syndicate groups allowed for efficient time management, reducing the time needed for individual assignments and allowing for more in-depth discussions and activities. The MSD workshops started with presentations on the findings of the landscape situational analysis (Table 1 and Table 2). Here, presenters explained to participants the state and impacts of using natural resources and associated ecosystem services. The presentations also highlighted the underlying driving forces and pressures associated with the status of natural resources in the SELs.A series of discussions in smaller groups followed these presentations. In the context of Ghana, participants' future visions of and pathways for sustainable SELs for AgriFood system resilience in the AASWDA by 2030 included a food-secure district by improving the tree-crop production system and reducing postharvest losses of cereals, bananas, cassava, and plantain; healthy forest and water ecosystems by consolidating the role of fringe communities as critical and equal stakeholders in forest and water management; spatial planning of landscapes that employ innovative techniques that are inclusive; sustainable mining through improving the capacity of miners in the use of good mining practices, including sustainable land reclamation methods; developing alternative livelihood sources in other areas of agriculture and animal husbandries such as poultry and piggery; and enhanced irrigation through rehabilitation of existing dams and the introduction of solar irrigation. These visions and pathways are considered goals for WP3, which seeks to co-develop and implement inclusive landscape management plans that maintain healthy agroforestry systems and water quality for resilient agri-food systems.The discussions in AASWDA also echoed several key recommendations, captured in the LSA, for achieving sustainable development and conservation of ecosystems in a local context:• The government and its partners (Forest Division, Minerals Commission, Water Resources Commission) should assist local authorities (district assembly, traditional leaders, unit committees, opinion leaders) in improving access to and management of natural resources and ecosystem services.• This involves continuous human capacity development, specifically in remote sensing and geographic information systems for activities like spatial planning, integrated landscape management, integrated resources management, and monitoring of forest reserves.• Encourage collaborative efforts among various stakeholders (e.g., galamseyers, farmers, chainsaw operators, water users, traders, traditional authorities, NGOs, and district assembly) to address undesired changes and impacts on the landscape.• Create a common platform for stakeholders to actively discuss issues, make decisions, and impose consequences for non-compliance. Such decisions from participatory platforms have proven effective compared to top-down decisions.• Support spatially focused investments in the landscape to achieve sustainable development and climate-smart objectives.• Encourage private sector investment in sustainable social-ecological landscape (SSEL) goals, possibly through Impact Investment Advisory Services (IIAS).• Consider investments in various challenged areas such as rice cultivation, aquaculture, vegetable farming, afforestation, and land reclamation.• Continuously track changes to assess progress toward sustainable social-ecological goals, including sustainable land use, integrated landscape management (ILM), inclusive livelihood enhancement, and strengthened institutions.• Strengthen coordination between the district assembly and law enforcement units to protect forest reserves, vegetation, and water bodies.• Review existing conservation strategies, especially farm-related policies, forest reserve settlements, and mining near rivers and streams.• Reevaluate the composition of the district mining committee to include those affected by the sector's activities.• Implement strict measures against illegal mining through participatory multistakeholder engagements involving law enforcement units such as the police and the judiciary. The MSD in the Doma-Rutu productive landscape confirmed that dwindling water resources affect agricultural productivity, especially during dry seasons. Flooding of rice fields around the Ohina River is also a major challenge. Charcoal production and firewood trading, common livelihood activities among women in the landscape, are contributing to the degradation of forests and siltation of streams. Logging/timber trading, though an important livelihood activity, was also confirmed as contributing to deforestation in the landscape. The participants also confirmed that due to the poor road network/state of road infrastructure, Okada (motorcycle taxi) has become a major livelihood alternative for youth in the watershed. Against the claim that the Doma Irrigation Scheme denies farmers access to farmland, the scheme management explained that farmlands are hired to interested farmers at N12,000 per hectare per annum payable to the Scheme. The representative of the herders associated the cause of the frequent conflict between farmers and herdsmen with the obliteration or takeover of cattle routes (labi) by farmers. The farmers disagreed that such routes no longer exist, and such claims no longer stand in the modern world. of registered members on the Rice Innovative Platform as farmers and processors. Women were also found to be involved in vegetable farming, using irrigation for okra, pepper, and spinach and water pumps to bring water into their fields. The Women Farmers Alliance Network (WOFAN) confirmed to have been highly active in the organization and training of women in the landscape, they claim accounts for the high number of females in farming. On the environmental front, participants unanimously agreed there was an urgent need to dter people from indiscriminate tree felling and charcoal production. According to one of the participants the State government has proposed Operation Green Nasarawa State, which networks with charcoal producers, firewood traders, tree loggers, and timber traders to promote sustainability. One such drive is the introduction of the Forest Trust Fund. The State government initiated the Forest Trust Fund, and a fee of five hundred Naira (N500:00) is charged per truck of charcoal. This fund is intended to be used for a statewide tree-planting effort.At the end of the plenary discussions, the following recommendations were considered and agreed upon as the way forward by the participants:• There is a need for increased government presence in the landscape to create an enabling environment that will enhance the inclusiveness of stakeholders in the management of the landscape's natural resources, prevent existing and potential conflicts, and halt the degradation of the landscape.• To sustain the use of the floodplains for dry season farming in the area, the farmers need to be organized and trained on effective water management to improve their practices and increase their productivity.• Prospecting groundwater within the fringes of the floodplains to support irrigation during the dry season and to expand irrigated areas is strongly recommended. Tube wells and Aquifer Storage and Recovery technologies can be deployed in this regard. Farmers in Iwashi are optimistic that shallow tube wells will work in their area.• Innovative water management techniques and technologies include alternate wetting and drying technology for paddy production and using a pipe irrigation system to convey in place of the open water conveyance method.• The Doma and Rutu irrigation scheme's custodian needs to put the vast land under their command to productive use during the dry season. This will minimize the rapid degradation caused by erosion and the pressure on the floodplain due to eroded sediment deposition.• An alternative source of fuel for domestic/household use, especially converting and using the paddy rice husks and stubble briquettes, biogas, and deployment of the AfricaRice Gasifier technology, is strongly recommended. This may reduce the pace of deforestation in the landscape. Meanwhile, the relevant government ministries should be given to raising native tree seedlings to re-forest marginal lands that are exposed to degradation.• Open grazing occurs in a vast portion of the landscape after rain-fed crops are harvested.Therefore, paying attention to the practice of open grazing by livestock in the landscape is recommended.• Establishing laws that mandate the continuous gathering of reliable environmental data, land cover, and changes to inform experts' decisions on agricultural systems and provide reliable environmental decision support tools is recommended. This will improve land use planning, enhance better management of natural resources, and improve resilience to climate change.The TAFS-WCA-WP3 built on partnerships, engaged local communities, involved government authorities, and leveraged scientific expertise to engender sustainable, productive landscapes in target landscapes Ghana and Nigeria. Community participation and engagement play a central role in this initiative. Community leaders, assembly members, and resource user groups have actively mobilized and encouraged participation among residents. As part of building partnerships and mobilizing community members, several strategies were adopted for the MSD in Ghana and Nigeria:Multistakeholder involvement:The dialogues strictly adhered to the following specific principles and elements of a successful MSD: inclusiveness, transparency, respect, facilitation, and decision-making. All relevant stakeholders were invited to participate, regardless of their background or position. This ensured a diversity of perspectives and experiences are considered. The process was also transparent from the beginning, with clear objectives, agenda, and decision-making processes. This helped to build trust and confidence among stakeholders. All participants were treated with respect and their contributions valued. This created an atmosphere of dialogue and collaboration. A skillful and experienced facilitator was used considering the need guide the discussion, to ensure everyone's voice was heard, and managed conflict constructively. Decisions regarding dialogue agenda were made collaboratively, considering the interests of all stakeholders. This fostered ownership and commitment to the outcomes. To capture these elements/principles, the following were some of the stakeholders involved in the MSDs:• Ahafo Ano South West District Assembly (AASWD) and related departments/units• Community leaders from Mmrobem, Barniekrom, and Kunsu (local communities)• Assembly members and leaders of resource user groups (local governance and community representatives)• Gender balance in participation• All social groups (e.g., PwLD, migrants, youth groups, etc.)• Government agencies or departments GESI was a critical aspect of these MSDs. It ensured that all voices were heard and that the needs of marginalized groups are considered. Ensuring everyone had a seat at the table was paramount.Targeted outreach went beyond mere invitations, actively engaging with marginalized groups.Whether navigating language barriers or overcoming cultural hurdles, every effort was made to ensure their knowledge and perspectives were invited to the dialogue. This deliberate inclusivity fostered a richer tapestry of thought, where voices often unheard finally resonated with purpose.From the outset, gender dynamics were treated with keen sensitivity. The facilitator, adept at navigating these ever-shifting currents, ensured a level playing field. Unconscious biases were identified and countered, creating a safe space for open exchange regardless of gender roles or expectations. This attentiveness fostered a vibrant atmosphere where all opinions felt valued and respected, allowing the dialogue to blossom into a truly collective endeavor.In Ghana, representatives from AASWD and community leaders from the communities were involved as co-organizers. This suggests a collaborative approach between an IWMI (as an external organization) and local community leadership. The Coordinating Director of the Assembly took the initiative to send out letters inviting the parastatal department and agency heads to participate in the MSD (presumably a relevant event or initiative). This demonstrates government involvement and an attempt to engage higher-level authorities. Assembly members and leaders of resource user groups volunteered to mobilize community participants. This indicates a grassroots effort to engage the local population and encourage participation in the TAFS-WCA initiative.In Nigeria, ASSAPIN, Project Agape and YMCA were all willing to mobilize the community to develop an inclusive landscape management plan for the Doma-Rutu SEL. ASSAPIN, a vibrant community grassroot organization, brought their deep understanding of local needs and customs to the table. Project Agape, fueled by unwavering conviction and a passion for environmental justice, added a powerful voice for the marginalized. And YMCA, with its long history of fostering youth empowerment and social cohesion, ensured that the future generation had a seat at the table.Together, their diverse strengths combined to ignite a community-driven movement. They envisioned a landscape management plan that wasn't imposed from above, but blossomed from the fertile ground of local knowledge, shared values, and collective action. Their unwavering commitment to inclusivity promised a future where every voice mattered, every perspective valued, and every hand working together to build a sustainable and just future for the Doma-Rutu landscape.Multistakeholder dialogues led to significant milestones. The dialogue wasn't just about talking, it was about seeing eye-to-eye. Through open communication, stakeholders gained a deeper understanding of the complex landscape they shared. From farmers to conservationists, each perspective found its place, painting a richer picture of the challenges and opportunities before them. Building on this shared understanding, collaboration ignited. Stakeholders joined forces, no longer isolated voices but a chorus of ideas. Together, they brainstormed solutions to tackle shared concerns, whether it was managing water resources or fostering biodiversity. With a united front, even the most daunting challenges seemed manageable.Decisions were no longer dictated from the above but woven from the collective wisdom of the group. Informed by diverse perspectives and data, stakeholder voices resonated loud and clear.Decisions became more inclusive, reflecting the needs and aspirations of all involved, laying a foundation for lasting progress. Empowerment bloomed from inclusivity. Stakeholders, once feeling disengaged, found their voices amplified and their actions validated. Equipped with knowledge and agency, they transformed from participants to stewards, actively managing their landscape with newfound confidence and skills. The dialogue didn't end with words exchanged.Stronger relationships blossomed, bridging gaps between communities and sectors. Stakeholders, once strangers, became partners, their shared journey forging bonds of trust and collaboration.With a network of support and shared vision, the future of the landscape seemed brighter than ever.The MSDs have the potential to create positive impacts across various areas:• Environmental: Improved environmental management practices and sustainable resource use.• Social: Increased social equity and inclusion, and empowered communities.• Economic: Enhanced economic opportunities and improved livelihoods.• Institutional: Strengthened institutions and local governance structures.By reflecting on the experiences, valuable lessons were learnt that could improve future MSDs:• The importance of long-term commitment: Building trust and achieving lasting results requires long-term commitment from all stakeholders.• The need for flexibility: The process could have been more flexible to adapt to changing circumstances and emerging needs during the MSDs.• The value of continuous learning: Dialogue participants and facilitators could have been more open to learning from each other.The validation exercises conducted in the Ahafo Ano and Doma-Rutu landscapes proved highly beneficial, providing a valuable opportunity for stakeholders to engage and contribute to the process. Several positive outcomes were observed, which can have a significant impact on the success of the project and the overall wellbeing of the landscape:A successful validation meeting ensures all stakeholders are satisfied with the outcomes. Participants provided positive feedback on the presentations, their relevance, and the proposed recommendations in this case. This indicates that the exercise met the needs and expectations of the stakeholders, promoting their confidence in the process.The validation workshop effectively presented the key findings from the LSA to the participants, and they were actively engaged in the interrogation process to","tokenCount":"3645"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"42ad6b2182c765dca74c9a425ec77548","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/080c6df7-96a8-444a-98e1-345a2ca9af76/retrieve","id":"1867884957"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"129c5be1-8765-4558-ba18-fe43081e89c2","pagecount":"2","content":"O feijão vulgar é a leguminosa de grão mais importante produzida na África oriental, central e austral -tanto em termos de área cultivada como de quantidade consumida. Os camponeses cultivam uma diversidade varietal considerável. Geralmente 95% da produção é representada por um máximo de 6 cultivares em muitas comunidades, mas a diversidade é maior na região dos Grande Lagos e nas áreas adjacentes do Uganda, onde a norma são as misturas. As misturas também são importantes no Malawi, Moçambique e Tanzânia. Porém, há uma tendência para o cultivo de poucas cultivares à medida que a produção se torna mais orientada para o mercado e a população urbana procura feijão que coze de uma forma uniforme.Os dois principais bancos de genes da espécie Phaseolus estão representados em África. Os tipos de sementes grandes característicos do banco de genes dos Andes representam 61% das cultivares, sendo o resto tipos de sementes pequenas e médias típicas do banco de genes mesoamericano.A biodiversidade do feijão em África, a base de sistemas de produção estáveis e de resiliência, estão a enfrentar várias ameaças emergentes. As principais ameaças incluem novos patogéneos de doenças persistentes, pragas, stress ambiental, comercialização, bem como factores de políticas e sócio-económicos. Os novos patogéneos determinam que variedades podem ser cultivadas e a proporção de diversidade semeada em cada época que se mantém para sementeiras seguintes. Por exemplo, muitos camponeses ruandeses mudaram do feijão selvagem para o feijão trepadeiro, que é mais tolerante à podridão da raiz e a outras doenças; da variedade local para a variedade melhorada; e do tipo de semente grande para o tipo de semente pequena. Isto resultou na redução da complexidade das misturas.Uma sondagem feita no sudoeste do Uganda mostrou que mais de 40% dos camponeses deixaram de cultivar variedades tradicionais de sementes grandes e médias a favor de variedades tolerantes à podridão da raiz recentemente introduzidas, que são de sementes pequenas. As outras ameaças de doenças importantes incluem o vírus do mosaico comum, necrose bacteriana comum e ascoquita do feijão. No Quénia ocidental baixou a produção de variedades populares, tais como GLP 2 e GLP 24, devido a uma combinação devastadora de podridão da raiz, larva do caule do feijão e declínio da fertilidade do solo. O aumento da procura de mercado para variedades de linha pura resultou em sistemas de produção baseados numa base genética pouco diversificada. Em muitos países há pouca consciencialização, esforços e investimento em acções de conservação. Poucos países possuem bancos de genes operacionais. Os esquemas de certificação insistem em cultivares distintas, uniformes e estáveis.Tendo-se apercebido destas ameaças, o CIAT e os programas nacionais estão a fazer esforços para colher, melhorar, disseminar, conservar e utilizar de forma sustentável os recursos genéticos do feijão para melhorar a produtividade e a disponibilidade de alimentos e aliviar a pobreza. Os componentes desta estratégia incluem: A diversidade genética do feijão é uma fonte fundamental de manutenção dos meios de subsistência e sistemas agroecológicos para mais de 100 milhões de pessoas em África, com dimensões económicas e sócio-políticas importantes. O feijão contribui significativamente com proteínas e minerais para as dietas locais e está a ser uma fonte importante de receita para pequenos produtores, comerciantes, processadores e exportadores. Por exemplo, as exportações de feijão branco (navy bean) da Etiópia aumentaram para mais de 25 milhões de dólares em 2004. Foram identificadas novas fontes de resistência à mancha angular das folhas, podridão da raiz, doença do escloroto, vírus do mosaico comum do feijão e bruquídeos (Zabrotes spp). Os genes de resistência a doenças estão a ser transferidos para as variedades representativas das principais classes de mercado através de programas regionais de melhoramento que envolvem mais de 10 países na África oriental, central e austral, num esforço de colaboração com os cientistas do CIAT, tanto em África como na Colômbia.Identificaram-se linhas tolerantes a baixa fertilidade do solo e a seca através de avaliações em locais da República Democrática do Congo (solo de baixo pH e teor de azoto), Quénia (baixo teor de fósforo e seca), Ruanda (toxidade do alumínio), Uganda (toxicidade do manganês e baixo teor de azoto), Malawi (solos ácidos complexos), Tanzânia (seca e baixo teor de azoto) e Sudão (salinidade A iniciação de programas de multiplicação de sementes baseados na comunidade melhorou ainda mais o acesso dos camponeses a novo germoplasma. O germoplasma é conservado em colecções in vivo nas propriedades dos camponeses, estações de experimentação (salas frias ou no campo) ou em bancos de genes. Porém, apenas alguns países (como o Quénia) possuem bancos de genes operacionais. A falta de instalações de conservação de longa duração aumenta os riscos de perda de germoplasma através do ataque de pragas ou da perda natural de viabilidade. Para reduzir este risco, o CIAT promoveu uma técnica de armazenamento de baixo custo baseada na secagem com gel de sílica (em vez da dependência de salas frias que necessitam de electricidade).A base genética de melhoramento do feijão em África pode ser mais impulsionada através do uso de bancos de genes Phaseolus primários, secundários, terciários e quaternários.Por exemplo, a utilização do banco de genes primários foi limitada a espécies cultivadas. Do banco de genes secundários, o P. coccineus oferece oportunidades para o melhoramento de variedades com maior resistência a doenças, adaptação a terra altas frescas, aumento da concentração de minerais no grão e características da raiz. Actualmente a produção de P. coccineus está restrita a terras altas para os tipos de grãos secos; as formas anãs são exportadas como feijão-trepador (runner bean). A variedade P. acutifolius do conjunto de genes terciários é bem conhecida pela sua tolerância à seca e como fonte de resistência à necrose bacteriana comum. O banco de genes quaternários é representado pelo P. lunatus. Tem diversidade limitada em África e ainda não foi explorado.","tokenCount":"954"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"bd6ff4fdb6fb64c9793d91b42d3aa0fa","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/90aeb2ef-1ac9-42eb-94d8-ea11dce435e2/retrieve","id":"-643966892"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0fc43e87-9390-4b99-bb20-2c160d9a402b","pagecount":"19","content":"Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above.The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used.Photo credit: ILRI/Peter Ballantyne Editing, design and layout-Camel husbandry is the main source of living for millions of pastoralists in the arid and semi-arid zones of Ethiopia. The most important constraints to camel production are widespread diseases, poor veterinary service and shortage of feed and water. Parasitic, bacterial and nutritional diseases are the most important camel diseases. The occurrence and severity of the diseases vary with seasons and animal groups.Camelpox is one of the diseases that affect camel production having huge economic implications. Good camel management plays a significant role in the prevention and control of the disease. However, pastoralists have limited awareness and knowledge of the natural history of the disease and the prevention measures. Raising their awareness and knowledge through experiential training can help reduce disease incidence resulting in decreased economic losses.The overall objective of the training is to increase the awareness and knowledge of pastoralists about the causes, risk factors and transmission of camelpox disease so that they can take appropriate measures to prevent and control the disease and reduce its economic impact.Specifically, the training aims to:• Explain the cause and economic impacts of camelpox.• Describe the transmission of camelpox infection.• Identify the clinical signs of camelpox.• Discuss camelpox prevention and control measures.• Causes and economic importance of camelpox The training will be conducted in local language and adopts a participatory, interactive and gender sensitive approach drawing on pastoralists' knowledge and experience. The intrahousehold impact of animal diseases and the roles of different household members in the prevention and control of diseases will be explored.The training will use a mixed and couple's training approach, where culturally appropriate, to ensure knowledge application and increase outcomes. Involving animal health agents in community based training events will ensure better articulation of pastoralists' problems and contextualization of the training content. This will help facilitate training application (outcomes) as the animal health agents continue mentoring and supporting the pastoralists after the training. Given the cultural context, the participation of couples (both wife and husband) in training events can also increase training application at the household level.Training methods and materials By the end of the session, pastoralists will be able to: Then, explain the training objectives and expected outcomes.In an interactive discussion, ask participants to identify common camel diseases. Explore what they think causes the diseases they have identified.Show the image below from the disease poster and ask participants to discuss it in pairs or trios.• What do you see in the picture?• What is the problem?• What causes the problem? Find out the local term for 'camelpox' and why it is named like that.Then, explore what participants think camelpox is and what causes the disease. Ask: What causative agent and conditions can expose camels to camelpox infection?Then, communicate the following points to supplement their understanding.Main learning points:• Camelpox is an economically important contagious skin disease of camelids caused by the camelpox virus (CMLV) and is characterized by mild local skin infection and less common severe systemic infections.• Camelpox is a common cause of camel morbidity and mortality under the pastoral production system.• The disease mostly affects young camels (less than 4 years).Ask pastoralists to mention what they think are the impacts of camelpox on camel production and their livelihood.Use the following discussion questions:• What is the effect of the disease on camel production?• What is the effect of the disease on your livelihood?• How does the disease affect men and women differently?Building on pastoralists' understanding of the impacts of camelpox on camel production and their livelihood, communicate the following points.Main learning points:The economic losses due to the disease are attributed to:• High mortality rate from the disease, especially in young camels• Production losses due to morbidity °Reduced milk yield °Weight loss °The costs for treatment and vaccination.In this session, pastoralists will learn about the transmission of camelpox infection. They will learn about the sources and routes of infection and the conditions that expose camels to camelpox infection.By the end of the session, pastoralists will be able to:• Identify the sources of camelpox infection• Identify the transmission pathway of camelpox• Recognize conditions that expose camels to camelpox infection Ask them:• Where do you think young camels get camelpox infection?• What is the seasonality of the disease occurrence?Discuss the following points to supplement pastoralists' understanding of the source of camelpox infection using disease posters.Main learning points:• Source of infection:°Sick animals are the primary source of infection.°Contaminated environment: scab materials, saliva and secretions of affected camels may shed virus in the environment, such as in water which then becomes the source of infection.• Transmission occurs either by: °Direct transmission: The disease is transmitted from sick camel to healthy camel in close contact.°Indirect transmission: Infection could be transmitted from contaminated environment (water, secretion of infected animals) to healthy camel.°Infected arthropod vector could transmit the disease from diseased camel to healthy camel (indirect transmission):°The tick population during the rainy season is probably involved in the spread of the disease.°Biting flies and mosquitoes may also be involved.Building on the previous activity, ask pastoralists what they think about how the camelpox virus infects camels.Show the image below and ask:• What do you see in the picture?• What is happening in the picture?• Why is it happening?• Camelpox is a contact disease.• Camelpox virus could be transmitted through either direct contact with infected animals or indirectly via polluted environment.• The primary portal of entry of the camelpox virus is through skin abrasion.• Infection also occurs by inhalation of aerosolized virus.• The virus is secreted in milk, saliva and ocular and nasal discharges.Find out what pastoralists think can expose camels to camelpox infection.Then, discuss the predisposing factors for camelpox transmission. Explore pastoralists' camel management practices.Discussion questions?• Do you provide your camel herd with adequate and clean water?• Do you mix your camels with other camel herds at watering points?• What is the seasonality of camelpox incidence? In what season of the year is a higher incidence of camelpox? Why?• Do you allow camels with skin lesions to water with the herd?• Which age groups of camels are more susceptible to camelpox infection?• Do you monitor the health condition of newly purchased camels before introducing them into the herd?Write down discussion results on flipchart paper and highlight the main points.Risk factors associated with a higher incidence of camelpox include:• The average age of the animals (less than four years old)• Weaning or poor nutrition• The season of the year (high in the rainy season)°Moisture may enhance virus stability in the environment and increase subsequent transmission to a susceptible animal.°It could also be associated with the involvement of arthropods which are abundant during rainy seasons and may serve as a mechanical vector of the virus.• The introduction of new camels in a herd.• Conglomeration and mixing of different camel herds at the common watering point.Camelpox has clinical manifestations. In this session, pastoralists will learn about the clinical symptoms of camelpox so that they will immediately seek advice from animal health professional.By the end of the session, participants will be able to:• Monitor the health condition of the camel herd.• Identify clinical signs of camelpox.• Report disease incidence.• Seek advice from a trained animal health professional.• Clinical symptoms of camelpox Discussion questions:• What do you see in the picture?• What is happening in the picture?• Does this happen in your camel herd?Write down their responses on flipchart paper and highlight the main points.Source: ILRI/Dagim Berhanu Main learning points:• Young camel and pregnant female are usually more vulnerable to the virus and present much more severe symptoms.• Clinical manifestations of camelpox range from inapparent and mild local infections, confined to the skin, to moderate and severe systemic infections.• The disease is relatively benign in adult camels and severe in young camels with high mortality.• The disease is characterized by: °Fever °Enlarged lymph nodes °Swelling of the head °Skin lesions:°Lesions first appear on the head, eyelids, nostrils and the margins of the ears and later extend to the neck, limbs, genitalia, mammary glands and perineum.°Skin lesions may take up to 4-6 weeks to heal.°In the systemic form of the disease, pox lesions can be found in the mucous membranes of the mouth, respiratory and digestive tracts.• Blindness in young camels• Abortions, stillbirth, weight loss and reduced milk yield may be seen in adult animals.• The animals may show salivation.Source: https://ozonyozone.weebly.com/camel-blanket.htmlIn this session, pastoralists will learn about prevention and control measures for camelpox infection so that they will take appropriate measures to reduce the impact of the disease.By the end of the session, participants will be able to:• Isolate sick animals from the herd.• Seek professional advice on camelpox treatment options.• Regularly vaccinate camels.• Separate own camel herd from other herds at watering points.• Appropriately dispose of camel carcasses.• Practice regular dipping and spraying of camels to control arthropod vectors during the wet season.• Regular vaccination and veterinary advice• Isolation and treatment of sick camels• Separate watering troughs• Appropriate carcass disposal methodsMethods and materials Discussion questions:• What is vaccination and how does it work?• Do you think vaccination treats sick camels?• When should camels get vaccinated against camelpox?• Do you contact the local veterinary office when you observe any disease symptoms in camels?Building on pastoralists' experiences, communicate the following points.Main learning points:• Camelpox can be controlled or prevented by vaccination.• Routine biannual vaccination is recommended for young animals between 6-9 months of age before the rainy seasons.Activity 2. Isolating sick camels, watering of camel herds and carcass disposalFind out pastoralists' practices regarding carcass disposal, isolation and treatment of sick animals and watering of camel herds. Encourage participants to share their experiences or stories.Discussion questions:• Do you isolate and treat sick camels? If yes, how?• Do you separate your camel herd from other herds at watering points?• Do you dispose of camel carcasses into the environment?• Do you wear protective clothing when disposing of carcasses? Why?• What methods do you use to dispose of animal carcasses?• Do you practice regular dipping and spraying of camels to control anthropoid vectors?Write down discussion results on flipchart paper and highlight the main points.Then, discuss the following learning points and communicate key home take action messages.Learning points:• Immediate isolation and treatment of diseased animals• Separating the camel herd from other herds at the watering point• Exposing the diseased animals and utensils directly contacted with the diseased animal to direct sunlight","tokenCount":"1758"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"0e6b5570e36757aa9df3dbe37671cb3a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a12ecaf9-f73a-4ad3-9114-9d63c9ead178/retrieve","id":"524931169"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f927550c-f3e2-442a-acb5-ad034decc505","pagecount":"23","content":"This assessment of CCAFS work on climate services for farmers (which is part of CCAFS Theme 2, \"Adaptation through Managing Climate Risk\"), which started in 2011 and is scheduled to end (its first phase) in 2015.The assessment was conducted between September and November 2014 to help CCAFS understand the scope of its initiatives, the partnership strategy, and the effectiveness of its implementation 1 .During the first phase of this assessment an inception report was prepared and discussed with CCAFS Theme 2 Management Team.In addition to reading documents produced by CCAFS Theme 2, and other relevant literature, judgments by CCAFS staff and external partners on Theme 2's work and results were sought through a questionnaire (one version for CCAFS staff and internal partners and another version for external partners) and telephone and skype interviews (see Annex 2). The assessment did not include field visits or face to face interviews.A brief preliminary report with findings was prepared, identifying achievements, weaknesses and challenges for CCAFS. That brief report was used in the process of validating the findings and it has been used as an input for this final report.The next section presents an assessment of CCAFS initiatives related to climate services for small farmers. Given the crucial role of partnerships, this is the topic of the third section, whereas documentation and communication of the work done by CCAFS on climate services is discussed in the fourth section. The report ends with a set of suggestions to improve the implementation of CCAFS work on climate services for small farmers.CCAFS Theme 2 develops and promotes the diffusion of innovations for managing climaterelated agricultural risk at local and regional levels, addresses gaps and supports improvements to climate-related information products and services that enable a range of agricultural risk management interventions. The work is done with partners, including research activities across CGIAR, capacity enhancement, contribution to research, reporting, communication, and resource mobilization. A description of current and future CCAFS climate services projects is presented in Annex 1.Implementation effectiveness: Given the available data, which corresponds to all of Theme 2, the assessment of the effectiveness in the implementation of planned activities can be conducted in terms of the degree of completion of those activities (taking into account their deliverables). The data for the two years for which there are technical reports, i.e., 2012 and 2013, is summarized in the following table, which shows that whereas in 2013 the activities and deliverables corresponding to objectives 2.2 and 2.3 (and it should be noted that climate services for farmers is part of objective 2.3) were all completed, this was not the case for those related to objective 2.1 2 . It is likely that in the latter case the timeframe to complete the activities and their deliverables was underestimated. Those three objectives have been translated in terms of outcomes and outputs, following a results based management approach. The following box shows the structure of outcomes and outputs corresponding to the three objectives (as mentioned in the previous page, climate services for farmers are part of the third one; the other outcomes and objectives show the broader framework of Theme 2)2 Pilot activities at CCAFS sites (now CSV sites) were reported under 2.1.3 Attached to this report to render accessible the detailed information without cluttering the text of this assessment report. An additional table with detailed activities by countries is also attached as Annex 1. This description clarifies the way in which climate information is used and disseminated through interactive radio programs. However, it should be noted that neither the outcome case, nor the sources quoted in it, provide evidence on the amount of people reached 5 . Furthermore, the total population of the four administrative regions of Kaffrine, Thies, Diourbel and Louga is 4,728 million 6 , so \"over 2 million people\" would be approximately 50% of the total population in the area. On the other hand, whereas URAC does not provide figures about its audience, it indicates that the program continues its operations, strengthening capacities of its staff and disseminating climatic information 7 . Finally, although the outcome case does not mention the use of mobilecellulars, their subscriptions rate in Senegal is 87.5 per 100 inhabitants 8 , showing the potential of this means 9The following paragraphs provide information on aspects related to the effectiveness of CCAFS work on climate services:i) The pilot work done at several locations, as one component of a broader suite of work called \"Climate-Smart Villages,\" is relevant and yielded valuable results. CCAFS Theme 2 has also undertaken methodology and knowledge synthesis work. Also, there have been some initiatives that aim to develop or foster climate services at scale. And yet there are still significant challenges for scaling-up at wider regional and national levels. Given the importance of scaling-up in CCAFS agenda, this issue will be elaborated in the last section ii) In East Africa there are several governmental and non-governmental organizations, and international institutions, working in the region trying to provide climate services to smallholder farmers. CCAFS contribution would have been more significant and visible if efforts were made to bring these organizations onto a common platform and enhanced their understanding and capacity in providing climate services. The same happens in South Asia.iii) CCAFS considers small farmers both as both a source of demand of climate information and as a source of knowledge (traditional knowledge) about climate. Blending indigenous with scientific knowledge taps into the reservoir of local knowledge and also facilitated the uptake of the forecasts.iv) Pilot trials demonstrated the real potential of climate information services. In Senegal, communities were surprised by outcomes. Seeing is believing, and communities were more likely to make fundamental shifts to demand climate information after seeing their use in pilot fields. The pilot trial in Kaffrine during its first year showed strong demand for climate information, and evidence that farmers rely on climate information for decisions about planting dates, crop choices, and investment in inputs 10 .v) New technologies, such as mobile phones, are being used in the provision of climate information services 11 . However, farmers often face an unexpected problem in the use of ICTs: farmers have cell phones but sometimes they do not have access to power or batteries 12 . Furthermore, work done by CCAFS shows that more attention should be paid to the important communication role played by formal and informal connections among farmers. Thus, Twyman et al (2014) point out that \"men in Kaffrine receive most of their information on weather and climate through the radio, television, networks of friends and relatives, NGOs, and development projects\".vi) In East Africa a number of organizations are actively involved in providing climate services. However, the approaches used by these organizations are very different and in many cases their focus is more on providing climate information than on promoting its utilization. Without a good understanding of the probabilistic nature of climate information and outcome of decisions based on such information, there is a possibility for farmers to loose trust in the information. Compared to these initiatives CCAFS work is more holistic and paid greater attention to the quality of the information provided and to constraints in its utilization.As reported in case 11, CCAFS Climate Services Kaffrine Pilot, Senegal, in Tall et.al. (2014). http://ccafs.cgiar.org/climate-services-farmers Mentioned by O. Ndiaye, telephone interview.vi) An important contribution of the program is in creating awareness about the potential usefulness of this information. There is an increased demand for climate information from the smallholder farmers. They are seeking this information from national meteorological and agricultural extension services. The literature reports encouraging findings, such as those in a South African study showing that \"there are large numbers of the farmers who are ready to use external climate forecasting\" 13 . In addition, extension programs have started promoting climate information as a part of the extension work.vii) Gender focus: Smallholder farmers (particularly women) benefitted from improved climate services (e.g. Kaffrine /Senegal work). In some sites, women are targeted specifically with different approaches and methods that work for them. A study conducted in four sites in West and East Africa ascertained that the perceptions that men and women have of climate variability are influenced by the sexual division of labor 14 . Furthermore, in the assessment of India's Integrated Agro-meteorological Advisory Service program conducted by CCAFS, the recommendations that were made for the improvement of climate services included aspects of gender equity 15 . The work done by CCAFS in Senegal provided a good example of how to work with women farmers when delivering climate services 16 .viii) In East Africa, the program has made significant contributions in terms of identifying the scope and value of climate information in the planning and management of smallholder agricultural systems especially in the risk prone semi-arid areas and in the regions where the seasonal forecasting skill is high. It is also successful in attracting substantial funding. Furthermore, CCAFS created awareness amongst the NGOs such as CARE and WVI who by realizing the potential value of climate information are actively promoting its use amongst smallholder farmers in the region.In its answer to the questionnaire for this assessment, WMO indicated that \"at the national level the work that CCAFS has done to build the capacity of the national meteorological agencies will enable these to provide services to farmers in the future\". It also stated that \"the value added of CCAFS\" has been guidance and advice on setting up of frameworks for climate services at the national level, and on the importance of creating sufficient forums for dialogue between users and producers of climate information\". working on theme 2, whereas another topic is on sharing climate information with farmers (developed with support from Theme 4 but with applicability to Theme 2's work). This shows synergy between CCAFS' themes.x) CCAFS work accelerated the process of improving and making climate services accessible to smallholders. At the same time, it highlighted the need for greater understanding and appreciation of the probabilistic nature of the climate information for rational and sustainable use of climate services.xi) It showed the importance of, and contributed to, packaging the information in a format that can easily be understood by the farmers and extension agents and the development of location specific advisories,xii) The pilot studies in EA were able to identify the decisions that farmers are making based on climate information. They have also identified the need for building confidence in the information. More importantly, a change in the attitude of the farmers is noticed. According to one of the interviewee \"at this stage the main contribution of the program is in creating awareness about the potential usefulness of this information 17 . There is an increased demand for climate information from the smallholder farmers\". The change in attitude from climate as \"God given and nothing can be done about it\" to an understanding of the opportunities available to manage climate variability is an important step forward in making use of climate information and in enhancing the value of climate services. This is what happened in the pilot study involving 600 farmers in Kenya, where at the end of the project the surveyed farmers were willing to pay for the continued AGROMET service 18 .xiii) CCAFS made significant contributions in establishing core teams of research and extension workers with required competencies to provide climate services in several of the participating countries in EA. For example, all the extension officers in Wote, Kenya, were trained on the use of probabilistic information and provided with necessary extension material that can enhance the effectiveness of service delivery. Researchers were trained in the use of crop simulation models and their application to construct risk and return profiles of various technologies. These skills are used by the researchers in other projects such as AgMIP. In Wote, Kenya through agricultural extension workers and through radio programs, a large number 19  xxii) It also let to an improvement in the quality of climate services provided to smallholder farmers in West Africa: the seasonal forecast now includes the start of the rainy season.The communication approach also allowed inclusion of indigenous knowledge, which is an added value to the quality of climate services (and the interest of farmers in these forecasts). CCAFS uses Climate Predictability Tool (CPT) forecasts 25 in several contexts to produce downscaled seasonal forecast information for small famers. Except in the case of Senegal, it has not yet brought national meteorological services to the point where they are doing it themselves.To conclude this section it is worthwhile to quote answers to the counterfactual question included in the questionnaire that was sent to the key informants,The answers provided were the following:\"Much less research and much less focus on this important area. Products and services would not have been developed to anything like the extent that they have\" \"We would not have learned many of the lessons that have emerged from CCAFS led assessment activities. And these lessons could not have been shared with international partners as they have\".\"A number of NGOs and government programs are now taking up the banner of CIS. CCAFS was at the forefront of efforts, which leads one to assume that small farmers are somewhat, if not significantly, better off that if CCAFS had not worked in climate services.CCAFS impact on the Met service has been perhaps most important, as it appears they did not realize that farmers didn't understand the information they were giving them\".During its first phase, CCAFS work on climate services had an opportunistic approach to partnerships, seizing opportunities with partners that were interested in participating in the work related to the development and delivery of climate services for small farmers. Towards the end of its first phase a more systematic approach is being developed, identifying types of partners and their roles.Most of the answers obtained during this assessment pointed out that CCAFS played a valuable, complementary, role to that of other organizations involved in climate services for small farmer holders. But it was also pointed out that there is a risk that efforts may be duplicated, which 25 The next section of this report refers again to CPT would require to strengthen coordination of CCAFS with some agencies, like WMO. Progress has been achieved in this direction through informal contacts in the framework of the GFCS but there is scope for more formal means to exchange information (see section 5 of this report).CCAFS developed strategic partnerships with various international bodies such as USAID, AGRHYMET and WASCAL 26 as well as with national meteorological services. CCAFS engaged effectively with some of the most relevant partners at regional and national level in West Africa. The number of partners for CCAFS as a whole (700, as indicated in http://ccafs.cgiar.org/partners, and 900 in a more recent statement) may be too high (even if some key partners are not included, as mentioned below), and could be leading to high transaction costs. This may also be the case for CCAFS climate service work. The ongoing transition into the new phase of CCAFS is meant to correct this situation of working with a large set of small partnerships.One of the answers to the questionnaire stated that \"CCAFS needs to be sure to accord due recognition to partners' inputs and not overstate CCAFS contribution to collaborative efforts\". It is also worthwhile to take into account one of the answers to the question on partnerships for climate information services: \"CCAFS is yet to establish extensive partnerships with operational agencies in all of the countries where research work is being undertaken\" to make more sustainable the link between practical action at the grass-root level with research capacity at the regional and global level.Furthermore, one of the respondents added that in the GFCS Adaptation Program in Africa there has been a tendency of CCAFS to spread their effort a bit too thinly, with attempts to participate and influence most of the program activities. A more focused approach would perhaps provide more tangible evidence of the exact value added by CCAFS in the partnership. In addition, the lack of sufficient partnerships with local research institutes at the national level was also noted.Finally, it should be mentioned that CCAFS involved also small farmers as partners, promoting the co-production of climate services, involving the intended users in producing the services through a participatory approach that incorporates indigenous knowledge into the design of forecasts that combine (blend) indigenous with scientific knowledge. In some cases, as exemplified by the Mali experience, farmers are involved in the process of collecting and interpreting climate information as well as in the selection of the climate products they need. In other cases, the involvement is accomplished through the integration of indigenous knowledge available within rural communitiesThis section assesses the documentation and communication of CCAFS work on climate services, showing if there are documentation or communication gaps &/or inconsistencies.Some CCAFS Theme 2 publications are not known even among professionals working for Theme 2. This came out in practically all interviews. It may be that it has been assumed that posting publications in the website is sufficient. It is certainly important, particularly for the sake of transparency and to facilitate access. However, a more proactive dissemination, within and outside the CCAFS Theme 2 network, may be needed to make more visible the outputs of Theme 2 work on climate services (the next section includes a specific suggestion for this purpose).In one of the interviews reference was made to work with the Ministry of Agriculture in Colombia which includes climate services that has not yet been documented, namely a case in which organizations of producers -the gremios -have increased their capacities to use and understand seasonal forecasting. This is an experience that may be of interest in Africa, where there is interest in working with cooperatives as intermediaries, nurturing their demand for climate information services. Although this project is led by Theme 1 good coordination with Theme 2 can maximize synergies, ensuring also that it is adequately communicated.Most of the respondents indicated that they consider that scaling-up is an important challenge but that they do not have a clear idea on how CCAFS is trying to deal with it. This points out to a communication gap, but there may also be a deeper problem related to the scaling-up approach, which is addressed in the last section of this report.CCAFS promoted South-South knowledge sharing (e.g. LAC staff visiting the Kaffrine work, a remarkable reversal of the more frequent knowledge sharing from LAC to Africa). This has been a way to communicate experiences and knowledge which complements the documentation and dissemination of publicationsThe following table shows the evolution of the documentation and communications concerning CCAFS work on climate services 27 . In 2013 communication through blogs became an important channel, which continued in 2014. There was also an important increase in conference proceedings. Finally, although not shown in the  Based on the findings presented in the preceding sections, in this one suggestions are made for the improvement of CCAFS work on climate services for small farmers. A first set of suggestions could be implemented in the short-term (\"low hanging fruits\"), complementing a second set that would require more time to implement.Proactive dissemination of CCAFS materials on climate services CCAFS has produced a significant number of publications and made good use of the web to post them. However, although uploading documents in CCAFS website is useful (it would be worthwhile to install a website traffic estimator tool to be able to conduct a quantitative analysis of the website use), it should be complemented with dissemination directed towards targeted audiences (such as external actual and potential partners, national agrometeorological organizations, etc) through a brief newsletter to a dedicated mailing list, with hyperlinks to access publications. This would also increase the visibility of CCAFS work on climate services.There is significant scope for improvement in the way in which the Climate Predictability Tool (CPT) is used by Meteorological (MET) services (as indicated in the second section of this report, only in the case of Senegal the MET services are using CPT on their own). Furthermore, CPT itself could be further developed, for example complementing it with the R software 29 .Involvement of government bodies both at policy and national level need additional focus. While NGOs can play a valuable role in pilots, it is the government extension services that have the reach and responsibility to provide services to small farmers. Efforts should be made to make climate services part of the regular extension activities. This requires policy level interventions, for which CCAFS need to engage appropriate partners such as ministries and directorates (below, when discussing scaling-up, some suggestions are provided that may be relevant for enhancing the effectiveness of the work at the policy level).CCAFS experiences where there has been a good engagement of government agencies, fostering and/or advocating for national frameworks that would oversee and coordinate the role of the multiple agencies needed for climate services to work, could provide orientations for replication in the same region, and eventually also in other areas. Integration of climate services into policies (a third level of integration) remains an important gap which is important to mobilize resources for scaling-up. To the extent that national agricultural extension policies include climate services for small farmers as one of its priorities, it is more likely that more resources will become available (from the national budget and/or from international institutions) to support those services. Some kind of seminars targeted to high-level policy makers 30 in the agricultural sector could be instrumental in raising their awareness concerning the importance of climate services for small farmers.At this rather early stage in the implementation of CCAFS work on climate services the benefits that may result from it would not be sustained if CCAFS does not continue its involvement, and if it does not strengthen its partnerships at the national level to ensure that there are both operational agencies and research institutes that can carry on the work beyond CCAFS involvement. It is indeed CCAFS Theme Two's intention to develop the partnerships, national climate services frameworks, and institutional capacity at the national level; and the success of CCAFS in transforming this intention in a reality is crucial for sustainability.In most countries in Eastern Africa (and this may be the case in some other regions) there is not enough coordination between the national meteorological services (NMS) and the national agricultural research and extension services. One of the reasons for this is the lack of priority that agriculture has in most countries for NMS. Furthermore, there are divisions within governments, such as early warning and drought risk management, which are working independently. CCAFS could cooperate in strengthening the links between these providers of services and to contribute to the development of a program with a responsibility to provide climate services. Such a program would make it possible that reliable and up-to-date information is made available to end users, and that it is actually used (the suggestion made below, concerning the involvement of international financial institutions, could also be useful to improve the coordination between NMS and agricultural services).Integration of climate services with other types of relevant services for small-farmersAlthough integration of climate services with other types of information and services is important both to stimulate demand for climate services as well as to facilitate the use of climate information services, the progress made so far in such integration has been very limited.The experience of CCAFS in Bangladesh and Nepal show the importance of ensuring that there is adequate capacity to generate reliable weather forecasts. It also highlights the rather low priority that small farmers allocate to climate services vis-à-vis other inputs or services, particularly if they are not part of a package or integrated with other support services or inputs 31 . In this context, the \"climate smart agriculture village\" appears as a promising approach to bundle climate services with other services in which farmers are strongly interested, thus raising the demand for climate services (as a component of the package). Business models should be developed incorporating climate services as an important, but not exclusive, component. 31 Wright et al, 2012 and interview with P. AggarwalCost-benefit analysis of climate services for small farmers could be useful to assess results and to persuade partners and national authorities of the effects of climate services thus helping to mobilize resources for scaling-up these services. Benefits could be estimated by taking into account the enhanced net income associated to better forecasts, including the reduction of losses due to the use of good climate information. The article by Wood et.al. (2014), based on CCAFS baseline surveys in 12 countries, provides useful evidence for some estimates and White (2009)  indicates ways in which the methodology can be applied. 32 It would be convenient to avoid a narrow estimation of economic costs and benefits, trying to identify and quantify externalities and social effects.The scaling-up challengeAlthough scaling-up is an overriding concern for CCAFS, and several references are made in documents as well as in interviews to the importance of scaling-up, at the same time it was generally acknowledged in the interviews that scaling-up of climate services for small farmer holders is much more a challenge than a reality. A frequent comment made by interviewees coincided with the answer provided by one of the respondents to the questionnaire's question on CCAFS approach to enable the scaling-up of climate services for farmers: \"It is not entirely evident what the CCAFS approach to this issue is\". It is to be noted that almost none of the respondents showed a clear idea concerning CCAFS strategy to scaling-up, although most of them are aware of the importance of scaling-up. As indicated in the previous section this is not merely a communication gap. The following paragraphs try to identify a crucial challenge for scaling-up and provide some suggestions on how to face it.An important issue for scaling-up CCAFS work, which appears to be only partially appreciated, is due to the rather unacknowledged trade-off between tailoring climate services to the specific characteristics of a diverse population (downscaling) and scaling-up those services. Out of the five key challenges for scaling up effective climate services for farmers identified in several CCAFS documents 33 , i.e., salience, access, legitimacy, equity and integration, the first four point towards downscaling, whereas the last one, \"integration\", which is crucial for scaling-up, is the one in which it is acknowledged that less progress was made.The issue can be framed as follows:The more heterogeneous the population, taking into account its social diversity (gender, ethnicity) and agro-ecological heterogeneity, the more challenging is scaling-up climate services tailored to the needs of the populationIn one of the answers to the questionnaire that was circulated for this assessment it is stated that \"a lot of the effective approaches, strategies, etc. that have been identified through CCAFS work underscore the context-specificity of climate information services, thus create difficulties in justification of scaling-up as a priority\". Although it is the case that CCAFS work highlights the context-specificity of climate information services, the implication is not that this puts into question the justification of scaling-up as a priority. The implication is that if scaling-up is a priority (and it should be in order for climate services to make a significant difference, a visible impact, in the situation of a great number of small farmer holders), several lines of action should be followed to face the difficult trade-off between downscaling and scaling-up.Some possible courses of action that may be worthwhile to explore in order to facilitate scaling up climate services could be the following:i) Identifying and/or developing core climate services that can be relevant whichever the context, differentiating them from those that need to be contextualized. The former could be scaled up without much adaptation. 34 ii)Involving partners that are international financial institutions, such as IFAD, the Regional Development Banks and the World Bank, not just as providers of technical support, but in scaling-up tailored climate services for the poor smallholder farmers, integrating these services with other agricultural support services 35 , and making linkages with government, through national institutions, and with the private sector in the value chain. The final stage of scaling-up requires the involvement of governments; the international financial institutions could play a catalytic role in the process, with CCAFS providing the scientific inputs and tools to deliver suitable climate services for small farmer holders.Reaching policy-makers, persuading them about the importance of climate services for smallholder farmers. Generating evidence on the benefits of these services, as indicated above, can nurture the policy-makers interest and demand for these services. Furthermore, it could also be helpful to establish partnerships with agencies like IDRC, which have developed expertise in linking research to policy, and that are active in climate change issues.Trying to identify leapfrogging opportunities to reduce the time that it took the scaling-up process of climate services in relevant cases such as the Mali Agrometeorology Advisory Program, where the scaling/up stage was carried out during 15 years after two preliminary phases of experimentation and demonstration/extension, which required 8 additional years (and during these 23 years there was support from a bilateral development agency) 36 . 34 As indicated in a comment to a first version of the brief preliminary report of this assessment, there are some climate information products and some changes to existing products that could be broadly useful, based on research and experience with seasonal forecasts for farmers across many different contexts around the world. Tools and methods that the IRI has developed (branded as ENACTS) provide the ability for meteorological services to produce high-resolution historical, monitored and seasonal forecast information at a spatial scale that is relevant to farmers; and develop and disseminate (largely through trained agricultural extension and NGO intermediaries) these products through a web-based platform. 35 The are some references in CCAFS' documents to IFAD as a provider of technical support (e.g., in Kadi et.al). IFAD is strongly committed to a scaling-up agenda and during the last years it has started to pay attention to climate services and to incorporate them in its operations. ","tokenCount":"4998"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d3d840d05a0b26eed66ad4a5deced669","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/6824e501-85e7-4e67-a04d-186759a35353/retrieve","id":"237249388"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8049afbd-129c-4a1d-a8ea-0a782af8fbb4","pagecount":"16","content":"In 2021, 12 CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs) and four CGIAR Platforms came to a close. This summary report presents an overview of the work of the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) between 2017 and 2021 and highlights its key achievements over this five-year period.FTa was the world's largest research for development program focused on the role of forests, trees, and agroforestry in sustainable development. at the heart of the program was the knowledge that forests, trees, and agroforestry -when used, managed, and governed appropriately -can play a central role in sustainable development by improving production systems, ensuring food security and nutrition, enhancing people's livelihoods, and addressing climate change.FTA filled a specific role in the overall CGIAR portfolio for 2017-2021: the crP was the only program focusing on all aspects of the value and benefits of trees and forests for agricultural landscapes and on sustainability as linked to agricultural development. FTa research and solutions addressed challenges from landscapes to livelihoods by developing, providing, and promoting evidence-based solutions for farmers, foresters, practitioners, value-chain actors, and policymakers.1. Tree genetic resources (TGR), which bridged production gaps and promoted resilience to provide solutions for more effective safeguarding, domestication, and delivery of genetic resources by and to farmers, foresters, and other stakeholders.2. Livelihood systems, which was driven by the recognition that smallholders make decisions about how to manage farms, considering all their constraints and opportunities, including those unrelated to trees and forests. in addition to direct contributions to diet and income from timber, coffee, cocoa, rubber, oil palm, fruits, nuts, and other products, many contributions made by trees occur through system intensification and involve interactions with other livelihood components. Between 2017 and 2021, FTa reported contributions to 13 of the United Nations' Sustainable Development goals (SDgs), with the most contributions tagged to SDg17, partnerships for the goals (16%), and notable contributions tagged to SDg2, zero hunger (14%) and SDg13, climate action (14%) (Figure 1).FTa reported contributions to all three of the system level outcomes (SLOs) set out in the CGIAR Strategy and Results Framework -reducing poverty (SLO1), improving food and nutrition security for health (SLO2), and improving natural resources and ecosystem services (SLO3). Overall, 37 SLO contributions were reported between 2017 and 2021 (Figure 2). in 2020, FTa initiated a pioneering process to assess its cumulative impact at the program level since the crP's inception in 2011. This process took the form of five integrative impact studies published at the end of 2021, which used an innovative methodology to assess FTA's contributions to five key challenges. These five studies were complemented by a synthesis publication.FTa's contribution to development impact has led to 26-113 million hectares of forests under enhanced protection from deforestation, up to 35 million hectares in the process of being restored, and between 64 and 204 million hectares of lands better managed. as a result of FTa's work, between 5 and 19 million people have directly or indirectly benefited from additional means to exit poverty or reduce their vulnerability to falling into poverty. Between 1.1 and 3.5 million people were provided with additional means to improve their food and nutrition security. The lower estimates provided here are conservative hypotheses, while the higher estimates are the upper bounds of the computations; for details on these calculations, see FTa's annual reports.Examples of FTA achievements:Since 2017, FTa has contributed to increases in on-farm crop diversity and adoption of agroforestry innovations across central asia and africa. in 2019, reporting showed that the Options by context regreening africa project helped 69,540 farmers adopt FTainformed agroforestry innovations in Kenya and 219,694 farmers in East and West Africa adopt sustainable agriculture practices. in addition, 145,274 households adopted farmer-managed natural regeneration.in 2020, reporting indicated that FTa research and support to the government of indonesia helped the country reduce emissions by around 0.017 gt of cO2. as a result, Indonesia was able to benefit from Norway's first results-based payment for reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in 2016-17.Since 2017, FTa has supported the restoration of land in Kenya, Malawi, Niger, and The Gambia. in 2019, the Regreening Africa project restored 167,697 hectares across eight african countries and the DryDev project restored 265,902 hectares across five african countries.FTa research was instrumental (and award-winning) in supporting the development of a national Payment for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) policy in Vietnam, which protects a 35-million-hectare area of national forest from deforestation. Throughout the course of the program, FTA reassessed its priorities and focus as a result of changing circumstances, opportunities, and challenges.• Assessing Window 1 (W1)/W2 funds each year and cancelling lower priority activities.• Developing 25 operational priorities in 2018 to enhance program focus and three-year planning (2019-2021) toward programmatic outcomes.• Further emphasizing work on sentinel landscapes in 2018.• Expanding work on foresight in 2018.• Expanding work on policies and institutional dimensions of greening tree commodities in Africa in 2019.• Strengthening work on tropical forest and peatland fires.• Establishing transformative partnership platforms in 2020 to support the roles played by forests and agroforestry for healthy nutrition in landscapes.• Expanding work on climate-appropriate portfolios of tree diversity for productive and resilient landscapes for multiple Green Climate Fund proposals in Burkina Faso, Rwanda, and Tanzania.  Wood extraction for charcoal production is a significant driver of forest degradation and deforestation. at the same time, large natural reserves of indigenous and planted bamboo remain an untapped energy source. Two factors obstruct bamboo energy development: limited community knowledge and skills to adopt bamboo planting and energy products in their practices; and national icymakers' lack of awareness of the benefits of bamboo bioenergy. iNBar, in close collaboration with FTa partners, led and disseminated research on bamboo bioenergy production technologies and smallholder bamboo value chains across africa and asia. related projects raised awareness and influenced households to plant bamboo on farms and degraded lands to improve rural livelihoods, targeting women and youth. Households learned about bamboo's diverse uses for bioenergy, and developed skills to become bamboo producers via participation in farmer field schools Meeting these targets and addressing the global challenge requires well-informed restoration programs that yield environmental and social benefits. However, there are few well-connected, reliable databases available to support the contextually appropriate restoration needed to reestablish degraded land and enhance ecosystem services.FTa and managing partner World Agroforestry Centre (icraF) created the Agroforestry Species Switchboard to fill this gap by connecting reliable species databases with the ecological information needed to develop and implement suitable restoration programs around the world. This user-friendly resource, which contains information on more than 170,000 plant species, has been visited more than 350,000 times by researchers and practitioners worldwide to support effective landscape restoration.The complete list of reported FTa impacts can be found on the CGIAR Results Dashboard.  4).The crP's top funders were the cgiar Trust Fund, the European commission, germany, and the United States of america (Figure 5). FTa was primarily implemented by ciFOr as the lead center and icraF, with participation from Bioversity, ciaT, icarDa, and iWMi (Figure 6). FTa demonstrated high quality of science. it drew on a large number of expert researchers and associates/fellows from several disciplines, spread across the world. The number of female full-time equivalent staff varied widely across flagships (from 18% to 57%).FTa publications informed a range of global, regional, national, and subnational decisions, policy design, and implementation processes. Strong scientific collaboration across flagships and priorities among FTA's seven partners was exemplary. FTa articles were coauthored by experts in 55 countries by 2019, demonstrating a high level of international scientific collaboration and partnership within the FTa program.Preserving FTa's added value is necessary to continue future contributions to the SDgs. at the cgiar level, the caS report recommended that areas of focus involve improving tenure rights and access to natural resources, as well as strengthening or creating locally appropriate financial instruments to finance different landscape activities.according to the evaluation, the work and experience of FTa demonstrated that:• Strategically investing in the program to(1) strengthen programmatic collaboration between and beyond cgiar centers, and(2) leverage, influence, and complement bilateral work is beneficial.• Using a two-step approach to improve planning and reporting when developing theories of change (Tocs) for future cgiar programs is valuable. This approach would include \"System Tocs\" to describe policy and innovation systems, and \"desired change Tocs\" to explain how the program would influence these systems.• There is a need to balance benefits and transactional costs associated with system-level planning and reporting, and to develop a lean and efficient results-informed management system.6 The content in this section is drawn from cgiar research Program 2020 reviews: Forests, Trees and agroforestry.AssessInG The IMPACT oF 10 yeARs oF FTA ReseARCh: A synThesIs oF The 5 InTe-GRATed IMPACT sTudIes","tokenCount":"1438"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"caece1faeaa3ef171890f0c872b49aa4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/84cb4d3b-e398-42dc-a4f7-93540e52fc2b/content","id":"1464152799"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6aa0760f-f99a-4553-9e9d-a8f07bc12a29","pagecount":"39","content":"There are 6.6 billion people on the planet today. With organic farming we could feed only 4 billion of them.Which two billion would volunteer to die?\"Civilization as it is known today could not have evolved, nor it can survive, without an adequate food supply\" \"There are no miracles in agricultural production\" • Can attack any aerial parts of wheat plant but seen mainly on spikes• Limited knowledge on genetic basis • Diverse pathogen population:• Exhibits many pathotypes that could cross-infect different hosts and overcome resistance.• Fungicide:• Partially effective under medium to low disease pressure.Pathogen shows ability to develop fungicide resistance.Slide source: Pawan Singh, CIMMYT Research often has trait focus however breeding is about efficient packaging of traits; in some cases both can be done simultaneously.  • Genomic predictions are very promising for diseases & quality traits• The GS model for yield across locations needs to improve• Strong G x E and G x Y interactions limit prediction accuracy and need further research to improve","tokenCount":"164"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2cdd3b1736c2167e84dd0774e1814682","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/62ccefb3-1ead-4579-bb2e-29e21c9d28a0/retrieve","id":"-1507783246"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"42a728d0-f2c4-4681-b6b9-63d95d0f0813","pagecount":"30","content":"Cassava is an important crop in sub-Saharan Africa for food security, income generation, and industrial development. Business-oriented production systems require reliable supplies of high-quality seed. Major initiatives in Nigeria and Tanzania have sought to establish sustainable cassava seed systems. These include the deployment of new technologies for early generation seed (EGS) production; the promotion of new high-yielding and disease-resistant varieties; the updating of government seed policy to facilitate enabling certification guidelines; the applicationof ICT tools, Seed Tracker and Nuru AI, to simplify seed system management; and the establishment of networks of cassava seed entrepreneurs (CSEs). CSEs have been able to make profits in both Nigeria (US$ 551-988/ha) and Tanzania (US$ 1,000 1,500/ha). In Nigeria, the critical demand driver for cassava seed businesses is the provision of new varieties. Contrastingly, in Tanzania, high incidences of cassava brown streak disease mean that there is a strong demand for the provision of healthy seed that has been certified by regulators. These models for sustainable cassava seed system development offer great promise for scaling to other cassavaproducing countries in Africa where there is strong government support for the commercialization of the cassava sector.Cassava was introduced to the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa from Brazil in the sixteenth century. Later introductions were made to coastal areas of East Africa in the eighteenth century, and the crop diffused gradually into the interior. Cassava's value as a food security staple was recognized during the early part of the twentieth century, and its cultivation was widely encouraged. However, it was during this period -the 1920s and 1930s -that the crop faced its first major disease challenge as epidemics of cassava mosaic virus disease (CMD) spread to all of the major production zones, leading to substantial yield losses.Cassava is a semi-perennial shrub (Manihot esculenta Crantz), which grows best in well-drained soils in regions with tropical temperature regimes where there is well-distributed annual rainfall of >800 mm. Once the crop is established, however, it is tolerant of periods of drought and will yield in soils which are unsuitable for more nutrient-demanding crops such as maize. Since the 1990s, increased levels of governmental support have led to expanded cassava production in several African countries. Total production in Africa increased from 70.3 million tonnes in 1990 to 192.1 million tonnes in 2019, a 173% increase, although most of this growth resulted from an expansion in the cultivated area (+151%) rather than from higher yields (+8.6%) (FAOSTAT 2021). These changes have led to a shift in the global dynamic of cassava cultivation, as Africa's share of total production has increased from 46% in 1990 to more than 63% in 2019. Although this change is partly a result of the need for food production to keep pace with population increase, it has also arisen from an increasing recognition of the industrial value of the cassava crop. Rapid urbanization has opened up new markets for processed cassava products, and there have been increasing efforts to strengthen cassava value chains. The increased commercialization associated with these changes has provided new opportunities to modernize the seed systems that are a key component of efficient cassava value chains.Although cassava plants produce true seeds under favorable environmental conditions, these are genetically heterogeneous and may not germinate readily. By contrast, stem cuttings are clones of the parent plant, retaining desired characteristics. Cuttings sprout readily in moist soils, are relatively easy to handle, and have become the primary propagule for establishing a new cassava crop. However, there are several drawbacks to this form of vegetative propagation. Firstly, the cuttings are bulkier and more prone to deterioration than true seeds, and, secondly, there is a high likelihood that pathogens that infected the parent stock will be carried directly via the cuttings into the newly established plants. This is particularly true for viruses. In Africa, the two most important biotic production constraints are CMD and CBSD (cassava brown streak disease), both of which are propagated by stem cuttings as well as through transmission by a whitefly insect vector. CMD is distributed wherever cassava is grown in Africa, while CBSD occurs in East, Southern, and Central Africa, although it continues to spread further westward (Legg et al. 2015). Both diseases can be effectively managed with clean planting material of resistant varieties, but few farmers currently have access to this material. This situation provides a clear justification for investments in improving seed systems with the aim of the sustainable delivery of high-quality seed to farmers. This will necessarily involve efforts to shift from entirely informal seed systems, where farmers share or trade planting material with no regulation of the provenance, characteristics, and health of the material, toward more formal seed systems, where the source, identity, and quality of planting material are regulated. An extensive monitoring survey of cassava varieties and landraces being grown in Nigeria, using DNA fingerprinting to ascertain the identity of the varieties in the field, showed that about 20% of respondents erroneously thought they were growing a landrace when it was an improved variety, and about 13% thought the opposite (Wossen et al. 2017). This exemplifies the importance of being able to source seed that is true-to-type of the desired variety. Experience from Nigeria has also shown that high-yield potential and other quality traits are attributes of cassava seed that can encourage investment in commercial seed systems (Bentley et al. 2020b).Informal seed systems continue to predominate for most crops in most countries of sub-Saharan Africa. McGuire and Sperling (2016) estimated that 90.2% of seed is accessed through informal systems in smallholder farming communities, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa. For cassava, the balance is even more heavily skewed toward informal systems. Even in countries where there have been largescale interventions to promote more formal seed systems, the quantity of formal seed produced still remains less than 1% of the total volume of seed planted by farmers. Both women and men are active in cassava production, processing, and marketing, although in Nigeria, men play a greater role in planting, crop management, and harvesting, while women are primarily responsible for farm and household-level processing (Nweke et al. 2002). Up to 30% of men and women indicate that they sometimes purchase cassava planting material, although main sources are farmers' own fields or those of their neighbors or friends (Teeken et al. 2018). Gender studies on cassava production systems in both West and Southern Africa have demonstrated clearly, however, that men play an increasingly dominant role as production, processing, and marketing systems increase in scale and become more commercialized (Forsythe et al. 2015). These trends have highlighted the importance of recognizing gender effects as more systematic efforts are made to increase the commercial potential of cassava seed systems.There have been efforts made over several decades to develop cassava varieties in Africa that are high-yielding and disease-resistant and meet the quality requirements of farmers. These have frequently been coupled with large-scale seed dissemination schemes (Dixon et al. 2003). However, prior to 2010 there was little attention given to the sustainability of seed dissemination programs, meaning that when support for the program came to an end, the provision of improved seed ceased. Furthermore, it was also widely considered that disseminating seed of disease-resistant varieties was enough, whether or not the seed was of good quality. More recently, however, it has become widely recognized that improved seed programs can only be sustained if commercial mechanisms are incorporated. A significant proportion of cassava farmers in Africa already pay for cassava seed, predominantly through the informal sector, and as the sub-sector becomes increasingly business-oriented, this proportion will increase. Commercial seed systems grounded on the formal sector are developing rapidly for major grain, legume, and vegetable crops in Africa, as well as for potato, which provides a useful comparator example for cassava in view of its similar vegetative propagation and bulkiness.Commercially sustainable seed systems for cassava, which deliver certified seed of improved varieties, offer great potential benefits to farmers, including increased productivity resulting from low disease and pest levels, as well as an assurance that what they pay for is what they get. Commercial seed systems that supply highquality products also provide substantial new income-generating opportunities for farmers. Furthermore, structured commercial cassava seed systems that provide quality assurance may enhance dissemination of improved varieties to smallholder farmers and inform breeding programs on varietal demand and trait preferences, which in turn will result in a more dynamic and productive cassava economy.Seed System for CassavaVibrant markets for cassava products are an essential driver for the development of sustainable seed systems. Cassava is consumed as food or feed or is used to make industrial products like starch and biofuels. Although the starchy roots are the main food product, the leaves are also consumed in certain regions. The Cassava Monitoring Survey in Nigeria (Wossen et al. 2017) showed that cassava is used mainly for food within the household and as a cash crop, with about 50% of the cassava produced sold for cash income, primarily for processing into food products.The demand for cassava roots is increasing due to more food manufacturing to meet demand in growing urban populations. This includes industrial products such as starch and flour but predominantly processed food products such as gari and fufu (Bentley et al. 2020a). As trade in seed grows, certification will be increasingly required for commercial seed production as there will be a clear benefit to planting material that is of high quality and of known provenance of specific improved varieties (Thiele et al. 2021). This sets the stage for establishing a sustainable seed system. This review presents two contrasting market demand situations for highquality cassava seed. In Nigeria, where disease problems are relatively minor, there is strong demand for high-yielding farmer-preferred varieties such as TME 419. In Tanzania, however, the significant losses incurred by farmers as a result of infection of local varieties by the virus diseases CBSD and CMD means that there is strong willingness to pay for healthy seed of disease-resistant varieties. Studies in Tanzania and Uganda suggest that farmers are willing to pay a price premium of between 8 and 25 percent for certified stems relative to uncertified material (MEDA 2016).Formal seed systems, where seed is certified, have been effective for cereal crops such as hybrid maize, but these have rarely been applied to vegetatively propagated crops such as cassava until recently. Large-scale cassava seed production programs have worked intermittently through donor driven initiatives since the 1990s. In seed multiplication projects during this period, an approach of primary, secondary, and tertiary multiplication of cassava stems was applied by the public sector and NGOs.The outbreak of CBSD in East Africa in the 2000s meant that it was very difficult to multiply healthy planting material using existing approaches, and there was a recognition that more formal systems for seed quality control were required. This led to the inclusion of cassava among the seed crops that were officially certified in countries such as Nigeria and Tanzania, although it was recognized that seed certification for cassava would be much more challenging than that for cereals, since cassava seed is bulkier and perishable. Two large Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) funded projects -BASICS in Nigeria and BEST in Tanzania -have provided impetus both for the completion of policies and regulations relating to the certification of cassava, as well as for activating EGS production efforts (Bentley et al. 2020b). This has involved recruiting a range of public and private organizations for EGS production and delivery. By 2021, several other countries had also implemented similar types of activities, including Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, and Uganda. In addition, common cassava standards were established as part of the ECOWAS harmonized seed regulations adopted by the West African member states.EGS production for cassava is still in its infancy, with formal seed accounting for less than 1% of the total, and it is vital that government and development agencies continue to nurture this evolving system. Furthermore, awareness raising and advocacy campaigns on the value of quality seed and seed replacement are important requirements for creating demand for quality seed, which is pivotal for a successful cassava EGS system. Although many African countries have seed laws that provide guidelines for the certification of seed of vegetatively propagated crops, in most cases these are unrealistically stringent and are not applied. A key new requirement for establishing effective commercial seed systems has therefore been the revision of certification guidelines so that they serve both to enhance seed quality while at the same time enabling seed producers to succeed. Costs and benefits associated with these revised certification requirements should be quantified and integrated into business models for cassava seed entrepreneurs.Acquisition of new varieties -whether for their pest/disease resistance or higher yield potential -is the key incentive for farmers to purchase cassava seed. This means that establishing and maintaining a strong breeding pipeline is a key requirement for sustainable cassava seed systems. Productive, disease-/pest-resistant and farmer-preferred varieties are developed through breeding. Breeding is complex and time-consuming as new germplasm needs to be tested for qualitative and quantitative traits in multiple environments. This process may take up to 10 years before varieties with the desired traits can be released. Adoption is enhanced by involving farmers in on-farm evaluations. Since CMD and CBSD are the two most important disease constraints affecting cassava production, the development of varieties resistant to both is a key breeding priority. Requirements for virus-resistant varieties are less stringent in parts of Africa not yet affected by CBSD, which includes all of West Africa as well as the western part of Central Africa. In these regions, breeding efforts therefore place a greater emphasis on yield and the quality characteristics of both fresh and processed roots.Tissue culture The multiplication throughput of clonal crops such as cassava has been significantly increased by using in vitro propagation methods (Ng 1992). These have also helped to introduce virus-tested, true-to-type plantlets into seed systems. Tissue culture activities for cassava are well established in several African countries, such as Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania. The use of cassava tissue culture plants for commercial production of cassava seed has not been successful, however, particularly in countries such as Nigeria, in spite of the high demand for seed of improved cassava varieties. This is mainly due to the relatively sophisticated laboratory requirements and associated high cost of individual plantlets, as well as the difficulties that users often face in the post-flask management procedures. There has therefore been a need to explore other rapid propagation technologies for early generation seed.The traditional method of cassava propagation entails the use of a 20-25 cm cutting that is cut from a mature stem that is usually 1 to 3 meters in length. Each planting stake can have five to ten nodes depending on the variety. Some varieties have nodes that are close together, while in other varieties the nodes are far apart. In the 1990s, breeders sought to explore the use of shorter planting materials (mini-cuttings) to obtain more planting materials for breeding trials. This led to the emergence of nodal cutting technology, where stems are cut into smaller pieces, about 5 cm long and which usually have two nodes. The technology has not been widely used for commercial seed production, so little is known about its performance when tailored toward quality seed production. Nevertheless, when used to multiply planting material for trials, the small size of the cuttings frequently results in many drying out and subsequently failing to sprout when planted. Also, the productivity of both the vegetative part and roots is hampered due to reduced transportation and distribution of assimilates in the plants. A further drawback is the labor required for preparing large volumes of nodal cuttings. For these reasons, mini-cutting propagation has not been widely used in cassava seed systems.SAH was developed by the SAHTECHNO Company (Argentina), to enhance the production of potato plantlets for greenhouse or field transplantation. In 2016, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) adapted SAH technology for rapid propagation of cassava and subsequently for yam. SAH offers the benefit of tissue culture grade quality planting material at lower cost and under \"low-tech\" conditions. SAH makes use of the autotrophic capacity of the plant to grow in a friendlier environment, where there is more effective gas exchange and where growing conditions are more natural (Rigato et al. 2000). SAH is a technology focused on the mass propagation of virus-free plants derived from tissue culture. It is low-cost and easy to set up for commercial seed production and enhanced multiplication in breeding programs. SAH has recently been adapted for cassava propagation in Nigeria. Currently, there are five SAH labs operating in Nigeria: one each at IITA in Ibadan and the National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI) in Umudike and three at private companies. SAH laboratories have also been established in other African countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia.Guidelines for quality assurance Cassava has not traditionally been included as part of formal systems for seed quality assurance. This is partly because there is less international trade of cassava, and it has less commercial value than many other crops. This applies in all parts of the world where the crop is grown, including countries where there is a high degree of commercialization, such as South and Southeast Asia. In Africa, regional efforts to harmonize seed quality regulations, such as those included in COMESA's seed trade harmonization regulations of 2014, have not included cassava. The CMD and CBSD virus disease pandemics of the 1990s and 2000s, however, highlighted the need to have mechanisms for the production and trade in cassava seed that was free of these two diseases. Models for seed quality certification were piloted by national seed certification agencies in Tanzania and Nigeria and have subsequently been improved and scaled out to several other countries, including Burundi, DRC, and Rwanda. Specific details of the protocols used in each country vary, but all cases address the key elements of varietal purity, pest/ disease incidence levels, virus testing, isolation distance, and the number of ratoon crops allowed.Seed certification systems normally include field inspections, where visual assessments are made of pest/disease incidence, as well as some laboratory testing for higher seed categories (pre-basic/breeder seed). Most national seed certification authorities have existing human and physical capacity for field and lab assessments, which are primarily used for the major seed crops, such as the cereals, oilseeds, and grain legumes. This means that there is at least some potential to adapt these capacities to implement cassava seed quality assurance. However, seed inspectors will need specific training on cassava. More inspectors may need to be hired, and decentralized, in order to provide enough inspections for new cassava seed entrepreneurs. Such efforts need to ensure that the seed certification systems are affordable and reliable. For example, in Tanzania, decentralization efforts focused on training existing extension staff as authorized seed inspectors (ASIs) who are able to conduct basic certification assessments on behalf of the regulatory authority (Tanzania Official Seed Certification Institute, TOSCI). This has greatly reduced costs since ASIs are based throughout the seed production zones (Douthwaite 2020). New digital tools, such as PlantVillage Nuru, are available for field-based disease/pest identification for cassava, although visual inspections continue to be the main method used by the ASIs. Laboratory-based virus diagnostics may be required at higher levels of the seed system, particularly in countries where the inconspicuous CBSD occurs. Novel diagnostic methods are likely to become more widely used as they reduce virus testing costs and are easier to conduct in lightly equipped laboratories. Currently, new methods such as loop-mediated isothermal amplification PCR (LAMP) are being validated with regulatory authorities in several countries.Cassava seed production involves a chain of interconnected activities between various institutions and entrepreneurs formally recognized to produce and market different classes of certified seed of released varieties. The lack of awareness about seed regulations, cumbersome procedures, and the high cost of seed certification are some of the challenges to implementing seed certification. To simplify this process and integrate the cassava seed production value chain, IITA developed the \"Seed TrackerTM\" ICT app (www.seedtracker.org/cassava) that digitally links multistage seed value chain actors. The app is usable on any Internetenabled device, including mobile phones, tablets, and personal computers. It can be used to collect and organize seed production data and for real-time tracking of seed production. It generates maps, offers secure accounts for data input and retrieval, and provides a diverse set of analytics (Fig. 15.1). The app features customized digital data collection forms with offline data collection allowing it to be used in areas without an Internet connection, and it relays data remotely when the device gets connected to Wi-Fi. The application is tailored to national seed certification systems and provides support for registration of seed producers, registration of seed fields, field inspection, and certification of seed lots and generates barcoded labels for traceability.The National Agricultural Seed Council of Nigeria (NASC) in 2017 and TOSCI in 2018 adopted Seed Tracker for e-certification of cassava. Seed certification officers were trained to perform e-seed certification and manage seed quality assurance activities using Seed Tracker. In 2019, NASC adopted Seed Tracker as a national e-certification platform and expanded its use to all crops. Seed Tracker offers a \"one-stop shop\" for information on seed quantity, location, and variety, enabling buyers to know when and where certified seed is available. It therefore supports the adoption and impact of improved varieties developed through breeding programs. Real-time reporting and the simplification of the administrative processes associated with certification mean that Seed Tracker can help seed system stakeholders overcome many of the problems traditionally associated with formal seed certification programs. Regulatory agencies are also using experience gained from other more commercialized crops to develop ICT systems for the digital tagging of seed packages in order to prevent the sale of counterfeit seed.There are several important requirements for creating an enabling environment for commercial cassava seed system development. These include the free flow of information and data among all system participants, availability and access to sources of high-quality seed that targets demand, strong markets for cassava products, a business-friendly agricultural policy with ready access to business development services, and the system-wide application of a seed regulatory system that promotes quality while remaining affordable.Information flow Seed producers should be aware of market demand, of available varieties to meet that demand and of the crop management requirements for producing high-quality cassava seed. Root producers need information about the relative benefits to be gained from improved seed. Processors should have access to information about sources of roots, their quality traits, and markets for processed products. Finally, for effective quality control, seed regulators require a thorough understanding of the network of seed producers with easy, real-time access to information about the producers and their seed crops. Availability and access to seed In order for a cassava seed system to flourish, seed producers at all levels, as well as root producers, need to have easy access to sources of quality seed. Unlike seed of cereal crops or grain legumes, cassava seed is not typically sold through markets or input dealers. Informal systems prevalent in most cassava-producing countries in Africa are dominated by local exchange with neighbors and relatives, with occasional roadside selling. Newly emerging commercial seed systems for cassava are addressing the issue of access and availability by enhancing information systems to openly share seed information such as variety, quantity available, price, and location.Strong markets Cassava producers are paying greater attention to the commercial potential of the crop as new processing businesses and market outlets are set up, most notably in Nigeria. Where cassava is sold, the importance of productivity is increasingly recognized, leading to increased farmer demand for improved highyielding varieties and a greater willingness to invest in inputs such as certified seed. Therefore, commercial seed systems are unlikely to succeed for cassava, unless there is a commitment to establish and sustain output markets for fresh or processed cassava products.Business policy can have a critical impact on the likelihood of success for agricultural business, including seed production. Common impediments to success can include bureaucracy that can make it difficult to set up and run a business, weak government support for the agricultural sector, lack of access to finance, and poor infrastructure in agricultural areas. In countries where commercial cassava seed systems have not yet been established, business training may be required to support cassava seed entrepreneurs setting up businesses for the first time. Cassava seed entrepreneurs should also have ready access to the range of business development services required to establish and maintain their new seed businesses, including access to inputs, marketing advice, telephone and Internet infrastructure, as well as financial services.Seed policy needs to be market-responsive, widely known, and implemented well. The first step for many countries will be defining guidelines for affordable seed quality regulation. The threats posed by vegetatively propagated viruses, such as those causing CMD and CBSD, as well as an increasing demand for greater productivity, have encouraged the implementation of formal systems for seed quality assurance in several countries. However, these certification systems must enhance the quality of cassava seed, be applied in a sustainable way, and be practically scaled beyond a project context, with affordable tariffs that are appropriate for the business plans of seed producers at each level of the system.Cassava Seed Systems: Case Studies from Nigeria and TanzaniaThe context: cassava in Nigeria in the 2000s Nigeria is the world's largest producer of cassava (59 million t/yr). About 90% of cassava in the country is processed as food, 9% for industrial flour or starch, and less than 1% of the cassava output is exported. For food, most is produced and processed locally into gari (grated, fermented, and toasted to a dry granular flour), fufu/akpu (fermented wet paste then cooked with additional water to make a thick porridge), or lafun (dried chips ground into flour and cooked into a thick porridge). Almost all processing is done by women at home or in specialized processing centers in rural areas.Up until the early 1990s, cassava cultivation was mostly based on traditional low-yielding cultivars (with average yields of 7-10 t/ha) and manual processing. Since the early 2000s, many states in Nigeria have witnessed greater attention by different actors to the promotion of cassava as an industrial crop, with the objectives of diversifying farmers' incomes, enhancing foreign exchange earnings and increasing employment opportunities. This process was boosted further between 2002 and 2010 with the implementation of a Presidential Initiative that aimed at promoting cassava for the purposes of poverty alleviation and improved food security. The development of cassava markets in several states during this time enhanced the adoption of high-yielding cultivars, with on-farm yield potential up to 25 t/ha, resulting in increasing mechanization of labor-intensive processing stages (grating, pressing, roasting, drying, and milling). The impact of these developments was positive, although productivity in Nigeria (8.2 t/ha -FAOSTAT 2021) remains significantly below the potential. This highlights the need for further efforts to establish a sustainable system for delivering quality seed of high-yielding cassava varieties to farmers.In spite of the importance of the cassava crop for livelihoods in Nigeria, the seed system remains largely informal. Some of the key constraints include an insufficient and unsustainable supply of EGS, a poorly functioning national variety release system, policies that limit access to publicly develop improved varieties by private seed companies, and the widespread occurrence of seed in markets which is not true-to-type.Formal plant breeding for cassava started in Nigeria in the 1970s, although there were few large-scale efforts to disseminate improved varieties until the early 2000s after which projects began to play the major role in cassava seed delivery (Okechukwu and Kumar 2016). Examples included the cassava mosaic disease (CMD) project from 2004 to 2007, the Cassava Enterprise Development Program (CEDP) (2008)(2009)(2010), the UPoCA Project (2008)(2009)(2010), the CFC West Africa Project (2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012), and Cassava: Adding Value for Africa (CAVA) (2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019). These projects distributed disease-resistant varieties to farmers, who then distributed to community seed gardens, which multiplied seed for smallholders. Seed gardens and multiplication work were project-funded activities. None of these projects had a commercial focus for seed delivery, so as the projects came to an end, seed multiplication and dissemination also stopped.The first project to attempt more formal commercialization of the cassava seed business was the sustainable cassava seed system (SCSS) project (2012)(2013)(2014)(2015), which was the first to work with Village Seed Entrepreneurs (VSEs). From 2016, this approach was carried forward and expanded through the project entitled \"Building an Economically Sustainable Integrated Cassava Seed System in Nigeria\" (BASICS), managed by the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers, and Bananas (RTB). This was the first initiative in Nigeria to attempt to develop a comprehensive sustainable system for the supply of improved cassava seed. Some of the key partners in this work were NRCRI, NASC, IITA, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Context Global Network (USA), and Fera Science Limited (UK). All partners worked with VSEs and private sector processing companies to commercialize cassava seed. By the time the grant to BASICS had come to an end in early 2020, significant progress had been made to build the breeder, foundation, and commercial seed levels necessary to create an economically sustainable seed system in Nigeria. But there were still kinks in the system and fragility in the new institutions. Most notably, efficient and practical EGS production approaches had not been established, the cassava seed regulatory system had just been implemented at pilot level, and there was very little geographical coverage of areas targeted by the sustainable seed production effort. Additionally, IITA and NRCRI had established two new private seed companies. These were GoSeed and Umudike Seeds, respectively, and were still in the early stages of becoming fully self-sustaining by the end of the BASICS project. In order to cement progress already achieved in building sustainable cassava seed systems, BMGF funded another phase -BASICS-2 -which aimed to strengthen the work in Nigeria and link it with similar activities in Tanzania (the BEST project) to consolidate the progress made to date, address the weaknesses, and begin the process of marketing this novel model to other governments and donors for replication.Prior to the implementation of the SCSS and the BASICS projects in Nigeria, the view was that very few farmers saw a business opportunity in cassava seed production. BASICS, building on the SCSS experience, showed that seed entrepreneurs can produce and sell certified seed of improved varieties, generating profits for both the seller and the buyer. The project documented the profitability of commercial seed production by the top 50% of the VSEs in different states in Nigeria. These VSEs in Benue State and South-South regions made average net profits of US$ 988 and US$ 551 per ha respectively (Table 15.1). Some VSEs in Benue State followed the ratooning strategy, and they obtained a net profit of US$ 1588 at the end of the two seasons. Most of the entrepreneurs sold their cassava stems at the farm gate, followed by sales at the local market; little seed reached distant markets.Both the VSEs and the cassava varieties they were producing needed to be promoted via various channels including demo plots alongside main roads in various locations, market day promotions, advertisements in banners and flyers in local languages, radio spots, and a public service call-in system that provided free, ondemand information. As these were supported through the BASICS project, going forward, such commercialization activities and costs need to be incorporated into the business plan of the seed companies and farmer associations selling certified seed. In addition, a website (www.cassavastems.com) was launched providing information about the project, the VSEs with their location and contact details, as well as the varieties available.A review of the more successful VSEs showed that the viability of commercial seed production is enhanced when the producer can dedicate larger areas for production (>1 ha) and that smaller VSEs need to be organized into an association that can support training, access to inputs, and markets by bringing in economies of scale. Moreover, a survey of 218 cassava farmers who bought certified seed from VSEs in 2017-2019 showed that the main reason for buying stems was to access new varieties and to be sure of their identity. These criteria were considered much more important than the state of health of the certified material. Nevertheless, NASC certification did mean that the VSEs' trustworthiness and prestige was enhanced. It was observed early on that women VSEs face more challenges in accessing credit and inputs. Consequently, the BASICS project placed a special focus on building capacity and promoting social capital and networking among female seed entrepreneurs.Approaches to achieving a sustainable supply of quality seed Through the SCSS and BASICS projects in Nigeria, a sustainable supply of quality EGS and certified seed was established following different approaches. The integrated value chain approach that this encompasses is illustrated in Fig. 15.2.(i) EGS system: An adequate and reliable supply of healthy and virus-free breeder and foundation seed of improved varieties is the starting point for a sustainable seed system. IITA and NRCRI in Nigeria are the mandated institutions for these seed sources. In a pioneering intervention, the BASICS project helped IITA and NRCRI establish the private limited companies, GoSeed and Umudike Seeds, respectively. These companies produce and sell EGS of improved varieties on a commercial basis. With the assistance of Sahel Consulting Agriculture and Nutrition Ltd (Sahel), financially viable business plans were developed for both these entities, and they started implementing the plans in 2019. GoSeed has established a network of contract farmers to produce breeder and foundation seed, to increase capacity and expand the geographic reach of EGS. Both companies certify their seed through NASC following updated certification protocols, ensuring seed health as well as varietal identity. Foundation seed is sold to commercial seed producers, and the companies are now expanding their commercialization efforts by promoting new improved varieties. GoSeed and Umudike Seeds are linked to the breeding programs of IITA and NRCRI, and as new varieties are tested with farmers and processors, end user experiences and requirements for improvements are fed back to the breeding programs. These two companies are also expanding marketing activities to promote the improved varieties and certified seed. (ii) Certified seed system: Certified seed is produced from foundation seed and can be multiplied through ratooning a maximum of three times by certified seed producers, subject to approvals by NASC inspectors. Certification occurs at breeder seed, foundation seed, and certified seed levels. Certification standards at the highest levels of EGS production are the most stringent, as these impact the entire seed system at national level. Standards at VSE level are more lenient to ensure that seed producers at this level succeed but also so that the inspections are affordable. Cassava farmers purchase certified seed for root production. Every planting season, there is a large demand for planting material.Traditionally, this has been met by farmers' own saved seed; from friends, family and neighbors; through dissemination campaigns from governments and projects; via informal markets; or from formal markets (Pircher et al. 2019). The formal seed market is almost negligible. According to a NASC Annual Report in 2017, only 117,722 bundles (0.0003% of the total cassava seed market) of certified cassava seed were produced and sold. Given this situation, the BASICS project developed two models of certified seed production: the village seed entrepreneur (VSE) model and the processor-led model (PLM), described below. The initial scaling target of the certified seed system is to meet 2% of the cassava seed requirement for Nigeria, which would be equivalent to 5-10% of the nation's formal seed production. (iii) VSE model: The project selected farmers, both young and old, men and women, trained them on cassava agronomy, quality assurance for meeting certification requirements, and business aspects of the seed business. VSEs were selected according to nine criteria, mostly relating to experience of agriculture as a business and willingness to adopt innovations. Criteria relating to assets were relaxed for women farmers to avoid structural bias. Approximately 30% of the VSEs were women. Responding to the demand for improved varieties in their vicinity, the VSEs grew these varieties and marketed them to farmers nearby.In order to enhance sustainability, the project organized the VSEs into a network that continued the training and promotion of the member VSEs as well as marketing of new improved varieties. The profit motive for such seed entrepreneurs ensures sustainability. (iv) PLM: Traditionally cassava processors bought the roots needed for their factories in open markets, and this meant that they got a mixture of varieties, mostly local varieties, thus potentially reducing the factory's profitability as well as not fully meeting the processing demands for particular quality traits in the roots. The BASICS project selected cassava processors who demonstrated a strong interest in piloting the PLM model and developing business-oriented systems of seed dissemination. The best varieties for each processor were identified by setting up demonstration trials at the processor sites and process-ing the roots in their factory. The seed of these varieties was then supplied to a network of cassava outgrowers linked to the processor, with a root buyback agreement. In this manner, the PLM model looks to have the farmers benefit from the higher yields obtained from certified seed of improved varieties along with a guaranteed market. The processors benefit from getting an assured quantity and quality of cassava roots for processing. The increased net profitability ensures the sustainability of the PLM.Through collaboration between the NextGen and BASICS projects, five new varieties were released in Nigeria in 2020.NextGen is a BMGF-funded project which aims to modernize cassava breeding in Africa using cutting-edge tools. All five varieties were targeted to meet the product profiles for the country which range from industrial applications, primarily highquality cassava flour (HQCF) and starch, to fresh roots, gari, and fufu. Varieties with different optimal end uses were promoted using a market segmentation approach (e.g., each variety was marketed to the customers most likely to use it). In addition, a naming event was organized to rename the varieties from conventional breeding code names (mostly made up of numbers and easy to forget), to more farmerfriendly names. The renaming of the varieties was a strategy aimed at enhancing the promotion and delivery of the new varieties to farmers. Historically, when new varieties are released, it can take several years of field multiplication before the variety reaches grassroots farming communities. Difficulties experienced in accessing planting materials of new varieties can discourage farmers from cultivating them. Novel rapid multiplication techniques, such as SAH, combined with improved systems for the rapid dissemination of cassava seed, have given farmers much faster access to the new varieties. This has been further enhanced by establishing the EGS companies -IITA GoSeed and Umudike Seeds -and farmers can now access seed of new varieties within 2-3 years of their initial release. The EGS companies in addition to the production and commercialization of the varieties are also helping independent seed producers across the country increase the production of foundation seed. This will bolster sustainability of seed demand and supply of cassava seed in a structured manner.Assuring the quality of cassava seed from breeder seed to community level NASC is the government agency responsible for regulating the production, marketing, and trade of seed in Nigeria, as well as for implementing national seed policy and regulations. NASC has adopted a three-tier system for cassava seed production, comprising breeder seed (BS), foundation seed (FS), and certified seed (CS). Cassava seed quality assurance involves control of the generations of seed and seed quality, as defined by its genetic purity and health status. BS is the first seed generation produced under the supervision of plant breeders, and FS is the progeny of BS, and both may be recycled twice. CS may be multiplied three times. The quality parameters considered during each cycle include genetic purity, isolation distance, field management (weediness), and incidences of notified pests and diseases which must be lower than tolerance levels set for each class (Table 15.2). If seed does not meet the required standards, it is rejected and cannot be sold as certified seed.This system for cassava seed certification functions effectively in Nigeria, although the limited supply of tissue culture material to start the process has been a bottleneck. The adoption of SAH since 2016 helped to address this situation. In addition, a new NASC-approved seed class (nuclear seed, NS) was recently added. NS is produced from TC or SAH material and is used as the source for BS. NS seed is not limited by seed cycle, as long as the planting material remains genetically pure and true-to-type, and the material remains entirely free of notified pests and diseases.As some VSEs do not meet all of the eligibility requirements for CS production, NASC allows them to be registered and produce CS seed as Community Seed Producers.NASC organizes a minimum of three inspections. The first is prior to field establishment to verify seed source and field site. The second is 3-4 months after planting, and the third inspection is at the time of harvest. NASC may propose additional inspection visits, as well as the collection of samples -especially from EGS fields for testing of cassava mosaic viruses, which are endemic in Nigeria. Viruses that cause CBSD are not known to occur in Nigeria; however, NASC, IITA, and cassava stakeholders have prioritized CBSD prevention since this disease poses a major threat to cassava production in Nigeria. NASC has therefore established facilities for testing for cassava brown streak viruses and has trained inspectors in recognizing symptoms and how to respond in case the disease is introduced to the country.Due to the limited number of seed certification officers, timely certification has been a bottleneck. To overcome this challenge, NASC introduced the use of \"licensed seed inspectors (LSIs)\" who are third party agents trained and approved Mean severity score per field (using a 1-5 scale ranging from 1 = no symptoms to 5 = very severe) 2 Percent incidence to perform CS field inspection and to collect samples for testing under NASC supervision. Forty LSIs from four Nigerian states were commissioned in 2020.To enhance seed quality compliance and enable e-seed certification, NASC adopted Seed Tracker in 2019 as the official e-certification tool for cassava. This ICT application has been tailored to NASC seed regulations to enable seed producer registration, seed field registration, inspections, digital data collection, and issuance of certificates and labels for eligible producers and seed fields.Alternative \"light touch\" quality assurance models have been proposed for cassava seed systems in Nigeria that maintain certification-oriented measures for EGS but which recommend less regulation for community-level seed production and a primary focus on the delivery of seed of new varieties with known provenance (Wossen et al. 2020).The context. Cassava in Tanzania in the 2000s Tanzania is the fifth largest cassava producer in Africa, with an annual production for 2019 of nearly 8.2 million tons (FAOSTAT 2021). Although yields declined from 1997 (8.6 t/ha) to 2015 (5.4 t/ ha), largely due to CMD and CBSD epidemics, they have subsequently recoveredreaching 8.3 t/ha in the latest year for which data are available ( 2019). The 2002-2003 National Sample Census of Agriculture indicated that 24% of Tanzanian farmers grow cassava and that the production is concentrated in the southeast and northwestern parts of the country. Most farmers market only a small proportion of their output, although there are a relatively small number of medium-and largescale farmers who sell most of their harvest. In Mtwara, the region in Tanzania that is most dependent on cassava, only 17% of the output is marketed. More fresh cassava might be sold if the roots were not so perishable. Cassava in Tanzania was heavily impacted by the severe CMD pandemic which spread through northwestern production zones from 1998 to 2010 (Legg 1999(Legg , 2010)), compounded by outbreaks of CBSD in the same areas from 2006 to the present day (2022). In view of the current importance of cassava in Tanzania, any reduction in productivity arising from a disease or pest outbreak can lead to decreased food security, reduced incomes, higher food prices, and subsequently to social tension. To tackle emerging disease and pest attacks, farmers need access to high-quality seed of newly developed varieties with multiple pest and disease resistance. This highlights the particular importance of \"clean seed\" systems in Tanzania.Cassava seed systems have been functioning in an informal way ever since the crop was introduced to Tanzania. Seed exchange among farmers across villages, towns, and even countries in the region is a normal practice in the informal seed system. Most cuttings are obtained from friends, relatives, or neighbors without payment. Some in-kind sales have also occurred in addition to free exchange. In the informal seed system farmers may select seed from vigorous plants in their own fields or obtain seed of favored varieties from trusted sources, but there is no systematic approach to managing quality. Although informal approaches may work under normal circumstances, they can often result in rapid and widespread declines in productivity where cassava is affected by diseases such as CMD and CBSD, which are readily propagated through stem cuttings.It has been estimated that less than 2% of cassava planting material in Tanzania is quality seed (AGRA 2016), although the current proportion of certified planting material by 2022 may be less than 1%. Previously, between 1995 and 2000, the Southern Africa Root Crops Research Network (SARRNET) introduced a semiformal, three-tier seed multiplication scheme. Cassava was multiplied at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. At the primary level, the sites were at or near research stations for easy supervision and monitoring by scientists. At the secondary level, the sites were established and managed by extension staff, NGOs, faith-based groups, and some individual farmers. Tertiary multiplication sites were mainly smaller, more numerous, and managed by farmers but usually backstopped by scientists, extension staff, or NGOs.From 2007 to 2012, the BMGF-funded Great Lakes Cassava Initiative (GLCI) project operated across six countries in East and Central Africa including Tanzania (Walsh 2016). The project brought together national and international research, government, and nongovernmental organizations in a single network tasked with producing and delivering disease-tolerant cassava seed to 1.15 million smallholder farming families. GLCI partners collectively learned and applied four innovative seed system approaches: (1) decentralized production and dissemination, (2) quality management protocols, (3) targeted dissemination and traceability in the seed system, and (4) disease surveillance, including source site field testing with virus diagnostics to control CBSD spread. This semiformal seed dissemination system promoted quality of seed but was not formally administered by government regulatory institutions.In 2014, TARI piloted public private partnerships in cassava seed systems. Two private companies -Aminata seed company and CBS Arusha -were involved in producing basic seed and TC plantlets respectively. TARI piloted pre-basic, fieldbased seed production at the station for closer supervision. From 2012 to 2017, scientists from IITA, TARI, and the Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) increased their efforts to advocate for a commercialized, clean (healthy) cassava seed system and implemented several projects to address this challenge. Currently, there is a strong pipeline of formally released superior varieties that flow into an organized seed system with registered cassava seed entrepreneurs, where quality is controlled by seed inspectors through a legally enforced but producerfriendly seed certification process. Moreover, the Government of Tanzania is providing strong policy-level support for the modernized seed system as part of its overall National Cassava Development Strategy which was officially launched in 2021 (IITA 2021).The business case for commercial seed production, markets, and demand Demand for cassava seed production comes from farmers who are growing cassava roots that they consume or sell to markets. The market in Tanzania comes primarily from home consumption and fresh root sales. Increasingly, commercial markets are developing with small-scale HQCF production and, more recently, with larger-scale investments being made into flour and starch production and even nascent opportunities with industrial applications such as ethanol production and export of dried cassava. The Tanzanian demand is amplified by the high disease pressure of CMD and CBSD which dramatically reduces farm productivity and increases the farmers' need for improved, disease-resistant, and high-yielding varieties. The commercial cassava seed system is the mechanism for these farmers to access the improved varieties that have been released by the government.The commercial seed production model based on cassava seed entrepreneurs (CSEs) distributed in a hub-and-spoke model with quality control oversight is a profitable and sustainable model to reach cassava seed farmers. The development of the models in the BEST Cassava project has demonstrated that farmers are willing to pay for improved cassava seed that has been certified. The average profitability of CSEs from 2018 to 2020 ranged from US$1000 to 1500 per ha which demonstrates a positive business case, and it is a key indicator for a commercially sustainable seed system. Farmer business associations have been set up to support CSE networks with the aim of gradually taking over training and support functions which are currently being delivered through the BEST Project. In addition, the Tanzania Cassava Producers and Processors Association (TACAPPA) is a newly created independent organization which aims to provide long-term advocacy and support for cassava farmers, processors, and traders, including CSEs. This and allied government initiatives to foster the commercial development of cassava in Tanzania are providing a strong business-oriented environment which will enhance the sustainability of the emerging cassava seed system.The cassava seed system in Tanzania was developed using a formal, commercialized approach that factors in quality assurance and profitability for the CSEs to ensure a cost-effective and sustainable system. Since cassava seed is bulky and perishable to transport, the BEST Cassava project has developed the seed system based on a hub-and-spoke model to foster effective seed delivery. It includes a smaller number of pre-basic (equivalent to BS) and basic (equivalent to FS) CSEs, who then sell cassava seed in subsequent steps to certified and quality declared seed (QDS) CSEs who ultimately sell to root producing farmers (Fig. 15.3). Cultural norms and traditional patterns of land ownership mean that there have been difficulties in encouraging gender balance among CSEs. Currently women comprise about 30% of CSEs, although the proportion is higher at the community level and lower among basic seed producers. Under the follow-on BASICS-2 project, however, there are twin goals to nearly double the number of CSEs while at the same time increasing representation of women to 50% of the total.(i) Pre-basic/basic seed. The production of pre-basic seed in Tanzania is overseen by TARI. The role of this level is to produce initial seed stock of the released varieties that will then feed into the commercial seed system for distribution.The original model for pre-basic seed production was to take small amounts of lab-tested, virus-free stock from tissue culture, harden it off in a screenhouse, plant it in the field for one cycle of field multiplication, and sell mature cassava cuttings to basic CSEs who would then multiply one more cycle of seed and sell it to the next level -certified CSEs. This model is evolving with more advanced techniques being used at both the pre-basic and basic levels to increase the capacity and production. Pre-basic producers now use a \"two-node\" rapid multiplication step in the screenhouse and aim to incorporate SAH capability. Basic CSEs are also developing their own screenhouse capability for \"two-node\" rapid multiplication. (ii) Certified seed. Certified CSEs purchase basic seed as their input and multiply a cycle of seed in the field before they sell to QDS CSEs. To maximize profitability of the model, certified CSEs vary ratooning strategies and planting densities (within the parameters laid out in the Tanzania certification protocols) to optimize their stem production. They also sell roots to supplement stem sales either using a piecemeal root harvest strategy or selling all the roots at the end of their ratooning cycle when it is time to refresh their fields with new basic seed stock. (iii) QDS seed. QDS producers sell both their stem harvest to farmers and their root harvest to the market. To gain certification, QDS CSEs are inspected by decentralized ASIs who have been gazetted by TOSCI. The QDS CSEs also have the least stringent certification requirements of any level in the seed system. QDS producers plant at an optimum spacing for root production (1 m × 1 m) rather than for stem yield. Their farming strategy is driven more by root yield than by stem production. (iv) CSE business associations. Business associations made up of CSE members have been formally organized and registered as legal entities in Tanzania. The role of these business associations is to support the CSEs in multiple aspects of making the CSE businesses sustainable such as registering their business, training on good agricultural practices, providing access to finance through a revolving loan fund, and marketing their products.Tanzanian researchers have officially released 26 improved cassava varieties that are high-yielding, have high dry matter content, and that are tolerant to CMD and CBSD. Most of the new released varieties are not known by farmers, and it may take up to 10 years for a new variety to become popular. For example, variety Kiroba was officially released in 2004 but only became popular after 10 years. TARI has therefore collaborated with partners such as IITA, MEDA, and farmers' associations in efforts to promote new varieties through demonstration plots, farmer field days, seed fairs, annual agricultural shows, and TARI agribusiness expo events organized at research centers. As part of this effort, 109 plots to demonstrate released varieties were established in 2020 in the Lake Zone (30), Eastern Zone (61), Southern Zone (17), and Central Zone (1). Most of the varieties were selected primarily for yield and virus disease resistance, although they have diverse processing qualities. Targeting specific varieties for particular output markets as part of a market segmentation strategy is an important future objective of cassava value chain stakeholders in Tanzania.Technologies that have been implemented in Tanzania to increase the volume and efficiency in the early stages of multiplication include tissue culture, minicuttings, the pencil stem technique, and SAH which has been piloted by a private company, KilimOrgano. TARI has implemented the use of mini-cuttings and the pencil stem technique for rapid propagation of new varieties. Stems are allowed to grow from hardened TC plantlets for about 8 weeks under screenhouse conditions.Green mini-cuttings are then harvested to establish new plants under controlled conditions. With this method 1 plantlet can give up to 300 plants in 6 months.Assuring the quality of cassava seed from pre-basic to community level Seed quality in Tanzania is controlled by TOSCI. As in Nigeria and elsewhere, the two primary considerations during seed quality inspections are the genetic purity of the material and the restriction of pest and disease incidences to within prescribed tolerance levels. Four seed classes are recognized under the Seed Act of the Government of Tanzania. These are pre-basic (PB), basic (B), certified (C), and quality declared seed (QDS). TOSCI inspects all PB, B, and C fields on at least two occasions and is mandated to inspect at least 10% of QDS fields twice. In view of the small number of trained TOSCI seed inspectors relative to the size of the country, a selected group of extension officers has been trained to conduct QDS inspections on behalf of TOSCI as ASIs. By the end of 2021, there were 130 officially gazetted ASIs in Tanzania.Field inspections have traditionally been documented by filling out paper forms. Since 2020, however, inspectors have been able to conduct certification assessments digitally using tablets and the Seed Tracker platform. During assessment, 200 plants are examined in each of 5 quadrants of 40 plants for each hectare. The presence of major pests and diseases is scored (Table 15.3), either on the basis of the percentage of symptomatic plants or the average severity, which is assessed using a one to five scale in which one is unaffected and five is very severely affected. The two most significant differences in certification systems in Tanzania and Nigeria both arise from the greater importance of the virus diseases (CMD and CBSD) in Tanzania than in Nigeria. Required isolation distances are much greater in Tanzania (50 m to 300 m) than in Nigeria (3 meters), while tolerance levels for CMD are less Mean severity score per field (using a 1-5 scale ranging from 1 = no symptoms to 5 = very severe) restrictive in Tanzania (3% at CS level) than they are in Nigeria (≤2% at the equivalent CS level).Virus testing is only required for PB seed production where the sampling protocol provides for the testing of 2% of plantlets. Testing is only done for cassava brown streak viruses, and this is conducted by TOSCI using a real-time PCR protocol (Adams et al. 2013). PB producers pay TOSCI for this testing, and the charges are incorporated into the PB business plans and are factored into the price of the PB seed. Recent work has focused on the development of LAMP protocols for virus testing that will be cheaper and quicker and which will have the potential to be run in a decentralized network of less well-equipped laboratories.Tanzania continues to strengthen its cassava seed system, and there are plans for the period 2022-2025 to increase the number of CSEs to more than 1000. The decentralized seed certification system that is being established should offer sustainable capacity to maintain the quality of seed produced through this system while at the same time improving the awareness of the importance of seed quality among all actors in the cassava sub-sector in the country.Coordinated cassava seed multiplication initiatives have been running in many of the major cassava-producing countries of Africa for several decades. It is only in recent years, however, that more attention has been directed at establishing sustainable and commercially oriented seed systems for cassava. The largest initiatives of this type, described in this chapter, have been the BASICS project in Nigeria and the BEST project in Tanzania. Both have provided valuable lessons about the potential viability of business-focused cassava seed systems, and some of the key issues that have emerged are as follows:(i) Farmers are willing to buy seed. Results from Tanzania in particular have demonstrated that there is a strong demand for high-quality cassava seed. In the early years of the BEST project, there was a greater reliance on selling to institutional buyers such as government district authorities or NGOs, but by 2020 more than 80% of certified cassava seed was being sold to individual farmers. (ii) Demand drivers differ. Smallholder producers are willing to pay for certified stems of desired varieties, but the drivers of this demand differ between regions and countries. In Nigeria, farmers buy cassava stems mainly to obtain new varieties, with strong implications for seed enterprises throughout the value chain. In Tanzania, by contrast, the main driver for seed demand is the health status of the material, as virus diseases affect a large proportion of stems obtained from uncertified material of local varieties. Studies of repeat purchases of cassava seed are required, however, to confirm that accessing a new variety (in Nigeria) or managing disease (in Tanzania) will not curtail business opportunities for seed producers. (iii) Cassava seed is a viable business under the right conditions. Data from both Nigeria and Tanzania have confirmed that it can be profitable to produce and sell certified cassava seed of improved varieties. In Nigeria, the larger VSEs in particular are profitable, particularly those who also sell roots. However, without new varieties, the lack of a clear yield premium for certified seed undercuts the business case for VSEs, making it much more challenging to create a sustainable business than in Tanzania. In Tanzania, combining roots sales with stem production has also been shown to be a key to success for CSEs, and profitability has increased gradually from 2018 to 2020. (iv) There are major limitations to the scaling of the VSE model in Nigeria because of the high setup and support costs. Establishing networks of cassava seed producers requires significant start-up investments, which can limit the potential for scaling. Several options are being explored to overcome this challenge, including creating an apex organization for VSEs, and moving to much larger VSEs. (v) Improved private sector engagement will improve long-term viability.Involving cassava processing companies as facilitators of the commercial seed system warrants further investigation as these enterprises are the ultimate beneficiaries of the system and investments from them may offset expenditures that might otherwise be borne by projects or governments. (vi) New varieties. An efficient and productive breeding pipeline is required to ensure that new varieties become available to cassava seed producers on a regular basis. Stronger linkages with new varietal development in breeding are essential. Demand creation trials can help to identify the most suitable varieties for processors to scale out via their outgrowers. An essential part of the seed value chain is naming varieties and promoting them to highlight their specific uses and production conditions. (vii) Modern tools for rapid multiplication. EGS production needs to apply modern multiplication technologies to increase the speed of dissemination of new varieties. This has been achieved through the use of tissue culture, screenhousebased mini-cutting multiplication, and SAH. SAH labs can produce hundreds of thousands of plantlets and allow for real-time inventory management. The technique enables the rapid multiplication of promising new varieties in response to market demand. Processors in Nigeria showed an interest in investing in cassava seed units for backward integration to provide stems of varieties of interest to their own enterprises and for outgrowers. Valuable progress was made in the adaptation of SAH by processors, but the commercial case for this still needs to be comprehensively made.(viii) Spin-off companies for EGS production. In Nigeria, GoSeed and Umudike Seeds were established as spin-off companies from IITA and NRCRI, respectively, and have got off to a promising start. Both have played an effective role in producing EGS seed on a commercial basis. A similar approach has also been taken by TARI in Tanzania. These spin-off companies have the potential to play an important role in linking breeders with commercial seed producers; however, it will be essential that they are run with an entirely commercial mindset separated from the research function. (ix) Organization of VSEs/CSEs. Community-level VSEs/CSEs can benefit from being organized into associations which can provide support with finance, training, and quality assurance. The seed entrepreneurs require extensive training both in seed production and business practices. This can be done sustainably by organizing them into large networks, where participation in the network for a fee can allow the network to provide the needed services. This needs to be accompanied by marketing campaigns using different strategies to promote the new varieties, create awareness of the benefits of certified seed, and publicize the seed entrepreneurs. (x) Quality management programs are required to facilitate commercial seed systems. Two of the most important requirements for farmers buying cassava seed are that the variety is known and that the stem cuttings are of high quality. Cassava seed quality assurance systems established in Tanzania and Nigeria have shown that certification systems can facilitate effective trade in cassava seed. However, these systems need to be tailored to the local environment. Where disease is less important, such as in Nigeria, inspections at community level need to be cheap and pragmatic enough to enable seed businesses to flourish. Where disease is more important, as in Tanzania, effective quality control is required down to QDS level, although decentralized inspection systems should be affordable and have quality standards that are realistically achievable. CSE/VSE associations can play an important role in facilitating cassava seed quality management at community level. (xi) Digital tools such as Seed Tracker can greatly enhance the efficiency of the seed system and support M&E. Seed Tracker has proven to be highly effective in increasing the efficiency of the cassava seed certification work of TOSCI and NASC. In addition to permitting e-certification and remote registration of seed producers, the platform promotes the seed businesses of its users and allows the seed regulatory agencies to track performance throughout the system in real time. (xii) There are important scaling constraints that need to be defined (Sartas et al. 2020). Currently, the formal cassava seed systems established in both Nigeria and Tanzania each produce less than 1% of the national requirements for cassava seed. Although seed producers have been able to successfully sell to local root producers, establishing a network of commercial cassava seed producers is relatively slow and expensive, requiring significant training. This is likely to be a key constraint in scaling commercial cassava seed systems, both in countries where there are established systems as well as in places where systems would need to be set up from scratch. Experience from other work on RTB crops conducted by the CGIAR demonstrates that the application of scaling readiness analyses will help to identify scaling bottlenecks and enhance the impacts of commercial cassava seed systems. A key constraint for scaling to other countries is the investment needed to establish practical and affordable certification systems and a network of seed entrepreneurs at the various levels of the system. Teams focused on scaling the commercial cassava seed system models described here will need to specify and quantify these costs.Significant investments have been made in modernizing and building sustainable models for cassava seed systems in Africa over the last decade. Contrary to the widespread perception, cassava seed is extensively traded. Furthermore, newly established smallholder seed entrepreneurs have been successful in generating profits from cassava seed businesses. Although the factors driving demand for seed differ in different contexts (disease-resistant varieties in East Africa versus high-yielding varieties in West Africa), successes being achieved provide considerable hope for the successful scaling of approaches described in this chapter to other parts of Africa where cassava is an increasingly important climate resilient crop.Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.","tokenCount":"11080"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"89f8dfd4b4d136e633a105e9a9f30f93","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f498d475-59f1-46e4-abe8-44df1405bccb/retrieve","id":"1858672908"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"be4ba799-b713-4d69-9f64-0b932b71d942","pagecount":"72","content":"Le 1er septem bre 1980 m arq u e le d éb u t des activités d u Service International p o u r la Re cherche A gricole N ationale, l'ISNAR, d ont le siège est à La H aye, aux Pays-Bas. Instauré par le G roupe C onsultatif p o u r la Recherche Agricole Internationale (GCRAI) conform ém ent aux recom m andations ém ises p a r u n gro u p e d 'ex p erts internationaux, l'ISNAR a p o u r m is sion d 'a id e r les gouvernem ents des pays en d év elo p p em en t à renforcer la recherche agrono m ique. Il s'agit d 'u n e entité autonom e sans b u t lucratif, internationale p ar essence, et apolitique dans sa gestion, son personnel et son fonctionnem ent. Des seize centres internationaux com posant le réseau d u GCRAI, l'ISNAR est le seul qui consacre l'essentiel d e ses efforts aux problèm es de la recherche agro n o m iq u e nationale. A la d em an d e des gouvernem ents, il ém et des recom m andations en m atière de politique, d 'o rg a nisation et de gestion d e la recherche, com plétant ainsi les activités déployées p ar d 'au tres agences d'assistance. Les program m es de l'ISNAR com prennent le service conseil, la recherche et la formation. Il bénéficie d u soutien de nom breux m em bres d u GCRAI, u n gro u p e inform el d e bailleurs de fonds constitué de gouvernem ents, de b an q u es d e développem ent, d'organisations inter Conseil d'administration de l'ISNAR -1990A u nom de l'ISNAR, de son Conseil d'adm inistration et de son personnel, j'ai l'h o n n eu r de vous présenter le rapp o rt annuel de l'Institut p o u r 1990.En m ai dernier, nous avons profité de la réunion à m oyen term e d u GCRAI à La H aye et de la présence de nos collègues et am is p o u r entreprendre u n e réflexion sur les services que l'ISNAR a offerts aux sys tèm es nationaux de recherche agronom ique (SNRA) au cours des dix prem ières années de son existence. Le m inistre kenyan de l'agriculture, Son Excellence M aina Wanjigi, a dressé u n bilan global de la recherche agronom ique en A frique subsaharienne. Le professeur Jan Tinbergen, prix N obel d 'éco nom ie en 1969, a mis en lum ière quelquesuns des principaux problèm es de ressources et de développem ent auxquels nous serons tous confrontés dans les prochaines décen nies.En novem bre, nous avons eu l'honneur d'accueillir Son Altesse Royale le Prince Claus des Pays-Bas, en visite de travail au siège de l'Institut. Lors de nos entretiens, le Prince a souligné l'im portance de la conser vation des ressources naturelles, notam m ent de l'eau, p o u r les générations à venir.Tous les ateliers, sém inaires et discus sions que nous avons tenus en 1990 ont conduit à un m êm e constat : il est nécessaire de renforcer davantage la recherche agrono m ique nationale des pays en d éveloppe m ent, ainsi q ue les institutions et les m écanism es chargés de la recherche et de l'établissem ent de relations avec les agricul teurs. L'ISNAR est prêt à jouer ce rôle.Le rap p o rt annuel 1990 m et en exergue plusieurs activités m enées p ar notre service conseil et p ar nos program m es de recherche et de formation. N ous som m es persuadés que nos partenaires trouveront que l'ensem ble de nos activités présentent u n intérêt p o u r eux. Par ailleurs, nous avons décrit brièvem ent deux m onographies de synthèse publiées en 1990 qui, nous l'espérons, re tiendront l'attention d 'u n grand nom bre de lecteurs : l'une porte sur les aspects scientifi q ues et politiques d e la biotechnologie, l'au tre su r les liaisons entre les chercheurs, les acteurs d u transfert d e technologies et les agriculteurs.D epuis p lu s de dix ans, les activités de l'ISNAR o nt concerné 50 systèm es natio naux. L'expérience q ue n ous avons acquise, ainsi q ue la m ise au p o int d e nom breux o u tils destinés à am éliorer la gestion d e la re cherche agronom ique, sont à l'origine de la forte d em an d e d o n t nos services font l'objet. M alheureusem ent, nos ressources finan cières et h um aines ne n ous p erm ettent pas d e rép o n d re à toutes les requêtes. N o u s d e vons reporter, parfois refuser, u n nom bre croissant de projets d e diagnostic, d 'a id e à la planification et à la form ation, et d e con sultation su r des problèm es variés. En outre, et p o u r des raisons diverses, plusieurs de nos activités d e dév elo p p em en t institution nel n 'o n t pas encore d ébouché su r l'établis sem ent de SNRA solides et efficaces, capables d e satisfaire tous les besoins des utilisateurs d e technologies.La m ission d o n t nous som m es investis, à savoir le renforcem ent des SNRA, est en train d 'être exam inée. Les bailleurs d e fonds dev ro n t p ren d re acte des besoins différents et croissants des SNRA des pays en d év e loppem ent et convenir des m oyens p o u r y subvenir. A cet égard, n ous atten d o n s avec im patience la revue externe q u inquennale des p ro g ram m es et d e la gestion de l'ISNAR, p rév u e p o u r 1991. N ous nous som m es concentrés su r quelques-uns des aspects susceptibles d 'être ab o rd és lors de la revue externe : d 'u n e part, l'efficacité, l'im pact et la gestion d e nos ressources d an s le passé et, d 'a u tre part, notre stratégie, nos priorités ainsi q ue l'im portance des in nova tions et des gran d es tendances p o u r les dix prochaines années.Toutes les sociétés et nations subissent les effets des changem ents politiques, éco nom iques, scientifiques et écologiques, mais ce sont les pays en dévelo p p em en t qui en souffrent le plus. L 'environnem ent et les ressources naturelles sont constam m ent Visite de Son Altesse Royale le Prince Clans des Pays-Bas (à droite) au siège de l'ISN AR en novembre. Lors de la table ronde organisée pour l'occasion, Monsieur Christian Bonte-Friedheim, directeur général de l'ISN AR, a informé son hôte princier des activités de l'Institut.soum is à de nouvelles contraintes. Les géné rations futures rem ettront nos décisions en question, voire notre m an q u e d'initiative.Le systèm e d u GCRAI exam ine actuelle m ent certains d e ces problèm es. Il a été déci dé, au cours d e la Sem aine des centres internationaux d e 1990, d e d évelopper cet im portant systèm e d e recherche afin d 'y in clure u n e recherche d 'a p p u i à la foresterie, l'agroforesterie, la pêche, la gestion de l'irri gation et les autres disciplines techniques. Plusieurs questions relatives à la m ise en oeuvre des p rogram m es futurs de recherche d ans certaines zones agro-écologiques (par exem ple, la coordination des efforts et l'éta blissem ent des priorités) ont été soulevées et seront discutées ultérieurem ent.L'ISNAR et sa m ission seront largem ent affectés p ar plusieurs événem ents qui m ar queront les prochains mois. Ainsi, nous at tendons avec im patience la conclusion des évaluateurs externes, les conseils et l'aide de nos am is et bailleurs de fonds et les recom m andations d u conseil d 'adm inistration.Des changem ents ont été apportés à la tête d u Conseil d 'ad m in istratio n d e l'ISNAR en 1990. N ous rem ercions tout spécialem ent M. H enri C arsalade (France) p o u r ses longs et précieux services en sa qualité d e m em bre d u conseil, puis en tant q ue président. N ous som m es heureux d'accueillir le n ouveau p résident d u conseil, le professeur John Dillon (Australie). Ses collègues et lui-m êm e ont accepté l'im p o rtan te responsabilité d 'o rien ter les activités de l'ISNAR au cours des années à venir. Ensem ble, nous veille rons à ce q ue le Service International p o u r la Recherche Agricole N ationale gagne encore en solidité et en efficacité. Les études de diagnostic sont de plus en plus souvent réalisées en collabora tion avec des équipes nationales, parfois même sous la direction de ces der nières. L'Algérie et le Yémen, par exemple, ont choisi cette voie. En 1990, ils ont préparé l'étude de diagnostic en organisant un atelier sur l'utilisa tion des méthodes d'évaluation avec l'aide du personnel de l'IS N A R .La deuxième étape consiste à concevoir un plan et une stratégie en vue de renforcer le système. Lors de l'élaboration de ces éléments, on tient compte des recommandations émises par la mission d'évaluation. Par ailleurs, la contribution des responsables et le personnel du S N R A devient prépondé rante. Nos activités au M ali, au M aroc et en Tanzanie (voir ci-dessous) en sont de parfaits exemples.La troisième phase prend la form e d 'u n appui à la réalisation complète ou partielle du plan. Cela revient en général à assister un systèm e national de recherche ou à amener une institution à mettre en place les mécanismes ou les processus destinés à son renforcement dans un ou plusieurs domaines essentiels. Par exemple, l'IS N A R peut participera la création d 'u n système d'inform ation pour la gestion et assurer, comme dans le cas du Bangladesh, du M ali et du Maroc, les séances de form ation nécessaires. L'In stitu t peut également présenter des procédures ayant pour but de définir les priorités de la recherche ou évaluer les activités à mettre en oeuvre, et collaborer à l'application des méthodes comme en Indonésie et en Bolivie. Dans la prati que, les efforts de planification et de mise en oeuvre du plan déployés par l'IS N A R finissent par se chevaucher. Il arrive parfois, en réponse à cer taines requêtes, que nous apportions notre aide sans entreprendre d'étude de diagnostic préliminaire.Si la section suivante, qui s'articide autour de six pays, ne donne que quel ques exemples des actions menées dans le cadre de notre partenariat avec les S N R A , elle n'en illustre pas m oins l'am pleur et la portée de   En 1990, l'aide apportée p ar l'ISNAR au Bangladesh s'est concrétisée à deux ni veaux. D urant le prem ier sem estre, u n e équipe com posée de deux personnes a effec tué u n e étude de diagnostic d u SNRA à la d em an d e d u gouvernem ent. Celle-ci portait notam m ent sur le Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) et ses liens avec les autres instituts. Ensuite, l'ISNAR a parti cipé à la phase 11 d u Projet de recherche agronom ique (ARP), financé p a r l'USAID, qui doit perm ettre au BARC d'établir les m écanism es et les procédures nécessaires à la gestion efficace de la recherche m enée au niveau des instituts, des program m es et des stations expérim entales.Au Bangladesh, la recherche agronom i que financée p ar le secteur public est réali sée p ar des instituts relevant de cinq m inistères de tutelle différents : A griculture, Pêche et élevage, Forêts et environnem ent, Education, Industrie et com merce. Le BARC se situe au som m et d u système. Il planifie les program m es, définit les priorités, contrôle et évalue la recherche, répartit les ressources et veille au développem ent des ressources hum aines. En fait, le Conseil as sure la coordination des activités d u SNRA.Au cours de sa m ission de 1990, l'équipe d e l'ISNAR s'est penchée sur divers pro blèmes. Elle a tout d 'ab o rd analysé la struc ture d u BARC afin de déterm iner s'il possédait l'autorité et les capacités qu'exige l'accom plissem ent de son m andat. Ensuite, l'équipe a évalué les liens hiérarchiques unissant le BARC aux instituts nationaux de recherche, et l'efficacité de la structure ac tuelle de ces instituts. Finalem ent, elle a étu dié les relations existant entre le BARC et les autres organism es de recherche publics et privés situés en dehors de sa juridiction. L'é quipe a notam m ent exam iné le rôle joué par les universités et d 'au tres établissem ents d 'enseignem ent su p érieu r dans la réalisa tion des activités d e recherche et la form a tion de n ouveaux chercheurs.L'équipe a mis en lum ière plusieurs p ro blèm es d e gestion im portants au niveau n a tional et institutionnel et proposé des solutions visant à renforcer l'ensem ble d u système. Le g o u vernem ent étudie actuelle m en t quelques-unes des réform es néces saires. Toutefois, d 'au tres m esures ont été prises im m édiatem ent après la m ission d 'é tude, au vu des recom m andations ém ises p a r l'ISNAR.La réform e principale a été la fusion des quatre instituts de recherche en u n seul or ganism e autonom e, sous l'égide du BARC. Elle perm ettra d e resserrer les liens entre la politique de recherche agronom ique et sa m ise en application. En outre, elle devrait conduire à u n e m eilleure coordination de la recherche en favorisant un dialogue plus étroit entre le Conseil, son secrétariat et les instituts d u m inistère d e l'A griculture.  (1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995). D ans le cadre géné ral de notre intervention, nous avons égale m ent préparé des lignes directrices qui dev ro n t aider les instituts à réaliser leur plan directeur, d o cu m en t traduisant les po litiques d u p lan quin q u en n al en pro g ram m es opérationnels. La m ission d 'étu d e a accordé u n e atten tion particulière à la structure d u pro g ram m e de recherche d u DAR. A uparavant, le dép artem en t était organisé en plusieurs projets selon les disciplines scientifiques. D ans u n tel contexte, les recherches m enées au niveau des diverses disciplines ne conduisaient pas forcément à u n pro gram m e cohérent et productif. L'effort de re cherche présentait parfois des lacunes : des thèm es prioritaires étaient délaissés alors q ue dans d 'au tres cas, des thèm es ne pré sentant q u 'u n intérêt limité étaient pris en considération.  Un chercheur du Département de recherche agronomique du Botswana (à gauche) et deux assistants (assis) discutent avec des agriculteurs de la région du delta de l'Okavango tout en partageant du maïs. Le maïs, la canne à sucre et le sor gho sont les trois principales cultures de la région. Ces dernières années, ta sécheresse a perturbé le cycle annuel des crues qui, normalement, favorise l'exploitation des terres après le retrait des eaux. Cette réduction de la superficie de terre arable humide peut contraindre les agriculteurs de la région à pratiquer de nouvelles cultures, à modifier le calen drier des semis et les techniques de conservation du sol. L'un des principaux objectifs de la recherche agronomique menée au Botswana est l'élaboration de méthodes adaptées de conservation des ressources naturelles.nisations techniques directem ent concernées par la recherche agronom ique. Le com ité se ra en relation, en am ont, avec le Com ité m i nistériel de politique agricole et, en aval, avec les comités de form ulation des pro gram m es (constitués de chercheurs, de vulgarisateurs et de départem ents gouver nem entaux de développem ent). A vant 1990, la recherche agronom ique portait su r quelque 35 produits. Définir des priorités devenait nécessaire p o u r q ue la re cherche ait u n impact.En • déterm ination des contraintes à la réalisa tion des objectifs de développem ent;• bilan des résultats de la recherche passée;• définition des objectifs d e la recherche;• évaluation des besoins en ressources h u maines;• établissem ent des priorités d e la re cherche.( Le processus d e planification a perm is d'établir u n e stratégie générale p o u r la re cherche agronom ique q ui peut se résum er en quelques m ots : consolidation p lutôt que croissance. La stratégie su p p o se la contrac tion prochaine des ressources gou v ern em en tales et extérieures. Les fonds disponibles serviront à la rem ise en état de l'infrastruc ture routière d u pays, des bâtim ents, d u ré seau électrique, etc. Le systèm e de recherche doit p a r conséquent être redéfini afin de ti rer le m eilleur parti de ses effectifs scientifi ques actuels et cibler la recherche su r les problèm es prioritaires.A l'issue de l'exam en des données, l'équipe de planification a proposé des prio rités de recherche p o u r les cinq années à ve nir. Ce plan recom m ande une répartition des program m es en trois secteurs. Le pre m ier de ces secteurs, hautem ent prioritaire, concerne les thèm es suivants : café, coton, thé, riz, pathologie anim ale, production de lait et de viande de rum inants, conservation du sol et m aîtrise de l'eau, agroforesterie, re cherche sur les systèm es de production et économ ie rurale. L'inclusion de certains pro duits, com m e le thé, le café ou le coton, dans ce secteur prioritaire s'explique notam m ent p a r le fait que leur exportation représente u n e im portante source de devises p o u r le fi nancem ent d u développem ent national (y com pris celui de la recherche agronom ique).Le  C ette analyse s'est fortem ent inspirée des théories économ iques élaborées ces 30 dernières années et appliquées p a r l'ISNAR en 1988 p o u r évaluer le taux de rentabilité de l'investissem ent consenti à la recherche rizicole en U ruguay. Les travaux entrepris dans ce pays et en Bolivie suscitent un vif intérêt auprès des autres SNRA qui espèrent évaluer les avantages financiers de leur re cherche. L'ISNAR a mis en oeuvre des ana lyses sim ilaires en Equateur, en Indonésie et en A frique subsaharienne.Les évaluations économ iques de la re cherche s'avèrent fortem ent utiles. En tant q u'instrum ents de planification, elles p e u vent aider les responsables à estim er les coûts et les avantages des program m es à long term e, et à affecter les ressources en fonction de perform ances m esurées plutôt q ue de critères m oins em piriques. Ces éva luations perm ettent égalem ent aux pouvoirs publics d 'ap p récier l'im portance d e la re cherche agronom ique et son adéquation avec la politique agricole et économique.Ces études ont p o u r objectif d'accroître les capacités des SNRA avec lesquels l'ISNAR collabore afin qu'ils puissent éva luer l'im pact économ ique d e leurs re cherches.En Les progrès réalisés p ar le plus grand institut de recherche de Bolivie, l'IBTA, ont été m oins rapides q u 'au CIAT. La liste ci-dessous expose les points essentiels des activités menées par le service conseil de l'ISNAR dans les pays non repris dans la section précédente.Examen de la proposition de restructuration de la Direction de la recherche agronomique en préparation d'un projet d e la Banque m ondiale et de la FAO visant à renforcer le SNRA.Le ministre de l'Enseignement secondaire et supérieur et de la Recherche scientifique s'est rendu en juin à l'ISNAR afin de discuter d'une collaboration; le directeur de la recherche et deux directeurs adjoints se sont rendus ultérieurement à l'Institut afin d'y préparer leur plan d'activités pour les années à venir.Suivi de l'application des recomm andations émises lors de l'évaluation de l'Institut des sciences agronomi ques du Burundi (ISABU) effectuée par l'ISNAR en 1988 et des principaux progrès réalisés; participation à la préparation d 'u n système de program m ation et à l'examen des règlements du personnel, et recommandations sur les critères d'évaluation du personnel.Evaluation des progrès réalisés dans l'application des plans d'action de l'Institut de la recherche agronomique (IRA) et de l'Institut de recherches zootechniques (IRZ); le conseiller de l'ISNAR en détachement a poursuivi ses travaux sur la programm ation de la recherche à l'IRA.Ghana Suivi de l'étude de diagnostic menée en 1989 : collaboration avec une équipe de scientifiques ghanéens à l'éla boration d 'u n cadre pour le plan de recherche agronomique nationale; ce dernier sera mis au point au cours des 18 à 20 premiers mois lors de la mise en oeuvre d 'u n projet quinquennal visant à renforcer la recherche agronomique; financement prévu par la Banque mondiale.Suivi d'u n atelier sur la planification organisé en 1989 : collaboration avec le Departm ento de Estudos e Pesquizas Agrícolas à la définition des priorités de recherche et à la préparation des programmes d'étude.Participation à la revue à moyen terme (financement externe) du Projet national de recherche agronomique; collaboration avec l'Institut kenyan de recherche agronomique (KARI) à la préparation de son plan de travail pour 1991-92 et à la définition des procédures d'évaluation des projets de recherche au niveau national; re comm andations au Centre national de recherche sur le blé et les oléagineux et au Centre national de recherche agronomique (Muguga) sur la formulation des programmes.Après la revue du SNRA ougandais en 1987/88, l'ISNAR a été chargé de collaborer à la préparation d'u n plan et d'une stratégie nationale de recherche agronomique; détachem ent d'u n spécialiste de l'Institut en Ouganda en 1990; collaboration du personnel et des consultants avec une équipe de travail ougandaise à l'élaboration d 'u n plan en deux volumes et d 'une stratégie de mise en oeuvre.Dernière phase du projet de gestion des ressources humaines et de développem ent institutionnel financé par l'USAID (deux ans); le gouvernem ent et le bailleur de fonds ont par conséquent dem andé à l'ISNAR de pour suivre sa collaboration.Collaboration avec le gouvernem ent somalien à l'évaluation et à la mise à jour du plan stratégique de re cherche agronomique, qui servira de base au projet national de formation et de technologie agricole, financé par un prêt de l'IDA.Collaboration avec le CIRAD à l'élaboration du plan directeur pour la recherche agronom ique nationale, acti vité s'inscrivant dans la phase finale d 'u n projet financé par le PNUD et visant la restructuration de l'Institut national pour l'étude et la recherche agronomiques au Zaïre (INERA).Indonésie Etablissement d 'u n système d'information pour la gestion à l'Agence pour la recherche et le développement agricole (AARD) en collaboration avec un spécialiste de l'ISNAR en détachement; réhabilitation du centre de programm ation de la recherche de l'AARD avec l'aide d 'u n consultant de l'ISNAR.Collaboration avec les responsables du Centre national de recherche agronom ique (NARC) et une équipe de la Banque asiatique de développement à l'élaboration d 'u n plan de recherche à long terme, dans le cadre d'un projet financé par le PNUD (phase finale).Expérimentation-pilote (dans deux instituts de recherche) de méthodes élaborées par l'ISNAR à l'intention des responsables de la recherche : ARIS (système d'inform ation sur les chercheurs en agriculture) et PBS (sys tème de budgétisation des programmes); compte rendu de l'expérience acquise par le Conseil philippin pour la recherche et le développem ent de l'agriculture, de la foresterie et des ressources naturelles (PCARRD) dans le dom aine du suivi et de l'évaluation de ses program m es (en collaboration avec l'ISNAR).Collaboration avec le Conseil pour la politique de recherche agronomique (CARP) à l'élaboration et à l'expéri mentation d 'u n système d'inform ation pour la gestion dans les 19 instituts de recherche du CARP, ainsi qu'à la formation du personnel dans ce domaine.Collaboration avec les responsables à la définition du rôle de la Commission nationale pour la recherche et le transfert de technologies agricoles, précédem m ent établie sur la base des recommandations de l'ISNAR; pré paration d 'u n plan de coopération entre l'Institut et la Commission, après l'approbation du rôle de cette Com mission par le nouveau gouvernement.Recommandations sur le cadre légal et institutionnel régissant l'autonom ie de l'Instituto Nacional de Investi gación Agropecuaria (INIAP) : définition des changements structurels et organisationnels, reformulation et renforcement du processus de planification et de programm ation, et amélioration de la recherche et du trans fert de technologies.Poursuite de la phase de planification du nouvel Instituto Nacional de Investigación Agropecuaria (INIA) : re com m andations sur la politique et la stratégie de développem ent institutionnel, définition des priorités, struc ture et organisation, planification et développement des ressources humaines.L'ISNAR a participé à l'élaboration du nouveau plan décennal de l'Institut des Caraïbes pour la recherche et le développem ent agricoles (CARDI), à la dem ande de ce dernier; lors des différentes missions, le directeur exécutif d u CARDI et les spécialistes de l'ISNAR ont préparé la revue des pays du CARICOM (Communauté des Caraïbes).Collaboration avec une équipe d'experts locaux à l'étude de diagnostic d u système national de recherche : ate lier sur la m éthodologie d'évaluation des systèmes de gestion de la technologie agricole (ATMS) élaborée par l'ISNAR.Participation à la revue à moyen terme du Projet de recherche, de vulgarisation et de formation agricoles; pré paration d'un rapport sur l'amélioration de l'organisation et de la gestion de la Société soudanaise de re cherche agronomique (ARC).Collaboration avec l'équipe nationale de planification stratégique à la préparation et à la mise au point de la stratégie de recherche agronomique.Collaboration avec une équipe d'experts locaux à l'étude de diagnostic du système national de recherche; ate lier sur la méthodologie d'évaluation des systèmes de gestion de la technologie agricole (ATMS) élaborée par l'ISNAR.Outre les pays mentionnés ci-dessus, l'ISNAR a collaboré ou établi des contacts avec plusieurs autres SNRA, combinant généralement les activités de conseil à la recherche et à la formation. Ces pays sont les suivants : Angola, Brésil, Colombie, Chine, Côte d'ivoire, Ethiopie, Fidji, Guinée, Jamaïque, Lesotho, Mexique, Mozam bique, Niger, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Togo, Tonga, Zambie, Zimbabwe.   Les groupes d'experts de chaque pays collaboreront avec les chercheurs et les déci deurs, consigneront leur expérience et iden tifieront les possibilités d'intégration de la biotechnologie aux systèm es nationaux de recherche. Les différentes études com pren dront des inform ations su r les priorités ac tuelles de la recherche, les investissem ents des secteurs public et privé, les procédures de réglem entation, la gestion de la propriété intellectuelle et le transfert de technologies au niveau international. L'étude de l'ISNAR su r la recherche agronom ique réalisée dans 50 petits pays a fortem ent progressé en 1990. La m éthodolo gie (identification et analyse des capacités, des contraintes et des avantages com paratifs d es organism es de recherche dans u n en semble de petits pays) a été am éliorée et ré digée. Les responsables de la recherche nationale collaborant avec l'Institut ont rédi gé les quatre prem ières études de cas (Fidji, H onduras, Sierra Leone et Togo). Le texte fi nal des trois autres (Jamaïque, Lesotho et M aurice) sera prêt vers la mi-1991.A u cours de l'année, des m em bres de l'é quipe ont réalisé deux rapports d 'é tu d e ré gionaux. Ceux-ci portaient su r u n certain nom bre de SNRA de deux régions dis tinctes : l'A frique occidentale francophone et l'A frique australe. Des recherches ont égalem ent été m enées sur les flux de techno logie entre les pays d u Pacifique Sud. Elles devraient conduire à la rédaction d 'u n troi sièm e docum ent.Ce projet vise essentiellem ent l'identifi cation de m odèles d'organisation et de stra tégies de gestion adaptés aux systèm es de recherche des petits pays. Pour ce faire, nous devons connaître, à des fins de com pa raison, la situation actuelle de la recherche d an s le plus g ran d nom bre de pays possible. D ans le cadre de ce m êm e projet, l'ISNAR com pile actuellem ent u n e base de données sur 50 petits pays. Celle-ci reprend quatre types d'inform ations :• les cultures, les systèm es de production et les zones agro-écologiques;• la nature d u systèm e de recherche et sa capacité (im portance de l'aide financière, nom bre de chercheurs, niveau de form a tion, etc.);• les liens entre les com posantes d u sys tème;• les relations avec les sources d e connais sances extérieures.En 1990, des progrès ont été réalisés dans le dom aine de la collecte et de la saisie des deux prem ières catégories de données. La prem ière version d u projet a été conçue en 1989, d e m êm e que la dém arche m éthodologique. En février 1990, lors d 'u n atelier international organisé à La H aye, l'éq u ip e de recherche d e l'ISNAR s'est en tretenue d e l'aspect m éthodologique avec 22 spécialistes participant au projet (scientifi ques, conseillers de l'ISNAR et conseillers externes). Les participants ont ém is p lu sieurs recom m andations concrètes en vue d'am éliorer la procédure. A titre d'exem ple, ils ont préconisé que les chercheurs p ren nent en com pte la stabilité financière d u sys tèm e au fil d u tem ps lorsqu'ils évaluent la taille des SNRA. Les SNRA des petits pays, ont-ils rem arqué, sont particulièrem ent sen sibles aux caprices d u financem ent national ainsi qu'à l'alternance des périodes d 'ex p a n sion et de régression qui, dans les deux cas, p euvent être rapides et spectaculaires.L 'étude de l'ISNAR repose sur l'h y p o thèse selon laquelle les petits pays en déve loppem ent, dotés de m oyens limités, doivent ajuster la taille et l'am p leu r de leur SNRA. Or, com m e l'a souvent observé l'ISNAR, cette am pleur est généralem ent exagérée : les petits systèm es s'engagent dans des program m es de plus en plus L 'étude suppose que les petits pays, à cause de leur faible capacité financière, ne p euvent pas investir facilement dans la re cherche publique. La recherche agronom i que est généralem ent réalisée p a r les organism es les plus divers. O utre les institu tions d'Etat, nous m entionnerons les entre prises privées, les universités, les O N G et les projets de développem ent financés par des bailleurs de fonds. Etant d o n n é l'im por tance de ces agents externes, les SNRA des petits pays doivent accorder u n e attention particulière à leur fonction de coordination. Us peuvent conseiller les gouvernem ents et jouer, p a r conséquent, u n rôle essentiel, m êm e d an s les dom aines ne relevant pas de leur mission.Cette tendance ressort particulièrem ent des études de cas m enées au Lesotho et au H o n d u ras où la recherche agronom ique est généralem ent réalisée en dehors d u cadre des instituts officiels ou des départem ents ministériels. Les principales sources de la recherche sont les universités, les entre prises privées et les projets de développe m ent à court terme. En outre, ces initiatives de recherche n o n gouvernem entales abor d en t souvent des dom aines considérés com m e fondam entaux p ar les SNRA (par exem ple, l'agroforesterie et la conservation d u sol). Ces observations laissent supposer que les SNRA des petits pays p euvent contribuer à renforcer les capacités natio nales en coordonnant les efforts de ces groupes disparates et en canalisant les résul tats de la recherche de m anière à enrichir les connaissances agronom iques générales des pays en question.Les La seconde phase de l'étu d e quad rien nale entreprise par l'ISNAR sur les liaisons entre la recherche agronom ique et le trans fert de technologies s'est achevée en 1990. Les travaux ont porté su r l'analyse des pro blèm es spécifiques p rovenant d 'étu d e s de cas dans six pays, à savoir le Costa Rica, la C ôte d'ivoire, la R épublique dom inicaine, le N igeria, les Philippines et la Tanzanie. Une étude-pilote avait été réalisée précédem m ent en Colombie.A la suite d u départ d u responsable d u projet, l'un des chercheurs chargés de l'étude de cas en Côte d 'ivoire a été recruté, au d ébut de l'année, p o u r en assum er le leadership.Sept docum ents de discussion analyti q ue ont été publiés p e n d a n t l'année (voir page 57). D eux autres seront disponibles vers le deuxièm e sem estre de 1991, soit un total de 12 dans la série. Le projet vient éga lem ent d 'en trer dans sa troisièm e et d e r nière phase, à savoir la synthèse des résultats.Selon u n rap p o rt édité en 1985 par la B anque m ondiale, la question des liaisons constitue « le problèm e prim ordial dans l'élaboration d 'u n systèm e de recherche et de vulgarisation efficace ». L'un des spécia listes collaborant au projet de l'ISNAR a m êm e déclaré que des liaisons peu solides entre les agences de vulgarisation et les ins tituts de recherche « sont pratiquem ent une garantie que les résultats scientifiques n'atteindront pas les agriculteurs ou, en tout cas, que les agriculteurs ne seront pas capa bles de les exploiter ». M alheureusem ent, d ans la majorité des pays en développe m ent, les tentatives de renforcem ent de ces liaisons se sont avérées décevantes. Le processus de synthèse prévoit la p u blication de sept docum ents : quatre p a r le personnel de l'ISNAR et trois p ar des ex perts externes. Les sujets abordés sont les suivants :• l'im pact des pressions extérieures (gou vernem ents, bailleurs d e fonds, associa tions d'agriculteurs, etc.) sur l'efficacité des liaisons;• les besoins en ressources et la gestion des liaisons;• la relation entre la structure d u SNRA (par exem ple, le nom bre d'institutions) et l'efficacité des liaisons avec le transfert de technologies;• la relation entre l'organisation des sys tèm es de recherche (par discipline, pro duit, région, etc.) et l'efficacité des liaisons avec le transfert de technologies;• la d ynam ique de groupe et l'im pact des différences de statut entre les différents agents;• les liaisons nécessaires, selon le type de technologie à dissém iner; Cette section aborde brièvem ent p lu sieurs autres activités de recherche m enées à l'ISNAR, notam m ent les efforts déployés p ar nos groupes de travail. N ous av o n s égalem ent réalisé u n e éva luation prélim inaire des besoins des sys tèm es nationaux d an s ce dom aine. A cette fin, nous n ous som m es entretenus avec les responsables d e la recherche lors d e notre atelier international su r la gestion de la re cherche agronom ique organisé en novem bre. N o u s avons ensuite consulté p en d a n t trois jours certains représentants des sys tèm es nationaux. Cette réunion faisait direc tem ent suite à l'atelier.N ous avons réuni 10 responsables de SNRA, u n spécialiste de l'évaluation de la recherche d u C R D I/ID R C (Canada) ainsi q u 'u n expert de la division R&D (recherchedéveloppem ent) de Shell International. En sem ble, nous avons exam iné le contexte actuel des activités de suivi et d'évaluation au sein des systèm es nationaux, identifié les besoins et proposé plusieurs schém as de collaboration avec l'ISNAR. Un thèm e cen tral peut être dégagé de ces réunions : les ac tivités de S&E ne p euvent être m ises en oeuvre sans une définition précise des ob jectifs de la recherche et des critères d 'év a luation. Selon les participants, il est nécessaire d'élaborer des procédures, des m éthodes d 'analyse et de form ation d 'e m ploi facile p o u r le S&E. Un com pte rendu de ces consultations sera publié en 1991.Enfin, cette année, nous avons réalisé u n e évaluation économ ique en Bolivie dans le cadre de nos activités de S&E. N ous avons collaboré avec le C entro de Investiga ción Agrícola Tropical (CIAT) afin de déter m iner le taux de rentabilité de la recherche sur le soja et celui d u transfert de technolo gies réalisés p ar l'institut depuis 15 ans. Ces activités font l'objet d 'u n rap p o rt plus dé taillé en page 22.D ébut 1990, l'ISNAR entam ait u n e étude de 2 ans et dem i sur le plus grand SNRA du m o nde : celui de la R épublique populaire de Chine. Le projet est réalisé en collaboration avec l'Institut d'économ ie rurale de l'A cadé m ie chinoise des sciences agronom iques (CAAS) et le Centre p o u r la politique ali m entaire et agricole internationale (CIFAP) de l'U niversité d u M innesota (Etats-Unis). Financées p a r la fondation Rockefeller, ces activités s'inspirent des travaux effectués préalablem ent p ar le m em bre principal de l'équipe de recherche, u n spécialiste chinois de l'économ ie rurale actuellem ent basé à l'ISNAR.Le projet vise les objectifs suivants :• décrire le systèm e chinois, son évolution institutionnelle et le développem ent des capacités de recherche;• estim er l'im pact d e la recherche agrono m ique su r l'accroissem ent de la produc tion;• réaliser u ne analyse prélim inaire des prin cipaux problèm es politiques influençant la répartition des ressources consenties à la recherche.  Le systèm e INFORM a été décrit dans le détail. U ne série de notices techniques se ront éditées p ar l'ISNAR en 1991. Elles se ront égalem ent accom pagnées d 'u n support didactique. N ous avons produit trois publications su r ce projet au cours de l'année 1990 et, no tam m ent, u n rap p o rt de synthèse d 'u n im p o rtan t atelier organisé en 1989. Les deux autres consistent en u n e analyse com para tive de la recherche sur les systèm es de pro duction et les problèm es de personnel, ainsi q u 'u n d ocum ent de réflexion su r le rôle des agents de liaison entre la recherche et la vul garisation en Zambie.La prem ière de ces publications, intitulée The Technology Triangle, exam ine les relations entre la recherche, le transfert de technolo gies et les agriculteurs (voir page 39). Le C entre technique de coopération agricole et rurale (CTA) a accepté de financer la traduc tion française de cet im portant ouvrage en vue d 'en assurer u n e plus large distribution, u n e initiative dont l'ISNAR se félicite.En 1990, le projet OFCOR a suscité une activité à la fois inattendue et intéressante. Le gouvernem ent tanzanien a en effet requis la collaboration de l'ISNAR p o u r élaborer u n projet de six ans, financé par les Pays-Bas, et visant à développer les capacités na tionales de recherche sur les systèm es de production. L'ISNAR a utilisé ses propres com pétences et les résultats de l'étude OFCOR afin de définir la com posante insti tutionnelle d u projet tanzanien ainsi, d'ail leurs, que le volet formation.  En 1990, l'ISNAR a lancé u n projet visant à étu d ier les interactions entre les secteurs public et privé. Celui-ci abordera plusieurs dom aines d an s lesquels les deux secteurs p eu v en t éventuellem ent com pléter leur ac tion, ainsi q ue les différentes sources de fi nancem ent de la recherche. La prem ière p hase sera am orcée en 1991. Les chercheurs élaboreront un cadre conceptuel et une base de données sur la R&D d u secteur privé. La seconde phase com portera plusieurs études de cas.Le projet sera réalisé conjointem ent p ar l'ISNAR, plusieurs SNRA et des organism es de développem ent. Les décideurs pourront ap p ré h en d e r le rôle des secteurs public et privé d an s la recherche agronom ique. Le projet p erm ettra d'identifier u n certain nom bre de possibilités d 'organisation struc turelle. Il doit enfin aider les responsables des SNRA à m ieux ap p réh en d er l'évolution des deux secteurs et leur im pact su r l'orga nisation, les priorités et les program m es des instituts nationaux.Les cadres de la recherche agronomique sont appelés à mener des activités complexes engageant leur responsabilité au plus haut niveau : élaboration de politiques, organisation et gestion. Citons, entre autres exemples, la pla nification stratégique, l'établissement des priorités de recherche, la budgéti sation des programmes, la gestion des ressources humaines et financières, des terres, des bâtiments et de l'équipement. S'acquitter de ces tâches avec compétence exige un niveau d'expertise -des capacités spécifiques que peu de responsables de la recherche ont pu acquérir par une formation for melle au cours de leur carrière les m enant du laboratoire au bureau directo rial.En 1990, l'IS N A R a participé activement, parfois comme organisateur, à 27 activités de formation ou conférences dans 18 pays. Il s'agissait, dans la plupart des cas, de manifestations s'étendant sur une à trois semaines. Cinq furent de dimension internationale, cinq de type régional et seize d'ordre national (axées sur un pays particulier), tandis que la dernière réu nissait deux pays. Le nombre total de participants à ces activités s 'est élevé à 693 personnes, hommes et femm es, ce chiffre ne comprenant pas le per sonnel de l'IS N A R . La création de quatre bases de données figure au nom bre des grandes réalisations de l'unité au cours de l'année 1990. Ces bases contiennent les profils des stagiaires, des descriptions d'activités reprenant les ob jectifs et le contenu de chaque atelier, stage ou séminaire, ainsi q u 'u n inventaire du m a tériel didactique disponible et des évalua tions de la form ation fondées sur les données provenant des questionnaires rem plis par les stagiaires au term e de chaque ac tivité de formation. D 'ores et déjà, ces questionnaires ont perm is de déterm iner l'utilité réelle du stage p o u r les personnes sélectionnées. Les cadres de l'ISNAR se fon dent égalem ent sur les évaluations des p a r ticipants p o u r décider d 'u n e modification éventuelle de la conception des su p p o rts di dactiques et, le cas échéant, de ses m odali tés.L'unité a égalem ent lancé, en 1990, une « Série de publications sur la form ation ». Les deux prem iers ouvrages sont des m a nuels de form ation des form ateurs destinés au personnel de l'ISNAR et aux spécialistes des SNRA; ils évoquent les aspects fonda m entaux de la conception et de la réalisation C 'est en 1990 que l'ISNAR et l'Institut kenyan de recherche agronom ique (KARI) ont vu leur projet innovateur de form ation à long term e, élaboré l'année précédente, por ter ses prem iers fruits. Trois ateliers destinés aux responsables de la recherche et aux scientifiques ainsi q u 'u n e conférence scienti fique nationale ont en effet été organisés d an s le cadre d u Projet de form ation K A R I/ISN A R sur la gestion de la recherche agronom ique.Ces m anifestations sont les prem ières des 25 activités de form ation prévues dans ce projet. Celui-ci, qui bénéficie d 'u n e sub vention de 1,12 m illions de dollars am éri cains octroyée p ar la C om m ission des com m unautés européennes, a p o u r objectif l'am élioration de la gestion de la recherche au sein d u SNRA kenyan, et devrait se pro longer jusq u 'en 1994.Le prem ier atelier a exam iné les pro blèm es de gestion liés à la réorganisation C ette association entre l'ISNAR et le sys tèm e de recherche agronom ique kenyan est ancienne. En fait, le projet d e form ation doit être placé d an s le contexte des relations de coopération antérieures unissant l'ISNAR au Kenya. Ces liens rem ontent à 1981, lors q ue nous avons procédé à u n e revue d u sys tèm e national de recherche agronom ique. Ils se sont encore renforcés en 1984-85, q u an d no u s avons contribué à la rédaction d u plan stratégique national d e la recherche agrono mique. Le projet de form ation ISNAR/KAR1 ac tuel est la concrétisation des recom m anda tions figurant d an s le N A R P de 1986. Les différents types de m anifestations organi sées d u ra n t les cinq années que durera le projet de form ation peu v en t être classés en cinq catégories :• ateliers de sensibilisation et de l'analyse générale (par exemple, susciter une com préhension et u n consensus large su r la stratégie et l'organisation de la recherche agronom ique au Kenya);• ateliers ayant p o u r thèm e la gestion de la recherche (par exem ple, initiation à des sujets spécifiques, com m e l'établissem ent de priorités, la form ulation des pro gram m es et le développem ent des res sources hum aines);• ateliers visant le dévelo p p em en t des com pétences (par exem ple, rédaction scientifi q ue et recours à l'inform atique dans l'exécution des tâches de gestion);• ateliers d 'a u d it (état d 'av an cem en t des program m es d e recherche sur les pro duits, facteurs ou systèm es d e production spécifiques);• ateliers techniques (acquisition, p ar de jeunes chercheurs, d 'ap titu d es techniques spécifiques).L'ISNAR considère q ue ce projet lui offre u n e occasion u n iq u e d'enrichir sa connais sance d 'u n systèm e national su r plusieurs années. En 1990, nous avons p u renforcer notre com préhension des besoins d u KARI en m atière d e form ation, tout en travaillant en étroite coopération avec son pro g ram m eLors d'une rencontre télévisée et diffusée en direct, en septembre dernier, le vice-gouverneur de la province chinoise de Hebei (assis à droite) examine les organigrammes des systèmes de recherche agronomique, de vulgarisation et d'enseigne ment supérieur en place dans sa juridiction. A droite se tient le directeur du Département d'agriculture de la Commis sion des sciences et des technologies de la province de Hebei. Un représentant de l'ISN AR (assis à gauche) et un interprète (debout à gauche) avaient présenté ces schémas lors d'un séminaire sur la gestion, première activité de forma tion réalisée par l'ISN AR en Chine. d e form ation interne. Deux form ateurs d u KARI se sont égalem ent rendus au siège de l'ISNAR, où ils ont consacré deux sem aines à approfondir leurs connaissances en m a tière de program m ation et d'organisation des activités de form ation.P our le Kenya, cette prem ière année de projet am orce la création, sur des bases so lides, d 'u n corps national de responsables de la recherche m otivés et hau tem en t quali fiés, m ission critique s'il en est. Lorsque ces responsables au ro n t les rênes d e la re cherche bien en main, le Kenya sera prêt à relever le d ouble défi des années 90 en m a tière de viabilité d e l'agriculture, à savoir l'accroissem ent d e la p roduction et la ges tion rationnelle de ressources naturelles li mitées.une première pour l'ISNAR Fin 1988, l'ISNAR a conclu u n protocole d'accord avec le C entre national de dévelop pem ent de la technologie rurale (NCRTD) de la C om m ission chinoise d'E tat des sciences et des technologies (SSTC). Cet ac cord m entionnait plusieurs dom aines sus ceptibles de faire l'objet d 'u n e coopération, parm i lesquels l'am élioration indispensable d u potentiel national de gestion de la re cherche agronom ique. A l'instar d u projet de form ation ISN A R /K A R I m ené au Kenya, les prem iers résultats concrets de cette ini tiative o nt v u le jour en 1990.U n expert de l'ISNAR s'est rendu en C hine au printem ps 1990 afin d 'y préparer en détail l'organisation, dans la province de Hebei, au nord-est d u pays, d 'u n atelier sur la gestion de la recherche, la prem ière de nos activités conjointes. P ortant su r le sys tèm e de recherche au niveau provincial, cette activité a été conçue com m e u n e expé rience pédagogique susceptible de profiter autant à l'ISNAR q u 'à ses interlocuteurs chi nois. C 'est la prem ière fois que l'on testait la pertinence et l'utilité, p o u r la Chine, des ap proches de gestion de la recherche figurant d an s la « panoplie d'outils » proposés par l'ISNAR.Cet atelier d 'u n e sem aine s'est déroulé en septem bre à Z hengding, en coopération avec la C om m ission des sciences et des technologies de la province de Hebei (HBSTC). Trente-trois responsables d e ni veau supérieur et interm édiaire ont pris part à cette activité. L 'anim ateur de l'atelier, détaché p a r l'ISNAR, a abordé un large éventail de sujets liés à la gestion : de la pla nification de la recherche et d e l'établisse m ent des priorités à la gestion des res sources hum aines, sans oublier les liens avec les universités, la vulgarisation et les agriculteurs. Les exposés, ainsi que les su p ports visuels en chinois, ont été présentés avec l'aide d 'u n interprète.Cet atelier a perm is de jeter une pre m ière base solide. Les exposés ont été ap préciés des participants. La direction politique provinciale s'est déclarée fort sa tisfaite des résultats. Le vice-gouverneur de la province de Hebei a rappelé, au cours d 'u n e allocution publique et télévisée, les préoccupations d u g o u vernem ent en m a tière d e problèm es agricoles et écologiques à long term e, ainsi q ue son souhait de coopé rer d o rénavant avec l'ISNAR d an s le cadre d e la planification stratégique de la re cherche. En second lieu, l'ISNAR a p u se familia riser avec la logistique d 'u n e activité de for m ation à organiser dans un environnem ent culturel et linguistique jusque-là inconnu; le recours à u n interprète et à des supports tra duits est chose faisable. Enfin, l'atelier a p er m is à l'ISNAR de rassem bler des données concrètes et actualisées sur le systèm e de re cherche agronom ique de la province d e Hebei et son organisation, données qui p o u r ront être partagées, en fin d e processus, avec d 'au tres pays collaborant avec l'ISNAR. En 1989, la Banque asiatique d e dévelop pem en t (ADB) octroyait à l'ISNAR les fonds Les participants à deux séminaires asiatiques sur l'information pour la gestion ont consacré plus de la moitié de leur temps deformation à se familiariser avec l'utilisation des micro-ordinateurs et le système INFORM en vue d'identifier des solutions aux problèmes de la gestion de la recherche. Ces spécialistes de l'information et du traitement de données sont employés par le Département de planification et technique du ministère thaïlandais de l'Agriculture. Ils ont bénéfi cié, durant l'atelier de Los Bahos, des conseils d'une formatrice philippine du PCARRD (deuxième à partir de la droite), spécialiste de la budgétisation de programmes.  La recherche agronom ique du Malawi, pays d'A frique australe, fait l'objet, depuis quelques années, d 'u n e réorientation radi cale. La principale instance de recherche gouvernem entale, le D épartem ent de la re cherche agronom ique (DAR), consacre au jo u rd 'h u i ses efforts aux 1,2 millions de familles rurales et à leurs besoins en m atière d e technologies. Ces petits agriculteurs ex ploitent 70 p. 100 de la superficie cultivée au L'atelier international a fourni aux res ponsables des SNRA u n e occasion idéale d 'en trer en contact avec leurs hom ologues d 'au tres p ay s et d 'échanger leurs expé riences. L'ISNAR, q u an t à lui, a p u exploiter à bon escient les inform ations sur les sys tèm es de recherche et su r les besoins futurs, qui ém anaient des participants. A u cours de l'atelier, les participants des SNRA ont reçu chacun u n questionnaire. Les questions p o r taient su r u n ensem ble d e thèm es, com m e les b u ts d e l'agriculture, les contraintes à la Q uestion 2: Q uels buts po ur l'ag ricu ltu re à l'h o rizo n 2 000 ? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- • Classez p ar ordre d'im p o rtan ce les contraintes susceptibles d e freiner la re cherche agronom ique à l'horizon de l'an 2000 : m an q u e de chercheurs expéri m entés, m an q u e de ressources perm ettant de financer les chercheurs, m an q u e de ressources physiques adéquates, m anque L 'élargissem ent d u réseau GCRAI à l'étude d 'au tres ressources naturelles, dont la foresterie, a porté la problém atique de la viabilité de la production au prem ier rang des préoccupations de la recherche interna tionale. Les systèm es nationaux doivent réa gir au défi que pose l'intégration d u concept de viabilité d an s les politiques de recherche, les program m es, l'organisation et la gestion de la recherche. U n nouveau type de ré flexion s'avère indispensable au sein des SNRA et des instituts de recherche interna tionaux.L'ISNAR a franchi une étape im portante d an s cette direction en octobre dernier en interrogeant les responsables de plusieurs SNRA q u an t à leurs besoins dans ce d o maine. Pour ce faire, nous avons organisé u n e consultation de trois jours avec six spé cialistes externes et d em andé l'élaboration d e plusieurs docum ents de fond (un docu m ent de portée générale et quatre études de cas) destinés à stim uler la discussion. La réunion était intitulée « Politique, organisa tion et gestion de la recherche agronom ique p o u r une production viable ».Parm i les spécialistes conviés à cette ren contre figuraient quatre hauts responsables de la recherche originaires d u Brésil, d'E gypte, d 'In d e et de l'organisation régio nale africaine, le SACCAR. D eux autres ex perts, des agronom es, avaient été détachés, l'un, p ar u n institut néerlandais et l'autre, p ar le PNUD. A telier international sur les systèm es d 'in fo rm atio n p o u r la gestion de la recherche agronom ique. Manifes tation de portée régionale : sud-est asiatique. Du 13 au 23 novembre à Los Baños, aux Philippines. agronomes, adm inistrateurs de la recherche et cadres d'Indonésie, du Laos, de Malaisie, du Myanmar, de Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée, des Philippines et de Thaïlande.A telier FA O /ISN A R/IICA /IN IA P su r la planification stratégique et la gestion de la recherche agronom i que. Manifestation régionale : A m ériq u e latine. Du 2 au 6 avril, à Quito, en E quateur. 14 directeurs de la pla nification et chefs de station provenant de pays latino-américains et 14 responsables équatoriens de la recherche.Atelier : E valuation éco n o m iq u e de la recherche ag ro n o m iq u e (Initiation aux grands concepts et présenta tion de la méthodologie et des résultats de l'étude de cas sur le soja). Le 25 mai, à Santa Cruz, en Bolivie. agronomes d u CIAT issus de la base et des échelons intermédiaires de la hiérarchie (Santa Cruz).Conférence : E valuation économ ique d e la recherche ag ro n o m iq u e -le cas d u soja. (Présentation des résul tats de l'étude et des motifs justifiant un accroissement des investissements dans la recherche agronomique). Le 30 mai, à Santa Cruz, en Bolivie. 15 participants : représentants du m onde rural, du ministère de l'Agricul ture et de la presse locale.A telier C A R D I/FA O /IICA /ISN A R su r la planification stratégique organisé à l'in ten tio n des SN RA des pe tits pays. Manifestation régionale : Caraïbes. Du 24 au 28 septembre à Kingston, en Jam aïque. 25 responsa bles de la recherche des Bahamas, de la Barbade, de Grenade, de Guyana, de Haïti, de la Jamaïque, de Sainte-Lucie, de la Trinité-et-Tobago, de la République dominicaine et du Surinam.A telier su r le suivi et l'évaluation. Les 8 et 9 octobre, à Santa Cruz, en Bolivie. 13 responsables de la re cherche, dont des chefs de program m e employés par le Centro de Investigación Agrícola Tropical (CIAT).Atelier : Initier l'éq u ip e d 'év alu atio n locale à la réalisation d 'u n e étu d e de diagnostic sur le SNRA. Les et 13 août, à Sanaa, au Yém en. 5 responsables de la recherche agronomique issus des différents instituts natio naux du Yémen, tous membres d 'une équipe d'étude pluridisciplinaire.Atelier : Initier l'é q u ip e d 'év alu atio n locale à la réalisation d 'u n e étu d e de diagnostic sur le SNRA. Les 2 et 3 octobre, en A lgérie, à Alger. 5 responsables de la recherche agronomique issus des différents instituts natio naux algériens, tous membres d'une équipe d'étude pluridisciplinaire.Atelier : P roblèm es liés à l'analyse des SN R A des petits pays et m éthodologie utilisée. Du 29 janvier au février, à La Haye. 7 chercheurs et 7 conseillers extérieurs travaillant sur le projet ISNAR consacré aux petits pays ainsi que 8 conseillers de l'ISNAR.A telier sur la gestion de la recherche. Contribution de l'ISNAR au Stage international consacré à la recherche agronomique axée sur le développem ent (1CRA). Du 21 au 23 février, à Wageningen, aux Pays-Bas. 21 jeunes agronomes originaires de pays en développement.Réunion consultative : P olitique, organisation et gestion de la recherche ag ro n o m iq u e p o u r le m aintien d 'u n e agriculture durable. Du 15 au 17 octobre, à La Haye. 4 hauts responsables de la recherche originaires de pays en développement, 2 spécialistes détachés par des agences extérieures et participation de cadres supé rieurs de l'ISNAR.Atelier international sur la gestion de la recherche agronom ique. Du 5 au 9 novembre, à l'ISNAR (La Haye). 32 hauts responsables de la recherche originaires de pays en développement, ainsi que des cadres de l'ISNAR.Réunion consultative : Suivi et év alu atio n de la recherche agronom ique. Du 12 au 14 novembre, à La Haye. Cadres de l'ISNAR et 12 conseillers : 11 hauts responsables de la recherche et u n spécialiste externe de la pla nification et de l'évaluation.Service de publication L e service a p ro d u it 51 publications en 1990 (voir page 57). N otre liste d 'a dresses s'est quelque peu allongée et com prend à l'heure actuelle près de 4 200 noms. O utre l'édition, la p réparation et la révision des m anuscrits ju squ'au stade de publica tion officielle de l'ISNAR, le service a rédigé de nom breux rapports p o u r les réunions et les conférences. Au cours de l'année, notre personnel a égalem ent rédigé et publié q u a tre num éros de l'ISN A R Newsletter.A u début de l'année, nous avons été af fligés p a r le décès d 'u n am i de longue date, Albert V.J. « Bob » M artin. Il avait rejoint le service de publication en 1984, en qualité de des économ ies substantielles au niveau des publications.A u cours de l'année, no u s avons égale m ent pris différentes m esures afin de créer u n e nouvelle im age de m arque. Ce rapport annuel en constitue u n exem ple concret.La bibliothèque de l'ISNAR sert essen tiellem ent aux cadres de l'Institut, aux con sultants et à la com m unauté scientifique des Pays-Bas. Elle répond égalem ent aux d e m andes externes ém anant des instituts de recherche, des bailleurs de fonds et d'autres organisations de p a r le m onde.La collection de la bibliothèque s'est ac crue de 4 000 docum ents p o u r atteindre un total de 14 500 en 1990. Etant donné le no m bre limité d'o u v rag es et le centre d'intérêt spécifique, à savoir l'organisation et la ges tion de la recherche, nous devons faire a p pel à d 'au tres bibliothèques p o u r obtenir u n g rand nom bre des docum ents requis par n otre personnel.A u cours de l'année 1990, la bibliothè No. 1. Research-Extension Liaison Officers in Zam bia: Bridging the Gap between Research and Exten sion. September 1990. Tonyaw o A ithnard, ministère du Développement rural du Togo. A participé à la préparation d'une étude de cas sur le système national de recherche agronomique (SNRA) de son pays.Julian A lston, University of California, à Davis (Etats-Unis). A participé à la préparation d 'u n docu ment de projet ACIAR/ISNAR et d 'u n manuel d'ac compagnement à intégrer au manuscrit intitulé « Priorités de la recherche agricole », qu'il a ensuite adapté en vue de sa publication.G ustavo A ndrade, Rome (Italie). A étudié les procé dures et aspects administratifs liés à INTAGRES en Italie.O rnella A rim ondo, Rome (Italie). A participé à la dernière phase de l'étude de cas du Togo dans le ca dre d u projet de l'ISNAR consacré aux petits pays.Richard Bawden, University of Western Sidney (Australie). A présenté, au siège de l'ISNAR, un sé minaire sur « les universités rurales pour le dévelop pement; une perspective systématique ». P.C. Bélem, Institut d'études et de recherche agrono miques (INERA, Burkina Faso). A préparé un article sur le processus de la planification de la recherche agricole au Burkina Faso.S tep h en Biggs, University of East Angiia, Norwich (Royaume-Uni). A préparé, dans le cadre du projet OFCOR, une étude sur la nature de la coopération.A.H. Bunting, University of Reading (Royaume-Uni). A élaboré une politique de recherche agricole pour la Tanzanie et présenté un docum ent analyti que. S.G. C am pbell, Cornell University, Ithaca (Etats-Unis). A préparé un plan de recherche sur les pro ductions animales couvrant les aspects production, santé, et nutrition des bovins, volailles, caprins, por cins et lapins en accord avec la politique de dévelop pement de l'élevage du ministère ougandais des Industries animales.Jo aq u im César, Huam bo (Angola). A élaboré ou adapté des supports pédagogiques en portugais dans le cadre du projet SACCAR/1SNAR, et partici pé à l'atelier rassemblant à M aputo des délégués an golais et mozambicains sur le thème de la planification de la recherche et de la gestion des res sources humaines.Chayce Publication Service, Devon (Royaume-Uni). Simon Chater et Kay Sayce ont préparé le rapport de synthèse de l'atelier intitulé « Faire la liaison ». E. Clayton (Royaume-Uni). A contribué au projet ougandais par des études socio-économiques dans le cadre de la préparation d'un plan directeur de re cherche fondé sur les disponibilités en ressources ac tuelles et à venir et sur la capacité institutionnelle de ce pays.M ario Contreras, La Lima, Departamento de Cortes (Honduras). A préparé une étude de cas sur le sys tème national de recherche agronomique (SNRA) du Honduras.Jo h n Coulter, Sussex (Royaume-Uni). A élaboré un docum ent d'orientation décrivant la position de l'ISNAR quant aux définitions, concepts et procé dures à suivre en matière de planification. Barbara Craig, Oberlin Collège (Etats-Unis). A pro cédé à la révision de deux chapitres du volume sur la Politique d e la recherche agronomique.G rah am Currell, Bristol Polytechnic (Royaume-Uni). A émis, dans le cadre du projet tanzanien, des conseils relatifs à la remise en état des équipements de laboratoire utilisés par le système de recherche agronomique d e ce pays.Aly Rucai D auto, ministère de l'Agriculture, M apu to (Mozambique). A planifié et géré le secrétariat de l'atelier organisé à M aputo (Mozambique).T. D ahniya, Njala University, Freetown (Sierra Leone). A préparé une étude de cas sur le système national de recherche agronomique (SNRA) de la Sierra Leone.C harles D ouglas, University of the West Indies C am pus à St Augustine (Trinité-et-Tobago). A prépa ré une étude de cas sur le système national de re cherche agronom ique (SNRA) de la Jamaïque. K.R. Ellinger, Drysdale (Australie). A participé au projet tanzanien en élaborant des prévisions rela tives aux ressources financières utilisables par le sys tèm e de recherche d'ici 5 à 10 ans.Paul Engel, Faculté agronomique de Wageningen (Pays-Bas). A élaboré un docum ent de synthèse inti tulé « Des systèmes de technologie agricole diffé rents pour une conception et une gestion des liaisons différentes. » T h o m as E ponou, Abidjan (Côte d'ivoire). A travaillé en consultation avec le groupe de travail principal sur la synthèse de l'étude des liaisons entre la re cherche et le transfert des technologies (RTTL), et préparé, en accord avec cette synthèse, une stratégie tenant compte des tendances relevées dans le passé. Jan J.A. Feyen, Blanden (Belgique). A contribué et participé au projet tanzanien.W illiam K. G am ble, M inneapolis (Etats-Unis). A ré digé un texte sur la politique de recherche du gou vernem ent tanzanien dans les 5 à 10 années à venir.G regory G ib b o n s, M elbourne (Australie). A remis à jour la base de données relative aux biotechnologies dans les pays membres de l'ASEAN; a remis à jour la m éthodologie des études de cas nationales devant être menées par l'ISNAR en 1990 dans le dom aine des biotechnologies; a élaboré un plan de travail pour le service consultatif offert aux pays dans les domaines de la biotechnologie agricole et de l'infor mation sur l'acquisition de ces technologies.Elon G ilbert, Serrekunde (Gambie). A participé à la préparation du projet de Plan national ougandais de recherche agronomique.A yélé-M aw uto G ninofou, ministère du Développe m ent rural, Lomé (Togo). A élaboré une étude d e cas sur le système national togolais de recherche agrono m ique (SNRA). P.S. G ooch, pour CAB International, Wallingford (Royaume-Uni). A mis à jour un rapport de la FAO sur les systèmes de documentation.G errit Jan de Graaf, Am sterdam (Pays-Bas). A pré paré, pour le projet ougandais, un plan de recherche reprenant tous les aspects de la pêche lacustre, de l'aquaculture et de la transformation des produits de la pêche.T héodore Graham -Tom asi, University of Minneso ta, St. Paul, (Etats-Unis). A préparé un document ayant pour objectif d'aider les SNRA à formuler leur politique et à planifier leurs program m es de re cherche.A rnold J. G rayson, Farnham, Surrey (Royaume-Uni). A élaboré, pour le projet ougandais, un plan de recherche couvrant la forêt naturelle, la forêt de plantation, Tagroforesterie, le traitement et la conser vation du bois, ainsi que la protection de l'environ nement.J.M. H irst, Bristol (Royaume-Uni). A aidé et conseil lé les membres des groupes de travail du projet tan zanien dans la formulation de programm es de recherche, et préparé le projet final d 'u n plan. R obert Kern, Ames, Iowa (Etats-Unis). Préparation du rapport annuel 1989; a préparé et mené l'atelier KARI/ISNAR organisé au Kenya sur « la rédaction et la présentation scientifiques ».La G ro Lawyers c.s., Gouda (Pays-Bas). A apporté des conseils juridiques sur un ensemble de questions de droit international public et privé ayant trait au statut légal de l'ISNAR.Reginald M aclntyre, Ottawa (Canada). A procédé à la rédaction d'articles mandatés et d 'u n rapport de synthèse sur l'étude des biotechnologies. B.N. M ajisu, National Council For Science and Technology, Nairobi (Kenya). A analysé les activités de recherche agricole menées au Kenya, et rédigé un docum ent sur les questions de planification, les mé canismes et les procédures en vigueur au National Council for Science and Technology. J. M anrakhan, University of Mauritius. A préparé une étude de cas sur le système national de re cherche agronomique (SNRA) de l'île Maurice.A lbert V.J. M artin, Oegstgeest (Pays-Bas). Travaux de rédaction et de traduction en français.Jean M cAllister, New York (Etats-Unis). A préparé une première m outure complète d'une étude compa rative OFCOR et participé à la gestion de l'établisse ment de liens institutionnels dans le cadre du projet OFCOR.Bonnie M cClafferty, Connecticut (Etats-Unis). A participé au projet et au séminaire sur les petits pays.T. N am ane, Ministry of Agriculture and Marketing, Masero (Lesotho). A préparé une étude de cas sur le système national de recherche agronomique du Le sotho. A mené une étude sur le système national de re cherche agronomique du Botswana; a également préparé un plan de recherche pastorale couvrant les aspects production, santé, et nutrition des bovins, volailles, caprins, porcins et lapins en accord avec la politique de développem ent de l'élevage du minis tère ougandais des Industries animales. R odrigues Pereira, Instituto Nacional de Investigaçào Agronomica, M aputo (Mozambique). A élaboré ou adapté des supports didactiques en portugais en vue de l'atelier A ngola/M ozam bique.Tarcizio Q uirino, Brasilia (Brésil). A rassemblé des documents (plans de recherche, etc.), en vue de la préparation de matériel de formation, qu'il a élabo rés ou adaptés en portugais; a participé à l'atelier Angola / Mozambique. M.V. Rao, N ew Delhi (Inde). A préparé un plan de recherche sur les cultures vivrières à l'intention du ministère ougandais de l'Agriculture.Walter Rockw ood, Chelsea, Vermont (Etats-Unis). A préparé des directives sur l'élaboration du MIS à l'intention des responsables asiatiques de la re cherche agricole, ainsi que des supports de forma tion pour deux ateliers.N iels Roling, Faculté agronomique de W ageningen (Pays-Bas). A rédigé un article de synthèse sur « les procédures d'établissement de liaisons distinctes pour des technologies différentes ». John F.A. Russell, Exeter (Royaume-Uni). A collabo ré au projet tanzanien au niveau de l'analyse et de l'interprétation des résultats; a également identifié les besoins en données supplémentaires et supervisé la collecte de l'information; a participé à la rédaction de rapports et d'autres documents en vue de prépa rer la version finale du plan NARM. H.J. Schwartz, Université technique de Berlin (Répu blique fédérale d'Allemagne). A aidé et conseillé les membres des groupes de travail oeuvrant, dans le cadre du projet tanzanien, à la formulation de pro gramm es de recherche; a préparé un projet final de plan.George Sem peho, Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzanie). A coor donné la préparation du Plan directeur de la re cherche agronomique nationale de Tanzanie; a circonscrit et normalisé les données relatives aux res sources humaines à analyser dans le cadre du projet tanzanien. P hilip Serafini, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (Etats-Unis). A défini les besoins de développement des stations de recherche actuelles et à venir en vue d'améliorer le potentiel de recherche agricole ougan dais.Param Sivan, University of South Pacific, Alafua Campus, Apia (Samoa occidentales). A préparé une étude de cas sur le système national de recherche agronomique (SNRA) de Fidji. W .D . Sm ilde, Wageningen (Pays-Bas). A apporté son aide au groupe MIS lors des dernières étapes des travaux MIS 1990-1991 relatifs au Sri Lanka; a prépa ré des supports d'étude à des fins de formation; a élaboré, dans le cadre du service conseil, les profils de collaboration de l'ISNAR avec les différents sys tèmes nationaux de recherche agronomique.Leopold Some, INERA, O uagadougou (Burkina Fa so). A participé, en tant qu'animateur, à l'atelier inti tulé « Le système de recherche et application des résultats des recherches au Mali » organisé à Bama ko, au Mali; a rédigé un rapport d'atelier dans le ca dre d u projet AGIR/ISNAR. K rystyna Stave, New York (Etats-Unis). A préparé des supports et présenté des exposés dans le cadre du séminaire « Information sur la gestion des res sources hum aines », organisé au siège de l'ISNAR.El H adj Tall, Bamako (Mali). A organisé l'atelier sur « les perspectives d'intégration des systèmes de ges tion » au Burkina Faso et participé à ladite réunion.G eoffrey Tansey, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire (Royaume-Uni). A élaboré, à l'occasion du dixième anniversaire de l'ISNAR, un matériel de présenta tion destiné aux média. E m m anuel D. Tebong, directeur de l'Institut de Re cherches Zootechniques de Yaoundé (Cameroun). A analysé les activités de planification de la recherche menées à l'Institut de Recherches Zootechniques dans le cadre du système national camerounais de recherche.Beatriz Uribe, La H aye (Pays-Bas). A élaboré une base de données de références bibliographiques sur les aspects S&E de la recherche agricole dans les pays en développement; a compilé et indexé la bibli ographie en question, et rédigé plusieurs chapitres de la revue bibliographique. S ondra W entzel, Berlin (République fédérale d'Alle magne). A préparé l'étude de cas OFCOR sur l'Indo nésie en vue de sa publication.Stanley W ood, Bogor (Indonésie). A rédigé un docu ment de projet ACIAR/ISNAR et apporté directe ment son aide au personnel de la recherche du CAER.A.M. W oodw ard, Cardiff (Royaume-Uni). A partici pé au projet tanzanien en identifiant les conditions d'établissement d'une infrastructure d'inform a tio n /d e documentation.T. W orm er, M uiden (Pays-Bas). A participé au projet tanzanien en identifiant des priorités de recherche sur le caféier, le théier, le riz et le cotonnier.Fang Z hou, La Haye (Pays-Bas). A participé à la pré paration d'u n atelier.Law rence Z uidem a, Cornell (Etats-Unis). A contri bué au projet ougandais en élaborant un plan des ef fectifs destinés au système de recherche.        ","tokenCount":"12544"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"78d6819473ec624a627fea1a7f825fa3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c4ab5a85-d0c5-472a-83df-d15bb9578486/retrieve","id":"1891899264"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"55d76d9e-d610-4317-a506-8adf9542f55b","pagecount":"2","content":"The revised National Seed Policy (2018) recognizes community seedbanks, has provisions for regulation, production and sale of quality declared seeds, including a provision for the national listing of traditional varieties. • UgandaOutcome Impact Case Report:• 3125 -Supportive policy environment on informal seed system led to increased utilization of local climate-resilient varieties in East Africa (https://tinyurl.com/y56zsqqh)• 3189 -Community-based seed systems increases access/availability of high-quality adapted seeds for 189,000 farmers in East Africa (https://tinyurl.com/288veoho)• 3848 -Enhancing capacity for climate change adaptation: upscaling best performing varieties of sorghum, finger millet, bean, wheat and barley in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia (https://tinyurl.com/y9czegop)• I1070 -Resilient seed systems approach and methodology (https://tinyurl.com/2l6unmdr) • I1072 -Holistic and dynamic approach and methodology to establish and support multifunctional community seedbanks (https://tinyurl.com/2eozyneg)• New priority setting framework being used to target more transformational food system interventions in selected countries• 35 -Enabled environment for climate resilience • 27 -Enrichment of plant and animal biodiversity for multiple goods and services • 41 -Conducive agricultural policy environment","tokenCount":"163"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c76ab800ec7abfa8ba817efaa67c0009","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/867f1879-c221-49b5-97ff-8f84bb061afd/retrieve","id":"60437887"},"keywords":["Drought stress","Maize, Root system architecture","Water-deficit","Zea mays L. Abbreviations: CAAM_CIMMYT Asia Association Mapping panel","GDD_Growing degree days","DT_drought stress","VPD_Vapour Pressure Deficit","WW_Well watered"],"sieverID":"8ccdee14-5a45-48b0-b219-6b7ca48749c9","pagecount":"10","content":"Understanding how roots respond to increasing rate of evapotranspiration in warmer days and exposure to dry spells is crucial for saving productivity of rainfed crops, including maize, grown in Asian tropics. In a semi-automatic root phenotyping facility (lysimetric system) a set of 100 elite and diverse tropical maize inbred lines were phenotyped under managed drought stress (DT) and well-watered (WW) conditions. Plants were grown in PVC (Polyvinyl chloride) cylinder of 30.0 cm diameter and 150.0 cm length. In drought experiment, last irrigation was applied based accumulated growing degree days (∑GDD) criteria to achieved reproductive stress DT, whereas optimal moisture was maintained in WW trials. Data recorded on various root structural and function traits in both DT and WW trials. Significant phenotypic variability was observed for various root traits, including both structural and functional traits, under both the moisture regimes. Correlation studies showed that grain yield of early maturity group of genotypes was positively and significantly associated with all the root structural traits under drought, whereas, in case of medium and late maturity group of entries root structural traits showed either weak positive or significant negative correlation with grain yield under drought. Though, root functional traits of all the maturity group of genotypes showed positive and significant correlations with both grain yield and total biomass under both well-watered drought stress. Regression analysis showed that water uptake had significant positive relationship with total biomass in all the three-maturity group of genotypes. However, grain yield seems to be less dependent directly on the total amount of water uptake. We conclude that contribution of various traits in root system architecture under drought or well-watered conditions vary with maturity of genotypes. However, root functional traits, such as water uptake and transpiration efficiency are equally important across maturity groups and water availability regimes.Climate change is threatening global crop productivity, especially for the rainfed crops, such as -maize, grown in the lowland tropics. Rainfed systems, which represents major (~80%) part of maize mega-environments in Asian tropics, are largely dependent on monsoon rains, and other prevailing weather conditions and therefore extremely vulnerable to climate change effects (Zaidi et al., 2020). Studies suggested sharper increase in both day and night temperatures in near future, which could adversely affect maize production in the tropical regions (Lobell et al., 2011;Cairns et al., 2012). Such impacts have already been experienced in the Asian region in several recognizable ways, such as shifting seasons and significant inter-annual variation in rainfall pattern with increased frequency of extreme weather events during main cropping season (Prasanna et al., 2021). Heat stress in combination with drought, has emerged as one of the major constraints to maize production in tropics (Cairns et al., 2013). Frequent episodes of high temperatures (often above 35°C) along with prolonged dry spells are a common phenomenon in most of the semi-arid tropical maize growing areas, causing irreversible damage on maize crop and eventually resulting in considerable yield penalties (Zaidi et al., 2020). With progressive climate change effects plants have a greater demand for water in warmer environments due to increased water loss through evapotranspiration (Heckathorn et al., 2013). Crop breeding programs have traditionally focused on the aboveground plant parts for development of new stress-resilient crop varieties suitable for target population of environments (TPEs) to minimise losses due to various abiotic and biotic stresses. While shoot traits drive water and nutrient through plant, root traits ultimately determine access to water and nutrients, and thus, set limits for shoot functions. Being the first plant part exposed to various soil related stresses, including drought, roots play a pivotal role in adaptation to such stress conditions and govern the overall performance of plants. Despite well-known vital roles of plant roots in anchorage, absorption of water and nutrients (Lynch, 1995) most often this important hidden-half is ignored due to complexity involved in studying root traits due to technical and/or logistic challenges in phenotyping roots as a whole system and their interaction with the soil. However, availability of non-destructive methods such as lysimetric system, X-ray thomography etc. allow study related root growth and functional dynamics during crop cycle. Roots that allow access to water with minimum use of carbon holds great promise for plant adaptation to drought stress conditions (Hund et al., 2009). Water uptake takes place in the root either through aquaporins or membrane channels that facilitates water transport inside the cells, or by diffusion through plasmatic membrane (Maurel et al., 2015). Studies on the maize crop showed that warmer temperatures decrease aquaporin quantity and increases membrane fluidity. Membranes become rigid that reduces water uptake (Iglesias-Acosta et al., 2010;Ionenko et al., 2010). Negative effects of water deficit on roots results in severely compromised water and nutrient uptake, which eventually results in significant reduction in crop yields. Therefore, new maize cultivars better adapted to climatechange induced weather extremes, such as severe drought stress at critical growth stage(s), will have to have root system with improved water and nutrient uptake as well as use efficiency to ensure yield stability under stress condition.In the present study we aimed to (i) identify available genotypic variability in root traits in tropical maize, including both structural and functional traits, (ii) analyze changes in root system architecture and functions with moisture depletion in root zone and (iii) assess contribution of various root traits in performance of different maturity group of genotypes under optimal moisture conditions and drought stress.While main targeted traits for the study were root structural and functional traits under drought and well-watered conditions, observations were also recorded on key agronomic traits, including grain yield and total aboveground biomass under DT and WW conditions. Combined analysis for two years data within each water regimes showed that genotypic variability was significant for various root and shoot traits under both DT and WW, except PH, ASI, RD and RDW under WW conditions (Table 1). Compared to WW, mean values for most of the root and shoot traits decreased under drought stress, except ASI and TE where the values increased, and AD did not register any significant change between the two treatments. Also, the variation in most of the traits increased substantially under drought stress, especially in case of root traits -RW, RV, WU, and also shoot traits -ASI, TB and GY. Drought stress severely affected root traits; though the effect was more pronounced on root functional traits where mean WU decreased by 54.5% and mean TE increased by 60.0%. Effect of drought stress was also severe on various shoot traits, In comparison to WW condition, mean ASI increased by 5.0 days under DT, whereas mean GY and TB reduced by 54.7 and 43.9%, respectively. Broad-sense heritability was high (≥0.5) for almost all the root and shoot traits under both WW and DT conditions, except WU, TE and TB under WW and RV under drought stress. It was also observed that heritability of most of the traits increased under drought stress, except for RV, ASI and PH.Maturity group-wise dissection of various root traits showed substantial variation in structural traits under drought stress (Fig. 1). Compared to late maturity most of the early maturity group of genotypes showed relatively shallow RD, RV and RW. Rooting depth of most of the early maturity genotypes (72%) ranged between 50 to 100cm, whereas in case of late maturity 54.2% genotypes had RD more than 100 to 150cm and 10.4% genotypes had >150cm. In medium maturity group 45.6% genotypes had RD >100cm, whereas 50% entries had RD between 50-100cm. Root volume and RW also followed similar trends with maturity group of genotypes. In case of WU most of the early maturity genotypes (74%) grouped into relatively low (≤12 litres) water using entries during the reproductive phase of crop growth, whereas most of the late maturity entries (65%) extracted relatively more water (≥ 12 to >16 litres) during same period. Majority of the medium maturity entries (82%) were grouped in the range of 9-16 litres water using entries during reproductive phase. Irrespective of water uptake during reproductive phase, maximum number of entries across all the maturity groups (>50%) showed relatively similar rate of TE (11-15 g litre -1), followed by >30% with 5-10 g litre -1 during the same period of crop growth. These finding showed that distinct variation due to maturity groups was less apparent in case of root functional traits, especially TE.Correlation analysis between various root traits with GY showed that under well-watered conditions, except RW in early maturity and RV in medium maturity genotypes, all other structural traits had non-significant relationship (Fig. 2). Most of these structural traits showed positive and significant correlation with TB under well-watered conditions, except RD in all the maturity groups and RLD in early maturity genotypes. However, under drought stress all the root structural traits showed positive and significant correlations with both GY and TB in early as well as medium maturity genotypes, except RLD with TB in both maturity and RV with GY of medium maturity. In case of late maturity group of genotypes, the correlation of RV and RW was significantly negative with GY under drought stress. Rooting depth also showed negative, though non-significant, correlation with GY of late maturity entries under drought stress. Total biomass also showed significantly negative correlation with RW, whereas RLD, RD and RV had nonsignificant correlation with TB of late maturity entries under drought stress. On the other hand, irrespective of maturity group of genotypes root functional traits, both WU and TE, showed positive and significant correlations with GY as well as TB under drought stress and also under well-watered conditions (Fig. 3). Under optimal moisture conditions there was no major variation in this relationship due maturity group of genotypes. However, under drought stress the correlation between WU or TE with GY as well as TB relatively strong in early maturity, followed by medium and late maturity genotypes. In case of late maturity, the correlation between WU and GY was non-significant.Regression analysis showed that, irrespective of maturity group of genotypes, the relationship between WU and TB was linear and statistically significant (P<0.01) under both optimal moisture and drought stress conditions (Fig. 4). Though, under drought stress the amount of water uptake during stress period made relatively more contributions in early and medium maturity group of genotypes. Also, under optimal moisture GY of all the three maturity groups of genotypes was also significantly (P<0.05) associated with amount of water uptake during reproductive period. Under drought stress late maturity groups of genotypes showed weak and non-significant relationship with water uptake; though its effects on GY of early and medium maturity genotypes was statistically significant (P<0.01). Regression analysis of GY and TB over TE of different maturity groups showed that under both well-watered and drought stress conditions TE significantly (P<0.01) contributed to both GY and TB of all three maturity groups of genotypes (Fig. 5). Though, the contribution of TE was relatively more for TB than GY, and GY of early maturity group genotypes showed strong relationship with TE, followed by medium and late genotypes under both optimal moisture and drought stress.The questions that we set out to answer through this study were (i) how the variability in root architecture and function contributes to the performance of genotypes under WW and DT stress, and (ii) whether contributions of various structural and functional traits vary in different maturity group of genotypes. In the present study, we observed significant variability for all the root and shoot traits under drought stress (Table 1). The variation was significant in almost all the traits under optimal moisture as well, except for couple of roots (RD and RW) and shoot (PH and ASI) traits. This is explained by the fact that the set of inbred lines was carefully selected for the study, and they represented good genetic diversity of the lowland tropical maize. Previous studies on improved maize or maize landraces also reported significant genotypic variability for various root structural, anatomical, and functional traits under different moisture regimes (Burton et al., 2013;Zaidi et al., 2016;Qiao et al., 2018;Zhao et al., 2018). The available genotypic variation in root traits is considered an asset for breeding programs aimed at producing cultivars with improved adaptation to water-limited environments (Manavalan et al., 2011;Wasaya et al., 2018;Klein et al., 2020). While comparing mean values and range for the traits under WW and DT it was observed that mean values of most of the root and shoot traits, except AD, ASI and TE, decreased, whereas range of these traits substantially increased under drought stress. The increased variation observed under drought stress suggests that root system architecture is plastic and dynamic, allowing plants to respond to their environment to optimize acquisition of soil resources such as water and nutrients (Vamerali et al., 2003;Zhu et al., 2011). Maturity group wise analysis showed a significant variation in root traits of three different maturity group of genotypes under drought stress , especially in case of structural traits. Early maturity group of genotypes had relatively smaller root architecture system (RSA) with shallow root depth, and relatively low RW and RV compared to late and medium maturity group of genotypes (Fig. 1). Variability in RD of early maturing genotypes was non-significant under optimal soil moisture, while it was significant under drought, which suggested that smaller root system is one of the stress avoidance mechanisms for early maturity genotypes to optimize biomass partitioning and use of available water under limited water availability (Zhao et al., 2018). In the study on tropical maize inbred lines with distinct response to drought stress Hund et al. (2009) also found that combination of high-water use efficiency (WUE) and sufficient water acquisition by a root system with fewer lateral roots in the topsoil but with thicker, deep axile roots can increase drought tolerance. These finding suggest that root allocation and distribution is one of the plant growth strategies and their general response to water deficits and distribution of available soil water. This agrees with the findings in present study as distinct variation in root functional traits due to maturity group was less apparent, especially in case of TE and also WU (Fig. 1). Vamerali et al. (2003) reported that a drought tolerant hybrid maintained high transpiration at very low values of the fraction of transpirable soil water, whereas drought susceptible hybrid showed a higher response to soil drying. The latter reduced the rate of transpiration starting from a higher level of transpirable soil water. The study suggested that that more conservative strategy towards limited water and nutrient resources in drought susceptible hybrid, and a greater tendency towards stress avoidance in drought tolerant one. Based on the study on a set maize hybrids spanning a century of breeding Messina et al. (2021) showed that root system architecture and grain yield have changed with decades of maize breeding, but not the crop water uptake. They showed that single cross hybrids have smaller root systems than double-cross hybrids, but soil water extraction measured under field conditions were not significantly different between two types of hybrids. Phenotypic correlations between various root traits and plant performance in terms of TB and GY showed that across maturity group of genotypes most of the root structural traits, except RD, showed significantly positive correlation with TB under DT as well as under WW conditions (Fig. 2). Previous studies on maize also reported positive correlation between root traits with leaf area, biomass, and grain yield under optimal moisture conditions (Junying et al., 1989). Grain yield of early maturity group of genotypes was positively and significantly correlated with all the root structural traits under DT and with RW under optimal moisture. However, in case of medium and late maturity group of entries most of the traits, except few traits of medium maturity genotypes such as-RV under optimal and RD and RLD of under drought, showed either weak positive or significant negative correlation with GY under DT or WW (Fig. 2). Tuberosa et al. (2002) also found positive and significant relation between seminal root traits and grain yield, but the relationship was found negative between primary rooting and the grain yield under water stress. Correlation studies in dry season sorghum genotypes under receding moisture indicated significant and positive correlation between grain yield and root traits viz.; root weight, root number and root length (Shinde et al., 2017). Findings of our study and also previous studies (Rangarajan et al., 2018;Strock et al., 2019) suggested that there is no single root phenotype that is ideal across all environments and maturity group of genotypes to maximize grain yield under drought stress, as access to resources, e.g., water, may be influenced by several other aspects of the environment, such as soil texture etc. Correlation analysis between root functional traits and TB or GY showed that across maturity groups the relationship was positive and significant under both WW and DT, except between WU and GY in late maturity under DT (Fig. 3). It is    Grain yield (g plant -1 ) Biomass (g plant -1 )    also observed that the relationship of both WU and TE with GY was relatively strong under drought stress. Root water uptake capacity under DT seems to be crucial when coping with water deficit events (Matsuo et al., 2009) but genotypic variation in water uptake capacity under drought conditions might not always be related to a higher investment in root biomass, but with specific hydraulic characteristics of roots (Kondo, et al. 2000). Across maturity groups, the relationship of TE was relatively strong with both TB and GY, under both WW and DT conditions (Fig. 3). Ratnakumar et al. (2009) found that under an intermittent drought regime, TE and water extraction from the soil profile were the most important components during a period corresponding to pod filling, a key determinant for grain yield in peanut. Maize leaves often operate at lower TE than potentially achievable for a species with C 4 metabolism (Bruce, 2010). The study concluded that significant genotypic variation in leaf TE exists in maize, and that TE could be improved without reducing photosynthesis. Regression analysis showed that had significant positive relationship with TB of all the three-maturity group of genotypes under both WW and DT stress (Fig. 4). Though GY also showed significant relationship with WU (P<0.05) but under WW conditions the dependency of GY seems to be relatively less on total water uptake, as expressed by relatively low R 2 values under WW compared to DT (Fig. 4). Under DT dependence of GY of late maturity genotypes to total WU was non-significant (P<0.13), which suggested that WU contributed more to TB than GY of late maturity entries. However, the dependency of GY on WU under DT increased in early and medium maturity genotypes as indicated by highly significant R 2 values (P<0.01). Water uptake is perhaps the most important component of a simple crop growth model defined by Passioura (1977). Water uptake should be the prime target (McIntyre et al., 1995;Dardanelli et al., 2004) and as such water uptake is unlikely to be dependent on differences of axial resistance to water flow. While measuring the volume of water taken up by roots is certainly an important factor, understanding the kinetics of water uptake, and how this kinetics relates to phenological stage of a plant in different maturity groups are equally important. Maize is known for its high susceptibility to drought stress during the four weeks bracketing flowering (Shaw, 1977), and therefore the key stage to monitor water-uptake and its kinetics would be the reproductive stages, starting from tassel emergence till early grain filling stage. Enough water at key crop stage, such as reproductive phase in this study, is more important than across the whole cycle (Boote et al., 1982). In a comparison of soil water extraction between an old versus a modern Pioneer hybrid Campos et al. (2004) found that the older hybrid extracted more soil water, especially in the upper soil layers when tested under the same imposed water deficit regime. The old hybrid suffered much greater yield loss, in part because it had extracted most of the plant-available water in the rooting zone before it entered the critical flowering period. Irrespective of maturity group of genotypes, both TB and GY were highly dependent to TE under both WW and DT conditions (Fig. 5). In general, maize plants have a conservative hydraulic conductance, and by decreasing transpiration they maintain carbon assimilation during drought or during wilting (Comas et al., 2013), and thereby maintain high TE in tolerant genotypes that contribute to maintain high biomass and eventually in improved yields under water-deficit conditions. In a study on rice crop under the three irrigation patterns Zhou et al. (2020) found highest correlation between water use efficiency and dry matter under controlled conditions. Blum (2009) argued that as long as the biochemistry of photosynthesis cannot be improved genetically, greater genotypic transpiration efficiency is driven mainly by plant traits that reduce transpiration and crop water-use. Since biomass production is tightly linked to transpiration, breeding for maximized soil moisture capture for transpiration is the most important target for yield improvement under drought stress. Genotypic diversity among maize hybrids in transpiration response to vapor pressure deficit (VPD) indicated that a limited-transpiration trait may contribute to improved drought tolerance and yield in maize (Messina et al., 2015). Limiting transpiration at VPD above a threshold can increase both daily transpiration efficiency and water availability for late season use. However, the impact of this trait on maize productivity may vary with geography, environment type, expression of the trait, and plant density.The study was conducted on 100 tropical maize inbred lines, including 30 each from early and late maturity groups, and 40 from medium maturity group (Supplementary Table-1), selected from an association mapping panel, the CIMMYT Asia Association Mapping (CAAM) panel, constituted with 396 diverse lines. The CAAM panel included advanced stage maize inbred lines derived from CIMMYT's tropical and subtropical pools and populations from Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia maize program. The 396 lines were identified for the constitution of association mapping panel after evaluating line trials with over 1000 lines at CIMMYT maize farm, International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) campus, Hyderabad, India (Geo coordinates -17.3850°N, 78.4867°E and 542 masl) under well-watered conditions. The lines with reasonably good adaptation in Asian tropics were selected for constituting the CAAM panel, avoiding sister lines or over-representation of lines derived from the same pools or populations. Apart from lines from CIMMYT-Asia maize program, the panel also included lines derived from CIMMYT's drought tolerant populations, including Tuxpeno Sequia-C6 (Tropical late white-dent), La Posta Sequia-C7 (Tropical late white-dent), DTPY-C9 (Tropical medium yellow-flint), Pool-26 Sequia (Tropical late yellow-flint), DTPW-C9 (Tropical medium white-flint), G18 Sequia C5 (Tropical early yellow-dent) and Pool16 BN Sequia-C5 (Tropical medium white-dent), which were systematically developed and improved for drought tolerance through full-sib or S1 recurrent selection scheme (Edmeades and Deutsch, 1994). The sub-set of 100 lines from the panel was selected based on performance of lines under managed drought stress at flowering stage. They were grouped into three maturity groups based on days to anthesis, i.e.-early maturity = ≤50 days, medium maturity = 51-55 days, and late maturity = ≥55 days. The lines in each maturity group in the CAAM panel were ranked in descending order for grain yield under drought stress and selection was made from the range of top to bottom ranking lines after a regular interval to select 30 lines each from early and late maturity and 40 lines from medium maturity that represent diverse performance of these maturity group lines under stress.The experiments were conducted in a root phenotyping facility at the ICRISAT campus, Hyderabad, India. The facility was built based on lysimetric system that provides opportunity to directly assess and quantify root traits and their dynamics under various growing conditions and allows high-precision phenotyping of various root traits. The root study in this system is based on a real-time measurement of water uptake and measure root structural traits under different growing conditions, such as optimal moisture and water deficit conditions. The facility was built under a semiautomated rainout shelter that helps in avoiding unintended moisture in trials due to rains during the experimentation. Plants were grown in mini-rhizotrons, which are made-up of PVC (Polyvinyl chloride) cylinder of 30.0 cm diameter and 150.0 cm length, filled with a mixture of Vertisol + Alfisol + sterilized farmyard manure in the ratio of 15:5:1 by volume.In each PVC cylinder an end plate was fixed at 3.0 cm from the bottom with four screws in a way to retain the soil at the bottom but to freely allow water drainage. The soil in cylinders had a very similar bulk density to field conditions, and cylinders weighed a mean weight of 185 kg including PVC tube and soil. The PVC cylinders were arranged in eight trenches (1.5 m deep, 1.6 m wide and 30.0m long) in a way to match levels of cylinder and outside soil surfaces, and separated from one another by approximately 20.0 cm. In this way maize plants in rhizotrons were placed at a density of 6.25 plants m -2 , matching with plant population close to a field planting density (row-to-row distance of 60.0 cm and plant-to-plant spacing of 20.0 cm). Border effects were managed by placing a row of potted maize plants on all sides of the trenches.The experiments were conducted during the dry season of 2015 and 2016 at root phenotyping facility at ICRISAT campus, Hyderabad, India. The off-season is identified as the best time of the year for managed drought stress trials as it is usually rain-free, and the temperature regimes is also congenial, i.e., Tmin ranged from 10-15℃ and Tmax from 28-37℃ during most part of the experimentation starting from planting in last week of November until grain-filling stage which occurs by the end of February or early March. Soil that was used to fill the cylinders was thoroughly incorporated with ammonium sulphate, urea, muriate of potash and zinc sulphate at the rate of 800, 174, 320 and 53 mg kg -1 soil. Top-dressing of 3.0 g urea cylinder -1 was done at V 3-4 stage, V 7-8 stage (or just before applying last irrigation in drought set) and at early grain filling (after resuming irrigation in drought set). Two set of trials, one each under well-watered (WW) and drought (DT) stress conditions, were planted in rhizotrons placed in separate pits. Planting of the three-maturity group of lines was staggered in such a way that all the lines reached flowering stage at almost the same period. In both WW and DT trials each entry was planted in eight replications (one cylinder considered as one replication). In each cylinder three seeds were sown and a measured amount of water (5.0 litres cylinder -1) was applied as first irrigation for germination. Extra plants were thinned on 10 th day after sowing to maintain one seedling per cylinder. Growing degree days (GDD) was recorded starting from date of first irrigation until a cumulative GDD (∑GDD) value reached to 450, 550 and 650 ○ C, respectively for early, medium and late maturity entries trial, when last irrigation is planned to be applied in three maturity group of entries. Till that stage a measured amount of water was applied to maintain the same level of water in each cylinder in both the WW and DT trials. At the time applying last irrigation each cylinder in DT and WW trial was saturated with 25.0 litres of water, and there after irrigation was stopped in the DT trial for imposing drought stress. However, the irrigation with measured amount of water was continued in cylinders under WW conditions. In both DT and WW trials, the soil surface of the cylinders was covered with polyethylene beads immediately after saturation to prevent evaporative loss of moisture from the soil in cylinders. In this way it was ensured that water loss from the cylinder was largely (~90%, calculated based on calibrations in the past) through the transpiration process by the plants. After 24 hours once the excess water out-flow stopped upon saturation each cylinder was weighed in both the treatments to record the initial weight of the cylinders. Weighing of the cylinders was done by lifting each cylinder one at a time using the metalcollar fixed at the top of the cylinder, with a block-chained pulley. A S-type load cell (Mettler-Toledo, Geneva, Switzerland) was hooked between the collar of the cylinder and the pulley. A scale of 200 kg capacity allowed repeated measurements with accuracy of about ±20.0 g. In the WW treatment the optimal moisture was maintained by weighing the cylinders on regular intervals and the amount of water lost from the initial weighing was compensated by adding the loss of water through transpiration process. In drought stress trials no irrigation was applied until two weeks after anthesis. This was followed on individual genotype basis, i.e., after completion of 50% anthesis a final weight of all the cylinders for that entry was taken and then stress was terminated by applying 20 litres water in two instalments: 10 litres each with a gap of five hours. Simultaneously, final weight of the cylinder for that respective genotype under WW conditions was also recorded. The difference in initial weight and final weight were used in calculating the amount of water uptake during reproductive stage under drought stress and under well-watered conditions during same period.The set of 100 maize inbred lines were phenotyped for various root traits, including a range of root structural and functional traits under managed DT and WW conditions. In both DT and WW trials data was recorded on root functional traits including water uptake (WU) during reproductive growth stage and transpiration efficiency (TE), and structural traits, including rooting depth (RD), root dry weight (RW), root volume (RV), and root length-density (RLD). Apart from root traits, data on key shoot traits, including plant height (PH), days to 50% anthesis (AD), 50% silking (SD) and anthesis-silking interval (ASI) was also recorded. At harvest, grain yield (GY) and total above-ground biomass (TB) was recorded for each entry under both DT and WW conditions. Total biomass was recorded after oven drying the whole plant (excluding roots) at 65°C for 72hrs, whereas GY per plant was calculated after adjusting the ear weight for average shelling percentage -80%, and grain moisture content -12.5%. Reproductive period water uptake (WU) in DT was calculated based on initial and final weight of cylinder using formula mentioned below, whereas in case of WW treatment this was estimated as the cumulative amount of water added in cylinders that were lost due to evapotranspiration during same period:Water uptake (L) = Initial weight of cylinder (Kg)-Final weight of cylinder (Kg) Transpiration efficiency (TE) was calculated based on the total amount of water transpired from the time of last irrigation for imposing drought stress (and same time in well-watered trial) until physiological maturity and the total plant biomass that was recorded by harvesting the whole plants (excluding roots). In both the trials, the amount of water that transpired before the last irrigation for imposing drought stress was not accounted. It is assumed that since up to that stage all the entries in both the trials were maintained at the same level of optimal moisture the relative genotypic variability for TE would vary due to water uptake and biomass produced during the stage with drought stress. Transpiration efficiency was calculated using the formula given by Richard (1991) as follows:To measure the root structural traits, cylinders were shifted to a designated root washing area. Soil adhering to the roots were carefully removed by passing a fine jet of water through the cylinder. After removing the soil, the intact root was taken out of the cylinder and washed again with clean water to remove small solid clods that adhered the roots. Rooting depth (RD) was measured as the length of root from stem collar to tip of the root. Roots were scanned and digitalized images were used for measuring the root volume (RV) and root length density (RLD) using WinRhizo software, Regent Instruments Inc., Canada (https://regent.qc.ca/assets/winrhizo_about.html).Roots were then dried in hot-air oven at 70 o C for three days and root dry weight (RW) was recorded.Data on root structural and functional traits along with other agronomical traits were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA), separately for two water regimes, i.e., DT and WW condition. A combined analysis for over the years within each management was done and mean values of various traits under DT and WW conditions were used to estimate the phenotypic correlation between various root traits and grain yield or total biomass. Regression analysis was conducted between root functional traits and grain yield or biomass to assess the relationship between root function traits with overall performance of genotypes under DT or WW conditions.From the finding of the present study, we conclude that significant genotypic variability exists in lowland tropical maize for various traits in root system architecture and root function. Contribution of most of the root structural traits vary with the rate of phenological growth and development, whereas, root functional traits, such as ability to extract water and transpiration efficiency under different moisture regimes, contributes equally to crop performance across maturity group of genotypes. Available genotypic variability within tropical maize can be identified using the available non-invasive and non-destructive methods for root phenotyping. Suitable root traits for TPEs can be identified and mainstreamed in a maize breeding program, along with known drought-adaptive shoot traits for targeted breeding for improved-stable yields in environments with increasing deficit for water caused by frequent dry spells and/or exposure to warmer days and nights.","tokenCount":"5581"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9d20b9ea58eb4e4642f119c79fb3ea7e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c78b6465-d346-45cd-8648-139fa458218d/retrieve","id":"-858182939"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"77e0fce5-fc07-4a0b-9aa8-b556632b90ca","pagecount":"40","content":"Cash and cash equivalents (4) 57,010 56,351 Investments (5) 8,943 2,712 Accounts receivable (6) Donors (net of allowance of $300 thousand in 2009; $342 thousand in 2008) (6a) 3,570 7,760 Other CGIAR Centres 349 283 Others (6b) 320 379 Prepaid expenses (7) 319 288 Total current assets 70,511 STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS For the years ended December 31, 2009 and 2008 (US dollar '000s) 2009 2008 Cash flows from operating activities Change in net assets (541) 182 Adjustments to reconcile change in net assets to net cash from operating activities Depreciation 517 558(1) Statement of purpose Bioversity International is the world's largest international research organization dedicated solely to the conservation and use of biodiversity. It is one of 15 independent international agricultural research centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), whose secretariat is located at the World Bank, Washington, D.C., USA.The CGIAR is a strategic alliance of countries, international and regional organizations, and private foundations that mobilizes science to benefit the poor.With effect from 1 December 2006, the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) and the International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain (INIBAP) began operating under the name \"Bioversity International\", Bioversity for short. This new name reflects an expanded vision of Bioversity's role in the area of biodiversity research for development.Bioversity's work is motivated by a vision in which people today and in the future enjoy greater well-being through increased incomes, sustainably improved food security and nutrition, and greater environmental health, made possible by conservation and the deployment of agricultural biodiversity on farms and in forests.Bioversity undertakes, encourages and supports research and other activities on the use and conservation of agricultural biodiversity, especially genetic resources, to create more productive, resilient and sustainable harvests. Bioversity's aim is to promote the greater well-being of people, particularly poor people in developing countries, by helping them to achieve food security, to improve their health and nutrition, to boost their incomes, and to conserve the natural resources on which they depend. Bioversity works with a global range of partners to maximize impact, to develop capacity and to ensure that all stakeholders have an effective voice.The purpose of Bioversity 's work is to ensure that individuals and institutions are able to make optimal use of agricultural biodiversity to meet current and future development needs of people and societies. The international status of Bioversity is conferred under an Establishment Agreement which has been signed and ratified by 55 Governments. In January 1994, arrangements with the Government of Italy to confirm Rome as Bioversity's headquarters were concluded and published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale no. 23 of 29 January 1994. Bioversity is exempt from direct (income) and indirect (value-added) taxation.Financial support for the research agenda programme of Bioversity International is provided by donor nations, development agencies, regional development organizations, development banks, UN agencies, universities, other CGIAR centers, scientific foundations and trusts and private sector donors.(2) IPGRI/INIBAP integration These financial statements present the consolidated accounts of the two separate legal entities IPGRI and INIBAP, operating under the name \"Bioversity International\".In 1994, the International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain (INIBAP) was placed under the governance and administration of IPGRI. This arrangement was formalized in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by the members of the Board of Trustees of both IPGRI and INIBAP, and the INIBAP Support Group.According to the MOU, Article V: 'As of 1 January 1995, income, expenditures, assets, liabilities, depreciation and reserves of the INIBAP programme will be recorded as an integral, but identifiable part of IPGRI's financial systems and reporting procedures, and will be audited in accordance with IPGRI's Financial Policies and Procedures. All land, buildings, leaseholds and fittings and fixtures therein shall remain the property of INIBAP as an Institute, as well as liens, charges and mortgages on these assets. Only in the event that IPGRI becomes the owner of these assets on the dissolution of INIBAP by arrangement with the French State, will they be recorded in the financial statements of IPGRI. IPGRI shall make no commitment to guarantee any liability incurred by INIBAP  (3) Summary of significant accounting policiesThe financial statements of Bioversity are presented using the accrual basis of accounting. Bioversity follows the accounting policies issued by the CGIAR Secretariat. It is important to note that the Manual's full adoption of IFRS is subject to the following two clarifications:1. Since existing IFRS do not specifically cover issues unique to not-for-profit organizations, the Manual has drawn from other widely used standards (such as FAS 117 of US GAAP) to provide guidance on issues of importance that are not yet addressed by existing IFRS.2. IAS 1 provides that \"If entities with not-for-profit activities in the private sector or the public sector apply this Standard, they may need to amend the descriptions used for particular line items in the financial statements and for the financial statements themselves.\" In line with this provision, the Manual has, in places, applied descriptions that more closely reflect the nature of the Centres' activities than those set out in IFRS.Revenue is the gross inflow of economic benefits during the period arising in the course of the ordinary activities of a Centre where those inflows result in increases in net assets. The major portion of Bioversity's revenue is derived through the receipt of donor grants -either \"Unrestricted\" or \"Restricted\".Unrestricted Grant revenue arises from the unconditional transfer of cash or other assets to Bioversity.Restricted Grant revenue arises from a transfer of resources to Bioversity in return for past or future compliance related to the operating activities of the organization.Grants are recognized as revenues when the outcome of a transaction involving the rendering of services can be measured reliably. Revenue associated with the transaction is recognized by reference to the stage of completion of the transaction at the balance date. When the outcome of the transaction cannot be estimated reliably, revenue is recognized only to the extent of the expenses recognized that are recoverable.Revenue is measured at the fair value of the consideration received or receivable.a. Cash grants are recorded at the face value of the cash received or the US dollar equivalent. b. Grant revenue, including non-monetary grants at fair value, is recognized when there is reasonable assurance that: i. the organization will comply with the conditions attached to them; and, ii. the grants will be received. c. Grants are recognized as revenue over the periods necessary to match them with the related costs which they are intended to compensate, on a systematic basis. d. Grants-in-kind are recorded at the fair value of the assets (or services) received or promised, or the fair value of the liabilities satisfied. Grants-in-kind relating to staff support will be recognized subject to the following conditions: i. the donated staff must be fully engaged in a project within Bioversity's agreed agenda activities; ii. the project must be full-cost budgeted in Bioversity's work programme; iii. the full cost as budgeted is borne by the in-kind provider; and iv. the in-kind provider approves of the inclusion and the value of their support as revenue in Bioversity's financial statements. e. Other revenues/(Other losses/expenses) include, but are not limited to: i. consultancy revenue earned from third parties; ii. gains, net of losses, resulting from transactions involving currencies other than the US dollar and restatement of foreign currency denominated assets and liabilities at year-end or at reporting date; iii. other miscellaneous revenue/losses or expenses, including any other items not specifically covered above.Bioversity habitually effects transactions in a number of foreign currencies. The US dollar is its reporting currency and the accounting records are maintained in US dollars. Foreign currency transactions in Bioversity are accounted for at the exchange rates prevailing at the date of transactions: gains and losses resulting from the settlement of such transactions are recognized in the statement of activities.At year-end all monetary items denominated in foreign currencies are re-valued at exchange rates prevailing on the date of the statement of financial position. Any resulting exchange gains and losses are recognized in the statement of activities as \"Other revenues and gains\" or \"Other losses and expenses.\" Non-monetary items denominated in foreign currency which are carried at historical cost are reported using the exchange rate at the date of the transaction.Property, plant and equipment are defined as tangible assets that:1. are held by Bioversity for use in the production, or supply of goods or services or for administrative purposes; 2. are expected to be used for more than one period; 3. have a minimum cost of $1,000.Depreciation of plant and equipment is calculated on the straight-line basis over the estimated useful lives of the assets as follows: Depreciation of acquired assets is made in the year the asset is placed in operation and continues until the asset is fully depreciated or its use is discontinued.Gains or losses arising from the retirement or disposal of property and equipment are determined as the difference between the estimated net disposal proceeds and the carrying amount of the asset and are recognized as revenue or expense in the Statement of Activities. Property, plant and equipment acquired through the use of grants restricted for a certain project are recorded as an asset. Such assets are depreciated at a rate of 100% and the depreciation expense charged directly to the appropriate restricted project.Property, plant and equipment are initially measured at cost. Subsequent to initial recognition as an asset, property, plant and equipment are carried at cost less any accumulated depreciation and any accumulated impairment losses.The cost of an item of property and equipment comprises its purchase price and all other incidental costs in bringing the asset to its working condition for its intended use.Bioversity charges indirect costs to restricted projects to ensure that such projects contain a fair share of indirect costs incurred.Bioversity uses a percentage rate of recovery. The percentage rate is set periodically by the Board of Trustees upon management recommendation. The Board approved target rate of indirect cost recovery for projects negotiated from 1994 onward is 25%, but the actual rate of recovery depends on the provision agreed upon by the two contracting parties (Bioversity and the donor) for indirect cost recovery and stated in each project's contract.(4) Cash and cash equivalentsThe amounts are composed of the following: Cash and cash equivalents comprise cash in hand and in banks (current accounts), interest bearing time deposits held at call with banks and investments in money market instruments. The banks where Bioversity's cash holdings are maintained have bank ratings which are not lower than A. In addition, no more than 50% of total cash and investments are held in any one bank at any point in time. Cash in banks are denominated in US Dollars and Euro.Regional offices' imprest funds are denominated in local currencies (Kenyan Shillings, Euro, Malaysian Ringgits and Central African Francs), as well as in US Dollars.(5) Investments Investments acquired with the intention of disposing the same within one year or less from the acquisition date are classified as current investments. Investments classified as current, as distinguished from cash equivalents, are those that are acquired with original maturities of more than three months, but not exceeding one year. This account represents time deposits in US Dollars and in Euro, both bearing interest at current bank rates.(6) Accounts receivableAll receivable balances are valued at their net realizable value, that is, the gross amount of receivable minus, if applicable, allowances provided for doubtful accounts.Allowances for doubtful accounts are provided in an amount equal to the total receivables shown, or reasonably estimated to be doubtful of collection. The amount in the allowance is based on past experience and on a continuous review of receivable reports and other relevant factors.When an account receivable is deemed doubtful of collection, an allowance is provided during the year the account is deemed doubtful.Any receivable or portion of receivable judged to be uncollectible is written off. Write-offs of receivables are done via allowance for doubtful accounts after all efforts to collect have been exhausted.Based on past experience and review of accounts receivable at year-end, $300,000 was deemed doubtful of collection in 2009; $342,000 in 2008.Accounts receivable from donors consists of claims from donors for grants promised or pledged in accordance with the terms specified by the donor. It also pertains to claims from donors for expenses paid on behalf of projects in excess of cash received.The amounts are composed of the following::Restricted 2,188 6,977Less allowance for doubtful accounts (300) (342)Further detail is found in Exhibit 1.The amount includes: Further detail is found in Exhibit 1.(This consists of amounts due to staff members for vacation leave. Regular staff members accumulate paid vacation leave. A maximum of sixty days may be accumulated. Upon separation, accumulated days as of December 31 st plus any earned but unused days from the following January 1 st to the date of termination will be paid in lump sum.(10) Accounts payable -othersThe amount includes: The amount is composed of accruals and provisions made for supplies and services received within 2009 for which invoiceswere not yet received as of the balance sheet date.(12) Funds in trust (13) Employee benefits programmeThe Bioversity Employee Benefits Programme (EBP) replaces the social security programmes of its various host countries.The EBP was established by the CGIAR and adopted by all of its institutions. It provides a comprehensive package of insurance and fund accumulations to meet staff members' and their dependants' needs during employment and for retirement. The EBP is fully funded by Bioversity. No deductions from salary are required from staff members.Bioversity makes contributions on behalf of staff members to the pension plan managed by the Association of International Agricultural Research Centers (AIARC). These contributions are charged against revenue in the year in which the benefit accrues. Therefore, Bioversity has no future obligations for retirement benefits for its staff members.The 2009 contribution to the AIARC administered pension plan amounted to $1,844,000; this amount was $1,849,000 in 2008.(This balance consists of accruals for amounts due to staff members for separation allowances. The separation allowance is an end-of-service indemnity payable to Bioversity staff members on completion of appointment. The value of this indemnity is calculated in accordance with the personnel policies of Bioversity and is based on the length of service and salary level.(15) Net assetsNet assets are the residual interest in Bioversity's assets remaining after liabilities are deducted.The overall change in net assets represents the total gains and losses generated by Bioversity's activities during the year.Net assets are classified as either undesignated or designated.(a) Undesignated -that part of net assets that is not designated by Bioversity's management for specific purposes.(b) Designated -that part of net assets that has been designated by Bioversity's management for specific purposes.As per Board of Trustees resolution, each year an amount equal to the annual depreciation charged to operating income is designated to meet the costs of acquisition and replacement of property and equipment.A portion of the unrestricted net assets has been designated by the Board of Trustees to reflect net investment in property and equipment.(c) Breakdown of net assets  a) The full donor information is listed on Exhibit 3, (b) For information purposes only, amounts may change for pledges in non-US dollars, Donor and Programme/Project (a)  grant Period (DD/MM/yy) grant Pledged (b)   Prior years ","tokenCount":"2533"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"38139f4154d3821b4d4c95ca9d5f5c78","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/373bd03b-0483-4b86-ad83-db32b3a2bd6f/retrieve","id":"-1827905519"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b085d6cd-3949-4723-86e3-8fed7c92bbb7","pagecount":"61","content":"are designed to document state-of-the-art tools and methods. They are circulated in order to help AGRODEP members address technical issues in their use of models and data. The Technical Notes have been reviewed but have not been subject to a formal external peer review via IFPRI's Publications Review Committee; any opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of AGRODEP or of IFPRI., in Paris, and devoted to trade policy analysis. MIRAGRODEP differs from MIRAGE in several points: a specific modelling of government has been introduced; an optimal tariff aggregator has been introduced (see Laborde, Martin and Van der Mensbrugghe, 2017); MIRAGRODEP offers several options of public closure; the programming of MIRAGRODEP is simpler.As opposed to a single country CGE model, a multi-country CGE model allows a detailed and consistent representation of international relations of each country with the Rest of the World. This way, international economic linkages are captured through the international trade of goods and services, and foreign direct investment (FDI). This is a key element when a research project intends to evaluate the potential economic and trade consequences of a regional or a multilateral trade agreement.Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) and trade data in MIRAGRODEP are based on GTAP10 (Aguiar et al., 2019). The GTAP10 Data Base is a fully documented, publicly available global data base which contains complete bilateral trade information, transport, and protection linkages among 141 countries/regions for all 65 GTAP commodities/services for four reference years (2004, 2007, 2011, and 2014). For trade policy data, the MAcMAP-HS6 database, designed at CEPII, is used.For fifteen years, MIRAGRODEP has been used extensively for ex-ante evaluations. It includes the evaluation of:• Multilateral trade agreements like the Doha Development Agenda: Bouët, Mevel and Orden (2007); Bouët and Laborde (2010a;2010b);• Regional trade agreements like the African Continental Free Trade Area (Bouët, Laborde, and Traoré, 2022), the Eastern African Community (Bouët, Laborde, and Traoré, 2021a), the South Asian Free Trade Area (Bouët and Corong, 2009), a European Union-Mercosur trade agreement (Bouët, Estrades, and Laborde, 2011);• Preferential trade agreements like the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA - Bouët, Mevel and Thomas, 2008), the EU-ECOWAS Economic Partnership Agreement (Bouët, Laborde and Traoré, 2018), the EU-African, Caribbean and Pacific countries Economic Partnership Agreement (Berisha-Krasniqi, Bouët, and Mevel, 2008), EU-SADC Economic Partnership 1 Dynamically recursive models do not include expectation of value of variables in future periods in the model. Plus, value of variable X at the end of period t is the initial value of variable X at the beginning of period t+1.Agreement (Bouët, Laborde, and Traoré, 2021b), Duty-Free Quota-Free regime for poor countries (Bouët et al., 2012);• Biofuels support programs: Bouët, Dimaranan and Valin, 2010;Laborde, 2011; • WTO trade reforms like the search for solutions to the DDA deadlock (Bouët and Laborde, 2010c) or plurilateral agreements (Bouët and Laborde, 2019) • The economic, trade, and environmental impact of disciplines on agricultural support (Laborde et al., 2020);• The impact of COVID-19 on global poverty, food security and diets (Laborde, Martin, and Vos. 2020;Osendarp et al., 2021) • The impact of export taxation: Bouët and Laborde (2012), Bouët, Estrades and Laborde (2013);• The impact of trade wars: Bouët and Laborde (2018).Several versions of MIRAGRODEP are available, each of them dedicated to a specific modelling: MIRAGRODEP-Biofuels includes a modelling of the production, consumption and trade of biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel); MIRAGRODEP Dual-Dual includes a modelling of rural-urban migration in African countries, but also a modelling of the reallocation of unskilled labor between formal and informal sectors in these economies; MIRAGRODEP-HH includes the modelling of the consumption-savings decision of several representative households in several countries; the MIRAGRODEP-POVANA model conducts a top-down connection of MIRAGRODEP with POVANA, a household dataset and model, which includes data on the full income distribution for over 300,000 representative households globally.The objective of this Technical Note is three-folds. First, it aims to describe the mathematical structure 2 of and the economic hypothesis behind the MIRAGRODEP model, version 2.0, which includes an improved demand system. Second, this expanded documentation aims at explaining concretely how to use MIRAGRODEP with instructions on how to run the model. Third, it aims at illustrating the use of MIRAGRODEP with a simple case study.The document is organized as follows. In Section 2, we present the main pillars of the model structure, with a summary of equations and variables mapped to their counterparts in GAMS code. Section 3 presents the dynamic relationships of the model and the various simulations conducted under a research project. Section 4 explains how to run MIRAGRODEP and Section 5 illustrates the use of MIRAGRODEP through a modelling exercise: in a world with ten regions of which Europe and North America are included, and five sectors (Agriculture; Agrifood; Industry-textiles and apparel excluded; Textiles and apparel; Services) a 2 For a comprehensive review of the functional forms commonly used in CGE models, please refer to Femenia (2012).full trade liberalization and a free trade agreement between Europe and North America are is implemented in 5 years. Section 6 concludes.The MIRAGRODEP model distinguishes multiple sectors (or activities, industries) each of them producing one single commodity (or good, product). Sectors and commodities are referred to using indices i or j, both representing the exact same elements. The subset Transport refers to the transportation commodities and sectors.MIRAGRODEP is a global dynamic model. Each variable is thus indexed in time (index t) and by region using indices either r, or s, or rr and or ss, which all correspond to the same elements: when two region indices are used, the first one refers to the origin of the flow, while the second one refers to the origin: for example, \uD835\uDC47\uD835\uDC45\uD835\uDC34\uD835\uDC37\uD835\uDC38 \uD835\uDC56,\uD835\uDC60,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 is the trade flow of good i exported by country s to country r, at time t.Another dimension is added: simul which refers to the scenario, either the reference ref or the simulation sim. In the GAMS files of MIRAGRODEP, a dynamic set is used: sim. It takes the value \"ref\" in the baseline and \"sim\" in the simulation. So, in the GAMS file all variables have a supplementary dimension, sim, which will not be included in this document for the commodity of exposition.Set f refers to the five (5) factors of production: skilled labor (index SkLab), unskilled labor (UnSkLab), natural resources (NatlRes), capital (Capital) and land (Land). As will be discussed below, it is assumed that unskilled workers are not perfectly mobile across sectors of production. Hence, sectors are grouped according to the area, rural (L1) or urban (L2), both elements being included in set Ltype. The grouping of sectors i as either L1 or L2 is conducted in the excel file defining the sectoral and geographic disaggregation.The production in each sector and in each region follows the nested structure depicted in 0 below. At the top level, total output Yj,r,t is a Leontief of total value added, VAj,r,t, and of total intermediate consumption, CNTERj,r,t. In other words, there are no substitution possibilities between the two aggregated inputs, they are used in perfect complementarity, and thus their volume shares in total production in volume are constant.  At the second level, on the value added side, total value added is a combination of unskilled labor, Lj,r,t, land, TEj,r,t, natural resources, RNj,r,t, and capital-skilled labor bundle, Qj,r,t. It is assumed that these inputs are imperfect substitutes for one another, which is represented through a constant elasticity of substitution 3 The acronyms for the volume followed by its corresponding price appear in brackets.Value added (VA-PVA)Capital-Skilled labor bundle (Q-PQ)Commodity 1 (IC-PIC)(CES) function 4 . The representative firm minimizes its costs subject to the CES aggregator, which yield the following first order conditions: It is worth noting that total factor productivity is differentiated by country and sector. However, in most cases, there is no information on how total factor productivity differs across sectors such that ∀\uD835\uDC57 ≠ \uD835\uDC57 ′ , \uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC3A\uD835\uDC39\uD835\uDC3C \uD835\uDC57,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 = \uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC3A\uD835\uDC39\uD835\uDC3C \uD835\uDC57′,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 . However, when a reliable estimate of sectoral total factor productivity is available, \uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC3A\uD835\uDC39\uD835\uDC3C \uD835\uDC57,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 ≠ \uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC3A\uD835\uDC39\uD835\uDC3C \uD835\uDC57′,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 . Then, this supplementary equation matters:\uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC3A\uD835\uDC39\uD835\uDC3C \uD835\uDC57,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 − 1 = (\uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC3A\uD835\uDC39 \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 − 1). \uD835\uDC39\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC50\uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC5C\uD835\uDC5F\uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC3A\uD835\uDC39\uD835\uDC3C \uD835\uDC57,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61In all cases, as will be explained in the section dedicated to dynamics, \uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC3A\uD835\uDC39 \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 is determined endogenously in the baseline to make Gross Domestic Products in each country equal to the World Bank's predictions. If a reliable estimate of sectoral total factor productivity exists, these estimates feed the parameter \uD835\uDC39\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC50\uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC5C\uD835\uDC5F\uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC3A\uD835\uDC39\uD835\uDC3C \uD835\uDC57,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 which may differ from 1. If not, equation ( 8) is neutralized since The price paid by the producer for each factor differs from the one received by the households by the amount of taxes, which can be negative in the cases where factors are subsidized. With:\uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC5C\uD835\uDC5D \uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC5C\uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC5D\uD835\uDC5C\uD835\uDC5D,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 Total population of country r.As far as equation ( 21), two remarks are worth mentioning:• \uD835\uDC3E \uD835\uDC57,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC60,\uD835\uDC61 is the supply of capital by country r's agents to sector j in country s, such that ). Let us remind that in equations ( 14) and ( 15), \uD835\uDC3E\uD835\uDC47\uD835\uDC42\uD835\uDC47 \uD835\uDC57,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 is the demand for capital by sector j in country r.• When the public closure requires the implementation of a lump-sum tax on households, another term \uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC5C\uD835\uDC5D \uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC5C\uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC5D\uD835\uDC5C\uD835\uDC5D,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 \uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC62\uD835\uDC5A\uD835\uDC5D\uD835\uDC60\uD835\uDC62\uD835\uDC5A \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 is subtracted from the right-hand side of equation ( 21), with \uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC62\uD835\uDC5A\uD835\uDC5D\uD835\uDC60\uD835\uDC62\uD835\uDC5A \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 the lump-sum tax.Households' savings, SAVHr,t, are a fixed proportion epar,t of their income net of indirect taxes, RECDIRr,t, and the rest of their income is dedicated to consumption budget, BUDHr,t.\uD835\uDC46\uD835\uDC34\uD835\uDC49\uD835\uDC3B \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 = \uD835\uDC52\uD835\uDC5D\uD835\uDC4E \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 (\uD835\uDC45\uD835\uDC38\uD835\uDC49\uD835\uDC3B \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 − \uD835\uDC45\uD835\uDC38\uD835\uDC36\uD835\uDC37\uD835\uDC3C\uD835\uDC45 \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 ) (22)It is easy to suppose either that the saving rate is constant over time \uD835\uDC52\uD835\uDC5D\uD835\uDC4E \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 = \uD835\uDC52\uD835\uDC5D\uD835\uDC4E \uD835\uDC5F , ∀\uD835\uDC61 or varies over time according to a specific function.The In case of a public closure that involves the implementation of a lump-sum tax, the term \uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC5C\uD835\uDC5D \uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC5C\uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC5D\uD835\uDC5C\uD835\uDC5D,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 \uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC62\uD835\uDC5A\uD835\uDC5D\uD835\uDC60\uD835\uDC62\uD835\uDC5A \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 is added on the right-side of equation ( 24).Taxes on production are collected on the value of output of each activity. It is important to note that tax rates should be considered as net rates, that is taxes net of subsidy. Hence, all tax rates can be either positive or negative.\uD835\uDC45\uD835\uDC38\uD835\uDC36\uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC45\uD835\uDC42\uD835\uDC37 \uD835\uDC56,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 = \uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC65\uD835\uDC43 \uD835\uDC56,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 \uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC4C \uD835\uDC56,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 \uD835\uDC4C \uD835\uDC56,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61With: Exports may be subject to three taxes: taxes on production, taxPi,r,t, regular taxes on exports, taxEXPi,r,s,t, and export tax equivalent of multi-fiber arrangement quota premium, taxAMFi,r,s,t. If the public closure requires the imposition of a supplementary consumption tax, each of these four taxes on consumption is increased by \uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC51\uD835\uDC51\uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC65\uD835\uDC50\uD835\uDC50 \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 .Finally, the government collects another receipt \uD835\uDC45\uD835\uDC38\uD835\uDC36\uD835\uDC37\uD835\uDC3C\uD835\uDC45 \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 from direct taxes on households' income through a taxation rate \uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC65\uD835\uDC51\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC5F \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 :If the public closure requires the imposition of a supplementary income tax on households, this tax is increased by \uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC51\uD835\uDC51\uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC65\uD835\uDC51\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC5F \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 .Public sold \uD835\uDC46\uD835\uDC34\uD835\uDC49\uD835\uDC3A \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 is defined as public revenues \uD835\uDC45\uD835\uDC38\uD835\uDC49\uD835\uDC3A \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 minus public expenditures which consist in public current expenditures on goods and services \uD835\uDC35\uD835\uDC48\uD835\uDC37\uD835\uDC3A \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 and public transfers to households.There are several options of public closure. In this basic version of MIRAGRODEP we suppose that public sold SAVGr,t is a fixed proportion, PUBSOLDr, of GDP at market prices, GDPMPr,t. This hypothesis can easily be changed.Six options of public closure are available. Either each government's budgetary expenses are endogenous and adjust to a variation of government's revenues such that equation ( 32) is respected (option 1), or budgetary expenses are constant in nominal terms and public saving is constant in proportion of GDP at market prices (equation 32): a new tax is levied, either a lumpsum tax (option 2), or an additional consumption tax (option 3), or an additional income tax on households (option 4). Or budgetary expenses are constant per capita and in real terms, and public saving is constant in proportion of GDP thanks to a lumpsum tax (option 5). Or budgetary expenses are constant in proportion of GDP at market prices, and public saving is constant in proportion of GDP thanks to a lumpsum tax (option 6). Households' demand is characterized by a LES-CES (Linear Expenditure System -Constant Elasticity of Substitution) specification. This utility function allows a modification of the demand structure of each region to be accounted for as its income level changes: income-elasticity of final consumption is not unitary.So, households' utility, \uD835\uDC34\uD835\uDC48\uD835\uDC4B \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 , is a LES-CES of three broad categories of goods: food products, industrial goods and services (see 0). Additionally, the elasticity of substitution is constant only among the sectoral consumptions over and above a minimum level. The minimal level of consumption can vary across region (e.g. developing versus developed country). Source: authorsThe final consumption of each \"broad\" category, AGI, of goods, \uD835\uDC36\uD835\uDC3B\uD835\uDC36 \uD835\uDC34\uD835\uDC3A\uD835\uDC3C,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 , is a CES of the final consumption of each good, \uD835\uDC36\uD835\uDC3B \uD835\uDC56,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 , of which price is \uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC36 \uD835\uDC56,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 . This allows the introduction of different levels of elasticity of substitution within each \"broad\" category of goods. Concerning food, there is another level of nesting, as total consumption of food is a CES of the consumption of two sets of food products, highvalue food products and other food products. This modelling choice allows the introduction of different levels of elasticity of substitution within these two sets of goods.So, the first level of the final consumption nesting is as follows:5 The acronyms for the volume followed by its corresponding price appear in brackets.CES LES-CESConsumption  In case of a public closure where an additional consumption tax is levied, the term (1 + \uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC65\uD835\uDC50\uD835\uDC50 \uD835\uDC56,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 ) in equation ( 42 Again, the price paid by the purchaser differs from the one received by the seller, as consumption taxes apply.\uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC3E\uD835\uDC3A \uD835\uDC56,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 = \uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC37\uD835\uDC38\uD835\uDC40\uD835\uDC47\uD835\uDC42\uD835\uDC47 \uD835\uDC56,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 (1 + \uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC65\uD835\uDC58\uD835\uDC54\uD835\uDC50 \uD835\uDC56,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 ) (47)In the case of a public closure where an additional consumption tax is levied, the term (1 + \uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC65\uD835\uDC58\uD835\uDC50 \uD835\uDC56,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 ) in equation ( 42) becomes (1 + \uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC65\uD835\uDC58\uD835\uDC50 \uD835\uDC56,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 +\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC51\uD835\uDC51\uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC65\uD835\uDC50\uD835\uDC50 \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 ).MIRAGRODEP is a trade model explaining bilateral trade flows. It is based on the Armington assumption:commodities are assumed to be distinguished by place of origin, and thus, they are imperfect substitutes for one another (Armington, 1969). Nested CES functions are used to reflect preferences among varieties originating from different countries. Therefore, countries can export and import the same product at the same time due to consumer preferences for different varieties. It results in an imperfect price transmission between domestic and international market and the intensity of this price transmission is highly dependent on the choice of the CES trade elasticities and the initial share of trade. The nested demand by geographic origin is represented on 0.  The acronyms for the volume followed by its corresponding price appear in brackets.Total imports (M-PM) If sector i is the transportation sector, then \uD835\uDC47\uD835\uDC5F\uD835\uDC46\uD835\uDC62\uD835\uDC5D\uD835\uDC5D\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC66 \uD835\uDC56,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 is added on the right side of equation ( 65).Total supply of skilled workers, \uD835\uDC3B ̅ \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 , is fixed and grows exogenously. Skilled workers are assumed to be perfectly mobile across all sectors, and there is no unemployment. Hence, the equilibrium between supply and demand determines the wage rate.\uD835\uDC3B ̅ \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 = ∑ \uD835\uDC3B \uD835\uDC57,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 \uD835\uDC57Regarding unskilled workers (\uD835\uDC3F ̅ \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 ), total supply is exogenous and grows at an exogenous rate.Unskilled workers are not perfectly mobile between rural and urban areas. A constant elasticity of transformation (CET) is used to characterize the allocation of unskilled workers between rural and urban activities. Unskilled workers maximize their income subject to the CET aggregator, which leads to the following supply function: Where \uD835\uDC36\uD835\uDC34\uD835\uDC35 \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 represents the current account balance, which is a constant share \uD835\uDC46\uD835\uDC42\uD835\uDC3F\uD835\uDC37 \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 of GDP at market prices, \uD835\uDC3A\uD835\uDC37\uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC40\uD835\uDC43 \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 .\uD835\uDC36\uD835\uDC34\uD835\uDC35 \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 = \uD835\uDC3A\uD835\uDC37\uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC40\uD835\uDC43 \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 \uD835\uDC46\uD835\uDC42\uD835\uDC3F\uD835\uDC37 \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61The sum of all current account balances is equal to zero:World GDP is the simply the sum of regional GDPs, \uD835\uDC3A\uD835\uDC37\uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC40\uD835\uDC43 \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 :Consistent with the system of national accounting, each region's GDP at market prices is given by the sum of payments to factors of production and of indirect taxes.\uD835\uDC3A\uD835\uDC37\uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC40\uD835\uDC43 In MIRAGRODEP, each agent achieves a balance between expenses and revenues: concerning households, revenue from the ownership of productive factors and from received transfers equals consumption expenditures, plus savings, plus transfers paid; firms' spending (including payment to capital) equals firms' revenue. At the country level, a gap between private and public savings and investment can occur due to a current account surplus or deficit, which leads to real exchange rate adjustments (determining relative international prices among economies). Furthermore, supply equals demand for all commodities and factors in the economy.More specifically, the following assumptions are made regarding the savings-investment balance, the public closure and the current account balance.For this research, the so-called Neo-Classical closure is adopted: the marginal propensity to save is constant such that variations in income lead to variations in savings, which lead to variations in investment. Thus, investment is \"savings-driven.\"Regarding the public closure, when implementing a scenario which systematically affects public revenues, the user has the choice between six options:• Public expenses per head vary and adjust to variation in public revenues such that the ratio public deficit / GDP is constant.• No variation in real public expenses per head and a lumpsum tax is levied such that the ratio public deficit / GDP is constant.• No variation in real public expenses per head and an additional consumption tax is levied such that the ratio public deficit / GDP is constant.• No variation in real public expenses per head and an additional income tax is levied such that the ratio public deficit / GDP is constant.• No variation in public expenses in proportion of GDP at market prices and a lumpsum tax is levied such that the ratio public deficit / GDP is constant.• No variation in budgetary expenses in nominal terms and public saving is constant in proportion of GDP at market pricesThe choice of either option is not neutral and particularly important when it comes to welfare analysis. In order not to bias the welfare analysis results, a closure with no variation in real public expenses per head and a tax (either a lumpsum tax, or an additional consumption tax or and additional income tax) levied to maintain the ratio public deficit / GDP constant should be preferred. A lumpsum tax is not distortive so from an economic point of view, it should be considered. An additional consumption or income tax is sometimes preferred, as this policy option is considered as more realistic.Finally, we assume in MIRAGRODEP that the current account balance is fixed (in the model, this is expressed as a percent of global GDP). The fixed level of the current account balance is maintained through an adjustment of the real exchange rate. With this specification, there is no \"free lunch;\" if a country needs to increase its imports, it will have to increase its exports as well through a depreciation of its real exchange rate. In doing so we avoid biased welfare analysis, where the country's consumption, and welfare, is \"subsidized\" through transfers from the rest of the world (capital inflows).MIRAGRODEP is a dynamic CGE model of the recursive type. There is no expectation of future values by any agent. At each period t, each variable takes initially the value which it had at the end of the previous period. For illustration, the first variable that we presented above is total output of good j in country/region r at time t: \uD835\uDC4C \uD835\uDC57,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 . At each period, this variable is initialized by \uD835\uDC4C. \uD835\uDC59 \uD835\uDC57,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 = \uD835\uDC4C. \uD835\uDC59 \uD835\uDC57,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61−1 . In GAMS, the suffix \".l\" is the current value of a variable; so, \uD835\uDC4C. \uD835\uDC59 \uD835\uDC57,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 = \uD835\uDC4C. \uD835\uDC59 \uD835\uDC57,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61−1 means that in t, the current value of \uD835\uDC4C \uD835\uDC57,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 is the value taken at t-1.Dynamic relations in MIRAGRODEP concern the accumulation of productive factors and technical progress, or total factor productivity.Concerning the accumulation of productive factors, skilled and unskilled labor supplies are exogenously increased by a growth rate of the economically active population (source: United Nations) and unskilled labor supply is allocated to rural or urban activities following equation ( 67), which is a Constant Elasticity of Transformation function. Other factors augment endogenously, as explained by equation ( 70) concerning land, and by equations ( 73) and ( 74) concerning capital. The supply of Natural Resources is constant.Technical progress is incorporated in MIRAGRODEP through a Total Factor Productivity variable \uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC3A\uD835\uDC39 \uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 which is endogenous and adjusts such that the growth of GDP in each country or region is equal to the World Bank's predictions. If information about differential rate of growth of Total Factor Productivity is available, equation ( 8) is effective and a differential evolution of technical progress by sector and country is included in the model.In the modelling of an impact of a reform or a shock on the world economy, the dynamic version of MIRAGRODEP first builds a baseline, i.e. a simulation of the world economy over a specific number of years without any reform or any shock; the baseline is sometimes called the \"Business As Usual\" simulation. Then one or more scenarios are run; these are simulations of the world economy over the same number of years, with the reform(s) studied under the research project.Results are evaluated by comparison of the scenario and the baseline. So, for example, if the research project concludes that the reform will lead to a x% increase of country A's GDP in 2030 and that the simulation started in 2020, it does not mean that country A's GDP is expected to increase by x% between 2020 and 2030, but that in 2030, the comparison of the scenario to the baseline gives an x% increase of country A's GDP: this is really the impact of the reform that leads to this augmentation.Let us make two remarks at this stage. First, this way of modeling baseline and scenarios adds a dimension to every variable. For example, total output of good j in country/region r at time t is not \uD835\uDC4C \uD835\uDC57,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61 , but \uD835\uDC4C \uD835\uDC57,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61,\uD835\uDC60\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC5A .The dimension \"sim\" is added and consists in a set with the baseline (called \"Ref\" in MIRAGRODEP) and each scenario. The impact of the \"Scen1\" scenario on country A's GDP in percentage is therefore: 100 * ( \uD835\uDC4C \uD835\uDC57,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61, ′ \uD835\uDC46\uD835\uDC36\uD835\uDC38\uD835\uDC411′ \uD835\uDC4C \uD835\uDC57,\uD835\uDC5F,\uD835\uDC61,′\uD835\uDC45\uD835\uDC52\uD835\uDC53′ − 1).Second, the modeler can decide to include in the baseline a reform that is already adopted and expected to be implemented after the initial year of the modelling: it means that this reform will be included in the baseline and in the scenario. For example, consider the case where the modeling includes three countries A, B, and C, and the rest of the world, and the modeling exercise simulates the world economy from \uD835\uDC61 0 to \uD835\uDC61 1 . If the research evaluates the impact of a trade agreement between A and B, and if a trade agreement between A and C is already adopted in \uD835\uDC61 0 , but its implementation starts between \uD835\uDC61 0 and \uD835\uDC61 1 , it is better to include the agreement between A and C in both the baseline and the scenario. The representation of the world economy is improved.Using MIRAGRODEP for policy analysis requires a number of steps which the user needs to follow strictly so that the model can run properly. It is important to follow the indicated sequence, otherwise a bug will occur. Also, note all the files must be modified by the user. Handling an efficient and clean management of files is a key issue when using MIRAGRODEP. There are six files that need to work on, one Excel file and five Gams files 8 :• Aggregation.xlsx• options.gmsFirst of all, the aggregation levels for products and regions have to be defined in the Aggregation.xlsx file.In the Excel file, the user is requested to decide 1) a sector disaggregation (see Error! Reference source not found.); 2) a geographic disaggregation (see Error! Reference source not found.). Let us remind that data comes from the GTAP database. Concerning the geographic disaggregation (see Error! Reference source not found.), the user needs to fill the third column (C) in yellow and type the same aggregation code for all the GTAP countries or regions that will be aggregated together in the same MIRAGRODEP country/region.  Once this is done, the AggregationGTAP.gms file must be run to execute the selected aggregation. It is of course necessary before running the master file, that the aggregation is done as well as the selection of the options of the model.Let us now present an illustration of a (simple) research project conducted with MIRAGRODEP. We objective of the project is to evaluate the potential impacts of a free trade area between Europe and North America, consisting of Canada and the US.We adopt a simple sector and geographic disaggregation to get an easy execution of the program and interpretation of results. We adopt a geographic disaggregation (0) with a region composed of the USA and Canada, called \"North America\" and a region called Europe consisting in the European Economic Area, i.e. the European Union (with 28 countries as United Kingdom is includedit is before Brexit) and the European Free Trade Association (Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway). These are the two regions that are supposed to join in a free trade agreement. • Concerning the labor market, we assume that employment in each country or region is constant.The impact of the agreement on the labor market will be appreciated through a variation of labor remuneration.• Concerning the public closure, we assume that there is no variation in real public expenses per head, and that the ratio public deficit / GDP is constant: an additional consumption tax is levied to make sure that these constraints are respected.• Concerning the external closure, we assume that the current account is constant in proportion of GDP. The real exchange rate of each region adjusts to fill this constraint.Conducting a baseline allows the user to visualize how each economy performs without the studied trade agreement. For instance, Error! Reference source not found. shows the evolution of regional GDPs between 2020 and 2030.   Of course, the macroeconomic impact of the full trade liberalization is significantly greater than the Europe-North America free trade agreement. The increase of world GDP is 0.2% in the case of the former reform, close to zero in the latter case. In terms of GDP in volume, the impact of the full trade liberalization is positive in each region except for \"Poor Asia and Oceania\" which is slightly negatively affected.Concerning the Europe-North America free trade agreement, the impact on GDP is positive for Europe and North America, but negative for all other regions. Let us now present the impact on bilateral trade in value between each pair of regions, for the full trade liberalization scenario (Error! Reference source not found.), and for the Europe-North America trade agreement (0).  Africa 0,1 0,1 0,2 -0,4 0,1 -0,6 0,2 0,0 0,1 0,2 -0,1Emerging Asia and Oceania 0,1 0,1 0,2 -0,1 0,1 -1,0 0,2 0,0 0,1 0,2 -0,1Emerging Latin America 0,1 0,1 0,2 -0,7 0,2 -0,5 0,1 0,1 0,2 0,2 -0,2 Europe -0,5 -0,4 -0,3 -0,4 10,3 -0,4 -0,5 -0,3 -0,4 1,8Latin America 0,2 0,2 0,2 -0,4 0,2 -0,8 0,2 0,2 0,2 0,3 -0,2North America -1,0 -1,0 -0,8 12,3 -1,1 -1,3 -1,0 -0,9 -0,8 -1,0 1,7Other Emerging 0,1 0,0 0,1 -0,3 0,1 -0,5 0,1 0,0 0,1 0,1 -0,1Poor Asia and Oceania 0,1 0,0 0,1 -0,1 0,1 -1,2 0,2 0,0 0,1 0,2 -0,1Rich Asia and Oceania 0,0 0,0 0,1 -0,2 0,0 -0,6 0,1 -0,1 0,0 0,1 -0,1Rest of the World 0,1 0,0 0,1 -0,3 0,1 -0,6 0,1 0,0 0,0 0,1 -0,1 World -0,2 -0,1 -0,2 1,8 -0,2 1,2 -0,1 -0,1 -0,1 -0,1 0,4Source: MIRAGRODEP and authors' calculation Note: exporting region in row; importing region in column Full trade liberalization leads to an increase of world total exports of each region (last column of Error! Reference source not found.) while in the case of the Europe-North America trade agreement, world exports augment for Europe and North America, but decrease for all other regions. For Europe and North America, this free trade agreement leads to trade creation between these two regions, but trade diversion on all other destinations.We now present the impact on production in volume, in the case of the FTL scenario (0) and the EUNA one (Error! Reference source not found.). The impact of the former scenario on production in volume is significantly greater than in the latter scenario. Production decreases when in the baseline, the sector is protected from foreign competition by relatively high tariffs: this is the case of the textile and apparel sector in Europe, Latin America and North America, but also for Africa in all sectors except industry (textile and apparel excluded). The highest increase in production in volume is the textile and apparel sector in Poor Asia and Oceania which benefits from the removal of high protection in Europe, Latin America, and North America: it expands by 78.5% in real terms. Other beneficiaries are the agricultural sector in Latin America and Other Emerging countries: it includes Russia, Ukraine, and South Africa.  Africa 0,0 -0,1 0,0 0,0 -0,1Emerging Asia and Oceania 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 -0,2Emerging Latin America 0,0 -0,1 0,0 0,0 -0,2 Europe 0,0 0,1 0,0 0,0 2,4Rest of Latin America 0,0 -0,1 0,0 0,0 -0,8North America 0,1 0,6 0,1 0,0 0,3Other Emerging 0,0 -0,1 0,0 0,0 0,0Poor Asia and Oceania 0,0 -0,1 0,0 0,0 -0,8Rich Asia and Oceania 0,0 -0,1 0,0 0,0 -0,2Rest of the World 0,0 -0,1 0,0 0,0 -0,1 Source: MIRAGRODEP and authors' calculationThe impact of the free trade agreement between Europe and North America on sectoral production in volume is relatively limited. Only production in these two regions is positively affected and the rate of variation is relatively small except for the European textile and apparel sector, for which production increases by 2.4% in volume.Let us present the impact on the real remuneration of productive factors of both FTL (0) and EUNA (0) scenarios. When activity is increasing in a sector, it needs more productive factors. The impact on the real remuneration of productive factors is related to the variation of production in volume and the intensity of each factor in each sector. For example, the real remunerations of rural unskilled labor and of land in Latin America (both Emerging and Rest of) are positively affected by full trade liberalization because production in these sectors in those regions are positively affected (see 0). This is related to the expansion of Latin American agricultural and agrifood exports: see last column of Error! Reference source not found.. Emerging Asia and Oceania 0,3 0,4 -1,2 0,6 -0,7 -1,9Emerging Latin America -0,5 0,0 3,7 -0,3 0,6 5,2 Europe 0,4 0,3 1,3 0,5 -0,5 1,7Rest of Latin America -0,5 -0,2 3,5 -0,4 1,0 4,9North America 0,2 0,0 1,8 0,2 0,0 2,5Other Emerging -0,4 -0,3 21,9 0,1 -0,5 30,5Poor Asia and Oceania -0,6 0,4 -2,7 0,3 0,1 -3,5Rest of the World -0,3 -0,4 71,6 0,6 -0,5 107,9Rich Asia and Oceania 1,4 1,6 -20,0 1,8 -0,4 -27,9Source: MIRAGRODEP and authors' calculation Emerging Asia and Oceania 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,2 0,0Emerging Latin America 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,2 0,0 Europe 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,1 0,1 Latin America 0,0 0,0 -0,1 0,0 0,2 -0,1North America 0,0 0,0 0,1 0,0 0,0 0,1 Other Emerging 0,0 0,0 -0,1 0,0 0,2 -0,1Poor Asia and Oceania 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,2 0,0Rest of the World 0,0 0,0 -0,1 0,0 0,1 -0,1Rich Asia and Oceania 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,0 0,1 0,0 Source: MIRAGRODEP and authors' calculationThe objective of this technical note was to present the MIRAGRODEP model of the world economy. This is a multi-sector multi-region computable general equilibrium model which allows for the simulation of the economic impacts of reforms or shocks on world markets. This type of model is important because it can be used to quantify the impact of reforms and identify the main channels of transmission of a reform on economic variables in each region or country of the world economy. They are important for policymakers because they are not parsimonious and provide numerous and detailed information. They can also be used to design the accompanying policies that must be implemented to correct the negative implications of a reform on a specific sector or on specific agents.The MIRAGRODEP model has been used in the evaluation of the impact of trade reforms, either multilateral, or regional, or of trade preferences, the evaluation of biofuels support program, the impact of WTO trade reform, and in many other types of studies.MIRAGRODEP can still be improved in many directions. To give a few examples, the modelling of nontariff measures is still a vast domain of research. The impact of bound import duties is another illustration.The introduction of environmental issues may be the most important domain of research for CGE modelers. ","tokenCount":"5424"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8f0412fa7723d6357ec05c1067884b01","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/bfb59b37-1984-4d8f-8f56-96eceb664abb/retrieve","id":"-690123317"},"keywords":["Breeding Objective","Indigenous Chicken","Highland","Midland","Traits Preference xvi"],"sieverID":"8fc81f80-e37a-4644-a7cd-156e5c79c3fc","pagecount":"148","content":"proposal write up to submission of the final thesis write up. I want also to thank Tigray Agricultural Research Institute (TARI) for offering the opportunity to pursue my MS.c study.Equally, I would like to thank ILRI/LIVES project and Jimma University College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine for the financial grant for my research works.My appreciation also goes to the ILRI/LIVES project staff W/ro perimilla for the financial facilitation she made during the research period. I would like to thank for all Axum Agricultural Research Center staff members, BoARD staff members of L/maichew, Adwa and Ahferom districts and all sample respondents for this study. Prof. Kirmani Mohamed Menzur and Mr.Mohamed Aleye are also appreciated for their moral and material support. My special thanks go to Mr. Bruh W/mariam Coordinator of Axum Agricultural Research Center and Livestock core process members, for his all rounded help from the beginning to the end of the study period and my family for their kind cooperation. Above all, I thank the Almighty God for giving me health and strength for the completion of the study. vii TABLES OF CONTENTS DEDICATION .x         Poultry is the largest livestock group in the world estimated to be about 23.39 billion consisting mainly of chickens, ducks and turkeys (FAOSTATA, 2012). In Africa, village poultry contributes over 70% of poultry products and 20% of animal protein intake (Kitalyi, 1998). According to the author in East Africa over 80% of human population live in rural areas and over 75% of these households keep indigenous chickens.According to CSA (2014), there are 53 million chickens in Ethiopia of which 96.6% are indigenous. These indigenous chickens produce 90% of total eggs and 95% of total meat in the country. According to CSA (2010/11), the total poultry population in Tigray region is estimated to be about 4,308,595, which are about 8.74% of the total national indigenous chicken population and contributes about 15% of the total annual national egg and poultry meat production. About 80.90% of the total regional chicken populations are found in rural areas while the urban areas constitute 19.10% (CSA, 2010). Central administration zone of Tigray accounts for more than 1.1 million chickens which account for about 34.68% of the total regional poultry population (CSA, 2010).The traditional poultry production system is characterized by small flock sizes, low input, low output, and periodic devastation of the flock by disease (Tadelle et al., 2003a). With a number of challenges, backyard poultry production is still important in low-income, food-deficit production systems to supply the fast-growing human population with high demand for quality protein (Tadelle et al., 2003a). Backyard poultry is also a source of employment for underprivileged groups in many local communities (Mengesha et al., 2008). According to Aklilu (2007), village poultry is the first step on the ladder for poor households to climb out of poverty and is a source of self-reliance for women, since poultry and egg sales are decided by women and provide women with an immediate income to meet household expenses. A traditional stew (Doro wot dish) is served in festivities and to honor guests and demonstrates respect to guests, that strengthens social relationship.Despite the importance of indigenous breeds in rendering income, posses' cultural value and source of nutrition for household, they are under threat due to various factors such as changing production systems and indiscriminate crossbreeding (Besbes, 2009). Importation of exotic chicken breeds for commercial investments has gradually increased during the past years due to the high local demand for chicken products in the region. This has encouraged a continuous gene flow and genetic erosion of local chicken genetic resources. The replacement of local by exotic breeds and/or uncontrolled breeding with local populations has been posing a serious threat to the existence of few local chicken breeds on small-scale farms, putting these local animal genetic resources at risk of extinction (Kadim et al., 2009).Recently a genetic improvement program has been initiated for increasing productivity of indigenous chickens of Ethiopia through selective breeding, as a means both to improve the livelihood of poor people and conserve the existing genetic diversity through utilization (Nigussie et al., 2010b). Developing appropriate animal breeding programs for village conditions requires characterizing local chickens, defining the production environments and identifying the breeding practices, production objectives, and trait choices of rural farmers (Soelkner et al., 1998. Therefore, these existing chicken ecotypes have to be characterized for their overall merits and for subsequent improvement. Characterization is the initial step for long-term genetic improvement as it provides the basis for any other livestock development interventions and provides information for designing appropriate breeding programs. Breed characterization includes all activities related with the description of the origin, development, structure, population, quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the breeds in defined management and climatic conditions (FAO, 2012). Breeds can be characterized by morphological (phenotypic) and molecular tools. Phenotypic characterization is a comparatively easy and cheap tool of breed characterization (FAO, 2012) A \"people-cantered\" breed characterization method has recently emerged with a more participatory approach to identify and understand the indigenous animal genetic resources.According to Haile et al. (2009), community is defined as a group of people having social, cultural and economic relation based on common interest, goal, problems or practices shared interest and living in a well defined area. Some attempts have been done on characterization of local chicken ecotypes in different parts of Ethiopia on a comprehensive standard by different researchers. Previous research works indicated that indigenous chickens are non-descriptive, with a variety of morphological appearances (Halima, 2007;Mokonnen, 2007). Research on phenotypic and genetic characterization of indigenous chicken ecotypes was done in some selected areas of Ethiopia (Tadelle, 2003;Halima, 2007;Aberra and Tegene, 2011). Nigussie (2011) also examined the morphological and genetic characterization of indigenous chickens in different parts of Ethiopia (Oromia, Amhara, Benshangulgumuze, South nation and nationality people and Gamabela) and identified that there were sufficient genetic variation between groups of indigenous chickens.out at Debre Ziet agricultural research center (Duguma, 2006), at SNNPR (Aberra and Tegene, 2011), at South West and South Part of Ethiopia Emebet et al. (2014), at Fogera district (Bogale, 2008) and at North Wollo zone of Amhara regional state (Addisu, 2013) that has identified a large variations in morphological appearances, conformation and body weights of indigenous chickens.Moreover, characterization of smallholder poultry production and market system had been also carried out in Alamata and Atsbi-wonberta woredas of Tigray region (Dawit, 2010), in three districts of SNNPRs (Mekonnen, 2007), in Halaba district of southern Ethiopia (Nebiyu, et al., 2014), in Gomma wereda of Jimma zone (Meseret, 2010), in Gondar town (Wondu et al., 2013) and in Bure wereda (Fisseha, 2009). Generally they reported that the productivity of local scavenging chicken is low with high mortality of chicks.There was little attempt to study the chicken production and marketing system, flock composition and socio-economic importance in the central zone of Tigray region in northern Ethiopia. Moreover, there was little research carried out in central zone of Tigray to characterize and classify the existing local chickens through the participation of the community. Given the high potential of the central zone for poultry production and presence of diverse ecotypes, it is imperative to conduct comprehensive studies that can cover the entire characteristics of morphological, functional, and adaptive traits of local chickens, identifying farmers' breeding objectives, breeding practices, and trait preference of local chickens producers with \"peoplecentered\" perspective. This will serve as a foundation for proper conservation, utilization and genetic improvement program. This research was, therefore designed with the following general and specific objectives. To characterize phenotypes of local chicken ecotypes in the central zone of Tigray through participating the community that serve as a baseline information for further genetic improvement and utilizations. To assess the socioeconomic characteristics and production environments of local chicken ecotypes in the study area  To asses farmers' breeding objectives, breeding practice, and traits of preference for local chickens in the study area. To assess the phenotypic characteristics of the local chicken ecotypes based on their phenotype in their environment.Poultry include all domestic birds kept for the purpose of human food production (meat and eggs) such as chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, ostrich, guinea fowl, doves and pigeons. In Ethiopia ostrich, ducks, guinea fowls, doves and pigeons are found in their natural habitat (wild) whereas, geese and turkey are exceptionally not common in the country. Thus the word poultry is synonymous with chicken production under the present Ethiopian conditions (EARO, 1999).According to the CSA (2010), the total poultry population at country level is estimated to be about 49,286,932 and with regard to breed, 47,954,978 (97.3 percent), 188,032 (0.38 percent) and 1,143,922 (2.32 percent) of the total poultry were reported to be indigenous, hybrid and exotic, respectively. Poultry includes cocks, cockerels, pullets, laying hens, non-laying hens and chicks. Most of the poultry are chicks (37%), followed by laying hens (32%). Pullets are estimated to be 4,878,184 (10%) in the country. Cocks and cockerels are also estimated separately, and are 5,614,700 (11%) and 2, 771, 22 (6%), respectively. The others are non-laying hens 1,834,686 that make up about 4% of the total poultry population in the country. Among these 5.45 million (11%) cocks, 2.69 million (6%) cockerels, 4.72 million (10%) pullets, 15.37 million (32%) laying hens, 17.8 million (4%) non-laying hens and 17.9 million (37%) chicks are indigenous poultry.According to the CSA (2010), Oromia, Amhara, SNNP, and Tigray regional states account for 38.07%, 28.50%, 21.12% and 8.74% of the total national poultry population, respectively.Collectively poultry population of the four major regions account for about 96.43% of the total national poultry population. Chicken rearing is not common in the lowlands of Ethiopia i.e. Somali, Gambella, Afar and Benishangul-Gumze regional states, which collectively own about 3.3% of the total national chicken population.According to the CSA in 2010/11, the total poultry population in Tigray region is estimated to be about 4,308,595. In this report, rural areas constitute about 81.0 percent of the total poultry, while urban areas comprised of 19.0 percent. Flock structure of Tigray regional state and zones of Tigray are indicated in Table 1 below. Source (CSA, 2010/11) Table 1 shows pertaining to zonal distribution, 35.41 percent, 34.58 percent, 17.07 percent, and 11.49 percent of the total poultry population of Tigray regional state are found in West, Central, South, and East Tigray Zones, respectively. The remaining 1.45 percent of the total poultry population of the region was found in Mekele zone.The average flock size of chickens in Tigray regional state were 7.2 Solomon (2008) and the average flock size of chickens of North West Ethiopia reported by Halima et al. (2007) was 7.13.The average flock size of chickens per household in lowland agro-ecology of central zone of Tigray was 5. 6 and in midland was 8 (Alem, 2013). There was higher number of chickens reported in Burre district of which 13 chickens/household (Fisseha et al., 2010). Melesse and Negesse (2011) reported average flock size of 7.0 chickens for northwest and southern parts of Ethiopia. In southern Ethiopia, Mekonnen (2007) reported an average flock size of 9.2 chickens per household for scavenging local chickens. On the other hand, a relatively higher flock size of 12 chickens per household was reported by Hunduma et al. (2010) in the Oromia regional states of Ethiopia. However flock size of indigenous chicken is not known in two districts of the study areas with this regard this study solves the problem in central zone of Tigray.Regarding the production potential of indigenous birds, studies carried out at in Wetsren zone of Tigray (Markos et al., 2015)   Nigussie et al. (2010a) has also reported that the production level of scavenging hens is generally low, with only 40-60 small sized eggs produced per bird per year under smallholder management conditions. Higher egg productions per year per hen were reported by Fisseha et al. (2010) in Bure district (60 eggs), Mekonnen (2007) in Wonsho district (62.95 eggs).The overall number of eggs/hen per clutch of local hen reported by Meseret (2010), Addisu et al.(2013), Wondu et al. (2013) andCSA (2003) in Gomma wereda, North Wollo Zone North Gondar Amhara region and Ethiopia were 12.92, 12.64, 11.53 (8-15)   Amsalu, (2003) reported that local hen lays about 36 eggs per year in 3 clutches of 12 to 13 eggs in about 16 days. Each reproductive cycle lasts for 17 weeks. Three cycles then make one year. These are very efficient, productive and essential traits for survival. By using brooding coop or other means of controlling broody character of village chicken it is possible to shorten the period to switch the clutch to every 27 days and to increase the egg produce by bird in 81 days time to 30 eggs. However, there was little research carried out in central zone of Tigray to identify production and productivity performance of indigenous chickens but it is was not through the participation of the community.Sexual maturity, clutch size and incubation practice Sonaiya and Swan (2004) reported that indigenous village chicken, in Ethiopia attains sexual maturity at an average of 7 months. Halima (2007)  According to Horst (1989) indigenous chickens are ideal mothers, good setters, hatching their own eggs, excellent foragers and vigor. They are aggressive, hardy and possess some degree of natural immunity against some diseases. These factors are important ideal requirements for replication and sustaining their generation in scavenging nature. The most important characteristic of indigenous chicken is their broodiness (maternal instinct), which is pronounced for indigenous chickens in Ethiopia. Broody hens were the sole means of egg incubation and brooding young chicks.It is identified that, the average hatchability percentage of local hens in western zone of Tigray was 74.3% (Markos et al., 2015).Other authors Halima (2007), Habte et al. (2013) and Tadelle and Ogle (2001)   (Halima, 2007).Clay pots, bamboo baskets, cartons or even simply a shallow depression in the ground are common materials and locations used for egg setting (Tadelle et al., 2003a;Fisseha, 2009). Crop residues, usually tef, wheat and barley straws were used as bedding materials (Tadelle et al., 2003a). Similarly Markos et al. (2014) reported that clay pots with straw bedding (1%),ground with soil/sand/ash bedding (15.6%), bin with grasses/straw/cotton seed bedding (68.8%), plastic with grasses/soil/sand bedding (7.8%), bamboo cages with soil and straw breeding (0.3%),bin with straw bedding during rainy season and with sand bedding during dry season (3.9%), cartoon with grasses and clothes bedding (0.8%), dish with soil or clothes bedding (0.5%), ground / bin or dish with grasses bedding (0.3%) or plastic and bin with grasses bedding alternatively (1%) as egg setting materials were used in western zone of Tigray. According to farm households, the number of eggs set per bird depends, in their orders of importance, on season, experience and size of the bird (Tadelle et al., 2003a). Related selection of broody hens, indigenous practice were practice a culture of selecting broody hens used for breeding/ egg incubation purposes by looking hen's past egg incubation performance (73.9%), presence of big body size (7.9%), presence of thick feather (2.1%), size of eggs laid (2.5%), respectively (Tadelle et al., 2003a).Feed supplementation has been reported in various countries as a common practice to promote chicken performance. In Ethiopia, more than 97%, feed supplementation by chicken owners were reported (Halima, 2007;Fisseha et al., 2010); Mengesha et al., 2011).In Ethiopia, village chicken production systems is usually kept under free range system and the major proportion of the feed is obtained through scavenging. The major components of Scavenging Feed Resource Base (SFRB) are reported to be insects, worms, seeds and plant materials, with very small amounts of grain and table leftover supplements from the household.Many studies showed that there is no purposeful feeding of rural household chickens in Ethiopia and the scavenging feed resource is almost the only source of feed. Messertet (2010) reported that almost all of the respondents (97.8%) reported to practice scavenging system with supplementary feeding in Gomma districts, and Asefa (2007) and Mekonnen (2007) who reported 95-98% of the small scale household poultry producers in Awassa Zuria and Dale offer supplementary feeding to their chickens.On the other hand Halima (2007) reported that almost all 99.28% the farmers in Northwest Ethiopia provided supplementary feeding to their chickens and chickens of different age groups were fed together. However, the type and amount of feed depended on the crops grown in the area as well as the seasons. The majority of the farmers who practiced supplementary feeding systems (mostly once per day) used maize, barley, wheat, finger millet and household waste products to feed their chickens. After hatching, the chicks were allowed to forage and roam freely with their mothers in open areas near the home and surroundings. Halima (2007) was also reported that about 99.45% of the farmers in Amhara region provided water for their chickens in plastic, wooden or clay bowls, and 31.52% of the respondents cleaned the bowl daily. In many cases the bowl was filled once per day.Housing systems in backyard system is rudimentary and mostly built with locally available materials. In traditional free range, there is no separate poultry house and the chickens live in family dwelling together with humans (Solomon, 2007). Lack of housing is one of the constraints of the smallholder poultry production systems. In some African countries, a large proportion of village poultry mortality accounted due to nocturnal predators because of lack of proper housing (Dwinger et al., 2003). Some research works also indicated that the mortality of scavenging birds reduced by improved housing. Tadelle and Ogle (2001), reported that there was no special housing provided for birds. In most cases (88.8%) they roosted inside the family dwelling at night, the roost being made of two or three raised parallel planks of wood. A few households (11.5%) had constructed the house and this night shelter was occasionally cleaned by the housewife.Meseret (2010) has also reported that in Gomma district about 94.4% of the rural household have no separate poultry house, Mekonnen (2007) was also reported that there is no specific separate poultry houses in Dale District. Halima (2007) reported that significant size of the rural households (51%) of Northern Ethiopia had separate sheds for their chickens, almost all farmers provided night shelter for their chickens either in part of the kitchen (1.36%) or in the main house (39.07%), in hand-woven baskets (7.29%), in bamboo cages (1.51%) or in separate sheds purpose-made for chickens (51%). These shelters were made of locally available materials such as Eucalyptus poles and branches. Fisseha et al. (2010) reported that in Bure district, North West Ethiopia, 77.9% of the village chicken owners provide only night shelter and only 22.1% provided separate poultry house. Another study by Mengesha et al. (2011) in Jamma district, South Wollo reported that 41.3% and 21.2% of chicken owners share the same room and provided separate poultry house, respectively.Scavenging system is characterized by high chick mortality in the first two weeks of life, caused mainly by predators and Newcastle disease (Aberra, 2011). Bushra Badhaso (2012) cited that the major causes of death for village poultry production were commonly disease (mainly New Castle Diseases locally known as \"Sombe/Fengil\"), followed by predation. High incidence of chicken diseases, mainly Newcastle Disease (NCD), is the major and economically important constraint for village chicken production system (Fisseha et al., 2010).Mortality of village chicken due to disease outbreak is higher during the short rainy season, mainly in April (66.8%) and May (31.4%). Serkalem et al. (2005) also reported that NCD is one of the major infectious diseases affecting productivity and survival of village chicken in the central highlands of Ethiopia.Predators were listed alongside diseases as major cause of premature death. The predation is strongly associated with the rainy season. The predators include primarily birds of prey such as vultures, which prey only on chicken and wild mammals such as cats and foxes, which prey on mature birds as well as chicks (Tadelle and Ogle, 2001). Predators such as birds of prey (locally known as \"Culullee\") (34%), cats and dogs (16.3%) and wild animals (15%) were identified as the major causes of village poultry in rift valley of Oromia, Ethiopia (Hunduma et al., 2010). Aberra (2007) has also reported that about 46% of the respondents in Southern Ethiopia reported, that wild birds (eagle, hawk, etc.) are the most common predators during the dry season, while wild cat (locally known as Shelemetmat) is the most dangerous predator during the rainy season. Halima (2007) also reported that predation is one of the major constraints in village chicken production in northwest Ethiopia.Generally different authors' reports different husbandry practice; with this regard, the final interest lies in answering the question of what poultry husbandry management practice exists in central of zones Tigray through the participation of the community. et al. (2014) reported that 99.7% of the respondents had participated in selling of chicken products. Higher proportions of households sold chicken products to their neighbors in the same village (98.8%) in lowland than in midland (67.9%). Greatest proportions of respondents in western zone of Tigray sold their chicken products in either of wereda market (9.6%) or both same village and wereda market (90.4%) in highland as compared to both midland (3.1% and 28.2%) and lowland (3.3% and 1.2%) (Markos et al., 2014). Similarly, Bogale (2008) was also reported that 41.7% and 33.3% of the respondents in Fogera districts sold their chicken products in the nearest market and wereda market during market days, respectively while 19.4% sold their products within their respective kebeles during non-market days. Meseret (2010) also reported that chicken products were sold either at the farm gate, primary market (small village market) or at secondary market (at large wereda town) in Gomma wereda of Jimma zone,The marketing system is generally informal and poorly developed. Unlike eggs and meat from commercial hybrid birds (derived from imported stock), local consumers generally prefer those from indigenous stocks. The premium for local birds is attributed to better meat flavor and more deeply colored egg yolks (Dessie and Ogle, 2001). The influences of morphological appearances, particularly plumage color and comb types are significantly important for price variations of the marketable birds of various chicken-ecotypes beside other quantitative traits.2.6.4.1 Determinant factors that affect chicken marketing Reta (2009) cited that chicken morphology is linked to the socio-cultural and religious sacrifices.Red and white cock is sacrificed for good rain and harvest, red and black spotted color (giracha) cock for New Year celebration, white and black spotted (gebsima) cock to prevent evil and calamities and red pullet for dead ancestors (animism) (Tadelle and Ogle , 2001). According to Fisseha et al. (2010) chicken type (sex, age, color and comb type) played an important role on market price of live birds. In addition, most village chicken owners considered plumage color and comb type as main determinant factors in selection of birds for production, consumption and marketing purposes. Red and white plumage colors were most preferred and demanded highly in the chicken marketing system of Burea district (Fisseha, 2010). The selection of plumage colors was attributed to attractiveness by the public and high sale price in marketing. Regarding comb type, double (rose) comb was more privileged than single comb types in terms of preference, market price and demand. Markos et al. (2014) reported that plumage color, body weight, comb type, shank color, smoothness of shank, sex, spur presence, length of legs, head shape and market site were the major factors that cause variation in the price of live chickens in western zone of Tigray.Similarly, Bogale (2008)   (Nigussie et al., 2010b).Although various socio-economic importance of qualitative traits of chickens and marketing system were identified in the country, economical, social and cultural merits of chickens like the mystical activity of the farmers and the extent of the practice are not yet well studied in the central zone of Tigray.Morphologic traits such as plumage color and comb type were also found to have significant economic values beside other quantitative traits related to growth and egg production (Nigussie et al., 2010a). Fisseha et al. (2010) in North West Ethiopia reported that red was the most preferred (83.6%) plumage color and double comb cocks were the most preferred chickens (81.1%). According to Aklilu et al. (2007) double combed birds were preferred to single combed birds but black colour chickens were believed to bring bad fortune. Farmers also select double comb cocks for reproduction purpose in order to fulfil their ritual interest and to fetch higher price at market. They have different reasons for the preference of plumage colour such as demand of consumers at market, camouflage to prevent chickens from attack of predators and other different spiritual reason. Nigussie et al. (2010b) reported that farmers in different part of Ethiopia mainly select adaptive traits, meat and egg test as their preferred traits. The most important traits of farmers in Jordan were growth rate, disease tolerance, egg yield, body size and fertility (Abdelqader et al., 2007). Majority of the farmers in Kenya considered egg yield as the most important trait followed by mothering ability and body size (Okeno et al., 2011). Plumage color of birds (low altitude) and comb type (high altitude) were identified as the traits farmers would like the least to be improved in both classes of sex (Nigussie et al., 2010b). However, there was no research carried out in central zone of Tigray to identify trait preference of farmers through the participation of the community.In terms of adaptive traits and consumption the indigenous chickens were considered favorable. Nigussie et al. (2010b) reported that most of the respondents claimed that the modern breed is poor in disease and stress tolerance (86%) and ability to escape predators prevalent in their village conditions (96%). The modern breed generally required higher level of management (83%) often hard to afford and are poor scavengers (86%) compared to indigenous chickens. In addition, 77% of the farmers in Horro and 90% in Sheka claimed that hatchability of eggs obtained from the modern breed is inferior to eggs from indigenous chickens.Adaptive traits (specifically disease and stress tolerance, flightiness, and scavenging vigor) in both males and females, growth in males and number of eggs in females, ranked first and equal in importance in low altitudes. In the highlands, adaptation is second in importance to growth (males) and egg production (females). With this regard, the final interest lies in answering the question of what adaptive traits of chicken exists in central of zones Tigray through the participation of the community.Like in any other village, poultry systems in developing countries, there is no specialized egg or meat chicken production in Ethiopia. Mengesha et al. (2008) reported that the purpose of keeping poultry in Jamma district was mainly for sale (38.1%), followed by home consumption (31.7%) and no defined (16.3%), at last for religious purposes (13.9%). In central highlands of Ethiopia the purpose of keeping poultry was 50%, 27% and 23% for hatching, sale and home consumption, respectively (Tadelle et al., 2003a). In another study conducted by Aberra and Tegene (2007), in Southern parts of Ethiopia, about 71.4% of chickens raised by the rural community were used for egg production while the rest 28.6% were used for meat production purposes. Nigussie et al. (2010b) also reported that, chickens are raised importantly as source of income and egg production for home consumption. Meat production for home consumption is second in importance in Oromia (Horro) and Southern regions but the function of chickens as source of cash income was rated to be as important as (Horro) or more important than egg and meat production in Mandura district (Nigussie et al., 2010b). It is second in importance to egg production in Farta. In Konso, the principal purpose of raising chickens is for home consumption and their value as income source is third in importance. Based on Nigussie et al. (2010b) reports, only 5% of the farmers in Farta and Konso included the cultural-religious role of chickens rating it fourth in importance. Mengesha et al. (2011) reported in Jamma district that egg utilization for consumption in Woinadega (30.6) and in Dega, (33.9%) and egg utilization for gift in Woinadega (10.5%) and in Dega, (6.8%). In some parts of Africa (Gondwe et al., 2004;Muchadeyi et al. 2007) indicated that the cultural/religious role of indigenous chicken types is important. Some efforts were done in one district of the study area but in the two districts still remain unexplored initiating investigation as a prior step for the endeavors of poultry production and productivity improvements and sustainable utilization of indigenous chickens.Traditional chicken production system is characterized by lacks systematic breeding practice in Gomma district (Meseret, 2010). Furthermore, a study conducted in different parts of Ethiopia revealed that village chicken breeding is completely uncontrolled and replacement stock produced through natural incubation using broody hens (Negussie, 2007;2011). In another study conducted by Fisseha (2009) revealed that about 92.2% of chicken owner farmers in Bure district had the tradition of selecting cocks for breeding stock. Okeno et al. (2011) in Kenya reported that farmers who are confining their flocks do selection of chicken for breeding. According to Fisseha (2009), plumage color (45.4%) and comb type (8.6%) were some of selection criteria for breeding stock in Bure district. Another study conducted in mid Rift valley of Oromia revealed that 68% of the farmers select productive hen by its body size, 12% by finger accommodation between the pelvic bones and 20% by pedigree performance for replacement (Hunduma et al., 2010).According to the report of Nigussie et al. (2010b) there was no systematic mating in different regions of Ethiopia. Another study conducted in the three districts of SNNPRS disclosed that the free-range feeding practice attributed to indiscriminate mating of cocks and hens (Mekonnen, 2007). Bogale (2008), who reported that the home consumption, selling (46.5%), old age and poor productivity (25%) and sickness (5.65%) were the main culling ways of chicken from their flock. Another study in Northwest Ethiopia by Halima (2007) also revealed that farmers cull poor productivity and old age chickens via selling. The breeding practice, mating system and culling practice remain unexplored in the study areas that initiating to investigation these through participating the communities.Effective population size is a measure of genetic variability within a population with large values of Ne indicating more variability and small values indicating less genetic variability (Maiwashe et al., 2006;Cervantes et al., 2008). Inbreeding is the probability that two alleles at any locus in an individual are identical by descent relative to a base population (Falconer and Mackay, 1996).The maximum acceptable level of inbreeding is 0.06 (Armstrong, 2006) with inbreeding higher than this value may decrease genetic diversity because the gene pool narrows. Nigussie et al. (2010b) reported that from 31% to 55.6%, of the farmers of different regions of Ethiopia did not own breeding males. Most of them shared breeding males with neighbours. The largest effective population size was recorded in Konso with the subsequent lowest inbreeding coefficient. The effective population size ranged from 3.19 in Sheka to 5.22 in Konso and the number of breeding individuals is very small (Nugussie, 2010), in Jordan the average size of 15.4was reported (Abdelqader et al., 2007). According to Bogale (2008) report in Amhara region Fogera district the cock to hen ratio among the local chickens was found to be 1:3.21. Similarly the effective population size (Ne) per breeding population and rate of change in breeding coefficient (∆F) of the area were 3.9 and 1.95, respectively. However, there was no research carried out in central zone of Tigray to identify the effective population size and inbreeding rate in village chickens.Horst (1989) has indicated that indigenous chicks have the most important traits (ranging from seven to nine important major genes) that are genetically conserved for their special utility in tropical environment. According to Nesheim et al. (1979) the size and color of the comb and wattles are associated with gonad development and secretion of sex hormones. Large combs, large wattles and long legs are important morphological traits that allow better heat dissipation in the tropical hot environment. The comb and wattles have a large role in sensible heat losses. This specialized structure makes up about 40% of the major heat losses, by radiation, convection and conduction of heat produced from body surfaces at environmental temperature below 80 0 F (Nesheim et al., 1979). According to Horst (1989) the gene coding for these traits, which are not major genes but the result of multiple genes and their interactions, could be considered for incorporation into the development of high performer local birds for the tropical hot environments.Yellow skin coloration is currently more preferred by consumers of developed nations and such color is associated with carotinoid pigments in the epidermis which obtained through the dietary origin (Nesheim et al., 1979).Ethiopia is endowed with varied ecological zones, ethnic groups, and socioeconomic, religious and cultural considerations and possesses diverse animal genetic resources. There is a long history of trade with Asian and Arab countries across the Red Sea. The waves of trade and physical movement of people and animals have influenced the genetic makeup of domestic resources, including chickens (Workneh et al., 2004). As a result, Ethiopia possesses a substantial amount of phenotypic diversity for various traits in the indigenous chicken genetic resources. Indigenous chickens in Ethiopia are found in huge numbers distributed across different agro ecology categories under a traditional family-based scavenging management system (Alemu and Tadelle, 1997). Reta (2006) and Halima (2007) reported that the names of the indigenous chicken groups were being called as chicken-ecotypes and native-chickens, respectively. The indigenous chickens are studied so far in two approaches as criteria for their differentiation and identification. (1) Based on their ecological or main habitat, thus chickens are named after their area of geographical origin. ( 2) Based on morphological characteristics for identification specially feather type and color. Some of the characterized and designated chicken ecotypes (native chickens) of Ethiopia by the same authors were: Tilili, Horro, Jarso, Tepi, Gelila, Debre-Elias, Melo-Hamusit, Gassay/ Farta, Guangua and Mecha .The chickens are named after the names of the area of origin. For instance, Tilili, Horro, Tepi, Konso and Jarso are areas located in the northwest, west, southwest, south and east of the country, respectively. The chickens distributed in these areas are named after the names of the areas (Reta, 2009).On the other hand, other scholars reported also that the names of indigenous chicken designated based on their plumage colors like for instances: Tikur (black), Nech (white), Key (Red) and extra in the country (Aberra and Tegene, 2011;Fisseha, 2009) There are large variations in morphological appearances, conformation and body weights (qualitative traits) of indigenous chicken in Ethiopia. Morphological variations of indigenous chicken ecotypes (between and within) are described in terms of comb types, shank types, earlobe types, plumage colors and other qualitative traits. Plumage color of Ethiopian indigenous chicken is very much diversified. Commonly observed plumage colors of indigenous chickens are: red, white, black, multicolor, black with red strips, white with red strips and red-brownish (Nigussie et al, 2010b;Aberra and Tegene, 2011).Reta (2009) reported that there is morphological diversity within and between the indigenous chicken ecotypes. Their plumage color is quite variable even within ecotype (pure black, white, silver white, gray, red and various combinations of several colors). Halima (2007) reported that predominant color was white (25.49 %) followed by a grayish mixture (22.23 %) and red (16.44 %) and considerable numbers of chickens showed heterogeneity and have diverse plumageColour in North West Gojam. The large variations in plumage colours may be the result of their geographical isolation as well as periods of natural and artificial selections. Duguma (2006) also found similar results for the Horro, Tepi and Jarso indigenous chickens with regard to plumage colour. Aberra and Tegene (2011) also indicated that 55.0 percent of chicken populations were single combed followed by rose (28.5 percent) and pea (15.2 percent) combs. According to the other authors, Yellow was the major shank colour (52.5 percent), followed by white (29.1 percent) and black (14.7 percent). The further reported that, about 46.4, 34.2 and 19.4 percent of chicken populations exhibited red, white and yellow earlobes, respectively. The predominant plumage colour was Kei (36.6 percent) followed by Tikur (20.7 percent), Gebsima (15.3 percent), Netch (12.3 percent), Kokima (8.4 percent), Wosera (3.7 percent), Zigrima (1.7 percent) and Zagolima (1.3 percent) (Aberra and Tegene, 2011).The common comb types of indigenous chicken are rose, pea, walnut/strawberry, single and Vshape. Most of the indigenous chickens have no shank feather (Halima, 2007;Bogale, 2008); Nigussie et al., 2010b). A variety of plumage colors such as red, white, greyish mixture, black, brown and other mixed colors were also discovered by different researchers in Ethiopia (Halima et al., 2007;Mengesha et al., 2008;Fisseha et al., 2010). It was appeared that red plumage color was dominant followed by white plumage colour.Alem et al. (2013) was also reported that red color was the most dominant and accounted for 52.3% followed by greyish (segemo), which was accounted for 20.9% and multicolour (Checheq) that accounted for 14.1%. Some of the multicoloured chickens were of brown color with white spots, red with white spots, deep red with black strips, and white with black spots.This multi color plumage was observed more in male chickens (cocks and cockerels) than in female chickens (hens and pullets) in central zone of Tigray.Quantitative traits of chicken have high economic importance. These traits can be expressed by measuring production traits that can be affected by many genes and environment. Productivity figures of chicken in some parameters were reviewed by many authors in different part of the region. Some chickens are dwarf/small, medium or heavy in body size. Reta (2009) reported that dwarf chicks were mainly dominated in Jarso ecotypes (31.1%) that dwell in eastern part of Ethiopia and the heavy ones in Horro ecotypes (56.4%) originated from western Ethiopia. In Horro ecotypes, few chickens with naked neck and feathered shank were observed (Reta, 2009).Aberra and Tegene (2011) indicated that the highest adult body weight was found in Naked-neck chickens (1.7kg), followed by Kei (1.5 kg), Gebsima (1.45kg) and Wosera (1.46 kg). The Nakedneck and Wosera males had the longest shank of about 15 and 13 cm, respectively. Kei male chickens had large body weight shank length ratio compared to other indigenous chickens (Aberra and Tegene,2011). Eskindir et al., (2013) also reported that, the average body weight of local adult hens in Horro and Jarso were 1.29 kg and 1.12 kg, respectively. Halima (2007) reported that the Guangua cock lines were heavier than the other indigenous chicken groups, while the other indigenous hens were relatively similar in body size. The Melo-Hamusit and Gassay cocks had shank lengths of 11.3 cm and 10.83 cm, respectively at 22 weeks of age which is relatively long compared to the other chicken populations. Among the local hens, chickens from Mecha (7.50 cm) had the shortest shank lengths (Halima, 2007). Therefore, various qualitative and quantitative traits of indigenous chickens were identified in the different part of the country. But in rural backyard poultry production system, the qualitative and quantitative traits of indigenous chickens across the different agro-ecological zones in the study area have not yet addressed.The study was conducted in three rural districts of the central zone of Tigray: Laelay Maichew, Ahferom and Adwa (Fig. 1). The Central Tigray zone is bordered by Eritrea in the north, East Tigray zone in the East and south east Tigray, West Tigray zone in the west and Amhara   , 1996).The selected districts vary in biophysical conditions including agro-ecological zoning, elevation, rainfall pattern and amount, temperature, land use and soil types. The selected zone was categorized as Dry Weina Dega in Laelay-maichew and Adwa districts followed by Dega in the highlands of Ahferom. The elevation of the study districts ranges from 1920 to 2921 masl.Annual rainfall is variable within a range of 540-850mm. Temperature ranges from 14 to 22°C.Most of the lands are cultivated with some patchy grazing bottomlands and degraded hilly sites (Gebremedhin et al., 2013).Stratified sampling technique was employed to stratify kebeles (smallest administrative unit in Ethiopia) of the three districts in to midland or waina dega (1500-2500 masl) and highland or dega (>2500masl) (EARO, 2000). Ahferom (Sefo and Mayqeyah kebeles) represented highland, Laelaymaichew (Dura and Medego kebeles) and Adwa (Mariam Shewito and Bete Yohannes kebles) represented as midlands.Rapid field survey or mapping expenditure was done before the main survey, to validate the geographical distribution, concentration and populations of local chicken ecotypes, the kebeles of each sample districts and to gate sampling framework from which sampling of district was taken.Multi-stage sampling technique was employed to select both sample kebeles and respondents. Six sample kebeles were selected purposively to represent midland and highland (four kebele from midland and two kebele from highland agro ecology) based on the village poultry population density, chicken production potential, road accessibility and agro-ecological representation. A total of 242 (124 from midland and 118 from highland agro ecology) village chicken owners having three or more chickens were selected randomly for the interview and the numbers of respondents per midland and highland agro ecology were determined by proportionate sampling technique based on the households' size and they were interviewed using a pre-tested well structured questionnaire.One focus group discussion that included 10 elderly members per agro ecology having similar sex, religion and literates was carried out to collect data other than the individual interviews. Members of the focus groups were selected from the community known to have a good understanding of poultry production.The total households included in the study were determined according to the formula given by Arsham (2002).Where, N= Sample size, SE= Standard error Thus, using the standard error of 0.0321 with 95% confidence level, 242 households were included in the study.The numbers of respondents (farmers) per single agro ecology were determined by proportionate sampling technique based on their house hold population size as follows:= ×Where:A, Total number of households (farmers) living per a single selected agro ecology B, Total sum of households living in all selected sample ago ecology and N o, the total required calculated sample size (http://www.raosoft.com/samplesize.html)Six villages, (four villages from midland and two villages from highland agro ecology), were selected for the study based on chicken production potential, village poultry population density, road accessibility and agro-ecology representation level. A total of 242 chicken keepers (124 from midland and 118 from highland agro ecology) were selected and interviewed. For the interviews structured and semi structured questionnaires were used that covered the following topics. Before the survey was conducted, enumerators were trained and the questionnaire was pretested. Data were collected through structured and semi-structured questionnaires, field observation, group discussions, from secondary sources and own flock ranking.Secondary data on agro-ecology of all study districts, total livestock population by species, main crop, topography, and climate data (rainfall, temperature), animal disease prevalence and total human population size of each sample districts of the zone were gathered from each districts agricultural office.Information on flock structure, flock size, husbandry practice, important diseases, chicken housing practices, land size, feed and feeding, reason for keeping chicken, sources of first foundation stock, water sources and watering, distance access to veterinary service, selection of practice of egg and chicken, breeding and culling practice, mating system, breeding objective, trait preference and egg incubation practice were collected using questioners.Information on reproductive and productive performance(functional traits) such as age at first mating of cock, age at first egg laying, average length of inter clutch period, average length of single clutch, average number of eggs laid per clutch, frequency of egg laying , number of eggs incubated, clutch interval, annual egg production, average number of egg set to broody hen, average number of chicks hatched in dry and wet season, number of eggs wasted, number chicks surviving to adulthood in dry and wet season, number of total clutch/year, hatching time per year, total egg per year, frequency of egg collect and behavioral performance of indigenous chickens were collected using structured and semi structured questioners.Information on market of chicken like place of chicken and egg market, means of transportation, quality specification of poultry and poultry product, price trend of chicken, factor that determine the price of chicken and egg, plumage and comb type were also collected using questioners.Information on hatching, brooding and egg storage practice like place of storage egg with their reason, duration of storage in dry and wet season, selection practice of egg for incubation, material used during incubation method use for brooding and rearing chickens, interval between two consecutive brooding period, method used to eliminate un wanted broodiness behavior and temperament of the chicken were collected also collected using questioners.Information on introduction of exotic chicken, cock ownership, breeds of cock, source of cock, types breeding and mating, cock sharing, concept on inbreeding issues, culling practice, factor that follow during culling, purpose of culling were collected using structured questioners.By using focus group discussion information like: purpose of keeping chicken flock, traits preferred by chicken, selection criteria of farmers for breeding hen and cock, availability of distinct local chicken breeds and their distinguishing characteristics, concentration and distribution of the local chicken breeds, brooding and hatching methods and their procedures were collected.PRA tools were applied to study the social and cultural contexts of chicken breeding in the community, local breeding and culling system and seasonal availability of feed, ranking of important diseases and predators, breeding objective and trait preference. The process involves listing of pre-identified traits which were normally done with knowledgeable local villagers. The producers were asked to rank for each of the traits or trait categories. The PRA tools employed include focus group discussions and own flock ranking. The PRA tools and procedure to capture the information were adopted from manual on PRA (Simon, 2000).List of the different breeding objectives traits, farmers' preferences to traits for breeding stock, farmers' preferences for production traits, selection and culling criteria in male and female chicken identified in the interviews were prepared into separate flip charts and presented to each group for ranking them according to their order of importance. Similarly, overall objectives of keeping chickens (egg or meat production, income generation, cultural/religious roles), \"traits\" affecting consumer preferences in purchasing and/or selling chickens (live weight, plumage color, comb type), \"traits\" desired by farmers in improving village chickens adaptation (comprising disease and stress tolerance, flightiness/ability to escape predators, scavenging vigor), growth, egg production (annual egg number, persistency of egg laying), plumage color, comb type, reproduction\" (broodiness, hatchability of eggs) were also be presented. Then participants were asked to rank their first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth major, breeding objective and farmers traits preference.Participatory own flock ranking methods adapted from Tadelle Mairkena and Gemeda Duguma and ICARDA, ILRI and BOKU staff first implemented on Horro, Bonga, Menz and Afar sheep breeds were applied to collect data (Duguma et al, 2010). For own flock ranking experiment twenty and twenty one households from midland and highland agro ecology, respectively were selected and were asked to choose their first best, second best, third best and the most inferior hen and cock among the breeding hen and cock in their flocks. The reasons of ranking and life history of the ranked chickens (age at 1 st egg laying and service for cockerel, number of clutches per year, number of eggs per clutch, number of chick hatched, number of chick grow) were inquired and recorded. Family members were involved in the ranking of activities to remind each other about reproduction history of their flock and other events as there are no written records kept by the households. They depended on recalled memory regarding the performance and pedigree of their flocks. The live body weight and some linear body measurement on each ranked chicken focusing only on attributes frequently mentioned were also taken. In case of hen additional information on reproductive performances were also collected as recalled by owners.Effective population size (Ne) and rate of inbreeding size(∆F) were estimated based on the flocks of farmers who possess their own matured breeding males only for midland and highland agro ecology separately, using the following formula developed by Falconer and Mackay (1996).And the rate of inbreeding per generation was calculated as ∆F =Where Nm is the number of above six month age breeding cocks, Nf is the number of above six month age breeding hens and Ne is effective population size.From direct observation on sexually matured chicken and additional information of the owner, a total of 464 six-month or older chicken (279 from midland and 185 from highland agro ecology)were used to collect qualitative data such as plumage color, comb type, feather morphology, feather distribution, presence or absence of spurs, shank color, earlobe color, eye color and head shape based on standard format breed descriptor list (FAO, 2012). The data on morphological traits were collected by taking a picture of each surveyed bird.A total of 457 adult chickens (357 female and 100 male) six month or older in age matured chicken were used based on the proportion of the poultry population of the selected districts to collect quantitative variables. Based on the methodology developed by FAO (2012), linear body measurement like body weight, breast width, thigh circumference, chest circumference, shank length (SL), neck length (NL), body length (BL), wing length, wingspan, wattles width, wattles length, ear lobes width, ear lobes length, beak length (BKL), beak width, comb length (CL), comb width, height at back were measured by using a textile measuring tape to the nearest unit centimeter.Body and shank lengths were measured using a graduated tape while the bird was standing upright and body weight was measured in kilogram using sensitive balance.General linear model was used to evaluate the effect of sex and agro-ecology on the quantitative traits of each prevailing local chicken types at each district separately.Where Y ijk : the corresponding quantitative trait of local chicken in i th agro-ecology (i=2, midland & highland) of j th sex (j= 2, male and female)µ: overall population mean for the corresponding quantitative trait A i: effect of i th agro-ecology Ranking analyses were used for computing data on breeding objective, farmers' traits preferences, and conformation traits as related to selection of chicken. Indexes were used to calculate data collected from rankings using weighed averages by the following formula employed by Musa et al. (2006).Where, R n = the last rank (example if the last rank is 8 th , then R n = 8, R n-1 = 7, R 1 = 1).C n = the % of respondents in the last rank, C 1 = the % of respondents ranked first Index was ranked using auto ranking with MS-Excel 2007.In own flock ranking experiment, the proportion of traits preferred by the farmers and occurred at field during study were analyzed by the frequency procedure. The body measurements and other traits from the life history obtained from own flock ranking were analyzed by GLM procedure.Descriptive statistics were used to analyze qualitative traits (plumage colour, body shape, comb type, feather morphology, feather distribution, presence or absence of spurs, shank colour, earlobe colour, eye color and head shape) of the local chicken ecotypes for each district and agro-ecology.Morphological traits that show quantitative characteristics were subjected to analysis of variance using the general linear model procedure (PROC GLM) of SAS 9.1 to determine the effects of agro-ecology, sex and their interaction.Multivariate analyses were used to investigate the morphological structure and quantify differences among the sub-populations. From the correlation matrix, data were generated for the principal component factor analysis to transform the correlated quantitative traits to orthogonal quantitative traits (Everitt et al., (2001). Cumulative proportions of variance criterion were employed in determining the number of principal components to extract.Stepwise discriminate procedure was applied using PROCSTEPDISC to determine which morphological traits have more discriminate power than the others or to gain information about traits particularly important in the separation of sub-populations for eventual use in cluster analysis. Canonical discriminant analysis using CANDISC procedure was employed to calculate the Mahanobis distance between chickens of the agro-ecology and to obtain the function of all traits necessary for the separation of sub-populations. The degree of morphological similarity or divergence between the chicken were determined using wards option of PROC CUSTER procedures. Hierarchical cluster methods were used to group morphological similarity or divergence of the local chickens of the agro-ecology with the aid of dendrogram. The analyses were performed by taking individual birds as a unit. In order to avoid potential sampling bias due to low number of males in the study, only female birds were considered in discriminant analysis.Household size and age structure of the study households' is presented in Table 2. The overall mean family size of sample households was 6.29 and ranged from 1-10. This value was higher than the national average of 5.2 persons and that of SNNPRS 5.1 persons per household (CSA, 2003).The age composition of households typically resembled population pyramid in most developing countries, with the majority of household members being children under 14 years of age (Speizer et al., 2015). Similarly, in the study area children (<15 years old) accounted for 39% while that of youth male and female (age class of 16-30) accounted for 34% of the total household size, youth male and female (age class of 31-60) accounted for 25% of the total household size.Husband, wife and other members of the family above 60 years old covered the remaining proportions. In the study village, the households' age group <30years covers 73%,showing that the productive labor necessary for care, marketing and management of chicken production was dominant in the family.General characteristics of the respondents presented in Table 2. About 38% of the interviewed farmers were female, while 62% were male. The overall mean age of respondents was 44.7years.Concerning the educational background of the interviewed farmers, about 36% were illiterate, 47.1% literate, 13.2% can read and write and 3.7% learn from religious school. Among the literate members, 28.9%, 15.7% , 1.7% and 0.8% had gone through primary first cycle (1-6),Junior & high school (6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12), diploma and degree, respectively.The overall mean of land size per household in the study area was 0.58 hectare (range of 0-2.5 ha). The result was lower than the 1.0 ha reported from lowland and midland of central Tigray (Alem et al., 2013) and 1.22 ha (Fisseha et al., 2010) and 1.28 ha/household reported from North-west Amhara (Halima et al., 2007) and the National land holding of 1.02 ha/household and the 0.86 ha/household reported from South Ethiopia by Mekonen (2007). There was significant difference (p<0.0001) in farm land size/household between the agro-ecologies of the study areas.  4). There was significant difference (p<0.05) in household chicken ownership and source of starter flock among and between the agro-ecologies of the study areas. The major feeds and feeding practices of chickens in the study area as indicated by the respondents are reported in (Table 6). Almost all of the respondents (90.1%) reported to practice scavenging system with supplementary feeding while the remaining 8.9% don't use supplementary feed due to different reasons. The result of this study was in agreement to that of Meseret (2010), Asefa (2007) and Mekonnen (2007) who reported 95-98% of the small scale household poultry producers in Awassa Zuria, Dale and in Gomma districts offer supplementary feeding to their chickens, 99.28% the farmers in Northwest Ethiopia provided supplementary feeding to their chickens Halima (2007). they simply pour the grain on the ground. The remaining (6.6%) farmer's uses plastic made, earthen plot, wooden and stone made materials to feed their chickens. There was no significant difference (p<0.05) in supplementary feed providing of the households in highland and midland agro-ecological zones but there was significant difference (p<0.05) in source of feeding of in highland and midland agro-ecological zones. Housing is essential to chickens as it protects them against predators, theft, rough weather (rain, sun, cold wind, dropping night temperatures) and to provide shelter for egg laying and broody hen. However, only 56.5% and 75.4% of the respondents in highland and midland of the study area respectively had separate house for their chickens. Among the households who have no separate poultry houses, about 12%, 15.5% and 6.6% of the respondents indicated that their birds perch in the kitchen, veranda and on trees during night time, respectively (Table 8). This result is in line with report of Fisseha et al. (2010) in Bure district, North West Ethiopia, with reports of Mengesha et al. (2011) in Jamma district, South Wollo, but lower as compare to reports of Halima (2007) reported that 51% of farmers of Northern Ethiopia have separate house for their chickens, but better than Mekonnen (2007) report which reported that there is no specific separate poultry houses in Dale District.Out of the total households who have night shelter for their chicken around 16.6% of the households made shelters with wooden made with corrugate iron sheet, 50.3% of the house hold made shelter with stone wall+ grass roof or soil and the rest 12.4% made wooden made with grass roof, 16.6% wooden made with corrugate iron sheet and, 4.1% gabion with gabion, respectively. The major reasons for not constructing separate poultry houses in the study areas were lack of knowledge, lack of construction material, risk of predators, because of hot, lack of time, lack of land and because of carelessness, respectively. About 25.7% of the respondents have no special disposal or storage of poultry manure and 74.3% use as fertilizers. None of the households were using poultry manure as animal feed source (Table 8). In the study area about 93.8% of the respondents confirmed the presence of dangerous disease outbreak in the midland and highland agro ecologies of the study areas. They reported that access to veterinary services appeared to be quite limited. Out of the total participants, only 2.5% reported of getting advisory services; while 97.5% of the respondents have not gate services (Table 12). Similarly, Abdelqader et al. (2007) reported that only 5% of the farmers accessed veterinary extension service; 12% of respondents practiced annual vaccination against New Castle disease and infectious bronchitis in Jordan. (Aberra, 2010) and Bushra Badhaso (2012) also reported that diseases are the major limiting factor to rural household poultry production system and their results are in agreement with the current reported.The availability of vaccines and veterinary drugs in the study area is generally low. Lack of awareness about vaccines and vaccination (20%), lack of access of vaccination (42.6%), lack of information about availability of vaccine (17.4%), and lack of attention (20%) are the major reasons for the wide prevalence of diseases ( Based on the study results, most of the interviewed village chicken owners (81%) participate in chicken and egg marketing. Sale of chicken and egg is an important source of income. Chicken and egg are sold in wereda market (76.5%) followed by nearest market (12.2%) and neighborhood (6.6%). Farmers on average travel 6.8 km (ranged 1-30 km) in midland and 8.8 km (ranged 2-30 km) in highland agro ecology to reach the wereda towns and sale their chicken.This results was in agreement with reports of Markos (2014) who reported that 99.7% of the respondents had participated in selling of chicken products in either of wereda market (9.6%) or both same village and wereda market (90.4%) in highland , midland (3.1% and 28.2%) and lowland (3.3% and 1.2%) in western zone of Tigray. Similarly, this result is in line with finding of Bogale (2008) reported that 41.7% and 33.3% of the respondents sold their chicken products in the nearest market and wereda market during market days while 19.4% sold their products within their respective kebeles during non-market days in Fogrea districts. This result is in line with finding of Meseret ( 2010) reported that chicken products were sold either at the farm gate, primary market (small village market) or at secondary market (at large wereda town) in Gomma wereda of Jimma zone. This result is in line with finding of Jordan, Abdulkadir (2007) reported that farmers sold chickens to their neighbors and in the main markets to other farmers and middle men.Concerning means of transportation of chicken to markets, the majority (74.5% in midland, 56.7% in highland) of the farmers transported on foot carrying their chicken by embracing by hand, hanging by hand upside down on a piece of stick upside down and in chicken transportation coop, (22.6% in midland, 35.6% in highland) of the farmers uses car and the remaining uses both car and foot as means of transportation. Due to the risk of breakage of eggs, farmers use different methods for transporting eggs to markets. For example, in midland and highland about 32.5% and 42.1% of the farmers had carry eggs using different material filled with straws (63.4%), filled with grain (31.7%) and the other with plastic container. In addition to its use in storage of eggs until incubation and or marketing, the grain/straw also used to protect eggs from breakage during transportation (Table 14). Table 17 shows least square means for various production and reproduction performance variables of local chicken populations in the study area. The results of the present study show that the overall mean age at first mating of male chickens and the age at first egg of female chickens were 5.29 and 5.96 months. There was no significant difference between the two agro ecologies with respect to age at first mating and age at first egg in females.The overall age at sexual maturity obtained in the present study is slightly similar with those reported from other studies in North West Ethiopia 5 month (Halima, 2007) and West Amhara region 6.49month (Worku et al., 2012). The age at first mating for cockerel obtained in the study is in agreement with the 5.71month reported by Markos et al. (2015) for male in western zone of Tigray.Similarly the average age at first egg laying of indigenous chicken was in agreement with findings Halima (2007)  The overall number of eggs/hen per clutch in the present study was 15.20. However, there were no significant differences observed between agro ecologies with respect to this variable. These results were higher than those reported by Meseret (2010), Addisu et al. (2013), Wondu et al. (2013) andCSA (2003) in which the mean egg number laid per clutch per hen of local chickens in Gomma wereda, North Wollo Zone North Gondar Amhara region and Ethiopia were 12.92, 12.64, 11.53, (8-15) and 12 (national average of egg yield/hen/clutch),respectively. But it was lower as compared with findings of Tadelle (2003) 17.7 eggs in five agro-ecological zones of Ethiopia and Bogale (2008) 16.6 eggs in Fogera district.There was no difference observed between agro ecologies with respect to number of eggs incubated per clutch per hen. The number of eggs incubated in midland and highland agro ecologies were 11.4 and 11.4, respectively. The average number of eggs incubated in the study area was 11.4. It was also observed that there were no significant differences between agro ecologies with respect to number of chick hatched/clutch/hen.Differences between agro ecologies were observed for hatchability where midland had the highest hatchability (80.49), while highland district had the lowest hatchability (70.91). Other authors (Markos et al., 2015;Mengesha et al., 2008) reported hatchability figures which were within the range observed in the present study. This result was also slightly agreed with the findings of Halima (2007), Habte et al. (2013) and Tadelle and Ogle (2001)  (2008) that associated indigenous hens reared their chicks for quite some time with good mothering ability. No significant differences was observed between agro ecology with respect to number of chicks survived per hen in wet season while significant differences were observed in dry season.Differences in survival rate for chicks in dry season were observed between midland and highland. The survival rates were 6.85 (73.84%) and 6.58 (70.10%) for midland and highland, with the overall mean survival rates being 6.72 (72.02%). These results reflect high chick mortality rates of 26.16% and 29.9% in midland and highland, respectively. Similarly Markos et al. (2015) reported that, in western zone of Tigray the survival rate of chicken to weaning age was 73.06% with chick mortality rates ranging from 26.94% to 29.2% under extensive system.The apparent high chick loss implied in the present study might have been caused by diseases, predators and other factors as it has been reported from other studies on local chicken under extensive system in North West Ethiopia (Halima, 2007).There is no difference observed between agro ecologies with respect to number of eggs per year per hen. The number of eggs per year per hen in midland and highland agro ecologies was 64.46 and 75.43 eggs. The average number of eggs per year per hen in the study area was 69.6 eggs.This result was higher as compared to reports of Markos et al. (2015), Meseret (2010), HalimaClear definition of breeding objectives might be difficult under subsistence level of managements with a wide range of production objectives and marketing strategies (Kebede et al., 2012). In general, the results of this study suggested that farmers have multiple breeding objectives of chicken. In this study, almost all selected sample households were engaged in poultry keeping but the purpose of production differs based on the interest of producer households. The main purpose of producing poultry include cash from sale, meat consumption, egg consumption, for replacement, for brooding, spiritual/religious, ceremony, cultural and manure with an Index values of 0.101, 0.092, 0.115, 0.120, 0.242, 0.093, 0.046, 0.018 and 0.003 (Table 18). Similar purposes have also been reported by Mengesha et al. (2008) who reported that, in Jamma district the purpose of keeping poultry was mainly for sale (38.1%), followed by for home consumption (31.7%) and no defined (16.3%), at last for religious purposes (13.9%).The main production objectives of chicken in midland of agro ecology were for brooding, for replacement, meat consumption, cash from sale of chicken and egg, egg consumption, spiritual/religious, ceremony, cultural and manure with an index value of 0.174, 0.083, 0.080, 0.068, 0.066, 0.061, 0.027, 0.013, and 0.002. While the main production objectives of chicken in highland of agro ecology were for brooding, for replacement, meat consumption, cash from sale of chicken and egg, spiritual/religious, egg consumption, ceremony, cultural and manure with an index values of 0.136, 0.073, 0.069, 0.065, 0.064, 0.051, 0.037, 0.010 and 0.001.The study reveals that village poultry kept for brooding purpose, home consumption and income generation; which in one way or other improve the nutrition status of the family. Similarly, Tadelle (2003) also reported that income generation followed by consumption was the main production objectives for keeping chicken. Halima (2007) also reported that income generation was the primary objectives of chicken rearing in Southern and North western Ethiopia. Index=the sum of (6times first order +5times second order ..... + 1times six order) for individual variables divided by the sum of (6times first order +5times second order ….. +1times six order) for all variables.Concerning breeding practice 80.1% of respondents have practice breeding in improving their chicken productivity through cross breeding (60.3%) and pure breeding (39.7%) methods (Table 19). This result shows an agreement with the report of Fisseha (2009) reported that about 92.2%of chicken owner farmers in Bure district had the tradition of selecting cocks for breeding stock but is not in line with the report of Meseret (2010) in which traditional chicken production system was characterized by lack of systematic breeding practice in Gomma district and finding of Nigussie (2011) who reported that breeding is completely uncontrolled and replacement stock produced through natural incubation using broody hens in different parts of Ethiopia.The scavenging habit of village chickens does not allow farmers to directly influence the exact mates of the breeding stock. However, in the study area 66.5% of the respondents exercise controlled breeding system at the community level by retaining the best cock and hen (86.1%), culling unproductive chicken (6.7%), culling unwanted color of chicken at young age (6.1%) and preventing mate of unwanted cock (1.2%). Chickens that were not retained for breeding purposes were culled through sale (18.90%), consumption (25.20%), sales and consumption (49.50%) (Table20). This result agrees with the findings of Addisu et al. (2013) who reported that slaughtering (53.27%), selling (41.18%) and devour or sell eggs of unwanted hens (5.56%)were a major means of culling less productive chicken from the flock in North Gonder. Bogale (2008) also reported that home consumption and selling were the main culling means of chicken from their flock and Halima (2007) also revealed that farmers cull poor productivity and old age chickens through selling.Table 19. Mating system and culling practice of less productive chickens and traits preference of farmers in the study area -Number in bracket is referred to total number of respondentsThe culling and selection criteria for breeding cock and hens are shown in Table 20. On average 78.9% of households of the study area cull chickens with an age 4.31 and 4.51month to male and female birds. There were no significant differences between agro ecology with respect to practice of selection and age of selection for male cock and hen but it was observed that highland and midland agro ecologies differed with respect to the practice of culling and purpose of culling chickens.In both midland and highland agro ecologies low production of chicken, old age, unwanted plumage color, ill that was in poor health bad temperament of hens and cocks and low hatchability were highly ranked as culling criteria. As a result, farmers in different agro Birds that were not retained for breeding purposes were culled through sales, consumption and gift. The culling criteria used give an indication of the implicit farmers' breeding goals (Muchadeyi et al., 2004). The higher frequency of farmers culling chickens for productive than morphological traits implying that village chickens are kept mainly for economic and food security reasons. Farmers' decisions on choice of breeding stock are shown in Table 22. Chicken owners in the present study area also considered both morphological and production traits for selection criteria.The current study showed that the selection criteria used for selection of breeding hen were egg size, plumage color, broodiness, disease resistance and hatchability were the traits of highest importance for selection purpose with an average index value of 0.067, 0.  46 and 47). In the study area for breeding hen and cock selection, farmers target was not only for breeding purpose but also they take into consideration the factors or traits that affected the market and cultural value.The present findings are inconsistent with the report of Duguma et al. (2010) reported that conformation traits are important criteria of selection under traditional livestock breeding practices. This is because size/conformation heavily determines live birds prices in traditional poultry markets. Similarly the high rating of plumage colour in the present study is in line to the report of Nigussie et al. (2010) where this trait was used as a selection criterion. The present findings are also in agreement with reports of Okeno et al. (2011) who reported chickens traits of economic significance such egg number; body size and fertility were highly rated.Development of a breeding goal for improvement of indigenous birds should focus on the traits perceived important by stakeholders (Okeno et al., 2011). This is because breeding goals developed without considering the needs of all the stakeholders have high chances of rejection by end users. The discussions held with farmer's shows that morphological traits, particularly plumage colour and comb type for cock and hen, determined the market and cultural suitability of chickens and were very important in both midland and highland agro ecology of the study area. Table 23 shows farmers' preferences for traits to be improved across both agro-ecological zones.It illustrates that given a choice; farmers in midland agro ecology of the study area would prefer traits comb type, plumage color, egg size, broodiness, disease resistance, meat quality, fertility growth, egg number, body size, mothering ability and temperament with an Index value of 0.115, 0.101, 0.09, 0.077, 0.075, 0.074, 0.068, 0.063, 0.055, 0.050, 0.049 and 0.34, respectively.Qualitative traits have high preference to be improved. In highland agro ecology farmers prefer traits are plumage color, comb type, egg size, meat quality, fertility, disease resistance, broodiness, growth and mothering ability are the major prefer traits with an index values of 0.109, 0.108, 0.094, 0.085, 0.080, 0.076, 0.073, 0.065 and 0.053, respectively. There was no significant difference in the ranking of traits preference for genetic improvement with respect to the agro-ecological zones of the study areas. Comb type and plumage colour were the major preferred trait of farmers (Table 23, Appendix Table 48 and 49). This result is not in line with the report by Nigussie (2011) in which farmers in different parts of Ethiopia prefer qualitative traits.But during group discussions held with farmers' reported that production traits like body size, egg size, egg number, growth rate ranks first, second, third and fourth followed by adaptive and morphological traits like disease resistance, plumage color and comb type.   25 describes mean values for some reproduction and production traits and age of the ranked breeding hen. Age at first egg lying (month), number of clutch/year/hen, egg production/clutch/hen, number of egg/year, number of incubated/hen, number of hatched, hatchability percentage, number of chick survived to 8 weeks, body weight and breast width were influenced the ranking decision of the farmers in both agro ecologies of the study areas. This result revealed that the farmers' decisions for ranking of breeding hen were highly correlated with the reproduction and production traits of the given animals. In both agro ecologies there was a logical trend in the mean values of the production and reproduction traits between 1 st best, 2 nd best, 3 rd best and inferior hen. Similarly plumage colors like red, red and white, grayish (sigem) and multicolor were the frequently occurred and liked traits while black and white color of chicken is dislike by farmers during own flock ranking in both midland and highland agro ecology for breeding cock.Regarding comb type double followed pea type, smooth white and yellow shank color with absence of spur was the most preferred traits by midland and highland chicken owners (Table 26). Although there was similarity of the trait preference between the two agro ecology for breeding cock and this result clearly associated with the breeding objectives and the agro ecologies of the study area. The traits preference by the farmers reflects that chicken was not only used for breeding purpose but also they take into consideration the factors or traits that affected the market value and cultural values.  27 describes mean values for some reproduction and production traits and age of the ranked breeding cock. Age at first mating (month), body weight and height at back were influenced the ranking decision of the farmers in both study agro ecology. Similarly in both agro ecology there was a logical trend in the mean values of the production and reproduction traits between 1 st best, 2 nd best, 3 rd best and inferior breeding cock. Qualitative traits such as feather distribution, plumage color, earlobe color, spur presence, shank color, comb color, comb shape, eye color and head shape were evaluated in two agro ecology of central zone of Tigray (Table 28 and Figure 5). The results indicated that there are large variations in morphological appearances (Table 28, 29 and Figure 5). Local chicken were mostly normally feathered (hens 97.8%, cocks 96%) with a few showing necked neck (0.6%) and feathered shank and feet (2%).This results are consistent with the observations of Halima, 2007;Bogale, 2008;Faruque et al. (2010) who reported that most of the indigenous chickens have no shank feathers and shanks are yellowish in color.Very diverse plumage coloration of chicken was observed (Table 28 and Figure 5). The results indicated that red (32%), grayish/sigem (17.5%), brownish/bunama (17%), wheaten (7.8%), multi color (6.9%), black (6.5%), white (5.4%), gold (5.2%) and black and red white with red strips, respectively being the dominant color for these areas in hens. This result is in agreement with reports of Halima, (2007) which reports that, the plumage color in North West Ethiopia were 25.49% white, 7.79% black, 16.44% red, 22.23% gebisama and 13.64% black with white strips. The large variation in plumage color might be attributed to a lack of selection of breeders for this trait, which was also reported from Nigeria (Daikwo et al., 2011), Jordan (Abdelqader et al., 2007) and Botswana (Badubi et al., 2006).There was a high diversity in color and type of combs and earlobes observed between and within the agro ecology indigenous ecotypes. The commonest comb color observed was red (hens 95%, cocks 97%), while the remaining 5% of hens and 3% of cocks showed brown and black colors.Red comb color in females and males dominated in all our study area, which agrees with the findings of Halima, (2007) for local chicken in North West Ethiopia. The light color of comb and skin might contribute to the birds' tolerance of heat stress (Egahi et al., 2010). Significance differences (P<0.05) were observed between agro ecologies with respect to breast width, spur length, chest circumferences and shank length. The length of spur, thigh circumference, and chest circumference and shank length in midland was relatively higher than those of highland agro ecology (Table 30). The average length of breast width, length of spur, thigh circumference, chest circumference and shank length in the study area was 13.61cm, 2.46cm, 9.08cm, 28.90cm and 9.78cm, respectively. It was also observed that there were no significant differences between agro ecologies with respect to body weight and thigh circumference because gene flow might have taken place between the two subpopulations.The observed large variation in breast width, spur length, chest circumferences and shank length between agro ecology indicates the existence of divergent subpopulations within the local chicken population. Such variation gives room for genetic improvement between and within subpopulations.The average shank lengths observed (9.78cm) in the present study were almost similar to values from Horro 9.99 cm (Eskindir et al., 2013), from Fogera district 9.8 cm reported by Bogale (2008), from Northwest Ethiopia (10.31 cm) reported by Halima (2007) but higher than reports of Addisu (2013) 7.79cm in North Gonder. The average super length observed (2.46) in the present study were higher as compare to findings of Addisu, (2013) from North Gonder (0.18 cm).Results also revealed that agro ecologies differed with respect to other body measurements.Significance differences (P<0.05) were observed between agro ecologies with respect to neck length and highly significant difference (P<0.01) were observed in wing span wattle width and wattle length (Table 31). The average length of neck, body length, wing length, wing span, wattle width, wattle length in the study area were 11.18cm, 26.39cm, 12.23cm, 33.07cm, 2.41cm, and1.92cm, respectively. It was also observed that there were no significant differences between agro ecology with respect to body length and wing length.The average body lengths observed in the present study were much higher than those reported by Badubi et al. (2006) in Botswana which were 20.2 and 18.1cm for male and female chickens but lower than reports of Addisu (2013) in North Gonder (35.79cm). The average wing span observed in the present study were much higher than those reported by Halima (2007)  In the current study wide variation were observed in body weight and other traits between male and female. In all parameters, male shows higher values than female except breast width and beak width. The average measurements of male and female of local chicken were 1.54 and 1.31kg for body weight 13.5 and 3.63cm for breast width, 10.31 and 8.74cm for thigh circumference, 29.67 and 28.69 for chest circumference and 11.01 and 9.43cm for shank length.Concerning sex effect the average measurements were 12.08 and 10.93 cm for neck length, 27.26 and 26.14cm for body length, 13.30 and 11.93cm for wing length, 36.27and 32.17for wingspan, 3.79 and 2.03cm for wattle width and 3.61 and 1.44cm for wattle length, for male and female chickens in the study area. The average measurements were 2.60 and 1.55cm for earlobe width, 3.02 and 2.74cm for beak length, 3.31and 3.22cm for beak width, 2.11 and 1.33cm for earlobe length, 2.68 and 1.17cm for comb length and 6.03 and 3.25cm for comb width, 31.96 and 28.32cm for height at back for male and female chickens in the study area.The differences in body weight and body measures between male and female birds are in agreement with reports from Jarso district and Horro (Eskindir et al., 2013), from Fogera district (Bogale, 2008), from Northwest Ethiopia (Halima, 2007) and from North Gonder (Addisu, 2013); such differences are due to the differential effects of androgens and estrogens on growth (Yakubu et al., 2010). The lower body measurement values observed for females than for male chickens in this study are also consistent with the findings from other studies (Msoffe et al., 2004;Alabi et al., 2012;Semakula et al., 2011;Olawunmi et al., 2008), suggesting that sexual dimorphism in chickens is manifested with respect to a large number of body attributes and in most breeds. This may be attributed to sex hormones which may promote larger muscle development in males than in females.The effect of sex in favor of males can be attributed to the anatomical and physiological difference. Physiologically, the sex related differences might be partly a function of the sex differential hormonal effect on growth (Semakula et al., 2011).In this study to perform PCA a total of 19 variables from 375 female individuals' chickens were used with the weighting method of standardization. Five principal components' (PC) were extracted that accounted for 58.45% of the total variation (Table 33, Figure3 and Appendix 50).The first 5 of these PC accounted for 27.204% of the variance in the 19 variables (PC1 = 27.204%, PC2 = 12.132%, PC3 = 7.91%, PC4 = 5.665%, PC5 = 5.54%). Based on their associated eigenvalue seven variables from PC1, PC2, PC3, PC4 and PC5 were selected (Table 34). This reduces the variables from 19 to 7 and these were quite satisfactory for the analysis (Sneath and Sokal, 1973;Pimental, 1979). The first five PCs (Table 34) that display weight on the Scree plot profile (Fig. 3) and explained 58.45% of the total variation were selected for classification.Discriminate analysis model was used to prove variations among the sampled populations.Discriminate functions have relatively higher trait coefficients which functions are termed as discriminate trait functions. The results on discriminate analysis of the study chicken ecotypes using nineteen linear traits are presented in Table 35. Stepwise discriminate analysis was the most important techniques for discriminating the investigated ecotypes (Minitab, 1998). The result of the stepwise discriminant analysis is presented in Table 37. Seven standard canonical discriminant traits were extracted in the study. The significance of the discriminant function as indicated by wilks lambda is present in Table 37.Wilks lambda text indicated that traits like neck length, beak width, body length wattle width, body weight, wattle length and height at back was highly significant (p< 0.0001) to provide the validity for the canonical discriminant analysis.The significant of the discriminant traits tested with the minimization of wilks' lambda (lambda= 0.93, 0.91, 0.90, 0.89, 0.88, 0.87 and 0.87 for discriminant neck length, beak width, body length wattle width, body weight, wattle length and height at back) provided the validity for the canonical discriminant analysis. By comparing the F-value and the P-value statistics for each significant explanatory variable, we can conclude that 'neck length' has the highest amount of significant discriminative potential, while 'height at back has the least significant discriminative power in differentiating the chicken populations sampled from the two agro ecology.Therefore, the differentiation of those two populations, highland and midland was based on the weights of neck length, beak length, body length, wattle width, body weight, wattle length and height at back traits. These traits were very important both to discriminate and to classify populations. This result was almost similar with reports of Reddish and Lilburn (2004) and Rosario et al. (2008) who reported that average live weight was the most important trait to cluster many chicken populations and strains.The result is also in agreements with finding of Abdelqader et al. (2007) who indicated that body weight, body length, heart girth and height at back showed the largest discriminatory power between three Jordanian chicken genotypes.The first 5 principal components, accounting for 58.45% of the total variance, were considered to develop the classification by cluster analysis. The set of three observations against those principal components was clustered by hierarchical technique. The Mahalanobis distance was the similarity coefficient used to develop the classification tree from which the desired number of clusters was obtained. The dendogram shows three distinct groups (cluster) of chicken populations (Figure 4). In general, a cluster with a high similarity percentage is more compact than one with a small similarity percentage (Minitab, 1998).In the present study, the pair wise squared Mahalanobis' distances between populations' shows smallest and largest distances between midland and highland chicken ecotypes, respectively (Fig. 4). Based on their pair wise squared Mahalanobis' distances the three clusters, cluster1 and cluster2 formed by the midland agro ecologies of the two district populations and cluster3 were formed by highland agro ecologies chicken population (Table 38).The closeness of cluster1 and cluster2 was explained by the fact that both clusters have been fund with in the same midland agro ecologies with a short distance between the districts, as a result farmers of these two districts often exchange cock/hen through different means with the fact that there existed genetic migration from one district to the next district chicken populations and gene flow is unregulated. Result of the study shows that, the greatest distance were observed between cluster1 and 3 (7.69) followed by cluster1 and 2 (6.31) (Table 38). The distance between agro ecologies and cluster shows that greatest distance were observed between cluster1 and highland (29.01) followed by cluster2 (10.95), whereas midland agro ecologies shows greatest distance with cluster3 (3.00) `  2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18 and 19 represents Bwt ,Brwth,SPl ,TC ,Cc,SL,NL,BL ,WL,WS ,WAW,WAL,EAW,BKL,BKW,EAL,CL,CW and HB. The formation of two large groups seen in Fig. 4 showed that the distribution of the populations influence by agro ecology. Therefore, the current result of the study was in agreement with findings of Tunon et al. (1989) who reported that classification of populations should take into account not only the genetic aspect, but also the ecological, morphological and productive aspects.Cluster1 have highest (99.9%) similarity level and was considered as highly compact and closet followed by cluster2 (98.94%). While cluster 3 has lowest similarity level as comparatively 97.89% (Fig. 4) exhibited the slackness of the cluster. The relatively large size of similarity level (91.56%) of the midland chicken indicated that midland chicken share some phenotypic characters with other chicken types. Similarly, the intra-cluster similarity level of highland chicken type with other clusters, as indicated by the similarity 42.49% indicated higher heterogeneity within the breed type (Fig. 4).The study reviles that traits like body weight, comb length, earlobe length, wattle length, earlobe width, wattle width, spur length beak length and comb width measurements are similar with similarity level 99.82% in both agro ecologies formed cluster1. Similarly traits like breast width, wing length, thigh circumference, shank length and neck length are similar with similarity level of 99.90% combine into one and formed cluster2. While chest circumference, height at back, body length and wing span are similar in both agro ecologies formed custer3.The result of the current study revealed that, village chicken production appeared to be an important activity in all study areas as indicated by the high average chicken holding per household of 9.41, and 8.98 for midland and highland agro ecologies with a sex ratio of three hens for one cock.Almost all of the respondents (90.1%) reported to practice scavenging system with supplementary feeding while the remaining 8.9% don't use supplementary feed due to different reasons. The main source of water in wet and dry season was rivers (4.1%), pond (2.5%), springs(1.2%), water well (12.5%) and hand operated pipe water (26%). only 36.8% and 28.9% of the respondents in highland and midland of the study area chickens sleep at night in separate poultry house.Farmers in the study area also seem to have good practice of selecting eggs and hens for incubation based on size. There was significant difference (P<0001) in use of material and bedding materials for incubation between the households living in lowland and midland agroecological zones.In the study area about 93.8% of the respondents confirmed the presence of dangerous disease outbreak in the midland and highland agro ecologies of the study areas. Out of the total participants, only 2.5% reported of getting veterinary advisory services. There is a need for a serious intervention in disease control and advisory services in order to minimize losses and improve chicken production and productivity. Predation is also an important problem in the midland and highland agro ecologies of the study areas. Almost all the interviewed village chicken owners (81%) participate in chicken and egg marketing as source of income.The results of the present study show that the overall mean age at first mating of male chickens and the age at first egg of female chickens were 5.29 and 5.96 months. The overall number of eggs/hen per clutch, clutch length and inter-clutch period in the present study was 13.7, 17.8, 14.0 days. The mean values obtained in the present study were and for. The average number of eggs incubated in the study area was 11.44. It was also observed that there were no significant differences between agro ecologies with respect to number of chick hatched/clutch/hen. The Morph metric measurements indicated that significance differences (P<0.05) were observed between agro ecologies with respect to breast width, spur length, chest circumferences and shank length. In all parameters, male birds shows higher significance (P<0.001) value than female except breast width and beak width.Multivariate analysis result showed that five PC were extracted that accounted for 58.45% of the total variation. Most important variable for discriminating between the ecotypes was the neck length, beak length and body length with partial R 2 0.060, 0.22 and 0.013. Greatest distance were observed between cluster1 and 3 (7.69) followed by cluster1 and 2 (6.31).The distance between agro ecologies and cluster shows that greatest distance were observed between cluster1 and highland (29.01) followed by cluster2 (10.95),In the present study, the pair wise squared Mahalanobis' distances between populations shows the smallest and largest distances between highland and midland chicken ecotypes. The three clusters, cluster1 and cluster2 formed by the midland agro ecologies of the two district populations and cluster3 were formed by highland agro ecologies chicken population.The closeness of cluster1 and cluster2 was explained by the fact that both clusters have been fund with in the same midland agro ecologies with a short distance between the districts, as a result farmers of these two districts often exchange cock/hen through different means with the fact that there existed genetic migration from one district to the next district chicken populations and gene flow is unregulated. The productivity of scavenging village chicken could be enhanced by relatively simple changes in management techniques (feeding, housing and health care) that promote improvement in productivity and reduction in mortality. A little technical support to farmers' experience or knowledge of supplementary feeding and watering would substantially improve productivity of local chicken; therefore higher institutions, research centers and other stockholders should play their role to develop knowledge and capacity of producers. Past attempts to improve poultry production in Tigray region are focused on introduction of highly productive exotic breeds that require high level of management and inputs, with very little or no attention to the indigenous breeds. Therefore, there is a need to design proper breed improvement programs in order to enhance the utilization and conservation of the huge diversity of the indigenous chicken populations. Thus, designing and implementing community-based breed improvement program for local chicken ecotypes is timely and essential. There is a strong need for appropriate intervention in disease and predator control activities so as to reduce chicken mortality and improve productivity through improvement in veterinary and advisory services; more detailed studies should be carried out to investigate the disease problems prevailing in the study area that would help develop a sustainable strategy of disease prevention and control. The findings of this study demonstrate that there are diverse indigenous chicken ecotypes in phenotype but there is a need to study but there is a need to study carcass and egg quality of the chickens and other variability at molecular levels that will further clarify the genetic similarity and diversity among the ecotypes in order to record and registered these breeds internationally. ","tokenCount":"15346"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d647f03589ab4e840b02216d941b9878","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/cfd93edb-9e58-4caf-8927-57896d7a652f/retrieve","id":"678755370"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a13296a1-8900-42ad-814c-8abace880688","pagecount":"5","content":"In trying to limit the spread of COVID-19, policymakers around the world have the difficult task of balancing the positive health effects of lockdowns against their economic costs, particularly those for low-income and food-insecure households. In South Africa, the initial lockdown was quite stringent, causing the economy to shrink by a third.Researchers working under the banner of « Towards Inclusive Economic Development in Southern Africa » (SA-TIED) [1] -a collaborative research and policy-making initiative of the South African National Treasury, UNU-WIDER, IFPRI, the South African Revenue Service and several local and international research organizations -used an economic modelling tool called Social Accounting Matrix-multiplier analysis to estimate the short-term impacts of the nationwide lockdown that came into effect in March 2020 on the country's economy and probe different recovery scenarios [2]  [3].The findings revealed that initial lockdown policies jeopardized the food security of low-income households dependent on labor income. At that time, the Government of South Africa did not have reliable data on which industries would be worst hit by the lockdown and how much each sector would suffer. The SA-TIED research contributed to filling that gap, identifying which sectors of the economy, which category of workers and which households were more vulnerable.The research team issued recommendations on how to adjust the macroeconomic forecasts of the South African Reserve Bank and National Treasury. In addition, researchers highlighted the value of transfer policies that support vulnerable households and made several recommendations for recovery, including developing a long-run strategy for navigating the pandemic and rebuilding fiscal resources for responding to future crises.The findings fed into discussions within the government, significantly contributed to the public debate on the economic effects of the pandemic and received wide media coverage [4] . The South African National Treasury presented the results to the Parliament's Committees on Finance and Appropriations [10]; the results were also used as input into the proceedings of the Monetary Policy Committee.• The findings revealed that initial lockdown policies jeopardized the food security of low-income households dependent on labor income. At that time, the Government of South Africa did not have reliable data on which industries would be worst hit by the lockdown and how much each sector would suffer. The SA-TIED research contributed to filling that gap, identifying which sectors of the economy, which category of workers and which households were more vulnerable. Construction, mining, certain segments of manufacturing, retail trade, transport services, and the informal sector were among the sectors worst affected. The negative effects on wage earners with a primary or middle-level of education were the largest, thus affecting their households (lower-income and lower-middle-income household) disproportionately.The research team issued recommendations on how to adjust the macroeconomic forecasts of the South African Reserve Bank and National Treasury. In addition, researchers highlighted the value of transfer policies that support vulnerable households and made several recommendations for recovery, including developing a long-run strategy for navigating the pandemic and rebuilding fiscal resources for responding to future crises.The findings fed into discussions within the government, significantly contributed to the public debate on the economic effects of the pandemic and received wide media coverage [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]. The South African National Treasury presented the results to the Parliament's Committees on Finance and Appropriations [10]; the results were also used as input into the proceedings of the Monetary Policy Committee.","tokenCount":"555"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"aa3db6b0584795462f24454e2c043227","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://data.cimmyt.org/api/access/datafile/:persistentId/?persistentId=hdl:11529/10549072/1","id":"321962516"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6b341c39-0327-4f70-a9f8-db4f23b2fd2a","pagecount":"18","content":"Hello! My name is ___. I represent the research company Rebikon. At the request of the University of Central Asia, we are conducting a study to identify the problems faced by farmers engaged in growing wheat. In the course of the survey, 700 farmers from Chui, Issyk-Kul and Osh oblasts will be interviewed. We ask you to take part in the survey and express your opinion, which is very important for us. The survey will last about an hour. All information received during the research is confidential. Screening questions. Rate the problem R01 Lack of sufficient machinery for crop production R02 High price of machinery R03 Lack of good quality new improved seeds R04 Untimely availability of improved seeds R05 High price of improved seeds R06 Lack of sufficient quantity of fertilizers R07 High price of fertilizers R08 Lack of good quality fertilizers R09 Lack of sufficient quantity of crop protection chemicals (Fungicides, Herbicides and di id )R10 High price of crop protection chemicals (fungicides, herbicides and weedicides)R11 Lack of good quality of crop protection chemicals (Fungicides, Herbicides and weedicides)R12 Lack of sufficient labor for crop production R13 Higher wage rates of labor R14 Lack of technical information on the use of improved production technology for crop production R15 Lack of access to credit facilities for purchase of inputs R16 Lack of access to agricultural subsidies R17 Lack of proper post-harvest handling of the crop R18 Lack of sufficient training in agriculture R19 Lack of proper storage structures for storing both produce and seed R20 Lack of access to output markets R21 Price received in market is low R22 High infestation of pests/ diseases/ weeds in the field R23 Poor soil quality R24 Lack of good irrigation facilities R25 Land area has high chances of (prone) drought R26 Land area is prone to water logging/ flooding R27 Lack of access to extension services R28 Very high temperature R29 Very low temperature R30 Lack of irrigation water in crop sowing season R31 Lack of irrigation water early spring R32 Lack of irrigation water late spring","tokenCount":"344"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c50b222bf970b253184597f77b58b36a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c8cf440e-586d-4cae-996b-960b38d48a07/retrieve","id":"256466088"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7595a6b8-bb60-4338-b191-9916e7f64adf","pagecount":"8","content":"The project covered by this EMP is the 2006 programme of technology packages being introduced in Metema Wereda, Amhara region, a Pilot Learning Wereda (PLW) of IPMS Ethiopia, that are considered likely to have potential environmental impacts.Three types of potential impact of the programme of intervention are considered in the Environmental Screening and Assessment Report (EASR) for this PLW:  Principal environmental impacts, defined as potential effects directly attributable to the concerned IPMS activity (see Table (i) of the EASR);  Cumulative environmental impacts, defined as the possible long-term effects of the concerned activity, including the accumulated effects of multiple activities that may arise in association with, or encouraged by, the concerned activity (see Section 5 of the EASR);  Impacts of the environment on the performance of the concerned activity (see Section 6 of the EASR).A follow-up program to ensure that the recommended mitigating measures are implemented as required will be conducted by the staff of the Environment and Natural Resources Unit in the Wereda Office of Agriculture, with support from IPMS as appropriate. This EMP provides the basic framework for the follow-up.The following Tables set out the potential impacts and related mitigating measures, and the monitoring to be conducted for each mitigating measure. It should be noted that the cumulative impacts considered should include those regarded as unlikely but possible. It is important to be able to show that IPMS has looked ahead, and has taken precautions to deal with such eventualities, should they occur, unlikely though some people may consider them to be.Metema Wereda 3 Table (c) shows indicators to be monitored for implementation of mitigating measures to address the potential impacts of the environment on the activity as a result of:  High temperature  Seasonal Waterlogging/flooding  Wild life (monkey) damage to fruits and vegetables  Pressure on the environment as a result of extensive rainfed agriculture In each case, the statement of impacts and mitigating measures are set out in summary. More detail can be found in the Environmental Assessment and Screening Report for Metema Wereda.Table (d) in Section 3 summarises the basic information on the indicators and how the data will be collected.As a result of using herbicides, many farm labourers will be jobless or their number substantially reduced (social impact).   Note that the mitigating measure indicators listed in Tables (a) to (c), and summarised in Table (d), are designed to verify that the mitigating measures are being implemented as intended. It is not intended that the long-term effect of the mitigating measures on the environment should be formally monitored within the scope of the IPMS project, particularly as in most cases such 'state of environment' changes will be measurable only in the long-term. Such monitoring is normally the responsibility of the Wereda authorities. However, the IPMS staff concerned will be alert to any significant environmental change that may occur during the implementation of the programme.There may be exceptions to this general rule. In the case of special topics of environmental concern on which IPMS is arranging for special research to be conducted, the monitoring will include actual environmental impacts. In the case of Metema Wereda, Cultivation of crops with Agrochemicals and their effects on bee population is such a topic. Depending on the outcome of these researches, additional environmental indicators may in due course be generated for inclusion in the regular monitoring programme outlined in the present EMP.The sources of information used for this Environmental Monitoring Plan are as follows: ","tokenCount":"578"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d5c31b2711a4f78d6b988fd16caa1872","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f55a0aee-b2ff-4b46-9881-8fec19858c92/retrieve","id":"696559510"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"85dbc884-0105-4ab0-829b-c819908b6d2f","pagecount":"82","content":"Agosto 2020 ILCYM 4.0 Manual de usuario i ILCYM -Modelado del Ciclo de Vida de los Insectos 4.0Un paquete de software para desarrollar modelos de fenología de insectos basados en la temperatura con aplicaciones para el mapeo y el análisis regional y global de la población de insectosEl Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP) busca reducir la pobreza y lograr la seguridad alimentaria de manera sostenida en los países en desarrollo a través de la investigación científica y actividades relacionadas con la papa (Solanum tuberosum L.), camote (Ipomoea batatas L. Poir.) y otros cultivos de raíces y tubérculos, y mediante el manejo mejorado de los recursos naturales en los Andes y otras áreas de montaña. Muchos cultivos de importancia económica como la papa y otros vegetales están siendo afectados por diversas plagas, entre ellas el Gorgojo de los Andes del género Premnotrypes (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), que ocasiona pérdidas importantes para los productores de papa en la región andina desde Venezuela hasta Bolivia, pero que afortunadamente no se han extendido a otras regiones productoras de papa fuera de los Andes. En cambio, la polilla del tubérculo de papa (Phthorimaea operculella (Zeller) (Lepidoptera: Gelechidae)) o la mosca minadora (Liriomyza huidobrensis (Blanchard) (Diptera: Agromyzidae)) se han vuelto invasivas en muchas regiones tropicales, subtropicales o templadas. Más de 90 países han reportado la presencia de la polilla del tubérculo de la papa, considerada la plaga de papa más dañina en el mundo en desarrollo. La mosca minadora, que es altamente polífaga, se reporta en 66 países.Asimismo, las moscas blancas Bemisia tabaci y Trialeurodes vaporariorum son plagas polífagas de diversos cultivos, son muy invasivas, reportadas en más de 60 países. Además se les considera vectores transmisores de enfermedades virales, que potencialmente podrían diseminar.En su esfuerzo de investigación sobre el manejo global de plagas, los científicos del CIP estamos interesados en comprender mejor la biología y ecología de las plagas para descubrir por qué algunas especies son más invasivas que otras. También pretendemos predecir el desarrollo potencial de la población de plagas en diferentes zonas agroecológicas, así como determinar sus períodos críticos de infestación para atacarlas mejor durante la temporada de cultivo. Los modelos de fenología para plagas basados en la temperatura se han convertido en herramientas analíticas importantes del programa de investigación del CIP para predecir, evaluar y comprender la dinámica de la población en agroecosistemas bajo una variedad de condiciones ambientales. Al principio se desarrolló y validó un modelo de fenología basado en la temperatura para la polilla del tubérculo de la papa a través de datos de campo y laboratorio que predijeron con éxito los parámetros de la tabla de vida para diferentes zonas agroecológicas. Luego, el modelo se usó para predecir el riesgo de establecimiento y la actividad potencial de plagas en agroecologías específicas, de acuerdo con los registros de temperatura. También se ha utilizado para estimar la estructura de la población a temperaturas dadas y permite simulaciones de rendimiento de aplicaciones de campo y determinar las tasas y frecuencias de aplicación de campo. Otras posibles aplicaciones de estos modelos son múltiples.Los estudios de fenología y modelamiento hechos en plagas de papa permitieron desarrollar el programa de software Modelado del ciclo de vida de los insectos (ILCYM; versión actual 4.0) con el objetivo de facilitar el desarrollo de nuevos modelos de fenología de insectos y proporcionar herramientas analíticas para estudiar la ecología de la población de insectos. Se espera que el software ILCYM beneficie a investigadores de institutos y universidades de investigación agrícola nacionales e internacionales que tengan previsto comenzar el modelado de insectos o quieran aplicar técnicas avanzadas de modelamiento sin tener el conocimiento matemático requerido o ser expertos en el campo. En última instancia, la aplicación del software ILCYM y los resultados del modelado deberían proporcionar una mejor comprensión de la biología y la ecología de los insectos y, a largo plazo, deberían respaldar el proceso de toma de decisiones en el manejo de plagas y mejorar la seguridad alimentaria y la vida cotidiana de los agricultores.ILCYM 4.0 Manual de usuario vEl software de modelado del ciclo de vida de los insectos descrito aquí fue desarrollado conjuntamente por miembros del personal de la División de Ciencias en Cultivos y Sistemas y la Unidad de Informática de Investigación (RIU) del Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP).Agradecemos el apoyo financiero recibido por el Ministerio Federal de Cooperación Económica y Desarrollo (BMZ) de Alemania, el Fondo Regional de Tecnología Agrícola (FONTAGRO), con sede en Washington D.C., el Programa de Investigación sobre Raíces, Tubérculos y Bananas del consorcio CGIAR (CRP-RTB) y la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID) en el marco del proyecto: Agricultura Sostenible Adaptada al Clima: Generando sinergias entre los saberes locales y científicos para lograr resiliencia y capacidad adaptativa en los altos Andes sin el cual este software no podría haberse desarrollado.El interés en los modelos para predecir la idoneidad ambiental para las especies invasoras de plagas de insectos ha crecido sustancialmente en las últimas dos décadas. En particular, la necesidad de comprender el impacto del cambio climático en la distribución potencial de plagas ha acelerado la demanda de herramientas para estimar el riesgo potencial de sus nuevos entornos y regiones agrícolas invadidas. Para este propósito, los mapas se están convirtiendo en medios importantes de comunicación utilizando diferentes escalas espaciales, desde local, regional hasta mundial, para visualizar el riesgo potencial de la distribución de plagas y el daño económico que pueden causar en los cultivos.Por lo tanto, los mapas se utilizan para informar las políticas y el manejo en este campo ayudando en las decisiones estratégicas del manejo de plagas, como las restricciones a la importación de ciertos cultivos en el comercio internacional, la implementación de medidas de cuarentena, el diseño de encuestas de plagas, etc. (Baker, 1996;Baker et al., 2000;Braasch et al., 1996;McKenney et al., 2003). Dos enfoques distintos prevalecen en el modelado de plagas de insectos y el riesgo de establecimiento y expansión; estos pueden describirse como a) \"inductivo\" y b) \"deductivo\". El enfoque \"inductivo\" combina, a través de métodos estadísticos o de aprendizaje automático, los registros de ocurrencia conocidos de especies de insectos con capas digitales de variables ambientales. Utiliza conjuntos de datos mínimos y funciones simples para describir la respuesta de la especie a la temperatura y otros factores climáticos. En general, los datos de presencia/ausencia llamados también datos de ocurrencia de diferentes ubicaciones son suficientes para crear mapas de riesgos. La combinación de registros de ocurrencia y de variables ambientales se puede realizar mediante la aplicación de funciones de coincidencia climática que buscan el potencial de establecimiento de una especie invasora en nuevas áreas al comparar los datos meteorológicos a largo plazo para cada ubicación seleccionada, donde la especie está ausente con los mismos datos para la ubicación de origen, o ubicaciones donde prevalece la especie (Sutherst et al., 2000;Sutherst and Maywald, 1991). Para aplicar este enfoque, se han desarrollado herramientas asistidas por computadora como CLIMEX (Peacock & Worner, 2006;Vanhanen et al., 2008a;Vanhanen et al., 2008b;Wilmot Senaratne et al., 2006) y BIOCLIM (Kohlmann et al., 1988;Steinbauer et al., 2002), usadas para predecir la demografía de las especies de insectos para el análisis de riesgo de plagas (Rafoss, 2003;Sutherst, 1991;Zalucki & Furlong, 2005) y los posibles efectos del cambio climático (Sutherst & Maywald, 1990).El enfoque de modelado \"inductivo\" ha logrado avances considerables y se han desarrollado una gran cantidad de programas informáticos, incluidos BioMOD, GARP, HABITAT, etc. (revisado por Venette et al., 2010). Este enfoque de modelado mostró ventajas cuando la información detallada sobre las especies de insectos no está disponible; sin embargo, las limitaciones críticas son la falta de consideración de las características biológicas de la especie en el marco de modelado (Venette et al., 2010). Por lo tanto, los mapas de riesgos resultantes pueden informar sobre el establecimiento potencial, pero no proporcionan información sobre el crecimiento de la población de especies y el daño potencial o el cambio de población temporal dentro de una temporada o año de cultivo en una región determinada.Por el contrario, el enfoque \"deductivo\" utiliza un modelo de respuesta climática basado en procesos (es decir, modelo de fenología) para una especie de insecto particular de interés. Los modelos de fenología son herramientas analíticas para la evaluación, comprensión y predicción de la dinámica de las poblaciones de insectos en los ecosistemas bajo una variedad de condiciones ambientales y prácticas de manejo. Además, recientemente también se están utilizando en evaluaciones de riesgos fitosanitarios (Baker, 1991;Jarvis & Baker, 2001a, b). El desarrollo del ciclo de vida de los insectos, como en otros organismos ectotérmicos, depende de la temperatura ambiente. Esta dependencia de la temperatura se puede aplicar en un marco orientado a procesos; pronosticar la distribución potencial de las especies de insectos es completamente independiente de las ocurrencias observadas, y este enfoque se conoce como \"deductivo\".La diferencia entre el enfoque de modelado \"inductivo\" y \"deductivo\" es el nivel de abstracción, que es más alto en el enfoque \"inductivo\" o \"coincidencia climática\", en el que los métodos matemáticos empleados conducen a una mayor generalidad. En cambio, los modelos de fenología basados en procesos son modelos matemáticos detallados o simplificados que describen los principios fisiológicos básicos del crecimiento de las especies de insectos, a saber: su desarrollo, supervivencia y reproducción. La complejidad de estos modelos puede variar desde modelos simples, sin estructura de edad e insumos ambientales limitados, hasta modelos estructurados por etapas o multiespecies, con impulsores ambientales complejos. Los dos enfoques no necesariamente compiten, también se pueden usar para complementarse.Los modelos de grados por día a menudo se usan para describir el desarrollo lineal de los insectos utilizando la acumulación de temperatura por encima del umbral de temperatura mínima (Allen, 1976); ver Nietschke et al. (2007).Sin embargo, debido a la no linealidad de la curva de desarrollo, especialmente cuando la temperatura se desvía de la temperatura óptima intrínseca de una especie, los modelos de grados por día son malos predictores del desarrollo de insectos. Este método funciona bien para temperaturas intermedias, pero produce errores, es decir, desviaciones significativas del desarrollo real, cuando la temperatura diaria fluctúa a valores extremos (Stinner et al., 1974;Worner, 1992). Los modelos modernos y más progresivos utilizan funciones no lineales de mayor importancia biológica (i.e. Logan et al., 1976;Sharpe & DeMichele, 1977, etc.), e incluyen funciones estocásticas para la variabilidad en los tiempos de desarrollo entre individuos dentro de una población (Sharpe et al., 1981;Wagner et al., 1984).Paquetes de modelado asistido por computadora como DYMEX (Kriticos et al., 2003), NAPPFAST (Nietschke et al., 2008), ECAMON (Trnka et al., 2007) o ILCYM (Sporleder et al., 2007;Sporleder et al., 2009) apoyan el desarrollo de modelos de fenología/población de insectos estructurados en función de la temperatura y orientados al proceso. El último, ILCYM (software de modelado del ciclo de vida de los insectos, versión 4.0), ha sido desarrollado recientemente por el Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP), Lima, Perú, y está disponible gratuitamente en www.cipotato.org/riskatlasforafrica/ilcym Este libro describe la aplicación del software ILCYM, que apoya el desarrollo de modelos de fenología/población de insectos estructurados en función de la temperatura y orientados al proceso. ILCYM guía de forma interactiva al usuario a través de los pasos requeridos para desarrollar modelos de fenología de insectos, realizar simulaciones y producir la distribución potencial de la población y el mapeo de riesgos bajo escenarios de temperatura (cambio climático) actuales o futuros. El objetivo del presente documento es explicar cómo funciona el enfoque de modelado desarrollado; qué tipo de datos deben generarse para desarrollar un modelo fenológico de insectos (MFI), qué tipo de datos deben generarse para validar un MFI, cómo se implementan los MFI y qué tipo de análisis de población de insectos se proporcionará. Con la versión actual de ILCYM, los autores pretenden compartir el conocimiento adquirido en la investigación de modelos de población de plagas de insectos en el CIP y proporcionar una herramienta de computadora de código abierto, especialmente para investigadores de los países en desarrollo, que facilite el desarrollo de poseer MFI utilizando técnicas de modelado avanzado sin ser expertos en el campo.El modelado de poblaciones de insectos es, por algunas razones, más complicado que el modelado de poblaciones de otros organismos. Los insectos pasan por diferentes etapas antes de alcanzar la madurez; dentro de estas etapas inmaduras pueden morir y, cuando maduran, se reproducen. Algunas especies tienen estacionalidad (es decir, las diferentes etapas de vida de los insectos solo se encuentran durante temporadas específicas del año), otras no (es decir, las poblaciones son heterogéneas en su estructura de etapas de edad debido a la reproducción continua y las generaciones superpuestas), pero su desarrollo siempre está fuertemente impulsado por la temperatura. El enfoque utilizado en ILCYM es definir submodelos que describan el desarrollo y la mortalidad en cada etapa de vida inmadura del insecto con su variación entre los individuos de una población, el tiempo de senescencia y las frecuencias de reproducción de los adultos según la temperatura. Estos submodelos se basan en datos experimentales obtenidos a través de experimentos de temperatura. El modelo de reproducción podría incluir funciones para diferentes procesos, dependiendo de la especie de insecto en estudio, es decir, cambiar la proporción de sexos en adultos debido a la temperatura, las frecuencias de reproducción dependientes de la edad, las frecuencias de reproducción dependientes de la temperatura, etc. El enfoque general se basa en el proceso de factores, mientras que la temperatura es el principal impulsor (factor) de estos procesos.Las especies de insectos que muestran estacionalidad generalmente tienen una etapa de hibernación en la que el insecto entra en un estado de conservación de energía o diapausa. Los factores responsables de reactivar los insectos hibernantes a menudo no son solo la temperatura (la temperatura puede ser un factor indirecto, pero para el modelado, considerar solamente la temperatura podría no explicar este proceso en su totalidad). El enfoque de ILCYM es más adecuado para especies de insectos que no hibernan y, por lo tanto, no muestran estacionalidad en su desarrollo. Sin embargo, muchos componentes de ILCYM también podrían usarse para tales especies.ILCYM compila la función establecida en un modelo fenológico general (genérico) que utiliza la suma de tasas y un enfoque de actualización de cohortes para simular poblaciones. El algoritmo de actualización de cohortes se basa en el esquema propuesto por Curry et al. (1978a); eso fue descrito adicionalmente por Wagner et al. (1985) y Logan (1988).En los artículos publicados no hay tanta discusión sobre la inclusión de la mortalidad inducida por la temperatura en etapas de vida inmaduras y el reclutamiento. Ambos son necesarios para una simulación más realista y ambos están incluidos en ILCYM. El desarrollo, la reproducción y la supervivencia en especies de insectos describen principalmente la demografía de insectos. Para comprender la dinámica de la población se necesitan conocimientos adicionales sobre la dispersión y la migración, así como la influencia de otros factores bióticos o abióticos que afectan la supervivencia de los insectos. El algoritmo de actualización de cohorte calcula el número de la población; también proporciona información sobre la biología cuantitativa de las especies de insectos en estudio. Tenga en cuenta que el aumento de la población resultante solo representa el crecimiento potencial de la población de la especie a un régimen de temperatura dado. El aumento real de la población depende de factores bióticos y abióticos adicionales que afectan a las poblaciones en un entorno determinado. La inclusión de dichos factores introduciría mucha más complejidad en el algoritmo, que no se proporciona en esta versión de ILCYM. Sin embargo, cuando se desarrolla un modelo para una especie determinada, se puede aplicar directamente en el entorno ILCYM-GIS para el análisis espacial; basándose en datos de temperatura diarios reales o simulados, ILCYM simula el aumento potencial de la población a lo largo del tiempo y la distribución de plagas, así como datos del plan hospedante/cobertura de la tierra para analizar el impacto del cambio climático, etc.Los pasos para desarrollar un modelo con ILCYM son principalmente cuatro:1. Recopilar los datos mediante experimentos de temperatura (tablas de vida) o, si están disponibles, de la literatura.2. Definir las funciones que describen los procesos impulsados por la temperatura en el desarrollo de insectos utilizando el \"Modelado\" y compilando el modelo general (el último paso lo realiza ILCYM de forma interactiva).3. Validar el modelo utilizando datos adicionales que no se incluyeron para desarrollarlo (generalmente estos datos provienen de experimentos realizados bajo temperaturas fluctuantes) y realizar análisis de sensibilidad. 4. Utilizar el modelo (p. Ej., para \"Simulación\", en el cuarto módulo de ILCYM).Antes y durante el desarrollo del MFI tenga en cuenta los siguientes pasos:1. ¿Cuál es la especie en la que está interesado? (Piense primero: ¿el enfoque ILCYM es el correcto? ¿Cómo desea usar el modelo?). El modelado no es el propósito en sí mismo, debe haber otro objetivo por el que desea tener un modelo (el propósito podría ser aprender solo sobre la biología de los insectos. En cualquier caso, los investigadores que comiencen con los experimentos descritos aquí aprenderán algo sobre la biología de la población de especies. El conocimiento adquirido puede aplicarse posteriormente para muchos propósitos diferentes).2. Recopile literatura sobre las especies para las que desea hacer un modelo. ¿Qué se ha hecho hasta el momento? ¿Están disponibles los datos de la literatura que se pueden utilizar para modelar o validar modelos? 3. ¡Defina hipótesis! Finalmente, está trabajando en una parte de ciencia, y la ciencia requiere hipótesis.4. Diseñe y planifique su experimento: ¿qué necesita? (instalaciones de cría de insectos, incubadoras, termómetros o registradores, ¿cuáles son las temperaturas que desea probar, planificar la precisión, etc.?). Use datos ficticios: puede usar los datos ficticios proporcionados en ILCYM para familiarizarse con el análisis y aprender sobre el enfoque; también puede crear datos ficticios propios con diferentes números de temperaturas y con diferentes números de insectos en el experimento para aprender sobre la precisión estadística de su experimento planeado.Decida el tipo de datos que desea recopilar (consulte el capítulo sobre recopilación de datos: datos de la tabla de vida versus estudios de cohortes o mixtos: ventajas y desventajas para sus propósitos, que debe conocer antes de diseñar el experimento), y finalmente adáptelos al formato de intervalo. 5. Recolecte los datos.6. Utilice el generador de modelos de ILCYM (el 2do módulo, 'Modeling',) definiendo todos los submodelos para el modelo fenológico general: en esta etapa puede comenzar a escribir un informe sobre los resultados obtenidos (¿Qué informar?).7. Una vez seleccionados todos los submodelos, se compilan para obtener el modelo fenológico general (ILCYM compila automáticamente el modelo general de acuerdo con sus declaraciones iniciales (interactivas) escritas al comenzar un nuevo proyecto). Se recomienda que los usuarios tengan cierto nivel de familiaridad con la estructura del modelo fenológico general y el enfoque de modelado de ILCYM antes de comenzar un análisis serio con el software.8. Realice un análisis de sensibilidad y valide el modelo mediante la comparación de resultados de simulación con los datos de experimentos de temperatura fluctuante o datos publicados en la literatura (ILCYM proporciona herramientas para eso). En esta etapa, puede finalizar el informe sobre su modelo desarrollado. 9. Emplee el modelo para sus propósitos. Puede aplicar el nuevo modelo para el \"mapeo de riesgo de plagas\", que es el tercer módulo de ILCYM (es decir, para producir mapas que indiquen espacialmente el crecimiento potencial de la población de una plaga en particular dentro de una región de interés).Tenga en cuenta que la recopilación de datos puede llevar mucho tiempo. A bajas temperaturas, los tiempos de desarrollo de los individuos de prueba pueden ser bastante largos. Todo el ciclo de vida puede durar más de un año. En tales condiciones, el enfoque de cohorte para recopilar los datos podría ser mejor que establecer una tabla de vida donde se deba monitorear un ciclo de vida completo de una generación. Como función, desarrollar un MFI no debería llevar más de un año.Los modelos de fenología predicen el tiempo de los eventos en el desarrollo de un organismo. El desarrollo de muchos organismos que no pueden regular internamente su propia temperatura (organismos poiquilotérmicos, organismos ectotérmicos) depende de las temperaturas a las que están expuestos en el medio ambiente. Las plantas e invertebrados, incluidos los insectos y los nematodos, requieren una cierta cantidad de calor para desarrollarse de un punto de su ciclo de vida a otro, por ejemplo, de los huevos a las larvas. Debido a las variaciones anuales en el clima, las fechas del calendario no son una buena base para tomar decisiones de gestión. La medición de la cantidad de calor acumulada a lo largo del tiempo proporciona una escala de tiempo fisiológica que es biológicamente más precisa que los días calendario.Los modelos de fenología para especies de insectos basados en la temperatura son herramientas analíticas importantes para predecir, evaluar y comprender la dinámica de las poblaciones en los ecosistemas bajo una variedad de condiciones ambientales. El Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP) desarrolló inicialmente un modelo fenológico para la polilla de la papa, Phthorimaea operculella Zeller (Lepidoptera: Gelechidae), basado en la temperatura que predijo bien los parámetros de la tabla de vida en diferentes zonas agroecológicas. Este modelo fue validado a través de datos de campo y laboratorio. Se utilizó para predecir el riesgo de establecimiento y la actividad potencial de plagas en agroecologías específicas de acuerdo con los registros de temperatura. Vinculado con los sistemas de información geográfica (SIG) y la temperatura atmosférica, el modelo permitió la simulación de tres índices de riesgo a escala mundial y también se usó para predecir posibles cambios futuros en estos índices que puedan ser causados por el calentamiento global.El éxito del enfoque utilizado en el desarrollo e implementación del modelo de P. operculella estimuló su extensión a otras especies de insectos. Así, el CIP desarrolló la versión 4.0 del software Insect Life Cycle (ILCYM) presentada en este manual. El objetivo principal del software es facilitar el desarrollo de modelos de fenología de insectos y proporcionar herramientas analíticas para estudiar la ecología de la población de insectos.Los autores son conscientes de que un enfoque de modelado único no se ajusta a todas las especies de insectos de interés y que no puede cumplir con todos los propósitos para los que se necesita desarrollar un modelo. Sin embargo, creen que el enfoque presentado aquí podría ser un modelo aplicable a muchas especies de insectos y en muchas circunstancias para las cuales se desarrollan modelos de fenología de insectos. Un tema importante en la investigación del manejo integrado de plagas (MIP) es evaluar los efectos potenciales de ciertas estrategias de manejo de plagas. Las tablas de vida de los parasitoides pueden analizarse en los modelos de \"Modelado\" ILCYM, y la fenología del parasitoide obtenida puede aplicarse en el componente de \"Simulación\" ILCYM-GIS para identificar regiones en las que el parasitoide se puede establecer y controlar potencialmente a su huésped (una plaga de insectos). Este es un análisis importante para planificar el control biológico clásico e identificar posibles sitios de liberación de parasitoides. Para el desarrollo de un modelo de interacción de dos especies se utiliza una función de tasa de parasitismo, para vincular los modelos de fenología parasitoide y del huésped (plaga) a través de un procedimiento de simulación determinista en condiciones de temperatura constante y variable. Este proceso utiliza los tiempos de desarrollo predichos dependientes de la temperatura y las tasas de fertilidad del parasitoide para simulaciones del crecimiento y desarrollo de la población huésped.ILCYM analiza datos de diferentes tipos. La pregunta al modelar los efectos de la temperatura en el desarrollo de la población de insectos no es tanto una cuestión de \"qué datos se deben recopilar\", sino más bien \"cómo se deben utilizar estos datos\". Por lo tanto, ILCYM permite el uso de un tipo de datos experimentales como información de entrada para desarrollar un modelo de fenología de plagas; sin embargo, los datos deben permitir modelar el ciclo de vida completo de la especie y deben organizarse de manera que cumplan ciertos criterios empleados dentro del software. La recopilación de datos y su disposición para usarse como datos de entrada en ILCYM es el tema de esta sección.Estudiar la ecología de la población de insectos a menudo se basa en estudios de tablas de vida. Se lleva a cabo una tabla de vida siguiendo una población de n = x individuos desde su nacimiento hasta el nacimiento de toda la progenie de estos individuos. Eventos como la muerte o la reproducción son monitoreados en intervalos iguales de tiempo (horas, días, años, etc., dependiendo del organismo en estudio). Esta metodología se utiliza para poblaciones de muchos organismos, incluidos humanos y otras poblaciones de animales, para describir la esperanza de vida de las personas (las compañías de seguros de vida la usan para estimar la probabilidad de muerte de una persona de cierta edad) y su capacidad de reproducción. Se desarrollaron estadísticas específicas para calcular los \"parámetros de la tabla de vida\", que describen el crecimiento de la población de acuerdo con la ley de aumento de la población de Malthus. El análisis de la tabla de vida se emplea ampliamente en el estudio de poblaciones; sin embargo, dado que el ciclo de vida es más complicado en los insectos (debido a las diferentes etapas de la vida inmadura) que en otros animales, se realizaron varias modificaciones en el software ILCYM.Para construir una tabla de vida para una cohorte de insectos (es decir, un grupo de individuos de la misma edad), el experimento generalmente comienza con \"huevos\" que se pusieron todos dentro del mismo período de tiempo; por ejemplo dentro de las últimas 12 o 24 horas. El número de huevos utilizados debe ser al menos n 100, porque durante cada etapa de la vida hay cierta proporción de los insectos que podrían morir y, por lo tanto, se reducirá el número de individuos que ingresan en cada etapa de la vida posterior. Entonces, el número de individuos observados podría ser insuficiente para las últimas etapas de la vida o el número de hembras podría ser insuficiente para evaluar la fecundidad.Sería recomendable contar con al menos 30 hembras sobrevivientes en el experimento para evaluar la fecundidad.Especialmente, el número de insectos utilizados para construir una tabla de vida a temperaturas extremadamente altas y bajas, donde la mortalidad es generalmente alta, debe aumentarse debido a la mayor mortalidad esperada durante las etapas de la vida inmadura. No es necesario equilibrar el número de individuos utilizados para las tablas de vida a diferentes temperaturas. El análisis de estos datos incluirá pesos que representan las diferencias en el número de individuos que ingresaron a una determinada etapa de la vida a una temperatura dada. Las tablas de vida pueden repetirse a las mismas temperaturas con otro grupo de individuos (cohorte) de la población. Además, no es necesario equilibrar el número de tablas de vida en cada temperatura. En el análisis, los datos de la misma temperatura (replicaciones) se pueden agrupar o usar por separado cuando se ajustan los modelos para describir los efectos de la temperatura sobre el desarrollo o la fecundidad de los insectos; sin embargo, si la temperatura para las tablas de vida repetidas se desvió en más de 1ºC, los datos no deben agruparse sino enviarse por separado al análisis.Los datos para cada tabla de vida pueden organizarse en una hoja de cálculo ordinaria. La etapa de vida de cada individuo de la cohorte se traza en una columna (es decir, número de columnas = n). El estado de cada individuo se anota en filas para cada tiempo de evaluación (generalmente un día) hasta que el último individuo de la cohorte haya muerto. Se da un ejemplo en la Figura 1. Cada individuo que sobrevive a la etapa de desarrollo, que se encuentra en el ejemplo dado como \"huevo\", \"larva\" o \"pupa\", se registra en cada tiempo de evaluación (indicado en la hoja de cálculo como \"E\" = huevo, \"L\" = larva y \"P\" = pupa). El intervalo de evaluación es generalmente un día; sin embargo, el tiempo de evaluación puede cambiar; por ejemplo 12 h, 8 h, etc., pero el intervalo deberá ser constante durante todo el experimento y siempre el mismo en todas las tablas de vida construidas a diferentes temperaturas constantes que ingresan al análisis para desarrollar el modelo fenológico en ILCYM. El número de etapas de la vida a evaluar depende de la especie en estudio y el investigador debe elegirlo. Las letras para indicar cada etapa de la vida se pueden elegir libremente. Los no sobrevivientes se marcan siempre como \"muertos\". La aparición de machos adultos se registrará como \"M\", mientras que para las hembras adultas vivas se anotará el número de huevos puestos por cada una durante el intervalo de evaluación.Notas sobre el intervalo de evaluación: Dado que a altas temperaturas el desarrollo es más rápido que a bajas temperaturas, podría ser que el intervalo de un día sea demasiado amplio para determinar bien la variación en el desarrollo de insectos a la siguiente etapa. En el ejemplo dado (Figura 1), todos los huevos permanecieron como huevo en la cuarta evaluación y se convirtieron en larvas en la quinta evaluación. Por lo tanto, estos datos no proporcionarían buena información para evaluar la curva de distribución para el desarrollo de huevos en larvas. Se esperaría que el tiempo medio de desarrollo sea entre 4 y 5 días, pero no se puede evaluar su valor real y la pendiente de la curva de distribución. En este caso, sería útil reducir el tiempo de intervalo a 8 o 12 horas para obtener al menos un punto en los datos en el que la proporción de sujetos desarrollados en larvas sea superior al 0% e inferior al 100%. Para temperaturas más bajas, un intervalo de evaluación tan bajo probablemente no sería necesario porque el tiempo de desarrollo aumenta significativamente y la curva de distribución del tiempo de desarrollo podría estar bien establecida incluso cuando se hubiera utilizado un intervalo de evaluación más amplio, por ejemplo de 2 días. El intervalo de evaluación podría elegirse específicamente de manera diferente para cada temperatura evaluada; sin embargo, en las hojas de cálculo de datos utilizadas para desarrollar el MFI en ILCYM, el intervalo (filas) debe ser el mismo en todas las tablas de vida (temperaturas). Por lo tanto, incluso si el intervalo utilizado para una tabla de vida fue, por ejemplo, 2 días y el intervalo utilizado para la tabla de vida a la temperatura más alta fue de 12 horas, todas las hojas de cálculo deben completarse utilizando un intervalo de 8 horas.Figura 1 Ejemplo para registrar datos de la tabla de vida en una hoja de cálculo. Cada columna representa a un individuo y su estado (etapa de vida) se registra en un intervalo de tiempo constante (generalmente un día) hasta su muerte. Las diferentes etapas de desarrollo de la especie se registran utilizando letras específicas de cada etapa. Los machos adultos están marcados como \"M\" y para las hembras sobrevivientes se registra el número de huevos puestos por intervalo de evaluación. Para más explicaciones ver el texto.Para los sujetos que permanecieron en la misma etapa que en la evaluación anterior de 2 días, el estado del sujeto es claro para los intervalos de tiempo faltantes y se puede completar; sin embargo, si un sujeto se desarrolló dentro de este intervalo de 2 días en la siguiente etapa, entonces el estado no está claro para los intervalos faltantes. En ese caso, los valores faltantes deben completarse. ILCYM manejará estos datos como \"datos censurados por intervalos\" (es decir, desarrollo entre el intervalo \"x\" y el intervalo \"x-2 días\"). Para obtener más información sobre este punto, consulte la sección \"análisis de datos\".El software ILCYM solo ejecuta datos en formatos de texto. Los datos organizados en una hoja de cálculo deben transformarse en formato de prueba con la extensión .txt (ver Figura 2). Para facilitar la identificación de los datos se ILCYM 4.0 Manual de usuario recomienda incluir los siguientes identificadores en el nombre del documento: nombre de la especie, temperatura evaluada (y opcionalmente un número que indique la replicación a una temperatura dada), y el intervalo, por ejemplo:\"Phthorimaea-operculella_28-1_1d\"; es decir, Phthorimaea operculella fue la especie utilizada en este experimento, la temperatura de incubación fue constantemente de 28ºC y fue la primera tabla de vida construida a esta temperatura, y el intervalo de evaluación entre filas en el documento es de un día.Figura 2 Archivo de texto con los datos de la tabla de vida generado al guardar la hoja de cálculo anterior como archivo txt (delimitado por tabulaciones) para usarse en ILCYM. El nombre del archivo debe indicar el nombre de la especie estudiada y la temperatura a la que se construyó la tabla de vida.Si se espera que la tasa de hembras en la progenie sea variable:En caso de que la tasa de hembras en la progenie no sea constante pero posiblemente se vea afectada por la temperatura o la edad de la hembra, todos los huevos deben criarse en lotes (los huevos de cada hembra individual durante un intervalo de evaluación pueden criarse conjuntamente) hasta la etapa adulta y su sexo esté determinado.Los datos pueden organizarse como se muestra en la Figura 3 para el análisis en ILCYM. Si solo se espera que la temperatura afecte la tasa de hembras en la progenie pero no la edad de la hembra, los huevos obtenidos de cada temperatura analizada pueden criarse (agruparse) porque entonces no se analizará el efecto de la edad de la hembra; en ese caso, la tasa de hembras se considera constante a lo largo de la vida de las hembras adultas.Para registrar tablas de vida incompletas se hace un seguimiento de la historia de las cohortes hasta que los insectos hayan alcanzado la etapa adulta. El registro de datos será el mismo que para las tablas de vida \"completas\", pero solo se indicarán las emergencias de machos y hembras. Después de la emergencia del adulto, el tiempo de supervivencia de los adultos no se controlará más y, por lo tanto, las columnas pueden indicarse como \"muertas\" en las celdas posteriores de la fila. Los datos para una tabla de vida única se verían como se muestra en la Figura 4. La reproducción A B se evaluará con otros sujetos en experimentos adicionales a las mismas temperaturas y el tiempo de supervivencia de los adultos se recuperaría de estos experimentos.Figura 4 Ejemplo para registrar datos de la tabla de vida \"incompleta\" a temperatura constante (20°C) en un archivo de texto. En cuanto a la tabla de vida \"incompleta\", cada columna representa a un individuo y su estado (etapa de vida) se registra en un intervalo de tiempo constante (generalmente un día) hasta su muerte o desarrollo en adulto. El tiempo de supervivencia de los adultos no se controla más porque el tiempo de supervivencia de los adultos se evaluará en un experimento adicional para determinar el tiempo de supervivencia de los adultos y la oviposición; sin embargo, se registra la aparición de machos (\"M\") y hembras (\"F\").El archivo de oviposición para cada temperatura se vería como se muestra en la Figura 3; ya sea un solo archivo si la tasa de hembras es constante en todas las temperaturas o dos archivos, uno para los machos reproducidos y otro para las hembras reproducidas, si se espera que la tasa de hembras sea variable.En estudios de cohortes, la estructura de datos para el análisis en ILCYM es diferente. El tiempo de supervivencia y la mortalidad se evalúan de la misma manera que para las \"tablas de vida\", pero exclusivamente para una sola etapa de vida.Los datos están organizados por etapas de vida específicas; es decir, hay un archivo de datos para cada etapa de la vida en el historial de vida del insecto en estudio. Por ejemplo, si el historial de vida de la especie comprende tres etapas de vida inmaduras, es decir, huevo, larva y pupa, se requieren cinco archivos, uno para \"Huevo\", uno para \"Larva\", uno para \"Pupa\", y para la supervivencia de \"Hembras adultas\" y \"Machos adultos\" un archivo para cada una. Además, se requieren uno o dos archivos de oviposición dependiendo de si la tasa de hembras en la especie es constantemente la misma en todas las temperaturas, o si la tasa de hembras necesita ser evaluada a partir de los datos (tasa variable). Esto último ocurre cuando la temperatura afecta la \"tasa de hembras\" o si se espera que la tasa de hembras cambie con la edad de la hembra adulta. Los datos sobre la oviposición deben recuperarse de la misma cohorte de adultos (\"hembras adultas\") utilizada para establecer el modelo general. El investigador puede elegir libremente el número de etapas de la vida de acuerdo con sus elecciones o requisitos; por ejemplo, la etapa de larva puede estar separada por estadios larvarios específicos (L1, L2 L3, etc.), o podría incluirse una etapa \"prepupal\". Es importante que todo el ciclo de vida esté cubierto y que no haya superposición al evaluar el tiempo de desarrollo/ supervivencia de las etapas/etapas de la vida individual. Debe haber una definición clara cuando se completa cada etapa/ estadio (instar) de vida individual o estadio, y los insectos utilizados para iniciar un estudio de cohorte deben ser de una edad fisiológica específica.En la Figura 5 se proporciona un ejemplo para organizar los datos. El archivo de datos contiene 4 columnas. La primera representa la temperatura utilizada (en el ejemplo se evaluaron un total de 7 temperaturas): la segunda, indica el tiempo de evaluación después del ajuste del experimento (los registros deben comenzar desde la evaluación antes de que se observe el primer desarrollo) aquí medido como \"configuración de días después del experimento\"); la tercera columna indica el número de insectos utilizados en cada temperatura, y la cuarta columna indica el número de individuos desarrollados hasta la siguiente etapa en cada fecha de evaluación. En los estudios de \"tabla de vida\", el intervalo de evaluación debe ser siempre el mismo para calcular los parámetros de la tabla de vida. Tal condición no es necesaria con el \"estudio de cohortes\", sin embargo, las evaluaciones faltantes no deben incluirse en el archivo (por ejemplo, si la cohorte se evaluó después de 3 días y nuevamente después de 5 días, y en el día 4 no se realizó ninguna evaluación, ese día no debe incluirse en los registros).Figura 5 Ejemplo para registrar datos de \"estudio de cohortes\" en una hoja de cálculo (A) y los mismos datos guardados como un archivo txt (delimitado por tabulaciones) (B) para usarse en ILCYM. La primera columna indica la temperatura evaluada (aquí se probaron un total de 7 temperaturas), la segunda columna indica el número de intervalos de evaluación (aquí medido como \"configuración de días después del experimento\"), la tercera columna indica el número de insectos utilizados en cada temperatura, y la cuarta columna indica el número de individuos que se habían desarrollado para la siguiente etapa en cada fecha de evaluación. Para más explicaciones ver el texto.ILCYM maneja datos tales como \"datos censurados por intervalos\" y recupera los límites de intervalo de la fila anterior (es decir, el desarrollo entre el día \"3\" y el día \"5\" después de la configuración del experimento). La grabación debe continuar hasta el último individuo de la cohorte desarrollado para la siguiente etapa o muerto. ILCYM recupera la tasa de mortalidad en cada etapa de la vida para cada temperatura a partir del número de individuos utilizados y el número de individuos que se desarrollaron hasta la siguiente etapa (sobrevivientes). Evaluaciones que resultaron enobservaciones \"cero\" (cambio de etapa) deben incluirse en el registro; de lo contrario, ILCYM no determinaría bien el lapso de tiempo en que los individuos se desarrollaron en la siguiente etapa.Los datos para adultos (tiempo de supervivencia de machos y hembras) se registran de la misma manera. La diferencia es que los adultos no se desarrollan en otra etapa, sino que mueren. Por lo tanto, el número de insectos probados (columna 3) debe ser igual a la suma de los individuos que se registraron como muertos durante toda la evaluación para una sola temperatura. No se calcula una tasa de mortalidad adicional como para las etapas de la vida inmadura. Los datos de oviposición se registran como se describió anteriormente para los datos de la \"tabla de vida\". El número de huevos ovipositados se debe recuperar para la cohorte de hembras incluidas en este experimento.Los autores de ILCYM recomiendan que la tabla de vida de dos sexos se use como datos de entrada al software, como se describió anteriormente. Esto se debe a que la mayoría de las especies de insectos (lepidópteros, coleópteros, ortópteros y dípteros) son bisexuales y tienen machos y hembras, y ambos sexos pueden causar pérdidas económicas o ser vectores de enfermedades. Además, existe una variación en la tasa de desarrollo entre individuos y entre sexos en la población natural. Sin embargo, la forma tradicional de recopilar la tabla de vida Lotka (1907) solo trata con la población femenina e ignora las razones mencionadas anteriormente.Para la tabla de vida completa, la disposición de los datos es similar a la explicada anteriormente, donde la etapa de vida de cada individuo se rastrea en una columna y el estado de cada individuo se anota en filas para cada tiempo de evaluación hasta que el último individuo del grupo haya muerto. La principal diferencia aquí es la ausencia de progenie masculina.Para el estudio de cohorte, la disposición de los datos es idéntica a la descripción proporcionada anteriormente; solo se omite el archivo masculino. A continuación se muestra un archivo de ejemplo para la tabla de vida completa a una temperatura dada.Figure 6 Archivo de datos de la tabla de vida que se refiere solo a hembras. La principal diferencia entre la Figura 3 y esta es que no se tienen en cuenta todos los individuos que evolucionaron y se convirtieron en machos, el archivo solo muestra la etapa de vida inmadura (se registra \"huevo\", \"larva\" o \"pupa\" para cada tiempo de evaluación).La interfaz ILCYM 4.0 solo funciona con el tipo de intervalos, sin embargo, todos los tipos mostrados anteriormente podrían adaptarse al tipo de intervalo utilizando códigos R preparados para hacer esto; de lo contrario, contáctenos para obtener asistencia p.carhuapoma@cgiar.orgEse tipo de registros se utilizan ampliamente para examinar los efectos de la temperatura en los tiempos de eventos en datos censurados que aplican modelos sobre el tiempo de falla acelerado (AFT) (Figura 7). Esta es la descripción de las columnas: Columna 1: Lote o replicación para la misma temperatura constante. Columna 2: Temperatura constante definida. Columna 3: Día cuando comienza el evento (según el intervalo de días en que el insecto se ha desarrollado u ovipositado). Columna 4: Día cuando finaliza el evento definido anteriormente. Columna 5: Tamaño de la muestra según la temperatura.Figura 7 Datos de formato AFT. La principal diferencia con la Figura 6 es que todo individuo muestra el tiempo de evaluación como intervalo (inicio y final) para cada fila y no es un recuento.Esta última versión del software ILCYM se desarrolla bajo una plataforma web interactiva ofrecida por el paquete \"Shiny\", que se conecta con el software estadístico \"R\" para realizar todo el procesamiento. ILCYM 4.0, este contiene 4 módulos: Project, Modeling, Compilation y Simulation. Para acceder a la interfaz de un módulo, seleccione directamente el nombre del módulo que va a utilizar. Crear modelo de fenología: El usuario crea un modelo de fenología agregando submodelos. Cada etapa de la vida tiene un asistente: una secuencia de cuadros de diálogo que solicita al usuario la información necesaria para definir el proceso de la etapa y luego agrega el proceso al modelo fenológico general.Compartir modelo fenológico producido: El usuario de ILCYM puede compartir el modelo de fenología compartiendo los archivos de modelo creados en el generador de modelos. Todos los archivos creados durante el desarrollo del modelo se almacenan automáticamente en el espacio de trabajo. Al hacerlo, les permite a los usuarios abrir la metodología para un escrutinio amplio y ayuda a refinar y estandarizar las técnicas de modelado.Los submodelos se pueden importar, lo que permite a los usuarios incorporar en sus propios modelos componentes que otros han desarrollado.Antes de comenzar con una evaluación de datos para desarrollar un modelo de fenología de insectos, debe crear y registrar el nuevo proyecto. Todos los datos, resultados de evaluación, mapas, etc. que se usan o crean durante el desarrollo del proyecto se gestionan dentro de un solo \"proyecto de ILCYM\".Por lo tanto, debe crearse un nuevo proyecto para cada especie de insecto de la que se desee desarrollar un modelo.Para crear un proyecto, siga los pasos a continuación:Ir a Project -> Select an option -> New project.Hay 2 pasos: \"1. Project details\" y \"2. Load data file\"A continuación se describe el paso \"Detalles del proyecto\". Si todos los componentes del proyecto están bien, aparecerá un icono para la variable fenológica.Durante la creación del proyecto, si el usuario ha olvidado algunas etapas de la vida y desea eliminar el proyecto y crear un nuevo proyecto con el mismo nombre u otro, simplemente cierre ILCYM 4.0 y vaya a la ruta del proyecto y elimínelo como cualquier archivo.Para obtener una fenología completa de una especie en particular, se realizan las siguientes siete (7) evaluaciones, en este orden:Nombre DescripciónAjusta la curva de desarrollo en un ensayo de línea paralela a las frecuencias de desarrollo acumuladas de cada temperatura constante probada. La aplicación ofrece una estimación del tiempo medio de desarrollo (días) con el error estándar (SE) en límites de confianza del 95% para cada temperatura, y un parámetro que describe la variación en los tiempos de desarrollo entre individuos.Este parámetro se obtiene mediante el ajuste de varias funciones que describen la relación entre la temperatura y la velocidad de desarrollo.La adaptación de varias funciones que describen la relación entre la temperatura y la senescencia de los adultos (1/longevidad).Se realiza el ajuste de funciones que describen la mortalidad dependiente de la temperatura y, con la ayuda de algunos criterios estadísticos, se selecciona el mejor modelo.La oviposición total se obtiene ajustando funciones que describen la oviposición total dependiente de la temperatura por hembra.Ajuste una función para describir las curvas de tiempo de oviposición acumuladas dependientes de la temperatura.Este parámetro se obtiene mediante el ajuste de varias funciones que describen la relación entre la temperatura y la tasa de oviposición.Para realizar esta evaluación, se ajustan los datos a tres modelos de distribución (Weibull, Lognormal y Loglogistic). El usuario selecciona el mejor modelo en función del criterio de selección agregado, como el criterio de selección de Akaike (AIC). Sobre la base de la función seleccionada, se calculan los \"tiempos medios de desarrollo\" con límites de confianza del 95% (las estadísticas de salida se explican en las páginas siguientes).ILCYM 4.0 Manual de usuario La siguiente ventana muestra cómo se estima el tiempo de desarrollo en ILCYM, vea abajo: Project seleccioneEntonces vaya a Modeling para elegir una de las opciones para cada campo (como la imagen de abajo) y luego proceder con su análisis.Se le solicita al usuario que seleccione la etapa de vida del insecto y el modelo de distribución. El análisis comenzará automáticamente cuando haga clic en OK, lo cual proporcionará una salida estadística, una lista de indicadores y una figura que muestra los puntos de datos ingresados en el análisis, así como las curvas de frecuencia del tiempo de desarrollo resultantes para cada temperatura.ILCYM 4.0 Manual de usuario Líneas de texto debajo del cuadro rojo 4: Intercepta para cada temperatura, error estándar (SE), valores z y probabilidad. La última línea del bloque muestra la pendiente estimada común; todos estos parámetros describen la variación del tiempo de desarrollo a diferentes temperaturas.Listas de criterios utilizados para seleccionar una de las muchas funciones o modelos provistos. Los más importantes son el AIC, que demuestra las desviaciones entre los datos observados y pronosticados, y el R 2 , que explica cómo el modelo captura la variabilidad dentro de los datos.Para modificar las escalas o las coordenadas de la leyenda de los gráficos, modificar el menú del lado izquierdo del módulo, y para visualizar los cambios, haga clic en el botón \"OK\".La inversa del tiempo medio (1/tiempo medio), calculado por la función estimada de la distribución de desarrollo, es la tasa de desarrollo debido a la temperatura. Esta evaluación en ILCYM complementa la evaluación del tiempo de desarrollo; aquí se ajusta a un modelo que describe la tasa de desarrollo dependiente de la temperatura para cada etapa de vida en particular. ILCYM proporciona varios modelos que podrían describir bien la curva de desarrollo de los insectos. ILCYM no verifica la idoneidad de cada modelo automáticamente. Puede probar varios modelos y seleccionar el mejor según los criterios de selección AIC, R 2 y P-Value.La siguiente ventana muestra cómo se estima la tasa de desarrollo en ILCYM. Vaya a Project y seleccioneILCYM contiene diferentes modelos para la tasa de desarrollo; estos modelos están representados por el nombre de los primeros autores que desarrollaron la ecuación, Shape De Michelle, Deva, Logan, etc. Bajo el nombre de cada autor, hay series de modelos desarrollados a partir de las ecuaciones originales marcadas con un número, es decir, Shape De Michelle 1, Logan 2, etc.Después vaya a Modeling para elegir una de las opciones para cada campo (como la imagen de abajo) y luego proceder con su análisis.La primera parte izquierda del módulo muestra el estado del insecto que el usuario evaluará (cambie para evaluar otro estado), así como las opciones para seleccionar el mejor modelo, ya sea comparando varios submodelos o todos a la vez, o por separado eligiendo un submodelo (usar CRTL).En este menú, puede operar múltiples selecciones o una sola selección.i) Seleccione todos los submodelos y haga clic al mismo tiempo y elija el submodelo mejor ajustado utilizando los criterios de selección incorporados.Significa \"flecha derecha\", para seleccionar cualquier modelo o modelos.Significa \"flecha izquierda\", para anular la selección de cualquier modelo o modelos.ii) Si es necesario seleccionar otro grupo de submodelos, use la flecha hacia la derecha.El análisis comenzará automáticamente cuando haga clic en OK, lo cual proporcionará una salida estadística, una lista de indicadores y una figura que muestra los puntos de datos ingresados en el análisis, así como la curva de tasa de desarrollo resultante de acuerdo con la temperatura.A continuación se muestra la ventana de ILCYM para siete selecciones de submodelos (use la barra de desplazamiento para ver los otros gráficos de modelos seleccionados):Caja roja 1: muestra las opciones (estado, modelo, eje y botones)Caja roja 2: indica el modelo no lineal ajustado (todos los modelos seleccionados)Caja roja 3: indica el modelo mejor ajustado (como lista)Caja roja 4: indica el resumen del modelo ajustado (solo cuando se selecciona un modelo)Puede elegir todos los modelos y compararlos, en tal caso aparecerán varios caracteres con el resultado del modelado y una ventana única para la comparación de indicadores (Caja roja 3).Entonces, aparecerán los criterios estadísticos para seleccionar el mejor submodelo (Caja roja 4). Debe seleccionar el mejor modelo utilizando los mejores criterios y el mejor gráfico realista. seleccionado). Haga clic en este botón solo si está de acuerdo con la función seleccionada, o seleccione otra distribución de modelo según los criterios de selección de modelo.En las etapas adultas (\"machos\" y \"hembras\"), debido a que los insectos mueren en lugar de desarrollarse a una siguiente etapa, el submodelo en esta sección describe la tasa de senescencia dependiente de la temperatura. El software ILCYM proporciona varios submodelos, al igual que la velocidad de desarrollo, que se pueden usar para describir la velocidad de senescencia dependiente de la temperatura. El proceso de selección del modelo es idéntico al de la tasa de desarrollo.La siguiente ventana muestra cómo se estima la tasa de desarrollo en ILCYM. Vaya a Project y seleccione Senescence:Luego elija los criterios estadísticos para seleccionar el mejor submodelo y usar el mejor gráfico realista.ILCYM 4.0 Manual de usuarioLa mortalidad es otro proceso importante en un ciclo de vida de un insecto que se ve afectado por la temperatura.ILCYM cuantifica el efecto de la temperatura en las etapas inmaduras (huevo, larva y pupa) del ciclo de vida del insecto.En este programa se ofrecen muchos modelos no lineales que pueden describir mejor la mortalidad inducida por la temperatura (baja mortalidad cerca de una temperatura óptima y aumento de la mortalidad con la desviación de la temperatura óptima).Se puede seleccionar el mejor submodelo en función de la estadística disponible al igual que en las anteriores etapas de vida.La siguiente ventana muestra cómo se estima la mortalidad en ILCYM. Vaya a Project y seleccione Mortality: ILCYM contiene diferentes modelos de mortalidad. Estos modelos están representados por el nombre de los autores que desarrollaron primero la ecuación, es decir, Taylor, Whang, etc. o un nombre común. Hay series de modelos desarrollados a partir de las ecuaciones originales.A continuación ir a Modeling para elegir una de las opciones para cada campo (como muestra la imagen de abajo) y luego proceder con su análisis.La primera parte izquierda del módulo muestra el estado del insecto que el usuario evaluará (cambie para evaluar otro estado), así como las opciones para seleccionar el mejor modelo, ya sea comparando varios submodelos o todos a la vez, o por separado eligiendo un submodelo (use CRTL).En este menú, puede operar múltiples selecciones o una sola selección.Seleccione todos los submodelos y haga clic al mismo tiempo y elija el submodelo mejor ajustado utilizando los criterios de selección incorporados.Significa \"flecha derecha\", para seleccionar cualquier modelo o modelos.Significa \"flecha izquierda\", para anular la selección de cualquier modelo o modelos.ii) Si es necesario seleccionar otro grupo de submodelos, use la flecha derecha nuevamente.El análisis comenzará automáticamente cuando haga clic en OK, lo cual proporcionará un resultado estadístico, una lista de indicadores y una figura que muestra los puntos de datos ingresados en el análisis, así como la curva de mortalidad resultante de acuerdo con la temperatura.A continuación, se muestra la ventana de ILCYM para siete selecciones de submodelos (use la barra de desplazamiento para ver los otros gráficos de modelos seleccionados): Entonces, aparecerán los criterios estadísticos para seleccionar el mejor submodelo (Caja roja 4). Debe seleccionarse el mejor modelo utilizando los mejores criterios y el mejor gráfico realista.Para modificar las escalas o las coordenadas de la leyenda de los gráficos, modificar el menú del lado izquierdo del módulo, y para visualizar los cambios, haga clic en el botón \"OK\".ILCYM 4.0 Manual de usuario Esta ventana mostrará debajo de todas las opciones un botón llamado Save (solo aparece cuando hay un modelo seleccionado). Haga clic en este botón solo si está de acuerdo con la función seleccionada, o seleccione otra distribución de modelo según los criterios de selección de modelo.A una temperatura óptima para el desarrollo, la mortalidad es más baja, pero aumenta a temperaturas altas y bajas, dependiendo de la especie de insecto.El análisis estadístico muestra la estimación de los parámetros del mejor modelo utilizado para cuantificar el efecto de la temperatura sobre la mortalidad.La oviposición o reproducción de insectos se puede describir mediante tres componentes dependientes de la temperatura: la oviposición total, el tiempo de oviposición y la tasa de oviposición.En ILCYM, la oviposición total representa el número total esperado de huevos puestos por una hembra insecto durante toda su vida en función de la temperatura. Esta relación se modela con una función no lineal, como se muestra en el gráfico a continuación. Significa \"flecha derecha\", para seleccionar cualquier modelo o modelos.Significa \"flecha izquierda\", para anular la selección de cualquier modelo o modelos.ii) Si es necesario seleccionar otro grupo de submodelos, use la flecha derecha nuevamente.El análisis comenzará automáticamente cuando haga clic en OK, lo cual proporcionará una salida estadística, una lista de indicadores y una figura que muestra los puntos de datos ingresados en el análisis, así como la curva de oviposición total resultante de acuerdo con la temperatura.A continuación, se muestra la ventana de ILCYM para siete selecciones de submodelos (use la barra de desplazamiento para ver los otros gráficos de modelos seleccionados): Puede elegir todos los modelos y comparar, en tal caso aparecerán varios cuadros con el resultado del modelado y una ventana única para la comparación de indicadores (Caja roja 3).Entonces, aparecerán los criterios estadísticos para seleccionar el mejor submodelo (Caja roja 4). Se debe seleccionar mejor modelo utilizando los mejores criterios y el mejor gráfico realista.Para modificar las escalas o las coordenadas de la leyenda de los gráficos, modificar el menú del lado izquierdo del módulo, y para visualizar los cambios, haga clic en el botón \"OK\".ILCYM 4.0 Manual de usuario Esta ventana mostrará debajo de todas las opciones un botón llamado Save (solo aparece cuando hay un modelo seleccionado). Haga clic en este botón solo si está de acuerdo con la función seleccionada, o seleccione otra distribución de modelo según los criterios de selección de modelo.El tiempo de oviposición es la vida reproductiva de cada hembra en días. Esta variable se evalúa a una temperatura determinada. El proceso de selección del modelo es idéntico al del Tiempo de Desarrollo, los datos se ajustan a tres modelos de distribución (Weibull, Lognormal y Loglogistic). El usuario selecciona el mejor modelo en función del criterio de selección agregado, como el criterio de selección de Akaikes (AIC). Sobre la base de la función seleccionada, se calculan los \"tiempos medios de desarrollo\" con límites de confianza del 95% (las estadísticas de salida se explican en las páginas siguientes).La siguiente ventana muestra cómo se estima el tiempo de desarrollo en ILCYM.Después elija los criterios estadísticos para seleccionar el mejor submodelo y usar el mejor gráfico realista.Considerando el tiempo estimado de oviposición, el submodelo en esta sección describe la oviposition rate dependiente de la temperatura. El software ILCYM proporciona varios submodelos para development rate que pueden usarse para describir la oviposition rate dependiente de la temperatura. Entonces, el proceso de selección del modelo es idéntico al de development rate.La siguiente ventana muestra cómo se estima la tasa de oviposición en ILCYM. Vaya a Project y seleccione Oviposition Rate:Después elija los criterios estadísticos para seleccionar el mejor submodelo y usar el mejor gráfico realista.Para conocer el progreso de su proyecto, ILCYM tiene una herramienta que muestra en cada momento el avance en el desarrollo de una fenología. Esta herramienta se puede encontrar en Compilation / Phenology progress 40 ILCYM 4.0 Manual de usuario La siguiente pantalla muestra las etapas de desarrollo del insecto que se han evaluado; las etapas evaluadas sin \"check\" (las que no han sido marcadas) son las que no se pueden evaluar en las condiciones en que se realizaron los experimentos. Haga clic en Refresh.Se genera un pequeño resumen de los tiempos de vida estimados y de la supervivencia, esta herramienta muestra varios cuadros, dependiendo de la cantidad de estados.Vaya a Compilation y seleccione Phenology summaryLos usuarios de ILCYM pueden realizar dos ( 2) tipos de simulaciones: estocásticas y deterministas. Para cada simulación se estiman los parámetros de la tabla de vida de su especie. Las simulaciones se encuentran en el menú Simulation.ILCYM 4.0 Manual de usuario Caja roja 2: permite ingresar los archivos de tablas de vida utilizados para validar su modelo desarrollado con temperatura fluctuante (de acuerdo con la temperatura cargada en \"Caja roja 1\" que tiene el mismo número de observaciones).Caja roja 3: esta opción permite cargar los datos de oviposición si la tabla de vida cargada tiene un formato incompleto (esta tabla no incluye el recuento de oviposición en sus registros); estos datos deben estar en formato diario.Caja roja 4: indica cómo ajustar la leyenda del eje.Caja roja 5: inicia el proceso de validación.Entonces, se muestra el gráfico de salida para la validación del modelo:Los puntos son resultados experimentales y las líneas son salidas del modelo fenológico.La simulación determinista simula la población utilizando un enfoque de suma de tasas y actualización de cohortes a lo largo de un período a largo plazo (uno o más años) con múltiples generaciones superpuestas para una ubicación específica basada en temperaturas diarias mínimas y máximas, y muestra visualmente el aumento potencial de la población. En la etapa actual de desarrollo del ILCYM esta simulación considera solo el proceso de crecimiento como un proceso ilimitado, en el que la población crece sin límite si no se le controla. Dicha simulación se puede realizar a temperatura constante o fluctuante dentro de un período de una generación, un año y varios años.Este módulo simula tablas de vida para los años siguientes.La siguiente ventana muestra cómo se realiza esta simulación en ILCYM.Vaya a Simulation y seleccione Fluctuating Simulation:aumenta la superposición de generaciones. Una vez que la estructura de la población se estabiliza, la figura mostrará líneas rectas para cada etapa de la vida.Esta simulación también se puede realizar a varias temperaturas constantes, con la diferencia de que el usuario simplemente ingresa el número de temperaturas sin repeticiones porque el resultado siempre será el mismo.La siguiente ventana muestra cómo se realiza esta simulación en ILCYM.Vaya a Simulation y seleccione Constant Simulation:Las poblaciones se simulan espacialmente a través de una cuadrícula dentro de un área definida de acuerdo con las temperaturas diarias específicas de la cuadrícula, interpoladas de las bases de datos disponibles. Si el insecto del estudio es una plaga, la herramienta puede trazar índices en función de los resultados de la simulación para visualizar el riesgo de establecimiento, la propagación y el potencial de daño de esa especie de plaga en un mapa.La siguiente ventana muestra cómo se realiza la simulación geográfica en ILCYM.Vaya a Simulation y seleccione Geographical Simulation:ILCYM puede simular mapas a diferentes resoluciones p.e. 10 minutos, lo que equivale a 18 x 18 km; 5 minutos a 9 x 9 km; 2.5 minutos a 4.5 x 4.5 km, y 30 segundos a 0.9 x 0.9 km. La resolución más baja, por ejemplo 10 minutos, se usa para mapear áreas más grandes como el mundo entero, las resoluciones más altas dan información detallada en el mapa. Los datos de entrada climática de ILCYM están en formato .flt. Para el módulo Index Interpolator el formato de las altitudes está en ASCII.Los datos de temperatura utilizados para las simulaciones espaciales (escenario actual) se obtuvieron de WorldClim, disponible en http://www.worldclim.org/. La base de datos es un conjunto de capas climáticas globales (cuadrículas) con diferentes resoluciones espaciales que contiene temperaturas mínimas, máximas y medias mensuales promedio que se interpolaron a partir de registros históricos de temperatura en todo el mundo (datos NOAA) entre 1950 y 2000.Los datos están bien documentados en Hijmans et al. (2005). Para simulaciones de población espacial y validaciones de salida del modelo en diferentes ubicaciones (punto por punto), se pueden utilizar datos de temperatura obtenidos directamente de las estaciones meteorológicas locales.Para simular los parámetros de población de P. operculella para el año 2050 (escenario de cambio climático), los datos de entrada de ILCYM redujeron la escala para proyectar los cambios de temperatura. Las predicciones basadas en la base de datos WorldClim son descritas por Govindasamy et al. (2003). Se puede acceder libremente a la reducción de escala de los datos realizada por Ramírez y Jarvis (2010) en http://gisweb.ciat.cgiar.org/GCMPage. ILCYM también se adaptó a los conjuntos de datos de temperatura de entrada de otras fuentes, como la base de datos CliMond utilizada en el software CLIMEX.Los datos de WorldClim y la mayoría de las fuentes de datos disponibles están en ascii, bil o ArcGIS, archivos de trama.Sin embargo, ILCYM usa formato de datos.flt (tipo flotante). Al ejecutar el mapeo de población potencial en ILCYM, debe convertir su archivo de datos de entrada a .flt.Los registros de temperatura fluctuante provenientes de sensores de temperatura del aire son instalados mediante un estudio de transecto altitudinal de acuerdo al diseño y ejecución del área de investigación (con base GIS). Se recopilan a través de registros diarios durante 1 año completo. Las estaciones meteorológicas deben estar distribuidas según la variación altitudinal a lo largo de la extensión evaluada. Estos datos son útiles para la herramienta Index Interpolator, para simular con alta resolución (90m por celda por ejemplo) el índice de riesgo de establecimiento (ERI), el índice de generación (GI) y el índice de actividad. Estos datos poseen un formato especial (ver 3.3.2 en la parte d).A continuación se muestra la ventana de ILCYM con las entradas y subherramientas.ILCYM extrae simultáneamente los datos de un año (conjuntos de datos de 365 días o 12 meses) de las temperaturas máximas y mínimas, diarias o mensuales de una región seleccionada, con sus respectivas coordenadas geográficas. Esos datos de temperatura extraídos de la base de datos se organizan en matrices 365x2 (para datos diarios) o 12x2 (para los mensuales) utilizando la longitud como columna y la latitud como filas que representan 365 o 12 matrices cada una para las temperaturas mínima y máxima. Posteriormente, se crea un objeto de punto para cada coordenada geográfica (longitud y latitud) en forma de una tabla con dos columnas (la primera columna incluye las temperaturas mínimas y la segunda, las temperaturas máximas que se utilizan directamente para la simulación fenológica espacial). Con estas se estiman las temperaturas y el modelo fenológico de la especie, la longitud de generación, la tasa de reproducción neta, la tasa intrínseca de aumento de la población, la tasa finita de aumento y el tiempo de duplicación (Kroschel et al. 2013).Usando la aproximación de la temperatura de los cosenos, los índices se pueden mapear en escenarios de emisiones SRES (Informe especial sobre escenarios de emisiones) presentes y proyectados para predecir respuestas a climas presentes y futuros.A partir de los parámetros de la tabla de vida, se realizan formulaciones que rinden a tres índices (Kroschel et al. 2013).Los mapas de riesgo del establecimiento visualizan la capacidad de las especies invasoras de plagas para establecer poblaciones permanentes basadas en la variabilidad espacial y temporal de la temperatura. Ayudan a identificar las regiones donde una especie tiene el potencial de representar una amenaza invasiva después de la introducción de la plaga.El mapa traza un índice (índice de riesgo de establecimiento, ERI), que es la relación entre los períodos (intervalos de tiempo) en los que se espera que la población aumente y los períodos totales dentro de un año. El índice se define como el número de veces que la tasa de reproducción neta (Ro) supera a 1 en todos los intervalos de tiempo (\uD835\uDC3C \uD835\uDC56 =1), dividido por el número total de intervalos de tiempo dentro de un año (\uD835\uDC3C \uD835\uDC56 ). Por defecto, los mapas (como se presentan en el atlas) se generan mediante una escala de tiempo de 1 mes; sin embargo, el también puede basarse en otras escalas de tiempo (por ejemplo, intervalos de 1 día). La fórmula para usar intervalos mensuales es la siguiente:\uD835\uDC3C \uD835\uDC3C en la cual \uD835\uDC3C \uD835\uDC56 es el intervalo del mes i (con i = 1, 2, 3, ..., 12) y su valor es 1 si se espera que la población aumente dentro de este intervalo (\uD835\uDC3C \uD835\uDC56 = 1 si R0 ≥ 1), y el valor es 0 si se espera que la población disminuya (\uD835\uDC3C \uD835\uDC56 = 0 if R0 < 1); de acuerdo con el modelo de fenología establecido por temperatura y el número total de intervalos, \uD835\uDC3C \uD835\uDC3C , es 12. Si el índice se calcula en una escala de tiempo diaria, la fórmula se convierte en:\uD835\uDC3C \uD835\uDC3C donde \uD835\uDC3C \uD835\uDC56 es el intervalo del día i (con i = 1, 2, 3,…, 365) y el número total de intervalos, \uD835\uDC3C \uD835\uDC3C , se convierte en 365.El ERI toma valores entre 0 y 1. Un ERI = 1 representa áreas donde se espera que la población de la especie crezca durante todo el año. Un ERI <1 caracteriza áreas en las que el crecimiento de la población está restringido a ciertos períodos del año; por ejemplo, un ERI = 0.25 indica un área donde se espera que las poblaciones crezcan solo durante 3 meses (3/12) del año y disminuyan durante los otros 9 meses (9/12).Si el índice se usa para una especie antagonista prospectiva (parasitoides p.e.) considerada para liberación como agente de control biológico no nativo, el índice expresa la capacidad o el potencial para establecerse en un área que podría considerarse para la liberación de la especie por inundación o inoculación. En estos casos, el índice representa el potencial de establecimiento de la especie que se desea para el control a largo plazo de las especies de plagas objetivo.En general, por defecto, los mapas se generan utilizando una escala de tiempo mensual que es adecuada para especies multivoltinas. Estas especies generalmente tienen un tiempo de generación corto, con generaciones superpuestas. Sin embargo, un intervalo de tiempo tan corto no es apropiado para las especies univoltinas, que producen una sola generación dentro de un año, porque las etapas de la vida solo se desarrollan durante ciertos períodos del año. Por lo tanto, los parámetros de la tabla de vida como la tasa de reproducción neta calculada para un período dado, no son representativos del desarrollo de la población de especies. Para estimar el riesgo del establecimiento de especies univoltinas, el ciclo de vida completo de la plaga debe simularse durante todo el año (en el mejor de los casos, durante varios años con registros de temperatura real como datos de entrada) utilizando la herramienta de \"simulación determinista\" de ILCYM. Si la población aumenta durante un año, el riesgo de establecimiento puede considerarse alto.También se debe tener en cuenta que el índice se basa en datos e información que describen la fenología de la especie dependiente de la temperatura y la variabilidad de la temperatura observada dentro de un área restringida (en general, la simulación se basa en la temperatura interpolada a partir de datos históricos). Por lo tanto, el índice no indica el riesgo de introducción, que depende de muchos otros factores (posibles vías de introducción). Los ILCYM 4.0 Manual de usuario efectos de otros factores bióticos o abióticos que pueden deprimir las poblaciones de plagas no se incluyen en el cálculo, por ejemplo, la disponibilidad de especies hospederas. Esto último puede abordarse simulando el índice solo para áreas en las que se producen plantas hospedadoras específicas de plagas (es decir, utilizando el área de producción como filtro en el modelado de SIG, como se aplica en el atlas de plagas de papa). De manera similar, para los antagonistas de plagas, las áreas se pueden filtrar usando solo áreas donde la plaga objetivo prevalece hoy.El índice de generación estima el número promedio de generaciones que pueden producirse dentro de un año determinado. El índice se calcula promediando la suma de las longitudes de generación estimadas, calculadas para cada día juliano.Este índice está explícitamente relacionado con la tasa finita de aumento de la población, que tiene en cuenta toda la historia de vida de la plaga; por ejemplo, un valor de índice de 4 ilustraría un aumento potencial de la población por un factor de 10,000 dentro de un año (todos los demás factores limitantes de la población, incluida la disponibilidad de alimentos, etc., se dejan de lado).A continuación se muestran las entradas y subherramientas para simular.Caja roja 1: indica el número de insectos para simular Caja roja 2: este botón permite cargar los datos de temperatura. Estos datos deben estar en formato .flt. Debe seleccionar una carpeta particular que contenga 2 subcarpetas con el nombre \"Tmin\" y \"Tmax\"  Activity Index (Índice de Actividad): Este índice se utiliza en el mapeo de riesgos y está explícitamente relacionado con la tasa finita de aumento de la población.Tiempo de oviposición real: Término usado para representar la longitud exacta del parasitoide femenino en el período de oviposición.Distribución de edad: La proporción de individuos en una población de la misma edad en cada clase.Tasa de fertilidad específica por edad: El número de progenies por individuo dentro de un intervalo de edad específico durante un tiempo específico.Tasa de mortalidad por edad: La fracción de individuos en una población que muere durante un intervalo de edad determinado.Tiempo doble: El tiempo que tardaría una población en duplicarse, dado que no hay cambios en las tasas de mortalidad o fertilidad específicas por edad. Cualquier cambio en los gráficos de fertilidad o mortalidad cambia el tiempo de duplicación.Establishment Risk Index (Índice de Riesgo de Establecimiento): Este índice se usa en el mapeo de riesgos e identifica aquellas áreas en las que puede sobrevivir una plaga de insectos. El índice es 1 cuando una cierta proporción de todas las etapas de vida inmaduras de la plaga sobreviven durante todo el año.Tasa de aumento finita (Lambda): Una medida de la tasa de crecimiento de una población. La cantidad por la que se debe multiplicar la población para dar el tamaño de la población en la siguiente unidad de tiempo (suponiendo que la población se encuentre en una distribución estable de edades).Generation Index (Índice de Generación): Este índice se utiliza en el mapeo de riesgos y estima el número medio de generaciones que pueden producirse dentro de un año.Tiempo generacional: La edad promedio en que una hembra da a luz a su descendencia. Es equivalente al tiempo que le toma a una población aumentar en un factor igual a la tasa reproductiva neta.Tasa de aumento intrínseca (rm): Una medida de la tasa de crecimiento de una población. Es la tasa de cambio instantánea (por individuo por intervalo de tiempo), suponiendo que la población se encuentre en una distribución de edad estable. Es igual al registro natural (In) de la tasa finita de aumento.Esperanza de vida media: Cuánto tiempo se puede esperar que un individuo viva, en promedio. Esto solo está influenciado por el gráfico de mortalidad específico por edad.Tasa neta de reproducción (Ro): El número promedio de descendientes que un individuo en una población producirá en su vida. A diferencia de la tasa de fertilidad total, Ro depende de las tasas de mortalidad específicas por edad.Proporción de sexos: Fracción de la población que es femenina. Técnicamente, este valor no es una \"relación\", pero se ha convertido en una forma común de representar la distribución de género de una población. La proporción de sexos primarios es la proporción de nacimientos femeninos.Tabla 2. Submodelos ajustados a la tasa de desarrollo en el software ILCYM     Tanigoshi and Logan 3Logan-5   ","tokenCount":"12327"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"837cfa26f05bf7991bec80125ff8532d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c4f98c11-3583-4684-8edf-d53e75ab12b7/retrieve","id":"1854328358"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"91b2ea37-cd55-4e41-8c54-57de77745618","pagecount":"11","content":"The FPR project in China is a cooperative project between CIAT and CATAS, and is financially supported by the Nippon Foundation of Japan. This paper mainly describes results of the FPR trials conducted in Hainan province of China and discusses the function of FPR in the transfer of cassava technologies, existing problems and future development prospects.The project involves the following aspects of research: variety trials, soil and water conservation and fertilizer management. Contour barriers of tropical grass and legume species, and intercropping with peanut and other legume crops have been shown to be effective in protecting the soil from erosion. Results based on trials conducted at CATAS from 1995 to 1999 indicate that hedgerows of vetiver grass, Clitoria ternatea, Chamaecrista rotundifolia, Indigofera endecaphylla, Arachis pintoi, Tephrosia candida, Ananas comosus and Brachiaria decumbens decreased dry soil loss (5-30 t/ha) by 65-94%, compared to the check treatment which had a dry soil loss of 85 t/ha.FPR trials conducted by farmers in their own fields indicate that cassava intercropped with peanut and planting vetiver grass as contour barriers was the best practice: dry soil loss decreased by 28-57% compared to the check treatment, and increased income by 3,300 Yuan/ha. This practice has been widely adopted by farmers in the pilot site of Kongba village in Baisha county of Hainan, and is being disseminated to neighboring villages by farmer-to-farmer extension.During 1995-1999, more than 41 promising clones have been tested in 38 farmers' fields; they were harvested and evaluated by farmers themselves. Results show that SC8013 and OMR33-10-4 outyielded the check variety SC205 by 13.1% and 34.4%, respectively. However, there were no significant differences among varieties in terms of soil erosion control. It is very easy for farmers to select and adopt their favorate varieties through their own participation. This approach will enhance the dissemination of new varieties and technologies.Fertilizer trials were conducted in 14 farmers' fields using 12 treatments. The results show that all the treatments with fertilizers produced higher yields than those without fertilizers, and that application of 300 kg/ha of a special fertilizer (No. 3) increased the yield by 33% and gross income by 22%. This result will help convince farmers to apply fertilizers to their cassava fields in the future.Since the 1970s farmer participatory research (FPR) has been used in many agricultural areas in the world, including farmer participatory research as well as extension. Researchers and farmers conduct a participatory diagnosis, select the experiments they want to do, they participate in the selection of treatments and conduct the trials, evaluate the research results and apply the selected technologies.As part of the FPR project, funded by the Nippon Foundation in Japan and coordinated by CIAT, CATAS has conducted farmer participatory cassava research and extension in Kongba and Dapulin villages of Baisha county in Hainan, China since 1994.The objectives are to accelerate the development and extension of improved varieties and efficient cassava production practices through farmer participation, to reduce erosion, maintain soil productivity and increase the income of cassava farmers in China (Zhang  Weite et al., 1998; CATAS/CIAT, 1998; Howeler and Henry, 1998).A Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) was conducted in Hainan by CATAS and CIAT in Aug 1994. The main causes of low cassava yields in Hainan were identified to be the existence of only few and old varieties, insufficient application of fertilizers or FYM, extensive cultivation and serious erosion. From the RRA we selected Kongba and Dapulin villages in Baisha county, Hainan, to conduct farmer participatory research during 1995-1999. We organized a farmer training course and farmer fields days at CATAS, mainly to train farmers in FPR methodologies and cassava production technologies. Farmers also visited several cassava variety trials, the long-term fertilizer trial and the erosion control demonstration plots at CATAS.Farmers selected the type of trials themselves. They were most interested in new varieties, in fertilizer application and in erosion control. CATAS provided technical assistance and supplied the basic planting materials. All trials had only one replication, and usually had the same treatments, so different farmers could be considered as replications. Not only the collaborating farmers but also other nearby farmers were invited to participate together in FPR planting and harvests, assessing the farmers' opinions about cassava yield, intercrop yield, dry soil loss etc. in the FPR trials. Farmers would then select the best improved varieties or other treatments to be included in next year's trials.Tropical pastures, peanut and other legume crops have been used as barriers or intercrops for protecting the soil from erosion in demonstration plots laid out on 5-10% slope in CATAS from 1996 to 1999. Table 1 indicates that vetiver grass, Clitoria ternatea, Chamaecrista rotundifolia, Indigofera endecaphylla, Arachis pintoi, Tephrosia candida, pineapple and Brachiaria decumbens CIAT 606 were all very effective in decreasing soil loss by erosion. Dry soil loss (5-30 t/ha) decreased by 65-94% compared to the check treatment (85-107 t/ha). Some of these treatments became more effective in controlling erosion over the years.Vetiver grass contour barriers were found to be very effective in reducing erosion in cassava fields. However, vetiver has two limitations: it can not be used to any great extent as animal feed, and its vegetative propagation is costly and cumbersome. To overcome these problems, a preliminary trial on the use of various grasses for erosion control barriers was installed at CATAS during 1998/99 in order to evaluate the competition between cassava and the grass.Preliminary results, shown in Table 2, indicate that vetiver grass, lemon grass and hybrid elephant grass might be recommended for erosion control barriers.There were a total of 27 farmers participating in 17 erosion control trials in cassava fields during 1995-1999 (Table 3). Three kinds of treatments were used: 1) only intercrop,  ) Three rows of cassava were grown between two rows of grass; 1 meter space between two cassava rows and 0.5 meter between cassava row and grass row. The six cassava rows were harvested separately (10 plants in each row). The grass species (except sugarcane) were cut back at 30 cm above the soil whenever necessary. A-F and G-I are from top row to bottom row. 2) Sugarcane was stolen before harvest. 8.9 23.9 0 7,170 360 6,810 1) C = cassava 2) Price: cassava roots = 300 Y/t, peanut = 5000Y/t. Maize, soybean and sesame were stolen or damaged by animals. 3) Barrier maintenance and intercrop costs only; net income is gross income minus barrier maintenance and intercrop costs. 4) Check is cassava monoculture without any ridges, barriers or intercrops. 5) Average of 3 replications (3 farmers); other treatments are average of 4 replications (4 farmers).2) only hedgerows, and 3) intercrop and hedgerows together. Most of the treatments reduced soil erosion and increased cassava yields; net income was also increased due to the additional income from the intercrop. The best intercrop (without hedgerows) was peanut in 1995, which decreased soil loss (42.8 t/ha) by 35.7% compared to the check treatment (66.6 t/ha); it also increased cassava yield (46.2 t/ha) by 17.9% compared to the check (39.2 t/ha). Total net income increased 45.9% after adding the income from the sale of peanut (3300 Y/ha). This practice has spread since 1996.In 1998 the best hedgerow (without intercrop) was vetiver grass, which decreased dry soil loss by 76.0% and increased cassava yield by 5.9% compared to the check. The best erosion control practice was to combine hedgerows and intercropping, especially using vetiver grass hedgerows and intercropping with peanut; in 1996/97 dry soil loss decreased by 28-48%, cassava yields increased by 2.4-4.5% compared with the check while there was additional income from peanut (3300 Y/ha). The effectiveness of hedgerows in erosion control increased over the years and resulted in the formation of 30 cm high terraces in cassava fields after two years; the soil just above the vetiver hedgerow became thick and soft, fertile and wet, which was beneficial for obtaining high yields.The results of the farmers' evaluation (Table 4) indicate that farmers were most interested in contour barriers of vetiver grass together with intercropping with peanut. The advantages of these erosion control practices were that they reduced erosion, increased yield and added value. A total of 38 farmers participated in the testing of 41 improved varieties during 1995-1999. The results, shown in Table 5, indicate that most of the improved varieties produced significantly higher yields than the local check variety SC205, especially SC124, SC8013, OMR33-10-4 and ZM9244, which outyielded SC205 by 42.5%, 13.1%, 34.4% and 60.5%, respectively. Many improved varieties have now been disseminated by farmers themselves.The results of an evaluation of improved varieties by farmers (Table 6) indicate that farmers were mainly interested in cassava yield, wind and drought resistance, because Hainan has often dry weather when planting and strong typhoons. Farmers were not interested in starch content because factory owners only pay by weight but do not measure starch content. The preferred varieties were SC8013, SC124 and OMR33-10-4.The results of soil analysis (Table 7) indicate that the Fe, Al and B contents of the soil had increased but that the contents of OM, P, K, Ca, Mg, Cu and Zn had decreased 38-54% after two years of cassava cropping, and were near or below the nutritional requirements of cassava. Continuous cropping of cassava would likely lead to a significant response to application of fertilizer or FYM. A total of 14 farmers participated, conducting 13 fertilizer trials from 1995 to 1997. There was little response to fertilizer application because the soils were quite fertile in the first year in 1995 (Table 7). But there were responses to fertilizer application in the second and third year (Table 8). The combinations of two nutrients (NP, PK and NK) increased yields but decreased net incomes, while the application of complete NPK fertilizer both increased yield and net income. No. 3 special fertilizer increased cassava yields by 33.3% and increased net income by 22.2%. Some farmers also applied either compound NPK or No. 3 special fertilizer on a larger scale in their production fields in 1997. The two types of fertilizers increased cassava yields by 51-54% and increased the net income by 35-37%.According to statistics of Hainan province for 1999 about 1500 ha of cassava fields (about 500 farmers) benefitted directly and more than 3500 ha also benefitted indirectly from FPR during 1995-1999 (Figure 1), adding a total of 12,000 t of fresh cassava roots and 3.8 million Yuan for Hainan farmers. In addition, in 1999 about 800 ha of cassava production fields were planted with various improved technologies by farmers in collaboration with CATAS (Table 9).FPR also seems to have a good future in Guangxi and Yunnan provinces: 80 ha of contour barriers of pineapple have been planted on steep slopes in Honghe district of Yunnan province in 1999, and a total of 30,000 ha have now been planted with improved varieties by farmers in south China. ","tokenCount":"1794"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a7497709cf5276e148cbaf158ea2e114","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/093de8e5-1a2b-456d-9b05-99be6f12c904/retrieve","id":"-1925142125"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"14cd28f7-9529-43d2-aaba-f51b0882e04a","pagecount":"2","content":"The project's goal is to improve and make sustainable smallholder livelihoods from cattle production and marketing. Specifically, project objectives are to: Provide smallholders with a viable cattle value addition mechanism that is coordinated with market requirements;  Design and demonstrate effective financial instruments and suitable products for enabling smallholder value addition in cattle systems;  Generate and disseminate knowledge, and encourage its uptake, throughout the Southern African region.Quick facts about poultry waste  Poultry waste contains a lot (up to 30%) of crude protein (CP) mostly Nitrogen that can be utilized up to ten times more efficiently when recycled through cattle as a feed.  Micro-organisms in the rumen can also use other components of the poultry waste to make their own body protein that can be used by cattle.  In addition, the waste often includes varying proportions of high quality spilled chicken feed which may contribute significantly to its feeding value.Problems associated with the use of poultry waste as a feed Poultry waste may be a potential source of harmful agents including pathogenic bacteria (e.g. Salmonella), molds and yeasts.  There may also be problems associated with nutrient loss mainly through volatilization of ammonia.  Some forms of poultry waste e.g. caged-layer waste (CLW) smell very badly and are rather messy to handle.  Lastly, the high ash content especially in CLW tends to reduce the energy value of the waste.To startThis document is licensed for use under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported Licence. January 2015Processing and feeding of poultry waste  In order to obtain a stable and safe material, processing is needed.  It is best to use waste from healthy and properly managed birds, preferably on hard surface floors, to try to minimize presence of bacteria.  The waste should be thoroughly raked, removing any caked material and left to dry in the original location for at least three days.  The material is subsequently milled through an 8-10 mm sieve to facilitate mixing with other feed ingredients. (Poultry layer waste from deep litter houses does not, usually, require any milling).  Further processing, if necessary, may be achieved by composting or deep stacking or better still and rather more cheaply, by ensiling (=stored in a closed pit or bag).  Ensiling of poultry waste leads to a chemical process known as fermentation. Any bad bacteria present in the waste are killed as a result of high temperatures and the production of acids. In addition, these acids have a deodorizing effect on the waste which acquires a pleasant aroma, thereby enhancing palatability and voluntary dry-matter intake by the animal.  Good silages have been made with up to 45% of the total DM contributed from poultry waste.Feeding of poultry waste-based rations  The amounts of poultry waste that can be fed vary depending on the purpose of the animal.  In general, the waste can supply 30-90% of the total protein requirements for ruminants.  However, such rations must be fortified with molasses to supply the energy required by the rumen microorganisms to be able to handle the waste more efficiently.  Addition of molasses also improves palatability and hence voluntary intake.","tokenCount":"529"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f29b32e0eeed8f01c13bf0862e4b2eb8","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/7f96bed3-2d5b-4791-9e31-4bc66824c9ed/retrieve","id":"943092181"},"keywords":["Breeding objective","Genetic diversity","Morphological characterization","Production system","Selection signature x Yami","A.","Merkel","R.C. (eds)","Sheep and goat production handbook for Ethiopia. Ethiopian Sheep and Goat Productivity Improvement Program (ESGPIP)","pp 27-38. Abegaz SG.","Sölkner J.","Gizaw S.","Dessie T.","Haile A.","Mirkena T.","Getachew T.","Arab goats","Breeding practices","Oromo goats","Production systems","Traits Breeding scheme","Deterministic approach","Ethiopia","Genetic gain","Simulation"],"sieverID":"efcb2dcb-45ef-47a7-aca1-342e9e8cee05","pagecount":"260","content":"I hereby declare that this Dissertation is my bonafide work and that all sources of materials used for this Dissertation have been duly acknowledged. I have followed all ethical principles of scholarship in the preparation, data collection, data analysis and completion of this Dissertation. All scholarly matter that is included in the Dissertation has been given recognition through citation. Every serious effort has been made to avoid any plagiarism in the preparation of this Dissertation. This Dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for PhD degree in Animal Genetics and Breeding (የፍልስፍና ዶክትሬት ዲግሪ በእንስሳት ስነ-ዘረመል እና ዝርያ ማሻሻያ) at Bahir Dar University and is deposited at that University Library to be made available to borrowers under the rules of the library. I solemnly declare that this Dissertation has not been submitted to any other institution anywhere for the award of any academic degree, diploma or certificate. Brief quotations from this Dissertation may be used without special permission provided that accurate and complete acknowledgement of the source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotations from, or reproduction of this Dissertation in whole or in part may be granted by the Head of the School or Department or the Dean/director of the postgraduate Program Directorate when in his or her judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interest of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author of the Dissertation.In Ethiopia, there are more than 52 million heads of goats (CSA, 2021) which are indispensable sources of tangible (cash, milk, meat and manure) and intangible (prestige, saving, insurance, cultural and ceremonial purposes) benefits (Legese et al., 2014). The contribution of this valuable genetic resource to national and household economy is, however, far below their potential (Legese and Fadiga, 2014;Woldu et al., 2016). The current level of productivity of these indigenous goats is also low as a result of many interrelated factors such as biological, environmental and socio-economic; among which lack of systematic breeding is an important constraint (Jembere et al., 2019).To overcome some of the constraints of smallholder goat production, there have been a few attempts at genetic improvement through crossbreeding of local goats with exotic animals. The noticeable example is the FARM-Africa dairy goat development project in southern and eastern Ethiopia. However, the belief that crossbred genotypes have better overall performance than the indigenous goats led to indiscriminate crossbreeding (Ayalew et al., 2003;Tesfaye, 2004). In fact, there were very few successful goat crossbreeding programs under on-station conditions that produced crossbreds that performed better than the indigenous breeds. Unfortunately, such superiorities were not replicated under on-farm conditions (Ayalew et al., 2003). As a result, the adoption rates of exotic and crossbred genotypes by smallholder farmers were very low (Teressa, 2004;Kosgey et al., 2006) and their number at national level remains insignificant (0.1%) (CSA, 2021). In general, many small ruminant crossbreeding programs in the tropics have not been successful because of incompatibility of the genotypes with the farmers breeding objectives, management methods and the prevailing environment of tropical low input production systems (Ayalew et al., 2003;Kosgey et al., 2006).The design and implementation of sustainable community-based breeding programs (CBBP) is a promising entry point for low input production systems (Mueller et al., 2015). Such programs consider the needs, views, decisions and active participation of farmers from inception through to implementation (Haile et al., 2020). In Haile et al. (2011;2018), the procedures for setting up CBBP for small ruminants is illustrated, and the first step is the description of the production system. The small ruminant production systems in Ethiopia are classified into four: small ruminants in annual crop-based systems located in northern, northwestern, and central highlands; small ruminants in perennial crop-based, mostly found in southern and southwestern highlands; small ruminants in cattle based systems, usually in agropastoral and semi-arid areas; small ruminants dominated systems, found in pastoral and arid areas of eastern and northeastern Ethiopia (Getahun, 2008). The production systems are generally characterized by low inputs and technologies, feed scarcity and disease challenge (Alemayehu, 2006).The production systems description should be followed by breed characterization.Preliminary identification of breeds or populations involves phenotypic characterization and the first step of it is assessing the variation of qualitative and quantitative traits (Delgado et al., 2001). In Ethiopia, several on-farm and onstation morphological characterization of goats have been undertaken since the onset of goat research in mid-1970s (Aschalew et al., 2000) mainly by universities and research centers.The morphological characterization need to be complemented by molecular characterization which broadly involves assessment of the level of genetic diversity and population structure (FAO, 2012). The most promising method for molecular characterization is the analysis of genomic DNA variation, which started its journey over decades ago through advances in availability of reference genomes and development of high-throughput genotyping platforms. With wholegenome sequencing (WGS) of different Ethiopian sheep and goat breeds, researchers have provided a comprehensive insight into the genetic basis of adaptive variation of sheep (Wiener et al., 2021) and goats (Berihulay et al., 2019) in different environments. Such studies help the design and implemention of improvement programs in the context of unique quality/ies a population has (Dadi et al., 2008b).Appropriate definition of smallholder farmers' breeding objectives is crucial to design and implement suitable breeding programs (Gizaw et al., 2010, Wurzinger et al., 2011). Four different methods have been implemented to identify breeding objective traits. These include semi-structured questionnaire, choice card experiment, focus group discussion and ranking of live animals. While the first three methods were often used by many scholars (Gizaw et al., 2010;Mirkena, 2010;Duguma et al., 2011;Abegaz et al., 2013;Hagos et al., 2018;Oumer et al., 2019), the last method was brought forth by Mirkena (2010). Live animal ranking has two forms: own-flock ranking and group-animal ranking. One can use combination of the methods to determine the breeding objective traits.Simulation of alternative breeding schemes is very essential before a given breeding program is implemented. To this end, various alternative breeding schemes have been simulated for Ethiopian indigenous goats (Abegaz et al., 2014;Jembere et al., 2019) and sheep (Haile et al., 2011;Mirkena et al., 2012;Gizaw et al., 2014). The simulation process requires input parameters such as population, biological and economic parameters and some other parameters including phenotypic standard deviation, economic weight, genetic correlation, heritability and phenotypic correlation of the breeding objective traits. Comparison among alternative breeding schemes could be done based on the predicted annual genetic gain (PAGG), annual monetary genetic gain (AMGG), discounted returns, discounted profits, generation intervals and selection intensities.Benishangul Gumuz region, located in northwestern Ethiopia, is home for about 446,323 heads of goats (CSA, 2021) and five goat ecotypes (Agew, Arab, Felata, Gumuz, and Oromo) (Getnet et al., 2005). Agew and Gumuz goats are the most studied. For instance, the production system and morphological characterization of both goat ecotypes has been undertaken (FARM-Africa, 1996;Getnet et al., 2005;Hassen et al., 2012a;Abegaz et al., 2013). Genetic diversities and population structures were also quantified using different molecular techniques (Hassen et al., 2012b;Tarekegn, 2016). However, similar studies were absent in Arab, Felata, and Oromo goat ecotypes and hence the genetic worth of these goat ecotypes remain uncovered till now. As effect, little has been known about their production environment, morphometric characterstics, breeding objective traits, genetic diversity, population structure and major genes associated with important traits. The limited available information so far has been based on on-farm survey and recall interviews (Getnet et al., 2005). The overall objective of the study was, therefore, to undertake phenotypic and genetic characterization and design of community-based breeding programs for two indigenous goat populations, namely Arab and Oromo. The goats are named after the ethnic communities who keep them. In order to achieve the overall objective, the following specific objectives were addressed. Goat is the first ruminant to be domesticated along with their close relative sheep (Melinda et al., 2006) around 12,000 years before present (YBP) in the Fertile Crescent (Hatziminaoglou and Boyazoglu et al., 2004;Zeder, 2008;;Colli et al., 2018) from a unique wild and still living ancestor, the bezoar Capra aegagrus (Naderi et al., 2008). Recent studies are showing mosaic domestication in the Fertile Crescent (Daly et al., 2018). Following patterns of human migration and commercial trade, goats quickly spread worldwide after domestication and adapted to a wide range of environments (Fernandez et al., 2006). To date, the global goat population is estimated to be over one billion heads; classified under 662 breeds (FAO, 2017). Of these, over 90% are distributed in Asia and Africa, followed by the Americas, Europe, and Oceania (Skapetas and Bampidis, 2016). Given its geographical location close to the historical entry points, Ethiopia is believed to have been one of the main gateways of introduction of livestock species including goats into Africa (Gifford-Gonzalez and Hanotte, 2011). The first wave of goats reached Ethiopia from the north between 2000 and 3000 B.C. (Rege and Lebbie, 2000). At present, the country has more than 52 million heads of goats (CSA, 2021) which are characterized by their unique adaptive ability to harsh environments.Based on their differences in physical characteristics, Ethiopian goat genetic resources were classified in to twelve local breeds, including Abergelle, Afar, Arsi-Bale, Central Highland, Hararghe Highland, Keffa, Long eared Somali, Nubian, Short-eared Somali, Western Highland, Western Lowland and Woyto-Guji (Kasahun and Solomon, 2009). However, based on microsatellite marker analysis there are only eight distinct breeds (Tesfaye, 2004). Recently, Tarekegn (2016) evaluated the genome-wide genetic diversity and structure of Ethiopian goat populations using SNP CHIP array and regrouped them into seven.In tropical countries, livestock production systems are generally complex by their nature and show variations within and between regions. According to FAO (2012), livestock production systems must be defined, described and put in a geographic context. For example, their integration with crop production, climatic condition, management practice, local resource availability, production objectives of the owners, availability of technologies and government policy should be stated.Different authors classified Ethiopian livestock/small ruminant production systems based on various criteria. Tibbo (2006) broadly classified the country's production system into \"modern\" and \"traditional\". Government ranches and small scale urban production systems are the only few places where the \"modern\" system is practiced while most of the rural areas experienced the \"traditional\" system. Based on the degree of integration with crop production, mobility and duration of movement, the traditional livestock production system is sub-divided into mixed crop-livestock, pastoral and agro pastoral systems (Abegaz et al., 2008). Limited number of animals per unit area, low productivity per animal, relatively limited use of improved technology and use of on-farm by-products are generally the common features of the traditional production system.On the other hand, based on prevalence of agricultural activity, Getahun (2008) classified traditional small ruminant production systems into four subsystems: small ruminant in annual crop-based system located in northern, northwestern, and central highlands; small ruminant in perennial crop-based, mostly found in southern and southwestern highlands; small ruminants in cattle based systems, these systems usually exist in agropastoral and semi-arid areas; small ruminant dominated systems found in pastoral and arid areas of eastern and northeastern Ethiopia, where sheep and goats are the dominant livestock species. In general, it is difficult to generalize about the different types of livestock production systems in Ethiopia due to the fact that the country has diverse topography, climate and culture (Alemayehu, 2006).Understanding the performance of small ruminants is crucial to effectively design sustainable genetic improvement programs (Kosgey and Okeyo, 2007). The most important traits of livestock were broadly classified into two categories: productive and reproductive traits (Abegaz, 2014). Recently, functional and adaptive traits have become important. The traits vary among indigenous goats of Ethiopia due to difference in agro-ecology and management condition (Dereje et al., 2015).Growth performance traits are the most important traits for meat production. Abegaz (2014) separated these traits as pre-weaning (birth weight, weaning weight and pre weaning growth rate) and post weaning (six months weight, yearling weight and mature weight). Genetic and non-genetic factors were known to affect growth performance of small ruminants (Haile et al., 2002;Taye et al., 2009;Jembere, 2010). Factors such as parity of doe, birth type of kid, sex of kid and season of birth of kid were known to significantly affect growth performances of goats. For instance, kids from first parity does were lighter than kids from higher parity does (Jembere, 2016). Twin born kids were smaller in weight than their single born counterparts (Dadi et al., 2008a;Deribe and Taye, 2013).Good reproductive performance is a precondition for a successful genetic improvement program as it determines production effectiveness. Reproductive performance of goats depends on various factors including age at first kidding (AFK), kidding interval (KI) and litter size at birth (LSB).The reported average AFK of most Ethiopian indigenous goats is within the range of 12 and 14 months (Dereje et al., 2015). This variation may be due to various factors such as genotype, nutrition, disease or parasitic burden and year and season of birth in which the doe was born (through their effect on feed availability and quality). In addition, birth type could affect AFK. Kids born for twins had longer age at first kidding than their counterpart single born kids. KI is another main component of reproductive performance. Available reports show that the average KI for indigenous goat breeds varies within the range of 8.5 to 14 months (Dereje et al., 2015). The difference among indigenous goats may arise due to variations in breed, season (Taye, 2008), year of kidding, nutrition, type of mating, parity of does, post-partum body weight and management practice (Gbangboche et al., 2006). In conditions where good management, adequate nutrition and breeding males are available in the flock for most time of the year, shorter KI can be achieved whereas longer KI are mainly due to the result of controlled breeding, poor management and nutrition. LSB, a trait largely determined by ovulation rate, is reported to be between 1.07 and 1.5 for indigenous Ethiopian goats (Dereje et al., 2015). Ovulation rate is in turn dependent on age of the dam, level of nutrition, type of breed, season and dam body weight at mating and management system (Mukasa-Mugarwa and Lahlou-Kassi, 1995). LSB is the most variable trait reported for indigenous goats of Ethiopia. This shows the presence of huge opportunity to improve the trait through selection and improved management focusing on breeds having better potential for the trait.Breed characterization encompasses activities such as identification, qualitative and quantitative description, and documentation of populations and production systems. The initial step in characterization is identification of distinct populations. This could be done using morphological (phenotypic) characters and/or molecular data (Gizaw et al., 2011;FAO, 2012). However, careful selection of the type and number of morphological characters, suitable analysis and most importantly combined analysis of morphological and molecular data has been suggested to reconcile the two approaches and support each other (Gatesy and Arctander, 2000). FAO (2012) defined phenotypic characterization as the process of identifying distinct breed populations and describing their external characteristics and production environments, taking in to consideration the \"natural\" environment, management practices and common uses to which the animals are put, as well as social and economic factors such as market orientation, niche marketing opportunities and gender issues. In other words, phenotypic characterization does mean the description of breeds in terms of external characteristics (like coat color, ear type and shape, horn shape and type), quantitative measurements (such as height at wither, heart girth, body length, ear length), production traits (body weight, milk yield) and reproductive traits (such as age at first kidding, litter size) (Tesfaye, 2004;FAO, 2012).Phenotypic characterization is a comparatively easy and cheap tool of breed characterization. However, morphological traits are highly affected by natural selection, environmental effects and by sometimes strong genetic and environmental correlations and interaction. Thus, it should be supported by molecular characterization (Gizaw et al., 2011).Molecular characterization involves describing and classifying of livestock breeds and species at molecular level by measuring frequencies of genotypes and alleles, degrees of polymorphism, allelic diversity (observed and expected hetrozygosity) and genetic distances (Toro et al., 2009;Gizaw et al., 2011). Tools for molecular analysis are broadly classified as biochemical (protein) polymorphisms and molecular DNA. Protein (allozymes) polymorphisms were the first markers used for genetic studies in livestock. However, the number of polymorphic loci that can be assayed, and the level of polymorphisms observed at the loci are often low, which greatly limits their application in genetic diversity studies (Toro et al., 2009). With the development of new technologies, molecular polymorphisms (nuclear DNA) have become the markers of choice for molecular based surveys of genetic variation. Different types of markers were available to detect polymorphisms in nuclear DNA, including randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLP), restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP), microsatellites, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and high-throughput sequencing platform (Baumung et al., 2004;Lai et al., 2016;Wang et al., 2021).The availability of genome-wide sequence data has enabled the mapping of signatures of selection and discovery of quantitative trait loci (QTL) for various traits (Lai et al., 2016;Guo et al., 2018). In this context, numerous studies of whole genome sequencing have been conducted to identify potential genes/genomic regions associated with important traits including production, reproduction and adaption in various livestock species such as goats (Lai et al., 2016;Lee et al., 2016;Li et al., 2017;Guang-Xin et al., 2019;Tao et al., 2021;Wang et al., 2021), sheep (Yang et al., 2016), cattle (Taye et al., 2017) and pig (Li et al., 2014). However, there are no such studies on the Ethiopian indigenous goats except Berihulay et al. (2019) and Denoyelle et al. (2021). Detail information about genes responsible for economic traits in goat is available (see the review by Siddiki et al., 2020).Identifying the smallholder farmers' breeding objective traits is crucial to design appropriate breeding programs (Wurzinger et al., 2011). Four different methods have been implemented to identify the breeding objective traits; for sheep and goats in Ethiopia. These include semi-structured questioner, choice card experiment, group discussion and ranking of live animals. While the first three were often used by many scholars (Mirkena, 2011;Duguma et al., 2011;Abegaz et al., 2013;Hagos et al., 2018;Oumer et al., 2019), the last method was brought forth by (Mirkena, 2011). It has two forms: ranking of own animals with known history and ranking of animals with unknown history. One can use combination of the methods to determine the breeding objective traits for a given breed. In the present study, both methods adapted from (Mirkena, 2011) were applied.The most common approach implemented in many developing countries, including Ethiopia, is centralized/on-station crossbreeding program, usually a nucleus breeding unit established at a central station, entirely managed and controlled by governments with minimal, if any, participation by farmers (Haile et al., 2018). To this extent, many crossbreeding programs were undertaken in Ethiopia. For example, on-station crossbreeding between Ethiopian highland goat and Saanen in Adami-Tulu research center (Galal et al., 1982), Adal and Saanen in Melka Werer research center, Hararghe highland and Anglo-Nubian, Somali and Anglo-Nubian, and Hararghe highland and Toggenberg in Haremaya university (the then Alemaya University) and Hawassa university (the then Awassa college of agriculture) were some of the programs. However, the institutions were blamed for not yielding significant impact at farm level (Duguma, 2010;Jembere, 2016). In most cases, the crossbreeding programs were not successful because most of them were done without sufficient pretesting of the suitability and adaptability of the exotic breeds and their resulting crosses to local production systems or conditions, and with no clear strategy concerning what the final genotype would be. Genetic erosion of these local populations and breeds has occurred where indiscriminate crossbreeding with local populations has been practiced (Haile et al., 2018).A recent alternative approach is community based breeding program (CBBP). It is defined as a program carried out by communities of smallholders, often at subsistence level (Sölkner et al., 1998); and is a design of breeding scheme that is deemed suitable for smallholder farming system (Gizaw et al., 2014). Such programs consider the needs, views, decisions and active participation of farmers from inception through to implementation. Their success is based upon proper consideration of farmers' breeding objectives, available infrastructure, participation and ownership (Sölkner et al., 1998;Wurzinger et al., 2011;Mueller et al., 2015;Haile et al., 2018). In Ethiopia, CBBPs have been established since 2009; for sheep (Gizaw et al., 2009;Duguma et al., 2011;Mirkena et al., 2012) and goats (Abegaz et al., 2014;Alubel, 2015;Zergaw et al., 2016;Jembere et al., 2019).There are two methodological approaches, stochastic and deterministic, for simulating alternative breeding schemes. Haile et al. (2011) and Abegaz (2014) gave the pros and cons of the two approaches as follows: a stochastic simulation generates breeding and phenotypic values for each simulated individual while deterministic simulation uses a whole population model. Stochastic simulation is relatively simple, but requires repeated running of a simulated breeding program.Deterministic methods are widely used in livestock breeding plan because of its short computational time requirement and giving more insight into the genetic gain and inbreeding of the breeding programs.ZPLAN is the most commonly used computer program that uses deterministic method. The first version was developed by Karras (1984) using the gene flow method and selection index. The program is based on comprehensive evaluation of both genetic and economic efficiencies of breeding strategies considering one cycle of selection. Important outcomes of ZPLAN include annual monetary genetic gain (AMGG) for the aggregate genotype, annual genetic gain for individual trait, discounted return and discounted profit for a given investment period. For further information on ZPLAN, see Nitter et al. (1994).Depending on the particular situation, in the design and evaluation of a potential breeding program, basic decisions such as defining of tiers in the breeding plan, defining of sexes in the selection group and indication of paths of gene transfer from one group to the other must be taken and selected in ZPLAN (Haile et al., 2011). Then, input parameters (input files) such as population, biological and economic cost parameters are defined by the users. Furthermore, phenotypic and genetic constants are required for modeling alternative breeding plans.The dissertation is based on five manuscripts. The general materials and methods followed in the manuscripts are given in this section and the detailed methodologies are available in the specific papers appended herein. Papers I, II, IV and V targeted two indigenous goat populations, namely Arab and Oromo while Paper III targeted additional Ethiopian indigenous goat populations and goats from Africa, Asia and Europe for comparison purposes.The study was conducted in Assosa zone, Benishangul Gumuz region, northwestern Ethiopia (BGR-NWE). Description of the study areas of all manuscripts is almost the same, except Paper III, and detailed description is found in Papers I and III.In this section, sampling strategies and data collection procedures for Paper I, II, IV and V will be presented followed by the sampling strategies and data collection procedures for Paper III.To know the distribution of the targeted goat populations and to select representative districts, a focus group discussion was organized with livestock experts working in Assosa zone. This zone is the home tract of both Arab ad Oromo goats (Getinet et al., 2005). Goat population size (based on the available data from the districts' agricultural offices), presence of communal grazing lands, access to market and road, relative significance of goats to the livelihood of the communities and willingness of the farmers to participate in CBBP were the criteria used to select the districts.Based on the outcome of the discussion, two representative districts (Bambasi and Homosha) were selected. Oromo goat population predominates in Bambasi district whereas Arab goat population prevails in Homosha district. Field visits and additional discussions with livestock experts and key informants in the respective districts were made and then four peasant associations (PAs)-the lowest administrative units in Ethiopia, were selected from each district based on the same criteria used to select districts. The selected PAs were Bambasi 02, Mutsa 01, Shebora, and Womba-selama from Bambasi and Gumu-Abush, Sherkole, Tumet, and Tsore-almetema from Homosha. Probability proportional to size (PPS) sampling technique was employed to select target households from each PA. The calculated numbers of households following the PPS sampling technique were 59 (Mutsa 01), 42 (Bambasi 02), 33 (Shebora), and 29 (Wombaselama) from Bambasi and 22 (Gumu-Abushu), 25 (Sherkole), 21 (Tumet), 18 (Tsore-almetema) from Homosha. In general, a total of 249 households, out of which 163 from Bambasi and 86 from Homosha, were selected for questionnaire data collection/interviewing (Paper I). Only households who had a minimum of three adult goats were included in the study.For the morphological characterization study, three goats per household, a total of 747 goats (258 Arab goats and 489 Oromo goats) were evaluated. Ten qualitative variables and nine morphometric measurements were recorded from each goat in the morning before they were released for grazing. The records and measurements were taken as described by FAO (2012) (Paper II).In the phenotypic ranking experiments (Paper IV), we collected data from two PAs in each district. The same criteria that we used to select the districts were applied here to select PAs. The selected PAs and the number of households in brackets were Mutsa 01 (59) and Bambasi 02 (42) from Bambasi and Sherkole (25) and Tumet (21) from Homosha. In the own-flock ranking experiment, the goat keepers were asked to choose their 1 st , 2 nd and 3 rd best and the most inferior does among the breeding does in their flock. Reasons for the ranking and life history of the ranked does were recorded. In the group-animal ranking experiment, twelve breeding does and twelve breeding bucks from the Arab goats and the same number of does and bucks from the Oromo goats were randomly selected and marked. Animals of same sex were randomly assigned to four groups in Arab (three animals each) and the same was applied in Oromo. Twelve farmers from the Arab goat keepers and the same number of Oromo goat keepers, who have not known the selected animals, were then invited to rank the animals. Each farmer was asked to rank the three animals in each group as 1 st , 2 nd and 3 rd , and the reasons for ranking. The farmers were then provided with the history of each individual animal and asked whether they would re-rank the animals or not. This procedure was continued eight times until a farmer covered all groups of the animals (Paper IV).For the simulation study (Paper V), the results of two papers, Papers I and IV, were used to determine breeding objective traits. Based on results of the two papers, three measurable breeding objective traits were selected for each population. The traits were: i) body size, twinning ability and kidding interval for Arab goat; and ii) body size, twinning and mothering abilities for Oromo goat.The selection criteria were six-month weight (6mw), litter size at birth (LSB), litter size at weaning (LSW) and KI for body size, twinning ability, mothering ability and reproduction performance, respectively.The selection groups were breeding bucks (BB), breeding does (BD) and production does (PD). The defined selection paths were: 1) bucks to produce breeding bucks (BB > BB), 2) bucks to produce breeding does (BB > BD), 3) does to produce breeding bucks (BD > BB), 4) does to produce breeding does (BD > BD, 5) bucks to produce production does (BB > PD) and 6) does to produce production does (PD > PD). The flocks from 60 households with an average of 7 breeding does per household were considered as one breeding unit for Arab while the flocks from 60 households with an average of 6 breeding does per household were considered as one breeding unit for Oromo. The period for which breeding does and bucks remain in the flock were adopted from previous study on indigenous sheep breeds in Ethiopia (Mirkena et al., 2012). Conception rate, kidding rate and kid survival to six month of age were based on published literature. The kidding interval and kid size at birth were obtained from monitoring data generated on the two goat populations. The rest biological parameters were derived from papers I and IV.Regarding the cost parameters, only costs of additional activities to the normal management practices were considered (Nitter et al., 1994). These were enumerator salary, cost of items for animal identification, cost of stationary materials and cost of drugs. The costs were computed as of late March 2019 (1 EURO = 1.1374 USD, 1 USD = 28.8439 Ethiopian birr and 1 EURO = 32.8070 Ethiopian birr) when all the information were gathered and compiled from the study area. The phenotypic standard deviations were obtained from the respective data generated on the two goat populations. Economic weight for each trait was computed using indices from goat keepers' trait preference (Paper I). Indices of the selected breeding objective traits were scaled to unity and inversely weighted by additive genetic standard deviation (ϭa) of each trait. Similar approach was recommended by FAO (2010, page 73) when only few socio-economic data are available as in the present case. Genetic parameters are lacking for Arab and Oromo goat populations. Hence, published reports on goats (Abegaz et al., 2014;Jembere et al., 2017) and sheep (Mirkena et al., 2012) were consulted to estimate these parameters.A total of 30 unrelated individual goats representing three Ethiopian indigenous goat populations (Arab, Felata and Oromo) were used for the molecular study.Whole blood samples were collected by puncturing the jugular vein using EDTA coated vacutainer tubes. We extracted genomic DNA at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, using DNeasy® Blood and Tissue kit (https://www.QIAGEN.com) following the manufacturer's protocol. The quality and quantity of the isolated DNA were evaluated using a NanoDrop2000 spectrophotometer (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Wilmington, DE) and 1.5% gel electrophoresis, respectively. The construction of the sequencing libraries and actual sequencing were performed on the Illumina high-throughput sequencing platform NovaSeq 6000 TM by Tianjin Noozhiyuan Technology Co., Ltd (Paper III).Genotype data of 60 animals including four populations from Ethiopia (Abergelle, Keffa, Gumuz and Woyito-Guji), four populations from East (Kenya: Boran), north (Morroco: Unknown), south (Malawi: Thyolo) and west (Mali: Guera) Africa, one population from Europe (France: Saanen), and one population from Asia (China: Tibetan) obtained from VarGoats project (available in the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA project number PRJEB37507) in FASTQ format and from which we extracted filtered genotyping data were included to assess the genetic variation and history of Ethiopian goat populations at national, continental and global levels (Paper III). The data collected in Paper II were analyzed using R statistical software version 3.5.2 (R Core Team, 2018). We used 'gmodels package' (Gregory et al., 2018) to analyze qualitative data, 'lsmeans package' (Russell, 2016) to analyze quantitative data, 'dplyr package' (Hadley et al., 2020)  The VCFtools (v.0.1.15)  (Danecek et al., 2011) was used to estimate population genetic diversity metrics such as expected (He) and observed (Ho) heterozygosity, nucleotide diversity (\uD835\uDF0B), inbreeding coefficient (F), heterozygous/homozygous (het/hom) ratio and Polymorphic SNPs (Pn) in each population. We performed principal component analyses (PCA; Jolliffe, 2002) with Plink 1.9 (Purcell et al., 2007) and admixture analysis with ADMIXTURE v. 1.3 software (Alexander et al., 2009) to determine population structure. We also used the maximum likelihood tree-based approach implemented in TreeMix (Pickrell and Pritchard, 2012) to evaluate historical relationships and interactions (gene flow) within and between the goat populations (Paper III). Within-group pooled heterozygosity (Hp) (Rubin et al., 2010) and genetic differentiation based on Fst (Weir and Cockerham, 1984) were used for selection signature analysis. We annotated the candidate regions on the Caprine reference genome (ARS1) assembly with the Ensembl BioMart tool (http://www.ensembl.org/biomart) and performed functional enrichment analysis of the annotated genes using DAVID v6.8 (Huang et al., 2009) The phenotypic ranking experiment data (Paper IV) were analyzed with R (R Core Team, 2020). We used 'gmodels package' (Gregory et al., 2018) to analyze the proportion of breeding doe and buck traits preferred by goat keepers in both experiments and rank proportions before and after provision of life history information in group-animal ranking experiment. Similarly, we used the 'lsmeans package' (Russell, 2016) to analyze the Mean ± SE values for age and some production and reproduction traits fitting the rank as fixed effects in the model.The computer program ZPLAN (Willam et al., 2008) was used to simulate alternative breeding programs (Paper V). In the study area, there was no distinction between the breeding and production tiers, i.e., the farmers are both breeders and producers. In this extent, we considered community based one-tier selection scheme as the optimal breeding program for both populations. Thus, the following four alternative schemes were simulated: While 38.6% of households in the Oromo goat keepers had some level of formal education (primary, secondary, adult education), a significantly (p < 0.01) lower proportion (22.1%) of respondents among the Arab goat keepers were literate.Complete absence of record keeping and identification of goats was observed among the interviewed households. There was a significant difference (P < 0.01) in the average number of goats per household. Higher numbers were observed amongst Arab goat keepers (12.5 ± 4.0). Breeding does and kids constitute about 60% of the flocks. Income generation, meat production and saving were the most frequently stated reasons of keeping goats. None of the interviewed households in this study kept goats for milk production. Body size, twining ability, coat color and kid growth, in that order, were considered the most important traits in selecting breeding does whereas body size, growth rate, coat color and libido were found to be the most important attributes for selection of breeding bucks. Mating of goats was predominantly uncontrolled. Communal grazing areas and lack of awareness about the deleterious effects of inbreeding were the main reasons mentioned by the goat keepers. Own flock, bucks borrowed from neighbors or communal bucks and purchased bucks were the main sources of breeding bucks.Castration was a common phenomenon in the study area and fattening was found to be the most common reason for castration, followed by prevention of unwanted mating by bucks with undesirable traits including bad temperament. However, during the focus group discussions, it was revealed that bucks with good body conformation that can potentially be fattened were subjected to castration (Paper I).The chi-square test revealed that all categorical variables, except wattle presence, showed significant (P < 0.001) difference between the Arab and Oromo goat populations. White in Arab goats (33.72%) and brown in Oromo goats (27.81%) were found to be the most dominant coat color types while black was the least frequent in both populations. Amongst the mixed coat colors, white and black with white dominant is the foremost coat color observed in both Arab and Oromo goats. Considering other categorical variables, most of the Arab and Oromo goats were characterized by straight head, straight horn oriented backward, lateral ear, absence of wattle and ruff and short and smooth hair. Pair wise mean comparisons between the two goat populations showed significant differences for all quantitative variables except horn length and ear length. Oromo goats have significantly (p < 0.001) higher average measurements for body weight, chest girth, body length, wither height and pelvic width than Arab goats (Paper II).The correlation analysis between body weight (BW) and linear body measurements (LBMs) showed that BW had positive and highly significant (p < 0.001) correlations with all LBMs except with EL in the Arab goats. The strongest correlation was between BW and CG (r = 0.95 in Arab goats and 0.92 in Oromo goats). In the multiple stepwise regression analyses, we found seven parameters (CG, BL, RH, PW, HL, WH and EL) for Arab goats and five parameters (CG, EL, CW, BL and HL) for Oromo goats to be significant (p < 0.05) in predicting BW from LBMs. In the present study, high coefficient of determination (R 2 ) that ranged between (90-96%) in Arab goats and (85-86%) in Oromo goats and low residual mean square (MSE) values between 2.11 to 5.00 in Arab goats and 2.72 to 3.04 in Oromo goats were recorded using the regression analyses (Paper II).We obtained 38.89 million high quality variants, including 90.39% SNPs and 9.61% InDels, in 13 populations (n = 78 individuals) (Paper III). The highest number of SNPs (18,266,925) and InDels (2,033,758) were detected in Unknown goat; while the lowest number of SNPs (14,389,837) and InDels (1,739,360) were identified in Saanen and Gumuz goats, respectively. The proportions of polymorphic SNPs (Pn) ranged from 90.5% to 96%. Keffa goat had the lowest observed hetrozygosity (0.254 ± 0.115) and nucleotide diversity (0.0017 ± 0.001), but the highest rate of inbreeding (0.261 ± 0.326), Woyto-Guji goat showed the highest observed hetrozygosity (0.335 ± 0.009) and nucleotide diversity (0.0023 ± 0.001), but the lowest level of inbreeding (F = 0.016 ± 0.027). Our results show an inverse relationship between runs of homozygosity (ROH) length and number.The number of shorter ROHs (ROH100-150Kb) category predominated; the number of these ROHs accounted for 58.18% of the total number of ROHs. However, the frequency of ROHs in this major category varied between populations. Thyolo had the highest number (5897) whereas Saanen had the lowest number (664). The longest ROH category (ROH>400Kb) was the rarest, wherein the Gumuz population displayed the highest number of ROH while Saanen showed the lowest number of ROH compared with other breeds.In the PCA, we had classified the analysis into three different categories: global, African and Ethiopian. Results from the PCA plot incorporating the 13 global goat populations distinguished the goats into five groups (East and South African; North African; West African; Asian and European). When the PCA was performed for African goat populations, the result revealed three genetic clusters (East African; North and West African; and South African). When we further ran the PCA with only Ethiopian goats, we found three genetic entities (Fellata; Gumuz and Woiyto-Guji; and Abergelle, Arab, Keffa and Oromo) (Paper III).The population ADMIXTURE analysis revealed the least cross-validation (CV) error at K = 5 suggesting this to be the most optimal number of clusters.Increasing K above 5 did not reveal any detectable population substructure and the population clusters remained the same. At this K, five gene pools were observed. These are designated East African group 1 (EA-G1), East African For the selection signature analysis, we used comparative genomics based on the results of PCA, ADMIXTURE and TREEMIX. Here, we explored differences between populations that are exposed to different selection pressures (natural versus artificial) and from different geographic zones (tropical semi-arid versus temperate cold) using two selection signature approaches (Hp and Fst) between the following population pairs: Gumuz versus Saanen and Fellata versus Saanen.The top windows which passed the significance threshold, for each method (ZHp ≤ −4.0, ZFst ≥ 4.0) were used to define the candidate regions under selection. The two methods, separately, identified multiple regions under selection. However, we focused only on the regions that overlapped between the two approaches. For Fellata, the methods, in combination, identified 25 candidate regions spanning 73 genes. Similarly, a total of 142 genes were identified across 39 candidate regions in Gumuz using the two analytical approaches. We performed gene ontology (GO) enrichment analysis for the candidate genes revealed in each population.The five topmost GO terms associated with the candidate genes in Fellata goat include cellular nitrogen compound biosynthetic process (GO:0044271), macromolecule metabolic process (GO:0043170), protein metabolic process (GO:0019538), cellular biosynthetic process (GO:0044249) and gene expression (GO:0010467). The top GO terms associated with the Gumuz candidate genes include osteoclast differentiation (GO:0030316), nuclear division (GO:0000280), amelogenesis (GO:0097186), odontogenesis (GO:0042476) and reproductive process (GO:0022414).In the own-flock ranking experiment, doe traits like mothering ability, kid growth, body size, and twinning rate were reported to be the most preferred traits by both Arab and Oromo goat keepers. None of the goat keepers in this study reported the use of goat milk (Paper IV). When the body measurement results obtained from the 1 st , 2 nd and 3 rd best and the most inferior does were compared, we obtained reasonable differences. For example, comparing the body weight of 1 st best and inferior does, we obtained 2.2 kg difference in Arab goats and 2.66 kg difference in Oromo goats. Similarly, the difference between the two groups (1 st best versus inferior) in the number of kids born and kids weaned were 1.83 and 1.70, respectively for Arab. For the same comparison and criteria, the results obtained for Oromo goats were 1.62 and 1.79, respectively.In the group animal ranking experiment, coat color, body size and body conformation were found to be the most important traits in both Arab and Oromo doe-ranking experiment, but with varying order. Likewise, in the ranking of bucks, coat color, body size, body conformation and body length were the four most important phenotypic traits mentioned by Arab and Oromo goat keepers, but with varying order (Paper IV).After provision of the life history of ranked does, the farmers re-ranked the animals. Of does that ranked as first, second, and third prior to provision of life history, 70.8%, 68.8% and 72.9% of the farmers retained their ranking, respectively. The corresponding values for Oromo goats were 52.1%, 47.9% and 50%. Unlike does, life history information only minimally altered respondents' decision in buck-group ranking. For example, in Arab goats, only 6.2% and 2.1% of the respondents revised their ranks from 1 st to 2 nd and 1 st to 3 rd , respectively.The corresponding values in Oromo goats were 4.2% and 0% (Paper IV).Four breeding schemes were simulated for the two indigenous goat populations (Arab and Oromo) in Ethiopia. The schemes were compared based on predicted annual genetic gains (PAGGs) and profitability. For both populations, PAGG in 6 months weight (6 mw) (kg) were highest in SCM2 followed by SCM1, SCM4 and SCM3, respectively. For all schemes, the 6 mw ranged from 288 to 322 g in Arab and from 342 to 382 g in Oromo flocks. The same sequence of superiority of PAGGs in LSB for both populations and LSW for Oromo goats was observed (SCM2>SCM1>SCM4>SCM3) as in 6 mw, though the values in these traits were relatively small. SCM3 had the best PAGG in KI for Arab goats (Paper V).Among the schemes, SCM2 resulted in the highest marginal profits, followed by SCM1, SCM4 and SCM3. The alternative breeding schemes for Arab were more profitable than for Oromo goat population. The values (1 EURO = 32.8070 Ethiopian birr on late March 2019) ranged from 0.75 to 0.91 in Arab and 0.37 to 0.46 Euro in Oromo. The higher profitability in Arab was due to the fact that the number of initial does and calculated number of candidate males was higher as compared to the Oromo (Paper V).Characterization of farm animal genetic resources encompasses all activities associated with the production system, identification, qualitative and quantitative description and documentation of breeds/populations (FAO, 2012). The present study characterized production systems, described morphological characteristics, assessed genetic diversity and population structure, identified breeding objective traits and evaluated alternative breeding schemes for two indigenous goat populations (Arab and Oromo). To this end, whole genome data generated from Fellata goat and genomic data of ten goat breeds accessed from the database were included for comparison purposes. Candidate genes underlying strong selection signatures in Fellata and Gumuz goat populations were identified by combining two approaches: pooled hetrozygosity (Hp) and population differentiation (Fst).In Paper I, the production systems and breeding practices of Arab and Oromo goat keepers were explicitly described as a first step towards setting up community-based breeding programs in the selected areas of Northwestern Ethiopia. The engagement of young and middle-aged adults in goat farming, as in the present study, might be a good indicator for successful implementation of new approaches such as CBBP. However, complete absence of identification and recording would make the implementation of CBBP challenging. Thus, awareness should be created among goat keepers and simple recording format should be developed. Here, the guidelines developed by Haile et al. (2011) can be adopted for goats in the study areas.Generation of income was the overriding reason for keeping goats and the same reason was reported elsewhere (Kosgey et al., 2008;Okeno et al., 2011;Abegazetal et al., 2013;Onzima et al., 2018). Consumption of goat milk was considered a cultural taboo by Arab and Oromo goat keepers; goat milk production was thus not mentioned as a trait of importance.The average number of goats per household is relatively low and hence it is difficult to make selection at the household level. In Haile et al. (2011), it was underlined that the minimum number of breeding female animals should be > 500 for one to undertake selection. This calls for design and implementation of CBBP, where selection takes place within the community flocks. Prioritization of body size, twining ability, growth rate, and coat color among others in selecting breeding males and females in the current study may be related to various reasons.Due emphasis on body size, growth rate and color may be related to observed market conditions-the larger the goat, the higher the price; fast growing goats reach market weight sooner; black colored goats have low market price.Preference for twining ability indicates the genetic potential of Arab and Oromo goats for multiple births.During the focus group discussions, it was revealed that good-looking and fastgrowing males, potentially the \"best\" breeders, were sold at early age when the goat keepers need money for various economic and social activities. This may result in negative selection. Awareness creation about better performing animals, through the extension service, should be in place. Strategies should be also designed to retain males that have good potential for breeding. One of such strategies is organizing the goat keepers in cooperatives and facilitates credit service, with minimum interest, when they need money. In addition, it is necessary to castrate mediocre males at the recommended age. Alemu (2009) suggested castration of male goats as soon as the testicles descend into the scrotum, i.e., from a few days of age to 3 weeks. For the study area, castration should be done before the males can serve (i.e., before they reach age at first mating). This can be, on average, as early as 6-8 months of age. In CBBP, it was recommended that selection of breeding males shall be made twice; at three and six months of age (Haile et al., 2011).The age at first mating for male and female and the age at first kidding of Arab and Oromo goats, respectively, were within the reported ranges of 7-15 and 12-20 months for indigenous goats of Ethiopia (Solomon et al., 2014). The kidding interval also falls within the range of 6-10 months reported for tropical goat breeds (Banerjee et al., 2000). This indicates that the reproductive performance of both Arab and Oromo goat populations is fairly good and in the short term, reproductive traits may not be a priority for intervention. CBBPs implemented in the study area should be directed towards production traits.The study goats were characterized by wide ranges of coat color patterns and types, among which white in Arab and light brown in Oromo were the predominant colors. In areas such as the study area, which is characterized by intense solar radiation in most times of the year, having high proportion of light coat color is a means of adaptation and is an indication that the study goats were not thermally stressed and hence their productivity not compromised. They are also characterized by smooth hair has an advantage to adapt the hot environment as it permits conventional heat loss from the animal surface and also ensure easy disposal of dirt (Yakubu et al., 2010).On the basis of wither height, adult goats can be classified as large (> 65 cm), small to medium (51-65 cm) and dwarf (< 50 cm) (Devendra et al., 1983).Accordingly, both Arab and Oromo goats can be considered as small to medium sized breeds.Positive and highly significant correlations were obtained among quantitative traits with the highest correlation between body weight and chest girth in both goat populations (r = 0.95 in Arab and 0.92 in Oromo goats). Similar findings were reported elsewhere in Ethiopia (Hassen et al., 2012a;Gebreyesus et al., 2013;Ahmed et al., 2016;Zergaw et al., 2016). The correlation results indicate the following important things: i) CG could be the best trait in predicting BW of Arab and Oromo goats, ii) The goat populations have harmonious body conformation and balanced physical growth, and iii) the morphometric traits in the present study are under the same genetic influence due to additive genetic effect and hence selection for one or more traits may consistently improve other traits.In the regression analysis, seven and five traits in Arab Oromo, respectively were identified to predict BW with high coefficients of determination indicating the strong association and success of LBMs in describing variation in BW.Nevertheless, CG was found to be the most appropriate variable to explain variation in body weights. Hence, BW could be predicted from CG measurement using the regression equation y = -33.65 + 0.89x for Arab and y = -37.55 + 0.94x for Oromo goats, where y and x are BW and CG measurements, respectively (Paper II). This is helpful for goat keepers to make selection with better accuracy to avoid errors of visual determination. However, realistically, it may be difficult for farmers to use these equiations given our findings of the level of literacy in the study areas. Hence, it would be better to use these equations to calibrate a weighband for the two breeds which is easier and straightforward to use.Genetic diversity within the 13 global goat populations is high, as evidenced from the overall average observed and expected hetrozygosity (Ho and He) values that exceeded 0.300. This suggests high levels of genome diversitis and the values for most of the individual populations are close to previous studies in Sudanese (Rahmatalla et al., 2017) and Pakistani (Kumar et al., 2018) goats and Egyptian Barki breed (Kim et al., 2016). High genetic diversity within a population that could be attributed to uncontrolled mating is characteristic of large communal populations (Lauvergne et al., 2000). Within population selection may benefit from the within population variation. It can also complement goat community based breeding program (CBBP) in Ethiopia. CBBP, in which selection within a population is exercised, provides a good framework for the implementation of genomic selection in smallholder production systems (Mrode et al., 2018).Among the 13 global goat populations, Keffa demonstrated the lowest level of genetic diversity. This suggests high inbreeding in this goat population which might be due to extensive use of few breeding bucks within flocks. This result is consistent with previous finding that was arrived at using Caprine 52KSNP genotype data (Tarekegn et al., 2021) who reported Keffa is the least diverse among 13 Ethiopian indigenous goat populations. Attention should be paid to this goat population to prevent a loss of goat genetic resources (Paper III).Runs of homozygosities (ROHs) are continuous homozygous genomic segments, at the individual and population levels. The length and frequency of ROH may describe past and recent population history and may also reveal the level of inbreeding within populations, recent population bottlenecks or signatures of positive selection (Szmatola et al., 2019;Ceballos et al., 2018). This is particularly important for African indigenous livestock which is characterized by lack of pedigree record data (Kosgey et al., 2006). In the absence of such data, ROH can be used to describe population history (Zavarez et al., 2015).In the present study, all of the 13 global populations showed their majority of ROH in the short (100-150 Kb) length category, which is in agreement with the results obtained for other goats (Guo et al., 2018;Onzima et al., 2018;Islam et al., 2019).Different ROH distribution patterns were noted for Gumuz and Unknown goat populations, which displayed higher number of ROH than other populations in the long (> 400 Kb) length category. The accumulations of long ROHs in the genome of the two populations enable them to carry deleterious mutations in homozygous form (Szpiech et al., 2013) and is indicative of demographic decline and recent inbreeding (Manunza et al., 2016). The highest number of short ROH in the Thyolo population indicates ancient inbreeding and/or small founder effect (Manunza et al., 2016)  environments were also reported in Ethiopia (Mirkena, 2010;Duguma et al., 2011;Gebreyesus et al., 2013;Abegaz, 2014).The results obtained from the comparisons made among 1 st , 2 nd and 3 rd best and the most inferior does (Paper IV) indicated that farmers' choices of does were precise as confirmed by the objective measurements. This shows that the farmers' indigenous knowledge have significant contribution in selecting the best breeding does. This approach is even more plausible in areas such as the study area, where record keeping is not practiced.During the group animal ranking, the participants were asked if they change their ranking after provision of the life history information of the ranked bucks. Nearly 92% of Arab farmers and 96% of Oromo farmers maintained their position. The situation was, however, a bit different during doe ranking. Only 70% of Arab farmers and 50% of Oromo farmers did not change their ranking. The likely reason for this is that keepers tended to judge and select female animals based on their reproductive performance apart from physical appearance. The same findings were reported in group-animal ranking for sheep (Mirkena, 2010) and goats in Ethiopia (Abegaz, 2014) and Ankole cattle in Uganda (Ndumu et al., 2008)  Breeding programs aimed at genetic improvement of Arab and Oromo goats need to consider the multiple functions of goats and goat keepers' trait preference.Given large number of traits identified in the present study, it would be useful to include only few priority traits to keep the breeding programs as simple as possible and for easy implementation under smallholders' circumstances. Based on the results of papers I, IV and V, body size, twining ability, kidding interval and mothering ability were the topmost preferred attributes to select breeding does; whereas body size, libido and growth were the traits used to select breeding bucks in the study area.Besides to production traits, observable physical attributes like presence of horn and wattle, short and smooth hair (Paper II), conformation, coat color and some adaptive traits of breeding does and bucks should be considered in decision making. However, the studies identified pertinent constraints such as absence of record keeping, negative selection, small flock size and utilization of breeding bucks born within the flock. Training and awareness creation about identification, record keeping and negative selection, strengthening the extension service, mixing of household flocks in communal grazing areas and involvement of the goat keepers from inception through to implementation of the CBBP are some of the actions needed.Compared to Arab goats, Oromo goats were on average wider, bigger and heavier in size and also show considerably higher variation in body size (Paper II). This indicates that there would be a good opportunity to select best young breeding males for genetic improvement aimed at increase meat production (improve growth rate and conformation) of goats in the study area. The correlation analysis has showed that chest girth had the highest association with body weight and hence it can be used to estimate weight using regression equations.High genetic diversity was recorded within the indigenous Ethiopian goat populations (Paper III). This can complement goat community based breeding program (CBBP) in Ethiopia as CBBP provides a good framework for the implementation of genomic selection in areas such as the study area where smallholder production systems prevails.In general, design and implementation of the CBBP using SCM2 had an advantage over other schemes. To this end, participation of local goat keepers from inception through to implementation should be ensured and their needs and views should be addressed. Furthermore, the CBBP should target only few priority breeding objective traits to make the programs simple and sustainable.• The attention given to Fellata goat, in the goat research endeavors of Ethiopia, is minimal. In the present study, only molecular characterization was undertaken on this goat population. Future works shall focus on production system, morphological characterization and simulation studies so that design and implementation of appropriate CBBP is possible for Fellata itself.  The goat population of Ethiopia is currently estimated to be 30,200,226 heads (CSA 2017). Based on morphological characterization, the country is endowed with 11 goat populations (Awgichew and Abegaz 2008), even though, the recent molecular study regrouped them in to 7 genetic entities (Mekuriaw 2016). The majority of this goat population is found in large flocks in arid and semi-arid lowlands, while goats in the highlands are widely distributed with very small flock sizes (Solomon et al. 2014). Estimates indicate that the great majority (99.97%) of the goat population in Ethiopia belongs to indigenous breeds (CSA 2017) which are characterized by good adaptation to adverse climatic conditions, resistance to a wide range of diseases and parasitic loads, and ability to better utilize poor quality feeds (Gizaw 2009). Under prevailing and hostile environments, indigenous goats provide their owners with tangible (cash, milk, meat, fiber and manure) and intangible benefits (prestige, saving, insurance, cultural and ceremonial purposes) (Legese et al. 2014).Despite the large population size, high genetic diversity and multiple functions of goats in the country, present level of productivity is generally very low with minimal contribution to the national economy (Legese and Fadiga 2014). For instance, in 2013, goats contributed only 11% of the total annual national meat production and 1.4% of the milk production (FAOSTAT 2016).There is need to improve goat productivity to meet the protein demand of the ever-increasing human population and alleviate poverty among rural farmers.However, there are some key limiting factors that contribute to low productivity of indigenous goats. Among these constraints, lack of feasible and sustainable breeding programs is an important barrier (Hagos et al. 2018).Cognizant of this fact, crossbreeding indigenous goats with imported exotic breeds such as Anglo-Nubian, Boer, Saanen and Toggenburg was implemented in the past four decades (Solomon et al. 2014). Even though successful goat crossbreeding programs and developed specialized breeds are available worldwide, attempts to adopt such breeding programs and large size breeds have not been successful in Ethiopia (Ayalew et al. 2003). Recently, community-based breeding programs, born from the previous lessons, are being advocated (Haile et al. 2011;Abegaz et al. 2013;Gizaw et al. 2014). However, design and implementation of such breeding programs require precise description of the husbandry practices (Haile et al. 2011;Wurzinger et al. 2011).Benishangul Gumuz region, located in northwestern Ethiopia, is home for about 440,719 heads of goats (CSA 2015) and five goat ecotypes (Agew, Arab, Felata, Gumuz and Oromo) (Getinet et al. 2005). Among these ecotypes, Agew and Gumuz goat populations are the most studied. For instance, FARM-Africa (1996), Getinet et al. (2005), Halima et al. (2012a) and Abegaz et al. (2013) undertook on-farm phenotypic characterizations and described the production systems and breeding practices of both goat ecotypes. Their genetic diversity was also quantified using different molecular techniques (Halima et al. 2012b;Mekuriaw 2016). However, the production environments and breeding practices of Arab, Felata and Oromo goat ecotypes were neglected in goat research and development activities of the country. The limited information about the three goat populations so far has been based on on-farm survey and recall interviews (Getinet et al. 2005). Analysis of the husbandry practices, with full participation of the community, are prerequisites to develop sustainable improvement and conservation programs at smallholder levels (Kohler-Rollefson and Rathore 2006; Kosgey et al. 2006). Therefore, the objective of the current study was to describe the production systems and breeding practices of Arab and Oromo goat keepers as a first step towards setting up community-based breeding programs in the selected areas of Benishangul Gumuz region in northwestern Ethiopia.The study was carried out from December 2017 to February 2018 in the Homosha and Bambasi districts of Assosa zone, Benishangul Gumuz region. The region is located in northwestern Ethiopia and is divided into three zones-Assosa, Kamashi and Metekel (Negasa 2017). The Assosa zone was selected because it is the breeding tract of both Arab and Oromo goat populations (Getinet et al. 2005). The Arab goat, named after the Berta/Arab ethnic group, predominates in the Homosha district. It is raised by sedentary agriculturalists and agro-pastoralists and considered dual purpose (used for meat and milk production). The average adult weight of this goat ecotype was estimated to be 38 kg (Getinet et al. 2005).The percentages of qualitative variables observed in the Arab goat ecotype were straight (53%) or straight concave head (29%); horizontal and lobbed ear (86%); straight (36%) or curved (31%) or spiral horn (23%) oriented upward (40%) or backward (34%); patchy pattern (56%) coat and smooth (69%) or white (14%) or black hair (11%). Beard was present in 42% and wattle was present in 30% of the goats. The average measurements of chest girth and height at withers were reported to be 70.9 cm and 68.2 cm, respectively (Getinet et al. 2005). On the other hand, the Oromo goat, named after the Oromo community, is the predominant type of goat in Bambasi district. It is raised by sedentary agriculturalists. This goat ecotype was considered as meat type with an average adult weight of 42 kg (Getinet et al. 2005). The percentages of qualitative variables observed in the Oromo goat ecotype were straight (53%) or curved head (26%); erect ear (64%); straight (40%) and backward horn (47%); patchy coat (54%); short smooth (53%) or coarse (47%) and white and black (23%) or roam hair (11%). The presence of beard (59%) and wattle (56%) were also the features of Oromo goat. The average measurements of chest girth and height at withers were reported to be 73.6 cm and 70.5 cm, respectively (Getinet et al. 2005).A group discussion was organized with livestock experts working in Assosa zone in order to know the distribution of the targeted goat populations and to select Finally, households who owned at least four adult goats with a minimum of one year experience in goat husbandry and willing to participate in communitybased breeding programs were identified. The list was prepared in each selected PA with the help of data collectors. Respondents were selected from the prepared list using systematic random sampling technique until the calculated sample size of each PA was maintained.Semi-structured questionnaires and formal interviews were used to gather information from the selected households. Data on socioeconomic characteristics, for overall reasons.The rate of inbreeding coefficient (ΔF) was calculated from effective population size (Ne) as: ΔF = 1/(2Ne). The Ne for a randomly mated population was calculated as: Ne = (4Nm Nf) / (Nm + Nf) (Falconer and Mackay 1996), where, Ne = effective population size, Nm = number of breeding males and Nf = number of breeding females.Out of the total of 249 interviewed households, 34.5% kept Arab and 65.5% kept Oromo goats. The overall majority (88.2%) of the household heads were male.The average ± SD age of respondents was 47. The Arab goat keepers have had significantly (p < 0.05) higher family size (8.8 ± 3.0) than the Oromo goat keepers (7.5 ± 4.4). The marital status among the Arab and Oromo goat keepers varied significantly (p < 0.05). In Arab goat keepers, 98.8% were married and 1.2% were divorced;whereas married and divorced goat keepers represented 89% and 1.6% of the Oromo goat keepers respectively. The rest of the Oromo goat keepers were widowed (6.1%) and single (3.1%). The average privately owned land per household was 2.3 ± 1.8 for Arab and 1.9 ± 1.6 ha for Oromo goat keepers. The private lands were used mainly for crop production and communal areas were available for grazing.The Arab goat keepers were mainly crop and livestock producers (92%), traders (6%) and civil servants (2%). Likewise, crop and livestock production (86%), civil service (8%) and trade (6%) were important for Oromo as for Arab goat keepers. Herding of goats was mostly by children (86% of boys vs. 9% of girls) and women (5%) in Arab goat keepers, while hired labor (84%) and children (13% of boys vs. 3% of girls) were responsible for herding in Oromo goat keepers. Goats were herded only during the wet season in Arab and both in dry and wet seasons in Oromo goat keepers. Participation of women in decision making on the goat farming systems varied significantly (p < 0.05) among keepers. Women in Arab goat keeping communities participated more frequently than those in Oromo goat keeping communities in purchasing and selling of goats (40% vs. 24%), slaughtering (28% vs. 20%), breeding (36% vs. 22%) and animal health (37% vs. 24%). Overall, the characteristics of the households mentioned above do not seem to be related to animal breeding directly but are important sources of information on the socioeconomic features of the households.Table 1 presents ranks and indices of purposes of keeping goats. Goats were kept for multifunctional roles in the study areas, but the most frequently reported purposes of keeping goats were income generation from sale of live animals (0.40) followed distantly by meat production for home consumption (0.23) and saving (using goats as storage of capital or 'village bank') (0.17). While the indices for other purposes were relatively small, keeping goats as a sign of wealth status among the Arab goat keepers (0.12) and for manure production among the Oromo goat keepers (0.10) were of some importance. None of the interviewed households in this study kept goats for milk production. The average flock size and composition of goats kept by the households are presented in Table 2. The overall average flock size obtained in the study areas was 11.2 ± 4.0 heads of goats. Arab goat keepers owned significantly (p < 0.01) higher average flock size (12.5 ± 4.0) than Oromo goat keepers (9.9 ± 3.8).Breeding does (females above 1 year) constitute the largest overall proportion of the flock (36.7%), followed distantly by kids (males and females less than 6 months) (23.7%), young does (females between 6-12 months) (20.5%), young bucks (males between 6-12 months) (8.5%), bucks (males above 1 year) (7.3%) and castrates (3.4%).  Castration of bucks was a common phenomenon in both study sites, but it was significantly (p < 0.01) more frequent in the Arab (97.7%) than in the Oromo goat keepers (60.1%) (Table 5). Irrespective of keepers, fattening was found to be the most common reason for castration, followed by prevention of unwanted mating by bucks with undesirable traits including bad temperament. However, during the focus group discussions, it was revealed that bucks with good body conformation that can potentially be fattened were subjected to castration. Castration methods differed significantly (p < 0.05) between the two groups of goat keepers.Households who used modern castration method were proportionally more numerous in Arab (45.3%) than in Oromo goat keepers (36.2%). In contrast, households who used traditional castration method represented 54.7% of the respondents in Arab against 63.8% in Oromo. The traditional castration method involves crushing the vas deferens using a smooth and round stone locally known as 'alello' followed by bandaging the testes until they wither from lack of blood flow. Goat keepers who used modern castration took their male goats to a nearby veterinary clinic to use burdizzo, a device used to castrate male animals by crushing the epididymal cord and associated blood vessels leading to the testicles (Kristy et al. 2016). Age at castration ranged from 1.3 to 3.3 years with an average age of 1.9 ± 0.6 years in Arab goat keepers and 2.2 ± 1.1 years in Oromo goat keepers. The results obtained for reproductive performance of Arab and Oromo goat populations are presented in Table 6. There were significant (p < 0.01) differences between the two goat populations in their reproductive performance. On average, male Arab goats reached age at first mating earlier than male Oromo goats.Similarly, female Arab goats reached age at first mating earlier and gave first births sooner than female Oromo goats. Additionally, female Arab goats have had shorter kidding interval and reproductive lifetime, but produced more number of kids per lifetime than female Oromo goats.  (Adesina et al. 2000). In the present study, women played a significant role in goat production and breeding.Thus, in order to develop sustainable breeding programs, their role has to be properly spelled out. Women need to be involved from inception to implementation. The literacy level of surveyed households was generally low, but the remarkably higher proportion of literate people in the Oromo goat keepers, as discussed by Kosgey and Okeyo (2007), could be an opportunity to implement goat improvement programs that would improve performance and pedigree recording. However, complete absence of recording and identification of goats would make the implementation quite challenging (Haile et al. 2013) Kenya (Kosgey et al. 2008) that unequivocally showed milk to be the primary reason for keeping goats. Lack of awareness about its nutritional and medicinal values is probably a likely explanation for the low preference and acceptance of goat milk in Ethiopia in general and the study areas in particular. The present study also indicated the intangible benefits of keeping goats. These benefits are often forgotten in conventional evaluation methods used to define breeding objectives which is particularly true in most genetic improvement programs attempted in the tropics (Mirkena 2010). In general, the importance that keepers attach to the multiple functions of goats suggests that community-based breeding programs could, if carefully planned, have good chances of success in the study areas.The average flock size obtained in the present study is comparable with 10.8 goats per household in Metema (Abegaz et al. 2013). On the other hand, large flock sizes were reported in Benatsemay (54.7), Hamer (63.2) and Dasenech (37.1) (Biruh et al. 2017) and Abergelle (48.5) (Abegaz et al. 2013). The observed variations in flock size are probably related to the differences in production systems and agroecologies, the role of livestock as a major source of livelihood and availability of land and feed (Solomon et al. 2014). Small flock sizes as in the present study are recognized as one of the limiting factors in applying selection at the household level. This calls for design and implementation of communitybased breeding programs, where selection takes place within the community flocks in order to increase selection intensity and effectiveness. The high proportion of breeding females obtained in the present study could imply the practice of retaining female goats for breeding purposes and production of kids. In contrast, breeding males were proportionally lower which could imply the removal of male goats for sale or home consumption, nevertheless, the ratio of breeding males to breeding females was about 1:5, which is much lower than the recommended ratio of 1:25 for tropical traditional production systems (Wilson and Durkin 1988). So, sufficient numbers of male goats were kept in the flock for breeding purposes. Castrated goats represented the lowest share of the flocks.Goat keepers in the study areas ranked body size/conformation, twining ability, growth rate and coat color as the most important traits in the choice of breeding males and females. Body size and twinning ability were the most preferred traits of breeding does in western Tigray (Hagos et al. 2018). High emphasis on body size/conformation and growth rate in both sexes may be related to observed market conditions-the larger the goat, the higher the price; and fast growing goats reach market weight sooner. However, during the focus group discussions, it was revealed that good looking and fast growing males, potentially the 'best' breeders, were sold at early age while mediocre males were retained.This may result in negative selection for growth rate and body conformation. Goat keepers should be made aware and convinced of the importance of better genotypes for their respective traits of interest. Furthermore, mechanisms should be designed to retain males that have good potential for breeding. In this regard, community level selection of 'best' males and using them effectively before they are sold off is suggested. Yet, the selection should be done based on recorded data (own and maternal performance) for the set of agreed traits (Haile et al. 2011).For good reasons, it is important to cull undesirable males before they can serve (i.e., before they reach age at first mating). This can be, on average, as early as 6-8 months of age (Table 6). The preference of goat keepers for twining ability indicates the genetic potential of Arab and Oromo goats for multiple births and the interest of keepers to increase flock size and overall flock productivity.Similarly, coat color preference specifies the importance of this trait in selecting breeding males and females. Plain black was the least preferred, while white and brown were the most preferred coat colors. The preference of white and brown over black is due to the effect of coat color on goat marketing value. For instance, due to cultural taboo, goats with full black coat are not preferred for slaughtering for home meat consumption. Similar observations on the aversion of black coat were reported in Ethiopia by Halima et al. (2012a).Overall, it would be possible to select for fast growth, large size/conformation, good twining ability (multiple births) and white/brown coat color within Arab andOromo goats whilst at the same time maintaining their adaptability in the study areas. However, care should be taken when deciding on what trait to improve.Traits that represent a comprehensive breeding goal are mostly complex with components of production and reproduction, e.g., meat production (Kosgey 2004).Recording of such trait and individual animal identification would be, in many cases, difficult in the study areas. Furthermore, the difficulty to measure and value intangible benefits of goats, such as savings and wealth status, presents more complications (Roeleveld 1996). Strategies for genetic improvement that overcome these problems need to be designed. Open nucleus scheme is proposed as a strategy for genetic improvement of goats in the study areas. A single nucleus could serve both Arab and Oromo goat keepers (Mueller et al. 2002).The predominance of uncontrolled mating and small flock sizes, as discussed by Seleka (2001), increases the rate of inbreeding. However, communal herding, which appears to have been a common practice among keepers in the present study, can minimize inbreeding (Jaitner et al. 2001;Kosgey 2004). For example, when the goat keepers practiced mixing of their flocks, the levels of inbreeding in both sites are minimized below the maximum acceptable level of 6.3% (Armstrong 2006). Community-based breeding programs are the most appropriate to implement in situations where livestock keepers already run their animals together, such as in communal grazing areas (Gizaw et al. 2010a;Gizaw et al. 2011;Haile et al. 2013). However, some breeding male goats were kept up to five years of age in the current study. This is not sound production practice, especially if they are allowed to mate their own offspring (Kosgey 2004). To be successful in community-based breeding programs, unselected, mediocre males should be castrated through agreement of the community sharing the grazing areas (Haile et al. 2011). The mean age of castration in the study areas seems to contradict with what was recommended by Alemu (2009). The same author suggested castration of male goats as soon as the testicles descend into the scrotum, i.e., from a few days of age to three weeks.Results of reproductive performance demonstrated that the current findings of age at first mating (in both sexes) and age at first kidding were within the ranges of 7-15 and 12-20 months respectively for indigenous goats of Ethiopia (Solomon et al. 2014). Similarly, the kidding interval falls within the range of 180-300 days reported for tropical goat breeds (Banerjee et al. 2000). Thisindicates that the reproductive performance of both Arab and Oromo goat populations are fairly good. However, the inverse relation of average reproductive lifetime of a doe and number of kids born per lifetime of a doe showed that Arab goats had better reproductive performance than Oromo goats. Arab goats predominate in semi-arid areas whereas Oromo goats are found in sub-humid zones of Benishangul Gumuz region (Getinet et al. 2005). As elucidated by Solomon et al. (2014), the highest values for most reproductive traits in the Ethiopian indigenous goat breeds, except kidding interval and average number of kids born, were observed in goats from arid and semi-arid areas. The average service year of male and female goats obtained in the present study is higher than the Kenyan goats (Kosgey et al. 2008). The same authors reported average service year of male and female goats to be 2-3 and 4-5 years respectively. In general, the reproductive performance of both Arab and Oromo goats is fairly good and in the short term, this parameter may not be a priority for intervention. Communitybased breeding programs that aim to implement in the study areas should be directed towards production traits.Breeding programs aimed at genetic improvement of Arab and Oromo goats need to incorporate the multifunctional roles that goats play in these production systems and focus on those traits that are identified as the most important. Body size/conformation, twining ability and coat color were the most preferred attributes for selecting breeding does and bucks. As an input for setting up community-based breeding programs in the study areas, the study identified constraints such as absence of record keeping, disposal of fast-growing and goodlooking bucks through selling or castration, small flock sizes and using breeding bucks born within the flock. All these constraints suggest that action is needed. To In developing countries, goat farming is one of the largest agricultural sectors, and about 35% of the world goat population (heads) is found in Africa [1]. In Ethiopia, the population of goats is estimated at 36.81 million heads [2].Indigenous goats play vital roles in ensuring food and economic security and cultural benefits of resource-poor households [3]. The productivity of these genetic resources is, however, very low and hence their contribution to the national economy is far below potential [4]. Many interrelated factors including absence of sustainable goat genetic improvement program are identified as important constraints [5]. To plan such program, a good understanding of physical characteristics of goats under their production systems is required [6].In Ethiopia, morphological characterization of indigenous goats dated back to the mid-1970s [7]. The first attempt was made by the Ministry of Agriculture in 1975 and classified Ethiopian goats into five major groups: Nubian, Highland, Afar, Somali and Long Tailed Gishe [8]. Later, FARM-Africa characterized Ethiopian and Eritrean goats and shown the presence of 14 different goat types [9]. Since then, several on-farm and on-station morphological characterization of goats have been undertaken mainly by Universities and research centers.Benishangul Gumuz region (BGR), located in northwestern Ethiopia, is home for about 411,503 heads of goats [10] and five goat populations (Agew, Arab, Felata, Gumuz and Oromo) [11]. Among these, Agew and Gumuz goat populations are the most studied. For instance, 2 decades ago, [9] described the morphological characteristics of Gumuz goats. Later, the genetic diversity of this goat type was investigated by [12] using microsatellite DNA markers.Subsequently, [13,14] undertook phenotypic and molecular characterization of Gumuz and Agew goats. [15] also characterized Gumuz goats using high density SNP CHIPs array. Very recently, [16] investigated the genetic diversity of Gumuz goats using Caprine SNP CHIPs array. In general, among the five goat populations found in BGR, most of the goat characterization efforts focused exclusively on Gumuz and/or Agew goat populations. However, Arab and Oromo goats, like many others, deserve to be characterized.The Arab goats, named after the dominant tribe that generally owns this goat population, are more adaptable to semi-arid areas, trypano tolerant and considered as dual purpose (used for meat and milk production) [11]. On the other hand, the Oromo goats, named after Oromo community, inhabit the sub-humid agroecology and known as meat type [11]. Both goat populations provide their owners with tangible and intangible benefits such as cash, meat, manure, prestige, saving, insurance, cultural and ceremonial purposes. However, they are neglected in goat research and development endeavors of the country. The limited available information about the two goat populations, so far, has been based on on-farm survey and recall interviews. The objective of the current study was, therefore, to undertake morphological characterization of Arab and Oromo goat populations and suggest sustainable breeding program in the selected areas of BGR in northwestern Ethiopia.This study was carried out in two districts of BGR from December 2017 to April 2018. The districts, Homosha and Bambasi (Figure 1), were selected purposively because they are believed to be breeding tracts of Arab and Oromo goats, respectively. Homosha is located in semiarid agro-ecology. It extends from 6° 44′ to 6° 84′ north latitude and from 37° 92′ to 38° 6′ east longitude [17] with an average altitude of 1,373 masl [18]. The temperature ranges from 20-30°C and the mean annual rainfall is 700-1,200 mm. The Arab goats predominate in this district. The second study area, Bambasi, is situated in the sub-humid agroecology and it is positioned at 9°45′ north latitude and 34° 44′ east longitude with an elevation of 1,668 masl [19]. The mean annual rainfall ranges from 900-1,500 mm and the average temperature is 28°C. The Oromo goats are predominant in Bambasi district. sampling technique and the number of sampled households is given in [22].Overall, a total of 86 households from Homosha district and 163 households from Bambasi district were selected following the steps in [20] and [21]. Finally, three goats per household were sampled for qualitative records and quantitative measurements. This gives a total of 747 goats (258 Arab and 489 Oromo goats).The goats were classified into six age groups based on their dentition, i.e., kids (< 6 months), young (6-12 months), 1 pair of permanent incisors (1PPI) (1 year), 2PPI (2 years), 3PPI (3 years) and 4PPI (≥ 4 years) [23]. The kids and young goats were differentiated by asking the age of goats from owners while the goats in 1, 2, 3 and 4 and above years were differentiated by observing their dentition.From the total sample size, 629 (84.2%) were female goats. Pregnant does were excluded from measurement to avoid over estimation of body weight (BW) and linear body measurements (LBMs). In the current study, quantitative traits, except BW, are generally named as LBMs.Ten qualitative variables (coat color pattern, coat color type, head profile, horn presence, horn shape, horn orientation, ear orientation, wattle presence, ruff presence and hair type) were recorded by using the standard format adapted from [6] breed descriptor list.Nine morphometric measurements were also taken from each goat early in the morning before they were released for grazing. The measurements were taken as described by [6]. They included body weight (BW), (the fasted live body weight of the chest between the briskets); pelvic width (PW), (horizontal distance (in cm) between the extreme lateral points of the hook bone of the pelvis); horn length (HL), (length of the horn (in cm) on its exterior side from its root at the poll to the tip; and ear length (EL), (length (in cm) of the external ear from its root on the poll to the tip). Body weight (kg) measurements were recorded using suspended spring balance in kg with a precision of 0.2 kg. The height measurements (cm) were taken using a graduated measuring stick while the length, width and circumference measurements (cm) were measured with plastic measuring tape. All measurements were taken after restraining and holding the goats in their natural position.All the data collected during the study period were encoded and fed into MS-Excel (2010) and analyzed using R statistical software version 3.5.2, 2018 [24].However, based on the nature of data, different R packages were used.During the qualitative data analysis, 'gmodels package' [25] was used to calculate the frequency and percent of qualitative characteristics observed in the two goat populations. On the other hand, the quantitative data were analyzed using the 'lsmeans package' [26]. Tukey's comparison test was used to compare the sub-factors that brought significant differences. to the fact that only a few male goats at older age classes (3PPI and 4PPI) were available in the study area, male animals were excluded from the model in the analysis of BW and LBMs.Pearson's correlation coefficient (r) values were computed to assess the relationship between BW and LBM using 'dplyr package' [27]. Live BW was regressed on LBMs using stepwise multiple linear regression analysis. The coefficient of determination (R 2 ) was used to assess the accuracy of prediction equations between BW and LBMs. Furthermore, MSE (mean square of error) was calculated from each fitted regression equation. In the first step, all LBMs were entered together into the equation for each goat population. Then, a group of variables having the maximum R 2 and minimum MSE were selected. In addition, Akaike's information criteria (AIC) and the Bayesian information criteria (BIC)were considered. In the second step, the variables which were selected by maximum R 2 and minimum MSE were entered together into the model to find the best fitted regression equation.Where, Yi = dependent variable (BW); β0 = intercept; X1, . . . , X6 = independent variables (CG, BL, WH, PW, HL and EL); β1,. . . , β6 = regression coefficients of the variables X1, . . . , X6; and ei = residual random error.The frequency and percent of qualitative characteristics observed in male and female goats of the two populations are presented in Tables 1 and 2. The results of the study showed that plain, patchy and spotted coat color patterns were observed in both goat populations, with maximum incidence in Arab goats (66.28% plain)and minimum incidence in Oromo goats (9.41% spotted).    In both Arab and Oromo goat populations, BW had positive and highly significant (p < 0.001) correlations with all LBMs except with EL in Arab goats (Table 4).Similarly, most of the quantitative traits in both goat populations showed positive and highly significant (P < 0.001) associations with one another. The strongest positive and highly significant correlation was between BW and CG in both goat populations (r = 0.95 in Arab goats and 0.92 in Oromo goats).    This study was exclusively based on qualitative records and quantitative measurements to characterize and identify the morphological features of Arab and Oromo goat populations of BGR in northwestern Ethiopia.The result revealed the presence of relatively more number of female goats sampled than male goats. This could be attributed to the fact that female goats are normally retained in flocks for reproduction while the males are more frequently put up for sale and more importantly slaughtered for food more often [22]. Indigenous goats thus make an important contribution in ensuring food security and alleviating poverty by providing animal source foods directly or from sale indirectly. [28] documented that goats contribute to food security through direct access to animal source foods and providing cash income from sales, which can be used to purchase food.Regarding coat color, the sampled goats were characterized by wide ranges of coat color patterns and types. Yet, white color in Arab and light brown color in Oromo goats were the predominant colors and they are reflections of the goats' adaptability to the study area (which is relatively warm and humid during most parts of the year). As reported by [29], animals with higher percentage of light color, such as white and brown, have better resistance to heat in areas characterized by higher solar radiation. In other words, the relatively high proportion of light colors observed in the two goat populations is an indication that the goats were not thermal stressed and their productivity could not be compromised. Horn presence is an advantage for self-defense, thermoregulation [30] and better reproductive performance [31]. Majority of the goats sampled were horned (Table 2), an indication of their ability to defend themselves, fight competitors for feed and water and even for does during mating. Likewise, presence of wattle is associated with thermoregulatory function, milk yield and reproductive performance such as higher prolificacy, litter size, fertility and conception rate [32] and higher body measurements [33]. Hair type is also an important economic trait in that smooth hair has an advantage as it permits conventional heat loss from the animal surface and also ensure easy disposal of dirt [34]. Overall, in order to set up sustainable genetic improvement strategies such as community-based breeding programs (CBBPs) in the study area, qualitative traits such as coat color pattern and type, presence of horn and wattle, and hair type should be part of the selection criteria of breeding males and females. [35] reported that on the basis of wither height; adult goats can be classified as large (> 65 cm), small to medium (51-65 cm) and dwarf (< 50 cm). According to the current results, both Arab and Oromo goats can be grouped under small to medium sized breeds.However, Oromo goats had significantly higher averages of BW and LBMs, showing that animals belonging to this population have better body conformation for meat production than animals in Arab goat population. The variation between the two goat populations could arise due to difference in genetic characteristics and/or environmental conditions that may affect phenotypic variance [34]. The relatively harsher environment, in terms of feed and water shortage and high environmental temperature, under which the Arab goats are raised could have been largely responsible for their lower body dimensions. Because these stress factors could have prevented the Arab goats from expressing their genetic potential. This is in line with what has been reported by [36]. The authors documented that temporal and spatial variation in weather, plant productivity and subsequent nutrition could have major impacts on physical growth of animals. However, at the scope of the present study, it is difficult to associate body size, shape and conformation to any genetic background. Future studies could look in to genetic differences of the two goat populations. The coefficients of variation (CV) obtained for quantitative traits such as BW, CG, BL, WH, RH and HL were relatively higher. This could be due to absence of systematic selection, or the body parts are affected more by the environment than others [37].Investigation on the effect of age on quantitative measurements of goats indicated that BW and LBMs increase proportionately with the advancement of age. Similar findings were reported by [38] for goats found in western Ethiopia. However, the maximum body gain was observed between 6 months to 12 months. This may be due to natural increase in dry matter intake after the goats reached age at puberty. Study by [39] also found maximum body gain at 9 months of age for Rohilkhand goats in India. The current average body measurements of goats in different age classes are higher than previous findings from similar age western lowland goats reported by [15].The correlations among quantitative traits were generally positive and highly significant that ranged from 13-95% in Arab and 12-92% in Oromo goats with the highest correlation between BW and CG in both goat populations (r = 0.95 in Arab and 0.92 in Oromo goats). In agreement with this finding, several authors [13,38,40,41] reported the highest correlation between BW and CG for some Ethiopian goats. This specifies that CG could be the best trait in predicting BW.The positive and significant correlations among quantitative traits obtained in this study also indicate that both goat populations have harmonious body conformation, reflecting balanced physical growth. Furthermore, it shows that the traits are under the same genetic influence due to additive genetic effect [42]. This implies selection for one or more of these traits may consistently increase other traits that have positive association with the selected trait/s. In addition, selection of positively correlated traits would have paramount importance in designing breeding programs in that the selection will lead to significant improvement of body weight and other body measurements that are of economic importance [37].The regression analyses of BW with LBMs in the present study identified seven traits in Arab and five traits in Oromo goats to predict BW. Similarly, [38] found seven traits in female (R 2 = 83%) and five traits in male (R 2 = 88%) to predict BW of western Ethiopian goats. [41] also reported five traits to estimate BW of Woyto-Guji and Central Highland goats with R 2 values of 84% and 79%, respectively. Nevertheless, CG was found to be the most appropriate variable to explain more variation in both Arab (adjusted R 2 = 90%)and Oromo goat populations (adjusted R 2 = 85%). The high coefficients of determination (R 2 ) in the current study indicated the strong association and success of LBMs in describing more variation in BW. This may be helpful for local goat keepers to make selection and cull decisions as it can be relatively low cost, high accuracy and consistency [43]. Body measurements in some cases can be more reliable than modern weighing machines as the latter can give biased results caused by gut fullness [44]. As shown in table 5, addition of a new variable to the model did not always increase the adjusted R 2 . However, AIC, BIC and MSE decreased as a new variable was added with little or no influence on the adjusted R 2 . On the other hand, addition of unnecessary variables to the model may increase the error. Therefore, addition of other LBMs to CG did not result in significant increase in adjusted R 2 , though it improved the accuracy of prediction by decreasing the error.In the study area, where formal breed data recording schemes are not well established [22] and goat keepers could not easily access weighing scales and understand complex formula, BW could be predicted from the regression equation y = -33.65 + 0.89x for Arab goats and y = -37.55 + 0.94x for Oromo goats, where y and x are BW and CG measurements, respectively. These formulas indicate that an increase of one cm of CG would result in an increase of 0.89 and 0.94 kg of BW in Arab and Oromo goat populations, respectively, which is comparable with the findings on goats elsewhere in Ethiopia [13,38,41]. The possibility of using simple body measurements that can easily be measured in the field to predict important economic traits have been demonstrated by [45,46]. Overall, assessment of BW and LBMs in both goat populations based on the expressed regression equations remains very important for avoiding errors of visual determination of animal weights in the study area where weighing balance cannot be easily accessed.The significance of morphological characterization of indigenous goat genetic resources cannot be over emphasized. The present study is based on qualitative records and quantitative measurements of Arab and Oromo goat populations. The results revealed the presence of morphological variations within and between the goat populations in the studied agroecological zones of BGR in northwestern Ethiopia. It was also found that the goat populations in the study area have developed diverse qualitative traits such as white and brown coat colors, presence of horn and wattle, and short and smooth hair. Compared to Arab goats, Oromo goats are on average not only wider and bigger in size but also show considerably higher variation in body size. This indicates that there would be a good opportunity to select best young breeding males for genetic improvement of goats in the study area. The correlation analysis has shown that chest girth had the highest association with body weight and hence it can be used as a marker to estimate weight using regression equations. Overall, it would be useful if the present characterization work is supported by performance data to understand which genotype has comparative advantage within an agro-ecological zone. Furthermore, an investigation on the molecular characterization using molecular markers like SNP will complement the results obtained from morphometric differentiation and also be helpful in high resolution characterization, conservation and formulation of breeding and selection strategies.Goats (Capra hircus) are of economic, nutritional and cultural significance to humankind. It was domesticated around 12,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent (Hatziminaoglou and Boyazoglu et al., 2004;Zeder, 2008;Colli et al., 2018) from a unique wild and still living progenitor, the bezoar Capra aegagrus (Naderi et al., 2008).Recent studies are showing mosaic domestication in the Fertile Crescent (Daly et al., 2018). Since its domestication, goats have dispersed across the globe following patterns of human migration and commercial trade and adapted to diverse environments.Ethiopia is considered as a gateway of livestock species including goats into Africa (Hanotte et al., 2002;Gifford-Gonzalez and Hanotte, 2011). Today, the country is home to ~52 million heads of goats (CSA, 2021), a great majority of which are indigenous types and are kept by pastoralists in large flocks while very small flock sizes are widely distributed in the highland areas (Abegaz et al., 2014). Ethiopian indigenous goats are classified into 13 populations based on their physical characteristics (FARM-Africa, 1996) and are mainly named after their geographic location or associated ethnic communities. This type of classification, however, might have considered genetically similar goat populations as phenotypically different groups.Systematic studies on genetic diversity and population structure of farm animals would be necessary to develop sustainable breed improvement strategies (Groeneveld et al., 2010). To this end, efforts have been made to characterize genetic diversity and structure of Ethiopian indigenous goat populations using microsatellite markers (Tesfaye, 2004;Hassen et al., 2012) and medium density SNP chip panel (Abegaz, 2014;Tarekegn, 2016) and revealed high level of genetic diversity but weak population structure.Furthermore, Berihulay et al. (2021) identify the genes under selection in Ethiopian indigenous goat populations. Nevertheless, the studies did not include goat populations such as Arab, Fellata and Oromo and hence the genetic diversity and population structure and positively selected genes remain uncovered till now. Genomic characterization of the three goat populations using state of the art genomic tool is of paramount importance to ensure conservation and genetic improvement of these goat populations. Recently developed high-throughput genotyping technology has provided an opportunity to study genetic diversity and population structure at high resolution, and search genomic regions that may have undergone selection (Guo et al., 2018;Wang et al., 2021). Here, using whole-genome sequence (WGS) data, we investigated the (i) genetic diversity and population structure of the three Ethiopian indigenous goat populations and (ii) identified candidate genome regions and genes associated with important traits.A total of 18 unrelated animals representing three Ethiopian indigenous goat populations (Arab (ARB), Felata (FEL) and Oromo (ORO)) were analyzed in the present study.Whole blood was collected by puncturing the jugular vein using EDTA coated vacutainer tubes. We followed the recommendations of the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia concerning animal care. No ethical approvals were required at the time. Efforts were made to avoid sampling of closely related animals. Genomic DNA was extracted from whole blood using DNeasy® Blood and Tissue kit (https://www.QIAGEN.com) following the manufacturer's protocol with a few modifications. The quality and quantity of the isolated DNA were evaluated using a NanoDrop2000 spectrophotometer (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Wilmington, DE) and 1.5% agarose gel electrophoresis, respectively. Sequencing was done with Illumina high-throughput sequencing platform NovaSeq 6000 TM at Tianjin Noozhiyuan Technology Co., Ltd.To assess the genetic variation and history of Ethiopian goat populations at national, continental and global levels, we included data of 60 animals representing ten goat populations, including four from Ethiopia (Abergelle (ABR); Keffa (KEF); Gumuz (GUM) and Woyito-Guji (WGU)), four from Africa (East (Kenya: Boran (BOR)), North Figure 1), no false-positive variants were observed in the 90 tranche. Therefore, the 99 tranche was included to increase the sensitivity of variant discovery. We considered the highest tranche (99.9 to 100) as a false positive and excluded it. The remaining variants (SNPs and InDels) were then recalibrated at the truth sensitivity filter level (tranche) of 99 using ApplyVQSR v4.1.7.0 of GATK. In general, the entire filtration process resulted in a high confidence set of 35,161,094 autosomal biallelic SNPs and 3,737,445 InDels.The final set of SNPs were annotated using variant effect predictor (VEP) v104.3.We estimated the levels of genetic diversity for each population. The VCFtools v.0.1.15 (Danecek et al., 2011) was used to derive expected (He) and observed (Ho) heterozygosity, nucleotide diversity (\uD835\uDF0B), inbreeding coefficient (F), heterozygous/homozygous (het/hom) ratio and proportion of polymorphic SNPs (Pn) for each population. Pn -the fraction of total SNPs that displayed both alleles -were calculated as the proportion of SNPs with minor allele frequency (MAF) greater than 1%.MAF is the frequency estimate of the least common allele per population.The average pairwise genetic distance (DST) between individuals within a population was calculated in PLINK v1.9 (Purcell et al., 2007). The average proportion of alleles shared between two individuals was calculated using the \"--genome\" command line in PLINK v1.9 as:IBS1 and IBS2 represent the number of loci which share either 1 or 2 alleles that are identical by state (IBS) in pairwise comparisons between individuals, respectively, and N number of ancestral genomes (K) and the proportion of ADMIXTURE. The PCA and ADMIXTURE results were visualized with GENESIS (Buchmann and Hazelhurst, 2014).We also evaluated historical relationships and interactions (gene flow) between populations using the maximum likelihood tree-based approach implemented in TreeMix (Pickrell and Pritchard, 2012) and included the Saanen goat as an out-group. The number of migration events (m) varied between 1 and 13; migration between two and all the populations, respectively. The number of migration events that best fitted the data was identified using the fraction of the variance in the sample covariance matrix explained by the model covariance matrix (Pickrell and Pritchard, 2012). Each analysis was run with 1000 bootstrap replicates in order to verify the consistency of the trees' edges and nodes.Furthermore, to test for admixture among breeds and to assess the statistical significance of migration events, the THREEPOP and FOURPOP functions (implemented in TreeMix) were run to calculate the f3 and f4 statistics, respectively (Ahbara et al., 2019).In the f3 test, the putative admixture of a target population (A) is tested against two Combining alternative approaches to detect selection signatures has been suggested as a way of increasing the reliability of selection signature studies (Simianer, 2014).Therefore, we implemented two methods: i) within-group pooled heterozygosity (Hp) (Rubin et al., 2010) and, ii) genetic differentiation based on Fst (Weir and Cockerham, 1984). A sliding window approach was used to perform the Hp and Fst analyses with up/downstream = 6.71%) (Chapter 10 Supplementary Table 4 and Supplementary Figure 2). SNPs in exonic regions are further classified as synonymous (51.84%), nonsynonymous (47.12%) and stop gain or loss (1.04%) polymorphisms.Genetic diversity metrics (mean ± standard deviation (SD); Table 1) within each of the  To further illustrate the distribution of genetic variation among Ethiopian populations, we performed the PCA with only the Ethiopian goats (Figure 3) and found three genetic entities (Fellata; Gumuz and Woiyto-Guji; and Abergelle, Arab, Keffa and Oromo).   6). The f3-statistics however, did not reveal any likelihood of gene-flow between the populations analyzed (Chapter 10     Szmatola et al., 2019;Ceballos et al., 2018). This is particularly important for African indigenous livestock which is characterized by lack of pedigree record data (Kosgey et al., 2006). In the absence of such data, ROH can be used to describe population history (Zavarez et al., 2015).In the present study, all of the 13 global populations showed their majority of ROH in the short (100-150 Kb) length category, which is in agreement with the results obtained for other goats (Guo et al., 2018;Onzima et al., 2018;Islam et al., 2019).Different ROH distribution patterns were noted for Gumuz and Unknown goat populations, which displayed higher number of ROH than other populations in the long (> 400 Kb) length category. The accumulations of long ROHs in the genome of the two populations enable them to carry deleterious mutations in homozygous form [Szpiech et al., 2013] and is indicative of demographic decline and recent inbreeding (Manunza et al., 2016). The highest number of short ROH in the Thyolo population indicates ancient inbreeding and/or small founder effect (Manunza et al., 2016). Litter size is an important economic trait that appears to be controlled by multiple genes and factors like ovarian follicular development, oocyte maturation, ovulation, fertilization, embryogenesis, embryo implantation and uterine receptivity (Feng et al., 2015). The development of high-tech molecular tools Apart from its aesthetic appeal, color can affect an animal's temperature because all else being equal, dark color absorb more solar energy than do light color and that energy is converted into heat (Stuart-Fox et al., 2017). Though the genes responsible for the coat color are pleiotropic in their effect (Bhat et al., 2019), the coat color of an animal is mainly determined by the distribution and activity of melanocytes in the body. In our study, we identified coat coloration genes like KIT (KIT proto-onco, receptor tyrosine kinase) (CHI6) in Fellata and KITLG (KIT ligand) (CHI5) and MITF (melanocyte inducing transcription factor) (CHI22) in Gumuz. KIT is ascribed for white color pigmentation in cattle (Brenig et al., 2013), goats (Nazari-Ghadikolaei et al., 2018;Bhat et al., 2019) and domestic cats (Cooper et al., 2006). Similarly, MITF gene is implicated in controlling white spotting in dogs (Rothschild et al., 2006), Holstein cattle (Liu et al., 2009) and Geese (Wang et al., 2014). Experimental evidence stated that KITLG has positive influence on melanocyte proliferation and melanin distribution and activates keratinocytes (Cario-André et al., 2006). The pigmentation loci, KIT and KITLG, are the shared signals in Neolithic goat populations (Daly et al., 2018) and are the common signals in the modern livestock (Kijas et al., 2012;Alberto et al., 2018).The presence of genes responsible for white coat color in Fellata and Gumuz goats could be an adaptive response to intense solar radiation. The predominance of white coat color in Fellata goat was observed by the first author during sampling.Body weight is an economically important trait in goat production. Thus, it is vitally important to investigate the underlying molecular mechanisms behind this trait and identify the important functional genes that influence it. Here, we identified candidate genes including IGF2BP2 on (CHI1) and MAPK7 (CHI19) in Gumuz goat. IGF2BP2 (insulin like growth factor 2 mRNA binding protein 2)promotes myoblast growth and it is a key regulator of skeletal muscle development (Li et al., 2012). MAPK7 (Mitogen-activated protein kinase 7) has been found to play crucial role in myocyte proliferation and differentiation (Glass, 2005).We used whole genome sequence data to investigate signatures of selection in Ethiopian indigenous goat populations. This genomic data identified several potential candidate genes possibly under selection, including disease resistance genes (DIS3L2, TRPM2) in Keffa goat, body weight genes (IGF2B2, MAPK7) in Gumuz goat, litter size related genes (FLT1, AMHR2) and coat color associated genes (KIT, KITLG, MITF) in Fellata and Gumuz goats. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to report these candidate genes in Ethiopian indigenous goat populations. Our results provide a foundation for future studies to investigate the genome architectures in different ruminant species coexisting in a similar environment.There are about 36.81 million goat populations in Ethiopia, of which 99.97% are local breeds [1]. Most of them are found in large flocks in arid and semi-arid lowlands while very small flock sizes are widely distributed in the highlands [2].Goats play an important role in the smallholders' farming systems, for instance, they provide tangible (cash, milk, meat, fiber and manure) and intangible benefits (prestige, saving, insurance, cultural and ceremonial purposes) [3].Given the presence of large number of goats and their diverse functions, the productivity of this valuable genetic resource is generally low. For instance, in the years (1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008), the average carcass weight produced from a yearling goat was only 8 kg; one of the lowest compared to the world average (12 kg) [4]. Likewise, the dressing percentage (DP) at one year of age is also very low (42-45%) [5].The causes for poor performance of indigenous goats could be attributed to various interrelated factors [6,7]. Among them, lack of suitable breeding programs is an important constraint.Identifying the smallholder farmers' breeding objective traits is crucial to design appropriate breeding programs [8,9]. Four different methods have been implemented to identify the breeding objective traits; for sheep and goats in Ethiopia. These include semi-structured questioner, choice card experiment, group discussion and ranking of live animals. While the first three were often used by many scholars [8,10,11,12,13,14), the last method was brought forth by [10]. It has two forms: ranking of own animals with known history and ranking of animals with unknown history. One can use combination of the methods to determine the breeding objective traits for a given breed. Detailed descriptions of the methods are given elsewhere [10,15].Benishangul Gumuz region, our study area, is found in the northwestern lowlands of Ethiopia. The region is among the major goat production areas in the country, where Arab and Oromo goat populations and their crosses with other indigenous goats are widely distributed [16,17). The official census recorded 440,719 goats in 2015 [18] which are mostly produced in small familial units (on average eleven goats/household) for sale, own consumption, saving and cultural importance [13]. It can be said that the goat populations, including the study area, are untapped resources with very little research efforts. The breeding objective traits of the local goat keepers were not empirically identified and defined.Farmers simply select animals based on morphological features and production characteristics. This as it is, the local goat populations are noted for their low productivity [19]. The present study was therefore aimed at identifying breeding objective traits of Arab and Oromo goat keepers in northwestern Ethiopia, using own-flock and group-animal ranking approaches, as a preliminary step towards designing sustainable breeding.The data for this study were collected from January to February 2019. During the data collection, goat keepers were visited early in the morning at their homestead before their goats were let out for grazing. The goat keepers were asked to choose their 1 st , 2 nd and 3 rd best and the most inferior does among the breeding does in their flock. Reasons for the ranking and life history of the ranked does (age, number of kidding, twinning ability, number of kids born per kidding and number of kids weaned) were inquired and recorded. As there are no records kept by the goat keepers in the study areas, family members who had participated in the ranking exercises were reminding each other about the history of their animals.Body weight (BW) and linear body measurements (LBMs) such as body length (BL), chest girth (CG), wither height (WH) and rump height (RH) were taken from each animal as described by FAO (2012). BW is the fasted live body weight (in kg); BL is the horizontal distance (in cm) from the point of shoulder to the pin bone; CG is the circumference of the body (in cm) immediately behind the shoulder blades and perpendicular to the body axis; WH is the vertical height (in cm) from the bottom of the front foot to the highest point of the shoulder and RH is the vertical height from the bottom of the back foot to the highest point of the rump.BW (kg) was recorded using suspended spring balance with 50 kg capacity and a precision of 200 g. Weighing sacks were used to lift goats during the BW measurements. The height measurements (cm) were taken using a graduated measuring stick while the length, width and circumference measurements (cm)were measured with plastic measuring tape (1.50 m long with the precision of 2 cm). All measurements were taken after restraining and holding the goats in their natural position and before they were released for grazing to avoid the effect of feeding and watering on the goats' size and conformation [20].In these experiments, twelve breeding does and twelve breeding bucks from the Arab goats and the same number of does and bucks from the Oromo goats were randomly selected and marked. To avoid repeated measurements, the does were chosen from the own-flock ranking experiments covering all ranks. The information previously obtained from the owner (age, number of kidding, twinning ability, number of kids born per kidding and number of kids weaned)and the phenotypic measurements recorded during the own-flock experiments were used as life history for each selected doe. Similarly, the life history of the selected bucks (age, birth type, libido and temperament) and body weight measurements were inquired and recorded.The selected animals were brought to a central place in each district and randomly assigned into groups. Animals of same sex were randomly assigned to four groups in Arab goats (three animals each) and the same was applied in Oromo goats. Twelve farmers for Arab goats and 12 farmers for Oromo goats, who have not known the selected animals, were then invited to rank the animals.Each farmer was inquired to rank the three animals in each group as 1 st , 2 nd and 3 rd , and the reasons of ranking. The farmers were then provided with the history of each individual animal and asked whether they would re-rank the animals or not. This procedure was continued eight times until a farmer covered all groups of the animals.The data collected from the study area were arranged, coded and managed in Microsoft-Excel spread sheet for further analysis. Since the responses of the goat keepers for both own-flock and group-animal ranking experiments were open ended, reasons for ranking were first checked one by one to determine the trait levels and then coded. Based on the nature of data, different types of statistical analyses were used. The statistical software R [21] was used to analyze the data from the own-flock and group-animal ranking experiments. The frequency and proportion of breeding doe and buck traits preferred by the goat keepers in both experiments and rank proportions before and after provision of life history information in group-animal ranking experiment were analyzed by the 'gmodels package' of R, version 4.0.3 using the 'CrossTable function'. Similarly, the Mean ± SE values for dentition and some production and reproduction traits were analyzed using 'LSM (least squares mean) package version 3.5.2' of R [21] fitting the rank as fixed effects in the model.The lists of preferred doe traits from the own-flock ranking experiments are summarized in Table 1. Although no organized breeding program is in place in the study area, goat keepers, however, select breeding does based on own memory and various attributes of the animal. Application of similar selection strategy for breeding does was also reported in Ethiopia [6,12,13] and elsewhere in Africa [22,23,24]. Mothering ability, kid growth, body size, twinning rate, coat color and body conformation were found to be the most important doe traits, in that order, influencing keepers' preference in Arab. They accounted for 56.05% of the total proportions of mentioned traits. On the other hand, twinning rate, mothering ability, kid growth, kid size at birth and body size, in that order of importance, together contributed 64.75% of the total proportions of doe traits mentioned by Oromo goat keepers. Other important traits include kidding interval (7.01%), kid size at birth (6.37%) and drought tolerance (5.10%) in Arab and coat color (7.47%), kidding interval (4.79%) and pedigree (4.21%) in Oromo. In general, the breeding objective traits preferred by the goat keepers reflected what traits of Arab and Oromo does were appreciated by owners. In the present study, we observed that both Arab and Oromo goat keepers generally focus on kid quality (such as kid growth and kid size at birth) and related reproductive traits (like twinning rate and mothering ability). However, there was noticeable difference in preference for some of these and other traits between the two goat keepers. For instance, in Arab goat keepers, drought tolerance and body width were mentioned as important traits but these traits were not mentioned at all by the Oromo goat keepers. This result is clearly associated with agro-ecology and breeding objective of the breeders. Arab goat keepers, who dwell in the semi-arid areas, were opted for does with better drought tolerance due to the harsher environment, in terms of feed and water shortage and prevalence of moisture stress in most parts of the year. They also associated wide bodied does with higher twinning rate, better mothering ability and high carcass yield. Similar findings on preference of drought tolerance and body width for goats and sheep in comparable environments were also reported in Ethiopia [6,10,11,25].The preference of big body size and fast kid growth as important traits in both study areas are expected when the main purpose of keeping goats is for cash income. In most of the time, goats with big body size have high market demand and fast growing goats reach market weight sooner. Oromo goat keepers mentioned kid size at birth quite frequently (13.60%) than Arab goat keepers.This may be due to the reason that Oromo does have significantly bigger body sizes than Arab does [16] so that their kids might be bigger at birth. In relation to this, [26] and [27] elucidated that maternal body size positively influences the weight of their progeny at birth. Similarly, a relatively higher twinning rate (14.75%) as the preferred trait of Oromo goat keepers might be due to the availability of adequate feed throughout the year that can support many animals compared to the dry semi-arid area of Arab goat keepers.None of the goat keepers in this study reported the use of goat milk.According to keepers, does with high milk production were considered as good mothers to their kids. Coat color and reproductive traits such as kidding interval were also mentioned as important traits by both goat keepers. Shorter kidding interval will increase flock size for marketing and replacement. It would be also helpful for genetic improvement program by increasing selection intensity though the improvement of kidding interval through selection may be slow because of the low heritability of the trait [6].Mean ± SE values for dentition and some production and reproduction traits of does from own-flock ranking experiment are presented in Table 2. Body weight, number of kidding, twinning, number of kids born and number of kids weaned significantly (p < 0.001) influenced the ranking decision of both goat keepers. Dentition had significant (p < 0.001) effect only on Oromo goat keepers' trait preference of breeding does.Comparing the mean values of does ranked as 1 st best and poor quality, there were clear and logical differences in most of the attributes considered. This indicated that the farmers' choices of does were confirmed by the objective measurements. For instance, in the Arab goat population, the magnitude difference between the 1 st best and inferior does in live weight, number of kids born and number of kids weaned were 2.22 kg, 1.83 and 1.70, respectively.Similarly, in the Oromo goat keepers, the difference between the two groups for the same traits were 2.66 kg of body weight, 1.62 numbers of kids born and 1.79 numbers of kids weaned. The longer ages of the best does indicate that keepers are willing to keep them for long service years to achieve their objectives. In the  Table 3 presents the lists of preferred doe traits in the group-animal ranking experiments. Coat color, body size, body conformation, body width and mothering ability, in that order, were found to be the most important traits in Arab goats, the sum of which accounted for 53.72% of the traits mentioned in Arab doe-ranking experiment. In Oromo doe-ranking experiment, about half (52.83%) of the mentioned traits were contributed by body size, twinning rate, body conformation, coat color and mothering ability. Table 4 describes the lists of buck traits in group-animal ranking experiments.Coat color, body size, body conformation and body length were the four most important phenotypic traits which accounted for 54.12% and 52.38% of the traits mentioned by Arab and Oromo goat keepers, respectively, but with varying order.Coat color assumed the first priority with a magnitude of 18.04% followed by body size (17.53%), body conformation (9.79%) and body length (8.76%) in Arab goat keepers while the order of recurrence of traits in Oromo goat keepers was body size, coat color, body conformation and body length with magnitude of 20.63%, 17.99%, 7.41% and 6.35%, respectively. Table 5 summarizes rank proportions before and following provision of information about life history of does and bucks. In Arab goat populations, of does that ranked as first, second, and third prior to provision of life history, 70.8%, 68.8% and 72.9% of them retained their position, respectively, after provision of life history. The corresponding values for Oromo goats were 52.1%, 47.9% and 50%. Unlike in does, the attached life history information only minimally altered respondents' decision in buck-group ranking. For example, in Arab goats, only 6.2% and 2.1% of the respondents changed their ranks from 1 st to 2 nd and 1 st to 3 rd , respectively. The corresponding values in Oromo goats were 4.2% and 0%. The likely reason for this is that keepers tended to judge and select female animals based on their reproductive performance and mothering ability apart from physical appearance (body size, coat color and body conformation) and dental examination. Similar research findings were reported in phenotypic groupanimal ranking experiments for sheep [10] and goat breeds in Ethiopia [6] and for Ankole cattle in Uganda [28]. RBLH=Rank before provision of life history; RALH=Rank after provision of life history; unchanged ranks are given along the diagonal. The goat population of Ethiopia is estimated to be 52.46 million heads (CSA, 2021), and the number of goats used to be considerably smaller than the number of sheep. However, very recently, the goat to sheep ratio showed an increasing trend; 0.93 (CSA, 2012), 0.99 (CSA, 2015), 0.98 (CSA, 2017), 1.12 (CSA, 2020) and 1.22 (CSA, 2021) which might indicate that goats are becoming more important than sheep in Ethiopia. Almost all goats are managed by smallholder farmers and pastoralists under traditional production systems. They provide multiple functions for their owners such as source of income, food, and raw materials (skins). They also serve as means of risk mitigation during crop failures, savings and investments in addition to other socioeconomic and cultural functions (Legese et al., 2014).Though a large number of goats are found in Ethiopia, the productivity per animal and flock off-take however are low. For instance, recent estimates of the average annual off-take rate for the years 2008 to 2010 indicate values between 30% and 38% (Legese and Fadiga, 2014). Similarly, during the year 2013, goats contributed only 11.0 and 1.4% of the annual national meat and milk production, respectively (FAOSTAT, 2016). Many interrelated factors including lack of suitable breeding programs contribute for the low productivity of indigenous goats.Genetic improvement strategies, aimed at improving the production and reproduction potential of indigenous goats, have been executed in Ethiopia since the beginning of goat research in the mid-1970s. The most common strategy was centralized breeding scheme, usually nucleus breeding units, established at onstation and entirely managed and controlled by government organizations with minimal, if any, participation by the farmers (Haile et al., 2018). Although well intended, the schemes failed to provide sufficient number and quality of improved males and also failed to engage the participation of the end users in the process (Haile et al., 2020). Another widely followed strategy was crossbreeding of indigenous goat breeds with imported exotic breeds in the form of semen, embryos or live animals. In most cases, this is done with very little consideration of the needs, views and indigenous practices of the farmers and their limited or no participation from planning to execution of the programs (Ayalew et al., 2003).Insufficient pretesting of the suitability and adaptability of the exotic breeds and their resulting crosses to local production systems, poor management and low input production systems were also some of the limitations of the programs (Haile et al., 2020). As a result, genetic erosion of the local breeds has occurred where indiscriminate crossbreeding with local populations was practiced (Haile et al., 2018).A recent alternative approach is community based breeding program (CBBP).Such programs consider the needs, views, decisions and active participation of farmers from inception through to implementation (Haile et al., 2020). A promising option for designing CBBP, where communal grazing and watering points are customary, is to consider the village population as one large flock or a breeding unit. In this case, breeding animals are being selected based on phenotypes recorded within the village population. The primary aim of a breeding program for smallholder conditions should be to minimize the risk by developing cost and resource saving production methods, while achieving acceptable genetic gain in important breeding traits (Sölkner et al., 1998). In Ethiopia, CBBPs have been established since 2009; for sheep (Gizaw et al., 2009;Duguma et al., 2011;Mirkena et al., 2012) and goats (Abegaz et al., 2014;Alubel, 2015;Zergaw et al., 2016;Jembere et al., 2019).The present study simulated the most appropriate breeding schemes for two indigenous goat populations in two agro-ecologies in northwestern Ethiopia. The simulations were based on comprehensive studies of production systems and phenotypic ranking experiments (Oumer et al., 2019;Oumer et al, 2021).Genetic and economic evaluation of the alternative breeding schemes targeted Arab and Oromo goat populations in Benishangul Gumuz region, northwestern Ethiopia. The locations, Homosha and Bambasi, are believed to be the breeding tracts for Arab and Oromo goat populations, respectively. Homosha has semi-arid agro-ecology with average annual temperature that varies from 20-30 °C. The rainfall pattern of the area is erratic and uneven with a mean annual range of 700- Three selection groups; breeding bucks (BB), breeding does (BD) and production does (PD), consisting of six selection paths were defined for both populations.Generation and dissemination of genetic gain occur in the breeding unit (BU) and production unit (PU), respectively. The defined selection paths are: 1) bucks to produce breeding bucks (BB > BB) where buck selection occurs to improve bucks used in the BU, 2) bucks to produce breeding does (BB > BD) where buck selection occurs to improve does used in the BU, 3) does to produce breeding bucks (BD > BB) where doe selection occurs to improve bucks used in the BU, 4)does to produce breeding does (BD > BD) where doe selection occurs to improve does used in the BU, 5) bucks to produce breeding does (BB > PD) where buck selection occurs to improve does used in the PU, and 6) does to produce breeding does (PD > PD) where does selection occurs to improve does used in the PU.Transmission of genetic gain to the PU is only through the selection group (BB > PD). The selection groups and the gene flow pathways are summarized below in Table 2. Genetic gain is generally expected from selection groups originating from the breeding unit where selection decisions are made and breeding costs are incurred (Nitter et al., 1994). The contribution from the other selection groups in terms of genetic gain is very minimal only through the 5% replacement young does.  The computer program ZPLAN (Willam et al., 2008)   (Hill, 1974;McClintock and Cunningham, 1974) and selection index procedure constitute the core of the program. For the selection index part, information available for the evaluation of an individual candidate have to be defined by the number and type of relatives contributing to the index of an animal as well as records on individual's own performance (Willam et al., 2002). For further information on ZPLAN, see Nitter et al. (1994).During the simulation, we first defined and evaluated a breeding scheme Essential input parameters for the simulations are given in Table 3. In calculating the numbers of initial does, the flocks from 60 households with an average of 7 breeding does per household were considered as one breeding unit for Arab goats, while the flocks from 60 households with an average of 6 breeding does per household were considered as one breeding unit for Oromo goats. Numbers of candidate males were calculated as the product of initial does, conception rate, twinning rate, number of parturition per year, survival rate to six month, kidding rate and sex ratio.The period for which breeding does and bucks remain in the flock were adopted from previous study on indigenous sheep breeds in Ethiopia (Mirkena et al., 2012) whereas conception rate, kidding rate and kid survival to six month of age were based on published literature. The KI and LSB were obtained from monitoring data generated on the two goat populations. The rest biological parameters were derived from production system study and phenotypic ranking experiments done on the two goat populations in their respective study areas (Oumer et al., 2019;Oumer et al., 2021).Regarding the cost parameters, only costs of additional activities to the normal management practices were considered (Nitter et al., 1994). In the current study,  2014), we assumed higher interest rate of discounted returns than costs as such assumptions lead to more conservative discounted profit (Ehret et al., 2012). available as in the present case. Genetic and phenotypic correlations among the breeding objective traits and their heritability values are presented in Table 5.Genetic parameters are lacking for Arab and Oromo goat populations. Hence, published reports on goats (Abegaz et al., 2014;Jembere et al., 2017) and sheep (Mirkena et al., 2012) were consulted to estimate these parameters. Investigation of genetic and phenotypic correlation between traits could allow for optimal sound selection criteria to match the targeted breeding objectives and yield higher selection accuracies (Wasike et al., 2007). Genetic responses of indigenous Ethiopian goat breeds under selective breeding programs have not been well studied. Indeed, Abegaz et al. (2014) optimized alternative breeding schemes for two Ethiopian goat breeds. The authors reported PAGG for 6mw (kg) that ranged from 0.36-0.37 for Abergelle goat and this was comparable with the magnitude of the present result. On the contrary, the authors presented higher PAGG for 6mw, which varied from 0.870-0.872 kg, for Western Lowland goat. Jembere et al. (2019)   Mirkena et al. (2012) are too high and hence it is less realistic to achieve these much gains under on-farm condition. On the other hand, PAGG of 0.12 to 0.29 kg for 6mw of Menz sheep was reported by Gizaw et al. (2014).The observed variations between the current results and the findings reported elsewhere are probably related to the difference in phenotypic standard deviations and selection intensity used during the simulations. For example, in this study, phenotypic standard deviations used for 6mw were 2.01 and 2.41 kg for Arab and Oromo goat populations, respectively. However, Abegaz et al. (2014)  LSB, defined as the number of kids born/doe/kidding, is strongly influenced by management decisions and are of paramount economic importance. Given the low heritability of the trait, the PAGG in LSB for Gumuz sheep were within the range of 0.0017 to 0.0036 (Dagnew et al., 2018) and for Menz sheep it fluctuated from 0.0013 to 0.0031 (Gizaw et al., 2014), and hence, were equivalent to the values presented in the present work. Similarly, comparable results were also reported by Mirkena et al. (2012), Abegaz et al. (2014) and Jembere et al. (2019).Regarding LSW, the number of kids weaned per doe per year, our PAGG for this selection criterion were very low and concurred well with the findings of various scholars elsewhere in Ethiopia (Mirkena et al., 2012, Abegaz et al., 2014;Jembere et al., 2019). Overall, the PAGG in both LSB and LSW may appear very insignificant; yet, the slightest improvements in these cumulative traits would lead to sizable gain in terms of overall change. KI, calculated as the difference in days between two successive kiddings, had positive gain in the four alternative breeding schemes. However, the positive gain for KI is undesirable as an increase in KI implies an addition in the number of days between consecutive kidding. An Arab doe with long kidding interval will have lower chances of giving more number of kids during her lifetime. Jembere et al. (2019) also reported positive PAGG for KI that ranged from 0.18 to 0.27 days.Different breeding schemes were simulated for two indigenous goat populations of Ethiopia, considering limited number of breeding objective traits. The PAGGs obtained from all schemes were reasonable, especially for 6mw in both populations and KI in Arab goat. The PAGGs in LSB and LSW were small implying that improvements of these traits are best achieved through improved management issues such as health and feeds as part of the overall genetic improvement program. Based on the results of the present study, design and implementation of the CBBP for Arab and Oromo goat populations using SCM2 ","tokenCount":"21923"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"09b31a9fcfdc6d225a706d2cd614177a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/90f7fa94-a162-49e9-9132-bee0476e28d0/retrieve","id":"-528807175"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a5d1dd58-1c85-4b82-bbaf-a8fdd45cb8cb","pagecount":"3","content":"• Successful second round of accelerated breeding completed, with the release of 4 orange-fleshed (OFSP) and 3 purple-fleshed (PFSP) droughttolerant sweetpotato varieties in 2016. Third round will be completed in 2019.• Early season and terminal drought have negative effects on storage root yield (Fig. 1).• Thick vines offer a morphological adaption to drought which may offer an advantage for remobilization of assimilates from leaves and stems to storage roots.• Many widely adopted varieties are early bulking and satisfy piece meal harvesting, a desired trait given the predicted shortened seasons in Southern Africa under climate change.• Among the 15 drought-tolerant OFSP released in 2011, Delvia and Irene have emerged as the most widely-adapted across different agro-ecologies.• First enhanced iron (Fe) OFSP clone (MUSG15052-2) selected from Umbeluzi populations.  Drought is defined as the inadequacy of available water through rainfall or irrigation to meet the crop water requirement. Drought is considered the major limitation to sweetpotato production in Southern Africa, where most agriculture is dependent on unimodal rainfall. Unimodal rainfall systems also tend to have less diverse food systems than bimodal systems found in East and Central Africa. This is reflected in the very high levels of vitamin A deficiency (69%) found among children under five years of age in Mozambique. In addition, anemia (75% of pre-school children and 52% of pregnant women) and other Fe deficiencies are widespread in Mozambique and neighboring countries in Southern Africa. Iron deficiency impairs mental development and capacity to learn in children and adolescences while reducing adults' ability to do physical labor, with increased risk of death for women during child birth.The objectives were to (i) select and release drought tolerant genotypes as varieties from breeding trials, (ii) understand the mechanism(s) governing drought tolerance in sweetpotato to enhance selection and improve breeding efficiency (iii) improve dry matter content and other quality traits like beta-carotene, iron and zinc. Specifically, for quality traits, the selected clones were to meet 200% RDA for young children of pro-Vitamin A, 25% RDA of iron and 35% RDA of zinc under high intakes. Once sufficient progress had been made in breeding for iron (Fe), another objective to measure Fe bioavailability from a conventionally-bred, Fe-enhanced OFSP clone (MUSG15052-2) was set.For drought field trials and initial identification of the enhanced Fe clone, we worked in Mozambique at four locations: Maputo, Umbeluzi, and Chokwe in the South, cooked OFSP. This would supply 14.1% of the target 50% Estimated Average Requirement (EAR) for absorbable iron for children 1.5-4.5 years of age and 6.4% for young women of reproductive age. Levels of absorption may have been negatively affected by significant levels of polyphenols found in the roots. Iron absorption might be enhanced by increasing the vitamin C in the roots. Both are areas that will require further examination.Where there any key challenges or lessons learned?  This joint CIP-IIAM effort successfully implemented its second round of accelerated breeding (Fig. 2). During Phase 1, 15 drought-tolerant OFSP were released in 2011. In 2016, seven additional drought tolerant varieties were released: four orange-fleshed (Alisha, Ivone, Victoria, Lawrence); three with significant amounts of purple-flesh (Bita, Caelan and Bie) 1 . Victoria, Lawrence and Bita are classified as dual purpose, with an excellent balance of storage roots for human consumption and foliage for animal feed. These types are particularly preferred in dry areas where raising livestock is an important economic activity.The varieties released in 2016 demonstrate a 7% average genetic gain in dry matter over the 2011 releases. Some utilize different mechanisms of drought tolerance. For example, Alisha and Ivone are early maturing, doing very well in a short growing season, thus avoiding drought.Caelan and Bita have high vine vigor and better stomatal regulation 2 under drought conditions. Between 2011 and 2016, we saw an average increase in beta-carotene (provitamin A) by 16%; iron by 6%; and zinc by 18%.Our quality laboratory continued to be an essential part of our breeding program. During the past five years more than 66,200 samples were processed, providing data on macro-and micronutrient contents. The tissue culture lab and linked screenhouses assured the provision of quality pre-basic material to several dissemination programs. Three of those programs (Emergency relief in the South; VISTA in the Nampula and Zambézia Provinces, and Nutritious Sweetpotato for Niassa Province) coordinated the delivery of quality planting material to over 400,000 households. Delvia and Irene have emerged as the most widely-adapted across different agro-ecologies. These varieties, in addition to outcompeting dominant local varieties yield-wise, were easy to establish, have good multiplication rates and were able to sprout well after the dry season. Notably, Irene has been released in Cote d'Ivoire, Madagascar, and Kenya. Moreover, 229,263 seed generated from crossings was shared with 14 African breeding programs, Bangladesh, Brazil, India and the USA. More than one million botanical seed are in storage.On a fresh weight basis, the enhanced Fe OFSP clone, MUSG15052-2 has 12.4 µg Fe/g, <0.1 µg phytic acid/g, 14 µg ascorbic acid/g on a fresh weight basis (fwb) compared to an OFSP variety with a typically lower concentration of iron (Irene) with 6.4 µg Fe/g, <0.1 µg phytic acid/g, 46 µg ascorbic acid/g. The Fe content is stable across environments in Mozambique. Preliminary results from the iron bioavailability studies conducted in Malawi (Fig. 3) showed fractional Fe absorption from both MUSG15052-2 and Irene test meal types was 5.8%. However, fractional Fe absorption varied based on initial ferritin status of the woman. Those with low status absorbed 8.1%; those with adequate status, only 3.6%. The enhanced iron clone provided 0.09 mg absorbable iron per 100 grams of adaption to drought and offer an advantage for remobilization of assimilates. The varieties Caelan, Bita and Alisha have thick vines and do well under terminal drought conditions. Vine survival is an easy to assess critical trait in drought prone areas. Varietal survivability is judged by the ability of root to sprout after a lengthy period of storage, and subsequent growth and spread in the nursery beds.Unpredictability of drought and associated stress. The most serious challenge faced was having sufficient irrigation water at the Research Stations due to pump breakdowns or the drying up of water sources. In addition, stray cattle and goats occasionally wreaked havoc on experimental plots. Selection for drought tolerant clones requires evaluation in optimum environments in addition to the drought-prone environments. Diligent supervision and sufficient resources are essential for the maintenance of such a complex program.1 For details on each variety, refer to the Sweetpotato Digital Catalogue on Sweetpotato Varieties available at www. Sweetpotatoknowledge.org.2 Stomata regulation is the process in the leaves to control the amount of water and solutes within them by opening and closing their guard cells.3 An assimilate an organic material, such as sugar and carbohydrates. ","tokenCount":"1114"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"42287cca674a96cae6e0f99c63ff66ae","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H029239.pdf","id":"-688850055"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c23ab2d5-2337-4fe3-a707-faf8cb66ca93","pagecount":"48","content":"'IWMIoffers to provide separable services at cost as charged internally to its own programs, and inseparable services (such as account ing and general overhead) at 12% (half the full overhead) for the Secretariat's budget and 3% for flow-through funds,• 23• Water-related vector-borne diseases (malaria, filariasis, Japanese encephalitis -all linked to irrigation development to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the location)• Water-based diseases (schistosomiasis, Guinea-worm infection)36.The water-food-environment issue can be characterised through these quotes:\"Water resources, and the related ecosystems that provide and sustain them, are under threat from pollution, unsustainable use, land-use changes, climate change and many other forces. The link between these threats and poverty is clear, for it is the poor who are hit first and hardest.\" Source: Ministerial Declaration, 2nd World Water Forum, The Hague, March 2000 \"On the one hand, the fundamental fear of food shortages encourages ever greater use of water resources for agriculture. On the other, there is a need to divert water from irrigated food production to other users and to protect the resource and the ecosystem. Many believe this conflict is one of the most critical problems to be tackled in the early 2151 century.\" Source: Global Water Partnership, Framework for Action 2000 p58 \"We need a Blue Revolution in agriculture that focuses on increasing productivity per unit of water-\"more crop per drop.\"While, in principle, and in a long-term perspective there need not be a conflict among all these objectives, in practice, the agricultural and environmental communities, particularly, have drastically different views on the way in which water resources should be developed and managed in the coming decades. The agricultural community emphasises the need to maintain food security and reduce hunger and rural poverty for a growing world population and concludes that 15-20 percent more water . will have to be made available for agriculture in the coming 25 years.The world population is estimated to increase to ten billion and associated protein consumption rate increase will double the world food demand in the middle of twenty-first century. The environmental community emphasises current damages to ecosystems through overuse and pollution and concludes that an increase in water used by agriculture would be disastrous. There is no agreement on desirable solutions and this perpetuates unsustainable water use and leads conflicts over water at the local level and is an obstacle to investment in the water sector.The lack of agreement on socially desirable solutions affects the poor and vulnerable groups in society, particularly those in the South that are hit first and hardest by growing water insecurity. Poverty and people's health are affected by this lack of water security.The development objective of the proposed Dialogue on Water, Food and Environment is to \"Improve water resources management for food security and environmental sustainability with a special focus on the reduction of poverty and hunger and the improvement of human health. \"Build bridges between agricultural and environmental communities on water resources issues, by improving the linkages between the sectoral approaches that dominate policy making and implementation, particularly at national level.1. Establish a dialogue that will produce tangible solutions for the seemingly conflicting interests of water for food and environment, primarily at national and local levels.2. Draw together, maintain and improve the required knowledge base for the Dialogue.3. Create a platform for local-or basin-scale activities that enhance food and environmental security in order to promote the exchange of experience and the development and identification of best practices.4. Raise awareness amongst the relevant actors and stakeholders.1.1 Cross-sectoral dialogues at national level on desirable options to achieve food and environmental security to reduce poverty and hunger and improve health in at least 10 countries (workshops, technical reports and public awareness materials).1.2 Dialogues at basin and local level on desirable options to achieve food and environmental security to reduce poverty and hunger and improve health in at least 10-15 river basins / case study sites ~ (workshops, technical reports and public awareness materials).2.1 Common definitions on water, food, and environmental security, and common indicators of poverty, hunger, health, and environmental quality.2.2 Quality controlled information and analyses on water availability, use and requirements for agriculture, environment and associated uses.2.3 Scenarios at global, national and basin levels concerning alternative options to develop and manage water resources for food and environmental security.2.4 Assessment of impacts on food security, hunger, poverty, livelihoods, health, environmental quality and biodiversity of alternative scenarios.3.1 Exchange of practical experience at the local level among the practitioners.3.2 Synthesis of best practice information, based on the experience gained in many of local action projects. Better actions taken at local scales as a result of this interaction.3.3 Inputs of local experience into the dialogue processes at national and basin/local levels.4.1 Annual Dialogue meetings of all partners and participating organisations that raise the issue on the global political agenda through press releases, interviews and presentations of Dialogue Ambassadors.4.2 Presentations at key meetings: Bonn Freshwater Conference, Rio+ 10, Third World Water Forum, ICID Congress in Montreal 2002, meetings of the UN Conventions and others as appropriate.To this end the Dialogue on Water, Food and Environment is proposed as a process to be carried out with the following three main blocks of activities (figure 1), plus a communications programme:1. A true cross-sectoral dialogue process among the stakeholders, primarily at national and local levels, that is open, clear, transparent, inclusive and solution-oriented. A large number of national-level dialogues or roundtables would form the heart of the dialogue. River-basin and local level dialogues would complement these to exchange information and address issues affecting users directly. Special efforts would be made to connect to the local level, where the key challenge is to involve the real water users-the man or the woman \"at the pump.\"2. An enhanced knowledge base to feed the dialogue and establish credible and authoritative knowledge accepted by both agricultural and environmental constituencies. The knowledge base would focus on achieving food and environmental security and on the impacts of past development as well as on evaluation of options for future development.It would focus on creating and implementing linkages and interactions among the ongoing and new key activities that fit the local actionAnnual meeting of all participantsNational-and Basin level cross-sectoral dialogues overall framework (but are funded and managed independently).3. Networking for local-and basin-level action oriented projects focused on testing and evaluating innovative approaches that enhance sustainable water security for agriculture and the environment. ThisLoosely coordinatedwould essentially be a platform for information localinitiatives exchange leading to identification of \"best practices.\"Following the World Water Vision and Framework for Action process that ended with the Second World Water Forum in March 2000 in The Hague, many felt that there had been insufficient interaction between the agri cultural specialists and the environmental experts. In fact, the \"Vision for Water and Nature\" and the \"Vision for Water for Food and Rural Devel opment\" show widely diverging views on the need to develop additional water resources for agriculture and the benefits and costs that such de velopment would have. To a very large extent, ongoing activities are still organised on a sectoral basis.Many feel that resolving the differences between these sectoral views is one of the key challenges facing society at the beginning of the twenty first century. The water crisis of the late twentieth century was defined by the lack of access to water for domestic purposes. In the early twenty first century. increasing competition for water will further exacerbate domestic water problems, and add a host of other difficulties related to food and environmental security. Mismanagement of this crisis will mean that a fewer people will have access to safe water, an increase of pov erty, and deteriorating health standards of vulnerable communities.Given that irrigated agriculture is the dominant user of water withdrawn from nature for human purposes, the question is how much more water can be withdrawn without causing irrevocable damage to the ecosystem.The agricultural sector asserts that 15-20 percent more water will be needed in 25 years time for agriculture to maintain global and national food security. This increase can only be achieved when significant im provements in irrigation efficiency can be obtained. The sector feels that given this situation, the dialogue should focus on options to achieve this in an environmentally sound and sustainable way and to realise food se curity for the poor as well. Others feel that irrigation expansion is not an option because of high social and environmental costs, and that there are other water options to produce enough food. At stake are the size and nature of both local and international investments that are necessary to grow food for a growing population, provide sustainable livelihoods for the rural poor and maintain the quality and integrity of the environment.The Global Water Partnership (GWP) organised a meeting of about 20 people to discuss the need for action in Stockholm, Sweden on 14 August 2000. It was concluded that there are many planned and ongoing initiatives at the global and local scales in the fields of water, agriculture and environment that would benefit from some form of loose coordina tion. To explore the form and nature such an effort could take, the International Water Management Institute initiated and hosted the Co lombo Dialogue meeting during 13-16 December 2000. The formulation of this proposal has been a direct follow-up action of the Colombo Dia logue meeting, and is based on discussions held there.Over 130 people participated in a first planning and design meeting for a possible global Dialogue on Water for Food and Environmental Security in Colombo, Sri Lanka in December 2000. They concluded that there is an urgent need for more interactions between the agricultural and environ mental sectors to evolve a shared vision on development and management of water resources. The essence of the new activity would build on exist ing actions, provide a coherent framework for synthesis and interaction and provide loose coordination on a voluntary, nondirective basis.The dialogue deals with water management in agriculture and rural wa tersheds in general ranging from catchment management to fully controlled or supplementary irrigations schemes, rain-fed agriculture and drainage. Irrigated agriculture is at the heart of the debate but the Dialogue will not focus only on the narrow issues of water use efficiency or water produc tivity in irrigation. It will also include a review of environmental water management approaches and ways to reconcile development and conser vation objectives. The dialogue invites out-of -the-box thinking such as improvement of rain-fed agriculture through zero tillage options and wa ter harvesting schemes, plant nutrient recycling to the development of drought-and salinity-resistant varieties. The Dialogue will be useful in situations where traditional approaches through technological or economic measures have reached their limits and where a third way through social learning is required. The dialogue will help solving problems in devel oped and developing countries but relatively more attention is given to the problems of developing countries and the poor segment of its popula tion.Food security in the development objective is defined to comprise ac cess, availability and nutritional value of food at various levels from regional and national self-sufficiency to household level food security and livelihood. Agriculture is broadly defined to include food and cash crops, aquaculture, livestock and agro-forestry. Environmental issues include water quantity and quality and its relation to aquatic and land-based eco systems, biodiversity as a value in its own right and goods and services provided by nature. The dialogue will explicitly address the cross-cut ting issues of health and poverty.Through the joint work facilitated by the Dialogue, rather than through diverse interest groups, it should be possible to close or at least to re duce the gap between the various constituencies. The dialogue process will go beyond global debates and discussions. A process is envisioned by which movements of multiple stakeholders carry the debate forward at various levels. Such a process will be supported by authoritative in formation, clear alternatives will be developed, presented and discussed and action promoted to overcome the divide. Ideally a self-sustaining pro cess will define the future paths that are acceptable to a broad range of stakeholders in a given country or river basin.A key component of the Dialogue will be the national-level dialogue processes that directly aim to develop a broad consensus on socially de sirable strategies to develop and manage water resources for food security, livelihoods and environmental sustainability. This means building bridges among different groups of stakeholders and providing these stakeholders with credible and relevant information on options for actions and their impacts. These processes are not currently ongoing, but there are several proposals from IeID (in cooperation with FAO, IWMI, The World Bank and IFPRI) that aim to realise such dialogue processes.Development of true cross-sectoral dialogues at the national level is a critical issue that is far from trivial. In many countries this is a highly political and very sensitive issue. The Dialogue proposed here will offer countries a neutral platform, embedded in an international process that lends it credibility and the support of a number of key international organisations. The Dialogue will also, through the Knowledge Base, feed credible and quality controlled information into the national-level dia logues-in fact, a two-way process is foreseen whereby the dialogues determine the information required and the organisations partnering in the Knowledge Base respond to these requests.At the local level various action groups would initiate activities or pro grams that aim at overcoming the dichotomy between water for food and water for environment. It is at this level where practical solutions need to be found, tested and concrete knowledge be created for the knowledge base. The Dialogue will encourage and provide a platform for informa tion exchange of national movements similar to the Land Care Movement in Australia. At the regional level there would be opportunities for ex change of experience and possibly opportunities to address transboundary issues, for instance, the regional partnerships that are being developed by the Global Water Partnership. At the global level it is proposed to have an annual meeting where all those involved in the various components of the Dialogue come together for an exchange of experience and pre sentation of progress.The Knowledge Base activities are expected to build on existing (major) activities from a number of partners in the water, agricultural, and envi ronmental areas. The Dialogue would provide a conceptual framework that would improve the exchange of information among these components and would provide a level of synthesis of these activities that produces information directly relevant to the various national-level dialogues. Maxi mum use will be made of existing platforms such as Info-Finder and GWP-Toolbox. Funding will be required to fill in gaps in the Knowledge Base, to develop a conceptual framework, and to synthesise the knowl edge.To support the synthesis of \"best practices\" I information from the large number of ongoing action-projects and experiments at national and local! basin levels, the Dialogue would provide networking opportunities. The Dialogue framework provides a platform for various groups to interact with each other to communicate ideas, to build a knowledge base, and to exchange ideas and information on key actions. The key results would be the grounds to learn from each other and a cross-fertilisation of ideas. These will ultimately lead to very practical information on a set of exemplary or best practices suitable to a wide variety of conditions. There will be close co-ordination with the Knowledge Base to evaluate and synthesise this information. Groups will acquire their funding from various donors, and carry out activities, with the dialogue process providing a means to gain synergy between these various activities.The final block of activities focuses on communication and awareness raising. It is recognised that to affect public opinion, considerable com munication activities will be required beyond the stakeholders' active involvement in the Dialogue process. To this end, a small group of high level persons will be formed who will act as spokespersons, or Ambassadors, for the Dialogue. The Ambassadors will be particularly active at a select number of milestones. These will include: (a) annual Dialogue meetings at which all participants come together to report progress and exchange experience; (b) the Third and Fourth World I By best practices. we refer to exemplary practices under a given set of social and environ mental conditions. It is not meant to imply that we will identify practices that will be suitable for every location.Water Fora; and (c) other major global milestones including the Bonn In ternational Freshwater Conference, the Johannesburg Summit (Rio+ 10), the ICID Conferences and meetings of the UN Conventions.Health A range of water issues essentially determines the health status of com munities, and human health therefore cuts across the three major areas of the World Water Vision:• In water for the people, the focus is on the lack of safe drinking water and the transmission of diarrhoeal diseases and other gastro-intestinal infections:• In water for food security the focus is on the impact of agricultural water development on the nutritional and health status of affected people and communities. On the whole the impact should be positive because it increases availability and accessibility of food through more production and lower prices. However, instances have been reported where the nutritional status declines in irrigation communities. The impact for hydrological changes caused by reservoirs and irrigation development and the associated consequences for the transmission risk of vector-borne diseases, the risk of increased exposure to pesticide residues and the degradation of groundwater resources through over fertilization need to be assessed.• In water for the environment, the evidence base for associations between natural ecologies, nature conservation and human health still requires substantial development. It is clear, however, that much of the \"environmental services,\" provided, for example, by wetlands, are important to sustain the health of communities depending on these ecosystems.Ecosystem health in river basins often equals community health.The cross-cutting nature of human health through all water issues makes health parameters important among the indicators of success of the Dia logue activities.A broadly held goal is to achieve food and environmental security in a way that reduces poverty. It is possible to achieve national and global food security, and preserve ecosystems, in ways that can either contrib ute to poverty, or reduce poverty. Thus a specific focus must be placed on poverty across all exercises of the dialogue to ensure that issues of the poor are taken into consideration.• In water for food security, water can be managed in such a way that it enhances rural livelihoods through income and employment, and urban livelihoods through readily available low-cost food. Access to water and the benefits derived from water use are incredibly important for the rural poor. In cases of increased competition, access is often taken away from the poor users. In cases of infrastructure development, the impact on the poor is often neglected.• In providing water for environmental sustainability ; the needs of the poor need careful consideration. It is essential that the rural •communities are able to reap the benefits of ecosystem services and participate in decisions regarding the ability to sustain ably and productively utilise ecosystems.• It is usually the poor who will suffer most from water-related health problems.The Dialogue process will have to ensure broad acceptance of its results. Important criteria in designing the process are:• It must be open, clear, transparent and inclusive;• It must involve a broad constituency and explicitly reach out to the \"real\" water users at micro-level-often poor people-who do not have access to the communication channels that participatory processes often rely on;• It must be non-directive and based on voluntary collaboration;• It must be based on bringing together existing initiatives, where possible.It is recognised that actions that have the potential to affect the develop ment and use of water resources will largely have to be taken at the national or local level. It is also recognised that most of the key water issues are already well known at the national level, and that there are al ready many ongoing actions to address these by line agencies, communities, and international funding. Even though integrated water re sources management is broadly accepted as a concept, many people note that in reality, sectoral approaches continue to dominate and that actions taken at the water for food/environment interface may be inadequate. A large number of essentially independent but coordinated national dialogues among stakeholders will be conducted. Organizing committees composed of representatives of both national and international organizations will convene and lead the dialogue.10.-------------~.~.The national-level discussions will include the following specific aims:• Raise awareness about the need and the means to integrate agricultural production and ecosystem maintenance Agencies shop, where these organisations and partners from the countries interested in organising the dialogues jointly develop a framework of Farmers methodology and procedure. It is expected that there will be a preparatory phase in which each organisation may initially be leading its own programmes with emphasis on its own sectoral background in a process that will aim to evolve into a true cross-sectoral dialogue. The initial workshop will line a process that strives for neutral grounds for a dialogue but recognizes practical elements such as willingness of various organisations to facilitate the meetings. Contributions from lClD, among others, have emphasised the importance of linking all \"real\" water ac tors into the national dialogues (figure 2).One of the overwhelming recommendations of the Colombo meeting was that the global debate has to be focused on local issues, and that local stakeholders need to have a much stronger voice. Local dialogue will in clude local perception models, participatory rural appraisal, action learning and other appropriate methods of communication. To make progress towards the extremely difficult goal of direct partici pation of poor water users, rather than their more aft1uent representatives, case study activities are also proposed. These case studies would explic itly focus on ways and means to get direct representation of those normally excluded -the poorest of the poor.Participation of local people calls for information that is relevant and ac cessible. The programme will therefore help to translate key documents into local languages. This will require rigorous translation and editing, in order to avoid confusion of terms and to ensure that the meaning of statements is correctly reflected; distribution of the local language docu ments; and facilitation of discussions at key sites, to be defined through the national debate.At this level, local discussions may centre on key national or international river basins to provide a mechanism to discuss development and man agement of water resources (international basins could also be tackled under the next heading, regional dialogues). In this manner, key water scarcity issues brought about by increasing competition can be addressed taking a basin perspective. It is suggested that 5-10 river basins be se lected to focus on real, on-the-ground problems.It remains essential that local information flows up to the national, re gional and eventually global levels, and that information derived from the global-scale discussions passes down to local levels. One suggestion is to make sure that selected members of local dialogues participate in national and regional dialogues. Material from various dialogues should be prepared in local languages to facilitate use, especially when infor mation passes from global or regional scales to local scales.1.1 Cross-sectoral dialogues at national level on desirable options to achieve food and environmental sustain ability to reduce poverty and hunger and improve health in at least 15-20 countries (workshops, technical reports and public awareness materials).1.2 Dialogues at basin and local levels on desirable options to achieve food and environmental security to reduce poverty and hunger and improve health in at least 5-10 river basins/case study sites (workshops, technical reports and public awareness materials).The Knowledge Base (KB) will serve as a source of credible informa tion for the various Dialogue activities and hence for the process of integrated land and water resources management in general. Several key outputs (such as IWMI's Comprehensive Assessment and IUeN's Water Resources and Wetlands e-Atlas) will provide a global frame of refer ence for evaluation of past development and the generation and evaluation of options for future development and management. Key components of the KB would be formed by ongoing activities (see Annex 1 for descrip tions):The KB would also be the platform to synthesise and evaluate the out comes of a large number of pilot-projects and experiments with action-oriented activities at the basin and local levels, through interac tion based around the KB Website. Knowledge is built by people in possession of information. The KB will endeavour to become a 'com munity of practice' for those concerned with managing food security and environmental sustainability.Knowledge about water, agriculture, socio-economics, and ecology, is mostly sectoral and highly specialised. There has not been adequate con crete action to pool this knowledge to address critical topics. For instance, FAa provides long-term scenarios on food security and UNEP develops global environmental outlooks, but these two exercises have not yet been linked. ,Environmental impacts of the food security scenarios have not been assessed. In previous exercises such as the World Water Vision, it was found that there are also significant knowledge gaps including knowl edge of key processes in addition to gaps in information and data that restrict the extent to which we can formulate or implement policies for the future.The objectives of the KB are to:• To promote open access to shared databases and seek to establish common terminology.• To establish knowledge acceptable by both agricultural and environmental constituencies, particularly on alternative development paths or scenarios and on their consequences and impacts.• To feed information and experience into the dialogue process.The Knowledge Base consists of 3 main components:1. Knowledge support to national and basin dialogues. Through dialogues, important issues and problems that need knowledge support will be identified. The KB should provide tools for analysis, and access to databases and analysis.2. Thematic areas. The knowledge base will support activities along key generic themes that will facilitate dialogue discussions and actions. Thematic areas include improved information, innovative approaches, analysis of interventions, and scenario development.• 133. Dialogue support tools including conceptual and analytic tools that support dialogue activities, and tools to facilitate discussions during the dialogues themselves.In addition, the KB will provide a mechanism for providing common defi nitions of terms, and common indicators to be used throughout the Dialogue process. The KB will support the development of a Clearing house Information system (an \"Exchange\"), providing a mechanism for information networking, and for open access to information generated.This framework calls for the participation of Contributors -those orga nizations, projects, or individuals that are working in the field of water-food-environment. Contributors will manage their own programs, activities, and budgets, and contribute knowledge to fill gaps about the most critical water questions of our times. The Dialogue and Knowledge Base will provide a means of identifying important questions and knowl edge gaps, providing information and a means of networking for Contributors.At the centre of the Dialogue process is a discussion of values-nature conservation, economic development, and national food security. An intervention to use water for food security, for example, has consequences for nature and for people, and their local economies. Individuals will judge its outcomes, based on these values. Future objectives for water use projects will be based on what people value, and assessments of their success or failure will be based on indicators of those values. The Knowledge Base will not attempt to define what values are right or wrong. Rather it will provide a body of information to help people understand to what degree objectives related to values have been met; to help identify and evaluate the societal and environmental consequences of the trade offs and to assist in the process of negotiation between stakeholders.A key function of the Knowledge Base will be to identify and evaluate quantitative and qualitative indicators of these values. For example, the quantity, temporal flow patterns, and quality of water remaining in sur face water bodies might serve as indicators of the health, sustainability, or resilience of aquatic ecosystems and the services that they provide to local communities. In evaluating the societal and ecosystem consequences of past actions, the knowledge base will identify important and contex tual determinants, and use them to construct alternate paths to the future.To develop the indicators, the Dialogue Secretariat will facilitate a pro cess where actors within the knowledge base will interact with the dialogue components to identify determinants at an early stage. As for every other component, there will be close co-operation here with other ------------_.~.,._.~ .actors pursuing similar objectives, such as, the United Nation's World Water Assessment Programme.Obtaining these indicators requires an understanding of the complex in teractions between subsystems at playas shown in figure 3. Technologies and resources have been developed and adopted, and policies imple mented to achieve certain goals-more food production, more income, protection of the environment, and so forth. Human interventions, par ticularly with water and land, tend to have consequences beyond a narrow set of intended results because of the complex interactions between and amongst natural and man-made systems.The focus will be on key drivers that can be changed in order to reach the desired results. The knowledge base will inform the dialogue process through indicators. The dialogue process is the main mechanism to reach policy makers and water managers who ultimately influence the drivers.l -------) The proposed strategy to build the Knowledge Base is to link the sub stantive ongoing activities of the Dialogue Consortium partners and others that want to contribute to the Dialogue. While each of the individual programmes will be responsible for generating their own funding and for managing their own programmes, their participation in the Dialogue will be beneficial to them by providing opportunities for collaboration and cross-fertilisation, presenting results, and obtaining feedback on their programmes.The first Knowledge Base activity was a workshop to define its frame work, methodology, and nature, involving a large number of those who expect to contribute to the Knowledge Base. This workshop was held in August 2001, parallel to the Stockholm Water Symposium.The Knowledge Base is meant to produce output that will significantly improve our knowledge about water needs for ecosystem maintenance and water management for agriculture, and its related impacts on envi ronment, health, poverty and food security. The output will provide key information for policy and investment decisions, and thereby contribute to the long-term objective of positively affecting peoples' lives, food se curity, and the environment. The output of the effort will consist of a rich range of reports, scientific publications, presentations, and multi-media material covering a broad range of topics, and will lead to:• A catalogue of existing knowledge bases and synthesis of knowledge available and knowledge gaps.• Common definitions regarding water, food security, and environmental sustainability, etc. and common indicators of poverty, hunger, health, environmental quality etc.• Established information, analyses, and projections regarding water availability use and requirements for agriculture, environment and other uses, and impacts made available for the Dialogue process.• Scenarios at global, national and basin level concerning alternative options to develop and manage water resources for food security, and environmental sustainability.• Assessment of impacts on food security, hunger, poverty, livelihoods, health, environmental quality and biodiversity of alternative scenarios.Many organisations are currently planning or implementing water-sav ing projects. experimenting with innovative technologies, policies and institutions at scales ranging from household and communities up to the river basin. These range from water-saving competitions organised by ICID's WATSAVE and a GEF project in Central Asia, to small-dam programmes of CARE, the Framework for Action Activities of the GWP and its regional and national organisations, the IPTRID programme, etc.Perhaps even more important than these are the activities with national and private funding that do not receive the same attention as those ob taining international support. It is proposed here that a loose form of co-ordination, exchange of experience, synthesis into the Knowledge Base, and contacts with the various forms of Dialogue, would provide added value to these various activities. The end results would be the iden tification of widely accepted best practices for a variety of situations. and implementation of innovative solutions to solve water for food and en vironment problems.There are many community-level activities taking place that are still fairly sector-bound and restricted in their scope and breadth, but no less im portant in what they are trying to achieve. The practitioners of these small-scale activities often do not have the time and resources, or the ac cess to international networks, to make their experience accessible to others, or to have a structured process in place to draw lessons from their experience. The Dialogue proposes to set up (probably regionally) plat forms through which organisations that implement local action projects may exchange information and experience. This can be implemented through websites, newsletters, workshops and other forms of structured and facilitated information exchange. An example could be the regional workshops focusing on the exchange of cross-sectoral innovative water saving and water resources management experience (possibly linked to the activities of local or regional professional societies). The result of this would be improved coordination and exchange on information and ex perience between sectors. The environmental NGO Both Ends (the Netherlands) is, for example. developing proposals to organise such in formation exchange among NGOs involved in sustainable catchment management.In addition to the exchange of information and experience described above, this experience could be given added value through the identifi cation of best practice. It is proposed to identify groups that have experi ence with local action projects willing to participate in such a synthesis of their experience. The best practice information will generate generic lessons that can be drawn from the local action projects and can be fed into the Knowledge Base. This provides the link through which the local experience becomes more widely available and accessible. The local ac tion information and experience, synthesised in \"best practices\" can also be fed, directly or indirectly (through the Knowledge Base) into the na tional-and local-level dialogues.The international development NGO, CARE has recently agreed to co operate with IWMI to assess its experience with hundreds of small dam projects.'1.1 Exchange of practical experience at the local level among the practitioners.1.2 Synthesis of best practice information based on the experience gained in thousands of local action projects. Better actions taken at the local scales as a result of this interaction.1.3 Inputs of local experience into the dialogue processes at the national and basin/local levels.Communication of the Dialogue results will be crucial to ensure an im pact beyond those directly involved in the process. To this end the Dialogue partners will make efforts to have the water, food and environ ment issues adequately represented at key meetings or milestones as outlined below, and in the media. A key mechanism for the Dialogue would be the public relations activities of eminent personalities-the Dia logue Ambassadors. The activities of the Ambassadors and the representation of Dialogue partners at major meetings will be supported by a professional communications campaign.To raise the public awareness of the issues that come up in the Dialogue process, a number of eminent persons will be asked to act as Dialogue Ambassadors. It is expected that a small number of Ambassadors, at least one from each major region or continent would represent one of the key sectors. These persons would speak for the Dialogue, but will not be reo 'This information is available in CARE archives and through their experienced staff in various country offices but not, to date, analysed by anybody.sponsible for the results. Responsibility for the results remains with the groups carrying out the activities that use the Dialogue process as their joint \"flag\" to increase their impact. The Ambassadors would be particu larly active during or around a number of key events or milestones as described hereafter.All those involved in national dialogues, Knowledge Base activities and local \"action projects would have an opportunity to meet annually. Legiti macy of the whole exercise would derive from those involved in it-there would no longer be an attempt to produce a global-level report with all encompassing authority, other than that derived from those producing such a report (the partners in the effort).The World Water Forum events will be key milestones for the Dialogue process. At the third Forum in Kyoto, Japan in 2003, interim results will be presented through the following type of activities:• Report on Dialogue process.• A discussion forum to address key issues raised during national and local dialogues.• Presentations of key findings of the Knowledge Base such as an assessment of the benefits and costs of irrigation, the importance and contribution to groundwater, key issues in water for food and environmental security.• Presentations on issues about water and health related to food and environmental security.• Various options described and analysed for meeting the objectives of food and environmental security, with discussions on how these can be refined and implemented.• Presentations on local-scale actions related to food and environmental security, drawing out the best practices and the lessons learned.The Fourth World Water Forum, in 2006, would be the final milestone for the Dialogue process. The key results will be:• Report on the results and achievements of regional and local dialogues and results from the knowledge base and activities in the field.• Presentation of results and findings of the Knowledge Base.• Options at global, national and local level described and analysed.• 19There are several other important meetings at which the Dialogue can be represented and through which the water, food, and the environmental issues can be brought to the attention of large groups of stakeholders: • In late 2002, there might be an annual dialogue meeting to review progress for the Third World Water Forum in Kyoto. This meeting may be linked to Ramsar COP8 or the Johannesburg Summit.Additional important platforms will be identified during the process.1.1 Annual Dialogue meetings of all partners and participating organisations that raise the issue on the global political agenda through press releases, interviews and presentations of Dialogue Ambassadors.1.2 Presentations at key meetings: Bonn Freshwater Conference, Rio-10, Third World Water Forum, ICID Congress in Montreal 2003, and meetings of the UN Conventions and others as appropriate.Initial discussions at the Colombo planning and design meeting focused on creating legitimacy for the Dia logue through a new structure (a \"Forum\" through which a large number of stakeholders would be democratically represented)\". Subsequent discussions among the organisations involved in the planning (the Dialogue Working Group) rejected such a Forum as unrealistic, since it would never reach the proper level of representation required for credible outcomes. Instead, the organisations felt that this legitimacy could better be derived from the partner organisations themselves (i.e., the mandates of FAa, UNEP and WHO as UN organisations and the legitimacy of the membership and mandates of the others).The key organising principle of the Dialogue is that all central activities are to be minimised and the responsibilities of the Dialogue partners are to be maximised. The Dialogue is a temporary, project-like organisation and not meant to develop into a permanent structure. The end-date for the Dialogue process is the Fourth World Water Forum in Montreal, in March 2006.The Dialogue partners underwrite the following organising principles:1. The Dialogue activities will focus on building cross-sectoral bridges between planned and ongoing sectoral activities and projects related to water, food/agriculture and environment.2. The Dialogue partners will maintain a small Secretariat for a limited number of central Dialogue activities.The large majority of activities under the Dialogue umbrella will be carried out by the partners to achieve the intermediate and immediate objectives, and managed directly by the implementing agencies.3. The Dialogue partners will jointly raise funds for the central activities, but individually for their activities.4. Central activities will consist of:• a communications programme;• development of methodologies for the key components;• support for development of the key components, particularly the setting up of national Dialogue activities, through workshops and commissioned papers;• loose coordination of activities in all three main blocks; and• synthesis of efforts through commissioned papers where relevant.The eight organisations in the Working Group (FAO, GWP, ICID, mCN, IWMI, UNEP, WHO, WWC) de cided at their first meeting (8-9 March, at FAO in Rome) to work towards establishing a Consortium to implement the Dialogue. Since then WWF and IFAP have joined the group. The Dialogue will be formally ratified through the adoption of arrangements for the establishment of a Consortium. The Consortium part ners will be: (a) international organisations with a considerable stake in the water, food, environment areas, (b) willing and able to contribute significantly to the Dialogue, and (c) add to the breadth and depth of the group. Other organisations that fit these criteria will be able to join the initial eight organisations. There is an identified need to strengthen the initial Consortium with, at least, (a) an organisation representing farmer in terests; (b) another environmental NGO; and (c) an organisation representing private sector interests.The main tasks of the Consortium will be to:1. Manage and supervise the central Dialogue activities.2. Represent the Dialogue to donors, interested parties or the media.3. Promote the development of a central approach and methodology, shared terminology etc. and review of central Dialogue outputs through the appointment of a Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP). Other institutions, agencies and foundations can become formally associated with the Dialogue Consortium as Dialogue Participating Organisations. The intention is to involve organisations and groups that subscribe to the Dialogue objectives and are active at local or basin level. As a result, a movement could be created that promotes integrated land and water development within a framework of environment sustainability. A proce dure for the establishment of such an association will be worked out by the Consortium and through a series of local action workshops.The Dialogue partners will establish a Dialogue Secretariat to coordinate the agreed central Dialogue activi ties. The partners accepted an offer from IWMI to host the Dialogue Secretariat and provide it with office space, office facilities and a seconded senior secretary cum office manager free of charge.The planned staffing of the Secretariat is as follows:1. Director (senior person able to have high level communications with governments and other senior officials of Dialogue stakeholders and partners); The Terms of Reference for the Secretariat and the job description for the Director are annexed to this document.Since the Dialogue will not have its own legal persona, its staff will be contracted by the host-organisation, or one of the Consortium partners, and seconded to the programme. Accounting, administrative and manage ment services will be provided by the host organisation.'The main tasks of the Secretariat are to manage the central Dialogue activities on behalf of the Consortium and specifically to:1. Developand manage the communications programme and support the Dialogue Ambassadors and the Chair.2. Promote the development of, and fundraising for, the main three blocks of Dialogue activities: national and local Dialogues, Knowledge Base and Local Action Platform.3. Organise Dialogue workshops and other meetings.4. Co-ordinate (loosely-primary responsibility remains with the implementing partners) the actions within the three blocks of activities.where the ongoing actions of the Dialogue partners can be aggregated or pulled together for wider audiences.6. Liase with related efforts in the water/agriculture/environment areas and with organisers of the key meetings on behalf of the Consortium.In order to provide quality assurance over centrally commissioned Dialogue outputs and promote the devel opment and quality of the Knowledge Base, the Consortium will establish a Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel. The Panel reports to the Consortium.The Panel will consist of 10-12 \"working level\" scientists, drawn largely from the Dialogue partners from the water, agriculture environment and health fields. The main tasks of the Panel are:1. Develop the methodologies for each of the key Dialogue activity blocks through workshops and possibly commissioned papers.2. Review the quality of the outputs of the central Dialogue activities.3. Form a liaison platform for the key partners in the Knowledge Base.4. Organise an independent peer review process for all Dialogue outputs that the implementing partners submit to it on a voluntary basis.5. Advise the Consortium on areas where further synthesis work would have added value or where new activities are required to fill important holes in the ongoing activities.A Dialogue Sponsor Group will be developed for which Bert Diphoorn of the Netherlands Ministry of For eign Affairs has accepted to be the Chair. Other countries that have shown an interest to participate are, to date, the UK, Japan, Germany, Denmark and Sweden. The Sponsor Group would meet at least annually to review progress of the Dialogue and evaluate funding needs and opportunities. The Dialogue Consortium would jointly submit the proposal for central or core activities to the Sponsor Group. Other activities under the Dialogue umbrella would be submitted by the partners undertaking the activity to the Sponsor Group or individual members. The Sponsor Group will be open to all potential contributors (governments, foundations, corporations) along the lines of the model used by the World Commission on Dams.There will not be a large funding mechanism directed by a group from the Dialogue to redistribute funds to competing proposals. Instead, the Dialogue process will provide a framework to contribute towards major projects, where the various actors will raise their own funds. The central or core Dialogue activities are only a small part of the total Dialogue activities (i.e., the three main blocks of activities) but these are budgeted and funded separately. An overview of the current planned activities is provided in Annex 1. Other organisations are likely to join and add their contributing activities to the Dialogue. An indicative budget on the three blocks of activities is also provided. Planning and design of Knowledge Base Knowledge components (benefits and costs, new The above budget is an indication of the types of activities and order of magnitude of their costs that are expected to be carried out in the framework of the programme. Specific proposals will be developed for the various activities listed, particularly through the design workshops planned for each component. Part of the costs estimated above will be borne by ongoing programmes of the partners, as part of their regular budgets, or through other, related, projects and programmes.AI'JI'JEX 1: Dialogue Activities of the Partners FAOThe dialogue partners agree on the overwhelming importance to launch a series of country and river-basin dialogues to take the debate to locations were the real problems are. FAO has a specific capacity to convene country a~d basin dialogues because of its status as a neutral UN agency supported by member countries, its extensive network of country representations and access to governments and stakeholder organisations alike. FAO would volunteer to organise and conduct consultations in six to eight country or river basin dialogues over the coming 24 months.For the purpose of developing suitable approaches countries and river basins can be clustered into the follow ing categories:• Low-income, water-scarce countries that have a conflict between the food production objectives and environmental objectives. The conflict is mainly about water quantity e.g., diversion for irrigation versus in-stream flow requirements. Important issues are poverty alleviation and national food security. Examples include selected river basins in India and China, Iran. Zambia, Swaziland, others?• Low-income countries having scarce water resources that drain into vulnerable inland water bodies. The conflict is about water quality and quantity. An important issue is the transboundary nature of the water resources. Examples include Lake Chad. Okavango swamps. Lake Malawi.• Countries in transition that have a production and export earning objective. The conflict is mainly about water quality and health. Rivers may drain into vulnerable inland water bodies or affect downstream countries. Examples include Ukraine, Carpathian sub-basin, Mexico, Turkey, Aral Sea countries.FAO will develop specific approaches for each type of cluster. It is assumed that the Dialogue Secretariat will support the effort through provision of conflict resolution methodologies, statistics, and models. Special studies on causes of the conflict and development options will be commissioned in each case. Criteria for the selec tion of case include:• There is a real conflict on water (quantity or quality) and the environment;• There is a potential for win-win solutions or acceptable trade-offs;• Partners are willing to dialogue and prepared to accept wide stakeholder participation;• There is a national institution that is driving the dialogue;• There are linkages to on-going operations of external support agencies (GEF, WB, ADB, FAO-TCP and others for follow-up.Details of the approach will differ from one case to the other. A standard process for a country dialogue could comprise the following steps:• Identification of issues.• Establishment of contacts to national institutions. Establishment of the interest in the dialogue and openness to wide stakeholder participation.• Commissioning of background studies, calibration of models, logframe preferably to small teams of national and international consultants.• Stakeholder dialogue. The external contribution will consist of facilitation, option assessment, and calibrated models to study what/if questions, methods, and translation of key documents.• Establishment of a self-supporting process.• Formulation of proposals for policy reforms or specific action plans.• Monitoring and reporting on the process. Ad-hoc assistance if required.A self-supporting process of dialogue among stakeholders has been established. Rational methods for deci sion-making are used. National water policies have been adjusted. Win-win solutions or acceptable trade-offs have been identified. Action plan formulated and implemented.FAO will contribute to the knowledge base in several ways either through its normative programme or through special studies in the context of the dialogue that requires extra-budgetary support:FAO maintains a database and analytical tools to identify and analyze global trends in food production and food security. This is achieved through continuing work on FIVMIS and FAO-STAT. No additional resources are required.FAO maintains a database on agricultural water use (Aquastat). AQUASTAT consists of verified, country based data that provide information on rural water use. AQUASTAT is complete for all developing countries and five regions. Regular update is required through a network of national correspondents. Some resources are made available through the Regular Programme and in the context of the work on the World Water Devel opment Report.There is an urgent need to independently verify the extent of irrigation in a close to real time mode to supple ment information contained in AQUASTAT. Recent advances in the remote sensing technology are promising. A methodology will be developed and tested in one country to assess the extent of irrigation. Project will be implemented in close cooperation with FAO, IWMI, Bastiansen Institute, NOAA.There is an urgent need to assess the potential of improved rain-fed agriculture using moisture conservation and water harvesting technologies of different kind. A model will be developed that allows the assessment of the potential and of the economic feasibility of water harvesting technologies from existing information on climate, soil, terrain, agro-ecological zones. The model will be applied in Sub-Saharan Africa and dry zones of Asia. The project will be implemented in close cooperation with FAa, IWMI, IHE Delft, UNI Karlsruhe and ICARDA.Much of the recent expansion of irrigated agriculture is based on groundwater use. There is conflicting infor mation on the sustainability of present abstraction rates. Some reports say that 10 percent of the world food production is based on unsustainable groundwater use. It is urgent to consolidate existing information and recommend policy changes that lead to sustainable groundwater use regimes.There is some evidence that irrigation development has a positive effect on poverty alleviation either through directly improving food security of rural households or indirectly through linkages to the service and food processing sector. A study is suggested to establish, and if possible quantify these effects with the objective to provide justification for the redirection of investment back into irrigated agriculture.FAa has already allocated resources and is working on a concept of the study.FAa is willing to share with other partners in and outside of the consortium results of its normative work on water saving in agriculture, water use efficiency in the river basin context. Additional joint studies may be required for consolidation and verification.Water-food security was identified in the FFA as one of five priorities that has to be tackled urgently if the Vision is to be achieved. Unfortunately it was not a prominent issue at The Hague and the GWP will lobby to ensure this is redressed in the Follow-Up process. The GWP aims to bring together partners representing a multi-stakeholder and cross sectoral constituency in order to reduce fragmented water resources planning and management. The Dialogue Consortium thus fulfills GWP's mainstream objectives. In general terms, the GWP will help the Consortium to raise awareness of the water/food/nature dichotomy and promote modern think ing to overcome narrow and entrenched sectoral perceptions and help to overcome institutional barriers to change.The GWP will contribute to various activities at both the central and regional levels that have been planned and included in the GWP Comprehensive Work Programme and FFA Follow-Up for 2001 to 2003. The re gional partnerships will provide a neutral platform for national and regional dialogues and gather information on local actions. Examples of relevant actions include:• GWP Central America has planned to hold a regional workshop and prepare background papers related to the Dialogue.• GWP Central and Eastern Europe plan to hold country consultations, carry out background studies and finally organise a regional Dialogue workshop.• GWP Mediterranean will prepare a special study on water food and environment related to private sector participation in irrigation. MEDTAC and SAMTAC regions will also exchange experiences of irrigation institutional reform.• . GWP South Asia plans to hold dialogues on dams and development.• GWP West Africa will hold local dialogues on key issues.The above list gives the preliminary ideas of the regions following the Wallingford launching meeting and will be developed further as part of the Dialogue process. In addition, all the GWP regions will document initiatives and actions related to the FFA and regional Vision to Action reports including those specific to water, food and environmental security. Funding has already been secured for 2001 to start these activities.At the central level the GWP is examining several inititaives relevant to the Dialogue. Appropriate activities under various GWP Associate Programmes will be fed into the dialogue process. In particular the GWP will work with WWF, IUCN and others to further develop the proposed Associated Programme on ecosystems and IWRM based on the findings of the November 1999 GWP workshop at the Beijer Institute in Stockholm.A draft proposal will also be developed to establish a special study on water, food and trade. The GWP will work with other consortium members and IFPRI. This will bring out-of-the-box players into the Dialogue and help water professionals to understand trade issues and their implications on water management. Experi ences of diversifying economies from agriculture to other sectors will be also included. The GWP will participate in the existing DFID-funded research programmes, such as that for irrigation charging, and incor porate the findings in the dialogue roundtables.Future role of irrigation and drainage in food production and rural development. Support to development of country policies.During the preparation of the Sector Vision on Water for Food and Rural Development, which was prepared for the Second World Water Forum, more than forty National Committees of the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) have prepared Country Position Papers. These papers are available on ICID's web site: www.icid.org. Several of the Country Position Papers were prepared with input from IWMI's PODIUM model. In the past period ICID has prepared in co-operation with FAa, IWMI, IFPRI, IPTRID and The World Bank a proposal for a joint programme on 'Future role of irrigation and drainage in food produc tion and rural development. Support to development of country policies.' The proposal aims at improving the Country Position Papers that were made by the National ICID Committees in conjunction with the improve ment of the PODIUM model of IWMI and the IMPACT model of IFPRI. The proposal has a broader scope than the dialogue. This makes it possible that for the five concerned countries: China, Egypt, India, Mexico and Pakistan the dialogue can be put in a broader perspective as well. The country dialogues as specified in the Dialogue proposal can for the concerned countries be included in this proposal. There is room to add other countries to the proposal as well.The World Bank/IPTRID/ICID/IWMI are developing a project on benchmarking in irrigation. The benchmarking activity has as its major objective to promote benchmarking on a routine basis in irrigation and drainage. agencies, as the Australian ICID Committee is doing perfectly. IPTRID is the driving institution for this activity. At present, fifteen National ICID Committees have agreed to join in this activity. The results of this activity can be reported in the Dialogue as well as they are reported at the annual ICID meetings.ICID's Central Office in New Delhi, India houses a library with 29,000 publications on irrigation, drainage and flood control. This is a tremendous knowledge base. It also includes an incredible amount of congress, conference and workshop papers and articles in ICID Journals over the past 50 years of ICID's existence. All this information can be accessed now through the ICID web site. In addition, ICID offers a Text Delivery Service on its web site. The Text Delivery Service is part of the existing IPTRID network.ICID started in 1993 with its WatSave Work Team. WatSave stands for Water Saving in Irrigation. The team has published various valuable documents. A CD-ROM is in preparation with all relevant information.Sustainable water management is one of the most crucial issues facing farmers today. Therefore, the Interna tional Federation of Agricultural Producers intends to strengthen its work significantly in this field.Farmers are the largest users of fresh water resources, accounting for 70 percent of total demand. They are conscious that demand for water in other sectors is growing, and yet availability of water is critical to achiev ing food security. In this dialogue, IFAP will promote the reconciliation of the demands of the various sectors for water resources, and promote sound policies for water conservation.IFAP participation in the dialogue is important in order to raise awareness among farmers of the scarcity of fresh water resources, and awareness of the technical possibilities available to improve water resource man agement. Moreover, water is more than a factor involved in the process of crop production on irrigated lands.It is a complex resource with implications for the protection of social, economic and environmental fabric in rural areas.IFAP will also make efforts to raise awareness of water, food and environmental issues in international fora, and try to move such issues higher up the international development agenda.IFAP, through its worldwide network, proposes to contribute to the knowledge base in two different areas. These are:1. Equitable access and sustainable supply of water for the poor.2. Developing strategies for sustainable and equitable management of water resources.Other issues could be suggested, as well as sub-themes on the above-mentioned topics.IFAP as an international network bringing together national farmer organisations from throughout the world will gather information and compile data provided by the different national member organisations. The col lected information/data aims at describing farmers' experiences in relation with the above-mentioned topics as well as lessons learned. This work would contribute to the elaboration of a document on farmers' good practices in terms of the efficient use of water in agriculture.This study should be conducted in varied regions of the world in order to give a global picture of these prac tices. Therefore, focal points in certain IFAP member organisations will be chosen to facilitate the completion of the study. The following focal points are proposed:The Philippines, JapanKenya, Uganda Italy, Germany, France, NetherlandsBrazil, Peru, Costa RicaStakeholder platforms at national level IFAP will encourage its national member organisations of farmers to take the initiative in setting up, or par ticipating in, national stakeholder platforms, and water user groups.mCN will be able to contribute the following materials and information to the knowledge base:• Existing !UCN books, reports and documentation on issues and projects;• Environmental flow requirements database and handbook (delivery 2003);• Economic valuation of natural resources handbook (delivery 2003);• Freshwater biodiversity global database and data management system (delivery 2003);• -Regional level datasets and GIS systems for selected regions / countries (existing).Currently, funding is being sought for developing the Water, Food, and Environmental Security component of the Water Resources and Wetlands e-Atlas. Based on discussions during the Knowledge Base workshop addi tional project concepts could be developed.Through its network of members, !UCN can provide inputs and linkages to the Dialogue. A clear linkage can be established for developing synthesis of conflicts on water-agriculture-nature (see above-Knowledge Base) at local levels. A close link can also be established with local groups and actions in demonstration sites of the IUCN Water and Nature Initiative. These sites will be developed over the coming 2 years into 'learning sites' for ecosystem-based river basin management. Agriculture-nature/water issues will feature prominently in these demonstration sites.A substantial amount of work will be needed for synthesising local case studies and for empowering local groups in national dialogues. Further project concepts will be developed over time as appropriate.Comprehensive assessment of water management in agriculture-benefits, costs and future directionsThe main objectives of the Comprehensive Assessment will be to provide rigorous information to inform the scientific community, the general public, and decision makers about key issues of using water for food pro duction that have an impact on livelihoods and environmental security. Through the Comprehensive Assessment, analytical methods will be developed and applied to assess the societal and ecosystem costs and benefits of water use, and to identify and evaluate important trade-offs between water for food security and the environment. The objectives of the Comprehensive Assessment are:• Strengthen the knowledge base on water for food and environmental security.• Address water-food security and environmental trade-offs in an integrated framework through development and application of conceptual, research and assessment tools.• Provide feedback into the Dialogue on Water for Food, Health and Environment that will strive to gain consensus among key stakeholders from the irrigation, environment, and rural development communities on the role irrigated agriculture plays and should play in the future.The Assessment will analyze the past societal and environmental benefits and costs of water management activities for food production. It will update the global situation with a current assessment of key parameters. Then, by learning from the past, and by using an enhanced knowledge base, the Assessment will chart and evaluate potential future directions. The Assessment will be performed at a variety of scales-from the household level to the global level. Information will be required to consider such issues as household food security. Then, in order to understand future scenarios for food production and environmental security, global knowledge is required. Water basin. national, and regional scales are also logical units of analysis for the assessment.The output of the effort will comprise a rich range of reports, scientific publications, presentations, and multi media material covering a broad range of topics. The outputs include:1. A credible and authoritative assessment of past benefits and costs of irrigation as a means of managing water for agriculture.2. Future directions for water management for agriculture explored, quantified, and described with results accessible to policy makers, and the general public• At the global scale• For selected nations and regions• For selected important river basins representing a cross situation of the water management problems and opportunities faced today.3. Definitions, indicators, concepts, and background material related to food and environmental security.4. Case studies to document problems around food and environmental security, and how these were resolved, in order to provide synthesized information to those facing similar problems in similar environments.5. A common framework for understanding water productivity, detailed strategies for increasing the productivity of water in agriculture, and a research agenda for future actions in increasing water productivity from considering water management to genetic material for crops.6. Analytic tools for exploring options and trade-offs at the global, national, and basin scale.7. Significantly advanced data sets on:• The world's irrigated area, including spatial distribution, cropping intensity, and water use.• The contribution of groundwater to agriculture, and the extent of exploitation of groundwater in a non sustainable manner.The output will be achieved through the following activities:1. Background material to provide terminology, indicators, key trends, and reviews of existing literature related to water for food and environmental security.2. Key global trends in water management for agriculture, and the water conservation movement.3. Identification of key interventions to increase agricultural water productivity considering a variety of water management approaches from fully rain-fed to fully irrigated agriculture .4. An in-depth exploration of the benefits and costs of irrigated agriculture, advancing the knowledge from that presented in the World Commission on Dams report, including national-and river-basin level case studies.5. An estimation of the global scale environmental impacts of irrigation development.6. The contribution of irrigation development to poverty alleviation and food security.7. Case studies at river basins and areas of sensitive agriculture-environment interactions to focus on key \"on-the-ground\" issues of water for food and environmental security.8. Documentation of site-specific actions identified in the Actions component of the Dialogue.9. Mapping the world's irrigated areas using remote sensing and ground truthing.10. Estimating the contribution of groundwater to agriculture production, and the degree of unsustainable use.11. Presenting the potential contribution of rain-fed agriculture, water harvesting, and innovative approaches to managing water.12. Reinventing irrigation-a conceptual model to develop alternative scenarios for the future of water management.13. Analyzing options-using modelling techniques to present alternatives to managing water that lead food and environmental security.14. Basin scale options-An analysis of water management options at a basin scale in selected case study sites to help chart future directions.The Comprehensive Assessment will require a variety of partners to carry out the work. The CG System Wide Initiative on Water Management (SWIM) will focus its activities on the Comprehensive Assessment.In addition, a range of partners representing a variety of interests will be required to fulfill the task.FAO is producing the Agriculture Towards 2030 (AT 2030) scenario study. A technical report with the pro jections has been released in 2000; a more comprehensive publication, aimed at a wider audience is being compiled during 2001. The projections are optimized for food security. They are based on detailed informa tion on national agricultural resources and expert judgement of an achievable production-consumption-trade situation by 2030.The nature of the AT 2030 scenario (detailed end vision, no time path) means that a backcasting approach needs to be adopted. This makes the exercise different from the more common explorative scenario studies, like the GEO reports or IPCC-SRES. Backcasting is a specific method. AT 2030 presents a somewhat special case because agriculturally it is already fully defined, with many implied choices in terms of resource use and trade positions.The proposed analysis focuses on the specific challenges and opportunities to realize AT 2030 and its vision of food security, within the envelope of sustainable development. In addition to AT 2030, the 2030 vision needs te> be made more specific on aspects such as demographics, urbanization, income, energy use and cli mate policies. The additions serve to estimate additional claims on resources (for example, land for biofuels and for terrestrial biodiversity), extra strains on the agricultural system that need to be accommodated (for example, risk of land degradation, or climate change), and other key linkages (for example, to water supply in megacities). An initial comparison of inputs to AT 2030 with projections for GEO indicates that land is sues with AT 2030 could be at least as important as fresh water issues.The analysis then works back from the 2030 vision, and identifies challenges and opportunities to public and private policy. It should make use of the spatially detailed underpinning of AT 2030 (the national resources! commodities sheets). The aim is to present conclusions at the level of subcontinents. Challenges and opportu nities can be made visible by confronting the backcast with current trends and/or projections from other scenarios. The analysis should be thought of as a creative and solution-finding process, not as something mechanical.• Scoping study (also usable as issues report during preparations for the 2002 Earth Summit)• Documentation for regional workshops• Final report, technical reports (on paper and web-based)As the global authority on public health, the World Health Organization will be able to provide a number of technical inputs into the Dialogue on Water, Food and Environment that will give direction and substance to the cross-cutting health issues.The scope of these inputs will be broad as a range of health issues relates to water resources development for food security and water conservation for environmental sustainability:• Water-borne and water-washed infections, mainly of the gastro-intestinal type-linked to irrigation schemes and wetland areas where communities lack access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation.• Non-communicable diseases related to acute or long-term exposure to chemicals of a range of toxicity levels, used in irrigated agriculture.• Malnutrition as an exponent of the level of food security and the socio-economic status of communities in irrigated agro-ecosystems and in wetland areas.• Miscellaneous accidents and injuries related to water resources development: drowning, crocodile attack and snake bite WHO contributions will cover technical and managerial issues.With respect to the technical issues, the WHO can provide substantiated evidence for the Dialogue knowl edge base on the economic burden caused by the various diseases related to water and water resources development.WHO will also be in a position to assist in the health impact assessment of the different scenarios for water resources development that will be produced through a number of local or basin-wide dialogues. The Organi zation has the expertise in terms of methodology; procedure and experience to carry out such impact assessments, taking into account community vulnerability, environmental receptivity and the capacity of health institutions. In this connection, close collaboration will be sought with UNEP on the issues where environ mental assessment and health impact assessment interface. WHO can advise on options for measures to reduce health risks and seize health opportunities to a maximum.On the managerial aspects, the World Health Organization has a long standing experience in promoting intersectoral dialogue and intersectoral action for health. Intersectoral collaboration was one of the pillars of the Heath for All Strategy adopted by WHO and UNICEF in Alma Ata in 1977. Efforts to involve other public sectors in health issues have been promoted at the international level (between UN agencies), and at the national level, both in terms of policy review and adjustment and in terms of programme adjustment.During the International Decade on Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation (1980)(1981)(1982)(1983)(1984)(1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)  These experiences and other, all well-documented, can serve as a basis for the development of the national and basin-wide dialogues on water, food and the environment.Following is an overview of the areas of activity where WHO intends to be involved under the Dialogue Ini tiative:• The continued organization of policy seminars on incorporating health considerations into integrated water resources development (such seminars have already been held in Kenya, Benin, Zambia, Malawi and Ecuador)• Institutionalisation in Africa of the training course on intersectoral decision making for health impact assessment of water resources development project (training materials are available, based on development and testing in Zimbabwe, Ghana, Tanzania, Central America and India)• River basin studies that look at health as a comprehensive, cross-cutting issue in the planning and management of basin-wide water resources (such studies were carried out in the early 1990s for the ~ekong, Zambezi and Senegal rivers), an input into the Dialogue knowledge base.• Development of common definitions and indicators: burden of disease (BOD) statistics, BOD attribution and links between environmental and social determinants of health in relation to health indicators.• Health impact assessment of different scenarios for integrated water resources development.• Provision of information through various WHO databases, including the global water supply and sanitation assessment report, drinking water quality guidelines, guidelines on health risk management in the use of waste water in agriculture and aquaculture, the World Health report, WHO Fact sheets and WHO commissioned research.• Synthesis of best practice information on health risk management as part of water resources development and management. Guidelines and decision-making criteria for the use of the various environmental management measures and other health protective and promotional measures. Promotion of best practice through the most appropriate channels to different user groups.Within the WHO a number of clusters and in these clusters, departments will be involved. wwc Proposal for a dialogue on politics and water Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) requires an unprecedented level of political co-operation. Any useful debate can take place only by recognising that water users and policy makers operate in political systems that determine or not whether the new paradigms can be assimilated. In brief, we must learn how to assess and influence political feasibility.One of the parallel workshops at the meeting in Colombo in December on the Dialogue on Water for Food and Environmental Security dealt with the subject of \"Dialogue as a Political Process.\" Participants highlighted the following issues:• Lack of unified voice that could compete with other items on the political agenda;• No understanding of the political rationale and political dynamics involved in setting priorities;• Sector knowledge not constructed and presented to enable creation of political will.As the Food Dialogue process moves ahead there are initiatives where assessing the power structure and po litical processes could be involved. For example, ICID has prepared in co-operation with FAO, IWMI, IFPRI, IPTRID and The World Bank a proposal for a joint programme on 'Future role of irrigation and drainage in food production and rural development: Support to development of country policies'. One of the three major design workshops being planned as part of the Dialogue process has been suggested as 'Integrated land man agement, coping strategies and institutional change related to water management\". Both Ends, Gomukh and other co-ordinating partners are drafting a methodology paper for this effort.To make political and institutional change processes a normal part of addressing water policy reform so that through IWRM citizens of communities, nations and international basins may benefit from environmental se curity while meeting the water requirements of their societies and their economies.• To create awareness within the water community that successful implementation of IWRM policies depends on influencing the power structure and decision makers in the affected communities.• To develop a knowledge base of successful and unsuccessful attempts to create institutional and political environments favorable to the implementation of IWRM.• To conduct pilot activities to identify the institutional and political power structures in some countries or basins, where feasible as a prelude to development of strategies to influence them.Those involved in IWRM must establish an effective dialogue with those who have the power to influence or make the decisions on creating or revising policy. Many ongoing or planned IWRM or river basin manage ment are being led by members of the WWC or are exercises in which both WWC and GWP are participating. Through members of WWC and GWP this programme would co-ordinate its activities with these related ini tiatives.The ultimate beneficiaries of this programme will be the societies who successfully adopt IWRM policies, their economies and their surrounding environments. Primary beneficiaries would include agencies attempt ing to implement IWRM and the international agencies and donor communities who are supporting them.• Knowledge base of successful and unsuccessful attempts to create institutional and political environments favorable to the implementation of IWRM.WWF strongly believes that there is potential, especially for many poor countries, to increase food produc tion without undertaking major new water infrastructure projects.Assuming the availability of resources to support full participation, WWF plans to contribute in three main ways to the Dialogue:1. Contributing to basin, national, and local-level dialogues;2. Raising awareness of the link between ecosystem health, water and food;3. Supporting the development of a knowledge base on these issues;1. Contributing to basin, national, and local-level dialogues WWF suggests that solutions to the challenges of food and environmental insecurity need to be identified at scales relevant to management of freshwater ecosystems: namely basin, national and local levels WWF will contribute to identify effective strategies that help diversify food sources, improve fisheries in rivers and wet lands, promote the water efficiency of crops and the locally adapted crops with high nutrition values, and promote national policies to conserve the water through improved water pricing and allocation.Depending on the resources that can be mobilised, WWF's contribution to the Dialogue process would focus on some or all of the following activities:• Promote field-scale watershed management that improves the soil-water content and ground water recharge, hence leading to higher productivity and less dependence on direct extraction of water from rivers and streams.• Initiate few local-level demonstration projects in regions to show that farm productivity can be enhanced while reducing water use.• Assemble information from the WWF network on experience at the project level that directly or indirectly improves food security while enhancing ecosystem quality.• Evaluate the potential role for food production of applying these techniques more widely (scaling-up to sub-catchments), especially in regions with low or irregular rainfall.• Work in a few priority river basins to assess the contribution of wetlands and river systems towards providing food security for the poorest communities.• Identify suitable strategies to improve the food production without recourse to major water related infrastructure projects.• Target a few commercial crops that use large quantity of water in selected river basins with the aim of maintaining or increasing production whilst setting specific targets to reduce water use e.g. by >20 percent.• As part of national-level dialogues, initiate an exclusive discussion on role of wetlands and rivers in providing food security for the people.• Organise workshops and hearings in selected ecoregions using participatory methods to involve people in defining needs for food security.• Work nationally and at the WTO level to promote a policy environment that enables food and environmental security in the context of increasing globalisation of trade.• Undertake case studies of a few agricultural products to identify national distortions such as subsidies that are damaging from both an economic and environmental perspective.• 41• Identify cases where international trade is driving excessive water use and leading to decline in food production and degradation of ecosystems.WWF would expect to be involved in a range of awareness raising activities specifically concerned with the linkage between freshwater ecosystem health, water and food. These activities could draw on the emerging knowledge and consensus from all aspects of the Dialogue process.This awareness raising would involve:• Identifying key audiences at international, national and river basin levels;• Developing materials designed to get key messages across to these groups;• Opening channels of dialogue with affected or interested groups;• Making specific efforts to bringing the issues to the attention of the public through events, and information campaigns in key countries or regions;• Working to bring public pressure to bear on governments, business, and international institutions to promote the outputs of the Dialogue and the need for positive change.WWF hopes to contribute to the development of this knowledge base in at least the following ways:• Make available all information generated under the activities listed above through its own website (www.panda.org) and to a central knowledge base for the Dialogue;• Provide information on WWF's long experience in different countries on ecosystem management practise;• Provide published information on WWF's work on international policies such as WTO in addressing the broader issues of environmental threats and opportunities;• Provide information about relevant WWF freshwater projects.In outlining some of ideas for the dialogue process above we recognise that not everything will be possible. Depending on the resources available-financial and human-WWF will engage seriously on some of them while supporting partners on other aspects. In addition, WWF will also contribute to the entire Dialogue pro cess by reviewing the documents, providing critical technical inputs in designing some of the dialogues, sharing experiences on the ground.Output 1.1 Cross-sectoral dialogues at national levelon options to achieve food and environmental security to reduce poverty and hunger and improve health in at least 15-20 countries.Output 1.2 Dialogues at basin and locallevel on options to achieve food and environmental security to reduce poverty and hunger and improve health in at least 5-10 river basins I sites.Output 2.1 Common definitions on water security, food security, environmental security, etc. and common indicators of poverty, hunger, health, environmental quality etc. Output 2.2 Credible and authoritative information and analyses on wateravailability, use and requirements for agriculture, environment and associated uses. Output 2.3 Scenarios at global, national and basin levels concerning alternative options to develop and manage water resources for food and environmental security. Output 2.4 Assessment of impacts on food security, hunger, poverty, livelihoods, health, environmental quality and biodiversity of alternative scenarios. ","tokenCount":"13348"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3c33be58567068f8c02809d78a8a7ec5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ae8e61eb-4ce3-4238-b7c2-7e7ad5e8537e/retrieve","id":"-1711051476"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"674d1b55-06da-47bc-bfd8-3a1d8c9fc102","pagecount":"9","content":"Gene flow of transgenes into non-target populations is an important biosafety concern. The case of genetically modified (GM) maize in Mexico has been of particular interest because of the country's status as center of origin and landrace diversity. In contrast to maize in the U.S. and Europe, Mexican landraces form part of an evolving metapopulation in which new genes are subject to evolutionary processes of drift, gene flow and selection. Although these processes are affected by seed management and particularly seed flow, there has been little study into the population genetics of transgenes under traditional seed management. Here, we combine recently compiled data on seed management practices with a spatially explicit population genetic model to evaluate the importance of seed flow as a determinant of the long-term fate of transgenes in traditional seed systems. Seed flow between farmers leads to a much wider diffusion of transgenes than expected by pollen movement alone, but a predominance of seed replacement over seed mixing lowers the probability of detection due to a relative lack of homogenization in spatial frequencies. We find that in spite of the spatial complexities of the modeled system, persistence probabilities under positive selection are estimated quite well by existing theory. Our results have important implications concerning the feasibility of long term transgene monitoring and control in traditional seed systems.Since the introduction of genetically modified (GM) crops in the 1990s, gene flow into non-target populations has been a cause of concern [1][2]. The case of GM maize in Mexico has been of particular interest [3][4] because of the country's status as center of origin and diversification of this important food crop [5][6]. In spite of a national moratorium on the planting of GM maize imposed in 1998, several studies have reported the presence of genetic elements of transgenic origin in populations of Mexican landraces [7][8][9][10].Whereas biosafety issues such as introgression into wild relatives [11][12][13] and contamination of conventional food and seed supplies [14][15] were recognized early on, these reports have drawn attention to a hitherto unappreciated risk: gene flow into the traditional seed system that is typical of smallholder agriculture in the developing world. Unlike commercial farmers, most smallholders recover seed from the previous harvest, and frequently acquire seed from other farmers through a well-structured traditional system of rules, expectations and practices based on family and local social networks [16][17][18][19]. This traditional system effectively links all individual maize populations, or seed lots, into a single evolving metapopulation [20] in which the fate of an escaped transgene is subject to the long-term effects of population genetic processes such as drift, gene flow and selection.All of these processes are determined to a large extent by seed management [21], the collection of farmer practices related to seed sourcing and use, including seed selection, planting, and acquisition [22] [17] [23].Seed acquisition, denoted here as seed flow, is particularly important, as it strongly affects both drift and gene flow in the metapopulation [21]. Previous work has distinguished two forms of seed flow [23]: replacement (i.e. planting a field exclusively with seed obtained from another farmer) and mixing (i.e. planting a field with a mixture of seed saved from the farmer's previous harvest and seed obtained from another farmer), which occur at different frequencies and have contrasting population genetic effects [21]. Replacement is the most common form of seed flow and mainly occurs in response to complete seed loss or when planting for the first time. Mixing is done in response to partial seed loss or as a form of experimentation [23]. Both mixing and replacement can involve seed from either inside or outside the farming community, although the former is much more common [24].Although the importance of seed flow to the issue of transgene escape has been recognized [3] [10], research on agricultural biosafety in maize has been mostly limited to assessing the risk of cross-pollination between adjacent fields [25][26]. Empirical research is currently strongly restricted by biosafety regulations and can only address local and short-term consequences of transgene escape. Modeling studies therefore present an important alternative for exploring the issue of seed mediated gene flow and its implications by simulating future scenarios under contrasting assumptions and conditions on large spatial scales. So far there have been very few simulation studies addressing the effect of seed flow on the parameters relevant to biosafety policy (see [9-10][27] for recent examples).Seed flow may affect biosafety in a number of ways but here we focus on three aspects that we consider particularly importantnamely diffusion, detectability and persistence of a transgene. Diffusion into non-target populations is at the heart of most biosafety concerns. Proposals for release of GM crops in Mexico have been aimed at release in regions of low maize diversity, implicitly assuming that long-distance seed dispersal can be ignored. Another key aspect for GM control is detectability. It has recently been shown that a very localized distribution of transgene frequencies lowers the probability of detection [9], prompting the need to evaluate the effects of seed flow on the spatial frequency distribution. Finally, persistence in response to natural selection is perhaps the most important long-term issue to be evaluated. Transgenes are designed to be agronomically superior in their target system, which, depending on the type of gene, may extend to traditional farming systems as well. While some of the currently available transgenic traits such as herbicide resistance may not be relevant to smallholder farmers if herbicides are not used, others may be, such as transgenes designed for biotic or abiotic stress resistance, like BT genes [3]. Such an advantage would become an evolutionary benefit within traditional seed systems. In classical population genetic models, positive selection increases the probability of a gene escaping extinction caused by genetic drift, leading to indefinite persistence and eventual fixation in the metapopulation. In classical models of undivided populations, this persistence (i.e. fixation) probability is determined by the initial gene frequency and the amount of genetic drift experienced by the metapopulation [28]. The extent to which crop metapopulations deviate from classical models in this respect remains to be established.In this study, we provide a first example of using data on farmer-mediated seed flow to model the diffusion, detectability and persistence of a transgene. As an illustrative case study, we evaluate the long-term spatial dynamics of localized transgene introduction by modeling the recurrent growing of GM maize at a single location over 100 planting cycles, with the exception of the evaluation of persistence for which a one-time introduction is assumed. We use recently-compiled data [24] on traditional maize seed management in Mexico to parameterize a spatially-explicit, stochastic model describing the population genetics of a maize metapopulation subject to pollen and seed flow. This metapopulation consists of individual fields/seed lots cultivated within villages of which only a single central village is a cite of primary planting of GM maize (Figure 1). We consider only unconscious diffusion by excluding primary GM maize as a seed source, restricting the initial influx of transgenes into the metapopulation to be pollen mediated.We evaluate the effect of substantial variations in seed flow parameters, with and without positive selection, by simulating five contrasting scenarios, one of which corresponds to the observed patterns of seed management in our sample of farmers and four that deviate from them in one or more seed flow parameters (Table 1). These scenarios assume constant pollen flow and combine three rates of seed mixing, two of seed replacement and two proportions of between-village seed flow, thereby providing a broad but manageable range of seed management conditions.We intend to demonstrate the value of explicit modeling of seed management when making predictions about the fate of escaped transgenes in landrace populations under proposed scenarios of introduction. We hope that our results will contribute to improved risk assessment and biomonitoring at centers of crop origin and in regions where traditional agriculture and diverse landraces dominate crop production systems.Recurrent planting of GM maize is expected to lead to the accumulation of transgenes in the metapopulation with a spatial distribution determined by the patterns of gene flow. In the absence of selection, the increase in transgene frequency is relatively insensitive to the specifics of seed flow (Figure 2). Under all five seed flow scenarios, gene frequency increases linearly at a rate somewhat inferior to the theoretical maximum expected for an infinite population undergoing recurrent influx of transgenic pollen (See methods). Under positive selection the effect of differences in seed flow parameters become visible, particularly for the highest selection coefficient of 0.05. Including seed flow leads to a faster increase in transgene frequency compared to the scenario without seed flow (scenario 1, Table 2). The introduction of seed mixing (scenario 2, Table 2) has a limited effect compared to the introduction of seed replacement (scenario 3-5, Table 2), probably due to the relatively low frequency of occurrence of the former. Increasing the frequency of introduction of seed from outside the village (scenario 4, Table 2) also leads to faster accumulation of transgenes, at the same total level of mixing and replacement. For the scenario with the highest frequencies of mixing, replacement and introduction of non-local seed (scenario 5, Table 2) the rate of accumulation approaches the theoretical maximum expected in an infinite population under constant influx and positive selection (See methods).The number of affected farmers (i.e. whose fields contain more than 1% transgenic plants) responds more strongly to changes in seed flow parameters, regardless of the selection coefficient (Figure 2). In terms of both frequency and number of affected farmers, the difference between the zero seed flow scenario (1, Table 2) and the scenario with only seed mixing (scenario 2, Table 2) is small, however, again suggesting that at realistic rates seed replacement plays a more dominant role in transgene diffusion.As expected, seed mixing and replacement strongly affect the spatial distribution of transgenes (Figure 3). Whereas under the zero seed flow scenario (scenario 1, Table 2) transgene presence beyond three km from the focus of introduction after 100 years is negligible, the introduction of seed mixing and especially replacement leads to a much more even frequency distribution throughout the metapopulation, particularly when positive selection is strong. For scenario 3 (corresponding to realistic parameter values, Table 2) under the three selection coefficients (0, 0.01, 0.05), respective transgene frequencies of 2 10 25 , 3 10 25 and 5 10 24 , and fractions of affected farmers of 6 10 24 , 1 10 23 and 3 10 22 , are found as far as 50 km from the release site (Figure 3.). In terms of absolute numbers, more than ten million transgenic plants would grow at 50 or more kilometers from the point of introduction at the highest selection level, with more than 900 fields containing in excess of 1% transgenic plants.  Using a published biomonitoring scheme, consisting of 3 fields sampled for 50 random villages [29], we take repeated samples from the simulated metapopulation at 50 planting cycles after the cessation of 100 cycles of GM maize cultivation. We then measure the probability of transgene detection as the fraction of samples that contains at least one transgene. Detection results for the five seed flow scenarios without selection confirm earlier suggestions that seed flow may affect detectability of transgenes at a given frequency by increasing spatial homogeneity of transgene frequencies [9] (Table 3). As shown by the diffusion results above, in the absence of seed flow the spatial distribution of transgenes is highly skewed, meaning that a small number of fields close the source of introduction will contain high frequencies while those further away will have extremely low frequencies (Figure 3). This skewed distribution causes the observed detection probability to fall far below that expected based on conventional estimates that assume a homogenous population [29] (see methods). As seed mixing, replacement and between villages seed flow is introduced, the probability of detection also increases. However, only for the high seed flow scenario with 28 percent mixing does the detection rate begin to approach conventional expectations. Importantly, under realistic patterns of seed mixing (scenario 3, Table 2), the detection rate is only 0.14 instead of 0.74 as expected, reflecting the limited amount of homogenization associated with seed replacement compared to seed mixing.Positive selection will inevitably lead to the long term persistence of a transgene unless random fluctuations in frequency, as a result of finite population size, are strong enough to cause the extinction of the gene. Starting from the low transgene frequency after a single cycle of planting of GM maize, the five scenarios and three selection levels show considerable variation in the probability of the transgene to persist indefinitely in the metapopulation (Table 4). Under a classical model of a single undivided population, such variation should reflect differences in metapopulation effective size (N e ), a determinant of the amount of genetic drift [28]. Recent theory may be used to estimate N e for the five scenarios [21] (see methods) and substituting these estimates into the classical model indeed leads to rather precise prediction of the persistence probabilities observed for our model.As expected, the highest estimated N e is found in the absence of mixing and replacement (Scenario 1, Table 2), translating into probabilities of persistence close to 100 percent due to the low levels of genetic drift. the scenarios with 28 percent seed replacement and 2 percent mixing (Scenarios 3 and 4, Table 2) have the lowest N e and therefore relatively low probabilities of persistence. It is interesting that of the latter two scenarios the one corresponding to the observed seed management data (Scenario 3) deviates somewhat more from theoretical predictions than the scenario with higher rates of between-village seed flow (Scenario 4), in spite of having the same predicted N e . This points to a small but unexpected effect of the simulated village structure that cannot be accounted for by existing theory.Predicting and managing the spread of transgenes beyond the target seed supply is of great importance for biosafety. Recent developments expanding the use of transgenes in crop plants to include the production of pharmaceuticals and other chemicals [30] have only increased the need for adequate evaluation of biosafety risks. Past experiences have shown that even within the commercial seed sector, preventing the intermixing of transgenic and conventional seed stock can be difficult [15]. The challenges of managing transgene flow in traditional seed systems in centers of crop origin are particularly daunting. Our study presents the first attempt to evaluate the potential importance of seed flow for the long-term fate of a transgene in a large crop metapopulation. By combining quantitative observations on traditional maize seed systems with a spatially explicit model, we are able to predict how deviations from observed practice may change the outcome of the introduction of a novel gene in terms of its diffusion, detectability and persistence. Our approach is a significant improvement over previous modeling studies that did not consider population genetics or seed management practices [31]  [10].As expected [3], seed flow is an important determinant of the population genetics of a transgenic element. Although in the absence of selection, seed mixing and replacement have a limited effect on the total frequency of the transgene, observed levels of replacement greatly affect the spatial distribution of the gene and the number of affected farmers. When selection is present, the frequency of mixing and replacement and the use of non-local seed sources notably influence the expected frequency of the transgene. Replacement, being the most common form of seed flow, thereby having the strongest effect.Even though farmers predominantly rely on local seed sources, infrequent long-distance flow causes transgenes to spread much further than would be expected in the absence of seed flow. It is    Although seed flow greatly increases the spatial diffusion of transgenes, the observed predominance of seed replacement over seed mixing translates into a limited rate of homogenization at the metapopulation level. In practical terms this means that true detection probabilities will be much lower than expected based on conventional calculations that assume a homogenous distribution [29]. In our case, only the scenario where seed mixing was equally frequent as replacement yielded a detection probability approaching theoretical expectations.An important result from our simulations is that in spite of the complex spatial structure represented by our metapopulation, the probability of persistence of a transgene of known frequency and selective advantage is relatively well predicted by existing theory [28]. For the parameter ranges studied here, most of the variation in persistence probability at a given level of selection is explained by effective size as predicted from the model parameters using a recent mathematical crop metapopulation model [21]. The slight discrepancy observed between scenarios 3 and 4, in spite of their identical predicted population sizes, is the only instance where our model predictions deviate from theoretical expectations. Scenario 4 assumes unlimited seed flow between villages as in the mathematical model, while between-village seed flow is restricted in scenario 4. The fact that persistence in scenario 4 better fits theoretical predictions thus suggests that spatial restricted seed flow may cause an increase in effective size.These results show that it is possible to make quantitative statements on the fate of transgenes, albeit under admittedly unrealistic assumptions of long-term persistence of the traditional maize production system. For example, given an approximate number of about 3 million small-scale maize farmers in Mexico [32], a rough theoretical estimate of the effective population size would be on the order of 100 million. This means that for a transgene with a selective advantage of 0.01, frequencies would have to remain below 10 28 to have a less than 5% chance of persistence. Detecting a single transgene at such frequencies with 95% probability would require testing around 750,000 maize ears under the assumption of homogeneity. Considering that true detection probabilities are much lower due to the uneven distribution of transgenes, it is unlikely that monitoring and controlling a selectively favored transgene would be feasible.In all model predictions, selection is a key parameter. Although our simulated selection levels are within the range of published estimates for maize genes [33][34], we know very little about the potential fitness effects of different transgenes. Since transgenes are designed to be agronomically favorable and of large effect it is not unlikely that some are subject to strong positive selection, although others may turn out to be effectively neutral within traditional agro-ecosystems. Determining selective coefficients of particular transgenes under realistic conditions will thus be pivotal for designing sound detection and biosafety schemes and regulations and should be a research priority for an evidence-based biosafety system.In this paper we have explored a limited and rather conservative example of transgene presence and diffusion to demonstrate the interaction between farmer practice and the population genetics of a new and rare genetic element. We have not tried to represent more extreme scenarios of transgene introduction such as may be occurring now or in the near future. Our analysis of the metapopulation dynamics of newly-introduced genes in traditional seed systems is by no means exhaustive. There are obviously many more scenarios and parameter combinations that may be explored, and there may be relevant aspects of seed management and that we have not included. Although the basic patterns of seed flow, such as localized exchange and predominance of seed replacement, will be similar for most traditional farming systems, it is likely that aspects of seed management vary by geography and environment [35]  [24]. Some regions may for example have a tighter integration of traditional and modern seed systems than we have assumed [36], which would imply the occurrence of seed mixing between conventional and transgenic stock and faster transgene diffusion than predicted here. Nonetheless, we hope to have shown that knowledge on seed management is of great relevance for predicting the possible outcome of proposed scenarios of transgene release and is essential for establishing a rigorous and quantitative framework for biosafety policies.Our computational model extends recent population genetic models of traditional seed systems [9] [21] by providing spatially explicit representation of villages as well as long distance seed dispersal with a user-determined dispersal kernel. We simulate the temporal dynamics of a single, bi-allelic locus in a square grid of n fields assigned to k villages (Figure 1) where neighboring fields are connected by pollen and seed flow that can take place both within and between villages. Fields subject to primary planting of GM maize are assigned a starting frequency, p = 0.5, of the transgenic allele. Recurrent planting of GM maize, such as assumed for the evaluations of diffusion and detectability, is modeled by resetting their frequency to 0.5 in each generation. The frequency change for each field in each generation is then modeled in four consecutive stages, where in each stage the starting frequency is designated by p and the new frequency by p*:Pollen flow is assumed to be deterministic. Fields receive a proportion m g of its genes from their g neighbors. The number of neighbors may be trimmed for the sake of realism. Fields at the corners and borders of the grid have two and three neighbors respectively. For a single field, transgene frequency after pollination is given by:with g # 4.Selection is also modeled deterministically under the assumption of complete dominance. Gene frequency after selection becomes:Each field is planted with F ears bearing K kernels, totaling N = FK diploid plants. We assume random mating within fields and F,,N so that the genetic sampling process is appropriately described as taking male and female gametes with replacement. Gene frequency in the paternal contribution to the next generation is given by:Whereas the frequency in the female contribution is:The double sampling describes the generation of N haploid gametes from F diploid ears. The post-drift gene frequency for each field is simply:Seed flow occurs by mixing and replacement, respectively. For both types of seed flow there is a single seed source for each receiving field in each generation. Replacement occurs with a probability e and involves replacement of the entire seed lot with that of another farmer. Transgenic frequency after replacement is given by p à ~pi . Where p i is the frequency in the source field. Mixing takes place with a probability m and involves supplementing a fraction m of the native seed lot with seed from a another farmer. Frequency after mixing thus becomes:p à ~p 1{m ð Þzmp i . Seed sources are chosen randomly from non-replaced seed lots from within or from outside the village with probabilities V and (1-V) respectively. Each source outside the village is defined by a random angle d from a uniform distribution and a random distance d (according to a chosen dispersal kernel). If a replaced or primary GM maize seed lot is chosen or if the coordinates fall within the same village or outside the grid, a new random source is selected. The exclusion of GM maize seed lots as seed sources, imposed to model unconscious diffusion, can obviously be lifted if so desired. Source code of our model is available upon request.Seed management data. To obtain estimates for seed related model parameters we used raw data from a recently published socioeconomic survey [24] that was carried out in 2003 with the heads (i.e. the person making decisions on domestic and farm issues) of 400 randomly-selected maize-producing households at 20 sites (20 households per site) randomly selected among 46 municipalities comprised in four transects across an altitudinal gradient from 10 to 2980 masl in five states in Central Mexico.All maize farmers interviewed relied on traditional seed systems and planted mostly landraces, although some of them had experimented with improved varieties as well. In addition to socio-economic data, this survey contained questions specific to maize seed management such as quantities, geographic origins and history of the seed planted. Estimates of pollen flow were taken from the literature [26]. Because most parameters differed substantially between maize-growing environments and in order to represent a single environment, only data for the highland environment was used, with the exception of seed source distances, which were obtained from the full dataset to assure sufficient sample size. The parameter estimates derived from these data are presented in Table 1. The reported distances of seed sources confirmed a prevalence of local seed flow with rare instances of long-distance seed flow, as reported in other studies. We fit a lognormal distribution to observed distances using the fitdistr routine contained in the MASS package of the R statistical software [37]. Seed flow distances between villages in our model were set to correspond to real between-village distances by scaling the average between-village distance in our simulations to match the average neighbor distance in a Delaunay triangulation of the coordinates of 911 mapped highland villages (.300 inhabitants) in a rectangular section of the study region (information: INEGI, http://www.inegi.org.mx).Our simulated metapopulation contained one million fields divided equally over 10,000 villages, with a single village in the center containing 33 fields planted with GM maize. We explored five different scenarios of seed flow (Table 1), covering a wide range of seed management types ranging from the complete absence of seed flow to a high seed flow scenario of 28 percent seed replacement and mixing and a 99.99 percent probability of between-village flow. Scenario number three represented the observed seed management parameters as estimated from our survey data, i.e. infrequent seed mixing, frequent seed replacement and predominantly local seed flow. For the evaluation of transgene diffusion, continuous planting by the same 33 farmers was simulated for 100 generations and the results averaged over 100 replications. We tested selection coefficients of 0, 0.01 and 0.05. The expected maximum rate of transgene frequency increase in an undivided population of infinite size is simply the deterministic increase caused by pollen flow from positive fields and positive selection, represented by: Dp~n p gm g n {1 zsp:For the detectability evaluation the five scenarios were simulated in the absence of selection (s = 0), for 150 generations with planting of GM maize by 33 farmers ceased after 100 generations. For each replication, 10,000 samples were simulated, consisting of 50 randomly-selected villages, three fields per village, seven ears per field and 165 seeds per ear. This sampling scheme was designed to be quantitatively similar to Ortiz-Garcia et al. [29] in their 2003-2004 biomonitoring survey of Mexican landraces. Detection was modeled as a set of Bernoulli trials, in which each sampled field has a probability of detection of 1{ 1{p ð Þ n , where n~2F zFK ð Þ [9], and p is the transgene frequency in that field. The expected overall detection probability under the assumption of homogeneous frequencies is simply given by the above formula with F and K replaced by the total number of sampled ears and kernels respectively and by replacing p by the mean transgene frequency in the metapopulation [29].Theoretical expectations for persistence are represented by u~1 {e {4Nesp 1{e {4Nes [28], where u is the persistence (or fixation) probability and N e is the variance effective population size. Given p and s, higher values of N e lead to higher persistence probabilities because of a lower chance of losing the new gene due to drift. N e was calculated as the long-term N e derived from the mean coalescent time T (N e = 2T), given by the crop metapopulation model by van Heerwaarden et al. 2010 [21], with model parameters set as in Table 1.For the evaluation of persistence a smaller metapopulation of only 100 villages was simulated to limit computational time. In this case 1000 replications were run of a single planting cycle of GM maize by 33 farmers, leading to a starting frequency of p = 1.24610 25 . Selection was set to 0.005, 0.01 and 0.05. Simulations were run until transgene frequency reached either 0 (extinction) or 0.001 (persistence). The threshold value of 0.001 for persistence was used to limit computational time and based on the fact that for this frequency the probability of fixation approaches unity under realistic values of N e .","tokenCount":"4653"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"479b05073ffeb7b5f5c6bb1105dd4d30","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://unesdoc.unesco.org/in/rest/annotationSVC/DownloadWatermarkedAttachment/attach_import_8b688c34-0057-4591-9763-c77c994c72e1?_=133098eng.pdf","id":"177780843"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"9a9b7173-b765-4c9f-b513-fc994985179a","pagecount":"39","content":"The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city, or area of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The opinions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors and do not commit any Organization.Wild populations of the Afromontane forest tree Prunus africana (Rosaceae), known as the African Cherry or Red Stinkwood (sometimes called Pygeum africanum) are currently the sole source of bark and bark extract exported from Africa and Madagascar to Europe. This trade has taken place for nearly 30 years, for production of at least 19 different herbal preparations sold by 23 companies based primarily in Europe, but also in North and South America. These are used to treat benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH), a common disease in older men. This account provides an interesting case-study of a medicinal species which is in transition from wild harvest to cultivated sources of supply. It also illustrates the 'ecological footprint' of Europe on African forests, and upon a medicinal resource within them.Bark exploitation has caused serious damage to wild populations of Prunus africana, including trees inside forests of high conservation value in Madagascar and Cameroon. Because of the difficulty of implementing and enforcing conservation measures or developing local institutions to do so, sustainable bark harvesting of remaining wild stocks by local communities is considered unlikely in Cameroon and in Madagascar. For these reasons, cultivation has been suggested as an alternative source of bark production.This study investigated the economic feasibility of different planting systems (enrichment planting, small-scale farming and plantations) for Prunus africana cultivation. As part of this process, we investigated Prunus africana bark production and growth rates, finding statistically significant correlations between bark thickness, diameter at breast height (dbh) and tree height. Prunus africana showed rapid growth, reaching 14m high and 37cm dbh in 18 years. Results of a comparison between the flow of costs and benefits from small-scale production of Prunus africana and Eucalyptus camaldulensis show that Eucalyptus camaldulensis cultivation is 30% more profitable than Prunus africana production. But there are reasons why farmers might rather invest in Prunus africana instead of, or in addition to, Eucalyptus trees: Prunus africana is highly valued as an ingredient in many local medicinal treatments, it is used in making tools such as hoes and axes, and it is a good source of poles and firewood. Moreover, farmers and field observation indicated that with the possible exception of maize, crop yield is not much affected by the presence of Prunus africana in the fields. This contrasts with the depressive effect of Eucalyptus trees on crop yields. In North West Province, Cameroon, at least 3,500 farmers are already planting Prunus africana.Bark price is affected by moisture content, distance from the factory and the monopoly, which the company has had on export of bark and bark extract. This study determined bark moisture content to be 42-50%. In rural Cameroon, intermediaries only pay 70 FCFA (0.14 US$) per kg of Prunus africana bark, equivalent to about US$ 142 per ton of fresh bark. At the factory gate, bark sells for 104-270 FCFA francs per kg (in 1994, 1 US$ = 490 CFA), depending on bark moisture content and quality, equivalent to US$ 212 -551 per ton. Higher prices were paid for bark in Cameroon in 1994, when an Italian company paid 250 FCFA francs/kg, regardless of bark moisture content (US$510 per ton of fresh bark). In Kenya, the price paid to the exporter was considerably higher (11 French francs (US$ 2) per kg). This is equivalent to a price of US$ 2,000 per ton of fresh bark. By comparison, the price for fresh bark of the black wattle, Acacia mearnsii, which is cultivated for its tannin-rich bark, was US$ 94 per ton.On the basis of this study, we recommend clarification of Cameroon forestry law to enable farmers to sell bark from Prunus africana trees they cultivate, that information on the best methods for Prunus africana cultivation from seed be provided to farmers, more competitive bark prices that reflect the international market value of this product, and the initiation of an out-grower scheme with the involvement of the pharmaceutical company that buys the bark and has a monopoly on the export of bark extract.Traded internationally, and harvested from the wild, Prunus africana is hardly a 'minor forest product'. The quantity of bark (dried or extract) that is exploited annually for export to Europe ranges between 3,900 tons. This is the largest volume of any African medicinal plant in international trade, and provides a case-study with practical implications for policy on harvesting and sale of forest products. Neither the uncontrolled harvesting of wild Prunus africana populations, nor tree cultivation as one alternative to wild harvest are easy problems to resolve.From the early 1970s, bark or bark extract of the Afromontane forest tree Prunus africana [formerly Pygeum africanum] has been exported from Africa (Cameroon, Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, the former Zaire), Kenya, Uganda (until 1992) (Cunningham et al., 1997). More recently, export started from Bioko (Equatorial Guinea) (Sunderland and Tako, 1999) to Europe (France, Italy, Spain). Bark or partly-processed bark extract is used either to produce herbal preparations or is re-exported to other companies in Europe, North or South America (Cunningham et al., 1997). These products are sold to treat benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH), a debilitating ailment common in older men which is eased through the anti-inflammatory effect of Prunus africana extract on prostatic tissue and inhibition of bladder hyperactivity (Breza et al., 1998;Chatelain, Autet and Brackman, 1999;Paubert-Braquet et al., 1994).Current international export demand for Prunus africana bark, primarily to Europe, is over 3,000 tons per year. Nearly two-thirds of this is harvested in Cameroon (Cunningham and Mbenkum, 1993). Although a small proportion of unprocessed, dried bark is exported from Cameroon, most bark exploited in Cameroon and Madagascar is processed locally to produce an extract, which is then exported to Italy and France. By contrast, only unprocessed, dried bark is exported from Kenya and the DRC to Belgium and France.Although this trade is a useful source of foreign exchange to these African countries, it has had a devastating effect on the wild populations that are the sole source of Prunus africana bark (Cunningham and Mbenkum, 1993;Walter and Rakotonirina, 1995). The limited distribution of Prunus africana also means that demand for bark is focussed on a limited area of forest. The species is restricted to Afromontane forest 'islands' which are generally above 1,500 -2,000 m altitude. The small size of these 'islands' has been further reduced by agricultural clearing, which is the major threat to Afromontane forests. It is these remaining Afromontane forests that are the current focus of Prunus africana bark exploitation. As a result, already isolated populations on montane islands are becoming further isolated due to the destruction of almost all large, reproductively mature trees from intervening 'islands'. The worst affected are also the most genetically unusual -for example the Madagascan Prunus africana populations (Dawson and Powell, 1999). As a result, this species was listed in Appendix II of the the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which requires monitoring of Prunus africana bark exports.Sustainable harvest of Prunus africana bark was attempted by Plantecam in Cameroon, particularly between 1972 and1987. This was based on a system of bark removal from opposing quarters of the tree trunk. Although this reduces the rate of tree mortality, field observation and a recent quantitative study show that this method frequently causes crown death. In practice, poor bark regrowth in dry sites leads to wood-borer and fungal attack on these trees. In moist sites, bark regrowth is better, but crown death of Prunus africana trees still occurs. At a local level, Prunus africana is a multiple-use species commonly used by local people for axe and hoehandles, for traditional medicinal purposes or, more recently, as seed source for cultivation. In Cameroon, Prunus africana bark exploitation is focussed, despite their 'protected' status, on the three forests rated by Collar and Stuart (1988) as most important for bird conservation (Mt. Oku, Mt. Cameroon and Mt. Kupe). Felling or debarking and die-off of trees is therefore an issue of local, national and international concern (Cunningham and Mbenkum, 1993;Walter and Rakotonirina, 1995).Several recent reports have drawn attention to these conservation problems and suggested cultivation as a possible solution in order to take harvesting pressure off wild stocks (Besong et al., 1991;Cunningham and Mbenkum, 1993). Whether this is a practical option or not depends on the economic viability of Prunus africana cultivation.The aim of this study was to investigate the economic feasibility of different planting systems (enrichment planting, small-scale farming and plantations) for Prunus africana as an alternative to the current overexploitation of wild populations.   1977, 1979 and 1987. As a former worker for Plantecam from the Vekovi area near Jakiri in NW Cameroon, he has been planting trees amongst coffee, avocado, coco-yam and potato cultivation with great success. The largest of these trees at 18 yr old is 37.6c m DBH and 13.5 m high with bark 14 mm thick. Forty trees were measured on this farm for DBH, height and bark thickness, with a statistically significant sample of trees from the 1987 planting.(iv) A small plantation trial at Buea (60° 12' 90° 25'), South West Province (900 m asl): This planting, of approx. 2 ha, was made by Plantecam on land provided by the 'Office National des Eauxs et des Forets' (ONADEF) as part of the Special Licence requirement for Plantecam to plant 5 ha per year of their licence agreement. Although this requirement was not fulfilled, this 1987 planting provides a useful comparison with other sites of known date of planting. This planting is in a field where local farmers cultivate cassava, coco-yam, beans, maize, Dioscorea yam and bananas. Prunus africana trees upslope of this field have clearly been affected by competition with elephant grass. Twenty-two trees were measured for DBH, height and bark thickness.(v) Wild trees, Mt Kilum, North West Province, Cameroon (60° 15' 100° 26') (2,380 m asl): Fifty-two trees were measured for DBH and bark thickness, with height measurements possible for 24 trees. The clear crown die-off predominant even in trees which had been 'correctly' debarked by Plantecam staff about eight years earlier and which had fully regrown their bark, gives additional cause to doubt the long-term sustainability of wild harvest of bark.The mean annual rainfall at the Oku, Vekovi and Dschang sites is 2,000-2,500 mm per year, considerably lower than the forested base of Mt. Cameroon, which falls within the narrow band of high rainfall adjacent to the Gulf of Biafra, where annual rainfall exceeds 8,000 mm per year. Soils on the Bamenda highlands, and the Oku area are derived from recent volcanic deposits (andesitic basalts and trachyte rhyolites) and older, less fertile crystalline basement rocks. Mt. Cameroon, which is still an active volcano, is surrounded by fertile soils derived from volcanic activity. The cool, mountain highlands where Prunus africana occurs in Cameroon are all densely populated. The three study areas, Oku/Mt. Kilum, Ntingue/Dschang and Buea/Mt. Cameroon, all have similar biophysical features. However, the areas are very different in terms of their 'traditional' political systems, culture, history and infrastructure. These are represented by the fons of the Tikar and Bamileke peoples, respectively found in the Mt. Kilum and Dschang study areas, and the Bakweri people living around Mt. Cameroon.Tikar people dominate the Bui division, which includes Oku and western Nso. They consider themselves to be ancestors of the Bamum and other peoples of the Bamenda highlands. Both the Tikar and the Bamileke (who dominate the Dschang study area) are organised into chiefdoms (fondoms), ranging from single villages to areas covering many villages. Chieftainships are hereditary, with local fons ruling their communities in collaboration with traditional councils. In general, the chiefs and councils have much more power and authority in dealing with local issues, such as minor criminal offences and land disputes, than do civil authorities. Traditional community leadership is stronger and communities more homogenous in the Oku-western Nso area than in the Dschang area, and is weakest around Mt Cameroon. By contrast with the long history of hereditary Tikar, Bamum and Bamileke fons with authority over large communities, the Bakweri had a segmentary social organisation, comprising small family villages under the authority of a few elders ('chiefs') until the start of the colonial period. It was only during British rule, in 1914, that a chieftaincy was instituted for all the Bakweri, with the title granted to the Endeley family of Buea under the British system of indirect rule (Geschiere, 1993). These differences in institutional structure have important implications for the community-based natural resource management programmes discussed later in this paper. Two other factors are important in this regard. First, large-scale oil palm and rubber plantations were rapidly established on the fertile volcanic plain between Mt. Cameroon and the sea by the German and later, by the British administration, displacing the Bakweri community around the base of Mt. Cameroon. Secondly, the influx of 'strangers' into the Bakweri community, even before 1900, also had an effect on natural resource management.The main objective of the households in the rural areas of this study is to obtain a reliable supply of preferred foods throughout the year. The next most important objective is to earn cash. Maize is the principle food staple. Other important food crops include potato (Solanum tuberosum), beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), huckleberry (Solanum nigrum), coco-yam (Colocasia esculenta), cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata), sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), and sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum). Coffee (Coffea arabica) is the primary cash crop; many farmers also grow Eucalyptus in woodlots. Food crops are also sold. Livestock are few and are usually limited to chickens and goats, kept mostly for security (selling to meet urgent cash needs) or for ceremonial purposes. Women provide the bulk of agricultural labour and are generally responsible for the cultivation of annual food crops. They also assist in the growing of tree crops, which is mainly done by men. Families generally live in villages, cultivating small plots around their homesteads and larger plots some distance away. Permanent crops, such as coffee, tend to be grown in fields near to the homestead, with strict tenure exerted over them by the farming family. Annual food crops are mostly grown on the further away fields, which are communally owned and which are administered by the chief and council. Rights to use these lands may be temporary or permanent. Cultivable land is extremely scarce in most parts of the study area. As a result, fields are cropped continuously, and soil fertility is reported to be declining. Planting and growing of trees is a common practice and is much more common around the homesteads, where tenure is secure, than in fields further away. Overall, insecure land tenure is not an important constraint preventing farmers from planting trees. Nevertheless, land disputes are common, and insecure land tenure does constrain certain individuals from planting trees in certain fields.Market infrastructure in the Oku area is weak, and roads are extremely poor. The supply of inputs is highly variable and markets for farm products are unreliable. For example, farmers often suffer long delays, up to two years, in receiving payments for coffee supplied to cooperatives. Marketing risks thus contribute to the strong subsistence orientation of the household. From a socioeconomic perspective, the Dschang area differs from the Mt. Cameroon and Okuwestern Nso areas in several ways. First, the Dschang area has better infrastructure, including roads, communications, and market services. Second, more residents of the community are employed outside the area. Therefore, remittances to the area from outside are higher. Thirdly, as a result of the above two points, incomes are higher in the Dschang area than in the Oku-western Nso area.This study assessed the practicality and local costs and benefits of Prunus africana cultivation by small-scale farmers and the advantages and practical problems experienced in current cultivation. Individual and group discussions, together with field observations, were used to collect relevant information concerning socio-economic aspects of farmer production of Prunus africana. A broad range of people were involved. They included small-scale farmers, middlemen or permittees trading on the medicinal plants, top management of the pharmaceutical subsidiary (Plantecam) exporting Prunus africana bark extract, Ministry of Environment and Forestry officials, and various non-governmental organisations. The small-scale farmers interviewed were selected from four main production areas at Mt. Ijim, Vekovi, Mt. Kilum/Oku and Mt. Cameroon. Staff of on-going projects involved in Prunus africana planting identified most of these farmers. Other farmers not associated with Prunus africana related projects were also interviewed.Discussions were informal and in some cases a check-list of topics was used. The main purpose was to gain insight into key issues associated with Prunus africana production and related alternative enterprises. At the small-scale production level data were collected on: 1. nursery operations and costs -including year first started, number of seedlings produced, mortality rates and causes, sources of seed, costs of seeds; 2. projected uses, quantities produced, and prices for Prunus africana products; 3. production constraints.Middlemen, otherwise known as permittees, are the only ones authorised to collect bark from assigned locations. For this reason they play an important role in the harvest of Prunus africana bark and in determining farm-gate prices. Data were collected on number of tons they were authorised to harvest, regions they had permis-sion to harvest from, quantity they sold to Plantecam (the main buyer of Prunus africana bark), the existence of other buyers, prices they received, prices they paid to farmers, cost of transportation to the principal buyers, perceived constraints, and their perceptions of the sustainability of Prunus africana collection.At the enrichment planting site at Ntingue, Dschang, a group discussion was organised with members of the community to assess their perception of the forest reserve and enrichment activity, their degree of involvement, and the sustainability of the system. Ministry of Environment and Forestry officials provided relevant data on number of permittees, current process of granting permits to middlemen, availability of seeds, and their perception of the sustainability of the system and probable strategies to correct the existing situation. Data were also collected from non-governmental organisations with respect to their activities promoting Prunus africana in relation to their own goals, seed availability, planting activities, and perceived production constraints. Information was also collected from senior management of Plantecam on a broad range of issues. Key points included collection activities, number of permittees with whom they have contact, and their relationship with these middlemen, production, demand situation in Europe, including market expansion opportunities and effect of possible development of substitutes and synthetics, ratio of bark to extract, supply stock and strategies for a sustainable management of Prunus africana.In order to undertake some comparative analysis, information was also gathered from farmers on alternative enterprises such as Eucalyptus woodlots. The decision to use Eucalyptus to compare with Prunus africana was motivated by field observations which suggested that both enterprises are undertaken on comparable land types, under similar spatial arrangements and with comparable objectives.The conventional costs-benefit analysis technique was used to calculate the costs and returns over a 30-year period. Discounted net returns were used to determine the net present value (NPV) of investment strategies. Tree height, diameter, bark thickness and massVariation in diameter and height of Prunus africana trees of the same age in the same locality was high. Variation among trees of the same age was particularly high in the enrichment planting at Dschang. Diameter at breast height and tree height significantly correlated, however, as shown by data from Vikovi (Figure 2). There was also a close correlation between dbh and bark thickness (Figure 3) and from the small sample of felled trees, between dbh and bark volume and between dbh and bark mass (Figures 4a and  b).  Economic returns to farmers clearly are a key factor determining whether they will cultivate Prunus africana. Two of the factors affecting this are Prunus africana bark and timber quality.Until recently, Plantecam has held a monopoly export of bark or bark extract, and has been able to determine the price paid for bark. At the time of this study, the price paid for bark depended on bark moisture content and bark quality, Plantecam pays 104-270 FCFA/kg bark (Table 1 showed signs of borer attack. This is an important factor that will undoubtedly reduce the timber value of Prunus africana cultivated on either a small or large scale at lower altitudes.Results of the flow of costs and benefits for small-scale production of Prunus africana and Eucalyptus camaldulensis in the Oku area are shown in Tables 3 and 4, respectively. Each is assumed to be produced in a 0.16 ha woodlot.For Prunus africana production (Table 2), the major costs were incurred on seedlings, land preparation, planting and weeding. Benefits were obtained from the sales of construction poles (8th year), bark (13th year), hoe and axe handles (18th year) and salvage value (end of the rotation). The net present value (NPV) of benefits for the production of Prunus africana at the farmlevel is 29,010 FCFA francs (US$ 60) using 10% discount rate over the 30-year period. The flow of discounted net returns shows that the farmer loses in the first three years. Positive net returns are realised beginning in year eight. By the 18th year, the entire investment is repaid.The NPV for a comparable Eucalyptus enterprise is shown in Table 5. Expenses on seedlings, land preparation and planting, weeding and prun- ing, and crop loss constitute the main components of the costs side. Benefits are largely attributable to construction poles, fuelwood from construction poles, fuelwood poles, electricity poles and sawing logs. Over a 30 year period the NPV is 37,885 FCFA. This figure is 30% higher than that of Prunus africana. An examination of the flow of discounted net returns shows that the net gains and losses alternate at the rate of one to three. That is, three years of loss are followed by a year of net gain. Nevertheless, for the Eucalyptus enterprise the investment is repaid by the fourth year. This analysis indicates that although Eucalyptus enterprise NPV exceeds the NPV for the Prunus africana investment, there is a profit for investing in Prunus africana. There are also reasons why one might rather invest in Prunus africana than in Eucalyptus trees. Farmers indicated that crop yield is not affected by the presence of Prunus africana in the fields. Field observations indeed support this assertion, with the exception of maize, which did not perform well in the presence of Prunus africana. Eucalyptus, on the other hand, depresses crop growth far more severely. Secondly, the medicinal value of Prunus africana was subsumed in the bark sales value to avoid double-counting. Although this is proper, this may in fact lead to an under-estimation of the value of the species for rural households as a medicinal plant.In fact, small-scale farmers prefer to diversify their farming operations; that is why a single household generally manages a dozen or more farm enterprises. They are thus likely to want to plant both Prunus africana and Eucalyptus because each provides different products and helps the household to manage risk. An important advantage of Prunus africana over Eucalyptus is that it does not depress crop growth; farmers may thus prefer to grow it in association with crops, along internal and external farm boundaries. Eucalyptus, on the other hand, can only be grown in woodlots because it interferes too much with crop growth.A sensitivity analysis was undertaken to determine how the NPV is affected given changes in key parameters such as bark price, pole price, labour cost, and the discount rate. Table 5 shows the NPVs thus calculated. Using a small data set (for n=7 trees), the following was suggested as a suitable equation for prediction of bark mass per tree for Prunus africana (B. Bredenkamp, pers. comm., 1995): A number of remarks can be made from the results presented in Table 5 (page 16). First, both Eucalyptus and Prunus africana have positive net present values (NPVs) at 20% discount rate; at 30% however, the NPV for the medicinal plant is negative, whereas for Eucalyptus it is still positive. Secondly, except for Eucalyptus (labour cost) where the change in NPVs are very small across all three discount rates, there is a considerable change in NPV if the direction of change of a key variable is reversed. Third, the results are not very sensitive to changes in bark prices. Finally, the most remarkable change in NPV occurs when the pole price of Eucalyptus is changed.Enrichment planting, especially of forest reserve areas, has been used as a strategy to ensure that the resource base is renewed. In Mt. Oku, for instance, the Mount Kilum Forest Project is currently undertaking enrichment of the mountain with Prunus africana. In Dschang a forest was planted with Prunus africana in 1972 by the Office National des Eaux et Forets (ONADEF) at Ntingue village. These enriched forest reserves can be a source for harvesting Prunus africana bark. There are, however, a number of critical issues concerning the exploitation and management of these, as will be shown in the next section.An economic analysis of enrichment planting was conducted using data from the Ntingue forest reserve as already described above in the methodology section. Table 6 depicts the flow of costs and benefits of this enterprise. On a hectare basis, the NPV using a discount rate of 10% is 1,428,486 FCFA francs (US$ 2,915 per ha). The discounted net returns are negative for the first three years. At the 13th year after the first bark sales, the total investment is repaid. The peak net returns are observed in the 18th year with discounted net returns of 643,805 FCFA (US$ 1,314 per ha). To gain better insight on the stability of NPV with respect to changes in key variables, a sensitivity analysis was performed (Table 5, page 16). Regardless of substantial reductions in bark price or labour costs, NPVs remain positive at discount rates of 10%. Changes in labour costs do not have as significant effect as do changes in the bark price. The internal rate of return is 28.8%, which indicates that this enterprise is profitable.One option for Prunus africana bark production would be to follow a similar system to that used for Acacia mearnsii bark production, where successive plantings of trees are felled and totally stripped of their bark (for tannin production). Timber is then sold as fuelwood. It may also be possible to manage bark production from Prunus africana on a coppice rotation. Although we were only able to fell seven Prunus africana trees at Ntingue, and any extrapolations from these data are speculative, bark mass data from these Prunus africana trees are similar to those from Schönau's (1973) metric bark mass tables for Acacia mearnsii with bark 8mm thick at breast height bark (Table 7). By contrast to our small sample size, Schönau (1973) determined his bark mass tables from data on a sample of 1,379 Acacia mearnsii trees.Black wattle (Acacia mearnsii) bark production from 12 yr old stands with a mean density of 1,363 trees/ha (551.7 trees/acre) is 28.1 tons/ha (11.37 tons/acre) (Schönau, 1973(Schönau, , 1974)). Mean bark thickness at breast height in these Acacia mearnsii trees was 5.46 mm, with a mean DBH of 14.4 cm and a mean height of 16.4 m at 12 yr (Schönau, 1973(Schönau, , 1974)). Although Prunus africana growth rates are lower than those of Acacia mearnsii, this is compensated by the higher price per ton of bark and presumably, higher bark yields per ha due to thicker bark.In South Africa, the price for wet Acacia mearnsii bark at the time of our Prunus africana study was R 340 (US$ 94) per ton (comprising a basic price of R 228 per ton and an after sales rebate of R 112 per ton, 1 US$ = 3.63 R in 1994).Harvest costs, mainly bark stripping and bundling, were R 65 per ton and transport costs, which clearly vary with distance, on average are R 25 per ton, giving a net price of R 250 (US$ 69) per ton of wet bark (D. Dobson, pers. comm., 1995). By comparison, Plantecam pays between 104 -270 FCFA per kg (490 FCFA = 1 US$), depending on bark moisture content and quality (see Table 2), or US$ 212 -551 per ton.In rural Cameroon, intermediaries pay 70 FCFA (0.14 US$) per kg of Prunus africana bark. This bark would translate to a net price of around US$ 142 per ton of wet bark. This is less than a third of the price for wet bark paid by the Italian company which in 1994 bought bark from Special Permit holders at 250 FCFA per kg (regardless of moisture content) which would yield a gross price of US$ 500 per ton. In Kenya, a far higher price is paid to the exporter for Prunus africana bark. In 1992, the exporter was paid 11 French francs/kg (US$ 1 per kg) for dry bark (or US$ 2,000 per ton). This would be the equivalent of US$ 1,000 per ton of wet bark, and nearly four times that paid at the factory gate by Plantecam.The mean quantity of Prunus africana bark processed annually from 1986-1991 by Plantecam was 1,923 metric tons/yr (Cunningham and Mbenkum, 1993). Assuming that bark production and growth rates in Acacia mearnsii plantations would be the same as that for Prunus africana, this quantity of bark would be produced by 68.4 ha of trees felled and totally stripped of bark each year. These would be 12 year old stands with 1,363 trees/ha, total annual demand thus representing 93,229 trees/yr. A 12 year rotation would therefore require 820.8 ha. Cunningham and Mbenkun (1993) suggested the possibility of establishing Prunus africana plantations in low altitude sites of SW Cameroon for three reasons. Firstly, land in high altitude sites was scarce as a result of high human population densities. Secondly, it was suggested that land planted with oil palms might become available, due to decreasing economic viability of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) plantations with competition from higher yielding and increasingly extensive oil palm plantations in South-east Asia. Thirdly, due to the high growth rates and apparent good health at that time (November 1992) of a small number of young Prunus africana trees planted at Limbe Botanical Garden (40° 0' 90° 03') at 15 m asl.By early 1995, all of the young Prunus africana trees at Limbe Botanical Garden were however heavily infested by wood-borer, reducing the timber value of Prunus africana grown at low altitude to that suitable only for use as firewood. For this reason, the projected costs and returns of a Prunus africana plantation do not include timber values (Table 8).   Crops may be grown between the trees during the initial years. Costs and returns of crops are not included in this analysis. Bark yields in year 15 are 20 kg/dry bark/tree, or 6000 kg of dry bark per ha, priced at 170 CFA/kg. Trees are harvested every five years after year 15. Yields assumed to increase by 0.5 kg/tree/year. Labor is costed at 1,400 CFA/day, the cost including overhead, to the Cameroon Development Corporation, a manager of plantation crops in South West Province.The economic potential for introducing the tree Prunus africana as a smallholder crop described in the previous section, is confirmed by the high level of enthusiasm for planting Prunus africana in North West Province, Cameroon. At least 3,500 farmers have planted in the last several years (Box 2). Bark collection in forest areas has greatly increased, and farmers have become aware of the opportunities of producing and selling bark. Most of the farmers planting Prunus africana receive support through development projects and NGOs, which often provide seed and subsidised inputs for nursery development. But in all cases, farmers contribute their own labour, which is the most important input in nursery production, indicating their strong interest. Moreover, much planting is taking place by farmers outside of projects.In the Oku area of Bui Division, the Kilum Mountain Forestry Project has been assisting farmers since 1989 to organise nurseries and plant Prunus africana and other species on their farms. In 1994, there were 35 functional group nurseries, ranging in size from five to over 100 farmers. Group members share the seedlings, planting most on their farms, selling some to other farmers and some to the project, which uses them for forest enrichment planting. Most farmers also give seedlings to relatives and neighbours. Initially, the project provided free seeds and polythene bags but has phased out these subsidies. The high prices for seed and seedlings in the Oku area are indicative of their high demand. The project purchases potted seedlings on contract at 25 FCFA/seedling, whereas farmers sell seedlings to local persons at 50 FCFA (bare-rooted) or to persons from outside Oku at 100 to 200 FCFA (potted). Demand generally outstrips supply in Oku, although in some instances the project has helped transport surplus seedlings to be sold in other areas, such as Bamenda. Seed sells for 250/kg to local persons and 500/kg to outsiders.In 1993, Prunus africana was the most important species in the Oku nurseries, accounting for one-third of all the seedlings grown. In 1994, 23 of the 35 groups were producing Prunus africana; lack of seed was the most important reason some were not planting. The groups produced about 14,000 Prunus africana seedlings in 1994, half bare-root and half potted. The project purchased 5,348 seedlings for forest enrichment plantings; farmers planted most of the rest on their own farms. Some seedlings were sold.In the Ijim Mountain Forestry Project in the Kom area of Boyo Division, about 60 nursery groups, composed of about ten farmers each, have produced and planted about 9,600 Prunus africana seedlings. In 1993, the project collected 200 kg of seed from farmers, paying 500 FCFA per kg. In 1994, 75 kg was collected. All seed was distributed among the nurseries, free of charge. In addition to planting seeds in nurseries, some farmers transplant wildings from forest areas. Helvitas, a non-governmental organisation, assists local communities to improve water supplies and management of watersheds in a number of areas in the North West Province, including Bambui, Guzang, Belo, Nso, and Biamey. One small component of these projects is the provision of Prunus africana seedlings to farmers for planting, mainly on communal areas. In Bambui, the project supports nine nurseries and has trained 120 farmers in nursery management.Rural Training Centre, Mfonta, Bambui, receives financing from the Methodist Church, England, and provides training to farmers in short courses at its farm. The centre has collected Prunus africana seed since 1991 from various places in the province, distributes seed to its trainees (about 200 per year) and sells to development projects, including Helvitas, VCP, Bafut, and PAPSEC. The Centre has collected about ten kg of seed per year and reports that demand far outstrips supply.The Trees for the Future project, based in Kumbo, Bui division, was started in 1991 and aims at reducing environmental degradation through tree planting projects with encouragement of, and assistance to village groups, families and institutions. The project includes 63 different groups in this area, with about 1,950 members. By 1994, some 275,000 trees were reported planted by these groups, the majority (65%) of these being Leucaena, the next most commonly planted being Calliandra (11%) and Prunus africana (9%).Other groups reported to be assisting farmers in planting Prunus africana but which we did not NOTES: The list is not exhaustive. other projects and NGOs are also assisting farmers to plant Prunus africana. Moreover, some planting is also taking place outside of projects. Notes on calculations of numbers of farmers planting Prunus africana are as follows:. Oku and parts of Nso: For every nursery member, it is estimated that an average of three other farmers have planted. Buying and selling of seedlings is extensive. Kom: For every nursery member, it is estimated that an average of one other farmer has planted. Farmer' reasons for planting and perceptions of benefits varied across the region. Three of the most common and most important reasons are the need for:1. A cash-earning enterprise: When discussing reasons for planting, many farmers mentioned their disappointment with coffee, the main cash crop of North West Province, because of the marketing problems mentioned in the description of study sites. Farmers have also experienced problems marketing Eucalyptus, another important cash enterprise, as supply of poles has outstripped demand in some areas (IRA 1988). The issue is not so much whether Prunus africana is as profitable as coffee or Eucalyptus, but whether Prunus africana has a role as a supplementary cash-earning enterprise for farmers. As mentioned above, small-scale farmers operate a complex farming system composed of over a dozen different enterprises. The main reasons for having so many different activities is to meet household subsistence needs, to minimise risk and to reduce labour and cash bottlenecks throughout the year. Farmers are eager to invest in new enterprises that earn cash and fit their resource endowments. Prunus africana requires relatively low levels of land, cash and labour. Moreover, farmers find that it is relatively easy to establish, does not compete much with crops, and has multiple uses, aside from providing bark for sale. 2. An important medicine for home consumption: In Oku, Nso, and around Mt. Cameroon, Prunus africana bark is an important component for medicines. Traditional doctors use it, as well as individuals treating themselves or their family members. In Oku, traditional doctors use some Prunus africana bark in preparing nearly all traditional medicines; it is especially important in cures for stomach ailments ('belly bite'), fever, rheumatism, and gonorrhoea. It is never used alone, but rather is boiled together with other ingredients. In Kom and Mendankwe, some farmers were unaware of the use of Prunus africana bark in traditional medicines, although Nsom and Dick (1992) have recorded Prunus africana as an important medicine for treating malaria, stomach ache and fever in the Ijim/Kom area. Use of the bark to treat stomach ache is also recorded from East Africa (Kokwaro, 1976) and elsewhere in Cameroon (Letouzey, 1978).3. The diversity of other uses. These include:-handles for axes and hoes: the strength of the wood was the main reason the species is suited for these tools. Farmers with adult trees were producing handles for both home use and sale; -mulch: three of the farmers with adult trees claimed that the leaves were a useful manure for crops. On their farms there appeared to be little if any competition between adult trees and crops (beans, coffee, and potatoes). On one other farm we noted considerable competition with crops, perhaps in part because the soil on this farm was less fertile than on the others. Farmers also noted that maize does not grow well near the tree.-firewood: women claimed it was an excellent firewood species, because the wood burns for long periods of time, at high intensity.-poles: none of the respondents had actually used Prunus africana for poles. But based on its straightness, taper, and strength, they felt that it would be superior to Eucalyptus, the most common pole species. There is a strong demand for construction poles in the areas we visited.-seed sales: only two of the five farmers having adult trees had trees that produced seed. Neither farmer was aware that there was a strong market for them. Thus they did not collect the seed. Other producers claimed that they hoped to sell seed when their trees matured.Farmers with reproductively mature Prunus africana trees generally had established them from wildings that they had collected in the forest. Reproductively mature trees were generally scattered in crop land, including annual crops and coffee. Farmers mentioned that the trees were easy to establish and performed well even on infertile soils. The only observed production problem on farms with mature trees was that of wood-borer on two of the five farms surveyed in Nso. In one of these cases, the farmer did not consider wood-borer as a problem, while on another it was constraining growth and had probably spoiled the wood for use in construction. Of the three farmers with mature trees who were not associated with a project, two were expanding their plantings using wildings from their own farm, and the other was using wildings from the forest.Farmers associated with projects were establishing nurseries as project staff had shown them. Most of the nurseries were group nurseries, generally serving five to 15 members. Numbers of seedlings ranged from 300 to 3,000, and both potted and bare-rooted seedlings were being produced. Bare-rooted were primarily for planting by members, whereas potted seedlings were for sale to persons transporting the seedlings before planting them (bare-rooted seedlings need to be planted within a few hours after removal from the seed bed). In the Oku project, farmers also sold seedlings back to the project for enrichment plantings in the forest. Seedling management was generally high; no problems were reported concerning germination of seeds. However, in the Oku area, there were problems with aphids destroying seedlings in the dry season and survival rates varied between 20% and 90% (median = 60%). Problems reported in nurseries were: 1. the scarcity and high costs of polythene bags, 2. the high amount of labour required, especially for watering, and 3. theft of seedlings, reported in Mendankwe.The Oku and Mt. Ijum projects had originally paid for all cash inputs (seed, bags, and spray) but were in the process of phasing out subsidies. In all cases, farmers supplied all labour in nursery development, the biggest cost in nursery production.The high demand for Prunus africana seed and seedlings is reflected by their high market prices. Prices for Prunus africana seed ranged from 250 FCFA/kg to 4,000/kg, however markets are highly imperfect. As mentioned above, farmers in some areas where seed was available were unaware that there was a market for seed. At the same time, organisations and individuals in Bamenda were unable to acquire the quantities of seed they needed. Seedling prices also varied, from 25 FCFA to 250 FCFA, depending on the location and whether the seedlings were potted or bare-rooted. In some places, such as Njinikijem, farmers were also buying and selling wildings.Planting niches also varied widely. Prunus africana was commonly mixed with other species in woodlots (four of 10 farmers) on land where crops had not performed well. Other common niches, each planted by four of 10 farmers, included in coffee plantations, on boundaries, and scattered in food crops. Most farmers had planted 100 to 200 trees and all but one were still interested in expanding. Survival rates in the field ranged from 20% to 100% (median was 80%). The most important problem was browsing by goats; drought at the time of planting was also mentioned. Farmers were generally impressed with the growth of the trees in their fields; trees reached three to five meters in height after four years.Farmers with mature trees managed them in several ways. Some were cutting branches for axe and hoe handles from trees of about 18 years or older. One farmer pruned his trees frequently, claiming that frequent pruning promoted growth of branches and increased the number of hoe and axe handles available. Only one of six farmers with mature trees had harvested bark, although all intended to. Several farmers were uncertain about their rights to harvest bark from their own trees. They were not clear on whether or not they needed permission before harvesting. In fact, Cameroonian law is somewhat ambiguous about farmer rights. Although people have the right to harvest products from any tree they or their family have planted on their own farm, it is not clear how they prove that they or their parents or grandparents had planted a particular tree.Two farmers, one from Vekovi and one from Mendankwe, had had bark exploited from their trees without their permission. In one case, a son had sold the bark without his father's permission and in the other case, thieves had stripped bark from trees at night. One farmer had given bark to a traditional doctor in exchange for a chicken. This same farmer had also allowed bark collectors to strip bark from his trees in exchange for money. But the collectors had stripped over 3/4 of the bark off the tree and it was not clear that the tree would survive. The farmers did not have information about how much bark should be removed or how to do so. Nor did they have adequate information about prices. The farmer who had sold his bark obtained about 30 FCFA/kg. Farm gate prices varied between 30 and 70 FCFA in the North West Province during 1994-1995. Plantecam pays between 104 and 270 FCFA/kg at the factory, depending on the moisture content and quality of the bark.In summary, farmers are highly enthusiastic about Prunus africana and have been successful in planting the tree on their farms. Several thousand have done so. The principal problems farmers are experiencing with the tree include stem borer, especially in lower altitudes, aphids on seedlings in nurseries, theft of bark and seedlings, the high cost and scarcity of polythene bags, browsing of newly planted seedlings by goats, and lack of information about rights to remove bark and prices of bark and seeds.Discussions with the inhabitants of Ntingue village identified some of the problems associated with non-community participation in enrichment planting activities. Villagers claimed that, unlike during the period when Plantecam harvested bark from wild populations of Prunus africana, they did not benefit from the enrichment activities since ONADEF brought its own workers. Other concerns included their belief that Prunus africana competes with crops, uncertainty about their rights to harvest the trees if they had them in their fields, and their lack of knowledge about the species itself. The younger villagers said that if they knew how to integrate the species in their cropped fields (in an agroforestry system), they would be happy to adopt it. They cited examples of how coffee and cocoa farms are cultivated together with other crops.It was evident from the discussions that because the farmers were not involved with or did not fully understand the objectives of enrichment planting, they lost interest and took an antagonistic position, especially in recent years when the demographic pressure on land has increased tremendously. The alarming rate of debarking in recent years is proof that the villagers do not consider themselves as part of this undertaking. Had the community been fully involved in this activity they could have controlled the illegal debarking going on in the reserve areas. Lessons from this experience suggest that the community should be fully involved and be encouraged to participate in and receive benefits from any enrichment planting. Institutional arrangements, including the national policies, local social systems, and arrangements amongst firms and entrepreneurs, have an important influence on whether the bark resource is 'mined' or managed. Marketing systems for Prunus africana bark in Cameroon have ranged from a monopoly, in which Plantecam had complete control over the entire marketing chain from collection through export, to free market, when numerous buyers could harvest, transport, and export the bark. There is also a great variation in the composition and local influence of traditional institutions in control over forest use.Prior to 1972, only small-scale harvest of Prunus africana bark occurred for local medicinal use. This changed dramatically in 1972 when Plantecam, a subsidiary of the French company Laboratoires Debat, obtained a monopoly over the commercial trade in Prunus africana bark. Although commercial harvesting started to take place, a system of controlled harvest by teams of Plantecam workers was maintained. This worked relatively well until 1985 when the Government of Cameroon issued additional licences for Prunus africana bark exploitation to 50 entrepreneurs (Cunningham and Mbenkum, 1993). At no stage during this process were quotas based on any forest inventories or assessments of sustainable harvest.From 1985 to 1992, most of the bark sold to Plantecam was from the Bamenda Highlands in North West Province, Cameroon (Cunningham and Mbenkum, 1993). According to information obtained in this study, there were 70 permittees in the province in 1994. Each was allowed to transport 100 tons of Prunus africana bark. Special permit holders were supposed to have a monopoly over bark harvesting in a designated area, but these boundaries are ignored. This benefits the farmers, in that there are several different persons they can sell to, each buyer then has to compete for a farmers' bark and pay higher prices. But on the other hand, the disadvantage of this system is that there is no incentive for a permittee to seek to maintain stocks in his area. It is effectively an open-access situation. As one permittee told us, it is in the interests of each permittee to fell trees because if he doesn't fell a tree, someone else will come along and fell it. In North West Province, there was a big increase in bark exploitation. In addition, theft of bark from trees on private land also increased.In rural areas, farmers are paid 30-70 FCFA per kg of bark. At Plantecam, bark prices range from 104 FCFA/kg for poor quality, high moisture content bark to 270 FCFA/kg for dry, high quality bark (US$ 0.2 -0.6 per kg). This is based on the pricing structure shown in Table 9. Net returns earned by permittees buying and selling bark are substantial but are probably not inordinately high, given the high risks they face and the Local and international trade and the future bark market scarcity of capital. In the model in Table 9, the permittee earns a 42% rate if return on his investment if he can sell bark at a high price but only 13% rate of return, if he sells at a lower price. Competition among permittees probably results in higher prices paid to farmers and lower profit margins than would occur in the absence of competition.Mt. Cameroon (4° 12'N 9° 10'E) is now the national focus of bark exploitation, due to the depletion of Prunus africana populations in West and North West Provinces. This overexploitation became especially serious in May 1994 when the Cameroonian government ended Plantecom's monopoly over bark harvest on Mt. Cameroon and on bark export. The government issued export licences to three Cameroonian entrepreneurs, reportedly in response to an order they had received for 2,000 tons of bark from an Italian company who were prepared to pay 250 FCFA/kg regardless of bark moisture content. The result was a spate of uncontrolled bark exploitation, particularly by young men, which focussed on the major remaining source of Prunus africana bark in the forests of Mt. Cameroon.At least 23 different companies sell brand name herbal preparations made from Prunus africana bark. Most of these are based in Europe, with others located in North America (at least two companies) and Latin America (three) (Cuningham et al., 1997). Bark processing and the export of bark extract are dominated however by a few main companies. Firstly, the French company Groupe Fourniere (France), which bought Laboratoires Debat and its Cameroonian subsidiary, Plantecam. Their bark harvests represent over 70% of the international trade and the basis of the most widely marketed product, 'Tadenan'. Secondly, the Italian companies Indena Spa. and Inverni della Beffa, which produces ''igenil' , sourcing most of its Prunus africana bark from Madagascar (Walter and Rakotonirina, 1995).Initially, Plantecam exported unprocessed Prunus africana bark, but later invested in equipment to produce chloroform bark extracts at their factory at Mutengene, which was established there over 20 years ago. In 1993, the Mutengene factory was included in an industrial free zone. By this stage, in addition to the export of plant products (Pausinystalia johimbe bark, Voacanga africana seed, Strophanthus seed and Prunus africana bark), Plantecam had expanded into manufacturing products, such as anti-malarials, aspirins and glucose. In 1995, Plantecam was reported to have an annual turnover of FCFA 2,000 million (US$ 4 million) per year and employed over 200 permanent and temporary workers (Akwa, 1995).Given this process of change, depletion and product diversification it is important to consider whether Prunus africana cultivation is worthwhile, particularly given the relatively long (12-18 year) period before commercial harvest of bark is advisable. Future trends in the international market for Prunus africana bark are an important component to this question. If farmers start cultivating Prunus africana trees now, do we know whether a market will exist in 20 years from now? Like many future markets, sales of Prunus africana products cannot be predicted with any certainty 20 years into the future. There are several factors which should give reassurance to current and potential growers, however.As a multiple-use species, Prunus africana has several factors in its favour. Firstly, there are several indications that a worst-case situation where the international bark market might collapse is unlikely. The opposite may in fact, occur, with an increase in the market for Prunus africana bark. This is suggested for the following reasons:• as prostate gland hypertrophy and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) become more common among men in western Europe and the USA, so will the market demand for treatment of this problem. The projected increase in market demand for herbal preparations for the period 1993-1998 is 8-15% per year (Grunwald and Buttel, 1996); • phytotherapeutic treatments for prostate gland hypertrophy and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) are popular and provide a lucrative market that is unlikely to diminish. In Germany, for example, Serenoa repens herbal preparations were among the top ten most frequently prescribed herbal monopreparations, with an annual retail sales value of DM 30 million (Grunwald and Buttel, 1996). Similarly, in the USA, a recent survey in selected health food stores showed that Serenoa repens was the sixth best selling herbal preparation, representing 4.4% of total individual herb sales from selected health food stores in the USA (Brevoort, 1995).• most Prunus africana based products are currently produced and sold within the European Union (EU), and not in the potentially large and lucrative markets of North America and Japan. Prunus africana extract is also sold in Australia (Commonwealth of Australia, 1995). With the combination of its rapidly growing, lucrative market for herbal preparations to treat prostate problems without surgery, North America could be considered a major potential market for herbal preparations from Prunus africana. Several companies advertise Prunus africana products (or a mixture of Serenoa repens, pumpkin seeds, Prunus africana extract and other ingredients) for sale on the Internet. This is a particularly rapidly growing trend in the USA. If the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations in the USA and Canada approve Prunus africana products for sale, then an increase in demand for Prunus africana bark can be expected.• Recent patent applications for uses of Prunus africana bark extract in addition to their use to treat BPH. The patent application by Chizick and Delorscio (1999) for the use of herbal formulations including Prunus africana extract to control male baldness is a good example (Proguard, US Patent 5,972,345 issued October 26, 1999); • all source countries for Prunus africana bark or bark extract have increasingly weak economies. This can make bark and bark extract export more attractive as a source of foreign exchange. Secondly, if we assume the worst, and the international market for Prunus africana bark collapses, then farmers will still have a local market for the many other products that this tree produces, including axe and hoe handles, firewood and timber. Thirdly, local cultivation of Prunus africana means local self-sufficiency in a popular traditional medicine which has been severely depleted from the wild.What we can be sure of is that unless cultivation takes place, demand will continue to focus on diminishing wild populations of this species.In theory, a sustainable commercial harvest of Prunus africana bark is possible due to the remarkable resilience of the cambium and bark regrowth. In practice, this does not take place in Zaire, Madagascar or Kenya, where a high proportion of trees are either felled or so heavily debarked that the trees die. The failure of managed sustainable harvest is evident from field observation of tree and crown die-off in forests of West, North West and South West Provinces, Cameroon, widespread acknowledgment of bark shortages from North West Province and the results of a recent quantitative study by Tako et al. (1996), who surveyed five sites around Mt. Cameroon. Their study showed that 61% of trees were totally debarked, an additional 25% of tree trunks had been girdled and 1.6% had been felled. Only 10% of trees had not been exploited out of a sample of 127 trees. In practice, sustainable use of wild populations is limited by several factors: 1. The high stress of bark removal on the trees: Despite the resilience of Prunus africana to debarking, bark regrowth is limited in dry sites and even when complete regrowth occurs, large scale removal of bark severely stresses the trees. This is clearly evident in the poor tree crown health of debarked trees. In Cameroon, sustainable bark harvesting was attempted between 1972 and 1987, when the company Plantecam had a monopoly on bark exploitation. Trained teams of harvesters employed by the company removed opposing quarters of the trunk bark up to the first branch rather than girdling the trees. The intention was then to return after 4-5 years to remove the undamaged trunk bark and after another 4-5 years, the regrowth. Although this practice limited tree die-off resulting from bark damage, crown die-back still occurs in some trees and bark regrowth is very poor on trees in open, dry sites. 2. Low tree density and low bark prices reduce incentives and opportunity for monitoring and community control: The combination of low Prunus africana density and low bark prices greatly reduces the incentive to limit debarking only to the opposing quarters of the trunk. Prunus africana trees occur at a relatively low density (an average of 5.5 tree per ha (Eben Ebai et al., 1992). In many sites, tree densities are far lower than this. In addition, the costs of collection are high, due to low tree density and rugged terrain. Under these circumstances, sustainable harvest is not considered to be a commercial proposition.  (Hall, 1983). This level of staffing is rarely available for Afromontane forest reserves, where patrolling is made doubly difficult by rugged terrain and poorly paid and equipped forest guards. Despite the commendable efforts of Plantecam at sustainable bark harvesting, bark overexploitation and tree die-off has got progressively worse.In order to fulfil conservation objectives and simplify management of wild Prunus stocks and conservation areas, the long-term objective should be either to :• ensure that remaining wild stocks in conserved forests are used as a seed source for on-farm production and that bark stripping of these trees ceases; or • cease bark exploitation until stocks recover, then shift to quota based harvesting on a 5-8 year rotation, with no harvest during the interim period.Neither of these objectives can be achieved without effective control. Options for control are either through government forestry organisations, through community participation, or a combination of the two.The first of these options is difficult to achieve with the limited manpower and money within MINEF or ONADEF for enforcement, monitoring or management. Examples of this are first, the failure of MINEF to either establish quotas or control of overexploitation; and second, the failure of ONADEF to protect planted trees in the enrichment planting at Dschang.  (Republic of Cameroon, 1994). This follows a worldwide shift away from government control of forests and forest resources to one of collaborative forest management, as recently reviewed by Fisher (1995). Although this is highly politically correct, it is only under very specific circumstances that community-based forest management will succeed. In the case of Prunus africana, many of the requirements for successful community-based management (see Wade, 1987) are missing. Rather than being in a clearly defined area, for example, Prunus africana trees are dispersed and occur at low density. Local communities are divided and heterogenous, rather than being homogenous and cohesive on the issue of bark harvesting, particularly around Mt. Cameroon, where many 'strangers' are involved in the commercial trade. It is also difficult to detect 'free-riders' exploiting Prunus africana bark in dense forest.Community-based management of Prunus africana bark resources has however been suggested for some villages around Mt. Cameroon by Eben-Ebai et al. (1994) and has been suggested for Mt. Kilum (Nurse et al., 1994). Recommendations by Eben-Ebai et al. (1994) centred around two key considerations. Firstly, an increase in the price paid to local people for Prunus africana bark. Secondly, for the role and obligations of the government, the local community and Plantecam to be clearly defined in terms of the price paid for bark in relation to bark moisture content and quality, the timing of bark harvest and collection and the allocation of quotas. In making recommendations for community-based management around Mt. Cameroon, many villages were excluded by Eben- Ebai et al. (1994) as they had cosmopolitan populations with a low proportion of local people. An example of this was Kuke village, where there were two local people and 45 'strangers' resident in the village. Geschiere (1993) points out that the influx of 'strangers' into Bakweri villages around Mt. Cameroon dates back to pre-1900. It also poses a major problem for any community-based conservation proposals for this area. An additional problem is the diminished authority of village leaders whose power is increasingly being challenged by young men. As we were told by a Bakweri village chief during this study:\"The Bonakanda boys, they want wealth immediately. That is why they destroy all those trees. Control by chiefs is not possible. Many don't care. They like only to say to those boys, go......and give me my own money from the sale of Prunus africana bark to drink. That is where they are.....with our children as leaders\".In this case, the chief took the opposite view to the process of community involvement being so widely promoted. In a frank discussion with the provincial Chief of Forestry, he openly admitted that he, and other chiefs, would be unable to control the young men in surrounding villages or 'strangers' taking bark and requested that forestry staff be directly involved in control.The situation is less complex and more hopeful in North West Province, Cameroon, where local communities are more 'traditional' and culturally homogenous. In Oku and Banso, for example, leadership is through a traditional hierarchy, the Kwifon society, lead by the Fon of Oku or Nso. At Oku, for example, the community proposed a new rule to fine a person cutting down a Prunus africana tree (Nurse et al., 1994). Rule breakers, if detected, would be subject to a fine of 3,000 FCFA. This is the equivalent of six days local wage equivalent (about US$ 5 at that time). Even in this area, however, the traditional systems of control have started to break down (Nurse et al., 1994). The local commercial market for Prunus africana seed among local farmers also offers an opportunity for expanding local incentives for protecting remaining tree stocks.Uncontrolled exploitation has vastly reduced the wild populations of most reproductively mature Prunus africana trees in the West and North West Provinces, Cameroon. These trees need to be protected for two main reasons: first, due to their conservation importance in maintaining forest structure and as a fruit food source and habitat for birds and mammals. Secondly, they represent a genetically diverse source of seed for onfarm production and provenance selection.As trees mature, seed yields increase. Prices for Prunus africana seed were highest in North West Cameroon due to demand for farmers and where wild populations have been heavily depleted. Prices were very variable, ranging from 250 FCFA/kg to 4,000/kg of seed. Seedlings are also sold, at 25 FCFA to 250 FCFA each. Only two farmers encountered during this survey had reproductively mature trees, which had been cultivated on-farm. One of these farmers, Mr. Wajira Binkar of the Oku area had four trees (>35 cm DBH) producing seed that were an important source of seed and wildings for other local farmers and the Kilum Mountain Forest project. This offers an excellent opportunity linking seed and seedling sales with community involvement in protection of remaining wild trees. Although seed yields vary from year to year, average yields of 6-10 kg seed per tree are considered likely. At a density of 4.4 mature trees/ha, this represents an income of 6,000-176,000 FCFA/ha/yr. This could be increased further from the sale of seedlings.One option in the Oku and Banso areas would be to follow a similar system of control applied through customary law to sacred forests (such as those set aside as burial places for the fons). Only the 'nchindah', who are members of the Kwifon society, are allowed to enter these forests. Discussions at a community level may lead to a system of tighter control over seed (and income) producing trees. At present however, no selection of genotypes with desired qualities such as straight growth form, fast growth rate or high active ingredient yields has been carried out, although this was recommended by Cunningham and Mbenkum (1992) and a Prunus africana domestication project is planned by ICRAF (Leakey, 1993). Several approaches for selection are possible and are discussed below.The insights of local harvesters' knowledge in the selecting of desirable qualities for domestication of wild plants has been suggested for Hyphaene petersiana palms (Cunnningham, 1994) and may also have application to Prunus africana, where easier bark removal would reduce labour costs. Commercial Prunus africana bark harvesters in Cameroon recognise three 'types' of Prunus africana ('Pygeum'). A key issue in this local classification is the ease with which bark is peeled from the trunk: • 'Pygeum blanc', where the bark is easily stripped off, exposing the white timber under the bark; • 'Pygeum rouge', where the bark is difficult to remove, with inner bark sticking to the tree trunk and giving it a red appearance;• and a second 'rouge' variety, which is easier to debark.According to harvesters, these differences do not appear to be seasonal. It is possible that they may be due to differences in soil moisture balance between sites, or alternatively, may reflect genotypic differences between Prunus africana trees. Bark harvesters in Cameroon (Dschang and Mt. Cameroon areas) said that 'Pygeum blanc' and 'Pygeum rouge' trees were not respectively restricted to moist or well-drained sites, but had a scattered distribution, and neither were there seasonal factors. Seasonal factors are relevant in the timing of bark removal from Brachystegia trees for bee-hive construction in Mozambique, but other factors can also be involved. In Zambia, for example, beekeepers cut small test blocks from miombo woodland trees prior to bark removal, selecting for 10-60% (mean = 34%) of Brachystegia, Julbernardia and Cryptocephalum trees with cross-grained inner bark (Clauss, 1992).Phytochemical analysis of Prunus africana bark extract has shown the presence of sterols, pentacyclic triterpenoids, several lipid soluble substances, including fatty acids (C12 to C24) and two linear alcohols, n-tetracosanl and ndocosanol (Longo and Tira, 1981;Martinelli, Seraglis and Pifferi, 1986).Chemists working for the two major companies processing Prunus africana bark have both confirmed that it is possible to distinguishbetween Prunus africana bark sourced from different localities in Africa and Madagascar (R Oudot pers. comm., 1992;Martinelli, Seraglis and Pifferi, 1986 (see Figure 5)). Using high resolution gas chromatographic (HRGC) analysis, Martinelli et al. (1986) showed that Prunus africana bark extracts from different sources in Africa had characteristic HRGC profiles, and that it was possible to distinguish between these using principal components analysis (Figure 5). Bark extracts from Prunus africana in Madagascar were distinguished from Prunus africana bark extracts from Zaire, Cameroon and Kenya by their high 3-0-acetyl oleaolic acid content. Prunus africana bark extracts from Cameroon and Zaire were far more difficult to differentiate, but were considered to differ due to variations in ursolic acid, B-sitosterol and 3-0glucoside content.9.3 Genotypic differences High levels of endemism occur in plant groups with short seed dispersal distances due to very large fruits and/or short distance dispersal agents such as ants. Prunus africana, which has relatively small fruits dispersed by birds and mammals, does not fall into these categories and presumably has relatively long dispersal distances. The location of isolated Prunus africana populations on montane 'islands' dotted over virtually the entire length of sub-Saharan Africa and a few isolated mountains in Madagascar has probably been a key factor in genotypic and chemical differences expected between populations. This offers wider scope for selection of characteristics for domestication. It is also a point of concern that already isolated populations on montane islands are becoming further isolated due to the destruction of almost all large, reproductively mature trees from intervening 'islands'. Barker et al. (1994) and more recently and in more detail, Dawson and Powell (1999), used Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis of leaf chloroplast DNA to show distinct differences between isolated Prunus africana populations from different parts of the range of this species, with less variation between populations from more closely situated montane 'islands'. The most unusual populations are those in Madagscar (Dawson and Powell, 1999).Prunus africana trees have been planted a few meters apart as boundary markers for several kilometres around the Mt. Kilum forest. These trees are now 5-6 years old. As vegetative propagation is possible, these offer a good opportunity for selection of cuttings of trees with desirable qualities of growth form. Selections made from trees in the wild could be added to this as well. The change in the population structure of Prunus africana populations in Cameroon due to debarking and die-off of large trees poses a problem for forest conservation, local people and ultimately, to the management of Plantecam, who have invested a considerable amount of money in equipment to enable production of bark extract in Cameroon. Prunus africana production is more suited to higher altitude sites above 1,500 m asl.One of the constraints on plantation production of Prunus africana bark in Cameroon is that small-scale farmers densely populate these montane highlands. On their own initiative, farmers in this region of Cameroon have done more to cultivate Prunus africana trees than any international pharmaceutical companies or rural development agencies. In many ways, small-scale farmers hold the key to a shift in sourcing bark from wild harvest to cultivated supplies. Although plantations may be appropriate in other parts of Africa, an out-grower scheme which involves and expands from the estimated 3,500 farmers already cultivating small numbers of Prunus africana trees is considered to be most appropriate in Cameroon. For this to work requires clarification of Cameroon forestry law to enable farmers to sell the bark from the trees they grow. At the same time, remaining wild populations need to be conserved through a combination of government and community control. It also needs committed support from the pharmaceutical industry, rather than their demand for bark merely being shifted to exploit wild Prunus populations elsewhere.In order to fulfil conservation objectives and simplify management of wild Prunus stocks and conservation areas, the long-term objective should be either to:• ensure that remaining wild stocks in conserved forests are used as a seed source for on-farm production and that bark stripping of these trees ceases; or • cease bark exploitation until stocks recover, then shift to quota-based harvesting on a 5-8 year rotation, with no harvest during the interim period. Neither objective is possible, because a ban on bark exploitation would involve the political impossibility of throwing thousands of Cameroonians out of work. A \"second best\" strategy is needed, focusing on conservation of wild stocks and sustainable bark stripping, but progress can only be achieved with effective control, and the support of government forestry organisations, the pharmaceutical industry (particularly Plantecam) and community participation. At the moment, it is local farmers who have achieved the most towards a shift to Prunus africana cultivation. In this study, however, we identified three key needs where outside support can build on these local initiatives: 1. Production of a guide to Prunus africana production from seed: Many farmers are unaware that Prunus africana seed rapidly loses viability if stored at room temperature. Seeds need to be planted within six weeks of collection. Production of a stepby-step guide to planting Prunus africana from seed would save farmers time and money, and boost tree production. 2. Clarification of forestry legislation on the sale of bark from cultivated trees: At present, many farmers believe that they are not allowed to sell bark or other products from Prunus africana trees that they have cultivated. This discourages farmers from cultivating trees on their farms. Legislation is unclear and needs clarification to enable farmers to sell products from cultivated indigenous trees such as Prunus africana. This could link with the recommendation that a register of growers is kept. 3. Low technology propagators: Construction of low technology propagators at field sites such as Mt. Kilum would boost the number of young trees being produced, as it enables year-round production to take place, rather than seasonal production from seed.Although several of the recommendations made by Cunningham and Mbenkum (1993) have been implemented, even more have not.The most important advice we can give is that there needs to be a commitment to implement the recommendations made by Besong et al. (1991), Cunningham and Mbenkum (1993), Eben Ebai et al., (1994) and Ewusi et al., (1996). Rather than repeat these in detail, they are summarised here:  (Besong et al., 1991;Cunningham and Mbenkum, 1993); This assistance should focus on helping smallholders to grow the tree on their farms. • Research needs to be conducted for selection of fast-growing, high active-ingredient yielding Prunus africana cultivars (Cunningham and Mbenkum, 1993). This is currently underway through ICRAF (Leakey, 1993;Tchoundjeu et al., 2002). • Small-holder farmers need to play a greater role in Prunus africana cultivation, including agroforestry/permaculture systems on steep slopes (Cunningham and Mbenkum, 1993). • Prunus africana cultivation using selected high active-ingredient yielding varieties (rather than from wild collected seed/cuttings) should only be undertaken if this poses no threat to the genetic integrity of wild populations in core conservation sites. • Extension support is needed to assist small-holder farmers to establish nurseries, following the Kilum Mountain Forest (ICBP) example (Besong et al., 1991). • Community involvement in seed collection and seedling production as an economic incentive for conservation of remaining mature wild trees.Outside organizations need to ensure that a wide range of planting material is collected from the wild and made available to farmers, in order to preserve the genetic diversity of the species.Objective: Maintenance of representative viable populations of Prunus africana in Afromontane forests • Core conservation areas should be recognized as control sites for comparison to forests where bark exploitation on wild populations continues to take place, or if already disturbed, to monitor forest recovery and Prunus africana regeneration. It is recommended that no Prunus africana harvesting should take place within these areas set aside for Afromontane forest conservation (see Gartlan, 1989). There should be an immediate withdrawal of bark harvesters working within these high conservation priority sites. • Local communities should be involved in the process of conservation (Nurse et al., 1994;Eben Ebai et al., 1994).Objective: Establishment of field gene banks for ex situ conservation of this apparently recalcitrant seeded species • Provenance collections in secure field gene-banks should be established for Prunus africana genotypes. The same should apply to provenance collections for Prunus africana and Prunus crassifolia from other sites, particularly those where commercial bark harvesting is taking place.Where these field banks occur outside the countries of origin of the material, it must be accompanied by legal agreements that cover control and compensation for the use of the material.Objective: To set sustainable limits and manage bark harvesting over a set period until Prunus africana plantations and enrichment plantings are established • Current Special Permits should be revoked and reissued after comprehensive inventories have been established prior to further bark exploitation from the wild and that strong support should be given to the following recommendations made by Besong et al. (1991), Cunningham and Mbenkum (1993) and Ewusi et al. (1996): -to reduce quotas and limit the number of permits given out. Ewusi et al. (1996) also make specific recommendations for inventory work and development of yield tables as a basis for granting quotas. This is an important alternative to ad hoc quotas granted in Yaounde without prior inventory; -to develop accurate maps of the distribution and density of Prunus africana;to restrict the activities of permit holders to the forest zones allocated to them; -that permit holders should be held responsible for the damage caused to the trees. Bark harvesting techniques need to be respected (ie: bark removal from opposing quarters of the trunk, up to the first branch); -the minimum exploitable diameter should be increased to 40 cm DBH; -forest regeneration taxes need to be raised and linked to this exploitation in order to finance a silviculture programme.Objective: To monitor the effectiveness of these and other recommendations, as well as the status and recovery of Prunus africana populations • Permanent plots or transect lines need to be set up outside and within core conservation areas to monitor tree growth, population dynamics and recovery (or not) of exploited trees (Cunningham and Mbenkum, 1993;Ewusi et al., 1996). • A timetable needs to be set by the Forestry Department for the implementation of cultivation, and a register needs to be kept of the area that this involves, with more practical spacings between trees than those implemented at Buea.","tokenCount":"12889"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b55b0eecad12a37d2d876a040e99cade","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d981e7d8-7122-48ac-a04f-169856242cf7/retrieve","id":"974161623"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"50c14036-187a-4aa1-9d78-05303ca5863d","pagecount":"2","content":"urante os anos 90 os agricultores de feijão registaram perdas de produção de até 100 por cento no distrito de Hai no norte da Tanzânia, o que levou alguns deles a abandonarem totalmente o cultivo de feijão. Em 2001, em resposta a um pedido de um grupo de agricultores locais da aldeia de Sanya Juu, foi levada a cabo uma investigação conjunta por equipas de investigação do Instituto de Pesquisa Agrícola de Selian (SARI) em Arusha, agricultores, líderes locais e agentes de extensão. Nessa pesquisa confirmou-se que o estrago fora causado por adultos (que se alimentam de folhas) e larvas (que se alimentam de raiz) do escaravelho da folha do feijão, Ootheca spp. Até então os agricultores e os agentes de extensão desconheciam o impacto causado pela larva deste escaravelho nas raízes, embora o estrago das folhas seja um problema muito comum na África Oriental.Os agricultores de Sanya Juu formaram um grupo de pesquisa para realizarem os seus próprios ensaios no campo e para transmitirem os seus resultados a outras partes interessadas. O grupo de agricultores, extensionistas, investigadores e líderes locais discutiram várias estratégias de gestão dos ensaios nos seus campos colectivos e individuais. As estratégias tradicionais (tais como o uso de cinza de madeira, urina de vaca, sabão, querosene, extractos botânicos brutos e estrume, bem como o plantio atempado e as culturas intercalares) e as opções adicionais sugeridas pelos agentes responsáveis pela investigação e desenvolvimento (tais como a rotação de culturas, o uso de variedades de feijão muito resistentes a pragas e de alta produtividade e a aplicação de pó de amargoseira e fertilizante de fosfato mineral) foram testadas em diferentes combinações nos campos dos agricultores. Estes decidiram não ser recomendável lavrar o solo depois da colheita para exporem as larvas e ninfas aos seus inimigos naturais porque era muito difícil lavrar os solos durante o período seco e optaram, como alternativa, por uma estratégia de culturas intercalares.Os grupos de agricultores (tanto homens como mulheres) experimentaram várias estratégias em diferentes locais onde testaram extractos botânicos brutos, produtos químicos comerciais (tratamento de sementes, pulverização dos campos e gestão de armazenamento) e tecnologias de melhoramento do solo (o uso de adubos verdes e estrume animal e de fertilizantes inorgânicos e de fosfatos minerais disponíveis localmente). Em épocas sucessivas os investigadores, extensionistas, líderes locais e outros agentes proporcionaram serviços de apoio adicional e facilitaram as actividades dos agricultores, incluindo encontros e dias de campo, e documentaram o processo de tomada de decisões dos agricultores na pesquisa.Os resultados dos ensaios no campo foram considerados úteis e os agricultores seleccionaram a estratégia mais adequada à sua situação, combinando as opções tradicionais com as melhoradas. Estes agricultores inovadores partilharam os bons resultados com outros agricultores dentro e fora das suas comunidades. Isto evoluiu para a gestão integrada de pragas do feijão (GIP) através da organização de, por exemplo, dias de campo. Estas actividades promocionais estão agora espalhadas por outros distritos da Tanzânia, e também no Quénia, Malawi e Uganda, através das redes regionais do feijão (ECABREN e SABRN), e o seu conhecimento está sendo difundido em outros países da região.Um resultado importante da gestão integrada de pragas (GIP) do feijão foi o aumento do capital social dos grupos de pesquisa de agricultores. A participação nos grupos (onde metade dos membros são mulheres) é movida pelo interesse em \"aprender com a prática\" e em partilhar informação. Estes grupos estão envolvidos de uma forma entusiástica nas visitas de grupo a grupo, o que resulta na disseminação de conhecimentos de agricultor a agricultor, para além da área alvo do projecto.As actividades participativas dos grupos foram concebidas para disseminarem informações sobre as tecnologias de GIP através da partilha de conhecimentos e da troca de experiências. Estas actividades envolvem muitos parceiros tais como responsáveis pelas políticas, extensionistas, agricultores e líderes locais, ONGs, comunidades e organizações religiosas, escolas locais e fornecedores de serviços do sector privado. As actividades vão desde a formação formal e informal, seminários e workshops, encontros de agricultores e demonstrações no campo, a dias e visitas de campo, teatro, música, poemas, preparação de folhetos e cartazes, e programas de rádio e televisão. Os governantes e os líderes políticos participaram nas actividades do projecto e apoiaram o projecto e as iniciativas dos agricultores. Os centros de informação das aldeias (consultar o Destaque nº 16) estão a facilitar o acesso à informação e às tecnologias a nível da aldeia e facilitam a aplicação destas abordagens pelas comunidades para lidarem com outros problemas.Actualmente, mais de 260 grupos de pesquisa de agricultores trabalham activamente na GIP do feijão na África Oriental, Central e Austral. O Quénia tem mais de 4.000 agricultores, o Malawi tem um total de 1,500 agricultores participantes, a Tanzânia tem mais de 5.0000 agricultores e o Uganda tem 2.500 agricultores. Em média, 60 por cento dos agricultores participantes são mulheres e algumas ocupam posição de liderança nos seus grupos de pesquisa e comités das comunidades. Todos os membros dos grupos participantes ganharam confiança em se dirigirem aos membros dos seus grupos e a diferentes audiências, em reportar os seus resultados de campo e treinar outros, organizar e participar nas visitas de campo e procurar informação sobre novas tecnologias. Os agricultores participaram na preparação e testagem preliminar dos materiais promocionais e alguns pediram aos seus líderes locais que lhes fosse proporcionado espaços para o estabelecimento de novos centros de informação de aldeias.A combinação de conhecimentos locais e tecnologias melhoradas, aliados a demonstrações de campo, dias de campo e visitas recíprocas, reforçou e motivou os agricultores individuais e os grupos a realizarem pesquisas sobre as outras limitações que restringem a produção agrícola nos seus locais. No distrito de Hai, por exemplo, o número de grupos aumentou (de 1 grupo a pesquisar a gestão de Ootheca spp. em 2001) para 88 grupos que estão actualmente a realizar ensaios sobre 11 factores de limitação da produção em diferentes locais. A maioria dos agricultores nas áreas alvo dos quatro países ganharam confiança e conhecimentos que lhes permitiram o acesso a uma variedade de insumos e serviços, tais como sementes melhoradas de feijão tolerante a pragas e pacotes de fertilizantes de outras culturas para utilização nos ensaios de gestão da fertilidade dos solos, informação sobre mercados e várias agro-empresas e empréstimos para insumos agrícolas.Os estudos realizados no distrito de Hai mostraram que estes esforços permitiram aos agricultores aumentar a produção de feijão de 120-180 kg por acre para 480-600 kg por acre e a de milho de 700-1.000 kg por acre para 1.200-1.800 kg por acre. Isto resultou na melhoria da segurança alimentar dos agregados familiares; capacidade de pagar propinas escolares para as crianças; melhores condições de saúde e um ambiente mais são. Os estudos de adopção em Kabale (no sudoeste do Uganda) indicaram que mesmo os membros analfabetos do grupo de pesquisa de agricultores conseguiram treinar informalmente outros agricultores. Os líderes locais no sul da Tanzânia testemunharam que agora é fácil mobilizar os membros da comunidade para várias actividades de desenvolvimento através dos líderes dos grupos de pesquisa. Os responsáveis pelas políticas, e as ONGs e organizações baseadas nas comunidades (OBCs) locais, aplaudiram a abordagem participativa de grupo, sendo agora maior o número dos que estão motivados a usar os grupos de modo semelhante para outros exercícios de planeamento do desenvolvimento rural e de implementação de projectos comunitários.Os agricultores participantes ganharam auto-confiança. Eles sabem agora que o seu conhecimento tradicional tem valor e que podem avaliar as opções e encontrar a melhor combinação de tecnologias para resolver os seus próprios problemas. Isto motivou e melhorou o moral dos agricultores e de outros parceiros, criando orgulho e confiança na partilha das suas inovações com outros agricultores, comunidades e visitantes. ","tokenCount":"1274"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"79dd742f3f4540e099371f996feef7f6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/69c7c317-9f7c-454e-b2ea-8dbb8e35cf20/retrieve","id":"-1184702423"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"66ec9312-3ec2-4a9c-b14d-290e2760a673","pagecount":"11","content":"Lack of systematic tools and approaches for measuring climate change adaptation limits the measurement of progress toward the adaptation goals of the Paris Agreement. To this end, we piloted a new approach, the Biomass Climate Adaptation Index (Biomass CAI), for measuring agricultural adaptation progress in Ethiopia across multiple scales using satellite remote sensing data. The Biomass CAI can monitor agri-biomass productivity associated with adaptation interventions remotely and facilitate more tailored precision adaptation. The Biomass CAI focuses on decision-support for end-users to ensure that the most effective climate change adaptation investments and interventions can be made in agricultural and food systems. Date: 31 Dec 2022 // Work Package: 4. Real-time Monitoring // Partner: ABC, Univ. of Galway This publication has been prepared as an output of CGIAR Research Initiative on Digital Innovation, which researches pathways to accelerate the transformation towards sustainable and inclusive agrifood systems by generating research-based evidence and innovative digital solutions. This publication has not been independently peer-reviewed. Any opinions expressed here belong to the author(s) and are not necessarily representative of or endorsed by CGIAR. In line with principles defined in CGIAR'Systematic tools and approaches for measuring climate change adaptation are lacking, limiting the measurement of progress toward the adaptation goals of the Paris Agreement. Ideally, we argue that an adaptation measurement or tracking system should be systematically coherent (i.e., measuring adaptation itself), comparable (i.e., allowing comparisons across geographies and systems), and comprehensive (i.e., supported by readily available data).To this end, we are developing a new approach, Biomass Climate Adaptation Index (Biomass CAI), for agricultural systems, where climate adaptation progress across multiple scales can be measured by publicly available satellite remote sensing data.The Biomass CAI can be used at the global, national, landscape, and farm levels to remotely monitor agri-biomass productivity associated with adaptation The Biomass CAI workflow can be split into a series of steps (Figure 1). 2. An unsupervised clustering method is performed to group together agricultural lands that follow similar phenologies across the years.3. Location-specific Vegetation Index (VI) time series will be modeled for cropland areas as a function of exogenous weather correlates such as precipitation and surface temperatures, geographic conditions (e.g., soils, topography, or coordinates), and past NDVI trends. These models should generate spatially and temporally continuous measures of predicted greenness, from which predicted vegetation peak and green-up integrals can be inferred. 4. A Fourier analysis is performed for each time series in order to identify a crop calendar, such as the start and end of the growing season, for each pixel. The number of crop iterations within a year is also defined based on this method. 5. Finally, the predicted measures of VI are probabilistically compared to observed VI measures. Observed and predicted measures of VI should be very highly correlated. However, the proposed activity will leverage the differences between predicted and observed measures of VI during weather shocks, such as droughts and floods, to estimate the change in climate resilience at specific sites.• If the difference between observed and predicted measures of VI is positive, then the area is performing better than what is expected, given the baseline. The area is, therefore, more resilient to climate shock and must be going through an adaptation process.• On the contrary, if the difference between observed and predicted measures of VI is negative, then the area is going through a degradation process and is highly impacted by climate change. Such areas should be put as high priorities for climate adaptation interventions.• Or, if areas show no differences between predicted and observed measures, the area follows the business-as-usual trend as observed during the baseline.Given the prediction model is trained on site-specific data, estimates would naturally control for local variation in suitability or annual weather conditions 2 .The core of the Biomass CAI prediction model was built upon large Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) that are particularly suited for learning complex and often highly diverse patterns and relationships. CNN is particularly useful for impact assessments that operate at a given time, yet CNN in itself is unsuitable for processing time series data to make short-term predictions using near-real-time input data.In order to enable near-real-time monitoring of climate adaptation progress, we thus added a Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) component coupled with a CNN (Figure 2). LSTM is well known for time series regression, while CNN provides insights into the spatial structure of the agricultural landscape. By coupling them within the workflow, the Biomass CAI workflow was able to utilize near-real-time data to monitor the adaptation process on a timely basis.2 See the following journal article for more details on the methodology: Ferguson, Amy; Murray, Catherine;Tessema, Yared Mesfin;McKeown, Peter C.;Reymondin, Louis;Loboguerrero, Ana Maria;Talsma, Tiffany;Allen, Brenden;Jarvis, Andy;Golden, Aaron;Spillane, Charles. 2022  As shown in Figure 3, results in the River Valley site in Senegal showed that the current Biomass CAI model provided the model-estimated counterfactual data with a similar level of coefficient of determination compared to the previous SEIRS model (i.e., 0.72 for the current Biomass CAI model against 0.68 on average for the previous SEIRS model). The current system is, however, delivering the data analysis every 16 days -following the MODIS data frequency instead of the assessment made on an annual basis by SEIRS.In Ethiopia, the Biomass CAI system was implemented in the Enderta Woreda. It was selected as it is one of the successful sites of the UNDP/GEF Project, \"Promoting autonomous adaptation at the community level in Ethiopia (2012 -2016).\" The UNDP-internal impact assessment of the project was positive enough to receive approval and funding for scaling up. Furthermore, the area registered one of the worst droughts in decades that hit north and central Ethiopia in 2015, reportedly affecting nearly 10 million people. The Biomass CAI result showed that the areas within the UNDP/GEF project intervention have significantly higher NDVI values than the model-estimated ones during the 2015 drought, highlighted in green in Figure 4, implying the area positively adapted to the climate shock (i.e., drought) compare to the other areas.","tokenCount":"992"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cb8f71db97282170daa5b3b43747f6a8","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f6ce0109-3374-46da-99a2-91b7445e1f05/retrieve","id":"-23805221"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"3bc3add0-fd75-4f0c-b02b-3f2e90b3d7d6","pagecount":"21","content":"Recommendations for more Integrated mainstreaming of climate change, gender, youth, and nutrition in the GHANA COSOP .Emerging evidence suggests that working towards multiple objectives, including those related to mitigating and adapting to climate change, increasing gender equity and youth inclusion, and improving nutrition increases the chances of interventions to achieve their goals and the likelihood that they have long-lasting positive impacts across a range of development objectives (Tallis et al. 2019, Yavinsky et al. 2015). Conversely, interventions that do not follow a more integrated approach may miss tradeoffs across well-being outcomes, exclude vulnerable groups, or even increase the marginalization and vulnerability of others and ultimately might fall short of their objectives. To address this problem and favor the integration of the mainstreaming themes in IFAD operations, a team of researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute developed a conceptual framework for understanding the linkages between climate change, gender, youth, and nutrition within the larger context of resilience for development drawing on different bodies of literature on these topics (Figure 1). Resilience is particularly suited to develop a coherent, inclusive and rigorous method to plan for interventions and to analyze ongoing interventions that work at the intersection of multiple disciplines. Resilience is integrative by construction, it facilitates collaboration among experts of different disciplines and combines relations among human and natural systems.Central to the concept of resilience are people's capacities. This puts an emphasis on how interventions and programs can support the building of capacities for different groups of people to achieve specific wellbeing outcomes. People's capacity to respond to shocks and stresses and to negotiate for their preferred solutions determines the range of viable responses. Existing capacities also influence the type of impact that interventions have on households' wellbeing and the potential for people to fully take advantage of interventions.Gender and age are critical social distinctions that influence vulnerability, capacities, impacts, and the feasibility of interventions. In particular, women and youth often have different needs and preferences from others in the community or other individuals in the household and typically have less bargaining power and control over resources. Other social distinctions also strongly influence resilience and capacities, including ethnicity, class, race, caste, and sexual orientation among many others.Figure 1. The Climate Change, Gender, Youth and Nutrition integrated analysis framework Drawing on this framework, the IFPRI team has engaged with IFAD missions in four sub-Saharan African countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, and Uganda) at various stages of the project cycle to generate lessons for the mainstreaming of climate change, gender, youth and nutrition in IFAD's operations. The IFPRI team engaged with IFAD missions at various stages of the project cycle to test the applicability of the framework to the mainstreaming process.In Ghana, in May 2019, the IFPRI team provided input to the Country Strategic Opportunity Programme (COSOP). The IFPRI team suggested small modifications to the COSOP draft that was already developed with the aim of strengthening the integration of climate change, gender, youth and nutrition in the country strategy. This report synthesizes situation analysis that the team developed to inform the recommendations provided to the COSOP team.Ghana is one of Africa's fastest growing economies and has made significant strides in poverty reduction. Economic growth since 2010 has been fueled by high commodity prices and newfound wealth in offshore oil. But climate variability and change pose a threat to future growth and development. Rising sea levels, drought, higher temperatures and erratic rainfall negatively impact infrastructure, food security and coastal and agricultural livelihoods. Despite the country's recent transition to an industry and services-oriented economy, 45 percent of the workforce still depends on rainfed agriculture.The vulnerability of Ghana's agriculture to climate change is largely due to its dependence on rainfall (Yaro, 2010), particularly in the country's semi-arid north. Climate change can also exacerbate underlying problems that affect the agriculture sector. Such problems include: 1. the north-south social divide and water allocation disputes between the two regions; 2. cross-boundary water issues; and 3. tensions arising from economic dependence on crops susceptible to changes in climatic conditions, such as cocoa (Brown and Crawford, 2008). Ghana's agriculture is not only vulnerable to climate change; it also contributes to the problem: Agriculture is estimated to be the second largest contributor to Ghana's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions after the energy sector. Important sources of growth in emissionsespecially of nitrous oxide (NO2) and methane (CH4)-are livestock, chemical fertilizers, rice farming, and biomass burning (Brown and Crawford, 2008). NO2 and CH4 emissions in Sub-Saharan Africa are driven primarily by agriculture and are projected to steadily increase (Smith et al. 2007). As domestic and international demand for agricultural products continues to increase, emissions from Ghana's agricultural sector will likely increase as well.Ghana has already experienced an increase in mean annual temperature of 1°C per decade since 1960. Monthly rainfall decreased about 2.4 percent per decade during the same period, though in the 1960s, the rainfall over Ghana was particularly high (Government of Ghana, 2015;McSweeney et al, 2010). Another study found that the decline in annual mean rainfall is the most severe in the southwestern regions divided by the Kwahu Plateau (Owusu and Waylen, 2009). In the remaining part of the country, the Volta Basin, prolonged dry seasons have replaced shorter dry spells (Owusu, Walen, and Qiu, 2008). Other climate trends since the 1960s include an increase in the average number of \"hot\" nights per year, with the rate of increase most pronounced from September to November and a rise in sea level of 63 mm over the past 30 years and average coastal erosion of 1.13 m per year.Future climate scenarios, and the predicted effects that climate change might have on the country, vary considerably according to which Global Circulation Model is used. However, models generally agree on the general trend for temperature changes, which are predicted to increase more in the northern region than in the rest of the country. Based on a review of 15 different models, the mean annual temperature is expected to increase by 1.0°C -3.0°C by 2060, and by 1.5°C -5.2°C by 2090 with changes expected to be more pronounced severe in the north (McSweeney et al 2010). Model results for changes in rainfall precipitation are more uncertain than those for temperatures. However, more erratic and intense rainfall during the wet season and lower precipitation levels during the dry season are likely with larger decreases in the south. Variations in climate projections significantly affect estimates for future crop yield.  Notes: Values are in millimeters and are from IPCC AR5 and are for RCP8.5.Most agricultural production in Ghana relies on small, rainfed plots potentially highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Changes in precipitation patterns particularly if precipitations become more erratic can have severe consequences on production since only some two percent of the total cultivatable area in Ghana is irrigated. The Northern region of Ghana in particular, it is one of the most vulnerable and exposed regions to climate change and variability in Ghana (Etwire et al., 2013, Stanturf et al., 2011). Particularly exposed to the impacts of climate change are the millions of poor smallholder farmers with minimal livelihood alternatives who are already marginalized, poor and largely rely on nature for food and income (Frank andPenrose Buckley, 2012, Morton, 2007). Their rain-fed agriculture, forming the dominant economic activity in the region (Antwi-Agyei et al., 2012), relies heavily on a single and already modified rainy season. Climate change is likely to intensify seasonal and inter-annual rainfall variation (for example, drought in one year and floods the next), as long-term changes and trends take place (for example, rising annual mean temperatures) (Challinnor et al, 2007). Climate change may create water and heat stress, the outbreak of pests and diseases, the loss of productive lands through the deterioration of ecosystems, and additional burdens to supply chains such as increased postharvest losses during storage and distribution. The likely consequences of such stresses include yield reductions, decreased livestock values, post-harvest losses, and reduced food accessibility and consumption (Vermeulen et al, 2010). Rising temperatures are projected to lower yields in major staple crops (maize cassava, sorghum, yams, plantains, and rice). Cassava yields, for example, are projected to fall by 12 percent and maize yields by 7 percent by 2050. Total crop failure is expected to occur approximately once every five years in Ghana's northern region due to delayed or diminished rains. Cocoa, a major cash crop and a leading foreign exchange earner, is sensitive to rising temperatures and drought. Areas suitable for cocoa production, which lie primarily along the coast, are contracting as temperatures rise, floods increase, and soil salinization and coastal erosion continue.In addition, natural disasters, migrations, and threats to human health can degrade human and social capital and devalue assets and infrastructure in agricultural communities. Rural populations in the Upper East, Upper West and Northern regions are more vulnerable to climate change than the people in other regions. This is attributed to the region's stagnated development and the dryland agriculture's vulnerability to climatic stresses (Stanturf et al., 2011). Women are central to agriculture in Ghana. Understanding their distinct roles and priorities in agricultural households is critical for continuing to tackle poverty, food insecurity, and malnutrition. Literature on gender and agriculture points to the importance of women's decision-making power in the household because women are more likely than men to invest in the nutrition, food security, and overall wellbeing of children and other members of the household. However, traditional gender norms often limit women's access to farm inputs, agricultural trainings, and land and other natural resources.While access to land holdings varies according to inheritance norms and other differences, men tend to have stronger rights over land and revenues (Lambrecht, Schuster, Asare Samwini, & Pelleriaux, 2018). In addition, women are less likely to apply modern agricultural inputs than men, which may decrease their productivity.However, some commonly held beliefs about gender relations in agriculture may not hold true, or may be more nuanced than previously thought, in Ghana. A common conceptualization of gendered domains of control depicts women as responsible for domestic activities, while men are responsible for productive activities. Similarly, literature often refers to \"women's crops\" and \"men's crops\", wherein women are responsible for food crops produced for own-consumption and men are responsible for cash crops produced for sale (Ezumah & Di Domenico, 1995;Gladwin, 2002). This suggests, for instance, that promoting commercial exchange of these crops may take them out of the hands of women, decreasing their potential access to the income from sales and their household bargaining power (Carney & Watts, 1990;Hagenimana et al., 1999).However, these dichotomous characterizations of gendered domains have been heavily critiqued in Ghana. For instance, Lambrecht et al. (Lambrecht et al., 2018) find that female households heads are just as likely as men to engage in marketing of agricultural products. Doss (2002) finds gendered cropping patterns, but not specific crops grown by men or women. Finally, Carr (2008) argues that there are a number of different household types and livelihood approaches that interact with gender roles; these interactions must be considered to fully understand gendered domains. He concludes that gendered roles and power/vulnerability in domestic and productive spheres are different for each livelihoods approach.Women's nutrition knowledge and beliefs, income, and decision-making power in the household can all play an important role in food security and nutrition outcomes. Women's nutrition knowledge and beliefs have implications for how infants and children are fed. For instance, mothers of well-nourished infants in Kumasi, Ghana considered porridge the main complementary food and believed that giving infants a wide variety of foods was unhealthy (Davis, Tagoe-Darko, & Mukuria, 2003). However, if children rejected the porridge or had poor appetite due to illness, mothers would offer different foods to induce the child to eat. Thus, unexpectedly, malnourished (underweight) children were fed a wider variety of food than wellnourished children. In addition, living with the maternal grandmother was more important for children's diets than the presence of or financial contributions from the father (Davis et al., 2003).Women also play an important role in food security, and yet are more vulnerable to food insecurity themselves. This is likely due to their lower empowerment status, unequal intrahousehold food distribution. For instance, in some ethnic groups it is common practice for women eat only after men are served and for nutrient-rich animal source foods to largely be served to male household members (Laar & Aryeetey, 2015).In addition, women's power in decisions related to household food production and consumption may play a role in diet choices. Doss (2002) finds that men typically have more control over crops that will be sold compared to those used for households consumption. Similarly, Carr (2008) finds that women in farm households are usually expected to prioritize their produce for household use. Both of these outcomes point to lower access to income and less autonomy over produce.Looking at the associations between women's empowerment and nutrition outcomes, Malapit and Quisumbing (2015) find that higher overall empowerment and participation in credit decisions are positively correlated with diet quality and a woman's participation in production decisions is significantly associated with nutritional status, suggesting that individuals who have greater decision-making power in the household receive a larger share of the benefits from household resources, including nutritious food. Amugsi et al (2016) finds that women in Ghana who have a say in household purchases are more likely to achieve higher dietary diversity compared to those who do not. Furthermore, women in monogamous households are also more likely to have higher household dietary diversity than those in polygamous households. This may indicate that competition for resources in polygamous households decreases dietary diversity, or that there is a relationship between monogamy and household decision-making power.Finally, a review of studies on women's time use and nutrition indicates that women are indeed timeconstrained due to their significant role in domestic and productive realms, and that agriculture interventions tend to further constrain time (Johnston, Hull, Malapit, Stevano, & Kadiyala, 2015). The authors also note that the impacts of agricultural practices on nutrition are not clear cut but are mediated by a number of household characteristics such as socioeconomic status, ability to purchase food, and the presence of household members who can take up additional work when needed.Between 1988 and 2008, the national prevalence of child stunting declined by an annual average rate of 0.3 percentage points, or 0.9 percent, as shown in Figure 2. The national prevalence of child wasting declined by an annual average rate of 0.2 percentage points, or 0.2 percent (Ecker & van Asselt, 2017). The decline in stunting was even more rapid between 2008 and 2014, dropping from 28.1 percent to 18.4 percent nationwide. And the prevalence of both chronic and acute child undernutrition declined much more quickly urban areas than in rural areas.In spite of these improvements, some diet and nutrition challenges remain. Furthermore, there are important geographic disparities between rural and urban areas and across regions. And an ongoing nutrition transition has created a number of new challenges and opportunities.There are still major challenges with child feeding practices; only 13 percent of children age 6-23 months met the criteria for a minimum acceptable diet in 2014 (Ghana Statistical Service, Ghana Health Service, & ICF International, 2015). In 2014, 42.4 percent of all Ghanaian women of reproductive age were anemic, and a primary cause of anemia is diet-related iron deficiency, though this is a decrease from 59 percent 2008 (Ghana Statistical Service et al., 2015). Anemia rates were even higher among young children-two out of three Ghanaian children under five years were anemic in 2014, which is a decrease from 2008 when it was 78 percent.The national-level improvements in nutrition outcomes, mask persistent undernutrition and food insecurity concentrated in rural areas and some regions. Calculations from  In 2014, the prevalence of anemia and its moderate or severe form among women was roughly similar in rural and urban areas, whereas any anemia and moderate or severe anemia among children was more prevalent in rural areas than in urban areas.   Rapid urbanization and economic transformation have presented both challenges and opportunities to improving food security and nutrition across the country. With an average annual urbanization rate of 4.2 percent between 1985 and 2015, today more than 50 percent of the Ghanaian population lives in cities (World Bank, 2018).This demographic shift has prompted changes across the food system. In particular, Ghana is undergoing a diet transition, in part because people can now purchase more calories for the same price compared to a few decades ago. Increased purchasing power offers the potential for greater dietary diversity but can also result in overconsumption of calories, and commonly leads to overconsumption of fat, sugar, and salt. Increasing incomes among urban populations represent potential markets for producers. Cities are a draw for the rural poor in search of employment. This may provide new livelihood opportunities and benefit the family members remaining in rural villages through remittances, but may also subject poor urban dwellers to new food security challenges (Warren, Hawkesworth, & Knai, 2015).Along with decreases in food insecurity, hunger, and undernutrition, overweight and obesity are rising in Ghana. Thus, creating a double burden of malnutrition: that is, the coexistence of overnutrition and undernutrition across the population, within households, and/or in individuals. The prevalence of overweight and obesity among women of reproductive age increased from 25 percent in 2003 to 40 percent in 2014. This is predominantly an urban phenomenon; 45 percent of women in urban areas are overweight or obese versus on 28 percent of women in rural areas. The prevalence of overweight and obesity among children has remained low at only 2.6 percent but is expected to rise if trends continue (Ghana Statistical Service et al., 2015). However, the analysis of food availability by Ecker & Fang (2015)  does not indicate widespread increases of consumption of animal-source food, a risk factor for noncommunicable diet-related diseases if consumed in excess (see Figure 5).The food supply system determines the food that is available for consumption, and thus influences diets.Estimates of nationally available food provide insights into the type and diversity of foods available in the country over time. According to FAO Food Balance Sheet data, between 90 and 93 percent of Ghana's food supply was produced domestically from 2003 to 2013. A study by Hartley and Arndt (2018) reports that Agriculture generates almost 20 percent of Ghana's national GDP. Furthermore, crop production dominates the agricultural sector, accounting for almost 16 percent of total GDP (approximately 80 percent of the total value of agricultural productivity). Vegetables, fruits and nuts, and cocoa make up the largest share of crops produced in Ghana collectively, accounting for 36 percent of total agricultural GDP.Maize is also a relatively important crop, accounting for 10 percent of total agricultural GDP.Own-production is an important source of food for many in Ghana. A study in northern Ghana by Signorelli, Haile and Kotu (2017) finds that higher productivity and production diversity both increase household dietary diversity (HHDD), which is associated with higher calorie consumption. Production diversity is more important when households are further from markets, and the more a household depends on food from their own production the lower the dietary diversity.As shown in Figure 5, per capita availability of calories from food has continuously improved since the early 1980s, apart from a drop in 1990 (related to a devaluation of Ghanaian currency). In fact, per capita calorie availability has doubled between 1982 and 2010. Calorie availability has plateaued at around 3,000 kcal per capita per day, which is well above the dietary energy requirement of an average person. This increase in total per capita calorie availability has been driven by an increase in the availability of calories from staple foods. In the context of a nutrition transition, we would expect the consumption of animal source protein to increase. However, counter to expectations, the share of available protein from animalsource foods on total protein has been slightly decreasing since 1975.There are important differences in food availability across regions and between rural and urban areas. For instance, the share of calories consumed that come from staple foods is lowest in the urban areas of the south and highest in the rural areas of the south, indicating that different parts of Ghana are at different stages of a nutrition transition.Household food consumption patterns are useful for estimating individual diets. Detailed household food consumption data was collected as a part of a nationally representative household panel survey conducted in 2013 and 2016. The endline (2016) data was anlayzed to provide a breakdown of per capita food and nutrient consumption shares in Figures 6.Nutrient availability depends on both the intrinsic nutritional content and the amount consumed of a specific food. The nutritional content of individual foods was estimated by using the West African Food Composition Table (FCT) (Stadlmayr et al., 2012). Food quantities consumed were multiplied by conversion factors from the FCT to allow the estimation of nutrient availability, a rough proxy indicator for nutrient intake. The analysis presented here focusses on two macronutrients (energy and protein) andSource: Aberman et al (2019) three micronutrients (iron, vitamin A and zinc). The analysis of food consumption and nutrient availability/access patterns at household level can also provide some insights on the potential nutrient gaps from dietary intake. For this purpose we employed the recommended daily nutrient requirements for both macro-and micronutrients as published in WHO guidelines. We first estimated household requirements by nutrient, using household demographics and nutrient requirements by age and gender.We then estimated the nutrient availability adequacy of household food consumption by dividing the household level nutrient availability from food consumed, by the household level requirements. Figure 9 estimates the adequacy of nutrient consumption, derived from per capita household food consumption.The figure illustrates the share consumed of required energy, protein, iron, zinc and vitamin A. This is further broken down to show consumption of poorest and wealthiest quintiles. These estimates show zinc and iron consumption as close to adequate, however we know that it comes primarily from grain consumption which is a much less bioavailable form of these nutrients. Vitamin A consumption is well below adequate for all income levels but has the greatest difference according to income quintile. Energy consumption is also lowest for the poorest quintile.Ghana has a very young population, with approximately 57% of the population under the age of 25. Despite Ghana's economic growth, unemployment rates remain relatively high especially among youth who have been affected by joblessness and low-wage employment. National Youth Policy (2010) in Ghana defines youth as those between 15-35 years. The total unemployment rate in Ghana was estimated as 2.4% while the youth unemployment remained higher as 4.9% by the ILO in 2017. Youth unemployment is recognized as a growing concern in Ghana and even more so in the Northern Ghana. While employment opportunities in Ghana are becoming more numerous due to the country's economic growth, the job market remains unable to absorb the rapidly expanding young labor force. The levels of unemployment among Ghanaian youth vary across sexes as well as living areas. In urban areas, unemployment rates are significantly higher than in rural areas because young people are often attracted to the cities in search of jobs. In terms of gender, young women face higher unemployment rates than their male counterparts, which seriously undermines efforts towards economic empowerment of women. The lack of employable skills, mismatch of education and industry, an inability of the economy to create new jobs and limited access to start-up capital for the youth are some of the contributing factors identified by the government.The agricultural sector can offer large employment opportunities to young people and spur economic growth, especially given the growing demand for food. However, efforts to create jobs opportunities for youth in the agricultural sector are often separated from efforts to accelerate agricultural growth and improve food security. The Ghana Statistical Service reports that about 14.3% of young people in agriculture have abandoned their farms and remain idle in their communities or migrated to cities in 2015.The phenomenon has a causal link with crime as many of the rural youth in the cities are observed to be engaged in criminal activities. Agriculture and farming in particular is perceived as an occupation for aged, illiterate and rural people. It is not seen as a venture that could provide job security and a stable income. This situation poses a great challenge to future employment of youth in agriculture and therefore to the food security of Ghana in general. Overall lack of opportunities and occurrence of seasonal drought and flooding in rural area is causing an increasing exodus from rural to urban areas of the country; especially from the five Northern Regions to the South. As with every migration, this trend is highly selective, with mainly young and dynamic men and fewer women leaving their villages, resulting in an aging and generally less dynamic population in rural areas, high rates of youth unemployment and social inequality. This implies that a special focus is needed on the creation of employment and business opportunities for young women and men living in rural areas in activities complementary to or outside of farming.Given that the COSOP and the Social Environment and Climate Assessment Procedures (SECAP) had already been written when the IFPRI team was asked to provide input, the IFPRI team suggested small modifications aimed at facilitating the integration of climate change, gender, youth and nutrition in the country strategy. Throughout the document there were already references to resilience and mainstreaming. However, for the mainstreaming to become an integral part of the country activities, a stronger and more precise language appeared to be necessary. The IFPRI team also recommended including mainstreaming areas in the strategic objective section of the COSOP with milestone indicators associated with these objectives. It was clear that engagement with the country missions throughout the entire process of preparing the COSOP would allow for even better integration of an integrated mainstreaming approach at this stage of the project cycle. Specific comments provided to the COSOP design team are described below.Page 9-13: Country Context: include a paragraph on the climate change situation in the description of the country context to emphasize the issue up front.Page 18, point 46: Suggest expanding point and perhaps moving to section V to create a \"mainstreaming\" sub-section.Comments: We have provided some suggestions to help articulate what is unique and innovative about the mainstreaming agenda, and how it is expected to yield better results from investments. We suggest expanding on point 46, and perhaps moving this to create a small sub-section (under V. Innovations and scaling up for sustainable results?) so that the document can more effectively communicate some of the nuances of the mainstreaming effort.Suggestion revisions/additions: \"Mainstreaming Agenda. A key innovation of the 2019-2024 Ghana COSOP is its treatment of the four mainstreaming themes of the Eleventh Replenishment of IFAD's Resources. Simultaneous consideration of climate change, gender, youth, and nutrition will ensure that activities leverage synergies and avoid unintended negative consequences that reside at the intersection of these areas, enhancing project effectiveness.Gender sensitivity and youth inclusion will be addressed as a part of IFAD's targeting strategy, in the design of activities, and in monitoring and program evaluation. Regarding climate change resilience, particular attention will be paid to promoting climate-resilient practices and technologies on smallholder farms that are also gender, youth, and nutrition-sensitive, with the support of the ASAP. Finally, IFAD will seek to partner with WFP and others in order to apply a nutrition, social-inclusion, and climateresilient lens to value chains and enterprise development, in the context of ongoing programs and in planning for new programs.\"Page 20, point 58: emphasize concurrent effects and synergies of the mainstreaming areasComments: An emphasis of the mainstreaming agenda framework is the added value of considering the mainstreaming issues concurrently. Thus, we propose to revise this paragraph to reflect that.Suggestion revisions/additions: \"On a strategic level, the IFAD-financed programme will continue to scale up its mainstreaming agenda, by concurrently promoting gender equality, youth empowerment, climate-resilience, and nutrition-sensitivity in agriculture.\"Page 22, point 64: emphasize simultaneous consideration Comments: Once again, we make some suggestions to more clearly articulate the innovative approach of considering the mainstreaming areas together, rather than each on their own. Suggestion revisions/additions: \"Beneficiary engagement primarily occurs during project preparation through consultations. Additional efforts will be made through: (i) development of a Strategic Framework and Stakeholder Consultation and a Plan (during design) to engage a diverse set of beneficiaries more systematically throughout the project cycle, including men, women, boys and girls,;(ii) collecting the voices of the beneficiaries through Annual Outcome Survey and improve project implementation and allow mid-term corrections to maximize benefits in terms of project objectives and gender equity, youth empowerment, climate resilience and nutrition; and (iii) Considering the use of a third party to objectively evaluate the results and impacts achieved, including mainstreaming objectives (see Appendix VIII).\"Page 23: Risk management tableComments: We suggest highlighting how the mainstreaming agenda mitigates some of the risks areas listed.This risk will be mitigated through the promotion of resilience practices throughout the country programme.Mainstream resilience into all programme activities and engage, considering differences in resilience capacities across different social groups (e.g., age and gender) and different vulnerabilities (e.g., nutrition for children and women) that may also affect future resilience. Engage with other partners in dialogue with the Government in support of climate-smart agricultural practices. The IFAD COSOP aligns with the Government of Ghana's national climate change policy and adaptation strategy.Mitigate through: (i) Creating remunerative rural and agriculture-based employment for youth to provide real alternatives to rural-urban migration and (ii) addressing gender inequality in agriculture and rural communities. In particular, the consideration of how age and gender influence vulnerability and capacities throughout the program cycle will mitigate social risks (as per the mainstreaming agenda).Page 24, Appendix I: COSOP Results Management FrameworkPossible modifications in the language of Strategic Objectives 1 and 2 and milestone indicators:Strategic objective 1:1. Providing nutrition training to male and female adults in a household is more effective for improving diets than just the woman. Add outcome indicator to track when male and female heads receive training. Add as milestone indicator: # of households wherein adult male and adult female have received information regarding diversified and nutritious foods Strategic objective 2:1. Women's participation in credit decisions with her husband is associated with better diets (via empowerment) in Ghana. I suggest promoting this by tracking the provision of credit and credit counseling to male and female household head simultaneously .Add as milestone indicator: # of smallholder households wherein male and female adults both receive financial services training / participate in financial institutions 2. To demonstrate mainstreaming, disaggregate outcome indicator: # of profitable MSMEs created (disaggregate by those engaged in nutrition-sensitive value chains; and perhaps by those with a biodiversity/sustainability focus)Additional recommendations beyond the preparations of the COSOP:• Include specific sections in the call for proposals that address the following: 1) What challenge does climate change/variability pose to the project activities and how will these be addressed? 2) Are there any gaps in capacity of men, women, boys and girls to participate in program activities? How will these be addressed?3) How might program activities affect men, women, boys and girls differently? (e.g. in terms of assets, economic opportunities, labor allocation, decision-making power) How will the program ensure that benefits are distributed equitably? 4) What are the implications of program activities for food security and nutrition? What are the pathways through which food security and nutrition gains can be achieved? • Monitoring of programs should assess how well these areas are being addressed and make changes to maximize impact and minimize potential harm. • 3 rd party impact evaluation should also look at how well projects achieve mainstreaming objectives.","tokenCount":"5272"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"66a95c5d99c21f46953d3f9b7579feb1","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d6b25e16-3097-4704-92cd-0f1eb50b77fc/retrieve","id":"1280136266"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"5b6420e1-b790-49d1-b68a-a4d6564c3c42","pagecount":"17","content":"Communication of information and knowledge with farmers and pastoralists is key to creating awareness about challenges and opportunities and inducing behaviour change. Extension services are the main vehicle for providing information, knowledge and advisory services to rural people. Thus, frontline extension agents are the primary advisers and information providers to women and men community members on agriculture, livestock, environment, animal and human health issues.Extension advisors require skill sets that include situation analysis, planning, message development, communication skills and cultural competence. Clarity on why, what, how, when and to whom to communicate messages is vital in providing extension advice.This document provides guidelines for extension (including livestock extension) agents on good communication practices and attributes of good extension messages, including how to develop effective extension messages and materials that can apply to different sectors, such as agriculture, livestock, environment and animal and human health. It is vital for extension agents to understand the benefits and characteristics of good extension messages as one of the components of the communication process.Agricultural and rural extension is a knowledge transfer intervention for rural people and their families that enables them to improve their wellbeing and develops their capacity to take responsibility for their own future development. It is an educational process which has as its goal the communication of information and knowledge related to agriculture, livestock and other sectors to help people learn how to build a better life for themselves, their families and their communities.Multiple actors provide extension services in different sectors using different communication channels and methods. Frontline extension agents advise and communicate messages to women and men farmers and pastoralists using a variety of communication methods and channels. The purpose of any extension activity (be it in agriculture, livestock, environment or animal or human health) is to communicate key messages (awareness and behaviour change) about a technology or practice that women and men community members are convinced and willing to implement.It is important for extension agents working for different sectors to develop skills in developing extension messages for different users (including women and men farmers and pastoralists). They should have foundational knowledge about the communication process and attributes of good extension messages and materials. This document aims to provide extension agents (particularly livestock extension agents) with job aids for developing extension messages and materials that address the needs of women and men livestock producers. Checklists of design principles and attributes of good extension messages and materials (which are also applicable to livestock and animal health extension) are provided, drawn from different sources so that extension agents can check if the extension messages and materials they have developed and planned are in line with 'best practices'. The document can also be useful to project teams and partners in documenting and analysing project experiences and lessons.Extension agents are communicators, advisors, mentors and trainers of women and men farmers and pastoralists and their household members. Thus, it is essential for them to master the development and communication of extension messages for different groups using various extension methods. To communicate effectively with their target audience, it is also important for extension agents to have a basic understanding of the communication process and what factors influence this process (Figure 1). Communication is the process by which a source sends a message to a receiver by means of some channel to produce a response in accordance with a certain intention. Thus, the basic components of a communication process are the source, message, channel and receiver. Characteristics of these components influence the process (Figure 2). Feedback plays a key role in communication. The extension agent must find out how women and men farmers and pastoralists received and understood extension messages. Depending on their constraints, needs or priorities, recipients process information and interpret it in different ways. Therefore, understanding of extension messages can be influenced by experiences, thoughts, feelings, needs, expectations and self-concepts of the audience or user. Effective communication involves listening to find out what women and men farmers and pastoralists want to know and what they know already, to develop relationships of mutual respect, and to identify and clear up misunderstandings. A mix of methods such as demonstration, practical instruction and individual advice should be used to reinforce the message so that it is understood and used. Women and men farmers and pastoralists may have different preferences and abilities to learn and use information. Often, using different communication channels and methods ensures that the same message delivered in different ways reaches more 'receivers' or users.Extension agents (including livestock and animal health extension advisors) can use the checklist below to review their extension communication and advice plan (Table 1). Yes NoThe objective of the message to be delivered is clear.It is clear to whom the message is targeted (women or men farmers).The message is localized to reflect women and men farmers' perspectives, needs, and thinking frames.The message is complete and supported by facts and examples.The message is short and easy to understand.The message is illustrated to aid understanding.The message is pre-tested with women and men farmers.There is specific and timely feedback from women and men farmers and pastoralists on the message communicated.Different channels and methods are used to communicate and reinforce the message.The message is one of the components of the communication process. As shown in Figure 2, message characteristics influence the communication process. Therefore, it is important for extension agents to understand the attributes of good extension messages.What are key extension messages and why are they important?Key extension messages are the main points of information that extension agents want women and men farmers and pastoralists to hear, understand, remember and act upon (Figure 3).One of the things they will have to plan carefully is the purpose or objective of the extension activity. The extension agent needs to ask themselves questions like:• What is the objective of the extension activity?• What is expected to happen because of the extension activity?• What will women and men farmers and pastoralists change due to the extension activity?Such questions help extension agents define the purpose of extension activities and formulate key information that women and men farmers and pastoralists need to learn and act upon.Key extension messages create purpose, meaning and focus for the communication efforts of extension agents, headline the issues they want to discuss and put their points across. They motivate and compel women and men farmers and pastoralists to act and make a change.Key extension messages are carefully chosen words that are compelling and have the power to inspire action. They are the main points of information extension agents want to convey, which demonstrate how an extension activity adds value to the lives of their target audience.Think of an extension agent who plans to organize a field day, technology demonstration or community meeting. To be successful, they will have to carefully plan what they will do before, during and after these extension activities. Through the power of key messages, extension agents can connect with their target audience, hold their attention and motivate them to action (Figure 4). Developing key extension messages helps control communication and relationships with women and men farmers and pastoralists. It helps get the attention, interest or support of the audience (farmers, pastoralists and other users). Whether in a demonstration, community meeting, group discussion, farm or home visit, extension agents must clearly articulate key extension messages in focused way to ensure they meet their communication objectives and influence women and men farmers and pastoralists. Key extension messages outline the essential information about a solution (technology, service or product) that is then packaged to deliver the message to women and men farmers, pastoralists or other users.Key extension messages help extension agents clearly articulate the essence or core purpose of their communication activity and develop and communicate focused, consistent and action-oriented messages that best fit the core purpose.By doing this, they can manage the communication activity, stay focused and relevant in their communication, and measure the effectiveness of the communication activity. Key messages help development agents clearly define and formulate essential information needed to influence and engage women and men users in action.Extension agents can use the following checklists to review the quality of the extension messages they have formulated for their communication activity (Table 2). The extension message is specific and simple with only the most important information.There are three key messages per topic, with one to three sentences for each key message.The extension message is relevant and customized for women and men users (farmers, pastoralists or other users).The extension message differentiates benefits for women and men users.The extension message is supported with facts and evidence to stimulate action.The extension message is appealing to women and men users and is easy to recall and repeat.What extension agents communicate may not always be heard or interpreted by women and men farmers and pastoralists in the same way. Influencing perceptions of women and men users is not an easy task but developing key extension messages that are clear, concise and consistent will help extension agents control their communication and influence women and men farmers and pastoralists in the most effective way.Extension agents need to keep their messaging clear, concise and compelling to gain the attention and interest of women and men users. By so doing, they will have more control over the message they want to put across.Think of an extension agent who plans to organize a technology demonstration. To be successful, the extension agent will have to formulate key messages that they want women and men farmers and pastoralists to accept and act. To do this, they will have to ask themselves questions to create relevant, positive and consistent extension messages that convince and influence women and men users to act (Table 3). Outcome What are women and men farmers expected to do because of the technology demonstration?Messaging How can messaging be tailored to different women and men community members?What main points (critical or essential elements) of information should be communicated to influence and compel women and men farmers and pastoralists to adopt the technology?What essential requirements do women and men farmers and pastoralists need to apply correctly to adopt the technology?What benefits and potential risks of the technology or practice should women and men farmers and pastoralists know?What facts and evidence should be used to support extension messages?Concise answers to these questions will help extension agents develop ideas, statements and arguments that will be used to create key extension messages. In the case of technology demonstration, the key extension messages outline what women and men farmers and pastoralists need to know and be convinced to use the technology appropriately.In a group event, extension agents can brainstorm explanations, words and phrases and develop them into statements. Finally, they can package the statements into compelling key extension messages, which must be focused and clear for different women and men farmers and pastoralists.What are extension materials and why are they important?Extension materials are designed to inform and educate women and men farmers and pastoralists. They include a range of materials such as posters, leaflets, brochures and audio-visuals and aim to communicate messages, influence and motivate a change of behaviour. When considering change, women and men farmers and pastoralists will usually try a technology or practice on a small scale. Once they are convinced of the benefits, they will typically adopt the technology or practice more widely.Extension agents can use the following checklist to check if the extension materials they have designed are in line with good practices (Table 4).Table 4. Attributes of good extension materials.The extension material is supported with evidence and provides actionable information.The extension material is logically ordered, which enables women and men farmers and pastoralists to understand the value of the message.The extension material motivates women and men farmers and pastoralists to act by explaining the benefits of a technology or practice.The extension material is appropriate for the culture and literacy of women and men farmers and pastoralists.The extension material is illustrated with pictures to attract and aid the understanding of women and men farmers and pastoralists.The extension material contains only necessary or valuable information that reflects the needs of women and men farmers and pastoralists.The extension material is customized to fit the cultural, educational or economic situation of women and men farmers and pastoralists.To develop structured and focused extension materials (Figure 5), extension agents need to find precise answers to the below basic design questions (Table 5).Step-by-step extension material design processTo develop structured and focused extension materials (Figure 5), extension agents need to find precise answers to the below basic design questions (Table 5).Figure 5. Key steps in developing extension materials.Table 5. Guiding design questions.Purpose What do the extension agents want to accomplish (to inform, promote, persuade, influence or motivate women and men farmers)?How does this define the content and form of extension materials?Audience Who is the extension material targeted at (women and men farmers)?Problem What are the women and men farmers' needs or priorities?Benefits What evidence of benefits persuades women and men farmers and pastoralists to be interested in and take away the message?What do women and men farmers and pastoralists need to know to act?What social, cultural and economic situation can influence the ability of women and men farmers and pastoralists to receive and act upon the message? Action What are women and men farmers and pastoralists expected to do?A storyline is the sequence of points, arguments or facts that make up your extension material.The storyline typically includes the following elements (Table 6). Identify key constraints and describe why/how they affect women and men farmers and pastoralists.Identify the appropriate technology or practice for women and men farmers and pastoralists to address the problem and describe key elements of the technology or practice.Identify convincing or compelling reasons for women and men farmers and pastoralists to apply the solution or technology.Identify the expected risks for women and men farmers and pastoralists and how to mitigate/ minimize such risks.Identify the actions or procedures required for women and men farmers and pastoralists to benefit from the solution or technology.Based on the storyline developed, extension agents need to sketch a rough structure of the extension material before writing sentences, taking photos or preparing graphics. They should consider using different text and graphic layouts to create an easy flow of information and to make the extension material attractive and understandable. Some information can be expressed well in words and some in graphics.Pre-testing allows extension agents to check and/or improve ideas, communication content and organization of information with a small group that represents the target population. Extension materials need to be piloted or pre-tested with women and men farmers and pastoralists to check ease of understanding and perception.Putting it together• Key messages are the main points of information you want your audience to hear, understand, and remember.• They are bite-sized summations that articulate what you do, why you do it, and what value you bring to the audience or users.• Key messages clarify meaning and provide the takeaway headline of the issue you want to communicate.Effective key messages are:• Concise: Focus on three to five key messages per topic; one to three sentences for each key message.• Strategic: Define, differentiate, and address benefits.• Relevant: Balance what you need to communicate with what your audience needs to know.• Compelling: Design meaningful information to stimulate action.• Simple: Use easy-to-understand language.• Memorable: Ensure that messages are easy to recall and repeat; avoid long, run-on sentences.• Tailored: Communicate effectively with different target audiences by adapting language and depth of information.","tokenCount":"2573"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"70d3e369e2db8e8cb9bbf8cd0bc0b44b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0941d28b-4c59-4e70-b30f-bd4fce16f13c/retrieve","id":"852683739"},"keywords":["Day Time Session Topics covered 1 10","00-10","30 Registration 10","30-11","15 Session 1"],"sieverID":"84cea0e2-11d7-4aec-af0c-f4e7d4ac4999","pagecount":"11","content":"ATTRIBUTION. The work must be attributed, but not in any way that suggests endorsement by ILRI or the author(s).For any reuse or distribution, the license terms of this work must be made clear to others. Any of the above conditions can be waived if permission is obtained from the copyright holder. Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights. Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above. The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used. To improve the pig sub-sector in the State of Assam, India, government pig breeding farms need to supply quality germplasm to large commercial and smallholder pig farmers. Therefore, the government pig breeding farms need to keep good quality breeding stock, follow scientific breeding methods, keep necessary records, follow good feeding, healthcare and management practices and create and maintain infrastructure that meet the needs of efficient farm operations.In addition, methods of pig breeding, feeding, biosecurity and housing have changed and therefore it is important for farm managers to get acquainted with the improved knowledge and practices. This is especially so for farm managers who are regularly transferred from one position to another or from non-farm to farm operations. Improved knowledge will help farm managers to better manage exotic germplasm and increase productive and reproductive performance of pigs.Capacity building of farm managers of government pig breeding farms is envisaged under the Assam Agribusiness and Rural Transformation (APART) project, funded by the World Bank.As a part of this initiative, on 22-25 June 2020, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) held a training workshop for farm managers of government pig breeding farms and some officers associated with the APART project. The workshop was organized by the Animal Health and Veterinary Department at the Regional Institute of Livestock Entrepreneurship Management, Rani, Kamrup, Assam.• To increase knowledge and capacity of the farm managers on scientific breeding programs being used worldwide and under the pig breeding policy in the State of Assam.• To increase knowledge and capacity on selection of animals for breeding, culling, heat detection, natural mating and artificial insemination in pigs.• To generate knowledge and capacity on scientific management of boars, sows, neonates, piglets and growers.• To generate knowledge and capacity on feed formulation and developing feeding regimes for pigs of different categories.• To generate knowledge on modern housing and biosecurity, disease management, manpower management, day-to-day record keeping and farm planning and operations.Training tools and methods• Participatory and group discussions • Customised videos of commercial pig breeding farm operationsThe following 14 participants (4 female; 10 male) attended the training workshop and were issued with certificates at the end of the workshop. At the end of the workshop, participants were asked to evaluate the training in terms of knowledge gained and overall quality of the training delivery using a prescribed format in which there was a scope to evaluate the learnings by answering 'yes' or 'no' before and after the training and to score the gained knowledge out of 5. To avoid bias, participants were asked not to mention their names. The outcome of the evaluation was entered into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and evaluated. The results are stated below.The training evaluation suggests that the workshop was highly successful.Participants mentioned the training as highly beneficial by rating an average score of 9.73 on a 10-point scale. The clarity of the subjects was rated as 9.45 and the delivery quality of the resource persons rated 9.91 out of 10. Participants also acknowledged the logistics arrangements of the training by scoring an average point of 9.18.Participants' highest gain in knowledge was reported on 'the knowledge of the pig breeding program followed by big breeding companies' with mean score difference of 2.55 between pre-and post-training knowledge. This was followed by the difference in score of 2.34 for parameters such as 'knowledge about what is nucleus farm and what is multiplier farm' and 'knowledge on how to prepare a development plan for my farm'.Participants reported to have pre-existing knowledge of parameters such as 'I know the care and management of newborn piglets' as the training brought least impact on them (mean score difference of only 1.11). This was followed by parameters such as 'I know the diseases of pigs (including African swine fever) and how to prevent and control the same' (mean score difference of 1.33).Overall, participants gained knowledge by participating in the training program on mentoring pig breeding farm. Across the parameters, the mean score difference was 1.79 (see Table 1). Outcome of the discussion with the farm managers about their immediate requirements for improving farm managementIn the last session of the training, a discussion was held with the farm managers about the immediate actions needed to improve the management of the farms. The agreed points are stated below:• All pig breeding farms should follow same standard register for entering data. Farm mangers and ILRI should develop a standard format for maintaining hard copies of registers. Printed registers may be supplied from the headquarters.• Each farm should keep different breeds in different sheds. If the farm is supplied with one or two exotic breeds, it should follow pure-breeding and keep adequate breeding records.• If the farm is supplied with one exotic breed and one local breed (e.g. Ghungroo/Doom), it can opt for cross-breeding.• Each farm should be known for its breeds; no haphazard breed introduction or cross-breeding program should be followed in the farm.• Ear tagging of each animal is critical for a successful breeding program.• Personal protective clothing (apron, gum boots, mask, gloves) for the farm workers and managers.• A separate set of chappal for healthy pig sheds and quarantine sheds.• Adequate disinfectants in each farm.• Repairing of floors and drains in each farm.• Feed trolley, weighing balance and pregnancy detector in each farm.• Construction of two manure pits at the end of each drainage system to be used alternately.• Pit in each farm for burning biomedical waste (e.g. needles, syringes, vaccine vials etc.)• Dead pig disposal site in each farm.• Ceiling in each shed.• Electric fan in each shed.• Frequency of feed supply should be monthly. Feed quality should be ensured.• Boundary wall of the Kuchdowa farm and Rani farm is required for proper biosecurity (separation from the rest of the premises).• Gate at entrance with wheel dip and security person in Rani, Kuchdowa and Khanapara farms.• Wire netting above the half wall in the pig sheds of Rani, Sonapur and Kuchdowa farms.• Fixing the water supply problem in Rani farm.• Contractual labour is urgently required in each farm.• Those farmers who could not attend the training will be trained through videoconferencing.","tokenCount":"1119"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a6c1891241c1ecc5295ce4fb3d94e994","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f282e659-ecd7-48f1-9159-6d0c78eb45fc/retrieve","id":"-1778669019"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"5523b67d-ad3c-4292-9a86-97ca46276441","pagecount":"7","content":"Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above. The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used.The aim of this project is to understand the risks of transmission of vector-borne diseases in urban livestock-keeping households in two growing tropical cities in Asia: Guwahati, India and Hanoi, Vietnam.With over half of the global population living in urban areas, cities are not only crowded with people but also with livestock as well as disease vectors like rodents and mosquitoes. Thus, cities may serve as a melting pot for emerging infectious diseases, including zoonotic and vector-borne diseases.Started in 2018, the Metropolitan Mosquito project seeks to fill the knowledge gaps regarding urban livestock keeping and the associated risks in terms of disease vectors and their pathogens in growing tropical cities. In the cities that are densely populated because of rapid urbanization, the proximity to animals may result in increased risks for transmission of zoonotic diseases, including vector-borne diseases. Hanoi has a large number of livestock which may increase disease risks for more than 7 million inhabitants of the city. This project will generate knowledge on mosquito-borne diseases and pilot the most appropriate interventions to reduce mosquitos in urban areas in Hanoi.The workshop aims to:• develop capacity for local partners on vector borne diseases • develop the disease risk mappingThe event was hosted by the 'Metropolitan mosquitoes: understanding urban livestock keeping and vector-borne disease in growing tropical cities' or the 'Metropolitan Mosquito' project. The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and Uppsala University, Sweden, are implementing the project in Vietnam together with the National Institute of Veterinary Research (NIVR), the Hanoi Sub-department of Animal Health, the Hanoi University of Public Health (HUPH) and the National Institute Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE).The workshop took place on 5 July 2018 in Hanoi. The meeting brought together about 60 participants from the livestock, animal health, public health and agriculture sectors representing national institutes, government at both provincial and district levels, research and academia.Starting the workshop, Johanna Lindahl, a veterinary epidemiologist with ILRI and Uppsala University, spoke about the role of livestock in improving human health and livelihoods. She said that while urbanization is important to the livelihoods and prosperity of millions of people, it can also be the driver of diseases, especially mosquito-borne diseases like dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis and Zika virus.The ILRI research team in the project shared findings from a synthesis of different policies on rearing livestock in Hanoi including an initial survey of the link between livestock and the risk of dengue fever, a vector-borne disease which has been circulating in Hanoi in recent years.The meeting discussed the livestock production pattern in Hanoi, the associated health-related problems and possible solutions. Participants shared data on mosquito-borne diseases and proposed ways of carrying out research activities including review of livestock policies and field research on the association between livestock keeping and mosquito-borne diseases under the project. The NIVR, the Hanoi Sub-department of Animal Health and ILRI are leading the field and laboratory research that will collect data from six districts of the city.","tokenCount":"529"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f9e1de5a419b05ee8741540ec46a9f04","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b26ad7bf-1622-4030-b25f-56919a303329/retrieve","id":"2095154997"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d443d44b-d813-4c75-a914-27fdc309dc0f","pagecount":"107","content":"This proposal was developed from consultations with CGIAR CRPs and Centers and with representatives of 42 external partners. CIAT and IFPRI will circulate it more widely seeking further inputs from institutions and potential partners in the public and private sector with interest in big data and its potential contribution to development of agriculture to ensure global food security.1.0 PLATFORM NARRATIVE 1.0.1 Rationale and scopeData has become a valuable global commodity. But it is much more than simply information: in expert hands, it is intelligence. Already it is helping accelerate the development of robust responses to some of the most pressing challenges of our time: climate change/variability, food insecurity and malnutrition, and environmental degradation. It is transforming the world of genomics and crop breeding and revolutionizing disciplines from climate modelling to agronomy. It is helping refine policies and improve lives. The smart/wise/effective use of data will be one of the most important tools for achieving the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.The technical definition of big data varies across disciplines, but is generally characterized as having high volume, velocity, variety, and variability (Laney 2001). For CGIAR, we loosely define big data as harmonized, interoperable, and contextually integrated datasets and publications from multiple disciplines relevant for CGIAR's research and development goals (CGIAR Consortium 2015a). The applications of insights gained from the study of such integrated datasets are greatly advancing knowledge and impact in several fields, including the -omics, biomedical, and ecological domains (Kitchin 2014;Madin et al. 2008;Jin et al. 2015).The concept of data being a driving force to enhance agricultural competitiveness is clearly on the radar screen of agribusiness private sector (Bryceson 2006, Hardy 2013, Gilpin 2014). For years, this has manifested itself as precision farming (Zhang et al. 2002), and been limited in scope to optimal management of within plot productivity variability. But advances in recent years have significantly opened the scope for data driven agricultural development (Jin et al. 2015). The high profile US$1bn acquisition of Climate Corporation by Monsanto (Monsanto 2013) demonstrated that information can be as valued a product as a novel seed technology, and has spurred significant investment and development of information-based (i.e., data and decision support-based) agricultural services. Data driven approaches to farming in urban areas (e.g. vertical farming) are showing significant growth, and science fiction is coming reality with pilots of robot-farming.The opportunities that the data revolution offer have the potential to change the role, reach and modus operandi of research and development organizations such as CGIAR (Seck et al. 2013). It represents an unprecedented opportunity to find new ways of reducing hunger and poverty, by encompassing data-driven solutions to ongoing research for development efforts and in so doing, bringing transformational changes by introducing positive disruptive technologies that radically change impact pathways (Seck et al. 2013). But the data revolution also has risks: unequal access to and use of information could widen social inequity, and exacerbate yield gaps in agriculture (Warschauer 2004). The ability to generate, analyze and use data is weighted towards resource-rich farmers and their supporting institutions in developed countries (Hardy 2013;Gilpin 2014). Access to smart-phones, ICT technologies, and mobile data and private sector providers is significantly weaker in developing versus developed countries. While African yields have stagnated over the past 2 decades, productivity in developed countries continue to increase thanks to access to agricultural technology, precision agriculture and strong institutions. Crop yields in many regions approach their practical maxima (Fischer et al. 2014). The need to feed the projected world population of almost 10 billion in 2050 will have to be met by yields in rain-fed agriculture, especially in Africa bringing them closer to their practical maxima (Rost et al. 2009). At present, they achieve only a low fraction of that level (Fischer et al. 2014).In developing countries, there are already a number of success stories. In Kenya, identified as a hub for novel ICT-based innovations, farmers can gain access to advisory information through services such as iCow. These are transforming information access to resource-poor farmers and are changing ageold concepts of agricultural extension. Similarly in Mexico the technology transformation program MASAGRO run by the Mexican government with CIMMYT, has made satellite imagery available in a tool for calculating nitrogen requirements of farmer fields.The capacity to innovate around problems in developing countries is clearly there -mobile money in Kenya has revolutionized banking in urban and rural settings alike (Demombynes and Thegeya 2012), and has shamed developed countries with simple, safe and effective banking that is accessible to all. This Platform dreams about generating equally impactful big data and ICT innovations that revolutionizes farming in developing countries. CGIAR is uniquely positioned to be a thought leader on the use of big data and information technology in agriculture to drive equitable rural development.In so doing, CGIAR can help ensure that the data revolution is democratic, and reaches the marginalized rural poor.There is a potential to enhance agricultural innovation and impact using big data and contributing to impacts outlined in CGIAR's Strategic Results Framework (SRF). The Big Data Coordination Platform (the Platform hereafter) will provide a strategic collaboration encompassing all CGIAR Centers, Programs, and key partners across public and private sectors. It will provide useful backend services and opportunities for researchers to analyze and visualize on a massive scale agricultural data, with which it is otherwise difficult to generate rapid, actionable insights.This proposal for a Big Data and ICT Platform therefore focuses on enhancing CGIAR and partner capacity to deliver big data management, analytics and ICT-focused solutions to CGIAR target geographies and communities. The ultimate goal of the platform is to harness the capabilities of Big Data to accelerate and enhance the impact of international agricultural research. It will support CGIAR's mission by creating an enabling environment where data are expertly managed and used effectively to strengthen delivery on CGIAR SRF's System Level Outcome (SLO) targets. Critical gaps were identified during the extensive scoping consultations with CGIAR researchers and partners (provided in Annex 8).The Platform will achieve this through ambitious partnerships with initiatives and organizations outside CGIAR, both upstream and downstream, public and private. It will focus on promoting CGIARwide collaboration across CRPs and Centers, in addition to developing new partnership models with big data leaders at the global level. As a result, CGIAR and partner capacity will be enhanced, external partnerships will be leveraged, and an institutional culture of collaborative data management and analytics will be established. Important international public goods such as new global and regional datasets will be developed, alongside new methods that support CGIAR to use the data revolution as an additional means of delivering on SLOs.The Platform has the following three objectives:1. Support and improve data generation, access, and management in CGIAR: For CGIAR to embrace the power of big data analytics and be the leader in generating actionable datadriven insights for stakeholders, key requirements, enabling environment components, and critical gaps, which were identified during the scoping consultations. Closely collaborating with partners identified as the champions in bringing big data to agriculture, the Platform will provide support to CGIAR and partners to address the gaps, both organizational (i.e., OA/ODcompliance) and technical (e.g., providing useful datasets, tools, and services), and organize capacity building activities to sustain the efforts across the consortium.  Collaborate and convene around big data and agricultural development: CGIAR needs ambitious external partnerships to deliver the potential of big data to smallholder agriculture. Likewise, CGIAR is an attractive boundary partner for many private and public big data partners to engage in the context of agriculture in the developing world. This objective will set up system-level partnerships that Centers and CRPs can tap into and use to stimulate greater use of data analytics in CGIAR mission-critical research. Amongst other approaches, the Platform will provide opportunities and spaces for facilitated virtual collaboration and interaction among partners and stakeholders. A Big Data Convention will be organized to bring key actors to CGIAR and CGIAR to the key actors in a network that will be documented and nurtured. The Convention will focus on the generation of ideas and innovations. It will democratize big data opportunities, share progress amongst CRPs and Centers in promoting big data analytics. It will build capacity internally and externally on big data approaches in agriculture. Novel approaches to communications will increase exposure of CGIAR work on big data, and further engage a range of actors through novel approaches to partnerships.the power of CGIAR big data analytics through \"Inspire\" projects that solve development challenges at the core of CGIAR SRF. These may include, but not be exclusive to, approaches that use big data analytics and ICTs to provide unprecedented multi-disciplinary data to researchers, deliver novel information to farmers, monitor the state of agriculture and food security in real time and inform critical national, regional and global policies and decisions. Venture capital (<$100k) will be provided to generate novel approaches, and some larger projects will be developed to deliver on the overall vision of the Platform: democratize big data to include smallholder farmers.These three objectives are sequenced purposefully. As a first and necessary step, CGIAR must get its own house in order with respect to data. A significant step forward is required that values data as a product in itself with global public good potential, and uses the best available means of managing it and making it available to the public following OA/OD principles. This requires the infrastructure, tools and data culture to succeed, in both technical and managerial dimensions, and Objective 1 focuses precisely on this. The minimum success factor for this objective is compliance with the open access and open data policy of CGIAR, ensuring donors and investors in CGIAR can be confident that data is being managed and shared effectively across all CGIAR operations. Objective 2 enables the external partnerships needed to deliver on Objective 1, and aims to enable CGIAR to make a significant advance in its capacity to manage, use and analyze data. New partnership models will be developed with upstream and downstream partners, from public and private sectors, to deepen and widen CGIAR's capacity on big data analytics and use. Finally, Objective 3 is designed to inspire through the operationalization of CGIAR and partners capacity to innovate around big data. It aims to tackle some of development's most complex problems with new data-driven approaches, and deliver scalable pilots of effective big data for development solutions. Established models for innovation such as Grand Challenges of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Cohen 2005) and other approaches will be used to achieve this, built on the foundation of collaboration from Objective 2.Rather than a comprehensive plan of very specific activities for the Platform that describes a sequential pre-defined development over a 6 year period, this proposal focuses on establishing the processes and collaborative spaces needed to deliver these goals in phases. The approach favors agility and iterative interactions with users that will bring enough flexibility to adopt emerging technologies to fulfill rising needs.As problems in society have become more complex and the nature of solutions more independent, Extension systems have had greater and greater pressure to work across traditional expertise, as well as geographic and institutional boundaries to leverage maximum impact from resources. As this pressure grows, networks and communities will need to emerge as the basis for solving problems rather than single institutions. These communities of practice can leverage technology and new data resources to create broader and deeper impact in programming. Enabling communities of practice to thrive through connectivity, sharing of methodologies, knowledge and by telling their impact stories is the long term goal.The Platform is therefore to work seamlessly across CGIAR CRPs and Centers through a networked approach.Big data technologies and initiatives are highly dynamic and the landscape is changing at rapid rates.A thorough data landscape analysis will be conducted regularly to understand what Open Data initiatives and Big Data based ICT4D initiatives already exist, such as Open Data for Africa from AfDB, and analyze if they are used, and their potential needs and current data gaps. The analysis will also define potential business cases where new data-driven insights could help raise investments in agriculture and guide business decisions, from product innovation to market access and infrastructure development. This assessment will be iteratively implemented on a regular basis (i.e., annually or biennially), to keep the Platform's relevance for the newly emerging agricultural research and development topics and big data technologies.Variety is also the most important dimension of big data in agriculture, and this applies beyond the well-structured datasets. A key aspect to achieve success in the application of big data analytics is the ability to identify, combine, and efficiently manage multiple data -both from the conventional structured databases and unconventional unstructured data streams. However, it is not straightforward when identifying which data are potentially useful for what types of research questions, analyses and appropriate large data sets. For this, the Platform will work closely with partners in public (e.g., Ministry of Agriculture) and private (e.g., key players in priority commodity's value-chain) sectors in CGIAR site integration countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and regularly assess primary user needs through a multi-partner, multi-datastream, multi-country project in each region.Extensive consultations were held in the development of this proposal with CGIAR partners, CRPs and Centers to help identify the focus and contents of this Platform. Details of these consultations are available in Annex 8. Constant consultation with users (CRPs, centers, partners and others) will be maintained throughout the platform.CIAT and IFPRI will provide overall co-leadership, but a partnership model built on a networked infrastructure will be promoted, whereby the Platform plays a facilitation approach to bringing CRPs, Centers and external partners together toward focused problem solving. The Platform is submitted on behalf of about 50 external partners, in addition to all 12 CRPs and 15 Centers. Additional partners who express interest in participating and bring additional expertise to the Platform will be welcomed.The Platform will be facilitated through a small secretariat (3 people, US$200k annual budget) with the primary objective of facilitating dialogue, collaboration and communication across CGIAR and with external partners. The Platform Secretariat would take a knowledge sharing approach to interacting and networking amongst the partners.The Platform proposes three solution-oriented Modules, which follow the three objectives outlined in the previous section.A wide range of data and analytics opportunities are becoming available in CGIAR and its partners, yet not many of them are fully utilized for developing insights and impact due to inadequate data management. Based on the thorough assessment on the needs and gaps, the Organize Module will first aim to fully open access to CGIAR's intellectual assets, addressing technical and organizational challenges, and provide CGIAR researchers with enabling environment components to strengthen data analytical capacity and develop practical, big data-driven use-cases in a coordinated way. As a minimum, this Module will align CGIAR Centers on open access and open data, and ensure compliance with CGIAR's Open Access Policy, ratified in late 2013 by all 15 Centers.The Platform will implement an annual CGIAR Big Data and ICT Convention where representatives from Centers and CRPs will share information, develop joint initiatives and collaborate with key external actors in the big data space. It will establish Communities of Practice (CoPs) across Centers for defining data standards and interoperability protocols, dovetailed with the OA/OD initiatives of the Consortium Office. It will create virtual collaboration spaces, and sponsor quarterly webinars on specific topics and hold capacity-building workshops. It will connect with existing initiatives, other GIAR CoPs, Conventions on ICT4D and Big Data. The Platform will also connect CGIAR with existing initiatives, for instance, the Global Agricultural Concept Scheme (GACS), FAO's AIMS, CIARD, the Interest Group on Agricultural Data (IGAD) of the Research Data Alliance (RDA), and the Global Open Data in Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) initiative are of high importance and relevance.In order to generate high profile, collaborative applications of big data in agriculture, small-and medium-sized \"Inspire\" projects will be implemented that bring to bear new partnerships on core CGIAR challenges. These will consist of 1-3 year initiatives to generate new analytical approaches, scientific outputs and high profile examples of how big data analytics can deliver agricultural development in CGIAR target geographies. These projects will be embedded within larger CRP-related initiatives to leverage effectively other CGIAR investments, and will bring new and exciting partnerships with some of the major global players in big data globally and regionally.Together the three Modules attack the most important facets of the problem that big data present to CGIAR. The first organizes the data by finding out what data exist and draws them together for unified and interlinked discoverability. It assesses their status and fitness for use (quality metadata/annotations, similar spatial and temporal scales, etc.), identifies what and where gaps exist, and strengthens its analytical capacity for data-driven impact. It seeks to involve a wide range of Platform partners to produce tools that will allow the users, scientists, policy makers, or farmers to access the data in transparent, easy-to-use ways, and to support synthesizing data-driven insights. The second convenes the scientific resources across CGIAR with a vast range of partners to generate new collaborative opportunities and bring big data to agriculture, and likewise, agriculture to big data. The third inspires work on big data by funding research by CGIAR scientists with partners to innovate new ways to handle big data relevant to agriculture for the benefit of poor smallholder farmers.The Organize Module will actively work with Center and CRP researchers and CoPs (including the data, knowledge, IT, legal, and other relevant system-wide CoPs) in the inventory and management of datasets towards \"open\", and supporting tools for researchers' use. The goal is to support all Centers and CRPs to not only comply but overachieve with regard to open access and open data principles and CGIAR policy on these. The Convene Module will bring together big data practitioners from Centers and CRPs together with partners and other Platforms in spaces that will encourage interaction and pursuit of common goals. We expect that the interactions will produce ideas that we will encourage to apply for funding under the Inspire Module to develop them. The Inspire Module will create opportunities for novel ideas to be realized through pilot projects with new partners to CGIAR under collaborative efforts embedded within CRP activities.Collaboration is envisioned with the Genetic Gains Platform through shared infrastructure for processing of genetic data, and the Genebank Platform to the extent to which environmental and socio-economic data can add value to passport information for germplasm collections. The Platform will collaborate with CGIAR Gender research network, for example, on the adoption of standards for sex-disaggregated data collection and analysis (Doss and Kieran, 2013). Cross-program collaboration will be facilitated in gender research for data warehousing and data sharing, including a protocol for sharing in compliance with Open Access. The members of the Capacity Development CoP will also be a crucial human resource to design, develop, deliver, monitor and evaluate the capacity development efforts of the Platform.The Platform aims to increase the impact of agricultural development by embracing big data and ICT approaches to solve development problems faster, better and at greater scale. As outlined in the SRF, this will initially be across CGIAR, but will be extensible to agriculture at large.The Theory of Change of the Platform focuses on increasing the capacity of CGIAR and partners to embrace big data and ICT approaches. This is achieved through: Enhanced collaboration between CRPs and Centers on data analytics and ICTs;  Enabling unrestricted discoverability of inter-linked data sets to understand and tackle multifaceted challenges in data in evidence-driven ways;  Leveraging CGIAR expertise with external partners to broaden and deepen experience and capacity and position CGIAR in the broader big data and ICT sphere to establish CGIAR as an innovative thought leader; and  Development initiatives using proven big data innovations to drive agricultural growth in developing countries.To enable the above, each CGIAR Center's data will be collected, stored, documented, and made available. The Platform will focus on supporting CRPs and Centers to comply with CGIAR's Open Access and Data Management (OA/OD) Policy. This will satisfy its investors that CGIAR is able to deliver datarelated global public goods. A necessary first step in this theory of change is to enhance CGIAR's capacity to produce high-quality data products and provide open access to them. Readily-available data spurs their greater use. Through partnerships with public and private, upstream and downstream partners, CGIAR will become a broker of big data information, which will promote data-driven agricultural development. The Platform will achieve this by developing novel methodologies and innovative pilots, implemented within the context of CGIAR investment in CRPs. Public and private partners that are not traditional to CGIAR are key to achieving this. The partnerships will bring together institutions with complementary big data expertise ranging from research (e.g. high end data analytics) to development (provide ICT-based services to beneficiaries). Connecting CGIAR scientists to the network of big data practitioners and developers will expand the delivery capability and horizons of CGIAR research.The expected outcomes of the Platform include: CGIAR researchers are more familiar with ongoing work across the system related to big data and ICTs, and greater data and knowledge sharing.  Delivery on CGIAR's OA/OD policy that currently underutilized data are discovered, integrated, and reused to achieve development outcomes.  Increased multi-Center, multi-CRP projects across CGIAR on big data and ICT with less redundancy in activities.  High-profile media coverage on big data and ICT success stories from CGIAR.  Recognition of CGIAR as a global thought leader on big data and ICTs in agriculture and development.Although CRPs are the primary contributors to CGIAR IDOs, the Platform aims to increase the likelihood of reaching their targets. It will also generate capacity within CGIAR in the medium-long term by to reach scale with its research. The Inspire Projects will contribute to specific IDOs and sub-IDOs. Big data and ICT solutions will contribute to gender and youth IDOs. It will provide technology that enables women and youth to access and use information that improve farming and livelihoods.Figure 1 shows how Platform outputs transfer to outcomes and relate to CGIAR IDOs.The primary assumption of this theory of change is that data are a valued commodity for development that can be harnessed to deliver growth in agriculture in developing countries. It also assumes that CGIAR and its partners can identify business opportunities where rural institutions are weak, to deliver benefits to marginalized, smallholder farmers. This assumption is central to the design of the Platform.  8) Organizational development. The major projects in Module 3, Inspire, will be required to include capacity building of the partners involved and will directly contribute to enhanced capacity to innovate.The Platform will stimulate the incorporation of state-of-the-art Big Data management and analytics into CGIAR research as well as develop several new tools and approaches for use within both CGIAR and partner institutions. While some of the tools are self-explanatory and will be easily integrated into existing research frameworks, others will require training in their use. To address this, the Platform will organize a series of capacity-building activities and develop the associated training materials.The Platform will work at individual, organizational and institutional levels of capacity development, and with both researchers and research users. Because of its restricted focus and budget, the Platform will limit its downstream activities to work with boundary partners (Clark et al. 2011). The Platform will organize a series of training workshops on the use of, for example, big data management, data publication, and data visualization and analytical tools, ICT-based survey tools, and open source hardware platform. Training programs will target two levels of researchers and data scientists, introductory and advanced, and be opened to CGIAR partner organizations. The technology world is particularly male dominated, and so the Platform will take leadership in bridging the gap to build the capacity of women in particular during these training sessions.The Platform proposes a governance structure that will have sufficient checks and balances to make sure that the Platform delivers the expected outputs and outcomes with high value for money.This Platform is co-led by CIAT and IFPRI, with both Centers sharing responsibility for the Platform to deliver. CIAT will take fiduciary responsibility and sign the performance contract with the system office. To keep management costs down, Modules 2 and 3 will be led by the Platform Coordinator, who will oversee that the Communities of Practice (CoP) operate effectively, lead the organization of the Convention, negotiate and manage shared services (with support from a computer scientists position) and project manage the Inspire projects. The Platform Coordinator will be hired through an open, competitive process.An Executive Management Team will meet bimonthly to actively manage the Platform, and this team will consist of Platform Coordinator, plus Module 1 leader, Dr. Andy Jarvis and Dr. Jawoo Koo, with other CoP leaders participating as observers.The Platform proposes a Steering Committee (SC) to provide oversight and direction, and will formally report to the CIAT Board. As the signatory to the performance contract with the System Office, CIAT will have the overall fiduciary and operational responsibility for the Platform. The Steering Committee will be made up of 8 members, consisting of: One permanent member each from CIAT and IFPRI, designated by the Director General of each institution  One permanent CGIAR System Office representative or the person they delegate  One 2-year rotating CRP representative, nominated by the DGs and Science leaders group  One 2-year rotating Center representative, nominated by the DGs and Science leaders group  Three 2-year rotating partner representatives, nominated during the Annual Convention  The Platform coordinator will also participate in the Steering Committee as an observer.Rotating positions will be assigned to balance critical knowledge and experience on: Informatics, legal and intellectual assets, data management, data analytics. The SC Chair will liaise with the Directors-Generals of both CIAT and IFPRI as necessary. The workings of the SC will be reviewed after 24 months. Programmatic decisions will be the responsibility of the SC. The SC will also consider how effective the Platform is in meeting its outcome and impact goals. The cost of the SC is estimated to be <$20,000 per year.An International Advisory Board (IAB) will also be set up, and will meet face-to-face once per year, and virtually once per year, to explicitly examine how the CGIAR Platform on Big Data connects effectively with other global and regional efforts. The IAB will contain 5 members, who represent major initiatives such as Open Harvest, GODAN, Open Data for Development amongst others. The IAB will focus its deliberations on the comparative advantage of the platform relative to other initiatives, and guaranteeing the relevance and novelty of the Big Data Platform with respect to the broader ecosystem of initiatives. The findings of the IAB will be reported to the CIAT Board once per year.CIAT will be the main contracting body for the Platform and will sign the performance contract for the Platform with the System Office, and the sub-contracts with participating Centers/Partners. The CIAT Board Chair and Director-General will report to the System Office on the Platform as a whole. Ultimately, the CIAT Board will have authority over the entire Platform and its management but will also consult with IFPRI management as needed.Detailed leadership and Management arrangement is provided in Annex 6.  3). A minimum of 15% of the total budget is earmarked for non-CGIAR partnerships, and all Centers are involved and will receive funds.The Platform Secretariat has a cost of US$300k. 40% of budget is considered to represent Capacity Building, and 17% is aligned to gender and youth related activities. A total of US$600k is budgeted for impact assessment under Module 3.The identified Funding Sources are primarily W1+2. Given that the Platform is a new initiative and a large portion of the funding is contributing to organizational strengthening, few bilaterals have been aligned at this stage, but it is expected that W3/Bilateral could grow in 2018 and beyond. The Platform proposes to align the current Gates Foundation grant to CGIAR to support Open Access/Open Data to this Platform. The Secretariat will be charged to fundraise greater Bilateral/W3 resources once established for specific components of the Platform. Opportunities for co-sponsorship of Inspire calls with the big data community will be aggressively sought and some initial conversations with partners and donors have already yielded significant interest.  The Secretariat is budgeted at US$300k with annual growth of 5%, and is counted as management and support cost. This represents less than 5% of the average annual cost of the platform.Detailed summaries are provided under each module narrative summaries. Funding plan: As per the guidance call, the Platform is presenting this proposal without an assured W1+2 level of funding, hence the entire budget is marked as \"needed\". Given that the Platform neither exists, nor has assurances that it will be established in 2017, bilaterals are not currently aligned to the platform. Nevertheless, W3 and bilaterals related to data management, data analytics and big data applications from Centres do exist, and can be aligned if and when the platform is established. The platform would target 1:1 matching of W1+2 with W3/bilaterals.The Secretariat would also be charged with fundraising targets, especially through co-funding for Module 3 which is the most outfacing module which is potential attractive to donors and the private sector. Details for this are provided under Module 3 budget details in the Annex.Platform management and support cost: The Platform Secretariat is budgeted at US$300k in 2017, representing just 4.4% of total cost. This includes a lean 3 person team consisting of an internationally recruited platform coordinator, national staff level communications specialist, and a national staff level administrative assistant. Some US$60k is budgeted for miscellaneous supplies and services, and an additional 30k for travel.Platform financial management principles: Once established, the Platform Coordinator will have the responsibility to allocate W1+2 to the distinct modules based on the needs of users, funds availability and strategic direction. Decisions will be made in consultation with the Steering Committee. The Platform Coordinator will also oversee execution of the budget for Modules 2 and 3, hence will be fully responsible and accountable for tracking, reporting and revising Module 2 and 3 budgets. In the case of Module 1, IFPRI have ownership of the funds and will have full autonomy to decide upon the funds distribution. US$50,000 is budgeted each year under Capital, and will be assigned based on a needs basis of all users across the platform. Outcomes from Module 1 will help to democratize access to the information across gender. Elements of the Convention will focus on gender related topics from data management through to big data use in practice. Female participation in the convention will also be incentivized to break typical male dominated technology barriers down. Some Inspire project topics will be targeted specifically to address gender gaps, and innovate around big data and ICT means of reaching marginalized women farmers and female headed households. Additionally, Inspire projects on other topics will examine gender-related impacts of the innovation, and impact assessment studies will explicitly examine the gender-related impacts that big data innovations have. Youth 350,000 We anticipate that increased access to agricultural data and ICT-based applications will help retain and attract more rural youth to agriculture. Young men and women will be considered a major target user group for the annual data/knowledge consultations and design of communication materials. Significant youth involvement from within the CGIAR and with partner organisations will be sought in both the Convention and in CoP to bring new ideas to the table. Similarly to gender, some Inspire project topics may specifically address youth related impacts. Given the technological nature of big data innovations, it is to be expected that youth are more likely to engage in projects given their additional capacity to manage ICTs. Likewise, impact assessment efforts will look at youth related impacts of different innovations. Capacity development 1,954,000 Centers will receive dedicated funding for developing capacity to implement OA/OD and ensure science and data quality. It is anticipated that workshops will be also focus on or include capacity building as a core theme. In 2008, IFPRI pioneered the development of global-scale gridded crop modeling framework using DSSAT suite of crop models on a high-performance computing cluster. The framework has been further developed for use in global and regional-scale ex-ante studies of impact assessment. IFPRI supports installation of the framework at other CGIAR Centers.Data as IPGs: IFPRI publishes harmonized, spatial databases of multi-disciplinary data layers on 10 km global grids. The database provides 700+ indicators, with production statistics for 42 crops. This dataset is a community-driven knowledge product with participation of all CGIAR Centers, and is used as the baseline for global and regional-scale studies. IFPRI also publishes ASTI, which tracks agricultural research and development in 80+ countries. ASTI supports science and technology policymaking and builds national and regional capacity for data collection and analysis.All 15 Centers and 12 CRPs are also partners. Additionally, the Platform has engaged with 47 external partners ranging international institutions, universities to private companies. They cover public to private, developing to developed country, and analytics to ICT deployment. Amongst these are major global players on big data analytics such as IBM, big data infrastructure expertise such as Google, Amazon, through academic institutions such as MSU, U. of Florida, King's College London, and Big Data start-up and investment companies such as Bayes Impact, DataPop Alliance. Details of these partners is available in Table 1.African Technology Innovation hub, providing capacity building and access to a network of women technological entrepreneurs Amazon Amazon Web Service (AWS) provides a suite of cloud-based computation tools and application development environment. CGIAR's datasets are also served.President of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS), spurring collaboration between UCGIS and CGIAR, and furthering the role of big data in decision science To sequence all the collection of cassava lines and common bean lines and to work together to develop the cutting-edge data analysis and bioinformatics technologies, and to use Pangenome approach to investigate the detailed genetic diversity at population levelCIESIN specializes in online data and information management, spatial data integration, and interdisciplinary research. IFPRI collaborates with CIESIN for various spatial analysis products.Agriculture Flagship develops new tools and management practices, including crop models, IPM, and precision agriculture, to increase profitability and productivity.Connecting hub, alliance ensuring that data and tools serve the interests of people across the globe, catalyzing and coordinating developments and innovations in the use of Big Data to help serve the cause of human progressDisney Research uses UVAs and 3D sensors from UAVs to model vegetation and computer vision to research human interaction and logistics such as crowd counting.AIMS team collaborates with CGIAR Consortium Office, IFPRI, Bioversity, and other Centers to support co-developing ontologies, common vocabularies, and knowledge management tools.FirstMileGeo's platform streamlines the design of questionnaire, data collection using mobile devices, and visualizing and analyzing the data online.Global Biodiversity Info. Facility provides access to various types of biodiversity-relevant datasets. GBIF collaborates with Bioversity.A mobile polling platform that help organizations to conduct surveys through the mobile phone. IFPRI uses GeoPoll to survey maize farmers' technology use in Tanzania.Input to the Digital Genebank Inspire Project, linkage to DivSeek and scaling out concepts to other genebanksEarth Engine provides petabytes of public remote sensing data and a library of analysis functions to perform complex analyses in Google's cloud computing environment.Transforming industries and professions with data; Remaking enterprise IT for the era of cloud computing; Reimagining work through mobile and social technologies; Rethinking the challenge of security.Ecosystems Services and Management Program researches to improve our understanding of ecosystems and monitoring their current state and ecological thresholds.Partnering with CGIAR to generate policy support systems on water, ecosystem services.Agricultural Commodity Research Engine (ACRE) delivering data analytics and decisionsupport tools to rapidly test and provide feedback on geospatial data along the value-chain and targeted insights to emerging markets.State Univ.PhotosynQ Project: Expertise on developing and providing low cost, hand-held measurement device to collect and share plant health data.Generating user centered tools to expand the base of data users and expand the reach of big data into decision making.Genome sequencing and collaboration on Digital Genebank ideas.Geographic Information Science and Technology group uses supercomputers and geocomputational methods to solve a wide variety of national and global problems.PlantVillage: using smartphones and smart crowds for food securityBig Data collection and analytics as it applies to plant improvement -sensor development and data collection innovation (robotics, UAV, etc.), field-scale phenomics/plant analysis, genome to phenome data integration.Collaboration on site-specific agriculture approaches, linkage with UK Agritech initative.Generation of large non-targeted and targeted metabolomics datasets augmenting the chemotyping of diversity germplasm and supporting breeding programs across the RTB portfolio.SpatialDev has years of experience working with CGIAR and many agricultural research and development partners to develop web-based data visualization and analysis tools.FSE (Center for Food Security and the Environment) develops satellite imagery-based mapping of crop production and performances. CIMMYT and IFPRI collaborates with FSE.The Geospatial and Farming Systems Research Consortium (GFRC) supports the adoption of sustainable intensification, using open data, analysis tools and provides training to partners.Advisory support for tailoring of technical solutions to ensure utility for United Nations agencies and other stakeholders.Leads the development of earth observation technologies for soil, land surface and atmospheric processes, with a specialization in agricultural water management.Intelligent data analysis, providing practical solutions based on machine learning analytical tools to deal with real-life challenges in agriculture.Building distributed or harmonized databases to support agricultural research for development, and developing ICT tools that facilitate interoperability of data, models, and other knowledge products. One of the primary objectives of the Platform is to bring together CGIAR Center and CRP data in such a way that they are available to end users, ranging from policy makers to smallholder farmers. It is therefore axiomatic that these end users must be involved in developing the tools to access the data. The direct users are therefore scientists in CRPs and their partners.The key communication space between the Platform and primary Center/CRP scientists and partners will be the annual Convention. This will not be the typical big conference with keynote speakers and individual presentations, but a more engaging format where the participants are encouraged to interact together to address a suite of common themes. The Conventions will be patterned on the successful meetings of a successful informal group in CGIAR called the Consortium for Spatial Information.Network mapping and connectivity mapping with some reportable outcomes will be mainstreamed in the Platform to ensure relevance. Too often networks are discussed as a soft objective with convening's and untraceable interactions driving that objective. This Platform will track the network, map its' nodes, hubs and connections and be able to analyze quantitatively the outcomes of this objective. This network mapping also serves to allow navigation of the network from the outside by connecting expertise, activity, and communities within the network to stakeholders. Web tools to allow navigation and engagement with the network will increase CGIAR visibility to external audiences as well as increase the velocity of internal collaborations.The Platform will also aggressively pursue active ideation around the creation of advanced analytical tools that are accessible. For example, GIS was exclusively the province of trained geographers and analysts until recently. Advances in the technology have made it more useable and drastically shortened the learning curve, hence GIS has become democratized and currently has a much broader role in supporting decisions than ever before. Opportunities exist in this vein with statistical analysis, landscape analysis, and climate measurement and in resilience.Water for Food Institute uses remote sensing applications for irrigated agriculture, hydrology and natural resources monitoring, including applications using low-cost airborne sensors.Leads the development of DSSAT, a crop systems modeling platform, and coordinate training programs. Collaborates with Global Futures, CCAFS, PIM, and HarvestChoice initiatives.Supporting scaling up and out the data driven agronomy experience from LAC to Africa and East Asia and the Pacific regions.The partners to this Platform include both upstream knowledge generators, through downstream knowledge users. Collaboration with experts in this field, such as Google and IBM, who have indicated their interest in the Platform, will provide the expertise and insights needed. Details of the committed collaborators are in Annex 4.The SC will be responsible for the management of intellectual assets of the Platform. In particular, the SC will ensure that the Platform complies with CGIAR Principles on the Management of Intellectual Assets, which deal with the dissemination of intellectual assets for maximizing global accessibility and impact. The Platform's Intellectual Assets (IAs) will include data and databases, analysis tools, publications and other information products as defined by article 3 of the CGIAR Open Access and Data Management policy. All products produced by the Platform will be disseminated using open access principles, with clear branding to recognize those responsible for producing the IA. The products will have suitable open licenses to ensure maximum possible access and reusability. In the cases where particular copyrights apply (for example, in the case of some high impact journal articles), the Platform will commit to cover the fees to make the articles open and reusable.When working with private sector entities, the Platform will clarify that it is committed to open access on knowledge products and will abide by any rules placed on the partnership, but final products will be made public in accordance with the agreements, subject only to confidentiality obligations as may be associated with restrictions permitted under article 6 of the CGIAR IA principles. The Platform will ascertain that data collected about or on human subjects (human beings or groups of human beings) has passed the ethical review put in place by the relevant CGIAR center or other partner organization.The Platform will provide a checklist regarding ethics in social research as part of a general ethics in data collecting protocol. Bringing resource poor farmers to Big Data and Big Data to resource poor farmers requires special attention for privacy and cyber security issues. The CGIAR has a special responsibility in protecting the privacy of the resource poor beyond the legal minimum.The proposal does not identify non-standard pathways of dissemination such as those involving legal restrictions or regulations, third-party technologies or innovative approaches. This is because it is not possible at this proposal stage to foresee what these might be. Indeed, one of the Platform's objectives is to create novel pathways to make CGIAR data more readily available and useful to its clients, resource-poor farmers. One of the SC's responsibilities will be to seek ways to create non-standard pathways on an ongoing basis. All three modules are dedicated to the objective of creating new ways to make CGIAR information available to end users. Platform partners will be key players in developing these novel approaches and evaluating these possibilities during implementation of the Platform.Open access management is central to this Platform, especially under Module 1, with the objective of supporting CGIAR to comply with OA/OD principles. In keeping with CGIAR Open Access and Data Management Policy (OADMP), research data, tools, and associated information generated under the Platform will be made available for indexing and interlinking, so that research outputs are open via FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Re-usable) to enhance innovation, impact, and uptake. The OADMP complements CGIAR Principles on the Management of Intellectual Assets.Open access management across Centers and CRPs includes consistent operationalization of the OADMP and providing the overall framework, systems and structure. This will be operationalized in Module 1, Organize; research outputs hosted within the existing Platforms within CGIAR (e.g. CGspace, Dataverse, CCAFS climate) and external Platforms will comply with OA/OD requirements and FAIR principles.A key performance target for this Platform is that it supports CRPs and Centers to comply with OADMP through a range of support mechanisms from capacity building, through targeted technical support to generation of new tools, services, portals and web platforms that ensure that CGIAR data is truly open access.The Platform will deal only with information about germplasm provided by the Centers and CRPs, not with germplasm itself. Compliance with the International Treaty of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA, www.planttreaty.org) and its Nagoya Protocol is the responsibility of the Centers and CRPs that deal with germplasm. The SC will be charged to ensure that the Centers and CRPs certify that the information they provide to the Platform and its partners is in compliance with the ITPGRFA and its Nagoya Protocol and promotes farmers' rights.Strategic communications offer a set of powerful tools and approaches that can contribute to the Platform's outcomes and CGIAR's SRF. Communications activities are aligned with the Platform's impact pathways and are an essential component of the ToC. They are designed to deliver on the Platform's overall goals and a range of measurable communications objectives that promote the science of big data. They will inform major initiatives and policies on big data, provide open access to knowledge, and encourage learning and sharing of information across the Platform and its partners.The Platform will employ a suite of well-established tools and approaches (e.g. through website with blog posts, micro-blogs on twitter, linkedIn pulse blogs, targeted messaging through local national and regional). These will deliver tailored messages to program partners and next users. Communications will be custom targeted at end users, ranging from scientists to policy makers to smallholder farmers. The Platform will also draw upon its multiple partners to leverage the diffusion and interaction with its members and audiences. The platform will engage with specialized media, i.e. in the area of data analytics, and ICT4D.Innovative communication approaches such as Hackathons and Killer App competitions and prizes will also be developed around the Convention to increase visibility of the Platform as a go-to-place for knowledge and insights on big data in agricultural development. Further, these kinds of events will be used to draw additional partners to the table, and achieve specific Platform goals through concerted crowdsourced efforts to innovate and build development solutions.Communications will be supported through budget allocations and staff time from a variety of sources, including the Secretariat, Platform Modules, Platform-financed projects, and Centers/CRPs and partners. Collective action and collaboration will be essential to deliver impactful communications.The Platform will maintain a risk catalogue following the approach used by CIAT and CCAFS, which will be updated once a year by the SC at its annual in-person meeting. The risk catalogue will include details on each of the risks, their likelihood and impact, mitigating measures and risk owner. The results of the risk assessment will be reported each year to the CIAT Board and will be discussed by the Platform Coordinator with the Chair of the CIAT Board's Audit and Risk Committee. The Platform Coordinator will convey any suggestions to the SC for discussion and implementation. An initial appraisal of some (not all) risks are nevertheless provided below.One particular risk is that there is insufficient buy-in from CGIAR leadership (CRP directors, Center directors, System Office) to pay sufficient attention to compliance of the OAODM policy. The Secretariat will very strongly engage with CGIAR management and leadership to ensure that this topic is prioritized and given sufficient attention. Module 1 will provide incentives (technical, financial and social) for Centers and CRPs to achieve OA/OD compliance.Loss of data is a risk that CGIAR faces today and this risk will only increase in the future as data becomes a more and more important commodity, and so this Platform will address this risk by ensuring adequate backup, and through negotiation of shared service agreements for cloud based backup of essential CGIAR data resources.Whenever working with data that includes information about individuals, there are privacy related risks. Module 1 will work with Centers and CRPs to ensure responsible management of data with respects to privacy and support CGIAR to have strict guidelines about anonymity, privacy and confidentiality in all types of data that the organization manages. Having an ethics in research protocol and abiding by it will minimize the probability of privacy related conflicts occurring. Privacy risks which can damage reputations, and create a lack of trust for future data-related activities with those individuals. There are also legal and liability risks associated thereof, since a violation to the individual's privacy is sanctioned by a considerable number of countries.Making data open access without the ability to show compliance with ethics in research principles and protection of privacy can legally expose the institutions that make such data available.3.1 MODULE 1: ORGANIZE 3.1.1 Modules NarrativeThe CGIAR pursues multiple pathways for impact through the CRPs and SRFs. The Platform held scoping consultations with CGIAR researchers and partners, which identified key requirements and components of the enabling environment to realize pathways to data-driven impacts, as well as current gaps in capacity. This Module addresses organizational and technical environments that will enable CGIAR to embrace the power of big data analytics. This will occur within following three highlevel domains.New techniques in data science (such as machine learning) offer scope to complement the existing science toolbox of international agricultural research. The Platform will implement and capitalize on these technologies, which will provide opportunities for interoperability between data, tools and models. CGIAR's diverse range of research datasets will then be fully open and have a common meaning. This will require CGIAR-wide transformation and the appropriate supporting infrastructure.The Consortium Office has been implementing the CGIAR Open Access and Open Data (OA/OD) policy to address organizational and technical challenges. Its primary focus was to foster a change in culture and institutional incentives, along with technical and human infrastructure. The initiative's first phase assessed the infrastructure and capacity needs, developed a framework to prioritize legacy data, and provided coordinated support to Centers and CRPs. It also developed a framework to assess the initiative's impact. The initiative made progress, but needs additional investment and effort to meet its goal of seamless and consistent information discoverability, integration, interoperability and reuse.The OA/OD Phase II proposal, submitted in December 2015, seeks to strengthen the volume, variety, and quality of openly-accessible research outputs from CGIAR and its partners. These objectives are closely aligned with the objectives and expected outcomes of this Platform. We therefore incorporate the OA/OD Phase II into this Module.CGIAR's primary strength lies in generating and managing high-quality global research for development. CGIAR does not, however, yet have a comparative advantage in terms of the technical capacity and resources required to develop big data analytics tools and supporting services.Participants in the scoping consultations emphasized the need to access third-party key datasets, tools, and supporting services. A selected set of these will be made available through the Platform, prioritized based on the needs of CRPs and the amount of resources available.Although online tools help users to discover and explore datasets easily, more advanced analysis may still be required locally after the dataset (or its subset) is downloaded. By promoting a common data analytics environment for all researchers to use as a standard research tool, we anticipate lowering the barrier of practical use of big data analytics in CGIAR. This does not imply any enforced exclusivity, rather researchers with advanced skills will still have their choice of tools as they fit their needs. Yet, wide adoption of a common analytics environment will help provide focused capacity building activities, strengthening consortium-wide analytical capacity in a more collaborative way. It will also broaden the use of big data analytics across the Centers and CRPs.In collaboration with partners in public and sectors in selected focus countries, a thorough data landscape analysis will be conducted to understand their potential data and analytics needs and current gaps. The analysis will also define potential business cases where new data-driven insights could help raise investments in agriculture and guide business decisions, from product innovation to market access and infrastructure development. This assessment will be iteratively implemented in regular basis to keep the Platform's relevance for the newly emerging agricultural research and development topics and big data technologies and to help monitoring the Platform's impact.To harness the power of big data analytics, a priority requirement is for research data to be easily found, well annotated, and readily integrated and interoperable for further utility. Activities will be implemented to make all CGIAR Centers and programs OA/OD compliant, all Centers to adopt interoperable data management standards, and make all CGIAR research data discoverable and utilized to power real-time decision support systems featuring advanced artificial intelligence technologies and natural language-based search interfaces. While the Platform primarily serves as a collaborative space, several key datasets, enabling tools and services from third-party providers are identified as necessary for the Platform's success. For the datasets, two groups of global datasets were identified as key: 1) global spatially-explicit agroecological and socio-economic data to help better understand and contextualize complexity in agrofood systems, and 2) global macro-level food security and global development data for monitoring the progress toward the achievement of sustainable development goals and related CGIAR goals over time. To be most effective, the Platform will aim to utilize its partnership with ongoing initiatives and available resources as much as possible, rather than developing an entirely new initiative. For the tools and services, examples were identified (and the selection process will uses the information from the landscape analysis results (output 1.2.1). Small-scale pilot programs will be developed at the initial stage and reviewed to decide whether the offering will continue or be adjusted. If necessary, the Platform will leverage partnerships with developers (Module 2, Convene) to help developing new tools addressing specific needs that are not fulfilled by existing tools. Investment in these will not only create a robust enabling environment, it will also help avoid potential duplication and uncoordinated investments in later stages.Success of the Platform will further accelerate when researchers across CGIAR and partner institutions use an interoperable data analytics environment and inspire each other. Although online tools will help discoverability, visualization, and simple analyses of datasets, more advanced analytics will be performed locally after the dataset (or its subset) is downloaded. By promoting a common, open data analytics environment, we anticipate lowering the barrier to practical use of big data. The Platform will also establish a code repository housing codes from various studies across CGIAR, and allowing researchers to explore practical examples from peers and adopt big data analytics in their work. Shared analysis codes will also help accelerate customization of analytics and avoid possible duplications. This will ultimately contribute to the advances in science by enabling reproducibility of published work and increased efficiencies.An implemented OA/OD strategy will generate accessible and ready-to-use data for analytics and research. Varying data quality is likely to impinge both on insights generated from the use of analytics and on the ultimate outputs. Unlike publications, it is not easy to implement peer-review of datasets. Nevertheless, robust scientific review will be useful, but it is impractical to expect reviewers to be accountable for the quality of large multi-disciplinary datasets. Depending on the characteristics of data products, whether they are used as inputs to other analyses (e.g., real-time field measurement data-stream), analytics outputs (e.g., forecasted probability of crop failure), or synthesized data-driven actionable insights (e.g., policy recommendation to prioritize investment options), the Module will establish a Science Quality Assurance Strategy as a part of the annotation of knowledge products.To ensure the quality of big data used in the analytics, the Module will develop a set of protocols to provide guidance for the Platform partners and contributors. The protocols will assist to assess the quality of datasets, especially where there is no associated peer-reviewed publications, and identify potential issues with them. User feedback will be used as a proxy to monitor the quality of datasets, which is crucial to improve their quality.While researchers attempt to answer specific research questions, by definition big data analytics generate probabilistic outputs. This is particularly the case for any empirical or model-derived insight, including agricultural risk (e.g., 70% chance of doubling crop yield by doubling the amount of fertilizer applications depending on rainfall pattern). Conveying the concept of risk to smallholder stakeholders may pose a communication challenge, but communication specialists will help avoid misinterpretation of analytic outputs. Where applicable, estimates from multiple sources using different approaches (e.g., disaggregated data of crop production) will allow diagnostic comparisons.Unlike publications, datasets that involve continuous measurement (e.g., in situ measurement of changes in soil properties) are dynamic. Attempts to generate insights from a limited scope of dynamic data can be misleading and have implications on the quality of outputs. When there are insufficient data points available to perform analytics and generate meaningful insights (e.g., large standard errors), this will be clearly stated as a limitation.When working with raw data, researchers often make assumptions to fill possible gaps in the data and apply ad hoc rules to handle outliers. Although this is common practice, the steps in processing data must be clearly documented to ensure transparency and traceability. The Module will develop and promote best practice guides to support standard documentation of the workflows in data processing from the raw data. The raw data will remain openly accessible through the Data Exchange.Each of the datasets provided through the official repository will be given a dedicated Digital Object Identifier (DOI). The pre-formatted citation data will be readily importable to reference management software. This will help researchers track who uses the data, and understand how the data are reused and reanalyzed, and monitor whether the data are properly interpreted and used in subsequent analyses. This will also provide a way to communicate with the data users if any correction or update is necessary.Consortium-wide coordination will be critical to achieve the overall Objectives and Targets in this Module 1, Organize. During the initial phase, important decisions will be made, especially on the review and selection of enabling environment elements and the common analytics environment. CGIAR-wide efforts on OA/OD compliance and scientific quality assurance will also need to continue. There will be largely three levels of inter-connected coordination mechanisms launched, each with detailed accountability framework. See Module 2, Convene, for more detailed plans to effectively implement System Linkages.Coordination on OA/OD compliance will be built using the momentum of the ongoing OA/OD initiative working with existing CGIAR data and knowledge management CoPs. Led by the Platform secretariat, this will extend to include representatives from all CRPs, setting shared objectives and milestones to achieve their full OA/OD compliance. Activities to support researchers in complying with the OA/OD policy will be also coordinated with the Platform's lead. Additionally, CGIAR's participation in global OA/OD collaborations and initiatives, such as GODAN (Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition) and RDA (Research Data Alliance) will be coordinated through this linkage.Coordination on the technical aspects of applying data analytics will be implemented through a Community of Practice on Data Analytics, including CGIAR Centers and the Platform's academic partners (e.g., University of California -Davis, University of Florida, University of Nebraska, and Wageningen University). The Platform's will support CRPs' scientific advances by providing guidance for generating data-driven insight through partnership for exchanging ideas, building capacity, and sharing research data across institutions. This partnership will also collaboratively explore and articulate ways to handle sensitive data and associated issues -such as legal, ethical, and privacy concerns.As the SDG targets are set for 2030, it is anticipated that a wide range of research activities across the CRPs will have the potential to contribute to monitoring the progress of SDG indicators, especially those aligned with CGIAR Goals as identified in the SRF. This necessitates CRP-wide technical coordination to ensure effective big data analytics approaches, and alignment around indicators. In close consultation with Agri-Food System Programs (AFS CRPs) and the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning CoP that includes all Centers and CRPs, the Platform will support the development of a series of case studies with products designed as relevant for each CRP's IDOs and Sub-IDOs, using multidisciplinary big datasets and ICT-assisted rapid data collection and analytics tools. This will facilitate the effective monitoring and progress of agricultural sustainability at scale. Case studies will also fully utilize information provided by the Global Integrating Programs; the Platform is intended to play an intermediary role between AFS CRPs and GIPs.High-resolution climate data, both historic baseline and future projections, are already publicly available through the CCAFS Climate Data Portal and being used widely. To further facilitate the use of this resource, the Platform will provide guidance for enhanced discoverability and interoperability of the data (e.g., incorporating metadata standards such as CG Core) and explore options for easier access by machines through the implementation of Linked Open Data protocols and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).Monitoring of current micro-climate conditions (e.g., soil moisture and weather variables) can provide useful insights into climate variability and its changing spatio-temporal pattern -leading to a better understanding of climate change. There is unexploited potential to aggregate field-measured crop health and environmental data from across CGIAR trial sites, shared through open platforms in realtime, and linked with climate change analytics -for example, to evaluate performance of new technologies in different agroecological and climate-smart agriculture contexts. Coordinated by CIAT's AgTrials initiative in collaboration with connected sensors and weather station expertise in the Platform partnership, data streams from connected sensors will be publicly available through the CGIAR Data Exchange.Big data analytics is currently not a mainstream research tool in CGIAR. As addressed in the objectives of this Module, opening CGIAR's research data will be the first step to take, providing researchers with key datasets, enabling tools and services, as well as a common analytical framework. These will all synergistically help bring big data analytics and data-driven insights to the core business of CGIAR and partners. Realizing the full potential of this synergy at large scale will require a consortium-wide coordination to provide multiple levels of capacity development to the primary group of users across CGIAR and beyond. Through the convening opportunities addressed in Module 2 of this proposal, ample technical training opportunities will be provided via on-site and online courses. Shared resources such as Code Repository will also provide opportunities for researchers to learn from practical examples. As part of the training program, trainees will be encouraged to develop case studies where big data analytics are incorporated in their research, which can potentially feature in the Challenge Program described in Module 3.In addition to the technical aspect of capacity building activities, full compliance for OA/OD in CGIAR and enforcing the policy across Centers and programs will require management-level transformation and commitment, necessitating high-level institutional capacity building. This may not be achieved quickly; a step-wise phased approach will be implemented across CGIAR that will further build on the momentum from the OA/OD Phase I initiative.Overall, the CGIAR's OA/OD principle and policy will extend to all activities and products from this Module. For the key datasets to be offered through Objective 2, the Platform will serve as a clearinghouse for data access and management issues that may need to be addressed before making them publicly available through CGIAR Open Data Exchange. For other types of useful commercial data (e.g., commercial high-resolution remote sensing and weather forecast data), depending on the agreement with the provider, the Platform may elect to provide a limited scope of dataset as a sample in public, whereas costs will incur when its full access is necessary. In such case, the Platform will act as an intermediary between the data provider and CGIAR as a whole (similar to the mode of operation used by the Shared Services unit in the Consortium Office) to negotiate the terms while pursing the best interests of CGIAR. More details on this is discussed in Module 2, Convene.Privacy issues supersede open access and privacy sensitive data will be anonymized and/or aggregated prior to publication.Overall activities of the Module 1 will be managed by IFPRI, in close collaboration with the Data and Knowledge Management Unit of the Consortium Office for the OA/OD-related targets and outputs in Objective 1 and the Shared Services Unit of the Consortium Office for consortium-level agreements to provide datasets, tools, and services across researchers in CGIAR. Identification of key datasets, tools, and organizing capacity building activities will be coordinated in close collaboration with external expertise especially in academia, including University of California -Davis (UC-Davis) and Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN).Platform Lead Center's Name: CIATCenter Location of Platform Leader:Explanations of these costs in relation to the planned 2022 outcomes Module 1 aims for the following high-level outcomes:1) CGIAR Centers and programs further their public goods mandate through OA/OD compliance: A large portion of the Module 1 budget (about 50%) is dedicated to address needs articulated by Centers during the OA/OD Phase I, in support of consistent institutional implementation of the OADM Policy and monitoring and evaluation of progress. This budget will be frontloaded in Years 1-3 to sustain the momentum of Phase I and ensure the availability of open data sets to harness to big data capabilities. Sustained efforts are expected to continue as a core mandate of each Center and Program and through the culture change brokered by activities in Module 1 to foster data exchange and sharing. 2) Meaningful integration of CGIAR data sets achieved through semantic data management standards: Integrating agricultural data across disciplines, geographies, scales etc. in meaningful ways is essential to enhance innovation and impact. Semantic data management and interoperability enables information and data linking with unambiguous, shared meaning ascribed to the data, which in turn allows machine-computable logic, inferencing, knowledge discovery, and data federation among information systems. Activities in Module 1 that contribute to this outcome account for about 20% of the total budget. 3) Researchers are able to discover CGIAR data and leverage it through tools and services: CGIAR data, when made available, is typically uploaded to institutional repositories, many of which still represent silos that are not easily accessible. There is no way of finding or connecting related types of data across these Platforms (e.g., rice data, publications, extension fact sheets for similar geographies or varieties from CIAT, IRRI, and AfricaRice). Activities accounting for about 20% of the Module 1 budget will facilitate CGIAR-wide discoverability of data, no matter where these data are archived, via an infrastructure provisionally envisioned as distributed cloud storage and services. Data discovery and reuse will enable review, assessment, and refinement of existing analytic tools and services, and development of new ones, further enriching the data, analytics, and innovation landscape. 4) Scientists work in a common data analytics environment: A community \"one-stop shop\" providing robust, proven analytics to seamlessly leverage well-described, quality controlled data sets is essential to fully empower researchers in the agricultural domain to develop innovative solutions to complex problems. Activities accounting for about 10% of Module 1 will contribute to such a common analytics environment; coupled with advocacy, training, tool development and promotional activities in the other Modules to truly bring big data to the community and the community to big data.Benefits: 58.50% = Total Other supplies and services:Of the total $1,948,857 budgeted for Other Supplies and Services, the following is budgeted for:-$700,000 for meetings and conferences, including interactive regional OA/OD workshops for In case only partial project funding is available, activities will be prioritized to achieve maximum compliance on open data across CGIAR, recognizing that unrestricted access to consistently and well-annotated, high quality data is the foundation this Platform is built on. If necessary, some envisioned meetings might be replaced with virtual meetings to reduce meeting and travel budgets. Some staff time may also be replaced with more in-kind contributions (see below). During the implementation of OA/OD Phase 1, for example, Centers were overall very supportive in trying to work towards a clear common goal despite OA/OD amounting to an unfunded mandate in the absence of direct financial support. Centers undoubtedly need financial assistance to build on the momentum of Phase 1 and deliver strong progress towards addressing gaps identified during Phase 1. However, following initial support to jump-start a strong sharing culture and outcomes, Center expenses for OA/OD can be potentially budgeted within CRPs and bilateral projects.As data analytics on open agricultural data become mainstreamed and established as a key research method, we expect there will be many collaborative, in-kind contribution efforts identified across CGIAR and beyond it. In Year 1 (2017) for example, IFPRI's Virtual Information Project will provide financial support and in-kind contributions to activities dealing with agricultural technology-related information and knowledge products (e.g., ontologies on agricultural technology, agricultural investments, geospatial datasets for technology targeting and adoption monitoring). Various OA/OD activities of Module 1 will further synergize with ongoing activities under the OA/OD initiative and CGIAR Center and CRP strategic efforts to comply with the Open Access policy as well as similar donor policies (BMGF policy, USAID policy and others). Through the OA/OD initiative, for instance, centers are developing implementation plans based on a common template to build or augment human and infrastructural capacity via overhead costs. Building OA/OD budgeting into bilateral project costs will be especially crucial for securing funding in the future as donors increasingly mandate grantee adherence to open access and open data. Outcomes from Module 1 will help to democratize access to the information across gender. Overall, we estimate about 5% of total budget of this Module will be used to ensure this. Youth 100,000 We anticipate that increased access to agricultural data and ICT-based applications will help retain and attract more rural youth to agriculture. Young men and women will be considered a major target user group for the annual data/knowledge consultations and design of communication materials. Overall, about 5% of the total budget of this Module will be allocated towards youth-targeted efforts. Capacity development 654,000 Centers will receive dedicated funding for developing capacity to implement OA/OD and ensure science and data quality. It is anticipated that workshops will be also focus on or include capacity building as a core theme. Impact assessment 160,000 Consultations with the MEL CoP and data/knowledge CoPs will take place to assess the overall impact of OA/OD and define the scope for identifying opportunities and monitoring progress towards impact. Start-up funds for Centers to implement Altmetrics and ORCID will help in monitoring.63,000 Staff time of 0.66 FTE/year is budgeted to handle issues related to legal aspects of OA/OD and IA management, legal counsel, and contract/grant management. Some in-kind support on legal aspects of OA/OD and IA management will also be provided in-house for Center-specific issues. OA/OD is a relatively new challenge in the agricultural domain, but there are successful models to learn from in other disciplines such as the biomedical, genetics, genomics, and related molecular fields. For instance, NCBI, conceived with a USD 4 million allocation from the US government in 1986 enables anyone with internet access to freely mine a vast collection of data and analytical tools, providing the sort of faceted search results and integration we envision for the agricultural domain.The discovery and reuse of data and publications via NCBI databases have resulted in greatly increased collaboration, and major advances in medical knowledge and impact-so much so that current annual allocation to NCBI is estimated to be over USD 200 million. The ecological informatics field has also seen OA/OD efforts such as the Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity (KNB), an international repository to enable the consistent annotation, sharing, discovery, and access of ecological data. Wellannotated and accessible datasets such as those in KNB allow researchers to find, integrate, and analyze diverse data to better understand and address complex challenges. The Data Observation Network for Earth (DataOne) is an initiative launched in 2009 with a USD 21 million award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to provide interoperability and make content discoverable across a distributed system of repositories (including KNB). DataOne received another USD 14 million grant from NSF in 2014. Clearly the technology and infrastructure exist to accomplish easy discovery, sharing and reuse, integration, and analysis of scientific outputs, and other scientific domains have advanced from utilizing them fully. It is past time the agricultural domain harnessed these capabilities to accelerate innovation in addressing serious and complex global challenges for enhanced impact on the ground. Given the budgets for similar efforts in other domains, a start-up budget averaging $4-5 million over six years for this big data Platform represents a compelling value proposition to do so.Uplift BudgetSmallholder farmers need a basket of options that they can quickly sift through and implement. As a key determinant of productivity and profitability, weather is becoming increasingly unpredictable.Many of these farmers tend to be semi-literate or illiterate, and unable to interact effectively with smartphones. This project will leverage privatesector partnerships with advanced natural language processing, voice recognition, and artificial intelligence technologies, as well as advanced weather forecasting and remote sensing-derived products. It will provide useful, locally-relevant information to a smallholder famer in response to her voice query, in the national language and as a voice recording. CGIAR's collective expertise on agronomy, socio-economy, and accumulated knowledge on farming will synthesize best farming practices for local farming conditions and will be used to train IBM's Watson artificial intelligence engine. Watson will be trained to understand the complexity of low-input agriculture in a holistic way and help provide context of local conditions based on the location of farmer. It will also mine data from other sources, involving a number of data sources that interact via a decision support application, with translation into and out of natural language.For example, if a question \"When should I plant my rice?\" is received through a phone (or app), it is translated and contextualized based on the caller's location. The agro-climatic conditions and weather forecast data will be pulled from weather database providers. Information on rice planting requirements will be pulled from an agronomic-knowledge database, soil conditions will be provided by remote sensing estimates, and market data retrieved from an agricultural market database. These data will be synthesized in an artificial intelligence-based decision support system to simulate multiple planting date scenarios and estimate the optimum date. The answer will be something like, \"Rain forecast not sufficient for transplanting within next 2 weeks, recommendation is to direct-seed at 60 6,000,000 100 0 0 0 kg/ha in 2 weeks, with a basal application of 80 kg/ha urea, with a short-season variety.\"There are many merits of utilizing cloud-based hosting and computation services for CGIAR scientists, especially those located in less-reliable on-site infrastructure. Cloud-based infrastructure provides on-demand scalable and disposable computational processing power for scientists. However, its pay-as-you-go pricing model has been a major block for its wider utilization. That is, until the task is complete, it is difficult for users to budget the cost upfront. To relieve this budget uncertainty and financial risk, this activity will provide a certain level of financial support to the scientists (up to 12K per center per year; flexibly manageable depending on the types of demand). Leveraging for the volume, the Platform will negotiate the best pricing model with private-sector partners and the industry-leader of cloud-based computing environment. As the cost of using cloud anticipated to drop over time, more scientists are expected to benefit from this support toward Years 4-6.1,080,000 100 0 0 0For stakeholders in the agricultural research for development sector to share and consume data that is open, its quality needs to be assured. For data consumers in particular to reuse available data sets and keep the Big Data platform valuable and relevant, trust in the data will depend on factors that include: knowledge of the data source and its reliability, the relevance or currency of the data, and its quality and/or knowledge of the uncertainty that might be associated with it. Funding is requested for Years 1-6 to enable this work as a shared service across CGIAR, to be undertaken by strengthened ontology teams already based at Bioversity and IFPRI.The Big Data platform seeks to accelerate innovation and impact by sharing data that is consistently annotated and harmonized for relatively seamless integration with related data and with analytic and visualization tools and services. Accomplishing this entails working across Centers, CRPs, and the other two cross-cutting platforms, and acknowledging the diverse curation needs of different data types. It requires a highly collaborative approach that includes agronomists, breeders, geneticists, computational scientists, and others working to ground-truth and adopt a coordinated approach to standards, protocols and best practices for collecting, managing, storing, sharing, and interlinking genotypic and phenotypic data from high-throughput systems and traditional systems. While some of the training and curation activities associated with genotypic and high-throughput phenotypic data are the domain of the Genetic Gains and Genebanks platforms, it is anticipated that the Big Data platform will need to work closely with these to collaboratively develop and ensure adoption of harmonized standards and approaches capable of consistently describing large volumes of non-traditional file types (e.g., the \"heavy\" image files arising from high-throughput phenotyping and remote sensing). A modest budget is requested to complement the efforts of the other platforms, recognizing that only then will these data be easily integratable with other related data (agronomic, socioeconomic etc.) and computational and decision support tools and applications. CGIAR is largely invisible in the broader field of big data analytics and ICT development. This is mainly due to the fragmentation of activities, and the lack of a concrete strategy to engage with the data analytics community. A key component of the theory of change of the Platform centers around the establishment of new partnerships, which can only be achieved if CGIAR elevates its visibility and status in the global community on data science. This activity will focus on bringing the big data community to agriculture, and show that exciting science and business opportunities exist in rural development and agriculture in developing countries. Positioning CGIAR as the go-to institution for data analytics in agricultural development will only strengthen the delivery of the ambitious goals in the SRF.All 15 CGIAR Centers and all 12 CRP proposals contain elements of data analytics, applied to diverse fields from forestry to agriculture, from crop improvement to natural resource management, and from biophysical to social sciences. They manage data types that include economic surveys, geospatial datasets, genomic and phenomic data through to field trial and commercial farmer data. Some datasets are primary; others are secondary, originating from partner organizations. This great diversity of fields, data types, sources -and even more importantly, the analytical techniques then applied to them -represent a world of opportunities for collaborative, ground-breaking science. Yet many CGIAR scientists are unaware of efforts underway in other Centers, or CRPs they are not actively involved in.A key need for the cross-cutting Platform is therefore to convene scientists from across Centers, CRPs and key external partners and create the spaces that will stimulate greater collaboration, be it through data management and data sharing through to collaborative science.This Module focuses on enabling those interactions to take place between different levels and programs within CGIAR, and between CGIAR and new partners in the big data field. A number of strategies are proposed to address this:Big Data in Agriculture Convention: Central to enabling interaction is the concept of an annual Big Data Convention, bringing representatives from Centers and CRPs and partners to share information, develop joint initiatives and partner with key external actors in the big data space. The convention will differ from a standard conference approach, and will focus on hands-on interaction, partnership building, brainstorming and innovative sessions and approaches such as Hackathons and competitions. It will also be the basis for planning and sharing experiences of Inspire projects (Module 3) and the Steering Committee will meet around this event. Keynotes will come from high-profile researchers from both inside and outside CGIAR, and the aim is for the event to become a mainstay for any institution interested in developing big data applications in the context of agriculture in the developing world.Establish, or work with existing CoPs around key topics that multiple Centers and CRPs are working on with sub-optimal interaction. Each CoP will be facilitated by a natural leader on the topic from within CGIAR, but will also reach out to external partners to participate and leverage the knowledge on Big data management and analytics available with partner institutions to enhance the potential for CGIAR impact.Shared services and big data analytics infrastructure: CGIAR requires analytical tools and big data infrastructure in order to deliver on the promise of big data. Some of the private sector partners involved in this Platform can provide high-end services that would benefit CGIAR. Collective negotiation to access these services, such as IBM's data analytics capacity, or Amazon's cloud infrastructure, would greatly enhance CGIAR's capacity on big data and contribute to economies of scale, greater value for money and an improved enabling environment for Centers and CRPs to deliver on ICT or big data related outcomes and impacts.Capacity Building: Capacity-building workshops will be held around the annual Convention on key big data and ICT topics in the field of agricultural development. These workshops will bring together CGIAR participants and partner institutions, including national partners, local universities and innovation hubs. Additionally, quarterly webinars will be organized for in-depth science presentation around specific topics (e.g. big data phenomics, crowdsourcing, use of drones in agricultural development etc.).Collaboration Spaces: In addition to the physical convening of WGs and CoPs, virtual collaboration spaces, and a dedicated blog will be organized and provided for sharing information about ongoing initiatives. Connectivity will also be assessed to ensure that the communities are able to connect, share and collaborate easily. An annual assessment of tools to enable CoP function will be performed under this Module.Through these different strategies, this Module will increase the capacity of CGIAR to engage on big data in agriculture, and broaden CGIAR's reach with non-traditional partnerships in this domain.This objective focuses on promoting greater sharing of experiences, opportunities, and cutting-edge science around big data. This includes taking CGIAR experiences into the wider world of big data science and implementation, as well as bringing new partnerships to CGIAR to improve big data capacity. The primary activity under this objective is the organization of a Big Data in Agriculture Convention, which will be an ambitious, high-profile event designed to be the go-to-meeting for any individual or institution interested in engaging on big data in agricultural development. The meeting will be designed to be highly dynamic, and focused on partnership building and brainstorming.Innovative hackathons and killer-app competitions will also be organized on the sidelines, and sessions will be organized to also develop Inspire project ideas (see Module 3 for more details).Secondary activities include CGIAR presence in key Data Science gatherings and key focused disciplinary scientific gatherings where appropriate, such as the triannual conference of the IAAE or the ACS meetings.Seven topics are identified where CGIAR-wide knowledge management and collective action is deemed a priority. Greater coordination across CGIAR, and the injection of new ideas and ways of doing business by partner organizations should increase CGIAR's capacity to work on these topics more quickly, more effectively and at greater scale. CoPs create critical mass not achievable at individual Center level. The specific terms of reference for each CoP will be established by the Secretariat, but tasks would include: Needs assessments of CRPs and Centers around specific CoP or WG topic;  Identification of best practices across CGIAR, and promising experiences from outside CGIAR, and sharing of knowledge across Centers/CRPs;  Sharing of models, scripts, tools, platforms to reduce duplicity and maximize efficiency; and  Establishment of new collaborative research efforts and proposal development for bilateral funding to advance the science.An institution is assigned leadership, but their role is only to facilitate the community of practice which should be open to all CGIAR Centers/CRPs, and partners on this proposal. External expertise on these topics is especially crucial to identify new ways of doing business for CGIAR. When appropriate, the Platform will build off existing initiatives within CGIAR (e.g. the Data Management Task Force).This Module is not research per se, but rather the establishment of an enabling environment for excellence in big data science and analytics. The Communities of Practice and Working Groups are being assigned to established experts within CGIAR who have strong track records on the topic, and whose role will be to ensure that the Community of Practice discusses methods and approaches that are at the vanguard in terms of scientific quality. Hence, the CoPs and WGs themselves will have the explicit role of ensuring science quality on the selected topics across CGIAR.The design of the Convene Module is to ensure that we develop a \"learning organization\" (Senge, 2006). A learning organization unifies around the themes of: systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, and team learning. In turn, scientific quality will be assured through these same themes: Systems thinking -the Big Data Platform will be treated as a bounded object within the scope of the broader mandate of CGIAR. By conceptualization both the elements of the Platform, we will also have clear demarcation for what it is not. This systems conceptualization will help minimize excessive scope while, at the same time, identify the primary channels serving to connect the Platform to the broader umbrella organization.  Personal mastery -as mentioned, the CoPs and WGs are to be led by experts with established scientific track records and demonstrated ability for lateral thinking. Learning is a highly individual and incidental process, thus we look to the CoP and WG leaders to translate collective individual learning to organizational learning.  Mental models -while systems thinking requires the development of a common understanding of the bounds of the Platform, the Platform recognizes that each of the participants brings a unique set of assumptions regarding not only what is Big Data, but how it applies in the context of agriculture and development. These assumptions represent values that may be shared, may be unlearned, or may be redoubled as the Platform interactions develop. The Convene Module will facilitate dialog on individual and collective mental models to arrive at a shared vision.  Shared vision -Convene will promote a shared vision regarding the potential for both big data in agriculture, but also the Big Data Platform in CGIAR. This shared vision will provide a basis for communication and dialog with stakeholders both directly and indirectly involved in Platform activities.  Team learning -the purpose of the CoPs and WGs, and the SC is to facilitate rapid, multidirectional learning. The leaders and team members are facilitators in the team learning process. We will evaluate learning dynamics and related behavioral change throughout the life of the project using a variation of the structured 5Q approach developed at CIAT for rapid evaluation of project impact.Through approaching the Convene Module through an organizational theory perspective from the very beginning, we set the stage for continue improvement throughout the life of the Platform.All Centers and CRPs will be actively encouraged to participate in CoPs and WGs that relate to them, and will be invited likewise to participate in the annual Convention. Each CRP and Center will be asked to provide a representative through whom the Platform will interact. Two-way dialogue between the Platform and CRPs is essential -the Platform is designed to be a support mechanism to ensure compliance of OA/OD principles, and create an enabling environment for CRP research to use big data and analytics more effectively to solve CRP-specific problems and achieve targets. Under this Module, the CoPs and WGs are proposed as effective vehicles for these linkages to be made between the Platform and CRPs (and by default the Centers involved).Some CoPs and WGs will have greater relevance for certain CRPs over others. For example, the socioeconomic CoP will be especially important and relevant to collaborate with PIM, in addition to the socio-economic Flagships in AFS-CRPs. The Secretariat is charged with ensuring that the CoPs maintain appropriate inclusion of key CRP and Center representatives. The CoPs and WGs will also actively involve non-CGIAR partners to leverage knowledge and expertise and create critical mass. Through exploration of new ways of doing business, CGIAR can become much more effective.Shared services (e.g. cloud infrastructure, high-end processing capacity) will be made available to all elements of CGIAR system, including CRPs, Centers and Platforms. The WG will be charged to gauge demands across the system for such shared services, and identify appropriate partnerships to deliver on those needs. The WG will be responsible to manage the resources made available to each CRP and Center should demand outstrip supply.No CoP is proposed for management of genetic data and information as this is covered by the Genetic Gains Platform proposal.Climate related challenges and data needs occur in various elements of this Module. Crop modelling is a significant user of climate information, and the source for impact studies to help guide prioritization of climate adaptation. CCAFS Flagship 1 is to be closely involved in the Community of Practice on crop modelling, and Flagships 2 and 4 to be involved in the Community of Practice around data-driven agronomy as climate is a key variable in the generation of agro-advisories. Jointly, this Platform should contribute to improved climate change foresight. The WG on data products may identify priority climate related datasets for generating new data products, following on from very successful IPG data products such as WorldClim or CCAFS-Climate. Partners such as TAHMU bring significant expertise and meteorological infrastructure to the Platform.This Module is almost entirely focused on capacity development. The elements of capacity building considered under this Module are: Increasing CGIAR capacity on data analytical approaches through targeted capacity building workshops from identified strategic partners  Increasing CGIAR partner capacity to use big data analytics in agricultural development  Increasing organizational awareness of agricultural challenges and opportunities for big data application in institutions with a track record in big data analytics These will be achieved through both formal capacity building workshops on key topics, identified on an annual basis by the Secretariat, and approved by the Steering Committee, or through more informal processes such as through participation in the various WGs and CoPs.The WG on Data Products will identify the next generation of International Public Good data products that CGIAR can and should be generating. New data products will be developed from start to finish abiding by IA principles, and be maintained in a regularly updated IP portfolio (which in the Platform's case will be lists of information products such as publications, databases, analysis tools (e.g. big data models), and web services (e.g. modelling platforms)). Where raw data underlying data products contain privacy and sensitive information, the data will be anonymized and/or aggregated in order to protect the privacy of individuals involved. Development of new data products must abide by ethics guidelines.The Communities of practice that are part of the platform will promote guidelines for ethics in research, and ensure protection of the privacy of all subjects involved in the data.This Module is to be led by the Secretariat, but a number of responsibilities are to be distributed across CGIAR Centers/CRPs and external partners. CoPs will be led by experts in that domain as identified in the activity tables. Each CoP leader will be assigned US$100k to facilitate dialog, exchange and ensure delivery of the terms of reference. These funds may be used for specific meetings, synthesis activities, and development of joint publications or generation of new data-related products or models. The WG on Data Products (lead by CIAT) and the WG on Data Management (lead by IFPRI) will be assigned US$200k each to ensure delivery to their respective terms of references. Additionally, up to US$200k will be assigned for establishing shared service agreements for infrastructure and analytical support that all CRPs and Centers can tap into under the WG on Infrastructure. These agreements will be negotiated and managed through the Secretariat.Platform Lead Center's Name: CIATCenter Location of Platform Leader:Module 2 establishes mechanisms for coordination, collaboration and joint-research across CGIAR and with its external platforms. The total budget over 6 years is US$9.68m. This budget remains relatively stable from Year 1 through Year 6 with only inflationary adjustments to the costs. US$200k is budgeted to hold the Annual Big Data in Agriculture Convention. This includes budget for hosting, sponsoring travel for developing country partners, and the organization of the range of events that will surround it including Hackathons, competitions, Dragon's dens, plus Working Group and CoP meetings and the Steering Committee on the sidelines. Each of the 5 CoPs (socio-economic data, spatial data, data driven agronomy, crop modelling) will be funded with US$100k/yr. This is to be used at the discretion of the leader and based on the particular needs of the user community, but as a rule of thumb is being budgeted as 60% personnel time and 40% operations (travel and supplies and services).The WG on Infrastructure is budgeted to US$230k per year, and includes US$50k for Capital purchases within the CGIAR (central servers, for example), and US$180 for contracted shared services with external partners. Examples of such contracts may include cloud storage or data processing infrastructure, or high end analytical support. A computer and data scientist is budgeted to oversee this work for the Platform. The WG on Data Products is budgeted to US$200k/yr, with 75% to cover salaries and 25% under supplies and services to hold workshops or purchase data services. The exact distribution of this budget will depend upon the data products that are prioritized by users.The WG on Data Management consists of US$$50k/yr for national staff support plus US$100k/yr for travel and workshops to enable the data management task force to engage on specific priority topics.Benefits: National Research Staff (NRS): Fringe benefits for national staff (costs for all benefits are added to the base salary to provide the total cost of the position) are comprised of legal benefits (local mandatory) and extralegal benefits (CIAT mandatory) and the provisions to cover local legal requirements such as: Pension -social security, training and development, occupational health, transportation costs and subsidies, work clothes and personnel protection requirement, and food subsidy.International Research Staff (IRS): Fringe benefits for international staff (costs for all benefits are added to the base salary to provide the total cost of the position) are comprised of housing allowance, education allowance, car allowance, Cost Of Living Allowance (COLA), hardship, home leave tickets, insurance, retirement contribution, occupational health, training and development, repatriation and relocation provisions.Other supplies and services: Discussed above.Sponsors will be sought to share the costs of the Convention and bring annual costs down. Local and international private sector companies will be invited to support specific events around the Convention. Staff time of participants to the CoP are provided in kind by their institutions. Many of the cost items under this module are about internal organization of the CGIAR, and is therefore very difficult to raise bilateral to support.Please describe main key activities for the applicable categories below, as described in the guidance for full proposal Gender 50,000 Elements of the Convention will focus on gender related topics from data management through to big data use in practice. Female participation in the convention will also be incentivized to break typical male dominated technology barriers down. Youth 50,000 Significant youth involvement from within the CGIAR and with partner organisations will be sought in both the Convention and in CoP to bring new ideas to the  3.3.1.1 Rationale,scope Big data has the potential to drive agricultural development, yet there are limited concrete cases that show how data-driven approaches to development yield results in terms of poverty reduction, enhanced nutrition or environmental benefits. New approaches need to be identified that make use of available data-sources and new analytical tools, and levelled at classic agricultural development problems. Furthermore, systematic learning of success and failures needs to be documented, and synthesized in policy-relevant documents to drive future investments in big data related agricultural innovations.Most scientific breakthroughs originate from an idea that requires pilot funding to demonstrate its feasibility. Under this Module, the Platform will provide small annual grants of US$100k pilot funding for high-risk, innovative big data and ICT ideas that have the potential to lead to new scientific discoveries, or enhance the efficacy of development efforts. Pilot funding will be anchored in the CRP structure, ensuring leveraging of the funding and high likelihood of further development of the ideas under the CRP in subsequent years.During the Annual Convention, collaborative brainstorming spaces will be designed to encourage Centers and CRPs to engage with external partners to develop novel ideas that use big data to solve agricultural development problems and challenges. Short pitches of these ideas will then be made to a multi-partner panel and the Steering Committee. High-risk ideas will be welcomed. The best ideas will be selected for funding. Grants will be managed with minimal administrative burden, following a similar philosophy to the Grand Challenges initiative pioneered by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.The topics for such Inspire projects will be tightly defined, and the projects must be aligned to a CRP, and include non-CGIAR partners. This ensures that the projects are not stand-alone, and have the possibility to leverage into significant impact if successful and scaled out by the CRP involved. The inclusion of non-CGIAR partners will also contribute to new collaborative efforts, and contribute to the ToC by bringing new ways of doing business to CGIAR and generate greater capacity on the application of big data to agriculture.Topics for the Inspire projects will be identified on a yearly basis through consultation with CRPs to identify problems within their annual workplans where big data analytics could solve intractable problems, or vastly increase the efficiency in problem solving.Specific topics where the Platform will focus on include: Crowdsourcing data from the field on a mass basis  Drones and image analysis for high throughput phenotyping  Analytics to understand complex crop-livestock-climate-soil-management interactions  Spatio-temporal modelling in real time using interoperable data streams for food security and agricultural monitoringThe Steering Committee will make the final selection of topics that get prioritised, but examples could include: Novel means to evaluate CGIAR impact through crowdsourcing and remotely sensed data;  Opportunities to close gender-gaps through big data analytics and ICTs targeted for women and youth;  Closing yield gaps through improved big-data driven agro-advisories;  Improving national policy development through big data analyses of trends and spatial patterns;  Novel tool development for climate resilience planning using CGIAR data integrated with other data;  Crowdsourcing of pest/disease dynamics, and development of dynamic pest risk mapping and advisories  Development of tools that strengthen the transformative power of the platform to further the CRP objectives by harnessing the foresight and capabilities of Big Data;  Lowering transaction costs of data gathering for research and policy making;  Harnessing the information from remote sensing in novel ways including crowd sourced ground trothing; and  Development of applications for the most simple of smartphones to bring the benefits of Big Data to resource poor farmers.Pilot Inspire projects will be evaluated after one year, and the ideas which prove to be feasible and show greatest potential for scale out will be identified through a robust selection process. Funding will be increased to US$250k per year for a two-year period for full Inspire projects to bring the idea to scale in close coordination with the CRP to which the project is aligned. These projects will generate new analytical approaches, scientific outputs and high profile examples that demonstrate potential of CGIAR to lead the field in big data and agricultural development. M+E and impact assessment will be used to document efficacy of the approaches developed and will be accompanied by strong communications, outreach and fundraising efforts. At the end of the project cycles, synthesis and lessons learnt will be written up and published, alongside policy briefs and best practice guidelines for big data in agriculture. Inspire project participants will also be connected to the broader Platform network through collaborative tools and thus, the network and its potential for generation of new research and new resources will grow. This will be measured as part of the network assessment and mapping process.Under this objective, pilot Inspire projects will be developed, selected, contracted, reported upon and lessons learned communicated. Each year, the Steering Committee will identify 1-3 priority topics for pilot Inspire projects and issue a call to CGIAR Platform participants (CRPs and CGIAR researchers) to develop ideas together with external big data partners. Ideas will be further developed through facilitated ideas labs (or sandboxes as referred to in the UK) around the annual Convention on Big Data and Agriculture. Proponents will then pitch the ideas to a selection committee consisting of the Steering Committee and selected topical experts. Criteria will be established to evaluate, and the best project ideas selected for US$100k pilot funding to develop the idea further and test in a specific context for a one-year period. In 2017, a total of five Pilot Inspire projects are earmarked for funding, with a further three budgeted for 2018, and two for 2019 and 2020. No budget is earmarked for pilots in 2021 and 2022. This objective focuses on scaling out successful pilots, and robustly testing innovations from Objective 1 across broader contexts. Each pilot Inspire project will be evaluated by the Secretariat and external evaluators to assess the potential of the innovations developed. These evaluations will be structured around criteria such as potential for impact, scientific novelty, and value for money, gender and youth benefits, scalability amongst others.The top evaluated pilot Inspire projects will then be considered for scale-out funding, consisting of US$250k per year over a two-year period. Strong support from the CRP that the project is aligned to will be ensured, and co-investment by that CRP and/or bilateral donors also pursued. The Secretariat will co-design the project with the proponents, and the innovation will be tested at scale in CGIAR Site Integration countries with target CGIAR beneficiaries. Each project will develop an impact pathway and align results to CGIAR SRF, thus contributing to IDO and sub-IDO indicators.Scaled Inspire projects will be implemented over a two-year period, and will be expected to produce IPGs such as new methodologies and approaches, new datasets, and new business models, and produce scientific outputs such as journal articles, policy briefs and guidelines. One project will start in 2018, an additional project in 2019, two additional projects in 2020 and a final project in 2021. This staging will facilitate projects to learn from each other and build off previous lessons learned.Projects will develop rigorous ex-post impact evaluation designs that will include robust M+E, baselines and end-line data collection to evaluate the potential of each innovation to generate impact. Systematic M+E and learning activities within each of the scaled Inspire projects will contribute to further synthesis in 2019-2022. Although impact assessment will be implemented throughout the projects' life, most of the resources for this activity will be focused in 2021 and 2022. At the end of the 6 years, this Module will have generated a series of pilots, projects, innovations and robust impact assessments that will be synthesized and communicated and disseminated broadly to donors, governments and development actors.Pilot Inspire projects will be evaluated by the Steering Committee and other invited evaluators based on a number of science-related criteria including novelty, innovation, robustness and reproducibility.To streamline the evaluation process and ensure that small Inspire projects have the potential to result in fundamental change in our paradigms regarding the use of data and analytics in agriculture, we will develop a simple and consistent evaluation rubric. The rubric will frame measurement of each of the above categories to provide a basis for evaluating each project, but will also facilitate a \"meta\" understanding of the collective set of projects to identify missed opportunities and under-represented areas. The Inspire categories will be evaluated in the following manner: Novelty and Innovation will be evaluated in terms of relevance. Does the project address a previously overlooked need? Does the project show potential to benefit society? Do the presented innovations require big data and analytic approaches? Are the proposed innovations made possible through the resources of the Big Data Platform? By asking each of these questions in a structured manner, the strength of the linkages between the Inspire project, the Big Data Platform, and the SLOs can be clearly established. Robustness and Reproducibility will be evaluated in terms of validity. Does the project demonstrate internal validity by clearly demonstrating awareness of potential alternatives and their corresponding strengths and weaknesses? Does the project demonstrate external validity through the development of generalizable approaches? Is the workflow of the proposed project clearly documented and applicable beyond the stated problem? Again, a structured set of answers will serve to quantify and qualify the linkages of each Inspire project to the overarching goals of the Platform. Recipients will be required to demonstrate a path to scale for a project to be successful.The Pilot Inspire projects coupled with the structured approach to evaluating scientific quality thus serves a dual purpose. First, the SC will be equipped to allocate funds to the projects that show the greatest promise not only to support the goals of the Platform and the SLOs, but also for those projects that will serve as beacons for future efforts. Equally important, the structured evaluation framework will support a characterization of the scientific space covered by the Inspire projects in a comparable manner. This coverage can then be cross-walked with any number of counterfactuals (the SLOs, the Platform themes, etc.), to determine whether there is excessive overlap in the project foci or to identify targets of opportunity that should be specifically pursued with appropriate subject matter experts.All Inspire projects (pilots and scale-out) will require alignment with a CRP to ensure that they are fully embedded in the larger CGIAR research portfolio. This will ensure that successful pilots can be scaledout through the CRP. At minimum, a CRP should endorse proposals for pilot Inspire projects, and proponents should be able to articulate how it contributes to that particular CRP. Ideally the project will be embedded within a much larger CRP-funded initiative or project under a specific flagship, and the pilot involve an innovative piloting of a new method in a context where the CRP already has established ongoing research with delivery partners.For Scaled Inspire projects, greater CRP involvement will be sought to ensure a) relevance, and b) greater leverage.Pilot projects will not be held accountable for delivery with respect to SRF targets, but scaled projects will develop impact pathways that are mapped to SRF IDOs and sub-IDOs, hence contributing to system level outcomes and targets.Areas where big data can contribute to innovation in climate mitigation or adaptation will be identified via multi-stakeholder consultations and other means, and will be considered by the Steering Committee for the Inspire project calls for innovations.This Module contains less capacity building activities than other Modules, although capacity building elements can be expected under the Inspire projects. Projects selected for scaling will be requested to outline their capacity building activities.Capacity building needs will also be considered in the synthesis of big data innovations for agricultural development and incorporated in lessons learned and guidance on future investment on big data in agriculture.All agreements and contracts made with inspire projects will comply with the CGIAR IA Princples. The inspire projects will be asked to commit to sound management of intellectual assets and IP rights. All IA generated with CGIAR Big Data Platform funds, including data and software, will be open access.They will have open licenses that maximize global accessibility and reuse, and all data products will have to be machine readable, interoperable, and reusable. All the outputs of the inspire projects will adhere to these principles.Risks exist with respect to privacy and cyber-security when data on individuals is being considered. The protection of individuals and their privacy supersedes open access policy. Any private data from individuals (including household information from farmers) needs to be aggregated and or anonymized before make it public. In some cases where it concerns sensitive data this may be extended to communities. The CGIAR Open Access Policy allows for some exceptions to Open Access principles, including restrictions for sensitive data (for example, private data) and confidentiality obligations. Some of the products produced inx the Platform may fall into those exceptions.New and innovative approaches for classifying, hosting and sharing sensitive data in secure, legal and transparent ways such as the Datatags system (Sweeney et. al) proposed by Datatags.org project will be explored. Such a system will allow for the classification of the level of sensitive information in data and would generate trackable and machine readable tags with privacy information. This will be crucial for ensuring privacy in a big data environment that includes cloud computing and combining of different datasets.The inspire projects will respect Farmer rights as such when using traditional knowledge, prior informed consent of farmers will be sought and all outputs referring to traditional knowledge will provide appropriate credit.This Module is to be led by the Platform Secretariat, although participation is expected from a large range of contributors from across CGIAR and from partner institutions. Contracts for Inspire projects will be issued from CIAT. M+E and impact assessment plans and strategies will be developed jointly by the IFPRI and CIAT IA teams.Platform Lead Center's Name: CIATCenter Location of Platform Leader:Module 3 establishes big data to hit the ground, and actively solve development problems head on. The total budget over 6 years is US$5.24m. This budget progressively grows from Year 1 to a maximum in Year 4 as per the Theory of Change whereby the Inspire projects play a more significant role in the Platform in later years. In year 1, a total of five 100k Pilot Inspire grants are budgeted. In year 2, an additional three Pilot Inspire projects are budgeted, and one Scaled Inspire project of US$250k which will be selected from the best of the crop from Year 1. In Year 3, two additional Pilot Inspire projects are budgeted, plus the second year of the Scaled Inspire project from Year 2, plus one additional new Scaled Inspire project. In year 4, two additional Pilot Inspire projects are budgeted, plus two new Scaled Inspire projects and second year funding from the Year 3 Scaled Inspire project. Year 5 consists of funding for the 5th and final Scaled Inspire project, and second year funding for the two Scaled Inspire projects of year 4. The final year of the Platform consists of 250k funding for the final year of the final Scaled Inspire project. Impact assessment is budgeted at US$158k per year from year 3 onwards. US$75k/yr of this is to cover economist staff, and US$83k/yr for operations (travel, survey instruments, field costs). 10% of Andy Jarvis time is budgeted in this Module to co-lead with the Platform Coordinator. Supplies and services related to managing the Inspire project calls, contracting and reporting amount to US$25k per year, with an additional US$5k budgeted for travel to document Inspire projects in action.50% of this budget is assumed to go to non-CGIAR partners, and 50% to CGIAR partners. The true distribution of this will only become apparent once initial projects are selected and contracted, but criteria will require non-CGIAR partners to have an active, funded role in the projects. In the meantime, this budget is assigned to CIAT who will manage the sub-grants.Budget under-execution risks will depend on the speed by which CIAT can issue contracts to Inspire projects. A standard, simple template will be developed and issued to all grantees in the hope that this speeds up administrative processes.Benefits: National Research Staff (NRS): Fringe benefits for national staff (costs for all benefits are added to the base salary to provide the total cost of the position) are comprised of legal benefits (local mandatory) and extralegal benefits (CIAT mandatory) and the provisions to cover local legal requirements such as: Pension -social security, training and development, occupational health, transportation costs and subsidies, work clothes and personnel protection requirement, and food subsidy.International Research Staff (IRS): Fringe benefits for international staff (costs for all benefits are added to the base salary to provide the total cost of the position) are comprised of housing allowance, education allowance, car allowance, Cost Of Living Allowance (COLA), hardship, home leave tickets, insurance, retirement contribution, occupational health, training and development, repatriation and relocation provisions.Other supplies and services: Discussed aboveOpportunities exist for co-funding the Inspire calls with other actors in the big data community and other donors interested in developing big data innovations. The Platform Secretariat will aggressively seek such funding in order to issue Inspire project calls jointly. CIAT has had significant success in fundraising for big data related activities, and has close partnerships with WorldBank, Government of Korea, Government of Colombia amongst others who will be approached to provide bilateral support. CRPs themselves will also be approached to provide some co-funding if resources permit. This will potentially reduce the W1+2 burdon of this module in Years 2-5. In year 1, seed W1+2 funding will be critical to generate a successful first portfolio of innovations.Please describe main key activities for the applicable categories below, as described in the guidance for full proposal Gender 300,000 Some Inspire project topics will be targeted specifically to address gender gaps, and innovate around big data and ICT means of reaching marginilised women farmers and female headed households. Aditionally, Inspire projects on other topics will examine gender-related impacts of the innovation, and impact assessment studies will explicitly examine the gender-related impacts that big data innovations have. Youth 200,000 Similarly to gender, some Inspire project topics may specifically address youth related impacts. Given the technological nature of big data innovations, it is to be expected that youth are more likely to engage in projects given their additional capacity to manage ICTs. Likewise, impact assessment efforts will look at youth related impacts of different innovations. Capacity development 500,000 This module is almost entirely focused on building innovation capacity in CGIAR and with partners, hence a heavy load of budget can be considered aligned to capacity building.158,000 Impact assessments of a range of big data related innovations for agricultural development are explicitly budgeted in years 3-6. Survey instruments and other techniques will be used in a range of countries and projects to systematically assess the impacts of scaled Inspire projects.50,000 Intellectual assets resulting from Inspire projects will be managed as per IA guidelines by project leaders, with support from the Platform Secretariat. Open access and data management 300,000 A significant part of projects in the Inspire module are expected to generate data and manage it in accordance with the OAODM policy of CGIAR. Communication 100,000 Significant communication activities will be made around Inspire projects from the Secretariat, but also by project leaders themselves, in order to disseminate good practice in big data related to agricultural development.Further budget information available in Annex 5.  2016). An integrated approach to maintaining cereal productivity under climate change. Global Food Security 8: 9-18  Reynolds, M.P., Tattaris, M., Cossani, C.M., Ellis, M., Yamaguchi-Shinozaki, K., Saint Pierre. C. (2015). Exploring genetic resources to increase adaptation of wheat to climate change. In Advances in Wheat Genetics: From Genome to Field. In: Ogihara, Y., Takumi. S and Handa, H. Springer, Japan.  Valluru, R.; Reynolds, M.P. and Salse, S. (2014). Genetic and molecular bases of yieldassociated traits: a translational biology approach between rice and wheat. Theoretical and Applied Genetics 127 (7):1463-1489. Head of wheat physiology, 1996-Present. International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), Mexico.  Leading the foundation of a Heat and Drought Wheat Improvement Consortium (HeDWIC), an international partnership involving hundreds of plant abiotic stress experts; target budget of $50m+.  Thematic leader and focal point for the Geoinformatics Science, Technology and Application (GeSTA)  PI/CoI/Activity leads on a number of spatial data analytics-relevant projects at ICARDA Spatial data analytics and integration (Module 1)   Lu, H., et al. ( 2010). Decomposition of Bt transgenic rice residues and response of soil microbial community in rapeseed-rice cropping system. Plant Soil 336: 279-290.  Served as President and member of the Board of Directors for the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science  PI on large analytics projects in both academic and CGIAR settings.   These will be addressed across all 3 Modules and through dedicated startup funding to help Centers improve adherence to \"open\"; the expectation is that OA/OD costs are fully costed in Center programs and projects from 2018. The minimum accomplishment for Module 1 is compliance with CGIAR's OADM, through funding to Centers, capacity development, sensitization, and support (including guidance on standards, data harmonization and metadata, etc.). Module 2 (\"Convene\") enables new partnership networks and models developed with upstream and downstream partners, from public and private sectors will deepen and widen CGIAR's capacity on big data analytics using CGIAR's open data-providing a test ground for their validation. Finally, Module 3 will operationalize CGIAR and partner capacity to innovate around big data, with the goal of tackling complex problems with new data-driven approaches, and delivering scalable pilots of effective big data for development solutions. This module will provide further impetus and incentivization for open CGIAR resources.Note: An indicative data management plan (DMP) is recommended (though not required) by the CRP guidelines; this is not applicable to this platform. Target 2.3 of Module 1 states that all CGIAR Centers will adopt interoperable data management standards. Activities will focus on syntactic interoperability of repositories (via the use of standards such as XML and SQL, critical to data exchange among machines), as well as semantic interoperability through repositories that support the OAI-PMH protocol at minimum, but ideally are compatible with SPARQL, O-data, and JSON to enable unambiguous data exchange, further allowing machinecomputable logic, inference, knowledge discovery, and data federation. Table 2 provides a summary of interoperability protocols in place for Center repositories as reported during Phase 1. Most meet minimum interoperability standards, but efforts via Module 1 activities will ensure more comprehensive adherence to robust semantic standards. Common platforms in use have also been inventoried, and include Dspace, Dataverse, CKAN, Biomart, and a few in-house solutions. Activities in Module 1 will also ensure that testing of the CG Core Metadata Schema developed during OA/OD Phase I is completed, the schema refined as needed, and fully implemented. The Module will also foster consistent adoption of agrisemantics-vocabularies/thesauri (e.g. AGROVOC, CABI, NAL, MeSH for nutrition), and existing and envisioned ontologies (e.g. Crop Ontology, Livestock Ontology, Gene Ontology, Plant Ontology, Geo OWL, agricultural technology ontology, value chain ontology, fishery ontology)-with positive consequences for data quality, annotation, resource discovery, and interoperability across CGIAR repositories, databases, and platforms. The technical infrastructure that will be developed through Module 1 efforts will serve to seamlessly inter-connecting different information and data streams from the full range of projects supported by CGIAR and other scientists working within the agriculture and nutrition sector in order to make it easier to find, access, and use research outputs stored in separate silos. For example, the one-stop search overlaid on top of open repositories will allow researchers, students, policymakers, donors, and other stakeholders to conduct a single search to be able to easily find, access, and map interlinked data/information on \"submergence tolerance rice\" regardless of where the information resides across CGIAR. Guidance will be developed and disseminated virtually and during several trainings on best practices for preservation and backup, to ensure that information products are maintained, curated, and archived \"into perpetuity\". The Platform Coordinator to be hired and report jointly to Dr. Andy Jarvis (CIAT) and Dr. Jawoo Koo (IFPRI), will prepare an annual report that will go to the SC and CIAT/IFPRI (for onward submission to CGIAR System Office). The Secretariat will be hosted by CIAT, and based in Cali, Colombia. CIAT will be the main contracting body for the Platform, will sign the performance contract for the Platform with the System Office, and will coordinate the audit assurance work required by the performance agreement with the System Office. CIAT will have the right to review all decisions regarding the Platform in respect to potential legal, financial or reputational risks that such decisions may pose, and communicate its concerns through the appropriate channels. The Platform Coordinator will be responsible for intellectual leadership and representation, sign off on deliverables, OA/OD compliancy, and have decision-making authority regarding day-to-day operations of the Platform.Among the Platform's three modules, Module Intellectual assets (IA) will be a fundamental output of the Platform as it focuses on the generation and implementation of new ways to capture and manage big data. It will also seek to modify existing methodologies to make big data available to end users. The Platform will therefore implement best practices and the CGIAR Intellectual Assets Principles to maximize global accessibility and impact. The Modules are complementary in their roles to generate IA and will take account of the types of partnerships and scale-up for impact.Planning and tracking concerning intellectual assets and their associated rightsThe actual intellectual assets that will be developed as the Platform is implemented cannot be forecast with certainty at the proposal stage, which the Platform will identify as its first Module Organize. We can only say that it is certain that there will be considerable generation of intellectual assets and the Platform proposers are aware of the need to take steps to ensure their global accessibility and impact.At the first meeting of the Steering Committee at the first Annual Convention, it will be tasked to produce protocols to track Platform inputs and IA outputs and procedures for their management. The protocols will comply with CGIAR Principles on the Management of Intellectual Assets, which deal with the dissemination of intellectual assets for maximizing global accessibility and impact. The Platform's Intellectual Assets (IAs) will include data and databases, analysis tools, publications and other information products as defined by article 3 of the CGIAR Open Access and Data Management policy. All products produced by the Platform will be disseminated using open access principles, with clear branding to recognize those responsible for producing the IA. The products will have suitable open licenses to ensure maximum possible access and reusability. In the cases where particular copyrights apply (for example, in the case of some high impact journal articles), the Platform will commit to cover the fees to make the articles open and reusable.When working with private sector entities, the Platform will clarify that it is committed to open access on knowledge products and will abide by any rules placed on the partnership, but final products will be made public in accordance with the agreements, subject only to confidentiality obligations as may be associated with restrictions permitted under article 6 of the CGIAR IA principles.The platform will ascertain that data collected about or on human subjects (human beings or groups of human beings) has passed the ethical review put in place by the relevant CGIAR center or other partner organization. The platform will provide a checklist regarding ethics in social research as part of a general ethics in data collecting protocol. Bringing resource poor farmers to Big Data and Big Data to resource poor farmers requires special attention for privacy and cyber security issues. The CGIAR has a special responsibility in protecting the privacy of the resource poor beyond the legal minimum.Overall, the CGIAR's OA/OD principle and policy will extend to all activities and products from the Modules. For the key datasets to be offered through Objective 2 of Module 1, the Platform will serve as a clearinghouse for data access and management issues that may need to be addressed before making them publicly available through CGIAR Open Data Exchange. For other types of useful commercial data (e.g., commercial high-resolution remote sensing and weather forecast data), depending on the agreement with the provider, the Platform may elect to provide a limited scope of dataset as a sample in public, whereas costs will incur when its full access is necessary. In such case, the Platform will act as an intermediary between the data provider and CGIAR as a whole (similar to the mode of operation used by the Shared Services unit in the Consortium Office) to negotiate the terms while pursing the best interests of CGIAR.Privacy issues supersede open access and privacy sensitive data will be anonymized and/or aggregated prior to publication.In Module 2 (Convene), the WG on Data Products will identify the next generation of International Public Good data products that CGIAR can and should be generating. New data products will be developed from start to finish abiding by IA principles, and be maintained in a regularly updated IP portfolio (which in the Platform's case will be lists of information products such as publications, databases, analysis tools (e.g. big data models), and web services (e.g. modelling platforms)). Where raw data underlying data products contain privacy and sensitive information, the data will be anonymized and/or aggregated in order to protect the privacy of individuals involved. Development of new data products must abide by ethics guidelines.The Communities of practice that are part of the platform will promote guidelines for ethics in research, and ensure protection of the privacy of all subjects involved in the data.Overall, the CGIAR's OA/OD principle and policy will extend to all activities and products from Module 3. For the key datasets to be offered through Objective 2, the Platform will serve as a clearinghouse for data access and management issues that may need to be addressed before making them publicly available through CGIAR Open Data Exchange. For other types of useful commercial data (e.g., commercial high-resolution remote sensing and weather forecast data), depending on the agreement with the provider, the Platform may elect to provide a limited scope of dataset as a sample in public, whereas costs will incur when its full access is necessary. In such case, the Platform will act as an intermediary between the data provider and CGIAR as a whole (similar to the mode of operation used by the Shared Services unit in the Consortium Office) to negotiate the terms while pursing the best interests of CGIAR. More details on this is discussed in Module 2, Convene.Privacy issues supersede open access and privacy sensitive data will be anonymized and/or aggregated prior to publication.The Platform will develop pathways for further development and dissemination of intellectual assets. The dissemination pathways currently identified include:i. Pathways that will be developed to manage intellectual assets as international public goods and ensure their prompt and broad dissemination ii.Pathways that depend on securing rights to access and use restricted third-party technologies which are critical foe the Platform; iii.Pathways that will be developed involving strategic management of intellectual assets via arrangements involving exclusivity and patents where appropriate; iv.Pathways that involve private sector partners or strategic management of innovative technology involving private sector partners.The SC will oversee issues concerning intellectual assets management will occur at the Platform level. It will identify policies that the Platform requires to facilitate intellectual assets management by the Platform and its partners.Issues related to intellectual assets management will conform to CIAT's policy. CIAT will retain decision making authority in matters such as approval of Limited Exclusivity Arrangements, Restricted Use Agreements, and patents applications arising from Platform activities.The Coordinator will be required to manage the intellectual assets and IP rights of the Platform. Selection of the candidate for Coordinator will consider the candidate's capacity and expertise regarding intellectual property, technology transfer and business development.Indicative budget breakdown by year relating to intellectual assets management.Approximately US$163,000 per year average is allocated towards intellectual asset management. Each Module will be required to include IA as a key component of the implementation process. Each Inspire project will similarly be required to include IA as a key component of their proposals.The Platform proposes a governance structure that will have sufficient checks and balances to make sure that the Platform delivers the expected outputs and outcomes with high value for money.Because the Platform will have financing at a modest level, the governance structure is planned to be light and flexible, but above all, transparent and inclusive as the core of this proposal is partnership.On the other hand it must also take into account the need for sufficient accountability to both CIAT and IFPRI. All Centers and CRPs will have a stake in the Platform through participation in one form or another. Organizing the annual convention and building its reputation as a must-go-to event for those working on big data in agriculture Engaging in Big Data events to attract new partners and capacities to address developing country agricultural problems, and showcase emerging success stories Organizing novel communication activities to bring attention to opportunities for Big Data in agriculture, broadening the role, reach and reputation of CGIAR Synthesizing findings, lessons learned and producing high-level publications on Big Data in Agriculture Table 1 Roles and responsibilities of the Platform SecretariatThe Platform Coordinator will be hired through an open competitive process, and selected by a committee consisting of CIAT and IFPRI scientists. The position will report jointly to Dr. Andy Jarvis (CIAT) and Dr. Jawoo Koo (IFPRI) and will give regular updates to the CIAT and IFPRI management team, and formally to the Steering Committee (SC) on a bi-annual basis. The Platform Coordinator will prepare an annual report that will go to the SC and CIAT/IFPRI (for onward submission to CGIAR System Office). The Secretariat will be hosted by CIAT, and based in Cali where significant critical mass on Big Data already exists. 360 degree evaluations will be made of the Secretariat and its staff by all Platform participants with a view to ensuring effective management and transparency. She will lead Module 1 either in her capacity as a member of the new System Office, or as an IFPRI direct hire. Details of this arrangement (e.g. hosting, reporting etc.) will be formalized once the System Office is established and dialogued with Platform Leadership.To keep management costs down, Modules 2 and 3 will be led by the Platform Coordinator, who will oversee that the Communities of Practice (CoP) operate effectively, lead the organization of the Convention, negotiate and manage shared services and project manage the Inspire projects.The Platform proposes a Steering Committee (SC) to provide oversight and direction, and will formally report to the CIAT Board. As the signatory to the performance contract with the System Office, CIAT will have the overall fiduciary and operational responsibility for the Platform. The Steering Committee will be made up of 8 members, consisting of:  One permanent member each from CIAT and IFPRI, designated by the Director General of each institution  One permanent CGIAR System Office representative or the person they delegate  One 2-year rotating CRP representative, nominated by the DGs and Science leaders group  One 2-year rotating Center representative, nominated by the DGs and Science leaders group  Three 2-year rotating partner representatives, nominated during the Annual Convention  The Platform coordinator will also participate in the Steering Committee as an observer.Rotating positions will be assigned to balance critical knowledge and experience on: Informatics, legal and intellectual assets, data management, data analytics.Once established, the Steering Committee will assign a Chair who will report to the CIAT Board on an annual basis. The SC will meet once each year at the Convention and three or four times virtually. Observers may attend the SC meetings to update their constituencies on relevant Platform progress and alert them to any emerging opportunities. Observers may not vote. The SC Chair will liaise with the Directors-Generals of both CIAT and IFPRI as necessary. The workings of the SC will be reviewed after 24 months. Programmatic decisions will be the responsibility of the SC. The SC will also consider how effective the Platform is in meeting its outcome and impact goals. The SC will ensure the independence of the Platform's programmatic directions, and will be accountable to the CIAT Board. The cost of the SC is estimated to be <$20,000 per year, because the in-person meetings will be held in conjunction with the Convention.An International Advisory Board (IAB) will also be set up, and will meet face-to-face once per year, and virtually once per year, to explicitly examine how the CGIAR Platform on Big Data connects effectively with other global and regional efforts. The IAB will contain 5 members, who represent major initiatives such as Open Harvest, GODAN, Open Data for Development amongst others. The IAB will focus its deliberations on the comparative advantage of the platform relative to other initiatives, and guaranteeing the relevance and novelty of the Big Data Platform with respect to the broader ecosystem of initiatives. The findings of the IAB will be reported to the CIAT Board once per year.CIAT will be the main contracting body for the Platform and will sign the performance contract for the Platform with the System Office, and the sub-contracts with participating Centers/Partners. The CIAT Board Chair and Director-General will report to the System Office on the Platform as a whole. Ultimately, the CIAT Board will have authority over the entire Platform and its management but will also consult with IFPRI management as needed.The Big Data Platform proposal was developed through a consultative process design to engage stakeholders both within and outside of the CGIAR. A series of eight virtual consultations were organized wherein CGIAR center members, academic institutions, public sector partners, and private sector partners were able to weigh on the key platform themes.The participatory approach used for the consultations began with a preliminary survey containing both quantitative and open-ended questions. These questions were then analyzed and the answers were presented to the stakeholders during virtual meetings. Stakeholders were then asked to reflect on the specific theme of the particular session. The facilitated dialog was recorded and summarized in order to serve as an input to the platform proposal development process.The multiple dialog sessions covered the following activity areas: Ambition, Inspire, Governance, Expertise and Partnerships, and Tools and Methods.In the Ambition dialog, the emphasis was on what the Platform should do, how, and who it should serve. Critical themes that emerged were the need for data management, the alignment of the platform with CGIAR goals, the use of the platform as a means to fill gaps in CGIAR expertise, and the need to assure that big data and big data approaches become as democratized as possible throughout the CG system.The stakeholders brought many perspectives, however there was much common ground, especially with respect to bringing big data and big data analytics to agriculture end users.The emphasis of the Inspire dialog was to understand how to motivate uptake of big data principles and technology transfer among stakeholders. 100% of the participants in the conversation agreed that a series of small projects (1.5 -2 years, $100K) would be highly valuable for showcasing the potential for big data in agriculture. Two thirds of the participants also agreed that two larger projects (3 years, $500K) would serve as beacons for fostering innovation and demonstrating significantly value-added use cases.When asked about how Inspire projects should be developed, answers were diverse and consistent with the diverse set of participants. A small majority preferred merit-based proposals reviewed by a committee of stakeholders. Others advocated the value of a more entrepreneurial or venture-style approach.Perhaps the clearest message from the Inspire dialog is that diversity is important. The platform must realize a multitude of successful projects at different scales and in different agricultural domains. The proposed project ideas reflected this diversity, as did the perspectives on how to develop and select the ideas to move forward.Governance of the Big Data Platform will be a critical element of its success. Governance of the platform needs to be structured and transparent but, at the same time, agile and equipped to respond to new opportunities and unforeseen challenges. When asked about governance, stakeholder opinions were varied, with a majority preferring either a self-governed, democratic approach, or a rotating governance body. Stakeholder opinions were split whether leadership should be organized by modules or thematic task forces.One of the critical findings of the Governance dialog was the with regard to the perceived need of the Big Data Platform. Stakeholders were asked to identify what they need most in the context of participating with the Platform. An overwhelming majority (77%) identified the need for more opportunities to develop partnerships (private, public, academic, non-governmental) around topics of critical interest. To this end, 70% of the stakeholders also indicated a strong willingness to attend an annual Big Data in Agriculture Convention.One of the key purposes of the Big Data Platform is to foment \"disruptive\" partnerships that accelerate the integration of big data into nearly every aspect of agricultural decision-making.Stakeholders were asked to highlight areas in which the CGIAR has the most capacity and the least capacity with respect to big data.Stakeholders identified key strengths of the CGIAR in data management, big data analytics, and big data delivery: Interestingly, while data management was highlighted as a specific strength of the CGIAR, data storage was not. Development of applications also emerged as a weakness and, interestingly, a number of stakeholders felt analytics were an area where the CGIAR lacks capacity:The mixed views on analytics reflect a key opportunity for the Platform. The Platform will serve to improve dimension and technology transfer among partners, assuring that CGIAR stakeholders will have access to the most current and most relevant big data tools available. Likewise, the opinions regarding development and data storage underscore the need to develop strategic partnerships in key technology domains.The consultative dialog on tools attracted a large audience of both technically-oriented and nontechnical stakeholders alike. In the survey interaction, stakeholders were asked for their opinions on the priority areas where the Big Data Platform could help contribute to in terms of \"tool\" development for the agricultural community.Opinions tended to concentrate in three key categories, specifically analytics, data collection, and data use. An interesting aspect of the tools dialog was that in addition to the previously mentioned categories, data discovery and metadata tools also were seen as important. This serves to illustrate the key linkages and inseparability of the Big Data Platform with the OA and OD initiatives within the CGIAR.A key portion of the Tools dialog centered around communication of results. The role of ICTs as the basis for communication of the results of big data analytics processes was emphasized by many of the participants. This served to illustrate that, with big data, the communications paradigm needs to shift from one that is static and synchronous, to one that is dynamic and facilitates asynchronous interactions with complex data, analytic approaches and results. While the theme of communication was common ground for many stakeholders, there was substantial disagreement regarding the audience:Lead Centers and CRP Partners involved in the platform will be required to demonstrate their operationalization of the CGIAR OADM Policy (i.e. policies, workflows procedures, etc.) including under circumstances in which information should not be made openly accessible or only following an appropriate approval/vetting process (i.e. responsible open access). This will be particularly important when research involves human subjects which is increasingly being subjected to legal and regulatory oversight at national level. To date CGIAR Center practices have developed ad-hoc in regard to their treatment of research involving human subjects and such practices often reflect the legal/regulatory regimes of the countries they operate in. In recent years donor policies and harmonization of national legal frameworks have driven standardization how research involving human subjects is conducted, and the emergence of international best practice reflects the requirements of organizations such as USAID and the UK's Economic and Social Research Council.In light of these developments the Big Data Platform will assist Lead Centers and CRP Partners to operationalize responsible open access in relation to research involving human subjects with the objective of improving and standardizing practices across CGIAR and also CRP Partners. Such assistance will focus on the following activities and funding to Lead Centers and CRP Partners will be conditional on progress and performance in this regard: 4.9 ANNEX 9. Curation, quality review and certification of data For stakeholders in the agricultural research for development sector to share and consume data that is open, its quality needs to be assured. For data consumers in particular to reuse available data sets and keep the Big Data platform valuable and relevant, trust in the data will depend on factors that include: knowledge of the data source and its reliability, the relevance or currency of the data, and its quality and/or knowledge of the uncertainty that might be associated with it. CGIAR Centers and CRPs currently address such trust and quality issues in ad-hoc ways, depending on factors such as the resources available, and the unit to which data managers and curators belong. For instance, in some Centers and CRPs, data management is a part of, or closely associated with statistics/biometrics units or with a specialized data unit. As such, data sets to be made open typically undergo basic statistical analyses and/or simple mapping to assess the validity of numerical and geospatial values.CGIAR research focuses on different commodities, disciplinary domains, geographies and scales, resulting in very different types of data. Data types therefore range from agronomic trial data collected by field technicians in a variety of ways and formats, through input and output market information and socioeconomic data on adoption and drivers and conditions to enable it, to weather data and high-throughput sequencing and phenotypic information and satellite images. These datasets cannot all be treated in the same manner even if most data regardless of type are uploaded to one Center data repository. Their curation and quality control needs differ significantly-necessitating some level of statistical and/or subject expertise and customized approaches depending on the data type. Although primary responsibility for quality control and curation of data will continue to rest with Centers as the administrators and arbiters of CGIAR data repositories, the Big Data platform will undertake to harmonize approaches around quality and curation through efforts that include:  Guidance and training for CGIAR researchers and partners, for whom quality is a concern as their data increasingly becomes widely accessible and available for reuse, and for data managers/curators.  Support for appropriately skilled expertise to backstop quality assurance and curation at Centers, to be extended to the platform itself once the platform begins to receive directly uploaded data sets from non-CGIAR entities (Year 4/5). This will include the hiring of data scientists with subject and IT expertise.  Recommendations on digital data collection tools, and negotiations and purchase where appropriate through a shared services model.  Operationalization of standards to enhance the quality and annotation of CGIAR data from collection onward (e.g., standard vocabularies, ontologies, and the CG Core metadata schema).  Development and/or sharing of online tools, forms and templates for robust data collection and management (e.g., Breeding Management System; in-development Agronomy Management System and field book).  Development and sharing of workflows, tools, recommendations, and customizable Standard Operating Procedures for improved and consistent data management and quality.  Budget lines have been updated where necessary to reflect these activities.","tokenCount":"23691"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1ce6d11a6fec4fd26f0ff6f933bd8413","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f834576e-199c-43dc-8eff-49f89846cacb/retrieve","id":"1281166631"},"keywords":["Vegetable-poultry integration","profitability","Gross Margin","logit model"],"sieverID":"8272b301-557a-4de4-8ca0-0ca5fec172d4","pagecount":"77","content":"Attaining food security remains a global challenge as the supply of sufficient quantity and nutritious food is threatened partly due to climate change, high cost of production and rapid growing population. Recently, vegetables and poultry production have attracted attention both from the scientific and policy making communities for their contribution to food security as well as the opportunities they offer in improving the livelihood of smallholder farmers. Despite the efforts made, the profitability of vegetable-poultry (V-P) integration system is yet well-known, particularly in Tanzania. This study therefore, employed the Gross Margin (GM) analysis to evaluate the profitability of V-P integration and logit model to determine factors influencing adoption of V-P integration farming system using a cross-sectional data collected from 250 households in Babati District, Tanzania. The findings show that vegetable-poultry integration is more profitable than vegetable farming alone and the profitability increases as the flock size increases. Moreover, for smallholder farmers to make significant profits from V-P production system, they should keep at least 18 chickens per household. The decision to integrate V-P production systems is influenced by gender, education level and marital status of the head of the household, household size, off-farm income, land owned, total income received by the household, and awareness of V-P integration benefits. The policy implication is that scaling up promotion of the vegetable poultry production practices and adoption of new farming technologies are essential for efficient utilization of available resources and increase the profitability of V-P integration system. This can be done through farmers' capacity building, increased provision of trainings and extension services which contribute in transforming the rural farming from subsistence to profitoriented farming.Figure 1. Schematic representation of the elements of vegetable-poultry integration system ..... Figure 2. Map of the study area (Bekunda et al., 2014)     9. Logit model -Factors influencing the probability of V-P integration in Babati District Table 10. Key  I sincerely acknowledge the BEAF/GIZ for financially supporting this study and my stay at WorldVeg, Arusha, Tanzania. It would not have been possible to conduct this study without their support. I acknowledge the entire staff members of WorldVeg who were so friendly and made my stay there awesome. Special thanks to Dr. Fischer Gundula, Mr. Philipo Joseph and Mr. Marwa Joseph for their support in questionnaire preparation and data collection process. I appreciate all the staff of the AFECO program and lectures from whom I gained more knowledge and new skills.My special thanks to all AFECO classmates of 2015/2016 particularly Martin-Paul Tabee-Ojong JR. for his helpful discussions and ideas in this thesis and the entire program. I am so grateful to my friend Mashauri Muliro who not only made me know the AFECO program but also contributed to this study as well as to the majority of my courses.My brother Kalekwa cannot go unmentioned. I thank him for investing in my education and sponsoring my studies in Germany. I will always be grateful for him and what he has done for me and strive to do until I become the person he wants me to be in society. My words cannot explain my gratitude to my Fiancée Michelle and my daughter Adrielle for their love and encouragements especially when things were not going as planned, they were always there to cheer me up. Above all, I bring honor and glory to the Almighty God for his love, protection and strengths which kept me going until I could finish this program. It was not an easy journey, \"Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us\" (Romans 8:37, NKJV) DEDICATION Dedicated to my loving Mum Mukankwaya Bernadette for her special care, especially when I lost my Dad at the age 7.Attaining food security remains a global challenge for both the developing and developed countries; however, the difference lies in the degree of severity and the share of the population affected (Chagomoka et al., 2016;Mwaniki, 2006). Despite the recent progress attained in areas such as nutrition and agricultural technology, close to 800 million people, generally from the developing countries, are still chronically undernourished and food insecure (FAO et al., 2014).The 2016 Global Hunger Index report shows that one in four children under five years of age is stunted while wasting affects eight percent of these children worldwide (Von Grebmer et al., 2016).Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), by virtue of relying on rain-fed farming, is more vulnerable to recurrent drought, storms and flood events (IPCC, 2014;Rose, 2015). Livestock and fishery are other important agricultural components which are also affected by climate change. This has a wide ramification that extend to famine, malnutrition and death in many developing nations. Tanzania has been affected by malnutrition as well as the rest of SSA. A quarter of world undernourished people amounting to 214 million live in SSA (FAO et al., 2014) which means that, 23.8% of total SSA population is undernourished (FAO et al., 2014). Around 34.7% of children under five, and 5.5% of women aged between 15 and 49 years are considered to be underweight in Tanzania (TNNS, 2014) while 58% and 45% suffer from iron deficiency anaemia respectively (TDHS-MIS, 2016).In Tanzania, agriculture does not only contribute significantly to the National Gross Domestic Product (GDP) but it also serves as a mean to address famine as it is the primary source of livelihoods to the majority of poorer households. Tanzanian agricultural sector grew at 4.4% per year and this contributed to yearly GDP growth of 6.6% between 1998 and 2007 (Pauw & Thurlow, 2011). The World Bank report of 2015 shows that, agriculture alone contributes 31% of the total GDP (WB, 2015) and 66.9% of the total employment in Tanzania (WB, 2014). However, the sector is confronted with many constraints such as increased population, market fluctuation due to cost of production, supply and demand among others. Consequently, there is a need to transform this sector as the country strives to be food secure and attain the second Sustainable Development Goal of zero hunger.Many poor farmers around the world have been diversifying into horticultural crops and this has led to a faster production growth of vegetable and fruit crops worldwide (Lumpkin et al., 2005).The dramatic increase in quantity of vegetables and fruits traded worldwide has steered the trade of horticultural crops, approaching around 21% of total exports from developing countries (Weinberger & Lumpkin, 2005). Available evidence shows that, vegetable consumption contributes to households' nutritional intake by providing additional nutrients such as vitamins, proteins and minerals (Beattie et al., 2005;Kamga et al., 2013). Moreover a daily intake of 400g of vegetables combined with fruits could stop many chronic diseases, strokes and cancers (Beattie et al., 2005;FAO & WHO, 2005). Ochieng et al. (2017), found that, increased consumption of traditional African vegetables has a positive and significant effect of dietary diversity on children under five years and women aged between 15 and 35 years in northern part of Tanzania. Furthermore, Afari-Sefa et al. (2012) and Weinberger and Lumpkin (2007) argue that vegetables improve smallholder farmers' livelihoods, contribute a lot to their food security and enrich their nutritional status. The recent consideration to vegetable production is not only from their nutritional importance but also their economic contribution. Vegetable farming is described as a valued economic activity that provides income to farmers and offers employment opportunity mostly to women and young people in poor rural areas (Everaarts et al., 2015;Weinberger & Lumpkin, 2005, p. 20).Different international organizations such as World Health Organization (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) have recognized the role that horticulture plays in poverty alleviation and decreasing the health disparity in Tanzania (Lumpkin et al., 2005). Vegetables in particular have received considerable attention and are generally produced by smallholder farmers who own about two hectares of land (Marble & Fritschel, 2014;Weinberger, 2004). For instance, out of 8.8 million ha of used land in Tanzania, around 115,000 ha were allocated to vegetable production and a total of 635,000 tonnes of vegetables were produced in the year 2007/2008(NSCA, 2008)).Despite a high and an increasing demand for vegetables, most areas of Tanzania have been experiencing a low productivity, partly linked to factors such as diseases and pests, unavailability or high price of quality seed, and lack of appropriate control measures (Lazaro et al., 2017;Rajendran et al., 2017;Weinberger, 2004). This low productivity combined with high production cost from other input costs incurred by farmers such as labour, manure and chemical fertilizer costs, reduce the profitability of vegetable farming.The low profitability underscores the need of practical innovative systems of production in order to increase yield and stimulate productivity of vegetables, serving as an indispensable means to improve smallholder farmer's livelihoods (Rajendran et al., 2015). It is argued that, the adoption of new technologies that increase farm production and income is essential to ensure food and nutrition security and sustained economic growth of smallholder farmers, who are arguably underutilizing resources (Hayami & Ruttan, 1971;Kuznets, 1966;Msuya, 2008;Schultz, 1964).Besides technology adoption, production growth can also be attained by using available resources efficiently (Nishimizu & Page, 1982;Rajendran et al., 2015).In the past, the poultry farming was not regarded as a significant business that one should invest in, however, due to its fast monetary revenue, it has gained much attention in livestock sector (Amos, 2006;Tijjani et al, 2012). The poultry farming is now being transformed into business opportunity that generates numerous benefits such as production of eggs, manure, as well as broiler and hatchery to smallholder farmers (Amos, 2006). Besides, poultry products such as eggs and meat do not only generate income but also contribute highly to nutritional needs of human beings (Folorunsho & Onibi, 2005). In 2014, the total world population of chickens was estimated to be around 21.4 billion, 1 billion of ducks, 460 millions of turkeys, and 32 millions of pigeons and other birds (FAO, 2014b). Poultry production in rural areas is regarded as a cherished asset to local societies due to their share in poverty alleviation, provision of food, and their role in supporting gender equality (Guèye, 2000).For a long time, the marginalized and remote rural villages of Africa have been keeping poultry as a source of income and mainly involving women as they decide on most of household expenditures particularly food consumption (Aklilu et al., 2007;Guèye, 2000Guèye, , 2005)). Furthermore, Guèye (2000) and Sonaiya (1990) established that over 80% of rural population in Africa keep poultry.They also established that indigenous chickens known as 'local' or 'family' account up to 80% of the total poultry flock in the continent.The 2007/2008 National Sample Census of Agriculture (NSCA) in Tanzania reports that out of the households keeping livestock, at least 66% raise chicken, while the total population of chickens and ducks was about 36 million and 1.3 million respectively in 2014 (FAO, 2014a;WB, 2013).Indigenous chickens dominate the poultry enterprise, representing over 90% and make up almost the entire poultry meat and eggs consumed in rural areas and close to a quarter in urban areas of Tanzania (Zootechnica, 2016).Furthermore, the demand for animal proteins is expected to increase in Tanzania due to population growth, expected to rise from the current 53,47 million to137 million by the year 2050 (Brentrup et al., 2016). This anticipated rise in demand for animal products will be met through improved poultry production and management interventions (Delgado et al., 2001;Ochieng et al., 2012).However, despite the central role that the poultry plays, its potential in Tanzania is not till now fully explored (Goromela et al., 2007;Marwa et al., 2016;Mutayoba et al., 2012). The Tanzania Livestock Research Institute (TALIRI) establishes that the poultry sector contributes about 3 percent of the GDP derived from agriculture, equivalent to 1% of the total national GDP (TALIRI, 2015). It is even argued that if the sector is managed effectively and efficiently, its contribution to the national economy could be higher (Marwa et al., 2016;Minga et al., 1996) . Hence, improving the productivity of poultry is vital for eliminating poverty, improving food security and enhancing the wellbeing of rural communities and in the process helping the country to meet its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) obligations.For the past three decades, most of African countries have been implementing institutional, macroeconomic and sectorial reforms to stimulate economic growth, promote food security, and reduce poverty (Dessy et al., 2006;WB, 2007). These low income countries have been relying on agriculture for their development, cognizant of the role the sector plays in addressing both food security and poverty alleviation. However, a transformation of the agricultural production system from subsistence to a commercial and more productive system is essential if the sector is to continue to be the engine of economic growth.The agricultural sector in Tanzania is greatly dominated by smallholder farmers who hold on average two hectares of land per household and produce close to 75% of the total agricultural production (Salami et al., 2010, p. 11). The majority of Tanzanian poor people are living in rural areas. Despite the agricultural progress that Tanzania has made in the recent years, the sector's growth is yet to achieve food security or address poverty adequately particularly in the rural areas (WB, 2008). It is argued that the country has great agricultural potential to respond to the anticipated need, but this potential is underutilized (Bekunda, 2014;Ngunga & Lukuyu, 2016).Based on the above, it becomes important to fully optimize the agricultural sector in order to respond to the foreseen food demand and to cushion the livelihood of the millions rural poor farmers through various sustainable intensive agricultural initiatives or technologies.The Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation (Africa RISING), is one of such initiatives implemented in Babati District, Manyara Region, in Northeast Tanzania. In 2010, Babati District was reported along with other 27 Districts to have a high level of poverty and poor nutritional status in Tanzania (IFSNAR, 2010). This raised a number of programs in Babati that promoted production and consumption of nutritious food. Africa RISING, which is United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funded program seeks to provide options that contribute to rural poverty alleviation and improve the nutrition standards and the general wellbeing of rural farmers by increasing vegetable and rural poultry production in the District of Babati in Tanzania. One of the initiatives within the program is to promote integration of vegetable and poultry production systems. Vegetable-poultry integration system is viewed as an alternative to the conventional farming system, through which poultry is integrated into vegetables farming with the aim of increasing their productivity and household consumption.Within this integration, vegetables are fed to poultry while poultry manure is applied in vegetable farming.Notwithstanding the above, no specific study has been conducted to economically assess the profitability of integrated vegetable-poultry production system under the Africa RISING and similar kind of initiatives in the region. This is one of the gaps that this study seeks to fill. It is only when the economic analysis of such integrated production system is carried that its viability can be evaluated and recommendations on its adoption drawn and scaled out in other regions in SSA to address poverty, food and nutrition challenges, particularly, among people living in rural areas.The main objective of this study is to economically analyse the integrated vegetable-poultry production systems in the Babati District of Tanzania. The specific objectives of the study are:• To characterize integrators and non-integrators of vegetable-poultry production systems • To evaluate the economic benefits of the integrated vegetable-poultry production systems• To determine the factors that influence the decision to integrate vegetable-poultry production systemsThis thesis consists of seven chapters including the above introduction. The remaining chapters are as follows: Chapter two is the literature review which involves the previous studies on integrated farming systems, profitability of integrated vegetable-poultry production systems and the nutritional benefits of vegetable-poultry integration. The third chapter discusses the theoretical framework emphasizing on the theory behind the integration decision and the model specification.Chapter four represents the methodology employed to tackle the objectives of the study which includes the gross margin calculations and econometric approaches used. Chapter five is describes the data and the description of variables used while displaying descriptive summary statistics of some important variables and chapter six presents the results and the discussions. Finally, chapter seven presents the conclusion and draws policy recommendations based on the findings of the study.In this chapter, different integrated farming systems (IFSs), their benefits and sustainability are discussed in detail. The chapter also expounds on profitability and nutritional benefits of the integrated vegetable-poultry production system. Various existing literatures and empirical evidences on profitability of integrated farming systems are outlined in this chapter.The integrated farming System (IFS) is defined a judicious arrangements of two or more farming systems that are interconnected in production process and promotes an active recycling of residue for proper management of existing resources (Baishya et al., 2014;Bhuiya et al., 2016;Nath et al., 2016). IFS has been deliberated among the best effective ways of enhancing land productivity, alleviating smallholder farmers' poverty through maximum utilization of resources (Bhuiya et al., 2016;Byerlee et al., 1982). The main idea of IFS is that resource combination and diversification can improve the productivity on resource-poor farms (Devendra & Thomas, 2002;Halwart et al., 2006;Prein, 2002;Smyth & Dumanski, 1993). Different IFS studies have been done in several developing countries and their results confirm that, synergies among farm production systems rise the overall farm productivity (Alsagoff et al., 1990;Berg, 2002;Dalsgaard & Oficial, 1997;Frei & Becker, 2005;Pant et al., 2005), hence its appeal mostly in developing countries.IFS is a method that focuses on a preferred interlinked, inter-reliant and interconnected systems of crops and animals or any other related farming systems that lead to a systematic and efficient use of resources (Gill et al., 2009;Nath et al., 2016). Moreover, an IFS will safeguard the existing natural resources to achieve a sustainable profitability and reinforce the nutritional security if there is a complementarity of its components (Nath et al., 2016). Therefore, An IFS can be conveniently hypothesized as a third farming system that is the most beneficial both economically and environmentally because it is in the middle of high and lower harvests from conventional and organic farming respectively (El Titi, 1992, p. 34;Morris & Winter, 1999). The integrated farming system (IFS) has been proposed by different scholars as one of the promising ways to cushion households against climate and market fluctuation shocks, arguing that it reduces the cost of production, creates jobs and generates more income; altogether improving the overall food security and the nutritional status of the agricultural-dependent households (Alam et al., 2009;Dashora & Singh, 2014;Guèye, 2000Guèye, , 2005)). For instance, empirical evidences of various integrated farming systems involving fishery, poultry, livestock and crop in Bangladesh (Akteruzzaman, 2006;Akteruzzaman et al., 2012;Alam et al., 2009) and fishery, poultry and vegetable farming in India (Dashora & Singh, 2014) have demonstrated that the integrated system has resulted into economic gains for households. The Bangladesh case-study has further established that the profits for households that have adopted the integrated farming system was the highest compared to households practicing conventional farming systems. This reaffirms Alam et al. (2009)'s economic viability standpoint that contends that the approach rises the revenue for households adopting the technology and generates more animal protein for the rural community at large.Further empirical evidences on rice production in different rainfed districts in India confirm that, IFS has a higher net return than conventional farming (Nath et al., 2016). For instance, the IFSs of rice-early, tomato-early, cauliflower-paddy, straw-mushroom-poultry and vermi-compost pit gave a net return of about seven-fold of traditional farming per hectare in Odisha district (Paradkar et al., 2010). Taking the case of Chhattisgarh district as an example, the IFS of rice-two-bullocksone cow-one buffalo-ten goats-ten poultry-ten ducks produced a net return of around four-fold of traditional farming per 1.5 acre and increased labour from 165 to 365 man days per year (Ramrao et al., 2006). In this integration, animals consumed the fodder and straw and in turn provided manure and this improved the soil fertility and the productivity of animals. In both cases, IFS was economically profitable, increased employment and provided food and nutrition security to households.Diversified production systems such as crop-livestock integration seem to be an exciting pathway towards agricultural development in developing countries which are generally constrained by volatility of market prices for both inputs and outputs and exposed to climate change related extreme weather events (Lemaire et al., 2014). It is clearly evident that agricultural systems that adopt such integration enjoy numerous benefits partly due to the fact that crop residues are the main source of livestock feed while animals provide the cultivation power and manure as fertilizers which lead to a significant reduction in costs of production while ecological system is preserved (Herrero et al., 2013;Herrero et al., 2010;Nath et al., 2016). The crop-livestock synergy does not only contribute to food security and household income but also plays a vital role in reducing unemployment and in poverty alleviation (Baishya et al., 2014;Gupta et al., 2012;Nath et al., 2016;Robinson et al., 2011). Despite the benefits emanating from integration of different farming systems and their sustainability, little contributions have been made to advance this practice in a holistic manner.Globally, food production has increased significantly in the last 50 years, partly as a result of agricultural intensification led by mechanization, high application of chemicals and synthetic fertilizers together with an expansion of land area for production of crops and livestock (Alves et al., 2017;Bowler, 1992). Albeit, around 805 million people all over the world are still undernourished and food insecure (FAO et al., 2014;Godfray et al., 2010;WB, 2007). This poses even a deeper intersecting challenges considering that the world population is projected to reach 9.1 billion by 2050, which in essence, will require a considerable increase in the food production (Abel et al., 2016;Godfray et al., 2010). Consequently, the future demand for food, meat, fish and dairy will increase the existing pressures on land and water leaving serious negative effects on natural resource and the environment at large, unless the current production systems are modified to improve the yield potentials (Alves et al., 2017;Assessment, 2005;Godfray et al., 2010).Therefore, a sustainable intensification is indispensable to meet the future food demands while decreasing the environmental negative effects (Baulcombe et al., 2009;Godfray et al., 2010;Thornton & Herrero, 2015).The IFS is considered as a panacea to achieve sustainable intensification (Godfray et al., 2010;Nath et al., 2016). It is distinctive from traditional farming, in the sense that sustainable production and safeguard of biodiversity are at the core of its goals (Morris & Winter, 1999). Sustainable farming on its own entails using available resources within the limitations of the earth's ability to replace them, inferring that any nonrenewable input-dependent farming system is unsustainable (Brundtland, 1987;Godfray et al., 2010). IFS promotes the use of organic fertilizers and this can produce a range of ecological benefits such as biological pest regulations, preservation of natural capita and improvement of soil quality (Holland et al., 1994;Martin et al., 2016;Moraine et al., 2017). We explore further the benefits of the IFS within the context of the vegetable-poultry integration.The world remains at risk of food insecurity as the available resources for food production continue to be scarce, raising the challenges of food insecurity and malnutrition due to unhealthy diets and insufficient food (Galhena et al., 2013). Several strategies are required to adequately address these issues. Improved community health awareness and promotion of different nutritious diets from both the vegetables and animal product sources to complement the staple food is one of the strategies that can significantly contribute to food security. For example, more benefits are derived when vegetable farming is associated with poultry in an integrated farming approach, a position strongly supported by Akteruzzaman et al. (2012), arguing that there are more returns for investment when poultry is integrated with vegetable farming. The integration provides an opportunity to enhance both systems whereby vegetable provides feeds to poultry while poultry supplies the needed mineral to vegetables 1 (Adekiya & Agbede, 2016;Hochmuth et al., 2009;Malone et al., 1992;Swidiq et al., 2011). The manure derived from poultry is an important organic fertilizer for vegetable and relatively cheaper compared to chemical fertilizers. Hochmuth et al. (2009) assert that the waste from poultry speeds up the mineralization process, improves the soil structure and moisture holding capacity, therefore improving soil fertility and subsequently increasing farm profitability.Figure 1 below demonstrates the elements of vegetable-poultry integration and their interactions within this farming system.Source : Own illustration adapted from (Thorne, 1998, p. 2).From Figure 1, there are three key interfaces in vegetable-poultry integration system that make the integration successful. These include vegetable-poultry, poultry-land and land-vegetables interactions. The vegetables produced are consumed at the household level and the surpluses are taken to market which generate income to the household. The other part of vegetables as fodder or residues constitute partly to organic resources that are feed to poultry together with non-vegetable feed supplements. The feed from vegetables are rich in nutrients such as vitamins that contribute to the productivity of poultry. The organic resources that are not used as feed are decomposed and used in land as compost or farmyard manure. In turn, poultry generates a range of products such as meat and eggs that are either consumed or sold in the market for cash. Furthermore, poultry produces the manure that improve the soil quality for vegetable growth and this increases the vegetable yield. As an end result, the farmer is able to recycle the resources within this integration and attain the household food security and income generation.Vegetable production provides an opportunity to enhance productivity and increase smallholders' income (Ali, 2000;Chand, 1996;Joshi et al., 2003). Weinberger and Lumpkin (2007) argue that vegetables are more profitable than cereals crops while Joshi et al., (2006) in India contend that the net profit of radish and eggplant ranged between Rs 5591/ha and Rs 12094/ha respectively while that of maize and paddy ranged from Rs 2519/ha to Rs 10384/ha. Furthermore, the set of vegetables in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Niger, North Vietnam, Philippines, and SouthVietnam gave a net return on area and labor inputs that is higher than that of rice with the exception of the output value per Labor Day in the Philippines 2 (See Table 1 below). South Vietnam 9.6 1.9 (Ali, 2002) Source: Adapted from Weinberger and Lumpkin (2007) On the other hand, poultry production is regarded as an investment opportunity that offers a quick and high profits to rural poor farmers (Epprechtet al., 2007;Sonaiya, 2007). Smallholder farmers can generate more revenue from the sales of poultry products that are not consumed by the household members. For instance, Oladeebo and Ambe-Lamidi ( 2007) estimated the profitability of poultry farming among youth farmers in Nigeria using net income, gross margin, and gross return per naira invested. Their findings revealed that, based on all the three indicators, poultry production is profitable and worthy to venture in.2 The ratio of vegetables to cereals was used to measure the profitability. The ratio greater than 1 implies that vegetables were more profitable than cereals, else the opposite.The vegetables and poultry farming systems have the potential of generating more revenue, however, they are facing a number of challenges such as low yields and high cost of productions.If these two farming systems were to be produced in an efficient way, their productivity would be more than the actual. From the cost of production standpoint, labor and fertilizer costs are the main costs incurred during vegetable production while feeds alone occupy over 60% of total variable costs in the process of poultry farming (Dutta et al., 2013;Huong et al., 2013;Ike & Ugwumba, 2011;Masuku & Xaba, 2013;Tijjani et al., 2012). Vegetables provides vitamins to poultry that increases their productivity and poultry manure is an organic fertilizer to vegetables that increases vegetable yield (Adekiya & Agbede, 2016;NRC, 1984, p. 6). Therefore, the integration of vegetable-poultry production systems results into reduction of poultry feed cost and reduces the costs of fertilizers.Apart from monetary benefits derived from reduced production costs and increased yield, the integrated vegetable-poultry production systems offer other benefits such as food and nutrition security through consumption of vegetables, meat and eggs at household level (Dessie et al., 2003;Mengesha et al., 2008;Ochieng et al., 2017;Ochieng et al., 2012). The consumption of Vegetables contributes to nutritional intake in many rural households through provision of vitamins, proteins and minerals and subsequently increasing the people's immunity against many chronic and acute diseases (Beattie et al., 2005;FAO & WHO, 2005;Kamga et al., 2013;Ochieng et al., 2017).Similarly, chicken products are cost-effective source of protein to humans and their higher nutrient concentration enables them to play a vital role of complimenting staple food (Kitalyi, 1998;Memon et al., 2009). For instance, eggs and chicken meat are considered as important food for improving the nutritional needs of malnourished children under 5 years in many parts of the developing world mainly in Africa's rural communities (Rosegrant & Cline, 2003). Similarly, Pica-Ciamarra and Dhawan (2009) argue that, improved health can be attained if poultry products are easily available and consumed in rural households. However, Bett et al. (2013) contend that poultry products are inexpensive source of animal proteins for households, a position that may not be true in many rural households in Africa due to high level of poverty and low level of nutritional awareness, therefore, vegetable-poultry integration can be the best possible way of accessing these nutritious products to rural farmers.This section discusses the theoretical model used in this study. The study used the non-separable agricultural household model which is supported by the random utility maximization theory.Different studies applied this model in the presence of imperfect markets to shape the household decision making process. The second part of this chapter discusses the model specification.Smallholder farmers in Tanzania as well as in other developing countries are concurrently involved in production activity and consumption decisions. Asymmetric information, high unemployment rate, high transaction costs and poverty in most of developing countries result into market failures that leave smallholder farmers in rural areas faced with imperfect input, output and credit markets (Asfaw et al., 2012). In these conditions, the non-separable household model becomes of high relevance where the decisions regarding consumption and production cannot be made separately (Sadoulet & De Janvry, 1995). The non-separable household model offers an appropriate framework for evaluating household behavior facing the imperfect markets (Asfaw et al., 2012;De Janvry et al., 1991;Singh et al., 1986). The household production models founded on utility maximization that is subject to a set of budget and production constraints, have been the basic instruments to analyze the farm households and therefore serving as an integration decision tool (Chiappori, 1997).Households are endowed with human, fiscal, social, and natural resources that are influenced by external factors which create constraints to their productivity. A change in technology applied and their distribution impact the preferences, predictions and views of farmers toward several varieties and inputs used in production. As a result, the decisions on resource allocation to numerous inputs, investment, and crop choice will be formed. Therefore, this would affect their consumption, production, sales of quantity produced from different crops and consequently their income. This implies that, vegetable-poultry integration may not only affect vegetables and poultry sectors but it may encourage modifications in farming patterns and ways to allocate resources to diverse usage.Hence, choices and decisions made by households establish their behavioral results which also will influence their consumption as well as their well-being.The utility of a household is assumed to be maximized depending on the consumption (\uD835\uDC50 \uD835\uDC56 ), production (\uD835\uDC5E \uD835\uDC56 ), sales (\uD835\uDC60 \uD835\uDC56 ), purchases (\uD835\uDC51 \uD835\uDC56 ), and amount of input used (\uD835\uDC65 \uD835\uDC59 ) in the process of producing each product i (where i = 1, 2, . . . N) using different inputs l (where l = 1, 2, . . . M).The household produces agricultural commodities (\uD835\uDC5E \uD835\uDC56 ) using different inputs (\uD835\uDC65 \uD835\uDC59 ) such as land, labor, capital, etc. However, the optimization occurs in the presence of various constraints.Therefore, the household maximizes utility (3.1) subject to income (3.2), the product balance (3.3), production technology (3.4) and non-negativity (3.5) constraints. sales plus other income from non-farming activities that is received by the household. The product balance (3.3) states that the quantity produced, purchased and endowed should be more than or equal to the quantity consumed, used as input and sold in the market for each product i. The production technology constraint (3.4) relates to a well-behaved conversion function that transform all inputs to outputs. The last non-negativity constraint (3.5) implies that quantity produced, sold, consumed, purchased and inputs used for commodity i, cannot be negative. These quantities are either positive or zero.It is important to note that the utility maximization discussed above holds only when there are no transaction costs incurred by households. However, transaction costs play a vital role in shaping the farmers' stand point towards the production and market (Alene et al., 2008;Bellemare & Barrett, 2006;Key et al., 2000;Larochelle & Alwang, 2015). Households may be sellers or buyers of either inputs or for consumption. Therefore, the transaction costs may increase the price gap between buyers and sellers and consequently, this influences the farmer's production and market decisions (De Janvry et al., 1991;Key et al., 2000). Therefore, household's behaviors of either producing a particular crop or not can partly be explained based on the differences in transaction costs and accessibility of facilities that lessen them.To incorporate the transaction costs in the liquidity constraint, assume a household that is facing transaction costs Г \uD835\uDC56 \uD835\uDC50 (\uD835\uDC67 \uD835\uDC62 , \uD835\uDC34, \uD835\uDC3A, \uD835\uDC3C) on quantity purchased and sold of commodity i. These costs comprise either one or both the variable (Г \uD835\uDC56 \uD835\uDC63 ) and fixed costs (Г \uD835\uDC56 \uD835\uDC53 )and may be depending on farm characteristics (\uD835\uDC67 \uD835\uDC62 ), farm assets and resources (A), institutional and access related (G) as well as income from non-farming activities (I). The income constraint (3.2) containing transaction costs is therefore amended down as:Where \uD835\uDEFF \uD835\uDC56 \uD835\uDC60 takes a value of 1 for a selling and 0 for an autarkic household while \uD835\uDEFF \uD835\uDC56 \uD835\uDC51 equals 1 for a purchasing household and 0 otherwise. This constraint implies that there is a difference in market prices between buyers and sellers, which constitutes the transaction, whereby the seller gets a lower price while the buyer pays higher than the market value for the same commodity.In this study, we laid emphasis on the production decisions that is the decision to integrate poultry into vegetable farming.The farmer's decision to integrate poultry into vegetable farming system is regarded as a binary choice because of the dichotomous nature of the dependent variable, which is to integrate or not to integrate. Observing integration through the lens of optimization by lucid agents, households integrate if integration is perceived to be profitable and is a choice that is actually affordable for them to make as it is for adoption studies (De Janvry et al., 2010). Following the same context of adoption decisions as discussed by Ali and Abdulai (2010) and De Janvry et al. ( 2010), the integration decision can be modeled in a random utility model (RUM). In this RUM, the utility from each alternative is supposed to be a linear function of individual characteristics that are observable plus an additive error term (Verbeek & Leuven, 2000). RUM assumes that decision makers make their decisions by choosing alternative opportunities that maximize their expected utility. Furthermore, decision makers are presumed to recognize the opportunities that meet their utility. In the context of vegetable farming enterprise and integrated vegetable-poultry system, the farming system that maximizes a farm household's utility given the embedded constraints will be chosen. Given resource endowment and entitlement, the observed preferences are also assumed to be based on farmers' implicit cost and benefit prospect of the alternative farming system.Consequently, farmers are likely to disclose their preference based on their objectives.Households normally assess the expected utility from new farming practices such as vegetablepoultry integration that can be represented as  2012), Feleke and Zegeye (2006), and Kohansal and Firoozzare (2013), the integration can be modelled in a random utility framework as:Where Xi is a vector of explanatory variables, \uD835\uDEFD is a vector of parameters to be estimated and ui is a random error term. When the choice of the farmer is known, the observable pattern of vegetablepoultry integration can be presented by a dummy variable (yi) whereby the observed values of yi are related to y * as:The model specification under consideration in this study is grounded on the theoretical framework discussed above. The dependent variable of this study was the household decision to integrate poultry into vegetable farming and was tackled using a set of independent variables which were selected based on the theory and various theoretical and empirical literatures (Akter et al., 2012;Asfaw et al., 2012;Feleke & Zegeye, 2006;Ghimire et al., 2015;Mariano et al., 2012;Namwata et al., 2010). Therefore, the vegetable-poultry integration variable was framed as a function of household characteristics, farm assets and resource ownership, institutional and access related, farm characteristics and information variables as well as agro-climatic zone.Household characteristics in this study include gender, marital status, age, level of education of the head of the household, as well as the size of the household. Most of these variables were expected to have a positive relationship with vegetable-poultry integration. The agricultural sector in developing countries rely mostly on household labor. It is therefore expected that the married head of the household with a bigger household size has a more available labor source. Furthermore, the larger the size of the household, the more the demand of food quantity for consumption is anticipated, hence, households would allocate their resources to a more income and food generating farming practice to meet their demand. Likewise, a more educated head of household has better skills and access to information and therefore, he/she is in a better position to evaluate the relevance of vegetable-poultry integration. The exact relationship of age of household head on integration decision is unclear, in that younger farmers are generally innovative and risk takers but they may lack the farming experience. Similarly, the effect of gender of household head is ambiguous. This ambiguity emanates from the fact that male headed households are more expected to integrate than female headed households due to their superior farming capacity and access to land, while on the other side, women in developing countries are considered to be more involved in vegetables and poultry sectors than men and this can make female headed households to positively influence the vegetable-poultry integration. Therefore, the ultimate effect of gender and age is an empirical question (Asfaw et al., 2012).In conditions of input output market failures, households' production is affected by its level of wealth or poverty. Due to lack of modern capital in rural Tanzania, farm assets and resource ownership variables used in this study include land size owned, off-farm income and total income received by household to capture the effect of resource endowment. Land area is decreasing in Tanzania due to population growth and the density is projected to increase further by the year 2050 (Brentrup et al., 2016). It is expected that the size of the land owned by the household will positively influence the integration whereby households with lager land holding may allocate a portion of their land to vegetables and poultry. Off-farm income was expected to influence vegetable-poultry integration in a positive way by providing the needed vegetable-poultry initial investment. It was also expected that total income will positively influence the integration as wealthier farmers are in a position to easily encounter the starting capital compared to poor farmers.All institutional and access related variables were expected to have a positive relationship with vegetable-poultry integration. In this category, variables like access to extension services and credit along with attending vegetable-poultry integration trainings were considered in this study.The farmers who have access to extension services as well as those who attended vegetable-poultry integration trainings were more likely to integrate. This is the same case for farmers who have access to credit as lack of starting capital is regarded as a serious challenge in adoption of new technologies. Access to credit is expected to positively influence borrowing and investments in integration.Farm characteristics and information variables were expected to influence vegetable-poultry integration positively. For instance, access to information is likely to reduce uncertainty about the new farming practices. Thus, households who have knowledge and are aware of benefits from vegetable-poultry integration are expected to integrate. Similarly, vegetable farm size is expected to positively influence integration. This is because, the bigger the size of land allocated to vegetables, the more the manure is needed which can stimulate the farmer to integrate poultry for manure production.Therefore, the underlying model for household decision to integrate poultry into vegetable farming can be specified as follows;\uD835\uDC49 − \uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC5B\uD835\uDC61 \uD835\uDC56 = \uD835\uDC53(\uD835\uDC54\uD835\uDC52\uD835\uDC5B\uD835\uDC51 \uD835\uDC56 , \uD835\uDC5A\uD835\uDC60\uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC61 \uD835\uDC56 , ℎℎ\uD835\uDC60\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC67 \uD835\uDC56 , \uD835\uDC52\uD835\uDC51\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC52\uD835\uDC63 \uD835\uDC56 , \uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC54\uD835\uDC52 \uD835\uDC56 , \uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC5B\uD835\uDC60\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC67 \uD835\uDC56 , \uD835\uDC5C\uD835\uDC53\uD835\uDC53\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC5B\uD835\uDC50 \uD835\uDC56 , \uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC5C\uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC5B\uD835\uDC50 \uD835\uDC56 , \uD835\uDC50\uD835\uDC5F\uD835\uDC52\uD835\uDC51 \uD835\uDC56 , \uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC5F\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC5B\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC61 \uD835\uDC56 , \uD835\uDC52\uD835\uDC65\uD835\uDC61 \uD835\uDC56 , \uD835\uDC4F\uD835\uDC52\uD835\uDC5B\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC64\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC5F \uD835\uDC56 , \uD835\uDC63\uD835\uDC52\uD835\uDC54\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC5F\uD835\uDC52\uD835\uDC4E \uD835\uDC56 , \uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC50\uD835\uDC67 \uD835\uDC56 , \uD835\uDC62 \uD835\uDC56 ) (3.9)Where;\uD835\uDC49 − \uD835\uDC43\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC5B\uD835\uDC61 \uD835\uDC56 : is the household i th decision to integrate vegetables and poultry which takes the value 1 if the household integrates and 0 otherwise. \uD835\uDC4F\uD835\uDC52\uD835\uDC5B\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC64\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC5F \uD835\uDC56 : is a dummy for benefit awareness which takes the value 1 if the farmer was aware of vegetable-poultry integration profits and 0 otherwise \uD835\uDC63\uD835\uDC52\uD835\uDC54\uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC5F\uD835\uDC52\uD835\uDC4E \uD835\uDC56 : is vegetable farm size which is the land allocated to vegetables in terms of hectares \uD835\uDC4E\uD835\uDC50\uD835\uDC67 \uD835\uDC56 : regional dummy (village)\uD835\uDC62 \uD835\uDC56 : is random error term associated with vegetable-poultry integration.In this chapter, the methodology used to tackle the objectives of this study are discussed. The gross margin (GM) analysis that was used to calculate the profitability and econometric approach used to examine factors influencing the decision to integrate vegetables-poultry production systems are explained.The study sought to economically compare the benefits obtained from the integrated vegetablepoultry production system with the vegetable production system alone with the view to assess the economic profitability. To evaluate the economic benefits of integrated vegetable-poultry production systems, the Gross Margin (GM) analysis was used. The GM is preferred because it allows for easy enterprise selection, establishment of net farm income and it is useful in subsistence enterprises with small fixed income (Odoemenem & Otanwa, 2011).The GM method has been used in previous studies from various disciplines including vegetables and poultry, to determine the profitability of a proposed technology (Akter et al., 2012;Ayieko et al., 2014;Etuah et al., 2013;Lazaro et al., 2017) Where:-Gross Margin (GM) is the difference between total revenue and total variable cost -Net Income (NI) is deduction of total cost from total revenue -TR is the product of output price and quantity of output produced -Total cost (TC) is the sum of total variable cost (TVC) and total fixed cost (TFC)In computing the cost of vegetable-poultry inputs, this study considered the prevailing market price for purchased inputs and the same price was considered for household self-supplied inputs. The cost of land allocated to vegetables was estimated and constituted the fixed cost of vegetable production for both integrators and non-integrators. On the other hand, the fixed cost of poultry production for integrators comprised of the poultry housing depreciation costs. To calculate the profitability of both systems, the GM of vegetable production and NI were calculated for both integrators and non-integrators while that of poultry production was calculated for integrators only.Lastly, the GM and NI of integrated system were computed and the difference in both groups was calculated for comparison purposes. \"The higher the GM, the greater profitable the system\" criteria was used to determine the farming system that is more profitable.The dependent variable which is the decision to integrate poultry into vegetable farming is dichotomous in nature and is taking the value 0 or 1. To examine the determinants of this integration, the construction of binary model which comprises the factors that influence the household's decision making is essential. Using a linear regression model to explain this variable is inappropriate; hence, the call for alternative models such as the logit and probit that can model discrete and continuous variables and take care of estimation and interpretation of their parameters (Verbeek, 2008). The two models give the same results but logit model was chosen for this study as it allows the prediction of the probability of a farmer to integrate vegetable-poultry production systems and its asymptotic characteristics limits the predicted probabilities between zero and one.The study selected the maximum likelihood as the common estimation method since our data was from individual household observations.The logit model is based on the logistic cumulative distribution function, thus its results are not sensitive to the distribution sample elements when estimated by maximum likelihood (Aldrich & Nelson, 1984). Vegetable-poultry integration is based on a particular threshold which depends on certain socio-economic factors. Based on the utility theory, farmers will integrate if the critical threshold value is met while there is no integration below the threshold. The utility difference between integrators and non-integrators depends on profitability generated from integration and other household characteristics. Hence, for each household i, the difference in utility between integrating and non-integrating households can be obtained which depends on the observed characteristics (\uD835\uDC65 \uD835\uDC56 )and unobserved characteristics (ui ). On the assumption of the linear additive relationship, we present unobserved utility difference (\uD835\uDC66 \uD835\uDC56 * ) which is referred to as a latent variable and represented as:Where \uD835\uDC65 \uD835\uDC56 ′ represents the vector of independent variables explaining the integration decision, \uD835\uDEFD is the vector of parameter estimates, and ui is the error term which is assumed to be independent and distributed as ui ~ NID (0, 1).Therefore, we observe:\uD835\uDC66 \uD835\uDC56 = 0 (no integration) otherwise Consequently, the probability of integrating vegetable-poultry is represented as:Where F denotes the cumulative distribution function (CDF) and should be in the interval [0 1]. IfF is chosen to be the standard distribution function, then;Which leads to the standard logistic distribution function, given by:Equation (4.8) represents a binary choice model estimating the probability of integrating vegetable-poultry (\uD835\uDC66 \uD835\uDC56 ) as a function of explanatory variables (\uD835\uDC65 \uD835\uDC56 ′ ). The farm household decides whether to integrate vegetable and poultry or not. Using the binary logit model, it is represented as follows:Where \uD835\uDC66 \uD835\uDC56 is the response for the i th household. This means that \uD835\uDC66 \uD835\uDC56 = 1 for a vegetable-poultry integrating household and \uD835\uDC66 \uD835\uDC56 = 0 for non-integrating household. F is the standard normal cumulative distribution function, \uD835\uDC65 \uD835\uDC56 ′ a vector of explanatory variables determining integration, and \uD835\uDEFD is a vector of parameter estimates. Hence, the full distribution of F is:The direct interpretation of coefficients of the estimates from the logit model above is not possible except their signs only. Therefore, a post-estimation analysis was undertaken to enable us to estimate the change in probability of integrating vegetable-poultry as a result of a unit change in a specific explanatory variable and that is referred to as marginal effects. The marginal effects are therefore computed by the partial derivative of the probability that \uD835\uDC66 \uD835\uDC56 = 1 with respect to a continuous explanatory variable (\uD835\uDC65 \uD835\uDC56 ) and for dummy variables by calculating the implied probabilities for the two likelihoods, holding all other explanatory variable constant. It can be shown as:If \uD835\uDC65 \uD835\uDC56 is a continuous variable andThe margins commands were used in stata to calculate the APEs and delta method for the standard errors.This chapter discussses the study area, sampling techniques used, the data types, variables and the source of data survey that addressed important aspects such as household characteristics, farm assets and resources, institutional characteristics, vegetable and poultry production activities, as well as costs and benefits arising from vegetable-poultry integration.The research took place in the District of Babati, Manyara region in Tanzania, covering a surface area of 5609 km 2 out of it, 4969 km 2 is the total land area while the remaining 640 km 2 is covered by water (Mangesho et al., 2013). The potential land available for agriculture in babati District is about 134,187 ha but only 120,000 ha is used for cultivation while 212,100 ha is under livestock keeping (Mangesho et al., 2013). Löfstrand (2005) estimates that around 31,775 ha and 142,500 ha are forests and parks&game reserves respectively. The district of Babati is mainly rural \"with about 90% of its population that rely on agriculture and livestock as main source of their livelihood\" (Ngunga & Lukuyu, 2016, p. 1). The Tanzania Population and Housing Census of 2012 shows that, Babati District had a total population of 405,500 out of which 77% were in rural and 23% were in urban areas (IHSN, 2012).The District of Babati is divided into four major divisions (namely the division of Babati, Gorowa, Mbugwe and Bashnet), 21 wards and 96 villages (Mangesho et al., 2013). This study was conducted in five villages where Africa RISING is operational, namely; Bermi, Galapo, Matufa, Seloto, and Shaurimoyo (see Figure . 2). The sample size was determined by the following proportionate to size sampling approach using the formula (Kothari, 2004;Smith et al., 2005):Where; n = sample size; Z= confidence level; p = proportion of the population, q = 1-p and e= margin of error.The proportion of population of interest is not known with certainty. However, previous studies indicate that over 80% of rural population in Africa keep poultry (Guèye, 2000;Sonaiya, 1990); therefore, p = 0.8 and q = 0.2. A margin of error of 5% which is assumed to sufficiently remove 95% bias in sampling was used (Smith et al., 2005). A confidence level of 95% that gives a z-score of 1.96 was used in this study hence the sample size of 246 which was aproximated to 250 household farmers.As mentioned above, this study is based on the household survey conducted in June 2017 covering households from five villages in Babati District. The data was collected as part of the partneship arrangement between the BEAF/GIZ 3 and World Vegetable Center, Eastern and Sourthen Africa region 4 under the framework of the Africa RISING program in Tanzania. Four experienced enumerators were recruited and trained to support in data collection process. Tablets were used for real-time data collection through surveyCTO (Survey platform for electronic data-collection based on Open Data Kit) and the semi-structured questionnaires were filled by both integrators and nonintegrators of vegetable-poultry production systems.The questionnaire developed captured various information on household characteristics, land ownership, land allocated to vegetables, source of income and ownership of poultry. Furthermore, data on inputs used in both systems that include labor, manures, chemical fertilizers and other variables such as productions, consumptions, and sales were collected. The prices of input and output were also documented together with costs and benefits of both farming systems. Data on the reasons for integrating or not integrating and institutional characteristics such as credit and extension service accessibility were also collected. The data was cleaned, coded and analyzed using Stata14. Based on the detailed data collected, the assessment and analysis of integration decisions was made possible and enabled to respond to the objectives of this study.In this study, integrators are regarded as farmers who are producing vegetables, feeding vegetables to poultry, applying poultry manure into vegetable garden and own at least five adult birds. On the other hand, non-integrators are described as vegetable producers that may own less than five adult birds or none. The treshold number of birds was selected based on the quantity of manure that can be produced. Poultry One Guide to Raising Backyard Chickens establish that, the manure produced by five to ten chickens is enough to fertlize the vegetable garden as one chicken can produce around 45 pounds of manure annually (POGRBC, 1999). Furthermore, the Tanzania LivestockResearch Institute (TALIRI) reports that, on average households in Tanzania own five to twenty birds per household (TALIRI, 2015); hence the minimum number of five birds was chosen to describe integrators.The variables included in this study were classified into categories such as production characteristics, household characteristics, farm asset and resource ownership, institutional and access related, farm characteristics and information variables. The Table 2 below shows the summary statistics of the entire data of continuous variables while Table 3 displays frequencies and percentages of indicator variables. In addition, the dummies representing Bermi, Galapo, Matufa, seloto, and Shaurimoyo villages were created and added as explanatory variables since agro-climatic conditions may influence profitability and integration decision. Source: Own calculation based on the survey data collectedThe dependent variable (vegetable-poultry integration) was a dummy variable that took the value of 1 if the household was integrating and 0 otherwise. The sample size of 250 farm households (see section 5.2) was considered of which 56% represented the households that are integrating vegetable-poultry production systems. The quantity of vegetables produced was reported in different local units, however, it was converted into kilogram using the conversion unit provided in the survey and was found to be 866.096 Kg on average. The land area allocated to vegetables averaged 0.0902 ha, giving an average yield of 9,399.95 Kg/ha. The number of poultry owned ranged between 0 and 200 whereby 74% of all households own at least one bird leading to an average flock size of around 9 birds per household.The household characteristic variables include a number of characteristics that are important in farming decision making. The survey indicates that 84% of households are male headed households and 77.2% of the head of the households are married with an average age of 47.4 years which ranges from 19 to 98 years. This implies that vegetable farming is attractive to both young and old. The education level of the head of household was measured as the number of years spent in formal schooling and ranges between 0 and 16 years with an average of 7 years, inferring that many farmers know to read and write since they attended at least the primary school which generally takes 7 years in Tanzania. The average household size is around 5 with a household dependency ratio of nearly 0.4.Having an off-farm income is a dummy variable which took the value of 1 if any member of the household had income from wage/salary or any business activity during the survey period. The total sample household shows that 42% of household had an extra income that is not from farming activities. The amount of off-farm income earned as well as the total household income which is the amount the household possesses from all sources were reported in Tanzanian Shillings (Tsh 6 ).The average off-farm income was Tsh 110,913.3 per household indicating that they are engaged in other income generating activities accounting close to a third of total household income (Tsh 346,464.1). The average households' farm land size is about 1.2 hectares which is small compared to the national average land holding of 2 hectares per household, an indication that land is scarce in Babati District.All the institutional variables in this study were dummies that seek to know if farmers were getting extension services, participating into vegetable-poultry trainings and if they had access to farming credit. Extension facilities provide rural households with information on input and output markets as well as new farming technologies. This variable took the value 1 if the household was receiving any extension service. From the household sample, 67.6% of households are getting extension services from different organizations mainly WorldVeg and ILRI as well as village agricultural extensionists. This infers that these organizations and extensionists are contributing to community capacity building. For instance, close to half of the households (48%) attended vegetables-poultry trainings that were mostly organized by WorldVeg, IITA, and ILRI within the framework of Africa RISING project. From credit accessibility standpoint, the survey showed that only 20.8% of sample households had access to farming credits implying that either credit providers are probably few in the area or farmers do not meet the borrowing requirements set by lenders.The average vegetable farm size is 0.0902 ha which is small compared to average land owned of about 1.2 ha. This means that, vegetable farming is not the main agricultural activity in Babati District. Awareness of the benefits of the vegetable-poultry integration variable attempted to establish if farmers knew the benefits derived from this farming approach. It was used as a dummy variable that took value 1 if farmers were aware of these benefits. Close to 91.6% of households were aware of different benefits of vegetable-poultry integration. The most common benefits were income generation, manure availability and improved food and nutritional security to the household. Despite such broad knowledge of the benefits, only 56% of the sample population are integrators. This implies that some other factors might be hindering the adoption of vegetablepoultry production systems.This chapter discusses the main findings of the research. It specifically looks at the characterization of integrators and non-integrators of vegetable-poultry, the profitability from vegetable-poultry integration as well as key integration determinants.The analysis of descriptive information is used to characterize vegetable-poultry integrators and non-integrators. The means of household's socio-economic and farm characteristic variables were used to compare integrators and non-integrators. The independent t-test was performed to test the difference in means of variables between integrators and non-integrators and their level of significance. Figure 3 below presents the main vegetables produced in the study area by both integrators and non-integrators. Main vegetables produced in the study areaThere are 14 main types of vegetables produced in Babati District as seen in Figure 3. Most of these vegetables were produced for both household consumption and commercialization.Tomatoes were the most produced vegetables in the area followed by Ethiopian mustard, night shade, kales and Chinese cabbage respectively. The majority of farmers were engaged into tomato production probably due to their high profits generation and high consumption as they are ingredients in most of recipes. Integrators seem to produce tomatoes and night shade more than non-integrators while the latter dominate in amaranth and sweet pepper. However, based on unequal number of integrators and non-integrators, we cannot decide the specialization of each group or differences based on vegetables produced.Table 4 displays the comparison of integrators and non-integrators based on their vegetable input use and vegetable productions. Table 5 presents their comparison based on profitability, access related, socio-economic and farm asset characteristics. Means comparison based on vegetable inputs have shown no significant differences between integrators and non-integrators with the exception of labor input. Non-integrators have allocated slightly higher land area to vegetable farming and are having higher pesticide costs than integrators. However, the t-test results show that their differences are not significant at any level. This is the same case for other input variables such as seed, nursery management costs, quantity of compost and poultry manure where the mean of integrators is higher than that of non-integrators though insignificant. The only input that shows a significant difference in means is labor employed in vegetable production. The total labor used in vegetable farming from sowing seeds to selling of harvests was reported in labor days. On average, the seasonal labor days of integrators were 24.05 which is higher than 19.15 of non-integrators and was significant at 10%; indicating that integrators are providing more employment opportunities than non-integrators.The average quantity of vegetable harvested by integrators was about 896.2 Kg, which is higher compared to 827.7 Kg for non-integrator, though the difference was not significant. On the other side, integrators have a higher vegetable yield compared to non-integrators as they produce more on a smaller land area. On average, the seasonal vegetable production yield was close to 10,576 Kg and 7,903 Kg per hectare for integrators and non-integrators respectively and the difference is significant at 10% confidence level. This implies that, integrators would get more and significant returns than non-integrators if they were both farming vegetables at the same land scale. integrators in terms of some household characteristics such as household size, dependency ratio, marital status and education level of household head. For instance, on average, integrators are married, have a bigger household size as well as a higher dependency ratio than non-integrators.The differences in marital status and household size are significant at 1% while dependency ratio differs at 5% significance level. Similarly, integrators' group is headed by a relatively educated household heads with a significant difference of 5% significance level. On average, integrators' household head has 7.3 years of formal schooling compared to 6.6 years of non-integrators. This may imply that households headed by educated farmer may have higher skills and better ability to access information that can positively influence vegetable-poultry integration.Land holding and total income earned by farmers significantly distinguish integrators from nonintegrators. For instance, the average land owned by integrators is 1.42 hectares compared to 0.916 hectares of non-integrators; a difference that is significant at 1% significance level. Moreover, integrators earn on average a total income of Tsh 398,681 which is significantly higher than that of non-integrators (Tsh 280,006) at 5% significance interval. Likewise, integrators' group is considerably distinct from non-integrators with respect to both attending vegetable-poultry trainings and access to extension programs and their mean differences are significant at 5% level.Around 55% of sample household integrators and 39.1% of non-integrators had attended at least one vegetable-poultry training. Likewise, integrators appear to get better access to extension services as 73.6% of them get these services compared to 60% of non-integrators. On the other hand, most of sample households seem to be aware of benefits from vegetable-poultry integration as 96.4% of integrators and 85.4% of non-integrators are aware of these benefits. Still, the means of benefits awareness differ significantly at 1% significance level.Integrators are not significantly distinguishable from non-integrators based on the gender and age of the head of household. From the gender of the head of household standpoint, about 83.6% of integrators are headed by males compared to 84.5% of non-integrators. Also, the two groups are not significantly distinguishable based on whether they earn any income from off-farm activities or not as only 46.4% of non-integrators and 48.9% of integrators get off-farm income. The survey also revealed that farming credit accessibility is a challenge as only 22.1% of integrators and 19.1%of non-integrators have access to farming credit; an undistinguishable difference between the two groups. The main credit providers in the study area were microfinance institutions, co-operatives, SACCOs and informal money lenders. Farmers expressed various reasons of not accessing credit and all were related to high interest rate which was 10.6% per year on average together with lack of collaterals and fear of bankruptcy.The Gross Margin (GM) analysis was used to calculate the profitability of vegetable-poultry integration. At first, the vegetable GM was computed for both integrators and non-integrators followed by poultry GM for integrators' group only, and lastly the vegetable-poultry integration GM was calculated and all were measured in Tanzanian Shilling (Tsh). In addition, the Net Income (NI) was also calculated to ascertain the profitability even when fixed costs are involved.The total variable cost (TVC) of vegetables was composed of a set of various cost components namely; seed and transplanting, nursery management, compost, poultry manure, fertilizer, pesticide, and labour costs. The highest costs incurred in vegetable production process are mostly labour, compost and pesticides costs. The poultry manure cost was the lowest incurred by nonintegrators while integrators were using the self-produced poultry manure. From the results, as explained in Figure 4 below, there is no big difference in costs incurred by integrators and nonintegrators, with the exception of the labour and compost costs whereby the former was found to be higher for integrators and the latter was higher for non-integrators. Source: own calculation based on the data collected Vegetable TVC per household 7 was slightly higher for integrators (Tsh 150,374.6) compared to non-integrators (Tsh 128,886.9), however, the seasonal TVC per hectare (Tsh, 2,976,474) for nonintegrators was comparatively higher than that of integrators (Tsh 2,887,161). Similarly, nonintegrators had a higher fixed cost making them to incur a higher total cost per hectare than integrators. The seasonal total revenue (TR) that was computed as the product of vegetable price per kilogram and quantity of vegetable produced in kilograms was found to be Tsh 478,201 for integrators compared to Tsh 456,353 for non-integrators. Therefore, the difference in seasonal TR becomes bigger per hectare and increases proportionally according to the land area allocated to vegetables.Given the above average total variable costs, fixed costs and average total revenues for vegetables, the seasonal GM per household was slightly higher for integrators than non-integrators. The vegetable GM per hectare is also higher for integrators (Tsh 1,964,676) compared to that of non-integrators (Tsh 958,407). Correspondingly, integrators enjoyed higher seasonal Net Income (NI) per hectare of Tsh 1,577,642 compared to Tsh 546,604 for non-integrators. Consequently, based on GM and NI results, vegetable production is beneficial for both groups, however, the average seasonal integrators' GM per hectare is more than that of non-integrators by about Tsh 1,006,269;implying that integrators are getting more benefits from vegetables than non-integrators.The profitability of poultry production was computed for integrators only by virtue of being the only group keeping poultry. The poultry total variable cost for this study comprised the costs of parent stock (initial chicks or chickens), feeds and feed preparation, medication and vaccinations, as well as labour costs. The highest poultry cost was the feeding cost which occupies about 60.6%of TVC followed by the parent stock cost (17%), medicine (13%) and labour costs (9.4%)respectively. These findings reaffirm findings in similar studies whereby the feed costs constitute the biggest proportion of the total cost of poultry production (Dutta et al., 2013;Ike & Ugwumba, 2011;Tijjani et al., 2012). This implies that feeding is very germane in any poultry production as it affects the poultry yield.  The fixed cost of poultry production is comprised of poultry housing depreciation cost that was calculated using the straight line depreciation method. This study applied the depreciation rate of 10% per annum on poultry housing, as previously used in different poultry studies to calculate the gross margin (Ayieko et al., 2014;Dutta et al., 2013;Matthews & Sumner, 2014). The poultry total revenue was computed by summing up the revenue from poultry and egg sales as well as the estimated cost of manure generated. Table 7 below presents the average costs and revenues of poultry production for vegetable-poultry integrators. All variables were calculated on a seasonal basis of six month period of time. The profitability of vegetable-poultry production systems was computed by summing up the GM from vegetable production and the GM from poultry production. This study calculated the vegetable-poultry GM for five different scenarios. The first scenario was the seasonal vegetablepoultry GM per household which was computed as a sum of seasonal vegetable GM per household and the seasonal poultry GM per household. In the second scenario, we computed the vegetablepoultry GM by summing up the vegetable GM per household and poultry GM from a flock size of 16 birds. The number of birds was chosen as the mean size of poultry owned by integrators in the study area. Scenario three was the sum of vegetable GM per household and poultry GM from flock size of 20 birds. This number was chosen based on TALIRI report that on average, households in Tanzania own between five to twenty flock size per household (TALIRI, 2015).The fourth scenario presented the vegetable-poultry integration from vegetable GM per hectare and poultry GM from a flock size of 100 birds. In this scenario, the vegetable GM from one hectare was computed assuming equal land size allocated to vegetables by both groups and we performed different simulations to find the minimum number of birds (100) that can generate a significant difference in their GM. The last scenario presented vegetable-poultry GM per hectare and poultry GM from a flock size of 200 birds which was the maximum number of birds owned in the sample.In all the five scenarios, the t-test was used to test the significance in means of GMs' differences between integrators and non-integrators. See Table 8 below. In all the five scenarios above, integrators have higher GM compared to non-integrators. This was expected as integrators get extra revenue from the poultry aspect of integration that is not earned by non-integrators. However, it is important to note that, the GM differences between the two groups are significant in three of the five scenarios. Scenario 1 and 2 do not significantly distinguish the profits earned by households from both groups while Scenario 3 shows that the integrating households get higher GM and the difference is significant at 10% significance level.This implies that an integrating household with poultry flock size of 20 birds and above will significantly get higher profits in the study area since the profitability is proportional to the poultry flock size. Likewise, Scenarios 4 and 5 show that integrators can get much benefits as their GMs differences are significant at 10% and 1% significance levels respectively compared to nonintegrators.The results above arose the interest of seeking to know the minimum number of birds per household and per hectare that an integrating household should keep to get a significant difference in GM compared to non-integrator in the study area. We performed again different simulations and we found that, the threshold number of birds that an integrating household should keep to get a significant higher profit than non-integrator is 18 birds. Furthermore, 71 birds per hectare of land allocated to vegetables should be kept by integrators to get the profit that is significantly higher than that of non-integrators (see Table A1 in Appendix). The vegetable GM per household together with poultry GM from 18 birds gave Tsh 327,466 for non-integrators and Tsh 498,910 for integrators and the difference was significant at 10% significant level. Similarly, the vegetable GM per hectare together with poultry GM from 71 birds generated Tsh 2,639,507 for integrators and Tsh 958,407 for non-integrators which are significantly different at 10% level.In this section, the results of binary logit model are discussed as delineated in chapter four. The estimated maximum likelihood results are presented in Table A2 in Appendix. The chi-squared test statistic of the model is significant at 1% level implying the combined significance of vegetable-poultry integration variables. Furthermore, the results show that household profiles such as the household size, the level of education of the head of the household, and marital status of the household head are related to higher probability of integration. Equally, ownership of land, total income, and awareness of benefits are also positively linked to vegetable-poultry integration.However, the gender of the head of household and having an off-harm income are negatively related to the probability of vegetable-poultry integration. All remaining explanatory variables are non-significant but have expected signs, apart from having access to credit and vegetable farm size which contrasted their hypothesized effects (see model specification in section 3.2).Lastly, the quantitative impact of each factor that influence vegetable-poultry integration was determined by calculating the marginal effect of each explanatory variable on the probability of integrating vegetable-poultry. By using the margin command and delta method approach in stata, the coefficients of average marginal effects as well as the standard errors were estimated. The results of this model are shown in Table 9 below. All farm assets and resource ownership variables were expected to influence the adoption of integrated vegetable-poultry production systems. However, the estimates show mixed results. For example, farmers who own a bigger land size are more likely to integrate vegetable-poultry than those who have smaller land. One hectare increases in land owned by the household in the study area increases the probability of integrating vegetable-poultry by 9.2% (p<0.01). This is arguably due to land demand for vegetable-poultry integration. Most rural farmers dedicate a large portion of their land to the production of staple food crops. Therefore, farmers with large areas of land can diversify their production by allocating an additional portion of the land to the integration of both farming systems, a choice that is not available to farmers who possess a small area of land (Kassie et al., 2011;Mariano et al., 2012;Mendola, 2007). This presents a serious challenge to vegetablepoultry integration promoters in Babati District for the reason that the majority of farm households are small scale farmers who hold an average of about 1.2 hectares of land.Unexpectedly, this study reveals that having an off-farm income source negatively influenced the decision to integrate vegetable with poultry (p<0.01). The results show that, the probability of integrating vegetable with poultry decreases by 16.3% if the farmer has an off-farm income source. This is probably because most of off-farm income might have been spent on family purchases and other farming systems rather than on investment in vegetable-poultry integration. Furthermore, the availability of off-farm income may reduce the consideration (or value) that households give to vegetable-poultry integration as they rely on the other source of income. The main off-farm income generating activities in the study area were small businesses such as shops run by households' members in several village centers and at market places and salaries from regular jobs mostly primary teachers and nurses. Since these two activities require much time and may generate more income than vegetable-poultry integration, farmers may choose to concentrate and spend much of their time on them than being involved in integration. However, the total income that a given household gets is positively related to the vegetable-poultry integration (p<0.05) but with a very low marginal effect. This result is similar to previous findings by Franzel (1999) who asserted that farmers with high income are less risk averse and more likely to venture into new farming practices and they are in a position to meet the initial integration investment . Furthermore, Namwata et al. (2010) found that increased household income increases the likelihood of adopting new agricultural technology for Irish potatoes in Tanzania.Different studies show that, despite a high and an increasing demand for vegetables, most areas of Tanzania have been experiencing a low productivity, partly linked to unavailability or high price of quality seed, and lack of appropriate control measures. The combination of low productivity with high production costs such as labour, manure and chemical fertilizer costs, reduce the profitability of vegetable farming. Furthermore, previous studies have highlighted the role of poultry sector in Tanzanian economy and its potentials in improving the food security and enhancing the wellbeing of rural communities. However, they argued that if the sector is managed effectively its contribution to the national economy could be higher.The low profitability underscores the need of practical innovative systems of production in order to increase yield and stimulate productivity of vegetables, serving as an indispensable mean to improve smallholder farmer's livelihoods. Therefore, this study argued that integrating poultry into vegetable production may be one of such innovative systems that increase profitability of both farming systems. The proposed integration of poultry into vegetable production system under the Africa RISING is viewed as an alternative to the conventional farming system, through which poultry is integrated into vegetable farming with the aim of increasing their productivity and household consumption in the District of Babati.This study used the gross margin analysis (GM) to calculate the profitability of integrated vegetable-poultry production systems in the Babati District of Tanzania. The study also employed the logit model to examine the factors influencing the decision to integrate vegetable-poultry production systems in the study area. The study was based on a cross-sectional data conducted in June 2017 covering households from five villages in Babati District. The total sample of 250 households out of which 140 were integrators and 110 non-integrators of vegetable-poultry production systems was used.The results from descriptive analysis reveal that, integrators of vegetable-poultry production systems are differentiated to non-integrators in terms of land holding, education level and marital status of household head, extension services they get, total income, vegetable yield, and labor usage. Integrators have a bigger land size allowing them to diversify into different farming activities and are wealthier than non-integrators as their income is higher. Moreover, they are more Table 10 above summarizes the recommendations from the study findings. The study finds that vegetable-poultry integration is more profitable than vegetable farming alone and the profitability increases as the flock size increases. For smallholder farmers to make significant profits from vegetable-poultry production system, they should keep at least 18 chickens. Therefore, stakeholders should promote the existing production practices to enable the use of the available resources efficiently and intensify the poultry sector as the flock size determines the magnitude of profits. This will assist in reducing the cost of production, increasing yield, and consequently increased. The study recommends the promotion of farmers' education and capacity building through village community based organizations (CBOs), field schools, and cooperatives to improve their knowledge on new technologies that increase their profits. Given the present small land holding and the pressure on land due to population increase in Tanzania, the study suggests promotion of initiatives aiming at increasing farm productivity. The improved technology within integration together with availability and affordability of improved vegetable seeds and poultry breeds may play a role in increasing the output and produce the maximum possible in the available land.Furthermore, the study suggests policy measures that empower women so that they can contribute to household decision making and get access to more land and other productive resources.Moreover, the creation and empowerment of women cooperatives and groups as well as providing more trainings that target women are needed. These will serve as capacity building which will increase their level of education and access to information. Since farmers do not reinvest off-farm incomes in vegetable-poultry production systems, there is a need to sensitize them to revert this behaviour and begin to invest such incomes in this integration. This can be achieved by transforming the agricultural system from subsistence to commercial through targeting farm technologies and improved markets which may attract more rural households into profit-oriented farm production. Consequently, this study recommends further research on rural technology adoption and input-output markets to ascertain the earning potentials of vegetable-poultry integration. Lastly, the study recommends the sensitization of the communities about the benefits of vegetable-poultry integration through trainings and more extension services. ","tokenCount":"12970"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"906cfd82de52e281ce1817bedfba8654","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/2b2b89f5-84f8-484e-b745-f9d322922f45/retrieve","id":"406313230"},"keywords":["Subjects: Nutrition","Food Chemistry","Chemistry Yam","NIRS","Calibration development","protein","moisture","Ash"],"sieverID":"424d9de9-7899-4130-9749-16d4dc463ec5","pagecount":"13","content":"time. This will enhance breeders' rapid selection of genotypes at screening stage where many breeding lines are to be evaluated within the shortest time possible.Calibration development for nutritional evaluation of Yam (Dioscorea sp.) using Near-Infrared Reflectance Spectrophotometry (NIRS) Oladeji Emmanuel Alamu 1 , Michael Adesokan 1 and Busie Maziya-Dixon 1 * Abstract: The aim of yam breeders is to produce many hybrids, which can form the basis of selecting quality nutritional traits and other characteristics using certain agronomic criteria. Chemical methods are employed to determine the main constituents of yam, which are time-consuming, expensive, and involve sample destruction. However, the constraints of lengthy analysis time and the cost needed to analyze thousands of these genotypes are major constraints to yam breeding in Nigeria. This study was undertaken to develop and validate calibration equations on the Near-Infrared Reflectance Spectrophotometer (NIRS) for determining chemical compositions of selected yam genotypes. Equations developed for moisture, ash, protein, crude fiber, and tannin showed high coefficients of determination (R 2 ) for the calibration curve (0.87, 0.84, 0.83, 0.80, and 0.89, respectively) and high to medium coefficients of determination in cross-validation (0.80, 0.68, 0.69, 0.68, and 0.50). The standard errors of calibration (SEC) and the standard errors in cross-validation (SECV) were low for most constituents. A total of 360 ascensions of yam flour were predicted for selected traits to test the equations, and the results were comparable with data from conventional methods. Results of this study have shown that NIRS could be a very useful tool to help yam breeders screen large sample sets using limited resources with very short ABOUT THE AUTHORS Our research is focused on characterization of food crops and their products for nutritional and functional traits. Specifically, we are working on characterization of improved and released varieties of maize, cowpea, soybean, cassava and plantain and banana. We are into novel products from these crops with aim to use them to improve malnutrition mostly among the vulnerable groups of developing countries. We work closely with crop breeders in IITA to develop and applied improved methods for analysis of the bred crops for various nutritional and antinutritional compositions. Thus, breeders could take prompt and reliable decisions to achieve their various breeding objectives for crop improvement.Recently, researchers have been working on increasing the nutrient in the crops and improving the quality characteristics of the crops to meet consumer preferences. To achieve this, the researchers need a fast and cost-effective method of analysis. This study was aimed to apply Near-Infrared Reflectance Spectrophotometer (NIRS) for figuring out chemical constituents of different types of yam samples from different locations. NIRS calibration equations were developed, tested and used to analyze the yam flour samples and compared the results with the literature values. The developed equations could be used for moisture, ash, protein and starch contents determinations of yam flour samples. Thus, NIIRS could be considered as a substitute to the time consuming and labor intensive wet chemical methods of analysis which will in turn minimize exposure to toxic chemicals, provide high turnaround time and minimize cost.Yam is a starchy staple food popularly grown in Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean, the South Pacific, and Asia. Yam contributes more than 200 dietary calories per capita daily for more than 150 million people in West Africa and serves as an important source of income to the people (Coursey, 1967;Babaleye, 2003) The main producer of this staple food is Nigeria with 71% of the world's production (Eke-Ejiofor & Owuno, 2012). FAO statistics showed that about 48.7 million tons of yams were produced on 5 million hectares in about 47 countries worldwide in 2005, and 97% of this was in sub-Saharan Africa (FAO, 2013). West and Central Africa account for 94% of world production, with Nigeria producing 34 million tons. Yam is composed mainly of starch, with some proteins, lipids, vitamins, and minerals (FAO, 2010). Most of the yam species contain carbohydrates, mainly starch, i.e. amylopectic branched chain starch, which exists in the cells in the form of starch grains. Yam also has certain economic and social benefits as it is well integrated into the social, cultural, and religious lifestyles of consumers.Sustainable production and utilization of yam are important steps in enhancing food security and alleviating poverty, particularly in West Africa. There are 10 major edible yam species (D. alata, D. bulbifera, D. cayenensis, D. esculenta, D. opposita-japonica, D. nummularia, D. pentaphylla, D. rotundata, D. transvers, and D. trifida) and they include thousands of cultivars. Traits such as the physico-chemical characteristics of the tubers are important because they allow the identification of parents with suitable tuber quality, a key factor for breeding acceptable varieties. The chemical composition of the tuber has been shown to depend on the species, the cultivar, or wild form (Eka, 1985;Lasztity, Hidegild, & Bata, 1998).One of the major constraints breeders face is the long quality evaluation process, which takes much time and resources as they produce many breeding lines. However, NIRS has been used to complement the complex laboratory procedures for quality evaluation, which has helped to reduce the time it takes to analyze the many breeding lines. As a high-precision, low-cost, rapid, and highthroughput technique, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) can predict the content of organic constituents by combining laboratory data and spectral information (Bradbury & Holloway, 1988;Ramirez et al., 2015).NIR spectrometric analyses of yam flour samples were conducted according to NIR standard procedures, which include selection of calibration and validation samples, and reference data obtained by routine laboratory analysis. NIR spectral data were obtained by scanning samples, selection of optimum equations between spectral data and reference values by calibration, and confirmation of optimum equations by validation. The established prediction equations were used to measure new independent samples. However, other studies have reported the application of near-infrared reflectance spectrophotometry in evaluation of quality traits in germplasm of Dioscorea alata of Pacific Island origin (Lebot, Champagne, Malapa, & Shiley, 2009;Lebot & Malapa, 2013a). NIRs has been used for characterization of various biochemical traits in cassava and other tropical root crops (Lebot, Malapa, & Jung, 2013b) and it was reported that NIRS could rapidly predict total N, starch, and sugars contents of these crops.However, limited studies have reported applications of near-infrared spectroscopy to evaluate chemical constituents in yam genotypes/varieties that are peculiar to the West Africa region. Thus, the need for this study to establish prediction equations for yam varieties commonly grown in West Africa.A total of 163 fresh, matured yams bred as improved yam genotypes were obtained from the experimental fields of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) across four locations of different agroecological zones in Nigeria, namely Ibadan (7 °30ʹN,3 °54ʹE),  Abuja (9 °04ʹN, 7 °29ʹE), Ubiaja (6 °38ʹN, 6 °23ʹE), and Ikenne (6°87ʹN, 3 °7ʹE). The samples were split into 126 sets for cross-validation and 37 for external validation. At the time of harvest, the yam tubers were about 10-12 months old. Three tubers of varying sizes-big, medium, and small-were selected for each variety by simple randomization from a bulk of freshly harvested tubers. The Harvest Plus sampling protocol for cassava as reported by Alamu, Maziya-Dixon, Okonkwo, and Asiedu (2014) was adapted for the yam tubers. The tubers were washed, air-dried, peeled, and again washed and dried with soft paper. Each peeled root was cut into four portions longitudinally from the proximal to the distal end. Two opposite portions from each tuber were pooled and homogenized. Some of the homogenized samples were put in paper bag and transferred into an oven to dry at 60 °C for 48 h. The resulting dry chips were milled to fine flour using a stainless-steel laboratory mill. The dried flour was then divided into two sub-samples; one sub-sample used for wet chemical analysis as a reference and the other for the collection of NIR SPECTRA.A part of the yam flour was transferred onto the sample disc and placed in the NIRS machine for collection of NIR spectra (Figure 1). The ISI scan software on a PC was used to control the NIRS machine for the spectra collection and each sample was scanned in duplicate. The reflectance spectrum varied from 400 to 2500 nm and the spectral line is the average spectra acquired from all tested samples. The NIR region has been reported to be associated with combination bands of fundamental vibrations which are very broad and highly overlapped; it is difficult to distinguish them visually (Lebot et al., 2009). This is more difficult with biological material such as yam samples, which are characterized by complex hydrogen bonding interactions between sugars, fatty acids, and proteins. The spectrum was from the absorption features for each chemical compound of a sample (Yang et al., 2017). In addition, the chemical bonds in the sample matrix absorb at different wavelengths; and the interactions among chemical components and particle size differences give the multiple absorption bands in the raw spectral data that gave vital and unique information for each chemical composition (Yang et al., 2017;Cozzolino, 2015). The moisture content of dried flour was determined using the Association of Official Analytical Chemists' (AOAC) approved method 925.09. Lipid, ash, and crude fiber content of dried yam flour were determined using the Association of Official Analytical Chemists' Approved methods 920. 87, 920.39 and 923.03, respectively (AOAC, 1990). Total tannin content of yam flour was determined by the spectrophotometric procedure described by Bainbridge, Tomlins, Wellings, and Wesby (1996).This was determined by the Kjeldahl method using Kjeltec™ model 2300, as described in FOSS Manual (FOSS, 2003). The method involved digestion of the sample at 420 °C for 1 h to liberate the organically bound nitrogen in the form of ammonium sulfate. The ammonia in the digest (ammonium sulfate) was then distilled into a boric acid receiver solution, then titrated with standard hydrochloric acid. A conversion factor of 6.25 was used to convert from total nitrogen to percentage crude protein.• Va = Volume, in mL, of standard HCl required for sample• Vb = Volume, in mL, of standard HCl required for blankPhytic acid content was determined using a method reported by Ndidi et al. (2014). Phytic acid was extracted from 3 g yam flour with 50 ml of 3% TCA by shaking at room temperature followed by high-speed centrifugation of the suspension for 15 min. The phytic acid in the supernatant was precipitated as ferric phytate by adding 4 ml of ferric chloride, heating in a boiling water bath for 45 min, and centrifuging at 2000 rpm for 15 min. The ferric phytate was converted to ferric hydroxide with 2 ml of water and 3 ml of 1.5 N NaOH, then the iron content present in the sample was estimated using a UV/Vis spectrophotometer. The phytate phosphorus was calculated from the iron results assuming a 4: 6 iron: phosphorus molecular ratio. The phytic acid was estimated by multiplying the amount of phytate phosphorus by a factor of 3.55 based on the empirical formula C 6 P 6 O 24 H 18 .CalculationsThe near-infrared spectra models were developed with 163 samples, in \"Win ISI 4 Project Manager\", by using the modified partial least squares (MPLS) regression and cross-validation techniques (Yang et al., 2017). These techniques were used to calculate the correlation between and laboratory and spectral data. The performance of spectrophotometer was verified, and the wavelength stability checked prior to the collection of spectra. The collected spectra data were transformed with several pretreatments before the calibration process. Each dried flour sample was scanned twice, within the range of 400 to 2498 nm, registering absorbance value logs (I/R) at 0.5 nm intervals using a NIRS monochromator (model FOSS XDS, solid module) and stationary ring cell cup. The derivative and mathematical treatments used for each constituent are 1, 4, 4, and 1. The first number is the derivative, the second is the gap, while the third and fourth numbers show the smooth.The results of the calibration calculation were checked seeing the t-outliers with t > 2.0 and GH-outliers >4.0. There were two outlier elimination passes and samples with t > 2.0 were dropped from the calibration file. Statistical methods applied in the study included the coefficient of determination calculated in cross-validation (R 2 cval) and external validation (R 2 V), the standard error of calibration (SEC), the standard error of cross-validation (SECV), and the standard deviation (SD). The prediction ability of the model was estimated using the ratio of prediction to deviation (RPD), which showed the correlations between the SD of the data from standard chemical methods and prediction data by NIRS model (SECV or RMSEC) as reported by Williams and Sobering (1996) and Yang et al. (2017).The developed calibration equations/models were used for the prediction of proximate and anti-nutritional compositions of yam flour samples. A total of 360 ascensions of yam samples from five different locations in Nigeria, namely Abuja, Ibadan, Ubiaja, Ikenne, and Umudike were analyzed for moisture content, ash, fat, crude fiber, starch, sugar, amylose, phytate, and tannins using NIRS. The prediction equations used had high coefficients of determination for the calibration curves for most of the proximate parameters (moisture, r 2 = 0.87; ash, r 2 = 0.84; protein, r 2 = 0.80; crude fiber, r 2 = 0.83; tannin, r 2 = 0.89); this gives a basis for good prediction of these constituents in the yam flour samples. About 5 g of the dried yam flour was scanned by NIRS; spectral data were collected by measuring the diffuse reflectance from yam flour in the NIR region within 400-2498 nm using a NIRS monochromator (model FOSS XDS, solid module) and a stationary ring cell. The reflectance spectra were collected continuously over a NIR wavelength region with each spectrum represented as absorbance value logs (1/R) at 0.5 nm increments (Figure 2). The spectroscopic procedures and data recording were done using Win ISI software (version 4.9.0; FOSS NIR Systems).The moisture, ash, protein, crude fiber, fat content of the yam flour, and antinutrient factors are presented in Table 1. Mean ± SD of 6.9 ± 1.67% was obtained for moisture content of dried yam   flour, while ash, fat, and protein were 3.58 ± 0.74, 0.31 ± 0.19%, and 6.78 ± 1.57%, respectively. However, these results are consistent with PolyCarp, Afokwa, Budu, and Otoo (2012) who reported <1.0% for fat and 4.0-6.5% for protein. However, amylose content ranged from 18.8% to 44.41% with an average value of 32.84% and in agreement with what was reported in the literature, ranged from 24.3% to 38.1% (PolyCarp et al., 2012;Alamu et al., 2014;Eke-Ejiofor & Owuno, 2012)    Maziya-Dixon and Asiedu (2003) and 33.9-75.7% reported by Alamu et al. (2014). The bioactive content of the yam samples shows that phytic acid and tannin had a mean ± SD of 1.17 ± 0.42 mg/ g and 2.04 ± 1.93 mg/g, respectively. The mean and standard deviation of phytic acid (2.16 ± 0.44%) obtained was higher than what was reported (1.82 ± 0.4%) by Alamu et al. (2014) for yam varieties from riverine areas, using chemical methods (Alamu et al., 2014). The difference could be due to genetic and environmental differences.Mean values, standard deviations, and ranges of the reference values and the statistics of the NIRS calibration and of the cross-validation are shown in Table 1. NIRS equations were developed in this study using modified partial-least-square (MPLS) regression on the first derivative of reflectance and transmittance spectra (math treatment, D = 1, G = 4, S1 = 4, S2 = 1), and scatter correction of SNVD (standard normal variance and de-trend) for each constituent. D is the derivative order number (that is 0 indicates no derivative operation, 1 means the first derivative and so on); G is gap (the number of data points over which derivation is computed); S1 is the number of data points in the first smoothing and S2 is the number of data points in the second smoothing that is normally set at 1 in the case of no second smoothing.The NIRS predictive performance for moisture, ash, protein, and tannin were considered good with high R 2 pred of 0.87, 0.84, 0.83, 0.80, and 0.89, respectively, and high to medium coefficients of determination in cross-validation R 2Val of 0.80, 0.68, 0.69, 0.68, and 0.50, respectively (Table 1). The standard errors of calibration (SEC) and the standard errors in cross-validation (SECV) were low for all constituents except sugar and amylose. The coefficients of determination in calibration curves for fat, sugar, and phytate were very low at 0.07, 0.32, and 0.39, respectively and consequently had a very low coefficient of determination in cross-validation at 0.14 and 0.31 and 0.29, respectively (Table 1). Therefore, fat, sugar, and amylose might not be predicted precisely; however, the RPD values of 2.14 for sugar and 1.15 for phytate indicate that the prediction for these parameters can be improved. The R 2 Pred values of moisture, ash, protein, crude fiber, and sugars are high enough to allow good estimates of their content, confirming the interest of NIRS for predicting rapidly these constituents in yam genotypes. Figure 3 shows typical scatter plots of predicted moisture and spectra data for the dried yam flour samples for 163 genotypes.The robustness of the method was checked by predicting the proximate composition of 15 independent samples which were not included in the calibration group and came from an entirely different location-Abakaliki, Ebonyi State (6 °19ʹN, 8 °6ʹE). The average of two spectra data for each sample was collected as predicted values using the developed equations and compared with those obtained using standard wet chemical laboratory procedures. The external validation plots were obtained as shown in Figure 4. Though the r 2 is affected by distribution of the values, the moisture content, protein, and ash had a higher R 2 value (moisture, 0.78; protein, 0.90; ash, 0.80;) but starch and sugar had low R 2 values of 0.57 and 0.49, respectively.The predicted proximate and anti-nutritional composition using the developed calibration equations for yam flour across four different locations is presented in Table 2. The predicted grand mean moisture content for D. rotundata flour ranged from 3.82 ± 1.49% (Abuja) to 5.29 ± 0.21% (Ibadan) across the locations. The moisture content of dried flour shows the residual moisture after drying. Moisture content is one of the factors that determines the shelf life of yam flour and low moisture observed for most of the genotypes confers higher shelf life on the flour and is a good indication of microbial stability and may contribute to reducing the tendency of baked food products becoming stale. A range of 1.41 ± 0.98 to 3.10 ± 1.75% was observed for ash; 0.34 ± 0.07 to 0.44 ± 0.05% for fat; 5.37 1.22 to 7.79 ± 1.53% for protein. The results obtained in this study were higher than 1.4%, 2.7%, 0.08% mean values reported by Alinnor and Akalezi (2012) for ash, crude fat, and protein content, respectively. A range of 1.04 ± 0.35 to 2.23 ± 0.65% was obtained for crude fiber, and 33.66 ± 5.26 to 37.31 ± 4.26% for amylose across all locations. Mean starch values ranged from 54.26 ± 14.07 to 74.13 ± 12.86%; 5.27 ± 0.63 to 5.90 ± 0.47% for sugar; 0.70 ± 0.19 to 0.98 ± 0.37% for phytate, and 1.4 ± 0.93 to 2.10 ± 1.02% for tannin. These values are relatively lower than 4.5% and 2.1% reported by PolyCarp et al. (2012) for phytate and tannin, respectively. Phytates are known to adversely affect mineral bioavailability while tannins are antinutrients which form complexes with proteins and reduce their digestibility and palatability (Alinnor & Akalezi, 2012;Bhandari & Kawabata, 2006). Lower phytate and tannin values are therefore desired in yam varieties.Dioscorea alata (D. alata) moisture content ranged from 5.21 ± 1.71 to 6.18 ± 2.38%; ash from 2.41 ± 0.88 to 4.55 ± 1.83; fat from 0.38 ± 0.06 to 0.67 ± 0.05%; protein from 5.53 ± 1.07 to 6.63 ± 0.78%; crude fiber from 1.33 ± 0.37 to 2.23 ± 0.65%, and amylose from 34.09 ± 1.92 to 35.25 ± 2.70%. These observed values agree with what Alamu et al. (2014) who reported in their study using conventional methods of analysis, a range of 1.98 ± 0.49% (ash), 1.2 ± 0.9% (fat), and 2.91 ± 0.77% (protein) were reported, which agreed with the predicted results from this study using NIRS. PolyCarp et al. (2012) also reported moisture content values ranging from 5.71% to 6.60% and protein values ranging from 5.91% to 6.08% for D. alata. Similarly, the predicted range for starch content for D. alata across all locations was 46.02 ± 20.0-64.73 ± 11.99%; 5.10 ± 0.84-6.04 ± 0.71% for sugar; 0.94 ± 0.18-0.98 ± 0.37% for phytate, and 1.52 ± 1.17-4.13 ± 2.01% for tannin. These values obtained using the prediction equation from NIRS are in concordance with the range of 60.30-74.4% reported for starch content of D. alata by Maziya-Dixon and Asiedu (2003). Umudike had the highest grand mean of moisture content and amylose content for TDa varieties (6.18 ± 2.38) and TDr varieties (37.31 ± 4.26), respectively. The highest mean value for protein content (7.79 ± 1.53%), across the four locations, was from Abuja and it was for TDr varieties. The starch content of 74.13 ± 12.86% was reported for TDr varieties from Ubiaja location and the value agrees with an average of 77.41 ± 6.4% starch content reported by Lebot;et al. (2009) for Dioscorea spp. It could be inferred that location and type of yam affected the nutrients of yam varieties and NIRS could be used for their classification in terms of their nutritional and anti-nutritional values.Considering the high prediction performance of the developed equations for most of the yam constituents (moisture, ash, protein, and starch), it could be concluded that NIRS could be used to determine these constituents conveniently and cheaply. In addition, the findings from using the developed prediction equations for the analysis of independent yam samples that compared positively with those reported in the literature making NIRS to be a good substitute for the high cost and time-consuming conventional method. The data generated from this study could be used for the expansion of yam data base in West Africa, especially Nigeria.","tokenCount":"3672"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c63f1dddaf57ffa4b1ff9e5ad87e8ce2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4e77e163-4e2f-42be-9192-6fdf3e3641e8/retrieve","id":"1397604515"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"873dffd6-3750-4b66-b397-56bb905e50a0","pagecount":"26","content":"The Biofortified Crops program of the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) seeks to improve the food and nutritional security of the population by leading the production and promoting the adoption and consumption of staple crops in the family food basket with higher vitamin and mineral content.Biofortification is a conventional plant breeding process. An example is crossing a drought-tolerant bean variety with another bean variety that has a high concentration of iron (after years of crosses and field evaluations), to obtain a drought-tolerant bean with a higher mineral content. This results in a new variety that is more nutritious and performs better in the field.In addition, biofortification contributes to maintaining the genetic diversity of seeds, since without the native and creole seeds that are safeguarded in our genebank Future Seeds, breeders would not be able to obtain new cultivars.In order to achieve a greater nutritional impact on the population through the consumption of more nutritious food products, one of the initiatives being promoted is the preparation and processing of foods using biofortified crops as ingredients or raw materials to increase their nutritional value. This publication provides simple and healthy recipes for the preparation of biofortified foods, that are naturally more nutritious.In this recipe booklet, you will find ideas to try the different flavors offered by our products, which have accompanied our ancestors and now our families, allowing them to have a nutritious and delicious diet. Drain the beans, dry in oven at 100°C for 6 hours (or until dry), stirring the beans while drying. Allow to cool before grinding.Grind and sieve until a fine flour is obtained.If necessary, dry the maize grains in an oven at 60°C for 1-2 hours (or until dry), stirring the kernels while drying.Thresh the maize grains to remove the bran.Grind the threshed maize to obtain a fine flour.If necessary, dry the rice in an oven at 60°C for 1-2 hours (or until dry), stirring the grains while drying.Grind the rice to a fine flour.Remove the roots with visible signs of deterioration, wash, peel and cut into small pieces.Dry the pieces in an oven at 60°C for 8-10 hours (or until dry), stirring them while drying.Grind and sieve until a fine flour is obtained. Cook over a medium heat until boiling and then blend until everything is well mixed and the cream is smooth.Cook again for about 5 minutes or until it has a creamy consistency.Taste and season with salt to taste if necessary, remove from heat and serve immediately. In a pot, boil the water with the rest of the ingredients and add the maize flour.Cook over a medium heat until boiling for about 10-15 minutes, stirring constantly so there are no lumps.Remove from heat and serve immediately. Heat a non-stick frying pan and add a few drops of oil. When the oil is hot add a little of the mixture in the center of the pan and spread towards the edges so that there is a thin layer of mixture. Let the crepe brown on one side and then flip it gently with a thin spatula, making sure it can be removed without any problem.Let the crepe brown on the other side and then put it on a plate. Continue with the rest of the mixture until finished. Keep the crepe covered with a clean cloth or plastic film so that they keep warm and do not dry out.Crepes can be accompanied with sweet or savory fillings. They can be served as preferred in the shape of rolls, triangles, half-moons, or squares, folding the edges towards the center to contain the filling. When the mixture has a creamy consistency, add the eggs one by one and continue beating for 5 more minutes.Add the sieved wheat and bean flour, and the baking powder to the previous mixture and continue beating until it is completely creamy.Finally, add the bananas chopped into small pieces to the finished mixture.Transfer the dough to a greased baking pan and bake in a preheated oven at 170°C for 40 minutes. Let the cake cool, unmold and decorate to taste.","tokenCount":"684"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3eac56a8602e4cf48cbe450dec9490af","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/6c0661b8-d702-4fb9-becc-7323fa89cbd4/retrieve","id":"1908098978"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"57b378a5-7961-4898-8d7a-fe1a07be3d6b","pagecount":"34","content":"This proposal for the extension of the Grain Legume CRP begins with reflections on the expected outcomes (IDOs) which are the contribution of the CRP to the System level Outcomes. This is justified given the special social role that grain legumes play. These development outcomes in turn are supported by the Theory of Change and Impact Pathways that must be in place for grain legumes to fulfil their unique potential. These IDOs were established in 2013 and we look critically on how we can address them and monitor progress and our strategy towards achieving them. Finally, we address the outputs and the respective activities that bring science to bear on the food security, nutritional and social needs of the poor.The CGIAR Research Program on Grain Legumes espouses five Intermediate Development Outcomes (IDOs) that contribute to the four System Level Outcomes:The contribution of the CRP to these IDOs is uneven, and dominated by the contribution to IDO4, which indirectly contributes to IDO1, IDO2, IDO3 and IDO5 because (i) food security and nutrition are, in part, dependent on the availability of grain legumes (for which demand outstrips supply in most regions); (ii) grain legume crops being high value crops are a source of income provided that they are productive; and (iii) increased productivity and intensification are the context for IDO5, but here grain legumes have a positive environmental effect, contributing to soil fertility. The nutritional impact of Grain Legumesare generally nutritious with abundant protein (iv) contributes to IDO3, but largely through increased production, activities relate to maintaining quality under constraint and there is some work on micro nutrients (Fe and Zn), and these link to CRP A4NH.Most of the measurable outputs of Grain Legumes are seed-based and therefore have commonalities in their development and dissemination. Historically, seed-based technologies have been relatively easy to transfer to and to be adopted by farmers, with many farmers anxious to experiment with new varieties or hybrids. Exceptions to this route are Flagship Project (FP) 1 that deals mainly with the biological issues not dependent on plant genetics and that is not necessarily delivered through seed based technology. FP1 will produce significant Integrated Pest Management outputs that will include natural enemies of pests, but this will be complemented by host plant resistance components delivered through the trait delivery pipeline of FPs 2, 3 and 4. On the other hand, most seed-based approaches will act synergistically with a crop/pest/disease management component, and will also be strengthened by increased market participation that in turn motivates investment in inputs. Similarly our activities on improved biological nitrogen fixation will include the generation of new inoculants (where the N2Africa project is not active) as well as the generation of new varieties. Underlying these interventions is the theory of change strategy of 'Inclusive Market Oriented Development' or IMOD (http://exploreit.icrisat.org/page/imod/649/123, http://Grain Legumes.cgiar.org/how-we-do-it/impact-pathways/) as a framework for priority setting and monitoring within the programme. This seeks to identify targets for intervention, and to assess the performance of activities with respect to the aim of improving the livelihood of smallholder farmers as well as the urban and rural poor. IMOD highlights value returned to smallholder farmers through agriculture and diversification, for which legumes are well suited given their high market value, their ability to fit into production niches, and their multiplicity of uses from leafy vegetables, immature grain, mature grain or fodder. While the technologies we are developing have in mind resource poor farmers with small areas of land to cultivate, we realise that societal changes may have a radical effect on the way that agriculture is conducted over the next 50 years. This approach is itself under review in order to identify good metrics with which to assess our priority setting, monitoring and evaluation in phase 2. However, we are confident that whatever approach is taken, the crops we are targeting will remain an essential component of farming systems and that enhanced capacity to tolerate the main constraints we have identified will remain valid research priorities.Our IDOs, targets and related assumptions are provided in Annex 1. These targets were developed prior to the emphasis on common IDOs and also the reorganisation of the CRP according to Flagship Projects. As the CGIAR drives toward more specific metrics that lead to IDOs, we will refine our own metrics and assure that we are well positioned to use them for M&E and strategy development. Accordingly in the extension phase we will address some concerns regarding the targets and measures within Cross-Cutting area 1 (CC1). Specifically these are:We have relatively few targets for this IDO, and these tend to be expressed in the same terms as our targets for productivity (hectares; numbers of households). We need to determine whether these should be amalgamated or whether new measures are required. The IDO refers to \"access\". This implies per capita availability in the market on the one hand, and/or economic capacity to purchase on the other as a function of price, both are strongly influenced by productivity. To address IDO adequately requires further investment in the development a baseline of \"access\" to show how, whether or to what degree this improved; in turn this requires the development of appropriate metrics.We have a wide array of indicators for this IDO and these need to be consolidated. The percentage increase per beneficiary (men, women, households) seems the most appropriate measure, but again good baseline data needs to be established and benchmarked.poor for a more balanced and nutritious diet, especially among nutritionally vulnerable women and children Grain legumes are generally nutritious with abundant protein. The relatively high lysine content of legumes complements the amino acid profile in cereals such that each gram of legume protein potentiates another gram of cereal protein. Oil-rich soybean and groundnut have a complementary effect on absorption of oil-soluble vitamins. Moreover, grain legumes are also a source of fibre, minerals and folate and contain a diversity of bioactive compounds. Currently legumes and especially chickpea 1 , common bean, groundnut 2 and lentil are attracting attention 3 for reducing risk of the so-called non-communicable or chronic diseases (diabetes, cardio-vascular, and certain types of cancer 4 ), in part due to their slowly digestible starch. Partners and notably the Legume Innovation Laboratory and Peanut and Mycotoxin Innovation Laboratory maintain a research commitment on health benefits of legume consumption. These issues are important to Grain Legumes given the increasing levels of chronic disease, especially diabetes, in the developing world, and as component of the message that we convey to policy makers. While improved nutritional quality is not a primary goal of this CRP, work on genetic enhancement of nutritional value focused on improving the iron and zinc concentration in bean and lentil, within CRP Agriculture for Nutrition and Health under HarvestPlus is closely aligned to Grain Legumes. Aflatoxins are a common issue for both the GL CRP and for A4NH, and approaches are complementary. While the benefits of legumes in relation to nutrition and health are wide ranging, we are not in a position to assume metrics of health per se. For IDO3 we use per capita consumption as our metric, assuming that the multiple benefits from eating legumes must start with greater consumption. This indicator requires household survey data to show that (especially) women and children are in fact consuming legumes, and this needs to be measured with respect to a baseline.Productivity: Improved productivity of farming systems, especially among smallholder farmers This is the centre of gravity of the CRP and the other IDOs depend largely on improved productivity either directly or indirectly. Conceptually this is very simple but the complexity lies in obtaining reliable data of the real situation among users of technology. Currently we rely on FAO data for these measures, but we know there are some difficulties with these data (for example 'bean' is not used consistently) so we need to establish independently verified baseline data in the extension phase. This is the centre of gravity of the CRP and the other IDOs depend largely on improved productivity either directly or indirectly. Currently we rely on FAO data for these measures, but we know there are some difficulties with these data (for example 'bean' is not used consistently) so these need to be validated in some way, and we need to establish independently verified baseline data in the extension phase.Here our indicators focus on nitrogen or organic matter which are closely related but not the same. Reduced pesticide use is also a target but baseline data is needed. The Product Line 7 'Labour saving traits' includes the use of herbicides for weed control, so this needs to be monitored.IDOs are somewhat remote from research activities; the lag time between action and outcome means that these serve for broad direction setting and post hoc assessment of impact. For project management more immediate measures are needed, and to this end targets were developed when the proposal was submitted and these are presented in the document describing the program and dated 15 Aug 2012 (http://1drv.ms/1gNUKVb) and in Annex 1.These measures are also often remote and dependent on many external factors. For this reason we need to develop impact pathways at the level of individual output targets as this will enable us to monitor progress towards our outcomes. Two examples are given below:The process of defining these output delivery pathways for each output target is not yet complete, but will be completed before the beginning of the extension Phase and integrated with our Monitoring and Evaluation system. The purpose of this exercise is to define operational metrics that relate our project management to the broader impact pathway.The CRP on Grain legumes was defined by the description document agreed in August 2012, although it had a formal start date of January 2012. The structure of the program matured with the appointment of the Research Management Committee a year later. It is therefore too early for Grain Legumes to institute radical change. The Output Targets identified in the 2014 Plan of Work and Budget (POWB) are mostly 'deliverable' after 2016, so these remain the basis of, and identify, the activities we will undertake. Nevertheless the extension proposal provides an opportunity for Grain Legumes to implement some changes that respond to the needs of the program in terms of our gender strategy, the implementation of results based management and the processes needed to undertake the considerations and consultations required for the phase two proposal. The main changes we propose are as follows: 1) We will restructure the management of the program by including women and disciplines other than biological sciences in the RMC. (see also 'Gender' below) 2) We will redirect a portion of our funding on the basis of a competitive grants scheme, allowing us to build in flexibility, rigor and management for results. (see also Budget) 3) We will institute a studentship program, in part allied to the USAID-funded Feed the Future Laboratories (see also Phased Work plan). 4) We will regroup our activity clusters thematically in a way that has a clearer relationship to our Intermediate Development Outcomes, while preserving the Product Line focus in terms of outputs. The realignment of the CRP according to Flagships rather than Product Lines places our most important outputs into the context of the R4D process leading to IDOs, rather than emphasizing the specific technical innovations. Product Lines remain intact, and run through the FPs provide the outcome focus in this process perspective. The Flagship Projects 1 to 5 identify the crop interactions with biotic and abiotic constraints (FP1), the trait discovery and deployment pipeline (FP2 and FP3), the seed systems required for their adoption, and markets that produce income (FP4), capacity (FP5) that act together with the assessment of impact, redefining priorities and assessing gender components of priorities and activities (CC1). A new Cross-cutting area, CC2, that we intend to develop concerns high throughput genotyping and associated bioinformatics. These are summarised below but a more detailed description relating output targets to these Flagship Projects and the Product Lines is given in Annex 2 FP1 Managing productivity concerns the crop interactions with organisms and the environment. Crop biotic interactions include beneficial and detrimental relationships, and some of these biotic relationships act synergistically with abiotic constraints. Insect pests are a major constraint on legume production and have been largely intractable genetically, notably in the case of polyphagous insects in the genera Helicoverpa and Maruca. Management practices that include rearing and deployment of parasitoids and/or the use of biopesticides are an opportunity that could have a major impact independent of the availability of sources of genetic resistance or tolerance. This corresponds to our Product Line 5 (PL5) on integrated pest management. Crops have associations with a range of microbes, some are pathogens but others promote growth either directly (eg Rhizobium) or indirectly by competing with pathogens or negatively impacting on pests (eg certain actinomycetes and/or stimulate plant growth -Azospirillum spp). These organisms and their management are therefore significant levers in managing the performance of grain legume crops. Some of these crop-microbe interactions are also impacted by the environment, for example N fixation is modulated by phosphorous availability, water and temperature as well as plant maturity. Studies on N fixation (PL4) are allied to the BMGF N2Africa project where this is active.There are major uncertainties associated with projected climate change with some areas projected as becoming wetter and others drier, but overall an increase in temperature is likely to be a general concern. Elevated temperature (especially night time temperature) can have a major impact on plant fertility (ie seed set) so understanding the mechanisms underlying existing variation in temperature sensitivity of yield is needed in order to combine mechanisms and strategies. Moreover, temperature changes also modify agroecologies especially microclimate, and can favour an increase in pathogen and pest reproductive fitness leading to rapid build-up of populations and consequently disease and pest outbreaks. The abiotic consequences of climate change affect pests and pathogens as well as our target crops, so this also has a consequence for crop responses to and challenges by biotic stress.FP2 Trait determination characterises available genetic variation for those traits characterised as 'game changer' traits in the analysis presented in the project document as agreed in August 2012. These traits defined several of our 'Product Lines' that deal directly with breeding for specific characters (PLs 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8), and they continue to direct major strands of activity along the 'trait delivery pipeline' of FP2, 3 and 4. In the present formulation of the program the additional necessary components of successful varieties (market acceptability, foliar disease resistance) are more clearly a component of the activities within the Flagship Projects although subordinate to the object of these Product Lines (which could be designated Flagship Products). This FP includes the definition of genetic and molecular mechanisms of the trait determination.FP3 Trait deployment takes the genetic variation obtained in FP2 and combines this with other useful traits using integrated breeding approaches by deploying tools, technologies and platforms from CC2. These novel breeding tools and methods will be used to enhance efficiency and precision of breeding process. The lines and genotypes generated will be made available to breeders to adapt these to local, national and agroecological conditions as well as market needs. In some countries we take varieties beyond the 'pre-breeding' stage and even in countries with active breeding programs the provision of finished lines is often welcome. The point at which the CRP finishes breeding activities and delivers material to the NARS is responsive to the needs of the partnership. The adoption of improved varieties developed through the efforts of FP3 will be enhanced by strengthening the seed systems in FP4.FP4 Seed systems, post-harvest processing, markets and nutrition acts after the generation of useful varieties, minimising post-harvest losses (eg from bruchid damage) while maintaining or exploiting market acceptability (eg seed colour & pattern in common bean and lentil) and also maintaining nutritional value (eg micronutrient availability in coordination with CRP A4NH) and taking advantage of processing opportunities such as the use of immature chickpea seeds for their nutritional and culinary value as well as their advantage as short duration crops. All of these conditions must be met in association with an effective seed recognition, production, and distribution system with associated standards, and FP4 seeks to maintain or establish these systems and give farmers grounds for confidence in the distribution method. It is at the level of the FP4 that IDO targets begin to emerge. Markets are the source of income. Monitoring of seed distribution offers an estimate of area covered with new varieties. Nutritional impacts have their first indicator in data on consumption. Thus FP4 has a special significance in the monitoring of our success.FP5 Capacity Building and Partnerships operates in a variety of modes; at the most direct it interacts with farmers in the demonstration of agricultural practices (eg Integrated Crop Management) or the selection of appropriate varieties for cultivation (Participatory Varietal Selection). The activities of this FP catalyse adoption by tapping into local knowledge to enhance adoption and improve targeting of research outputs, and we do this through strategic partnerships with varied stakeholders involving innovation platforms facilitated by national partners. The program also engages in strengthening through training activities for extension workers, breeders, technicians and seed producers, and is also engaged in training researchers within the program from early post graduate training (MSc PhD) to specialist training for experienced researchers. Virtual and distance learning platforms harnessing new ICT tools will be explored and implemented for cost effective learning process.Cross Cutting Area 1 (CC1) is like a Flagship Project but is internally directed, it engages in reviews of progress such as impact assessment and draws lessons from these that can update our research priorities. This includes gender analytical research that indicates those areas where interventions may have the most significant gender disaggregated differential effect and so allows us to prioritise certain areas of work. We will develop our communications strategy for managing data, information and disseminating knowledge to ensure the optimization, reach and end use of the R4D outcomes of Grain Legumes is also included in this component of the program. This strategy will innovatively make use of the new and emerging media tools (like Community radio, video, mobile and web based platforms) with a participatory approach to enable exchange of knowledge and information from and across the stakeholders including the smallholder farmers.) is intended to include informatics and high density genotyping platforms and the support proposed by the CO in the letter of 08/04/14. This emerges from four sources: (i) a new BMGF initiative the 'genomics back-office', (ii) the initiative from the Consortium office detailed in the letter of 08/04/14, (iii) the contribution to IBP 5 phase II within the CRP and (iv) the Tools and Platforms component of the new phase of the Tropical Legumes proposal, currently under development.Cross Cutting Area 3 includes the Project Management Unit and the various governance and oversight committees (See Annex 3 for a description of the changes proposed to be implemented for the Extension phase and preparations for Phase 2). New dimensions to this are the development of a results based management system that includes a grants scheme. We have remodelled our budget to obtain ca. 2M$ that we will disperse on the basis of grant applications. These will be aimed at three types of activities:1) Projects that strengthen strategic partnerships.2) Projects that are joint activities between the participating CGIAR Institutes 3) Projects that are joint with other CRPs (and jointly funded) Projects will be assessed by a subcommittee of the RMC and those selected sent for external review. Criteria for funding will be: alignment with our IDOs, potential impact, scientific excellence, and capacity for sustaining our research agenda. We also want to institute a system that monitors potential Intellectual Property and gives Quality Assurance while integrating our shared understanding of our Research Agenda (see Annex 4)The main target population for impact in this CRP are smallholder farmers living in marginal environments many of whom are women or from other marginalized groups. To improve targeting, as well as delivery of R4D benefits to these populations, it is imperative that activities be implemented in a manner that adequately addresses social inequality and gender is one of the most common determinants of social inequity that influences other socio-economic factors driving differences in communities. The CRP gender strategy 6 recognizes these facts and describes how we will address them by deepening understanding of social inequity in target communities and so inform research priority, technology generation, deployment and promotion. In each region gender studies that leverage existing knowledge and/or generate more specific information will be conducted. This knowledge will be used to inform and/or modify design of R4D interventions: FP1improve targeting by elucidating the influences of social inequity on uptake and use of IPM strategies; FP2&3-support selection of traits that have gender implications, FP4-clarify gender dimensions that may compound technology dissemination activities or access of women to markets; FP5-define and rationalize social inequity considerations to aid knowledge management efforts. The CRP gender team will develop an inventory of gender research activities to identify which populations targeted so far and to assess the impact of research on these populations. This will identify other potential target populations, for example, young men or women who may be invisible actors in the value chain yet could benefit through inclusion and/or innovation. We will analyse the degree of integration of gender into grain legumes research. Gender-disaggregated data is being reported in the CRP and further disaggregation of demographic data will be implemented to enrich the use of the data in diagnosing constraints and informing research plans. The framework for reporting, monitoring and evaluating gender integration into research projects will also be evaluated. Areas of greatest gender inequality will be defined with respect to the IDOs from the collected baseline data. Strategies will be developed to redress the identified inequalities within the Flagship projects. Sex-disaggregated data within program research and activities will be coordinated and integrated for ongoing activities. For capacity building activities indicators and targets will be designed, to assess outcomes of interventions on women's empowerment. These studies will be conducted at PL and/or 'Cross Cutting' (CC1) levels. In order to assure compliance to the gender strategy, the CRP will draw on the strengths of gender experts from CGIAR centres and NARS partners. All priority setting, participatory technology testing and dissemination activities will be required to capture both qualitative and quantitative gender disaggregated data. Through monitoring, regularly done through quarterly reporting, gender imperatives will be captured and used to inform the CRP research management. Additionally, the CRP research management committee is being expanded (Annex 3) to include a sociologist and women to strengthen the social science related implementation of the CRP. The CRP Grain Legumes has partners throughout its activities. For example, BGI and UC Davis are important partners in genomics. For variety development our partners vary by location and are determined by the NARS and regional organisations that are active or have local responsibility. EIAR has been an especially close partner, and is represented on the Steering Committee of the program. Some of our most important partnerships are highlighted in the section on Regional Collaborations. Here we cite those on a more local level, or those that transcend a given region and have a global outlook. Among these latter partnerships, the Legume Innovation Laboratory and Peanut and Mycotoxin Innovation Laboratory funded by USAID are two of the most important, and link us to advanced research institutions in the United States. The development of a joint studentship plan will give immediate connectivity, but it is anticipated that the personal and lab to lab connections that will be made will focus long term interactions. These programs are unusual in the sense that they imply medium to long term commitments of expert researchers who bring their knowledge to bear on specific issues relevant to the improvement of agriculture in the developing world. This expertise can be an important complement to the strengths of the CGIAR, for example, in the area of nutrition as cited above, or in basic research on insect population dynamics that backstops PL 5 on IPM.Examples of strategic partners below were highlighted for the Dalberg study:Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research : EIAR is represented on the Steering Committee of the CRP Grain Legumes. This partnership has been important for the delivery of improved Grain Legume varieties to Ethiopian farmers. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research is a key partner for activities in India (notably through ICRISAT and ICARDA). ICAR is represented on the Steering Committee of the CRP Grain Legumes. Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (Morocco) is a key partner especially for ICARDA and is hosting many of its activities in the CRP Grain Legumes as part of the relocation strategy for ICARDA supported through the CRP Grain Legumes with additional W1 funding (to ICARDA). The PABRA network is CIAT supported (W3 funding through CIAT with $285,000 in staff time dedicated to seed systems) and acts as a broad regional coordinating body. With KARI in Kenya there are multiple interactions for chickpea, common bean, cowpea, groundnut, and pigeonpea. Joint workplans with KARI are being initiated.The extension phase will bring closer interactions with partners including those listed above, for some this involves closer and joint planning of work programs (eg with EIAR and as is planned with KARI). Our partnership with the Feed the Future Innovation labs will be strengthened by the studentship scheme to which the CRP will contribute financially from unspent funds from the PMU which was not fully established until the latter part of 2013 this will draw the USAID effort in these organisations closer to the CRP. We also propose a 'grants scheme' (see New instruments in the description of the 'phased workplan' below). This scheme is designed to improve interactions between the CGIAR Centres and with these and Partners while piloting the monitoring and evaluation of proposed projects at the CRP level. These are small changes to the way the CRP works internally and to how it interacts with partners, but are important in establishing ways of managing these interactions that are new and will be tested prior to their full deployment in the second phase of the program.In 2015 and 2016 we do not anticipate major changes to the structure of CRP Governance or partnerships, however the changes to be implemented are anticipated to presage the more radical changes that will be proposed to be implemented in Phase 2.The IEA report on CRP and governance together with the restructuring of the program with Flagships creates some opportunities for re-organising some of the Committee Structure. We anticipate the expansion or RMC to include wider representation by gender and discipline (see Gender above and Annex 2 below). One further possibility is that the Steering Committee and the Independent Advisory Committee may merge if the IEA report is adopted by the FC and this is agreed by the current SC.Budget partitioning between participating Centres will remain largely unchanged and the partnership budget will be about 10% of the FP (or PL) budgets. However, we have allocated about $2M to a grants scheme (a little more than 10% of the W1/W2 funding), and this could distort the pattern of funding by institution or discipline according to the quality and timeliness of the proposed projects (see Grants Scheme below).The program of work also depends on a network of formal and informal partnerships that are often specific to individuals, institutions or geographies. We will continue to develop both formal and structured links with other CRPs (notably PIM,CCAFS, A4NH, Dryland Cereals and Dryland Systems).The BMGF projects Tropical Legumes and N2Africa are strongly aligned with the CRP Grain Legumes, a new phase of the Tropical Legumes program will be developed in 2014, that will support scaling out our outcomes and for which the alignment of proposed outputs is currently being developed.W3/bilateral funding represents about 65% of our funding and creates stability in our cash flow, but does present challenges in describing the common framework because W3/bilateral projects have their own internal outputs, targets and evaluations and the alignment with CRP needs both to respect these boundaries and ensure synergy. W3 funding does contribute substantially to intercentre and partner collaboration so it is a very important glue for the program as a whole. W3/bilateral funding also tends to align these projects with a single CRP, in part because of the complexity of mapping and partitioning output goals; this means that there is a heavy bias away from such projects that overtly align CRPs.We will introduce a Grants Scheme in this phase (see below) and within this portfolio will look to the possibility of joint funding from different CRPs for proposals of common interest.Grain Legumes is integrated with regional organisations in several ways. The most direct is through long term support of crop networks such as CIAT's support for the PABRA (www.pabra-africa.org/ ) network in Africa that functions through its eastern, southern and western sub structures which serve a total of 29 countries. The PABRA network functions under the auspices of CIAT, but the three regional components each have a governance mechanism in the form of a steering committee with national representatives. Technology developed in CIAT or in partner countries is channelled through the networks for evaluation, validation, and eventual delivery to clients. In Central America formal networks have not been functional for over a decade, but collegial relationships established under past networks continue to facilitate regional collaboration, with the support of the Legume Innovation Laboratory.In ). CORAF and ASARECA were essential in developing regional seed policies that will be used to support regional seed activities of this CRP. The ability of these agencies to influence policy will be used as necessary. Another important regional actor is the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). AGRA operates in most of Sub-Saharan Africa. We will leverage their investments especially under the Program for Africa's Seed System (PASS) to scale up improved seed delivery to farmers. Linkages with regional Official Development Assistance (ODA) programmes such as Feed the Future and UK Aid under DFID will be used to similarly support technology reach.The content of Flagship Projects is indicated in Annex 2 and the output target due during the Extension Phase are given in Annex 5.The CRP Grain Legumes currently has a wide geographical reach:Additional countries are associated with the program, for example Madagascar is part of the PABRA network that is part of Grain Legumes. However, the extension phase of Grain Legumes is mainly about consolidation and focussing of effort. The Tropical Legumes (TL) Project (BMGF -W3) represents a subset of the crops and countries of interest to Grain Legumes, thus an explicit plan for the 'spillover' countries will be established within CC1. Similarly the distinction between TL activities and W1/W2 funded activities in common target areas will be made explicit in the POWB and the TL renewal application.The realignment of the description of Grain Legumes according to Flagships rather than Product Lines emphasises the process of technology development and deployment rather than the specific implementations we intend. Nevertheless the Product Lines remain our focus and coordinating principle and this will be reflected in the project management structure. The Product Lines are focussed on technological developments that were assessed as likely to add value to on-going work, and to have maximal impact for Grain Legume production and use, but this focus tended to distract attention from other necessary activities. For example the development of heat tolerant lines that were susceptible to foliar disease or had poor market acceptability would likely have a poor (or negative) impact, so the adjustment in program design allows us to be clear about the relative importance of these activities.The realignment of the program has also enabled us to emphasise those components that are not specifically orientated towards plant breeding. FP1 is overtly focussed on the interaction of plants with their environment, both in terms of other organisms and physical and chemical conditions. We are also better able to identify and track the socio-economic components of the program in Cross-Cutting area 1. These developments should assist us in the creation of a robust monitoring and evaluation process that focuses on our intended outcomes rather than the biological means by which these are achieved. An underlying development is the emergence of the use of DNA sequence based methodologies. Genome sequences are available for soybean, chickpea, pigeonpea groundnut and common bean (although the latter is publically available it is not formally published). An international consortium is working on the lentil genome and extensive genomic tools have been developed for cowpea. This leaves faba bean as the target crop with the least genomic resources. This is not surprising: the faba bean genome is almost four times the size of the human genome and it is full of repetitive elements, but marker development is underway. DNA sequencing is widely used within the program; and features in all the FPs except FP4 which is focussed on seed systems, post-harvest processing, markets and nutrition. Output targets deliverable in 2015 and 2016 are listed in Annex 5, note that additional Output Targets have partial outputs in this period.We have instigated three new instruments in the Extension Phase, with the intention that these can be trialled prior to expansion in Phase 2.This has two components, one is a scheme that is joint between the CRP and the USAID funded Legume Innovation Lab. These studentship projects are agreed by a subcommittee of the RMC (to be established) working together with the Legume Innovation Laboratory. Studentships are open to persons nominated by the CRP and can be held in any US University. The second component is an internally funded studentship scheme tenable in any partner academic organisation.We have held back ca. 2M$ of our W1/W2 budget to be deployed through a grants scheme. This will operate in two ways.The first is through the request for proposals that involve interactions between participating centres or centres and partners. These will be judged on scientific merit and relevance to Grain Legumes.Most likely this will correspond to four grants of $250k, though smaller grants would also be considered.The second route is through commissioning -areas where there is a gap in our activities will be identified and applications sought for proposals that address the missing work area. These could be within the Grain Legumes program or include a partner organisation. This is anticipated to correspond to eight proposals of ca. $125k.The Grain Legumes program has a strong capacity building effort that is needed for its transformation of outputs to outcomes and for the development of efficient and effective relationships with partner organisations. However these have tended to have an institutional focus and to be somewhat ad hoc. There has been criticism from the ISPC that (in the CGIAR as a whole and not necessarily Grain Legumes) some courses have been offered with more enthusiasm than content.We propose that Grain Legumes funded (and therefore approved) courses should have an accreditation scheme, and this accreditation will be established by the RMC in consultation with the SC and will follow the route proposed for publications (Annex 4). This will avoid unnecessary duplication (or clashes) and should promote internal communications within Grain Legumes. Capacity building will include a variety of approaches and technician training will be includeddegree based training is dealt with under the 'studentship scheme' above.A state-of-the-art ICT mediated platform will host all the CC1.3 services including data repository, knowledge resource, knowledge network, Community of Practice, communications and outreach. The platform will also engage with other collaborators, research institutes and universities working on grain legumes. This platform aims to become a single source of reference for grain legumes.Budget 2015-2016. Grain Legumes officially ends on 30 June, 2015. However, we propose budget and planning for the full year of 2015, and for 2016. The Financial plan for 2015 was set by the Consortium Office on 6 th December 2013, and the 2014 budget is estimated here from the budgets over the whole of the Phase 1 period, ie this smoothens-out the peak in funding for 2013, assuming that the claw-back of funds was completed within the timeframe of phase 1.The basis of the 2016 budget estimate is explained in the figure:The 'actual' budget shows the unusual budget allocation in 2013 which was 'rectified' by a considerable reduction in 2014 and 2015. Note that the project was agreed in August 2012 and the 2012 budget is for a half year. The 'averaged' budget shows what the funding profile would have been if the funds were allocated evenly over this period (and we were not penalised for the large allocation in 2013). We estimate the 2016 budget based on this averaged figure rather than the actual (and reduced) 2015 figure.The We also intend to seek support of ca. $1M additional W1/2 funding for the implementation of our results based management strategy that will be allied to the grants scheme discussed in this document. These additional W1/W2 funds will be the subject of a separate document, and if obtained will be in addition to the W1/W2 budget presented here, for the new RBM activity. The additional W1/W2 funding we intend to apply for in order to implement Results Based Management will be allied to the grants scheme (see above). This anticipates the intended shift from an 'allocated' budget to a 'justified request' budget in the second phase and will test the systems to manage this new way of working.The Intermediate Development Outcomes are broad, and each could be enhanced by many of our activities and, below, these are not disaggregated by Flagship Product. IDO1 Food Security: Improved and stable access to grain legumes by urban and rural poor • An additional 1.6 million tons of common beans are available annually in Latin America, and 1.3 million tons in Africa, derived in part from an additional 500,000 hectares in heat prone areas, and an additional 500,000 hectares of climbing beans • At least 10% increase in cowpea production resulting in higher supply of grains to the market and ultimately consumers A number of assumptions are made regarding the potential for the Grain Legumes Research Program to produce the targeted outputs. These include the following.Research for poverty-stricken low-potential areas will remain the domain of the public sector at least in next 10 years. • Grain legumes are a major livelihood strategy element for addressing food, nutrition income and environmental services of legume-farmers and their related value chain actors.Adequate genetic diversity exists in germplasm collections to offer significant protection against abiotic stress and as sources for diverse production input traits • Modern breeding techniques can enhance the breeding of abiotic and biotic stress tolerance as well as nutritional quality.Past success in identifying natural enemies of legume pests can be converted into viable IPM systems.There is buy-in of partners in the production of the outputs, along with an enabling environment. A common assumption about dissemination of new legume varieties is that farmers save their own stocks and seldom purchase seed, and that this is a disincentive to the private sector to produce and stock legume seed. Undoubtedly this has been a barrier to the rapid dissemination and the \"reach\" of improved legume varieties. However, this has also stimulated a more creative and diversified approach to legume seed production and dissemination systems. Among the multiple approaches tested, several scenarios for the marketing of small quantities of seed at economical prices (eg small seed packets) proved promising especially in reaching women who in particular are seldom in a position to afford large quantities at one time. Being able to experiment with new varieties at minimal risk motivated thousands of farmers to purchase seed packets for as little as the cost of a cup of tea. In turn some seed producers were motivated to enter the legume seed business, selling at a small unit price but at a higher per weight price. Governmental recognition of Quality Declared Seed (QDS) in several countries will facilitate decentralized seed production at much lower cost to farmers than certified seed. Mapping access by farmers to seed outlets will facilitate putting improved and high quality seed within reach of smallholder farmers. Some of the CRP seed-based products are designed to augment total food production and availability, and could also targeted to producers with more resources (e.g., hybrid pigeonpea, herbicide resistant and/or machine harvestable varieties), at least in the near term. Some of these technologies implicitly will be accompanied by changes in input use or machinery, with the expectation that input providers will respond to this opportunity and for women farmers drudgery may also be reduced. One critical component of success has been to substitute the vertical model of the impact pathway (researchers to national partners to extension agents and seed producers) for an interactive model with feedback loops back and forth between farmers, traders, researchers, and seed producers. This links supply and demand, and has permitted the development of business and professional relationships whereby users and suppliers of seed (or other technologies) enter into agreements that facilitate the flow of seed. These relationships should be nurtured to evolve into \"innovation platforms\". Other technologies benefit from other sorts of person-to-person communication such as farmer field schools, for which a \"gender sensitive training of trainers\" strategy can serve for scaling up. These considerations suggest the requirement for Grain Legumes to leverage diverse but complementary investments of development agencies targeting improvement in agricultural productivity, market competitiveness and increased benefits to person and the environment. These could be monitored and evaluated for lesson learning to inform further R4D and scaling up and out activities, and we will devise this monitoring scheme during the extension phase.• Quality breeder and foundation seed can be produced in adequate quantities.• While small seed packs are a low risk option for farmers, especially women, that permits them to experiment with new varieties or hybrids, private seed companies may need some support to participate in this strategy. • Multiple approaches encouraged by the public sector will be needed to expand dissemination.• Novel agronomic practices that require capital investment will find slower adoption but this will be facilitated by marketable varieties. • Increased focus on delivery of results by development agencies and governments will support scaling up and out efforts.  Developing economies continue to experience growth in their economies, with increased aggregate demand for agricultural products as population growth and urbanisation increases.  In order to achieve the net effect of the increased growth for sub -Saharan Africa, with the change in behaviour described above, support for legumes at all levels should be enhanced and the enabling environment greatly facilitated. While there are many behavioural changes in terms of seed purchase, crop management, etc., the essential behaviour change at all levels (farmers, seed producers, input suppliers, and policy makers) needs to be a new attitude toward legumes. Farmers often plant a legume only after other crops are already established. As noted above, many seed producers see little future in legume seed. Policy makers fix their attention on volumes of food that normally proceed from cereals, and not on quality. All must be encouraged to consider legumes to be an indispensable component of the diet and of the farming system. An awareness of their nutritional value and health effects is an important part of this message, but a growing economic value driven by more effective markets will be the most effective tool for this, combined with a more effective communication strategy. Dissemination with participation gives farmers exposure to new varieties with greater market potential and leads to behaviour change following the IMOD strategy (http://exploreit.icrisat.org/page/imod/649/123).  Farmers with modest-to-good capital and market access will adopt crop management techniques, especially when the variety lends itself to higher technology.  Enhanced markets will attract the attention of farmers, the private sector, and policy makers, and will raise the profile of all these actors  Fora that facilitate communication among multiple actors (researchers, seed producers, traders, farmers, NGOs, CBOs, etc.) have the potential to evolve into innovation platforms that enhance productivity and link farmers to markets.  Increased literacy of farmers as a result of implementation of compulsory schooling for over a decade in all target regions will enhance knowledge uptake and use. With the change in behaviour described above, support for legumes at all levels should be enhanced and the enabling environment greatly facilitated.• At least some seed companies will be induced to distribute and sell small seed packs, while others will eventually respond to the opportunity afforded by a more technical production system. • Extension services, especially those sponsored by NGOs, will help reach the poorest of the poor.• Increased attention to agriculture following the world food crisis of 2007-2008 has led to increased investments in production and productivity enhancement to stem future crises.• In sub-Saharan Africa, increased investments in agriculture through country led actions within the framework of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) will underpin growth in the agricultural sector. • The increased shift from agricultural extension focusing on technology transfer, to agricultural advisory services focusing on improvement in functionality of the value chains, enhances adoption and realisation of benefits across a broad range of stakeholders.The Generic Impact pathway for Grain Legumes is illustrated below:Annex 2 Flagship Projects and Product Lines Description of the extension phase at the level of research questions and output targets.The structure of project is as illustrated below:This restructuring follows from comments on the 2014 Plan of Work and Budget, and corresponds to changing the description of the project in terms of the 'Strategic Components' (SC) of the original project description rather than the 'Product Lines'. A simple 'rotation' of the description leaves SC2 as approximately 60% of the project, so here it has been divided into three sub components, and that required some slight modification to the description of the Output Targets, although their content is substantially unaltered. (see Flagship Projects and Activities below)Each activity has a set of output targets, and these address a specific research question. Many of these are single Output Targets when viewed from the point of view of Product Lines, but have subcomponents distributed among Flagship Projects. These components have been designated 'milestones' and naturally address subsidiary questions. For example OT 5.1.2 'Breeders have access to new sources of durable resistance to key insect pests which can produce in average 30% more yield and need 50% less insecticide sprays' addresses the research question of whether durable insect pest resistance exists and is controlled genetically in such a way that it can be manipulated in breeding programmes. This falls within a single Product Line of 'Insect smart production systems' but is distributed among three Flagship Projects, that correspond to the study of plant pest interactions in FP1, the analysis of genetic determinants of these interactions in FP2 and the deployment of allelic variation in breeding programs within FP3. Accordingly M 1.1.5.1 'New sources of durable resistance to key insect pests identified' asks whether variation for insect pest resistance exists in available germplasm. M 2.2.5.1 'Genetic mechanisms of resistance to key insect pests identified' asks the question 'What is the genetic basis of pest resistance?' This can be answered at various levels, and for our purposes the identification of genomic segments that confer significant proportions of the heritable variation for insect pest resistance is sufficient, but the molecular basis may also be studied so that lessons can be learnt and applied to other systems. M 3.2.5.1 'Breeders lines with new sources of durable resistance to key insect pests' asks the question of whether these genetic determinants can me introgressed into agronomically favourable genetic backgrounds.It is worth noting that OT 5.1.2 could fail to be reached at any of these three milestones: for M 1.1.5.1 there may be no available resistance, for M 2.2.5.1 the genetic mechanism may be highly poly genic or the heritability might be very low and for M 3.2.5.1 a useful determinant of resistance may be tightly linked in coupling to a severely detrimental agronomic trait, or may have pleiotropic detrimental consequences. Separating the Output Target into these steps makes it clear where the decision points on whether or not to progress with the project are made.For The existing Product Line Coordinators (PLCs) will remain as members of the RMC, but we intend to make additions. One is to include FP coordinators and a coordinator of the crosscutting theme, the latter will enhance the representation of social scientists on our Research Management Committee, we also wish to encourage the addition of 'secondary' coordinators, who can act alongside the PLC.In practice this has worked well where a PLC is outside the CGIAR or where a PLC has a heavy administrative burden outside the CRP. We anticipate that this will broaden the representation of women on the RMC and will also permit the inclusion of younger people and perhaps more people from outside the CGIAR.The Phase 1 Research Management Committee comprised the Product Line Coordinators (PLCs) and the CRP Director and the Directors of the two USAID legume Feed the Future Labs (LIL and PMIL). This structure will be maintained in the extension phase for several reasons. First we want to assure continuity in the management of the project (this has been established very recently). Secondly the Product Line focus of the project is an important organising principle that gives us an outcome focus.The Product Lines will thus coordinate Activity Clusters across the Flagship Projects However we want to make some adjustments to promote gender and disciplinary balance in the Research Management Committee.We propose:1. The PLCs will share their role with second individual (Product Line Organizer) ideally of different gender (in total 16 individuals). 2. The Flagship Projects (and Cross Cutting activities) will have FP Coordinators who will complement the PLCs and have and integrating role across Product Lines. This will provide an opportunity for broadening the disciplinary, organisational and regional representation on the RMC (6 individuals). 3. We will extend an invitation as an observer to the other four Legume Innovation Labs (6 individuals). These changes will increase the RMC membership from eleven to 29 individuals (including the Director) which is excessively cumbersome. In proposal (3) there are four 'observers' (who could represent the Feed the Future Labs if the two full members could not attend), so effectively this means 25 members. We would expect that either the PLC or PLO would attend physical meetings (and that this would not always be the same individual). This reduces the size to 17. If we permit some PLC/Os to act also as FPCs we could conveniently reduce the size to 13. This remains burdensome in terms of transaction costs, for travel and personnel time, so we will set the quorum for the RMC to eight, with an aim to use electronic means as much as possible within these meetings.We propose to deal the costs implications (a) by requiring either of the two coordinators to be present at RMC meetings and (b) reducing the time allocation of RMC members funded from the management budget from 50% FTE to 25% FTE. Costs for travel of observers would not be met from the CRP budget, but costs for two Feed the Future Lab representatives would be a CRP cost, so some observers may attend as proxies.The membership of the revised RMC will be proposed to the Steering Committee and implemented upon its agreement.","tokenCount":"8555"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8d9b4e06a928873cbe8a91470f0b9c4c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/1a8e0d56-d59c-4287-8ef9-79bd9076d3b8/retrieve","id":"-258707796"},"keywords":["N:P2O5:S fertilizer","DAP","cabbage","yield","marginal rate of return ix"],"sieverID":"1a41663a-3039-4e1a-90a8-b81b5ad683dd","pagecount":"83","content":"The study was initiated with the objectives of assessments production practices and to evaluate the effects different rates of NPS fertilizer on yield and yield components of head Cabbage under irrigated conditions in Lay Armachiho district, North Gondar, Ethiopia during 2014/2015. The research has two major components; namely assessing cabbage production practices in Kerkir Bale'egziabher, Chachkuna and Chira Ambezo kebeles and evaluating the effects of NPS fertilizer rates in Chira Ambezo kebele. To assess cabbage production practices data were collected from 32 cabbage producing households using semistructured questioners and focus group discussions where demographic structure and the whole value chain of cabbage production system were collected and analyzed using SPSS version 16 computer software. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications and 11 treatments. Data collected on yield and yield components were analyzed using SAS 9.1 computer software. The results of the survey showed that head Cabbage farming is a male dominated business (93.75%) with more than 81% of the respondents older than 33 ages and with a low education back ground (only 9.4 % were 7-8 grades). About 26.7% of the respondents applied DAP in excess rates while 56.7% of them used low rates of DAP. About 73.3% the respondents over fertilize their field with urea compared the recommendation rate. Moreover 71.9 % of the farmers applied DAP in 2-3 splits which are not in line with the recommendation. Different NPS fertilizer rates exhibited significant influence on the yield and yield components of cabbage in this study. Plants treated with 102.5:115:21.2 kg ha -1 of N:P2O5:S performed best in most of growth and yield parameters of cabbage. However, plants treated with 82:69:12.71 of N:P2O5:S kg ha -1 recorded the highest marginal rate of return. Cabbage plants without N:P2O5:S fertilizer applications were inferior in all growth and yield parameters. For enhancement of production and productivity of cabbage in Lay Armachiho district and other similar environment, it is necessary to solve problems indicated above through training, extension activities and improving the supply of inputs. Application of N:P2O5:S fertilizer at the rate of 82:69:12.71 of N:P2O5:S kg ha -1 can be recommended for the production of cabbage in the study area since it gave the highest marginal rate of return in this study. However, it is advised to repeat the experiment to have forceful recommendation.As member of the Board of Examiners of the Master of Sciences (M.Sc.) thesis open defense examination, we have read and evaluated this thesis prepared by Mr. Demoz Kidanie Gebremeskel \"ASSESSMENT OF PRODUCTION PRACTICES AND EFFECTS OF N:P2O5:S RATES ON YIELD AND YIELD COMPONENTS OF HEAD CABBAGE (Brassica Oleracea var.capitata) UNDER IRRIGATION CONDITIONS IN LAY ARMACHIO DISTRICT, AMHARA REGION, ETHIOPA. We hereby certify that, the thesis is accepted for fulfilling the requirements for the award of the degree of Master of Sciences (M.Sc.) in Horticulture.  Cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. capitata Linn) is an important Cole crops which is a member of the family Cruciferae or Brassicaceae with 2n=2x=18 chromosome number. It is native of Western Europe and Northern Shore of Mediterranean Region (Chauhan, 1986;Schlegel, 2010;Singh et al., 2015). Cabbage was originated from the wild, leafy, non -heading types 'Cole wart' (Brassica oleracea var. sylvestris) (Grubben et al., 2004;Moamogwe, 2005). The wild types are still found in Denmark, North-Western France and Eastern England. Cabbage is one of the most ancient vegetables cultivated for more than 4,000 years (Jensen, 2004;Schlegel, 2010). It was the first Cole crop to be cultivated by mankind (Silva, 1986) and it was very popular by Romans (Anonymous, 2011).Cabbage and other brassicae are produced in more than 145 countries in the world. The leading cabbage producing countries in the world are China, India, Russian Federation, Japan and Republic of Korea, respectively. According to FAOSTAT (2013-14), the total area cultivated under Cabbages in the world is about 2,416,885 hectares with a production of about 70,644,191 metric tons with the average productivity of about 29.23 MT/ha. China and India produced about 60% of the world cabbage production with share of 46.4 % and 12.8 % respectively.In Ethiopia, cabbage is cultivated on 38,000 hectares of land with mean average production of 395,000 tons with irrigation and rainfed. The productivity of cabbage in Ethiopia is very low (10.4 t ha -1 ) (FAOSTAT, 2013-14) compared to the world average (29.23 t ha -1 ). In terms of cabbage productivity, Republic of Korea and Japan are the leading countries in the world with 71.2 and 67.6t ha -1 , respectively (FAOSTAT, 2013-14;IHD, 2014).Cabbage is used commonly as vegetables. It is also used for salad mixed in tomato, green chilies, beetroot etc. It is a rich source of sulfur containing amino acids, minerals, carotenes, ascorbic acid and antioxidants, and is reported to have anti-carcinogenic property (Singh et al., 2009 andKopsell et al., 2004). Due to its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and antibacterialproperties, Cabbage has widespread use in traditional medicine, in alleviation of symptoms associated with gastrointestinal disorders (gastritis, peptic and duodenal ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome) as well as in treatment of minor cuts and wounds and mastitis (Samec et al., 2011).Also it has some medicinal value as it has a cooling effect, increases appetite, helps prevents constipation, speeds up digestion and is very useful for diabetic patient (Jensen B, 2004;Malik, 2008;BBS, 2009).Cabbage is also an excellent source of vitamins A, C, K, B1, B2, B6, calcium, dietary fiber and protein when it is eaten raw as salad and, boiled or cooked as stew or soup (Atkins, 1999;Mateljan, 2007;Uddin et al., 2009). There are three types of heading cabbage, namely green, red and savoy. They contain different amounts of nutrients with savoy being more superior (Pierce, 2007).Cabbage can be grown in wide range of soils from light sand to heavier clays. Soils with high organic matter content give the best yields. Early cultivars grow well in light soils, whereas, late cultivars perform better on heavy soils. Well-drained soils however give larger yields.Although cabbage is relatively tolerant to salt, in saline soils cabbage plants show leaf margin dieback and dark foliage which may increase the susceptibility of plants to diseases like black leg (ARARI, 2005;Rail and Yadav, 2005). The optimum pH of soil for cabbage cultivation is between 6.0 -6.5 (Yano et al., 1999).As cool season vegetable, cabbage grows best under cool moist conditions. The optimum temperature ranges for growth and head formation of cabbage is 15-20 O C. The growth of most cabbage varieties is arrested when the temperature rises above 25 O C (Chadha, 2006).However above 27 0 C it may bolt and causing the heads to split open (Ashworth, 2002). The crop is grown in diverse ecologies with altitudinal range of 500 -3000 m.a.s.l (MANRS, 2011).Vegetables including cabbage are important crops for food security as well as to generate income for subsistence farmers (FAO, 2009;Uddin et al., 2009). However the production and productivity of vegetables including cabbage in Ethiopia is very low as indicated above. The reasons for that are very complex. Among the bottlenecks improper agronomic practices, lack of infrastructures, disease and insect pest incidence, improper postharvest handling practices and etc are the most important once (Tesdeke Abate and Gashawbeza Ayalew, 1994;Akand et al., 2015;Melkamu Alemayehu , 2015).Although the amount of fertilizer required depends on the fertility status of the soils (Bok et al., 2006), cabbage growers in Ethiopia including the study area use blanket recommendation of 200 kg ha -1 DAP and 100 kg ha -1 Urea in split application is recommended as a source of phosphorus and nitrogen, respectively, which may not satisfy the nutrient requirements of cabbage plants (ARARI, 2005;MANRS, 2011). Recently, the Ministry of Agriculture introduced a new fertilizer (NPS) that contains not only nitrogen and phosphorus but also sulfur with the concentration of 19% N, 38% P2O5, and 7% S.Moreover, the government of Ethiopia has plan to substitute DAP with NPS in the near future.However its application rate for the production of cabbage in Ethiopia including the study areais not yet known. The aim of this study is therefore to assess production practices of cabbage in order to identify production constraints and to evaluate effects of NPS fertilizer rates on growth and yield components of cabbage in Lay Armachiho District of North Gondar Administrative Zone.To assess farmer's production practices and evaluate the effects of NPS fertilizer rates on growth and yield of head Cabbage under irrigation conditions]  (Romain, 2001, Rail andYadav, 2005).The wild cabbage is the ancestor of different types of Cole crops such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, head cabbage, cauliflower, kohlrabi and other which were the results of the breeding activities of human being (Romain, 2001;Singh, 2015). In the early times, the ancient Romans and Saxons cultivated and introduced the softy-headed forms to the British Isles. The hardheaded types were only mentioned in the 9 th century. Heading cabbage types were cultivated in Germany and England by the 1150s and 14 th century, respectively. Currently head cabbage is produced in most temperate countries and becomes very popular in tropical Africa (Romain, 2001, Rail andYadav, 2005). The genus Brassica as indicated above includes about 100 species. Most of them are native to the Mediterranean Region (Rail and Yadav, 2005).The word cabbage is derived from the French word 'caboche', meaning head. Cabbage is a biennial herb with a short, thickened stem surrounded by a series of overlapping leaves which form a compact head. The head may be pointed or round. The plant has extensive root system where the secondary roots can grow up to the depth of 45-60cm below the soil surface.Cabbage is not sensitive to photoperiod and flowering is triggered mainly by temperature below 10 o C. Therefore, cabbage seed production is difficult under tropical conditions. The best yields are obtained in cool and dry season with heads weigh between 2 and 2.5 kg. During the hot rainy season, the average weight of a head is between 1 and 1.5kg (Romain, 2001).Cabbage is a cool season vegetable and produced in most temperate countries. The annual average world production of cabbage is estimated to be about 70,644,191 tons with the average productivity of about 29.23 t ha-1. The major cabbage producing countries are China, India, Russian Federation, Japan and Republic of Korea (FAOSTAT, 2013-14).The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO, 1988) identified cabbage as one of the top twenty vegetables used as a source of food globally. Cabbage is usually consumed as a cooked or stir fried vegetable, or eaten fresh as an ingredient of coleslaw (a salad made of row sliced and chopped cabbage) and mixed salads (Grubben and Denton, 2004). It can be also used as processed products such as prickling.Cabbage supplies essential vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates and vital minerals (Norman, 1992). According to FAO (2000) and Tindall (1983): a 100 g edible portion of cabbage contains vitamin A (2000 IU), thiamine (0.06 mg), riboflavin (0.03 mg), protein (1.8 g), fat ( 0.1g), carbohydrate (4.6 g) and vitamin C (124 mg). Furthermore it contains phosphorus (44 mg), potassium (114 mg), calcium (39 mg), sodium (14.1 mg) and iron (0.8 mg).Cabbage is known in neutralizing acids, has a cooling effect, it improves digestion and appetite, prevents constipation and is very useful for diabetic patient (Malik, 2008;BBS, 2009;Dhemre and Desale 2009). Researches also revealed that crucifer family including cabbage provides significant cardiovascular benefits (Beecher 1994;Singh et al.,2015) and reduces the risks of lung, colon, breast, ovarian and bladder cancers (Beecher, 1994).Glucosinolates are the major organosulfur compounds found in cruciferous vegetables like cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprout, kale, radish, turnip etc. Epidemiological studies revealed that a diet rich in cruciferous vegetable can reduce several type of cancer like lungs cancer, colon cancer. Cancer inhibition property of glucosinolate is due to its effect on Nrf2, polymorphism, anti-inflammatory, inhibition of histone deacetylase activity and influence on estrogen metabolism (Manchalia et al., 2011).Cabbage is cultivated in mid altitude and highland areas of Ethiopia. It is mostly produced by stallholder farmers. Cabbage is mostly produced during the rainy season, although some commercial farmers produce it during dry season using irrigation. According to CSA (2012/2013), the average annual production of cabbage in the country during 2012/2013 production season was estimated to be 22,160.3 tons which was produced on 2,913 hectares of land. Of which Oromia Region with 6,179.5 tons was the larger producer of cabbage followed by Amhara Region, S.N.N.P.R and 179.5,5,561.3,110.2 tons, respectively. However, in terms of productivity, Amhara Region was the leader with 10.7 t ha -1 followed by Benishangul-Gumuz (7.8 t ha -1 ), S.N.N.P.R (7.2 t ha -1 ) and Oromia (6.6 t ha -1 ) (CSA, 2012 / 2013).Cabbage is adapted to a wide range of climatic conditions. However, cabbage grows best under cool moist conditions with altitude under the range of 500 -3000 m.a.s.l (Copenhagen market and 500-1700 m.a.s.l (Early drum head) (Molla Tefera, 2009). The optimum temperature ranges for growth of cabbage is between 15 o C and 20 o C. The growth of most of the cabbage verities is arrested when temperature rises above 30 o C (Chadha, 2006).Cabbage can be grown on a variety of soils but it does best on a well -drained, loam soil well supplied with organic matter. Sandy loams are preferred for early crops, while heavy clay soils may easily become waterlogged after heavy rain and thus encourage the serious diseases such as black rot (Xanthomonas campestris) and soft rot (Erwinia carotovora) (Bok et al., 2006). As cabbage is sensitive to soil acidity, soil pH should be between 6 and 6.5. When pH falls below 5.5, lime should be applied a month before planting (ARARI, 2005 andANRSBoARD, 2013) Generally cabbage can be either direct seeded or transplanted. However in Ethiopia, it is mostly transplanted after seedlings are raised in nursery. Depending on the variety about 500-700 gram of seed is adequate to produce enough seedlings to plant one hectare of land (Chadha, 2006). Seeds are sown thinly in nursery seedbed at the depth of one centimeter. The spacing between rows and plants within the rows is 10 cm and 3cm, respectively. Seedlings are ready to transplanting when they produce two pairs of true leaves or when they attain the height of 8-13 cm which will take about 4-5 weeks after sowing (ARARI, 2005 andANRSBoARD, 2013).According to Tindall et al. (1987)   (Rail and Yadav, 2005).The irrigation frequency in Ethiopia depending on the climatic condition, soil type and the growth stage of the crop it is recommended to irrigate within the range from 3 to 12 days intervals which is mostly supplied by furrow irrigation system (ARARI, 2005;MANRS, 2011).Cabbage is a heavy feeder and requires supplemental fertilizer in the form of manure or compost and inorganic fertilizers. The application rates of fertilizers should be determined based on the fertility status of the soil (Bok et al., 2006). However such practice is not common in Ethiopia. Fertilizers are mostly applied based on blanket recommendations which are implemented for all types of soils. According to ARARI (2005), the rate of nitrogen and phosphorous required for the production of cabbage in Ethiopia is categorized based on the fertility of the soils. About 150 kg DAP and 100 kg urea is recommended for fertile while 200kg of DAP and 100 kg of urea ha -1 of land is recommended for non-fertile soils. Half of the urea and the whole DAP is applied at the time of planting and the remaining half of urea will be applied 30 days after transplanting (ARARI, 2005).Diseases like Black Rot (Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris) and insect pests including cabbage aphid (Brevicoryne brassicae) (Tesdeke Abate and Gashawbeza Ayalew, 1994;ARARI, 2005) and Diamondback Moth are common in Ethiopian cabbage production (Gashawbeza Ayalew and Ogol, 2006). Although most cabbage producing farmers do not use chemicals, insects can be easily controlled using recommended insecticides such as dimethoate, malathion, trichlorophon, Ethiosulfan 35% EC and Diazinon 60% (MANRS, 2011;ANRSBoA, 2014). Weeds are mostly controlled during land preparation and by cultivating the free space between rows of cabbage.Fertilizer usage plays a major role to increase food production and to meet the demands of the growing world population. The extent to which fertilizers are used still differs considerably between various regions of the world (Mengel and Kirkby, 1996). The quantity of fertilizer nutrients required to optimize crop production depends on the inherent capacity of the soil to supply adequate levels of nutrients to growing plants (Sanchez 1976;Baligar and Bennett, 1986), the yield potential of the crop variety grown (Amsal Tarekegne et at., 1995, 1997a;Tilahun et at., 1996), the availability and cost of fertilizers (Gezahegn and Tekalign, 1995), and climatic conditions prevailing during the crop growing season (Baligar and Bennett, 1986).Crop species differ in their nutrient requirements depending on their stages of development and high requirement for nitrogen while large amounts of potassium are a requisite for good growth of marketable part is the underground organs like sweet potato and Irish potato (Preece and Read, 2005) takes up high amounts of nutrients especially nitrogen and potassium (Hemy, 1984;Salunkhe et al., 1987). Prasad et al. (2009) maximum number of outer leaves, head length, head width, total and net head weight and total yield were obtained with the application of 120kg N/ha and 100kg P/ha. Whereas the maximum plant height, plant spread, leaf area and head diameter were recorded with the application of 140kg N/ha and 120kg P/ha.Application of 120kg nitrogen and 100kg phosphorous ha -1 also gave the best yield of Chinese cabbage in the Gangetic plains of West Bengal (Prasad et al., 2009). In the research from Westerveld et al. (2003), cabbages received the highest nitrogen rates were larger and had a darker green color compared to those received the lowest nitrogen rates An experiment carried out at Bangladesh Agricultural University farm, the maximum marketable yield of cabbage was obtained from the application of 336 kg ha -1 nitrogen (Farooque and Mondal, 1978). They also observed increased plant height, number of loose leaves, head size, marketable and total yield of cabbage with increased nitrogen level. In the study conducted by Khokhar et al. (1970) in Taskent Region of Russia, application of 200 kg ha -1 of nitrogen increased the growth and development of cabbage and thus increased the yield. White and Forbes (1977) reported that cabbage responded positively to nitrogen application up to the level of 308 kg ha -1 in Florida, USA. The higher rates reduced generally the proportion of bigger cabbage heads. Singh and Naik (1988) conducted an experiment on the nitrogen requirements of cabbage at Ranchi, India. They observed that the head weight, number of marketable heads and total yield were maximum at the rate of 180 kg ha -1 nitrogen. Similarly, Khadir et al. (1989) studied the effects of three levels of nitrogen (0, 138, and 376 kg ha -1 ) and found the highest mean leaf number, head weight and head yield at the maximum rate of nitrogen.Not only nitrogen and phosphorous but also other macro and micronutrients affect the growth and development of crops including cabbage. Din et al. (2007) reported that the maximum head yield was recorded in treatment receiving NPK level of 120-90-60 kg ha -1 in cabbage.The minimum values of these parameters were recorded in control plants where no fertilizer was applied. Rankov and Belichki (1980) also found that the highest yield of cabbage was obtained when N: P2O5: K 2O was applied at the rate of 450:150:300 kg ha -1.Similarly Hossain (2011) reported that maximum marketable yield of cabbage (87.09 t ha -1 ) was recorded from plants which were received in receiving 240 kg N, 45 kg P, 180 kg K and 45 kg S ha -1 . Application of fertilizer above these concentrations reduced the marketable yield of cabbage. The increased marketable yield was expressed in terms of increased diameter and thickness of heads and less number of loose leaves.Organic fertilizers such as compost are also important in crop production including cabbage.They not only add nutrients to the soil, but also improve the structure of the soil and the availability of nutrients to plants and thus they improve the efficiency of the applied inorganic fertilizers. In this regard Sarker et al. (2002) reported that highest marketable yield of cabbage (86.68 t ha -1 ) was obtained from treatment combination of 60 cm x 45 cm plant spacing with organic and inorganic fertilizers. In the study of Anonymous (1991), application of 240kg N, 60 kg P and 120 kg K ha -1 along with cow dung @ 5 t ha -1 produced the highest cabbage head yield (75 t ha -1 ).Farmyard manure release nutrients slowly and steadily and activates soil microbial biomass (Ayuso et al., 1996;Belay et al., 2001). Organic manures can sustain cropping systems through better nutrient recycling and improvement of soil physical attributes (El-Shakweer, 1998). The use of inorganic fertilizer has not been helpful under intensive agriculture because of its high cost and it is often associated with reduced crop yields, soil degradation, nutrient imbalance and acidity (Kang and Juo, 1980;Obi and Ebo, 1995).The effects of fertilizers on growth and development of crops including cabbages are affected by the stage of development of the crop and the moisture content of the soil. In three years fertilizer trails conducted on alluvial meadow soils (Radov and Turkmenbaen, 1973) found that use of 180 kg nitrogen ha -1 applied in three splits of equal doses produced the highest head yield of cabbage. Similarly, Vleck and Polack (1964)  The pre plant applications may lead to losses or immobilization before plant uptake, thus greatly affecting N use efficiency (NUE). To avoid nitrogen losses as a result of leaching and volatilization, split application is needed. Pre-plant applied N is subject to leaching and prone to denitrification or immobilization before plant uptake, thus affecting N use efficiency (Subedi et al., 2007).Soil moisture also affects the effects of applied fertilizers on growth and development of crops including cabbage. In this regard, Sammis et al. (1988) found that head size, yield and quality of lettuce and cabbage were significantly decreased as soil moisture reduced. In another experiment, Sammis and Wu (1989) found that marketable yield of cabbage was decreased linearly with decreasing water application. In an experiment from Dragland (1976) the yield of cabbage was gradually increased when the nitrogen supply was raised up to 380 kg ha -1 .However application of 470 kg ha -1 didn't showed any yield advantage if moisture tension was kept below 0.4 bars.As indicated above the increase in fertilizer application increased the growth and development of cabbage. However, excess nitrogen may adversely affects the head quality by producing coarse and loose head, reduces keeping quality, and enhances the nitrate nitrogen content of head (Chatterjee, 2009). In various studies similarly, high rates of nitrogen delayed maturity, decrease storage life, and increase the incidence of disorders (Peck, 1981;Locascio, 1984;Berard, 1990). In contrast to this, Zebarth et al. (1991) observed no quality deterioration in cabbage with application of high rates of nitrogen.Although high nitrogen rates and closer row spacing increased total yield, such condition also delayed maturity of cabbage as indicated by White and Forbes (1976). In similar experiment from Csizinszkys and Schuster (1985) high plant density reduced head size and head weight of individual cabbage, but greater number of heads per unit area obtained from closer row spacing increased total yield of cabbage. In contrary to this, an increase in spacing results in increasing in percent marketable cabbage and the average weight of individual heads (Stepanović et al., 2000).The complementary use of organic and inorganic fertilizers has been recommended for sustenance of long term cropping in the tropics (Ipimoroti et al., 2002). Fuchs et al. (1970) reported that nutrients from mineral fertilizers enhance the establishment of crops while those from mineralization of organic manures promoted yield when both fertilizers were combined.It has been observed that addition of manure increases the soil water holding capacity and this means that nutrients would be made more available to crops where manures have been addedto the soil (Costa et al., 1991). Murwira and Kirchman (1993) observed that nutrient use efficiency might be increased through the combination of manure and inorganic fertilizer.Lay Armachiho is one of the 24 districts of North Gondar Administrative Zone, bordered by  The study was conducted in three major cabbage producing kebeles namely Chira Ambezo, Kerkir Bale'egziabher and Chachkuna which were selected purposively from thirty three kebeles based on the information of the District Agricultural Office. The sources of the respondents were all adults who live in the study community. The studies of population were those who practice irrigation in the previous year in the selected kebele The number of sample household heads was determined according to Gay (1987). According a sample size of 10-20% household heads of the population should be taken as \"rule of thumb\" when the population is between 101-1000. According to the District Agricultural Office (2014) a total of 247 household heads are engaged in the production of cabbage in the selected kebele (Table 3.1). Therefore, ten household heads from each of the two kebeles, Kerkir Bale'egziabher and Chachkuna, and twelve household heads from Chira Ambezo were used in the study. The individual sample household heads were selected by lottery method from the document obtained from the District Agriculture Office. The amount of irrigation water in canal used by the farmers was estimated by float method.This method is a quick and cheap way to estimate discharge in a canal (FAO, 1992). The amount of water used in all selected farmers in the three Kebele was measured and the mean value was taken for analysis. The discharge in a canal was carried out on 20 meter straight canal where irrigation water flows. To estimate the average flow velocity, tennis ball was released on water which flows in the canal and the time required to travel the 20 meter canal was measured. The measurement was carried out three times and the mean flow velocity was then multiplied with 0.85 (correction factor) to estimate the average water velocity in the stream (FA0, 1992) To measure the quantity of water flow (m 3 /s), depth of the canal at the center, left and right edges was measured five times and the width was measured at ten points of the canal within the 20 meter canal distance. Lastly the mean width and depth of the wetted canal were taken to calculate the amount of water flowed.This was combined with the number of application and duration for each irrigation event to estimate the total applied water. Finally the water flow (m 3 ), total irrigation water used and its productivity were calculated using the formulas below (Bessembinder et al., 2005).Water flow (m 3 /s) = water velocity (m/s) x width (m) x depth (m)….…………..... ( 1)The total irrigation water used by the farmers then calculated by using the formula:Total irrigation water used (m 3 ) = time required to irrigate the land (s) x water flow (m 3 /s) x number of irrigation multiplied………………………………….……………..... (2)Crop Water Productivity (kg/m 3 ) = yield (kg)/total water used (m 3 )……………… (3)Data were collected using semi-structured questionnaires, key informant interview and having two parts. The first part deals with the socio -demographic structure of the participants. The second part covered the whole value chain of cabbage production system such as cropping system, cultivar used, time of planting, land preparation, planting method, fertilizer used, disease control methods employed, harvesting methods, postharvest handling and marketing.Interviewers were proceeding from house to house. They introduced them self and explained the purpose of the interview and asked the questions using specific statements in a standard procedure. Consent to participate were obtained from each interviewee. Before launching, the actual survey questionnaires were pre tested and was improved accordingly.Furthermore, secondary data was also collected from District Agriculture Office reports, journals, publications of governmental and non-governmental organizations, statistical and census reports.At the end of each day, all questionnaires were checked for completeness, clarity and consistency and recorded. The data were then coded and subjected to SPSS computer software and descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, frequency, etc. were used to analyze the collected data.The field experiment was conducted at Chira Ambezo Kebele on the farmer`s field in 2015 during off season with irrigation. The experiment was consisted of ten NPS fertilizer rates and one without fertilizer as control, a total of eleven fertilizer rates (Table 3.1). The NPS fertilizer rates were determined by adding and subtracting 25% from the blanket recommendations of cabbage (ARARI, 2005;ANRSBoARD, 2013). The experiment was laid out in a RandomizedComplete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. Eleven treatments including a control were assigned randomly to the unit plot of 2.5 m × 2.5 m = 6.25 m 2 in size. The experimental area was divided into three blocks. The total area of the experimental plot was 282.625 m 2 with 74.25 m 2 net plot area. The net size of the main plot was 206.25 m 2 . The blocks and plots were spaced at 1m and 0.5m respectively. The seedlings were planted at 50 cm between plants and 50 cm between rows. There were five rows per plot and five plants per row with a total of 25 plants per plot.  The variety, `Copenhagen market` was used in this study. It is an early head forming type with compact, round and large head (Rail and Yadav, 2005). Land preparation was ploughed three times. Soil sample was taken randomly from 9 spots diagonally from the experimental area at the depth of 15 -20 cm before planting and mixed to make as a composite. Some physical and chemical properties of the composite soil; namely pH, organic matter content, Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium contents were determined in North Gondar Zone soil laboratory.Soil of the experimental site was clay loam and PH (6.7) neutral based on the laboratory test.The organic matter (2.185 %) and total nitrogen (0.15%) contents of the experimental field was very low while others were above critical level (Available P / PPM (23.669418), CEC Cmol (+) kg -1 (51.5526) and K (Cmol (+) kg -1 (0.575232) according to Tekalign Mamo et al. (1991) and Hazelton and Murphy (2007).The required quantity of phosphorous in the form of DAP, NPS and half of the quantity of urea as a main source of nitrogen were applied at the time of planting and the remaining half of urea was side dressed 30 days after planting (ARARI, 2005;MANRS, 2011). Other management activities like weeding, irrigation, cultivation and plant protection measures were done uniformly for all plots as recommended for head cabbage.Healthy and uniform sized seedlings (10-12cm) with two paired of leaves were transplanted in to the experimental plots with the spacing of 50 cm between plants and 50 cm between rows as recommended by ARARI (2005). Watering was done uniformly based on climatic condition using furrow irrigation once within four days interval. Hand weeding was done frequently as per the emergence of the weeds. To control aphids, flea beetles and termites Ethiosulfan 35% EC @ 2.5 liter ha -1 and Diazinon 60% EC 20 ml per mound were applied uniformly for the experimental plots as recommended by Tadesse Amera and Asferachew Abate (2008).The crop was harvested at maturity when the head become compact. Therefore, before harvesting, head compactness of the cabbage was tested by pressing with the thumb where compact or mature heads feel comparatively hard. After uprooting, the heads were cutoff at their base and weighed for gross yield. For marketable yield, the loose leaves, open leaves and whitish colored leaves were removed and the heads were weighed as recommended by Rail and Yadav (2005).Both vegetative and yield parameters of cabbages were collected in the study. Data on plant height, plant spread, and number of leaves per plant, volume and diameters of cabbage heads were collected from randomly selected five plants from net plot area.Plant height was recorded from five randomly selected plants from net plot area by measuring the height of the largest leaf from ground level to the tip using ruler at 40 days after transplanting (DAT) and the mean values were computed and used for further analysis.Plant spread is the diameter of the space covered by the leaves of cabbage and it is measured in north-south direction. The data were recorded from five randomly selected plants from net plot area at 40 DAT and mean values were counted and used for analysis.The numbers of leaves of five randomly selected plants were counted from net plot area at 40 DAT and the average number of leaves per plant was calculated.The plants were observed daily to evaluate the initiation of heads. The number of days elapsed from the DAT up to 50% of the plants in the net plot area initiated heads was counted and the average number of days was used for analysis.Cabbage heads are said to be matured when the heads are compact or firm when pressed with fingers. Matured heads feel comparatively hard. Days to 75% maturity was assessed by counting the number of days elapsed from DAT up to 75% of the heads in the net plot matured and the number of days were used for analysis.The volume of cabbage heads was recorded by measuring the displaced water which was obtained by dipping cabbage heads in known volume of water. The mean volume of cabbage heads was calculated from five randomly selected heads from net plot area using the above mentioned method and used for further analysis.To measure head diameter five randomly selected heads in each plot were cut vertically at their middle position with a sharp knife. The diameters of the heads were then measured with a meter scale horizontally from one side to another side of the selected heads and mean values were recorded.The heads of five randomly selected plants from net plot area were harvested and weighed using weighing scale and the mean values were calculated and used for further analysis.Heads which were free from any damages and decay as well as those which haven't loose and open heads were considered as marketable. Heads which fulfilled these characteristics were harvested from net plot area and expressed as tone per hectare and used for further analysis.Those head which did not fulfill the above criterion including the wrapper leaves were considered as unmarketable and expressed as tone per hectare. The total yield was then obtained by adding the marketable and unmarketable yields.The data collected from the experimental plots were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) using the procedures as described by Gomez and Gomez (1984) with the help of Statistical Analysis Software (SAS) version 9.2. Least significant difference (LSD) test at 5%or 1% probability was used for mean separation when the analysis of variance indicated the presence of significant differences Economic analysis was made following CIMMYT methodology (CIMMYT, 1988). The costs of fertilizers and labor were considered as variable cost. Marginal rate of return was calculated as change of net benefit divided by change of cost in the treatments. The results of this study showed that aged farmers are involved in the production of cabbage production. The reason for that is probably aged household heads mostly has big family size that can be used as labor force for the production of cabbages. On the other hand young household heads may not have enough land which may restrict their involvement in cabbage production.There was gender disparity in the involvement of households headed. Overwhelming percentages (93.8%) of the respondents were male headed while the remaining percentages about 6.2 % were female headed. Majority of the household heads 93.8% had more than 4 family members while the remaining had less than four family members (Table 4.1).The results of this study showed that household heads having more family members are involved in the production of cabbage. This is probably due to the fact that cabbage production is a labor intensive farming system that required more family members to be successful in the sector. This shows that most of the households in the study area are male headed. The average landholdings of the sample respondents in selected kebeles varied from 1.3 -1.5hectares with an average holding of 1.409 hectare (Table 4.3). The average size of land used for cabbage production by household heads of the sample kebeles was about 0.036 hectares which was on average about 2.56% of the total landholdings used for cabbage production in sample kebeles. The results show that farmers in selected kebeles use relatively high proportion of their landholding per holder compared to the national average which is about 1.10 ha as indicated by CSA (2014/2015). Especially, household heads in Chachkuna kebele used much higher proportion (4.53%) of their crop land for cabbage production. That intern indicates that the study area is obviously the major cabbage production area in the country because they grow cabbage (0.036) more than the national average area which is about 0.012 ha as indicated by CSA (2014/2015). The interviewed household heads in the sample kebeles of the study area have different experiences in cabbage growth (Table 4.4). Generally, more than 65% of the respondents in the study area have a cabbage farming experience of greater than three years, while about 35% of them have less than three years of experiences. Especially farmers in Chachkuna kebele are more experienced in the production of cabbage. More than 83% of the respondents in this kebele had more than six years of experience in the sector. The availability of such a long year experiences can be considered as great potential for the development of vegetable production including cabbage in the study area which eases the extension work in the sector.The majority of respondents of the sample kebeles, about 65.6%, produced cabbage twice in a year while about 31.2 % produced once a year and about 3.1% cultivated cabbage trice in a year (Table 4.4). Due to the fact that, about 68.9% of the respondents cultivated cabbage more than once in a year, the crop is available in most seasons of the year in the study area. 70 %, 83.33 % and 40 % of the respondents produced cabbage twice a year in Kerkir Bale'egziabher, Chachkuna and Chira Ambezo, respectively, using irrigation. However, 30, 16.67 and 50 % of the respondents in the same order produced cabbage one times in the year during rainy season or using irrigation. The results of the study generally showed that cabbage production in the study area is well established as the farmers are well experienced in the sector as indicated above in this study. Trice in a year 0 0.000 10 3.125According to the assessment results, cabbage is produced in main cropping season and during off season using irrigation water. Although irrigated farming requires high investment expense, farmers in the study area produced cabbage using irrigation water which improves the sustainable supply of cabbage to consumers. Production of cabbage using irrigation lacks mostly enough moisture which probably intensifies the occurrence of the most common insect pest of cabbage namely aphids (Fereres et al., 1988). On the other hand however ARARI, (2005) recommended that vegetables like cabbage are preferably produced during off season using irrigation water than during main rainy season in the tropical areas because of the high incidence of destructive diseases.The use of improved varieties and other production inputs based on the recommendations is crucial to increase production and productivity of any crops including cabbage. Farmers in the study area used two improved cabbage varieties namely `Copenhagen Market` and `Drumhead` (Table 4. Availability of quality seed is an important prerequisite for vegetable enterprise including cabbage. Different vegetable seed suppliers are present in the study area. According to the assessment results, about 50% of the interviewed respondents obtained their cabbage seeds from private vegetable seed suppliers (PVSS) while about 15.6% obtained the seeds from Office of Agriculture in the kebeles. The remaining 34.4% of the respondents obtained their seeds from both of them (Table 4.5). Cabbage is mostly transplanted. Cabbage seedlings are raised for about 30-45 days in nursery until they achieved the desired stage. According to Bok et al. ( 2006), MANRS (2011) and ANRSBoA (2014) cabbage seedlings are ready for transplanting when they attain two pairs of true leaves or when they attain a height of 10-15cm which is commonly in 4-6 weeks after sowing (Chadha, 2006;Singh, 2006).Although all the respondents produced seedlings in nursery, most of them (87.5%) transplanted seedlings at older stages (Table 4.6) which reduces the establishment of the seedlings in the production field, that intern reduces the population and thus the yield of cabbage. About 43.8 % of the respondents planted their cabbage seedlings late in the afternoon when the sun losses its strong heat which is a suitable time for transplanting of most of the vegetable crops including cabbage which in line with the report of Bok et al. (2006). However about 50% of the respondents choose to transplant cabbage early in the morning that may exposes the newly transplanted seedlings to the coming strong sunlight during the day time while the rest transplant any time of the day.Generally seedling production and transplanting practices employed by the respondents is not in agreement with the recommendation for cabbage (ARARI, 2005;ANRSBoA, 2014).Farmers lack proper seedling production and transplanting procedures required for cabbage production. Appropriate spacing between rows and within rows is crucial in vegetable production including cabbage to avoid competition for nutrients, space and moisture among plants.Moreover, using appropriate spacing enables to have the recommend population, thus maximum possible yield of the crop in a given plot of land (Baloch at el., 2002). The recommended spacing for cabbage in Ethiopian condition is 50 X 50cm between rows and between plants within rows, respectively, as indicated by ARARI ( 2005). Accordingly, only 3.1% of the interviewed respondents in sample kebeles used the recommended spacing 50 x 50 cm (40,000 plants/ha) for the production of cabbage. The remaining 96.9% of the respondents used either less or large spacing in producing cabbage (Figure 4.1). Among the cultural practices, direct effect can be observed with increase or decrease in plant population because cabbage plant bears a single head (Purushottam and Khatiwada, 2001;Panda, 2008).Hence with altered plant spacing will be able to produce marketable size heads. Prabagar and Srinivas (1990) recorded higher cabbage head yield with closer spacing (50x 30 cm 66,667plants/ha) than wider spacing 50 x 40 cm (50,000 plants/ha) and 50 x 50 cm (40,000 plants/ha). watering is important especially in light soils than the clay or clay loam soils (Singh et al., 2015). Moreover the soil moisture requirements of cabbage depend on its developmental stages. Generally at early stages of development, it requires a frequent and light irrigation particularly in dry season (Morrison et al., 2007). At late stages of development, excess moisture cause cracking of cabbage heads especially at maturity stage (Rail and Yadav, 2005;ARCoSA, 2013).According to the assessment results of the study however, farmers irrigated their cabbage farms based on the availability of water without considering the soil types and the developmental stages of cabbages. Accordingly, 84.5% of the sample households applied water once in less than seven days interval whereas about 15.5% of them irrigated the cabbages once in greater than seven days (Table 4.7). Such irrigation schedule may result less or over irrigation which is not suitable for cabbage production. Both of them may result reduction of cabbage yield and thus reduction of water productivity. Most of the sample farmers (87.5%) used furrow irrigation as water application method which is generally a suitable method other than drip irrigation for leafy vegetables including cabbage.These results are in agreement with (IWMI, 2006;Mloza-Banda, 2006;MANRS, 20011) who indicated furrow irrigation as suitable method of irrigation water application for a wide range of crops. Boreholes, rivers or springs water and rain feed are the main sources of irrigation water for cabbage production in the study area (Table 4.8) which is also in agreement with the findings of Osei et al. (2013) and Edossa Etissa et al. (2014) who observed that river diversion, springs and boreholes as major sources of irrigation water for the production of vegetables. The average cabbage production of the sample households was 9.52, 11.33 and 12.33 tons in Kerkir Bale'egziabher, Chachkuna and Chira Ambezo, respectively. The average cabbage productivity of the sample households in the study kebeles was about 11.1 t/ha (Table 4.9).Generally cabbage productivity in the study kebeles was relatively high compared to the national average in Ethiopia which is about 10.4 t ha -1 (CSA, 2014). However, compared to the world average (29.23 t ha -1 ) (FAOSTAT, 2014), the productivity of cabbage in the study area is low. This low productivity of cabbage is may be attributed by various reasons including inappropriate agronomy practices and absence of proper disease and insect pest management practices, and other which is in conformity with results of Tesdeke Abate and Gashawbeza Ayalew (1994) and Melkamu Alemayehu et al.( 2015).The average crop water productivity in the study kebeles was about 8.81 kg/m 3 which is high compared to the finding of Al-Said et al. (2012). They found that crop water productivity of cabbage was about 7.8 kg / m 3 . The high crop water productivity of cabbage in the study area may be partly attributed due to average high crop productivity (11.1 t/ha). According to Seleshi Bekele et al. (2009) the recommended irrigation water for one session of cabbage production is estimated between 3500 -5000 m 3 ha -1 . Generally this shows that respondents'water application was below the recommendation or crop needs (1347.05m 3 ha -1 ) (Table 4.9).Use of the recommended quantity of water may further increase the productivity of cabbage in the study area. The application of fertilizers is an important agronomic practice in vegetable production including cabbage which helps to satisfy the nutrient needs of the crop required for the production of high yield. About 93.7 percent of the interviewed sample farmers used DAPs as well as urea (Appendix Table 1) for the production of cabbage whereas the rest not used.However, only 43.75 % of them used inorganic fertilizers and compost whereas 56.25 % of the interviewed sample farmers used inorganic fertilizers (DAPs and Urea) (Table 4.10). The average rates of DAP and urea fertilizers applied by the sample farmers were 176 and 158 kg ha -1 , respectively (Appendix Table 1). Accordingly, 26.7% of the sample farmers over fertilized their cabbage while 56.7% of them used low rates of DAP compared to the recommendation. Only 16.6% of the respondents used the recommended amount of DAP for cabbage production (ARARI, 2005). On the other hand, about 73.3% of the sample farmers over fertilized their cabbage farms with urea while 10% of them used low rates. Only 16.7%the respondents used the recommended amount of urea for cabbage production. According to ANRSBoA (2014) and ARARI ( 2005), the recommended rates of DAP and urea for cabbage production are 200 and 100 kg ha -1 , respectively. According to the results of this study, the use of fertilizers especially that of DAP was not economical which could lead to pollution of the environment such as runoff in to the water bodies and leaching in to the ground water.Fertilizer application time should coincide with the developmental stages and thus the need of the crop plants including cabbage. The survey results revealed that DAP and urea were applied at different time (Table 4.11). About 21.8% of the respondents applied DAP one time within 10-45 days after transplanting while 53.1% of them applied DAP two times where the first application was done at date of transplanting and the second application was 15-60 days after transplanting. About 18.8% of the respondents split the quantity of DAP in to three and applied three times in the growing season at different time.Similarly, urea was also applied at different time. About 21.8 % of the respondents applied the whole quantity of urea at one time within 7-45 days after transplanting while 59.3 % of them applied two times where the first application was done at date of transplanting and the second application was 15-60 days after transplanting. 12.5% of the respondents split the quantity of urea in to three and applied three times in the growing season at different time (Table 4.11).Farmers applied both DAP and urea as side-dressing whereas organic fertilizer (compost) was broadcasted about 45 days before planting to give time for decomposition process before planting of cabbage seedlings which is in agreement with Bok et al.(2006) who reported composts should be applied in advance before planting to protect seedlings from heat produced during decomposition process. However, only 43.8% of them used organic fertilizers such as compost which unknown in quantity and quality (Table 4.11).The time of fertilizer application practiced by respondents was generally not in agreement with the recommendations as indicated by ARARI (2005). According to the recommendation, DAP is generally applied at the time of planting whereas urea is applied with spilt application method. One half of the quantity of urea is applied at the time of planting while the remaining one half is applied 30 days after transplanting. Diseases and insect pests are serious concern in the production of cabbage in Ethiopia including the study area. Failure in the management of pests could result in total crop failure.Among others Downy Mildew, Cabbage Yellows (Fusarium oxysporium) and Black Rot of Crucifers (Xanthomonas campestris) were the serious diseases observed in the study area. Downy Mildew was observed in 90%, 100% and 100% of the sample households in Kerkir Bale'egziabher, Chachkuna and Chira Ambezo, respectively. Cabbage Yellows (Fusarium oxysporium) was also found in 60% (Kerkir Bale'egziabher), 83.3% (Chachkuna) and 50 % (Chira Ambezo) of the sample households. Black Rot of Crucifers (Xanthomonas campestris)was also found in 30 % (Kerkir Bale'egziabher), 50 % (Chachkuna) and 50 % (Chira Ambezo) of the sample households. Generally 96.9%, 65.6% and 37.5% of the farms of the sample households were infested by Downy Mildew, Cabbage Yellows (Fusarium oxysporium) and Black Rot of Crucifers (Xanthomonas campestris), respectively. Water spraying on the plants,   4.12). According to the assessment results cabbage was harvested 3-5 months after transplanting (Table 4.13). Most of the interviewed farmers (65.6%) harvested cabbage 3-4 months after planting which is in line with the information of ARARI (2005). However, about 34.4% of the respondents harvested cabbage after five months of transplanting which is not in line with the recommendation. The maturity indices of cabbage were well known by farmers in the study area. About 81.2% of the households said that cabbage is ready for harvest when the heads are compact. The results are in agreement with Egyir et al. (2008) who indicated that the cabbage plants are ready for harvest when the heads are compact.  Not only the method but also the time of harvesting affects the quality and shelf life of vegetables including cabbages. In this regard, about 87.5% of the respondents (Figure 4.3)harvested their cabbages late in the evening or early in the morning when the cabbages are cool which is in agreement with Thompson (1996) who reported that cabbages should be harvested during the coolest time of the day. Farmers transported their cabbages to nearby markets using pack animals, vehicles and on foot, where pack animals were the dominant ways of transporting cabbage to the market (62.5%) (Figure 4.4). This way of transporting cabbages increases the incidence of damages that may enhance postharvest diseases and physiological damages which intern decrease the quality and increase postharvest losses.  There are a number of opportunities to develop the production of cabbage in the study area.Among others the following are the major once according to the assessment results. The governments of Ethiopia as well as Amhara Region give high emphasis for the production of cash crops like cabbage by developing various irrigation schemes in various regions including the study area. The farmers in the study area have some experience in the production of vegetables including cabbage. It creates diversification in eating habit of the society (nutrition), local market, income and an employment opportunity is a paramount importance.Consequently, it offers not only opportunities for greater income to small-scale farmers and low-income laborers but it is beneficial for providing employment opportunities for women and the poor.The effects different rates of NPS fertilizer on vegetative growth and yield of cabbage are presented and discussed in this chapter. The effects of NPS fertilizer on vegetative growth of cabbage are presented under subtitle 4.2.1 while their effect on yield and yield components cabbage is presented under subtitle 4.2.1. The cost-benefit analysis of the different rates of NPS fertilizer is presented under subtitle 4.3 below.Plant height is one of important growth parameters of cabbage. It depends on several factors like genetic makeup, nutrient availability, climate, soil and etc. The analysis variance revealed that plant height was significantly (p < 0.05) affected by different levels of NPS fertilizer rate (Appendix Table 2).The tallest plant height (22.36 cm) was obtained from the treatment T11 received 102.5:115.0:21.18 kg ha -1 of N:P2O5:S whereas the shortest plant height was recorded in T1(16.84 cm) which was not supplied with NPS fertilizer (Table 4.15).The results of the study are in agreement with the findings of Hossain (1998), kacjan Marsic andOsvald (2004) and Pramanik (2007) obtained the maximum plant height of cabbages with increased nitrogen rates. Moreover in the research results of Moniruzzaman et al. (2006) increased plant height was obtained from cabbage and broccoli plants treated with 240 kg N, 100 kg P and 80 kg K per hectare. Similarly, Thapa and Prasad (2011) obtained the maximum plant height (32.57 cm) using the combined application of 120 kg nitrogen and 100 kg phosphorus ha -1 . Similarly, Akand et al. (2015) also obtained the maximum plant height (36.82 cm) at 60 DAT by the application of 200 kg ha -1 of nitrogen. Hossain et al. (2011) also obtained significantly maximum plant height (37.5 cm) of cabbage by the application of nitrogen, phosphorous potassium and sulfur with the rates of 240 kg, 45 kg, 180 kg and 45 kg per hectare, respectively.In head cabbage, a spread of plant indicates growth and development and is directly related to yield. Successive increase in fertility level progressively increases the spread of plant. The analysis of variance revealed that plant spread was significantly (P<0.01) influenced by the different NPS fertilizer rates (Appendix Table 3).The maximum plant spread (32.51cm) measured at 40 days after transplanting was found from the treatments T11 (102.5:115:21.18 of N:P2O5:S kg ha -1 ) fertility level which was statistically similar with T8 (31.73 cm) and minimum plant spread (18.66 cm) was observed from control T1 (Table 4.15).The result of this study is agreement with Prasad et al. (2009) reported the increasing levels of nitrogen and phosphorus increased plant spread (3458.78 cm 2 ). Similarly Rathore (2012) observed significance difference in plant spread due to different source sulfur level at 40 days after transplanting. According to Rathore (2012), the maximum spread of cabbage plants (26.7cm) was recorded with the application of 60 kg ha -1 of sulfur which was similar with plant spread obtained from application of 30 kg ha -1 of sulfur.The analysis of variance revealed that there was significant in different (p < 0.01) effect of NPS fertilizer rates on the number of cabbage leaves (Appendix Table 4). In cabbage, leaves play an important role for photosynthesis and the number of leaves per plant is major in head of Cabbage. Number of leaves per plant is an important parameter considering the highest performance of Cabbage yield.However, cabbage plants in T7, T2, T12, T11 and T9 produced relatively high number of leaves per plant with the mean values of 13.8, 13.7, 13.6, 13.6 and 13.5, respectively (Table 4.15). Generally, treatments with high rates nitrogen in the study resulted relatively high number of cabbage leaves which is in good agreement with the findings of Moniruzzaman et al. (2006) who reported that the maximum number of leaves in broccoli was produced when nitrogen was applied at higher rates. Similarly, Akand et al. (2015) and Shahbazi (2005) reported that maximum number of leaves in cabbage (14.3) was obtained by application of 200 kg ha -1 of nitrogen and the minimum number of leaves (12.7) was recorded from treatments where nitrogen was not applied. Similar results were also observed by Shahbazi (2005). However, Gulser (2005) also reported significantly the highest (17) number of leaves at the combined application of 200 kg N ha -1 and 15 t ha-1 FYM. Hence, the application of nitrogen fertilizer stimulated vegetative growth by increasing the number of leaves. Similarly, Karic et al. (2005) found non-significant increment of leaves in leek and spinach with increasing of nitrogen fertilizer rates. was obtained in control plants (T1), where no NPS fertilizer was applied (Table 4.18).Cabbage plants supplied with no NPS fertilizer was applied (T1) produced significantly (p < 0.01) the highest unmarketable yield (5.41 t ha -1 ) (Appendix Table 11). The highest unmarketable yield of cabbage was obtained from plants in T1 (5.41 t ha -1 ) followed by T9(2.88 t ha -1 ) which was statistically similar (Table 4.18). The lowest unmarketable yield (1.21 t ha -1 ) was obtained from plants in T6 supplied with 82:69:12.71 kg ha -1 of N:P2O5:S.Cabbage plants supplied with 102.5:115:21.18 kg ha -1 (T11) of N:P2O5:S produced significantly (p < 0.01) the highest total yield of head cabbage (44.93 t ha -1 ) (Appendix Table 12). Plants in T10, T6, T9 and T8 produced the second highest total yield of cabbage with the mean values of 42.75, 38.03, 37.87 and 37.7 t ha -1 , respectively, which were statistically similar (p < 0.01) when compared each other, On the other hand, the lowest total yield of head cabbage (7.75 t ha -1 ) was obtained in control plants (T1), where no NPS fertilizer was applied (Table 4.18).The results obtained from the experiment was in conformity with Hossain et al.(2011) who reported that the maximum marketable yield (87.09 t ha -1 ) was recorded in treatment receiving 240 kg N, 45 kg P, 180 kg K and 45 kg S ha -1 and the lowest marketable yield (24.67 t ha -1 ) was noted in control having no nutrients applied. Din et al. (2007) reported that the maximum head yield was recorded in treatment receiving NPK level of 120-90-60 kg ha -1 in cabbage. Akand et al. (2015) also reported that maximum (61.57 ton) yield per ha was recorded from N2 (200 Kg ha -1 ) and the minimum (49.53 ton) was recorded from N0 (0 Kg ha - Cost benefit analysis was done to determine the relative economic returns on the applied treatments using the prevailing market prices. The yields were adjusted by 10% downwards due to management level variability between a researcher and a farmer (CIMMYT, 1988). The price of cabbage was obtained from personal communication with cabbage producers and retailers around Gondar town and Lay Armachiho district town (Tkildegaye) which was the nearest market to the study area.The economic indicators used were: Gross benefit was estimated as the product of the adjusted yield (t ha -1 ) and the sale prices (3.5 Birr kg -1 ) and calculated by multiplying the yield in t ha -1 by the market price. Birr and the transportation cost for each 100 kg of fertilizer was 10 Birr. And also net benefit was calculated by subtracting the total cost of production from the gross benefit. Marginal analysis compares the net benefits with the total variable cost. The total variable cost was determined for each treatment and was compared with the net benefit. Here also dominant treatments were analyzed and arranged in terms of increasing variable costs. The corresponding net benefits were also indicated. A treatment is dominant when it has a higher cost but a lower net benefit than any preceding treatment. Finally, marginal rate of returns were calculated (MRR), where the percentage change in benefit over change in total variable cost in moving from a lower cost treatment to a higher one (Table 4.19). All the treatments were arranged from the highest to the lowest in terms of profitability. This was achieved by dividing the total variable cost by the net benefit multiplied by 100.Only the adjusted marketable yields were considered for sale. The marketable yields, sales, costs incurred due to use of the N:P2O5:S fertilizer, labor cost and the net benefit relative to the benefits obtained from untreated control plots were calculated.The marginal rate of returns, which determines the acceptability of any treatment showed that treatments (T6) that received 82:69:12.71 kg ha -1 of N: P2O5: S gave the highest marginal rate of return of 11156 % indicating that for every 1.00 birr invested for 82:69:12.71 kg ha -1 of N:P2O5:S input and its application in the field, farmers can obtain an additional 111.56 Birr.The second most promising result with marginal rate of returns 4748 % with net benefit of 124594.08 Birr ha -1 treatment that received 102.5:92:16.95 of kg ha -1 N: P2O5: S (Table 4.20). ","tokenCount":"10139"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"740f287105539e580c3223200dbe2872","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://www.aciar.gov.au/sites/default/files/2021-08/final-report-wac-2020-157.pdf","id":"632352189"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f9e73899-1a2f-4e9a-a0ec-b9882df9f70a","pagecount":"75","content":"This publication is published by ACIAR ABN 34 864 955 427. Care is taken to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this publication. However, ACIAR cannot accept responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of the information or opinions contained in the publication. You should make your own enquiries before making decisions concerning your interests.We are thankful to the entire Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative (GAMI) team, led by Dr. Lea Berrang-Ford for providing us the database (articles) for the meta-analysis, which were then coded for assessing the effectiveness of water-related adaptation responses. We are thankful to Valeria Fanghella for preparing Figure 2 of this report. We are also thankful to 28 coders who helped code all the papers and to the SysREV coding platform designers for their help and assistance with numerous queries that we had. Names of all coders are included as co-authors/contributors. We would like to thank the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) for providing funding for conducting this meta-review. A part of this analysis has been used for Chapter 4 (Water) of the IPCC AR6 WGII report and the associated Summary for Policymakers. All usual disclaimer applies.Anthropogenic climate change impacts every aspect of water security through changes in water availability and quality, increases in water-induced disasters, and changes in ecosystems and their services. In response to climate and non-climate induced water insecurity, people and governments around the world are undertaking various adaptation responses. While there are thousands of case studies of current implemented adaptation responses to water insecurity, there is a lack of synthesized understanding about the effectiveness of these responses in reducing risks.In this report, we describe our meta-review methodology for assessing the outcomes of current water-related responses. For assessing the outcomes of current adaptation responses, we use a database of 1819 documented case studies of adaptation across all sectors published since 2014. Of these, only 359 (19.7%) case studies assess the effectiveness of current water-related adaptation responses. Outcomes are measured across 6 dimensions and an adaptation response is deemed to be \"beneficial\" in reducing climate or related risks if the study documents a positive outcome on any of these six \"outcome\" indicators. These are: (1) the response led to positive economic/financial outcomes; (2) positive water-related outcomes; (3) positive environmental/ecological outcomes; (4) positive outcomes for vulnerable populations; (5) positive institutional or sociocultural outcomes; and (6) positive outcome on any other parameter not captured by the above five indicators. Using these criteria, 319 out of 359 (88.9%) studies that documented waterrelated adaptation were deemed to be \"effective\" in reducing risks. However, only 64 (17.8%) of those studies were of \"high\" enough quality to causally link adaptation response with the outcome, while the rest failed to do so, making the evidence base even smaller. Overall, only 64 out of 1819 studies (3.5%) of all studies provide an assessment of the benefitsof adaptation response with a high degree of rigour.A majority (~81%) of the adaptation responses were about adaptation in the agriculture sector, followed by adaptations in water-related disasters sector, and urban and peri-urban water use. About one-third, of the adaptation responses which were found to be \"effective\", were also deemed to be maladaptive, especially if it involved intensification that needed fertilizers and pesticides or water-intensive crop varieties. The majority of the water adaptation responses are about incremental adaptation, that is adaptation that aims to improve existing ways of doing things (e.g., better crop varieties replacing older varieties), without tackling root causes of vulnerability. Cases on transformative adaptation are few and far between, and migration, and capacity building and training seem to be the only two adaptation responses that have transformative possibilities.Similarly, a large number of case studies documented limits or barriers to adaptation, and the main barriers were deemed to be financial, or governance-related, followed by lack of information and awareness, and capacity.Given the huge database, and that it took almost 5 out of 6 months of the project to get all the articles coded and quality checked. Thus, the analysis in this report is preliminary and limited to summary statistics.Water has long been recognized as being one of the first impacts in the area of climate change (Bijl et al., 2018;Gosling & Arnell, 2016;Kummu et al., 2016), as well as a central component in adaptation (GCA, 2019;GWP, 2018). Yet, there remain large gaps in our understanding of how people, especially small and marginal farmers, adapt to water-related climate change impacts (Ricciardi et al., 2020). Climate change, through variations in temperature, rainfall, and evaporation, impacts all components of the hydrological cycle, bringing about changes to river flows, aquifers, cryospheric components, and soil moisture dynamics (Jiménez Cisneros et al., 2015). Climate change is also intensifying extreme events and consequent flood and drought events. These climate-induced impacts on the hydrological cycle in turn, affect every sector of the economy, including food, health, ecosystems, cities, energy systems, and challenges the achievement of policy goals like poverty alleviation and sustainable development goals (Gain et al., 2016). Overall, the impacts of 'too little water'; 'too much water'; 'too dirty water'; and \"at the wrong place\" and \"at the wrong time\" are already being felt by a majority of the world's population and water insecurity is likely to be among the earliest manifestation of climate change that people experience in their day to day lives (Greve et al., 2018). This is in addition to water insecurity that is being already experienced by more than 4 billion people across the world, as a result of water governance and scarcity (climate and non-climate induced) issues (Gain et al., 2016;Mekonnen & Hoekstra, 2016).Adaptation is increasingly seen as an imperative to counter climate impacts. At the latest, with the publication of the Special Report on Global Warming at 1.5°C (IPCC, 2018), it is clear that climate impacts are occurring across regions, sectors, and systems and that even at warming levels in line with temperature limits set out by the Paris Agreement, further impacts will be substantial. Water is thought to be central to adaptation. For example, water features prominently in most of the nationally determined contribution (NDCs) pledges and was identified as a top sector (118 among 137 countries) for adaptation in NDC pledges (GWP, 2018). The Global Commission on Adaptation (GCA, 2019) defines four clear action tracks on water and adaptation; namely, harness the power of nature and expand water infrastructure; cope with water scarcity by using water more productively; prepare for a changing climate by planning for floods and droughts, and improve water governance and scale-up water financing.Overall, in response to climate and non-climate induced water insecurity, people and governments around the world are undertaking various adaptation responses involving combinations of technologies, incentives, and policies. While there are thousands of stand-alone case studies on current implemented adaptation responses to water insecurity, there isn't enough synthesized evidence to indicate if these adaptation responses reduce climate and associated risks. In view of a lack of synthesized knowledge base on the effectiveness of current adaptation responses, we undertake a meta-review for measuring the effectiveness of water-related adaptation responses in reducing current climate and associated risks.We define a water-related adaptation as a response that is undertaken if either the risk is water-related or the actual adaptation intervention is water-related. For example, if the risk (defined as a combination of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability) is water-related, i.e., the risk emanates from hazard and exposure caused by floods, droughts, groundwater depletion, melting of the cryosphere, soil moisture depletion, etc., and manifests itself in the form of an increased vulnerability of individuals and communities driven by constrains on water access; or if the adaptation intervention to reduce risk (water-related or otherwise) is water-related, e.g. irrigation, soil moisture conservation, rainwater harvesting, wastewater reuse, etc., then we categorize that adaptation response as a water-related adaptation response.For current adaptation responses, in line with the Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative (GAMI) (Berrang-Ford et al., 2020), we only include case studies on actual, implemented adaptation, as opposed to adaptation that has been planned, but yet to be implemented.Effectiveness is defined as the ability of the adaptation response to \"reduce\" or mitigate risk -where risk is defined as per IPCC definition -a combination of hazard (climate aspect) and vulnerability and exposure (human aspects). We only include studies that measure the \"effectiveness\" of adaptation response by using one or multiple indicators. We define any current adaptation response to be effective if it leads to positive outcomes in either one of the following indicator categories:1. Economic and/or financial indicators, such as improvements in crop yields and resulting incomes; increase in profits, greater savings, or lesser losses from hazards, etc.; 2. Impacts on vulnerable people, e.g., on women, children, indigenous people, etc.; 3. Water-related impacts, e.g., improved water use efficiency, water saving, reduction in water withdrawals and application, etc.; 4. Ecological and environmental impacts such as lesser energy use, better soil structures, and better thermal comfort, etc.; 5. Institutional and socio-cultural impacts such as better group dynamics and action, better bargaining power among vulnerable people, strengthening of local institutions, or national policies, etc.; and 6. Any other positive impacts not captured by the above 5 indicators.1. Conduct a systematic review of documents on existing case studies of water-related adaptation responses and ascertain the extent to which these adaptation responses have been able to reduce climate-related risks; 2. Examine the enabling conditions that helped to make these adaptation responses \"effective\"; 3. Understand if some of the adaptation responses were \"maladaptive\" or if there were limits to adaptation.We developed a methodology for assessing the effectiveness of current adaptation responses. The following sections describe this methodology in greater detail.The meta-review for current adaptation responses draws on the GAMI initiative for two things. First, our overall approach of meta-review is inspired and influenced by the approach of the GAMI meta-review protocol (Berrang-Ford et al., 2020). Second, we used the same set of papers as available in the GAMI database, and we used the same screening protocol as GAMI (Fischer et al., 2020). However, in addition to the 1682 unique papers from the GAMI database, we also included 137 additional papers which were cited in adaptation sub-sections of the First Order Draft of Water chapter of IPCC, Working Group II. Further details about the GAMI approach and screening protocol can be found in Berrang-Ford et al. (2020) and Fischer et al. (2020). Some (~30%) of our coding questions were common with the GAMI coding protocol (Lesnikowski et al., 2020). However, we developed our own inclusion/exclusion criteria and a separate coding protocol for the two reasons explained below.Unlike the broader GAM initiative, where adaptation responses from all sectors are being considered, in our analysis, we are only interested in adaptation responses related to the broad water sector -including all water use sub-sectors such as water for agriculture, energy, industry, health, etc. (see definition of water-related responses above). Second, we were interested in studies that measure the effectiveness of water adaptation in reducing climate and associated risks (see definition of effectiveness above). We only include studies that measure the \"effectiveness\" of adaptation response by using one or multiple indicators. Therefore, we developed a separate coding protocol based on our interest in understanding the effectiveness of water-related adaptation.Given our focus on measuring the effectiveness of water-related adaptation responses, our inclusion criteria were if the:• Paper was about water-related adaptation;• Paper documents actual implemented case study/studies of water-related adaptation • Paper has enough (at least half a page) information about the water-related adaptation response/intervention that is being coded.To be included for full coding, a paper had to meet all six inclusion criteria. Papers that did not meet any one of these 6 criteria were coded partially for only 4 variables: description of the adaptation response; water use sub-sector relevant to that adaptation response (e.g., agriculture, energy, water for sanitation and health (WaSH), water for ecosystems, water for urban areas, etc.); location of the study (country and continent); and concluding remarks. The rest of the papers were coded for 90 questions. We describe our coding protocol and coding questions below.Our coding protocol had seven sections. The first was the inclusion/exclusion criteria, as mentioned above. In the second section, we summarized the nature of the adaptation response. This included: category of water adaptation response (16 categories were developed); categorized them across various water use sub-sectors (agriculture, energy, WaSH, urban, ecosystems, cultural uses, water-related conflicts, etc.); scale (local, national, regional, and global) of the response; geographic location (country and continent); details about the initiator of adaptation and whether adaptation response included Indigenous and Local knowledge. The third section of the protocol coded studies based on water-related hazards (e.g., floods, droughts, extreme rainfall, groundwater depletion, melting of the cryosphere, etc.); vulnerability (how did the communities experience vulnerability), and risks. There was a total of 11 risk categories defined. Section 4 coded evidence on the effectiveness of adaptation response in reducing climate and associated risks, and coded evidence on maladaptation and co-benefits. We also coded the studies on different indicators of effectiveness as described earlier. We coded the papers based on the evidence provided in the paper, and kept coder interpretation of the results to a minimum, to avoid potential misinterpretation. Each paper was coded by two or more coders. Section 5 documented enabling conditions for successful adaptation and these include information on adaptation costs and finance and on governance and political support. Section 6 classified the studies in terms of their quality. In addition to the GAMI protocol, where studies were coded using the GRADE-CERQual approach with evidence across 4 components: methodological limitations, adequacy of data; coherence, and relevance, we also classified the studies based on the rigor of attribution of adaptation outcomes to the adaptation response because of our central interest in understanding the effectiveness of adaptation. In other words, we classified the studies into 3 categories. The first category was studies that establish causal linkages between the adaptation response and outcome and called them high-quality studies. Medium quality studies were those which shows a correlation between the adaptation response and outcome but does not necessarily establish causality, while the third category (low quality studies) are those which neither establish causality, nor show any correlation between adaptation response and outcomes in tangible ways, but often provides a relatively good narrative of the pathways along which adaptation response may have been effective in reducing risks.Section 7 included only one question where the coder had to summarize the main conclusions from the study briefly. In addition to answering the question, coders were required to copy and paste relevant text from the papers to support their answers.We summarize the main coding questions below:Section 1 is the inclusion/exclusion criteria described above. • Water use sub-category where the adaptation is happening. These are: water for agriculture; water for urban and peri-urban use; water-induced disasters (floods, droughts, extreme rainfall events, etc.); water for health and sanitation; water for freshwater ecosystems; cultural uses of water; and water-related conflicts;• Region(s) or geographic focus of adaptive responses documented: Country and continent;• Scale of the adaptation response/intervention: local, national, regional, and global;• Who is initiating or engaging in adaptation responses? E.g. individuals/households; civil society, government, and private sector.Section 3: What are the hazards, vulnerabilities, and resultant risks that the adaptation response/intervention is responding to?• What is the water-related hazard that the adaptation response responds to? The categories are cryospheric changes; changes in groundwater availability; changes in precipitation, including extreme precipitation; droughts, riverine floods, soil erosion, and sedimentation; extreme heat events and unspecified, but general climate impacts;• What aspects of vulnerability are targeted by adaptation responses? The categories are vulnerabilities related to poverty alleviation; consumption and production; access to agricultural water; energy access, gender equality; improving health and well-being; providing access to clean water and sanitation; and reducing social vulnerabilities;• What is the stated (or implied/assumed) risk? Coders sum up the overall risk and then categorize the risk across 11 categories, which are: risk to lives; risk to livelihoods; risks to health and well-being; economic risks; social risks; cultural risks; risks to assets, infrastructure, investments; risks to services (including ecosystems services); risks to ecosystems and species and multiple risks.• Is there any evidence that adaptation response successfully reduced risk or vulnerability?• Are indicators or measures of 'effectiveness' identified?• Did the response lead to better financial/economic outcomes?• Did the response target the vulnerable group, and if yes, is there evidence that risk for that group declined?• Did the response lead to better hydrological (water-related) outcomes?• Did the response lead to better ecological/environmental outcomes?• Did the response lead to improved institutional/socio-cultural outcomes?• Did the response lead to any other improved outcomes (not captured above)?• Which aspect of risk (hazard, vulnerability, or exposure) is reduced due to the adaptation response?• Is there any consideration of new risks or maladaptation?• Is there any reference to co-benefits?Section 5: Adaptation finance and costs, enabling conditions and limits to adaptation• Who financed the response?• Are the costs of the response documented?• Is there evidence of participative/bottom-up governance?• Is there evidence of polycentric/nested/multi-level governance?• Is there any evidence of strong political support for the adaptation response?• Are limits to adaptation described?• Are these soft or hard limits? Section 6. Assessing confidence in evidence:• Does the study establish a causal relationship between adaptation response and outcomes?• Does the study document correlation between the adaptation response and outcomes?• Are there any major methodological limitations?• Nature and type of data: qualitative, quantitative, remote sensing and GIS-based data, etc.;• Did the document provide sufficient information to answer all these coding questions? (coherence);• Comment on the quantity and quality of data upon which the findings are based (adequacy);• What is the external validity of the evidence? (relevance) Section 7. Concluding remarks:• Any additional remarks that may have relevance for the review Figure 1 provides a pictorial depiction of the coding protocol and figure 2 shows the country-wise distribution of 359 case studies that measure the effectiveness of current adaptation responses (Annex 1 provides a complete bibliography of the 359 studies).Like the GAMI, we also used the online SysREV platform for coding the papers. This online tool enables multiple coders to code simultaneously, and all results are saved on SysREV server as .csv files. The link to the SysREV project is https://sysrev.com/u/1502/p/28357.Coders were solicited through tweets and emails sent to professional networks. We received over 100 applications from prospective coders, and chose a total of 28 coders, most of whom were early career researchers, i.e., either in the final stages of their PhD research or are post-doctoral researchers. All coders were provided with a detailed manual, and we conducted two online training sessions. The coders were first asked to code at least 20 articles on a mock online platform and were given feedback on the quality of coding, and suggestions for improvement. Thereafter, actual coding commenced from the 3 rd week of March 2020 and ended in early July 2020. Every two weeks, the first author of this paper took stock of the coding status and provided regular feedback for reconciliation. The CSV output files were downloaded from SysREV site, and a smaller group of coders, along with the first author of this paper ensured that data was clean and complete in every respect. The cleaned data was analyzed using Excel, R Programming Software, and Stata software, and qualitative information was analyzed using NVIVO software.Figure 1. Main coding questions. Cells highlighted in green are the same as GAMI codes, while those in blue are unique to this meta-review exercise. The second row from the top describes the different sections of the coding protocol, the third row from the top mentions the type of data in that section (Boolean = Yes/No; Categorical= coders have to choose among several pre-defined categories and string= quotes from papers); and the fourth row from top shows if the answer requires user consensus or not. This means that for the answers to be counted, all coders must agree on the correct Yes/No answer. If answers differ, coders would consult each other, revisit their respective codes, and would arrive at a consensus. In questions that did not require consensus, we considered the answer of the coder who answered \"yes\" to that question and provided supporting quotations from the paper for the same. We assumed that it is more probable to miss coding an indicator, than to code it incorrectly, especially when for every indicator coded, there has to be a supporting statement.  A total of 359 out of 1819 papers (~19.7%), published on or after 2014, satisfied all inclusion criteria and measured the effectiveness of adaptation response (see figure 3). The studies were identified along the 16 major categories of adaptation responses and Table 1 provides further details.   More than 80% of all adaptation-related case studies published since 2014 are about waterrelated adaptation, that is, the adaptation was in response to a water-related hazard e.g. droughts, floods, rainfall variability, groundwater depletion, melting of the cryosphere, soil moisture changes, etc.; or the adaptation response itself was water-focused e.g. irrigation, soil moisture conservation; rainwater harvesting; wetlands conservation etc. However, only 18% (359 out of 1819 studies) of these studies measured the effectiveness of adaptation in reducing climate and associated impacts, and out of those 88.9% (319 out of 359 studies) also found the adaptation response to be effective in reducing climate and associated impacts. (Figures 3 and 4). Of the 319 studies which found any of the above-mentioned water adaptation responses to be effective, 84% of responses/interventions, were found to be effective because those had positive economic/financial outcomes; 48% had positive water-related outcomes; 41% had positive institutional/political outcomes; while only 36% and 40% respectively had positive environmental/ecological outcomes and positive outcomes for vulnerable groups. Coloured wedges show a category of adaptation. For example, the blue wedge shows all water-related adaptation responses. Lightly shaded wedges outside the bold coloured wedge show the proportion of studies in that particular category that does not measure the effectiveness of the adaptation response; while the dark shaded wedges show the proportion of studies that measure the effectiveness of adaptation response in reducing climate and associated impacts. Adaptation categories are mentioned in the previous section.Most of the water-related adaptation responses are documented from Asia, followed by Africa (Figure 5), while the majority of the adaptation action happens in the agriculture sector, followed by water-related disasters, urban-peri urban space, and in WaSH sectors (Figure 6). In the following subsections, we will discuss summary results from 4 main sectors, namely, agriculture, water-induced disasters, urban and peri-urban, and water for human migration and mobility.Table 2 shows a snapshot of studies that document the effectiveness of adaptation responses to various hazards. Effectiveness is measured along with various indicators, such as economic/financial; hydrological; ecological/environmental; institutional/socio-cultural, or any other kinds of impacts not captured by the above five indicators. The net revenue from adopting a combination of agricultural water management and modern seeds or inorganic fertilizer is significantly higher by 7600 and 1500 Birr/ha respectively than adopting modern seeds or inorganic fertilizer alone.Droughts and general climate impacts, South AfricaFarmers who insured their farm business, and had access to irrigation, had relatively higher net revenue than those who did not after controlling for other factors.Remittance income enables uptake of costlier adaptation measures such as a change in livestock species, which also have higher returns for households.Ng 'ang'a et al. (2016) Droughts in Nigeria Drought-tolerant varietiesPer capita food expenditure of those who adopted drought-tolerant maize was significantly lower than those who did not.  1999, 2002, 2003, 2005, and 2008.Poor households: PSNP transfers reduces chronic poverty level from 15.7% to 10.6% and increases the share of never poor from 11.5% to 15.8%. (Gao & Mills, 2018) Soil degradation and rainfall variability in Tanzania Conservation agriculture Water-related impactsRelative to conventional farming, rainwater use efficiency was higher by 36 to 47 % in plots that followed conservation agricultural practices. Over 81% (291 papers out of 359 papers) document agriculture-related responses, and hence, most of the responses in Table 1 were found to be relevant for the agriculture sector.Figure 7 shows the incidence of various adaptation responses in agriculture and their relative importance. This follows the overall results presented in the previous section.  3).   The majority of the adaptation responses are being undertaken by households and individuals, and this is followed by government action at all levels, while the role of the private sector is still quite negligible, despite the vast amounts of literature that discusses the need for private sector investments in forging adaptation action (Table 4). Not all adaptation responses in the agriculture sector have an explicit focus on vulnerable people, but when they do, majority of these responses actually target small and marginal farmers, followed by low-income/poor households, and women (Table 5). The majority of the adaptation responses are undertaken to reduce risks related to livelihoods and economic risks, but rarely the focus is on unidimensional risk. Instead, most adaptation initiatives are geared towards reducing multiple risks as shown in the Table 6. Finally, we were interested in understanding if these adaptation responses were effective in reducing climate and associated risks (also see Table 6). We see that a majority of risk reduction was related to improvements in crop yields, and incomes, followed by positive water impacts, such as efficient water use. However, downstream impacts of local (plot)level water interventions have rarely been documented (Table 7). The majority of the documented cases are also from Asia, closely followed by Africa (Figure 8). Again, just like in the agriculture sector, the majority of the responses have been initiated by households and individuals, but very closely followed by government actions and initiatives, while private sector action does not seem to be very prominent (Table 10). The majority of these adaptations have reduced vulnerability and exposure, rather than the possibility of hazard per se, as hazard reduction is contingent upon successful mitigation.We coded three important enabling conditions, namely, participative governance, polycentric multilevel nested governance, and strong political will. Of the 319 case studies which were deemed to be \"effective\" in reducing climate and related risks, 116 of those reported instances of community participation and some mechanisms of participative governance, and another 65 reported polycentric and multi-level governance structures.  et al., 2018). Strong political will for the formulation of adaptation response and its implementation is also noted in 104 out of the 319 case studies which were deemed to be \"effective\". Further in-depth analysis is needed for unpacking these enabling conditions.An adaptation response can be effective in reducing climate and associated risks in the immediate short term but could also be maladaptive in the long term. Of the 319 case studies where adaptation response was found to be effective, 115 (36%) of those also mentioned the possibility that those responses can be maladaptive. Examples include increased use of fertilizer (Khanal et al., 2018) and herbicides (Kakumanu et al., 2019)to increase crop production in Nepal and India; and use of improved millets to increase production in Sahel, while knowing that shift to more water-intensive variety of millet under a changing condition may be detrimental to their livelihoods in years of rainfall failure (Lalou et al., 2019).Of the 359 case studies that documented the effectiveness of adaptation response, as many as 262 (73%) studies also pointed out the limits to adaptation. The majority (199 out of 262) of these studies mentioned \"soft\" limits to adaptation, which includes limits or barriers such as poor governance, lack of capacity, knowledge, and information, and economic and financial constraints to adapt, while only 22 studies mentioned \"hard\" limits to adaptation and included issues like borewells turning dry due to groundwater overexploitation, or melting or surging of glaciers that destabilizes irrigation systems in the mountains. Further, the majority of the studies (151 out of 262) found poor governance to be the main barrier to adaptation, followed by a lack of information and awareness.Of the 359 case studies that documented the effectiveness of adaptation response, one-fifth (21.7%) also documented co-benefits in terms of carbon storage and sequestration.the Additionally, about 50 (14%) out of the 359 studies documented evidence of gender equity and social justice.As mentioned earlier, we classified the studies into 3 categories, high, medium, and low (see the section on methodology for definitions). Only 64out of 359 fully coded studies were deemed to be \"high\" quality, whereas 146 were of medium quality and 149 were deemed 'low' quality. This shows that high-quality studies are relatively less in number and more work needs to be done to causally link the adoption of an adaptation response to its effectiveness.To the best of our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive compilation of all waterrelated adaptation cases studies globally. We hope to publish a series of 5-10 papers in the coming year and take full advantage of the database. The papers so published, and the open-access database (after 1 year) will remain an important source of knowledge on adaptation responses and it's effectiveness. Results from this study have been used in Chapter 4 of the IPCC, and IPCC chapters often set the scientific agenda for climaterelated studies.Not applicable. This project was not about capacity building, though results, particularly those showing that training and capacity building are effective adaptation measures, may lead to more investments in capacity building in the developing countries. A total of 28 young coders contributed to the coding exercise, and roughly 50% of them are from the global South.Not applicable. This is a desk review project and does not intend to have community-level impacts. Most of the impacts are expected to be in the scientific domain. Given the short duration of the project (only 6 months), separate communication and dissemination activities were not planned.This study managed to create a huge database where 1819 studies were coded. Of these, 359 studies were coded fully across 100 plus variables as these had documented the effectiveness of adaptation responses in reducing risks. The excluded studies, which did not measure effectiveness, were also coded across 10 variables. Given the short duration of the study (6 months) and that it took almost the entire time to code the papers, and do quality controls, the analysis in this report is mostly limited to summary statistics.These are some of our high-level conclusions:First, the majority (~81%) of climate adaptation responses are about water, that is, either the hazard is water-related, or the response is water-related or both. Water, therefore, is central to adaptation.Second, while there are thousands of documented cases of adaptation, only around a quarter of them actually measure the effectiveness of adaptation in reducing risk, and only a very small percentage of those studies (~18%) measure effectiveness using appropriate methodologies that can link adaptation response with effectiveness in a rigorous and defensible way. This is a cause of concern because we do not know if the investments in water-related adaptations are bearing fruit.Third, a majority of the water-related adaptation responses are about incremental adaptations, i.e., adaptations that aim to improve existing ways of doing things (e.g. better crop varieties replacing older varieties), without tackling the root causes of vulnerability.Transformative adaptations are few and far between, and migration, capacity building, and training seem to be the only two adaptation responses that have transformative possibilities.Fourth, the majority of the water-related adaptation responses are in the agricultural sector, followed by adaptation in water-induced disasters sector. This makes sense because agriculture is the main consumptive water user, and water-induced disasters are one of the most important causes of loss of lives, livelihoods, and property worldwide.An \"effective\" adaptation can also be maladaptive in the long run and there are several barriers or limits to adaptation. Most of these barriers or limits are \"soft\" limits and possibly can be overcome with investments in capacity building and better governance.Hard limits to adaptation have not yet been reached in most locations, except perhaps in some of the small island states and in the remote mountains where the melting of the cryosphere has meant that every source of water has been compromised.The main recommendation from our short 6-month study is that, while larger patterns of adaptation and centrality of water in adaptation are quite clear, more time and effort are needed to get an in-depth understanding of several unanswered questions. For example, the authors have not yet been able to delve fully into the coded papers and answer some of the more interesting questions, such as: Which among the adaptation responses seem to be most effective in reducing risks?; Are adaptation responses more likely to be successful when several adaptation responses are adapted simultaneously or in isolation?; What are the enabling conditions that differentiate a successful adaptation response from a not-sosuccessful adaptation response?, etc. These questions need further analysis of the database.Findings from this study can also inform future adaptation projects. Given how few of these adaptation projects are actually assessed in terms of their effectiveness, and how often the outcomes are also maladaptive, requires rethinking the way adaptation investments are done and monitored.","tokenCount":"5466"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f1009225fa1897025202d8fef396f3f3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/05345e28-8f82-41c4-a527-6d386f59d6bb/retrieve","id":"-1155639043"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"19838cb1-cea4-4e3d-bcb5-40b1688a3bea","pagecount":"1","content":"Entre las es~c~s de chlsas melolontldal de Importancia econ6mlca reportadas en Colombia (ca. 225) •• e destacan Phyl/ophag •• Anomala. P'ectrl •• A,'aena. I.onychus,   MKrodKtyIu., entre otra. (Vallejo 1997. Madrigal 2002). El control qufmlco de uta. plaga • • , ha ducartado por el costo econ6mlco V ambieonb.1 que representa (Robertson ., al. 1970), además por e' de.conoclmM:nto de los aspectos fundamentales de .u dinámica poblaclonal (Falcon V Smtth 19831. que dificultan .u manejo.El control mlcrablano .. constttuY\" en una aHematlva V, aunque la mayorfa de los estudios con estos rizófagos, reportados nacional e internacionalmente, SI concentran en el tercer Instal(Jackson V Brooks 1995; Koppenhofe, V Fuzy 2004; CIAT 201M), por ser el mis daftlno V de mis larga dur.:16n (Klng 1''''). los trabajos con nematodosentomopalógenos (nep). muestran dlficuttad .obre este instar. Se utilizan en est. experim.mo la. mejor .. cepas nativas que resultaron de estudios prevlos para el maneJo de los rizófagos problema IClAT 2004).Evaluar el erecto de capas nativas de nHnatados entomopatógenos sobre los dW.rent .. estados de desan-ollo de dos especl .. de chis., en dos Uempos de evaluacl6n.Este experimento se realizó en e' laboratorio de entomologla de yuca ~ el campo experfmental del CIAT, Palmlra, bajo condiciones controladas (25,4-C y a6% de H.R.), a total oscuridad. Se usaron do. cep .. nattvas, una de la especie 51...,.\",.\".. flltMelCundlnamarca • VUlaplnzón, J.C. Parada) V otra de H\"'rorlI~h/. sp. (Tollma • Fresno. Canica\". J.C. L6pez). a la concentracl6n de 10 mil neplml. Las larvas del experfmento (Anom.al. 'nconst~ y Pfryflophag. menetries/) provenlan de la crta en el CIAT (23-C V 70% H.R .', a partir de adultos capturados en campo con trampas de luz negra, en el norte del cauca ICaldono 1580 msnm, 1rc) V, durante el Htudlo se alimentaran de raicillas de pltntulas de arroz con ocho dlas de germinación, en vaso. pljstk:os con 280 g del .ustrato .uelo:tlerra capote en la relacl6n 2:1, respectivamente. Se usaron larvas de los estadios: primero, segundo, g,rcero Inicial Icon dos .. manas de edad), tercero maduro (cuatro semanas de edad) y prepupa, de acuerdo a la disponibilidad de las diferentes edades de los especlmenes de la colonia en el tiempo. entre noviembre del2G04 y mano del 2005 (Flg. 1).A. /nconsta\"s y P. men.mesl SI evaluaron con las dos cepas, pero, por los bajos re.uttado. obt.nldos con S. re\"\"e para la segunda especie .Ólo .e presentan los antll.ls con Het.romabdhf • • p. La unkjad experlrnenlat .. conformó con 12 larva. Individualizadas en .nvase. pl6stIcos d. 51,7 mi, con suelo hOmedo a capacidad de campo y arroz germinado. Las evaluaclolHl'\" realizan a los 10 V 20 dlas dHpuH dela InfKcl6n (ddl), registrando la variable mortalidad de las larvas (fllg. 2). A los datos se les hace una prtmera transformack\\n con la fórmula de Abbott y luego otra con.yx+1, previo al adUsls de varianza y la .. paraclón de medias con la prueba de significación de Tukay (PSO.05). Al an\"'IUlr la mortalidad d. los estados de de.arrallo de A. Incon.tMI. frente a S. '''''aa y H. lucterlophora. e' mis susceptible fue larva 2 (L2) para la segunda cepa de nep; V,.r menos arectado larva 3 (L3) para la primera cepa (PSO,05). De las do. cepas la Mgunda resuttó menos patog'nlca(Fig. 3); y. no se presentaron diferencias entre lo.tiempos de evaluacl6n (15 V 30 ddi).Cuando se evaluó la mortalidad natural de estas laJVas en los tres Instares no .. presentaron diferencias y el promedio fue de 11%.  ,._u_\"----i hlhl.• • .,.00>_ ... \"' '''_ -------","tokenCount":"582"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"dc0dbf5852526c113be774568b3dbb08","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://www.maxapress.com/data/article/cas/preview/pdf/CAS-2022-0004.pdf","id":"-833388705"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"94fb4d6c-1077-408f-95ee-bc4e80cabae5","pagecount":"8","content":"Forests, trees, and agroforestry (FTA) are ecosystem hotspots. They exemplify the contributions of biodiversity to sustainable and resilient landscapes, green circular economy and to sustainable agriculture and food systems for healthy diets. However, most research on these topics have been performed separately and lack comparison. The International FTA-Kunming Conference 'Forests, trees and agroforestry for diverse sustainable landscapes' 22 nd -24 th June 2021, focused on these contributions, brought together scientists NGOs, and policy makers to further the understanding of tree diversity; provided a communication platform for scientists to share their research results; evaluated the role of tree diversity in agroecology and circular agriculture; assessed benefits of landscape restoration; and explored applied research in mountain ecosystems and food security. The goals were to gather evidence that ground the design of solutions that can contribute to the implementation of the post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework and towards the UN Food Systems Summit, and the overall implementation of the SDGs. This paper summarizes the outcomes of the international FTA Conference in Kunming 2021 and points out the highlights of research involved in six major themes.The CGIAR research program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) organized with the Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), and the Research Institute for Resource Insects, Chinese Academy of Forestry (CAF), an international conference in Kunming, China, 22 nd -24 th June 2021, on the theme of forests, trees and agroforestry for diverse sustainable landscapes. The international conference [1] gathered close to 400 participants both on site in Kunming and online, featuring around 100 scientific presentations providing evidence in support of the importance of managed ecosystems, such as agricultural ecosystems and managed forests for ecosystem functioning and services. The conference was positioned in support to the elaboration of the new Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and for its implementation, highlighting linkages between science and policy, development and implementation. Presentations were organized around six technical themes (sessions):1. Trees for agroecology and circular agriculture. 2. Tree diversity: realizing economic and ecological value from tree genetic resources to bridge production gaps and promote resilience.3. Trees in the framework of the CBD. 4. Mountain ecosystems and food security. 5. Assessing benefits of landscape restoration. 6. Trees for a circular green economy.The conference showcased latest findings from the CGIAR Research Program on Forest, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) [2] , Chinese Academy of Forestry (CAF) [3] , Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) [4] , Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) [5] and partners on the roles of forests, trees and agroforestry for diverse sustainable landscapes.Forests, trees and agroforestry exemplify the contributions of biodiversity and agrobiodiversity to sustainable and resilient landscapes, to green and circular bioeconomy and to sustainable agriculture [6] and food systems for healthy diets [7] . Conserving and sustainably managing biodiversity is indispensable for the future health of our planet [8] . Conserving, planting and growing trees is a concrete investment for future generations.There is an urgency to act, to genuinely mainstream biodiversity in different sectors and objectives (such as climate change, sustainable consumption and production), as a primary consideration and not only as an ancillary objective [9] . As much as biodiversity conservation is an end in itself [10] , it is also a critical means [11] to many objectives for managed ecosystems and landscapes, contributing to the productivity and resilience of agriculture, rural and urban environments, food systems and more globally of the whole economy. The agenda to 'build forward better' from the Covid-19 pandemic lends further importance to building the resilience of our natural environment and for people [12] . The key to doing so are integrated landscape approaches, that stem from integrated leadership and policies, governing land use in ways that balance goals from different sectors.Session 1 covered seven key aspects: agroforestry, biodiversity conservation, animal husbandry and nutrition, sericulture, soil remediation and fungal biodegradation of plastic wastes. Agroforestry is a highly developed form of agroecology because trees are functionally distinct from annual crops and livestock, enlarging the scope of managed interactions among components within agricultural systems to achieve synergistic outcomes. However, knowledge and implementation gaps constrain widespread uptake. Trees in agricultural systems represent an investment in ecological infrastructure that can increase farm income using high-value products and diversify production to increase resilience as, for example, with Moringa, Magnolia, Phyllanthus, rattan, rubber and coffee, with the first three also providing fodder and contributing to animal health and productivity in integrated systems. Fungi, with their unique ability to decompose agricultural waste and breakdown plastics in soil, can also significantly contribute to circular agriculture.Session 2 recalled that the diversity of tree products (fruits, nuts, vegetables, timber, medicinal, fodder, gums, resins, etc.) and services (carbon sequestration, biodiversity, soil biomass, erosion control, water storage/filtration, etc.) is associated and adapted to local social, cultural, economic and ecological values, needs, and landscapes. Human disturbances, habitat degradation, over-exploitation and climate change have increased the risk of genetic erosion and extinction of diverse trees, many of which are of high value to local communities. To halt and reverse this, many ambitious global and national targets have been set to restore degraded land, diversify farming systems and create a range of income-generating opportunities. A rising enthusiasm around the world for treeplanting is leading to a cascade of ambitious initiatives. And no wonder: trees don't just absorb CO 2 , hence mitigating climate change, but they also help farms and rangelands adapt to climate change. Trees help rural families boost their financial, and nutritional security through the products and services they provide and the increased resilience they offer. But the rush to get tree seedlings into the ground can often result in planting the wrong trees in inappropriate places, or planting poor seeds of low quality that can actually inflict damage, causing harm to existing ecosystems, or simply failing to deliver expected outcomes. A grower who has dealt with the negative consequences and disappointment of investing in the wrong tree is unlikely to try again. A range of knowledge products, decision prototypes, support tools, technologies and methodologies (genetic, biophysical, ecological, socio-economic and indigenous knowledges) are being developed and used to assess the genetic and biological characteristics, values, uses and threats to tree diversity as well as provide guidance for the provision of quality planting material and building-up solid tree seed and seedlings systems.Session 3 noted that agricultural land must be recognized for its multiple contributions to sustainable use and biodiversity conservation:1. As a habitat for species and varieties, cultivated or otherwise, and used by humans (agrobiodiversity, including agricultural species and beneficial species) to support food production;2. As a habitat for wild biodiversity that uses agricultural landscapes to fulfil all or part of their niche requirements, as well as strictly forest-dwelling species that use the agricultural matrix to move between forest fragments; 3. For ecosystem services that support human health, food security, climate change adaptation and mitigation, and water supply.International trade agreements have important effects on diversification through both behaviour-leading and placing obligatory rules on the producers, transformers, buyers and consumers. High Conservation Value Forests, remnant patches of natural forests and an integrated landscape management approach are crucial to strengthen landscape resilience, biodiversity conservation and other environmental and sustainable development goals. While not a replacement for natural ecosystems, managed ecosystems do provide important habitat for species and contribute to habitat connectivity. Agroforestry, reforestation and the management of related ecosystem services are allies, not adversaries of biodiversity in needed native forest restoration.Session 4 recalled that mountains occupy more than onefifth of the Earth's land surface and host some 12% of the global human population. They encounter key challenges: the constraints of terrain and climate, high production and transportation costs, low productivity, poor infrastructure, limited access to market, physical isolation and vulnerability to natural risks. Around 245 million people living in mountain areas are estimated to be vulnerable to food insecurity. A wide range of issues were covered in this session from soil, cropping systems, to management strategies, landscape restoration, livelihood systems, governance, etc. Mountain systems in Northwestern Vietnam have seen a shift from grain production to cash crop farming, primarily fruit tree cultivation. This shift has shown positive impacts on farmers' income, but challenges remain for measuring other socioeconomic (e.g. economic resilience of production system, gender equity) and environmental benefits resulting from this ongoing land use change. Varieties of indigenous and captive crops are cultivated under traditional mixed-farming systems in the Eastern Himalayas, and these can contribute to nutritional and food security of the region. The use of endophytic fungi as biocontrol agents and biofertilizers can also play an important role in suppressing pathogens (reducing damage at pre-and post-harvest stages), enhancing agricultural productivity and protecting mountain ecosystems. In the mountains of the Indonesian archipelago, such as in Timor-Leste, traditional agroforestry systems help to protect the soil against erosion, crops against violent rains; conserve biodiversity; store carbon; and sustain basic needs of households. However, it is necessary to better valorise such secular systems, to make them attractive for the next generation of farmers.In session 5 it was noted that using native and mixed species in forest landscape restoration can maintain regional carbon stocks and increase other related ecosystem services, including the prevention of invasive species. These native, and often neglected and underutilized tree species (NUS), can also provide great economic benefits for smallholders. Growth-promoting bacteria in the soil can benefit the growth of legumes and help improve the environment for cultivation. The establishment of leguminous shrubs on farmlands can contribute to multiple benefits, including carbon storage, climate change mitigation with adaptation, biodiversity conservation, poverty reduction and food security.Session 6 showed that non-timber forest products, such as mushrooms, bamboo, wood twig charcoal production, and rattan products can be used to generate income and contribute towards rural development programs. Forests can be used as natural capital in the context of reducing carbon emissions, which can also provide revenue streams shareable among stakeholders. Woody plants have the potential for use as animal feed, adding to the diversity of products coming out of forest systems. Biomass energy is an important use of wood and bamboo from both naturally regenerated and planted forest ecosystems. The use of woody residues for mushroom cultivation and charcoal production increases resource efficiency and provides value-addition to local rural livelihoods.All conference material is now available on the FTA Science Conference webpage [13] . Presentations and discussions facilitated the identification of actionable solutions to scale up biodiversity mainstreaming and transform food systems.The following are 12 key recommendations resulting from the technical and plenary sessions. These are formulated to the attention of governments and all actors, public and private, the Rio platforms and conventions (CBD, UNFCCC, UNCCD), trade related bodies and international organizations, to consider them as overarching global recommendations for strategic orientations under which specific action plans would need to be elaborated with stakeholders in diverse national and regional contexts. References in the below text concern research undertaken by, or with contribution from, the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry and are available from its open database [14] .Forests are a major reservoir of biodiversity worldwide. They are an important source of food for many communities all over the world. Not only do they provide wild fruits, leaves, nuts and mushrooms [15] -they also provide homes for game animals, insects and fish that are key sources of nutrients for vulnerable populations [16] . They are a main source of energy for cooking as well as for the provision of renewable packaging materials. Their indirect role in food production is equally important; forests provide important ecosystem services for agriculturepest control, pollination services [17] , water regulation [18] , flood prevention [19] and soil enrichment. These important benefits of forests -including bamboo forests [20] -need to be better understood, appreciated and recognized in land planning, management and policies so that forests are no longer seen as barriers to food production, but as key components of sustainable food systems. More research, development and policy work on the contribution of Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) towards sustainable development, and how to protect the forest resource that sustains NTFPs [21] is required to leverage the true value of forest products to rural communities.It is estimated that, at the global level, up to 25% of all land (forests, cropland, rangelands and grassland) is highly degraded and 36% is slightly or moderately degraded [22] . Degraded land provide fewer ecosystem services, contribute to and exacerbate the effects of climate change and biodiversity loss, and are less productive, causing hunger, poverty and conflicts, which in turn further drives deforestation and land degradation in an effort to compensate for lost productivity. Restoring and sustainably managing land is needed to improve the environmental, economic and social sustainability of food systems. Secondary and degraded forests show huge potential for restoration to improve both biodiversity and productivity FTA-Kunming 2021 goals [23,24] . Fast-growing species like bamboo can provide bioenergy and biomaterials for renewable food packaging [25] . Fungi can play an important role for soil reclamation and remediation. Forest and landscape restoration requires collaborative long-term action between multiple actors, including the government and private sector, driven by needs and priorities of local actors that depend on and manage the land [26] . This requires specific care in governance [27] , participatory management and attention to the right set of tree species for restoration, favouring indigenous species in conjunction with proper adapted species, seed and planting material quality, and diversity [28,29] . Care must also be taken with the use of nonnative species to prevent tree-invasions [30] . Appropriate decision support tools [31] and more accurate assessments of costs and benefits of specific restoration interventions [32] should facilitate implementation. Landscape approaches involving local communities shall be adopted in ecological restoration in order to meet not only environmental needs but also social and economic needs.Agroecological approaches can play an important role in the transition to sustainable food systems [33] . They are based on the principles of: input reduction; renewable inputs; better use of ecological processes and the biodiversity underpinning them; preservation of plant, animal and soil health; diversification; synergy; co-creation of knowledge; social values; better connectivity between farmers and consumers; equitable governance and participation [34] . Agroecological transitions are conducive to preserving biodiversity, to leveraging the role of biodiversity for farmers and helping to reconnect producers and consumers. Many of these transitions can leverage the role of trees [35] and improve biodiversity. These transitions at scale require, in many contexts, to reform policies and install a proper enabling environment, technical support, market incentives and regulations.Diversity in production systems, from plot to landscape scales, contributes to the conservation of biodiversity, allows for better, more adaptive use of natural resources and provides livelihood opportunities [36] for women and vulnerable social groups. It is an essential component of the resilience of landscapes [37] , farming systems and households to shocks, whatever their origin: climatic, biological (pests and diseases), anthropogenic (land use change) or economic (price volatility). Landscape and agricultural diversity is key to ensuring balanced and healthy diets. The considerable pressure for simplification, driven by economies of scale and by the industrialization and standardization processes from production to transformation and distribution, needs to be counteracted by efficient measures that preserve and foster diversity across all food systems, from production to consumption.Trees in agro-ecosystems play a critical role in contributing to biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes through insitu conservation, by providing habitats to wild species, connecting fragmented habitats and providing steppingstones between protected area networks [38] . Trees and forest patches are also useful and profitable to farmers as they provide a range of goods and services for soil health and fertility along with fuelwood, management of pest and diseases, erosion control and water runoff. There is huge potential that the new biodiversity framework can leverage trees on farms to contribute to biodiversity objectives as well as resilience and the long-term environmentally sound productivity of agricultural landscapes. This will require appropriate information about agroforestry species and their uses and values [39] , building upon local knowledge, as well as proper mainstreaming in agricultural policies, economic incentives, technical back-stopping and appropriate tree tenure regulations. It will also require investing in production, delivery and use of quality tree seeds/seedlings, as well as appropriate market development to add maximal value to the range of tree products.Many tree foods found in forests are 'orphan crops', also called 'neglected and underutilized species' that have been overlooked by agricultural research and industry, but have great potential to diversify farming systems to support both human and environmental health. The application of new tree domestication, selection and breeding methods provides opportunities for modest investments to upgrade the 'status' of these 'orphan' species to mainstream them in cultivation and food systems, at the condition of being supported by enabling policies from production and markets to consumption [40] . Broad gene pools, with new selection methods, provide rapid productivity gains, while appropriate consumer-based interventions, support local use and integration into domestic and global markets. From a scientific perspective, ethno-biological studies need to be supported to avoid the loss of knowledge on the use of orphan crops. There is need to foster a 'systems approach' to plant breeding that utilizes both novel and traditional methods to meet the call for broader participation, increased emphasis on the environment, advances in biotechnology and the evolution of markets [41] .Mountain ecosystems are hotspots of biodiversity and crucial areas for natural resources management, such as water quantity and quality, soil, nutrients, genetic resources and adaptation to climate change. They are also particularly vulnerable to global change, climate change, anthropogenic pressures, landuse change and inappropriate management. How mountains are managed often conditions the environmental and productive health of landscapes downstream, including resilience to climate change. Due to their specificity, mountain communities have developed identities, cultures and livelihoods that are strongly connected to the land and ecosystems, often involving knowledge and practices formed over thousands of years of holistic land, farm and forest experience [42] . There is a potential to combine local knowledge and scientific research to support innovations in knowledge, technologies, approaches, tools [43] that can in turn strengthen practices, policies and institutions for brighter and more resilient mountain futures [44] .Climate change is a major threat to biodiversity conservation (including to biodiversity hotspots) and ecosystem services. Biodiversity conservation, sustainable management and leveraging ecosystem services (e.g. through preserving ecosystem functionality and ecosystem services provision and delivery) are essential approaches often overlooked in climate change mitigation and adaptation planning. There is a need for appropriate tools and mechanisms to monitor and assess changes in ecosystems, particularly in forests, mountains, small islands, coastal areas, Arctic zones, arid and semi-arid areas, and other highly vulnerable areas. To do so, engaging indigenous peoples and local communities, citizen science can facilitate broad observation, awareness raising and societal ownership. There is also a need for appropriately integrating biodiversity concerns and prioritizing biodiversity hotspots in climate-change-related measures. In forests, biodiversity is grounding climate-change adaptation and is key to maintaining forest health that enables long-term mitigation. In agriculture, agroforestry can help to increase the resilience of farmlands and landscapes to climatic stresses [45,46] . Forest, trees and agroforestry systems' key role in climate change adaptation and mitigation can be strengthened by better integrating biodiversity conservation and sustainable management into climate action [47,48] . 9. Promote fruit, nut, vegetable and mushroom consumption and production, and leverage the potential of insects as a resource for sustainable food systems Fruits, nuts and vegetables are among the most nutrientdense foods, but they are under-consumed in most countries [49−51] . Mushrooms are low in calories and fat and contain modest amounts of and various nutrients. Edible insects contain high-quality protein, vitamins and amino acids, and are produced with low environmental footprint. Their high food conversion rate makes them particularly interesting as a source of high-protein food and feed for sustainable food systems. The gathering and production of all these foods can increase and diversify income, particularly for smallholders. This requires a reorientation of agricultural and food policies [52] , and the growth and diversification of the agricultural markets, to fully integrate the specificities and benefits provided by the production of fruits, nuts, vegetables and mushrooms, and to leverage the potential of insects as a resource for food systems.10. Understand, recognize, support and draw lessons from indigenous culture, traditional production systems and indigenous food systems Indigenous food systems, including the knowledge and values embedded in them, model the sustainable use of natural resources. Their preservation is essential to protect and sustainably manage forests, biodiversity and other natural resources. They are wellsprings of inspiration for effecting a global transformation of food systems towards more sustainability in terms of values (sustainable management of resources, reduced waste, social values, sharing, health linkages), responsibility (towards land and biodiversity, society, future generations) and practices. The contributions of traditional diets, rich in diverse nutritious foods, to health and sustainable food systems need to be better taken into account by all food systems actors and policy-makers, in that regard they deserve greater research investment, including ethnobiological studies [53] , and greater promotion by public and private players. This is yet another reason why inclusive governance needs to be promoted, including care for women, Indigenous peoples and other under-represented groups in multi-stakeholder forums [54] .Forests, trees, agroforestry and associated biodiversity have considerable potential for the development of bioenergy and biomaterials, including the utilization of co-products, byproducts and waste. Fungi and insects can recycle tree, crop and livestock waste and transform it into feed, plant nutrients and biomaterials [55] . Food systems are major producers of waste: food loss, non-edible waste, and food packaging (that is increasingly non-renewable and one of the main sources of plastic waste). Trees, bamboo and rattan [56] can provide alternative sources of fibre, furniture [57] and packaging material. Circular bioeconomy is more reliant on the cycling and recycling of bio-based natural products and residues, optimizes material fluxes, storage and processing, and reduces postharvest losses and waste. It calls for enlarging the notion of value chains to value webs, where multi-cropping systems give rise to several products. A holistic approach to all material fluxes optimizes input/output flows in agriculture, forestry and fisheries, and diversifies farm and forest revenues, thus reducing risks [58] . It needs to be based on proper assessments for the sustainability of the resource [59] . These developments require supportive regulations, public procurement, incentives and consumer engagement.The landscape level is where diverse land-uses and other economic activities and value chains interact. To sustainably manage natural resources and optimize the production of ecosystem goods and services, proper landscape-scale planning and management is needed, integrated together with sustainable national, regional and global value chains (including those related to trade and markets). This requires adequate knowledge and information, evidence-based, inclusive and transparent decision processes as well as management and governance mechanisms and instruments to maximize synergies and balance trade-offs [60] between different objectives, with due consideration to inclusiveness and to social equity [61−63] . There is thus a need for appropriate mechanisms to foster sustainability across the entirety of the value chains operating in a given landscape, with special emphasis to forestrisk commodities [64] and the related investment decisions and international trade instruments. These sustainable value-chain mechanisms need to integrate local communities concerns and landscape-specific biodiversity concerns and objectives.To support all these recommendations, for transformational change, there is a need for conducive policies, to establish a proper enabling environment for research, innovation, capacity building and to facilitate integration across sectors and scales. Some key measures will also necessitate innovative financing mechanisms.At national level, governments need to overcome historical administrative silos; legal and administrative measures and budgets need to be in place to support ministries and their line agencies to develop and implement integrated plans and programmes for the conservation, sustainable use, management, and restoration of biological diversity and ecosystems.At the international level, these recommendations can inform the work of the international mechanisms under the Rio conventions of the United Nations, such as the UNFCCC COP in Glasgow, UK in November 2021, especially the Glasgow forests and land-use declaration, the upcoming decisions on the Global Biodiversity Framework expected to be agreed at CBD COP 15 in Kunming, China, UNCCD agenda, as well as the UN decade on Ecosystem restoration. These 12 recommendations are relevant to the respective implementation, work agenda and roadmaps of all these bodies within their own mandates, and they can also help build bridges and synergies between them, contributing to multiple objectives. Importantly, all these measures can benefit from solutions that can be engineered locally and shared globally through the reinforcement of international cooperation. Equally critical will be long term observatories, and to link global information with local contexts and engagement of different stakeholders and citizens in research (and vice-versa) and in policy.","tokenCount":"4119"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"531e2a7de55c7fb1dea4b3ba38745ccd","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e896e67a-17b1-4964-b3a1-b5bd66acab7d/retrieve","id":"-437684478"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c9b30863-ce7b-4c14-850d-1f07cba40d19","pagecount":"6","content":"The Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) program of the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR) seeks to marshal the science and expertise of CGIAR and partners to catalyse positive change towards climate-smart agriculture (CSA), food systems and landscapes, and position CGIAR to play a major role in bringing to scale practices, technologies and institutions that enable agriculture to meet triple goals of food security, adaptation and mitigation. The three main objectives of the program is to Sustainably increase agricultural productivity, to support equitable increases in farm incomes, food security and development, adapting and building resilience of agricultural and food security systems to climate change at multiple levels, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. In Ghana, the CCAFS program is being implemented in the cocoa sector by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in partnership with the Rainforest Alliance.The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) is a non-profit institution that generates agricultural innovations to meet Africa's most pressing challenges of hunger, malnutrition, poverty, and natural resource degradation. Working with various partners across sub-Saharan Africa, we improve livelihoods, enhance food and nutrition security, increase employment, and preserve natural resource integrity. The Climate Change Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) program in IITA-Ghana is determined to develop tailor-made stepwise climate smart management and finance packages to enhance the resilience and productivity of Ghanaian Cocoa farmers in the face of the adverse impacts of climate change on Cocoa production. ","tokenCount":"239"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"626dd7a45fd142b4e50f99f75156ee43","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/96cd3adf-e581-43c9-aeb7-531a68e46da0/retrieve","id":"922954850"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f954d165-4aff-4880-a09d-91686bd0edb2","pagecount":"32","content":"The International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (IBPGR) is an autonomous international scientific organization under the aegis of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The IBPGR was established by the CGIAR in 1974 and its Executive Secretariat is provided by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The basic function of the IBPGR is to promote and coordinate an international network of genetic resources centres to further the collection, conservation, documentation, evaluation and use of plant germplasm and thereby contribute to raising the standard of living and welfare of people throughout the world. The Consultative Group mobilizes financial support from its members to meet the budgetary requirements of the Board.de Recherches et d'Etudes Mediterraneen Pour 1'Amandier) Symposium at Izmir, Turkey, 16-22 June 1980. A preliminary list of descriptors was formulated from this at the Symposium and was subsequently published by the IBPGR in August 1981.The Prunus Working Group from the European Cooperative Programme for Conservation and Exchange of Crop Genetic Resources, Phase II, recognized the need to update the almond descriptors. Consequently Professor Gülcan prepared a new version.The IBPGR encourages the collection of data on the first four categories of this list; 1. Accession; 2. Collection; 3. and 4. Characterization and Preliminary evaluation. The IBPGR endorses the information in categories 1 -4 as the minimum that ideally should be available for any one accession. Other descriptors are given in categories 5 onwards that will enable the simple encoding of further characterization and evaluation data and which can serve as examples for the creation of additional descriptors in the IBPGR form by any user.The suggested coding should not be regarded as the definitive scheme, although this format has the full backing of the IBPGR and is promoted worldwide. The descriptor list given here provides an international format and thereby produces a universally understood 'language' for all plant genetic resources data. The adoption of this scheme for all data encoding, or at least the production of a transformation method to convert other schemes to the IBPGR format, will produce a rapid, reliable and efficient means for information storage, retrieval and communication. This will greatly assist the utilization of germplasm throughout the international plant genetic resources network. It is recommended, therefore, that information should be produced by closely following this descriptor list with regard to: ordering and numbering descriptors; using the descriptors specified; and using the descriptor states recommended.Errors and omissions are the responsibility of the editor. Any suggestions for modifications will be welcomed by the IBPGR Secretariat, Rome, and by the editor, especially before encoding new descriptors.The IBPGR now uses the following definitions in genetic resources documentation: i)passport (accession identifiers and information recorded by collectors);ii) characterization (consists of recording those characters which are highly heritable, can be easily seen by the eye and are expressed in all environments);iii) preliminary evaluation (consists of recording a limited number of additional traits thought desirable by a consensus of users of the particular crop).Characterization and preliminary evaluation will normally be the responsibility of the curators, while further characterization and evaluation should be carried out by the plant breeder. The data from further evaluation should be fed back to the crop coordinator who will maintain a data file.The following internationally accepted standards for the scoring or coding of descriptor states should be followed as indicated below: a) measurements are made in metric units; b) many descriptors which are continuously variable are recorded on a 1-9 scale. The authors of this list have sometimes described only a selection of the states, e.g. For the observations on the fruit, 20 typical fruits should be selected out of a minimum of 40 from two trees. All observations on the fruits should be made on fruits ripened on the tree. This number serves as a unique identifier for an accession at a given site and is assigned by the curator of a particular genebank site when an accession is entered into the site genebank. It must not be re-used even if the accession is lost. Letters should occur before the number to identify the genebank or national system (e.g. PI indicates an accession within the USA system, and EC indicates an accession within the CEC Fruit Genetic Resources Scheme). A site may choose to use a Genetic Resource Scheme (GRS) ACCESSION NUMBER (see 1.4) as the only unique identifierThe name and address of the person or institute responsible for donating the germplasm to the genebank collection at the site (see 1.14) at which the plants are heldThe number (or name) assigned by the person or institute above (1.2) donating the accession to the site specified at 1.14 The officer responsible for maintaining the genetic resources material held at the site specified aboveThe name by which the cultivar or species is listed at the above site. This may be either some combination of the Genetic Identifiers (1.21 and 1.22) or a synonymThe clone or mutant name of the cultivar or species (if any) by which it is identified at the above site. This may be either the internationally accepted name (1.22) or a synonymThis identifies a single plant within a population of plants having the same site accession number. It may be any combination of plot identity, row number, and tree position within the row1 Unlimited 2 Limited -specify restrictions in the NOTES descriptor, 11Enter year that tree(s) will probably be discarded, e.g. 1988. Regeneration of genebank accessions should take place at least two years before the year of probable discard 1.21 YEAR TREE PLANTED (e.g. 1972)The name of the cultivar or species as internationally accepted or defined by the Genetic Resources Scheme coordinator, e.g. TexasThe internationally accepted name (if any) of the clone or mutant of the cultivar or species, e.g. Collectors should record ecological/climatic information. For cultivated crops, cultivation practices should be recorded SITE DATAEVALUATION See 1.13 for coding procedureSee 1.14 for coding procedureName of rootstock on which accession is grafted (if any) The percentage of sound Kernels in a sample of 100 nutsThe percentage of double kernel in a sample of 100 nuts (See figure 8) Additional information concerning type of susceptibility can be recorded in the Notes descriptor 11, i.e. minimum temperature without damage, differences in bud and wood susceptibility etc. This may prove to be a useful tool for identifying duplicates accessions CYTOLOGICAL CHARACTERS AND IDENTIFIED GENES NOTES Give additional information where descriptor state is noted as \"Other\" as, for example, in descriptors 2.10 and 4.1.1.8. Also include here any further relevant information","tokenCount":"1080"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4309c6b4be3db6ceeaacea4faf99f6b6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/01d16deb-1e7e-4157-92d8-771ac517ee6a/retrieve","id":"-589577213"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"221c8112-6af3-4ba8-bf47-dbdbd390709b","pagecount":"1","content":"Resilience is defi ned as a capacity that ensures stressors and shocks do not have long-lasting adverse development consequences and enables support to trajectories enhancing growth and prosperity.Modeling for investment targeting; Decision support analysis; Monitoring for impact.NB: Please note that project actions within pillars can contribute to more than one system.Unit of measurement: household Unit of measurement: coarser Whether a relationship exists between project actions and outcomesSYS TEMS What is an attribution gap?It is critical that both attribution and contribution of individual projects, actions and processes are understood in their role toward achieving outcomes along designated impact pathways. The conceiving of these pathways needs to be supported by clear processes, actions and projects that can show verifi ed contributions toward the pathway and transparent attribution in enhancing resilience. An ex post impact assessment, once an individual project is completed, allows an understanding and 'plausible' bridge linking a project's direct benefi ts with wider level impacts. This requires a 'persuasive case', requiring triangulation with multiple data sources, quantitative analysis, qualitative data and verbal testimony to illustrate attribution toward resilience. ","tokenCount":"178"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b43bc0a1973c53b33eb7d4f873ccb23a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9e476ad7-fe85-450b-a64e-45e41e050971/retrieve","id":"864151125"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a0ea01cc-0592-463b-9b26-89ef142be8c6","pagecount":"44","content":"The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) is a joint international institution of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States and the European Union (EU).CTA operates under the framework of the Cotonou Agreement and is funded by the EU.v   Index-based livestock insurance as an innovative tool against drought lossIndex-based livestock insurance (IBLI) is a donor-funded programme aimed at designing, developing and implementing market-mediated, index-based insurance products to protect livestock keepers, particularly in the drought-prone arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs), from drought-related asset losses. The IBLI index is based on satellite data, which measure the quality of the pastureland every 10-16 days. These data are inputs to a statistical model of livestock mortality developed using historical data from the region. When evolving range conditions predict livestock mortality in excess of a critical threshold (say 15%) over a predetermined area, the insurance pays contract-holding pastoralists for their losses, allowing them to manage their individual risk. This synthesis report summarises the findings from these research activities and presents conclusions and recommendations stemming from those findings for the IBLI.In terms of one of the key objectives -reducing challenges posed by climate changethere is a significant aggregate impact on the proportion of beneficiary households falling below the national absolute poverty line as a result of livelihood asset loss occasioned by drought. Even more importantly, after controlling for other factors that cause livelihood asset losses, a significant reduction -25-40% of total livestock -in drought-related livelihood asset losses is observed, as well as an increase in mean consumption for poor and for fully mobile households (Chantarat et al., 2013). Given the recent context of increasing severity and frequency of drought in northern Kenya, the fact that drought-induced livestock mortality incidence did not lead to complete loss of livelihood suggests that the IBLI is performing its function as a 'safety net' and risk insurance.The aim of the IBLI pilot is to reduce poverty and promote asset retention and accumulation among its beneficiaries. However, its primary function is not poverty reduction per se, but to act as a drought safety net. In this sense its emphasis is on livelihood assets protection and livelihood promotion. As a drought safety net, IBLI was fairly effective at protecting beneficiary households in northern Kenya against the worst effects of the Horn of Africa drought. The IBLI therefore has a bigger impact on long-term livelihood security than on long-term poverty.Thus, while IBLI, at its current coverage rates, might provide a functional safety net against drought, it is unlikely to systematically move people out of poverty. This is because of the negative climatic conditions that are endemic to the region and the relative marginalisation of the population.The rural economy of northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia is based on livestock reared by nomadic, semi-nomadic and agro-pastoral herders.Agriculture contributes about 30.3 and 41.9% of the Kenyan and Ethiopian gross domestic product, respectively (Odhiambo et al., 2004;World Bank, 2014a), and livestock (mainly pastoral herds) accounts for 43 and 40% of agricultural output in Kenya and Ethiopia, respectively (Behnke and Muthami, 2011;Asresie and Zemedu, 2015). Index-based livestock insurance (IBLI) is a donor funded programme aimed at designing, developing and implementing market-mediated, index-based insurance products to protect livestock keepers, particularly in the drought-prone arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs), from drought-related asset losses. The IBLI index is based on satellite data, which measures the quality of the pastureland every 10-16 days. These data are inputs to a statistical model of livestock mortality developed using historical data from the region. When evolving range conditions predict livestock mortality in excess of a critical threshold (say 15%) over a predetermined area, the insurance pays contract-holding pastoralists for their losses, allowing them to manage their individual risk.Index-based insurance can not only lower administrative costs but also offer a solution to the problems of adverse selection and moral hazards and even more importantly can be used as the foundation for an implementable productive safety net programme (Barrett et al., 2008). In addition index-based insurance has the advantage that it can be sold in very small denominations; i.e., a farmer can pay a small or a large premium depending on his or her needs, and will receive the same ratio of payout to premium if the specified event happens. However, it does depend on the ability to define a weather or environmental event that is a reasonable proxy for livestock mortality causing distress among herders.In The IBLI product has proved beneficial to pastoralist households' resilience to climate change but even more importantly there is evidence to indicate that a commercial market can sustainably support an IBLI scheme.This is a good practice document prepared as part of the Technical Centre for As well as documenting IBLI's impact and potential for covering drought risk effectively to a high and consist standard, we have recognised many best practices covering the product design, implementation, quality assurance and user evaluation that are presented in this document. It also takes into account the best practices in the field of micro-insurance that had been established and presented in the framework of related livestock projects in rural Africa and other similar contexts around the world.The impact of IBLI as a good practice has been assessed using rigorous scientific methods. Using a randomised controlled trial approach, a number of geographical areas (sub-locations) were selected for random assessment by the evaluation and documentation team. These sub-locations were then randomly assigned to be 'treatment' areas, where the programme began to operate straight away, or 'control' areas, in which the programme did not start at all. Impact was then assessed by comparing IBLI beneficiary households in treatment areas with households in control areas that were selected for the programme but who would not come into the programme for two years. For the final impact analysis there were 20 treatment and 20 comparison (control) sub-locations, with 125 IBLI households (the treatment group) and 121 control group households.Qualitative research was also conducted in four IBLI treatment sub-locations in each county of implementation in northern Kenya. Qualitative methods included focus group discussions (with female and male beneficiaries and nonbeneficiaries), key informant interviews (with community elders, teachers, labourers, minority groups and traders), household case studies (a 'qualitative panel' of beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries), and participatory methods (social mapping, timelines and community wealth ranking).The In this region, rainfall is the main factor influencing the distribution of human and livestock population. The annual rainfall ranges between 75 mm and 250 mm per year. Accordingly, two ecological zones with variable grazing potentials can be identified: arid and semi-arid. The arid zone encompasses 70% of the Index-based livestock insurance as an innovative tool against drought loss total area in Kenya and 30% in Ethiopia and it is in this region that 70% of the population lives with livestock herding as the main source of livelihood.The pastoral areas are characterised by frequent droughts as a result of climate variability, with high livestock mortality followed by famine and human deaths as experienced for the last 40 years but most notably in 1984, 1992 and 2011 (Owuor, 2015). When a drought occurs, it substantially increases livestock mortality, reduces livestock prices and escalates the increase in the prices of food items and essential commodities. This has had the effect of aggravating the problem of pastoral households by shifting the terms of trade in favour of their purchases rather than their sales.The current coverage of IBLI is confined to the drylands of northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia inhabited by pastoralists and agro-pastoralists. Most of the available studies on pastoralism in this region estimate that pastoral and agro-pastoral communities constitute 25% and 10-12% of the total population in Kenya and Ethiopia, respectively (Ahmed et al., 2002). According to the World Bank (2014b), pastoralists occupy some 60% of the total land area, mainly the peripheral areas of the Horn of Africa, engaging in extensive livestock herding in the arid and semi-arid lands within their respective countries but also most importantly flexibly move across borders into neighbouring countries. 2. IBLI development processThe more than 10 million pastoralists that live in the ASALs of Eastern Africa Pastoral households' perpetual exposure to drought is therefore not only detrimental in the short term but also affects longer-term opportunities in the livestock sector that might reduce their livelihood vulnerability and poverty in general. These and other challenges to pastoral livelihoods are a clear indication of the need to widen the availability of risk management options for pastoral herders to reduce their level of vulnerability. However, not all risks are insurable; some happen frequently but have nominal impact (i.e., milk spillage) while others happen infrequently but have a devastating effect on the financial resources of the household (i.e., livestock theft).With an extensive research experience in Eastern Africa's ASALs and collaborations internationally, ILRI and its technical partners undertook extensive pastoral communities engagement in Kenya in Marsabit in 2008 including household surveys and field experiments in multiple locations. The processes that followed this inception were focused on contract design and piloting the product.In line with northern Kenya's rainy-dry seasons, ILRI developed a contract covering long rain long drought (LRLD) and short rain short drought (SRSD).In this arrangement, insurance contracts are sold (for approximately two months) just before the start of the rainy season and are assessed at the end of the dry period to determine whether indemnity payments are to be made.Contracts are specified per tropical livestock unit (TLU) at a pre-agreed value per TLU. Pastoralist clients choose the total livestock value to insure, pay the associated premium to the insurance broker and receive indemnity payments proportionate to their IBLI coverage in the event of a payout. The contract is specific at the location level, based on the predicted mortality rate as a function of the vegetation index specific to the grazing range of that location.The index on which the insurance contract is written is the predicted area average mortality rate, defined as a function of the NDVI. Because NDVI data are available in real time, the predicted mortality index can be updated continuously over the course of the contract period. We express the index in terms of percentage predicted mortality instead of NDVI in order to expressly link the index to the insurable interest of contract holders.There are two comparable approaches to pricing an insurance contract, based on different underlying distributions. The first is a simple historical burn rate approach, in which the contract is priced based purely on the available historical distribution of vegetation data. The second is the simulation approach, which involves first estimating parametrically or semi-parametrically the distributions of the underlying vegetation index (NDVI) and then pricing the contracts based on those estimated distributions. The second approach has the advantage of assigning non-zero probabilities to events that may not appear in the available historical data, but the disadvantage of assigning probabilities based on estimating probabilities without knowing the true data generating process. IBLI pricing uses historical burn rate pricing based on 27 years of available NDVI data updated annually. Like all designs and development processes of index insurance, the IBLI development process began with the utilisation of information gathered on household-level livestock mortality data collected monthly from 1996 in various northern Kenya locations and NDVI data collected on the same locations.However, the data alone were insufficient to yield the accuracy required to design an effective index insurance product. To solve this problem, IBLI design utilised the NDVI, which other than being reliable and cheap can also provide historical data that can easily be correlated with corresponding historical livestock mortality. Most importantly, since livestock in pastoralist systems depend entirely on available forage for nutrition, the NDVI would theoretically be a strong indicator, not only of the vegetation available for livestock to consume, but consequently of livestock mortality as well.The more than 10 million people who occupy northern Kenya's and southern Ethiopia's drylands depend overwhelmingly on livestock, which represent the vast majority of household wealth and account for more than two-thirds of average income. Livestock mortality is the most serious economic risk these pastoralist households face. The importance of livestock mortality risk management for pastoralists is amplified by the apparent presence of poverty traps in East African pastoral systems. These poverty traps are characterized by multiple herd size equilibrium such that losses that push a household below a critical thresholdtypically 8-16 tropical livestock units (TLUs) -tend to tip a household into destitution (McPeak and Barrett, 2001;Lybbert et al., 2004;Barrett et al., 2006).Put differently, livestock losses that push households below this threshold appear irreversible in expectation, or to at least have very severe, long-term consequences.Uninsured risk is the primary driver of such poverty traps among East African pastoralists (Santos and Barrett, 2006). Most livestock mortality is associated with severe drought. In the past 100 years, northern Kenya recorded 28 major droughts, four of which occurred in the last 10 years (Adow, 2008).Pastoralist households commonly manage livestock mortality primarily through animal husbandry practices, in particular nomadic or transhumant migration in response to variability in forage and water availability. Traditionally, pastoralists herd losses are managed through social insurance arrangements that provide informal inter-household transfers of livestock, but these schemes cover a small component of loss (less than 10% of household herd losses on average), they do not include everyone and are generally perceived as in decline. In some isolated but increasing cases households can draw on cash savings and/or informal credit from family or friends to purchase animals to restock a herd after losses.But generally most livestock mortality risk remains uninsured.Extensive research (Chantarat et al., 2013) undertaken in Kenya's ASALs confirmed:• Pastoralists' keen interest in an asset insurance product• Their comprehension of the basic features of the index insurance product explained below• Some modest willingness to pay for the product at a commercially viable premium -sufficient to support commercial implementation and market mediation.Pastoral households in rural northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia have little access to formal financial institutions like banks because their incomes are low and volatile and because they lack (acceptable) assets for collateral when trying to seek loans. Access to financial services, especially insurance, is therefore challenging, and local people tend to borrow from shops, relatives and neighbours or other informal lenders.IBLI target beneficiaries are small and marginal cattle-herders in the rural areas of northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia who are dependent on pastoral herding of cattle, camel and shoats as a primary or secondary source of income.The project's initial target was to enrol 20,000 cattle-owners. These beneficiaries will be enrolling their livestock in an IBLI scheme supported by donors and implemented by NGOs. The IBLI scheme also has endorsement by the Government of Kenya through the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA). The product has been heavily subsidised for poorer households through donor funds.IBLI and related research on livestock insurance in the ASALs of Eastern Africa products to protect herders from drought-related asset losses (Mude et al., 2009).The products and lessons of this collaboration have been used for wider policy development in pastoral production systems across Eastern Africa.The active involvement of the private insurance companies with a presence at the point of product sales is required for the successful implementation of the IBLI scheme. They are to be associated with the work of premium sales, issuance of product information and claim settlement. Besides, being in touch with the cattle herders, they may also help in promoting and popularising the scheme. As a result, our study surveyed 125 households representative of three counties in northern Kenya -Marsabit, Isiolo and Wajir. The survey reviewed a range of social and economic characteristics; analysed income sources and income activities; identified recurring risks related to pastoral herding; evaluated the level of financial literacy; and gauged the extent to which respondents would invest in IBLI. In relation to investment in IBLI, the indicators for the following three questions were scrutinized in detail:• What is the extent of implementation of IBLI in focus locations?• What are the drivers of high levels of adoption by pastoralists?• What is the trend of the adoption over time? And what accounts for this trend?An overwhelming proportion of respondents indicated that livestock provided at least 50% of their income. In relation to livestock asset losses, drought was identified as the major cause of livestock mortality. Given these characteristics, strictly speaking, more than half of the respondents can potentially be IBLI policyholders.However, respondents appear receptive to taking insurance as an aversion to drought risk losses. IBLI came fourth in the preferred list of risk mitigation options.Since the initial launch of sales in January of 2010, there have been regular sale periods. IBLI contracts, as a function of the risk being insured, can only be sold in the two month period preceding the rains to minimise any information content on the ensuing season for which risk is being purchased. In line with seasonal rainfall trends, sales for annual contracts are sold in January and February, before the start of the long rains in March, and in August and September before the short rains in October.Note: LRLD, long rain long drought; SRSD, short rain short drought  While many have hoped that the IBLI could deliver financial services to the poor, in reality this has been very difficult for a number of reasons. IBLI uptake has fluctuated since inception and while some seasons have seen promising uptake of IBLI contracts, there has indeed been a general trajectory of declining sales since inception. Understanding these reasons is an important first step in identifying ways in which IBLI can be sustainably up-scaled to other areas.IBLI is in many ways a special product. High level of adoption and uptake are a combination of various factors inherent in its features and modes of delivery.These features are explained below.First is the distribution challenge of conventional insurance: pastoral herders are often dispersed (most are engaged in mobile pastoralism) and simply reaching them (or having them come to an office to purchase insurance) often requires significant travel, which is costly and time-consuming. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that, because insurance is a complicated product, it requires individuals with relatively high levels of human capital to sell and service policies.The cost of selling and underwriting insurance policies in northern Kenya has made it difficult to realistically price insurance and increase adoption. Indexbased insurance innovations and the mobile phone infrastructure have decreased transaction costs and increased efficiency by making payout processing and premium collection easier and faster. As of June 2014, over 5,000 mobile phonelinked IBLI policies have been issued, with 5 of the 33 micro-insurance services identified by the Groupe Speciale Mobile Association (GSMA) achieving a scale of greater than 1 million policies. MicroEnsure in Ghana is cited as a particularly successful case, as it has developed policies to cover multiple types of risk (life, accident and hospital).Second, much of the pastoral population, especially the more mobile herders, lack a solid understanding of financial products and may therefore not recognise the value provided by financial services in general and IBLI in particular. Even in developed economies, low financial literacy has been identified as a barrier preventing the poor from accessing government-supported health insurance programmes. IBLI impact analysis reported that, in a sample of rural pastoral herders in northern Kenya, households with greater measured financial literacy were more likely to own insurance policies.A third reason why IBLI markets have not developed quickly is the existence of psychological or behavioural biases. Generally, pastoral herders make inconsistent decisions. Subsequent work has demonstrated the existence and importance of behavioural biases in relation to risks. With respect to insurance, perhaps the most important bias is 'risk aversion', a term used to describe the phenomenon whereby individuals are extremely averse to incurring cost against risks, relative to obtaining gains. Though one might hope that the presence of risk itself drives insurance purchasing behaviour, some evidence suggests that framing really matters. For example, herders purchasing a policy but not experiencing a loss might treat the insurance purchase decision as a 'loss'.IBLI is expected to reduce livelihood vulnerability of pastoral herders directly, by insuring the livelihood assets against drought loss. However, the direct impacts are difficult to measure accurately in the short term and are subject to short-term variations. IBLI contracts and subsequent payouts are expected to raise household spending across a range of livestock services and to stabilise consumption of food and other essentials across seasons and years. IBLI contracts encourage investments in complementary income-earning activities or assets, which would further reduce poverty.Before considering the overall impact of IBLI on pastoral household vulnerability to drought risks and associated losses, it is worth considering how different pastoral households benefit from IBLI, referred to as variation in exposure to the IBLI tool. Programme exposure varies for three reasons:• Some pastoral households contain multiple IBLI policyholders• Some pastoral households have benefitted from more payouts than others. This is sometimes due to differences in geographical readings in NDVI, but in some cases it is due to individual households buying policies for different species of livestock (e.g., cattle and camel, shoats and cattle)• Differences in entry periods (first time buyers, returning buyers and multiple policy buyers).It is expected that the IBLI would have a lower impact on households that have received less 'exposure', either as a result of living in a large household (where the effective per person value of the transfer is lower), having received fewer payment cycles, and/or because they hold just one (for a particular species of livestock) rather than two or more policies. These effects are taken into account as part of the impact heterogeneity analysis presented in this report. Index-based insurance products are expected to reduce poverty directly by reducing household exposure to drought risk and inevitable income loss.However, incomes are difficult to measure accurately and are subject to shortterm variations so surveys tend to estimate consumption instead; 'monthly household consumption expenditure per adult equivalent' is a standard proxy for household welfare.Second, IBLI policyholders are expected to resort to 'panic' or 'distress' livestock asset sales -and where livestock losses actually occur, they have additional income in the form of an insurance payout. Some of the payout money might also be invested in income-earning activities or assets, which might further reduce poverty. At the same time, some of the transfers might be allocated to non-consumption transactions such as repaying debts, saving or providing informal support to vulnerable relatives.Overall, given that it was not especially targeted at poor households but livestockowning pastoral herders, the IBLI was making a small but significant contribution to household consumption, and especially to food consumption, which is more significant the poorer the household is to begin with. Given this, it would be expected that the IBLI should have an impact on consumption expenditure, especially for the poorest households, and thus in turn might have an impact on the poverty rates of beneficiaries.IBLI might allow additional food to be purchased by households facing food deficits or hunger, and might also be invested in other income-generating activities. Household food security is therefore expected to improve, especially among poorer households, who typically spend higher proportions of their income on food than do wealthier households.Many respondents referred to reduced distress sales and the resulting 'peace of mind' as the most fundamental impact the IBLI has had on their well-being, with 87% of IBLI policyholding households reporting that since buying an IBLI contract they have been able to reduce distress sales by almost 50%:\"The IBLI has brought many benefits, the first being that it has satisfied the hunger in the community\" [Male elder, Marsabit].\"Drought is the worst thing in this world for a pastoralist, so this money has really saved us from drought\" [focus group discussion with payout beneficiaries, Wajir].Household distress sales are therefore expected to improve as a result of the programme. It is also expected that the transfers will enable beneficiary households to afford a wider range of livelihood assets. Provided there are no significant supply-side constraints in local livestock markets, a regular transfer of cash should substantially reduce food insecurity.IBLI contracts increase some level of livelihood security, which should provoke a response by traders and result in increased supplies to local markets, stabilising both supplies and prices over time. But these effects will be moderated if IBLI is extensive and has higher coverage, if markets are not fragmented and transactions costs facing traders are not very high, and if traders have confidence that a contract payout is guaranteed. There is also a risk that IBLI will have an inflationary effect -driving down prices in the absence of a demand response -especially if markets are weak. For the IBLI, which aims to provide a safety net against livelihood asset losses in case of a drought, monitoring these effects is especially important in relation to staple foods such as cereals.The main livelihood activity in the IBLI operational area is livestock rearing, but droughts as well as economic, social and political changes have disrupted pastoralist livelihoods and led to increasing reliance on other sources of income, such as casual labour and collecting bush products for sale. IBLI contracts are expected to give recipients the means to invest in their livelihood activities, or to engage in new and more productive livelihood activities, not only because the extra cash provides working capital but because insuring loss of main livelihood assets gives recipients the confidence to take moderate risks.The IBLI pilot in Marsabit and subsequent scale-ups in other parts of northern Kenya's ASALs have a high potential to be used for drought micro-insurance.The product is closer and much more directly related to drought-related livestock asset losses than any other coping mechanism currently practised by pastoralists Kenya. Rainfall-based agricultural drought assessment methods, such as the water requirement satisfaction index (WRSI), are in fact ways of estimating the actual evapotranspiration from the rainfall data.Table 5 describes the characteristics of IBLI beneficiaries. The table shows that the frequency of contract renewal has largely remained stable over time, implying that in most cases the households which purchased IBLI contracts at baseline have subsequent renewals after the expiry of the initial contract. Itshows that IBLI policyholders predominantly renew their policies or buy additional policies (in around 90% of cases) and in only a very small number of cases did they neither renew nor buy additional policies (about 4%). In threequarters of cases policyholders are women, and in just over half of all cases they are heads of household. The average age of policyholders is around 41 years. Past pastoral risk mitigation projects were generally found to be quite unusually successful at achieving their intended outcomes. However, a model for connecting markets facilitation via the identification of a key-facilitating organisation (private business, civil society organisation or community-based) has yielded strikingly poor results in a number of instances. The problem has been such models depend on the opportunistic selection of a facilitator identified as already having momentum in one or more product markets that offer potential for expansion to increased numbers of farmers.There is a high level of awareness among most stakeholders of what the IBLI is and how it operates: a mechanism mitigating drought risk. ILRI and NGOs have a consistent understanding of the programme objectives (although these have never been fully articulated) based on their long and intimate involvement in the programme. On the other hand, the level of understanding of IBLI objectives and benefits among beneficiaries varies greatly, with some stakeholders holding certain and misgivings. It is envisaged that the capacity building and other pastoral community engagement process, embarked upon late 2014, will provide clarity by linking IBLI activities with a set of well-defined programme objectives.The use of Village Insurance Promoters (VIPs) as both a measure of support from ILRI and the basis of reaching the remotest and most inaccessible areas is a long-standing and well-accepted practice. The evaluation found that, while there is general consistency between VIPs and the insurance company sales strategies, some significant discrepancies exist. It is evident that over time the sales narrative and providing critical information on the IBLI product have become increasingly complex with a deleterious effect on transparency. While sales strategies have worked throughout the recent years of a growing IBLI programme reach, it is apparent that the introduction of new players into the programme, a decline in subsidies budget, or a combination of both has rendered the current practice unsustainable. This has unfortunate, but unavoidable, implications for IBLI sustainability, in that subsidy allocations cannot be guaranteed year on year.The Marsabit pilot has been designed initially as one-year initiative, and was a first of its kind for Kenya and Africa. The pilots have been customised to herders' needs, local livestock and weather requirements, and discussed in-depth with all key stakeholders involved: donors, partner implementing organisations, insurance companies and international reinsurers. Demand for these products has been assessed through frequent community perceptions surveys in Marsabit pilot communities. A national product launch was planned for November/ December 2010, where the product was showcased to donors, government agencies, insurance practitioners, partner organisations and regulatory bodies.This pilot was critical in determining the future landscape of micro-insurance in Kenya and the region at large. The pilot was successfully rolled out in northern Kenya all in Wajir and Isiolo counties, and made a sustainable business case for index-based livestock micro-insurance, while enhancing the livelihoods of the marginalised and under-served pastoralist herders. ILRI has been undertaking continuous research on product development as the future of these products lies in ensuring that they are efficient, built on streamlined and established delivery channels through microfinance institutions (MFIs), social protection schemes and NGOs, and serve as an affordable risk management tool for thousands of pastoralist herders across the region.Kenya has been dubbed the mobile capital of the world with its innovative mobile money transfer services. Safaricom, the largest telecom operator in Kenya with 20 million subscribers as of July 2014, collaborated with commercial insurance company to launch the first mobile-insurance product in Kenya in 2013 where premiums and payouts can be done using a cell phone. The policy can be subscribed to (or unsubscribed) via a text message and the premium is deducted from the cell phone balance according to the chosen insurance plan.Upon activation, the subscriber gets a confirmation text message with a policy number and PIN code. A physical copy of the policy can also be printed either from the Safaricom or insurer's website using this information, or acquired from the nearest Safaricom service centre. Insurers can also initiate payouts via SMS, which is then processed by the insurers and claims are settled within three to five working days after submission of the required documents.Although data on the programme were unavailable at the time of writing this report, the promise of technology in expanding insurance outreach is playing out in Kenya like in many countries across the world. In Kenya in particular, a few of the larger players are looking at entering the market through partnerships with microfinance providers, telecom companies and even utility companies.However, it is also clear that it will be the larger players that will be the first movers as existing information systems would need upgrading, extensive product testing would be required and even losses may need to be absorbed initially before economies of scale kick in and profits materialise. While ILRI and insurance sector stakeholders continue to strive for innovation in products through pilots and subsequent scale-ups of IBLI, there is excitement surrounding how to deliver these products to the right people at the right price.Examples from Kenya include distribution of IBLI products as a policy printed on livestock drug cartons and through water kiosks, livestock water points and vendors that sell livestock index products in pastoralists' settlements. A critical look at IBLI's current standing vs. its potential suggests that while ILRI and its partners have done an admirable job in bringing stakeholders on board and executing pilots, and while strong demand and impact potential clearly exist, there remain substantial challenges to establishing viable index insurance for smallholder pastoral herders on a retail basis at scale. ILRI's IBLI initiative has, like many similar pilots, focused on retail index initiatives.deflected attention from addressing some of the fundamental building blocks required for building a sustainable pastoral production system. These include, for example, improved access to veterinary drugs and services, water, ensuring reliable access to weather data, and a supportive regulatory framework. While these may have limited immediate or direct impact on pastoral poverty vulnerability reduction, it is unlikely that insurers can take existing retail pilots to scale without them.The following section critically evaluates the success factors of the IBLI product in terms of growth of micro-insurance business premium earned, product approved and customer benefited. The future growth potential is also looked at, dependent on the ability of the key stakeholders to strengthen the industry around the impact points (availability, affordability, awareness, cost efficiency, credibility) and enablers (product and pricing, delivery process, consumer education) for growth and sustainability. While the impact points are critical for building a robust index insurance demand for livestock herders, the enablers are critical for propelling the growth of the industry in future.The key advantages of index-based insurance relative to traditional insurance lie in the resolution of moral hazard and adverse selection problems, combined with cheap and fast settlement procedures and the ability to hedge local risk on global capital markets. The key disadvantages are basis risk, the relatively complex nature of the product and, in some cases, its cost. Flexibility in terms of product design, clearly indicates the loading (pricing) of insurance policies, or specifies exactly how the loading is calculated. For success it is essential that index-based insurance carefully outline the loading factor along with other important product design features, if possible, to facilitate comparisons across insurance products.8. Potential for scaling up the case studyThe aim of IBLI from inception was to be able to provide low-cost, satellite-based drought and excessive precipitation insurance to herders in the larger east and Horn of Africa. Drought is the single largest cause of livestock mortality in the east Horn of Africa, keeping herders stuck in vulnerability to climate variability and poverty. Index insurance is considered the key to escaping this poverty trap by improving the resilience of herders to drought risk losses. Insurance, in these marginalised areas, is also expected to unlock other financial services, allowing herders to invest in better inputs and reach much higher production and income.In 2015, the IBLI scheme, which was developed and piloted in Marsabit County in 2010, was replicated in another three northern Kenyan counties, namely Isiolo, Garissa and Wajir counties. Given the positive project results, ILRI has extended piloting to southern Ethiopia and is looking into further pilots in Somaliland and the larger Somalia.The target group for the IBLI scheme consists of over 10 million pastoral and agro-pastoral herders in the east and Horn of Africa rangelands. Pastoral herders in the arid and semi-arid rangelands of Eastern Africa inhabit the four key regions of Eastern Africa: northern Kenya, east and southern Ethiopia, western Somalia and parts of Eritrea and Djibouti. The 10-year target is to reach more than 7 million households, of which 1.6 million are expected to purchase the product offered. The insurance addresses the needs of pastoral herders that earn most of their income and livelihood from livestock.The main value proposition of the IBLI product for herders is that they can insure their livestock against losses as a result of drought risk. It thus protects a farmer against risks that seriously affect their ability to rebuild their herds after drought-related mortality. In effect, it is expected that IBLI modifies/unlocks the risk-aversion behaviour of herders towards livestock herding that prioritises optimisation of long-term productivity and drought-induced livestock loss.ILRI had therefore designed a transaction fee structure for private insurance providers to enable the delivery of the IBLI product through the use of an expansive agent network. Some NGOs, most notably Mercy Corps, have thought through strategies for the IBLI product to be offered as part of a basket of services that are essential for livestock production including veterinary drugs and services.ILRI has also embarked on efforts to offer IBLI sales, information and payouts that run on a mobile financial services platform in a bid to bring increasing value content as a cost-effective value to herders. By offering cost-effective transactions, private sector insurers are able to charge low prices thereby achieving transaction volume, which is one of the pillars of a viable business. With an anticipated livestock income of US$500 million per year in the region, the business becomes financially sustainable even with just a small percentage of insured herders reached after 10 years of the IBLI scheme.Given this background, the innovative business delivery channels were necessary if pastoral herders were to be reached with IBLI products. These processes however need huge investment in basic infrastructure that might drive product prices beyond the reach of ordinary herder households. In the case of IBLI, donor-funded subsidies covered a large part of the initial product development and piloting investment and hence had considerably reduced the financial risk to insurers. This fact has, however, caused critics to question the rationale for donor funds subsidising the private sector.It is important to note that from the start, IBLI was meant to advance publicprivate partnerships to expand financial service delivery to pastoral herders in northern Kenya with an index insurance product that offers a basic safety net to protect them against drought-related perils. In partnership with local insurance companies and a network of their agents, the insurance product will be delivered to vulnerable herder households to mitigate drought-induced herd losses.In combination with the main social protection programme for vulnerable pastoralist households, the insurance payout can be aligned with the HSNP to be made locally available through financial and infrastructure services of the HSNP. The project consortium will align to the rural finance strategy (RFS) as managed through Kenya's social protection systems. This allows for a systematic, synergetic approach to provide financial inclusion, promote investment for agriculture, broker sustainable production methods and provide risk transfer tools. The followed system approach creates a suitable legal, institutional and organisational framework.ILRI and its technical partners have done excellent work in establishing and sustaining extensive partnerships across the public and the private sectors on the basis of earlier research and development activities and during the inception and implementation of the IBLI scheme. The IBLI partnership is designed to be a mutually complementary and all-inclusive group.The main challenges that IBLI has been facing are related to scale and costs.Low costs are considered a mandatory feature of index insurance and would have been enabled by prices that make the product affordable to ordinary pastoral herders. IBLI pilot and subsequent scale-ups have had a major cost challenge because most pastoral herders take insurance for a very small portion of their herds. A huge donor subsidy programme during the pilot stages also stands in the way of a solution to this problem. Initially heavily subsidised in the pilot stages, the true cost of IBLI contracts was a major deterrent and a key factor in the decline of uptake for most pastoral households in the later stages.Reaching scale is not only a matter of increasing geographical coverage, but also requires adequate information processing and dissemination techniques without necessarily transferring costs to the herders. ILRI and its IBLI partners have built a variety of approaches to meet this challenge. These approaches include agency-based sales points and use of Village Insurance Promoters (VIPs) engaged to provide IBLI product-related information especially to herders with no formal education. These are complemented by the work of implementing NGOs who are engaged in other complementary programmes.For most herders who are without formal education, the complexities of IBLI are real and can potentially affect uptake if sufficient and proper information is One of the most important conclusions of the review and documentation of IBLI is that there is a large evidence gap on the impact of IBLI on pastoral vulnerability in the long term. While presenting our conclusions we would like to emphasise that our results are based on a very small sample of pastoral households and our and conclusions should be with this in mind. There is some evidence from IBLI implementation in northern Kenya that access to index-based livestock insurance decreases distress livestock sales during droughts. These findings are encouraging in terms of the potential impacts on livestock productivity but urgently need to be complemented by more research in more realistic settings.Overall, the IBLI scheme has shown great potential and is generally considered key to drought-induced risk cover, poverty alleviation, economic development and climate adaptation by pastoral herders in northern Kenya. It is clear that in a region largely marginalised economically where traditional asset insurance is expensive and sensitive to adverse selection bias, IBLI holds great promise for improving the lives of people for whom drought incidences can mean the difference between survival and catastrophic loss of the most important livelihood assets -livestock.In line with recent reviews, our documentation process inquiries have shown increasing uptake of IBLI across northern Kenyan counties in which the product is offered. By September 2015, over 5,000 insurance policies had been sold across the four counties in northern Kenya. The number of pastoral herders insured is expected to grow as IBLI partners' strategies for providing information alongside innovative product development gets into gear. IBLI uptake is also expected to increase as a result of public sector support and successful PPPs established thereof. In the following 10 years this number is expected to grow to over 20,000. Note prior to 2010, the Kenyan market for index-based livestock insurance was non-existent and traditional insurance served only some hundred thousand livestock farmers concentrated around the urban dairy sector.IBLI's relative success in northern Kenya is however not without some inherent complexities and challenges. These challenges will require careful thought and management to be overcome and successfully mitigated. At this point IBLI's potential for large-scale drought risk mitigation is still more on paper than in practice. While the product has been successfully developed and piloted, validated and tested in a large number of pilot projects in northern Kenya, the vulnerability of the herders are shown to have some impact on take-up. In terms of product design, evidence from IBLI in northern Kenya indicates that there may be interest in group-based insurance policies. ILRI is already considering introducing macro and meso level products for county governments in Kenya.This documentation process therefore concludes that the index-based livestock insurance currently implemented by ILRI in northern Kenya has shown great potential in providing an excellent alternative for mitigating drought-induced livestock asset losses for vulnerable pastoralist households. The product is uniform across spatial and temporal in its design and implementation, objective, validated and sufficient demand to make it commercially viable, which allows for easy scaling up, while keeping costs down.","tokenCount":"7107"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"089bfcb048ae0c312c76d67f0d7bb3a3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/1e863d74-970a-449f-a23a-d402b81fd5ef/retrieve","id":"4880625"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1290453e-f82c-4e76-aeee-90d033c6991b","pagecount":"2","content":"It is important to remember that quality milk production must begin at the farm. That way, your milk will have fewer bacteria that cause spoilage and diseases. In order to ensure good quality and protect the health of consumers, you must always carry out milking in accordance with good hygienic practice.You should observe the following:Maintain clean and healthy cows. Sick animals can transmit diseases to humans through contaminated milkKeep a clean milking environment, free of dust and mud. Garbage and dung in the milking area provide a good breeding ground for rats, flies and cockroaches that may transmit dirt and bacteria to the milk.• Do not milk cows if you are suffering from communicable diseases like diarrhoea or typhoid, but seek medical treatment and resume milking only when you have fully recovered.• Do not mix colostrums (the milk produced for the first seven days after calving) with normal milk.• Before milking wash your hands with soap and clean water before milking.• Wash the udder with a clean cloth and warm water and dry with a clean dry cloth• Make the first draw into a dark strip cup to check for mastitis and throw away from the milking area even if the milk appears clean. This exercise ensures that this first jet of milk cleans the teat channels from any material that might have entered between milking times.• Use clean metal stainless steel buckets -left picture for milking and not dirty ones like in the drawing to the right.Cows with mastitis should be milked last and their milk discarded.• Milk from cows under antibiotic treatmentThe process of milking ","tokenCount":"267"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"edd6e8feb4659a6e3920181e74988ad6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/97fbbfce-0eee-4588-82b3-efc0bb83959d/retrieve","id":"-847005330"},"keywords":["Genetic diversity","DArTseq markers","Provitamin A","Quality protein maize","Low-N tolerance","Inbred lines","Hybrids","Zea mays L"],"sieverID":"cb7f052d-ebbf-4b2c-8312-d2b5fecba1bf","pagecount":"13","content":"Background: Information on population structure and genetic diversity of germplasm in a breeding programme is useful because it enhances judicious utilisation of genetic resources to achieve breeding objectives. Seventy early maturing provitamin A (PVA) quality protein maize (QPM) inbreds developed by the IITA-maize improvement programme were genotyped using 8171 DArTseq markers. Furthermore, 96 hybrids derived from 24 selected inbreds plus four checks were evaluated under low-N and optimal environments in Nigeria during 2016 and 2017. Genotypic and phenotypic data of inbreds and hybrids respectively, were analysed to (i) assess the level of genetic dissimilarities and population structure of the inbreds, and (ii) investigate the grain yield performance of derived hybrids under low-N, optimal and across environments.Results: Genetic diversity among the seventy inbreds was high varying from 0.042 to 0.500 with an average of 0.357. Sixty-six inbred lines with probabilities ≥0.70 were assigned to a single group. The population structure analysis, the UPGMA phylogeny, and the principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA) of the DArTseq markers revealed a clear separation of five groups and each followed pedigree records. Clustered inbreds displayed common characteristics including high PVA levels, and drought and low-N tolerance. The top performing hybrid, TZEIORQ 40 × TZEIORQ 26 out-yielded the best hybrid control, TZEIOR 127 × TZEIOR 57 by 8, 3, and 9% under low-N, optimal, and across environments, respectively. High repeatability estimates were detected for grain yield under each and across environments. Similarly, high breeding efficiency of 71, 70 and 72% were computed under low-N, optimal, and across environments, respectively.In plant breeding programmes, information on the genetic variation of germplasm is important because it facilitates judicious utilisation of resources to achieve breeding objectives. Genetic diversity in maize has always been exploited to select diverse parents to maximize heterosis in hybrids. Maize as an out-crossing species has a complex genome [1] with a high degree of genetic variability which is advantageous to the breeder in achieving high heterosis [2]. Semagn et al. [3] demonstrated that high genetic variation in a source population could enhance the development of useful inbred lines to aid the identification of best parental combinations for the development of superior hybrids. Studies have revealed tremendous variability among tropical maize germplasm. Zhang et al. [4] and Dao et al. [5] estimated gene diversity among tropical and temperate maize populations and found more diversity in the tropical than the temperate germplasm. The early maturing (90-95 days to physiological maturity) provitamin A (PVA)quality protein maize (QPM) inbreds are novel tropical lines developed by the IITA-maize improvement programme with genes from diverse sources for PVA, quality protein, Striga resistance, and drought and low soil nitrogen tolerance. Assessment of the extent of genetic variability among the recently developed inbred lines would be useful in providing invaluable information to guide breeding strategies and facilitate progress in the development of hybrids and synthetics with combined drought and low-N tolerance, and high levels of PVA, tryptophan and lysine contents which are presently lacking in SSA. Maize production in SSA mostly occurs under low-N environments [6] by resource poor farmers who continuously crop maize with limited or no use of N fertilizer. During the past three decades, low-N has remained a great challenge to maize production and productivity in SSA resulting in about 10 to 50% loss of maize annually [7]. Therefore, the development and use of improved maize hybrids with tolerance to low-N conditions would contribute to superior grain yield potential in areas prone to low-N stress [8]. However, in the identification of low-N tolerant genotypes, the evaluations should be carried out under both low-N and favourable environments to accelerate gains from selection [9]. This approach enhances the identification of agronomically desirable genotypes that can give appreciable yield under low-N and maintain superior yield potential under favourable growing conditions. Moreover, heterosis could be maximized if the parental inbred lines involved in the hybrid combinations have varying genetic backgrounds [10]. It was therefore imperative to investigate the genetic backgrounds of the inbred lines in the present study using the Diversity Array Technology (DArT) which employs the Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) platform (DArTseq) [3,11,12] to provide highdensity and cost-effective whole genome genotyping. Although, the DArTseq technique involves several steps in its delivery, it was the method of choice because it has the ability to provide genome profiles which are very useful for characterization of germplasm collections as well as reliable and precise phenotyping. The presumed genetic differences in the inbred lines coupled with natural genetic variability associated with tropical maize germplasm [4,5] which could facilitate genetic improvement necessitated the assessment of the genetic diversity of the newly developed early maturing PVA-QPM inbred lines to ensure increased rate of genetic gain in derived hybrids. Thus, the present study was designed to (i) assess the genetic dissimilarities among the inbred lines using high-density DArTseq markers, (ii) examine the genetic structure of the inbred lines to maximize heterosis in hybrid combinations and (iii) investigate the performance of derived hybrids for grain yield and other agronomic traits under low-N, optimal and across environments.In the subset of 8171 SNP-based DArTseq markers, changes in base pairs were A/C (892), A/G (2322), A/T (815), C/G (963), G/T (2278) and C/T (901). Among the polymorphic SNPs, the A/G and G/T transitions constituted the most informative which accounted for 28.4 and 27.9%, respectively. Gene diversity ranged from 0.042 to 0.500 with a mean of 0.357 (Fig. 1). A similar trend was observed for the PIC values which varied from 0.041 to 0.375 with a mean of 0.287. Heterozygous individuals identified per marker varied from 0.000 to 0.929 with a mean of 0.056. About 73% of the informative SNPs identified over 95% homozygous individuals. Major allele frequency ranged from 0.500 to 0.978 with a mean of 0.74. The genetic distance generated among the 70 inbred lines ranged from 0.018 to 0.455 with an average of 0.336.Based on the Nei's genetic distance, the UPGMA phylogenetic tree displayed five main groups for the 70 inbred lines (Fig. 2). Thirteen inbred lines constituted group I, group II had 8, group III consisted of 18, group IV had 6 while group V was made up of 25 inbred lines. With the exception of the six checks, all the inbred lines had been improved through direct selection for Striga resistance and drought tolerance, indirect selection for low-N tolerance as well as direct selection for increased PVA and quality protein levels. The six checks (two normal yellow and four QPM yellow endosperm inbred lines) constituted group IV. Available information on the inbred lines revealed that the different groups and subgroups largely depended on pedigree information, the presence and the dose of genes for drought tolerance, as well as PVA and quality protein (lysine and/ or tryptophan) levels.The model-based clustering using an admixture programme in the STRUCTURE software was employed to deduce the number of clusters (K) within the 70 early maturing inbred lines. In structure analysis, two criteria can be used to determine the best K in a population.These are the use of log of likelihood for each K [13,14] and the use of an ad hoc quantity (ΔK) [9]. For the log of likelihood criterion, LnP(D) plateaued when K approached a true value (Fig. 3). On the other hand, the ΔK revealed the highest peak at the true K (Fig. 4). The two plots consistently identified five clusters in the population (Fig. 5). Sixty-six inbred lines which had probabilities ≥0.70 were allocated to a single cluster, while 4 inbreds (5.71% of the total) had probabilities < 0.70 and could not be distinctly classified into any of the groups (Table S1). The four inbreds were referred to as a mixed group. The number and the order of grouping of the inbred lines in the structure analysis were very similar to that of the UPGMA phylogeny. In the STRUCTURE bar plot, the number of inbred lines classified into each cluster varied from 25 in group I, 8 in group II, 14 in group III, 13 in group IV, 6 in group V and 4 in mixed group.Principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA) of the DArTseq data was carried out to alternatively study the structure of the inbred population [15]. The output of the PCoA was highly consistent with that of the structure analysis. As illustrated in Fig. 6, the PCoA clearly revealed 5 groups of inbred lines similar to those identified in the structure analysis.Mean squares of environment (E), hybrid (G), and their interactions (GEI) were significant (p < 0.01 or 0.05) for measured traits under each and across environments except mean squares of GEI for ASI under low-N, and grain yield across environments (Tables S2 and S3). Mean squares for research condition (Rcond) × hybrid interactions showed significant (p < 0.01) difference only for ASI. GCA male, GCA female, SCA, GCA male × E, GCA female × E, and SCA × E revealed significant (p < 0.01 or 0.05) differences for all traits. The few exceptions were GCA male × E interactions for ASI under optimal conditions and across environments, and GCA female × E for ASI under optimal conditions. Comparison of grain yield performance of the hybrids under low-N and optimal conditions revealed yield reductions ranging from 10% for TZEIORQ 29 × TZEIORQ 43 to 71% for TZEIORQ 43 × TZEIORQ 41, with a mean of 34% (Table 1). The top performing hybrid, TZEIORQ 40 × TZEIORQ 26 (based on the multiple trait index under low-N) out-yielded the best commercial hybrid control, TZEIOR 127 × TZEIOR 57 by 8, 3, and 9% under low-N, optimal, and across environments, respectively. Among the top performing hybrids under low-N conditions, only TZEIORQ 29 × TZEIORQ 43 significantly (p < 0.05) yielded better than the best commercial hybrid control. However, the yield was not significantly different from those of the top 15 hybrids.Repeatability (R) values were relatively higher under optimal environments compared to that of low-N (Table 1). High R estimates were detected for grain yield and most other traits under both low-N and optimal conditions. Similarly, high breeding efficiency of 71, 70 and 72% were computed under low-N, optimal, and across environments respectively (Table 2). Over 97% of the crosses classified as the 32 high yielding inter-group hybrids met the set criterion, while more than 84% of the crosses categorized as the 32 low yielding intra-group hybrids also satisfied that criterion for the estimation of breeding efficiency under low-N, optimal and across research conditions. The degree of genetic dissimilarity and population structure of the 70 early maturing inbred lines were assessed using 8171 DArTseq markers. The summary statistics, UPGMA phylogeny, structure analysis, and PCoA were used to investigate the inbred population to ascertain whether the population was homogeneous or harboured genetically distinct groups. The average gene diversity (GD) of 0.36 obtained was higher than the 0.35 reported by Zhang et al. [4] when a tropical group of maize varieties was studied. The GD was also higher than that obtained in previous studies by Lu et al. [16] and Van Inghelandt [17] which was around 0.32, but was lower than the value reported by Wu et al. [18] which was 0.364, as well as that obtained by Yang et al. [19] which was 0.39. The results agreed with previous findings that tropical maize germplasm is highly diverse with GD > 0.3 [4,20]. Additionally, the observed average residual heterozygosity of 5.6% was higher compared with the 3.80% obtained by Dao et al. [5], as well as the 3.34% found by Liu et al. [21], but was lower than the 8.6% obtained by Jambrovic et al. [22]. The practically acceptable level of average heterozygosity indicated that the proportion of heterozygous individuals in the set of inbred lines was reasonably low with most of the inbreds being about 94.4% homozygous with their loci fixed with minimal segregation. The average PIC obtained, 0.289 (ranging from 0.041 to 0.375) using 8171 SNPs for the 70 inbred lines was higher than the 0.24 reported by Yu et al. [23] using 1000 SNPs for a sample size of 274, as well as the 0.256 reported by Dao et al. [5] using 1057 SNPs for a sample size of 100. This result indicated the existence of a high frequency of alleles and therefore high genetic diversity in the population as evident in the average major allele frequency of 0.74. The average PIC value was similar to that reported by Wu et al. [18] which was 0.29 using varying number of SNPs up to 43,252 for a sample of 1857. The differences in the results of this study relative to other studies may be due to the use of different genetic materials, the sample sizes and the number of SNPs used.Based on the 8171 SNPs and the Nei's [24] genetic distance methods, the UPGMA phylogeny using 1000 non-parametric bootstrapping revealed five clusters for the 70 inbred lines. The clustering together of particular inbred lines into a group illustrated that the DArTseq markers were identical in state at common loci for those inbred lines and that there was the tendency for such inbred lines to be more related than those in different groups. The inbred lines were extracted from the source population 2009 TZE -OR2 DT STR QPM which is early maturing, has elevated levels of PVA and quality protein, drought tolerance (and tolerance to low-N through unintentional selection) and Striga resistance [25,26]. The 13 inbred lines in group I followed pedigree information or were identical by descent, and were mostly drought and moderately low-N tolerant. The eight inbred lines in group II were related by pedigree records and were mostly drought tolerant. (crtRB1) [26]. Also, in group III, inbred lines consisting of TZEIORQ 55, TZEIORQ 29 and TZEIORQ 20, contained moderate to high PVA contents. It was striking that all the six inbred checks were classified into group IV. The inbred checks had yellow kernels and mostly possessed high quality protein levels and hence their clustering might have been influenced by common loci responsible for these traits. Group V was relatively larger and contained inbred lines which were related by descent [25,26]. The log of likelihood method of determining the best K showed a steep increase in LnP(D) values from K = 1 to K = 5 after which the trend assumed a plateau. This observation indicated that the true K was 5 [13,14] and that five genetically distinct clusters existed in the entire population. Similarly, the Evanno criterion identified the peak level of ΔK at K = 5 [14] inferring five genetically distinct clusters. The three multivariate analyses illustrated the existence of genetically different groups among the inbred lines. Comparison of the different methods revealed high consistency among the UPGMA clustering, the structure analysis, and the PCoA clustering considering the number of groups and number of individuals assigned to each group indicating that the identified groups were indeed genetically distinct. Individuals from the different groups were therefore, expected to harbour different favourable alleles for breeding for drought and/ low-N tolerant hybrids and synthetics with elevated PVA and QPM contents. The result contradicted the findings of Dao et al. [5] and Semagn et al. [3] who reported a high consistency among structure analysis and the PCoA but a low concordance with the neighbour-joining phylogeny generated using the Roger's genetic distance method. This could be due to the differences in the inbred lines used in the different studies, the different methods of obtaining the genetic distances among the inbreds, as well as the different clustering algorithms. The clustering according to the three multivariate analyses employed in the present study followed the available pedigree information, that is, expected related lines clustered together. This result substantiated other reports that the grouping of the tropical maize populations were largely consistent with pedigree records [3,5,27]. The result also demonstrated that the SNP-based DArT derived markers were informative in providing genome profiles which are very useful for the identification of unique characteristics among the inbred lines [3,28]. The highly significant mean squares of G and E observed for most measured traits including grain yield and stay green characteristic under low-N, optimal, and across environments implied the existence of high genetic variability among the 96 hybrids generated [29] and that the test environments were unique and effectively revealed genetic differences among the hybrids to warrant selection. The significant mean squares of GEI detected for grain yield and most measured traits under each and across research conditions indicated that environmental variation controlled the expression of traits thus substantiating the need to conduct genotype evaluations across multiple environments [30][31][32] to better assess grain yield performance and stability of genotypes [33,34]. The significant GCA male, GCA female, SCA, and their interactions with environments for grain yield and most other traits suggested that additive and nonadditive genetic effects controlled the inheritance of the traits. This implied that good parental inbreds could be identified for further improvement in the traits while outstanding hybrids could be selected for commercialization. The range of grain yield reduction (10-71%) observed for the hybrids was higher compared to the 10-50% reported by [7]. This suggested that the low-N conditions imposed were more severe and therefore, identified top performing hybrids were likely to possess low-N tolerant genes which might have been inherited from the parental inbreds [10]. The top-ranking hybrid, TZEIORQ 29 × TZEIORQ 43 which significantly out-yielded the controls under low-N with non-significant yield penalties under favourable growing conditions was also not significantly different from the remaining 14 top-performing hybrids. This suggested that all the 15 top-performing hybrids should be further evaluated to confirm consistency of performance under each and across environments for release and commercialization. These hybrids would be the hybrids of choice because they possess better grain yield potential compared to the four hybrid controls, TZEIOR 127 × TZEIOR 57, TZEI 124 × TZEI 25, TZE Pop DT STR × TZEI 17, and TZE Pop DT STR × TZEI 13 which have been released and commercialized (except TZEIOR 127 × TZEIOR 57) in Nigeria, Ghana and Mali [25]. Moreover, the promising hybrids in the pipeline have extra advantage of elevated levels of PVA, lysine and tryptophan which are lacking in the available commercial hybrid checks.The high repeatability estimates detected for grain yield and most other traits under each and across environments implied that repeated evaluations of the hybrids under the different research conditions would yield results consistent with those of the present study. Thus, genetic effects were preponderance over environmental effects to modulate the expression of the measured traits. The results also suggested that direct selection for grain yield under each and across environments would be effective. Contrary to this result, several authors have obtained low repeatability estimates for grain yield particularly under stress environments partly due to the quantitative nature of the inheritance of the trait, and the severity of the stress imposed [35][36][37][38]. The differences in the results could be due the different genetic materials, and level of stress imposed. It was striking to detect high breeding efficiency under low-N, optimal and across environments indicating that the inbred lines involved in the hybrid combinations belonged to genetically distinct groups as revealed by the results of the molecular (DArTseq) marker analysis. Similar results were found by [39] who detected high breeding efficiency for hybrids using SNP marker groupings of early white inbred lines. The results suggested that maximum heterosis (more productive crosses) could be exploited from the early PVA-QPM inbred set under low-N, and optimal conditions by selecting parental lines from opposing groups generated by the DArTseq markers.The clustering according to admixture implemented in the structure software, the principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA) of the DArTseq markers and the UPGMA phylogeny consistently revealed five groups each which followed pedigree records. The three analyses were also highly consistent regarding the number of inbreds assigned to a group. Closely related genotypes with common characteristics including high PVA, lysine and tryptophan contents, and also drought and low-N tolerance were assigned to common groups indicating the existence of genetically distinctiveness between groups in the set of inbreds assessed. Hybrid evaluations showed high breeding efficiency under low-N, optimal and across environments indicating that the inbred lines involved in the hybrid combinations belonged to genetically distinct groups as revealed by the molecular (DArTseq) markers. The 15 top performing hybrids identified out-yielded the four hybrid controls under low-N conditions and suffered no yield penalties under favourable growing conditions. The hybrids should be further evaluated to confirm consistency of performance under each and across environments for release and commercialization. The inbred lines from opposing clusters could therefore be exploited for developing drought and/ or low-N tolerant hybrids and synthetics with elevated PVA and quality protein contents for commercialization in SSA, and for the improvement of the early maturing PVA-QPM inbred lines.Seventy early maturing PVA-QPM inbred lines recently developed by the IITA-maize improvement programme were used in the current study (Table S4). All genetic materials were sourced from the IITA maize programme. The development of the lines commenced in 2007 and by 2015 they were at the S 7 generation of inbreeding as described by Badu-Apraku and Fakorede [25] and Obeng-Bio et al. [26]. Briefly, the lines were generated from the 2009 TZE-OR2 DT STR QPM variety which was formed from a BC 1 F 3 generation derived from the cross between the Striga resistant and drought tolerant early QPM orange/ yellow population, TZE-Y Pop DT STR QPM and [Syn-KU1409/DES/1409 (OR2)], an intermediate variety (105-110 days to physiological maturity) with high PVA content.During the inbreeding programme, the inbred lines were evaluated from the S 2 to the S 5 generations to identify those with deep orange kernel colour and possessing 25-50% opaqueness. The present study assessed the genetic diversity of the 70 IITA inbred lines including 66 PVA-QPM lines along with two normal yellow and two yellow QPM inbred checks, also from the IITA maize improvement programme. The checks were selected based on their reactions to drought and low-N stresses. In addition, 24 inbred lines were selected based on the kernel colour for provitamin A levels, endosperm opaqueness (25-50%) for tryptophan and lysine content, and tolerance to low-N and drought [25,26]. These were used to develop 96 single crosses utilizing the North Carolina II mating design. The 96 hybrids were subsequently tested under low-N and optimal environments at Mokwa and Ile-Ife during the 2016 and 2017 growing seasons in Nigeria.Leaves of the inbred lines were sampled from 10 typical plants (one leaf per plant) of each inbred line at 2 weeks after planting (WAP). The leaf samples were freezedried, and genomic DNA samples were extracted from the leaf tissues following the DArT DNA extraction protocol [40]. DNA concentration of 30 ng/ μl was obtained for each sample (Thermo Scientific, USA). The quality of DNA was determined on 0.8% agarose gel and short or degenerated DNA were discarded.Genotyping by sequencing was performed for the PVA-QPM inbred lines with a high-density whole-genome profiling of DArT services [11]. The genotyping services were provided by the Integrated Genomic Service and Support (IGSS) platform of BecA-ILRI in Kenya deploying 44,391 DArTseq codominant markers. Data generated were analysed with the DArTsoft (DArT P/L, Canberra, Australia) software as described by DArT Pty Ltd., Australia [40].The 96 single crosses and four commercial hybrid checks were tested under low-N (30 kg/ ha) conditions at Ile-Ife (7°28′ N, 4°33′ E, and 244 m above sea level, 1200 mm annual rainfall) and Mokwa (9 о 18'N, 5 о 4′E, 457 m altitude, 1100 mm annual rainfall) in the 2016 and 2017 growing seasons. The soil types at Ile-Ife and Mokwa are Alfisol and Luvisol, respectively [41]. Before the establishment of the low-N trials, the fields were continuously used for high density maize cultivation without N fertilizer application for several years and the biomass was completely removed from the field immediately after each harvest. These measures were adopted to deplete the soil of N. Thereafter, the nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) levels of the soil from each location were determined from the depth of 0 to 15 cm following the Kjeldahl digestion and colorimetric method [42] at the IITA analytical services laboratory, Ibadan, Nigeria. The soil from the low-N field at Ile-Ife had 0.084 g/kg of N, 2.05 g/kg of P and 0.358 g/kg of K, while that of Mokwa contained 0.085 g/kg of N, 6.32 g/ kg of P and 0.20 g/kg of K. From the soil test, NPKfertilizer that contained urea, single-superphosphate and muriate-of-potash was formulated and applied immediately after thinning. This brought the levels of the total available basal N to 15 kg/ha while the P 2 O 5 and K 2 O levels provided 60 kg/ha each of P and K. At 4 WAP, 15 kg/ha of urea was applied to obtain 30 kg/ha of total N. The hybrids were also evaluated under optimal conditions at Ile-Ife and Mokwa during the 2016 and 2017 growing seasons. For the experiments under optimal conditions, N P K (15:15:15) was applied at 2 WAP to supply 60 kg/ha each of N, P and K and top-dressed with an additional 30 kg/ha of N at 4 WAP. A 10 × 10 alpha lattice design with two replicates was used in both low-N and optimal experiments. An experimental unit consisted of a single-row plot, 4 m long with row and hill spacings of 0.75 and 0.40 m, respectively. Two stands per hill were maintained to obtain about 66,666 plants per hectare. Pre-and post-emergence herbicides with the active ingredients primextra and paraquat respectively, were applied at the rate of 5 l/ha to suppress weed growth. Manual weeding was also done intermittently to ensure effective weed control.The number of days to 50% anthesis (DA) and silking (DS), and plant height (PLHT) were recorded. Plant aspect (PASP) scores were obtained using a scale of 1-9, where 1 denoted excellent overall appearance of plants and 9 extremely poor overall appearance of plants. Ear aspect (EASP) was also rated on a 1-9 scale, where 1 indicated well-filled ears with no insect and disease damages and 9 represented plots with ears having only one or no kernel. Anthesis-silking interval (ASI) was computed as the difference between DA and DS, while the number of ears per plant (EPP) was derived as the number of ears harvested per plot divided by the number of plants in the same plot. Stay-green characteristic (STGR) was rated under low-N at 70 days after planting (DAP), that is, soft dough development stage [43], on a 1-9 scale where 1 = less than 0.10 dead leaf area, and 9 = more than 0.80 dead leaf area. Grain yield (kg/ha) was calculated using the grain weight adjusted to 15% moisture content under low-N conditions. However, under optimal conditions, a shelling percentage of 80 was assumed per plot for the hybrids and grain yield (kg/ha) was calculated using ear weight adjusted to 15% moisture content.DArTseq markers with > 80% call rate were retained prior to statistical analysis. Thereafter, markers with > 10% missing rate were filtered out using the TASSEL software version 5.2.12 [44]. Minimum and maximum frequencies of 0.05 and 0.95 respectively, were also considered for the filtering of markers to finally retain 8171 markers for all subsequent analyses. Summary statistics including gene diversity, heterozygosity, polymorphic information content (PIC) and major allele frequency were computed with PowerMarker version 3.25 [45]. Gene frequency, and frequency based genetic distance matrix consisting of the 70 inbred lines were estimated for the DArT-seq data using the Nei [24] method implemented in PowerMarker version 3.25. Using the frequency based genetic distance estimates, the Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Mean (UPGMA) and 1000 nonparametric bootstrapping across different loci were applied in PowerMarker to construct a dendrogram to visualize patterns of genetic dissimilarities in the panel of 70 lines.In order to determine the genetic structure of the inbreds the STRUCTURE software package version 2.3.4 [46] which implements a Bayesian clustering procedure was used to analyse the 8171 DArTseq data. The number of sub-groups (K) was determined using a procedure that implemented shared allele frequencies and admixture. The number of K was set to vary from 1 to 12 with 10 replications. Each replication was programmed to run for 10,000 burn-period and 100,000 Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) iterations. The Log of likelihood [LnP(D)] in STRUCTURE analysis and the derived change in K (ΔK) were used to predict the true K value online from the STRUCTURE Harvester [14]. The derived ΔK takes into account the changing trend of LnP(D) with increase in K, as well as the variance of LnP(D) as the runs are repeated. The ΔK reaches the highest peak when the true value of K is realized. The formula used was:where: L(K) is the K th LnP(D), M is the mean of 10 runs, and S, the standard deviation. The K with the maximum likelihood was identified as the true K and was used to classify the inbred lines into groups. Individual inbreds with membership probability greater than or equal to 0.70 were classified into the same group while inbreds with membership probability less than 0.70 constituted a mixed group [16,19]. Principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA) of the DArTseq markers was performed using GenALEx version 6.5 [47,48].For the hybrid trials, location by year combinations constituted an environment while the low-N and optimal environments represented research conditions. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) based on the NCII mating arrangement was performed on plot mean basis for the agronomic data under each and across research conditions using the general linear model procedure (PROC GLM) in SAS, version 9.4 [49]. The model was fitted with environments, replicates within environments, and incomplete blocks within replicates × environment interaction as random factors while the hybrids were fixed. The lattice design [50] allowed block effects on means of hybrids to be adjusted and differences among means were separated using standard error of difference (S.E.D.). The NCII design partitioned the variation among hybrids into male within sets, female within sets and male × female interaction within sets. General and specific combining ability (GCA, SCA) effects were estimated as described by Hallauer and Miranda [51]. Genetic and phenotypic variance components of the inbreds were estimated using the restricted maximum likelihood (REML) method and with PROC Varcomp implemented in SAS, repeatability (R) for each of the measured traits was estimated [52].Low-N tolerant hybrids were identified using the multiple trait base index under low-N conditions as described by Badu-Apraku et al. [38]  where MI = multiple trait base index, EPP = number of ears per plant, ASI = anthesis-silking interval, PASP = plant aspect, EASP = ear aspect, STGR = stay green characteristic.The traits employed in the MI were standardized to reduce the effects of unequal scales with positive and negative values indicating tolerance and susceptibility to low-N, respectively.Breeding efficiency (B.E) was calculated for the parental lines on the basis of the groups revealed by the DArTseq markers under low-N, optimal, and across research conditions. The 96 hybrids were ranked from the highest to the lowest using grain yield under each and across environments. Estimation of B. E for each research condition involved dividing the total number of hybrids into inter-group and intra-group crosses as described by Badu-Apraku et al. [39]. The relationship among high yielding intergroup hybrids and total number of intergroup hybrids as well as the low yielding intragroup hybrids and total number of intragroup hybrids [39] was used to compute B. E as follows:Where, HYINTERGH = number of high yielding intergroup hybrids, TNINTERGH = total number of intergroup hybrids, LYINTRAGH = number of low yielding intra-group hybrids, and TNINTRAGH = total number of intra-group hybrids. Efficient and productive crosses allowed inter-group crosses to produce more superior hybrids than the intra-group crosses [53]. first author's PhD thesis research. The funding bodies played no role in the design of the study and collection, analysis, and interpretation of data and in the preparation of the manuscript.","tokenCount":"5292"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a80145d541077af11777043c14dbaedb","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4fe0d1df-bddc-43f2-afd2-0083e362bf9e/retrieve","id":"9379687"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"980da307-d01e-452f-bfc2-08190da21f52","pagecount":"7","content":"The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is not responsible for the quality and validity of results obtained using the FEAST methodology.The Feed Assessment Tool (FEAST) was used to characterize the livestock production system and in particular feed-related aspects of the Mweiga district in Kenya. The assessment was carried out through structured group discussions and completion of short questionnaires by three key farmers/stakeholders on the 21st of May 2010. The following are the findings of the assessment and conclusions for further action.The area is a mixed crop/livestock production system with a focus of milk production. Farmers utilise an average land area of approximately 2.6 hectares per household. The size of land holdings varies greatly ranging from 0.1 to 12.14 hectares. A wide variety of food crops are grown by most households as shown in Figure 1. Crops grown include; potatoes (Solanum tuberosum), maize (Zea mays), peas (Pisum sativa) carrots (Daucus carota sativus), and kales (Brassica oleracea). Other food crops such as; spinach (Spinacea oleracea), turnips (Brassica rapa var. rapa) and radish (Raphanus sativus) are also grown, but are of lesser importance and are grown on a small scale. Fodder crops such as; Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum), sorghum (Sorghum bicolour), Oats (Avena sativa), beetroot (Beta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris.), and lucerne (Medicago sativa) are also grown by most farmers. A wide variety of livestock species are kept by farmers. Holstein Friesians and Ayrshires dominate livestock holdings for milk production. Sheep used for wool and meat production, donkeys for transportation and chickens to fulfil household meat and egg requirements are also kept. Rabbits are also kept by children in many households. Goats and horses are very uncommon in the area and are kept by very few households. Rainfall is generally considered adequate to carry out the necessary cropping operations. However, water availability can become a problem during the dry season as bores and wells are the only sources of water. Labour can also be a problem at peak times of requirement such as harvesting and planting, especially for those households with larger land holdings.Livestock contribute approximately 60% of all household income in this area as shown in Figure 2. Milk sales are the primary contributor. Other livestock products such as the irregular sale of cull cows and bull calves, sale of manure, sale of poultry products, sale of rabbits and the sale of shoats make insignificant contributions to income. Potatoes are the second most important contributor to income, contributing approximately 40%. Many of the other crops grown by the household, particularly maize, generally do not generate any income as they are either consumed within the household or fed to livestock as fodder.Cattle dominate livestock holdings as shown in Figure 3. The main focus of the livestock system is the production of milk with each household having on average 6 milking cows. However, this number varies greatly in the area and can range from 1-21 cows. Cows are primarily maintained in small fenced areas in close proximity to the household and supplementary fed. Grazing is only available to households with large land holdings as there are no communal lands in the area. Cattle are allowed to graze during daylight hours and return to the enclosed area at night for supplementary feeding. Supplement feeds vary between farmers, however, it is primarily based on a \"cut and carry\" system, in which, forage material from cropping areas, or weeds and grass from roadside and forest areas are cut and carried back to the animal. Many farmers also purchase additional feeds, especially during the dry season, to mix with fodder material. The primary components include a mixture of one or more of the following feeds; Dairy meal, Maize germ, wheat pollard, cotton seed cake, and mineral lick. Others include oat straw, maize stover, and sweet/Irish potato residues. Some farmers have also commenced silage production and include silage in the feed mix. Veterinary treatments are readily accessible with six service providers in close proximity to the area. The price for veterinary treatments depends on the type of treatment being applied. Prices generally range from 400-1000 Kenyan shillings (USD$ 4.44 -USD$ 11.10) per treatment. Treatment for East Coast Fever (ECF) tends to be more expensive at 3500-4000 Kenyan shillings (USD$38.85 -USD$ 44.40) per treatment. Artificial Insemination (AI) is also readily accessible and is the preferred method of reproduction. Local bull services are only used in very exceptional circumstances when a cow doesn't conceive after a number of attempts with AI. The price of semen is highly variable depending on the quality and availability of the bull desired. Local semen ranges in price from 800-2000 Kenyan shillings (USD$8.88 -USD$22.20) per straw. Imported semen can cost anything in excess of 2000 Kenyan shillings (USD$22.20). Due to the expense of imported semen, farmers can take out a loan from the milk cooperative against milk sales to purchase the semen. The main feed sources relied on throughout the year are green forages and grazing as shown in Figure 4. Green Maize, Napier grass, and weeds (predominantly wild growing ryegrass) are the main contributors of green forage, particularly during the wet season. Maize forage is considered to be the most important feed source grown by farmers. Farmers generally expect 0.1 hectares of green maize to yield approximately 2 tonnes of fodder material. The fodder material is generally fed after the green maize is removed for roasting. Some households also sell it as fodder to other households that may be experiencing shortages. Oats are also grown by many households to meet fodder requirements. Oat seed generally costs 50 Kenya shillings/kg (USD$0.55/kg). Many farmers also sell seed commercially for 43 Kenyan shillings/kg (USD$ 0.48). Other feed sources such as crop residues, and purchased concentrates are also fed. The proportion of these feedstuffs in the diet is minimal as shown in Figure 5. Crop residue material contributes approximately 4% of the total dietary Dry Matter (DM), 5% of the total Metabolizable Energy (ME) and 4% of the total Crude Protein (CP).Farmers in this area show a clear preference for the type of feeds they purchase as shown in Figure 6. The commercially mixed ration forms 71% of the all the feeds purchased by farmers in this area.  Farmers in this area face a number of constraints to the further development of their dairying operations. At present, the price received for milk sales is highly variable. Prices can range from 13.5-22.8 Kenyan shillings (USD$0.15 -USD$0.25). This is particularly pronounced during the wet season when milk can be rejected altogether. This is a serious concern for farmers as it prevents them from undertaking strategic developments of their production system as they can never be assured of the amount of income that will be generated from milk sales. This problem is further compounded by the expense of AI services. Farmers believe semen is simply too expensive especially when they have to pay the same price for repeat services should the cow fail to conceive and there is a limited selection of bulls available. Many of the farmers are also critical of the AI service providers as they have a history of being unreliable. Often when farmers make an appointment for their cow to be inseminated, the technician never arrives and the farmer is forced to wait another month for the cow to cycle again. A general lack of information available to farmers in regard to feeding, feed processing and fodder conservation technologies is also viewed as a constraint as many farmers believe such information will allow them to improve their production capabilities.The highly variable price received for milk indicates that there is a general oversupply in the marketplace, particularly during the wet season. Altering of the feeding system to improve feed efficiency will not overcome the low price received for milk but it will improve the income earning potential of milk sales as larger volumes will be available for sale. Improved feed utilisation and efficiency can achieved through the introduction of simple feed processing technologies such as chopping and chaffing. These processes increase the surface area to volume ratio of the feedstuff making it more available to microbial decomposition in the rumen. As a result, the animal is able to more fully utilise the feedstuff and produce more milk per kilogram of feed consumed. Mixing of various feedsources may also be advantageous. At present, it is highly likely that one or more important nutrients required for high levels of milk production are lacking in the diet. Attempts should be made to rectify this situation through mixing a number of feed sources available locally to form a more diet capable of providing nutrients in the quantities required for production. Other methods could also be considered to overcome poor milk prices such as commencing the production of value-added products such as cheese and yoghurt. Diversifying production away from milk production and into other livestock species such as sheep or goats which receive consistent prices throughout the year should also be considered.It is unlikely the farmers themselves will be able to change the pricing structure applied to AI services by service providers. However, farmers can take steps to ensure their cows have the best chance of conceiving during the first service to prevent the need and additional expense associated with repeat services. Improved farmer training in a number of key areas including; heat detection, improved hygiene practices during birthing to prevent uterine infections, flush feeding, and appropriate bull selection to prevent disadvantageous reproductive traits possessed by modern Holstein Friesian genotypes being introduced into their herds.To improve the availability of information to farmers in regard to feeding, feed processing, and feed conservation methodologies. It will be necessary to improve linkages of the area with extension services. Extension services are responsible for the dissemination of such information to farmers. Furthermore, for the introduction of any potential intervention to occur in a sustainable way, it will depend largely on the ability of extension services to provide farmers will the correct information in a timely manner.Milk production is the main focus of this mixed crop/livestock system. The area is characterised by small land holdings of approximately 2.6 hectares. Dairy cattle, particularly Holstein Friesians and Ayrshires, dominate livestock holdings with each household milking on average 6 cows. Milk sales supply over 60% of household income. Potatoes contribute the remaining 40% of all household income. The main constraints experienced by farmers are poor milk prices, expensive and unrealiable AI services, and a general lack of information pertaining to feeding, feed processing and feed conservation methodology. To mitigate the effects of poor milk prices, it will be necessary to improve feed efficiency and utilisation through the use of feed processing technologies. On-farm value-adding of milk products and the potential diversification of the system away from milk production should also be considered. Improving farmer understanding and knowledge of key areas required for successful AI treatments such as; heat detection, improved hygiene during birthing, flush feeding, and bull selection will mitigate the need and expense associated with repeat services.To ensure that farmers have improved access to the feeding, feed processing and feed conservation information they require, it will be necessary to strengthen linkages with local extension services (government and private). This will ensure farmers can gain access to the information they desire and ensure the effective introduction of potential interventions to alleviate production constraints in a sustainable way.","tokenCount":"1884"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e2ea746bf1050500c84a1246a1a5dbe4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/cf625c8d-16e0-4e44-8852-5cf419e577db/retrieve","id":"632563312"},"keywords":["Crop productivity","institutional models","IWRM","rainfall runoff partitioning"],"sieverID":"4c0969af-82cf-48d2-b19b-19ab41096ada","pagecount":"21","content":"The Challenge Program on Water and Food Project Number 17 has been running within the Limpopo Basin for three years. The main goal of the project is to contribute to improved rural livelihoods of poor smallholder farmers through the development of an Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) framework for increased productive use of water flows and risk management for drought and dry-spell mitigation at all scales in the Limpopo Basin. The project also has a strong bias towards human capacity building which is fully integrated into all research activities. The research is carried out in three pilot catchments using three approaches: Farmer Field Based Action Research (FFBAR) using technologies such as conservation farming and nutrient management to increase crop yields; Water Resources Research where rain, surface water and groundwater flow partitioning is characterized; and Institutional Research which aims to develop appropriate institutional models for water governance and strengthen institutions and policies for water productivity and risk mitigation. The outputs of the research will be used to develop guidelines for catchment management across political boundaries. The research has so far generated results that are showing that there is potential to manage water resources and improve productivity within the dry Limpopo Basin using IWRM principles. Under FFBAR conservation farming has shown that crop water management and the use of nitrogen fertilizer can improve crop yields by margins of more than 200 kg/ha. Water resources research has helped in the characterization of rainfall-runoff relationships and a better understanding of the potential yield and use of alluvial aquifers within the basin. Under institutional research responses to water scarcity have been characterized and further studies are underway to understand differences and try to create linkages across institutions within the Limpopo basin. The IWRM approach is promising to be a beneficial research approach for improving livelihoods within the Limpopo Basin.The Limpopo Basin is one of the benchmark basins for the Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF). One of the projects that the program is implementing in the basin is Project 17 (PN17) with the title 'The Challenge of Integrated Water Resources Management for Improved Rural Livelihoods: Managing Risk, Mitigating Drought and Improving Water Productivity in the Water Scarce Limpopo Basin'. The project started in 2004, and it was recently extended for one more year to run for a total of five years.The Challenge Program on Water and Food is addressing a number of problems that are related to water, agriculture and institutional arrangements for water management within the Limpopo basin. The basin covers mostly semi-arid regions with a mean annual rainfall of 530 mm (range 200 -1200 mm) (Harrington et al, 2004). The rainfall is unreliable making rain-fed farming a risky business, and droughts are common during the growing season (Butterworth et al., 1999;Twomlow and Bruneau, 2000;Unganai and Mason, 2002). The water that is available within the basin is becoming a competition commodity among countries and communities, with a precarious balance between available water resources and water demand (e.g. Basson and Rossouw, 2003;Mazvimavi, 2004;Mugabe et al., 2007;Nyabeze, 2004;Vörösmarty et al., 2000). The major issues being addressed within the basin include improving crop productivity without increasing water use by introducing drought resistant varieties and suitable land management practices, introducing appropriate water policies and governance, and adopting a basin approach to water management (Harrington et al, 2004). The PN17 project addresses some of these issues.The major goal of PN17 is to contribute to improved rural livelihoods of poor smallholder farmers through the development of an Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) framework for increased productive use of green and blue water flows and risk management for drought and dry-spell mitigation at all scales in the Limpopo basin. The project is being implemented by 14 partners who are made up of two consultative group of international agricultural research (CGIAR) centres, 10 national research centres (NARES), one agricultural research institute (ARI) and 1 non-governmental organization (NGO). The project covers Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The project is unique among all other projects in that it is led by WaterNet, a network organization that is outside the CGIAR system.The main objectives of the project are: 1) Developing adoption and adaptation of water management practices among smallholder farmers that reduce risk, and which, together with integrated farm systems management (addressing particularly soil fertility and crop management) improve farm/household income and water productivity. 2) Development of appropriate catchment management strategies based on IWRM principles that incorporate sustainable use of green and blue water resources, which enables poor rural people to reduce risk of food deficits due to water scarcity, and to manage water for improved livelihoods.3) Develop institutional models for water governance that aim at strengthening policies for water productivity and risk mitigation at catchment and basin scale. 4) Human capacity building among farmers, extension officers, water managers and researchers at local universities in the Limpopo Basin and in Southern Africa.The research thrust of the project is to build evidence that improving water management through the IWRM paradigm improves rural livelihoods from the basin (trans-boundary) scale down to the field scale (farmers). Three research areas are covered: farmer field based action research (agriculture), Water resources research, and institutional research.Baseline Studies Baseline data was collected for various components of the Limpopo Basin before the start of the Challenge Program Projects. The biophysical data collection included the assessment of general climatic characteristics and the occurrence of droughts within the basin (Brito et al., 2007). More detailed climate studies are on-going. Soils and geology baselines have also been produced. A preliminary water resources assessment was carried out mainly through the assessment and modeling of runoff generated in the Olifants and Mzingwane Catchments. The assessment of alluvial and other aquifer resources was carried mainly in the Mzingwane Catchment. Surface storage and water quality have also been studied within the whole basin (Love et al., 2006a, Chilundo et al., 2007). Figure 1 shows the PN17 study sites where detailed studies are carried out within the Limpopo Basin.Socio-economic data collection included population surveys and other surveys to assess the socio-economic conditions in smallholder farming systems within the basin (CASS 2007, Brito et al., 2006a, 2006b). Land and water management practices were also studied (Love et al., 2006b;Mupangwa et al., 2006).Figure 1 PN17 study sites in the Limpopo BasinThe main objective of water resources research is to develop appropriate catchment management strategies based on IWRM principles that incorporate sustainable use of green and blue water resources, which enables poor rural people to reduce risk of food deficits due to water scarcity, and to manage water for improved livelihoods.Research in water resources includes the preliminary evaluation of water resources, water flow partitioning and upscaling to tributary river basins. Other components of the studies include hydrogeological and water chemistry studies.The development of the preliminary water resource base estimation for the Limpopo Basin is in progress. Analysis of water use in the Olifants Catchment (Nyabeze et al., 2006) shows agriculture as the major water user (45 %) followed by power generation, mining and industry (25 %) and domestic use (12 %). The developing conflict between these users, as a consequence of South Africa's industrialisation and development has previously been discussed (Taigbenu et al., 2005). The overall water balance for the Olifants Catchment on 1:50 year assurance shows a deficit of about 160 million m 3 /annum and the catchment is in the process of closing (Nyabeze et al., 2006). A similar process of catchment closure appears to have started in the Upper Mzingwane Subcatchment (Love et al., 2006c) One of the principal sources of risk to smallholder communities is variability in rainfall, with its consequent impact on green water flows. In the Limpopo Basin, this is strongly correlated with the (ENSO) (Figure 2). Blue water flows are impacted by this and by variability in runoff. Rainfall variability in the northern Limpopo Basin was characterised using a desktop study and a field study. In the desktop study, historic trends in a series of rainfall variability parameters, including total annual rainfall, number of wet days, length of growing season, number of dry spells and number of days of heavy rainfall were analysed using INSTAT, SPSS and Spell Stat. Results showed that between 1921 and 2000 there has been an insignificant change in the overall trend in total annual rainfall and number of wet days per-year (Mupangwa et al., in press). However, use of the Pettitt test identified change to a drier rainfall regime around 1980 at several of the rainfall stations, confirmed as significant by t-tests. The number of dry spells showed a significant trend of continuous increase at two stations and a significant change to more dry spells around 1980 at five stations (Love et al., 2008). Surprisingly, despite accepted wisdom in the region in changes in the start and end of the growing season, our analyses indicates not major changes over the period reviewed in this study. There are better prospects of receiving rainfall during the January to March period than October to December in semi-arid southern Zimbabwe. The field study, undertaken across 40 households in a selected meso-catchment, showed that daily rainfall amounts varied considerably across the catchment (Masvaya et al., in press).This study shows that there is substantial spatial and temporal variability in rainfall and that there signs of change to a drier regime. The variability itself imposes significant risk on smallholder farmers, who have to deal with great uncertainty in rainfall availability and intensity. However, the field study showed that in a good rainfall yea, household resource status, particularly their access to draft animal power, followed by access to seed and fertilizer played dominant roles to when a crop was planted and these relative to the rainfall received within the season, affected the overall crop yieldsThe impact of human-environment interactions on runoff generation is being studied in the project through the application of the SWAT model (Soil and Water Assessment Tool; Arnold et al., 1993;Arnold and Foster, 2005). To date, this has been applied succesfully to the B72A, E, F, G & H quaternary catchments in the Olifants Water Management Area of South Africa (Ncube and Taigbenu, 2007.), with a strong correlation between measured and observed runoff data (Figure 3). Results showed a strong correlation between land cover and the hydrologic response: range grass reduced runoff the most, followed by forestry but arid land gave the highest increase in runoff. The SWAT model is now being applied in the Mzingwane river basin (Love et al., in press b). % of the actual retention. It was concluded that the SCS method is a useful tool to simulate the rainfall-runoff relation of small ungauged catchments.Studies on the distribution, properties, usage and potential expansion of alluvial aquifers were carried out within the Mzingwane Catchment, showing that these offer a low cost and under-utilised source of irrigation water. The Lower Mzingwane alluvial aquifer is one of the largest, with an estimated storage of over 1.5x10 7 m 3 (Moyce et al., 2006). Five commercial agro-businesses use alluvial groundwater for citrus, wheat, maize and vegetable production. The water is abstracted from boreholes and well-points in the river and on the banks. These large users are resupplied by release of water from Zhovhe Dam, which recharges the aquifer. Zhovhe Dam also releases water for Beitbridge town, which abstracts the water from the Limpopo River, into which the Mzingwane flows (Love et al., 2007b). Downstream of agrobusinesses are poor smallholder farming communities with no access to irrigation water. Studies show that sufficient alluvial groundwater is stored in this river reach to offer a good potential for smallholder irrigation (Masvopo et al., in press). However, a disadvantage of the system is that the current scheme of managed releases from Zhovhe Dam has caused a change in the river morphology and the aquifer structure close to the dam. In the long run, this has implications for the sustainability of the aquifer (Love et al., in press a).The scale of equipment required to access water from the alluvial aquifer of a large river such as the lower Mzingwane is quite substantial: well points and electric pumps. However, the possibility exists that the use of sand dams and simpler abstraction technology may readily be used in smaller rivers (Mansell and Hussey, 2005) and these would be more affordable for poor communities to obtain and maintain. The limitations of scale and other factors were studied in the alluvial aquifers of three meso-catchments of the Upper Bengu, Mnyabezi 27 and Mushawe in the Mzingwane Catchment (Love et al., 2007a). Results showed that for small aquifers such as these drying out occurred within a short period. The Upper Bengu aquifer dried out within 24 hrs and the Mnyabezi 27 aquifer within 17 days of a flow event. However, the Mushawe aquifer was determined to be perennial (Figure 4).   The two main losses from an alluvial aquifer, evaporation and seepage, constrain the viability of any sand river to host alluvial groundwater. Evaporation is controlled by scale (mainly depth), while seepage is controlled by the underlying geology. It was determined that seepage is the main loss for aquifers with a depth of more than 1 m, and thus the main reason for the Mushawe aquifer being perennial is the favourable underlying geology -unweathered granites as compared to the highly weathered granitic gneisses at Bengu and Mnyabezi 27. This suggests that geological surveys (much of which are readily available) can provide a rapid method to indicate whether or not a small alluvial aquifer can hold water for extended periods of time.Modelling the results using MODFLOW showed that the potential water supply in the Mnyabezi catchment under current conditions ranges from 2,107 m 3 (5.7 months) in a dry year to 3,162 m 3 (8.7 months) in a wet year (De Hamer et al., 2007b). The maximum period of water supply after increasing the height of the dam spillway and building a sand dam was 2,776 m 3 (8.4 months) in a dry year and in a 3,617 m 3 (10.8 months) wet year. The sand storage dam can only be used as an additional water resource because the storage capacity of the alluvial aquifer is small, and compromised by seepage through the underlying weathered granite.On-going studies include mapping groundwater in flows in fractured aquifers in underground workings (Figure 5).  (Chilundo et al., 2007). The obtained data indicated that sites located at proximities to the border with upstream countries were highly contaminated with transition metals. This suggests pollution from industrial or mining sources, mainly in South Africa but also in Zimbabwe. In contrast, further downstream, the ions concentration, faecal coliforms and elevated organic loads derived from discharge of untreated wastewater were responsible for the deterioration of water quality at sampled sites. The differences of some parameters were statistically significant (p<0.05) when the concentrations found in November and in January were tested, suggesting a possible influence of flow increase for the change of concentrations.A systematic water quality monitoring network composed of 16 stations was proposed within the basin. Ambient, operational, effluent and early warnings were the main monitoring types recommended. Furthermore, the study recommends additional research at a basin scale to identify the sources and fates of pollutants, its transport along the main subcatchments and impacts for the downstream ecosystems.Analyses of water quality in the Zhulube catchment, a key study area in the Mzingwane Catchment, Zimbabwe showed elevated levels of mercury and sulphates in the Tshazi River, which have been attributed to the processing of gold ore along the river (gold panning), and high levels of iron, nickel and arsenic which may be due to the local geology (Tunhuma et al., 2007b). Mercury levels were highest along the Tshazi river where gold panning is widespread. Sediment levels in the Tshazi River are nearly twice as high as those of the Zhulube River (Tunhuma et al., 2007a). The results have prompted further studies under the new dimension of Payment of Environmental Services (PES) a collaborative project with another CPWF project. The results will show the extent of the problem but more importantly how the communities view the issue and how they think the problems can be solved.Farmer field based action research has been conducted within the three pilot catchments within the Limpopo Basin. The main objective of the work is to develop adoption and adaptation of water management practices among smallholder farmers that reduce risk, and which, together with integrated farm systems management (addressing particularly soil fertility and crop management) improve farm/household income and water productivity. Research has so far covered interventions such as conservation farming (Zimbabwe), rainwater harvesting (South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe), irrigation and salinity (Mozambique), wetland cultivation (Mozambique) and drip irrigation (Zimbabwe). Work on drip irrigation has been completed and presented to a wider audience and a policy brief has also been produced (Moyo et al., 2006). Wetland cultivation is the focus of another Challenge program project hence this section will discuss conservation farming, rainwater harvesting, supplemental irrigation and salinity studies only.On-farm and on-station experiments were established in the Mzingwane catchment to determine soil water contributions and runoff water losses from plots under four different tillage treatments. The tillage treatments were hand-dug planting basins, ripping, conventional spring and double ploughing using animal-drawn implements. The intention was to measure soil water changes and runoff losses from maize plots under the four tillage practices (Mupangwa et al., 2007a(Mupangwa et al., , 2007b)). Runoff losses were found to be highest under conventional ploughing. Planting basins retain most of the rainwater that falls during each rainfall event. The amount of rainfall received at each farm significantly influenced the volume of runoff water measured. Runoff water volume increased with increase in the amount of rainfall received at each farm, and was generally highest under conventional ploughing and lowest under basin tillage. Soil water content was consistently higher under basin tillage than the other three tillage treatments (Figure 6). Significant differences in soil water content were observed across the farms according to soil types from sand to loamy sand. The basin tillage method gives a better control of water losses from the farmers' fields. The planting basin tillage method has a greater potential for providing soil water to crops than ripper, double and single conventional ploughing practice. Maize yield results have shown that when nitrogen fertilizer is applied in addition to water management crops yields can increase by margins of up to 200kg/ha, improving the household food security of smallholder farmers. Similar results have also been obtained for on-station studies of cowpea under the same range of treatments as the maize in Zimbabwe (Mupangwa et al., in press b) and cowpea and maize in Mozambique (Julaia, 2007): at a significance level of 10 %, one site showed significant maize yield differences between the water treatments, reaching larger yields when produced on basin tillage with mulching than under conventional tillage.In Mozambique four studies examined rainwater harvesting (Mamade, 2006) and an inventory of rainwater harvesting techniques was prepared. The main rainwater harvesting techniques identified were: pits, flood recession agriculture, small dams and use of road runoff water. Within these techniques, the pits appeared to be the most adopted by the local families (approximately 21 %). The study shows also that some techniques are used simultaneously like the flood recession agriculture, most of the times combined with sowing pits or furrows.Another study in Mozambique looked at the potential of rainwater harvesting through its \"multiplicative\" effect to improve the maize production in rainfed regime in the Chókwè District (Niquice, 2006). The results showed that yields in rainfed crop production are variable and affected by the rainfall distribution, with water deficits occurring in flowering and grain filling stages. The safety to obtain yields (Ya/Yp≥ 0.5, 0.65 e 0.8) increased with the level of the expected yield. Using harvesting factors, the safety to obtain yields (Ya/Yp≥ 0.5, 0.65 e 0.8) was reduced. The harvesting factor of 5 is the most suitable to obtain safety yields.In Zimbabwe, using field survey results, the Agricultural Production Simulator Model (APSIM) was used to simulate seven different treatments (Control, Rain Water Harvesting (RWH), Manure, Manure + RWH, Inorganic Nitrogen and Inorganic Nitrogen + RWH) for 30 years on deep aAlfisol sand, assuming no fertiliser carry over effect from season to season. The combined use of inorganic fertiliser and RWH is the only treatment that closes the yield gap. Supplemental irrigation alone not only reduces the risks of complete crop failure (from 20% down to 7% on average) for all the treatments but also enhances transpirational water productivity (from 1.75 kg m -3 up to 2.3 kg m -3 on average) by mitigating in-season dry spells (Mwenge Kahinda, 2007).In Sekororo South Africa, a study was undertaken to evaluate the rainwater harvesting tanks established under the CPW&F small grants programme (Ramay, 2007). The study showed that many farmers do not use the tanks, even when inflows of water had occurred. The water requires lifting from the tanks, which the farmers have to do with buckets and they are reluctant to do this. Furthermore the small storage capacity of the tanks means they cannot irrigate for very long, at best for one or two months on a very small garden ( < 500 m 2 ). The tanks can only supply irrigation water to the larger plot size of 5,000 m 2 for a few days. Given the labour costs of installation, the livelihood benefit of the rainwater harvesting tanks was found to be negligible.Crop yield risk and vulnerability studies have been conducted in Sofaya, Subcatchment B72A of the Olifants Catchment. Fieldwork and modelling are in progress in a study linked to agricultural water productivity. Crop yield risk and vulnerability to drought was studied from an interdisciplinary perspective by applying a set of indicators (physical, socio-economic and environmental) in order to define drought risk management and sites requiring urgent intervention (Magombeyi and Taigbenu, 2007) Results indicate that the long-term frequency of droughts and dry spells occurred at intervals of 2 years and 2 times in one season respectively, indicating high frequency of exposure to drought and dry spell hazards. The maize crop yield can be significantly reduced by intra-seasonal dry spells at critical growth stages even if total seasonal rainfall is above average. The impact of dry spells in the 2006-2007 is demonstrated by comparing the variation in soil moisture content between the rainfed site and the site where supplemental irrigation was applied (Figure 7) with yield. The moisture deficit occurred from the 55 th day to 70 th day which are the vegetative and flowering stages of the maize crop. Sofaya site, which applied supplementary irrigation (120 mm), managed to keep the moisture content above 18 -20 % at the flowing stage and above 30 % for the rest of the growth stages to yield formation and ripening. However, under rainfed moisture soil moisture content went below 6 %. The yield realized from the Sofaya site was 2.0 t/ha (ET actual = 430 mm) while for the rainfed site it was 0.6 t/ha (ET actual = 320 mm).The Chókwè Irrigation Scheme (CIS) in Mozambique is experiencing variable and declining crop yields mainly due to soil salinisation and other agronomic practices that include poor water management. This is aggravated by the semi-arid climatic conditions and climate change phenomena which affects the availability of water and increases the occurrence of floods and droughts in the region. Work within the scheme includes assessing the supply-demand issues in relation to irrigation water as well as the management strategies under different soil salinity conditions in the CIS (Munguambe, 2007).Trials have been established according to treatments outlined in Table 1 at three sites within the CIS. The sites are characterised by different degrees of salinity (Table 2). Hydrological parameters were characterised using 17 piezometers, 8 permeability tests and 12 infiltration tests.Irrigation water is applied once a week according to a scheduling/calendar Farmers practice: 100 kg/ha for a target yield of 5-6 ton/ha Irrigation water is applied once a week according to soil water deficit (adaptive management: salinity threshold)Increased nitrogen: 200 kg/ha for a target yield of > 10 ton/ha Preliminary results indicated that the final grain yield of the none-saline plots (∼10 ton/ha) was twice the yield under saline conditions (∼4.8 ton/ha) in both seasons. The impact of nitrogen application rates and the water treatments on the final yield was not significant. Both nitrate and salt contents tend to decrease along the growing season as a result of the leaching process. Therefore, the use of an integrated and adaptive approach for both salt and nutrient management was found to be relevant in mitigating the nutrient leaching under salinity conditions (Munguambe, in press).The main objective of institutional research is to develop institutional models for water governance that aim at strengthening policies for water productivity and risk mitigation at catchment and basin scale. Work in this area has been carried out mainly in Zimbabwe and South Africa. Work has so far covered institutional mapping, historical analyses of water management and allocation, and stakeholder participation. Studies in the last year of research will include using the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) Framework to isolate and analyse institutional arrangements and governance outcomes in water management, and rural crop and livestock production. The framework will be used to locate and analyse a number of aspects of institutions and how they influence governance outcomes. So far Institutional research has produced some interesting results.Work in Zimbabwe included an analysis of water resources management at the local level. Institutions at the local level were identified; and linkages between institutions mapped; and the strengths and weaknesses of local institutions identified. Water Point Committees have the responsibility of allocating water, deciding on issues such as turns, ensuring that there are no conflicts, and resolving them should they arise. However, these committees tend to only operate properly where there is a manageable infrastructure, such as valves or pumps. This can be seen by the difference between a dam managed for irrigation water and livestock dams in the same communal area.Boreholes in a village tend to be well managed, but boreholes near business centers are usually neglected, and they almost literary belong to no one (Mabiza et al., 2006).The trajectory of the Olifants Basin was studied from an historic perspective (Van Koppen, 2007). The colonial state, which lasted till 1994 in South Africa, systematically prevented historically disadvantaged individuals (HDIs) from becoming significant water users, let alone 'economically viable' water users. In contrast, white water users undertook major water resources development, which, by the 1970s resulted in the emergence of a 'white water economy'. In this era, water governance concepts were introduced such as water as an economic good, planning according to basin boundaries, involvement of the private sector with the state's role shifting to regulator, and the recognition of 'the environment' as a water user in its own right. Water management under the new dispensation, as enshrined in the National Water Act (1998) brought continuity and change. The 'white water economy' continued as a formal water economy serving 'economically viable water users', also in the Olifants WMA. However, in implementing already planned infrastructure, there was more emphasis on water as a social good, bulk domestic water supplies, public participation and Environmental Impact Assessments. Two institutional innovations in the Act, Catchment Management Agencies (CMAs) and participatory water resource strategy formulation, are aimed at democratizing water resources management in the institutional void of South Africa's transition from territorial and institutional segregation to a unitary state. After dismantling the apartheid governance structures and replacing those by brand-new Provincial and Local Government and still transforming line agencies, the major challenge is building from scratch water delivery support structures and ensuring coordination. Efforts are increasingly aligned under the umbrella of 'Water for Growth and Development', which is developmental, better targets HDIs, and calls for integrating domestic water services and water resources management.Re-allocation of water rights under water reforms have been found to be just as important to smallholders as land reform, and just as hotly contested. Re-allocation of water does not mean that the struggle for water stops, on the contrary, the struggle for water rights continues (Liebrand, 2007).The participation of rural community members in smallholder formal and informal irrigation activities in their locale, and their representation in the new water councils was studied in Zimbabwe (Svubure, 2007). A framework of analysis, informed by notions on participation and institutional arrangements for collective action was constructed to help understand what shapes the participation of community members in smallholder formal and informal irrigation water use associations in Zhulube, Mzingwane Catchment. It was determined that the availability of family labour, age, wealth, gender, and farming experience were some of the human factors that contributed to the attainment of membership in the water use associations (WUAs).WUAs have elaborate decision-making structures under which in practice, the general meeting of all members is used for decision-making through a laborious consensus decision-making process. It was also observed that the WUAs network with other institutional arrangements around them and that the subcatchment and catchment councils are virtually unknown to the water users on the ground.In the Olifants Catchment a study was carried out to find out whether there are locally defined categories within Sekororo that are used to include or exclude others from accessing, using and benefiting from water resources. In cases where increasing scarcity of socio-economic resources, competition over rights of access and use to available resources tends to increase and processes of exclusion become more explicit and potentially violent. The research was primarily based on exploratory qualitative research work where interviews, group discussions, transact walks and document review were the main methods for data collection. Preliminary results show that ethnicity, gender and religion are the more important categories for group formation and exclusion. These groups become overlapping and contested categories that define identities of the various actors involved.Work in this area is still being developed in all countries. However, some concepts have been investigated in Zimbabwe. The concepts of 'catchment planning', 'stakeholder participation' and the political nature of water resources management were investigated, particularly how they are understood and implemented in catchment planning processes (Mabiza et al., 2007;in press). The study also assessed how different actors envisage the output of the process (and the catchment plan itself).The national guidelines on catchment planning as contained in the Water Act (1998) were used to get the national overview on catchment planning. Document review and key-informant interviews were used to investigate how catchment planning is understood by different actors, how the process was planned for, and how stakeholders were involved in it. Data shows there are different conceptualisations of 'catchment planning' between and among the drafters of the law, policy-makers, policy-implementers and the water users. Institutional actors spearheading catchment planning processes also do not have the capacity to engage different stakeholders. It is suggested that catchment planning and stakeholder participation have to be understood in the context of the strategic interests of the different actors which determine how they view the whole process.The main reasons for incorporating training and capacity building in the project were to build human capacity among farmers, extension officers, water managers and researchers at local universities in the Limpopo Basin and in Southern Africa. Strategies to implement this objective have been varied. Key research in PN17 is undertaken by seven Ph.D. fellows, registered at WaterNet member institutions. The fellows are supervised by scientists from member universities and participating CGIAR centres. Each Ph.D. fellow is linked to masters (MSc) students who undertake their dissertation projects within PN17. The unique benefit of this arrangement is the involvement of scientists in the supervision of research and capacity building projects at different scales, starting from farmer fields to river basin results in the development of core capacity, with an appreciation of the challenges and linkages at the different scales within the basin.A total 30 masters dissertations have been completed and accepted: 20 at the University of Zimbabwe, 2 at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, 1 at Guelph University, Canada, 1 at Colorado State University, USA, 3 at UNESCO- A lot of knowledge and data has been generated through the Project PN17. The objective of capacity building has been fulfilled to a large extent. Water resources research, farmer field based action research and institutional research approaches have also generated a large wealth of scientific knowledge and in some cases interventions that have shown immediate benefits to the smallholder farmers. The next challenge is to inform policy and to make sure that the developed interventions benefit the Limpopo basin population through upscaling and outscaling the results. It has been recognized that upscaling and outscaling will not be possible within the time frame of the project. Therefore, the project is now establishing linkages with the CPWF basin focal project (BFP) through FANRPAN. One of the major objectives of the BFP project is to validate and test agricultural water management \"intervention packages\" that have been developed within the basin. This provides a niche for disseminating the results of the PN17 project.","tokenCount":"5481"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"bc6a071f3e206a5b76b3e80bd9468345","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d475af91-aa79-4f2b-ada6-e7f9657486d1/retrieve","id":"-1037792864"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f3bff56b-7394-4019-afa0-d50ad4651820","pagecount":"9","content":"As both a cause and a victim of climate change, the interconnected food, land and water systems must undergo rapid, far-reaching, and sustained transformation.Measuring, mobilising and dispersing climate finance is a mammoth task, but becomes more critical with every fraction of a degree of warming. Too many nonconcessional loans, high transaction costs to dispersing funds to smallholder farmers and small and medium enterprises, and Long, uncertain and complex processes to attain available funds make financing the needed transition difficult.Up to an additional US$400 billion per year -less than 0.5% of global GDP -to 2030 is needed to transform food systems to achieve climate mitigation and adaptation targets, as well as to meet other sustainable development goals.CGIAR recommends improving transparency within climate finance, as well as the realignment of existing funds and the creation of new, addition climate finance flows.Measuring, mobilising and dispersing climate finance is a mammoth task, but becomes more critical with every fraction of a degree of warming.Too much climate finance is currently in the form of non-concessional loans. Loans are the main instrument used to provide public climate finance, accounting for 70% of the total 13 In 2019-20, 90% of all climate finance provided by multilateral development banks (MDBs), such as the World Bank, was in the form of 14 The quality of the finance offered is important. By providing non-concessional loans rather than low-cost loans and grants, these funds add to the debt burdens of already heavily indebted countries -especially challenging in this time of rising interest rates. Indeed, debt servicing is absorbing as much as 40% of government spending on the African continent, 15 and 60% of low-income countries are in or near debt distress.Long, uncertain and complex processes to attain available funds from international financial institutions (IFIs) and MDBs can stem the flow of finance. All institutions have a different way of lending money and measuring the amount given, leading to inefficient and resource-intensive processes that often require hiring experts to navigate transactions. While recognising the need for accountability and effectiveness, accelerating and aligning processes across MDBs and IFIs as much as possible would enable those in need of funds to more efficiently access them.High transaction costs limit access to sufficient and adequate climate finance for smallholder farmers and small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Smallholders are often highly disaggregated and scattered across remote areas far away from lending institutions, meaning dispersing funds is difficult. The transaction costs are rarely outweighed by the small loan amounts farmers require, 16 though they are key actors ultimately responsible for implementing adaptive and mitigative initiatives. Even where smallholder farmers can access formal financial services, the lending methodologies and financial products and services on offer are frequently not suited to their needs. For example, only short-term capital being available, rather than longer-term investment. 17There is a mismatch in information between those requiring financing and those willing to invest. SMEs, financiers and governments often lack the capacity to properly assess and finance interventions that can develop agriculture at scale while achieving positive climate outcomes. Meanwhile, there are impact investors and potential institutional investors interested in providing capital for climate-smart portfolios who are unaware of relevant opportunities.Climate finance from private sector sources needs to be further mobilised. Private actors provided 49% of total climate finance 2019-20, but predominantly in developed economies. 18 Adaptation continues to represent a small share of total private climate finance, likely due to the low bankability of projects that boost climate resilience. As many adaptation actions are in the form of public goods, it is more difficult to fund them using private sector investments.Insufficient regulatory environments and a lack of supportive institutional policies can further hamper the flow of climate finance. For example, explicit subsidies for agriculture total US$670.4 globally per year, 19 and often support harmful practices, distorting their decisions and degrading the environment. 20 A lack of regulations could also discourage banks and other lenders from giving funds to groups that they perceive (without the necessary information to know otherwise) as too risky or offering too low a return on investment.Furthermore, climate finance is inequitably distributed both within and between countries. Funding is often not directed at the most climate vulnerable countries or to those most reliant on external assistance for tackling hunger. 21 Developed countries mobilize most climate finance, primarily from private sources. 22 The ten countries most affected by climate change between 2000 and 2019 received US$23 billion in 2019-20, less than 2% of total climate finance. 23 Also in 2019-20, less than 3% of the global total of climate finance went to or within least developed countries (LDCs). 24 Mobilising climate finance at the scale required to transform food, land and water systems to be low-carbon and climateresilient demands reorienting global financial flows and rethinking traditional financial instruments. 25 Financial Access (2023)• The New Collective Quantified Goal (NCGQ) on climate finance should be ambitious, science-based, and measurable, consider climate risks, include efforts that support longer term adaptation, involve local communities, and flow to the localities with the greatest need. • Build resilience through strategic partnerships.Financial institutions can evaluate and manage agricultural risks related to climate change more effectively by partnering with research bodies to refine credit assessment methods and develop de-risked financial products, such as risk-contingent credit. This enables the targeted lending of designated climate finance for smallholders and SMEs. 25New climate finance Developed countries should at least double their collective provision of climate finance for adaptation by 2025, compared to a 2019 baseline, as called for in the Glasgow Climate Pact.There should be significant increases in the volume of climate finance flowing to the most vulnerable communities in the form of grants and concessional loans to help countries meet their Paris Agreement goals without exacerbating the existing debt crisis. Reassessing the prudential requirements applied to MDBs (for example, by relaxing excessively restrictive capital adequacy policies)-which are currently aligned with those of commercial banks-has the potential to free up significant volumes of additional finance for development.• Mobilise private finance.Aligning the processes to access funds from IFIs and MDBs will increase available public climate finance, which can be used to crowd in private sector spending. Stakeholders should utilise innovative blended finance instruments, such as guarantees, securitisation, and insurance, to de-risk investments (long payback periods, perceived lack of credit worthiness and payback reliability, and currency risks) and unlock significant private finance. Regulation, policy, and strategic public spending must incentivise private investment to flow towards public policy priorities. The absence of a pipeline of bankable projects for private finance mobilisation is also a critical barrier. 26 Work needs to be done to standardise the tracking of financial flows from the private sector.This can also help close the finance gap, as philanthropic entities can provide first-loss capital to catalyse additional investments. For example, the Gates Foundation's support for farmers 27  • Re-purpose environmentally harmful subsidies for climate action.To maximise the impact of existing investment, policymakers should back comprehensive subsidy reforms that consider their broader economic, social, and environmental impacts. This involves shifting away from subsidies that exacerbate climate change, like those for fossil fuels, agriculture, and fisheries, and redirecting these funds towards sustainable and climate-positive initiatives. While this could boost climate finance, it also runs the risk of worsening food security, hunger, productivity and livelihoods through adjusting the cost of agricultural products. Funds need to be channelled to research and innovation to create win-wins for all involved. • Re-channel Special Drawing Rights to fund climate action in developing countries.Increasing the capital availability to MDBs and IFIs by re-channelling Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to them could substantially increase climate finance available to developing countries. 29 Using wealthy nations' unused SDRs to leverage new development finance could yield as much as US$1 trillion in new development finance for the provisioning of other global public goods, such as a stable climate and sustainable food systems. 30 Taking a shared approach to risk would make development financing more widely available, with shareholders stepping in if countries are unable to repay their loans. MDBs could issue 'SDR-bonds', structured as a security (a financial instrument that can be sold and traded in markets), which would be easy for all the major SDR holders to purchase. 31 These bonds would provide MDBs with a low-cost, long-term financing source, ultimately enabling them to reduce equity-to-loan ratio limits. SDRs could also be used to leverage a new Liquidity and Sustainability Facility, which aims to bring down the cost of private finance for African sovereigns. • Implement measures to get finance to farmers.For example, through leveraging digital finance or building capacity in local banks to understand and serve smallholder farmers with both the funds and services they need. Digital solutions like mobile money, revolving credit and collective savings can help bridge the divide between large-scale investments and small loans and is key to scaling up sustainable agrifood sector practices. Bundling digital financial services with other offerings like inputs, training, and advisory can minimize costs and maximize accessibility for vulnerable groups including women, youth and the poor. 32","tokenCount":"1501"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8335048681124c0b275327936e4ea36e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/1155ebb4-465d-4988-8889-66ab25147cef/retrieve","id":"1245701961"},"keywords":["Postbus 380","6700 AJ Wageningen","Pays-Bas Tél. : SPORE est rédigé par un consortium rassemblant Louma productions et Médiateurs. Louma productions","3","rue Neuve"],"sieverID":"dd0acd2b-09f6-4d2f-85be-572181865477","pagecount":"16","content":"Banques de savoir ? 4a pirogue se balance doucement au détour d'un nouveau coude de la mangrove, à une douzaine de kilomètres au sud du port de Ziguinchor, dans la moiteur verte de la province de Casamance, au sud du Sénégal. Des poissons filent sous elle comme vif-argent et des nuées d'insectes, de papillons, d'oiseaux colorés dansent tout autour, alors qu'elle se fraie un chemin sous les branches tombantes. Un homme est à la barre, un jeune garçon sifflote tranquillement et trois autres passagers très excités agitent la tête encore plus vite que les oiseaux en train de percer des noix dans un arbre voisin : ils échangent des regards complices, chuchotent dans un magnétophone, griffonnent des notes illisibles sur du papier quadrillé (jusqu'ici, ils n'avaient jamais vu de papier à carreaux au lieu de simples lignes). Ils s'adressent à leur guide, qui a voyagé avec eux, loin de chez elle. Elle traduit leurs questions au jeune guide francophone qui les traduit à son tour à son frère à la barre. Le garçon les amuse en imitant des chants d'oiseaux pour encourager ceux-ci à s'approcher encore davantage. Au bout de quatre heures, ils accostent à leur village d'accueil et, une fois reposés, ils commencent à enregistrer leurs découvertes qui étonneront leurs familles et leurs amis à leur retour dans leur village de la plaine côtière du Guatemala, en Amérique centrale. Ils ont découvert les similitudes des écosystèmes dans lesquels ils vivent : les similarités de flore et de faune, les différents usages médicinaux que leurs guérisseurs font des mêmes plantes. Et ils songent à tous les progrès que l'on pourrait accomplir si toutes les communautés rurales pouvaient échanger si facilement leur savoir.Coopération Sud-Sud • Cette visite d'échanges entre agriculteurs de deux villages distants d'un hémisphère se déroulait il y a une génération, en 1982, à une époque où on jargonnait moins qu'aujourd'hui. Elle était organisée par un réseau qui reliait des ONG du Sud et des agences de soutien et de financement du Nord partageant les mêmes convictions. Ce type de visite était considéré comme une merveilleuse illustration des échanges de savoirs locaux Sud-Sud. Mais cela allait-il beaucoup plus loin que le partage de préoccupations communes par différents groupes qui en tirent parti chacun de son côté?Au commencement, l'échange L'idéal de la coopération Sud-Sud est né avec le concept de 'Sud'. Cette coopération est pourtant millénaire et a toujours été portée par les échanges commerciaux. Le commerce a toujours été le principal véhicule des idées et des technologies qui ont stimulé le développement agricole dans le monde, comme le reconnaît l'approche Sud-Sud au coeur du Programme spécial de la FAO pour la sécurité alimentaire (PSSA).Le Sud a existé avant 'le Sud'. Ce concept a été défini, peut-être paradoxalement, par des écoles de pensée qui ont émergé au Nord dans les années 60, un peu comme une séquelle du récent passé colonial. Le Sud, disait-on dans le Nord, est un amalgame de cultures et d'économies qui ont comme dénominateurs communs un passé colonial sous tutelle européenne et la conviction de n'avoir qu'une maigre part des ressources et des opportunités mondiales.Progressivement, le Sud a assumé sa propre identité, plus en termes d'échanges culturels et sociaux que de partage du pouvoir économique. Dans les années 80, il a trouvé une assise institutionnelle : la Commission internationale du Sud, dirigée par le Président Nyerere et installée dans le Centre du Sud à Genève, en Suisse. Aujourd'hui encore, elle défend agressivement les intérêts du Sud avec la seule arme dont elle dispose : la rhétorique. En voici un exemple, en 2002 : « Alors que les pays en développement sont inondés de conseils pour 'se prendre en charge' et de sermons sur la bonne gouvernance, on leur demande de 'plonger' dans les eaux turbu-lentes de l'environnement économique international sans bouée de sauvetage ni même quelques gouttes d'huile pour calmer les flots et leur faciliter la tâche ».Au-delà de ces prouesses verbales, y a-t-il une place pour une véritable coopération Sud-Sud ? De nombreuses expériences menées au cours de ces vingt dernières années sont des réussites, qu'il s'agisse d'échanges d'agriculteurs d'un village à l'autre ou de réseaux interrégionaux de chercheurs et de fabricants, dans le secteur des plantes médicinales, par exemple. Le récent bilan du programme PSSA de la FAO, qui a conduit des centaines de techniciens agricoles à quitter leur foyer pendant deux ou trois ans pour travailler ailleurs comme 'experts' -du Vietnam à Madagascar, de l'Inde à l'Érythrée -, montre qu'ils ont réellement apporté \"des compétences et une expérience concrète pertinentes dans les contextes locaux, avec un effet multiplicateur\". Le principal défaut de tels échanges est qu'ils sont en partie financés par l'extérieur et s'enracinent donc difficilement dans les programmes agricoles nationaux. On peut en dire autant des activités du Programme de coopération technique entre pays en développement (TCDC) du Programme des Nations unies pour le développement (PNUD), qui a permis des milliers d'échanges de compétences pendant vingt ans. Il est intéressant de noter qu'aujourd'hui, le programme TCDC est axé beaucoup plus sur les échanges d'expérience via Internet que sur les échanges de personnes.Les échanges entre populations ne doivent pas nécessairement porter l'étiquette coûteuse des agences internationales. Divers réseaux d'ONG, comme l'IRED (Innovations et réseaux pour le développement), ENDA (Environnement et développement du tiersmonde) et Development Alternatives, favorisent les échanges de villageois artisans, agriculteurs ou femmes chefs d'entreprises d'un continent à l'autre. À un niveau techniquement plus sophistiqué, il existe aussi des échanges commercialement fructueux de responsables d'entreprises du secteur agroalimentaire, comme ceux que l'African Management Services Company facilite avec l'appui de la Banque mondiale.Quelles que soient leur forme et leur nature, en personne ou via Internet, ces échanges contiennent toujours une part de subvention ou un intérêt commercial. Si les financements extérieurs ne sont pas disponibles, les échanges doivent suivre quelques règles économiques. Quand des compagnies coopèrent, quand, par exemple, un fabricant brésilien de machines agricoles aide une entreprise similaire à s'installer en Afrique de l'Ouest, elles ont besoin d'être protégées dans une certaine mesure de la concurrence internationale, qu'elle vienne des États industriels du Nord ou de l'Asie. Les mesures à prendre pour faciliter la coopération Sud-Sud sont complexes : garanties à l'exportation, assurances, droits et tarifs douaniers favorables, incitations fiscales, protection du marché, brevets, copropriété, accords de non-concurrence… Toutes ces mesures remontent aux années 60 à 70, à l'époque où le concept de 'Sud' émergeait. Mais en ce début du XXI e siècle, alors que le monde s'engage à pas comptés sur les voies de la mondialisation en réduisant les réglementations à un niveau minimal de protection, ces mesures de soutien seront tout simplement interdites. Néanmoins, la vieille école persévère : la décision de mettre en place un réseau Sud-Sud de science et de technologie, prise par le groupe des 77 (les 126 pays en développement du monde) à Dubaï, en octobre 2002, était assortie d'un appel de fonds aux autres pays pour le financer. N'ont-ils donc pas vu les signes « y a plus d' bailleurs » sur les murs ?Le climat dans lequel la coopération Sud-Sud ancien style pouvait se développer a disparu. Pour paraphraser un explorateur d'un autre âge qui savait que son heure était venue, il pourrait même avoir disparu pour un bon bout de temps. Nous sommes entrés dans une nouvelle ère, plus dure. Un des chefs de file de la réflexion sur les sciences du Sud, Calestous Juma, résume les choses ainsi : \" Dans le climat actuel, on ne peut plus compter sur les institutions publiques pour jouer le rôle de vecteur de la coopération technique. Pourtant, dans de nombreux pays en développement, les gouvernements et le secteur industriel continuent d'entretenir un antagonisme et une méfiance réciproques, alors même que l'avantage comparatif d'un pays, aujourd'hui, dépend largement de la façon dont ils coopèrent. Les modèles de coopération Sud-Sud ne se justifient plus par la proximité ou l'appartenance à un bloc économique. Les alliances stratégiques doivent être bâties entre organisations, sans tenir compte de leur localisation géographique\".C'est ainsi. Il faut naviguer avec le courant. Vingt ans après l'échange entre la Casamance et le Guatemala, deux des 'facilitateurs' se sont à nouveau rencontrés en décembre 2002, au Forum caribéen de l'industrie des plantes médicinales et aromatiques en Jamaïque. Des institutions avaient rendu l'échange possible mais ce sont ces deux personnes du Sud qui l'ont réalisé et l'ont fait durer.La coopération agricole Sud-Sud nécessite : • l'admission que les échanges les plus efficaces ont une motivation commerciale ; • des échanges de personne à personne pour assurer la délicate transmission de savoirs ; • une meilleure intégration dans les systèmes nationaux ; • des liens basés sur les contenus et pas sur des symboles.i vous étiez un taro pas très sûr de vous, vous croiriez que le monde s'acharne à vous persuader que vous souffrez d'un grave désordre de la personnalité.Côté lumière, vous êtes vénéré dans le Pacifique par tous les peuples qui vous cultivent. Servi à table comme plat principal, vous mettez immédiatement fin aux hostilités éventuelles. Vous figurez dans la médecine traditionnelle et même, à Samoa et à Tonga, sur les pièces de monnaie. Peut-être ornerez-vous un jour un drapeau national ? Vous êtes le quatorzième aliment de base dans le monde. À Hawaii, vous êtes si important que seuls les hommes vous cultivent. Au Cameroun, où ce sont les femmes qui cultivent et cuisinent, vous êtes au centre d'un rituel complexe de service et vous aidez à « attraper un homme ».Côté ombre, vous êtes sur la liste des plantes les plus sous-exploitées -mais vous pourriez prendre cela comme un défi plutôt qu'une rebuffade. Votre chair féculente est toxique si elle n'est pas bien cuite. Vous êtes une plante périssable qui ne se conserve pas plus d'une semaine. Vous êtes sensible à la rouille des feuilles et vous risquez de disparaître des champs et des menus de nations entières si vous n'améliorez pas votre résistance. Pour certains, vous êtes une nourriture de pauvres. Vous avez flirté avec les marchés chic d'Europe et d'Amérique du Nord dans les années 90, mais aujourd'hui seuls les marchés des diasporas et des produits ethniques vous sont fidèles.Allons, taro, il est temps de tourner une nouvelle feuille. Colocasia esculenta est un tubercule comestible ovale de 1 à 3 kg, né en Asie où il est généralement connu sous le nom de taro, nom qui s'est répandu dans le monde entier. Aux Caraïbes, le tubercule est plus long et appelé dasheen ou dachine, voire même chou de Chine. Ses feuilles sont consommées cuites comme légume vert. Servi en « calalou » à Trinidad ou en Martinique, le taro atteint au statut sacré de plat national. En Afrique de l'Ouest, il est écrasé avec le manioc pour le « foufou » et sert de nourriture de base au Cameroun, au Ghana, en Guinée et au Nigeria. On l'appelle parfois cocoyam comme son cousin le macabo, Xanthosoma sagittifolium, connu aussi sous le nom de tanier.Le taro est cultivé dans 30 pays, dans les bas-fonds comme sur les hautes terres. L'Afrique en est le plus gros producteur. Le Nigeria compte pour la moitié des 8,5 millions de tonnes produits dans le monde ; le Ghana, la Côte d'Ivoire, Madagascar et la Centrafrique sont les autres grands producteurs sur le continent. Après l'Afrique vient l'Asie, où la Chine est le principal producteur, suivie par le Japon, les Philippines et la Thaïlande.Avec une production de 300 000 tonnes, l'Océanie ne dépasse que les Caraïbes. C'est pourtant ici que l'étoile du taro brille le plus fort. Selon la FAO, « aucune autre région ne se compare à l'Océanie en terme d'intensité de la production, d'importance de la consommation et de dépendance alimentaire ». À Tonga, où les tubercules représentent la moitié de l'énergie alimentaire, 40% des calories viennent du taro. Aux Îles Salomon, 10% des calories viennent du taro, 30% d'autres tubercules.C'est à Samoa que le rôle central du taro s'exprime le mieux. Avant la rouille dévastatrice de 1993, le taro représentait presque toute la consommation de tubercules, soit 20% du régime alimentaire. Sa disparition des menus du jour au lendemain et l'interdiction des plus modestes exportations aux compatriotes d'Australie, de Nouvelle-Zélande ou de Californie causèrent un grand choc au sentiment national et à l'économie de Samoa -un traumatisme identitaire.Beaucoup de pays du Pacifique ont alors pris conscience de leur vulnérabilité à la rouille des feuilles du taro et recommencé à prendre soin de cette culture que d'une certaine manière ils tenaient pour acquise. Vu son rôle spirituel et culturel, nous pourrions presque dire que le taro est pour les gens du Pacifique une sorte de dixième chakra -un des centres d'énergie du corps.Après la rouille est venu un nouvel élan. Grâce au programme TaroGen lancé en 1998 au bureau de Fidji du Secrétariat de la Communauté du Pacifique, des progrès ont été réalisés dans l'exploitation et la gestion de la biodiversité. La plante est revenue à Samoa où des agriculteurs ont planté des variétés résistantes sélectionnées. Il faut non seulement poursuivre les recherches afin de maintenir la diversité et la résistance, mais aussi trouver les moyens d'améliorer la diffusion de semences et plants résistants.Les chercheurs se concentrent maintenant sur les empreintes génétiques des différentes variétés de taro afin de faciliter les comparaisons des échantillons de différents pays. Un autre objectif consiste à indexer les virus pour surmonter les problèmes de quarantaine au cours des échanges internationaux de matériel génétique. L'établissement de banques de gènes pour la conservation in vitro reste une priorité, mais on accorde désormais plus d'attention aux systèmes de stockage des semences et à la conservation in situ. Selon TaroGen, cela « impliquera les communautés agricoles dans la recherche et le développement, en combinant les aspects sociaux, biologiques et agroécologiques de la culture du taro ». Cette question permanente d'une bonne entente entre paysans et chercheurs figure en bonne place au programme du Troisième Colloque sur le Taro prévu fin mai 2003 à Fidji.Enfin, dans ce monde aux goûts changeants, le taro peut-il aussi améliorer sa position dans le commerce international ? L'amélioration de la qualité, des normes, de nouveaux produits, d'autres techniques de transformation et de stockage... et du marketing aideront à le relancer.On parle de chips, de poudres, de farines, de gâteaux, de crèmes glacées : des aliments énergétiques, en somme. De l'énergie pour un peuple, de l'énergie pour une plante. Le passé se conjugue au futur. La nouvelle grande bibliothèque d'Alexandrie, en Égypte, a été inaugurée en 2002 sur le site même de celle qui fut au service de l'humanité de 295 avant JC à 391 après JC. Comme l'ancienne bibliothèque, c'est un lieu de recherche, de progrès et d'échanges d'idées, qui ne prétend pas conserver tous les livres du monde -cela arrivera peut-être un jour dans cet espace appelé Internet.À Tombouctou, au Mali, on travaille à la préservation de 20 000 ouvrages conservés à l'Institut des hautes études et de recherche islamique Ahmed Baba, des ouvrages surtout scientifiques et agricoles dont certains datent du 13e siècle. Des copies électroniques seront disponibles sur Internet. Ces ouvrages reflètent les siècles des lumières de l'Islam, tout comme les manuscrits enluminés de la bibliothèque abbatiale de Saint-Gall, en Suisse, témoignent de l'époque où les bibliothèques gérées par les moines offraient un refuge au savoir dans l'Europe obscurantiste du 8e siècle.Nous célébrons nos bibliothèques, mais pas nos bibliothécaires… un paradoxe qui dure depuis des siècles C'est en train de changer, toutefois, depuis que les professionnels de l'information sont sortis de l'ombre et ont commencé à faire valoir leurs droits. À la Fédération internationale des associations de bibliothécaires tout comme à l'Association internationale des spécialistes de l'information agricole, les mots d'ordre sont désormais service aux usagers, rentabilité et amélioration de la qualité. Et là se trouve le deuxième paradoxe : c'est le processus actuel de démocratisation issu des longues luttes de nos ancêtres si soigneusement consignées dans les bibliothèques qui menace aujourd'hui la précieuse science des bibliothécaires.Le développement des technologies de l'information et de la communication conduit de nombreuses personnes non qualifiées à penser qu'elles savent organiser leurs informations et trouver tout, partout, sur Internet. C'est théoriquement possible, mais seulement si celui qui cherche sait où chercher, celui qui gère l'information sait où l'entreposer pour qu'elle soit disponible et celui qui l'utilise sait séparer le bon grain de l'ivraie.Voilà pourquoi il faut valoriser et non pas négliger des outils documentaires comme les systèmes de classification, les thésaurus, les résumés et la programmation intelligente des recherches. Avec la multiplication des bibliothèques communautaires informelles, le défi, pour les professionnels de l'information, est de partager leurs compétences avec les noninitiés et, pour les communautés et les organisations paysannes, d'apprendre à les exploiter. Il ne suffit pas de se connecter aux réseaux mondiaux pour avoir accès à l'information : il faut aussi apprendre à la sélectionner.Les obstacles ne manquent pas sur le chemin des bibliothèques du futur. Dans une séduisante communication à l'Union internationale des télécommunications, en 1994, le viceprésident américain d'alors, Al Gore, plaidait pour la mise en place d'un réseau mondial des bibliothèques et du savoir, via Internet. Chaque enfant, chaque école, dans chaque ville ou village de la planète, devait avoir accès à ce service à l'horizon 2000. Mais cela ne s'est pas réalisé, car notre monde préfère les promesses aux réalités. Et depuis, l'explosion de l'information a créé une telle congestion dans Internet que ce discours de Gore a été totalement enfoui et qu'il est très difficile, aujourd'hui, de le retrouver. La bibliothèque mondiale a encore du chemin à parcourir.En français et en portugais, les mots bibliothèque et biblioteca remontent à une époque lointaine où l'on désignait ainsi un recueil ou une compilation d'ouvrages de même nature composant un 'centre de savoir'. Dans le langage branché d'aujourd'hui, le 'centre de savoir' est virtuel !! Biblio vient du grec biblion (livre), dérivé de biblos qui signifie 'papyrus', ce roseau dont les fibres servaient de support à l'écriture ; peut-être ce mot faisait-il aussi référence à la ville de Byblos (aujourd'hui au Liban) d'où le papyrus était importé il y a 3 000 ans.Thèque vient du grec thêkê qui veut dire coffre, boîte, réceptacle.Le mot anglais pour bibliothèque est library, emprunté au français à l'époque où 'librairie' (du latin libraria) a commencé à désigner le commerce des livres -le libraire était un copiste qui fabriquait et vendait des livres. Le mot latin pour livre est liber, c'est-à-dire la pellicule sous l'écorce d'arbre sur laquelle on écrivait avant la découverte du papyrus. ous sommes sur une route principale, à la sortie de Yaoundé, capitale du Cameroun. Au milieu des gargotes, télécentres, tailleurs et coiffeurs habituels (nous adorons cette cabane portant l'enseigne www.josephine.coiffure.com!), une échoppe nouveau style : la boutique d'information du Centre de documentation pour le développement rural (membre du réseau Agridoc, voir Spore 101). Les visiteurs s'y pressent, jeunes et vieux, femmes et hommes. Ils s'y arrêtent en rentrant à la maison, en allant au marché, en venant de l'école ou en allant au travail, pour y acheter des manuels ou des journaux, jeter un coup d'oeil sur l'exposition de fèves de cacao ou feuilleter les ouvrages. \"C'est encore plus animé les jours où les retraites sont payées à la poste\" nous dit Pierre-Marcel Ebede, un des gestionnaires du centre. \"Les anciens viennent en ville avec deux choses en tête : retirer leur pension et recueillir de l'information pour le village.\" À l'arrière de la boutique, propre et claire, se trouve la bibliothèque. Près de 3 000 documents, manuels pratiques, ouvrages de réfé-rence, magazines, articles politiques -le genre de choses que l'on trouve dans Agridoc et Spore -sont exposés, écornés par l'usage, soigneusement classés par thèmes selon le système dit Satis. Deux étudiants sont absorbés à prendre des notes à partir d'une pile de livres de référence. \"Aujourd'hui, ajoute Ebede, un usager sur cinq est un agriculteur et il a des questions très précises\".Une scène similaire se déroule à 3 000 km de là, à Kumasi, la capitale Ashanti du Ghana. Dans un monde où l'information est devenue une marchandise, beaucoup de bibliothèques se transforment progressivement, sous l'impulsion d'agences de développement, en boutiques d'information conviviales offrant à la population l'information dont elle a besoin.  \"Les communautés qui détiennent les savoirs locaux ont malheureusement tendance à ne pas valoriser ces connaissances. Peut-être parce qu'elles pensent que leur expérience est ordinaire ou, à l'inverse, parce que, dans leur culture, elles considèrent que c'est un héritage sacré qui ne peut être transmis qu'à des initiés. Pourtant, cette information locale a de la valeur et peut servir à beaucoup de gens, si seulement elle est diffusée et partagée. Le plus grand défi est de modifier la culture de l'échange d'informations et d'amener les communautés à réaliser que partager le savoir est aussi enrichissant pour celui qui le transmet que pour les générations suivantes qui le reçoivent\".-Kay Raseroka, Botswana, lors de son élection à la présidence de la Fédération internationale des associations et institutions de bibliothécaires, en octobre 2002Les délices de la gestion  ■ Au coeur de la ville de Kingston en Jamaïque, dans un quartier animé où se concentrent les nouvelles petites entreprises, deux sociétés sont le symbole du vent nouveau qui souffle sur la production agricole : il s'agit de LMH, une maison d'édition dont les ouvrages sur les plantes aromatiques et médicinales intéressent vivement les agriculteurs locaux, et Starfish Oil, une société en plein essor, spécialisée dans la production de savons et d'huiles essentielles à partir de plantes. Pour ces deux entreprises, les plantes n'apportent que de bonnes choses. L'intérêt croissant pour le marché des plantes aromatiques et médicinales a été confirmé début décembre 2002, sur l'autre versant de l'île, à l'occasion du Forum caribéen de ce secteur agroindustriel à Montego Bay. Près de 150 délégués s'y sont retrouvés pour un programme d'échanges, de communications et de visites de terrain.  Grâce à de telles mesures, de nombreux agriculteurs ont déjà réussi à contrôler efficacement la tsé-tsé, bien que l'on observe des signes inquiétants de résistance aux traitements. L'utilisation d'insectes stériles (SIT) est une stratégie intéressante, mais elle doit être précédée par des techniques classiques de lutte pour réduire le nombre de mouches. Même si l'éradication réussit, les risques de réinfestation demeurent.De plus, la lutte contre la trypanosomiase n'est pas le seul souci des paysans pauvres et l'élimination de cette maladie ne garantira pas une amélioration de la santé animale. D'autres maladies ainsi que la mauvaise alimentation et de mauvaises techniques d'élevage du bétail ont un impact sur la productivité. Et comme les éleveurs ont peur et évitent des zones entières infestées par la mouche tsé-tsé, la pression sur les terres productives disponibles augmente dans un contexte de croissance de la population.Quelle   Les acaricides constituent également un risque pour la santé humaine et pour l'environnement. Leur utilisation n'est plus encouragée et il est nécessaire, en tout état de cause, d'en changer tous les deux ans au moins. Les chercheurs soulignent aussi qu'une éradication totale des tiques empêchera les animaux de développer certaines résistances.Ce n'est qu'à partir de 1990 que la recherche s'est intéressée aux pratiques traditionnelles de lutte contre les tiques en Afrique. Des chercheurs de l'Université de Nairobi ont inventorié une série de méthodes : acaricides artisanaux fabriqués à partir d'une mixture de poivre, feuilles de tabac et savon bouillis ; enlève-  Avec des mots simples et plus de 400 illustrations, cette version française du très populaire manuel Where there is no vet explique comment garder ses animaux en bonne santé dans des zones où on ne trouve pas (ou difficilement) de vétérinaires. Le manuel traite des maladies -de la diarrhée à la peste -qui affectent les boeufs, les buffles, les dromadaires, les chevaux, les ânes, les moutons, les chèvres, les porcs, les volailles, les lapins et les chiens. Il aborde les diverses ■ Après une décennie de croissance explosive, les radios associatives auraient-elles atteint leur apogée ? Les radios locales se comptent désormais par douzaines, sinon par centaines dans de nombreux pays ACP et elles sont gérées par des groupes communautaires et associatifs, tant en milieu urbain que rural. Si quelques-uns annoncent la poursuite de ce mouvement, d'autres estiment que l'heure de la saturation (bon titre pour une émission !) a sonné, surtout depuis que les stations commerciales ou étrangères se sont adaptées au format de ces petites radios locales. Quoiqu'il en soit, pour les radios associatives, le temps est venu de se renforcer et Inades-Formation, pionnier de la communication locale, y contribue avec deux nouveaux guides bien ciblés.Le guide Comment créer et gérer une radio associative est une minutieuse description des étapes nécessaires, de l'étude de faisabilité au recrutement du personnel, en passant par les équipements et la gestion financière. Il met l'accent sur le fait que la nature associative du projet de radio et la définition de ses missions constituent un élément essentiel -plus important que la recherche de la durabilité financière -et qu'ils doivent être considérés comme les premiers critères de réussite du projet. Tous ces points, bien argumentés, sont indispensables dans ce secteur, toujours dominé par ceux qui veu-lent surtout passer à l'antenne et y rester le plus longtemps possible.Mais il faut aussi savoir nourrir l'antenne et le guide Comment produire des programmes d'une radio associative l'explique avec de solides arguments techniques. Il inventorie les compétences nécessaires pour réaliser des reportages, écrire et présenter une émission, et aborde les différents styles radiophoniques : informations, documentaires, histoires, jeux publics, débats, discussions et annonces publicitaires. Les importants aspects d'éthique et de déontologie sont bien couverts à la fois dans leurs facettes juridiques et morales. Toutefois, un autre aspect de la qualité des programmes aurait pu être abordé, ne serait-ce que par quelques mots : comment éviter les présentateurs introvertis et bal-butiants et favoriser la présence de fortes personnalités à l'antenne ? C'est avec cela que l'on conquiert et que l'on retient les auditeurs. Cette nouvelle édition de l'Agrodok sur le soja (Glycine max) a été élargie pour inclure d'autres plantes légumineuses (pois, pois chiche, arachide, dolique), de sorte que le manuel sera utile aussi dans des zones où le soja ne pousse pas mais où l'on trouve d'autres légumineuses. Mais comme le soja demeure l'une des plantes les plus polyvalentes de la famille des légumineuses, il reste le sujet principal de l'ouvrage.Les avantages des légumineuses ne résident pas seulement dans leur valeur nutritionnelle, mais aussi dans leur capacité à fixer l'azote, qui les qualifie pour s'intégrer dans des systèmes de cultures mixtes et en rotation.Cet ouvrage pratique traite non seulement de la culture, mais aussi de la transformation du soja et de sa place dans le régime alimentaire sous forme de lait, pâte, pâté ou autres mets -avec quelques recettes en prime.  Agroptimisme N e vous inquiétez-pas, ce titre ne constitue pas une nouvelle injonction venue d'en haut ! C'est en fait votre propre voeu : la production, qu'il s'agisse d'animaux ou de plantes, voilà bien le sujet qui mobilise le plus nos abonnés, d'après une analyse de la distribution des 66 000 livres commandés au Service de distribution des publications du CTA en 2002, à l'aide des unités de crédit. Le thème de l'information et de la communication a remporté pas mal de succès lui aussi.Ces préférences confirment les résultats de l'enquête de lecture de Spore : un participant sur quatre désirait une plus grande couverture des questions d'élevage et un sur cinq une plus grande couverture du thème de l'information et de la communication. La liste du Top 20 des publications les plus commandées en 2002 comprend six titres se rapportant à la production animale, de l'élevage des lapins à l'alimentation des ruminants. En tête vient L'élevage de la volaille avec 843 exemplaires commandés.Cinq autres titres concernent l'information et la communication, de la gestion d'un service questions-réponses à la vulgarisation par l'image, en passant par les initiatives communautaires des Révolutions de l'information.Grand intérêt aussi pour des pratiques agricoles raisonnées : Les marchés mondiaux des fruits et légumes biologiques, l'enquête publiée à la mi-2002, a vite retenu l'attention de nombreux abonnés et le classique Champs et jardins sains est le deuxième des livres le plus demandés en français, en tête des nombreux guides de meilleures pratiques.Le même schéma se remarque dans le Top 20 des livres anglais, emmené par Poultry, la version anglaise de L'élevage de la volaille. Au même rang que le très populaire Agrodok en français sur l'élevage du canard, nous trouvons un Agrodok en anglais sur l'apiculture. Autre élément commun, le succès des collections : en français, douze livres sur vingt appartiennent à des collections ; en anglais, huit sur vingt.Les abonnés francophones ont des préférences plus 'concentrées' que les anglophones et sont moins dépensiers. Un tiers des 28 500 livres qu'ils ont commandés en 2002 figurent au Top 20 et leur ont coûté en moyenne 15 unités de crédit l'exemplaire. Les anglophones, eux, ont commandé 36 500 exemplaires pour 22 unités de crédit en moyenne, et moins d'un quart de ces exemplaires concernaient un titre du Top 20. Cela reflète non pas une différence de disponibilité en unités de crédit, mais plutôt une pénurie de livres pratiques dans les pays francophones.  Mazoyer et L. Roudart ont magistralement analysé dans leur livre la saga des paysans. Tout commence il y a 10 000 ans, quand l'invention de l'agriculture et de l'élevage fait franchir à l'Humanité des pas décisifs. Alors naissent les systèmes culturels et techniques qui coexistent encore aujourd'hui.Dans les pays développés, l'agriculture est favorisée par des conseils techniques, du crédit, des subventions, des prix garantis, des barrières douanières et des marchés proches. Dans les pays les plus pauvres, au contraire, tout manque aux paysans : conseils, intrants, crédit, voies de communication, transports, organisation commerciale, parfois même la terre et, souvent, des gouvernements vraiment intéressés à les défendre et à les soutenir. Quelques grandes exploitations, situées dans certaines régions du monde, accumulent continuellement des ressources qui profitent aux productions végétales et animales les plus compétitives et permettent de lancer des produits à bas prix sur tous les marchés. Dans le reste du monde, la plupart des paysans se trouvent incapables de produire de façon concurrentielle, sont exclus de leur propre terre et souvent conduits à l'indigence.Cette évolution aveugle et déséquilibrée du système agricole et alimentaire mondial est une tragédie. Cette affreuse distorsion est à l'origine des inégalités qui séparent les pays. La crise de la paysannerie sous-équipée et peu productive est à l'origine de la pauvreté rurale et urbaine croissante qui rend impossible le développement des pays agricoles. crise conduit à une réduction accentuée de la demande solvable au niveau local et mondial, au ralentissement de la croissance économique, à l'augmentation du chômage, à la pauvreté et à l'exclusion. Des conséquences qui viennent frapper à la porte des pays développés : elles compromettent leurs débouchés sur les marchés des pays en développement. Les pays développés sont aussi affectés, directement ou indirectement, par les autres aspects de cette crise globale et complexe du tiers-monde où la misère, la stagnation et le désespoir font le lit des grandes migrations, du terrorisme et des conflits armés.La libéralisation et la mondialisation du commerce et de l'économie sont à la mode. Cela nous rappelle l'histoire de ce savant qui pose une puce sur une table et lui crie : « Saute ! » Et la puce saute. Il lui arrache ensuite les pattes et crie de nouveau : « Saute ! ». Mais elle ne saute pas. Conclusion du savant : sans pattes, la puce n'entend pas ! Les paysans des pays pauvres ne sauteront dans le train de la mondialisation que si on leur restitue leurs jambes, c'est-à-dire les moyens nécessaires à leur développement ! Les mécanismes actuels du commerce international ne résoudront pas le problème du déséquilibre des pouvoirs et modifieront peu le scénario de pauvreté et de fragilité des économies des pays et des régions pauvres. Il ne suffit pas que chaque pays libéralise son système de changes et qu'il offre de bonnes conditions aux investisseurs étrangers : s'il ne résout pas la question de la répartition interne des richesses, il risque de connaître un nouveau déséquilibre structurel et donc un frein au développement économique et social.Pour surmonter les inégalités entre les peuples, il faut dans le monde un système monétaire, financier et commercial plus équitable, qui puisse corriger, pendant le temps nécessaire, les grandes différences de productivité, enracinées dans l'histoire et dans la disponibilité inégale des ressources.Mais revenons à l'histoire de la puce sans pattes. À quoi bon la distribution d'argent, l'effacement des dettes ou toutes sortes de projets de développement, si les populations des pays pauvres ne sont pas préparées pour affronter la libéralisation et la mondialisation imposées d'en haut par les pays riches, qui protègent d'abord leurs intérêts à l'aide de taxes douanières et de subventions aux agriculteurs ?Si l'on accepte que le fondement du développement est la connaissance ou, mieux, la capacité de l'acquérir, de l'utiliser et de l'augmenter, il semble logique que l'enseignement et la formation professionnelle soient la priorité des priorités de la mondialisation.Pour dépasser la crise mondiale actuelle, les pays riches doivent renoncer au profit à court terme, à la croissance inégale non durable, et favoriser un développement global harmonieux, participatif et durable. N'est-ce pas l'objectif affiché par l'Union Européenne au sein de l'Europe, ou par le Plan Marshall après la dernière guerre mondiale ?  « Des conséquences qui viennent frapper à la porte des pays développés »","tokenCount":"5551"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e923bd840af72405587840db3857c01f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d0d6dd8a-7cb0-4932-8818-5adfe37a76ea/retrieve","id":"162257204"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1484412b-e186-4649-9507-938042b0b918","pagecount":"68","content":"the \"Institute\") was established in 1960 to undertake basic research on the rice plant and applied research on all phases of rice production, management, distribution and utilization, with the objective of attaining nutritive and economic advantage and benefit for the people of Asia and other major rice-growing areas.The Institute aims to reduce poverty and hunger, improve the health of rice farmers and consumers, and ensure environmental sustainability of rice farming through collaborative research, partnerships, and the strengthening of the national agricultural research and extension systems (NARES).a. Gift, franchise, specific, percentage, real property, exchange, import, export and all other taxes provided under existing laws or ordinances. This exemption shall extend to goods imported and owned by the Institute to be leased or used by members of its staff.b. Taxes imposed under Title III of the National Internal Revenue Code (Tax Reform Act of 1997) on gifts, bequests, donations and contributions which may be received by the Institute from any source whatsoever, or which may be granted by the Institute to any individual or non-profit organization for educational or scientific purposes. All gifts, contributions and donations to the Institute shall be considered allowable deductions for purposes of determining the income tax of the donor.c. Income tax on salaries and stipends in US dollars of non-Filipino citizens serving on the senior professional and administrative staff of the Institute received solely and by reason of service rendered to the Institute.d. All customs duties and related levies of any kind, except charges for storage, transport and services supplied, and exemption from prohibitions and restrictions on the import or export of articles intended for its official use.The Institute receives support from various donor agencies and entities including the CGIAR Fund, which is a multi-donors trust fund that supports international agricultural research aimed at reducing rural poverty, strengthening food security, improving human nutrition and health and enhancing natural resource management.CGIAR Fund donors may designate their contribution to one or more of three (3) funding \"Windows.\" For Window 1 funds, the CGIAR Fund Council sets the overall priorities and makes specific decisions about the use of the contribution, such as allocation to CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs), payment of system costs or any other use required to achieve the CGIAR mission. The Institute is the Lead Center of CRP3.3 Global Rice Science Partnership (GRiSP), which started in January 2011 with a total budget of US$593,390 for a period of five (5) years. As a Lead Center, the Institute entered into an agreement with the CGIAR Consortium Board for the overall performance of the CRP. The Institute will receive the grants from Windows 1 and 2 for further allocation to two (2) participating research centers, Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) and International Center for Agriculture in the Tropics (CIAT). The Institute is responsible, through the PIA, for overseeing the implementation of GRiSP and for submitting regular financial reports and cash flow statements to the CGIAR Consortium Office.The Institute received a total amount of US$44,890 and US$23,909 for GRiSP in 2014 and 2013, respectively, and allocated US$15,594 and US$8,654 to AfricaRice and CIAT in 2014 and 2013, respectively. As at December 31, 2014, accounts receivable for GRiSP funding from Windows 1 and 2 amounted to nil (see Note 5 and Exhibit 1). The Institute's major facilities are located in Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines. In addition, the Institute owns an administrative office in Makati City, Philippines, and maintains country offices with respective representatives in Bangladesh, Burundi, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Laos, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand and Vietnam.The accompanying financial statements and supplementary schedules and statements of the Institute were approved and authorized for issue by the Board of Trustees (the \"Board\") on April 18, 2014.The principal accounting policies applied in the preparation of these financial statements are set out below. These accounting policies have been applied by the Institute consistently to all periods presented.The financial statements are prepared on the basis of accounting practices prescribed for international agricultural research centers referred to as the Accounting Policies and Reporting Practices Manual -Financial Guidelines No. 2 (\"FG 2\") under the auspices of the CGIAR. These accounting policies are applied consistently in dealing with items that are considered material in relation to the financial statements.The preparation of financial statements in conformity with FG 2 requires management to make judgments, estimates and assumptions that affect the application of policies and reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses. The estimates and associated assumptions are based on historical experience and various other factors that are believed to be reasonable under the circumstances, the results of which form the basis of making the judgments about the carrying amounts of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. Actual results may differ from these estimates.Future events may occur which can cause the assumptions used in arriving at the estimates to change. The effects of any change in estimates are reflected in the financial statements as they become reasonably determinable.The estimates and underlying assumptions are reviewed on an ongoing basis. Revisions to accounting estimates are recognized in the period in which the estimates are revised if the revisions affect only that period or in the period of the revision and future periods if the revisions affect both current and future periods.The following are the critical judgments and key estimates in relation to the preparation of these financial statements:Based on the economic substance of the underlying circumstances relevant to the Institute, management has determined the functional currency of the Institute to be the US dollar, which is the currency of the primary economic environment in which the Institute operates.The Institute has various agreements related to the lease of property, plant and equipment.The Institute has determined that, as lessee, it does not retain all the significant risks and rewards of ownership of the property, plant and equipment, which are leased out in operating lease agreements.The Institute assesses impairment of non-financial assets whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying amount of the non-financial assets may not be recoverable. If such indication exists, the recoverable amount of the non-financial assets is estimated in order to determine the extent of impairment. The recoverable amount is the higher of an asset's fair value less cost to sell or its value in use.The Institute estimates useful lives of property, plant and equipment based on the period over which the assets are expected to be available for use. These are updated if expectations differ from previous estimates due to physical wear and tear and technical and commercial obsolescence. The useful life and depreciation method are reviewed periodically to ensure that it is consistent with the expected pattern of economic benefits from items of property, plant and equipment.As at December 31, 2014 and 2013, the carrying amount of property, plant and equipment amounted to US$16,268 and US$14,251, respectively (see Note 9).The financial statements have been prepared on the historical cost basis except for certain investments stated at fair value.The accompanying financial statements of the Institute are presented in US dollars, which is the Institute's functional currency. All financial information have been rounded off to the nearest thousands, unless otherwise indicated.Grants are recognized as revenue upon the substantial fulfillment of the conditions attached to them, regardless of the period when they are intended to be used, or when the donor has explicitly waived the conditions. Grants are classified according to the type of restrictions attached to them.Unrestricted grants received may be freely used by the Institute for its mandated activities, and are recognized in full in the period specified by the donor wherein sufficient verifiable evidence exists that a commitment was made by the donor.Restricted grants received in support of specified projects or activities mutually agreed upon by the Institute and the donors are recognized as revenue to the extent of expenses actually incurred. The excess of grants received over expenses, representing grants applicable to succeeding years, are shown under \"Accounts payabledonors\" account in the statements of financial position. Claims from donors for project expenses paid for in advance by the Institute are shown under \"Accounts receivable -donors\" account in the statements of financial position.Grants in kind are measured at the fair value of the assets (or services) received or promised while cash grants are measured at the face amount of the cash received or the US dollar equivalent.As the Lead Center for GRiSP, the Institute recognizes as revenue and expense the full amount of the grants received from the CGIAR Consortium, including the amount passed on to and spent by AfricaRice and CIAT.Disbursements to another research center by the Lead Center are recorded as an \"Account receivable\" until an expenditure report is received from the participating research center (see Note 1).Expenses are decreases in economic benefits during the accounting period in the form of outflows or depletion of assets or incurrence of liabilities that result in decreases in net assets. Expenses are recognized on the basis of a direct association between the costs incurred and the earning of specific items of revenue.The Institute presents on the face of the statements of activities an analysis of expenses using a classification based on the function and nature of expenses within the Institute.Research expenses are those incurred for activities that result in goods and services being distributed to beneficiaries, project proponents and members that fulfill the purpose or mission for which the Institute exists.General and administration expenses are those incurred for the activities of the Institute other than research activities.Collaboration costs arise from the collaborative researches undertaken by the Institute and payments to collaborators and partners for direct research inputs.Cash and Cash Equivalents Cash includes cash on hand and in banks which are stated at face value. Cash equivalents are short-term, highly liquid investments that are both: (a) readily convertible to known amounts of cash, and; (b) so near their maturity date that they present insignificant risk of changes in value. These investments, as distinguished from short-term investments, are those that are acquired with original maturities of three (3) months or less.Investments are initially recorded at acquisition cost if purchased and at fair market value if received as grants. Investments in equity securities and debt securities are re-measured at their market values as at the reporting date. The gain or loss on disposal of current investments and changes in value of such investments are included in the statements of activities under \"Other revenue and gains\" account.Short-term investments consist of investments that are: (a) acquired with an original maturity of more than three (3) months but not exceeding one (1) year, and (b) originally long-term in nature but are currently due to mature within one (1) year from the reporting date.Long-term investments are those that are acquired with the intention of keeping the same for more than one (1) year from the acquisition date and which are not maturing within one (1) year as at the reporting date.Held-to-maturity (HTM) investments are quoted non-derivative financial assets with fixed or determinable payments and fixed maturities for which management has the positive intention and ability to hold to maturity. These principal-protected investments are measured at acquisition cost.The carrying amounts of financial assets under this category amounted to US$7,000 and US$13,543 as at December 31, 2014 and 2013, respectively (see Note 4).Available-for-sale (AFS) investments are non-derivative financial assets that are not classified as HTM financial assets. Subsequent to initial recognition, these financial assets are measured at fair value.The carrying amounts of financial assets under this category amounted to nil and US$8,758 as at December 31, 2014 and 2013, respectively (see Note 4).Accounts receivable from donors, employees and other entities are carried at net realizable value calculated as the gross amount less any allowance provided for doubtful accounts.Allowance for doubtful accounts is based on past experience, continuous review of receivable aging reports and other relevant factors. When an account receivable is deemed doubtful of collection, the Institute provides an allowance during the year in which it is deemed doubtful.Any receivable or a portion thereof considered to be uncollectible is written-off. The writeoff is done after all efforts to collect have been exhausted.Receivables from employees are recognized as they arise and cancelled when payment is received.Advances to other research centers are recognized when the cash is or other assets borrowed are delivered to or when payment is made for a liability of other research centers.Inventories consist of spare parts and supplies and other inventories. These are recognized at cost, which includes the purchase price plus cost of freight and handling charges. Cost is determined using the moving average method.Inventories held as at reporting date are stated at the lower of cost and net realizable value (NRV), which is the estimated selling price in the ordinary course of business less the estimated costs necessary to make the sale. The excess of cost over NRV is presented as a contra-asset account.Property, Plant and Equipment Property, plant and equipment acquired prior to 1991 are carried at cost or estimated value. Acquisitions starting 1991 are stated at cost. Capital expenditures with a minimum cost of US$1 or its equivalent and with an estimated life beyond one (1) year are capitalized. Property, plant and equipment which qualify for recognition as an asset are initially measured at cost. The cost of an item of property, plant and equipment comprises its purchase price and all other incidental costs in bringing the asset to its working condition for its intended use. Subsequent to initial recognition, an item of property, plant and equipment is carried at cost less any accumulated depreciation or amortization and impairment in value, if any.Depreciation and amortization of all assets which are owned by the Institute are computed using the straight-line method over the estimated useful lives of the related assets as follows:Category Depreciation or amortization is charged from the month an asset was placed in operation and is continued until the asset has been fully depreciated or amortized or its use is discontinued.Property, plant and equipment acquired through the use of grants restricted for a specific project are recorded as assets. Such assets are depreciated at a rate of 100% in the year of purchase. The depreciation or amortization expense is charged directly to the appropriate restricted project.An item of property, plant and equipment is eliminated from the statements of financial position on disposal or when the asset is permanently withdrawn from use and no further economic benefits are expected from its disposal. Gain or loss arising from the retirement or disposal is determined as the difference between the net disposal proceeds and the carrying amount of the asset and is recognized as other revenue and gains or general and administration expense in the statements of activities.Accounts payable represent amounts due to donors, employees and others for support, services and/or materials received prior to year-end, but not paid for as at reporting date.Accruals represent liabilities for goods or services that have been received or supplied but have not been paid or invoiced.Provisions are recognized when: (a) the Institute has a present obligation as a result of a past event, (b) it is probable that an outflow of resources will be required to settle the obligation, and (c) a reliable estimate of the amount can be made. Provisions are measured at the present value of management's best estimate of the expenditure required to settle the present obligation at the reporting date.When there are a number of similar obligations, the likelihood that an outflow will be required in the settlement is determined by considering the class of obligations taken as a whole. A provision is recognized even if the likelihood of an outflow with respect to any one item included in the same class of obligations may be small.Net assets are the residual interest in the Institute's assets after liabilities are deducted. The overall change in net assets represents the total gains and losses generated by the Institute's activities during the period as determined by the particular measurement principles adopted and disclosed in the notes to the financial statements.Net assets are classified as either undesignated or designated. Undesignated net assets are not designated by management for specific purposes. Designated net assets are designated by management for specific purposes, such as future acquisition of property, plant and equipment.As at December 31, 2014 and 2013, there are no undesignated net assets.A lease is an agreement whereby the lessor conveys to the lessee, in return for a payment or a series of payments, the right to use an asset for an agreed period of time.Leases which do not transfer to the Institute substantially all the risks and rewards of ownership of the asset are classified as operating leases. Payments made under operating leases are charged to operations on a straight-line basis over the period of the lease.Foreign currency-denominated transactions are translated to US dollars for reporting purposes at preceding month-end booking rates which approximate the exchange rates prevailing at the dates of the transactions.Exchange differences arising from the: (a) settlement of foreign currency-denominated monetary items at rates which are different from which they were originally booked, and (b) translation of balances of foreign currency-denominated monetary items as at reporting date, are credited or charged to operations during the year.Non-monetary items denominated in foreign currency which are carried at cost are reported using the preceding month-end booking rates, which approximate the exchange rate prevailing at the dates of the transactions.Employee benefits are all forms of consideration given by the Institute in exchange for service rendered by all employees -whether globally recruited staff (GRS) or nationally recruited staff (NRS).A defined contribution plan is a post-employment benefit plan under which the Institute pays fixed contributions into an account maintained by a trustee and will have no legal or constructive obligation to pay further amounts, subject to the minimum requirements of Republic Act No. 7641. Obligations for contributions to a defined contribution pension plan are recognized as \"Personnel costs\" under the statements of activities in the periods during which services are rendered by employees.The pooling of direct and indirect costs is based on the principle of attribution and assignability. Expenditures are pooled to different resource user units (cost centers) by direct identification. Expenditures that are common to the different cost centers are allocated on the basis of resource drivers. Non-operating and non-recurring expenditures are excluded in the computation.Direct and indirect costs exclude capital expenditures but include depreciation and amortization in the case of unrestricted funded activities. For restricted grants, the indirect cost rates may or may not be applied to capital expenditures, depending on the terms and conditions of the relevant agreements.The method of calculating the indirect cost recovery is prescribed in the CGIAR Cost Allocation Guidelines, as amended by an Advisory Note issued by the CGIAR Consortium Office.Events After the Reporting Date Post year-end events that provide additional information about the Institute's financial position at the reporting date (adjusting events) are reflected in the financial statements when material. Post year-end events that are not adjusting events are disclosed in the notes to the financial statements when material.This account at December 31 consists of: Cash in banks earn interest at bank deposit rates ranging from 0.01% to 0.25% in 2014 and 0.02% to 0.25% 2013.Cash equivalents are short-term time deposits which are made for varying periods of up to three (3) months depending on the immediate cash requirements of the Institute, and earn interest at the prevailing short-term rates ranging from 0.02% to1.6% in 2014 and 0.02% to 2.5% in 2013.This account at December 31 consists of: Long-term investments outstanding as at December 31, 2014 and 2013 have terms ranging from more than one (1) year to seven (7) years.The HTM investments are principal-protected if held until maturity.The AFS investments are composed of investment grade bonds and securities, with cost amounting to nil and US$8,000 in 2014 and 2013, respectively.All HTM and AFS investments are held in US Dollars.The average annual interest rate on the above investments is 1.55% in 2014 and 2013. The interest income from the investments, included as part of the \"Other revenue and gains\" account in the statements of activities, amounted to US$182 and US$133 in 2014 and 2013, respectively. Gain on sale of investments amounted to US$312 and US$512 in 2014 and 2013, respectively (see Note 17).Based on the Board approved investment policy, all funds are invested and diversified in financial institutions that are highly rated by reputable credit rating firms.Receivables The Institute maintains a non-contributory provident fund for the benefit of its NRS. The monthly contribution of the Institute is computed at 10.5% of a NRS' monthly basic salary which is remitted to the trustee-administered funds. The fund provides for a lump sum payment to qualified employees/members upon their separation from the Institute, under certain conditions.The Institute's provident fund is administered and managed by a trustee based on approved investment guidelines as contained in the Trust Agreement.Contributions to the fund amounted to US$731 and US$739 in 2014 and 2013, respectively. The contributions to the provident fund are recognized in the statements of activities as part of \"Personnel costs\" account. There was no re-designation of the reserves in 2014 and 2013.The Institute does not have undesignated net assets as at December 31, 2014 and 2013.The Institute entered into the following operating lease agreements:a. The Institute has a lease agreement with the University of the Philippines System (the \"University\") for research facilities. The lease agreement is for a period of twenty five (25) years up to June 30, 2025, and renewable upon mutual agreement of the parties. Under the terms of the agreement, the following provisions apply:i. The Institute will pay a nominal rental of one peso every year for the parcels of land used as sites for its laboratories, office and service buildings, and housing. In addition and continuing the past practice of providing the equivalent in cash of the approximate value of agricultural products that otherwise could be grown on the land being leased, the Institute provided a lump sum and nonreimbursable financial assistance to the University in the amount of US$375.ii. For the duration of the lease, the Institute will also contribute to the cost of development and maintenance of the roads, utilities and other support infrastructure at the University outside the leased land in the amount of US$12.5 per year from 2011 to 2025.iii. Pursuant to the Second Consolidated Renewal of Lease Contract between the University and the Institute, the latter shall execute documents necessary to facilitate the transfer of ownership of the buildings and permanent improvements to the former upon termination of the lease. Further, in Section 2 of Article XV of the Institute's Charter, all the physical plant, equipment and other assets shall become the property of the University in case the Institute's Charter is terminated for any reason. As stated in the lease contract, the transfer of ownership shall not cover other assets such as the Institute's Genebank and Genetic Resources, which have been assigned in trust to the Institute. Other assets donated to the Institute shall be subjected to other conditions in respect of their disposition upon dissolution of the Institute. ","tokenCount":"3837"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/2922018699.json b/data/part_1/2922018699.json
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"328f1e7c5f377e5bcba616d0fd72a4d5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H043780.pdf","id":"-1598333928"},"keywords":["Environmental services","agricultural water","stated preference","South Asia","Indo-Gangetic basin"],"sieverID":"49d8dc50-f99e-4217-961a-bf9d2eb83854","pagecount":"15","content":"The environmental services related with agricultural water are increasingly acknowledged as a critical factor for farming development in South Asia. However, little attention is given to the demand side linked with the preservation of these services. To this aim, we conduct a stated preference approach for the elicitation of farmers' preferences towards the economic value rendered to environmental services related with agricultural water. The research is based on an extensive survey in selected clusters of India, Pakistan and Nepal. The case studies are situated along Indo-Gangetic basin due to more evidential linkages between environmental services and irrigation. The findings depict a highly agreeable stance of Indian and Nepalese farmers for the contribution to environmental services while the majority of Pakistani are opposed to such a contribution. However, they almost all agree on the type of the assessment approach while the agreeable Pakistanis offer the highest contributions. The association of the economic assessment with key wealth indicators and socio-demographic elements depicts the high significance of household size.Agricultural water use in Indo-Gangetic Basin (IGB) area is a major determinant of farm productivity and rural welfare for the inhabiting agrarian communities (Erenstein and Thorpe, 2010). The recent rapid expansion of groundwater exploitation in IGB has resulted in a considerable agricultural growth (Amarasinghe et al, 2007). However, pumping in permeable alluvium derived soils which are usually met in IGB area has induced water pollution from agrochemical residuals. Also, over pumping practices have diminished groundwater reserves especially in intensive irrigated areas situated at northwest of IGB (CPWF, 2010). The close linkage of groundwater with surface water sources has resulted in an overall degradation of water status (Jain et al, 2007).A quantitative and qualitative deterioration has mostly affected the ecological services associated with water cycle. Water scarcity in dry season, high soil salinity and soil erosion are the most indicative problems emanating from the disturbance of supported ecological services (Sharma and Xueliang, 2009). The significance of supported ecological services is widely acknowledged in scientific community but was until recently unknown to farming community in IGB areas. However, the deterioration of water quality and quantity has given profound insights to farmers about the vital role of ecological services by triggering the need for preservation initiatives (Ambastha et al, 2007).To this aim, the paper attempts to elicit through a stated preference approach, the economic value of vital environmental services related with agricultural water. In Section 2, the general concept of economic valuation is presented while an overview of the selected case study is exhibited. In Section 3, the methodology of the study is delineated by initiating with the implementation of the Willingness to Pay (WTP) inference. The opposition or approval of respondents to participate in the economic assessment is also captured on a country wise-basis. We further deploy the differentiations of WTP bids between countries while main central tendency indicators are discussed. Finally, we employ wealth indicators and socio-demographic elements for the comprehension of farmers' stance towards the economic assessment. In Section 4, the results of the case study are displayed while in Section 5 the discussion and the concluding remarks are placed.The necessity of valuating services related to an environmental entity like water is not always perceived as a desirable action. Numerous ethical dilemmas are raised on the premise that human beings are not capable of valuing ecological assets of which they are part of (Heal, 2002). However, the water valuation concept is not based on the assessment of the ecological entity per se. The entity's valuation is perceived through the intrinsic/inherent values acknowledged in an ecosystem and remains a black box in valuation analysis (Brouwer et al, 1997). It is the instrumental value that is attributed to the environmental goods and services (Pearce and Ozdemiroglu, 2002). To this aim, the division between direct, indirect and non-use values has been developed through a wide range of valuation frameworks (Haab and McConnell, 2002;World Bank, 2005;EVRI, 2010). A representative example of economic valuation framework is depicted in Pearce (1993)  The Direct use values represent the environmental services that are apparently linked with market commodities (Markantonis and Bithas, 2010). Indirect use values go a step beyond this linkage with market by detecting the environmental services which somehow contribute to the human welfare but are hardly quantifiable and matched with market commodities. The non-use value category exhibits intangible services provided by an environmental entity to the human welfare which are however of equal importance with the use values (Israel et al, 2007). The analysis will be explicitly focused on indirect use values represented by environmental services to agricultural water. The outcome will attribute a mere subtotal of freshwater value. However, we purposively focus on the indirect use values linked with the environmental services in IGB area due to the assumptive ignorance of farmers on these services and its proven linkage with agricultural development.The implementation area consists of representative clusters 1 along the IGB from India, Pakistan and Nepal. It is acknowledged that Bangladesh also shares a large part of IGB (Figure 1). However, the almost exclusive aquaculture farming in Bangladeshi riparian areas obstructed the extension of our survey to these clusters due to the high heterogeneity with the other riparian areas of India, Pakistan and Nepal.The clusters selected from India, were situated in the state of Bihar, along the eastern regions of Ganges basin. Bihar is enriched with fertile alluvial plains and abundant water resources. However, the region is confronted with low agricultural productivity, extreme poverty and regional disparities. With 43% of the population below the poverty line Bihar presents some of the lowest income rates in South Asia (World Bank, 2005). For the needs of the assessment, 7 disadvantaged villages from 4 districts were chosen.In the case of Pakistan, the examined area is divided through Upper Rechna, Middle Rechna and lower Rechna catchment area which are situated in Indus basin. The four districts in Rechna sub basin, named as Hafizabad, Sheikhupura, Faisalabad and Toba Tek Singh were chosen. Two sample villages were adopted on the basis of a best geographical dispersion in each district.In the case of Nepal, the area of Biratnagar was chosen due to its location in the wider basin of Ganges river. Biratnagar is positioned in Koshi sub-basin on the southern lowland belt of Nepal, near the south-eastern border with India (Ganges basin). Four disadvantaged villages in two districts of Morang and Munsari were taken as case studies. Emphasis was given on the difficulties faced in drought conditions and the entire almost absence of groundwater pumping and canal irrigation systems.Overall, 937 farmers were surveyed from 10 Districts and 23 clusters as below: The sampling within the villages was selected randomly where an about 30% of the entire population in each village was queried. All the interviews were conducted on-site through qualified local researchers.The stated preference approach is introduced as an appropriate methodological tool for the assessment of farmers' preferences. In stated preferences, the assessment is conducted through a hypothetical or constructed market based on survey analysis (Alpizar et al, 2001;DTLR, 2002). Respondents are asked to reply in a set of choices by directly assessing non-economic goods and services.The introduction of stated preferences in water related environmental problems is widely used in literature (Bateman and Willis 1999;Louviere et al 2000;EVRI Database, 2010). In our case, the assessment was focused on crucial supportive services related to agricultural water use such as microclimate stabilization, infiltration to groundwater reserves and erosion protection (Funes-Monzote et al, 2009).For the implementation of stated preferences approach, a quantitative economic assessment based on Willingness to Pay (WTP) is introduced. The environmental related services are elicited through direct open-ending questions. An extensive introduction about the concept of economic assessment was offered to respondents by trained local researchers for the minimization of biases emanating by opening-ending format. Also, to this aim the outliers were cautiously omitted whereas the reasoning of extreme bids was asked (NOOA, 1995).Initially, the positive or negative stance of respondents in regard to the participation on the assessment is investigated on a country basis. We further describe the offered bids with two central tendency indicators while the presence of protest bids is examined. Protest bids represent the responses which generally do not reflect the true preferences. They are identified through the refusal of respondent to participate in the elicitation process or the stating of zero or an unrealistically high value (Bateman et al, 2002). The high presence of protest bids in an assessment process should question the success of the undertaking. To this aim, the actual zero value attributed by respondents in case of economic or conceptual reasons should be differentiated from the zero values linked with protest bids.The identification of protest bids in our analysis is conducted through a followup question where the negation options below are offered: Finally, we try to comprehend farmers' responses in juxtaposition with significant wealth related indicators and socio-demographic features. To this aim, we employ a Multinomial Logistic Regression (MLR) model for the analysis of WTP stance as a dependent variable while the wealth and sociodemographic indicators act like predictors. Namely, the revenues, the agricultural water consumption (in hours per year) and the land possession (acres) consist of the wealth related indicators which are introduced as continuous variables. Similarly, the education, the age and the household-size comprise the socio-demographic factors which are included as dummy categorical variables.The concept of logistic regression is based on the application of maximum likelihood estimation after transforming the dependent into a logit variable (the natural log of the odds of the dependent occurring or not). In this way, logistic regression estimates the odds of a certain event occurring (Garson, 2010). The selection of MRL modelling for our analysis was reasoned due to following factors. Initially, the non linearity of revenues in regard to respondents' stance is highly acknowledged in the literature (Bateman et al, 2002). The MLR helps to that aim, since it does not assume a linear relationship between the dependent (WTP stance) and the independent (revenues) variables. Second, other independent variable as the water amount and land size are not normally distributed due to high variance among many extremely poor and few rather wealthy farmers. The MLR model overcomes this constraint by allowing the dependent variable (WTP) to get shaped within the range of the exponential family of distributions, such as normal, Poisson, binomial, and gamma. In general, MRL model performs less stringent requirements than other regression analyses by still offering reliability in results.Initially, the condescendence of farmers to contribute in the preservation of environmental services is explored. Indian and moreover Nepalese farmers seem rather willing to concede towards the financial contribution of environmental services. However, in the case of Pakistan farmers, almost 2/3 of the sample is reluctant to offer any payment (Figure 2).  In turn, we unravel the negation reasoning through a set of predefined replies for the identification of protest and genuinely zero bids as presented in Figure 3. The inappropriateness of the respondents to pay for these services is ranked as a first reason for both Nepalese and Indian respondents. In the case of Pakistan, the payment affordability comprises the major reason of a negative stance while the inappropriateness option is quite low. However, the minimum importance given to protest bids clarifies farmers' approval towards the applied assessment approach.  The MLR model initially presents a statistically significant level. We further employ the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) as a common information theory statistic used when comparing alternative models. The lower value is considered to present a better fit as exhibited in the final stage of the model. In a similar manner, the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) is a common information theory statistic used when comparing alternative models (Garson, 2010). Again, the lower value implies a better fit of the model as affirmed again in the final stage. For further clarification about the fitness of the model, the Goodness of Fit indication is presented through Pearson's and deviance indicators. The non significance of the tests denotes the close relation between the observed and the predicted values which appear to hold in our case.Further, the strength of our model association is measured through a set of pseudo-R 2 measures. A satisfactorily association is presented in all three indicators. The analysis of MLR model with the wealth and socio-demographic indicators, initially presents revenues as a statistically significant variable but with an indifferent reaction to both the positive and negative WTP responses. Inversely, water use appears to act insignificantly with the WTP query. However, when the distinction between surface and groundwater use is introduced, it appears that it is only the use of groundwater that acts insignificantly instead. Contrary to this, surface water use is a positive predictor for the willingness of farmers to contribute in the preservation of environmental services.Landholding size constitutes a highly insignificant factor for both negative and positive stances. Looking through the education variables it appears that none of the categories comprise a significant factor except for the secondary school graduates. They seem to support the rejection of the economic assessment although the statistical level is not quite strong. The age factor is highly insignificant in all categories for both the supporters and opponents of the assessment. The surprising results derive from the household size element. The families composed by up to 10 people react positively in a highly significant level for both negative and positive responses. However, in the case of positive response, the significance is absolute while the family size of up to 4 people acts a multiplier factor for the affirmative stance. The current research attempted to capture farmers' preference towards the preservation of environmental services related to water use in IGB area while explanatory variables were also introduced. From a methodological perspective, it is acknowledged that the reliability tests undertaken in our study for the validity of the assessment could be further explored. There is an abundance of validity tests based on statistical and econometric assumptions which could further justify the protest and zero bid options offered in our research (Carson et al, 1996;Brouwer et al, 1997;Bateman and Willis, 1999, Sarkhel and Banerjee). However, the further exploration of the negation reasoning would demand a much more extensive analysis which was beyond the scope of this paper.The introduction also of the Multinomial Logistic Regression (MLR) for the potential significance attributed to income and socio-demographic indicator could be better employed through sample splitting on a country basis. The sample splitting though could possibly endanger the reliability of the results due to the fragmentation in insufficient sampling sizes.Looking through the case study limitations, it should be noted that the absence of similar studies in IGB area inhibited a comparative analysis of our assessment. Related researches are often country specific with particular focus on water and poverty issues (Sampath and Akhler, 1988;Sanjay, 2002;Shah, 2006;Singh, 2007;Kakumanu and Bauer, 2008, Mythili and Mukherjee). However, this also consists of a comparative advantage for our study which covers a significant gap towards the valuation of environmental services related to agricultural water use in IGB area.Broadly, the valuation of environmental services becomes an increasingly indispensable factor for efficient agricultural water use. The assessment of these services gets more essential in agrarian economies where the water use dependence is highly apparent and promotes development patterns. To this aim, our study managed to elicit farmers' preferences from representative clusters in IGB area by contemplating the validity of the assessment approach. Also, a set of explanatory variables helped to the better understanding of farmers' stance.The study results revealed a moderate opposition of farmers to economically contribute in the preservation of environmental services which however derived from their unfamiliarity with such approaches and their low income status. The remaining farmers presented a highly agreeable stance which could be perceived as a highly encouraging message for the inclusion of environmental services in irrigation policy. Also, it is perceived that vital wealth and socio-economic indicators may significantly affect farmers' attitude towards their economic contribution to environmental services. To this effect, it is suggested that a reorientation of irrigation policy in IGB towards the preservation of environmental services should highly contemplate the socioeconomic features of the agrarian regions.","tokenCount":"2677"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b8dd8b85d33d7e53bbaa61cc3108661d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/infobrief/8994-Infobrief.pdf","id":"-2050710029"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e58acfbd-abae-4753-abb8-51078226309c","pagecount":"4","content":"The food system in Kenya contributes a significant proportion (72%) to total national anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions -considerably higher than the global average (31%).A food system comprises \"all elements (environment, people, inputs, processes, infrastructures, institutions, etc.) and activities that relate to the production, processing, distribution, preparation and consumption of food, and the outputs of these, including socio-economic and environmental outcomes\" (HLPE 2014). The global food system produces substantial anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It is responsible for 23-42% of all net GHG emissions globally (31% on average) (Babiker et al. 2022). Food systems need to be radically transformed, lowering their emissions while continuing to produce sufficient, nutritious and healthy food.At absolute levels, food system emissions in Kenya have remained stable over the past decade (2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020). While their relative importance has decreased slightly since 2010 following development of the wider economy, food system emissions in 2020 still represent 72% of total national emissions -more than twice the world's average (31%). Addressing emissions from the food system is therefore of paramount importance to achieving Kenya's climate goals. Kenya's food system emissions divide into three main categories, as shown in Table 2: (i) emissions from landuse change; (ii) farmgate emissions (55.1 MtCO 2 eq); and (iii) emissions beyond the farmgate, from pre-and post-production ivities (8.2 MtCO 2 eq). 2 This corresponds to 0%, 87% and 13% of Kenya's food system emissions respectively.2 Farmgate emissions' refers to GHG emissions directly produced from agricultural activities at the farm level. This includes emissions, e.g., from livestock, manure management, fertilizer use and fuel combustion in agricultural machinery. The term 'beyond-farmgate emissions' refers to food system related emissions not occurring within the boundaries of the farm, in the various stages of the agricultural value chain, like transportation, processing, packaging and distribution of agricultural products, or emissions from the manufacturing and use of agricultural inputs like seeds, fertilizers and pesticides.October 2023 Kenya's livestock is the main contributor to total food system's emissions. Overall rangeland area has remained stable over the past decade (2010-2020); and although beef and buffalo meat production almost halved in this timeframe, sheep and goat meat production have risen (+82%). Milk production, the most produced animal product in Kenya, increased by 13%.Overall emissions from enteric fermentation increased by 27%. Kenya's livestock sector is expected to grow exponentially over the next three decades in response to the increased demand for animal-source foods, due to population rise and economic growth. Consequently, associated GHG emissions will likely also increase.The second largest food system emissions source in Kenya is manure management. 3 While manure has many benefits for crop production, it can also pose environmental challenges depending on how it is processed, and how and when it is applied to land. GHG emissions from manure are classified under three subcategories in FAOSTAT: manure management; manure left on pasture; and manure applied to soils. Together, these three activities contribute 27% of food system emissions in Kenya (Martius et al. 2023).3 Manure management is the process in which animal excretion is captured, stored, treated and used.The third largest food system emissions source in Kenya is food system waste disposal (11%). 4 However, beyond end-of-life emissions produced during waste management and disposal, GHG are also emitted during the production, processing and distribution of food that then becomes lost (along the food supply chain) and wasted (at retail and consumption stages). Food loss and waste thus hold important potential for mitigation; however, the extent of this potential is currently difficult to quantify precisely due to a lack of primary data (FAO 2019;Axmann et al. 2022).Climate change policy traditionally focuses on the land-use and production segments (i.e., on agriculture and land-use change) which account for the largest share of food system emissions by far. In Kenya, livestock production (enteric fermentation and manure management) are at the top of food system emissions.However, despite their relatively smaller scale, it is crucial not to ignore emissions occurring beyond farmgate, from pre-and post-production activities. Addressing these  Source: FAOSTAT. https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/GT (accessed 20 January 2023). Food system corresponds to FAOSTAT's term \"agrifood system\".emissions through climate action may prove to be more cost-efficient, politically acceptable and socially feasible. These actions could involve mitigation options that are technically, economically and politically more viable than interventions targeting larger emissions sources connected to livestock production and manure management. They may also encounter fewer barriers to entry, and require less complex solutions than, for example, the mastery of the intricate processes characterizing good animal husbandry. Consequently, these measures could probably be developed and implemented more easily, with easier training of individuals. In essence, adopting a comprehensive approach to emissions reduction should mean considering not only the magnitude of emissions, but also cost-efficiency and the political, social and institutional accessibility of diverse pathways towards low-emission food systems. This is often referred to as 'political economy' (focusing on political institutions, policies, their power and interactions).Reducing emissions from the three main sources identified above could make a substantial contribution to mitigation strategies in Kenya, while presenting multiple co-benefits for farmers, consumers and the environment:i. Livestock management mitigation strategies include: improving feed quality, optimizing animal nutrition and reducing herd sizes. These strategies could not only reduce emissions but also improve animal health and productivity. ii. Manure management mitigation strategies include: anaerobic digestion, composting and sustainable use of manure instead of synthetic fertilizers. Such strategies could reduce emissions while also improving soil health, providing clean and renewable energy, and reducing fertilizer costs. iii. Food loss and waste mitigation strategies include: improved storage, preservation and processing; composting food waste; and using food waste for animal feed. These strategies could reduce emissions, save money for producers and consumers, and reduce food insecurity. Technological, institutional and organizational innovations can help improve energyand resource-use efficiency at all stages of the food value chain.Enhancing carbon sinks has also been identified as a priority in Kenya's Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC; Ministry of Environment and Forestry 2020). To do so, Kenya aims to: iv. Reduce deforestation, restore forest on degraded lands and increase in forest cover and agroforestry: Reducing deforestation and forest degradation is achieved by rehabilitating and protecting areas of natural forests, including mangroves. Afforestation, reforestation and agroforestry, as well as the restoration of areas of forests on degraded landscapes (like arid and semi-arid lands or rangelands) have great mitigation potential.Promoting these emission reduction pathways will require effective policy formulation, financial incentives, education and capacity building, technical and organizational innovations, and strong governance mechanisms that involve multiple actors, sectors and scales.Mitigation actions in the livestock sector are very important due to the major share livestock emissions have in Kenya's food system emissions. Through two Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) -for the dairy subsector and for solid waste management -Kenya has supported key efforts to measure subsector-related GHG emissions and implement adequate mitigation actions (Government of Kenya 2018). Kenya also supports the research and development of new technologies and practices to reduce emissions from all food system subsectors.However, one significant obstacle hampering progress in pursuing these four pathways is the substantial data gap that exists; numerous sectoral emissions have yet to be adequately quantified, and we are missing information on their economic costs as well as on the social costs of implementation. FAOSTAT data relies on national reporting, but many countries lack capacity to comprehensively collect, for example, food loss and waste data (Heike Axmann, personal communication 2023). Therefore, it is essential to prioritize greater transparency regarding the methodologies employed and to make increased efforts towards direct primary data collection. This is crucial for effectively preparing and designing climate action strategies based on reliable evidence.","tokenCount":"1258"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3adcb146f699dac15662e0fbd6459751","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b1f12aa2-0af7-4c4e-b12c-2508c41581d9/retrieve","id":"727771161"},"keywords":["Breed attributes","Preference","Feeding practices","Dairy cattle","Small-scale farmers"],"sieverID":"f177dcc8-11e1-4fbd-830d-f0015197debe","pagecount":"23","content":"To understand farmers' preference and perceptions of breed attributes, breeding and feeding practices, 419 households in Western Kenya were interviewed in a cross-sectional survey. Respondents scored their preference for cattle breeds, traits and breeding methods on a scale of 1(most preferred) to 5 (least preferred). Preferences were compared using multinomial logistic regression models on weighted scores. The Ayrshire breed was most preferred followed by the Friesian. Using hardship tolerance as a reference trait, the Friesian was preferred 4.86 times more for high milk production and Ayrshire, Jersey and Guernsey breeds 4.61, 4.60 and 4.18 times (P<0.01) more respectively for milk fat content. The Ayrshire was preferred 4.16 times more for its perceived low feed requirement and 1.22 times more (P<0.01) for resistance to diseases. Friesian was the only breed preferred (3.18 times more) (P<0.01) for high growth rate of calves. Artificial insemination (AI) was the breeding method of choice, but majority (> 68%) of respondents used natural mating because it was readily available and cheaper. This study highlights the importance of taking into account farmers' objectives and the production environment when designing breed improvement programmes and recommends packaging of breeding together with feeding interventions.Dairying, which includes production distribution and sale, offers good opportunities for improving the standard of living of smallholder farmers in low and middle income countries through the sale of milk as well as improvement in household nutritional status through higher milk consumption. Local communities benefit indirectly, since dairying provides employment opportunities on the farms and on livestock-related activities such as feed collection and marketing as well as veterinary and other services (Baltenweck and Staal, 2000). Hence there has been increased adoption of dairy farming and even areas historically dominated by indigenous cattle in Kenya, are gradually being taken over by crossbreds and high grade exotic breeds (Baltenweck and Staal, 2000).Whereas the main reason for keeping cross-bred dairy cows is reported to be their higher milk potential, to the smallholder farmer a dairy cow has a wide range of additional attributes (Baltenweck and Staal, 2000;Bebe et al., 2003a). Apart from milk, dairy animals (and cattle more generally) also provide manure for the farm, and calves and culled animals for sale. Furthermore, they act as a form of insurance against unforeseen contigencies and are also viewed as a status symbol (Karanja, 2003;Moyo and Swanepoel, 2010;Ouma et al., 2004b). This broad perspective deviates from many livestock development policies and analyses which place sole emphasis on biological productivity for instnace milk or meat production only, and are thus at odds with livestock producers' perceptions and aspirations (Bebe et al., 2003a;Sumberg, 2002).Recommendations for smallholder farming systems in East Africa have been to upgrade indigenous cattle to intermediate-grade crosses of small mature size (Kahi, 2002;Rege, 1998), with a view to retaining adaptive traits while introducing productive traits in an environment characterised by feed scarcity (Lukuyu et al., 2011;Osuji et al., 2005). However, government practice (through sale of semen of large dairy breeds) and farmer practice have not followed this recommendation. Apart from the desire to produce more milk, farmers have other objectives such as producing animals of higher market value and increasing manure production, and have the perception that high-grade cattle can adapt to local feed conditions and diseases (Bebe et al., 2003a). Such a divergence in perspective may lead to lack of adoption on the part of producers of what might appear as useful innovations and hamper the formulation of policies that are effective in improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers (Bebe et al., 2003a;Sumberg, 2002).The Western Kenya region is a milk deficit area, with most of the milk consumed coming from the Rift Valley Province (Waithaka et al., 2000); hence dairy farming is actively being promoted as a way of improving incomes of the rural communities. Intensification and adoption of superior dairy breeds has been recommended as a major strategy for incresing milk production (Musalia et al., 2007). Although the region has favourable climatic conditions for dairying, it is characterized by low milk production and very high levels of poverty (Waithaka et al., 2000), and unlike Central Kenya, association between adoption of dairy technologies and population density has been found to be non-significant (Makokha et al., 2006). Some of the identified constraints to dairy farming in this region are the inefficient breeding system, limited land resources, livestock diseases, poor milk marketing systems and inadequate dissemination of dairy technologies (Karugia, 2012;Mudavadi et al., 2001). Cultural beliefs have also been reported to discourage uptake of improved dairy breeds (Musalia et al., 2000).A better understanding of how the multiple functions of dairy cattle can be enhanced in order to fit with farmers' objectives and the production environment is key to identification of productive and adapted animals for increased milk production without the need for increasing the numbers of animals, which may lead to land degradation (Philipsson et al., 2011). Since farmers generally adopt and adapt genotypes to their needs and circumstances (Udo et al., 2011), it is important to know their preference for breed attributes and the breeds they consider most suitable to their circumstances, and how they adapt their management practices, particularly feeding, to match the breeds they keep. Such knowledge can help research and development efforts to deliver the most appropriate genetic, feeding and animal health technologies that match the production environment. This study investigated the perceptions and preferences of specific attributes and breeds, and the breeding and feeding practices of smallholder farmers in Western Kenya in order to understand the rationale underlying their breeding and feeding decisions.This study was carried out in two sites in Western Province and one site in Rift Valley Province in Kenya where a larger project called Dairy Genetics East Africa (DGEA) was ongoing. The sites were selected according to variability of genotypes, and accessibility. The sites in the Western Province (Butere Sub-county and Kabras Ward) have a high proportion of indigenous and crossbred cattle and a small proportion of high-grade dairy cattle. They lie between the longitudes 34 0 20′ and 35 0 E and latitudes 0 0 15′ and 10 0 N at an altitude of 1500 to 1600 m above sea level. The average annual rainfall ranges between 1600 and 2000 mm per year, with long rains falling in March to mid-June, and the short rains in mid-August to November. Daily average temperatures range from 18 to 30 0 C. This is one of the most densely populated areas in Kenya with density in some parts as high as 1000 persons/km 2 , and average land holdings of 0.8 ha per farm. The site in Rift Valley Province (Tinderet County, Meteitei Ward) has a high proportion of crossbred and high-grade dairy cattle and a small proportion of indigenous cattle. The County is situated within the longitude 35 0 17′ E and latitude 0 0 30′ N at an altitude of about 2000 m above sea level. The minimum daily temperatures in this region may go to as low as 15 0 C during the day and around 0 0 C, in the night with frost. The area receives an average annual rainfall of 1900 mm which is distributed for most of the year with a short dry period between December and February (Jaetzold et al., 2005).One circular area with radius 10 km was defined in each of the three study sites. In each area, 31 study locations and 15 reserve locations were randomly selected and defined by GPS points. The closest household to the GPS point was visited and if the household had 2 -10 dairy cattle, a trained enumerator used a pretested structured questionnaire to collect data. The respondent was then asked to identify the nearest neighbours keeping dairy cattle. Visits were made to at least 5 farmers (moving outwards from the GPS point in random directions) who were not more than 0.5 km away and who, i) kept at least 2 dairy animals, ii) when combined with others included a diversity of dairy cattle breeds and iii) preferably had multiple breeds within the household. A total of 419 households (approximately 140 in each site) were visited and each respondent was interviewed once. The survey was conducted during the months of March and April 2011.Each respondent was asked to list the dairy cattle breeds he or she was familiar with even if they were not present on the farm and to give a preference rank on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = most preferred, 2 = preferred, 3 = neutral, 4 = not so preferred and 5 = least preferred). For each of the breeds identified, the respondent was asked to list up to three desirable and three undesirable traits and score them as in the case of breeds. Respondents were also asked to list the animal replacement methods available, used and preferred. For the methods used, respondents were asked to score them on a scale of 1 to 5 as with the breeds and give the reasons for using those methods (ICRA, 2007;Theis and Grady, 1991).Based on the management systems reported in the literature (Mudavadi et al., 2001) respondents were asked to state the management systems they used, the types of feeds fed to different cattle types and the reasons for the practices. Focus group discussions (FGDs) with a sub-sample of the respondents (in all the sites) were held in order to gain more insight on the perceptions of feeds and feeding practices. Topics explored in the discussions included farmers 'perceptions of the nutritional needs and status of a cow, feed quality, how they make decisions on types and quantity to feed and the perceived constraints to dairy farming. A checklist was used as a guide and the discussions recorded using a tape recorder as well as a note book. Four FGDs were held, with 43 farmers in total (33 males and 10 females).Frequency counts and means were calculated to obtain number of responses to each of the defined variables and summary statistics presented using cross tabulation. A weighted average of preference ranking for each trait was calculated using the sum of the product of each rank and its corresponding frequency and dividing by the total number of respondents ranking the specific trait:where Y refers to the average weighted rank, \uD835\uDC65 \uD835\uDC56 is the rank (the ranks, n = 1 up to 5) of the parameter being considered (breed, trait, breeding method etc.), \uD835\uDC53 \uD835\uDC56 is the frequency of responses for that particular rank and N is the total number of respondents ranking the trait.The relative importance of each breed, associated attribute and breeding methods was calculated using weighted scores. The scores were given in reverse such that a trait with a preference rank of 1 (highest score) was given a score of 5 (highest). A case of no rank was given the lowest score of 1. The weights were given so that the sum was equal to 1, hence a weight of 5 had a value = 0.335, 4 = 0.268, 3 = 0.200, 2 = 0.130, and 1 = 0.067. The relative importance was then calculated as the sum of the product of the each weighted score and its corresponding frequency and dividing by the total number of respondents involved in the study. Hence for weighted scores using the same formula above, Y refers to the importance, \uD835\uDC65 \uD835\uDC56 is the weight of the parameter being considered (breed, trait, breeding method etc.), \uD835\uDC53 \uD835\uDC56 is the frequency of responses for that particular weight and N is the total number of respondents in the study (N = 419). The Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance was used to investigate the differences between scores for the different breeds and breeding methods. Due to the small number of responses under the Sahiwal, Boran and Zebu breeds, the data was combined and analysed within a single class termed \"indigenous breed\" since a sample size with five or less records is too small for the test (Mcdonald, 2008). The relationship between the scores and importance given to breeding methods was assessed using correlation analysis.Preference for traits associated with different cattle breeds was quantified using multinomial logistic regression models. The dependent variables were the array of traits. Hardship tolerance (being able to withstand feed and/or water shortage) was chosen as the reference for the model since it was the most important trait associated with the indigenous breed from which the dairy animals have been upgraded. Traits such as the ability to produce a considerable amount of milk under conditions of low quantity and quality feeds, coping with unfavourable weather conditions, and the ability to walk long distances in search of feed and water were classified together as hardship tolerance. An odds ratio of one (1) indicates no difference in preference, more than one indicates higher preference, and less than one indicates lower preference for the specific breed for that particular trait when compared with the indigenous breed. Odds ratios were considered statistically significant if the 95% confidence interval excluded one. Differences in farmers' perception of feeds supply situation was assessed using Log-linear modelling of Likert-type data consisting of responses to nine statements. Responses to each statement consisted of rating from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree). To further investigate the difference between responses from the three survey sites, the data was aggregated to produce \"agree\" (= strongly agree + agree) and \"disagree\" (= strongly disagree + disagree) and the neutral response was ignored. Odds ratios for each of the 3 sites were calculated in Miscrosoft Excel (2010). All other analyses were performed using Genstat 16 (VSNInternational, 2013).The Friesian and Ayrshire breeds were the dairy cattle breeds mentioned by most respondents (34% each). In addition they were ranked as most preferred. However, the Ayrshire bred was given a higher (P<0.01) preference ranking than the Friesian breed and it also ranked highest in overall importance, followed by the Friesian breed. The respondents who mentioned the Guernsey and Jersey breeds ranked them as somewhat preferred and they were equal in importance. Generally, very few respondents mentioned indigenous breeds and among those mentioned, the Sahiwal breed was given the highest preference ranking (most preferred) and also scored as the most important among the indigenous breeds. The Zebu was given the lowest preference ranking but scored equally with the Boran as the least important breed (Table 1).In general, the traits of importance in their order of priority (from most important) were milk production, milk fat content, resistance to diseases, low feed requirement, hardship tolerance and high growth rate of calves. Market value and fertility were ranked as the least important traits. When it came to traits associated with specific breeds, the Friesian was considered outstanding for milk production and Ayrshire for milk fat content. The Ayrshire breed also scored highly in importance due to perceived resistance to diseases and low feed requirement. Milk fat content was important in the Jersey and Guernsey breeds but generally all other traits were of low importance. The most important traits for the indigenous breeds were high hardship tolerance and disease resistance (Table 2).When compared with indigenous breeds, farmers preferred Friesians for their high milk production (4.86 times more than for hardiness) and for Ayrshire, Jersey and Guernsey breeds, preference was related to milk fat content (4.61, 4.60, 4.18 times more than hardiness respectively). The Ayrshire breed was most highly preferred for low feed requirement compared with hardship tolerance (4.16 times more) and was the only breed preferred for resistance to diseases (1.22 times more compared with hardiness). The Friesian was the only breed preferred for high growth rate of calves (3.18 times more compared with hardiness) (P<0.01). Market value, coat colour and fertility did not influence farmers' preference for any breed (Table 3).Natural mating to local bulls was used by the majority of respondents (89%) due to its relatively low cost and high availability. Most of the bulls used were privately owned and were rated higher in preference rankings compared to community-owned bulls. Nearly three times as many farmers had access to and used neighbours' bulls than had access to and used their own bulls. Although artificial insemination (AI) was the most preferred (P<0.01) breeding method, it was accessible to only 42% of the respondents and used by only 28%. Although private AI service compared with government AI service was used by a larger proportion (28% versus 6%) of respondents because it was more readily available, government AI service was more preferred. Access to and use of cooperative and NGO AI services and use of imported semen was generally low. The average cost of AI service by all the service providers (government, private, NGO and dairy cooperative) was similar; however cost of private AI service was highly variable (mean = 1314; SD = 1063.9) while the cooperative AI service was generally fixed (SD = 0.0). However, there was only one dairy cooperative society in the area and most of its activities were dormant. Local semen (not imported) from the cooperative was slightly more preferred than that from all other sources although in general, preference for the various sources was not significantly different (Table 4). Cost, availability and the need to acquire better quality breeds with the desired traits were the main factors that influenced choice of breeding service.Only 18% of the respondents purchased replacement animals. Of these 53% purchased from markets outside the locality and only 14% purchased from large scale farms. The average cost of animals was KES 16,000 in the local markets and in neighbouring farms, KES 25,000 in markets outside the locality and KES 55,500 (but could be up to KES 100,000) from large scale commercial dairy farms.The majority of respondents (96.9% of HH) had crossbred cattle, with about 61 % practicing free grazing. Only 24% of the households keeping crossbred cattle practiced pure zero-grazing and mainly for the mature animals; the majority of respondents kept weaners and calves under free a free grazing system. Indigenous breeds were found in about 24% of the households and most of them (about 80%) were kept under the free grazing system (Table 5).About 47% of farms depended on unimproved natural pastures as their main feed resource. Unimproved natural pastures comprised a mixture of grasses, the common ones being Kikuyu grass (Pennisetum clandestinum), star grass (Cynodon spp) and Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum). About 51% of the respondents had planted on average 0.5 ha of Napier grass on their farms. Crop residues particularly maize stover (Zea mays) was an important feed resource particularly in the zero-grazing system and it was mostly available on-farm since maize was a major food crop to 94% of the households. About a quarter (23%) of the respondents reported they had planted fodder trees mainly calliandra, (Calliandra calothyrsus) or herbaceous legumes to feed to lactating or in-calf cows but only six households had 100 or more calliandra trees. Five percent of the respondents had planted desmodium (Desmodium intortum) but the average quantity was 0.3 ha. About half (52%) of the respondents reported that they purchased fodder, mostly Napier grass, from other farms and natural cut grass harvested from public land but only 12% had purchased any fodder during the previous year. The majority of these had purchased Napier grass (6%) or cut grass (4%). Almost all (96.7%) the respondents reported that they fed a certain supplement to their cattle but only commercial dairy meal and minerals were fed by a relatively high proportion of respondents (53.5 and 59.9% respectively). Generally, supplements were fed mainly to lactating cows (Table 6).Farmers' perceptions of feeds and feedingThe majority of farmers (68.5%) agreed that availability of fodder on-farm resulted in increased milk production but disagreed there were enough or different varieties of feeds available on-farm (50.6% and 64.6% respectively). There was a lack of consensus on most of the other feed supply situations (access to off-farm feeds, affordability and effect on milk production, and access to forage seeds) with equal proportion of total number of farmers somewhat agreeing or disagreeing. The proportion of farmers strongly agreeing or disagreeing with the various options for feed supply situations was generally low. There was a strong interaction (p < 0.01) between sites and the responses. Although the level of agreement with each situation varied, farmers in Butere generally were most likely to agree with the feed supply situations while those in Mateitei were most likely to disagree. Farmers in Kabras were slightly in agreement (Table 7).The farmers were aware of the general requirements of a dairy cow, the major ones being improved health care and feeding sufficient basal feed. However there was consensus that insufficient feed supply and disease incidence were major challenges faced by the farmers. High cost of inputs and services was the biggest challenge, consequently the farmers were not able to meet their animals' requirements due to lack of funds (Table 8).Milk production was the most important trait that farmers considered when selecting breeds and this was confirmed by the high ranking and dominance of the Friesian and Ayrshire breeds (34% of the farms) compared with Jersey and Guernsey (about 12% of the farms). This is not surprising, since milk production for feeding the family and for generating cash income has previously been cited as the main objective for keeping cattle among smallholder farmers in Kenya particularly in areas where dairy farming is actively promoted (Makokha et al., 2006). The high preference for Friesian and Ayrshire breeds may also signify the perception that animals of large body size produce more milk. However, this perception neither translated into any detectable strategies for increased on-farm forage production, which is critical to meeting the increased feed requirement of high producing animals, nor feeding strategies for meeting individual animals' feed requirements. Instead, as is common, among smallholder farmers, the practice was to offer basal diet to all the animals as a group and then feed supplements (in most cases 2 kg of dairy meal per day) (Kaitho et al., 2001;Njarui et al., 2011a) to the lactating animals during milking. Whereas this strategy may not have observable impact on milk yield, it may be an indication that farmers are aware that supplementary feeding can lead to an increase in milk yield.The farmers in the present study were aware that large animals consume more feed but the amount offered was largely determined by availability. Studies conducted in smallholder farms show that planning for feed supply is not common and instead, farmers use small quantities of whatever feed is available and rarely if ever is there excess, hence feed supply varies on a daily as well as on a seasonal basis (Lanyasunya et al., 2006;Methu et al., 2000;Romney et al., 2005). Further upgrading of dairy herds in smallholder farms involved in the present study may not realize the expected improvement in milk production unless strategies for improved feeding are put in place.Despite scoring lower than Friesian on milk production, the Ayrshire scored highest on overall importance due to perceived high milk fat content, low feed requirement, resistance to diseases and hardship tolerance. This confirms that farmers are interested in more than one trait when selecting breeds and they were willing to forego very high milk production and select a breed which is perceived to be more resilient. This has implications for breeding programmes targeted at smallholder farmers. Preference for a balance across multiple traits is common among farmers keeping various livestock breeds and even species, particularly in developing countries (Mwacharo and Drucker, 2005;Ouma et al., 2007). Hence, breed improvement programmes should not focus on a single trait such as milk production ignoring adaptive traits or the multiple roles played by cattle in most rural communities as this could result in genotypes that do not meet the needs of the farmers (Ouma et al., 2004a).The high importance attached to milk fat content is most likely associated with consumer preference (perceiving milk with higher butterfat content as tastier) rather than the market since milk payment is based on volume rather than quality. Milk consumers especially in rural areas have been shown to prefer unprocessed milk due to the lower cost and better taste due to higher milk fat content (Njarui et al., 2011b;SDP, 2004). In the present study, the perception of high disease resistance in the Ayrshire may be attributed to the relatively low experience with other breeds for instance, Jersey and Guernsey and hence the only comparison was with the Friesian. However, the considerable number of farmers who were familiar with Jersey and Guernsey breeds (12 and 14% respectively) may be an indication that there is an opportunity for promoting them as alternative breeds. In the present study, indigenous breeds were not given high importance probably due to the fact that the respondents (who were mainly dairy farmers) may have already been in the process of upgrading their existing herds.Farmers ranked the Friesian breed high for fast growth rate of calves, which can be of advantage to farmers aiming at producing heifers for sale. However, market value was not rated an important trait in the present study and hence the preference for higher bodyweight and high growth rate of calves might be related to early breeding of heifers since the farmers are still in the process of building their dairy herds.The surprisingly low importance given to fertility may indicate farmers' lack of knowledge of the relationship between reproductive performance and milk production. It might also be plausible that farmers tended to associate breeding success with the breeding service, rather than the animal. Success rate has been given as one of the factors influencing choice of breeding service (Baltenweck et al., 2004;Murage and Ilatsia, 2011). In the present study, however, only a small proportion (2%) of farmers mentioned success rate as a reason for choice of breeding method, which also may signify a knowledge gap. This may be due to the fact that the area is still in the early stages of dairy development (Mudavadi et al., 2001;Musalia et al., 2007). The low preference for fertility traits may also reflect that fertility is not as important in these systems as external experts tend to think it is.Crossbreeding offers one of the most efficient and quickest ways of improving the productivity of dairy herds; hence access to high quality germplasm is key to sustained dairy development. In the present study, natural mating was the most accessible and widely used breeding method although artificial insemination more preferred. This may be an indication that farmers are constrained in their choice of breeding service (Baltenweck et al., 2004;Mugisha et al., 2014). Poor access to Artificial Insemination (AI) is a common situation among smallholder farmers as a result of privatization of the service in the early 1990s which resulted in emergence of private AI service providers. Private AI service is relatively too costly for most farmers (Murage et al., 2006;Omiti, 2002). Indeed, farmers in the present study identified high cost and unavailability of AI service as the main reason for using natural service. Due to the business orientation, private AI service providers tend to be concentrated in areas with high densities of dairy cattle where the demand for the service is high and the returns from milk are able to support its use. The relative scarcity of private AI service providers may be attributed to the low density of dairy cattle in the study area. Although the cost of AI by the cooperative was invariant, only a small number of farmers reported the service as accessible. This was most likely from their experience in the past since the dairy cooperative in this area was not functional (Mudavadi et al., 2001). It is often speculated that use of bulls could result in inbreeding and retrogression since most of these bulls are of unknown pedigree. Furthermore, it was found that only 40% of farmers could give an accurate estimation of their animals' breed composition (Weerasinghe et al., 2013) hence it may be difficult to define a breeding program. However, the level of inbreeding in cattle owned by smallholder farmers in Kenya has been found to be low (Anunda, 2010); J. P. Gibson and O. Mwai, per comm). In areas where farmers are constrained by unavailability of AI services, use of bulls could be an option but it must be supported by an efficient recording system both at farm and community/government level so that the pedigree of the bull is known. Record would also play a big role in curbing inbreeding.The fact that very few respondents (18%) purchased dairy cattle for replacement indicates that the large majority of farmers rear their own replacements (even farmers who purchase replacements may also be rearing their own replacements). Furthermore, the majority of farmers purchased animals from the markets, most likely due to the high cost of animals coming from the large-scale farms. Few farmers can afford to buy animals at a price over KES 30,000 (approx. USD 300) (Musalia et al., 2007) as charged by large farms. Replacement animals purchased from markets do not have production or pedigree records and their genetic merit cannot be ascertained. This situation portrays the dire need for AI service if these farmers are to successfully upgrade their animals.In the present study, farmers' perception of feed supply situations and breed preference were not correlated. This may indicate that farmers do not consider the breed of animals when making feeding and other management decisions. In contrast to previous studies, the main reason given for adoption of zero grazing was disease prevention rather than diminishing land size, despite the area having a high human population density and low average land size (Jaetzold et al., 2005). The low level of intensification in Western Kenya may be attributed to poor access to input and output markets particularly breeding and extension services and lack of an efficient milk marketing system (Karugia, 2012;Mudavadi et al., 2001). Lack of credit to allow for investment in technological changes is another constraint to intensification among smallholder dairy farmers (Romney et al., 2000).Natural unimproved pasture, Napier grass and crop residues formed the highest proportion of feed resources. This is common amongst smallholder dairy farmers in Kenya (Katiku et al., 2011;Lukuyu et al., 2011). Although respondents in Butere agreed that there was enough on-farm feed throughout the year, participants of the focus group discussions were aware that on-farm resources were not enough to meet the animals' requirements. This apparent contradiction may indicate a lack of knowledge of the animals' requirements. The majority of farmers who practiced zero-grazing were in Butere. Feed supply is a major activity intensive dairy systems and this may explain why these farmers were more likely to agree with the various options of feed supply situations. Although the respondents agreed that fodder was available off farm, it is unlikely that purchased fodder would be able to meet the deficit in the area of study as this is only feasible where smallholder dairy is highly developed and the returns from milk are able to meet the cost of external inputs.Herbaceous legumes have shown potential to increase milk production but very few farmers had planted them. Lack of planting material, poor establishment and lack of persistence have been found to limit incorporation of these supplementary fodders into the farming systems and their utilization as feeds (Mureithi et al., 1998;Mwangi and Wambugu, 2003). Indeed most respondents disagreed that fodder seeds were easily accessible. In addition to the aforementioned factors, competition for land with food crops and lack of information may be other factors associated with the low adoption. Whereas calliandra has been shown to be a suitable replacement for the commercial dairy meal, the amounts reported on farms in the present study were too low to impact on productivity. In Kenya, the recommendation to farmers is that 500 plants, managed in a hedgerow, can provide enough leaf annually to supplement the diet of one dairy cow (Franzel et al., 2014). Since a substantial proportion of respondents (53%) fed dairy meal, there may be a high probability of adoption of calliandra among dairy farmers in the study area, if an effective extension and plant supply program was implemented. In addition, the fact that leguminous trees have additional benefits of adding nitrogen in the soil makes calliandra potentially important for increasing feed supply and improving soil fertility. Generally, use of concentrates in smallholder farms is low, with the majority feeding a flat rate of 2 kg per day through the whole lactation (Kaitho et al., 2001). Access to credit facility and an efficient milk marketing system have been shown to significantly increase the use of concentrate and hence milk yield (Romney et al., 2000). Strengthening of dairy cooperatives can be an effective strategy towards improving access to credit and other services by smallholder dairy farmers.The Ayrshire was perceived as the most important breed due to its productive traits (milk yield and milk butter fat content) as well as adaptive traits. The respondents demonstrated awareness of serious feed constraints by preferring dairy cattle breeds with low feed requirement. However, there was an apparent contradiction in their preference for animals of large body size with high genetic merit for milk production. A disconnect between breeding and feeding strategies was evident, as farmers exhibited a lack of knowledge of basic principles of feeding for milk production. The farmers involved in the present study were most likely in a transitional stage of intensification as indicated by their preference for larger dairy breeds probably driven by the need for surplus marketable milk to earn income, and relatively low adoption of the zero-grazing system of management. Constraint in the choice of breeding method was evident as respondents preferred artificial insemination (AI), but the majority used bull service since it was cheap and readily available.i. Dairy development strategies for smallholder farmers such as those involved in the present study should adopt a multipronged approached, comprising a well-designed and implemented breeding programme and an effective extension and marketing support system. ii. For sustainable dairy development, the production circumstances of the farmers should be carefully considered and the capacity of farmers to adopt and adapt technologies to their systems harnessed. iii. In order for farmers to realize the benefits of upgrading their indigenous breeds to high levels of exotic genes, breeding interventions should go hand in hand with feeding interventions. (5-point scale where 1 = most preferred and 5 = least preferred); 2 Importance was calculated using a weighted average of all scores (5 to 1) of a particular breed (including no score given a default weight of 1): 5= most important, 4= somewhat important, 3= neutral, 2= not so important, 1= least important. The importance was calculated using a weighted average of scores for all rankings of a particular trait against each breed (including no ranking given a default score of 1); 5= most important, 4= somewhat important, 3= neutral, 2= not so important, 1= not important at all. 2 Most important was hardship tolerance. Others were attractive looks, quick recovery from disease, temperament and body size. BF = Butter Fat; CI = Calving Interval # Use of more than one breeding method by one respondent was possible 1 Preference ranking: 1 = Most preferred; 2 = Preferred; 3 = Neutral; 4 = Not so preferred; 5 = Least preferred). Sample size less than 5 was excluded from the Krusal-Wallis one way analysis of variance; 2 Importance was calculated using the average weight of scores of a particular method (including no score given a default weight of 1); 3 Numbers in parenthesis represent the standard deviation.  There Note: Agree = strongly agree & somewhat agree; Disagree = somewhat disagree & strongly disagree; Neutral & no answer were excluded.","tokenCount":"5917"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1cb9493564ac457eaddf7a0a505df430","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b20c281f-91c5-44a7-9cec-a6a5c58264b5/retrieve","id":"252123287"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8c043c46-1392-4311-bbf6-9e9e1650256c","pagecount":"12","content":"Water is an essential resource for all life, but is extremely difficult to manage productively, sustainably and equitably. Good water governance has been a major theme of multiple international conferences for at least two decades (Woodhouse and Muller 2017). Without good governance, we cannot achieve poverty reduction, food security, environmental sustainability, equity and other global development goals or respond effectively to the ravages of climate change.Achieving many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) depends on the availability of water to users. However, while there are some local success stories, progress on improving water management has been poor. By many measures, we are moving in the wrong direction: access to water, water scarcity, water pollution and food insecurity are getting worse in many parts of the world. Further, the rapid loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services threatens humanity's future (Bradshaw et al. 2021). There is strong evidence and broad agreement that this is fundamentally a governance failure (e.g., Pahl-Wostl 2017). If we do not succeed in governing water more effectively, we cannot achieve the SDGs. Getting the governance of natural resources right is also a prerequisite for achieving CGIAR's ambitious 2030 goals (CGIAR n.d.).In this brief, we have adopted a broad definition of 'water governance' as the set of formal and informal institutions Facilitators showing cards for alternative crop choices as part of experiential groundwater games, India (photo: Foundation for Ecological Security) which define the roles of stakeholders in making decisions affecting water and related resources (who can make what decisions), and how decisions are made and enforced. Water governance does not include routine implementation functions, such as construction, maintenance, scheduling, financing and staffing: these are essentially management functions whose implementation is incentivized, or disincentivized, by governance arrangements.Because water is inextricably integrated with land and ecosystems, water governance cannot be separated from governance of these resources. Many observers suggest that the hallmark of 'good water governance' includes such characteristics as openness and transparency, broad participation, rule of law (predictability) and ethics. 1   Over the past decade, the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) has carried out research on how water is currently governed and how its governance can be improved. We have reviewed this research to identify the most pressing governance challenges and how to improve governance effectiveness. These issues must be addressed in order to transform water governance into a positive force for the future.WLE's research has focused on governance of watersheds, wetlands, surface irrigation schemes at all scales, aquifers and transboundary river basins. The research ranges across continents and scales, from small communities to major international river basins. It includes empirical as well as conceptual contributions. Although led by social scientists, most of the work is interdisciplinary. Different types of water-based resources present their own governance challenges, but the research has produced insights common to all types of water resources.Watersheds are catchment areas for rainfall that often support local multi-use landscapes and also replenish water bodies in downstream areas. Degraded watersheds cause serious damage to both upstream and downstream water users and their livelihoods. Transforming degraded watersheds requires approaches that integrate biophysical, social and political dimensions. The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has demonstrated the potential for achieving positive outcomes in a dry watershed in northern India (Bundelkhand). Government departments and research institutions engaged with community organizations to improve and diversify crop productivity and livelihoods (WLE 2019). However, here and elsewhere, strict patriarchal norms restrict communication and the visibility and involvement of women, and limitations in governance directly affect the equity of benefits from watershed improvement (Padmaja et al. 2020). Experiences at this site and in Nepal demonstrate that the imprecise use of terms like 'gender' and 'equality,' and rigid attempts to make existing local governance arrangements fit into institutional straightjackets, result in ineffective governance and continued exclusion of women and other marginalized people. The norms, values and perspectives of officials working in government organizations determine how gender equality is understood and pursued. Their lack of understanding of local values and goals, which are often not aligned with their own assumptions, limits the effectiveness of well-intentioned policies and implementation programs. Unequal power relations between the state and local communities, and within communities, affect how priorities are set, whose knowledge counts, and how rights to resources and benefits are perceived and distributed (Padmaja et al. 2020;Elias et al. 2021).The solution is to collaborate with local communities to identify and address real-world problems as they perceive them, rather than prescribing a normative approach to water governance. Doing this right is critical: too often, policies call for a bottom-up approach, but implementation is top-down. Success requires integrating the knowledge, perceptions and values of many stakeholders, especially from underrepresented groups (Suhardiman et al. 2015). The greatest challenge is achieving water justice, i.e., fair and equitable distribution of water and its benefits and costs, inclusive participation in decision-making and recognition of marginalized social groups. These are all fundamental governance issues. Achieving this in highly stratified communities or those with relatively rigid gender roles is a major challenge, but not impossible. This highlights the importance of political economy rather than purely technical approaches to reform (Mapedza et al. 2016).Wetlands are among the world's most valuable ecosystems, supporting rich biodiversity and providing diverse ecosystem services, including food and livelihoods for millions of people. Under WLE, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) has been collaborating with the Ramsar Convention to support inclusion of sustainable productive use of wetlands by local communities. Researchers have engaged Ramsar Convention stakeholders on the implications of local findings for wetland governance. A project at the Gulf of Mottama Ramsar Site, Myanmar, aims to establish community-based wetland governance arrangements. The research is showing how gender and other social identities and histories have shaped local social structures and power relations and are influencing collective action and wetland development. A major finding is that power imbalances shape values, meanings, experiences and voices in wetland use and governance, especially for the most marginalized wetland users. The exclusion of women from existing governance structures limits access to their unique knowledge of wetland resources.Findings can be used in Ramsar Convention deliberations, in particular the recognition of local social and cultural complexity of wetlandWater governance is the set of formal and informal institutions which define the roles of stakeholders in making decisions affecting water and related resources (who can make what decisions), and how decisions are made and enforced.livelihoods, to promote more inclusive wetland governance (Joshi et al. 2021). This observation is consistent with that for watersheds: well-meaning nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and government officials often seek to impose their perceptions of what is required, limiting the effectiveness of their interventions, and even generating unintended outcomes.Finding solutions to enhance the performance of irrigation schemes is a major theme of WLE research. WLE has examined large-scale irrigation schemes jointly managed by government institutions and farmers in Myanmar and Tajikistan. In Tajikistan, researchers demonstrated that longer training periods improved the functioning of water users' associations (WUAs), and that who is trained matters: the inclusion of female managers led to even better performance, as men tended to migrate after being trained and failed to transfer their skills to women. A combination of formal and informal governance mechanisms also reduced conflict and increased scheme coordination (IWMI 2018; Balasubramanya 2019).On a large government-managed pump irrigation scheme in the dry zone of Myanmar, researchers followed a participatory process for establishing WUAs and transferring responsibilities to them. Creating spaces and processes to empower and support stakeholders to collectively examine the root causes of conflicts and identify ways to operate proved very effective. Encouraging and facilitating local problem-solving processes, often referred to as 'institutional bricolage,' is an underappreciated and underutilized strategy for adapting centrally defined governance arrangements to locally-operated water governance systems such as WUAs (Suhardiman and de Silva n.d.; de Silva et al. 2019). WUA sustainability depends not only on water delivery, but also on how collective action is harnessed to achieve efficiencies along crop value chains. Similarly, work in Myanmar and Cambodia on integrated irrigated rice-fish systems demonstrated that investing in strengthening local social processes is critical to achieving socially inclusive food and livelihood systems (Duncan et al. 2021).A difficult and complex water governance challenge is the sustainable management of groundwater and the aquifers in which groundwater is stored (Villholth et al. 2018). Groundwater is invisible: we cannot see it and it has no clear boundaries, making it difficult to regulate who has access or how much is pumped out. Aquifers are the main source of water for many cities and towns, and for nearly half of all irrigated crops globally. They are critical resources during droughts and support livelihoods, health and prosperity. However, they are being rapidly degraded and depleted by pollution and destruction of their catchment areas, driven by climate change, population growth, increasing food demand and land use changes, and pumping more water than is recharged. WLE has worked on the Ramotswa transboundary aquifer in southern Africa, shared by Botswana and South Africa (Villholth 2021), and aquifers in the Middle East and North Africa, Ethiopia, Laos, India, Vietnam and even Texas, USA.Following an integrated systemic approach to governance is especially critical as groundwater is intrinsically linked to land, other water resources, and to important environmental and ecosystem functions, as well as to the energy-climate-food systems nexus. A major barrier to sustainable and equitable groundwater use arises from existing governance structures which maintain the status quo of power relations and benefit flows. Prioritizing preservation of the status quo leads to articulation of generalized solutions (e.g., 'accountability') rather than exploration of deeply rooted sociopolitical issues that may be generating groundwater overdraft or pollution (Molle andClosas 2017, 2021;Molle et al. 2018).The push to expand solar energy for irrigation and other uses is exacerbating weaknesses in groundwater governance, posing a potential major threat to theA project in southern Africa implemented by ICRISAT and partners introduced soil monitoring tools to support farmers to learn about soil moisture and nutrient dynamics. Agricultural innovation platforms (AIPs) were established in each of five irrigation schemes. The AIPs enabled farmers and other stakeholders to identify the major barriers to production and learn from experiences. The synergies between these interventions increased both crop yields and profitability. This empowered farmers, improved equity and accelerated social learning and innovation. The resulting iterative cycles of change improved governance, sustainability and socioeconomic outcomes. The researchers do not use the term, but this is an excellent example of institutional bricolage and emphasizes the importance of integrating technical and social innovations. environment, food security, livelihoods and equality. Degradation of groundwater resources and disruption of linked socioecological systems have thus emerged as a major threat to future food and water security.There is a serious mismatch between the urgency of the problems and current interventions to address them. Effective water governance cannot be prescribed and implemented in a linear process. Rather, entirely new governance arrangements need to be encouraged. These should build on local arrangements, shifting from government attempts to regulate groundwater use to anchoring transformations in locally-driven collective action in cooperation with state institutions. Technological innovations can help this process (Closas and Villholth 2019;Zwarteveen et al. 2021).Research in the Arab world confirms that groundwater governance by state institutions alone is rarely successful. This includes attempts to regulate, license or meter flows from wells. Pure community-centered aquifer governance is rare. More common are various forms of co-management by state institutions and local entities, as reviewed in detail by Molle and Closas (2017) and Molle et al. (2018). There is great variation in joint governance of aquifers, but many of these also fail to achieve long-term sustainable use. For example, the Ogallala aquifer in Texas, USA, is a de facto case of 'managed depletion' of the groundwater, a result of complex and irreconcilable values and goals (Closas and Molle 2018).Research from Ethiopia and the Ramotswa aquifer demonstrates the continued exclusion of women from participating in groundwater management and policy, and governance of transboundary aquifers. This can deepen inequities (Nigussie et al. 2018;Hawkins et al. 2019). Women could be more effectively engaged in citizen science for sustainable groundwater management, if considered from the outset (Goldin et al. 2021).If governance of groundwater is problematic, effective governance of transboundary water resources -both surface water and aquifers -is even more so. All the challenges of managing within-country water resources are complemented by governing relationships among neighboring countries. In addition to comparative work on river basin management, WLE researchers have worked in several transboundary water resource systems, including the Mekong and Salween river basins and the Limpopo Basin, which includes the Ramotswa aquifer.A major observation from work in the two Southeast Asian river basins is the serious disconnect or 'institutional dissonance' among local, regional, national and international decision-making bodies. This applies to many other basins. It is reflected in the common assumption by national representatives and donors that the state is the sole or primary actor, obscuring more local sources of conflict and tension, and missing opportunities for progress at local levels (Suhardiman et al. 2012;Suhardiman and Giordano 2012;IWMI 2015).Unlike the Mekong, the Salween River Basin, shared by China, Myanmar and, peripherally, Thailand, has no intergovernmental agreement. Power relations at all levels are highly asymmetrical, and some parts of the basin experience continuing violence. Nevertheless, dams are being constructed, leading to major transformations in river flows, ecosystems and livelihoods. WLE researchers argue that hybrid networks of state and non-state actors could be strategically engaged to connect fragmented decision-making landscapes. They emphasize the importance of acknowledging the legitimate roles of community-based organizations and civil society in achieving ecological and social justice (Suhardiman and Middleton 2020;Suhardiman et al. 2017).Governance of transboundary waters occurs at multiple scales. The challenge is to facilitate development of cooperative governance structures that bring practical benefits to people. Locally-focused cooperation tailored to solve specific issues can achieve this, complementing a basin-scale focus (IWMI 2015).WLE has produced new tools, handbooks and guides to promote more participatory, effective and equitable governance of water resources. These include handbooks for stakeholder-driven creation of WUAs (e.g., de Silva et al. 2019;Merrey and Lefore 2018), and a guide for supporting community-led multipleuse water systems in South Africa (van Koppen et al. 2020). All three emphasize the need to encourage local creative institution-building processes. The Gender in Irrigation Learning and Improvement Tool supports women's involvement in the governance of larger irrigation schemes or, at least, reduces approaches that discriminate against women (Lefore et al. 2017). Other guidance supports gender equity in smaller-scale systems (Theis et al. 2018). These tools and handbooks complement others developed under WLE, such as those for establishing WUAs in Ethiopia (Lempériere et al. 2014) and a practitioners' guide to community-based management of freshwater resources produced with The Nature Conservancy (Zhang et al. 2020).Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) to develop tools for strengthening social inclusion in multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs) and processes. Well-designed MSPs provide structured contexts in which participants can safely discuss inequalities and asymmetrical power. This can build mutual understanding and, in the longer run, encourage changes in behavior. Ideally, MSPs involve a range of resource users (men and women) including government officials, NGO staff and-especially important for driving farmer-led irrigation-the private sector (Minh et al. 2020). These tools can help marginalized peoples' voices to be heard; build trust by understanding others' perspectives and the value of collaboration; support conflict resolution; and foster social learning through self-assessment and reflection. 2   The use of experiential games is a key tool developed and used by CGIAR researchers to improve governance of natural resources. Games offer a structured and replicable approach to facilitate dialogue, influence behavior, improve stakeholders' understanding, influence norms and increase the legitimacy of difficult decisions. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and ICRISAT, with the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES) and other partners, have led the use of experiential games. In Andhra Pradesh, India, these were used to increase awareness among local communities of the relationships between irrigation and the depletion of groundwater, and to promote more effective collective governance (Meinzen-Dick et al. 2016, 2018). Understanding and shaping peoples' mental models is critical for successful experimentation with rules and governance arrangements, and for achieving shared understandings and action in governance.Games have also been used to support improved governance of other natural resources, such as small reservoirs, rainwater harvesting, forests (Falk et al. 2021) and wetlands, and in land use planning (Suhardiman and Signs 2018;Sindorf et al. 2020; CoRe and FES Forthcoming; Bartels et al. 2020;Evans et al. 2021). However, games alone are not a panacea; they need to be accompanied by technical innovations and external support.WLE researchers have used a variety of conceptual and theoretical perspectives, including critical institutionalism, feminist political ecology, social ecology and political economy. These all view the complex network of institutions as mediating relationships among people, natural resources and society through a social justice lens. They elucidate how formal and informal institutions are entwined in social life and how asymmetrical power affects outcomes. They emphasize how governance arrangements evolve over time through a creative negotiation process of institutional bricolage, \"an active, conscious creative process of adapting norms, values and social arrangements to fit new purposes, while also reflecting and being shaped by deeply embedded unconscious principles\" (Merrey and Cook 2012). These processes can result in fitfor-purpose governance arrangements, but can also exacerbate existing inequities, for example, by excluding women from decision-making. Experiential games and MSPs can be used to support and guide these creative processes.A common theme is how to achieve greater equity, social justice, empowerment and inclusion, particularly by giving an effective voice on governing collective resources to women and others who are socially, economically and politically marginalized. This is a major challenge, as water governance is highly contested. A strong emphasis on gender permeates the research, as does the need to understand existing local social systems.A closely related theme focuses on the relationships between local communities and both government and nongovernment organizations. In river basins, there is a disconnect between higher level official governance arrangements and local arrangements. In irrigation schemes, watersheds and wetlands, the rhetoric of 'participation' and 'bottom-up development' obscures the reality of top-down efforts to impose particular governance structures and particular models of 'gender equity.'An equally important theme is the failure to effectively integrate biophysical or technical innovations with institutions and governance. Often, technical innovations are introduced without regard to the governance issues they raise. For example, offering low-cost solar pumps to large numbers of farmers sharing an aquifer with limited recharge capacity is a recipe for disaster in several ways: wealthier farmers gain access to pumps disproportionately, making existing inequities worse; and the absence of arrangements for sustainably exploiting the aquifer can lead to its rapid depletion.CGIAR has adopted an ambitious \"One CGIAR\" program for the period to 2030 with goals that directly support the SDGs (CGIAR n.d.). Thirty-three major research and regional initiatives are being developed into full proposals (CGIAR System Council 2021). Most of these target technological innovations to support food and nutrition security and more effective adaptation to climate change. Targeting investments to support the most disadvantaged and excluded people effectively combined with supporting the creation of equitable and sustainable governance arrangements will be critical to achieving CGIAR's goals. Water is an unconfined, flowing, elusive and increasingly scarce resource that cannot be managed solely through bureaucratic arrangements. Water governance is one of the most complex challenges humanity faces, but it must be addressed to achieve the goals of CGIAR, especially in the context of climate change and the need to transform our food systems. WLE's research, complemented by others' work, has identified some fruitful ways forward. The transition from CGIAR Research Programs to the One CGIAR portfolio offers a unique opportunity. A substantial investment in research on governance of natural resources integrated with cuttingedge biophysical and digital investments will be required to achieve the One CGIAR goals of achieving measurable progress in the SDGs.The ","tokenCount":"3309"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1640f8c0a7ff9297b80a66701b84e5b3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/68531edc-069d-4582-b50c-d5662c3d2143/content","id":"2079194441"},"keywords":["L=.:ow la.:..",".=__ _ __ W e\"___' _ B. Nigusie --=:..:. : . . . . : '--~.:....:=nd __=_' __=_\"-fertilized/rainfed _~__~a _ w _ e_ .. Dry Lowland Strigil __ B. Nigusie t--_3 o....-....",".. K ..",".",".ib c:... o ::...c k ..:..: o'---_ _--'-Ken \"'-a =:.....-_ _--= D ~1}' Mid-altitude Managed Drou ht Stress CIMMYT/KARI 4 Kiboko ....: Kenya -:-:-\"-fertilized/rain7 fe-d:__----=:...:..:..:.. .:....:.:....:' -' _ _ _ ..:.c: Dry Mid-al~!. ~~~._ _ ____:W e\"CC-:c 5 Melkasa Ethio ia D Mid-altitude Well-fertilized/rainfed G. Bo ale"],"sieverID":"7aee6f6a-e156-4353-8635-bb40e9efa0f3","pagecount":"68","content":"The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is an internationally funded, non-profit scientific research and training organization. Headquartered in Mexico, the Center works with agricultural research institutions worldwide to improve the productivity and sustainability of maize and wheat systems for resource-poor farmers in developing countries. It is one of 16 similar centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The CGIAR comprises over 50 partner countries, international and regional organizations, and private foundations. It is co sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).The trials evaluated elite pre-release and released maize germ plasm supplied by CIMMYT and private seed companies from eastern Africa. CIMMYT grouped the germplasm according to vigor and maturity, and formed seven replicated trials: All trials were alpha (0, 1) lattice design with two to three replicates. Plot size was one or two-rows.The trials were grown by CIMMYT, National Agricultural Research Programs and private seed companies in eastern and central Africa. Collaborators were encouraged to grow the trials under different types of conditions: Well•fertilized/rain-fed conditions : trials were grown using optimal site-specific agronomic practices Managed nitrogen stress : trials were grown in fields that had been depleted of nitrogen by growing unfertilized, non-leguminous crops for several seasons and removing the crop biomass after each season. Nitrogen fertilization to maize trials was designed so that yields under managed N stress averaged 20-35% of the yield of a well-fertilized maize crop at that site.Managed drought stress: trials were grown during a rain-free period, with irrigation applied at the beginning of the season to establish a good plant stand. Afterwards, irrigation was withheld so that the crop suffered drought stress during flowering and grain filling, resulting in average yields of about 1-3 tJha.Artificial infestation of biotic stress factors : trials were grown under artificial infestation of Striga.A complete list of the sites can be found in Section 3.For ECA-ILHT08, ECA-EDTC08, ECA-LLVT08, ECA-EVT08, ECA-QHT08, ECA-EQVT08 and ECA-IRHT08, within each maturity group, grain yields, anthesis date, plant height, root and stem lodging, husk cover, ear rot, leaf diseases, grain texture, ear and plant aspect traits were color-coded. Within a maturity group, colors that have no letter in common in the legend are different by at least one 'Least Significant Difference' (LSD, P~O.05) . LSDs were calculated from the mean square error that was pooled across sites. Note : colors can only be used to compare grain yields within a certain maturity group. For comparing grain yields between maturity groups, use the LSD listed at the bottom of the Table . A description of all measurements can be found in Section 2.These Tables present grain yields and other agronomic traits for individual sites, grouped by management. A description of the sites can be found in Section 3.Testing Sites  Score for the severity of stem borer (Busseo/a and Chilo) damage rated on a scale from 1 (= clean, no damage) to 5 (= severe damage).Count of the number of Busseo/a larvae. Higher the number indicates susceptibility.Score for the severity of Chilo partellus leaf damage rated on a scale from 1 (= no infestation) to 9 (= severely infested).Force required to puncture leaves between veins as measured by the penetrometer. Genotypes with lower numbers tend to be susceptible to borers.Number of grain weevils hatching and emerging from an infested grain sample within a given period . Large values indicate susceptibility to grain weevils, small values indicate partial resistance to grain weevils.Loss of weight of the grain samples caused by weevil feeding during a given period of incubation. Large values indicate susceptibility to weevils.Rated on a scale from 1 (= flint) to 5 (=dent).Percent water content of grain as measured at harvest.Anthesis-silking interval. Determined by (i) measuring the number of days after planting when 50% of the plants shed pollen (anthesis date, AD) and show silks (silking date, SO), respectively, and (ii) calculating: ASI = SO -AD. Leaf rolling score measured under drought stress on a scale from 1 (unrolled, turgid leaves, desirable) to 5 (severely rolled leaves, undesirable).Leaf senescence score on a scale from 1 to 10. Taken during grain-filling by estimating the percentage of dead leaf area and dividing it by 10. If taken under drought or N stress, small scores indicate stress tolerance.1 = 10% dead leaf area; 6 = 60% dead leaf area 2 = 20% dead leaf area; 7 = 70% dead leaf area 3 = 30% dead leaf area; 8 = 80% dead leaf area 4 = 40% dead leaf area; 9 = 90% dead leaf area 5 = 50% dead leaf area; 10 = 100% dead leaf area Score for the extent of modification (extent of opaqueness) of quality protein maize (QPM) kernels rated on a scale from 1 (fully modified/normal looking kernels) to 5 (unmodified/opaque kernels) as evaluated on a light table. 4.65.93.3            Me  ,. '. ' 11.43.2 6.812.910.53.5 6.12 ECAVllfi!ECAIIlI6-STR 1._.~,'IA U., .!!.   \"\"\"\"\" Koo s...\"'.' eo s,,.'\" \"' \"In,. Aspect \"'''''Iih.1I~\", Iih.,0.  ---~-.. 3.01.8 f.7 3.93.92.0 2.0Maturity group average  24 UA KA YONGOwith antilesis dale between 76 -78 days 2.:.. 1.74                1.9 2.2 2.0 2.2 1.82.1 2.1 1.9 2.0 1.5             ","tokenCount":"874"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"318df5c48f0dae1105290fde115dbf47","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a1ce1005-7080-4851-9f73-40a7aa8cacc3/retrieve","id":"-1129346668"},"keywords":["✓ Dynamic World [1]","✓ Esri LULC Map [2]","✓ World-Cover [3]"],"sieverID":"958341dd-c2d0-4b45-8f74-0ab5f85e8ee9","pagecount":"27","content":"Base don Sentinel-2 data and publicly available at global scale at 10m spatial resolution.Using UAVs/drones to map EAsMapping the Enumerator Area (EA)s with a UAV/drone:• Speed up the field data collection:• Reference data for the manual enumeration with the app;• Both data sets are complementary and represent an ideal data mix.• High-resolution reference data for satellite data analysis;• Derive quantitative data on:• Crop types cultivated;• Crop availability in the segments;• Crop health and stress status.Using UAVs/drones to map EAsWe did a test and here are the results:• Individual crops are distinguishable:• Several pixels (<5cm) per crop allow crop health assessment:Using UAVs/drones to map EAs• 45 minutes required for mapping an EA (500x500m)• 15 min pre flight preparation;• 15 min flight time;• 15 min post flight preparation.• UAV gathers RGB data and different spectral bands:• RGB orthomosaic (on the right) <5cm pixel size;• Digital surface model <5cm pixel size;• Green, red, red-edge and near infrared band ; orthomosaics <5cm pixel size;• 3D-point cloud;• NDVI and EVI index. In summary ➢Given the promising preliminary results, we can conclude that Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 have the potential to map crop types in Mozambique.➢Working at local scale, the preliminary land cover map:➢ captures the location of agricultural areas better than the publicly available ESRI global land cover product; ➢Provides detailed spatial information for the selection of the sampling sites.➢EAs can be mapped in 45 min total time. Data on crop levels can be collected to improve agricultural statistics. UAV/drone data can be used as reference for enumerator collected data.","tokenCount":"254"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9b18877e664d3e1f0c8ecc09d9cc04c4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/dc925d08-2777-4ddf-81a7-862e96d1381f/retrieve","id":"1974946173"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0336bfbe-c760-4983-a71d-290a046e9ac0","pagecount":"143","content":"The geographical designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of IPGRI or the CGIAR concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. Similarly, the views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of these organizations.Mention of a proprietary name does not constitute endorsement of the product and is given only for information.Genetic resources of animals and plants are some of the few resources available to resourcepoor farmers in Vietnam to ensure sustainable production and improve livelihoods. It is the foundation upon which animal and plant breeding depends for the creation of new breeds and varieties and is, therefore, a critical aspect of food security.Genetic resources can be conserved by two approaches: in situ, in its place of origin, or ex situ, outside its place of origin, as in zoos, botanical gardens, field genebanks and genebanks. The surest and cheapest way to keep this genetic diversity alive is to keep growing it in farmers' fields or home gardens.On-farm conservation is generally used to describe a process by which farmers maintain the traditional crop varieties that they have developed and which they continue to manage and improve. Thus, the conservation of specific genes or genotypes is secondary to the continuation of the processes that allow the material to evolve and change over time (Jarvis and Hodgkin 2000).Climatic, agroecological and sociocultural ethnic divergence and the prevalence of traditional farming systems of small farms and niches have contributed to diverse crops and cultivars in Vietnam. Farmers search locally adapted cultivars for diverse target niches and maintain seed for their need. Genetic diversity gives species the ability to adapt to changing environments, including new pests and diseases and new climatic conditions. Farmer preferences for specific colour, taste and type also demand diverse crop varieties. Hence, the goal of in situ conservation is to encourage farmers to select and maintain local crop diversity for the benefit of humankind.Environmental, biological, cultural and socioeconomic factors influence a farmer's decision of whether to select or maintain a particular crop cultivar at any given time (Jarvis et al. 1998;Jarvis and Hodgkin 2000). In the process of planting, managing, selecting, rogueing, harvesting and processing the farmers, in turn, make decisions on their crops that affect the genetic diversity of the crop populations. Over time a farmer may alter the genetic structure of a crop population by selecting for plants with preferred agromorphological or quality characteristics. Thus, the crop genetic diversity present in farming systems has been maintained through the combined action of natural and human selection.From the perspective of a farming community, on-farm conservation is a source of biodiversity-based livelihoods as it meets basic food and nutritional requirements. For the last few decades, agricultural scientists have responded to the threat of genetic erosion by developing a worldwide network of genebanks and botanical gardens for conserving the available useful genetic resources ex situ (Bommer 1991). While this form of conservation remains no doubt a useful method, it has some drawbacks in terms of effectiveness and cost. First, an ex situ genebank freezes the natural evolutionary process (Altieri and Merrick 1988). Second, ex situ collections are more vulnerable to mismanagement and the transmission of seed-borne pathogens (Wood 1993). In addition, genebank facilities do not conserve farmers' traditional knowledge of crop selection, management and maintenance processes in the development of local cultivars. Nor can they ensure the continued access and use of these resources by farmers. However, in a country like Vietnam, an integrated approach to conservation may be required to combine different ex situ and in situ conservation methods depending upon biology, costs, resource availability, technical capacity, user's needs and the threats to the genepool. Nevertheless, both systems have complementary roles in conservation and utilization of genetic resources.The continuing use of landraces contributes to stable food production and income especially in marginal or upland environments where impacts of modern varieties are limited or less effective. Therefore, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has recognized the continued maintenance of traditional varieties in situ as an essential component of sustainable agricultural development. The concept of in situ conservation is partly an effort by the scientific community to honour its debt to the legacy of farming peoples who created the biological basis of crop production (Brush 2000).In situ management of local crop diversity is important for sustainable agriculture because it:• conserves the evolutionary processes of local adaptation of crops to their environments• conserves diversity at all levels-the ecosystem, the species, and the genetic diversity within species • conserves ecosystem services critical to the functioning of the Earth's life-support system, thus improving the livelihoods for resource-poor farmers through economic and social development • maintains or increases farmers' control over and access to crop genetic resources • ensures farmers' efforts are an integral part of national PGR systems and involves farmers directly in developing options for adding benefits of local crop diversity • links the farming community to genebanks for conservation and utilization (Jarvis et al. 2000a).The importance of conservation of agrobiodiversity for future global food security lies in its potential to supply crop breeders and other users with future germplasm needs. On-farm conservation will provide public and private benefits (socioeconomic, ecological and genetic benefits). Witcombe (1999) reported that there has been a significant increase over time in the number of landraces that are used in the major CGIAR centres of CIMMYT and IRRI. In Vietnam, the proportion of parents used by the plant breeders from genebank is still limited.It is useful to identify four aspects where information is needed to support farmers and local communities in on-farm crop diversity conservation, management and use. Following are four basic research questions, which will provide a scientific basis for designing and planning effective on-farm conservation:1. What is the extent and distribution of the genetic diversity maintained by farmers over space and over time? 2. What are the processes used to maintain the genetic diversity on-farm? 3. Who maintains genetic diversity within farming communities (men, women, young, old, rich, poor, certain ethnic groups)? 4. What factors (market, non-market, social, environmental) influence farmer decisions on maintaining traditional varieties?The project, therefore, is concerned with how in situ conservation can be linked with genetic, socioeconomic and ecological benefits for livelihoods of people (Jarvis et al. 2000b). Benefits accruing from such efforts could be both monetary and non-monetary. Answering the above-mentioned basic questions provides the knowledge needed to (i) support local seed systems, (ii) improve participatory plant breeding programmes, (iii) develop markets for traditional crops and cultivars, (iv) promote appropriate curriculum development, (v) create methodologies for integrating locally adapted crop cultivars and farmer preferences into development and extension projects, and (vi) advise on appropriate policies that support the management and use of crop diversity in agroecosystems (IPGRI 2001). Answers to these questions are also needed to develop methods for mainstreaming the use of local crop genetic resources into the agricultural development arena that aims for poverty alleviation and food security.Effective management and conservation of genetic resources on-farm takes places where the resources are valued and used to meet the needs of local communities (Jarvis et al. 2000a). In order for local crop systems to be maintained by farmers, the genetic resources must have some value and/or be competitive with other options a farmer might have. Two options were used in adding benefits: the first, on adding benefits through participatory plant breeding, seed networks and grassroots strengthening, and the second, on adding benefits through public awareness, better processing, marketing, policy incentives, and education in the formal sector (Jarvis et al. 1998).The first option is to seek improved quality, disease resistance, high yield, better taste, longer storability and other preferred traits through breeding, seed networks and modified farming systems. The second option includes adding value to crop resources so that the demand for the material or some derived product may be increased. These diverse options will emerge when community, researchers and developmental institutions are directly involved in monitoring local crop diversity using a community biodiversity register and linking with crop improvement, seed and market networks for adding benefits on local resources.The following steps are identified that are essential for effective implementation of an onfarm conservation programme before \"best practices\" can be used for policy reforms (Sthapit et al. 2000):1. Locating ecosystem diversity, crops and community 2. Creating institutional framework and participatory planning process 3. Community sensitization 4. Locating diversity and custodians 5. Monitoring diversity 6. Characterizing, measuring and assessing local crop diversity 7. Developing strategy for options of on-farm conservation of agrobiodiversity 8. Mainstreaming information for development and policy reforms.Understanding the scientific basis of on-farm conservation of crop genetic resources will allow stakeholders to appreciate the amount of genetic diversity maintained by a farming community and their genetic, sociocultural, economic, and ecological values in order to formulate national research and development policies for poverty alleviation and food security.Figure 1 illustrates the processes that involve a community in developing their own on-farm conservation strategy that provides benefits to individuals, the community, the nation and the international community. A number of participatory tools have been developed to implement on-farm conservation activities at local level by the farming community themselves:1. Improving local seed system: Understanding the local crop diversity and social networks of germplasm and knowledge flow and storage methods; identify technical gaps and strengthen local seed system. 2. Diversity fair: Local community can organize this fair for locating diversity and custodians, sensitizing community and policy-makers, and promoting access to information and materials. 3. Community biodiversity register: Recording inventory of local crop diversity and associated local knowledge and monitoring the increase and decrease of number of landraces and modern varieties and their distribution pattern within households (by area) or between households within community.Figure 1. Strengthening grassroots institutions and informal seed networks through participatory approaches such as diversity fair and CBR and linking with value addition options and ex situ conservation (Sthapit and Jarvis 1999).Such activities will raise awareness on local crop diversity and help to understand the value of local crop diversity. Diversity fair and Community Biodiversity Register are two participatory methods that can strengthen local capacity to document taxonomic data and traditional knowledge on crop genetic resources (CGR) with the following specific objectives:• create awareness and develop a sense of community ownership on biodiversity • locate unique, rare and culturally significant cultivars and their custodians • enhance access to genetic materials and information on local crop diversity • develop options of adding benefits and support biodiversity-based livelihoods • build local capacity for monitoring diversity in situ and promote on-farm management of local crop diversity • make stakeholders aware of and protect economically important biowealth against biopiracy.A challenge of successful implementation of CBR will depend upon how the approach could provide direct benefits to a farming community. One of the direct benefits is that it may help to network key households, which maintain rare, unique and rich local crop diversity resulting in a network of seed stores to form a decentralized community seed bank. The value of such a decentralized community biodiversity register will be clearer when activities such as diversity kits, Participatory Variety Selection and Participatory Plant Breeding (Witcombe et al., 1996;Sthapit and Jarvis 1999;Sthapit et al. 2000) are integrated into community-based informal seed management and exchange programmes. Participatory plant breeding and deployment of diversity kits will strengthen the capacity of farmers to search, select, maintain and exchange genetic resources for obtaining both genetic and socioeconomic benefits for farmers and society. All this requires greater collaboration between formal and informal sectors with more benefit-oriented activities.In situ (on-farm) conservation is concerned with maintaining species' populations in the natural habitats where they occur, whether as uncultivated plant communities or in farmers' fields as part of existing agroecosystems. The CBD (Convention on Biological Diversity) assumes that the continuing use of landraces contributes to stable food production and income, especially in marginal environments where impacts of modern varieties are limited or less effective. Therefore, the CBD has recognized the continued maintenance of traditional varieties in situ as an essential component of sustainable agricultural development (Jarvis and Hodgkin 2000).The project objectives of Phase I were:• To enhance and support a framework of knowledge on farmer decision-making processes that influence in situ conservation of agricultural biodiversity. • To strengthen national institutions for the planning and implementation of conservation programmes for agricultural biodiversity.• To broaden the use of agricultural biodiversity and the participation in its conservation by including farming communities and other groups.The Vietnam country component was supported by SDC, Switzerland for both 3-year phases (1997-1999 and 2000-2003). IPGRI acts as a contracting party to the project donors. IPGRI has set up a transparent management system to implement the project activities through the Letter of Agreements (LoAs). Vietnam Agricultural Science Institute (VASI) has been identified as the focal institution with Cantho University as an additional partner in southern Vietnam. IPGRI played an important role within the national components to ensure that various partners are working together as a multidisciplinary team as far as implementation and sharing of results is concerned.Vietnam has seven agroecosystems. Contrasting macrosites were chosen representing six agroecosystems to provide a range of conditions that encompass high to low levels of genetic diversity, optimal to low agricultural conditions and high to low levels of market integration. Table 1 summarizes comparative features of all sites, diverse ecology and crops, coordinating institutions and site coordinators. Contrasting characteristics of all seven sites of Vietnam in situ project sites are described in Tables 2.1 and 2.2. The following agroecosystems were considered for selecting regions for in situ conservation study of agricultural biodiversity.  North-west mountain ecosystem: Sapa and Da Bac districts are located in remote mountainous areas of Vietnam. Sapa site is accessible by train and roads and has been an important tourist destination in Vietnam. In Sapa, main sources of livelihoods are off-farm employment and sale of large cardamoms for medicinal purposes. Da Bac site is an all-day drive from Hanoi and is popular for quality upland rice and taro diversity. Traditional crops and cultivars are major sources of livelihoods and poverty is widespread. Sapa site was added during the second phase of the project.Red River Delta ecosystem: The villages around Nghiahung site are located in what is thought to be the original area for the Vietnamese civilization. These districts are located at an average elevation of 1.5 meters and are representative of the Red River Delta Ecosystem.The region is considered a centre of diversity for aromatic rice and in many villages, aromatic rice occupies nearly 80% of the total rice production. Nho quan ecosystem is located in the foothills and Lake Watershed. Both subsistence and commercial home gardens and large agroecosystems are found. The villages are accessible to market, which is 2-3 hours distance from Hanoi. Taro diversity and home gardens are unique to the site.Coastal central Vietnam ecosystem: Hue province is representative of the Central coastal Vietnam region. The province extends from the coast westward to the mountains from an elevation of 10 to 100 meters. The region is drier than the Red River Delta agroecosystem but the coastal side of Hue site is wet, humid and prone to floods. Diverse types of rice and taro are cultivated in the region including floating rice. This site was added during the second phase of the project. Southern Central plateau ecosystem: Daklak province is the driest of the three provinces.The proposed study area ranges in elevation from 500 to 700 m and is representative of the Central Plateau agroecosystem. The local crop diversity is affected by transformation processes of commercialization and land-use policy interventions. The region has a large diversity of ethnic minorities, including the Bana, M'nong, Ede and Giarai. In this region, farmers grow upland rice in the wet season with irrigated legume crops in the dry season. This site was added during the second phase of the project.Mekong Delta ecosystem: Tra cu district is the unique sand dune ecosystem of Mekong Delta. Water sources from Mekong River and saline water from the sea influence adaptation of local crop diversity. Traditional varieties are grown in large areas in areas prone to salinity whereas the modern IRRI and Chinese hybrids have replaced local cultivars in irrigated high yield potential areas. The root crops such as taro, yams and cassava play important crops for food security, as the areas are prone to frequent floods.Rice, finger millet, taro, mungbean, large cardamom and sesame have been tentatively selected but diversity of rice, taro and cardamom was also found. The major criteria for priority crop selection were as follows: native to East Asian Centre of Origin, rich intraspecific diversity and importance to farming community. Diversity fairs showed that rice, cardamom and taro have only some degree of genetic diversity and remaining crops cannot be considered for in situ conservation.Main outputs for (1) creating a national framework for project implementation, (2) agroecosystem factors, (3) sociocultural factors, (4) agromorphological characters and farmer criteria, (5) population structure and breeding systems, (6) seed supply systems, (7) and adding benefits to local crop resources through breeding and non-breeding methods for this phase of the project in Vietnam were published in the 1999 Proceedings of the Global Participants Meeting, 5-12 July 1999, Pokhara, Nepal (Jarvis et al. 2000). A total of nine papers were published and some of the project outputs are summarized in Table 3.  1E. Key indicators and measurements of the effect of increasing population pressures, land degradation and environmental change on the maintenance of on-farm diversity. Bibliographic revision and fieldwork is planned for documenting demographic growth, and changes in rainfall patterns (meteorological stations), land use and tenure in the study areas.1F. Information on the effect of market development (access to market, off-farm income, availability of credit to male and female farmers) on the maintenance of onfarm diversity. Changes in local and regional economy, market access, off-farm labour and credit availability are planned for a later time.1G. Recommendations for national economic and agricultural policy to aid the maintenance of on-farm diversity. The National Multidisciplinary Group (NMDG) contains members from the Ministry of Agriculture who are linked to policy-makers. Information from the project is made available to Members of the Ministry of Agriculture and other institutions interested in conserving genetic diversity on-farm.OBJECTIVE 2: To strengthen national institutions for the planning and implementation of conservation programmes for agricultural biodiversity.Progress and General Observations:  The purpose of the activity is to foster conservation through developmental activities. New crop diversity of sweet potato, potato, okra and tomato were distributed in northern ecosites through female motivators in order to raise the value of genetic resource. In Tra cu site as well 6 cultivars of taro landraces and 3 cultivars of cassava were deployed at the hands of farmers.In Can Tho seed multiplication of farmer-preferred crops and varieties was also carried out to transfer skill of seed selection to farmers and also to link conservation with informal seed markets and promotion network.3C. Male and female farmers and project personnel trained in decentralized breeding. A training course was also held in Tra Cu with participating farmers on strengthening the Farmer Role in PGR Development and Conservation.A separate LoA was signed between IPGRI and Rice Breeding Department of VASI on PPB in collaboration with the NMDG of the project to link PPB as a process to enhance on-farm conservation of local crop diversity. The purpose of the exercise was to promote interinstitutional collaboration and partnership, which is difficult to achieve in Vietnam. Initial need assessment of rice and taro cultivars has been carried out using preferred trait analysis.Further training on participatory approaches to crop improvement may be needed to strengthen the capacity of VASI breeder.3D. Strengthened community institutions for biodiversity management. Through the direct involvement of farmers in Diversity fairs and Diversity blocks of rice and taro in the villages from local and also genebank collections, agrobiodiversity is made more directly available for farmers. 3E. Improved links between formal and informal institutions and farmers. Through the sociocultural survey, the collecting of seed samples and diversity fair activities, both formal and informal relations are being established between the farmers and the different project institutions.IPM approach has been used as a participatory method to add value of local rice cultivar of Nep Do combined with the use of leaf colour chart for nitrogen requirement. Training on IPM and EPM was regularly organized on a weekly basis to establish rapport between farmers and project staff and also to understand the value of local diversity in maintaining health of ecosystem. The project staff and local plant protection officers from the district were the main resource persons for such training activities and about 30 farmers are regularly taking part in the training.In addition, there has been a sharing of information and skill transfer between CBDC and IPGRI in situ projects.3E.1 Improved links through Diversity Blocks. Diversity blocks of taro and lowland rice were maintained in all ecosites and data were recorded for 1999 seasons. The SDC review team, consisting of Dr Gordon Prain, Dr Jurg Benz and Dr S. Appa Rao, visited Vietnam from 13 to 20 September. Dr Luu Ngoc Trinh, National Project Coordinator of Vietnam, Dr Devra Jarvis and Dr Bhuwon Sthapit, also accompanied the review team. Dr Ramanatha Rao, Interim Activity Manager also met the team in HMC. The purpose of the SDC review was to compare the achievements with the results as planned, including a look at benefits for farming communities. The review aimed to assess if the project was implemented as planned, and if not, what were the reasons. Main recommendations of the review team and action to be taken are listed in Table 4.In September 1999, an external evaluation of the SDC-funded components of the project was completed. The evaluation team recommended the continued financing of the global and Vietnam component of the project for a next 3-year phase.A planning process for on-farm conservation workshop in Hanoi from 21 to 23 March 2000 was also initiated during the period. During the April 2000 Hoa Binh Goal Oriented participatory planning meeting, the participants verified that all the recommendations of the SDC Evaluation, which had not yet been fulfilled, were taken care of through planned activities in the project planning matrix. Three new partners-Hanoi Agricultural University, Hue University and Tay Nguyen University-along with Vietnam Agricultural Science Institute (VASI) and Cantho University joined the second phase of the project.The main purpose of Phase II (2000 to date) is to strengthen the scientific basis, institutional linkages and policies that support the role of farmers in conservation and use of crop genetic diversity. The project has developed good practices and classified potential interventions to increase crop genetic diversity competitiveness to other options farmers might have under five broad headings:1. Improving the landraces 2. Increasing consumer demand 3. Improving access 4. Integrating crop diversity management with ecosystem health initiatives 5. Influencing policy.Table 4. SDC External Review: main recommendations and actions taken Recommendation Action A monitoring and evaluation structure should be developed in a planning workshop which would include redefining the role and responsibilities of the NMDG, introducing responsibilities for reviewing and synthesizing data and acting as a conduit for communications and information exchange with the global component.In June 2000 IPGRI staff visited the Vietnam partners which resulted in a change in the management structure of the project. In addition, a national planning meeting is scheduled for August 2000 (see below).There is a need for an extensive review of the objectives and methodology of diversity blocks, especially as a means for understanding current preferences in comparison with existing local diversity. This activity is now currently being done not only in Vietnam but also in other countries where diversity blocks have been carried out (e.g. Nepal and Morocco).Actions should clearly be identified as being carried out in the ex situ genebank if this is the case.The August 2000 National planning workshop will clearly identify which activities are related to the project implementation.Greater priority should be given to exploring the opportunities for characterizations and evaluations in the in situ sites.This programme of work has been accomplished through strengthening local, national and global frameworks and building representative partnerships. These partnerships include formal and informal institutes and organizations, researcher and farmer partnerships, gender equity in management and decision-making positions. Communes, extension workers and farmers' associations (including women) who work closely with farmers have an important role to play in identifying and adding value to farmermanaged genetic resources.The project focuses on strengthening the relations of formal institutions with farmers and local-level people's community. Vietnam Agricultural Science Institute (VASI) is the focal coordinating institution of the project. Cantho University, Hanoi Agricultural University, Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry (HUAF) and Tay Nguyen University are collaborating partners. The Hanoi Agricultural University, Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry (HUAF) and Tay Nguyen University joined only in the second phase of the project. Besides overall coordination between partners and IPGRI, the National Project Coordinator (NPC) is responsible for organizing an annual planning meeting where the multi-institutions (identified partners) participate and all partners agree on a common workplan, activities and outputs (Table 5). IPGRI develops a separate Letter of Agreement (LoA) for each partner based upon the agreed workplan at the ZOPP planning meeting. The implementation of an on-farm conservation programme presupposes that an integrated framework at central and local levels already exists within the country's national programme. In Vietnam, a strong national genebank exists with 30 staff at the Plant Genetic Resources Centre (PGRC). During first phase of the project Dr Luu Ngoc Trinh was responsible for overall coordination and linking with partners, IPGRI, communes and policymakers. At the local level, commune leader, village leader, site staff and members of men and women associations are key members of the site team. The meetings were carried out at site level, district level and national levels. There were no formal mechanisms to share the project outputs between sites during the first phase.In second phase of the project (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003), the National Project Coordination Committee (NPCC) was created during the Hoa Binh planning meeting (Table 5). Figure 1 illustrates the overall management structure of the second phase. The NPCC is responsible for calling an annual review and planning meeting. In this meeting partners share the findings of the project activities from their institutes with each other and with IPGRI, who participates in these meetings. The NPC is responsible for synthesizing and consolidating the outputs of the project together with the representative from each of the involved institutes. NPC is also responsible for reporting technical findings to IPGRI and to Vietnamese policy-makers and will play a linking role, which is lacking at present, with various related projects in Vietnam, including:•  Rice diversity and associated food culture have been traditionally rich in Vietnam (Bui Huy Dap 1980). This has been possible because farmers know how to choose preferred seeds and maintain them under their conditions and thereby farmers continue to maintain the process of on-farm conservation of rice diversity (Brush 2000). Climatic, physiogeographic and edaphic divergence, as well as the prevalence of traditional farming systems pursued by diverse ethnic nationalities, have contributed to Vietnam's wealth of rice diversity. Genetic diversity studies using isozyme analysis of a large number of rice varieties from South East Asia showed a larger diversity for mountain areas of Laos, North Vietnam, North Thailand and the high plateaus of South Vietnam compared with that of Yunan Province of China (Trinh et al. 1995;Tuan et al. 1997). Trinh et al. (1995) classified about 643 traditional local rice varieties using isozyme patterns and reported five distinct groups: indica of South Vietnam, indica of North Vietnam, japonica (glutinous rainfed cultivars), mountain indica, linked to early varieties, to winter rice (Chiem), and to aromatic rice of North Vietnam. Trinh et al. (1999) reported that the most interesting germplasm was located in the lowland and deepwater ecosystems, which are a rich source for adaptive traits for acid sulphate and saline soil conditions. Fukuoka et al. (1999) also studied the genetic structure of aromatic rice landraces from Nam Dinh Province in the Red River Delta. Significant differences in the degree of dissimilarity within landraces or samples collected within a 30-km radius were found and such differences can be largely attributed to genetic drift or farmers' selection rather than natural selection because the agroclimatic conditions in the sampled locations were similar. However, there is little information available on diversity of use value of local rice cultivars and its impact on the extent and distribution of lowland and upland rice diversity on-farm. This study aimed to understand why Vietnamese farmers grow diverse types of rice cultivars with distinct farmer units of diversity, when and where they grow rice cultivars and how they maintain and use them. Information from such basic studies will assist the national plant genetic research programme to formulate options for rice on-farm as well as ex situ conservation strategies.Participatory Rural Appraisal tools were used to list the number of rice cultivars during the baseline surveys conducted by the in situ conservation project partners. The survey teams visited six villages in Nho Quan, Da Bac and Nghia Hung districts. Focus group discussions were held to document the list of rice cultivars and their use value. This information was used for a preliminary assessment of the amount of rice diversity, which was used to locate diversity-rich villages.In the first phase from 1999 to 2000, surveys of 39-140 households (45-95% of total households) were carried out in six villages of the three selected districts to list the farmernamed rice diversity and basic socioeconomic characteristics of rice farmers (Table 1).In 2001 a community biodiversity register survey at village level sampled 30 farmer households (FHHs) per village for all sites. Descriptive statistical analyses of all parameters were computed for each site and varietal diversity indices using Shannon Weaver Index and Simpson Index were calculated using the following formula, which also gives the H' values:where k is the number of categories and pi is the proportion i=1 of the observations found in the category i; pi = frequency proportion of each category, and n= number of categories (Shannon and Weaver 1948).The Simpson Index for quantifying rice diversity was calculated using the following formula:where fi is the frequency proportion of the farmer-named variety found in the category i.CBR is a participatory approach to make an inventory of rice genetic resources and to enhance the knowledge base, empowering a farming community to manage the local biodiversity it maintains over generations.In order to implement the project activities, the project teams carried out the agrobiodiversity register at farmer household level during May-June 2001. The new survey results are presented in Table 2.The data from Table 1 show that farmers used local rice varieties as a sustainable resource base to assure appropriate farm management decisions. They use their descriptors, which involve morphological, environmental and use factors, for distinguishing rice varieties in their communities. In Vietnam, farmers use local names to differentiate rice cultivars for their day-to-day management ease. Farmer-named cultivars used by farming communities are the first indicator of the amount of diversity at a given location. Over time, various methods were used to document the list of rice cultivars in all studied sites and some differences were found in the amount of diversity, depending on the methods used and time of information collection (Table 3). At Tat Village, farmers could provide the names of 27 farmer-named varieties of rice including both landraces and modern varieties currently being grown by them. Among 27 varieties, 22 were categorized as landraces and the rest were modern varieties (MVs). The farmers described their varieties in different ways, but characters they used were distinct from each other.At Cang Village, farmers could provide the names of 25 farmer-named varieties of rice including both landraces and modern varieties currently being grown by them. Among 25 varieties, 17 were categorized as landraces and the rest were MVs.At Nho Quan ecosites: Yen Minh Village, 11 farmer-named rice varieties include 5 landraces. In Quang Mao Village, farmers could provide 14 farmer-named rice varieties. Although 14 rice varieties were described in 2001, only 12 varieties were cultivated in that year. The local glutinous variety Nep cai hoa vang was not grown.In Nghia Hung District in the Red River Delta, out of 10 farmer-named varieties, only 4 were rice landraces.The results indicate that the farmers could identify the landraces by their ways (farmer's descriptors) with different names. They gave discrete names to different landraces for locallevel management decisions.In 2001, in each village 30 FHHs were interviewed for the CBR survey. Total number of rice varieties at village level are presented in Table 4.The data in Table 4 show that the farmers in all study sites still grow many local varieties of rice, especially in the mountainous sites. Under marginal environments the landraces become more competitive than the MVs. The landraces are specific to certain agroecological niches. They have been tailored to be grown by farmers in different domains over time with continuous selection for adaptive traits. There were no modern varieties in marginal agroecological conditions and farmers had limited choice of landraces within their community. An understanding of the factors behind why these farmers have continued to maintain local varieties provides insights into formulating activities that can help increase the competitiveness of other local crop varieties in the farmer communities where they are under threat of genetic erosion.The number of HHs and areas cultivated under each rice landrace is different (Tables 5-10). Several varieties may be cultivated by a single household, but a single variety may be cultivated by several households. In Nho Quan District, the local rice varieties were grown in small areas by few farmers. There, the rice genetic erosion occurs rapidly.In Nghia Hung, the modern varieties have been grown at an increasing rate but in summer season the Tam Xoan variety is still grown by many farmers with large areas.    From the results of our study, we can classify the local varieties into two groups: the common and the rare.The common cultivars have high demand for livelihood (in mountainous areas) and high demand in market for quality traits (Tam Xoan in Nghia Hung). The rare cultivars are grown by few households in small plots for their specific use value. Generally, there are few locally common rice cultivars (1-4 types across a village).In all three ecosites, the modern rice varieties of Khang Dan, Q5 and Tap Giao have been and continue to be grown at an increasing rate. For these cultivars, there was clear market preference thanks to higher grain fertility and ready market acceptance. This indicates that the dynamics of area under different cultivars were governed mainly by the economic competence of cultivars within the studied communities. For the landraces the picture is not clear. The cultivated area is not stable. The change of cultivated area under a variety might be influenced by government policies, farmers' socioeconomic status, land holding, soil types, culture, religion and farmer decision related to landrace conservation. It is necessary to consider the collected data in detail.Thus, the distribution of rice diversity in the mountainous sites is influenced by local adaptive traits of upland rice and their specific use value. The extent and distribution of upland rice diversity can be related to multiple use values and preferences for local consumption. For the lowland ecosites, the extent and distribution of specific rice (aromatic and glutinous rice) can be related to high demand in market for grain quality.Diversity indices across the sites were computed for Shannon Weaver Index and Simpson Index to compare varietal richness of rice, the number of cultivars at village level, evenness, and the frequency of farmers growing each cultivar at village level (Table 11). A comparison of the SWI between 2000 and 2001 shows that in 2000 Tat Village of Da Bac site was richest in rice cultivar diversity followed by Kien Thanh Village of Nghia Hung site, and the third was Cang Village of Da Bac site. In 2001, the richest in rice varieties was also the Da Bac site. The ranking of richness is as follows: the first is Cang Village, followed by Tat and Kien Thanh Villages, and the third is Quang Mao Village. Comparing the calculated SI index between 2000 and 2001, the evenness of genotypic diversity was as follows: the two first villages were Tat and Kien Thanh, the second was Cang Village and the third was Quang Mao. The evenness ranked in the following order: Kien Thanh, Cang, Tat and Yen Minh Village.In all study sites, the farmers still grow many rice landraces but not all HHs are equally involved in cultivation and maintenance of landrace diversity within a village. In Tat, Cang, Yen Minh, Quang Mao, Kien Thanh and Dong Lac Villages, the number of local rice varieties grown in 2001 were 17, 15, 4, 4, 3 and 3, respectively. The choice of rice cultivars by farmers and their extent and distribution were often guided by multiple uses of rice cultivars and farmers' ecological circumstances.Rice structure of landraces and modern varieties has been changed, especially with lowland rice. Comparing with the year 2000, the level of modern varieties in rice production in three sites increased significantly in the studied areas. The public awareness of the use values of rice diversity can be a strategy for in situ conservation beside the deployment of new diversity across sites.Dai An Village is located in an area affected by saline water, and therefore agricultural production is dependent on the rain. The soils in the village are of three main types: sandy ridged soils, saline-alluvial soils and saline-acid sulphate soils.Rain usually starts in May and stops in November. Rainfall distribution is highest in September-October (300-400 mm/month), and the maximum depth of water is about 40-60 cm in the rice field. In the dry season, saline water can penetrate into the rivers from December to July and salinity is highest in March (15-20‰). Salinity is the main problem for crop growth during the dry season. Almost all farmers have to dig wells to provide fresh water for irrigating vegetables, beans and root crops, of which the Mon Sap variety of taro has been a well-adapted and common crop for a long time in this village.The differences among populations in morphological traits of Mon Sap taro are recognized by farmers who have seasonally cultivated this variety in different soil areas and with different management techniques. This diversity means the Mon Sap variety is conserved in a dynamic condition. A study was conducted in 1998-2000 to evaluate the genetic diversity among different populations of this local taro variety.Based on distribution of cultivated land areas of Mon Sap variety in the whole village, 64 farms were selected to observe and describe. Most of these areas were in the hamlets of Giong Lon A, Cay Da, Giong Dinh and Me Rach B.Each selected farm was at least 500 m 2 in size. This was to ensure the variation within population, increase the number of random samples and limit the errors in describable data.Correct type plant: for each individual, 19 characteristics were measured and described (see descriptor list, Annexe 1). Off-type plant: symbolic different traits among individuals within their population were recorded and described.As mentioned above, there are three main soil groups in the Dai An Village, but more than 57% of Mon Sap variety is cultivated in the sandy ridge soil area and the rest (43%) in the sandy-silt soil.Agricultural production in this area is dependent on rainfed conditions. However, underground water from a well is also used partly to irrigate for taro in the dry season. In the rainy season, rainwater can support the taro crop from June to October.Two crops can be grown per year: the first is from February to June and the second from July to October.Seed sources: planting materials are usually bought from surrounding villages or districts (86%); only 14% of households save the planting materials for themselves.Microsoft Excel was used for compiling data and analyzing means. The statistics (version 6.0) and Minitab (version 3.0) were used for analysis of variance (ANOVA), principal component analysis (PCA) and genetic linkage distance (Cluster variation).Table 1 shows that some morphological characteristics are not significantly different among Mon Sap populations. They are rather stable in their cultivation conditions in two kinds of soil and different cropping seasons. This means that Mon Sap variety has high genetic stability.It can be seen from Table 2 that two of nine characteristics are significantly different among the studied populations, namely the leaf margin colour and petiole colour (top twothirds and basal one-third).In particular, the colour of the basal one-third is very different among populations. There are four colours of which light green accounts for the highest ratio (67.2%), and red pink the lowest (1.6%). The variation may be affected by moisture conditions, soil pH and salinity. In the higher lands irrigated by well water in the early rain season when there is a lack of rain, the earlier crop develops better than the later crop and taro planted in the low and wet lands. The reasons may be the low pH of soil or saline water that may also result in the different sheath colours.Some other characteristics such as leaf margin colour, petiole colour (top two-thirds), ratio of petiole top length to total sheath length, and sheath edge colour are different among populations. These differences may be affected by cropping seasons, kind of soil, acidity and salinity infection.Soil property may play an important role in the formation of the shape, size and skin colour of corm because tubers develop underground. Thus, morphological traits are different among populations owing to soil type and other environmental factors, especially corm shapes, corm sizes and corm skin colours.In taro, corm flesh colour is an important criterion of quality. It depends on cultural practices such as cropping season, fertilizer application, irrigation, harvesting time and environmental factors as the rain regime, infection of pests and diseases, and so on. The data in Table 3 show that some morphological traits such as leaf margin colour, ratio of petiole length/total sheath length, sheath edge colour, corm size, corm skin colour, and corm flesh colour are not significantly different among observational populations. But petiole colours (top two-thirds and basal one-third), and corm shapes are different among populations at the 5% and 1% levels of significance.Figure 1 indicates that the distance of genetic linkage among populations is divided into two linkage groups. The distance varies from 6 to 9.5. The difference of genetic linkage distance is due to a simple or complicated linkage level of morphological traits among populations. It can be seen that the genetic linkage distance is small among populations.Table 4 indicates five different types within 64 observed populations, of which the C type (light green thin leaf blade, green and white high leaf petiole) appears to have the highest ratio (10%) and the other four types have a lower ratio (5% each).In the tropical weather conditions in Vietnam, taro is mainly cultivated by tubers, so that cross-pollination among plant individuals is very rare. Cormels for cultivating are bought mainly from the local market. Therefore, the emergence of off-type plants in taro populations may come from the mixed planting materials, as well as the variation in environmental conditions.The Mon Sap populations cultivated in Dai An Village are genetically stable. Only three morphological traits-petiole colours (top two-thirds and basal one-third) and corm shapes-are significantly different.   Vegetative characteristics 1. Lamina orientation (see Figure 3)(1) In one plane-apex pointing upward (erect)(2) In one plane-apex pointing downward (droopy)(3) 3-dimensional (cup-shaped) 2. Leaf margin (see Figure 4)(1) Entire, smooth (2) Entire, undulate (3) Lobed, partly divided (4) Divided to or almost to base 3. Leaf shape (see Figure 5)( Paddy rice (Oryza sativa L.) is one of the most important food crops in the world, supplying food for over 40% of its population. Asia is the main place of rice cultivation. Total annual production of rice is over 573 million tons. Rice is the staple food crop in Vietnam. In many zones, farmers choose many local rice varieties with high quality, high resistance to the local biotic and abiotic stresses, as well as suitability to local social, economic and cultural conditions.With the population increase, there appeared a need for modern varieties of rice having uniform population, high fertilizer response and yield capacity. The introduction of these varieties has been replacing local rice varieties in farmers' fields. This has resulted in a reduction of the genetic diversity of rice and other species and an increase in the risk of disease and pest damage.Supported by IPGRI and VASI, we selected a research site for the project \"Strengthening the scientific basis of in situ conservation of agrobiodiversity on-farm\" in Ban Khoang Commune of Sa Pa District, Lao Cai Province. This report deals with the results of the preliminary study of genetic diversity in rice landraces at the research site.The study area Ban Khoang is a highland commune in the northwest mountain region of Vietnam. Its total natural area is 5663 ha, of which the agricultural land area occupies 3.87%, forested area 25.83% and uncultivated land area 69.17% (Table 1).There are four types of lands in Ban Khoang Commune: humus, yellow humus, feralitic and clay. The soil texture varies from sandy loam at Can Ho A hamlet to loam and clay loam at Kim Ngan and Suoi Thau hamlets (Table 2). Clay soil is more fertile than other soils. Lands with various aspects were found in the studied hamlets, where a wide range of rice and taro species adapted to the local conditions can be found. Ban Khoang Commune can be divided into three ecozones with different terrain, slope, altitude and rainfall. For example, the lowland area (Xin Chai hamlet) has an altitude of 500 masl, the middle area is at 700-1000 masl and the highland area (Can Ho hamlet) is at altitudes higher than 1200 masl.  The average annual temperature is 15-16°C. There are five months with temperature lower than 15°C. The total temperature accumulation is about 7500 to 7800°C a year. The annual total rainfall is 2861-3484 mm. The climate in Ban Khoang can be divided into two seasons. In rainy season, the monthly rainfall varies from 50 to 200 mm in the months from October to March (Table 3).There are nine hamlets in Ban Khoang Commune, from Can Ho to Kim Ngan hamlets. In the commune, there are two ethnic minority groups (H'Mong and Dao). The population of H'Mong group is 190 persons (10%), and that of the Dao group is 1704 persons (90%) (Table 4).• PRA methods were used for survey and evaluation.• Key informant interviews and focus group discussions were conducted to understand farmers' rice-production systems. This exercise helped to design a questionnaire for a formal household survey. • Direct field observation of the farmers' rice-growing fields/plots, household ricefarming systems and farmers' local management practices.• A farm household survey was conducted using structured questionnaires for a limited stratified sample of HHs (n=40) representing different agroecologies, farm size and ethnic groups to elicit farmers' priority ranking of values, evaluation criteria, constraints and opportunities of landrace production.Rice is the principal crop, providing food for more than 95% of farming households in Vietnam. In mountainous areas, the rice production potential is lower and the access to input and information are worse than in other rice-growing environments. However, rice production is common for the Dao and H'Mong groups. The site has a dominant rainfed ecosystem, but farmers plant only one crop per year, regardless of the possibility to grow two crops a year. Rice is seeded on seedbeds from 15 April to 15 May, then transplanted in May or June and harvested in late October or early November.The study site has a subsistence-oriented traditional rice-farming system. Farmers grow diverse rice cultivars to meet their multiple household needs. We collected many names of local rice varieties used by the Dao and H'Mong people. Then, we organized meetings with some old people and discussed the names of rice varieties with rice samples collected from farmers' houses or fields. The results showed that there were 20 local rice varieties and 1 modern rice variety in Ban Khoang Commune (Table 5).  Almost all farm households grow rice in small areas that are separated from each other. In general, in Can Ho H'Mong Village each HH has five land parcels to grow rice and in Xin Chai Village each HH has eight land parcels to grow rice. The main fields of paddy rice are terraces. All parcels are narrow and have been cultivated for many years with permanent runoff of water, so the soil has lost much fertility. However, almost all local rice varieties could grow well in such poor soil. Table 6 shows that 15 local rice varieties can grow well in poor soil, 19 varieties in medium-fertility soil and 7 varieties can grow well only in rich soil. Furthermore, 12 varieties grow well in lower wetland, 5 varieties grow well in wetlands with both higher and lower water temperature; 16 varieties grow well in warmer wetlands.There are 21 rice cultivars in Ban Khoang Commune. When comparing between two villages or between two ethnic groups (H'Mong and Dao), the number of rice cultivars is different. In the Dao's village the number of rice cultivars is higher than in the H'Mong's village (Table 7). This is because the Dao ethnic people have been cultivating rice for a much longer time than the H'Mong people. The rice yield of the Dao people is often higher than that of the H'Mong. The number of rice cultivars grown by different ethnic groups depends upon their knowledge and understanding of the rice cultivars' characteristics and the surrounding environment. Rice cultivars in Ban Khoang Commune can be divided into two groups. The first serves as food for farming households and the second serves for festival and religious rituals. Most rice cultivars used for festivals and religious rituals are grown in better soil with advantages in water management. When interviewing the Dao people we found out that rice cultivars grown in better soil are sticky rice used for weddings, religious ceremonies and Tet holidays. Table 8 presents the number of cultivars grown and farmers' reasons for maintenance. Both Dao and H'Mong farmers in the study site maintain on average only 1 modern rice cultivar and 3-4 to 8-9 rice landraces in each HH. Few HHs maintain more than 10 rice landraces. Mediumresource HHs (13.5 persons/HH) and large-farm HHs (having more than 2 ha of cultivated land) maintain a higher number of landraces than resource-poor HHs (having less than 0.97 ha of cultivated land). Socioeconomic factors such as total cultivable area and land fragmentation have a direct and significant influence on the number of landraces maintained at HH level. Farmers maintain a large number of landraces since they are highly suitable to various agroecological, socioeconomic and cultural conditions in the region. The medium and large farm HHs own and operate a larger piece of heterogeneous lands (upper wetland, medium and lower wetland) where diverse types of landraces are adapted. The large farm HHs are often the rich households who generally grow 4 or 5 rice cultivars. These households, because of adequate food production and availability of land parcels, do grow landraces for various socioeconomic reasons, whereas marginal resource-poor households normally grow few (2 or 3) cultivars, mostly high-yielding, for immediate food security needs as they have small and fewer parcels of cultivable land.In 2000 we found that the number of rice cultivars grown in each household was less than in 2001. The number of rice cultivars of a rich household was 8; a medium household was 7 and a poor household was 4. The reason for this change is the introduction of modern varieties such as Shan Uu and C70, encouraged by agricultural extension stations. Last year the yield of Shan Uu variety was much higher than that of the local varieties. However, if rice production is done without fertilizer and mainly relies on exploitation of soil fertility, in future years the rice yield will certainly be reduced. This is a good reason for farmers to return to using local varieties that have higher tolerance to adverse conditions.The specific circumstances and reasons given by farmers for specific evaluation of landraces are presented in Table 9. Beo ngach ton is grown in the highest area because of its highest yield and good quality. Beo tong long ranks second in area grown owing to its low fertilizer requirement. Beo ai is a modern rice variety grown as the third largest variety because of its high yield and encouragement from agricultural extension stations of the district. Some rice landraces are grown on a small area despite their low yield. Some farmers, however, want to grow them because they have high grain quality, less fertilizer requirement and resistance to pests and diseases. The sandy soil area in Thua Thien Hue Province occupies 48 400 ha, of which the sand dune area constitutes 17% and the coastal sandy soil 83%. Diverse cropping systems are used and there still exist many valuable crop varieties with tolerance to adverse climate conditions and to pests and diseases in coastal agroecosystems. In recent years, many high-yielding varieties have been introduced but generally they have low tolerance to environmental stresses. After severe floods in 1999, many precious crop varieties-especially the traditional ones-have been lost. So, for long-term benefits of sustainable agricultural development, it is urgent to conserve local traditional crop diversity in general and in the coastal agroecosystems in particular. But to be successful in this field, a strong basis must be built through proper studies of factors affecting local crop diversity conservation, the custodians of local crop species, farmers' attitudes and reasons for choosing between modern and traditional varieties.• To assess crop diversity at household and village levels • To identify targeted crops for on-farm conservation • To build local people's awareness of crop diversity and on-farm conservation • To understand the utility crops and farmer's evaluation of crop diversity during farming processes and agricultural diversification.• Participatory tools were used to involve farmers in data collecting and assessment: group discussions, semi-structured survey, mapping and observations • Meetings, training courses and community-based activities were set up in villages, diversity contests were organized to improve local people's awareness of the methods and benefits of local crop diversity conservation.Luong Vien Village, Phu Da Commune, Phu Vang District, Thua Thien Hue Province was chosen as the study site.This was done based on the data from 33 surveyed households, meetings with farmers and a crop diversity fair at the village.• Training on genetic resource conservation for researchers (twice) Luong Vien Village, belonging to Phu Da Commune, Phu Vang District, is 25 km from Hue city to the southeast and is located on the side of Tam Giang Lagoon. Almost all of the land area of the village is sandy. The total natural land area is 270 ha, of which rice areas in winter/spring and summer seasons are 62 ha and 1.5 ha, respectively. The cash crop area is 33 ha and cemetery area is 70 ha. The total number of households in the village is 272, of which 95% are engaged in agriculture. According to the wealth ranking, 21% are poor households, 75% are medium and 4% are better-off households.The results obtained from the survey data and group discussions in Luong Vien Village are presented in Table 1.The data in Table 1 indicate that the crops and crop varieties in Luong Vien Village are rich and diverse, especially vegetables and taro. Vegetables and cash crops are mostly grown in the winter/spring season, although some crops like taro and spices are grown year round. Cash crops such as bean, cassava and sesame are grown in the fields while salad and spices are grown in home gardens. These crops play an important role in the economic development of households and coastal agroecosystems. Among the four surveyed groups, the farmers of Groups 1 and 2 have more crop diversity than the farmers in Groups 3 and 4. This can be explained by more lands being available for the first two groups. Because of limited rice-cultivation area, the dryland crops are inevitably important income sources for the local farmers. In addition, the village is not far from Hue City, which is quite a big market for these crops. Table 2 shows how diverse these crops are.Of the abovementioned crops, taro receives more attention from farmers because of its wide adaptation to local environments, its multiple use value and the high price of corms. Taro is grown mostly in home gardens (Table 3). The number of taro varieties in each household is different depending mainly on soil conditions. Taro can be grown year round. The corms are used as food for humans, petioles and leaves are used for animal feed. However, the petioles of some species are a special vegetable preferred by the city people.Households having gardens in higher elevation tend to grow more taro varieties, namely Sap vang, Quang and Cham, which can also be used for many purposes.The data from a diversity contest are presented in Table 4. The farmers of Groups 1 and 2 also plant a higher number of taro varieties than those of Groups 3 and 4. The major reasons are less garden area and less development of animalraising in Groups 3 and 4. At present, some varieties like Sap vang and Quang are being gradually lost. Therefore, in situ conservation of taro varieties should be given more attention.In recent years, significant fluctuation in number of rice varieties has been observed. Owing to sandy soil characteristics such as poor fertility, salinity and lack of water in the summer season, the rice-growing area in summer season is only 1.5 ha while that of rice in the winter/spring season is much larger (62 ha). Accordingly, the number of rice varieties in the winter/spring season is much greater than in summer season (Table 5). Before 1996, rice varieties in Luong Vien Village were only traditional varieties. Since 1996 and after severe floods in 1999, many traditional rice varieties have been lost and damaged. In addition, the Government supported the planting of modern rice varieties. This has led to genetic erosion of local traditional rice varieties. Comparing the number of rice varieties of 33 households in 1996 and 2000, we can see their very rapid erosion, especially the local traditional varieties (0% in summer season of the year 2000). In 1996, most households grew 4-5 varieties, some of them had 8 rice varieties. All households grew traditional rice varieties of which 89% of households grew Hau variety, 24% grew Nuocman and 21% grew Chienthai. In 2000, 30% of households grew 1 rice variety, most households grew 2-3 varieties and modern varieties became dominant. Most households started to grow modern varieties like Khangdan (100%) and X21 (52%). In the meantime, traditional varieties like Hau and Nuocman occupied only 9% of households and only 3% for Chienthai variety.Through workshops, training courses and a crop diversity contest organized at local level with farmers' participation, the local people have improved their knowledge on crop variety diversity. Based on production experiences, local people can distinguish crop varieties and know the relevant values of each variety, so they can select the varieties needed to meet their own demands (Tables 6 and 7).1. There was very rich crop diversity at Luong Vien Village including rice, taro, bean, vegetables, sweet potato and cassava. 2. Taro has good adaptation to sandy soil and plays an important role in raising pigs, in increasing cash income and alleviating food shortage. 3. The diversity of traditional rice is being eroded at a very fast rate. So, actions must be taken immediately to conserve this very precious genetic diversity. 4. Local people can distinguish crop varieties and know the relevant values of each variety, so they can select the varieties needed to meet their own demands.To facilitate in situ conservation of agricultural biodiversity on-farm, it is necessary to:• Enhance local people's capacity through improving their knowledge and skills in farm practices and seed management Vietnam is located in South East Asia, known as one of the world's crop biodiversity centres. The Asian Centre is the centre for cultivation of Oryza sativa, spreading from Nepal to North Vietnam, so the latter has very high rice biodiversity. Biodiversity conservation has played an extremely important role in stabilizing agricultural production. So, the biodiversity study to serve conservation and rational use of crop genetic resources, as well as to build a scientific base and strategy for crop genetic resources conservation and use, is of prime importance. Agrobiodiversity conservation is also a means to increase the sustainability of agricultural production, and to contribute to hunger eradication, poverty reduction, food security and environment protection. Since the 1960s, a number of scientists from various institutions have conducted surveys, inventories, collecting, evaluation (Trinh et al. 1995) and conservation of plant genetic resources, of which rice is the biggest germplasm in South East Asia. However, the methods used to conserve germplasm in genebanks are not appropriate for conservation of the dynamic evolutionary processes of crops. In situ conservation is therefore described as a dynamic alternative, and could be an effective tool for programmes with insufficient resources to conserve germplasm ex situ. In situ conservation of genetic resources also provides a living laboratory which can allow insights into population structure evolution and ecological processes fundamental to global sustainability.In order to come up with good results for in situ conservation, we should collect data of genetic diversity and evaluate crop genetic resources to understand the extent of withinspecies and intravarietal diversity. Genetic diversity has close links with traditional farming systems, selection and storage of seeds by farmers.The results of this study on rice landraces at two microsites in Da Bac District may serve as a means for designing common in situ conservation methods to be used by other partners in Vietnam. Biodiversity survey forms and common germplasm-collecting methods of the PGR Center of VASI were used (PGRC 2000). RRA and PRA methods to collect information about socioeconomic conditions, farming practices, methods of seed storage and maintenance and agrobiological characteristics of rice landraces were used following the PGR Center of VASI and IPGRI forms.Morphological characterization and evaluation methods of IRRI and IPGRI, as well as VASI forms were used. Classification of subspecies rice was made by phenol solution (Oka 1958). Determination and evaluation of farmer-based characterization of rice varieties were conducted by PRA, including growth duration, growth ability, cold tolerance, drought tolerance, pest and disease resistance, post-storage quality and development trends.Varietal diversity coefficient:Percentage of a variety area (i) to total area of all varieties Intravarietal diversity coefficient:Percentage of a sample type (i) to total types of the variety. Inventory of plant genetic resources was carried out at Tat Village of Tan Minh Commune and Cang Village of Doan Ket Commune representing the mountainous areas of Hoa Binh Province. These microsites belong to a region with the characteristics of subtropical and monsoon climate with distinct dry and wet seasons. Many microclimate areas exist thanks to topographic separation consisting of medium mountains, low hills, streams and valleys.The artificial factors and diverse farming practices contributed an important part in diversity conservation of plant species as well as local crops. Our survey results show that there are over 60 and 80 plant species at Tat and Cang Villages, respectively. Plant genetic resources in general and crop genetic resources in particular at the two microsites are rather diverse. The diversity of main crops like rice, taro, cassava and maize is also great (Table 1). Natural conditions such as topography, soil fertility, climate and weather are favourable for crop cultivation. However, the socioeconomic factors such as infrastructure, technical knowledge, labour quality and environmental degradation remain major constraints to maintaining multicrop cultivation systems. Improvement of the situation may play an important role in conservation of plant genetic resources diversity in Da Bac District.Prevalent shifting cultivation following slash-and-burn practices leads to severe forest destruction and soil erosion resulting in increased area of bare hills. This also inevitably leads to depletion of natural resources involving genetic erosion of plant genetic resources.Among the main crops, rice is the most diverse species. Upland rice has seriously suffered from genetic erosion; most high-quality varieties have been wiped out together with many precious traits. Lowland rice also shares the same fate owing to the introduction of many improved varieties, which have higher yield but are inferior to local varieties in many aspects like adaptation to specific conditions, or resistance to local pests and diseases.Cassava and maize have lower variability but also a lower rate of genetic erosion.Local rice varieties have been collected at the two study sites. Fortunately, they still contain considerable diversity and complicated genetic structure. Varieties include upland rice, lowland rice, glutinous rice, non-glutinous rice, japonica and indica.Diversity of rice genetic resources is expressed through some parameters:Seed weight: the highest weight of 100 seeds is 4.01 g (Mac buom variety), and the lowest is 2.42 g (Khau lao variety). The diversity index is 13.4. Seed width: The highest value of seed width is nearly two times in comparison with the lowest (2.44 mm of Khau lao seeds). The diversity coefficient is 12.2. The highest length to width (L/W) ratio is 3.67 and the lowest is 2.21 with the CV% of 10.3. This means that the seed shapes vary from long to oblong to almost round. The rice varieties at both villages are highly diverse in terms of maximum and minimum values and CV% (Table 2). The level of genetic diversity of rice varieties is expressed by cropping season, morphology and types of diversity index (Table 3). The diversity indices of local rice varieties are highest (H=0.9453) while that of improved varieties are lower (H=0.6788). Diversity index in wet season (H=0.9001) is higher than in dry season (H=0.6657), in which local rice varieties have H=0.8578, higher than improved ones (H=0.3121). Upland rices have H=0.9031, higher than that of lowland rices (H=0.8794). Glutinous rices have H=0.8774, higher than non-glutinous rices (H=0.7981). The higher the diversity index, the larger the genetic diversity.Most cultivated rice varieties at the two microsites are japonica (>60%) including tropical and temperate japonica, in which the percentage of upland rice japonica is higher than lowland rice. The percentage of glutinous japonica is also higher than non-glutinous rice. At Tat Village, there are 66.7% japonica, of which tropical japonica accounts for 40.5% and temperate ones only 26.2%. At Cang Village, there are 67.6% japonica of which 29.7% are tropical japonica and 37.9% are temperate (Table 4). These results show why almost all rice varieties at the two microsites with high elevation (600-800 masl) and 23.5°C average temperature are japonica.The results of analysis of local rice samples showed that almost all samples have numerous types performing differently in phenotypes. Percentage of varieties that have over two types was over 65% (Table 5). The percentage of glutinous having two types is higher than that of the nonglutinous ones. At Tat Village the percentage of upland rice having two types is higher than that of the lowland rices, but at Cang Village this percentage is similar. There are samples that do not have differences by phenotypes but could be found different by biochemical analyses.The local rice varieties are often multiline varieties, thus their genetic diversity has granted them high horizontal resistance to pests and diseases, good adaptation to adverse conditions and stable yield despite the environment changes.  Data from There are 13 rice varieties having the same name which include 10 varieties in wet season and 3 varieties in dry season (12 landrace varieties and 1 improved). There are few differences in morphology of the varieties with the same name. However, the differences between various types of the same variety are easily to identify, e.g. For example Khau Tang san was taken from another area and its growth ability was very good, providing high yield in new local conditions, so farmers called it Khau tang san (meaning rice with high yield). For modern varieties, the farmers considered them as improved ones, so they called them Cai tien (meaning modified and improved). They do not distinguish CR203 from Khang dan or Tap giao; consequently in some cases many varieties have the same name, even though farmers know that they are different varieties.Characteristics of rice varieties have been marked by farmers' groups. The results of our survey show that more than 60% of the good varieties need to be developed, for example Khau do and Khau khinh. Utilization at 30% of total varieties helps keep a biological balance and guarantees a stable harvest. The analyses of farmers' criteria at the two microsites show that the farmers do understand their varieties deeply and their general selection criteria are good: drought tolerance, disease resistance, high quality and perhaps yield (Table 7). This means that rice genetic resources at the Da Bac site still contain many varieties with different characteristics. Some are grown in smaller fields for specific use, and others are grown in large areas for food security. The Nep Cam variety, although having a low yield, is still cultivated because of its special quality, providing traditional food and medicinal materials. Although the studied sites were small, they still possess a high level of genetic diversity maintained by local HHs. For certain reasons, some rice landraces are not grown in one season, but are grown in another season. Or one group of farmers maintains some varieties and the other groups keep other varieties for their precious traits. Obviously, local varieties will be maintained over time thanks to their suitability, adaptation and tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses.There is high diversity in quantity and types of rice varieties in both dry and wet seasons among both upland rices and lowland rices. Genetic variation between varieties is very high. The structure of the rice population was found to differ between the two microsites.Within-variety diversity at two Villages (Tat and Cang) was confirmed at high level (over half of the studied varieties have two morphological types). There exist different reasons for making local varieties adaptable to and sustainable in local ecological conditions.Farmers evaluate their selected rice landraces by the following descriptors: high quality, stable yield, good tolerance to environmental stresses and adaptability to local ecological conditions. The preference of farmers for high-yielding varieties serves as a good indicator for participatory plant breeding.Vietnam is located in one of the world's crop diversity centres. This diversity is expressed both between and within species. Rice is a typical Vietnamese crop with a long cultivation history and great diversity.Recently, Vietnam's rice producers have introduced numerous improved varieties, which is one of the main reasons for genetic erosion of indigenous landraces, leading to a narrowing of the rice genetic base. Thus, studies on conservation of rice landraces both ex situ and in situ are urgently needed to prevent further erosion and serve sustainable breeding programmes.In situ conservation is a complementary approach to support ex situ conservation in maintaining natural evolution and plant genetic diversity. On-farm conservation as a means for growing and maintaining farmers' crop populations has great advantages in conservation of genetic diversity of local crops in their original ecosystems.Da Bac District of Hoa Binh Province is a typical site for mountainous ecosystems. Strengthening the scientific basis of in situ conservation of some crops is very important to establish models of in situ conservation. Plant genetic diversity studies and socioeconomic surveys were conducted during the first phase of the project. Study of the effects of intravariety diversity, cultivation seasons and traditional farming systems on the conservation of plant genetic diversity need to be conducted during the next phase. Rice is one of the major crops to be conserved first.• Study the morphological diversity of common rice landraces and farming systems among farmers' households at two microsites of Da Bac District.• Analyze the effects of farming management on maintenance of rice genetic diversity.PRA and RRA were applied to survey and collect information about the quantity of rice varieties, cultivated areas, cultivation methods and to determine variety names given by farmers.In situ characterization forms were used by field staff who visited each plot of specific varieties to record rice genetic resources in situ and document the habitats of each landrace. The custodians of rare rice varieties were also interviewed for acquisition of indigenous knowledge for further studies.Surveys were carried out in 30 households in two villages to form the list of rice diversity. Four varieties that have large cultivated areas and are cultivated by many HHs in each village have been selected and studied for morphological diversity in the farmers' fields. Each variety has been distributed to three HHs at different distances and terrains.From Table 1, it can be seen that rice landrace structure has changed over time. Compared with the years 1999 and 2000, the number of landraces in 2001 was reduced in both Cang and Tat Villages. Possible reasons for the reduction include:• The government policy on changing swidden lands into forest production • The introduction of modern rice by extension offices • Some rainfed lands in Tat Village are better irrigated thanks to improved irrigation systems, so they became intensively cultivated with modern varieties. However, the Tay farmers in the two villages still grow many local rice varieties that are suited to the marginal environment and have multi-use value in these sites. Also, the market demands for high-quality traditional rice have reappeared as a consequence of so much progress in the country's socioeconomic development during the last two decades.At Cang Village, four common varieties (Khau Mon, Khau khinh, Khau Hang mu and Khau Cai hoc) are most popular. Among them Khau Mon occupies the biggest growing area.At Tat Village, among local 24 rice varieties, four (Khau khinh, Khau tram luong, Khau lao and Tang san nieu) are grown in larger areas than the others. Khao lao occupies the largest area and is grown by the greatest number of households.There are glutinous and non-glutinous varieties with short and long growth durations, different structure and performance in Da Bac site. The study results in Table 3 show that the main farmers' selection criteria for rice are high yield, grain quality, pest and disease resistance, as well as their adaptation to local farming conditions. Da Bac farmers have maintained and used diverse rice varieties to ensure sustainable agricultural production.The information in Tables 4a and 4b shows that there is high diversity in upland rice varieties at both microsites. Although the number of surveyed fields is not large (3 fields/household), many different types can be found within the same variety. Perhaps this is due to private and different seed selection and maintenance methods among farmers. Some morphological characteristics have close links to genotypes, so the study of intravarietal variations and their effects is necessary in the next phase of the project. At Cang Village, almost all common rice varieties vary in culm angle and panicle type. The Khau khinh varieties have two types of grains. For the first type most panicles have short and partly awned grains with yellow furrows. For the other type, awns are absent and the furrows are brown (Table 4a). • Da Bac farmers have maintained rice diversity over time for their livelihood in relation to strict demands for quality, adaptation to local socioeconomic and environmental conditions, as well as to traditional farming practices. • Traditional practice diversity is one of the main reasons for the creation of rice genetic diversity. The farmers' descriptors used to realize, select, produce and maintain rice varieties are significant and consistent. The descriptors are useful for scientists in rice genetic diversity and rice landrace conservation studies and on-farm conservation.• Traditional practices have significantly affected rice genetic diversity in the two study villages. In the production process the farmers have selected and conserved appropriate rice landraces based on the specific topography, soil fertility, utilization demands, preferences and cultural customs. Taro diversity and food culture of taro have been traditionally rich in Vietnam. Although the area of taro cultivation is small in comparison with other food crops, it is widely grown by Vietnamese farmers in most home gardens and larger fields of all agroecological zones of the country. Germplasm exploration and collection activities have already characterized about 350 accessions (Hue 2001). Variation in shape, colour of corms, leaf, petiole, plant height and cooking quality was reported. However, there is little information available on diversity of use value of local taro cultivars and its impact on the extent and distribution of taro diversity on-farm. This study aimed at understanding why Vietnamese farmers grow diverse types of taro cultivars with distinct farmer units of diversity. Information from such basic study will assist the national plant genetic research programme to formulate options for taro on-farm as well as ex situ conservation strategies.The population structure of taro varietal diversity in situ is measured by the local names (if they are distinct and consistent in their names and description). However, such cultivars vary in plot sizes and number of farmers growing each cultivar. This figure may vary at village, commune, district and province levels.The Simpson Index for quantifying taro diversity in the study sites was calculated using the following formula:where fi is the frequency proportion of the farmer-named variety found in category i.From the CBR database, taro landraces could be classified into four broad categories in terms of area cultivated and the number of farmers maintaining them at village level. This approach could be done at species level or variety level (see below).Small area, many households Large area, few households Small area, few households Taro cultivars were categorized in groups of large and small area (based on the average area) and many and few (based on number of households growing each cultivar). Average number of farmers growing each cultivar was used to categorize many or few households. Similarly, average taro land area of each cultivar was used to group cultivars into large or small area.A key information survey was also used to understand the use value of taro diversity, the propagation method of various taro cultivars and informal germplasm supply systems.In situ characterization was conducted to verify the data of diversity fair and document the indigenous knowledge on taro by interviewing farmers in the fields.The names of taro cultivars used by farming communities are the first indicators for the amount of diversity at a given location. The information from the CBR (Table 1) was used in this study to estimate taro diversity and genotype diversity index. The highest number of taro cultivars was reported in Tat Village of Da Bac mountain sites, followed by Cang Village of Da Bac and Yen Minh Village of Nho Quan midlands; lowest number of taro cultivars was found in Dong Lac of lowland Red River Delta site. A validation exercise carried out by experienced genebank curators showed that there was a high degree of consistency among farmers in farmer-named cultivars and farmer description of local cultivars. Farmer descriptors for each cultivar have been documented. Hue (2001) found that consistency of local names is more reliable within the village than between the villages. Actually, the number of taro varieties in the study site has not changed during 2000-2001.The number of growers varied from village to village and this may change over time. The average area recorded under taro varied from 287 to 980 m 2 in the studied sites (Table 2). Among six in situ villages, Yen Minh Village had the largest area under taro (0.78 ha) followed by Quang Mao (0.42), Tat Village of Da Bac (0.30 ha) and Kien Thanh of Nghia Hung (0.29 ha).Genotypic diversity indices for taro diversity were computed using Simpson Index (SI) to compare varietal diversity of taro, i.e. the frequency of farmers growing each taro cultivar at village level. Table 3 illustrates the comparison between sites for diversity indices (SI) for taro. Analysis results indicate that the SI by study site of cultivars was highest in Da Bac site followed by Quang Mao and Yen Minh Villages of Nho Quan. The results showed that Da Bac site is richest in taro genotype diversity.CBR data showed that the plot sizes for taro ranged from 190 m 2 to 1115 m 2 whereas the average number of farmers growing each taro cultivar ranged from 1 to 21 and therefore the definitions of \"large and small area\" as well as \"many and few farmers\" are relative to the specific villages. Analysis of diversity distribution patterns showed that villages with a large taro area are not necessarily also rich in taro diversity (Tables 3 and 4). Research results suggest that the extent and distribution of taro cultivars may vary with natural ecology, farmer's specific preferences, socioeconomic conditions, market forces and cultural values. Some varieties are considered to be a common type. In Dong Lac Village, Khoai nuoc and Khoai tia rieng occupy large areas because these cultivars are well adapted to low-lying moist land and produce good yields. They also have high market demand. Phuoc kip, Phuoc hom, Phuoc dan and Phuoc luong are important cultivars in Tat Village of Da Bac because they are grown alongside the roads and they gain market preference in Hanoi. These cultivars also have multiple uses for food and feed. Khoai so trang has specific and best quality trait, and therefore has high market demand in Yen Minh Village of Nho Quan District. However, in diversity-rich areas, for instance in Cang and Tat Villages, five varieties are grown by few households in small areas. They fall into a rare and local category. It is, however, important to understand why specific taro growers plant such rare types.The results of a study on indigenous uses of farmers at six villages can answer this question.In Vietnam taro is a good example to illustrate that conservation of crop genetic resources is possible through use. The ethnobotanical survey results indicate that farmers have maintained different kinds of taro because of their different use values. Taro is used locally for different purposes. The petioles of both wild and cultivated taro plants can be used as pig feed. In Nghia Hung District, when the production of taro tuber is too much for family consumption but the market price is low, many households do use taro tubers for pig feed. The use value of taro in the study sites is presented in Table 5. Some varieties have multiple uses, whereas other varieties are maintained for specific purposes.In Vietnam, basically taro cultivar diversity is maintained by farmers for their preferred traits and uses (Table 5). There are three major uses: food, medicinal materials and animal feed. Farmer preferences for taro cultivars vary with local food culture. For example, Bac ha and Phuoc mong are preferred to cook vegetable noodle soup with pig ribs locally known as bun suon.Bac ha taro cultivar is specially required for preparing local cuisine lau (a kind of sweet and sour soup containing fish, mushroom and pineapple). The petiole of Bac ha taro can be eaten with various green vegetables. Bon hom, a flowering taro, has specific value such as medicinal material for headache, ornamental plant and feed for pig. An aromatic taro variety Phuoc hom is grown for multiple uses like food for soup, cake and snacks but its most preferred product is breakfast cake (banh khoai). There are many taro cultivars maintained for pig feed and there are varieties preferred for pig feed only. The young emerging shoots from sucker taro are used for a special vegetable dish (bup khoai so kho tuong) in Vietnam. In general, the corms and cormels are used for food whereas petioles and leaves are used for feeding animals. Bac ha and Phuoc mong are specially kept for petiole use. Khoai so trang is good for special food as canh cua khoai so rau rut. However, the choice of taro cultivars by farmers and their extent and distribution are often guided by multiple uses of taro cultivars and farmers' ecological circumstances.The number of taro cultivars ranged from 4 in Dong Lac Village of Nghia Hung to 10 in Tat Village of Da Bac site. The SI by the study sites of cultivars was found highest in Da Bac site (SI ranges from 0.789 to 0.811) followed by Quang Mao and Yen Minh Villages of Nho Quan (0.645-0.715). The results showed that Da Bac site is richest in taro genotype diversity. Farmer-named cultivars can be used as farmer units of diversity and local names were consistent at village level.Farmer and market preferences of taro cultivars for specific Vietnamese food culture have been contributing to in situ conservation of large taro diversity. The choice of taro cultivars by farmers and their extent and distribution is often guided by multiple uses of taro cultivars and farmers' ecological circumstances.Taro varieties are valued for multiple uses such as food, feed, medicine and ritual purposes. Currently all taro cultivars in use by Vietnamese farmers are local varieties or landraces that are uniquely adapted to home garden conditions in different parts of the country.Public awareness of the use value of taro diversity can be a strategy for in situ conservation along with the cross-sites deployment of new diversity.Nung, Daklak Daklak is one of the four provinces in the Central Highland region of Vietnam. The province has a monsoon tropical climate, is 400-800 masl, and has a total temperature of 8000-9000°C per year. There are two distinct seasons: the rainy season lasts from May to October, with average rainfall of 1400-2000 mm/year, and the dry season lasts from November to April of the next year, with very little rain, and a hot and windy climate.Nam Nung Commune has been selected to be a representative for the province of its natural, socioeconomic and crop diversity characteristics that meet the project objectives. The commune elevation is about 760 masl, with an average rainfall of 2252 mm/year, and relative humidity of 87%.The total natural area is 22 135 ha, of which arable and forest areas account for 12.2% and 72.5%, respectively. The commune has 1481 households, 7876 persons and 8 ethnic groups (data of the year 2000).The crop systems in the commune are quite rich and diverse. There are many growing areas for industrial crops that require intensive and sophisticated cultivation techniques. There are also areas where people still use traditional cultivation techniques for various local varieties and crops, especially for upland rice and local vegetables. Crop diversity is a result of both traditional cultivation practices and socioeconomic factors. However, the crop genetic diversity tends to be decreased, which is causing many problems for agricultural production.The study objectives of in situ conservation of agrobiodiversity in Nan Nung commune are to provide scientific foundations for on-farm conservation of diverse crops, to diversify crop varieties and to stabilize the living conditions for the local people.Participatory Rural Appraisal, Variety Network Analysis and IPGRI's BioDiversity Assessment were the main methods applied to the study in Nam Nung site in the year 2001. Some of the following tools were used:• A questionnaire was properly designed according to the study objectives, with comments from Dr Devra Jarvis and based on the Can Tho site questionnaire developed by Mr De. A total of 90 voluntarily participating households in three villages was interviewed by the project research group and students. • Meetings of 30 households in each village: several meetings were held to (1) interview on the diversity of crops in the village, (2) classify households by economic conditions because each type of household has a different quantity of crops, opinions, conservation methods and cultivation techniques, (3) conduct SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity and threat) analysis, (4) find out solutions for improvement of variety network in the village, (5) identify reasons for crop diversity and the threat to diversity erosion, and (6) find solutions for in situ crop diversity conservation.• Field trips for mapping and assessing cultivation practices in each village were organized with the participation of local farmers.• A Diversity Fair was organized to improve knowledge of local people on crop diversity and to collect and practically assess crop diversity in each community.Natural conditions of Nam Nung Commune, Krong No District Nam Nung natural conditions are typical in Krong No District. There are two seasons: the wet season from May to October and the dry season from November to the next April. The average annual rainfall is 2253 mm. The average temperature is 22.3°C, average relative humidity is 87%, and evaporation is 824.4 mm annually. The total natural land area of the village is 22 135 ha including: forest land area = 16 040 ha (72.5%), agricultural land area = 2708 ha (12.2%), of which perennial crop land area is 54.9%, annual crop land area is 18% and wetland area for rice is 22.6%.In each village, 30 households were selected for interview, each for one questionnaire, and a total of 90 households in three villages were interviewed. The survey recorded all kinds of local crops and newly introduced ones in Nam Nung Commune (Table 1).Table 1 shows that the area has a diversified collection of crops, with more than 30 different local crops. They are only from surveyed households interviewed by the study group. In fact, crop diversity is much higher. Local people like to preserve these different crops for different reasons such as natural, economic, custom and personal preference. Besides traditional, local crops, farmers also bring in new crops and varieties for economic and income purposes. In order to assess the practice of crop diversity and improve people's knowledge about crop diversity, the study group together with the District People Committee and District Extension Office organized a Crop Diversity Contest in November 2001, in Nam Nung.Through the contest, the study group recorded the crop diversity in three participating villages and the results are shown in Table 2. Table 2 shows that in the three studied villages, the number of crops is very large (110-135 different crops). In particular, upland rice and sticky rice are highly diversified. For example, in R'Kap village, there are 35 different varieties of upland rice and 9 different upland sticky rice varieties. Local beans and vegetables are also highly diversified and plentiful. However, this diversity is only based on the external morphological characteristics. The difference of genetic characteristics still needs to be further studied and evaluated.In Nam Nung, crop diversity is high, especially for upland rice. A 1995 study showed that there were 64 samples of different upland rice varieties in Krong No District. In order to assess the diversity of upland rice varieties in Nam Nung Commune, the study group collected and described characteristics of upland rice varieties in the three studied villages. There was a difference in number of varieties among the villages (Table 3).There is a significant difference in growth duration. There are four short-term varieties with a growth duration of 3 months. The major characteristics of this group are early ripening, low quality, hard and non-sticky, and low yield. This group has a high threat of erosion due to early ripening so is easily attacked by birds and rats.The medium-term group has a growth duration from 4 to 4.5 months. There are four varieties in this group. The cooked rice is hard, but its taste is not so good. However this group gives high yield.The long-term group has a growth duration from 5.5 to 6 months. This is the main group of varieties cultivated by indigenous people, having very high yield, wide adaptation, good response to fertilizer, but easy lodging on fertile soils. The phenotypic characteristics are diverse and the quality is generally good, it being sticky, of good taste and highly preferred by indigenous people. As a result, this group of varieties has been well taken care of and preserved. Socioethnic characteristics also affect the activities related to keeping seeds and conservation of upland rice varieties. There is a difference in thought and opinion about variety conservation between high-and low-income groups. The former group has the resources and ability to take care of high-yield crop varieties and animal breeds. In addition, they have enough labour, capital and knowledge to invest in production in order to achieve high yield, good quality and obtain high economic efficiency. In contrast, owing to limited resources the poor have different ways of crop diversity conservation in comparison with the mediumand high-income groups. To prove this argument, the study group has classified the households into three groups-rich, the medium and the poor-using a participatory matrix method. After classification, 90 households in the three villages have been classified by four major rice varieties. The results are presented in Table 4. The short stem rice has low average yield and bad quality, but is highly adaptable to cultivation conditions. Up to 90% of households in the poor group use and preserve this variety group while the rich group do not do so. Generally speaking, upland rice varieties are grown and preserved by the poor group. The rich group mainly selects and preserves high-quality varieties that are good for traditional activities and customs of the M'Nong minority group such as deaths and seasonal ceremonies. They also tend to grow more new and high-yield varieties that give high economic efficiency.The participatory approach at the conservation study site aims to identify valuable crops that need genetic conservation while at the same time identifying the crops strongly affecting household income in order to design a suitable approach for conservation and development. Meetings were organized to identify crop groups that affect economic development and groups that are valuable and need to be preserved (Table 5).Table 5 shows that the crop groups that are grown by many households in large areas strongly affect the income and living standard of the people in Yuk Yu Village, for example: upland rice, hybrid corn, coffee and new bean varieties. Crop groups that are grown by few people in small areas-for example, very short growth duration upland rice (less than 3 months) and some pharmaceutical material crops like ginger and lemon grass-need to be studied and preserved both ex situ and in situ.Table 6 shows that the crop groups grown by many households in large areas for economic purposes in R'Kap Village are upland rice, coffee and new peanut varieties. Crop groups that are grown by few people in small areas are very short growth duration upland rice and some pharmaceutical material and spice crops like ginger, lemon grass, green garlic and garlic, which need to be studied and preserved. Table 7 shows that the crop groups grown by many households in large areas in Ja Ra village are upland rice, hybrid corn and new red bean varieties. Crop groups that are grown by few people in small areas are very short growth duration upland rice, canna, ginger and lemon grass.Among the three villages, there is a difference in crop distribution and grown area. The Ja Ra Village people have remote fields and more difficult living conditions. The crop groups grown by many people in large areas are mainly based on the natural soil fertility, so they have low productivity. The other villages grow various crops such as coffee, hybrid corn and new bean varieties for income-generation with high investment. This difference is shown through area statistics in 2001 (Table 8).In Ja Ra Village, upland rice is the major crop, covering 81.6% (165 ha), while coffee and other cash crops such as hybrid corn occupy a very limited area. Yuk Yu and R'Kap Villages have the largest coffee areas: 64 and 58 ha, respectively. The introduction of industrial crops is an important reason for changes and decrease in the diversity of indigenous crops.The goal of conservation of crop genetic diversity of the M'Nong people in Nam Nung Village in particular, and in Daklak in general, is to conserve a combination of crops that have resulted from crop biophysical and natural conditions, as well as ethnocultural and socioeconomic characteristics.• The diversity of the natural climate and geotopography have been important factors in the creation of plant species diversity. Each species has a different level of adaptation to local ecological conditions. So, the ability to adapt to severe weather conditions including drought, and the pest and disease resistance of many local crops is generally high.• The high ability of adaptation to a wide range of soil fertility is expressed through the fact that many varieties can grow in poor soil and can keep high nutritive values, while others can grow in poor soil and still give high yield.• The early ripening and hairy characteristics of short-duration rice helps to reduce the attack of birds and rats, hence enhancing their diversity.• Fast growth provides good soil coverage to compete with weeds, creating local microclimates right on the field that help develop the root system.• The ability of rice to produce antibacterial substances helps control insects and diseases. • Daklak contains 37 of the 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam. This ethnic diversity creates diversity in crop genetic resources. • Multiple religions and the holy ceremony customs of minority groups are very rich and diverse. Each ethnic group has different ceremonies, using different plant species and varieties. This is also a very important reason for the high crop diversity in Daklak.• The custom of using the mother's last name (maternal system) is a special characteristic of M'Nong traditional culture. Traditionally, when the daughter gets married, the mother usually gives her some rice seeds. This is a gift of the holy motherhood and a means for conservation of family unity.• Most traditional crops are grown based on natural fertility and rainfed conditions with low external investment. As a result, the yield is low but the net benefit and labour efficiency are also relatively high.• Traditional crops are usually grown in remote areas where it is difficult to transport food so producing local food is still efficient for local people.• In order to be self-sufficient, people need to produce many different products.• Many varieties have different growth durations and harvesting times, so they can provide enough food year round and ease the labour requirements.• Many new high-yielding varieties have been introduced to the area, but with the limited labour, financial resources and technical skills of minority groups, they are not quite suitable and their adoption by the local people is difficult.Plant genetic resources are quite rich and diverse, especially in upland rice. This is the genetic diversity of different varieties within the same rice species (Oryza sativa), and has been proven through our collecting trips for upland rice varieties (from August to November 1994) in five districts, representing 5 of the 7 ecological regions of Daklak Province. The trips collected 291 rice samples (Table 9). However, at that time it was difficult to keep all these varieties. Efforts must be made to promote the conservation of these valuable plant genetic resources. The economic efficiency of an industrial crop in a land unit is high. That is why the area for industrial crops has increased quickly at the expense of the area for local food crops, especially the upland rice varieties. Many households who have resources are more likely to give up food crops and grow industrial crops. The recent industrial crops area in Daklak Province is presented in Table 10.Table 10 shows that the area for rubber and coffee has increased significantly (in 8 years, 1990-1998, coffee area has increased by 100 000 ha, averaging a 12 500 ha increase annually). This number is conservative in Daklak Province. The increase in industrial crops means that the forest area is decreasing, and the environment is degrading. The field area for traditional crops is also decreasing owing to the switch to coffee, rubber, etc. All these result in the decrease of the local crop genetic resources.Besides the increase in coffee planting area, the coffee-harvesting time coincides with that of long-duration upland rice. Owing to the lack of labour, many people give up long-term upland rice cultivation for the sake of the coffee harvest, leading to the loss of this rice group. • The crop genetic resources in the studied villages are very rich and diverse. This diversity is dependent on many agroecological and socioeconomic conditions in the region and has numerous precious traits that need to be conserved for food security, sustainable agriculture and rural development. • At present, the crop genetic resources in Daklak are eroding at an increasing rate because of the introduction of high-yield crop varieties, fast development of industrial trees like coffee and rubber for the sake of income increase, climate changes leading to unexpected loss by drought, floods, forest fire, etc.• The proper understanding of the abovementioned reasons and the needs for local traditional crops and species may help promote their in situ conservation on-farm.Dai An Village is diverse in edaphic conditions in a saline-acid sulphate area of Tra Vinh Province where soil is classified into three main groups: sandy ridge soils, saline-alluvial soils, and saline-acid sulphate soils. Rice production is mostly cultivated in the saline-alluvial and saline-acid sulphate soils and is completely dependent on the rain. Rainfall distribution is usually from May to November with the highest rainfall in September-October (300-400 mm/month) when the water depth is 40-60 cm in the rice fields. Intrusion of saline water is from December to June, and the highest salinity in February-March is 15-20‰ (De 2000).Local rice is the most important local food crop, and grown over large areas up to 1300 ha (80% of the villages' natural land area). The Trang Tep rice variety is specifically adapted to local conditions, hence has been commonly cultivated in more than 80% of the rice area in the whole Dai An Village for a long time. This process is called the \"dynamic conservation method\" (Bellon et al. 1997) because the variety that farmers manage continues to evolve in response to natural and human selection. A recent study (Tin 1998) on genetic differences of ex situ and in situ rice germplasm showed that most qualitative traits of both populations are the same whereas most quantitative traits and grain quality of in situ populations are significantly different from those of ex situ populations. Nevertheless, genetic variation among rice populations within the same variety in on-farm conservation has not been studied.A case study on Trang Tep rice variety was conducted at an IPGRI in situ project site in Dai An Village, Tra Cu District of Tra Vinh Province of the Mekong Delta to test whether or not there are significant differences in agromorphological characteristics among Trang Tep populations that have been conserved in farmers' fields (on-farm conservation).The related documents and maps of Dai An Village were collected and analyzed. Based on the administration and soil maps, as well as the crop distribution in the village, the surveys were conducted in six hamlets: Giong Lon A, Giong Dinh, Tra Kha, Cay Da, Me Rach E and Me Rach B where diversity of agroecosystems like soils, cropping patterns and cultural practices were representative for the region where samples were gathered.Sixty farms were surveyed in six hamlets. Ten target farms growing the Trang Tep variety were chosen for the study. Farm size averaged 3000 m². This ensured adequate measurement of morphological variations of individual plants in the studied populations.On each farm an area of 100 m² was randomly selected to observe and classify diversity of plant types in each population (off-type plants or mixed plants). Ten common plants that have the same agromorphological traits with other Trang Tep populations were marked at flowering stage to measure and describe their characteristics.• For off-type plants: separation of various kinds of off-type plants and recording mainly morphologically different characteristics to make classification among observed types.• For common plants: 15 characteristics of each population were measured and described at different times in the field.• The analysis of variance (F-statistics) of data on quantitative and qualitative characteristics was used to compare differences among each trait in the studied populations. A multivariate Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was carried out using value and full cross-validation of all traits (14 agromorphological variables × 60 populations). The data matrix was standardized, using the MINITAB program version 12.2. • The cluster analysis of linkage distance of all data (60 populations × 14 traits) was carried out using STATISTICA program version 6.0.Fifteen agromorphological characteristics such as leaf length, leaf width, blade colour, culm length, culm strength, panicles per plant, panicle exertion, apiculus colour, grain colour and grain width, described and analyzed among 60 Trang Tep populations are almost similar (insignificantly different) in statistical analysis. Five characters are significantly different (Table 1).•  1). Difference in flowering time of these populations may be a consequence of changing cropping patterns and planting times: one rice crop per year in MRE hamlet but two rice crops per year in other hamlets. • Flag leaf angle: The flag leaf angle usually is a varietal characteristic and stable over time. In intensive cultivation, the varieties with horizontal flag leaf angle will not be suitable. Therefore, Trang Tep populations in CD hamlet could be selected for improvement of this trait. The observed flag leaf angle varied from code 1 to code 3 (erect to intermediate) and was significantly different at 1% level (P=0.000) from the populations in other hamlets (code 5 or equal to horizontal leaf angle), except those populations in MRE hamlet.• Panicle length: Panicle length varied among populations of different hamlets. Panicle length of the Trang Tep populations in GD hamlet (24.4 cm) significantly differed at 1% level (P=0.000) from those in CD and LA hamlets (22.1 cm and 22.5 cm, respectively), but was insignificantly different from the populations in MRE, MRB and TK hamlets.• Grain characteristics: Grain shape of Trang Tep variety is round and averages around 8 mm long. The average grain length of Trang Tep populations in Tra Kha (TK) hamlet was longer (8.7 mm) and significantly different at 5% level (P=0.012) from the populations in GD and LA hamlets. The 1000-grain weight among populations differed very little (0.9 g). However, the 1000-grain weight of the Trang Tep populations in Cay Da (CD) hamlet was different at 1% level from that of the populations in GD and MRB hamlets. Grain size is also a varietal characteristic but is influenced by environmental and cultural conditions. Differences in grain length and grain weight could be affected by a farmer's distinctive cultural practices, soil fertility or pest and disease damage. The dendrogram in Figure 1 shows the relationship between populations. Clusters are joined by the close distance between them and the corresponding similarity level. Sixty populations of Trang Tep variety were clustered in 14 morphological characteristics (variables).Figure 1 reveals populations which could be combined by very small linkage distance (TK1 and TK6), whereas TK2 and MRB9 populations were very distinctive in linkage distance: 1.1 and 6.5, respectively. Differences in linkage distances among clusters related to similarity or dissimilarity levels in morphological traits among populations. In general, a small linkage distance between populations exposes their high similarity level.Principal component analysis was used to understand the underlying data structure of uncorrelated variables. It is evident from previous descriptions that changes were observed for certain variables when analyzed individually. Figure 2    Together, four principal components represented 48.7% of the total variability that could differ among populations. Thus, most of the data structure can be captured in some underlying variations. The remaining principal components account for a very small proportion of the variability and are probably unimportant (or not significantly different).The plants having any abnormal or different traits from common plant population are called \"off-type plants\". Nine kinds of off-types were found (Table 2) of which five appeared commonly in all populations (A, B, C, D, F and G).In general, types A and B have high a occurrence ratio (6.28% and 7.36%, respectively) vs. the off-type K that was found only in CD and LA hamlets (0.01% per each) (Table 3).Diversity of off-type plants in Trang Tep populations varied in each hamlet. Eight kinds of off-type plants appeared in all populations, except MRB hamlet with seven kinds. The presence frequency of each off-type was different in various hamlets. Type B had highest rate (2.21%) in Tra Kha and 1.85% in MRE; type A rated 1.90% in CD hamlet. The smallest rate of off-type plants (0.001%) was found in GD hamlet with types C and H. Otherwise, the populations of Trang Tep variety in GD hamlet (1.65%) were more uniform in phenotype than populations in the other hamlets. Within each crop, genetic diversity in a system depends on the varieties or landraces grown. At this level we need to know the genetic diversity within variety, and its spatial and temporal distribution. This study shows all on-farm populations at the village scale. Differences in observed agromorphological characteristics were found among populations in the traits of flowering time, flag leaf angle, panicle length, grain length and grain weight. It could be due to sampling errors or effects of in situ conditions (farmer's management) that the population structure has been changed as a response to selection and cropping pattern changes.Farmer's selection methods have not been systematically studied in relation to this study. However, information provided by the farmers in GD hamlet indicates that mass selection is annually used to maintain phenotypic uniformity. This reflects a small ratio of off-type plants within the populations in GD hamlet (1.66% in Table 3). In addition, selection criteria also may be important to identify a new population to adapt to changes in intensive cultivation conditions as the flag leaf angle of almost all Trang Tep populations in CD hamlet has been improved (possessing erect or intermediate angle, instead of horizontal angle).Changes in cropping patterns and associated change in planting time have resulted mainly in later flowering. All Trang Tep populations are influenced by photosensitivity in terms of flowering time. They usually flower in November and are harvested in December before saline water penetrates into the field. Therefore, the change to two rice crops per year in TK, GD, LA, MRE and CD hamlets delayed the planting time, leading to later flowering (more than 30 days) than in MRB hamlet with one rice crop per year.Environmental conditions can directly affect the quantitative and qualitative traits between populations like the grain weight and grain size in this study. Almost all populations in TK and MRE hamlets have longer and heavier grains than populations in other hamlets because they were grown after dryland crops (first crop) like soyabean, groundnut or taro and sweet potato while the Trang Tep populations in MRB hamlet were grown in poor fertility soils and saline-acid sulphate soils.The value of crop genetic resources depends on two diversity aspects: genetic diversity and adaptation in situ. This study demonstrated evidence that on-farm conservation of Trang Tep populations has evolved to adapt to growing conditions at Dai An Village. The agromorphological traits are significantly different among populations in various agroecosystems.Bellon, M.R., T.L. Pham and M.T. Jackson. 1997 Intraspecific variation in Oryza sativa L. is remarkably extensive and subspecific classification has always been a matter of importance for rice breeders and geneticists (Glaszmann 1987). The classification of cultivated rice (O. sativa) into indica and japonica subspecies contributes significant value for germplasm conservation activities as well. Oka (1958) classified rice germplasm into indica and japonica based on seed reaction to phenol solution and other morphological traits.In the 1960s, isozyme analysis was found and developed. Isozyme analysis has provided valuable tools for rice geneticists to better understand the genetic structure of rice. Recently, isozyme identification has often been applied for the classification of rice varieties. Glaszmann (1987) identified six groups among 1688 traditional rices from Asia by using 15 polymorphic loci coding for eight enzymes. Other authors such as Second (1982) and Nakagahra (1977) also used isozymes to classify and evaluate the genetic diversity of rice.In the present study five loci coding for three enzymes were used to analyze 11 local rice varieties collected from Nho Quan District, Ninh Binh Province and 44 rice landraces collected from Da Bac District, Hoa Binh Province.Fifty-five rice varieties collected from Nho Quan District, Ninh Binh Province and from Da Bac District, Hoa Binh Province were subjected to isozyme analysis. Two varieties were used as control: Mahue (japonica) and IR36 (indica).Ten seeds of each variety were put in each Petri dish lined with moist filter paper; then the dishes were placed in an incubator at 30°C for 5-10 days. The young leaves of three seedlings were cut into small pieces and ground in a solution of 0.01% Mecaptoethanol. Small strips of Whatman No.3 filter paper were placed in each depression to absorb crude extract. The paper strips were then inserted side-by-side on 12% starch gel (gel buffer: 0.0085M Trizma base; 0.0015M Histidine-HCl; pH8.0).Electrophoresis was run at 50mA and 180V for 5 h in buffer solution (0.4M Trizma base; 0.1M citric acid; pH8.0).The staining procedures were described by Glaszmann et al. (1988). Three enzymes were stained including: Phosphoglucose isomerase (0.29M Fructo-6-phosphate, 0.5M Tris-HCl buffer pH8.5, 0.1M MgCl2, 10 units Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, 0.024M MTT, 0.003M PMS), Leucine aminopeptidase (0.017M L-Leucyl-β-napthylamide, 0.2M Tris maleate buffer pH3.3, 0.0007M Fast black K salt), Arginine aminipeptidase (0.015M L-Arginyl-βnaptylamide, 0.2M Tris maleate buffer pH3.3, 0.0007M Fast black K salt).Agrobiodiversity can be defined as a part of biodiversity on which man directly depends for food, fuel and fiber, including plants, animals, trees and other organisms that are of direct importance to agricultural production development.Diversity in general and that of crops in particular brings about many benefits, for example, limiting the risks and sensitivity to natural calamities, pests and diseases, and maintaining food security. Genetic diversity is the basis for varietal selection and improvement, making the most use of resources available and maintaining the agroecological balance in a stable and sustainable way.Coastal agroecosystems are characterized by adverse and diverse agroecological conditions such as sandy and poor-fertility soil, marine effects and climate fluctuation. The main constraint for agriculture is the lack of water in the dry season and often severe flooding in the wet season. Therefore, the cropping time in a year is short. The local villagers are accustomed to growing various crops or varieties to make full use of the land and to meet their increasing needs. The main income source of farmers is rice and animal production. Rice intensification and agricultural diversification have strong impacts on rice and crop diversity.• To identify changes in rice diversity in an integrated area (Phu Da) and an isolated area (Quang Thai) within the coastal agroecosystem • To assess changes in socioeconomic factors related to rice diversity • To understand the roles of community groups, services and agrosupports for rice production favouring rice diversity conservation • To build awareness of rice diversity and on-farm conservation value.To build on the research findings in 1996 of IRRI and Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry through survey, collection and experiments on characterization of rice varieties in the Central coast, in 2001 we conducted research in the same sites (Quang Thai and Phu Da). Quang Thai is representative for the coastal area, 50 km NE from Hue. Phu Da is near the city, comfortable for transportation, and about 20 km SE of Hue. The population density in Phu Da is higher than that of Quang Thai. The two are located in sandy areas along the coast, where lots of difficulties in peoples' livelihood have existed for a very long time. Irrigation relies only on the rainwater. The main income source is agriculture (rice) and 90% are pure farming HHs.Participatory tools were used for involving farmers' participation in data collection and assessment: group discussions, semi-structured survey, mapping and observation. In each site, 3 villages were selected, and 20 HHs randomly chosen for the survey in each village.Meetings, training and community-based activities, e.g. set up working mechanism at village, diversity contests organized to improve the local peoples' awareness of crop diversity.Thua Thien Hue is located in a monsoon tropical region. The rainfall is 2930 mm per year, concentrated in September, October, November and December. Storms and flood often occur on Tiet tieu man (May 21) and end after October 23 of the lunar calendar.The annual average temperature is over 25°C. In winter/spring growing season, the temperature sometimes falls to 10°C, affecting rice blossom. In contrast, in the summer season, the rice crop is abortive with low and unstable yield due to the hot southwest wind and the temperature may rise to higher than 40°C.Quang Eager to learn and to cooperate with scientists, technicians, etc.It can be seen from Table 1 that:• In winter/spring and summer seasons, the total number of varieties in Quang Thai and Phu Da has decreased since 1996, especially the traditional varieties. • The distribution of modern varieties in each household has a tendency to increase, while the reverse is true for the local ones.• Number of HHs using modern varieties less than 50% has also decreased, and consequently the traditional varieties become rarer and rarer. So, research for facilitating conservation of rice varieties diversity on farm is an urgent issue. The data in Table 2 show that in the 1996 winter/spring growing season in Quang Thai and Phu Da, the number of HHs growing many varieties per season was high (although the proportion was not the same). The proportion of HHs growing 2-3 varieties was higher and the highest was that of HHs (80.5%) growing 2 varieties in 2001 in Quang Thai. In 1996 the proportion of HHs not growing rice in summer season was highest (47.5%) in Quang Thai, but the peak of that (70%) was observed in 2001 in Phu Da.The data in Table 3 indicate that in 1996, the percentage of HHs in Quang Thai growing 1-2 modern rice varieties per season was 61%, and those not growing modern varieties accounted for 39%. In 2001, 100% of HHs grew 2-3 modern rice varieties per season, while the number of HHs growing 1 variety accounted for a greater percentage with time. In summer 1996, the percentage of HHs in Phu Da growing the traditional rice varieties was 50%, equal to those growing modern varieties. In 2001, the number of modern varieties grown increased from 1 to 4 per household and the proportion of HHs growing 1 modern variety increased to 85% and 100% in Quang Thai and Phu Da, respectively. As a result, there was no place for traditional varieties, and their genetic erosion is inevitable. So, it is necessary to conduct research for conservation of traditional varieties diversity.  4 shows that in winter/spring growing season, the proportion of HHs growing 1 traditional variety per season was higher than that of those growing 2-3 varieties/season. When the number of varieties per season increased, the proportion of HHs growing them decreased significantly, even to 0%. In short, there is a clear trend of decreasing the number of traditional varieties by space and time. So, our suggestion again is to pay immediate attention to conservation of local rice germplasm.In Quang Thai: in 1996 farmers' concerns were yield, time for growing, growth duration and salinity tolerance, then disease and insect resistance and submersion tolerance, etc. In 2001, the most important concern was rice yield capacity, followed by growth, yield stability, disease resistance and finally the grain quality (Table 5).In Phu Da: yield and yield stability were the most important concerns, then drought tolerance and disease resistance.In order to provide service and support for rice production in the regions of the coastal ecology, it is necessary to have the close coordination and cooperation of many related departments and branches such as farming HHs, cooperatives, people who have the same interests, scientists, credit bank, decision-makers, etc. (Table 6).Decisions related to rice production are different in different ecological areas (Table 7). In Quang Thai 70% of decisions depended on cooperatives, the rest (30%) depended on farmers. In Phu Da decisions related to rice production were 90% dependent on HHs and household groups with the same land types of rice fields (10%). This proves that HHs and cooperatives play important roles in making decisions related to production in different ecological areas.In order to distinguish the traditional varieties, farmers rely on their experience and the following basics: characteristics of plant types and colour, resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, growing season, etc. Of these, farmers consider plant types and colour the most important because they can be recognized very easily (Tables 8 and 9).  Farmers know well the characteristics of varieties, and it is an advantage to explore and encourage them in the conservation of agrobiodiversity on-farm.Through the research findings from 1996 to 2001 at two research sites-Quang Thai and Phu Da-on the coastal ecology, we can come up with the following conclusions:1. Quang Thai and Phu Da are two appropriate research sites representing the coastal ecological conditions in Thua Thien Hue and Central regions. 2. Quang Thai and Phu Da, however, still meet lots of difficulties in livelihood. Rice is the key plant and the main income source. Before 1996, the diversity of traditional rice varieties was considerably higher, but now these precious resources are in danger of extinction owing to the introduction of modern rice varieties, as well as the fluctuation of climatic conditions (more floods and drought, hot and cold). So, it is necessary to promote conservation and utilization of this invaluable germplasm. 3. In the studied areas, farmers know well their crops in general and rice in particular.They are eager to learn and apply new technological advances. They want to participate in research and conservation of agrobiodiversity on-farm to serve the common benefits. To promote the on-farm conservation of agrobiodiversity, it is necessary to: 1. Establish demonstration plots for both rice seasons: winter/spring and summer. 2. Provide technical assistance to farmers to increase the yield, quality of rice and efficiency of diversity conservation. 3. Propose suitable policies supporting local rice diversity conservation:• Adding values to TVs and the well-adapted cultivars• Training on seed and variety management facilitating diversity conservation • Increasing seed and variety exchanges among farmers and communities for better access to rice genetic resources.Taro (Colocasia esculenta) belongs to the Araceae family and has a long history of cultivation.In Vietnam taro is a common food crop. It can be cultivated in rainfed uplands, in forest and in paddy fields. Some taro types are particularly well adapted to difficult lands such as swamps. In Vietnam, taro is mostly found as a mixed crop along with upland rice, ginger and maize in shifting cultivation systems in mountainous areas, and as an intercropping species with sweet potato, legumes or vegetables in the lowlands and midlands. Taro can also be grown in rotation with rice. Up to now, the people in taro-growing areas throughout the country still use the varieties which are selected and propagated by farmers, who plant taro just for self-consumption as food or vegetable, and these varieties are suitable for the natural and economic conditions of their areas.The status of taro genetic resources in Vietnam varies across the major regions, where it is important in production and consumption and across various areas of diversity. The taro genetic conservation study was initiated in 1995. Taro is one of three crops targeted by the Global Project for Strengthening the Scientific Basis of In situ Conservation of Agricultural Biodiversity on-farm in Vietnam. In three ecosites-the mountains in Da Bac, the midlands in Nho Quan and the Red River Delta in Nghia Hung-the high level of taro diversity has been identified (Nguyen Ngoc Hue 2001). However, information on farmer management of taro production, especially the data on planting materials of taro crop, is not available. As part of the project activities, a study on management of taro planting material in study ecosites was conducted in 2001. The results of the study can help answer the questions why, who and how farmers manage taro resources.Participatory Rural Appraisal tools were used to collect information on the number of taro cultivars, the area under taro varieties and the number of households growing taro in the study sites.Focus group discussions were held to document the list of taro cultivars, their use value and farmers' propagation methods. This information was then used to assess preliminary planting material management of taro in each village of the study ecosites.The surveys of 39 to 140 household (45 to 95% of total households) were carried out in six villages of three districts to gather the list of farmer-named taro diversity and their use value. The indigenous knowledge on the different aspects of taro planting materials was also documented.Taro seldom flowers but its spread is dependent on vegetative propagation. There has been very little formal breeding of taro in Vietnam. As a result, the landraces currently grown are the products of local exchange, selection, isolation and natural mutation.In Nho Quan most (95.4%) households obtain the first taro planting materials from their relatives, the rest from the market. In Da Bac and Nghia Hung, all farmers have taro sources from their ancestors and relatives. Thus for taro the self-supply seed system is dominant. Currently, the diversity blocks and local markets are common new sources of taro genetic resources. The farmers in Da Bac, Nho Quan and Nghia Hung are also encouraged to exchange their taro planting materials between and within farming communities along with the associated knowledge of such resources.Preliminary results show that female farmers make most decisions relating to cultivation of root and tuber crops including taro. It seems to be the work domain of women. In these three sites taro is mainly planted and managed by women. Their crop species are of no doubt the most important for home consumption and seem to be closely related to the daily meal preparation work of women. This can be demonstrated by a high percentage of mothers who originally planted taro in home gardens and in the fields in all three sites.In taro farming, there are some differences between males and females. The men give more attention to intensive farming with larger area and have a clear plan of investment for the highest benefit based on the market demand or their experiences. The women always have a tendency to plant high-quality varieties, intercropping them with other species or in their home gardens, so they are more concerned about the family consumption, like making cakes, soups and other meals. Thus, they have more power in decision-making related to taro cultivation in small fields or in home gardens.Over a long period of taro cultivation, local people in the study sites have accumulated rich indigenous knowledge and experience in the use and management of taro resources, and their methods of taro propagation are a good example. The farmers in Nho Quan store the \"seed\" taro in jute bags. The farmers in Da Bac maintain the whole plants with corms or cormels in the on-site hut or underground in winter rather than keeping them at home.It was found that many households could propagate taro cultivars in at least six ways (Table 2) and this flexibility of propagation might also reflect a relative preference for growing in a large area. A similar observation was also reported in Nepal (Baniya et al. 2001). However, it is yet to be identified whether such variations in propagation have some implication on maintenance of diversity in situ.It can be seen from Table 2 that the planting materials used by farmers can be cormels, heads of corms, eyes of corms, stolons, suckers and corms with very small cormels. Management of taro planting material is totally informal and almost 100% of farmers in the study sites save these materials for their use, replacing them mostly after 3-5 years.In addition, the farmers have experience in choosing the seedlings for their planting purpose and they have some traditional methods for cleaning corms or cormels before planting. In Nho Quan, the farmers usually soak the seed-cormels in a solution of urine for 12 h before planting to provide protection from aphids. For promoting the germination of a cormel bud, sometimes the farmers cover the \"seed\" taro with moist ash before planting. Lowland refers broadly to low-lying fields of the Red River Delta below 50 masl and Upland represents broad fields situated above 50 m in mid to high mountain areas. ‡ Widespread distribution refers to cultivars found in other provinces of Vietnam and narrow distribution refers to cultivars specific to a certain village or commune.In Vietnam taro is a good example to illustrate that conservation of crop genetic resources is possible through use. The ethnobotanical survey results indicate that farmers have maintained different kinds of taro because of their different use values.Management of taro planting material is totally informal and almost 100% of farmers in the study sites save these materials for their use.Preliminary results show that women farmers make the most decisions relating to cultivation of root and tuber crops including taro.It was found that taro cultivars can be propagated in at least six ways: cormels, heads of corms, eyes of corms, stolons, suckers and corms with very small cormels.Farmers have experience in choosing the seedlings for their planting purposes and they have some traditional methods for cleaning corms or cormels before planting.Dai An Village, located in the rainfed saline area of Tra Cu District, Tra Vinh Province, was officially established on 1 January 1998. It consisted of eight hamlets. Total land area is 750.24 ha. People have settled in this area for more than 300 years.Dai An was classified as one of the poorest villages by national standards with the average per capita income of less than 120.000 VND/month. Its total population is 4857 people with 835 families. The Khmer ethnic group accounts for about 80%, Chinese 10% and Vietnamese 10%. Agriculture is the main source of income. Other minor occupations are handicrafts, tailoring, hired labour, etc. According to a survey in 1998, the education level of local people was very low: illiteracy accounted for 18%, and those with elementary, secondary and high school plus higher education were 36%, 23% and 6.5%, respectively. The irrigation systems were undeveloped, and agricultural production was poor. The major crops were rice and some kinds of upland crops. Before 1998, only a single crop per year with local traditional rice was possible in the rainy season. After 1998, farmers could grow two rice crops per year in some parts of the village (one early rice crop in early rainy season followed by local traditional rice). Upland crops such as taro, cassava, sweet potato, mungbean and groundnut were grown after the rice harvest in a limited area owing to a water shortage. Crop diversity in the area was still high in comparison with other areas. Traditional crop varieties of rice and root crops had been maintained by farmers for many years.An understanding of seed flow in the village could help to plan for more effective conservation and development activities. The study was carried out to monitor the seed flows of some major crops in the village since the project started in 1998.Secondary data, community biodiversity record and seasonally focused group discussions were used to collect data.The local traditional rice is chiefly grown in the main rainy season in rainfed conditions. The total number of local traditional rice cultivars in the village was 20 in 1998 when the in situ conservation project started. This number reduced to 14 from 1998 to 2000 while their cultivated area still remained from 700-770 ha in the village (Figure 1). Six cultivars were lost (Lun Can, Mot Bui, Nep (glutinous) Than, Tay Lieu, Clay Muong, Nang Lay) owing to very late maturity, and their not being suitable for early salinity intrusion.In 2001 the project reintroduced one special glutinous rice cultivar (Nep Than) to the community because the villagers needed it for special wine processing. This cultivar was special because its grain kernel is dark purple which gives the wine a special taste and good colour. Furthermore, this glutinous rice is also important in preserving local traditions, serving special family needs such as first birthday or death memory ceremony for their ancestors. The modern rice is grown in the early rainy season before local traditional rice in a limited area by dry direct seeding technique; it relies on the rain for water. The total cultivated area in the village increased from 160 ha in 1998 to 390 ha in 2001 with the development of short-duration rice varieties (Figure 2).The number of modern rice varieties selected and used by local farmers has rapidly increased from 9 in 1998 to 25 varieties in 2001. These varieties from research institutions have been introduced by the project and local agricultural extension network and then selected by the local community through PPB (Participatory Plant Breeding) and PVS (Participatory Varietal Selection) activities of the in situ conservation project. PPB and PVS have made great contributions to the local diversity of modern rice.Taro is the main crop after rice in the village. It is mainly grown in the sand ridges where land elevation is rather high and easy to drain. However, the cultivated area varied very much depending on the weather and market fluctuations. In years with good weather and market the cultivated area increased. Taro is one additional source of farmers' income in the village. Total cultivated area of taro ranged from 5 to 11 ha and the biggest area was in 2000 (Figure 3). Cassava is a good drought-tolerant crop. It is grown mainly in home gardens. In Dai An Village it is a minor crop. Its total cultivated area was limited, from 3 to 7 ha in the village (Figure 4). In 2000, it reached the highest production area. Three cultivars of cassava have been grown by local farmers in this village since 1998: Mi ke, Ma cuong and Mi gon.Like taro, sweet potato is also an additional source of income for local farmers. Its total cultivated area was highest (18 ha) in 2000 (Figure 5). There were six local cultivars grown in the village: Lang bi, Tau ngen, Duong ngoc, Trang giay, Binh Tuy and Bot duong. Bot duong cultivar was lost due to flooding in 2000. The monitoring of the changes in varieties and seed sources used by local farmers has been conducted by the project field staff in close cooperation with farmer leaders in each hamlet.The results from this monitoring reveal the farmers' preference and their adoption of crop varieties, crop genetic diversity and sources of seed available in the community over time.Rice is the most important crop and also enjoys rapid change in adoption of new technology; the monitoring of seed flow, therefore, was focused on this crop. Through PPB/PVS, genetic diversity of modern rice has been improved year after year since 1998. Farmers now have more choices of preferred varieties. In 1998, there were nine modern rice varieties-Cang Long, Bac Lieu, Cuu Long 8, MTL61, C42, OM5, IR61, Tai Nguyen DB, and one unknown variety. In 1999, three more rice varieties (25% of the total number of varieties grown in the village) were added through community yield trials (MTL232, MTL250 and MTL99). In 2000, farmers selected four more varieties, increasing the total number of varieties to 16. The newly adapted varieties accounted for 43.7%. In 2001, 25 modern rice varieties were grown by local farmers. Of these, the seeds of 14 varieties (56%) were preserved and exchanged on-farm among farmers; the seeds of the remaining 11 varieties (44%) were provided by the formal sector:• MTL232, MTL250, MTL99 and MTL281 (4 varieties) were from Can Tho University • OM1490, S969B, MTL250 and VND95-20 (4 varieties) were from Tra Vinh Seed and Agricultural Services Company • Three varieties (IR56279, IR59606 and OM1889) from Tra Cu Agricultural Services.The newly adapted varieties (11 varieties) were rapidly adopted by many local farmers and they occupied up to 81% of the total cultivated area in the early rainy season. Old varieties (14 varieties) occupied only 19% (Figure 6). Seed companies played an important role in supplying seeds of new varieties (42% of the total cultivated area in 2001). These seeds were considered as first stock for farmers to multiply in the following years.The result from the study showed the existence of genetic diversity in rice.The major cropping systems in the paddy fields have gradually changed from single rice cropping to double rice cropping. The number of traditional rice varieties has been gradually reduced by time. It is clearly seen that the tendency is increasing in terms of good grain quality, adaptability, stable yield and short growth duration. Only cultivars with early maturity, good grain quality and high market value have been maintained and developed. Nevertheless, the local traditional rice is still a main crop in the village.Rapid change was observed in the number of modern rice varieties owing to the market demand and availability of research findings from many sources in the region. The diversity of modern rice varieties has been enriched since 1998 thanks to the effects of PPB and PVS. Modern rice varieties have been increased in both the number of varieties (from 8 in 1998 to 25 varieties in 2001) and cultivated area.Root crops are minor crops in Dai An Village. However, they are an important source of additional income for local farmers after rice. They have low species diversity and a low level of varietal improvement. In the period 1998-2001, the number of taro varieties has increased by one thanks to the in situ conservation project. The number of cassava varieties was constant while that of sweet potato has reduced by one variety because of flooding. The seed materials exchange could be the most practical way for diversification of root crops. In addition, the improvement of irrigation systems might help increase the production scale of root crops, especially taro and sweet potato.The in situ project has a strong impact on increasing diversity of early rice varieties in the village through participatory plant breeding (PPB/PVS) activities. The number of early rice varieties has been increased from 8 in 1998 to 25 varieties in 2001. Thanks to the suitability of new varieties selected through PPB/PVS, their cultivated area has been increased rapidly. The understanding of changes in seed flow at village level offers help in adjusting our activity plan to meet project objectives and strategies.The conservation and improvement of local traditional rice are very important to the local community. The introduction of local traditional rice varieties collected from other parts of the Mekong Delta could help increase diversity and enrich the farmers' choice of local rice varieties. Seed quality improvement practices through PPB/PVS can contribute to the increase in productivity and quality of local rice.The improvement of cultural practices for local traditional rice could also increase the rice yield and the income of rice growers.More training on PPB/PVS and improved cultural practices for root crops is also needed to encourage farmers to conserve and develop these minor crops.A study of variety networks and crop variety preservation methodologies in a community is important in research on in situ crop diversity to draw out effective and participatory solutions to biodiversity conservation. However, that work was not done in the first year of the Nam Nung in situ conservation project. This report deals with the biodiversity survey in Yuk Yu, Rkap and Jara Villages, Nam Nung Commune, Krongno District, Daklak Province.The crop variety network of farmers in Nam Nung Commune depends on many socioeconomic, cultural and marketing factors. Many indigenous categories of crops have been linked with traditions, shared among community members in terms of biodiversity conservation on-farm, and it seems that there is an informal variety network in the community where most farmers' varieties are kept and exchanged by farmers. The importation of new crop varieties narrows the biodiversity of traditional varieties. The local government and the Provincial Center for Agricultural Extension support the variety improvement programmes, so all farmers, regardless of their needs and preferences, are provided with seeds of new varieties to grow in their fields. Biodiversity conservation should assess the positive and negative aspects of the supply and importation of new crop categories from external sources to find the best way to combine biodiversity conservation and crop improvement programmes.• New improved crop varieties help diversify cropping patterns and increase the crop yield and production, contributing to improvement of living standards of the local people.• More options for farmers to select good crop categories for cultivation, helping them reduce the risks.• Genetic materials become richer for enhancing artificial breeding and natural hybridization for cross-pollination of species.• Increased income and economic development for the local people.• Increased threat of genetic resource erosion of the local crop categories, as farmers may choose the ones with high productivity and economic efficiency to solve their living problems. • New improved varieties may have less resistance to specific diseases and pests, as well as lower adaptation to local agroclimatic conditions, so they cannot be grown in every niche.So, farmers have to keep and use local varieties that have special traits which the improved ones lack. To facilitate local crop conservation on-farm, it is necessary to strengthen the scientific and practical basis of in situ conservation on-farm. Research should be conducted to find the amount and distribution of agricultural biodiversity, to identify negative and positive features of traditional varieties and the best ways to use them, so as to generate benefits from The abovementioned crops have played an important role in the socioeconomic development of villages in Nam Nung and increase the crop diversity in this locality. However, the trend of new crop importation should be properly considered from the point of view of in situ crop diversity conservation.The M'Nong people are one of the highly communistic groups of people in the Central Highlands. Their communistic characters are presented in their material as well as spiritual life. In farming, the M'Nong people have been exchanging and sharing upland rice varieties and local crops for a long time, so their variety network is unofficial and sometimes not clearly seen. No household is a monopoly supplier of crop species to the community. All indigenous crop categories have been traditionally preserved for ages by farmers' households.There are eight different ethnic groups in Nam Nung Commune. Every group has its characteristics in traditional culture and religion with different ideological systems and traditional polytheism. Each of them has its own agricultural production practices. Some crop categories do not have many positive characteristics but are still being conserved by matriarchy. It does not mean that these categories are unique but they have something related to cultural and spiritual aspects. It may be a symbol of family lineage preservation according to the M'Nong customs. A mother gives varieties to her daughter at the wedding as an admonition to take care of her family's food and offspring to conserve their family lineage. This helps to conserve the upland rice diversity because the daughter will never get rid of her mother's varieties.Participatory grading matrix ranking method was used to classify households into poor, average and rich. The local people themselves selected criteria for grouping households based on the actual condition of the community. Three villages and 30 households in each village participated in the grouping process with criteria chosen by the community. The results obtained are shown in Table 3. The data in Table 3 indicate that there is a big economic difference among households in each village and among villages as well. For Yuk Yu Village, the rich account for 10%, the average for the largest percentage (66.6%), while in R'Kap, the difference is not high. This shows that the living standard and community development in this village are at a relatively high level. For Ja Ra Commune the difference is very distinct. There is no rich household but 70% are average households. This is the least-developed village in terms of economic development in the studied location. In general, however, the percentage of poor households is still high for the three villages.Through interviews and independent discussions with groups about crop diversity and crop conservation, the main factors noted are as follows:• There are similarities in terms of crop diversity conservation among the villages. The poor village has higher crop diversity than the rich and average villages, particularly in local upland rice. • The groups of rich households often maintain less diverse categories of upland rice than the poor ones. The rich groups conserve 5-6 upland rice varieties with good quality and medium productivity. New crop diversification needs good care techniques. The rich groups have more resources (labour, equipment and budget) to invest in farming activities for high crop yield and so they rapidly acquire new kinds of industrial crops with high economic effectiveness such as coffee, hybrid maize, green bean and peanut. Consequently, these groups are speeding up the erosion of genetic resources in the region.• The average and poor groups have less chance to apply advanced technologies, so they have to rely on traditional crop varieties. As a result, they are preserving more crop diversity in the region. Because of the shortage in resources, the investment in farming is quite low and their crop cultivation is mainly based on the natural resources. There is high crop diversity, especially upland rice with the lifecycle of 3-4.5 months. These groups also conserve many kinds of annual food crops to avoid harvest failure, consequently alleviating hunger. The analyzed results are presented in Table 4.The M'Nong people have an experience of cluster or individual variety selection according to each crop kind. In the whole upland rice plot, good clusters are harvested manually: women carry home-made baskets (gui 1 ) on their backs, collecting rice seeds and putting them into the baskets. The rice seeds are dried and preserved separately. In the past, as was the custom, upland rice had to be collected by hand only because the M'Nong people thought that collecting rice by other instruments may \"hurt\" rice and god worship would not be blessed. For intercropped plants, good individuals are selected. They usually harvest whole fruit, drying them without separating seeds from the fruit, and preserve them for the next cropping season, for example whole ears of corn and whole fruit of chili, loofah, squash and other vegetables and beans.1 Gui is a basket made of bamboo to contain or carry agricultural products and other commodities. As is the custom, upland rice is cultivated far from peoples' houses and rice is dried and stored right in the fields. From time to time, women take some rice for their family food.When they use up all the previously taken rice, the women will go to the fields to take another new portion of rice home.For variety preservation, in dry season (from April to November), food crops cannot be grown. The varieties' seeds for the next crops are preserved as dried seeds or dried fruits.For rare or specialty upland rice cultivated in small plots of land, rice panicles are cut and hung in bunches above the kitchen. For normal rice cultivated in a large area, after harvesting, threshing and cleaning from mixed materials, seeds are dried and stored in specialized containers like gui or tanks made of bamboo or wood.For maize varieties, whole corn ears are harvested and hung in bunches in the kitchens.For vegetables and beans, depending on what kind, seeds may be separated or kept as whole and dried fruits.The results of our study show that:• The variety network and variety preservation methods in Nam Nung Commune have not been much affected by market and economic changes, especially in Ja Ra Village. • The crop diversity is different among villages and among groups of households in a village. In general, groups of poor households conserve more crop diversity than the average and rich ones while the rich groups tend to accept new crops to replace the traditional ones. As they have more resources, they can invest in growing new crops to gain better economic efficiency, • The adoption of new crops is the main cause of genetic erosion of local traditional germplasm. This is an important issue, which needs to be addressed in the in situ crop diversity conservation on-farm in Daklak.• Focus group discussions were conducted with two separate groups of farmers (16 males and 16 females).In each group, farmers were asked to give their opinion and judgments on:• Who does what? And who makes decisions in farming activities for major crops in the village? • Target crops: rice, upland crops, vegetables, root crops, fruit trees, ornamental plants, medicinal plants and spices.Descriptive analysis and Excel software were used for data analysis management.Figure 1 shows the percentage of work contribution from males and females in the family to eight different main crops in the village. Judgements from male and female group were identical.In the family, males play an important role in rice, fruit tree, ornamental and medicinal plant production, whereas females take care of upland crops, vegetables, root crops and especially spices. Table 1 summarizes this observation.In general, men do most work that needs more strength and energy like land preparation, applying fertilizers, spraying pesticides, irrigation, assembling produce and transportation (mainly on their shoulders or by hand). Women work mainly in transplanting, replanting, weeding, removing off-type plants, cleaning, drying and selling farm products; these activities need more skills and patience (Table 2).  However, the gender importance by tasks varies depending on what kinds of crops are grown by the farm households. These differences will be discussed for each crop in the following sections.Rice production is the main farming activity in the village in particular and in the Mekong Delta in general. Most fieldwork in rice production is done by male farmers (>52.1% of activities) compared with female farmers (28.9% of activities), especially land preparation, seeding, fertilization, pesticide spraying, irrigation, collecting panicles after harvesting, threshing, transportation and storing. Females play the main role in replanting of empty spaces after crop establishment, weeding, harvesting, cleaning and selling. Drying rice is a special task done by both male and female farmers (Table 3). Medicinal plant production is mainly for family health security as some diseases can be cured by traditional treatment with different herbs. Men play an important role in planting medicinal plants (average of 52.6% of work). Women contribute to medicinal planting in pruning and weeding (Table 9). Even though it is rare, women do take care of selling medicinal products.Generally, women take care of food preparation in the family. Spices are essential for cooking. The study results reveal that spice plant production is mainly the task of women (Table 10).In a family, the decision on what kind of crops and what varieties to be planted is made mostly by men (43% compared with 36% by women). Men play a more important role in fruit tree, ornamental, root crop and rice cultivation, while women's decisions are more important in vegetables, upland crops, medicinal and spice plant cultivation (Table 11). Men are more decisive in terms of seasonal planting calendars in most cases, except with ornamental, medicinal and spice plants (Table 12). Fruit trees and rice are mostly the responsibility of men.Similar to the decision-making on when to plant, the decision on what farming techniques to be used is mainly made by men (61.7% compared with 27.4% by women). However, ornamental, medicinal and spice plant cultivation practices are women's decisions (Table 13).In most studied families men seem be more skillful and knowledgeable in technical aspects of crop production. The decision on whether to sell or not to sell, where to sell and at what price of all farm produce is made by women (Tables 14 and 15). Women, as family accountant and cashier, are responsible for marketing farm produce. In most families in the village, women appear to be more skillful and knowledgeable in marketing aspects. Table 16 summarizes the gender role in decision-making. It can be seen that men are very decisive in technical-related issues while women make market-related decisions. Since 1995, the rice yield and production in Vietnam have increased rapidly to meet the domestic consumption and exportation demands. However, irrigated rice production still meets a lot of difficulties. The application of new rice varieties with high yield in the large areas leads to monoculture of a few varieties and decreases the diversity of local traditional varieties. The pest and disease incidence has also increased because of the lack of horizontal resistance of many modern varieties. In addition, farmers have to use many pesticides and chemical fertilizers that can affect not only the producer's but also the consumer's health and cause environmental pollution, especially in water sources and soils.As farmers can now supply sufficient food to meet their consumption demand, they started to think about producing rice with high quality to sell and get more income. Before, this idea was not practical owing to the chronic lack of food, and the high-yielding varieties were more preferred. Now, it is quite feasible because of the increased market demand. As a result, some special rice-growing areas have been established to produce a few high cash value varieties. Tam Thom varieties in the north of Vietnam are specialty rices with nice smell and high quality. The cultivation of Tam Thom varieties provides higher economic efficiency for farmers in its natural habitat than planting improved varieties. This will create favourable conditions for strengthening in situ conservation of local traditional rice diversity as a precious asset for sustainable agricultural and rural development in the long term. This report deals with the results of our study on these aspects.• Participatory surveys were conducted and rice samples were collected from 59 farmers' households in Dong Lac Village, Nghia Lac Commune and 30 farmers' households in Kien Thanh Village, Nghia Loi Commune in 1999.• Surveys were also conducted to record farmers' practices in rice production, effects of fertilizers on rice yield and economic efficiency of traditional and local rice production.• Also applied were the biodiversity investigation forms designed by Plant Genetic Resources Center (PGRC) of VASI.• Interviews and discussions were conducted to collect data of socioeconomic conditions, farming culture, seed storage and agrobiological characteristics serving as the baseline survey of the Project \"Strengthening the scientific basis of in situ conservation of agrobiological diversity on-farm: Vietnam Component\" jointly implemented by VASI and International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI).• IRRISTAT, MSSTAT and EXCEL were used for data analysis.• Rice collection in 1999 decreased rapidly in both Kien Thanh and Dong Lac. The total of rice varieties was 15-16 and their diversity indices were around 0.752.• Kien Thanh Village has introduced a lot of improved rice varieties to plant in the wet season. • Rice diversity index in the wet season in Dong Lac Village is 0.385, lower than at Kien Thanh because Dong Lac has larger areas of Tam Xoan and Nep Thai Binh (70% of compared total rice areas) (Table 1).In the wet season, Dong Lac cultivates 96% of areas with Tam Thom, so that the nonglutinous rice diversity index is very low (0.122), but still high (0.701) in Kien Thanh. These results showed that specialty rice production has developed rapidly to meet the market demand; consequently rice diversity decreased rapidly. Dong Lac serves as a good example for this.Through our surveys in Kien Thanh, we found 14 rice varieties. Farmers with good knowledge have selected modern varieties like Luong Quang, Q5, Khang Dan and Tap giao 1 to get higher yield but they still grow Tam Xoan, a high-value local non-glutinous and aromatic rice variety.In Dong Lac Village, farmers' selection of rice varieties is based on economic efficiency and available techniques. Luong Quang, Tap giao 1 and Q5 have been selected for the dry season owing to available technical skills, while Tam Xoan and Nep Thai Binh are being produced in the wet season because of their high economic efficiency.The market-oriented rice production in large monoculture inevitably leads to decrease in the number of rice varieties, hence narrowing the rice genetic diversity base.Local rices like Tam Xoan, Tam Nghe (non-glutinous), Nep Thai Binh, Nep Ba Lao and Nep cai Hoa Vang (glutinous) are popular varieties in production at Kien Thanh and Dong Lac Villages. In Dong Lac 95.4% of farmers' households are self-suppliers of seed (Table 2).Hybrid rice: Almost all seeds of hybrid rice were bought from the State seed supply company.  The surveyed results of farmer's practices in both dry and wet seasons show that procedures of rice cultivation are not different and consist of land preparation, seedling, transplanting, weeding, fertilizer use, irrigation, plant protection and harvest (Table 3). Table 3 shows that the level of nitrogen fertilizer used for improved and hybrid rices is very high, but very low for local and traditional rice varieties.  Local rice yield has interacted deeply with organic fertilizers both in Kien Thanh and Dong Lac (R=0.8128***in Kien Thanh and R=0.773*** in Dong Lac). Nitrogen fertilizers interacted deeply with improved rice varieties in both wet and dry seasons.Farmers selected seeds from season to season following two key purposes: (1) technical feasibility, and (2) economic efficiency. In this study, the economic efficiency of local rices Tam Thom and Nep was compared with that of improved rice varieties in 1999.The results of an economic efficiency study in Kien Thanh concerning local traditional and improved varieties are shown in Table 5. The data show that the local rice varieties Tam Thom and Nep have much higher efficiency than improved rice varieties (2.06 and 1.86 times, respectively). The results of an economic efficiency study in Dong Lac concerning local traditional and improved varieties are shown in Table 6. In Dong Lac, both absolute income and relative economic efficiency of traditional rice varieties production are still higher than in Kien Thanh.In order to get more income, farmers in the studied communes select local traditional and specialty rice varieties rather than the improved varieties. This kind of market-oriented production may lead to a decrease in the number of rice varieties, causing erosion of diverse rice genetic resources in the two villages. However, this is also a good opportunity to launch a nationwide campaign for on-farm conservation of local traditional genetic resources that have numerous precious traits and will be the basis of survival for future generations.Cost of labour and seed of local and specialty rices is lower and their economic efficiency is higher than that of improved rice varieties. At present, the amount of nitrogen fertilizer used for Tam Thom production is quite high, leading to a decrease in its yield and economic efficiency. So, for traditional varieties, nitrogen fertilizers may not be the best choice. Instead, organic fertilizers should be used to produce clean products that can be sold for a higher price; their market is more available. The Tay people are the second largest ethnic group in Vietnam, following the Kinh (the most numerous ethnic group). They have a comparatively high education level, good farming knowledge and their distribution covers all areas of the north, northeast and northwest mountainous regions of Vietnam.Each ethnic group has its own customs, practices and ways of living. The relationships between cultural customs and cultivation practices are close. Many different cultivation practices are typical for many ethnic minorities of Vietnam. In addition, they have their own varieties suitable for specific micro-ecosystems. This means that there is species diversity or biodiversity of their various crops.The Tay in Da Bac District, Hoa Binh Province are part of the Tay ethnic group in Vietnam. They have their own cultivation systems and select seed to adapt to local conditions. This has created not only high diversity of crop species but also intravarietal diversity. Upland rice is an excellent example of this diversity.Conducting studies on the effects of traditional farming systems on rice diversity and establishing suitable models for in situ conservation are very important research issues.This paper reports a study of the Tay people at Da Bac site. The study objectives were to:• study the effects of management methods and household storage on the diversity of local rice varieties • analyze the effects of farming management on maintenance of rice genetic diversity.PRA and RRA were applied to collect information about the local rice varieties, their growth duration, soil fertility requirements and uses.The Da Bac farmer can not use new cultivation technologies, so lengthening harvesting time is one suitable practice to avoid no or poor harvests. In both villages, rice varieties have various growth durations: long term, medium term and short term. This is because the cultivation season depends on the rainy season, beginning from April to late May, and harvest season begins from September to late November in mountainous areas. The distance from house to field, and also from one field to another is very far. If all varieties have the same growth duration, it will be difficult to grow as well as harvest all crops in a short time, and to avoid a harvest failure when conditions are not favourable. Using many varieties with different growth durations is a suitable aspect of the farming systems of mountain farmers. This practice is one reason for upland rice diversity in mountainous areas.In mountainous regions, most farmers do not use any kind of fertilizer in shifting cultivation; they grow rice only on the natural fertility of the soil. The rice varieties in the two villages have adapted to special niches. In fact, the upland rice in Da Bac district is of three separate types. There are varieties such as Khau Khinh, Khau Toi and Khau Tram Khao which have good growth and high yield only in highly fertile soils. Growing them in poor soil may result in a very bad and uneven harvest. However, there are varieties that have good growth ability and stable yield in poor soils, such as Khau Mon, Khau Thuong Hai and Khau Cao Su. This explains why Khau is still grown in a large area by many households in Cang Village, in spite of its low quality.Table 3 shows that the farmers keep local rice varieties as a traditional food crop granted by the gods for holidays and festivals, and also as medicinal materials. Some typical rice landraces are maintained for good taste and cooking quality; others for processing purposes. This applies to Vietnam in general, and to mountainous areas in particular.Traditional practices have significantly affected the rice genetic diversity in the two study villages. During the production process, the farmers have selected and conserved an appropriate number of rice varieties to cope with the specific conditions, soil fertility, utilization demands, preferences, and cultural traditions and customs.The attention to high-yielding new varieties and the neglect of local low-yielding varieties have been being the main factors leading to the loss of balance in agrobiodiversity. Agricultural development has been and is being affected by this imbalance. Crop diversity is highly dependent on socioeconomic factors such as household (HH) knowledge, food supply status, traditional practices, etc., as well as on agroecological conditions in rural areas. The study of the effects of these factors can help develop a balanced production in terms of economic efficiency and conservation of agrobiodiversity for sustainable development.• To analyze the relationship between socioeconomic factors such as the age of HH head, food self-sufficiency, number of HH members, total income, agricultural portion from total income and total farming lands as well as crop diversity at HH level by using quantitative analysis.• To find out the useful and unuseful factors valuable for in situ conservation.The sites and households for the study chosen from three selected sites of an IPGRI in situ conservation project differ from each other in ecosystems and socioeconomic conditions. The rules for selection and selected sites are shown in Table 1.Data collection: Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) and participatory rural appraisal (PRA) methods were used for data collecting. Data analysis methods: Excel program was used for calculation of statistical parameters. A multiple variable model combined with hypothetic variable were used to show relationships between observed factors and existing crop diversity at HH level. The following is an equation of the model: z = Food self-sufficiency: This is a dummy hypothetic variable that aims to replace qualitative with quantitative variable expressed like logic variable, the value of which was scored as 1 and 0, representing food self-sufficient and non-sufficient farmer HHs, respectively. The model was analyzed as follows: If x i increases once, then Y would be a i x i times more and vice versa. b<= 1, and if b is closer to 1 then Y is more influenced by hypothetic variable (z) and vice versa. In this case, therefore, the age of HH head, farming land and agricultural portion from the total income are not changing within a defined period of time. The results show neither increased nor decreased factors affecting crop diversity.Some valuable conclusions on different levels of observed factors influencing crop diversity will be made based on the analyzed results and the factors that need to be paid more attention to for PGR in situ conservation activities will be pointed out.The socioeconomic parameters studied at the six sites are shown in Table 2. Tat and Cang Villages are situated in mountainous ecosites 30-80 km from the district centre. As the transportation is very difficult, exchange of agroproducts is limited. Moreover, the Tay minority constitutes about 99% of the total population and their agricultural production is still backward. Regardless of this, the diversity of upland rice is high in this area.Yen Minh and Quang Mao belong to a midland ecosite, so the exchange of agroproducts is easier than at the abovementioned two villages, but agroproduction is still self-sufficient. The diversity level of crop varieties is lower than that of Tat and Cang Villages in the mountainous ecosite. Besides rice, some taro varieties with high quality are used in this area.Dong Lac and Kien Thanh Villages are representative of the Red River Delta area where modern techniques of cultivation have been applied and farmers' knowledge on agricultural production is very high. Traditional rice varieties such as Tam Xoan and Tam Ap Be with high commercial value are diverse in this area. This feature is recognized as a good condition for selection of in situ conservation sites of Tam varieties.The reasons for choosing six effective factors and an independent factor are as follows:This factor is related to education level, knowledge level and decision-making ability to select crop varieties. The older HH heads often have a low education level so that their old ideas and limited knowledge make it difficult for them to choose crop varieties and agricultural practices. The average age of HH heads is clearly different in three ecosites (Table 3).   In rural areas, the number of people is an important factor for farmer HH economy. The labour force for agriculture is not much dependent on age, so that the number of people per HH has been selected.Food self-sufficiency is 0.5 for Tat and 0.35 for Cang Village. The data in Table 3 show that many farmer HHs do not have enough food and their crop varieties are limited. The two villages in the Red River Delta ecosite have a high coefficient of food self-sufficiency (0.9 in Dong Lac and 0.85 in Kien Thanh). This is a good condition for choosing suitable crop varieties. The difference in food self-sufficiency coefficients in various areas helps in creating different solutions for in situ conservation activities.The averages of total income of investigated farmers differs and increases from mountainous areas down to the Red River Delta area. In contrast, the average farming land of each HH is highest in mountainous areas. The agricultural portion from the total income is also different among the selected ecosites (Table 3). The average number of crop varieties is different in each farmer HH. Obviously, each ecosite has its own specific varieties. For example, upland rice varieties are grown in mountainous areas, local taro varieties in midland areas and aromatic rice varieties in the Red River Delta.The selected factors are suitable for the particular conditions of each site. The observed (independent) factors do not change much (m x is very low). Owing to the large number of samples, the representativeness is high and will make the result statistically significant in the model analyzing process.All the observed samples (100%) are closely related within all ecosites. Multiple R at three ecosites is a positive value and decreases from mountainous to the Red River Delta through the midland ecosite. It is clear that selected socioeconomic factors positively affect the number of crop varieties in farmer HHs, the level being different at all ecosites. Multiple R is low in Kien Thanh Village (0.18) and in Dong Lac Village (0.29). This means that the relationship between observed variables and the number of crop varieties in farmer HHs is not close. In contrast, multiple R in the mountainous ecosites is rather high (0.76 in Cang and 0.77 in Tat Villages). It means the dependent and independent factors are highly related. The statistical significance of multiple R in three ecosites is shown at confidence level P=99%. The result shows that selected factors relate in linearity with the number of crop varieties in farmers' HH (by comparison of R, Fisher's test).The level of dependence of the number of crop varieties on socioeconomic factors is different among ecosites; 58% of the change in the number of crop varieties depends on the socioeconomic factors in mountainous ecosites. The R square is low at Dong Lac and Kien Thanh. This reflects the conditions of each ecosite; the number of crop varieties depends very much on selected factors in mountainous areas. Furthermore, farmers are using a lot of upland rice varieties which makes the area conditions more diverse while in the Red River Delta areas, the diversity of crop varieties depends more on varietal factors such as high yield and short growth duration.The analysis of the obtained results shows that the number of crop varieties is affected by all the observed factors (number of people in HHs, agricultural portion from total income and farming land area) in all three ecosites.The coefficient of the number of people per HH was positive in all three ecosites. The highest was observed in Tat Village (0.53 at P=99%) and the lowest at Dong Lac Village. Because of slash-and-burn cultivation in mountainous areas, application of comprehensive measures of cultivation is difficult. Therefore, farmer HHs need a lot of labour to work on a farm. In contrast, modern techniques of cultivation are easily applied in the Red River Delta area, so the agricultural production is less affected by the number of people in HHs.Like the number of people per HH, the coefficient of agricultural portion factor is positive and decreases regularly from mountainous to the Red River Delta areas. Among the study sites, this coefficient is highest in Cang Village (0.26 at P=99%) and lowest in Kien Thanh Village. The actual total income of HH is low, but its agricultural portion is high in mountainous areas. In order to increase the total income, farmers have to extend their agricultural production using different crop varieties.The number of crop varieties is clearly affected by the agricultural area. The coefficient of farming factor is high at Tat and Cang Villages (0.26 and 0.62 at P=99%). Otherwise, this factor is affected very little in the Red River Delta area. This result shows that diversity of crop varieties is high in mountainous areas where the upland rice area is very large and upland rice varieties enjoy the highest diversity.The coefficient of this factor is negative in all mountainous ecosites (-0.28 at P=95% in Tat and -0.3 at P=95% in Cang Village). This result could be explained as follows: the farmers are used to intergrowing different crop varieties in one field during one growing season to reduce the risk of bad weather conditions. This is the reason for high diversity of crop varieties. The diversity of crop varieties is clearly affected by food self-sufficiency in Quang Mao Village (0.99 at P=99%). The result clearly indicates that the application of suitable crop structure in different soil types could increase the agricultural production. In Dong Lac and Kien Thanh, the food self-sufficiency is mainly based on production of aromatic rice with high market value.• The crop diversity among varieties is affected by different factors in all ecosites.• The number of varieties is more clearly influenced by the independent variables in mountainous ecosites than at other ecosites and the multiple R is also highest in mountainous ecosites (R = 0.76 and 0.77).• The variability coefficients of factors representing farming land, agricultural portion from total income and number of HHs varies highly. The coefficients of total income and farming land are highest in mountainous ecosites and lowest in the Red River Delta ecosites.• The diversity of crop variety factor is not affected by food self-sufficiency at the two villages in mountainous areas but is clearly affected in the midland ecosites.• It is important to focus on the factors such as number of people per HH, agricultural portion from total income and area of farming land in selecting HHs for in situ conservation at different sites. ","tokenCount":"28775"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4311a643dee14b66e995c2fbe4556b07","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0c203cab-5453-491f-9732-b96632a56d66/retrieve","id":"-1467747067"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"bc336d2d-3fb5-4658-a036-929cd0077150","pagecount":"56","content":"Rapid Growth Driven by Export Markets Thailand has developed the premier agricultural export economy in the tropics at least in terms of its exporta of carbohydrate sources This export orientation dates to the 1850's when the signing of the Bowing treaty removed a ban by the Thai king on exports of riceThe market stimulus to a subsistence economy with surplus land resources was immediate and rice exporta became the driving force in the Thai ｡ ｧ ｲ ｾ ｣ ｵ ｬ ｴ ｵ ｲ ｡ ｬ ＠ economy upto the Second World WarThe beginning of the post-war period marked the diversification of the Thai agricultural economy into upland crops again almost entirely directed to export markets Development of the upland sector has been the principal growth element in the Thai agricultural economy in the post-war period and has been based on expansion in maize kenaf cassava and sugar caneThe upland sector in the post-war period has gene through a series of commodity boomsThese were based on area expansion within a land and labor surplus agricultural economy i e the limited size of domestic markets or the lack of export infrastructure was the most binding constraint on agricultural productionThe success of these booms resulted in a relative shortage of labor in the 1970's inducing the development of a market for tractor-hire servicesThe motor of this growth process thus was the opening of market channels for export and relative price incentives in these markets However this growth process also reflected the vagaries of world market demand as is epitomized by the rise and collapse of the kenaf industry Cassava is the most recent of Thailand's commodity booms which is not to say that cassava is a recently introduced cropThe exact date of introduction to Thailand is not known but cassava was apparently being grown as a food crop in the 18th century However unlike ｣ ｯ ｵ ｮ ｴ ｲ ｾ ･ ｳ ＠ such as Indonesia and the Philippines Thailand was always able to meet its starchy staple requirements solely through rice Cassava thus never became more than a speciality food ｾ ｮ ＠ the country The genesis for growth ｾ ｮ ＠ the crop has always been non-food markets almost solely directed to exportThe initial development of such a market was in the 1930 s when cassava pearl ｷ ｡ ｾ Ｏ ＠ produced in the South for export through ｍ ｡ ｬ ｡ ｹ ｳ ｾ ｡ ＠ (Scheltema 1938) -The Thai cassava industry was based on the starch export market up to about 1960World War II briefly curtailed this market in Southeast Asia in the late 1940 s but following the war modern processing machinery wasinto Chonburi in the eastern region A healthy starch ｾ ｮ ､ ｵ ｳ ｴ ｲ ｹ ＠ was operating in this region by the mid-1950' sthe starch industry in Indonesia and in the south of Thailand However it was starch wastes that became the basis for the real expansion in the crop when a Thai export statistics for cassava do not start until 1950 and the only suggestion of such an industry is Malaysian import statistics VII -2 -West German importer in 1956 introduced cassava waste as an animal feed to Germany (Phillips 1974Titapitnatanakun 1979) Low freight rates in this period its lack of alternative uses and high feedgrain prices in Germany made cassava waste particularly price competitive in Europe Since cassava waste was a by-product of starch manufacture shortages resulted and led to the importation of cassava meal starting in 1960With the introduction of the Common Agricultura! Policy in 1962 and the favorable tariff binding on cassava in the 1968 GATT negotiat1ons the Thai cassava industry shifted to animal feed as its principal market Cassava chips became the dominant export in 1964 native pellets in 1969 and hard pellets in 1983 With this external stimulus Thailand went from a relat1vely minor producer of cassava in the 1950 s to the second largest (1f not the largest) producer of cassava in the worldProduction of cassava has increased from around 400 thousand tons in the m1d-1950 s to almost 20 million tons in 1984/85 (Table 7 1) Th1s represents a sustained growth rate of 16% per annum for over 25 years These sharp increases in production have been based exclusively on expans1on in area planted and have been concentrated in a relat1vely limited number of regions within the country Production has continued to expand in the old starch producing region of Chonburi and Rayong However the bulk of cassava production has shifted from this zone to the Northeast Whereas the Northeast made up less than 10% of the total up to 1969 by 1979 the Northeast was producing over 60% of total cassava Th1s represented a shift to relatively drier production conditions and a movement from the red-yellow podzolic soils to the more acidic latosols Cassava in part displaced kenaf in the Northeast and in part was planted on newly cleared forest areas Cassava has grown from a relatively minor crop in the 1950 s to be the second most important crop after rice in terms of production volume (as measured on a dry weight basis) and in terms of foreign exchange earned As in previous commod1ty booms rapid production increases have been based on area expansion led by demand in international markets Capacity and growth in domestic markets would never have sustained the growth rates that have occured in cassava and the other major agricultura! commodities To understand the cassava industry in Thailand the analysis first reviews the factors on the production side that formed the basis for such high growth rates and then turns to an analysis of the demand s1de which must necessarily consider the changing nature of international cassava markets Cassava Production Systems Agricultura! development in Thailand has been based on exploitation of an agricultura! frontier and reliance on international markets as a surplus vent Unlike Malaysia access to new land has been relatively uncontrolled although a ceil1ng on the s1ze of land holdings fomerly in the public domain was set at 8 ha in 1936 With the expansion in 1nternational markets following World War II planted area expanded rapidly in many cases at the expense of forest lands A satellite census showed that forest land had been reduced from 57% of total land in 1961 to 37% 1n 1974 a loss of 10 million hectares in 13 years (Bertrand 1980) VII -3 -Whereas the pre-war expansion was based principally on rice for which there was already a large production base diversification into upland crops has been the hallmark of post-war agricultural growth Crops such as maize sugarcane mung bean kenaf and cassava have expanded rapidly from relatively small production basesThe final component of this extensive growth pattern was relatively rapid mechanization of the agrLcultural sector based on either animal or mechanical equipment Thus in 1963 68k of farms were usLng animal traction and 147 were using mechanical power or some combination of animals and tractors By 1978 33% of farmers were utilizing tractors Cassava production systems therefore must be understood essentLally in the context of rapid expansion of previously uncultivated land Certainly in the Northeast there was some substitution for kenaf whose area by 1981 had declined by about 330 thousand hectares from its peak in 1967 However cassava area in the Northeast increased by over 780 thousand hectares in the same period at the same time as maize production also expanded quite dramatically Given cassava s adaptation to the drier growing conditions of the Northeast and the profit levels as maintained by EC grain prices the crop expanded rapidly principally by opening up new landThe process obviously introduces a dynamic element into characterLzing cassava production systems especially in terms of adaptation of management practices as farmers learn the responsiveness of a new crop and the effects of continuous cassava cultivation on soil fertility Using the agricultural census of 1963 and 1978 as reference points cassava expansion was based on a sizeable increase in the number of cassava growing farms (from 58 to 450 thousand) and in an increase in the average size of cassava plantings per farm from 1 4 to 2 1 ha In 1978 21/ of the farmers Ln the Northeast grew cassava and in most instances probably depended on cassava as their principal source of income By 1978 the modal farm size stratum for cassava farmers was between 3 2 and 6 4 ha (Table 7 2) This is large by overall Asian standards but still relatively small given the agro-climatic potentLal of most growing areas Moreover such a farm size has supported a market for tractor hire servLces but not actual tractor ownershipThe adoption of tractor hire services has in turn released grazing land formerly needed to support draft animals for cultivation Given the very dynamic nature of the upland sector especially in the Northeast the degree of competition between cassava and other upland crops is diffLcult to define If crop area data are disaggregated by agroeconomic zone (Table 7 3) certain hypotheses at least emerge In the old cassava growing area of Chonburi and Rayong (agroeconomic zone 15) cassava made up 40% of total farm area with the only other upland crop being sugarcane Cassava dominates this zone so thoroughly that Lt appears blanketed by monoculture cassavaIn the Northeast the SLtuation is more diverseIn agroeconomic zones 1 and 5 cassava potentially competes with maize and kenafIn agroeconomic zone 3 cassava competes only with kenaf In none of these latter zones does cassava domLnate the agricultural economy Moreover only in agroeconomic zone 5 do maize and cassava production ｡ ｲ ･ ｳ ｾ ＠ really overlap In the two largest maize producing zones only very little cassava LS producedIn general in the Northeast there is   VII -4still significant scope for expansJ.on of cassava area if not at the expense of other crops then in terms of currently under-utilized land already in farms or in the public domain The rainfall pattern in the Northeast and Central Plain is unimodal with a dry season from November to April and a wet season of varying intensity for the rest of the year as reflected in average annual rainfall for different sites from the Northeast to the South ranging from 900 to 3000 mm Moreover moving to the Northeast rainfall becomes more variable and uncertain Since most of the cassava is solar dried this rainfall pattern creates a trade-off between optimum drying period and opt1.mum planting periodThe drying season starts in November and farmers rarely leave the cassava in the ground for longer than 12 months though it could be left much longerWhere rainfall is more secure that is the Rayong and Chonburi area farmers plant in the dry season as well as the wet season Further to the northeast farmers tend to plant exclusively in the March to June period that is at the beginning of the rainy season (Figure 7 1) Experimental trails have shown that planting at the beginning of the rains gives significantly higher yields (Sinthuprama 1980) Given a eight-to-twelve month growth cycle planting in the November-December period and harvesting in the same perJ.od coincide better with market demand Prices are at their seasonal high in the September-November period befare declining to their seasonal low in March-April Also root starch content is much higher at the beginning of the dry season resultJ.ng in a further price premium There is greater demand for roots at this period because of the significant increase in through-put and thereby lower costs in the chipp1.ng plants due to shorter drying periodsThere is thus a significant increase in root sales in the dry season ( The land J.s prepared either by animal traction or by tractor hire services with the latter being increasingly common The cassava is planted either horizontally (sandy soJ.ls) or vertically (loamy soils) depending on the potential drought risk of the soil Planting material comes from recently harvested plants keeping stake storage time to a minimum Cassava is grown in a very strict monoculture system in that no other crop species are interplanted and a single variety tends to dominate throughout Thailand Rayong 1In weeding hand labor is employed with some animal interrow cultivation Nevertheless in the these activities labor use is kept to the minimum necessary to adequately maintain the crop The most critical issue J.n the rapid expansion of cassava production and the resultant extensJ.ve production systems is the maintenance of soil fertilityIn general fertilJ.Zer application is low in Thailand when compared to other Asian c2yntriesFertilizer prices are not consJ.stently subsidized in Thailand -and are generally applied to those crops in which margJ.nal returns are highest Of the maJar crops sugarcane has theThere are some programs purchase of fertilizer rice which provide a credJ.t subsidy for the These programs are ｰ ｾ ｩ ｭ ｡ ｲ ｩ ｬ ｹ ＠ orJ.ented to quarter leaving less than 104 or less than 70 thousand tons available for all other major field cropsIn 1973/74 average fertilizer application per cultivated hectare of cassava was only 6 9 kg/ha (Koomsup 1980) On that area where ｦ ･ ｲ ｴ ｾ ｬ ｩ ｺ ･ ｲ ＠ was actually ｡ ｰ ｰ ｬ ｾ ･ ､ ＠ (16% of cultivated area) rates were 43 kg/ha Recommended application rates are about 15 times this level By 1980/81 average application rates remained at the same level (Table 7 S) As would be expected fertilizer application is much higher in the old production zones around Chonburi and Rayong while in many areas of the Northeast fertilizer use on cassava isThe very low fertilizer use in cassava raises two critica! issues First has continuous cassavause resulted in a declining yield trend? Second what would be the yield gains wereTo answer partially these issues the analysis turns to an evaluation of cassava yields Yields Average cassava yield levels of 13 to 14 t/ha in Thailand are high even by Asian standards Only India and Malaysia consistently have higher yields than Thailand Moreover Thailand has been able to maintain this level of productivity through the period ofIn the early sixties average yields were around 17 t/ha and declinedrapidly to 14 t/ha by the late ｳ ｩ ｸ ｴ ｾ ･ ｳ ＠ Yields have remained at about this level ever since having fallen below 13 t/ha only once These relatively high yields have been a significant part of Thailand s dominance of the international trade in cassava The difference in ｡ ｧ ｲ ｯ Ｍ ｣ ｬ ｩ ｭ ｡ ｴ ｾ ｣ ＠ conditions between the Northeast and the Central Plain is only partially reflected in yield differences The older production ｲ ･ ｧ ｾ ｯ ｮ ｳ ＠ on average maintain a one-to-two ton yield advantage over The yield distribution is skewed with the largest segment of farmers producing quite normal yields by world standards of from zero to nine t/ha and with a very extended right-hand side where some farmers produce over 19 t/ha (Table 7 6) The second set of data is long-term ｦ ･ ｲ ｴ ｾ ｬ ｩ ｴ ｹ ＠ studies (Figure 7 2) These data show the expected With such rapid opening of new land as has occurred in the case of cassava the yield decline in older plots has been offset by the higher yields of new ｰ ｲ ｯ ､ ｵ ｣ ｴ ｾ ｯ ｮ ＠ areas As yield in older plots fall cassava supply becomes more sensitive to price changes particularly since more than half the farmers operate at below average yields Mining of soil fertility has a longer-term social cost of enhanced erosion potential and a permanent decline in the productivity of the land resource This therefore puts prime importance on motivating increasedof organic and inorganic fertilizers as apparently already is happening in the Chonburi and Rayong area Two factors however complicate increased use of fertilizer on cassava First in most areas cassava must compete with either rice or sugarcane for capital resources for fertilizerSecond cassava responsiveness to ｦ ･ ｲ ｴ ｩ ｬ ｾ ｺ ･ ｲ ＠ application is not as certain as in these other two crops There is often no response in the first two to three years after opening up new land (Table 7 7) After that while responses can be shown they cannot be demonstrated consistently (Table 7 8) What remains extraordinary in Thailand is the ｨ ｾ ｧ ｨ ＠ yields that farmers achieve in even depleted soils Suttibursaya and Kummarohita (1978) report cassava being grown continuously for 25 years without ｦ ･ ｲ ｴ ｾ ｬ ｩ ｺ ｡ ｴ ｩ ｯ ｮ ＠ and yet yields have ､ ･ ｣ ｬ ｾ ｮ ･ ､ ＠ to only 16-17 t/ha A fertility restoration experiment selected four farmers fields which had been continously cultivated for 15 years and the average yield of the check plots was 21 t/ha (lnterim Committee for Coordination of Investigations in the Lower Mekong Basin 1979) This suggests that the dominant ｶ ｡ ｲ ｾ ･ ｴ ｹ ＠ Rayong 1 is very efficient in the utilization of limited soil ｮ ｵ ｴ ｲ ｾ ･ ｮ ｴ ｳ ＠ Moreover thirty years of experimental work both on the experiment station and in farmers fields suggest that 30 t/ha is an achievable target with an appropriateThe results have made fertility management theThailand What is the advantage of a large investment in breeding if 30 t/ha is imminently achievable with the current ｶ ｡ ｲ ｾ ･ ｴ ｹ _ ＠ However defining a recommendation that gives a consistently profitable response has eluded researchers and inhibited adoption of fertilizer use in cassava Indeed farmers in Thailand utilize fertilizer they however do not apply it to their cassava Until the profitabilHy of fert1lizer response can beincreased probably by linking application rates to other environmental variables no effective extension program forof cassava will be successful except possibly in the very badly degraded soils such as now exist in Chonburi and Rayong Thus the relatively high prices for cassava products obtained ｾ ｮ ＠ the European Community was only part of the profit engine that resulted in the rapid expansion in cassava areaThe other component was the very high initial yields obtained by new adopters of cassava25 to 30 t/ha range provided a powerful stimulus to expand cassava area and lack of a viable crop alternative kept farmers in cassava However this raises the question of the longer term viability of cassava as the industry stabilizes as overall yields decline to a low level equilibrium and as output pr1ces come under downward pressure The task is to transform a dynamic industry that has been fueled by private costs being lower than social costs to a sustainable industry where farmers must pay the full cost of soil nutrient extractionAs yields decline the farmer's in1tial means of maintaining profits are by reducing costs By Asian standards cassava production systems in Thailand are relatively extensive in terms of labor and input use which in turn reflects the relatively high land-labor ratio existent in the country Moreover the existing agricultural frontier and the relatively liberal land policy have further reinforced extens1ve production practices The process has thus favored technologies that substitute for labor rather than those that substitute for land Labor is the major cost component in cassava production systems Estimates of labor input per hectare range from 70 to 100 man days Only maize and broadcast rice have a lower labor input (Table 7 9) Additionally because cassava can be planted almost anytime of the year and can be harvested over a relatively long period labor activities can be scheduled 1n relation to other demands for labor S1nce upland crops must compete with rice for labor this flexib1lity in labor use gives cassava an advantage over other upland crops Finally cassava gives the highest average returns per manday of labor input (Boobst et al )Cassava thus is very well adapted to the labor economy of Thailand----The trend is toward further reductions in labor input Land preparation through tractors has rapidly spread through the Northeast With movement to planting in rows interrow cultivation with animals was employed in those areas that still maintained draft animals Increases in sales of herbicides have been reported in the maJor cassava producing area of Chonburi especially since there were no such sales prior to 1973 (Inter1m Committee for Coordination of the Lower Mechong Basin 1979) Thus farmers have been very responsive to technolog1es that have substHuted for labor they have not been responsive in the adoption of land substituting technology Labor or mechanization costs make up over 85/ of total cassava production costs (Table 7 10) Input and fixed costs make up the remainder Moreover normally about half of production costs are paid in cash the rest reflects the opportun1ty costs (evaluated at market prices) of farmer-owned resourcesThe cost structure reflects some flexibility in absorb1ng price declines at least in the short-run since price declines can be absorbed in terms of lower returns on farmer-owned resources MaJor increases in fertilizer costs would sign1ficantly shift this balance again highlighting the importance of a consistent yield response for adoptionThe over the crop was reasons behind the rap1d expansion in last two decades can now be summarized very prof1tableDuring the [1974][1975][1976][1977][1978][1979][1980][1981][1982][1983][1984] cassava area in Thailand First and foremost the per1od average returns to  7 11) Second the kenaf industry was in decline and even further land was available on which to expand Given the high yields on uncultivated land cassava as an income source was unmatched and led to a majar increase in incomes in the relatively depressed area of the Northeast Third farmers did not face a labor constraint as tractor hire services expanded rapidly in the cassava producing areas All of these factors are reflected in cassava supply response Pongsrihandulchai (1981) has estimated supply equations for cassava by agro-economic zone and as might be expected found a very high short-run price elasticity of between O 58 to 2 78 (the median was 1 77) Price responsiveness in cassava was much higher than in rice (O 27) maize (O 70) kenaf (O 87) or sugarcane (O 62)Moreover the supply equations suggested that cassava principally competed for land with kenaf except in the Rayong-Chonburi region where there were no competing crops with cassava These equations were estimated while cassava prices were on the whole increasingThe question arises whether farmers would be equally responsive to declining prices and the answer would probably be no There is limited effective competition between cassava and other crops reflecting few other cropping alternatives for land in cassava Farmers would only sign1ficantly reduce area if they were operating at a cash loss The principal features of this work are well summarized by the Committee for the Lower Mekong Basin (1979) namely high yearly y1eld fluctuat1ons probably related to rainfall conditions rapidly declining yields of unfert1lized plots and variable response to fert1lizersWhile the research has led to a set of fertilizer recommendations broken down by soil type and while a series of farm level demonstration trials were also carried out only minor adopt1on of fert1lizer has occurred Some research in this area continues to be done even though it follows virtually the same approachThe few deviations have been toward evaluat1on of green and organic manuresThese have shown prom1sing results ( These were evaluated for agronomic characters and yielding ability but were found not to show significant differences One was selected and named Rayong 1 wh1ch was used as a check variety in all Promising materials are evaluated for drought tolerance resistance to the few cassava diseases and pests that occur in Thailand and in some cases for edible quality characteristics A testing program of regional and on-farm trials resulted in the release in 1983 of the first promising variety Rayong 3 Ita principal advantages over Rayong 1 are a higher starch content and a higher response to chemical fertilizer As yet it is too early to evaluate the adoption of this variety New production technology has not been necessay to the rapid expansion in cassava cultivationThe high yields obtained with the local variety as new land was cultivated and the high prices set by the European Community were sufficient to maintain high profits in cassava cultivation These profit levels are now coming under pressure from two sources the decreasing yields as soil fertility declines and uncertain access to the European Community as the EC attempts to reduce cassava imports The latter will require lower price levels as Thailand looks to alternative international markets which in turn will result in a cost-price squeeze at the farm level effectively increasing the demand for improved technology The research program is in a position where a new variety in and of itself will not have a high probability of markedly 1mproving yields This will occur only if the variety is combined with a viable soil fertility management strategyThe first signs of farmer adoption of fertihzer are occurring in the old production areas of Chomburi and Rayong Motivating this trend will provide the base for yield ga1ns though new varietiesThe development of the Thai cassava economy (together with that of Malaysia) has followed the reverse of the normal pattern That is growth in production was initially driven by export market development Only after export market channels were well in place did domestic markets of any size begin to develop Price formation was always based on cassava as a tradeable good in international markets and Thai farmers and cassava processors based their dec1sions on price 1ncent1ves set in these markets An analysis of the Thai cassava economy in thus dependent on an evaluation of cassava demand in international markets (see Chapter VIII) and of price format1on in these marketsThe Cassava Pellet Export MarketThe export market for cassava chips and pellets dominates the Thai cassava economyHigh grain prices in Europe first in West Germany and These markets have been able to absorb the rapid expansion in export volumes to the extent that Thailand has not had to diversify its markets that is uptil 1983Thai success however has given rise to European discontent and in 1982 a agreement for voluntary export restraint was negotiated and signed between the two parties (a lengthy discussion of the structure of the European market of the history of cassava imports into Europe and of the details of the quota is found in Chapter VIII)The quota while slowing growth in Thai exports nevertheless has not stopped it completely (Table 7 13) The pattern of growth in the Thai cassava industry is relatively unique when compared to cases of rapid expansion in other agricultural commodities especially the ｧ ｲ ｡ ｾ ｮ ｳ ＠The difference comes in the fact that cassava has to be processed very close to the production ｰ ｯ ｾ ｮ ｴ ＠ because of its bulkiness and rapid perishability Sugar cane and palm ｯ ｾ ｬ ＠ have similar characteristics and in their case relatively large scale processing units have usually been linked to core plantations though if properly planned smallholders can provide a ｣ ･ ｲ ｴ ｡ ｾ ｮ ＠ percentage of the raw material production However in the case of cassava the expansion in root production and processing has been based on ｬ ｩ ｮ ｫ ｾ ｮ ｧ ＠ small-scale producers to relatively small-scale processing capacity Decentralized small-scale processing is thus a solution to the problem of ｭ ｩ ｮ ｩ ｭ ｾ ｺ ｩ ｮ ｧ ＠ transport costs where in the case of sugar cane or palm oil the solution isproduction can be more easily syncronized with needed investment in processing capacity This is typical of cassava development other examples are gari in West Africa and farinha de mandiocaThis development pattern allows cassava both to maintain a small-farm focus to maximize the employment generation in production and processing and to distribute more equitably income growth as the industry expandsThe development of investment in processing capacity is portrayed in Table 7 14The data suggest a pattern that first depends on concentration of investment in a few limited areas About 78% of all chipping plants in 1973 were located in only four changwats 60% were located in only two Rayong in the Central Plain and Nakhon ｒ ｡ ｴ ｣ ｨ ｡ ｳ ｾ ｭ ｡ ＠ in the Northeast By 1978 these same four changwats accounted for JUSt 417 of all chipping plants Root ｰ ｲ ｯ ､ ｵ ｣ ｴ ｾ ｯ ｮ ＠ followed much the same organic growth process That is development of the industry was basedof growth nodes where increasing ､ ･ ｮ ｳ ｾ ｴ ｹ ＠ of production made for a more efficient cassava root market This concentration in turn allowed the orderly evolution of market channels to the export points By 1978 the next phase in ｴ ｨ ｾ ｳ ＠ growth process ｾ ｳ ＠ apparent i e rapid expansion of processing capacity into other changwats especially in the Northeast and expansion in processing scale in those original areas wheredensity had reached a certain critical point such that transport costs were not a constraint on scale expansion A certain production density is necessary to support efficient large-scale cassava processing This organic development of the ｔ ｨ ｡ ｾ ＠ cassava ｾ ｮ ､ ｵ ｳ ｴ ｲ ｹ ＠ has induced a continual search for cost reductions especially in processing storage and transport In the 1960 s this was policy induced as the EEC varied its tariff rates en meal versus chips (see Chapter VIII)The binding of the duty in 1968 provided the market security to JUStify investments leading to other cost reductionsThe first large ｾ ｮ ｶ ･ ｳ ｴ ｭ ･ ｮ ｴ ｳ ＠ came in the form of The obJective here was to reduce transport costs by increasing the density (Table 7 15) These were first based on the importation of European pelleters but this was shortly followed by the manufacture of pelleting machines in ｔ ｨ ｡ ｾ ｬ ｡ ｮ ､ ＠ This gave ｲ ｾ ｳ ･ ＠ to a quality distinction of brand versus native pellets with the latter having a lower density being softer and not having a pure composition (Mathot 197 4 explores in detail the ｴ ･ ｣ ｨ ｮ ｾ ｣ ｡ ｬ ＠ and economic factors determining pellet quality in Thailand) defined by transport cost advantages both internally and in the export trade Nevertheless pelleting plants were not large A 1974/75 survey identified three types of plants a small-scale plant with an annual capacity of 1260 tons a medium-scale plant producing 3310 tons and large-scale plants with a ｣ ｡ ｰ ｡ ｣ ｾ ｴ ｹ ＠ of 7280 tons (Titapiwatanakun 1979)these were not much larger than the average production capacity of chip plants and thus suggest no economies of scale in pelleting That is since chipping and drying gets over the perishability and transport ｣ ｯ ｮ ｳ ｴ ｲ ｡ ｾ ｮ ｴ ＠ and since chip ｰ ｲ ｯ ､ ｵ ｣ ｴ ｾ ｯ ｮ ＠ was relatively concentrated any economies of scale in pelleting would have suggestedin larger centralized plants There were no ･ ｣ ｯ ｮ ｯ ｭ ｾ ･ ｳ ＠ of scale in native pellets however for hard pellets produced with steam and/or a vegetable oil binder scale economies did seem to existThe cost savings on the ｵ ｴ ｾ ｬ ｩ ｺ ｡ ｴ ｩ ｯ ｮ ＠ side in hard pellets are three First density is greater so there is a transport savings Second for feed concentrate manufacturera hard pellets do not require as much modification ｾ ｮ ＠ factory transport systems i e essentially adapted for grains Third hard pellets can be stored longer allowing fewer storage losses Also there was a significant decline in dust pollution which previously had remained an externality and was dealt with by public funds in ports such as RotterdamThe pricefrom these savings however was through the 1970 s neverto motivate a larger production of hard or brand pellets Most majar cassava users ｾ ｮ ＠ Europe especially ｾ ｮ ＠ the Netherlands made the necessary investments to handle the higher meal content of native pellets in the feed plants and the ports Investment in hard pelleting capacity started to ｾ ｮ ｣ ｲ ･ ｡ ｳ ･ ＠ in 1982 at the start of the quota and by 1985 over 804 of pellet exports were in the form of hard pellets What is As the ｾ ｮ ､ ｵ ｳ ｴ ｲ ｹ ＠ developed large investments were also made in storage and loading ｦ ｡ ｣ ｩ ｬ ｩ ｴ ｾ ･ ｳ ＠ at export points A reflection of this investment is the change in size of ｳ ｨ ｾ ｰ ＠ that carried cassava Table 7 16 charts the progressive change to larger bulk-cassava carriers which in turn ｩ ｭ ｰ ｬ ｾ ･ ､ ＠ investment in loading facilities in ThailandIn 1980 the average cargo size for a ship hauling cassava was 87 thousand tons This compares to an average size of 41 thousand tons for ships hauling grains of North American originThe Thai cassava trade was able to capture significant economies of scale in ocean transport with Rotterdam being the only port that could take advantage of these scale economies Prices of cassava pellets in Hamburg for example are as much as 50 deutsche marks more expensive per ton than in Rotterdam Moreover cassava shipments to the United ｋ ｾ ｮ ｧ ､ ｯ ｭ ＠ are usually unloaded in Rotterdam and sent on lighter to U K ports As in biology so in ･ ｣ ｯ ｮ ｯ ｭ ｾ ｣ ｳ ＠ growth is a far more complex process than surface --or macro --appearances would suggest Thailand in many ways offers an idealized growth pattern for cassavaEarly growth based on small-scale production and processing insures syncronization between the two in the growth process Economies of scale are possible then when critica! market size and productioncassava in this more dynamic sense when the comparative advantage of cassava versus grains is discussed later in the chapter Also what is important about the Thai cassava case is the rapid growth in investment in a industry characterized by relatively small-scale plants and the forward linkages that were made to ､ ｯ ｭ ･ ｳ ｴ ｾ ｣ ＠ manufacturing capacity Investment in small-scale rural based industries is a particular characteristic of Asian agriculture --one is tempted to attribute this to the ｣ ｯ ｮ ｳ ｴ ｲ ｡ ｾ ｮ ･ ､ ＠ land resource base and the need for alternative employment in the rural sector the history of investment in the rural sector particularly irrigation and generally low incomes which makes even margins in small-scale processing attractive Cassava is in more ways than one well adapted to Asian conditions (see Chapter IX)Price is the trottle that has controlled growth in theUnderstanding how prices for cassava pellets are formed will thus provide a basis for assessing both future prospects and an ｡ ｰ ｰ ｲ ｯ ｰ ｲ ｾ ｡ ｴ ･ ＠ response to the EEC quota Because the maJor portion of Thai pellets are exported of which almost all go to the EEC the price of pellets in Thailand and the price of pellets in Europe are interdependent The policy history of cassava in the EEC is discussed in Chapter VIII but suffice it here to say that since the binding in GATT of cassava at a 6/ ad valorem duty in 1968 cassava has had a competitive edge over ｧ ｲ ｡ ｾ ｮ ＠ imports which must enter under the EEC s variable levy system Since domestic grain prices ｾ ｮ ＠ the EEC are normally well above world grain prices and through the Common Agricultura! Policy insulated from international market ｣ ｯ ｮ ､ ｾ ｴ ｾ ｯ ｮ ｳ ＠ the cassava ｰ ｲ ｾ ｣ ･ ＠ is formed within the relative confines of the EEC marketThe implications for the cassava price is shown ｾ ｮ ＠ Figure 7 3 where the Rotterdam cassava ｰ ｲ ｾ ｣ ･ ＠ and the maize threshold price  However although cassava prices have remained above world market maize prices (at least on a feed equivalent basis) cassava has gotten relatively cheaper compared to EEC priced grains Export demand for Thai cassava and therefore the export price is determined by the prices for feed componente ｾ ｮ ＠ the EEC --import demand for cassava in Europe is analyzed in Chapter VIII --however supply side factors may as well be affecting price formation in cassavaThe structure of the pellet market argues for the formation of cassava prices in the EEC feed component market with European prices being transmitted back to ThailandThe carriers or shippers are key agents in price formation and transmission They are the interface between the European and Thai markets Moreover cassava is sold on an fob basis in Rotterdam That is the ｳ ｨ ｾ ｰ ｰ ･ ｲ ｳ ＠ assume ownership of the cassava until its unloading in Europe Grains on the other hand are sold on a cif basis where the feed compounder has assumed ownership in say the Chicago market As well the maJor portion of cassava is sold on a forward basis That is a compounder contracts a ｣ ･ ｲ ｴ ｡ ｾ ｮ ＠ quantity of cassava at a specified price for delivery some months forward and the shipper in turn buys in ｔ ｨ ｡ ｾ ｬ ｡ ｮ ､ ＠ in order to lock in the margin on his saleThe shipper obviously must be in a position to monitor market conditions in both ｔ ｨ ｡ ｾ ｬ ｡ ｮ ､ ＠ and Europe and companies such as Krohn & Co Peter Cremer and Alfred C Toepfer areTo demonstrate the price linkage between the two markets and to evaluate the locus of price formation European and Thai cassava prices are analyzed in a framework which evaluates \"causality between the two price seriesThe concept of Granger causality is used in the sense that European prices cause Thai prices if the European prices lead the ｔ ｨ ｡ ｾ ＠ prices in a sense defined by correlation between lags in the two series (see Bessler and Brandt 1982Spriggs Kaylen and Bessler 1982and Adamowicz Baah and Hawkins 1984) The methodology rests on prefiltering any autocorrelation in each series using an ARIMA estimationIn this case the series of residuals could be reduced to a white noise series using the same prefilter --this allows a valid test of Granger causality (Sims 1972) The residuals were then cross-correlated with varying lags The correlations then suggest the degree to which European prices lead (cause) Thai cassava prices Four European price series are utilized representing two markets Rotterdam and Hamburg and representing spot market prices and the two-month forward contract price All European prices are from the Germanmarket intelligence paper Ernahrungsdienst These series are analyzed in relationship to the Bangkok wholesale price for cassava pellets published by the Thai Tapioca Tradewere available on a bi-weekly and a monthly basis and a ｳ ･ ｲ ｾ ･ ｳ ＠ of both time periods are analyzed from 1974 through 1985The period is divided into two pre-quota and post-quota ｾ ｮ ＠ order to assess the impact of import restrictions on ｰ ｲ ｾ ｣ ･ ＠ relationships between the two markets The cross-correlations between the ｔ ｨ ｡ ｾ ＠and European price series are presented in Table 7 17 First considering only the bi-weekly series two structural features of the market are confirmed that is the forward price generally gives a higher correlation between markets than the spot price and in the case of the forward price the Rotterdam market is more closely linked to the Thai market then is the Hamburg market (for the spot price the correlations are virtually the same comparing Rotterdam and Hamburg) Considering then only the case of the forward price Bangkok and Rotterdam prices in the 1974-82 period are significantly instantaneously correlated i e within the two-week time frame This representa relatively efficient flows of information between the two markets and therefore relatively close price integration Somewhat contrary to expectation there is also some residual tendency for the Bangkok price to lead (cause) the Rotterdam priceIn the very short-run this indicates that the short-term supply situation in Thailand i e the ability of the shipper to fill his forward contracts influences the price negotiated in Europe This situation is even more marked in the case of Hamburg and again indicates that Hamburg is not as rapidly integrated with the Bangkok market as is RotterdamThe quota has radically changed this situationThe strength of integration between the two markets has declined as reflected in the lower correlation coefficientsAs will be shown later this has resulted in a widening in the margin between the two price ser1esMoreover although instantaneous causality between the two series is still apparent European prices under the quota lead Bangkok prices Under the quota short term supply needs are adequately met by stocks while in Europe cassava supplies are constrained by the quota Cassava does not have to sell at much of a discount to grains in order to move available supplies Therefore short-term price formation shifted over to demand side factors but with a decline in the strength of the direct pr1ce transmission back to Thailand Price transmission between Europe and Thailand in the past has run in both directions but for monthly data at least the analys1s suggests that Europe leads the Thai priceThe price transmission process is then analyzed by making Thai cassava prices a function of European prices at varying lags the transport costs and a dummy variable for the quota periodThe results in Table 7 18 suggest that only 49% of price changes in Europe is passed back to Thailand in the first month and another 29% in the second monthThe transport cost variable was negative as expected but not significant This was due to the inability to construct a series that reflected the change in scale of shipping during the period the variable as specified assumes the same size ship Finally the dummy variable for the quota period is negative implying that the marg1n between Europe and Thailand has widened under the quota Th1s is to be expected with upward pressure on cassava prices in Europe due to a constrained supply and downward pressure on prices in Thailand due to rising stock levels As is explained in Chapter VIII Thai quota management pol1cy has utilized this larger margin to finance third-country exports rather than allowing a w1defall profit to accrue to cassava export companiesThe previous analysis argued that the locus of price formation in this cassava market occurs either at the level of negotiations between the shipping company and European feed manufacturer or between the shipping company and Thai suppliers the type of supplier depending on how far back into the market the shipping company is integrated This impl1es that root and chip pr1ces are determined by pellet prices whether set in Europe or This pattern is distinct from grains were normally processing is a mark-up on grain prices set in bulk wholesaling markets In the cassava situation the standard accounting for the chip and pelleting processing are P = e P + e + R and ee r e e P = e P + e + R p p e p p where p representa price e is conversion rate e is operating cost and R is operating profit and the subscripts refer to roots(r} chips(c) and pelleta (p} However given the assumptions on price formation price transmission equations for cassava chips and roots are as follows Making the variables stochastic and assuming an error term the above equations were estimated and the results are presented in Table 7 19 The pellet equations follow expectations with the estimated conversion rates being within a reasonable range of but somewhat below the figure of 976 cited by industrial sourcesThe estimated operating margin (per 100 kg )below the actual budgeted costs of pelleting (see below)Nevertheless what the price ｴ ｲ ｡ ｮ ｳ ｭ ｩ ｳ ｳ ｾ ｯ ｮ ＠ equations for pellets do suggest is quite restricted margins and therefore a very ｣ ｯ ｭ ｰ ･ ｴ ｩ ｴ ｾ ｶ ･ ＠ industryThe chip equations on the other hand only partially confirm expectationsThe ｣ ｯ ｮ ｶ ･ ｲ ｳ ｾ ｯ ｮ ＠ ratea in ehonburi and Rayong are very close to the 372 figure used by industrial sources while the estimated conversion rate in Korat is unreasonably high suggesting a far higher leve! of efficiency than can be expected to be the case On the other hand the operating margin estimates cover a wide range from being reasonable in Korat to being significantly positive in ･ ｨ ｯ ｮ ｢ ｵ ｲ ｾ ＠ i e reflecting operating lossesThe equations suggest a delicate balance between operating margins and conversion rates a binding charactistic in the profitable operation of a chipping plantThe equations again demonstrate the limited margins ｷ ｩ ｴ ｨ ｾ ｮ ＠ which the chipping plants have to operate to turn a profit Given the chip price competition within the industry has generated relatively high root prices and limited operating margins Price formation in summary in the ｔ ｨ ｡ ｾ Ｍ ｅ ｵ ｲ ｯ ｰ ･ ｡ ｮ ＠ pellet market is efficient reflecting the very competitive nature of the Thai cassava industry Any excess profits when they occur either accrue to cassava farmers or result in inflated margins for the ｳ ｨ ｾ ｰ ｰ ｩ ｮ ｧ ＠ companies (Figure 7 4)The later has occurred as a result of the imposition of the quota but Thai policy has issured that these windfall profits are directed towards opening up new markets for cassava pelleta ,.!E' E-'\"\"¡ Eut op'? ord F o n 1 -l'?., e ｾ ＠ j F .. rmitr Pr-cf¡t,.The very marked rate of growth in the Thai cassava industry was driven by the relative profitability of the industry especially since prices set in Europe were efficiently transmHted to cassava root producersThe profitability of cassava at the farm level is shown in Figure 7 presents a graphic picture of margin development in the cassava industry Farm-level profits were highly variable but even in years with low prices profits were sigm.ficant Not surprisingly root production showed continuous growth even with quite significant variability in prices Another major characteristic of the cassava industry is that the farm-level root price makes up only between 40 to 504 of the eventualBy comparison farm level production costs make up 83% of f o b costs of maize in the U S A (Ortmann Stulip and Rask 1986) The ability of cassava to compete with grains thus lies in ｾ ｴ ｳ ＠ relatively low production costs and an efficient processing industryAs seen in ｆ ｾ ｧ ｵ ｲ ･ ＠ 7 4 the processing margin did not vary significantly over the 197 5-84 period Cassava is very profitable for Thailand A complete cost accounting for 1981 is summarized in Table 7 20 (see Appendix 7 2 for details)The costs are disaggregated by domestic factor costs foreign import costs and government taxes including tariffsAll costs are at 1981 market prices with interest rates being at the commercial loan rate of 19%Íhere are noof any market imperfections that would cause market prices of factors to deviate from their opportunity cost (see Bertrand 1980 andLokaphadhana 1981) Nor until the quota was there any intervention by the government in the cassava export tradeThe Thai cassava industry was one of the few examples of an industry that functioned without government intervention Deducting taxes and tariffs thus closely approximates social costs of producing cassavaThe cost breakdown suggests that root production costs are two-thrids of total f o b costs of cassava pellets Chipping pelleting and export costs relatively equally divide the other ｴ ｨ ｾ ｲ ､ ＠Labor is by far the largest cost component making up 4 7% of total costs Import costs are relatively low making up only 11% of production costa Comparing costs to 1981 prices implies that almost 30% of the f o b price was garnered by the economy as social profit with almost two-thirds of that going to the cassava farmer From a social point of view cassava was very profitable to the Thai economy and especially for the incomes of the population in the poorest sector of the economy the rural NortheastThe quota has made apparent the ｰ ｯ ｬ ｩ ｴ ｾ ｣ ｡ ｬ ＠ underpinnings of themarket for cassava pellets Uncertainty about long-term access to the European market has raised the question about the ability of the Thai cassava industry to compete in the larger international feedgrain marketThe first point to emphasize is that because Thailand did not sell cassava in the international ｦ ･ ･ ､ ｧ ｲ ｡ ｾ ｮ ＠ market up till the quota does not necessarily ｾ ｭ ｰ ｬ ｹ ＠ that cassava could not compete in that market The analysis to date and that presented in Chapter VIII clearly shows that Thailand could sell all its production ｾ ｮ ＠ Europe at prices above what could have been obtained on the world feedgrain market obviously it was more profitable for Thailand to sell all ｾ ｴ ｳ ＠ production in the European market This situation has changed with the quota and the issue of cassava' s The issue can be taken one step further and f o b costs compared to f o b costs of major maize exporters (Table 7 21) Comparing Thai cassava costs on a maize equivalent basis with those developed by Ortmann Stulip and Rask (1986) shows that cassava is very competitive with maJor ma1ze exporters How much cassava Thailand will produce at currently declin1ng world market maize prices is another issue but the same could be asked of countries such as the United States and France if price and income support policies were eliminated In summary the Thai cassava industry has shown itself to be very responsive to export opportunities and to the vagaries of policy changes in import marketsThe EEC became virtually the sole market for Thai pellets essentially because it was the most profitable outlet Moreover because of efficient price transmission between the two markets Thailand could respond very quickly to the changing needs of the European market The imposition of the quota in 1982 has forced Thailand to begin to restructure its export markets a subject discussed in Chapter VIII What that analysis shows is that Thailand has adjusted to the quota by opening new markets in East Asia thereby allowing domestic production to continue to growThe growth of the Thai pellet industry also offers a more general lesson about the development of comparative advantage in the crop Comparative advantage of cassava versus grain substitutes is based on certain physical characteristics particularly the availability of land with low opportun1ty cost and an agricultura! sector with a relatively small farm-size structure However there is also a time and scale dimension to comparative advantage because of the critica! importance of the processing component since it makes up from a third to a half of the total costsIn cassava economies of scale 1n processing develop over time in relation to the concentration of production on the one hand and the size of the output market on the other Malaysia and Indonesia have VII -18attempted to force the issue through plantation development but in cassava these have not been notably successful The ｳ ｯ ｣ ｾ ｡ ｬ ＠ equity benefits from cassava development (marginal ｡ ｧ ｲ ｾ ｣ ｵ ｬ ｴ ｵ ｲ ｡ ｬ ＠ areas small-scale producers and rural employment in small-scale agro-industry) ｰ ｲ ｯ ｶ ｾ ､ ･ ＠ strong support in certain circumstances for an infant industry argument to support cassava in the initial development of its ｰ ｲ ｯ ｣ ･ ｳ ｳ ｾ ｮ ｧ ＠ capacity In Thailand thisprotection was provided by the EEC market The Thai case suggests that cassava can compete with grains but in the evaluation of theadvantage of cassava in the feedgrain market a time perspective should be incorporated for processing costsThe cassava industry in Thailand developed initially on the ｢ ｡ ｳ ｾ ｳ ＠ of the market for starchStarch production and exports have continued to grow throughout the post-war period but the industry has declined in relative importance having been eclipsed by the cassava pellet market Nevertheless the cassava starch industry ｾ ｮ ＠ Thailand ｶ ｾ ･ ｳ ＠ with Indonesia as being the largest in the world It continues to be ､ ｹ ｮ ｡ ｭ ｾ ｣ ＠ suppling starch to both an expanding export market and an increasing domestic market Constructing a supply and ｵ ｴ ｩ ｬ ｾ ｺ ｡ ｴ ｩ ｯ ｮ ＠ series for cassava starch must rely on data from different sources and this produces some inconsistencies The series in Table 7 estimates and representa the author s efforts at achieving consistency between the estimates What the data suggests is quite significant growth in starch production driven through the 1970 s by rising domestic consumption and in the 1980 s by a sudden spurt in the export market Cassava starch has a ｷ ｾ ､ ･ ＠ number of end markets in Thailand The principal use is as a raw ｭ ｡ ｴ ･ ｲ ｾ ｡ ｬ ＠ in the production of monosodium glutamateIn ｴ ｨ ｾ ｳ ＠ industry starch competes directly with molasses which is interchangeable with cassava starchStarch is also important in the expanding pulp and paper industry in textile production and in food industries All of these are ｧ ｲ ｯ ｷ ｾ ｮ ｧ ＠ industties and cassava starch will continue to enj oy an increasing domes tic market throughout ｴ ｨ ｾ ｳ ＠ century However unlike other starch markets in East Asia one market which cassava starch has not entered is the glucose and sweetner market This is principally because Thailand is a producer and net exporter of sugar High fructose sweetners derived from cassava have been advocated as another possible market since 52% of ｩ ｮ ､ ｵ ｳ ｴ ｲ ｾ ｡ ｬ ＠ sugar consumption ｾ ｳ ＠ for beverage production (Frankel 1981) Moreover the ｔ ｨ ｡ ｾ ＠ government has a ｰ ｯ ｬ ｾ ｣ ｹ ＠ of subsidizing sugar exporta when world prices are low and taxing exports when prices are high (Lokaphadhana 1981) Nevertheless the price variability in cassava starch prices has made the investments needed in large-scale plant and capacity too risky and there has been no development in ｴ ｨ ｾ ｳ ＠ market suggests the investment in significant excess production capacity for starch on the one hand and the ability of the starch industry to compete effectively with the pellet industry for roots in 1984 and 1985 root prices were relatively low due to the quota The starch industry needs to be very competitive in the sense that its margins are defined by root prices principally set by the pellet export market in the EEC and starch export prices set principally by international maize prices i e the dominant cost in maize starch ｰ ｲ ｯ ､ ｵ ｣ ｴ ｾ ｯ ｮ ＠ (see Chapter VIII)The starch industry very early began a search for scale economies in processing essentially based on large-scale plants but with equipment manufactured in Thailand --in Indonesia on the other hand these scale economies in starch production do not exist (Nelson 1984) Based on the development of this market Thailand is a now net exporter of cassava starch equipment including complete plants However with this competition to invest in order to lower processing costs excess processing capacity was created allowing the industry to respond so quickly to new export marketsLike other cassava processing industries profHabilHy in starch production is primarily dependent on the conversion rate and the margin between the root buying price and the starch selling price Unlike the pellet industry where the price of the processed product leads the price of roots the starch industry must take the root price as a givenThe starch industry rarely has been able to underbid the chipping plantsThe root price thus sets the price of starch Competition for limited markets in turn insures both downward pressure on margins and the search for reductions in processing costsThe above scenario for price formation is adequately captured in the ｰ ｲ ｾ ｣ ･ ＠ transmission equations in Table 7 23 and the processing cost analysis in Table 7 24 Note that contrary to the chip industry starch price is the dependent variable in the regression ･ ｱ ｵ ｡ ｴ ｾ ｯ ｮ ＠The estimated conversion rates are only slightly higher than the estimate of 4 34 tons of roots for every ton of starch given by industrial sources Even the estimated rates suggest very high technical efficiency in starch extractionThe estimated operating margin compares favorably with the budgeting analysis in Table 7 24 Again the evidence suggests a very competitive industry where there is no indication of excess profits Moreover a domestic resource calculation would be redundant in the case of Thai starch since Thailand sets the world price for cassava starch and apart from import duties on starch processing equipment there is no government intervention in the starch market Continued growth in the starch industry is dependent principally on the supply price of starch which in turn is dependent on the root price and the changing ､ ｹ ｮ ｡ ｭ ｾ ｣ ｳ ＠ of the pellet market The tendency in the medium term is for cassava starch prices to come in line with maize starch making cassava starch more competitiveThe other major factor of course is growth in export markets Prospects in the international starch market are  There is no better illustration of the lack of integration between world market maize and cassava prices than the comparative role that these two export crops have played in the development of ｔ ｨ ｡ ｾ ｬ ｡ ｮ ､ ＠ s domestic feed concentrate industry Maize has formed the carbohydrate base for this rapidly growing industry basically because it has been more profitable to export the cassava On those relatively rare occassions when the prices of the two commodities have come into line cassava has been used domestically in the manufacture of animal feeds This has happened more often since the imposition of the quota and given the current size of the domestic market the animal feed market could start to play a larger role in putting an absolute floor under cassava prices Starting in the late 1960's basic structural changes in the production of both swine and poultry have formed the basis for the rapid expansion in the feed concentrate industry Prior to this time both swine and poultry were raised in small-scale integrated crop-livestock systems Swine continues to be raised principally in the central plain This region is relatively close to the Bangkok market and forms the main rice growing area where rice bran and other by-products provide a plentiful feed source Commercial operations of over 50 hogs have increased their production share from approximately 12% in 1974 to 14-' in 197814-' in to around 15% in 198314-' in (Chesley 1985) ) Development of commercial swine operations however has been constrained by the Animal Slaughtering and Meat Control Act of 1959 which allows only local authorities to establish slaughterhouses and prohibHs shipment of carcasses outside the legally defined market area of each slaughterhouse This has resulted in local monopsonies in slaughter facilities resulting in ｨ ｾ ｧ ｨ ＠ costs and inefficient wholesaling of carcasses (see Chesley 1985 for further discussion)A high percentage of the slaughter is done illegally but this is difficult for large commercial growers Nevertheless swine numbers have continued to increase especially since the mid-1970 s (Table 7 25) Structural change in the poultry industry has been even more rapid (Table 7 25) often motivated through ｶ ･ ｲ ｴ ｾ ｣ ｡ ｬ ＠ integration of feed companies backwards to commercial poultry production unitsThe broiler industry has been by far the most dynamic animal sector in Thaüand increasing nine-fold in the 1974-82 period Partly this arises from the restrictions on the pork sector and partly from the very rapid technical change in the poultry sectorThe later is reflected in the declining relative price of chicken compared to other meats (Figure 7 5) and a virtual doubling of per capita ｣ ｯ ｮ ｳ ｵ ｭ ｰ ｴ ｾ ｯ ｮ ＠ of chicken over the course of the 1970 sThe only limita on growth in this industry a technically efficient industry with access to cheap feed sources is the size of the domestic market With total per ｣ ｡ ｰ ｾ ｴ ｡ ＠ meat consumption still at relatively low levels and population and income still pro)ected to grow there ｾ ｳ ＠no hint yet of a downturn in growth Moreover Thailand is developing as a major exporter of poultry in the East Asian and Middle Eastern market  The maize sector has also been very ､ ｹ ｮ ｡ ｭ ｾ ｣ ＠ in the last two decades (Table 7 26) increasing from a production level of just over half a million tons in 1960 to well over 4 million tons in 1984Production growth in the 1960's went almost exclusively into exports However since about 1970 a growing share has gene to meet the needs of the domestic feed sector and ｳ ｾ ｮ ｣ ･ ＠ that point exports have been relatively stable at around 2 million tons Cassava's potential as a carbohydrate source in the animal feed market is defined in Table 7 27 and Figure 7 6 Cassava comes into the least cost feed ration when its price is about 67 of the price of maize This ｲ ｡ ｴ ｾ ｯ ＠ is somewhat low because the prices of soybean meal which is principally imported are maintained relatively high through import taxes These taxes have risen from 5 to 6 percent in the late 1970 s to 8 5 percent in 1983 (Chesley 1985) Thus cassava came into the ration in 1981 and again in 1984Over the period 1971-85 cassava was never ｣ ｯ ｭ ｰ ･ ｴ ｩ ｴ ｾ ｶ ･ ｬ ｹ ＠ priced with maize for any extended period of time (Figure 7 6) Thus cassava has never been a feature of the domestic feed market Nevertheless in 1985 feed manufacturers for the first time began to use ｳ ｩ ｧ ｮ ｾ ｦ ｩ ｣ ｡ ｮ ｴ ＠ volumes of cassava in their feed mixtures An estimated 625 thousand tons was used in feeds in 1985 However these competitive price relationships did not last through the end of 1985 and cassava again moved out of the ration This situation is in fact quite favorable for cassava producers The animal feed industry has a solid raw material supply in maize but when substitutes are cheaper manufactures can profitably mix them in their rations Price is the determining factor for these feed components notof supply Since cassava is readily available feed manufacturers can easily move into cassava when price relatives are favorable As domestic feed manufacturers gain experience in ｵ ｳ ｾ ｮ ｧ ＠ cassava initially in swine feeds the domestic feed market could put an absolute price floor under the cassava market At these times cassava will essentially be competitive with world market feedgrain prices but the logical market on which to sell is the ､ ｯ ｭ ･ ｳ ｴ ｾ ｣ ＠ rather then the export market When cassava prices are above maize prices the cassava producer is much the better offThe domestic animal feed market is now large enough that it can play such a role in supporting cassava prices  -----------------(1000 tons) ----------------- ","tokenCount":"10721"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d94c4799d0c806d2dcaa22967da21ee5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s13157-021-01468-9.pdf","id":"1409916386"},"keywords":["Wetland delineation","Wetland characterization","Copernicus","Rwanda","Food security","Environmental protection"],"sieverID":"9d6e1c5f-8178-46ef-a2a7-b0a3dd4fefef","pagecount":"21","content":"Wetlands are abundant across the African continent and provide a range of ecosystem services on different scales but are threatened by overuse and degradation. It is essential that national governments enable and ensure the sustainable use of wetland resources to maintain these services in the long run. As informed management decisions require reliable, up-to-date, and large coverage spatial data, we propose a modular Earth observation-based framework for the geo-localisation and characterization of wetlands in East Africa. In this study, we identify four major challenges in spatial data supported wetland management and present a framework to address them. We then apply the framework comprising Wetland Delineation, Surface Water Occurrence, Land Use/Land Cover classification and Wetland Use Intensity for the whole of Rwanda and evaluate the ability of these layers to meet the identified challenges. The layers' spatial and temporal characteristics make them combinable and the information content, of each layer alone as well as in combination, renders them useful for different wetland management contexts.African wetland landscapes provide a range of ecosystem services, such as water provision, food provision, and climate regulation (Langan et al. 2018). Besides water purification, flood attenuation, carbon storage and sequestration, and the provision of fodder, fibre, and fuel wood, they provide unique and highly productive landscapes. These landscapes have great ecological value, and are recognized as biodiversity hotspots of global importance, often harbouring endemic flora and fauna (Keddy et al. 2009;Junk et al. 2013). Wetlands often have greater water availability and more fertile soils than adjacent traditionally farmed and degraded uplands. Therefore, their agricultural potential is considerable and can support agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) (Dixon and Wood 2003;Rebelo et al. 2009;Rodenburg et al. 2014). Food security strategies in SSA have targeted wetlands for further cropland expansion and agricultural intensification to reach self-sufficiency. Lowland rice agriculture in particular is strongly promoted in wetlands with the hope to reduce dependency on food imports, boost food security and alleviate poverty (Demont 2013). A dual strategy of use and protection is needed to conserve ecosystem integrity (van Oort et al. 2015;van Ittersum et al. 2016). Inappropriate agricultural use is a major threat to wetlands and, among other impacts, has already caused tremendous losses of wetland area in Africa (Chapman et al. 2001;Junk et al. 2013;Mitchell 2013;Darrah et al. 2019). This is particularly detrimental to livelihoods in SSA, where local populations often directly depend on wetland ecosystem services (Nabahungu and Visser 2011;Namaalwa et al. 2013).Due to the range of ecosystem services wetlands provide at different scales, their use is a cross-cutting issue. They are targeted by national policies as well as by regionally concerted strategies like the National Rice Development Strategies (NRDS) established through the Coalition for African Rice Development (CARD), which aimed at doubling rice production in SSA between 2008 and 2018 (Demont 2013). Also, wetland landscapes are increasingly part of national to global protection efforts. Among those, Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) like the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) with its associated Aichi targets (Petrou et al. 2015), and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands towards their sustainable use are making an important contribution to wetland conservation worldwide (Finlayson et al. 2011).There is no simple remedy to achieve sustainable wetland management with increased food security and environmental protection at the same time, but there is consensus that the first step towards informed policy making and planning for wetland landscapes requires quantified information on wetland location, state, and dynamics through detailed inventorying, as well as the possibility to repeat those analyses over time to track changes (Ozesmi and Bauer 2002;Rodenburg et al. 2014;Perennou et al. 2018). However, there are still major data limitations affecting the informed management and planning of wetlands in Africa. Remote sensing data have the potential to contribute to this information requirement by providing detailed and frequent spatial information that is consistent across administrative boundaries and can thus support management, policy making, and policy implementation (Merot et al. 2006;MacKay et al. 2009;Rebelo et al. 2009;Amler et al. 2015;Leemhuis et al. 2017;Perennou et al. 2018). In the following, we list four of the most common problems of wetland management in East Africa which are related to spatial information.Detecting the location and size of wetlands are prerequisites for planning interventions, both for agricultural development and for conservation measures (Rodenburg et al. 2014), but spatially explicit data on wetlands is often lacking or inadequate, particularly in Africa (Davidson 2014;Amler et al. 2015). Earth observation (EO) can play a vital role in closing this data gap (MacKay et al. 2009). However, the lack of comprehensive datasets can be understood as the result of the various challenges that wetland detection poses. Wetlands usually do not have crisp boundaries, but are located in the transition zone between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems (Dronova 2015). Also, wetlands of the same type may show large spectral, temporal, and spatial differences in reflectance or backscatter values, whereas the same land cover within and outside wetlands may even have similar values, which makes them difficult to detect and classify (Mahdavi et al. 2018). Although satellite imagery and aerial photography from coarse to very fine spatial resolutions are used in wetland research (Guo et al. 2017;Perennou et al. 2018;Mahdavi et al. 2018), existing large-scale EO-based datasets are of limited suitability for use in wetland landscapes, both regarding their delineation and their characterization. For instance, the Copernicus Global Land Service Land Cover product (Buchhorn et al. 2020) contains one class herbaceous wetlands, but the spatial resolution of 100 m fails to account for narrow wetland features. A high level of spatial detail is required to adequately map wetland landscapes and particularly their seasonally flooded areas (Rebelo et al. 2011). In addition, such global products are not focussed on wetland ecosystems and hence are not suited to adequately characterize different wetland types. We therefore classify the availability of up-to-date, large-coverage and high spatial resolution data on wetland location and extent as an issue and requirement for wetland mapping at the national scale.Also regional products with higher spatial resolution, such as the 30 m resolution Landsat based Africover (FAO 2013) or the more recent 20 m resolution Sentinel-2 based S2 Prototype Land Cover Map of Africa 2016 (Lesiv et al. 2017) alone do not suffice to provide more detailed information about, for example, land use characteristics and flooding regimes, which are essential for agricultural development and ecosystem monitoring. Additionally, wetlands are not only subjected to medium-and long-term variability caused by climatic fluctuations and land use, but are highly dynamic landscapes characterized by inter-seasonal change in inundation and vegetation in response to the hydrological cycle (Guo et al. 2017;Perennou et al. 2018;Mahdavi et al. 2018). Water presence is the core element of wetlands and the reason for their floral and faunal composition, as well as a central contributing factor to their agricultural use potential. Therefore, both the presence and the variability of water need to be reflected in wetland related mapping (Perennou et al. 2018). In recent years, several large-scale surface water datasets that cover Africa have been developed. Among these is the Global Inundation Extent from Multi-Satellites -Downscaled 15 arcseconds (GIEMS-D15). The global inundation map was created by downscaling coarse-resolution EO based data to a spatial resolution of 500 m, including mean annual minimum, mean annual maximum and long-term maximum inundation (Fluet-Chouinard et al. 2015). The Global WaterPack provides daily information on global inland water bodies derived from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data at 250 m spatial resolution (Klein et al. 2017). The Joint Research Centre's (JRC) Global Surface Water product (Pekel et al. 2016) provides information about long-term surface water changes and to some extent about surface water seasonality at 30 m resolution from Landsat data, recently additionally incorporating Sentinel-2 imagery. Such high spatial resolution data is necessary to characterize water dynamics in the often narrow wetland landscapes, but optical data is problematic in the tropics where high air moisture and frequent and extensive cloud cover interfere with image acquisition (Dronova et al. 2015). The second issue identified is therefore the robust representation of spatio-temporal wetland variability, with an emphasis on water cycle-related land cover, making use of multi-temporal data at adequately high spatial and temporal resolution.Many African countries have national wetland datasets. The Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA), for example, published a national wetland dataset which was manually digitized from Landsat andASTER imagery in 2008 (REMA 2008). However, the dataset has not been updated since, with manual digitization as a central step in its creation being one potential reason for this lack of update, as it is a time consuming and partly subjective process. Amler et al. (2015) found that available wetland datasets for Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda are inconsistent. Therefore, recommendations for future work on wetlands include introducing a higher degree of automation and shared nomenclature to enhance comparability between datasets of the same area, as well as between different areas (Leemhuis et al. 2017;Perennou et al. 2018;Mahdavi et al. 2018). Regional and topical initiatives such as GlobWetland Africa, GEO-Wetlands, and the Satellite-based Wetland Observation Service (SWOS) have laid the foundation towards harmonized approaches (Strauch et al. 2016;Weise et al. 2020). To assess trends over time and make mapping results comparable across African wetland landscapes, the third identified issue is therefore the need for consistent, comparable, and repeatable mapping approaches.In global comparison, natural wetland loss occurred at high rates in Africa throughout the 20th and 21st centuries (Davidson 2014). Natural wetland area in SSA declined by an estimated 42 % between 1970 and 2014, whereas globally 35 % of the natural wetland area was lost in the same period (Darrah et al. 2019). Land conversion, particularly to agriculture, and overuse are among the main proximate causes for wetland degradation and loss (MEA 2005;Junk et al. 2013;Asselen et al. 2013). Although the quality of interlinkages between pressure through land use and wetland ecosystem integrity are largely known, the quantification of drivers of change in a spatially explicit way is barely addressed, particularly for African wetland landscapes. A land-cover based method for the quantified rapid assessment of anthropogenic disturbances of wetlands was developed in South Africa by Kotze et al. (2012) and adapted for East Africa whilst integrating satellite imagery by Beuel et al. (2016). However, consistent large-coverage methods to assess land cover and use intensity as indicators for modelling ecosystem change still have to be developed (Erb et al. 2013;Beuel et al. 2016). The need for quantified data on drivers of change is thus the fourth issue we identify.The objective of this study is to address the need for accurate spatial data for informed national wetland management in Africa by proposing a layered, remote sensingbased information framework for wetland characterization. First, we address the above challenges by presenting the respective spatial data layers and methodologies to generate them using satellite data from the European Space Agency's (ESA) Copernicus Programme. Then, we apply our framework in a case study on wetlands management in Rwanda. Finally, we discuss the use of the generated data and the applicability of the framework in the context of wetland management in East Africa, accounting for the capacity of the approach to support wetland management in African countries.Rwanda is a landlocked country in the Great Lakes Region of Africa and is located between 1°4' and 2°51' S and 28°53' and 30°53' E. It measures 26,338 km² and borders Uganda to the north, Tanzania to the east, Burundi to the south and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. It is located at the divide of the Congo and Nile basins (REMA 2008) and can be sub-divided into 10 distinct agro-climatic zones (ICRAF 2015), as shown in Fig. 1. The long rainy season spans from March to May, whereas the short rainy season starts in September and ends in November (Muhire and Ahmed 2015). Mean annual rainfall is 1160 mm and the tropical climate is attenuated to an average temperature of 18.8 °C (Fick and Hijmans 2017) by the relatively high altitudes of 900 m in the east and up to 4,500 m in the mountainous Albertine Rift region in the west. Wetlands in Rwanda can be classified into three major categories (Cambrezy 1981  (REMA 2008). The delineation forms a baseline wetland inventory but has not been updated since. Also, the dataset is a static binary one not accounting for interseasonal or interannual fluctuations related to the water cycle. Overuse was identified as a main driver of wetland degradation (REMA 2009), but quantitative information on potential hotspots of wetland degradation and loss is missing. A range of laws, policies, and agreements relate to wetland use and protection. Yet, without a consistent, comprehensive, and up-to-date database of wetland location and state, both food production in wetland landscapes and their protection remain a challenge. For national wetland management and monitoring wetland status, assessments need to be conducted on a regular basis and be comparable across country boundaries for effective reporting towards international conventions.Rwanda's reliance on wetlands for food security can be explained by the country's high population density, estimated at 491 inhabitants/km² in 2020, making Rwanda one of the most densely populated African countries (UN DESA 2019). The food security level of Rwanda according to the Global Hunger Index (GHI) is still serious, although the score reduced by 43.1 % since 2000 (von Grebmer et al. 2020). Therefore, in addition to their historically increasing use over time (Meschy 1989), wetlands have become an integral part of policies for increasing agricultural production in order to sustain and improve food security, as well as serve the export market. Rwanda's Irrigation Master Plan identifies by far the highest irrigation potential in wetlands as compared to runoff, direct river and flood water, and other water sources, with a prospect of almost doubling rice yields and more than tripling sugarcane yields under optimal irrigation (Malesu et al. 2010). Accordingly, Rwanda's (NRDS) for 2010-2018 aimed to raise rice production through expansion into wetlands and by increasing productivity levels from 5.8 to 7.0 t/ha, for example through the installation of irrigation structures in wetlands which are already under cultivation (MINAGRI 2011).Wetland use and protection are organized by a number of institutions, laws, and strategies. The Rwandan central government plays the most important role in wetland management to balance increased agricultural production and wetland protection. Although decentralized wetland management entities are stipulated by the Organic Law on the Environment 2005, these entities are undefined and wetland related activities must be approved by the Prime Minister with the following institutions involved in their management (Heermans and Ikirezi 2015): the Ministry of Natural Resources (MINIRENA), the Rwanda Natural Resources Authority (RNRA), the Rwanda Environmental Management Authority (REMA), and the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI). MINIRENA is the ministry in charge of legislation regarding land use and the environment and is the superior institution concerning wetland management. Its sub-agencies RNRA and REMA are responsible for the management of water, forests, and mineral resources, and the implementation of environmental regulations, respectively. REMA also approves all Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) that precede wetland use. MINAGRI is less explicitly involved in wetland governance itself, but MINIRENA and MINAGRI coordinate concerning larger wetland development projects for agriculture (Heermans and Ikirezi 2015). The named institutions implement national legislation like the Organic Law on Land 2005, which was replaced by the Land Law 2013, defining protected wetlands as public state domain and unprotected wetlands as private state domain with the possibility of leasehold. The Organic Law on the Environment contains environmental protection policies, including wetland protection measures. These, for example, prohibit: waste disposal in wetlands; their burning; development within a buffer zone of 20 m around wetlands; and wetland use without an EIA. The Land Policy 2005 and the Environmental Policy 2004 similarly stress the need for careful and sustainable management of wetlands, with the latter emphasizing the need for wetland inventorying towards their good management under state domain (Heermans and Ikirezi 2015). Rwanda's Nationally Determined Contribution to the Paris Agreement includes wetland restoration as a means to ensure water security (GoR 2020). Apart from national laws and policies, Rwanda is involved in several wetland relevant international agreements. Among these are the MEAs Ramsar Convention and the CBD, as well as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).Rwanda has the ambitious aim to develop a national and mostly centralized approach to wetland management. The importance of wetlands as a resource along with the subsequent need for more sustainable use is clearly identified, as is the need for a respective nation-wide wetland inventory and classification (REMA 2009).Our approach can be seen as an extension of the valley bottom wetland categorization for wetland management by Merot et al. (2006), who classify wetland definition into three levels: potential, existing, and efficient wetlands (PEEW approach). The potential for wetland occurrence depends on enabling factors such as topography and climate, whereas the existence of wetlands is linked to actual land cover and hydrological conditions. The efficient wetland category describes ecosystem properties (Merot et al. 2006). In wetland monitoring and management, this categorization can deliver information on wetland loss and on changes in wetland functional categories and was adopted in a remote sensing based study of wetlands in north-eastern France (Rapinel et al. 2019). Accordingly, the basis of our wetland characterization framework consists of a potential wetlands map (potential wetlands), from which actual wetland boundaries are derived (existing wetlands). In the next step, they are described in terms of land cover, flooding frequency, and use intensity (efficient wetlands). Each layer is evaluated using qualitative and quantitative methods according to its temporal extent and reference data availability, and the results for Rwanda are presented. We employ the Ramsar definition for inland wetlands, which includes \"areas of marsh, fen, peatland or water, whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt\" (Matthews 2013, p. 38). This broad definition allows us to include all types of water-based ecosystems that occur across Rwanda. Our emphasis lies on the conceptualization of a wetland delineation and characterization framework based on the coherence of the datasets at scales beyond case studies. It is supposed to allow for a comprehensive national wetland assessment and provide Rwandan institutions with solutions to their manifold spatial data needs, with the option to extend these analyses beyond country boundaries. The framework's potential use for wetland management will be evaluated against these information needs.The major EO data sources are the Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellites from the European Copernicus Programme. Their spatial resolutions are 20 m for the Sentinel-1 Ground Range Detected (GRD) product in Interferometric Wide swath (IW) mode and 10 to 60 m for Sentinel-2 imagery. Both satellite constellations consist of A-and B-units, with a revisit time of 5 days at the equator for Sentinel-2 (Berger et al. 2012;Drusch et al. 2012) and 12 days in ascending or descending mode (or 6 days for both) for Sentinel-1 (ESA 2019). These high spatial and temporal resolutions make them suitable for the creation of data products to capture the temporal dynamics and spatial variation of wetland landscapes. The data are available free of charge, which is also true for the additional data we used, the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) (Lehner et al. 2008) and highresolution remote sensing imagery from Google Earth. Commercial RapidEye satellite imagery at 5 m spatial resolution was used for validation purposes (RapidEye AG 2007). Four data products were created: (1) a Wetland Delineation, (2) Surface Water Occurrence (SWO), (3) a Land Use/Land Cover classification (LULC), and (4) Wetland Use Intensity (WUI) (Fig. 2).To tackle the challenges described in Introduction, an approach to delineation is required that is robust against confusion between similar land covers in upland and lowland areas, while providing spatial detail and information on wetland size and location. Therefore, our delineation approach depicted in Fig. 3 consists of two stages, first defining the potential wetland area based on topographic indices following the approach described for wetland delineation in Albania by Weise et al. (2020), and then delineating actual wetlands with additional optical satellite data. Thus, confusion due to similar spectral signals inside and outside wetlands is reduced. The potential wetland map is based on the combination of topographic indices derived from the SRTM DEM. The result shows probabilities (values from 0 to 1) to find wetland ecosystems according to topographic and hydrological criteria.Three global DEMs of high spatial resolution were considered for the creation of the Potential Wetlands layer: The SRTM 1 Arc-Second Global DEM, the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Global DEM Version 2 (ASTER GDEMV2), and the TerraSAR-X-Add-on for Digital Elevation Measurements DEM (TanDEM-X DEM). The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission was flown in 2000 and acquired data in C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) to produce a near-global DEM with an absolute vertical accuracy of under 9 m. The greatest errors occur in steep terrain and above smooth sandy surfaces (Farr et al. 2007). In 2014, the SRTM DEM was released globally at approximately 30 m spatial resolution at the Equator (JPL 2014) and is available free of charge. Likewise, the ASTER GDEMV2 is free and has a spatial resolution of approximately 30 m. The ASTER GDEM Version 1 is based on the ASTER optical stereo image archive from 2000 to 2008 (Urai et al. 2012). For Version 2, released in 2011, an increased number of input images and an improved algorithm were applied. However, the resulting vertical accuracy of 17 m (Tachikawa et al. 2011) is lower than that of the SRTM DEM. Also, several local comparative studies suggest that there has been an improvement between versions, but that the ASTER GDEMV2 quality and accuracy remain below those of the different SRTM DEM versions  2020) was adjusted to the landscape characteristics of Rwanda to produce a potential wetland map with a spatial resolution of 30 m. The Topographic Wetness Index (TWI) (Beven and Kirkby 1979;Böhner and Selige 2006), the Multi-resolution Index of Valley Bottom Flatness (MrVBF) (Gallant and Dowling 2003), and a floodplain index (FPI) were derived from the SRTM DEM. The TWI is based on the slope and the specific catchment area (Beven and Kirkby 1979;Böhner and Selige 2006) and the MrVBF defines and distinguishes valley bottoms from hill slopes (Gallant and Dowling 2003). Both indices were calculated using the GIS software System for Automated Geoscience Analyses (SAGA). For the FPI, floodplains were derived by combining the slope with the river stream network and applying a cost distance calculation. Cost distance was rescaled to values between 0 and 1 (high to low cost distance). TWI, MrVBF and FPI were combined with the weights 1-2-1 to reflect the probability to find wetland habitats.The delineation of actual wetlands follows the proposition of defining wetlands relative to their surroundings instead of in absolute terms (Semeniuk and Semeniuk 1995). Objectbased image analysis (OBIA) was already successfully applied by Fitoka et al. (2020) in the context of large-scale classification of wetlands in Greece, using the potential to distinguish between wetlands and uplands with contextual information. We developed a methodology that conducts an automated, object-based pre-classification in eCognition, followed by manual post-classification of false-positives and falsenegatives against RapidEye images taken in 2017. In the first step, the single most cloud-free Sentinel-2 image of 2017 per tile (in total 7 images) was selected and cloud-masked. Also, a time series of all available Sentinel-2 scenes in 2017 with less than 20 % cloud cover were cloud masked and used to calculate the mean Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) (Gao 1996) and the mean Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) (Tucker 1979) per pixel for 2017 across the study area. The Potential Wetlands layer, mean NDWI, mean NDVI, and Sentinel-2 mosaic were stacked and segmented into objects. These objects were created using homogeneity criteria, which group neighbouring pixels with similar spectral characteristics together. Including the mosaic of curated and cloud masked Sentinel-2 images as opposed to multi-temporal mean values across 2017 yielded greater sharpness in the differentiation between image objects along the wetland boundaries. The segments were then classified based on the assumptions that wetlands occur where wetland probability according to the Potential Wetlands layer is high, and where mean NDWI and mean NDVI are higher compared to surrounding areas. Accordingly, thresholding and neighbourhood conditions were applied and iteratively adjusted through comparison with high-resolution Google Earth imagery and true-and false-colour composites of the 2017 RapidEye images across the study area. This resulted in an initial delineation threshold of 0.55 for potential wetland, to which bordering elongated objects were added as riparian vegetation. Subsequently, image objects with a mean NDWI below − 0.1 were unclassified to reflect high-wetland potential areas that do not have wetland characteristics, e.g., because they have fallen dry.Additionally, objects with a potential wetland value below 0.4 were unclassified if the mean NDVI was negative or if the mean NDWI was below 0.3. The manual editing of errors was done along the boundaries of the wetlands where adjacent objects like agricultural plots with high NDVI can be misclassified as wetland. In turn, some objects were initially not classified as wetland, as their NDWI was comparably low. These objects were added to the wetland class. During the post-processing, the shape and the surrounding landscape of true-and false-colour RapidEye scenes were compared to the delineation. Further, NDVI and NDWI values from the RapidEye imagery were considered along with the water occurrence map described below to determine whether objects were misclassified. In this approach, such post-processing increases the accuracy of the product along wetland boundaries. The final delineation product reflects wetland and nonwetland areas with a minimum mapping unit (MMU) of 0.5 ha.To account for water presence, we included an element describing spatio-temporal surface water variability into the characterization framework, as described in Fig. 4. Although the Global Surface Water Dynamics dataset by Pekel et al. (2016) represents surface water variability at a high spatial resolution of 30 m, it omits a number of water bodies in Rwanda. This is likely because optical data was used for the product, while frequent and extensive cloud cover over Rwanda obscures such observations. Since cloud cover occurrence increases during the rainy season, water products using optical data are likely to miss peak values during this time. Our product is therefore based on active radar data, which is often used in inundation mapping, because of its sensitivity to surface water and its capability to penetrate cloud and vegetation cover to some extent (Kasischke et al. 1997;De Grandi et al. 2000;Hess et al. 2015). We make use of data acquired by the Sentinel-1 satellites, which have greatly increased the supply of high spatial resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data since the mission's launch in 2014. The GRD product in IW mode employed in this study has a spatial resolution of 20 m (Berger et al. 2012). The free-of-charge data has the potential to cater for a number of water-related assessments, e.g. inundation mapping (Pham-Duc et al. 2017;Huang et al. 2018;Borah et al. 2018;Markert et al. 2020).To capture water presence variability in wetlands, we used a threshold-based method to map open water using Sentinel-1 backscatter over three years and created a dataset of surface water dynamics. The SWO layer for Rwanda represents surface water that was detected between November 2014 and December 2017. The information was derived from 60 Sentinel-1 SAR images acquired in this period in ascending mode. Until February 2017, the repeat interval over the study area was 24 days and then increased to 12 days with the imagery from Sentinel-1B becoming available. The layer provides information on surface water dynamics as a measurement of water presence frequency within the three years. In order to reduce processing time and increase automation, the individual water masks were extracted in the remote sensing cloud computing platform Google Earth Engine (GEE) (Gorelick et al. 2017). Only images acquired in IW in ascending mode, VV polarization, and acquired in the same orbit were used. The GEE GRD Sentinel-1 image collection is already processed to provide backscatter coefficient (Sigma nought σ°) in decibels (dB) by applying the orbit file, thermal noise removal (from July 2015 onwards), radiometric calibration and terrain correction (orthorectification) using the 30 m SRTM DEM to the Level-1 GRD scenes. The scenes were transformed to Gamma nought (γ°) through angle-correction as described by Hird et al. (2017). The focal mean with a circular radius of 30 m was calculated to filter noise. Surface water was then detected in each of the 60 images using an individual threshold which was calculated from the image statistics using the Otsu method, which minimizes intra-class variability between backscatter values for land and water (Otsu 1979). The results were exported from GEE, combined Fig. 3 Processing steps for the Wetland Delineation layer, including the calculations for Potential Wetlands with a combination of the Multiresolution Index of Valley Bottom Flatness (MrVBF), the Topographic Wetness Index (TWI) and a floodplain index (FPI), pre-processing of Sentinel-2 (S2) images and the calculation of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), classification and post-processing into a time stack, and the sum of water presence per pixel was calculated. We assumed that a per-pixel detection of water at least four times within the three-year observation period means the robust detection of regularly flooded pixels and the reduction of outliers due to overestimation. Therefore, pixels with a flooding frequency < 4 were excluded. Open water bodies like Lake Kivu had higher backscatter coefficient variability due to wind-generated waves.To reliably characterize the diverse wetland ecosystems and to identify different vegetation types and land uses at sufficiently high spatial resolution, we generated a (LULC) map for Rwanda at 10 m spatial resolution. This was achieved using a hierarchical classification scheme which follows the Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) (Di Gregorio and Jansen 2001) for non-wetland classes and the Ramsar nomenclature (Ramsar Convention Secretariat 2000) for wetland classes in a semi-automatic unsupervised classification approach. These classification systems were selected to ensure both comparability with existing LULC classifications, and to adequately account for both temporally static and temporally dynamic classes derived from the SWO product. The full extent of Rwanda was classified to account for the importance of catchment-wetland interconnectivity which impacts hydrology and ecosystem integrity (e.g. von der Heyden and New 2003; Kotze et al. 2012;Leemhuis et al. 2017), and dictates that uplands play a crucial role in wetland management (Wood and Thawe 2013). The workflow is depicted in Fig. 5. We used Sentinel-2 images from 2016 to 2017 from the seven tiles that cover Rwanda. Only scenes with low cloud cover and from the dry season were selected, the latter to reduce the impact of phenological variability on the classification. The scenes were corrected for atmospheric effects using the European Space Agency's stand-alone Sen2Cor processor (ESA 2018), and cloud and cloud shadow were masked with a semi-automatic approach. Per-tile, a mosaic was created by filling the gaps of the most cloud-free image from 2017 with the information from the images closest to the acquisition date. Preference was given to images from 2017, and only remaining unfilled gaps were closed with images from 2016. Each of the mosaics was stacked with the Potential Wetlands, SWO and Wetland Delineation layers and processed using OBIA. A multiresolution segmentation algorithm was applied in eCognition and the image objects were assigned to classes according to decision tree rules which were based on spectral, spatial, and geometric criteria. The Potential Wetlands, SWO and Wetland Delineation layers were incorporated in the ruleset to better account for a variety of wetland vegetation types. Temporally variable classes, such as seasonally flooded or wet agricultural land, seasonal/intermittent freshwater marshes, and seasonal/intermittent freshwater lakes (over 8 ha), were designated using the SWO, while other classes depended on assumptions such as the absence of cropland in national parks (shrubland class). The minimum mapping unit was 0.5 ha for all vegetation classes, whereas non-vegetation classes with typically smaller extent were mapped at 0.01 ha.WUI differentiates intensively used wetland areas, such as crop cultivation, burned areas, peat extraction, etc. from less intensively used areas, such as grazing areas for livestock farming as well as natural/semi-natural areas and permanent water. Land use intensity can be described in the dimensions of inputs (e.g. cropping frequency), outputs (e.g. yield), and changes in system properties (Erb et al. 2013). We assumed that these dimensions translate into a spectral change signal related to reflectance intensity over time and hence used a modified algorithm for time series analysis from Franke et al. (2012), the Mean Absolute Spectral Dynamics (MASD) which we adapted for wetland ecosystems. Since the aim was to analyse wetland use intensity in vegetated areas, only vegetation-sensitive bands were selected to calculate the MASD. To additionally account for a good balance between the spectral ranges, we considered: the green and red bands in the visible spectrum (band 3, 560 nm and 4, ~665 nm); two bands in the red-edge and near infrared (NIR) (band 6, ~740 nm and 8, ~833 nm); and two bands in the short-wave infrared (SWIR) (band 11, ~1610 nm and 12, ~2190 nm) (Drusch et al. 2012). Hence, six bands were used in total for calculating the MASD from the time series (three bands with 10 m and three bands with 20 m spatial resolution). The formula for calculating the MASD from Franke et al. ( 2012) is as follows: The processing steps for the creation of the WUI layer are shown in Fig. 6. Cloud and cloud shadow can cause artifacts in the resulting WUI layer. Due to frequent and extensive cloud cover over Rwanda, only a maximum of eight Sentinel-2 images per tile with very low cloud cover was selected for the year 2017. The WUI product was created per Sentinel-2 tile whereby cloud and cloud shadow were first masked in each image in the time series using a semi-automatic approach. As a threshold, the minimum number of cloud-free observations per pixel was set to three, meaning that the WUI product was only produced for those pixels with three to eight cloud-free observations in 2017.The accuracy of each of the wetland delineating and characterizing layers was assessed in a different way according to their specific characteristics, main sources of error and data availability. Table 1 summarises the error sources and assessment approaches followed.The assumption that wetland landscapes can be distinguished from uplands through a significant difference in topography and vegetation cover forms the basis of the applied delineation approach. This assumption was verified during a field survey in July 2018 with 12 transects through wetlands between Kigali and the eastern border of Rwanda, between Kigali and the Rugezi wetland in the far north, and along the western-lying route between Ruhengeri and Kigali. Coordinates were recorded with a handheld GPS, while digital photos were taken, and sketches were made  (3,4,6,8,11,12) MASD Pre-processing Indicator calculation Fig. 6 Processing steps for the creation of the Wetland Use Intensity (WUI) layer consisting of pre-processing and Mean Absolute Spectral Dynamics (MASD) calculation at points of interest. As a quantitative assessment, a conventional random sampling-based confusion matrix was found to not account well for the actual issue of over-and underestimation of area at the wetland boundaries. Therefore, a validation strategy comparing randomly selected slices of the delineation product with manually derived wetland from high-resolution satellite imagery was adopted. Centrelines, defining the linear centre locations within the delineation polygons, were calculated and subdivided into segments of 200 m length. Then, a random sample of the size of 1 % of all segments was drawn. After cleaning the overlapping wetland slices, a total of 255 segments was considered. Perpendicular to the centreline segments, we generated rectangles with the width of the delineation plus 100 m. Wetland boundaries were manually extracted within the rectangles using RapidEye imagery pre-processed to the 3A product, acquired between June and August 2017. The delineated wetland area was then compared to the manually extracted one and the percentage of over-and underestimation was determined. Over-and underestimation are defined as the positive or negative deviation in area of the delineated from the manually determined wetland per wetland segment in percent.Since detailed hydrological information was not available for the whole country for the period 2014 to 2017, the SWO layer was validated with a simplified version of the validation approach applied to the Global Surface Water Dynamics product by Pekel et al. (2016). Their accuracy assessment included the comparison of randomly selected individual water masks with high spatial resolution remote sensing imagery as well as ancillary hydrological data. For the water masks produced in this study, manually digitized surface water from cloud-free RapidEye tiles from 20/06/2017, 10/07/2017, and 11/07/ 2017 were compared to the closest dates of water extraction, namely 15/06/2017 and 09/07/2017. The tiles were selected to cover different wetland landscape types across Rwanda as explained in Introduction and taking the agroclimatic zones for guidance (cf. Figure 7). The validation thus included areas of flat topography with large water bodies such as Lake Kivu and the Akagera wetland complex in the far west and far east of Rwanda (tiles 5 and 4), relatively wide and continuously flooded wetlands such as the Muhazi wetland east of Kigali (tile 2), as well as narrower wetlands west of the Capital (tiles 1 and 3). The overlap of digitized and detected surface water was calculated for the respective tiles. As the LULC classification intentionally comprises temporally dynamic classes which cannot be validated at one particular point in time, for the accuracy assessment, all subclasses were aggregated to the main classes bare soil, broad-leaved forest, mosaic cropland, needle-leaved forest, sand, built-up, and water. They were validated against 1,258 points from a stratified random sampling scheme which were visually interpreted against a cloud-free RapidEye mosaic from June to July 2017. The classified and reference points were compared in a confusion matrix and user's, producer's, and overall accuracy were determined.Being a multi-temporal product, the WUI could not be validated quantitatively, but was assessed for plausibility through comparison to distinct land uses such as lowland rice agriculture, sugarcane cultivation (high use intensity), and protected natural/semi-natural areas (low use intensity).The wetland delineation and characterization layers are shown in Fig. 8 and presented in the following section. The wetland extent delineated using the two-step approach is 471,458 ha, which accounts for 18.6 % of Rwanda's total area. With major water bodies derived from the Global Lakes and Wetlands Database (GLWD) Level-1 data (Lehner and Döll 2004) excluded, it is 14.3 % of Rwanda's area. This number exceeds the extent determined through the 2008 wetland survey (222,421 ha, REMA 2008) by more than a third. The comparison of the 255 randomly selected wetland slices and reference wetland area digitized from 2017 RapidEye imagery resulted in a median overestimation of wetland area of 15.3 %. This slight tendency for overestimation is also reflected in the median producer's accuracy of 90.8 % against the median user's accuracy of 73.9 % (see boxplots in Fig. 9).The overlap of digitized and detected surface water differs between the selected RapidEye tiles, as depicted in Table 2. The percentage overlap was highest for the large water bodies in tiles 4 and 5, whereas it was lowest for the narrow wetlands and water bodies in tiles 1 and 3, although the accuracy of surface water detection in tile 3 was as high as 79.7 %. The total percentage overlap is high with 93.8 %.Figure 10 shows a zoom on the SWO layer in an area south of Kigali (a and b) compared to the JRC Global Surface Water Dynamics dataset (c) (Pekel et al. 2016). The latter is derived from the Landsat and Sentinel-2 archives until 2019. In comparison, the continuously flooded parts are represented relatively similarly. In contrast, the representation of seasonally or periodically flooded wetland areas is more nuanced in the SWO layer. User's and producer's accuracies for each class of the aggregated LULC classification are high with only the sand class dropping below 80 % for both accuracies, and urban for the user's accuracy. This can be explained by the mostly small covered by these classes relative to the spatial resolution of the input satellite imagery. Individual class accuracies are displayed in Table 3 and amount to an overall accuracy of 93.2 %. The classification shows that 304,324 ha of all wetland area is occupied by seasonally flooded or wet agricultural land, which is 64.6 % of wetland area and 84.0 % excluding lakes. This high percentage reflects Rwanda's increased use of wetlands for agricultural activities, which is driven by government policies aimed at the progressive exploitation of wetlands. These percentages exceed the numbers given by the 2008 wetland survey, which describe 53 % of wetlands as under cultivation and 6 % as fallow (REMA 2008). However, the wetland agriculture class used here includes intensively managed as well as grazed wet meadow and pasture.The WUI layer is a deduced indicator showing changes in reflectance in the selected wetland-relevant bands across multiple satellite scenes. It is a time series product and could not be validated quantitatively, but only qualitatively. On the local scale, upon verification for known locations such as the rice irrigation scheme in Fig. 8d), this layer reflects intensive agricultural use with high values, as well as stable semi-natural areas.On the national scale, a comparison of WUI and wetland area aggregated to gridded values at 8 × 8 km in Fig. 11 shows that south of Kigali and in the northeast of the country the use is most intensive relative to wetland extent. On both scales, the indicator is therefore suited as a basis for further detailed investigation. As a comparison between time steps, the increase or decrease of land use pressure, mostly through agriculture, onto wetlands can be derived on both scales.We designed this Copernicus-based framework to address four major problems of geodata-related tropical wetland management, using Rwanda as a demonstrator. We laid out a conceptual framework that can be adapted and deployed in other countries and regions and that can be applied according to respective user needs. Despite the variability of wetland boundaries, they could be detected with relatively high confidence. This was facilitated by the distinct appearance of  Rwandan wetland landscapes with respect to their use. Since the vegetation zonation is particular and reflected in high spatial resolution satellite imagery, it could be considered a valid indicator for wetland delineation. The combination of topographic and surface reflectance data makes the approach Depending on whether wetland landscapes are situated in more accentuated topography or are more characterized by their vegetation and use compared to their surroundings, the  The bold entries should visually help distinguish between the class shares (Bare soil,..., Water) and the accuracy measures approach can rely slightly more on the one or on the other aspect. It thus allowed the delineation both in the flatter Eastern Lowland and in the Congo-Nile Watershed Divide with its accentuated topography. Additionally, an objectbased approach accounting for the relative difference in spectral characteristics of lowland and upland addresses the challenge of trying to describe wetlands with a concise spectrum of reflectance values and to classify them accordingly. It can therefore be expected that the delineation approach is applicable in a wide variety of wetland landscapes across East Africa. However, the thresholds set in the decision tree classification have to be adjusted for other areas. Also, the manual postprocessing requires additional user input. That said, the scope of the post-processing along the wetland boundaries as a quality control step is limited. It can therefore be considered as a cost-efficient approach compared to comprehensive field surveys or manual delineation. The use of a higher spatial resolution DEM, if available, is optional. The SRTM DEM's spatial resolution was found to be sufficiently high across the different wetland landscapes. The advantage of defining wetland boundaries before characterizing wetlands is clear for the SWO, for which false positives caused by topographic effects in the surrounding hilly landscape could thus be eliminated. That said, inaccuracies arise from the use of the automatic Otsu thresholding algorithm. Over our observation period of more than three years, these could efficiently be reduced by only taking regularly flooded pixels into account. A shorter observation period may cause outliers to have a stronger impact on the product. Although the SWO layer generally captures surface water dynamics in more detail than other commonly used products, the lowest accuracies are achieved in narrow and elongated water features. Also, wind-generated waves hinder correct water detection on large water bodies. The latter issue can be addressed by combining the SWO layer with water body data like the GLWD by Lehner and Döll (2004). For the former, the lack of available and accessible higher spatial resolution SAR data is a limitation.The use of the Ramsar classification scheme for LULC mapping fills a gap in large-scale wetland assessment, since the LULC products available for East Africa do not account well for wetland ecosystems. The Ramsar wetland classes are inherently relevant in ecosystem assessment and can be directly used for the respective reporting purposes. However, although the LULC classification shows good accuracies, the accuracy assessment represents a validation of a summary of all classes but does not specifically account for the temporally dynamic classes created by incorporating the SWO layer. Error propagation should therefore be considered.The WUI layer is not related to specific wetland management or agricultural practices. But it reflects all forms of management practices that affect vegetation reflectance characteristics through time. Its biggest drawback in this study was the reliance on the availability of multi-temporal optical imagery consistently throughout 2017. In order to prevent the impact of cloud and cloud shadow on the result, they were masked thoroughly and each of the scenes was quality controlled. In the future, this should be done using improved masking algorithms, to increase automation and include more observations per pixel. This will improve the layer's capacity to capture change in reflectance and therefore more accurately map wetland use intensity.The use of satellite data with comparable spatial resolution and within the same time span supports the consistency of the produced information throughout all layers. Thus, the layers can be used individually or combined, depending on user needs. Several processing steps still require some manual work or cost-intensive and complex software, such as the post-classification of the wetland delineation, the LULC classification, and the calculation of the WUI layer. However, the automation of most steps, and in the case of the SWO implementation in the GEE environment, facilitates the reproduction of the layers for shorter or longer periods than presented in this study. Also, with a repeat production of the layers, changes in the physical characteristics of wetlands can be tracked and monitoring schemes developed. Based on the static potential wetlands layer, actual wetland area can be redelineated after some years. Since changes in use intensity and resulting hydrological effects typically occur within shorter timespans, the analysis of SWO and WUI should be repeated on a regular basis, for example annually or separately for growing seasons. Medium-and short-term changes can be analysed against the longer-term trend. To derive the latter, Landsat imagery could be used for the LULC and WUI layers to be able to go back further in time. Nevertheless, the issue of little or non-existing validation data needs to be solved to ensure sufficiently high layer accuracy.The spatial data requirements arising from the problem statements formulated in Introduction could all be addressed by the four layers. The differing degree to which each layer responds to the respective requirement is visualized in Table 4, using parentheses for a lower degree, regular font, and bold font for the highest degree. While all layers provide spatially explicit and disaggregated information (requirement 1) across the whole country at a spatial resolution of 10 to 30 m, spatio-temporal variability (requirement 2) is most precisely reflected by the SWO and the WUI layers. Both the Delineation and the LULC classification incorporate this variability, the former through the fact that the distinctiveness of vegetation-indicated boundaries is usually maintained throughout the hydrological cycle, the latter as it incorporates the SWO layer. SWO and WUI are a priori time-series products and can be adapted to user needs, by stretching out the observation period to derive a longer-term baseline, or by reducing it to focus on particularly limited periods, if sufficient high-quality images exist to produce the respective layer. The approaches used to create LULC classification, SWO, and WUI contain a high degree of automation, allowing repetition for the same area or application for another area of interest while sustaining comparability (requirement 3). In turn, to improve layer quality, it proved useful to include a manual post-processing step in the delineation of wetland area, slightly lessening the comparability to a re-assessment. However, since more substantial changes in wetland boundaries often take years to manifest (unless caused by short-term interventions), the uncertainty introduced by the application of a manual step is likely to be outweighed by such underlying trends. Because the delineation represents longer-term trends as a consequence of drivers of wetland change, it is only of limited suitability to quantify these drivers (requirement 4). Altered hydrology is both a result of wetland change and a variable whose modification leads to changes in wetland ecosystems. The SWO layer allowed to identify various locations across Rwanda where surface water hydrology is influenced by damming for irrigation or to operate hydropower stations and where further monitoring is advisable. The SWO layer can therefore serve as an indirect indicator, whereas LULC and WUI, as well as the combination of both, are capable of directly depicting sites of intensive agricultural wetland use, which is the main driver of wetland change. Large parts of the wetland landscapes in the centre and in the northeast of Rwanda could be characterized as being used for intensive agriculture. This reflects the government's efforts to counteract food insecurity by increasing wetland area under cultivation as well as by implementing large-scale irrigation schemes. The adaptation of the WUI methodology for SAR imagery could furthermore enhance its use potential for detecting and monitoring such areal expansion of agricultural land in wetlands and agricultural intensification.The presented outputs for Rwanda cannot form the basis for legally binding boundary setting without prior investigation at the place of interest, e.g., in the sense of a cadastral land register. However, they enable incorporation of EO-derived data at scales relevant to policy and planning. Our results can update and expand the existing wetland inventory and establish a continuous monitoring scheme, within which the layers and layer combinations are re-evaluated on a regular basis to detect trends pointing to the improvement or to the degradation of wetlands. This is of particular importance for the institutions and organisations concerned with wetland management as named in Section 2.1. On the one hand, institutions involved in the agricultural development of the country can use such data to determine target areas for agricultural exploitation and intensification. On the other hand, they and their counterparts tasked with safeguarding environmental integrity, can monitor environmental impacts on a larger scale. Beyond national wetland management, the SWO layer directly caters towards the SDG indicator 6.6.1.Whereas in the context of development and certain applied research projects, there has been a shift towards accounting for the complexity of landscapes with their different land uses and stakeholders (Wood et al. 2013), applied remote sensing research seems to prefer sectoral approaches. With respect to wetlands, this often concerns either their conservation (or degradation) or their efficient use, particularly for agricultural production. Despite the evident need for those studies and development of specific methods for each application, a change of perspective towards stronger inter-sectoral EO research as regards content, and towards the flexible production of spatial information products for wetlands as regards methods, is beneficial. This is especially true in many sub-Saharan African countries where environmental protection and food security constitute a major field of conflict. Using the example of Rwanda, a modular framework for wetland characterization provided relevant information both for environmental protection and for food production. These products are available on the national scale and their consistency allows for their combination with additional information, even more so if complemented by further modules. Spatial information produced by sectoral or regional initiatives, such as through the GEOclassifier or the GlobWetland Africa GW-A toolbox, for example, can be integrated as optional modules or as an additional data source. So far, a range of information needs could be met with the provided dataset. Although not all factors were covered, these can serve as indicators of change in the hydrology, agriculture, and ecology sub-groups. This national dataset represents a good basis for reporting to international conventions and update wetland status. Nevertheless, to understand changes in wetland landscapes, information on underlying drivers, pressures and management responses are essential and needed to frame all analyses.Awareness of the importance of wetlands on all scales has increased over the last decades because of their capacity to sequester large amounts of carbon and thus contribute to climate change mitigation, as well as to moderate the effects of climate change on hydrology and the international food system. On the national level, operational tools for coherent and comprehensive information generation are still lacking, leaving a gap between general knowledge and actual spatial planning. This is particularly accentuated in sub-Saharan Africa where the poorest are typically the first to suffer from the mismanagement of resources.A rapidly growing population have become one of the biggest challenges in Rwanda and the need to reconcile environmental protection with food production is paramount. The political will has manifested in the ratification of several multilateral agreements as well as in national legislation. As a step towards closing the policy-management gap, this study presents a conceptual framework based on spatial information needs for large-scale agricultural planning and environmental protection from remotely sensed data. The use of freely available imagery, mostly free software and automated workflows lowers the barrier to integrate Earth observation into wetland management. A modular setup of the framework provides the basis for a range of applications, like the countrywide consistent delineation of wetland landscapes and the identification of wetlands intensively used for agriculture, or cropland expansion in protected areas. In the tropical environments of East Africa, the SAR-based SWO layer provides a viable and flexible option to approach hydrological dynamics as compared to products derived from optical data. The use of different wellestablished LULC classification nomenclatures provides comparability and consistency with other LULC products on various scales and beyond country boundaries, whereas the WUI layer introduces a dynamic product which can be used to identify shorter-term changes in wetlands. Different combinations of all data layers increase their robustness, versatility, and allow deriving additional information. Furthermore, it is encouraged to complement the presented data modules by others with comparable characteristics concerning spatial and temporal resolution, to address more specific questions.In applied Earth observation science for wetlands, there is a need to change perspectives from the sectoral view towards more integrative approaches, including both the environmental protection and the food production aspects. This is a trend in development projects and wetland management programs and should be reflected in operational remote sensing approaches. As demonstrated for Rwanda, likewise there is a need to change perspectives in wetland mapping from rigidly defined wetland classes towards a flexible characterization that is adaptable to multiple large-scale planning issues. Thus, monitoring and guidance for targeted interventions can be supported.","tokenCount":"9209"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9a6e8d1f5184194c74e4db68bda8941a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5481a121-9b10-4357-9170-d7bccb5141f8/retrieve","id":"-1605826766"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d02509b2-b6be-4439-83c6-16bf36e6b0d7","pagecount":"8","content":"Indian states and union territories (UTs) are grouped into 3 categories: low-income states (LIS), middleincome states (MIS), and high-income states (HIS), based on their level of gross value added (GVA) per capita. The per capita GVA for LIS is below US$1450. States with a GVA per capita between US$1450 and 3500 are MIS, while those with a GVA per capita higher than US$3500 are HIS. The LIS include Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Odisha, and West Bengal. Uttar Pradesh is also an LIS and its calculations are shown separately. Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Nagaland, Puducherry, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, and Uttarakhand are the MIS. HIS are small states and UTs, namely, Chandigarh, Delhi, Goa, and Sikkim.  Source: Authors' calculations using the 2017/18 India state-level SAM.Note: GVA = gross value added; Ag-GVA = agricultural GVA.Source: Authors' calculations using the 2017/18 India state-level SAM.  the portion of services associated with transporting, wholesaling, and retailing of agrifood products between farms, firms, and final points of sale (that is, either the domestic or foreign markets). Food services (D) are services provided in both food production and consumption, plus a portion of the hotels and accommodation sector. Producers of food services (that is, meals prepared outside the home) run standalone operations (e.g., restaurants or stalls), whereas hotels often operate restaurants in addition to providing accommodations and other services. Components B, C, D, and E together represent off-farm economic activities. In summary, an agrifood system is essentially the sum of all the relevant on-farm and off-farm economic activities and products across all the agricultural value chains within a country.     A world free of hunger and malnutrition","tokenCount":"290"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"5c2d66fcec53be1cc498ae8ab8ebfad2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5487a48a-e15d-43f6-b8d0-1c52182488d2/retrieve","id":"736175085"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1099e96f-3b92-439e-81a5-578bcaa34780","pagecount":"48","content":"biologique contre R. similis Cuba (C) C-03 Fusarium spp. FHIA-01 (AAAB) racines IBP, Remedios C-09 Fusarium spp. FHIA-03 (AABB) racines IBP, Antillas C-13* Fusarium spp. FHIA-03 (AABB) racines IBP, Antillas C-20 Fusarium spp. FHIA-03 (AABB) racines IBP, Remedios C-22 Fusarium spp. FHIA-03 (AABB) racines IBP, Remedios C-35 Fusarium spp. FHIA-21 (AAAB) racines IBP, Remedios C-39 Fusarium spp. Gros Michel (AAA) racines IBP, Remedios C-48 Fusarium spp. FHIA-21 (AAAB) racines IBP, Remedios C-49 Fusarium spp. FHIA-21 (AAAB) racines IBP, Remedios * Champignons endophytes efficaces, qui ont réduit le nombre de R. similis/g de racine de plus de 80 % par rapport au témoin.Embryogenèse somatique en milieux liquides. Maturation et augmentation de la germination du cultivar hybride FHIA-18 (AAAB)Résistance à la maladie de Moko chez MusaEnquête bananière dans la République Démocratique du CongoQuelle variété de bananier cultiver ?Nouvelles de PROMUSA Vol. 9, N°1 Photo de couverture : ambulante de bananes en Inde (S. Uma, NRCB)Réseau international pour l'amélioration de la banane et de la banane plantain (INIBAP)Claudine PicqEmile Frison, Jean-Vincent Escalant, Suzanne Sharrock Imprimé en France ISSN 1023-0068INFOMUSA, INIBAP, Parc Scientifique Agropolis II, 34397 Montpellier Cedex 5, France. Téléphone : + 33-(0)4 67 61 13 02 ; Télécopie : + 33-(0)4 67 61 03 34 ; Courrier électronique : inibap@cgiar.org L'abonnement est gratuit pour les pays en développement. Les lecteurs sont invités à envoyer lettres et articles. La rédaction se réserve le droit d'abréger ou de reformuler les textes publiés pour des raisons de clarté et de concision. INFOMUSA ne peut s'engager à répondre à toutes les lettres reçues, mais s'efforcera de le faire dans un délai raisonnable. La reproduction de tout extrait du magazine est autorisée, à condition d'en spécifier l'origine. INFOMUSA est également publié en anglais et en espagnol.Merci d'en informer la rédaction d'INFOMUSA à l'adresse indiquée ci-dessus, avec si possible six semaines de préavis, afin d'éviter toute interruption de réception de la revue. Quelle variété de bananier cultiver ?Thèses Livres etc.Nouvelles de PROMUSA L. Pocasangre, R.A. Sikora, V. Vilich et R.P. Schuster L es endophytes sont des champignons qui colonisent les tissus de plants sains pour y persister sous forme dormante ou s'étendre sous forme d'infection ne produisant pas de symptômes (Carroll 1988, Boddy et Griffith 1989, Yates et al. 1997). Si leur présence a pour effet de protéger les tissus de stress biotiques et/ou abiotiques, il s'agit de champignons mutualistes (Carroll 1990, Latch 1993).Une prospection a été effectuée en Amérique centrale en janvier et février 1997 pour identifier des champignons endophytes. Les pays prospectés étaient le Honduras, le Costa Rica, le Guatemala, ainsi que Cuba dans les Caraïbes. Huit plantations de bananiers ont été visitées. On a prélevé des échantillons sur 21 cultivars de Musa spp., comprenant des bananiers dessert, bananiers à cuire et bananiers plantain de différents groupes génomiques : AA, AB, AAA, AAB, ABB, AAAB et AABB.Le nématode foreur Radopholus similis (Cobb) Thorne est la principale espèce de nématodes parasitant les bananiers et bananiers plantain en Amérique centrale, en Afrique de l'Ouest et en Australie (Pinochet 1986, Sarah 1989, Schipke et Ramsey 1994).Le matériel végétal traditionnel (rejets) est la première cause de l'introduction de ces nématodes dans les nouvelles plantations. Les vitroplants en sont indemnes au moment où ils sont plantés. Mais on sait qu'ils sont plus sensibles que les rejets aux attaques des nématodes et de la fusariose (Nouvelles des Musa 1997, Smith et al. 1998). Cette sensibilité des vitroplants vient peut-être du fait qu'étant produits en conditions aseptiques, ils ne portent pas de champignons mutualistes qui pourraient assainir leurs racines.Cette étude avait pour objectif de déterminer l'incidence naturelle des champignons endophytes chez des plants sains de différents cultivars de bananiers en Amérique centrale et d'évaluer les effets de ces champignons sur le taux de reproduction de R. similis chez des vitroplants inoculés et non inoculés de quatre cultivars de bananiers commerciaux.On a prélevé des échantillons de tissus sur des racines et des souches de bananiers dans huit plantations localisées dans trois pays d'Amérique centrale : au Costa Rica (CATIE, Turrialba et EARTH, Guacimo), au Guatemala (Tiquizate, plantation du groupe Molina) et au Honduras (FHIA, La Lima et les plantations Dole de El Rosario et La Ceiba), ainsi qu'à Cuba dans les Caraïbes (stations expérimentales de l'IBP à Remedios et Antillas). Les cultivars échantillonnés ont été choisis en fonction de leur importance commerciale pour l'exportation et la consommation locale. Toutes les plantations prospectées pratiquaient la monoculture de la banane depuis plus de 15 ans.Les champignons endophytes ont été isolés dans les racines et les souches des bananiers suivant le protocole présenté à la figure 1. On a divisé les racines primaires en deux sections longitudinales qu'on a placées dans une solution à 5 % d'hypochlorite de sodium pendant 5 minutes, pour les rincer ensuite trois fois à l'eau du robinet stérile. Après les avoir placées sur du papier absorbant stérilisé en autoclave pour éliminer l'excès d'eau, on a pelé la couche externe des racines à l'aide d'un scalpel, de façon à ne conserver que les tissus internes. On a coupé ceux-ci en petits morceaux d'environ 1 à 1,5 cm de long à l'aide d'un couteau stérilisé à la chaleur. Ces petits morceaux ont été placés sur de la gélose dextrosée à la pomme de terre à 10 % contenant 150 ppm de streptomycine et de pénicilline. On a laissé ces cultures incuber à 25°C dans le noir. Une semaine plus tard, on a transféré les champignons sur de nouvelles plaques pour procéder à des tests afin de les identifier.Sur les souches, on a isolé les champignons endophytes dans le cortex extérieur et dans le cylindre central. Après avoir divisé les souches en deux sections longitudinales, on a découpé de petits blocs de tissus d'environ 0,5-1,0 cm de long qui ont été stérilisés selon la méthode susmentionnée. L'isolement des champignons a été effectué suivant le même protocole que pour les racines.On a produit des vitroplants de Gran Enano (AAA), Williams (AAA), Gros Michel (AAA) et FHIA-23 (AAAA) à l'aide de la méthode de multiplication de Wong (1986). Pour ce faire, on a prélevé des méristèmes de pousses latérales qu'on a repiqués sur un milieu MS (Murashige et Skoog 1962) auquel on a ajouté 30 g/l de saccharose, 2,5 mg/l de benzylaminopurine (BAP) et 0,5 mg/l d'acide indole-3acétique (AIA). L'incubation a été effectuée à 25±2°C avec une photophase de 16 heures. On a obtenu des suspensions conidiennes selon la technique de Sun et Su (1984). Les cultures de champignons endophytes, après sept jours sur de la gélose dextrosée à la pomme de terre, ont été filtrées à travers deux épaisseurs de gaze. On a ajusté la quantité de suspension en ajoutant de la solution de Ringer, de façon à obtenir 1,2 x 10 6 ufc/ml. On a ensuite immergé les racines de plantules d'environ 12 cm de haut dans cette suspension conidienne pendant 5 minutes avant de les repiquer dans des pots de 650 cm 3 contenant du sable stérilisé. Les témoins ont été traités avec la solution de Ringer, sans champignons endophytes. Les plantules ont été réinoculées deux semaines plus tard. On a effectué la réinoculation autour des racines de chaque plantule, en injectant 5 ml de suspension conidienne à l'aide d'une pipette dans trois trous pratiqués à la base du pseudotronc. On a ainsi criblé 28 champignons endophytes isolés dans des racines de bananiers en Amérique centrale et à Cuba afin d'évaluer leur activité antagoniste vis-à-vis de R. similis chez le cultivar Gran Enano. Les isolats les plus efficaces ont été testés de nouveau sur quatre cultivars de bananiers et ont également fait l'objet d'études plus détaillées.L'inoculum de nématodes consistait en une population de R. similis isolée chez le cultivar Valery à Talamanca, au Costa Rica. On a multiplié les nématodes en culture monoxénique sur des rondelles de carotte (O'Bannon et Taylor 1968). Un mois après l'inoculation avec les champignons endophytes, on a inoculé les plantules avec 500 nématodes par pot. On a procédé à l'application autour des racines de chaque plantule, en injectant la suspension de nématodes à l'aide d'une pipette dans trois trous à la base du pseudotronc. Deux mois plus tard, on a déterminé les densités de nématodes dans le système racinaire et dans le sol. Pour extraire les nématodes des racines, on a coupé la totalité du système racinaire des plantules. On l'a ensuite coloré avec une solution à 0,1 % de fuchsine acide et broyé dans un mixeur pendant 15 secondes. Après avoir compté les nématodes dans deux aliquotes de 10 ml, on a calculé leur nombre total par système racinaire. Pour extraire les nématodes du sol, on a prélevé dans chaque pot un échantillon de 200 g de sable qu'on a placé sur un entonnoir de Baermann modifié. Au bout de deux jours, on a recueilli les nématodes à l'aide d'un tamis de 25 µm. On a calculé le nombre total de nématodes par pot après avoir procédé à un comptage dans une aliquote de 10 ml.Dans tous les essais, on a utilisé un dispositif en blocs de Fisher. Toutes les données ont fait l'objet d'une analyse de variance (PROC ANOVA, SAS version 6.12 pour Windows, SAS Institute, Cary, USA). Avant de procéder à l'analyse, on a transformé les nombres de nématodes au moyen du logarithme ln (x + 1). Pour comparer les moyennes, on s'est servi du test d'étendue multiple de Duncan (P = 0,05).On a isolé un total de 132 champignons endophytes à partir des 120 échantillons de tissus de racines et de souches collectés dans la région. La fréquence des champignons était plus élevée dans les racines que dans le cortex et le cylindre central de la souche (tableau 1).Dans tous les pays prospectés, les espèces de champignons endophytes prédominantes étaient Fusarium spp., qu'on a retrouvées dans tous les sites. La fréquence de Fusarium spp. était plus élevée dans les racines que dans le cortex et le cylindre central de la souche (tableau 2).Tableau 1. Nombre de champignons endophytes isolés dans les tissus de 21 cultivars de bananiers en Amérique centrale. On a constaté différents degrés d'activité vis-à-vis de R. similis. Trois isolats ont causé une réduction du nombre de R. similis/g de racine supérieure à 90 % chez le cultivar Gran Enano, et seulement neuf des 28 isolats testés se sont montrés peu actifs avec une réduction inférieure à 30 % (tableau 3). Les isolats endophytes les plus efficaces : H-14, H-19, H-20, H-26 et C-13 ont été testés de nouveau sur les quatre cultivars de bananiers Gran Enano, Williams, Gros Michel et FHIA-23, chez lesquels ils ont réduit le nombre de R. similis/g de racine dans une proportion de plus de 80 % (données non présentées). Ces isolats endophytes particulièrement efficaces ont fait par ailleurs l'objet d'études plus détaillées qui ne sont pas examinées dans cet article.Les résultats de cette étude mettent en évidence une plus grande fréquence de champignons endophytes dans les racines que dans le cortex et le cylindre central de la souche de cultivars de bananiers commerciaux. Sur 132 champignons isolés, 89 se trouvaient dans les racines, 30 dans le cortex et 13 dans le cylindre central de la souche.On a détecté Fusarium spp. dans les racines de différents cultivars de bananiers dans divers pays (Speijer 1993, Amin 1994, Schuster et al. 1995). Dans la présente étude, les champignons endophytes les plus fréquemment isolés étaient des souches de Fusarium spp. Présentes dans chacun des huit sites prospectés en Amérique centrale et à Cuba, elles ont été isolées à partir de différents cultivars, comprenant des bananiers dessert, des bananiers à cuire et des plantains appartenant à des groupes génomiques diploïdes, triploïdes et tétraploïdes. Ces résultats indiquent que les espèces de Fusarium sont des endophytes naturels du bananier et qu'elles ne sont pas inféodées à un cultivar ou groupe génomique particulier.Parmi les 28 isolats de Fusarium spp. évalués sur le cultivar Gran Enano, on a trouvé différents degrés d'activité vis-à-vis de R. similis. Onze isolats ont réduit le nombre de R. similis/g de racine de plus de 70 %, et neuf seulement des 28 isolats testés sont apparus peu actifs avec un taux de réduction inférieur à 30 %. Ces différences d'activité s'expliquent par la plus ou moins grande aptitude du champignon à étendre son développement à l'intérieur du plant et à empêcher ainsi la pénétration des nématodes dans les racines (Pocasangre et al., non publié). Hallmann et Sikora (1996) ont observé que des souches non pathogènes de Fusarium oxysporum étaient les champignons endophytes les plus efficaces vis-à-vis des nématodes parasites des plantes. Ils ont également constaté que les métabolites toxiques produits par Fusarium oxysporum avaient une action extrêmement efficace sur les parasites sédentaires, mais moins efficace sur les endoparasites migrateurs.Les résultats de cette recherche laissent à penser qu'on pourrait utiliser les champignons endophytes pour renforcer les vitroplants à la suite de la micropropagation, durant la phase critique de l'acclimatation, et pour réduire les applications initiales de pesticides à ce stade. Il reste nécessaire d'étudier la persistance de cet effet de lutte biologique chez les plants adultes. Les auteurs travaillent à l'Institute of Plant Pathology, Soil-Ecosystem Phytopathology Section, University of Bonn, Nussallee 9, D-53115 Bonn, Allemagne.L a fusariose ou maladie de Panama, causée par Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense (Foc), est présente dans la plupart des zones de production bananière du monde et affecte beaucoup de génotypes de bananiers importants. Ce champignon vivant dans le sol colonise le xylème de la plante hôte, provoquant des occlusions vasculaires et une décoloration brun rougeâtre. Les feuilles tournent au jaune vif, flétrissent et s'affaissent sur le pseudotronc (Ploetz 1994). Aucun fongicide n'agit efficacement contre l'agent pathogène, qui peut survivre très longtemps dans le sol. Quand un champ est infecté, il est impossible d'y cultiver des génotypes sensibles pendant une période pouvant aller jusqu'à 30 ans.Dans le cadre de la phase II du Programme international d'évaluation des Musa (IMTP), on a évalué la résistance d'hybrides améliorés de bananiers et de plantains à la fusariose (Orjeda 1998). Grâce à ces essais, on dispose aujourd'hui de plusieurs sources de résistance à cette maladie fongique (Shepherd et al. 1994, Pires de Matos et al. 1998, Orjeda et al. 1999, Tang et Hwang 1999).Les bananiers et les bananiers plantain ne sont pas seulement attaqués par des champignons, mais aussi par d'autres agents pathogènes comme les nématodes, parmi lesquels Radopholus similis, Pratylenchus coffeae, Pratylenchus goodeyi, Helicotylenchus multicinctus et Meloidogyne spp. sont les espèces les plus communes et les plus dévastatrices (Gowen et Quénéhervé 1990). Dans les champs infestés de nématodes, les pertes causées par la réduction de la croissance des plants, l'allongement de la phase végétative, la diminution de la taille des régimes, la chute des plants et la moindre longévité de la plantation peuvent atteindre des niveaux très élevés.L'objectif de cette étude consistait à évaluer 10 génotypes de Musa résistants ou moyennement résistants à la fusariose identifiés dans le cadre de l'IMTP, afin de déterminer leur résistance aux nématodes causant des lésions sur les racines, R. similis et P. coffeae. On a inclus dans ces essais trois génotypes de référence sensibles à la fusariose, 'Gros Michel', 'Williams' et 'Bluggoe' (Jones 1994). La résistance de ces génotypes à P. goodeyi et Meloidogyne spp. a été éva-luée précédemment par Pinochet et al. (1998). Dans cette étude, on a suivi la méthodologie décrite par Speijer et De Waele (1997).On a repiqué des vitroplants dans des pots en plastique d'un litre contenant du sol sablo-limoneux stérilisé en autoclave. Les pots ont été placés dans une serre à une température ambiante de 20-27°C, sous photophase de 12 heures. Ils ont été arrosés selon les besoins et fertilisés avec une solution hydroponique toutes les trois semaines après l'inoculation des nématodes.Les populations de R. similis et P. coffeae utilisées dans ces essais ont été isolées à l'origine dans des racines infectées d'un cultivar de bananier 'Valery' (groupe AAA) provenant de Talamanca, au Costa Rica, pour R. similis et d'un cultivar de plantain (groupe AAB) provenant de Kade, au Ghana, pour P. coffeae. Ces nématodes ont été cultivés en conditions monoxéniques sur des rondelles de carotte à 28°C dans le noir (Moody et al. 1973, Pinochet et al. 1995). On a ajusté la quantité d'inoculum de façon à pouvoir injecter une suspension contenant à peu près 1 000 oeufs et nématodes vermiformes vivants dans trois trous pratiqués dans le sol autour des racines de chaque plant.On a inoculé les plants avec les nématodes après quatre semaines d'acclimatation. L'extraction a été effectuée huit semaines après l'inoculation chez les plants inoculés avec R. similis et deux semaines plus tard chez les plants inoculés avec P. coffeae, ce nématode ayant un cycle biologique plus long. On a broyé un sous-échantillon de 15 g de racines fraîches à l'aide d'un mixeur pendant deux périodes de 10 secondes séparées par une pause de 5 secondes. Puis on a passé les nématodes sur des tamis de 250, 106 et 40 µm. Dans la suspension contenant les nématodes recueillis sur le tamis de 40 µm, on a prélevé une aliquote de 6 ml et procédé au comptage à l'aide d'un microscope binoculaire.Les génotypes ont été répartis en deux lots incluant chacun 'Grande Naine' (groupe AAA) comme cultivar de référence sensible. On a effectué quatre essais successifs pour déterminer la réponse des génotypes des deux lots à R. similis et P. coffeae. Dans chaque essai, on a utilisé un dispositif en blocs de Fisher avec huit répétitions par génotype. Les nombres de nématodes ont été transformés au moyen du logarithme log 10 (x+1) avant d'être soumis à une analyse de variance. On a séparé les moyennes à l'aide du test de Tukey à P ≤ 0,05.Dans le lot n°1, on a observé des différences significatives de sensibilité à R. similis (tableau 1). Chez les deux accessions de 'Pisang Jari Buaya' et chez 'Yangambi Km5', le nombre de nématodes était significativement plus bas que chez le cultivar de référence sensible 'Grande Naine'. Le nombre de nématodes récupérés par système racinaire étant inférieur au nombre contenu dans l'inoculum, les accessions de 'Pisang Jari Buaya' ITC0312 et ITC0690, ainsi que 'Yangambi Km5', peuvent être considérés comme résistants à R. similis. La sensibilité des génotypes 'Gros Michel', 'FHIA-01' et 'Bluggoe' n'était pas significativement différente de celle de 'Grande Naine'.Tous les génotypes du lot n°2 -'PA 03.22', 'PV 03.44', 'P. lilin', 'Saba', 'GCTCV 215', 'GCTCV 119' et 'Williams' -se sont révélés statistiquement aussi sensibles à R. similis que 'Grande Naine' (tableau 1). Seul 'PA 03.22' contenait un nombre de nématodes significativement plus faible que celui de 'Williams'.Tous les génotypes des lots n°1 et 2 se sont révélés statistiquement aussi sensibles à P. coffeae que 'Grande Naine', le cultivar de référence sensible (tableau 1). Dans le lot n°1, on a enregistré le plus grand nombre de nématodes par système racinaire chez 'Bluggoe'. Ce cultivar s'est montré significativement plus sensible que tous les autres génotypes de ce lot, excepté 'Grande Naine'. Dans le lot n°2, on a récupéré le plus grand nombre de nématodes par système racinaire chez 'Saba', qui était significativement plus sensible que tous les autres génotypes de ce lot, y compris 'Grande Naine' (tableau 1).Sur les 14 génotypes de Musa évalués, trois ont fait preuve de résistance à R. similis : les accessions de 'Pisang Jari Buaya' ITC0312 et ITC0690, ainsi que 'Yangambi Km5'. La résistance de ces génotypes à R. similis avait déjà été signalée précédemment (Wehunt et al. 1978, Pinochet et Rowe 1979, Price 1994, Fogain et Gowen 1998). Les deux premiers appartiennent au sous-groupe 'Pisang JariEvaluation de la tolérance aux nématodesBuaya', qui se compose de variétés diploïdes AA dont plusieurs se montrent résistantes ou moins sensibles à R. similis (Wehunt et al. 1978). Nos observations sur la résistance de deux accessions de 'Pisang Jari Buaya' provenant de deux sites différents (accession ITC0312 de Malaisie, accession ITC0690 d'Indonésie) confirment de nouveau la résistance de ce génotype à R. similis. L'utilisation de 'Pisang Jari Buaya' dans le programme d'amélioration génétique de la Fundación Hondureña de Investigación Agricola (FHIA) au Honduras a abouti à l'homologation de l'hybride commercial 'FHIA-01' (AAAB) (Rowe et Rosales 1993)  (Mateille 1992, Price 1994).Dans la présente étude, la réponse de 'Gros Michel' n'était pas claire, le nombre de nématodes par système racinaire ne différant pas significativement de celui du cultivar de référence sensible 'Grande Naine' et de celui des accessions résistantes de 'Pisang Jari Buaya' et de 'Yangambi Km5'.Aucun des 14 génotypes de Musa évalués dans cette étude n'a fait preuve de résistance à P. coffeae. Cela confirme des résultats précédents quant à la sensibilité de 'Pisang Jari Buaya' à ce nématode (Pinochet et Rowe 1978, INIBAP 1998). Une résistance partielle a été observée antérieurement chez 'Yangambi Km5' après inoculation, tant de la part des vitroplants que des plants issus de souches (INIBAP 1998). Pourtant, dans la présente étude, 'Yangambi Km5' s'est montré aussi sensible à P. coffeae que le cultivar de référence 'Grande Naine'.Toutes les sources de résistance à F. oxysporum f. sp. cubense, à l'exception de 'Pisang Jari Buaya' et de 'Yangambi Km5', sont extrêmement sensibles à R. similis aussi bien qu'à P. coffeae. Des criblages effectués par Pinochet et al. (1998) ont révélé que tous ces génotypes étaient également sensibles à Meloidogyne javanica et M. incognita et, à l'exception de 'Yangambi Km5', constituaient de bons hôtes pour P. goodeyi. Si l'on cultive ces génotypes dans des champs infestés par ces nématodes, il faut s'attendre à des pertes de rendement. e Viêt-nam, étant situé dans le centre d'origine des bananiers, offre d'excellentes conditions pour la production bananière. Parmi les cultures fruitières de ce pays, la banane se classe au premier rang par le volume brut de production et les superficies exploitées (Vinh et Quy 1995). Elle est cultivée principalement pour la consommation locale.Au cours d'une mission de prospection effectuée en 1994-1995 au Viêt-nam, plus de 80 génotypes et espèces sauvages ont été collectés (Khoi et Valmayor, 1995). On a procédé à une caractérisation préliminaire de ce matériel, qui a permis d'identifier 64 génotypes distincts et neuf espèces sauvages (INIBAP 1997). Ces génotypes ont été placés dans une collection au champ à l'Institut de recherches fruitières de Phu Ho (province de Vinh Phu) et dans une collection in vitro à l'Institut national des sciences agricoles (INSA) de Hanoi. On a également envoyé une partie de ce matériel au Centre de transit de l'INIBAP à Louvain (Belgique) pour l'inclure dans la collection internationale de bananiers.Il convient à présent d'évaluer la performance générale de ce matériel, ainsi que sa résistance/tolérance aux maladies et aux ravageurs. Dans l'étude qui est présentée ici, on a criblé les principaux génotypes afin de déterminer leur résistance/tolérance à Meloidogyne spp., nématodes formant des galles sur les racines primaires et secondaires des plants (De Waele et Davide 1999), et à P. coffeae, nématodes à l'origine de lésions qui en-traînent la nécrose et la réduction du système racinaire des plants (Stoffelen et al. 1999).Deux essais ont été effectués avec Meloidogyne spp. et deux autres avec P. coffeae. Le matériel testé est présenté au tableau 1. Au total, on a criblé 19 génotypes de bananiers viêt-namiens et deux génotypes reçus du Centre de transit de l'INIBAP. On a inclus comme génotypes de référence 'Yangambi Km5', 'Gros Michel' et 'Grand Nain', qui sont respectivement hautement résistant à R. similis, moyennement résistant à R. similis et non résistant à tous les nématodes (Speijer et De Waele 1997).Dans tous les essais, on a utilisé des vitroplants. Après multiplication et culture sur milieu de Murashige et Skoog (1962), on a repiqué les plantules dans des bacs remplis de sable stérilisé, en les traitant plusieurs fois au fongicide Daconil. Après deux à trois semaines, on a transféré les plants dans des pots en plastique de 12 cm de diamètre remplis d'un mélange de terreau stérilisé et d'humus. On les a de nouveau traités au Daconil, ainsi qu'avec de l'insecticide Suprathion, Ortus, Trebon ou Dipterex. On a arrosé les plants selon les besoins et appliqué à deux reprises une solution nutritive.Au bout de six à 14 semaines, on a sélectionné au hasard 20 plants de chaque génotype, qu'on a plantés dans un dispositif en blocs de Fisher. Chez chaque génotype, on a infesté 10 plants avec 4 000 juvéniles et oeufs de Meloidogyne spp. obtenus à partir de racines de tomate broyées au mixeur, ou avec 1 000 nématodes vermiformes de P. coffeae obtenus à partir de rondelles de carotte broyées au mixeur (O'Bannon et Taylor 1968). Les 10 plants restants ont servi de témoins.On a récolté les plants 11 à 15 semaines après l'inoculation et enregistré diverses données afin d'évaluer les dégâts causés par les nématodes (mesure de la tolérance/sensibilité des génotypes) et la reproduction des nématodes (mesure de la résistance/non-résistance des génotypes).En suivant la méthode décrite par Speijer et De Waele (1997), on a enregistré les données suivantes :Paramètres généraux : hauteur de plant (cm), poids des parties aériennes (g), poids du système racinaire (g), nombre de feuilles érigées, circonférence à la base du pseudotronc (cm).Données concernant la reproduction des nématodes : nombre de femelles ovipares de Meloidogyne spp. sur la section de cinq morceaux de racines de 10 cm de long, nombre de nématodes pour 10 g de racines, nombre de nématodes par système racinaire.Données concernant les dégâts sur les racines : racines mortes (%), racines portant des galles de Meloidogyne spp., indice de nécrose racinaire (%) due à P. coffeae.Pour extraire les nématodes, on a utilisé la méthode de broyage-tamisage.On a procédé à l'analyse statistique des résultats à l'aide du logiciel SPSS 9.0 pour Windows. Pour les populations normales, on a fait une analyse de variance, en séparant les moyennes à l'aide du test de la plus haute différence significative de Tukey. Pour les populations non normales, on a utilisé le test des rangs non paramétrique de Kruskal-Wallis pour analyser les données et l'on a séparé les moyennes à l'aide de la méthode de KW-Bonferroni. Le niveau de confiance combiné pour l'ensemble des tests par paires est d'au moins 0,95 (coefficient de confiance combiné α = 0,05).Dans le premier essai, l'infestation par Meloidogyne spp. a entraîné une augmenta-Évaluation en serre de la résistance/tolérance de matériel génétique viêt-namien aux nématodes à galles et à lésions tion du poids du système racinaire et une diminution du nombre de feuilles érigées. On n'a constaté aucun effet sur la hauteur de plant, le poids des parties aériennes et la circonférence du pseudotronc. Dans le deuxième essai, l'infestation par Meloidogyne spp. n'a exercé aucun effet sur les paramètres généraux qui étaient mesurés (tableau 2).Dans le premier essai, on n'a constaté aucune différence dans le nombre de nématodes chez les différents génotypes. Dans le deuxième essai, il n'y a pas eu de différences dans le nombre de femelles ovipares et le nombre de nématodes pour 10 g de racines entre les différents génotypes, mais on a enregistré des différences significatives dans le nombre de nématodes par système racinaire. Celui-ci était significativement plus faible chez 'Ngu Thoc' que chez 'Tieu Vua Trang','Com Chua' et 'Ben Tre' (tableau 3).Il n'y a eu aucune différence dans les taux de racines mortes des différents génotypes. En revanche, on a enregistré, dans les deux essais, des différences significatives dans le taux de racines portant des galles. Dans le premier essai, celui-ci a été significativement plus faible chez 'Yangambi Km5' que chez 'Voi'. Dans le deuxième essai, il a été significativement plus faible chez 'Man', 'Ngu Thoc' et 'Tay' que chez 'Ben Tre' (tableau 3).Dans le premier essai, les galles formées par Meloidogyne spp. expliquent sans doute l'augmentation du poids du système racinaire chez les plants infestés. Dans le deuxième essai, le taux moyen de racines portant des galles était nettement inférieur à celui du premier essai (0,8 contre 2,4), ce qui pourrait expliquer que l'infestation par Meloidogyne spp. n'a pas affecté le poids des racines. Le nombre de fe-melles ovipares, le nombre de nématodes pour 10 g de racines et le nombre de nématodes par système racinaire étaient également plus faibles dans le deuxième essai que dans le premier (tableau 3). C'est peut-être la raison pour laquelle l'infestation par Meloidogyne spp. n'a pas influé sur le nombre de feuilles érigées dans le deuxième essai.Dans le premier essai, tous les génotypes ont fait preuve du même degré de résistance/non-résistance à Meloidogyne spp. D'après les résultats du deuxième essai, il semble que 'Ngu Thoc' présente une certaine résistance à Meloidogyne spp., tandis que 'Tieu Vua Trang', 'Com Chua' et 'Ben Tre' apparaissent dépourvus de résistance à ces nématodes. Toutefois, ces résultats ne sont pas véritablement convaincants et devront être confirmés.Dans les deux essais, on a enregistré des différences significatives dans le taux de racines portant des galles, ce qui indique des différences de tolérance/sensibilité à Meloidogyne spp. entre les génotypes. 'Yangambi Km5', 'Man', 'Ngu Thoc' et 'Tay' ont semblé faire preuve d'une certaine tolérance à l'activité de Meloidogyne spp. Cependant, chez 'Ngu Thoc', le faible taux de galles pourrait aussi s'expliquer par le faible nombre de nématodes présents dans les racines. Quant à 'Voi' et 'Ben Tre', il apparaît qu'ils sont extrêmement sensibles aux galles de Meloidogyne spp.Dans le premier essai, l'infestation par P. coffeae a causé une diminution de la hauteur de plant et du poids des parties aériennes. On n'a constaté aucun effet sur le poids du système racinaire, le nombre de feuilles érigées et la circonférence du pseudotronc. Dans le deuxième essai, la présence de P. coffeae n'a eu aucun effet sur les paramètres généraux qui étaient mesurés (tableau 4). Tableau 2. Meloidogyne spp. : paramètres généraux. On n'a observé aucune différence dans le taux de racines mortes des différents génotypes. En ce qui concerne l'indice de nécrose racinaire, on n'a détecté des différences significatives que dans le premier essai, où il était significativement plus bas chez 'Yangambi Km5' que chez 'Ngop Lun' (tableau 5).Dans le deuxième essai, le nombre de nématodes trouvés dans les racines était très faible chez pratiquement tous les plants, ce qui pourrait expliquer qu'on n'ait pas constaté de différences dans les paramètres généraux des plants infestés et des plants non infestés.'Ngop Lun', 'Voi' et 'Ngop Cao' se sont montrés dépourvus de résistance à P. coffeae. Dans le premier essai, 'Yangambi Km5' et 'Tieu Xanh' se sont caractérisés par le plus faible nombre de nématodes de cette espèce ; mais il ne faudrait pas en conclure trop hâtivement que ces génotypes sont résistants à P. coffeae car, dans le deuxième essai, le nombre de nématodes trouvés dans les racines de 'Yangambi Km5' ne différait pas si-gnificativement de celui du génotype de référence non résistant 'Grand Nain'. Dans les deux essais, les nématodes étaient peu nombreux chez pratiquement tous les plants.Dans le premier essai, la présence d'un nombre élevé de nématodes dans les racines a coïncidé avec un niveau de dégâts élevé, et vice versa. Les faibles niveaux de dégâts enregistrés dans le deuxième essai ne peuvent être attribués à la tolérance des génotypes, mais s'expliquent probablement par le fait que le nombre de nématodes était faible chez presque tous les plants. 'Ngop Cao' est le seul génotype chez lequel la présence d'un nombre significativement plus élevé de nématodes dans les racines n'a pas entraîné de dégâts significatifs.L'infestation par Meloidogyne spp. peut provoquer une augmentation du poids du système racinaire et une diminution du nombre de feuilles érigées, mais des recherches plus approfondies devront être effectuées pour confirmer cette observation. On n'a constaté aucun effet de ces nématodes sur la hauteur de plant, le poids des parties aériennes et la circonférence du pseudotronc.Il semble que 'Ngu Thoc' fasse preuve d'une certaine résistance à Meloidogyne spp., et que 'Tieu Vua Trang', 'Com Chua' et 'Ben Tre' soient dépourvus de résistance à ces nématodes.'Yangambi Km5', 'Man', 'Ngu Thoc' et 'Tay' tolèrent apparemment les galles de Meloidogyne spp., tandis que 'Voi' et 'Ben Tre' se montrent extrêmement sensibles.L'infestation par P. coffeae peut entraîner une diminution de la hauteur de plant et du poids des parties aériennes, mais il faudra de nouveaux essais pour confirmer cette observation. On n'a enregistré aucun effet de ce nématode sur le poids du système racinaire, le nombre de feuilles érigées et la circonférence du pseudotronc.'Ngop Lun', 'Voi' et 'Ngop Cao' sont dépourvus de résistance à P. coffeae. En revanche, 'Yangambi Km5' et 'Tieu Xanh' semblent dotés d'une certaine résistance.'Ngop Cao' et 'Yangambi Km5' sont les seules sources potentielles de tolérance à P. coffeae qui ont été identifiées dans ces essais.Il s'avère nécessaire de poursuivre les recherches et les criblages. Étant donné que les quantités de nématodes trouvées dans le système racinaire étaient généralement très faibles, même chez le génotype de référence non résistant 'Grand Nain', il serait intéressant de vérifier la pathogénicité (potentiel A, B, C, F, G, H : les données n'ont pas été transformées pour l'analyse. D, E, I, J : pour l'analyse, on a transformé les données au moyen du logarithme log 10 (x +1). Les données non transformées sont présentées dans ce tableau. Dans une même colonne, les moyennes suivies de la même lettre ne présentent pas de différence significative d'après le test de Tukey (D, E, I, J), de Duncan (J) ou de KW-Bonferroni (A, B, C, F, G, H) à α = 0,05.(1) = aucune galle ; 1 = traces d'infestation avec quelques petites galles ; 2 = < 25 % de racines portant des galles ; 3 = 25 -50 % de racines portant des galles ; 4 = 50 -75 % de racines portant des galles ; 5 = > 75 % de racines portant des galles.(2) = aucune masse d'oeufs ; 1 = 1 -2 masses d'oeufs ; 2 = 3 -10 masses d'oeufs ; 3 = 11 -30 masses d'oeufs ; 4 = 31 -100 masses d'oeufs ; 5 = > 100 masses d'oeufs.de reproduction et de dégâts) de la population de P. coffeae utilisée dans cette expérimentation.Cette recherche a été effectuée grâce à l'aide financière du Réseau international pour l'amélioration de la banane et  1997).Cette culture est sérieusement menacée par bien des problèmes phytosanitaires comme la cercosporiose noire (Mycosphaerella fijiensis Morelet), la maladie de Panama ou fusariose (Fusarium oxyporum f. sp. cubense), les viroses dues au bunchy top (BBTV-Banana Bunchy Top Virus) ou la mosaïque en tirets (BSV-Banana Streak Virus) et les nématodes, qui provoquent d'énormes pertes en rendement. Tout ceci augmente les coûts de production et la nécessité de développer de nouvelles variétés se fait de jour en jour plus pressante.Depuis 1984, la FHIA (Fundación Hondureña de Investigación Agrícola) a développé un vaste programme de recherche d'hybrides résistants à la cercosporiose noire. Parmi eux, le cultivar FHIA-18 (AAAB) qui présente, en plus de sa tolérance à la maladie, un bon comportement au champ et de très bonnes qualités agronomiques, est aujourd'hui l'un des principaux à être cultivé à Cuba.Le but du présent travail était de mettre au point, dans le cadre de l'embryogenèse somatique du bananier, un milieu de culture liquide permettant la maturation des embryons somatiques, d'augmenter les pourcentages de germination actuellement atteints et de déceler l'apparition d'éventuelles variations somaclonales au cours du sevrage des plants.On a utilisé comme matériel végétal des fleurs mâles immatures d'inflorescences du cultivar hybride FHIA-18 (AAAB). Ces dernières ont été récoltées directement sur la plante à environ 20-30 cm de la dernière fleur femelle. Les bourgeons mâles ont été ensuite taillés à 10 cm de l'apex et on a éliminé les bractées pour les réduire à des tronçons de 3 cm, prêts à être transférés au laboratoire.Ceux-ci ont été désinfectés avec de l'alcool à 70 % (v/v) pendant 15 min Puis, sous loupe binoculaire, on en a extrait 14 mains ou rangs de fleurs, parmi les plus proches du méristème floral, que l'on a placés, du 5 ème au 12 ème , dans des fioles contenant le milieu d'induction MA 1 proposé par Escalant et al. (1994) pour la formation de cals.C'est grâce aux cultures hautement embryogéniques d'embryons somatiques, issus des cals formés en cinq mois à partir des mains, que l'on a pu initier les suspensions cellulaires. Pour cela, on a employé le milieu MA 2 proposé par Bieberach (1995).Environ 150-200 mg de poids frais d'amas d'embryons somatiques ont été placés dans des Erlenmeyers de 25 ml contenant de 2 à 3 ml de milieu, lesquels ont été ensuite maintenus sur agitateur orbital à 90 rpm, à 27 °C et à l'obscurité permanente.Au bout de 15 jours, on a filtré les suspensions cellulaires ainsi formées sur tamis métalliques de 500 µm. Les différentes études réalisées au cours de ce travail ont été faites sur ces filtrats de suspensions cellulaires.Les repiquages se sont succédés tous les 15 jours conformément au protocole établi par Escalant et al. (1994). On a évalué la croissance cellulaire par la méthode du volume de cellules sédimentées (VCS) proposée par Schoof (1997). Pour cela, on a utilisé des tubes coniques gradués de 15 ml dans lesquels on a placé des aliquotes de 15 ml de suspension cellulaire. Après 5 minutes de décantation, on a mesuré le volume de cellules sédimentées. A chaque repiquage, on a ajusté la concentration cellulaire finale à 3 % et ce indépendamment de la capacité totale de l'Erlenmeyer utilisé.Pour obtenir des embryons somatiques, on a employé le milieu de culture modifié de Schenck et Hildebrandt (1962) : sels minéraux SH; vitamines de Murashige et Skoog (1962), extrait de malt à 100 mg/l, L-glutamine à 100 mg/l, L-proline à 230 mg/l, acide naphtalène acétique (ANA) à 0,2 mg/l, kinétine à 0,05 mg/l, lactose à 10 g/l, zéatine à 0,05 mg/l, saccharose à 45 g/l, pH 5,3.On a étudié l'influence de la concentration initiale sur la formation d'embryons somatiques. Pour cela, on a testé quatre poids frais d'amas cellulaires : 50, 100, 250 et 500 mg, pour 25 ml de milieu. L'évaluation du nombre d'embryons formés a été faite au bout de 15 puis de 30 jours de mise en culture en prenant plusieurs échantillons de 1 ml de suspension cellulaire, après agitation des Erlenmeyers pendant quelques secondes.Il y a eu quatre répétitions par essai dans des Erlenmeyers de 250 ml, les conditions de culture étant identiques à celles décrites au paragraphe précédent.Le but de l'expérimentation était de déterminer l'effet de la densité de l'inoculation initiale sur la multiplication secondaire des embryons somatiques en milieu liquide agité. Pour cela, on a employé le milieu basique MS complémenté par 0,3 mg de 6 benzyl amino purine (6-BAP), 1 mg d'acide indol acétique (AIA), 3 % de saccharose, avec un pH de 5,3 avant autoclavage. On a testé trois densités d'inoculation d'embryons somatiques au stade globulaire : 0,2 ; 0,4 et 0,6 g de poids frais dans 25 ml de milieu avec cinq répétitions pour chaque densité dans des Erlenmeyers de 250 ml. Au 60 ème jour de mise en culture, on a pesé les différents essais sur balance analytique. On a évalué le nombre d'embryons formés en plaçant plusieurs échantillons d'embryons somatiques de 1 g de poids frais dans des boîtes de Pétri de 5 cm de diamètre contenant un mélange d'eau et de phytagel. Après solidification du mélange, on a effectué le comptage à la loupe binoculaire. De plus, on a mesuré les embryons à la règle graduée au dos de la boîte.Pour mener à bien la maturation des embryons somatiques obtenus, on a essayé trois concentrations différentes : 400, 800 et 1 000 mg de poids frais d'embryons somatiques au stade globulaire pour 30 ml du milieu de Murashige et Skoog (1962) modifié : sels MS, vitamines MS, biotine à 1,0 mg/l, 6-BAP à 0,5 mg/l, AIA à 2,0 mg/l, saccharose à 45 mg/l, de pH 5,8, placés dans des Erlenmeyers de 250 ml maintenus sous agitation à 90 rpm, à 27 °C et à l'obscurité permanente.On a évalué la maturation toutes les semaines. Pour cela, on a prélevé des échantillons et, en les observant à la loupe binoculaire, on a pu déceler le moment où les embryons parvenaient à maturité en visualisant les changements de leur aspect morphologique.Pour les différents essais qui suivent, on a utilisé des systèmes d'immersion temporaire RITA de 500 ml contenant chacun 200 ml de milieu liquide et maintenus en phytotrons àEmbryogenèse somatique en milieux liquides. Maturation et augmentation de la germination du cultivar hybride FHIA-18 (AAAB) m -2 .s -1 , avec un photopériodisme de 16 heures et une fréquence d'immersion d'une minute trois fois par jour (Escalant et al. 1994).Pour parvenir à faire germer les embryons somatiques matures, on a suivi les trois protocoles ci-dessous.On a appliqué les cinq traitements suivants : On a placé 20 embryons dans des flacons de culture contenant 30 ml de milieu que l'on a maintenus en chambre de croissance, en lumière solaire de 50 à 62,5 µm. m -2 .s -1 et à 27 + 2°C. Dans ce protocole, on a utilisé des échantillons pris au hasard et 15 répétitions par traitement. On a évalué le nombre d'embryons ayant formé une plantule complète par comptage au bout de 45 jours de mise en culture.Dans ce protocole, on a testé l'effet de deux concentrations de Biobras-6 (0,005 et 0,01 mg/l) sur la même densité d'inoculation initiale d'embryons (0,5 g).Dans ce troisième protocole, on a étudié quatre concentrations initiales : 0,3; 0,5; 0,7 et 1,0 g d'embryons somatiques dans un milieu MS basique complémenté par 0,5 mg/l de 6-BAP, 2,0 mg/l d'AIA et la meilleure concentration de Biobras-6 déterminée par l'expérimentation précédente. On a utilisé trois RITA par traitement, contenant un milieu MS (1962) complémenté par 0,5 mg/l de 6-BAP, 2,0 mg/l d'AIA et 30 g/l de saccharose, de pH 5,8.On a fait conjointement le contrôle de l'expérimentation en préparant des bocaux de verre de 250 ml contenant 20 embryons somatiques et 30 ml d'un milieu semi-solide (phytagel à 2 g/l) de même composition que celui des RITA. On a procédé à 12 répétitions dans les mêmes conditions de culture. L'ensemble des bocaux et des RITA a été réparti sur rayonnages en chambre de croissance, à 50-62,5 µm. m -2 .s -1 de lumière solaire et à 27 + 2°C. Dans les deux expérimentations, on a évalué l'initiation de la germination au bout du 7 ème jour de mise en culture et on a compté le nombre total de plantules formées par traitement au bout de 40 jours.Dès que les plantules sont apparues dans les RITA, on les a transférées dans des fioles de culture de 250 ml contenant 30 ml d'un milieu composé de sels MS, de 3 % de saccharose, solidifié par 6 g/l d'Agar et de pH 5,8 avant autoclavage; et ce afin qu'elles poursuivent leur croissance encore pendant un mois en chambre de culture à la lumière naturelle.On a sevré les plantules de 4 à 5 cm issues d'embryogenèse somatique en les plantant dans des plateaux de polyuréthane de 50 alvéoles sur un substrat artificiel formé d'un mélange de casting et de zéolite (3:1). On les a arrosées pendant 2 minutes trois fois par jour en micro aspersion. Parallèlement, on a planté un autre lot de 200 plantes obtenues par multiplication in vitro de bourgeons axillaires. Au bout de 50 jours et sur 50 plantes choisies au hasard dans chacun des deux lots, on a observé les caractères quantitatifs suivants : hauteur de la plante, longueur et largeur de la 2 ème feuille, longueur du pétiole, distance entre la 2 ème et la 3 ème feuille et pourcentage de survie ainsi que des caractères qualitatifs comme la couleur du pseudotronc et celle du limbe.On a généré des suspensions cellulaires embryogéniques du cultivar hybride FHIA-18 (AAAB) en utilisant comme explant initial des embryons somatiques au stade globulaire. Au dixième jour de culture des suspensions cellulaires, on a constaté la formation de pro embryons et celle de cellules embryogéniques, petites et sphériques, au cytoplasme dense contenant des grains d'amidon.Des observations similaires ont été rapportées par Cote et al. (1996) à propos de suspensions cellulaires issues de fleurs mâles du cultivar Grande naine (AAA). Ces suspensions étaient formées, en phase de multiplication, d'un grand nombre de cellules sphériques isolées se divisant activement et d'amas cellulaires hétérogènes, irréguliers, translucides ou non. Ceci concorde aussi avec les observations faites par De Vries et al. (1996) sur suspensions cellulaires de carotte. Les caractéristiques cellulaires qui précèdent sont considérées comme un indicateur de la condition embryogénique de la suspension cellulaire (Williams et Maheswaram 1986). D'autres études de suspensions cellulaires de Musa ont confirmé la présence de corps protéiques et d'amidon dans les cellules des amas embryogéniques (Sannasgala 1989, Bieberach 1995).Pendant les deux premiers mois de culture, les suspensions cellulaires ont présenté des changements de composition : la quantité d'amas cellulaires augmentait alors que celle des cellules isolées diminuait jusqu'à atteindre des valeurs pratiquement négligeables. Ces amas embryogéniques, de taille variant de 80 à 300 µm, ont fini par représenter 80 à 95 % des suspensions cellulaires.Dans ce milieu de culture, les suspensions ont d'ailleurs pu arriver à prendre une consistance épaisse, directement liée à l'équilibre cellule/volume du milieu.A partir du 15 ème jour de culture, des structures granuleuses composées de pro embryons et d'embryons somatiques au stade globulaire ont commencé à apparaître dans le milieu de formation d'embryons, au fond des Erlenmeyers. L'analyse des résultats des différentes densités d'inoculation testées dans le cadre de la formation d'embryons somatiques en milieu liquide montre des différences significatives entre les divers traitements, que ce soit à 15 ou à 30 jours de culture.Les meilleurs résultats ont été obtenus avec la densité de 100 mg/25 ml où se sont formés 1883 embryons somatiques au stade  globulaire par ml de suspension en 30 jours (figure 1). D'autres auteurs ont constaté de meilleurs résultats encore en ce qui concerne le nombre d'embryons somatiques formés mais sur des cultivars différents et en plaçant 1 ml de suspension cellulaire en milieu semi-solide (Bieberach 1995, Cote et al. 1996, Grapin et al .1998).Le diamètre des embryons somatiques obtenus à partir des suspensions cellulaires de FHIA-18 varie de 0,5 à 1,2 mm, soit 0,86 + 0,25 mm en moyenne. Leur poids varie de 0,65 à 0,90 mg selon l'étape de développement où ils se trouvent, soit 0,73 + 0,16 mg en moyenne. Bieberach (1995) décrit des résultats très semblables bien que sur d'autres cultivars de bananier.On a vérifié que la concentration initiale a bien un effet sur la multiplication des embryons somatiques dans le milieu de culture MS modifié car des différences significatives entre les divers traitements sont apparues tant au niveau du poids frais que du nombre d'embryons au bout de 60 jours de culture. Avec une concentration initiale de 0,6 g/ 25 ml de milieu, on a réalisé une augmentation de 42 fois le poids frais initial en 60 jours tout en obtenant la formation du plus grand nombre d'embryons complets (tableau 1). C'est la première fois que cela a pu être réalisé pour le bananier, en milieu liquide et sous agitation.Il faut noter qu'avec la densité la plus basse (0,2 g/25 ml), on a favorisé la maturation des embryons somatiques mais qu'il y a eu peu de multiplication. Une fois encore, il n'est plus à démontrer l'importance de déterminer une concentration d'inoculation adaptée à chaque étape du processus d'embryogenèse.Il est important de souligner que de l'embryogenèse en cascade peut avoir lieu en l'absence d'une auxine exogène, c'est ce que l'on appelle auto embryogenèse ou prolifération ou propagation massive (Meckle et al. 1995). Les embryons au stade globulaire se multiplient en cascade, chacun formant quatre à six nouveaux embryons somatiques et ainsi de suite. Les embryons somatiques peuvent se former à partir de la base des cellules épidermiques du premier embryon (Escalant et al. 1994). Ce processus peut se poursuivre indéfiniment et permettre ainsi la multiplication d'embryons somatiques dans des bioréacteurs au lieu d'employer des suspensions cellulaires. Gómez et al. (2000, sous presse) ont obtenu la multiplication en cascade des embryons somatiques du cultivar Grande naine (AAA) en milieu liquide agité. Dans leur cas, la densité de poids frais d'embryons somatiques qui a été la plus performante se trouve être la plus basse : 0,1 g. Ceci confirme l'influence du génotype dans les processus in vitro et suppose la mise au point de méthodes adaptées à chaque cultivar étudié. Escalant et al. (1994) ont été les premiers à réaliser la multiplication secondaire d'embryons somatiques du cultivar Grande naine (AAA) mais dans un système d'immersion temporaire. Leurs coefficients de multiplication sont très semblables à ceux présentés ici. Cependant, ils n'ont atteint le même niveau qu'au bout d'un laps de temps plus important (six mois).Deux des densités initiales étudiées ont eu un résultat favorable dans cette expérimentation en milieu liquide agité. Pour la densité de 800 mg, on a observé une maturation rapide des embryons somatiques, en seulement 15 jours, avec 30 % d'embryons arrivés à complète maturité. Pour la densité de 400 mg cependant, on a réussi une meilleure synchronisation de la maturation dans le temps, car 70 % des embryons sont arrivés à maturité; mais plus tardive puisque cela a pris 22 jours.Pour la densité de 1 000 mg, il n'y a pas eu de maturation : la plupart des embryons sont restés au stade globulaire. Ce résultat montre la relation étroite qui existe entre la densité initiale d'embryons et le processus de maturation. Cela indique aussi qu'il y a une plus grande accumulation de substances de réserves et moins de multiplication en utilisant des densités basses, de l'ordre de 400 mg comme ici. Dans la littérature consultée, il n'est pas fait mention de ce phénomène car, une fois formés, les embryons somatiques au stade globulaire sont immédiatement transférés sur un milieu de germination où l'on obtient de faibles pourcentages de réussite et ce, avec un plus grand temps de latence.Dans cette première expérimentation, on a constaté que la plus grande quantité d'em-bryons ayant germé apparaît avec les traitements T2 et T3, combinant le Biobras-6 avec l'AIA et le 6 BAP, car ils présentent des différences significatives par rapport aux autres traitements et au témoin. Leurs pourcentages de germination sont respectivement de 37 et de 41 %. Ces résultats démontrent l'effet stimulant du Biobras-6 sur la germination (tableau 2) lorsqu'il agit en synergie avec le mélange des régulateurs destinés à augmenter la germination. Le meilleur traitement est le T3 pour lequel on a rajouté 0,01 mg/l de Biobras-6. Des travaux réalisés par Rayas et al. (1999) sur la calogenèse montrent que deux produits analogues au brasinostéroïde, le DAA-6 (Biobras-6) et le MH-5, ont également eu un effet favorable sur la croissance et la qualité des cals, en particulier les concentrations de 0,01 mg/l de Biobras-6 et de 0,1 mg/l de MH-5. La comparaison de la germination des embryons somatiques en milieu semi solide avec celle en système d'immersion temporaire montrent que ce dernier procédé est plus efficace tant sur le plan du temps de latence que sur celui du pourcentage de réussite de la germination.Les résultats obtenus dans cette deuxième expérimentation, où les embryons somatiques ont été mis à germer en système d'immersion temporaire RITA, montrent un plus grand pourcentage de germination, avec des différences significatives par rapport aux autres traitements, lorsqu'on a utilisé une concentration de Biobras-6 de 0,01 mg/l. Le nombre d'embryons ayant germés avec ce traitement est de 600 ce qui porte le pourcentage de germination à 85 %, de 15 % supérieur à celui atteint sans Biobras-6 (figure 2).L'emploi du Biobras-6 en culture in vitro a déjà donné de bons résultats sur la germination d'embryons somatiques de papaye Tableau 2. Effet du Biobras-6 sur la germination des embryons somatiques en milieu semi-solide. ( 1995). Et, selon Nuñez (1996), les brasinostéroïdes interagissent en forte synergie avec les auxines. D'autre part, ils peuvent agir avec les gibbérellines soit comme des auxines soit comme des gibbérellines ou des cytoquinines. En comparant avec l'essai précédent en milieu semi-solide, on constate que le système d'immersion temporaire joint à l'action régulatrice du Biobras a amélioré l'ontogenèse des embryons somatiques de façon positive.En effet, la formation de bourgeons est une des difficultés majeures de l'embryogenèse somatique de beaucoup d'espèces, y compris des conifères (Tautorus et al. 1992, Lelu et al. 1994) ou de l'hévéa (Michaux-Ferrière et al. 1992, Etienne et al. 1997). Cet obstacle peut être surmonté par l'emploi des systèmes d'immersion temporaire. L'impact positif de ce type de dispositif paraît être lié à la façon dont est utilisé le milieu liquide. En effet, ils permettent de cumuler les avantages de l'immersion permanente en évitant les problèmes de vitrification et de manque d'oxygène et ceux de l'immersion partielle sur support inerte (Roberts et Smith 1990) en palliant l'inefficacité de l'absorption et en réduisant les manipulations.Dans les systèmes d'immersion temporaire, la superficie du matériel végétal dans sa totalité est en contact uniforme avec les nutriments du milieu, même quand il n'est pas immergé, car une fine pellicule de milieu adhère par capillarité au tissu végétal. Cette pellicule est insuffisante pour inhiber les échanges gazeux et sa composition chimique se renouvelle à chaque immersion. L'aération est également améliorée puisque chaque immersion régénère aussi le milieu ambiant (Teisson et Alvard 1995). De plus, il se produit une agitation du matériel végétal de brève durée. L'ensemble de ces éléments a permis la germination d'embryons somatiques de diverses espèces (Citrus, Musa, Coffeae), ce qui était jusqu'alors impossible en Erlenmeyers ou en bio réacteurs (Teisson et Alvard 1995), ces derniers étant plus complexes, moins faciles à manipuler et plus onéreux que les RITA (Etienne et al. 1997).Il faut noter que l'usage des RITA a également permis d'éviter l'oxydation des embryons somatiques du cultivar FHIA-18 (AAAB). Bieberach (1995) rapporte des résultats similaires sur d'autres cultivars, dont la plupart des embryons somatiques ont commencé à germer dès le 7 ème jour de mise en culture. On a pu constater le même phénomène avec d'autres systèmes d'immersion temporaire constitués par des récipients de 10 l (compagnie Nalgène) dans lesquels 65,5 à 73 % des embryons (500 à 800 par récipient) ont germé (Gómez, informations non publiées).Les systèmes d'immersion temporaire favorisent donc un développement plus conséquent et synchronisé des embryons somatiques, également décrit par Etienne et al. (1997) sur Hevea brasiliensis (Mull Arg) et Cabasson et al. (1997) sur Citrus deliciosa (Ten).La meilleure densité est de 0,5 g, densité pour laquelle on a obtenu le plus fort pourcentage de germination (85 %). Dans tous les cas de figure, les pourcentages sont de loin très supérieurs à celui du témoin (tableau 3). Ce sont quelques uns des plus élevés jamais atteints pour la germination d'embryons somatiques de bananier et de bananier plantain. Ceci peut être dû à divers facteurs, parmi lesquels les effets positifs de l'immersion temporaire et l'action favorable du régulateur le Biobras-6, décrits précédemment et, bien entendu, le génotype. Jusqu'à aujourd'hui, aucune information spécifique n'a été rapportée à propos de la germination d'embryons somatiques du cultivar hybride FHIA-18 (AAAB).Les pourcentages connus de germination d'embryons somatiques au sein du genre Musa oscillent de 0,45 à 80 % selon les génotypes et les milieux de culture (Bieberach 1995, Cote et al. 1996, Schoof 1997, Grapin et al. 1998).A ce jour, les plus hauts pourcentages de germination sont ceux obtenus par Escalant et al. (1994) qui ont employé aussi les systèmes d'immersion temporaire mais sur d'autres cultivars de bananier.Les résultats obtenus ne montrent pas de différences entre les deux lots de plants provenant soit d'organogenèse, soit d'embryogenèse somatique si ce n'est la taille supérieure développée par ceux d'origine embryogénique (tableau 4). On n'a pas non plus rencontré dans les deux populations de plants atypiques tels que des variants nains géants ou mosaïque (Sandoval et al. 1997). Ces résultats concordent avec ceux de Cote et al. (1999) qui, travaillant sur des suspensions cellulaires du cultivar Grande naine (AAA) et comparant les plants nés de cette technique avec ceux obtenus par organogenèse traditionnelle, n'ont pas noté entre eux de différences morphologiques au champ.Cela ne veut d'ailleurs pas dire qu'il n'y a pas de variations somaclonales mais seulement qu'il n'a pas été possible de les détecter à ce stade de développement. Sandoval et al. (1997) font remarquer qu'on ne peut détecter de toute façon à ce stade là qu'environ 60 % de variations somaclonales. Ils suggèrent donc de poursuivre les évaluations au champ sur plusieurs générations afin de couvrir un cycle de développement. D'autre part, Schoof (1999) signale jusqu'à 97 % de variations somaclonales chez les plants issus des suspensions cellulaires de la variété Williams, variations apparemment dues à la technique des « scalps » employée où de très fortes concentrations de 6-BAP sont utilisées.*des lettres différentes montrent des différences statistiquement significatives pour P < 5 %.Tableau 3. Action de la densité d'inoculation initiale sur la germination d'embryons somatiques du cultivar hybride FHIA-18 (AAAB) au 30 ème jour de culture. miques comme la fructification, le rendement, la qualité et la résistance aux agents pathogènes et aux maladies (Ho et al. 1993(Ho et al. , 1994)). De plus, les techniques de cultures tissulaires facilitent l'induction, la sélection et la diffusion des mutants.La culture de bourgeons in vitro a déjà été utilisée pour induire des mutations sur plusieurs génotypes de Musa, de différents niveaux de ploïdie et de différentes combinaisons des génomes acuminata (A) et balbisiana (B) (Novak et al. 1986).Le travail présenté ici a été réalisé dans le cadre des biotechnologies appliquées actuellement à l'amélioration génétique, avec pour objectifs : • de sélectionner des variants somaclonaux à port bas parmi des populations irradiées du clone FHIA-21, • d'en étudier le comportement face à la cercosporiose noire.On a introduit tout d'abord le matériel végétal au laboratoire pour le multiplier ensuite in vitro selon le protocole décrit par Orellana et al. (1991). On a induit la formation de bourgeons multiples en plaçant les apex dans un milieu MS (1962) complémenté par du 6 benzyle aminopurine (6-BAP) à 20 mg/l; de l'acide indolacétique (AIA) à 0,65 mg/l et du saccharose à 30 g/l, avec un pH de 5,8. Puis, pour induire la variabilité, les bourgeons ont été soumis à des doses de 25 Gy de rayonnement Gamma provenant de la désintégration du C 60 . Ensuite, on a procédé à cinq repiquages jusqu'à régénérer environ 10 000 vitroplants qui ont été sevrés en serre pendant 45 jours avant d'être transplantés au champ à la station expérimentale de Remedios. Pendant tout le temps du développement de la plantation, un travail agricole minimum a été fourni, sans applications de fongicides, pour pouvoir observer la réponse des plants à une pression naturelle.Les évaluations ont consisté à sélectionner les plants présentant des caractères positifs au champ et à étudier la variabilité de la population. On a relevé la hauteur de la plante (en formant trois groupes de niveau), le diamètre du pseudotronc; le nombre total de feuilles, le nombre de feuilles nécrosées par la cercosporiose noire à la formation du régime puis lors de la récolte, le nombre de mains et de doigts du régime (trois groupes de niveau), la longueur du doigt central de la deuxième et de l'avant dernière mains. Les lignées présentant des caractéristiques positives ont été plantées, à raison de cinq plants par lignée, sur la même station expérimentale, de façon à réaliser une étude clonale par comparaison avec le clone original. Les lignées les plus prometteuses ont été transférées in vitro de manière à en augmenter la population et à les étudier dans d'autres environnements.Le travail s'est déroulé selon le schéma suivant (figure 1).Les évaluations ont montré une grande variabilité du matériel végétal en ce qui concerne la hauteur de la plante, le diamètre du pseudotronc, le nombre total de feuilles, les changements au niveau du régime et l'impact de la cercosporiose noire, ce qui montre bien l'efficacité de la combinaison agent mutagène/culture de tissus. Novak et al. (1990) ont obtenu des résultats similaires au cours d'un programme d'amélioration par mutation de clones du genre Musa.On a tout particulièrement constaté un fort taux de variation quant à la hauteur du plant, comme le montre le tableau 1.Les résultats du tableau 1 montrent que l'environnement a une influence bien marquée sur l'une et l'autre des populations. En effet, la hauteur normale du clone original FHIA-21, pendant le premier cycle reproductif, varie de 250 à 300 cm. En outre, on a trouvé dans le lot irradié, parmi les plantes au port le plus bas, plusieurs variants possédant d'autres changements favorables tels que la taille du doigt, la forme du régime et la structure foliaire, très différentes de celles du clone original. Car les objectifs de ce travail n'étaient pas de rechercher seulement des plantes à port bas mais aussi de tenir compte de tout un ensemble de caractères positifs supplémentaires puisque force est de constater que les fréquences de variation de hauteur sont très semblables dans les deux lots irradiés, sélectionnés ou non. Et il est important de souligner que bien des clones de bananiers et de bananiers plantain n'ont pas, au cours de leur premier cycle reproductif, la taille qu'ils atteignent aux cycles suivants.On a aussi noté de grandes variations du nombre de doigts (tableau 2) sur la totalité de la population où 59,86% des plantes portent des régimes en comptant plus de Tableau 1.Variation de la hauteur des plantes durant le 1 er cycle reproductif. 60/ fréquence maintenue chez les plantes sélectionnées (57,1%). Beaucoup d'auteurs ont remarqué que la fréquence des variations phénotypiques et/ou morphologiques (stature de la plante, couleur des feuilles), physiologiques (croissance et multiplication des rejets, durée de floraison, maturation des fruits) et agronomiques (qualités du régime) varie de 3 à 40% chez les plantes de première génération, en fonction de leur génotype et des doses de radiation utilisées (Novak et al. 1990).La fréquence des variations phénotypiques sur les 1 024 premières plantes observées est de 4,78%. Elles font apparaître quatre variants somaclonaux qui pourraient être de type Faux corne bien que deux d'entre eux soient sensibles à la cercosporiose noire (tableau 3). La comparaison des valeurs moyennes et des écarts entre les relevés de la population sélectionnée et ceux de la population totale montre que la population dans son ensemble a une hauteur supérieure à celle de la population sélectionnée (tableau 4). En revanche, le nombre moyen de mains par régime est aux alentours de 6 dans les deux cas. Dans la plupart des cas également, les plantes ont en moyenne plus de 60 doigts par régime. Ceci confirme la corrélation positive existant entre la hauteur d'une plante et le nombre total de doigts par régime.A l'analyse, les valeurs des écarts de la population montrent que la hauteur et le nombre de doigts sont les paramètre les plus variables, comme on l'a déjà signalé.Parmi les plantes sélectionnées, on en a distingué cinq qui présentaient le meilleur profil, en intégrant différents caractères (tableau 5) et qui réagissaient diversement à la cercosporiose noire.En ce qui concerne la hauteur des plantes, on a constaté des différences significatives: entre les lignées elles-mêmes mais aussi entre les lignées et le clone original FHIA-21. Les lignées IBP 24-14 et IBP 47-4 ont les valeurs les plus basses. Cependant, ces dernières ont aussi des résultats inférieurs aux autres lignées et au témoin en ce qui concerne quelques caractères agronomiques importants (nombre de doigts par régime, poids du régime). De plus, elles développent un régime de type Faux corne alors que les autres et le témoin possèdent un régime de type French. En revanche, les lignées IBP 14-23 et IBP 17-13, d'une hauteur significativement plus basse que le témoin FHIA-21, ont un bon comportement agronomique pour les autres indicateurs de rendement. Ceci les rend très prometteuses pour la sélection de plantes à port bas chez cet hybride.Il faut souligner qu'il y a eu une forte attaque généralisée de la cercosporiose noire contre le témoin FHIA-21, qui n'a pu produire des doigts complètement développés, ce qui contredit les rapports ayant conclu à sa haute résistance (Cote et al. 1994).Pendant le premier cycle reproductif (plante mère), la fréquence générale de variation du matériel irradié de l'hybride FHIA-21 a été de 4,78%. Les caractères les plus variables sont la hauteur de la plante et le nombre de doigts par régime entre autres variations morphologiques. Les caractères les plus stables sont le diamètre du pseudotronc et le nombre de mains du régime.Bien que l'hybride FHIA-21 ait un régime de type French, on a rencontré quelques variants produisant un régime de type Faux corne dont la morphologie générale est très différente du clone original.La majeure partie de la population étudiée a été fortement affectée par la cercosporiose noire, bien que l'on ait sélectionné des plantes parvenues à la récolte avec plus de trois feuilles actives. I  (Smith), provoque le flétrissement des feuilles de bananier en commençant par les plus jeunes, ainsi que la nécrose du cigare. Les fruits immatures des plants infectés prennent une couleur jaunâtre et leur pulpe exhibe une pourriture sèche. Lorsque l'infection se produit avant la floraison, elle entraîne un développement anormal du régime dont les fruits pourrissent avant de mûrir, quand le régime n'est pas carrément absent. La maladie de Moko se diffuse sous l'action des insectes, par l'intermédiaire de sol infecté ou par le contact des racines. Ces caractéristiques, ainsi que l'absence de cultivar résistant et la nature rudimentaire des pratiques culturales, font de cette maladie une sérieuse contrainte pour la production bananière (Buddenhagen 1961, Stover 1972, Takatsu 1986, Matos et al. 1996).La race 2 de R. solanacearum a été signalée pour la première fois au Brésil dans la région de l'Amazonie, dans l'État d'Amapá (Tokeshi 1976). Actuellement, elle est également présente dans les États de l'Amazonas, de Para et d'Acre, tous situés dans cette même région (Takatsu 1986). D'après les diagnostics, le nombre de plantations affectées par la souche A de cette race n'a cessé de progresser dans la région au cours des dernières années (Matos et al. 1996, Pereira et al. 1997).Plusieurs gènes récessifs contribuent à la résistance des bananiers à la maladie de Moko (Vakilii 1965, Rowe et Richardson 1975). Stover (1972) a mis en évidence divers degrés de sensibilité à cette maladie chez les cultivars de bananiers. D'après ses résultats, le cultivar Pelipita (ABB) est extrêmement résistant à l'agent pathogène, ce qui fait apparaître la résistance génétique comme une option viable pour lutter contre la maladie de Moko dans les régions où les techniques de production sont rudimentaires (Jones 1995).Pourtant, on n'a réussi à identifier aucun cultivar résistant parmi le matériel suivant, qui a été testé dans un sol naturellement infecté : tétraploïdes (AAAB) tels que PV03-44, JV03-15, PA03-22, Pioneira ; triploïdes (AAA) Caipira, Nam, Nanica, Nanicão, (AAB) Pacovan, Prata, Prata Anã, Mysore, Thap Maeo, Ouro da Mata ; plantains (AAB) Pacovi, Pacovan, Bluggoe et (ABB) Figo (Silva et al. 1998).L'objectif de cette étude consistait à évaluer la réaction de 31 génotypes diploïdes (AA) à l'inoculation de la race 2 de R. solanacearum, en vue de sélectionner des cultivars résistants qui puissent être utilisés comme géniteurs mâles dans le programme d'amélioration des bananiers du Centre national de recherche sur le manioc et les cultures fruitières tropicales (CNPMF) de l'Embrapa.On a évalué un total de 31 génotypes diploïdes (AA) -21 diploïdes naturels et 10 hybrides -provenant de la banque de matériel génétique de bananier du CNPMF située à Cruz das Almas, dans l'État de Bahia. L'essai a été effectué en serre à l'Embrapa Amazonie occidentale (CPAA), dans la municipalité de Manaus, dans l'État de l'Amazonas (nord du Brésil), où la maladie de Moko est endémique.On a inoculé huit plants de chaque diploïde avec le Biovar 1 de la race 2 de R. solanacearum, en injectant 1 ml de suspension bactérienne à une concentration de 10 8 ufc/ml dans le pseudotronc, à 10 cm de la surface du sol.Les symptômes externes ont été évalués à intervalles d'une semaine sur la base de l'échelle suivante : • absence de symptômes • nécrose du cigare • jaunissement de 2-3 feuilles • cassure du pétiole • mort du plant.Les plants dépourvus de symptômes huit semaines après l'inoculation ont été considérés comme résistants à la maladie de Moko.Six semaines après l'inoculation, les plants ont commencé à exhiber des symptômes externes caractéristiques de la maladie de Moko. Tous les plants exprimant des symptômes externes présentaient aussi la décoloration vasculaire typique de l'infection par la race 2 de R. solanacearum. Ces résultats montrent l'efficacité de la technique d'inoculation utilisée pour évaluer ces génotypes diploïdes.Les diploïdes naturels Berlin, Buitenzorg, Fako Fako, Jambi, Jaran, Jari Buaya, Khai, Khi Maeo, Lidi, Microcarpa, NBA 14, NBF 9, Nº 118, Ouro, P. Serum, Pipit, Pa Phathalung, Tongat, Tambi et Zebrina et les hybrides 1304-04, 1318-01, 422306, F3P4, M-48 et M-61 se sont montrés sensibles au Biovar 1 de la race 2 de R. solanacearum. En revanche, les hybrides diploïdes (AA) F2P2, 131901, 1741-01 et SH3362, ainsi que Babi Yadefana, cultivar diploïde de Nouvelle-Guinée, ont fait preuve de résistance à l'agent pathogène. Quelques caractéristiques de ces cinq génotypes résistants sont présentées au tableau 1.Bien qu'on n'ait encore identifié aucune résistance à la maladie de Moko chez des variétés commerciales triploïdes ou tétraploïdes (Vakilii 1965, Silva et al. 1998), les résultats présentés ici montrent qu'il existe une variabilité génétique parmi les génotypes de bananiers diploïdes (AA) qui ont exprimé une résistance à la race 2 de R. solanacearum.La détection de cette résistance chez des diploïdes ouvre la possibilité de créer des variétés commerciales résistantes à la maladie de Moko à l'aide des techniques d'amélioration conventionnelles. Étant donné qu'on n'a évalué jusqu'à présent qu'un petit nombre de Cependant, leur production est affectée par la pression croissante de ravageurs et de maladies. Parmi celles-ci, la plus notoire est la cercosporiose noire (Mycosphaerella fijiensis). Cette maladie fongique a été observée pour la première fois au début des années 80 à Assin-Fosu, dans la région centrale du Ghana. Depuis lors, elle s'est répandue dans toutes les régions productrices de plantain de ce pays. Elle cause des pertes de rendement significatives, allant de 20 à 50 %. Dans des conditions très sévères, ces pertes peuvent même atteindre 80 % (Hemeng et Banful 1994).On peut lutter contre la cercosporiose noire à l'aide de fongicides, mais le coût de ces produits est prohibitif. En outre, ils ont des effets préjudiciables sur un écosystème fragile. C'est pourquoi la méthode de lutte la plus viable consiste à utiliser des hybrides dotés à la fois d'un potentiel de rendement élevé et d'une bonne résistance à la maladie.En 1994, le Crops Research Institute a introduit des hybrides tétraploïdes de Musa de la Fundación Hondureña de Investigación Agrícola (FHIA, Honduras) qui sont dotés de résistance/tolérance à la cercosporiose noire : le bananier dessert FHIA-01, le bananier à cuire FHIA-03 et le French plantain FHIA-21. Cette introduction a eu lieu dans un contexte où tous les cultivars locaux étaient sensibles à la maladie.Des vitroplants de FHIA-21 et FHIA-01 ont été reçus de la FHIA pour cette évaluation. On les a acclimatés sous abri pendant six semaines avant de les planter dans des parcelles.Les essais ont été établis dans trois sites : Fumesua dans la région Ashanti, Assin-Fosu dans la région centrale et Bunso dans l'est du pays. Ces sites ont été choisis en fonction de la diversité des types de sols et de la sévérité de la cercosporiose noire. On a utilisé un dispositif en blocs de Fisher avec trois répétitions. Pour amender le sol, on a appliqué 3 kg de fumier de volaille au moment de la plantation. L'espacement était de 3 m x 2 m (1667 plants/ha).On a évalué la sévérité de la maladie à l'aide de l'échelle de 1 à 10 de Stover, en faisant les observations sur la troisième feuille.Tableau 1. Quelques caractéristiques des génotypes de bananiers diploïdes (AA) résistants à la maladie de Moko. Embrapa Amazonie occidentale, Manaus, Amazonas (Brésil), 1998. Pour enrichir les statistiques de production sur cette culture, une enquête exploratoire chez les exploitants de ce produit a été mise sur pied et conduite à travers les différentes zones productrices du pays.L'enquête a commencé dans le District des Cataractes, territoire de Mbanza-Ngungu, et le District de Bas-Fleuve, territoire de Sehebanza. Trente-six paysans ont été interrogés sur les différents aspects de la culture et de la commercialisation de la banane. Nous publions ci-dessous les résultats de la première partie de cette enquête.Un inventaire des zones productrices de bananes a été effectué dans la province du Bas-Congo. Sur la base des ressources financières et matérielles disponibles, quelques paysans sélectionnés au hasard ont été interrogés par le personnel du Programme bananier de l'INERA M'vuazi. Le nombre de paysans interrogés était proportionnel à la dimension du village.Pour la plupart des paysans interrogés, la banane est à la fois un aliment et une source de revenu. Les cultivateurs n'utilisent presque pas la banane dans la production de boissons locales qui sont généralement à base d'ananas, de canne à sucre et d'orange (tableau 1). En général, ils ne connaissent pas la quantité exacte de bananes produites, consommées ou vendue au marché par an.Bien que la superficie cultivée par chaque paysan ne soit pas connue de façon exacte, les paysans du district du Bas-Fleuve cultivent de plus larges étendues que ceux du district des Cataractes (tableau 2). Ceci s'explique par les quantités de bananes auto-consommées par la population de chaque district (tableau 1), mais aussi par la nature plus ou moins favorable du milieu de production (savane dans le district des Cataractes et forestier dans le Bas-Fleuve). Le travail à la houe ne permet pas aux fermiers de cultiver des superficies dépassant un hectare.La terre appartient principalement à la famille élargie. Certains maris vivant dans les villages des beaux-parents exploitent les terres de la belle-famille. Néanmoins, 27 % des fermiers louent des terres dans le District du Bas-Fleuve, secteur de Sehebanza, là où on rencontre de vastes bananeraies installées en forêt (tableau 3).Tous les paysans interrogés cultivent à la fois les bananes douces et les bananes plantain. Les bananes à cuire et à bière ne sont pas produites dans les districts enquêtés. Certaines familles utilisent dans certaines circonstances la banane douce comme banane à cuire et la banane plantain extra-mûre pour la fabrication des boissons locales.La monoculture de la banane est plus importante dans le district du Bas-Fleuve que dans le district des Cataractes (tableau 4). La culture de case est également plus fréquente dans le district du Bas-Fleuve du fait de l'importance de la banane comme aliment de base chez les populations de ce district.Pour la plupart, les paysans repiquent les rejets directement dans le champ après oeille-Dans chacun des trois sites, FHIA-21 a donné une performance stable sur les trois années de l'expérimentation, tant en ce qui concerne le rendement que les caractéristiques de la croissance (tableau 1). Des résultats similaires ont été enregistrés chez FHIA-01 (tableau 2). Il apparaît donc que la performance de ces deux hybrides n'a été influencée ni par la saison ni par la localisation. Cela signifie qu'en appliquant des méthodes de gestion appropriées, les producteurs seraient assurés d'obtenir de bons rendements avec ces hybrides quelle que soit la date ou la saison de plantation, à condition que le régime hydrique soit adéquat.Chez FHIA-03 (bananier à cuire), le rendement et la croissance ont été également stables tout au long de la période d'évaluation (tableau 3). Les caractères agronomiques n'ont pas été affectés par le site.Toutefois, cet hybride n'a pas été apprécié par les consommateurs.Si l'on compare la performance de FHIA-21 avec celle des cultivars locaux Apem pa et Apem oniaba, l'hybride a fait preuve d'une supériorité de croissance et de rendement dans tous les sites expérimentaux (tableau 4). Les plants de FHIA-21 avaient une hauteur inférieure de 21 % à la hauteur moyenne des cultivars locaux et une circonférence du pseudotronc supérieure de 8 %, ce qui signifie qu'ils sont plus robustes. Il y a donc davantage de chances pour que les plants de FHIA-21 ne versent pas. D'après une étude antérieure (Hemeng et al. 1994) La fertilisation des bananiers avec des engrais chimiques ou organiques est nécessaire pour assurer une bonne nutrition aux plantes en croissance. La majorité des paysans ne fertilisent pas les cultures de bananes. Ceux qui le font utilisent les déchets organiques (10% dans le district des Cataractes). L'utilisation des fertilisants chimiques est inexistante dans le milieu paysan.Il y a 30 ans, la culture de la banane dans le district du Bas-Fleuve était une culture à échelle industrielle et produisait des quantités énormes de bananes « Gros Michel » qui étaient exportées vers la Belgique. La dégénérescence des cultivars et la destruction continuelle des anciennes plantations ont rendu l'approvisionnement en matériel de plantation difficile pour les paysans.Le matériel de plantation est en grande partie produit de façon naturelle par les paysans eux-mêmes. Certains obtiennent de leurs voisins du matériel de qualité supérieure grâce à leurs bonnes relations avec eux. Les achats sur le marché sont rares (tableau 5).Les paysans stockent leur produits de plusieurs façons. La plupart gardent le produit de leur récolte au village dans les hangars des cases et des maisonnettes construites à côté des cases pour une meilleure surveillance et pour éviter le vol (tableau 6).La culture de la banane est souvent affectée par diverses maladies cryptogamiques, bactériennes, virales, et par les dégâts causés par les ravageurs. Seul le charançon appelé « Nyombé » est reconnu par la plupart des paysans interrogés. De façon générale, et par manque de formation, les paysans ne reconnaissent pas les différentes maladies. Par exemple, la cercosporiose noire du bananier est pour eux une sécheresse des feuilles due à la vieillesse du bananier.Avec qui le paysan ou la paysanne travaille-t-il (t-elle) au champ ? Dans plus de 40 % des cas, la famille restreinte (mari, femme, enfants) participe aux travaux des champs. Malgré tout, un grand nombre de maris travaillent seul au champ pendant que les épouses s'occupent d'autres activités d'intérêt familial (tableau 7).Les usages de la banane sont multiples et varient d'une zone à une autre. Tous les paysans enquêtés utilisent la banane douce comme dessert. Parmi eux, certains consomment également la banane plantain sous forme de bouillie ou de pâte servant de condiment aux autres nourritures (tableau 8).Pour les paysans enquêtés, la banane est avant tout une source de revenus. La part auto-consommée représente environ 30 % du total produit (tableau 9).Très peu de paysans vendent les régimes de bananes au champ. La grande majorité vend sa récolte au village chez les intermédiaires qui viennent des centres urbains. Là où il existe de bonnes voies d'accès aux villages, comme dans le Bas-Fleuve, la vente de la banane dans les villages est importante (tableau 10).Dans le district des Cataractes, où les routes de dessertes agricoles sont souvent en mauvais état, peu de commerçants viennent jusqu'au village. Beaucoup de paysans se déplacent eux-mêmes vers les marchés locaux pour vendre leurs produits (tableau 10). I Tableau 1. Destination de la banane produite par les paysans. Les bananes à cuire : Quel potentiel ?J. Cabrera Cabrera et V. Galán Saúco L a culture de la banane à cuire aux îles Canaries se limite à quelques plantes isolées en bordure de champs ou dans des jardins et il n'en n'existe pas de culture commerciale ou de négoce organisé.C'est dans le but de réaliser une première exploration, tant du point de vue agronomique que commercial, que l'on a expérimenté le cultivar 'Topocho Verde' (ABB). Le fruit de ce cultivar est bien connu et apprécié des émigrés latino-américains en provenance principalement de Cuba et du Venezuela et qui représentent des groupes importants de population non seulement sur les Iles Canaries mais aussi en Espagne et dans l'Europe entière.De plus, l'intérêt porté à la diversification de l'offre gastronomique dans le secteur touristique, pilier de l'économie des Iles Canaries, pourrait contribuer à promouvoir l'implantation de ce cultivar ou d'autres du même type.L'expérimentation s'est faite sur deux parcelles situées dans des zones différentes : une à l'air libre, à Guía de Isora au Sud de Tenerife et l'autre en serres de 9 m de haut, à Gáldar au Nord de l'île de Gran Canaria.Le matériel végétal utilisé provenait de la collection de matériel génétique de l'ICIA et sa multiplication in vitro a été assurée par le département des plantes ornementales et d'horticulture de ce même institut, garantis-sant par là même son bon état sanitaire. On pense que ce clone est semblable à celui appelé 'Bluggoe' ou 'Cachaco'.Dans le tableau ci-dessous sont regroupées les principales données de la mise en route de l'expérimentation.Dans les deux parcelles, on a appliqué un arrosage local fertilisant et un programme de soins culturaux conformes à ceux habituellement employés pour le cultivar 'Grande naine'. En serre, pendant le deuxième cycle reproductif cependant, on a taillé le pseudotronc à 1,50 m du sol pour éviter la hauteur excessive des plantes.On a relevé les données les plus significatives pour pouvoir évaluer aussi bien les pratiques agronomiques que la productivité des deux types de plantation.D'autre part, on a suivi le devenir des fruits de la récolte jusqu'à la vente au consommateur pour en étudier le potentiel commercial et le degré d'acceptation sur le marché local.Les données du tableau 1 montrent les résultats obtenus sur les deux parcelles étudiées et permettent d'estimer que le rendement pourraient s'élever à environ 40 tonnes à l'hectare.En serre, la taille des plantes au deuxième cycle de production, destinée à éviter un port trop haut, a provoqué une considérable réduction des récoltes. Il serait donc nécessaire de rechercher des clones de port plus bas, ce qui faciliterait par ailleurs les manipulations et augmenterait la résistance au vent des plantations à l'air libre.C'est pour cette raison que, en vue d'une future évaluation, on est en train de multiplier in vitro un clone nain introduit du Venezuela et cultivé aux Canaries par un producteur local. Parallèlement, d'autres mutants dont l'éventuel port bas pourrait être intéressant sont actuellement sélectionnés.Par ailleurs, on a remarqué des plantes dont les fruits ont une couleur argentée plus ou moins intense, bien qu'il ne soit pas possible à l'heure actuelle de confirmer si ce caractère se maintiendra sur les cycles suivants. Si tel était le cas, il faudrait sélectionner des lignées différenciées, recommencer le cycle in vitro pour les multiplier et vérifier la stabilité de ce paramètre.En ce qui concerne le degré d'acceptation sur le marché local, on peut affirmer qu'il est très élevé puisque les fruits ont été payés plus du double des bananes dessert.Il faut souligner à ce propos l'avantage certain que représente, pour l'agriculteur comme pour le commerçant, la vente des fruits verts, sans nécessité de mûrissement préalable, comme cela est le cas pour les bananes dessert.Pouvoir proposer une banane à cuire qui comble un vide, même minime, du marché A cette occasion, l'importance actuelle de la banane à cuire dans diverses zones du monde (Asie, Amérique et Afrique) a été exposée. Les discussions ont porté sur les groupes ou cultivars les plus importants en fonction de leurs caractéristiques agronomiques et sur les potentialités que ces types de bananier pourrait représenter éventuellement en zones subtropicales. Il a été suggéré qu'il pourrait être très inté-ressant d'ouvrir un espace international de travail, coordonné par l'INIBAP, pour évaluer du matériel végétal différent du bananier Cavendish en zones subtropicales.Pour conclure, on a procédé à un premier recensement des différents bananiers à cuire, ainsi que quelques types de bananier autres que Cavendish, susceptibles d'être évalués en zones subtropicales. Une attention toute particulière a été portée au paramètre « port bas » des plantes. Cette liste inclut les origines possibles d'où devraient provenir ces cultivars avec un maximum de garanties afin qu'ils soient confiés à l'INIBAP pour une étude ultérieure, qui pourrait comprendre une caractérisation et une évaluation en zones subtropicales. Trois des présentations faites lors de la réunion sont publiées ci-après. d'une moyenne de 10 tonnes/ha/an, on produit environ 12 millions de kilocalories/ha/an ; et, sur la base d'un coût moyen de production de 1 000 $US/ha, on obtient une production de 6 000 kilocalories pour un dollar.Les systèmes de culture et de production, très diversifiés, présentent divers aspects : Les degrés de sensibilité des différents types de bananiers aux cercoporioses jaune et noire, à la fusariose, au charançon et aux nématodes sont présentés dans le tableau 2.Bien que les exportations de bananes hors Cavendish se limitent à l'heure actuelle aux marchés 'niches', qu'ils soient d'origine touristique ou 'ethnique', il est indéniable que le marché bananier européen s'entrouve à ces autres types de bananes (Loeillet 1999, tableau 3). L a banane est l'un des fruits les plus anciennement cultivés par l'homme. La première source connue la mentionnant est le Ramayana, poème épique sanscrit rédigé il y a des siècles. Le magnifique temple bouddhique de Borobudur, édifié dans le centre de Java en Indonésie vers 850 avant J.-C., est orné de bas-reliefs dont certains représentent l'offrande de bananes au Bouddha. Les armées victorieuses d'Alexandre le Grand ont constaté la présence de la banane dans la basse vallée de l'Indus, en Inde, en 327 avant J.-C. Dans le sud de la Chine également, la culture de la banane est attestée de longue date. Les manuscrits de l'ère de la dynastie Han (206 avant-J.-C. -220) en faisaient mention il y a plus de 2000 ans. Étant donné l'ancienneté de sa présence en Inde et en Chine, où elle est domestiquée depuis des temps immémoriaux et où l'on trouve une grande diversité de cultivars de bananiers dessert et bananiers à cuire, certains auteurs ont cru pouvoir conclure que la banane était originaire de l'un de ces deux pays. Cependant, les missions de prospection effectuées en Asie au milieu de ce siècle ont dévoilé la richesse insoupçonnée des ressources génétiques de Musa et montré que la banane a plus probablement son origine dans l'Asie du Sud-Est.La classification et la nomenclature des bananiers se sont présentées dès le début sous un jour complexe. Le problème est parti de la description simpliste que Carl von Linné, père de la nomenclature botanique moderne, a donnée du bananier plantain, Musa paradisiaca Linn., et du bananier dessert, Musa sapientum Linn. La situation se trouvait compliquée par le nombre très limité de spécimens qui étaient disponibles en Europe quand Linné a opté pour ces dénominations originelles. Si la différenciation entre les bananiers plantain, type particulier de bananier à cuire, et les bananiers dessert est valable pour l'Afrique et l'Amérique latine, son adoption en Asie du Sud-Est a conduit à la confusion. En effet, dans le centre de diversité des Musa, beaucoup de cultivars locaux possèdent des caractéristiques qui ne correspondent pas aux critères de diagnostic utilisés ailleurs pour distinguer les bananiers et les bananiers plantain.Dans le centre de diversité des bananiers, bon nombre de cultivars sont classés comme ayant une double utilisation, leurs fruits pouvant être consommés soit à l'état brut, soit après cuisson. Il existe aussi beaucoup de cultivars amylacés à cuire, qui ont des fruits courts, épais et angulaires à fleurs mâles et bractées déhiscentes. Ces bananiers à cuire sont distincts des bananiers plantain et ne peuvent être classés dans Musa paradisiaca. En outre, la grande diversité des bananiers dessert, si l'on considère leur hauteur de plant ainsi que la dimension et la couleur de leur fruit (jaune, vert, rouge ou orange), déborde largement le cadre plutôt restrictif de la description originelle de Musa sapientum. Face à la riche diversité du matériel génétique dans le centre d'origine des bananiers, les taxinomistes qui sont venus après Linné ont eu recours à des noms descriptifs tels que Musa nana Lour. pour Dwarf Cavendish, Musa rubra Firming. von Wall. pour Red, Musa corniculata Lour. pour le plantain corne, etc. La prolifération de noms scientifiques n'a fait qu'ajouter à la confusion et les choses seraient allées de mal en pis sans Cheesman (1948) et Simmonds et Shepherd (1955), qui ont expliqué l'origine des bananiers comestibles et proposé un nouveau système de classification.S'appuyant sur leur connaissance de la génétique et leur vaste expérience de la cytotaxinomie, Simmonds et Shepherd ont établi que les noms scientifiques linnéens Musa paradisiaca et Musa sapientum correspon-(AAA). Divers clones peuvent se développer normalement dans les conditions climatiques subtropicales, en les soumettant à une première étape de tests de comportement, tant sur le plan agronomique que pendant la période post-récolte/mûrissement. Aux Canaries, la mise en valeur de la production de ces variétés dépend des réalités du marché po-tentiel, qui ne peut être de grande envergure : il s'agit, en effet, de marchés \"niches\" limités répondant à la demande touristique ou \"éthnique\" (consommation locale, péninsulaire et européenne). I daient à des cultivars hybrides et ont recommandé leur abandon. De même, ils sont parvenus à la conclusion que les bananiers comestibles étaient dérivés de deux espèces sauvages séminifères, Musa acuminata Colla et Musa balbisiana Colla, qui sont endémiques à l'Asie du Sud-Est. Cheesman a identifié trois groupes de cultivars distincts sur le plan morphologique. Le premier groupe présente principalement les caractères botaniques de Musa acuminata, et le second groupe ceux de Musa balbisiana. Quant au troisième, il se compose de cultivars qui combinent les caractères morphologiques des deux espèces sauvages et sont considérés comme leurs hybrides naturels. Les bananiers comestibles primitifs étaient des diploïdes nés du développement de la stérilité et de la parthénocarpie chez Musa acuminata. Du fait de l'action de sélection de l'homme, divers clones ont été mis en culture, notamment dans les régions pluvieuses de l'Asie du Sud-Est. Plus tard, avec la restitution de chromosomes, des cultivars triploïdes parthénocarpiques sont apparus. Ces triploïdes, étant plus vigoureux et plus productifs, sont devenus populaires. Selon Cheesman, il faut considérer que les cultivars diploïdes parthénocarpiques comestibles de Musa acuminata font partie de la même espèce que leurs ancêtres sauvages, car ils en ont conservé les caractères morphologiques. Il en va de même des cultivars triploïdes parthénocarpiques comestibles nés de la restitution de chromosomes, car l'ajout d'un jeu de chromosomes par autopolyploïdie n'a rien introduit de nouveau dans la constitution génomique de ces clones. Dans les zones plus sèches de l'Asie du Sud-Est où prédomine le type sauvage séminifère Musa balbisiana, il s'est produit une évolution parallèle qui a conduit à l'apparition de cultivars purs balbisiana diploïdes et triploïdes (Valmayor et al. 1991). Le développement de la stérilité et de la parthénocarpie n'ayant pas modifié significativement les caractères morphologiques des clones qui en ont résulté, il convient d'appliquer également le nom scientifique Musa balbisiana à ces cultivars diploïdes et triploïdes comestibles issus de parents sauvages balbisiana. Dans le centre d'origine des bananiers, la distribution naturelle des Musa acuminata et Musa balbisiana sauvages se recouvre et, les deux espèces étant compatibles, des croisements ont eu lieu. Les hybrides issus de ces croisements naturels entre les deux espèces comprennent des diploïdes, des triploïdes et quelques tétraploïdes de combinaisons génomiques diverses. L'un des problèmes posés par les dénominations originelles Musa paradisiaca et Musa sapientum est le fait qu'elles correspondent à des hybrides. Cependant, d'après les règles de l'ICNCP (Code international de nomenclature pour les plantes cultivées), on peut aussi donner un nom scientifique à un hybride. Toutefois, il faut alors faire précéder l'épithète du préfixe x pour indiquer qu'il s'agit d'une espèce hybride. Dans le cas des cultivars de bananiers hybrides, il convient d'adopter Musa x paradisiaca Linn., cette désignation binominale ayant été publiée antérieurement à Musa sapientum et étant reconnue de fait comme l'espèce type pour le bananier. Musa x paradisiaca Linn. s'applique à tous les hybrides de Musa acuminata et Musa balbisiana, quelle que soit leur composition génomique (Greuter 1994, Karamura 1998).La composition génomique des cultivars de bananiers permet de différencier les variétés dessert des variétés à cuire. Tous les clones Musa balbisiana purs sont des bananiers à cuire, tandis que beaucoup de variétés Musa acuminata pures sont des bananiers dessert. Parmi les hybrides, on trouve des cultivars à double utilisation (pouvant être consommés soit à l'état brut, soit après cuisson), des bananiers dessert et des bananiers à cuire, dont les bananiers plantain. Le terme générique plantain s'applique exclusivement à un sousgroupe spécifique de bananiers à cuire, qui ne comprend pas les nombreux et différents cultivars à cuire très populaires en Asie. En revanche, le terme bananier ne se limite pas aux variétés dessert, mais couvre également tous les bananiers à cuire, y compris les bananiers plantain. Autrement dit, tous les bananiers plantain sont des bananiers, mais tous les bananiers ne sont pas des bananiers plantain ! C'est la raison pour laquelle les langues de l'Asie du Sud-Est ne font pas la distinction entre les termes étrangers « bananier » et « plantain ». Le nom communément utilisé : « pisang » en Malaisie et en Indonésie, « saging » aux Philippines, « kluai » en Thaïlande, « choui » au Viêt-nam et « chiao » en Chine, s'applique à tous les bananiers dessert et à cuire, y compris les bananiers plantain.Le centre d'origine des bananiers est également leur centre de diversité. En Asie du Sud-Est, les consommateurs ont le choix entre une large gamme de variétés dessert et à cuire. Celles-ci varient par leur couleur, leur dimension, leur forme et leur utilisation. Les principaux cultivars commerciaux de cette région sont présentés au tableau 1.Il existe quatre systèmes de production bananière en Asie du Sud-Est. Le plus commun est la culture de jardin, pratiquée essentiellement pour l'autoconsommation. Le choix des cultivars dépend des besoins familiaux (bananes dessert ou à cuire), de la qualité préférée par les membres du ménage et de la facilité de production. Dans ce système, la main-d'oeuvre est entièrement fournie par la famille. On n'applique pas d'engrais chimiques ou pesticides commerciaux, mais seulement du compost et du fumier animal.Le deuxième système, par ordre d'importance, est la culture associée. Dans l'Asie du Sud-Est, la production fruitière est principalement le fait de petits paysans qui cultivent les bananiers aux côtés d'autres plantes. Dans ce système, la banane peut être la culture principale ou occuper une place secondaire, et il peut s'agir d'une culture permanente ou temporaire. Il est d'usage dans la région de planter des bananiers pour protéger des plantes umbrophiles telles que le cacaoyer, le caféier, le poivrier noir, le muscadier, etc. Mais les bananiers sont parfois aussi plantés à l'ombre d'arbres de plus haute taille, comme c'est le cas dans les plantations de cocotiers. En Malaisie et dans le sud des Philippines où les cultures de plantation sont largement pratiquées, on trouve souvent les bananiers en culture intercalaire temporaire entre les jeunes pieds d'hévéas ou de palmiers à huile. Les bananiers assurent alors des revenus pendant la phase non productive de la culture permanente. Une fois que la culture principale est bien établie, les bananiers commençant à gêner la croissance des hévéas ou palmiers à huile, on les élimine. Dans certaines zones des Philippines, on trouve des cultures multi-étagées combinant cocotiers, bananiers, papayers et ananas. Une association culturale particulièrement adaptée à l'Asie du Sud-est consiste à planter des cultures de cycle court entre les rangées de jeunes bananiers.La petite plantation commerciale, pratiquant la monoculture de la banane sur une superficie de 2 à 20 ha, est un système de production de plus en plus répandu. On rencontre ce système surtout aux abords des centres urbains, où la demande du marché est élevée et stable. Le choix des cultivars est dicté par les préférences des consommateurs, les conditions agroclimatiques locales et les problèmes de ravageurs et de maladies. Dans ces petites exploitations commerciales, les producteurs appliquent des engrais chimiques et des pesticides. Ils font également appel à de la main-d'oeuvre salariée pour désherber et, dans certains cas, irriguer les plants.Enfin, on trouve, surtout aux Philippines, de grandes plantations commerciales qui produisent des bananes pour l'exportation. Ce sont des entreprises capitalistiques modernes, qui font de gros investissements en infrastructures et se plient aux exigences très rigoureuses du marché d'exportation. Appliquant des méthodes culturales optimales, elles ont une productivité très élevée et prêtent la plus grande attention à la qualité de leurs produits.Les ouragans tropicaux et les cyclones sont la principale contrainte climatique affectant la production commerciale de la banane en Asie et dans le Pacifique. En effet, les bananiers sont sensibles aux vents forts, surtout quand il s'agit de cultivars de haute taille qui portent un lourd régime. Les ouragans, qui s'accompagnent de vents soufflant entre 54 et 72 km/heure, font chuter un grand nombre de plants, tandis que les cyclones, avec des vents de plus de 72 km/heure, peuvent entièrement détruire les plantations. Taiwan, la Chine méridionale, le Viêt-nam, le nord et le centre des Philippines, ainsi que beaucoup d'îles du Pacifique Sud sont exposés chaque année à ces cataclysmes. Cependant, il s'agit d'un phénomène saisonnier qui coïncide avec la saison de la mousson. Après avoir subi de lourdes pertes du fait d'ouragans tropicaux et de cyclones qui surviennent avec une régularité prévisible, les planteurs de Taiwan et de la région d'Ilocos dans le nord des Philippines ont adopté un calendrier de plantation et des méthodes de gestion qui permettent de minimiser les dégâts causés par les vents forts (Valmayor et al. 1998). Dans le nord des Philippines par exemple, les cyclones tropicaux sévissent de juin à novembre, avec une fréquence plus élevée pendant les mois de juillet, août et septembre. Pour éviter les dégâts, les producteurs plantent en mai, de façon que les plants de bananiers n'aient qu'une faible hauteur et ne subissent qu'un minimum de dommages lors du passage des cyclones sur la région. Les pluies de mousson diminuant à partir de novembre, il n'y a plus de cyclones jusqu'en juin de l'année suivante. Grâce à l'irrigation, les plants poursuivent leur croissance et leur développement et fleurissent fin février ou début mars, les fruits parvenant à maturité en avril ou mai, soit un an après la plantation. On récolte avant le retour des ouragans. L'application rigoureuse de ce système se traduit par un cycle de culture annuel. Après la récolte, les bananes se font très rares sur le marché, mais les producteurs évitent ainsi les lourdes pertes dues aux cyclones. Cela suppose de n'utiliser que des cultivars ayant un cycle de 12 mois ou moins. Il faut éliminer tous les rejets qui poussent de juillet à janvier, car si on les laissait se développer, cela n'aurait pour effet que de les exposer à des dommages durant la saison des cyclones suivante. On laisse ensuite pousser les rejets qui se développent après la floraison, mais on ne prend soin que de l'un d'entre eux, le plus vigoureux, afin de remplacer le pied mère et d'assurer un deuxième cycle de culture. Pour compenser le fait qu'on ne récolte qu'un régime par touffe et par cycle de 12 mois, il est recommandé d'adopter une densité serrée avec un espacement de 2 x 2 mètres.En Thaïlande, la menace vient des inondations qui submergent les plaines alluviales dans la région de Bangkok, et cela en particulier pendant la saison des pluies. La nappe phréatique étant subaffleurante et le drainage insuffisant, les producteurs plantent les bananiers sur des levées ou diguettes aménagées entre les canaux de drainage. Mesurant 2 à 3 mètres de large et plusieurs mètres de long, ces levées sont construites avec la terre retirée des canaux. Quand elles atteignent une hauteur d'un mètre au-dessus du niveau de l'eau dans les canaux, on y plante des rangées de bananiers. Les paysans viêt-namiens utilisent le même dispositif dans le delta du fleuve Mekong, notamment à proximité de Saigon. Dans les deux pays, les producteurs les plus modernes drainent l'excès d'eau à l'aide de pompes volumétriques pendant la saison de la mousson et prélèvent de l'eau dans les canaux pour irriguer leurs bananiers pendant la saison sèche.La sécheresse et les éruptions volcaniques sont les autres catastrophes naturelles qui menacent la production bananière en Asie du Sud-Est. Dans l'est de l'Indonésie et les régions occidentales de Luçon et des Visayas aux Philippines, où la saison des pluies dure longtemps, les producteurs plantent des variétés de constitution génomique balbisiana pure (BBB) tolérant la sécheresse comme Pisang Kepok, Saba et Cardaba, tandis que dans les zones sèches de Thaïlande et de Malaisie, le cultivar favori est un hybride de constitution génomique ABB connu localement sous l'appellation de Kluai Namwa ou Pisang Awak. Les producteurs de bananes de cette région sont impuissants face aux éruptions volcaniques, mais celles-ci sont rares et leurs effets sont généralement plus circonscrits que ceux des cyclones et de la sécheresse.Les bananes sont vendues et consommées principalement à l'état brut. Cependant, les bananes à cuire et les bananes plantain font aussi d'excellentes chips, que les habitants des pays du Sud-Est asiatique apprécient à toute heure de la journée. Les Philippines sont le principal exportateur de chips de banane du monde, le volume exporté représentant environ 22 millions de dollars par an. La Thaïlande et l'Indonésie occupent aussi une place de premier plan sur ce marché. Les autres produits dérivés de la banane sont surtout le ketchup et les aliments pour bébé en conserve. I L'auteur est chercheur honoraire de l'INIBAP.Tableau 1. Principaux cultivars commerciaux de bananiers de l'Asie du Sud-Est. Quelle variété de bananier cultiver?J. Daniells E n Australie comme ailleurs, les producteurs sont à la recherche de nouvelles variétés de bananiers pour plusieurs raisons : 1)apparition de nouvelles maladies ou de nouvelles souches de maladies exotiques ; 2)désir de réduire les applications de pesticides ; 3)orientation vers de nouveaux créneaux commerciaux.Au cours des 15 dernières années, le Queensland Department of Primary Industries, en Australie, a évalué les caractères agronomiques et la résistance aux maladies de centaines de variétés. Ces essais ont montré qu'il n'existe pas de variété « idéale » -capable de résister à tous les ravageurs et à toutes les maladies, fournissant des rendements élevés, se conservant bien et ayant bon goût. Chaque variété présente des avantages et des inconvénients. Nous nous efforcerons, dans cet article, de donner des informations utiles sur les meilleures variétés identifiées par le QDPI. Mais que le lecteur soit prévenu : un génotype amélioré ne suffira sans doute pas à résoudre ses problèmes de production. Les méthodes holistiques de gestion intégrée de la culture ont aussi beaucoup à apporter (Daniells 1998).Le tableau 1 présente une liste des meilleures variétés, avec leurs avantages et leurs inconvénients. Il est à noter que leur comportement peut varier en fonction de l'environnement dans lequel elles sont cultivées et des souches de maladies auxquelles elles se trouvent expo-sées. L'utilisation d'une variété comme banane dessert ou à cuire dépend pour une large part des préférences culturelles. On pourra déterminer à partir de cette liste les variétés les mieux adaptées à un contexte particulier.La plupart des variétés susceptibles de remplacer les variétés Cavendish sont inférieures à celles-ci sur le plan du rendement. Par conséquent, si on les cultive pour le marché local ou pour l'exportation, il faut qu'elles se vendent à meilleur prix que les Cavendish et/ou qu'elles aient un coût de production plus bas. Certaines variétés, comme Sucrier, ont un cycle très court, mais cela ne suffit pas à compenser le faible poids de leur régime.En règle générale, les variétés naines résistent mieux au vent et peuvent être aisément étayées avec un tuteur ou de la ficelle. Il est également plus facile de gérer les maladies foliaires, les parasites du régime, la coupe du bourgeon mâle, le gainage du régime et la récolte chez les variétés naines. Malheureusement, celles-ci sont davantage sujettes à l'engorgement et leurs fruits sont parfois de petite taille. Il existe aussi d'autres stratégies pour minimiser les pertes dues au vent (Daniells 1991b).Pratiquement toutes les variétés de bananiers et de plantains peuvent se consommer soit telles quelles à l'état mûr (dessert), soit cuites à l'état vert ou mûr, le choix étant dicté par les préférences culturelles. Il reste à évaluer les diverses utilisations possibles de beaucoup de variétés « nouvelles ».La gravité de la maladie dépend du degré de résistance ou sensibilité de la variété, de l'intensité de l'infection, des conditions environnementales et de la « souche » de l'agent pathogène. L'incidence atteint son maximum sous climat chaud et humide et en présence de quantités importantes d'inoculum. TU8 (T8), qui se montrait autrefois extrêmement résistante à la cercosporiose noire dans les îles Cook (Fullerton 1990), y est devenue sensible La stature basse du «Dwarf French Plantain» rend l'entretien de la plante plus facile.Tableau 1. Liste de variétés -caractéristiques générales et résistance aux maladies.  dans cet environnement à la suite de l'apparition de nouvelles souches de la maladie. La cercosporiose noire sévit dans beaucoup de pays producteurs de bananes, mais elle est encore absente de certaines aires de production importantes comme certaines parties du Brésil, l'Australie, certaines parties de l'Asie du Sud-Est, ainsi que des zones tropicales de haute altitude (Cameroun). Dans ces régions, la cercosporiose jaune demeure la principale affection foliaire.Les différentes races de Fusarium figurant sur notre liste ont été identifiées sur la base de l'interaction hôte/agent pathogène. Bien que les isolats de Foc aient été caractérisés génétiquement de plusieurs manières au cours des 10 dernières années, on se sert encore principalement de la race pour déterminer la variation pathogénique de ce champignon. On distingue traditionnellement quatre races de Foc. Les races 1, 2 et 4 s'attaquent aux bananiers, tandis que la race 3 affecte Heliconia et n'a qu'une action faiblement pathogène vis-à-vis des bananiers. A ce jour, on ne connaît que très peu de variétés capables de résister à la race 4 de Foc. Les mesures de quarantaine sont extrêmement importantes pour arrêter la diffusion de cet agent pathogène.On rencontre diverses races de Fusarium dans la plupart des régions productrices de bananes, à l'exception du Pacifique Sud où cette maladie est absente. Les hybrides des programmes d'amélioration qui sont rejetés en raison de leur sensibilité à cette maladie peuvent donc avoir une utilité dans des régions comme le Pacifique Sud où la résistance à la fusariose n'est pas nécessaire pour l'instant. Tel est le cas, par exemple, de SH-3697 -hybride de Maqueño à rendement élevé et résistant à la cercosporiose noire, mais sensible à la race 1 de Foc.Il est à noter qu'il existe une gradation dans la résistance à la fusariose. Ainsi, dans le nord du Queensland, Lady Finger (AAB, Pome) est nettement moins sensible à la race 1 de Foc que Sugar (AAB, Silk). Les conditions environnementales peuvent aussi influer sur la gravité de la maladie.Certaines variétés sont sujettes au dégrain lorsqu'elles mûrissent (les fruits se détachant du coussinet), ce qui a parfois empêché l'adoption d'hybrides dans certaines régions (Marriott 1980). Cependant, on peut minimiser le phénomène du dégrain en faisant varier les conditions de mûrissement (température plus basse) et le stade de la maturation auquel on procède à la récolte (Paull 1996, Seberry et Harris 1998).Les bananes exportées doivent pouvoir se conserver pendant le transport et le stockage. L'un des grands mérites des bananes de type Cavendish est que, dans de bonnes conditions, elles ont une longue durée de vie verte. D'autres variétés ne sont pas aussi bien adaptées à l'exportation. Cependant, avec des techniques comme l'emballage sous atmosphère modifiée et avec une bonne gestion, on peut surmonter ce problème (Daniells 1991a).Les variétés suivantes offrent un bon potentiel pour les créneaux commerciaux existant en Australie ainsi que pour l'exportation :   Ce bulletin concerne l'utilisation des vitroplants de bananiers à Taiwan. Un programme de culture de tissus de bananiers a été mis en place dans ce pays en 1983. Destiné initialement à produire des plantules indemnes de fusariose, il a été élargi par la suite aux maladies virales et a fourni à ce jour un total de 26 millions de vitroplants. Le bulletin décrit les systèmes de production utilisant des vitroplants, dont il examine les avantages et les inconvénients (par exemple, leur sensibilité aux herbicides). Il donne aussi des détails sur les méthodes culturales permettant d'éviter que les plants sains soient infectés par les virus une fois qu'ils sont dans le champ. Enfin, il montre que la technologie de la culture de tissus est à la portée des petits exploitants, à condition que ceux-ci reçoivent l'appui technique nécessaire. Cette publication reprend une communication présentée à l'origine à un séminaire international sur « La gestion des maladies des bananiers et des agrumes : utilisation et gestion de matériel végétal indemne de maladie » qui a eu lieu du 14 au 16 octobre 1998 à Davao, aux Philippines. Bulletin 460, Food and Fertilizer Technology Centre, Taiwan, November 1998.Le Taiwan Banana Research Institute (TBRI) a récemment fourni deux nouvelles variétés de bananiers à l'INIBAP. Il s'agit de variants somaclonaux de Cavendish, GCTCV-106 et GCTCV-247, que les chercheurs de cet institut ont sélectionnés pour leur bon rendement et leur résistance à la race subtropicale 4 de la fusariose. L'INIBAP est en train de procéder à leur indexation pour les virus, avant de les mettre à disposition pour des évaluations à l'échelle mondiale.On a récemment détecté une nouvelle forme de pourriture de la souche dans plusieurs plantations de bananiers du nord du Queensland, ainsi qu'une maladie appelée Mokillo, qui se produit occasionnellement dans la région et provoque la pourriture des doigts. Précédemment décrite sous l'appellation de « butt rot » causée par Erwinia carotovora subsp. carotovora, la pourriture de la souche apparaît endémique dans le nord du Queensland. Récemment, on a identifié les bactéries E. chrysanthemi, E. chrysanthemi subsp. carotovora et E.c. subsp. atroseptica dans des échantillons de souches et de coeurs de pseudotronc pourris en provenance de plusieurs plantations de la région. La sévérité des symptômes semble en corrélation avec les espèces d'Erwinia présentes dans les tissus infectés. D'après ces observations, il semble que la pourriture de la souche est causée par E. chrysanthemi et E.c. subsp. atroseptica, tandis que la pourriture du coeur du pseudotronc est principalement causée par E.c. subsp. carotovora.En ce qui concerne la pourriture des doigts (Mokillo), on a isolé les bactéries E. chrysanthemi dans des échantillons de fruits pourris et des tests en laboratoire ont confirmé leur pathogénicité.C'est la première fois qu'on identifiait E.c. subsp. atroseptica chez des bananiers et qu'on constatait que des isolats de E. chrysanthemi causant la pourriture de la souche pouvaient aussi être à l'origine du Mokillo.Source : Australian Bananas, vol. 8, déc. 1999, Australian Banana Growers' Council Inc. La lutte biologique contre les nématodes : bientôt une réalité ?Des chercheurs du Queensland (Australie) ont identifié des champignons ayant une action pathogène vis-à-vis des nématodes des bananiers. Après avoir criblé des échantillons de sol en provenance de zones tropicales et subtropicales du Queensland et de Nouvelle-Galles du Sud, ils ont découvert que le taux de reproduction des nématodes dans les racines de vitroplants était significativement plus bas dans certains sols non traités que dans les sols stérilisés. Ils ont extrait des champignons des racines des bananiers en question et ont constaté que ces champignons réduisaient de 80 % le nombre de nématodes foreurs présents dans les pots. Si des recherches plus poussées sont encore nécessaires pour mettre au point une méthode de lutte biologique acceptable, les perspectives semblent prometteuses.Source : Bananatopics, vol. 27, juin 1999.Dans certaines régions de l'Inde, les bananiers sont cultivés dans des sols classés dans la catégorie « sodiques salins ». Ils souffrent alors de la salinité, qui cause des symptômes externes (chlorose marginale des feuilles) et entraîne une réduction significative des rendements. Dans la plupart de ces sols, le rapport K/Na est inférieur à un. Or, pour une plante comme le bananier qui a besoin de K, il est indispensable que le rapport K/Na soit supérieur à un.On a prélevé au hasard 50 échantillons de sol de la rhizosphère, ainsi que les tissus de plants correspondants, dans des sols sodiques salins de la ferme expérimentale du National Research Centre for Bananas (NRCB) et de fermes avoisinantes. Le K et le Na échangeables de ces sols se situaient respectivement entre 0,31 et 2,54 cmol/kg et entre 1,74 et 6,78 cmol/kg. On a enregistré les rendements correspondants (poids du ré-gime) à la récolte. L'analyse des échantillons de sol et de tissus à l'aide d'un photomètre à flamme a permis de déterminer les concentrations de K et de Na et de calculer les rapports K/Na.On a calculé les coefficients de corrélation et les équations de régression linéaire reliant le K, le Na et le rapport K/Na des échantillons de sol et de plants avec le rendement. Il s'est avéré que le rendement augmentait en fonction de l'accroissement du Na jusqu'à ce que celui-ci atteigne 480 ppm dans le sol et 0,47 % dans les tissus des plants. Au-delà de ces niveaux, le Na exerçait un effet négatif sur le rendement. De même, le seuil critique pour la concentration de K dans le sol et dans les tissus des plants se situait respectivement à 710 ppm et 2,82 %.En conclusion, pour optimiser les rendements sur les sols sodiques salins, ceux-ci doivent avoir une concentration d'au moins 710 ppm de K et pas plus de 480 ppm de Na, tandis que le rapport K/Na dans le sol doit atteindre au moins 1,46. Dans le même temps, les feuilles des bananiers doivent contenir au moins 2,82 % de K et pas plus de 0,47 % de Na, avec un rapport K/Na d'au moins 5,7.Pour plus de détails, contacter : K.J. Jeyabaskaran, NRCB, Vayalur Road, Trichy 620-017, Tamil Nadu, Inde.Les infestations d'adventices sont l'une des principales contraintes qui limitent le rendement des bananiers dans les plantations de Chhattisgarh. Pour y remédier, les producteurs combinent généralement le désherbage manuel avec l'application d'herbicides chimiques. Cependant, le coût croissant de la main-d'oeuvre et le désir d'adopter des méthodes de production plus biologiques les amènent à rechercher des solutions innovantes. De 1994 à 2000, le département d'agronomie de l'Indira Gandhi Agricultural University de Raipur a mené une série d'études dont les objectifs étaient les suivants :• identifier la flore d'adventices présente dans les plantations de bananiers ; • recenser les adventices communes pouvant être utilisées à des fins médicinales, allopathiques ou industrielles ; • étudier le potentiel commercial des adventices « utiles ». Ces études ont permis d'identifier plus de 60 adventices ayant des utilisations médicinales, industrielles ou allopathiques avérées. Parmi ces adventices, 10 espèces étaient abondantes dans tous les districts prospectés (tableau 1).L'étude du potentiel commercial de ces adventices a montré qu'elles présentent un véritable intérêt, plus de 300 herboristes nationaux et internationaux étant prêts à les acheter à un prix raisonnable. Il s'est également avéré qu'en déracinant ces herbes manuellement pour les traiter et en vendre lesparties utiles par le canal des coopératives villageoises, les producteurs peuvent s'assurer des revenus supplémentaires qui leur permettent de couvrir le coût du désherbage manuel.Pour plus de détails, contacter : P. Oudhia, Department of Agronomy, Indira Gandhi Agricultural University, Raipur-492001, Inde.Des chercheurs de l'université agronomique (Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya) du Bengale occidental ont effectué des essais consistant à laisser le pseudotronc du pied mère en place après la récolte en le coupant à différentes hauteurs, afin de déterminer les effets sur le deuxième cycle de culture. Les traitements étaient les suivants : • hauteur de coupe du pseudotronc du pied mère :-non coupé -coupé à mi-hauteur -coupé au niveau de la souche • nombre de rejets conservés :-un rejet par touffe -deux rejets par touffe. Le maintien du pseudotronc du pied mère sans le couper a entraîné un accroissement de la hauteur et de la circonférence du pseudotronc du rejet, ainsi qu'une augmentation de la dimension des doigts et du nombre de mains par régime. Cependant, avec ce traitement, la récolte a eu lieu 9 jours plus tard qu'avec le traitement consistant à couper le pseudotronc du pied mère au niveau du sol. La conservation de deux rejets a retardé la floraison de 17 jours, mais a produit un rendement plus élevé. Le meilleur rendement (187,6 t/ha) a été obtenu en combinant deux traitements : conservation de deux rejets par touffe et maintien du pseudotronc du pied mère sans le couper. Les chercheurs du CRBP mènent depuis des années des recherches sur les néma-todes, qui sont l'une des principales contraintes de la production de bananes et de plantains en Afrique de l'Ouest et du Centre. Ces recherches leur ont permis d'identifier les principales espèces de nématodes et de mettre au point des stratégies de lutte. Au Cameroun, l'espèce parasite la plus préjudiciable à basse altitude est Radopholus similis, tandis que Pratylenchus goodeyi fait davantage de dégâts à partir de 1 000 m d'altitude. Récemment, des essais ont été effectués sur l'utilisation de mycorhizes isolés au Cameroun (du genre Glomus) pour améliorer la tolérance des plantains à ces deux espèces de nématodes. On s'est servi du cultivar de plantain Bâtard pour déterminer la performance de plants issus de culture de tissus et de rejets quand on les inoculait avec des mycorhizes avant de les planter dans le champ. Ces essais ont eu lieu dans des sites à basse et à haute altitude.Dans les deux sites, tous les plants inoculés avec des mycorhizes ont eu une masse racinaire et une teneur en matière sèche supérieures à celles des plants non inoculés. En outre, la présence des mycorhizes a eu pour effet de réduire la population de nématodes dans les racines des plants inoculés dans une proportion allant jusqu'à 75 %.Source : Le courrier du CRBP n°65.L'exportation des bananes plantain de l'Afrique de l'Ouest vers les marchés européens se fait actuellement par voie aérienne. Cela coûte cher et réduit donc sensiblement la marge bénéficiaire des producteurs. Les chercheurs du CRBP ont étudié la possibilité de conserver les bananes plantain à basse température afin de pouvoir les expédier par bateau (le délai d'acheminement étant d'environ 15 jours). Des essais ont été effectués sur les variétés French Clair, Bâtard et Big Ebanga. Les fruits ont été récoltés à divers stades de maturation, traités avec un fongicide, emballés dans des cartons, stockés à la température ambiante (25-30°C, humidité relative 80 -90 %) pendant deux jours, puis placés dans une chambre froide (12-14°C, humidité relative 85-95 %) pendant 15 jours.Il s'est avéré que la date de récolte qui permettait de conserver les fruits verts pendant 15 jours, sans baisse sensible de qualité, se situait environ une semaine avant le stade où un premier doigt commençait à mûrir sur la première main chez French Clair, entre une et deux semaines avant ce stade chez Big Ebanga, et entre deux et trois semaines avant ce stade chez Bâtard. Les fruits de ces deux dernières variétés semblent les mieux adaptés à l'exportation par leur qualité et leur dimension.Source : PlantainInfo n°39, oct-nov. 1999.Faute de méthodes appropriées pour conserver les bananes et les bananes plantain après la récolte, les populations rurales subissent des pertes de revenus significatives. Cependant, on a observé que les commerçantes de la zone agricole de Nsukka, dans l'État d'Enugu au Nigeria, vendent des bananes et des bananes plantain qui sont en bon état et mûrissent bien. Une étude a donc été entreprise afin de déterminer les méthodes traditionnelles utilisées dans trois communautés de cette région. On a interrogé 90 commerçantes à l'aide d'un questionnaire structuré. On a ainsi constaté que presque toutes appliquent des traitements traditionnels permettant de réduire les pertes post-récolte. Ces traitements sont les suivants : • prolongation de la vie verte et maintien des bananes à l'état frais et ferme grâce à la pulvérisation d'eau froide matin et soir ; • mûrissage des bananes à l'aide d'Irvingia smithii ou I. gabonensis (les bananes étant placées avec des fruits d'Irvingia dans des sacs en plastique fermés pendant une période pouvant aller de 24 à 72 heures selon la température extérieure) ; • transport des bananes dans des paniers tapissés de feuilles pour prévenir les chocs.Les commerçantes qui ont répondu au questionnaire ont aussi souligné la nécessité de disposer d'un local spécial, aussi frais que possible, pour stocker les bananes. Cela a pour effet de réduire la température ambiante, tout en augmentant l'humidité relative. En outre, elles découpent les mains immédiatement après la récolte du régime et les placent le plus rapidement possible dans le local de stockage.Ce sont là des techniques simples et efficaces, qui pourraient être aisément adaptées dans d'autres régions. Tableau 1. Usages médicinaux de 10 adventices communes identifiées dans les plantations de bananiers de Chhattisgarh.Cyperus rotundus Motha Racines : lèpre, soif, fièvre, maladies du sang, nausée, dysenterie, démangeaisons intenses, épilepsie, ophtalmie.Remède homéopathique pour les problèmes respiratoires.Mahkua Problèmes dermatologiques.Euphorbia sp. Duddhi Problèmes respiratoires.Bathua Ankylostome, leucodermie.Blumea lacera Kukurmutta Bronchite, fièvre, soif, sensation de brûlure.Latkana Remède hémostatique, antivenimeux ; maladies de l'appareil digestif.Fudhar Rhumatismes, maladies des organes reproducteurs.Datura stramonium Datura Problèmes respiratoires.Ratanjot Maladies des appareils digestif, respiratoire et reproducteurLes chercheurs de l'IITA s'emploient à diffuser la technique du parage des souches pour lutter contre les nématodes et les charançons au Ghana. Depuis l'introduction de cette technique en 1993, 40 % des producteurs de ce pays l'ont adoptée. La combinaison de matériel végétal sain et de pratiques culturales améliorées s'est révélée rentable sur une période de trois ans : il en est résulté un revenu de 1 300 dollars par hectare, soit 475 dollars de plus qu'avec les méthodes traditionnelles des paysans.Source : Rapport annuel de l'IITA, 1998. La première mise en culture des plantes en général est une étape des plus importantes pour obtenir de bons rendements. Au cours de cette phase, il est essentiel de sélectionner des semences de bonne qualité et de s'assurer qu'il existe dans le sol une réserve d'humidité et de nutriments disponible pour les plantes afin de leur assurer une croissance initiale rapide et uniforme (Roberts 1997).Le sol peut conserver sa fertilité grâce à différents mécanismes liés à la matière organique et au travers desquels les microorganismes (champignons, bactéries, protozoaires, algues, etc.) jouent un rôle important dans les processus de minéralisation et de stabilisation des nutriments. A leur tour, ces microorganismes peuvent, dans certaines conditions, fonctionner comme des réservoirs qui permettent d'éviter la perte de nutriments par lessivage, volatilisation et/ou fixation sur des composés humiques ou minéraux.On obtient, au travers de ces processus biologiques multiples, dans lesquels interagissent les racines, les microorganismes et les composés du sol, des minéraux disponibles (ioniques) pour les plantes. L'incorporation dans le sol de composés organiques augmente la quantité et l'activité des microorganismes du sol; ceci suggère de gérer la fertilisation organique et minérale dans les plantations commerciales comme une alternative relativement écologique et économique (Pineda 1996, Sikora cité par Fernández et al. 1998). De plus, l'utilisation de fertilisants minéraux a pour effet une destruction transitoire de la population microbienne du sol, qui peut être restituée par l'utilisation d'engrais organiques (Pineda 1996). Il est très important d'utiliser les connaissances actuelles sur les processus biologiques du sol et la minéralisation des composés organiques labiles. Ceux-ci jouent un rôle essentiel dans le développement d'une agriculture rentable et respectueuse de l'environnement, dans laquelle l'inoculation de microorganismes agissant au niveau de la rhizosphère revêt une importance vitale (Reyes et al. 1995) Dans les années 90, la cercosporiose noire s'est diffusée depuis l'Afrique de l'Est jusque dans l'archipel des Comores, où sa présence a été confirmée en 1995 à Mayotte. Depuis lors, elle a touché l'ensemble des plantations de ces îles. La présence de cette maladie étant à présent soupçonnée à Madagascar, des échantillons sont actuellement analysés par le CIRAD-FLHOR pour confirmation.Source : FruiTrop 67, mars 2000.Le bananier a été introduit à l'île de la Réunion vers 1668 par des navigateurs hollandais (Rivals 1960). Aucune variété indigène n'est recensée, mais plusieurs cultivars ont été introduits sur l'île depuis, appartenant aux sous-groupes Sucrier, Cavendish, Silk, Pome, Bluggoe. On trouve également dans les jardins familiaux la Figue Rose (sous-groupe Red), quelques bananiers plantain et certains bananiers ornementaux (Ensete sp., M. balbisiana, M. ornata, M. zebrina, M. velutina).Les clones les plus cultivés appartiennent au sous-groupe Cavendish (Valéry et Petite Naine, et plus récemment Grande Naine et Williams). Les bananiers des sous-groupes Silk et Pome sont plantés le plus souvent en bordure des champs de canne à sucre et constituent un appoint dans le revenu des ménages, quand les autres variétés manquent sur le marché. Les parcelles semi-intensives sont essentiellement sur la côte nord-est et dans le sud, plus arrosés (Anon. 1998). La superficie moyenne d'une exploitation ne dépasse pas 2 à 3 hectares, et la superficie totale en culture avoisine 200 hectares (Figure 1), pour une population de 750 000 habitants. On estime la superficie totale de la bananeraie réunionnaise, à 500 hectares, en incluant les micro-parcelles isolées (Agreste 1998).Les rendements varient de 10 à 30 tonnes par hectare. La production est exclusivement réservée à la consommation locale.Le Un prélèvement de feuilles a été indexé au laboratoire de virologie du CIRAD. L'observation en immuno-électro-microscopie avec le sérum polyvalent développé par Lockhart contre le BSV montre des particules bacilliformes (Figure 3). Les bananiers concernés sont donc atteints de mosaïque en tirets (Banana Streak Virus -BSV).Cette maladie virale a été décrite pour la première fois au Maroc (Lockhart 1986), puis dans de nombreuses zones de production de bananes et dans la zone de l'Océan Indien : Ile Maurice, Madagascar, Afrique de l'Est et du Sud, Austra-lie (Caruana 1993). Les bananiers présentant ces symptômes ont été recensés dans toutes les zones de culture sur l'île. La plupart des producteurs avaient repéré ces symptômes depuis « fort longtemps », sans les relier à la présence d'une maladie ; en effet, le plant malade n'exprime pas de symptômes plus visibles tels que nécroses ou dépérissement.Dans les parcelles atteintes, la proportion de plants malades varie de 20 à 50 %. La progression de la maladie ne semble pas liée à un vecteur animal : aucune cochenille n'est présente sur les bananiers. Le virus de la mosaïque en tirets n'étant pas transmis par les outils, il semble donc que la seule voie d'extension de la maladie soit la propagation par plantation de rejets infestés.En collaboration avec le Service de la Protection des Végétaux de la Réunion, les agriculteurs sont informés de cette méthode de transmission, sont formés à repérer les plants infestés, et invités au moins à ne plus utiliser les rejets malades pour les replantations et au mieux à détruire les touffes malades par application d'un herbicide systémique. L'utilisation de plants issus de culture in vitro, indexés pour le virus de la mosaïque en tirets, est une méthode également recommandée.   bananiers à cuire et les hybrides ont été négligés. Afin de combler cette lacune, une étude exhaustive a été effectuée sur le système racinaire des Musa jusqu'au début du deuxième cycle. Cette recherche a porté sur 46 génotypes représentant tous les groupes de Musa et tous les degrés de ploïdie, afin de contribuer à l'amélioration génétique des bananiers et bananiers plantain.On a évalué la relation entre le système racinaire et les parties aériennes des plants en analysant les corrélations et les composantes principales. On a constaté de fortes corrélations positives entre la croissance des racines et des parties aériennes du pied mère du début jusqu'au milieu de la phase végétative. En revanche, les corrélations étaient moins marquées pendant la phase reproductive, probablement en raison de la sénescence des racines et de la concurrence croissante entre le pied mère et ses rejets (pousses latérales).Des courbes de croissance ont été établies pour différents caractères des racines et des parties aériennes. On a constaté que le rapport parties aériennes/racines était plus élevé pendant la phase végétative. Ainsi, le système racinaire des bananiers issus de vitroplants représentait jusqu'à 40 % de la matière sèche du plant en début de phase végétative, mais moins de 15 % en phase reproductive. La surface foliaire et la dimension du système racinaire diminuaient toutes deux pendant la phase reproductive.Il importe de disposer d'une variabilité de la dimension du système racinaire si l'on veut améliorer celui-ci dans le cadre d'un programme d'amélioration génétique. On a observé que la dimension du système racinaire augmentait en fonction du degré de ploïdie. Il n'a pas été possible d'évaluer la variabilité des caractères des racines latérales chez les différents génotypes, car la croissance de celles-ci était fortement influencée par le microenvironnement.Il s'est avéré que la croissance des parties aériennes et des racines était influencée par le type de matériel végétal planté. Ainsi, les bananiers issus de rejets avaient, en milieu de phase végétative, un système racinaire plus important que celui des bananiers issus de vitroplants. Cela pourrait s'expliquer par le fait que les premiers ont une souche de plus grande taille. Cependant, au moment de la floraison, la dimension du système racinaire était similaire chez les deux types de plants.Des méthodes non destructives ont été mises au point pour évaluer rapidement le système racinaire. On a estimé les caractères des racines à partir de paramètres des parties aériennes qui sont facilement mesurables. En outre, en prélevant des échantillons de sol (analyse de moins de 3 % du système racinaire d'une touffe), on a pu obtenir des informations adéquates sur la dimension du système racinaire de l'ensemble de la touffe. Cette méthode ne demande que 5 % du temps nécessaire pour extraire et analyser le système racinaire de la touffe complète.On a constaté que le type de sol, le climat, l'infestation par des nématodes et la réduction de la surface foliaire exerçaient des effets significatifs sur la dimension du système racinaire. Par exemple, la présence de nématodes a réduit le système racinaire dans une proportion allant jusqu'à 70 % chez les génotypes sensibles. Cependant, la croissance des parties aériennes était généralement moins affectée que celle des racines. Cela signifie que les génotypes sensibles aux nématodes ont un rapport parties aériennes/racines élevé, ce qui les expose d'autant plus au risque de chute des plants.Cette étude fournit une analyse approfondie du développement et de la croissance du système racinaire des Musa, qui devrait faciliter le travail des nématologistes aussi bien que des améliorateurs. I Thaddée Musabyimana D es essais ont été effectués de mai 1996 à février 1999 dans le laboratoire de la station expérimentale de Mbita Point de l'ICIPE et dans des champs de paysans dans l'ouest du Kenya, qui est l'une des principales régions bananières de ce pays. On a utilisé de la poudre de graines de neem (PGN), de la poudre d'amandes de neem (PAN), du tourteau de neem (TN) et de l'huile de neem (HN) contenant respectivement 4 000, 5 500, 5 800 et 850 ppm d'azadirachtine A, tels quels ou en solution aqueuse.Essais en laboratoire : dans des essais de choix, 48 heures après le lâcher des charançons, moins de 30 % s'étaient installés sous les souches de bananier traitées au neem et plus de 50 % sous les souches non traitées. Dans un essai d'alimentation, les larves de charançon ont causé peu de dégâts sur les souches traitées, mais ont fortement endommagé les souches non traitées. Cela signifie que le neem a un fort effet antiappétant sur C. sordidus. D'autre part, les femelles ont pondu 3 à 10 fois moins d'oeufs dans les souches traitées que dans les souches non traitées. Le taux d'éclosion des oeufs a été inférieur à 25 % dans les premières et supérieur à 50 % dans les témoins. Les traitements au neem ont également inhibé la croissance et le développement des larves : 40 à 60 % du deuxième stade larvaire sont morts en l'espace de 14 jours en conditions de confinement dans des pseudotroncs traités au neem ; les larves survivantes étaient de petite taille et pesaient 4 à 6 fois moins que celles du témoin. Plus la concentration des dérivés du neem était forte, plus ceux-ci ont exercé de l'effet.On a évalué l'efficacité des dérivés du neem contre C. sordidus et contre les nématodes à la station expérimentale, dans des conditions d'infestation contrôlée à l'intérieur de fûts. On a également déterminé l'efficacité des méthodes, de la fréquence et des doses d'application de certains des dérivés du neem à la station expérimentale et dans les champs de paysans, avec différentes doses de fertilisation et différents niveaux d'infestation. Dans ces essais, on a utilisé le cultivar Nakyetengu (AAA-EA), qui est extrêmement sensible aux ravageurs en question.Essais en station et en milieu paysan : dans un essai effectué en plein air à la station expérimentale, on a appliqué de la PGN, de la PAN et du TN au moment de la plantation, à la dose de 100 g/plant, à des rejets parés et non parés de bananiers placés dans des fûts d'une capacité de 100 ou 200 litres et inoculés avec 2 000 nématodes d'espèces mélangées et cinq paires (mâle et femelle) de charançons par fût. On a également inclus dans cet essai un traitement comportant des rejets trempés dans de l'extrait de HN. En comparaison avec le témoin, 10 mois après les traitements, les dérivés du neem avaient réduit la population de nématodes et les dégâts des charançons de manière significative, dans la même proportion que l'application d'une dose de 40 g/plant de Furadan. En outre, les rejets non parés traités à la PGN et au TN contenaient moins de nématodes que les rejets parés et traités avec les mêmes produits, ce qui montre que le parage n'est pas souhaitable. En revanche, les Utilisation de dérivés de graines de neem pour lutter contre le charançon, Cosmopolites sordidus Germar (Coleoptera : Curculionidae) et le complexe de nématodes parasites du bananier Thèse de PhD soumise en juillet 1999 à l'université Kenyatta de Nairobi, Kenya. applications de PAN et de HN se sont révélées toxiques pour les plants de bananiers.L'application de PGN ou de TN sur le sol s'est révélée plus efficace que leur application sous forme aqueuse. En appliquant de la PGN ou du TN au moment de la plantation, puis à intervalles de 1, 2, 3 ou 4 mois sur les plants cultivés en conditions d'infestation contrôlée dans les fûts, on a obtenu une réduction significative de la densité des nématodes et des dégâts des charançons. De même, dans les essais effectués dans les champs des paysans, l'application de PGN ou de TN sur le sol à la dose de 60, 80 et 100 g/touffe au moment de la plantation, puis à intervalles de 4 mois, a eu pour effet de réduire significativement les dégâts des charançons et des nématodes, et d'accroître les rendements de 27 à 50 % par rapport au témoin pour le premier cycle, et de 30 à 60 % pour le deuxième cycle. L'application de Furadan a entraîné une augmentation du rendement en fruits de 27 % par rapport au témoin pour le premier cycle, mais une diminution (-2 %) pour le deuxième cycle. Même avec une faible fertilisation et un niveau élevé d'infestation, les traitements au neem ont permis de réduire les populations de ravageurs et ont nettement amélioré les rendements, qui ont été entre 7 et 10 fois plus élevés que ceux du témoin. L'application de PGN ou de TN à des doses de 200 à 400 g/touffe à intervalles de 6 mois a eu des effets toxiques sur les bananiers.Selon la fertilisation et les doses de neem, le gain net obtenu par rapport au témoin grâce à l'application de PGN ou de TN s'est situé entre 70 et 800 dollars par hectare. En revanche, on a enregistré une perte de 700 dollars par hectare avec le Furadan. Il s'est avéré que l'application de neem à des doses supérieures à 200 g/touffe n'était pas rentable. L'auteur analyse les effets bénéfiques de l'application des dérivés de graines de neem sur la croissance et le développement des bananiers. Il examine les implications de ces résultats pour la gestion intégrée des ravageurs et met en lumière les aspects nécessitant des recherches plus approfondies. I Livres, etc. Les personnes plus particulièrement intéressées par l'atelier sur les maladies et ravageurs des bananiers sont invitées à contacter le Dr Luis Pérez Vicente, organisateur de cet atelier à l'une des adresses électroniques suivantes : inisav@ceniai.inf.cu ou cnsv@ceniai.inf.cuLa Fondation internationale pour la science apporte son soutien aux jeunes chercheurs de valeur des pays en développement en attribuant des allocations de recherche ainsi que des services complémentaires comme l´achat d´équipements de recherche et la participation à des conférences scientifiques.Les allocations accordées sont limitées à 12 000 USD par période d´un an au moins et de trois ans au plus, et peuvent être renouvelées deux fois. Une allocation de recherche est destinée à couvrir des dépenses d´équipements de recherche, de fonctionnement et de documentation scientifique.Le candidat doit remplir les critères suivants : -être ressortissant d´un pays en développement, -mener la recherche proposée dans un pays en développement, -être âgé de moins de 40 ans lors de la première demande de bourse (moins de 30 ans pour les candidats chinois) et au début de sa carrière scientifique, -être titulaire d´un diplôme universitaire de 3ème cycle (DEA minimum ou équivalent),-être employé par une université ou une institution de recherche d´un pays en développement.Les candidatures de ressortissants de pays Européens, y compris la Turquie et Chypre ainsi que les pays de l´ ex-URSS, ne sont pas recevables.La Fondation prendra en considération des demandes de bourses concernant la gestion, l´utilisation et la conservation des ressources biologiques. Les domaines de recherche prioritaires de la Fondation incluent : Ressources Aquatiques, Productions Animales, Productions Végétales, Foresterie/Agroforesterie, Agro-Alimentaire et Substances Naturelles.Pour des renseignements supplémentaires et pour obtenir le formulaire de demande d´allocation de recherche en anglais ou en français, veuillez vous adresser à : IFS, Grev Turegatan 19, S-114 38 Stockholm, Suède Fax :+46-8-54581801 Email : info@ifs.se Http://www.ifs.se L'objectif général de MUSALAC est l'augmentation de la productivité et de la compétitivité de la filière agroalimentaire de la banane et de la banane plantain grâce au développement des activités scientifiques et technologiques, fondé sur le renforcement des systèmes nationaux de recherche-développement, l'intégration des acteurs de la filière, l'identification des priorités et la coordination des actions en Amérique latine et dans les Caraïbes.Les objectifs spécifiques de MUSALAC sont les suivants : Dans un premier temps, priorité sera donnée à quatre composantes thématiques : • Amélioration génétique • Gestion intégrée des maladies et ravageurs • Gestion de la culture • Développement socio-économique.Les participants de la première réunion de MUSALAC Après la signature de l'Accord, les participants se sont répartis en quatre groupes thématiques pour définir, avec l'aide de Jorge Saravia (CIAT), un cadre logique pour quatre thèmes prioritaires au niveau régional, définis dans le but de développer des projets pour MUSALAC.L'événement a été inauguré par Juan Lucas Restrepo, Directeur du Bureau de développement agricole du Département de la planification nationale de Colombie. Enrique Alarcon Charles Eledu, citoyen ougandais, est titulaire d'un M.Sc. en cartographie des sols de l'Institut international des levés photogram-métriques et des sciences de la terre aux Pays-Bas et d'un B.Sc. en agronomie de l'université de Makerere en Ouganda. Au cours des trois dernières années, il a travaillé comme chercheur associé spécialisé dans les systèmes d'information géographique (SIG) pour le Centro International de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) en Ouganda, où il était chargé de mettre en place une base de données sur les haricots en Afrique. Il a également contribué au SIG du programme bananier de l'IITA en Ouganda. L'INIBAP a récemment recruté Charles comme expert en SIG pour le projet de données de référence sur la production bananière mis en oeuvre en Afrique orientale et australe.Gisella Orjeda s'est jointe au personnel de l'INIBAP en mai 1996 en tant que responsable de l'amélioration génétique. De nationalité péruvienne, elle a coordonné la phase II du Programme international d'évaluation des Musa (IMTP) et a contribué à créer le Programme mondial pour l'amélioration des Musa (PROMUSA). Son activité dans le cadre de l'IMTP l'a amenée en de nombreux points de la planète, où elle a visité les sites d'évaluation et aidé les programmes participants à collecter et analyser les données expérimentales. L'un de ses grands mérites est d'avoir mis en place la base de données de l'IMTP ; celle-ci contient aujourd'hui des informations sur plus de 30 clones candidats qui feront l'objet d'évaluations dans les essais futurs de l'IMTP. Gisella a toujours insisté sur l'importance de la validité statistique des données issues des essais de l'IMTP et elle s'est attachée à élaborer des protocoles standard pour la collecte des données, afin de faciliter la comparaison des résultats entre les différents sites. A l'achèvement des essais de la phase II, elle a procédé à une analyse statistique exhaustive des résultats de 17 sites et a assuré la publication du rapport final de cette phase, qui est disponible à l'INIBAP.Après s'être consacrée pendant trois ans à la coordination d'activités de recherche à l'INIBAP, Gisella a souhaité retourner à la recherche proprement dite. C'est pourquoi elle a passé ses six derniers mois d'emploi à l'INIBAP à collaborer avec le CIRAD à la caractérisation moléculaire de cellules de bananier dérivées d'essais de fusion de protoplastes. A l'issue de ce court projet de recherche, Gisella quitte l'INIBAP pour poursuivre sa carrière scientifique.Le personnel de l'INIBAP souhaite plein succès à Gisella dans ses activités futures.Cette année marque le 15 e anniversaire de l'INIBAP. A cette occasion, plusieurs activités et initiatives ont été entreprises : traduction en anglais de la brochure joliment illustrée sur « Les bananes », qui n'existait jusqu'à présent qu'en français, et production d'une série de fiches techniques sur le rôle de la banane en tant que culture vivrière à l'échelle mondiale et sur la contribution de l'INIBAP à la recherche-développement.Cet anniversaire sera officiellement célébré lors de la prochaine réunion mondiale de PROMUSA qui aura lieu au mois de novembre en Thaïlande. Cette réunion coïncidera avec un symposium national et une exposition sur les bananes.Si l'on jette un regard en arrière sur ses 15 années d'existence, la croissance de l'INIBAP et son évolution durant cette brève période apparaissent remarquables. Le petit institut indépendant, comptant au départ moins de 10 agents, est devenu aujourd'hui un programme important du GCRAI, dont le personnel se compose de plus de 40 collaborateurs basés dans sept pays de différentes régions du monde. L'INIBAP apporte actuellement un soutien actif à plus de 40 projets de recherche exécutés dans une trentaine de pays tandis que les réseaux régionaux qu'il coordonne associent une cinquantaine de pays.En février et mars 2000, le programme de l'INIBAP a été soumis à une évaluation externe par une mission constituée par l'IPGRI et composée des membres suivants : Dr Claude Fauquet (directeur d'ILTAB, États-Unis), Prof. Joseph Mukiibi (directeur général du NARO, Ouganda), Dr Michel de Nucé de Lamothe (président d'Agropolis, France) et Prof. Dolores Ramirez (université des Philippines, chef de la mission).Chaque membre a visité un bureau régional de l'INIBAP et deux ou trois SNRA. La mission a également visité la banque de matériel génétique en Belgique et le siège de l'INIBAP à Montpellier.A l'issue de son évaluation, la mission a établi un rapport très favorable, tant sur les activités régionales de l'INIBAP que sur ses activités internationales. Parmi les points forts, elle a relevé en particulier les échanges de matériel génétique, l'amélioration du matériel génétique, la documentation et la formation. Elle a jugé efficace le mode de fonctionnement de l'INIBAP, en notant que le travail en réseau et le recours à des ressources extérieures permettent à sa modeste équipe d'accomplir une somme de travail impressionnante.La mission a identifié plusieurs domaines demandant une intensification des efforts : l'INIBAP devra notamment élaborer une stratégie de conservation couvrant l'ensemble des ressources génétiques de Musa, et il devra s'attacher à mieux exploiter la diversité de ces ressources génétiques dans ses activités de sélection et d'amélioration. L'IN-IBAP a d'ores et déjà commencé à prendre des mesures pour appliquer ces recommandations et les autres orientations formulées par la mission.Enfin, la mission d'évaluation a souligné que la recherche sur les bananes demeure li-mitée par rapport à l'importance de cette culture dans le monde, ce qui s'explique essentiellement par le faible niveau des fonds disponibles. Cependant, elle a reconnu que le travail en réseau constitue la meilleure approche pour répondre aux besoins en matière de recherche bananière à l'échelle internationale et elle a estimé que la structure mise en place par l'INIBAP est parfaitement adaptée aux besoins futurs. En outre, la mission a demandé à l'IPGRI d'attirer l'attention du GCRAI sur le fait que le modèle de l'INIBAP pourrait être repris pour d'autres produits de base ou systèmes de culture.\" Homme -Nature -Technologie -Un monde nouveau \" : tel est le thème directeur de Expo 2000, qui a lieu du 1 er juin au 31 octobre à Hanovre, en Allemagne. L'une des caractéristiques remarquables de cette exposition universelle est qu'elle ne se déroulera pas uniquement à Hanovre. Il est considéré que l'Expo 2000 se tiendra en tout lieu où des hommes et des femmes élaborent et concrétisent des idées pour l'avenir. Pour que l'Expo 2000 soit une exposition universelle au vrai sens du terme, elle sera articulée autour d'un concept entièrement nouveau, intitulé \" Projets tout autour du monde \".La banque de matériel génétique de l'IN-IBAP a été sélectionnée pour figurer parmi ces \" Projets tout autour du monde \".En participant à cet événement, l'INIBAP entend mener une action de sensibilisation sur le rôle essentiel de la culture de la banane. Il s'agit de faire savoir que, sur 88 millions de tonnes de bananes récoltées chaque année dans le monde, plus de 85 % viennent de petits exploitants qui produisent presque exclusivement pour la consommation locale. Les bananes sont avant tout une culture vivrière : voici le message que l'INIBAP fera entendre à l'Expo 2000.Comme nous le signalions dans le dernier numéro d' INFOMUSA (vol. 8,n°2), l'IN-IBAP a récemment lancé un nouveau site Web qui fournit un large éventail d'informations sur ses activités, ainsi qu'un accès en ligne à ses bases de données et à certaines de ses publications. Nous avons le plaisir de vous annoncer que ce site existe désormais en trois langues : anglais, français et espagnol.Parmi les documents récemment placés sur le site figurent les versions anglaise et espagnole du rapport de l'atelier international sur la production et la commercialisation des bananes issues de la petite agriculture biologique, qui a eu lieu en novembre 1999 en République Dominicaine, et des informations concernant le symposium international sur la biologie moléculaire et cellulaire des bananiers et la réunion mondiale de PROMUSA qui doivent se tenir prochainement. Adresse du site : http ://www.inibap.org Résumé. On a fait des essais sur 13 génotypes de Musa couramment cultivés en Malaisie et au Viêt-nam afin d'évaluer leur résistance à Radopholus similis, Pratylenchus coffeae et Meloidogyne spp. La réponse des plantes hôtes a été comparée avec celle des cultivars sensibles \"Grande Naine\" et \"Cavendish 901\". Quatre semaines après avoir planté des vitroplants en serre dans des pots contenant du sol sablo-limoneux, on les a inoculés avec environ 1 000 nématodes à lésions ou 2 500-5 000 juvéniles de nématodes à galles. On a déterminé la reproduction des nématodes huit ou 10 semaines après l'inoculation, selon l'espèce. Tous les cultivars malaisiens et vietnamiens évalués se sont montrés au moins aussi sensibles à R. similis, P. coffeae et Meloidogyne spp. que les cultivars de référence sensibles. On a enregistré des différences de sensibilité entre les cultivars.2 Résumé. Des essais ont été effectués sur 10 génotypes de Musa identifiés comme résistants ou moyennement résistants à la fusariose causée par Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense dans le cadre du Programme international d'évaluation des Musa (IMTP) et chez trois cultivars sensibles à la fusariose, afin de déterminer leur résistance à Radopholus similis et Pratylenchus coffeae. La réponse des plantes hôtes a été comparée avec celle du cultivar sensible aux néma-todes \"Grande Naine\". Quatre semaines après avoir transféré des vitroplants en serre dans des pots contenant du sol sablo-limoneux, on les a inoculés avec environ 1 000 nématodes. On a déterminé les taux de reproduction de R. similis et P. coffeae dans les racines des plants respectivement huit et 10 semaines après l'inoculation. Les accessions \"Pisang Jari Buaya\" ITC0312 et ITC0690, ainsi que \"Yangambi km5\", se sont montrées résistantes à R. similis. \"Pisang lilin\", \"Bluggoe\", \"Saba\", \"Gros Michel\", \"Williams\", \"GCTCV 215\", \"GCTCV 119\", \"FHIA-01\", \"PA 03.22\", \"PA 03.44\" se sont montrées aussi sensibles à R. similis que \"Grande Naine\". Aucun des 14 génotypes évalués n'a fait preuve de résistance à P. coffeae.3) In-Field behaviour of banana plants (Musa AA sp.) obtained after regeneration of cryopreserved embryogenic cell suspensions (Comportement au champ de plants de bananier (Musa sp.) obtenus à partir de suspensions cellulaires après cryoconservation) par F.X. Côte, O. Goue, R. Domergue, B. Panis and C. Jenny. CryoLetters 21 : 19-24 (2000).Résumé. Cette étude décrit le comportement au champ de plants de bananier (Musa sp.) obtenus à partir de suspensions cellulaires embryogènes après cryoconservation. Les observations ont portés sur les descripteurs classiques du développement végétal. Aucune différence significative n'a été observée sur la hauteur de la plante et sa circonférence, le nombre de feuilles, le nombre de fruits, la longueur du fruit, le diamètre et le poids du fruit, le poids du régime et la date de récolte entre les plants dérivés de la cryoconservation et les plants témoins. Durant le premier cycle de culture, 2 des 11 descripteurs analysés ont cependant montrés des différences entre le control et les plants dérivés de suspensions cellulaires congelées. Ceux sont le nombre de groupe de fleurs (communément appelé 'main'de fleurs) et la date de la floraison. Cependant, ces différences ce sont révélées mineures, les deux cas confondus représentants seulement 2 % de la valeur du témoin. Durant le deuxième cycle de culture, aucune différence significative n'a été observée quelque soit les paramètres étudiés. Ces résultats suggèrent que, considérant les Introduction L'amélioration variétale moderne repose sur la sélection à l'aide de marqueurs moléculaires et l'introgression de caractères agronomiques tels que la résistance aux ravageurs ou la qualité. Divers projets de recherche en cours sont consacrés à l'établissement de cartes génétiques, au clonage de gènes, à l'amélioration d'essais d'expression, à des expériences sur les promoteurs et au transfert de constructions génétiques dans des cultivars.La génomique fonctionnelle de plantes modèles, bien qu'encore à son stade initial, doit permettre de mieux comprendre la biologie fondamentale des plantes et d'exploiter les informations ainsi obtenues à des fins d'amélioration. Pour identifier les fonctions des gènes d'un organisme entier, elle emploie des méthodes à débit élevé (high throughput, HTP) : • isolement de mutants résultant d'une insertion, • puces à ADN ou microarrays, • protéomique.Ces techniques HTP, ainsi que d'autres méthodes d'analyse des fonctions des gènes, ouvrent de nouvelles perspectives pour utiliser les gènes découverts au moyen du séquençage.La création d'outils pour étudier le génome et analyser le transcriptome contribuera à faire progresser rapidement l'amélioration des bananiers. Les banques de BAC, EST et ADNc, les micro/macroarrays et les puces à ADN, ainsi que les cartes (génétiques, cytogénétiques et physiques) et les schémas d'expression stimuleront le développement de la génomique, de la même ma-nière que les marqueurs moléculaires ont bénéficié de l'affinement de la génétique du bananier.La génomique est une discipline émergeante qui ouvre la possibilité de décrire la totalité du répertoire génétique des plantes. Les informations qui en dérivent nous aideront à comprendre comment les gènes permettent à une plante d'accomplir ses fonctions en tant qu'organisme vivant et comment la diversité des fonctions des différentes plantes est liée à de simples changements dans leur génome. Enfin, la génomique devrait permettre de modifier génétiquement les plantes afin d'optimiser leur performance dans des conditions biologiques, écologiques et culturales diverses, pour le bénéfice des hommes et de l'environnement.Pour donner une impulsion à la génomique des bananiers, une réunion a été organisée à l'initiative de PROMUSA avec les principales équipes de chercheurs travaillant dans ce domaine.Cette réunion a débouché sur un remarquable consensus pour aller de l'avant avec « la génomique du bananier ». Toutes les parties ont convenues de créer un Consortium sur la génomique du bananier. PROMUSA abritera ce Consortium et l'aidera à devenir un leader de la recherche dans ce domaine, en facilitant la conception et la mise en oeuvre d'une vision stratégique commune aux différentes institutions concernées dans le monde.Le décryptage du génome du bananier est une tâche colossale qui nécessite la participation de tous les chercheurs susceptibles d'y contribuer dans le monde entier. Le Consortium sur la génomique du bananier rassemblera et conjuguera les expertises (du secteur public comme du secteur privé).L'élaboration d'une stratégie et les interactions entre institutions et entre disciplines permettront d'optimiser la conception des expérimentations, l'interprétation des données et la formulation des projets de recherche concernant la génomique du bananier.Le Programme mondial pour l'amélioration des bananiers (PROMUSA) offre un cadre international approprié pour pi-loter la nouvelle initiative sur la génomique du bananier, dont les activités seront mises en oeuvre au travers du Consortium. PROMUSA est un programme qui cherche à impliquer les principaux acteurs de l'amélioration des bananiers. Il a pour objectif primordial de créer une large gamme de variétés améliorées en combinant les techniques d'amélioration conventionnelles et les biotechnologies, avec l'appui des recherches menées sur les ravageurs et les maladies au sein de ses différents groupes de travail.Assurer la durabilité de la production de la banane, denrée de base d'une grande partie de la population du monde, dans un contexte où les besoins alimentaires évoluent et où les contraintes environnementales s'accentuent. Pour ce faire, il s'agit de développer des connaissances génétiques et génomiques intégrées, permettant de mettre en oeuvre des stratégies ciblées d'amélioration variétale et de transformation génétique.Se servir des technologies post-génomiques pour mieux tirer parti de la biodiversité, afin d'améliorer les bananiers locaux au profit des petits exploitants. Chaque membre du Comité désignera, au sein du groupe qu'il représente, un suppléant permanent ou temporaire qui le remplacera en cas de besoin. D'autres personnes pourront être invitées à se joindre au Comité scientifique sur nomination par l'un des membres, confirmée par un vote majoritaire. Le Comité maintiendra des relations régulières entre ses membres et il se réunira une fois l'an, en profitant dans toute la mesure du possible des facilités offertes par PRO-MUSA.Le rôle du Comité scientifique consistera à diriger le Consortium et à superviser ses activités. Il sera également chargé de définir les priorités du programme dans le cadre de discussions ouvertes avec le groupe. Diverses institutions de recherche, universités et entreprises privées travaillent actuellement à améliorer les bananiers dessert et à cuire à l'aide des méthodes conventionnelles et en faisant de plus en plus appel aux techniques du génie génétique. La stratégie d'amélioration classique consiste à croiser une accession diploïde fertile avec des cultivars triploïdes comestibles de bonne qualité, afin d'obtenir des hybrides tétraploïdes. On peut aussi \"reconstruire\" des cultivars triploïdes en croisant des diploïdes améliorés avec des diploïdes artificiellement doublés (autotétraploïdes).En parvenant à une meilleure connaissance du génome aux niveaux moléculaire et chromosomique, on pourrait considérablement renforcer et accélérer ces efforts de recherche.Un problème particulièrement important pour l'amélioration variétale et l'analyse génétique est la variabilité de la structure chromosomique des différentes accessions, qui est due à des remaniements structurels. Des translocations et inversions de segments de chromosomes engendrent d'importantes irrégularités dans la méiose et la transmission des chromosomes. On trouve ainsi, dans les descendances d'hybrides structurels, des degrés variables de liaison entre des gènes dont la ségrégation se fait normalement de manière indépendante. Cette hybridité structurelle gêne les efforts de l'améliorateur pour effectuer des recombinaisons et transférer des caractères désirables de diploïdes sauvages ou cultivés à des hybrides améliorés.Il est indispensable de développer de nouveaux outils moléculaires qui permettront de localiser les gènes codant pour des caractères importants comme la résistance aux ravageurs et aux maladies et la qualité de la plante, et d'élucider les mécanismes d'héritage de ces caractères. Les techniques de la cytogénétique moléculaire, reposant sur l'hybridation in situ de séquences d'ADN, facilitent aujourd'hui l'étude du génome. L'hybridation in situ à l'aide de multiples sondes fluorescentes est un outil efficace pour étudier les aspects fondamentaux de la structure et du comportement des chromosomes. L'hybridation génomique in situ permet de différencier les chromosomes de différents génomes de la même espèce et, ainsi, d'identifier les chromosomes parentaux chez des hybrides interspécifiques. Les chromosomes de Musa n'étant généralement pas entièrement étiquetés à la suite de l'hybridation génomique in situ, il est nécessaire d'établir davantage de repères à l'aide de la cytogénétique moléculaire pour contribuer à la construction de cartes physiques et permettre l'intégration des cartes génétiques et physiques, en procédant notamment à l'analyse par hybridation fluorescente in situ des séquences d'ADNr 18S-5.8S-25S et 5S, ainsi que des séquences télomériques.La transformation génétique pourra aussi contribuer à la création de nouveaux clones de bananiers dotés de résistance aux ravageurs et aux maladies. Si plusieurs institutions ont mis au point des protocoles de transformation génétique qui permettent de régénérer des plants de bananiers transformés avec des gènes codant pour des protéines antifongiques ou antivirales, il reste à trouver des gènes et des promoteurs spécifiques du bananier.Pour découvrir des séquences génétiques et déterminer leur fonction, on peut utiliser différentes approches dont chacune présente des avantages et des inconvénients : on peut cataloguer les gènes exprimés d'une plante en séquençant les étiquettes de séquences exprimées (expressed sequence tags, ETS) ou l'ADN complémentaire (ADNc). Les bases de données publiques comptant actuellement plus de 100 000 EST de plantes, on dispose ainsi d'un moyen efficace pour identifier les gènes. La comparaison des bases de données d'EST issues de plantes, tissus et milieux différents met en lumière la diversité des séquences codantes des différentes plantes. En même temps, elle laisse entrevoir des similitudes dans les gènes codant pour des processus spécifiques tels que les conditions de maturation ou l'induction d'agents pathogènes. L'analyse des similitudes des séquences à l'aide des outils de la bioinformatique permet de déterminer les fonctions probables des gènes et d'identifier des gènes qui sont similaires chez différentes espèces.","tokenCount":"26070"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"64d9d38313826ce95b33bbda40aaa17c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/7cf858b8-0262-4d3d-ba4b-64e29d783836/retrieve","id":"273397235"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c6670efa-e63c-458e-a542-c8f0ed9b14a8","pagecount":"55","content":"WP3 intends to address the question: How can cross-food value chain and market services function better to increase employment and boost income of smallholders and SMEs? The WP focuses on two types of cross-value chain services, logistics and financial services.(1) logistics servicessupply chain management, transportation, traceability, digital platforms for e-commerce, and (cold) storage.(2) value-chain financial servicesmainly focusing on digital financial services (DFS) that facilitate transactions, savings, access to and use of credit, and insurance.The logistics services in agri-food systems in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) are often targeted at large-scale enterprises with greater market power and less accessible to smallholder farmers and small and micro enterprises (SMEs). WP3 aims to assess the ways in which these emerging logistics services (including digital platforms) can be cost-effectively targeted at smallholder farmers and agri-food SMEs. Regarding DFS, the WP will investigate cost-effective ways of improving access to and adoption of DFS among smallholders and agri-food SMEs, especially among women and youth. Though these emerging DFS appear to have a high potential to benefit smallholders and SMEs across the agri-food value chains in LMICs, they need a reliable internet connection, a suitable mobile phone network, and a broad network of mobile money agents to be effective. WP3 thus aims to identify innovations/emerging logistics and DFS and test their effectiveness to smallholders and SMEs using randomized control trials (RCTs) in pilots, with the goal of country-specific scalable designs.This report is based on desk review, key informant interviews, field visits, and consultations of stakeholders including virtual meetings and phone calls. The scoping report documents summary findings from landscape analysis and stakeholders mapping of cross-value chain logistics and financial service providers operating within the agri-food sector in Nigeria. The logistics services component of the report provides a summary of activities geared to understand logistics services provision within the Nigerian agrifood system, includingmapping key logistics services providers, what value chains they cover, the nodes at which they operate (e.g., production, processing, storage, and distribution), what specific roles they play, their geographic coverage and the extent to which they use digital technologies. Similarly, the DFS component of the scoping report covers mapping of key financial services providers identified so far along the agri-food value chain, the nature/types of emerging DFS innovations, scale of operations, geographical coverages within Nigeria, and the growing demand for the DFS among the beneficiaries.The key objectives of the scoping report (on both logistics and financial services) are: (1) document the state-of-the-art in these services to better understand their current state and functionality; (2) identify gaps and challenges to help us design innovations or interventions for piloting; (3) identify the list of potential/feasible innovations to experiment or pilot; (4) identify demand partners and scaling partners for piloting the identified innovations; (5) ground truth the applicability and acceptability of proposed innovations and intervention modalities with local stakeholders and beneficiaries; and (6) lay a foundation for baseline survey and experimental design. In addition, the scoping report provides useful information on certain value chains which are already being served by cross-value chain services (logistics and finance) and the potential candidates for innovation (digital and finance services) and increasing inclusion among smallholders and SMEs.This section presents a concise review of the situations of logistics services and financial services in the agri-food sector in Nigeriafirst, a summary of logistics services (sub-section 2.1) followed by the key features of agricultural financial services (sub-section 2.2) in Nigeria.Logistics is part of the supply chain process that plans, implements, and controls the efficient, effective flow and storage of goods, services and related information from the point-of-origin to the point-of-consumption in order to meet customer requirements and satisfies the requirements imposed by other stakeholders such as the government and the retail community (Vorst van der and Snels, 2014). 1 Over the last few decades, there has been rapid growth in the number of logistics service providers in Nigeria and other developing regions. This expansion is transforming the industrial organization and operations of food supply chains in these countries. It is one of the fastest-growing industries in Nigeria, though still in its nascent stage. As of 2018, the value of Nigeria's logistics sector was estimated to be 250 billion naira 1 According to Shufeng et al. (2010) modern agro-logistics should consist of 12 functional elements of procurement, supply, storage, transportation, loading and unloading, sorting, packaging, distribution, distribution processing, marketing, recycling, and information control.($696 million), an increase of 50 billion naira ($140 million) from 2017 statistics (International Trade Administration, 2021). Recently, the Nigeria freight and logistics market has been on a slow growth trend but is expected to grow by 4 percent per annum in the coming years (Modor Intelligence, 2021).Logistics services (e.g., cold chain or other storage facilities and transportation services) are critical for the efficient function of food supply chains. They play an important role in determining the quantity, quality, and cost of (i) inputs available to farmers, (ii) agricultural and food products received by numerous food processors, and (iii) food available to food consumers in formal and informal markets. To this end, logistic services must be adapted to the type of agricultural products. For instance, storage and handling operations for grains (cereals and pulses), roots, and tubers are expected to substantially differ from those useful for high perishable products such as fresh fruits and vegetables, fish, meat, and dairy products. This product-specialization in logistics operations is important to ensure an effective delivery of the service in the agri-food value chain.The rapid growth in the number of logistics service providers in Nigeria is transforming the organization and operations of food supply chains. On one hand, logistics service provision is a source of income for the owners and employees of the numerous small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) engaged in logistics service provision. On the other hand, it is also transforming the market channels farmers, processors and traders can sell their products to or use to secure quality inputs. For example, there has been an expansion of private companies (including several start-ups) addressing the logistics challenges that farmers face in input and output markets in rural areas. These SMEs finance and deliver inputs through risk sharing agreements and provide a suite of services that help smallholder farmers overcome production challenges through an integrated service provision sector often referred as Farm Aggregation Services (FAS). Many of these FAS serve as a one-stop-shop that provide multiple services that bridge the gap between farmers, input providers, and agro-processors who require significant quantities of the farmers output but often experience inadequate supplies both in terms of quantity and quality (Liverpool-Tasie et al., 2019). Some FAS provide a range of supply chain support to farmers (e.g., land mapping, input delivery, mechanization, training on good agronomic practices, harvesting, aggregation and sales) allowing them to focus on crop production. This arrangement reduces the risk of finance provision to the farmers by financial institutions and supports the farmers to better manage the credit provided. FAS are therefore a holistic approach to improve the logistics services in the agri-food value chains, especially in the rural areas.An effective agricultural supply chain must reduce the logistic costs, limit food loss along the chain, and ensure faster delivery of products. In Nigeria, as much as between 20 and 30 percent of total grain production, between 30 and 50 percent of root and tuber, and around 30 and 50 percent of FFVs (Fresh Fruits and Vegetables) are lost during the post-harvest stage due to poor processing, marketing, distribution, and storage facilities (Yahaya, 2002). A reduction in losses and waste, which stands at around 40 percent of all food produced, increases food availability in regions where it's grown and most needed and can enable the ability to diversify diets to a more nutritious one (Adekoya, 2020). Therefore, improved logistics, that could reduce food loss and waste provides immediate impact for the poorest and most vulnerable, maximizing output from land and natural resources already under production (World Bank, 2020).Road transport services are the most used mode of transportation in agricultural logistics in Nigeria and elsewhere in SSA. It is estimated that 70 percent of agricultural produce is transported through the road system that represents 195,000 km in 2019, of which 31 percent is paved (Nation 2020, LCA, 2019). The typical in-country rural-urban food distribution system in Nigeria for crops consists of three stages, (i) farmers sell small surpluses of their produce to traders (middlemen) in their village markets or at assembly points, (ii) once small quantities from scattered farm holdings are collected, the traders move the produce to secondary collection centers, (iii) the produce is then moved to central wholesale markets in urban centers or to processing units (Marras et al., 2017). 2 Though the road transport system is one of the biggest industries in Nigeria and holds huge potential for agricultural and rural transformation, it is one of the most poorly coordinated.The motorized transport fleets in rural areas are dominated by small and old vehicles. Road transportation in the agri-food value chain is associated with crop cultivation, movement of farm inputs, crop harvesting and crop marketing. The produce is transported from farms to collection centers primarily by carts, bicycles, motorbikes, rural taxis, or motor vehicles. These transportation means, while providing vital rural transport, can be invisible to policymakers and thus may be poorly managed and relatively unregulated (Starkey and Njenga, 2010). From collection centers to urban central wholesale markets, transportation is mainly done in open, non-refrigerated trucks with capacities ranging from less than 10 tons to up to 30 tons (Aworh, 2005;Busari et al., 2015). This delivery takes a significant amount of time and money to reach urban centers from rural, often because of truck shortages, especially refrigerated transport suitable for perishable crops and bad roads.Where road transport services exist, they are often expensive and overcrowded because the transport system is inefficient. The cost of moving produce to market is often prohibitive in terms of the transport service fare, time, and physical losses, which are exacerbated by the poor road conditions 2 There are also transport services of finished manufactured goods from the processing units to distribution markets (wholesale and retailers). This report does not discuss the logistics of these goods. and sometimes frequent road checkpoints. Delay in transportation services often limits the financial capability of producers to hire vehicles when needed and increases reliance on inappropriate means of transportation. This delay in moving produce from the point of production to either market or processing centers could result in both physical and financial losses. For this reason, many farmers often trade at the farm-gate to avoid the need to transfer harvests to market, which can be risky, particularly with perishable goods. Indeed, up to 70 percent of the fresh agricultural produce could be spoiled during road transportation. It was also estimated that in 2014, 50 percent of losses of plantains and bananas in Nigeria occur during transportation from the farm to marketplaces, and account for 2.5 percent to 6.6 percent of wholesalers' potential total revenue (Marras et al., 2017).The supply of road transport logistics is highly fragmented in nature with the presence of heteroclite market players. The transport system is characterized by large numbers of small-scale operators with limited professional and business capacity, uncoordinated activities and services leading to inefficiency and non-compliance with traffic regulations (PUB and IIT, 2014). They provide within state and interstate transport services. There are also large and formal logistics players offering agro-logistic services, including TAK logistics, Red Star Logistics, MDS logistics, among others. These companies provide specialized services for agro-industrial and agribusiness companies. They usually operate on several logistics segments transporting products from farmer aggregation centers to warehouse and processing units (TAK, 2022). They also offer cold chain solutions to keep products fresh along the chain.Another category of service provider has emerged because of the growth of e-commerce and ICT platforms. They own trucks or rely on third-party logistics to deliver agricultural products to their customers.Others, like Kobo360, operate online platforms to improve the coordination of supply and demand for truck services. But these startups' services are still very limited in the agri-food value chain and are not accessible to smallholder farmers.There has been a gradual return of rail transport services that could contribute to boost the agriculture value chain in Nigeria. Three decades ago, the movement of cattle and farm produce from the North was undertaken by rail. But this transport service has recorded an unstable performance trajectory, with a definite downward spiral between 1985 and 2009 (Abioye, 2016). During this period, rail freight volumes (in tons) declined by as much as 95 percent (Aebukola, 2022). From 2010 onwards, the performance of the rail freight has gradually increased, though there is still significant room for growth.The rail transportation services need to be improved to reduce the enormous burden on the congested roads and to become a reliable alternative. The rail network is strategically positioned through the heart of major farming regions across the country. In addition, transport costs incurred in the use of rail transport is cheaper at every distance range (Abioye, 2016). The unit cost of freight transport with rail freight costs ranges from 11 to 44 percent of road haulage charges. Per capita energy use is also lower for rail relative to road, making the former more environmentally friendly (Adebukola, 2022). A major disincentive for freight owners and users, however, is the slow speed offered on rail compared to road transport, due to low frequencies of service and the elongated transport time. The trains also lack facilities for ferrying livestock in a healthy and efficient way. The Nigerian Agribusiness Group reports that farmers lost 31 cows out of a batch of 1820 during rail transportation and offloading (Nation, 2020). Losses were also observed during tomato transportation because of lack of appropriate air-conditioning. If the current challenges are solved, the rail services could provide substantial opportunities to develop the logistics for agricultural and livestock products.The service providers in the rail transport are more regulated and less fragmented compared to the road transport industry. The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) manages the 4,332 km rail network that runs diagonally from the southwest (Lagos) to northeast (Nguru) and from the south-east (Port Harcourt) through Kafanchan to the north-east (Maiduguri). The Nigerian railways charges N7.10 per ton per km of dry goods rail freight while haulage rates range from N59.4 per km at 101 km to N15.6 per km at 1149 km distance (Adebukola, 2022). Private companies provide rail haulage services. For example, Connect Rail Services are tapping the growing opportunities in the railway services to farm organizations.They have developed refrigerated coaches meant for transporting perishables and dairy products from farm to market, and to the seaports in the case of agriculture produce that are meant for export (Nation, 2020). Traxport Rail Services is a special purpose vehicle established to obtain and operate a freight service between the southern port city of Lagos and the northern industrial city of Kano. They usually serve large agro-industrial players such as OLAM transporting grains, sesame, cocoa, and cashew (Traxport, 2022). TAK Logistics is also another large player operating on this logistics segment.Storage is the activity of keeping products at warehouses, logistics centers or on farm. It provides a steady supply of goods to the market to fill the gap between producers and consumers. The assumption behind all commercial storage is that the price will rise sufficiently while the product is in storage to cover the costs of storage.to engage in commodity trading. But there are a limited number of formal warehouse service providers. These SMEs store cashew nut, wheat sorghum and maize at different moisture content over medium to long periods (over two months). The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) has also constructed technologically improved grain storage silos to store the excess production in states. Nigeria invested NGN 66 billion (USD 171 million) to establish 33 silo complexes, 25 grain aggregation centers, and 9 units of Blumberg warehouses, which have later been privatized. The silos have a storage capacity between 25,000 and 100,000 tonnes. A leading market player in the warehousing space is AFEX Commodities Exchange Limited (AFEX), which operates 60 warehouses in Nigeria, where affiliated farmers can deposit commodities such as maize, cocoa and soybeans (Food Business Africa, 2021). AFEX implements also the first Warehouse Receipt Backed Commercial Paper in Africa, with tech-enabled operations and a 24-hour fast cash turnaround for borrowers (Thompson, 2020). The warehouse receipt system can be used as collateral to unlock loans from financial institutions. Other private storage providers exist, but they either are small informal actors or large players serving large customers.Few of them resort to external storage services. They use storage technologies such as baskets, sacks, platforms, cribs, sheds with bam-boo-laid ceilings, and unoccupied rooms. Traditional storage facilities are implemented in rural areas to store grains for a few months or root and tubers for few weeks (Bankole et al. ,2013;Somorin and Bankole, 2010).Challenges associated with various storage structures include quantity and quality losses, especially for traditional storage and handling practices. Losses are usually caused by pest damage (insect and rodent attacks), moisture penetration, rusting, molding, rodent infestation, and roof leaks, etc.Cowpea farmers lose 10 percent to as high as 100 percent after only a few months because of insect damage (Moussa et al., 2014). Maize can record up to 30 percent dry-weight-losses (DWL) in six months of storage (Boxall, 2002). Aflatoxin contamination has also been observed along the maize value chain in Nigeria, including in farm storage, in containers used for transportation, and in processed maize products (Paymal, 2018).Research institutions have developed storage several technologies on small and large scales to address storage losses. The Federal Institute of Industrial Research Oshodi (FIIRO) designed and manufactured a prototype silo that can contain five tons of grains like maize and pulses like beans and soybeans. This silo could be smaller, depending on the user's production capacity. The Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute (NSPRI) has also developed several storage technologies ranging from 100 kg to thousands of tones. For example, an atmosphere silo for storage of grains had successfully stored wheat, among other grains, for four years without quality deterioration. But the post-harvest value chains had not been able to adopt the technology despite the high financial profitability; return per naira from wheat grains storage using the silo is 0.44 (Irogba and Nnanna, 2019). Among hermetic technologies, hermetic bags are the most widely disseminated among smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The use of hermetic bags to store grain has significantly increased in the past 10 years, spearheaded by the development of the Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bag (Baristuta and Cristine, 2020). The adoption of hermetic bags is driven by several factors, including: (i) the severity of storage losses at the farm level; (ii) the efficacy of the technologies, and (iii) benefits such as being chemical-free, cost effective, easy to use. Other benefits of using PICS and other hermetic bags include the reduction in deaths and illness due to the misuse of insecticides and the mitigation of mold growth (leading to aflatoxin accumulation) that causes stunted growth in children and liver cancer (Barisbuta and Cristine, 2020). PICS bags come in three different sizes -25 kg, 50 kg, and 100 kg bags. Improving the supply chain to deliver technology to farmers over the last mile will certainly increase the adoption of PICS bags.More generally, the low adoption of improved storage technologies by smallholder farmers is also often due to liquidity constraint that prevents them from forgoing spot sales to engage in speculative behavior (Rick-Gilbert et al., 2022).Cold storage logistics is another important logistics area that addresses the perishability of fresh fruits and vegetables, fish, meat, and dairy products. Chilling temperatures in cold chains vary between 0°C to 8°C whereas freezing temperatures are below -18°C.A challenge with using cold chain is that the temperature must be maintained throughout the subsequent chain when applied to one node of the supply chain. That means cold chain at the procurement stage must be maintained downstream to the delivery stage. For instance, cooled transport can be problematic due to inspections along the hauling route, when container units are opened, and the cold chain is interrupted. This feature limits cold storage practices in open markets that lack appropriate storage technologies. Demand from supermarkets and other organized market outlets is therefore the main driver behind the cold chains as they have the capacity to maintain the cold chain (Sibomana et al., 2018). But food sales through supermarkets only account for around 1 percent of total sales, and 80 percent of their food stocking is purchased from importers and wholesalers located in traditional open markets (Marras et al., 2017). More specifically, the supermarket supply chains, although growing, represent a small proportion of the fresh fruits and vegetables markets such as tomatoes (Sibomana et al., 2018).Cold storage systems used in Nigeria include cold rooms, industrial blast freezers, solar refrigerators, mobile refrigerated trailers. Deloitte (2022) provides a detailed analysis of the cold storage sector in Nigeria. (i) An example of a cold room provider is ColdHubs, which provides plug-and-play modular, solar-powered walk-in cold rooms for 24/7 off-grid storage and preservation of perishable foods that can extend the shelf life of fresh fruits and vegetables from 2 days to 21 days (ColdHub, 2022). ColdHubs operates cold rooms with a maintained temperature of 5°C and a capacity of 2-3 metric tons of perishable food arranged in at least 150 units of 30kg (0.03 metric tons) plastic crates. (ii) The industrial blast freezer is a specialized stationary freezer used to preserve food at sub-zero degrees Celsius temperatures to prevent the growth of harmful bacteria that spoils food (ADK Kooling, 2016). An example of a blast chiller supplier is De Koolar Nigeria Limited. Their units are powered by grid connection or diesel generators or solar energy systems. Another example is Eja-Ice Nigeria Limited, which offers solar powered freezers with natural refrigerants to fish retailers through affordable lease-to-own schemes. (iii) Solar refrigerators are ordinary refrigerators that are powered by the energy directly provided by sunlight. They are small with the holding capacity like ordinary refrigerators. (iv) Refrigerated trailer also known as \"reefer\" is a refrigerated container attached to a semi-truck and used to transport perishables and other temperature sensitive goods. Alyx Limited provides solar refrigerated trailers to help farmers transport produce from their farms to the markets. KCLL and Awesome Fresh are growing startups operating refrigerated transport through diesel powered generators.Cold systems are available and operational across Nigeria. However, when compared to the number of farmers and agribusinesses who need this technology, there is a significant gap between the demand and supply of cold storage in Nigeria. There are several providers of cold chain equipment and facilities currently in operation in Nigeria. But most of the cold storage services that are available are primarily for the preservation of meat and fish, with comparatively few options suitable for the storage of fresh fruits and vegetables, and milk (Deloitte, 2022). This gap is pronounced in rural communities where most smallholder farmers lack access to cold storage solutions (Kibiti, and Strubenhoff, 2019).The problem of loss due to the absence of cold chain extends beyond fresh agricultural produce to include dairy, sea food, and poultry with significant nutritional and economic consequences.It is estimated that 37 percent of Nigerian agricultural production requiring refrigeration is lost due to inefficient or non-existent cold chains (SeAll, 2018). Food spoiled from lack of cold storage causes 93 million small farmers in Nigeria to lose 25 percent of their annual income (Ikegwuonu, 2018). In Nigeria, 32 percent of Nigeria's children are classified as stunted, and 2 million children suffer from severe acute malnutrition (Global Nutrition report 2018, 2020). Fresh vegetables like tomatoes are a rich potential source of several micro-nutrients essential for a healthy diet, but only if they are readily available and affordable for local populations, especially those on low incomes. Fish is integral to diets in Nigeria with the average Nigerian consuming 13.3kg of fish per year (Adeye, 2016). Yet between 40 and 50 percent of fresh fruits and vegetables are lost during crating, transportation, storage, and processing (Ikegwuonu, 2018). It is estimated that more than 40 percent of tomato production does not reach consumers (GAIN, 2020). Likewise, 50 percent of harvested fish is lost due to inadequate cold storage (FAO, 2017). The potential annual savings on post-harvest loss (PHL) for fish, milk, and some fresh fruits and vegetables is approximately NGN 110 trillion (US$268 billion), which emphasizes the need for accessible and effective cold storage facilities and underlines the market potential for new or existing entrants into the cold storage market (Deloitte, 2022).The FGN released new guidelines of courier and logistics services in July 2022 to enhance the logistics services to account for the introduction of e-commerce, and online vendors in the industry. Logistics is defined as delivery services which include haulage, conveyance, and dispatch/delivery of items or goods weighing not less than 50 kg. The delivery of merchandise and/or cargo with a weight of not less than 0.5 kg and not more than 50 kg is considered as courier services.Sectorial policies or agencies also support the development of the logistics sector in Nigeria. Formal national transport policy is lacking, although several draft national transport policies have been produced historically. The 2010 draft transport policy represent the latest in a series (Oroleye, 2019). The FGN is now developing a new policy to unlock the country's economic potential in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is the regulatory agency with licensing powers, oversight, and other supervisory rulemaking of the implementation activities of the warehouse receipts transactions on the commodities market ecosystem.to revamp the logistics sector to make agriculture a key anchor of the economic diversification.Building on success and lessons from the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA), APP (2016APP ( -2020) ) aimed at improving agricultural infrastructure, resolving food shortages, and improving agricultural output.One of the main tenets of the APP is the provision of agricultural infrastructure such as small medium and large storage units and technologies, agro-distribution and processing facilities. The rural infrastructures were seen as an enabler of logistics services that deserved sustained investments. For example, through its Credit Risk Guarantee and Loan Facilitation services, the Nigeria incentive-based risk sharing system for Agricultural Lending (NISRAL) enables smallholders to benefit a low-cost and efficient transport link between producers and consumers. The scheme was projected to reduce the cost of transporting agricultural produce by over 20 percent, and minimize wastage and spoilage of goods in transit by over 40 percent (Nwannekanma, 2016). The initiative has already supported North-to-South movement of cattle by rail. The same initiative led to transport soybeans from Kaduna to Lagos. NIRSAL is also making progress on operationalizing other elements of the Farm to Market scheme such as the movement of perishable agricultural produce like tomatoes, dairy products, and vegetables in refrigerated containers. The Anchor Borrowers Program (ABP) of the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) supported aggregation points and storage infrastructure in designated Local Government Areas (LGA) of each state.The ABP, launched in 2015, has been suspended since 2021 because of loan defaults (Punch, 2022).The agricultural sector is identified in the Nigeria Development Plan (NDP 2021-2025) as a key driver of economic growth and diversification. As part of measures to reduce post-harvest losses, the FGN prioritizes developing critical rural infrastructure such as roads, reactivation of grain aggregation centers. This strategy is taking shape in the Nigeria Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ) initiatives launched in October 2022. The first phase of the Nigeria SAPZ program is co-financed by FGN and key development partners (AfDB, IDB and IFAD) to the tune of $538.05 million. The Program will support the setup of SAPZ in in seven states (Kano, Kaduna, Oyo, Kwara, Ogun, Imo, and Cross River) and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The first component of this program will address Infrastructure Development and Management for Agro-Industrial Hubs (AIH) with agricultural transformation centers strategically located within the production area to aggregate products from the community, transfer them to the AIHs for value addition and supply centers of demand for distribution and retail to consumers (IFAD, 2021).Agriculture is a major source of employment and economic development in Nigeria, contributing about 23 percent to GDP (Statista, 2021) and a 70 percent share of the labor force (PwC, 2020). However, the sector suffers from two major challenges: (i) the sector's inability to meet domestic food requirements, and (ii) the inability of the sector to export at quality levels required by international markets (FMARD, 2016). The two recent agricultural policy documents for Nigeria − the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) (2010/11-2016) and the agricultural promotion policy (APP) (2016-2020) highlighted that low agricultural productivity driven by low use of modern agricultural inputs or technologies is the major constraint hindering the performance of the agriculture sector in the country. Poor access to financial services to smallholder farmers was identified as one of the key constraints limiting adoption of these agricultural technologies (FMARD, 2016). The ATA and APP further claim that beyond smallholder farmers, limited access to financial services also has adversely impacted input suppliers, crop processors and traders, and other private sector firms engaged in agribusiness value chains and in agriculture more broadly.According to the APP, insufficient access to credit and insurance products, high interest rates, and nonrecognition of cooperatives and farmer-based organizations by financial institutions are among the major constraints to agricultural financing in Nigeria.As a result, several policy interventions, such as the Nigerian Incentive-based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) (2011); the Growth Enhancement Support Scheme (GES) (2012), and the Anchor Borrowers' Program (ABP) (2015), were instituted by government to mitigate the problem. Yet, access to agricultural credit remains a major challenge for smallholder farmers and others involved in the agri-food value chains in Nigeria (World Bank, 2022). Lending organizations are largely constrained by the unique risks in the sector, high transaction costs often associated with dealing with large number of smallholder farmers, and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that dominate the agri-food value chains. According to the Enhancing Financial Innovation and Access (EFInA) nationally representative survey data (EFInA, 2020), of the 38 million financially excluded adults in Nigeria, 81 percent of them are from rural areas. On the other hand, there is limited effective demand for finance by agri-food value chain actors because of their inability to meet the often-demanding requirements such as inadequate collateral and risk-averse behavior of smallholders (Balana et al., 2022).Furthermore, informal sources (especially borrowings from family and friends) dominate rural credit in Nigeria as only 2 percent of rural dwellers have accessed credit from formal financial institutions (Table 1). In terms of savings, the EFInA (2020) data show that only about 56.1 percent of rural dwellers reported some savings, but most of these savings are held through informal or traditional means. Regarding physical access to financial institutions, only 38 percent of rural adults are within proximity to financial access points/ service providers, of which many of the access points (84 percent) are operated by financial service agents (EFInA, 2020). The financial gap (both credit and savings) among rural smallholders on the one hand and the availability of the network of financial service agents on the other, presents a market opportunity for designing, promoting, and scaling digital financial services to agri-food value chain actors. According to Agri-logic (2022) there is a wide demand-supply gap in agricultural finance in Nigeria (Fig-ure. 1). Based on the demand-supply estimation, there is a 90 percent financing gap for agricultural finance in Nigeria. Demand for agricultural finance largely comes from farmers' short-term input financing, MSMEs' medium to long-term assets and overheads financing, and large companies' short-term working capital and long-term investments in productive assets (Agri-logic, 2022). The demand for farmers' input financing alone is estimated at $15 billion while the total supply of agricultural finance is estimated at $4 billion.Weaknesses of the agricultural sector, lack of collaterals, uncertainty/risk inherent in agriculture, high transaction costs, and knowledge gaps are the key factors that explain the large financing gap in the sector. Other factors include corruption, policy inconsistencies, volatile security concerns specific to the rural economy, market volatility, weather, and supply chain risks.Source: Agri-Logic (2022)The agricultural sector accounts only 5 percent of the total loans from commercial banks. Data from the central bank of Nigeria (CBN) show that the agricultural sector received the least credit from commercial banks as compared to other sectors (Fig. 2). For instance, commercial bank credits to agriculture are at their highest level in seven years in 2020, and yet still less than 6 percent. The bulk of constraints to commercial bank credits to agriculture comes from the often-demanding collateral requirements. At the same time, many banks also lack knowledge on lending to the agricultural sector, and hence experience difficulties growing their agriculture portfolio. This is in addition to bank branches being hardly accessible in rural communities, as most bank branches are mainly located in major cities (NBS, 2019). Other factors include high transaction costs, weak infrastructure to ensure credit delivery, corruption, policy inconsistencies, volatile security concerns specific to the rural economy, market volatility, weather and supply chain risks that often come with agribusiness globally (Agri-logic 2022).Informal financial markets-such as friends, relatives, neighborhood money lenders, local rotating saving, and loan associations (VSLA), and cooperatives-play a significant role in meeting the financial needs of smallholders and SME agribusinesses. This is because informal financial services do not require stringent conditions, for instance, no collateral requirements compared to formal financial services. The advantages of easy accessibility, flexibility in interest rates and repayment periods, low administrative and procedural costs, little or no collateral, and flexibility to operate in heterogeneous markets are all used by informal financial market services to operate in a variety of markets and provide a range of services. Rural areas are home to many informal financial institutions, making them readily accessible to rural farmers who view these organizations as a convenient source of funding (Henri-Ukoha et al CGAP , 2017;EFInA, 2020). Between 2018 and 2020, the number of adults using informal financial services increased by 5.3 million (Efina, 2020). This steady rise in the general uptake of informal financial services is mainly driven by the increasing contribution of savings groups, savings thrifts, village associations, and cooperatives which have sprung up across both rural and urban economies. Within this period, savings groups witnessed an increase of 7 percent, savings threat 2 percent, and village associations 3 percent, while cooperatives contributed to the growth by 2 percent (Figure 3 (a)). The services of MFIs have grown since the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) adopted a microfinance policy in 2005 (CBN, 2005). The goal of the policy is to offer a framework for microfinance that will improve the delivery of diverse microfinance services for low-income and underprivileged populations over the long term. Though access to microcredits improves the productivity of farmers and contributes to uplifting the livelihoods of disadvantaged rural farming communities (Nosiru, 2010;Ogebe et al., 2021), smallholder farmers still face some constraints in accessing microcredit (World Bank, 2017) due to lack of information, high-interest rates, and inadequate supply of credit institutions as well as risk-averse nature of some  et al., 2015;Ogebe et al. 2021). However, MFIs reach is relatively small (estimated at 1-10 percent of the total target population), and MFIs also prefer urban areas (World Bank, 2017).To address the limited financing to agriculture by banks, the FGN through the CBN in the last three decades has been involved in the design and implementation of various schemes and programs. The Bank of Agriculture (BOA), the Bank of Industry (BOI), Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Company (NAIC)and the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF) are key government institutions established to address limited financial access by smallholders. The ACGSF, for instance, has provided a guarantee to deposit money banks (DMBs) for loans to small and medium-scale farmers in the country.Other policies such as Rural Credit Schemes (RCSs) aimed at increasing and sustaining lending to ag- Cash is still a key instrument in use by smallholder farmers despite several initiatives by social enterprises and groups to digitize payments along the agri-food value chain (Fig. 4). Many smallholder farmers still buy agricultural inputs with cash and get paid with cash for their produce. Since access to financial service outlets in rural areas is still limited, smallholders are mostly put off by transaction costs and travel charges.Almost all smallholder farmers pay in cash when they buy agricultural inputs including seeds, fertilizer, and insecticides. For instance, an estimated 96 percent of Nigerian farmers paid cash for their inputs. In a similar vein, none of the farmers get paid for their farm income through digital channels; according to reports, of all the farmers are paid in cash (EFInA, 2020). These challenges however underscore the need for collaboration among agricultural social enterprises, DFS providers, and agricultural buyers to ensure farmers can be effectively served better. The use of digital solutions by smallholders has been constrained by low levels of digital literacy and limited internet connectivity. The internet is unavailable to 70 percent of smallholders. The large digital literacy gap might make it difficult for people to employ digital solutions since it prevents them from using various digital financial services.Despite their low digital literacy with marginal investment in capacity strengthening activities (trainings), studies show that smallholder farmers are likely to adopt digital financial services (Mercycorp, 2021).Farmers can expand on how they utilize their mobile phones. About 81 percent of farmers have a kind of digital identification, such as a voter's card, which enables them to access banking services. products to smallholder farmers to insure yield risks, improve their farming practices, and bolster their incomes over time has worked with the Central Bank of Nigeria to provide insurance for over 543,000 farmers loans in all Nigerian states. However, scaling the adoption of DFS will depend on the ability of social enterprises to train farmers on the use of DFS, as well as ensuring their awareness of the suits of DFS services available. Farmers generally do not have access to information on improved agricultural technology, 69 percent of farmers rely on friends and family for advice on agricultural activities and mainly (CGAP, 2019).In this section we present the emerging logistics and digital financial services along the nodes of agrifood value chains in Nigeria.As discussed in the previous sections, the fragmented nature of input and output supply chains in Nigeria is an inherent constraint to their effective operation. When smallholder farmers are in remote communities and operate individually, access to affordable logistics services (such as transportation and storage), lowcost finance and information (on markets, technologies, etc.) can be difficult. In some cases, these farmers simply lack information about existing innovations. In other cases, they are aware of the available innovations but the effective price of accessing those innovations and/or selling the output generated from their use are too high and low (respectively). In this context, better coordination of activities in the midstream and downstream of the input and output supply chains can significantly improve the operations of many agri-food supply chains. Improved coordination (via links to guaranteed input supply and output market with input delivery services and output pick up services) increases the ability of farmers to access various inputs and services at lower costs and get higher effective prices for their products. For largescale processors and other market channels, improved coordination can guarantee them high quality produce at scale with information on production and handling practices that can be used to access specific niche markets that are willing to pay for certain product attributes. This can be passed on to farmers through improved access to modern market channels and associated price premiums, which could then improve the incentives for them to adopt yield enhancing technologies and practice.Over the last decade, there has been a rapid expansion of private-sector enterprises (largely small and medium scale enterprises) that provide farmers with these sorts of coordination services. These SMEs often offer farmers a suite of services to support their delivery of products by supporting farmer engagement in input and output markets (Liverpool-Tasie et al., 2020). These services include input provision and delivery, training, credit, and a guaranteed market and pick up services. The provision of this suite of services addresses idiosyncratic market failures and asset shortfalls of small-scale producers and are viewed as potential mechanisms to foster more inclusive food systems. These services reduce the transportation costs associated with input purchases and output sales (and thus the effective prices faced by farmers) and can potentially fill gaps in what small-scale producers require to undertake beneficial transactions such as the adoption of modern technologies and the production of sufficient volumes of highquality products to secure available premiums previously out of their reach. Table 2 presents the major agri-food value chains logistics services providers identified in this report.Which node of the value chain?Midstream and downstream (refrigerated and non-refrigerated transport service)(1) Red Star Express Plc. is Nigeria's leading logistics provider with over 150 offices in Nigeria that services 1500 communities. Red Star has 4 subsidiaries one of which offer Agro-logistics specialized services for movement of agricultural produce.(2) APM Terminals Kano offers a refrigerated truck transport service to help farmers get more perishables to market with less spoilage. As part of an ongoing investment in coldchain solutions in Nigeria, APM provides modern cold chain transportation alternatives for farmers in the agricultural centers of northern Nigeria to bring fresh produce intact and unspoiled to market centers in Lagos.(3) Kennie-O Cold Chain Logistics (KCCL) is a SME based in Ilorin, Kwara State that provides refrigerated transport and cold storage solutions to fresh agricultural products (fruit and vegetables) as well as the pharmaceutical industry.(4) Awesome Fresh is a SME based in Jos, Plateau that also provides refrigerated transport services to farmer associations and retail food operators. The company also operates as an aggregator of agricultural products.(5) NARTO (National Association of Road Transport Owners). The association comprises all commercial vehicles owners in Nigeria engaged in haulage of products, general cargoes, and passengers, within the country and the entire West-Africa sub region.(6) Mile 12 Traders association is an influential association representing traders (at Mile 12 international market in the city of Lagos)Midstream and downstream (warehousing and cold storage)(1) AFEX is a commodity exchange organization that aims to facilitate trade in Nigeria and other African countries by deploying an efficient market system. They have programs geared to link farmers to both input and output markets.(2) Cold Hub is a business enterprise that operates solar powered walk-in cold rooms for its clients. Cold Hubs offers customers a flexible pay-as-you-store subscription model. Clients can have their perishable foods put into reusable crates, which fit neatly onto shelves in cold hub storage units and pay a daily flat fee for each crate.(3) OTACCWA (Organization for Technological Advancement of Cold Chain in West Africa), is a multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral group of professionals, companies and organizations in Nigeria and ECOWAS countries with the primary mission to organize the different industry sectors participating in the cold chain supply of perishable commodities and products, medicines for storage, and transportation or distribution.Indirect logistics services (either in-house as complementary service or rented in or facilitator)(1) Kobo360 is a long-haul e-logistics business to business (B2B) platform utilizing an \"Uber for trucks\" model to develop a marketplace matching cargo owners with long-haul freight needs and truck owners who can service them. Through its internally developed digital platform, Kobo360 is disrupting the transportation and logistics market in Nigeria offering a strong value proposition to key stakeholders in the sector including cargo owners, transporters (and drivers), and cargo recipients. Kobo optimally matches demand and supply of trucks, providing predictability, reliability, price transparency, and increased utilization of otherwise idle assets in the highly fragmented trucking market in Nigeria.(2) Trade Depot is an innovative platform of Business-to-Business services delivering consumer goods to retailers in urban and peri-urban communities. Trade Depot enables factory-to-retail distribution for consumer goods companies such as Danone, Unilever, Kellogg's, Indomie, Nasco, etc (https://www.tradedepot.co/). The company serves a network of about 100,000 retailers. In addition, Trade Depot provides micro-loans to retailers to enable them buy more of their products, backed by financial institutions. Trade Depot has operation in Nigeria (5 states), Ghana, and South Africa.(3) KariGo is a technology-based solution platform that connects a Cargo owner with a truck owner with the help of the KariGO mobile app. The platform brings all together: cargo, trucks, technology, speed, innovation, and savings. Cargo owners include corporate cargo owners (FMCG, courier, shipping, and manufacturing companies) or individuals and oneoff cargo owners.(4) Intriosynergy is a business enterprise that works with thousands of smallholder Nigerian farmers involved in soybean and sorghum production. The company serves as a onestop-shop that provides numerous services that bridge the gap between smallholder farmers, providers of various inputs and services to farmers and agro-processors who require significant quantities of the farmers' output but often experience inadequate supplies both in terms of quantity and quality.(5) We move Tech is a business that provides transportation services of all kinds (including for food) in Nigeria. Through a logistics asset partnership scheme, they also provide opportunities for the management for vehicle owners who want to engage in logistics.(6) Sabi and Vendease established in 2020, have created digital marketplaces allowing wholesalers, shopkeepers, restaurateurs, and hotels to buy directly from farms and manufacturers (Reuter, 2020).(7) Kitovu is an agricultural-focused technology company uses data to eliminate agricultural supply chain inefficiencies. Kitovu adopts a market-driven approach to connect farm produce to end consumers. The company creates relationships with major buyers and accesses information from them on what crop varieties they prefer and possible quantities they procure. Kitovu offers a blend of products and services including commodities supply service (e-Procure), fertilizers, seeds, agrochemicals, and an input finance scheme.These platforms themselves (and their provision of these suite of coordination services to address existing market failures) could be considered as an innovation within agri-food value chains. The identified private sector SMEs providing coordination services along food value chains (Table 2 below and thus offering this additional delivery service that addresses the last mile problem for farmers. (iv)Farmer groups and cooperatives have been documented to have mixed impacts on farmers and their level of formality varies significantly. While highly successful cooperatives have been instrumental for price negotiation and coordination of product supply in some value chains, numerous cases of poorly functioning cooperatives exist. This is often due to poor management skills, technical deficiencies, a perception among members that these groups have a primarily social objectives, and internal power dynamics.The majority of the above problems can be avoided by these SMEs that are primarily profit seeking businesses willing to provide the required services because they perceive a mutual benefit to them and their clients. Thus, they represent an alternative model for reducing coordination failures to using logistic services in agri-food value chains. Understanding the efficiency with which these SMEs provide coordination services can inform on the need for supporting their use of more formal logistic services (because of the economies of scale they provide through their aggregation activities) that could increase the ability of farmers and the SMEs to provide traceability and information about their projects through a more structured collaboration with other formal logistics service providers (e.g., kobo 360). In this regard, a significant improvement could also be made in upstream operations using software such as Capture Solution that could enable the SMEs to map farmers' production, weight and track it. Moreover, the SMEs could promote the use of technologies such as hermetic storage bags that could address post-harvest losses for grain (cereals and grain legumes such as cowpea) which represent a major impediment for food and income security for many farmers.As Nigeria experiences a rapid urbanization, neighborhood shops and vendors can become an important food outlet. Though these outlets account for a large share of the food supply in urban and peri-urban areas, they are not well understood. In many instances, the range of products available are limited and the prices are higher due to the high costs associated with product purchase and delivery. In response to this a start-up called TradeDepot has developed a successful business model to deliver products to the retail market in urban communities. TradeDepot's innovative model addresses the inefficiency in transport services and the coordination of product delivery to the retail market segment. Like Amazon Prime, TradeDepot connects the retailers in urban neighborhoods to a large suite of consumer products.In fact, TradeDepot enables factory-to-retail distribution for consumer goods companies such as Unilever Nigeria plc., Danone, Kellogg's, Indomie, and NASCO group. TradeDepot serves a network of about 100,000 retailers, more than 75 percent of whom are female entrepreneurs. TradeDepot's App platform gives these small retailers a real time view of all prices and discounts available from every major brand.They can order products directly, which are then delivered to them within 24 hours, with the order routed to the appropriate nearby depot. At the same time, manufacturers have full visibility over their distribution and can leverage the platform to optimize deliveries to their distributors, improve their pricing and have a direct channel towards their end-retailers. In addition, to help retailers grow their businesses, TradeDepot has developed micro-loans to enable them to buy more products, backed by financial partners.TradeDepot is active across 10 cities in Nigeria (and 5 states). Although the business model has expanded rapidly over the past 6 years, it is currently limited to manufactured goods.Digital technologies are advancing access to finance and closing the financial inclusion gap in many developing countries (CGAP, 2014). For instance, the inclusion of mobile money accounts in the World DFS towers above conventional finance in its ability to effectively assess risk, lower costs, and swiftly deliver financial services.Motivated by the relative success recorded in the nonagricultural context, many private sector led initiatives are now exploring various dimensions of the potential of DFS in delivering financial services to the agricultural sector, particularly smallholder farmers and agri-food SMEs. The agricultural insurance market in Nigeria is largely dominated by the government with few private actors, who also face slow uptake of their services. For instance, only 2 percent of farmers currently have insurance (MercyCorp, 2021). To mitigate this low uptake, the government offers subsidized insurance often bundled with bank loan products. On the other hand, social enterprises are facilitating the integration of digital technology to mirror the processes and features of insurance for farmers.Insurance providers now leverage digital technologies and satellite imagery to provide weather-based index insurance to farmers. For example, Pula Ltd. an Agri-tech insurance company, delivers innovative digital products to help smallholder farmers mitigate and endure yield risks. Pula provides an insurance cover that can be bundled with farmers' input purchase, and send agronomic tips to farmers' mobile phones to help improve their farming. They also, amongst others, developed a USSD to deliver information to farmers in a way to understand insurance as well as for farmers to make the insurer aware of the incidence of loss. The Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES), an e-voucher scheme that was implemented across Nigeria in 2011, served as the Federal Government of Nigeria's first significant effort to provide agriculture with public sector-driven digital financial services. The initiative gave private agro-dealers the institutional support they needed to help farmers receive subsidized inputs (fertilizer, better seeds, and extension services). In essence, GES uses e-wallet mobile technology transfer to enable the direct provision of subsidized fertilizer from the government to the farmers, devoid of any intermediary, many of whom in previous times used fraudulent documents to obtain subsidized fertilizers from the government and resell at going market rates to the open market. The program was carried out through cooperation between the FGN, state agriculture ministries, and supply chain managers (SCMs), and the platform builder-Cellulant was designed to enhance agricultural productivity through timely and efficient delivery of yield-enhancing input (FRN, 2013). Through the program, enrolled farmers can redeem their inputs (fertilizer and seeds) from agro-input merchants using e-wallet coupons.Government led DFS initiatives if well harnessed may potentially become the fulcrum for delivering public databases, which would allow the private sector to deliver DFS, while also providing the government opportunity to monitor their actions. Government-led initiatives such as its partnership with AFEX in 2014 to develop a warehouse receipt system have also indirectly contributed to scaling DFS. Arising from its partnership with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural development (FMARD) to enable smallholder farmers and cooperatives to store their produce safely at approved warehouses and use the receipts as collateral for loans (GSMA, 2022), AFEX has emerged as a leading warehouse receipt service provider in Nigeria today. AFEX built on the success of the program to become the first Nigerian licensed private commodities exchange platform, driving capital to build a trust economy in Africa's commodity markets, while also providing solutions in trading, financing, and market development systems.In this section we will present findings from our assessment of the challenges and opportunities of agrifood logistics and financial services provisions in Nigeria. We use the strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) approach to summarize the information and data obtained from a literature review, stakeholder consultations, key informant interviews, and observations/field visits.A summary of the potentials and challenges of agri-food cross value chain logistics services are presented in tabular form. This is followed by the detailed descriptions of each item in Table 3.▪ Large and growing demand for transport services -Food items need to be transported from the production areas to markets and processing centers. In Nigeria production of some agricultural commodities such as vegetables and fruits are concentrated in some states (e.g., Kano, Kaduna, Benue, and Plateau) and major markets are the big cities/towns in central or southern Nigeria (e.g., Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt). This has resulted in high demand for hired transport services by agri-food supply chain actors. For example, in a survey of maize farmers, maize traders and animal feed mills in Nigeria, it was found that 72 percent, 80 percent and 95 percent of those farmers, traders and feed millers respectively who delivered their products to a buyer used hired transportation services (Liverpool-Tasie et al., 2021). However, the high cost of transportation remains a key constraint to the effective operation of food supply chains in Nigeria. This constraint was consistently highlighted by value chain actors of all sizes and across all nodes of the food supply chain (production, processing, and distribution). While transportation of food, generally, is confirmed to be a major constraint, this challenge is particularly faced by the value chains for perishable products such as fruit and vegetables. A majority of the innovations observed in transportation logistics (e.g., coordination and backhauling) appear to dominate in the non-perishable consumer good sectors (final processed goods and grain). Interactions with stakeholders in CVC logistics services yielded interesting insights that could be the basis for innovations in this space. For example, insufficient appropriate means of transportation for perishable products; especially for temperature-controlled storage during transportation.The 11 million metric tons of fresh fruits and vegetables moved across cities in Nigeria every year would need a minimum of 25,000 trucks. But the industry records fewer than 1,000 cooling trucks (Murungi, 2021). The co-existence of growing demand for affordable and appropriate transportation as well as storage facilities alongside insufficient provision in the subsector is an opportunity for interventions in transportation and storage that can have a huge impact on the operations of key value chains and food supply chains in general.▪ Existence of associations/ organized groups in several value chains. The existence of professional associations/groups creates a potential mechanism for working with these constituents either directly (e.g., farmers and traders or truckers) or to link them with SMEs operating in the logistics space and whose service provision requires economies of scale. This does not ignore the challenges associated with groups and group dynamics (e.g., group management and inclusivity) but points out an important existing structure in many value chains in the Nigerian agri-food system and a potential mechanism for co-creation of interventions.▪ Growing demand for adequate volumes of agricultural products by actors in the midstream and downstream. Numerous agri-food enterprises in the midstream and downstream of food supply chains need an adequate volume of quality agricultural products (as inputs for their activities). These enterprises appear to be interested in strategies to support their increased access to agricultural products at appropriate quantities and of sufficient quality from farmers and not always able to provide this support themselves. This creates an opportunity for interventions or other SMEs engaged in aggregation that can also make the provision of logistics services upstream more economical.▪ Limited storage facilities and inappropriate handling techniques for agricultural products in Nigeria has resulted in high post-harvest losses, poor food quality and undersupply of agricultural products, all these have continued to threaten food security in Nigeria. The increase in post-harvest losses of farm produce remains a challenge to Nigerian farmers due to inadequate storage facilities. Most farmers in rural areas only have access to traditional structures for storage. Poor handling practices crush tomatoes, expose maize to pests, reduce the pre-frozen life of catfish, and increase the likelihood of foodborne illness implicating pathogens (World Bank, 2020). The use of poor packaging materials (such as raffia baskets) during transport is a major cause of food loss (particularly perishable products). A recent study found that switching the storage of tomatoes during transportation from traditional baskets to plastic crates reduced losses from around 41 percent to as low as 5 percent (Olusola et al., 2019).▪ Insufficient cold chain logistics -Nigeria faces significant risks due to a lack of access to cooling fans, refrigeration and other forms of cooling that can protect food, among other benefits (World Bank, 2020). A reliable and efficient cold chain system will not only help to significantly reduce the losses in the quality and quantity of fresh fruits, vegetables, and proteins, but it will also improve the efficiency of supply chains and help to deliver safer and more nutritious foods to consumers (GAIN, 2018). It is estimated that 37 percent of Nigerian agricultural production requiring refrigeration is lost due to inefficient or non-existent cold chains (World Bank, 2020).▪ Poor condition of vehicles used during transport such as overloading of trucks and inadequate refrigeration or temperature control for perishable products.▪ Lack of proper coordination, transparency, and traceability. One of the main challenges in many value chains is the lack of proper coordination, transparency and traceability of actors and products at each node of the chain. Despite the advent of services provided by new start-up companies, coordination failure persists and many SMEs struggle to provide/create a better ecosystem for their activities within the agri-food system. The lack of an appropriate traceability system to monitor truck movements and more generally coordination failure to identify available transportation services in a given location were two related issues that the market players raised during the discussions. ▪ Fragmented demand of services at the farm level limits the delivery of logistics services to smallholder farmers. Individual smallholder farmers cannot afford some innovative logistics services. In some cases, the demand needs to be aggregated to reduce cost or create more incentives for the service providers.▪ Growing E-commerce distribution model: The demand for innovative solutions to provide access to fresh produce at consumer's doorstep increased in the retail market (Agramondis, 2022). The food supply chains in Nigeria are already being enhanced by e-commerce companies such as Farmcrowdy, Jumia, Naijapride, and Konga. ▪ Poor electricity supply. Electricity supply remains a key challenge in Nigeria's food system. In a study by Mather et al. (2022), electricity (power outages) was the most prevalent constraint to business operations cited by enterprises in the Nigeria World Bank enterprise survey. The study found that this challenge was particularly problematic for firms in the agri-food space as 66 percent of food M/S firms rated power outages as a major/severe constraint compared with 46 percent of non-food M/S and 37 percent of those in retail-wholesale. The importance of consistent power access for agrifood firms is related to their need for cold storage, given the perishability of fresh food items such as fresh meat/fish, dairy, and some vegetables, as well as for electric-powered machines used in food processing and packaging. Poor electricity supply has made it necessary for numerous businesses (particularly in the agri-food sector) to operate generators which increases their costs and reduces their profitability.▪ Rising cost of fuels. Diesel prices that surged since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 have been on the rise in Nigeria prior to the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Nigerian businesses generally rely on fuel because of poor and fluctuating power supply. High fuel cost has significantly increased transportation costs and is also eating into the profits of many agri-food enterprises. In an interview by the premium times, the former president (HE Olusegun Obasanjo) noted that higher fuel prices are eating into the profits of fish businesses in Nigeria and reducing the ability of domestically produced fish to compete with imports (Premium Times, Aug. 2022).▪ Growing adoption of mobile phones and penetration of broadband internet -The growing number of mobile phone users and penetration of broadband internet has spurred the adoption of digital financial services. Mobile internet penetration in Nigeria increased from 20.74 percent in 2018 to 37.34 percent in 2022 (Statista 2022). With new models of delivering financial services such as mobile money and USSD also replacing the old ones, access to mobile phones and internet has become fundamentally useful to increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of customer's access to financial services and to reduce costs (Alshubiri et al., 2019;Asongu and Nwachukwu, 2019;Edo et al., 2019).Access to mobile phones and internet promotes information sharing on financial services and as a result increases financial access (Aminuzzaman et al., 2003;Asongu and Moulin, 2016;Asongu and Nwachukwu, 2019). The majority of the DFS innovation observed from our Key Informant Interviews (KII), relies on mobile phone access by actors and farmers. For example, the innovative way of using USSD by smallholder farmers to access credits and payments will rely on their access to mobile phones. Financial service providers leverage digital infrastructure like mobile phones and internet to drive the credit scoring mechanism of potential customers. The use of mobile apps to collect and process data has also become an efficient alternative to the laborious documentation required for various operations that has contributed to the percentage of those who are financially excluded.▪ Access to large pool of data for effective targeting -Digital technologies generally afford technology-driven organizations to offer embedded services. For example, some of the stakeholders we consulted said that they provide additional services such as market information, input purchase and price information to smallholders and actors, and as a result help them generate large pools of data that can help them better identify prospective users of DFS, and further develop more innovative ▪ Institutional barriers to entry -The existing regulatory guidelines for DFS providers in Nigeria is not conducive to FinTech start-ups from applying for license to DFS operations. For example, the Mobile Money Services in Nigeria guideline requires anyone applying for a mobile money license from the CBN to provide evidence of having a minimum of N2,000,000,000 (two billion Naira) as its shareholders' funds, or roughly $7,000,000 (seven million US dollars).▪ Lack of trust -Despite the innovations in financial service delivery, many customers may still prefer to conduct their financial services in the traditional way. The traditional banking services are still considered safer despite DFS being faster and more efficient. DFS providers without well-known physical structure are more likely to be treated with suspicion. Many may be concerned with privacy and data security. For instance, to strengthen the trust, some DFS within the agricultural sector are forced to introduce pay-on-delivery for input purchase by smallholder farmers, which may result in additional ▪ Growing demand for digital services -The Nigerian agri-food sector still potentially has lots to benefit from the growth in supply and adoption of DFS. The growth of DFS allows smallholder farmers, agri-food SMEs, and other digital entrepreneur to efficiently access various financial services. Also important is the Nigerian footprint as a regional and pan-African hub, which make it potentially positioned it to export its digital financial ventures beyond the borders of the country, and in the process diversifying its economy and fostering the regional integration within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) (IFC, 2017). With DFS, Nigeria can also boost its inward remittances from its vast diaspora network. DFS along the agri-food value chain can encourage and attract investment and exchange of human capital to the sector, a phenomenon that may significantly contribute to the needed transformation of the sector.▪ A large youth population -A large youth population may serve as a potential fulcrum to scale up adoption of DFS. With over 65 million young people aged between 10 and 24 (World Bank, 2018), Nigeria has one of the largest youth populations in the world, who can potentially become an engine for economic transformation in Nigeria given the energetic and entrepreneurial nature inherent in them. Technologic savvy among the youths may help drive adoption of DFS in the rural economy through information and tech support access.▪ Cybercrimes and online fraud -The long-standing war waged on online and financial fraud can potentially threaten the progress in the use of DFS. This is particularly a major concern among less educated users.▪ Increasing insecurity -In the face of the ongoing struggle with terrorism and armed conflicts across the country, increasing regulatory control policies and oversight being put in place to stifle terrorism funding by creating checks on ease of obtaining instant credit may create fresh bottlenecks for the advent of DFS.▪ Limited and expensive access to national fiber-optic networks -Access to national fiber-optic networks is still limited and relatively expensive where available. While there is considerable progress in the overall expansion of the network bandwidth across the country, the rural economy where the DFS services are most needed by smallholder farmers still have largely limited or no access to broadband internet networks. With very low-income levels among smallholder farmers, the competitively priced data products may pose threats to their ability (smallholder farmers) to adopt and use DFS in a meaningful way that can improve their productivity and well-being.▪ Weak digital infrastructure -A stronger digital infrastructure remains critical to the expansion of DFS (IFC, 2017). The overall digital infrastructure of the country, on which digital financial services can thrive is still relatively weak. For instance, according to NIMC (2022), only 75.36 million Nigerians currently have a unique identity number, which means that more than 130 million Nigerians could still not be identified digitally. IFC (2017) noted that increasing investment in digital identification can potentially create opportunity for financial service providers to reach low-income customers with targeted and tailored financial services.In collaboration with WP2 and local stakeholders, several innovative cross-value chain logistics service providers, and potential local implementing partners were identified. Table 3 provides the lists and descriptions of these logistics services and potential implementing partners. Of the lists in Table 3, the following three innovations (grey shaded in Table 3) in the areas of storage and transport services were suggested to be jointly implemented by WP3 and WP2 within the Initiative.(1) Cold rooms service (Solar powered) -This will be based on the existing IFPRI research and interventions. Cold storage services provided in rural markets are expected to have a significant impact for highly perishable food commodities such as dairy, seafood, fruits, and vegetables.(2) Plastic crates (improved storage during transport) combined with business models (clustered farmers). This will involve provision of plastic crates in rental arrangements bundled with market coordination services.(3) Cool transportation: This involves cooled transportation for fruits and vegetables in Nigeria to avoid post-harvest losses, allowing smallholders to achieve premium prices and consumers to obtain nutritious and fresh products.Justification and benefits Potential partners 3(1) Cool (refrigerated) transportation servicesThe important gap in the supply of refrigerated transport services is a major constraint to the effective delivery of fresh vegetable products from the producing areas in the North to large consumption markets in the South. Farmers and/or traders use transport system that results in important PHL. It is estimated that 40-50 percent of fresh fruits and vegetables are lost during crating, transportation, storage and processing in Nigeria. This intervention aims to provide refrigerated transport services in producing areas of fresh vegetables.Awesome fresh, KCCL (this intervention can be combined with WP2)(2) Plastic crates (improved storage during transport)A simple technological solution such as transporting perishable products in plastic crates instead of woven baskets can contribute -Crate manufacturers (e.g., CelPlast but see notes in Annex 1, or combined with business models (clustered farmers)to reducing losses during transportation from 41 percent to 5 percent and delivers a monthly IRR of 34 percent over seven months (Olusola et al., 2019) Holborn Nigeria Limited) -Crate service providers in Kano Bunkasa(3) Cold rooms service (Solar powered)The gap of refrigerated storage service is pronounced in rural communities where the overwhelming majority of smallholder farmers lack access to cold storage solutions. Cold storage services provided in rural markets are expected to have a significant impact for highly perishable food commodities such as dairy, seafood, fruits, and vegetables.Cold Hub (This intervention can be combined with WP2)Improved coordination in the supply chain through an SMEThe fragmented production system in many SSA countries is an inherent constraint to an effective supply chain in the agri-food value chains. Many smallholder farmers and traders operate on individualistic basis making it difficult to provide them with efficient logistic services at a reasonable cost. Improving the logistic services may simply stem from a better coordination of operations in the supply chain in the agricultural sector. But innovative and effective models of organizing farmers are much needed. Existing traditional models of cooperatives have not generated the desired impact (World Bank, 2020). An SME can solve the coordination failure and play the role of interface by aggregating and coordinating the demand and use of the logistic services in the agri-food value chains.Leveraging on technology to bring products to poor urban consumers As many African countries experience a rapid expansion of their urban populations, neighborhood shops and vendors have become an important and growing retail food outlet. In many instances, the range of products available are limited and the prices are higher due to the high costs associated with product purchase and delivery. In response to this, a start-up, TradeDepot, has developed a successful business model to deliver products to the retail market in the urban communities. TradeDepot's innovative model addresses the inefficiency in the transport service and the coordination of product delivery to the retail market segment in urban cities. Like amazon prime, TradeDepot connects the retailers in urban neighborhood to a large suite of consumer products. Although the business model has expanded rapidly, it is currently limited to manufactured goods. This intervention could leverage TradeDepot's innovative business model to deliver food/agricultural products to retailers, i.e., adding new product lines to the goods delivered to the current customer base.Improved storage with hermetic storage bags (PICS bags)Post-harvest losses continue to be a major constraint that prevents farmers and traders to engage in storage decision. Hermetic storage technologies can contribute to reducing quality (e.g., aflatoxin in maize) and quantity losses during storage and the excessive use of chemicals. Simple storage technologies such as PICS Manufacturer (Lela Agro Industry) and Intri-oSyngergy bags are effective for crops such as cowpea, maize, rice, soybean, common bean, sesame, groundnut (Baributsa and Cristine, 2020).The lack of an appropriate traceability system to monitor truck movements and more generally the coordination failure to identify available transportation services plagues the efficiency of the supply chain in the agricultural sector and also prevents farmers and traders from integrating structured market outlets. A start up provides a platform of transport services that can allow the market players in the agricultural chain to improve the ordering and the monitoring of transport operations.Digital ICT applications to improve actor coordination and communication, as well as product traceability and chain transparencyOne of the main challenges in these value chains is the lack of proper coordination, transparency and traceability of actors and products at each phase of the chain. Technology could also be deployed to facilitate shorter value chains whereby farmers easily have access to consumers and easy rural-urban linkage and traceability of operations.Capture solution (This intervention can be combined with WP2)The following digital financial services (DFS) are proposed. Table 4 presents the descriptions and potential partners of these innovations.1. Digital supply-Base intervention in addition to the delivery of an input loan bundled with agronomic and weather advisory. Digital supply-Base helps farmers to receive payments from off-takers in a timely and efficient manner by reducing large paper trails and harmonizing their data.2. Digital delivery of input loans bundled with agronomic and weather advisory services.3. An E-wallet card was also proposed as an intervention to be provided to farmers to drive ease of payment processing and financial inclusion.4. Digital warehousing allowing farmers to move their farm produce to designated warehouses.5. A centralized USSD that can give farmers access to information or a link to DFS providers in local languages.Table 4. Innovations and potential partners for DFS in agri-food cross value chains servicesJustification and benefits Potential partners SupplyBase digital finical services. This automatically uses farmers' data (including microcredit where available) together with their production data, matches it with their harvest and the agreed agro-processor's pricing, determines if they have met the quality and quantity standards and automatically generates payment vouchers.Despite the huge alternative markets that agro-processors can potentially offer smallholder farmers, fragmented and incomplete farmers' records, including their record of production and supply capacities, has posed grave limitations. Farmers' fragmented records are fraught with errors and inconsistencies. These slow payment processing and resolutions from Agro-processors, and consequently, smallholder farmers forced to receive payments by cash, leaving them further from the web of financial inclusion. Therefore, simplifying the management of small-holder farmers, increasing traceability and efficiency in managing smallholder operations and records can help to effectively process payments for smallholder farmers in a timely manner. Specifically, SupplyBase:• -Solve farmers' traceability and financial inclusion of underserved population by ensuring seamless payment processing for farmers by Agro-processor. An e-wallet card -This is not an ATM bank card, but an e-wallet card that farmers can use for payments and savings through the designated rural agents. This card enhances farmers access to financial servicesfarmers can make payments and deposit their savings using the e-wallet Through the Growth Enhancement Support (GES) program, in 2012 the Federal Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Development (FMARD) introduced a mobile wallet system to deliver government subsidized farm inputs (fertilizer and seeds) directly to farmers via GSM phones. This resulted in significant improvement in the efficiency of inputs distribution and helped up to twice as many farmers, reduced corruption, and at a sixth of the cost as compared to the earlier scheme where the government was involved in the direct procurement and distribution of fertilizer. Despite such significant efficiency gain, increased outreach, and cost-efficiency; the e-wallet system has not been practiced by private sector operators. Thus, intervention will test the functionality and update of the modified GES version of digital financial system (e-wallet card) with private sector operators.To de-risk agriculture finance, and improve welfare of smallholder farmers, agricultural commodity warehouse receipting can be bundled with digital finance. By implication, data can be leveraged on, in such a way that farmers earn return for their production while still using the same commodity to bridge the collateral gap and encourage lending by digital credit providers.Warehouse receipt financing is the use of securely stored goods as loan collateral. These services allow producers to AFEX, Kitovu Technologies, Awesome fresh deposit a finished good or agricultural product in a secure warehouse where the producer receives a receipt certifying the deposit of goods of a particular quantity, quality, and grade. The farmer can use the receipt as a form of portable collateral to request a loan from a financial institution such as a bank or an MFIs. A centralized USSD that can give farmers access to information or link to Digital financial service providers in local languages One of the major challenges in use of DFS is wide literacy gaps, lack of awareness or information on DFS. Developing a centralized USSD where value chain actors, particularly farmers can access information or link to various, major or verified DFS providers can spur effective adoption and use of DFS and help value chain actors access financial services. To bridge poor adoption that characterizes technology adoption in agri-food value chains, the content and information in the USSD can potentially be in local languages and simply delivered without any ambiguity. USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) is a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) that is used to send text messages. Like Short Message Service (SMS), it uses codes made up of characters that are available on a mobile phone, and uses codes made up of characters to create a real-time connection and enables two-way communication of information Crop2Cash and Sterling BankThis scoping report explores existing activities related to cross-value chain logistics and financial service provision in Nigeria's agri-food systems. Information for this report was gathered largely through a review of the literature, field visits and stakeholder interviews. The report documents an emerging and growing dynamism in logistics and financial services in Nigeria's agri-food system, despite numerous challenges.While there is a rapid expansion of logistics service providers to meet the rapidly expanding need for transportation, storage and coordination of value chain actors, the logistics provision within the agri-food space is more developed for non-perishable food products than perishable commodities. Thus, the needs for innovation in logistics provision seems very apparent in the perishable food subsector. Some key findings emerging from the scoping report in the areas of agri-food logistics services include:(1) Transportation remains a key constraint to the effective operation of agri-food supply chains in Nigeria.This constraint is consistently highlighted by value chain actors of all sizes and across all nodes of the agri-food supply chain (e.g., production, processing, and distribution). While transportation of food, generally, is a major constraint, this challenge is particularly faced by the value chains for perishable products such as fruit and vegetables. The majority of logistics innovations (e.g., coordination and backhauling) appear to dominate in the non-perishable consumer good sectors (e.g., final processed goods and grains).(2) The majority of firms interviewed were either directly engaged in logistics service provision (even if logistics provision was not their primary business enterprise) or rented in logistics services for their clients (often at a cost). Renting in was very common among small and medium scale enterprises who are not able to afford in-house provision of the logistical services. There appears to be a huge need for innovations in this space to better serve all actors along food supply chains.(3) There is a growing number of efforts to improve the ecosystem for value chain activities from production to distribution including the use of digital platforms and strategies to effectively link value chain actors through one-stop-shop models.(4) The majority of the enterprises interviewed were interested in continuing conversations with the study team and potentially collaborating. Finally, security remains a key challenge noted by the majority of those interviewed. Adjusted practices (such as travelling during daylight versus overnight) seem to dominate with limited use of insurance due to high costs and insufficient insurance products available which could be something to explore further.Based on these findings, the following points summarize key features of (digital) financial services in Nigeria's agri-food sector.(1) There exists wide demand-supply gaps (about 90 percent financing gap for agricultural finance) in (digital) financial services (DFS) in agri-food sector in Nigeria. Weaknesses of the agricultural sector, lack of collaterals, uncertainty, and risk inherent in agriculture, high transaction costs, and knowledge gaps are the key factors that explain the large financing gap in the sector. For instance, the agricultural sector accounts only 5 percent of the total loans from commercial banks. Data from the central bank of Nigeria (CBN) show that the agricultural sector received the least credit from commercial banks as compared to other sectors.(2) Informal financial markets such as friends, relatives, neighborhood money lenders, local rotating saving, and loan associations, and cooperatives dominate agricultural financing among smallholders and SME agri-businesses in Nigeria. Moreover, cash is still a key instrument in use by smallholder farmers despite several initiatives by social enterprises and groups to digitize payments along the agri-food value chain. Many smallholder farmers still buy agricultural inputs with cash and get paid with cash for their produce. For instance, an estimated 96 percent of Nigerian farmers pay cash for their inputs.(3) However, there exists large untapped opportunities for the growth of DFS in Nigeria. The growing number of mobile phone users and penetration of broadband internet has spurred increasing adoption of digital financial services in Nigeria. The majority of the DFS innovation observed from our key informant interview (KII), relies on mobile phone access by actors and farmers. The use of mobile apps to collect and process data has also become an efficient alternative to the laborious documentations required for various operations that has contributed to the percentage of those who are financially excluded.(4) There appears a growing network of agents in the agri-food value chain. This agent network can help in driving awareness and education of consumers. In the case of farmers in the rural economy, the agents drive adoption, trains and helps farmers solve bottlenecks preventing them from using DFS.For example, the Cash2Crop (a digital-financial services provider that enables smallholder farmers in rural Nigeria to receive digital payments and build their financial identity) leverages its agent network across about 30 states of Nigeria to train smallholder farmers on the use of their mobile applications and USSD solutions. Similarly, some DFS providers use extension officers with experience working with smallholder farmers to drive adoption of DFS, which significantly mitigates some market barriers to entry often faced by agricultural tech-startups working within the agri-food value chain.(5) The scoping report finds that institutional barriers to entry, lack of trust, and low digital literacy among smallholders, cybercrimes and online frauds, and weak digital infrastructure could be the major constraints to the adoption and scaling up of innovations in digital financial services in Nigeria.  The company does not indicate any major challenges since the demand for plastic crates is high. Products can be customized. The company sells the 20 Kg plastic crate for 4,000 Naira and considers the price to be competitive. The company claims to have a good quality product compared to its competitors.The cost of the plastic remains expensive for smallholder farmers.The company may provide customized products depending on the size of the order (further talks are needed). An approach could be to aggregate the demand from farmers and/or traders to reduce cost.Sindkar abhay sindkar.abhay@gmail.com Sailes +234 806 566 3223 -The company provides refrigerated transport and cold storage solutions to fresh agricultural products (fruit and vegetables) as well as the pharmaceutical industry. The company rent out trucks and help their customers to move their products from the farm gate to the final market.-The company generates further revenue through their cold room facility where customers can store their products. The company also buys produce directly from smallholder farmers and sell to end-users.-The company has partnerships with major markets, embassies, and retail storessuch as Shoprite and Spar. The company headquarter is in Ilorin, Kwara State.-The growing demand for temperature-controlled trucks suggest that this investment is profitable.Problems/Challenges -KCCL has identified that controlled temperature suitable to perishable agricultural products is sometime missing in the sector. In addition, refrigerated transport should be complemented with storage facilities at the delivery point.-Lack of loan to acquire appropriate trucks and expand his activity Potential innovations Improved temperature-controlled system in trucks with tracking system Contact Kennie-O Cold Chain Logistics (KCCL) Ope Olanrewaju CEO +234 803 406 6920Awesome fresh is a SME which started as a farm business in fruit and vegetables 2 years ago, then moved into cold transportation service after observing the supply gap in this area. The company owns a 5 tons cooling van and plan to acquire a second one by the end of the year. The company partners with third party truck owners (6 formal partners). The company also aggregates products (tomato, pepper, broccoli, frozen foods -mostly chicken-, etc.) from farmers in six states.The main customers include farmers' association in the North (Vegetable Marketing Association), poultry farmers and processors, food service Operators (Chicken Republic, Food Concept).The current cost of service for a 5 tons truck is on average: Kano -Lagos 680,000 Naira (22-28 hours), Ibadan-Lagos 150,000 Naira, Abeokuta-Lagos 80,000 Naira, Abuja-Lagos: 400,000 -480,000 Naira.The company considers that there is huge supply gap in the market and is therefore willing to collaborate and partner with other logistics companies, logistics software companies, and research centers.Problems/Challenges TradeDepot's innovative model addresses the inefficiency in the transport service and the coordination of product delivery to the retail market segment. Like amazon prime, TradeDepot connects the retailers in urban neighborhood to a large suite of consumer products. In fact, TradeDepot enables factory-to-retail distribution for consumer goods companies such as Uniliver, Danone, Unilever, Kellogg's, Indomie, Nasco, etc (https://www.tradedepot.co/). The company serves a network of about 100,000 retailers, more than 75 percent of whom are female entrepreneurs. TradeDepot's app platform gives these small retailers a real time view of all prices and discounts available from every major brand. They can order products directly, which are then delivered to them within 24 hours, with the order routed to the appropriate nearby depot. At the same time, manufacturers have full visibility over their distribution and can leverage the platform to optimize deliveries to their distributors, improve their pricing and have a direct channel towards their endretailers. In addition, to help retailers grow their businesses, TradeDepot has developed micro-loans to enable them buy more products, backed by financial partners. TradeDepot is active across 10 cities in Nigeria (and 5 states), Ghana and South Africa (Accra, Johannesburg).Although the business model has expanded rapidly over the past 6 years, it is currently limited to manufactured goods.A potential intervention could be to leverage Tradedepot's innovative business model to deliver food/agricultural products to retailers, i.e., adding new product lines to the goods delivered to the current customer base.It is expected that this innovation could reduce the cost of food delivery and create another market outlet for SMEs that coordinate upstream agricultural and food supply. In this regard, the target commodities could be cereals which record the largest share of the food budget in urban areas in the North and the second largest share, after meat, in the South, according to 2018-2019 NBS data. The research will measure whether this business model could increase the demand and reduce the cost of delivering agricultural products to urban customers.Martin Afegah Head Commercial Operations mafegbah@tradedepot.co +234 907 584 0873Name of the company Lanrot Integrated Agricultural enterprises (Mr. Rotimi)The expert runs a large poultry farm. He owns trucks to deliver his products. He also rents out his trucks to other poultry farmers as an additional source of revenue.The company identifies the following key issues:-the rising cost of fuel -the insecurity situation that prevents trucks to travel during the night -High cost of insurance -Trucks used for birds transport cannot be used for other agricultural commodities because of sanitary issues.The use cargo on rails is also another potential transport means Economic implicationThe benefice cost analysis of this innovation has not been conducted Contact Mr. Rotimi The company provides digital solutions along the value chain. The service includes weighting farmers' produce, traceability system, farming management. These digital systems are important for buyers to track farmers' outputs and obtain the needed information on the quality and quantity of products.One key application is the weight capture where farmers can weigh their product using a weight scale and a software application.The hardware costs 600-800 USD, Software $ 1,500 with about $ 200-500 for each of the 3 modules Extension or support agents to train and implement the system can cost about $ 100/Month. The overall system can cost up to $ 2000-5000 per year depending on the type of software modules and the assistance provided by the company. That means the system can cost between $ 20-50 per year for a group of 100 farmers.So far, the company has been working with organized groups and businesses. The cost of the service remains high for individual and fragmented farms.The value proposition of the capture solutions could facilitate farmers' access to organized markets and large customers to sell their products, and to benefit from financing by providing reliable data to FIs (financial institutions). But the challenge remains the cost of the solutions which remains high for an individual farmer. But it is possible to develop a business model where farmers are organized into clusters/cooperatives to operationalize these solutions and provide new opportunities of markets and financial support.Contact ng@capturesolutions.com +234 817 977 5237Activities and value proposition Farm 365 markets vegetable products. The company buys from farmers and sell to customers in urban areas. They do not deal with traditional food markets, but large customers and retail food operators such as Chicken Republic.The company used to have its own truck, but now partners with commercial companies. The experience with the commercial truck companies has not been conclusive. The system remains inefficient, with huge amount of waste, about 40 percent of loss. The strategy is now to harvest products fully unripe or half-ripe. The company has worked with ColdHub to rent in cold rooms. But Farm 365 reports that Cold Hub has maintenance issues with its facilities.The company works mainly in Kano and Kaduna in collaboration with farmer associations. Farm 365 also provides advisory services using \"farmer ambassadors\" as focal points to sensitize their peers about the platform of services. The company operates in the communities where they can at least obtain 20 farmers to work with.The company emphasizes the huge price differential between the sourcing and the delivery markets for vegetable products. For example, a tomato basket that costs 800 to 1000 Naira in Kano can amount to 20,000 Naira in Lagos. The company uses plastic crates as a storage transportation means. The plastic crate is purchased from Dangote in Kano, costing 1,500 to 2,500 Naira for a 20 kg format, and can last a year.There is no benefit cost analysis at this stage, but the high demand for adequate transport services could suggest that the economic benefit is positive.Problems/Challenges -There is an insufficient number of trucks with adequate controlled temperature for fresh vegetable products.-There is coordination failure in the ordering of trucks, since most appropriate trucks are only available upon return, once they have delivered products in a location Potential innovations -Innovations may come from appropriate trucks that can accommodate fresh vegetables with controlled temperature.Abdulaziz Kabir 0303 440 6665 Abdulaziz.kabir@farm365.farmIntrio supports smallholder farmers to effectively adopt productivity enhancing technologies leading to improved yields and enabling them to participate in agriculture value chains through its market driven solutions and services. Specific areas of support include farmer aggregation and out-grower programs. The company offers a range of services which helps smallholders integrate into the value chain of agro-allied industry players, enabling them access critical inputs and services thereby obtaining improved yields, earn better income sustainably.Intrio works with about 40 000 Farmers in 11 states. The company implements a flagship project in the North-East on Youth Agripreneur Leadership. The project aims to support 8500 young farmers of whom 45 percent are women. The target crops are rice, maize, groundnut, soyabean. The company is also working on an initiative where youth begin in the primary production and then graduate into input and processing activities so that they could secure revenues from different nodes of the market.A key challenge in many value chains in Nigeria is market access. Smallholder farmers without guaranteed access to markets are less able to adopt productivity enhancing technologies and agro-processing firms are unable to access sufficient high-quality inputs in sufficient quantities.Platforms that provide coordination services can also reduce the logistics constraint and improve value chain operations.Economic implication Such a platform could contribute to reduce the production and logistics cost, while increasing the market opportunities for smallholder farmers.Dr. Innocent Okuku 08162797325 drokuku@gmail.comActivities and value proposition Aquatic Hub teaches skills that would in turn encourage farmers to utilize Good Aquaculture Practices (GAPs) in bridging the gaps in the African aquaculture space. The company also produces and sells fingerlings. They collaborate with large scale and small farmers.Problems/Challenges -Aquatic hub identifies the appropriate storage of fish during transportation as one the main challenge. The lack of appropriate storage during transport entails important losses and prevent small fish farmers to integrate organized markets.-When farmers cannot access markets, having refrigerated storage equipment can also help them conserve their products. But this simple technology is missing on many fish farms.-Develop specialized transport systems for fish -small scale mobile freezers (solar-powered) are being explored as an alternative to provide easy access to refrigeration to farmers. The prototype is still not completed.The benefit will be PHL reduction; but the benefice cost analysis of these potential innovations has not been conducted.Steve Okeleji CEO 0703 424 8150 steve@aquatichubafrique.com Annex 2. Characterization of selected digital financial services providers consulted/interviewedCrop2Cash (www.crop2cash.com.ng)-Mobile Application -USSDCash2crop is an indigenous digital-financial services provider that enables smallholder farmers in rural Nigeria receive digital payments and build their financial identity. Agrorite is a technology driven platform that enables small holder farmers with finance, advisory services and premium markets. Agrorite provides smallholder farmers with finance, inputs, and profitable markets linkages.o Farmers can access credits and other financial services through customized wallets and hence ensures financial inclusion.-Through Agrorite, farmers can access farm inputs on credit and then pay back in kind (farm produce. Agrorite uses technology to make inputs and funds accessible to farmers. Profits from farmers proceeds are shared towards loan repayment, with the larger part of the proceeds goes to the farmers.-Over 150,000 farmers' network -38 percent female farmers -Operations in 25 states of Nigeria-Wide literacy gaps -Relatively low level of trust in digital technologies -Strong barrier to entryAgromall (www.theagromall.com)Agromall is a digital platform that uses technology and data to enhance production and market participation in agriculture. AgroMall works with smallholder farmers and agribusinesses to access varieties of affordable financial services that will help them to improve their practices and expand their production.An account management system that makes it possible for clients to automatically make fast and convenient payments to farmers and other users, thereby improving efficiency and correctness of payments. Leveraging its ubiquitous network of agents, helps farmers to access and manage cash and help other users reach deep into agrarian communities for payments.Agency banking that helps smallholder farmers to easily interact with financial services providers to enjoy numerous financial services such as cash management, funds transfer, credit and payments Key Metrics Insurance Product Data and Digital productPula is an agricultural insurance and technology company that designs and delivers innovative agricultural insurance and digital products to help smallholder farmers endure yield risks, improve their farming practices, and bolster their incomes over time.","tokenCount":"15804"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8234fafa8b26de4afe70eb17d2ffa2ab","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9813b318-ca19-40f7-a034-be18fc421aaa/retrieve","id":"1424586042"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b3b3fbb4-7a75-4264-b252-58ef858e1437","pagecount":"1","content":"• These baseline results were used to shape models of disease spread risk • Inform the development of a national seed strategyRisk assessment for epidemic spread of the quarantined potato pathogen Synchytrium endobioticum in the Republic of Georgia Background: seed health in the Republic of Georgia• Seed systems are key to the distribution of improved varieties, but also important sources of pathogen spread Emerging pathogen: S. endobioticumMotivation Because of it's informal nature, the seed system in Georgia may be at particular risk for seed transmitted pathogens. The recent introduction of S. endobioticum poses a particular risk. We model potential spread and target regions for risk based surveillance under a range of disease scenarios.Kelsey Andersen 1,2,3 , James Fulton 1,2,3 , Yanru Xing 1,2,3 , Jorge Andrade 4 , Chris Buddenhagen 1,2,3 , Greg Forbes 4 , Marcel Gatto 5 , Rusudan Mdivani 6 , Karen Garrett 1,2,3 • Identify regions at highest risk for the introduction of Synchyrtium endobioticum• Identify regions that should be targeted for intervention, based on their risk of disease introduction and limitations of access in the current seed systemSpread Parameter: 3.8, 10% Risk • Epidemics were simulated using network models, where initially only Adjara district was infected • Seed transaction networks were stochastically re-wired in each time step • Simulations run 500 times each, over 20 time steps• Mean log-transformed number of infections occurring over the course of the epidemic lifecycle• Spread of this pathogen, along with other seed potato transmitted pathogens may be rapid throughout the country without proper restrictions on trade Uncertainty quantification: Six scenarios of pathogen risk for values of \uD835\uDEFD from 3.8 (very few links generated in the seed transaction network, to 1 (many links generated), for the scenario where 10% of seed transactions result in pathogen spread. Risk here is the Mean logtransformed number of infection events occurring over 20 time steps (500 simulations).Cropland connectivity","tokenCount":"314"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2c3d8751d95e6285bcb51be849e6c31b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ff6e87f4-e557-40fa-9e63-779eca5f8c04/retrieve","id":"876893917"},"keywords":["Plant Collector","Researcher","Educator and Visionary Plant Collector","Researcher","Educator and Visionary"],"sieverID":"135ad44b-85f3-45fd-aed6-f943eb668968","pagecount":"520","content":"In situ Conservation of Wild Species 19 In situ Conservation of Wild Species Related to Crop Plants: the Case of Turkey A. Tan and A.S. Tan 20 Metapopulation Dynamics of Lima Bean (Phaseolus lunatus L.It has been many years since leading members of the plant genetic resources community got together to critically review the latest scientific and technological developments and collectively map out action for the future. Thus, after wide consultation with many of our partners, in June 2000 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, IPGRI, together with the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB), convened the International Conference on Science and Technology for Managing Plant Genetic Diversity in the 21st century (SAT21).The conference brought together more than 230 participants from over 60 countries. Most of the papers presented at the conference are included in these proceedings. The final chapter provides a synthesis of the major outcomes and recommendations of the conference and their implications for future research. I believe that the value of SAT21 was enormous, extending well beyond the conference's assessment of the state of knowledge and exploration of priorities for the future. As always at such events, a major benefit was undoubtedly the informal sharing of information among participants, and the forging of friendships and networks with the potential to lead to new, productive research partnerships. An international steering committee was established in Kuala Lumpur to explore various options for maintaining the momentum achieved at the conference. One such option is the creation of an international genetic resources society which would organize future conferences at regular intervals. For IPGRI, SAT21 has provided new understandings and helped us forge new partnerships that will be invaluable in our efforts to achieve our vision, as described in our strategy, Diversity for Development. This vision foresees collective, concerted action by farmers, forest dwellers, pastoralists, scientists, development workers and political leaders in harnessing the full potential of the earth's plant genetic diversity to eradicate poverty, to achieve food security and to protect the environment. The conference addressed the key scientific and technical aspects of this vision: the wise management of plant genetic resources, which is the material to which farmers and scientists apply their skills in the service of development.I would like to thank here all the individuals and institutions involved in organizing the conference, in particular our co-organizers, the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB), and co-sponsors: the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, Government of Malaysia (MOSTE), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (FRIM), the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI), the Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI) and the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA).I would also like to thank all the members of the International Programme Committee for their xiii valuable input to the programme, the IPGRI Task Force and the Local Organizing Committee for all their hard work and dedication in handling the logistics, and a special word of thanks must go to Ms Patti Sands who worked so tirelessly to help make the conference a success. Finally, I would like to express my thanks to the editors of this volume who have put together what I believe will be, for many years to come, an invaluable reference text on the science and technology of managing plant genetic resources.I interacted with Jack professionally on our work and interests in potatoes over 20 years before moving on to rice. I made only one small collecting trip with him, in the Andes of central Peru in 1975. It was an eye-opening experience to collect with someone so knowledgeable about potatoes, their taxonomy and ecology. It seemed as though Jack could almost smell the potatoes without seeing them. We always found small populations in just the places he expected.Jack's contribution to genetic resources conservation and use has been outstanding. His leading contribution as an educator and visionary has been the training he provided to students, most coming from developing countries. Today, many of these former students occupy important positions in national and international programmes, as both administrators and researchers. There now exists a cadre of trained scientists who understand the technical issues and challenges of genetic conservation.It has been my pleasure and privilege to work with him; I am proud to have him as my mentor and friend.It is a curious aspect of human thought processes that until we find the right words to encapsulate them, we do not seem to make progress with them. Let me try to explain this.If we consider the collection of plant diversity we automatically cast our minds back to the genius of the Russian scientist, N.I. Vavilov. Before his time plant breeders made selections and hybrids from the old landraces of their own countries. Now, of course, we realize that a wider range of genetic diversity might well be much more useful in providing genes for disease and pest resistance. Until Vavilov this concept was hardly considered. We have not only come to recognize the need for conserving the genetic diversity of our ancient crop plants, we have also recognized the value of the genetic diversity of related wild species. Some crops, such as wheat and barley, do not have many wild ancestral species related to them. Others, like potatoes, have almost too many related wild species. The cultivated potato, Solanum tuberosum, is 'backed up' by some 200 wild species, many of them carrying genes for adaptation and disease resistance that are not known in the cultivated species. This is just one example of the value of wild species related to crops and bearing extremely valuable resistance genes unknown in the crop itself.By the 1950s breeders were providing farmers with high-yielding and more pest-and diseaseresistant varieties. This was of course excellent, but the breeders did not at first realize that these new varieties were replacing the very genetic diversity that they would need as a basis for further advances in the future. Indeed, it was not until the late 1960s and the early 1970s that this paradox became evident and the importance of conserving what were then called 'plant genetic resources' or 'crop plant genetic resources' was recognized.The leader of this movement, to which I had the honour to belong at its early stages, was undoubtedly O.H. Frankel. I had the greatest good fortune to meet Otto Frankel and to work with him at various Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) conferences, the first being in 1967 at FAO's headquarters in Rome, Italy. At FAO, Otto had met Erna Bennett, and they worked together to organize the 1967 conference. I took part in that conference and was asked to join their newly formed Panel of Experts to organize a world network of genetic resources institutions. Another panel member was Jack Harlan, whom I also got to know very well.What were my reactions to these three people? Otto was fiery, complex, practical and a whole mixture of other attributes. He did not suffer fools gladly and said exactly what he thought to whoever he talked to. He was, at the same time, loyal, honest and friendly. I admired him tremendously. He and Erna Bennett used to fight like cat and dog, but she, again, was honest, fierce and outspoken. Jack Harlan, on the other hand, was quiet and much less outspoken but, like the others, was a really excellent scientist. I liked and respected allThe Evolution of Plant Genetic Resources and the Work of O.H. FrankelSchool of Continuing Studies, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK xvii three of them and I believe the feelings were mutual. I learned a great deal from their experiences and ways of thinking. In his excellent 1999 obituary of Otto, Lloyd Evans quoted Otto, who, when asked how he and his wife got on together in Canberra, Australia, after his retirement, replied, 'We don't mind. We make our own environment.' And this is what Otto had done all his life. Aside from his interactions with Jack Harlan, Erna Bennett and me, Otto really invented the concepts of genetic conservation of plants useful to man, something that had not previously been clearly thought out. It was also a concept of real value to humanity at a time when the old varieties and landraces of crops were being quickly replaced by new high-yielding varieties throughout the world, and particularly in developing countries.One aspect of this concept of plant genetic resources conservation struck me very forcefully at our FAO meetings. We knew what ought to be done, but who was going to carry it out? Perhaps some four or five of us knew about genetic resources but this was a worldwide problem, needing many trained scientists from many countries, particularly from the developing world. We needed geneticists, plant breeders, botanists and seed physiologists at least, and in large numbers, but at that time there were not enough of them to carry out these tasks. What could be done?This was where I believed I could help, by establishing in my Department of Botany at Birmingham a Master's course in the 'Conservation and Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources'. I talked to the Faculty of Science about this and it was agreed to, as long as I did not ask for more money! I assured them that I would use my own departmental resources, which I did to begin with. When the course flourished, I was then able to obtain funds from FAO and other bodies. The first intake of postgraduate students took place in 1969. Otto thought I would not be able to continue for more than a year or two for lack of students. How wrong he was! The course still continues, long after my retirement, and is now in its 31st year. Counting the students who come for only short parts of the course, nearly 1000 students have graduated from the course. So much for Otto's predictions! I feel very proud that I was able to set in motion such a training course from which these students, mostly from the developing world, have benefited. More importantly, the course has played an important role in conserving the genetic diversity of crop plants and their wild relatives. I know that Otto and Erna would have valued that. And Otto, who was born in 1900 and at 98 survived throughout almost the whole of the 20th century, was, I know, happy that by his efforts and the efforts of those of us who have been associated with him, our task has largely been successful.Genetic resources exploration, conservation and use are now well known throughout the world, and have been of the utmost value to humanity. The value and use of wild and cultivated genetic resources to breeders have come of age.It has been many years since leading members of the plant genetic resources community got together to critically review the latest scientific and technological developments and collectively map out action for the future. Thus, after wide consultation with many of our partners, in June 2000 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, IPGRI, together with the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB), convened the International Conference on Science and Technology for Managing Plant Genetic Diversity in the 21st century (SAT21).The conference brought together more than 230 participants from over 60 countries. Most of the papers presented at the conference are included in these proceedings. The final chapter provides a synthesis of the major outcomes and recommendations of the conference and their implications for future research. I believe that the value of SAT21 was enormous, extending well beyond the conference's assessment of the state of knowledge and exploration of priorities for the future. As always at such events, a major benefit was undoubtedly the informal sharing of information among participants, and the forging of friendships and networks with the potential to lead to new, productive research partnerships. An international steering committee was established in Kuala Lumpur to explore various options for maintaining the momentum achieved at the conference. One such option is the creation of an international genetic resources society which would organize future conferences at regular intervals. For IPGRI, SAT21 has provided new understandings and helped us forge new partnerships that will be invaluable in our efforts to achieve our vision, as described in our strategy, Diversity for Development. This vision foresees collective, concerted action by farmers, forest dwellers, pastoralists, scientists, development workers and political leaders in harnessing the full potential of the earth's plant genetic diversity to eradicate poverty, to achieve food security and to protect the environment. The conference addressed the key scientific and technical aspects of this vision: the wise management of plant genetic resources, which is the material to which farmers and scientists apply their skills in the service of development.I would like to thank here all the individuals and institutions involved in organizing the conference, in particular our co-organizers, the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB), and co-sponsors: the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, Government of Malaysia (MOSTE), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (FRIM), the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI), the Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI) and the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA).I would also like to thank all the members of the International Programme Committee for their xiii valuable input to the programme, the IPGRI Task Force and the Local Organizing Committee for all their hard work and dedication in handling the logistics, and a special word of thanks must go to Ms Patti Sands who worked so tirelessly to help make the conference a success. Finally, I would like to express my thanks to the editors of this volume who have put together what I believe will be, for many years to come, an invaluable reference text on the science and technology of managing plant genetic resources.In 1938, Jack Hawkes persuaded his superiors at the Empire Potato Breeding Station in Cambridge, UK, to sanction a visit to Leningrad to meet with Russian scientists working on potatoes and their taxonomy. Jack was scheduled to join an expedition late that same year to collect potatoes in the Americas. While in Leningrad, he met N.I. Vavilov and I suppose that was the start of a life-long interest in genetic resources and their use.Jack graduated with first class honours from the University of Cambridge in 1937, and received his PhD in 1942 from the same university. His thesis was one of the first studies on the diversity and taxonomy of potatoes, based on the materials he had collected during 1938 and 1939. He continued to work in Cambridge until 1948 when he moved with his wife Barbara and two daughters to Colombia, where his twin sons were born. In Colombia, he helped establish a national potato programme and, with his younger colleague Nelson Estrada, he developed a breeding strategy involving crosses between tetraploid and diploid potatoes that remains until today an important method to broaden diversity in potato breeding. In 1952, he accepted a Lectureship in the Department of Botany at the University of Birmingham. In the 1960s he was first given a Personal Chair, and then appointed Mason Professor of Botany and Head of Department. Jack remained in the department (although it changed its name) until his retirement in 1982.Jack's contribution to the taxonomy and biosystematics of potatoes has been enormous. Over several decades he returned to Central and South America several times to collect wild potatoes. With his Danish colleague, J.P. Hjerting, he published important monographs on the potatoes of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay (in 1969) and Bolivia (in 1989). He established crop plant evolution and taxonomy studies as important disciplines at Birmingham. He led a major project that culminated in the publication of a computermapped flora of Warwickshire, the very first venture of this type. With colleagues in the university's Medical School, he applied serology to understand species relationships among potato species, another pioneering approach.I first met Jack in early 1970 when, as an undergraduate student, I applied for a place on the Master's course on genetic resources conservation and use that he had just initiated. Like many of his students, I was infected by Jack's enthusiasm for the study of crop plants and their evolution, in which he brought together so many of his interests, particularly archaeology. The early 1970s were heady days; we were pioneers in the emerging discipline of genetic resources conservation. Jack invited many of the leading lights of the genetic resources conservation movement, among them Erna Bennett and Jack Harlan, to Birmingham, to interact with his students. Through Jack I later met Sir Otto Frankel.I interacted with Jack professionally on our work and interests in potatoes over 20 years before moving on to rice. I made only one small collecting trip with him, in the Andes of central Peru in 1975. It was an eye-opening experience to collect with someone so knowledgeable about potatoes, their taxonomy and ecology. It seemed as though Jack could almost smell the potatoes without seeing them. We always found small populations in just the places he expected.Jack's contribution to genetic resources conservation and use has been outstanding. His leading contribution as an educator and visionary has been the training he provided to students, most coming from developing countries. Today, many of these former students occupy important positions in national and international programmes, as both administrators and researchers. There now exists a cadre of trained scientists who understand the technical issues and challenges of genetic conservation.It has been my pleasure and privilege to work with him; I am proud to have him as my mentor and friend.It is a curious aspect of human thought processes that until we find the right words to encapsulate them, we do not seem to make progress with them. Let me try to explain this.If we consider the collection of plant diversity we automatically cast our minds back to the genius of the Russian scientist, N.I. Vavilov. Before his time plant breeders made selections and hybrids from the old landraces of their own countries. Now, of course, we realize that a wider range of genetic diversity might well be much more useful in providing genes for disease and pest resistance. Until Vavilov this concept was hardly considered. We have not only come to recognize the need for conserving the genetic diversity of our ancient crop plants, we have also recognized the value of the genetic diversity of related wild species. Some crops, such as wheat and barley, do not have many wild ancestral species related to them. Others, like potatoes, have almost too many related wild species. The cultivated potato, Solanum tuberosum, is 'backed up' by some 200 wild species, many of them carrying genes for adaptation and disease resistance that are not known in the cultivated species. This is just one example of the value of wild species related to crops and bearing extremely valuable resistance genes unknown in the crop itself.By the 1950s breeders were providing farmers with high-yielding and more pest-and diseaseresistant varieties. This was of course excellent, but the breeders did not at first realize that these new varieties were replacing the very genetic diversity that they would need as a basis for further advances in the future. Indeed, it was not until the late 1960s and the early 1970s that this paradox became evident and the importance of conserving what were then called 'plant genetic resources' or 'crop plant genetic resources' was recognized.The leader of this movement, to which I had the honour to belong at its early stages, was undoubtedly O.H. Frankel. I had the greatest good fortune to meet Otto Frankel and to work with him at various Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) conferences, the first being in 1967 at FAO's headquarters in Rome, Italy. At FAO, Otto had met Erna Bennett, and they worked together to organize the 1967 conference. I took part in that conference and was asked to join their newly formed Panel of Experts to organize a world network of genetic resources institutions. Another panel member was Jack Harlan, whom I also got to know very well.What were my reactions to these three people? Otto was fiery, complex, practical and a whole mixture of other attributes. He did not suffer fools gladly and said exactly what he thought to whoever he talked to. He was, at the same time, loyal, honest and friendly. I admired him tremendously. He and Erna Bennett used to fight like cat and dog, but she, again, was honest, fierce and outspoken. Jack Harlan, on the other hand, was quiet and much less outspoken but, like the others, was a really excellent scientist. I liked and respected allThe Evolution of Plant Genetic Resources and the Work of O.H. FrankelSchool of Continuing Studies, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK xvii three of them and I believe the feelings were mutual. I learned a great deal from their experiences and ways of thinking. In his excellent 1999 obituary of Otto, Lloyd Evans quoted Otto, who, when asked how he and his wife got on together in Canberra, Australia, after his retirement, replied, 'We don't mind. We make our own environment.' And this is what Otto had done all his life. Aside from his interactions with Jack Harlan, Erna Bennett and me, Otto really invented the concepts of genetic conservation of plants useful to man, something that had not previously been clearly thought out. It was also a concept of real value to humanity at a time when the old varieties and landraces of crops were being quickly replaced by new high-yielding varieties throughout the world, and particularly in developing countries.One aspect of this concept of plant genetic resources conservation struck me very forcefully at our FAO meetings. We knew what ought to be done, but who was going to carry it out? Perhaps some four or five of us knew about genetic resources but this was a worldwide problem, needing many trained scientists from many countries, particularly from the developing world. We needed geneticists, plant breeders, botanists and seed physiologists at least, and in large numbers, but at that time there were not enough of them to carry out these tasks. What could be done?This was where I believed I could help, by establishing in my Department of Botany at Birmingham a Master's course in the 'Conservation and Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources'. I talked to the Faculty of Science about this and it was agreed to, as long as I did not ask for more money! I assured them that I would use my own departmental resources, which I did to begin with. When the course flourished, I was then able to obtain funds from FAO and other bodies. The first intake of postgraduate students took place in 1969. Otto thought I would not be able to continue for more than a year or two for lack of students. How wrong he was! The course still continues, long after my retirement, and is now in its 31st year. Counting the students who come for only short parts of the course, nearly 1000 students have graduated from the course. So much for Otto's predictions! I feel very proud that I was able to set in motion such a training course from which these students, mostly from the developing world, have benefited. More importantly, the course has played an important role in conserving the genetic diversity of crop plants and their wild relatives. I know that Otto and Erna would have valued that. And Otto, who was born in 1900 and at 98 survived throughout almost the whole of the 20th century, was, I know, happy that by his efforts and the efforts of those of us who have been associated with him, our task has largely been successful.Genetic resources exploration, conservation and use are now well known throughout the world, and have been of the utmost value to humanity. The value and use of wild and cultivated genetic resources to breeders have come of age.Information on the history of plant genetic resources conservation and use can be found in several reports, catalogues and newsletters published by different institutions (Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (IBPGR), International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and others). Recent developments in the maintenance, management and sustainable use of biodiversity, in general, and of plant genetic resources in particular led to the publication of special issues on the history of conservation and agricultural use of plant germplasm (Scarascia-Mugnozza, 1995, 1998;Pistorius, 1997).Plants have travelled, during human migrations and along the ancient caravan routes, from continent to continent. Moving from the Old to the New World and vice versa, they have made many important contributions to agricultural and eating habits around the planet (FAO, 1959).Movement of plants from place to place and from people to people implies the use of germplasm as a food but also for improving agricultural production and for increasing diversification. Starting from the beginning of agriculture, man has stored plants and seeds from one cycle of cultivation to the next in different ways, some of which are known to us and are still used today. Storage of germplasm also took place during migration. As agriculture progressed and human population increased, the need to store plants and seeds ex situ grew and involved even longer distances and lapses of time than the short break between seasons of cultivation or time needed to migrate. In a broad sense, ex situ conservation of germplasm is a practice that humans have used since the beginning of agriculture, to expand cultivation and/or to colonize new lands and to ensure the spread of agriculture around the world.This chapter aims to trace a historic profile of ex situ plant germplasm conservation with a main emphasis on the aspects most relevant to protection of genetic diversity and its use for agricultural development.From the beginning of agriculture, farmers have domesticated hundreds of plant species and within them genetic variability has increased owing to migration, natural mutations and crosses, and unconscious or conscious selection. This gradual and continuous expansion of genetic diversity within crops went on for several millennia, until scientific principles and techniques influenced the development of agriculture. This happened at the beginning of the 20th century, when Mendel's laws were used. The spread of new and more productive crop varieties, which were genetically less heterogeneous than primitive populations, paradoxically started the well-known process of 'genetic erosion'. In fact, in the 1920s and 1930s, N.I. Vavilov and Jack Harlan began to notice that traditional crop varieties, or landraces, were being lost from cultivated fields around the world. Since then, scientific efforts to conserve plant genetic diversity also focused on collecting material and placing it in ex situ storage. In this chapter, we have divided all of the efforts made by humans on ex situ germplasm conservation into the following sections:• conservation and use of crop germplasm before the 1967 FAO/IBP (International Biological Programme) Technical Conference; • plant genetic resources developments since 1967; • ex-situ collections and genebanks;• genetic resources: maintenance, use and regulation.Before 1967, the international exchange of genetic resources functioned mainly among the network of plant introduction stations in western Europe, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and eastern Europe (mainly the Soviet Union). There were only a few genebanks (introduction stations) that exchanged genetic material. The oldest and most famous of them, with worldwide scope and adequate evaluation facilities, were:the conclusion that an international station could be the solution to the problem of conservation. The European Society for Research and Plant Breeding (EUCARPIA) was established in 1956 in the Netherlands. In the early 1960s it was the first organization to promote a collecting network. It started off with a more generalist ecogeographical orientation (ecoregional genebanks). In 1962, the third EUCARPIA General Congress, in Paris, emphasized the danger of loss of genetic resources. In 1966, EUCARPIA delegates advised the European plant breeding institutes to start a collaboration through regional genebanks on the continent.The proposal resulted in the establishment of the following four sub-regional genebanks:Although none of the genebanks acted as a sub-regional centre, they were all very active and successful. In the 1970s, a special section of EUCARPIA, the Genebank Committee, formally linked to the section Wild Species and Primitive Forms, was established (Hawkes was the first Chairman). There were annual meetings of members and genebank directors from Eastern Europe.In the 1950s and early 1960s, the other major actor in the conservation of genetic resources was FAO.Several World Catalogues of Genetic Stocks (wheat, rice, maize, barley) were set up in the late 1950s, while the FAO Plant Introduction Newsletter was seen as a key initiative and intermediary between breeders of the world. In the 1960s, the FAO Plant and Protection Service dealt with a continuous stream of enquiries for samples of seed or vegetative material for use by breeders. FAO genetic resources policies show a significant distinction between planning and actual programming. A strong call for immediate action in conservation, particularly for landraces and wild relatives, had already been made during the 10th Session of the FAO Conference in Rome, November 1959. The need for a truly intergovernmental initiative to streamline germplasm conservation and distribution was recognized during the 1961 Technical Meeting on Plant Exploration and Introduction, but was not worked out during later years. The dominance of breeders in the 1960s had a double impact: (i) conservation and use were closely linked; and (ii) storage in the first instance took place in industrialized countries and was tied to plant breeding institutes. Naturally, the history of FAO in the collection and exchange of germplasm is much richer in events (Pistorius, 1997).The 1961 Technical Meeting on Plant Exploration and Introduction was the first initiative on a multilateral basis with the aim of extending initiatives in the field of plant introduction. For this purpose it was suggested that: (i) National and Regional Introduction Stations should be set up under the aegis of FAO; and (ii) Exploration Centres should be built in regions of greatest genetic diversity and serve as centres for research on environmental interaction and add knowledge on landraces and wild relatives (Rudorf, 1961).A pilot Exploration Centre was established in 1964, at Izmir in Turkey, which started under a joint project between the Turkish government, the UN Development Programme/Special Fund and FAO. It also acted as Regional Centre for Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Turkey, and organized germplasm collection, conservation and evaluation. For some reason the Izmir Centre began to work successfully only later, in the middle of the 1970s, and played its main role at national level (FAO/UNDP, 1970;Frankel, 1985). A FAO-Unit of Crop Ecology and Genetic Resources was established in Rome, in 1967, under the guidance of R. Pichel and E. Bennett.The 1967 FAO/IBP Technical Conference on the Exploration, Utilization and Conservation of Plant Genetic Resources, held in Rome and organized by the International Biological Programme (IBP) and FAO, was an early occasion for a group of experts, later referred to as the Panel of Experts on Plant Genetic Resources, to define a global strategy for the conservation of plant genetic resources.In particular, the rising concern about possible genetic erosion of landraces and wild relatives due to modern agriculture, and the more general, increasing need of the agro-industry for a steady flow of new germplasm, convinced the members of the Conference to give more consideration to the generalist approach of conservation. New coldstorage techniques, 1 developed in the 1960s, made long-term ex situ storage possible.The alternative of in situ conservation was brought forward as well, although this met considerable opposition from the scientists who emphasized the direct use of genetic resources in mainstream breeding programmes.The scientific arguments for in situ conservation, as complementary and as an alternative to ex situ, were mostly based on genecological premises. In any case, soon after the 1967 Conference, in situ conservation did not materialize and remained merely a theoretical dispute among breeders and geneticists. In general, the debates dealing with arguments on genetics, single-gene resistance versus polygenic resistance, socio-economic implications of single-gene resistance, genecological ideas and breeding strategies, led to conclusions in favour of ex situ conservation (FAO, 1969).The report of the 1967 Conference ('Genetic Resources in Plants -Their Exploration and Conservation') confirmed a general consensus on the need for more facilities and efforts for both in situ and ex situ conservation. During the following decade, as already mentioned, ex situ conservation became the dominant conservation strategy.The 1967 FAO/IBP Technical Conference generated some important guidelines for the establishment of a global network for ex situ long-term conservation. The conversion of these guidelines into practical action took place quickly. A Panel of Experts on Plant Exploration and Introduction (established in 1965) generated a Plan of Action presented during the 1973 FAO/IBP Technical Conference on Plant Genetic Resources (Rome,(12)(13)(14)(15)(16), published under the title Crop Genetic Resources for Today and Tomorrow (Frankel and Hawkes, 1975).The most important achievement of the Panel of Experts (which met six times from 1966 to 1975) was the formulation of basic criteria for conservation and use of genetic material. These were: (i) that plant material was to be made available immediately and without restriction to all breeders requesting it; and (ii) that genetic variability had to be maintained for future generations in long-term storage under conditions of maximum physical and genetic security (FAO, 1969).During the Third Session of the Panel of Experts, in Rome, 1969(FAO, 1969), the Panel pointed out a few regions in the world and the corresponding native crops that needed immediate attention: the Near East (wheat, etc.), the Sudanian zone of Africa (Oryza glaberrima, etc.), southern and eastern Africa (forage grasses), Ethiopia (various local varieties), South and Central America (cotton, etc.), South-East Asia (tropical fruits, etc.) and Oceania (yam).This priority list was very broad and not practical. In its last formal meeting (March 1975), the Panel made a modified ranking. It recommended that the FAO first had to look for cooperation with the Germplasm Laboratory at Bari, to coordinate further exploration in the west and central Mediterranean regions. Ethiopia was given second priority, and the third was for some tropical crops. These modified criteria illustrate a shift from a crop-oriented to a region-oriented approach.A third important result of the Panel was a categorization of ex situ collections: base collections (for long-term conservation), active collections (for research and distribution) and working collections (usually maintained at plant breeding institutions).These developments led to the planning in 1973 of another joint FAO/IBP Technical Conference on Crop Genetic Resources. This differed from the one in 1967 in that it did not formulate scientific parameters for the conservation and use of plant genetic resources. However, the book that came out of it (Frankel and Hawkes, 1975) formulated practical action plans on: optimal sampling strategies in genetic conservation, sampling techniques for ex situ collections, methods of exploration in seed crops, vegetatively propagated crops and tree species, and long-term storage of seed and pollen.Although the Panel of Experts had been very concerned about the negative consequences of genetic erosion, the issue received little public attention in the 1960s. The early 1970s, however, saw an unexpected recognition of the issue as the world witnessed two serious consequences of genetic erosion. In 1970, a serious outbreak of southern corn-leaf blight in the USA reminded the scientific world that genetic variability was not always enough if the cytoplasm is entirely of one kind. In the same year, a catastrophic outbreak of coffee rust caused great losses in Brazil with higher coffee world market prices as a consequence. These cases provoked publicity on a global scale, generating a flow of information on other, ongoing cases of genetic erosion. The Panel presented all these facts.In 1972, within the agricultural community of the USA, the Agricultural Board and the National Research Council published a report, Genetic Vulnerability of Major Crops, which attracted much attention, within both scientific circles and circles of agricultural non-governmental organizations (NAS, 1972). The key lesson of the 1970s was that genetic uniformity is the basis of vulnerability to epidemics and, more generally, to biotic and abiotic stresses. The situation poses substantial challenges to scientists and to the nation involved (NAS, 1972).Clearly the market wants uniformity. The irony is that the uniformity of crops facilitates epidemics and could be a synonym of vulnerability and crop damage; unfortunately the scientist, not the market, tends to receive the blame.The UNCHE was held in Stockholm in June 1972. The influence of the ideas of the FAO Panel of Experts became significant in the clear division of labour between in situ and ex situ conservation. It was stated that both are needed, but it became clear that genetic resources with an agricultural value had to be conserved in 'national or regional genetic conservation centres' ex situ, such as the NSSL, USA or the VIR, USSR.Wild relatives of crop species, on the other hand, would be maintained in their 'natural environment' (in situ) for which the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Programme was recommended to fulfil the important role. To establish a network of ex situ genetic resources, the UNCHE recommended 'that the appropriate UN agency establish an international liaison unit for plant genetic resources' and 'to provide the secretariat for periodic meetings of international panels and seminars on the subject; a conference on germplasm might be convened to follow up the successful FAO/IBP conference of 1967'.After Stockholm 1972 and the 1973 FAO/IBP Technical Conference there was no direct impact in terms of more collections and storage activities. But, there was a rapidly growing network of several International Agricultural Research Centres (IARCs), belonging to the CGIAR network. The 'establishment of a mechanism to encourage, coordinate and support action to conserve genetic resources and make them available for use' suggested during a meeting (1972) of the Panel in Beltsville, Maryland, was submitted to the CGIAR Technical Adviser Committee (TAC). This move had tremendous consequences for the position of scientists, governments and international agencies (FAO, first of all) in the conservation of genetic resources.The plan embraced four elements:• To create a coordinating centre (which later became the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources -IBPGR). Association (WARDA, 1971), the International Potato Centre (CIP, 1971), and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT, 1972). After 1972, to these organizations already existing, some others, like the International Livestock Centre for Africa (ILCA, 1974) and the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA, 1976) were also included in the network. • To establish new 'regional' genebanks in the Vavilovian centres of crop diversity; following an 'ecogeographical approach', the centres would serve as a global division of labour in collection efforts.While the scientific orientation of the FAO Panel embraced general incentives to conserve genetic resources, the institutional orientation of CGIAR was to extend its mandate in considering genetic erosion as a threat to the further development of the Green Revolution.The IBPGR, established in 1974, was administratively integrated into FAO, but technically it was autonomous. The establishment of IBPGR accelerated the formation of a world network of genebanks. In this context, IBPGR had a precise and important task: 'to promote and assist in the worldwide effort to collect and conserve the plant germplasm needed for future research and production' (TAC, 1972). IBPGR replaced the activities of the Panel of Experts.However, IBPGR might never have existed, or at least not in its present form, if FAO had not seen the need for conserving the genetic resources of crops and had not set up a Panel of Experts to provide the necessary scientific basis for this to be undertaken (Frankel, 1985). IBPGR, on the other hand, offered FAO the financial support and manpower to build up and coordinate a new world network of genebanks.IBPGR also managed to create and maintain standard criteria for the upkeep of collections. The institutions in the network that preserve genetic material on a long-term basis, form the core of IBPGR's international network. By 1984 it consisted of 40 collections in about 30 countries. Under the impulse for the preservation of their genetic resources and the need to establish ad hoc structures, several developing countries were pushed to reorga-nize their national agriculture systems, including institutes or research groups for the attainment and maintenance of genetic resources collections.The direct link with CGIAR implied that conservation strategies were defined as direct requirements for international agricultural research, in its need for landraces (and wild relatives) threatened by replacement by major crops, instead of those for local populations in developing countries. This 'supply function' also implied that conservation tended to focus on major crops (most of all, rice, maize, potato, wheat and sorghum) and constituted a clear break with the FAO Panel of Experts' initial view.The term 'genetic resources' refers to the genetic information contained in the genes, the terms 'biological diversity/biodiversity' encompass all species of plants, animals and microorganisms, including ecosystems and ecological processes. In the late 1960s and 1970s a group of 77 developing countries proclaimed a New International Economic Order (NIEO) in several fora, including FAO. Other driving forces were non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI). The NGOs' constant lobbying within FAO against the North's dominance in the exchange and use of genetic resources and against the neglect of the rights and needs of small farmers, helped to shape the genetic resources issue as it stood throughout the 1980s. The International Coalition for Development Action (ICDA), renamed Genetic Resources Action International (GRAIN), was also an important source of information for NGOs. In the late 1980s, GRAIN published New Hope or False Promise? Biotechnology and Third World Agriculture (Hobbelink, 1987). Scientists within the CGIAR network tried to convince NGO critics that the results from the research mostly benefited developing countries. RAFI and GRAIN reacted by saying that the CGIAR centres were the main driving forces behind the Green Revolution, the creators of monocrop cultures and the main contributors to genetic erosion.During the 20th Conference, in 1979, a number of developing countries started to ask for information about the following issues (Esquinas-Alcázar, 1989):• Who owns the genetic resources collected with international money and stored in countries other than those in which they were collected? Who will guarantee their long-term security? • What guarantee is there for continued free exchange of material in ex situ collections? • How can countries benefit from the plant genetic resources that their farmers have produced, improved and conserved over millennia, as they currently lack the technical and financial capacity to use these resources for their own benefit?Throughout the 1980s, FAO remained the principal forum in which developing countries tried to pursue their interests, which comprised attempts to support the establishment within FAO of an international legal framework to set global standards and rules for the conservation and exchange of genetic resources, with the aim that genetic resources would remain available in the public domain.During the 21st Conference, on 25 November 1981, Resolution 6/81 was approved, which in its statement (e) emphasizes the lack of an 'international agreement for ensuring the conservation, maintenance, and free exchange of genetic resources of agricultural interest contained in existing germplasm banks'. This resolution became one of the most hotly debated in the history of FAO. The genetic resources issue, having been a matter of discussion by experts during most of the 1970s, suddenly in 1981 received worldwide press coverage. NGOs were actively in favour, while industrialized countries, particularly the USA, UK and Australia heavily opposed the resolutions.Nevertheless, the 22nd FAO Conference (1983) approved the proposal for an International Undertaking, which includes 11 articles and the establishment of the FAO Commission on Plant Genetic Resources (CPGR). In spite of the limited support from industrialized countries for the Undertaking, the 22nd FAO Conference was considered a major victory for developing countries. The first session of the CPGR took place in March 1985 and since then it has met every 2 years. The discussion on the alternative FAO genebank network (point 2 of Resolution 6/81) proved that the idea of establishing a physical genebank at FAO headquarters was not feasible. The proposal for an international network of storage facilities, in the frame of CGIAR appeared more workable.The adoption of the FAO International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources (1983) confirmed and strengthened the establishment of an international network. Article 7 of the Undertaking asked for coordinated action by all institutions involved in the conservation of genetic resources to develop a Global System on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (Fig. 1.1), whose objective is to ensure the safe conservation, and promote the availability and sustainable utilization of plant genetic resources for present and future generations, by providing a flexible framework for sharing the benefits and burdens (FAO, 1995b). The Global System is a means to effectuate the decisions of CPGR, but would also consist of in situ conservation areas and an ex situ network of active and base collections, and form a core to strengthen FAO's political position in the collection, conservation, evaluation and documentation, as well as the use of genetic resources. The CPGR and the Undertaking are the main support for the Global System. This falls into three main elements:1. International agreements: (i) Code of Conduct for Plant Germplasm Collection and Transfer; (ii) Code of Conduct on Biotechnology; and (iii) Basic agreements on genebanks. 2. Three network systems (global mechanisms): (i) the world Information and Early Warning System on Plant Genetic Resources; (ii) a network of ex situ genebanks (since 1994, also including the CGIAR collections); and (iii) a network of in situ and onfarm conservation areas. 3. Global Instruments: (i) State of the World's Plant Genetic Resources; (ii) Global Plan of Action for the Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (GPA); and (iii) International Fund (FAO, 1996b). In 1989In -1990, the CGIAR, following a proposal by its Technical Advisory Committee, supported 'the establishment of IBPGR as an international organization independently managed and preferably located near FAO headquarters in Italy' (TAC, 1986). The International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), as successor of IBPGR, was for-mally established on 9 October 1991, and ratified by the Italian Parliament in March 1994.IPGRI does not have research facilities but operates primarily as a catalyst and facilitator, contracting most of its research to partner organizations. In this way, IPGRI works to enhance strategic and adaptive research aimed at solving key genetic resources problems. IPGRI is also a specialized development agency that provides direct technical support to national plant genetic resources programmes. Its way of working is based on strong linkages with many partners, a proactive, bottomup approach and needs-driven objectives. The flexi-bility of this approach allows the Institute to respond to changing needs and circumstances and to take a broad view of biodiversity issues in general and the conservation and use of plant genetic resources in particular. The Institute's partners are found at all levels of genetic resources work: national plant genetic resources programmes, research institutes (international and regional), organizations, universities, herbaria and botanical gardens, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, community-based organizations including farmers and women's groups (various IPGRI newsletters, Scarascia-Mugnozza, 1999). The global system for the conservation and utilization of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (source: FAO, 1995b).The Development of ex situAt present, over 6 million accessions are stored ex situ throughout the world (Plucknett et al., 1987;Scarascia-Mugnozza, 1995, 1998;FAO, 1998;FAO WIEWS database): some 600,000 are maintained within the CGIAR system, the remaining 5.4 million accessions are stored in national or regional genebanks (Table 1.1). Nearly 39% are cereals, 15% food legumes, 8% vegetables, 7% forages, 5% fruits, 2% roots and tubers, and c. 2% oil crops. Spices and medicinal, aromatic and ornamental species are rarely found in long-term public collections (FAO, 1996a).For wheat, rice, potato, cassava, banana/plantain, sorghum, yam, sweet potato, chickpea, lentil and bean, the largest ex situ collections are held by the IARCs; for other crops the largest collections are in national institutions. Minor crops are poorly represented in ex situ collections; for example, there are only about 12,000 accessions of all species of yams (0.21%) and less of coconut (0.16%) and many others. However, recently some genebanks have begun to accept regional responsibility for long-term storage of some minor crops: rice bean, moth bean and amaranth at the National Bureau for Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR) in India; winged beans at the Institute of Plant Breeding College of Agriculture (IPB-UPLB), Laguna, in the Philippines and at the Thailand Institute of Scientific and Technical Research (TISTR), a Ex situ collections consist of seed genebanks, field genebanks and in vitro genebanks. b Seed genebanks (5,435,000 accessions); field genebanks (527,000 accessions); in vitro genebanks (38,000 accessions). Considering duplicates within and between collections, the total number of accessions is estimated to be from 1 to 2 million. Sources: Plucknett et al., 1987;Scarascia-Mugnozza, 1995;FAO WIEWS database, 1996;FAO, 1998. Bangkok; faba beans at the International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA), Aleppo, in Syria; and adzuki beans at the National Institute of Agrobiological Research (NIAR), Tsukuba, in Japan. It is interesting to note that, for many export crops and commodities, large percentages of the global collections are concentrated in a few countries: oil palm accessions in Zaire (83%), most rubber accessions (76%) in Malaysia and coconut (22%) in Sierra Leone (FAO, 1998).According to the type of genetic variation within ex situ collections, about 32% are advanced cultivars, 24% are landraces or old cultivars, 5% are advanced landraces and 8% are wild or crop relatives (FAO, 1998).Some countries are consolidating national collections (in situ and ex situ) of indigenous genetic resources, which are of potential importance largely to the country itself. Quantitative estimates for 24 countries (Table 1.2) show that only a few countries (for example, Ethiopia, Cyprus and China) store high percentages of indigenous plants, of sizeable collections, although it is impossible to say how representative current ex situ collections are of total diversity in the respective countries. However, landraces of cereals are probably better represented than those of pulses, root crops, fruit and vegetables, excluding potato and tomato (FAO, 1996a).Coverage of wild relatives is limited, and that of forest ornamentals, aromatic and medicinal species is minimal. Worldwide, there are gaps in the collections of minor crops and under-utilized species, especially for landraces and wild relatives from their centres of diversity and cultivation. Targeted collection of selected species and assessments of the genetic diversity of landraces are, therefore, priorities (Padulosi, 1996).Methods for germplasm conservation are determined by a number of factors: purpose (programmes to conserve genetic diversity for posterity or for present and short-term use), storage behaviour (type of seeds: orthodox, recalcitrant or intermediate) and resources (financial, human and institutional capacities and technologies) (Table 1.3) (FAO, 1996a).By the end of the 1970s, there were about 54 seed stores. Today, besides the genebanks of the IARCs, there are over 1300 national and regional genebanks and seed storages on field collections, 397 of which are maintained under long-or medium-term storage conditions. In fact, many countries have more than one ex situ facility or collection (70 in India), although in many cases these are active or research collections (FAO, 1998). Many of the collections are breeders' or working collections and are likely to be short term. Of the 1308 genebanks registered in the World Information and Early Warning System (WIEWS) database, 496 (38%) are located in Europe, 328 (25%) in the Americas, and 293 (22%) in Asia (Table 1.4). The 15 largest national base collections together hold about 1.7 million accessions or 34% of the national seed collections (Table 1.5).A total of 75 countries have facilities for mediumand long-term storage, but in many cases the major constraints to reliable storage are: equipment, suitable drying facilities and electricity supplies. Based on the Country Reports, secure, long-term seed storage facilities are found in 35 countries: 15 in Europe, seven in the Americas, five in Asia, four in Africa and four in Near East regions. A further 56 countries have facilities for short-to medium-term storage only (FAO, 1998).According to FAO WIEWS database, only about 56% of the accessions are stored in mediumor long-term conditions. Nearly 8% are stored in short-term, 1% in short/medium and 10% in field collections, in vitro or under cryopreservation. No information is available for 25% of the accessions.Plant species that are vegetatively propagated, have long life cycles or produce short-lived (recalcitrant) seed, are usually maintained in field genebanks, existing in at least 103 countries. These include crops like fruit trees of temperate zones, potato, cassava, banana/plantain, yam and tropical fruits, rubber, coffee, cocoa and coconut. Nevertheless, improvement and development of appropriate conservation technologies for vegetatively propagated plants, as well as for species with non-orthodox seeds, are needed (FAO, 1998).Approximately 527,000 accessions are stored worldwide in field genebanks: 284,000 in Europe, 10,000 in the Near East, 84,000 in Asia and the Pacific, 16,000 in Africa and 117,000 in the Americas (FAO, 1998). More than 60 countries have in vitro conservation facilities. In vitro storage is an alternative or complementary method for conserving vegetatively propagated plants, or those with long life cycles and with recalcitrant seeds, which has been developed up to now for a small number of species. The technology requires expen- Worldwide, 1500 botanical gardens (11% private) maintain living collections of plants (Fig. 1.2). About 10% of them also have seed banks, and 2% in vitro collections. Usually, vegetatively propagated species, forest trees, medicinal and ornamental species, as well as plant genetic resources for food and agriculture of local significance are well represented. In this way they can fill an important gap in ex situ conservation programmes. Because their mandate extends to all plant species, botanical gardens are characterized by few accessions per taxon and, consequently, by a high interspecific but low intraspecific genetic diversity. Most of the botanical gardens (915) are situated in Europe, the Former Soviet Union, and the United States, where about 75% of the total germplasm of botanical gardens is conserved. Worldwide, 698 (47%) have germplasm collections, 80% of which are preserved as living collections, outdoors or in greenhouses. In particular the situation is as follows: 410 botanical gardens conserve ornamental species or wild native endangered species, many of them related to major crops; about 60% of these collections are in Europe, the USA, Japan, South Africa and Mexico; 169 also conserve medicinal and forest species, particularly in China, Japan, India and Brazil; 119 conserve germplasm of cultivated species, including landraces, semicultivated species and other wild species locally utilized. These collections can be found in Asia (India and China), Mesoamerica (Mexico) and Canada.The Index Seminum Commission has been the main mechanism for germplasm exchange for 300 years, and about 2 million accessions are offered every year, but the feedback on how the germplasm is used is very poor.In general, genebanks were installed in the 1970s and 1980s in response to genetic erosion. The urgency of the moment led to the rescue and amassing of a huge amount of plant genetic resources, which was not followed by extended evaluation and utilization. Only 56 and 55 countries, respectively, provided information on characterization and evaluation activities, and only small percentages of the collections have been subjected to some form of characterization or evaluation (FAO, 1998).The situation for IARC's managed collections is much better for characterization and, in general, also for evaluation, in particular for resistance to pests and diseases. Most of the centres perform multi-site evaluation of accessions for desirable characteristics in different agroecological regions. So far, there are a few examples of germplasm being systematically evaluated using a network approach, at national and international level. For instance the International Network for Genetic Evaluation of Rice (INGER), coordinated by IRRI and operating for 20 years, has greatly contributed to the increase in rice germplasm. Similarly, the International Network for the Improvement of Bananas and Plantains (INIBAP), working mainly through NARS, has developed the International Musa Testing Programme for the evaluation of banana and plantain collections. In the USA, several public sector and private institutions are collaborating with the United States Germplasm Enhancement Maize project (GEM), which is broadening the genetic base of maize hybrids. It is evident that international cooperation, in-depth documentation and information, and a more systematic evaluation and characterization in relevant environments are needed (FAO, 1998).In general, germplasm from genebanks and botanical gardens is freely available to bona fide users on request; however, increasingly, access restrictions are being introduced, partly caused by quarantine regulations. More recently, restrictions are being triggered by IPRs, the not yet concluded International Undertaking (IU), and restrictive access legislation (J. Engels, personal communication).A fundamental achievement is represented by the legal status of the CGIAR genebanks. The legal status of CGIAR and other ex situ collections was left unresolved until after the implementation of the UNCED Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), in 1993. The CBD offers the signing states international rights over their national resources (art. 3). The CBD does not cover ex situ collections, which were acquired prior to the implementation, i.e. the majority of the accessions in the CGIAR collections. The importance of the issues of ex situ collections and farmers' rights was further emphasized during the Nairobi Conference for the Adoption of the Agreed Text of the CBD in 1993. Soon after, the FAO adopted Resolution 7/93, which called for intergovernmental negotiations on: 'the issue of access on mutually agreed terms to plant genetic resources, including ex situ collections, not addressed by the Convention, and the issue of the realization of Farmers' Rights' (FAO, 1995a). On 26 October 1994, the 12 CGIAR centres holding plant genetic resources placed them under the auspices of the FAO International Network of ex situ collections, part of the FAO Global System (FAO, 1995b;Pistorius, 1997).At present, information on the utilization of conserved genetic resources for breeding and other purposes is rather scanty. One of the few available indicators of utilization from national genebanks is the number of accessions distributed each year and expressed as a percentage of the total number stored in the genebank. Only very few genebanks distribute more than 10% of their accessions annually. For instance, the USA distributes yearly over 100,000 samples concerning more than 3000 species. The low use of genebank collections by breeding programmes is due to the fact that most plant breeding programmes have their own working germplasm collections. It is also evident that most genebanks distribute material only from a limited number of the total species conserved. In general, a large proportion of accessions is distributed to the National Agricultural Research Service (NARS) mainly in developing countries; a much lower amount goes to the private sector. The distribution of accessions from the CGIAR centres varies widely (Table 1.6). Most centres distribute at least 10% of their total accessions every year; a rate higher than that for most national genebanks (WRI, IUCN, UNEP, 1992;FAO, 1998).It has become increasingly clear that the ex situ collections and the system of genebanks need to be strengthened. Concerns are based on:• gaps in the collections of minor crops and under-utilized species, especially landraces and wild relatives from their centres of diversity and cultivation; • a large and increasing number of accessions that need regeneration; • several important species with non-orthodox seeds cannot be stored in seed genebanks; • many countries lack resources to maintain germplasm that they or the international community have already paid to collect; • few genebanks operate in conformity with the highest international standards, while the genetic integrity of most of the germplasm accessions in the remaining genebanks is threatened; • duplication of accessions is far from complete, while there is a significant duplication of samples; • documentation is variable and incomplete;• access to information is limited;• coordination between genebanks, breeders and other users is insufficient (FAO, 1998).On such premises, improvement of the genebank system for ex situ collections could be attained following a number of measures, such as:• identify priorities to fill gaps in collections; • increase regeneration efforts;• complete safety duplication of collections;• increase primary characterization, evaluation and documentation to facilitate collaboration with breeders and to promote the sustainable use of plant genetic resources; • develop low-cost conservation technologies, particularly for non-orthodox seeds and vegetatively propagated plants, including in vitro methods and cryopreservation; • improve the linkages between ex situ and in situ conservation, also promoting a common database.Finally, there is a need to maximize synergy through collaboration at national, regional and international levels, including the rational organization of base, active and working collections. This might include mechanisms to allow countries to place their material in secure storage facilities outside their borders, without compromising their sovereign rights. Financing mechanisms may be required to facilitate such rationalization of activities.What are the real problems and the prospective, matured in the last decade, what are the implications, the possible approaches, in relation to collection, maintenance and evaluation of agrobiodiversity? Of course, collecting and conserving ex situ samples in genebanks is of undoubted technical and economic advantage to both holders and users of germplasm, and it has been instrumental in the success of many national and international plant improvement programmes, leading to significant increases in productivity, as did the Green Revolution. However, while genebanks will continue to play their specific role, biological evolution, that is the continuous creation of biodiversity, cannot take place in stored material. It can only occur in nature, through the dynamics of continuous contact and interaction among life forms in ecosystems or, for crop plants and domestic animals, in agroecosystems.  (1992)(1993)(1994). (From FAO, 1998 During recent years, national and international programmes, following considerable public calls towards nature conservation and 'to protect nature from man', have increased in situ biodiversity conservation by increasing the number of protected areas and reserves, which is also supported through the UNESCO-MAB programme, the Global Environment Facility of UNDP and UNEP projects and according to the multifaceted strategy developed at the UNESCO Seville Conference in 1995 (Scarascia-Mugnozza, 1995).The need to allow such processes to continue has prompted an increasing engagement in in situ programmes of biodiversity conservation. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) itself, in Article 8, promotes in situ conservation when it explicitly calls on signatory parties to 'establish a system of protected areas, or areas where special measures need to be taken, to conserve the biological diversity', with the aim of ensuring the conservation of ecosystems and agrobiodiversity, and of guaranteeing the sustainable utilization of the latter. Moreover, outside gene parks and protected areas, in situ conservation is often carried out at the farm level, 'on-farm conservation', where landraces and locally improved material are grown, utilized and conserved as components of traditional farming systems, and where they also evolve in response to their dynamics. Agricultural populations have, over millennia, conserved plant and animal genetic resources and practised selection for yield, quality, resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses and for medicinal and other economic prospects. Therefore, it is right and fair that in situ conservation, again according to the CBD, should aim to respect, preserve and maintain knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity … and encourage the equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilization of such knowledge, innovations and practices.However, as most in situ management practices have been directed towards habitat preservation and have focused on ecological rather than genetic considerations, technical expertise on conservation strategies and techniques focused on in situ conservation of useful species should be intensified.It may be concluded that the in situ or, under specific conditions, on-farm conservation and cultivation of crop, domestic animal and agroforestry species may play a significant role not only in the effective maintenance of agrobiodiversity, but also as a component of sustainable development programmes, as recognized by Agenda 21. Measures such as the establishment of a multilaterally agreed funding mechanism should therefore be taken to promote, encourage and implement in situ and on-farm conservation.Use and exploitation of genetic resources postulate knowledge and evaluation of the characters expressed by the genome of the samples and the identification of desirable traits. Research in many scientific disciplines of relevance to plant genetic resources has allowed the development of more and more refined methodologies which allow geneticists and biotechnologists to pursue their programmes more effectively. In particular, the new scientific and technical tools should be progressively applied to scan the genome of specific valuable accessions.An important project fundamental for the preservation, knowledge, evaluation and utilization of all biological diversity, and consequently basic for the use and valorization of agrobiodiversity, was designed, during 1999, in Paris meetings of the OECD Megascience Forum. It was decided to establish -in the frame of the UNEP Global Environment Facility -a Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), corresponding to the aims of the CBD.Like biodiversity itself, information on conservation, preservation and evaluation of biodiversity and genetic resources is already distributed worldwide, and contained in electronic databases, including information on the distribution of organisms around the globe, information on physiological functions of organisms in relation to ecosystems, detailed genomic maps, etc., often compiled during unrelated and independent projects.GBIF should strengthen preservation and utilization of knowledge and expertise on biodiversity by providing access and links to existing or new databases, synchronizing and planning for interoperability between them, developing novel interface designs and protocols for indexing and validation of documentation, and so on. Of primary importance will be the role of GBIF in the exchange of data, information and resources. Therefore, a clear agreement should be reached in which intellectual property rights, as well as breeders' and farmers' rights will be equitably protected and guaranteed.In recent years the epochal event represented by the development of biological sciences, especially molecular biology, and animal and plant genomics, and the results of biotechnological research and applications, made it increasingly evident that biotechnology can add value to genetic resources and biodiversity at large. The successful use of genetic engineering methods has raised the economic value and increased the potential of much biological diversity as a resource in breeding and research. Consequently, it has widened enormously the scope and boundaries of initiatives to protect and conserve biodiversity.There may be unique opportunities for real international cooperation among developing and industrialized countries in building local capacities in developing countries, for the application of agrobiotechnologies to agrobiodiversity. Equitable and effective cooperation through technology transfer constitutes one of the major mechanisms by which resources of biodiversity can be conserved, managed and used sustainably for human welfare. Equity demands that developing countries receive benefits and compensation for the use of these resources, by improving their capacity to maintain their agrobiodiversity in situ or ex situ, to identify and evaluate useful genetic traits for plant and animal improvement and to apply the relevant biotechnologies for the optimal use of genetic resources, for the benefit of their populations.In any case, it is important to underline 'that the realisation of benefits from such technologies depends on the continued conservation and availability of the biological resources. Investments in technology development should be made hand-in-hand with investment to protect the resource base' (FAO, 1996c).Since the feedstock for the biotechnology industry is biological diversity, it is necessary to formulate and adopt some basic ground rules which could regulate questions concerning, above all, conservation, use, ownership, access, benefit-sharing, indigenous rights, farmers' rights and intellectual property rights. These issues are technically and legally complex, but they can be efficiently faced by the international community if our actions proceed along the path traced by the principles of the CBD: conservation of biodiver-sity, sustainable use of its components, access to and transfer of genetic resources accumulated in ex situ genebanks or maintained in situ, and equitable sharing of the benefits of the use of genetic resources. This was confirmed by the FAO during the last decade 2 in the Leipzig Declaration (June 1996) and in the Global Plan for the Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Also the Madras Declaration of 1996 confirmed this (Scarascia-Mugnozza and Swaminathan, 1996). The FAO World Food Summit (Rome, November 1996) declared, among the objectives of its third commitment, solemn support to the Leipzig Plan of Action through 'inter alia appropriate in situ and ex situ approaches, systematic survey and inventorying to broaden the genetic basis of crops, and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of such resources'. The same questions were debated at the World Conference on Science (UNESCO, Budapest, 1999), which had to recognize that the expansion of IPR-controlled science is inevitable. Among the easily imaginable consequences of this are the increase in secrecy in scientific work and decreased attention towards the scientific problems related to the health and livelihoods of the poor.In the light of the above, it is extremely urgent that a timely agreement be reached among holders of germplasm throughout the world in order to regulate the status and access to genetic resources and that an efficient mechanism be identified to assure equitable sharing of the benefits derived from their use.Very recently, the FAO Commission on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, during its last session (April 2000), made further progress in searching for the development and establishment of an international plant genetic resources system, which provides recognition, and protection of farmers' and traditional communities' rights for an equitable share of the benefits.Apart from the fundamental need for strengthening international cooperation to achieve suitable participatory systems for sharing benefits in a wide range of approaches and actions, we think that key issues within the ongoing international debate on plant genetic resources are: (i) the problems related to the realization of farmers' rights confronted to the patent system, being them complementary and not opposed to breeders' rights; and (ii) the status of the ex situ collections prior to the approval of CBD in 1993, remained out of the reach of the provisions of the Convention itself. Thus, the continuing uncertainty on the legal status and related aspects of access and maintenance of germplasm collections represents a threat to conservation of plant genetic resources.The FAO-CGIAR Agreements of 1994 should be regarded as a major contribution to an open system of germplasm conservation and exchange. Further development of the Agreements should be open for consideration and consultation among all concerned parties of the plant genetic resources community with a view, for example, to create the most open and effective system possible for the conservation, exchange and enhancement of genetic material, presumably under the aegis of a supranational authority. This model might be open to all public or private, national or international institutes prepared to abide by the terms of the agreement and to provide a list of germplasm accessions to be exchanged under the conditions stipulated by the agreement. The excellent relationships of IARCs with National Agricultural Research Systems and their governments, and also with NGOs, could be a favourable pathway to reach agreements on the model of the FAO-CGIAR agreement. Countries could agree, for example, to place their genetic resources into such a framework on the basis of prior informed consent. Access to samples and information on these resources could be unrestricted (subject to a legal mechanism) for all countries that are parties to the agreement.To achieve sustainable conservation efforts, it is of utmost importance to link conservation to use. Without strong linkages the value cannot be realized and eventually even conservation will be threatened. The issue of use, however, carries with it the problems connected with sharing rights (benefits) derived from plant genetic resources. According to the principles embodied in the International Undertaking and reiterated by the CBD and FAO World Food Summit, there is a need to ensure full respect of the rights of the countries in which agricultural biodiversity is found, and of their farmers and farming community, so as to avert the grave continuing danger of erosion of plant genetic resources and the irreparable loss of these resources.As matter of fact, no concrete proposals have emerged up to now on giving practical meaning and content to the concept of farmers' rights as described by the International Undertaking as 'an obligation to compensate farmers for their past, present and future contribution conserving and making available plant genetic resources' (FAO, 1995a).That is why the role of farmers' rights, a concept introduced by M.S. Swaminathan in 1979 in the FAO debates, and endorsed by FAO since 1989, is crucial (Swaminathan, 1995). They aim at reconciling the view of 'technology rich' and 'gene rich' countries in order to ensure the availability of plant genetic resources for biotechnological industry within an equitable system. They aim at providing some balance to 'formal' intellectual property rights (IPR), such as breeders' rights and patents, invented to reward innovation acquired from the advanced research and resources invested in the industrial countries. Farmers should be rewarded no less than institutions and private companies.Farmers' rights and IPR need to be harnessed, in the interests of maintenance and use of biodiversity, of scientific research for advantages for industries and farmers, and above all for human welfare, by developing agreements that promote the equitable sharing of benefits coming from a proper use of genetic resources.In our opinion, UN agencies like FAO, UNESCO, UNEP and UNDP, with the technical support of IPGRI and of CGIAR, might jointly develop ad hoc guidelines in order to harmonize the provision of Article 27(3)b of the World Trade Agreement (regarding IPR) with the ethics and equity provisions of the CBD (Articles 8(j) and 15 of CBD). Such a revision of IPR will help to foster symbiotic bio-partnerships, to protect biodiversity and eliminate fears of biopiracy.In this context, it is appropriate to remember that, in the frame of the patent system of inventions, which is mandatory for the World Trade Organization (WTO), plant variety protection in industrialized countries is regulated by the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants and implemented by the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Crop Plants (UPOV), which rewards only scientific plant breeders (UPOV, 1991).Therefore, it is timely to put forward consistent and sound elements for enhancing mutual supportiveness among the international fora, especially the CBD and the FAO Commission for Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture on one side, and the trade and IPR policies of WTO, the Trade Related Intellectual Property System (TRIPS) Agreement, the UPOV and the World Intellectual Property Rights Organization (WIPO), on the other. Specular to such inter-foral cooperation, the best efforts should be made in order to pursue effective national systems and coordination mechanisms, by which negotiators in trade and IP conventions, while responding to their respective ministries and agencies, are aware and supportive of domestic policies and international positions embodied by officials negotiating in agricultural and environmental fora.International cooperation in the field of genetic resources is imperative without delay. One of the most urgent issues to be solved, for political, environmental, scientific, economic and ethical reasons is the realization of farmers' rights within the context of the revision of the International Undertaking and the development of a mechanism for its implementation. The revised International Undertaking could then become a protocol of the CBD.Equity means equilibrium between public good and private profit, and in particular demands that developing countries receive benefit and compensation for the use of genetic resources that they host or hosted and have already partly transferred to ex situ collections in developed countries, which are used by companies and breeders with beneficial results. Equitable and effective cooperation constitutes one of the major mechanisms by which resources of biodiversity can be conserved, managed and used sustainably all over the world, under legal agreements.The significant contributions of rural people, particularly women, to the conservation and enhancement of agrobiodiversity remained unrecognized until only a few decades ago. Studies by Darwin, de Candolle, Vavilov, Harlan, Wellhausen and many others have shown a strong positive correlation between cultural diversity and genetic diversity, demonstrating the impact of human communities on the conservation and use of biodiversity. Agrobiodiversity is largely the result of human-nature interaction.Ethnobiologists and social anthropologists have long recognized the role of rural people in the domestication and improvement of economic plants. However, it is only in the last 25 years that serious efforts have been made to develop ways to recognize and reward the invaluable contributions of farm families to the conservation and development of genetic diversity. A serious debate on this issue started in the forum of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 1981 when I was Independent Chairman of the FAO Council. In November 1983, the FAO Council meeting under my Chairmanship set up an International Commission on Plant Genetic Resources (now renamed as the FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, so as to include within its scope animal genetic resources also). Soon debate started in meetings of this Commission on the concept of farmers' rights. Although there has been a near consensus for nearly two decades on the need for recognizing and rewarding the contributions of farm families to genetic resources conservation, no internationally agreed methodology exists even now for this purpose.The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which came into force in December 1993, has for the first time in a legally binding document given explicit recognition to the role of indigenous communities to both accumulation and conservation of knowledge and information (Article 8j). The prior informed consent and benefit-sharing provisions of CBD have not become operational so far.Sharing of benefits and the concomitant increase in the recognized value of the resources are the most effective ways to foster conservation and to ensure the continued availability of plant genetic resources (PGR). Today, there is a growing economic stake in the exploitation of habitats rich in plant genetic resources. That this will be disastrous is evident from the loss of nearly 3.5% of the world's forests since UNCED in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. There is therefore an urgent need to create an economic stake in conservation. In general, the issue of benefit-sharing has not received the detailed attention it deserves among those formulating legal measures for operationalizing the CBD. If FAO's revised International Understanding on plant genetic resources (PGR) incorporating provisions for farmers' rights becomes a protocol of the legally binding CBD, follow-up action will become mandatory. The adoption of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety is a sign of hope.The different systems of conservation in vogue today are:• in situ conservation; • ex situ preservation;• in situ on-farm conservation.Unlike cryogenic preservation in genebanks, conservation involves both preservation and evolution. Therefore, ex situ preservation alone cannot provide the lasting benefits that accrue from the conservation of habitats and ecosystems rich in biodiversity. The different systems of conservation are shown in Fig. 2.1, which also indicates the agencies actively involved in the different methods of conservation/preservation.There is need to develop ways to end the prevailing dichotomy in which the primary conservers remain poor while those using their material and information become rich. In the case of in situ and ex situ conservation, public funds are provided to establish biosphere reserves, protected areas, botani-cal gardens, genebanks, etc. However, in the case of in situ on-farm conservation of agrobiodiversity, rural people conserve landraces or folk varieties for public good at personal cost. Equity demands that their work be recognized and compensated. Thus, we should develop a framework for promoting benefitsharing under the different conditions of conservation depicted in Fig. 2.1.At a dialogue organized in January 1990 at Madras by the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) in collaboration with the Keystone Center in the United States, the participants stated, we agree on the concept of Farmers' Rights and we agree that the contributions to a fund in recognition of these rights should not be voluntary. Practically speaking, a voluntary fund is a fund without resources. Thus, there should be a compulsory funding mechanism. This would ensure that Farmers' Rights are recognized in a real way.The concept of farmers' rights includes recognition of the fact that farmers have developed and continue to help develop and maintain genetic diversity. In many cases, farmers engage in conscious and creative practices as they select and breed their crops. Ethnobotanists around the world have chronicled the invaluable contributions of tribal and rural women and men in the conservation and enhancement of genetic diversity in plants (Swaminathan and Kochhar, 1989).In situ The Plant Variety Protection Acts in vogue in developed countries generally conform to the provisions of the Conventions agreed to from time to time under the forum of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV). They are designed to promote invention and investment in plant breeding. However, they do not afford recognition to the conservation and enhancement by farm families of genetic diversity, which is the basic feedstock for plant breeding and biotechnology enterprises. By introducing provisions for farmers' rights, Plant Variety Protection Acts will concurrently foster innovation and conservation. They will thus help to strike a balance between homogeneity and heterogeneity in the genetic make-up of new cultivars. Such a balance is essential for sustainable agriculture. Breeders and farmers are allies in our struggle for a hunger-free world. Hence, their rights should be mutually reinforcing and not projected as antagonistic.At two dialogues on methods of recognizing and rewarding informal innovations in the area of genetic resources conservation organized by MSSRF in 1994 and1996, a detailed draft legislation was developed for converting the know-how relating to farmers' rights into field level do-how (Swaminathan, 1995(Swaminathan, , 1996)). On the basis of these drafts, the Government of India has introduced in Parliament a Plant Variety Protection and Farmers' Rights Act.The need for internationally agreed methodologies for giving effect to the equity provisions of the CBD is now widely recognized. The issue of benefit-sharing has received considerable attention during the last 15 years in the forum of the Commission on Plant Genetic Resources of the FAO in relation to PGR. Although agreed methodologies for implementing farmers' rights at the field level have yet to emerge, several institutions have developed their own voluntary code of conduct in the matter of benefit-sharing in the commercial exploitation of agrobiodiversity.Article 15 of CBD recognizes that 'States have sovereign rights over their own biological resources'. It also recognizes:the close and traditional dependence of many indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles on biological resources, and the desirability of sharing equitable benefits arising from the use of traditional knowledge, innovations and practices relevant to the conservation of biological diversity and the sustainable use of its components. Implementation of the above provisions of CBD will require both material and information transfer agreements within and among nations, which incorporate provisions for prior informed consent and equity in benefit-sharing between the primary conservers and those utilizing their knowledge and material in plant breeding, genetic engineering and pharmaceutical and other biological enterprises. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) has developed well-defined procedures for material and knowledge transfer.The Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) provisions of the World Trade Agreement call for either a patenting or a sui generis system of plant variety protection. This is for the purpose of providing incentives for innovation and investment in the use of plant genetic resources. Such Plant Variety Protection Acts have been in existence in several industrialized countries for over 50 years. Since 1961, UPOV has been prescribing guidelines for harmonizing the provision of such legislation in different countries. The UPOV convention, however, provides for recognizing and rewarding only the contributions of breeders and not of those who have conserved the basic raw material used by breeders. The time has come to end the sad irony of the poverty of the conservers in contrast to the prosperity of those utilizing the fruits of their knowledge and conservation ethics. Several developing countries in South America, Africa and Asia are currently in the process of enacting legislation incorporating provisions for benefitsharing. Individual institutions and commercial companies have also been practising their own procedures for sharing benefits with the communities that provided the genetic material. These different steps illuminate the path towards an internationally agreed protocol on benefit-sharing under the auspices of FAO or CBD.Equity in benefit-sharing is fundamental to the retention and revitalization of the in situ on-farm conservation traditions of rural and tribal families. Material and Information Transfer agreements should safeguard the interests of those providing the concerned material/information. CGIAR institutions are already adopting a Material Transfer Agreement procedure that will prevent the monopolistic exploitation of public-funded research for commercial profit. Benefit-sharing procedures will have to be developed at the individual and community levels. At the level of an individual farmerconserver-innovator the same procedures for seeking recognition and reward as those available to professional breeders can be used. Only they may have to be helped in obtaining patents/plant variety protection in accordance with the prescribed national legislation. The problem is more complex in the case of benefit-sharing with entire communities. Procedures are available for identifying the area from which critical genes responsible for the commercial success of a new variety came. Thanks to molecular techniques, this possibility also extends to genes controlling quantitative traits like yield and quality. Therefore, appropriate reward can be given from the Community Biodiversity and Gene Funds proposed to be established under Biodiversity and Plant Variety Protection Acts in several developing countries. Breeders will have to be requested to disclose the full pedigrees of their new varieties and indicate to the extent possible the area from where the critical genes, including QTLs (quantitative trait loci), came. The communities concerned can decide how to use the funds provided. Obviously they should be used for community benefits, including the funds needed for strengthening on-farm conservation of landraces and seed technology.The benefit-sharing methods appropriate to different systems of genetic resources conservation are summarized below.This largely takes the form of biosphere reserves, national parks and protected areas. Here, many opportunities are available for benefit-sharing, such as:• Participatory forest management, involving benefit-sharing with reference to wood and nonwood forest products. • Bioprospecting based on equity in sharing commercial profit.• Ecotourism, which strengthens the livelihood security of local communities. • Symbiotic social contracts between tribal and rural families and the corporate sector with reference to sourcing of material based on assured buy-back arrangements.Here, methods of sharing royalties with the providers of the critical information and material can be developed. Community Gene Funds can be established to provide recognition and reward to entire communities based on the analysis of the pedigrees of successful varieties.This is an area of vital importance to global food and health security. Community Biodiversity and Gene Funds could be used to compensate local communities for the yield and income loss they may incur by continuing to conserve landraces and folk varieties of economic plants, instead of abandoning them in favour of high-yielding varieties. In addition, both individual and community benefits can be conferred on the basis of transparent procedures. Technical Resource Centres for the implementation of the equity provisions of CBD, like the one existing at MSSRF, will be of help in this process. Thus, benefits can be in cash and kind. Social recognition and material benefits are both important. There are several informal models of such recognition and reward developed and operated by non-governmental organizations, academia, business and industry. Through a combination of political will, professional skill and people's participation, fair and equitable methods of benefitsharing can now be introduced in all systems of conservation and use of plant genetic resources.The FAO Global Plan of Action developed at Leipzig provides an excellent blueprint for plant genetic resources conservation. In the ultimate analysis, the success of conservation efforts will depend on people's participation. Equity in benefitsharing is the trigger for fostering a people-centred conservation movement. Implementation of benefitsharing procedures -rooted in the principles of ecology, social and gender equity and economicswill be an important step in achieving a better common future for humankind. This is why industrialized countries and biotechnology industries, for which biodiversity constitutes the basic feedstock, should contribute to a Global Community Gene Fund designed to reward the tribal and rural families who are today protecting public good at personal cost.The three fundamental concepts of Article 15 of CBD, namely sovereign rights over genetic resources (article 15.1), access subject to prior informed consent (article 15.5) and access subject to mutually agreed terms (article 15.4), provide a framework for a new partnership between holders and providers of knowledge and genetic material and users, based on equity and ethics in sharing benefits.Unilateral exploitation of biodiversity for commercial purposes is now widely regarded as biopiracy. This method of exploitation should give way to biopartnership based on procedures like copatenting and equitable benefit-sharing. Such biopartnerships will help to foster symbiotic relationships between biodiversity providers and users and will foster the causes of conservation and sustainable use.The recent initiative of the World Intellectual Property Rights Organization (WIPO) to consider questions relating to according recognition to traditional knowledge systems and informal innovations is a welcome first step in enlarging the concept of intellectual property rights (IPR). The World Trade Organization (WTO) should also initiate steps to enlarge the concept of TRIPS, so as to evolve a new 'TRIPS Plus' paradigm, where the 'plus' refers to equity and ethics in the sharing of benefits between traditional knowledge holders and conservers and commercial companies. Finally, UPOV should also restructure itself so as to become an 'International Union for the Protection of Breeders and Farmers' Rights'. Such action at the international level and appropriate legislative and non-legislative measures at the national level will help to give meaning and content to the concept of equitable benefit-sharing.At an International Technical Conference on Plant Genetic Resources held at Leipzig, Germany, from 17 to 23 June 1996, under the auspices of FAO, a global plan of action was developed for both in situ and ex situ conservation of PGR. Although at this Conference, benefit-sharing methodologies were not specifically discussed, the following areas that have a bearing on benefit-sharing were given consideration:• development and commercialization of underutilized crops and species; • supporting seed production and distribution;• developing new markets for local varieties and 'diversity-rich' products; • expanding and improving education and training.The Leipzig declaration called for 'a new and more productive partnership between scientists and farmers to build upon the ongoing efforts of farmers to manage and improve their plant genetic resources, especially in marginal areas'.Such partnership will help to address the twin needs for:• revitalization of the in situ on-farm conservation of agrobiodiversity by rural families; • creating an economic incentive system that provides for both compensation for loss of yield and reward for contributions to genetic resources conservation and enhancement.The FAO Global Plan of Action represents the most comprehensive strategy for the conservation and sustainable use of PGR.In a recent publication entitled Business and Biodiversity published by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and IUCN (Stone et al., 1997) the need for sharing benefits was reiterated in the following statement.Company management should ensure that local communities are closely involved with decisions affecting the use of natural resources. Of particular importance in some areas is the indigenous peoples' knowledge and the specific issues related to their use of, and relationship to, the land and biological resources. This relationship needs to be harnessed in a positive way, both for the company and the peoples, by developing agreements which promote the equitable sharing of resources.Thus, the pathway suggested is bilateral negotiations between companies and local communities.We also have information on both megabiodiversity areas and 'hot spot' locations with reference to threats to biodiversity (see Heywood, 1995). Many of these areas are also characterized by high population density (Cincotta et al., 2000). Hence, extending support to the communities conserving and improving agrobiodiversity is not difficult, if there is a will to do so. UNEP, FAO, UNESCO and the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) of CGIAR could jointly help to develop internationally acceptable guidelines for according support from a Global Biodiversity Fund.It is gratifying that several developing countries in South America, Africa and Asia are in the process of institutionalizing benefit-sharing procedures in legal measures relating to CBD. Experience in operating such legislation will lead to the refinement of benefit-sharing procedures by the beginning of the new millennium. This will then provide the basis for the adoption of an agreed protocol on benefit-sharing by the Conference of Parties to CBD. Inaction is not the answer to imperfections in currently available benefit-sharing methodologies. Learning by doing is the pathway to perfection.In future, the contributions of farmers to in situ on-farm and ex situ on-farm conservation will depend much on the social recognition and economic incentives provided to the primary conservers. While the older generations conserved as a part of tradition and ethics, the younger generation is likely to continue the earlier traditions only if a recognition and reward system is put in place.In addition to implementing the ethics and equity principles enshrined in CBD, it will be important to integrate the revitalization of the in situ on-farm conservation traditions with a Community Food and Water Security System of the type described below.There is need for a community-centred food security system based on attention to all the links in the conservation-cultivation-consumption chain. One male and one female member of a panchayat (village or town council) should be trained to serve as a member of a Food and Water Security Corps. Such a system will include the following four major components.1. Field Genebank. This involves the in situ onfarm conservation of landraces and local varieties of crops, through the revitalization of the conservation traditions of rural and tribal families, particularly women. 2. Village Seed Bank. The rural families often lose their seed stocks because of drought, flood and other natural calamities. Therefore, in each village a Village Seed Bank will be established through a Seed Security Self-help Group, supported by microcredit. 3. Village Water Bank. Conservation of rainwater, sustainable management of ground water and the conjunctive use of surface, ground and recycled water are important components of the Village Water Bank. 4. Area Grain Bank. It is important to maintain grain reserves of local staples to meet emergencies like drought and natural calamities. For this purpose, an Area Grain Bank will be established at a suitable location, each to serve about 25,000 families. The Grain Bank will be operated by a self-help group supported by a revolving fund. Thus the Community Food and Water Security System will foster a sustainable people-centred and people-controlled method of ending food and drinking water insecurity at the level of each individual. It will help to ensure both food security and genetic resources conservation.The local tribal community is known as Malayali. Agriculture is the mainstay of the Malayali economy. For a long time subsistence farming has been the predominant pattern and continued to be so until two decades ago. It was not just for survival; it was a way of life for them. Their traditional management practices enabled them to have a sustainable food system. The traditional cultivated food crops include minor millets such as Ragi (Eleusine coracana), Samai (Panicum miliare), Thinai (Setaria italica), Thirivaragu (Paspalum scrobiculatum), Panivaragu (Panicum miliaceum), rice (Oryza sativa), both wet land and dry land varieties, and pulses.Almost all the food crops, with one or two exceptions, had a minimum of three to four varieties with different agronomic characters. Given their forefather's knowledge and their own experience, the Malayalis were motivated to adopt different crop varieties to suit local environmental, socio-economic and cultural conditions. They adopted varieties based on a wide range of criteria. The Malayali farmers, both men and women, pointed out that different food crops and different varieties formed their agricultural system, because of their high yield, cooking qualities, desirable maturity period or ease of harvest. Further, some of the varieties provided good fodder and thatching material for their house roofs. Another significant aspect is the compatibility of different varieties with climatic and edaphic factors, resources, and cropping patterns (e.g. mixed cropping) of the Malayali farming system.Many varieties were adopted for different reasons, which may be explained by giving a few examples.• Sadan samai, a medium-duration variety, gives good yield. The straw serves as good fodder material for their cattle, but it is difficult to process. • Malliya samai matures in 90 days and gives good yield, but the straw does not have fodder value. The straw is good thatching material.• While the above two varieties are cultivated in terraced uplands, the long-duration variety of Perun samai is cultivated in the sloped terraces because it fits seasonal characteristics better.There are cultural reasons for cultivation of particular food crops. A rice variety known as Karu Nellu even today is grown by the households worshipping the goddess 'Kongayi Amman', a local deity, for ritual offering. Similarly, Thinai flour is also offered as ritual offerings to local female deities. The delicacies prepared out of this grain are considered very tasty, and the gruel prepared out of it is given to women after childbirth. Thinai is also considered soodu (hot) by the locals. So the food prepared out of it is taken once a week, particularly during the winter season. This grain is quite easy to pound, compared with other millets. The concept of 'hot' and 'cold' foods is also inherent in tribal families, the 'hot' food being taken during winter months and the 'cold' food being consumed during summer.Ragi was cultivated on a large scale until recently as it is considered very healthy (nutritious) and can be consumed year round. Ragi is followed by samai, Puzhudikar Nellu (a dry land rice variety) and other crops.The Malayalis practise mixed cropping (mainly Ragi based) where at least six varieties of crops are sown simultaneously and cultivated in a single plot. It is a risk-minimizing device as well as a means of extending the cropping season.In recent times, i.e. in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a trend towards a market-oriented economy set in which altered their food and production system. This transformation took place as a result of various developmental activities such as improving accessibility through construction of roads, and setting up cooperative societies and schools. Entry of outsiders and exposure to urban life brought changes in socio-economic and cultural values. Monetary considerations favoured a shift from a subsistence economy to a marketoriented one.A subsistence-based food production system has largely been replaced by the cultivation of cassava in the terraced uplands and pineapple in the sloped and rocky lands. Between 1970 and1984, the area under cassava and pineapple increased more than 50 times. Changes in agricultural practices and access to education forced people to reduce their livestock. Another crucial factor is the increase in the human population, from approximately 19,000 in 1951 to 32,130 in 1991. Their food security is gradually declining, making them dependent on the market. Most importantly, the agrobiodiversity of the Kolli Hills is at great risk. Another crucial factor which has a direct bearing on Kolli Hills agrobiodiversity is land alienation, which has been taking place at an alarming rate.Disturbances in the exchange rates may affect the food supply of the Malayalis. To avoid any such disturbances, an alternative system of the kind described earlier, which will ensure their food security, is a must.If the present trend continues there is more scope for greater commodification in future. Those who continue with farming will concentrate on the commercial crops that have economic value such as tapioca, pineapple and plantation crops. Those who are away for education or because of new opportunities have drifted towards non-farm activities. Such people and households would be completely diverted from their traditional agricultural activity. Unless they derive economic benefit from their conservation traditions, many of the local crops and varieties will soon become 'lost crops'. If this scenario is to be changed it needs to have a positive and effective intervention with people's involvement and participation.A two-pronged strategy can help to mitigate the problem: one deals with cultural aspects and the other with the economic aspect. There should be a cultural motivation for the people whereby they will feel proud about their traditional crops. People should be encouraged to rediscover the cultural value of raising their traditional millets and other crops, by according social prestige to such traditions.Value addition in terms of monetary gains is another crucial factor. Value addition in terms of both cultural and monetary returns would help to reinforce conservation of traditional millet crops and agrobiodiversity of Kolli Hills. The implementation of the concept of farmers' rights will also help. The fast-changing scenario in Kolli Hills is depicted in Fig. 2.2.M.S. SwaminathanSubsistence agriculture• Spreading awareness of the cultural value of traditional food crops Most of the studies on contributions of farming families are not gender disaggregated. MSSRF, in collaboration with the FAO Regional Office in Bangkok, has initiated a series of studies on the gender dimensions of biodiversity management (Swaminathan, 1998). More recently, detailed studies have been undertaken by Dr Virendra Kumar and Dr Hemal Kanvinde of MSSRF on gender roles in biodiversity conservation and management in Sri Lanka and the Maldives. The results so far stress the need to recognize the specific role of women in genetic resources conservation and enhancement. This is particularly important in the context of the equitable benefit-sharing provisions of CBD.The books Lost Crops of the Incas and Lost Crops of Africa relate very clearly how ancient civilizations depended on a wide range of food and medicinal plants, and Biodiversity in Trust (Fuccillo et al., 1997) reports the enormous range of intraspecific diversity maintained in the genebanks of International Agricultural Research Centres (IARCs) belonging to the CGIAR system. We owe such rich variability to the conservation ethos of farm and tribal families. Often the conservation habits were not due to any commitment to conservation per se, but rather to the understanding that genetic variability diminishes vulnerability to biotic and abiotic stresses. Farming families in the past were motivated by a desire to minimize risks rather than to maximize profits. Risk aversion agronomy involved growing mixtures of crops and crop varieties. Modern agriculture involves monoculture and the cultivation of the same genetic strain over large areas. There is a fear that when genetically modified varieties covered by proprietary science and released by commercial companies become popular, genetic homogeneity will increase in farmers' fields. The challenge lies in integrating genetic efficiency with genetic diversity. The procedure adopted by MSSRF scientists for this purpose is the integration of pre-breeding with participatory breeding. By adopting such procedures, we can conserve agrobiodiversity and at the same time enhance it through participatory breeding with farm families. This will help to select location-specific varieties adapted to the local agroecological and sociocultural conditions. If we adopt such scientific procedures and at the same time introduce legal measures for social recognition and economic reward, farm families will continue to conserve, nurture and enhance agrobiodiversity.3 The Impact of Gene Technologies on the Use of Genetic Resources J. Peacock and A. Chaudhury CSIRO Plant Industry, Canberra, Australia We can rightly expect this to be the Century of Biology. We have enormously increased our power to ask questions about how living organisms grow, develop and function. The principal driver of this increase in research capacity, which is leading to vast increases in our knowledge base, is gene technology, with its associated tools and related technologies.Gene technology has provided a quantum increase in our ability to probe the molecular and cellular bases of the biological processes of plants and animals, and of microorganisms for that matter. We now have new levels of understanding of the development, growth and responses of plants to changing environmental conditions.Underlying development, growth and environmental responses is the control or regulation of gene expression and each component of the plant life cycle can be understood in terms of patterns of gene expression.Along with the new knowledge have come major, new concepts in our understanding. For example, repression of gene activity is a major strategy of regulation of gene action, especially in the development of an organism. For many genes, the usual condition is that of inactivity; particular controls turn genes on at certain times and in certain cells. Another surprise is that dominant mutations, which were once supposed to be extremely rare, are in fact relatively common.We have discovered some unexpected mechanisms of great importance in plants. For example, in the last 2 years, research has shown that plants have an immune system protecting them against virus infections. This system operates by interfering with RNA molecules that are necessary in the multiplication cycle of the virus. It is a powerful protection mechanism, which can now be harnessed in agriculture to protect crop plants from many viruses. It can also be harnessed to modulate the level of expression of any particular gene. Another recent finding is that epigenetic mechanisms operate along with genetic (DNA sequence-based) mechanisms of gene regulation, so chemical modification of DNA sequences plays a role in regulation of gene activity along with the coded linear DNA sequence itself. All this new knowledge enriches our germplasm resource collections and increases our capacity to use the genetic variation they contain.The increase in our understanding of how plants develop and operate is already contributing to modern agriculture, enhancing our abilities to improve the performance of crops. Transgenic crop plants are already grown on more than 40 Mha of agricultural land. The new biology is also improving conventional plant breeding. We need highperforming cultivars of both types -transgenic and conventional -to meet the world's food needs.Dr Swaminathan has convincingly put the case for the urgent need to increase food production and also for the need to achieve this increase with minimal harm to the environment. We need sustainable agricultural systems. He also emphasized the need to provide enhanced genotypes for subsistence farming, not just for the high-input, largescale agricultural systems of developed countries.The two keys to plant improvement are genetic variation and selection. The new biological sciences have increased the supply of genetic variation but the need to conserve existing variation and make it available for use is unquestioned. The new gene technologies are also helping us to meet this particular challenge by increasing our capacity to use genetic resources.Most, but not all, genetic variation is a consequence of changes in the linear sequence of DNA nucleotides, either in the coding or in the controlling regions of a gene. The coding region of a gene determines what protein (gene product) will be produced. The controlling regions determine where, when and how much of that product will be produced. Changes in the linear sequence of nucleotides can alter the coding message and can change the interactions of regulatory proteins with the protein-binding motifs in the promoter and other control regions of a gene (Fig. 3.1).We have powerful methods to detect changes in DNA sequence and thus characterize the extent of genetic diversity and populations of any given species. DNA sequence markers have proved to be very powerful in following particular examples of sequence in genetic resource and crop breeding programmes. For example, we are using this technique to monitor variation in the breeding material of macadamia, an Australian tree species, the only species in the Australian flora to enter the commercial food systems. DNA technology allows us to compare the genetic variation in wild populations with that currently in breeding populations and in genetic resource collections. The analysis shows where we must collect further material for the germplasm collection and will give clues as to what genotypes should be introduced into breeding programmes.Our capacity to work with particular genes, for example self-incompatibility genes, is putting more rationality into decisions on population sizes for conservation of endangered species. The correlation of population size, number of incompatibility alleles and seed set in the plants of a population is a key factor in developing a strategy for in situ conservation of the species (Fig. 3.2).The new gene technologies are having great impact on the use of genetic variation at all levels of relatedness of germplasm to crops (Fig. 3.3). We can illustrate this by considering the genetic resources available for bread wheats. The primary genepool of bread wheats provided the dwarfing genes that have been massively important in Australian wheat production and everywhere else in the world. In Australia, we have used two dwarfing genes in all of our present varieties. They have been instrumental in increasing agricultural performance but they do have some disadvantages under Australian conditions. The dwarf coleoptile of the semi-dwarf varieties can lead to poor stands when the seed is sown deeply, a practice that Australian farmers employ in some water-limited environments and in minimum tillage agriculture. Australian scientists scanned germplasm accessions for dwarfing genes that do not reduce coleoptile length even though the internodes of the growing plant are still shortened.A new dwarfing gene with these characteristics was identified and is being introduced into breeding populations. Crop establishment is improved considerably. The breeding process is being speeded up with the use of DNA sequence markers and it looks very promising indeed (Fig. 3.4). New biological knowledge is also giving breeders the means to break barriers to increasing yield. An example in wheat agriculture is our ability to select, within the primary genepool, for increased efficiency in the use of the two naturally occurring carbon isotopes in the atmosphere. This is done using a mass spectrometer and has resulted in spectacular increases in yield in putative cultivars. In this case the new technologies provided a new selection method for the breeder. DNA markers can save breeding programmes a lot of time and expense by reducing the need for costly, difficult and time-consuming bioassays. In Australia the first example of the use of DNA markers for a resistance gene in wheat breeding was the gene for cereal nematode resistance. Cereal cyst nematodes cause AU$80 million crop losses every year in western Victoria and south-eastern South Australia, so resistant cultivars are an attractive prospect. DNA marker technology provided a powerful tool for acquisition of a resistance gene from the secondary genepool of wheat.Screening to meet precise needs is really the key to extracting value from genetic resource collections. Lagudah and Appels (CSIRO Plant Industry, personal communication) were able to identify a DNA marker sequence closely linked to a nematode resistance gene which had been transferred to hexaploid wheat through a Triticum tauschii cross. Apart from being able to follow the specific gene from the tauschii germplasm collection in subsequent breeding populations, they were able to show that the DNA marker was in fact a perfect marker for the resistance gene as it is a sequence in the resistance gene itself. This provided a screen for other members of this class of resistance gene in the germplasm collection (Fig. 3.5).  A gene product, the protein coded by a gene sequence, can be followed in screening programmes. An example is the null condition (a deletion) of the granule-bound starch synthase gene on chromosome 4A of bread wheat. The organoleptic quality important to the Japanese taste in the Udon noodle was found to be present in certain wheat varieties in Australia. Absence of the 4A gene (and protein) was shown to provide the desired characteristic in the noodle dough (Fig. 3.6).In the 1950s mutation breeding stood alongside germplasm resource collections as sources of variation for breeding programmes, but it has always been a poor relative to nature which, after all, has had a much longer time to accumulate genetic variations. In nature mutation has been coupled with the natural processes of selection so that the variation present in germplasm resource collections has a high probability of being useful. Now there are powerful new techniques for screening thousands of plants for sequence variance in any particular gene which is known to be of importance in a breeding programme. Detection of single nucleotide polymorphisms can reduce a collection of many thousands of accessions to some tens of plants with sequence changes in the gene of interest.These can then be screened for their phenotypic characteristics and used where appropriate.The new technologies can also be used in tackling more complex goals. Apomixis is a process in which seeds are produced without any gametic union and in many cases without any role of the male gamete. Apomictic seeds are strictly matroclinal: a female line clone. Apomixis could be of immense importance in freezing the hybrid vigour of F 1 progeny plants so that farmers in developing countries would not need to buy new hybrid generations of seed every year.Apomixis is present in many plants and occurs by different mechanisms. However, it has not yet been possible to integrate it into any of the major crops of the world. The species of Tripsacum, related to maize, contain characteristics of apomixis but so far it has not been possible to introgress the traits into maize. Isolation of genes that control apomixis and their introduction into the crops of the world would make a dramatic change in agriculture. We mounted a mutagenesis programme in Arabidopsis to identify genes that are important in the development of seed and in which a mutation permitted seed development without pollination taking place (Fig. 3.7). We have identified three genes that code for proteins that act as repressors of seed development in the absence of pollination. The absence of any one of the key repressors presumably allows a whole cascade of patterns of gene expression to occur so that seed development is initiated, but the seed development fails to proceed to viable seed formation. Even if these mutant plants are pollinated, seed development is arrested. The embryo develops only to the heart stage and then development fails.There was a startling exception to this rule and that was when the pollen used was from a plant in which DNA methylation levels had been much reduced. In this case pollination provided for normal double fertilization and viable seed production (Fig. 3.8). This observation provides the basis for a new screen for genes in genetic resource collections that allow embryo development to occur without pollination but through the same paths as occurred when pollination in our experiments was from lowmethylation plants. If such alleles can be identified then we would be very close to having a functional apomictic system.In some ways the approach that I have described suggests that mutagenesis of genetic material could bypass screening of existing genetic resources but in reality it emphasizes that with increased knowledge we would have the ability to screen genetic resources for precisely the allelic variance required. In this case available germplasm resources could be screened for the class of mutation that generates the embryo development in the manner that we discovered with low methylation level pollen.A major difficulty in the use of variation from germplasm collections applies to the situation of sexual isolation of tertiary genepools. For example cotton, Gossypium hirsutum, is susceptible to Fusarium wilt, a disease presenting a major challenge to the Australian cotton industry at present. Breeders have made some progress in selecting for tolerance but research has shown that a native Australian Gossypium species, G. sturtianum, appears to be immune to the Fusarium pathogen. It is, however, extremely difficult to transfer genetic material from G. sturtianum to G. hirsutum. Brubaker and Brown (CSIRO Plant Industry, personal communication) have made some progress using sophisticated technologies of chromosome doubling and embryo rescue, and by searching for appropriate homologous recombination in the hybrid plants. However, this would be a perfect opportunity to apply gene cloning of the resistance gene with subsequent transfer of the gene into G. hirsutum by transformation technology.The latter approach is becoming a possibility now because of the advances in mapping the cotton genome and the fact that many resistance genes can be identified through their possession of particular conserved sequence motifs. Cloning of resistance genes in rice, in Arabidopsis and in other plants has identified common sequence features of many classes of resistance genes, and hybridization for these motifs will greatly facilitate acquisition of resistance genes from germplasm collections. Certainly in the case of the quaternary genepool of a crop plant -i.e. plants or other organisms that are not able in any circumstances to cross with the crop species -gene technology and gene transfer are the only ways to introduce new genetic material.Gene transfer depends on two things: our ability to put genes into any target species, and increasingly we are able to do this, and our ability to identify and clone genes from a germplasm source (Fig. 3.9).Already the complete genome sequence of Arabidopsis is available and it is likely that the complete genome sequence of rice will be available before the end of 2001.Once a specific gene has been cloned from Arabidopsis there is a high probability of being able to use the Arabidopsis gene sequence to isolate homologous gene sequences from other plants, particularly dicotyledonous plants. Similarly, homologous gene sequences from the rice genome will provide the launching platform for acquisition of genes from a range of monocotyledonous plants. So we will soon have available a high probability for the isolation and use of genes across the plant kingdom. In the case of cereal crops, the major food crops of the world, another feature of considerable value is that the gene sequence is highly conserved throughout the different species. This synteny of the cereal species will be a useful property in the exchange of information among the cereal plants (Fig. 3.10).Along with sequences of genomes, many other techniques are developing which will be of great value in accessing genetic resources. Microarray technology allows the simultaneous monitoring of thousands of expressed genes and in this way specific genes, which are likely to be of value in a given environmental or biotic challenge situation, can be identified and then a process of screening can be mounted in a germplasm collection. The seed banks of the world contain lines that have many unique characteristics needed for successful crop production, resistance to stresses, resistance to diseases, to toxic minerals and so on, and already breeding efforts have used these resources in crop  Gene transfers across species have raised concerns in the community but as our knowledge of genomes increases we see that cross-species gene transfers will mostly be the introduction of different allelic forms of genes that exist in a wide range of species. There are even many genes shared across the different kingdoms of organisms. For example, genes that code for haemoglobin, previously thought to exist primarily in the animal kingdom, are now known to exist in all species of plants and in many microorganism groups. Transferring a haemoglobin gene from an animal to a plant could therefore be considered comparable to the transfer of a haemoglobin gene from one plant to another in an intraspecific cross.In plant improvement programmes the ultimate objective is to develop plants that best fit our needs, whether they be our need for compatibility with the agricultural environment or our need to provide food products optimized for our health needs. Ideally we will assemble an array of coded genetic information in the genome of our production species which accomplishes all of these objectives.The world's human population is now increasing by about 160 people per minute so more than ever before there is a requirement to provide for increases in food production. This has to be achieved in a world where no more land is available for cultivation and water and other essential resources are becoming limited in crop production. More than ever before there is a need to harness the genetic potential of crop plants and in particular the three major cereals -wheat, rice and maize -to the fullest possible extent. It is fortunate that this compelling need has arisen at the time of unprecedented progress in the plant sciences. The developments in our understanding of genetics and the molecular biology of plants have allowed the identification and characterization of many genes that will help to increase yield and protect plants from biotic and abiotic stresses. These developments are opening possibilities for the characterization and use of genetic resources that were not foreseen in earlier times. So what do the advances in gene technology mean for access to genetic resources? Clearly they provide greater accessibility to genetic variation contained in the collections so we can expect the use of our stored genetic variation to increase to the advantage of plant improvement programmes. Access and screening will be more directed, aimed at specific goals, and the new technologies will enable us to better define these goals because of our increased understanding of how plants develop and function, and our increased knowledge of the mechanisms of regulation of gene activity.The new developments in gene technology and related technologies will mean that genetic resource centres will need to make major changes in regard to the content of their relational databases. Data on accessions must extend to information on the allelic representation of many genes in the genome of the accession and the genetic resource databases will need to be connected to the global DNA and protein databases. So bioinformatics will become a necessary science in our resource centres. Scientists with bioinformatics skills will provide assistance to plant breeders in identifying key accessions for particular needs. Plant genetic resource centres will need to have increasingly close contact with basic research programmes in plant science since these are the programmes that generate the knowledge providing for the design of screening assays.We believe there is a very bright future for genetic resource collections. Through the new technologies we will be more able to take advantage of the wisdom of those who championed the conservation of genetic variation through both in situ and ex situ collections, providing for the subsequent use of allelic variants in the generation of sustainable and more efficient production systems.The advances made in the science of genetics, from the rediscovery of Mendel's laws in the early 1900s to the development of DNA chips at the end of the last century have been simply astonishing. As the 21st century unfolds, the advancing field of plant genomics heralds promise of a new potential for analysing plant diversity at the level of single basepair differences and for identifying the genetic basis of traits underlying the agronomic performance and environmental adaptation of plants.This chapter examines the contribution already possible from the application of existing molecular genetic techniques to the field of plant genetic resource management and the gaps and challenges that remain to be addressed. It then seeks to assess the potential of genomics to enhance our capabilities for managing plant genetic diversity in the 21st century.From the standpoint of assessing the role of molecular technology, the main issues are as follows. For ex situ genetic resources, the key issues are in essence the acquisition, maintenance, characterization and utilization of genetic diversity. For in situ genetic resources, they are the identification of populations for conservation, their management, access to the genetic resources and utilization (Karp et al., 1997a).Within all these key issues it is possible to identify numerous specific questions that continuously have to be faced in making decisions on genetic diversity. These questions vary from those that are relatively easy to define, for example concerning whether two individuals are identical or not, to those where definition is more difficult, such as problems relating to 'genetic erosion', or identifying 'useful variation'. Nevertheless, a common essential feature that is shared by all is the requirement for information on diversity, and it is here that the most fundamental contribution of molecular techniques is made.The first major attraction of molecular techniques was their ability to detect genetic diversity at levels of resolution that exceeded those achievable by other methods, including the use of biochemical markers such as isozymes. The nature of the DNAassay (originally restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP)) also meant that markers were more robust and independent of environmental conditions. Additional attractions, which emerged with the development of the PCR, were the possibility of obtaining information from tiny amounts of plant material at any stage of development, in addition to the increasing speed with which the assays could be performed and the ability to increase throughput substantially by automation.There is little doubt that for all these reasons DNA-based assays have revolutionized our ability to characterize genetic diversity. The large number of articles describing their use for the characterization of crop germplasm and plant populations of many species are testimony to this success. As indicated above, however, managing genetic diversity requires more than just characterization. It requires information that can be used to help address the key issues of both ex situ and in situ genetic diversity management and to assist in the process of decisionmaking. For example, for assisting evaluation, for improving utilization and for the development, or validation, of genebanking strategies, such as in sampling strategies, multiplication, management and the development of core collections.In this respect, it can be argued that the potentially infinite number of 'character differences' that can be revealed using DNA-based assays is only a minor part of the contribution of molecular techniques of relevance in the context of genetic diversity management. Of greater importance is the kind of information on genetic diversity that can be derived, together with the quality, speed and efficiency with which it can be obtained. Ultimately, it is only if this information can be used confidently by genetic resource managers to help improve practices, or assist in decision-making, that the benefits of molecular techniques could be said to be realized.The information on genetic diversity that can be derived using molecular techniques can be summarized as follows:1. The amount of diversity (a quantification of the diversity present at intra-and interspecific levels).The structure of the diversity (how the diversity is partitioned among and within populations in space and over time). 3. Evolutionary history (population history, genetic lineages, gene genealogies and distinguishing between differentiation and divergence, i.e. between current and past events). 4. Genetic distance (a measure of the extent of difference between genes, sequences, populations or species). 5. Relatedness (kinship, the degree of relatedness among relatives). 6. Identity (whether individuals are genetically identical or distinct). 7. Gene flow (the extent to which genes are exchanged). 8. Linkage disequilibria and the inter-locus correlation of allelic variation.A large number of different molecular techniques are able to provide information of this kind, but despite recent advances and our increasing knowledge of plant genomes, no single technique is currently available that can provide all of the information listed above. Molecular techniques differ in their informational content. Some techniques produce dominant markers only, while others are co-dominant and permit detection of the different alleles. Some techniques yield multilocus profiles, while others detect variation at a single locus. Some markers provide genealogical information (i.e. on evolutionary history), while others provide information of phenetic relationships (i.e. based on overall similarities).Understanding exactly what type of information will be needed on genetic diversity to address specific management issues is, thus, at the crux of being able to determine whether any given technique will be a suitable means of obtaining the information. To add another complexity, the quality of the information obtained for any given marker system will also depend on the sampling strategy used and the way(s) in which the data have been scored and analysed. Finally, techniques also differ in resource requirements, in their reproducibility, in their amenability for automation and with respect to whether or not their data can be easily input into databases.For all these reasons, choosing the most appropriate technique can be difficult. More often than not, a combination of techniques is needed to cover all the requirements of information that may be needed, which increases the cost of applying a molecular approach. Alternatively, a compromise has to be made which reduces either the type of information that can be obtained or the number of samples that can be analysed, and therefore places a limit on the potential gains from the application of molecular techniques.Despite these difficulties, over the past 5 years the field of molecular genetic diversity screening has advanced significantly and general consensus is being reached as to the most appropriate marker techniques (Karp et al., 1997b). Of the many different techniques for detecting polymorphisms, only the main types will be discussed here, with reference to their general suitability for genetic diversity management. The newer technology of DNA microarrays will be discussed later as their impact on the field is not yet known.RFLPs were the original successful molecular marker technology because they are co-dominant and, thus, can detect heterozygotes (Evola et al., 1986). They are also highly reproducible and can be exchanged between laboratories. Data obtained from RFLPs can be used in the characterization of genetic diversity in cultivars, accessions and natural populations and can assist genetic diversity management in many of the key areas discussed earlier.Although polymorphic probes have to be identified from cDNA or genomic DNA libraries, informative probes can be exchanged between laboratories and syntenic relationships among plant genomes, for example among the Gramineae, or Solanaceae, have further extended the wide usability of RFLP markers. These advantages have been increasingly outweighed, however, by the disadvantage of the lengthy technical procedure (which involves Southern blotting and probe hybridization), the difficulty of converting the method to an automated system and the low level of discrimination achievable in some crops.Higher levels of polymorphism, capable of distinguishing even the closest relatives can be achieved using probes for hypervariable regions of the genome comprising tandemly repeating sequences. There are two main classes of these: minisatellites, which are typically 16-100 bp in length and microsatellites, or simple sequence repeats (SSRs), which are 2-8 bp in length. Minisatellites and microsatellites are found in abundance and the use of one motif as a probe will typically detect several hybridization sites resulting in a multi-locus profile. The high mutation rates of these tandem repeats compared to other nuclear sequences results in highly discriminate profiles that can distinguish individual members of a family and fingerprint cultivars (Vosman et al., 1992). Although restriction enzyme digestion and probe hybridization are used in the procedure, the polymorphism observed results from variation in the number of tandem repeats present at each locus and is, thus, commonly described as variation in the number of tandem repeats, or VNTRs. VNTRs provided the first method of DNA fingerprinting for individual assignment (Jeffreys et al., 1985;Bruford et al., 1992) and have been extensively applied in animals and humans (including forensic science). In those cases where they have been identified in plants, they have been useful for germplasm characterization, particularly through their capacity to discriminate closely related cultivars in crops with low polymorphism levels (Vosman et al., 1992). Applications in genetic diversity management have been limited, however, by the multi-locus nature of the profile obtained and the length of the procedure required to perform the assay. For both VNTRs and RFLPs the technical limitations reduced their usage once PCR had been developed and the Southern blotting, probe hybridization steps could be avoided.PCR brought with it a whole wave of new techniques, the most immediately applicable of which require no prior knowledge of sequences within the genome but rely on the use of either random arbitrary primers, or generic primers. In randomly amplified polymorphic DNAs (RAPDs) (Williams et al., 1990), a single random primer is added to the template DNA and subjected to PCR. This simple but effective method of revealing polymorphisms is also cheap and universally applicable and was extensively applied for characterization of plant genetic diversity after its initial development. RAPDs are dominant markers. More problematic, however, is the fact that the profiles amplified are very sensitive to any change in laboratory conditions, consumables and equipment used to perform them. RAPDs are not robust enough to exchange among laboratories (Jones et al., 1997), nor to withstand the passage of time and the continual change in equipment and enzymes that occur as techniques advance. Similar limitations are true for many other techniques which work on a comparable basis to RAPDs and which include AP-PCR (arbitrary-primed PCR), DAF (DNA amplification fingerprinting), directed amplification of minisatellite region DNA, ISSR (inter-SSR amplification) and RAMP (randomly amplified microsatellite polymorphism) (see Karp and Edwards, 1998). Even though the limitations of RAPDs and other similar techniques are well recognized, they are still useful for the characterization of genetic diversity, for estimating genetic similarities and genetic distances, for identification and classification and for population studies, although they are increasingly becoming restricted to situations where resources limit the choice of markers available or only quick, basic results are required.The procedure of amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) (Vos et al., 1995) depends on the use of generic primers and is more robust than techniques such as RAPDs for two main reasons. Firstly, it involves restriction digestion and secondly, two primers are used in more stringent PCR conditions. In this technique the DNA is first digested with a rare cutter and a frequent cutter enzyme. Adaptors are added to the cut ends and then PCR is performed in two successive rounds. In the first round, the primers are based on the adaptor and restriction site sequences plus one additional nucleotide. In the second round between two and three additional nucleotides are added to the primers. The additional nucleotides act as selective bases because only fragments containing the complementary bases internal to the restriction site and adaptor sequences will be amplified. The resultant multi-locus profile is highly reproducible (Jones et al., 1997) and extremely informative.AFLPs provide data on many different sites within the genome in a single assay and are currently among the most informative of marker systems available with respect to polymorphic index (see Powell et al., 1996). They have made a considerable impact on the characterization of crop germplasm by providing an extremely efficient means of identifying duplicates and contaminants, of determining genetic similarities and genetic distances and of discriminating between closely related accessions. The AFLP technique has also been adapted for use with primers that target specific sequences within the genome, or sequence-specific amplification polymorphism (SSAP) (Ellis et al., 1998). Specific modifications, which utilize knowledge of gene sequences, will be described later. Here, two main classes are mentioned: SAMPL (selectively amplified microsatellite polymorphic loci), where one of the AFLP primers is substituted by a primer based on the sequence of a compound microsatellite (Witsenboer et al., 1997); and assays that detect polymorphisms associated with the insertion of retrotransposons, such as inter-retrotransposon amplification polymorphism (IRAP) (Kalendar et al., 1999), retrotransposon-microsatellite amplification polymorphism (REMAP) (Kalendar et al., 1999) and retrotransposon-based insertional polymorphism (RBIP) (Flavell et al., 1998). These techniques provide the means of profiling diversity within specific regions of the genome, which can be helpful in crops where polymorphisms are limited, by extending the range of markers that can be found. In the case of RBIP, PCR products can also be detected on gels or by dot blotting. The latter process can be automated, permitting potentially very high throughput screening and is thus of interest to breeding companies as well as curators of germplasm as a means of screening large numbers of samples. The use of this approach for screening genetic resources is currently being investigated (A. Flavell, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK, personal communciation).Multi-locus profiling techniques are an effective means of obtaining data at many loci in a single assay, but the information available at a single locus is limited (Karp et al., 1997b). This is a particularly important shortcoming to recognize if gene frequency or genealogical information is required for genetic diversity management. Information on heterozygosity is also usually limited, which is a particular disadvantage for outcrossing species.The alternative approach to multi-locus profiling is PCR with primers that target a single known site, such as a gene. In plants there are three sources of potential gene sequences: the chloroplast (cpDNA), mitochondrial (mtDNA), and nuclear (nDNA) genomes which differ in their mode of inheritance, evolutionary rates and recombination. Gene sequences are the most informative of markers available and are therefore very important for diversity studies from species to population level. They are especially important when information on evolutionary history (e.g. allele or gene genealogies, phylogenies, population history, etc.) is required. Sequence data are theoretically capable of providing all the types of information on diversity listed earlier. In practice, however, polymorphism rates can be too low to attain this goal at the intraspecific level and particularly at the level of individuals.Microsatellite and minisatellite loci mutate at higher rates than gene sequences. If they are cloned and sequenced, primers to the flanking regions can be designed to produce a locus-specific, sequencetagged marker. Minisatellites are generally difficult to clone by virtue of their size and have not been used extensively in plants. In contrast, microsatellites tagged in this way are extremely useful for genetic diversity studies because they provide single-locus, co-dominant, highly polymorphic markers (Morgante and Olivieri, 1993).Throughput and information content can be increased by multiplexing and using automation, which means that information can be obtained from several different microsatellite loci simultaneously on large numbers of samples. Microsatellites are also robust markers and therefore suitable for exchange among laboratories and they provide data that are more amenable for input and storage in database formats. For these reasons microsatellites are being increasingly used to characterize genetic diversity in crop genepools and to establish databases of crop varieties. Together with sequences they are the predominant marker system for population genetic analysis and have also replaced classic DNA fingerprinting for identity and forensic applications. One of their main limitations is the cost and time required for their development, which led to their slower uptake as molecular markers in plants, compared with animals. Procedures for microsatellite isolation from plants have now been developed by several researchers and an increasing number of primer sets are being published on web sites and in journals. A second problem with microsatellites is that their mode of mutation does not conform well to the classical mutation models derived for gene sequences, although specific analytical techniques have been designed to overcome this problem.The subject of genetic marker techniques and their appropriateness for genetic diversity analysis has only been given cursory treatment here compared with the depth to which this subject can be discussed. There are numerous reviews which cover this subject (e.g. Bachmann, 1994; Karp et al., 1997bKarp et al., , 1998;;Parker et al., 1998;Sunnucks, 2000), and it is not my intention to reiterate these. Instead, there are three main points that I would like to emphasize:1. The more clearly the question(s) being addressed are defined, the easier it will be to select the best marker system(s) and the best strategies for applying them.A basic understanding of the different techniques with respect to what they can offer in terms of genetic information is essential for their successful application.It is also important to consider how the information will be gathered (and by whom) and how (and by whom) it will be used.Two collaborative studies on genetic diversity should serve to exemplify these points.Coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) is a key plantation crop of the tropics. Almost every part of the tree is used and its food and industrial products, such as coconut oil, copra and desiccated coconut, play an important role for the rural communities and economies of many developing countries. The current geographic distribution of coconut spans the coastal areas between 20 degrees north and 20 degrees south of the equator, with an altitude range from sea level to 1000 m. The wide geographic distribution of coconut and its diverse growth habit have led to the identification of some 900 accessions by the International Coconut Genetic Resources Network (COGENT). However, the crop is now in relative decline in many countries, due largely to the impact of diseases on yields and strong competition from other oil crops such as oil palm. COGENT is in the process of collecting threatened and useful germplasm to augment existing collections with a view to establishing regional genebanks. Specific questions that need to be addressed in this endeavour include: How can genetic diversity in populations of coconut growing in situ be assessed rapidly and efficiently in order that palms can be selected for inclusion in regional genebanks? How much diversity is present in coconuts of the different regions and can differences be detected between different growing regions? Can individual palms be adequately identified? To assist in these efforts, in a succession of two transnational collaborative projects, appropriate molecular marker techniques were developed and their potential in helping to resolve these questions was demonstrated. At the outset, it was recognised that of the DNA-based methods that could be used to assess coconut germplasm, only a few would be suitable for application in networked efforts spanning several continents, consistent with the COGENT strategy. Results must be reproduced by different laboratories. Assays must be capable of being scored and analysed using standardized methods and the data obtained must be suitable for entry into databases. It was also important to consider that there are two main types of coconut, tall varieties, which are fast growing and outcrossing and dwarf varieties, which are mostly selfing. While the latter can be considered to be essentially fixed lines, tall varieties exist either as populations maintained under natural pollination or in the form of interpopulation hybrids. Techniques that detect heterozygotes directly (i.e. without progeny testing) and give data on allelic differences were therefore preferred.Microsatellites were considered to fit all the requirements for the coconut genetic diversity study, although these were not available at the time of starting the work. It was also felt necessary to complement the microsatellite analysis with AFLPs in order to investigate whether a multi-locus fingerprinting method would be needed to discriminate between closely related palms.The objectives of the first collaborative project were to develop highly informative microsatellite markers in coconut and characterize their usefulness using a limited set of cultivars. In total, 41 primer pairs were identified and tested of which 38 were polymorphic, with an average of five alleles per locus. Analysis of similarity matrices based either on shared alleles at each locus (simple matching coefficient), or on allele bands across all loci (Jaccard coefficient), showed that Dwarfs grouped separately from Talls and that less genetic diversity was present in Dwarfs compared with Talls, as expected. In a wider test on 40 samples, eight microsatellites detected 64 alleles, giving an average of eight alleles per microsatellite. This pilot study indicated the potential of these markers for detecting diversity in coconut populations (Rivera et al., 1999). In order to be useful in the context of the COGENT network it was necessary to ascertain that the microsatellites would be equally informative in coconut material from across the geographic range. In the second collaborative project, the microsatellites were tested on a wide range of ecotypes and the data gained from this study compared with those obtained using AFLPs. Genetic diversity was assessed in 31 individuals from 14 coconut populations across the geographic range using 37 of the microsatellites (one of the 38 original microsatellites failed to give a clear pattern when tested further) and 12 AFLP primer combinations. The microsatellites reveal high levels of genetic diversity, with between two and 16 alleles per locus and a total of 339 alleles in the 14 populations.Two of the four Dwarf populations were homozygous at all the loci, as expected, but Niu Leka Dwarf, which is known to be cross-pollinating, showed high levels of heterozygosity. Three microsatellites gave distinct genotypes for 12 out of the 14 populations suggesting that it would be possible to identify all 14 populations using only a small set of microsatellites (Teulat et al., 2000).The microsatellites revealed important information concerning the genetic diversity of the coconut populations. Genetic diversity was generally higher in populations from the South Pacific and South-East Asia. The East African populations had higher heterozygosity levels than those from West Africa and the populations from Tonga and Fiji generally had distinct alleles from those of the South Pacific. Data of this kind were not as apparent from the AFLPs. The AFLP analysis with 12 primer combinations gave a total of 1106 bands, of which 303 were polymorphic (27%). Similarity matrices were constructed from the two datasets using the proportion of shared alleles, in the case of the microsatellites, and Jaccard coefficient, in the case of the AFLPs. Cluster and principal coordinates analyses gave dendrograms and plots that showed similar relationships with both marker types, although AFLPs resolved tighter clusters. There was generally good agreement between groupings on the dendrogram and the geographic distribution of the coconuts (Teulat et al., 2000).The results indicated that both microsatellites and AFLPs provided valuable information on the genetic diversity of coconut which could address the questions posed but that the microsatellites, in particular, also meet the requirements relating to how the information will be gathered and how it will be used. The microsatellites now provide a valuable toolkit for genetic resource managers as they can be used in the laboratories of the different countries to identify populations with distinct alleles or high heterozygosity and for other practical problems such as detecting pollinations from nonparental types in breeding programmes. Efforts are currently underway to identify a small sub-set of microsatellites which could be used as a standard tester set to identify all the different populations. It may still be necessary, however, to use AFLPs in certain circumstances, for example, to check whether two individuals are identical or not, since a large number of microsatellites would be needed to achieve the same genome coverage possible with a single AFLP profile.The coconut example is just one of many that illustrate the information gained when molecular techniques are chosen carefully to address specific questions on genetic diversity. Like other examples of its kind, the study is still, however, at the relatively small scale in terms of plant numbers. The application of molecular techniques at realistic scales equating to those of ex situ plant genetic resource collections, for example, might therefore still be questioned.One example of where this issue has been tackled can be found in an EU-funded demonstration project on the lettuce collection held at the Centre for Plant Genetic Resources (CGN). This project specifically targeted the requirements of genebank managers and has sought to address the usefulness of molecular markers from a genebank perspective. Genebanks conserve ex situ genetic diversity of crops and their wild relatives by first sampling the diversity and then storing the diversity as efficiently as possible. The project centred around the numerous questions that arise throughout these practices relating to:1. Which samples to include (or exclude, or bulk).The identification of gaps in the collection. 3. The identification of duplicates. 4. How to choose material from the germplasm collection for utilization.To demonstrate the possibility of applying molecular markers for improving genebank management relating to these issues, the project aimed to achieve two main goals: (i) a description of the genetic structure of the genebank and establishing possible correlations with useful traits by characterizing it with molecular markers; and (ii) the use of molecular markers to monitor and validate the multiplication techniques currently used for lettuce at the CGN. It was hoped that information gained from achieving the first goal would help address issues 1-4 while that gained from achieving the second goal would help address issue 5.The lettuce collection at CGN comprises some 2118 accessions. It was chosen as a suitable test model because the collection is well documented (which facilitates the investigation of relationships between molecular markers and other characteristics), it is of medium-size compared with other genebanks, both cultivated and wild species are present, including selfing and outcrossing species, and the collection is extensively used.In order to perform the demonstration, the molecular work was organized into two main activities corresponding to the two goals listed above. To obtain a description of the genetic structure, DNA was extracted from 6471 lettuce plants (two samples for selfing accession and five samples for outcrossing accessions). All individuals were genotyped using ten microsatellites (that had been previously mapped in lettuce and were known to occur on different linkage groups) and three AFLP primer combinations. In order to validate multiplication techniques, DNA was extracted from 900 plants and genotyping was performed as described above but for samples taken within accessions before and after standard multiplication procedures.The project was a major undertaking involving five participating organizations. The biotech company Keygene (Netherlands), which invented the AFLP technology, performed all the DNA extractions and also the AFLPs for the whole collection. This took almost two years, of which two months were needed for DNA extractions. The microsatellites were developed by Plant Research International (The Netherlands), which performed all the automated assays required for achieving the large screen. Together with the scoring and crosschecking, this took over 2 years. Two other groups, at IACR-Long Ashton Research Station and the Botanisk Institut in Copenhagen, were responsible for achieving the second goal, which took 18 months. Contact with the genetic resources community was maintained through the involvement of the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI).The results obtained have indicated that the molecular data will be useful in the management of the lettuce genebank, particularly with regard to: (i) assisting in the identification of duplicates; (ii) assisting in classification and identifying any misclassification; (iii) validating different core collection strategies that could be used; and (iv) validating the multiplication strategies used at the CGN.A number of experiences were also gained from attempting to apply the techniques to such a large set of samples.In the case of the AFLPs, the large number of accessions in a single species, particularly in cultivated lettuce, Lactuca sativa and its close wild relative Lactuca serriola, meant that low-density AFLP profiles had to be used in order to avoid saturation of the band profiles when all samples were compared. As a consequence, although it was possible to compare all accessions for one species in one dataset, it was not possible to resolve all the accessions using this approach. When similarity matrices were constructed from the data and input into clustering algorithms, the resultant dendrograms grouped numerous accessions together, including some known to be of distinct origin. AFLPs with high-density profiles would discriminate these and resolve relationships more clearly. A recommendation emerging for screening large sample sizes, such as whole genebanks is, thus, to use a two-tiered approach: first low density profiles to compare all samples and resolve the main clusters and then high density profiles to resolve samples within clusters. It was not possible to compare the different Lactuca species directly as the AFLP profiles were too dissimilar.In the case of the microsatellites, one problem was that they only amplified well in L. sativa (in which they were developed) and the wild relative L. serriola. In the other species, amplification only occurred in occasional samples and the datasets were too incomplete for use in the analysis. If the entire genebank is to be genotyped with microsatellites, it would thus be necessary to isolate microsatellites from the wild species.A number of issues arose for both marker types during the course of the lettuce project. After assays had been completed a considerable amount of time was required to cross-check all data points from the gels to the datasets. For the microsatellite data obtained on the ABI 377, more time was needed for this than foreseen. There is also a clear requirement for new software that is able to manage the massive sizes of the datasets. Similarly, new visualization techniques are needed. A new project is currently addressing some of these issues (in particular, the bioinformatics aspects).The two examples described above serve to illustrate the gains achievable from application of molecular marker techniques to address genetic diversity management questions, but there are still challenges to be faced. In essence, these relate to the gap that exists between the diversity revealed by DNA assays and phenotypic or functional diversity.Microsatellites, AFLPs and other such DNA markers are successful because they are highly polymorphic but they are also generally employed in an anonymous fashion. This has invited criticism of the functional relevance of the diversity revealed or, more explicitly, whether or not DNA markers are really providing the type of information that is needed to make valued judgements on diversity.The rapidly increasing information available from genome mapping and gene sequencing projects is providing an expanding resource which may help to bridge this gap. High-resolution genetic maps now mean that markers known to be very closely linked to traits of interest can be used and the availability of sequence data for an increasing number of important genes enables the development of screens for detecting diversity specifically at these loci.As mentioned earlier, it is possible to adapt multilocus profiling procedures such as AFLPs to target specific sequences within the genome, for example relating to microsatellites, or the insertion of transposons. This approach has the potential to be adapted for profiling diversity within genes and gene families in plants.One example where this is being explored is in an EU-funded project in which different approaches based on SSAP (Ellis et al., 1998) and the use of primers for conserved regions are being used to investigate diversity in genes encoding key events in development, metabolism and intra-cellular signalling. Different specific target genes are being investigated by different participating groups including protein kinases and signal transduction genes, disease resistance genes, genes involved in synthesis of, or response to, phytohormones and genes coding for cytoskeletal proteins. All partners are testing the techniques initially on a panel of 16 genotypes each of potato, tomato and barley (ten cultivars, two exotics and four accessions). Any promising functional biodiversity markers are then being tested further on an extended range of cultivars and ecotypes. In order to confirm that at least some of the polymorphisms observed reflect functional variation, the expressions of a selected number of the sequences are also being analysed. The project is only mid-way but the results obtained so far for one of these gene targets illustrate the potential usefulness of the approach.The SnRK1 gene family (Halford et al., 1992) codes for protein kinases involved in the regulation of carbon metabolism and are implicated in stress responses. These enzymes are related to the sucrose non-fermenting kinase-1 of yeast (hence SNF-1 related kinase = SnRK-1), which is found to have a crucial role in the biochemical signalling leading to the switch from utilization of glucose to other sugars when glucose is unavailable. It therefore plays a central role in carbon catabolite derepression, and the related genes found in plants are similarly very important in nutrient utilization. SnRK1s have been found to phosphorylate and inactivate sucrose phosphate synthase (in cauliflower and barley), nitrate reductase and HMG-CoA reductase (in spinach), and to activate the gene expression of sucrose synthase in potato (using antisense technology; Halford, 1999). SnRK1s from rye, barley, potato, oat, Arabidopsis and sugarbeet have been characterized at the molecular and biochemical level. Amino acid sequence similarities between the plant, yeast and mammalian sequences range from 44 to 46%. The barley gene subfamily comprises approximately 10-20 members per haploid genome, while that of potato comprises approximately 5-10 and that of Arabidopsis 2. The genes from all three species show a high degree of conservation of gene structure in that they share around 68% sequence identity and the positions of introns within the coding regions are identical.Primers for conserved regions within SnRK1s have been used to produce amplification products which have been screened for differences in order to develop more specific sequence-specific marker assays for these polymorphic regions. Initial experiments focused on using the Clontech Genome Walker kit (Anon, 1996) for amplification of promoter regions. This kit amplifies products from a specific primer in the known coding region of the gene to an adaptor primer which binds to an adaptor ligated to a restriction site in the promoter region. A choice had to be made as to where to design the conserved primer. Primers from exon 1 that extend into the promoter region would allow detection of possible changes in transcriptional control and experiments first concentrated on this area of potential importance.Using this approach two amplified products were obtained (A and B) of which one (B) was found to be polymorphic among barley cultivars. Sequencing of the products indicated that they are highly related to the Bkin12 gene members of the SnRK1 family in barley and have identical coding regions, differing only in the promoter sequence. A wider screen using this approach, confirmed that the B product is polymorphic in barley cultivars. When the same approach was used in another barley species (Hordeum jubatum) a third product (C) was identified which was not observed in cultivated barleys. The sequence also shows very high homology with Bkin12.These results indicate that the approach has potential for revealing variation in important genes. Normal PCR has confirmed that absence of variant C in Hordeum vulgare is not a false negative, and RT-PCR has shown that variant C is expressed at the RNA level in H. jubatum. Evidence for differential expression has been found, confirming that variant C is likely to be of functional significance, an aspect which is now being studied further (J.S.C. Clark and N.G. Halford, IACR-Long Ashton Research Station, 2000, personal communication).An example of how molecular map information can be used to help identify variation of use to breeders can be found in Tanksley and McCouch (1997) where a strategy termed the advanced backcross QTL (quantitative trait loci) method is described for identifying superior genes that have been transferred from wild species into cultivated lines. In this strategy, crosses are made between elite parents and landraces or wild species, followed by two or three backcrosses to the elite parent. The molecular linkage map is used to identify the location of genes that have been transmitted to the progeny after backcrossing to the elite cultivated parent. In this way it is possible to establish which chromosomal segments of the wild species are associated with superior performance of the lines and to purify lines so that they contain only a specific QTL in an elite genetic background. This approach, which has been successfully demonstrated in tomato, should improve the utilization of diversity residing in secondary genepools but it is resource intensive and its limitations include the unknown frequency of alleles of potential value in the wild germplasm. Identification of the genes controlling a trait and knowledge of their DNA sequence would facilitate the classification of variation in the germplasm pool. Classification of the sequence variants at a targeted locus would substantially reduce the amount of work needed to assess their potential for breeding and lead to the identification of superior alleles (Sorrells and Wilson, 1997).An example where both map and sequence knowledge was used to analyse genetic diversity in an agronomically important trait has been described by Sicard et al. (2000) for disease resistance variation in lettuce. Resistance to downy mildew in lettuce, caused by the fungus Bremia lactucae, is determined by a large number of different genes. The genes that have been characterized so far are clustered in four linkage groups. The major cluster has been saturated with molecular markers. Resistance gene candidates (RGCs) encoding nucleotide binding sites (NBS) and leucine rich repeat (LRR) regions have been identified and one family of over 24 members is localized in the major disease resistance cluster. A microsatellite marker and two primer pairs that amplify sequences encoding a region in the middle of the LRR region were used as markers to screen accessions of the cultivated lettuce, L. sativa, the wild lettuces, L. serriola, Lactuca saligna and Lactuca virosa and natural populations of L. serriola from Israel (near the centre of diversity) and California (a recently colonized area). All the material studied had been characterized against all known pathotypes of Bremia. Polymorphism at the microsatellite locus was highly correlated with resistance to the pathogen B. lactucae, with different microsatellite haplotypes diagnostic for different resistance alleles, suggesting a strong potential for use of this marker in screening wider germplasm and in selection programmes. Very little length variation was observed in the amplified products of the LRR regions using either of the two primer sets but restriction site polymorphisms were detected. The LRR markers also correlated with resistance phenotypes. All three markers were able to discriminate between accessions that had been previously shown to be resistant to all known isolates of B. lactucae. A very high level of genetic diversity in resistance genes was revealed in the wild germplasm in this study, indicating that there is little redundancy and that wild accessions will be a rich source of new resistance genes.The enormous and ever-increasing number of sequences that continually appear in databases provides what is presently a largely untapped resource for identifying allelic diversity of individual characterized genes as a means of searching for those specific alleles that will confer trait improvement. One problem with using this resource, however, is that the majority of the sequences are cDNAs (complementary DNAs to sequences from RNA libraries) or ESTs (expressed sequence tagged sites, or cDNAs which have been at least partially sequenced for PCR primers) and for the majority of these sequences, the function of them is not yet known. This has led to an increasing demand for functional assignment which the development of the DNA microarray (or DNA chip) now promises to help meet.It is easy for a casual observer to be left with the impression that DNA chips are a completely novel and somewhat remote technology but, in fact, they represent the latest development in the progression of hybridization arrays that started with the Southern blot over a quarter of a century ago (Southern, 1975). In the Southern blot, labelled probes are hybridized to DNA immobilized on a nitrocellulose or nylon membrane. Each track is a DNA sample which has been cut with restriction endonucleases and the fragments have been separated by gel electrophoresis and then transferred to the membrane by diffusion, where they bind strongly. The probes hybridize to DNA fragments only where complementary sequences are present and this basic principle still holds for all further developments. The next progression was filterbased screening of whole libraries, such as cDNA libraries spotted on to nitrocellulose filters. Usually several different filters were needed to accommodate the number of different colonies present in the library. Through the use of robotic workstations it then became possible to stamp large numbers of colonies on to single filters, for example entire cDNA or genomic DNA libraries. Such macroarrays have extensive applications in molecular biology and are often used, for example, in the screening of microsatellite-enriched libraries.Increasing miniaturization accompanied this progression from Southern blot to macroarray, which culminated in the DNA chip. Two significant innovations led to the development of the DNA microarray. The first was the use of non-porous solid supports, such as glass, which improves the efficiency of hybridization and post-washing steps by allowing for unimpeded contact between probe and target. The second was the development of fluorescent-based detection systems. The result has been an explosion in development of different micro-arrays, pioneered by Stanford University (Stanford, California, USA) and by commercial companies, such as Affymetrix. I will only deal briefly with this developing field, whose major applications up till now have been mostly in humans and animals, concentrating the discussion around its potential use for detecting polymorphisms in plants. A number of recent reviews cover the subject of microarrays more comprehensively (e.g. Castellino, 1997;Chakravati, 1999;Gerhold et al., 1999;Lander, 1999;Lipshutz et al., 1999;Southern et al., 1999).In DNA microarrays, different cloned sequences from libraries are spotted on the glass slide and information is gained by determining at which of these sequences hybridization occurs. In contrast with earlier hybridization systems, the DNA on the solid support is, thus, normally referred to as the probe, and the fluorescent RNA or DNA, which is available in solution for hybridization, is referred to as the target. There are basically two types of microarray: expression arrays and arrays for identifying and genotyping mutations and polymorphisms.Expression arrays are being used to monitor gene expression levels in different tissues and under different situations as a first step towards functional characterization of genes. The potential offered by microarrays is enormous here. DNA expression chips generated by Affymetrix, for example, can display from 65,000 to 400,000 oligonucleotides, representing up to 9000 genes on a 1.6 cm 2 glass surface. A set of four chips allows the entire 6000 genes of yeast to be assayed and in mammals 5-10,000 genes are already in common use for expression screening. Expression arrays are making an impact in the plant field and large functional genomics projects are being pursued by consortia of academics and industry. It is difficult to imagine, however, how expression arrays might be used directly in genetic diversity studies, although benefits will clearly be gained as sequences conferring important functions are identified. In contrast, genotyping arrays have the potential to make a direct contribution to genetic diversity studies in plants since they offer the possibility of locating, identifying and cataloguing genotypic differences in large sets of known DNAs simultaneously (Lipshutz et al., 1999).There are a number of different types of genotyping arrays of which only two will be described briefly here. In the first, a tiling array is designed to interrogate all base pair positions in a gene sequence. Overlapping 25-mers are used to cover the sequence. For each 25-mer stretch, four probes are spotted on to the solid support. Each probe has an identical sequence except at one base position, which is the same position in each probe. At this position the probes differ in one of the four possible nucleotides (A, G, C, T). When the target DNA is added, the brightest hybridization signal will occur at the correct probe only. In the tiling array, the next set of four probes differs in the next base-pair position, and so on, until the entire length of the sequence has been interrogated at every base-pair position. Commercially available Affymetrix chips on which are arrayed 350,000 oligonucleotides allow representation of 40,000 bp of sequence per chip, including both strands and each possible nucleotide mismatch.A second approach to genotyping is to build an array containing the previously identified allelic variants of a gene. In this case the probe alternatives consist of a perfect match, or a single base mismatch, for the different alleles. This approach has the potential to permit the genotyping of vast numbers of loci simultaneously and could provide a promising way of screening for genetic diversity in important genes, such as disease resistance genes. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are the most common mutation in sequences. Once SNPs have been identified, large numbers can be arrayed on chips ('SNP chips') for detecting the presence of these mutations. As more and more genes are uncovered by sequencing, and increasing numbers of alleles are identified it may be possible to build arrays for all kinds of important traits, but the sequencing and identification has to be achieved first.DNA microarray approaches are certainly impressive but there are some negative considerations to be taken into account. Some of these are general to all array types. For example, normally only SNPs can be detected and not insertions or deletions (unless the probe is provided in the array). Cross-hybridization between related sequences can cause problems and it can be difficult to perform the multiple PCR amplifications when several gene sequences are present on the array. Handling the information obtained is also no small task and requires sophisticated software. Finally, the costs are extremely high. Commercially available chips are in the US$1000 range and if a complete set of instruments (hybridization system, scanner and software) is purchased, the costs escalate to nearer US$250,000 (Granjeaud et al., 1999). This might seem to place the technology out of the reach of academic researchers and the plant genetic resource community. It is worth remembering, however, that the costs may well come down in the future and that, in the meantime, the principle of arrays can be profited from at a lower technological level. In Arabidopsis, for example, high-speed robotic printing of cDNAs on glass allowed expression studies to be carried out on 45 genes simultaneously (Schena et al., 1995). It is within reach to construct similar arrays of oligonucleotides representing the different alleles of important genes.The real limitation here is that the sequences to be placed on the array for genotyping polymorphisms in plant genes, in the main, still have to be identified. It will take some time to achieve this for many of the traits of interest in plants. This requirement is likely to be met first in those few crops of highest economic importance and one might question, when, or indeed if, it will be achieved in the majority of plant species of interest as genetic resources.Somewhat provocatively, one might also question what advantages are really offered by these powerful but expensive tools for genetic resource managers. Using arrays of the tiling kind, for example, it would be possible to detect every single polymorphism that is present in a given sequence between different samples. It would still not be possible, however, to know what the functional significance of all the polymorphisms detected are, even if they occur in genes. Apart from the level of resolution and the scale and capacity for screening several different sequences simultaneously, it is therefore not so easy to see what additional benefits this might offer for genetic diversity studies. In the case of designing arrays for genotyping allelic difference at several loci, this does look attractive, as it is allelic variation that is most of interest for genetic diversity management. However, how many samples could be reasonably screened in this way, and who would be able to afford such an approach in the field of plant genetic resources?Since the application of RFLPs in the early 1980s, molecular genetic techniques have made a substantial impact on the characterization of plant genetic diversity in crop germplasm, genepools and natural populations. Information derived from their use is being successfully applied in many aspects of genetic diversity management, for example, identification of duplicates, developing sampling strategies and validating multiplication techniques.In contrast, understanding the 'significance' or assessing the 'value' of the diversity revealed remains a tantalizing challenge. One reason for this is the gap existing between our understanding of diversity at the genetic (or molecular) and phenotypic (or functional levels). Challenges that remain concern the identification of traits of importance, and particularly being able to identify alleles that may confer an improvement. Advances here would enhance utilization of the resources. The technology is moving in this direction. High resolution genetic maps enable closely linked markers to be used and the increasing numbers of ESTs and SNPs provide routes for more targeted sequence-based approaches. DNA chips allow the detection of every mutation in a sequence and genotyping of several genes to be achieved simultaneously. The main problem, however, will still be to find which of the many sequences, and which of the many polymorphisms uncovered, are of interest, and worth the cost of their detection.For the EU project on Functional Biodiversity, seeds of tomato cultivars were provided by Plant Research International (The Netherlands). The seeds from ten cultivars of barley were provided by the Scottish Crop Research Institute which also provided tubers from ten cultivars of potato. Seeds from H. jubatum were also obtained from Herbiseed Ltd, UK. Additionally, seeds from 29 species of Hordeum have been kindly provided by Dr Fredrik Ottosson (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences), and seeds from 100 cultivars and landraces from Dr Helmut Knüpffer (IPK Gatersleben, Germany) for testing the markers further.IACR receives grant-aided support from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, UK.Nephelium is one of 130 genera in the family Sapindaceae, with the centre of origin for this genus thought to be the Indo-Malaysian region. According to Soepadmo (1979) there are 30 species of Nephelium in South-east Asia, 14 of which occur in Peninsular Malaysia. Nephelium spp. are evergreen trees and produce edible fruit, either sweet or sour. Examples of edible species are N. lappaceum (rambutan), N. rambutan-ake (pulasan), N. cuspidatum, N. hypoleucum, N. maingayi and N. uncinatum (Siebert, 1991). Apart from N. lappaceum and N. rambutan-ake, which are cultivated for their fruits, the other Nephelium species are only rarely and locally traded (Verheij and Coronel, 1991).In Malaysia previous studies on Nephelium have been on botanical aspects (Lim, 1984), morphological characterization and agronomic traits (Whitehead, 1959;Salma, 1986). Both outcrossing and selfing can occur in rambutan. Some trees produce only male flowers, others produce hermaphrodite flowers with non-functional anthers, whereas other hermaphrodite trees function as both male and female. This last type of tree produces most fruit, and budwood is taken from them for commercial (clonal) propagation. Pollination is carried out by Trigona bees. Although the species is an outbreeder, the genetic diversity of cultivated rambutan is narrowing because clonal propagation of a few cultivars in nurseries has replaced home propagation (using seedlings).Information on genetic diversity is still lacking, even though it is important and could be used to enhance selection and breeding programmes. The significance of genetic variability as a natural resource and the increased threats to crop genepools due to urbanization and deforestation had led MARDI to carry out systematic collection and conservation of the major fruit tree species which included Nephelium species. In 1984 MARDI, in collaboration with the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (IBPGR), organized an expedition to collect and conserve the accessions of N. lappaceum (rambutan) and N. rambutan-ake (pulasan) from 85 districts throughout the country including the main islands such as Tioman, Langkawi and Pangkor. Budwoods from a total of 323 accessions were collected and vegetatively propagated in the nursery. Only 235 accessions survived and the plants are planted at Kemaman. At present there are 211 accessions still living.Fruit characters show the main differences among the accessions. However their differences based on fruit characters as well as other morphological characters such as leaf and flower are not able to differentiate all the accessions. As such DNA markers would be useful.Randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) has been found to be a suitable technique for molecular characterization and determination of phenetic relationships, as shown in a similar study on Lansium domesticum (Song, 1999). In this study RAPD was chosen based on its reasonable cost and relative simplicity. The main objectives of this study are to estimate genetic diversity and to characterize available accessions using molecular markers, and to study genetic relatedness among accessions via comparison of genetic polymorphisms. In addition to the RAPD work, genetic diversity within the collection is also currently studied by MARDI using isozyme polymorphism.The study material is centred on the MARDI-IPGRI (International Plant Genetic Resources Institute) collection of N. lappaceum at MARDI Station, Kemaman Terengganu. These accessions were collected from all states throughout Malaysia, including islands, in 1984 and planted out in 1986. The trees, now approximately 15 years old, have been fruiting since 1990. A total number of 211 accessions are available. Voucher specimens are deposited in the Herbarium of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.Total DNA is isolated from fresh mature leaves using the modified CTAB method of Doyle and Doyle (1990). Genomic DNA extracted using 3-5 g of fresh leaves from each accession gave yields ranging from 5 ng µl Ϫ1 to 500 ng µl Ϫ1 . The difficulty in DNA extraction due to high content of polysaccharides and proteins was partly overcome by incubating the extraction mixture with potassium acetate in an ice bath, after which most of the proteins and polysaccharides are removed as a complex with the insoluble potassium dedecyl sulphate precipitate. The DNA samples are further subjected to a purification step using a High Pure PCR Template Preparation Kit (Boehringer Mannheim) according to the manufacturer's instructions. The DNA is diluted with sterile distilled water to give a concentration of 1 ng µl Ϫ1 .PCR reactions were performed in a 25 µl reaction mixture containing 3 ng template DNA, 2.5 µl PCR buffer 10ϫ (100 mM Tris-HCl, 15 mM MgCl 2 and 500 mM KCl, pH 8.3), 0.2 mM each of dATP, dCTP, dGTP and dTTP, 0.5 unit Taq polymerase (Boehringer Mannheim) and 10 pmol of single decamer primer (Operon Technologies Inc.). Amplification was performed using the GeneAmp PCR System 2400 (Perkin Elmer) thermal cycler with an initial 2 min of denaturation at 93°C; followed by 45 cycles of 45 s at 92°C, 2 min 45 s at 35°C, 1 min 45 s at 72°C, and ending with 10 min at 72°C to ensure that the primer extensions proceed to completion. After amplification is completed, 5 µl of PCR product mixture is loaded and electrophoresed on 1.5% agarose gel in 1ϫ TAE buffer. The gel is stained with ethidium bromide (1µl ml Ϫ1 ) for 20 min, viewed under ultraviolet light and photographed using Polaroid 665 film. Molecular weights of the fragments are estimated using a 100 bp DNA step Ladder marker (GibcoBRL).Primer screening was carried out using eight Operon Primer Kits, i.e. OPA, OPB, OPC, OPD, OPK, OPS, OPT and OPU, each containing 20 decamer primers. Of the 12 primers that yielded clear and reproducible bands, six (OPK-07, OPK-15, OPK-16, OPK-19, OPS-03 and OPS-18) have been used for the 175 accessions.A homology test was performed to confirm whether the fragments that co-migrated are homologous within and among populations and different fragment positions represented different loci. One of the amplified fragments from each of the primers is eluted, labelled and hybridized to Southern blots of RAPD gels.The DNA amplification was repeated at least twice to ascertain the reproducibility of bands. Bands on RAPD gels were scored as present (1) or absent (0) for each DNA sample and the data analysed using NTSYS-pc (Rohlf, 1993). The data matrix was analysed to generate Jaccard similarity coefficient values which can be used to construct a dendrogram via UPGMA (Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmethic Mean). Shannon diver-sity indices (H 0 ) were calculated to measure the level of polymorphism between all accessions using the formula H 0 = Ϫ∑ π i ln π i where π i is the frequency of the phenotype (fragment) i present.Of the 160 primers tested, 12 were found to be suitable. Results of the present study are based on the use of six selected primers (OPK-07, OPK-15, OPK-16, OPK-19, OPS-03 and OPS-18). The sequence of each primer, and the number of bands that are polymorphic are given in Table 5.1. Overall, a total of 81 scorable bands (fragments) were generated, of which 73 showed polymorphism (90.12%).Only clearly visible and reproducible bands representing fragments with molecular size in the range 400-2072 bp were used in the data analysis. Homology tests performed via Southern blotting and hybridization for some of the RAPD products confirmed that the fragments which co-migrated are homologous among the accessions and that different fragment positions represent different loci, i.e. nonallelic. The fragments used as probes for each of the six primers were K07.2 1356 , K15.5 1487 , K16.5 652 , K19.5 1023 , S03.5 1173 and S18.7 861 (Table 5.1).The degree of genetic variation among the accessions (H 0 ) calculated for each primer (Table 5.2) showed OPS-03 with the highest value (4.02) and OPK-07 with the lowest (1.24). The mean value for Shannon index was 2.25. This is comparable to the value of 2.32 obtained in a similar study on 85 accessions of L. domesticum, another tropical fruit species (Song, 1999). However the value is likely to change when the results from the other accessions and several more primers are incorporated.The results of the clustering analysis by the UPGMA method using datasets of each primer and primer combinations are shown in Table 5.2. Primer OPS-03 was able to distinguish the highest number of subsets ( 86) and OPK-07 the lowest (21). The combination of datasets from four primers (OPS-03, OPS-18, OPK-19 and OPK-15) gave the maximium number of 121 subsets (Table 5.3).  Jaccard's coefficient of genetic similarity between pairs of accessions ranged from 0.492 between accession 094 and accession 200, to 0.963 between accession 073 and accession 071. Such values are consistent with degrees of genetic relatedness within the same species, with the highest values possibly indicative of a common source for the planting material (e.g. previous releases by the Department of Agriculture which were planted in orchards and home gardens), and the lower values representing genetic variation between trees planted from seeds. Comparison of these results with morphological characters currently undertaken should yield a clearer understanding of the accessions in the collection.Our preliminary results highlight the need for local germplasm collections to be studied before accessions may be lost. Since there is a high level of genetic diversity in the collection, and other methods of germplasm conservation are not well developed for rambutan it is therefore very important to maintain as many of these trees as possible. Coconut (Cocos nucifera L.), a member of family Arecaceae is an important oil crop, grown in coastal humid tropics. It provides subsistence to millions of families in coconut growing countries. The origin of evolution of this crop is considered to be the Asia-Pacific region (Harries, 1978). Coconut accessions can be broadly classified into two types: Talls and Dwarfs. Besides other differences, the Talls are preferentially cross-pollinated whereas the Dwarfs are mainly self-pollinated. At the Central Plantation Crops Research Institute (CPCRI), India, a large collection of coconut germplasm is being maintained. India is the site for the International Coconut Gene Bank for South Asia (ICGB-SA) and extensive germplasm collecting is underway to enrich the coconut germplasm centre. Characterization and cataloguing of coconut germplasm are important for any breeding programmes to improve its productivity. At present, morphological characters are used for evaluation and classification of collected germplasm (Kumaran et al., 1998). However, germplasm characterization based on morphological traits is time-consuming, expensive and sometimes unsatisfactory because of environmental effects. Molecular markers, which detect variation at the DNA level, provide a way to characterize germplasm accurately at a faster rate. Recently, an array of molecular marker techniques has been developed. Molecular markers like restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) (Lebrun et al., 1998a), randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) (Ashburner et al., 1997;Rodriguez et al., 1997), amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) (Perera et al., 1998) and microsatellites or simple sequence repeats (SSRs) (Perera et al., 2000) have been successfully employed for assessing genetic diversity in coconut. Although newer techniques like AFLP and SSRs are gaining importance due to their ability to detect more polymorphism (SSRs) and high multiplex ratio (AFLP) (Powell et al., 1996), RAPD markers remain popular because of their simplicity and low development cost. The RAPD technique is an efficient tool for identifying variation and estimating diversity in different biological systems (Tingey and Tufo, 1993). RAPD markers are generated by PCR amplification of random genomic segments with a single primer of arbitrary sequence (Williams et al., 1990). Since no a priori knowledge of genome structure is needed, they are specially useful for analysis of less studied genomes like coconut.In the present study, RAPD markers were used to establish the genetic similarity among some indigenous and exotic coconut accessions maintained in the coconut germplasm centre at CPCRI, Kasaragod, India and widely used in the institute's ongoing breeding programme.Fourteen coconut accessions (nine Tall, four Dwarf and one intermediate type) maintained in the CPCRI germplasm collection at Kasaragod were used for the study. The details of these accessions are given in Table 6.1.DNA was extracted from newly emerged leaf using the protocol standardized earlier in our laboratory (Upadhyay et al., 1999), as follows. Leaf tissue (5 g) was ground to fine powder in liquid N 2 . The powdered tissue was transferred to a 50 ml polypropylene tube containing 25 ml DNA extraction buffer (100 mM Tris, 20 mM EDTA, 1% SDS, 0.2% ␤mercaptoethanol, 5% PVP) and incubated at 65°C for 1h with intermittent mixing. After incubation, 15 ml phenol:chloroform:isoamyl alcohol (25:24:1) was added and mixed for 10 min by swirling. The solution was centrifuged at 20,000 g for 20 min. The supernatant was re-extracted with chloroform:isoamyl alcohol (24:1), followed by centrifugation. The supernatant was transferred to a fresh tube and DNA was precipitated by adding 2/3 volume of isopropanol. The precipitated DNA was spooled out with a microtip, transferred to a microtube and washed twice with 76% ethanol (containing 10 mM ammonium acetate). The pellet was dried and dissolved in 1 ml TE buffer. The DNA concentration was estimated spectrophotometrically as well as by comparing the band intensity with a known quantity of DNA on ethidium bromide stained 0.8% TAE agarose gel. The average yield of high molecular weight DNA was approximately 300 µg g Ϫ1 FW tissue.Polymorphic primers were identified by screening 100 random decamer primers (Operon Technologies, USA) with DNA of WCT and COD. Amplification was carried out using PCR parameters as follows. The PCR reaction contained 25 ng DNA, 10 mM Tris-HCl (pH 9), 4.0 mM MgCl 2 , 50 mM KCl and 0.01% gelatin, 100 µM each of dNTPs, 25 pmole of primer and 1.5 U Taq DNA polymerase in 25 µl reaction volume. All biochemicals were procured from M/s Bangalore Genei Pvt. Ltd, Bangalore, India. DNA was amplified in DNA Engine-PTC 200 (MJ Research), programmed for denaturation at 94°C for 5 min followed by 40 cycles of 1 min at 94°C, 1 min at 55°C and 2 min at 72°C. Cycling was concluded with a final extension at 72°C for a further 8 min. Amplification products were resolved by electrophoresis in a 1.2% agarose, 1X TAE gel at 60 V for 4 h. Controls lacking template DNA were included for each primer reaction mix. Amplification products were stained with ethidium bromide and visualized under UV light. Each band was considered as a RAPD marker.Six polymorphic primers (OPA-10, OPA-11, OPB-1, OPB-5, OPC-5 and OPD-7) were selected to amplify DNA from 14 coconut accessions. The presence or absence of each PCR product was recorded.Genetic diversity or heterogeneity was calculated according to Nei's (1975) formula. Heterogeneity was calculated for each marker and then averaged out for the total measure. Heterogeneity for Tall and Dwarf accessions was calculated by considering the markers present only in those respective groups of accessions.The presence-absence data were entered into a binary data matrix as discrete variables (1 for the presence and 0 for the absence of a homologous band). Pairwise genetic distance was calculated based on the Nei and Li coefficient (Nei and Li, 1979) using computer package RAPDistance (Armstrong et al., 1994). Genetic distance data were subjected to cluster analysis by the UPGMA method using PHYLIP software (Phylogeny Inference Package, version 3.5c, J. Felsenstein, Department of Genetics, University of Washington, Seattle).Of the 100 primers tested, only 54 primers amplified coconut DNA. Thirty-four primers detected at least one polymorphic band between one Tall (WCT) and one Dwarf (COD) accession. The number of polymorphic bands per primer ranged from 1 to 16. A total of 245 bands were generated by 34 polymorphic primers, of which 116 (47%) were polymorphic. The average number of polymorphic bands per primer was 2.2 (3.4 when only polymorphic primers were considered).The number of polymorphic bands detected by each primer depends on the primer sequence, hence a variable number of polymorphic bands per primer was obtained. These results are consistent with earlier reports on RAPD analysis (Connolly et al., 1994;Powell et al., 1996;Ashburner et al., 1997). The percentage (47%) of polymorphic bands between one Tall and one Dwarf coconut accession indicated a moderate level of polymorphism and was comparable with earlier reports on RAPD analysis in coconut (Ashburner et al., 1997;Rodriguez et al., 1997). The level of polymorphism in terms of the number of polymorphic bands per primer was also moderately high and found to be consistent with earlier reports on Arabidopsis thaliana (0.3), wheat (0.38) (Tingey and Tufo, 1993), soybean (1.56)  (Powell et al., 1996) and sweet potato (3.7) (Connolly et al., 1994). These results indicate that RAPD markers can be a useful technique for germplasm characterization in coconut.Six primers generated 51 bands in 14 accessions, of which 35 (69%) bands were polymorphic. Among Tall accessions 50 bands were present, of which 33 (66%) were polymorphic. In contrast, Dwarf accessions had 30 bands and only 14 (47%) were polymorphic. RAPD markers were detected that were unique for LCM, LCO, BEN and WCT. The total heterogeneity among 14 accessions was 0.49 whereas that for Tall and Dwarf accessions was 0.46 and 0.40, respectively.The pairwise genetic distance varied from 0.189 (CGD and MOD) to 0.62 (between WCT and MOD). The average genetic distance among Dwarf (0.31) was much less than that among Tall (0.45) accessions. Table 6.2 lists the genetic distance matrix for the 14 accessions.When subjected to cluster analysis, all Dwarf accessions were grouped together (Fig. 6.1) whereas Tall accessions formed three groups. The two accessions from the Philippines, namely PHO and SNR, grouped together and along with ADO were closer to Dwarf than to Tall. KAP, a large nut sized accession from the west coastal region of India, was grouped with LCM, a small nut sized accession from the Lakshadweep Islands in the Arabian sea. Gangabondam, an intermediate type showed more genetic similarity to Dwarf accessions.The data on genetic distance and heterogeneity indicated that more variance exists among Tall accessions than among Dwarf accessions. These results are comparable with earlier studies, which demonstrated higher variation in Tall than Dwarf (Ashburner and Rohde, 1994;Ashburner et al., 1997;Perera et al., 1998). This has been attributed to cross-pollination among Talls. Dwarf accessions from geographically distant regions (MOD and CGD) were genetically related (genetic distance, 0.186). Lebrun et al. (1998b) hypothesized that all the Dwarfs might have appeared at the same time and due to autogamy a major part of the genetic structure was conserved subsequently. Also Dwarf cultivars imported into new regions tend to remain genetically isolated from the local population. These reasons may explain why similar genotypes are found in distant regions.The genetic diversity among these accessions was quite high (0.49). Ashburner et al. (1997) also observed high inter-population diversity among South Pacific accessions. They suggested that although the differentiation of these accessions might have arisen due to establishment of a population by a few individuals, the founder effect had not reduced diversity. The inclusion of accessions from distant regions might have resulted in relatively higher gene diversity in this study.The cluster analysis placed two accessions with diverse fruit characters, namely KAP and LCM, together. Similar results have been reported earlier based on RFLP (Lebrun et al., 1998) and phenol (Jay et al. 1989) analysis. The three exotic Tall collections (PHO, SNR, JVT) did not occupy a distinct posi-  tion, rather, they were grouped with the indigenous accessions. Therefore, to widen genetic diversity of germplasm collections, estimation of genetic distance along with morphological data is also important. Three Tall accessions, namely ADO, PHO and SNR, were grouped closer to Dwarf accessions. Similar results were obtained by Everard (1999) after analysing one Tall, one Dwarf and SNR. Rohde et al. (1995), using ISTR (Inverse Sequence Tagged Repeats) markers with 21 accessions, also found that some Tall accessions were grouped with Dwarfs. It could be assumed that grouping of the Tall accessions in this study may be due to the fact that these three accessions have some level of self-pollination due to interspadix overlapping of the mature male and female phase (Ratnambal et al., 1995). The interspadix overlapping for ADO, PHO and SNR is 7.0, 4.2 and 4 days, respectively, which is comparable with intraspadix overlapping in Dwarfs. Thus the observed relationship of these accessions with Dwarfs may be due to their breeding behaviour.In conclusion, this study has established the ability of RAPD markers to distinguish coconut accession with high efficiency. This information will form the base for analysis of intra-population variation. Extensive use of this technique and other molecular markers for characterization of coconut germplasm is envisaged. Such a study will help in planning future germplasm collecting and the selection of parents for breeding programmes.Cotton (Gossypium spp.) is the leading natural fibre crop and it is also an important oilseed crop. As one of the first crop plants to which Mendelian principles were applied, cotton is an important genetic system in collection, evaluation and utilization of germplasm. Improvement of cotton production has been successful over the past half century due to the utilization of exotic cotton germplasm in addition to refined cultivation practices. The traditional approach to the introduction of new genes into the elite cultivars is to screen entries from a cotton germplasm collection for a well-defined character, usually controlled by a single, dominant gene. Many of the easy improvements in the germplasm have already been made this way. However, most traits important to cotton production, such as lint yield and fibre strength are not monogenic, but polygenic. Many beneficial genes may have been left behind because of the genetic bottleneck imposed on cotton plants during early domestication processes and through modern breeding practices (Xiao et al., 1996;Tanksley and McCouch, 1997). Although wild and exotic cotton germplasm may be less valuable for improvement of most traits based on phenotypic examination, it is possible that some additional useful genes remain undetected among thousands of Gossypium accessions. The difficult challenges for future improvement will require the integration of tools developed via biotechnology with those of conventional breeding. DNA-based genetic descriptors will revolutionize germplasm evaluation in the new century, and shift our attention more directly toward novel genes or new genotypes. Recent applications of genome mapping confirm that superior genes may be derived from the phenotypically inferior germplasm. In this chapter, we present our strategies for the molecular characterization of Gossypium germplasm. First, we will provide a little background and describe the Gossypium species, review the germplasm that is represented in the cotton germplasm collection, and then how we plan to characterize germplasm and how these efforts can be used to exploit the variability of this germplasm.The eventual recognition of the differences in species and ploidy level led to the discovery of the rich and diverse evolutionary differentiation that has occurred in Gossypium with over 50 species currently recognized (Percival and Kohel, 1990;Stewart and Percival, unpublished). Cotton of the contemporary world comprises four cultivated species: diploid species (Gossypium arboreum and Gossypium herbaceum) of the A genome and known as Asiatic cottons and tetraploid species (Gossypium barbadense and Gossypium hirsutum) of the AD genome and known as the New World cottons (Lee, 1984). The diploid species are subdivided into eight genomic groups, A-K, skipping letters H, I and J. The two Asiatic cottons, G. herbaceum and G. arboreum, are the only members of the A genomic group with no true wild progenitor species identified. There are five tetraploid species, two of which are cultivated. The tetraploids are putatively of common origin from A genome and D genome parents, but the common progenitor tetraploid species does not exist. Of the cultivated cottons, the tetraploid G. hirsutum represents about 90% of world commerce, G. barbadense represents almost 10% and the Asiatic cottons represent a small portion (Lee, 1984). Much of the Asiatic cottons are consumed in home industry, and they are not included in the textile industry. An up-todate review of the species is presented by Brubaker et al. (1999).The USDA cotton germplasm collection currently contains 7157 accessions, and it represents 2211 obsolete G. hirsutum cultivars, 2102 exotic G. hirsutum races, 1333 G. barbadense that are not clearly distinguished into obsolete and exotic types, 969 diploid G. herbaceum and G. arboreum from Asia, and 542 wild species. Extensive plant explorations have been made to acquire this germplasm; however, current efforts are focused on seed exchanges with other collections (Percival and Kohel, 1990). Gossypium is a long-lived perennial found in tropical and subtropical arid climates characterized by monsoon rainfall patterns. Individuals found in their native habitats occur as small isolated groups or as individuals, and not in dense or extended populations. The consequence of this and its relevance to the material in the germplasm collection, is that the accessions collected were uniform and not phenotypically heterogeneous or heterozygous and each accession is unique. This means that the task of characterization of the accessions is focused on distinguishing among them and not one of identifying and eliminating redundancy. It is when accessions from other collections such as a recent Russian collection are added that questions of duplication or redundancy become important considerations.The Asiatic (diploid) cottons were the original cottons of world commerce that were subsequently replaced by G. hirsutum (Lee, 1984). It is, there-fore, of no surprise that breeders of cotton are primarily interested in the G. hirsutum accessions and that they represent the greater number of accessions. To characterize the germplasm collection, we will have to develop strategies that are capable of differentiating among these G. hirsutum accessions. Detecting differences among the species is technically less complex, due to greater polymorphism, and a system that adequately detects intraspecific variability within G. hirsutum will have the power to make the more gross separations among the species.Characterization of Gossypium is no new concept or endeavour. With the scientific discovery of different ploidy levels of Gossypium, cytological techniques were used to separate the diploid and the tetraploid genomes (Beasley, 1940(Beasley, , 1942;;Percival et al., 1999). Details of genomic groups and species are discussed in Percival et al. (1999).The early attempts to differentiate among the tetraploid G. hirsutum accessions considered plant morphological differences combined with geographic origins to separate G. hirsutum into seven geographic races (Hutchinson, 1951). These distinctions remain today as the best criteria to describe the variability within G. hirsutum but many of the accessions have not been so described.With advancing technology, the electrophoresis of seed proteins was used to separate species. We applied this procedure to the Asiatic and Upland cottons and were successful in separating these materials into various groups, or clusters. Fifteen such groups were defined within G. hirsutum that were not always consistent with known geographic origins and observed morphological differences. The results supported our concerns that geographic and morphological race classifications were inadequate, but protein banding alone was not adequate to interpret the variability. Again, technological advances resulted in the use of isozyme analyses. These were first applied to Gossypium as a taxonomic tool to distinguish differences at the species level (Cherry et al., 1972;Wendel and Percy, 1990). We applied these isozyme protocols to the variability in G. hirsutum. However, the various isozyme assays resolved little or no variability within the species of real use.The development of DNA markers provides new and more powerful tools that can be effectively used in discriminating among genebank accessions. Genetic linkage maps based on DNA markers offer new opportunities in evaluation and characterization of crop germplasm resources for their better utilization (Tanksley and McCouch, 1997). The new approach is to look directly for the genes of interest, removing the blocking factors from other parts of the genome (Xiao et al., 1995). In cotton, we began a genomics programme that would provide the markers for germplasm characterization. Our and other previous research with isozymes and preliminary use of DNA markers established the low level of polymorphism in intraspecific G. hirsutum. Our inhouse genomics programme has developed a cotton genetic map comprising 868 markers, 256 restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs), 152 randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPDs), 198 simple sequence repeats (SSRs), 267 amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs), and five morphological markers assembled into 50 linkage groups that cover about 5000 cM of the cotton genome (Reddy et al., 1997;Yu et al., 1997;Yu and Kohel, 2000) (Fig. 7.1). The cotton genetic map is based on the interspecific cross of G. hirsutum (TM-1) and G. barbadense (3-79) (Yu and Kohel, 2000), which are the genetic standards for their respective species (Kohel et al., 1970;Kohel, 1973). Two thirds of the linkage groups have been assigned to their respective genomic origin (A vs. D) or chromosomal identity  by use of diploid and aneuploid cottons. Thirteen quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for fibre quality properties (strength, length and fineness) have been identified in 3-79, an extra long staple cotton (Kohel et al., 2000). These QTLs explained 35% to 50% of the total genetic variance for fibre characteristics in the F 2 population (Yu et al., 1998). Characterization of these QTLs in intraspecific G. hirsutum crosses involving Pee Dee (PD6992) and Acala (HS427-10) cottons is in progress. Molecular tags for major genes have been identified for glandless cotton, photoperiod sensitivity and other important traits. From this base, diagnostic DNA markers can be identified that are capable of detecting polymorphism in intraspecific populations. We have observed that the level of polymorphism within intraspecific material is between 10 and 20% of that between our interspecific mapping parents.In general, cotton genome research lags behind that of other major crops. To accelerate progress and leverage resources in cotton, we have initiated efforts to bridge cotton with other plant models such as Arabidopsis. Like most higher plants, cotton has about 50,000 functional genes per genome. It would be a very tedious task, and not practical to study individual genes or their combination for cotton improvement. The tools, including markers, maps, and gene transfer procedures, are still rather limited in cotton genomics. Bridging cotton with the advanced model plant systems would enhance cotton genomics and provide additional publicly available resources. Arabidopsis is an established model system for all higher plants. With increased investment, complete nucleotide sequences of the entire Arabidopsis genome will be available within the year. To make substantial progress into the area of cotton functional genomics, the availability of Arabidopsis genomic tools and their use in the cotton genome is currently under exploration. High levels of homology between Gossypium and model plant genomes and polymorphism among Gossypium germplasm were detected by using the conserved gene sequences. About 10% of the 40,000 Arabidopsis expressed sequence tagged sites (ESTs) may be readily identified in the cotton genome (Yu et al., unpublished). These Arabidopsis ESTs would be complemented with unique cotton ESTs and genomic sequence information from cotton bacterial artificial chromosomes (BACs) to study cotton functional genomics. Such new genomic tools will facilitate cotton improvement programmes to eventually discover, manipulate and utilize thousands of valuable genes otherwise buried in Gossypium germplasm.To begin the process of molecular characterization, we selected a subset of germplasm lines that represent what we consider the range of diversity of G. hirsutum and outliers of G. barbadense and Asiatic cottons. In a pilot experiment, we screened 280 accessions in subsets with 43 marker loci. The 280 accessions were selected based on their representation from different genepools or sources. The sampling process emphasized genetic composition more than the physical appearance. Among them, 151 were G. hirsutum accessions comprising 30 exotic, 41 obsolete and 80 Russian cottons. The 126 G. barbadense accessions were 67 from the US Cotton Germplasm Collection and 59 from Russia. We also included three Asiatic cottons together with TM-1 and 3-79, two genetic standards of AD genomes. The 43 DNA markers, mostly SSRs, were selected from the cotton molecular genetic map including gene-linked tags and representatives from each chromosome or linkage group. Based on our previous mapping surveys, some of these selected DNA markers were capable of detecting polymorphism among G. hirsutum accessions. DNA profiles of 280 Gossypium accessions were generated in the lab, and each major DNA fragment was recorded as either presence (score 1), absence (score 0), or unknown (score ?) for each of the 280 accessions.These preliminary data confirm the value of our DNA markers to distinguish the known variation (Fig. 7.2). The results of this cluster analysis indicated not only the separation of three major groups (G. hirsutum, G. barbadense and Asiatic cottons), but also the separation of each of two major groups (G. hirsutum and G. barbadense) into more than a dozen subgroups.These preliminary data show us the strengths of DNA markers and the deficiencies. The strengths are rather obvious in the ability to separate among the accessions with greater detail than previously possible. But to be effective, we have to identify and overcome the deficiencies. The first deficiency is still the limited total number of markers. The second is the unknown chromosomal location and representation of these markers within the A and D subgenomes. The third is not so much a deficiency as a requirement that we should place on the markers of choice. The utility of DNA markers for evaluation of the germplasm will depend on their portability among accessions within a specific Gossypium species. To this end, we have initiated a project that will resolve the deficiencies directly. We constructed a 7.3ϫ genome equivalent BAC library with 115,584 clones with an average 143 kb insert size (Fig. 7.3) (Yu et al., 2000). The success of this effort led to our decision to initiate a major effort to develop an integrated genetic and physical map (Fig. 7.4). A cotton chromosome would be reconstructed by overlapping such BAC insert DNA, and anchored with DNA markers selected from a genetic map that corresponds to a cytological map. Any BAC contigs or the extended contigs may serve as a resource for marker saturation, in addition to positional cloning of genes of agronomic importance.At the second phase of this project, the genetic uniqueness of each accession will be determined by the two criteria: (i) a high number of unique DNA polymorphism relative to TM-1 and 3-79, which are the modern genetic standards; and (ii) new accessions that are dissimilar genetically (DNA profiles) to all other accessions. The resulting unique Gossypium accessions will be subject to further characterization with an additional 100 DNA markers once we overcome the limitation of sufficient DNA markers with the best ability to describe the germplasm. Accessions with DNA profiles mostly distinct from those of modern cultivars are likely to possess a large number of new genes that lie buried but are potentially useful in crop improvement (Tanksley and McCouch, 1997).Recommendations for the further utilization of Gossypium germplasm resources will be made according to the uniqueness of their DNA profiles.We began the construction of a TM-1 BAC library to give an integrated genetic and physical map that will effectively resolve the 50 linkage groups to the 26 chromosome linkage groups. TM-1 is the widely used genetic standard for G. hirsutum, and it is a parent of our genetic map (Kohel et al., 1970). We are constructing a 10ϫ genome equivalent library, and with improved protocols, we expect 150,000 clones with an average 150 kb insert size. We are using a binary vector with one of the restriction enzymes that will add utility for future research projects (Hamilton et al., 1999). From the positive BACs, we are producing at least 1000 SSR markers that will be placed on the integrated map. With the level of polymorphism within intraspecific material between 10 and 20%, this will mean that of the approximately 2000 markers on the interspecific genetic map, we will have 200 to 400 polymorphic markers among intraspecific accessions. Theoretically, this should give coverage of a marker every 12+ cM. A subset of about 100 markers selected from these should cover the entire genome with markers no more than 50 cM apart (Fig. 7.5). This core reference subset of markers will be publicly available so that all evaluations of germplasm can be shared and pooled into a common database for analysis and interpretation. Therefore, the core markers will serve as the standard to characterize workable sets of Gossypium accessions across different genepools or germplasm sources. Other marker sets can also be combined with the core set of markers and characterized in subsets of accessions. Information from our genomics programme is entered into CottonDB http://ars-genome@cornell.edu, in the genomics workbook http://algodon.tamu.edu and BAC information in http://hbz.tamu.edu (Chen et al., 2000).  The need for and importance of characterizing Gossypium genetic resources is readily recognized. Currently genetic vulnerability is an increased concern as less than 1% of cotton germplasm accessions have been explored (Esbroeck and Bowman, 1998). The evaluation and utilization of methodologies for analysis of the germplasm collection have been limited mostly to morphological descriptors with masking negative effects such as yield reduction. Neutral molecular descriptors have recently been initiated for characterizing the cotton germplasm. However we are concerned that the emergent efforts will produce data and information that are fragmentary and cannot be readily combined into an integrated whole. Our proposed strategy and efforts are analogous to the establishment of a standard set of descriptors. A portable set of markers, such as SSRs, that can used in both rather simple labs equipped for gel-based PCR analysis or more sophisticated labs with automated genotyping instruments will allow the analysis of germplasm subsets from which the data and interpretations can be combined and integrated for the entire collection. The common reference marker set will provide an anchor for evaluation, QTL analysis, and gene mining of the germplasm. As we get beyond characterization, we will be able to exploit this variation in a very directed manner. The reference marker set will provide the initial tool set, but the integrated map and BAC clones will be powerful tools for the eventual application of functional genomics and gene mining to the germplasm.What we propose is a major undertaking of time and resources. We have initiated the preliminary phases that can be completed with our in-house resources. With adequate funding the tools for characterization will be available in 3 years. Characterization will require additional funds and participants, so that the timely completion of the characterization will be resource driven. We also recognize that plans do not always evolve as envisioned; however, with a plan and specific goals, we will remain flexible in adapting the methodologies and technologies that will allow realization of the goal. Using the standard set of molecular descriptors (selected DNA markers), genetic relationships among cotton accessions can be determined as shown in our pilot study. It is always necessary to start with a subset of genetic outliers to maximize the potential success in the characterization process. A subset of genotypes will then be selected for further characterization of desirable genes. Available ESTs of the model plants such as Arabidopsis can be used to detect complementary conserved sequences within the selected subset to use as potential candidate genes for cotton improvement. By and large, integrated evaluation and characterization strategies should aim to combine molecular tools and functional genomics with agronomic performance analysis of the cotton germplasm.Molecular markers offer new tools for investigating the evolution and domestication of crop plant species, and the origin of today's commercial cultivars. Different markers have been employed in such studies, and several have compared the results from different techniques (in cacao for example, see N' Goran et al., 1994;Lerceteau et al., 1997). This chapter shows that additional factors like adequacy of sampling can lead to new evolutionary hypotheses emerging.Cacao trees belong to the genus Theobroma and to the family Malvaceae (Alverson et al., 1999). Theobroma cacao L. (2n = 2x = 20) is a tree native to wet tropical regions of the northern part of South America and, in some reports, of Central America. Indeed, there is a controversy about the origin and domestication of cacao.For some authors cacao was introduced in Central America. Although the first home of domestication and culture is placed in Central America, Van Hall (1914) stated that the most probable home country of cacao is the region of the Orinoco and the Amazon basins, with the valleys of their tributary streams. Cheesman (1944) considered that the centre of origin of the cacao tree is the Upper Amazon near the Colombian-Ecuadorian border on the eastern flanks of the Andes. Cheesman's hypothesis is based on Pound's report (1938) that the greatest morphological diversity occurs in this area. Pound (1945), Desrosiers (1954) and Purseglove (1968) also placed the centre of origin of this species in South America, either in the lower eastern equatorial slopes of the Andes or in the upper waters of the Amazon River (Upper Amazon). Cheesman (1944) and these latter authors argued that although cacao has been cultivated in Mexico and Central America for over 2000 years, no truly wild populations were present in this region; they proposed that cacao was introduced into Central America and Mexico. Schultes (1984) hypothesized that once the cacao spread throughout the Amazon Valley, it could have dispersed along two routes: one leading north and the other west. In this way, the domestication of cacao occurred in South America and was then spread to Central America and Southern Mexico by migrating Indians (Schultes, 1984).In contrast, however, other authors suggest that cacao was domesticated from wild plants from Central America. Wickizer (1951) argued that after the wild species evolved in either the Orinoco or Amazon basin, it spread in a wild state along the Gulf coast as far north as southern Mexico. Cuatrecasas (1964) suggested that before the domestication of cacao, natural populations occurred in the central part of Amazon-Guyana into southern Mexico. Stone (1984) stated that although the homeland of cacao is usually placed in the Amazon, this plant also occurs in the wild in Central America. Allen (1982) mentioned that cacao occurs as an apparently wild tree from southern Mexico to Bolivia and Brazil. Indeed, there exist reports about wild cacao populations in southern Mexico (Miranda, 1962;Cuatrecasas, 1964;Gomez-Pompa et al., 1990;De la Cruz et al., 1995). Furthermore, Mora-Urpi (1958) found greater cacao variability in Mexico and Central America than in South America.Cuatrecasas ' (1964) hypothesis has been sustained by most authors (Cope, 1976;Wood and Lass, 1985;Gomez-Pompa et al., 1990;Laurent et al., 1994;N'Goran et al., 1994;De la Cruz et al., 1995;Whitkus et al., 1998). Based on the great morphological diversity observed in Central as well as in South America, he proposed that north and south cacao populations developed into two forms separated geographically by the Panama Isthmus. Both populations evolved independently and developed a number of consistent distinguishing characteristics that led to their recognition as subspecies (T. cacao ssp. cacao and T. cacao spp. sphaerocarpum). Krickeberg (1946) proposed that the Mayan people domesticated cacao. Miranda (1962) was the first to report wild cacao in southern Mexico as a completely indigenous cacao tree in the Lacandon rain-forest. Cuatrecasas (1964) claimed that wild plants from the Lacandon rainforest were possibly the ancestors of the domesticated cacao. It was even proposed that cultivated cacao was introduced into South America in pre-Columbian times (Mora-Urpi, 1958).Cuatrecasas' subspecies correspond to the two morphogeographic groups proposed by Cheesman (1944). Subspecies cacao and sphaerocarpum belong to the Criollo and Forastero groups respectively. A third hybrid group originated from crosses between Criollo and Forastero was called Trinitario. The Forastero group is subdivided according to the geographical origin of the trees (Upper Amazon, Lower Amazon and Guyana Forastero).Several biochemical and molecular studies have analysed genetic diversity in the Criollo and Forastero groups. For instance, Lanaud (1987) analysed the diversity of 296 genotypes for nine polymorphic isozyme loci. A total of 30 alleles were identified in the study, and all the alleles except PAC1 (a common allele in Criollo and Trinitario populations) were present in the native populations of the Upper Amazon. The populations that had the most alleles per locus were those from the Upper Amazon (from 1.8 to 2.2). The populations from Venezuela and Guyana were the least variable with 1 to 1.5 alleles per locus. Ronning and Schnell (1994) studied the isozyme diversity at eight loci in 86 cacao clones stemming from the groups Forastero, Criollo, Trinitario and a hybrid undefined group. Allelic frequencies and genetic distances confirmed genetic differentiation between Forastero and Criollo.Nuclear diversity Laurent et al. (1994)   Lerceteau et al. (1997) analysed the genetic diversity of Ecuadorian Nacional clones (59), and also analysed Forastero (29), Trinitario (29), and Criollo (9) clones. Forty-three genomic probes, coded in terms of alleles, were used for this study. Within-group genetic diversity was almost identical between Forastero, Trinitario and Criollo (respectively 0.33; 0.31; 0.31); the Nacional group shown a value of 0.19. The highest mean number of heterozygous loci based on 31 restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) probes was found in Trinitario and Criollo, and the lowest between the Nacional clones. Among them, some genotypes, sampled from very old Ecuadorian plantations, were almost totally homozygous. Laurent et al. (1993) studied DNA diversity of 177 genotypes of cacao trees for organellar DNA using heterologous mitochondrial probes (ATP synthetase of sunflower, cytochrome oxidase of wheat) and chloroplastic probes (rubisco from spinach). The mitochondrial probes revealed 44 mitotypes. Thirty-five of them were found in fewer than six clones. These minor types were essentially made up of Criollo and Trinitario. Among the nine types remaining, type 1 grouped two-thirds of the Forastero clones, comprising genotypes from Guyana, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador. The other major type (mitotype 2) grouped the majority of Criollo and Trinitario (26 clones), and some Lower Amazon genotypes. In this study the mitochondrial DNA diversity was represented by an FAC. In the graphic analysis, it is interesting to note that the mitochondrial DNA diversity was much greater in Criollo than in Forastero, in contrast to the nuclear DNA diversity.Figueira et al. (1994) analysed the diversity of genotypes belonging to the three groups, Criollo, Trinitario and Forastero, by means of randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers (128 amplified fragments resulting from 23 primers). They observed continuous variation between these groups and no differences between them. On the other hand, they noticed a clear difference between wild and cultivated clones. Ribosomal DNA analysis confirmed this structure and the authors thus proposed a new classification for cacao trees not based on the three traditional groups, Criollo, Trinitario and Forastero, but on the groups 'wild cacao trees' and 'cultivated cacao trees'. N' Goran et al. (1994) analysed the genetic diversity of 106 genotypes belonging to the various morphogeographic groups within Criollo, for 49 repeatable polymorphic RAPD products. The Hierarchic Ascendant Classification (HAC), established from the factorial coordinates of an FAC, showed a clear structure among Forastero and Criollo, as well as a clear differentiation between Upper and Lower Amazon Forastero (N'Goran et al., 1994). After Southern blot analyses of 36 fragments, 12 corresponded to highly repeated and scattered sequences, 12 to unique sequences and 12 to low copy number sequences. If one considers only fragments corresponding to the unique sequences, no clear structuring appears. On the other hand, a genetic structure appears between Criollo and Forastero when only fragments corresponding to the highly repeated sequences are considered (while these do not differentiate Lower from Upper Amazon Forastero). From these results, N' Goran et al. (1994) supported Cuatrecasas's (1964) hypothesis about a natural dispersion of the species in Central America. De la Cruz et al. (1995) analysed by RAPD 42 genotypes corresponding to what they called wild plants either from Mexico (sinkholes of Yucatan and rainforest of Chiapas) or from the Upper Amazon, to Criollo cultivars, Forastero and Trinitario, and to a representative of a nearby genus Herrania. The calculations of a dissimilarity index allowed the construction of a neighbour-joining tree. In this tree there was a greater similarity between cultivated Criollo and wild cacao trees of South America than between cultivated Criollo and 'wild' plants from Mexico. The authors suggested that the wild plants found in the ancient sacred groves of Maya probably do not exist in the germplasm collections and could be the genotypes closest among existing genotypes to the Maya cultivars.In a more recent study, Whitkus et al. (1998) analysed by RAPD a wider sample (86 individuals), which included 26 wild genotypes collected in the Lacandona forest of Chiapas, Mexico, five individuals from sinkholes in the Yucatan and wild and cultivated clones of South America. Contrary to the populations and cultivars of South America where the intra-population diversity has been seen to be higher than the inter-population diversity, the genetic diversity found between the two Mexican populations was greater than that found in each region. This reflects the low level of polymorphism found in these two populations. A structure of the genetic diversity similar to that of De la Cruz et al. (1995) was observed. The two populations from Mexico appeared well differentiated and showed their originality. From these results, Whitkus et al. (1998) also supported Cuatrecasas' (1964) hypothesis. The authors underlined, however, the lack of affinity between cultivated Criollo and the wild plants observed in Mexico. According to these authors, cacao trees collected in the Lacandon forest could represent true wild cacao trees, and plants sampled in the sinkholes could have been introduced by the Maya from the wild populations. In that case, they would represent a subsample of the present populations in the Lacandon rainforest that could have diverged through isolation by distance since the time of the introductions (thus explaining the genetic differentiation between the two Mexican populations).To analyse the relationship between Central and South American cacao further, we assayed variation in a range of molecular markers on Forastero and Criollo individuals already analysed in previous researches (Lanaud, 1987;Ronning and Schnell, 1994;Laurent et al., 1994;N'Goran et al., 1994;Figueira et al., 1994;Lerceteau et al., 1997). Most of them come from international germplasm collections or modern plantations. We also sampled other individuals from sites where it could be assumed that Criollo had not crossed with individuals from the other groups.The samples were classified as Ancient Criollo, Modern Criollo, Trinitario, Amelonado individuals (Lower Amazon Forastero), Guyana Forastero, Upper Amazon Forastero and hybrids with at least one Upper Amazon Forastero parent. A complete list of individuals used in the study and their geographic origin is available on request.The ancient Criollo individuals (n = 92) consisted of trees sampled from places where gene flow between Criollo and Trinitario or Forastero trees was absent or limited because introductions of Trinitario or Forastero material were unlikely. Most samples came from trees on old or abandoned farms and from private gardens in towns difficult to access. Sampling was conducted in Venezuela, Colombia, Nicaragua and Mexico. In Mexico, samples of Criollo were also collected in the rainforest where wild Criollo trees have been reported (Miranda, 1962;Cuatrecasas, 1964) and in places where Mayan people cultivated cacao (Yucatan sinkholes: Gomez-Pompa et al., 1990 and in the Pacific coast of Mexico: Lopez- Mendoza, 1987). Samples from the rainforest of Belize that were associated with Mayan ruins (Mooledhar et al., 1995) were also included for analysis.Modern Criollo individuals (n = 70) were defined as those coming from modern farms or from farms where an important introduction of Trinitario or Forastero seedlings or clones was suspected. This class included material from germplasm collections of Costa Rica, Ivory Coast, Mexico, Venezuela and France. Modern Criollo represents the genotypes studied as Criollo in previous biochemical and molecular studies (Lanaud, 1987;Ronning and Schnell, 1994;Laurent et al., 1994;N'Goran et al., 1994;Figueira et al., 1994;De la Cruz et al. 1995;Lerceteau et al., 1997;Whitkus et al., 1998).Trinitario (n = 66) and Guyana (n = 5), Lower and Upper Amazon Forastero individuals (LAF, n = 9 and UAF, n = 27) and hybrids with at least one Upper Amazon Forastero parent (n = 14), were studied to compare the structure of their genetic diversity with that of Criollo and Modern Criollo.DNA was isolated as described in Risterucci et al. (2000). Two hundred and eighty-nine individuals were analysed for RFLPs, using procedures previously described (Lanaud et al., 1995). Seventeen cDNA and eight genomic DNA probes, chosen for their coverage of the genetic map of T. cacao L. (Lanaud et al., 1995), were used to screen individuals. DNA fragments were extracted from low melting agarose gel and hybridized, without cloning, on to the restricted DNA.Sixteen microsatellites (Lanaud et al., 1999) were used to screen the genetic diversity of 98 individuals already analysed by RFLPs. Microsatellites were chosen based on their position in the cacao genetic map (Risterucci et al., 2000). Microsatellite allele sizes were scored by comparison of PCR product lengths to the sequence of the genomic clone from where primers were designed.For RFLP data a factorial analysis of correspondences (FAC, Benzeckri, 1973), was carried out using the software GENETIX 4.0 (Laboratoire Génome et Populations, Université de Montpellier II, Montpellier). The gene diversity statistics (Nei, 1978), the mean allele number per locus, the percentage of polymorphic loci at 95% levels of significance, and the observed heterozygosity were calculated using the software GENETIX 4.0.For microsatellite data the shared allele distance (D AS ) (Chakraborty and Jin, 1993) was calculated. This distance is equal to 1 minus the proportion of shared alleles:where a is the number of alleles common to individuals i and j, and n the number of loci studied. This distance was computed by averaging the values over all available loci between two individuals. To determine the relatedness between Criollo and Forastero individuals a neighbour-joining tree (Saitou and Nei, 1987) was constructed from the shared allele distance between individuals obtained from microsatellite data using the program TREEMAKER (Cornuet J.-M. and Piry, S., 2000, personal communication).After hybridization of the 25 probes, 66 alleles were detected. The unbiased gene diversity (Nei, 1978) was higher for Forastero than Criollo (Table 8.1). The average number of alleles was the highest for the Forastero group, as well as the percentage of polymorphic loci and the observed heterozygosity. This last statistic was very low for Ancient Criollo, indicating homozygosity as a characteristic genetic factor for this group.For RFLP markers, all Ancient Criollo individuals (92) mapped in the left half of the FAC (Fig. 8.1), with a cluster of homogeneous clones with several unresolved, near identical individuals in the fourth quadrant. Only eight Ancient Criollo geno- Consequently, Table 8.1 shows that the Ancient Criollo group (comprising individuals from the Lacandon rainforest) had very low diversity. Cacao trees from the Lacandon rainforest were identical at the RFLP level to those putatively cultivated by the Maya (those found in the sinkholes of Yucatan, in the Pacific Coast of Mexico and in Belize) as well as to individuals cultivated today in South America.In Fig. 8.2, which excludes the samples from Upper Amazon Forastero, Modern Criollo individuals (black filled circles) are superimposed on Trinitario (black triangles). Furthermore they form a continuous line between Ancient Criollo and Amelonado Forastero, and are much less diverse than hybrids having an Upper Amazon Forastero parent.The genetic diversity statistics for Modern Criollo were similar to those of Trinitario. The observed heterozygosity of Modern Criollo was significantly higher than that of Ancient Criollo. Equivalence between Modern Criollo and Trinitario is expected considering that the distinction based on morphological traits between Modern Criollo and Trinitario is subjective.The 16 microsatellite loci detected 150 alleles. Despite the increased number of alleles, the genetic diversity of the Ancient Criollo group observed from microsatellite data was still very low compared with that observed for the Forastero group (Table 8.2). The gene diversity for the Ancient Criollo group was 0.04 in contrast to that for the Forastero group (0.78). Within geographic regions, the gene diversity values for 13 and five individuals from the Peru and Colombia-Ecuador regions were similarly high (0.70). The observed heterozygosity was 0.00 for the Ancient Criollo and 0.34 for Forastero, and other genetic statistics similarly contrasted. Figure 8.3 is the neighbour-joining tree calculated from the shared allele distances (D AS ) (Chakraborty and Jin, 1993). In this tree, Criollo individuals are closer to Colombian-Ecuadorian clones (EBC, LCT) than the latter to some Peruvian or Guyana or Lower Amazon Forastero individuals.In general, the microsatellite markers evidenced the same trends regarding the genetic background   of Modern Criollo and Trinitario as those found using RFLPs. Modern Criollo had equivalent values for population genetic statistics to those obtained for Trinitario group (Table 8.2). The gene diversity for the Modern Criollo group was 0.52 while for the Trinitario group it was 0.50. The observed heterozygosity was 0.61 for Modern Criollo and 0.69 for Forastero.The analyses of RFLPs and of microsatellite markers described here have shed new light on patterns of genetic diversity and genetic relationships within T. cacao L. Both techniques have yielded equivalent results, despite the fact that the number of alleles detected per locus was significantly higher for microsatellite loci than for RFLP loci. It is of interest, then, to ask why our results differ from those of others obtained using RFLPs (Laurent et al., 1994;Lerceteau et al., 1997), or isozymes (Lanaud, 1987;Ronning and Schnell, 1994) or RAPD markers (Figueira et al., 1994;N'Goran et al., 1994;Lerceteau et al., 1997). Both our RFLP and microsatellite analyses clearly distinguished Ancient Criollo individuals from those introgressed with Forastero genes particularly from the Lower Amazon. As mentioned above, previous studies have taken introgressed Criollo individuals (those defined in this study as Modern Criollo) as valid representatives of the Criollo group. The present study is the first that emphasizes this distinction, and it arises from a proper sampling of individuals of each class. In this way, individuals that are classified as Ancient Criollo constitute the true Criollo group; that originally comprising individuals cultivated before the introduction of Forastero clones to cacao plantations, which caused natural hybridization, and subsequently the appearance of Modern Criollo or Trinitario. Thus a sampling that is based on historic data can lead to results and interpretations that more closely approach the likely evolutionary pathways. In this case, sampling based only on germplasm collections led some of the authors to support Cuatrecasas' (1964) theory that Criollo cacao originated in Central America. In contrast, our data are in accord with Cheesman's (1944) hypothesis that South America is the region of origin of this group. De La Cruz et al. (1995) and Whitkus et al. (1998) found a clear distinction between cacao trees from the Lacandon rainforest and 'Criollo' from germplasm collections. These studies used dominant markers and it was not possible to establish the link between what was called wild and what was studied as Criollo. Consequently, their interpretation was that cacao trees from the Lacandon rainforest and from the 'sinkholes' were wild cacao forms from Central America, and completely different from domesticated cacao. Furthermore, contrary to our results obtained they found differentiation between samples from the Lacandon rainforest and those from the sinkholes. Regarding this last result, they proposed that cacao from the 'sinkholes', although 'wild', represented ancient introductions of cacao trees probably from the Lacandon rainforest, which, through isolation, diverged from the source material. Their results also allowed them to support Cuatrecasas ' (1964) hypothesis.For the present study we analysed three different field samplings, of eight individuals from three sinkholes from Yucatan and did not find any genetic difference from nine of the 13 individuals from the Lacandon rainforest in Mexico studied using all markers. All eight individuals showed exactly the same genotype for 25 RFLP and 16 microsatellite loci. Genetic evidence regarding the misclassification of Criollo trees from Central America as wild will be further discussed below. However it should be noted that those from the sinkholes are found in association with Mayan vestiges and also with other species cultivated by the Maya such as mamey (Mammea americana).A very low diversity (Fig. 8.1, Tables 8.1 and 8.2) was found within the Criollo group comprising individuals from the Lacandon rainforest even though they were obtained from distant sites (up to 300 km apart). The Criollo group was proposed to have originated in the Lacandon rainforest where they were supposed to be in the wild state (Miranda, 1962;Cuatrecasas, 1964;Gomez-Pompa et al., 1990;De la Cruz et al., 1995). On one hand, a wild population should exhibit levels of genetic diversity similar to those observed within geographical areas (for example in Peru or Colombia-Ecuador, Table 8.2). On the other hand, we found that cacao from the Lacandon rainforest was identical at the molecular level to individuals putatively cultivated by the Maya (including those found in the sinkholes, on the Pacific Coast of Mexico and Belize) and to individuals today cultivated in South America. Hence, the population consisting of trees found at the Lacandon rainforest should not be considered wild. Furthermore, in the Lacandon rainforest, where material was sampled, vestiges of the Mayan civilization were frequently found. Thus, the presence of Criollo cacao trees in the Lacandon rainforest might be the remnant of cacao cultivation by the Mayan civilization.Our results support Cheesman's (1944) hypothesis that cacao was introduced into Central America and contradict Cuatrecasas's (1964) hypothesis that Criollo is a separate subspecies that had evolved independently from the South American individuals. If this latter were the case, all wild Forastero individuals should form a cluster independent of those individuals from Central America. In contrast Fig. 8.3 shows Criollo individuals closer to Forastero from Colombia and Ecuador than to other Forastero from Guyana or some from Peru. Therefore, the Criollo group is not forming a separate subspecies (cacao) to that comprising individuals from South America (sphaerocarpum). We propose that the Criollo group had a South American origin and a small number of individuals were transported by humans. This led to a genetic bottleneck as an important factor in Criollo differentiation from Forastero individuals.Thus the Criollo group probably originates from a South American population where domestication commenced. But, from where? The South American origin of the Criollo group is controversial because of the lack of evidence of its presence in this region of the continent. Pre-Columbian South American civilizations did not develop such advanced cultures as Maya or Aztec, and did not leave as precise traces of their activities as the latter. However, there exist some historical data that report cacao cultivation at the time of the Conquest and its utilization for beverages and ceremonies by local Indians (Simon, 1882;Febres Cordero, 1892;Altolaguirre y Duvale, 1908;Jahn, 1927;Vazquez de Espinosa, 1948;Arellano Moreno, 1950). These reports concern the south-western region of Venezuela where only Criollo trees are found today. Although archaeological evidence of cacao domestication in South America is lacking, historic and genetic evidence seems to argue for this view.The high morphological diversity found in the Criollo group could be due to mutations in relatively few genes participating in pod morphology, which have been deliberately selected by humans. Indeed, such different pod types as Porcelana and Pentagona (one very rough and the other very smooth) are contrasting. A special human interest could lie in the collection, maintenance and use of these cacao types. For example, Pentagona type has the finest pod cortex, increasing the ratio of beans weight to pod weight and facilitating the extraction of the beans from the fruit. Characteristic traits of Criollo trees such as the sugared pulp of its beans and the fact that it needs a shorter fermentation time, may be prized as a target of human selection through more than 2000 years of cultivation.Two basic conservation strategies, each composed of various techniques, are employed to conserve genetic diversity: in situ and ex situ conservation. Article 2 of the Convention on Biological Diversity provides the following definitions for these categories (UNCED, 1992). Ex situ conservation means the conservation of components of biological diversity outside their natural habitat. In situ conservation means the conservation of ecosystems and natural habitats and the maintenance and recovery of viable populations of species and, in the case of domesticated or cultivated species, in the surroundings where they have developed their distinctive properties.There is an obvious fundamental difference between these two strategies: ex situ conservation involves the sampling, transfer and storage of target taxa from the collecting area, whereas in situ conservation involves the designation, management and monitoring of target taxa where they are encountered (Maxted et al., 1997). Another difference lies with the more dynamic nature of in situ conservation and the more static nature of ex situ conservation. These two basic conservation strategies are further subdivided into specific techniques including seed storage, in vitro storage, DNA storage, pollen storage, field genebank and botanical garden conservation for ex situ, and protected area, on-farm and home garden conservation for in situ, each technique presenting its own advantages and limitations (Engels and Wood, 1999). Ex situ conservation techniques are particularly appropriate for the conservation of crops and their wild relatives, while in situ conservation is especially appropriate for wild species and for landrace material on farm.Until recently, most conservation efforts, apart from work on forest genetic resources, have concentrated on ex situ conservation, particularly seed genebanks. In the 1950s and 1960s, major advances in plant breeding brought about the 'Green Revolution' which resulted in the wide-scale adoption of high-yielding varieties and genetically uniform cultivars of staple crops, particularly wheat and rice. Consequently, global concern about the loss of genetic diversity in these crops increased, as farmers abandoned their locally adapted landraces and traditional varieties, replacing them with improved, yet genetically uniform modern ones. In response to this concern, the International Agricultural Research Centres (IARCs) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) started to assemble germplasm collections of the major crop species within their respective mandates. It is in this context that the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (IBPGR) was established in 1974 to coordinate the global effort to systematically collect and conserve the world's threatened plant genetic diversity.Today, as a result of this global effort, there are over 1300 genebanks and germplasm collections around the world, maintaining an estimated 6,100,000 accessions (FAO, 1996). It is important to mention that these collecting and conservation activities focused largely on the major food crops, including cereals and some legumes, that is, species that can be conserved easily as seed. This has resulted in over-representation of those species in the world's major genebanks, as well as in the fact that conservation strategies and concepts were biased towards such material. It is only more recently that the establishment of field genebanks, allowing conservation of species for which seed conservation is not appropriate or impossible, as well as the development of new storage technologies, including in vitro conservation and cryopreservation, has been given due attention by the international community.In this chapter, we first briefly review the main achievements made and problems faced with ex situ conservation of plant genetic resources. We then present the main areas for research in the development of ex situ conservation technologies and strategies to improve conservation efforts. It is important to mention that only technical and managerial aspects of ex situ conservation are addressed in this chapter, and that organizational and policy aspects have not been taken into consideration.Many of the world's major food plants produce seeds that undergo maturation drying, and are thus tolerant to extensive desiccation and can be stored dry at low temperature. Seeds of this type are termed 'orthodox' (Roberts, 1973). Storage of such orthodox seeds is the most widely practised method of ex situ conservation of plant genetic resources, as indicated in the Report on the State of the World's Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (FAO, 1996), since 90% of the 6.  et al., 1982); principles of seed testing which need to be understood when monitoring the viability of seed accessions maintained in genebanks (Ellis et al., 1985a); methods for removing dormancy and germinating seeds (Ellis et al., 1985b); as well as suitable methods for processing and handling seeds in genebanks (Hanson, 1985). Another technical achievement in the area of orthodox seed conservation concerns the development of the so called 'ultra-dry' seed storage technology (Walters, 1998), which is based on the principle that desiccating seeds to much lower moisture contents than those generally used in standard procedures will allow us to store them for an extended period at room temperature, thereby avoiding the requirement for refrigeration facilities. This technology, along with its achievements and limitations, will be discussed further in another section of this chapter.Seeds are also a convenient form for distributing germplasm to farmers, breeders, scientists and other users. Moreover, since seeds are less likely to carry diseases, in comparison with other plant material, their use for exchange of plant germplasm can facilitate quarantine procedures.In contrast to orthodox seeds, a considerable number of species, predominantly tropical or subtropical in origin, such as coconut, cacao and many forest and fruit tree species, produce seeds which do not undergo maturation drying and are shed at relatively high moisture content (Chin, 1988). Such seeds are unable to withstand desiccation and are often sensitive to chilling. They cannot be maintained under the conventional seed storage conditions described above, that is, storage at low moisture content and low temperature. Seeds of this type are called 'recalcitrant' and have to be kept in moist, relatively warm conditions to maintain viability (Roberts, 1973;Chin and Roberts, 1980).Even when recalcitrant seeds are stored in an optimal manner, their lifespan is limited to weeks, occasionally months. Of more than 7000 species for which information on seed storage behaviour has been published (Hong et al., 1996), approximately 3% are recorded as recalcitrant and an additional 4% as possibly recalcitrant. More recent investigations have identified species exhibiting 'intermediate' storage behaviour. While such seeds can tolerate desiccation to fairly low moisture contents, once dried, they become particularly susceptible to injury caused by low temperature (Ellis et al., 1990(Ellis et al., , 1991)). Even though a continuum in desiccation sensitivity is observed within the intermediate seed storage category, from highly desiccation sensitive to relatively tolerant (Berjak and Pammenter, 1994), the storage life of intermediate seeds can be prolonged by further drying, but it remains impossible to achieve the longterm conservation of orthodox seeds. About 1% of the aforementioned 7000 species studied and included in the Compendium on Seed Storage Behaviour are reported as producing intermediate seeds and another 1% have been characterized as possibly intermediate (Hong et al., 1996). Included in this category are some economically important species such as coffee, citrus, rubber, oil palm and many tropical forest tree species.It should be noted that the percentages of intermediate and recalcitrant seed producing species cited above are likely to be largely underestimated. These figures are based on scientific and technical publications, which, by default, concern mainly temperate species. In addition, it can be expected that a large proportion of the species for which no information is available, which are predominantly from tropical or subtropical origin, exhibit recalcitrant, or to a lesser extent intermediate seed storage behaviour. As an example, it has been estimated that more than 70% of tree species in tropical forest ecosystems have recalcitrant seeds (Ouédraogo et al., 1999).There are other species for which conservation as seed is problematic. Firstly, there are those that do not produce seeds at all and, consequently, are propagated vegetatively, for example banana and plantain (Musa spp.). Secondly, there are crops such as potato (Solanum tuberosum), other root and tuber crops such as yams (Dioscorea spp.), cassava (Manihot esculenta) and sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), and sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) that have either some sterile genotypes and/or some that produce orthodox seed. However, these seeds are highly heterozygous and, therefore, of limited utility for the conservation of particular genotypes. These crops are usually propagated vegetatively to maintain genotypes as clones (Simmonds, 1982).Traditionally, the field genebank has been the ex situ storage method of choice for the aforementioned 'problem materials'. According to the Report on the State of the World's Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (FAO, 1996), around 527,000 accessions are maintained in field genebanks. In some ways, this method offers a satisfactory approach to conservation. The genetic resources under conservation can be readily accessed and observed, thus permitting detailed evaluation. However, there are certain drawbacks that limit its efficiency and threaten its security (Withers and Engels, 1990;Engelmann, 1997). The genetic resources are exposed to pests, diseases and other natural hazards such as drought, weather damage, human error and vandalism. In addition, they are not in a condition that is readily conducive to germplasm exchange because of the great risks of disease transfer through the exchange of vegetative material. Field genebanks are costly to maintain and, as a consequence, are prone to economic decisions that may limit the level of replication of accessions, the quality of maintenance and even their survival in times of economic stringency. Even under the best circumstances, field genebanks require considerable inputs in the form of land (often needing multiple sites to allow for rotation), labour, management and materials and, in addition, their capacity to ensure the maintenance of much diversity is limited.Tissue culture techniques are of great interest for the collection, multiplication and storage of plant germplasm (Engelmann, 1997). For the collection of species that produce recalcitrant seeds, and of vegetatively propagated material, techniques have been developed which enable a collector to introduce the material in vitro, under aseptic conditions, directly in the field (Withers, 1995). This approach will allow germplasm collections to be made in remote areas (e.g. in the case of highly recalcitrant cacao seeds), or when the transport of the collected fruits would become prohibitively expensive (e.g. collecting coconut germplasm). Also in cases where the target species does not have seeds or other storage organs to be collected, or when budwood would quickly lose viability or is highly contami-nated, the establishment of aseptic cultures in the field will facilitate collecting and improve its efficiency. Tissue culture systems allow propagation of plant material with high multiplication rates in an aseptic environment. During the last 30 years, in vitro propagation techniques, mainly based on micropropagation and somatic embryogenesis have been extensively developed and applied to well over 1000 different species (George, 1993a, b). Virusfree plants can be obtained through meristem culture in combination with thermotherapy, thus ensuring the production of disease-free stocks and simplifying quarantine procedures for the international exchange of germplasm. The miniaturization of explants allows a reduction in space requirements and consequently labour costs for the maintenance of germplasm collections (Ashmore, 1997).Different in vitro conservation methods are employed, depending on the storage duration required (Engelmann, 1997;Withers and Engelmann, 1998). For short-and medium-term storage, various techniques have been devised that allow reduction of growth and increase the intervals between subcultures. In vitro conservation techniques using slow growth storage have been developed for a wide range of species, including temperate woody plants, fruit trees, horticultural species, as well as numerous tropical species. However, despite the availability of such techniques, the Report on the State of the World's Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (FAO, 1996) indicates that only around 38,000 accessions are conserved in vitro worldwide, because many conservation programmes are unable to meet requirements for relatively sophisticated equipment, reliable electricity supply and trained staff. In addition, only a limited amount of genetic diversity can be maintained in vitro. Slow growth storage is used routinely in a limited number of national, regional and international germplasm conservation centres with a few species including banana, some root and tuber crops, and temperate fruits (Engelmann, 1999a).For long-term storage, cryopreservation, that is storage at ultra-low temperature, usually that of liquid nitrogen (Ϫ196°C), is employed. At this temperature, all cellular divisions and metabolic processes are stopped. The plant material can thus be stored without alteration or modification for a theoretically unlimited period of time. Moreover, cultures are stored in a small volume, are protected from contamination, and require very limited maintenance. It is essential to recognize that, due to the various problems and limitations encountered with both protected areas and field genebanks (Withers and Engels, 1990;Maxted et al., 1997), cryopreservation currently offers the only safe and cost-effective option for the long-term conservation of genetic resources of problem species.Concerning in vitro cultured material, cryopreservation protocols are now available for cell suspensions, calli, apices, zygotic and somatic embryos of several hundreds of species of temperate and tropical origin (Kartha and Engelmann, 1994;Engelmann, 1997;Engelmann and Dussert, 2000). Most of this work has been performed within the framework of academic studies and has involved only one or a few genotypes. However, due to the development in the last 3-4 years of new cryopreservation procedures for apices and embryos (encapsulation-desiccation, desiccation, pregrowth-desiccation and vitrification), reports involving a larger number of genotypes/varieties are becoming more frequent (Benson, 1999;Engelmann and Takagi, 2000). These new freezing procedures generally lead to satisfactory survival rates with a wide range of genotypes using the same technique. There is an increasing number of cases where techniques can be considered operational on a routine and large-scale basis. However, cryopreservation is significantly more advanced for vegetatively propagated crops than for recalcitrant seed species (Engelmann, 1999b). In general, there is only a limited number of cases where cryopreservation is currently used in a genetic resources conservation context. Examples include in vitro shoot tips of potato, cassava, Musa and pear (Schäfer-Menuhr et al., 1997;Escobar et al., 2000;Panis et al., 2000;Reed, 2000), seeds of some short-lived or endangered orthodox species (Stanwood, 1985), dormant buds of various tree species (Sakai, 1995), and pollen of some horticultural species (Ganeshan and Rajashekaran, 2000).No comprehensive, independent review of genebank facilities has been made to date, except for that performed recently in the genebanks of the centres of the CGIAR (SGRP, 1996). However, it is evident that a limited number of genebanks operate at very high standards, whereas many others are at present only capable of performing the basic conservation role of a genebank to a limited extent (FAO, 1996). The main difficulties faced by those genebanks are due to a number of factors, including inadequacy of existing infrastructures, lack of adequate equipment such as cooling units, seed drying and cleaning devices, unreliability of electricity supply, funding and staffing constraints, and inadequate management practices. As a result, seeds are often stored under sub-optimal conditions and need to be regenerated more frequently, thus imposing additional costs on the, often, already insufficient operating budgets of the genebanks. Very important difficulties faced in particular with the regeneration of the seed collections have been mentioned by many countries in the Report on the State of the World's Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (FAO, 1996).In both seed and field genebanks, the technologies for storing germplasm samples are relatively easy to apply under most operational circumstances. The problems relate more to resource constraints that affect the performance of essential operations. This is critical in the case of core activities, of maintaining the viability and genetic integrity of the stored accessions, as well as sufficient stocks, to meet user demands (Engels, 2001). Furthermore, budgets for activities of a public nature such as conservation are permanently shrinking and, consequently, the importance of efficient and cost-effective genebank management has increased over the years and has become a decisive element in the long-term ex situ conservation of plant genetic resources.Other important aspects of genebank operations concern the characterization and documentation of germplasm. Characterization descriptors concern the highly heritable characters that are independent of the environment; for example taxonomic characters, in contrast to evaluation descriptors that relate mainly to traits of agronomic importance that are often highly environment-or method-specific. Characterization of accessions provides essential information for genebank management as well as for plant breeding. The extent to which germplasm collections have been characterized varies widely between genebanks and species (FAO, 1996), but is far from complete in many instances. A study performed in 1987 by Plucknett et al. estimated that 80 to 95% of the world collections lacked characterization or evaluation data. This situation has not substantially improved since that time and has led to a limited use of ex situ conserved germplasm.As regards the extent to which ex situ accessions are documented, the situation is highly contrasted (FAO, 1996). Some, mainly developed, countries have fully computerized documentation systems and relatively complete accession data, while many others lack information on the accessions in their collections, including the so-called passport data. Another important aspect at the global level is the lack of integrated, compatible systems that would allow for easy exchange of information.Priorities for research should focus on improving our understanding of relevant biological mechanisms directly related to conservation as well as on developing improved conservation techniques. Fundamental research includes studies on seed desiccation sensitivity and recalcitrance, on the determination of critical seed moisture content and its interaction with temperature. Technologies for conserving seed, tissue and other plant parts need further development and particular attention should be given to the problem species identified previously, that is, those which produce recalcitrant or intermediate seeds. In addition, several research topics for orthodox seed conservation have been identified and are treated below.Determining critical seed moisture contentThe preferred conditions recommended for longterm seed storage are 3-7% moisture content, depending on the species, at Ϫ18°C or lower (FAO and IPGRI, 1994). In the late 1980s, research was initiated to investigate the effects of very low moisture content on seed longevity, based on the assumption that further reduction in moisture content would have a beneficial effect on seed longevity. One of the aims of such research was the prospect of developing 'low-input' alternatives to medium-to long-term cold storage of seed germplasm through its storage at room temperature (i.e. ultra-dry storage). However, it was demonstrated that drying seeds beyond a critical moisture content provided no additional benefit to longevity and may even accelerate seed ageing rates (Ellis et al., 1988;Vertucci and Roos, 1993). Further research on the determination of optimal seed moisture content led to a debate regarding the various parameters involved (Walters and Engels, 1998). In particular, questions were raised with regard to the critical relative humidity, storage temperature and their interaction, as well as the consequences of equilibrating seeds to levels of relative humidity lower than the critical level. The latter was prompted by the finding that the optimal seed moisture content increased as the storage temperature was lowered, suggesting that there may be a danger of actually over-drying seed (Vertucci and Roos, 1993).A collaborative research project involving the National Seed Storage Laboratory at Fort Collins (USA), the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) at Hyderabad, India, and the Institute of Crop Germplasm Resources of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), Beijing, was thus initiated to investigate several aspects related to the interaction between storage temperature and optimal seed moisture content for lettuce seed as a model. Seeds at moisture contents between 0.0 and 0.10 g H 2 O g Ϫ1 dw (i.e. 0 to 9% moisture content, fresh weight basis) were stored at Ϫ18°C, 20, 35 and 50°C. After more than 3 years of storage, it appeared that seeds stored at 50°C showed deterioration for all water contents, but ageing was slowest in seeds with water contents lower than 0.018 g H 2 O g Ϫ1 dw (i.e. 1.77% moisture content, fwb) (Rao et al., 1999). This suggests that a critical water content exists at this or a lower water content. Seeds stored at 35°C showed an optimal water content between 0.020 and 0.035 g H 2 O g Ϫ1 dw (i.e. between 1.9 and 3.4% moisture content, fwb). At 20°C, the optimal water content lay between 0.019 and 0.055 g H 2 O g Ϫ1 dw (1.8 and 5.2% moisture content, fwb). From these results, it can be concluded that the optimal water content for storing lettuce seeds at room temperature, that is, around 25°C in tropical countries, lies somewhere between 0.019 and 0.055 g H 2 O g Ϫ1 dw (1.8 and 5.2% moisture content, fwb). The former moisture content is lower than those typically used in conventional conservation practices. These values will be made progressively more accurate as the storage experiment progresses. However, storage at Ϫ20°C (at either moisture content) was far superior to storage at 20°C, since no deterioration was observed after more than 3 years of storage.Various research projects have focused on the development of the ultra-dry seed technology, which would allow the storage of seed germplasm at room temperature, without the need for refrigeration equipment.  (Hay and Probert, 2000), vacuum drying or freeze drying (Côme, 1983) and on its applicability to a broader number of species should therefore be continued.The viability of conserved accessions depends on their initial quality and how they have been processed for storage, as well as on the actual storage conditions. In the case of seed, there is evidence that a very small decrease in initial viability can mean a substantial reduction in storage life. This effect needs further investigation and quantification. To date, relatively little attention has been given to the handling of germplasm in the field during regeneration and during subsequent processing stages prior to its arrival at the genebank.Poor practices during these initial stages may be jeopardizing the effort and expense made on providing optimum conditions for the storage of the germplasm. Factors that affect initial viability include, among others, the growing conditions, disease status and time of harvest of the plants. Kameswara Rao and Jackson (1996) demonstrated that seeds of three japonica rice cultivars that were produced in cooler environments had a relatively higher potential longevity. Maximum potential seed longevity of these rice cultivars coincided with mass maturity and did not decline afterwards. In contrast, experiments performed with seeds of barley, pepper and tomato indicated that maximum potential longevity was not attained until some time after mass maturity (Ellis et al., 1993). In barley, potential longevity declined after the maximum had been achieved, whereas in pepper and tomato, no substantial decline in potential longevity was detected after the maximum had been attained. Further research should also be aimed at optimizing the growing conditions and minimizing the detrimental effects of diseases. This requires comparative investigation of the effects of seed-borne diseases and seed treatments on viability and genetic stability during storage as well as on subsequent growing out of plants (Kaiser and Hannan, 1986).Monitoring the viability of collections during storage necessitates regular germination tests that require a substantial amount of seeds of valuable germplasm. Research into non-destructive methods of measuring viability, explored the use of triphenyl tetrazolium chloride (TTC) to detect viability loss and seed leachate conductivity as an indicator of membrane damage and seed degeneration. Reports indicate that measures of seed vigour might be earlier indicators of seed deterioration than viability (E. Roos, Colorado, personal communication). This is an important aspect for further investigation since retaining the genetic integrity of the stored sample depends on early detection of seed deterioration and adequate regeneration of the sample. For example, undetected death in part of an accession can induce genetic shift.A number of processes or mechanisms have been suggested to confer, or contribute to, desiccation tolerance (see Pammenter and Berjak, 1999, for a review). Different processes may confer protection against the consequences of loss of water at different hydration levels, and the absence, or ineffective expression, of one or more of these could determine the relative degree of desiccation sensitivity of seeds of individual species. The mechanisms that have been implicated to date include intracellular physical characteristics such as the amount of insoluble reserves accumulated and the degree of vacuolation; intracellular de-differentiation; 'switching-off ' of metabolism; presence and efficient operation of antioxidant systems; accumulation of putatively protective molecules such as late embryogenic abundant proteins and various sugars; development of certain amphipathic molecules; an effective peripheral oleosin layer around lipid bodies; and the presence and operation of repair mechanisms during rehydration. It is likely that additional mechanisms will be identified in time. This information has been gathered from a number of independent studies performed on different materials. A comprehensive research programme incorporating all the above elements, focused on a well-identified biological model, such as coffee, which includes species with a wide range of desiccation sensitivities (Dussert et al., 1998), would allow us to make significant progress in the understanding of recalcitrance.There  (Hawkes, 1980) as experimented with Symphonia globulifera and Dryobalanops aromatica (Corbineau and Côme, 1986;Marzalina et al., 1992).For long-term storage, it is clear that cryopreservation, often coupled with in vitro culture, represents the only option. With some species such as tea, mahogany, neem or coffee, seeds are relatively small and tolerant to desiccation, and can thus be cryopreserved directly after partial desiccation under the laminar flow (Hu et al., 1994;Marzalina, 1995;Berjak and Dumet, 1996;Dussert et al., 1997). With other species which are more desiccation sensitive, very precisely controlled desiccation and cooling conditions may also allow freezing of whole seeds, as demonstrated recently with several coffee species (Dussert et al., 1998).In cases where seeds are not amenable to cryopreservation, excised embryos or embryonic axes should be used. The desiccation technique has been employed preferentially for freezing such materials and there is scope for various technical improvements in the current cryopreservation protocols. Pre-growth of embryos on media containing cryoprotective substances may confer tissues with increased tolerance to further desiccation and reduce the heterogeneity of the material. Berjak and co-workers have demonstrated that flash drying, followed by ultra-rapid freezing has been very effective for cryopreservation of several species such as Landolphia kirkii and tea (Berjak et al., 1989;Wesley-Smith et al., 1992). The hypothesis of these researchers is that very rapid dehydration imposes a stasis on metabolism and precludes the deleterious reactions that would take place under lower desiccation rates and that ultra-rapid freezing induces vitrification of internal solutes or the formation of ice crystals too small to disrupt cellular integrity. Even though some species have proven far too desiccation sensitive to be cryopreserved this way (Pammenter et al., 1993), this is a potentially interesting approach which deserves further research and experimentation with additional species. Other cryopreservation techniques, including pregrowthdesiccation, encapsulation-dehydration and vitrification, which have been seldom employed so far, should be tested (Engelmann, 1997). Finally, it should be emphasized that selecting embryos at the right developmental stage, which will vary from one species to the other, is of critical importance for the success of any cryopreservation experiment (Engelmann et al., 1995). However, in the above cases, basic protocols for disinfection, inoculation in vitro, germination of embryos or embryonic axes, plantlet development, and possibly limited propagation will have to be established prior to any cryopreservation experiment.With species for which attempts to freeze whole embryos or embryonic axes have proven unsuccessful, various authors have suggested using shoot apices sampled from embryos, adventitious buds or somatic embryos induced from embryonic tissues (Pence, 1995;Berjak et al., 1996). This might be the only solution for those species that do not have well-defined embryos but this will require that more sophisticated tissue culture procedures are developed and mastered. In addition to these technical difficulties, using adventitious explants would reduce the range of genetic variability captured (Pence, 1995;Berjak et al., 1996), especially when using somatic embryogenesis, since response to inducing treatments is generally highly genotypespecific and somatic embryo cultures might be obtained from a limited number of genotypes only. In cases where apices are employed, it might be more practical and efficient to sample them on in vitro plantlets rather than on embryos to reduce the risks of contamination and to use more homogeneous material. Finally, cryopreservation of pollen may represent an additional option for genetic resource conservation of difficult material (Towill and Walters, 2000).Pollen usually has a relatively short viability when conserved under classical storage conditions (partial desiccation followed by storage at sub-zero temperature), and has therefore been used only to a limited extent in germplasm conservation (Hoekstra, 1995). However, long-term storage of pollen is feasible using cryopreservation (Towill and Walters, 2000). Cryogenic procedures have been established for pollen of a large number of species, including mainly desiccation-tolerant pollen but also several desiccation-sensitive ones (Hanna and Towill, 1995). Cryopreserved collections of pollen have already been established for several crops, including horticultural and fruit tree species (Ganeshan and Rajashekaran, 2000).Despite these recent successes using pollen for conservation purposes, several disadvantages of pollen storage should be mentioned. The small amount produced by many species; the lack of transmission of organelle genomes via pollen; the loss of sex-linked genes in dioecious species; and the limited plant regeneration capacity are the most important ones. While considering the advantages and disadvantages of pollen conservation, it can be concluded that storing pollen, in addition to other materials, is useful in the framework of the establishment of complementary conservation strategies (Withers, 1991), and is of special interest for species that produce recalcitrant seeds. This is particularly relevant since there is no correlation between seed storage behaviour for a given species and the desiccation sensitivity of its pollen (Hoekstra, 1995). Furthermore, transfer of pests and diseases through pollen is rare (except for some virus diseases), thus allowing the safe movement and exchange of germplasm in the form of pollen.DNA storage is rapidly increasing in importance. DNA from the nucleus, mitochondrion and chloroplasts are now routinely extracted and immobilized into nitro-cellulose sheets where the DNA can be probed with numerous cloned genes. With the development of PCR one can now routinely amplify specific oligonucleotides or genes from the entire mixture of genomic DNA. These advances have led to the formation of an international network of DNA repositories for the storage of genomic DNA (Adams, 1997). The advantage of this technique is that it is efficient and simple and overcomes physical limitations or constraints. The disadvantage lies in problems with subsequent gene isolation, cloning and transfer (Maxted et al., 1997).The objective of any genebank management procedure is to maintain genetic integrity and viability of the accessions during conservation and to assure their accessibility for use in adequate quantity and quality at the lowest possible cost. As already mentioned in this chapter, genebanks very often face financial constraints that hamper their efficient operation. It is therefore very important to improve genebank management procedures to make them more efficient and cost-effective. Another important problem is that the existing concepts and procedures are biased towards conservation of orthodox seeds, and therefore are often not adapted to the conservation of recalcitrant seed and vegetatively propagated species. Finally, new technologies including in vitro culture and conservation, cryopreservation, molecular techniques, data processing software and multimedia communication technology have been developed over recent years, and they should be integrated to the extent possible, when relevant, in genebank management procedures. Special attention should be given to the development of appropriate techniques for genebanks in developing countries where specialized equipment is frequently lacking and resources are usually limited. The following section examines how these new factors might modify some important genebank management procedures and concepts.In vitro collecting procedures, which have been established for a number of recalcitrant and vegetatively propagated species, allow improvement of the efficiency of collecting missions (Withers, 1995).They should be used more systematically for collecting germplasm of relevant species. With this aim, IPGRI is preparing a technical bulletin on the utilization of in vitro collecting techniques (Pence et al., 2000). An understanding of the extent and distribution of diversity within a population is essential for effective sampling. The use of molecular techniques in studying genetic diversity has contributed to a better understanding of the genetic diversity of numerous species. Ecogeographic surveys provide information on species distribution as well as intraspecific diversity. IPGRI is preparing a technical bulletin on ecogeographic surveys for wild species (Guarino et al., 2000). Molecular techniques can be applied during such surveys for a proper assessment of the genetic diversity patterns, which would then permit a more effective sampling of a particular region (Rao and Riley, 1994).Molecular techniques have very important applications for the characterization and evaluation of plant genetic resources, to complement the morphological and biochemical descriptors used classically. More specifically, these techniques can be used for identifying genotypes, including duplicate accessions; fingerprinting genotypes; analysing genetic diversity in collections; and assembling a core collection. More details on the various techniques available and on their applicability for various purposes can be found in two publications on the use of molecular techniques for plant genetic resources (Ayad et al., 1997;Karp et al., 1997).Regeneration procedures carry risks that may compromise the genetic integrity of the samples. Some of these risks are inherent in the sample selection procedures followed, including the consequences of the size of the population grown out. Other risks include the effects of diseases, pests and abiotic stresses that regenerated samples may be exposed to. Therefore, collections must be managed with the aim of minimizing the frequency of regeneration. Development of appropriate strategies towards this end is recognized as a priority area for continued investigation. In addition, further research is needed in order to evaluate the level and causes of genetic shift and drift during regeneration. Improvement of cultivation procedures is also necessary in order to minimize the risks of such genetic changes, including enhancement of pollination, reduction of plant competition and determination of optimal population sizes. Guidelines aiming at facilitating the development of optimum procedures for regeneration of seed germplasm have been developed (Sackville Hamilton and Chorlton, 1997).The number of accessions in a genebank has a direct impact on operational costs. The number of accessions can be reduced by lumping or discarding accessions. Splitting accessions will increase the number of accessions but may also facilitate their management and improve the quality of genebank operations. However, before taking such decisions, their impact at the genetic, operational and economic levels should be carefully evaluated (van Hintum et al.,Chapter 11,this volume).In the case of in vitro collections, the management problems relate to slow growth storage where maintaining the genetic stability of the cultures and minimizing the workload of subculturing, are objectives. The procedures worked out for managing cassava under slow growth (IPGRI/ CIAT, 1994) need to be expanded to other collections of cassava and downstreamed for wider application to other species. Towards this aim, IPGRI is currently preparing guidelines that will assist genebank curators in the management of field and in vitro germplasm collections (Reed et al., 2000). Some of the important managerial issues addressed in this document concern the need for safety duplication of the collections and for the establishment of linkages between field and in vitro collections. Important considerations for a wider application of in vitro culture techniques to conservation of plant genetic resources will be the reproducibility and flexibility of procedures, and experiments should be performed to test these parameters. Some crops, such as banana, plantain and sugarcane, are prone to somaclonal variation, and this phenomenon is accentuated when the material is grown in vitro. It is therefore essential to develop tools allowing detection of somaclonal variants in the germplasm collections at the earliest stage possible. With this aim, specific molecular probes may be designed and used to screen the in vitro collections, as envisaged for Musa (Côte et al., 1993;Damasco et al., 1996).Besides efficiency considerations of where to store germplasm accessions and under which conditions, genebank curators might want to compose subsets of accessions from a given collection to promote their utilization. Whether a genebank needs to focus on specific traits rather than on neutral properties will depend on the needs of potential users and their assessment will require adequate interaction. In this context, the establishment of core collections will be a powerful tool for efficient and cost-effective germplasm collection management (Hodgkin et al., 1995;Johnson and Hodgkin, 1999). Other aspects of how collection management can contribute to improved use of germplasm accessions can be found in Engels (2001).Germplasm health problems affect the collection, conservation, utilization and distribution of plant genetic resources and are thus among the critical constraints to the management of plant germplasm collections. Although many genebanks have plant protection specialists, their activities are generally linked to plant breeding and crop protection and not necessarily to germplasm management. It is therefore very important to better integrate germplasm health aspects, including new biotechnological tools for detection, indexing and eradication of pathogens in routine genebank operations. IPGRI is currently preparing technical guidelines to facilitate this process (Morales, unpublished).With the increased impact of globalization and of the political importance of plant genetic resources the role and importance of information on germplasm has grown dramatically. In fact, the biological material itself is of limited use without the corresponding information that has, in turn, increased the need for more substantial documentation. Most of the above-mentioned routine genebank operations generate information that is key to the efficient functioning of the genebank and safe and efficient conservation. Many genebanks have computerized documentation systems, which greatly facilitate the storage and maintenance of data, as well as their retrieval. Most systems can also be used for the processing and analysis of the data and, thus, be instrumental in facilitating routine operations. A helpful overview of the various aspects of genebank documentation can be found in the Guidebook for Genetic Resources Documentation (Painting et al., 1993). The descriptor lists, developed and produced by IPGRI, are a principal tool to assist curators to better document their collections and to contribute to a better standardization of the resulting information.When the optimum seed moisture content is known, and the seeds have been packaged, they should be stored at the best available temperature. The Genebank Standards recommends a preferred temperature of Ϫ18°C or below for the storage of base collections (FAO and IPGRI, 1994). Temperatures above zero are acceptable for active collections. This two-tiered storage concept of the base collection for long-term storage and active collection for accessions which are frequently used, is largely based on experience with the storage of orthodox cereal seeds, and needs to be adapted to non-orthodox and vegetatively propagated species. It is further based on the assumption that there will be a considerable turnover of germplasm stored in the active collection. These assumptions and conditions might not always apply and/or the genebank might not have two or more storage rooms operating at different temperatures.A recent analysis of this storage concept concluded that it might be more cost-effective for genebanks to store only those accessions in the active collection which are actually being used by breeders or other users (N.R. Sackville Hamilton, J.M.M. Engels and Th.J.L van Hintum, unpublished). This would justify the maintenance of subsamples of the same accession in a separate room under less stringent conditions. In this same analysis the concept of the 'most original sample' (MOS) has been introduced. An MOS consists of seeds of a given accession that have undergone the lowest number of regenerations since the material was collected or donated to the genebank. It is recommended that the MOS is stored under the best possible conditions, never used for distribution purposes, and stored in the genebank that has accepted national or global responsibilities for its conservation. The minimum sample size of the MOS should be determined by the amount of seed required to regenerate the MOS, the seed required for viability testing, and that needed to regenerate material for distribution. For additional security reasons a second, but smaller sub-sample of the same material (the 'secondary MOS') should be stored at a distant genebank as a back-up. This sample should be maintained under a black-box arrangement and stored under conditions which are at least as good as those used for the primary MOS.In this chapter, we have presented the main achievements in and problems with the ex situ conservation of plant genetic resources, and identified the main priorities to improve the conservation and management of germplasm collections. During recent years, dramatic progress has been made with the development of new conservation techniques for non-orthodox and vegetatively propagated species, and the current ex situ conservation concepts should be modified accordingly to accommodate these technological advances. The incorporation of other techniques, such as molecular marker technologies in genebank operational procedures, should have a positive impact on the efficiency, security and cost-effectiveness of ex situ conservation and utilization of plant genetic resources.Considering the fact that the requirements for optimal conservation vary from species to species, as well as the available infrastructural and human resources, it is important to consider all these aspects as well as the wider socio-economic conditions under which a given conservation effort takes place when deciding how to optimize these parameters into the conservation strategy. It is now well recognized that an appropriate conservation strategy for a particular plant genepool requires a holistic approach, combining the different ex situ and in situ conservation techniques available in a complementary manner. In situ and ex situ methods, including a range of techniques for the latter, are options available for the different genepool elements (i.e. cultivated species, including landraces and modern varieties, wild relatives, weedy types, etc.). Selection of the appropriate method should be based on a range of criteria, including the biological nature of the species in question, practicality and feasibility of the particular method chosen (which depends on the availability of the necessary infrastructure) as well as the cost-effectiveness and security afforded by its application (Maxted et al., 1997). Considerations of complementarity with respect to the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the various conservation methods chosen are also important. In many instances, the development of appropriate complementary conservation strategies requires further research to define the criteria, refine the method and test its application for a range of genepools and situations. An important area in this is the linkage between in situ and ex situ components of the strategy, especially with respect to the dynamic nature of the former and the static, but potentially more secure approach, of the latter.Such research can be effectively carried out through collaborative studies, involving fundamental and applied research organizations within countries as well as through close cooperation with international institutions concerned with conservation research. In particular, the establishment of research networks can be an efficient way to cope with the enormous range of plant species on which little or no information is available.There are several options available as conservation strategies, which generally fall into two categories, in situ and ex situ. The Convention on Biological Diversity directs attention to ex situ storage in Article 9 of the Convention (Lesser, 1998) to:• adopt measures for the ex situ conservation of components of biological diversity, preferably in countries of origin of such components; and • establish and maintain facilities for ex situ conservation of, and research on plants, animals and microorganisms, preferably in countries of origin of genetic resources.The Global Plan of Action (GPA) (FAO, 1996) states that conservation could be better achieved by placing more emphasis on a smaller number of quality facilities. This would in turn reduce costs, increase efficiency, and free other facilities and funds for the purpose of developing plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA). The GPA recommends strengthening of regional and international facilities, and the drafting of appropriate legal agreements, which would enable countries to place collections within them without compromising their access to, or control and ownership of materials. The Plan emphasizes the need for international and regional cooperation on a wide range of interrelated issues including access, conservation, utilization and benefit sharing. This cooperation is essential as no country is independent in terms of PGRFA needed to sustain and improve its major crops. The majority of Pacific Island crops are vegetatively propagated and therefore lend themselves to conservation in field genebanks. This has been the preferred method of conservation over the last 20 years. Papua New Guinea has been the focus of many collecting missions because of its diversity (6% of the world's diversity), resulting in field collections of banana, yam, taro and cassava. In many cases, these collections no longer exist, and where collections are still being maintained, accessions have been lost. Losses have been largely due to insufficient resources, a factor aggravated by pests and diseases, and climatic problems. In particular, field genebanks are notorious for their demands on labour and other resources; the secure maintenance of accessions is dependent on constant vigilance and upkeep. In many of the Pacific Island countries, these resources are quite limited to the extent that a member of staff often has multiple responsibilities. Furthermore, funds are often scarce, and conservation is rarely a high priority. On some of the smaller islands suitable land is also a limiting factor.Pest and disease problems, too, can cause major disasters. In the early 1990s taro leaf blight caused by Phytophthora colocasiae, wiped out all of the local varieties of taro in Samoa, and destroyed a very valuable export market. A field collection in the Solomon Islands is currently under severe pressure from a fatal viral disease. Yam collections in the Pacific Island region commonly suffer from anthracnose disease, which leads to the loss of accessions. Climatic conditions in the Pacific Island region can be extreme; drought, flooding and cyclones are relatively common events, with obvious consequences for the security of field collections. These problems are likely to occur with any national germplasm collection, whether maintained in vivo or in vitro. Some of the countries do have tissue culture laboratories but again resources are limited and so the most these laboratories can do is to multiply elite material for distribution to growers.The fragmented nature of the region lends itself, however, to regional strategies, and conservation is one such activity where regional policies and practices would seem to be the best option. If individual countries do not have the resources for germplasm conservation, then it is best carried out on a regional basis. This becomes even more logical when one considers the commonality of the major crops: taro, yam, banana, sweet potato and cassava. Furthermore, many of the varieties are also the same, but exist under different names in different countries. Therefore, when considering the resources within the region, it seemed logical to pool these resources, and establish a regional centre for conservation of the region's germplasm. Regional genebanks have been established in various parts of the world: for example, in Lusaka, Zambia, the SADC Plant Genetic Resources Centre (SPGRC) established under the auspices of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and the Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Ensenañza (CATIE) for Central American countries, in Turrialba, Costa Rica. These genebanks have been set up as collaborative ventures between a number of countries in the same geographical region to conserve the germplasm from that region, and to support research.The need to conserve and the recognition of the importance of regional cooperation in the conservation of plant genetic resources in the Pacific Island region was acknowledged by the Ministers of Agriculture for six Pacific Island countries at a regional meeting held in Fiji in 1996. They endorsed a resolution that recognized the links to equitable sharing of benefits, and the need for regional policies. Prior to the establishment of the Regional Germplasm Centre (RGC) in Fiji there already was a general consensus on the need to conserve genetic resources within a regional framework. The question then arose concerning the preferred method of conservation. Ideally, no one method should exist in isolation, and conservation strategies should be considered as complementary. Whichever strategies are chosen, a clear and well-organized management system must ensure that linkages between the components of the conservation and use programme are maintained. However, the resources available often dictate what the conservation strategy will be.Regional field genebanks may be cumbersome and suffer from the same problems as national collections. Since seed storage for Pacific Island crops is either impossible or has very limited application, a regional approach using in vitro conservation seemed to offer the most sustainable and cost-effective strategy for safeguarding genetic resources. Under a European Union (EU)-funded project (Pacific Regional Agricultural Programme), a regional tissue culture unit was established at the University of the South Pacific in Samoa in the late 1980s. This unit successfully conserved collections of taro, sweet potato, banana, cassava and yams for 10 years, and so experience in the region with in vitro conservation was positive. One advantage from in vitro conservation is access to pathogen-tested germplasm, which is easily distributed as tissue culture plantlets among countries. Access to virus-indexed germplasm is extremely important in a region that is composed of many islands, each with its own strict quarantine regulations. The existence of a regional centre maintaining pathogen-tested tissue-cultured germplasm therefore supports distribution and utilization, as well as being the best option for conservation.These were the issues that were considered when the concept of an RGC was under discussion. In attempting to find the solution to all of the problems surrounding plant genetic resources conservation in the Pacific Island region, an RGC was seen as the most practical and viable solution where the region's germplasm would be maintained as pathogen-tested tissue cultures. In addition, such a centre would facilitate crop improvement through enabling distribution of pathogen-tested improved cultivars.The RGC was officially opened in March 1999. Funding for the establishment of the Centre came from the Australian government through AusAID and Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) projects, and from the EU through the Pacific Regional Agricultural Programme. The RGC is presently being supported by funds from different projects which operate in the Centre. The EU supports the Plant Protection Service (PPS) within the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), and the RGC operates within the PPS. In addition, there is support from AusAID through the Taro Genetic Resources project (TaroGen), and from the EU through the South Pacific Yam Network (SPYN) project.The important food crops of the Pacific Island region are taro, yam, sweet potato, cassava and bananas. However, the number of varieties in each country varies, with relatively few in some of the Polynesian countries such as Samoa and Tonga. There are significantly larger numbers in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. For example, the taro collections recently established by TaroGen in these two countries number 900 and 700, respectively. SPC has 22 member countries and therefore the RGC has to offer genetic resources conservation to all these member countries. As the RGC has a capacity for some 5000 accessions there is an obvious need to rationalize collections and develop appropriate conservation strategies. So although the conservation of genetic resources through a regional centre allows pooling of resources, there is still a need to be economical. Simply maintaining the collections in vitro could put a strain on these resources through the management of large in vitro collections held under standard conditions. Therefore in conserving the region's genetic resources, both the numbers of samples for conservation and the in vitro techniques require consideration. With standard in vitro conditions, subculturing occurs at relatively frequent intervals. At each subculture stage, there is the risk of losing material either through contamination or human error or both. There is also the question of genetic integrity, which can be lost when plant material is in culture for long periods of time. With these issues in mind, it was decided that the RGC would utilize slow growth for short-and medium-term storage and, where possible, cryopreservation for long-term storage.There also was the issue of numbers of samples. With the TaroGen project a total of 2500 taro accessions have been collected. To date no duplicate samples have been identified and none eliminated. But even when this eventually occurs, the total number of accessions in the taro collection will still be high. For this reason it was decided to establish a core collection. Within the TaroGen project procedures for developing core collections have been agreed. Within countries, accessions will be separated on the basis of ecogeographical regions, and cluster analysis applied to morphological and use data (including pest and disease reactions) to distinguish different groups within regions. Molecular marker information will be used to add varieties with unique fingerprints, and to remove duplicates. About 400 taro accessions will be fingerprinted, and about half this number will be conserved at the RGC. Two molecular marker techniques have been developed for taro germplasm, namely microsatellites and inter simple sequence repeats (ISSR). Primer pairs have already been designed and applied to 17 taro (including one Colocasia esculenta var. antiquorum and a single Xanthosoma accession) from Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Hawaii, Niue, Papua New Guinea and Samoa. So far eight primers pairs have been developed, and the goal is to develop 20 for core samples from national collections. Thirty-three ISSR primers were initially screened and four have been chosen. DNA fingerprinting and virus indexing is being carried out at the University of Queensland under an ACIAR-funded project which runs parallel to the TaroGen project.For security purposes, collections should be duplicated. The TaroGen project will hold a workshop before the end of the project to provide information for the countries on all conservation methodologies for taro. Countries will then be able to determine whether or not they have the resources to maintain some accessions for their immediate use, or as working collections for breeding purposes. Some duplication will occur in this way. However, it is crucial that the core collections that are maintained in the RGC are conserved in full elsewhere. Discussions are ongoing to see if the laboratory that exists at the University of the South Pacific, Samoa, could take on this role.Research carried out in the regional tissue culture unit in Samoa showed that temperature reduction was the most practical method for reducing the growth rate of most of the crops held in the unit. Morphological changes were observed when sweet potatoes were cultured on media containing sugar alcohols such as sorbitol and mannitol. When cultures were grown on an unsupplemented Murashige and Skoog (1962) medium at a temperature of 20°C, the subculture period was extended to 6-8 months. It was noted, however, that if the temperature dropped below 20°C, the plants became stressed and there was significant leaf senescence. In contrast, studies at the International Potato Centre (CIP) on a range of temperatures for slow growth storage of sweet potato found that 15°C was optimal (Lizarraga et al., 1992). Some preliminary experiments were also carried out with taro looking at the effect of combining low temperature, reduced light and osmoticums. The inclusion of mannitol in the culture medium did suppress growth, but some morphological changes were also observed. In addition, a phytotoxic effect was observed when mannitol was used with cultures initiated directly from the field.There are reports in the literature of taro being stored for more than 8 years with transfer intervals of approximately 3 years at 9°C in total darkness (Bessembinder et al., 1993). However, the experiment was conducted with only one clone, and the report does not state which taro variety was used, var. esculenta or var. antiquorum. Staritsky et al. (1986) also reported that taro could be conserved for 3 years at 9°C and remain viable. Similarly, three species of Xanthosoma could be stored in the dark for at least 2 years at 13°C (Zandvoort et al., 1994).It was generally felt that temperature reduction would be the best option to use for slow growth, because sufficient research has not been carried out on the utilization of growth retardants, and their possible effect on genetic integrity. In fact, the most widely applied slow growth storage technique is temperature reduction, often combined with a decrease in light intensity or culture in the dark (Engelmann, 1997).Different methods for conserving taro are being investigated as part of TaroGen. Temperature reduction is being evaluated for slow growth storage. The study carried out by the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) on cassava is being used as a model. Local Fijian accessions are maintained at 20°C on a modified Murashige and Skoog (1962) medium. These accessions were also planted in the field by the Ministry of Agriculture. All inputs are being recorded in both genebanks using spreadsheets developed in an ACIAR project ('Economics of preserving genetic diversity in PNG in the context of world agriculture') so that at the end of the culture period direct comparisons can be made between the two systems. Genetic integrity will also be monitored through DNA fingerprinting.Even though a regional centre might be more economical, and therefore more sustainable than several national collections, there is still a need to be realistic about what can be achieved with the resources available. Core collections of taro and yam of about 400 accessions will be established as part of TaroGen and SPYN using cryopreservation. With the taro project, a vitrification protocol (Thinh, 1997) is being evaluated, since it has already achieved 80-100% survival after cryopreservation with four different cultivars. Similarly, an encapsulation-dehydration method developed at the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), Montpellier, France, will be evaluated for the yam collection. With both the taro and yam core collections accessions will also be maintained under slow growth for a period of 12 months while the cryopreservation is being monitored.With the other crops in the RGC, slow growth using temperature reduction will be implemented. The International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) has provided a grant to carry out some preliminary research on the cryopreservation of sweet potato. This will look at the vitrification method used at CIP (Steponkus et al., 1992;Golmirzaie and Panta, 1997). This technique was relatively successful initially with potato; with sweet potato the survival rate over a range of genotypes has been 30-60%.The Pacific Islands are very conscious of the importance of quarantine, and each island follows strict rules and regulations concerning the importation of plant material. As a general rule, the relative safety of tissue-cultured material, and even more so with virus-indexed material, is acknowledged by quarantine staff in the various islands. Fiji quarantine is especially sensitive about taro. When taro leaf blight destroyed the taro export market of Samoa, Fiji was quick to take up this market, but cultivated varieties that are susceptible to the fungus. The SPC has yet to develop a policy that enables the RGC to import germplasm as tissue cultures, but not pathogen-tested. Currently, specific requests must be made and these are considered for approval by a special committee. This can take time and can cause significant delays in the progress of a project. A general policy to automatically grant a permit to import germplasm to the RGC and not for distribution within Fiji will facilitate this aspect of the project. A recent example was the importation of coconut embryos to RGC, Fiji, from some of the Pacific Island countries. These embryos came from populations on atolls that were in danger of being lost, and so there was some urgency for their collection. The embryos are merely being held in the RGC until the tissue culture laboratory associated with the international genebank in Medang, Papua New Guinea, is ready to receive the germplasm.The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) recognizes each country's sovereignty over its plant genetic resources. However, the RGC must have germplasm that is accessible to the countries of the region; otherwise it becomes merely a museum containing resources that cannot be utilized. Within the Pacific Island region, none of the countries yet has any form of national legislation that governs access to germplasm. Some countries such as Fiji are in the process of developing such legislation but it will be some time before it is implemented. For TaroGen, this was an issue that was considered at the beginning of the project. As a result a Code of Conduct was formulated with certain conditions, such as:• taro germplasm acquired under TaroGen is for research purposes only, and remains the property of the original source country; • germplasm acquired under TaroGen will be freely exchanged between the participants of the project; and • any material acquired during the project will not be transferred beyond the project participants without prior informed consent of the original source country, and without the use of Material Transfer Agreements (MTAs).In October 1999, the SPC presented a draft MTA to govern access to and use of genetic resources at a meeting of the Heads of Agriculture of some of its member countries. The MTA was accepted and this is now being used for all distributions from the RGC. When germplasm is requested from the RGC, an MTA together with an SPC policy statement is sent to the potential recipient of the germplasm, and no germplasm is distributed until a signed MTA is returned.It is anticipated that the SPC will establish a regional policy on germplasm exchange in which some germplasm may be moved freely without any prior informed consent and that there will be other germplasm for which such consent is required. Currently it seems that prior informed consent will be required for any traditional cultivars that are stored in the RGC, whereas improved material resulting from externally funded regional projects can be freely distributed, within the region at least. The Pacific Island countries have yet to decide on an exchange policy with countries outside the Pacific Island region. The use of an MTA is the first step in working with this IPR issue.  , 1996), recognized the potential of networks on all levels and stated as its intermediate objectives the following:• to develop and strengthen national, regional and international networks, including the existing FAO International Network of Ex Situ Collections within the FAO Global System and in accordance with policies and strategies set out by the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture; • to assemble therein sufficient capacity to provide options to countries for the voluntary storagepreferably within each region -of appropriate genetic materials and their duplicates;• to provide for the transfer and the ongoing conservation of this material under applicable international legal agreements, which ensure the sovereign rights of the countries of origin, and with appropriate technical and financial support.Being part of this international network can only serve to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of a regional genebank. In the same way that countries are uniting within the region to increase their effectiveness in germplasm conservation, joining with other genebanks within an international network can only serve to improve a regional genebank, and add to the security of the germplasm. Membership would mean that countries that have entrusted their germplasm to that genebank can be assured that conservation standards are maintained at the highest level, and that the distribution of their genetic resources is being 'controlled' and accurately monitored. Being part of this network ensures that a regional genebank would become instantly aware of any new developments in germplasm policy.One criticism that does occur is that the system does not provide opportunity for monetary benefit. However, this is not strictly true. There is no direct payment mechanism for financial compensation of suppliers of materials designated for open exchange, but through the use of MTAs there is scope to negotiate for some form of compensation should the material provided through the system be commercialized.Membership of an international network will position the regional genebank to participate more effectively in global discussions, providing access to information, technical support or legal advice. The establishment of a regional network within which the regional genebank operates could also be of significant value in strengthening genetic conservation and utilization in the region. The regional network can work to strengthen national programmes, collaboration, develop conservation technologies, and exchange and disseminate information on plant genetic resources. The regional genebank or germplasm centre can act as the hub in coordinating the network. IARCs are supporting a number of networks in Asia in which a centre acts as the hub and manages or coordinates the network. For example, CIP has been coordinating a network called the Southeast Asian Programme for Potato Research and Development (SAPPRAD) for cooperative testing of new potato and sweet potato varieties in Asian countries.The Global Plan of Action specifically noted the need for a genetic resources network in the Pacific. This was further endorsed at the GPA Implementation Meeting held in the Philippines in December 1998. At this meeting all representatives from the Pacific Island countries endorsed the importance of stronger collaboration, stressing the need to develop collaborative arrangements for accessing genetic resources and sharing benefits. Other areas requiring attention that could be functions of a network for the Pacific were:• a need to locate, document and describe Pacific plant germplasm collections; • improved communication facilities among countries to enhance information exchange about their own plant genetic resources, their needs and research uses; and • regional training courses for genetic conservation, documentation and use.There seems to be a need for a network in the region in which a regional genebank could function in a coordinating role. The network would be responsible for collecting all information on Pacific germplasm, disseminating information, advising on conservation strategies, identifying areas or projects or both that require attention, and promoting evaluation of genetic resources. Another function of such a network could be the development and implementation of a plant variety protection (PVP) system that is appropriate to the plants that the genebank or network is responsible for. If a system exists whereby plants can be registered then it can facilitate access and benefit sharing.The RGC is largely supported by donor funds. There is obviously a need to look at more longterm, sustainable funding. Funds can come from the budgets of the countries for which the genebank holds accessions, that is, some form of member country contribution. A further source of funds could come from donor agencies almost in the form of a multilateral fund that recognizes the ongoing contribution that germplasm exchange makes to the agricultural community and society. All plant-based projects utilize germplasm but there is very rarely any recognition of this within a proposal; there should be acknowledgement of this through appropriate funding.It is hoped that the RGC will acquire international status as a germplasm centre, and that it will be of immense benefit to agriculture in the region. Some of the international centres of the CGIAR do conserve some crops important to the Pacific region. For example, the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Nigeria conserves yams. However, Pacific species and varieties tend not to have high priority and none of the centres has accepted a responsibility to conserve what is the region's most important crop, namely taro. There is, therefore, a need for a germplasm centre in the Pacific. Although initially attention will focus on the major root and tuber crops, there are a number of crops, classified as minor, that are endemic to the region, and important nutritionally such as Abelmoschus manihot or bele. Attempts will be made to establish collections of these in the RGC.Creating collections of plant genetic resources for ex situ conservation can be relatively easy: choose a crop, and gather all, or a particular subset, of the available samples. In fact this strategy has been common practice in the past, and has resulted in many collections with huge numbers of accessions. According to the FAO Report on the State of the World's Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (FAO, 1996), the number of genebank collections has grown to more than 1300 in which more than 6 million accessions are stored and conserved as seed and more than half a million accessions held in field genebanks.After a first period of collecting, documenting and evaluating accessions, the genebank community has gradually shifted towards a phase of developing strategies for improving the composition and management of collections. Currently, there is a need to streamline conservation activities and increase efficiency. This is due in part to two factors: the pressure of decreasing budgets, and the changing role of governments as privatization increases.Accession management is not new. Since the first genebanks started conserving germplasm, decisions have been made concerning the composition of accessions. This starts during the collecting phase, and continues during preparation of the samples for inclusion in the genebank collection. A good example is the common practice to separate the different genera or species in a mixed sample. In many genebanks it stops at that point. Other genebanks go further, by separating accessions of selfing crops into different morphotypes (Lehmann and Mansfeld, 1957). Only rarely are accessions being lumped prior to inclusion in the collection.Controlling the number of accessions is one of the key considerations in managing the genebank budget. Reducing the number of accessions is only possible by discarding or lumping accessions. However, this may directly conflict with the objectives of the genebank, and have major genetic consequences such as loss of alleles, genotypes, or even complete populations. Splitting accessions increases the number of accessions, but can facilitate the management of the accessions and improve the quality of genebank operations. In this chapter we provide an overview of the most important considerations for lumping or splitting accessions.Genetic markers are used to describe the genetic make-up of genebank accessions. In this way it is possible to formulate expectations, and to monitor the consequences of splitting or lumping. This approach is illustrated using examples of recent and ongoing studies in this area.Under which circumstances is splitting or lumping of genebank accessions acceptable or even desirable? There are three categories of issues that need to be considered. First, there are the genetic issues, such as the distribution of genetic diversity within and between accessions. The second category consists of operational issues, such as the impact of splitting on regeneration protocols. Finally, there are the economic aspects, which will often be the starting point of the attempts to increase the efficiency of genebank management.It is obvious that if two accessions in a collection are identical in all aspects, one of them is redundant and can be removed. However, when a crossfertilizing crop is considered, two accessions will very rarely be identical. Therefore, the question 'Are the accessions identical?' should be reformulated as 'Are the accessions sufficiently different to consider them distinct?' This is related to another question: 'How is the genetic diversity distributed within and between the accessions?' Similarly, the applicability of splitting accessions is related to how many different genotypes constitute an accession. The distribution of genetic variation has several relevant aspects such as the genetic variation for single traits, the correlation between traits, and the role of the trait concerned in reproduction.If separation of an accession into groups of different genotypes for a specific trait is being considered, the trait must be observable, as should the distribution of its expression, and its genetic basis. These factors are also relevant in decisions to lump accessions. The first factor is obvious. If it is impossible or very difficult to observe the phenotypic expression of the trait, it cannot be used as a criterion for separation or lumping. If the expression of a trait within an accession has a discrete distribution, that is, with a number of distinct states, and if it is possible to distinguish between the different classes, then splitting can be a useful and feasible option. However, if the expression follows a continuous distribution as a result of environmental effects or a large number of genes involved in the expression, splitting the accession into two or more new accessions is less straightforward. Splitting is likely to result in lower withinaccession genetic variance as compared to the original, but this will in most cases have only a relatively small impact on the reduction of the probability of drift and selection. This of course assumes that these latter aspects are the reasons for splitting an accession. Fitness traits are an exception to this rule.The effect of splitting on the reduction of intra-accession diversity is even lower for outbreeding species since they will contain heterozygotes, in which recessive genes may be hidden. Therefore, even if the identification of trait states is perfect, the progeny of the separated fractions may not necessarily conform to the parental state. Another issue for outbreeding species is the possibility of inbreeding depression, which may result from splitting when too few plants are used for a new accession in an attempt to reduce variance.Conversely, forming one new accession by combining two or more original accessions may be a useful option if the accessions have similar genetic distributions. This will result in a relatively small increase in the probability of drift and selection. Obviously, accessions should not be combined if they are homozygous for different discrete states. Thus, accessions containing a small number of discrete, easily identifiable homozygous genotypes are the best candidates for splitting, while accessions with high continuous variation within accessions and low variation between accessions are the best candidates for lumping.If a particular trait is not correlated with other traits within the same accession, it will not provide a strong basis in supporting decisions for splitting or lumping. Even if a trait is present in a small number of discrete, easily identifiable homozygous states, and not correlated with other traits, separating on this basis will only result in reducing the diversity for that particular trait. Therefore, splitting is not logical except if it concerns an economically very important trait, such as a disease resistance. If this trait occurs at a low frequency it might be lost or no longer noticed if not fixed in a separate accession.If the variation for traits is correlated within an accession, this could be a candidate for splitting. Correlation between traits may arise from a number of genetic mechanisms. The first is pleiotropy, the phenomenon whereby a single gene affects several traits. Since this correlation is not based on an association between alleles from different genes, it is irrelevant in decisions for splitting. The second mechanism is genetic linkage, in which case separation on the basis of one gene may result in separation of a number of linked genes. Since the number will be limited, this mechanism is also of limited importance for accession management. However, the third mechanism, correlation by descent, is very important. For mixtures of inbred lines or apomicts, this correlation is complete since all genes will be correlated. For example, imagine an accession of a selfing crop that contains a few distinct genotypes. Splitting on the basis of a few well-chosen traits would result in complete separation of all traits that show diversity in the accession.Also, with respect to lumping accessions, the correlation between traits is an important consideration. If, for example, two homozygous accessions of a selfing crop are thought to be duplicates, only a few discriminating traits are needed for confirmation. In the case of an outbreeder, however, a much more complete description of the genetic variation is needed.Since variation for traits with a direct influence on the fitness of the plant will increase the danger of genetic drift and selection during regeneration, these traits are very relevant for accession management decisions. Variation in flowering date, number of flowers, seed set, cold tolerance, or maturity date, can cause a severe change in the genetic make-up of the accession through selection, which should generally be avoided. Variation in such traits can therefore be a justified reason for splitting, or a reason not to lump. Alternatives that may avoid selection by reducing the selective advantage are generally rather labour intensive, and therefore not appealing. For example, the influence in differences in seed set can be avoided by harvesting equal amounts of seeds from all plants, and the effects of differences in maturity date can be overcome by harvesting at several intervals.Splitting or lumping accessions has implications for the number of accessions and for the diversity maintained in accessions. These factors will have a major impact on nearly all operations in a genebank: regeneration, characterization, evaluation and documentation, storage, monitoring viability and facilitating use.Many aspects that influence accession management decisions are related to regeneration. The greater the number of accessions, the less input for regeneration per accession is available for a given genebank capacity. But reducing the number of accessions by lumping usually increases diversity within the accessions; and the more diversity within the accession, the higher the magnitude of shift and selection if not properly managed.One of the most difficult aspects of collection management in a genebank is maintaining the genetic integrity of accessions during regeneration. This is easy in the case of an accession containing only one genotype of a selfing crop, but very difficult in the case of mixtures of mainly selfing lines, or with populations of largely cross-fertilizing plants. Major threats are drift as a result of random effects (usually sampling too few plants), selection as a result of a higher fitness of some genotypes, and contamination as a result of pollination between accessions. Contamination of seed lots during seed handling before and after growing the plants is also a threat. If there is more diversity within the accession, it will be more difficult to maintain it.Variation for reproductive traits is especially difficult to maintain in accessions. It is also more difficult to recognize contamination in a heterogeneous accession as compared with a homogeneous accession. Therefore, to maintain the genetic integrity of accessions, a heterogeneous accession will demand more attention than a homogeneous one, and can therefore be more expensive. In some cases splitting one heterogeneous accession to create several homogeneous accessions might prove beneficial for achieving the aims with a given level of resources. However, in the case of outbreeding species the extent of splitting should not be taken too far since it might result in relatively uniform lines that may suffer from inbreeding depression.Even for an 'easy' crop such as barley, maintain-ing the genetic integrity of genebank accessions proves very difficult. A recent study revealed that the effective population size in barley regenerations using an estimated 600 plants, was only 4.7 (Parzies et al., 2000). Van Hintum and Visser (1995) showed that duplicate barley accessions had developed into quite different mixtures in different genebanks. Both studies looked at the results of procedures from the past; these procedures might have improved.In some cases intentional loss of diversity within accessions due to drift might be an option. If it is clear that avoiding selection and contamination or maintaining large numbers of accessions is too expensive, one might consider choosing the diversity between accessions rather than the diversity within, by using relatively few plants per regeneration. By disregarding the effects of inbreeding depression, it is easier to isolate the accessions for regeneration and hence to maintain larger numbers of accessions.Intra-accession variation complicates the description and documentation. This may be solved by simply ignoring the low-frequency genotypes, notwithstanding the fact that these may contribute to the value of the accession, and possibly the collection as a whole.If intra-accession diversity for a qualitative trait should be scored, obviously this diversity must be assessed. Depending on the frequency and genetic background of the trait, this may mean that relatively large numbers of plants should be observed. For example, if a recessive allele occurs at a frequency of 5% in a panmictic population, 1197 plants must be observed to be 95% sure that the allele is detected. 1 Moreover, once the diversity is observed, the question arises as to how it should be recorded and documented. Several systems have been devised to solve this problem, including a scoring protocol that denotes the presence of diversity without specifying what, the recording of estimates of the frequencies of each score, or intermediate approaches (e.g. Rana et al., 1991;van Hintum, 1993).In the case of quantitative traits there is another problem connected to intra-accession diversity, namely that environmental variance is entangled with genetic diversity. Large-scale experiments are needed to quantify the genetic component. This is very rarely done, and consequently withinaccession variation for such traits will often simply be neglected altogether. Splitting accessions into more homogeneous accessions may help to reduce these problems. In the case of lumping accessions, care should be taken that these problems are not created or aggravated.The next group of issues to consider are related to the storage of the germplasm and monitoring its viability. Again, the key elements for consideration are the number of accessions and the intraaccession diversity. The minimum number of seeds that are stored and distributed is often dictated by the requirement of maintaining the entire diversity of an original sample, and to distributing that same range of diversity to users. Obviously, if the diversity in the sample is eliminated by splitting the separate genotypes into separate accessions, this will have an impact on the number of seeds required.Intra-accession diversity has implications for monitoring the viability of the samples only if this diversity affects storability. However, since this is typically a trait that is difficult to observe, it is difficult to separate the genotypes in an accession on that basis. More importantly, if lumping occurs, the situation of mixing and subsequently storing seed lots with different seed quality should be avoided.Facilitating the use of genebank material is a key element in genebank operation. For the user the quality of a genebank depends to a large extent on the ease of use of the conserved germplasm. Lumping or splitting can have a direct effect on this.If a user is looking for traits that can be observed from single plants, there might be a preference for highly variable accessions containing much variation. For the curator it might be an option to lump the accessions in the collection into a limited number of genetically similar groups. A user might prefer to screen this limited number of lumped accessions rather than the large number of individual accessions. But also for the curator it might be preferable to distribute only a limited number of lumped accessions rather than large numbers of individual accessions.In other situations there might be a preference to evaluate larger numbers of less variable accessions, in which case the curator may consider splitting accessions to facilitate use. This applies if it is difficult to distinguish single plants within a dense population, such as in grass swards. It also applies for traits where the contrast between desirable and undesirable genotypes is not visually striking, so that it is difficult to detect elite plants within a population. Finally, it applies where the user's methodology is based on scoring whole plots, and observing individual plants is inconvenient. In all three cases, identifying elite plots from among a large number of relatively uniform accessions may be more convenient than trying to identify elite individuals within a few plots.Genebank management strategies in general serve an economic purpose: optimizing the use of the limited financial resources to achieve the aims set by the genebank, usually conservation and facilitating use of genetic resources. In the case of accession management decisions this means that the optimum should be sought in terms of number of accessions and intra-accession diversity. Important parameters are, among others, the costs of labour, experimental fields and greenhouses. But there are more difficult factors such as the risk of contamination with a given labour input per accession for regeneration, and the loss of value of the accession in the case of a certain degree of contamination or loss of alleles. Economic theory to support these decisions is not available yet, though some developments are encouraging.Decisions on lumping or splitting samples are generally made on the basis of experience, practical considerations and population genetic theory. Recently, new technology has become available that allows the formulation of expectations or the monitoring of the genetic impact of accession manage-ment decisions. Using genetic marker technology it is now possible to quantify the intra-accession diversity, for example, the change in genetic composition of an accession before and after regeneration. We will describe recent and ongoing studies, involving a number of crops, carried out to support practical decisions that were needed at an operational genebank, in this case the Centre for Genetic Resources, The Netherlands (CGN).The Netherlands has a long history of selection and breeding of Brassica oleracea. Breeders and farmers have made their own selections of landraces and old cultivars. The Dutch material in the CGN B. oleracea collection consists to a large extent of such selections, so-called 'umbrella varieties'. Sometimes there were up to 16 selections from one landrace combined into one umbrella variety. Since cabbage is an insect pollinated biennial crop, and regeneration is difficult and expensive, it was decided to limit the number of accessions as far as possible (Boukema and van Hintum, 1994).Material derived from the same parental landrace was planted side by side. Assisted by B. oleracea experts involved in commercial plant breeding and variety registration, groups of very similar selections were composed. Other selections were kept as individual accessions. In some cases a number of groups from a single umbrella variety were created on the basis of maturity or other distinctive traits. As a result the number of accessions in the CGN collection of Dutch B. oleracea was reduced from 273 to 54, a reduction of 80%.Subsequently, the process of lumping accessions was validated by an isoenzyme study, using a number of cabbage and brussels sprouts groups. We tested the hypothesis that isoenzyme markers would correctly place a single accession in one of the groups. It appeared that most of the accessions were correctly classified. All misclassifications were within similar groups. In two cases the isoenzyme patterns suggested that the groups could have been even larger. In one of these cases this was a real option since it involved two groups made from the same umbrella variety. In the other case it involved groups with a common genetic background but a distinct identity as defined by morphology and history (van Hintum et al., 1996).Sometimes genebanks receive collections of potentially valuable germplasm, but with hardly any documentation. An example is the CGN flax collection. For about 30% of the accessions there was no more than a coded accession name consisting of a few letters and a number, such as 'M 25-341' or '324-Rm', for example. These names allowed grouping of the material in series, such as the M 25 or the Rm series. To investigate the genetic relationships of the accessions within and between the different series, an amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) study was carried out on 29 accessions belonging to three of such series. Subsequently, an analysis of molecular variance (Excoffier et al., 1992) was used to compare the genetic variation observed within and among accessions. Substantial differences in intraaccession variation were observed and accessions that were not significantly different were bulked into groups. As a result, more or less homogeneous accessions remained separate entries while more heterogeneous accessions could often be lumped (Fig. 11.1). It appeared that the 29 accessions could be reduced to 14, reducing the among-population component of variance by only 2.6%. This flax case study showed that it was possible to achieve a considerable reduction in collection size while at the same time maintaining similar levels of variation among accessions (van Treuren et al., 2001).Some genebanks routinely divide a barley accession into the morphotypes that are observed within the accession, while at the same time also maintaining a sample with the original constitution. This can result in a considerable number of accessions arising from one original landrace. However, since morphological variation is often restricted, molecular markers can assist in the identification of the different genotypes. In order to determine the applicability of AFLPs for that purpose, intra-accession variation was studied in two cultivars, two landraces, and two wild populations from the CGN barley collection (Fig. 11.2).The wild material, Hordeum vulgare ssp. spontaneum, was surprisingly uniform, probably because of the collecting protocol. Each accession could very well have been derived from a single plant. Despite the genetic purification that is normally practised in the development of new varieties, genotypic variation was detected in the cultivars. Assuming that this level of variation can be considered purely as 'background noise', the only accession exhibiting a substantial level of genotypic variation was the landrace from Nepal. However, the genetic differences observed between the genotypes displayed a gradual pattern rather than the separation of genotypes into a number of distinct classes. In this case, splitting the accession into separate lines could not be done unambiguously (van Treuren and van Hintum, 2001). Accession management decisions concerning the composition of accessions have been made since the first genebanks started operating. However, the pressure to increase efficiency in genebank operations requires a more scientific approach to provide a sound decision-making basis for accession management. This scientific basis of accession management has now become available; marker technology especially can help to monitor genetic consequences of accession management decisions.The only element missing is the economic theory to support these decisions.  The fact that plant genetic resources (PGR) are the very raw materials for crop improvement is generally understood by agriculturists as well as biologists in both developed and developing countries. They are also aware that recently human civilization has undergone rapid change which has had a great impact on PGR existence. Ways and means to conserve PGR for crop improvement have been sought to ensure their continuous availability. Unfortunately, for policy makers in general and in many Vavilovian centres in particular, where commitment to PGR conservation is a determining factor for its implementation, the importance of such resources is usually too abstract and hard to grasp.As early as 1936 Harlan and Martini noted that crop germplasm in Vavilovian centres was vulnerable to loss due to technological and economic changes. But not until late 1960 did the global efforts to collect and then conserve genetic resources begin in a more concerted way. At the same time the Green Revolution saw the introduction of high yielding varieties (HYVs) of major crops (rice and wheat) in many developing countries. With the introduction of the Green Revolution's products (HYVs), many local varieties of these crops were replaced. A group of concerned scientists assisted the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to take an initiative for a global movement to conserve these crops (Frankel and Bennet, 1970). In 1983 FAO established an intergovernmental forum, the Commission on Plant Genetic Resources, which has now become the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. This is a permanent intergovernmental body which monitors the implementation of the International Undertaking (IU), a non-binding agreement on PGR which is currently being revised to bring it into harmony with the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).The CBD was signed in 1992 and came into force in 1993. Biological diversity embraces a much larger scope than PGR, in fact, PGR are only a small part of biological diversity (UNEP, 1994). Unlike the FAO International Undertaking, which is a legally non-binding instrument, the CBD is legally binding, hence countries are more serious in implementing the convention compared with the FAO-IU. Moreover, the Conference of the Parties, which is the highest governing body for the CBD, has decided that the Global Environment Facility (GEF) is its temporary financial mechanism allowing the agreed activities on biological diversity to be carried out.Issues like pollution, depletion of the ozone layer, land degradation, or water scarcity are more easily understood by the public at large than the loss of biological diversity. Although 7 years have passed since the CBD came into force and 5 years since the FAO-Global Plan of Action (GPA) (FAO, 1996) was launched, the importance of biological diversity, including PGR, for sustainable development has not been mainstreamed into many sectors of governments responsible for implementing development activities. In such a situation it becomes obvious that there is a need to identify key issues within the programme of work of the CBD and the FAO-GPA which can be used as eye-openers to those who should play an active role in national development.Agrobiodiversity refers primarily to genetic variability in cultivated plants and domesticated animals together with their progenitors and closely related wild species, maintained within agroecosystems and surrounding natural environments. Thus, plants and animals harvested from the wild are also included in this term (Thrupp, 1998). To provide parties of the CBD with a standard term on agrobiodiversity, the Subsidiary Body of Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) of the CBD in its fifth meeting (2000) defined the scope of agrobiodiversity, as all components of biological diversity of relevance to food and agriculture, and all components of biological diversity that constitute the agroecosystem: the variety and variability of animals, plants and microorganisms, at the genetic, species and ecosystem levels, which are necessary to sustain key function of the agroecosystem, its structure and processes. (UNEP, 2000a) It should be noted that, within this scope, farmers are identified as managers of the agrobiodiversity. The man-made ecosystems which are intended for agriculture purposes are, therefore, named agroecosystems. The relationship between agrobiodiversity, crop genetic resources, management in agroecosystems, and the complexity of the issues in the context of socio-economy are discussed in this chapter with the emphasis on the Asia Region. Not only does Asia represent several Vavilovian centres, but it is also rich in agroecosystems, agrobiodiversity and population.This chapter deals with genetic diversity in agroecosystems, the role of agrobiodiversity and genetic diversity in national development, the management of genetic diversity on-farm, challenges to the scientific community and, finally, ways to move forward.Archaeological evidence indicates that humans began domesticating plants and animals approximately 10,000 years ago in several locations of the globe.Through trial and error food crops were identified, selected, cultivated, tested, maintained and improved. This process of domestication continues today. In the emerging agriculture, consideration was not only given to the selection of plants but also to the physical environment in which they grow. Water availability and soil fertility were the determinant factors for cultivating annuals, biennials, perennials or combinations of these. Humans modified natural ecosystems into many types of agroecosystem for the cultivation of plants and the raising of animals. Today's agricultural landscape presents a wide range of practices covering traditional ways of mixed farming to a more intensified monoculture system. In Asia, where most of the population live in rural areas, various types of agroecosystem can be found. In forested areas of South-East Asia, for example, slash and burn agriculture is still going on, while in many parts of the highland areas, simple tools such as those employed in the Stone Age are still being used (Koentjaraningrat, 1994). In general, those farmers practising traditional agriculture are subsistence farmers. In lowland areas where irrigation has been developed, intensified agricultural systems dominate the scene. Unlike those of developed countries, farmers in South-East Asia have small land holdings which, on average, are less than 1 ha (Conway, 1997). Harwood (1979) described four stages of small farm development: primitive hunting-gathering, subsistence level farming, early consumer, and primary mechanization. The change from hunter-gatherer stage to subsistence level farming allowed a larger human population to live in a given area. Many species of plants were grown together in a semicultivated or cultivated way in a given area to satisfy basic human need, that is, food security. In addition to food crops, medicinal plants, fruit trees, and firewood species were also cultivated for their own daily uses. Seeds and other planting materials were routinely gathered from the farm for the next planting season. The same holds true for the need for green manure and organic fertilizer. In this way subsistence farming is non-commercial in nature. Thus, knowledge and practices for managing crops and natural resources were embedded in the local cultures of peoples and households. The species selected for food, medicine and spiritual purposes varied from one place to another. The combination of cultural preference and physical environment induced the formation of so-called landraces or traditional varieties of crops which were unique in each agroecosystem.Growth of markets and the global spread of a few crops led to the reduction of the varieties of plants grown. Meanwhile, new technologies for farming were introduced which pushed the productivity level of staple food (rice, maize and cassava) still higher. Then came the era of the Green Revolution which is characterized by uniformity and efficiency of the HYVs. Such technology was suitable for arable land where water and soil fertility were secured. Small farming systems which occupied marginal land and less favourable environments, with many traditional crops, were hardly affected by this new technology. HYVs demand arable land, good irrigation and high chemical inputs. Therefore, lowland areas with the above-mentioned conditions are those where HYVs are being cultivated.The landraces or traditional varieties of major crops which have developed over time in many places in the world are thus being replaced by modern varieties. The displacement of rice landraces between 1970 and 1990 by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) through the Green Revolution in South-East Asia (Myanmar, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand) was documented by Perlas and Vellvé (1997). In 1990 traditional varieties occupied only 45% of the area under rice cultivation in Myanmar, < 20% in the Philippines, < 20% in Indonesia, and 25% in Vietnam. In Thailand, however, modern varieties have not much impact on the existence of traditional varieties, hence they are planted on only less than 10% of the rice growing area. In India, about 70% of the rice area and 95% of the wheat land are now occupied by a handful of HYVs (Jardhari and Kothari, 1996).New HYVs were not without negative impacts. In Asia, for example, the most populated countries, China, India and Indonesia, welcomed the Green Revolution technology and enjoyed the results of it. However, based on the analysis of the production performance of rice over the past two decades, early indications of unsustainability were revealed ('Rural Asia: beyond the Green Revolution', unpublished Asian Development Bank seminar). The growth of yield per unit area of rice demonstrates a declining trend. The rice producing countries enjoyed an increase in productivity from 1960 to 1990 of, on average, 2.1% a year. This number has dropped to 1% since 1990 (Brown, 1997). One of the explanations is that plant breeders have largely exploited the genetic potential for increasing the share of photosynthate that goes to seed (Brown, 1997). A number of experiments present evidence that microelement deficiencies and toxicities contributed partly to the declining yield (Conway, 1997). Such a trend, of course, should send an alarm signal to policy-makers to find new ways to keep the production on track.One of the options for securing sufficient food production at the national level is to extend intensive agriculture, which relies on employing HYVs and chemicals in less favourable environments. It should be noted, however, that such areas are usually associated with small farming production systems, many crops and, in general, lack of resources. Moreover, the existing technology associated with HYVs and high chemical inputs mainly deals with single crop farming. Difficult as they are for agricultural intensification, the ADB recommended that less favourable environments be the target areas for agricultural productivity improvement. Should that recommendation be implemented, the traditional agroecosystems and the PGR they contain will go, too.After the Second World War many countries rich in biological diversity, which is predominantly contained in natural forests and oceans, began to exploit this resource for national development.Agriculture in its broadest sense, including forestry and fishery, suddenly became the backbone of their economy. Unfortunately, however, the means to utilize biodiversity is mainly by way of direct exploitation. Timbers and other forest products are harvested from natural forests. The same holds true for fisheries. Although sustainable management, both in forestry and fishery, is theoretically accepted as an optimal solution, such ideal management is hardly followed in practice due to, among other things, lack of appropriate technology for large-scale operation in tropical regions. To extract timber species from natural forest, for example, a technology of selective cutting was developed and followed to ensure the sustainability of the timber stand. But in reality, sustainability of timber production could not be attained because natural regeneration of timber species after cutting was poor, hence the recovery of timber stands did not happen as expected. In the case of cultivated species, such as those of food crops that have been in cultivation for centuries, technology for sustainable production has progressed accordingly.When the new technology for food production became well known with the introduction of the Green Revolution, every government was eager to welcome it. The yields of the major food crops were indeed doubled or even tripled. At the national level, the miracle of the Green Revolution was praised due to the fact that many countries could avoid importing food. At the community level, however, the Green Revolution seemed to benefit only the resourceful farmers (Conway, 1997). The impact of the Green Revolution on poverty alleviation is subject to interpretation. The poverty level in some countries before and after the Green Revolution was compared and the result showed that the Green Revolution had indeed decreased the number of the poor at the national level (Conway, 1997;Anonymous, 1999). However, in the opinion of many commentators, the technology benefited large farmers at the expense of small ones (Conway, 1997). The challenge to governments thus remains to find ways and means to eradicate poverty and at the same time provide a good quality of life for farmers who seemed to be unaffected by the Green Revolution.During the Earth Summit meeting in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 countries expressed their commitment to aim at sustainable national development. This means that governments will do their utmost to meet adequately the needs of the citizens today and also those of future generations. In other words, the environment in which we live today should be kept in such a way that coming generations can meet their needs as we do now. Adequate food production, which will secure the availability of food, is the basic element of any national development. The commitment of the international community to ensure food and nutrition security to every child, woman and man on our planet was stated in the Bellagio Declaration in 1989 (Anonymous, 1996) on Overcoming Hunger in the 1990s. The FAO (1996) reaffirmed the need to achieve the goal of 'Food for All' because, today, over 10 years after Bellagio, more than 800 million people still suffer from hunger and malnutrition. Many believe that this is not caused by inadequacy of food, but rather its distribution. On the other hand, there is an increasing concern about the Earth's capacity to produce enough food for the growing population (Brown, 1997), despite the fact that science has tremendously improved world food production over the past three decades.The globalization of the world economy has affected the life of almost everyone on Earth. Farming communities are no exception. The traditional farming community which depends very much on agriculture, is facing pressures to produce more in order to be able to buy various things that are offered in the markets. Unfortunately, however, many cannot rely solely on their farm products to keep pace with such increasing needs. They are compelled to work outside the farm to gather additional income. Those who live near to cities are tempted to abandon farming and migrate into the city. Cities provide them with an opportunity to earn money more easily. As a consequence, most farming communities are no longer isolated. Radios are common and television is also available to some. Both radio and television bring information on modern agriculture as well. New crops are introduced and/or new varieties of such crops, such as melon, tomato, cabbage, chilli pepper, eggplant and bitter gourd, which invade the traditional farming systems. These new crops and varieties are highly valued and the prices they fetch on the market are attractive. Naturally, farmers plant what the market demands despite the fact that new seed often has to be purchased at the beginning of every planting season due to the hybrid nature of those seeds. In this way, traditional varieties of many crops, including those classified as minor crops, are pushed out from the farming systems, which leads to their genetic erosion. Unfortunately, not every country is prepared to take action to collect and conserve these endangered local crops, and the variation within them, in genebanks.At the global level genebanks of the international agricultural research institutes and several national genebanks conserve germplasm samples of predominantly major crops that are endangered, in ex situ facilities. However, not all traditional farmer varieties are represented in these ex situ germplasm collections. Therefore, ex situ conservation approaches only are not sufficient to conserve all the PGR needed for crop improvement. One possible way to conserve traditional farmers' varieties is through in situ conservation on-farm, an option that is gaining more attention nowadays (Brush, 1999). This kind of conservation is conducted in farmers' fields and they are the actors who manage the system within which PGR are just one component.With regard to in situ conservation on-farm, Brush (1999) listed five reasons for promoting it, which are, among others, that agroecosystems will continue to generate new genetic resources, and provide natural laboratories for agricultural research. Brown (1999), describing an attempt to strengthen the scientific basis of in situ/on-farm conservation, presents several advantages of in situ/on-farm conservation to farmers as well as to management issues including environmental policy. Worede et al. (1999) showed that in Ethiopia in situ/on-farm conservation is one of the most effective strategies for poor resource farmers to cultivate marginal land with low-input agriculture in a sustainable manner. To support such a farmer-based conservation approach research on genetic, ecological and social dynamic aspects of landraces has now become one of the major programme activities of the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI)(www.ipgri.cgiar.org).To ensure the genetic integrity of landraces onfarm, Qualset et al. (1997) are of the opinion that the agricultural system as a whole needs to be conserved. The question is then how the attitude of farmers, who maintain the system, is expected not to change with time. While the idea proposed is acceptable, from a practical point of view it is unlikely to work. Farmers, like other communities, are socially dynamic and responsive to change. Therefore, according to Pistorius and van Wijk (2000) in situ/on-farm conservation should not only be perceived as the possible maintenance of traditional crops but, more importantly, should be linked with rural development programmes. Thus, tangible benefits should be associated with such a conservation effort, if farmers are expected to cooperate.It will be interesting to learn from the Ethiopian experience whether or not the attitude of farming communities to conserve landraces will change, for instance if poverty is alleviated. In Indonesia, the diversity of crops on individual fields is generally closely linked with subsistence agriculture and poverty (A. Sudjarwo, personal communication, 2000). When government workers advised such farmers to plant more valuable crops for potential markets, farmers did not want to listen. However, when merchants persuaded them to plant certain crops, which were sometimes new species to them, farmers complied readily with the request. The merchants provided them with cash security in advance and farmers did not need to worry whether or not there was a market, an assurance which government officials cannot give. Thus, on-farm conservation is vulnerable to economic incentives provided by other commodities and because of social change. It becomes apparent that incentives for farmers to maintain crop diversity on their farms for national or global needs are indeed necessary.There is no doubt that in situ/on-farm conservation provides an alternative way for countries which lack genebanks to maintain genetic resources and for the global community to complement ex situ conservation in genebanks. Attractive as it sounds, in developing countries, conservation of genetic resources is often considered a long-term exercise, whereas politicians would like to see the results of activities for national development during their term of office (E. Salim, personal communication, 2000). Moreover, the site specificity of crops in various agroecosystems means that national policymakers as well as scientists in general may put less effort into this issue since the impacts, if successful, are felt only locally rather than nationally. Of course, the importance of existing diversity for future crop improvement is well recognized by scientists. However, unless the short-term benefits to farming communities of maintaining diversity are demonstrated, attention from the government cannot be expected.It is obvious that in situ on-farm conservation in countries with many types of agroecosystem, especially those in developing countries, needs government support. The political commitment of governments to enhance food security at the household level has been expressed at the global level (FAO Leipzig Conference, 1996). Such a commitment needs to be integrated into national development plans and translated into the workplans of various sectors of government. Furthermore, in order to reach the household level, a strategy different from that planned at the national level seems to be necessary. After all, the agroecosystems in a country are the building blocks of the national agricultural system. The specificity of agroecosystems and the genetic resources they contain play an important role in guaranteeing local food availability which, in turn, will contribute to national food security. Each agroecosystem offers various sources of carbohydrate, protein and vitamins for local use which, in some cases, differ from those promoted at the national level. If in many countries in South-East Asia rice is considered the main carbohydrate source at the national level, in certain agroecosystems sweet potato, cassava, maize, taro and other minor tuber crops are consumed daily. The same holds true for protein sources. There are a number of legume species, including Phaseolus beans, wing bean and velvet bean, which are readily available at the household level. These minor crops are hardly recognized as important food at the national level and hence should be taken into account for targeting household food security.In dealing with the management of biodiversity the CBD stresses the importance of the ecosystem approach (UNEP, 1998). Within the CBD agricultural biodiversity is defined as covering a broad range of elements, including a wide range of ecosystem services. The SBSTTA of the CBD, in its decision V/10 (UNEP, 2000b) elaborates on this ecosystem approach and it is expected that this approach leads to direct as well as indirect values of biological diversity, including that of ecosystem functioning. It considers human dimensions to be an integral part of biodiversity management. In his note on agrobiodiversity, the Executive Secretary of the CBD (UNEP, 2000b) described the application of the ecosystem approach for managing agrobiodiversity, using rice integrated pest management (IPM) as an example. It is shown that farmers who are the managers of their crops, after participating in training on IPM, were able to improve production while pesticide inputs were greatly reduced. He further pointed out that the IPM approach, applied to the rice ecosystem, is consistent with the principles of the ecosystem approach as defined by SBSTTA of the CBD (UNEP, 2000a). However, nowadays in farming rice is mostly cultivated in monoculture while in traditional agricultural practices rice is multiple-cropped with many other species. In Java, the accompanying field crops are maize, cassava, sweet potato and taro, while the legume species include long bean, Phaseolus bean and wing bean. They are planted along the borders of the rice field. In addition to rice-based agroecosystems there are several other systems which are based on maize, cassava or other species. In Nusa Tenggara Timur maize is the main crop which is mixed with cassava, upland rice, legumes and water gourd (KEPAS, 1986). Cassava is the main crop planted in drier areas of Gunung Kidul (Central Java), Sukabumi Selatan (West Java) and Pacitan (East Java) and is quite often mixed with biannual legumes such as velvet bean and Phaseolus bean.According to the World Resources Institute (2000), agroecosystems cover more than one-quarter of the global land area. However, almost threequarters of the land has poor soil fertility. In addition, about one-half of the arable lands occupy steep terrain. To make matters worse, about 40% of agricultural land has been severely degraded. When calculating the size of the human population within various agroecosystems existing in the world and comparing different regions, it is shown that Asia's agroecosystems are the most densely populated. China has a population of 1275 million of which 67% live in rural areas; India has 1000 million of which 72% are in rural areas; and Indonesia has 209.4 million of which 62% live in rural areas. The process of land degradation will continue in the coming years considering that the growth rate in India is 1.9% and in Indonesia 1.6%. Although the Chinese population growth rate is only 1%, the actual increase of the human population in terms of numbers is still high (Asiaweek, 2000). Without serious attempts to improve such degraded land, more and more agroecosystems will become wasteland or be converted into other uses. With the steadily growing population in Asia agriculture is the only sector that can absorb a large labour force. Thus, maintaining agricultural land from degradation so that agricultural activities can be sustained will solve in part the problem of job opportunities in rural areas.A traditional agroecosystem is conceptualized as a web of social relationships between a specific group of people with plants and animals which they keep in a particular space. It is a major repository of PGR. When an ecosystem approach is applied to the management of PGR within an agroecosystem the decentralization of management to the lowest appropriate level is applicable. Farmers are the key player at this level. Their desire to respond to change should be taken into account when designing the in situ/on-farm conservation. Moreover, the sustainability of efforts is in the hands of the young generation of farmers. Many of them are no longer interested in farming, which is indeed a hard job and in terms of cash income is not attractive. It is, therefore, necessary to complement efforts to implement in situ/on-farm conservation with other economic activities so that the young farmers' generation can choose the best options for their lives. In Indonesia, for example, the political will of the government to provide enough food at household level has promoted national interest in dealing with agroecosystems and local crop diversity (Badan Urusan Ketahanan Pangan, unpublished). At the moment the country is heavily dependent on rice as the main staple. Indonesia is compelled to import more than 3.5 Mt (Biro Pusat Statistik, 1997) annually since 1993, while in 1984 Indonesia had achieved self-sufficiency in rice production. The increase of rice production between 1969 and 1984 was promoted by the application of HYVs and the technology accompanying it. However, at the beginning of 1993 rice productivity started to decline. The decrease in rice area, especially in Java, coupled with the decline of productivity, contributed to this phenomenon (Purwoto et al., 1998). Another worry is that noodles and bread are now widely accepted as snack food between meals. In this way, wheat, which is not grown in Indonesia, has to be imported in large amounts as well, close to 4 Mt year Ϫ1 . Both rice and wheat imports are heavily subsidized by the government. Therefore, the Department of Agriculture is determined to alter this economically unhealthy situation in the years to come. Since 1972, realizing that the country was heavily dependent on rice as its staple, the government has tried to promote food diversification with the hope that the other carbohydrate producing crops could be cultivated to decrease the demand for rice. Sago palm in eastern Indonesia, sweet potato and taro in the highlands of Irian Jaya, yam in the drier areas of the country, elephant yam and other minor tuber crops may be developed to substitute rice demand in different parts of the country. Together with the minor legumes and fruits which grow in different agroecosystems, they offer a range of alternatives to developing food security not only at local level but also at national level. Unfortunately, however, no serious attempt to create food diversification has materialized.The future of various agroecosystems and the related diversity of PGR in them is dependent on human culture, particularly that of farmers, whose livelihood is inseparable from their crops. The link between farmers, agroecosystems and PGR as discussed earlier is indeed very complex. The deployment of PGR in an agroecosystem is not a simple matter which can be resolved easily by formal institutions, such as the government, or through informal arrangements, such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Like a natural ecosystem, an agroecosystem is a hierarchy of systems from the lowest level of plants, animals and microbes, to farms and the village level. Each lower level of the hierarchy becomes a component of the next higher one. In order to ensure its proper functioning each agroecosystem should maintain the following four characters: productivity, stability, sustainability and equitability. To illustrate these properties, Conway (1997) compares the home garden and the rice field ecosystem. In the home garden system, for example, productivity shows a higher net income, while in the rice system a higher gross income is being generated. With regard to stability, the home garden system allows year-round production while seasonal production with vulnerability to climate and disease variation characterizes the rice field system. Sustainability in home gardens means maintenance of soil fertility and protection from soil erosion; rice fields face heavy pest and disease attack. As far as equitability is concerned, the beneficiaries of home gardens are all households while rice fields benefit the landowner. Here it is shown that the diverse agroecosystem tends to be more sustainable than a comparable field crop system.As managers of an agroecosystem, farmers should be concerned not only with the crops of interest but also with the totality of the system, including the associated biodiversity and the abiotic components (Almekinders and Struik, 2000). Scientists are in a position to assist farmers in making an agroecosystem work for the four functions mentioned above. Through research the right combination of crops, which will give high productivity, can be made. Moreover, the stability of productivity, which will ensure sustainability in times of stress and protection of soil from erosion, should be attempted. It should be kept in mind that the social and economic aspects which will enhance the livelihood of farmers cannot be separated from the technical aspects of agroecosystems. Therefore, involving farmers in research activities from the very beginning will ensure the adoption of the research results. In this way, equity will be achieved if many farmers are involved. Studies on various agroecosystems in Indonesia were conducted by KEPAS (Research Group on Agroecosystems); on upland agriculture in East Java (KEPAS, 1985a), swampland agriculture of Southern Kalimantan (KEPAS, 1985b) and dryland agriculture in Nusa Tenggara Timur (KEPAS, 1986), developing models which follow the four principles.For more than two decades scientific research on various aspects of in situ and ex situ conservation of PGR has been conducted all over the world. However, further research is needed in several areas of PGR conservation, especially with regard to the minor crops. In tropical developing countries, where modern improved varieties have not yet been adopted, significant diversity of crops is still managed by farmers in their farming systems. The traditional Dayak community of Long Apo village in Kalimantan (Indonesia), for example, uses 150 food plants of which 67 are wild species. No less than 90 species are cultivated around their compounds (Soedjito, 1999). In other agroecosystems, such as that of 'pekarangan' (home garden) in Java, on average 56 different useful plants are grown around a farmer's house. The size of the land occupied by these plants is only 0.5 ha (Conway, 1997). A case study of Merkal village (Karnataka State) in India shows that villagers are using more than 140 useful plants in their everyday life. Those plants are either cultivated in their fields or taken from the neighbouring forested areas (Bhatta and Bhat, 1997). Considering the enormous amount of diversity, both in terms of farming systems as well as PGR cultivated therein, in situ on-farm conservation as an alternative development in germplasm conservation, is gaining growing interest from the scientific community. The challenge remains: how well can scientific information be translated by policy-makers so that it can be integrated into policy actions which, in turn, will enable many actors (scientists, conservationists, seed suppliers and government officials) to work together. The following areas have been proposed as 'entry points' for research.Food security is one of the top priorities, which many developing countries are still struggling to achieve. It is true that the application of HYVs since the late 1960s has increased production of major crops significantly in those countries. However, the rate of population growth is keeping pace with production and thus will compel each country to produce more food in the years to come. For that purpose new HYVs which are better than the existing ones need to be developed at the national level. The PGR of the major crops which are needed to assemble such new HYVs are kept in international and national genebanks and, therefore, are readily available. With regard to food security at the local and household level, minor crops will remain the source of daily dietary requirements. Germplasm of these minor crops is not well represented in the genebanks. The importance of the minor crops for household food security was stressed by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) System Review. An international consultation to discuss the role of the International Agricultural Research Centres (IARCs) for crops not specifically covered in their mandates was held in Chennai, India. A number of activities, including public awareness, conservation, processing and marketing, were identified to be appropriate for the work of the CGIAR System (Anonymous, 1999). In order to enhance the role of PGR in local food security, research on the development of improved local varieties which are adapted to a less favourable environment (LFE), on the right combination of crops cultivated, on the level of soil fertility, on the role of soil microbiology, and on the availability of water, needs to be promoted. Improved local PGR will assist farmers to obtain better yields from their lands and, thus, help to secure their need for food. At the same time the diversity of local crops can be maintained within the agroecosystems and, consequently, genetic diversity at large.The production of food crops alone is not sufficient to sustain life nowadays. Technology to enhance the added value of crops needs to be developed as well as to increase the monetary gains. Cassava, for example, is produced abundantly by many developing countries as food. The price is low if sold as a food crop. However, flour extracted from cassava, known as tapioca, fetches a good price on the market. By processing it further into other products even higher prices can be obtained. Many crops cultivated in traditional farming systems have not been developed into marketable products. Many species planted or growing in agroecosystems are valued as medicinal or ornamental plants. Research on and development of these crops will promote their value further. Markets to generate monetary income have to be created for new products which are developed from such crops. However, creating such markets for new products is not easy, but once it is done, job opportunities for young farmers may be generated.Agribusiness development seems to be the answer for boosting the market for local crops. A recent increase in demand for medicinal herbs in Indonesia can be used as an illustration. A number of medicinal plant species are being cultivated by farmers in their backyards or as components of the agroecosystem. The herbal medicine factories rely on farmers for the supply of raw materials. However, they demand quality products and continuity of supplies. Therefore, farmers need to improve the quality of their produce by using good planting materials and, at the same time, also improve their cultivation. The factories process the raw materials into marketable products and distribute the products to their agents. A chain of activities from farmers' fields to consumers through factories and their agents requires many workers and also generates farmers' income. At the same time the development of machinery for processing the medicines is being promoted.Like other components in an ecosystem, agrobiodiversity has a role to play as a valuable ingredient for ecosystem functioning (Thrupp, 1998). The more diverse an agroecosystem is in crop species, the more stable the system is. Diversity of crops, for example, will provide protection from soil erosion by avoiding water runoff. In this way nutrient recycling as well as soil biota functioning are not disrupted. Moreover, crop diversity prevents epidemics of harmful insects and diseases. Thus, application of insecticides is minimized which is environmentally desirable. Moreover, an appropriate combination of crops will require less chemical fertilizer as compared with a monoculture. A mixed cropping system makes the best use of available nutrients, water and sunlight. Each crop matures at a different time so that there is an assurance of adequate ground coverage as protection against wind and water erosion. Quite often, multipurpose tree species are a component of agroecosystems.Fast growing legumes species such as Leucena leucocephela and Sesbania grandiflora are valuable for firewood. In many less favourable areas in developing countries, however, there is a problem of getting sufficient firewood. Such a demand, if it cannot be fulfilled locally, will affect the safety of the protected areas, because people will get the firewood from nearby forests. This is turn can cause environmental problems such as soil erosion and biological diversity loss. At the national level the issue of firewood for cooking is considered trivial, therefore it has never been included in the discussion of food security. However, at the local level, the problem is real because even if raw food materials are available they cannot be consumed in the absence of firewood. Scientific research on crop diversity and environmental quality may offer technical solutions to these problems.There is a need to understand the reasons for the threat or disappearance of such traditional farming systems in order to mitigate the loss of genetic diversity. For example, the policies of governments to encourage HYVs, market forces, and the introduction of new crops, may cause the disappearance of traditional farming systems. It is worrying to note that the number of landless farmers tends to increase over time. By keeping traditional farming systems alive, and at the same time putting agribusiness in place, these landless farmers will have an opportunity to remain in the agricultural sector.In many developing countries, policy in agriculture promotes rapid change which leads eventually to a decrease in agroecosystem types. Monocultures dominate the existing agroecosystems because of their efficiency. Uniformity in crop varieties signifies 'modern' agriculture with its high inputs.Credits are provided so that farmers can readily adopt the system. Such technology is appropriate for certain agroecological conditions, leaving the less favourable areas almost untouched. However, agricultural expansion as a way to produce food by growing more major crops will, sooner rather than later, expand to these areas. To diversify agricultural practices that are suitable for agroecological and socio-economic conditions, new policies such as small credit schemes for village enterprise, marketing facilities for minor crops, and investment in the development of processing equipment, need to be formulated. Scientific information should provide a sound basis for the development of such policies.Agrobiodiversity offers a powerful defence against the fatigue of the Green Revolution and the looming food shortages. Intensification of efforts to conserve agrobiodiversity by way of in situ/on-farm conservation can help us to decrease the burden on the environment, as well as to ensure the future availability of PGR for plant improvement. Such efforts must include:1. Farmers' empowerment. In many regions of the world farmers who live in marginal lands and have limited resources are still practising traditional agriculture despite the promotion of more efficient technology. If farmers are expected not to abandon their crop diversity as part of an in situ/on-farm conservation strategy, farmers need to be empowered to enlarge their food basket with local grains, tuber crops, fruits and vegetables. Not only does such empowerment lead to enhanced livelihood security, but it also allows increased usage of crop varieties that are being neglected (Swaminathan, 1994).Considering the large number of farmers who need to be empowered, scientific criteria for selecting places and areas to be included in an in situ/on-farm conservation programme should be a priority. However, there is a possibility that they will join efforts for in situ/on-farm conservation if invited. They have to be convinced that they have a significant role to play in an effort to help those who are less fortunate. Consequently, the private sector is not in the group of stakeholders concerned with the conservation of genetic diversity, especially onfarm conservation. 6. Global community attention. At the moment, not all local crop genetic diversity which still exists in farmers' fields around the globe, is represented in genebanks. Therefore, if in situ/on-farm conservation is considered as an important complement to existing ex situ conservation efforts, ways and means to make this complementarity work should be attempted. The global community is in a position to assist those countries which are identified as centres of diversity for specific crops to conserve their local crops' genetic diversity on-farm. There is no simple way of doing this, because on-farm conservation involves not only plant species, and their respective habitats, but also farmers as managers of the plant diversity. Dealing with farmers whose culture is as diverse as plant diversity is certainly a great challenge.The advantages of maintaining accessions in an ex situ collection are many and diverse. Firstly, if managed according to the international guidelines for genebanks the samples are expected to be safe. Secondly, access to the seed or planting material is generally easy. Thirdly, during the course of time much information is generated on genebank accessions and can be accessed with increasing ease through the Internet. To ensure reliable information on the samples now and in future it is essential that the accessions do not change their character. Genebanks must therefore manage static collections of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) while keeping their genetic integrity. Evolution and domestication are dynamic processes with a biological, time and space dimension. When we collect seeds, plant parts or plants and conserve them as genebank accessions we sample only a specific segment of the species' evolution or the crops' domestication history. In contrast to ex situ collections it is a declared aim of in situ and on-farm conservation programmes to allow genetic changes to take place in plant populations. Bretting and Duvick (1997) emphasized the dynamic nature of in situ and on-farm conservation and suggested that the term in situ conservation, including in situ on-farm conservation, should be substituted by 'dynamic conservation' and ex situ conservation by 'static conservation'. Taking into account that maintenance of plant genetic resources 'on the farm' always comprises a selection component, the term on-farm management of PGRFA has become popular (Gass et al., 1999) and in fact describes what farmers in traditional farming communities have achieved for centuries: they manage the genetic diversity on their farms as they manage the soil fertility of their farm fields.The Global Plan of Action (GPA) developed by the 4th International Technical Conference on PGRFA held at Leipzig appeals to countries to 'support on-farm management and improvement of PGRFA' in ' Activity 2' (FAO, 1996). The recommendation aims at the development of national programmes that encourages farmers to use and maintain their crop germplasm. The main target group of the recommendation are countries where farmers still reproduce their own seed material. With the beginning of variety breeding based on scientific knowledge, in industrialized countries, the traditional seed supply systems have changed. Around 1900 especially skilled seed producing farmers set up seed production companies and created the economic basis of today's breeding industry. The development of medium-and large-sized breeding companies led to economically efficient task sharing between the seed producers and the growers. Currently, in Germany only very few farmers develop and maintain their own varieties and these farmers belong to the ecological farming sector, mainly. Against the background of this historical development it is difficult to define what on-farm management of PGRFA could mean for farmers in a highly industrialized country like Germany.The German Ministry of Agriculture is currently developing an integrated national concept for PGRFA whereby in situ and on-farm measures shall supplement ex situ activities and vice versa. In situ and on-farm measures need to be planned warranting a continued adaptation of a wide range of crops and related wild species to environmental changes. This would supplement the already existing extensive ex situ conservation and utilization programme. While the objectives of in situ conservation projects of wild species can be formulated more straightforwardly, it appears to be more difficult to elaborate on the function of farmers as managers of crop germplasm on their farms. Traditional seed supply systems no longer exist and for conventional farmers the only incentive to produce seeds of modern varieties of selfpollinating cereals on the farm is saving seed costs. However, there is also a growing public interest in growing 'old landraces'. Several to a few hundred accessions of major and minor crops are reproduced by engaged individuals or seed saver associations on a limited acreage today (Maier, 2000).There are reasons to subsidize farmers for the cultivation of obsolete crops and varieties on their farm because the management of PGRFA can be regarded as an ecological service which has to be rewarded by society. As early as 15 years ago, it was argued that the production and use of a higher diversity of crops will help to reduce environmental problems arising from extremely narrow crop rotation systems (Dambroth, 1985). On-farm management projects are considered as potential founders of regional production initiatives serving specific market niches that may grow in time and may finally significantly contribute to a higher genetic diversity in crop production. Some crops have indeed found market niches as regional products like the old potato variety 'Bamberger Hörnle' or the 'Einkorn' wheat.The establishment of on-farm management programmes has been called for with the argument that we must promote the continued evolution of crops. It can be assumed that the evolution of a crop on the farm, that is, a measurable net gain in useful genetic variation, will be hard to measure, even if a programme lasted a few decades. What we could prove during the duration of a public funded programme is useful adaptation of crop genetic resources to different ecological conditions and we could test new concepts for the maintenance and more efficient utilization of inherited traits. The key question is: which useful and measurable effects can we expect to achieve with regard to sustainable agriculture and use of PGRFA and how farmers in a highly task-sharing and market-oriented society can support on-farm management and improvement of PGRFA in an economically feasible way.According to Jana (1999) conservationists and genebank curators should seek for the best practice that helps to prevent loss of genetic diversity using either in situ, on-farm or ex situ methods or a combination thereof. The common objective of in situ, on-farm and ex situ programmes is to manage genetic resources so as to guarantee their evolution, adaptation and availability for international exchange. Hence, for the sake of clarity, in this chapter procedures and measures that guarantee long-term conservation of the genetic integrity of accessions, easy access to collections and access to reliable information linked with them are called 'static management' of PGRFA. Procedures and measures that sustain the genepool and its evolution and assist in operating the adaptation process of the crop are called 'dynamic management' of PGRFA.Organizations like the World Beta Network (WBN) are challenged to develop a germplasm conservation and management concept integrating static and dynamic measures. Germplasm management concepts that may be useful to supplement the static management of PGRFA in countries with a highly developed seed industry have, for example, been discussed by Schnell (1980), Namkoong (1989), Bretting and Duvick (1997), Jana (1999) and more specifically for the genus Beta by the Swedish plant breeder Bosemark (1989). The first operational programme linking static and dynamic management procedures for wild Beta was developed by the Turkish genebank. Populations of Beta species occur in Gene Management Zones where they are maintained in situ along with the target species (Tan et al., 2000). This is the only example of a national programme managing and monitoring Beta populations in their natural environment. In the cultivated species the static management of genetic resources is currently supplemented by dynamic management approaches for sugarbeet in France and Germany. A more detailed description of the underlying concepts is provided in the following sections.The sugarbeet is produced on about 7.5 Mha in countries mainly located in the Northern hemisphere. Fodder, garden and leaf beets are of much less economic importance. In addition, the garden beet has some economic significance as a storage vegetable in Eastern Europe. The genus consists of four sections: Beta (primary genepool), Corollinae and Nanae (secondary genepool) as well as Procumbentes (tertiary genepool) (Table 13.1) (Buttler, 1977;Letschert, 1993;Lange et al., 1999).The genus Beta is native to Europe and adjacent areas (Fig. 13.1). Sections Nanae (Greece) and Procumbentes (Canary Islands) have a limited distribution area, while wild species of section Beta occur along the coastline from the south of Sweden to Morocco and from the Canary Islands to Iran. Section Corollinae has a large distribution area in Turkey and neighbouring countries. The centre of diversity is probably located where the species distribution of sections Beta and Corollinae overlap (eastern Turkey and the western part of Transcaucasia). The domestication of beets probably started in the Euphrates and Tigris regions and continued in Turkey and Greece from where cultivated beets were introduced to northern Europe (Boughey 1981). Cultivated beets have also occurred in China since the 5th century (Sun Yi Chu, 1994) and in Arabic countries.One of the youngest cultivated forms, the sugarbeet, has become a cash crop of worldwide importance which has been cultivated on a large scale only since 1806 when Napoleon decreed that beet should be grown for sugar. As the sugarbeet was probably selected from one single cultivated population only, the 'White Silesian', the genetic base of the crop is supposed to be very narrow. The 'White Silesian' beet had a rather low sugar content; however, the German scientist Achard considered the good root shape of this fodder-beet-like type as a favourable trait and started to select within this population on higher sugar content and yield. The sugar content increased from 4% to 16.5% between 1784and 1981(Winner, 1981)).Before 1960 open pollinated multigerm varieties were developed using family selection methods and the breeding material had a comparatively broad genetic variation (Desprez and Desprez, 1993). Compared with potato, barley and other economically important crops, sugarbeet did not seriously suffer from pest and disease attacks or adverse environmental conditions in the main production areas (Lewellen, 1992). Although almost all beet pests and diseases were already known, the sugarbeet crop was considered as a relatively healthy crop until the 1960s. However, because of the growing acreage, the sugarbeet was increasingly cultivated in short crop rotation, amplifying disease problems. During the 1960s the rising cost of hand labour became an even more pressing problem. The ordinary sugarbeet seed ball contains 3-4 seeds, seedlings emerge in clumps and had to be thinned by hand. Savitsky (1950) found in a seed field of about 1.5 ha one monogerm, homozygous plant. The monogerm genotype occurred in a component of the synthetic 'Michigan Hybrid 18' (Lewellen, 1992). The monogerm character was essentially inherited by a single recessive gene which became of great economic importance in sugarbeet breeding and production. Lines derived from that plant such as SLC101 (Savitsky, 1952) were extensively used in breeding programmes.In 1942 Owen (1948Owen ( , 1954) ) discovered cytoplasmic male sterile (cms) germplasm. After the Second World War, sugarbeet breeders focused their work on the development of monogerm, cms hybrid varieties with a high sugar quality, a high yield of recoverable sugar (Oltmann et al., 1984) and a good level of field resistance to diseases. In the beginning, only one monogerm seed parent line (C562) was resistant to bolting and all of the first monogerm varieties from the Hilleshög company, which reached more than 60% of the European market (cv. 'Monohill' and others), were derived from this line.For the maintenance of cms lines specific genotypes are required that, when crossed with a cms plant, produce a 100% male sterile progeny. In sugarbeet breeding these maintainer lines are called 'Otypes' which were first selected from multigerm material. Hence, monogerm O-types had to be developed by crossing multigerm O-types with monogerm material tracing back to the single plant found by Savitsky. All breeders used this monogerm material to introduce the trait into their elite cmsand O-type elite breeding stock. During this process the female breeding pool passed through a genetic bottleneck. Breeders had to enlarge the female genepool by crossing monogerm germplasm with a wide range of breeding families from the multigerm breeding stock. After 30 years of base broadening, the female genepool has sufficient variability (Frese and Desprez, 1999). Today, breeders wish to broaden the whole basis of the breeding programme as such (female and male pool). Strikingly, for sugarbeet breeders the collective set of varieties and breeding material still is the most important genetic resource used for the development of improved varieties today. One could argue that the genetic basis of the crop as such is not as narrow as generally assumed. It seems rather that it is a lack of specific traits that hampers breeding progress. Indeed, because commercial plant breeders use a large number of different, heterozygous pollinator populations, hybrid varieties still have much genetic variation (Bosemark, 1979).Additionally, sugarbeet is a wind-pollinated, strongly out-crossing crop. Therefore, plant breeders today may profit from exotic germplasm that was introgressed in the sugarbeet breeding pool, either by chance or deliberately by breeders. First introductions of wild germplasm into the sugarbeet probably occurred at the beginning of the 20th century, in Russia, the USA and Italy. Cultivated ϫ wild beet crosses were, for example, described by Tjebbes (1933) who used Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima from the North Sea coast with a sugar content ranging from 15.7% to 17.6%, and Munerati (1932) who crossed a population from the Po estuary with sugarbeets to introduce genetic variation for resistance to Cercospora beticola. The Munerati material, in particular, has been widely used in breeding. Due to a negative correlation between leaf spot resistance and exploitable sugar yield, selection of varieties with a high resistance and a high sugar quality and yield proved to be extremely difficult.Probably because of these early experiences with wild beet crosses, in the 1970s and early 1980s there was a great fear that introgression of undesirable genes of wild or exotic germplasm along with the desired disease resistance trait would destroy the results of costly selection on high sugar quality and bolting resistance. However, the view on potential benefits arising from the utilization of exotic germplasm began to change when soil-borne diseases like the beet cyst nematode (Heterodera schachtii) (Hellinga, 1943) or the beet necrotic yellow vein virus (BNYVV) (Grünewald et al., 1983) started to spread and threaten sugarbeet production in the whole northern hemisphere. In 1956 Savitsky (1960) detected a strong H. schachtii resis-tance in Beta section Procumbentes. However, due to strong crossing barriers between section Beta and section Procumbentes, the utilization of this source proved to be very difficult and time-consuming. Since the strong nematode resistance in section Procumbentes was the only source, scientists from the public and commercial sector struggled through the problems and finally succeeded in producing resistant germplasm used in variety breeding (Uphoff, 1997). It is easy to understand that this experience did little to promote a broader use of exotic material in breeding programmes (Desprez and Desprez, 1996).In the 1980s, the continued collection and evaluation efforts of the USDA/ARS programme yielded more and more exciting results on new sources of resistances, for example to the BNYVV (Doney and Whitney, 1990) in B. vulgaris subsp. maritima, which crosses easily with sugarbeet. Since then, the interest in utilization of Beta genetic resources collections has been increasing worldwide. Breeders are mainly searching for disease resistance genes in collections to supplement their breeding pool. Nowadays, they keep more than just a single accession with a desired trait in their working collection to capture allelic variants or additional genes just in case the one used is broken by a new pathotype. The introduction of additional genetic variation for sugar content and yield genes from exotic germplasm together with the target trait is thereby welcomed as a positive side-effect that can benefit breeding progress in the long run. Today, breeders wish to broaden the whole basis of the breeding programme as such (female and male pool). The sources for long-term strategic breeding projects are stored in genebanks.Characters like the cms and monogermy have had a substantial impact on agricultural practices and the economy of the sugarbeet. cms facilitated breeding of genetical monogerm hybrid varieties. cms and monogermy were found within the sugarbeet breeding material. With a growing demand for pest and disease resistant varieties for sustainable agricultural production, breeders are perceiving that the genetic variation contained in the elite stock will not suffice to match all the breeding aims. Beta genetic resources received increased interest in the 1980s when scientists began to report on new sources of resistance in B. vulgaris subsp. maritima against diseases like rhizomania and Cercospora beticola. Collecting activities were intensified to rescue endangered germplasm and to manage this potentially valuable material in static collections. Today, about 9500 accessions of wild and cultivated forms are maintained within the WBN, a network of decentralized collections located in 23 countries.The International Database for Beta (IDBB) managed by the BAZ Gene Bank serves as a central link between collections and as a network management tool (Frese, 1992;Germeier and Frese, 2000). In most cases, users contact the national genebanks directly and request information and/or seeds which are provided at no cost. Users looking for a specifically composed set of accessions often request the IDBB manager to search for suitable material, to compile a list of accessions and to provide the addresses of genebanks holding the germplasm. Within the WBN, germplasm curators and other scientists collaborate closely. Task-sharing in all relevant fields, that is, collecting missions, collection management, characterization, evaluation and utilization, is either jointly organized or information on national activities is exchanged.Together the members of the WBN seek to complete the world Beta genetic resources holding. The IDBB is used to detect geographic and taxonomic gaps in the global holding (Hazekamp and Frese, 1992) and is applied as a planning tool to prevent unintentional duplication of collecting missions and germplasm accessions. In the 1980s and 1990s many collecting missions have been implemented to rescue endangered landraces and wild populations or to gather material that could be of use in breeding programmes. A review of the collecting activities was presented by Doney et al. (1995). Since then only a few collecting missions have been implemented in Italy and Azerbaijan, mainly to cover existing geographic gaps in the world holding. Decreasing collecting activities indicate that a large proportion of the Beta genepool is already stored in genebanks.All three genepools of Beta (see Table 13.1) contain useful traits (Dale et al., 1985;van Geyt et al., 1990;Lewellen, 1992;Paul et al., 1992;Stanescu, 1994;Büttner et al., 1997;Yu, 1997;Panella, 1998). Examples are provided in Table 13.2. Within the framework of the European project 'Evaluation and enhancement of Beta collections for extensification of agricultural pro-duction -GENRES CT95 42' funded by the Commission of the European Countries a Beta core collection has been developed to improve access to the genetic variation summarized in Table 13.2. Since 1996 the core collection is mainly evaluated for disease resistance. This more recent activity is supplementing the continued evaluation work carried out by various institutions under the coordination of the USDA/ARS programme (Doney, 1998) and sporadic evaluation work carried out by breeding companies and research institutes in European, North African and Asian countries.There is an increasing amount of evaluation data available in genebank information systems and breeders are using this information to identify material useful for the introgression of novel genetic variation into their elite breeding pools.If a trait is purposefully introduced into the breeding pool through crossing and selection, this is called introgression (Simmonds, 1993). The introgression of BNYVV resistance genes from wild sources into the sugarbeet is a recent example. The disease is transmitted by the vector Polymyxa betae and caused by the BNYVV. In the case of strong BNYVV resistance, which is possibly inherited by two closely linked major genes (Scholten, 1997), the trait is introgressed into sugarbeet elite breeding material starting with the fixation of the gene in a donor line through selection of a resistant plant in a wild beet accession and the development of a non-segregating, resistant inbred line. Subsequently, the line is crossed with the sugarbeet (Büttner et al., 1997). BNYVV resistances genes can be attributed to resistance donor names like 'Holly-1-4' (gene Rz), collection numbers (WB42, gene Rz2) (Scholten, 1997) or genebank accession numbers (BGRC54817/RNR870909, gene not yet identified) (Büttner et al., 1997). The original donors are well identified and if the accessions are properly managed in collections the resistance data documented in genebank information systems will remain valid and valuable for future generations of plant breeders. Static management of this specific material is the best possible conservation practice.From the breeders' point of view static management of genetic resources may not be the most efficient way to maintain traits that are quantitatively inherited. There is the risk of losing minor genes for disease resistance when heterogeneous wild beet accessions are maintained ex situ in a region where the disease hardly occurs. In Beta little is known about the co-adaptive interaction between diseases and the wild species harbouring resistance genes. The co-adaptive processes resulting in the evolution of a number of valuable resistance genes are far from being understood. Nevertheless, B. vulgaris subsp. maritima growing in the Po estuary in north-eastern Italy and the leaf spot disease (C. beticola) may serve as a hypothetical but realistic example. The region is known for regular and heavy disease epidemics and we can assume co-adaptation between plant and pathogen. A seed sample of B. vulgaris subsp. maritima collected there will contain genetic variation for leaf spot disease resistance. If we regenerate the sample in an alien environment without any leaf spot disease stress, disease resistant genotypes will no longer have a selective advantage and will gradually decline in frequency with increasing number of seed reproduction cycles. Sylvén (1937, cited in Hill et al., 1998) investigated forage yield in meadow fescue (Festuca pratensis) selected for forage production in north Sweden and reported strong changes in yield after only a single generation of seed production in south Sweden. Hill et al. (1998) pointed out that selective genetic shift is a particular problem of static management of outcrossing species outside their natural enviroment. If there is a risk of losing genes through genetic shift, dynamic management procedures complementing the static management will play an important role.The term 'dynamic' is associated with different concepts of beet genetic resources management. Firstly, wild beet populations are maintained and managed in their natural habitats (Tan et al., 2000). The WBN should, therefore, promote the dynamic management of wild species and should seek to transfer the Turkish programme to other Beta distribution areas in Europe. For such a programme more information on the structure of genetic diversity of wild beets is required, facilitating realization of effective management projects for all species. Information on the sea beet (B. vulgaris subsp. maritima) is already increasing. The species occurs in a dynamic habitat along the west Atlantic and Mediterranean sea shores on shingle beaches in a narrow band between high tide and inland.Mainly during the cold season, tidal movements and sea currents alter the coastline by soil erosion, which sometimes destroys wild beet populations.The same process creates new habitats by washing soil ashore. Seed balls of the sea beet are dispersed by sea currents along the linear habitat. Founder populations arise at suitable places and start to exchange genes with neighbour populations. Currently, methods based on molecular marker techniques are being developed that will allow us to determine at which spatial distance the rate of gene flow between populations drops below a critical value and indicates the beginning of a new, genetically distinct population (Raybould and Clarke, 1999). We have started to understand the genetic structure of this species and the dynamics of gene flow within its habitat. This knowledge mainly stems from investigations on the origin of weedy beets in sugarbeet production fields and from risk assessment studies for genetically modified sugarbeet.Owing to the large distribution area of the sea beet and closely related wild species (Fig. 13.1, section Beta), dynamic management programmes would require the determination and selection of sites with genetically distinct populations and a monitoring scheme to ensure that the sites are safe and populations can continue to exist.Secondly, the term 'dynamic' stands for utilization of genetic resources through incorporation of sea beet germplasm into the sugarbeet. Thirdly, the term describes a concept of pooling resistance genes contained in genebank accessions. Evaluation of static collections is a prerequisite for this approach. Concentration of genes in dynamic genepools is the prominent objective.A programme integrating static and dynamic management elements has been developed by the French Beta Network. The charter of the French crop specific networks regulating the required contribution of network partners were laid down for cereals by Mitteau (1997) in an exemplary manner. The underlying principle is free access to material held or created within the network for those partners actively contributing to the network activities.B. vulgaris subsp. maritima is distributed along the French Atlantic and Mediterranean sea shores. A geographically stratified sample of 22 native accessions was chosen for the development of 'buffer' populations. Buffer populations link the wild with the cultivated species and purposefully reconstruct the natural gene flow between leaf beets and wild beets. The original wild populations are maintained in their natural environment while plants produced from collected seed samples are allowed to recombine with sugarbeet at various locations 'on the farm', that is, in the fields of sugarbeet breeders or any institution or individual willing to contribute to the common work (Table 13.3). In this system evolution can act on the original wild source as well as on pre-breeding material. The dynamic management of wild beet germplasm in buffer populations has no trait-specific focus. It rather concentrates on the elimination of two undesirable wild characters while keeping as much of the wild genome as possible. Wild beet material is often early bolting and develops fibrous or fanged roots. It is known that screening of annual (wild) beets on pest and disease resistance is therefore difficult. Biennial forms that resemble cultivated beets can be tested in the field more reliably than can the original, early bolting wild types. The programme has been set up so as to allow introduction and recombination of a large amount of the wild beet genome in the buffer while imposing a mild selection pressure on essential agronomic traits, that is, bolting resistance and sugarbeet-like roots. Through the specific design of the breeding scheme 50% of the genome of the wild parents can be maintained and can recombine in the buffer populations for as many generations as breeders wish to allow. Half-sib families and inbred lines can be tested and selected at the breeders' discretion without changing the buffer.A different, trait-specific, collaborative programme for the management of genes has been suggested by a plant breeding company in Germany. The programme is part of a long-term breeding strategy aiming at the improvement of the level of leaf spot resistance in sugarbeets. A comprehensive review on breeding for C. beticola resistance was presented by Skaracis and Biancardi (2000) and is the basis of the following descriptions. The first resistant breeding material was developed by the Italian breeder Munerati from a sugarbeet ϫ B. vulgaris subsp. maritima. The wild species was sampled from the Po river bank where, although endangered by ditch upkeep, it still exists. Around 1935 the most resistant material, in particular line R 581, was distributed to breeders in Europe and the USA where it was widely used in breeding programmes. Although other resistant sources were detected in section Beta, and in the more distantly related sections Corollinae and Procumbentes, the Munerati material is essentially the only source used in current breeding. The inheritance of the C. beticola resistance is of polygenic nature with a broad-sense heritability of 60-70% (Smith and Gaskill, 1970) and a narrow sense heritability of 24% (Smith and Ruppel, 1974). The investigations of Koch (1997) confirmed the quantitative nature of the resistance. Using an in vitro test system, Koch described three quantitative trait loci (QTL) on linkage groups 2, 3 and 5 explaining almost 50% of the total variation of the segregating F2 mapping population. In contrast to Koch (1997), Schäfer-Pregl et al. (1999) tested their F2 and test-cross material under natural disease attack conditions at Monselice (Italy), a location with the highest leaf spot disease pressure known in Europe. Schäfer-Pregl et al. (1999) were able to localize QTLs for resistance to C. beticola with highly significant likelihood odds ratios (LOD) on linkage groups 2, 6 and 9, if F2 data were considered only. QTLs were also detected on linkage group 4 and 5, and under artificial inoculation another QTL occurs The buffer population is segregating for male sterility and male fertility (1:1) and contains 50% of the wild genome Next Adaptation of the buffer population through mild selection on bolting resistance and root shape. years Exploitation of the population at the discretion of each participant on linkage group 3. Statistically, there are at least three to five chromosomes carrying QTLs which contribute to the resistance expression and these minor genes probably originate to a large extent from the Munerati source. The findings from QTL investigations not only confirm the quantitative nature of the resistance but also provide an idea of how minor genes contributing to the resistance trait expression are distributed over the genome.Leaf spot resistance qualifies for collaborative conservation activity because: (i) the resistance is inherited by many genes; (ii) promising genebank accessions show only a certain resistance level; (iii) the desired genes are probably scattered all over the natural distribution area of the species B. vulgaris subsp. maritima; and (iv) many accessions have a strong tendency to early bolting and fanged roots. Because of the difficulty experienced by all sugarbeet breeders to develop highly leaf spot resistant varieties and the economic risks connected with a long-term breeding strategy, a collaboration between companies appeared to be advantageous.The data required for the choice of accessions with variation for leaf spot resistance provided the GRIN database and the GENRES CT95 42 European Community germplasm screening project. Owing to recent systematic evaluation work wild and cultivated accessions have been detected scoring '3' (= low susceptibility to the leaf spot disease). A map with the collecting sites of the respective wild populations and cultivated accessions is presented in Fig. 13.2. These accessions are maintained as a static collection in genebanks. They may contain minor genes not yet present in the breeding pool. Currently, the accessions are retested in the USA to confirm the earlier evaluation results. If these accessions are combined in Cercospora resistance genepools (CRGs) more minor genes can be assembled and can recombine. The German plant breeding company KWS has therefore developed a breeding concept that aims at pooling all available B. vulgaris subsp. maritima accessions with low disease susceptibility in two different CRGs, that is, a pool built up from wild beet material distributed along the Atlantic coast and a second one created from Mediterranean wild beet populations. As described for the French 'buffer' population programme, basic characters like bolting resistance and a better root shape will be introduced in the pools. For that purpose sugarbeet material will be crossed with the bulked Atlantic respectively Mediterranean wild germplasm. Through mild mass selection for acceptable root shape and bolting resistance biennial material with a sugarbeet-like root shape will be developed that yields more reliable evaluation results than annual types when screened for disease resistance. By backcrossing with the wild beet up to 75% of the wild beet genes can be maintained in such CRGs. The CRGs will not only be subjected to mild selection to re-domesticate the material, but also need to be subjected to artificial (in the breeding garden) or natural selection pressure for disease resistance by growing CRGs on farm fields in areas with a regular and strong disease epidemic like at Monselice in northern Italy. In this way, all available genes contributing to the leaf spot disease could be maintained 'on the farm'.Activity 2 of the GPA contains a recommendation to 'support on farm management and improvement of PGRFA'. But how can this recommendation be realized in the case of Beta? The cultivated species B. vulgaris subsp. vulgaris consists of the leaf, garden, fodder and sugarbeet. In Europe most of the old beet landraces or obsolete varieties are no longer used by farmers and have either been lost or are conserved in genebanks. In a market-oriented society there is no strong economic incentive that stimulates farmers to use old beet varieties; to the contrary, fodder beet production is steadily decreasing in Germany (1950Germany ( : 566,000 ha, 1997: 17: 17,000 ha) (Keller et al., 1999), the garden beet is grown on about 800 ha only and the use of leaf beet is even more limited. Hence, the reintroduction of beet germplasm from genebanks into agricultural production systems with the objective of managing it 'on the farm', requires either idealism, an interesting market niche in the high price sector and/or subsidies from the government. All three requirements have weak points: idealism may subside with the change of generations and life objectives of people, market demands may be cursory as may be political and administrative support.In rural areas of the Mediterranean region small farmers and gardeners still produce their own seeds of leaf beets. In a village like Liapades (Kerkira, Greece) population sizes of a few individuals up to 30 seed bearer plants can still be found today. There is no strong spatial isolation between populations which most likely exchange genetic material. In Italy gene flow from B. vulgaris subsp. maritima into subsp. vulgaris and vice versa can be observed (Frese and Burenin, 1994). If it were possible to maintain the local seed production in a village like Liapades or the introgression from wild into cultivated form it would supplement static management of beet germplasm. We can assume continued evolution under such situations which can create new genetic variation in local populations during a period of 10 4 to 10 9 years. However, since land use may suddenly change or gardeners may decide to abandon cultivation of leaf beets, the situation in villages like Liapades may not be stable enough to provide a long-term and meaningful contribution to the static management of PGR. In Beta, dynamic management of genetic resources probably needs to be organized by institutions of the public services together with breeding companies or skilled seed-producing farmers. The basic management concepts were outlined in previous chapters.Buffer populations organizing the gene flow from the wild ancestor of beets to the cultivated material can be described as one element of dynamic management programmes. We can think about additional elements. In the global Beta holding distinct groups of leaf, garden and fodder beets exist, like leaf beets with a broad and fleshy petiole and glossy, smooth green leaves. An assemblage of the various accessions could be called a 'type group'. Within the group the individual accessions may be clearly distinct because of different leaf size or petiole length. We could pool all accessions belonging to a group, send seed lots to cooperating breeders or farmers and reproduce the type specific genepool on-farm, preferably on different sites in Europe, to allow a maximum adaptation of the type specific genepool. The purposeful management of type specific genepools would reconstruct the selection by farmers which created landraces of beets in the past until the onset of modern plant breeding in Europe. While the individual accessions are still managed by genebanks, the type group as such can participate in the evolutionary process, which is the major advantage arising from dynamic management of PGRFA. While we select on essential agronomic traits (bolting resistance and root shape) in buffer populations only, the management aim for type specific pools would be to maintain a range of typical characters that distinguishes the group from others. In the case of the trait specific pools we aim at the maintenance of all genes and alleles contributing to the expression of a specific character. The Cercospora disease is only an example trait and can be replaced by others, for example drought tolerance.The creation of buffer populations, type and trait specific genepools can be seen as components of management programmes that will contribute to the realization of GPA Activity 2 in Europe. The advantage of these components is that they facilitate the definition of objectives and the justification of projects. The objectives are:• Maintenance and monitoring of wild species populations and populations of cultivated forms in their natural habitat (including home gardens, farm fields). • Promotion of gene flow from the wild ancestor into the cultivated species and basic adaptation of the source material to agricultural practices (buffer populations). • Promotion of evolutionary processes within a restricted number of distinct cultivated types (type specific genepools). • Concentration of valuable, trait specific genes in genepools to avoid unintentional loss of genetic variation by genetic shift and drift through static management (trait specific genepools).GPA Activity 2 calls, in the first instance, for political support for a technical recommendation that, in 1996, was considered of crucial importance for the sustainable conservation and use of PGRFA. It must be clear that dynamic management programmes based on this recommendation will bind capacities for a long period. The most prominent example of a long-term programme in agricultural science is a series of experiments in microevolution that were conducted at the University of California (Davis) over a period of four decades (Allard, 1988). There are probably only a few more such cases in the world. Political support that finally results in the creation of a budget line required for the technical realization of dynamic management programmes will more likely be provided at the national (Germany) or regional (European Community) level if the objectives of a programme can be categorized so that decision-makers can set priorities. To be meaningful and successful the organization of a cooperative European network dealing with the dynamic management of beet populations cannot be based solely on input in kind. Rather a framework programme is required that guarantees long-term support.van Geyt, J.P.C., Lange, W., Oleo, M. and de Bock, Th.S.M. (1990)  The current debate on the release of transgenic crops is a useful reminder of how complex the deployment of new varieties is. Not only must the expected benefits be taken into account but also all the potential consequences at very different levels: agroecological, social, economic and political. Long before genetically modified organisms, the release of semi-dwarf high yielding varieties by rice breeders had a tremendous impact on the life of rice farmers and consumers. The first modern rice variety, IR8, was released in 1966. In Asia, rice production increased by 114% between 1966 and 1996, surpassing the 82% population increase during the same period (Hossain and Pingali, 1998).The breeding of high-yielding varieties made this increase possible, but was also associated with dramatic changes in rice farming practices and economy. The release of modern rice varieties has had an impact on which varieties rice farmers grow, why they grow them and how they grow them. For a long time, only the first point really mattered to genetic resources conservationists, as ex situ conservation was receiving most of their attention. Priority was given to the collection of local landraces threatened by the adoption of modern varieties, in order to make them available to all rice genetic resource users. Given the increasing interest in in situ conservation on-farm, the conservation of rice genetic resources must include new research activities in agroecosystems that can lead to a better understanding of what this approach means and how it can be implemented (Bellon et al., 1997). This is particularly needed in rapidly changing agroecosystems, where the conservation of agrobiodiversity needs to be supported by providing farmers with the appropriate options. This is a matter of urgency. The risk of genetic erosion is higher in agroecosystems submitted to changes in their cultural, economic or technological environment. While cases of coexistence of local and modern varieties are reported for several crops worldwide (see the examples cited in the next section), it does not mean that such 'equilibrium' situations can be reached in all cases, nor are they durable. Furthermore, developing in situ conservation strategies for rapidly changing agroecosystems is an important issue as it may eventually result in the preservation of diversity and its integration in agricultural development policies in much larger areas than those of traditional agroecosystems.In the Philippines, two main research institutions are involved in rice biodiversity conservation, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice). PhilRice maintains the national collection of rice genetic resources. IRRI holds in the International Rice Genebank the world's largest rice collection (Jackson et al., 1997). In 1996, IRRI and PhilRice implemented collaborative research activities to study rice diversity and its management by farmers in the Cagayan Valley, and identify opportunities to involve farmers in the overall framework of rice genetic resources conservation (Pham et al., 1996). 1  This chapter presents some of the results of this work. It shows how the survey of the on-farm diversity of rice varieties of the Cagayan Valley allowed the description of diversity in terms of genetic groups and of agronomic and cultural functional groups. Then, the identification of the constraints and threats to this diversity resulted in the definition of testable strategies to sustain it. This research illustrates the role that genebanks and research institutions can play in the maintenance of genetic diversity on-farm.Despite the intensity of the Green Revolution, rice agriculture intensification has not been uniform all over Asia. As observed in other major crops and countries, for example potato in Peru (Brush et al., 1992), and maize in Mexico (Bellon and Brush, 1994;Louette et al., 1997) and Burkina Faso (Sanou, 1996), agroecosystems can be found where modern varieties coexist with traditional ones.The Cagayan Valley, located in Northern Luzon, the Philippines, is a good example of these situations. Three different rice ecosystems are present in the Cagayan Valley: rainfed upland, rainfed lowland and irrigated lowland. A differential impact of modern varieties was observed from the upland to the irrigated lowland ecosystem from a survey of 16 households by ecosystem (four villages/ecosystem, four households/village) (Bellon et al., 1998). The ratio of modern to traditional varieties was 24:61, 20:19 and 43:5 in the rainfed upland, rainfed lowland and irrigated ecosystems, respectively. The analysis of the genetic polymorphism at 16 isozyme loci of 149 accessions of tradi-tional and modern varieties showed that a gradient of genetic diversity followed a similar pattern, as the Nei's heterozygosity index demonstrated, that is 0.25 in the upland, 0.21 in the rainfed lowland and 0.15 in the irrigated ecosystem.The results presented in this chapter mainly come from the study of the rainfed lowland ecosystem.Although not as genetically diverse as the upland ecosystem, we considered this ecosystem represented the main target for maintaining genetic diversity onfarm because of the much larger production areas it represents in Cagayan. Because of the obvious competition between traditional and modern varieties and the changing agroeconomic conditions, in particular the development of irrigation, the rainfed lowland ecosystem offers a unique challenge to study the dynamics of on-farm rice diversity, and to develop strategies to sustain this diversity.The study sites were located in three municipalities adjacent to each other, in the centre of Cagayan Province. On the western side of the Cagayan river were the municipalities of Solana and western Amulung. On the eastern side were those of Iguig and eastern Amulung. In these municipalities, 15 barangays (villages) and 207 households were selected to represent a diversity of agroecological, economic and ethnic conditions.The selection of study sites was done with the help of local officials from the Philippines Department of Agriculture Region and the Cagayan Valley Lowland and Marine Research Outreach Station.In order to complement the study on farmers' perceptions of varieties presented in Bellon et al. (1998), we conducted an analysis to understand the farmers' classification of rice varieties. Given the high number of variety names encountered in the Cagayan Valley, we suspected that farmers have their own classification of the varieties they use, and perceive and manage these varieties as elements of larger groups.The primary methodology used for identifying variety classes was successive pile-sorting, where an informant is asked to sort a set of items into smaller and smaller piles until each pile is a single item (Bernard, 1988;Borgatti, 1992). If two varieties are split on the first split, their relationship is one, on the second split two and so on. Higher values (later splits), imply greater perceived similarity between individual varieties. From pile-sorting a similarity matrix can be produced in which pairs of varieties with a higher mean value are considered more similar than those pairs with a lower mean value. The resulting matrix was plotted using multidimensional scaling and only the 20 most commonly known varieties were used.Farmers were asked to give the reasons for splitting at every split. The earlier splits (especially splits one and two) are indicative of more general criteria for distinguishing all available varieties and the later splits tend to be more precise and variety-based details. In 1996 and1998, two surveys were conducted in the rainfed lowland ecosystem. Among the questions that were put to the households were the name of the varieties that they were planting, and the origin of the seeds.Two distinct sets of accessions were studied for microsatellite polymorphism: the same set of 149 accessions collected in the three ecosystems previously studied for isozyme analysis, and another set of 205 accessions collected in the rainfed lowland ecosystem.DNA was extracted from healthy leaves of 4-week-old plants using the CTAB (cetrimidetrimethylammoniumbromide) method. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was carried out in 1ϫ PCR buffer (100 mM Tris-HCl, 500 mM KCl, 0.1% gelatin); 1 mM MgCl 2 ; 0.1 mM dNTP mix; 0.2 µM primer-reverse and forward (Research Genetics); 1 unit Taq polymerase and 20 µl genomic DNA. Amplification was carried out using an MJ Research thermal cycler with the following profile: initial denaturation for 5 min at 94°C; 35 cycles of 94°C for 1 min, 55°C for 1 min, and 72°C for 2 min, and a final extension of 72°C for 5 min. PCR products were viewed using silver staining after electrophoresis on a 6% polyacrylamide gel.Eighteen microsatellite primers were used for the first set of 149 accessions: RM 1,2,3,5,6,9,11,12,13,15,16,17,18,122,148,164,167,168. For the second set of 230 accessions, the fol-lowing eighteen primers were used: RM 1,3,6,11,12,18,25,26,27,60,122,167,168,169,254,255,258 and 261. This set of primers slightly differed from those used for the first set of accessions because of practical and technical reasons. All primers (Panaud et al., 1996;Temnykh et al., in press;Cho et al., in press) were purchased from Research Genetics.The analysis of farmers' classification of the 20 most frequent varieties in the study villages gave a clear picture. The clusters of varieties could be interpreted as functional groups: varieties were clustered together because farmers recognized them as having similar traits and patterns of use.Three primary sorting groups came out from the multidimensional scaling (Fig. 14.1), which can be interpreted as follows from the reasons farmers gave for splitting: The Wagwag variety type is prevalent throughout the region and it can be found in 14 of the 15 research villages. Figure 14.2 shows that out of the 72 variety names that were collected in the rainfed lowland ecosystem in Cagayan, four accounted for more than 50% of the plots. Out of these four varieties, two were modern varieties (IR66 and PSBRc10) and two were Wagwag varieties (Wagwag and Wagwag pino). Wagwag varieties are long duration photosensitive varieties. They are valued for their taste, cooking quality and adaptation to the variable local growing conditions. These varieties generally command a better price at the local and regional markets. Breeders have long recognized the agronomic value of Wagwag varieties but their use in breeding programmes has been hampered by their low combining ability.The genetic analysis showed that the Wagwag varieties bring an original contribution to the overall rice genetic diversity in the Cagayan. Although not all accessions of Wagwag varieties clustered together -in that respect, the microsatellite analysis tended to blur the image previously obtained from isozyme data (Bellon et al., 1998) -a large group of them were clearly separated from the rest of the accessions (Fig. 14.3). To illustrate what the genetic loss would be if all Wagwag varieties were to disappear, the genetic diversity at each of the microsatellite loci was computed for the second set of samples collected in the rainfed lowland ecosystem, and for this set minus the Wagwag varieties (Fig. 14.4). It shows that a decrease in genetic diversity would be observed at the majority of studied loci.The survey on farmers' perceptions conducted in 1996 demonstrated that long duration is the main reason for farmers in the irrigated and rainfed lowland ecosystem to discard varieties (Bellon et al., 1998;Fig. 14.5). The analysis of the cropping calendar shows that the use of long duration varieties by farmers precludes the shift to double cropping (Fig. 14.5). Thus, the development of irrigation, which makes the double cropping of short duration varieties possible, appears to have potential negative consequences on rice diversity in Cagayan. This is an example of how the development of a technology (irrigation) induces perturbation of the agroecological niche occupied by particular varieties.In 1997 and 1998, two  the timing of rain was not good. The drought came when the rice plants were at the seedling stage, a stage when the tolerance to drought is nearly nil. Some farmers who had decided to wait for more rains were never able to plant.In September and October 1998, the typhoons Loleng and Iliang hit the valley and caused severe infrastructural damage and early season flooding. The level and intensity of these floods was devastating. Again, rice seedlings were lost and even plants in later growth stages were badly affected.Our surveys demonstrated that these catastrophes had a major impact on the frequency of traditional and modern varieties in Cagayan. The use of traditional varieties by farmers decreased from roughly 45% in 1996in to about 25% in 1998 (Fig. 14.6) (Fig. 14.6). The surveys and discussions with farmers and extension agents provided four main explanations for this rapid change in the varieties grown by Cagayan farmers.Deficient household seed storage technology. Due to the humid climate conditions, the normal seed storage conditions in farming households in Cagayan do not permit farmers to maintain the germination ability of seeds for much longer than 6-9 months. This means that farmers cannot 'jump' a production season: if they do not produce seeds for a given variety during a given season, they will have to find an external source to get seeds to be able to plant the variety at the next season. Obviously, another option for them would be not to plant the variety. 2. Lack of infrastructure for seeds of traditional varieties. In a situation where seed stocks of most farmers were affected, farmers had to rely on external sources to obtain seeds for the next planting season. The seed stores generally carry only modern varieties, and certified seed growers, part of the Department of Agriculture's system of seed procurement strategy, grow only modern varieties. 3. Support for the use of modern varieties. In 1997 and 1998 the Municipal Agriculture Offices sponsored a 'plant now pay later' scheme. In this programme farmers are given seeds at no cost and, on harvest, are expected to pay for them. The seeds given in the scheme are from the certified seed growers and are always modern varieties, and sometimes only the  recommended varieties. The varieties available in 1998 were IR66 and PSBRc28, the former a popular but older modern variety, and the latter a new and currently recommended variety. Traditional varieties are not planted by certified seed growers and were not included in the scheme.Resilience of irrigated plots. The varieties that were planted on irrigated plots were obviously less affected by the drought than the varieties planted on rainfed plots. Therefore, irrigation sustains the use of the modern varieties, as farmers plant only modern varieties on irrigated plots (Morin et al., 1998).The research in Cagayan shows the importance of a continuous monitoring of the rice varieties being grown. While genebank scientists can provide the methodology to do the surveys and initiate the collection of baseline data, they may lack the proximity to the field or the resources to perform the survey at regular intervals. The implementation of 'diversity lighthouses' managed in collaboration with farming communities and local extension offices is needed to provide data on the changes of diversity over time, whether due to particular climatic circumstances or not. These data would also be useful to help farmers obtain seeds from a variety they have lost. Community-based projects in Vietnam and Nepal were successful in developing the use of biodiversity registries in farming communities (Sthapit et al., 2000). In Cagayan Valley, the assessment of the diversity of rice varieties and the analysis of threats to this diversity indicate that strategies need to be identified to sustain the cultivation of long duration varieties in the rainfed lowland agroecosystem.There is a general consensus that farmers are not conservationists by nature but are 'conservationists' through use. In other words, farmers have to be pro- vided with the right technical and economic options, so that they see the advantages in growing the varieties targeted by the conservationists. Cagayan farmers cannot afford to maintain long duration varieties if this results in a loss of income.The idea of investigating new cropping patterns came from the observation of the practices of a farmer who was planting his traditional varieties in late October, a full 3 months after his neighbours. According to him, this practice posed no risk and  he felt he achieved higher yields with his traditional varieties than his neighbours. Field trials conducted on the experimental fields of IRRI in Los Baños confirmed these observations. Late planting not only permitted a decrease in maturity of the Wagwag varieties, but there was also an increase in yield (Figs 14.7 and 14.8). Consequently, it is possible to propose a new cropping pattern, which would allow farmers to do double-cropping with both modern and traditional varieties (Fig. 14.9). However, large-scale tests need now to be conducted. It will be extremely important to assess the potential impact of this pattern on the occurrence of pests and diseases.The seed supply system is considered by both breeders and conservationists to be a key element in the deployment and management of crop varieties in agroecosystems. The development of local genebanks managed by farming communities, and of local seed markets, has been the objective of numerous non-governmental organizations (see for example Salazar, 1992) involved in onfarm conservation activities. More recently, the IPGRI-coordinated project for in situ conservation on-farm has also integrated the development of local seed markets into its research agenda. It is, therefore, of no surprise when we conclude that it is necessary to strengthen farmers' access to seeds to sustain on-farm diversity. However, in this chapter, we will not discuss the possible implementation of local genebanks or the implementation of seed flow mechanisms within and between farming communities. We present two activities in which institutional genebanks can play an active role.As discussed in the analysis of the consequences of the natural catastrophes in Cagayan, poor storage conditions are a cause of genetic erosion. We are developing a simple and cheap seed drying and storage device that farmers could use to store the seeds for several years. With a simple plastic drum as a container, and old rice seeds as a drying medium agent, preliminary tests show the moisture content of fresh-harvested seeds could be brought down to 12%, that is, at a level that would permit the conservation of seeds in the closed drum for several years. A prototype of the device is currently being tested by a pilot group of farmers.In November 1998, we went to Cagayan Province to take seeds back to farmers who had participated in our project. The seeds had been collected from total of 609 bags of modern variety seeds (2 kg) and 105 bags of traditional variety seeds (1 kg) were distributed.It appeared 2 years later that the small amount of seeds distributed had limited the efficiency of the distribution. Only 57% and 32% of the bags of modern and traditional varieties respectively, were successfully multiplied. In particular, the small multiplication plots implemented by individual farmers were affected by limited floods, while larger plots, possibly conducted at the community level, would have been more resilient. Nevertheless, the distribution helped to change the ongoing trend of decreasing number of farmers growing traditional varieties (175 in 1996, 110 in 1997, 84 in 1998) as it went up to 148 in 1999.Although this distribution was not organized in response to the catastrophes in Cagayan, its impact illustrates the need for genebanks to develop an expertise in the restoration of local diversity. One of the activities included in the FAO's Global Plan of Action is the assistance to farmers in disaster situations to restore agricultural systems. The example of the Cagayan Valley shows that disasters do not necessarily happen on a very large scale. The design and logistics for local operation of diversity restoration might have to be very different from that conducted at a national or regional level.The increasing interest in in situ conservation onfarm makes the institutional genebanks face a new challenge. While being mainly familiar with the closed, controlled environment of cold rooms and multiplication fields and the uninterrupted flow of seed requests, genebanks must now face the open, changing agroecosystems where farmers are not only the end-users but also the decision-makers. On-farm conservation cannot be imposed on farmers. The idea of freezing genetic lanscapes (Iltis, 1974) has long been abandoned. The research activities of the Genetic Resources Centre of IRRI and PhilRice illustrate the role these genebanks and research institutions can play in collaboration with other stakeholders to contribute to the development of the right balance of incentives for farmers to maintain diversity.The role of genebanks and research institutions is to:• assess existing in situ on-farm diversity and its structure; • assess the potential benefits of this diversity to both farmers and conservationists; • identify endangered varieties or varietal groups, and the threats to these varieties.Their role is then to develop options to make diversity a viable option for farmers:• to identify technical or policy opportunities for the continued cultivation of these varieties (or to change policies that negatively affect diversity); • to contribute to the transfer of knowledge/technology to farmers through the appropriate channels.Finally, genebanks and research institutions have an important role to play to strengthen farmers' access to diversity:• to understand the impact of seed policies on farmers' access to genetic diversity; • to understand the technical constraints faced by farmers in conserving genetic resources and to improve or develop seed technologies at the local level; • to develop channels for the reintroduction of lost varieties when needed, and develop links between farmers and genebanks not only to sustain the diversity on-farm but also to improve its management by farmers.Understanding the processes that affect the dynamics of diversity in ecosystems goes far beyond the conservation objective. It may provide plant breeders and extension agencies with new options for better deployment and management of diversity in agroecosystems.For several years of germplasm collection and conservation of crop genetic resources, ex situ has been the main conservation strategy against the loss of genetic diversity in crops. However, it has become evident that views that led to the dismissal of the in situ conservation strategy are no longer valid. For example, it has been realized that the ex situ facilities (seed storage and field genebanks) cannot accommodate the full range of useful genetic diversity, nor can the facilities conserve the dynamic process of crop evolution and farmers' knowledge of crop selection and maintenance inherent in the development of farmers' varieties (FAO, 1996;Maxted et al., 1997). These shortcomings of an ex situ conservation strategy can, however, be addressed by an in situ on-farm conservation approach. Therefore, in order to conserve the full range of genetic diversity of crops, there is a need to consider both ex situ and in situ on-farm conservation methods.In situ on-farm conservation is a conservation technique which aims at maintaining genetic diversity of crops and their wild relatives in farmers' fields (FAO, 1996;Maxted et al., 1997). However, the technique for implementing on-farm conservation of crop genetic diversity has not been developed; it is still in its initial stages.A study to understand the on-farm maintenance of farmers' varieties of sorghum was carried out in the Lower Shire Valley, Malawi, with the aim of generating information that could be used to develop a strategy for implementing on-farm conservation in the country. For this study, farmers' varieties are defined as variable plant populations, adapted to local agroecological conditions, which are named, selected and maintained by the farming communities to meet their socioeconomic, cultural and ecological needs. Specifically, the study's objectives were to: (i) assess the status of farmers' varieties of sorghum and its associated crop species in the target area; (ii) identify methods used in maintaining the varieties; (iii) identify key factors influencing farmers' decisions in maintaining or limiting farmers' varieties; and (iv) propose a way forward for the development of an on-farm conservation strategy.Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) was selected as a target crop species for the study due to its importance in Malawi. While sorghum is the world's fifth largest cereal crop, it is the most The study targeted all farmers' varieties of sorghum. In the absence of more efficient techniques such as molecular markers, different farmers' varieties were distinguished on the basis of local names used in the study area. The problem with this method, however, was the apparent use of different local names for the same variety. This was especially so when one moved from Chikwawa to Nsanje (Fig. 15.1). For example, Gonkho in Chikwawa is a sorghum variety characterized by a goose's neck but the same name in Nsanje means sorghum.Due to limited resources, five out of eleven agroecological zones (Fig. 15.2), representing 45% of the zones available to smallholder farming in the Lower Shire Valley were selected as the target area. The selected zones included the Makande Plains (LS 2), Lower Shire and Mwanza Footslopes (LS 4), Middle Shire (MS 1), Chambuluka Uplands (LU 2) and Mwabvi Uplands (LU 3). The agroecological zones were described mainly on the basis of soil type (Table 15.1).Again, due to limited resources, a sample of 44 villages representing about 10% of the villages was randomly drawn from 442 villages covering the selected agroecological zones. The selected villages were then marked on 1 : 50,000 maps of the Lower Shire Valley as sites which were then used during field work. The number of farm families targeted in the study was 200. This number was considered adequate given limited resources. Besides, most of the social surveys that have been conducted in the whole country have had sample sizes ranging from 200 to 300.From each of the selected villages, the number of farm families to be interviewed was calculated by using the following formula: where P is the number of farming families in each selected village; and TP is the total number of farming families in all the 44 selected villages. The number of farm families for each of the selected villages was drawn from the census register used during the Starter Pack Programme in which the Government provided seed of different crops and fertilizer (free) to farming families in the Shire Valley.From the Lower Shire and Mwanza Footslopes, 96 families were interviewed, 42 from the Makande Plains, 27 from Chambuluka Uplands, 20 from the Middle Shire and 9 from Mwabvi Uplands, giving a total of 194 farm families. The family members interviewed were husband and wife, or either husband or wife alone, depending on who was at home. A participatory rural appraisal method, guided by a structured questionnaire, was used.The study team comprised members from the following organizations:Table 15.2 shows that 4 out of 15 farmers' varieties of sorghum have been completely lost in the study area, representing 27% loss. However, among the existing varieties, only Kawaladzuwa, Wayawaya and Katsonte/Kachilawende were widely distributed.According to the families interviewed, Kawaladzuwa, Wayawaya and Katsonte/Kachilawende were preferred due to their early maturing compared with the other varieties. This was a clear demonstration of serious genetic erosion taking place in the farmers' varieties. The major cause of genetic erosion, as reported by the families, was persistent drought, which has become a common phenomenon in the area. Analysis of total annual rainfall received in the Lower Shire Valley from 1979 to 1998 (Fig. 15.3) supports the farm families' perception of the cause of these losses.Although the Shire Valley experiences low average annual rainfall which varies between 700 and 400 mm (Mkanda and Munthali, 1991), Fig. 15.3 shows that the average annual rainfall has been seriously fluctuating from 1979 to 1998 dominated by dry spells (droughts). The most serious droughts occurred in 1979 (lasting 30 days) followed by 1991 with 26 days and 1990 with 21 days. These fluctuations have had serious impact on crop production in general, and farmers' varieties of sorghum in particular, the result of which has been the selection of early maturing sorghum varieties.Table 15.2 also shows that while Wayawaya and Kawaladzuwa were among the three varieties that were widely distributed in the area, they dominated different agroecological zones. Wayawaya dominated the Makande plains (LS 2) and Chambuluka Uplands (LU 2), while Kawaladzuwa dominated the Lower Shire and Mwanza Footslopes (LS 4), Middle Shire (MS 1) and Mwabvi Uplands (LU 3). The difference in distribution of the two varieties was attributed to adaptation to different soil types that characterized the agroecological zones. Table 15.1 shows that the Makande Plains, in which Wayawaya was most common, are mostly dominated by vertisols which are characterized by high clay percentage (> 30%), whereas the Lower Shire and Mwanza Footslopes, in which Kawaladzuwa was most common, are dominated by fluvic soils characterized by continuous soil rejuvenation through the deposition of sediments on the surface by floodwater. In the case of Wayawaya also being most common in the Chambuluka Uplands, the possible explanation could be its close proximity to the Makande Plains (Fig. 15.2). Agroecological zones that are close to each other are likely to have stronger seed exchange than agroecological zones far apart. A similar explanation also applies to Kawaladzuwa being most common in the Middle Shire and Mwabvi Uplands.Seed selection is an important process in the maintenance process of varieties (whether improved or not). This ensures that high quality seeds are planted every season and that purity of the varieties is maintained. It was therefore not surprising that all the families carried out seed selection of some sort and were well versed as to why they did it as well as what characteristics make good and bad seeds. Differences, however, were found in the time of selection both within and between agroecological zones (Table 15.3). In Table 15.3, it can be seen that although different families carried out seed selection at different times in each agroecological zone, the majority of the families selected their seed between harvest and threshing periods. The reasons given for seed selection at this time were that it was the best time to select good seed for safe-keeping against weevils and other pests and that it was easier to separate seeds of different varieties. However, a few families in the Lower Shire and Mwanza Footslopes and Chambuluka Uplands selected their seed at planting time. According to those families that selected during planting time, it was the best time for seed selection since one of the characteristics they look for is the ability of seeds to survive pests and disease attack.Table 15.3 shows that women were predominantly involved in seed selection in all the agroecological zones. The major reason for this was that, in the Shire Valley, women are traditionally responsible for food crops of which farmers' varieties of sorghum played a major role. In the case of men, it was reported that their main interest was in cash crops such as cotton and improved crop varieties as these too are commonly for sale due to their poor storage.SEED DRESSING. It was found that a number of techniques were used to control pests in the store (Table 15.3). These included application of Actellic powder (Pirimiphos-methyl), Sevin (Carbarly 85 S), 'Good hands', use of ash dust, smoke, Neem and ultra sun drying. Use of Actellic powder, which is the current recommended pesticide, was most  common in all the agroecological zones except in the Middle Shire Valley (MS 1) and Mwabvi Uplands (LU 3). The use of 'Good hands' came second. This method is interesting because the scientific basis for it is not known. In the villages where the method of 'Good hands' was used, it was reported that when certain people of either sex and of any age implement seed processing, that is from harvest to threshing to storage, there is less pest attack on the seed. However, the families using the method reported that it was not as effective as use of Actellic powder.Another interesting point on how families control pest attack on stored seed, was the use of Sevin (Carbarly 85 S). Sevin is a recommended cotton pesticide for controlling elegant grasshoppers, red and spiny bollworms and other pests. Cotton is the main cash crop for smallholder farmers in the Shire Valley, hence Sevin's easy availability in the area. It has not, however, been recommended for use in food crops. It seemed that the families were not aware of the dangers of this chemical to human health. While it was apparent that the traditional methods such as smoking the seeds and use of ash were disappearing (except 'Good hands') (Table 15.3), use of ash in cow peas was still common.SEED STORAGE TYPES. Table 15.3 shows that several storage types were being used across the target area. These included the use of bags (made out of jute), clay pots, woven baskets called Chikwa, and platform/benches in houses. Of these types, the use of bags was most common. According to information gathered during the study, the use of bags is quite recent. Before the 1970s, the common storage types were the use of Chikwa for sorghum and pearl millet, pots for cow peas and granaries for maize. These old types have almost disappeared as a result of theft and the introduction of handy jute bags.One of the objectives of the study was to find out key factors that influence farming families in either continuing or discontinuing with the maintenance process of the farmers' varieties. The approach chosen was first to find out if the family would be inter-ested in continuing with the maintenance process. Depending on the type of answer, the family was asked to justify it. The answers and their justifications are summarized in Table 15.4. The majority of the families (84%) across the target area were interested in continuing with the maintenance process. The reasons given were: (i) farmers' varieties produce hard grains that make storage handling easier and are easier to pound; (ii) food security: by growing both farmers' varieties and improved varieties of different crop species, families felt more food secure; this was because of recurrent droughts in the target area; (iii) inability to purchase seed of improved crop varieties every season; and (iv) keeping farmers' varieties was part of their tradition.One of the most serious problems facing the acceptance of improved varieties of sorghum and pearl millet in Malawi is related to pest problems owing to the softness of the grains. Weevils attack the improved varieties more easily compared with the hard grains of farmers' varieties. The second reason, that food security was important, was due to the unpredictability of rainfall. Since it is difficult to predict how much rainfall will be received, especially in the Lower Shire Valley, families grow both improved and farmers' varieties so as to be more food secure. On the other hand, the group of families not interested in continuing with the maintenance process gave the following reasons: (i) low yield of farmers' varieties compared with improved varieties; (ii) late maturity and hence inability to match with current rains; (iii) bird damage; and (iv) lack of drought resistance.Overall, low yield of the farmers' varieties, followed by late maturity, are the major factors that influence the families to discontinue with the maintenance process of farmers' varieties and to switch to modern varieties.The findings of the study led to the following conclusions:• Serious genetic erosion has been threatening the continued existence of farmers' varieties of sorghum in the Lower Shire Valley. The dominance of Wayawaya and Kawaladzuwa, both of which are early maturing varieties, is a clear indication of genetic erosion which has occurred in sorghum because of the replacement of late maturing varieties by the early maturing varieties. Persistent drought was found to be the major contributing factor to genetic erosion of farmers' varieties in sorghum. • Use of local names of farmers' varieties was confusing as one moved from one place to another; local names used for particular sorghum varieties in Chikwawa were found to be different from those names used in Nsanje for the same varieties. • Most farming families select the seed of farmers' varieties between harvest and threshing period. However a few families carried out seed selection at planting time. • Women were found to be the custodians of farmers' varieties in the Shire Valley. • Just like the findings of a previous survey (Chiwona, 1998), the majority of farming families showed interest in keeping farmers' varieties mainly for food security and grain hardiness.Based on the study results, personal experience gained during field work, as well as on the outcome of the 1998 survey, the following way forward for the development of an on-farm conservation strategy for Malawi is presented.Local names of farmers' varieties of sorghum were used for differentiating the varieties in the study. It seemed, however, that different local names were in some cases used for similar or the same varieties. In order to be certain whether the study dealt with different sorghum varieties, variety verification of the collected samples has to be conducted.Similar studies should be conducted on different crops and in different agroecological zones of the country in order to be able to compare the results.Conservation through use of farmers' varieties is a concept which is based on the principle that farming families will only keep farmers' varieties that are useful to them (Worede, 1999). Less favoured sorghum varieties need to be made more attractive in order to ensure that more farm families will be interested in their maintenance. One proposed way to do this would be by improving the farmers' varieties through participatory plant breeding. The study results indicated that farmers' varieties in general and particularly those that are less dominant, are low yielding compared with modern crop varieties. However, it is possible that, through participatory plant breeding, yields of farmers' varieties can be improved, while maintaining diversity in such materials (Worede et al., 2000). Therefore, by enhancing the performance of farmers' varieties this can result in increased utilization and in turn this will improve their conservation on-farm. However, the effect of participatory plant breeding on genetic diversity will have to be investigated. If an effect exists, it will be important to establish levels of genetic loss that can be tolerated.Biology is at the threshold of a major paradigm shift, or revolution (www.ncgr.org/bioinformatics/paper/ and www.agbio.cabweb.org; Sobral et al., 2001). A collective leap in knowledge is about to come from investments in the biological sciences. Until now experimentation has driven biological information.Increasingly, it will be information that will drive biological experimentation. Biology is moving from primarily a descriptive, experimental discipline to a predictive, mathematical discipline. This trend began in the 1960s with systems ecology and the rise of modelling to predict the behaviour of ecosystems. It failed and lost favour because of the difficulty in choosing parameter values but has resurfaced in the form of agent-based models.German scientists may have first used the word bioinformatics about 100 years ago, with the meaning of producing a mathematical model of living organisms. However, the current use of bioinformatics is much less defined than mathematical modelling and the word seems to have lost an agreed meaning. One driving force for the paradigm shift is the shift from 'cottage industry' laboratories to large-scale factories or 'data farms'. As a result of engineering of laboratories, changes in the resolution at which biological questions can be posed (from molecules to ecosystems) are now envisioned.To provide the capability for such questions, a data management infrastructure is required by biologists, much like that which has been built to support other information-intensive communities.The focus of most of biology in the 20th century was to reduce biological phenomena and their understanding to the level of molecules and their behaviour. However, it is increasingly recognized that many, if not most, biological functions come from the interactions among many components. One thing this suggests is that biology will start to need to incorporate the 'systems thought' that is typical of engineering. To achieve some of the benefits possible from an integrative approach to biological questions and information, it is necessary to invest in biological information resources (databases and associated tools) and to create standards for interpretation and comparisons of the data and their transformation into information and, hopefully, knowledge. Also, it is necessary to integrate information at various levels and with an environmental context. To do so requires:• engineering of integrated software systems;• high-performance hardware systems to support distributed collaborations and complex data analyses; • high-speed connectivity to the Internet.Biology has also become 'big business'. Private investment in biological research and development has been growing (NSF S&T report, 1998). However, to realize the potential that is offered by paradigm shifts and biological revolutions will require a different type of research organization, with a team focus. This is caused by the necessity of multidisciplinary approaches to tackle the opportunities and challenges posed by biology as an information-driven science. Biological information is doubling roughly every 6 months, based only on DNA sequence data. This is faster than the exponential rate of increase of computing power, as suggested by Moore's Law (an empirical observation made long ago that has held until today: the doubling of processor power every 12 months). In the past decade, more scientific information has been created than in all of previous human history (Kaku, 1997).Leaps in information technology (IT) are well known and of equal importance now to biology and other fields, precisely because of their impact on biology as it becomes an information-driven science. The direction appears to be one of distributed computing eventually allowing high-end virtual reality, modelling and visualization to become routine over the Internet (Butler, 1999). Some argue that the world's largest supercomputer will eventually be the Internet itself.Supercomputing power at commodity prices will help scientists interested in biology to tackle complex systems, thus prompting a profound change in science itself. Ruzena Bajcsy (assistant director of the National Science Foundation's directorate for computer and information science engineering) believes that it will end the Descartian chapter of reductionist research and lead to modelling of complex systems from organisms to the whole Earth (according to Butler, 1999). Thus, science that has been previously divided into experimental and theoretical will increasingly include a new form: virtual reality (VR) or cyberscience, providing the ability to simulate complex systems (Kaku, 1997).One can define terms in a variety of ways, especially in a rapidly changing scientific and technological environment. However, there are critical areas that form the foundation for the biological revolution being described here. These areas will be key focal and organizational points in the next 5 years and beyond. The areas are defined below for the purposes of this chapter:• Bioinformatics: the IT infrastructure required to support biological information storage, acquisition and retrieval, along with the networking needs to enable connectivity to distributed research groups worldwide. An example is the design, construction and maintenance of databases. This is typically an engineering domain. • Computational biology: development of new algorithms for data analysis and interpretation. An example would be a new mathematical approach toward extracting knowledge from a gene expression dataset. This is typically a mathematical or computer science domain, although some biologists that are well-versed in mathematics have been getting involved here as well.• Bioengineering: the development of new, smaller, cheaper laboratory instrumentation for highthroughput biological data production.Typically an engineering domain and very related to and involved with nanotechnology.Scientists or managers working with germplasm have different needs and objectives, though broadly speaking these relate to conservation or utilization.Whatever their perspectives, it appears that all those involved in germplasm collection, conservation and utilization would benefit from professionally built, deployed and maintained information resources for their favourite organisms.To engineer laboratory information management systems (LIMS), laboratory managers and scientists needed to step back and think about the process of laboratory data generation and acquisition. As a result, various LIMS have been built over the years, with varying success. Integration of molecular information is important but it is even more important (and challenging) to integrate molecular and organismal data, the latter typically provided through germplasm repositories and mutant stock centres. This need is clear because organisms are more than the sum of their parts. In addition, it is within this organismal context that data can be transformed into useful information and, perhaps, knowledge. Unfortunately, there has been less development of germplasm information management systems (GIMS) when compared with LIMS; thus the basic informatics infrastructure is missing. However, an interesting prototype for such a GIMS has been studied and implemented by members of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR, www.cgiar.org/); it is known as the International Crop Information System (ICIS www.cgiar.org/icis/homepagetext.htm). Preliminary implementations have occurred for wheat and maize at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) in Mexico and for rice at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines.Not only are the types of information resource changing from libraries to electronic repositories, but the very nature of scientific publishing in biology may be undergoing a change. For example, when the genome of Arabidopsis thaliana was completed in 2000, there were publications describing the results. However, those papers contained very little of the raw data from the genome and focused on highlights that the authors considered to be of relevance. It is simply impossible to think of a manuscript that would contain all the data from a genomic sequencing effort. Thus the only public repository that contains almost all of the relevant data and thus is the most useful to a broad range of scientists interested in A. thaliana or other organisms, is The Arabidopsis thaliana Information Resource (TAIR www.arabidopsis.org).Despite these wonderfully rich organismal information resources, typically supported by the communities they serve, there is a need for their integration at a higher level to allow any investigator with Internet access to have a complete view of the model system without needing to navigate many sites and integrate the information manually. This has been the experience, for example, of the human genome, yeast genome genome-www.stanford.edu/Saccharomyces/ and Arabidopsis genome www.arabidopsis.org communities. It makes sense therefore for the germplasm communities worldwide to learn from the lessons of those that have earlier undergone the genomic shift.Once integration of molecular information with organismal (phenotypic) information is achieved in a robust manner, then it is very likely that the resulting system will modify the way we think about germplasm conservation and breeding. Typically, plant breeding is done by crossing and selecting from progeny. With the opportunity to make predictions concerning the outcomes, and to explicitly model in silico (i.e. model in the computer) the desired genotype ϫ environment ϫ breeding scheme combinations to optimize for specific traits, breeding shifts in its character. One of the changes is that breeders start to become model testers themselves and model systems (or other information rich systems) become useful tools for model building. Once models of phenotype ϫ genotype ϫ environment are verified through explicit breeding experiments, the task becomes one of moving the models themselves around through breeding in different organisms. One very interesting effort that is pursuing this type of paradigm shift is the Quantitative Genetics (QU-Gene www.pig.ag.uq.edu.au/qu-gene) system. QU-Gene is a simulation platform for quantitative analysis of genetic models.Finally, once integration from the molecular to the organismal levels has occurred, the next frontier becomes integration of ecosystems information (environment and interactions among organisms and populations) as the concluding step in bringing together molecules to ecosystems in a useful manner (because ecosystems are more than the sum of their component organisms). There are various efforts tackling how to bring together environmental information to the organismal level. One such effort is represented by FloraMap www. floramap-ciat.org, developed by the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). FloraMap is a computer tool for predicting the distribution of plants and other organisms in the wild. Approaches like FloraMap could enable scientists to link disparate studies based on environmental characteristics, for example.The main reason to support the new era of industrialized biological research, from the perspective of germplasm scientists, is that as a result of integration of various levels of information, we should be able to ask more effectively what the relationship between genotype and phenotype might be for our favourite biological processes, traits or organisms. This has been the driving question underlying genetics since Mendel and Darwin. Industrial-scale biology has the capability to offer the needed data to address the question of the relationship between genotype and phenotype in various manners, organisms and traits. This is because the industrialized laboratory can generate data to test the relevant hypotheses. Industrial laboratories are exquisitely capable of grinding up organisms and separating and measuring the behaviour of their parts in novel ways. As a result, such projects are capable of generating information about the proteins expressed by genes, the role of those proteins in phenotypes and the variation in gene expression patterns in populations. When such data are integrated effectively, predictive models can be forwarded and comparisons across organisms become possible.It is necessary to provide integration for at least the following types of molecular data:• structural genomics: DNA sequences (to complete genomes) and maps (genetic, physical or cytological); • gene expression: mRNA profiling, and single gene profiles (Northerns); • biochemistry: pathways (metabolic and signalling), metabolites, proteomics.Of course, then it must be possible to provide a context for these types of molecular data, and it is the germplasm (or organismic) data that provide such a context. Germplasm data might include natural variants and induced mutant collections with their respective phenotypic characterization, closely tied to environmental and geographical data as appropriate.The 'data types' described above progress from a molecular starting point ever closer to phenotype. For each of these types of data it will be necessary to provide the means for acquisition, storage, querying, analysis and visualization. This is best handled through generalized 'components' as it is easier to solve the informatics needs for each data type and then use the general solution across multiple organisms to enable the power of comparisons. This is most famously illustrated through the use of similarity searches of DNA sequence databases using tools such as BLAST. DNA sequence databases such as GENBANK are warehouses that contain all public DNA sequences from all organisms. These can be thought of as being one level of 'component' or subsystem within a whole that integrates the different components through some architecture.That a warehouse may be updated from various distributed specialized databases is particularly encouraging, especially if communication standards pave the way.As a genome is studied using industrialized laboratories, maps become useful viewing paradigms for genome-scale information, especially for genetic applications. In addition, the capability to compare maps across species boundaries, much as is possible in DNA sequences in GENBANK, is of paramount interest to those working in less well funded crop species.Methods for studying large-scale gene expression, while unparalleled in power, also promise to increase data flow by orders of magnitude, unleashing a deluge of gene expression data. The increase in production of gene expression data has not been matched by corresponding development in software tools and databases to analyse and exploit the results of such experiments. Techniques for examining overall gene expression are so new that even the technology vendors do not yet understand all the complexities involved, so many of the datasets that have been generated are not being analysed correctly or completely. Gene expression datasets tend to be larger than sequence entries and only a fraction of data produced is of direct interest to the group generating the data. Thus the extraction of information tends to be sparse. Other groups should be able to glean this under-utilized information by querying public gene expression systems.There is an inclination to treat gene expression data in terms of biological sequence, as a much larger set of data, but approachable in the same way with the same basic set of tools. This is incorrect. While some of the tools and regular expressions have applications to gene expression, the data are not only different in kind but much more complex. In a sequence database, the core data are strings of nucleic (or amino) acid residues. There may be variation of a given sequence across a population, but within an individual, the sequence is invariant. In contrast, gene expression is highly dynamic and it is this variation in the expression patterns which researchers will use to attribute relationships between genes. Another difference between gene expression data and other biological data is that they contain little inherent information. The value or meaning of gene expression data comes from the context of the experiment. What were the taxonomy, sex and developmental stages of the organism? What were its growth conditions? From what organ and tissue was the sample extracted? What protocols were used in sample preparation?The availability of complete genomes, starting with prokaryotes, has also allowed metabolic reconstruction based on identified genes, enzymes and known pathways. This is currently achieved through use of annotation (metadata) of DNA sequence data from a given genome. With the imminent completion of the A. thaliana genome (scheduled for completion in 2000) metabolic reconstruction of A. thaliana based on this approach is now possible, as shown in a preliminary manner at www.intl-pag.org/ pag/8/abstracts/pag8906.html.Moving away from the structural DNA sequence data towards information that is more related to the state of a living organism, such as information on mRNA populations (gene expression), metabolites and biochemical pathways that are active in a given environment, starts to permit integration of information aimed at functional knowledge about organismal behaviour or performance. Thus biology starts to move away from reductionism and into whole organism performance and organism ϫ environment interactions. Biochemistry is a crucial step towards understanding the function of genes and biological processes.Efforts to provide the information infrastructure for biochemical bioinformatics are already developed. However, only recently have efforts been focused on integrating biochemical knowledge with modelling and experimentation. An example of data acquisition and integration within this context is the PathDB effort www.ncgr.org/software/ pathdb/, which is positioned to acquire through literature scanning and curation the combined biochemical knowledge of the last 70 or so years of biochemical research, in an organism prioritized manner. By combining this approach for data acquisition with tools for modelling and predicting the behaviour of biochemical pathways, such as GEPASI www.ncgr.org/software/gepasi/, biochemistry is becoming integrated with genomics, in a path that can move towards functional knowledge of living organisms. Next steps are poised at supporting experiments that include data acquisition and analysis of metabolites produced by cells, organs or tissues.For all types of biological data, it is necessary to build information resources that are capable of data acquisition, storage, analysis and visualization. The need for integration across data types is explicit if we need to make predictions that integrate data types. This is required for predictions concerning organismal performance or phenotypes. Various approaches to deliver this requirement to scientists can be taken and some have already yielded interesting results. Some of the most prominent efforts have come in the form of systems to enable querying across heterogeneous databases, and in the promotion of component-based software development. In addition, a few groups have built integrated systems, depending on which definition of 'integrated' is in mind.Work to enable cross-database querying addresses the problem of having to query databases independently and at the exclusion of problems of analysis and visualization. Such work has been performed by various groups, with results published (for example, Chung and Wong, 1999;Baker et al., 1999). All of these efforts take unmediated multidatabase or federated-database strategies (Karp, 1996), choosing to query source databases 'on the fly', rather than to replicate their data in a data warehouse. While these systems are potentially useful for software systems that enable user-friendly browsing, visualization and analysis of genomic data, they do not in themselves constitute 'integrated systems' if one thinks of seamless access to data of different types and from different organisms.One common and simple approach to data integration is to use hypertext-link networks of HTML pages via the World Wide Web. This represents a simplified type of component-based design. One web page points to another by way of a URL. The URL is a component interface because it represents a contract to show some information or provide some service, without any promise of how such responsibilities will be met. Systems of HTML pages can be built from the bottom-up and are forgiving of heterogeneity. The 'interfaces' between HTML pages, however, are limited in the richness of their semantics and after one 'component' (i.e. web page) invokes another, HTML and browser technology (in its current state) does not really allow ongoing interactions between them. In addition, browser-based user interfaces are discontinuous, requiring an expensive server call to process each set of user inputs, and consequently can be unresponsive to use. HTML browser-based approaches can be most cost-effective but they are limited and in the long run may be destined for displacement by systems that take better advantages of the powerful computers on our desktops.The ACEDB system www.sanger.ac.uk/ Software/Acedb/ represents an early, ambitious attempt to provide biologically meaningful visualization, along with browsing and querying capabilities, for data of a variety of different types and sometimes spanning multiple species. It is widely used, especially in the agricultural community, and as an open-source project, has an enthusiastic and public-spirited development community. Ritter (1994) proposed an 'Integrated Genomic Database (IGD)'. This was perhaps the earliest reference to an attempt to develop an integrated system for genomics. IGD approached both the problems of integrating data of different types that comes from multiple, heterogeneous repositories, and the problems of providing an intuitive, graphical interface to allow browsing, querying and visualization of that data. It used a data warehousing approach and employed ACEDB tools for visualization and browsing. IGD included map, sequence, phenotype and population data, and focused on the human genome. Although it was implemented successfully as a prototype, development seems to have been discontinued.Various groups have also experimented with 'software bus' architectures for achieving integration of distributed, heterogeneous information resources. For example, one integrated system (ISYS, Siepel et al., 2000 and www.ncgr. org/research/isys/) prototype is being proposed as a method to allow users to seamlessly access germplasm and molecular resources by way of a software bus on the client side, written in Java.Finally, several companies have built 'nextgeneration' integrated systems for their own commercial use or for sale to others, using promising new technologies such as Java and CORBA to achieve platform-neutral, distributed deployments, and using component-based architectures for maximum flexibility, extensibility and re-usability. Unfortunately, the commercial systems tend to be prohibitively expensive, and inaccessible to most not-for-profit researchers.The 'core' subsystems (or components) of what needs to be developed and integrated to be effective for germplasm conservation have been described by Larry Smarr www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/People/ls/talks/. Components should support acquisition, storage and analysis of information on genomes, proteins, biochemical pathways, cellular systems, organismic models, ecological systems, geographic biodiversity and environmental interactions. In addition, the system should adapt to emerging information infrastructure (bioinformatics), such as: scalable computing; distributed sensors, data, people, computers; web-and object-oriented software architecture; and decentralization of content and software authoring.Data population and curation should be as painless as information technology and evolutionary (iterative) software development can make them. Processes should be set up and maintained by germplasm researchers. Ongoing data curation and editing must be seriously considered and resources allocated to support these activities at the outset. It is not necessary to place editors near software developers or research scientists (although more than one of these attributes may be found in single people on occasion), though communication channels need to exist and methods need to be determined, tested, applied and evolved continuously. With DNA sequences, for example, it would be optimal to provide methods for semi-automated data acquisition and preliminary analysis. One example of such a system is the Phytophthora Genome Initiative (Waugh et al., 1999, and www.ncgr.org/research/pgi/), where simple tasks are performed automatically for geographically distributed researchers collaborating on the study of a biological process. As a result of these collaborations and application of a genomic approach, new scientific knowledge about Phytophthora and its interactions with host plants has rapidly developed (for example, see Kamoun et al., 1999;Qutob et al., 2000).Additionally, gene families can be of particular interest to biologists and yield important basic and practical information through their study. While large warehouses provide a place for all public data to reside, it is important that highly curated datasets are developed through analysis by experts in the field, and the results provided freely to the public research community. An example of such a dataset is the Plant Disease Resistance Genes Database www.ncgr.org/research/rgenes/). Similar datasets could be produced for key plant gene families, or plant gene families as compared with Oryza sativa, Medicago truncatula and A. thaliana, thus providing insight into the three main groups of flowering plants, from a social and economic perspective.To enable efficient searching across the wide range of experimental conditions in expression databases, it will be important to develop restricted vocabularies to replace the use of free text. However, the problems associated with establishing satisfactory nomenclatures, especially across species, are substantial. Even in taxonomy, where there has been an established formalism for centuries, there is disagreement on vocabulary. The situation is much less settled for such recent and dynamic domains as developmental biology, plant and animal pathologies, gene and protein naming conventions, metabolic relationships or laboratory protocols, all of which will play a major role in determining the utility of gene expression systems. There is a need for communities to collaborate and share restricted vocabularies. An example of successful collaboration in this respect is the development of the System-wide Information Network for Genetic Resources (SINGER). SINGER is a common gateway to the genebank databases managed in 12 centres of CGIAR. In developing SINGER, it was necessary to adopt a common structure based on agreed taxonomy and other descriptors while retaining the identity and independence of the individual databases contributing to SINGER in terms of their software and hardware platforms and structure.The industrialization of biological research laboratories has created an unprecedented deluge of biological data. Consequently, there is a huge need in biological research for professional data management infrastructure to support the biological revolution promised for the 21st century. Fortunately, information technologies have been developed and are evolving elsewhere to support the needs of biological researchers worldwide. Funding models for developing, deploying and maintaining a bioinformation technology infrastructure are underdeveloped, much like the mechanisms to acquire, describe, understand and store humanity's plant and animal biodiversity. Thus, the needs (and limitations) of bioinformatics databases and germplasm bank managers are similar in many respects. The requirements, development and evolution of the information system infrastructure to support 21st century biology need to be elucidated through collaborations involving biologists, computer scientists, mathematicians and engineers. The curation (editorialization) of biological data in these systems must be done by those with appropriate biological knowledge in ways that are supportive rather than restrictive of diverse opinions, while providing means of standardization of terminology and methodology. In the age of the Internet, it is highly repetitive and non-productive to develop information resources for single or small groups of users; thus infrastructure should be built supported by the community and for the community. When public systems are developed and deployed, they should be developed openly for maximum leverage of research efforts and investments.Germplasm is composed of populations of living organisms. Whole organism characteristics are precisely those that are most needed to provide an integrative framework for thinking about molecular data. Thus, germplasm collections, if adequately characterized to enable comparative queries using molecular datasets, provide the means to integrate molecular data meaningfully to diverse stakeholders, from molecular biologists, to breeders to conservation geneticists (see pages 21-23 in Serageldin and Persley, 2000). A spirit of scientific enquiry and dedication, focused on the linking of laboratory, field and virtual experimentation and modelling is the desired outcome. With the right mix of skills, people and organizations it is a bright possibility that comes with our possible future.Information requirements for genetic resources are included in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) as well as in the Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO's) Global Plan of Action (GPA) for the Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The CBD covers the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity as two of its three objectives, along with the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources. Its Article 17 (UNEP, 1992) stresses that the exchange of information should be facilitated, especially information relevant to the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. For the case of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) the same objectives are specified in the GPA. Its Activity 17 (FAO, 1996) postulates the construction of comprehensive information systems for plant genetic resources to facilitate access to them and their management and utilization through the assembly, exchange and provision of useful information. Thus, the challenge to establish information systems on genetic resources has been recognized internationally. Their implementation includes both national and international mandates and activities.Biodiversity in the sense of the CBD and the GPA includes the genetic diversity at the infraspecific level (e.g. varieties and cultivars), at the species level, and the diversity of habitats and ecosystems, including human-managed ecosystems for domesticated and cultivated species.Conservation of biodiversity has to target genetic resources in situ as well as ex situ, that is, in their natural or human-managed habitats, and in collections. Information systems on genetic resources have to cover this range of diversity levels and reference sites. For the purpose of food production or other uses such information systems should ideally contain factual data on properties and performance of the genetic material. For the purpose of conservation and sustainable exploitation georeferenced data on spatial patterns of biodiversity (species distribution, infraspecific or ecosystem variability in space) are desirable.In Germany, the CBD and GPA will be implemented inter alia by establishing a set of related internet databases: The Federal Information System Genetic Resources (BIG) integrates databases on the wild flora of Germany, collections of botanical gardens, accessions of the largest German genebank, as well as other relevant databases.The objective of BIG is to integrate the available data on genetic resources provided by agencies of the federal ministries, by universities and other research institutions. BIG aims at providing easy access to these data for decision-makers in public institutions (e.g. nature conservation services), for scientists in and outside universities, and for the interested public such as non-governmental organizations. At the same time, BIG will be important for private industry, in particular breeding enterprises or companies dealing with natural plant substances.Taking advantage of synergism, BIG (www.bigflora.de) aims at developing an integrated information system on plant genetic resources (PGR) that covers a wide range of taxonomic, genetic, biological, ecological, economic and geographical information. It will permit complex searches in heterogeneous, decentralized databases, and thus facilitate access to actual germplasm, both in situ and ex situ.Four German institutions agreed to pool their extensive databases on wild and cultivated plants and their expertise in database management to establish BIG as an online information system on the Internet: Information systems on genetic resources have to cover a wide range of taxonomic, genetic, biological, ecological, economic and geographical data. Therefore technology is needed that can support an open, multipurpose, multiparticipant system. Technically this will be realized by a central view for accessing the online information system of various interlinked, but independent and heterogeneous databases, running under different hardware and software environments.A user-friendly online interface allows queries of these different databases by a simple and common syntax. This user interface is part of the BIG World Wide Web-server (see Fig. 17.1) and can be used by any ordinary browser software. A BIG repository containing a reflection of different taxonomies including synonyms and a thesaurus will provide keywords like plant names or attributes (e.g. breeding traits) or other factual data such as geographical references for searching the system. The WWWserver will send the query as an http-request to the so-called BIG-Kernel (search agent). In the BIG-Kernel only one query will be composed using Extensible Markup Language (XML) as a general exchange format and sent to all relevant databases of BIG. Interfaces at each database will translate the XML-queries in local database syntax and local responses in XML-answers. The BIG-Kernel finally compiles one answer out of all XML-answers and sends this back to the user.As spatial analysis gets more and more important in the field of managing genetic resources, the need for geographic information systems (GIS) is growing tremendously. But visualization and exploration of spatial data must be easy and intuitive. Therefore a user-friendly GIS interface is integrated into BIG.Interactive maps allow the user to define a particular area of interest. The GIS will transform the geometry of this area into geographic names, or vice versa. This is needed because the decentralized databases store different kinds of geo-objects. Therefore, the user interface has to compile different queries for each database. The GIS is also used for visualization and exploration of spatial data included in the result set. For example, the result set includes distribution maps of a taxon on a global scale as well as on a national scale.Figure 17.2 shows how GIS can be used to compare and to plan future genebank collecting strategies. In Germany there are two main genebanks, at Braunschweig and Gatersleben. Figure 17.2 also shows the number of Hordeum samples at both genebanks, distinguished by country of collection. Thus the regional focus of the two genebanks can be compared. Additionally this helps to coordinate and plan future collecting missions and to identify gaps in the collections.The Online-Information System for Evaluation Data or EVA (www.genres.de/eva) provides specific information on the agronomic and breeding characteristics of germplasm in Germany. Beyond passport data of genebank accessions, breeders and researchers can find reliable characterization and evaluation information such as yield, agronomic performance, resistance and quality from different sources (Harrer, 1999). Currently, the EVA prototype database consists of evaluation data for barley (11,500 accessions), potato (2000 varieties) and fruit crops (mainly apple, 1000 varieties). Once fully established, the two online information systems BIG and EVA will be integrated, thereby covering the full range of genetic resources in situ and ex situ, from evaluation data of agricultural crops to data on the distribution of endangered and protected wild species.The concept of BIG is generally applicable to taxon-related information. The methodology and tools that are under development for BIG can thus be easily transferred to other databases. The whole system has a modular design and the communication language XML is internationally agreed. In this way, BIG will provide new opportunities for regional or international information networking such as the information exchange within the framework of the FAO International Undertaking and World Information and Early Warning System (WIEWS). The FAO/IPGRI Multicrop Passport Descriptors could be used as the common fields for XML-linked national databases in order to develop a proposed World Information Networking in PGRFA (WIN/ PGRFA) (Fig. 17.3). A first step has been initiated between Germany (ZADI) and the USA (Germplasm Resources Information Network, GRIN) to develop a bilateral retrieval system over both national online databases. Another project named EPGRIS (European Plant Genetic Resources Information Infrastructure) and coordinated by the Centre for Genetic Resources, The Netherlands (CGN) may complement this activity by establishing a European Information Network  In the study and management of biodiversity, genebanks draw upon a large number of data sources and data types. Passport data are just one of these, but they provide collection curators and users alike with convenient ways to group collection material into logical and more manageable units. In addition, passport data in particular have the ability to provide the linkage between genebank data and other (external) data sources.For example, taxonomic passport data can link genebank data to a large variety of biological data sources, while geographical passport descriptors provide a link to many spatial data sources. The combination of genebank data with external data sources adds considerable depth to biodiversity studies upon which genebanks and their user community base strategies for conservation and use. This chapter assesses the current use of passport data by genebanks, the constraints encountered, and the potential for improved use of passport data. Besides the extensive use of scientific literature, this chapter includes the results of a survey that was sent to 100 medium to large genebanks worldwide. The survey investigated how specific types of passport data are used by genebanks, which additional data sources are used, and how the use of passport data could be improved.Passport data are used by genebanks for a variety of tasks. For the purpose of this chapter the genebank activities are divided into: (i) germplasm collection and acquisition; (ii) germplasm management; and (iii) germplasm use. Examples of the use of passport data are discussed below for each of these areas.Collecting germplasm is done for a number of reasons: to obtain material for biosystematic research or for genetic diversity studies, for conservation, and for immediate use in breeding programmes (von Bothmer and Seberg, 1995). In the context of genebanks, collecting efforts will generally be part of an integrated conservation strategy for the taxon in question. An ecogeographic survey is commonly used as the basis for a conservation strategy. Maxted et al. (1995) provide comprehensive details on the components of an ecogeographic survey. Passport data of existing collections, both genebanks and herbaria, are an important source of information since they help to establish the historical occurrence of the species in particular areas and the sampling it has been subjected to in the past. One example is a study of the Vicia narbonensis complex (Bennett and Maxted, 1997)  Greene et al. (1999) showed that as part of the evaluation of newly collected germplasm, the passport data in combination with GIS data were successfully used to help curators with post-collection decisions, particularly which of the newly acquired samples to include in the genebank collection.The germplasm management cycle starts after the decision to include a specific sample in a genebank collection. The complexities of managing and maintaining genebanks accessions are substantial, due to the very diverse nature of the material. A vast body of biological information related to phenology, reproductive biology and storage behaviour is necessary to develop adequate maintenance programmes. The use of these was confirmed by the genebanks responding to the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) survey on use of passport data by genebanks (see Box 18.1). Many of these sources of biological or agroecological information that are important to genebanks will not be generated by the genebanks, but will be developed by scientists in related disciplines. The use of standard reference systems for scientific names or geographical coordinates permits genebanks to use these 'external' information resources together with their own data and the germplasm it relates to. In particular passport data with descriptors such as species name, geographical origin and ecological descriptors enable genebanks to make this linkage to data sources that originate from other biological or ecogeographical disciplines.Currently, worldwide ex situ germplasm collections are estimated to number around 6 million accessions (FAO, 1998). Duplication of germplasm among collections is substantial. Lyman (1984) estimated that at least 50% of the germplasm held consists of duplicated accessions. Eliminating this type of duplication has often been suggested as a way to reduce the costs associated with the operation of genebanks. Methodologies based on passport data have been used to assist in the identification of replicated germplasm collections. The work by Knüpffer (1989) on the European Barley Database provides a good example. Van Hintum and Knüpffer (1995) further discussed the complexities of identifying duplicates. They concluded that passport data were useful in giving a first indication of probable duplicates, but in very few cases would lead to a direct and definitive identification of duplicates. In most cases definitive verification requires additional data from field observations and genetic markers, as demonstrated in subsequent research by van Hintum and Visser (1995) on barley.Genebanks have been well aware of the need to promote the use of the collections they maintain. This is clearly demonstrated in the explicit linkage between conservation and use in the Global Plan of Action for the Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources (FAO, 1996). Plant breeders have traditionally been an important user group for genebank collections. Most genebanks responding to the IPGRI survey on the use of passport data (see Box 18.1) specifically listed the provision of source material to breeding programmes as one of their main objectives. Many factors can influence the utilization of germplasm by users. Engels (2001) provides some examples of how the management of germplasm can be tailored to facilitate the use of germplasm by specific user groups. The relative lack of evaluation data has been frequently cited as one of the main restrictions to the use of genebank collections by breeding programmes (FAO, 1998). To a certain degree this is due to the extensive collecting that has taken place in the past, especially during the 1970s and 1980s. Although this has helped to safeguard diversity that would otherwise have been lost, many collections have grown to a size where the resources to properly characterize and evaluate the material in the collections are simply not available (Spagnoletti Zeuli and Qualset, 1993). This means that users will often have to use more indirect criteria to select germplasm from genebank collections.The geographic origin of the accession is regarded as a very useful criterion. This is based on the understanding that plant populations are adapted to local conditions and that accessions from a similar geographic origin probably share a larger part of their genetic makeup than more distant accessions (Peeters and Martinelli, 1989). However, some care should be taken in using ecogeographical factors as the predictors of patterns of diversity. Habitats free of significant human interference, even the habitats of some semi-wild or wild species, will be increasingly difficult to encounter. Various authors have pointed out that humans can have a significant influence on the development of patterns of diversity (Spagnoletti Zeuli et al., 1984;Smith et al., 1994;Pickersgill, 1998). It is likely that anthropogenic factors could increasingly interfere with an analysis of diversity on pure ecogeographical grounds. In this context there is much interest among genebanks to use ethnobotanical data, as indicated by the responses to the IPGRI survey on the use of passport data (see Box 18.1). The use of this kind of data should increase our understanding of the distribution of crop diversity.Another development that needs mentioning in relation to enhancing the use of germplasm collections is the development of core collections. The core collection aims to define a small subset of accessions that represents a large part of the diversity found in the entire collection (Frankel and Brown, 1984). Such a small subset, often around 5-10% of the size of the total collection, can undergo more in-depth evaluation and as such provide a good starting point for users looking for particular traits. The initial core collection concept and its further promotion (Brown, 1989;Hodgkin, 1990) have led to the development of methodologies to designate core subsets (Hodgkin et al., 1995a). By the mid-1990s, a substantial number of core collections had already been established (Diwan et al., 1995) and their number is growing steadily.Different methodologies exist to designate accessions to a core collection. In general, a mixture of passport, characterization and evaluation data are used to determine whether an accession should be part of the core set. Nevertheless passport data, and in particular the geographical origin, are usually one of the first criteria used to determine selection (Prasada Rao and Rao, 1995;Tohme et al., 1995;Clark et al., 1997). However, the methodologies to designate core collections are still relatively new and experience with the use of core collections is limited. Although passport data are currently seen as quite suitable to provide much of the data to identify the distinct groups of material, further experience with core collections is necessary to determine whether this actually leads to optimally configured groups or whether the balance with the other types of data should be changed (Hodgkin et al., 1995b).Despite the fact that passport data are generally considered important, there are several very serious constraints associated with their use. Incompleteness and errors are often-cited deficiencies when referring to genebank data, and passport data are no exception (Williams, 1989;Beuselinck and Steiner, 1992;van Hintum and Knüpffer, 1995). Plucknett et al. (1987) estimated that at least 65% of all accessions in the world's genebanks are lacking passport data. Although this situation seems to have improved somewhat, the latest report on the State of the World's Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture indicates that serious deficiencies remain (FAO, 1998).Besides the lack of good quality data, there are various data exchange issues. Even for relatively simple descriptors such as country codes, different implementations can be found (van Hintum, 1995). Lack of data standardization makes widespread use of genebank data difficult. When considering the data quality aspects of passport data, it is important to take into account that systematic germplasm conservation efforts have been going on for more than a century. In the US for example, plant introduction PI1 of the National Plant Germplasm System Collections is a Brassica oleracea accession that was received in February 1898 (www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/taxon.pl?7668). Over the years the insights on how collections should be managed and documented have undergone many changes. For quite some time, the emphasis has been on the acquisition of new material rather than proper documentation of the germplasm and its natural habitat (Steiner and Greene, 1996). However, the initial selection of This survey was sent to 100 institutions around the world that are holding medium to large ex situ germplasm collections. The purpose of this survey was to investigate:1. How specific types of passport data are used by genebanks; 2. Which external data sources are used by genebanks; and 3. Where and how the use of passport data could be improved.The survey on use concerned four categories of passport data, defined as follows:• Taxonomic: genus, species, subspecies, variety name, pedigree and biological status of sample.• Geographical: latitude, longitude, elevation, country of origin, state/province and location.• Ecological: site environment, soil characteristics and vegetation type.• Ethnobotanical: local use, cultivation methods and processing of plant parts.By 1 June 2000, 46 questionnaires (46% response) had been received. Notes: the majority of additional sources of information deal with basic biological data such as phenological, agronomic and seed storage.germplasm is frequently made on passport data. As a result germplasm with incomplete passport data are routinely excluded from further studies (Tolbert et al., 1979;Bennett and Maxted, 1997).In some cases, additional passport data will be available, but have not been computer-encoded yet due to other priorities. In addition, data quality standards tend to change over time. What were acceptable standards 15 years ago might be totally unacceptable today. Origin data at the country level might have been acceptable in the absence of PCbased GIS. Nowadays the absence of latitude and longitude data would be considered a major obstacle towards a better use of genebank data. Sometimes no additional original data are available. In some circumstances retro-classification can be considered as a way to improve the data, and Steiner and Greene (1996) provide an example of such an approach. They rightly point out that retro-classified data are not equivalent to original data, and need careful interpretation. For example, retro-classifying longitude, latitude and elevation from a location description will most likely yield approximate values. This would make this kind of data questionable for analysis of microhabitats at the local level, especially when the landscape is ecologically very diverse. However it might be perfectly suitable for a study on a more global level, and as such make a meaningful Overall notes:• Taxonomic and geographical passport data are consistently receiving the highest scores (essential). • Ethnobotanical data and to a certain extent ecological data seem relatively 'undervalued' in genebanks, but much sought after from other sources.Potential for novel or improved use of passport data:1. Using GIS to link morphological or molecular traits with ecogeographical parameters.Data standardization issues that hinder data exchange or networking or both (in particular taxonomic treatments).Constraints:• Available resources (funding, GIS skills), low quality passport data.addition to the original data. Tools such as the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (www.shiva.pub.getty.edu/tgn_browser/) could be helpful in the retro-classification of data. The thesaurus is a structured vocabulary containing around 1 million names and other information about places. It includes all continents and nations of the modern political world, as well as historical place names, physical features, and administrative entities, such as cities and nations. Other tools, such as FLORAMAP (Jones and Gladkov, 1998), can be used to retroclassify accessions for climatic variables. Data validation is an essential step in any data entry process. Without proper validation, the quality of the dataset is compromised from the outset. A very disciplined and systematic approach to data validation is necessary, especially in genebanks where collections are built up over a long period of time and data processing can be stretched over equally long periods.Whenever the data quality of individual accession records has been brought up to an acceptable level, the usefulness of the data can be further improved by accumulating data for a particular genepool across collections. The accumulation of data across collections results in access to a single dataset that gives the widest possible coverage of the genepool in terms of distribution and genetic diversity. As such it will facilitate more comprehensive diversity studies. In fairly recent times, the establishment of a large number of European central crop databases (Gass et al., 1997) and also the accumulation of Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) genebank data in the System-wide Information Network for Genetic Resources (SINGER, www.singer.cgiar.org/) are some examples. Regional, subregional or crop-oriented genetic resources networks often prove a very good vehicle to organize such collaborative data activities. In some cases, such as the European Collaborative Programme on Genetic Resources, a specific network of germplasm documentation specialists was formed to give this kind of work a strong foundation.Of course the accumulation of data from different collections makes issues related to data standardiza-tion more prominent. Genetic resources documentation systems have been developed in many different places and using many different approaches. With the increase of international collaboration among genebanks, different approaches made it increasingly difficult to exchange information and the need to formulate international formats for the documentation of crop germplasm became apparent. To assist in this task, IPGRI started the production of crop descriptor lists in 1979, and more than 80 descriptor lists have been produced. In 1996, IPGRI went one step further and defined a set of multi-crop passport descriptors (Hazekamp et al., 1997). These descriptors aim to provide consistent coding schemes for a set of common passport descriptors of all crops and therefore will facilitate the accumulation of passport data into multicrop information systems.Several genebanks mentioned data standardization as obstacles to a fuller use of passport data (see Box 18.1). In particular, differences in taxonomic treatments were mentioned. Indeed the lack of standardization in taxonomic treatments seriously hampers the exchange of basic biological data. This affects all aspects of genebank work. Not only are genebanks reliant on a wealth of basic biological data to fulfil their collection acquisition and maintenance tasks, access of users to genebank collections is equally hampered by inconsistent taxonomies. Scientific names are notoriously inconsistent among the collection databases of different organizations (Hulden, 1997). Not only do taxonomic treatments frequently change as a result of new research, but also because conflicting treatments coexist for some species. This creates major problems when trying to exchange basic biological information.The Species 2000 project (www.sp2000.org/) aims to create a taxonomic database with an entry for every species in the world. The prototype IV, February 2000 version of the database already contains 196,000 species, 114,000 synonyms, 122,000 common names and 13,000 references from five contributing databases. This database is a valuable asset and will provide a unified structure through which a wealth of basic biological information can be linked. It is essential for genebanks to adhere to such taxonomic standards, not only to facilitate data exchange between genebanks, but also to ensure an effective linkage with related biological disciplines. While initiatives such as the Species 2000 project will go a long way towards solving the use of different taxonomic treatments, there is still a need for adequate taxonomic capacity within national programmes to apply such taxonomic standards correctly.When asked about potential areas for novel or improved use of passport data, the IPGRI survey respondents most frequently mentioned GIS related topics (see Box 18.1), in particular using GIS to link morphological or molecular traits with ecogeographic parameters. Indeed, GIS provides an intuitive framework for analysing the way biodiversity is dispersed in space and time. Many aspects of genebank work, from collecting through maintenance to use, contain elements where a spatial representation of data can broaden our insight into the structure of the biodiversity of concern.The main constraints seen by the responding genebanks are the low quality of passport data, and resource issues. In most cases, the geographical origin of accessions is documented at the country level, but the meaningful application of GIS does require precise longitude, latitude and, to a lesser extent, elevation data. Some approaches concerning data quality were outlined earlier in the chapter. Individually, or as part of a network, genebanks will have to determine how much scope for improvement there is vis-à-vis the resources required for data improvement work and developing a GIS capability. In this context the threshold for initiating GIS studies is declining as a result of decreasing prices for the necessary hardware and software. Even though the learning curve is becoming less steep, as a result of more user-friendly software packages, basic training in GIS concepts will always be required. However networks can provide an ideal environment for national genebanks to share costs and the benefits of GIS.In general there is no misunderstanding about the importance of passport data. Passport data connect all genebank data. Through species name, geographical and ecological descriptors, they have the potential to link to many biological and georeferenced external data sources. This expands the utility of the genebank data enormously.It is also clear that the quality of the passport data is far from optimal. To a certain extent this cannot be changed. Some data are irretrievably lost or were simply never collected. However several genebanks indicated that data are available, but resource limitations have prevented full computerization. Furthermore, in some cases, data could be improved by retro-classification. Individually, or as part of a network activity, genebanks should assess this potential and set their priorities accordingly.Quality passport data not only allow genebanks to link to other data sources and make a fuller use of these, but will also allow users to gain fuller access to the collections. Users will often start their selection of genebank material based on passport data, in particular taxonomic and geographic data. This will provide a first global grouping of the material. Further refinement of a selection will include characterization and evaluation data. Accessions with incomplete passport data will have a high chance of being eliminated from the selection process at the outset. Examples of this kind are not difficult to find in the scientific literature. Early elimination from the selection of an accession with poor passport data will also mean that its related characterization and evaluation data will have reduced chances of ever being used. Poor passport data therefore have a knock-on effect that may result in lower utilization of genebank data overall. It should be realized that the criteria that define acceptable data quality change over time as a result of new ways of using and accessing data. The maturation of GIS technology has made its wider use in genetic diversity studies feasible. However, it requires good quality latitude and longitude data to work properly. Data quality standards for georeferenced genebank data need to be set at a level where such applications can be used.Furthermore, the way data on germplasm collections are accessed is changing. Wide Area Networks such as the Internet have made it possible to make data available to large audiences at very reduced costs or even at virtually no cost at all. Genebanks also make their data available via the Internet. Users that have direct access to germplasm databases will route their requests less frequently through collection curators. This effectively eliminates the possibility for curators to use their knowledge to compensate for incomplete data in the germplasm databases. Therefore online data will require high data quality standards.It is important that genebanks have a good understanding of the search patterns applied by users and optimize their data to facilitate the location of appropriate material. These search patterns might vary depending on the type of material. For wild material geographical and ecological descriptors might be extremely important, while for cultivated material descriptors such as variety name and pedigree are more significant. The optimalization of data for use hinges not only on complete and correct data. Data standardization is another factor determining transparent access to and use of collections. The absence of consistent documentation will cause fragmentation of data and will make them difficult to use. Although work on documentation standards has been going on for some time, there are still important areas to address. Consistent scientific nomenclature is one such area. Often crop genetic resources networks are very useful to discuss and agree on a specific taxonomic treatment to represent joint data. Furthermore, genebanks may have ecogeographical and ethnobotanical data that are currently in a narrative form and therefore difficult to use. Current standards need to be considered for suitability and possibly undergo revision to capture these data. Biochemical and molecular data are being generated in large quantities by genebanks and related biological sciences. Currently ways to study a better linkage between these data and the 'traditional' genebank data are under investigation.In many cases passport data will not only link internal genebank activities, they will also act as the primary gateway between genebanks and external interest groups. A sub-optimal gateway will restrict the use and sharing of resources. Once genebanks have optimized their passport data and linkages to external data sources are facilitated, genebanks and their collections will become more visible to the external world through reciprocal linkages. Without doubt this will not only have a positive effect on the use of germplasm collections, but also create opportunities for genebanks to establish scientific collaboration in new areas.The in situ conservation of wild species is one activity of the Global Plan of Action, and can be defined as the maintenance of viable diverse populations of species in their natural surroundings or ecosystems. The conservation of wild species in genetic reserves, termed gene management zones (GMZs), involves the target species, location, designation, management and monitoring of genetic diversity in a particular natural location. This technique allows the evolution of the species in its ecosystem. The first step of in situ conservation is the selection of target wild species. Then should follow the survey of potential sites, the designation of genetic reserves or GMZs in accordance to genetic variation within that target species, and the management plan for monitoring genetic diversity.The project 'In situ Conservation of Genetic Diversity in Turkey' aims to maintain the genetic diversity of wild crop relatives and forest species in their natural habitats. The project involves both woody and herbaceous species and is integrated in a multiple-species and multiple-site approach. The project initiates and develops a mechanism to foster the ongoing National Plant Genetic Resources Research Programme for identifying, designating and managing the areas for in situ conservation of nationally and globally significant wild crop relatives and woody species. The project has been implemented in cooperation with both the formal sector (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Ministry of Forestry, Ministry of Environment) and the informal sector (universities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs)). The pilot part of the project was supported by Global Environment Facility (GEF). The project components have been set up according to the principles of the in situ technique for wild species (Firat and Tan, 1995;Firat and Tan, 1997;Anonymous, 1998a). The activities of the In situ Conservation of Genetic Diversity project of Turkey are shown in Box 19.1.The selection of target species is an important step for an in situ conservation programme. Therefore, selection of target species or taxa should be objective, based on logical, scientific, economic principles related to the significance of species (Anonymous, 1996;Maxted and Hawkes, 1997). Factors that influence the conservation value of target species are listed in Box 19.2. The target species should have global or national importance for potential economic use. The highest priority can be given to species in the primary genepool proposed by Harlan and de Wet (1971). Various threat factors, such as over-grazing, forest decline, disease and pest epidemics, and changes in farming system, should be taken into account. When selecting the species to conserve in situ the highest emphasis should be given to the most genetically distinct groups of taxa (the widespread species with a wide range of adaptation). Surveys and inventories in the selected locations provide the initial assessment for identifying the suitable sites for selected species to be maintained. Ecogeographical surveys involve the detailed analysis and interpretation of data. Sites in the selected areas should be visited in different seasons and years in order to acquire data and information on the existence and abundance of target species, and frequency of associated species. The inventories of target taxa and associated species can be made on several of the transects or quadrats that are set for proper representation of the study site. The number and direction of transects depends on size of the sites, visual variability of topography, vegetation of the study site and distribution and variation of target species. Transects are also used as the sampling unit of target species for genetic analysis.Surveys and inventories have been conducted for the target species of wild legumes, wild cereals, wild fruits and forest species, in the three selected locations (Anonymous, 1998a;Karagoz, 1998;Kucuk et al., 1998;Sabanci et al., 1998). The modified Braun-Blanquet method was used for the inventory, with several transects set in each study site at three selected locations. At the GMZs of those locations the abundance of target and associated species was estimated. The inventory in each study site was obtained in order to complete the selection of the GMZs of target species (Firat and Tan, 1997;Anonymous, 1998a;Karagoz, 1998;Kucuk et al., 1998;Sabanci et al., 1998;Tan, 1998;Kitiki and Tan, 1998). Herbarium specimens were also collected for the identification of associated species in the study sites. The physical and ecological description of study sites (Box 19.3) were achieved by the surveys (Anonymous, 1998). During the initial surveys the candidate study sites were selected in each location and for each target species. Then the collecting data were interpreted with selection criteria given in Boxes 19.2 and 19.3. For example, after the initial survey in Kaz Mountain, 16 chestnut sites and nine plum sites were selected as candidate study sites. But the candidate study sites were reduced to five for chestnut and four for plum as candidate GMZs for those species. At these sites four to six transects were set up and the inventory study was initiated. At the chestnut sites, an average of 70 species per site (minimum 52, maximum 110) was found. At the plum sites the average was 130 species (minimum 114 and maximum 144). It may be assumed that the ecological factors bearing on local demographic and selection processes within the target species population also affect the local distribution of many other species in the same area.To support a complementary approach between in situ and ex situ conservation, samples of some selected target and associated species at the study sites of each location, have been collected for ex situ conservation.  (Newbury and Ford-Lloyd, 1997).The target species are sampled along the transects at study sites in each location and genetic diversity is measured by using isozyme and molecular markers. Seed storage proteins (gliadins and glutenins in wheat) and two isozymes (endopeptidase-1 and aminopeptidase-2) were used to determine the level of genetic variation at seven loci of T. tauschii populations from Ceylanpinar sites and to select the GMZs of this species for in situ conservation (Eser et al., 1998) Seven black pine populations from Kaz Mountain GMZs were assayed for 15 enzyme systems, and 22 allozyme loci were identified, 12 of which are supported by evidence based on segregation of band-pattern variants in megagametophytes of heterozygous mothers. Linkage was examined in 41 pairs of loci, but significant (< 0.05) nine joint segregation was detected in only three pairs, and in only one (6Pgd1-6Pgd2) is relatively strong linkage suggested (r = 0.13). (Dogan et al., 1998). The four populations of Abies equitrojani from Kaz Mountain sites were studied. Nineteen loci coding allozymes in 12 enzyme systems were described. Ten of the 19 loci were polymorphic in one or more of the populations. The populations differ significantly (< 0.05) in allele frequencies at six loci. They also appear to differ in levels of expected heterozygosity and fixation index. Although this endemic fir species has a narrow distribution, considerable genetic variation was observed in the populations (Gulbaba et al., 1998). Morphological variation is also obtained from the sampled populations. The fruit morphology of targeted wild plum and chestnut populations from the Kaz Mountain GMZs was studied. Significant variation between and within populations of these species was observed (Onal et al., 1998). This information assisted in the choice of GMZs of target species to maintain in situ.GMZs can be defined as long-term monitoring sites that contain one or more diverse populations of various target species to be conserved in situ. A series of genetic reserves should be designated, in order to represent the ecological ranges of target species so as to support sufficient environmental heterogeneity of selected species. Each genetic reserve is an open laboratory, permits the conservation of several taxa in a single reserve and allows continued evolution of the component species. Genetic reserves should be easily accessible, relatively isolated from exotic gene flow, and include a wide range of biological diversity and of the genetic diversity of target species (Anonymous, 1996;Tan, 1996;Tan and Ulubelde, 1998) single reserve for easy management. The size and number of genetic reserves of target species may vary according to the availability of resources and depending on the species; whether woody or non-woody, annual or perennial (Anonymous, 1996;Tan and Ulubelde, 1998).In the Turkish project for in situ conservation of genetic diversity for wild species, the candidate GMZs have been selected in accordance with the selection criteria. Workshops were organized in each location and for each target species. The information about the habitats of target species, and the data on morphological and genetic diversity have been considered and more than one GMZ of each target species has been designated. Of the five candidate GMZs of chestnut at Kaz Mountain, three were designated as GMZs, and among four candidate GMZs of wild plum, three were chosen. One of the chestnut GMZs consisted of two small populations linked with a corridor. The other GMZ for chestnut neighboured a black pine site so those two were considered as one GMZ. All GMZs of target species consisted of core and buffer zones. The core zone will be kept as the in situ reserve of original populations, while the buffer zones will be open laboratories for further studies, such as testing grazing pressure. The sizes of the plum and chestnut GMZs, including buffer zones, vary from 150 ha to 479 ha, and from 176 ha to 886 ha, respectively (Anonymous, 1998a).The designated genetic reserves are and will continue to be subject to the pressure of various impacts. Therefore, a management plan for each genetic reserve should be developed in order to regulate human intervention to ensure the maintenance of genetic diversity of the target species populations. Monitoring of genetic reserves is also needed to ensure that management intervention remains appropriate. Box 19.5 lists the many factors that need consideration during the preparation of management plans (Tan and Ulubelde, 1998).The objectives of in situ conservation of the target species should be carefully defined in the management plan in order to ensure their implementation. The components of a management plan are given in Box 19.6. A management plan is prepared for each target species in Turkey. They include detailed information on purpose, genetic structure of the target species (degree of homogeneity, molecular variation, mode of reproduction, size of target populations and their distribution); environments (geographical information of each site, inventory of associated species and their distribution, land ownership, local demographics, past and current history including potential threats); management action required; schedule; action plan; and appropriate assignments of responsible scientific and technical groups.Intervention may be applied to the buffer zones or outside the core zones in conducting the case studies. According to the result of case studies, practices such as harvesting in the chestnut GMZs or grazing at the plum GMZs, may be required to maintain the target populations. When necessary, additional local seeding may be required to maintain or increase the target populations of plum and chestnut. This activity may be necessary for plum GMZs, since these populations are small. Monitoring is an essential step to observe the changes of populations and associated species at Box 19.4. Considerations in the selection of GMZs (Anonymous,1996).• Target species must have the primary consideration• GMZs should capture as much genetic variation as possible and should have species richness• GMZ sites under consideration should be accessible, sustainable and suitable for efficient populations management. Their numbers and size may vary according to the availability of resources• Appropriate size and number of target species should be determined in terms of evolutionary potential, genetic integrity and protection values• The establishment of a GMZ can be in either natural or semi-natural environments each GMZ of plum and chestnut. Monitoring will take place in core zones and in the permanent plots (transects) of each GMZ. Primary monitoring is required at 5 yearly intervals, especially for the vegetation (both target species and associated species) and ecological characteristics. Before implementing management procedures, case studies on intervention will be made with the overall aim of preserving a large proportion of variability while limiting the level of intervention, grazing, harvesting and so on, and to define the changes in the composition of the vegetation communities at the sites. In the GMZs, permanent plots should be selected as controls and the sites where no intervention will take place should be monitored so as to have a measure of the effects of particular management practices. In wild plum and chestnut GMZs the transects will be the permanent plots. It is more difficult to give specific practical advice for the management of the wild plum and chestnut than for other forest tree species. Common cultural practices cannot be applied to Box 19.5. Considerations for the management plan.• Maintenance of genetic diversity is the most important objective of the management plan.Maintenance of the ecosystems for target species is also essential• The management plan should recognize the possible contrast that may arise between species richness and diversity within the target species• Manipulations of various kinds will be necessary within GMZs (e.g. limited grazing, selective logging, fire, pruning)• Since best practices are still largely unknown, various alternative treatments will need to be tested and compared with the management regime• The plan should address the amount of interference that would be acceptable in the face of severe potential damage to the target species• Buffer zones should be a component of all GMZs and their management included in the plan• Community participation and support will be vital for effective maintenance of GMZs• GMZs must be supported by complementary ex situ conservation activities• GMZs should be accessible to scientists; both within and outside the country, including collaborative projects with the international scientific community• Management plans are likely to vary for woody and non-woody species (wild crop relatives and forestry species)Box 19.6. Components of the management plan.• Articulation of the objective and purpose• Biological and genetic structure of target species• Description of the physical and biological environment of GMZs• Description of any conflict and problems associated with GMZs• Description of the management practices required to achieve the objectives• Monitoring of the community dynamics within the GMZs to assess management effectiveness• Link with national conservation plans and policies• Community participation those species found in forest areas. Regular inventories can be carried out every 2 years, for both the target species and for the associated species at the permanent transects of the GMZ sites. Previous records of the inventory should be compared with present records. For wild plum, the removal of mature overstorey trees may be necessary after a period of time, to allow development of seedlings or young trees which are characteristically found at forest margins or as understorey components where light intensity is high. Low fruit set of wild plum populations was observed in GMZs for various reasons. If this situation resulted from low pollination in the population, the introduction of managed apiaries may be attempted. Since the chestnut is a wind-pollinated species, orchards of cultivated improved varieties or local types from other regions should not be located near the GMZ. Pruning or thinning should not be applied in mature trees. If necessary such practices can be applied to young trees. Thinning should be at random in the GMZs for plum and chestnut.A GMZ for wild fruit species probably requires larger sites than required for annual herbaceous species. The planting of trees from seed sources outside GMZs would not be permitted so as to prevent pollution of the genepool from exotic sources. Grazing would not be permitted in core areas of wild plum and chestnut to encourage development of seedlings, associated species and the forest understorey. Some level of grazing may be permitted in the plum GMZs especially in the sites where grazing is already practised. That level of grazing, however, should be monitored in a case study in buffer zones. In some cases, immediate intervention may be required, such as fencing, especially in the heavily grazed plum GMZ at Yukariçavus, to control but not eliminate grazing. Grazing control is essential in these GMZs to allow the regeneration of associated species. To overcome community disaffection, community and public awareness are important. Grafting or other forms of propagation should be avoided. If the restoration or regeneration of the population is necessary, then only 'local' natural (from the same sites or similar sites) seeds should be used. The GMZs for wild plum and chestnut were selected by considering many factors which may affect directly or indirectly the success of long-term in situ conservation of those target species in the selected sites, such as existing level of morphological variation of target species, level of biological and ecological diversity, presence of more than one target species, and sustainability of the sites for conservation. Chestnut fruit harvesting is common at Kazdag. It may be very difficult to restrict the harvesting by local communities from designated chestnut GMZs. At least, however, selective harvesting can be restricted.For annual wild species, such as wild legumes and cereals, grazing pressure is a key impact factor. Therefore, in the GMZs of the Central Taurus Mountains and in Ceylanpinar this impact will be tested carefully and research will be undertaken in buffer zones.Because of the importance of community participation to the implementation of the management plans of GMZs, various workshops were organized for public and community awareness and to encourage their participation.For in situ conservation of wild crop relatives, a comprehensive database should be built up (Tan and Tan, 1998). The in situ database should also be linked with existing ex situ conservation databases and should be interfaced with geographical information systems (GIS). Information related to in situ conservation accrues from a range of sources. Thus, for effective use of in situ databases, the acquisition of information from different sources should be carefully planned. Information on in situ conservation consists of the project activity components such as target taxa at site, habitat data, geographic parameters, genetic diversity (morphological variation, isozyme variation, molecular variation), management plans of GMZs and monitoring records. The database should be suitable for data processing, verification and exchange. GIS contributes effectively to assess all data from in situ conservation in order to integrate and manage the spatial type of information.The data management system for in situ conservation of wild species in Turkey has been integrated with ex situ databases, and GIS was used for the documentation of spatial diversity (Tan and Tan, 1998;Anonymous, 1998a,b). The database for the project comprises digitized map sheets and drawings, linking to external databases, including ex situ databases, integrating tabular data and converting existing digital geographic data. Using this database a couple of different analyses for planning the in situ conservation of wild species have been carried out. The results of these analyses together with the underlying database, the spatially grouped maps of GMZs and the potential sites for GMZs for designated priority species were produced and 'Project Atlas' has been produced and published (Anonymous, 1998b).A National Plan for in situ Conservation can be prepared to provide the basis for review of the project to date, facilitate the coordination and cooperation for the management of GMZs into other nature preservation strategies in the country, and outline the implementation of the National Plan. The National Plan for in situ Conservation provides a mechanism for the country to set priorities and present a plan of action that ensures the protection of wild crop relatives and forest genetic resources in their natural habitat beyond designated in situ reserves. For this reason, a National Plan for in situ Conservation of genetic diversity in Turkey has been prepared (Tan, 1998;Kaya et al., 1998). The objective of the plan is to determine the priorities and strategies for effective management and conservation, sustainable utilization and monitoring of genetic diversity. This plan is expected to help expand in situ conservation activities into a network of GMZs that includes other areas of Turkey and incorporates additional important wild crop relatives, forest species and especially endangered species beyond those targeted species in the project. The plan also includes the needs and opportunities for landraces as part of the in situ genetic resources conservation spectrum. In the first three sections of the National Plan, the importance of in situ conservation of genetic diversity and the present status of plant genetic resources, their conservation and related biodiversity conservation legislation in Turkey are spelt out. In the fourth section of the National Plan, the objectives, priorities and strategies for in situ conservation of wild species, forest tree species as well as landraces are presented. The National Plan, in the fifth section, strongly recommends the following actions for the successful implementation of the plan:1. The preparation of GMZ framework regulations and legislation; 2. The formulation of a Regional Board for In situ Conservation and an Implementation Board for In situ Conservation; 3. Sustained and effective coordination of activities among the implementing Ministries (MARA, MOF, ME) and NGOs; 4. A clear statement of the responsibilities of partner institutions; 5. The identification of sources of funding; 6. A strong public awareness programme.Institutional arrangements and priority research topics are included in the plan.The National Plan for in situ Conservation is also consistent and complementary with other national, regional or global efforts to conserve wild plant genetic resources. The plan is compatible with and supports the National Plant Genetic Resources Research Programme of MARA, and contributes to, but does not replace, the more comprehensive National Biodiversity Conservation Action Plan of Turkey. The plan also leads the way for the continuation and replication of the pilot part of the in situ conservation project, which can provide a supportive platform for continued assistance.The basic essential steps for the in situ conservation of wild species, and the monitoring of existing genetic diversity of their target populations are summarized below (Anonymous, 1996; Tan and Ulubelde, 1998):1. Identify target taxa (decide which species need to be included in the in situ conservation). 2. Review the conservation status of target taxa. 3. Undertake an ecogeographical survey. 4. Select potential sites to sample maximum genetic diversity (select a site or a range of sites to cover as much as possible of the range of diversity of the chosen species). 5. Review ecological requirements for the continuing viability of populations. 6. Maintain at least two GMZs in each ecogeographic zone on a regional basis (more than one site should be chosen for each species group or ecosystem to cover climatic and edaphic diversity). 7. Ensure that GMZs encompass at least the minimum viable population sizes of the target taxa. 8. Monitor populations within each GMZ over appropriate time periods (1-10 years) using transects and study plots within the GMZ. 9. Install exclusion fencing and buffer zones when shown to be necessary. 10. Prepare a 5-year management plan for target taxon. 11. Encourage public participation, through workshops, supporting interpretation and media programmes. 12. Promote the conserved material through the use of published reports and catalogues for appropriate utilization. 13. Ensure that each site should include (whenever possible) several management practices (a range of grazing practices, tree-felling, pruning, grafting, burning, etc.). 14. Make sites large enough to contain at least 1000 individuals of each species. 15. Seek cooperation with nature conservation organizations and agencies, when establishing the in situ reserves and for advice on management practices. 16. Maintain duplicate samples of the species of crop plant relatives in the reserves in ex situ genebanks (at seed or in vitro banks) whenever possible.The in situ conservation project of Turkey targets the conservation of wild relatives of crop species and other selected plants with significant genetic variability. This project is the first attempt to integrate the various components of in situ conservation for multiple species (woody and nonwoody) at multiple sites. By complementing the ongoing ex situ programme, it will develop the institutional and technical mechanisms for a comprehensive strategy for plant genetic resources conservation in Turkey. Success in these endeavours could provide a model applicable in other parts of the world. Although other countries and agencies have undertaken in situ projects, these have targeted relatively few species or a single location, and have not focused on genetic reserve management. In Mexico, for instance, in situ conservation of the wild endemic perennial Zea diploperennis was prescribed in the Sierra de Manantlan Biosphere reserve (Benz, 1988). In Israel the wild tetraploid wheat (Triticum dicoccoides) was conserved at Ammiad, Eastern Galilee, along with wild barley and wild oats (Anikster and Noy-Meir, 1991). This study was among the first on in situ conservation of viable diverse populations of wild species related to crops. The study has guided the Turkish project in setting up the methodology and strategy for wild relatives of cereals. The T. dicoccoides populations at Ammiad and Ceylanpinar can be compared in a collaborative study in future as a regional in situ conservation effort.In situ conservation is different from the concept of protected areas. In this respect, the significance of in situ conservation is that it targets the conservation of genetic diversity of specific plant species, and not necessarily the protection of entire ecosystems. The integration of in situ with ex situ strategies for the conservation of genetic resources conservation in this project is also innovative. It uses participatory approaches between the formal (the Ministries and institutions) and informal sectors in Turkey for the setting, design and maintenance of in situ conservation areas. In this respect, the project is the first of its kind, and is a model for other countries that are rich in genetic diversity and aim to implement the internationally agreed Global Plan of Action.Metapopulation studies provide a useful new approach to studying the ecology and genetics of populations at the landscape level. This is particularly true when populations function as a product of local dynamics and the regional processes of migration, extinction and colonization (Hanski and Gilpin, 1991). In most cases, metapopulations of plants occur in habitats that represent temporal niches along successional series (Poschold, 1996). They may also occur in spatial niches of the natural landscape with small and isolated areas, such as in treefall or wind-fall areas in forests (Valverde and Silverton, 1997;Gillman, 1997) and areas that experience fire occasionally (Menges et al., 1998). Human activity also creates metapopulations, for example by intensive land use, changes in agricultural practices and urban development, that may result in fragmentation of the landscape and temporal degradation of suitable habitats (Rocha et al., 1997). Dispersal processes, which play a key role in the survival of metapopulations, have changed markedly since humans started to cultivate crops and during the development of the man-made landscape (Poschold, 1996).Metapopulation structure may break down under high disturbance rates (Husband and Barrett, 1996;Valverde and Silverton, 1997;Ouborg et al., 1999). Because plants are relatively immobile, present strong spatial structure and restricted dispersal, habitat fragmentation and patch isolation may lessen the probabilities of recolonization events (Giles and Goudet, 1997;Ouborg et al., 1999). Thus, isolation by distance may result in a disruption of the structure of the metapopulation (Giles and Goudet, 1997). In contrast, it has been proposed that for Primula vulgaris, local populations may never become extinct even under high disturbance rates and, thus, seed dispersal may not play a major role in local population re-establishment (Husband and Barrett, 1996). In this scenario, the structure of the metapopulation would also be disrupted.Metapopulation dynamics also affect the genetic structure of populations, their diversity and differentiation (Giles and Goudet, 1997). Gene flow is an important factor in genetic structure at the landscape level. Other authors have shown that gene flow appears to be high for tropical plants (Hamrick et al., 1991;Nason and Hamrick, 1997). But for most cases, ascertaining the implications on species or nature conservation is only partially possible because of the lack in knowledge about interactions between populations. Therefore, it is more useful at the moment to study some important aspects of the metapopulation concept such as dispersability and dispersal processes to give this theoretical concept a more practical basis in order to use it for nature conservation purposes.Wild populations of Lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus) can be found throughout the Central Valley of Costa Rica (Standley, 1937;Rocha et al., 1997). They are usually found in open areas, disturbed areas with grass and scattered trees (Standley, 1937;Debouck, 1987). Moreover, Lima bean is more frequently found where coffee is grown under shade (traditional coffee plantations), as well as in wastelands around these plantations. This habitat has a forest-like structure with a diverse mixture of shade trees, and several varieties of bananas (Musa spp.). Typically, agricultural activities are less intense in this agroecosystem, and do not rely on heavy use of herbicides for the elimination of weeds (Rocha et al., 1997). However, it has been demonstrated that because of changes in agricultural practices and changes in land use due to urban development, the populations of Lima bean in the Central Valley are fragmented and undergo local extinction and recolonization (Rocha et al., 1997). In this study, we describe the metapopulation structure of wild populations of Lima bean in the Central Valley of Costa Rica. In addition, we describe the metapopulation dynamics using a Markovian model that incorporates the different stages through which local populations pass. The transition probabilities among these stages are calculated and the extinction and recolonization rate estimated.Wild Lima beans are short-lived perennial vines. Typically, they show indeterminate growth during the rainy season, but cease growth during the dry season, when most plants flower and later lose their leaves. The flowers are borne on inflorescences and require the visitation of pollinators to transfer pollen from the anthers to the stigma (Rocha, unpublished). Lima beans are self-compatible and are predominantly self-pollinated, but with significant variation in the outcrossing rate (Maquet et al., 1996, Bi, 1999).This study was conducted in the Central Valley of Costa Rica. This region is located in the geographic centre of the country and comprises two intermontane valleys separated by the low Ochomogo pass at the continental divide: the Central Valley of the Pacific slope and the much smaller Valle del Guarco on the Caribbean side. However, most of this study was conducted in the upper valley and watershed of the Río Grande de Tárcoles (latitude range 9°54¢ N -10°07¢ N, longitude range 83°50¢ W -84°28¢ W). We also included in this study a portion of the Valle del Guarco and the small valley of Acosta. As a whole, the study area is approximately 2100 km 2 .In early November 1992, we started a large-scale survey of populations of P. lunatus in the study area. This survey was conducted with the collaboration of six advanced students of the Escuela de Biología, Universidad de Costa Rica. When we surveyed a given area, we examined all roads and trails looking for plants. We also interviewed local farmers in order to find out whether or not this species was present in the area, and asked for permission to visit their farms. Where P. lunatus was found, we defined as one population any group of plants separated (regardless of its size) from other plants by at least 500 m. For each population we collected a voucher specimen, fruit and seed samples and made a description of the site, including parameters such as the size of the population, topography, associated vegetation and geographical coordinates using a Garmin 48 GPS unit. Similar surveys were conducted again in 1993, 1994 and 1999. This information was used to determine the distribution of distances between populations.In order to study the metapopulation dynamics we established six sampling transects along main roads in the study area (Fig. 20.1). In 1994, we found 103 populations along these sampling transects. The initial number of populations on each transect varied between 14 and 23. All populations have been visited every 2 weeks since January 1995. During each visit, we recorded the phenological status of each population by counting the number of individual plants that had foliage and the number of individuals bearing flower bud, flowers, immature fruits and/or mature fruits with seeds. In addition, we recorded any disturbances experienced by each population, such as fire, weeding (manually or with herbicides) and habitat destruction due to urban development.Metapopulation dynamics were studied by determining the transition probabilities between five possible population stages, namely: (i) populations that remain vegetative during the year; (ii) populations that flowered during the year; (iii) populations that produced seeds during the year; (iv) populations that became extinct; and (v) populations that recolonized an empty site (Fig. 20.Lefkovich matrices were used to describe the dynamics of these populations using the UNIFIED LIFE MODELS software program (Legendre and Clobert, 1995) Populations were considered extinct if all plants previously present had disappeared. Moreover, in this model we did not distinguish between recolonization events occurring from seeds present in the seed bank, or recolonization due to the arrival of seeds from adjacent populations. Years were defined on the basis of the phenology of the species, and were thus considered to begin in May, at the beginning of the rainy season, which is accompanied by the flush of new leaves. The end of the dry season, when plants are leafless and seeds have already been dispersed, defined the end of the year.The (n = 497 populations). However, the range for the distance to the nearest population is between 165 m and 3697 m. Distances smaller than 500 m might result from errors in the reading obtained from the GPS unit. In addition, such short distances might also indicate new populations found in areas where older populations have become locally extinct. Overall, our data show that 58% of the populations are within 1 km of the nearest population. However, about 8.6% of the populations are more than 3 km away from the nearest population. These findings indicate that in order to maintain a metapopulation structure, long distance dispersal should be occurring.Our results show that the occurrence of local population extinction is common in wild populations of Lima bean (Table 20.1). We found that as many as 68% of the populations experienced the elimination of all the adults. However, most of the populations were re-established within the same year (51 out of 70 during the first year of observations). In general, we recorded a total of 91 episodes of local extinction, but only 19 of them resulted in a permanent loss of the populations, indicating that about 79% of the sites that experience extinction were recolonized during our study. This finding  indicates that, on average, we expect about 18 populations to become locally extinct each year in the Central Valley. Our data also reveal that recolonization of empty sites is also common; a total of 62 sites were recolonized in the 5 year period considered here.Our data also revealed that small populations are more likely to experience local extinction. Based on the census conducted in 1999, we found that most of the populations currently present are very small (Fig. 20.3). Moreover, the 1994 sizes of the populations that have become extinct during the study period also indicate that 58% of them were very small (Fig. 20.3). We have not recorded local extinction of populations with more than 50 plants.Not all populations are equally likely to produce seeds (Table 20.2). Nearly one-fifth of the populations (18) in the study area failed to produce flowers every year. In addition, only 49% of the populations produced seeds each year. This finding suggests that populations differ in their ability to maintain a seed reservoir in the soil. Moreover, populations that produce seeds in a given year have a high probability of producing seeds in future years (probability of remaining in same group = 0.824), while those that become extinct also have a great probability of staying extinct (probability of remaining extinct = 0.787) (Fig. 20.4).Metapopulation dynamics were studied using matrix analyses. The UNIFIED LIFE MODEL software program was used to determine the demo-graphic parameters, in particular, metapopulation growth rate (lambdaM, the rate at which the number of populations in the metapopulation increases or decreases). This analysis revealed that in spite of the frequent extinctions recorded in this study, the metapopulation growth rate calculated from the matrix of average transition probabilities is close to one (lambda = 0.990). However, the trajectory of the number of populations in the metapopulation varies according to the initial scenario, that is, the distribution of populations among the four stages considered in this study. For example, if we consider only the 33 active populations recorded in 1995 as our initial metapopulation size, the number of populations will decline at a rapid rate (Fig. 20.5). However, if we considered that all recorded populations were vegetative at the beginning of the study (initial metapopulation size = 103), the number of populations will decline for a few years but then become rather stable (Fig. 20.6). Moreover, there is another possible scenario, using the mean number of active populations in each category as the initial metapopulation size.Under this scenario, the number of populations also shows a decline, but eventually the number of populations becomes stable (see Fig. 20.7). Overall, matrix analyses show that wild populations of Lima beans in the Central Valley are not under a clear risk of extinction. This finding is somewhat counterintuitive given the fact that only 24% of the locations where populations experience extinction are colonized again.The objective of this study was to describe the metapopulation dynamics of wild populations of Lima bean in the Central Valley of Costa Rica as a basis for predicting the probability of persistence. We found that most of the populations are within 1 km of the nearest other population. However, some populations can be more than 3 km away from other populations. Our findings support the notion that wild populations of Lima beans in the Central Valley of Costa Rica experience events of local extinction and recolonization. Overall, we found that at the metapopulation level, the growth rate is 0.990, indicating that the number of populations in the area is likely to remain fairly constant once a stable population size is established.Other authors have studied the ecological and genetic consequences of metapopulation dynamics another study, Giles and Goudet (1997) studied the levels of population differentiation in Silene dioica metapopulations in a successional gradient in the Skeppsvik archipelago. They found that newly founded populations were more differentiated than those of intermediate age, which suggests that colonization dynamics increase genetic variance between populations. Other studies have shown that local founding events are important determinants of the genetic structure of the metapopulation (Giles and Goudet, 1997;Gillman et al., 1997;Ouborg et al., 1999). For example, McCaulley et al. (1995) showed that long-distance dispersal events are biologically very important for plants because they affect colonization probabilities, probabilities of population persistence in a fragmented habitat and metapopulation structure. Similarly, Giles and Goudet (1997) found that isolation by distance was the best model to explain colonization events of S. dioica in the Skeppsvik archipelago, which in turns helps to determine population differentiation. Rocha et al. (1997) proposed that wild populations of Lima bean in the Central Valley of Costa Rica should be regarded as making up a metapopulation. They reported that between 29% and 45% of the populations disappeared during 3 years of monitoring. In addition, they also reported that new populations were found in the area, and proposed that these new populations represented the reappearance of previously extinct populations. Our data confirm that there is variation in the extinction rates between years. Similarly, our data also show that many extinct populations are reestablished within the next year. These findings strongly suggest that the seed bank plays an important role in the dynamics of these populations, as suggested by Degreef (1998).Here, we report that small populations are more likely to experience extinction. The genetic consequences of such extinction can be quite variable. First, small populations might also have small seed banks, and hence limited capacity for recolonization. Second, over-representation of one or a few individuals in the seed bank can result in changes in the genetic constitution of the new plants.Others have studied the role of the soil seed bank in the dynamics of metapopulations (Husband and Barrett, 1996). It has been pointed out that seed dormancy needs to be incorporated into models considering the dynamics of plant metapopulations (Husband and Barrett, 1996). Washitani et al. (1997) studied the role of the ability of Aster kantoensis to form a persistent soil seed bank on the dynamic of metapopulations. They proposed that a persistent seed bank is of crucial importance for the survival of metapopulations composed of ephemeral populations. In contrast, they pointed out that in the absence of seed banks, dispersal to sporadically occurring safe-sites is the key to the long-term persistence of the metapopulation.Degreef (1998) has shown that seeds of wild Lima bean can establish a persistent seed bank. Overall, seeds can remain dormant in the soil for about 3 years, but most seeds germinate within the first year. These findings indicate that the seed bank may play a major role in the metapopulation dynamics of wild Lima bean in the Central Valley of Costa Rica, suggesting that most recolonization events come from dormant seeds in the soil seed bank. However, a significant fraction of extinct populations is likely to remain extinct for longer than 1 year, suggesting that long distance seed dispersal must also be important in maintaining the structure of the metapopulation. However, our data show that there are populations that are very isolated from other populations, suggesting that the persistence of these populations may be in doubt in the long term.Our data show that most of the populations that remain vegetative during one year are likely to fail to produce seeds the next year. Degreef (1998) showed that populations found in sites with a high degree of habitat degradation also show lower probabilities of seedling establishment. These findings suggest that the absence of seed production and low levels of seedling establishment would result in a loss of the soil seed bank, which, in turn, is a threat to the ability of local populations to buffer the negative effects of a severe disturbance. In contrast, our data also show that seed producing populations are also likely to maintain their seed production in subsequent years and, hence, are more likely to recover after a local disturbance that causes local extinction. In the latter case, only severe man-made disturbance would result in permanent loss of the population.Other studies by our team have revealed that genetic variation among wild populations of Lima beans is highly structured (Maquet et al., 1996;Zoro, 1999;Vargas et al., 2000Vargas et al., , 2001)). These studies have shown that most of the variation is found between populations and that there is little variation within populations. The findings described support the notion that local extinction and recolonization may play an important role in the metapopulation structure, as proposed by Rocha et al. (1997). The impact of bottlenecks as severe as those reported here may be reinforced by the high rate of inbreeding that these populations will experience. Bottlenecks result from the loss of living plants, as well as non-random contribution of all individuals in the population to the soil seed bank. This is particularly true if only a small proportion of the individuals in the population contribute seeds to the soil bank, resulting in the loss of alleles.In more severe situations, recolonization might result from the arrival of seeds from adjacent populations. This is particularly true in those populations that fail to produce seeds for many years. Degreef (1998) showed that seeds are likely to remain dormant in the soil for little over 3 years. For this reason there are likely to be many populations that lack soil seed banks. Under these circumstances, recolonization is likely to result from one or two seeds dispersed from a nearby population, and the new population will reflect the genetic variation of the new founders (see McCaulley et al., 1995).Overall, we found that the number of wild populations in the study area is declining. This is the result of habitat fragmentation and degradation. Habitat fragmentation may lead to isolation by distance, which may disrupt the ability of dispersal processes to maintain the structure of the metapopulation. Habitat degradation due to changes in land use and agricultural practices may also result in the breakdown of the metapopulation. If dispersal processes are limited, it is reasonable to propose that there are several metapopulation units in the study area, each including a group of populations that are linked by dispersal processes (pollen dispersal and seed dispersal). Therefore, it is important to study dispersability and dispersal processes to give a better background for the development of more practical strategies for conservation. In addition, more attention should be given to determine the impact of local extinction and the origin of the seeds that re-establish a given population (soil seed bank or newly dispersed seeds) on the genetic structure of the metapopulation. Indeed a metapopulation framework strictly requires that populations experience a finite rate of immigration of seeds from neighbouring populations, with or without the migration of pollen, to replace local extinction. Otherwise the ultimate fate of each component population is essentially independent of its neighbours. Fraxinus excelsior L., Fraxinus ornus L. and Fraxinus angustifolia Vahl), are particularly valued for their ecological role in the species-mixed ecosystem and for the high-quality timber and other forest products that they provide. Because of their ecological and economic importance, the broadleaved tree species in southeastern Europe have received attention in conservation, tree breeding and afforestation programmes in Bulgaria (Dobrinov et al., 1982;Anonymous, 1992;Garelkov et al., 1995;Marinov et al., 1995), Moldova (Tashkevici, 1984;Postolache, 1995) and Romania (Benea and Stanescu, 1981;Enescu et al., 1997).Owing to the impacts of industrial air pollution, repeated extreme summer drought and subsequent attack by pests and diseases, broadleaved forest genetic resources in the region have been described as threatened during recent years (Blada, 1998a,b;Postolache, 1998;Alexandrov et al., 2000). Low fructification and the absence of, or sporadic occurrence of, natural regeneration are particular concerns in oak species and several Noble Hardwoods.In situ conservation is generally applied as the principal approach for conserving the genetic diversity of long-lived, largely outbreeding and undomesticated forest tree species (Ziehe et al., 1989;Eriksson et al., 1993). The key characteristic of in situ conservation is its dynamic nature, allowing for continued evolution of gene resource populations. Ex situ conservation measures complement this approach. In order to design genetic conservation strategies, reliable information is needed about the levels, patterns and processes of genetic variation.While the genetic information obtained from field trials and genetic marker studies is very limited, substantial research work has been done in the three countries in the past with regard to the ecogeographic distribution of resources, from which patterns of genetic variation can be predicted.Since 1997 scientists from Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania have jointly undertaken to develop genetic conservation strategies for 13 selected broadleaved species of the genera beech (Fagus), oak (Quercus), maple (Acer) and ash (Fraxinus). The objective of this chapter is to present the outcomes to date of the joint project aimed at inventories of resources, which have led to the development of distribution maps and establishment of databases of gene conservation units after 2 years of work.The work was based on existing information from various sources: data from the latest national forest management inventories, botanical and geobotanical literature, old maps and registers of selected seed sources. Using the existing data and additional information from the field observations, maps of distribution areas of the 13 species were constructed, digitized and produced in a standard geographical information system (GIS) (scale 1:600,000).Gene conservation units including seed stands, forest reserves and other categories were described according to common passport data. This inventory was conducted in all three countries during the years 1997-1999. The majority of seed stands had been identified during previous inventories at national level (Enescu, 1982;Dobrinov et al., 1982;Anonymous, 1992). The following criteria were used for selecting seed stands: age, indigenous origin, health state, adaptability, stem quality and productivity. The passport data for each gene conservation unit were compiled and stored in a common database; they include:• growing stock (m 3 ) • grade (site quality level).In Romania and Bulgaria, European beech occurs from low hills to mountain regions, but occasionally it can be found in lowlands. In Moldova, the species' occurrence is limited to a very small hilly area in the central part of the country (Fig. 21.1). This area is called Codri and represents the eastern limit of the distribution range of the species in Europe (Borza, 1937;Soceava and Lipatova, 1952;Gheideman, 1969;Tashkevici, 1984;Postolache, 1995). Along with sessile oak, beech is a dominant species and it occupies very steep slopes at altitudes between 200 and 400 m.The natural vertical span of beech ranges from 200 to 1800 m in Bulgaria's Balkan Mountains, although tree groups and single trees are found outside these limits. The lowermost occurrences were found at 150 m in Bozhuritsa (Vidin), and at 200-300 m in Ludogorie. The natural distribution range of beech in Romania covers a large part of the mountain territory of the Carpathians, between 600 and 1300 m in the north of the country and between 700 and 1450 m in the south, and in large parts of the inner Carpathian area between 300 and 700 m. Beech can reach the upper tree limit in the sub-alpine belt, at altitudes of 1550 m in the Parâng Mountains and 1600 m in the Vâlcan Mountains (Muica, 1995). The species may be found at low altitudes (50-100 m) in the Danube's Strait and in Oltenia. Within the present range there are a few large, compact forest areas: the eastern slopes of the Eastern Carpathians between Bistrita Valley and Uzului Valley or in the Banat Mountains. The remaining area is strongly fragmented, with individual forest stands of different size occurring with greater density in some areas.Beech occurs mainly in natural pure, but also in species-mixed stands. Large pure stands mainly occupy northern slopes of the mountain belt with moist, nutrient-rich soils. In the upper part of the vertical range it is frequently associated with Picea abies (L.) Karst., Abies alba Mill., Ulmus montana With., Betula pendula Roth, A. pseudoplatanus L., Populus tremula L. and Sorbus aucuparia L. In the lower part, it is mixed with Q. petraea Liebl, Carpinus betulus L., Tilia tomentosa Moench. and Prunus avium L.The distribution range of Oriental beech (F.orientalis Lipsky) includes the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula. A contact zone between the natural ranges of European beech and Oriental beech runs through northern Greece and Bulgaria (Delkov, 1988). Isolated occurrences of F. orientalis outside its natural range were recorded in Dobrudja and central Bulgaria (Czeczott, 1932), in eastern Serbia (Glisic, 1973), in Macedonia, in Banat and Moldova. The occurrence in Moldova was not confirmed in the present inventory. In Romania, Oriental beech is extremely rare and can be found as scattered trees in several places. As a Pontic species it is one of the principal species in the Strandja Mountains, Bulgaria, where it comprises pure and mixed formations situated in deep ravines and on moist, north-facing sites. Oriental beech grows in mixed stands mainly with C. betulus and, to a lesser extent, A. pseudoplatanus and T. tomentosa.A summary of the results of the inventory of seed stands in two species of beech, five of oak and three of maple is presented in Table 21.1. During the inventory, a total of 4764 seed stands covering 71,778 ha were characterized in all three countries. The seed stands represent mature, indigenous populations with superior phenotypic performance, selected in various site conditions throughout the distribution range in the three countries. Although the selection of seed stands followed the purpose of seed production for afforestation programmes and for tree breeding, they are considered as an adequate sample of the existing genetic variation for genetic conservation. Seed stands are widely recognized as a category that links the conservation of genetic resources and their use (e.g. Kleinschmit, 1995). Most seed stands were identified for sessile oak and European beech, the two principal, widely distributed and economically important broadleaved species (see Table 21.A total of 1655 seed stands of sessile oak (27,155 ha) were described, among them 1010 in Romania. The vertical range was between 115 m (Mehedinti) to 1020 m in Harghita. The average age of individual seed stands varied between 50 and 170 years. In Bulgaria, seed stands of sessile oak were also designated in all vertical zones (100-1500 m) and the average age was 96 years.Compared with sessile oak, the distribution of pedunculate oak (Q. robur) is fragmented and uneven in the three countries (Fig. 21.2). The occurrence of pedunculate oak was drastically reduced due to human activity in the lowlands during the past 100 years (Cuza, 1994;Marinov et al., 1995). It usually grows in altitudes up to 400 m, but its upper limit in Romania's Arges, Brasov and Bihor counties ranges between 520 and 660 m. The species usually forms small stands or single trees; large populations are exceptional. This overall situation is reflected in the number, distribution and size of the selected seed stands (see Table 21.1). Although the average area of the stands (13.4 ha) is comparable with the other species, approximately one-fifth of the seed stands were very small, not exceeding 2 ha.A relatively high proportion of seed stands of pedunculate oak was selected in Moldova, where this species plays an essential role, both economic and ecological (Borza, 1937;Postolache, 1995Postolache, , 1998)). In addition to seed stands, two different categories of gene conservation units were established. 'Optimal' forest genetic conservation stands were defined on the basis of ecological site conditions (nutrient rich soils, humidity). Conservation stands with high diversity were identified, particularly in the contact zone of pedunculate oak with sessile oak and pubescent oak. An overview of the three From a conservation point of view, particular attention should be paid to pubescent oak. Owing to the dramatic reduction of its area in the past (Marinov et al., 1995;Stanescu et al., 1997), only nine suitable seed stands with total area of 53 ha could be selected in Bulgaria and Romania. The health status of the resources was also assessed dur-ing the inventory. Similar to Q. cerris and Q. frainetto, pubescent oak showed a strong decline in health over the past decades owing to repeated drought periods, pests and diseases and lack of fructification. Pedunculate oak and especially sessile oak have been less affected by the negative factors (see also Blada, 1998b;Alexandrov et al., 2000).European beech was represented by 1263 seed stands covering 19,681 ha (Table 21.1). The highest number of stands was designated in Bulgaria (898, total area 11,824 ha). Their average size was 13.2 ha ranging from 2 ha to 54.7 ha. The average age was 103 years (from 40 to 210 years). The total growing stock in the selected seed stands amounted to 3,483,540 m 3 or 294.6 m 3 ha −1 . The stand quality index, assessed during the inventory, confirmed the superior quality of the selected stands. The number of seed stands is considered to be sufficient and representative of the diversity of beech in Bulgaria, not only for meeting the country's demand for reproductive material, but also for conservation purposes. However, the irregular seed crop requires the use of effective methods for beech mast conservation (ex situ) in the years of abundant seeding. In spite of the fact that the total area of natural beech forests in Romania is twice that of Bulgaria, the number of selected seed stands was only 344. This was due to the practice of almost exclusive natural regeneration of beech -thus very little demand for reproductive material -in Romania's forestry management. The average size of the seed stands was 22.2 ha; the size of 24 populations was larger than 200 ha. The average age of individual seed stands ranged from 55 to 175 years. Most seed stands in Romania and in Bulgaria were identified in the vertical range between 400 and 800 m, although emphasis was put on selecting seed stands representative for the entire range, that is, between 100 and 1800 m.As beech in Moldova is situated at the eastern border of the distribution area, the genetic resources of this species have a special importance, attributed to their adaptation in marginal environmental conditions. Therefore, three different categories of gene conservation units were designated for beech, covering a total area of 421 ha (including 21 seed stands on 229 ha).The seed stands of Oriental beech covered 1863 ha distributed within 171 units selected in Bulgaria. One of the problems with the management of these stands is that overmature stands currently prevail and these need to be regenerated. In some of them, where the undergrowth is formed by Rhododendron ponticum L., the regeneration process is hampered by the occurrence of a thick layer of undecomposed leaves.A number of seed stands of the three maple (Acer) species were identified in Bulgaria (364 stands with 4896 ha) and Moldova (132; 2776 ha). In Bulgaria, the effective area covered by the maple species in these species-mixed seed stands varied greatly: for field maple (A. campestre L.) between 0.4 and 46 ha, Norway maple (A. platanoides L.) from 1 to 55 ha and sycamore (A. pseudoplatanus L.) from 0.1 to 41 ha. Twelve seed stands were identified to best represent the different site conditions and growth potential of the species in the country (Table 21.3). These populations could become part of a wider, European effort towards the conservation of the species' genetic resources in its entire distribution area (Rusanen, 1998). The distribution of sycamore is concentrated in western and north-western Bulgaria, from 150 to 1600 m altitude (Fig. 21.3). The location and size of the seed stands correspond to the geographic distribution of resources and seed stands can be found in the entire natural range in these two countries. The average age of the seed stands was 107 years. Although all three maple species have a wide distribution in Romania, only five stands of sycamore (13 ha) were identified. The work on selecting and describing seed stands of maple in Romania will be continued.Genetic conservation of forest tree populations takes place in both unmanaged and managed forests. The unmanaged category concerns different types of nature-protected areas, such as national parks, nature reserves or forest reserves. Besides their conventional functions including ecosystem and habitat preservation, protected areas contribute to maintaining and preserving the genetic diversity of forest tree species (Koski et al., 1997). Seventeen national parks with a total area of around 1.3 Mha were previously established in Romania. Seventy-five nature-protected areas in Bulgaria cover 1.4 Mha. All of them include the forest communities with beech, oak and maple species. The main limitation of nature-protected areas with regard to genetic conservation is related to their distribution; they often aim at protecting very particular landscapes or environments rather than being representative of the existing forest types.Forest reserves are strictly protected areas where the natural conditions allow population genetic processes to continue. A total of 318 forest reserves covering 75,477 ha with significant proportions of beech, oak and maple species were designated in Bulgaria and Moldova. These were characterized during the present inventory according to the common passport data and stored in the database of in situ gene conservation units. There are still large surfaces with virgin or quasi-virgin forest areas in south-eastern Europe (Cuza, 1994;Stoiculescu, 1994). Forest reserves often concentrate on these areas, which are characterized by exceptional composition, structural diversity and high stability. They also represent true in situ 'laboratories' for studying the structure, organization and functioning of the forest ecosystem, including genetic structures and processes.Ex situ conservation units, including seed orchards and clone collections were established for the main economically important broadleaved species in Bulgaria and Romania in the past. Although these units were not included in the present inventory, information about them can be obtained from various sources (Dobrinov et al., 1982;Postolache, 1995;Enescu et al., 1997;Postolache, 1998;Blada, 1998a,b;Alexandrov et al., 2000).The inventory of resources and characterization of in situ gene conservation units for ash (Fraxinus) species will be completed in the year 2000.The knowledge obtained through the present inventory provides a solid basis for developing and implementing integrated genetic conservation strategies by the national programmes in the countries involved. It helped to identify priorities for the conservation of diversity both within and between species, particularly for the rare and threatened broadleaved species, which have often been neglected in forest management and tree breeding surveys. The data related to risks and value of resources will need to be integrated into the decision-making framework, which can be used for genetic conservation management in The existing knowledge of the patterns of ecogeographic variation in the region needs to be combined with genetic information from field trials or genetic marker studies. While significant genetic information has been obtained for sessile oak, pedunculate oak and beech at the international level (e.g. Kremer et al., 1998;Paule and Gomory 1998;Von Wuehlisch et al., 1998), knowledge of the processes maintaining genetic variation in rare species is hardly available. In fact, a pilot study was recently started using microsatellite markers on common ash (F. excelsior) in Bulgaria (Hausman, 1999). The general trend in Europe towards an ecologically oriented, uneven-aged, close-to-nature forestry management suggests that increased attention needs to be paid to Noble Hardwoods and other rare species (Kleinschmit, 1995;Rusanen, 1998).The conservation of these species also requires increased efforts towards the development and application of complementary methods for ex situ conservation and propagation of the genetic material (Palada-Nicolau and Hausman, 1999).According to the national laws and regulations in the three countries, seed stands and forest reserves are recognized as in situ conservation units. The objectives of their protection are heterogeneous and include genetic variation, timber yield potential, ecological services, and rare and endangered species. The consequences and challenges of the ongoing processes towards partial restitution and privatization of forest lands (e.g. Staddon, 2000) on the conservation and management of forest genetic resources will need to be evaluated.Seed stands and forest reserves currently represent around 2-3% of the total area covered by the respective species. In situ conservation is, however, a dynamic process that needs to be integrated into regular forest management, which is applied in the remaining forest area. Common principles for sil-vicultural measures that contribute to the sustainable, close-to-nature and multifunctional management of forests for dynamic gene conservation need to be implemented and adapted to local needs (Rotach, 1999). This is usually feasible, with a few main principles to be taken into consideration:• natural regeneration, which supports the biological and economic stability and continuity of forest stands, should be promoted where possible; • for artificial regeneration, planting stock should originate from mating within the same population; • silvicultural management should give due attention to preserving the adaptability of the principal as well as important associated species; • due attention should also be given to evaluating and identifying new potential gene conservation units; • reproductive material should be collected from seed stands and used according to national rules and legislation.We conclude that south-eastern Europe is home to very important forest genetic resources in a wide range of broadleaved species. The practical collaboration among countries has shown a stimulating effect for the development of joint genetic conservation strategies, and their implementation by each country. The genetic resources in south-eastern Europe represent a valuable source of genes not only for the countries involved but also for the whole international community.Several measures that aim to conserve the genetic resources of crop plants and their wild relatives have been implemented worldwide (Wilkes, 1995).In addition to seed genebanks, these include ex situ gardens, field genebanks and in situ methods of conservation. Several programmes to conserve the genetic resources of crop plants in situ have also been initiated wherein the resources are conserved in their native habitats where these resources originated. In addition, some 12,000 to 15,000 threatened plant species are being cultivated in ex situ gardens such as in botanical gardens, genebanks and arboreta (Scarascia-Mugnozza and Perrino, 2000). While these strategies are meeting the needs of crop species, there is concern that they might be less suited for the conservation of forest tree species. This might be particularly the case for forest trees that are either endangered or threatened and for species with recalcitrant seeds. Ex situ gardens cannot accommodate large populations of tree species and consequently their genetic base is narrow. Further, they should be deliberately managed to minimize drift and selection for adaptation to the garden environment (Frankel et al., 1995). In situ conservation can complement such ex situ approaches and allow for adaptive evolution.Ideally in situ programmes require information on where to conserve coupled with long-term support and commitment, and this has limited the adoption of this method (Uma Shaanker and Ganeshaiah, 1997). Obtaining spatially explicit information on the distribution of intraspecific genetic variability and the identification of 'hotspots' of genetic variability is very tedious and for tropical species has only recently been attempted (Uma Shaanker and Ganeshaiah, 1997). In some species, only a few sites can be set aside for conservation, as contending pressure on land use restricts the proportion of the total genetic variability in a given species that can be set aside. Genetic diversity of populations may erode over time in in situ sites, especially if the populations are small and fragmented or disjunct. A decrease in genetic diversity parameters from adult to progeny population has been reported in several forest tree species whose populations are sparse or isolated with little or no gene flow among the populations or patches (Doligez and Joly, 1997).We suggest an additional approach, referred to as forest genebanks, for the conservation of forest genetic resources. The forest genebank combines benefits from several conventional conservation protocols and is dynamic and evolutionary. We discuss the various steps involved in the establishment of the forest genebanks with particular reference to the conservation of the genetic resources of Phyllanthus emblica, an important medicinal plant species of India.The forest genebank is an in situ site that serves as a repository of genes from as many diverse populations of a species as possible to represent the widest possible spectrum of genetic variability. The bank functions as a 'sink' into which genepools from various 'source' sites are introduced and maintained (Uma Shaanker and Ganeshaiah, 1997). In this way, the forest genebank is a modification of the existing protocols of in situ conservation with provision for substantial gene flow into it. In other words, the forest genebank could be viewed as facilitating 'gene corridors' among populations to convey to a central 'sink' the elements of each of the individual populations.By virtue of such gene introductions, the forest genebanks facilitate the maintenance of the full allelic set of the species. Further, because of a continuous interaction between and among the different allelic sets maintained at the banks, genetic diversity would evolve in response to local selection pressures. Thus the forest genebank incorporates aspects of both in situ conservation and field genebanks. Forest genebanks are of particular relevance in the conservation of genetic resources of long-lived forest tree species. They could potentially be very useful in incorporating the genes or genepools from threatened, endangered and fragmented populations. In fact, in such populations, forest genebanks could help avert the loss of diversity through drift, population extinction and other processes.The salient steps involved in the establishment of the forest genebanks are:1. Mapping the geographic distribution of the species. A primary requirement in the establishment of forest genebanks is to identify the spatial distribution of the species and then to identify where populations of the species are reasonably large. Detailed information on the sites with reference to their threats and protection status would further help to prioritize them for potential conservation.From among the sites identified from ( 1), the genetic diversity of the populations needs to be determined and the hot-spots of genetic diversity identified. Further, based on the genetic diversity parameters, assessment needs to be made on the genetic differentiation of the populations to identify those that might constitute candidates for the conservation of genetic resources.Sites that can serve as donor (from where the genepool can be imported) and recipient (a genetic hot-spot and a 'sink' to receive the genepool from outside) have to be identified. The choice of the donor and recipient can be guided among several criteria by the extent of genetic variation in the population, the presence of rare alleles, population size, local heterogeneity, threat to the population and so on. Ideally, a recipient could be that which is allelerich and has a broad genetic base with long-term demographic and genetic stability. For example, populations in protected areas such as wildlife sanctuaries and national parks could be important candidates for the recipient population. On the other hand, the donor populations could be among those which: (i) have certain rare or unique alleles; (ii) have distinct genetic configurations; and (iii) are threatened or endangered and are likely to be lost if not rescued. 4. Process of gene introduction from 'source' to 'sink' population. The actual process of genetic donation can be effected through the introduction of either seeds or pollen grains from the donors to the recipient populations. The interval at which such gene donations can occur would depend on the longevity of the species and its breeding system.genebanks. An effective forest genebank should serve as a repository of the widest possible array of genetic variation. Periodic injection of the genetic elements from previously identified populations could assist this purpose. However, it might be necessary to monitor the levels of genetic diversity from time to time to test for any significant erosion of diversity.P. emblica is an important native, medicinal, forest plant in India. Uma Shaanker and Ganeshaiah (1997) proposed the establishment of a forest genebank for the conservation of this non-timber species. The fruit is a rich source of vitamin C and forms an integral component of indigenous (ayurvedic) medicine systems. The fruits are extracted from natural populations and are reported to contribute substantially to the household economy of a number of forest fringe communities (Uma Shankar et al., 1996). Lately, the resources have been seriously threatened with loss of the genetic diversity of the populations because of heavy demand for the fruits and the liberal trade of the products both within and outside the country. In fact, studies have demonstrated that human activities including harvesting of the fruits have had a detrimental effect on the fitness, regeneration and genetic diversity of the population of the species at two forest sites in south India (Wickneswari and Boyle, 2000;Padmini et al., 2001).As a part of the Medicinal Plant Conservation Program, 30 Medicinal Plant Conservation Areas (MPCAs) in three southern states of India have been established for the in situ conservation of medicinal plants by the Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Traditions, Bangalore. Populations of P. emblica occur in these sites but only four of the seven sites where the species occurred (BRT Hills (Karnataka), Thenmalai, Kollihills and Petchiparai (in Tamil Nadu)) had sizeable populations. Using isozyme electrophoresis, we mapped the genetic diversity of the four populations to prioritize the sites and to identify the hot-spots for the conservation of genetic diversity of the species at the regional level.Based on several genetic parameters including allele richness, genetic diversity and rare alleles, our study showed that the population at Petchiparai is the most diverse and rich, followed by those at BRT Hills, Kollihills and Thenmalai (Fig. 22.1). Furthermore, the Petchiparai population was found to be most representative of the populations. It had the highest mean frequency of alleles with a coefficient of variability of their occurrence nearly equal to that of the entire population. The squared Euclidean distance of the Petchiparai population with all other populations was the least. This is also reflected in the principal component analysis of the populations; while there appears to be clear genetic differentiation among the populations, the Petchiparai population members span almost the entire spectrum of genetic variability (Fig. 22.2).Conventionally, two strategies might be proposed for the conservation of the genetic resources of Phyllanthus among the populations examined. First, based on several of the genetic diversity parameters discussed, the Petchiparai population could be targeted for conservation. Second, and in the event that the first strategy is not possible, the BRT and Thenmalai populations could be conserved together to represent the entire array of variability. However, either of the strategies might not afford the maximum conservation requirements of the species. A certain proportion of the space between the principal component axes is bound to go unrepresented. This might be especially critical if the population(s) in question is faced with threats and with the possibility of losing the genetic variability contained in it.Forest genebank for P. emblica Uma Shaanker and Ganeshaiah (1997) proposed that under these circumstances, the existing protocol of in situ conservation could be modified and a forest genebank established. In their proposal, one of the sites, designated as the 'sink' site, could serve as a repository of genetic material from other 'source' sites. Such a bank would then contain the full set of alleles of the species and would provide a continuous turnover of genetic material within and among populations. They proposed that the forest genebank for Phyllanthus could be located at BRT Hills considering the fact that the population is protected (Fig. 22.3). The genepool from other populations, which incidentally are not protected, including that from Petchiparai, can be incorporated into the forest genebank by introducing either pollen grains or seed material. The extent of introduction could be made in proportion to the rich-ness or diversity of the source populations. Such introductions could be made from other sources as well, if and when identified, and the diversity monitored periodically.The bulking and growing of genetic diversity away from its site of origin, albeit as components added to a natural population, has elements in common with Simmonds' (1962) proposal to use mass reservoirs as a conservation method in crops. The proposal has been extensively debated ever since (see Frankel et al. (1995) for a critical review). As dis-tinct from major crops, most populations of the species for which we suggest forest genebanks as a relevant strategy, are subject to heavy use and vulnerable to extinction. In such situations, focusing the conservation effort on a few forest genebanks could be the only alternative to the loss of major portions of the species variation.Conservation biologists generally view critically the introduction of propagules from one population into another. This is because: (i) there is potential for outbreeding depression and the loss of alleles due to competition (Campbell and Waser, 1987); (ii) gene flow from one population to the other may prevent or disrupt local adaptive differentiation (Antonovics and Bradshaw, 1970;  Simberloff, 1988;Adams and Burczyk, 2000); (iii) if populations are sufficiently well differentiated genetically, the species is better conserved by conserving as many small units of population there are than mixing the populations (Dole and Sun, 1992); and finally (iv) it is feared that introduction of genes will tend to cause an overall erosion of the genetic variability, most of which would otherwise have been distributed among populations.On the other hand, there are a number of proponents of the gene mixing or introduction school. For example, several workers have argued in favour of artificial dispersal of seeds among populations to increase gene flow (Price and Waser, 1979;Waser, 1993). In fact the practice of transporting individuals from long distances for breeding purposes has been undertaken to minimize inbreeding and maximize genetic variability (Ralls et al., 1988). Gene introductions into populations and genetic reserves have also been considered beneficial especially if the immigrant gene is well adapted to local environmental conditions (Ellstrand, 1992;Frankel et al., 1995). Young and Boyle (2000) suggest that fragmented populations, if and when linked by geneflow possibly through isolated trees between fragments, may maintain a considerable proportion of diversity within the species at the regional level in the long term. While advocating gene mixing, Vrijenhoek et al. (1985) caution that the introduction of genes be between neighbouring populations only, such that the wider genetic differences among the distantly separated populations are maintained.It has been well recognized that intervention may be required to avoid species extinction, especially if the rate of environmental change is very rapid (Ledig and Kitzmiller, 1992;Eriksson et al., 1993). Further, under circumstances of environmental disturbances when the genetic diversity of the population is threatened, genetic rescue operations using ex situ reserves and artificial migrations may be necessary. A classic example is offered by the conservation concerns over the highly endangered black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) and white rhinoceros (Certotherium simum), both of which have been decimated by very high levels of poaching (Merenlender et al., 1989).The apprehensions regarding gene mixing and the consequent lowering of fitness can be allayed by the fact that immigration of ill-adapted genes into a population is likely to be eliminated through the process of natural selection (Ledig, 1986;Millar and Libby, 1991). Nevertheless, sufficient caution should be exercised during and after introduction of the genetic material. Careful examination of the possible dysgenic effects should precede any introduction of foreign propagules into a local genepool, weighed against the risks of loss if the genepool were not to be incorporated.It is ironic to note that despite the recurrent debate on the issue of gene mixing (Fenster and Dudash, 1994), there appears to be little critical work examining the potential threats (Young and Boyle, 2000). There is a need to model the consequences of gene mixing on allele frequency shifts and how such processes could be facilitated to rescue genetically impoverished populations or populations under severe threat of extinction (Pella and Milner, 1987).In summary, the approach that we have proposed for the conservation of forest genetic resources of economically important and threatened species re-emphasizes the need to re-evaluate conventional approaches. The forest genebank approach is not so much aimed at preserving the genetic diversity of populations of trees in the genetic resource management units (Ledig, 1988;Millar and Libby, 1991); rather it is aimed at enriching the total genetic diversity contained at a designated in situ site with the possibility of evolving diversity.Conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources have long been focal points of national and international agenda (FAO, 1974(FAO, , 1989(FAO, , 1998)). There is a growing awareness of conservation measures by national and international organizations (FAO, 1989(FAO, , 1998)). There have been tremendous successes in developing methods for the conservation of genetic resources ex situ (Maxted et al., 1997c;Dulloo et al., 1998). On the other hand, despite its overall advantage and promotion by the international community, in situ conservation is still inadequate (Williams, 1997). This is because its implementation requires the appropriate socio-economic, policy and political conditions as well as scientific understanding of the natural environment and biological characteristics of the species. Such issues are often local and require localized solutions.The beauty of in situ conservation lies in that it keeps the genetic structure of a population intact in a dynamic process, while allowing the evolutionary processes to continue as plants adapt to changes in environmental conditions (Eriksson et al., 1993). This involves conservation at the ecosystem level, the highest and most complex level of biodiversity. Ecosystem conservation unites the abiotic and biotic worlds, including their processes and entities (Noss, 1996).Coffea arabica is commercially one of the most important crops and, at the same time, one of the most neglected crops in the world, with regard to genetic conservation (Tewolde and Egziabher, 1990). For decades it has been and still is a very valuable commodity in international trade, second only to oil (Pendergrast, 1999). It is the most important foreign currency earner for more than 80 developing countries, and was responsible for the transfer of over US$13 billion from developed countries to developing countries in 1983 (Cannell, 1983), and US$18 billion in 1994 (Raina et al., 1998). For Ethiopia, it is 4-5% of the gross domestic product (GDP), 20% of the government revenue, 60% of the total foreign exchange earnings and a livelihood for more than 25% of its population (Tafesse, 1996).It is difficult to conserve coffee germplasm ex situ in genebanks, since its seeds do not stay viable for a long time. In situ conservation in the forest ecosystem housing its genetic resources is the best and most reliable option. But the forests housing much of the coffee genepools are being lost at an alarming rate. Hence, there is an urgent need to save the wild coffee genepool (IBPGR, 1980;Tewolde and Egziabher, 1990;Dulloo et al., 1998). In this chapter, we discuss the need for the conservation of Arabica coffee in the forests of southwestern Ethiopia. Beginning with the geographic and genetic origin of coffee, we go on to describe the diversity of the genepools, human impacts on the forest landscape, and the current conservation status of coffee. Finally, the strategies for in situ genetic reserves, the challenging constraints for conservation efforts, and some recommendations and actions are presented.All cultivated species of coffee have their origin in Africa. C. arabica is geographically isolated and genetically distinct from the rest of the species in genus Coffea. It is confined to two isolated mountain forests on the western and eastern sides of the Great Rift Valley (GRV) in southern Ethiopia, while the distribution of other coffee species overlaps elsewhere in the central and western parts of Africa (FAO, 1968;Mesfin and Lisanework, 1996). C. arabica is the only species occurring in Ethiopia.In its place of origin, coffee has been used as a stimulant and a special kind of food since time immemorial. It was known to the rest of the world from Arabia, hence the specific name. The Arabs introduced coffee from Ethiopia to Yemen during the 13th century (Haarer, 1962), where the habit of drinking coffee was developed in the 15th century. This habit gradually spread to the rest of the world, leading to the increased interest of some countries to produce coffee as a commodity on a large scale. The Dutch first introduced the coffee plantation to Java in 1690 (Ferwerda, 1976). A coffee plant from Java was taken to Amsterdam, then to Paris and the rest of the Dutch and French colonies in the tropics, especially Latin America (Fig. 23.1). Today, Latin American countries, led by Brazil, are the major producers of Arabica coffee.Genetically, C. arabica is the only tetraploid and self-fertile species of Coffea, with chromosome number 2n = 4x = 44, while others are diploid (2n = 2x = 22) and self-infertile (Lashermes et al., 1999(Lashermes et al., , 2000)). Recent molecular characterization of C. arabica indicated its possible origin as an allotetraploid (Raina et al., 1998;Lashermes et al., 1999Lashermes et al., , 2000)). According to Raina et al. (1998), the diploid wild ancestors of C. arabica are Coffea eugenioides and Coffea congensis, while Lashermes et al. (1999) found them to be C. eugenioides and Coffea canephora. The differences in these results could be due to the inadequacy of the analysis techniques; hence further investigation is needed.Ethiopia possesses enormous genetic variability of Arabica coffee. Its genepool is largely found in the mountain rainforests of the south-west part of the country (Sylvian, 1958;FAO, 1968;Tewolde and Egziabher, 1990;Paulos and Demel, 1999), southeastern forests (Mesfin and Lisanework, 1996) and as cultivated landraces in home gardens (Melaku, 1984;MCTD, 1989).Recent studies on the genetic diversity of the species indicated east-west differentiation of the centres of diversification of C. arabica (Lashermes et al., 1996;Montagnon and Bouharmont, 1996). Lashermes et al. (1996) analysed the genetic diversity among cultivated and sub-spontaneous accessions of C. arabica and detected genetic variation among the accessions from west of the GRV and east of the GRV in Ethiopia and the cultivated plants outside Ethiopia. The phenotypic diversity analysis of the accessions of coffee plants from similar origin by Montagnon and Bouharmont (1996) also confirmed the existence of similar variation. Accessions from the eastern part of the GRV are more similar to the coffee cultivars in other parts of the world, indicating this area to be a different centre of domestication from the western part and the source of the distribution of coffee to the outside world. On the other hand, accessions from the western part of the GRV are different genetically and morphologically from other populations and also have higher genetic variability within a population.The majority of the coffee genepool east of the GRV is in home gardens and on farms as cultivated landraces, with some wild populations in the forests (Mesfin and Lisanework, 1996). The western portion consists mainly of semi-forest and forest populations that represent the partially domesticated and wild populations of the species. Surveys in different parts of the country found over 130 farmer-identified cultivated coffee landraces both east and west of the GRV (Admasu et al., 1989). Through the Ethiopian National Coffee Collection Programme, more than 600 coffee types were collected and documented from 1966 to 1984 (IAR, 1986). Further studies may well discover more new coffee types. In 1998 a new coffee type, which is morphologically distinct from previous records, was found in the Anfilo forest of West Wollega Zone (Demel Teketay, personal observation). Sylvian (1958) witnessed the existence of a great variation among the wild coffee plants in Ethiopia, which constitute the best sources of germplasm available for programmes of improvement of the species. The fact that the spread of Arabica coffee around the world was based on only a few trees suggests the importance of the Ethiopian germplasm for the world coffee industry as a whole (Wrigley, 1988). There may be great danger for the coffee industry and the people depending on it, if the production of coffee fails due to unforeseen natural calamities such as the outbreak of disease or pests. For instance, the occurrence of coffee leaf rust in Sri Lanka in 1869 forced that country to abandon coffee production and shift to tea (Demel, 1999). In Ethiopia, economic coffee production is still possible though leaf rust is endemic to the country. Even in the case of an outbreak of a new disease called coffee berry disease (CBD) in 1971, coffee production in Ethiopia was not significantly affected (Tewolde and Egziabher, 1990). It took a very short period of time to release CBD resistant varieties in Ethiopia as compared with other East African countries with similar problems. This is attributed to the availability of genetic diversity that is large enough to withstand diseases and pests (Demel, 1999).The forest coffee ecosystem (FCE) is part of the forest ecosystem in which Arabica coffee occurs as a natural member of the plant community. The FCE is the major source of coffee produced in Ethiopia. There are four major coffee production systems in Ethiopia, namely: forest, semi-forest, garden and plantations. The first two production systems are part of the FCE. In the forest coffee production system, coffee is harvested directly from wild coffee plants growing in Afromontane rainforests of west and south-western Ethiopia by subsistence farmers. Currently, the forest coffee production system represents 9% of the total land covered by coffee, and contributes about 5-6% of the total coffee production in the country. Semi-forest coffee represents the production system in which forest coffee is manipulated through thinning of overstorey trees, removal of ground vegetation and enrichment of empty spaces in the forests by transplanting naturally regenerated or raised seedlings. In some instances, naturally regenerated or raised coffee seedlings are also planted under naturally growing or planted trees. This system represents about 24% of the total land covered by coffee, and contributes about 20% of the total coffee production in the country (Paulos and Demel, 1999). In total, the FCE accounts for 33% of the land covered by coffee and 25% of the coffee produced in Ethiopia.Local farmers use traditional practices to produce the coffee in the FCE, which serves as the means of livelihood for millions of people.According to climatic climax vegetation cover of Ethiopia, the whole plateau of the south-western part could have been covered by forest vegetation (Anonymous, 1988). Even in the recent past, the area was considered to be remote and inaccessible, and botanists and explorers did not visit the forest until the mid-1930s. In the late 1940s and 1950s, coffee production enterprises began to flourish in the area (Sylvian, 1958). This has resulted in an increase in the human population due to increased immigration from other parts of the country. Reusing (1998) assessed the changes in forest vegetation of Ethiopia, especially of the south-west, using aerial photos of the 1970s and 1996/97, and satellite images of the 1990s. He found that between 1971 and 1975 approximately 40% of the highland plateau of south-west Ethiopia was covered by closed high forest. The closed high forest declined to only c. 18% by 1997 (Table 23.1), which is a loss of c. 60% in less than 30 years. Deforestation due to conversion to other kinds of land use is a serious threat. Around 235,400 ha of closed and slightly disturbed forest were deforested between 1971 and 1997, a loss of 10,000 ha of forest every year.The pattern of deforestation is always centred on human settlement areas and progresses into the forest interior. Reusing (1998) indicated that the areas severely damaged by deforestation are Mizan Teferi, Tepi, Gore and Bonga. Although the exact range of distribution and area covered by FCE was not yet mapped and quantified, most human settlement areas coincide with such areas, since the main source of income for the local community of the region is coffee production from forest and semi-forest areas. FCE is located at mid-altitudes that have suitable agroclimatic conditions for the production of several cash crops including coffee and food crops, and of course for human habitation. Deforestation as result of the expansion of coffee, tea and rubber tree plantations is also becoming common (Table 23.2). Recently, around 30 small enterprises were licensed to start coffee plantations in the Keffa Zone.Several individuals and organizations have been involved in the efforts to collect, conserve and utilize coffee germplasm since the early 1960s (Meyer, 1965;FAO, 1968;IAR, 1986;Berthaud and Charrier, 1988). The FAO Coffee Mission collected germplasm from most of the coffee growing areas, while Meyer's collections were only from the southwest and central parts of Ethiopia. The Institut Français de recherché scientifique pour le développement en coopération (ORSTOM) also collected coffee samples from wild populations in the southwestern forest of Ethiopia (Berthaud and Charrier, 1988), following the FAO mission. The Ethiopian National Coffee Collection Programme continued to collect coffee germplasm from all over the country, including areas that were not covered by other germplasm collection missions (IAR, 1986). Accessions of germplasm collected to date are found in different field genebanks around the world and within Ethiopia (Table 23.3).Currently, the Institute of Biodiversity Conservation and Research (IBCR) maintains more than 4000 accessions at the Chochie Biodiversity Unit in Jimma on 115 ha (Paulos and Demel, 1999). In addition, the Jimma Branch of the Institute of Agricultural Research currently maintains about 600 coffee types and 700 random selections of lines that show varying resistance to CBD (IAR, 1986;Demel et al., 1998).Efforts to conserve C. arabica in situ have not gone beyond the proposal stage. The Plant Genetic Resources Centre of Ethiopia (now IBCR) proposed the establishment of a coffee genetic 240Tadesse Woldermariam Gole et al. In 1998, the Coffee Improvement Project of Ethiopia proposed the establishment of three in situ conservation reserves in the south-western forest (Demel et al., 1998). The sites selected were Kontir-Berhan (c. 20,000 ha), Boginda-Yeba (c. 5500 ha) and Geba-Dogi River (18,600 ha) forests. Complementary ex situ conservation in different agroecological zones was also proposed. The project was submitted to the Coffee and Tea Authority but implementation has not yet started because of financial constraints.In this section technical strategies for effective plan-ning and implementation of coffee genetic reserves are discussed. We will address basic issues such as: habitat characterization and ecological studies, mapping the distribution of the range of wild coffee populations, assessment of population genetic structure of different isolated populations, and design and management plans of the reserves. The objective of setting up coffee genetic reserves is clear: to conserve the genetic diversity of coffee in its natural environment, without disrupting the rights of the local community for traditional and sustainable use of resources. In short, it is to optimize conservation and utilization on a sustainable basis.Sound scientific understanding of the biophysical conditions of the ecosystem, ecogeographic range, and fundamental biological and niche adaptations of the target species is essential (Maxted et al., 1997a, b, c) to identify and select representative sites for conservation. In ecological studies, human beings are often neglected as an active part of the ecosystem. Actually, there is no ecosystem where human impact has not altered the natural conditions. The FCE in this case is highly influenced and modified by the people living in it, since they depend on it for coffee production, honey and food crops. It is essential to understand how human beings alter the natural ecosystem. In order to determine the management regimes and monitor a reserve, it is also necessary to characterize the ecological requirements of coffee, such as floristic composition of the forest, edaphic conditions, climate, topography and site conditions, and how these conditions respond to different perturbations. For FCE of south-west Ethiopia, this aspect has not been investigated. Hence, a study to assess ecological dynamics of the Geba-Dogi Rivers FCE has started with a research grant from the Centre for Development Research (ZEF) of the University of Bonn. The aims of this project are: to assess the trends and patterns of ecological dynamics of the forest ecosystem along anthropogenic and environmental gradients; to assess the floristic composition and distribution patterns of the plant communities of the forest ecosystem; to assess the patterns of distribution and population structure of coffee in different forest cover types in the landscape; and to identify priority sites for in situ conservation of wild coffee populations. Keystone ecosystems for conserving coffee genetic resources will be identified and used to design and prepare management plans of coffee genetic reserves. A keystone ecosystem, as defined by Stohlgren et al. (1997), is a portion of a landscape that is particularly important for a given ecological or management question. It can be an ecosystem that contains high plant richness, distinctive species compositions, or distinctive ecological processes that benefit many other species and ecosystems. Such distinct ecosystems with wild coffee populations in the forest landscape of south-west Ethiopia are, therefore, important keystone ecosystems for the conservation of C. arabica.FCEs in south-west Ethiopia are distributed in different parts of the large forest landscape, mainly due to topographic variations. Identification and mapping of important ecosystems for conservation within the forest landscape is essential to help managers and development practitioners to carry out management activities. The keystone ecosystems, when mapped and presented to managers and development planners, will provide useful information about what has to be done and where. It helps planners by providing basic information before they make large-scale investment decisions that may cause the total conversion of the forest area to other land uses like plantations or further settlement.A study on the population genetic structure of coffee in Ethiopia has not even been attempted, except for a few studies by breeders. To ensure the conservation of the maximum genetic variability and allelic diversity, analysis of the population genetics of coffee plants collected from different forest areas and coffee growing regions is essential. Newbury and Ford-Lloyd (1997) emphasized the need for measuring plant genetic diversity with regard to conservation and making decisions about whether an in situ reserve is actually needed; selecting appropriate sites for in situ conservation; and monitoring any change in the pattern of diversity within an in situ reserve. Conserving only representatives of some populations of a species is insufficient unless the whole range of genetic diversity is represented.To conserve the whole range of genetic diversity of a taxon, it is essential to know the population genetic structure. Higher genetic diversity will enable more resistance to any kind of environmental impact and increase adaptation and fitness in the face of environmental change. Hence, this should be one of the principal strategies in the conservation efforts for a species.The FCE is not only important for genetic conservation, it is also the basis of livelihood for millions of people in the region. The design and management plan of coffee genetic reserves in the area should consider a mechanism that maximizes the conservation effort without jeopardizing the production system of the local communities. In this regard, the Man and Biosphere (MAB) programme of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is a good strategy since it combines conservation and sustainable management for human use (Hawkes et al., 1997). MAB reserve design is considered as an optimal reserve strategy (Hawkes et al., 1997) since it has a special spatial arrangement in which human settlement and the use of resources by traditional patterns of land use is allowed in some zones. A biosphere reserve should be a representative environment, internationally recognized for its conservation value and provision of scientific knowledge, skills and human values to support sustainable development (UNESCO, 1987).A reserve in an FCE should be as large as possible. Large reserves have the advantage of including landscapes with diverse ecogeography and minimizing edge effects (Hawkes et al., 1997). It is also advantageous in cases of catastrophes that might destroy everything if the size of the reserve is small. Ethiopia experienced a catastrophic event in which over 70,000 ha of forest in the south-eastern part was burned down by accidental fires in February-March 2000. This forest also housed wild coffee populations. Therefore, we recommend as large an area as possible for coffee genetic reserves.Biosphere reserves normally consist of three components: one or several core zones, a buffer zone and a transition zone, each with different characteristic conservation roles. A conceptual reserve design for coffee in the FCE of south-west Ethiopia is shown in Fig. 23.2. The core zone is a strictly protected reserve area where all kinds of human interaction should be avoided, except for research and monitoring of the natural vegetation dynamics. The areas to be selected for such zones should also be more or less undisturbed high forest with positive wild coffee population structure and other plants in the community.Two buffer zones around the core zone are recommended. In Buffer Zone I, that is, a slightly disturbed forest zone, collection of non-timber forest products like honey and other traditional uses are allowed. Collection of coffee from wild plants is also allowed. But, the users are not allowed to manipulate the canopy or ground vegetation to enhance coffee production or other forms of agricultural production. Monitoring and research activities are also part of the management in this zone. In Buffer Zone II (socio-buffering), the traditional system of coffee production from the forest is allowed. Farmers will be allowed to modify the shrub layer vegetation to some extent, to improve the coffee production from the natural system. But no enrichment planting or conversion of the land to other agricultural use is allowed. Research and monitoring continue to assess the management regime and impacts on the core zone. Use right is restricted to those who are already living within the area set aside for the reserve. No further settlement is allowed.In the transition zone, the traditional forest coffee production system, garden coffee and some agricultural practices are allowed. Some habitat restoration and research are carried out on those areas that were highly degraded. The farming practice should involve the traditional agroforestry system, without total clearing of the forest vegetation.Local communities are also allowed to manipulate the coffee populations in areas under their possession, using local landraces. Incentives of some kind, depending on local need should also be provided, to reward their effort in assisting conservation. This can include basic public services like schools, clinics or health centres, access roads and the like. This is only a conceptual design and management plan, considering the strong dependency of a high number of people on the forest ecosystem and the immediate need for conservation measures to save the genetic resources of coffee. The actual intervention mechanism has to be based on sound scientific knowledge after detailed studies. The idea here is to save the resources first, then study and use them sustainably and equitably. In addition to the genetic reserve, complementary ex situ conservation sites such as field genebanks in different agroecological zones around the reserves should be established.There are several constraints associated with establishing in situ reserve sites for coffee. The constraints can be grouped into three major categories: technical, political and economic constraints.Despite its paramount social and economic impor-tance, little is known about the biology and ecological requirements of C. arabica in its wild populations. Identifying important priority areas for conservation is difficult based on the current knowledge of the forest ecosystem. To set up priority areas for conserving genetic resources, sound scientific knowledge about geographical distribution, population genetics, population ecology and the dynamics and characteristics of the keystone ecosystem for the species is required. The ongoing project attempts to characterize and identify important keystone ecosystems for coffee genepool conservation and will contribute to filling the knowledge gap in population ecology and habitat characteristics of the species.Further research is needed on population genetics, overall distribution patterns and exact locations of distinct populations. Knowledge of distribution and population genetic structure is one of the major challenges for coffee research in Ethiopia, since it is expensive and needs up-to-date laboratory equipment and highly skilled personnel, which Ethiopia cannot afford.For the first time, Ethiopia now has an environmental policy and a conservation strategy (EPA, 1997). Genetic, species and ecosystem diversity conservation and management are core points in both the environmental policy and the conservation strategy. To implement the policies through further legislation and legal orders, an institutional framework is in place at the federal level. Ethiopia has nine federal states and two special administrative regions. The current federal government structure of the country gives the right to all federal states to use and develop their respective regions independent of central government influence. However, the absence of respective government organs to implement the national conservation and environmental policy at regional level and the lack of a mandate of national organizations like the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and IBCR at regional level make the implementation and realization of such a policy impractical.Ethiopian administrative and development institutions suffer from frequent restructuring and changes of mandate. Sometimes, an institution at ministry level merges with another ministry or else is totally avoided. The responsibilities of one institution are given to another, in which case policies are also liable to change. Corrective measures are required from the government to extend all national level organizations to regions and to minimize institutional changes.Conservation of plant genetic resources is expensive, since it is a long-term venture and needs longterm investment for monitoring and management of the genetic estate (Hawtin and Hodgkin, 1997). The initial and maintenance cost of genetic conservation in Ethiopia will be even more expensive due to poor infrastructure and lack of adequate scientific information about plant species and ecosystems. This requires high investment in training, personnel and research facilities.It is an unattainable dream to expect Ethiopia to invest in such costly conservation of genetic resources because of its poor economy. Ethiopia remains the poorest of the poor countries in the world, where small-scale, age-old traditional agriculture is the mainstay of the economy. This situation is a threat to conservation since poor farmers are forced to deforest and convert natural ecosystems into agricultural land to earn their livelihood. Moreover, the poor Ethiopian economy has less to offer as incentives or alternative livelihoods to poor farmers in order to protect the FCE from deforestation. This is the main economic constraint concerning FCE conservation.Support from international communities, either from bilateral donation or multilateral donor agencies is needed to save the last remaining forest ecosystems that house the genepool of C. arabica, since conserved genetic resources are public goods at local, national and international levels (Hawtin and Hodgkin, 1997). Williams (1997) suggested two steps to assist developing countries, like Ethiopia, in conserving genetic resources: first, outside funding for the initial planning and, second, the provision of blueprints and organizational needs to national governments by an international organization, and the adoption of these as part of the national plan. Generous support from different national and international organizations in the past helped to conserve crop germplasm in Ethiopia and to provide institutional capacity for the IBCR, enabling Ethiopia to establish a genebank.There are efforts on the side of the government to conserve important genetic resources. National institutional frameworks and policies have been formulated to implement conservation of genetic resources. But there is still a need for financial resources and coordination of the relevant government institutions and regional government bodies to initiate conservation activity.The first and most basic step towards a conservation programme should be strengthening the capacity of the responsible institutions. The responsible organization, in collaboration with other organizations that have direct or indirect stakes in forest resources management need to set up a mechanism for conservation of priority areas. The following actions are recommended for the success of the coffee biosphere reserve:• Designate the FCEs as UNESCO biosphere reserves and ensure sustainable use and conservation by legislation and legal orders. • Design a mechanism of financial resources generation from different sources to sustainably manage the biosphere reserve. • Research on the FCE to bridge the knowledge gap for further conservation and utilization decisions. On this aspect, the national responsible body should be able to collaborate with international organizations like the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) and local research institutions in order to use available human and material resources. • Regular monitoring and modification of the management regime as appropriate for conservation.The 20th century has seen an enormous transition in our appreciation of plant genetic diversity. The century began with the rediscovery of Mendel's laws of inheritance, and through Johanssen the dawning of modern plant breeding. The basis and method for scientific plant improvement were to hand. In addition, the post-Darwinian world saw no short supply of genetic diversity within crop species, nor was such diversity viewed as threatened.Then through the century awareness has grown that genetic resources are indeed limited. With the spread of agricultural development worldwide, local varieties and minor species have given way to modern introduced varieties of major crops. By the mid-1970s, concern for plant genetic resources (PGR) was widespread and efforts to conserve them underway. PGR were generally divided into domesticated populations (landraces, obsolete cultivars, breeders' populations, modern varieties of crops, genetic stocks) and wild populations (wild plant species especially those related to crops). The dominant strategies were to conserve domesticated germplasm in genebanks ex situ, and wild populations in nature reserves in situ (Frankel and Soulé, 1981).Since 1980, several issues, concerns and forces have emerged to question claims of progress toward adequate PGR conservation (Marshall, 1989). The major ones are:• National awareness of the value of plant genetic resources has grown, particularly in economically poor but 'gene rich' countries in the centres of crop diversity. Since the Convention on Biological Diversity such countries have assumed greater responsibility for the conservation of their own indigenous genetic resources and expect to receive their fair share of benefits from their use. • The number of accessions in ex situ collections has continued to grow, while their use and maintenance of their viability remain problematic.  (Brush, 1995). Yet the stability of such on-farm systems as a conservation strategy in the face of quickening development is not known. • New genetic technologies, especially DNA sequencing on a larger scale than thought possible, has meant the flowering of molecular systematics and new ways to measure genetic similarity and divergence of plant species and populations.How well are we managing plant genetic resources for sustainable human benefit? This simple question requires objective pointers or indicators as to whether and where the task is being addressed well and where it is not. Governments, industry, scientists and the public require means of measuring progress in this task, and for sounding early warnings of emergencies.Indicators are tools to monitor progress and point to emerging problems. Saunders et al. (1998) define an indicator as a significant physical, chemical, biological, social or economic variable that is measurable in a defined way for management purposes. Indicators that measure the quality of the physical environment, for example, atmospheric CO 2 concentration, are relatively straightforward and interpretable. However, suitable indicators for tracking the state of biological resources locally and globally are more difficult to agree upon. In a broad sense, national and international statistics on cropping areas, yields, droughts, plant disease outbreaks, plagues, farm income, agricultural production and trade, even famine, are indirect measures of human wellbeing and indirect indicators of sustainable use of PGR. However, these are only the broadest pointers to policy decisions. Here we limit the discussion to indicators closer to the biodiversity at stake, technical questions and managerial decisions at the level of institutions and researchers.The developers of indicators for sustainable management of PGR face what seems to be a fundamental and apparently insoluble dilemma. On the one hand, we are aware that the system is a highly complex one in which a great variety of forces (or pressures) can potentially act to threaten PGR. It includes the actions of individual farmers, scientists, breeders, communities, industry, conservation agencies and governments. Consequently, an equally large array of parameters of varied complexity, scale and cost can be nominated as important variables to monitor. On the other hand, while an innumerable array of variables might seem necessary to explain 'the system', such a suite will attract no support from users as indicators. There are too many to follow, to interpret and to act upon, and a reductionist approach is inescapable.Deciding on a list of indicators is only the first step. Interpretation of data presents challenges that need prior thought. One intent is to have absolute standards (e.g. a specific number of varieties should underpin crop production in a certain area, or the germinability of genebank accessions should remain above 85%). Alternatively, the intent may be to monitor change over time with specific rates of change deemed desirable or acceptable (a certain number of accessions regenerated per year).Benchmarks or threshold values need to be determined scientifically. In contrast, targets are tools of policy and are specified levels or ranges for the indicators set jointly by groups of stakeholders. Further detailed discussion on the policy interpretation of each indicator lies outside the brief of this chapter.As well as for environmental quality, there is an upsurge in interest in developing indicators for conserving biodiversity at the ecosystem, species and gene level. As governments seek to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity, they require indicators to measure progress, to monitor the main human impacts on biodiversity (sustainable development, conservation and use) and to give early warning of any irreplaceable loss.Despite the difficulty of the task, it is clear that experts and conservation agencies in several countries are proposing indicators to encourage and improve the management of biodiversity in nature. Foresters have perhaps led the way in calling for indicators to monitor the genetic effects of direct exploitation of forests (Ledig, 1992;McKenney et al., 1994;Boyle and Sayer, 1995;Namkoong et al., 1996;Boyle, 2000). Using population genetics theory, Savolainen (2000) considered the basic evolutionary processes generating and maintaining diversity, and discussed heterozygosity of marker genes as a useful indicator of historical effects. A classic example is the contrast between the extremely low values of heterozygosity in Pinus resinosa and the high values in Pinus sylvestris, indicating the lingering effects of bottlenecks in population size of P. resinosa in the distant past.As part of a wider project seeking indicators for national reporting on the 'State of the Australian Environment' (the term included both the physical environment and the biodiversity it supports), Brown et al. (1997b) proposed seven indicators to monitor natural genetic diversity in selected indicative taxa. These were: In attempting to develop indicators for Canadian forests, McKenney et al. (1994) gave as guidelines for the selection of indicators the following criteria.[Ideal indicators] are easy to implement, are based on good experimental design and analysis, do not disturb the system, avoid fads, indicate both process and flows as well as states and stocks, give early warnings, contain some dramatic 'flagship' species and other 'umbrella' species, target all scales, are participatory for all stakeholders, and have clear specific objectives.Table 24.1 is a longer wish list of properties of the ideal indicator from the perspectives of the operator of indicators, the manager and the user of PGR, and the wider community. However, it is easier to draw up such a list of ideal properties, and to lengthen it still further, than it is to find indicators that satisfy such a list. We consider that the first three items, namely, validity, clarity of interpretation and simplicity in measuring genetic diversity, must be given top billing when assessing indicators. McKenney et al. (1994) divided indicators into those that are 'species-based', and those that are 'system-based'. Ferris and Humphrey (1999) called these structural and compositional indicators. Others have used the division into Pressure, Condition or State, and Response. We use the partition mentioned above as two axes of classification. The first axis is the kind of genepool (primary or cultivated versus secondary and tertiary or wild relatives), and the second refers to the conservation strategy (in situ versus ex situ) (Table 24.2).The state of crop plant diversity actually under cultivation on farms, in pastures or in gardens has been the original focus of the genetic resources movement. It is therefore a natural subject for the development of indicators, particularly to watch for the process of 'genetic erosion'. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) documentation for the Leipzig technical conference (FAO, 1998) contained a list of possible indicators of genetic erosion of landraces (Table 24.3). These indicators are clearly candidates for our task here, because genetic erosion, or the steady loss of genetic diversity in onfarm agriculture, is perhaps the key 'pressure' on the sustainable management of domesticated PGR. Brown (1999) took a different tack and considered variables for the study of genetic structure of landraces that were being conserved on-farm. The approach was based on testing five putative advantages of in situ conservation, and the resulting indicators were numerous and wide-ranging.In Table 24.2 we reduce these and other potential variables into a set of four. Topping the list is the number and frequency of occurrence of distinct landraces of a crop (in a given area). Of course this begs the question of how reliable is the classification and recognition of landraces, and how widespread is the common use of particular names. In some crops, such as sorghum in Ethiopia, a single field might be planted to as many as 20 landraces, while in others, such as lucerne in Morocco, a farmer's variety might not bear a distinctive name, but just be known as 'local variety'. Breeding system and plant morphology affect the way in which such naming interacts with farmer management of this diversity.Several studies have been made of the reliability of farmer names in reflecting diversity consistently. Remarkable reliability has been found, for example, in farmer recognition of sorghum landraces in Ethiopia (Teshome et al., 1997). Such studies are important in underpinning reliance on names for estimating indicators. Further, if the studies include assay of divergence and distinctiveness for genetic markers for a sample of such landrace populations, we can get estimates of the fundamental levels of polymorphism involved.However, an important point is that names are signals to adaptive or yielding attributes and through them to farmer management strategies. Named populations will be treated in particular ways, almost irrespective of the genetic differences. As such, names, which probably evolve themselves, affect, if not control, the immediate future of these populations. A variable landrace, bearing a certain name, may be reputed to be flooding tolerant, and planted accordingly, thus setting up selection pressure to emphasize that attribute.Another factor in the equation is the environment where crops are grown. Hence the second area for indicators to address, is a measure of the range of environments that the landraces of a crop species currently occupy. This aspect is not explicit in the FAO list (Table 24.3), but is listed second in Table 24.2. The notion here is that the wider the span of environments that a crop occupies, the greater the adaptive genetic diversity that crop might house. Using survey data on crop occurrence, geographical information systems and multivariate methods may offer ways in which environments can be classified and typified. This would lead to measures of the extent of occupied environments and such measures could be compared over time for changes. Eyzaguirre (unpublished) has suggested this kind of indicator for taro (Colocasia esculenta) in China, a species that is important for food security and has income generating potential.  Saunders et al., 1998).Scientifically valid and credible Easy to understand, unambiguous and robust Simple and cheap to assay Use accepted and well-documented methods Cost-effective (i.e. an expensive indicator should yield greater information) Adaptable for use at a range of spatial scales Aggregative (capable of meaningful summation over items and scales) Capable of being monitored easily to show trends over timeRelevant to management objectives and fit in a policy framework Part of the management cycle and not an end in itself Focus on the use of information rather than the gaining of it Render progress evident Kept under review and refined when necessaryDeveloped with all people involved: stakeholders, monitors Reflect an essential, fundamental and highly valued element of the object being monitored Provide early warning of emerging issues or problemsPartnerships between communities, governments, companies and research agencies setting up and running the process and sharing information The provision of adequate resources (time, expertise, funds) A commitment to collect new data Continuing research and development for improving indicators and determining cause and effectIn measuring sustainable management of crop diversity on-farm, we must recognize that farmer decisions lie at the root of what diversity will be planted. Hence we need to obtain measures of how durable are farmers' selection criteria and management practices and how they are evolving. For example, populations selected for multiple purposes such as for ease of growth, grain, fuel or fodder straw production, may be more diverse than those cropped solely for sale to the market, particularly when there is market stress on uniformity. Multiple use is also the basis of an indicator for taro where different genotypes and different organs of the plant are put to separate uses (Eyzaguirre, unpublished).The last indicator is to meet concerns about loss of knowledge as to how and why certain species and landraces are grown or used. It also addresses the new demands of benefit sharing. Sustainable management of resources existing in local varieties calls for the creation of mechanisms to secure traditional knowledge. In a sense this activity is parallel to the systems of plant breeders rights that exist in developed agriculture. Monitoring the existence and scope of such systems of protection will be indicative of forces to help encourage the sustaining of diversity on-farm.We therefore focus on four areas, the crops themselves, the environment they occur in, the farmer management practices and the information. Each relates back to the different landrace populations as entities. For this reason, the number of landraces, coupled with their frequency and area occupied by each landrace forms the fundamental variable for the minimum indicator.Since the 1960s, the growth of institutional genebanks that hold accessions as dried seed, in tissue culture, or as living plants in the field has been prodigious. Along with such an investment have come considerable thought, research and experience into how to judge progress in genebanking. Table 24.2 includes some well-established variables (such as viability, documentation, duplication) used in evaluating collections.However, the primary datum is the number of accessions for each crop held in each of the large institutional genebanks. The 1998 report on the state of the world's genetic resources contains data collected from worldwide surveys. The collections are further divided into whether the material is held in long-term conservation, medium-term accessibility, or indeterminate storage. In several of the larger collections, accessions have been counted twice because they are in both conditions. Indeed, the same report estimates that of the Ϯ 6 million accessions stored worldwide, between 1 and 2 million are 'unique'.These figures are perhaps the 'best' examples we have of indicators of genetic resources management. They exemplify both the benefits and the problems or pitfalls of making inferences based on them. To illustrate this we summarize in Table 24.4 the FAO (1998) estimates of the total number of accessions for the eight main cereal crops and compare these with those give by Holden (1984) in his overview of the situation a decade earlier. The picture is similar for legumes and forages.In nearly all cases there is a doubling of the numbers in collections. If this is true we could certainly infer that the numbers in store cannot keep growing at this rate. It is likely that part of the growth represents collections or samples that were in hand in 1984 but not included in Holden's total (e.g. for oat). Likewise there could be material that escaped the latest census. The point is, however, that there has been at least a doubling in the size of the formal commitment of the PGR community in numbers of conserved units. Part of this growth may represent the deliberate duplication of material from one country to another (or indeed duplication within a collection in different storage conditions, or in vitro and in the field). This has come about from policies of insurance backup storage, repatriation, or introduction of large collections to new areas.Whatever the degree of planned duplication and of inadvertent redundancy, each accession is a managed unit, kept and recorded as distinct. For example, it is of interest to know that a collection has a total of 80,000 accessions made up of 40,000 in long-term store and the same 40,000 in medium term. The basic figure is the total number of accessions stored. This statistic can be judged and modified with values for the remaining indicators in this group.The first of these asks how well the material in genebanks covers the existing crop diversity. This may be hard to assess, because it requires knowledge of what is in hand and what is not. Yet the filling of gaps has been stated often as a need, and various methods of identifying gaps are available to do this.Next is the question of usage, which might be measured by the number of samples dispatched per  Brown and Spillane (1999) found that the core collection procedures have been adopted for a wide range of crop types. However, the adoption rate was apparently greater in medium-sized germplasm collections, and the larger collections have so far not been subject to such sampling principles.The other suggested indicators are straightforward and familiar, and deal with the state of the germplasm collection. Here we can build on the international experience in the monitoring of genebanking. The International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) and FAO (FAO and IPGRI, 1994) have recently published standards for genebank management that provide benchmarks for indicators. Holden et al. (1993) have mapped out in detail how such variables could be combined into a 'score' to attach to each accession. The average over the whole collection could function as an indicator. It is interesting to consider why such proposals were not widely adopted as a way to lobby funding bodies for more resources to redress problem areas. Perhaps the risk was too great of unfair public comparisons between genebanks that ignored radically different levels of resources. This history shows how important partnerships will be in formulating and using indicators that will enjoy wide support (Table 24.1).Monitoring the health of collections, particularly of field genebanks, and assessment of accession viability are essential housekeeping functions. The FAO (1998) overview inevitably found a diverse picture on these parameters, and particularly stressed the growing backlog of samples for regeneration. Documentation and evaluation also inevitably but perhaps less critically, were also variable across the spectrum of collections. These activities may never be totally complete and perhaps a more helpful indicator is a measure of the annual effort being devoted to them, rather than an estimate of the proportion of the task not done.Once again the overall indicator that captures most of the genebanking effort is the total number of accessions of a crop conserved in a genebank. This could primarily reflect the number to which an institution is committed to conserve. The secondary indicators come into play in assisting in improving the growth and management of that collection, and hence its value and sustainability.From one of the more traditional modes of conserving agricultural plant genetic resources, we turn to the other and polar opposite, namely the conservation of wild related species in nature reserves. The first question to consider is why emphasize wild species that either are used directly, or are wild relatives of crops? After all, modern molecular technology gives access to the 'quaternary' genepool, that is without limit. Should our thinking be broader to encompass other forms of biodiversity than higher plants, such as fungi, at the level of ecosystems?However, we argue that the PGR community has a special concern for and focus on the wild relatives of domesticated plants. Their roles as alternative hosts in coevolutionary relationships, and their long history as proven sources of useful genes assure them of that focus. Indeed they are natural 'flagship' species, and have proved important in achieving political support for conservation activity in the cases of Zea diploperennis in Mexico and Triticum dicoccoides in Israel (Frankel et al., 1995), and the Antalya Gene Management Zone in Turkey (see Tan and Tan,Chapter 19,this volume). But to judge progress and give early warnings we need a broader view than the few celebrated cases.One problem is the number of species to consider, presumably at least an order of magnitude higher than their related crops. As well, there are two attitudes to the diversity in wild relatives. On the one hand some (e.g. Marshall, 1989) have pointed out that for many crops, many areas of the world are colonized by certain wild relatives of crops (e.g. wild Avena species), and that such cases would not merit monitoring. On the other hand, others have argued that highly specific ecotypes or populations have proven value (e.g. the sources of certain crown rust resistances in Avena spp. in Israel), and these sometimes weedy populations collected beside farmers fields are endangered and should be monitored.With the emergence of IUCN red book lists, it becomes possible to get an overview of the situation at least at the species level. The task at the national level is to consider the indigenous species of genera that have domesticated or economically useful species, decide which species are rare and threatened, and for those obtain estimates of population number and sizes. A second approach is to consider which crop-related wild species are present in nature reserves and other protected areas and which are not. Of those omitted, the question to check is whether their population distribution, number and sizes are such that they need no conservation action.Table 24.5 is an example of what can be done with such lists. It lists the genera related to economic plants that are included in Briggs and Leigh's (1996) authoritative survey of the conservation status of rare or threatened plants of Australia (ROTAP), and the number of native species that belong to each category. Of the crop genera listed, appreciable proportions of wild species are of conservation concern. Over half of these were too 'poorly known' to classify as to their endangerment status. While some are known to be in reserves, only about 20% of species related to field and vegetable crops and 'at or likely to be at risk' could be checked off as adequately reserved.The situation for eucalypts is perhaps most indicative. They are big plants, easy to see and well studied, yet 10% of species are probably of conservation concern and their vulnerability too poorly known to classify. Of the 259 species of conservation interest, only 151 are adequately represented in reserves. At the other extreme the situation for crop genera for which no species are listed, might imply that their species are indeed at no risk (e.g. Oryza), or that they have escaped attention.Our suggested indicators (Table 24.2) exploit the general tendency for genetic diversity to increase with increasing population size (Young et al., 1996). Area occupied could be a surrogate for size. Another contender is population density, because density may often be easier to measure than population size to which it is probably related. However, as Gram and Sork (1999) found, density can also be an indicator of habitat quality. In their study, populations with small densities had different genotypes than those with high densities, and thus they recommend choosing populations to represent a range of densities. Another possible approach borrows from that of ecosystem conservationists who have used geographic environmental data to partition areas and select areas for reservation that represent environmental heterogeneity for the species concerned (e.g. Belbin, 1993).In assessing collecting priorities among alleles, the 2 × 2 classification of alleles based on their population frequency (common versus rare) and distribution among populations of a species (widespread versus localized) has proved useful. In a parallel manner, Murray et al. (1999) have classified species based on their population sizes (abundant versus sparse) and geographic distribution in a given area (everywhere versus somewhere, or sometime). They sought life-history characteristics that would be indicators of different kinds of rarity among species, and hence vulnerability to loss. In our case, the number of wild related species for which such classifications are possible from existing data indicates our progress in predicting vulnerable genepools.As before, interpretation of basic data on occurrence, distribution and reservation in protected areas would be much more meaningful with genetic and systematic studies of the population genetic structure of these species. Evidence of cryptic genomic diversity, subspecies or unrecognized species such as have come to light in perennial Glycine species in Australia, or evidence of highly non-uniform levels of diversity in geographic patterns (see Schoen and Brown, 1991) are important pointers to improving reservation strategies.The final cell of Table 24.2 concerns indicators for the sustainable management of accessions of wild related species in ex situ collections. The primary, long-established reason for such samples is to have them at hand for study and use in breeding (Frankel and Soulé, 1981). Hence, except for the indicator dealing with coverage, the indicators we suggest have a strong flavour of measuring actual use. The primary indicator is the number of different accessions (of each of the relevant wild species in a collection) actually used in research or breeding, and the frequency of such use in a given time interval. These could be computed from statistics on requests, or from surveys of the literature reporting materials used in research as done by Dudnik et al. (2001).As a numerical example, Table 24.6 contains some measures of the pattern of use for the CSIRO collection of indigenous relatives of Gossypium over the last few years. Although the numbers are very small, they illustrate ways to track the use of diversity with indicators. The data are for dispatches from the genebank in answer to requests, for accessions used in first hybrids with either diploid or tetraploid cottons, and used in research crosses among the wild species themselves. Since indicators are meant to be comparative, the intent here is to compare usage of the three genome groups of species: the subtropical C-genome (two species), the tropical G-(three species) and the highly interesting K-group (12 species) that come from the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The latter are rare and very difficult to handle in a genebank. Simply getting seed is a challenge in many cases. From the basic frequency distribution of number of accessions used once, twice, three times, etc., we compute the total number of different accessions used (richness); and the coefficient of variation (CV) of the frequency of use (evenness). To make the figures comparable, the richness values in the table are adjusted to a total usage of 30 by resampling procedures. The evenness figures are transformed to a negative exponential. This means that complete or maximum evenness, which would be identically the same frequency for all accessions used gives a CV of zero and a value in the table of 1.0. Evenness values on this scale range from zero to one, with higher values being more desirable, other things being equal.The data point to the effect of practical limits on using the diversity in the K-group in dispatches.On the other hand, a richer sample of K-accessions has been used in crosses while the effort in the Ggenome has been highly concentrated. There are sound reasons for these trends, especially the scientific novelty and importance of the K-crosses, but the point to make here is that statistics to track these patterns are useful in crosses as indicators. Other factors that affect usage in crosses in this case of Gossypium research include rate of success, coverage of the species range, presence of useful traits, ease of growing and abundance of flowering and seeding.How can we measure the adequacy of coverage of diversity in nature by the samples in hand? What intensity and how many samples per species in total should be the target? Sampling benchmarks are already much debated in the literature on genetic resources. They vary widely depending on the kind of species (crop, wild herb, forest tree), the abundance of the material (scarce or plentiful), the purpose of the sample (locally common versus species rare alleles) and the assumptions of the authors.Here we simply want to stress that a sampling of the complete geographic range of each wild species is a major goal.An important area that commands much current research attention is the study of species relationships and development of molecular phylogenies. Appraising and counting such studies, although potentially involving heated debate, could indicate how well we are coming to know the heritage of crop genetic diversity, and evolution under domestication.The other main area of endeavour for wild relatives concerns 'prebreeding' activities. These are research attempts to make the genetic resources in genepools distant from breeders' populations, more available to breeders. Examples are the development of near-isogenic lines from wild species (e.g. barley) or the development of hybrid populations for molecular mapping of desirable traits and linked markers for manipulating traits in breeding programmes. Summaries of the number of lines, mapping populations and traits developed for each crop would provide an instructive overview of the penetration of wild genetic resources into crop improvement. Richness, the number of different accessions in the total effort, standardized to a given size by geometric resampling procedures (Brown, 1989). Evenness, coefficient of variation of the frequency of accession use. SW Information Index, Shannon-Weaver Information Index, combining both richness and evenness (Hutcheson, 1970).A tool of potential importance is the development of collections of DNA samples in glacie from wild species (see Frankel et al., 1995, for discussion). If readily available, this kind of material could significantly expedite research, and test hypotheses. Such research may lead to more efficient use of living samples, even if it is not the direct source of useful genes. As for any germplasm collection, the size, composition, quality of accessions and documentation, and actual usage of DNA banks all need monitoring. Presently DNA samples in glacie form an adjunct method, rather than replacing other conservation methods and, as such, may be themselves evidence of the usage of ex situ wild collections, to which they are linked.A primary aim of this volume is to map out the future role that new technologies can take in managing PGR. In concert with this aim, we here ask what established and emerging molecular techniques might offer in devising, implementing or improving indicators for sustainable management of PGR. Molecular techniques give the power to monitor genetic variation right at the elemental level of DNA sequences. Starting with the introduction of isozymes, there has been an explosion in the technologies available for directly assaying genetic differences among organisms. It is now possible to compare organisms from the genome level (using for example fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) and genomic in situ hybridization (GISH)), down to the level of single nucleotides (DNA sequencing and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)). Because the genome is assayed directly, these new technologies circumvent the often poor correspondence between morphological and genetic diversity in crop species. Thus, in theory they could increase the validity and credibility of indicators by providing markers that offer greater clarity of interpretation.The immediate and obvious benefit is the flexibility and precision by which genetic diversity can be assayed. Marker systems can be tailored to specific organisms to accommodate differences in breeding systems and relative levels of genetic diversity, and can be scaled depending on the number of accessions to be screened, how many loci are needed, and which sequences in the genome are to be sampled. Furthermore many anonymous DNA markers (e.g. randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPDs), restricted fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs), amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs)) can be drawn from genomic maps guaranteeing that genetic diversity assays evenly sample the genome. With sequence tagged sites (STSs) developed from expressed sequence tags (ESTs) it is even possible to use expressed genes specific to life history stages, rather than anonymous sequence differences to assay genetic differences among accessions. Because database comparisons can often identify the functional product of an EST, the genebank manager not only gets an indicator of genetic diversity and relationships among accessions but an increase in the informational content of the sampled accession.There are clear benefits to the greater use of these more precise measures of genetic variation. Equally clearly, they are costly in human and financial resources. They can only be employed in a limited number of collections. Therefore, the selection of which species and which samples is crucial. Since the aim is to obtain the maximum amount of useful information from a limited sample, the use of core collections is an obvious approach. Core collections are designated using all the data available, to make their entries representative of genetic diversity. The basic procedure is to recognize groups of related or similar accessions within the collection, and sample from each group. DNA sequence analysis provides the opportunity to measure how different these empirically derived groups are, and test for relationships between them.Here is a fundamental gain in genetic knowledge, not only to prove that two individuals or gene copies differ, but to be able to place them in a phylogenetic hierarchy of relationships, based on recency of a shared ancestor. Once this is done, the phylogenetic diversity of the collection can be estimated (Crozier, 1997). Calculating the phylogenetic diversity of a collection allows PGR managers to extend and improve core collections of secondary and tertiary genepools. Maintenance of these wild related species is often problematic relative to primary genepool accessions (Brown et al., 1997a). In speciose groups, maintaining large unchecked collections of every related species is simply not feasible. Phylogenetic diversity measures can be used to identify a subset of related wild species that maximizes the genetic information content of the collection (Crozier, 1997).A case in point would be the wild Australian cotton (Gossypium) species (Brown and Brubaker, 2000). Molecular phylogenetic analyses identified three main lineages among the 17 species; lineages that are now recognized as distinct genomes. The recognition of these three evolutionary lineages is a key variable in three areas: (i) sources of agronomically useful traits; (ii) ability to be incorporated into cotton breeding programmes; and (iii) risk assessment of transgene escape from genetically modified cotton cultivars (Brubaker et al., 1999). In all three areas, the phylogenetic topology has proved to have predictive value and allows the identification of indicator species for each lineage. Equally important, the phylogenetic topology allows germplasm managers to identify high priority species for germplasm further collection and maintenance in what is a difficult group to manage.Up until now, the pursuit of diversity 'richness' might be seen as typifying the prevailing philosophy of PGR. Sampling and conservation strategies have sought to maximize the diversity of collections mainly in terms of the total numbers of different genetic entities or types, be they alleles, genotypes or clones. Richness has been the guiding concept of diversity that has shaped much of the thinking. Such a view of diversity is straightforward. The problem with 'richness' from a managerial point of view is that richness is a function of numbers. Larger collections and populations will have more genotypes. There is no evaluation of effort, no setting of priorities competitively. If richness is the dominating indicator, there is no check on growth, nor a check against bias or imbalance in a collection. Large numbers of individuals close at hand can readily be sampled to bolster the number of genotypes, which necessarily must increase merely by enlarged numbers, although inefficiently.There are many examples of this problem in wild species. Our collection of perennial Glycine species began as moderate numbers of accessions of the species near to hand in south-eastern Australia. In later phases it has become clear that the high species diversity is in the monsoonal areas of northern Australia and particularly the remote Kimberley district. Because of ease of access, the collection is biased in numbers to populations near at hand. The same story holds for the wild Australian Gossypium species, which also have striking diversity in the remote north-west. Ideally our collections should be more balanced.Table 24.7 gives a comparison of the kind of questions that are either dominated by the richness or the balance in approach. We contend that what is now needed is the other concept of point diversity, namely the evenness of frequencies of types. The concept here is that when two items are drawn from a collection or from an assembly of populations they will differ with appreciable probability.The discussion of Table 24.2 gave primacy to data that have both numbers and frequencies of types. These frequency distributions provide the basis on which both richness and balance can be computed. One possibility for a combined index, admittedly somewhat abstruse, is to compute the Shannon-Weaver Information Index, which brings together both richness and evenness. The relative unfamiliarity of such an index and its dependence on the kinds and extent of the basic data, however, work against its adoption, but we believe this is the direction in which we should head.The next challenge for improving balance is to incorporate measures of divergence such as phylogenetic distance, as outlined above. Ideally we wish to measure progress by the sustained retention of a large number of types (richness), all in appreciable frequencies (evenness) and covering a wide spectrum of diversity (phylogenetic divergence). Such measures still do not address any parameters of differential value of types; which are useful alleles and which are not, etc. Should we hand the search for indicators over to the economists? There may be arguments for doing that, as economic value is likely to be a principal factor in determining which fraction of biodiversity will survive. However, we are challenged to sustain PGR despite the pressure of market forces, and indicators that focus on the diversity itself are essential in this process.The 20th century leaves us with a challenging and essential task: the sustainable management of our physical and biological resources. An indicator is a significant physical, chemical, biological, social or economic variable that is measurable in a defined way for management purposes. For plant biodiversity, indicators are needed at the levels of communities, species and genes. This last is the most difficult, and yet the most important. Many measures are plausible, ranging from the number of varieties of a crop species and the area patterns of their planting in situ, or the number of distinct accessions in genebanks ex situ, through to measures of DNA sequence and genome diversity among populations. They differ in cost, precision and scale of application. Modern technologies have roles in the devising of structured sampling strategies, and the more accurate measuring of population and species relationships. The phylogenetic framework will be an important tool in assessing priorities for action. These approaches will help to make both the collections of PGR, and their conservation and use, richer and more balanced in the coming century.The concept of forest genetic resources refers to the environmental, social, economic, cultural and scientific values of the heritable materials contained within and among tree species. Conservation of forest genetic resources is regarded as constituting the actions and policies that assure the continued existence, evolution and availability of these resources in the future. A central problem is striking a balance between resource use and the effectiveness of conservation management such that high levels of efficiency can be expected. The problem related to the conservation and use of genetic resources is particularly challenging since it is not only the genes that must be conserved, but also the underlying evolutionary processes (Namkoong and Koshy, 2000).While the goal of conserving forest genetic resources can be simply stated, its implementation can be very complex. With thousands of woody species distributed among several local populations, which are intermating groups of individuals, each with thousands of variable genetic loci, and with relatively little data on most, the temptation is to assume that anything that is done is of equal value and to use de facto priority by convenience or familiarity. However, some genetic resources may be resilient and require only benign neglect, while others may experience degradation that portends the extinction of genes or species, unless conservation efforts are targeted to them. It is important to understand usefulness of the kinds of data on the status and dynamics of genetic resources that can affect gene conservation efficiency. Also, the kinds of species that are of significance to conserve and their vulnerabilities are important information to collate with the kinds of in situ and ex situ management techniques that can efficiently assuage the threats (Namkoong, 1998).National governments need methods for establishing priorities for conservation that consider the large potential number of species for which they may be responsible. Sometimes, the focus may be on species that funding agencies may be particularly familiar with for their charismatic appeal. As an alternative, we propose to focus on perceived threats, on perceived value for economic or ecological flagship reasons and on species that have peculiar and possibly susceptible stages of life history such as non-traditional pollination or particular seed germination mechanisms. With limited funding, some way is needed to choose more rationally species or populations to work with that are most at risk, most important, and for which the means we have available for conservation can be effective. This requires some knowledge of the status and dynamics of genetic diversity, a rating of its potential value, an evaluation of the threats, and the potential for conservation management. The product can be a priority ranking for management or a classification of species into priority groups. The concept of triage (Myers, 1979) is perhaps applicable here. Given the goal of conserving the gene resource, tree species could be classified into three classes: those for which whatever measures undertaken would not help conservation, those species that will survive without any management, and those which will survive if management means within reach is carried out. It is important that the third category of species be identified and resources allocated to them (Vane-Wright, 1996).In an ideal case, a listing and mapping of species' occurrences would be available, the kind and extent of threats to populations would be known, and methods of conservation and management would be well established. It would then be possible to evaluate risks, the costs, and certainties of how management would reduce those risks, and by evaluating those resources for economic or ecological payoffs, priorities could be established. Such detailed knowledge, however, is rarely complete.In most conservation programmes, one person usually has to make decisions on what management actions to take but may also have limited access to research that can help to make those decisions as objective as possible. It seems obvious that the two problems are related but since each kind of question is complicated, it is often difficult to sort out how information is best used to come to rational decisions. As a manager, the conservationist must consider many factors in setting priorities for actions. These include the importance of the species or population to the economy or the ecology of the region, the risk level to which the resources are exposed, and the expected return those alternative management practices may have. In some cases the conservationist can delay decisions until more scientifically based information becomes available. In those cases, the conservationist must decide what features of the biology of the organisms involved are least known but if studied, are most likely to make a difference in how the organisms are managed. In this kind of applied research, we are not so much interested in descriptive biology as we are in the biology of genetically and ecologically critical functions (Purvis and Hector, 2000).In this chapter, we suggest a way to organize thinking on how we make informed decisions about conservation and how we can construct priorities for conservation management actions. We assume that species and populations differ in their levels of susceptibility to severe loss or extinction. Those that have low population sizes or are widely dispersed, and those that have bottlenecks in their reproductive processes would have obvious susceptibilities. We also assume that different threats may exist such as being exposed to harvesting, or to general environmental degradation. We further assume that it is the combination of susceptibility and threat that induces the risks of loss that should be cause for alarm. That is, targeting action on a species that may have a susceptible life history stage but for which no threat exists, is assumed to be a waste of valuable resources in the short run.We also assume that we wish to target efforts to those cases in which management can affect either the susceptibility, such as by maintaining pollinators, or the threat, by reducing harvesting and thereby reducing the risk of loss. We suggest a method to estimate the value of reducing risk and to make a classification and prioritization of effective actions so that management decisions can be made as to which actions are most beneficial. We further assume that there are cases where the manager feels that 'if only I knew more' better decisions could be made, but that the costs of obtaining information in time or money also vary substantially and require another level of prioritization.In a decision tree approach, we try to separate the kinds of information that conservationists may have available and to construct a formal way to set priorities. We are often faced with the practical reality that all the desired information is not available. While general information is available, the ways in which it can best be integrated and deployed for decision-making has rarely been considered in any detail. An integrated decision-making framework provides procedures that can be used by managers for choosing the activities needed. It would allow selection of species, sites, populations and conservation techniques to be considered in an integrated manner to ensure effective conservation of species and the maintenance of their intraspecific diversity. The goal of this study is to produce such a framework and develop an initial step-by-step guide for prioritizing genetic conservation and use programmes to test its applicability in a specific site in Brazil. The development of such an integrated deci-sion support mechanism to establish priorities for a large number of potentially threatened species would provide a valuable tool for conservation decision-makers. This decision-making process assumes that goals of the programme are set and harmonized at different administrative levels of organization.Risk and value, in general, largely determine conservation management decisions. Threats and susceptibilities are factors that affect risk. In biological conservation, inherent value is in the context of sustainable productivity. This productivity is defined in terms of goals set by the stakeholders. In a broader biological sense, this value has economic and ecological components. While estimating the value, it is important to ascertain comparative value for economic and ecological reasons, though there may be interdependencies. While economic value may be defined in terms of monetary, social or spiritual returns, ecological value will be based on interdependencies of the species for sustainability.To harmonize objectives, it is important to get the judgement of different stakeholders as the values are bound to differ with expectations (Margules and Pressey, 2000;McCann, 2000). Another major factor that will affect management decisions is the attitude towards risk (Pukkala and Kangas, 1995). For example, in the business world, a small company may not be able to take a large monetary risk, while a larger company may be able to buffer a larger loss. However, in the case of biological diversity, it is very difficult to quantify attitudes to risk. While it may be acceptable to lose a few species at the national or geographical range level, local ecosystems may be very sensitive to loss of even one species. Such sensitivities make it difficult to make decisions, when they span various levels of management. It may be possible to compensate the lower level by the upper level stakeholders, when a management decision is made to suit higher level objectives as a compromise. For example, local communities can be compensated by provincial or federal government. We do not address these issues of valuation but note that some approaches to their resolution are available.Uncertainty is also a major factor affecting management decisions (Ronen, 1988). Estimates of susceptibilities and threats are often based on vague generalizations with little supporting data. This will affect the precision of the estimates of actual risk. This brings into consideration the importance of additional information and its value (Bunn, 1984). When resources are limited or the management is obligated to maximize returns for the funds committed, it is often a challenge to decide whether to go for further information, which will give a more precise estimate of the susceptibilities and risk or invest in management operations. If such investment is guaranteed to bring better returns, it will be justifiable. A decision analysis will be able to give the manager appropriate values for additional information to make a decision on whether or not to collect more information.Decision analysis is the systematic evaluation of alternative actions as a basis for choice among them (Brown et al., 1974). Decision-makers in business, industry, government and other organizations are applying this discipline to their everyday problems.Decision trees and influence diagrams are generally used in the decision-making process. Decision trees are comprehensive tools for modelling all possible decision options. While influence diagrams produce a compact summary of a problem, decision trees can show the problem in greater detail. Decision trees also describe the events in a chronological order. Once the decision tree is structured in terms of possible actions and events, which are probable consequences of these actions, it can be evaluated in terms of costs and probabilities. The implication of these evaluations for the courses of action can be figured out. This process is called 'folding back'. The goal of folding back is to calculate what each of the initial acts is worth. Once these values and their probabilities are known, we will be able to calculate the distribution of values. This distribution will help to find the expected value and variance. The expected value is a probability weighted average in that each of the profits or losses is weighed by its probability of occurrence. This expected value is one measure of the value of an act and it is often used as a measure of suitability of actions by maximizing expected value. The variance of the return will give a measure of risk (Bunn, 1984). For example, in the decision tree given in Fig. 25.1, we can estimate the expected value of managing based on collecting genetic data. Assuming that we have collected demographic (d info) and reproduction (ng info) data, and now also have genetic data (g info), the expected value of managing depends on whether or not management is really needed. We have obtained better information and have a higher probability of making the correct decision but may still make a mistake. If we manage and it turns out to be needed, the benefit is $1,000,000 but it cost ($1,000 + $3,000 + $10,000 + $100,000) $114,000 for a net benefit of $886,000. The probability of making that decision correctly is 0.85. However, if we manage and it is not needed, then subtracting the additional opportunity cost of $100,000 leaves a net benefit of $786,000 and the probability of that event is 0.15. The expected value is then $886,000 × 0.85 + $786,000 × 0.15 = $871,000.When additional information is fed into the tree, the expected value may change and this difference is defined as the value for obtaining information. The cost and benefit of each factor can be evaluated using sensitivity analysis.Sensitivity analysis helps us to understand which variables matter most in the decision. It measures the impact of changing uncertain variables to extreme values, while keeping other variables constant. By examining the impact of reasonable changes in base-case assumptions, sensitivity analysis determines which variable has little impact on the outcome and can be treated as determinist. Sensitivity analysis does not give an explicit answer to the problem, but will give a better understanding of the model. For example, in the decision tree given in Fig. 25.1, sensitivity can be tested for cost of management and cost of collecting information. If the cost of collecting genetic data could be only half of that listed if we had a local facility, we might find that the value of obtaining genetic data and then deciding on management is often of value. If it is sufficiently better then we might want to get data more often and then consider investing in the development of local facilities. However, the final evaluation of options may be insensitive to such cost savings and data costs are not important for management decisions.This study tries to adapt such a decision tree approach to make conservation decisions and also ascertain the value of additional information. A study in Brazil has been undertaken to test this method. Currently, no data are available to demonstrate sensitivity analysis. Two steps were set up in the prioritization process. In the first step, species enumeration and evaluation of their potential threats and values were carried out. Then, species were ranked for further management considerations. In the second step, use of additional information and its cost were investigated. The field data were collected and collated under the supervision of Brazilian scientists in permanent sample plots and on sampled adult trees in the two sites during 1999 and 2000.A contingent ranking, which is a direct ranking, was adopted for threat and value evaluation. Species were evaluated for major threats such as exploitation intensity, harvesting, fragmentation, fire and fauna. A score ranging from 1 to 5 was assigned by stakeholders for each species. Also, certainty of the score was expressed as a probability. A relative weighting for each of these factors was also made. Total score for each species was calculated as follows:where T k is the threat score for species k, and s, w, and p are score, weight and probability for threat i.A method of scoring species value was also adopted that included a combination of economic as well as biological factors. Economic factors could  include present and potential wood and industrial values as well as non-timber products and social and cultural values. Biological factors could include the ecological functions of a species and the contribution the species may make to phylogenetic diversity (for details see Appendix). Relative weighting of these measures was important, as it reflected the importance of such a species to different stakeholders. The survey included a spectrum of stakeholders including scientists, farmers, local peasants and business people. The scores ranged from 1 to 5 and the selected stakeholders assigned the score based on their knowledge and intuition. All the species listed in the area were scored. Total scores for utility and biology were calculated as in the case of threats. See Appendix for format of the scoring sheet for the highest and the lowest ranking five species.A final score was obtained by summation of the components. Based on the final score, species were ranked for priority, with those having the highest score getting highest preference for management. The ranking at the end of step one is based on existing information, which is based on intuition or familiarity and not necessarily on experimental data. In a practical situation, it may not be possible to take into consideration all the species in the area beyond this level of scoring. Species which are ranked high in the list are considered for further management options using a decision tree.In the second step, various information acquisition efforts and management options for conservation were put into a decision tree to see what was the value of additional information and ultimately what the best possible decision would be with regard to conservation. This second step includes collection of data at three levels. At the first level, demographic data are collected for each species. Based on the demography, inferences can be drawn on the state of genetic diversity of the species. In the second level, non-genetic data such as phenology, pollination and seed dispersal pattern are collected for high-ranking species. Susceptibilities are inferred from non-genetic information. In the third level, genetic information based on molecular marker data is collected for species which are ranked high in the list based on non-genetic information. Based on molecular evidence more precise estimates of genetic diversity indicators can be assessed. This information will increase the precision of classification of threats. Consequent increase in cost of information is fed into the decision analysis.To begin with, the gene conservation management in question has two options. One is to manage and the other is not to manage. The term manage is used in a general form. Since the study has not reached the management stage yet, no specific practice is signified. Management can actually take various actions from in situ conservation to ex situ conservation efforts and an array of management techniques can be simultaneously evaluated. But for this example, we assume that only one technique is being used. It is also assumed that the management will cost a certain amount of money. Also, the value of a gene resource is condensed to a value in dollars whether conserved or lost. In this example, these values are arbitrarily assigned. Similarly, three levels of information gathering are considered. This information will further modify the probability of managing when needed, managing when not needed, do not manage when needed and do not manage when not needed. Further modification of the preliminary ranking list based on this additional information is possible. However, in the current study this is not being done. It is possible to consider each species as one branch of the decision tree (Thibodeau, 1983). That approach is considered to be beyond the scope of this chapter.At the first level, demographic information of the species is collected from the sampled areas for species which are ranked high in the first ranking process. Information at this level can give a more reliable estimate of the threats and susceptibilities compared with that based on intuition and familiarity. In the second level, non-genetic information such as floral biology, pollination biology and seed viability can be collected. It is assumed that this will give additional information for even better estimates of threats and susceptibilities. The third level of information is based on genetic markers like isoenzymes and DNA markers. It is assumed that such information on selected species will give the most precise estimates of the proposed state of the resource and therefore of its susceptibility. The cost of these levels of information is expected to increase with the level of information. The additional information will mainly affect the management decision in two ways. In the first instance, it will increase the probability of managing, when such management is needed or it will decrease the probability of managing, when such management is not needed for conserving the gene resource. Expected values of the different options will depend on the mean and distribution of the probabilities. More precise information will reduce the spread of the distribution of such probabilities. This will reduce the variation of the return, thereby reducing the probability of misclassification.The decision tree used for this analysis is shown in Fig. 25.1. A statistical report of the decision based on expected value and standard deviation is given in Tables 25.1 and 25.2. The values are given for the decision point listed on the left for the scenarios listed across the top. The mean values refer to the expected values for all possible outcomes. The minimum values refer to the worst case scenarios and the maximum values refer to the best possible outcomes. Table 25.1 gives expected values when the cost of collecting genetic information is considered to be $10,000. Table 25.2 gives the same values when the cost of collecting genetic information is considered to be $5000. At each level of information there are different options to choose from.Tables 25.1 and 25.2 give these options and their expected values. The first decision is whether or not to collect demographic information. In the case where no demographic information is collected, we could make a decision to manage or not to manage. If we decide to manage without demographic information, let us assume that the probability of managing when needed is 60% and managing when not needed is 40%. Similarly, if we decide not to manage, the probability of not managing when needed and not managing when not needed are set as 40% and 60%, respectively. As the field study is not yet completed, these probabilities are arbitrarily set for demonstration and are not based on hard evidence. If we assume that the cost of collection of demographic information is $1000 per species, the decision tree (Fig. 25.1) shows that the decision to collect demographic data is better compared with not collecting the demographic data. The expected value for the demographic data collection branch is $871,000 compared with $860,000 for the no demographic information option (see Table 25.1).If we consider collecting demographic information, we may follow one of three courses of action: we may decide immediately to go ahead with a management system without further data; we may delay the management decision until genetic data are in hand; or we may decide to not manage without any further data. If we have an experienced manager, decisions may be made with a higher degree of accuracy than for the above case. Then, the probability of managing when it is needed may increase to 70% and the probability of managing when not needed may decrease to 30%. It may also be that the decision not to manage when it is indeed not needed, similarly rises to 70%, and not to manage when it is really needed falls to 30%. If we choose the option to get more information at an additional cost, in this case non-genetic information, the cost increases by $3000, the probability of managing when needed further improves and for not managing when needed decreases. Given that collection of non-genetic data costs $3000, the optimal decision is to collect the non-genetic data.Based on the non-genetic information, there are three options: to manage, not to manage or to collect still more genetic information based on molecular markers at a higher cost. Assuming that the cost for such information is $10,000, it is shown that the optimal decision is not to collect the information (Table 25.1). Though the expected values are the same (see Table 25.1), the maximum and minimum returns are higher for the option of managing without collecting the genetic information. However, if the cost of genetic information collection is only $5000, it becomes the optimal choice (Table 25.2) due to higher expected return, $876,000, compared with $871,000.As the study is in progress, hypothetical numbers are assigned for the value, cost, return and probability, until the second phase of the study is completed. However, it will demonstrate the capability of the system in making the optimal decisions. Values and probabilities in the decision tree can be assigned as fixed or as a probability density function of varying types with a mean and standard deviation. The structure of the decision tree is shown in Fig. 25.1.The example cited above illustrates the usefulness of a decision tree approach to make rational management decisions in gene conservation management. In the first step, species were ranked based on intuitive information from multiple stakeholders. This step can also be approached in the same framework as used in the second step with each species constituting one branch of the decision tree. For example, information on any of the susceptibilities or values in the first step can be based on supporting data. This additional information will improve the probability that the value assigned intuitively will be close to the real value. Cost to collect information on such factors can be weighed against its usefulness in improving expected returns. Though the principle laid out in this chapter is generally valid, the example is simplistic. But it can be adapted to include all the factors involved in management. The main challenge will be to estimate population parameters, which will enhance the probability of making the right management decisions. The dollar values for the resources given in the example are subjectively assigned. Estimating appropriate dollar value for species and genetic resources will be a fundamental problem. However, if population parameters for indicators are estimable and values can be assigned with reasonable accuracy, the decision tree will provide an effective tool for rational decision-making for gene conservation. More precise methods for predicting extinction probabilities based on population parameters may become available, as the field of evolutionary genetics evolves in future. Rapid progress in the field of socio-economics of species conservation may also outline methods to effectively estimate dollar values for gene resources. The genetic composition of a crop population is affected by mutation, migration and recombination, which widen genetic variation. In contrast, the genetic variation is reduced by natural and artificial selection and random genetic drift. Changes in the frequency of favourable alleles that enhance crop adaptation to the human-made environment for agriculture are the driving force during crop evolution and account for current crop genetic diversity (Ortiz, 1999a). Likewise, isolating mechanisms such as natural pollinator(s), geographical barriers, breeding systems, self-incompatibility, sterility and vegetative propagation have influenced crop evolution and domestication. The term 'prebreeding' refers to the transfer or introgression of genes and gene combinations from non-adapted sources into breeding materials (FAO, 1996a). In the author's view, this strategy for genetic enhancement of crops does not differ significantly from the general paradigm of plant breeding. In his recently revised edition of Principles of Plant Breeding, Allard (1999) does not use the term 'prebreeding', but instead focuses much of his revised text on two distinct components of Darwinian evolution: 'the facts of evolution (descent with modification), and selection as the chief agent of evolutionary change'. Indeed, the manipulation of crop evolution (plant breeding) for enhanced economic yield under artificial growing environments (modern agriculture) consists of two phases: collection and generation of variation and reproductive potential followed by selection of the most productive surviving variants. The qualities that determine survival in plant breeders' populations are the same as those observed in nature with additional selective forces relating to perceived value when grown in environments reflective of farmers' fields (Allard, 1999). On this basis, the term 'prebreeding' will be replaced with that of 'germplasm enhancement' reflecting the early component of sustainable plant breeding that deals with identifying a useful character, 'capturing' its genetic diversity, and putting those genes into a 'usable' form (Peloquin et al., 1989;Ortiz, 1999b). Perhaps, a more general and appropriate use and understanding of this term, 'germplasm enhancement', will attract the attention of some professional plant breeders who remain reluctant to use wild, landrace or exotic germplasm in crop improvement.There are two approaches for using wild species, landraces and exotic germplasm in plant breeding: introgression and incorporation (Simmonds, 1993). Introgression indicates the transfer of one or a few alleles from exotic stocks to adapted breeding populations that lack the allele(s) controlling a specific characteristic. Often, introgression of useful genes requires its further characterization and introduction into locally adapted or elite material for use in breeding programmes. Incorporation refers to a large-scale programme aiming to develop locally adapted populations using exotic germplasm, which will broaden the genetic base of new breeding materials. As indicated in the Global Plan of Action for the Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (FAO, 1996b), the broadening of the genetic base of crops will contribute to increasing crop stability and performance. Germplasm enhancement should be regarded as a long-term activity because exotic germplasm seldom has an immediate use without selection for local adaptation and enhanced yield potential. Public rather than private breeders have been more proactive in using germplasm enhancement because many generations are needed to achieve substantial progress without any guarantee of success. Thus, germplasm enhancement programmes are independent of the local crop genetic base until they become sources of parental material for the conventional breeding pool. It was not surprising therefore that in the Report on the State of the World's Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (FAO, 1996a) it was indicated in the single paragraph written for this early component of sustainable crop improvement: 'very few country reports mentioned prebreeding or genetic enhancement as a national breeding activity, though a number [of them] called the attention to the importance of such work'. Individual or private plant breeders sometimes consider that the costs of incorporating exotic germplasm into already adapted material outweigh the benefits they could gain. Furthermore, such approaches may have more benefits to society in general (including other plant breeders) rather than direct individual corporate gain. Hence, germplasm enhancement to sustain long-term breeding gains requires collaboration among plant breeders from both public and private sectors.Crop uniformity and associated epidemics have spurred the development of germplasm enhancement methods, particularly since the 1970s. Analysis of breeding pools led to the belief that new sources of genes for pest and disease resistance were needed to avoid crop vulnerability as observed with vast monocultures of maize devastated by southern corn blight in the USA (Fowler and Mooney, 1990). However, the prediction of major problems associated with the narrow genetic diversity of crops has been challenged by the analysis of genetic gains for yield or by marker-aided analysis of breeding materials (Donini et al., 2000;Petersen, 2000). For example, there has been no levelling-off of progress in genetic improvement of productivity in several major crops (MacKey, 1994). In particular new kinds of gene action are being advocated to explain the continual recovery of transgressive segregants for enhanced productivity from populations even with a narrowing genetic base (Rasmusson and Phillips, 1997). Thus, in this new paradigm of plant breeding, manipulating gene interactions (epistasis) becomes as important as manipulating actual loci.Furthermore, it seems that selection in breeding populations does not depend solely on the existing variation occurring in the parental stocks (and the permutations of those existing genes) but also depends on intragenic recombination, unequal crossing over, transposable elements, DNA methylation, paramutation and gene amplification. And in turn, elevated epistasis may be achieved through new gene interaction with that de novo variation (Rasmusson and Phillips, 1997). In disomic polyploid species alleles at distinct homeologous loci may interact with each other, as they become homozygotes in the respective genomes (MacKey, 1970). Thus in disomic polyploid inbred species heterosis can occur via fixed 'overdominance' between homeologous loci (MacKey, 1987). These kinds of gene action may account for the observed genetic gains in so-called narrow base populations derived from elite breeding stocks (Ortiz et al., 1998a).Germplasm enhancement also serves to widen the genetic base of breeding materials, in specific genome regions (introgression) or more broadly (incorporation). However germplasm enhancement methods depend on the specific crop biology (Simmonds, 1993). This will be illustrated by a discussion of germplasm enhancement methods for two crops: barley (an inbreeding species), and maize (an outcrossing species).One of the most successful public-private research partnerships for introgression of Hordeum vulgare subsp. spontaneum into barley breeding was achieved by a cooperative programme between Swedish researchers (Lehmann et al., 1998). Private breeders carried out the disease screening while the public researchers did the crosses, multiplication and documentation. A backcross strategy was applied using cultivated barley lines as the maternal recurrent parent. The second disease screening was carried out in the BC 1 F 1 to select the parents of the BC 2 , and plants of the BC 1 F 2 were screened to select the resistant material for the BC 3 , which was then selfed for one generation (BC 3 F 2 ) before providing this advance generation to the private plant breeders. As a result of this cooperative project, several hundred BC 3 F 2 plants were developed from 89 accessions of H. vulgare subsp. spontaneum with many unknown resistance genes to powdery mildew. These resistance genes are broadening the genetic base for host plant resistance to a disease in which the recessive mlo gene accounts for 30% of the barley grown area in Europe (Jørgensen, 1992). Progress was also made in the transfer of resistance to spot blotch, net blotch, leaf rust and scald from H. vulgare subsp. spontaneum. However, sterility barriers and chromosome pairing in hybrids have restricted the access to genes from other wild Hordeum species (von Bothmer and Jacobsen, 1991). Another scheme for adding new gene complexes into an elite barley population, which serves as sources of new cultivars, was developed in Canada (Kannenberg and Falk, 1995). This recurrent introgressive population enrichment (RIPE) breeding system uses male sterility facilitated recurrent selec-tion and has four sequential steps with distinct hierarchical levels (base, intermediate, high and elite) following the introduction of exotic germplasm into the system. Selected lines are crossed with male steriles to enhance the amount of elite (E) germplasm through recurrent backcrossing, that is, 50% E in base level, 75% E in intermediate level, 87.5% E in high level, and 93.5% E in elite level. New lines incorporated into the elite level do not exceed 6% to avoid significantly diluting the high-performing, highly adapted E population, which is maintained by a standard 2 years per cycle recurrent selection procedure. The parents of the next cycle of this RIPE system are the highest yielding F 4 lines selected in each cycle. RIPE reduces unfavourable linkages at each step through genetic recombination, while promoting at the same time attractive recombinants to the E level. By intermating of, and selecting within the E population unique and agronomically superior genotypes are obtained through RIPE.Using exotic genetic resources Nordic breeders have developed experimental populations of barley after six generations, which promoted genetic recombination by breaking linkage groups (Vetelainen et al., 1996a). These results showed that useful variation for agronomic characteristics was incorporated into the locally adapted breeding materials, though further recombination may still be needed to enlarge the range of agronomic variation, and new methods should be developed to assess the breeding value of exotic germplasm because parental phenotypes are poor predictors of progeny performance (Vetelainen et al., 1996b).Plant introductions have not been widely incorporated in maize breeding materials in the USA, and until recently only a few open-pollinated cultivars have been used by maize breeding programmes in this country (Goodman, 1990). Perhaps the early open-pollinated cultivars, available to farmers and plant breeders, had significant variation that accounts for the breeding gains in grain yield reported in this crop (Troyer, 1990). The development of the Illinois High Oil and High Protein strains provides an example of long-term selection in a maize breeding pool derived from 24 ears, which were selected from an original stock of 163 ears harvested from the open-pollinated cultivar 'Burr's white' by G.C. Hopkins in 1896 (Dudley and Lambert, 1992). Genetic analysis in the advanced selection cycles suggests that further breeding progress may be expected owing to the polygenic control of both characteristics in maize. Likewise, this long-term experiment shows that the maize genome is more plastic and amenable to selection than earlier thought.The United States Department of Agriculture, Pioneer Hi-Bred International and 11 cooperative programmes from Latin America and the USA launched the Latin American Maize Program (LAMP) to assess national germplasm and exchange genetic resources in the region (Sevilla and Holle, 1995). This germplasm was tested for agronomic characteristics from sea level to 3300 m, and from 41°N to 34°S across 32 locations in phase I (14,847 accessions), and in 64 locations (two per region) in phase II (using the best 20% of selected accessions for each location in phase I). The best selections of each country were tested across all locations in phase III. These locations were clustered according to five homologous areas: lowland tropics, temperate and three altitudes. Selected accessions (268) were tested for their combining ability using a tester in at least two locations within each region. The best cross combinations (for hybrids) and heterotic pools were also determined by LAMP. Maize breeders now have access to the most promising accessions identified by LAMP to expand the genetic base of the crop.The hierarchical open-ended population enrichment (HOPE) breeding system was developed by Kannenberg and Falk (1995) for broadening genetic variation while maintaining germplasm quality in order to obtain promising parental inbred lines for production of commercial hybrids. HOPE gains depend on two complementary heterotic sets, each with four pools according to their agronomic performance (from low to elite). Exotic accessions are added to the lowest pool while selected gene(s) and gene complexes move upwards according to a hierarchy in a progressively more stringent selection procedure throughout the process. In the lowest pool (e.g. open-pollinated exotic germplasm) breeders apply mass-grid selection to maximize genetic recombination while keeping genetic variation. Replicated progeny tests are applied through half-sib family selection to identify about 15% superior genotypes in the intermediate pool for further crossing. Selfed progeny recurrent selection is employed in the high pool to enhance the variation among families and unmask deleterious recessive alleles at this stage. Reciprocal recurrent selection is practised for simultaneous improvement of the elite heterotic pools because this procedure enhances the combining ability between both populations. In this way, population crosses as well as crosses between inbred lines from each heterotic pool improve in performance after each cycle of selection. Two inbreds (CG31 and CG32) were developed in the mid-1990s, using HOPE (Kannenberg and Falk, 1995).Experts assembled by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in a 1998 workshop on 'Broadening the Genetic Base of Crop Production' recommended that new cultivars should have an enhanced and expanded genetic base to improve the deployment of crop diversity in farmers' fields. They also recommended evolutionary plant breeding on composite (or synthetic) populations derived from a broad germplasm base across diverse environments to ensure wide genetic variation in long-term (10 years) crop improvement programmes. Such distinct populations may be incorporated into regular breeding programmes or even adopted by progressive farmers. Hence, farmers are not only seen as partners for in situ or on-farm conservation of plant genetic resources but also in the development of new, locally adapted cultivars.Evolutionary crop breeding may lead to a dynamic conservation of plant genetic resources because locally adapted, improved populations will be preserved in distinct environments by plant breeders or farmers. In this way, several genetically distinct populations will be developed, thereby protecting crop diversity at the meta-population level. Furthermore, this approach may also permit the dynamic interaction and co-evolution between four partners: crop and wild relatives, and their respective pathogen populations (Frankel et al., 1995), and the competition of crop populations with other indigenous plants in their permanent or original niches. In this way, in situ conservation and onfarm management provide a means to search and test alleles for potential durable resistance to specific crop pests and diseases (Ortiz, 1999a). Hybridization between distinct populations may allow the accumulation of the best genetic combinations in new breeding populations.Potato is a tetrasomic polyploid crop that was domesticated by ancient Peruvians in the Andes.There are many wild tuber-bearing Solanum species but only a few cultivated species. This wild and cultivated germplasm consists of diploid, triploid, tetraploid, pentaploid and hexaploid species. Some researchers have suggested that there is a narrow genetic base of cultivated potato in the northern hemisphere (Mendoza and Haynes, 1974;Hawkes, 1979), and consequently germplasm enhancement methods were advocated to remedy this problem. For example, potato breeders developed long-day adapted populations derived from Andean tetraploid and diploid potato landraces through mass selection (Glendinning, 1979;Plaisted, 1982). These long-day adapted tetraploid populations have been termed as Neotuberosum, and some potato breeders have incorporated this improved germplasm in their programmes.An alternative approach was to incorporate diploid wild germplasm into breeding stocks using ploidy manipulations, that is, scaling up and down the chromosome number. Most of the pioneering work was developed by Professor Stanley J. Peloquin and his co-workers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Peloquin et al., 1989). Chromosome sets of wild and cultivated germplasm have been manipulated using haploids, 2n gametes and the endosperm balance number (EBN). Maternal haploids (or sporophytes with the gametic chromosome number) are easily obtained through parthenogenesis from tetraploid landraces and cultivars (Peloquin et al., 1996). Haploids are then crossed with diploid (wild or primitive cultivated) species to develop haploid species hybrids. Most of these haploid species hybrids are vigorous and show improved tuberization in long-day environments. Often, most wild species do not have tubers in these environments. Chromosomes pair and recombination occurs between wild and cultivated tuber-bearing Solanum species because of minimal chromosome differentiation among these taxa. The success of a cross between two tuber-bearing Solanum species also depends on the EBN. This endosperm dosage system, common to other angiosperm genera, requires a correct proportion of 2:1 maternal to paternal contributions for proper seed development (Ehlenfeldt and Ortiz, 1995). In this breeding strat-egy wild species and diploid landraces are the source of genetic diversity. The haploids derived from adapted tetraploid cultivars are able to 'capture' this genetic diversity in crosses with the diploid germplasm. These haploid-species hybrids transmit this genetic diversity to the adapted tetraploid breeding pool via 2n gametes (or gametes with the sporophytic chromosome number).Important characteristics such as pest and disease resistance, tolerance to abiotic stresses, and tuber quality have been transferred using this method particularly by scientists of the Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP) (Ortiz, 1998a). Furthermore, the diploid germplasm provides allelic variation that may enhance yield because non-additive intra-and inter-locus interactions are important for this characteristic in tetraploid potato (Ortiz, in press). A few cultivars and advanced breeding materials have been released following this method in North America. Ploidy manipulations for the genetic enhancement of potato have also been included in breeding programmes across America, Asia and Europe. This breeding method developed for potato may be extended for improving other vegetatively propagated polysomic crops.Potatoes are clonally propagated from tubers. However, botanical true seed may be an alternative, especially in the developing world. Potato farmers in Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Peru, the Philippines and Vietnam are planting commercial fields using direct seeding or propagules derived from true seed. New potato cultivars for production from true seed should have plant characteristics for true seed production, and for tuber production from true seed propagules. Such a cultivar could be a synthetic tetraploid hybrid from bilateral (2x ϫ 2x) or unilateral sexual polyploidization (4x ϫ 2x) using either seedling or tuberlet propagules derived from true seed (Ortiz, 1997a). Also, synthetic breeding populations derived from polycrosses may be developed for further adaptive testing and local selection of the most promising genotypes towards cultivar release.A core collection of Solanum species will improve the utilization of Solanum genetic resources in potato breeding (Ortiz, 2001). This core collection must contain chosen wild and cultivated accessions representing with minimum redundancy the genetic variability of the whole tuber-bearing Solanum germplasm and closely related non-tuber bearing Solanum species (Ortiz, 1998a). CIP has been developing a core collection of Latin American landraces using hierarchical classification based on taxonomy, ecogeographical origin, morphological characteristics, molecular markers, and reaction to diseases and pests. Recently, CIP scientists have defined a core subset of Solanum tuberosum ssp. andigena, which contains 306 landraces (Huaman et al., 1999). The number of accessions included in the core was determined primarily by the square root of the number of andigena accessions collected (Huaman et al., 2000a). A phenogram was constructed from the descriptor data using a matching coefficient and the unweighted pair group method using arithmetic averages. Accessions were retained in each cluster considering data on resistance to diseases and pests, dry matter content, and number of duplicate accessions identified in the original collection. Allozyme frequencies validated the sampling procedure for this core collection (Huaman et al., 2000b). The most frequent allozymes in the core collection were those observed in the entire collection, and their frequency distributions were homogeneous for most loci.Breeding for tuber yield of a vegetatively propagated crop such as potato capitalizes on heterosis, that is, identifying the right hybrid with high specific combining ability owing to non-additive intraand inter-allelic interactions (Ortiz, 1998a). The core collection should be seen as a preliminary source of testing materials for combining ability in a genepool that does not have well-defined heterotic genepools (Huaman et al., 2000b). In this way, broadening the genetic base of potato with locally adapted, pest and disease resistant germplasm will be ensured for the sustainable and environment-friendly production of this crop. However, as demonstrated by allozyme surveys (Ortiz and Huaman, in press), the need for broadening the genetic base in potato may only be needed for specific chromosomes or regions within chromosome arms.Triploid plantains (Musa ϫ paradisiaca L.) are interspecific hybrids of the diploid species Musa acuminata Colla. and Musa balbisiana Colla. Although the Musa crop was domesticated in South-east Asia, the humid lowland tropics of West and Central Africa are the secondary centres of plantain diversity. After Columbus's voyages, domesticated Musa moved to tropical America and the Caribbean, where triploid dessert bananas (intraspecific hybrids of M. acuminata) became an important export commodity, though most cultivars are still farmers' selections from somatic mutants.Plantain landraces show a wide range of morphological variation (Ortiz, 1997b). However, there is low level of gene flow via pollen among triploid plantains, as determined by Wright's ST (Ortiz et al., 1998b). This finding was expected because this vegetatively propagated crop has very low male fertility. Hence, the variation observed in plantains arose from mutations accumulated throughout the history of cultivation of this crop (Crouch et al., 2000). Consequently, plantains should be regarded as an old domesticated species. Since the 1980s, plantain breeders have been widening the genetic base of this crop through the use of wild and cultivated diploid germplasm (Vuylsteke et al., 1997). Tetraploid hybrids are obtained by hybridizing 2n eggs from triploid plantains and haploid (n) pollen from diploid accessions. On average, it takes 1000 seeds, produced from hand-pollination of 200 plants (0.12 ha), to obtain one selected tetraploid hybrid per year. Tetraploid hybrids combining heavy and stable yield were identified after multilocational testing across sub-Saharan Africa (Ortiz, 1998b) and shared with local breeders across sub-Saharan Africa and around the world, who are testing this breeding material developed by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) for further regional release to farmers (Ortiz et al., 1997).Based on this early success, an evolutionary crop breeding method was proposed for further improvement of the plantain genome (Ortiz, 1997c). This method ensued from the genetic knowledge accumulated during the conventional cross breeding of plantains at IITA in Nigeria (Ortiz and Vuylsteke, 1996). Heterozygous triploid landraces are the source of adapted allelic diversity, which would be released after these plantain landraces are crossed with a diploid accession showing the desired characteristic (particularly resistance to abiotic stress). High-yielding tetraploid hybrids are selected on the basis of specific combining ability in the segregating population. The selected primary tetraploid hybrids are crossed with selected diploids to obtain improved secondary triploid hybrids (Ortiz et al., 1998c). These hybrids may result from artificial hand-pollination or through polycrosses among selected tetraploid and diploid parents (Ortiz and Crouch, 1997). The parental genotypes are chosen for the isolated polycrosses according to their specific combining ability as determined earlier in artificial tetraploid-diploid crosses. The synthetic populations derived from these polycrosses may be tested in other locations to identify promising offspring for cultivar development. Local selections are needed because the genotype-by-environment interaction affects the performance of Musa hybrids across environments (Ortiz, 1998b).As Vuylsteke highlighted in one of his last writings ( 2000):A broad-based, improved Musa germplasm with pest and disease resistance will be a major component to achieve sustainable production of this vegetatively propagated, perennial crop. Such germplasm can be produced through conventional cross breeding, enhanced by the utilization of innovative methods for the introduction of additional genetic variation. Also, the increased use of molecular markers will accelerate the process of recurrent selection of improved Musa germplasm and, hence, facilitate the development of new hybrids. Indeed, the prospects of banana and plantain breeding are unlimited and increased efforts will at once initiate a new phase of Musa evolution. Goldringer et al. (1994) claimed that a dynamic management of genetic resources supplements the static conservation of seeds in cold storages of genebanks. They further advocated that dynamic management of genetic resources should be recommended for adapting exotic germplasm to specific local environments. Likewise, dynamic management of genetic resources may preserve genetic diversity between different populations evolving in distinct environments. For example, results from two-dimensional protein electrophoresis revealed that natural selection acted strongly on 11 wheat populations evolving since 1984 in multi-site experiments grown in the major French cultivation areas (David et al., 1997). Plant height, male fertility, earliness, and resistance to powdery mildew improved in the wheat populations included in this multi-site experimental network (Le Boulc'h et al., 1994). Furthermore, variability was maintained for genes enhancing adaptedness to the specific environment, including those providing host resistance to powdery mildew in wheat (Goldringer et al., 1998). Artificial populations, involving wild, interspecific and cultivated genotypes, have been developed in southern Europe for the dynamic management of sunflower genetic resources (Belhassen et al., 1994). Similarly, nine breeding pools of perennial ryegrass were developed from 42 selected populations (out of 547 natural populations) as a method to preserve genetic diversity as well as to provide material that may be used directly by plant breeders (Balfourier and Charmet, 1994).Plant breeders may obtain important information from farmers regarding why they select and keep specific landraces in their fields. This indigenous knowledge and farmers' participation in testing and selecting new genotypes will enhance the development and adoption of new breeding materials, and may also ensure the on-farm conservation of agrobiodiversity. The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in collaboration with other research partners started participatory approaches for pearl millet breeding in Rajasthan (India) to bridge the gap that sometimes exists between conventional breeders and farmers, and to work together with farmers to assess constraints and find solutions (Weltzien-Rattunde et al., 1998). The appropriate understanding of farmers' needs provides a means for targeting breeding research while participatory research gives farmers the opportunity for choosing, improving and adapting a range of technology options.As a result of this participatory approach in pearl millet breeding at Rajasthan six key conclusions were made (E. Weltzien-Rattunde, ICRISAT, 2000, personal communication): (i) farmers' knowledge is crucial for the success of participatory breeding; (ii) a dialogue between farmers and breeders enriches both groups' knowledge in crop improvement; (iii) an agreement was reached between the new research partners regarding goals and priority setting for both on-farm conservation and genetic enhancement of pearl millet; (iv) comparative advantages and roles among these new partners may be easily determined for enhanced cooperation; (v) participatory breeding should be regarded as a flexible process in which research procedures and interventions must be adjusted to suit specific physical and socio-economic environments; and (vi) owing to the above, participatory plant breeding is situation specific.ICRISAT scientists and their partners benefited from this participatory farmer approach by re-targeting pearl millet breeding, and changing the source breeding material as well as the selection methods to better suit the harsh arid environments of Rajasthan, which suffers from low rainfall and poor soils. Likewise, this participatory breeding methodology was adopted by pearl millet breeders in other locations, for example in Namibia (Bidinger, 1998). Okashana-1 is a cultivar grown on almost 50% of the national pearl millet area in this country. The source germplasm was originally developed by ICRISAT breeders working in India by improving African collections. Farmers were involved early in the selection process according to their preferences. The Government of Namibia actively participated in the rapid multiplication and dissemination of highquality seed. Such a partnership reduced research costs and speeded adoption of Okashana-1. The internal return to public investments in the development and dissemination of this cultivar was 50%, about US $11 million in 1998$11 million in (Rohrbach et al., 1999)). Two new pearl millet cultivars were also released in 1998 by this partnership between native farmers, Namibian breeders and ICRISAT.Simultaneously to this farmer participation in variety testing and selection in Namibia, local farmers who were growing Okashana-1 mixed it with their own landraces, and selected outstanding plants resulting from natural crosses. A breeding composite, named after the farmer (Maria Kaharero) from whose field the plants were selected, was formed by random mating. After interaction with farmers a participatory breeding composite (also named Maria Kaharero) was developed. Materials selected by farmers from a diversity nursery were crossed to the original Maria Kaharero. The number of outstanding early, high yielding lines with medium to large seeds from this participatory composite Maria Kaharero exceeded that of another composite bred by conventional breeding procedures (i.e. without farmer participation), though the average performance of the two composites was similar (Bidinger, 1998). It was clear from this participatory breeding that farmers are important research partners to assess and select materials in their own cropping systems, especially in a cross-pollinated crop such as pearl millet, in which hybrid populations may be obtained easily in their own fields for further farmer selection.Participatory pearl millet breeding may also be enhanced by providing landrace-based topcross hybrids (Mahalakshmi et al., 1992) to farmers for their further testing and selection, especially in arid or semiarid environments. High yielding adapted topcross hybrids have been obtained by crossing a uniform inbred line as the female seed parent with a genetically heterogeneous landrace as the male parent (Bidinger et al., 1994;Yadav et al., 2000a). Furthermore, topcross hybrids were either as stable, or more so, than their pollinators (Mahalakshmi et al., 1992) or more responsive to improved environmental conditions than their pollinators (Bidinger et al., 1995). Recent results indicate that environment affects the combining ability of landrace pollinators (Yadav et al., 2000b), thus specific pollinators should be selected for a particular zone. These topcross hybrids provide a unique prospect to exploit and preserve indigenous agrobiodiversity in an enhanced genotype.The most widespread application of this approach has been in resistance breeding with genetic resources of wild species (Lenné and Wood, 1991).The levels of resistance to pests and diseases available in the primary genepool are sometimes low or only a limited number of resistance sources have been incorporated into elite materials by plant breeders. Furthermore, selection pressure on pathogen populations due to the widespread use of homogeneous host plant resistance may result in more virulent strains that may overcome that resistance. Therefore, discovery and incorporation of new genes for resistance from wild species provide a means for sustaining crop improvement. Although durability of resistance cannot be predicted (Johnson, 1992), genetic diversity through preemptive breeding may provide buffering against crop losses arising due to changes in the pathogen population (McIntosh, 1992). In this way, new breeding stocks could be generated to combat more virulent pathotypes when they become important. Germplasm enhancement with wild species has seldom resulted in direct cultivar release, but many parents with 'wild' genes have become available.Below I provide details from research at ICRISAT and elsewhere concerning germplasm enhancement of dryland crops with wild species. ICRISAT has about 2500 accessions of wild species and weedy relatives of sorghum, pearl millet, groundnut, chickpea and pigeonpea (Table 26.1). Screening of this germplasm has identified several sources of resistance to important pests and diseases (Table 26.2). Backcross followed by selection has been the most common method for gene introgression from wild germplasm to breeding materials. Transfer of new cytoplasmic male sterility to pigeonpea and pearl millet plus the development of chickpea with enhanced yield or pigeonpea with high protein were achieved through this breeding method at ICRISAT. However, some problems still remain for genetic enhancement with wild species: linkage drag, sterility, small sample size of interspecific hybrid population, and restricted genetic recombination in the hybrid germplasm.Diseases such as downy mildew, anthracnose and grain mould affect this crop. Sources of resistance are available in cultivated germplasm but pathogens may break down this resistance; therefore, additional sources of resistance are needed. Immune host response to these diseases appears to be available in Sorghum sudanense and species of other sections. S. sudanense belongs to the primary genepool and easily crosses with sorghum but not the species from the other sections that are in the tertiary genepool. It seems that pre-fertilization crossing-barriers exist, owing to either lack of pollen germination or very slow and irregular pollen tube growth (Huelgas et al., 1996). High levels of resistance to insect pests, especially stem borer and shoot fly, are available in five accessions of section Parasorghum. Similarly, no oviposition of sorghum midge was observed on 11 Australian sorghum species. An attempt was made to cross maternal sorghum plants with pollen from these accessions, but all the hybrids resembled the female parent (Huelgas et al., 1996). It seems that these Australian sorghum species may be an important source of resistance, e.g. Sorghum timorense shows immunity to downy mildew, shoot fly, stem borer and midge, while Sorghum australians exhibits high resistance to downy mildew, stem borer and shoot fly. However, crossing barriers are still impeding an easy gene transfer to the breeding pool.The four major diseases of this crop are downy mildew, smut, ergot and rust. Though sources of resistance to these diseases are available in the cultivated species, the resistances break at high inoculum or at early inoculation. The inbred line 'Tift 85' was developed by transferring dominant resistance genes to rust and leaf spot from Pennisetum glaucum subsp. monodii (Hanna, 1987). This inbred line also led to a new source of cytoplasmic male sterility in pearl millet hybrid breeding. Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum), which belongs to the secondary genepool and whose progeny crosses with pearl millet is often sterile hybrid, possesses resistance to many pests plus an outstanding forage yield potential. Genes for earliness, long inflorescence, leaf size and male fertility restoration were transferred from this wild species to pearl millet. Apomixis has been reported in the tertiary genepool of pearl millet, but crosses with species of this genepool are difficult. Besides apomixis, other interesting characteristics available in this genepool are perennial growth habit, drought and cold tolerance, pest resistance and new cytoplasm sources. Some researchers (Dujardin and Hanna, 1989;Hanna, 1992) have developed interspecific hybrids of this genepool with pearl millet through ploidy manipulations. Pollen from species such as Pennisetum ramosum or Pennisetum mezianum may produce shrivelled and immature seeds, and thus they do not germinate. Embryo rescue may be an alternative path to obtain interspecific hybrids in crosses between the tertiary genepool and pearl millet.At least 13 Cicer species are bearers of useful characteristics such as resistance to wilt, soil borne fungi, grey mould, blight, cyst nematode, leaf miner, bruchid beetle, tolerance to cold, or possess high protein, multi-seeds or twin pods (N. Kameswara Rao, ICRISAT, unpublished data). ICRISAT has cooperated with the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) to transfer genes for some of these wild species to chickpea, because such species are the only known source of resistance to pests such as seed beetle and cyst nematode. However, some of these species are perennial and not easy to propagate. Among the annual species, Cicer reticulatum belongs to the primary genepool and fertile hybrids were obtained in crosses with chickpea. Likewise, high yielding lines were derived from Cicer echinospermum from the secondary genepool, and hybrids between the blight resistant Cicer pinnatifidum and chickpea were obtained using embryo rescue (Mallikarjuna, 1999).The other Cicer annual species and all perennial species belong to the tertiary genepool of chickpea (Singh et al., 1998). Resistance to pod borer, pod-fly, bruchid beetle, wilt, blight, sterility mosaic, leaf spot and nematodes are inadequate in cultivated pigeonpea.Resistance to these biotic factors as well as early flowering, photo-insensitivity, tolerance to drought plus salinity, and high seed protein are available in nine wild species (N. Kameswara Rao, ICRISAT, unpublished data). For example, trichomes, which provide an insect resistance mechanism, are available in wild Cajanus species. The resistance to pod borer observed in Cajanus scarabaeoides appears to be associated with high density of non-glandular trichomes (Romeis et al., 1999). This species and another five Indian wild species (Cajanus cajanifolius, Cajanus trinervius, Cajanus albicans, Cajanus lineatus and Cajanus sericeus) are able to cross with pigeonpea, thus, gene transfer may be feasible through recombination. Hybrids between pigeonpea and Cajanus platycarpus, a species that possesses genes for photo-insensitivity, earliness plus resistance to wilt and blight, and tolerance to salinity, were obtained through embryo rescue (Mallikarjuna and Moss, 1995).Resistances to rust, leaf spots, viruses, thrips, aphids, mites and jassids are available in annual and perennial Arachis species (N. Kameswara Rao, ICRISAT, 2000, personal communication). Some of these resistances, such as the resistance to leaf spots, are not available in cultivated groundnut. Ploidy barriers and genomic incompatibility make cumbersome the transfer of genes from wild Arachis to groundnut. Post-zygotic failure of embryo development seems to be the major barrier for successful gene introgression. Ploidy manipulations offer a means to overcome this problem by chromosome doubling of triploid hybrids and reducing these hexaploids to tetraploids through recurrent backcrossing. For example, the diploid species Arachis cardenasii was crossed with groundnut and the ensuing triploid hybrid was colchicine-doubled to restore fertility. The selfing and backcrossing of the hexaploids resulted in chromosome loss and consequently tetraploid genotypes were obtained. Following this approach, several germplasm lines (ICGV 86699 and ICGV 87165) with multiple disease and insect resistance were developed at ICRISAT (Reddy et al., 1996;Moss et al., 1997), and one derived-cultivar (ICGV-SM 86715) was released in Mauritius (Moss et al., 1998). In the USA, the cultivars Spancross and Tamnut 74 were developed using Arachis monticola (Hammons, 1970;Simpson and Smith, 1974). Ploidy manipulation or embryo rescue and other tissue culture methods were attempted to transfer resistance to groundnut rosette virus from Arachis diogoi (= Arachis chacoense, section Arachis) and resistance to early leaf spot from Arachis paraguariensis (section Erectoides) and Arachis appressipila (section Procumbentes) to groundnut (Moss et al., 1993;Legume Program, 1994;ICRISAT, 1995). However, embryo rescue has not been successful with species outside section Arachis owing to genomic incompatibility. A new approach involving gene location plus isolation and transfer through transgenics may be needed to access genes from the other Arachis genepools.Plant breeders determine their genetic response to selection (R) by the following equation:where i is the selection intensity, expressed in standardized units, h 2 is the narrow-sense heritability in the reference population, and P is the phenotypic standard deviation of the selected characteristic. In vitro screening may provide a means for achieving a higher intensity of selection. Molecular markers are being used to tag specific chromosome segments bearing the desired gene(s) to be transferred (or incorporated) into the breeding lines (or populations). In this way, indirect selection with co-dominant molecular markers tightly linked to the gene(s) controlling the characteristic(s) of interest improves R, because co-dominant markers have an h 2 equal to 1 (Ortiz, 1999c). Transgenic plants offer new genes to the breeding pool (Ortiz, 1998c), thus enhancing the phenotypic standard deviation of the population.In recent years transgenic plants have been used as parents in US breeding programmes for crops such as maize, soybean and oilseed rape. In the late 1990s, North American farmers grew 4.4 Mha of transgenic maize, 5 Mha of transgenic soybean, and 1.6 Mha of transgenic oilseed rape (The Wall Street Journal Europe 5-6/6/1998). It is not surprising that such advances were rapidly achieved and widely accepted in the USA, as most of the food crops of this country are derived from exotic germplasm introductions. The characteristics most commonly incorporated into breeding lines through genetic engineering include resistance to herbicides, insects and viruses.Molecular markers are descriptors that offer reproducible results for characterizing genotypes.Similarly, applied plant genomics also improves the understanding of crop genepools, which are being enlarged by including transgenes, and 'native' genepools that are becoming available through comparative analysis of plant biological repertoires (Lee, 1998). Furthermore, finding new genes adds value to traditional agricultural products. Genetic resources available in genebanks are still the best source for a routine gene discovery but this work will be facilitated by gene databases assembled with the aid of applied plant genomics, which can also accelerate the utilization of available genes through transformation or meiotic-based breeding methods (Ortiz, 1998c).There are many ongoing applications of DNA markers in crop improvement and research (Crouch and Ortiz, 2001). For example, molecular-aided analysis of cultivars released through different decades provides a means to determine the extent of diversity among improved crop germplasm (Donini et al., 2000;Petersen, 2000), and the need to incorporate exotic (or non-adapted) germplasm into the respective breeding pool. Knowledge concerning DNA fingerprints at key genomic regions for adapted and exotic germplasm may also facilitate the introgression of new genes from the nonadapted germplasm. Geneticists may monitor changes in segments of chromosomes through generations of cultivar release (Ortiz, 1999d). Assessing the genotypic composition of released cultivars, generation by generation, provides a means to determine which allelic combinations are consistently selected. Hence, monitoring chromosomal changes caused by breeders' selection at successive cycles of improvement may provide a genetic 'ideo-type' for future marker-assisted selection. Selecting for these optimal marker alleles linked to loci controlling agronomic or quality characteristics may facilitate the incorporation of useful genetic variation into the adapted cultivar genepool (Tanksley and McCouch, 1997). In this way, desired alleles may be 'pyramided' in enhanced lines (or potential new cultivars). Likewise, such investigation regarding changes in allelic frequency, aided by molecular marker analysis, may help to establish the amount of genetic diversity still available for further crop improvement.Positions of useful genes in less investigated target crops can be inferred by cross-referencing to the maps of model crop species, ultimately leading to the possibility of inter-generic transfers (Lee, 1998). For example, owing to gene synteny and comparative mapping, the extreme drought resistance of pearl millet may contribute some day to the development of more hardy and water efficient sorghum, maize, rice and wheat. In the long term, this approach should lead to the isolation and characterization of candidate genes for drought tolerance because the ordering of DNA loci between chromosomes of cereals corresponds well. This conservation of gene order between two genomes offers the potential for using the map location of a gene of interest in one crop to lead to map-based isolation of the homologous gene in another crop. Comparative mapping may also be an important tool for gene location between cultivated and associated wild species. For example, the identification of DNA markers associated with characteristics of interest may be facilitated by comparative mapping, and these markers may facilitate gene transfer plus help to avoid linkage drag. For example, gene cloning from wild Arachis that are completely crossincompatible with cultivated groundnut, may facilitate such a transfer.Domestication and further breeding of crop species led to an apparent narrow genetic base in some crop genepools. Plant evolution in a human-made environment, however, has not exhausted useful genetic variation in the most important crop species. Assessment of genetic gains in different crop pools does not show that plant breeders have reached a plateau in their populations. However, as indicated by the International Technical Conference on Plant Genetic Resources (Leipzig, 1996), plant breeders should include wild, landrace, or exotic germplasm in their populations to broaden the genetic base of crop production.Germplasm enhancement has become an important tool for the genetic improvement of breeding populations by gene introgression or incorporation of wild and landrace genetic resources into respective crop breeding pools, that is, putting genes into a usable form in conventional breeding programmes (Ortiz, 1999b). Recent advances in gene technology also provide a means to broaden the genetic base of crops, and to monitor the incorporation or introgression of new genes into the breeding population(s). In recent years transgenic plants have been incorporated as parents of hybrids in US breeding programmes for crops such as maize and oilseed rape. Molecular markers are being used to tag specific chromosome segments bearing the desired gene(s) to be transferred (or incorporated) into the breeding materials. Last but not least, it is important that international crop breeder networks assess diversity in crop genepools, promote long-term evolutionary breeding programmes, and encourage farmer participatory management of plant genetic resources.In most crop species, exploited populations have been reduced dramatically as a result of domestication and subsequent breeding/selection processes. The lower overall genetic diversity of modern cultivars of autogamous species may also reflect the genetic 'bottlenecks' to which these species have been subject either due to natural phenomenon such as polyploidy, mating and dispersion systems, and geographical barriers, or during their introduction to new regions from the centre of origin. Only a limited number of seeds/propagules (or accessions) were carried back by explorers, which serve as the basis of today's modern cultivars. In addition, many genotypes have been lost as a result of the replacement and disappearance of old varieties and landraces by new, more productive, modern varieties. These modern replacement varieties are apparently better adapted to biotic and abiotic stresses of these localities. Later, commonly used breeding techniques such as backcrosses and recurrent backcrosses to an existing top-variety were effective in terms of producing new varieties with highly prescribed characteristics, but this has been obtained at the further expense of genetic diversity (Sneep, 1979;Rick, 1987;Miller and Tanksley, 1990).Since the development of scientific breeding, exploitation of the available genetic diversity has been poor; for years plant breeders have confined their programmes to a relatively small part of the overall genetic resource. However, over a similar time frame, a large amount of germplasm such as wild relatives, old varieties, landraces, and other breeding material has been stored in genebanks; this is a valuable, but relatively unexploited, source of genetic variability. Only a small amount of this variability has been introgressed to crop species, usually aiming to solve a specific problem (frequently disease resistance) involving a few genes.Genetic base broadening is one approach which has been suggested as a means of providing a viable sustainable genetic base from which varieties can be selected either directly or following hybridization with the existing and currently exploited genetic base of a crop species. Genetic base broadening has been defined as 'composite crosses' (Suneson, 1956), 'incorporation' (Simmonds, 1993) and 'resynthesis' (Becker et al., 1995). However, regardless of the term used, the definition per se has been the same. Genetic base broadening is the incorporation and re-synthesis of populations from wild relatives, landraces and/or old varieties into relatively new varieties or accessions. Strictly, base broadening should be without preconceived aims, partly because we do not know what is required in the future, and partly because such aims may influence the construction of the initial populations.However, the intention must be to create populations that have enhanced ability to respond to biotic and abiotic stresses in future breeding generations. Genetic base broadening involves the systematic utilization of an arrangement of genetic variability in a manner likely to generate a mass of newly adapted genetic stocks to be made available as parents in breeding programmes (Simmonds, 1993). These populations, selected for local adaptation, would contribute to the sustainability of agricultural systems and be a ready source of variability if there should be unexpected environmental change.FAO's (1996) Global Plan of Action proposed to increase genetic enhancement and base-broadening efforts. There have already been two expert workshops supported by FAO and the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) to discuss broadening the genetic base of crops; the first was held in Rome (Italy) in 1997 and the second in Edinburgh (UK) in 1999. Therefore, FAO has given considerable support to these actions, because this methodology has the potential to be one of the most environmentally benign of agricultural technologies. The search for genetic resistance or tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses could decrease the use of the many contaminant and pollutant products used in modern agriculture and yet be more sustainable.Examples of deliberate base broadening activities, although relatively rare, can be found in a range of crops. In outbreeding species such as maize (Zea mays L.), tropical germplasm was adapted to conditions in southern maize-growing regions in the USA (Goodman, 1985); Salhuana et al. (1993) reported a national project for Germplasm Enhancement of Maize (GEM) in the USA; Kannenberg and Falk (1995) designed a breeding system for maize called HOPE (hierarchical openended population enrichment). In sorghum (Sorghum bicolour (L.) Moench), Ethiopian and Sudanese landrace germplasm was successfully incorporated into adapted Indian cultivars (Mengesha and Rao, 1982). In clonal crops, normally outbreeders, the narrow genepool of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) has been enhanced by the creation of Neotuberosum populations from wild relatives from the Andigena Group (Glendinning, 1979;Plaisted, 1982;Mendoza, 1989;Simmonds, 1993). In cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) (Nassar, 1989) and sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum L.) (Chave, 1991;Simmonds, 1993) there is also reported research in this subject. In the case of inbreeding crop species such as barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) there have also been approaches for broadening the genetic base, such as incorporation of exotic germplasm into barley breeding pools in the Nordic region (Vetelainen et al., 1996) and the recurrent introgressive population enrichment (RIPE) in Canada (Kannenberg and Falk, 1995). Becker et al. (1995) reported re-synthesis research in oil seed rape (Brassica napus L.). Other autogamous crops have also been studied for genetic base broadening such as oat (Avena sativa L.) (Frey, 1994), soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) (Wang, 1994), rice (Oryza sativa L.) (Li et al., 1994), and Arabica coffee (Coffea arabica L.) (Agwanda and Owuor, 1989). Several other researchers have suggested the use of incorporation in other genetically narrow crops using wild relatives and landraces as sources of genetic variability. For example, Ahmad et al. (1995) proposed an incorporation programme in cultivated lentils (Lens culinaris ssp. culinaris) because of the scarce genetic variation in this crop.Also it has been suggested in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) by Garanko (1991) and Rick and Chetelat (1995); and in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) by Welsh et al. (1995).Tomato is one of the many autogamous species which has been affected by the processes of genepool depletion. Poor genetic diversity observed in modern cultivars may reflect the genetic bottlenecks (Rick, 1976;Miller and Tanksley, 1990;Williams and St Clair, 1993) during the domestication and later introduction from Latin America to Europe in the 16th century, and the initial genetic variability of the ancestral form, which may have already been at a lower level (Rick and Chetelat, 1995). Within L. esculentum accessions, little genetic diversity can be found (Miller and Tanksley, 1990;De Verna and Paterson, 1991;Breto et al., 1993;Williams and St Clair, 1993), except from induced variation and variability resulting from the introgression of traits from wild species (Rick, 1979). Closely related cultivars presented genetic variation at the interspecific level as detected by randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) (Klein-Lankhorst et al., 1991;Nienhuis and dos Santos, 1994;Paran et al., 1995) and microsatellites (Vosman et al., 1992;Rus-Kortekaas et al., 1994;Arens et al., 1995;Smulders et al., 1997), and also at the intraspecific level (Miller and Tanksley, 1990).Wild relative tomatoes are a rich source of agronomic and quality characters of use in breeding. Some of them are valuable sources of resistance/tolerance to diseases and arthropod pests; tolerance to cold, drought and salinity; shelf life; content of vitamins C and A, sugars and other secondary compounds useful in the human diet (Taylor, 1986).As noted earlier, the benefits of base broadening have been more apparent in the case of outbreeding crop species, particularly potato, sugarcane, maize and others. With outbreeding species continuous reassortment of alleles over generations, generates the variability for future selection. However, inbreeding species may present difficulties in crossing with other individuals (particularly with outbreeding progenitor species), and then there is the tendency to inbreed rapidly leading to homozygosity and fixation; this may not be too problematic if such species had low rates of outcrossing, which introduces some degree of genetic diversity.Thus, at the outset of a project aimed at broadening the genetic base of an autogamous crop species, a number of questions have to be considered:• How large should be the scale of operation?• How many parental lines should be utilized?• What range of parents or how wide should be the choice of parental material? • Can the population be large enough to generate variability for many years even at low rates of natural outcrossing? • Will there be a need for continued hybridization?• How to maintain the created variability over time? • How to minimize selection particularly during the initiation phase? • Should the material be exploited at one or many different sites? • Does the selection of different sites lead to maintenance of variability overall?Although it is not possible to undertake an entire base broadening approach for any crop within 3 years, or to answer all these questions, this project has chosen tomato as a model because it is a typical autogamous crop with a narrow genetic base, an easy plant to grow and cross; there are large numbers of wild relatives and landraces available in genebanks; and it is possible to obtain at least two generations per year under controlled conditions.The objectives of this chapter are to analyse progress to date particularly in relation to the architecture of F 2 populations created from interspecific and intraspecific hybridizations of Lycopersicon spp. through co-dominant (microsatellites) and dominant (RAPD) molecular markers, and morphological characters, and to speculate about possible strategies for conserving the created genetic variability in such an autogamous crop.A random sample of five accessions of L. esculentum and five belonging to Lycopersicon spp. (known to be involved in the evolutionary history of the cultivated tomato) were selected as parents from different genebanks sources (Table 27.1). The accessions were hybridized in all combinations by hand. Two populations were created, one with the interspecific crosses, and the other within the L. esculentum crosses. In total 40 successful F 1 s were selfed to produce F 2 generation, of which 36 surviving families were grown under similar agroclimatic conditions and selfed.DNA was extracted from individual plants in each F 2 accession, then PCR based microsatellites and RAPD were carried out. A molecular markers statistical analysis was performed showing the following indices as diversity measures in the created populations:Percentage of polymorphic loci defines a locus as polymorphic when the frequency of the most common allele is no greater than 0.95 (Ayala, 1982). Although considered a very arbitrary and imprecise measurement of diversity, because it depends on how many individuals are examined, the values obtained in the case of microsatellite molecular markers showed a variation within individual accessions in interspecific cross populations of between 62.5% and 87.5%, in comparison with intraspecific crosses within L. esculentum accessions of only 25.0% to 37.5%. The difference in percentage of polymorphic loci between both groups was highly significant (P < 0.01). As an overall comparison, the esculentum populations presented just 37.5% of polymorphic loci, while the populations of interspecific crosses showed 100% (Table 27.2).The variation shown in RAPD markers between individual crosses grouped in intraspecific L. esculentum and interspecific was significant (P < 0.05). The range of variation in interspecific crosses was from 14.0% to 48.0%, while in the esculentum group it was between 14.0% and 28.0% of polymorphic loci. Overall for each population, the relative values varied from 82.0% for interspecific to 52.0% for intraspecific crosses.The results obtained with this index are not the best comparison between populations, because they are biased by the selection of the most polymorphic primers in both molecular marker systems utilized in this experiment. However, they give a robust indication of the differences between the created populations.These indices are the inverse of homozygosity, and the higher the value of n a and n e the less homozy-gous are the alleles studied. Microsatellite analysis showed that n e for individual accessions on interspecific crosses had values between 1.418 up to 1.837 and n a from 1.625 to 1.875, in comparison with crosses between accessions belonging to L. esculentum that presented smaller values for n e ranging from 1.225 to 1.375 and for n a from 1.250 to 1.375 (Table 27.2). The differences between groups for n a and n e were highly significant (P < 0.01). In summary, n e was 24% and n a was 31% higher for interspecific crosses than in the esculentum populations. RAPD results for both populations are also presented in Table 27.2. As a group, interspecific crosses population showed an n a of 16.4% and an n e 10.5% higher than the esculentum cross population. The difference between n a and n e was 0.378 and 0.230 for interspecific and esculentum populations, respectively. Within individual accessions the differences between n a and n e showed values from 0.061 to 0.215 for interspecific entries and from 0.046 to 0.128 for esculentum crosses. Significant differences (P < 0.05) were found within members of individual populations. The closer the difference between n a and n e , the higher the similarity of allele frequencies between populations; therefore it is likely that less diversity exists among the accessions analysed. This can be expected on predominantly self-pollinated species because of their tendency to homozygosity. Both molecular markers showed a clear difference between intraspecific esculentum and interspecific crosses; this is expected since the difference reflects the lower genetic diversity present in edible tomato accessions and which increases when hybridized to accessions with more variation in their genetic background, such as wild relatives.These measures are the most commonly used to estimate diversity. In theory these values should range from 0 to 1 (homozygosity to full heterozygosity), although for dominant markers the maximum level is 0.5 and co-dominant markers never reach the maximum value of 1 for self-pollinating species. For autogamous species, H t and I are more useful because H s does not reflect well the amount of genetic variation in such organisms.There will be more homozygotes in a population in which crosses between relatives is common, even though different individuals can carry different alleles if the locus is variable in the population. There will also be more homozygotes in a population in which mating between relatives is common than in a population where it does not occur, even when the allelic frequencies are identical in both populations (Ayala, 1982). Examining microsatellite data of individual crosses, H s was similar, 0.150 and 0.359, in all individual L. esculentum and interspecific crosses, respectively. However, H t varied from 0.241 to 0.427 in interspecific crosses and from 0.118 to 0.183 in the intraspecific esculentum crosses; while I presented a range between 0.354 and 0.596, and 0.166 and 0.255 for interspecific and esculentum crosses. For both groups of populations H t and I showed significant differences (P < 0.01). In general, interspecific populations groups showed values nearly twofold higher than esculentum populations for all indices (Table 27.With RAPD (Table 27.2) there were no huge differences between both created populations for H t and I; however the interspecific group presented increases of 34.5% for H t and 34.8% for I with respect to esculentum intraspecific crosses. For individuals, H t for interspecific entries ranged between 0.060 and 0.181, while I ranged from 0.089 to 0.265. But in esculentum crosses accessions H t ranged from 0.055 to 0.098, and for I from 0.081 to 0.143. The difference in H t and I values between both populations was found to be significant at the 0.05 level. The gene diversity (H t ) and Shannon's information index (I) results also demonstrate the low levels of diversity present in L. esculentum accessions but indicate that there is still variability present within landraces and old varieties. This may be useful for breeding purposes when incorporated into appropriate populations.This index is usually utilized to analyse the differences in genetic diversity among populations. In this programme the selected esculentum parents were homozygous and no differences were found within the accessions, but between them there were differences. Thus for parental groups the average gene diversity (H s ) was 0, but the total gene diversity (H t ) was 1 or 100%, when F st was 1, then the genetic variation found was only between populations.In the F 2 populations analysed with microsatellite markers, populations of interspecific crosses and esculentum crosses showed very close F st value of 0.185 and 0.180, respectively (Table 27.2). Thus about 18% of the genetic variation between populations belonging to each group can be explained as differences between accessions; however 82% of the genetic diversity lies in the differences within the population.For RAPD markers, the values obtained reflect the high differentiation of genetic diversity among created populations, 28.9% for esculentum and 32.7% for the interspecific group. However, there was higher genetic variability within populations; 71.1% and 67.3% of the diversity for esculentum and interspecific crosses, respectively.These results indicate that a sizeable portion of the genetic diversity in created populations lies within accessions, but also the diversity between is not insubstantial; this is one of the objectives in a base broadening approach. All of the indices used help to provide an insight into the population structure of the different genepools.The correlation coefficient (r) between the different diversity indices utilized was calculated. Effective number of alleles (n e ), gene diversity (H t ) and Shannon's information index (I) showed a moderate positive correlation as presented in Table 27.3.Six continuous characters were scored after fruits of the second inflorescence were completely ripe: fruit fresh weight (g), weight of 1000 seeds (g), fruit diameter (cm), fruit length (cm), fruit shape as a ratio between length/diameter, and soluble solid content (°Brix).The six morphological traits measured are all quantitative, and expression can be strongly influenced by the environment. These traits were chosen as representative of the type of characters that might be of interest to plant breeders utilizing germplasm collections. Indeed these characters may also be used when undertaking a base broadening approach to rapidly improve a population with respect to agronomically important characters.Fruit weight showed great divergence among the four groups analysed, as shown in Table 27.4.The L. esculentum accessions utilized as parents were almost 50 times bigger than Lycopersicon spp. parents. The F 2 interspecific crosses produced fruits with a tendency toward small fruits, though their average was higher than the wild relatives.Fruit diameter and length also showed great differences between the four groups (Table 27.4). The mean in L. esculentum parental accessions was almost three times higher than the wild relative parents for fruit diameter and length. However, this mean was only twice as large as the interspecific cross populations, and just slightly larger than L. esculentum crosses. The differences within populations were significant at 0.01 level and the interspecific F 2 population exhibited much greater mean performance for both of these characters than the original Lycopersicon spp. population.The fruit ratio, as shown in Table 27.4, was very close for all four groups, with a clear predominant tendency toward round fruits with a mean closer to 1. Of the five L. esculentum accessions utilized as parents, two presented flattened or oblate fruits, two were round type and one was elongated shape. All three wild relative parents were round shaped fruits. Within the interspecific population, the accessions presented round shape, slightly elongated and flattened. But in the case of L. esculentum crosses the accessions were rounded, flattened and elongated shape. It is known that at least three genes affect fruit shape and normal round shape is dominant.Soluble solid content is a character highly influenced by environmental factors and is controlled by several genes. Significant differences (P < 0.05) were observed between the four populations (Table 27.4). This variation showed that wild relatives had higher content of soluble solid than L. esculentum, and this difference was almost the average between both groups of parents in the interspecific group, but it was found to be similar or very close in the case of L. esculentum parents and crosses.In the case of seed weight and size (Table 27.4), seeds of the esculentum parents group were heavier than wild relative parents. However, the interspecific and esculentum crosses presented means closer to L. esculentum parents. These results suggest that there is a tendency to produce heavier and bigger seeds within the populations influenced by the L. esculentum group.Most domesticated crops need genetic base broadening, some earlier than others to overcome barriers for future crop improvement. The situation of autogamous crop species is especially sensitive where the main bottleneck is the mating system, in practice this leads to a loss in genetic variability in each generation, because of the inevitable selection that occurs. Nevertheless for most inbreeding species a low percentage of outcrossing occurs which can produce a level of variability each time.Wild and unadapted germplasm represent a rich source of variation. Though exotic germplasm can present problems of adaptation and characters not desirable in a breeding programme, it can help to increase in response to selection as a result of the improvement of genetic diversity (Ortiz, 1998). In this context, adapted germplasm such as old varieties and landraces are also an interesting source of genetic variability for use in base broadening programmes.The results obtained from the F 2 populations created will, along with data from future generations, allow an appraisal of the different methodologies to be used when developing strategies for base broadening with autogamous species. Traditional approaches by breeders for germplasm evaluation have centred on the use of morphological characters, not surprisingly given the requirements and objectives of current breeding programmes. However, those characters tend to be quantitatively inherited, and should therefore be assessed in a number of environments involving a large number of plants and at considerable cost.In order to make recommendations on strategies for base broadening, it is essential that appropriate descriptors of the variability be developed, and how they might change with different management approaches, be established. The results to date demonstrate the robust nature of the information from microsatellites and DNA analysis, uninfluenced by environmental factors, and this will be tested further looking at additional generation material.For the future, it is hoped to use the experience gained with esculentum utilizing molecular markers in order to answer some of the questions posed in the introduction. These operational questions need to be examined in order to remove the empiricism that has, by and large, dominated previous base broadening efforts. Such methodologies on their own will not answer all the questions. Some questions will be very much species specific, others are more a matter of resources and finance. Nevertheless, the lessons learnt from pursuing some of the questions, in such an amenable species, will have messages for other autogamous crops in other environments.Finally, broadening the genetic base of a crop species can take many forms: by creating diverse populations utilizing a wide range of parental material (landraces through to progenitor species); by encouraging exploitation of genotypes in space and time (diversification schemes); by utilizing deliberate genotype mixtures or designing improved landraces (exploiting agronomic combining ability); by developing farmer participatory selection programmes (allowing farm-based adaptation), to name but a few. All of these approaches have merits for different agricultural systems and all need to be considered in order to avoid an unsustainable dependency on a few genotypes.In 1991, the National Institute of Agrobiological Resources (NIAR) initiated the Rice Genome Research Programme (RGP) to analyse the molecular basis of the rice genome organization and function. The first phase of this programme from 1991 to 1997 consisted of three major projects: construction of a genetic linkage map using DNA markers; construction of a physical map of rice chromosomes; and large-scale sequencing and cataloguing of cDNA from rice plants. McCouch et al. (1988) and Saito et al. (1991) separately constructed the first linkage map involving restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) markers. During the first phase of the RGP, researchers emphasized the construction of a highdensity and high-resolution linkage map using the F 2 population from a cross between japonica and indica rice varieties. A linkage map on all 12 chromosomes was produced with about 2300 DNA markers, comprising cDNA fragments derived from callus, root and shoot, genomic DNA fragments, and randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) (Kurata et al., 1994b;Harushima et al., 1998). These DNA markers cover a genetic distance of 1521 cM. It is noteworthy that all the cDNA fragments and most of the genomic fragments were partially sequenced to convert them into STS (sequence tagged site) markers (Inoue et al., 1994). These molecular markers are useful for tagging genes which are responsible for biological and agronomic traits.Genomic DNA fragments of wheat have been mapped on to the rice linkage map. The synteny analysis of these plants revealed a high conservation in the order of DNA markers (Kurata et al., 1994a). The synteny map and the mapped rice probes are available for the molecular analysis of the corresponding chromosomal regions in other cereals.Densely distributed DNA markers on the linkage map enable construction of a physical map of the rice genome. A YAC library of large DNA fragments has been constructed, and 2400 YAC clones have been ordered along the rice linkage map. The physical map that was constructed is estimated to cover about 70% of the whole genome. These clones can be used for map-based cloning of genes with agronomic value.Large-scale cDNA analysis aims to catalogue all the expressed genes in rice (Sasaki et al., 1994). About 15,000 cDNA clones have been partially sequenced. The function of sequenced cDNA clones was deduced by a similarity search to a proteins database. About 25% of the cDNA clones analysed showed a similarity to known proteins; this suggests that most of the expressed genes encode for unknown proteins.The results obtained in the first phase of the RGP are now being used as important tools for rice functional genomics. These tools have not only facilitated tasks such as marker-assisted selection of desirable traits and map-based cloning of agronomically significant genes, but also enhanced better understanding of the structure and function of the rice genome. Since 1997, the RGP has mapped a large number of EST (expressed sequence tags) on to YAC clones, and mapped more than 2700 random EST clones to the rice physical map. The EST map is useful for the analysis of the rice genome by producing new STS markers for rice genetic analysis and linking new YAC clones to the physical map to eliminate YAC contig gaps. The results from the EST mapping will provide us with some fundamental information for rice genome sequencing during the second phase of rice genome analysis.Since 1998, the RGP has entered a new phase focusing on large-scale sequencing of the rice genome, QTL (quantitative trait loci) analysis of agronomically important traits, cloning and characterization of genes, and marker-assisted selection in rice breeding. The programme also includes the development of mutant lines, which are tagged by retrotransposons of rice as a strategy for gene isolation, and functional analysis of genome by microarrays with rice cDNA clones. Large-scale sequencing of the rice genome has been undertaken by international collaboration including Japan, USA, UK, France, Canada, China, Korea, Taiwan, India and Thailand (Sasaki et al., 1999).The RGP has had a great impact on both rice genetics and breeding, resulting in a broadened use of the rice genepool. High-density linkage maps and DNA markers, which are distributed over 12 rice chromosomes, are very powerful tools for germplasm enhancement. One of the uses of DNA markers in the enhancement of rice germplasm is the analysis of the linkage relationship between DNA markers and genes for agronomic traits. DNA markers have played the principal role in mapping beneficial QTL for key quantitative traits of agronomic importance, whose chromosomal location is difficult to identify by conventional methods. Using DNA markers, these QTL can be efficiently transferred from unadapted germplasm into elite lines by backcrossing (Tanksley and Nelson, 1996). The progress of DNA markerassisted studies on the identification of valuable QTL of wild rice relatives can enhance the potential for their use in improving key quantitative traits in elite rice varieties (Xiao et al., 1998). Yano et al. (1997) reported that tools supplied by the RGP contributed to the genetic dissection of the QTL that were conditioning the heading time of japonica and indica rice varieties. In addition to DNA marker-assisted selection of agronomic traits in the breeding programme, each of the QTL responsible for agronomically important traits can be tagged by DNA markers and can be isolated by positional cloning. This research on the rice genome will also contribute significantly to the enhancement of the rice germplasm collections.Rice blast, caused by Pyricularia grisea Sacc. is a major destructive disease of rice in most of the ricegrowing areas worldwide. Breeding efforts are ongoing to transfer resistance genes into a desirable genetic background. Two types of resistance, namely true and field resistance, to rice blast have been described. True resistance is a hypersensitive resistance that is often complete, characterized by a resistant infection type and usually under monogenic control. At least 20 loci for true resistance have been mapped on rice chromosomes and seem to be clustered or occur as multiple alleles (McCouch et al., 1994). Although true resistance is often very effective against rice blast, it may occasionally be broken down by compatible races of the pathogen. For instance, a Japanese blast-resistant variety, Kusabue, was developed by introducing the resistant gene Pik, from Chinese germplasm into a Japanese elite variety in 1960. However, the resistance in the new variety was overcome after only 2 years. Several other exotic germplasm resources have also been used as sources of true resistance in rice breeding in Japan, but in all these cases the resistance has not held up in Japanese conditions.To overcome this genetic vulnerability, multilines have been produced, each with different major genes for blast resistance. Field resistance is characterized by infection that is incomplete, and usually under polygenic control. This type of resistance allows effective control of the parasite under natural conditions and is considered to be durable when exposed to new races of the pathogen. Japanese upland rice is in the primary genepool of Asian cultivated rice and a source of the genes that are responsible for field resistance to rice blast. However, rice breeders in Japan have never succeeded in introducing resistance into elite rice varieties, possibly due to the close linkage between the genes for resistance and certain undesirable characteristics. Since the 1970s, genetic studies have been conducted to detect genes or loci for field resistance in Japanese upland rice. Some studies reported that many genes with additive effects were responsible for the expression of field resistance (Higashi and Kushibuchi, 1978;Higashi and Saito, 1985). These results suggested that the genetic behaviour of this field resistance was so complicated that conventional genetics could not identify the number of genes, and their chromosomal locations.Recent progress in QTL analysis using DNA markers provides a better understanding of the genetics of resistance to rice blast. Several newly found resistance genes were mapped on molecular genetic linkage maps by Yu et al. (1996), Inukai et al. (1996) and Chen et al. (1999). Wang et al. (1994) reported two complete resistance genes and ten chromosomal regions involving QTL for partial resistance derived from the West African variety Moroberekan. We have worked to detect the chromosomal regions responsible for field resistance to blast in the Japanese upland rice Owarihatamochi. Genetic studies were further conducted in advanced backcrossed lines for DNA markerassisted selection and map-based cloning of the gene involved in this resistance. A total of 146 F 4 lines were developed from the cross between the Japanese lowland rice variety, Nipponbare, and the upland variety, Owarihatamochi. Analyses using seven differential races of P. grisea showed that these two varieties have no true (complete) resistance genes. Nipponbare was susceptible and Owarihatamochi highly resistant to rice blast in field tests. BC 1 F 3 lines from F 3 plants of a cross between both varieties were developed as the mapping population. Aichiasahi, a highly susceptible lowland rice variety, was used as the recurrent parent.Field resistance of all the materials was tested in an upland nursery bed with two replications. The severity of infection on 40-50 day-old plants was scored from 0 (highly resistant; no symptom) to 10 (highly susceptible; leaves totally dead) based on the diseased leaf area. Total DNA was extracted, digested with nine restriction enzymes and blotted on to a positively charged nylon membrane after electrophoresis. Southern hybridization and signal detection were carried out using an ECL direct nucleic acid labelling and detection kit (Amersham). A total of 299 RFLP probes from RFLP linkage maps and RFLP landmarkers were surveyed for a probe-enzyme combination showing polymorphism between parental varieties. Some 131 selected RFLP markers on 12 rice chromosomes and five SSR (simple sequence repeat) markers on chromosomes 9 and 12 were used for linkage analysis.The program MAPMAKER/EXP 3.0 (Lander et al., 1987) was used to establish an RFLP linkage map. The PROC GLM in the Statistical Analysis Systems (SAS) was used to determine the relationship between RFLP markers and field resistance. MAPMAKER/QTL (Lander and Botstein, 1989) was used to calculate LOD scores for significant marker loci and also used to obtain estimates of the percentage of phenotypic variance explained by each QTL. Putative QTL for field resistance to rice blast were identified using the LOD threshold of 2.0 in MAPMAKER/QTL. The analysis of the different rice lines revealed several interesting results:• The frequency distribution of field resistance in F 4 lines was continuous, ranging from scores of 1 to 10. The scores of Owarihatamochi (resistant) and Nipponbare (susceptible) were 2.8 and 8.0, respectively. • RFLP markers on chromosomes 2,4,8,9,11 and 12 were significant at the 5% level in SAS/GLM. The analysis by MAPMAKER/QTL showed four QTL with LOD scores more than 2.0 located on three chromosomes. A Nipponbare allele is resistant in the QTL on chromosome 9, while an Owarihatamochi allele is resistant in the QTL on chromosomes 4 and 12. Two QTL close to RFLP markers G271 and Y8026L on chromosome 4 explained 45.7% and 29.4% of phenotypic variation, respectively. QTL on chromosomes 9 and 12 explained 7.9% and 13.7%, respectively. A multiple QTL model estimated that these four QTL explained 66% of the total phenotypic variation. • Two BC 1 F 1 plants had the Owarihatamochi allele at the RFLP marker locus G271 on chromosome 4. In these plants, four QTL except for the largest one were replaced by the allele from the highly susceptible variety, Aichiasahi. One plant (96BC131) possesses Owarihatamochi alleles in the chromosomal region from G271 to XNpb237. The other plant (96BC122) possesses the chromosomal segment from C513 to G271. Sixteen and 11% of alleles at the RFLP marker loci tested were from Owarihatamochi in 96BC131 and 96BC122, respectively. Eighty-two and 76 BC 1 F 3 lines derived from 96BC131 and 96BC122 were subjected to a field resistance test. The scores for Owarihatamochi and Aichiasahi were 0.7 and 9.2. The scores for BC 1 F 3 lines derived from 96BC131 varied from 2.5 to 9.2 and showed a bimodal distribution, while those of BC 1 F 3 lines from 96BC122 varied from 7.5 to 9.7. • The BC 1 F 3 lines derived from 96BC131 and analysed for mapping were divided into three groups according to the field resistance test: group 1 with scores of less than 6.0; and groups 2 and 3 with scores of more than 6.0. Groups 2 and 3 were identified by the presence or absence of segregation of diseased leaf area among plants within a line. With respect to the genotype of the field resistance gene, group 1 was expected to be homozygous for the resistant allele and group 2 without segregation was expected to be homozygous for the susceptible allele. Group 3 with segregation was expected to be heterozygous for resistant and susceptible alleles. The average score among the lines was 4.20Ϯ0.67 (group 1), 8.21Ϯ0.66 (group 2) and 7.5Ϯ0.51 (group 3). The map position of the locus conferring field resistance, designated pi21, was flanked by RFLP markers G271 and G317 at a distance of 5.0 cM and 8.8 cM, respectively.Japanese upland rice is a potential gene donor for improving field resistance to rice blast. We identified the chromosomal regions for field resistance to rice blast in Japanese upland rice using DNA markers mapped on rice chromosomes. DNA markers and plant materials will be useful for DNA marker-assisted evaluation and enhancement of rice germplasm, marker-assisted selection in rice breeding and positional cloning of the genes involved in this resistance.In this study, disease severity ranged from 1 to 10 among F 4 lines. We observed lines with higher resistance than Owarihatamochi, and also lower than Nipponbare. This observation suggests that multigenic inheritance is involved in field resistance and it is difficult to determine the number of genes responsible for the resistance by conventional genetic analysis. QTL analysis using DNA markers confirmed three chromosomal regions of field resistance derived from Japanese upland rice including a single recessive gene, pi21. Two major QTL for field resistance are located on chromosome 4, supporting the previous results obtained by conventional genetic analysis (Maruyama et al., 1983;Higashi and Saito, 1985). These studies indicate that Japanese upland rice has genes on chromosome 4 that play a major role in the expression of field resistance to rice blast.The present study provides DNA markers linked to QTL for field resistance. One of them, designated as pi21, was successfully located on the RFLP genetic linkage map using backcrossed progeny lines. Although Japanese upland rice was extensively used as a potential gene donor for field resistance in rice breeding, most of the genes for the resistance were not efficiently selected due to their multigenic nature and large environmental variation. Undesirable characteristics in upland rice also limit the introduction of multiple genes into elite rice varieties. DNA markers identified in this study have provided detailed genetic information that will be useful for marker-assisted germplasm enhancement and selection in rice breeding.For detailed genetic dissection of chromosomal regions and for positional cloning, the frequency of polymorphism between parental varieties is a limiting factor. The frequency of polymorphism between Japanese lowland and upland rice varieties was 38% in this study and is not as high as for the indica/japonica crosses. Use of a substitution line with the chromosomal segment harbouring target genes from indica rice varieties as a parent of a cross is a promising strategy to obtain higher mapping resolution. Highly polymorphic mapping populations are now being developed for map-based cloning of pi21.Finally, we are interested in resolving whether each of the QTL for field resistance against rice blast reacts to specific races of blast fungus. This information will be important to answer the question whether field resistance is durable or vulnera-ble. The highlight of future research is to manifest the genetic differentiation of disease resistance during the evolution of crop-pathogen interactions and the cascade expression of genes for plant defence responses.Rice genome research has recently had a great impact on progress in both rice genetics and breeding worldwide. Large-scale sequencing of the rice genome will be completed in the near future, and will accelerate better understanding of the structure and function of the rice genome. All the information and genetic materials provided by rice genome research are also useful and powerful tools for the study of diversity in plant genetic resources. In particular, a DNA marker-assisted enhancement strategy for plant genetic resources can contribute to efficient and effective use of genepools.Sugar cane (Saccharum spp.) is one of the crops for which interspecific hybridization has provided a major breakthrough in its improvement. Modern commercial sugarcane varieties (Saccharum hybrids, 2n=100-130) are derived from interspecific hybridization (Price, 1963a) pioneered in Java (Stevenson, 1965). Before the advent of interspecific crosses, the improvement of sugarcane relied on the selection of naturally occurring variants of Saccharum officinarum obtained by collecting expeditions to its centre of origin in New Guinea. Cane improvement during the 19th century was one of variety substitution, mainly due to susceptibility to diseases such as sereh, mosaic, gumming and the root-disease complex that caused extensive losses, low yields or restricted adaptation. The discovery of the fertility of sugarcane reported in Java from Soltwedel's work and in Barbados by Harrison andBovell in 1888 (Stevenson, 1965), led to the noble improvement programme. Although this programme was restricted to improving disease resistance, it culminated in the production of better noble varieties and added 'new material' for future work. The sugarcane breeding programme underwent radical changes with the utilization of wild Saccharum spontaneum in the late 1800s and the early 1900s for incorporating the much sought dis-ease resistance into cultivars, which marked the end of the noble cane era.The need to broaden the genetic base, given the spectre of yield stagnation, and the need to introgress specific characters from wild and associated genera, raised the interest in prebreeding. Prebreeding is the early phase of any breeding programme utilizing exotic germplasm (Frankel, 1989). Several authors have noted the need for prebreeding to provide high yielding, widely adapted germplasm possessing resistance to major biotic and abiotic stresses and emphasized biological and economic constraints (Stalker, 1980;Frankel, 1989;Ladizinsky, 1989).Breeding in Mauritius started in 1891 although the history of exchange and utilization of germplasm dates back to the Dutch era (1635-1710), the French (1715-1820) and the British rule  [see reviews by Rouillard (1990) and Ramdoyal and Domaingue (1993)]. The utilization of germplasm is geared towards the development of varieties with improved cane yield and sucrose content, tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses and good ratooning potential. This chapter reviews the most salient features of prebreeding and germplasm enhancement in sugarcane and reports on the main features of the Mauritius Sugar Industry Research Institute (MSIRI) programme.Sugar cane belongs to the family Gramineae in the genus Saccharum, a member of the tribe Andropogoneae abundant in tropical and subtropical regions. The term 'Saccharum complex' was used by Mukherjee (1957) to denote that the genera Saccharum, Erianthus (sect. Ripidium), Sclerostachya and Narenga constituted a closely related interbreeding group involved in the origin of sugarcane, to which Daniels et al. (1975) added the genus Miscanthus sect. Diandra Keng. The taxonomy, evolution, distribution and characteristics of genera in the Saccharum complex and the species of the genus Saccharum (hereafter referred to as basic species or basic germplasm) have been reviewed by Daniels and Roach (1987). Salient features of the Saccharum species and of the allied genera relevant to their use in prebreeding are outlined. S. officinarum L., an octaploid, 2n = 80 (Sreenivasan et al., 1987;D'Hont et al., 1995), indigenous to New Guinea, has provided the genetic background and the sucrose genes of modern sugarcane hybrids. Clones of S. officinarum have thick stalks, high juice purity, low fibre and starch content, low vigour and adaptability to environmental stresses, and they are susceptible to diseases. S. spontaneum L., 2n = 40-128 (Panje and Babu, 1960), is distributed widely from New Guinea, the Mediterranean to Africa (Brandes et al., 1939;Mukherjee, 1950). Clones of S. spontaneum are highly polymorphic from bushy types to tall stalks with low sucrose and high fibre content. They played an important role in providing disease resistance and vigour to modern hybrids. Saccharum robustum Brandes and Jesweit ex Grassl., indigenous to New Guinea, has stalks of up to 10 m high which are hard, woody and pithy with little juice (Stevenson, 1965). Five groups are recognized with two cytotypes 2n = 60 and 2n = 80 (Price, 1965). This species contributed towards the evolution of some Hawaiian varieties.Saccharum barberi Jesw. and Saccharum sinense Roxb., 2n = 81-124 (Bremer, 1966;Price, 1968), presumably evolved in Northern India and China, are characterized by thin to medium stalks, low sucrose, high fibre and tolerance to stress conditions. They are of limited fertility and their use in breeding is restricted. Molecular studies have confirmed that both S. barberi and S. sinense possess S. officinarum and S. spontaneum genomes (A. D'Hont, France, 2000, personal communication).The genus Erianthus Michx Sect. Ripidium Henrard (Daniels and Roach, 1987), 2n = 20-60, is distributed in India, South-east Asia to Japan, Indonesia and New Guinea. Seven species are described. Clones of Erianthus are highly vigorous, tall with slender stalks of good diameter and display disease resistance, excellent ratooning ability and drought tolerance (BSES, 1990). The genus Miscanthus Anderss., 2n = 38-114, is distributed from Tahiti through Eastern Indonesia, Indo-China to northern China, Siberia and Japan. The species vary from small wiry-leafed types to taller ones, occurring from sea level in Indonesia (Berding and Koike, 1980) to 3300 m in Taiwan (Lo et al., 1978). Four sections have been described with prominent species.Nobilization refers to the crossing of the wild cane, S. spontaneum, to the noble cane S. officinarum, and further backcrossing of progenies to the latter (Stevenson, 1965), and includes the planned introgression of the other Saccharum species and related genera into the noble cane. Although the first interspecific crosses were carried out by Soltwedel in 1887, the discovery of a highly vigorous, disease-free, naturally occurring F 1 hybrid, Kassoer, led to the creation of the 'wonder cane' POJ 2878 (BC2) of the 'POJ' series in 1921. This clone occupied 90% of the area under cane in Java within 8 years. Concurrently, nobilization of wild Saccharum species was conducted in India in 1912 and the use of a Coimbatore form, 2n = 64, led to another source of varieties, particularly Co 205. In addition to introducing disease resistance in the noble background, nobilization produced unexpected gains in general vigour, increased cane and sugar yields, adaptability to stress conditions and ratooning ability. The early success of interspecific hybridization led to the intercrossing of other species to produce tri-species hybrids that proved very successful in subtropical areas in India (Roach and Daniels, 1987).Intergeneric hybridization has been gaining importance as a means to broaden the genetic base, to obtain commercially useful characteristics and to increase hybrid vigour (Tai, 1989). Downy mildew (Peronosclerospora sacchari) resistance genes have successfully been transferred from Miscanthus to sugar cane (Chen and Lo, 1989).Cytological studies showed that S. officinarum transmits its whole somatic chromosome complement (2n) when crossed with S. spontaneum which in turn transmits its haploid (n) chromosome number in the normal way (Roach, 1968), that is, a 2n + n transmission process. Hybrids of n + n type were relatively low but may predominate in certain specific crosses (Roach, 1968;D'Hont et al., 1996).Similarly, BC 1 progenies from crosses between S. officinarum as the maternal parent and S. officinarum ϫ S. spontaneum F 1 's, showed 2n + n chromosome transmission. Chromosome increase ceased in further backcrosses (Price, 1963b;Roach, 1971) such that chromosome numbers within the range of 2n = 100-130 were reported as from the third nobilization. The 2n + n mode of transmission explains the rapid drop in vigour in the progenies from F 1 to BC 1 generations, which may be halted to some extent if the F 1 hybrid is backcrossed to another noble clone or a commercial type hybrid.The process of 2n + n transmission is not clearly understood and a number of hypotheses, including formation of unreduced egg cells, chromosome doubling through endoduplication, selective fertilization of 2n eggs and selective survival of 2n + n zygotes, postmeiotic endomitosis in the egg, have been put forward by Price (1961) and Bremer (1961aBremer ( , b, 1962)). The implication of these observations is that genetic variability observed is a result of segregation and recombination of whole chromosomes within species (Roach, 1968). Optimum S. officinarum:S. spontaneum chromosome balance may take several generations to achieve. However, comparative genomic DNA in situ hybridization demonstrated that about 10% of the chromosomes of the commercial cultivar R 570 (2n = 107-115), originated from S. spontaneum and about 10% were identified as recombinant chromosomes between S. officinarum and S. spontaneum (D'Hont et al., 1996).Chromosome transmission in crosses of S. officinarum ϫ S. robustum are usually of n + n type (Price, 1961) whereas 2n + n chromosome transmission was reported in crosses between S. officinarum and S. sinense (Price, 1957). Various intergeneric hybrids between S. officinarum and Erianthus, Sclerostachya, Miscanthus, Erianthus, Sorghum, Imperata and Zea have been reported (Sreenivasan et al., 1987) and between commercial hybrids and Erianthus, Miscanthus, Miscanthidium (Tai and Miller, 1988;Tai et al., 1991). The range of hybrid types reported includes n + n, n + 2n, 2n + n and 2n + 2n (Sreenivasan et al., 1987). Li et al. (1951) observed two types of hybrids from a cross between sugarcane and Miscanthus. One was the female parent type, with a 2n + n mode of chromosome transmission, with taller and thicker stalks, wider leaf margins and higher sugar content. The other was the male type, with n + n mode of chromosome transmission, which was closer to its Miscanthus parent with slender stalks, narrower leaves and lower sucrose content.Chromosome transmission in commercial hybrids ϫ S. spontaneum clones in F 1 , BC 1 to BC 3 generations is of strictly n + n type, although meiotic irregularity, aneuploidy and chromosomal mosaics resulted in aneuploid gametes (Burner and Legendre, 1993). Chromosomes paired primarily as bivalents and variable numbers of univalents and multivalents were observed.Only a few clones of some basic species have been used to develop modern varieties compared with the wide diversity that is available in world collections (Table 29.1). Arceneaux (1965) reported on the use of 19 S. officinarum clones in the production of commercial hybrids of which three of the clones account for 57% of the genealogy of the varieties studied. Two S. spontaneum sources, the Java form of S. spontaneum (2n = 112) introduced mainly through Kassoer and the Coimbatore form of Indian S. spontaneum (2n = 64), and one S. sinense clone, introduced mainly through Chunnee, were extensively used in the basic interspecific hybridization work (Roach, 1971). Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analyses revealed little variation between the South African commercial varieties and those at advanced stages of selection (Harvey et al., 1995) and tend to confirm little or no added variation between generations.In Mauritius, breeders have used the same genetic stock produced by the early hybridization work from Java and India mainly through the BC 2 series of POJ varieties and the derived clones of the basic Indian series (Ramdoyal and Domaingue, 1993). The Mauritian 'miracle' variety M 134/32 bred in 1932 from POJ 2878 ϫ D109 (noble) which occupied 92% of the area under cane in 1952, appears in the lineage of most varieties bred locally (Anon, 1990). Mauritian breeders have used another source of genetic stock through Uba Marot (2n = 112), a naturally occurring vigorous seedling, derived presumably from an introduced Indian 64chromosome, S. spontaneum and a noble cane (Stevenson, 1940). The lineage of Mauritian commercial hybrids released to date, which trace back to the M 134/32, Uba Marot and E 1/37 is summarized in Fig. 29.1 and reveals little or no new addition to their genetic background.Recognizing the narrowness of the genetic base and the possible stagnation of yields (Walker, 1962), interest in interspecific work grew in a number of countries in the 1960s (Berding and Roach, 1987). In Barbados, an intra noble improvement programme through recurrent selection was designed to produce better noble varieties for interspecific programmes (Walker, 1974). A prebreeding programme included clones from a wide range of latitudes and ecological conditions. Several problems in the programme were noted, such as the lack of male-sterile nobles as the maternal parent and early flowering in S. spontaneum from the more northerly latitudes under Barbados conditions, which necessitated photoperiodic treatments. A nobilization programme with S. spontaneum where the main criteria were high dry matter yield, good ratooning, high sugar and low fibre showed good progress as a number of clones were promoted to final phase trials (Berding and Roach, 1987).Nobilization in Hawaii initially emphasized the use of S. robustum clones (Heinz, 1967), which contributed towards the evolution of some Hawaiian varieties. Heinz (1980) reported on the use of S. spontaneum and observed that the expression of BC 1 clones showed high interaction with elevation. In Australia, nobilization was centred on cytological aspects (Roach, 1969(Roach, , 1971(Roach, , 1978) ) and was later intensified, with several clones reaching the stage of on-farm trials, but none was released commercially (Berding and Roach, 1987). Characterization of clones received more attention to target characters for improvement and use was made of Erianthus arundinaceus as a source of genes to combat the poor root syndrome affecting cane in Northern Queensland (Berding and Roach, 1987).In Taiwan, the use of Miscanthus spp. was emphasized as a source of downy mildew and smut resistances (Chen et al., 1982(Chen et al., , 1986;;Chen and Lo, 1989). F 1 hybrids between commercial hybrid ϫ Miscanthus spp. showed improved hybrid vigour for stalk length and some clones showed tolerance to drought and salinity (Chen et al., 1986). Sugar content in a Saccharum ϫ Miscanthus hybrid showed a steady increase in successive nobilized generations (Lo and Chen, 1988). Clones selected from F 1 Saccharum ϫ Miscanthus hybrids were productive in fibre yields, with better pulp sheet as compared to a commercial control. Some clones from BC 1 crosses involving sugarcane and sorghum had sucrose content equivalent to commercial controls and proved to be early maturing (TSRI, 1995-96). Sun-Yuan Hsu et al. (1988) reported that the use of native S. spontaneum helped in generating promising interspecific hybrids as parental stocks.In the USA, interest in interspecific hybridization focused on resistances to mosaic and borer, cold tolerance and ratooning vigour (Dunkelman and Breaux, 1972). Resistance to mosaic was successfully transferred to BC 2 progenies and a number of clones with gametes from S. spontaneum reached agronomic trials. Little progress for cold tolerance was reported as a result of screening difficulties. Tai and Miller (1988) evaluated F 1 crosses between commercial hybrids and Miscanthus and Erianthus (as male parents) and indicated that thin stalk and low sucrose content were strongly influenced by Miscanthus and Erianthus. However, mean sucrose content and purity of F 2 and BC 1 seedlings of crosses between commercial hybrids and Miscanthus spp., Miscanthidium spp. and Erianthus spp. were markedly improved over that of F 1 hybrids, but mean stalk diameter was still very small (Tai et al., 1991).In India, extensive efforts were made to characterize basic Saccharum spp. of the world collection (Kandasami et al., 1983;Ramana Rao et al., 1985;Sreenivasan and Nair, 1991). Interspecific and intergeneric hybridization is part of the routine crossing programme at Coimbatore (SBI, 1995(SBI, -1998) ) where resistance to red rot (Glomerella tucamanensis) is a much sought objective.International concern for the conservation of sugar cane genetic resources grew considerably for many reasons including the safeguarding of genetic material of the Saccharum complex from diverse geographical origins. Organized collecting of the Saccharum complex was undertaken by the International Society of Sugar Cane Technologists (ISSCT) and International Board of Plant Genetic Resources (IBPGR) (Anon, 1982). The germplasm collected is maintained by the US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (USDA/ARS) in Florida at Miami and by the Sugar Cane Breeding Institute at Kannur and Coimbatore, in India. Characteristics of the two world collections in India and the USA have been outlined by Alexander and Viswanathan (1996) and Comstock et al. (1996). The status of the World Sugar Cane Germplasm Collection and associated genera maintained in India and the USA are shown in Table 29.1. The MSIRI collection is included in this table and depicts an underrepresentation of most germplasm groups except for the noble group, of which a sizeable collection is maintained. Walker (1980) advocated genetic conservation of S. officinarum seeds; accordingly, true seeds of 235 accessions of S. spontaneum (c. 66% of the world collection of S. spontaneum in Miami) are conserved at the National Seed Storage Laboratory (NSSL) at Colorado (Tai et al., 1999). The collection represents nearly all the major regions of geographical distribution of the species. Seeds from both selfed clones and polycrosses are stored to minimize genetic drift. In Mauritius, selfed seeds of S. spontaneum clones are stored at −20°C.Characterization of germplasm is important to differentiate accessions and to describe the variability in characters of interest. Breeders have emphasized characterization for direct utilization in commercial breeding programmes rather than evaluating and cataloguing the basic clones. Limited resources are a constraint to investing in activities that may generate dividends in the long term. Lack of proper information on 'unfamiliar' types leads to a corresponding under-utilization of the basic material. Hutchinson and Daniels (1972) and Skinner (1972) gave guidelines for the description of sugarcane clones. Several catalogues using a number of descriptors have been produced for various groups of the World Saccharum Collection in India (Kandasami et al., 1983;Ramana Rao et al., 1985;Sreenivasan and Nair, 1991) and characterization data for the World Collection at Florida were provided by Tai et al. (1994Tai et al. ( , 1995)). The IBPGR Working Group on the Genetic Resources of Sugar Cane had proposed a list of 32 descriptors and their descriptor states (Anon, 1982). However, a universal system of description has not been widely adopted (Berding and Roach, 1987) probably due to the lack of dedicated curators and time constraints.Studies on the development of a core collection for the World S. spontaneum clones in Florida based on various sampling strategies, using random cluster and principal component analyses, are in progress (P.V.P. Tai, Florida, 2000, personal communication). The development of one or several cores based on characters of interest could help to better access the available genetic diversity for prebreeding programmes.Studies on the genetics of traits are important for increasing the efficiency of prebreeding programmes. Quantitative genetics studies in interspecific hybridization have been reported by several authors although many of the underlying assumptions, such as diploid inheritance and no linkage, may not hold true (Hogarth, 1968). Roach (1968) found highly significant male ϫ female interaction effects for yield and sucrose in S. officinarum ϫ S. spontaneum crosses. Heterosis was observed for early growth, stalk height, cane yield, flowering, pollen production and level of reducing sugars. Badaloo and Ramdoyal (unpublished data) studied 14 crosses between commercial hybrids (female) and S. spontaneum (male) and found families to differ significantly for stalk number, stalk diameter and cane quality characters. Narrow-sense heritability estimated from the partitioning of variances between and within family ranged from relatively low for dry matter % cane (Brix % cane + fibre % cane) (0.17) to moderately low for stalk number and fibre % cane (0.39 and 0.38, respectively) and moderately high for cane quality characters (0.67-0.90) and stalk diameter (0.75). These estimates were generally higher than those obtained from commercial ϫ commercial crosses (Lawrence and Sunil, 1997;Ramdoyal and Badaloo, 1998). The distribution of Brix, sucrose content, juice purity and fibre content in crosses between commercial hybrids and S. spontaneum clones were continuous and controlled by polygenes, and additive genetic variance was more important than dominance genetic variance for all four characters (Tai et al., 1992).For crosses which involved commercial hybrids and S. robustum, Rao and Rao (1977) obtained moderate to high narrow sense heritability for stalk weight and height (0.47), stalk number (0.52), Brix (0.58) and stalk diameter (0.60). Genetic analysis of F 1 populations derived from S. officinarum ϫ S. barberi, S. robustum, S. spontaneum, commercial hybrids, indicated highest heritability values in the S. spontaneum group (Bakshi Ram et al., 1992). Genetic coefficient of variation (GCV) of BC 1 populations was generally greater in crosses involving S. officinarum as the recurrent parent relative to the commercial hybrids (Bakshi Ram et al., 1995). However, the mean performance of families and heritability estimates were higher for commercial ϫ F 1 progenies than for the S. officinarum ϫ F 1 groups. The extent of genetic variation and heritability estimates indicates that selection and progress would be effective in interspecific hybrids particularly from the S. spontaneum source.Sugar cane is not native to Mauritius; Saccharum species and allied genera are introduced primarily from the Sugarcane World Germplasm Collections and undergo 2 years of quarantine in glasshouses before multiplication in the field. At the beginning of the 20th century, intercrossing of noble clones produced new varieties, some of which reached commercial status (Stevenson, 1965;Rouillard, 1990). The interspecific programme initiated in 1931 utilized mainly the S. spontaneum Glagah canes, notably G. Tabongo, G. Kletak and G. Djatiroto in a series of nobilizations and to some extent the S. sinense, Uba. Extensive use was made of the BC 2 series (POJ 2364) and BC3 series (POJ 2725, POJ 2878) as well as Uba Marot that were systematically backcrossed to noble varieties. However, no other breeding stock was as successful as M 134/32 and Uba Marot in producing commercial varieties (Fig. 29.1).In the early 1980s, the interspecific hybridization programme got a new impetus following government policy to use bagasse, the fibrous residue left after cane extraction, as a renewable source of energy. Bagasse is currently used to generate electricity to power sugar mills during the milling season and excess electricity is sold to the commercial grid. The bagasse left after milling contains around 48% moisture, 50% fibre and 1-2% sugar, with a calorific value of 9700 kJ kg −1 and has 30-40% of the heat content of coal (Baguant, 1984). Breeding efforts that focused on increasing sugar yield per unit area resulted in selection against fibre (Brown, 1965;Walker, 1974), which averages 13% for commercial varieties bred in Mauritius. Increasing fibre content of commercial varieties but still maintaining an acceptable sugar content was thought to be an attractive economic option that could cut down on imported coal and also reduce CO 2 emissions. Deepchand (2000) reviewed the use of bagasse in cogeneration in the Mauritian Sugar Industry.During 1983 to 1985, some work was initiated on the evaluation of S. spontaneum (20), S. robustum (7), S. sinense (6), S. officinarum (86), commercial hybrids (87) and Erianthus spp. ( 6) for cane quality components, Brix % cane (total solids of juice), pol % cane (apparent sucrose), fibre % cane and dry matter % cane, by the method described by Saint Antoine and Froberville (1964). A ratio of pol : fibre (PF) was derived from the pol % dry matter and fibre % dry matter. Juice purity was also derived from the ratio of Brix % cane and pol % cane. These studies revealed high levels of fibre and dry matter content in S. spontaneum clones as com-  (Autrey et al., 1990). Principal component analysis (PCA) and discriminant function analysis are being undertaken to characterize clones further and to rationalize the collection.In Mauritius, the wild S. spontaneum clones start flowering towards the end of April/May whereas most of the S. officinarum and commercial clones flower from mid-May to July. Crossing between noble clones and S. spontaneum and the early nobilized clones requires that either the flowering time in noble clones be advanced or that of the wild S. spontaneum be delayed. In Mauritius, 4 h night break treatments are applied between 8.00 pm and midnight to delay flowering (Julien, 1971;Julien and Soopramanien, 1975). A delay of 1 to 2 days was realized with each day of treatment (Badaloo et al., 1995) which permitted a better flowering synchrony among clones for targeted crosses. In addition, trials are in progress to induce and advance flowering in noble and commercial clones.The interspecific hybridization programme of the MSIRI for base-broadening involves the production of F 1 , BC 1 and BC 2 seedlings where the recurrent parent is either the noble cane or commercial-type hybrids. F 1 seedlings are selected based on stalk number, stalk diameter and cane quality components and are multiplied in breeding plots for backcrossing. Similarly, BC 1 and BC 2 seedlings are selected and evaluated for plot yield, field refractometric Brix, cane quality and kilo Brix (plot yield ϫ field refractometric Brix). An average to low sucrose commercial variety is planted as a control in the trial. A clone is selected based on a probability of kilo Brix exceeding the standard, giving due consideration to pol % cane, fibre % cane and morphological attributes. Interesting BC 1 and BC 2 clones are multiplied in breeding plots for further backcrossing and promoted to the next stage of selection (second clonal stage) with a pool of 3-5 commercial standard varieties. Selected clones, based on the same criteria as in the previous stage, are multiplied and included in variety trials in major agro-climatic environments for evaluation over a period of 5 years. In general, the production of commercial seedling populations for selection from prebreeding material adds another 3-5 years to the already lengthy selection programme, which ranges from 11 to 15 years. Nevertheless, encouraging results in this field are being obtained as more interspecific/intergeneric derived clones are reaching on-farm trials. Many breeding stations maintain a small prebreeding programme as a means to generate new parents.Concurrent to the above selection stream, 30-50 progenies from BC 1 and BC 2 families are evaluated in a progeny trial, with individual seedlings planted as one stool (the whole plant, which has grown from a single seedling or a vegetative cutting emanating from a single location in a field trial) and a standard variety planted at fixed locations as control. Progenies and controls are sampled for cane quality analyses and a number of morphological characters are recorded. Statistical analysis is carried out for each family. Interesting crosses may be repeated until an appropriate population size has been tested per family, which is around 600 progenies, whereas parents that are known to transmit good characteristics to their progenies are further used in crosses.Table 29.2 summarizes data from samples of crosses for the first, second and third nobilization series for characters of interest and also shows the progress that can be achieved with successive generations of nobilization. Generally, the F 1 crosses between S. officinarum and S. spontaneum, S. officinarum ϫ S. robustum and commercials ϫ S. spon-taneum are closer to the wild types, exceeding the standard variety for stalk number and fibre % cane and are inferior for stalk diameter, pol % cane, with a preferential partitioning of dry matter towards fibre. Intergeneric crosses between S. officinarum ϫ Erianthus arundinaceus and commercial hybrids ϫ E. arundinaceus display very good potential for all characters from a commercial angle. The clones of E. arundinaceus present in the local collection show tolerance to drought. However, seed setting in these crosses is generally low. The Erianthus clones flower sparsely under local conditions with low pollen fertility. Progenies from crosses between commercial hybrids ϫ S. spontaneum are generally more vigorous and attractive than the basic nobilization crosses. Commercial hybrids constitute a selected and adapted genetic stock that is easier to hybridize and provide quicker scope for progress. However, their use would not contribute appreciably to genetic base broadening as compared with the original S. officinarum clones.The phenotypic correlations among the various characters measured in commercial ϫ S. spontaneum families depict the difficulty in associating all desirable characters in prebreeding material (Table 29.3). High stalk number is associated with low stalk diameter, low sugar content and high fibre content. Jackson (1994) reported similar associations in F 1 crosses where the relationships among attributes corresponded to the association with the original genetic sources. This points to the difficulty of breaking down linkage groups particularly when homologous pairing between the chromosomes of the same species is generally observed (Grivet et al., 1996) and intrachromosomal interspecific recombination represents infrequent events (D'Hont et al., 1996).For the second (BC 1 ) and third (BC 2 ) generation backcrosses, which involved mostly elite commercial parents, a return to the commercial types or noble clones was evident but with better scope for increased stalk number (Table 29.2). Although an increase in pol % cane and purity was observed, it was difficult at this level to identify good segregants, which combined good stalk diameter and high fibre with acceptable sucrose levels. However, ignoring higher fibre content, few clones from the BC 1 and BC 2 generations were promoted to the final phase trials.In light of the difficulties encountered in associating fibre with pol and acceptable stalk diameter, it was necessary to restructure the programme with the main emphasis on genetic base broadening for commercial attributes with an added gain for high fibre clones. Furthermore, prebreeding populations would be evaluated in the marginal dry (< 1500 mm rainfall) and the superhumid zones (> 2500-3600 mm) where better returns are expected from the introgression of exotic genomes from S. spontaneum and allied genera which possess the genes for adaptation to diverse stressful environments.The progeny testing as used above has been further improved by the use of replicated cross prediction trials which have been implemented as from 1999 for the prebreeding programme, in parallel with cross prediction trials for commercial crosses (Badaloo, 1997). Univariate cross prediction methodologies, namely family mean (MEAN), the predicted proportion of genotypes, within interspecific populations, that transgress set targets for each character (PROB) and the observed proportion of genotypes that transgress set targets (OBS), are being used based on univariate probability integrals of Jinks and Pooni (1976) for a range of agronomic and morphological characters. Bivariate and multivariate cross prediction statistics will also be used for two or more characters simultaneously, based on sum of ranks (RANK) and the observed frequency (FREQ) of genotypes transgressing set targets for two or more characters simultaneously (Badaloo, 1997).The interrelationships between databases and crossing and selection records at the MSIRI for the commercial sugarcane programme were described by Ramdoyal et al. (1999). The prebreeding programme operates in parallel to the main sugar cane variety development programme. Most of the prebreeding data, breeding performance derived from cross ratios, cross prediction data, cane quality analyses and morpho-agronomic data are computerized and would be converted into a database. The information on amount and location of all available germplasm is stored in a relational database known as the current germplasm database, which includes information on all prebreeding parents. Detailed codes for describing Saccharum species and allied genera, to indicate the various levels of nobilization, have been established. As opposed to the commercial breeding programme that relies on a computer-aided crossing approach, most of the prebreeding crosses are sorted out manually. Further development is envisaged of a cohesive system of relational databases from which programmes using decision-making rules would be applied to fulfil breeding criteria for the various nobilized groups.Although progress in prebreeding has been recorded at various levels in different programmes, it has not produced the expected gains. Breeders are less inclined to use exotic, unfamiliar or alien material which may yield results in the long term while the pressure to show short-term gains compels them to use adapted commercial types as parents.Nevertheless, the narrowness of the genetic base of modern sugarcanes and the need to introgress specific genes are still of concern and justify the pursuance of prebreeding work. Interspecific/ intergeneric hybridization is fraught with difficulties arising from: asynchronous and erratic flowering in some species, low fertility of hybrids, genetic complexity resulting from high ploidy levels, peculiar chromosome transmission and meiotic irregularities, low intergenomic recombination, unfavourable linkage groups, authenticity of true hybrids and long generation interval. Furthermore, the breeding value of the basic parental material for use in prebreeding cannot be appraised from its phenotypic characteristics only. It is generally recognized that only a limited proportion of the total available basic germplasm has been utilized in prebreeding work and scope for progress is substantial. Successful exploitation of the genetic resources of sugarcane in the future will require careful characterization and evaluation of the available germplasm, using different methods including molecular tools, setting up clear objectives before hybridization and an appreciation of factors affecting progress (Berding and Roach, 1987). Some of the barriers have been overcome to various extents such as controlled flowering (Miller and Li, 1995;Nuss and Berding, 1999), low temperature storage of pollen of S. spontaneum and F 1 interspecific hybrids (Tai, 1988(Tai, , 1993)). Molecular techniques now offer new avenues in genome analysis to accelerate benefits arising from the exploitation of new germplasm. A genetic linkage map of S. spontaneum 'SES 208' based on RFLP-and PCRbased markers has been developed and polysomic segregation, a genetic behaviour typical of autopolyploid species, has been demonstrated (Da Silva et al., 1995). Genetic maps composed of single-dose DNA markers have been constructed for the genomes of S. officinarum, 'La purple 2n = 80 ' and S. robustum, 'MOL 5829 2n = 80' (Sobral, 1997) and it has been shown that a single-dose DNA marker framework map could be used to identify genomic regions controlling quantitative traits of polysomic polyploids, in a manner similar to diploids. Several species-specific RAPD and PCR markers have been identified for Sorghum giganteum and Erianthus spp. that can assist in the selection of interspecific sugarcane hybrids (Pan et al., 2000).The feasibility of using comparative genomic in situ hybridization (GISH) and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) to identify the parental genomes in an interspecific hybrid between S. officinarum and E. arundinaceus (D'Hont et al., 1995), and a commercial hybrid, R 570, has been shown (D'Hont et al., 1996). With further developments, microsatellite markers could soon become a tool for genetic fingerprinting, genetic mapping and to assist in selecting specific, genetically diverse parents for use in introgression (Cordeiro and Henry, 1999). The development of marker-assisted selection would have a major potential use in introgressing a single quantitative trait locus (QTL) or multiple QTL from an ancestral species into commercial cane (Kearsey and Pooni, 1996). The search for molecular markers for disease resistance (MSIRI, 1999), and sucrose genes (N. Jannoo, MSIRI, 2000, personal communication) to assist in breeding and selection work at the MSIRI may be extended to prebreeding material and could reduce the number of backcrosses necessary to recover the recipient genotype near to the donor target genes.Plant biodiversity represents the primary source for food, feed, shelter, medicines and many other products and means that make life on Earth possible and enjoyable (WCMC, 1992;UNEP, 1995). The number of plant species used by humans around the world (Table 30.1) is only one-third of the number of species which generations of diverse cultures around the world have drawn upon to develop crops that would meet specific needs. The centres of diversification of most common cultivated species are known today (Zeven and de Wet, 1982), but for many other species of local importance, knowledge of the distribution of their genetic diversity and use patterns is still largely limited. Increased reliance on major food crops has been accompanied by a shrinking of the food basket which humankind has been relying upon for generations (Prescott-Allen and Prescott- Allen, 1990). This nutritional paradox (Ogle and Grivetti, 1995) has its roots in the agricultural 'simplification', a process that favoured some crops instead of others on the basis of their comparative advantages for growing in a wider range of habitats, their simple cultivation requirements, easier processing and storability, nutritional properties, taste and so on. Though the simplification process lowered food quality, it increased the chances of successful harvests, which in turn allowed survival through nar-row but abundant sustenance (Collins and Hawtin, 1999). However, the shrinking of agricultural biodiversity has reduced both the intra-and interspecific diversity of crops, increasing the level of vulnerability among users, particularly the poorer sections, for whom diversity in crops is a necessity for survival rather than a choice. Extensive literature documents the dramatic effects of genetic erosion in staple crops (Fowler and Mooney, 1990 and references therein), comparably less has been published, however, on the effects of the narrowing of the food basket leading to reduced quality of life.A change in attitude has been noticeable over the last 5-10 years among policy-makers and the public with regard to the quality of life as related to the quality of food as well as diverse sources of food. Vitamins and other micronutrients are, for instance, being searched for in crops and plant species with greater emphasis than in the past in recognition of their role in combating diet imbalances. Although 'hidden hunger' affects mainly developing countries, particularly children and older people (FAO, 1997), it is increasingly being recorded also among the more vulnerable social groups in developed nations.If the 20th century witnessed the undertaking of systematic collecting to rescue the genetic resources of staple crops (Pistorius, 1997), the 21st century has started with the awareness of the need to rescue and improve the use of those crops left commercialization of underutilized crops and species') (UNEP, 1992;FAO, 1996a). The Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) in 1999 also emphasized the role of underutilized species in raising income of the rural poor (Frison et al., unpublished).This chapter addresses some aspects related to improving the conservation and use of neglected and underutilized crops through the experiences of the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) (Padulosi et al., 1999) and the International Center for Underutilized Crops (ICUC) (Smith, 1997), both of which have been directly involved with these species since their establishment.Perhaps no agriculture term has raised more discussions among workers than the word underutilized. Underutilized is commonly applied to refer to species whose potential has not been fully realized. The term itself does not provide any information as to geographical (underutilized where?), social (underutilized by whom?) and economic (underutilized to what degree?) implications. It is thus not surprising that whenever underutilized species are being addressed in national or international fora there is inevitably a call for a clarification over the exact meaning of such a term. The following are some examples to explain the source of confusion on this term. With regard to the geographical distribution, often a species could be underutilized in some regions but not in others. The cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) is, for instance, a staple crop for millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa, but is considered as an underutilized crop in some Mediterranean countries where it was once widely used and now is grown in some restricted areas (Padulosi et al., 1987). Similarly chickpea (Cicer arietinum), considered by many Italian scientists as an underutilized species in their country, is a main pulse crop in Syria and other countries in West Asia. Regarding the socio-economic implication of the term, many species represent an important component of the daily diet of millions of people (such as leafy vegetables in sub-Saharan Africa) (Guarino, 1997) but their poor marketing conditions make them largely underutilized in economic terms. With regard to the time factor, the degree of underuse of a crop may be subject to a sudden improvement due to dynamic marketing systems present in some countries while the same crop may continue to be poorly marketed and managed by researchers in others. This is the case, for instance, for the vegetable rocket (collective name for the species Eruca sativa, Diplotaxis tenuifolia and Diplotaxis muralis). Rocket has become a highly priced vegetable in Europe through innovative cultivation and commercial practices (Pimpini and Enzo, 1997), while it is among the cheapest vegetables in Egypt and a rich source of micronutrients for the poorer classes (Mohamedien, 1995). The importance of this crop for millions of people in Egypt has, however, not been enough to convince local policy-makers to give it the attention that it deserves. A similar case is that of hulled wheats, a collective name for Triticum monococcum, Triticum dicoccum and Triticum spelta. This is an important speciality crop in Italy and other European countries where ex situ and in situ conservation are being supported along with considerable research efforts (Padulosi et al., 1996b). However, it is a typical 'life support' crop in remote areas of Turkey with the very last relic populations of T. monococcum being cultivated in poor subsistence farming systems (Karagöz, 1996).Underutilized crops are often being presented as 'new crops' (Vietmeyer, 1990) because commercial companies/researchers have only recently been working on them. In reality, local populations over generations have used these species. Yet the loss of local knowledge and thus the increasing ignorance of new generations of the traditional uses of these crops also contribute to portraying such a misleading image. Of course, a crop can be completely new to an area simply because it has been introduced there recently from a distant country as in the case of the kiwi fruit, unknown outside China or New Zealand until recently (Ferguson, 1999), and of the Annona fruit (custard apple) introduced into Lebanon in the recent past.Because of recurrent confusion among workers on the distinction between the term underutilized and neglected, it is worthwhile reporting here IPGRI's definitions (Eyzaguirre et al., 1999) for these two categories of crops:• Many underutilized crops were once more widely grown but are today falling into disuse for a variety of agronomic, genetic, economic and cultural factors. Farmers and consumers are using these crops less because they are in some way not competitive with other crop species in the same agricultural environment. The general decline of these crops may erode the genetic base and prevent the use of distinctive useful traits in crop adaptation and improvement. • Neglected crops are those grown primarily in their centres of origin or centres of diversity by traditional farmers, where they are still important for the subsistence of local communities. Some species may be globally distributed, but tend to occupy special niches in the local ecology and in production and consumption systems. While these crops continue to be maintained by sociocultural preferences and use practices, they remain inadequately characterized and neglected by research and conservation.The understanding of the causes behind the low level of use and/or neglect of a crop is, however, what is ultimately needed in order to design an appropriate strategy to address its improvement. In the rest of this chapter, in the interests of readability, we use underutilized in its 'broad sense' to refer to both underutilized and neglected species, unless specified in the text.'United commodities stand! Divided new crops fail!' This remark made in a paper addressing the prospects of new crops in the USA at the 1990 International Conference on Advances in New Crops (Duke, 1990) captures the feeling of many workers engaged in the promotion of underutilized crops. Though it is true that the funding for addressing research and hence improvement of these species around the world is still extremely small, other important factors, similarly determinant in the promotion process, should not be underestimated. For example, during a participatory conference organized by IPGRI in 1998 in Aleppo, Syria, on 'Priority Setting for Underutilized and Neglected Plant Species of the Mediterranean region' (Padulosi, 1999a), ten major categories of constraints were identified as most relevant for the promotion of underutilized species. As Table 30.2 shows, some of the constraints were not linked to lack of funds as their solution lies in the strategic mobilization of existing resources to address the real problems hampering the full utilization of the species.Most challenges in the promotion of underutilized species are now well understood and appreciated and have been addressed in numerous works (Sankary, 1977;Hawkes, unpublished;Lazaroff, 1989;von Maydell, 1989;De Groot and Haq, 1995;FAO, 1996b;Bhag Mal et al., 1997;Maxted et al., 1997;Monti, 1997;Heywood, 1999;Padulosi, 1999a). However, an increasingly key issue in improving the use of underutilized species is the globalization of the agricultural market. This is part of a much wider phenomenon that is changing our life dramatically and includes urbanization, loss of small commercial activities replaced by large enterprises, the homogenization of local cultures as a result of the spreading of a few models and cultures and improved communication. With specific reference to agriculture, globalization is bringing about a further specialization in favour of a few crops that might best serve the 'global village'. Obviously, this trend will lead to a much narrower agricultural basket, estimated to hold only some 150 widely commercialized crops (Prescott-Allen and Prescott- Allen, 1990), in favour of some commodities which will enter newer areas, displacing local ones.For many supporters of the globalization process, this is the great opportunity for economic growth, but for many more it is a dealer of illusions, carrying prospects of a wealthy life that cannot be met and hiding the high cost to pay in terms of loss of sustainability, traditions, culture and local economies. Without entering the debate over the issue of globalization, we would like to respond to the question that is raised on many occasions by those who see no future for underutilized crops in the global village: why should underutilized species be promoted in an increased global world if these are characterized by regional, national or local importance? The answer is very simple: securing the resource base of underutilized species, particularly in developing countries, is crucial to maintain the 'safety net' of diversified food and natural products that has provided options to address food needs in a sustainable way (Eyzaguirre et al., 1999). Diversification in agricultural systems is indeed an important asset for those fragile social groups who may never be able to afford certain commodities. To these groups, the more diversified the portfolio the greater their self-sustainability and self-reliance in the difficult areas they live, often characterized by conditions not suitable for the cultivation of improved varieties of commodity crops.Generally speaking, plants are a fundamental component of the natural resource available to the poor and the role played by underutilized species is indeed central to reducing poverty and empowering the poor so as to allow poor rural communities to pursue resources-based rather than commodity-based development (Burgess, 1994;Blench, 1997). But the people who benefit from underutilized species in a globalized world are not just the poor. The benefits in terms of more balanced diets, diversified income to farmers as well as related sectors of society, better maintenance of agroecosystems and greater use of marginal lands along with enhanced preservation of cultural identity (Padulosi, 1999b and references therein) can be shared by all humankind.In developing work on underutilized crops, research and development agencies face substantial problems. The most obvious is that of deciding which crops to work on. Picking the right species from a broad group of potential candidates is a necessary step to make the best use of limited (as is always the case in this area) resources. Selecting species that can be used as a 'case study' may be possible and will also help to build up a knowledge base in the promotion process and thus enhance future efforts on other underutilized crops.The selection of the species should be based on the analysis of its contribution to meet the goal that has been set out. The ultimate goal may, however, vary among stakeholders. For organizations like IPGRI and ICUC, the goals in the work on underutilized species include the improvement of food security; enhancement of nutritional balances, sus-tainability in agriculture and alleviation of poverty through income generation. The contribution of the species will, therefore, be assessed against their present contribution to meet these goals as well their potential contribution to be realized after intervention. Needless to say, the longer the list of criteria we set out for the selection, the more difficult the selection process will be. The 12 criteria recommended for the selection of underutilized food producing trees developed by von Maydell (1989) given in Table 30.3 would certainly be useful to guide the process, but it is unlikely that we would find a single species that would meet all of them.The complexity of the selection process is made even more challenging by the limited and poor quality of information available on these species. Ultimately, the key factor for a successful selection is the involvement of direct users in the selection process. Adopting this approach will ensure that the species is favoured by the ultimate recipient of our efforts, farmers, rural and forest dwellers. Such an approach was followed by IPGRI in its project on leafy vegetables supported by the Dutch Government, which focused on leafy vegetables in five sub-Saharan African countries. During the first phase of this project, the surveys carried out together with farmers have yielded enough elements to select a number of priority species (Table 30.4) that can be used in the second phase of the project, which will focus on crop and market improvement.The views of farmers and other stakeholders (universities, research centres, private groups, etc.) should be seen as dynamic and subject to shift in emphasis with regard to type of crop, depending on changes in opportunities and needs. Today, for instance, an increased interest is recorded among national and Table 30.3. List of criteria for the selection of food producing trees and shrubs in semiarid regions (von Maydell, 1989).They should meet demands They should solve problems They should be accepted by people There should be no legal restriction They should have low risk They should be free from negative properties or effects They should be adapted to site conditions They should be easy and safe to establish, with low inputs They should have fast growth They should produce high yields The quality of products should be good The crops should be compatible with other land use international research organizations towards medicinal and aromatic species in view of their role in improving the health of poor and their contribution to combat poverty through income generation (Leaman et al., 1999). Attention to underutilized species may also originate from considerations that are not directly related to food security or poverty alleviation, but to the need to safeguard artistic, landscape and cultural values of these species. This was, for instance, the objective of the international workshop organized by the Italian National Research Council (CNR) in 1997 in Naples (Monti, 1997).Securing the resource base of underutilized species is a key component of the whole promotion process and is central to IPGRI's concerns. The maintenance of genetic diversity through a complementary ex situ and in situ approach can ensure that all users, including farmers and breeders, will have the access to material to carry out their activities. In order to understand the relationship between conservation and the other elements in the promotion process, it is useful to see how conservation fits within the whole process. Table 30.5 lists some of the major problem areas that can be identified for underutilized crops and the ways in which they might be addressed. Access to appropriate plant material can be an important factor in addressing most of the areas identified and is particularly relevant to tackle the first two, namely securing genetic resources and documenting and using traditional knowledge.The provision of genetic diversity to allow crop improvement has been a central element of the Green Revolution (CGIAR, 1994). One of the most important elements of successful work on underutilized crops will be the full recognition of the importance of the work to safeguard their genetic diversity and to ensure its fullest use. The establishment of germplasm collections for underutilized species has been advocated in the Global Plan of Action of FAO (FAO, 1996a) and is one key element of the promotion process pursued by several other international organizations, including IPGRI and ICUC. However, the evidence suggests that ex situ conservation of many underutilized species is highly inadequate. More than 6 million accessions of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture are conserved today in some 1300 germplasm collections around the world. Although the number of these collections is an impressive one, an analysis of the type of crop plants they contain is disappointing: about 80% of these belong to major crops and their close relatives. The remaining 20% are other crops, including underutilized crops, which are very poorly represented (less than eight accessions per species) (Padulosi, 1999b). Figure 30.1 shows in detail the statistics related to such a situation.We must concede that there will never be sufficient resources for large-scale, formal conservation activities. Hence, in order to achieve sustainability of the process, conservation and use must be closely linked; thus 'conservation through use' becomes important. Most of the conservation will in practice be through the continued use of these species in production systems. For example, in the case of the African leafy vegetables, the understanding of the users' needs (species with larger leaf area per plant and delayed flowering) is crucial to strengthen the on-farm maintenance of those crops. Another crucial strategic aspect in the sustainable promotion of underutilized species is adding value to existing crops. Cleome gynandra, for instance, a leafy vegetable with insect repellent properties can be very valuable in intercropping systems. Interestingly, many underutilized species have multiple uses and do not belong to any one specific category of crops (food, medicinal, ornamental, etc.). This means that high levels of diversity will be needed in production systems to meet different production environments, user needs and uses. The material in production provides one element of an integrated conservation strategy where the ex situ collections remain small and are developed through sharper analyses of crop distribution patters, genetic diversity, and so on. On the other hand, greater efforts for the gathering of information on the distribution, use and traditional knowledge of these crops will need to be pursued as such data will be very valuable to improve future access to material by researchers and other users. Securing material in pro-duction as well as the information on material that is already in production therefore becomes an important element in the strategy for conserving the diversity of underutilized species.Since needs and use are often primarily local, so the actions will be local and community-based. Local mechanisms that support the deployment of useful diversity will need to be strengthened. For example, household 'filieres', largely run by women, built in rural and forest areas typically around multiple uses of the same crop, should be improved or established anew if no longer present. These chains, linking farmers up to final end-users, play a critical role in securing revenues to rural communities and thus fuelling the very mechanism that will maintain the diversity of these species in the field (see also following chapter on the filiere issue).Efforts so far have been directed to raise the awareness of the need to work on underutilized species and to start redressing their status of neglect. An area that has not been investigated yet is the analysis of when a species will evolve from its status of underuse and neglect to become a well-utilized crop. This is a very relevant point if we want to make sure our efforts will lead ultimately to the 'full promotion stage' beyond which the crop will no longer be considered underutilized. It is also very relevant to ensure that efforts to promote a specific crop have the desired effects with respect to the interests and needs of poor farmers, the maintenance of diversity and strengthening sustainability of production. It has to be recognized that some efforts on underutilized crops (e.g. kiwi, before it became an important commodity) have done none of these things.Below are some of the issues that we should consider in developing a monitoring system for assessing the impact of our promotion process.• Conservation aspects 1. How many accessions should be conserved (in situ and ex situ) to safeguard the representative genetic diversity of these species and to provide at the same time the variability needed by breeders and users in general? 2. Given the new opportunities brought about by gene transfer, how broad should our efforts be in the conservation of the genepool of the species? Should we include the tertiary genepool in our collecting efforts? 3. What should be the minimum level of knowledge on the ecogeographical distribution of the taxa and its genetic erosion status? 4. How much local knowledge should be safeguarded? • Utilization aspects 1. What would be the level at which we would consider the economy of the species self-sustainable? 2. What is the research threshold, that is the minimum amount of research addressing the economic development of the crop, beyond which we would consider the species 'properly addressed'? 3. What would be the minimum information needed on nutritional aspects and processing aspects required for successful industrial applications? • Agronomic aspects 1. What should be the minimum know-how required for enabling a proper cultivation of the species?2. What basic information should be required for understanding the multiplication method and regeneration capacity of the species? 3. What should be the minimum level of information on pests, diseases and other cultivationrelated problems? • Policy-legal aspects 1. What basic policy framework should be used to enable the proper deployment of the species among the farmers? 2. What should be the minimum level of policy attention required to ensure a sustainable use of these resources (particularly for wild species)?The need for informationThe availability of information has been always a major constraint in the promotion of underutilized species. This will continue to be so, particularly with regard to the monitoring of the points raised above. For this reason, it is important to stress the need for a change in attitude while reporting the agricultural statistics at both national and international levels. The agricultural statistics year book of FAO could, for instance, also be broadened in its scope by using less general figures (e.g. root and tuber crops) and by including crops that are not commodities but that are being marketed and for which information may already be available at national level. The possibility of accessing these data to guide workers at local level should be also addressed. Opportunities for strengthening informatics capacities, for instance one computer per village managed by local extension officers, should not be seen as far fetched.Improving the availability of information on underutilized crops is one of the most important areas demanding our immediate attention. At the formal level, individual studies on underutilized crops continue to need support to ensure their publication. Further studies that bring together the sparse and often inaccessible literature are also needed. At local level, there is a need to gather and document information that is maintained within farming communities. The recognition of the value of this by researchers and scientists can often act as a powerful stimulus to improve a community's own valuation of the knowledge.The work on underutilized species is perhaps the most challenging endeavour in the history of plant genetic resources since the early 1970s, a period that witnessed a world race to rescue landraces of major crops (Pistorius, 1997). The Green Revolution was made possible by the use of that collected diversity but also thanks to the strengthening of national and international research to address the improvement of these major crops. Today, underutilized species will perhaps never command such a major undertaking as major crops did and they will thus need a different approach for their promotion.Such an approach would have as its most strategic part, the so called 'filiere'. Filiere is a French word used to define the link between all stakeholders and activities starting from the collection, use enhancement, policy definition to marketing and commercialization. Such a chain of actors, which is needed at local, regional, national and international level, will allow us to cover research aspects but also marketing and policy issues usually dealt with in isolation. The filiere concept can be considered an evolution of the networking concept for plant genetic resources based on more efficient partnership and participatory approaches. The filiere would thus bring about greater participation of local actors to ensure the addressing of local needs properly. It would also ensure the wider representation and participation of stakeholders of the food processing and marketing sector as well policy makers who have traditionally been left aside from plant genetic resource activities (Padulosi, 1999c).Such a partnership for underutilized species in many cases will have to be re-invented, and this should not discourage partners. The filiere approach will build up a more coherent system to meet the multiplicity of challenges in the promotion of underutilized species. Although the filiere will consist of, particularly, local, regional and national players, there will be a role for international organizations to ensure that lessons learnt in one region can benefit other regions. The strengthening of the links among international stakeholders involved in the promotion of underutilized species is indeed strategic to allow best use of existing capacities and promote synergism across regions.Underutilized species constitute a category defined by their social value and status. For this reason people and farmers play an important role in reversing their decline in use and arresting their genetic erosion. Farmers and forest dwellers are the source of information for revealing the potentials of these species, their distribution and local use. Participatory research should therefore be actively pursued among stakeholders, particularly in the following areas:• constraint analyses ('production to consumption') and development of strategic work plans for enhancing seed/germplasm selection and supply, production, processing, commercialization, marketing (greater cooperation between private sector and extension workers); • characterization and evaluation work using formal descriptors and farmers' criteria (closer cooperation between informal associations/NGOs and international and national research organizations); • development/strengthening the seed supply systems, both formal and informal (closer participation of farmers in government-led efforts); • participatory plant breeding and selection activities (bridging the gap between farmers' needs and breeders' objectives).Neglected and underutilized crops are essential to the livelihoods of millions of poor farmers throughout the world. As noted above, they are part of the (threatened) biological assets of the rural poor. In identifying research and development issues that should be addressed, it is essential to approach the problem from this perspective. Trying to convert an underutilized crop into some modern high value commodity may not only be inappropriate to a community's real needs and concerns, it may actually be counter-productive. Similarly it does nothing to address the problems for the remaining hundreds of underutilized crops.One key strategic element involves the deliberate attempt to explore how conservation and use can be combined to secure the resource base of such crops. The approaches may differ, depending on whether the crop is seed propagated or clonally propagated, annual or perennial, outbreeding or self-pollinated. However the basic questions remain the same. What is the smallest size of ex situ collection that can cover substantial amounts of diversity and how can it be most economically maintained? How much diver-sity will remain in production systems and how can this be monitored? How can resources be secured through linkages and collaborations, involving producers, consumers, the formal and informal sectors, to ensure that both conservation through use and conservation for use can be sustained?New technologies (e.g. molecular genetics and geographical information systems (GIS)) will certainly play their part in the process of developing conservation and use strategies. There are already a number of examples which show how useful they can be (Young et al., 1999); but often only in small-scale research activities that need scaling up. Perhaps there needs to be some deliberate determination of the way in which these powerful tools can be best used for such crops.As implied above, there is also much work to be done on the development of sustainable linkages between organizations, farmers and consumers. It will always be unlikely that any one organization will have the resources to support work on the scale needed for the individual underutilized crop. Hence the interest in networks and filieres. A major challenge is how to make these networks perform and to make them sustainable.Strengthened community involvement in the management of underutilized crops and a deliberate attention to resourcing their needs for new materials (and securing access to existing ones) will provide a basis for some more work on key production issues. The first of these is obviously that of the development of improved materials. Participatory plant breeding approaches may not only be an important element of the work on these crops; it may be the only feasible approach to obtaining improved materials. Similarly, participatory approaches may be essential to resolving other production and marketing constraints.Ultimately, we have to recognize that underutilized crops present their own range of problems and opportunities. These are important to many farmers in ways that are complementary to and different from their concerns for the major crops. Attempting to copy large crop solutions across to these species will help neither the improved conservation and use of the crops nor the interests of the farmers who grow them. Developing an agenda specific to the crops must be recognized as an important and continuing need.Over the past half century, with the rapid increase in global population, depletion of our genetic resources has been occurring at a rapid pace. Conservation of biodiversity and genes in wild species is imperative; hence major efforts to manage and conserve our biosphere's natural resources have been made, initially in the genebanks for cultivated plants and now for wild plants. Use of biotechnological tools for more effective conservation is also occurring. There is a need for further enhancing these efforts in the 21st century to conserve plant genetic resources of all habitats on which human as well as animal life depends. In these efforts, a genebank, whether it be of clones, seeds, tissues or pollen, is a 'bottled' miniature biosphere, protected and preserved in a contracted space, facilitating quick access and use (Kaplan, 1998).Genebanking is a global effort, aiming at the well being of humanity and should embrace the biodiversity of all continents. The plant diversity of Saudi Arabia should also be preserved so as to contribute to global progress. The present initiative aims to aid the preservation of the genes and germplasm of all categories of plants in Saudi Arabia, both wild and cultivated.King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), having appreciated the value of the country's genetic resources, is currently launching a project aiming at establishing a national plant genebank. This project intends to undertake collection, evaluation, preservation and documentation of genetic variation in wild and cultivated plants in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the first phase, which would eventually extend to endemic and endangered plants.The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia lies between 15°45Ј and 34°35Ј N and 34°40Ј and 55°45Ј E (Chaudhary and Al-Jowaid, 1999). Occupying the lion's share of the Arabian Peninsula, the Kingdom, with an area of c. 2,200,000 km 2 , contains significant diversity of arid vegetation. The diverse physiographic (Fig. 31.1) features coupled with their peculiar climates have influenced the vegetation remarkably.Though there is a vast expanse of desert in the Kingdom, Saudi Arabia is not totally a desert. The mountain ranges bordering the western seashore, rising from 500 m or so, run into escarpments as high as 3000 m (Chaudhary and Al-Jowaid, 1999). This mountain system receives more rain than other parts of the country, and holds arborescent vegetation with high species richness. The shrubby and herbaceous life forms subtended by the arborescent vegetation also tend to be diverse.Numerous small and large interlaced wadis are distributed throughout the country. Because of the slow seepage of moisture preserved beneath the adjoining landmasses, the lower landscapes forming the wadis hold a better soil moisture regime and shelter more species than the adjoining areas. These wadis provide shelter for a large segment of the flora of the country.The inland sabkhas, coastal salt marshes, and the littoral tidal zones host diverse halophytic communities. The relief features edging the Arabian shield are also peculiar niches for particular kinds of plants. The Rub' al-Khali, the Nafud and the Dahna are vast sand expanses, which experience extreme aridity (Abd El-Rehman, 1986). Although sparse and species poor, flora comprising species characteristically adapted to the extremes of the xeric climate inhabit these deserts.Surrounded by the Mediterranean, Near East, and Abyssinian (Ethiopian) and Indian centres, Arabia is an important plant diversity centre (Miller and Cope, 1996;Al-Farhan, 1999). The Peninsula provides some of the least man-modified landscapes and life forms within the Irano-Turanian phytochorion (Boulos et al., 1994). Saudi Arabia is also an ancient cultural centre housing many agricultural crops and practices.Until recently, floristic botany in the Arabian Peninsula received low priority. The hostile desert environment, the extremely hot climate and the recurring droughts in many places were responsible for this, in addition to the paucity of trained botanists in the region. Migahid and Hammoda's (1978) Flora of Saudi Arabia is out of date and since then, a large number of new taxa and extension of distribution of some taxa have been reported (see Table 31.1). A comprehensive floristic treatment on a par with modern botanical practices is yet to emerge (Miller and Cope, 1996), though excellent floristic accounts exist for some regions (Mandaville, 1990). The pictorial guide to the flora of the Kingdom by Collenette (1999) was a significant task, but a truly scientific flora for the Kingdom is only now emerging (Chaudhary, 1999). Except for random efforts, provincial checklists (Al-Turki, 1997), illustrated guides (Heemstra et al., 1990) and floras (Mandaville, 1990) are far from the main focus. According to a recent compendium, the total number of flowering plant species in the country is estimated to be about 2500 (Collenette, 1998(Collenette, , 1999)). Zohary (1973) reviewed the potential of wild plant resources of the Middle East and South-west Asia. He discussed plants used by man through the ages and the 19th century nomads, who collected and utilized the locally occurring wild plants for food, fruits, condiments, healing, fuel, industrial uses, fencing, shade, pot herbs and so on. The genepools enumerated by Zohary (1973) still exist and need the attention of scientists working in the field of agriculture and biotechnology.Since the oil boom that started in the first half of the 20th century, plant-based resource utilization of the natives has expanded significantly. In one way or another, the number of cultivated plant varieties and species in the Kingdom has increased by at least twofold since the 1930s, making it extremely rich and catering to the interests of the people.Saudi Arabia is an active importer of food material; however, in the case of wheat, it is self-sufficient and is an exporter. The cultivation of imported varieties has resulted in gradual disappearance of local races of wheat, but some of them are still grown in some parts of the Kingdom. The genus Aegilops (goatgrass), said to be the progenitor of cultivated wheats (Triticum sp.), is represented by three variable hardy species (Aegilops kotschyi Boiss., Aegilops peregrina (Hack.) Maire & Weiller, and Aegilops vavilovii (Zhuk.) Chennav.) in the Kingdom (Chaudhary, 1989;Collenette, 1998). Aegilops species grow in wheat fields and probably hybridize with them. Triticum dicoccum or emmer was cultivated in the middle ages and is the oldest known wheat, which cannot be easily threshed due to sub-persistent glumes. Even after the introduction of improved varieties, many landraces of wheat and barley exist here (Boulos et al., 1994). Along with the northern mountains of Yemen, the Asir mountains in south-western Saudi Arabia have been identified to be an important location for collecting wild wheats. Other important cereal crops widely cultivated along the up-country include maize and sorghum. The International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) notes that the south-western Arabian Peninsula is a primary centre of diversification of Sorghum.A variety of fruit crops are grown in the country, supplementing the diet of the population. Date, mango, orange, plantains, grapes, lemon, fig and so on are cultivated on a large scale in different parts of the country, especially along Najran and Asir. Out of the c. 5000 named cultivars of date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.; Arabic: Nakhl, Balh) (Anonymous, 1914;Al-Ghamdi, 1996), c. 400 cultivars (Sawaya, 1986) exist in the Kingdom. However, only 50-60 of these are considered economically important. A variety of products derived from date palm are exported in large quantities. A seedless date and another extremely sweet variety, 'sukkri', are elite cultivars preferred by people. Ziziphus spina-christi L.(Shajrat Sidr or Nabek), one of the few truly Arabian native tree species (Mandaville, 1990), is grown in towns and villages along with the many exotics now introduced and well adapted to the Saudi Arabian environment and bears pleasant tasting edible berries (Anonymous, 1992), which are stored by Bedouins. The pomegranate, Punica granatum L. (Arabic: Rumman), is another fruit represented by cultivated and wild varieties.The rangeland spanning 14,000 km 2 is a megarefugium of wild resources of fodder and forage plants. The Arabian Peninsula is considered important for the genepool of lucerne (Medicago sativa L. Fabaceae). Forage crops in the wild that cattle, camels and sheep prefer need to be identified, evaluated and selected.Originally introduced from Ethiopia (Boulos et al., 1994), qahwa arabia (Arabic coffee) is a hospitality drink of Arabian countries. Arabic coffee (Coffea arabica Benth., Rubiaceae) is widely cultivated on the terraced mountain slopes of the highlands of Yemen and south-western Saudi Arabia (in Jizan, Al-Baha and Abha provinces). It is a traditional cash crop of individual holdings at above 1500 m. Coffee cultivation is integrated with sheep farming, where the sheep yield the fertilizer.In recent years, a large number of smaller trees and shrubs have been introduced into the country as hedge plants or as avenue trees, including species of Atriplex (Chenopodiaceae), Prosopis, Australian Acacia and Pithecellobium (Mimosaceae), Tamarindus (Caesalpiniaceae), and many others. At least some of them might have acclimatized and naturalized in semi-urban environments. These are also genepools of value for the future.A wide variety of vegetables like onion, okra, aubergine, potato, tomato, carrot, cabbage, turnip, different kinds of pumpkins, cucumbers and gourds, chilli, sugarbeet and a host of pulses and leafy vegetables from different parts of the world are being cultivated in different parts of the country, in open fields as well as under controlled conditions. These provide an excellent kaleidoscopic mixture of different cultivars from Egypt, Yemen, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Philippines, in addition to native Saudi Arabian cultivars. While the introduced species have contributed to the richness of the plant resources of the country, the fact remains that they have also been responsible for the neglect of many native cultivars and wild plants. Efforts to locate these germplasm should be an important aspect of biodiversity conservation in the Kingdom.Approximately 2243 native flowering plant species are known from the Kingdom (Al-Farhan, 2000). Roughly 20% of the species (500 spp.) are found only in limited habitats, 656 exist only as small populations, 100 are endangered or of vulnerable status, c. 40 are endemic and 30 are on the verge of extinction (NCWCD, 1998;Al-Farhan, 2000). Floristic explorations and critical studies of selected plant groups by experts continue to add new species and new records of which a significant number (nearly 40%) fall to the endemic and rare categories or with restricted distribution (Table 31.1). El-Sheikh et al. (1989) and NCWCD (1998) list the existing and potential threats to plant biodiversity. Wood cutting, over-grazing, offroad driving, agriculture, urbanization and drought are the main threats, and Collenette (1999) notes that four endemic and 18 non-endemic species have become extinct in the Kingdom. 1. M. laurifolia (Forssk.) Friis is a rare tree of the ravine forests and scrubs between 600 and 1100 m msl. This species is also found in a number of countries, such as Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Yemen. It is restricted to areas with precipitation in the cooler months (Friis, 1980). In Saudi Arabia, the tree is known to have scattered distribution of sparse populations in the wadis of the Jizan Province, like Wadi Jora. Very recently, two trees of the species have been located by the author and his team in the hill folds of Jabal Shada (Al-Baha Province, a mountain escarpment), in a seasonal streamlet. Regeneration of the tree has not been observed in situ.2. F. albida (Delile) A. Chev. (Fabaceae), another large tree mimicking the rainforest trees in size (to 4 m girth), inhabits the wadis cutting the mountain ranges of the Taif region (Wadi Al-Quyrat, Wadi Nail and Wadi Sharan: Al-Turki and Mehmood personal observation). The species is again restricted to one or two sites within the country with densities as low as 10-15 per population. 3. K. pendula (Forssk.) Sch.-Bip. (Compositae) is another curious plant with beautiful red flowers and a leafless stem. The author, during various field trips, has confirmed the endangered species status given to it by El-Sheikh et al. (1989). The plant has so far been known only from two localities in Jabal Fayfa (Jizan Province), one of the mountain ranges of the south-western corner of Saudi Arabia. Very little is known about the range of distribution of the species and there is every possibility that it may become extinct, unless protected. 4. B. salicina (Vahl) Hepper & Wood (Rubiaceae) is a tall tree up to 20 m in height and 2 m in diameter growing along high escarpments from 500 to 2000 m. Though common in Yemen, its population is very thin in Saudi Arabia, where it is classified as endangered (Collenette, 1999). Our recent explorations indicate its presence in the Al-Baha Province too (at Jabal Shada), again being represented by a sparse population comprising just three or four trees (Al-Turki and Swarupanandan, personal observation). 5. Salicornia (Chenopodiaceae) is an oil-seed crop used in saline agriculture (Glenn et al., 1991). In the course of the explorations for halophytes in the country, we have come across two species of Salicornia, probably new, one of which inhabits inland sabkhas of Al-Qassim (Central Province). The normal vigorous form of the latter species is a robust shrublet, measuring as much as 130 cm in diameter and 60 cm or more in height. The natural home of the plant being inland sabkha (salt marsh), it is highly salt-tolerant, and may grow in the coastal environment too. It is a promising species which may stand in lieu of Salicornia bigelovii (a crop cultivated with saline water: see Glenn et al., 1991), or may be a good genetic material for hybridization with the latter (Al-Turki and Swarupanandan, 2001).With roots running prior to the philosopher and physician Avicenna (Ibn-e Senna: 980-1037), Arabia has a rich tradition of herbal medicine (Ghazanfar, 1994) which blended with Greek practices to become what is known as the unani system. The tradition is still alive with the village people of the countryside. According to Ghazanfar (1994), there are about 260 medicinal plant species in the Arabian Peninsula, including some of the commonly used exotic species. It is evident that Ghazanfar (1994) missed listing several of the species mentioned by Mossa et al. (1987). El-Shanwani (1996) listed 319 species that are commonly used in Saudi folk medicine. Further surveys and contacts with elders of different tribes should yield interesting information on the local uses of native plants and would make the list still more lengthy. Al-Yahya et al. (1990) screened 150 Saudi plants for their pharmocological, phytochemical, pharmacognostical, antimicrobial and toxicological properties, providing valuable information on the richness of medicinally active constituents. Active constituents responsible for the action of plants men-tioned by Mossa et al. (1987) and El-Shanwani (1996) include: mucilage (Plantago sp.), phenols (Mentha and Thymus spp.), tannins (Acacia spp.), coumarins (Apium graveolens L., Ammi visnaga (L.) Lam), anthraquinones (Cassia senna L.), flavonoids (Citrus limmon L.), anthocyanin (Vitis vinifera L.), glucosilinates (Raphanus sativa, Sinapis alba L.), antiinflammatory volatile oils (Matricaria recutita L. ), saponins (Glycirrhiza glabra L., Chenopodium ambrosoides L.), glycosides (Datura spp.) and alkaloids (Salsola kali L.). Some species of the gymnosperm genus Ephedra yield ephedrine which is useful in cough syrup. Species of Datura (Solanaceae) contain alkaloids useful in cases of megalomania and species of Withania and Solanum (Solanaceae) yield alkaloids useful in many other situations. Several species of Commiphora (Burseraceae: 7-8 species) are also important in this context.In arid environments, there are a number of herbs which contain aromatic oils or substances useful in the manufacture of perfumes or insect repellents. Artemisia (Compositae), Lavandula (Labiatae), Ruta and Haplophyllum (Rutaceae) and many others are promising genera that require proper chemical screening. There are several plants which can form a basis for their industrial exploitation: Artemisia judaica, Balanites aegyptiaca, Commiphora spp., Ruta chaleppensis, Haplophyllum tuberculatum, Eruca sativa and Brassica spp.Along the highlands, Saudi Arabia has conifer forests which are restricted to the hilltops and composed of gregarious growth of Juniperus phoenicea L. in the north and Juniperus procera Hochst. ex Endl. in the south (Collenette, 1999). These species are ideal plantation species for valuable timber. It has been noted that some parts of the Juniperus forest are facing serious dieback (Gardner and Fisher, 1994;Fisher, 1997) which highlights the need for careful evaluation of different Juniperus germplasm for disease resistance and improvement.Deserts are unequalled segments of the arid parts of the biosphere containing many bushy shrubs and low trees useful in arid land reclamation. Species of Tamarix L. (Tamaricaceae), Ziziphus Mill. (Rhamnaceae) and Prosopis L. (Arabian mesquite, Mimosaceae) are important. Several species of Ficus suited to the arid environment, Dodonaea angustifolia L. f. (Sapindaceae), already used as a hedge plant in urban gardening, can also be considered for revegetation purposes. Both the western and eastern coasts of the country are feathered with scattered pockets of mangrove forests mostly composed of Avicennia marina (Forssk.) Viern. (Verbenaceae) and Rhizophora mucronata Lam. (Rhizophoraceae). Coastal land protection and reclamation are very important and some of the species mentioned here might become important for this purpose in the future.Much of the land in the country is affected by aridity, which is worsened by high soil salinity. Nearly 40% of the total land cover of the Kingdom is classified as saline, out of which approximately 4% is at the upper extreme (Ali, 1999;Al-Turki et al., 2000a). Shrubs and trees useful in arid saline land reclamation and the woody species protecting the coastal mangroves, are all greatly attuned to the saline environment. The genepools of many of these plants originated there and, by and large, are halophytes. A preliminary short listing shows that there are as many as 190 species of halophytes in the Kingdom, dominated by members of Chenopodiaceae (Al-Turki et al., 2000a). Some of these extreme drought and salt tolerant species should be investigated to improve the productivity of saline habitats.Ornamental plants are another ignored segment of the biodiversity of the country. Many succulents belonging to the families Asclepiadaceae, Compositae, Euphorbiaceae and Crassulaceae are very beautiful and are worth introducing to garden domestication. Tens of species of Caralluma and genera lately separated from it, species of Huernia, Stapelia, Duvalia, and curious species of the Asteracean genus Kleinia, the spiny shrubs of Euphorbia, hauntingly elegant species of Aloe with differing spikes and colour of flowers, some of the beautiful Portulaca and so on are excellent materials for rock gardens. Similarly there are several other plant species that could become ornamental plants directly or play a role as rootstocks for other flowering plants. Work needs to be done in this area.The initial work involved gathering information on plant species and their distribution. Riyadh, the capital city of the Kingdom, has five herbaria and by consulting the herbarium specimens and literature resources concerning localities, the distribution of plants in the Kingdom available with the herbaria were assembled. Additionally, the experts at the herbaria also helped to deal with the taxonomy and identification of the plants. The infrastructure facilities available in these institutions were put to use to establish a viable national genebank.Initially, we have collected 83 samples of seeds of 52 species of plants belonging to 35 genera from the Kingdom and documented the details (Table 31.2). Equal numbers of seeds from 50 plants from each of the population of a given species were collected. In the case of rare plants whatever was available from the surviving plants was gathered. The seeds collected include a large number of halophytes, and include species like Arthrocnemum macrostachyum (Moric.) K. Koch., Bienertia cycloptera Bunge, Chenopodium ambrosoides L., C. glaucum L., C. murale L., Halocnemum strobilaceum (Pall.) M. Bieb., Halopeplis perfoliata (Forssk.) Asch., Salicornia spp., Suaeda aegyptiaca (Hasselq.) Zohary, Suaeda maritima (L.) Dumourt., and Suaeda vermiculata Forssk. mostly belonging to Chenopodiaceae. The non-halophytes are represented by species like Dodonaea angustifolia L. f. (Sapindaceae), Faidherbia albida (Delile) A. Chev. (Fabaceae), Kleinia pendula (Forssk.) Sch.-Bip. (Compositae), Mimusops laurifolia (Forssk.) Friis (Sapotaceae), Rumex nervosus Vahl (Polygonaceae), Solanum incanum L. and Solanum surattense Burm. f. (Solanaceae).Samples were collected from habitats like coastal lagoons, inland sabkhas, wadis, sand dunes, lowand high-elevational plateaux and mountain escarpments. Species collected include many of the endemic and endangered taxa mentioned in previous sections. The seeds are stored at 5°C, processed for preservation at Ϫ18°C, and viability evaluated following conventional methods (Ellis et al., 1985). The genebank is planned to be multi-organizational and is expected to cater to the conservation requirements of the Kingdom. The genebank will be managed by the scientists of KACST, and other organizations involved would be King Saud University, the National Commission for Wildlife Conservation and the research stations of the Ministry of Agriculture and Water located in different parts of the Kingdom. The germplasm collected by staff of the agricultural research stations at Riyadh, Hofuf, Abha, Baha, Jizan, Al-Jouf and Qassim will be brought to the main seed storage facility under construction at KACST Experimental Station at Riyadh. The collections at the moment are seed-based and lodged at the Natural Resources and Environmental Research Institute of the KACST, where facilities for preservation of samples at Ϫ18 o C exist. The samples are to be replicated in more than one centre in the future.Our future plan envisages the conservation of germplasm of underused leguminous nitrogen fixers, wild relatives of crop plants, halophytes, plants useful in desert reclamation, native medicinal herbs, edible geophytes like Allium and other succulent ornamentals, and species belonging to the threatened and endangered categories. Special focus is envisaged on halophytes having economic potential as a source of raw materials in the pharmaceutical (Salsola tetrandra Forssk.) and paper (Juncus spp.) industries and as range plants (Kochia spp.) for livestock. Presently we have established a storage facility for seeds for a few months without causing physical damage or loss to their genetic variability according to the methods and techniques outlined by Roberts (1975) and Hanson (1985). In future we plan to conserve germplasm using the following techniques:1. Storage of recalcitrant seeds using liquid nitrogen (Villiers, 1975;Justice and Bass, 1978;Stanwood and Bass, 1981). 2. Pollen storage (Shivanna and Rangaswamy, 1992;Connor and Towill, 1993;Hoekstra, 1995). 3. Tissue culture, including cell/callus culture (D'Amato, 1975;Anonymous, 1985) and meristem/shoot tip cultures (Morel, 1975).Apart from our taxonomic database for the herbarium collections, a genebank database will be established where information on accessions will be stored and will be searchable. Once the database is organized, it should be available for use by scientists from the region and abroad. Links to other genebanks will also be established. A safety duplication of the material conserved in the genebank is also planned in different institutions in the future, against the risk of losing them. Any regional collaboration on the initiative will be highly appreciated. The absence of a genebank in the Arabian Peninsula has considerably hampered biotechnological progress and preservation of biodiversity. It is surprising that no collaborative effort has been made by Gulf Council Countries and international organizations such as IBPGR, IPGRI and FAO for establishing a genebank in the region for germplasm conservation.The facility developed for long-term storage of seeds collected so far is enough for initial collections but is in need of trained personnel for biotechnological experimentation and databasing of germplasm and herbarium collections. The genebanking of the entire flora of Saudi Arabia will be phased into a number of long-term stages involving several experts from within the Kingdom and developed countries in the fields of plant taxonomy, seed technology and physiology. Information on the local uses of native plants will be gathered through surveys and contacts with elders of different villages and tribes and incorporated in the database. The genebank information system would be supplemented with details of usefulness of taxa and their products, genetic variability, economic highlights, availability of the taxa in the wild and in the genebank. It will be made accessible on the Internet and linked to other germplasm resources so that information on our materials is available to the world community. Data on seed samples will be stored in a sophisticated management system which will be divided into three categories: sample identification, evaluation and inventory management.More than 360 plant species are reported to have their primary or secondary centres of origin in the Mediterranean region; such estimates do not take into account additional hundreds of useful species harvested directly from the wild and not yet domesticated (Eyzaguirre et al., 1999). Such a unique array of biodiversity is, however, in danger of disappearing forever, threatened by pollution, anthropogenic activities, urbanization, modern agricultural practices, land erosion, over-exploitation of natural habitats of high ecological value, and so on.The fungi are essential, yet little understood and often overlooked components of healthy ecosystems. Ignorance of the fungi, which is the second most diverse group of organisms after the insects, is revealed by the fact that only 5-10% of the existing fungal biodiversity has been discovered and described (Hawksworth, 1991). For most of the species identified very few data are available on their biology and most importantly on their ecological and/or economic value. Research in both the field and the laboratory has stressed the essential functions of these organisms in the recycling of organic matter and the release of nutrients into the soil, in preventing nutrient depletion, improving soil structure, and facilitat-ing reforestation through mycorrhiza formation, while some of these fungi produce basidiomata that are edible and nutritious. Given the many benefits that have been derived from a few fungal groups that are sufficiently understood, it is likely that the fungi are the most under-exploited group of organisms and possibly they possess the largest store of potential uses and applications for sustainable development.Although the international plant genetic resources movement has devoted much of its attention towards the collection and conservation of major food crops for ensuring fairly good representation of the genetic variability of the staples in world genebanks, the same cannot be said about its efforts to safeguard edible mushroom biodiversity. These species, like the minor plant species, do not contribute much as basic food; yet they do contribute significantly to diversifying the human diet, to provide important chemical compounds for the 'neutraceutical' industry (Chang, 1996), and most importantly have the potential to act as sources of additional income for farmers by adding value to agricultural by-products of low economic value. Therefore, their conservation is essential, as has already been the target in the case of 'underutilized' plant species by the Food and Agriculture Organization (IPGRI -Underutilized Mediterranean Species project).The topic of fungal conservation has only recently attracted the attention of mycologists. In the 1970s, only a few people worried about the fate of fungi, especially on the effects of mass collecting on some popular edible mushrooms. In the 1980s, reports started to appear on the prominent decrease of some groups of macrofungi in some countries (Arnolds, 1988;Fellner, 1989). The influence of mushroom picking appeared to be small in comparison with the effect of changes in the environment. Systematic mapping in some countries revealed essential information on the geographical distribution of macrofungi and showed the very limited occurrence and distribution of many species (Krieglsteiner, 1991;Nauta and Vellinga, 1992), hence the need to protect these sites. Today there is a widespread notion that many fungi are threatened and that efforts for their conservation are necessary. Air pollution presents a severe problem, whereas in the recent past national and international agricultural policies have led to a fast and irreversible loss of old and poorly managed pastures and their associated fungi. The same policies put at risk the few remains of old-growth forests with their characteristic wood-inhabiting fungi due to uncontrolled exploitation for timber. In addition, peat bogs with their few but strongly specialized fungi have been drained, and the existence of coastal sand dunes with their striking gasteromycetes is jeopardized because of the strong pressure of recreation and expansion of towns.About 300 species of macrofungi are considered to be endangered throughout Europe, on the basis of published national and regional lists (Ing, 1993). They are arranged in four categories depending on the degree and geographical extent of endangerment: A: widespread losses, rapidly declining populations, many national extinctions, high-level concern; B: widespread losses, evidence of steady decline, some national extinctions, medium level concern; C: widespread, but scattered, populations, fewer extinctions, low-level concern; and D: local losses, some extinctions but mainly at edge of geographical range.The evidence of losses is biased towards central, western and northern Europe, whereas for the southern and eastern regions of the continent data are scarce and fragmentary. It is striking that Red Lists for fungi do not exist in southern Europe. The lack of reliable information on distribution of fungi in Europe has repeatedly been indicated in the past, and it means that any conclusions drawn about decline are at most tentative and may even be misleading. Hence, any list to cover this continent as a whole must be a compromise, especially during a period of rapid climatic change to which the fungi are among the first organisms to respond.In Italy and Spain, fungal biodiversity has been more extensively studied in comparison with other Mediterranean countries. As one might expect, a high species diversity is demonstrated throughout this area, and regional inventories have been published while Red Lists are under preparation (Venturella, 1991;Perini et al., 1993;Venturella et al., 1997;Ivancevic, 1998). The French programme for inventory and mapping of the fungi began in 1991 and is currently under way (Redeuilh and Courtecuisse, 1999). In Greece, significant progress on inventorying the country's fungal biodiversity has been made during the last two decades, and has resulted, among other things, in producing two annotated checklists of macrofungi belonging to Basidiomycotina and Ascomycotina (Zervakis et al., 1998(Zervakis et al., , 1999)). However, since mapping of the mycoflora is far from being complete and sound data are missing as regards the occurrence of macromycetes in the past, a Red List still seems to be possible only in a distant future.Analysis of Red Lists shows that many edible fungi can be considered to be decreasing and threatened in parts of Europe. A similar decline may be occurring in parts of North America and Asia as well, but data on long-term changes in these regions are not available. Harvesting of mushrooms may directly affect production of sporocarps in subsequent years, either by damaging or exhausting mycelia, shifting competitive relations with other species, or by causing reproductive failure due to decreased spore production. In addition, harvesting may indirectly affect productivity owing to trampling (compacting soils) or raking the forest, causing long-term damage to mushroom populations. However, data analysis is complicated by strong, weather-induced natural fluctuations in sporocarp production (Ohenoja, 1984;Egli et al., 1990).Strongly endangered groups are lignicolous fungi of large logs in old-growth forests and soilinhabiting fungi of peat bogs, wetlands and lowproductivity grasslands. Their decline is primarily attributed to changes in land use. Among forest fungi, ectomycorrhizal species are the most threatened group in densely populated or heavily industrialized regions. Various authors have reported a correlation between a decline of sporocarps of ectomycorrhizal fungi and ambient concentrations of air pollutants such as SO 2 and NH 2 (Fellner, 1989;Termorshuizen and Schaffers, 1991). In addition, mycelia of ectomycorrhizal species disappear soon after windthrow, clear-cutting, or burning of a forest (Ohenoja, 1988;Egli et al., 1990). The associated tree species also play an important role; for example, Tuber aestivum grows with Fagus and Quercus and Suillus luteus and Lactarius deliciosus with two-needled Pinus species, whereas the woodinhabiting Kuehneromyces mutabilis and Flammulina velutipes are only found on wood of deciduous trees. Similarly the age of trees exerts a major influence as certain species such as S. luteus fruit with young trees, while others like Cantharellus spp. are mainly found with mature trees. Furthermore, most macromycetes are restricted to certain soil types: chanterelles are mainly found on acid, sandy soils with a low nutrient status and thin litter layer, whereas trufflers prefer shallow, basic, mineral soils above calcareous bedrock. On the other hand, some saprotrophic species (e.g. Lepista nuda, Macrolepiota rachodes) thrive in nutrient rich, deep litter layers (Arnolds, 1995). Consequently, while creating appropriate environmental conditions can enhance the productivity of some edible mushrooms, there is no ideal management strategy which will stimulate the yield of all edible species.In conclusion, the ecological data in floras and other taxonomic works on fungi are generally very superficial. There is a great need for accurate information on the ranges of habitat types, substrates and host specificity of species in different parts of Europe, preferably in a semi-quantitative form, and by monitoring in permanent plots. This information may be gathered by mycocoenological studies as well as during annotated floristic and geographical studies. Special attention should be paid to experimental studies on the impact of various anthropogenic factors on the mycoflora.Floristic, geographical and ecological studies are impossible without a thorough taxonomic and nomenclatural basis. On the other hand, geographical and ecological studies may provide valuable information on taxonomy. There is continued need for both classical revisions of many critical groups of fungi and for advanced research on the genetic basis of our species concepts. Increasing discrepancies in the application of species concepts by various groups of workers in different parts of Europe are a subject of concern.Systematics is an area of fundamental importance to biological science and forms the basis of information exchange. Morphology of the fungal fruit-body is the traditional basis for classification in fungi, but macroscopic features alone are rarely adequate to support taxonomic conclusions, while microscopy and physiology provide more reliable characters. Mating compatibility studies, based on the biological species concept, are widely used among higher fungi and offer valuable data on speciation processes. Recently, isozyme and molecular phylogenetic techniques added a powerful tool for understanding species concepts and systematics in this group of organisms.An indicative case where a multi-task taxonomic approach was required to solve the perplexing relationships among species was the mushroom genus Pleurotus ('oyster-mushroom'). Since an essential prerequisite for mushroom breeding and cultivation is the use of properly identified biological material, numerous studies were conducted in the past to elucidate taxonomy within the genus by employing morphological, physiological and compatibility criteria (Eger et al., 1979;Hilber, 1982), without arriving at a common conclusion as regards the taxonomy of related taxa, e.g. Pleurotus columbinus, Pleurotus ostreatus, Pleurotus pulmonarius and Pleurotus sapidus. Controversies were attributed to inaccurate original assignments, to the plasticity and the consequent overlapping of many morphological features caused by environmental factors, and to the lack of sufficient and sound physiological characters.In addition to traditional taxonomic criteria, the results of matings between homokaryotic isolates were used, and therefore the biological species concept (Dobzhansky, 1970) has been applied to various groups of Basidiomycotina for species delimitation, for establishing systematic relationships among different taxa and for drawing more accurate conclusions about speciation processes (Boidin, 1986;Petersen, 1995;Zervakis and Balis, 1996), although its generalized use in fungi has proved to be problematic in certain cases (Brasier, 1987). The importance of adopting such a concept is obvious, as the ability of individuals to interbreed provides information on the type of reproductive system and the structure of mating factors reveals the degree of gene flow between populations and the existence of genetic and/or sterility barriers. Thus, studies on mating behaviour, apart from contributing to phylogeny, are valuable for confirming the validity of existing morphologically based taxa and for identifying reliable anatomical taxonomic characters. On the other hand, although the use of incompatibility criteria has provided valuable data, their full exploitation is yet to be accomplished, as it requires a detailed knowledge of the geographical distribution and a thorough understanding of the speciation mechanisms in this particular fungal group.However, since nowadays a variety of morphological, physiological, ecological, compatibility, biochemical and molecular criteria is available, handling of multiple taxonomic characters and their final synthesis depends on the research area and the problem. Since the characters examined exhibit variation appropriate to the question posed, they have a clear and independent genetic basis, and the data are collected and analysed in such a way that it is possible to compare and combine phylogenetic hypotheses derived from them (Moritz and Hillis, 1990). If the problem of systematics is the object of study, then integration of the analyses of several different types of characters is strongly recommended (Kohn, 1992). For example, the relationship between molecular characters and other types of characters (particularly morphological characters) can produce an interesting dialectic (Doyle, 1992).Therefore, Pleurotus systematics were recently addressed by modern biochemical (Zervakis and Labarère, 1992;Zervakis et al., 1994) and molecular (Vilgalys and Sun, 1994;Iraçabal et al., 1995;Vilgalys et al., 1996;Zervakis et al., 2001) approaches. Furthermore, numerical analysis and cladograms derived after the treatment of results from starch gel electrophoresis and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis isoelectric focusing of dikaryotic and monokaryotic cultures, and restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP) or sequencing of ribosomal DNA, contributed further to understanding Pleurotus phylogenetics and systematics in co-evaluation with traditional taxonomic criteria including morphology and mating tests.Well-understood taxonomic relationships and the application of modern molecular techniques are of great importance in today's successful mushroom breeding, for proper identification of biological material and strain authentication. However, the principal requirement for breeding is the availability of large amounts of variation in traits that can be selected for. Mushroom strains differ in traits and in gene combinations that can be generated by conventional methods of crosses, by protoplast fusion technology, and by transformation with genes cloned using recombinant DNA technology.As the organisms themselves are the only natural source of genetic diversity, the extinction of a species would mean a loss of the genetic information it contains, which amounts to a loss of a vast number of unique genes. For these reasons it is essential to establish a germplasm bank, through the collection of wild isolates, and characterization of available edible mushroom strains. In addition, it is also very important to study the ecological, morphological and physiological properties to determine mating types, substrate degradation efficacies, mycelial growth rates and cultivation parameters. Each strain's biochemical potential, for example in cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin degradation, should be assessed for serving as criteria to identify high-quality strains suitable for breeding programmes. Furthermore, the development of DNA fingerprinting with the PCR and random amplified polymorphism DNA (RAPD) methodologies have contributed immensely to strain authentication and genetic manipulation.Breeding has contributed much to the spread of the cultivation of Pleurotus species, whose world commercial production approaches annual rates of 1 Mt and is the third most cultivated mushroom (Chang, 1996). Pleurotus species are particularly known as efficient decomposers of a large range of lignocellulosic wastes and for producing edible basidiomata of high organoleptic qualities. These properties significantly favoured the increase in their commercial cultivation since growth substrates are cheap and abundant resulting from agricultural, forest and related industrial activities.In the Mediterranean region, Pleurotus cultivation is relatively widespread and accounts for about 10-20% of the total mushroom production of the area, the rest being attributed to the button mush-room Agaricus bisporus. Its cultivation is relatively more popular in France and Italy, probably due to the mycophilic tradition of those countries and to the fact that these mushrooms also occur in nature and are among the favourites for collecting. In contrast, Pleurotus cultivation in Greece is still in its infancy and production is low (Philippoussis and Zervakis, 2000).However, the trends indicate a significant increase in the future since the cultivation of Pleurotus species could be readily integrated within a sustainable agricultural production scheme. The entire cultivation process is by definition 'environmentally friendly' by exploiting and valorizing agroindustrial wastes of low economic value (which are usually incorporated into soils, burned or disposed of irrationally), some of which are potentially hazardous for the ecosystem. In addition, it requires relatively low inputs of energy (especially if the biological material used is carefully selected as regards adaptation to the local climatic conditions) and labour. The fact that Pleurotus mushrooms are widely accepted as a food of high organoleptic properties and maintain relatively high prices for the grower in the market is another important consideration. Furthermore, the spent substrate could be used for fodder through the enrichment of the initial waste with the fungal protein and at the same time by improving digestibility by preferentially consuming lignin and hemicellulose and leaving cellulose fairly intact as an energy source for ruminants (Tripothi and Yadar, 1992). The substrate could also be used as a plant fertilizer and soil conditioner beneficial to overall soil fertility and stability as well as vegetable yield (Levanon and Danai, 1995).A special group of Pleurotus mushrooms appears in nature in close association with Umbelliferae plants, growing as weak parasites on their roots and stems. Species like Pleurotus eryngii and Pleurotus nebrodensis are typical constituents of the Mediterranean mycoflora and are particularly popular as choice edible mushrooms. Collection by local people is widespread and the prices they obtain in regional markets is very high compared with cultivated mushrooms (Venturella, 1995). Therefore, various cultivation methodologies have been recently developed in order to both safeguard the respective natural genetic resources and to provide an additional source of income for the indigenous farmers. Research is being conducted on the elucidation of the taxonomy within this group aiming at obtaining biological material to be readily exploited for breeding purposes (Zervakis and Venturella, 1998;Venturella et al., 2001).In Sicily, P. eryngii and P. nebrodensis strains were developed from selected local wild isolates (Venturella and Ferri, 1996). Their main features are the fast growth-rates of the mycelium and the trend to precociously differentiate basidiomata from a colonized substrate presenting a compact mycelium with uniform development. The growth substrate is prepared with wheat straw and residues of sugarbeet processing, pasteurized in thermoresistant polypropylene sacks with a capacity of 4 kg, inoculated with spawn and then incubated at 25°C. At the end of the incubation period the sacks are placed in rows in ridges dug in the ground (dimensions: 3 m ϫ 1 m ϫ 0.2 m). After opening, the sacks are covered with 2-3 cm of soil, and the beds are covered with a black shading net fitted on metal arches. Periodically beds are lightly irrigated to maintain the right degree of humidity. These cultivation tests aim to examine the suitability of certain mountainous and plain areas (i.e. situated at different altitudes) located ex situ with respect to the natural sites of occurrence. The tests are also expected to show the production efficiency and the quality properties of the different strains selected, as well as other cultivation parameters related to growing mushrooms outdoors. The tests are also to assess the suitable environmental conditions (depending on the season and the strain characteristics) required in order to reach yield values that will permit large-scale cultivation of P. nebrodensis and P. eryngii.Similarly, in the southern Peloponnese (Greece), a project aiming to valorize locally abundant agricultural wastes (olive press-cake, groundnut shells, wheat straw, corn cobs, etc.) through the cultivation of Pleurotus mushrooms is currently under way. Special emphasis is placed on the exploitation of the cultivation potential of indigenous species like P. ostreatus, P. pulmonarius and P. eryngii. A well-insulated production chamber has been constructed with a total covered area of 350 m 2 , equipped with up-to-date environmental control units and software.Cultivation methodologies include substrate chopping, mixing and wetting, pasteurization in bulk at 60°C, inoculation with spawn developed from local wild strains, incubation at 28°C, and mushroom production at a temperature range of 16-22°C (depending on the strain used) at various levels of aeration, illumination and relative air humidity in order to assess the optimal environmental parameters that will permit high yield and fine product quality. Of paramount importance is the development of strains and cultivation techniques suitable for exploiting the climatic conditions of the area and the production potential of the biological material used.The use of mushrooms as human food is increasing day by day. In particular, the production of Pleurotus could be further augmented to support the rising demand for the product. The first and probably most important aspect is to assess the genetic heterogeneity within the populations of various Pleurotus species. In fact species biodiversity is extremely important in nature and in crop species since it is the pool of genetic diversity which permits the species to react to environmental change.As is well known, ex situ conservation actions include the establishment of genebanks, which should be further supported by adequate financial resources for infrastructure and running expenses, and the existence of specialized personnel needed for research and management activities. Despite the obvious economic importance of such measures for the much neglected group of microorganisms, mushroom breeding and cultivation (through its notable socioeconomic importance) could contribute in a very different and interesting way as an alternative means of promoting ex situ conservation of valuable biological material. In addition, promotion of integration between ex situ and in situ protection could be accomplished by proper diffusion of relevant information to the public, financial support for conducting inventory studies and for discovering the largely unknown wealth of the Mediterranean ecosystems, as well as the promotion of collaboration among institutions and organizations within this important region.The dependence of humankind on plant resources is inevitable. Since the dawn of agriculture, domestication and gathering of desired plant species have helped in the evolution of useful plant species and these resources have been exploited to our advantage. So far, out of the estimated 75,000 species of edible plants (Gautam and Singh, 1998), only about 150 have been widely used. Of these about 30 species provide 90% of the world's food. Therefore, there has been focused attention by the researchers on exploiting alternative plant species or underutilized species for multifarious uses. Many of these occur in extreme environments and marginal or waste lands, and are being lost through rapid loss of natural habitats, especially in the tropics. The plants on which we depend in such adverse conditions/regions can be called the life support species (Paroda, 1988).Underutilized plants constitute the lesser known species in terms of trade and research, often well adapted to marginal and stress conditions. Generally they possess promising nutritional and industrial importance for a variety of purposes for humankind. Their cultivation is restricted to specialized geographical pockets in different agroecological regions, mainly by poor farming communities which derive their sustenance and livelihood from such plants. But their commercial importance and market value is still unknown to the public. Therefore, research on underutilized crops holds promise to attain sustainability, profitability and diversification in agriculture and to restore the balance of trade, reduce India's dependence on imports and to make us more competitive in agricultural exports. This will make the global economy more sound and in many cases benefit the environment as well, since our depleting resources can be replaced with renewable ones.The underutilized plant species of economic importance are the key to sustainable agriculture in most of the developing countries facing resource constraints as well as rapid depletion of natural resources due to ever-increasing population pressure. Poverty at both rural and urban levels leads to various health and nutritional problems respectively. This can be improved upon through wider cultivation and inclusion of underutilized crops in our food habit. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) statistics reveal (Swaminathan, 1999) that while about 800 million children, women and men are currently suffering from protein-calorie undernutrition, over 2 billion suffer from hidden hunger and there is a high frequency of low birth-weight children caused by the deficiency of micronutrients in the diet, particularly iron. Such micronutrients are in plenty in Panicum miliaceum (proso millet), Paspalum scrobiculatum (kodo millet), Chenopodium (chenopod), Amaranthus (amaranth), Fagopyrum (buckwheat) and so on. These underutilized plants can help to make diets more balanced and hence can play an important role in combating silent hunger (Swaminathan, 1999). These crops could also help in poverty alleviation by providing income generating opportunities to farmers by linking the development of these crops to market opportunities. But many of these crops are in danger of loss through competition resulting from the introduction of higher value commodities into the farming system.Underutilized crop species have a potential that needs to be exploited to our advantage. Most of these crop species do not require high inputs, can be grown in marginal and degraded lands and at same time contribute to increased agricultural production, crop diversification and a better environment. In addition, such efforts will help in conserving and using the genetic resources of underutilized crop species. Favourable policy conditions lie at the core of alleviating poverty and sustainably managing natural resources. To achieve sustainable agriculture, one has to look at the immediate needs of farmers and the future needs of society, which requires a broad analysis of people and the environment.India, located between 8°and 38°N and 68°and 93.5°E, shows altitudinal variations ranging from below sea level to more than 3500 m above mean sea level and exhibits extreme diversity for edaphoclimatic conditions, agroclimatic regions and ecosystems. The Indian sub-continent is a reservoir of several plant species, which have known uses of future potential for the benefit of human beings. India occupies a unique position among the major gene-rich countries of the world with a bounty of 49,000 species of higher plants known to occur. About 30% of these species are endemic: 17,500 species (Gautam and Singh, 1998) occurring in 16 major vegetation types of the country.Several systematic efforts have been made to compile information on lesser known food plants including wild resources used by farmers and tribal communities in different regions of the country. Ethnobotanical investigations have been made to record a large number of wild plant species used by native tribal and aboriginal people, to meet their varied requirements (Jain and Sinha, 1987;MEF, 1994). Immensely rich landrace diversity occurs in major agri-horticultural crops, which is attributed to the farmers' conscious or unconscious selections, inherited and perpetuated over generations. Also, an enormous richness occurs in terms of crop relatives (326 species). Arora (1985) and Arora and Pandey (1996) observed that, out of a rich floristic wealth of higher plants in the country, over 1000 wild food plants are used and human association with these has been much older than with crops that emerged with settled agriculture. Over 50 of these species have been domesticated by native communities. Others hold promise as nutritional food supplements for future domestication and exploitation.Concerted research efforts have been made in the recent past on domesticated and cultivated underutilized species, particularly for crop diversification for food and commerce (Bhag Mal, 1988, 1994;Paroda, 1988;Paroda andBhag Mal, 1989, 1992;Wickens et al., 1989;Bhag Mal and Joshi, 1991;Zhou, 1992). Several international agencies, such as the Overseas Development Agency (ODA), International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and International Centre for Underutilized Crops (ICUC), also encouraged research on these underused species in order to broaden the range of plant species under cultivation. This has helped to raise concern and awareness for safe conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources of underutilized plant species.However, given the resources, it is not possible to work on all the useful species and priorities need to be identified. The choice of crop species including their relative priority has to be clearly highlighted. In this context, it may be added that the underutilized food crop plants given research priority in India include pseudocereals and minor millets, minor grain legumes, fodder and energy plantation crops and some high value industrial plants (Table 33.1).There are several underutilized and introduced plant species that have naturalized well in the country and hold great potential to be exploited for various purposes. For strengthening of research on underutilized plants, an All India Coordinated Research Project on Underutilized Plants (AICRPUUP) was initiated in 1984 with its headquarters at the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR), New Delhi. At present the project operates at 21 centres in different agro-climatic zones of India. Concerted research efforts have been made in this project in respect of germplasm build-up, maintenance and evaluation of some prioritized underutilized crop plants. Salient achievements in germplasm assembly and conservation and utilization, are briefly discussed in this chapter. The objectives of this programme are outlined below.To find new plant resources for food, fodder and industrial uses. 2. To build up an extensive germplasm collection and to characterize, conserve and enhance them. 3. To identify/develop high yielding varieties of these crops for different farming situations. 4. To evolve an appropriate package of agronomic practices for their economic cultivation. 5. To disseminate knowledge about potential species for their popularization.The underutilized crops identified in the Indian programme have been prioritized according to their suitability to the existing cropping systems or potential to supplement new systems. This project has identified priority plant species belonging to four major crop groups: food crops, fodder and energy plants and industrial plants.Efforts through well-organized multi-crop explorations have resulted in sizeable germplasm collections over the years in a few selected species. Useful germplasm has also been introduced from other countries through NBPGR, which maintains links with over 70 countries. Thus, through exploration and introduction efforts, over 6000 accessions have so far been built up for selected underutilized crops from indigenous and exotic sources (Table 33.1). Information about the introductions is published in the Plant Introduction Reporters of NBPGR. Crop inventories for winged bean and jojoba have also been published.Extensive collections were made of grain amaranth (Amaranthus sp.), and over 3000 accessions were assembled from Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and North Eastern Hill (NEH) region, Gujarat and Maharashtra; 200 collections of buckwheat (Fagopyrum sp.) were also made from the same region. Over 500 collections of rice bean (Vigna umbellata) have been made from NEH region, Nepal and Sikkim. Forty-eight collections of Jatropha curcas were made from coastal Maharashtra and Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh. In winged bean (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus), some collections were made from the peninsular region of India.The NBPGR took the lead role in collecting and characterization of most of the crops followed by a few individual centres for particular crops, namely Mandor for Citrullus colocynthis (tumba) (330), Rahuri for Momordica dioica (94), Mettupalayam for Casuarina (22) and Basar for bamboos (37 species).There are some areas in India which still need to be surveyed for collecting germplasm of underutilized crop species. A new programme, National Agricultural Technology Project (NATP), has been initiated which is being operated through the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Government of India. In this project, priority areas for various explorations and germplasm collection have been identified throughout the country. Under NATP, germplasm of rice bean, buckwheat, amaranths, broad bean (Phaseolus multiflorus), Perilla sp., Buchanania lanzan, Aesendra butyracea, Lepidium sativum and Cleome viscosa will be collected and conserved in our National Gene Bank (NGB).Systematic evaluation and characterization of indigenous and introduced germplasm have been carried out in important underutilized crops which include pseudocereals and minor grain legumes, minor fruits, vegetables, oilseed crops and industrial crops. The pseudocereals have a high degree of acceptability in the poor farming households and sustainable agriculture although, presently, the area covered under these crops is meagre (Singh and Thomas, 1978;Bhag Mal, 1994). This group of underutilized crops includes amaranth, buckwheat, chenopod and minor millets. Rice bean, faba bean, adzuki bean, moth bean, Lathyrus, guar and horsegram constitute the category of minor grain legumes and are also grown for green fodder. Crop-wise research accomplishments are briefly described here.AMARANTH (AMARANTHUS SPECIES). Amaranth is a multipurpose crop with good potential for exploitation as grain, vegetable and fodder. Considerable variation has been observed for different nutritional constituents. The seed protein content has been reported to vary from 8.86% to 19.6% (Misra et al., 1985;You et al., 1987;Girenko et al., 1988). Analysis of foliage of 61 accessions of Amaranthus species revealed the best combination of high carotene, appreciable level of protein and low nitrate and oxalate contents among some vegetable types as well as among a few grain types (Prakash and Pal, 1991). Its grains have high protein with high lysine and a good balance of other essential amino acids. Being an excellent source of iron and ␤-carotene, it can help in reducing iron and vitamin A deficiency, especially among rural populations. The presence of a higher amount of folic acid can help in increasing the blood haemoglobin. Amaranth is used as an important ingredient in food by people from the entire Himalayan region, and to some extent in the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and eastern parts of Uttar Pradesh (UP). Amaranth can be utilized to manufacture products such as baby cereal foods, candies and snacks, protein drinks, and particularly hypoallergenic foods (Williams and Brenner, 1995), thus value-addition can make this crop more attractive. Grain amaranths are broad leaved, C4 plants with small seeds. The C4 photosynthetic pathway is particularly efficient at high temperature, in bright sunlight and dry conditions. Once the growth of the plant is well under way it can even withstand acute drought conditions. There are three species of cultivated amaranth, namely, Amaranthus hypochondriacus, Amaranthus caudatus and Amaranthus cruentus, which are used as grain and leafy vegetables in the Himalayas. These species are sensitive to day length and are known to be shortday species.The evaluation of germplasm collections of grain Amaranthus over several years led to the identification of accessions that offer opportunities for its utilization and improvement. IC 42258-1 (Annapurna) originating from Pauri Garhwal, UP, has been released for cultivation by the Central Varietal Release Committee (Joshi and Rana, 1991). Two varieties, GA-1 from Gujarat and Suvarna from Bangalore have also been released. A catalogue on 800 accessions evaluated for 29 descriptors has been published (Joshi, 1981). The highest content of protein (15.3%), sugar (6.4%) and iron (10.66 ppm) was observed in Suvarna variety.BUCKWHEAT (FAGOPYRUM SP.). Buckwheat is the most important crop of the mountain regions above 1600 m a.s.l. both for grain and greens (Singh and Thomas, 1978). It occupies about 90% of the cultivated land in the higher Himalayas with solid stands. It is a short duration crop (2-3 months) and fits well in the high Himalayas where the growing season is short. In the higher Himalayas, up to 4500 m, this is the only crop grown (Joshi and Paroda, 1991). The tender shoots are used as a leafy vegetable, the flowers and green leaves are used for extraction of rutin used in medicine (McGregor and McKilllican, 1952), the flower produces honey of good quality. A total of 577 accessions have been collected including Fagopyrum esculentum (284), Fagopyrum emarginatum (55), Fagopyrum tataricum (198), Fagopyrum tataricum var. himalianum (30), Fagopyrum giganteum (5) and Fagopyrum cymosum (5) in 27 multicrop explorations covering diverse agroecological regions of the Himalayas. A set of 408 accessions has been evaluated for 31 descriptors and a catalogue has been published (Joshi and Paroda, 1991). A wide range of variation was found for several traits, which can be useful in improvement of this crop. On the basis of multi-location testing at Shimla, Almora and Ranichauri, the varieties Himpriya and VL-7 have been released for cultivation (Table 33.2).  (Tapia et al., 1979;Pratap, 1982;Cusack, 1984;Wood, 1985). Grain protein quality equals that of milk and contains high lysine (6 g 100 g Ϫ1 protein), methionine (2.3 g 100 g Ϫ1 protein) and cysteine (1.2 g 100 g Ϫ1 protein). The grains are also used in local alcoholic preparations (Pratap and Kapoor, 1985). Out of the four domesticated species, C. album is the most widely distributed and is grown in the Himalayan region. The crop is also suited to the mixed farming system, particularly the multiple cropping system (Pratap and Kapoor, 1987). Germplasm comprising 84 accessions of C. album was evaluated for 12 descriptors at NBPGR Regional Station, Shimla, and a wide range of variation has been observed for different agromorphological traits. Analysis of foliage of ten species of Chenopodium at the National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI), Lucknow, revealed a wide range of variation for protein (26-64 g kg Ϫ1 ), carotene (78-190 mg kg Ϫ1 ), vitamin C (0.5-2.4 g kg Ϫ1 ), nitrate (2.6-5.0 g kg Ϫ1 ) and oxalate (9-39 g kg Ϫ1 ).RICE BEAN (VIGNA UMBELLATA). Rice bean is a promising multipurpose legume crop with good potential as food, fodder, green manure and a cover crop. The dried seeds are usually cooked and eaten with or without rice, young immature pods and leaves are used as a vegetable. The seeds contain a high amount of protein (20.9%) and limiting amino acids, tryptophan (0.79-1.10%) and methionine (0.45-1.18%), which rank it as one of the best among pulses (NAS, 1979). Though it is suited for the lowland humid tropics, some of the cultivars are also adapted to subtropical conditions in the plains. It does well in sandy loam to heavy soils. It is also reported to be moderately drought tolerant (Duke, 1981). In India, its distribution is mainly confined to the tribal regions of the hilly areas of north-eastern hills and the Western and Eastern Ghats (Arora et al., 1980;Chandel et al., 1984).Field evaluation of 530 accessions of rice bean for 36 descriptors at NBPGR, New Delhi, revealed a wide range of variation for a number of traits and considerable variation existed between collections from different geographical areas (Chandel et al., 1988). Analysis of the biochemical constituents of rice bean seeds (15-16) revealed variation for crude protein (17.8-25.2%), ash (3.8-4.1%), calcium (315-450 mg 100 g Ϫ1 ), phosphorus (197-393 mg 100 g Ϫ1 ), iron (1-5 mg 100 g Ϫ1 ). RBL-1 has been released for cultivation.ADZUKI BEAN (VIGNA ANGULARIS). Adzuki bean is a legume crop and has a wide variety of uses. The dried seeds are used for human food, either cooked whole or made into a meal used in soups, cakes or confections. In Japan, it is used largely as human food in the form of meal or paste. In India, it is used as a pulse, either whole or split (Thomas et al., 1974). Sprouted beans are used as a vegetable. The crop is also reported to be grown for forage and also as green manure in China and Japan. The seeds and leaves have medicinal properties (Sacks, 1977). The seeds contain 19.9 g protein per 100 g of seed (Duke, 1981). Adzuki bean is a short-day plant and requires almost the same climatic conditions as soybeans. It can be grown on all types of soil from light to heavy clay but does not grow well on extremely acidic soil. The crop is more tolerant to heavy rainfall than other grain legumes. It is also reported to be grown as a rainfed crop (Thomas et al., 1974).Thirty-one accessions were evaluated at NBPGR Regional Station, Shimla, and a wide range of variation was observed for several important traits. The observation row trial comprising 13 promising lines was conducted at three locations, Shimla, Palampur and Ranichauri, which revealed HPU-1 to be an early maturing (110 days) accession.FABA BEAN (VICIA FABA). Faba bean has been one of the main sources of protein for people in the Middle East and North Africa since ancient times. In India, it is reported to be under cultivation as a minor crop in the Himalayan hills, Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir. Today, faba bean is becoming important as a source of protein (26.2%). The nutritive value of the crop is quite high and is regarded as a substitute for meat or skimmed milk. The green pods are used as a vegetable, and the seed is used dried, fresh or canned. It prefers a cooler climate and is grown as a winter annual in warm temperate and subtropical areas. It grows best on rich loamy soils and is tolerant to acidic soils. It is unable to withstand drought. It tolerates annual rainfall of 23-209 cm, annual mean temperature of 5.6-27.5°C and pH of 4.5-8.3 (Duke, 1981).Evaluation of germplasm at Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar (Chhabra, 1983), indicated a wide range of variation for a number of important traits. Considerable genetic variation has also been reported for seed protein (Akbar et al., 1992). Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar Centre, provided the lead function for faba bean breeding and VH 82-1 with seed yield of 420 kg ha Ϫ1 was released for cultivation in the Northern Plain Region.Winged bean is rich in protein (29.8-37.4% in seeds and 10.9% in tubers) and oil, and has potential as a multipurpose crop. Its grains and roots are edible and the plant is used as fodder, green manure and cover crop. The immature pods, leaves, young sprouts and flowers are consumed as a vegetable or in soups, seed oil is used for cooking and the oil cake as animal feed. Protein in seeds is comparable with that of soybeans in digestibility. Seeds are rich in the antioxidant, tocopherol, which improves human utilization of vitamin A, often deficient in the tropics. Seeds are reported to contain trypsin and chymotrypsin inhibitors. It is largely cultivated as a backyard or a garden crop in most of Southeast Asia and is consumed locally. In India, its cultivation is confined to humid, subtropical parts of the north-eastern region, Bengal, Bihar, Western Ghats. The crop can be grown in a range of soil types and is found typically on well drained acid soils (pH 4.3-7.5). It is reported to tolerate annual precipitation of 70-410 cm and annual mean temperature of 15.4-27.5°C (Duke, 1981).Evaluation of 88 accessions for 25 descriptors revealed considerable variability for different yield attributes, and the information has been catalogued (Chandel et al., 1984).The use of agricultural commodities as industrial raw materials will rise as non-renewable resources become increasingly scarce and expensive, as businesses modify their manufacturing systems to use renewable materials and minimize waste generation; and as consumers become more aware, emphasis on concerns for a better environment will grow. The ultimate success of a new product, thus, will depend on generating strong demand from consumers, who are becoming more aware of environmental and other concerns. Research and development is just one step in the process of introducing new products to the market place. An equally important step is developing an appropriate marketing strategy that moves a new product from the laboratory towards commercial success. A number of plant species have been identified for research (Paroda, 1979), including J. curcas, C. colocynthis and Cuphea spp.PURGING NUT (J. CURCAS). This is an industrial oil yielding species that is adapted to marginal lands, for example sandy, clayey, gravelly and eroded soils, and produces a semi-drying oil that can be used in fuel mixtures, as an illuminant and for making soaps and candles. Fifteen accessions were evaluated at Gujarat Agricultural University, Sardar Krushinagar. A wide range of variation was observed for some important yield and related traits (217-409 cm plant height, 30-45 branches per plant, 10-25 clusters per plant, 69-817 g per 1000 seeds. An initial varietal trial conducted at Gujarat and Orissa revealed genotype Chhattrapati to be the highest seed yielder (263 kg ha Ϫ1 ).TUMBA (CITRULLUS COLOCYNTHIS). This perennial creeper grows on sandy undulated plains and sand dunes and is quite drought hardy. The seeds contain 30-34% pale yellow oil, which contains an alkaloid, a glucoside and a saponin. Dried pulp of unripe fruit, freed from rind, constitutes the drug 'colocynth'. The roots have purgative properties and are used in jaundice, rheumatism and urinary diseases. An advanced varietal trial of eight entries conducted at four locations revealed GP 59 as the highest fruit and seed yielder. Germplasm comprising 40 accessions of tumba were evaluated at Rajasthan Agricultural University, Mandor. Data recorded on different traits revealed a high degree of variation for several traits. Initial varietal trials conducted at five locations revealed seed yield to vary from 101.00 to 323.50 kg ha Ϫ1 , the maximum being exhibited by GP 161 and followed by GP 172 and GP 45.CUPHEA SPP. These species adapted to a temperate climate are good sources of industrial oils. Germplasm evaluation of 30 accessions of different Cuphea species at Shimla revealed a wide range of variation for different traits. The range of variation for number of fruit (capsule) was 38.6-44.9, 1.7-2.4 cm for capsule length and 13.6-67.0 g for seed yield per plant.Further work on all the above species is in progress.High priority should be accorded to the conservation and sustainable utilization of many neglected and threatened plants that the local rural populations inhabiting the extreme environments depend on. In view of large-scale over-exploitation of land use practices, ecosystems or parts of them are under threat such as in the humid tropical and temperate forests because of the fragility of these ecosystems. In diversity-rich areas conservation of such plant species assumes great priority for current and future use. Their conservation can be accomplished through: (i) the farming community (in situ conservation through the continued use of local cultivars); and (ii) conservation through the formal sector (ex situ conservation through genebanks). Domestication for cultivation may have to be initiated in areas where the climatic conditions are similar to the niche of wild species.Valuable germplasm of underutilized plant species is maintained by the NBPGR, New Delhi, and its Regional Stations, located in different agro-climatic zones of the country. Also, a few selected centres of AICRPUUP have the responsibility for maintaining the germplasm of particular species. The current status of germplasm holdings is given in Table 33.1. The majority of the germplasm collections is presently maintained through periodic regeneration. Facilities for longterm storage exist at NBPGR and currently 177,913 accessions of different crops including 3447 underutilized crops are maintained in this facility.Variability found in the germplasm of a few selected native and introduced species has been successfully utilized in developing improved varieties through selection procedures. Based on multilocation testing over the years, promising varieties have been identified/released in grain amaranth, buckwheat, winged bean, rice bean, faba bean, guayule and jojoba. Details about the year of identification/release, yield potential and the recommended areas are given in Table 33.2.Concerted breeding efforts have also been initiated in a few selected potential crops at specified research centres for developing better varieties. Hybridization programmes are currently underway for amaranth, rice bean and tumba (C. colocynthis), while mutation breeding programmes are being carried out in rice bean, winged bean and tumba. Extensive work has been undertaken by making 26 sets of 46 interspecific crosses involving watermelon, matira, kalingda and tumba, belonging to different species of Citrullus. Evaluation of F 2 and F 4 line progenies was undertaken in grain amaranth. Highest seed yield of 10.28 kg ha Ϫ1 was recorded in the cross PRA 9401 ϫ IC38269 followed by 9.17 kg ha Ϫ1 in Annapurna ϫ PRA8801 in the F 2 generation.There is a need to generate sufficient information and resource base on underutilized crops of high potential to achieve the goal of popularizing them as regular crops. This is expected to help to meet the ever-increasing demand for food and other agro-products as well as to sustain the ecological balance by maintaining species/varietal diversity of the cultivated crop species. It also helps in conserving the cultural heritage and sustainable farming systems in remote areas and on marginal lands since most of the new crops are linked to such subsistence farming systems in other regions in India. The research and development programmes should, therefore, be based on an integrated multidisciplinary crop improvement concept for obtaining desired results quickly.The underutilized crop species offer exciting prospects for crop diversification, increasing agricultural productivity and meeting the needs of industry and the community. Increased emphasis on these crops will continue in the context of current farming systems research and will help to supplement agricultural production. However, concerted efforts on underused crops need the urgent attention of the planners and policymakers, administrators, researchers, extension workers, farmers and industry. Effective and close linkages between the national programmes on underutilized crops within the Asia-Pacific region and also with national programmes in other regions of the world need to be established.During the last meeting of the South Asian national coordinators on plant genetic resources (SAN-PGR) (1-3 September 1998) the prospects and priorities of research on underutilized crops were assessed. One of the recommendations that emerged from this meeting was that the existing informal crop networks on underutilized crops, for example, sesame, Lathyrus, buckwheat and safflower, should be developed into formal networks. Further, the following four new crops/crop groups were identified as priorities for establishing crop networks in the South Asia region: (i) minor millets -finger millet, kodo millet, foxtail millet, little millet; (ii) minor legumes -black gram, rice bean, lablab bean, horsegram; (iii) amaranth; and (iv) cucumber. This recommendation was based on certain agreed criteria, namely: (i) regional importance; (ii) potential to contribute to food and nutrition security; and (iii) not addressed by any of the CGIAR Centres. The national programmes and IPGRI should initiate appropriate action to establish the above-mentioned networks. The national programmes agreed to provide all relevant information (diversity, distribution, collection, maintenance and ongoing activities) on these crops to IPGRI so that an appropriate strategy for action could be developed.It is imperative that agricultural production should be sustained/enhanced through the use of alternative plant species which are underutilized and underexploited. The pressing need to increase agricultural production of commercial crops and the resulting strain on the environment is an enormous task even for the most resourceful countries. To be able to grow more underutilized crops, there is a need for appropriate policies to be in place, which should be part of the national policy for alleviating poverty and sustainably managing natural resources. Without appropriate policies, simply improving the agricultural technology and natural resources management will not translate into adequate food supply, improved nutrition and the conservation of natural resources. To achieve sustainable agriculture, one has to look at the immediate needs of farmers and the future needs of society, which requires a broad analysis of people and the environment. A major problem in promoting underutilized or under-exploited crops is the difficulty in obtaining sufficient quantity of quality seed or planting material. Therefore, a balanced seed industry has to be developed that takes care of this need. Further, improved agrotechnologies on these crops will allow us to diversify the agricultural sector, including agroindustry. Such diversification will enhance the development of trade and utilization of several under-exploited plants and their products. Therefore, underutilized plant species, commonly raised by the poor farming households under subsistence agriculture, demand a change in the strategy for their conservation for sustainable utilization.As a part of a specific strategy for sustainable management of genetic resources of underutilized species, the following actions need to be taken.Priorities on future exploration and collection based on gaps in areas and diversity required. 2. Inventory and database for information documentation and dissemination and to help better monitoring and management. 3. Ex situ conservation through long-term seed storage facility primarily at NBPGR/ICAR, including field genebanks, should be complemented with in situ and on-farm conservation of these valuable materials. 4. Breeding, agronomic and quality studies for the development/promotion of improved varieties of various underutilized crops. 5. Capacity building for taxonomic classification and genepool studies of new materials should be promoted. Adequate importance should be given to human resource development and training in the relevant areas. 6. Links should be developed with other areas such as product development and marketing to be able to exploit the potential of the species on which work is being done.Development/promotion of underutilized crops should be able to respond to emerging PGR issues, such as access and benefit sharing, equity, agreements for exchange of material and, above all, transparency. Addressing the problems of conserva-tion and sustainable use of underutilized crops for the present and future on a scientifically sound basis is a common concern for all of us and must be seen in a broader context, building upon synergies and shared experiences.Recent discoveries of hominid fossils indicate that southern Africa may have been one of the cradles of humanity. Today the indigenous peoples of southern Africa are: the San (Bushmen), the Khoi (Hottentots) and the Bantu, the latter comprising the South Sotho, North Sotho, Tswana, Zulu, Cape Nguni, Swazi, Transvaal Ndebele, Tsonga/Tonga, Venda, Ambo, Herero and Mpukushu (Liengme, 1983). For thousands of years the hunter-gatherers of South Africa have survived on the bounty of grasslands and forests. Initially it was a matter of trial and error. Anything that was palatable was eaten. One can reasonably assume that in the process of finding food for survival, many lives may have been sacrificed. Later on, the wisdom of the ages was readily available and information on useful and harmful plants was handed down from generation to generation.Africans, both rural and urban, enjoy meat. With escalating prices, rural populations are in dire straits and find it hard to make ends meet. As pointed out by Wehmeyer and Rose (1983), with the decreasing availability of animal protein, the rural population is forced to rely on protein from wild plants.Information on the use of food plants traditionally stayed with elderly women in rural society. This information was readily shared with friends and relatives.With the arrival of colonizers, some travellers such as Burchell (1822), Campbell (1822), Kay (1833), Ayliff (1858), Mayr (1906), Ashton (1939), Bryant (1939) and Chapman (1971) gleaned some of the information and recorded it. As indicated by Liengme (1983), since 1957 no less than 25 books and articles have appeared on the San food habits. Notable among them are Lee (1965), Maguire (1978), Marshall (1965), Silberbauer (1965) and Story (1959). A great deal of literature is available on Bantu foods, notably Quin (1959), Franz (1971) and Rose and Jacot Guillarmond (1974).As indicated above, literature abounds on the traditional use of food plants. However, reports are rather old, mostly fragmentary, dealing with the food habits of one tribe or the other. Hence it was felt that a comprehensive survey, dealing with the traditional use of food plants among the rural populations of South Africa might yield some valuable information relevant to our times.During the current study, students in different parts of South Africa conducted interviews with elderly women in rural communities. Apart from oral interviews, some respondents also completed a questionnaire. Specimens collected have been identified and lodged in the Kei Herbarium, Umtata, South Africa. In some cases relevant information was obtained from available literature (Drummond, 1984;Pooley, 1993Pooley, , 1998;;Fabian and Germishuizen, 1997).In addition to 376 oral interviews conducted in various parts of South Africa, a group of 285 members of the rural population completed a questionnaire. Subjects were mostly women from rural communities. Both in the oral interview and in the questionnaire, the following information was collected:• relishes or pot-herbs, or 'imifino' plants, used by the local population; • part of the plant used; • method of preparation;• plants that yield edible roots, tubers or corms;• plants that yield edible fruits.The questionnaire was translated into local languages and responses were recorded in the presence of the interviewer. While the mean number of plant names recorded during oral interviews was seven, the mean number of plant names on the completed questionnaire was nine.An examination of the food habits of the indigenous peoples of South Africa indicates that 101 plant species are being used as food. Leaves and stems of 65 plant species are cooked and eaten as relishes or pot-herbs (Table 34.1). In the preparation of pot-herbs, several plant species are cooked together to achieve the desired flavour. It is eaten with the traditional main course, maize meal. Roots, tubers and corms from 26 plant species (Table 34.2) are collected at the appropriate time of the year and eaten. Fleshy fruits and nuts mainly from ten trees are collected and eaten as food supplements.Over 100 South African shrubs and trees yield edible fruits. However, most of them have very little commercial or nutritive value. They are mostly collected and eaten by children who roam the veld. Some edible fruits, which have nutritive or commercial importance, have been selected for consideration.SCLEROCARYA BIRREA (A.RICH) HOST. SUBSP. CAFFRA (ANACARDIACEAE), MARULA. Scleros (Gk) hard, karya (Gk) walnut refers to the hard stone in the fruit. A medium sized deciduous, dioecious tree found in low altitudes along the Natal and Transvaal coast, Mozambique, Swaziland and tropical Africa (Pooley, 1993). A tree may produce up to 90,000 fruits (up to 40 mm in diameter) in one season. Fruits are rich in vitamin C. Nuts contain 25% protein, 50-60% oil, vitamins E and C, magnesium, potassium and calcium (Swart, 1982). Ripe fruits and nuts are eaten. A potent alcoholic beverage is obtained when sugar is added to the fruit pulp. A liqueur named Amarula is commercially produced. (BOMBACACEAE), BAOBAB. Baobab is a comparatively short, about 15 m in height, but grotesquely fat tree, 15-30 m in circumference, occurring in low altitudes in hot dry woodlands. It looks like a tree planted upside down. Around 10 cm long, the ovoid fruit contains many seeds which are embedded in a white powdery pulp which contains appreciable quantities of tartaric acid and potassium bitartate (Palgrave, 1977). Both the seed and the pulp have a tart flavour. A drink can be made from dried pulp mixed with water (Swart, 1982). Fresh leaves are cooked and eaten.DOVYALIS CAFFRA (HOOK.F. & HARV.) HOOK.F. (FLACOURTIACEAE), KEI APPLE. A shrub or small tree up to 8 m, found in the dry regions of the Eastern Cape and Transvaal. The 50 mm long spines make it a good hedge plant. Plants are dioecious and the female tree fruits profusely, fruits being round and yellow (40 mm in diameter). The pulp is rich in vitamin C. Fresh fruits are eaten or the juice is extracted. It is excellent for the preparation of jam and jelly.CARISSA MACROCARPA (ECKL.) A. DC (APOC-YANACEAE), BIG NUM-NUM. A shrub or small tree up to 5 m found on the Natal and Transkei coast. Large forked spines make them excellent hedge plants. The red oval fruits up to 50 mm long are rich in vitamin C, calcium, magnesium and phosphorus (Pooley, 1993). The fruit has a delicious flavour and can be used to make jam or jelly.BEQUAERTIODENDRON MAGALISMONTANUM (SON-DER) HEINE & HEMSLEY (SAPOTACEAE). A small to medium sized tree up to 10 m in height, on rocky outcrops and hills. Fruits measure 1.5 to 2.5 cm, red and fleshy with a high vitamin C content. They have a sweet but astringent flavour and are good for making jam, jelly and wine (Palgrave, 1977).  (Pooley, 1993).CORDYLA AFRICANA LOUR. (FABACEAE), WILD MANGO. A large, deciduous tree up to 25 m in height, restricted to riverine forests in the eastern Transvaal and Natal. Unlike other legumes, pods of this tree resemble small mangoes, rather spherical, up to 8 ϫ 6 cm, yellow when ripe, with seeds embedded in a fleshy pulp (Palgrave, 1977). Some consider it one of the best wild fruits. It contains about 76 mg of ascorbic acid per 100 g of pulp.Seeds are also edible (Swart, 1982).PARINARI CURATELLIFOLIA PLANCHON EX BENTH.(CHRYSOBALANACEAE), MOBOLA PLUM. A large evergreen tree up to 13 m high, usually found on sandy soils in open deciduous woodlands. The oval fruit is round, 5 ϫ 3.5 cm, russet-yellow and pitted. It has a pleasant tasting yellow flesh, which may be made into porridge, a non-alcoholic beverage or an intoxicating liquor. It can be dried and stored for a long period.  (Fabian and Germishuizen, 1997). Pods contain 2-6 flattened seeds up to 15 ϫ 10 mm. Roasted beans are tasty, having a slight coffee flavour. They contain up to 36% protein and 46% oil. The tuber has a high moisture content and nutritive values and may be eaten raw or cooked (Swart, 1982).Table 34.3 lists plants identified by this study as showing promise for domestication and large-scale cultivation.Four of the 65 plants commonly used as potherbs are fit for domestication and large-scale cultivation: Chenopodium album L., Physalis viscosa L., Solanum nodiflorum Jacq. and Urtica urens L. According to Wehmeyer and Rose (1983), C. album has an energy value of 200 kJ 100 g Ϫ1 and the calcium content is 239 mg 100 g Ϫ1 . The energy value of P. viscosa is 226 kJ 100 g Ϫ1 and has a very high carbohydrate content, 72 g 100 g Ϫ1 . The energy value of S. nodiflorum is 219 kJ 100 g Ϫ1 and the calcium content is 213 mg 100 g Ϫ1 . Finally U. urens has an energy value of 232 kJ 100 g Ϫ1 and has a very high calcium content, 528 mg 100 g Ϫ1 .The selected plants also possess appreciable quantities of magnesium, iron, sodium, potassium, copper, zinc and phosphorus, together with thiamine, riboflavin, nicotinic acid, vitamin C and carotene.Two edible tubers have been singled out for large-scale cultivation: Dioscorea cotinifolia Kunth. and Plectranthus esculentus N.E.Br. D. cotinifolia (wild yam) produces several tubers around 90 ϫ 50 mm. It is quite delicious, when boiled or roasted. P. esculentus (African potato, wild potato) produces 20-30 finger-like tubers, which taste like sweet potato. They were planted and stored in some rural areas in the past (Pooley, 1998).Wild fruits that have potential for large-scale cultivation and commercial exploitation are Cordyla africana Lour. and Sclerocarya birrea (A. Rich.) The South African population is growing rapidly. Prices of commodities, including those of staple food materials are steadily on the rise. More and more people are losing jobs and find it difficult to maintain their families on a healthy diet. At this juncture, rural people have to return to the practice of collecting wild herbs, tubers and edible fruits, which grow abundantly in the veld. Although they are seasonal, the leaves of some plants such as S. nodiflorum and S. retroflexum can be dried and preserved for use during the winter months (Wehmeyer and Rose, 1983). Every housewife should possess information on edible herbs, roots and fruits. Moreover, she should know how to dry and preserve them for future use. Malnutrition is an ugly spectre in many parts of Africa. By encouraging the use of veld foods and also by promoting further work and awareness of the use of such nutritious material, scientists can help in alleviating some of the food and nutrition problems in southern Africa. As both a science and vocation, plant genetic resources conservation has achieved a higher global profile and made great progress over the past 50 years. A representative sampling of advances includes:• improved understanding of the genepools of cultivated crops and their weedy and wild relatives; • integration of advanced systematics to better understand species relationships and population structure; • improved strategies to conserve genetic resources (ex situ and in situ); • increased accessibility to both genetic resources and associated information; • integration of plant pathology to provide 'cleaner' collections and safer global movement of genetic resources; • integration of breeding and molecular mapping theories and strategies to discover and better understand the genetic basis of useful traits; • integration of genomics to better discover and characterize both neutral and adaptive variation; and • application of geographic information system technologies for managing information on global plant diversity.These achievements set the stage for a future that should prove to be challenging and rewarding. After generations of characterizing genes one or a few at a time, researchers now have access to the complete genome sequences of many bacterial species and several eukaryotes, including the completion of the first plant genomic sequence for Arabidopsis thaliana. The breadth of this intensive effort is expected to grow exponentially in the future. For example, there presently exists a global effort to understand the function of all plant genes by the year 2010. If this effort reaches any level of success, the effect on plant genetic resources conservation should be significant. As such, ex situ genebanks are likely to face new kinds of demands from the user community. In the future, users may want a series of genes with a specific function regardless of the sources of such genes. Other users may want to receive DNA sequences or markers instead of seeds or other traditional means of carrying DNA. They may want a series of specific alleles rather than accessions where alleles are segregating. A future-oriented analysis of these possible trends and their implications is very important in order to be able to predict, and thus prepare for, a changing role for genebanks and curators.Comparative genomics involves the study and identification of the molecular bases of differences and similarities between organisms at different taxonomic levels. Over the past decade, geneticists and plant breeders have made great progress in understanding genome organization and diversity as a result of putting their investigations in an evolutionary context (Gale and Devos, 1998). That is, taxa that are evolutionarily related (e.g. grasses, legumes and solanaceous crops) have strikingly similar genome organization. Moreover, at the fundamental level of the gene, many sequences are highly conserved across families. Therefore, users of genetic resources will acquire useful genes from repositories independent of their source.Comparative genetics provides the potential for trait extrapolation from a species where the genetic control is well understood and for which there are molecular markers to a species that has a limited amount of information. For example, rice is regarded as a model for cereal genomics because of its small genome. The similarity of cereal genomes, in general, means that the genetic and physical maps of rice can be used as reference points for exploration of the much larger and more difficult genomes of the other major and minor cereal crops (Wilson et al., 1999). Conversely, decades of breeding work and molecular analysis of maize, wheat and barley can now find direct application in rice improvement. Comparative genetics can also be used to locate desirable alleles in genepools close to the target crop so that transfer can be achieved by conventional methods. Once the research base has been developed for the legumes and solanaceous crops, the same applications are expected (SGRP, 1999).In order to emphasize the importance of representative genetic resources collections and the characterization and utilization of them for studies involving genetic rather than phenotypic data, we present an example through which the genetic changes underlying the domestication of maize came to be under-stood. Maize was domesticated from the wild Mexican grass teosinte (Zea mays ssp. parviglumis or ssp. mexicana) between 5000 and 10,000 years ago (Beadle, 1939;Galinat, 1971Galinat, , 1983;;de Wet and Harlan, 1972;Iltis, 1983;Wang et al., 1999), in only a few hundred years (Eyre- Walker et al., 1998).The domestication of maize involved early seed gatherers and agriculturalists selecting seed from wild teosinte plants that had desirable characteristics and storing it for planting the following year. After generations of this selection process, maize landraces were created. Those teosinte plants lacking desirable traits were left to remain as wild relatives of maize. Two important variables of this domestication process were that the initial crop population was probably extremely small, and the selection pressure that was applied to the initial population by the early agriculturalists was very intense (Eyre- Walker et al., 1998). This selection pressure was in the form of phenotypic selection for morphological and agronomic traits that made growing maize more productive and stable.One possible result of intense selection pressure on a relatively small population over a short time period is vast phenotypic differences between the progenitor-descendent pair, but these differences can be due to small changes in just a few genes. Maize has between 20,000 and 30,000 genes and, of these, as few as five loci are responsible for the morphological and physiological differentiation between maize and teosinte (Beadle, 1939;Doebley et al., 1990Doebley et al., , 1995)). Not all of these loci have been studied, but those that have been characterized have shed a great amount of light on the process of crop plant domestication, the molecular evolution of the genes, and the biochemical pathways involved.Because the domestication of maize occurred quickly, it is somewhat surprising that there are significant morphological differences between maize and teosinte (Iltis, 1983). Some of the most obvious physical differences between this progenitor-descendent pair include number and size of lateral branches, locations and numbers of reproductive organs, and ear size and morphology. Teosinte plants have a main stalk as well as elongated lateral branches extending from most nodes. Both the main stalk and the lateral branches are tipped by male inflorescences called tassels, which distribute pollen to neighbouring plants. The small female inflorescences, or ears, are borne in clusters of one to five on short secondary branches located in nodes of leaves along the primary branches. The structure of the maize plant is dramatically different from that of teosinte. Maize has one main stalk, and the lateral branches are severely truncated to as little as 1 cm in length. These lateral branches, instead of appearing at most nodes, occur at only three or four nodes, and are tipped not by tassels but by greatly enlarged ears. The remaining nodes have axillary buds whose development is arrested.In addition to these gross morphological differences between teosinte and maize, the ears differ in size, shape and structure. Teosinte has small ears with kernels that are encased in hardened stonelike fruitcases, which decrease the utility of the kernels as food. On the other hand, maize has greatly enlarged ears with kernels that are not encased. The physiological basis for this difference is arrested development of the fruitcase early in maize ear development. As a result, maize kernels are exposed on the ear and are easily accessible for consumption. These differences in plant and ear architecture between teosinte and maize reveal the unique evolutionary changes that must have taken place during the domestication process. Most of these evolutionary changes are the result of a modification of a single organ, such as the fruitcase or lateral branch (Doebley and Wang, 1997). These differences in developmental regulation provide evidence for the hypothesis that many of these gross phenotypic changes are controlled by a small number of genes. Therefore, the traditional method of observing phenotypes and classifying accessions based solely on phenotypic or geographic data may be misleading in the case of maize and teosinte because these two species are much more genetically similar than their phenotype would predict.A simple function such as repression of organ development suggests a common developmental signal for each characteristic which, when turned on (or off, as in maize) at a particular time and place in development, can repress the growth of any or all organs of the plant. Doebley and colleagues have studied the genetics of this regulatory phenomenon in detail and have uncovered three major genes involved in the domestication process, teosinte branched 1 (tb1) (Doebley et al., 1995;Doebley and Wang, 1997;Wang et al., 1999), terminal ear 1 (te1) (White and Doebley, 1999), and teosinte glume architecture 1 (tga1) (Dorweiler et al., 1993). All three genes are hypoth-esized to be developmental regulatory factors, and the differential expression of each produces the variable phenotypes observed in the progenitor-descendent pair, teosinte and maize.The tb1 gene is a regulatory locus on maize chromosome 1 (Doebley et al., 1995;Doebley and Wang, 1997;Wang et al., 1999) that was first characterized as a quantitative trait locus (QTL) controlling lateral branch size and morphology between maize and teosinte. This gene, when expressed at high levels in lateral buds, represses the growth of lateral branches as a result of the accumulation of high levels of messenger RNA (mRNA). In contrast, teosinte has low accumulation of tb1 mRNA, resulting in extended lateral branches. The differential rates of mRNA accumulation are a result of varying levels of tb1 expression in these two species. The gene is highly expressed in maize, whereas it is expressed at extremely low levels in teosinte.Wang and colleagues (1999) looked for evidence of domestication selection pressure on this gene in the form of reduced sequence diversity as compared with neutrally evolving genes within the same genome. They sequenced a 2.9 kb region of the gene, including 1.1 kb of the 5′ non-transcribed region (NTR) and most of the predicted transcriptional unit (TU) from a geographically and genetically diverse sample of maize and teosinte. The sample included plants from Z. mays ssp. mays, ssp. parviglumis, ssp. mexicana, and Zea diploperennis, some of which were obtained from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) in Mexico. These lines were sampled in order to represent a number of stages between the progenitor teosinte and the descendent maize. Many of the accessions utilized in the study do not have phenotypic characteristics that would be obviously or immediately useful to maize breeders or to curators, but they were collected anyway, and provided the genetic link needed between maize and its wild ancestor for the tb1 sequence diversity analysis. This is an example of the importance of genetic rather than solely phenotypic characterization of accessions. Moreover, cases like this demonstrate the use of genetic resources in nonbreeding applications and their value in enhancing our understanding of the organism and, ultimately, its effective conservation and use.The second characterized gene, terminal ear 1, is a regulatory locus thought to be responsible for the switch from lateral branches tipped with tassels in teosinte to lateral branches tipped with ears in maize (White and Doebley, 1999). This gene was mapped as a QTL on the long arm of chromosome 3 along with a second gene, tassel-replaces-upper-ear 1 (tru1) (Doebley et al., 1995). It has been difficult to determine which, if either, of these genes had a role in the domestication of maize, but one clue is that te1 encodes a protein with conserved RNAbinding domains. It is hypothesized that it may function through RNA-binding activity, a common method for regulatory loci. A 1.4 kb segment of this gene was sequenced from 25 Zea and Tripsacum individuals in order to look for evidence of past selection as was seen for tb1. The sequence encompassed the first and second exons and part of the third exon, as well as two small introns.The panel included a number of US inbred maize lines, members of the subspecies parviglumis, mexicana and huehuetenangensis, Z. diploperennis, Zea luxurians, and Tripsacum dactyloides and Tripsacum floridanum. These lines of teosinte were also obtained from the collection at CIMMYT. To the authors' surprise, these tests indicated that te1 did not experience a selective sweep as would be expected under the hypothesis that it was involved in the domestication process, but it is actually undergoing neutral evolution. In addition, the phylogenetic tree did not contain a monophyletic maize clade as would be expected if the gene went through selection pressure for a specific sequence. This is further evidence that, at least for the sequences studied, te1 was not heavily selected during maize domestication. However, the upstream regulatory region of the gene was not sequenced as it was for tb1. There is still a possibility, therefore, that this gene could show similar directional selective pressure during domestication as tb1. The sequence diversity at this locus provided information as to the age of the Zea genepool. Assuming a substitution rate of 5.9-6.5 ϫ 10 Ϫ9 substitutions per synonymous site per year for a neutral gene such as te1 (Gaut et al., 1996), an estimate of 1.2-1.4 million years was consistent with estimates derived from known neutrally evolving genes, such as Adh1 (Gaut and Clegg, 1993). Negative results for selective pressure on te1 suggest that tru1 may be the key domestication gene in the QTL on chromosome 3, but a similar experiment for this gene remains to be undertaken.The third characterized gene hypothesized to be involved in the domestication of maize from teosinte is called teosinte glume architecture 1 (tga1). This gene, located near the centromere on the short arm of chromosome 4, is thought to control the structure of the fruit casing in which maize or teosinte kernels are housed (Dorweiler et al., 1993). On teosinte ears, individual kernels are encased in stone-like fruitcases, so the kernels are not easily accessible for herbivory by humans or other animals. In maize, the same components of the fruitcase are present, but their development is disrupted, so that the kernels are exposed on the ear.A single allelic difference at this genetic locus made it possible for early agriculturalists to extract the kernels from maize ears for consumption. The teosinte allele causes high levels of silica and lignin, both hard substances, to be deposited in the fruit casing, while the maize allele conditions slower growth of the fruit casing and a decrease in the deposition of silica and lignin. In this early work on maize evolution, the methods the researchers had to rely on to yield clues about the involvement of this gene in the domestication of maize were not as informative as molecular evolution studies. However, the researchers were able to map the gene as a QTL and to intogress specific maize or teosinte alleles into known genetic backgrounds in order to understand the gene's function. For example, when the maize allele was inserted into a teosinte background, the fruitcase appeared much more like the maize fruitcase, with the kernels partially exposed on the ear. Additionally, the hard glume covering the kernel became significantly softer and more pliable. After inserting the teosinte allele into a modern maize background, they saw the reverse trend. The developing kernels were constricted by the glume, which became hard and encased the kernel as would be seen in a teosinte plant. This process caused a majority of the maize kernels to crack as they matured, a significant detriment to the health of the crop. The nature and number of phenotypic changes caused by this locus led researchers to believe that it is a regulatory locus controlling the expression of a set of other genes (Dorweiler et al., 1993).The allelic variants at tga1 between teosinte and maize are seen as some of the most important changes to take place in the evolution of maize, because they made it possible for maize to be the harvestable grain crop on which we rely so heavily today. The molecular evolution of this gene is currently being studied in more detail in order to understand, as we do now for tb1, the molecular mechanism behind the gross morphological changes in ear structure as wild teosinte was transformed to modern maize.As noted earlier, the domestication of maize was a relatively fast and extremely intense process in which a short, many-tillered, low yielding plant species was transformed into a tall, single-stalked, tremendously high-yielding plant species. This transformation has been observed in many other crop plants as well (Paterson et al., 1995;Smartt and Simmonds, 1995) but none of the other domestication stories are as profound and elegant as the maize story. This crop underwent extreme selection pressure by early agriculturalists, and as a result there exist today extensive morphological differences between the progenitor, teosinte, and the descendent, maize. The most amazing part of the story is that these differences, though prominent, are possibly all due to a common developmental signal controlling the expression of the four or more genes discussed here. The fact that as few as five loci could control the differentiation between teosinte and maize is astounding, and the three genes already characterized, tb1, te1 and tga1, are thought to be important factors in a cascade of regulatory action which may control numerous other genes involved in the domestication process. The story of maize domestication has become a model for evolutionary biologists undertaking similar studies for other crops, and it is entirely likely that the maize story will become even more fascinating as we come to understand the individual steps involved in gene regulation and expression in the future.The same type of study that was used to uncover the maize story has been applied recently to understand major changes in fruit size during the domestication of tomato (Frary et al., 2000). Tomato, along with other fruit and grain crops, underwent rapid and dramatic phenotypic changes during the domestication process (Smartt and Simmonds, 1995). Along with other features, the tomato fruit was transformed from a tiny (< 1 cm diameter) berrysized home for hundreds of seeds with very little fruit tissue to a gigantic (> 15 cm diameter) edible fruit. Previous studies have determined that this size change is controlled by as many as 28 QTL (Grandillo et al., 1999). However, there are just six QTL which account for the majority of fruit size variation in tomato evolution. Included in this group is one QTL, fw2.2, which changes fruit weight by up to 30% between wild and domesticated Lycopersicon species. All of the sampled wild tomato species exhibit the small-fruit allele at this locus, while modern cultivars contain the large-fruit allele, demonstrating high correlation between the morphological phenotype and the QTL genotype (Alpert et al., 1995).The gene underlying fw2.2, ORFX, was recently isolated using a map-based cloning technique (Frary et al., 2000). Complementation tests revealed that when large-fruited modern cultivars were transformed with the small-fruit allele from Lycopersicon pennellii, the segregating progeny from the primary transformants separated into two groups, those containing the transgene and exhibiting a reduction in fruit size and weight, and those not containing the transgene and exhibiting no change in fruit weight. This result coincided with a second line of data on the expression pattern of ORFX. Transcripts of the gene were detected in all pre-anthesis floral organs of both large and smallfruited near-isogenic tomato lines, but mRNA levels in the carpels of small-fruited NILs (near isogenic lines) greatly exceeded levels in the carpels of their large-fruited counterparts. Therefore, it is possible that the ORFX gene represses the growth of carpels in which high levels of its mRNA accumulate. This observation is consistent with the example of tb1 in maize, which operates as a repressor of organ growth in the lateral branch primordia of maize as a result of high levels of mRNA accumulation.An additional analysis performed in this study was a sequence alignment between the alleles from small-and large-fruited NILs. An 830 bp fragment containing the ORFX open reading frame, 55 bp from the 3′ untranslated region (UTR), and 95 bp from the 5′ UTR, was sequenced for each NIL. Only three non-synonymous nucleotide substitutions were identified along the entire sequence, and depending on the position of the protein start codon, all of these substitutions could be located in the 5′ UTR. These nucleotide changes, if located in the 5′ UTR and not in the coding sequence, provide evidence that the differential mRNA levels in the wild and cultivated tomato fruits are not due to changes in coding sequence, but rather to modified expression of the ORFX gene. Regulatory genes such as ORFX of tomato and tb1 of maize have apparently played a major role in the domestication of these crops from their wild ancestors and account for tremendous quantities of phenotypic variation in crop genepools.The maize and tomato domestication stories should provide a warning to all curators and users of genetic resources that major phenotypic differences between accessions do not always mean that there are equally extensive genetic differences. In addition, significant contributions to agronomically desirable traits may result from the regulation, both spatial and temporal, of gene expression rather than differences in amino acid sequences or protein structures. The challenge for curators now is to interpret how this knowledge affects not only genetic resources conservation, but where and how to look for useful alleles for genetic diversity characterization and plant breeding.An important ongoing activity associated with genetic resources collections is the molecular characterization of accessions and individuals with neutral genetic markers (Dean et al., 1999). In addition to revealing redundancies and the structure of diversity in collections, genotyping provides the foundation for using the diversity within collections for other genetic analyses. In the past, plant breeders have been constrained by the need to have appropriate mapping populations. However, alternative population-based methods are now being utilized for mapping genes in humans and Drosophila, and the application of this approach is another way to utilize both genetic resources collections and natural populations.Association mapping, or linkage disequilibrium mapping within a sample of known pedigree, exploits related individuals that differ for a particular trait in order to establish which region of the genome is associated with the phenotype among the population members. The underlying assumption of this method is that the gene responsible for the phenotype is identical by descent, and that markers that flank it will be common among accessions that share the phenotype. Although there are not yet any examples of association mapping in plant populations, an example from mapping in humans involves the identification of regions that contribute to susceptibility to type 1 diabetes, a disorder in which the ␤ cells of the islets in the pancreas are destroyed by the immune system (Eckenrode et al., 2000). Population samples consisting of siblings with diabetes have been used for a genome-wide scan to identify multiple participating loci (Davies et al., 1994;Hashimoto et al., 1994). Additionally, similar samples have been used to finemap and evaluate regions containing candidate genes (Eckenrode et al., 2000). In order to apply this method to mapping genes using plant genetic resources collections, the following prerequisite resources will be required: (i) a dense set of molecular markers; (ii) passport and phenotypic data; (iii) information on population structure; and (iv) a sample with contrasting genotypes for the trait of interest. Association mapping could potentially be applied to locate genes underlying adaptive traits such as disease resistance using either natural populations or genetic resources collections.A central effort in genomics continues to be the identification of genes controlling traits of interest, and clearly there are options for using genetic resources collections in gene discovery. The next phase of genetic resources characterization will be the discovery and description of allelic variation, and natural populations and genetic resources collections will prove to be some of the most valuable sources of alleles for adaptive traits. Although the methods to survey allelic diversity are not yet widely available, they serve as prototypes for the potential use of genetic resources collections in allele discovery. One such method is a locus-specific microarray, which would allow a scan of variation at a locus from many accessions on single chip (Chee et al., 1996). Combined with advances in prediction of protein structure from sequence data (Skolnick et al., 2000), this could become a powerful tool for searching genebanks for specific alleles. The link between diversity at the DNA level and phenotypic level is gene expression. With the advent of microarrays it is now possible to observe a genotype in action at a particular developmental stage or in response to an environmental stimulus (Richmond and Somerville, 2000). This will be a useful tool for dissection of more complex traits, such as drought tolerance or nutritional pathways, to identify the diversity in expression that provides the most direct link to phenotype.We are now able to make use of extensive biological resources (such as markers or mapping populations) that have an immediate impact on plant breeding. Advances in utilizing plant genetic resources to their fullest potential are founded on the concept that while a high-yielding line often contains a greater number of positive alleles at the loci associated with yield, there are almost always some loci for which the inferior parent contributes a superior allele to the offspring (Tanksley and McCouch, 1997). Therefore, to provide plant breeders with a broader array of useful allelic diversity, it is logical to complement our classical approach of identifying good phenotypes in collections or natural populations with the new-found possibility of looking for good genes whenever and wherever they exist, independent of the genetic background in which they currently reside.Genetic resources are generally thought of as a reservoir of adaptive traits that are introgressed individually into breeding programmes. While this is the predominant use for the collections, genomics will enable us to utilize our genetic resources more broadly. Some of the most tantalizing stories in genetic resources utilization involve the positive contribution of wild relatives with poor agronomic type to quantitative traits affecting yield in wide crosses. For example, alleles from the wild rice Oryza rufipogon were associated with a 17% increase in grain yield per plant in a cross with the cultivated Oryza sativa (Xiao et al., 1998). It is clear that many agronomically desirable alleles may be masked by agronomically undesirable phenotypes.Genebank managers and curators now have a vast array of genetic and genomic tools available for their use. In the short term, the tools of structural genomics will be linked with bioinformatic tools to provide a framework for progress in comparative genomics and diversity. As a complement, functional genomics tools will become more accessible so that curators ultimately will ultimately be able to catalogue useful genetic diversity in their collections. Moreover, there are some important resources necessary for the kind of studies discussed in this chapter and for future utilization of genetic resources collections. These include detailed molecular maps, without which QTL mapping cannot be performed; mapping populations as well as natural populations with which to create these maps; sequence-based markers such as expressed sequence tags or single nucleotide polymorphisms with which researchers can understand not only the exact location but also more detailed characterization of genes of interest; and bacterial artificial chromosome libraries for mapbased cloning of genes. These biological resources are not only useful to evolutionary biologists trying to understand the origins of our food crops and their place in global agriculture, but also to systematists trying to understand the intertwining relationships between all forms of life on earth, to biochemists trying to understand the biochemical mechanisms behind phenotypic traits, and to plant geneticists and breeders trying to use all of this knowledge to improve agronomic traits of crops of interest in order to feed our ever-expanding population. We have reached a time when selected cases exist in which genetic resources collections are effectively becoming genebanks in the truest sense of the word. Advances in science and technology in the 21st century will support this transition.The management of genetic resources is a complex, multi-faceted process. It involves a number of distinct stages, which are nevertheless linked and interrelated, from the selection of priority taxa, to the design and implementation of complementary conservation strategies and the development and exchange of the results of germplasm use (Maxted et al., 1997a). These different components generate various types of data, including information on the identity (passport data) and characteristics of germplasm (characterization and evaluation data), which are crucial for the effectiveness of the process as a whole. In the end, these data refer to stands of wild or cultivated plants found growing in specific, known places. The location of these places on the surface of the earth is also included in the passport data of genebank and herbarium documentation. This means that the data associated with germplasm are 'geo-referenced', and therefore amenable to 'spatial analysis', or the description and modelling of patterns and relationships in geographical data (Bailey, 1994).Each of the different components of the process of conservation and use of genetic resources not only generates, but also requires, data. For example, germplasm collection results in data on the distribution, the phenology, the ethnobotany and, once characterization and evaluation have been carried out, the genetic diversity of the target taxon. However, the collector will clearly benefit from considering -before venturing out into the fieldany such data that may already exist in the literature and the documentation systems of genebanks and herbaria. Because they are geo-referenced, the data coming out of the genetic resources management process can be analysed not only on their own, but also in conjunction with other location data, from whatever additional source. Thus our collector, presented with scanty data on previous collections, could use climatic, vegetation and soil data from the study region to estimate the distribution and phenology of the taxon concerned.In this chapter, we describe how spatial analysis of the geo-referenced data generated by the process of conservation and use of genetic resources, using geographic information systems (GIS), can feed back to enhance and facilitate the process, and indeed add value to the germplasm collections. We start with a brief introduction to GIS technology. We then examine a number of key stages of the genetic resources management process and discuss how GIS may be used to increase their efficiency and effectiveness. This chapter thus follows the structure of Guarino et al. (1999), while updating the information presented there with new examples and additional references (including relevant Internet resources).A GIS may be formally defined as a database management system which can simultaneously handle spatial data in graphics form, i.e. maps, or the 'where', and related, logically attached, nonspatial, attribute data, i.e. the labels and descriptions of the different areas within a map, or the 'what'. Simpler definitions have been given, perhaps the most jargon-free being 'a tool for managing information of any kind according to where it is located' (Treweek, 1999). The main elements of a GIS are as follows (Guarino, 1995;Guarino et al., 1999):• data input, verification and editing; • data storage, retrieval and management;• data manipulation and analysis; and • output.Data can be entered into a GIS by digitizing paper maps and their associated attribute information de novo using a digitizing table or scanner, or by importing existing digital datasets, including remote sensing images. Genebank curators can import data from the database of their documentation system into a GIS, using the latitude and longitude fields in the passport data to provide the link to digitized maps and remote sensing images. Some regional or global scale datasets are available from organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme's Global Resource Information Database (UNEP/GRID), the International Soil Reference and Information Centre (ISRIC), the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC), the US Geological Survey and the international agricultural research institutes (IARCs) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). As an example, the spatial data holdings of the IARCs can be searched in the CGIAR Spatial Data Catalogue, 1 and a wide range of global datasets ranging from maps of terrestrial ecosystems to human population density are available at the UNEP/GRID web site 2 and from the Eros Data Centre of the US Geological Survey. 3There are two main types of GIS data: vector and raster. Vector files store geographic data as points, lines or polygons. Polygons represent areas of different sizes and shapes where a particular attribute is equal throughout. In contrast, in raster (or grid) data, an area is divided into an array of regularly shaped cells. Each individual cell is assigned a value for the variable being studied. Examples of vector data include maps of roads, or administrative zones. Typical raster datasets include satellite images, elevation (so called Digital Elevation Models) and interpolated climate data.Each type of data has advantages and disadvantages. However, modern GIS packages can handle both types of data, and analyses can be made across the two data types.The spatial processing system (to manipulate the 'where') and database management system (for the 'what') of a GIS allow the user to bring together diverse datasets, make them compatible, and combine and analyse them. A distinction has been made in describing the analytical capabilities of GIS between deterministic and statistical methods (Bailey, 1994). Deterministic functionalities provided by GIS include network analysis, three-dimensional modelling and projection algebra. Spatial analysis includes the tabulation or mapping of basic summary statistics for data in areas of interest. Relevant tools include query facilities, Boolean operations on attributes, map overlay facilities and buffer creation. More complex statistical approaches to the investigation, comparison and modelling of geographical patterns, include spatial correlation, pattern and trend analysis, and interpolation techniques such as kriging (Bailey, 1994).GIS allows visualization of spatial data (maps) on a computer screen and the production of printed maps, allowing such manipulations as selecting areas or layers for output, and changing scale and colour. However, the outputs of GIS analyses are not just maps, but can also include tables, graphs and animations. Three-dimensional visualization is one of the key topics in current GIS development, and is revolutionizing cartographic representation.In this section, we discuss how different types of spatial analysis can be applied to locality, characterization and evaluation data in a GIS environment to enhance the efficiency of genetic resources management. We concentrate on the following five components of the process:1. Ecogeographic surveying; 2. Field exploration; 3. Design, management and monitoring of in situ reserves; 4. Germplasm evaluation; and 5. Use of genetic resources. Maxted et al. (1995) described the process of collating information on the taxonomy, genetic diversity, geographic distribution, ecological adaptation and ethnobotany of a plant group, as well as on the geography, ecology, climate and the human setting of study regions. The sources of the information for such 'ecogeographic surveys' will include herbarium specimens, germplasm accession passport data, experts, the formal and grey literature, field notes and maps.It is only on the foundation of basic information such as (but not limited to) this that sensible conservation decisions can be made, for example regarding when, where and how to collect germplasm, and where genetic reserves might best be established and how they would need to be monitored and managed. This is because biodiversity is not evenly distributed over the surface of the earth. Some places will, therefore, be of a higher priority for collection or conservation than others. One of the main objectives of ecogeographic surveys is thus the identification of those geographic areas which are:• likely to contain specific desired traits (adaptations), taxa or habitats of interest; • highly diverse (whether environmentally, taxonomically or genetically); • complementary to each other;• currently missing or under-represented in conservation efforts; • threatened with genetic erosion.Although data on the geographic distribution of species are often scanty, even this limited information can be used to identify areas where a species has not been previously recorded but where it might still be expected to occur. GIS tools such as BIOCLIM 4 (Busby, 1991; see also GARP, 5 Genetic Algorithm for Rule-set Production, an extension of the BIOCLIM approach), DOMAIN 6 (Carpenter et al., 1993) and FLORAMAP 7 (Jones and Gladkov, 1999;Jones et al., 1997) attempt this type of extrapolation using climate data. They first estimate conditions at sites where a species has been recorded. Although the details of the methodologies differ, the software then derive a climatic 'envelope' for the set of collecting sites and display all other areas that have some level of similarity to the collecting sites. An example of the output provided by FLORAMAP is shown in Fig. 36.1. Afonin and Greene (1999) describe a similar methodology. Model-based approaches (e.g. Walker, 1990;Stockwell and Noble, 1992) have also been used to investigate the so-called 'potential' distribution of a species. An instructive, large-scale example of the application of GIS to the problem of 'objective prediction of the full distribution of a species from incomplete point distribution maps, based on its ecological preferences' is the work being carried out by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 8 in the context of Madagascar's Environmental Action Plan. These techniques have mainly been used at the species level. However, they can also be applied to infraspecific entities such as botanical varieties, groups of similar accessions (e.g. based on multivariate analysis of morphological or molecular characterization), or even farmer-recognized landraces.A species being targeted for conservation may be closely associated with a specific habitat, vegetation, land use or landform. Remote sensing imagery such as aerial photographs, satellite imagery and radar images, combined with other sources of data in a GIS environment, and properly ground-truthed, can be useful in locating these features. For example, Landsat™ satellite images were used by Veitch et al. (1995) to map heathland fragments in southern England, and by Afonin and Greene (1999) to locate herbaceous meadows in the western Caucasus. Isolated areas of cultivation can also be spotted, assuming they are larger than the resolution of the remote sensing system (about 30 m in the case of Landsat images, and 15 m for SPOT images), and in some cases even the crops being grown can be identified.Obtaining, manipulating and analysing satellite imagery can be a complex, costly and time-consuming task, but some useful software tools are available. An example is WINDISP, which was originally developed for the FAO Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS), and is 'a public domain, easy to use software package for the display and analysis of satellite images, maps and associated databases'. It can be downloaded from the Internet. 9 Some data on ecosystems and land use derived from satellite sources are available preprocessed and free on the Internet. 10  Sometimes material with very specific characteristics needs to be targeted for conservation, perhaps because a need for it has been expressed by the user community or it is specifically threatened. Here the problem is one of using environmental data to identify areas where material with the required adaptation 0.3000 -0.3350 0.3350 -0.4050 0.4050 -0.4750 0.4750 -0.5450 0.5450 -0.6150 0.6150 -0.7200 0.7200 -0.7900 0.7900 -0.8600 0.8600 -0.9300 > 0.9300 O. longistaminata might be expected to occur. GIS can be used to superimpose appropriate thematic coverage from different sources to identify such areas. Thus, for example, CIAT's An Atlas of Cassava in Africa (Carter et al., 1992), an excellent hardcopy product of a GIS project, divides the cultivation area of cassava on the basis of production environments, based on agricultural censuses, specialized surveys and crop experts.If characterization and evaluation of germplasm have already been carried out, geostatistical methods such as kriging and other forms of interpolation can be used to describe the spatial pattern of variation in genetic, morphological and agronomic traits (or combinations of traits) among populations. The effects of natural selection on a broad scale can then be explored by seeking correlations with environmental and other factors, and disentangled from the effects of isolation by distance and micro-environmental variation (e.g. Epperson, 1993;Monestiez et al., 1994). Differential systematics can also be used (Kirkpatrick, 1974), involving the combination of different character contour maps into a single map of a systematic function, the ridges of which reveal areas where maximum change over distance occurs. These have been called genetic boundaries (see also Monmonier, 1973;Pigliucci and Barbujani, 1991). Such analyses can guide the user to areas where specific traits are prevalent, and also help the conservationist identify areas that are relatively homogeneous but different from each other for the characters being studied. This is discussed further in the section on complementarity.Some geographic areas show greater taxonomic or genetic diversity than others. Diversity is often the most important consideration at all stages of genetic resource work, yet remains a difficult parameter to map and analyse. Diversity studies usually begin by dividing the target area (or strata within the target area, e.g. climate zones) into a number of smaller zones, for each of which a measure of diversity can be calculated. Different geometric, political or socio-economic spatial units have been used (e.g. see references in Csuiti et al., 1997), ideally areas of equal shape and size (to reduce the area effect on diversity measures), such as square grid cells, are best. For example, Nabhan (1991) used presence/absence of species to investigate patterns in the taxonomic diversity of wild Phaseolus in different grid cells covering the Sierra Madre, Mexico. Measures of diversity based on morphological characters or molecular markers can also be used, as done by Pickersgill (1984) to calculate the morphological diversity of cultivated Capsicum spp. in different grid cells within Central and South America. Ferguson et al. (1998) calculated genetic diversity in wild Lens spp. using randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers for different grid cells in the Mediterranean basin. To support this type of analysis by genebanks, IPGRI and CIP are collaborating in the development of software called DIVA, 11 which calculates diversity indices for all the cells in a user-defined grid given latitude, longitude and characterization data for a set of accessions, and maps the results.A complementary method for mapping diversity is the 'point-based' approach used by the Spatial Intraspecific Diversity (SID) software described by Nelson et al. (1999). 12 SID reads the coordinates of each accession point in turn, and draws a circle of user-defined radius around it. All accession points lying within this circle are then used to calculate diversity within the defined radius, using either the Shannon-Weaver or Simpson index. The result is assigned to the spatial location of the observation for which the calculation was done. The advantage of this method lies in the ease with which pointbased values of diversity can be interpolated and modelled. Figure 36.2 shows sample SID and DIVA outputs for the same dataset.Various studies have investigated the use of different environmental parameters as surrogates for species diversity (Gaston, 1996;Faith and Walker, 1996). One example of the application of GIS to this kind of investigation is provided by Miller (1986), who showed that variation in elevation, calculated by GIS from topographical data for each of a large number of polygons in the southern Appalachian region, is a useful predictor of the richness of rare species in those polygons. This approach is being applied at the infraspecific level 600 0 600 1200 Kilometres Analyses of diversity can be refined further. One possible enhancement may be necessitated by the fact that two areas may have equal richness or diversity of taxa or morphotypes, but the ones in one square may be similar to each other (e.g. closely related), while those in the other may be more different. Other things being equal, the second area would be the higher conservation priority (Humphries et al., 1995). The procedure described by Vane-Wright et al. (1991), and available in their WORLDMAP software, 13 allows the diversity measure to be weighted for the distinctness of taxonomic units, calculated from a phylogeny based on cladistic analysis. Another possible refinement might be to use the potential distribution of species, say as predicted by FLORAMAP, to calculate diversity values, to counteract the kinds of sampling biases described by Hijmans et al. (2000a). It is not enough to simply identify areas that are highly diverse to maximize the amount of diversity protected for a given amount of effort, because all the higher diversity areas might actually contain the same diversity, as well as the same amount of diversity. One approach to the optimal targeting of conservation effort is to use multivariate statistics to classify or ordinate spatial units according to the species found there, on the basis of characterization or evaluation data, or in terms of environmental conditions (Booth et al., 1989;Pollak and Corbett, 1993;Corbett, 1998). Spatial units can then be targeted for conservation separately in a stratified manner from each distinct cluster of similar units.More sophisticated methods are also available. Iterative procedures (e.g. Rebelo and Sigfried, 1992) can be used to choose the smallest number of spatial units such that each species, morphotype, etc. will be present in at least one (or two, three, etc.) unit(s) in the set. A recent study of 19 different techniques (Csuti et al., 1997) found that this and various other heuristic techniques can all be very efficient at solving the problem of selecting potential biodiversity conservation sites. However, except when dealing with large, complicated datasets, the study recommends the use of a linear programming approach called a 'branch-andbound' algorithm. The DIVA software tool supports complementarity analysis as described by Rebelo and Sigfried (1992), and is being used on a variety of datasets, notably the geographic distribution of wild potato species.The WORLDMAP software allows the user to select a grid square so that a subsequent run identifies those grid squares which are complementary to the selected one. If the selected grid square is the most diverse, the process approximates that of Rebelo and Sigfried (1992). On the other hand, if the selected grid square includes an existing protected area (a global dataset on protected areas is available from WCMC, the World Conservation Monitoring Centre 14 ) the result is 'gap analysis.' The concept and some applications are discussed The dataset consists of locality data for ten species of Stylosanthes in Mexico, collated from 119 herbarium specimens by Susana Gama of UNAM as part of a BADC-funded IPGRI research project. The first map shows the results of point-centred species-level diversity analysis using the SID software (Simpson's diversity index). The dots show the location of specimens. The size of the dots is proportional to the species diversity in a one-degree circle around each accession point. The second map shows the results of analysing the same dataset using the DIVA software. The dark grid cells are the most diverse (Shannon-Weaver diversity index), light grid cells the least diverse, and others intermediate. The third map shows the results of complementarity analysis as described by Rebelo and Sigfried (1992), and implemented by DIVA. The dark grid cell is the most diverse. The other grid cells are the additional ones that would have to be conserved to retain at least one population of each species. See text for more information on SID and DIVA.in detail by Scott et al. (1993). 15 The process involves the use of 'digital map overlays in a GIS to identify individual species, species-rich areas, and vegetation types that are not represented or underrepresented in existing biodiversity management areas.' These 'existing biodiversity management areas' could be protected areas, but also areas where germplasm collection has already been adequately carried out. Identifying ecogeographical gaps in existing ex situ germplasm collections in this way is increasingly important as the largescale, coarse-grid collecting of the past 25 years is replaced with a more targeted, fine-grid approach.Areas under imminent threat of genetic erosion are clearly going to be high priorities for conservation (Guarino, 1999). But how can we predict where genetic erosion is going to take place before it actually happens? Remote sensing has been used to document and model changes in the extent and characteristics of forests (e.g. Skole and Tucker, 1993;Gastellu-Etchegorry et al., 1993), 16 wetlands (e.g. Sebastini et al., 1989), deserts, 17 different land use types (e.g. Zheng et al., 1997) and cropping, 18 and must surely have a role to play in predicting genetic erosion. Hutchinson and Weiss (1999) have recently described what that role might be. They present a model where different potential causes of genetic erosion are associated with specific indicators. They then list observable phenomena by which these indicators may be assessed, and finally the means by which information on the values of these observables might be obtained, including such diverse sources as remote sensing imagery, agricultural censuses, news reports and fieldwork. A similar conceptual framework has been successfully applied to early warning of crop failure and famine in Africa (for example by USAID's Famine Early Warning System, FEWS 19 ). Thus, if environmental degradation is postulated as a possible cause of genetic erosion for a particular genepool, indicators might include desertification, soil erosion and the extension of agriculture into increasingly marginal areas. Observables might include decreasing peak NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, a measure of the development of vegetation) values over the course of years, increasing outmigration and the appearance of new fields in marginal areas, all of which can be managed in a GIS environment.However, the link between these kinds of changes and genetic changes in specific crops or wild species of interest has still not been sufficiently investigated. We may have observables, but we are not sure in most cases whether they are in fact associated with genetic erosion, because this has rarely been measured. An exception is perhaps habitat fragmentation, because the link between this phenomenon and genetic diversity, particularly in tree species, has been the subject of a number of theoretical and practical investigations (e.g. Templeton et al., 1990;Ledig, 1992). The use of remote sensing to monitor and predict genetic erosion in the same way as is being done for food security and famine remains a theoretical, though no less interesting, and tantalizing, possibility.The somewhat different problem of identifying areas of past genetic erosion is exemplified by ongoing work by CIP and IPGRI on cultivated potatoes in Peru. In this study, isozyme data from the CIP ex situ potato collection are being used to estimate levels of genetic variation in each 20 km ϫ 20 km 2 in a grid covering the whole potato-growing area of the country. Data on the extent of potato cultivation and the biophysical environment in each square are used as the independent variables in a multiple regression model, with genetic diversity as the dependent variable. Negative deviations from the model are then mapped to identify possible areas of genetic erosion, and correlations sought with a number of socio-economic variables (such as accessibility and population growth) to identify possible causative factors for any lower than expected level of genetic diversity.GIS tools can be used not only to map the different kinds of areas described above, but also, crucially, to show where they coincide. We have used a dataset on the distribution of 15 wild Gossypium species in Africa to illustrate a possible methodology for the integration of different datasets and analyses in a GIS environment in support of a large-scale ecogeographic study (Holubec, 1998). The methodology involves four separate analyses, the results of which are then combined to produce a single map of priority areas for conservation interventions.1. Probability of high diversity. First, the SID software was used on the localities of 607 herbarium specimens to calculate species diversity within a 1degree radius of each collecting point. The locality data of the top 20% diversity points were then imported into FLORAMAP. The FLORAMAP output was a probability surface displaying areas with climatic conditions most suitable to harbour a high diversity of Gossypium species. 2. Proximity to existing accession points. Next, a map was prepared which prioritizes areas most distant from existing collections, thus targeting geographical gaps in existing collections. 3. Proximity to roads. Third, an accessibility map was developed, with ease of access running from 1 (directly on a road) to 0 (20 km from the road). A CIAT dataset on road networks was used. 4. Genetic erosion risk assessment. Fourth, an index of genetic erosion risk was produced, using a variety of data sources. The first component of the index is severity of soil degradation, using a dataset from the International Soil Reference and Information Centre. 20 The threat of habitat loss was crudely modelled based on population growth. Those areas undergoing the highest rate of population growth were assumed to present the greatest risk of genetic erosion. This analysis was made using a dataset on population density 21 for 1970 and 1990. The final component uses an ILRI dataset on cattle density for the African continent (Kruska et al., 1995). It is assumed that a high density of cattle produces a significant risk to wild species of cotton. These three components were put together with equal weighting to form a single index of genetic erosion risk.  those areas most in need of conservation because of a combination of high diversity and high risk of genetic erosion. Such a methodology can be adapted to account for the specific objectives of a conservation programme. It could be refined further by, for example, overlaying the results of complementarity analysis or giving higher priority to specific taxa. It is currently being applied by IPGRI, USDA and national partners in support of a programme of exploration for wild Arachis spp. in Bolivia.The ecogeographic study is essentially desk-based. It needs to be refined and expanded, and its results implemented, through fieldwork. GIS technology can contribute to this phase of genetic resources conservation through:• the development of field aids; and • providing information on the optimal timing of field visits.Maps are crucial to fieldwork. Unfortunately, published maps showing a specific factor of interest to the conservationist (or combination of factors) may not be available. An example of the use of GIS to develop mapping products for use in the field is provided by Greene et al. (1999a). A number of moisture and temperature maps synthesizing some 60 monthly climate variables at 500 m resolution were prepared in support of a joint USA/Russia forage collecting programme in the Caucasus. Even when published maps are available they may be unwieldy to use: a single soil map of the study region in the Caucasus was synthesized from four different map series. These maps allowed the identification of ecogeographic gradients in the field, the slope of which influenced decisions about sampling frequency. They were also used to monitor, during the course of the fieldwork, which combinations of environmental conditions were being adequately sampled and which were not.Rainfall can be unpredictable in both space and time, especially in the arid and semiarid tropics, imagery not only to locate the primary target of meadow patches, but also to evaluate the stability of their phenology across years (Afonin and Green, 1999). The patches with the most predictable phenology were considered the highest priority for field visits, because of the greater likelihood of finding seed of the target species for collection. FAO's WINDISP software package has various features that are of relevance in this context, for example, tools to compare two images and analyse trends in a time-series of images. Much analysis may not be necessary, however, as there are sources of relevant pre-packaged data. It is possible for a collector in, say, Zimbabwe to determine the location of potential collection areas from the satellite imagery available on the Zimbabwe Meteorological Services Department's Vegetation Index Report web pages 22 or indeed FAO's GIEWS 23 and then visit the areas a matter of days later.The design of protected areas, including questions of optimal size and shape, zonation and networking (e.g. Given, 1994;Hawkes et al., 1997) is a spatial problem, and spatial analysis in a GIS environment has been applied to them, although mainly in the context of ecosystem or animal conservation. Thus, Howard (1996) discusses how spatial information on species richness, distribution and abundance of an endangered species, disturbance and distribution of timber resources within a forest can be used to develop a zoning plan for a forest reserve, including different use areas, buffer zones and a core. This type of application presents the challenge of integrating demographic, socio-economic, cultural and other data on, and from, the human population with data on the biophysical environment and on the target taxon. For example, Fox et al. (1996) used GIS to map areas where the objectives of protecting red pandas and those of meeting the claims and grazing-land needs of communities living in the area either coincided or came into conflict. Harmsworth (1998) described an attempt to manage within a GIS information on the cultural values of different features of the landscape, flora and fauna, with a view to developing resource and environmental management plans more in tune with the requirements of local people.A particularly comprehensive example of the application of GIS to the design of an in situ reserve is the work of Kremen et al. (1999) on the Masoala National Park in Madagascar. They defined a set of 13 design criteria relating to ecological and socio-economic sustainability, which, for example, included that special consideration should be given to rare and threatened habitats and species, that the limits of the park should follow natural features to make them easy to respect and that buffer areas should be large enough to meet the subsistence need of the human population surrounding the park. Information needs were then identified, combining maps, satellite imagery, biodiversity surveys and population studies. Data from these different sources were then analysed in a GIS environment to develop a park proposal balancing human and wildlife needs, including a core rainforest area, three satellite marine reserves and a large surrounding multiple-use zone. The proposal was discussed with local people and, once their approval was obtained, formed the basis of a national decree establishing the national park.Given the rapid rate of environmental and socio-economic changes (including the threat of global climate change), it is important for reserve design to take into account possible future scenarios. GIS combined with computer modelling can be used to optimize reserve selection and management based not only on current climatic and vege-tation patterns, but also under different assumptions of change. Menon and Bawa (1997) used GIS to document land use change, deforestation and habitat fragmentation in the Western Ghats of India, and investigate the socio-economic drivers of these processes to develop predictive models. These were then used to estimate the current and future effectiveness of the protected area network for biodiversity conservation.Once the in situ reserve has been established, some form of management intervention may need to be implemented, and its results on the frequency, abundance, demography and genetic diversity of target species monitored (Maxted et al., 1997b). GIS can assist in defining and implementing the management plan. Although most examples of such applications relate to ecosystem management (e.g. Kessell, 1990), Liu et al. (1995) used a spatial population model in a GIS to simulate the potential effects of a range of forest management plans on the size of the population of a bird species. Working in a GIS environment can ease the application of such analytical techniques of plant demography as transition matrix sensitivity analysis (Silvertown and Lovett Doust, 1993), thus hopefully stimulating what is still their incomplete integration into the armoury of plant genetic resources conservation.A key step in both germplasm multiplication and evaluation is to decide what sites are best for which accessions. The environment of the regeneration site must not only provide suitable conditions for reliable flowering and seed production, but also any necessary triggers for the different stages of plant development (Sackville Hamilton and Chorlton, 1997). Unless controlled pollination is practised, pollinators must also be present. On the other hand, pests and diseases must not be prevalent and populations of species related to the one(s) being regenerated should not be found nearby. Climate data and distribution maps for pests, diseases, pollinators and wild relatives can be overlapped using GIS to identify potential sites for regeneration. If the choice of locations for regeneration is limited, which is usually the case, such data can be used to estimate the relative suitability of different available sites for the regeneration of different accessions, by comparison with the environment at their site of collection (e.g. using FLORAMAP). They can also help to determine the unique needs of individual accessions so that growing procedures can be customized in sub-optimal sites.As for germplasm evaluation, both ecologically optimal and stress locations are usually necessary. Classification of testing locations using GIS-derived climatic data (e.g. Pollak and Pham, 1989) can be used to determine the suitability of different sites for the evaluation of specific traits, or combinations of traits, of interest. If a site has already been chosen, GIS can be used to determine the extent of the region where similar conditions apply, and hence the relevance and potential impact of the evaluation work (Chapman and Barreto, 1996). CIMMYT's Africa Maize Research Atlas on CD-ROM (Hodson et al., 1999) provides an interesting illustration of how GIS can support germplasm evaluation work. It provides a compendium of data layers and an easy-touse GIS exploration tool, allowing researchers to 'characterize regions of interest and target and predict the potential impacts of promising germplasm'.The major aim of conserving germplasm is, of course, for it to be used. Adequate access policies, good linkages between genebanks and users and well-developed breeding and other use programmes are necessary conditions for genetic resources to be used to the full; but they are not sufficient. The lack of data on accessions and the large size of collections can still present significant bottlenecks to the use of conserved material. GIS can help to alleviate the problem in the first instance by improving the quality and quantity of the locality data associated with collections. Given adequate data on the origin of material, GIS can also help to identify particularly interesting germplasm and reveal the structure of diversity within collections. Finally, GIS can be used to assess the potential impact of the products of germplasm use.Typically, a large proportion of germplasm accessions, especially older ones, lack latitude and longitude data, though elevation data are more common. GIS can help the collector and genebank curator in completing such passport data. Gazetteers, both published and on-line (e.g. the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names 24 and the GEOnet Names Server, 25 which provide the coordinates for about 3.5 million global geographic features, such as populated places), maps and collectors' notebooks can be used to determine latitude and longitude for accessions where only a locality name is available. With localities marked on paper maps, latitude and longitude may be estimated by using digitized maps of the area and employing the common facility of GIS software to return coordinates when a specific point is selected, say by moving the cursor to it.Even when passport data are available, they are sometimes inaccurate. Rapid data visualization using a GIS can reveal obvious errors in latitude and longitude data resulting in accessions falling into the sea, a lake or the wrong country. Ecogeographic outliers will also be suspect. Chapman and Busby (1994) describe a method of spotting outliers which involves plotting the climate profile of each specimen and looking for entries that are out of step with the rest. Similarly, FLORAMAP can be used to identify accessions with climatically discordant localities and to carry out other data checking analyses (Jones and Gladkov, 1999). Data can be checked further by comparing locality descriptions in the passport data with GIS datasets of administrative boundaries. A methodology for such data-checking is presented by Hijmans et al. (1999).Next, once locality data are better and more complete, such data as altitude, major soil type, land use and vegetation, if missing from the field documentation, can be estimated by overlaying the locations of sites on different thematic base maps of the appropriate scale and reading off the map attributes. Interpolated climate surfaces can also be used to characterize conditions at each collection site given its latitude, longitude and altitude, for example using FLORAMAP. Steiner and Greene (1996) describe this process as 'retro-classification' of accessions and give an example of its usefulness using the Lotus collection of the US National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) (see also Greene et al., 1999b).Retro-classification of the collection site can guide the use of the material by focusing the attention of users on the most promising material for their specific purposes. For example, although they have been developed in the context of introduction of tree species, the climate matching programmes described by Booth (1990;1999) for various countries are valuable tools for targeting the introduction of germplasm to specific areas for evaluation and use based on the conditions where it was collected. Similarly, Chapman and Taba (quoted by Chapman and Barreto, 1996) overlaid germplasm locations on soil maps to identify candidates from an extensive maize collection that might be adapted to alkaline soils. A geographical approach was also used by Beebe et al. (1997) to identify edaphic adaptation in beans as part of a breeding programme.'A core collection is a selected and limited set of accessions derived from an existing germplasm collection, chosen to represent the genetic spectrum in the whole collection and including as much as possible of its genetic diversity' (Brown, 1993). The core collection can be used to evaluate traits that are expensive or time-consuming to measure on the whole collection, for example complex yield and quality traits and general combining ability with local germplasm. These studies can then be used to identify material in the rest of the collection that might require further investigation.Different workers have employed passport, characterization (taxonomic, morphological, molecular, etc.) or evaluation data, often in different, usually hierarchical, combinations, to classify accessions into groups and identify duplicates. However, the importance of location data is widely acknowledged and agroclimatic conditions at the collection site is often one of the more important types of criteria used in the classification process. The case of the Phaseolus vulgaris core collection described by Tohme et al. (1995) illustrates this -and the role of GIS -well. First, regions were prioritized based on the history of the crop. Then, interpolated surfaces for four parameters (length of growing season, photoperiod, soil type and moisture regime) were used to define 54 distinct environments, and each 10-minute grid cell was assigned to one of these classes. Passport data were then used to match each landrace accession to an environmental class. Finally, accessions in each environmental class were stratified according to characterization data (growth habit, grain colour and grain size) and selections made at random from within each stratum within each environmental class.Environmental data on accessions derived from analysis using GIS can be used to investigate the structure of genetic diversity collections without going as far as developing core collections. Thus, analysis of various datasets using FLORAMAP, including Passiflora spp. in the Andes (Sergio Segura, personal communication, 2000), wild rice in southern Africa (Kihika Kiambi, personal communication, 2000) and Stylosanthes in South America (Jones and Gladkov, 1999), has revealed correspondences between the groupings of accessions by clustering using the climatic characteristics of collection sites and those derived from isozyme and DNA marker data. Indeed, Chapman and Barreto (1996) have suggested that as the linkage between genetic resources and environmental data is explored, 'geographic trait loci' may be identified, where particular parts of the genome are linked to adaptation to different conditions.GIS has a role to play not only in facilitating the use of germplasm, but also in predicting the likely impact of that use. Thus, a breeding programme could weigh the relative effects of achieving a range of different improvement objectives, and then concentrate on the ones likely to have the greatest impact with a particular priority target group. An example is provided by recent work at CIP on frost tolerance in potato (Hijmans et al., 2000b). A crop growth simulation model was used in conjunction with high-resolution monthly climate surfaces for the Altiplano of southern Peru and northern Bolivia to predict the likely effect on yield in different areas within the region of increasing the frost tolerance of a standard variety by specific amounts. This type of analysis is strongly dependent on the availability of the kind of detailed, within-country, geo-referenced crop distribution data that are being assembled by CGIAR Centres (e.g. Huaccho and Hijmans, 1999;Hyman, 1999).The application of GIS to estimating the impact of improved germplasm opens the way for a fully integrated approach to the use of GIS in plant genetic resources management, in which GIS-based analysis guides and facilitates the process from start to finish and back again. First, the likely impact of a particular potential use product in a given area is assessed using GIS; for example a more frost-tolerant potato variety. Next, retro-classification of past collection sites is carried out with GIS to identify germplasm in existing national and international collections which could be useful in developing the proposed product. In the potato case, interpolated surfaces for the occurrence or severity of frost in the Andes could be used. If sufficient suitable material is not available in genebanks, climatic data are used to identify areas where further germplasm collection should be done. This could be approached by superimposing maps of frost severity and potato cultivation, or by running the collecting localities of frost-tolerant accessions through FLORAMAP. Once promising material has been obtained, GIS is used to identify appropriate evaluation sites. The best material coming out of the evaluation programme is then used to develop the improved product, the actual performance of which is finally fed back into the impact model to start the cycle all over again. The potential is clearly there for GIS-based analysis of data on germplasm accessions to add greatly to the value of the data, and thus of the germplasm to which they pertain. It should significantly enhance the cost-effectiveness of conservation efforts, and facilitate use of germplasm by breeders and others. However, it must be admitted that GIS technology has not been taken up by plant genetic resources conservation programmes to the extent that one might have predicted on the basis of its potential. Part of the reason is that many such programmes, particularly in developing countries, have significant resource constraints, and GIS hardware, software and data are perceived as being expensive, difficult to obtain and complex to use.The perceived 'barriers to entry' may still be too high, but the current revolution in GIS technology is putting both the data and the analytical tools within the reach of many. However, if the potential of GIS in the field of plant genetic resources conservation and use is to be fulfilled, the plant genetic resources conservation community needs to take positive action itself at the international, regional and national levels, and not simply wait for the technology to come to its aid. At the international level, the CGIAR Centres must show the same leadership in the application of GIS-based approaches to plant genetic resources conservation and use as they have been showing in their application to natural resources management. An important first step will be the integration of more GIS capability into the International Crop Information System (ICIS) being developed by CIMMYT (Fox and Skovmand, 1996) and the on-line database of the System-wide Information Network for Genetic Resources (SINGER 26 ). In fact, Web-based tools, where maps and accession points can be manipulated on-line with easy-to-use, browser-based, graphical interfaces will help wider adoption of GIS by plant genetic resources conservation programmes.IPGRI has been collaborating with other CGIAR Centres, in particular CIAT and CIP, in implementing a three-pronged strategy of support to GIS adoption by national and regional programmes. This entails the following activities:• development, testing and dissemination of a menu of basic methodologies; • development, promotion and distribution of easy-to-use, inexpensive software tools (and data) specifically aimed at carrying out the analyses alluded to in the previous point; and • awareness-building.The approach that has been taken is to implement a series of case studies to develop methodologies, whenever possible based on the use of specialized software such as FLORAMAP, SID and DIVA. The hope is that the results of such case studies will be used to build awareness of the potential of GIS technology at both the technical and decisionmaking levels within the plant genetic resources conservation community. At the regional level, plant genetic resources networks have a potentially pivotal role to play in the process of GIS adoption. If GIS technology is still not within the reach of many individual national programmes, it should be possible to find a mechanism whereby the members of a regional network can share the costs, as well as benefits, of GIS adoption. GIS provides an ideal environment within which to manage and analyse data from a number of countries in a common framework, and thus develop both regional and national conservation strategies based on a broad vision of the problems and opportunities.At the national level, genebanks need to forge linkages with institutions which already have GIS capacity, for example meteorological services, the geography departments of universities, mapping and survey departments and national statistical and natural resources institutes. This will guarantee access to data and expertise in the longer term and, therefore, sustainability. It will also eventually place genebank managers in a position to lobby decisionmakers with tangible evidence of the gains in effectiveness that can accrue from the use of this technology, so that both national and international resources may be accessed for the eventual acquisition of in-house GIS capability.It is certainly possible to visualize in a not too distant future GIS being used routinely and in an integrated fashion in support of plant genetic resources conservation and use as outlined above. However, before we are swept away by our enthusiasm, it is worth reminding ourselves of the fact that none of the analyses that have been described here would be possible without adequate data on germplasm, in particular accurate locality data in coordinate form. At the risk of seeming prosaic, the future of GIS adoption, with the improvements in efficiency of plant genetic resources programmes which it will bring, is likely to be more dependent on these programmes having solid documentation components, that is, effective data management systems and lots of data to manage, than on methodological or software innovations.Recognizing the influence that environment has on selection and gene flow, plant collectors have long capitalized on ecogeographic information to sample genetically diverse plant populations. The underlying premise has been that environmental descriptors can be used to detect plant population structure, and are much easier to obtain than phenotypic or genotypic descriptions of plant populations. Traditional sources of landscape and climate descriptions include maps, local expertise and on-site observation. In the past decade, plant collectors have increasingly capitalized on strategies developed by geographers and natural resource managers to characterize the environment. Three basic technologies are used: global positioning systems (GPS), remote sensing devices and geographic information system (GIS) software. GPS provides quick and accurate pinpointing of position. Remote sensing devices, such as satellites, describe the landscape using a wide array of attributes, at various spatial and temporal scales. GIS software allows us to organize, understand and ask questions about the spatial data that are collected. Maps can be produced from secondarily derived information. For example, geostatistical methods can be applied to a set of individual points (i.e. monthly rainfall and elevation data from meteorological stations) to produce a map that estimates the contiguous landscape coverage of an environmental attribute such as rainfall. Another common map involves the reduction of complex data using classification analysis. For example, monthly rainfall, snow and relative humidity can be grouped into similar classes to produce a single map that classifies an area into moisture zones. The widely recognized linkage between plant population adaptation to the surrounding environment makes this type of information particularly valuable for those interested in sampling, conserving and using plant genetic diversity. Guarino (1995) and Guarino et al. (1999) provide an introduction to GIS technology and discuss how geo-referenced data can be used in collecting and managing plant genetic resources.As with other technologies, GIS-derived data and analysis need to be correctly applied to genetic resource questions to ensure valid answers emerge. Genetic structure is influenced by factors other than environment, such as reproductive biology, effects of migration, biotic selection pressure (i.e. pathogens) and human selection pressure (Loveless and Hamrick, 1984;Hedrick, 1986;Slatkin, 1987). Greene and Hart (1999) briefly review factors that contribute to genetic differentiation in plant populations that can be attributed to ecogeographic influence. Another consideration for effectively using environmental information to understand population structure is to ensure spatial and/or temporal scales match between plant and environmental attributes. Hart (1999) described the significance of scale in acquiring meaningful measures of the environment. Accurately measuring or estimating environmental attributes is challenging in its own right, and the cost can be high, depending on the level of GIS expertise needed and availability of datasets. However, costs are decreasing substantially as more data are available at a lower cost or freely available over the Internet, and GIS software packages become more accessible to non GIS-specialists.Considering the appeal and complexities of using secondarily derived environmental data as surrogate information for population genetic structure, we felt it was important to validate the usefulness of GIS-derived information in predicting intraspecific differentiation in plant populations. Our hypothesis was that GIS-derived ecogeographic description would assist in distinguishing accessions of the same species, collected from the same area. To test the predictive value of GISderived information we classified 35 accessions of red clover collected in the Caucasus Mountains using both morphological data collected in a common environment and random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) marker data. GIS-derived environmental attributes such as elevation and climate were used to classify the same 35 accessions. We then examined how well the GIS-derived classification corresponded to classifications based on morphologic and genetic attributes obtained from the collected germplasm.A joint expedition between the United States Department of Agriculture National Plant Germplasm System, and the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry (VIR) was carried out in 1995. The target region covered an area that extended 600 km east-west and 250 km north-south, between 43-45 o N and 38-42°E in the Western Caucasus Mountains in southern Russia. This is a floristically rich area laying adjacent to Vavilov's Southwest Asiatic centre of diversity for cultivated plants. Prior to the collecting trip, maps were developed using primary and secondarily derived ecogeographic information (Greene et al., 1999a). VIR has made subsequent explorations to the same region in 1997 and 1999 (A. Afonin, St Petersburg, Russia, personal communications, 2000). VIR scientists continue to use and refine the GIS database developed in 1995. Greene et al. (1999a) described the procedures used to develop the Caucasus Mountain maps and GIS database. We will briefly review here how remotely sensed elevation data and long-term weather station data were used to develop the secondarily derived topographical and climate zone maps that were used to guide the collecting of germplasm. Elevation data were originally acquired through aerial surveillance and represented spot height data at a 500-m horizontal interval. The database was acquired from academic sources and used to develop a digital elevation model (DEM). A DEM is a digital representation of elevation over a twodimensional surface by the regular array of height referenced to a common datum.The Caucasus DEM data were reported in metres above sea level. Slope and aspect maps were developed at a 250-m horizontal interval. Slope data were reported in degrees, and similar to elevation, represented a quantitative attribute. The aspect data were reported using an eight-class nominal scale centred on the cardinal directions, and thus represented a qualitative attribute. Climate data were obtained from 111 meteorological stations distributed throughout the collection area. Accumulated rainfall, absolute monthly minimum and maximum temperatures (i.e. coldest and hottest day of each month), average relative humidity and average wind speed were reported as longterm monthly averages. Initially, monthly climate surfaces were created reflecting the effects of station data and neighbouring terrain for each climate attribute. General trends were examined in the monthly maps. Monthly accumulated rainfall and monthly average minimal temperature were aggregated into logical seasons: winter (November to February), spring transition (March to April), early growing season (May to June), late growing season (July to August) and autumn transition (September to October). Humidity was averaged through the early and late growing season (March to June, July to October), maximum temperature averaged over the growing season (May to August), and wind speed averaged over summer (May to September) and winter (November to February).Seasonal attributes were then classified to produce maps depicting temperature and moisture zones. For the temperature zone map, all minimum and maximum temperature groups were layered in a single unweighted six-variable map file, and a cluster analysis carried out that resulted in a 14zone temperature map across the collection area. Seasonal groups of rainfall, relative humidity, and wind speed were layered in a single unweighted nine-variable map file and a cluster analysis carried out on the attributes that resulted in a 15-zone moisture map across the study area.The moisture and temperature zone maps, and elevation slope and aspect maps were used in the 1995 collecting trip in the Caucasus Mountains. The collection trip focused on wild populations with an emphasis on sites not recently disturbed by natural or anthropogenic forces. Generally, 50 or more individual plants were sampled from each population. Targeted species were sampled as they were encountered. Local collecting site information, including soil pH was recorded using the data form of Steiner and Greene (1996). Latitude and longitude positions were obtained using GPS. A total of 550 accessions, representing 37 genera and approximately 109 species, were collected from 149 sites during the 3-month period. This paper focuses on 35 accessions of red clover (Trifolium pratense L.) that were collected from 35 sites. The red clover accessions were separated into two classes, based on collection site data (Greene et al. 1999b). The first group was designated as unadapted. Based on work by Cocks and Ehrman (1987), which suggested that ecotypic differentiation occurred within 20 years for forage species, and computer simulations carried out by Haywood (1991), which indicated that 10 to 20 generations was sufficient for ecotypic differentiation to occur, we defined populations as unadapted if passport data suggested the population had not been locally present for 20 years (Greene et al., 1999a). Populations sampled from these types of sites may not reflect genetic adaptation to the collection site. These included accessions collected along roadsides, streams, construction areas, overgrazed meadows, or areas otherwise disturbed. The first group also contained accessions collected from sites representing microhabitat that was anomalous to the broader climatic regime described by the GIS database. Populations collected from this class of sites would probably not correlate with GIS-derived information. The second group was designated as adapted and consisted of accessions that had been collected at sites having no evidence of recent demographic disturbance, and that were influenced predominately by the broader climatic regime described by the GIS database. Populations sampled from these types of sites were more likely to reflect adaptation to the site.In In addition to the morphological data, data from RAPD markers were obtained. Leaf tissue was harvested and combined to form a bulk leaf sample that represented 18 individual plants. DNA was extracted by the method of Doyle and Doyle (1989). A series of polymerase chain reactions (PCR) were conducted and amplification products were resolved, stained with ethidium bromide and visualized with a source of UV light. Each primerplant sample combination was repeated at least twice, and negative control reactions lacking DNA were included for each primer. All gels were scored for both polymorphic and monomorphic bands. It was assumed that bands of the same molecular weight in different individuals were identical.Based on a preliminary analysis, the following set of morphological attributes was selected to develop a morphological distance matrix: growth habit, flower length, pubescence, leaf mark, % flowering first year, winter survival, days to bloom, duration of bloom and standard colour. Euclidean distance coefficients were calculated to generate a set of morphological distance matrices for the two groups of accessions (unadapted, adapted). The RAPD data were used to construct a genetic distance matrix. Since red clover is a perennial outcrossing species, we used the procedure used by Nebauer et al. (1999) to calculate genetic distances in the perennial cross-pollinated species Digitalis obscura L. Lynch and Milligan (1994) recommended this procedure to minimize bias in the calculation of genetic distance using RAPD markers.Genetic distance matrices were generated using 45 out of a total of 83 RAPD bands. The correspondence coefficient used was the simple matching (SM) coefficient. The RAPD data were used to generate two genetic distance matrices that were estimated for accessions collected from unadapted sites and adapted sites.Distance matrices were also developed for the following GIS-derived attributes: DEM-derived elevation, slope, and aspect; moisture zone and temperature zone; and latitude and longitude coordinates. Distance was estimated using all ecogeographic attributes (i.e. elevation, slope and aspect and climate zones); elevation and climate; elevation and latitude; climate and latitude; and geographic distance. Euclidean distance coefficients were calculated to generate a set of distance matrices based on accessions from unadapted and adapted accessions.We examined the correlation between the distance matrices generated from morphological, RAPD marker and GIS-derived data using Mantel's Test (Mantel, 1967). Correspondence between the morphological and RAPD distance matrices and each of these with geographic distance matrices were examined. A total of eight different GIS data matrices representing various combinations of GISderived attributes were compared against the matrices obtained from morphological and RAPD marker data. Calculation of distance matrices and matrices comparisons were carried out using the NTSYS-pc program version 2.02k (Rohlf, 1993).The morphological data grouped the 35 accessions into five distinct groups (Fig. 37.1). These groups remained distinct for both the adapted and unadapted accessions. Sixty-six per cent of the accessions fell into a single class that was characterized by a  mostly upright growth habit, good winter survival (85.0%), normal or delta leaf marks, less stem pubescence, first year bloom and had flowers that were smaller with pale, purplish standards. This group was among the earliest and longest blooming germplasm. A single accession made up the second class, and was distinguished by having the lowest winter survival (60%), and the earliest and longest bloom period. The third class of accessions had the greatest level of pubescence, slightly larger and darker flowers and was medium in maturity and bloom duration. The fourth class contained only a single member and was distinguished by an upright growth habit, the greatest winter survival, lowest percentage of first year flowering, the latest bloom date and one of the shortest durations of bloom. The fifth class of accessions was characterized by having an extended to basal leaf mark, large flowers, later bloom date and the shortest bloom duration. The RAPD marker data did not cluster the accessions into classes that were as distinct as those formed by the morphological data. When the distance matrices for adapted accessions were compared, the Mantel test was significant at P < 0.01, indicating that the morphological and RAPD data classified the 35 accessions in the same manner. However, for the unadapted group, there was no significant correlation between the morphological and RAPD distance matrices. This suggested that accessions we considered to be in genetic equilibrium with the environment grouped in a similar fashion, using either morphological or molecular marker data. However, for accessions not in equilibrium, morphological and molecular markers did not correspond.There was no correlation between geographic distance and RAPD marker distance or morphological distance for either the adapted or unadapted sets of accessions. Other studies have reported a lack of correspondence between geographic distance and distance measures based on RAPD markers. Although Nebauer et al. (1999) identified clusters of D. obscura (based on RAPD distance) that had been collected from the same geographic region within Spain, the correlation between genetic distance and geographic distance was not significant. In wild barley (Hordeum spontaneum Koch), Nevo et al. (1998) found no association between interpopulation genetic distance estimated using RAPD markers and geographic distance in accessions collected from Israel, Turkey and Iran. Steiner (1999) did not find a significant correlation between geographic distance and RAPD marker distance in sets of birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus L.) germplasm representing Old World distribution, and regional-scale distribution in the Caucasus Mountains. Generally, patterns of molecular marker and morphological variation have been associated with ecogeographic variation, not geographic distance per se (i.e. Berdahl et al., 1999;Bennett, 2000;Beebe et al., 2000).There was a significant correlation between the morphological distance matrix and the various GISderived matrices. Distances that included elevation were generally the strongest, while distances that included only climate had the weakest correlation. The strongest correlation was with elevation and elevation and latitude. Group correspondence between morphological attributes and elevation and latitude was evident from scatter plots of the first and second eigenvectors (Fig. 37.2). For accessions we had identified as adapted, all distance matrices based on GISderived data were significantly correlated with the distance matrix based on morphological attributes. For accessions we had identified as unadapted, with the exception of the matrix containing only moisture and temperature zone data, the GIS distance matrices were significantly correlated with the morphological distance matrix. Assuming that the traits we measured contributed to fitness, this suggested that populations we had classified as unadapted were in fact adapted to the sites they were collected from, in that the morphological characteristics of accessions we had previously defined as unadapted were in fact correlated to specific environmental conditions.The GIS-derived distance matrices did not generally correlate with the genetic distance matrix obtained from RAPD markers for either the adapted or unadapted populations. For accessions classified as unadapted, there was no association between any of the GIS-derived distance matrices and the genetic distance matrix based on RAPD markers. However, when adapted accessions were examined, there was a significant but weak correlation between the distance  matrices based on elevation and latitude, and moisture and temperature zone and latitude. The lack of correlation between RAPD markers and ecogeographic data has been reported in a number of papers; for example, Heaton et al. (1999) reported no association between RAPD markers and ecological and phenotypic differences in Manillkara zapota (L.), a variable outcrossing tropical tree. Schierenbeck et al. (1997) found no association between elevation and genetic variation among populations growing at different elevations for four tropical tree species. However, Steiner (1999) found a significant correspondence between genetic distance based on ITS sequences and distance measures based on climate, elevation and latitude. The correspondence was greater in perennial Trifolium species than annual species (Steiner, 1999). Heaton et al. (1999) suggested a number of reasons for the lack of association between DNA molecular markers and geography.Our results suggested that the prevalence of neutral markers may be a factor considering the high correspondence between the morphological distance matrix and GIS-derived distance matrices, compared with the low correspondence observed between the RAPD distance matrix and GIS-derived matrices. However, the fact that we observed weak but significant correlation between the RAPD matrix and climate and elevation attributes when we examined adapted accessions, yet saw no association with the unadapted accessions, suggested that the RAPD markers may have some association with adaptive alleles. RAPD markers identified adaptive DNA differentiation in wild emmer wheat growing in two contrasting microhabitats (Li et al., 1999). This is certainly a subject where further research will help to clarify the situation.Our hypothesis was that GIS-derived ecogeographic description could assist in identifying variation among accessions of the same species, collected from the same area. This type of information is particularly valuable for plant collectors interested in obtaining germplasm adapted to unique environments, or in efficiently sampling the genetic variation of a species within a given region. As a test of our hypothesis, we examined the correlation between GIS-derived ecogeographic information and morphological and molecular marker variation for 35 accessions. We found that GIS-derived data were correlated with patterns of germplasm variation measured by morphological and DNA-level characters. Of particular value was the DEM estimate of elevation, which was strongly correlated with germplasm variation. Elevation data are readily obtained, and can often be obtained freely from the Internet. Our study suggested that this type of information could be used as a straightforward guide for sampling diverse germplasm. Latitude was also a useful predictor of variation. Although more complex to develop, climate information was also correlated with morphological and molecular marker variation. Generally, GIS-derived ecogeographic data were more strongly correlated to morphological variation. A positive correlation was observed for accessions that had been defined as unadapted and adapted. Although we examined a limited number of accessions, these results suggest that morphological adaptation may occur in a shorter time frame than our previous assumption (Greene et al., 1999b). The GIS-derived data had a weaker correlation with genetic distances as estimated using RAPD markers. Only a weak association was observed, and only with accessions that we had defined as adapted. Finally, geographic distance was not associated with either morphological or RAPD variation. Greene and Hart (1999) discussed the effective use of GIS-derived information in collecting plant germplasm. This present study reinforces the discussion. For example, the differential response of adapted and unadapted accessions in this study illustrates the importance of collecting populations that are in equilibrium with the environment from which they are collected if project objectives are to associate germplasm variation with environmental variation. This study also illustrated how morphological and DNA-level variations differ in how they correlate with environmental variation. The difference between morphological data and RAPD marker data is not surprising considering that populations that are recent emigrants may undergo relatively rapid changes in adaptive allele frequencies due to intense selection pressure, while neutral allele frequencies would be expected to change at a slower rate.Provided researchers take into account the inherent limitations and challenges of using ecogeographic information, particularly secondarily derived information, we believe that the use of GIS-derived ecogeographic information promises to bring greater precision and efficiency in the acquisition of plant genetic resources.Conservation of genetic resources began strongly as an ex situ programme and there have been several suggestions of ex situ conservation of forest genetic resources as well (FAO, 1992;Yang and Yeh, 1992;Singh, 1996). Ex situ conservation of genetic diversity of the forest species requires that we have a good knowledge of their breeding behaviour, population structure, genetic differentiation of the provenances, pollination systems, seed storage requirements, life history details and so on (Marshall and Brown, 1998;Brown and Hardner, 1999). For most of the forest species these are hardly understood and even if these details are available, ex situ conservation of these species is difficult because of the vast areas required and prohibitive costs involved in maintaining and evaluating their populations (Shands, 1991). Thus in situ conservation of genetic resources of the forest species is emerging as a predominant strategy (Smith and Schultes, 1990;Bawa et al., 1991;Ledig, 1992).In situ conservation of genetic resources, especially of the forest species, requires identification of the 'Genetic Diversity Hot Spots' (GDHSs) for each of the species such that we protect these areas for conserving their genetic diversity (Uma Shaanker and Ganeshaiah, 1997;Ganeshaiah andUma Shaanker, 1998, 1999). Such GDHSs and genetically diverse populations are identified for a number of species and conservation strategies are formulated accordingly (e.g. for sandalwood, Phyllanthus species and Bambusa spp.) at our centre. However, while this approach could be very effective for the conservation of genetic diversity of certain targeted species, it may not be an appropriate and useful protocol for conserving the entire plant genetic resources of a target region, or of a country.Forest genetic resources of a region or of a country, constitute the total pool of genetic diversity at several layers from intraspecific to inter-community and to that at the ecosystem level (Fig. 38.1). Conserving this entire range of genetic diversity requires a pyramiding of the conservation efforts of all the individual species. Such an approach calls for identifying the genetic hotspots for all or most of the important species of the area (or the country) and pooling these hotspots to arrive at a final map depicting areas for protection. For instance, conservation of genetic resources of the entire Western Ghats requires that we develop such independent plans for about 4000-6000 species and join them meaningfully! Such a task, besides being Herculean and time consuming, might not be cost-effective: several overlapping areas are likely to be identified for different species and the final map may consist of several small, disjointed areas, conservation of all of which will be problematic if not impossible. Hence this approach may not be an effective and useful strategy especially considering the rapid rate at which we are losing our forest genetic resources. We obviously need an altogether different approach to conserve the forest genetic resources of a region or of a country.Several methods are being proposed for in situ conservation of biological resources in general and of genetic diversity in particular. These range from identifying a network of the reserves that complementarily constitute most of the biological diversity of the region for conservation (Rebelo and Siegfried, 1992), use of landscape approach for identifying distinct habitat elements for conservation (Menon and Bawa, 1997) and prioritizing the conservation sites based on the alternative species (Peterson and Navarro-Sigüenza, 1999). While continued concern with species is essential, landscape-level issues also need much greater attention. Franklin (1993), for instance, argued that efforts to preserve biological diversity must focus increasingly at the ecosystem level because of the immense number of species, the majority of which are currently unknown. An ecosystem approach is also the only way to conserve processes and habitats (such as forest canopies, below ground habitats and hyporheic zones) that, with their constituent species, are poorly known. Similarly, our incomplete knowledge of the functioning of the habitats of various sizes has led to the continued debate on whether or not to conserve the species as part of the large ecosystem or as a part of several small habitats (Rebelo and Siegfried, 1992). However, in these suggestions, two issues do not receive simultaneous and serious attention: (i) the possibility of augmenting the efforts to conserve the genetic resources with those to conserve the biological diversity; and (ii) the possible approaches and techniques to be employed to conserve the genetic resources at an ecosystem level. In what follows we have attempted to combine the elements of the suggestions by earlier workers but with a special focus on in situ conservation of the genetic resources along with the biological diversity of the target area. The present approach focuses on each species and begins at the base of the pyramid. The two new strategies suggested focus the conservation efforts at the ecosystem level and proceed downwards (strategy I) or at a group of related species and proceed upwards (strategy II).An effective and comprehensive strategy for the conservation of the entire forest genetic resources of a target area needs to be essentially based more on identification of the genetic hotspots for the specific groups of plants and/or for the habitats, than for individual species. Hotspots thus identified could be combined together to arrive at a regional or national conservation plan which could help us to conserve the most diversity with least effort and cost. Accordingly, we propose two independent but complementary approaches for addressing the national or regional level conservation of the forest genetic resources. These two, 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' approaches, which aim at identifying the areas to be conserved at the ecosystem level and for specific groups of plants respectively, together offer the complementary sets of areas to be conserved.Consider a biodiversity rich region, for example the Western Ghats, one of the 18 (now 25) hotspots of diversity in the world, spread along the west coast of India along about a 1500 km stretch of mountain range (Myers, 1990). This area harbours about 4000 to 6000 species of angiosperms, almost a third of their richness in India, in diverse types of vegetation spread over a range of altitudes from 900 m to about 2000 m above sea level. It hosts at least about 1000 plant species that are economically very important for their medicinal purposes, timber and non-timber value, for their ornamental potential and/or industrial use (Gadgil et al., 1997;Subhash Chandran, 1997). Thus, even if we aim at the conservation of the genetic diversity of merely the economically important species of this area, we need to have about 500 independent programmes. Even if such an effort is possible, it will not be able to address the conservation needs of the other plant species with less known or yet unknown potential. Obviously such species-based plans cannot be appropriate strategies. On the other hand, conservation of the entire genetic resources of these areas could be addressed by identifying the genetically diverse habitats and areas for conservation within them. We propose the following steps for this.In the top-down approach we suggest a geographical information system (GIS) based stratification of the area to identify distinct bio-geographic habitats that are likely to harbour diverse genetic resources. The process of stratification can be based on a set of important climatic, physical, biological and stress factors that might together shape the structure of the genetic resources. For instance, we have attempted to stratify the Western Ghats based on different layers such as rainfall, temperature regimes, altitude range, vegetation types, soil types, diversity of plants in general and of the threatened species in particular and other social and economic threats ; see the legends for details). Among these, however, some parameters such as temperature and altitude were found to be either highly correlated and or were found redundant. While we still are exploring the possibilities of incorporating other parameters, we found that stratification of the Western Ghats using even a subset of these parameters offers ecologically meaningful habitats.Based on the three layers, namely rainfall, vegetation and density of threatened species, we identified 45 distinct habitats. Some of these, however, were very small, occupying less than 500 km 2 . These small patches were culled as unimportant in the context of the conservation of the genetic diversity of the entire region and hence we were eventually left with 16 distinct types (Table 38.1). Though this culling process is likely to eliminate certain small but unique habitats (e.g. swamps), as a first approximation of distinct forest types we retained the minimal set containing representatives of the large forest types. Within each of these 16 habitats, however, a large number of patches were very small and hence are unlikely to hold viable sizes of populations of different species, especially of the rare and threatened species. We hence constructed the frequency distribution of the sizes of the patches (Fig. 38.5) for each of these habitats and identified those in the top 5% of the size category. These constituted the areas for further sampling for genetic conservation (Table 38.1).We propose that within these identified large patches, a certain number of sites or plots are identified across the altitude and latitude ranges for evaluating the floral diversity, population sizes or densities of economically important species and their genetic diversity. The genetic conservation value (GCVal) of a site can be computed as a function of the population size and the extent of genetic diversity of the populations. Since for most species, the minimum viable populations are not known, we suggest that the genetic conservation value of a site be computed as a sum of the genetic diversity, GDi, weighted with the population size Pi of the species (i) as given below.Swhere S = number of species in the jth plot. The conservation worthiness of a site can be expressed as a direct function of the genetic conservation value and the species richness. Accordingly, plotting the sites sampled on these two estimates helps to identify the best set of sites for conservation. Those with the highest species diversity and genetic diversity index can be prioritized for conserving the genetic resources of the area (Fig. 38.6).In this approach, we propose that in situ conservation sites are selected together for a set of species that are either taxonomically related and/or share common use profiles. For example, the group-based approach can aim at identifying common sites for conservation of medicinally important plants or bamboos and/or rattans or a set of economically important but endemic species. More often the species with common use profiles are likely to be taxonomically related to varied degree (as in bamboos and rattans). Even in the groups that contain taxonomically diverse ranges of species there are species subgroups that might be taxonomically related and/or share common habitats. For example, the Triphala (meaning three fruits) species complex, composed of Terminalia bellerica and Terminalia chebula along with Phyllanthus emblica, which forms  (Ananda Rao, 1995). These data have been compiled from both flora records and field visits. To this, the distribution of the endemic species has also been added from Ahmedullah and Nayar (1986). The data from these two have been combined, the richness of the threatened and endemic species has been computed for different places and contours drawn. The three regimes identified from these contours indicate the sensitivity or vulnerability of an area for some of the unique species and perhaps also represent the extent of threat experienced.  the important ingredients of Ayurvedic medicinal formulations, generally occur together in most of the Combretaceae rich deciduous habitats of South India. Thus, identifying a set of common conservation sites for such species might be not only a possibility but could be an effective method of conserving their genetic resources. Therefore we propose that conservation sites be identified for groups of such plant species that could be later combined to arrive at the regional sites for conservation.We propose the following steps in this approach.In executing such an approach, the first step could be to identify the contours of diversity of the species richness of the target groups. Contours of diversity could be constructed based on a range of datasets on the occurrence and abundance of the species such as forest working plans, flora, forest officers' datasets and the herbaria collections. Protocols for these steps using the GIS software have been standardized at our centre (Ganeshaiah andUma Shaanker, 1998, 1999;Ravikanth et al., 1999) Typically, information on the spatial distribution of different species of the group chosen is collated in a spatial database system, the study region is divided into grids of suitable sizes and the density of species in each grid counted. From these density data, contours of different species densities are drawn and hotspots of species richness are identified. From within these identified hotspots of species diversity, patches containing the viable populations of a reasonably large set of species need to be located for estimating the genetic diversity of the species.This step involves sampling the populations of a set of species that demand immediate conservation of the genetic diversity. The species chosen could be on the basis of: (i) their economic importance; (ii) human threats and stresses being faced by them; and (iii) endemism and rarity of the species. The genetic diversity of the chosen species in these patches is estimated for further prioritization. Patches with high genetic diversity and reasonably large populations of species shall be the candidates for conservation and hence shall be identified as the 'genetic hotspots' for conserving the genetic resources of the target group in situ. Such genetic hotspots for a different group of plants can be integrated to eventually arrive at a network of sites for conserving the plant genetic resources of the target area.In the Western Ghats, we have located such hotspots of species diversity for a few groups of plants such as bamboos, rattans, dipterocarps, and Triphala (see above) and a few other medicinal plants. The species richness contours thus drawn for rattans for instance, suggest that there are two distinct areas where the rattan species are highly concentrated: From the northern patch, several locations with reasonably large populations of rattans located in fairly well protected forest zones were identified. Samples of Calamus strictus were drawn from these sites and their genetic diversity estimated using the isozymes of leaf samples. The data on the presence or absence of the bands of different isozymes of nine different enzymes were coded in a binary system and the extent of genetic diversity of different populations and hence of different areas estimated. From these datasets, we have identified specific sites with high genetic diversity for the conservation of the rattan genetic resources in the Western Ghats.For an in situ conservation agenda of a small set of forest species, the current approach based on individual species is perhaps the most effective. But the list of species for which the genetic resources need to be conserved in situ is becoming larger and for this reason, an ecosystem-based approach that addresses most of the species of the habitat is perhaps the best strategy. Though this approach compromises on the details of the individual species, it does provide an economically and logistically effective conservation programme of the entire genetic resources at the ecosystem level. Nevertheless, the ecosystem approach does not ensure the conservation of the entire range of the genetic diversity of the species, a possibility that can be attained with the species-based approach. Similarly, it does not ensure the conservation of the rare alleles or genes that might be very important for the survival of the species during extreme and stress situations. These limitations of the ecosystem-based approach can be partially overcome by suitably combining the top-down with the specific group-based or bottom-up approach. By combining the sites identified through the two approaches and marking the overlaps, it might be possible to evolve a network of genetic conservation sites for a region or for a country. In this sense, we see the two approaches suggested here complementing each other and serving as an effective, economic and comprehensive strategy of conserving forest genetic resources of a region and/or a country.The importance of conservation of the genetic diversity of forest species is well recognized. Currently there are a number of attempts being made for the conservation of forest genetic resources and, in many cases, the species-based approach is being followed. However, when the task at hand is to conserve the genetic resources of a region or of a country, the species-based approach may not be very relevant and it could also be time-consuming and costly. Rather, such regional programmes of genetic conservation could become cost-effective by adopting an ecosystem approach and by amalgamating them with those of conserving the biological diversity of the area. We accordingly propose two complementary strategies to prioritize the areas and the biological material for in situ conservation of forest genetic resources of a region or of a country. First of these, the 'top-down' or ecosystem-based approach aims to identify the sites that could contain the genetic diversity of a wide range of forest species from diverse habitat types of the entire ecosystem; conserving such sites would conserve genetic diversity contained in them. This approach, based on the stratification of the entire target region, also attempts to amalgamate the programmes of conserving genetic diversity with those aimed at conserving the biological diversity of the area. The second, 'bottom-up' or group-based approach targets the groups of species that are economically or taxonomically linked. This approach aims to identify common areas for conservation of the genetic resources of a range of related species and serves as a cost-effective replacement for the existing species-based approach. It is also argued that by combining the top-down and bottom-up approaches described here, some of the problems that are encountered in the ecosystem approach can be overcome and such a combination is an efficient and cost-effective approach for the conservation of forest genetic resources.It is now well recognized that biodiversity is essential for sustainable development and for the support of social and economic systems to meet food and nutritional needs. Biological diversity is defined as the variation present in all species of plants and animals, their genetic material and the ecosystems in which they occur (McNeely, 1992) and can be considered at three levels:• genetic diversity (variation in genes and genotypes); • species diversity (species richness); • ecosystem diversity (populations/communities of species and their environment).During the past few years, there has been increasing awareness of the holistic view of managing biodiversity, including agricultural biodiversity, conservation for sustainable utilization and development (Arora, 1997). While dealing with plant genetic resources, the emphasis is more on genetic diversity, with some focus on species diversity. Plant genetic resources (PGR) can include genotypes or populations of plants, representing modern and traditional cultivars, genetic stocks, wild species and so on. These are preserved in the form of living collections, seed, pollen, tissues and DNA.Though the need for effective conservation and utilization of genetic resources is well recognized, its importance has been further highlighted in two global events. Firstly, in the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) agreed at the meeting held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and, secondly, the Global Plan of Action (GPA) stemming from the International Technical Conference on the Conservation and Use of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (Iwanaga, 1994;FAO, 1996a, b). Both conventions recognized the sovereign rights of countries over PGR within their borders. However, the onus to conserve and sustainably use PGR rests with countries and both CBD and GPA stress the importance of equitable sharing of these resources and technologies related to their utilization.The genetic variation in plants was considered as an unlimited resource, its availability was taken for granted to meet all the current, and future needs. However, during the late 1960s, it was realized that the genetic variation available, particularly in landraces grown in the centres of diversity, would soon become extinct if it was not taken care of, due to genetic erosion. The problem became more acute with the wave of agricultural development demanded by the increasing population and the 'Green Revolution' was one of the main causes of genetic erosion, also affecting the centres of diversity, which are mainly located in the developing world. Many factors, like the extension of agricultural land and changes in land use, the introduction of modern techniques of agriculture, urbanization and industrialization, made the traditional cultivars obsolete and led to their rapid replacement with improved cultivars.Generally speaking, conservation and sustainable utilization of PGR has always been considered as a national responsibility, that is, carried out and supported by the public sector. However, over the years, the multifaceted and multisectoral nature of germplasm activities has been recognized, and several different organizations and individuals may have a stake in their safe conservation and sustainable utilization. In resource rich areas of the world, agriculture has opted for large-scale monocultures. The major reasons for this are managerial and economic and not ecological in nature. However, obviously, diversity is essential as defence against risks and it is also a desirable ecological feature. Thus, conservation of genetic resources is an effort that needs to be supported by all sectors. Consequently, conservation efforts will need to involve all stakeholders concerned, including non-governmental organizations (NGOs), farmers' groups and the private sector, in order to improve the efficiency and reduce the costs. Like any activity, conservation of PGR requires funding, most of which is expected to come from governments as PGR have been considered as a public good. In many countries, it is becoming apparent that the public sector alone may not be able to support fully all the conservation operations. Consequently, other sectors that exploit commercially the PGR products are required to support this effort. Such support could include both collaboration in research and direct funding of PGR conservation activities, organized and coordinated by public sector institutions.In this chapter, we briefly reflect on the costs of conservation and on the benefits to the private sector from publicly conserved germplasm. Using oil palm as an example, we argue for an improved management of PGR that is based on an increased collaboration between private and public sectors.The need for efficiently conserving and sustainably using PGR by all countries, as stressed by CBD and GPA, is well recognized. Most of the countries realize this responsibility and have developed, or are developing, strategies for conservation of PGR, in situ and/or ex situ. Conservation and utilization of plant genetic resources, like any other activity, requires investment, and economic questions thus become relevant. In recent years, this has gained further importance due to the economic slowdown in most of the countries around the world, giving rise to doubts regarding continued support for conservation efforts in many countries in general. This situation has led to the need to highlight the importance of PGR, in economic terms. There is thus the need to demonstrate that PGR are indeed valuable and that tangible benefits can be derived. Assessing the value of genetic resources collections requires being able to demonstrate their current use as well as to relate conserved germplasm to future plant improvement.Generally, genetic resources are not traded, there are really no prices attached to them. Other things being equal, genetic resources that have the least cost of preservation ought to be ranked above those with greater cost (Brown, 1990). There have even been suggestions made that a genetic resource is worth preserving if it would yield products of commercial worth. If this norm had been applied 50 years ago we would have promoted the extinction of several hundreds of plant species that are worth millions of dollars of revenue today. Nevertheless, it is important to understand that the recognized value of a resource does not mean that it should be conserved wherever it grows. The genetic resources are considered important because of the belief that genetic resources are extremely valuable, so much so that we cannot afford the predicted rate of extinction during the next century (Brown, 1990). At the same time, one has to note that genetic resources have uncertain potential value and limited budgets necessitate identifying priorities for conservation actions, both in terms of plant species and methods of conservation. Moreover, cooperation of all concerned to pool the diminishing resources and to share the responsibilities and expertise would help us to conserve most genetic diversity cost-effectively.In recent years, we hear and read much about cost-effectiveness. In fact, developing cost-effective conservation technologies and strategies is a major objective. However, usually when a reference is made to cost-effectiveness, the stress tends to be on cost and not on effectiveness. We need to note that our responsibility is the conservation and sustainable utilization of genetic resources and preservation of genetic integrity of conserved material effectively, minimizing the costs involved. The standard economic approach to the conservation issue alone will not help if it only considers static exchange of a fixed quantity of goods among consumers (or of inputs among producers) and plant germplasm is treated no differently than any other market good (Gowdy, 1993). So, it is important to recognize that any serious trade-offs between economic use and preservation of PGR may mean a dramatic loss of genetic diversity, or even the extinction of species/populations. Many of the standard economic theories tend to ignore this irreversibility and choices applied to specific species tend to overlook the total environmental context. In policy applications of the standard approach, efficiency is usually defined narrowly in terms of the optimal allocation of goods with market prices. In recent years, there have been several studies on determining the costs of conservation that emphasize the need for science-based costeffective conservation techniques and also to provide justification for ongoing conservation efforts (Brown, 1990;Barbier et al., 1994;Godden and Kambuou, 1996;Burstin et al., 1997;Gollin et al., 2000;Pimentel et al., 1997;Cooper, 1998;Gollin and Smale, 1999). Most of these studies conclude that the conservation of biological diversity or PGR presents many problems related to policy, socioeconomics, ethics and environmental issues. Significant benefits have been derived through the use of genetic resources for plant improvement and it seems to be fully justified that investments in conservation of PGR should continue.Genetic resource conservation is a long-term effort with a large initial investment and continuing cost. As noted earlier, the funding support for the conservation of PGR has been mainly by the public sector. Some of the examples include USA, India and Japan. The annual operating budget of the National Seed Storage Laboratory in the USA is US $2,947,102 (Dr Steve Eberhart, 1999, personal communication). The Japanese government funds the entire budget of the genebank in Tsukuba, which was about US $1,578,430 in 1999(Dr Shoji Miyazaki, 1999, personal communication). Even then, enhancement of agricultural production has received preferential support over PGR conservation mainly due to a few immediately tangible benefits, such as employment (Cohen et al., 1991). What is probably urgently required is the development of a system of monitoring and costing conservation efforts, so that the efforts can be streamlined and made efficient and costs can be brought down.There are not many examples of public and private sector collaboration in the conservation of PGR, barring the efforts of some of the European genebanks (for example, Lefort et al., 1997). Generally speaking, the private sector has largely depended on the public sector for their raw germplasm. With the rapid innovations that are being made in the field of biotechnology, it is now probably more attractive to the private sector to be involved actively in the conservation and utilization of PGR. Such involvement could be not only in testing and utilizing them, but also financially supporting conservation efforts conducted by the public sector organizations. This is elaborated with oil palm as an example, in Malaysia, where the private sector contributes to all aspects of oil palm genetic resources activities.A study carried out in 1996 indicated that private breeders were generally supportive of conservation efforts, especially the ex situ efforts, but were not prepared to pay for germplasm maintained in in situ conservation areas (Swanson and Luxmoore, 1996). This notion may be related to the limited ability of plant breeders to gain access to the material conserved in situ. Developing appropriate mechanisms to improve the access to material conserved in situ could help in encouraging the private sector to support conservation efforts. Even if the private sector is not willing to support financially the germplasm conserved in situ, their support to the public sector efforts on ex situ conservation will go a long way in a country's overall efforts to conserve its genetic resources.It is becoming clear that substantial income could be generated by the efficient use of germplasm through marketing of genetically enhanced materials by the private sector, and hence it should be possible to increase investment in the field of plant sciences by private sector organizations involved in plant improvement. As noted earlier, there is a need for improving the efficiency of germplasm management and we argue here that this is possible by promoting collaborative efforts of public and private sectors.The African oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) and the American oil palm (Elaeis oleifera) belong to the family Palmae. Both these species hybridize readily and produce fertile hybrids. The world production of oils and fats (including animal fats) was 109 Mt in 1999 and 34 Mt were exported. Palm oil production during this period was 20 Mt or 18% of the world production of oils and fats. Malaysian palm oil export figures amounted to 14 Mt or 40% of the world export and 12% of the world production. In this respect, Malaysia alone produced 10.5 Mt and exported 8.9 Mt valued at US$4.6 billion in 1999. It should be emphasized that African oil palm has the highest yielding capacity of 5 t ha Ϫ1 of oil and its yield is nearly 10 times that of soybean. World annual population growth is about 80 million and it is expected that only palm oil could fulfil the global demand for oils and fats.The palm oil industry is a multi-billion dollar industry but, surprisingly, the whole industry, as noted earlier, is based on an extremely narrow genetic base (Arasu and Rajanaidu, 1975). The bulk of current planting material is based on four palms planted at Bogor Botanical Gardens in 1848. These four 'Bogor' palms formed the basic stock, which were later planted at Deli, Sumatra, Indonesia and came to be known as the 'Deli dura' population in oil palm breeding. 'Dura' (D) refers to genotypes that have thick-shelled fruits. Later, a limited number of tenera (T, hybrids between dura and pisifera forms) and pisifera (P, genotypes that have fruits without shell) samples were brought to South-east Asia from Africa.It has been generally recognized that the narrow genetic base is the major obstacle to rapid selection progress in oil palm (Hardon and Thomas, 1968;Arasu and Rajanaidu, 1975;Ooi and Rajanaidu, 1979). This provided the initial impetus for the exploration and collecting of oil palm genetic resources from its centres of diversity. Early oil palm workers from different parts of the world mounted a number of expeditions to collect oil palm genetic resources. After the Second World War, workers in the Belgian Congo sampled oil palm germplasm at a number of sites (Vanderweyen, 1952;Pichel, 1956). Between 1961 and 1965, plant breeders from the Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research (NIFOR) collected genetic material at local markets and through village chiefs. This material was established at NIFOR. Evaluation of 72 prospected open-pollinated progenies was concluded and outstanding palms were selected for introduction into the current cycle of the breeding programme (Okwuagwu, 1985). Blaak (1967) sampled materials in the Bamenda Hills of Cameroon and some of those materials were planted at Lobe, Cameroon, and other places. In Côte d'Ivoire, the French oil palm workers systematically evaluated palms in the wild and the selected palms were progeny-tested for their breeding value (Meunier, 1969;Meunier and Baudouin, 1985). Earlier, Institut de Recherches pour les Huiles et Oleagineux (IRHO) selected 38 palms at Pobe and Dahomey and four palms at Bingerville in Côte d'Ivoire. These formed their basic genetic stock.The Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) devised a comprehensive genetic resources programme on oil palm. The programme covers all aspects of germplasm collecting, conservation, evaluation/documentation, utilization and research on problems of conservation and utilization.The African oil palm germplasm was collected systematically in Nigeria (1973), Cameroon (1984), Zaire (1984), Tanzania (1986), Madagascar (1986), Angola (1991), Senegal (1993), Gambia (1993), Sierra Leone (1994), Guinea (1994) and Ghana (1996). In addition, E. oleifera, Jessenia, Oenocarpus, Bactris, Euterpe and Orbignya species were sampled in Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Suriname, Peru and Colombia. The sampling method used for the collection was based on rainfall pattern, soil types, density of palm groves and so on. Normally, 5-10 palms per site were sampled. The number of sites visited in a country depended largely on the density of palm groves (for details see Rajanaidu, 1994).Seeds were collected from healthy palms in the country of origin. The fruits were depericarped, washed, dried and inspected by the local quarantine officer before the issuance of a phytosanitary certificate. Subsequently, these seeds were dispatched to an intermediate quarantine station in a temperate country. The seeds were further inspected for pests and diseases before dispatching to Malaysia. A bunch was harvested from each of the sampled palms and the fruits from each bunch were planted separately. Seedlings derived from a bunch were considered as an 'open-pollinated' family. Very strict quarantine procedures were observed while importing oil palm germplasm from Africa and Latin America into Malaysia.The germplasm from various parts of the world was planted in the form of open-pollinated families mainly at MPOB Research Station, Kluang, Johor, Malaysia. The materials were planted in the field using different experimental designs, such as completely randomized design (CRD) to evaluate inter-genotypic competition and randomized complete block design (RCBD) to evaluate productivity. Detailed data were collected on an individual palm basis from these plantings according to agreed descriptors developed jointly with the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (IBPGR), the predecessor of the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) (IBPGR, 1982). The characteristics that were studied included:• fresh fruit bunches yield, FFB, weight and number of bunches produced per annum; • oil and kernel content of bunches;• height, measured from ground level to frond number 41; • fatty acid composition of mesocarp oil;• physiological parameters (such as harvest index, total dry matter); • flower census, number of male and female flowers produced per annum; • molecular data, including randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD), amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) data of leaf DNA analysis.The information collected was stored in electronic databases, and information is available on request.Oil palm germplasm collected in different parts of the world is maintained in the form of field genebank collections. At present, there is no longterm seed conservation at low temperature and low relative humidity conditions as is practised in other crops such as cereals and legumes, as oil palm seed is recalcitrant. The preservation of germplasm in the form of field genebanks is very expensive. They require a large amount of land and regular maintenance. However, currently this is the only method suitable for the conservation of the genetic resources of this crop. In the case of oil palm 148 palms are planted per hectare. Currently, the MPOB field genebank maintains more than 60,000 palms covering more than 400 ha. One major advantage of field genebank conservation is that the material is readily available for evaluation and breeding. This is critical in the case of perennial tree crops. The material conserved in the MPOB genebank is available for exchange on a bilateral basis.The systematic collection, evaluation and conservation of oil palm genetic resources have generated elite genotypes for use in MPOB's breeding programme. Most of the valuable genetic resources were not previously available to oil palm breeders in Malaysia for exploiting the potential available in this genepool. Some of the most useful traits for future survival of the oil palm industry are present in the collection and these are:• High yield and dwarfness. Current oil yield of commercial cultivars is 5-7 t ha Ϫ1 . The material such as the tenera palms yielding more than 10 t ha Ϫ1 oil have been found in some accessions collected from Nigeria, which can be used for increasing the productivity of the crop significantly. In addition, they are also short; their annual height increment is only 15-25 cm compared with 45-75 cm of current commercial planting material. The selected elite dura and tenera for exploitation are given in Table 39.1. A number of these palms collected at a few sites in East Central State of Nigeria possessed these traits. • High iodine value. High iodine value (IV) confers high unsaturation to edible oils, which is an important consideration in oil palm breeding. A number of palms have been selected for high IV by evaluating collections from Nigeria. They have been multiplied to produce high IV planting material. The selfed material of the high IV palms is being evaluated. Some of the palms had an IV of > 70 while the current commercial varieties have a value of 52-54.• High kernel content. The fast growing oleochemical industry in Malaysia requires a good source of lauric oil found in palm kernel. The prospect of breeding for high kernel to bunch (i.e. percentage of kernel in a bunch) is bright. Some Nigerian families have a mean kernel to bunch of more than 12% compared with 6% in current breeding progenies. It is possible to double the kernel content of future oil palm planting material. An economic analysis shows that breeding for the highest possible content of kernel in oil palm fruits yields the highest rate of return from the oil palm (Rajanaidu and Jalani, 1994). • High carotene content. There is a considerable level of variation for carotene in E. oleifera, E. guineensis and their hybrids. Although the oil yield of pure E. oleifera is extremely low as compared with E. guineensis, the level of carotene is attractive enough to sell this oil in the form of capsules as health food. In addition, E. oleifera has a higher vitamin E (total tocopherol and tocotrienols) content compared with E. guineensis (Choo and Yusof, 1996;Jalani et al., 1997) Materials possessing the various new traits that have been described above are now available for utilization in oil palm improvement. Such improvement is expected to result not only in productivity increases but also in quality traits. Materials from other sources are being evaluated and more such useful traits may be identified soon. These traits for use would not have been available if there were no systematic collection, conservation and evaluation activities undertaken.  Hence the germplasm continues to be maintained in the field genebank. Pollen storage technique is mainly used as a tool to facilitate asynchronous flowering genotypes. It has been found that pollen can be stored for a maximum of 2 years at around -4°C (Hartley, 1988). Research on various problems of conservation and utilization, including biotechnology and tissue culture (mainly for rapid multiplication and propagation of elite material) is ongoing (Rajanaidu and Arffin, 2000). For details of expenditures on several of the above-mentioned activities see  (Rajanaidu, 1986). Sixty samples from 13 sites were collected in Tanzania and 17 samples from four sites in Madagascar. E. oleifera germplasm was sampled in Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Suriname with the cooperation of the Departments of Agriculture and private and public bodies in the above countries. In 1989, PORIM, with the cooperation of Instituto Colombiano Agropecuaria (ICA), collected germplasm of Jessenia and Oenocarpus in various parts of the country.These activities needed about US$100,000 of which about 20% came from public sources (IBPGR), 15% from the private sector (mainly in kind) and 65% from Malaysian sources (again mainly from the private sector as part of the cess levied on palm oil production).The oil palm genetic materials collected in the above countries were maintained as a base collection with the objective of long-term conservation, evaluation and utilization. Part of the collection was distributed to the industry as a working collection to be evaluated in different parts of Malaysia in various ecological niches. These efforts not only help MPOB to evaluate materials in different sites but also help the users (the industry) to select materials suitable to the agroclimatic conditions in which they operate. Evaluation of oil palm genetic resources efforts included the testing of the collected material at different sites. Such testing provided valuable information on genotype ϫ environment interaction. This activity was carried out largely with the collaboration of the private sector (Rajanaidu and Rao, 1988). The private sector absorbs the costs for the establishment and maintenance of collections planted for evaluation. The information is shared between all the collaborating partners. The evaluation is carried out using proper experimental designs so that statistical analyses can be carried out and to ensure the evaluation of the economic potential of the material.Oil palm, being a fairly big plant, is planted at 148 palms ha Ϫ1 . This makes the maintenance very expensive. The collection from Nigeria alone occupies more than 200 ha. Hence, the cooperation of the industry is vital to obtain land to test and conserve oil palm genetic resources. The private sector owns plantations throughout the country and every year about 5% of the land is replanted. Hence, it is possible to get suitable land for various experiments through their cooperation.In order to discuss and determine priorities, to develop action plans and to monitor the collaborative activities between MPOB and the private sector, a joint committee of oil palm breeders from both sectors has been established. The joint committee reviews the workplans and progress on a regular basis and takes decisions on allocation of funds, further experiments to be undertaken and the responsibilities of each partner. MPOB develops a list of material to be planted. The industry makes a selection from the list to be planted on their farms and the rest (generally about 50%) is planted by MPOB. The funds that the industry spends on these evaluations are in addition to the cess that is levied on production, part of which comes to MPOB.The elite oil palm germplasm is being utilized by the industry in a number of ways for crop improvement, including:• Direct selection of individual palms. About 3% of the tenera in the Nigerian collection had oil yields comparable with current planting materials. A third of these palms had an annual height increment significantly less than current commercial dura ϫ pisifera (tenera) materials. Attempts are being made to clone these 1% palms by tissue culture technique by PORIM and the industry. Available data show that the outstanding families and individual teneras are normally found in the East Central State of Nigeria. • Progeny-testing of Nigerian elite palms. Some of the outstanding Nigerian teneras were progenytested together with a range of Deli duras available in the industry and MPOB. The production of tenera ϫ dura or dura ϫ tenera hybrids and selfing of their dura and tenera parents is underway. The aim of the crossing programme is to progeny-test the Nigerian teneras to study the combining ability. The selfs will be used for seed production following the procedure of reciprocal recurrent selection (Jacquemard et al., 1981) At present, the public sector is mainly involved in the collection, evaluation and conservation of oil palm genetic resources, whereas the development of planting material is with the private sector. In the future, it may be necessary to develop collaborative programmes between the public and private sectors from the outset. This is effective if the collecting team combines both scientific and business skills that could lead to sustainable conservation and utilization of oil palm genetic resources. Any successful venture could be marketed readily and arrangements could be made in such a way that the profits are shared between the public and private bodies in an equitable manner. For example, in the case of oil palm, MPOB, with the collaboration of the private sector, progeny tested the Deli duras with the Nigerian pisiferas.Outstanding commercial D ϫ P planting materi-als with high yield and dwarf plant type were identified from these materials. Seed production and marketing of the these hybrid materials are undertaken by the private sector. MPOB receives a royalty for the supply of elite Nigerian pollen for the seed production. Thus, the benefits from the exploitation of oil palm genetic resources are shared by public and private sectors and the public sector is able to generate funds for the conservation of genetic resources. The farmers benefit as well since they can access the new varieties much faster than if the seed production was only done by the public sector. It should be possible to extend such joint ventures in other areas and other crops as well.While it is possible to obtain funds for germplasm collection, the funds for long-term conservation of PGR are limited, especially in developing countries, which are endowed with the traditional landraces and wild relatives of crops. The MPOB has developed a mechanism to finance oil palm research and conservation activities. The funds are provided largely by the oil palm industry through a research cess levied on crude palm oil and palm kernel oil produced. This model could be adopted for other crops and in other countries.As indicated at the beginning of the chapter, conservation of genetic resources is an effort that needs to be supported by all sectors. One of the main reasons for the conservation of crop genetic resources is that landraces and other cultivated and non-cultivated materials offer a rich source of desired traits for the improvement of economic plants. However, it is not possible to foresee what kinds of germplasm will be required in the future and hence the need for the conservation of PGR. With advances in biotechnology, methods are becoming available for better accessing of desired types in large collections as well as improving methods for breeding, especially in the distantly related germplasm. This is expected to improve the efficiency of using germplasm that is being conserved in different genebanks around the globe. To efficiently conserve and sustainably use these resources, a multisectoral approach is needed.It must also be noted that genetic resource conservation is a long-term activity with a large initial investment and recurrent expenses. Generally, this has been the onus of national governments and international public funding mechanisms. In Malaysia in the case of oil palm, a mechanism has been successfully established to jointly bear the burden of oil palm genetic resources and benefit from their use. In this mechanism, the public sector takes care of conservation of the genetic resources and the private sector funds the conservation programme. In turn, the private sector benefits from the MPOB's (public) breeding programme by using the varieties developed and marketing the seeds of improved varieties. Thus, the public and private sectors together share the responsibility of conserving the oil palm genetic resources, vital to the country. This win-win situation could be a model to other crops and to other countries.With the increased role that the private sector might play in the future in the conservation and utilization of PGR, it is likely that the role of the public sector in conservation and utilization of PGR may diminish progressively, at least in more developed countries. However, keeping in mind the needs and responsibilities of countries and communities, it is important that the public sector, along with community-based organizations, continues to play a major role in the conservation of PGR. Such a role might increasingly be that of monitoring the use, sharing the benefits, establishing priorities for conservation actions and putting in place appropriate checks and balances. Given the complexities of intellectual property protection and the need to protect farmers' rights to which we all subscribe, this continued involvement is imperative. If proper care is not taken, biotechnology, as promoted by certain private companies, might prove too expensive for the developing countries (thus hindering development); its use might increase the gap between developing countries and industrialized nations. We should also think in terms of linking commercial benefits from the exploitation of PGR through biotechnology to conservation of PGR. Additionally, a spirit of understanding and sharing of ideas as well as technologies will help to do a better job of conservation and use. Only then will it be possible to realize the most obvious point that can be made about plants, animals, fungi and microorganisms; that they are the means by which we attain sustainability.In the last few decades the insight into the significance of biological diversity and the value of genetic and biochemical information increased significantly. On the ecosystem level, new scientific findings furthered the understanding of ecosystem functions and the crucial role of biodiversity to assure ecosystems regulatory functions, which provide the basis for economic activities such as agriculture (Barbier, 1996;Costanza et al., 1997). At the level of the genes, the achievements in biotechnologies and the progress made in research technologies brought about profound changes in the agricultural and pharmaceutical industries and opened up new fields of application and uses of plant and animal (genetic) resources.At the same time, awareness of the accelerated loss of diversity and insight into the threats of this process to the survival of humanity are growing. With a view to the plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA), insight increased into the importance of their genetic diversity for maintaining food security in a changing world. This heightened awareness is mirrored in the efforts to conserve crop genetic information in ex situ genebanks, but also in situ in its original habitats. Efforts to this end in the political, institutional and legal field at international and national levels and within civil society are increasing.On the international level, pertinent discussions and processes take place in different fora: (i) within the follow-up process of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD); (ii) in the revision process of the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources (IU) of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO); and (iii) at the interface between conservation of PGRFA and trade, in the framework of the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV-Convention) and the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).These international conventions are at the core of intense political debates at the national and international levels. The debates focus on mechanisms to regulate access to genetic information and the sharing of benefits resulting from their use in industrial innovation and production processes. Closely connected are discussions on the means to alleviate the disparity in the legal protection of the intangible property resulting from formal breeding and innovation processes on the one hand, and from small-scale traditional breeding on the other hand.This chapter looks at these problems from a legal point of view. It asks if it is possible to create specific legal instruments to support the conservation and maintenance of PGRFA within the framework of the above-mentioned international conventions. To this end, it analyses in a first step the causes leading to the loss of biodiversity in agroecosystems. It then describes the actual legal and institutional framework and the ongoing processes and main discussions at the international level. Against this background it identifies criteria and elements for a (legal) solution. On the basis of this information emerging legal strategies will be presented and the proposed solutions discussed.Before entering into the legal and political discussion, it is important to explain the chapter's focus on the on-farm management of PGRFA and to present the elements of the conservation of agrobiodiversity which constitute the background for the following reflections.PGRFA are sources for tailoring food production in order to meet future challenges. The Leipzig Declaration 1 summarizes the reasons for the importance of their conservation as follows: PGRFA have an essential importance for the food security of present and future generations. They are the basis of natural and directed evolution in the plant species most critical to the survival and well-being of human beings. All countries require plant genetic resources if they are to increase food supplies and agricultural production sustainably and meet the related challenges of changes in the environment, including climate change.(para 3)With growing insight into the complexity of ecosystem networks and the importance of the interaction of all components of the system, awareness of the factors determining agricultural ecosystems has increased. Thus, for instance, the Subsidiary Body for Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) of the CBD defines the term agrobiodiversity in a broad sense, including 'the variety and variability of animals, plants and micro-organisms, at genetic, species and ecosystem levels, which are necessary to sustain key functions of the agro-ecosystem, its structure, and processes for, and in support of, food production and food security'. 2 PGRFA form one part of this system. According to the definition of the IU they include not only the man-made, cultivated varieties, but also their wild and weedy relatives (Art. 2.1 (a)).With this goes the understanding of the interdependence between the maintenance of agroecosystems, the further evolution of PGRFA, and human intervention. Thus the Global Plan of Action (GPA) 3 points out that, unlike most natural biodiversity, PGRFA require continuous active human management. According to Brush (1994) in situ conservation of PGRFA includes hybridization within and between populations of wild, weedy and cultivated plants, competition among genotypes, natural and conscious selection at the local level and exchange of different genotypes among farmers and farms. Swanson points out that preservation of the diversity of PGRFA includes not only (static) conservation of the presently existing varieties -as is effectuated in ex situ genebanks -but prominently also maintenance of the underlying evolutionary processes, in order to conserve as many options for the future as possible (Swanson et al., 1994;Swanson, 1995). 4  From this it becomes clear that -as a supplement to ex situ conservation in genebanks -an integrative approach to conservation and maintenance of PGRFA diversity is necessary, which includes in situ on-farm conservation as an essential element. Against this background, the argumentative context and the close interrelationship between in situ on-farm conservation and the realization of farmers' rights becomes obvious (Brush, 1994;  1   4 Swanson points out that It must be recognized that human capital alone may not be capable of producing all important and valuable information. There is also a base biological dimension which generates information. This biological dimension is the evolutionary process which, through biological interaction and the process of selection, generates communities of life forms that contain substantial amounts of accumulated information (1994). FAO, 1996 (sub Legal Texts and Conference Documents); Swaminathan, 1997). Accordingly, the IU points out the contributions of 'unnumbered generations of farmers in conserving, improving and making available plant genetic resources'. 5  In the process of on-farm breeding of PGRFA, the knowledge of the farmers of specific characteristics plays an important role. Traditional knowledge -knowledge, innovation, and practices of indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles (Art. 8 (j) CBD) -can be characterized as a body of knowledge which has been built by a group of people, indigenous peoples or farming communities, through generations living in close contact with nature. In farming systems, it has a specific importance, given the high interdependence between domesticated species and humans. It encompasses a profound knowledge of ecosystem conditions and the breeding techniques adapted to local conditions, including the selection for tolerance or resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. It further comprises information on the useful properties contained in the genotypes which have been selected and conserved.Another key issue in plant breeding is open access to resources and exchange of crop varieties and related information. At the local level, in traditional societies and in subsistence farming systems, sharing and exchange of varieties is traditional and of high importance for the evolution of local varieties, and to assure food security. This exchange takes place in a reciprocal relationship. Castillo speaks of a 'culture of reciprocity', the basis of which is 'not money but trust, mutuality of benefit and social equivalence in the value of the item or service being exchanged' (Castillo, 1997).At the international level, due to the movement and exchange of crops throughout history, crop species have spread from their primary centres of origin, and secondary centres of diversity have developed. Thus, with regard to crop diversity, a high interdependence between countries and continents exists. Even countries which hold large amounts of plant genetic diversity, will have to guard against the risks of over-reliance on too narrow a genetic base and thus continue to require access to diversity elsewhere for genes with useful traits. In the long term, breeding programmes would be at risk if access to the full range of genetic diversity was restricted (Cooper et al., 1994;International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), 1996).Open access to and sharing of genetic resources at the local, regional and global level are thus essential for maintaining the options to meet the needs of the growing world population. Accordingly, the original IU as adopted in 1983, declared plant genetic resources as a 'heritage of mankind' available without restriction. According to its Art. 5, samples were to be made available free of charge, on the basis of mutual exchange or on mutually agreed terms.From the above it can be concluded that traditional farming and on-farm management is important for the conservation and further evolution of PGRFA. Open access to and free exchange of crop germplasm are other essential elements. However, the present situation is characterized by the erosion of both genetic diversity, related traditional knowledge and the concept of free exchange (IPGRI, 1996;Girsberger, 1999;Biber-Klemm, 2000a, c). The resulting legal question is, how can a sound legal basis be created which prevents the loss of agricultural diversity and guarantees access to and exchange of genetic resources, forming a basis for mutual trust and supporting farmers and farming communities in the maintenance of on-farm crop evolution systems. In order to answer this question, it is important to understand the underlying reasons for erosion of diversity, knowledge and open access.Three domains which influence this evolution can be identified. First, the specific characteristics of the information we are dealing with. Second, the effect of these characteristics is being intensified by actual economic and scientific evolutions. Third, the related processes taking place in both subsistence and industrialized societies.In the questions on PGRFA and related traditional knowledge, we are essentially dealing with information: the genetic information as contained in the seeds of plant varieties and the information contained in traditional knowledge. Both genetic resources and traditional knowledge have a ubiquitous character which is specific to information of any kind: once it has been revealed and acquired by another person, it is impossible for the original owner to prove that it was exclusively his or hers. The information becomes independent of its original source. These characteristics correspond to the fundamental paradox of information: information is valueless until revealed, but its value, once revealed, cannot be appropriated. With a view to PGRFA and traditional knowledge these traits are due to the following qualities:• PGRFA are self-propagating and also produced and traded as goods for consumption. The pertinent information, which results from the skill of generations of breeders, is contained in each seed. By use of modern biotechnology, access to this information can be gained on the basis of only a small quantity: one seed is sufficient to reproduce the information. • Knowledge, once it has been revealed, is accessible to everybody. It is true that traditional knowledge has frequently been protected by customary laws within the cultural framework and structures of the communities (Dutfield, 1999;Greene and Drescher, unpublished). However, these customary laws are not sufficient to regulate conditions of exchange and trade in the broader context of the growing (intercontinental) interdependence and globalization of markets (see Dutfield, 1999;Girsberger, 1999).In the context of formal research and development (R&D) processes, specific instruments to protect the informational values of new plant varieties or of inventions have been created: intellectual property rights. However as a rule, landraces and traditional knowledge presently cannot be protected by these instruments, as they do not correspond to the criteria requested by, for instance, patents or plant breeders' rights. 6 Thus, from the legal point of view, genetic diversity and traditional knowledge, once revealed or distributed, are in the public domain, accessible to everybody.According to economic theories, in this informational character of biological diversity and related traditional knowledge lies an important reason for its loss. Because its main value cannot be appropriated, the value of biodiversity is ignored by land-owner decisions, and diversity of plant species is sacrificed in favour of a more lucrative use of land resources such as industrialized monocultures 7 (Swanson et al., 1994;Swanson, 1995).Due to this 'open-access' situation of plant genetic resources and of related traditional knowledge, scientists within industrial innovation systems could use and patent them for industrial utilization, often without further improvement and/or an additional 'inventive step'. This frequently happened without the consent of the holders of the resources and without compensation or sharing profits. Concerned people and communities speak of 'piracy of traditional knowledge'. Piracy of genetic resources and related traditional knowledge has been denounced for pharmaceutical resources, for example the neem tree, kava and turmeric. However, there has also been extensive documentation in the field of PGRFA. There patents have been applied for (and granted) even for 'in-trust' germplasm 8 (Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI), 1998; see also RAFI, 2000). This situation leads to mistrust. If possible, the relevant information is kept secret and access is denied (examples in Biber-Klemm, 2000b). This is the contrary to the situation of mutual trust and open exchange evoked above.According to Swanson et al. (1994) farmers in subsistence systems used to maintain a high diversity of crop species in order to assure their annual harvests and thus to guarantee a minimal level of production and to prevent food shortage, even at the cost of a higher average productivity. However, evolution in recent decades, and the results of the Green Revolution brought about other means to guarantee subsistence. Swanson et al. (1994) enumerate the following points:1. The substitution of new varieties for traditional: in getting accustomed to the new varieties and production methods, farmers' information and experience on the traditional varieties get lost. The new information now serves as insurance, the old varieties having lost this quality with the loss of the related information.2. The substitution of other assets for biological ones: better connection of a rural area by roads and transport to population centres furthers production changes from 'food crops' to high yielding 'cash crops'. The centre additionally provides alternative insurances against food scarcity, such as, for example, the opportunity to make use of surplus human labour as another source of income. 3. The development of industry in the urban centres further de-links the income of the country and city dwellers. That means that even in times of crop failure, markets for the other products of farmers exist, which can be translated into income.The consequence is that the individual's motivation to maintain diversity as an assurance is reduced. The availability of other means of insurance allows them to pursue the highest average yield, acquiring insurance by other means. From the perspective of the individual farmer, this concept makes sense. The problem is, though, that the farmer, in maintaining diversity for his or her own insurance, at the same time performed a task in the interest of the entire society: the conservation and maintenance of crop diversity as a 'global public good'. Consequently, in abandoning crop diversity as an individual insurance, the global interest in high crop diversity is also no longer supported.According to Tanner (1996), in the industrialized countries the loss of traditional knowledge was closely linked to the evolution of the formal research and development of, for instance, pharmaceuticals in the industrial processes at the beginning of the 20th century. The preference for scientifically developed products, which were supported by intensive marketing measures, led to the underestimation and abandoning of traditional knowledge and, consequently, to its disappearance.Similar results might have been brought about by the active promotion and spread of the blueprint approach to development, with its typical expressions of industrial agriculture and the closely related Green Revolution. These endeavours led to the preference of high-yielding varieties suited for industrial farming. They have increased food production but often replaced the older landraces (compare FAO, 1999 (sub Legal Texts and Conference Documents); Girsberger, 1999).As the system of trade in raw materials has an important influence on agriculture, the development described is enhanced by the expansion of global markets, and the recent pattern of trade liberalization, which favours the highest possible yield at minimal cost. This intensifies the use of resources and has a double impact on biological diversity: on the one hand, agricultural (crop) biodiversity is homogenized by standardizing food production and consumption. On the other hand, conversion and degradation of habitats is promoted by intensifying production or by abandoning use.The achievements of biotechnology have led to processes in the industrialized world which are relevant for the conservation of PGRFA. These processes are characterized by changes in the sponsorship and support frameworks for scientific R&D and in the regime of intellectual property rights (IPRs). This development is of importance for plant breeding, as it threatens the free exchange of PGRFA, local breeding efforts and the supply of the public good 'biological diversity'.Changes in the R&D structure in the last few decades significantly influenced the target of research into PGRFA and the accessibility of biogenetic information. In the past, the development of science and technology was public sector driven, application was then usually developed by the private sector. However, in recent decades, R&D capabilities started to move out of public institutions and shifted into the private sector in both development and application. As a result, priorities in research, development and distribution are increasingly determined by the interests of transnational private companies, and reflect industrial production strategies. The turn towards the private sector privileges planning and investment directed at short-term returns, and the exploitation of opportunities which neither lead to the production of public goods, nor address the special needs of local ecosystems. Moreover, high investments in R&D call for enhanced protection of the results of the research and the expansion of the commercial seed market (Serageldin, 1997;FAO, 1999 (sub Legal Texts and Conference Documents)). These developments lead to an expansion of the IPRs to protect the (innovative) results of private sector research and development.Property rights to protect informational values of human creativity and innovation are a common legal instrument in industrialized countries. In particular, patents 9 were, historically, the legal answer to the Industrial Revolution. Aimed at stimulating creativity and the scientific process, they were devised:• on the one hand, to provide the owner (in the country where he or she applied for the patent) with an exclusive right to commercialize his or her creation for a limited time. The utilization and commercialization of the patented subject matter is only allowed with the permission (licence) of the patent owner. This allows the author of the invention to amortize his or her investments and creates a financial incentive. • On the other hand, to oblige the inventor to disclose his or her invention, thus making possible further inventive steps on the basis of the former invention. The subsequent invention can in turn be patented if it corresponds with the protective criteria.As has been mentioned above, the system of IPRs has grown over time in different ways (Drahos, 1999). First, in step with the increasing globalization of trade, the system of IPRs has undergone a process of regulatory globalization and harmonization. The latest example of this evolution is the conclusion of the TRIPS Agreement in the frame of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiation. This agreement is the first global 10 legal instrument aiming at the harmonization of the regimes on intellectual property. Second, new rights were created. In our context, a case in point are the plant breeders' rights. Third, however, IPRs, in particular patents, have also expanded in scope. This is expecially the case with the patenting of biological materials:• Some countries (USA and Australia) allow the patenting of plant varieties (Correa, 1999). • The patenting of inventions relating to genes is allowed in several countries. These patents refer to a great variety of materials and processes. Thus patents can comprise entire plant cells, plants and plant varieties, including parent lines and hybrids (Correa, 1999). According to de Miranda Santos and Lewontin (1997), the patenting of gene sequences and biotechnological processes is performing the same function as varietal patents. 11   This means that neither the patented genes nor the plant varieties are available for further breeding without previous consent from the holders of the IPRs. The right of farmers to save their seed, which is granted by the plant breeders' rights, is abolished by these developments ( de Miranda Santos and Lewontin, 1997).The tendency of this evolution of IPRs clearly goes in the direction of an expansion of the right of the industrial breeders. The described acceptance of broad claims, the uncertainty about the limits of the patent-holder's rights, and the aggressive enforcement of the rights can (even) lead to the monopolization of varieties and, by limiting research and breeding activities, to a perversion of the original idea of IPRs ( de Miranda Santos and Lewontin, 1997;Correa, 1999).The analysis amply demonstrates the complex situation of the conservation of PGRFA at the crossroad between agriculture, trade, industrial breeding and environmental issues. This is particularly obvious with respect to the situation of the individual farmer and in situ on-farm conservation.The impossibility of appropriating the value inherent in the diversity of crop species and related traditional knowledge, and the situation of open access lead to the loss of diversity and traditional knowledge. The unclear, unequal and highly politicized situation regarding the IPRs, fosters confusion and mistrust and leads to reluctance of countries and individuals or communities to grant access (Bragdon and Downes, 1998). The present situation is thus entirely opposed to the climate of mutual trust and of reciprocity which is the basis for open access and exchange and for innovative plant breeding.From the above it becomes apparent that the key issues which require regulation in a consistent legal system are the closely linked questions on access to genetic resources and the sharing of the benefits resulting from their use. These questions are to be seen in context with the creation of incentives for the conservation and maintenance of PGRFA and related on-farm breeding systems. In doing so, a balance between the protection of industrial R&D by IPRs and the protection of the results of traditional invention systems has to be found.In parallel to the technical and scientific evolution, the relevant international instruments are also in flux: the CBD and the IU on the side of the conservation and maintenance of PGR and traditional knowledge, the UPOV-Convention and the TRIPS Agreement on the side of the IPRs. In the following, a brief overview of the regulations and processes of importance in our context will be given.Plant breeders' rights (PBRs) are IPRs to protect the results of formal plant breeding. In analogy to patents, they aim at creating incentives to develop new plant varieties. They are specifically devised to take account of the traditions between breeders. The national legislation on PBRs was, in 1961, harmonized by the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV-12 Convention).The protective criteria require that a plant variety be new, distinct, homogeneous (uniform) and stable. In particular the criteria of homogeneity and stability exclude the landraces and traditional varieties from protection. In analogy to the patent system, the PBR entitles its holder to exclusively market the variety, or to license it to other users. It does not, however, prevent others from using the variety for further breeding (the breeders' exemption). It originally also allowed farmers to store harvested material to be used as seeds in the next season (the farmers' privilege).The Convention has been revised four times since it came into existence, with a trend for the strengthening of the rights granted, significantly expanding their scope. In our context the most important changes, as introduced by the last revision of 1991 (which came into force in 1998) are: (i) the extension of the rights of the holders to harvested material. 13 This has implications for the farmers' privilege, which now is provided for only as an optional exception; (ii) the newly introduced permission to cumulate patent and plant breeders' protection; 14 and (iii) the granting of a breeders' right only for 'essentially derived plant varieties' (for details see Barton, 1998;Bragdon and Downes, 1998;Girsberger, 1999). This expansion mirrors the evolution of the last decade in biotechnologies and in the seeds markets. It clearly leads to a broadening of the rights of the formal breeders.The TRIPS Agreement was adopted in 1993 as a result of the GATT/WTO (World Trade Organization) Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations. It sets international minimal standards to protect intellectual property and requires its members to establish this protection within given periods of time. Its aim is to set minimal standards for the national regulations on the protection of intellectual property by member states, and thus to 'reduce distortions and impediments to international trade and take into account the need to promote effective and adequate protection of intellectual property rights' (Preamble of the TRIPS Agreement).The discussions with a view to rights to PGRFA and related traditional knowledge focus on Article 27(3) b. This article states that the Contracting Parties may except plants and animals from patentability. However, they are to provide for protection of plant varieties either by patents, or an effective sui generis system, or a combination thereof.Opinions differ as to the interpretation of this article. One question is, whether the notion of sui generis is to be understood as referring to the system of protecting plant varieties of the UPOV-Convention. However, in the wording and the history of this article, nothing suggests this interpretation. Accordingly, countries have differing positions as to how it is to be implemented and further developed. Whereas industrial countries support the expansion of Article 27(3)b to include the obligation to protect biotechnological innovations, developing countries oppose patenting life forms. They propose to clarify Article 27(3)b of TRIPS in the sense that developing countries can opt for a national sui generis law that protects innovations of indigenous and local farming communities and that harmonizes this article with provisions of the CBD and the FAO's IU (World Trade Organization, 1999a, b).The results of the informal breeding systems -traditionally bred varieties, landraces and their wild and weedy relatives -as a rule cannot be protected by the aforementioned IPRs: (i) they do not correspond to the protective criteria of plant breeders' protection; and (ii) the respective systems may not be accessible for reasons of legitimization, difference in taxonomic systems, and lack of know-how and funding (Girsberger, 1999). Therefore, the information as contained in the landraces is freely accessible and can be used for further breeding in the industrial context without restriction.The asymmetric treatment given to donors of germplasm and donors of technology in the process of plant breeding, in particular in connection with the expansion of the IPRs, has led to debates in the FAO. The discussions focused on the question of access to ex situ collections and of creation of rights to traditional PGRFA, the so-called farmers' rights. The farmers' rights were to balance the equity between the protection of the results of formal and informal breeding. These discussions finally led to the establishment of the -legally non-binding -International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources by the FAO Conference in 1983. The IU is the first comprehensive instrument on PGRFA. Its objective is 'to ensure that plant genetic resources of economic and/or social interest, particularly for agriculture, will be explored, preserved, evaluated and made available for plant breeding and scientific purposes' (Art. 1). 15  In 1989, in an interpretative resolution to the IU, the FAO Conference established the recogni-tion of farmers' rights. 16 The resolution recognizes that farmers, in particular of developing countries, have conserved, improved and made available plant genetic resources for the benefit of all of mankind. It defines farmers' rights as 'rights arising from the past, present and future contributions of farmers in conserving, improving, and making available plant genetic resources, particularly those in the centres of origin/diversity.' According to the resolution these rights have the purpose of ensuring full benefits to farmers, in particular to assist in the protection and conservation of their PGR and to allow farmers, their communities and countries to participate fully in the benefits derived from the improved use of PGR.The IU has since been developed through agreed interpretations. However, relevant matters, such as conditions of access to PGR and the funding system, and thus also the implementation of farmers' rights, remained largely open. The conclusion of the CBD in 1992 initiated the revision process of the IU in order to adjust it to the accepted principles of the CBD. The aims of the revision were in particular: (i) to harmonize the IU with the CBD; and (ii) to 'consider' the issues of access to PGR and the realization of farmers' rights. 17  In the debates on the implementation of farmers' rights, two basically different concepts were discussed: (i) the 'political' concept, which understands the notion of farmers' rights merely as a political slogan as opposed to the PBR (Bragdon and Downes, 1998). In this concept, farmers' rights are understood as a non-exclusive right, their major content being the right to compensation, financed by an international funding system (see e.g. Brush, 1994;Girsberger, 1999). (ii) The 'legal' concept, which has been reinforced by the conclusion of the CBD. This concept encompasses proposals to define farmers' rights as an alternative form of IPR, adapted to the specific requirements of conservation and maintenance of PGRFA and related traditional knowledge by farmers, farming families and communities (compare, e.g., Swaminathan, 1997;Shiva, 1999).During its eighth session in April 1999, the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which is the body mandated to revise the IU, negotiated a new text on farmers' rights. According to Art. 15 of the Draft Version of the Revised IU, 18 'the Parties agree that the responsibility for realizing farmers' rights … rests with national governments.' The Parties are obliged to take measures to protect and promote farmers' rights 'in accordance with their needs and priorities.' The measures are to include, namely, the protection of traditional knowledge, the right to equitably participate in sharing benefits arising from the utilization of PGRFA and the right to participate at the national level in making decisions on matters related to the conservation and sustainable use of PGRFA (Art. 15,Draft Revised IU).This solution has the advantage of disconnecting the two crucial and sensitive issues of benefit sharing and farmers' rights. However, it leaves the implementation of farmers' rights to a vast extent to the Contracting Parties and does not answer the question as to the nature and scope of their rights.The ongoing international debate on the terms for access to genetic resources and sharing the benefits from their use (and the growing self-confidence of indigenous peoples and farming communities as to the value of their knowledge) created pressure to include obligations in these issues into the CBD. 19  In particular the developing countries pressed for measures to ensure greater benefits for the countries of origin (Bragdon and Downes, 1998). Thus, the CBD decided against the principle of common heritage and confirms the sovereignty of states over their biological resources. The CBD is based on a broad notion of biological resources. The term is defined with reference to the utility of the resources. Accordingly, 'biological resources' include 'genetic resources, organisms, or any other biotic component of ecosystems with actual or potential value for humanity' (Art. 2). Genetic resources, as viewed by the CBD, include genetic information found in both domesticated and wild species of animals and plants. The notion encompasses resources found in in situ conditions as well as stored ex situ, for example, in genebanks or botanical gardens. Thus the genetic information contained in PGRFA in principle falls under the regulations of the CBD. This is of relevance in so far as the PGRFA therefore fall under the sovereign control of the state. This means that the contracting parties arein the limits of international law -free to decide on the regulation of, for example, the ownership of the genetic resources situated in their territory. In particular the authority to determine access to genetic resources rests with the national governments and is subject to national legislation (Art. 15.1 CBD). The Contracting Parties are only obliged 'to endeavour to create conditions to facilitate access to genetic resources … by other Contracting Parties' (Art. 15.2 CBD). So the original concept of the IU, which considered PGR as a heritage of mankind and, thus, as available without restriction (Art. 1), was not taken up in the CBD negotiations. The concept of the CBD, in contrast, is designed for contractual bilateral relations between donor countries and prospecting firms. It prescribes that access to genetic resources be granted under the condition of prior informed consent (PIC), mutually agreed terms, and fair and equitable sharing of research and development results as well as benefits arising from use of genetic resources (Art. 15 CBD).The existence, value, and importance of traditional knowledge is implicitly recognized by the CBD. The pertinent Art. 8(j) obliges parties to encourage sharing of benefits arising from use of traditional knowledge. However, the obligation retains the reservation of national legislation and thus does not in itself confer rights to protect traditional knowledge. 20 As elaborated above, traditional knowledge from the point of view of international public law remains in the public domain.The above makes clear that there are divergences between the CBD's regulations on access and benefit sharing and on traditional knowledge, and the specific requirements for PGRFA. However, the task to regulate rights to genetic information and traditional knowledge related to PGRFA, and the question of farmers' rights was left to the FAO by the Conference which adopted the Convention, 21 and there prompted the revision of the IU. 22 In the revision process of the IU, the antinomy between bilateral contracts versus open access was one of the main controversial issues (besides the related issues of benefit sharing, financial resources and farmers' rights). The draft solution, now elaborated by the negotiating commission, proposes the creation of a Multilateral System of Access and Benefit Sharing (Part IV). This Multilateral System is intended to mutually facilitate access to a limited number of PGRFA which are to be selected according to criteria of food security and interdependence 23 (Art. 11 and  12, Draft IU). 24 The details of the Facilitated Access have not yet been finalized by the negotiating body. 25  From the institutional point of view, access to PGRFA and to the traditional knowledge related to it, thus follows a pattern which differs from the one established by the CBD for PGR and traditional knowledge in general. However, in both cases, the implementation is to a large extent transferred to the Contracting Parties. The question is whether, for the implementation of the legal protection of the different types of information -traditional knowledge related to PGRFA, information included in the PGRFA and traditional knowledge related to PGR in general -different instruments must be created at the national and international level, or whether, for example a general sui generis right to traditional knowledge can be created which covers all types of knowledge.The analysis of the legal and institutional situation shows the imbalance between the protection of formal innovation on the one hand and informational values as contained in traditional knowledge and traditionally generated information on the other. However, both types of information are the result of intellectual accomplishments. It also illustrates the difficulties which arise in trying to find solutions. The protection of the informational values as contained in PGRFA and traditional knowledge is in itself complex. This complexity is amplified by the complicated pattern of stakeholders and interests involved (see Biber-Klemm, 2000a).Whereas general principles and concepts for a solution seem to emerge as much in the domain of PGRFA as in relation to traditional knowledge related to other PGR, their implementation on the level of the authors of the information -individuals or communities -is far from clear. This is as true for the instruments at national level, as for their implementation and enforcement at international level in the context of international trade relations.The design of legal instruments has to take the purposes and objectives of the attempted solution into account. Recent economic theories help to shed light on the specific problems that PGRFA and related traditional knowledge are confronted with in a system of increasingly globalized and liberalized markets. They thus can give further indications as to the elements that (legal) solutions ought to encompass.As described above, the open-access situation of biodiversity leads indirectly to land conversion, and thus to its loss. Whereas IPRs create incentives to invest in R&D in the steps of formal R&D and industrial production, no comparable incentives exist at the level of earlier production stages, that is, where basic information is created by informal R&D processes as effectuated by traditional breeders and indigenous people. Thus, the benefits from retaining diversity are appropriated at a level within the agricultural industry far removed from the individuals making decisions concerning land conversions (Swanson et al., 1994;Swanson and Göschl, 2000). Swanson and Göschl (2000) conclude that, in order to maintain basic investments and innovation processes, incentives should also be created at the level where the information is created, that is, at the level of the indigenous and farming communities. Swanson proposes the creation of an 'informational resource right' as a specific property right, tailored in analogy to IPRs, to protect the informational value of biogenetic information and to allow the appropriation of the value of the information at the level at which it has been generated.As developed above, the diversity of PGRFA is an important element to secure the nutritional needs of humanity and of future generations in a changing world. Agrobiodiversity is maintained by local subsistence farming systems, as a side-effect of their striving to prevent food shortages. The local farmers thus perform a service to humankind. This diversity presently is freely accessible to everybody and the information contained in the PGRFA has no marketable value. These elements correspond to the characteristics of the 'global public good'. 26  The problem of a public good is that, while the entire society benefits from its use, no mechanisms for its generation such as market mechanisms, exist. Therefore, additional measures are needed for its provision (Swanson et al., 1994;Kaul et al., 1999). The public policy implication is that states, respectively international regimes, must play some role in the provision of such goods, otherwise they will be undersupplied (Stiglitz, 1999). Stiglitz (1999) identifies two strategies to provide for the public good 'knowledge', that is, for informational values: (i) to increase the degree of appropriability of the returns by issuing IPRs and/or (ii) to grant direct government support. He points out that there are types of information, such as basic research and other fundamental forms of knowledge, which 'almost certainly' should remain in the public domain as parts of the 'global commons' and not be privatized by an intellectual property regime. However, in this case, public support is required. He proposes that the international community could claim the right to charge for the use of the global knowledge commons -as is the case for the utilization of other common goods.The following conclusions can be drawn from the above:1. Agrobiodiversity as a global public good needs to be supported by the international community. Support is possible either by creating rights which permit the privatization of the informational value or by subsidizing maintenance of biodiversity. In the case of support for the in situ conservation of PGRFA, this means either the creation of (property) rights to the informational value or the generation of a system to reimburse the efforts of the farmers in the maintenance of the public good 'diversity of PGRFA'. 27 2. The equities between privatization and open access are to be weighed very carefully. A system to charge for access to the information belonging to the 'commons' has to be created. 3. Incentives are most effective if applied at the level where the decisions are taken, that is, at the level of the farmers and/or the farming communities, or the nation states. 4. If incentives are created, it is to be assured that the 'culture of reciprocity' (Castillo, 1997) and the customary laws governing the exchange of PGRFA, and the tradition of the knowledge between farming families and communities are maintained and supported.According to the concerns and the political, legal and factual situation described above, the key issue of a legal solution is to balance rights and compensations with respect to the different systems of innovation. The aim is to ensure the conservation of genetic diversity in agriculture and to support its community-based management. As has been elaborated above, a solution will have to be sought at both the national and the international level.In particular -in addition to the criteria elaborated above -it ought to address the following objectives:1. It should create a sound basis to secure access to genetic resources and their free exchange at local, regional and international levels. 2. The contributions of all stakeholders involved are to be adequately compensated. Equity in rights as well as in benefits is to be secured for individuals, communities and nation states. 3. A sound basis for partnership in R&D of PGRFA is to be created. 4. A solution should aim to minimize transaction costs while maximizing efficiency and effectiveness.Solutions to create a legal basis for the issues of access to PGR and for the sharing of benefits resulting from their use are discussed for both; PGRFA and related traditional knowledge in the agricultural context in the sense of the IU, and for PGR and traditional knowledge in the more general context of the CBD.Four main groups of proposed solutions can be distinguished. First, there is a series of proposals for non-compulsory codes of conduct for access and benefit sharing and models for solutions on the contractual level, the material transfer agreements (MTAs). A second group of measures focuses on the problem of allocating and documenting information and controlling lawful implementation by the purchasing states, by creating databases to register traditional knowledge. A third proposition is the creation of a funding system, particularly in the domain of farmers' rights. A fourth group of measures focuses on creation of sui generis rights to traditional resources (Posey, 1996;Cottier, 1998).The solutions which are proposed in many variations in the steadily increasing literature follow in principle the two basic strands of thinking encountered in the theory of the global public good: (i) the concept of the creation of a funding system, which is promoted in connection with the concept of the Multilateral System of Access and Benefit Sharing of the IU; and (ii) the creation of specifically tailored property rights to protect informally created innovation. The question is, whether these measures are appropriate for all types of information, or if in fact the present solution, which seems to exclusively favour the concept of the funding system for the implementation of the farmers' rights, is compelling. The thesis submitted is that a uniform solution will not meet the problems, but rather a combination of measures which encompass rights, instruments and institutions for their implementation and other supporting measures.It is put forward that these measures need not follow the administrative and institutional separation presently existing between the 'agricultural' (IU) and the 'pharmacological' (CBD) sector on the international and national levels. It is put forward that instruments ought rather to be devised and applied according to factual criteria and differences between the types of information. Thus, in the following, the 'Traditional Intellectual Property Rights' (TIP rights) and the funding system will be discussed from this point of view.It has been pointed out above that an unclear situation regarding the rights of individuals and communities to the informational values they generated leads to secrecy and to the erosion of open access (Correa, 1999;RAFI, 2000;Biber-Klemm, 2000b). The industrial IPRs were designed particularly to halt this tendency to secrecy, which was considered to harm the overall process of innovation and progress. In defining clear rights to protect the information and in creating the opportunity to license it to other users, the necessity to keep an invention secret was banned.It is submitted that a specific right to protect traditionally generated information could also secure a sound basis for access, benefit sharing and open exchange as well as for contractual relations as within a Multilateral System on Access and Benefit Sharing. Cottier (1998) proposes the creation of so-called TIP rights within the framework of the TRIPS Agreement, designed to answer to the specific characteristics of traditional knowledge. In particular these rights ought not to rely on novelty, but encompass pre-existing traditional knowledge and knowhow relating to plant and animal genetic resources.The determination of the possible content and of the scope of such rights would have to be developed taking the economic and cultural significance, the potential holders of the rights and the different types of information into consideration. For instance, Drahos (1999) argues that devising such regulatory forms seems best left to indigenous people and the positive law of individual states. Such legislation is emerging in different states such as Peru (Biber-Klemm, 2000b), the Philippines and India (Cullet, 1999). However, protection on the national level cannot guarantee protection in international trade relations (see Biber-Klemm, 2000b). Therefore the integration into an international legal system, such as the integration in the revision process of TRIPS, is necessary, as well as the integration of control mechanisms into patent procedures.In discussing the creation of specific IPRs to protect traditionally generated information, the different types of information are to be taken into consideration. Traditionally generated information exists either in the form of traditional knowledge which comes in addition to a resource, as is, for example, the case with knowledge on a specific quality of a crop variety or of a medicinal plant; or it is integrated into the genetic programme of cultivated varieties, which represents the experience and skill of generations of traditional breeders in adapting the variety to specific local circumstances. Traditional knowledge can be freely accessible within a community, or even be in the public domain, or it can belong to the spiritual heritage and tradition of a people and its use therefore be strictly regulated and restricted.The scope of the rights ought to be designed accordingly; the creation of several types of rights can be imagined. A TIP right could, for example, encompass a mere right to compensation as could be imagined in the framework of the Multilateral System. However, TIP rights could also be designed in analogy to the existing IPRs, that is, procuring for their owner exclusive rights to decide over the utilization of the information. This second solution could prove to be appropriate for knowledge with a strong cultural or spiritual character. Cottier (1998) proposes further limitation of the TIP rights to knowledge related to genetic resources and suggests that the entitlement be limited to commercial use and industrial production. Thus, the continued use of such knowledge by other communities and individuals would remain unimpaired. He points out that TIP rights should not be limited to local and indigenous communities embodying traditional lifestyles, as presently discussed in the CBD framework, but be open to rural communities and individuals all over the world.It is obvious that the allocation of the right to individuals, communities or regions is primordial for its acquisition. To allocate the rights, it is proposed to create registration systems at the national and/or international level (Cottier, 1998). Special emphasis ought to be placed on elaborating measures at the interface between modern IPRs and TIP rights, the former needing adjustment to implement and enforce the latter. One solution could be a certification system, which would permit the control of the lawful acquisition of the information by the patent offices. Other aspects which ought to be internationally discussed and harmonized are, for example, the delimitation between discovery and invention, the requirements of the proof of prior art, and the option of joint industrial-traditional patenting.The option of TIP rights is controversial. It is argued in particular with regard to landraces and related traditional knowledge that:1. The economic relevance of traditional PGRFA, determined by the market, will be small, as breeders are primarily interested in the resources that have already been collected and characterized. 2. Additionally, the (small) compensation will be consumed by expenses caused by transaction costs and the protection of the rights. 3. The specific process of informal plant breeding and the specific characteristics of landraces make the distinction between specific innovators and innovations difficult. 4. Enforcing TIP rights seems uncertain, the potential holders lacking financial, legal and scientific means. 5. Traditional knowledge, being an integrated part of cultures and traditions of peoples, does not lend itself to a concept of private property. 6. The innovative system of traditional communities does not correspond to the concept of industrial IPRs. Thus, it is feared that privatization of knowledge will hinder free exchange between groups and lead to conflicts over ownership, which could in turn jeopardize the further evolution of the landraces (Brush, 1994;Girsberger, 1999).In favour of TIP rights it is argued that: (i) a clear legal basis for access and benefit-sharing arrangements, and for trade of information could be created; (ii) incentives to conserve and innovate could be allocated without intermediate steps; (iii) TIP rights are not only valuable between the parties of a contract, but grant the holder an absolute legal title which is also valuable vis-à-vis third parties; (iv) TIP rights would not only be of interest in the international market; they could also be instrumental in rewarding invention within local market systems (Cottier, 1998); and (v) they would permit the farming communities and the indigenous peoples to regain autonomy over their intellectual property (Drahos, 1999).To ensure that TIP rights do not conflict with the objectives listed above, further research must seek to find a balance between aspects of protection and control of information on the one hand and accessibility and further development and innovation on the other. It is argued that this balance can be found in the definition of the rights to traditional knowledge and the determination of their scope. In particular the following items are to be carefully developed and evaluated:1. The creation of the rights (ipso iure or by registration); 2. Their function, scope, duration, and effect; 3. Creation, scope and implementation of related rights to appeal and of dispute settlement mechanisms; 4. The integration of local customary law and the possible effects on traditional exchange of information at the local level and on access for scientific research; 5. The level of regulation.A key element in the creation of property rights with respect to informational values is to allocate the right to the authors of the information: individuals, groups or communities. Yet, in many casesespecially in the domain of so-called farmers' rights -it can be very difficult to determine the authors of the information and, thereby, the holders of the rights. Analogous situations exist in other domains, for example in the case of a publicly known folk remedy such as neem or kava. In these cases, compensation by way of a funding system could be envisaged, as proposed for the realization of farm-ers' rights (Brush, 1994;Girsberger, 1999) and provided for, for instance, in Art. 20 and 21 of the CBD and in the IU. This compensation should be funded by those having an interest in conservation of resources and those using the resources, that is, national governments, formal plant breeders and pharmaceutical industries. The financial means of the fund should be allocated on the basis of project proposals. Compensation through funds could be attributed to states, thus creating incentives to conserve biological diversity at the state level. An application system, open to projects handed in by stakeholders involved in conservation and sustainable use of the resources could be imagined, thus creating incentives for conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity at the level of the communities or individuals directly involved.It has been discussed above that, in order to halt the genetic erosion of PGRFA, and to maintain evolutionary processes, incentives must be created to support on-farm conservation and management. It has been argued that, in order to stop the erosion of open accessibility, a clear legal basis for access and benefit sharing regulation is to be created. The analysis of the problem has then shown a complex pattern of influences.From the background and the discussion presented, it becomes clear that no simple and uniform answer will meet the problem of protecting PGRFA and traditional knowledge. Thus, it is concluded that an 'either-or' solution will not solve the problems, but that action must be taken in several areas and in a multi-layered approach, which encompasses rights, instruments and institutions for their implementation and other supporting measures.In general terms, the proposed solutions can be summarized as follows: first and principally, to allocate specific rights to traditional knowledge based on individual or community rights wherever this is possible. The aim would be to integrate a basic right to traditional knowledge in an international legally binding instrument such as the TRIPS Agreement, its detailed implementation being left to the competence of the nation states. Second, to create a legal basis and mechanism for a funding system which generates incentives for and permits compensation of the maintenance of biodiversity. The funding system could be applied in cases where the pertinent information cannot be allocated to specific authors, or is considered to have the quality of a public good and, thus, is not to be privatized.Specific emphasis is to be given to the adjustment of existing IPRs. In particular, the rules for patenting plant varieties are to be specified. Further, measures are to be designed to implement and enforce the rights at the international and national level. Finally, additional supporting measures and incentives, such as labelling and auditing systems as well as tax reductions are to be elaborated to conserve and sustain use of biological resources and related traditional knowledge in the context of (international) markets and international trade.Further research will have to be conducted in order to evaluate the political and practical feasibility of the proposed solutions and to elaborate the details of the measures, in accordance with the criteria above. It is to be emphasized that it is of great importance that these rights are elaborated and evaluated with utmost care and in cooperation with the people concerned. Of special importance is the creation and recognition of a community right to traditional knowledge at the international level.However, the effective support of on-farm management and conservation of PGRFA, lies beyond the scope of legal solutions only. The basis of all measures must be the appreciation of the contribution of the local and indigenous communities and farmers to the conservation and development of PGRFA. In order to support informed decisions on the on-farm management and conservation of PGRFA, on access and benefit sharing, sound information and capacity-building with a view to the legal and institutional background are fundamental. The aim and function of legal instruments in this context would be to sustain self-confidence and mutual trust and, thus, to form a sound basis for autonomous decisions, cooperation and the participatory approach to research on and development of rural PGRFA.The greater commercialization of public breeding, and the higher profile of private breeders, supported by plant breeders' rights, has increasingly highlighted the value of genetic material used in plant breeding (Godden, 1984(Godden, , 1991)). There is increasing discussion as to the value of conserving stocks of genetic material in plant germplasm collections, and sources of future funding. Biologists have often encouraged the conservation of all or most material, arguing that it is potentially valuable (Evenson et al., 1998). However, funding constraints are making this conservation effort extremely difficult, especially in countries like Papua New Guinea (PNG).An economic estimation of the benefits and costs of conserving accessions in collections is required to determine optimal levels and sources of funding and the optimal economic organization of germplasm collections. The costs of maintaining the collections can usually be estimated from existing and historical data. However, empirical estimations of the benefits have been fraught with difficulties, despite recent methodological developments. While numerous studies have successfully documented the value of particular germplasm ex post and even estimated its value ex post, few have been able to determine this value ex ante (Godden and Kambuou, 1996). The focus of the present study is to assess the value of PNG's germplasm collections and to estimate the potential benefits of conserving this material.In valuing PNG's crop germplasm collections, a stochastic dynamic programming model has been developed to determine the net benefit of maintaining existing collections held by the National Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) (formerly by the Department of Agriculture and Livestock (DAL)) in PNG (Kennedy et al., 1997;Godden et al., 1997). To analyse the relative costs of maintaining PNG's existing field germplasm collections, a spreadsheet model has been created (Godden et al., 1998) and a solution derived for the problem of taro germplasm maintenance and breeding in PNG, given the best available current data (Kennedy et al., 1997). Data on the transition probabilities for the two state variables, number of accessions and crop yields were not available for estimating the benefits. The following study was carried out in an attempt to provide the data for empirical analysis of the collections.The following discussion on the valuation of benefits of germplasm collections in PNG begins with a summary of the different types of plant genetic resource values: ex situ and in situ. In the third section, methods of estimating the breeding value of genetic resources and collections are briefly reviewed. In section four the methods for the PNG case study are outlined. A description of the movement of PNG germplasm to national and international collections and assessment of the benefits of PNG material in these collections is given in the fifth section. In the final section, survey results are presented on the elicitation of subjective probabilities relating to: (i) the probability of maintaining existing collections (survey of curators); and (ii) potential yield gains from the maintenance of these collections (survey of breeders).Both agriculturalists and environmentalists seek to preserve plant genetic resources. Agriculturalists usually emphasize the potential value plant genetic resources may have in a breeding programme and hence on farm production, while environmentalists tend to support the preservation of genetic biodiversity of all species (Evenson et al., 1998).Various taxonomies have been used to explain the value of genetic resources. Oldfield (1989) adopted a broad classification, distinguishing between direct values (consumptive use and productive use) and indirect values (non-consumptive use, option and existence). Swanson et al. (1994) divided values into non-use and use values of plant genetic resources and defined the following use values:• exploration value for yield enhancement: the direct contribution to the value of products produced with plant genetic resources in the plant breeding industry for the purpose of enhancing yields of existing agricultural crops; • exploration value for reduced variability: maintenance of a pool that may be explored for the ascertainment of traits that might contribute to the future stability of agricultural production; • portfolio or insurance value: the value of avoiding output variability and providing for future sustainability through more stable systems of the diversity of plant genetic resources in current agricultural usage (across countries and across time); and • quasi-option value: the value of maintaining potentially valuable traits in the event of environmental shifts. For example, if new bio-types of pests and pathogens are introduced, genetic resources not currently valued may increase in value (Evenson, 1996a). Evenson (unpublished, 1996a) and Evenson et al. (1998) tended to define biodiversity values in terms of value to different interest groups. They considered 'consumer good' (existence) values and 'producer good' (use) values (Evenson, unpublished).Existence values were defined as those held by people who believe in the conservation of all genetic resources, for the sake of biodiversity and long-term sustainability (Evenson et al., 1998). Use values were considered more important to utilitarians who focused on the benefits of genetic resources to humans now and in the future.In reviewing the various classifications of genetic resource values, it is evident that there is no accepted terminology. 'Direct' and 'indirect' values are used to describe both major categories (Oldfield, 1989) and sub-categories (Evenson et al., 1998) of genetic resource values (see Table 41.1). For the purposes of estimation, many studies have focused on the use values of plant germplasm resources and collections and in particular on the potential yield increases resulting from breeding. In Table 41.1, this value is given numerous names: productive use, breeding, crop improvement, yield exploration value. The following section reviews the different approaches that have been used in determining the genetic resource contributions to yield increases.Approaches to valuing plant genetic resources have been classified in numerous ways (Pearce and Cervigni, 1994;Evenson, 1996a;Evenson et al., 1998). Pearce and Cervigni (1994) provide a summary on the usefulness of these approaches. To date there is no broadly accepted classification of genetic resource valuation methods or terminology. Similar terms are given for different techniques, and different expressions are adopted for the same method (Pearce and Cervigni, 1994;Evenson, 1996a). Evenson (1996a) considered three methods for measuring the value of plant genetic resources: subjective, subjective probabilities and objective. In contrast, Pearce and Cervigni (1994) based their categorization on the attempt to capture non-use values and use values, mentioned in the previous section (see Table 41.2).Objective methods have been defined as those used in analysing the relationship between production characteristics, genetic resource collections and breeding activities (Evenson, 1996a). Hedonic specification, returns to research and production functions fall under indirect objective methods. Indirect objective methods are considered indirect because they do not create a direct link between the size and evaluation state of plant germplasm collections (Evenson, 1996a). Preferences for the environmental good are revealed indirectly through the purchase of related marketed goods. Techniques for measuring the producer good value of genetic resources, usually require statistical regression to relate the measure of varietal improvement to factors expected to cause or produce varietal improvement (Evenson et al., 1998).Hedonic methods have been used to infer the value of individual traits or characteristics of a variety (Evenson, 1996b;Godden and Kambuou, 1996;Smale et al., 1997;Evenson et al., 1998;Gollin and Evenson, unpublished;Gollin et al., 1998;Rao and Evenson, 1998). Traits contribute to the value of the variety through increasing yields or enabling higher yielding varieties to be planted in previously unsuitable environments (Evenson, 1996b).The total contribution of genebanks and plant breeding programmes (in terms of public expenditures) to agricultural output has been well covered in the literature (e.g. Smale et al., 1997;Azzam et al., 1997). These studies do not attempt to isolate the factors of production involved in plant breeding and do not usually account for the number of breeding processes carried out before the new variety is released (Evenson, 1996a). Based on the statistical association between the area planted to new varieties and productivity, the returns to research literature has tended to value quantitative traits rather than qualitative traits. To capture the specific contribution made by genetic resources to plant breeding and yield improvement, a number of studies have disaggregated the different components of advancements responsible for yield gains (Godden, 1988;Godden and Brennan, 1994;Gollin and Evenson, 1998). The economic benefit of the new varieties is expressed as the product of the portion attributable to the introduction of new varieties and an appropriate shadow price (Pearce and Cervigni, 1994). The value of the stages of the breeding process, and the value of the inputs involved in that process, are not disaggregated.The complete genealogy of the released variety is usually very complex (Pearce and Cervigni, 1994;Evenson, 1996a). In order to estimate the value of the genetic resource, all the genetic steps which led to developing the released variety would need to be measured in terms of yield value added and cost of the particular cross. That is, costs and benefits at each stage of the breeding process -collection, evaluation, pre-breeding and breeding -would need to be measured. Given the detailed information on actual breeding activities required, this type of analysis would be very data intensive and require an extensive database, such as the wheat database at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT).Subjective/direct methods are used to elicit preferences directly through survey and experimental techniques, such as contingent valuation methods. The complexities of the breeding processes have limited the effective application of subjective methods for valuing direct or use values for genetic resources (Evenson, 1996a). Evenson et al. (1998) suggested that contingent valuation is more suited to estimating 'consumer goods' values than 'producer goods values. The average consumer would have little knowledge about the use of germplasm collections, and hence would find it difficult to assign a value.The management of plant germplasm collections is an economic decision problem. For decision making the only valid probability approach is the subjective one where decision-makers bear responsibility for their decisions and use their own strengths of conviction (Dillon, 1971). Subjective probabilities are beliefs held by individuals that reflect their degree of uncertainty about some idea or event. Compared to objective frequencies, subjective probabilities allow for incorporation of intuitive knowledge and recognition that the future may not be like the past (Dillon, 1971). They are not restricted to situations where a series of observations are available and are appropriate to depict events that only occur once or have never occurred (Norris and Kramer, 1990). Plant breeding is an uncertain process, and hence the value of germplasm in terms of future plant varieties that could be developed from it is similarly uncertain (Godden et al., 1997).Most empirical studies on the valuation of genetic resources and collections have used objective methods. The use of subjective probability methods for valuing genetic resources is limited (Evenson, 1996b;Evenson et al., 1998;Kennedy et al., 1997). Empirical work has focused on commercial crops, such as rice, wheat and maize, where detailed datasets are available (Evenson, unpublished, 1996b;Gollin and Evenson, unpublished;Evenson and Gollin, 1997;Gollin et al., 1998). Gollin et al. (1998) developed a search model for traits of economic importance in ex situ collections of wheat genetic resources. They concluded that the underutilization of wheat germplasm collections was related to the costs and time lags in the breeding process and did not imply that accessions had no value.Attempts have been made to value rare and pharmaceutical plants in the wild. Phillips and Meilleur (1998) undertook a statistical survey on the usefulness and economic potential of rare plants in the USA. They identified commercial relatives of endangered species and considered the likelihood of wild germplasm being incorporated into crops. Mendelsohn and Balick (1995) estimated private and social values for undiscovered pharmaceuticals in tropical forests. A complete collection and screening of all tropical plant species was valued at US$3-4 billion to a private pharmaceutical company and around US$147 billion to society.Limited research has been performed on the value of subsistence crop germplasm to farmers' yields. Literature on yield gains of subsistence crops has tended to focus on research station trial outcomes in terms of changes in levels of inputs. Farm yield and production figures for subsistence crops are scarce, especially in developing countries.To value the net benefits of the maintenance of the PNG germplasm collections, a stochastic dynamic programming model was developed (Kennedy et al., 1997). Decisions on germplasm maintenance and breeding expenditure are required at regular intervals (multistage decision making) depending on the current number of accessions and yield (state variables). It is expected that increasing maintenance expenditure will increase the likelihood of maintaining current or greater numbers of acces-sions. Greater breeding expenditure is expected to 'increase the probability of countering a yield reversion or obtaining a higher yield variety' (Kennedy et al., 1997).The number of accessions and future crop yields depends not only on these decision and state variables, but also on stochastic outcomes, such as the loss of germplasm due to volcanic eruptions or crop disease and pests. Since objective probabilities do not exist for these events, best 'guesstimates' of experts and sensitivity analysis are used. The model consists of transition probabilities for both state variables:• probability of attaining, a number of years on, a certain number of accessions, given the current accession number and maintenance expenditure; and • probability of attaining, a number of years on, a particular yield given current accession numbers, current yield and breeding expenditure.The probabilistic state transition functions are the most difficult data to estimate but necessary in determining the optimal policy (Kennedy et al., 1997). The current study attempts to elicit subjective probabilities for yields and collection size in order to carry out a complete empirical analysis for the value of germplasm collections in PNG.As a preliminary step to determine both domestic and international benefits of PNG's germplasm collections, the movement of germplasm originating from PNG was tracked to other collections. Information was obtained through both direct correspondence and a questionnaire sent to likely international holders of PNG material. Where possible, estimates were obtained of existing yield advances achieved by the use of PNG material in breeding programmes and the potential importance of PNG material in current breeding. Given that only three respondents were successful in including PNG germplasm material in breeding programmes, a second survey was carried out to gain quantitative data on the potential benefits of germplasm collections of the study crops. The survey was designed to elicit subjective probabilities relating to expenditure, potential yield and size of collections. It was assumed that 'yield' was the only desirable trait in crops. Given the difficulty in making such estimates about future varieties (i.e. those not yet in the farmers' field), it was considered unreasonable to survey farmers.An indirect approach was adopted to elicit probability density functions (PDFs) for predetermined intervals. Indirect methods refer to probabilities inferred from preferences or choices between possible bets, decisions or alternatives (Norris and Kramer, 1990). Indirect methods are useful when the resulting probabilities are not clear to the assessor (Winkler, 1967 in Norris andKramer, 1990). In the case of PNG respondents, both the visual counter (assigning coloured chips to the likelihood of a given outcome) and the gamble method (betting odds until the assessor is indifferent between two offered bets) were attempted, with most respondents preferring the visual counter technique.The elicitation of subjective probabilities from PNG curators and breeders was carried out face-toface while respondents outside PNG were sent a written questionnaire. The questionnaire contained brief explanatory notes on the concepts of subjective probabilities. Respondents were not required to have PNG material.In tracking the movement of PNG germplasm to international collections, a sample of breeders and curators of taro, banana and sweet potato was established. Geographical coverage was wide and the number of PNG accessions in individual collections ranged from 1 to 274. The material had either been obtained directly from the PNG collections, collecting missions, international genebanks or from other researchers.In PNG, the national taro germplasm (301 accessions in February 1999) is held at the NARI Wet-Lowlands Mainland Programme, Bubia. 1 Duplicates are also held at a number of other stations throughout the country. Table 41.3 lists the origin of taro germplasm from around PNG held in the national taro collection at Bubia. A majority of the accessions were collected from Morobe, East New Britain and Central provinces (Kalabus, 1995). The working collection of Bubia also contains 28 introduced varieties from the Asia Pacific region. 2  Table 41.4 contains the type of institution that has received PNG taro germplasm and the number of accessions obtained. So far, first and second round transfers have been documented, i.e. material that has moved from the place of origin to a germplasm collection (first round recipients) and transferred onwards (second round recipients). The outbreak of taro leaf blight in the Pacific in the last 5 years has restricted the movement of PNG taro germplasm.The PNG national Musa germplasm collection is currently held at the NARI Dry-Lowlands Programme, Laloki 3 (298 accessions in 1999), and duplicated at the NARI Wet-Lowlands Islands Programme, Keravat. Musa germplasm material originating in PNG has been officially collected by international research institutes and breeding programmes since the 1960s, either directly from research stations or from independent fieldwork. Table 41.5 contains the recipients of banana germplasm from PNG, divided into virus indexing centres (VICs), research institutes, breeding programmes and in vitro genebanks. Where information is available, the number of accessions collected or received is given.In PNG, sweet potato germplasm is currently held at the NARI Highlands Programme, Aiyura 4 (1158 accessions in 1998), and the NARI Wet-Lowlands Islands, Keravat 5 (1062 accessions in 1998). Under the Secretariat for the Pacific Commission (SPC) and Pacific Regional Agricultural Programme (PRAP), PNG sweet potato varieties are being evaluated, indexed and tissue cultured at NARI Wet-Lowlands Islands, Keravat. The collection at Keravat also contains 73 accessions from overseas. 6  Table 41.6 provides information on the type and number of recipients of sweet potato germplasm from PNG. Where information is avail-able, the number of accessions collected or received is also given. Second round recipients have not yet been contacted directly. It is possible that they hold PNG material from other sources, hence the total number of PNG accessions in their collections may be greater. In Japan, PNG germplasm has been characterized and used as breeding materials in breeding programmes. However, to date, no PNG material has been used in breeding varieties released to farmers for cultivation.Valuation of PNG material in international collections commenced with questionnaires sent to 140 known 7 and likely holders of PNG taro, sweet potato and banana germplasm. From the 25 respondents, 13 had taro germplasm, 11 had banana germplasm, and one had sweet potato germplasm. Of the 25 respondents, 14 believed that dynamic programming model, a greater sample of complete responses is still required, especially from international breeders and curators. Ways of obtaining this information while still relying on written questionnaires are currently being explored.The size of the respondents' collections ranged from 20 to 1200 accessions. The accessions were maintained for the purposes of biodiversity, breeding programmes, research and multiplication.Curators were asked about the likelihood of maintaining their current collections at different levels of expenditure over the next 10 years. As expected, most respondents suggested that with reduced expenditure, the probability of maintaining the collections decreased. Three respondents did not believe that they could maintain the current number of accessions in the collection without loss, even at current levels of expenditure. Curators were then asked to consider relating different levels of expenditure to the likelihood of maintaining collections of varying sizes. In many instances, only the most likely occurrence was identified rather than a probability distribution. On average, it was considered more likely that a reduction in expenditure would lead to a proportional reduction in the size of the collection. However, three respondents thought that it was more likely that a 25% reduction in expenditure would lead to an even greater reduction in the size of the collection (25-50% rather than a 1-25% loss of material). The latter cases were all field collections. In contrast, with a 50% reduction in expenditure, five respondents still believed that they could maintain their collections with minimal losses (1-25% reduction in material).Respondents were asked about the types of activities and resources that would be affected if expenditure was reduced. Losses in the quantity of labour and deferring of capital items ranked the highest. Other affected activities included research, maintenance, multiplication and isolation of field material. Reduction in the quantities of insecticides, herbicides, fertilizers and hand tools were mentioned under 'other resources'. In terms of the most valuable characteristics of accessions, 'pest and disease resistance' rated the highest followed by 'potential yield' and 'drought resistance'. Other characteristics of importance included palatability, cold tolerance and root quality traits. Given the outbreak of the taro leaf blight in the Pacific, and the prevalence of banana and sweet potato diseases, the response was as expected.In considering the accessions that have been or are likely to be requested by a breeding programme, curators were asked to think about dividing up their germplasm collection into sub-collections where the first sub-collection S1 comprised the first 25% of the accessions they would discard, that is, those least likely to contribute to increasing yield; sub-collection S2 comprised the next 25% of accessions they would discard; sub-collection S3 comprised the 'second-best' 25% of accessions; and sub-collection S4 comprised the best 25% of accessions. Four respondents believed that material from all four sub-collections had been requested while five respondents felt that only the top 25% (S4) accessions had been distributed. In terms of likely requests, those respondents who believed that only their best material has been requested in the past, were more optimistic that less valued material (S2, S3 and S4) would be requested in the future.The number of accessions in breeding collections ranged from 40 to 500 and came from diverse sources. Three collections contained over 80% of internationally obtained material, two collections had over 70% from national collections, and three breeders had collected over 80% of their material on collection missions.For a majority of breeders, yield potential characteristics were the most important traits followed by quality and pest and disease resistance. Quality of material was also given the highest ranking by three respondents. While 'pest and disease resistance' was ranked very highly by curators, it was not given a top ranking by any of the breeders.Similarly to the curator questionnaire, breeders were asked to imagine dividing up their own germplasm working collection into sub-collections. Respondents were then asked to assess the likelihood of achieving a range of yield gains on research stations and farms in the next 10 years, with an ever-decreasing size in their working collection (where S1, the worst accessions, would be discarded first). The responses were not uniform. Four respondents thought that a reduction in the size of their collections would reduce the chances of yield gains, while two breeders believed that discarding less valuable material increased their chances of achieving yield gains. It was expected by 85% of the respondents that yield gains would remain the same or increase, under any change in the size of the working collection. One respondent believed that they could achieve maximum yield gains irrespective of the size of the collection. In comparing research and farm outcomes, the shape of the distributions remained the same but at lower yield gains for on-farm outcomes.A similar set of questions was asked in regard to potential yields and a reduction in the size of the national germplasm collection. For most breeders, the most likely outcome was for yields to remain the same at most sizes of the collection, particularly for the whole collection. Four respondents believed that once the collection was reduced to the top 25% accessions, the yield gains would most likely be over 10%. In contrast, one breeder expected that yields would decrease with any reduction in the size of the national collection. Compared with the working collection outcomes, the changes in the size of the national collection increased the likelihood of reduced yield gains.Breeders were then asked to consider the effect on potential yields if the national collection was lost and accessions were only obtained from international collections. Similar to the questions for the working and national collections, breeders were asked to state the probability of achieving a range of yield gains against a decreasing size in the inter-national collection. Again the results were varied. An increasing number of respondents believed that yields would be more likely to decrease with a reduction in the size of international collections, especially on farms. However, for some respondents, the smaller the collection, the increased likelihood of achieving above 10% yield gains.In comparing the requests for material in the past with the likelihood of requests in the future, most respondents said the number of expected requests would either be about the same or more. On average, the chances of achieving 10% yield gains from random accessions requested from other collections doubled when the number of accessions increased from 100 to 200. With 50 accessions, the possibility of increased yields ranged between 0 and 30%.Finally, respondents were asked to indicate the probability of increasing yields by 10% at three levels of expenditure (see Table 41.10). Most breeders believed that at ever-decreasing levels of expenditure the chances of increased yields would fall. Three breeders believed that with an expenditure cut to 80% of the current level, there would be no likelihood of achieving a 10% yield gain. One breeder believed it was just as likely to achieve a 10% yield gain at the three levels of expenditure.From the seven completed breeder surveys, only three respondents provided complete probability distributions; one breeder per species. Despite the small sample size, some preliminary comments can be made. The banana breeder was the most responsive to changes in the size of the national collection. He believed that with any decrease in the size of the national collection it was most likely that expected potential yield gain would fall by up to 10%. The taro and sweet potato breeders thought it would be most likely, under any sized reduction in the number of accessions in the national collection, that potential yield gains would not be affected. All breeders believed that any change in the size of the international collection would not be likely to impact on their potential yield gains.Breeders provided information on the origin of their material. It was expected that if a high proportion of material had come from a particular collection then by reducing the number of accessions in that collection, potential yield gains would be expected to fall. This was not evident from any of the three responses. The responses from breeders and curators at the International Conference on Science and Technology for Managing Plant Genetic Diversity in the 21st Century (SAT21) are to be included in the analysis. The running of the model with this recent data is still work in progress.The International Conference on Science and Technology for Managing Plant Genetic Diversity in the 21st century (SAT21) provided an opportunity to consider our current knowledge of how to conserve and use plant genetic resources. The State of the World's Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (FAO, 1998), prepared for the International Technical Conference on Plant Genetic Resources, held in Leipzig in 1996, provides the most comprehensive overview of the global plant genetic resources conservation effort. Using this information, the Global Plan of Action (FAO, 1996) provided a clear agenda for conservation work. SAT21 provided a chance to review our technical capacity to carry out the work; to review the extent to which the methods, technologies and knowledge needed to conserve and use plant genetic resources were available; and to explore what new opportunities were on the horizon.Conservation and use of plant genetic resources depend on a wide range of technical and scientific areas. Information to support conservation work comes not only from biological disciplines such as genetics, plant physiology, ecology, reproductive biology and biotechnology, but also from areas such as sociology, anthropology, economics and geography. A truly multidisciplinary approach is needed, so that knowledge and approaches from different areas can be put together in ways that enable genetic resources workers to identify what should be conserved, how it can best be conserved, and how the conserved materials can best be used. Soulé (1985) also emphasized the importance of a multidisciplinary approach and the need to draw on many different disciplines in developing solutions to the pressing problems of conservation. He suggested that conservation biology differed from most other biological sciences in that it was a 'crisis discipline' in which one must often act before all the facts were known. Often there is a need to carry out urgent and necessary interventions while still collecting information and seeking to understand the characteristics of the species one is trying to conserve.Over the past three decades, the concerns of those involved in plant genetic resources conservation have dramatically expanded. There is a greatly increased recognition of the importance of embedding conservation in a wider social framework. This is reflected in an increasing concern with in situ conservation, an interest in an increasingly large number of useful plant species, often previously neglected by research, and a recognition of the importance of diversity within production systems, especially in marginal areas. The need to confront the economic issues involved in sustainable conservation is now accepted and there is a growing interest in ensuring that national resources management takes account of the role of biodiversity while developing national plans. Taken together, these reflect the objectives contained in the Convention on Biodiversity (UNEP, 1992) of ensuring that conservation contributes fully and effectively to world development.The keynote papers at SAT 21 provided a broad overview of the major areas of conservation science identified by the organizers. Together with the presented papers, also published in this book, they provide perspectives on some of the most important areas for genetic resources workers today. Some subjects stand out as major preoccupations. These include the power of molecular methods and of geographic information systems (GIS), the potential of bioinformatics and the increasing concern with use, conservation in production systems and with crops that have been neglected or underutilized. The papers also raised issues with regard to the costs of conservation and increased responsibility of the private sector to support conservation efforts. In this chapter our objective is not to review the subjects themselves but rather to highlight some of the important questions that arise from considering recent scientific and technical developments in different areas of plant genetic resources conservation and use. We will try to identify gaps in the current research agenda as revealed by the conference and to identify some of the challenges for the future.There are two areas in which the rapid developments of the past few years are having a major effect on plant genetic resources work: molecular genetics and information technology. Molecular genetic methods now allow us to analyse diversity in plant genetic resources at the DNA sequence level and to obtain unparalleled amounts of information about the diversity present in plants. The information revolution enables us to manage and process the very large amounts of data generated by molecular tools and potentially provides all the access facilities of the Internet to such data. Linked to both areas, and drawing extensively on improvements in information technology, the use of GIS is also having an important effect on our capacity to understand the distribution of diversity and the ways in which different factors affect it. GIS provides an ability to analyse distribution patterns and relate them to any other geographic information so as to plan conservation work in ways that take greatest advantage of known or predicted spatial factors.The number of research reports providing some information on the ways in which diversity of particular markers is distributed in natural populations or a set of accessions is rapidly increasing. Many different molecular marker systems are used although the use of randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) still seems to be most common, despite the weaknesses of this marker system (Karp et al., 1997). The number and nature of the accessions used are also very variable. This ad hoc approach has definite weaknesses. Firstly, it is very difficult to compare different marker systems and determine which are the best for what purposes.Secondly, it is difficult to get a clear picture of how effective molecular markers are in helping us to understand the extent and distribution of diversity in crop genepools. As Karp noted (Chapter 4, this volume) we need to be clearer about the questions we ask. Deciding on the appropriate molecular techniques, or even whether molecular methods are needed at all, depends on formulating clear and rigorous questions or hypotheses for investigation.There also need to be a few carefully selected studies on specific crop genepools that would allow us to compare patterns of diversity as revealed by different molecular markers with those revealed by isozyme and morphological studies. Do molecular markers tell us much about the patterns of diversity that might be observed for adaptive characters such as biotic or abiotic stress tolerance or for yield or quality related characters? Certainly they provide information about important diversity characteristics such as gene flow (Raybould et al., 1996) and the breeding pattern of a population (Chase et al., 1996). However, the evidence that the diversity patterns shown by molecular markers are associated with ecological characteristics is slight (but see, e.g., Owuor et al., 1997). This is where a search for markers that might be useful for studying functional diversity, as described by Karp (Chapter 4,this volume), becomes important.Genebank managers can already see the potential value of using molecular methods to support the operations of a genebank (Phippen et al., 1997;van Hintum and Hodgkin, 2000). While it is doubtful that the methods will be useful for eliminating duplicates (except in the negative way of establishing that specific accessions are not duplicates), molecular markers can provide robust methods of checking accession integrity and of monitoring change during regeneration. This makes it unfortunate that, as far as we can tell, rather little work is being undertaken in this area. Studies are overdue on the ways in which different marker systems might best be used to monitor regeneration activities in genebanks.The role that the genetic resources community might undertake in respect of conserving molecular genetic products has yet to be defined. For example, is there a need for genebanks to take some responsibility for DNA storage and what form might this take? Certainly, there are an increasing number of resources generated by the molecular community which are relevant to conservation work. Some genebanks might wish to store primers, probes and bacterial artificial chromosome libraries to facilitate their work. Similarly, there may be a need to store mapping populations generated to identify quantitative trait loci (QTLs) or create dense molecular maps, as was noted by a recent Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) international workshop on genebanks and comparative genetics (SGRP, 2000).A 'holy grail' for many workers using molecular genetics in genetic resources work has been the development of methods that might help to locate useful variants in large genebank collections (Kresovich et al.,Chapter 35,this volume). The ways in which this might be done are, in fact, unlikely to be either simple or direct. A substantial amount of sequence data will usually be required for the trait in question and, even when variants at a target sequence can be identified, a good phenotypic screening procedure will be needed to determine whether the variants have any functional significance. Furthermore, in the case of many abiotic stress responses, quite different metabolic pathways are involved at different stages of the plant response. In different situations, stress resistance seems to involve different gene systems and searching for a particular variant sequence of one specific gene may not always be the most useful approach for characteristics controlled by many genes.In fact, locating useful genes in collections will require an integrated approach that brings together information from molecular studies and other areas. This might include using an extensive set of molecular markers for diversity studies, analysis of the extent of linkage disequilibrium and identification of areas of the genome where important genes may occur combined with more conventional approaches using passport data, GIS and core collections (Kresovich et al.,Chapter 35,this volume). These techniques could together provide an optimum set of candidate accessions for phenotypic and genetic analysis. In all cases, good phenotypic characterization methods will remain an essential component of any genebank search strategy.Even where it is not directly applicable, the knowledge coming from plant molecular genetic studies is likely to continue to have a profound impact on genetic resources work. For example, molecular taxonomy will substantially improve our knowledge of the primary, secondary and tertiary genepools of many crops and evolutionary studies will help identify crop ancestors, past genetic bottlenecks and opportunities for introducing new useful variation. Studies of the genetic architecture of key yield related components (e.g. flower and seed production, maturity and photoperiod response) will enable us to focus on areas of the genome where diversity is particularly important. Analyses of genome synteny will assist in the identification and transfer of useful characteristics in crop relatives and help conservation of minor crops showing synteny with major ones. Understanding the potential value of these developments will be important as will engaging the interest of molecular genetics research workers in conservation issues.Information management has always had a central place in plant genetic resources conservation. The need to identify, record and communicate information about accessions has led to the development of a substantial infrastructure with relatively highly developed database structure and information management systems. The development of the World Wide Web and electronic communication have been seized on enthusiastically and a number of directly accessible genebank databases are now available such as those of the CGIAR centres (through System-wide Information Network for Genetic Resources (SINGER): www.singer.cgiar.org) and the collections of a number of European genebanks (e.g for Brassicas see: www.plant.wageningen-ur.nl/about/ Biodiversity/Cgn/collections/brasedb/ The information revolution offers much more than an ability to query databases at a distance. It provides opportunities for carrying out substantial investigations by linking databases from different sites so that, for example, geographic information can be linked with genebank passport data and molecular sequence data. Indeed, the information revolution is essential to the development of molecular genetics and for realizing the potentials of new areas of study such as genomics or proteomics.Many genetic resources workers are likely to be interested in linking different databases together, and the ways in which this can be done will become an area of increasing research activity. Thus, databases from genebanks will be linked with those from botanical gardens and protected areas to support conservation planning. Sequence information from molecular databases will be compared with expressed sequence tagged sites (ESTs) obtained in diversity studies to target markers associated with potentially useful traits. Information from gene expression studies will be used to find potentially important genes that can then be studied in more detail to determine the different ways in which they vary.Accessibility of the information continues to be an important issue at two levels. Firstly, it will be increasingly necessary for genebank managers and plant genetic resources workers to have Internet access. Already, molecular geneticists without such access find their research opportunities severely restricted. In many countries, access remains difficult and expensive, and opportunities for prolonged analysis of databases accessed through the Internet are strictly limited. Secondly, the data itself will need to remain (or be placed in) the public domain. The importance of this is widely recognized throughout the research community.While the opportunities are considerable, they will remain ultimately dependent on the quality of data maintained. The first objective for genebanks will always need to be 'good accession level data, well curated, at source'. Only when this is the case and when the data become available electronically will the potential of bioinformatics be realized for genetic resources. Research on improved information management and documentation methods is still required and, while this may seem a disappointingly conservative conclusion, it reflects the needs identified by many genebank managers.There are some practical concerns which need to be dealt with fairly soon. One is the way in which genebank workers should handle molecular information on accessions. The experience of CGN (Centre for Genetic Resources) in the Netherlands will be important in this regard; it is one of the first genebanks to confront the issue of having very large amounts of molecular information on its 2000 lettuce accessions (van Hintum and Hodgkin, 2000). Another issue will be the need to ensure that there are common vocabularies where different databases are being linked and that there are reasonably straightforward ways of linking them (Sobral,Chapter 16,this volume). There is also the need to develop improved procedures for handling indigenous knowledge which meets the needs of potential users while recognizing the particular status of the information and the concerns of those from whom it is obtained.As Sobral (Chapter 16, this volume) noted, the information revolution will profoundly affect our understanding of the organisms we conserve. At its best it will provide a framework for a more integrative approach to biology where information from widely different sources can be brought together to help understand crop plant performance and diversity, and the forces that are responsible for the patterns we observe.GIS are becoming the subject of increasing attention as their power to support the analysis of extent and distribution of genetic diversity is recognized.As Guarino et al. (Chapter 36,this volume) noted they could enhance the efficiency of surveying, field exploration, development of in situ management strategies, and the evaluation and use of genetic resources. Surprisingly, given how rapidly the use of molecular methods is spreading, the number of plant genetic resources studies using GIS methods remains rather limited. There is a very real need for studies in different parts of the world that explore the use of GIS with a wider range of useful plant species. These should cover crops, forages, crop relatives and forest species, and include species with different biological characteristics.Perhaps even more than with molecular methods or bioinformatics, the use of GIS in plant genetic resources work is in an experimental phase. Analytical techniques greatly outstrip our experience in using them. They are likely to be of considerable value in locating populations of species with known ecological preferences, for identifying areas of potential threat, or for finding populations with specific attributes such as drought or salinity tolerance. However, the limitations of the techniques and the ways in which they can best be put together have yet to be rigorously tested. More studies will be needed to determine the extent to which species characteristics fit neat ecological or environmental patterns so that one can extrapolate from known populations to find unknown ones. Similarly, the extent to which GIS can help in identifying patterns of intraspecific diversity needs to be further tested (e.g. see Greene et al.,Chapter 37,this volume). Work is also needed to test the power of time series analyses as a way of identifying patterns of change and areas where threats to existing populations may be greatest.A major concern in all three areas is that the availability of the new techniques is so unevenly distributed. Many developing countries cannot realistically expect to use the techniques in their work, despite the substantial amounts of diversity that they possess and for which they are responsible. Technology transfer, as it relates to genetic resources, must be a major priority involving collaboration between institutes, training and improved access to the different technologies.From a research perspective, the greatest benefits are likely to come from investigations which bring together molecular methods, information sciences and GIS to focus on two different aspects of the distribution of diversity, which are themselves central to identifying what should be conserved. One involves the determination of general properties of diversity using anonymous or neutral markers. The other involves analysing distribution of variation in adaptive traits or in loci likely to be associated with adaptive variation. Such studies might include analyses of the distribution of adaptive and non-adaptive diversity using different molecular markers on defined populations of specific crop genepools in combination with GIS and in association with information from global genebank holdings. The genepools studied should include selected self-and cross-pollinated species, perennials and annuals, widely dispersed species and endemics. Hypotheses should be clearly formulated and the information from the different methods carefully evaluated.At the same time, we need a more pragmatic approach to evaluate how best to use relevant elements of the new technologies to answer questions on individual populations, accessions and species which each have their own properties. Which methods are best for monitoring populations conserved in situ, for identifying those with most diversity or for determining if newly identified populations contain unique variation? The technologies are powerful, but also expensive and their use in many genebanks will continue to be limited to those areas where they can be of greatest benefit.The practice of conservation -ensuring that the ex situ conserved accessions and in situ plant populations in their care are maintained securely for future generations -remains the overriding preoccupation of most plant genetic resources workers. There are now some 6 million accessions conserved ex situ throughout the world. Of these, over 600,000 are maintained in the 11 genebanks of the CGIAR Centres and many countries now have genebanks with over 10,000 accessions which require very substantial resource inputs to retain them. Add to this the growing commitment to in situ conservation and, to many of us, the magnitude of the task must seem overwhelming.One of the most significant achievements of plant genetic resources work has been the establishment of procedures that provide for the safe, long-term maintenance of seeds. The procedures are generally well established, especially for our major seed propagated crops. For this reason, perhaps, seed conservation research has received rather little attention in recent years although some key questions remain. Thus, Engelmann and Engels (Chapter 9, this volume) noted the importance of continuing work on identifying optimum seed moisture content, on seed drying procedures and on ensuring that seed for long-term storage is harvested in the best possible condition.A number of questions have been raised concerning the way in which accessions can best be managed. The possibility of combining similar accessions was discussed by van Hintum et al. (Chapter 11,this volume). Accession management has always been a thorny question and appropriate procedures will need to take account of genetic studies and management considerations. For example, Phippen et al. (1997) were able to show that combining very similar cabbage accessions would result in the probable loss of only 4% of the variation identified using RAPDs. Without more information on what RAPD diversity data measures, one may want to be cautious in deciding how to use these data. The 4% of diversity lost may be associated with agromorphological variation of value to breeders. The genebank manager will also need to balance the importance of this loss against the possibility that attempting to maintain all the accessions with reduced efficiency might result in greater losses of diversity.More generally, we need much more empirical data on what is happening to the diversity maintained ex situ. The procedures that are being used by many managers represent a compromise between what is known to be optimal and what is possible, given available resources. This is bound to be the case, but the consequences of the alternative decisions that can be made by managers have yet to be studied. Decisions on frequency of regeneration, size of population used for regeneration, splitting or combining accessions, or balancing viability and regeneration are all likely to have an effect on the amount of diversity maintained, but the nature of that effect remains substantially unknown.As Engelmann and Engels (Chapter 9, this volume) noted, an improved understanding of recalcitrance remains a priority for ex situ conservation. Molecular genetics would now seem to offer real opportunities to investigate gene expression during the seed maturation process and to reach a better understanding of the critical processes involved. Studies using genomic and proteomic approaches on suitable model species could provide a substantially improved understanding of the processes that lead to the development of mature seed in both normal and recalcitrant seeded species. Tissue culture methods and cryopreservation are likely to remain the appropriate procedures for storage of species with recalcitrant seeds but an improved understanding of recalcitrance would certainly lead to benefits in the management of conservation and exchange of these species.In situ conservation is becoming increasingly important in the conservation of plant genetic resources. A major Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded programme of work has been undertaken in Turkey (Tan and Tan,Chapter 19,this volume) to conserve crop wild relatives. This led to the development of a substantial national programme to conserve crop wild relatives in situ and has provided much information on the financial and labour resources that might be needed and how such a programme might be implemented. In situ conservation of crops (on-farm conservation) has also received increasing support and is the subject of extensive research in a number of countries around the world (Pham et al., Chapter 14, this volume;Chiwona, Chapter 15, this volume;Jarvis et al., 2000).In situ conservation requires some significant changes in perspective for those used to ex situ conservation. In the first place, the concern is less with the maintenance of specific characteristics or specific genotypes than with the maintenance of evolutionary potential. The target populations have to exist within ecosystems that are themselves dynamic and subject to change over time and to succession. On-farm conservation will depend for its effectiveness on the extent to which local varieties continue to meet the needs of farmers and communities and the approach taken needs to be one that is embedded in the community and reflects its values and concerns.The research needed for in situ conservation of useful plants (both on-farm and in natural habitats) is substantial. It is a fairly young endeavour compared with ex situ conservation and the body of information that might help us in making choices about locations, populations, management procedures and appropriate interventions has not yet been fully developed.For crop wild relatives a carefully selected set of detailed studies is required that complements the work done already in a few situations such as the wild wheats in Ammiad, Israel (Horowitz and Feldman, 1991) and beans in Costa Rica (Rocha et al.,Chapter 20,this volume). The exciting element of this research is that it will frequently have to be carried out alongside specific conservation activities and in full collaboration with communities living in the areas; a considerable challenge to research workers used to controlled experiments in defined environments. Since resources for the conservation actions needed will be extremely limited, methods also need to be found of identifying the key interventions required (which populations, of what species, in which areas) so that they, at least, can be implemented. Knowing what is most threatened and what is protected already (through being in protected areas or maintained ex situ or secured in other countries) will be an essential component of planning such interventions.On-farm conservation requires a careful linking of research through multidisciplinary studies that will answer some important conservation questions (e.g. the amount of diversity in local varieties, its distribution and variation from year to year) with an understanding of the social and economic dimension and a concern with development. In obtaining the information that will allow the scientific basis of onfarm conservation to be established, participatory procedures must be used which fully involve local communities and farmers. In order to make on-farm conservation effective, we need to understand the ways in which farmer management affects the extent and distribution of diversity and to determine how production environment and farmer decision-making interact with crop biological properties to affect the diversity characteristics of local varieties.Neither in situ nor ex situ conservation is adequate on its own. They need to be used in a complementary manner (Maxted et al., 1997). However, what this actually means, in practice, has yet to be determined. The factors which might guide one to choose specific in situ or ex situ methods for a particular taxa, population or variety have been discussed in general but not, to our knowledge, tested in any substantial way and were not considered at SAT21 (although see Lamont and Palmer (2000) for an interesting approach with apple). It would be desirable to see investigations developed which might involve a number of partners working on a specific genepool, to test the concept in practice and determine how useful it really could be.Any discussion about increasing the use of plant genetic resources usually involves some consideration about what 'use' should include. Many plant genetic resources, especially those of minor crops, are maintained as part of production systems and one aspect of the discussion clearly involves management of diversity in production; this has been termed conservation through use (FAO, 1996). The other aspect of use, more familiar to many plant genetic resources workers, concerns the use made of genetic resources conserved in genebanks (conservation for use).The increasing interest in the use of plant genetic resources was fully reflected at SAT21 with substantial discussions of germplasm enhancement and of management of agrobiodiversity in production. Germplasm enhancement is now well recognized as an area where conservation workers can make a significant contribution (Ortiz,Chapter 26,this volume). Agrobiodiversity is a newer concern which reflects an increased recognition by the wider conservation community of the importance of diversity in production systems and a growing interest in the ways in which diversity can be used to enhance sustainable production (Sastrapradja and Balakhrishna,Chapter 12,this volume).An increased concern with germplasm use also reflects the need to identify and quantify the contributions that are being made by plant genetic resources to agriculture and world food security. Data on the use of ex situ collections in research have also recently been provided by Dudnik et al. (2000). Much more information of this type is needed from a range of different situations to reflect the different national and crop perspectives and different types of use that can occur.The importance of maintaining genetic diversity within production systems has always been recognized by plant genetic resources workers. The dangers of a narrow genetic base have been described and the need to prevent its occurrence noted (e.g. National Research Council, 1972). However, much of the debate has tended not to become deeply involved in the issues or processes surrounding the deployment of diversity in production. A growing concern with on-farm conservation, focusing on specific crops and local varieties, and with sustainable production, has been matched with an increased interest in diversity in production systems (e.g. Wood and Lenne, 1999). This is now reflected, for example, in the development of an agrobiodiversity agenda for the Convention on Biological Diversity (UNEP, 2000).One entry point for agrobiodiversity research that has already been discussed is the concern with on-farm conservation. The appreciation that communities and farmers often maintain large numbers of local varieties which meet their production needs has led to substantial programmes to investigate the genetic, ecological, socio-economic and other dimensions of this process. Over the next few years we can expect to develop an increasing understanding of the different circumstances in which farmers preferentially maintain their local materials, the diversity that is retained through this process and how it is managed (see, for example, Chiwona, Chapter 15, this volume;Pham et al., Chapter 14, this volume;Louette et al., 1997).The next steps will involve going beyond the simple description of the management of local variety diversity of single crops and asking a much more complex and demanding, but at the same time significant set of questions. These will include investigating how best to use diversity within crops to improve production, not only using local varieties but also using other approaches (e.g. variety mixtures and multilines as illustrated recently for rice in China by Zhu et al., 2000), and how best to combine different crops to optimize sustainability. The ways in which crop and non-crop components of agroecosystems interact also require investigation so as to explore the ways in which the different elements such as pollinators, pests, pathogens and weeds all interact within the agroecosystem. From this, we will begin to develop a better understanding of how diversity management in production systems can make the best contribution to increased sustainable production.Neglected and underutilized crops: a need for action Padulosi et al. (Chapter 30,this volume) make a clear case for increasing work on a range of crops that are locally and regionally important but have been neglected by research and conservation or are being displaced by changing agricultural production practices despite their value. The importance of an increased commitment to these crops is now recognized and new activities are being developed. However, the general problem, that there is a group of crops for which conservation is under-resourced, will always remain. One way of approaching the conservation of these crops is by an increased emphasis on conservation through use. Where neglected crops can be maintained in production systems, this can constitute an important element of their conservation. Indeed, there is a recognition of the benefits for both conservation and use that come from linking producers and consumers with institutions involved in agriculture, marketing and research (the so-called 'filière' approach).It might also be desirable to explore how to develop effective strategies for such crops that will make the most use of limited available resources. Cost-effective contributions to their conservation may include an increased emphasis on collating all available information on the target crop (since lack of information is often a key constraint), a deliberate adoption of core collection procedures for all ex situ conservation work (since the numbers conserved will nearly always be in the hundreds rather than thousands), and the development of monitoring procedures that can be used to chart production changes so as to determine if active interventions are needed.There is a widespread feeling that support for germplasm enhancement or pre-breeding has tended to decline with the increasing shift to commercial plant breeding of the last two decades. At the same time, the opportunities for making progress from the sort of work that has been classified as germplasm enhancement (Ortiz,Chapter 26,this volume) has substantially increased. For example, molecular genetic methods combined with increased opportunities for wide crossing using techniques such as embryo rescue enable us to locate and transfer new characters found in crop wild relatives (Tanksley and McCouch, 1997). Ortiz (Chapter 26,this volume) rightly empha-sizes the importance of the various 'base broadening' procedures that are being explored at present. Genetic resources workers need to collaborate with plant breeders in the development of procedures that allow effective testing of new materials and their introduction into improvement programmes in a systematic way. Both introgression and incorporation (sensu Simmonds, 1993) programmes will be needed. Programmes such as the Latin American Maize Program (Salhuana et al., 1991), the HOPE scheme of Kannenburg (Kannenburg and Falk, 1995) or the sugarcane improvement programme in the West Indies (Kennedy, 2000) make relatively full use of genetic resources in sustained and effective ways. Genetic resources workers also need to reexamine the role they can play in evaluating genebank materials in a way that is useful to breeders. It has often been said that evaluation should not be undertaken by genebanks, but this is an oversimplification. Lack of evaluation is perceived as a real bottleneck to further use and some steps are needed to identify ways of overcoming the problem.A common problem faced by genetic resources workers is that of identifying a limited set of accessions likely to be of most interest to a specific user from a rather large collection. Perhaps we need to explore the ways in which information from passport data, GIS analysis, the development of core collections, molecular studies and other approaches can be brought together to provide generalized search strategies for genebank managers.The value of plant genetic diversity, as a component of biodiversity, has been estimated by different experts differently, while some maintain that such estimation is fruitless as biodiversity is invaluable. The responsibility of conserving plant genetic resources of a country, either in situ or ex situ ultimately lies with the country. Countries therefore have to determine what investment they will make and, like any other activity, economic aspects become important (see Milne et al.,Chapter 41,this volume). While it is important that such studies do not get bogged down in economic theories, it is necessary that a much more substantial economic analysis of costs and benefits from conservation work is undertaken. The world has recognized the value of these resources unequivocally but finding the funds needed for conservation work requires a much better understanding of the economic aspects of conservation work (see, e.g., Swanson, 1996). While there have been a number of recent contributions on the economics of conservation, (Burstin et al., 1997;Gollin and Evenson, 1998;Gollin and Smale, 1999), rather little of this was reflected at SAT21, indicating that there is still a need to persuade plant conservation workers of the importance of incorporating economic perspectives in their work.One specific aspect discussed at SAT21 concerns the roles of the private sector and of genebanks themselves in generating the funds needed for their operations. Rajanaidu and Ramanatha Rao (Chapter 39,this volume) suggest that genebanks could generate part of the funds they need themselves, which could be supplemented from public and private sources.To date, the private sector has mostly been able to access germplasm from the public sector without any involvement in the process and without payment. With changing scenarios, it will become necessary that the private sector collaborates with the public sector in conserving the resources. It will be desirable that the public and private sector collaboration that is under way in some countries (Burstin et al., 1997) develops even to the level of sharing the costs of conservation as has been done for oil palm in Malaysia (Rajanaidu and Ramanatha Rao,Chapter 39,this volume). This may eventually give a larger role to the private sector in conservation work, but the need for continued involvement of the public sector as the custodian of genetic resources has to be recognized, otherwise all different user needs will not be met. Some of the pitfalls of privatization have been described by Biber-Klemm (see Chapter 40, this volume) and it is imperative that appropriate checks and balances for accessing and using the genetic material and benefiting from it are maintained.The paper by Brown and Brubaker (Chapter 24,this volume) represents one of the few attempts ever made in plant genetic resources work to identify ways of evaluating the effectiveness of germplasm conservation work in an organized way. There are many difficulties. It is impossible to say how much diversity exists within a crop or to decide on how much needs to be conserved by any means. It is often felt to be dangerous to provide uncertain or incomplete information that may be misinterpreted. The measurements that need to be made have not been clearly identified or generally agreed. However, Chapter 24 provides a solid basis for a debate of what indicators of effectiveness might be useful and how they could be applied.More debate will certainly be needed on what indicators will be most useful and more experience is required on what information the different ones actually provide. It would be useful, in the first instance, to test the approaches proposed on specific collections or a specific crop. This will allow us to gain familiarity with the different measures, their accuracy, ease of collection and the ways in which they can be collected and interpreted.There is a healthy and substantial quantity of research on relevant topics being carried out throughout the world; the amount of plant genetic resources research is growing and the findings are important. Research by national plant genetic resources programmes, by genebanks, universities and research institutes, will continue to be the mainstay of the global plant genetic resources conservation effort and to provide the necessary effective coverage of crops and issues which can steadily resolve many practical conservation problems.SAT21 provided a good overview of the situation with few exceptions. One area which received rather little attention was the integration of social and cultural aspects into genetic resources work. There are some important developments in this area (e.g. Zimmerer, 1992;Tapia and De la Torre, 1997) that provide exciting prospects for a fuller understanding of diversity management by different communities but rather little of this was presented at the conference. Another area which received very little attention was the extent and rate of genetic erosion. There remains, in practice, almost no information on either quantity of genetic erosion (how many genes or alleles are being lost) or its rate. At some point this is an issue which the genebank community will have to face.However, there are always some gaps in any meeting and, in this review chapter, we have also been rather selective and have concentrated on the dominant issues and trends. Thus, we have not explicitly discussed some topics on which valuable research is in progress, such as the conservation of useful agroforestry and forest species and medicinal and aromatic plants.While the breadth of research is impressive, there are a number of research areas where there is an increasing need for a sustained, coordinated research programme which addresses a particular research area in some depth. It seems to be less easy to achieve this objective. This is partly because of the ways in which funding is presently allocated to research (often for short-term projects with limited and specific objectives). It is also because the development of such research projects depends very much on long-term planning and commitment, and on the development of extensive collaboration. However, the development of such programmes is not impossible; the global programme of work on in situ conservation of crop plants developed by a number of national partners and IPGRI provides one way. This constitutes a programme which addresses key research questions in a sustained way which, hopefully, can be maintained for long enough to yield the desired scientific outputs.Together with the different topics identified in the body of this chapter where research is needed, it is possible to identify a few topics where there might be a particular benefit from a coordinated international research effort of some type. These are areas where depth as well as breadth is particularly important and where a focused research agenda is likely to be valuable in terms of achieving a qualitative advance in our conservation capability. Obviously, any selection will be subjective but we believe that a few areas can be identified where the need for a focused international research agenda is greatest and the benefits of such an approach are likely to be most substantial. These include:• The investigation of the patterns of diversity shown by neutral molecular markers, molecular markers associated with functional genes and agromorphological characters, using a few selected crop genepools. This should integrate and critically assess the use of GIS and link it to the use of molecular methods of describing diversity. It would provide an understanding of patterns of genetic diversity of different types of characters in crop genepools and the way in which different forces affect them. The investigation should include crops, forages and crop relatives selected to cover different biological characteristics such as life history and breeding system. • A collaborative investigation of the way in which different types and patterns of diversity contribute to sustainable production. The rhetoric that diversity is beneficial needs to be placed on a much firmer footing at the production system level. There is a need to critically explore the ways in which different forms of diversity can best be deployed in different situations, to define where and in what ways it is most beneficial, and how it can most effectively be maintained or introduced. This will require a quite new collaboration between a very wide range of participants in which expertise on intraspecific diversity from on-farm conservation work will be only one of the dimensions in a wider agrobiodiversity context. • The continued development of ways of locating potentially useful accessions in genebank collections through a selected set of model studies aimed at finding material with specific attributes in existing collections. This will involve inte-grating molecular tools with bioinformatics and conventional studies using passport and characterization data in development of integrated search procedures. In a sense it will provide important entry points for molecular contributions from synteny and from character studies (molecular genetic control of specific characters such as disease resistance and abiotic stress tolerance). • At a more practical level, there remains the need to continue to address genebank management issues in a coordinated way that ensures that we can understand how actual management practices affect accession integrity and genetic content. The most pressing need remains the development of procedures for monitoring and improving regeneration procedures. Evidence suggests (Burstin et al., 1997) that regeneration costs the same as all other ex situ operations put together and it remains the stage at which accessions are most vulnerable to loss of integrity and to change in genetic constitution from drift and shift (Parzies et al., 2000).access to genetic resources, 439, 446-448 accession management, 98, 113-119, 186, 253-254, 398-399, 471  banana,[461][462][463]372 barley,51,118,119,277,341 beech species,[218][219][220][222][223]124 benefits of maintaining collections,[455][456][457][458][459][460][461][462][463][464][465][466][25][26][27][28]125,434,446,448 Bequaertiodendron magalismontanum,373 Beta spp.,[135][136][137][138][139][140][141][142][143][180][181][182]372 biodiversity,[23][24][25][122][123][124][125][126][127][128][129][130]154,323,352,414,425,438,440,448 management,[250][251]476 value,456,  ,[140][141]143,[198][199][200][243][244]  [237][238][239][240][241][242][243][244][245]342 COGENT (International Coconut Genetic Resources Network),[47][48]180,334,367,[400][401][431][432][433][434]47,49,57,61,68,138,240,[259][260][261]99 characterization and evaluation,13,15,93,[97][98]116,[181][182][186][187][312][313][314][407][408][428][429]107,187,259,[279][280]283,310,312,399,428 national and regional,11,14,[105][106][107][108][109][110][111][345][346][361][362][460][461][462][463][464][465][466]98,   [249][250][263][264][265][266][267][268][269][270][271][272][273]332,379,[414][415][416][417][418][419][420][421][422]34,35,[256][257][220][221][222][223][224][225][226][229][230][231][232][233][234][263][264][265][266][267][268][269][270][271][272][273][413][414][415][416][417][418][419][420][421][422]196,197 in situ vs. ex situ,[5][6][16][17][18]24,89,[133][134]161,237,413,[438][439]196,[244][245]93,244,[393][394][395][396]395,[416][417]420 underutilized crops,30,134,[330][331][332][333]366 wild species ex situ,[257][258][259]283 in situ,134,[195][196][197][198][199][200][201][202][203][217][218][219][220][221][222][223][224][225][226][255][256][257][396][397]474-475 see also indicators to monitor conservation Consultative Group on International AgriculturalResearch see CGIAR Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), 18,25,27,[121][122]126,[445][446]373 core zones,[198][199][200]edible,375 Costa Rica,[206][207][208][209][210][211][212][213][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74] CPGR see FAO, CPGR Cre3 nematode-resistance gene, 36 critical seed moisture content, 93-94 crops, 128, 324-325, 332, 365-366, 396 see also underutilized species cross prediction trials, 315  [392][393]58,59,295,391,[392][393]417 DNA markers,34,36,[43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][69][70][71][72][73][78][79]268,286,317 choice of,44,[470][471][47][48][49][50][57][58][59][60][69][70][71][72][73][74][78][79][80][81][82][83]107,186,259,[301][302][303][304][305]50,[71][72] DNA microarrays (DNA chips) see microarrays domestication of plant species, 1,[77][78][84][85]122,376,[380][381][382][383][384]372 ecogeographic surveys,97,[185][186]197,198,206,[389][390][391][392][393][394][395][396]245,276,326,[426][427]477 ecorestoration,[344][345]126,414,[420][421][422][121][122][123][124][125][126][127][128][129][130]150,[164][165][239][240]242,414 Elaeis spp.,[427][428][429][430][431][432][433][434]284,285 endangered species,[34][35][256][257][342][343][344][352][353], 418 endosperm balance number (EBN), 279 enhancement of germplasm see genetic enhancement Ethiopia, 237-245 EVA (Online-Information System for Evaluation Data), 181-182 evolutionary crop breeding, [278][279][280][281][282][283][284][285]276,277,278,297,303 extinction,local,[208][209]212,213 faba bean,[364][365]363 Fagus spp.,[218][219][220]343 FAO,4,7,[19][20]23,[121][122] Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (was CPGR), 121, 445 CPGR (Commission on Plant Genetic Resources), 8, 19, 121","tokenCount":"193817"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7e9f752a001ef6b99f5ad84d1bfbc996","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/62219139-fa18-4cbd-946f-bea7aaccefcc/retrieve","id":"1305114792"},"keywords":["Banana","plantain","preference","cooking","Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)"],"sieverID":"0f1b2471-6daa-41cb-99de-fb166e5cf5fd","pagecount":"8","content":"This cross-sectional study carried out in North Kivu (NK) and South Kivu (SK) of the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo aimed to identify the most preferred Musa cultivars, their processing/cooking methods and Musa consumption patterns among rural households. Our results showed that the preferred cooking banana varieties included yellow-pulped AAA-East African Highland bananas [EAHB] 'Nshikazi' (SK) and 'Vulambya' (NK), which were valued for their cooking qualities, large bunches and suitability for production of banana beer. The preferred plantains were orange-pulped and included 'Musheba' (SK) and 'Musilongo' (NK) and were preferred for their short maturation period, large bunches and higher market prices. Over 60% of the households examined had consumed EAHB within 24 hours, whereas <10% had consumed plantains. The most common cooking method was simple boiling of bananas/plantains and main accompaniments include beans and amaranth leaves. Over 69% of surveyed households that had consumed Musa products had consumed them boiled. The majority of the households (90%) obtained banana/plantains from their farms, and >55% of households from SK and NK consumed banana products between 2 and 4 times/week. This information will be used to help direct researchers on the Musa cultivars that could be further sampled for carotenoid analysis and those found to be rich could be used in the fast-tracking approach to reduce Vitamin A deficiency.Plantain and bananas (Musa spp.) serve as important food crops in much of Africa. Together they provide over 25% of the carbohydrate needs and 10% of the daily calorie requirements for over 70 million people on the African continent [1]. Production of the plantains and bananas is concentrated in Eastern DRC and ranges between 75,000 and 80,000 tonnes per year, and they rank second in importance after cassava in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) [2]. The majority of cultivated bananas and plantains are triploid varieties belonging to the Eumusa section of the genus Musa, family Musaceae [3]. These varieties evolved from intra-and inter-specific crosses involving two diploid ancestor species, M. acuminata Colla (genome AA) and M. balbisiana Colla (genome BB), which originated from Malaysia and India, respectively [4].Bananas and plantains are one of the main dietary starchy sources [2], apart from this, studies have suggested that some cultivars have high pro-vitamin A carotenoids (pVACs) levels and are capable of providing up to half of the total human daily vitamin A requirement in a single fruit [5,6]. PVACs among cultivars of Musa fruits differ more than 200-fold, ranging from 0.23 -59.56 µg/gdw, with very high levels found in plantains and lower levels in other cooking bananas and commercial dessert types [1]. PVAC levels are linked with orange fruit pulp color, with most dessert bananas having a light colored pulp (cream, ivory) and most plantain cultivars having more yellow-orange colored pulp [1].Although there is no documentation on the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency (VAD) in Esstern DRC, based on WHO estimates, 61.1% of preschool children in the whole of DRC have VAD. Ac-cording to the classification provided by the International vitamin A Consultative Group (known as the Annecy Accords), a prevalence of over 30% of the population with less than 20 µg/dl serum retinol defines a situation of severe VAD [7]. In addition, DRC has one of the highest under-five mortality rates (U5MR) in the world, with more than 200 deaths in every 1000 live births [2]. The most obvious result of VAD is progressive damage to the eyes, eventually leading to blindness. Sub-clinical VAD is a much more widespread problem, contributing to an increased risk of morbidity and mortality from common childhood infections [8]. Therefore, with Musa fruit consumption levels ranging from 137-to 174 kg/person/year in DRC [9], it is clear that Musa fruit could be an important source of carotenoids and other micronutrients to consumers.Apart from the high banana and plantain production, DRC is endowed with a wealth of natural resources and has a substantial agricultural potential, capable of feeding the whole of Africa [10]. Unfortunately this potential has not been exploited to improve living standards for the general Congolese population [10]. Out of the 154 territories (districts) in the whole of DRC, more than 117 are moderately food insecure and 28 others are in a state of acute food insecurity and livelihood crisis. Most of the food-insecure households are concentrated in the eastern part of DRC and more specifically in North and South Kivu [10].Despite the major role that bananas and plantains play in Eastern DRC, there has been limited research and hardly any documentation on the preferences for the various banana cultivars grown, their processing/cooking techniques and consumption patterns among small-holder farmer households. In addition, the nutrition value of the preferred Musa cultivars and in particular pVAC levels have yet to be determined to establish whether they could be used in approaches aimed at reducing VAD among households.A cross-sectional study was carried out in Eastern DRC using focus group discussions (FGDs) and household interviews (HHIs), during the month of September 2009. Two provinces, North Kivu (NK) and South Kivu (SK), were selected based on the high levels of food insecurity and their high dependency on bananas and plantains [11]. Multistage sampling was used to select one territory from each of the provinces and three localities from each of the two territories. Two territories/districts Beni and Bukavu were sampled from North Kivu and South Kivu, respectively. In Beni territory Mabuku, Kisungu and Rwakhwa localities were randomly sampled and in Bukavu territory, the localities randomly sampled were Kajeje, Murhesa and Miti. A listing of all households with preschool children in each locality was compiled and systematic random sampling was used to select the specific households to be interviewed. Sample size was calculated using Fisher's formula:where n = required sample size, t = confidence level at 95% (standard value of 1.96), p = estimated proportion of households with preschool children with regards to total households and m = margin of error at 5% (standard value of 0.05) [12]. This gave a sample size of 163 and 208 households with preschool children from Beni territory and Bukavu territory, respectively. Focus group discussions were carried out at the locality level, to obtain information on the most popular and preferred Musa cultivars within the community and the general processing (e.g., cooking) methods. Information obtained through FGDs was further verified using household interviews by which structured questionnaires were administered to mothers (caregivers) of children below 5 years old. FAO studies confirm that rural women make a tremendous contribution to food and agricultural production. They also play a crucial role in determining and guaranteeing food security and well-being for the entire household [13], it was therefore necessary that questions requiring details on household consumption patterns were addressed to women (caregivers); women respondents were purposefully selected for the household interviews.Apart from verification, household interviews were also used to collect information on household food consumption patterns with regards to bananas and plantains. A ranking system based on traits identified as important to the community was used to establish the preference level among the different Musa cultivars. After identification of the two most preferred cultivars from each site (NK and SK), agronomists working on banana research identified mature plants of each of the popular cultivars from farmer fields and marked them. A mature bunch was harvested and fruit samples obtained using standardized sampling techniques where two fruits were obtained from the middle hand of the bunch at ripening stage 1 (hard and green) [14]. Pre-screening of fruit pulp color for carotenoid content was carried out using a standardized color strip developed by HarvestPlus reflecting the total carotenoid content of starchy staples. Descriptive statistics were computed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) package and data were summarized in frequency tables, charts and graphs.Of the 371 respondents from SK (N=208) and NK (N=163), 92% were women, 83% were monogamously married. Forty seven percent of the respondents from both NK and SK were aged between 25-34 years [Fig- 1] and the youngest respondent was 15 years old.The majority of the households (61% N=371) consisted of 5 to 8 members with an average household size of 6.4 members in NK and 7.1 in SK. Forty five percent of the respondents had not received any form of formal education, 32% had received incomplete primary education, 11% had completed primary education, while only 0.5% had gone on to a vocational college and none of the respondent had any college or university diploma/degree. Most of the households (76%) interviewed depended on agricultural production as the main source of income, 14% were involved in casual labor, while 5.3% and 4.3% were involved in small-scale business and formal employment, respectively. The mean monthly household income was $US20-50 per month, but over 80% of the households had a monthly average income of less than $US30.Through 14 FGDs in SK (8) and NK (6), a list of all Musa cultivars grown within the community was compiled. A total of 16 and 19 Musa cultivars were listed in SK and NK, respectively. The participants then arranged the named cultivars in order of priority.  gives the physiological descriptions, synonyms and botanic char-     ) were mostly utilized between stages 1 and 3 of ripening, i.e., before the fruit was ripe [15]. The fruits were generally peeled and boiled with only the addition of salt. Occasionally locally processed palm oil was added during the boiling process. The cooked banana was eaten either alone or with boiled beans or peas. In some instances the banana would be boiled together with beans and some amaranth leaves, 'lengalenga'. The plantain cultivars ('Musheba' and 'Musilongo') were also boiled but generally no salt was added because of the cultivars' natural sweetness and were eaten either alone or served with boiled green peas. 'Musheba' and 'Musilongo' were also used to make 'Nchimba' banana flour. To make 'Nchimba', the fruit was harvested at maturity, kept for about 1 week to reach stage 5 of ripening, all yellow with green tips [15], peeled, chopped into pieces, sun-dried on the ground and either pounded or milled into flour. This flour (Nchimba) was then used to make porridge, a weaning food. In some cases, cassava flour was added to the plantain flour at a ratio of 2:3. Occasionally, the plantain cultivars were deep fried in the local palm oil and eaten as 'banana fries'. A 24-hour diet recall on all the food that had been consumed by the households indicated that 64 -67% of all respondents had consumed EAHB cooking varieties within the last 24 hrs. (no significant difference between SK and NK) . The consumption of plantain cultivars was 4.8% and 10% in SK and NK, respectively. The majority of plantains, however, were not domestically consumed, but instead sold for cash due to their relatively high market price. Among cooking bananas, plantain bananas and desert bananas, cooking bananas (AAA-EAHB) were the most popular while desert bananas were the least popular [Fig- 2] in both NK and SK regions. (when the mature fruits were still green). Although a significant amount of roasted banana was consumed in SK (47 %), none of the households in NK consumed the fruits this way. Other products were banana juice, beer and porridge in SK, and banana beer in NK. The beer banana cultivars were the AAA-EAHB 'Nshikazi' cultivar in SK and the AB 'Kisubi' cultivar in NK, which were kept up to ripening stage 6 (all yellow) before use [Table -6].  A large proportion of the household members (>55%) from both NK and SK had consumed Musa fruit (bananas and plantains) between 2 to 4 times in the 7 days before the interview and there were some households that had consumed Musa fruit every day of the last 7 days preceding the survey [Fig- 3]. Although there were several geographic sources of food for the community, more than 90% of the households from NK and SK indicated having obtained the bananas and plantains from their farms [Fig- 4].FAO studies confirm that rural women make a tremendous contribution to food and agricultural production. They also play a crucial role in determining and guaranteeing food security and well-being for the entire household [13]. It was, therefore, necessary that questions requiring details on household consumption patterns were addressed to women (caregivers). This explains the high percentage of women respondents (91.7%). The majority of the women interviewed were between 25 -35 years old, with 20% of them between the ages of 15 and 24 years, indicating that the women get married or become caregivers at a very early age. In DRC, the legal minimum age for marriage is 15 for women and 18 for men, and 74% of women between 15 and 19 years of age are already married [16]. One of the most common outcomes of marriage at an early age is the withdrawal of the girl from formal education, or no school enrollment at all. This could explain the low level of education observed in this study, which puts these women at a disadvantage since educated women are more likely to feel empowered to influence decisions affecting food choices, availability and accessibility [17]. In addition, the low level of education reduces the ability of these women to process information, acquire skills and model positive care giving practices to improve health, nutrition and education outcomes for their children [17]. The low literacy level could further be explained by the irregularity and inadequacy of teachers' salary payments and inadequate infrastructure (negatively affecting teaching morale) [2]. The reported absence of primary education fee waivers [2] and the observed low monthly  average income (<US$30), could also be a contributor to high illiteracy. The girls may be forced to drop out of school due to a lack of money for tuition fees. The low income level observed in this study is also supported by a report which indicated that more than 80% of Congolese live on less than $1 per day [13].Findings indicated that an average of 16 and 19 Musa cultivars were being cultivated by the communities in SK and NK, respectively. This number was lower than that of a total of 29 and 32 Musa cultivars reported as being cultivated in SK and NK, respectively [18]. Both results show, however, that the diversity of Musa cultivars is slightly higher in NK as compared to SK, the higher number of cultivars reported in the earlier study could be due to the survey methodology used, where direct observation (transect walks) were carried out to establish the varied cultivars [18]. In addition more territories were included in the study as opposed to this study, where information was only collected through the FGDs and household interviews and only one territory/district from each of the two provinces (South Kivu and North Kivu) was included. In addition, not all villages were visited from the selected territories.Although a beer banana cultivar 'Pisang Awak' (ABB), known locally as 'Kayinja' was not among the first four popular cultivars and did not even emerge in the preferred list, a study carried out in 2005 cites 'Kayinja' as the most popular cultivar occupying nearly ¾ of the land cropped with banana in Eastern DRC [19]. This could be because the participants of the FGDs were mostly local farmers and women of child-bearing age, and they seemed to prefer cultivars that could be used to make food. The most popular cultivars identified included three cooking cultivars and one plantain. According to the community members, 'Nshikazi'(AAA-EAHB) has high yield (big bunch) and good cooking quality. These findings confirm findings by [18], carried out in the same province (SK) although at different districts which also cited 'Nshikazi' as the most preferred Musa cultivar. According to [18], Nshikazi' was occupying 52% of the land under banana and apart from having the traits already mentioned (high yield, high market price and good cooking quality), 'Nshikazi' tastes better after cooking, and made good banana juice and banana beer. 'Nshikazi' is also grown in Rwanda where it is known as 'Ishika' and Uganda where it has different names depending on the regions i.e. 'Ensika', 'Emburansika' 'Omuburasika' or 'Nsika' [Table -1]. 'Musheba', a plantain cultivar whose name also means 'wedding' [Table -1], was the most popular plantain cultivar in SK. Apart from the reasons given by the community (high market price, good yield, and good cooking quality), other studies have reported that 'Musheba' is a popular cultivar because it matures faster and tastes very good [18]. In addition, 'Musheba' has social-cultural importance in times of marriage and the 'Mashi' tribe of SK had obtained it from Uganda as a form of dowry [18].In North Kivu, the findings showed that the four most popular Musa cultivars were 'Vulambya', 'Kiware', 'Nguma' and 'Musilongo'. These four cultivars were also among the six most preferred Musa cultivars in NK identified in a previous study within the same region [18]. The reasons for Vulambya's popularity were similar to those of 'Nshikazi' in SK. Although 'Nguma' has been reported to be most popular cultivar in NK and 'Musilongo' didn't appear in the ten most popular cultivars [18], the findings of this study indicated that both 'Nguma' and 'Musilongo' were popular. In addition, the community members indicated that 'Musilongo' produces a bigger bunch and matures faster than 'Nguma'.Among the above preferred plantains and cooking banana cultivars, the pulp color of the plantain cultivars was darker (orange) while the pulp color of the cooking banana varieties was lighter (yellow and ivory). These results are similar to those observed after pre-screening of cultivars from Uganda, Cambodia, Philippines and Hawaii, which revealed that more than 80% of the plantain cultivars (AAB) screened had an orange pulp while more than 80% of the cooking banana cultivars (AAA) had pulp color ranging from ivory to white [1]. Although the pulp color is not a definite indication of levels of carotenoids, it helps in filtering cultivars that could be further analyzed for enhanced carotenoids content. If a variety is found to contain considerable amounts of carotenoids, it could be used for fast-tracking approaches aimed at reducing VAD among Musa dependent rural households of Eastern DRC.As indicated earlier, in Eastern DRC bananas are a major part of the staple diet, complementing other sources of food. The methods of processing and cooking banana fruit range from simple boiling to fermentation, drying and grinding to make flour; The fruit can also be eaten as a dessert, or processed into juice, beer and wine [20].The purpose of processing/cooking is to make the fruit more palatable and digestible. Processing also extends the storage life of the fruit, which is often highly perishable in its fresh condition. Findings of this study indicate that in both NK and SK, the bananas (cooking banana and plantains) were mostly boiled. Other cooking methods practiced included deep frying the plantains in local palm oil, but this was not so common since most of the harvested plantain bananas were sold to urban dwellers to generate income. Boiling of the banana fruit is also a common practice in Uganda, Cameroon, Burundi and West Indies. In Uganda, the fruit is boiled with beans and ghee then mixed with pepper, salt and onions to make a dish called 'akatogo'. In Cameroon, the green banana is boiled and served in a sauce of palm oil with fish, cooked meat, green beans and seasoning, whereas in the West Indies boiled green banana is served with salted fish or meat [21].As noted, apart from boiling the plantain varieties were also harvested dried and ground into flour mostly used for making porridge for children less than 5 years old. According to the community members the porridge made from plantain flour is especially useful for children with diarrhea. It was also indicated that the banana flour could be mixed with cassava flour and not only used for making baby porridge but also boiled in water to make a thick paste locally called 'ugali.' The 'ugali' could be consumed with any relish, the most common one being, boiled cassava leaves, locally called 'sombe'. Musa flour especially from plantain banana was the only local Musa product that seemed to have a long shelf life. The same is true of practices in Gabon and Cameroon, where the mature green form of banana is dried and stored and may be used for cooking after grinding into flour, the difference is that in these two countries (Gabon and Cameroon) this product was mainly used as a famine reserve, not an everyday meal [21]. Steaming and roast- ing are very popular banana cooking methods in Uganda; the EAHB cultivars are mostly steamed in banana leaves and either pounded or eaten whole (a dish called 'matoke'), while the plantains are roasted and sold as street food. Despite this, findings of this study showed that these two cooking methods (steaming and roasting) are not popular in Eastern DRC.Of all the staples considered in this study, cassava root was the most highly consumed. This finding is supported by the high cassava production of 74% observed by other researchers [2]. These researchers also indicated that DRC has the highest annual cassava consumption in the world, with an estimated 390 kg fresh root (equal to 1,100 kcal) per person per day [2]. Cassava is cultivated in around 50% of the arable land in Congo and provides to 70% of Congolese population 60% of food energy intake [2]. Just as reported [2], findings of this study showed that EAHBs were the second most consumed starchy staple recording a consumption rate of ≥70% among households in both SK and NK [Table -5] and [Fig- 2]. Other researchers have also reported a EAHBs consumption rate of almost 80% in DRC [22]. Although the consumption of plantains has also been reported to be about 36% in SK and that plantains have traditionally been a starchy staple food of rural populations in the humid lowlands of DRC [22], in this study, the low level of plantain consumption observed (4.8% SK and 10% NK) could be explained by their current r high market value, thus farmers are increasingly selling plantains as a cash crop to urban consumers. With rapid urbanization and the growing prosperity of city dwellers, demand is outstripping supply, thereby leaving the rural poor households to depend on either cooking varieties or other starchy staples. The consumption of dessert bananas was even lower with consumption rates of 0% and 2% in SK and NK, respectively , because dessert bananas are mostly consumed as snacks and their production is also very low in Eastern DRC.More than 90% of the households from both NK and SK obtained the bananas from their farms . This is higher than values reported earlier [22], where only 64% of households in SK obtained their bananas from own production and 24% relied on purchase. This difference could be because in the reported study [22], the respondents included both rural and urban traders in Musa while in this study the respondents were exclusively small-holder farmers.Bananas (cooking banana and plantains) are the second most popular starchy staple consumed by smallholder households in SK and NK of Eastern DRC. 'Nshikazi' (AAA-EAHB) and 'Musheba' (AAB-French plantain) are the most popular and preferred Musa cultivars in South Kivu while 'Vulambya' (AAA-EAHB) and 'Musilongo' (AAB-French plantain) are the most popular and preferred Musa cultivars in North Kivu. The AAA-EAHB cultivars ('Vulambya' and 'Nshikazi') are preferred because they produce big bunches, posses good cooking qualities and they make good banana beer. The plantain cultivars ('Musheba' and 'Musilongo') are preferred because they mature faster and have high market prices.The fruit pulp color of the preferred Musa cultivars ranges from yellow to orange, an indication of potentially high carotenoids levels. A nutritional analysis should be carried out to verify whether they could indeed be a potential source of carotenoids. Of the three common Musa fruit classifications (cooking banana, plantain banana and desert banana), cooking bananas are the most consumed, having a consumption rate of more than 65% in both North Kivu and South Kivu.Although the Musa fruit is normally processed/cooked using various methods such as boiling (with/without peel), steaming, roasting, drying and milling into flour, the most popular cooking method applied to the Musa cultivars consumed in Eastern DRC is boiling without peel. More than 50% of the households consume boiled bananas between two and four times per week, with 20% of the households consuming it on daily basis with 90% of the bananas obtained from the household's farm.In the light of these results, it is recommended that thenutrition content of these preferred cultivars be examined to establish whether, the Musa fruits could be a good source of other micronutrients, especially provitamin A carotenoids. In addition, the Musa fruit is not consumed immediately after harvest, and in most cases, it is cooked into various products. Although maturation or ripening in Musa fruits after harvest is usually accompanied by enhanced carotenogenesis [23], some preliminary studies have shown that the impact of ripening is cultivar-specific, with pVACs contents remaining essentially unaltered, increasing or even slightly decreasing depending on the genotype [6].Several reports have shown evidence that although results are still conflicting, retention or loss of carotenoids during storage/ripening and processing of Musa fruit is cultivar dependent [24,23]. There is need to therefore carry out more research that will include a variety of Musa cultivars from Eastern and Central African to ascertain the content of carotenoids in these fruits, the stage in fruit development where carotenoid levels reach their peak and processing/cooking techniques that retain or avail more carotenoids. If the levels of carotenoids are found to be high in some of these local Musa cultivars, they could be used in the fast-tracking approach, to reduce Vitamin A deficiency among Musa-dependent populations of Eastern and Central Africa.","tokenCount":"4267"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"5448f7132b64150e1ea36615d9d44934","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/acea0f8e-66b7-4eee-94c5-3234cde6712c/retrieve","id":"-1464310062"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"3ba8ef1c-f11b-44ed-900a-9f5ebdbc24e7","pagecount":"1","content":" Behavioural science literature suggests that when faced with disasters, people may not act as perfectly rational agents seeking to consistently minimise risk and maximise benefits (e.g. through preparedness). Different hazard characteristics and perceptions likely affect how people respond to early warnings. Elements like perceived costs and benefits of preparing and perceived capacity to prepare also affect behaviours. AA interventions can draw from a broad literature on disaster preparedness behaviour for rapid onset crises. But research is needed on how these findings apply to drought and the role that cash transfers can play.Do people always behave rationally? If not then costly AAs could be less effective than expected.To design effective AA we need to understand: ","tokenCount":"115"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6b1af2875ea952682d89520cd5f8ecb9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d1e86756-7f08-4c7b-93d4-b48ffa7ad492/retrieve","id":"2011261526"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"646b6a48-f2bb-4401-800e-51d60b248800","pagecount":"27","content":"La participation des parties prenantes L'apprentissage Le cycle de projet Le plan de projet Le suivi L'évaluation L'évaluation d'impact La mise au point d'un système de suivi, d'évaluation et d'évaluation d'impact Évalua tion Jusqu'à présent, on n'a pas su convaincre Oui, mais on en a tiré les leçons pour l'avenirIMPACT L'impact est défini comme l'ensemble des changements dans les conditions de vie des gens, tels qu'eux-mêmes et leurs partenaires les perçoivent au moment de l'évaluation, ainsi que tout changement durable dans leur environnement, auxquels le projet a contribué. Ces changements peuvent être positifs ou négatifs, voulus ou imprévus. Perçus dans les conditions de vie, ils peuvent correspondre au niveau des objectifs spécifiques ou à celui de l'objectif général d'une intervention (voir pages 68-83).L'évaluation des projets, produits et services d'information destinés à soutenir les actions en faveur de la réduction de la pauvreté et de l'amélioration des moyens de subsistance des populations dans les pays en développement s'articule autour d'un ensemble d'activités tout à fait classiques. L'expérience montre qu'il est difficile de comprendre, de mettre en oeuvre et d'assurer le suivi de l'évaluation sans avoir une idée précise de ce type d'activités contextuelles -depuis la planification, la gestion, la mise en oeuvre jusqu'au suivi et à l'évaluation d'impact du projet.La première partie fournit des informations générales sur le suivi, l'évaluation et l'évaluation d'impact, définit ces concepts et présente les changements récents dans leur approche. Elle décrit les deux ingrédients essentiels d'une bonne évaluation -la participation des parties prenantes et l'apprentissage. Les bases étant posées, il s'agit ensuite de prendre en considération le contexte dans lequel se déroule l'évaluation -le cycle de projet, un outil de gestion largement utilisé, et l'importance de la planification. Le suivi, l'évaluation et l'évaluation d'impact seront enfin brièvement examinés avant d'aborder la deuxième partie, qui sera consacrée à une analyse approfondie du processus d'évaluation.La première partie propose un référentiel des meilleures pratiques ainsi que des exemples d'activités variées qui ont été mises en oeuvre dans le cadre d'un cycle de projet appliqué à des projets, produits ou services d'information.Traditionnellement, les processus de suivi, d'évaluation et d'évaluation d'impact ont surtout été perçus comme une obligation de redevabilité envers les agences de financement eu égard aux dépenses réalisées pour l'achat d'intrants et la mise en place d'activités, et ont souvent été mis en oeuvre par des évaluateurs externes. Leur rôle dans la gestion de l'impact est souvent négligé et les informations et enseignements qu'ils génèrent restent inutilisés. Toutefois, on s'accorde de plus en plus souvent à reconnaître que ces processus peuvent être utilisés non seulement pour répondre aux exigences de financement, mais aussi à des fins d'auto-évaluation et d'apprentissage. Ils doivent en outre inclure les parties prenantes, notamment les principales parties prenantes (les utilisateurs de produits et services d'information). Cela signifie qu'il faut faire les choses de manière différente, non sans conséquences pour la planification, les capacités d'évaluation et les budgets. Le  Si le but ultime d'une évaluation est la gestion de l'impact -et cela devrait être ainsi -, celle-ci doit promouvoir effectivement la participation des parties prenantes et être orientée vers l'apprentissage. La question de savoir comment impliquer les principaux acteurs et comment parvenir à l'apprentissage devrait pouvoir être intégrée, du début à la fin, dans le processus de gestion de projet.La participation des parties prenantes est définie comme l'implication active des acteurs concernés dans la planification, la gestion, le suivi et l'évaluation d'un projet. Les parties prenantes sont des individus, des groupes ou des organisations qui s'intéressent directement ou indirectement à un projet et/ou qui ont une incidence sur sa mise en oeuvre et ses résultats. On fait généralement la distinction entre parties prenantes principales et parties prenantes secondaires. Citons, à titre d'exemple, les groupes cibles de projet, les ONG, les leaders communautaires et les organismes donateurs.Les principales parties prenantes sont les utilisateurs potentiels des produits et services d'information et représentent par conséquent le seul groupe qui peut réellement parler de l'impact d'un projet. Si les principales parties prenantes n'ont pas facilement accès à un produit ou à un service, ou qu'elles ne peuvent l'utiliser aisément, il n'y aura vraisemblablement aucun impact. Leur implication dans le cycle de projet en facilitera l'utilisation en aidant à s'assurer que :T le produit ou service d'information est complet, pertinent et durable, T et qu'il est accessible à la fois physiquement et en termes de diffusion (par exemple, le langage et le niveau de langue utilisé pour en assurer la distribution et la promotion).L'implication de différents groupes de parties prenantes doit se faire de manière appropriée et sur la base d'un accord mutuel. Pour améliorer la qualité et l'impact des produits et services d'information, les parties prenantes principales et secondaires devront :T aider à établir un consensus autour de la problématique à aborder et des interventions proposées ;T donner aux parties prenantes une idée claire de ce qui doit être fait et pourquoi, afin de renforcer leur adhésion et leur participation au projet ;T améliorer la qualité des informations recueillies ;T améliorer la qualité de l'analyse (les parties prenantes fournissent souvent des indications intéressantes sur les forces et faiblesses d'un projet) ;T aider à accroître la compréhension et l'intérêt pour le projet.  Le suivi, l'évaluation et l'évaluation d'impact s'opèrent dans le contexte d'un cycle de projet. Avant de définir ce qu'est un cycle de projet et de décrire la manière dont il fonctionne, il est important de clarifier la notion de projet et ce qu'on entend exactement par « produits et services d'information », le thème central de ce Smart Toolkit. Ces définitions figurent dans l'encadré 1.5.Quelle différence y a-t-il entre un projet et un programme ?T Un projet est une activité unique destinée à créer ou à offrir un produit/service visant à apporter un changement bénéfique ou à générer de la valeur ajoutée. Il se différencie des processus ou des opérations qui présentent un caractère permanent et visent à créer ou à offrir sans cesse les mêmes produits/services.T Un programme permet de gérer plusieurs projets. Il est donc plus complexe et peut s'étendre sur une période plus longue.Collectivement, ces projets poursuivent généralement un objectif plus vaste (par exemple, l'amélioration des moyens de subsistance des bénéficiaires du programme).On désigne généralement par « produits d'information » et « services d'information » les résultats attendus du projet, tels que les cours de formation, les bulletins d'information, les bases de données d'information et les bibliothèques. Contrairement aux projets, qui ont tendance à avoir un commencement et une fin, les services sont souvent réguliers et leur fin n'est pas programmée.Réflexion et positionnement stratégique Les activités liées à un cycle de projet devraient être imbriquées les unes aux autres dans un processus de gestion cohérente. Si le cycle de projet offre des opportunités appropriées à la participation des parties prenantes et à l'apprentissage, il sera possible à l'avenir d'intégrer les leçons tirées de l'expérience dans de nouveaux cycles, non seulement pour améliorer l'impact de chaque projet, mais aussi pour consolider le processus de renforcement des capacités dans son ensemble.La figure 1.2 illustre les différentes étapes d'un cycle de projet. L'apprentissage est au coeur du cycle et il est relié à chacune des étapes.Prenons l'exemple d'un cours de formation sur l'amélioration des pratiques agricoles adoptées par les petits agriculteurs. Ce projet fait partie d'un programme à long terme destiné à améliorer la production agricole dans la région. Les autres composantes du programme comprennent des mesures telles que la distribution de semences et l'appui aux initiatives d'irrigation. Dans le cadre de ce projet, les étapes du cycle de projet se déclinent comme suit.RÉFLEXION ET POSITIONNEMENT STRATÉGIQUE. Clarifier la vision et l'orientation politique de votre organisation, vérifier leur adéquation avec les besoins en matière de renforcement des capacités exprimés par les agriculteurs, en vue d'améliorer la production agricole. À ce stade, il convient de prendre en considération les leçons tirées de précédentes évaluations et évaluations d'impact pour contribuer à la formulation de la stratégie de positionnement. ANALYSE DE LA SITUATION. Faire un examen critique des facteurs qui constituent un obstacle à la production agricole. Un tel diagnostic peut montrer si un cours de formation sur les pratiques agricoles améliorées contribuerait (ou non) à accroître la production agricole. Si tel est le cas, il convient de passer à l'étape de planification stratégique et opérationnelle du projet. PLANIFICATION STRATÉGIQUE. En collaboration avec les différentes parties prenantes, décider des changements à apporter chez les agriculteurs. Cela permet d'obtenir les informations dont vous avez besoin pour choisir les facteurs stratégiques (forme et contenu du cours, participants au cours). Ces informations seront également intégrées dans le plan de suivi-évaluation, qui devra être élaboré à ce stade. PLANIFICATION OPÉRATIONNELLE. Définir les questions d'ordre pratique, telles que le budget, les rôles et responsabilités, les personnesressources et les participants. Vous devez préparer un plan opérationnel détaillé. Au cours de cette étape, vous devrez également finaliser votre plan de suivi-évaluation et spécifier notamment : comment mener l'évaluation, qui sera chargé de cette tâche et quand faudra-t-il démarrer.PLAN DE SUIVI-ÉVALUATION. Le suivi met surtout l'accent sur des questions opérationnelles, alors que l'évaluation se focalise sur des questions plus stratégiques. Le plan de suivi-évaluation doit définir l'objet et la portée du projet, décrire ses concepts et ses objectifs, évaluer les besoins d'information spécifiques exprimés par les parties prenantes, formuler les indicateurs, organiser la collecte et l'analyse des données et détailler le processus de communication et de dissémination des résultats. RÉALISATION. Il s'agit dans un premier temps de mettre en oeuvre le projet puis de conduire des évaluations périodiques. L'évaluation peut être effectuée avant (ex ante), pendant et/ou après (ex post) la mise en oeuvre du projet. Dans le cas de cette formation, le processus pourrait s'articuler comme suit : assurer le cours (mise en oeuvre du projet), demander aux participants de faire part de leurs remarques et suggestions à la fin du cours, et assurer le suivi du cours quelques mois plus tard en évaluant comment ils ont appliqué ce qu'ils ont appris. SUIVI. Le suivi doit commencer une fois le projet mis en oeuvre. Ce processus continu doit mettre l'accent sur les apports à la réalisation du projet (par exemple, les personnes-ressources), les activités (visites de terrain) et les résultats (le nombre d'agriculteurs ayant bénéficié d'une formation). Le suivi peut être mené de différentes façons, y compris à travers des observations et l'interaction avec les participants. ÉVALUATION. L'évaluation porte essentiellement sur les résultats immédiats (à court terme) du projet (satisfaction des participants, pertinence du cours). L'évaluation pourrait se dérouler à la fin du cours en demandant aux participants de répondre à un questionnaire, de noter le cours par rapport à des critères préétablis et/ou de débattre sur ce qui a effectivement marché ou pas. On pourrait également leur demander s'ils sont capables d'appliquer ce qu'ils ont appris. ÉVALUATION D'IMPACT. L'accent est mis sur les changements (à long terme) observés dans les conditions de vie du groupe cible. L'évaluation d'impact est une démarche complexe qui peut exiger du temps et, dans le cas du cours de formation, nécessiter des données de référence cohérentes dans le domaine de la production agricole. Elle doit également reposer, dès le départ, sur une idée précise des changements souhaités par les participants.À présent, nous allons passer en revue les étapes clés du cycle de projet, à savoir la planification, le suivi, l'évaluation et l'évaluation d'impact, en tenant compte du fait que la stratégie de déploiement du projet doit être orientée vers l'apprentissage et la participation des parties prenantes.Document formel et approuvé, le plan de projet est utilisé pour orienter le processus de mise en oeuvre et de gestion d'un projet. Le plan de projet inclut les éléments suivants : les objectifs (résultats escomptés), les hypothèses, les processus, les activités, les coûts et le calendrier de mise en oeuvre.La planification du projet est l'activité qui consiste à élaborer le plan de projet et il est essentiel qu'il soit préparé en bonne et due forme. Comme le terme l'indique, il s'agit de planifier le projet dans son intégralité, et pas seulement en partie. Il vise à fournir :T une perspective stratégique sur les effets potentiels du projet -résultats et impacts ;T une perspective opérationnelle sur la manière de mettre en oeuvre et de gérer le projet -apports, activités et produits ;T un cadre de référence clair pour le suivi-évaluation stratégique. Celles-ci comprennent notamment :T Le contexte et la problématique : décrire le contexte dans lequel votre projet se développe et les problèmes qu'il soulève.T Les objectifs : le but recherché (objectif de développement global) est le changement ultime que l'on souhaite apporter, à travers les actions du projet, dans les conditions de vie des bénéficiaires. L'objectif (spécifique) du projet est le changement que l'on souhaite apporter au comportement des bénéficiaires pour atteindre le but recherché.T Les hypothèses : il s'agit des facteurs externes qui influencent le succès de votre projet, mais qui échappent à votre contrôle ; clarifier les hypothèses permet d'organiser avec souplesse le plan de projet.T Les apports à la réalisation du projet ou inputs : les ressources humaines et matérielles, ainsi que leurs coûts respectifs.T Les activités : vous devez préciser exactement ce que vous comptez faire pour obtenir des résultats.T Les réalisations ou outputs : ce sont les résultats attendus du projet, c'est-à-dire le produit/service que vous souhaitez offrir pour atteindre le but recherché.T Les indicateurs et les moyens de vérification : les indicateurs sont des variables qui permettent de mesurer le succès d'un projet ; les méthodes et les sources de vérification permettent de décrire comment et où vous comptez trouver les informations nécessaires pour vérifier vos évaluations. L'importance d'un plan de projet cohérent se justifie pour les raisons suivantes :T il vous aide à réfléchir sur les changements que vous souhaitez apporter dans le cadre de votre projet d'information ; T il offre un cadre pour le suivi, l'évaluation et l'évaluation d'impact ; T il facilite le processus d'élaboration des stratégies et des opérations, y compris les mécanismes d'apprentissage et de participation des parties prenantes, qui contribuent réellement à la réalisation de l'impact ; T il fournit la base nécessaire à l'obtention des financements. T Définir la question de base, la portée du problème ou le domaine de préoccupation. Parmi les exemples possibles, citons notamment : Selon vous, comment la situation peut-elle s'améliorer à l'avenir ? Votre objectif est-il lié à la problématique soulevée ? Quelles sont les politiques existantes qui freinent votre intervention ?T Effectuer une analyse exhaustive de la situation, y compris une analyse des facteurs externes (par exemple, l'environnement politique). Quel est le problème majeur et comment celui-ci est-il affecté par d'autres facteurs ?T Conduire une analyse des parties prenantes. Qui sont les parties prenantes ? Et qui sont notamment les principales parties prenantes ? Comment sont-elles impliquées ? Peut-on les inclure dans l'analyse ? Si oui, comment ?T Dans le cadre de cette analyse des parties prenantes, les projets d'information devront mener une « analyse de l'information » en rapport, notamment, avec leurs principales parties prenantes. Par exemple : Quels sont les produits/services d'information qui existent déjà, lesquels sont utilisés et pourquoi ? Quels sont les moyens de communication déjà disponibles pour diffuser l'information, lesquels sont utilisés et pourquoi ? Quels sont les moyens d'information préférés des citoyens ? Quelle langue de diffusion de l'information préfèrent-ils ?T Analyser les approches possibles de résolution des problèmes identifiés et formuler une stratégie.T Fixer des objectifs (objectif global, objectifs spécifiques, résultats) et élaborer des indicateurs, des moyens de vérification et des hypothèses.T Élaborer un plan de suivi, d'évaluation et d'évaluation d'impact.T Formuler un plan de travail incluant une vue d'ensemble des tâches et responsabilités de chacun, un résumé de la situation budgétaire et un calendrier de mise en oeuvre.T Identifier les besoins en renforcement des capacités pour la mise en oeuvre des activités liées au projet.Les erreurs courantes qui peuvent se produire lors de l'élaboration d'un plan de projet comprennent :T un manque de cadrage stratégique pour la préparation du plan de projet ;T la non-implication des principales parties prenantes ;T l'inadéquation entre le programme d'activités et le budget affecté ;T une évaluation irréaliste des risques inhérents à la mise en oeuvre du plan ;T l'utilisation de plans de projet existants sans tenir compte des spécificités inhérentes au nouveau projet ;T une planification trop détaillée et prématurée ;T la formulation d'objectifs irréalisables dans une « liste de souhaits » afin de réaliser l'impact voulu ;T la révision du plan de projet à intervalles irréguliers ;T une planification qui ne tient pas compte des leçons tirées de l'expérience passée.Le suivi vous permet de déterminer si la mise en oeuvre des projets, produits et services d'information est conforme au plan établi. Il a pour objet d'évaluer l'efficacité et l'efficience du projet, notamment en ce qui concerne les apports (inputs), les activités et les résultats.L'efficacité se réfère à la mesure dans laquelle les activités du projet (par exemple, un service questions-réponses) ont contribué à la réalisation de l'objectif spécifique (par exemple, répondre aux questions posées par les utilisateurs de ce service). L'efficience se réfère à la manière dont le projet transforme les ressources (temps, moyens humains, matériels et financiers) de l'intervention en résultats attendus (par exemple, la manière dont ce service pourrait fonctionner avec des ressources limitées).Si le projet ne se déroule pas selon le plan établi, vous pourriez être amené à prendre des mesures supplémentaires pour le remettre sur la bonne voie. Le cas échéant, il pourrait s'avérer nécessaire de réexaminer votre plan. Le suivi fournit également les informations de base nécessaires pour documenter le processus d'évaluation. Enfin, le suivi permet de tirer les leçons de votre propre expérience au cours du processus de mise en oeuvre et cette information est essentielle pour conduire des évaluations.Le suivi n'est pas une tâche facile, en partie parce que bien souvent les gens ne possèdent pas les compétences et les capacités nécessaires. Il repose sur :T la conservation des informations et le contrôle de la mise en oeuvre de l'ensemble des activités et des produits ; T l'analyse et l'utilisation des résultats issus de ces travaux.T Définir les limites de votre projet en clarifiant non seulement votre vision, vos objectifs et vos politiques, mais aussi les procédures existantes dans le domaine qui vous préoccupe ; déterminer l'impact et fixer des objectifs SMART (voir pages 50 and 96).T Effectuer une analyse exhaustive de la situation qui tienne compte non seulement des problèmes courants, mais aussi des orientations et opportunités futures potentielles.T Évoquer la question de la convivialité de tous les produits/services d'information. Travailler en collaboration avec les principales parties prenantes pour déterminer le type de produits/services d'information qu'ils souhaitent et qu'ils peuvent utiliser.T Clarifier vos hypothèses ainsi que les facteurs externes susceptibles d'influencer votre projet ; le succès ou l'échec d'un projet dépend de ces facteurs.T Travailler autant que possible avec les parties prenantes pour favoriser l'apprentissage mutuel, susciter l'appropriation et l'engagement, et améliorer l'efficacité, la pertinence et l'impact du projet.T Expliciter les rôles et les responsabilités.T Utiliser votre plan de projet pour le suivi-évaluation en l'adaptant, le cas échéant, sur le plan opérationnel et stratégique.T Utiliser le plan pour mieux communiquer avec l'ensemble des parties prenantes et s'assurer que chaque partie impliquée sait ce qu'elle a à faire, quand, où, comment et pourquoi.Le suivi est un processus continu qui consiste à évaluer la mise en oeuvre du plan de projet. Il s'agit principalement de répondre à la question : « Progressons-nous selon le plan établi ? » Le suivi peut être assuré à plusieurs niveaux.T Au niveau individuel : Ce que vous faites est-il en rapport avec les activités qui vous incombent ?Qu'est-ce qui fonctionne bien et qu'est-ce qui est à améliorer ?T Au niveau du projet : Les activités en cours de réalisation et les ressources utilisées sont-elles en rapport avec le plan de projet ? Qu'est-ce qui fonctionne bien et qu'est-ce qui est à améliorer ?T Au niveau organisationnel : Qu'est-ce qui fonctionne bien et qu'est-ce qui est à améliorer ?T Au niveau des parties prenantes : Les parties prenantes sont-elles activement impliquées dans le projet (conception, mise en oeuvre, suivi et évaluation) ? Qu'est-ce qui fonctionne bien et qu'est-ce qui est à améliorer ?Avant de lancer le processus, vous devrez cerner les aspects sur lesquels devra porter le suivi et spécifier sa fréquence. Par exemple, souhaitez-vous appliquer le suivi à l'ensemble des activités ou seulement à celles qui incombent aux parties prenantes ? Est-ce qu'il visera principalement à évaluer dans quelle mesure les résultats périodiques contribuent à la réalisation des objectifs du projet dans son ensemble ? Quelle sera la fréquence probable du suivi des activités (hebdomadaire, mensuelle ou autres intervalles de temps) ?D'autres points importants doivent être pris en compte lors de la mise en place d'un système de suivi :T Définir le type de données requis par vous-même et les autres parties prenantes : De quel type de données avez-vous besoin et quand en avez-vous besoin ? Comment envisagent-elles d'utiliser ces données ? Vous devrez collecter uniquement les données dont vous avez vraiment besoin, et non celles qui rendraient le projet un peu plus « vivant ».T Définir les méthodes de collecte et de traitement des données : Comment les données seront-elles collectées (par exemple, au travers d'interviews, de questionnaires, de réunions) ? Qui sera chargé de collecter ces données ? Comment procédera-t-on pour traiter ces données ? Par exemple, les données seront-elles analysées à l'aide d'un logiciel statistique et leur pertinence sera-t-elle évaluée rigoureusement lors d'une réunion du groupe de suivi ?T Trouver un juste équilibre entre les délais et les coûts impartis à votre système de suivi et à votre projet.T Lier le suivi à votre plan opérationnel.T Impliquer les parties prenantes dans le processus de suivi pour favoriser la compréhension et susciter l'appropriation et l'engagement lorsque vous apporterez des changements au plan opérationnel. T Déterminer, en collaboration avec les parties prenantes impliquées dans le projet, quelles sont les données essentielles à collecter et comment procéder à la collecte, au traitement et à l'analyse de ces données. T Organiser des événements liés à l'apprentissage mutuel avec les parties prenantes au cours du processus de suivi.T Utiliser les données du suivi comme un outil de gestion, notamment au plan opérationnel (apports (inputs), activités, résultats), pour informer les responsables et les parties prenantes sur les interventions possibles à mettre en place. T Communiquer les résultats de manière appropriée et en temps utile aux responsables et aux parties prenantes afin de satisfaire leurs besoins d'information spécifiques.Le suivi est centré sur la collecte et l'analyse des données, ainsi que sur la révision et la communication des résultats. Parfois, les résultats peuvent être utilisés immédiatement pour améliorer la mise en oeuvre d'un projet. Dans d'autres cas, ils peuvent être abondants et devront être pris en compte dans le cadre du processus d'évaluation.Les responsables du projet et les parties prenantes doivent être impliqués dans l'élaboration et la mise en oeuvre du processus d'évaluation. En principe, l'équipe de suivi devrait être composée de représentants des groupes de parties prenantes.Les erreurs courantes à éviter lors de la mise au point du système de suivi comprennent :T l'absence d'un cadre de référence cohérent en termes de ce que vous appellerez « succès » et « échec », souvent mesurés en fonction d'indicateurs préalablement définis ;T formuler beaucoup trop d'indicateurs, ce qui rend difficiles l'exercice de collecte et l'interprétation des données ;T l'incapacité d'évaluer les changements observés parce que vous n'avez jamais effectué une analyse de la situation au début du projet (on utilise généralement des données de référence à cet effet ; voir pages 24 et 76) ;T ne pas impliquer les parties prenantes dans la définition des données requises et des méthodes de collecte et d'analyse de ces données ;T collecter des données sans les analyser pour comprendre leur signification aux fins de prise de décision ;T un manque de clarté concernant la validité des données recueillies et des capacités limitées pour vérifier ces données ;T ne pas organiser d'événements d'apprentissage qui permettraient aux diverses parties prenantes de mener une réflexion critique sur les données du suivi.Le suivi met surtout l'accent sur des questions opérationnelles, alors que l'évaluation a pour objet d'apporter une réponse à des questions stratégiques concernant les projets, produits et services d'information. Elle consiste généralement à :T générer des données sur l'état d'avancement et les résultats d'un projet ;T analyser ces données à des fins d'utilisation (actuelle et future) et d'apprentissage ;T prendre en considération les intérêts des parties prenantes (bénéficiaires, groupes cibles, agences de financement, ONG, partenaires, décideurs, réseaux) qui, de près comme de loin, participent au projet.L'évaluation vous offre les outils nécessaires pour expliquer ce qui s'est passé, comment et pourquoi les choses se sont passées ainsi. L'évaluation des projets, produits et services d'information reste un véritable défi. S'il paraît relativement simple de les évaluer aux fins de gestion et de redevabilité, il est en revanche plus difficile d'essayer d'identifier les avantages que l'on peut en tirer, notamment à moyen et long terme. La mondialisation croissante des produits/services d'information et la mise en place d'un scénario intégrant les technologies de l'information et de la communication (TIC) rendent l'appréciation encore plus difficile.Il y a lieu d'établir une distinction entre « évaluations externes » et « évaluations internes » :T Évaluations externes : elles sont confiées à des organisations ou à des évaluateurs indépendants extérieurs à l'organisation chargée de la mise en oeuvre et de la gestion du projet.T Évaluations internes : elles sont conduites par les membres de l'organisation chargée de la mise en oeuvre et de la gestion du projet.Aussi est-il généralement préconisé d'associer les deux démarches -avec une participation active des parties prenantes -pour mener à bien l'apprentissage et obtenir un réel impact. Dans ce toolkit, toutefois, l'accent est mis sur l'évaluation interne.Les évaluations peuvent être menées à différents moments du cycle de projet :T Au début de l'étape de planification du projet (ou évaluation ex ante). Il s'agit d'évaluer la pertinence, la faisabilité, l'impact potentiel ou les avantages escomptés de la proposition de projet. L'évaluation s'inscrit dans une logique de « seconde opinion » pour déterminer si le projet est viable ou non. Elle permet de vérifier si les besoins exprimés par les parties prenantes ont été correctement analysés et si les stratégies et les plans ont été formulés de manière appropriée.T À mi-parcours (ou autre moment) du projet. L'évaluation met l'accent sur l'état d'avancement et la performance du projet et vise à identifier tout changement susceptible d'affecter son efficacité. L'évaluation a pour objet de collecter et d'analyser des données destinées à établir des indicateurs de performance dans le but d'évaluer le degré d'évolution du projet par rapport aux résultats attendus. L'évaluation est parfois menée à ce stade pour expliquer un événement imprévisible (par exemple, les données du suivi peuvent montrer une tendance inquiétante ou singulière).T À la fin du cycle de projet (ou évaluation ex post). Il est question ici de réviser l'intégralité du cycle de projet, à savoir le contexte, les objectifs, les résultats, les activités et les apports (inputs) à sa réalisation. Cette démarche permet à la fois d'évaluer le degré d'évolution du projet par rapport aux résultats attendus, d'analyser la durabilité des résultats et de déterminer quels sont les facteurs qui ont contribué à ces résultats.Les événements d'évaluation devront, dans la mesure du possible, s'apparenter à des événements d'apprentissage qui pourraient être organisés, par exemple, dans le cadre d'ateliers des parties prenantes destinés à générer de l'information et à engager un dialogue constructif pour débattre autour des principaux résultats de l'évaluation.Les points suivants devront être pris en compte lors de l'élaboration du processus d'évaluation :T Préparation des termes de référence de l'évaluation. Déterminer l'objet et la portée de l'évaluation, identifier les sources de données, définir la méthodologie, le plan de communication, l'équipe chargée de l'évaluation, le plan de travail, le budget et les termes de référence.T Mise au point de l'évaluation. Déterminer les besoins de votre projet et les données requises, déterminer clairement sur quoi portera l'évaluation, dégager les questions clés qui se posent, sélectionner des méthodes appropriées pour la collecte et l'analyse de données, et élaborer la stratégie de communication.T Mise en oeuvre de l'évaluation. Collecter et analyser les données, examiner et communiquer les résultats.T Suivi de l'évaluation. Élaborer un plan d'action pour la mise en oeuvre des résultats, assurer le suivi de la mise en oeuvre du plan ainsi que la gestion des activités de suivi ou des changements consécutifs à l'achèvement du projet.Les responsables du projet et les parties prenantes devront être impliqués dans l'organisation et la mise au point de l'évaluation, et il est important de bien choisir la personne qui sera chargée de conduire cette évaluation. En principe, l'équipe d'évaluation devrait être composée de représentants des groupes de parties prenantes.Dans la deuxième partie, nous passerons en revue toutes les étapes du processus d'évaluation.Tout comme pour le suivi, nombre d'erreurs peuvent être commises dans l'évaluation d'un projet. Il est important de comprendre quelles sont les erreurs possibles et comment les éviter. Les erreurs fréquentes sont indiquées ci-après :T ne pas planifier l'évaluation à l'avance et n'accorder aucun délai ni aucune ressource ;T conduire une évaluation pour les besoins d'un donateur plutôt que de reconnaître les potentialités qui peuvent en découler en termes d'apprentissage et de développement ;T collecter des données sans une image claire et concise du processus d'évaluation et des résultats attendus ;T ne pas considérer l'évaluation comme un processus d'apprentissage et imposer des conclusions normatives aux parties prenantes, plutôt que de leur laisser le choix d'en tirer elles-mêmes ;T formuler trop de recommandations ou des recommandations insignifiantes ;T produire un rapport d'évaluation sans avoir une idée claire sur la manière dont ces recommandations pourraient être appliquées.Quelques points essentiels sur l'évaluation T Les évaluations doivent être des analyses planifiées se focalisant sur le niveau de réalisation des objectifs du projet.T S'assurer autant que possible que les évaluations sont perçues par les concepteurs du projet et les parties prenantes comme un mécanisme d'apprentissage destiné à renforcer la gestion stratégique et opérationnelle. T Planifier rigoureusement les évaluations au début du projet, de préférence avec les parties prenantes, afin de s'assurer que les ressources affectées sont suffisantes pour conduire les évaluations de manière appropriée, mais aussi pour susciter l'appropriation et l'engagement. T Mettre au point le système d'évaluation en collaboration avec les parties prenantes pour s'assurer que leurs besoins d'information spécifiques sont satisfaits et que leur jugement sur les méthodes de collecte et d'analyse sont pris en compte ; cela contribuera à améliorer la pertinence, l'impact, la convivialité, l'accessibilité, la durabilité, l'utilité, l'efficacité et l'efficience du projet. T Les questions relatives à l'évaluation doivent être des questions d'ordre général sur ce qu'il faut savoir, qu'il s'agisse d'aspects positifs ou négatifs. T Impliquer les parties prenantes dans la mise en oeuvre du système d'évaluation (par exemple, à travers la mise en place d'un comité d'évaluation et la tenue d'ateliers pour les parties prenantes). T Décrire l'évaluation comme une opportunité importante pour apprendre et dialoguer avec les parties prenantes.T Lier les recommandations aux questions initiales relatives à l'évaluation.La nécessité d'une évaluation d'impact pourrait se justifier pour les raisons suivantes :T elle est nécessaire à des fins de redevabilité ;T elle est nécessaire pour aider à convaincre les parties prenantes (donateurs, partenaires, groupes cibles) que le projet est approprié aux changements souhaités ;T elle aidera à mieux comprendre les effets (positifs et négatifs) sur les groupes cibles ;T elle aidera à reformuler la stratégie du projet et la stratégie de l'organisation chargée de sa mise en oeuvre.L'évaluation d'impact peut nécessiter beaucoup de temps et être coûteuse dans la mesure où il est nécessaire d'évaluer l'ampleur des changements au sein des groupes cibles, ce qui peut paraître relativement complexe. Avant de conduire une évaluation d'impact, il est nécessaire de revisiter le cadre stratégique du projet ou du programme afin de définir l'impact souhaité, le processus qui y conduit et les facteurs qui contribuent au changement.Il conviendra ensuite de répondre aux besoins d'information spécifiques des différentes parties prenantes, lesquels permettront de déterminer quelles sont les méthodes les plus appropriées pour mener l'évaluation. Le choix des méthodes dépend également de la portée et de l'objet de l'évaluation d'impact. Il s'agit bien souvent de collecter des informations quantitatives (statistiques) et qualitatives (opinions, récits). Si l'objet n'est pas seulement la redevabilité, mais aussi l'apprentissage et la responsabilisation, que l'évaluation s'inscrit dans une démarche très participative et que les ressources financières sont suffisantes, des méthodes plus participatives et qualitatives s'avéreront probablement plus appropriées, et pas seulement parce qu'elles peuvent être utilisées dans le but d'améliorer l'apprentissage.Les méthodes communément utilisées pour l'évaluation d'impact comprennent :T L'utilisation des données disponibles sur le groupe cible. Ces données pourraient avoir été recueillies par l'organisation chargée de la mise en oeuvre du projet ou les parties prenantes, ou provenir de sources externes comme le bureau des statistiques. Si les données requises sont disponibles, l'évaluation d'impact peut s'avérer rentable. Bien souvent, toutefois, les données disponibles ne sont pas forcément celles dont on a besoin et ne permettent donc pas de déterminer précisément les changements découlant d'un projet. Prenons l'exemple du cours de formation des agriculteurs présenté dans l'encadré 1.11 : une augmentation de la production pourrait être attribuée au cours de formation, mais aussi à une meilleure efficacité des services de vulgarisation ou tout simplement à des conditions météorologiques plus clémentes. Les données disponibles permettentelles de faire une distinction appropriée entre ces diverses raisons possibles ?T Une enquête sur le groupe cible. L'évaluation sera conduite parmi un groupe représentatif de bénéficiaires présumés du projet. Si le groupe cible est vaste, l'échantillon sera important. Son coût devra néanmoins être pris en considération par rapport au coût total du projet.T L'auto-évaluation. Elle peut porter sur divers aspects du changement (par exemple, le changement en termes de capacités) et permet d'utiliser un large éventail d'outils -de préférence les outils participatifs et orientés vers l'apprentissage, selon l'approche AAP (comme nous l'avons mentionné à la section « Participation des parties prenantes », page 4).T Les récits sur l'impact. L'évaluation d'impact doit être conçue sur le mode participatif dans la mesure où l'impact ne peut être perçu que par le groupe cible lui-même. C'est l'impact perçu par le groupe cible qui importe le plus. Les particularités de l'évaluation d'impact participative sont présentées dans l'encadré 1.12.Les aspects essentiels à prendre en compte lors de la préparation d'une évaluation d'impact comprennent :T la communication (les besoins de toutes les parties prenantes en matière d'information) ;T le contexte (les effets de l'environnement sur l'évaluation) ;T l'échelle et la portée (où est menée l'évaluation et ce qu'elle cherche à établir) ;T l'attribution (à qui est attribué le changement) ;T les indicateurs (quels sont les indicateurs utilisés et comment sont-ils sélectionnés) ;T l'apprentissage et la redevabilité (pourquoi procéder à une évaluation) ;T la participation (qui est impliqué dans l'évaluation) ;T les ressources (quelles sont les ressources humaines, matérielles et financières disponibles) ;T la date et le calendrier (quand procéder à l'évaluation et quel est le délai imparti pour la mettre en oeuvre).Les erreurs courantes à éviter lors de l'évaluation d'impact sont les suivantes :T attendre les résultats d'une évaluation d'impact alors que l'on pourrait déjà avoir tiré les leçons d'évaluations précédentes ;T ne pas avoir prévu suffisamment de temps ni de ressources pour conduire l'évaluation d'impact ;T Ce processus se déroule selon les étapes décrites ci-après. Un système bien conçu et bien organisé permettra de s'assurer que :T des données plausibles sont collectées au bon moment pendant et après la mise en oeuvre du projet ; T les données collectées aideront à orienter la mise en oeuvre du projet et les décisions stratégiques ; T les responsables du projet et les parties prenantes ne seront pas submergés par la quantité de données collectées ; T le temps et les dépenses consacrés à la collecte et à l'analyse des données, à la compilation et à la diffusion des informations qui en découlent seront suffisants.Healthlink Worldwide, agence spécialisée dans la santé et le développement, offre de l'expertise en matière de :T communication : aider partenaires et clients à partager efficacement des informations concernant la santé ;T gestion de l'information et des connaissances : aider à trouver des solutions pour des problèmes spécifiques dans ce domaine ; T coopération et apprentissage : apprentissage partagé au travers des réseaux interactifs à l'échelon local, national et mondial.Le suivi, l'évaluation et l'évaluation d'impact ont toujours été une composante importante des travaux menés par Healthlink, mais la nature de ces processus a évolué au fil des ans : T ils sont désormais plus participatifs et mis en oeuvre en collaboration avec les bénéficiaires ou leurs représentants, de la conception du plan et des indicateurs d'évaluation à l'analyse des résultats et à la mise en oeuvre du projet d'apprentissage ; T aujourd'hui, l'approche qualitative est la plus communément utilisée ; Healthlink conserve en mémoire informatisée ses donnéescelles liées aux changements qualitatifs intervenus au cours de la réalisation des projets -, estimant qu'une combinaison d'indicateurs qualitatifs et quantitatifs permettra une meilleure interprétation de celles-ci ; T Healthlink va au-delà des résultats immédiats d'un projet : elle cherche à analyser l'impact lié à la réalisation d'un projet et aux actions mises en oeuvre à cet effet, sur un groupe spécifique et dans différents secteurs ; T dans le cadre d'un projet, Healthlink est tenue de communiquer les résultats à tous les donateurs, mais travaille également en collaboration avec les bénéficiaires pour analyser les résultats afin d'en tirer des conclusions susceptibles d'éclairer des décisions futures les concernant ; T en outre, les résultats sont à présent utilisés pour déterminer le type de ressources ou d'activités qui pourraient être utilisées par les bénéficiaires. ","tokenCount":"6262"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"430316650275060b030e0ab538b9ae36","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4f89cf5c-239b-4956-b081-813846e08717/retrieve","id":"-2047339018"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0dd046fa-1cc4-43f9-a565-b5c4dfed9405","pagecount":"4","content":"The context Agriculture, the largest user of water globally, is the engine of food security and an important source of employment across West Africa. As competition for water intensifies, food systems must become more sustainable and resilient, meeting the nutritional needs of growing populations without undermining the natural resource base on which they depend. In addition, changing demographics and gender roles require new solutions that are inclusive of women and meet the needs of young farmers, who are leaving rural areas affected by climate variability in search of opportunities outside of agriculture.contributes to sustainable agricultural intensification, food security and climate resilience in rural livelihoods. ■ Improved water-use efficiency in agriculture can be achieved through simple, cost-effective technologies and water management innovations.■ Exploiting agricultural water management is key to building food system resilience. Dry season agricultural production, in particular, provides additional income, helping to reduce poverty and enhance food security.Population growth in West Africa is outpacing food production (Staatz and Hollinger 2016), leading to food insecurity, rising food import bills and dependency on international markets. Government agri-food policies and programs tend to favor large-scale production and medium-to large-scale irrigation schemes. Little consideration is given to the needs of smallholders, who grow a large proportion of the region's food (ibid.). This is inhibiting the adoption of integrated water management solutions that have the potential to transform agricultural productivity and improve water-use efficiency. Along the agricultural value chain, smallholder access to technologies and equipment is constrained by underdeveloped supply chains, knowledge gaps and limited financing and energy options.Drawing on decades of experience in agricultural water management (AWM), the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) has developed a bundle of innovative technical and digital tools, methodological frameworks and business models that address key questions such as: how can farmers grow more food using less water? How, and by how much, can AWM raise farmers' productivity and incomes? And how can the twin goals of food production and food system resilience be balanced and achieved, in policy and practice?Together with governments, practitioners, farmers, private sector actors and other strategic partners, we use the answers to these questions to co-design, co-test and scale low-cost AWM solutions that increase productivity and resource use efficiency in both rain-fed and irrigated systems. All solutions are intended to support equality and empowerment of women and youth in AWM.Most farmers in West Africa are smallholders who rely on rain-fed agriculture to satisfy their basic food needs. Rising temperatures and changing weather patterns are increasing the urgency to mainstream good AWM practices and climatesmart agriculture solutions. Farmer-led irrigation, in which farmers drive investments in irrigation technologies, has emerged as a promising AWM practice. IWMI's focus on farmer-led irrigation is a shift from earlier trends in research and investments that prioritized public, communal irrigation schemes. The performance of these larger schemes has often A young farmer using sprinklers to irrigate his crops in Ghana (photo: Nana Kofi Acquah/IWMI).been disappointing, partly because of water governance challenges. When farmers take irrigation into their own hands, however, our research with partners (Balana et al. 2020) shows that farmers are able to increase production, both by supplementing their rain-fed crops with irrigation water and by growing an additional harvest during the dry season. This can have immense benefits, including better nutrition, higher incomes and greater climate resilience.Improved water access throughout the year could be particularly attractive to young farmers. In the Upper West Region of Ghana, where IWMI is investigating the link between climate change and migration, water stress due to unpredictable rainfall and poor management of water resources is among the factors causing young farmers to move to cities in search of new opportunities outside of agriculture.IWMI and partners have successfully initiated multi-stakeholder dialogues around these issues (Minh et al. 2020). Bringing together development planners and decision makers in the community -farmers, local leaders, government officials, environmental agencies -we facilitate discussion on how various solutions, such as water storage and irrigation facilities, might affect the region. The dialogues aim to encourage young farmers and migrants to share their experiences with policy makers and together find contextually relevant ways to improve water governance and access. In turn, government officials are better able to support policies and interventions that promote food system resilience, and sustainable and inclusive rural economic growth.Beyond an enabling policy environment, other barriers exist to the widespread adoption of good AWM practices. These include a lack of affordable credit bundled with best-fit irrigation products and services. In a number of countries, private irrigation equipment companies have stepped in to fill this gap. Alongside financing, they offer after-sales, agronomic and market access services to help farmers optimize their return on investment and reduce the payment default risk (Minh and Schmitter 2020).IWMI is increasingly partnering with these private companies to accelerate the scaling of proven irrigation technologies (Minh and Schmitter In Review). Over the past few years, we have co-tested a number of irrigation technology and service bundles. The results showed that when shallow groundwater or surface water resources are available, solar-powered pumps can offer an affordable and effective irrigation solution. This is particularly the case in rural areas with no access to electricity. Solar-powered pumps were also found to be cheaper than those powered by diesel and more attractive to women (Nigussie et al. 2017), especially when the pump is located close to home.In the coming years, we will use our expertise to formulate context-specific business models and financing modalities to help our private partners build more sustainable and inclusive irrigation businesses. For instance, one of our partners has pioneered a pay-as-you-go financing model in West Africa that enables farmers to pay for and eventually fully own solar pumps through small, regular installments. Many of these farmers are currently men. By applying a gender lens to areas such as credit scoring, we will customize the model to reach more women.An important step toward taking good AWM practices to scale was the development of a suitability mapping methodology (Schmitter et al. 2018). By locating suitable and promising areas, water solutions can be scaled more effectively and at higher rates of success. IWMI deployed spatial datasets, information from satellites and machine learning to understand the major drivers for successful introduction of solutions such as solar pumps or suitable locations for farmer-led irrigation development.In mapping suitable locations for solar water pumps, IWMI's methodology took into account not only solar radiation and climatic conditions but also the type and availability of water resources and linkage to markets. Initial results from Ethiopia showed that, on average, 9% of irrigated land and 18% of rain-fed land would be suitable for solar pump irrigation (Otoo et al. 2018). We subsequently generated maps for Mali (IWMI 2019) and Ghana, where they are an invaluable source of national-level data for private solar irrigation companies looking to expand in those markets. However, the methodology can be applied across sub-Saharan Africa to scale up solar-powered irrigation as a climate-smart technology.Furthermore, we are drawing on our experience in the Middle East and North Africa region to develop an irrigation advisory app together with the private sector. By sending alerts about potential water shortages, heat waves and crop yield predictions via the app, the aim is to help farmers expand small-scale irrigation, and improve water management and irrigation scheduling. implementing the project in seven countries (Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Ethiopia, Sudan, Tanzania and Malawi), promoting optimal use of scarce water resources to maximize yields of wheat, rice, sorghum, maize and orange-fleshed sweet potatoes.More recently, the role of water in building resilience to systemic shocks, such as Covid-19, has made management of this valuable resource a renewed priority among policy makers and development planners. This has resulted in increased demand for IWMI's experience and skills. In particular, the role of water management in safeguarding sanitation, health and food production has come into sharp focus.IWMI is helping to inform national post-Covid-19 recovery plans by advising governments and environmental and health agencies. In Ghana, IWMI and its implementing partners convened a national policy dialogue to kickstart discussions on social transformation and development in a post-Covid-19 era. The dialogue focused on innovations and programs that would ensure sustainable growth and climate adaptation in the wake of the pandemic.IWMI's research has shown that improving AWM has considerable potential to enhance food system resilience and livelihoods. Across West Africa, farmers are taking matters into their own hands by investing in small-scale water storage and irrigation technologies. Governments, development organizations and the private sector can support this trend through additional investment in water infrastructure, enabling policies, and technical and financial advisory services (Minh and Schmitter In Review). In order for such initiatives to yield sustainable outcomes, however, they must incorporate inclusive business models and context-specific governance arrangements. IWMI provides science-based evidence to ensure that such interventions translate into tangible and long-term benefits for farmers and their communities.","tokenCount":"1470"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"faad012eff67be90902fc0499b74e49e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H042033.pdf","id":"-1104110630"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b3473259-ab1d-48ad-b582-ab7a2c66fb67","pagecount":"17","content":"India is a vast country and its water supply varies significantly across regions and river basins. Water is plenty in the northeast (Brahmaputhra and Meghna basins), but few people live there, and land availability and food production is low. In the northwest most of the water resources are diverted for crop production to the extent that this region supplies food to the deficit regions of the country making it the largest provider of virtual water, that is water embedded in food, in the county (Amarasinghe et al. 2005). Water is scarce in the south and west of the country as the naturally drier areas come under increasing demand, and the aquifers have low storage capacity.Much of the runoff in the peninsular river basins is from the highly variable monsoon, which means it occurs during the 2 to 3 months of monsoonal rains. Thus, the regional water availability vis-à-vis changing water demand patterns and the determinants of these changing growth patterns are particularly important factors for medium to long-term water investment strategies in general in India, and in particular in the water-scarce peninsular river basins.This report examines the implications of future water supply demand of India under business as usual (BaU) scenario trends of key water demand drivers and also under possible divergences. The assumptions of the growth of key drivers in the BaU scenario (Annex 1) in this paper significantly differ from the assumptions of the scenarios of the NCIWRD (discussed in detail in Paper 2). The BaU scenario considers the year 2000 data as the base year and the trends in the 1990s for its demand projections whereas the NCIWRD scenarios considered 1993/94 data for the base year and the trends in 1980s for determining the key drivers. This report, which is primarily, based on the studies by Amarasinghe et al. 2007a and2007b, • gives an overview of the business as usual (BaU) scenario food and water demand up to 2025/2050 in India;• discusses the past trends of key determinants or 'drivers' of water and food demand; and• assesses the deviations of BaU scenario projection with respect to possible deviations of the assumptions of key drivers.The projections of food and water demand of different scenarios use the methodology of the PODIUMSIM model. The PODIUMSIM model is a tool for simulating the alternative scenarios of water futures with respect to the variation of food and water demand drivers (www.iwmi.cgiar.org/tools/PDF/PODIUMSIM.pdf).The report is organized into three sections. It first presents an overview of the BaU scenario water demand, which is followed by a discussion of the deviation of BaU water and food demand projections with respect to the assumptions of key drivers. The final section considers development issues, which have significant investment implications for meeting India's future water demand.India's water demand patterns are fast changing. The water withdrawal for the agriculture, domestic use and industry, the three most consumptive water use sectors, in 1960 was 277 billion cubic meters (bcm) (Shiklomanov 1999). This has since increased to about 680 bcm in 2000. The BaU scenario, based on the PODIUMSIM analysis, projects that the total water demand will increase by another 150 bcm, or 22 % by 2025; and a further 69 bcm or 8 % by 2050 (Amarasinghe et al. 2007a) (Annex 1 for details of the assumptions on key drivers and comparison with other different scenarios of water demand projections).However, the dominance of agriculture in the water demand is projected to change over time (Figure 1). Although agriculture is still the largest water use sector, the share of it in the total water demand is expected to decrease. Irrigation has accounted for 98 % of the total withdrawals in 1950, and 89 % in 2000. BaU trends projects a further decline -81 % in 2025, and 71 % in 2050. However, the irrigation demand will increase in absolute terms between 2000 and 2025, and will decrease between 2025 and 2050. The decrease in demand during 2025 to 2050 is due to various factors including expansion of groundwater use, spread of micro irrigation technologies, higher irrigation efficiencies and decreased demand for grain crop, especially rice. The domestic and industrial sector water demands, unlike in the agriculture sector, are increasing rapidly. The shares of the domestic and industrial sectors of the total water withdrawals are projected to increase, from 5 and 6 %, respectively in 2000, to 8 % and 11 % by 2025, and 11 % and 18 % by 2050 (Figure 1). Rapid growth of the industries and services, which is associated with recent economic expansion and urbanization are the major causes for this increasing demand. In fact, unlike in the past, the total additional water demand of the domestic and industrial sectors is projected to exceed the additional irrigation demand, and accounts for 54 % growth between 2000 and 2025, and 85 % of growth between 2025 and 2050.In spite of the large water withdrawals, India has very low consumptive water use or process depletion. The process depletions, the water depleted through evaporation and transpiration in the process for which the water is diverted, was only 39 % of the total withdrawals in 2000 (authors' estimates based on PODIUMSIM model). In irrigation, the average process evaporation at the project level is estimated as only 41 %. However, all the water lost at the project scale, is not lost at the basin scale. The return flows to surface and groundwater systems in one location are again reused in downstream locations. This results in basin water use efficiency being higher than the system efficiency.Figure 2 shows the aggregate water accounting at the national level. The water accounting of the BaU scenario, estimated according to Molden's water accounting framework (Molden 1997), was assessed at the river basin level. The process depletion from all basins in 2000 was 69 % of the primary water withdrawals, but was only 39 % of the total water withdrawals. This indicates that much of the return flows of the primary water withdrawals are reused as surface or groundwater downstream. The primary water withdrawals as a percentage of potentially utilizable water resources, called the degree of development, in 2000 was only 37 % (authors' estimates based on PODIUMSIM model). This ratio is estimated to increase to 52 % and 61 % by 2025 and 2050, respectively (Amarasinghe et al. 2007b). When the degree of development exceeds 60 %, the basins or countries are classified as physically water-scarce (Seckler et al. 1998;IWMI 2000). High physical water scarcity indicates severe physical and economic constraints for further development of the water resources. In physically water-scarce river basins, there are not enough utilizable water resources left for further development without affecting the environment and the other riverine water users. It also indicates progressively high cost of developing the remaining water resources.Although the degree of development at the national level and also of few relatively large river basins are low at present, several other river basins are already physically water-scarce due to water supply and demand mismatches (Figure 3). In other words, they have a high degree of development. This situation is expected to worsen in the future. Four basins, the Indus, Sabramati, Mahi and west flowing rivers of Kutch and Saurashtra, with 11 % of the total population, were physically water-scarce in 2000. A further 11 basins are projected to reach this status by 2050, and as a result three-quarters of the total population will live in such basins.Many basins will require substantial additional water resources to meet the future demand by 2025. These basins are economically water-scarce where the additional water requirements by 2025 exceed 25 % of the primary water withdrawals at the 2000 level. The economic waterscarce basins require substantial investments if these additional water demands are to be met.Groundwater development was the main driver of irrigation expansion in the 1980s and 1990s. This reliance of groundwater is projected to continue further. India abstracted about 300 bcm of groundwater in 2000 of which 91 % was for the agriculture sector (authors' estimates based on PODIUMSIM model). Amarasinghe et al. 2007b projects that total groundwater withdrawal will further increase, 11 % by 2025, and 7 % more by 2050. As the reliance of groundwater, especially for irrigation, increases, many basins will have severe groundwater depletion. According to the BaU scenario, many basins will have groundwater abstraction more than 75 % of their utilizable groundwater resources by 2050. Figure 4 shows the groundwater abstraction ratio -the ratio between total groundwater withdrawals and the total utilizable groundwater resources. The utilizable groundwater resource is defined as the available groundwater through natural recharge from rainfall and the artificial recharge from the return flows of various uses. As the water use patterns are not uniform within basins, many regions of these basins will have unsustainable water use patterns, and even economically profitable cropping patterns may become hydrologically unsustainable (e.g., rice-wheat in the western IG basin).We also present the production surplus or deficit estimates, the difference between the production and consumption demand of major crop or crop categories resulting under the BaU scenario water use patterns. The consumption demand estimates here are based on the food consumption demand estimates of the rural and urban population and the feed demand for the livestock sector at the state level (Amarasinghe et al. 2007b). The food production estimates are based on the cropping patterns and crop productivity growth assumptions at the state and district level (Amarasinghe et al. 2007a). Despite the complicating water picture described above, India has substantial rice and wheat surpluses in 2000 and will continue to be so in the future. Past trends show per capita consumption of rice in both the rural and urban areas are decreasing and consumption of wheat is stabilizing. With these changing consumption patterns and with rather optimistic crop productivity growth assumptions, BaU scenario projects production surpluses for rice and wheat to increase substantially by 2025 and even more by 2050 (Table 1). However, the present production deficits for other cereals (maize and other coarse cereals) are projected to get significantly worse over the same time frame primarily due to rapidly increasing maize demand for livestock feeding. The maize demand is projected to increase from 5 mmt in 2000, to 107 mmt by 2050. However, the production  Sources: 2000 data are from the FAOSTAT database (FAO 2005); the 2025 and 2050 data estimated from the PODIUMSIM analysis (Amarasinghe et al. 2006) author.Note: 1 The value is in billion US$ and is expressed in terms of average of the export prices in 1999, 2000 and 2001.surpluses of rice and wheat offset the deficits of other cereal crops to maintain overall grain production surpluses by 2050. Among the non-grain crops, oil crops and fruits will have substantial production deficits by 2050. Fruits record a production deficit by 2050, where increasing demand will far outweigh the production. However, this situation may change if the conversion of wastelands to orchards will significantly increase. The total production of non-grain crops, estimated in terms of the average export prices of 1999-2001, was 9.4 % less than the non-grain crop demand in 2000. However, with increasing sophistication of the market demand and resulting crop diversification, this deficit is projected to decrease to 6 % by 2050. The total value of the production of all crops is projected to have a slight deficit, about 4.0 % by 2025 and 2050.Trends in the 1990s were used as a guide for determining the future growth of the key drivers of BaU. However, slight changes in many of these key drivers will have significant changes in the demand projections. Here, we highlight three drivers which could have a significant bearing on the water demand and also for decisions on future investments in the water sector.Until mid-1980s, surface irrigation was the major source of irrigation in Indian Agriculture, and the groundwater development was considered to have been within the canal commands. But, since mid 1980s, groundwater is the major source of irrigation for many regions and districts, and in some cases spreading to areas even outside the canal commands (Bhaduri et al. in this volume, Shah et al. 2001). In fact, groundwater irrigation has contributed to virtually all of the net irrigated area (NIA) growth since mid 1980s. BaU scenario projects this trend to continue, and assumes that • the on-going major to medium irrigation projects will also add another 10 million ha (mha) of net surface irrigated area (NSIA) by 2025, and growth of NIA after 2025 is primarily groundwater driven; but• the groundwater irrigated area expansion will slow down due to excessive depletion in some basins and net groundwater irrigated area (NGWIA) is assumed to increase from 37 mha in 2000 to 50 mha by 2050; and• as a result, the gross irrigated area increases from 77 Mha in 2000 to 117 Mha by 2050.But, the crucial question is how far can groundwater irrigation expand in India beyond the 2000 level? If NGWIA increases to 50 Mha (as assumed in the BaU scenario), because of the increased cropping intensity the gross groundwater irrigated area (GGWIA) is estimated to increases to about 70 Mha. But according to the Central Ground Water Board the estimated gross groundwater irrigation potential stands at only 65 Mha, and according to Sanghal (1987) the groundwater coverage is estimated as 80 Mha. A recent study (Thenkabail et al. 2006), using remote sense imageries, estimates that NIA of India is already 100 Mha, in contrast with the 56 Mha reported by official statistics. The same study also determined that a greater portion of the irrigated area is supplied by groundwater, and the gross irrigated area is close to 133 Mha. So, the assumption on the growth of groundwater irrigation still could deviate substantially than that assumed under BaU scenario.First, we assess the implications of these deviations on the total irrigation demand using four alternative scenarios (SC1-SC4) of slower growth of the groundwater irrigated area (Figure 5). SC1 relates to no further expansion of the ground water irrigated area from the level of 2000 and SC2, SC3 and SC4 relate to the increase of gross groundwater irrigated area to 55 Mha, 60 Mha or 65 Mha, respectively. In each case, we assumed gross irrigated area (117 Mha) and the efficiencies of surface water and groundwater irrigation remain the same.Deviations SC1 and SC2 from the BaU scenario require substantial increases in withdrawals of surface water (140 km 3 under SC1 and 80 km 3 under SC2), but lower withdrawals of groundwater (57 km 3 under 18 km 3 under SC2) from the 2000 level (Overall water requirement under SC1 and SC2 will increase by 14 % and 10 %, respectively. While such growth in irrigation scenarios can be a big relief for over exploited groundwater basins, it requires substantial investments in surface water development for meeting the projected food demand.On the other hand, deviations SC3 and SC4 from the BaU scenario would result in an increase in both surface and groundwater irrigation withdrawals (43 km 3 and 6 km 3 in SC3 and 11 km 3 and 29 km 3 in SC4, respectively) from the 2000 level. These two scenarios, while still require developing more surface water resources will also increase the pressure on already overexploited groundwater resources in water-scarce basins.What are the implications of keeping the groundwater irrigation withdrawals at the level of abstraction in 2000? With the projected irrigation efficiencies in the BaU scenario, the groundwater irrigated area can then be increased by another 12 Mha from the 2000 level. This requires doubling the gross surface irrigated area to 58 Mha, and increasing surface irrigation withdrawals by 54 km 3 to meet the projected crop production under the BaU scenario.The above analysis shows that deviations in the form of slower growth of groundwater irrigation than assumed in the BaU scenario would require substantial investments in developing surface water resources. However, if only the groundwater irrigation potential projected by the Central Groundwater Board is used in irrigation, then India would be using only two-thirds of its available groundwater resources. However, even under this scenario, many river basins will still have severe regional overexploitation.It is important to note that all these scenarios assumed a reasonable increase in the efficiency of both groundwater and surface water use for irrigation. We assess the implication of deviations from assumed efficiencies next.The BaU scenario assumes a modest growth of surface and groundwater project efficiency. First, from the information available, the project efficiency of surface irrigation systems has not improved much over the years. But it is clear, however, that the nonagricultural sector water demand, especially for surface water, is increasing at a faster rate, and the irrigated agriculture will have to produce more with less water. So, it is imperative that project surface irrigation efficiency increases, from the present level of about 30-40 %, to meet this growing demand. That said, in some basins, increasing the project efficiency in certain systems will negatively affect other water users downstream. The return flows of many low efficiency surface irrigation systems are either a source for more productive groundwater agriculture or to meet Source:Authors' estimates using PODIUMSIM the environmental water needs in the downstream. As discussed earlier, the overall efficiency of these basins, where return flows are recycled and reused, is already high. Thus, increasing surface efficiency for that saved water to be consumed by other upstream users could only adversely affect the downstream water users. The BaU scenario assumes that surface project irrigation efficiency increase to about 45 % by 2025, and 50 % by 2050. Clearly such efforts should be targeted at locations where both the project and the basin level efficiencies are relatively low, and careful consideration needs to be given as to how to improve the management of these schemes that are at stubbornly low levels to date.Second, the water saving technologies and the institutional interventions for increasing the efficiency of groundwater are spreading. Decreasing public investments in major and medium irrigation, food and livelihood security for the agriculture dependent rural households coupled with low energy prices and free electricity supply have contributed to the recent groundwater boom. As a result, the depth to the groundwater table in many locations is increasing at an alarming rate, and the physical or the economic water scarcities are emerging in many locations. At the same time, the energy prices are escalating, and providing free electricity for the agriculture sector is becoming a huge burden to the state coffers, and the solvency of the power companies. Using diesel for pumping long hours is not a viable proposition any more for the small and marginal farmers. Innovations such as informal water markets, regulating electricity supply to agriculture through separate power lines, and water saving technologies are being promoted to address the problems in the groundwater irrigated agriculture. All these measures have been shown to increase the water use efficiency. For example, drip and sprinkler irrigation are generally 15-20 % more efficient than the flood irrigation. The BaU scenario assumes that this trend towards higher efficiency technologies will continue, and the overall groundwater efficiency would increase from about 65 % in 2000 to 75 % by 2050.However, with increasing scarcity and escalating energy prices, farmers may increasingly opt for micro-irrigation techniques, such as sprinklers and drip, for enhancing water use efficiency. Efficiency of a well managed sprinkler and drip system can be as high as 80-95 % (Narayanmoorthy 2007). If the overall groundwater irrigation efficiency can be increased to 80 %, 5 % over the BaU scenario, the total irrigation water demand in 2050 could go down by 32 BCM; and with 5 % more groundwater irrigation efficiency growth, the total irrigation demand could decrease another 20 BCM. This reduction in groundwater pumping could reduce the over abstraction to a great extent in many water-scarce basins, although the actual consumption of water would remain the same as projected under the BaU.Until now, India's growth in crop yields has been stubbornly low in comparison with that of other countries with major irrigated agriculture sector. For example, grain crops always had a preeminent position in Indian agriculture, and, as a result, the country is one of the three largest grain producers in the world today. But India also has one of the lowest yield growth among all grain producers. Between 1960 and 2000, average grain yields increased only by 1.0 ton/ha in India, from 0.7 tonnes/ha in 1961, while China increased its grain yields by 3 tonnes over the same time period; and the USA increased its yield by almost 4 tonnes/ha. Compounding the low yields, the rate of growth also has been decreasing in the last decade, from an all time high of 3.8 % annually for grains in the 1980s to 2.0 % in the 1990s. Recent policy decisions of the government of India suggest that there will be more investments for research and development for increasing crop productivity in the coming decades. Therefore, although the BaU scenario does not anticipate a complete reversal of the declining trends of crop productivity, it expects a reduction in the rate of decline of the growth rates. In fact, this rather optimistic assumption of growth in crop yield is a key component of BaU scenario food and water demand projections.In spite of these decreasing trends, this analysis assumes that a substantial scope exists for increasing the yield beyond the current level. A significant gap exists in many locations between the highest and the lowest actual yields, and between the actual and the potential yields. The future investments, both private and public sector, focus on small-scale infrastructure and technologies that enhance the crop yields. Breeding of rice hybrids and improved varieties of other crops (improving harvest index), reducing losses through pests and diseases and post-harvest losses, expanding groundwater use and micro irrigation technologies offer significant opportunities for the irrigated yield growth. And the supplementary irrigation, through water harvesting (Sharma et al. in this volume), at critical periods of water stress, can substantially boost rain-fed yields. Moreover, farmers will have an incentive to increase crop productivity to benefit from the increasing internal and external food trade. Thus, the BaU scenario crop productivity growth rate assumptions are somewhat optimistic than the assumptions recent trends indicate. Even these assumptions to some extent are conservative according to some, as they argue that a second green revolution is well overdue. If that happened it could dramatically change this yield growth scenario.BaU scenario in this paper projects the decreasing trend of yield growth to continue, albeit at a slower rate. The grain yield growth is expected to be 1.5 % annually between 2000 and 2025, and 1.0 % annually between 2025 and 2050. BaU scenario assumes a similar growth pattern for non-grain crops.Irrigated agriculture is estimated to contribute three-quarters of the crop production by 2050. Thus, a small increase in the irrigated yield from the BaU scenario can significantly increase the crop output from the same irrigated area or reduce the irrigation demand to maintain the same production levels. For example, the BaU scenario expects the irrigated grain yield to increase from 2.6 to 4.43 tonnes/ha between 2000 and 2050. But our analysis shows that crop yield growth assumptions indeed are very sensitive to the total crop production and irrigation water demand projections. Figure 6 shows grain production and irrigation demand under different land productivity (LP in tonnes/ha) and water productivity (WP in kg/m 3 of consumptive water use) growth assumptions. SCE1-SCE4 assume that land or water productivity increase annually at 0.08 to 0.30 % higher than the assumed growth in the BaU scenario.If irrigated land productivity can be doubled by 2050, as indicated in SCE4, then the grain production can be increased by 13 % from the same irrigated area. On the other hand, if water productivity is doubled, the crop production can be maintained at the BaU scenario level with 15 % less irrigation withdrawals. Is this a realistic goal to achieve? One could argue that, given the significant productivity variations that exist in similar agro-climatic zones (Molden et al. 1998), doubling water productivity in 50 years is not an impossible target to achieve. The SCE4 has the average grain yields of China in 2000. Can India reach the China's yield levels in 50 years from now? If it can, future grain production requires much less irrigation water than they use now. Source:Authors estimates based on PODIUMSIM analysis.Although the above discussion mostly focused on irrigation, a brief description of the potential improvements in the rain-fed agriculture is required here. Rain-fed agriculture, water harvesting and the related yield improvements are discussed in detail in two later papers. We discuss here only the rain-fed agriculture contribution to the BaU scenario. Another key assumption of the BaU scenario is that India's net sown area will remain the same in the period 2000-2050.This assumption implies that the existing rain-fed area is either replaced by the new irrigated area or taken over for the nonagricultural purposes. Over the period 2000-2050, the rain-fed crop area under the BaU scenario is projected to decrease from 60-44 % of the gross cropped area. How will then rain-fed agriculture contribute to overall crop production? In 2000, grain area under rain-fed agriculture was 57 % of the total grain area, and contributed to 33 % of the crop production. Abysmally low rain-fed yield was the main reason for low contribution. India's grain yield, only 0.97 tonnes/ha in 2000, is one of the lowest among the countries with significant rain-fed areas. It is only 20 %, 32 % and 37 % of the rainfed yield of the USA, China and Argentina, respectively. Given these differences, it seems that a substantial scope exists for improvements in the rain-fed yield in the future. Indeed, in Paper 10, Bharat et al. show that with proper application of inputs and a small dose of supplemental irrigation in the water stress crop periods the yields of many rain-fed crops can even double.The BaU scenario assumes that the rain-fed yield will increase to 1.3 tonnes/ha in 2025, and 1.8 tonnes/ha by 2050. That is the BaU assumes that rain-fed yield will increase by 80 % over the 50-year period from 2000. By 2050, the rain-fed area will consist of 34 % of the total grain area, but contributes to 28 % of the total grain production. This contribution can be increased further with the higher growth in rain-fed yield. The results of that obviously is lower requirement for irrigated area expansion and hence irrigation. In Paper 10, Bharat et al. show that local water harvesting, in extremely non-arid or non-wet areas, could indeed provide the small supplemental irrigation that is required for the rain-fed yield increase. However, in Paper 14, Dinesh et al. show that water harvesting potential is very low in water-scarce areas due to physical and institutional constraints. Further research is required to identify the high potential rain-fed areas where water harvesting is feasible for providing the small supplemental irrigation.This report discussed the implications of future food and water demand under the business as usual scenario trends. For most determinants, the BaU scenario assumes the growth patterns of the recent years for future projection. For the yield growth, based slightly optimistic assertion of agriculture investments, we assume somewhat higher growth rates than the recent trends.On the water demand side the BaU scenario projects that:• India's total water demand, for the irrigation, industrial and domestic sectors, increases 22 % and 32 %, respectively by 2025 and 2050, from the estimated withdrawals of 680 bcm in 2000;• industrial and domestic sectors account for 54 % and 85 % of the additional water demand by 2025 and 2050, respectively;• groundwater use will contribute to a major share of the future irrigation water withdrawals;• and on the supply side several basins will reach physical water-scarce condition by 2050, where the remaining utilizable water supply cannot be developed further without making a severe impact on the environment and riverrine water users down stream; and• groundwater abstraction to increase significantly and many basins will have unsustainable water use regions, where the total available groundwater through recharge from natural rainfall and return flows in some regions are not adequate for meeting the increasing demand.The agriculture water demand projections have accounted for the expected changes in consumption patterns. The BaU projections show that on the food demand side,• India's preeminence in food grains in the diet is changing, and food grain consumption will continue to decrease from 471 grams/person/day in 2000 to 454 and 417 grams/ person/day, respectively by 2025 and 2050;• non-grain crop products including vegetables, fruits and vegetable oil, and animal products, primarily from dairy and eggs, will provide a major part of the nutritional intake by 2050; and• due to increasing animal product consumption, the feed grain demand will increase significantly from a mere 8 mmt in 2000 to about 38 and 111 mmt by 2025 and 2050.And, on the food supply side,• there will be production deficits of maize and pulses, but the production surpluses of rice and wheat offset this deficit, and will have grain production surpluses over the demand;• oil crops and fruits will have production deficits by 2050; but• crop diversification will help decrease the overall value of crop production deficits from 9 % of the demand in 2000 to about 4 % by 2050.The sensitivity analysis shows that changes in the ground water irrigated area, groundwater efficiency and crop productivity could significantly alter the BaU food and water demand projections. A slight crop productivity growth, in both irrigated and rain-fed agriculture, beyond the BaU assumption could result in a significant• reduction in water needs for meeting the projected food demands; or • increase in food production from the projected level of BaU irrigation withdrawals.In fact crop water productivity growth is by far the best option for meeting future food demand while reducing the pressure on water resources. It is imperative that India should invest in increasing research and extension for increasing their crop productivity from the dismal levels at present.Groundwater expansion is also an influential driver on future water demand. Given the present investment patterns, groundwater will continue to play a major role in irrigation expansion in the short to medium terms. Groundwater expansion not only reduces the withdrawal requirement, but could also lead to higher crop productivity and economic benefits. However, overexploitation in different river basins could be a serious constraint for sustaining groundwater expansion in the future. India should invest in artificial recharge programs for increasing the groundwater stocks where opportunities exist to capture water from under developed basins or sub-basins and recharge into appropriate aquifers as long as it does not create adverse impacts in the down stream water users.India should also introduce physical and institutional interventions including micro irrigation techniques, regulating the electricity supply and introducing efficient water markets, for reducing the uncontrolled pumping in many river basins. Depending on the extent of the success of these programs groundwater expansion will continue to expand and benefit the irrigation users.It is also important to note that it may be inevitable that India will have to find adequate surface water resource for meeting the increasing domestic and industrial water requirements. The additional surface water resource required for these two sectors exceed the estimated surface water reallocation from the irrigation sector. This requirement may increase beyond the BaU scenario estimates with a higher growth in Indian economy.Annex 1.The assessment of BaU scenario uses the methodology of PODIUMSIM model Policy Dialogue Model Simulation for projecting India's water future. The PODIUMSIM is a tool for simulating the alternative scenarios of food and water future with respect to the variation of food and water demand drivers. The model has four major components, which can assess food and water demand at various temporal and spatial scales: crop demand (annual and state/river basins/ national), crop production (seasonal and districts/state/river basins), water demand (monthly and districts/state/river basins) and water accounting (annual and river basins) (for more details see www.iwmi.org/applications/podium). Annex Table 1 gives the key drivers of the BaU scenario and few other comparable scenarios projecting India's water futures.Changing consumption patterns is a key driver for estimating food demand in the BaU scenario. The BaU scenario projects that significant increase in contribution from non-grain food crops and animal products increase the total nutritional intake, whereas the NCIWRD scenario projects increasing dependency on food grains. According to the BaU trends, expanding groundwater irrigation and changing cropping patterns are key drivers for projecting the irrigation demand, whereas the NCIWRD scenario projects significant increases in surface irrigation of grain crops, with a substantial rice area. Changes in cropping patterns and irrigation efficiencies reduce the irrigation demand under BaU scenario between 2025 and 2050. However, due to high demand for irrigating grain crops, total irrigation demand under the NCIWRD scenario increases significantly over the same time period. Increase in domestic and industrial water demand is more than 85% of the additional water demand between 2000 and 2050 under the BaU scenario, while it is only 48 % under the NCIWRD scenario. Seckler et al. 1998;IWMI 2000;and Rosegrant et al. 2002 scenarios only projected food and water demand to 2025. Both scenarios assumed lower population projections and higher demand for food grains than the BaU. The overall water demand projection of Rosegrant et al. scenario, after adjustment for the differences of population projects, is similar to that of BaU, while Seckler et al. 1998  ","tokenCount":"5560"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8c4a70b35f7b78ac8594d9e271d0df8e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/efce4d86-67da-47c0-be1a-5e06e9853f13/retrieve","id":"-1710514893"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"3a46f61f-6a82-449d-ace4-2a2ba02ce1d7","pagecount":"24","content":"This paper outlines sectoral economic changes that have occurred in China and Vietnam following their market reforms and rapid economic growth. Bothe economies have experienced increased urbanization and a decline in the relative contribution of agriculture to GDP and to employment. There has been considerable movement of labor from agricultural to nonagricultural employment. Such movements are, however, not costless to farm families, particularly if migration is involved. The role of China\"s town-and-village enterprises in facilitating switching from agricultural to non-agricultural employment is discussed. Economic growth has resulted in considerable alterations in the composition of agriculture in China and Vietnam. A prominent trend is the expansion of livestock production relative to crop production. However, domestic livestock supplies have been outpaced by rising demand and in recent years their prices have risen. This has led some policy makers to argue that the heavy dependence of China and Vietnam on small-scale household producers of agricultural products is the main bottleneck. They favor policies to increase production by commercial enterprises. It is argued here that because both the economies of China and Vietnam are still in transition, it is economic to have agricultural products for which there is a high demand supplied by both households and commercial enterprises, even though this dual system is likely to disappear eventually.The economic growth of mainland China and Vietnam has been accompanied by substantial structural economic change. This growth has resulted in growing urbanization and considerable expansion of the secondary and tertiary sectors of their economies relative to their primary sector (mainly agriculture) and important structural alterations have occurred within these sectors. This paper examines important policy issues that have arisen for the agricultural sector of these economies in adjusting to this transition and compares and contrasts the experience of these countries.The economic growth of both China and Vietnam and accompanying structural changes in their economies has been stimulated by their market reforms. These market reforms began in China in 1979 but did not start in Vietnam until 1986, that is almost two decades later. Both countries began their economic reforms in agriculture.Chinese policy-makers specifically mentioned that it was their intention to commence their economic reforms in agriculture and rural areas and then extend them to the remainder of the economy (Tisdell, 2009a). A step-by-step guided approach to economic reform was adopted by China. The household agricultural responsibility system replaced the collective system of agricultural production and gradually farmers were given greater freedom to respond to market signals (Tisdell, 1993, Ch. 9;1995, Ch. 9). An important feature of China\"s economic reforms was its encouragement of town-and-village enterprises. This led to the expansion of industrial production in rural areas and gave local communities considerable scope to make their own economic decisions. The development of these enterprises proved to be an important stepping stone in the transformation of China\"s economy. As discussed later, they facilitated movement from agriculture to other sectors of the economy.Although Vietnam adopted similar market reforms after it began its policy of Doi Moi, renovation, in 1986, the development of town-and-village enterprises was not central to its policy. Nevertheless, it decollectivized agriculture, allocated land to rural households and placed emphasis on market systems as means to allocate resources. Vietnam\"s market reforms progressed rapidly once the introduction of Doi Moi was announced in 1980 and it has been contended that this announcement \"was followed by a series of reforms that effectively ended the system of resource allocation by central planning by 1989\" (Son, et al., 2006).Since beginning their market reforms both China and Vietnam have experienced considerable urbanization and significant sectoral change. They had a major decline in the relative importance of the agricultural sector (the primary sector) and substantial expansion in the relative size of the secondary (manufacturing) and tertiary (services) sector. This pattern accords with the theory of Colin Clark (1957) about the relationship between the sectoral composition of economies and their economic growth and development.China, however, is much more urbanized now than Vietnam. At the end of 2009, it is estimated that 46.6% of China\"s population lived in urban areas with the remaining 53.4% resident in rural areas (Anon, 2011a). (Note that all of the statistics given in this paper apply to mainland China and exclude Hong Kong and Macau). It is still the case that the majority of Chinese live in rural areas but the difference between the size of its rural and its urban population continues to fall rapidly. The United Nations Population Fund (2007) estimates that by 2015 an equal number of people will live in rural and urban areas in China. There is no doubt that urbanization in China has been very rapid following its reforms. According to the 1982 Census, only 20.6% of its population was urbanized but this more than doubled by 2008. Although changes in how urbanization is measured affect the Chinese statistics (Anon, 2011b, p. 3), there is no doubting that the increased urbanization of China has been very rapid.In 2008, 28% of Vietnam\"s population was urbanized according to official statistics (General Statistics Office of Vietnam, 2009). This is a considerably lower degree of urbanization than in China. Almost three out of every four Vietnamese continue to live in rural areas. Despite differences in the way that urbanization is measured in China and Vietnam, it is clear that Vietnam remains less urbanized than China. This may partly be a consequence of Vietnam starting its economic reforms later than China and possibly not having as great an economic advantage in manufacturing (Tisdell, 2009b).Nevertheless, urbanization in Vietnam is now occurring very rapidly. In 2008, the estimated growth rate of Vietnam\"s urban population was 3.57% and only 0.33% for its rural population (General Statistics Office of Vietnam, 2009, p. 39). The disparity is due to a high rate of rural-tourban migration. This movement is reflected in a decline in employment in agriculture in The comparative sectoral statistics for China are as follows with the statistics for Vietnam for 2008 are shown in parenthesis. The distribution of these labor force in China in 2008 was in agriculture, 39.5% (48.9%), for industry, 27.2% (13.5%) and for services, 33.2% (about 37.6%) and the contribution to GDP of these sectors was estimated for 2010 for China to be agriculture 9.6% (22.1%), industry, 46.8% (39.73%) and services, 43.6% (38.17%). Thus the relative economic importance of the agriculture sector in Vietnam\"s economy remains much higher than its comparative importance in China. Industry makes a substantially larger contribution to China\"s GDP than it does in Vietnam and is a more important source of employment of the labor force. The service sector is of similar comparative importance in both economies but it makes a relatively larger contribution to GDP in China than in Vietnam.The proportion of China\"s employed population engaged in agriculture has continued to decline with its economic development and so too has the relative contribution of agriculture to China\"s GDP. Whereas in 1978, agriculture accounted for 28.1 per cent of China\"s GDP by 2006, this had fallen to 11.8 per cent and in the same period, the percentage of its employed population engaged in farming declined from 70.5 per cent to 42.6 per cent (Ministry of Agriculture of China, 2009a, p.1). The percentage of the workforce engaged in farming in China is lower than in Vietnam. Nevertheless, both China and Vietnam now have less than half of their workforce engaged in farming. However, the relative contribution of Vietnam\"s agriculture, fishing and forestry sector to its GDP is almost twice that in China. Consequently, Vietnam is more heavily dependent on agriculture than China for its economic output. With economic development, it is usual for rural-to-urban migration to take place and for the numbers employed in agriculture to decline. This is partly a consequence of the changing composition of consumer demand as the levels of personal income rise. Personal expenditure on agricultural products is less income elastic than that on manufactured goods and services.Furthermore, it has been suggested that in labor-surplus economies, the marginal productivity of agricultural labor is low or even negative (Lewis, 1954). However, as discussed by Cao and Tisdell (1992), several concepts of surplus labor exist. Lewis (1954Lewis ( , 1965) ) hypothesized that in such economies a perfectly elastic supply of labor would be available for the development of their industrial sectors, at least in the early stages of their economic development. One of the factors that Lewis did not consider in his analysis is the transaction costs incurred by agriculturalists in switching to urban-based employment. Government policies that reduce these transaction costs can add to economic efficiency in the allocation of resources. However, if the transaction costs involved in labor movements are very low, this can destabilize markets subject for example, to cobweb-type reactions (cf. Tisdell, forthcoming;Tobin, 1978).The incomes of farmers are likely to remain below the incomes of those employed in urbanbased industries if the transaction costs of farmers in moving to urban-based industries is high.Consequently, the value of the marginal product of labor in agriculture will remain below that in urban-based industries.The transaction costs involved in switching from farming to urban-based employment can include extra transport costs in traveling to and from work, the cost of shifting one\"s place of domicile in many cases, uncertainty about the comparative benefits of urban-based employment, questions about the permanency of employment and the prospect of obtaining employment in urban areas. The size of the possible sunk costs involved in relocating employment is likely to be a major consideration. Both in China and Vietnam if a farm family moves off its land, it may lose possession of it and be unable to recover its investment in improving the property because (despite reforms) a completely free market does not exist for the marketing of agricultural land (Tisdell, 2009b). Therefore, a farm family may incur some sunk costs in moving off its allocated agricultural land.The transaction costs involved in relocating employment are usually lower for younger members of a family than older ones because they have fewer location-specific assets and often have the option of returning to their family\"s abode if their relocation is not satisfactory. Furthermore, the cost to farmers of relocating to urban-based employment is likely to be relatively low if this employment is near the current location of farmers. China\"s policy of encouraging the development of town-and-village enterprises was very effective in encouraging farmers to switch from farming to urban-based employment because this employment was available locally. It is also possible that these town-and-village developments provided a stepping stone for migration to other urban areas, such as cities. This type of leap-frogging migration was observed in Britain during the early stages of the Industrial Revolution.Vietnam has not placed the same degree of emphasis on the development of decentralized nonfarm enterprises as China. However, Vietnam is now undertaking some regional decentralization of its industrial development, presumably to help reduce its surplus of agricultural labor (see Kirk and Tuan, 2009). In fact, Table 84 of the Statistical Yearbook of Vietnam (General Statistics Office of Vietnam, 2009) indicates that since 2000, there has been, a rapid increase in the number of non-farm individual businesses in provinces where farming is the predominate economic activity with a significant rise in non-farm employment in rural areas.Farmers can be expected to demand a sufficiently higher incomer in urban-based income in urban-based employment to compensate them for any transaction costs involved in switching their employment. They will, therefore, deduct from their expected non-farm income an allowance for their transaction costs of switching employment and compare this adjusted income with their current income. A very simplified example of this is illustrated in Figure 1 for a farming household.An illustration of transaction costs as a barrier to members of farming households switching to non-farm employment.In this figure, the curve, AGJ, represents the income per head that the family is able to earn from farming as a function of the number of family members involved in farming. For simplicity, all family members are assumed to be equally placed. Suppose that each member can earn OA per head in non-farm employment. However, switching to this employment involves transaction costs. These reduce the effective non-farm income available to family members. If the transaction costs are low and say reduce the level of effective non-farm income to OC′, the whole family will find it worthwhile to switch to non-farm employment. On the other hand, if these costs are relatively high, none of the family may switch employment or only a few may do so.Suppose that the level of effective non-farm income after allowing switching costs is OC. Then if the number of family members is in the range x o < x < x 2 , no family members will find it worthwhile to change from farming to urban-based employment. If the number of family members exceed x 2 , those in excess of x 2 will find it worthwhile to shift to off-farm employment.If the size of the farm household is less than x 0 , all the family will find it worthwhile to shift to off-farm employment. This assumes that the household only relies on its family for the supply of labor. This is usual in labor surplus economies. Given the above, members of small farm households or large ones appear most likely to seek off-farm employment, other things being held equal.While the extent to which the income form non-farm employment must exceed that from farm income can be expected to rise with the level of transfer or transaction cost, the relationship is probably non-linear. It is likely to increase at an increasing rate, particularly if the sunk cost component rises with these costs and the level of non-farm income is uncertain. The type of relationship shown in Figure 2 by curve OABC is likely to apply. It should, however, be remembered that locating industry close to farming areas may not always be economic. In addition, rural locations of industries may only be efficient for a limited period of time in some localities. In short, rural industrialization can sometimes be costly and economically short-lived. Nevertheless, the rural location of industry may still be economically worthwhile as part of the economic adjustment process. For example, the location of many of China\"s town-and-village enterprises may prove to be uneconomic in the long run but they will have served their economic purpose before this. In a dynamic context, bear in mind that it can be economically optimal for enterprises and industries to rise and fall in a locality. Thus, even if many of China\"s town-and-village enterprises turn out not to be economically viable in the longterm, they may in the shorter-term have been economically valuable and useful as stepping stones to further economic development. Their contribution must be assessed both in its dynamic and institutional context.Not only has the structure of the economies of Vietnam and China altered considerably with their economic reforms and growth but so also has the composition of their agricultural production. A prominent feature has been the increase in the relative importance of livestock production as a component of total agricultural production. This change has been in response to rising domestic demand for livestock products, mainly as a result of rising levels of per capita income. The demand for livestock products is positively related to income levels and as incomes rise, some substitution of livestock products for non-livestock products occurs. Other factors that have contributed to the growing demand for livestock products are rising populations and most likely, greater urbanization. Increased urbanization has probably been conducive to a change in tastes in favour of greater consumption of livestock products, particularly in China.The altering structure of China\"s agricultural sector is evident from Table 1. The general pattern has been for the relative contribution of crops to its agricultural production to decline and for the contribution of livestock products to rise strongly. A similar trend is evident in the composition of Vietnam\"s agricultural production, as can be seen by comparing the last line of Table 1 with Table 2. The relative contribution of China\"s livestock production to its total agricultural production is much larger than that of Vietnam. This is partly a reflection of the fact that per capita income in China is much higher than in Vietnam and that China began its market reforms well before Vietnam did. Furthermore, it is conceivable that Vietnam has land and climatic endowments that give it a comparative economic advantage in crop production rather than in livestock production. Both China and Vietnam have been unable to meet their increased demand for livestock products solely by using their own resources. The expansion of their livestock industries has depended to a large extent on the import of coarse grains and soybeans to add to their supply of livestock food. In addition, there has been increased import of some livestock products. Huang et al. (2006) argue that in recent times, China has increasingly specialized in agricultural production in which it has a comparative international economic advantage. Huang et al. (2006, Figure 4) claim this on the basis that China\"s positive balance of international trade in laborintensive agricultural goods has increased since 1984 whereas it has become more negative in relation to land-intensive agricultural goods. They expect this pattern of trade to continue until at least 2020 (Huang, et al., 2006, Figure 7). China\"s imports of coarse grains, oilseed, sugar, milk, beef and mutton, fiber and wheat are expected to increase. China is predicted to be self-sufficient in rice, horticulture, pork and poultry, fresh and processed foods and to have some scope for increasing its exports of these items.A similar study does not appear to be available for Vietnam but it appears that as Vietnam\"s economy has become more open, its international trade in agricultural products also increasingly reflects its relative abundance of labor and its relative shortage of land. Major agricultural imports of Vietnam include food for livestock (such as course grains), wheat and wheaten flour, dairy products, edible oils and cotton. Vietnam has a very high level of imports of fertilizer. Its main agricultural exports are coffee, rice, rubber, cashew nuts, tea and fresh or processed vegetables and fruit, all of which appear to be relatively labor-intensive products. It is a large exporter of fish products, most of which is produced by means of aquaculture.Vietnam has very limited imports of red meat mainly because of the strong preference of the Vietnamese consumer for fresh meat purchased from traditional market outlets (Lapar, et al., 2009). Such imported meat must of necessity be chilled, frozen or processed. This gives considerable natural protection to Vietnamese meat producers (Tisdell, et al., 2010). This is particularly important for the survival of Vietnam\"s pig industry because its cost of production is high by international standards. Because pork is a favored meat in diets of Vietnam, the price of pork is of widespread concern to Vietnamese consumers. Son et al. (2006, Table 13) report that Vietnam has a comparative international economic advantage in the production of cashew nuts, coffee, rice and tea but a substantial cost disadvantage in pork production. The authors consider the long-term export potential of Vietnam to be high for rice, coffee, cashew nuts and pepper, to be medium for tea and for fruit and vegetables, and to be low for pork (Son, et al., 2006, Table 14). Given the apparent economic disadvantage of Vietnam in pork production, one might have expected substantial imports of pork to Vietnam. This has not occurred so far due to the preferences of Vietnamese for fresh pork, the slow growth of supermarkets in Vietnam (Maruyama and Trung, 2007) and the resistance of Vietnamese to purchasing fresh food from supermarkets. It is however, not clear that this situation will be maintained in the long-term because the habits and tastes of the Vietnamese could alter with economic growth, urbanization and modernization. Furthermore, constraints on the domestic supply of pork could increase the price of pork so much that Vietnamese are increasingly forced to search for substitutes, such as imported pork.In the period 1996-2006, Vietnam\"s domestic supply of pork rose from 14.76 kgs per capita to 29.77 kgs per capita but its annual rate of increase tapered off in 2006 (Tisdell, 2009c) Both increased yields and rising pig numbers expanded Vietnam\"s production of pork in the period 1996-2006. Growing pig numbers were the major contribution to this growth in the early part of the period and increased yield was the prime contributor to increasing levels of pork production in the latter part of this period (Tisdell, 2009c). The expansion in the volume of Vietnam\"s pork production was facilitated by an increase in its import of pig food which in turn reflected the greater openness of Vietnam\"s economy to international trade. Both the rising number of pigs and their changing genetic composition in Vietnam have increased Vietnam\"s demand for imports of pig food. In the 1990\"s policies were adopted in Vietnam to import exotic breeds of pigs to Vietnam to raise pig yields. Exotic large white pigs (often crossed in Vietnam with the local Mong Cai breed) have proven to be popular and now most of Vietnam\"s pig stock has a substantial infusion of exotic genetic material. To produce high yields, these genetically improved pigs need better quality food than that for local breeds of pigs and much of this pig food has to be imported. Because substantial diffusion of exotic pig genes has already occurred within Vietnam\"s pig population, the scope for further genetic improvement to increase pig yields in Vietnam may be limited. It seems that growing demand for pork is starting to outpace supply in Vietnam. This is reflected in the substantial rise in the price index for livestock products (particularly prices received for domesticated animals, such as pigs) as can be seen from Table 3. Also cattle and buffalo numbers have declined recently in Vietnam (General Statistics Office of Vietnam, 2009, p. 289). The Vietnamese Government is aware that domestic supplies of livestock products (given present institutional arrangements) are unlikely to expand as fast as the domestic demand for these products. This has led it to adopt a policy favoring greater production of these products by private (registered) enterprises rather than households in the expectation that these private enterprises will be able to achieve economies of scale and be more responsive than households in expanding supplies to meet the growing demand for livestock products (for further discussion see Tisdell, 2010b). Nevertheless, households still account for the supply of the bulk of Vietnam\"s agricultural output and most of its livestock-related production.The individual holdings of households of agricultural land are small and most agricultural households have few livestock. With the growth of the economies of China and of Vietnam, pressures are likely to mount for larger-sized agricultural holdings, for the extension of property rights in agricultural land, and for the marketing and transfer of agricultural land to become less restricted and easier to accomplish.The question arises of whether small-scale household headed agricultural production remains economic in China and Vietnam and for how much longer the current situation is likely to last.There is a tendency for emerging policies in China and Vietnam as far as livestock production is concerned to favor larger sized commercial units over household production. Let us consider this matter.On average the size of agricultural landholdings and the number of livestock kept by farmers both in Vietnam and in China is small. However, in some cases, large holdings by commercial enterprises do exist, for example, in Xinjiang in China (Zhao and Tisdell, 2010), and commercial farming enterprises as distinct from households operate on a larger scale than household agriculturalists.Vietnam\"s last agricultural census (2006) revealed that 68.76 per cent of agricultural households had less than a half hectare of land and that 94.22 per cent had less than two hectares of land. In China, the average land holding of agricultural households is just under half a hectare and is also small. In 2008, it was 0.483 hectare and in 2003, 0.463 hectare (Wu, 2009, p. 503). Thus, the average size of holdings of agricultural land by households seems to be increasing slowly following China\"s land reforms in 2003 which gave holders of agricultural land assured tenure of their land for 30 years. However, a period of 5 years is too short to detect accurately the trend in the size of land holdings. In Figure 3, the supply curve of this product, X, is assumed to be relatively steep and is shown by the line AB. The supply from commercial producers is assumed to be shown by the difference between line CF and CB. Therefore, the supply of commercial producers is more elastic than that of households. One expects the production of commercial suppliers to be more capitalintensive(less labor-intensive) than that of households and to make greater use of marketed imputs (probably sourced from a wide geographical region) than households. For low volumes of supply, the costs of supply by commercial are higher than those of householdsAn illustration that with rising demand for an agricultural product, it becomes economic for a growing proportion of it to be supplied by commercial producers. In this case, household production remain economic and actually increases as demand for the agricultural product rises.In the case shown in Figure 3, when the demand for product X is relatively low, it is most economic for households to solely supply the market. For example, when the demand curve is as identified by the line D 1 D 1 market equilibrium is established at E 1 . However, once demand expands sufficiently, it becomes economic for both households and commercial producers to supply the market. For example, when demand is as indicated by the line D 2 D 2 , it is most economic for households to supply OX 1 of the market and for commercial producers to supply the remaining quantity, X 3 -X 2 , of market supplies. Note that in the case illustrated, production by commercial suppliers of X is also accompanied by increased supply by households, evenQuantity of agricultural product though the quantity supplied by households is less than if there was no commercial production.In the absence of commercial production the market equilibrium would be at E 3 after the increase in demand. Commercial production moderates the price rise that would otherwise occur.The pattern illustrated in Figure 3 appears to have occurred in recent years in pig production inVietnam. With increased demand for pork both households and commercial piggeries have increased their supply of pigs but increased demand has outpaced the growth in supply and pork prices have risen substantially (Tisdell, 2010a).With continuing economic growth in China and in Vietnam, the labor surplus in agriculture can be expected to decline as a result of rural-to-urban migration. As a result, the opportunity cost of the labor in agricultural households can be expected to increase in the long-term. Households as a source of agricultural supply based on labor-intensive methods will decline. The number of household producers remaining in agriculture will decline and those households remaining in agriculture can be expected to adopt more capital-intensive methods and become more commercial in their operations. Traditional household agricultural production will disappear eventually. In effect, line AB in Figure 3 shifts to the left and upwards.While traditional household agricultural production can be expected to disappear eventually as a result of sustained economic growth, the above theory indicates that in economic transition in countries such as China and Vietnam, it is most economic to have a combination of traditional household agricultural producers and commercial producers. Polices intended to replace household agricultural production by commercial production appear misguided in the economic transitional stage of development.Structural change in agriculture in China and Vietnam is primarily a consequence of changes in the non-agricultural sectors of their economies that have resulted from their sustained economic growth. Since beginning their market reforms, both China and Vietnam have experienced a surge in urbanization associated with the expansion of employment in manufacturing and other urban based industries. Nevertheless, urbanization in China is more marked than in Vietnam. China\"s agricultural sector is relatively much smaller than Vietnam\"s and its industrial sector is comparatively much larger. The growing importance of urban-based industries has stimulated rural-to-urban migration in both countries. Nevertheless, despite the earlier theory of Lewis (1954Lewis ( , 1965)), the supply of agricultural labor to urban-based industries is not perfectly elastic because transaction costs are involved in changing occupation. These can be considerable if migration is involved.China\"s policy of promoting town-and-village enterprises kept the cost to farmers of switching from agriculture to urban-based employment low (OECD, 2002). These enterprises were a stepping stone for reducing China\"s agricultural labor surplus. Vietnam, on the other hand has only given attention to promoting rural-based non-agricultural enterprises more recently.According to an OECD report (OECD, 2002, p.10), town-and-village enterprises \"have been the main vehicle for absorbing the exit of workers from agriculture\" in China. This report also observes that the contribution of those enterprises to economic growth has waned in recent years (OECD, 2002, p.11) . As discussed above, many town-and-village enterprises may have already served their purpose and will no longer be economic as China\"s restructuring continues.The economic growth of China and Vietnam has resulted in major changes in the composition of their agricultural production. A marked trend has been the expansion of livestock production relative to crop production. A primary reason for this is that the demand for animal products (animal protein) is more income elastic than that for most products derived from crops.Livestock production contributes relatively more to agricultural production in China than in Vietnam. This is partly a reflection of the fact that per capita income in China are higher than in Vietnam. Increasing demand for livestock products has outpaced the increase in domestic supply and their real prices have risen sharply in some cases. Imports of these products has not averted this price trend because strong preferences (at least in Vietnam) exist for fresh meatchilled, processed and frozen meat are considered to be inferior.These increased prices have led policy-makers in China and Vietnam to consider ways of expanding domestic supplies of livestock products. One view is that this can be achieved economically by expanding commercial production rather than household production. These policy-makers consider household production to be inefficient. However, as argued above, household agricultural production is an efficient component of agricultural production in economies, such as those of China and Vietnam, that are still in economic transition. In such economies a dual agricultural system of production by households and by commercial enterprises is likely to be economic. Nevertheless, with continuing economic growth, the opportunity costs of household agricultural producers can be expected to rise and household production will be replaced eventually by commercial production.","tokenCount":"5112"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"302485e1ae9b803f4830e0ddc6665bd1","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/37ca5f36-e553-4a2b-9a7d-50044c28143a/content","id":"1687408022"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0b3838c0-ea91-4e7e-90c7-d4dde7f10429","pagecount":"16","content":"Northern Corn Leaf Blight (NCLB) caused by Setosphaeria turcica, is one of the most important diseases of maize world-wide, and one of the major reasons behind yield losses in maize crop in Asia. In the present investigation, a high-resolution genome wide association study (GWAS) was conducted for NCLB resistance in three association mapping panels, predominantly consisting of tropical lines adapted to different agro-ecologies. These panels were phenotyped for disease severity across three locations with high disease prevalence in India. High density SNPs from Genotypingby-sequencing were used in GWAS, after controlling for population structure and kinship matrices, based on single locus mixed linear model (MLM). Twenty-two SNPs were identified, that revealed a significant association with NCLB in the three mapping panels. Haplotype regression analysis revealed association of 17 significant haplotypes at FDR ≤ 0.05, with two common haplotypes across three maize panels. Several of the significantly associated SNPs/haplotypes were found to be co-located in chromosomal bins previously reported for major genes like Ht2, Ht3 and Htn1 and QTL for NCLB resistance and multiple foliar disease resistance. Phenotypic variance explained by these significant SNPs/haplotypes ranged from low to moderate, suggesting a breeding strategy of combining multiple resistance alleles towards resistance for NCLB.Maize is the world's leading cereal crop in terms of production, with 1016 million metric tons (MMT) produced on 184 million hectares (M ha) globally 1 , across tropical and temperate zones. About 80 per cent of the tropical maize is grown under rainfed conditions in sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and Latin America, and is particularly vulnerable to an array of abiotic and biotic stresses. Among the biotic stresses, Northern Corn Leaf Blight (NCLB) also known as Turcicum Leaf Blight (TLB), is the most important disease of maize caused by hemi-biotrophic pathogen Setosphaeria turcica anamorph Exserohilum turcicum formerly known as Helminthosporium turcicum [Pass] Leonard and Suggs\". The disease has a widespread occurrence throughout the world and shows its presence in Asia, Africa, Europe and America. Low temperature, high humidity, heavy dew and high rainfall are conducive for the proliferation of the pathogen to cause the disease. S. turcica is differentiated into various races, some of the common races being 0, 1, 2, 3, 12, 23, 23 N, 123 N, identified based on their virulence against Ht (Helminthosporium turcicum) genes Ht1, Ht2, Ht3, ht4, HtM, HtP, Htn1, HtNB, and rt in maize plants 2 . Ht genes are known to confer qualitative resistance which is race specific, inherited by single genes, and mostly dominant in gene action, and were initially identified in different genetic backgrounds. Expression of Ht genes in maize plants and or avirulence genes of S. turcica are altered by environmental conditions like temperature and light intensity, creating unstable and less durable resistance. While most of the Htgenes are mapped on consensus genetic maps (www.maize gdb.org), some of them have been fine mapped and cloned. Chung et al. 3 characterized and mapped a region on chromosome bin 8.06 from a maize hybrid DK888, and suggested that QTL NLB8.06 DK888 was identical, allelic or closely linked and functionally related to Ht2. Hurni et al. 4 cloned Htn1 gene which confers quantitative and partial resistance to NCLB by delaying the onset of lesion formation. Using high resolution map based cloning, a receptor-like kinase gene was identified to be underlying the Htn1 gene.Qualitative resistance usually leads to a high level of resistance when avirulent races dominate the fungal population, whereas some Ht genes can easily turn ineffective in case of the occurrence of a virulent strain 2 . In temperate environments, where pathogen variability is less, pyramiding multiple Ht genes is a good strategy towards NCLB resistance breeding. In tropical environments with high pathogen abundance and variability, Ht genes were found to provide only partial resistance 5 . Broad-based quantitative resistance to NCLB is preferred in tropical environments, which could be achieved by quantitative disease resistance loci (dQTLs) alone, or in combination with effective Ht genes. dQTLs are loci of small effects and is less likely to be overcome by evolution of new pathogens, and therefore it is practically more useful to breeders 6 . Inheritance studies of quantitative NCLB resistance using classical methods have revealed predominantly additive gene action controlling the trait 7,8 .Quantitative trait loci (QTL) or linkage mapping is an effective approach for studying complex and polygenic forms of disease resistance 9 . A number of mapping studies have been undertaken for identifying QTLs for NCLB resistance in varied germplasm and environments (Table 1). Previously reported QTL distribution for NCLB resistance has been very diffuse. Nevertheless, certain chromosomal regions are reportedly shared in multiple QTL mapping studies specifically on chromosomal bin 1.03-06, 4.04-06, 5.04-07, 8.02-03, 8.05-06 and 9.02-04 (Table 1). Meta-QTL studies on resistance to multiple foliar diseases identified about 147 multiple disease resistance mQTLs for three foliar diseases, NCLB, Southern leaf blight (SLB) and Gray leaf spot (GLS) and identified bins 3.04-08, 5.04-07, and 8.05-06 that are significant for resistance to these diseases 10 . QTLs on chromosome 3 bin 3.04-08 has been identified in many studies for NCLB and SLB 11 . QTLs on chromosome bin 5.04 and 5.06-07 were detected in different mapping studies for NCLB and GLS resistance 11 . QTLs on chromosome bin 8.05/8.06 has been detected in most of the QTL mapping studies for NCLB, where the major genes Ht2 and Htn1 are also mapped. This region has also been found to be important for resistance to other disease like GLS, common rust and common smut [12][13][14][15] . Meta-QTLs identified for multiple foliar diseases on chromosome 8 bin 8.08 were also found to be associated with two Nucleotide Binding Site (NBS) family of R genes. Meta-QTL analysis have also Table 1. Summary of selected genetic mapping studies for NCLB resistance using different mapping populations in various genetic backgrounds. Molecular markers used in these studies were Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs), Simple sequence repeats (SSR), restricted fragment length polymorphism (RFLP), cleaved amplified polymorphic sites (CAPS). Phenotypic traits like area under disease progress curve (AUDPC), plant disease index (PDI), disease leaf area (DLA), incubation period (IP), disease severity (DS), weighted mean disease (WMD) were used for QTL analysis. revealed that chromosome 8 possesses a cluster of QTLs and significant real (consensus) QTLs for NCLB, GLS and SLB with confidence interval (CI) lesser than 5 cM 10 . QTL mapping, though a powerful tool, has its own limitations such as i) limited number of recombination events during population development resulting in low mapping resolution, ii) only two alleles of each mapping population studied and iii) difficult to identify the positional candidate genes or to make strong inference on linkage relationships among other QTL identified 6 . In most of the QTL mapping studies, the mapping populations and breeding populations are unrelated, and hence the translation of the QTLs identified to breeding targets had been very few. GWAS, in assembled mapping panels representing the wide diversity in breeding programs, is another powerful tool to dissect complex traits and complements linkage mapping by improving mapping resolution. GWAS has been used to identify allelic variants that allow improved tolerance to various biotic and abiotic stresses in maize. Resistance to a large number of economically important and complex diseases of maize like Fusarium ear rot 16 , GLS 17,18 , head smut 19 , NCLB 6,20,21 , SLB 22 , sugarcane mosaic virus 23 , Maize streak virus 24 , Maize lethal necrosis 25 , sorghum downy mildew 26 and tar spot 27 have been dissected using GWAS. Several reports on GWAS for NCLB resistance in maize are available, mostly in temperate germplasm and environments. In a GWAS study conducted by Van Inghelandt et al. 21 , a large association mapping panel of 1487 inbred lines of temperate origin was used to dissect the genetic architecture of NCLB resistance, and reported association of significant SNPs on chromosomes 2, 5, 6 and 7 whereas, some of the SNPs were also identified on chromosomes 7 and 9 after correcting for flowering time variate. In a nested association mapping population of 4630 RILs, 208 SNPs associated with NCLB resistance on all 10 chromosomes of maize were identified, along with 29 QTLs, mostly with multiple loci 6 . Ding et al. 20 studied the CIMMYT tropical maize germplasm that were phenotyped at different locations of Mexico and Africa for NCLB resistance and identified 12 SNPs on chromosome 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 10 for AUDPC, 14 SNPs on chromosome 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9 and 10 for mean disease rating and 19 SNPs on chromosome 3, 4, 5, 7 and 10 for NCLB rating. In general, QTL mapping and GWAS studies in maize have revealed one important aspect that, NCLB resistance is a polygenic trait, and resistance due to major effects contributed by Ht genes was rare in most of the germplasm and environments studied. These studies suggested that there could be environment-specific and germplasm-specific moderate to large effect genomic regions controlling resistance to NCLB, which could be exploited in incorporating quantitative resistance to this important disease in breeding programs. Association mapping studies for NCLB resistance have been conducted by various research groups using temperate and tropical maize germplasm in American, African and European environments. However genome wide association studies using high density markers from large set of maize lines from Asian region are seldom reported. Therefore, the present research was designed to conduct GWAS for NCLB resistance under Asian conditions using tropical maize germplasm represented in three maize panels. These three panels represented maize germplasm from CIMMYT and several national partners, bred in different geographies across the tropics, and hence potentially selected in the presence of varied races of S. turcica. They represent most of the genetic diversity that is available across different tropical/sub-tropical geographies where CIMMYT breeding programs operate, and hence could be ideal resources for understanding the genetics of NCLB disease in South Asian tropics. In this study, apart from single SNP-based GWAS, we also identified haplotypes for resistance to NCLB within and across association panels representing differing germplasm backgrounds.Phenotypic evaluation for resistance to NCLB. Subsets of three AM panels, CIMMYT Asia Association Mapping (CAAM), Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) and Improved Maize for African Soils (IMAS), consisting of 376, 224 and 324 lines, respectively were evaluated for NCLB resistance across different locations/years in India. Disease severity was high in the CAAM panel, with maximum score of 5.00 on a scale of 1.00-5.00 over all the three locations, with minimum disease score of 2.02, 1.50 and 1.46 at Mandya, Arabhavi and Kashmir, respectively. The average disease score across locations was 3.74. Broad-sense heritability (h 2 ) was moderate to high (0.58-0.70) across individual locations with presence of significant genotypic variance (P value ≤ 0.001). DTMA panel at Mandya observed a mean of 2.85 with minimum disease score of 1.97 and maximum score of 4.76. Broad sense heritability estimated was 0.53, with highly significant genotypic variance (P value ≤ 0.001). Similarly, NCLB scores in IMAS panel ranged from 1.5-4.00 at Mandya in the first year and 2.00-5.00 in the second year, with mean rating of 2.55 and 3.44 during the two years, respectively. Overall analysis across the years revealed an average disease score of 3.00 with a maximum score of 4.55 and a minimum score of 1.96 where overall heritability (h 2 ) estimate of 0.54 was observed with 0.48 in season 1 and 0.74 in season 2, respectively. IMAS panel also revealed significant genotypic variance (P value ≤ 0.001) (Table 2). The frequency distribution of mean NCLB disease ratings followed a near normal pattern in CAAM, DTMA and IMAS (Fig. 1). All the three AM panels revealed a significantly negative genotypic correlation between NCLB scores and days to anthesis (DA) (P value ≤ 0.001) (Table 3). Hence, best linear unpredicted estimates (BLUPs) were estimated using DA as a covariate to further conduct GWAS for NCLB resistance in all association panels.Principal component analysis and linkage disequilibrium (LD) decay. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was performed by using the high density Genotyping by Sequencing (GBS) data, filtered for a call rate > 0.9, minor allele frequency > 0.1 and LD pruning at r 2 = 0.5. The first three principal components of each panel are depicted in Fig. 2. The CAAM panel showed moderate structure, in which the Asian lowland lines partially separated from the CIMMYT lowland germplasm whereas, QPM lines grouped with the CIMMYT lowland germplasm. The DTMA panel did not exhibit substantial differential clustering of the various lines of different adaptation categories, other than the clear separation of La Posta Sequia (LPS) lines developed under CIMMYT's LPS population improvement program, mainly for drought tolerance. IMAS panel also revealed moderate structure with clear separation of tropical and sub-tropical maize lines, with overlapping highland and sub-tropical lines. The first three PCs explained 38.56, 19.65 and 33.98 per cent variance in CAAM, DTMA and IMAS panel, respectively.The genome wide linkage disequilibrium (LD) was plotted as LD (r 2 ) between adjacent pairs of markers versus the distance between adjacent markers in Kb (Fig. 3). Genome wide LD plot displayed the LD-decay in CAAM panel as 2.65 Kb at r 2 = 0.1 and 0.92 Kb at r 2 = 0.2, with chromosome 7 showing the fastest LD-decay (1.79 Kb at r 2 = 0.1 and 0.62 Kb at r 2 = 0.2).Chromosome 8 displayed the slowest LD-decay (4.69 Kb at r 2 = 0.1 and 1.63 Kb at r 2 = 0.2). DTMA panel showed the slowest genome wide LD-decay amongst the three panels with LD decay of 5.03 Kb at r 2 = 0.1 and 1.75 Kb at r 2 = 0.2. Chromosome wise LD-decay revealed that the fastest decay was in chromosome 6 (3.22 Kb at r 2 = 0.1 and 1.11 Kb at r 2 = 0.2) while chromosome 8 showed the slowest decay (12.81 Kb at r 2 = 0.1 and 4.43 Kb at r 2 = 0.2) decay. IMAS panel showed the genome LD-decay of 2.84 Kb at r 2 = 0.1 and 0.99 Kb at r 2 = 0.2 with chromosome 6 (2.02 Kb at r 2 = 0.1 and 0.70 Kb at r 2 = 0.2) and chromosome 8 (5.24 Kb at r 2 = 0.1 and 1.83 Kb at r 2 = 0.2) showed the fastest and slowest LD-decay, respectively (Supplementary Table 1).A robust subset of SNPs from high density imputed 955 K GBS genotypic data was used to conduct GWAS with 293,606, 297,437, and 309,608 SNPs after following the filtration criteria of call rate ≥ 0.7 and minor allele frequency ≥ 0.05 in CAAM, DTMA and IMAS panels, respectively. Naïve or G-test association model showed highest genomic inflation; whereas MLM model corrected for both population struc-Table 2. Single and across locations summary statistics, variance components and heritability estimates of the Northern corn leaf blight (NCLB) scores for CIMMYT Asia Association Mapping (CAAM), Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) and Improved Maize for African Soils (IMAS) panels. ** P value ≤ 0.001.   ture and kinship revealed the least genomic inflation as observed in the Quantile-Quantile (QQ) plots (Fig. 4). Therefore highly significant associations for NCLB resistance in the panels were ascertained based on MLM analysis. The narrow sense heritability for NCLB resistance in CAAM, DTMA and IMAS panels was 0.  4). SNP S7_165196774 located on chromosome 7 and three other SNPs S8_95422954, S8_95422964 and S8_95422973 with closely placed physical co-ordinates on chromosome 8 showed the lowest P values for NCLB resistance in the CAAM panel explained phenotypic variance ranging from 5.32 to 6.68%. Similarly in DTMA panel, GWAS identified three highly significant SNPs on chromosome 7 (S7_110282525, S7_110282502 and S7_131034143), explaining phenotypic variance ranging from 8.45 to 9.65%. A group of 8 SNPs located at close physical co-ordinates near 157 Mb on chromosome 8 were among the 14 SNPs which were identified to be showing most significant association with NCLB in the IMAS panel (Table 4). SNP S8_157987611 was observed to be significantly associated at a P value of 4.98 × 10 -08 and explained 9.10% of phenotypic variance. GWAS conducted on different panels identified several SNPs that have co-localized physical co-ordinates within chromosomal bins where Ht genes or QTLs for NCLB resistance were previously reported. Predicted gene annotations in the B73 maize reference genome version 2 (http://ensem bl.grame ne.org/Zea_mays) were studied to identify the genes based on the SNPs associated with NCLB resistance. Several significant SNP associations in these three GWAS studies were located within genes with functional domains leading to biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, immune response, metabolism, plant development and maturity and responses to abiotic stresses (Table 4). A set of 842 SNPs in the bottom 0.1 percentile of the distribution in each GWAS study detected 112 haplotype blocks across the 10 chromosomes. Haplotype Regression Analysis (HTR) was carried out with 112 haplotypes on NCLB BLUP estimates of individual maize panels separately. HTR analysis in the CAAM panel identified 21 haplotype blocks with FDR value ≤ 0.05 that explained 1.98-8.46% variance (Supplementary Table 2). Thirty nine haplotypes were found to be significantly associated with NCLB disease rating in DTMA panel with explained phenotypic variance of 2.64-13.90% (Supplementary Table 3). In IMAS panel, 38 haplotype blocks were detected to be associated with NCLB resistance explaining phenotypic variance ranging from 1.71 to 11.50% (Supplementary Table 4). HTR analysis identified 17 common haplotypes having a significant effect (FDR ≤ 0.05) on the trait in at least two different AM panels spread across seven chromosomes (1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9 and 10), each consisting of 2-10 SNPs (Table 5; Fig. 4). The proportion of variance explained by these common haplotype blocks ranged from 1.71 to 9.42%. No haplotype was identified to have a significant effect on the trait in all three AM panels. CAAM and DTMA panels shared eight common haplotypes with significant effect on the trait, whereas six and three common haplotypes were identified between DTMA and IMAS panels and CAAM and IMAS panels, respectively that are significantly associated with NCLB disease.NCLB is an important foliar disease of maize in almost all temperate and tropical maize growing regions of the world. Resistance for NCLB in maize can be achieved through breeding using qualitative and quantitative resistance, either separately or together. However, resistance provided by qualitative/major genes becomes ineffective in the presence of virulent strains. Tropical environments show high pathogen abundance and high genetic diversity which leads to inflated disease severity, and hence the chances of breakdown of resistance are high. Compared to other grass crops like rice and wheat, majority of disease resistance deployed by maize breeders are quantitative in nature, and not qualitative 28 . It was also noted that the major genes influencing NCLB resistance have high environmental dependence with regard to light and temperature 29 , and act like partial/quantitative resistance in some environments. Resistance to NCLB is considered to be a mandatory trait in breeding successful maize varieties across the tropics, and hence is an important breeding target. Therefore identifying, validating and deploying high value genomic regions for the trait will help in achieving enhanced genetic gains for the trait. Targeted molecular breeding for traits demand genetic mapping and molecular characterization of the functional genomic regions associated with the trait 30 . Association mapping utilizes the ancestral recombination events in a natural population to make marker-phenotype relations 31 . It has several advantages over linkage mapping such as, (1) existing population can be used rather than developing new bi-parental population for mapping.(2) Large number of alleles can be surveyed (3) Higher mapping resolution and (4) Lesser research time 30,32 . The three association mapping panels used in this study represent most of the genetic diversity that is available across different geographies where CIMMYT breeding programs operate, and hence could be ideal resources for understanding the genetics of NCLB disease in Asia. The Trial means for NCLB scores of IMAS and DTMA panels were lesser compared to CAAM panel at Mandya, which is a location with high disease severity and where all the three panels were evaluated, indicating that higher levels of resistance is available in the African and Latin American CIMMYT germplasm, as compared to CIMMYT-Asia germplasm. One of the reasons could be that the DTMA and IMAS panel included lines predominantly adapted to Sub Saharan Africa (SSA), where large number of lines were evaluated for foliar diseases like GLS, NCLB and common rust by collaborators through a regional maize disease nursery project (REGNUR) 33 . However the CAAM panel lines were bred or/and selected for the Asian environments, and had a history of breeding for resistance to diseases like downy mildews 34,35 . The CAAM panel evaluated at three locations observed highest disease score mean at Kashmir, located at higher altitude in the northern boundary of India, which may be due to highly congenial environment for disease development owing to cool and humid weather, and probable presence of more virulent races of the pathogen at that location. For the phenotyping trials, artificial inoculation was conducted at all locations with the pathogen sources collected from respective locations. For principal component and kinship analysis, SNPs fulfilling the criteria of CR ≥ 0.9, MAF ≥ 0.1 and LD pruned at an r 2 threshold of 0.5 were used. LD-pruning was done to reduce the confounding effects due to large blocks of SNPs that have strong LD with each other 36 . There was only moderate structure observed in the three panels, with no clear differentiation of major adaptation groups, except in the IMAS panel. The CIMMYT maize germplasm was not found to have strong population structure in various earlier studies 25,26,37 . George et al. 38 observed that CIMMYT's tropical and sub-tropical lines in the Asian region possess significant genetic diversity that did not allow a clear distinction into separate clusters. Warburton et al. 39 observed that the CIMMYT pools and populations which served as the germplasm sources for derivation of many breeding lines in the tropical and sub-tropical adaptation groups had a large amount of diversity within, than between source populations. This heterogeneous nature of the CIMMYT populations was suggested to be responsible for the lack of a welldefined population structure in the germplasm. A rapid LD decay was observed in all the panels (0.9 kb at r 2 = 0.2 for CAAM, 1.75 kb at r 2 = 0.2 for DTMA and 0.99 kb at r 2 = 0.2 for IMAS panel). Lu et al. 40 found that the LD decay distance in temperate maize germplasm (10-100 kb) was 2 to 10 times higher than that of tropical maize germplasm (5-10 kb). Our results were more similar to the finding by Romay et al. 41 that LD decays much more rapidly in the tropical germplasm to about 1 kb at r 2 = 0.2. The higher LD decay in tropical germplasm suggests the more diverse genetic base that resulted from the historic recombination events and might have more rare alleles than temperate germplasm 42 . The LD decay was different for the 10 chromosomes in all panels, with the slowest decay observed in chromosome 8 consistently in all the panels studied. This was also observed by Suwarno et al. 43 in a Carotenoid association mapping panel comprising of tropical, sub-tropical and a small proportion of temperate lines. Pace et al. 44 have also observed this pattern in a sub-set of AMES panel, which is predominantly a temperate maize lines panel. This is an interesting observation and will require further probing to understand the reasons behind the slower LD decay in chromosome 8 and its implications in molecular breeding applicability in terms of traits like resistance to NCLB, with genomic regions conferred by genes/QTL located on Chromosome 8.The single locus mixed linear model was used after correcting for population structure and familial relationships (kinship), for conducting GWAS in all the panels to reduce the genomic inflation. Highly significant SNPs associated with NCLB resistance were selected based on the significance threshold corrected for multiple testing corrections, taking average extent of genome-wide LD into consideration 45 . A Total of 22 SNPs significantly associated with NCLB resistance were identified on chromosomes 1, 6, 7, 8 and 10. The most significant association in the CAAM panel was with SNP S7_165196774 (P value 5.27 × 10 -7 ), at 165.19 Mb, in the bin 7.04 (www. maize gdb.org, Maize B73 RefGen_V2), co-located within the physical interval of markers flanking the major gene Ht3 21 . Ht3 has been introgressed from Tripsacum floridanum into maize 46 and Ht3 gene provides resistance against the S. turcica races 0, 1, 2, N, 12 and 2N 47 , by inhibiting the extension of chlorotic spots and decreasing the production of spores by the pathogen 46 . S. turcica races 0, 1 and 2 are prominent in the Asian countries like China and India 48 , and Ht3 could be effective against these races. Considering the most significant SNP identified could possibly be in LD with Ht3, owing to its physical location, it provides a strong lead to follow up for future NCLB resistance mapping and deployment efforts. A glutathione S. transferase (GST) gene, belonging to a plantspecific clade implicated in defence has also been identified in bin 7.04 that confers multiple disease resistance to NCLB, SLB and GLS 49 . In the DTMA panel, two highly significant SNPs (S7_110282525, S7_110282502), closely located at 110 Mb (bin 7.02) on chromosome 7, were found to be associated with NCLB resistance. Van Inghelandt et al. 21 identified SNPs on bin 7.02 associated with NCLB resistance in a GWAS of 1487 maize inbred lines representing elite European and North American germplasm. Similarly, another significantly associated SNP identified in the DTMA panel (S7_131034143) was located on chromosomal bin 7.03. Dingerdissen et al. 50 identified a QTL in this chromosomal bin for area under disease progression curve (AUDPC) trait in F 2:3 lines derived from Mo17 and B52 at Embu, Kitale and Muguga, Kenya against the races 0 and N prevalent in Kenya.In the IMAS panel, eight closely located SNPs, located at 157 Mb on bin 8.06 of chromosome 8, were identified to be the most significant association to NCLB resistance. In the maize genome, chromosome 8 (bin 8.05-8.06) is known to harbour genes for various defence pathways, and could be considered as one of the \"complex, important and interesting\" genomic region in terms of maize disease resistance, and NCLB resistance in particular 3 . It is considered as an important genomic region for many dQTLs and major genes like Ht2 and Htn1 for NCLB resistance 28 . Though there are apparent differences in the definition of qualitative and quantitative resistance, sometimes, pure qualitative and quantitative resistance are considered to be two ends of the same continuum and most resistance genes exist between the two extremes 51 . Chung et al. 3 fine mapped a major QTL explaining a large proportion (14-62%) of phenotypic variance in NCLB resistance for the race 0 and 1 on bin 8.06, and it was described as either identical or allelic or closely linked and functionally similar to the major gene Ht2, which is partially dominant and is effective against the 0, 1, 3 and N races. Htn1 gene is also present in this genomic region, which is known to delay the lesion development up to four weeks after infection, reduce the number of lesion and delay the sporulation and found to be effective against most NCLB races 5 . Htn1 was cloned and found to be a wall associated receptor-like protein, and confer quantitative and partial resistance against NCLB 4 . Many other studies have also identified NCLB QTLs in these chromosomal bins. Poland et al. 6 identified a large effect QTL at 152.2 Mb on bin 8.06, segregating in multiple NAM families. Similarly Chen et al. 52 also identified a QTL in bin 8.06 for lesion width, while studying a RIL population. A major QTL was identified for AUDPC on chromosome 8 between the bins 8.05-8.06 in F 2:3 populations studied for NCLB resistance 53 . Recently, a study conducted on a nested near isogenic line library for resistance to NCLB, also identified NILs with introgressions across centromeric region of chromosome 8 (bin 8.05), which overlaps two major genes ht2 and htn 54 . The fact that one of our mapping panels also identified a strongly associated set of closely located SNPs in this important chromosomal bin, indicated possible presence of a quantitatively expressed major gene or dQTL in this region present in the genetic background of the maize lines of this particular panel. S. turcica races prevalent in the locations that have been used for phenotyping in the present study are not yet reported, but physiological race 1 of S. turcica of maize was reported in the adjoining areas 48 . Wang et al. 55 identified two minor QTLs on bin 8.03 associated with NCLB resistance in a RIL population. Our study also identified a group of closely linked three SNPs on bin 8.03 of chromosome 8 (S8_95422954, S8_95422964, S8_95422973) associated with NCLB resistance in the CAAM panel.Haplotype regression analysis identified 17 haplotype blocks that are common across at least two panels among the three panels studied, and hence considered to be candidates for further studies towards NCLB resistance in Asian tropics. The use of haplotypes increase the phenotypic variance explained, and thus allows the identification of genomic regions responsible for controlling a large part of variation in the trait of interest 56 . The size of the haplotype block depends on the degree of LD present in the population 57 . Haplotype information can be beneficial when identifying marker phenotype associations and can offer advantages for the genetic dissection of loci underlying the complex trait 20 . Out of the 17 common haplotypes identified to be significant for NCLB resistance across different AM panels, eight haplotypes were shared between CAAM and DTMA panel, six were common between DTMA and IMAS panels and three haplotypes were shared between CAAM and IMAS panels. Haplotype Hap_1.1 was identified on chromosomal bin 1.06 in the CAAM and DTMA panels, and this bin is considered to be an important genomic region controlling resistance to multiple foliar diseases like NCLB, Stewart's wilt, GLS and SLB [58][59][60] . Jamann et al. 60 identified a receptor-like kinase gene, pan1, that underlie a QTL for NCLB in this region. Similarly, the physical co-ordinates of the SNPs forming the haplotype block Hap_9.1 identified in DTMA and IMAS panels fall within the confidence interval of qMdr 9.02 reported for multiple disease resistance to NCLB, GLS and SLB 61 . Another haplotype identified on chromosomal bin 9.03 (Hap_9.2) identified in CAAM and DTMA panels was found to be located in close physical proximity to two closely spaced SNPs at 99.41 Mb identified in the Iodent material in a GWAS study conducted by Van Inghelandt et al. 21 . QTLs for resistance to NCLB and for multiple disease resistance on chromosomal region 4.05 have been identified in various studies 11,59,62 , and our study also identified two haplotype blocks Hap_4.2 and Hap_4.3 in this chromosomal bin. Overall, it was found that several SNPs/haplotypes identified in this study are in close proximity to previously reported major genes and QTL clusters, but many novel genomic regions were also discovered that could be environment and germplasm-specific. Some of the SNPs identified in this study were found to be located in annotated genes (B73 RefGen_V2) with functional domains implicated in defence mechanisms in crops like maize, rice, and Arabidopsis. Highly significant SNP S7_165196774, identified in the CAAM panel is located in the gene GRMZM2G116426, having functional domains of alpha/beta-Hydrolases (ABH) superfamily proteins. ABHs support a variety of unique catalytic functions for defence and hormone regulation 63 . ABH esterase regulates the response of salicylic acid in plants, which is a key hormone to plant immune responses 64 . Highly significant SNPs identified in the DTMA panel on chromosome 7 are located within GRMZM2G334165 gene coding for protein kinase superfamily. Protein kinases play a central role in signalling during pathogen recognition and the subsequent activation of plant defence mechanisms. The microbial (pathogen) elicitors, also known as pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), are recognized by the membrane-localized pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) of plants 65 . Transmembrane receptor kinases are one of the PRRs which help in plant defence mechanism. Eight significantly associated SNPs on chromosome 8 in the IMAS panel were found to be located in GRMZM2G319130 gene putatively coding for regulator of chromosome condensation (RCC1) family protein. RCC1 proteins contain plant specific disease resistance, zinc finger, chromosome condensation (DZC) domain 66 , and RML3 gene implicated in resistance to Leptosphaeria mculans in Arabadopsis was found to have RCC1 domain. It was also found to be effective for broad spectrum resistance against several necrotrophic fungi. Two genes BQ081031 and BQ080005 encoding candidate regulators of RCC1 family protein were found to be down-regulated specifically in the resistant reaction following Phytophthera. sojae infection which causes stem and root rot in soybean 67 .From three GWAS panels genotyped at high density, and phenotyped for NCLB disease under artificial disease pressure in multiple environments in India, 22 significant SNP associations were identified. Seventeen haplotypes were identified which were significantly associated with the trait across two or more panels studied. Several SNPs/haplotypes identified in this study were located within or in close proximity to major genes like Ht3, Ht2 and Htn1 and many previously reported dQTLs, and multiple foliar disease resistant QTL. These regions will be candidates for further validation studies and possible utilization in the breeding programs in Asia. Considerable differences were observed among different germplasm in terms of resistance to NCLB, and hence it is suggested to bring together diverse sources of resistance alleles to improve resistance to NCLB.Plant material. Three association mapping panels CAAM, DTMA and IMAS panels assembled by CIM-MYT, Global Maize Program were used to study genome wide association for NCLB resistance. The CAAM panel included 419 tropical/ sub-tropical lines from the different breeding programs of CIMMYT adapted to Asian ecologies. This diverse panel included the lines derived from the different source populations for drought, waterlogging, heat stress, acid soil tolerance and downy mildew resistant lines. The panel has early, medium and late maturing lines with predominantly yellow kernel color. This panel has been earlier studied for GWAS for traits like root traits under drought 68 and resistance for sorghum downy mildew 26 . The DTMA panel consisted of 285 elite inbred lines which include CIMMYT's drought tolerant (DT) lines, with reasonable resistance to foliar diseases and insect pests. Apart from drought tolerant lines derived from various selection cycles of the DT populations like DTP1, DTP2 and La Posta Sequia, the panel also included the elite set of lines from CIMMYT breeding programs in Latin America, eastern and southern Africa, and a large set of lines from the multiple borer resistant populations developed at CIMMYT, Mexico. The lines belong to medium to late maturity group with mostly white kernel color. GWAS was previously conducted in the DTMA panel for resistance to various biotic stresses like NCLB, Maize streak virus, Maize lethal necrosis, and Tar spot 20,24,25,27 . The IMAS panel constituted of 380 inbred lines which included elite CIMMYT Maize Lines (CMLs), lines developed from CIM-MYT breeding programs in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Mexico, and lines developed by national partners in Kenya (KALRO) and South Africa (ARC). IMAS panel was earlier used in GWAS analysis of resistance to MLN 25 .Phenotypic evaluation. Screening sites. CAAM panel of 419 inbred lines were evaluated for NCLB at three high disease prevalence locations for one season at Mandya (12°N; 76°E; 695 masl; 705 mm/year average annual rainfall) Arabhavi (16.2213° N, 74.8229° E; 574 masl; 495 mm/year average annual rainfall) and Khudwani, Kashmir (33.5335° N, 74.9209° E, 1560 m asml, 680 mm/year annual rainfall). The sub-set of 285 lines of DTMA panel were evaluated for one season at Mandya and the set of 380 lines of IMAS panel were evaluated at Mandya for two seasons. CAAM and DTMA panels were evaluated as replicated trials with two replications using alpha lattice design. The IMAS panel was evaluated using complete block augmented design in 40 blocks, with block size 12 and the two checks (resistant check-CML451 and susceptible check-CML474), that were replicated in each block. These trials were conducted during the rainy season as the conditions were more congenial for disease development. All entries were planted in 2 m row plot using a spacing of 0.75 m between rows and 0.20 m between plants in each row.Artificial inoculation. S. turcica strains were isolated from previous year's diseased maize leaves. Infected leaves were cut into 5-10 mm small pieces, washed with 0.6% sodium hypochlorite for 1 min and rinsed with sterile distilled water for 3-4 times under aseptic conditions. Excess water was blot dried on sterile tissue paper and infected leaf pieces were placed on Petri plates carrying pure culture Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA). The plates werse incubated at 28 °C for 3-5 days, the growing hyphal tips were transferred to PDA allowed to grow for 8-10 days at 28 °C, conidia were isolated using single spore isolation method. Pure culture of S. turcica were maintained on PDA for further use.For artificial inoculation in the field experiments, mass multiplication of fungal culture was done on sterile sorghum grains. Approximately 200-250 g of sorghum grains were autoclaved in 500 ml conical flask, and on attaining the normal room temperature, the grains were inoculated with pure culture of S. turcica earlier grown on PDA. Flasks were incubated at 28 °C for 15-20 days until the grains were uniformly covered with fungal growth. The cultured grains were dried and ground into powder and stored in paper bags until use. Trials were inoculated by putting 1 g of ground sorghum powder into the whorl of 30 days old maize crop and the process repeated at 40 days to avoid any escapes. Soon after the inoculations, plain water was sprinkled by manual sprayer of 15 L capacity on all fungus inoculated plants. This increased the humidity and leaf wetness necessary for disease development, and thus better and more reliable phenotyping data.Disease scoring. NCLB symptoms started developing after a week of artificial inoculation, however symptoms became distinguishable after reproductive growth of the plants. Disease rating in trials was recorded two times, first score was taken at 65-70 days of crop, and the second or final scoring was taken on 75th-80th day. NCLB rating was recorded using 1-5 scale 69 ; Score 1 = highly resistant (HR) where no infection or slight infection with few lesions scattered on lower two leaves 2 = resistant (R), Light infection with moderate number of lesions scattered on lower four leaves, 3 = moderately resistant (MR) moderate to heavy infection abundant number of lesions scattered on lower leaves and few lesions on the middle leaves below the cob 4 = Susceptible (S) heavy infection, abundant number of lesions scattered on lower and middle leaves and lesions spread up to the flag leaf and 5 = highly susceptible (HS) very heavy infection, lesions scattered on almost all the leaves, plant prematurely dried.A Mixed linear model was used for analysis of phenotypic data from alpha-lattice design where genotypes, environments, interaction between genotype with environment and interaction with replication and environment were considered as random effects.where Y ijko is phenotypic performance of the ith genotype at the jth environment in the kth replication of the oth incomplete block, μ was an intercept term, gi was the genetic effect of the ith genotype, lj was the effect of the jth environment, r kj was the effect of the kth replication at the jth environment, b ojk was the effect of the oth incomplete block in the kth replication at the jth environment, and e ijko was the residual. For the CAAM panel and DTMA panel, best linear unbiased predictions (BLUPs) were estimated using Meta-R version 4.1 70 using anthesis date (AD) parameter as covariate because NCLB scores were significantly correlated to AD. In augmented design trials, BLUPs were estimated across years using linear model for repeated entries and linear model for entries in SAS. Linear model for repeated entry Y k 0 jl = µ + β j(l) + γ l + τ k 0 +(τ γ ) k 0 l + ε k 0 jl k o = 1, 2, …, q (repeated entries), j = 1, 2, …, b (blocks), l = 1, 2, …, l (locations) where β j(l) : is the effect of the jth block nested in lth location, γ l : is the effect of the lth location, τ k 0 : is the effect of the kth repeated entry, (τγ) k 0 l : is the effect of the interaction between the k 0 th entry and the lth location and the linear model for entries Y ijl = µ + β j(l) + γ l + τ i +(τ γ ) il + ε ijl . i = 1, 2, …, v (entries), j = 1, 2, …, b (blocks), l = 1, 2, …, l (locations). β j(l) : is the effect of the jth block nested in lth location, γ l : is the effect of the lth location, τ i : is the effect of the ith entry, (τγ) il : is the effect of the interaction between the ith entry and the lth location. Broad-sense heritability (H 2 ) Y ijko = µ + g i + l j + r kj + b ojk + e ijko","tokenCount":"6923"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6fb8b38cf222b0e06e01c43682c4d9b5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d4804ea2-86ff-4d02-b2b8-ef7a0870d736/retrieve","id":"-170277339"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"77cfc1f8-ef10-4841-8517-b8cc91d4ad90","pagecount":"54","content":"El presente documento describe las actividades ejecutadas por los tres profesionales financiados en el marco del convenio DRI-CIAT, el cual promueve el desarrollo agro-industrial del cultivo de la yuca en la Costa Atlántica de Colombia.El proyecto de producción y mercadeo de yuca tratada en bolsa (tecnología de conservación) ha perfeccionado la metodologia de conservación, disminuyendo todavia más las pérdidas por deterioro. Esto se ha logrado mediante la poda de las plantas de yuca antes de la cosecha y la aplicación de bisulfito de sodio para evitar ataques bacterianos. También•ha desarrollado un modelo de procesamiento en el cual la yuca se acopia en el campo empacada en bolsas de polietileno y se despacha a la ciudad, en donde se selecciona y se efectua el tratamiento de conservación. Además, el producto ya es conocido y aceptado por las principales cadenas de autoservicios en Barranquilla.Sinembargo, el proyecto tiene cuatro limitaciones para resolver: (a) no dispone de suficiente capital de trabajo para ofrecer anticipos a los agricultores para compra de yuca, (b) presenta unos costos variables demasiado altos, (c) nunca ha contado con recursos financieros para desarrollar una campaña masiva promocional (publicidad, etc.) con el fin de darle un impulso decisivo al concepto de yuca tratada en bolsa en Barranquilla y (d) el ejecutor del proyecto, FAGROCOL, está en una situación financiera dificil, segun los resultados de la reciente auditoría por parte de CORFAS (Octubre 1990).El proyecto de molienda y mezcla ha demostrado hasta ahora su potencialidad. La producción ,de trocitos y harina de yuca seca es técnica y económicamente factible, ya que el ahorro en transporte supera el costo de estas operaciones adicionales. La harina de yuca tiene limitaciones en su aceptación en el mercado ya que el comprador corre el riesgo de que ésta sea contaminada por el productor.Se realizaron tres experimentos biológicos con alimentación de pollos de engorde, cada uno tuvo tres replicaciones en diferentes granjas con dos tratamientos por replicación, testigo y experimental. En el tratamiento testigo se utilizó una dieta comercial y en el tratamiento experimental una dieta a base de yuca seca. En cada experimento se utilizó una dieta a base de yuca diferente, por lo que se elaboraron tres dietas experimentales en la planta de concentrados de Betulia.La dieta experimental 2, usada en el experimento 2, con niveles de harina de yuca de 50.5% y 55% para las fases de iniciación y finalización respectivamente, reemplazó biológicamente a la dieta comercial; las otras dietas experimentales no compitieron con la dieta comercial. En cuanto a ganancias por pollo durante los experimentos, los resultados fueron similares, aunque la dieta 2 presentó las mayores ganancias, incluso por encima de las >; •.obtenidas con la dieta comercial.La elaboración de raciones a base de yuca para animales es otra actividad factible a nivel de pequeño productor. El mercado potencial para éstas raciones estimado en la zona es de 1.800 toneladas por año, pero la competencia del alimento de marca es fuerte. Se requiere en este momento de actividades de mercadeo con el fin de buscar mercados en la zona para el concentrado en base a yuca.El proyecto de producción y mercadeo de harina de yuca para consumo humano avanza en su segunda fase. Aunque el proyecto es más amplio, los profesionales DRI-CIAT participan en el establecimiento y operación de la planta piloto y en el desarrollo y validación de una tecno1ogia mejorada de producción de yuca en asociación. La planta piloto esta terminada y ya ha operado experimentalmente; sin embargo, problemas de suministro de agua, en vias de solución, han retardado su operación comercial.Asi mismo, durante 1990, se ha finalizado el análisis de cuatro años de experimentación para el asocio de maiz con yuca. Durante este periodo se estudió la adaptabilidad relativa de nuevas variedades de maiz para asociarse con yuca, en comparación con las variedades tradicionales de maiz. También se sembro yuca en asociación con maiz y ñame/maiz con tecno1ogia mejorada de producción en parcelas manejadas por agricultores. El mercado principal para la yuca en Colombia es el de yuca fresca para consumo humano. Debido a su alta perecibilidad, la yuca se encuentra en desventaja en los mercados urbanos frente a otras fuentes de carbohidrato más convenientes como el pan, pasta, papa y arroz. La perecibilidad de la yuca causa grandes pérdidas a los intermediarios y eleva los márgenes de mercadeo por lo que el agricultor recibe apenas una fracción del precio final mientras que el consumidor paga un precio alto por el producto.Para el consumidor urbano la yuca es un producto poco conveniente porque presenta una calidad variable, en ocasiones deficiente. A menudo la yuca se deteriora antes de ser consumida en el hogar y el ama de casa se ve obligada a comprar la yuca todos los días si desea consumirla a diario. Así, aunque la yuca es muy apropiada para condiciones rurales, no ha podido imponerse como un alimento urbano debido a problemas de calidad, precio y conveniencia.Como respuesta a estos inconvenientes, el CIAT, en colaboración con un instituto de la Gran Bretaña, el Natural Resources Institute (NRI), desarrolló una técnica sencilla y de bajo costo para tratar la raíz de yuca directamente en el sitio donde se cosecha, método que permite conservar frescas las raíces en una bolsa de polietileno hasta por 'tres semanas.La tecnología de conservación El desarrollo de ésta tecnología tuvo como base el estudio del deterioro post-cosecha de la yuca y sus causas. La yuca sufre dos tipos de deterioro: uno fisiológico o primario y el otro microbial o secundario. El primero se manifiesta como una pigmentación negra y azul en los tejidos vasculares acompañada por una desecación de las células que contienen el almidón. Esto produce un color negro o café desagradable, sabor amargo y disminuye la calidad para cocción. Aparece primero en las áreas maltratadas sin ,cáscara donde la pérdida de humedad es mayor. El cuidado al cosechar y manipular la yuca reduce la incidencia del deterioro significativamente. Sinembargo, existe otro tipo de deterioro posterior, microbial consistente en la pudrición y fermentación de tejidos, la cual aparece en raíces almacenadas por más de cuatro a siete días. El maltrato también favorece el desarrollo del patógeno causante de la pUdrición porque facilita su acceso a las capas de almidón y azúcar.La yuca tiene la capacidad de formar nuevas células protectoras en tejidos maltratados, proceso que se denomina \"curación\". Bajo condiciones de alta temperatura (30-40°) y humedad (mayor que el 85%), este proceso curativ.o se desarrolla rápidamente. La técnica de conservación se fundamenta en este proceso de curación y consiste en colocar las raíces inmediatamente después de la cosecha en bolsas de polietileno en donde las raíces generan la temperatura y humedad necesarias para obtener una curación que evita el deterioro primario o fisiológico. Sin embargo, la alta temperatura y humedad en la bolsa también fomentan el desarrollo del deterioro microbiano o secundario; este deterioro puede ocurrir rápidamente, inclusive antes que las partes maltratadas se curen por lo cual también se requiere un tratamiento antimicrobiano que sea inofensivo para el ser humano. La yuca posee una cascara bastante gruesa (15% del peso de la raíz) la cual evita que el producto químico penetre a la parte comestible. El fungicida recomendado por su eficiencia para evitar la pUdrición microbial y por su baja toxicidad para humanos es el Mertect (CIBA-Geigy, Colombia) cuyo ingrediente activo es el tiabendazol. Este producto es usado comúnmente en el tratamiento postcosecha de la papa y el banano.El Mertect se aplica en las bolsas por aspersión a una concentración de 0.4%. El tiempo máximo entre cosecha y empaque en bolsa de polietileno es de 3 horas; si se demora más, pueden ocurrir grandes pérdidas por deterioro fisiológico.Conociendo la gran importancia del cultivo de la yuca en la Costa Atlántica, el alto nivel de consumo en zonas rurales como urbanas, las dificultades del pequeño campesino productor de yuca al comercializar su producto debido a un mercado urbano en retroceso, los problemas de mercadeo por la alta perecibilidad del producto y la necesidad de una estrategia para la comercialización de la yuca fresca, el Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) y el Fondo de Desarrollo Rural Integrado (DRI), bajo el marco del convenio DRI-CIAT para la agroindustrialización del cultivo de la yuca, se comprometen a desarrollar el proyecto de conservación de yuca fresca en la Costa Atlántica.Barranquilla es escogida como sede el proyecto piloto ya que por su dimensión e importancia en la región permite estudiar el comportamiento de los diferentes participantes en el sistema de comercialización de la yuca fresca. Implementar la tecnología de conservación y almacenamiento de yuca desarrollada por el CIAT, buscando con esto beneficiar al agricultor, a las organizaciones campesi~as y a los consumidores en general.Desarrollar una metodología que permita validar esta tecnología a nivel campesino y crear un mercado estable para el producto.Crear un escenario que sirva como ejemplo para otras regiones del pais y otros paises interesados en adoptar esta tecnología.Se usó como modelo la estrategia de trabajo de proyectos integrados para el desarrollo de la yuca, por medio de la cual se considera que un proyecto de investigación y desarrollo debe enfocar el sistema completo, que comprende la producción, el procesamiento y la comercialización.Establecer el proyecto piloto fué el primer paso dentro de la estrategia y se basó en efectuar el diseño y evaluación de la tecnología de procesamiento y la estrategia de comercialización a una escala semicomercial pequeña, con el fin de adaptarla a unas condiciones locales, para luego ser replicada en otros lugares.El proyecto piloto desarrolló un plan de acción el cual se inició con un análisis macroeconómico para conocer la demanda potencial del producto y su posibilidad de entrar en los diferentes canales de mercadeo. Conociendo los resultados del análisis se realizaron las siguientes actividades:1. Selección del área de influencia para el establecimiento del proyecto piloto.2. Selección de un sitio representativo dentro del área de influencia para el montaje del proyecto piloto.3. Identificación y búsqueda de apoyo institucional local.4. Diseño y establecimiento del proyecto piloto.5. Evaluación de los resultados del proyecto piloto.6. Adaptación y expansión del proyecto piloto a escala de producción comercial.7. Seguimiento de los resultados del proyecto y modificación de su diseño inicial.Estudios preliminares (análisis macroeconómico)En Abril de 1987 se realizaron las primeras encuestas así:A consumidores de todos los estratos sociales con el fin de conocer los hábitos•de compra y consumo de yuca fresca en la ciudad de Barranquilla.A mayoristas y minoristas del mercado central y tenderos de algunos barrios, con el fin de conocer la estructura y el comportamiento de los canales de distribución de yuca fresca en la ciudad.Encuestas a tenderos y consumidores, para evaluar la aceptación del nuevo producto, yuca en bolsa, según muestras que les fueron suministradas.Encuestas a compradores usuales de un autoservicio quienes compraron la yuca en bolsa para conocer sus opiniones sobre el nuevo producto.Encuestas a tenderos que compraron yuca en bolsa en la cooperativa de tenderos de COOPERTIENDAS.Los resultados de las encuestas entre consumidores y tenderos luego de haber utilizado la yuca en bolsa fueron los siguientes:El 81% de los consumidores aseguran que esta nueva yuca en bolsa es de mejor calidad que la que habitualmente compran. El 89% dice que el tamaño de la bolsa de 4 kg es más apropiado porque se puede almacenar en casa manteniendo su calidad estable por dos semanas, evitándose así las compras diarias. El 98% respondió que continuarían comprando esta yuca en bolsa aunque el precio por libra fuera $4.00 más que la yuca suelta sin tratar.Los tenderos se mostraron igualmente impresionados con la yuca almacenable. De 20 ~enderos a los que se les vendió esta yuca, 19 dijeron preferir esta yuca porque asi no tendrían desperdicio y además podrían tener siempre yuca de buena calidad en existencia y aumentar sus ventas. 18 encuestados prefieren comprar bolsas grandes de 12.5 kg (una arroba) para almacenarla en sus tiendas y vender al consumidor al detal.Teniendo los resultados de los estudios preliminares se inició el proyecto piloto siguiendo el plan de actividades formulado anteriormente: Se determinaron y evaluaron las diferentes zonas de producción de' yuca con.el fin de conocer las variedades y clases de yuca óptimas para el mercadeo de yuca fresca. Esto se hizo en base a las informaciones suministradas por los mayoristas y acopiadores del mercado acerca de la procedencia de las yucas de mejor calidad y evaluando también la yuca de las zonas de influencia de las cuatro plantas de secado del departamento del Atlántico.Para el montaje del proyecto piloto fué seleccionado Repelón (Atlántico) por presentar unas caracteristicas especiales como eran: yuca de muy buena calidad, disponibilidad de riego todo el año y una organización de agricultores ya establecida, la Cooperativa de Producción y Mercadeo de Repelón (COOPROMERCAR).El equipo técnico alrededor del proyecto estaba compuesto por DRI, CIAT, lCA, lNCORA, CORFAS, CECORA, FlNANCIACOOP, caja Agraria, teniendo COOPROMERCAR acceso al crédito de producción mediante Caja Agraria y a crédito para comercialización por FlNANCIACOOP.Se capacitó a los socios de la Cooperativa COOPROMERCAR, en el manejo de la tecnologia de conservación y se establecieron los primeros contactos comerciales en Barranquilla con las Supertiendas Olimpica y la cadena de tenderos COOPERTIENDAS, iniciándose asi la primera fase semicomercial del proyecto.  El primer módulo planteó la creación de una distribuidora urbana que actuara como mayorista de yuca en bolsa y otros productos; entre otras funciones típicas del mayorista como compra y almacenamiento, la distribuidora debería seleccionar, reempacar el producto y promover la distribución del mismo de manera dinámica a tiendas, autoservicios e instituciones. Esta distribuidora estaría manejada por FAGROCOL. Los requerimientos iniciales de capital de trabajo fueron estimados en $5.100.000 pesos, de los cuales CORFAS solo financió $1.500.000 pesos.Para el segundo módulo se estableció un plan promocional que incluía publicidad masiva en televisión, radio y prensa, material publicitario como afiches y volantes, muestras gratis en los expendios, punto de vista fijo, impulsadoras en los supermercados y vendedoras a tiendas, todo esto tenía un costo estimado de $45.000.000 de pesos y se aspiraba llegar a comecializar unas 3.000 toneladas de yuca empacada al año.En vista de la limitación de recursos, las actividades del proyecto se limitaron al primer módulo, o sea el montaje y operación de lá distribuidora de yuca en GRANABAS TOS (Central de Abastos del Caribe) por parte de FAGROCOL utilizando entre otros recursos, el crédito parcial otorgado por CORFAS.El proyecto de conservación de yuca en bolsas de polietileno inició su tercer año de actividades en Agosto de 1989, comenzó la estrategia de comercialización, definiendo un centro de acopio y/o comercializadora administrado por FAGROCOL. Esta comercializadora está ubicada en la Gran Central de Abastos del Caribe (GRANABASTOS) y empezb actividades ello de Octubre de 1989. Se vincularon al proyecto personas con experiencia como es el caso de un coordinador de comercialización y un almacenista contratados por FAGROCOL, y dos impulsadoras para manejar la promoción de la yuca en los supermercados contratados por el CIAT. Se inició el mercadeo de la yuca en bolsa sin definir el uso'de la marca YUCAFRESKA, ya que esta se encontraba registrada a nombre de la Asociación de Productores y Procesadores (ANPPY). ANPPY exigió a FAGROCOL regalías por el uso de la marca por valor de 1% de las ventas del producto, condición que es rechazada por FAGROCOL y en el mes de Noviembre escogió la marca SUPERYUCA para identificar el producto que vendería.Se realizaron las siguientes actividades: l. Definición de los parámetros de calidad de yuca a manejar por el proyecto. 3. Se decidió cubrir la demanda total de yuca en bolsa de Carulla y promocionar el producto conjuntamente.4. Se consiguió normalizar una buena calidad de yuca empacada para ganar nuevamente la confianza de los clientes.En el mes de Noviembre se trazaron otras metas como fueron las de ampliar el mercadeo de yuca en bolsa a otras cadenas de supermercados y otros posibles clientes. Se inicio la venta de yuca a Supertiendas Olimpica: para ésto se tomó como modelo un solo supermercado, el más representativo, para poder atenderlo eficientemente en su demanda y con una buena promoción. Además, se empezó a negociar con la cadena de supermercados Magali Paris en Cartagena y otros supermercados más pequeños de Ciénaga, Santa Marta y Riohacha a través de un distribuidor.Además se iniciaron negociaciones con San Andrés a través de un distribuidor de Barranquilla DIVISA LTDA, Y se empezó a vender en la comercializadora de GRANABAS TOS a los tenderos, casinos, hoteles y amas de casa en general. El nuevo producto \"yuca tratada\" empacada en bolsas de polietileno manejada por FAGROCOL, empezó a ganar mercados en la Costa Atlántica, gracias al apoyo del DRI regional Atlántico y CORFAS. A medida que la demanda crecia la comercializadora se empezó a ver limitada en su capacidad operativa y económica.Limitación operativa. Al entrar a participar del proyecto varias organizaciones y tener demanda de varios clientes al mismo tiempo se presentaron los siguientes inconvenientes: a) Incumplimiento de las organizaciones en los volúmenes pactados debido principalmente a las condiciones climáticas, falta de transporte o especulaciones en el precio de la materia prima en el campo.b) Las organizaciones product9ras de yuca en bolsa, manejan diferentes criterios de selección y empaque en el campo, por lo tanto la presentación y calidad final del producto para el consumidor era muy variable.e) Cuando el producto llegaba del campo y FAGROCOL 10 sometia a selección y reempaque en el centro de acopio, resultaba un alto porcentaje de yuca que no cumplia con los parámetros de calidad exigidos por el proyecto y que la organización productora no reconocia ni asumia, teniendo que asumir FAGROCOL el total de estas pérdidas.Limitación Económica. El crédito solicitado para capital de trabajo fué $5.100.000 pesos del cual solo fueron otorgadas $1.500.000 por los motivos ya anotados. Con éste reducido capital de trabajo no fué posible satisfacer la demanda generada, ya que la rotación del capital con los supermercados fue muy lenta (15 dias o más), y FAGROCOL no disponia de otros recursos para financiar los gastos del proyecto (administrativos y de procesamiento), además que algunas organizaciones productoras condicionaban su participación a la entrega de anticipos para ellos comprar la yuca en el campo.En vista de las limitaciones presentadas, para que las organizaéiones pr~ductoras pudieran realizar eficientemente el tratamiento en el campo y cumplir correctamente con los volúmenes de yuca solicitados por FAGROCOL, fue necesario buscar otra alternativa de procesamiento. Esta alternativa consistió en realizar ensayos para adaptar el método de conservación a unas condiciones de proceso que permitieran manejar mayores volúmenes y efectuar mejor control sobre la calidad de la materia prima y el producto final. . Los resuLtados de estos ensayos abrieron la posibilidad de que se pudiera implementar esta nueva metodología de procesamiento y por I lo tanto FAGROCOL comenzó a utilizar este método en el mes de Noviembre de 1989 con volúmenes muy pequeños; a la vez, seguía haciéndolo también con el método tradicional de tratamiento en el I campo con el fin de comparar resultados.Posteriormente, en el mes de Mayo de 1990 el CIAT realiza ensayos I tendientes a comprobar la validez de la nueva metodología de conservación para lo cual hace pruebas en la Costa Atlántica y en el CIAT Palmira. Esta consiste en podar la yuca de 8 a 10 dias antes de la cosecha, cosechar y colocar en bolsas de polietileno.Al proceso tradicional de conservación con Mertect se le anade el bisulfito de sodio para controlar ataques bacterianos.Respecto a la limitación económica, se plantea la siguiente I alternativa: que FAGROCOL considere los proyectos de yuca (secado de yuca, yuca en bolsas y comercialización de yuca fresca) comoun solo proyecto de comercialización en general y así poder ocupar recursos disponibles como capital de trabajo para compra y venta de productos agrícolas en la comercializadora de la Centralde Abastos del Caribe (GRANABASTOS).El tener un espacio comercial en GRANABAS TOS le dió a FAGROCOL mayor acceso a los productores, comercializadores y compradores de yuca. Esto le permitió comprar y vender la yuca de las organizaciones socias de FAGROCOL mediante la siguiente estrategia:Comercializar grandes volúmenes de yuca fresca en GRANABASTOS manejando buena calidad y precios competitivos y hacerle el tratamiento de conservación en Barranquilla a la yuca que soliciten los clientes; para cumplir con esta estrategia se desarrollaron las siguientes actividades:Se capacitaron las organizaciones socias de FAGROCOL en cuanto a la forma de cosecha y empaque de la yuca para ser transportada a GRANABASTOS. Se hizo una promoc~on entre los supermercados, tenderos y minoristas de GRANABAS TOS sobre la yuca fresca que se vendería.Se capacitó a un grupo de personas para realizar el tratamiento de conservación en Barranquilla.Se acordó con los productores una programación de entregas y unos precios fijos por semana para garantizarle a los agricultores un precio justo que no estuviera sometido a la fluctuación diaria. Los precios eran concertados con los productores según los promedios semanales reportados por GRANABAS TOS y sus tendencias.La nueva estrategia de comercialización le permite a FAGROCOL comprar semanalmente volúmenes más altos de yuca abriendo la posibilidad de que las organizaciones socias vendan la yuca de buena calidad a un precio justo.Los agricultores se benefician de un mejor precio ya que la cooperativa u organización campesina les puede garantizar un precio estable sin intervención de intermediarios especuladores.FAGROCOL ha empezado a convertirse en el regulador del precio de la yuca en GRANABAS TOS y una competencia muy fuerte para los mayoristas tradicionales, hasta el punto que éstos se reunieron y mandaron una carta al director de GRANABAS TOS quejándose de que FAGROCOL vendía muy barato.Los compradores de yuca fresca están muy contentos ya que la yuca les dura más (gracias al método de cosecha con poda y empaque en polipropileno) y el precio es justo.Con las utilidades de la comercialización de yuca fresca en . GRANABAS TOS se ha podido financiar en parte el capital de trabajo para el proyecto de conservación de yuca en bolsas de polietileno.-Las organizaciones productoras aumentaron la eficiencia en el uso de la mano de obra y el transporte ya que en cada entrega se busca utilizar la capacidad de los camiones, aproximadamente 10 toneladas.El proyecto de producción y comercialización de yuca en bolsa se ha visto beneficiado con la nueva estrategia, ya que cuenta con materia prima disponible y de buena calidad para hacerle el tratamiento de conservación y cumplir con la demanda generada.De cada viaje de yuca que FAGROCOL recibe se utiliza entre el 20% y el 30% para tratamiento de conservación, lo demás es comercializado en fresco. Bajo las actuales condiciones de comercialización, FAGROCOL está en capacidad de comercializar 50 toneladas de yuca semanales de las cuales 15 toneladas serían utilizadas para el proyecto de producción de yuca en bolsa. Esto daría un total de yuca comercializada al año de 2.600 toneladas lo que representaría cerca del 10% del total de la yuca que consume Barranquilla al año. Para incrementar los volúmenes de producción y comercialización de yuca en bolsa, se hace necesario el apoyo financiero al proyecto para el montaje de una planta de procesamiento con capacidad de producción, que pueda satisfacer la demanda para la siguientes proyecciones.  --------------------------------------------  La durabilidad de este producto también abre la posibilidad de desarrollar nuevos mercados geograficos para la yuca fresca; asta posibilidad es muy atractiva, especialmente desde el punto de vista económico ya que los mercados del interior y de exportación ofrecen precios más altos. Mediante esta tecnología de conservación, la Costa Atlántica podría convertirse en la despensa yuquera de Colombia.Para que la expansión del proyecto se lleve a cabo es necesario que el fondo DRI busque la forma de financiar la publicidad masiva, de acuerdo al plan promocional claramente propuesto por el ClAT.Finalmente, el proyecto considera necesaria la participación de todas las organizaciones y/o agricultores de la Costa Atlántica que estén en condiciones de producir yuca de buena calidad. Para esto sería conveniente una comunicación del DRl nacional a las regionales de la Costa solicitando colaboración al desarrollo del proyecto, que no es un proyecto solamente del Atlántico sino de toda la Costa como lo demuestran las organizaciones productoras que están participando en él.La alta perecibilidad de la yuca la pone en desventaja en los mercados urbanos frente a otras fuentes de carbohidratos.La técnica de conservación desarrollada por el CIAT y el (ODNRI) de Gran Bretaña permite conservar frescas las raíces en una bolsa de pOlietileno hasta por dos semanas.El ClAT y el DRl se comprometieron a desarrollar el proyecto de conservac10n de yuca fresca en la Costa Atlántica a partir de Junio de 1987.El objetivo del proyecto era el de implementar la tecnología de conservación de yuca, desarrollando una metodologia aplicable a las condiciones de producción de los agricultores, creando un mercado estable para el producto y que la metodologia pueda ser replicada en otras regiones.En base a la estrategia de trabajo del ClAT se establecia primero el proyecto piloto con el fin de diseñar y evaluar la tecnología de procesamiento y la estrategia de comercialización a una escala reducida, para luego expandirla a una escala comercial.Durante el proyecto piloto se escogió como ejecutor a COOPROMERCAR grupo Cooperativo de Repelón Atlántico y en la segunda fase del proyecto, la fase de expansión y comercialización a mayor escala, se escogió como ejecutor a FAGROCOL (Federación de Organizaciones Agropecuarias de COlombia).El desarrollo del proyecto ha demostrado la validez de la técnica de conservación de yuca fresca usando bolsas de polietileno y el fungicida Mertect.Con la expansión del proyecto se vió la necesidad de cambiar la metodologia de hacer el tratamiento con Mertect en el campo por otra metodología que consiste en empacar en el campo en bolsas de polipropileno y al día siguiente aplicarle el Mertect en la ciudad.Esta nueva metodología ha sido validada por el CIAT por medio de ensayos en diferentes zonas.FAGROCOL, mediante una apropiada estrategia de comercialización, está en c~pacidad actualmente de producir alrededor de 800 toneladas al año de yuca tratada y puede aumentar su volumen siempre y cuando se lleve a cabo la campaña publicitaria que incluye publicidad masiva en radio, televisión y prensa, material publicitario, impulsadoras para supermercados y vendedores para tiendas.FAGROCOL necesita además presupuesto para el montaje de la planta de procesamiento que debe ser una bodega acondicionada para hacerle el tratamiento de conservación a la yuca.La yuca tratada puede ganar mercados en el interior del país y penetrar el exigente mercado de exportación, siempre y cuando se apoye el proyecto con el componente de producción seleccionando y promoviendo la siembra de variedades con potencial para el consumo humano y que presenten buenas caracteriasticas para la conservación tales como la P12 o la Chirosa; además se debe trabajar en las zonas de riego, como Repelón y María La Baja para lograr producción contínua durante todo el año.El futuro del proyecto depende de la disponibilidad de recursos para financiar la expansión hasta pasar el punto de equilibrio del volumen comercializado por mes. Se recomienda una decisión clara del DRI frente a esta inquietud. El proyecto requiere de una bodega adecuada para las operaciones del proceso, el cual permitiría el uso más eficiente de materiales y manos de obra. También requiere de suficiente capital de trabajo y una campaña promocional significativa.  FAGROCOL presta el servicio de contactación de mercado a las organizaciones asociadas que poseen plantas de secado. Durante el año de 1989 fueron colocadas 600 toneladas y en 1990 alcanzó 1000 toneladas. A finales de septiembre de 1989 comenzó a ejecutar el proyecto de yuca tratada para Barranquilla.CORFAS concedió un crédito de $2.600.000 para financiar la operación. Desde un comienzo, los recursos excedieron la capacidad de intervención de la Federación. El volumen de ventas se presupuestó suponiendo un apoyo publicitario que no fue posible por falta de financiación. También se presentaron problemas de deficiencia en la oferta, los volumenes comercializados fueron bajos.FAGROCOL asumió directamente el proceso técnico, realizándolo en . Barranquilla, y la tecnología se mejoró. Hubo garantía de conservación y mejoró la presentación del producto; las devoluciones de yuca deteriorada pasaron del 20% al 5%. La venta debe ser al contado porque los supermercados no pagan la yuca que se deteriora.El punto de equilibrio está en 26.61 toneladas mensuales, de manera que el proyecto no ha sido rentable, ni para FAGROCOL, ni para la persona que realiza el tratamiento.Por el lado de la demanda, el proyecto ha mantenido la expectativa; hay exportadores interesados en la compra del producto.El procesamiento fue ampliado a podar las plantas de yuca con 8 a 10 di as con antelación a la cosecha, y agregando al proceso tradicional, bisulfito de sodio para controlar ataques bacterianos.Como la ANPPY no autorizó el uso de la marca Yucafreska, FAGROCOL adoptó otra marca, pero ésta no ha sido registrada nacionalmente.Los volumenes intervenidos siguen estando por debajo del punto de equilibrio, se viene trabajando en la reducción de costos. Los precios actuales son superiores a los proyectados: $90/kg precio de venta a supermercados (6.5 toneladas/mes) y $120/kg en supermercados de Cartagena. El microempresario efectuando el tratamiento compra la yuca a $45/kg a FAGROCOL y la vende ya tratada a la misma FAGROCOL por $75/kg. En las tiendas se vende a $80/kg a través de un distribuidor, quien la compra al microempresario a $70/kg (3.5 toneladas mensuales).Las presentaciones del producto son: a) bolsas de 15 kgs para distribución a tenderos, y b) bolsas de 3 kgs con el nombre de Superyuca para los supermercados y ventas directas al consumidor.El micrempresario pica la yuca de descarte y la seca para venderla a la industria de concentrados.Se identificaron los siguientes problemas básicos: a) FAGROCOL no tiene las herramientas necesarias para disponer de una oferta continua de yuca de buena calidad.b) Existe una insuficiente conciencia cooperativa de las organizaciones de base. e) Se deben conseguir fondos para promoción y publicidad para Superyuca.f) La reformulación del proyecto debe contemplar un sistema de seguimiento de costos de tratamiento y comercialización.g) FAGROCOL debe tener un vehículo con capacidad de carga para facilitar sus labores de distribución.h) Dado el estado de iliquidez manifestado por FAGROCOL se recomienda solicitar a CORFAS el servicio de Auditoría externa.  ---------------------------------------------------------------- Molienda y mezcla de yuca seca para concentrados (Miguel Angel Viera)En la Costa Atlántica de Colombia se ha venido fomentando el establecimiento de empresas agro industriales para la producción de yuca seca, a través de un proyecto cooperativo entre el Fondo de Desarrollo Rural Integrado (DRI) y el Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), el cual busca promover el desarrollo agro industrial del cultivo de la yuca en esta región. Las empresas han sido constituidas por asociaciones o cooperativas de productores de yuca; actualmente hay más de 50 empresas distribuidas en toda la región enmarcada por el proyecto, comprendida por los departamentos de Córdoba, Sucre, Bolivar, Atlántico, Magdalena y Cesar.Resulta necesario ampliar el mercado del producto y para lograrlo se han considerado dos alternativas posibles. La primera consiste en captar los mercados del interior del país como Cali, Bogotá y Bucaramanga, donde existe la mayor demanda de materias primas fuentes de carbohidratos para alimentación animal y la segunda, promocionar la yuca seca en las zonas de producción con miras a crear nuevos mercados locales. La primera alternativa ya ha sido iniciada, pero se ha encontrado con la dificultad conocida como flete falso, ocasionada por la baja densidad de la yuca seca en forma de trozos, que incrementa los costos del transporte. Este problema se puede resolver en parte premoliendo los trozos secos hasta obtener un trozo más pequeño (trocito), aumentando la densidad, o realizando la molienda completa para producir harina.La otra opción es la de fomento de la producción pecuaria, la cual es explotada por los campesinos como actividad complementaria a la agricultura, por lo que se puede promocionar la yuca seca como fuente principal de energia en raciones para animales, las cuales se pueden distribuir entre los agricultores y pequeños productores pecuarios de la región.Para estudiar la factibilidad técnica y económica de implementar las dos alternativas mencionadas, se formuló este proyecto para el montaje de una planta piloto de molienda y mezcla en la Costa Atlántica.Implementar, adaptar y evaluar a escala piloto y en el medio rural una tecnología de molienda de la yuca para facilitar la comercialización y promover el empleo de la yuca a nivel local.Determinar la viabilidad técnica y económica de produc~r trocitos de yuca seca Y harina de yuca.Promocionar la venta de yuca en otras formas de presentación (trocitos y harina) con miras a captar mercados del interior del país.Estudiar la factibilidad técnica y económica de producir raciones balanceadas para animales, especialmente aves, en forma de harina para uso local, utilizando la yuca como fuente principal de carbohidratos.Estudiar el posible aprovechamiento de productos no tradicionales fuentes de proteína como el kudzu, guandul, ramio y otros de la región.Las actividades del proyecto se centraron en el establecimiento y operación de una planta piloto de molienda y mezcla en Betulia, Córdoba, con facilidades para producir trocitos y harina de yuca seca y raciones balanceadas para animales.Mediante el establecimiento y operación de la planta piloto se recolectó información confiable sobre los costos de inversión y de producción, se elaboró la cantidad necesaria para la promoción de los productos, se determinó la mejor manera de organizar y operar una empresa de esta naturaleza y se evaluó la tecnología de molienda y mezcla.Las actividades realizadas se clasifican en tres grupos: instalación de planta piloto, factibilidad de premolienda y molienda y factibilidad de elaboración de raciones para animales.La producción de trocitos y harina de yuca seca es'técnica y económicamente factible. La harina de yuca está limitada por su aceptación en el mercado, ya que el comprador corre el riesgo de que ésta sea contaminada por el productor. Tanto los trocitos como la harina reducen completamente el flete falso.Para la campaña de Diciembre 1989 a Abril de 1990, los costos totales de producción de trocitos y harina fueron de $73,786 y $74,158 por tonelada respectivamente. Para este mismo período, los trozos de yuca seca presentaron un costo total de producción de $72,000 por tonelada. Si el flete falso es del 20%, representa un sobrecosto por transporte de $2,250 por tonelada; por lo tanto, con la reducción del flete falso se paga la premolienda y la molienda.Se realizaron tres experimentos biológicos con alimentación de pollos de engorde, cada uno tuvo tres replicaciones en diferentes granjas con dos tratamientos por replicación, testigo y experimental. En el tratamiento testigo se utilizó una dieta comercial y en el tratamiento experimental una dieta a base de yuca seca. En cada experimento se utilizó una dieta a base de yuca diferente, por lo que se elaboraron tres dietas experimentales en la planta de concentrados de Betulia. La dieta experimental 2, usada en el experimento 2, con niveles de harina de yuca de 50.5% y 55% para las fases de iniciación y finalización respectivamente, reemplazó biológicamente a la dieta comercial: las otras dietas experimentales no compitieron con la dieta comercial. En cuan~o a ganancias por pollo durante 10$ experimentos, los resultados fueron similares, aunque lá dieta 2 presentó las mayores ganancias, incluso por encima de las obtenidas con la dieta comercial.Se hizo un análisis económico a 8 años, el primer año con una utilización de la capacidad instalada del 15%, incrementándola hasta alcanzar el 70% al sexto año. La capacidad instalada de la planta es de 1,600 toneladas al año. El análisis se hizo con los costos de producción de la dieta 2, actualizados para 1990. El precio de venta del alimento concentrado hecho en Betulia considerado en el análisis fué de $25.5 por kilo por debajo del precio de venta del alimento de marca. La tasa financiera de retorno (TFR) fué de $49%. También se efectuó un análisis de sensibilidad de la TFR a cambios en el costo de la materia prima y en el precio de venta del alimento, resultando el proyecto rentable hasta un costo de la materia prima de $145 por kilo y hasta un precio de venta de $150.00 por kilo, $29.5 por kilo por debajo del concentrado comercial.La elaboración de raciones a base de yuca para animales es otra actividad factible a nivel de pequeño productor. El mercado potencial para éstas raciones estimado en la zona es de 1.800 toneladas por año: pero la competencia del alimento de marca es fuerte.El proyecto fue ejecutado con la colaboración de varias instituciónes gUbernamentales y particulares. La coordinación fue compartida entre el DRI y el CIAT: por el DRI, el Gerente Regional de Sucre, por el CIAT el Jefe de la Sección de Utilización del Programa de Yuca. El liderazgo estuvo a cargo de un ingeniero contratado por el CIAT con dedicación a tiempo completo, quien se encargó del montaje y operación de la planta piloto, de coordinar la realización de las diferentes actividades del proyecto con los colaboradores de cada institución y de la asesoria en la elaboración de los productos.Las instituciones que intervinieron directamente en el proyecto fueron el ICA, CORFAS, ANPPY Y PMA. El lCA, facilitó los servicios de un medico veterinario y de una economista de hogar, coordinadora del programa de mujeres, con quienes se planeó y coordinó los experimentos biológicos, y 2 técnicos prácticos para la recolección de la información y control de estos experimentos.La colaboración de CORFAS y ANPPY fue en la evaluación de la disponibilidad de materias primas para la elaboración de las raciones y en la promoción de los productos de yuca seca.Los recursos económicos para la compra de las materias primas y adquisición y montaje de los equipos de la planta piloto fueron donados a fondo perdido por el PMA.El sistema contable del proyecto puede ser establecido durante una segunda fase con la asesoría del SENA o apoyo de un contador y éste sistema debe facilitar la realización rapida de las operaciones y los estados financieros de la empresa.La producción de trocitos o de harina de yuca seca para alimentación animal es técnica y económicamente factible y permite reducir en su totalidad el flete falso que se genera en el transporte de los trozos. El incremento en los costos de producción por la transformación de trozos a trocitos (premolienda) o de trozos a harina (molienda) es pagado por el ahorro en el flete falso. Por lo tanto, la premo1ienda y la molienda son alternativas que facilitan la distribución de la yuca seca a mercados más distantes de los lugares de producción, como a Cali, a Buga o a Bogotá. El factor limitante es la aceptación en el mercado para cualquiera de estas presentaciones: para trocitos ésta es buena, para la harina hay el riesgo de contaminación por parte de los productores con arena, tierra, caliza u otro, riesgo que los compradores prefieren no asumir por la dificultad de detectar estas impurezas.La máquina premoledora instalada en la planta de COOAPROBE no se evaluó completamente, por 10 que se recomienda culminar este trabajo durante la campaña 1990/1991 para determinar la distribución de la mano de obra en el proceso de secado y la reducción en el flete falso para vehículos de mayor capacidad.En cuanto a las raciones para consumo animal, es posible elaborar dietas en harina para pollos de engorde que sustituyan biológica y económicamente al concentrado comercial. Por lo tanto, la producción de raciones para animales a base de yuca seca es una actividad técnicamente y económicamente factible para las condiciones del estudio. El precio de venta debe mantenerse aproximadamente a $25/kg por debajo del precio del alimento , comercial para que el productor obtenga ganancias consistentes y se incentive a adquirir las raciones locales. El primer año se debe tener un mercado seguro estimado en 240 t, para el segundo año se debe duplicar la producción y continuar incrementándola hasta alcanzar el 70% de la capacidad instalada en el 6° año de vida del proyecto.Por lo anterior, es indispensable una estrategia eficaz de promoción del alimento para alcanzar los volumenes de venta durante el proyecto. Aunque el mercado potencial en la región es bueno (1.800 toneladas anuales), hay que enfrentar a la competencia de los grandes fabricantes de concentrados para animales y el mercado seguro es el del Programa de Mujeres que lidera el ICA en la zona. La forma de lograr los volumenes de venta para asegurar la rentabilidad del proyecto es crear un  mercado amarrado a la planta de concentrados mediante el fomento de la actividad pecuaria. La idea es montar una granja experimental para 5.000 pollos, administrada por COOAPROBE o por la ANPPY o por las 6 cooperativas que existen en Betulia. Esta granja se puede aprovechar para realizar eventos divulgativos y demostrar a los productores pecuarios las bondades del alimento local. El rCA puede realizar otras investigaciones biológicas con otras materias primas no tradicionales de consecución en la región.La demanda de materia prima de la granja experimental y de los productores del Programa de Mujeres, es de 258 tjaño, que constituye las ventas del primer año del proyecto. La granja puede ser diseñada por el rCA, y CORFAS puede encargase del estudio de factiblidad y preparar la propuesta para la segunda fase del proyecto.Resulta obvio que la planta no pueda competir con los grandes fabricantes de concentrado que tienen cautivo el mercado, por lo que la granja experimental es una salida viable para este proyecto. CORFAS o FINANCIACOOP puede financiar este propuesta. s -.Produce ion y mercadeo de harina de yuca para consumo humano (Fase 11) Miguel Angel Viera, Raul Moreno, Jase Martelo La etapa de desarrollo de productos para harina de yuca se inició en la Fase de Investigación o Fase 1 de este proyecto, cuyo objetivo principal era el de determinar las condiciones técnicas y requeridas para el desarrollo de la agro industria rural de harina de yuca. La Fase I incluyó estudios del sistema de producción de yuca y de mercadeo en la Costa Atlántica de Colombia, ensayos en fincas de tecnología mejorada de producción de yuca, estudios económicos de la industria molinera y de panaderia, el desarrollo de una planta procesadora a pequeña escala para la producción de harina de yuca de alta calidad, y ensayos a nivel laboratorio y de aceptación por parte del consumidor de productos de panadería en base a harina compuesta.A grandes rasgos, el proceso diseñado consta de los siguientes pasos: selección y adecuación de las raíces de yuca, lavado y pelado mecánico, trozado, secado artificial, premolienda, molienda y clasificación y empaque.La segunda fase el proyecto, la cual se ejecuta por parte del CIAT, UNIVALLE, y el DRI, busca integrar los componentes de producción, procesamiento y mercadeo del sistema de harina de yuca bajo las condiciones socioeconómicas reales de una región cultivadora de yuca. Los objetivos específicos son los siguientes: implementar, ajustar y evaluar a escala piloto en un contexto rural, la tecnología desarrollada para la producción de trocitos de yuca y harina de yuca ensayar, a escala comercial, y demostrar a agricultores, la tecnología mejorada y sostenible de producción de yuca en asociación con ñame y/o maíz en la region de la Costa Atlántica, asegurando también asi, un suministro adecuado de raíces para la planta piloto identificar y estudiar los mercados para la harina de yuc~ y promover su uso en estos mercados estimar la factibilidad de establecer una agroindustria rural de harina de yuca Los profesionales financiados por el DRI tiene bajo su cargo la realización de las actividades correspondientes a los primeros dos objetivos mencionados.Establecimiento de la planta piloto de harina de yuca (Miguel Angel Viera) Este informe contiene la descripción de las actividades realizadas en la Costa Atlántica en el establecimiento de la planta piloto. Las actividades descritas se llevaron a cabo El establecimiento de la planta piloto en la Costa Atlántica comenzó con la selección del sitio y la organización campesina coejecutora del proyecto. Los siguientes criterios se usaron para seleccionar un escenario apropiado para la planta p'iloto: disponibilidad de tierras, potencial para aumentar los rendimientos de la yuca, disponibilidad de raices de yuca, potencial para obtener yuca durante la mayor parte del año, infraestructura de servicios, proximidad a mercados terminales, presencia institucional, importancia socioeconómica de la yuca, y apoyo institucional actual. Se propusieron seis escenarios en la Costa Atlántica originalmente pero se descartaron dos. Se diseñó e implementó un cuestionario para recoger información en las cuatro sedes restantes: Chinú (Córdoba), San Juan de Bettilia (Sucre), Palmar de Varela (Atlántico), y Pivijay (Magdalena), con el fin de evaluarlas de acuerdo a los criterios anteriores. La selección del sitio se efectuó entre Febrero a Marzo de 1989 y se escogió a Chinú (Corregimiento de los Algarrobos) para realizar la obra: como coejecutora se vinculó a COOPROALGA (Cooperativa de 2. Diseño final de la planta piloto Entre Mayo, Junio y Julio de 1989 se contrató a una firma de Arquitectos de Sincelejo (Sucre) para realizar el diseño final de la planta piloto, resultando el paquete de planos técnicos y arquitectónicos, cantidades de materiales y presupuesto estimado para la construcción de la planta y los estudios topográficos y de suelos del terreno necesario para el diseño.Una vez realizado el diseño final de la planta, se escogió a un constructor para llevar a cabo la obra. Para hacer esta selección, se preparó una lista de 10 constructores (natúra1es o sociedades) sacados del directorio telefónico. De esta lista con el apoyo del DRI Regional de Sucre, se escogieron 6 constructores, quienes fueron invitados a cotizar la construcción de la planta piloto. A cada constructor se le entregó un paquete de planos de construcción, las cantidades de materiales y las especificaciones de la obra. De estos 6 constructores, 3 presentaron las propuestas para la construcción de la planta, de éstas se seleccionó la mejor de acuerdo con el menor tiempo de entrega de la obra, menos costo del proyecto y la experiencia en construcciones.Seleccionado el constructor, se realizaron los trámites para su contratación. Todo este proceso demoró cuatro meses, desde Agosto a Noviembre de 1989.La construcción duró tres meses, iniciándose el 22 de Diciembre de 1989 y terminándose el 22.de Marzo de 1990. Para supervisar la construcción de la planta se contrató a un inspector de obra de tiempo completo durante cuatro meses (Enero a Abril) para evitar demoras en la obra. La interventoria fué realizada por el CIAT.En la TABLA 1 se presenta el cronograma de la construcción de la planta piloto. En el transcurso de la construcción hubo necesidad de realizar algunas obras adicionales para mayor estabilidad de la obra y para satisfacer algunas demandas del proceso. Estas obras fueron: dos vigas de refuerzo, canales y andenes laterales para evitar el deterioro de la obra por las lluvias y una columna para techar la zona de los quemadores de carbón.El traslado y montaje de los equipos de la planta se hizo entre Marzo y Abril y la planta estuvo lista para su arranque el 23 de Abril. Los costos totales de inversión se presentan en la TABLA 2.Todos los equipos del proceso, excepto la unidad de calor, fueron diseñados por la Universidad del Valle y construidos por el CIAT. La unidad de calor, conformada por un ventilador y unquemador con intercambiador de calor, se compró a un fabricante nacional.Aunque se consideró realizar el diseño de un quemador de carbón aprovechando la experiencia obtenida en este campo por el grupo técnico del CIAT, se descartó esta alternativa por dos factores. El primero, la falta de tiempo para diseñar, construir y probar un quemador de carbón y el segundo, la pérdida de replicabilidad del proyecto ya que el equipo no seria comercial y habría que repetir el diseño cuando cambiara la capacidad de la planta. En cambio, seleccionar y probar un equipo existente en el mercado en modelos para una gama de capacidades de producción, es conveniente porque se empieza a crear la oferta. Entonces, se buscó a un fabricante de quemadores de carbón que tuviera experiencia en el diseño de estos equipos para el secado de yuca y deseos de colaborar con el proyecto. A este fabricante, localizado en la ciudad de Bogotá, se le compró la unidad de calor.Se le encargó al Consejo de Administración de COOPROALGA la selección, contratación y liquidación del personal de la planta piloto. Este personal está conformado por un Jefe de Planta, un Jefe de Producción, tres operarios y un vigilante para las horas de la noche. Fijar las políticas de producción y ventas.Autorizar el pago de las obligaciones contrafdas por la empresa; riJar pollt:eas de desarrollo de personal e incentivos.Analizar los estados financieros.Elaborar en compañfa del Consejo de Administración el presupuesto de la empresa.Elaborar estudios de inversión.Mantenerse informado de las polfticas de cambio que se presenten.Controlar los stocks de producto final.Satisfacer oportunamente las pérdidas.10-Elaborar la facturación de los productos vendidos.11• Elaborar las cotizaciones requeridas por los clientes y, en general ser el intermediario entre t8 empresa y tos clientes.12-Solicitar al Consejo de Administración el nombramiento o remoción del personal al servicio de la empresa.  Atender las consultas que sobre las órdenes le haga el personal.Llevar estadlsticas,de producción. 1-Recibir y preparar la materia prima.Preparar ta maquinaria y elementos y realizar las operaciones de transformación.Mantener en orden el puesto de trabajo.5-Cumplir con las normas de seguridad. FUNCION PRINCIPAL:Moler y almacenar el producto.1• Recibir y controlar la calidad de los productos que entran a te bodega.Hacer muestreos y determ¡nac;ones de humedad de los productos que entran y permanecen en bodega.Almacenar y realizar los despachos de produetos.Manejar la máqui~a que realiza la operación de molienda y empacar el producto.Verificar el funcionamiento adecuado de la maqUinaria.6-Cumplir con las normas de seguridad.El segundo día se continua el secado desde las 7 am hasta las 12 m. De 12 m a 2 pm, un operario realiza el descargue y empaque de la yuca seca y desocupa y limpia las cámaras para recibir el lote siguiente.Para ejecutar estas labores, se han asignado 2 turnos de 10 horas cada uno. El operario del quemador trabaja de 6 am a 4 pm; los otros 3 operarios, quienes son los que manipulan la materia prima, trabajan de 9 am a 7 pm. A las 6 pm entra el vigilante y éste se encarga de alimentar el quemador de carbón y continuar el secado hasta las 9 pm.7. Limitaciónes en el suministro de agua para la planta Este esquema de operación funcionó los primeros dias del arranque, pero no se pudo continuar por la falta de agua en la planta. Este problema de la falta de agua se manifestó en la construcción de la obra. Cuando se hizo la encuesta de la selección del sitio, se entrevistó a los miembros de la Junta Administradora del acueducto veredal, a quienes se les solicitó el servicio de agua para la planta. Desde esa época (Febrero a Abril de 1989) hasta Marzo de 1990, las condiciones cambiaron; los miembros de la Junta Administradora fueron sustituidos por personas de San Mateo, cuando antes estaba conformada por representantes de las tres veredas que utilizan el servicio (san Mateo, Algarrobos y Pajonal). Esta nueva Junta aprobó el suministro de agua durante la construcción y para la operación de la planta, pero la comunidad de San Mateo en Asamblea General de Socios decidió suspender el servicio con el pretexto del agotamiento del pozo por el consumo de agua de la planta. Ante este inconveniente, las directivas de la cooperativa (COOPROALGA) decidieron apoyar la idea de dotar a la planta piloto de un pozo propio. Con esta iniciativa, se construyeron 2 pozos someros de 10m de profundidad cada uno distanciados 100 m entre si, localizados a 2 km de la planta piloto. De este mismo acuífero se surte el acueducto de la cabecera municipal de chinú.Esta alternativa ya iniciada requiere un monto de Col.$7.200.000 para su culminación, incluyendo la construcción de un tanque elevado para suministrar el servicio de agua a la comunidad de Algarrobos. En la TABLA 8 se desglosa este presupuesto; del primer punto (sondeo y pozo definitivo) ya ejecutado, COOPROALGA debe $1.600.000 (el 50%) y falta el dinero para realizar los otros puntos. Por ahora, para al menos dotar de agua a la planta, se necesitan Col. $3.060.000 para pagar el saldo por la perforación de los pozos, adquirir la motobomba y la manguera para transportar el agua hasta la planta; el tanque elevado puede esperar.Por la falta de agua, la yuca seca producida se ha destinado para el consumo animal, que se está vendiendo a $88/kilo, empacada y puesta en Medellin. Entre el 23 de Abril y el 31 de Mayo se procesaron 24 lotes, un total de 43.405 kilos de yuca fresca para un total de 13.067 kilos de yuca seca, lo que da un factor de conversión promedio de 3.322. Este factor de conversión es alto debido a la inexperiencia de los operarios para realizar la selección y adecuación, a la alta humedad de la yuca cosechada en épocas de lluvias (especialmente la variedad P12), y a las pérdidas de materia prima en el proceso.Los costos de producción se presentan en la TABLA 9, Y el precio de la materia prima puesta en la planta se da en la TABLA 10. Los precios de la materia prima fueron pactados con los agricultores vinculados al proyecto mediante las parcelas de preproducción en Diciembre de 1989, esperando que las fuerzas del mercado incrementaran el precio entre $2 a $4 por kilo con respecto al precio en época de cosecha ($20 por kilo). El flete se estimó en $3.500 por tonelada pero resultó más alto debido a la poca cantidad de materia prima que demanda la planta. Esto, más la venta de la yuca seca al mercado para consumo animal a un precio más bajo, produjo pérdidas que alcanzaron aproximadamente a los $1.100.000.Por lo anterior, es necesario bajar el precio de la materia prima para hacer rentable el proyecto, que actualmente está en $21 por kilo debido a que la producción de yuca seca este año fue buena. La yuca fresca se puede adquirir puesta en planta a este precio, sin pagar flete y en épocas de cosecha (Diciembre-Abril) al precio que pagan las plantas de secado para consumo animal. También es posible adquirir durante la cosecha la materia prima seleccionada para bajar el factor de conversión.Además de la materia prima, otros factores que se pueden controlar se mencionan en la TABLA 11. Para reducir el consumo del carbón (en este periodo del arranque se utilizó carbón mineral a $20.500 por tonelada puesto en planta) es fundamental la adquisición de experiencia en el manejo del quemador; otro factor es que el equipo fue diseñado para quemar carbón coque y se ha estado probando con carbón mineral.La capacitación del personal de la planta se está solicitando al SENA, entidad encargada de esta función dentro de los proyectos con campesinos que coordina el fondo DRI. El SENA ha cambiado de estrategia en los programas de capacitación; antes se progra~aban cursos sin conocer las necesidades de la organización campes~na. Ahora, primero se hace un diagnóstico y luego se programan los cursos.Por lo anterior, primero se debe conocer qué capacitación demanda el proyecto para luego preparar el paquete de cursos. Este paquete debe contener los siguientes puntos: F l e t e ro tal ----------------------------------------------------------- En el área de proceso y manejo de la planta, la capacitación la está haciendo el CIAT con los operarios en servicio.El SENA, mediante convenio con el Fondo DRI, ha capacitado a más de 40 jóvenes hijqs de socios o socios de las organizaciones campesinas de toda la Costa Atlántica, en Promotoría de Proyectos Asociativos. Los cursos fueron dictados en Armenia (Quindío), con una duración de 4 meses y las organizaciones pagaron parte del sostenimiento de sus enviados. COOPROALGA, por ser ejecutora de este proyecto, se benefició enviando a dos socios jóvenes a estos cursos. Actualmente, uno de estos jovenes que terminó el curso es el gerente de COOPROALGA y está colaborando con el manejo de la contabilidad de la planta piloto.Para el período de operación de la planta piloto que cubre este informe, desde el 23 de Abril hasta el 31 de Mayo, la información obtenida permite ajustar factores del proyecto para que todo salga bien, más no permite obtener conclusiones definitivas.Las funciones que se han asignado al personal de la planta no son un limite a las funciones que un empleado pueda desempeñar, si no una guia para la evaluación.El quemador de carbón se va a operar con carbón coque para establecer comparaciones entre este combustible y el carbón mineral, y hacer la selección en base al costo.La compra de materia prima se ajustará a las condiciones reales del mercado; en épocas de cosecha (Diciembre-Abril), se adquirirá puesta en planta al precio que estén pagando las plantas de secado para consumo animal, aunque es posible comprar yuca seleccionada a un precio mejor (1 a 2 $/kg por encima). En épocas de no cosecha se comprará al precio del mercado.Informe de producción de yuca (1989)(1990) (Raul Moreno y Jose Martelo) Durante 1990, se ha finalizado el análisis de cuatro años de experimentación para el asocio de maíz con yuca. Durante este periodo se estudió la adaptabilidad relativa de nuevas variedades de maíz para asociarse con yuca, en comparación con las variedades tradicionales de maíz.Se han analizado un total de 479 parcelas en las que se incluyen tanto los cultivos solos como las asociaciones entre yuca y maíz. Lo que resalta a primera vista acerca del CUADRO 1 es la poca disminución en los rendimientos de la yuca cuando se asocia con maiz y la poca diferencia en los rendimientos de yuca cuando se asocia con variedades mejoradas o con tradicionales. Esta última diferencia, de solo una tonelada, resultó significativamente diferente en terminos estadísticos debido al gran número de repeticiones que se analizaron en todos los años que duró el experimento.El otro aspecto que resalta en el CUADRO 1 es el relativamente bajo rendimiento de la yuca en cultivo individual. Esta yuca se sembró con tecnología relatívamente buena en cuanto a selección y calidad de semilla, ademas del control de malas hierbas. Con estos rendimientos relatívamente bajos de yuca en cultivo individual, es muy explicable la tendencia de los agricultores al asocio. En las condiciones actuales de rendimiento de yuca y considerando también los rendimientos del maíz, que se encuentran resumidos en el CUADRO 2, se pueden lograr valores para el Indice de Uso Equivalente de Tierra (UET) de 1.72 hasta 1.77. Es decir, que para obtener con cultivos individuales lo mismo que se obtiene actualmente en asocio, se necesitaría entre un 72 a un 77% más de tierra cultivada. En una situación de escasez del recurso tierra, tal como la que existe en la Costa Atlántica, la decisión de los agricultores de intercultivar parece la mejor opción de producción y es poco probable que cambie si todo el entorno socio-económico permanece inalterado. En el análisis combinado del factor \"años\" y el factor \"localidad\" o \"agricultor\" se ha encontrado que la interacción de años x rendimiento es de mayor significancia y peso relativo que la interacción localidad x rendimiento. Esto indica que es de esperar una mayor variabilidad en rendimientos de estas especies, ya en cultivo individual o en asocio por efecto de las diferencias ambientales (principalmente precipitación) de año con año, antes que dentro de un año y entre las diferentes fincas. De todas formas, existe interacción significativa entre localidad x rendimiento, 10 que indica la alta especificidad de lugar para la aplicación de una recomendación técnica en la Costa Atlántica. En otras palabras, las variedades y la tecnología con que se sembraron, responden en forma significatívamente diferente segun la finca en que se siembre. Por ello, antes de lanzar una recomendación técnica de amplia aplicabilidad para la Costa Atlántica, es necesario disponer de una buena clasificación ambiental, que permita preveer el comportamiento de esta recomendación en los diferentes microambientes de la Costa. Si se desea separar el efecto de variedades de maíz, se observa que no existe diferencia a lo menos entre dos de ellas, que estuvieron siempre presentes en los experimentos a 10 largo de los 4 años. Estas son: V-156 y V-l09, más la variedad tradicional. Es posible que si se ampliase el rango de  -----------------------------------------------------------------~uca + maíz V-156 10.9 a 1/ 2.49 a Yuca + maíz V-109 10.9 a 2.35 a Yuca + maíz tradicional 9.9 a 1.97 b 1/ Las cantidades seguidas por letras iguales no difieren entre si estadísticamente, segun la prueba de Duncan (0.05).En el CUADRO 3 se aprecia en primer lugar una disminución relativa, aunque no significativa, en el rendimiento de la yuca, cuando se intercultiva con una variedad de maíz tradicional. En segundo lugar, se observa que no hay diferencias, desde el punto de vista de la yuca, de intercultivarla con la variedad V-156 o V-l09. Entre estas dos últimas variedades, tampoco se observan diferencias en cultivo individual. Pero en donde sí se observan diferencias es en el cultivo individual de variedades mejorada y tradicionales de maíz.Es decir, que a pesar de que los maíces mejorados que ahora están disponibles para los agricultores de la Costa Atlántica de Colombia, fueron desarrollados para sistemas pricipalmente de monocultivo, el asocio de ellos con yuca también significa una mejora en rendimientos de maíz para los agricultores, además de un incremento indirecto en los rendimientos de la yuca, de aproximadamente una tonelada.El potencial real de rendimiento de las variedades mejoradas de maíz se obtiene cuando éstas se cultivan bajo buenas condiciones de manejo. En experimentos anteriores, la fertilización a las variedades mejoradas de maíz que estaban en intercultivo con yuca, había dado buenos resultados en términos de rendimientos, tanto de maíz como de yuca.La fertilización de especies que se encuentran en asocio es un problema técnico de cierta complicación, pues no siempre los integrantes de una asociación entre especies tienen los mismos requisitos en terminos de tipo, cantidades, época y forma de aplicación de los fertilizantes. En realidad, existe muy poca información en la literatura acerca de este tipo de fertilización.El lCA dispone de recomendaciones técnicas para fertilizar maíz en la Costa Atlántica y se decidió probar esas recomendaciones para fertilizar la asociación de maíz con yuca. Estas recomendaciones fueron diseñadas para suelos con diversas condiciones de fertilidad. Se pensó que si existe un cultivo básico que los agricultores fertilizarían en un futuro próximo, éste sería el maíz y no necesariamente la yuca. Es posible que los agricultores fertilizen la yuca en un futuro mucho más mediato que el maíz, debido principalmente a problemas entre oferta y demanda por el producto, que afecta indudablemente a la demanda por tecnología para producirla mejor.Tratando de encontrar una recomendación técnica para fertilizar maíz/yuca en la Costa Atlántica, se llevó a cabo un experimento. Este experimento se realizó en tres fincas, clasificadas como de fertilidad baja, media y alta, de acuerdo principalmente con el contenido de materia orgánica de sus suelos; se seleccionaron luego de analizar los suelos de varias fincas.Las características de los suelos de estas fincas se encuentran resumidos en el CUADRO 4.  Las cantidades de fertilizantes aplicadas a la asociac10n de yuca/maíz en cada una de estas fincas se especifica en el CUADRO 5. En cada finca se hicieron 4 repeticiones y el fertilizante solo se aplicó en bandas al maíz cuando este tenía entre 15 y 20 cm de altura.Las fincas se encontraban a relatívamente poca distancia una de las otras, a fin de disminuir el efecto de diferencias entre ellas en cuanto a cantidad y distribución de la precipitación, que es probablemente el factor ambiental que mayor incidencia tiene en los resultados de la investigación con fertilizantes. Como resultado de la aplicación de fertilizantes se encontró una respuesta alta y significativa del maíz, tal como se aprecia en el CUADRO 6. A mayor cantidad de fertilizantes aplicados no correspondió realmente un mayor rendimiento del maíz que estaba asociado con la yuca. Sin embargo, la diferencia entre los tratamientos de fertilización y la no fertilización o testigo absoluto fue considerable, del nivel de más de una ton/ha de maíz en favor de los fertilizados. Se registró un incremento en la altura de plantas de yuca que se encontraban asociadas con el maíz fertilizado, pero estas diferencias no resultaron estadísticamente significativas. Consecuentemente, tampoco el índice de cosecha de la yuca se afectó por la fertilización que se le hizo al maíz.Uno de los problemas mayores de la fertilización a cualquier especie que se encuentre en asocio con yuca lo constituye el hecho de que frecuentemente la respuesta de la yuca consiste en una disminución en el índice de cosecha. Esto es especialmente cierto para el caso de fertilización nitrogenada, que es precisamente aquella a la que el maíz responde en forma más fre~uente en fincas de pequeños agricultores.Como la respuesta de la yuca a la fertilización no fue significativa, se puede intentar un análisis económico del efecto de la fertilización al maíz, sin considerar los rendimientos de la yuca. Esto da una idea aproximada de la posible rentabilidad de la fertilización al maíz intercultivado, aunque para tener una idea completa de la rentabilidad del sistema habría que incluir los resultados de la yuca (Ver CUADRO 8).El menor nivel de fertilización que se aplicó resultó mucho más rentable que los otros. Con esto se demuestra que es posible elevar los rendimientos del maíz en asociación con yuca usando la misma recomendación de fertilización que ya existe para maíz como monocultivo y ésto no c~usa problemas de rendimiento a la yuca que esta asociada.   (Marzo 15, 1990).","tokenCount":"10849"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6b2d413dcae62e969b54ea0c041b0e33","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/79894935-ef05-45ac-8903-0bf4608db84c/content","id":"1745956719"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"233ddaa5-9cdb-4202-bfb2-68b4a0408cdf","pagecount":"48","content":"The increasing capabilities of Artificial Intelligence-augmented data analytics present significant opportunities for agricultural extension organizations operating in the Global South. In this project, we supported Farm Radio International (FRI) in investigating the possibility of automating the process of translating and analyzing farmers' voice message data. This report reviews several approaches to overcoming technical constraints and then presents a cutting-edge approach that utilizes innovations in unsupervised learning to deliver highly accurate speech recognition and machine translation in a diverse set of languages.The increasing capabilities of information communication technologies and big data analytics present significant opportunities for agricultural extension organizations operating in the Global South. Existing trajectories, however, are toward large, highly productive farms in the Global North. There is a need for work in AI to expand the application of tools for smallholder farmers in the South while remaining conscious of the implications of the digital divide, to which many have limited access.Farm Radio International (FRI), a Canadian NGO, has hosted over 700 talk-radio shows in 40 countries across sub-Saharan Africa. Not only do they broadcast discussions between experts on local problems, but they also receive and answer questions from farmers about their practices and demands.Unfortunately, a significant portion of these responses goes unanswered. It is the intention of this report to investigate the possibility of automating the process of translating and analyzing this data, to propose a tool to seamlessly collect rich information from a broad pool of farmers, and subsequently design better-suited and longer-lasting interventions.Many of Africa's 2000 languages, however, remain what is called 'low-resource' or those with limited training data upon which to build and train AI models. In this report, we review several approaches to overcoming these constraints, including transfer learning and crowdsourcing data. We then present a cutting-edge approach that utilizes innovations in unsupervised learning to deliver highly accurate speech recognition and machine translation in a diverse set of languages.We then evidence this through a series of experiments using real-world examples of FRI data in Swahili and Hausa and include a corpus linguistics method for gaining insight from this data at scale. The Common Voice project employs crowdsourcing for both data collection and data validation, becoming one of the largest corpora in the public domain for SR, both in terms of the number of hours and the number of languages. A team of researchers from some of the largest NLP groups, including Google AI and Hugging Face-built XLS-R. It is a tool based on 436K hours of speech in 128 different languages, using data from across the largest open-source repositories, including Common Voice. These data are 'pre-trained,' allowing the model to recognize patterns in the unlabeled data, then they are fine-tuned for a specific task using a limited set of labeled data. To the best of their knowledge, they state, 'this is the largest effort to date in making speech technology accessible for many more languages using publicly available data, with the largest contribution being toward low and medium source languages.The report surveys a series of different SR models, including Google as a baseline, with the most accurate results being delivered by the XLS-R. This is followed by an analysis of the keywords and their context within an existing FRI corpus in answer to the question; if you had more power to change things, what would you do to make life better for farming families?The increasing capabilities of information communication technologies and big data analytics present significant opportunities for agricultural extension organizations operating in the Global South [1]. Their goal is to improve sustainability, boost economic growth, reduce food insecurity, inequality, and poverty, and increase resilience in poorer communities with minimal cost to biodiversity and the planet [2,3]. These have historically been constrained, however, by the practical challenges of accurately gaining insight into farmer demands and providing effective and useful knowledge accordingly [4]. This is of particular concern as a new wave of young, educated farmers enter the industry, who may be motivated by sustainability but lack practical skills. Significant work is being conducted in Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to support farmers whilst mitigating their challenges [5][6][7]. This includes machine learning for the prediction of extreme weather events, leading to early warning systems [8]. Precision agriculture is allowing farmers to process immense amounts of data to deliver highly granular treatments to crops, reducing costs and environmental damage [9]. Existing trajectories are, however, toward large, highly productive farms in the Global North [10]. Lowder et al. [11] established that 95% of farmers are smallholders operating on less than 2 hectares of land, 70% of which are based in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), Latin America, and South Asia. There is a need for work in AI to expand the application of tools for smallholder farmers in the South whilst remaining conscious of the implications of the digital divide, where many have limited access [12].According to Heldert [7], of particular concern is the need to build diverse literacies and multiple languages. Audio and visual tools may help in providing information to users with different levels of literacy, limited time, resources, or lack of travel opportunities to gather information elsewhere. It is suggested that there is only one agricultural extension agent per 3000 clients in SSA [13]. Radio operates as a vital lifeline for Africa's vast rural populations, providing a variety of services, including information sharing, discussion, advocacy, and capacity building. It is also a space for public discourse, garnering significant information for development agencies regarding the perception of their interventions [14]. The advancement of AI for smallholder farmers was a significant theme in the UN's recent report on data governance for food and nutrition [15], and several scholars and development professionals have come to understand analog radio technologies as the vehicle for change [14,16,17].Farm Radio International (FRI), a Canadian NGO, has hosted over 700 talk-radio shows in 40 countries across sub-Saharan Africa. They work on the principle that 'Farmers have a lot to say', and 'as nations, organizations, and individuals, we all must commit to listening and taking action together' [18]. As such, not only do they broadcast discussions between experts on local problems, but they also receive and answer questions from farmers about their practices and demands. In a recent project, FRI partnered with six radio stations in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Tanzania, and Uganda, to ask small-scale farmers, vendors, processors, marketers, and others how the food system should be changed to meet their needs and the needs of their communities. Nearly 12,000 responses were recorded [18]. Unfortunately, a significant portion of these responses goes unanswered, as without the staff to manually translate each phone call, the information remains inaccessible. This presents a vast and rich dataset, speaking directly to the needs and desires of smallholders. It is the intention of this report to investigate the possibility of automating the process of translating and analyzing this data and to propose a tool to seamlessly collect rich information from a broad pool of farmers, leading to better-suited and longer-lasting interventions.Africa alone has over 2000 languages [19], with 75 having at least 1 million speakers [20]. In the development of natural language processing (NLP) for African languages, the AI domain focused on issues of speech and translation, but this has been slow predominantly due to a lack of training data from which the machine can learn. Other problems include limited funding, challenges of discovery and access to existing tools and data, absence of benchmarks, and poor reproducibility of ongoing studies [19]. In tackling these, developing further datasets and working in collaboration with local language experts may speak to the diverse needs of multiple literacies, languages, and cultures [7]. Significant opportunities have arisen in recent years due to the development of unsupervised pretraining techniques [21].In the following sections, this report will detail ongoing research in speech recognition, machine translation, and computational linguistics before describing and testing an approach to processing and analyzing farmer telephone calls at scale. Swahili and Hausa were selected as test languages, with details included on how to expand this into other under-resourced African languages. It is hoped that this report will serve as a proof of concept for the implementation of the tool by FRI and the potential for a larger research project on the needs of farmers across Africa.The two languages selected for this proof of concept were Swahili and Hausa. These represent the largest languages in the East and West of Africa, respectively, and are sufficiently large that they can be tested using the best and most reliable data and models.Swahili has 100 to 150 million speakers [22]. It is a Bantu language that serves as both a first and second language to various groups and incorporates Arabic, Persian, German, Portuguese, English, and French vocabulary [23]. It is spoken in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique, Somalia, and the DRC, each having its own dialect that differs in both vocabulary and structure [22].Hausa is from the Chadic language family [24] and has more first-language speakers than any other Sub-Saharan African language [25]. It is spoken by 100 million people in Nigeria, the Republic of Niger, Cameroon, Togo, Chad, Benin, Burkina Faso, and Ghana [24]. One-quarter of the vocabulary is drawn from Arabic with English and French influences [24]. It is widely considered to be the Lingua Franca in West Africa [25]. It has its own Latin-based alphabet, known as Boko, and distinguishes between short and long vowels, which can also affect word meaning but cannot be written [24], presenting a problem for NLP interpretation.Speech recognition (SR) is the first and foremost process in designing the FRI tool. SR can account for specific words, be focused on identifying specific traits of the speaker, or be used to translate entire conversations into text infinitely [26]. The goal of this report is to take the audio data and transcribe it in the respective language. This presents a challenge as, while more widely spoken western languages have received significant investment in the production of different training datasets, there are limited resources for less spoken languages, including those from the global South. SR has received increased attention in recent years, however, as voice is expected to overtake keyboards in order to overcome issues of illiteracy and blindness [26]. The best voice recognition software can reportedly achieve as high as 97% accuracy in English, while Google, Microsoft, and IBM Watson are all disclosing accuracy of around 95% and increasing [27].The process of building an SR model tends to be broken down into 1) preprocessing, 2) feature extraction, and 3) modeling [26], which are explained in detail below.1. Preprocessing relates to the current form of the data. In the case of audio, this will be the sampling rate, the bit depth, the number of channels it is recorded in, and the overall noise level of the recording. Each of these contributes to the quality of the audio file and, therefore, the accuracy of the resultant model. The sample rate specifies the number of samples to take from an audio source material per second. A high sample rate increases the ability of digital audio to faithfully represent high frequencies. Standard telephone calls are transmitted at 8khz (8000 samples per second), whereas the minimum for effective speech recognition is 16khz, and this can go up to 44.1khz for a good-quality audio sample. Bit depth affects the dynamic range of a given audio sample. A higher bit depth allows the representation of more precise amplitudes. With a mix of loud and soft sounds within the same audio sample, a higher bit depth is necessary to represent those sounds correctly. Channels refer to mono (1) or stereo (2), and modeling requires a single input. Noise refers literally to background noise in the recording [28]. Each of the currently available processors has several options for resampling the files, increasing or reducing bit depth, changing the number of channels, and reducing noise. Depending on the file encoding (WMA, Mp3), however, these processes can introduce more or less a 'loss' of quality from the original file [28,29].2. Feature extraction refers to the process of obtaining different features such as power, pitch, and vocal tract configuration from the speech signal. These are then transformed into parameters that allow the model to differentiate one utterance from another [26,30]. This begins by digitally representing the audio in its waveform, as shown in Figure 1. Sample rate and bit depth are crucial here to ensure the waveforms represent the proper amplitude across the sound sample [28]. These are then converted into a Mel Spectrogram, an image form based on signal strength or 'loudness,' whilst color becomes the indicator of amplitude [28]. This is based on the Mel scale, a perceptual scale of pitches judged by listeners. For human speech, it is common to take an additional step and convert the Mel Spectrogram into an MFCC (Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients). MFCCs produce a compressed representation of the Mel Spectrogram by extracting only the most essential frequency coefficients, which correspond to the frequency ranges at which humans speak [29]. Thus, they are more efficient for training [33].3. Finally, modeling has grown rapidly since the late 2000s with the introduction of deep learning alongside the advancement of computing power and hardware, allowing researchers to make the neural networks deeper and more powerful, and providing availability and storage of more training data [31]. Examples of models include CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) and RNN (Recurrent Neural Network). Moving forward from traditional machine learning using artificial neural networks, these models allow several layers, each of which can fulfill different functions to handle the data and learn with greater accuracy, more efficiently. They continue to rely upon labeled training data, however, requiring hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of audio files for their transcription to be effective [32]. The accuracy of the model is then measured using the WER or Word Error Rate (Substitutions + Deletions + Insertions) / Number of Words Spoken), comparing the input with the output of the test set [33].Figure 1 Early stages of the SR model, modified from [29] A serious problem in the SR technique is code-switching, which occurs when speakers switch to a different language during a conversation, borrowing words, phrases, or sentences [34]. Intonation is very difficult to pick up; the sound of each character could be of a different duration, or there could be gaps and pauses between these characters. Several characters could be merged together or repeated, leading to a lack of clarity in the final transcription. These issues are exacerbated as the models are usually trained and tested on high-resource languages, which means little is known about how they will function in the real world or on smaller data sets [35] Attempts to build approaches and overcome these problems for SR in lessresourced languages include Woldemariam [33], who attempts to apply transfer learning. This entails training a model on another, similar language to the one that is in view, then using that insight to make deductions about the target language. In the case of Amharic, processors learn from English and Mandarin to aid in setting the correct parameters for learning that language before removing outside layers of the model and fine-tuning it to the target. This has been seen to produce a WER reduction from 38.72 percent to 24.50 percent.More often than not, however, attempts have been made to increase the amount of training data available. In the case of Swahili, early efforts to produce SR data and models looked to crowdsourcing data [36]. Efforts to develop open-source datasets include Kencorpus for Swahili, Dholuo, and Luhya, which have a collection of 5,594 items, being 4,442 texts of 5.6 million words and 1,152 speech files worth 177 hours of audio [37]. The Lacuna fund has delivered several openly accessible text and speech resources for NLP research in a range of African languages. By far, the most impactful seems to be the Common Voice project [38] and the AI-sharing community Hugging Face [39].The Common Voice project employs crowdsourcing for both data collection and data validation, becoming one of the largest corpora in the public domain for SR, both in terms of the number of hours and the number of languages [38]. In March of 2022, the Mozilla Foundation, the group behind Common Voice and the Firefox browser, awarded eight projects, each USD $50,000, for leveraging the Swahili language and voice technology to increase social and economic opportunities for marginalized groups in Kenya, Tanzania, and the DRC. These include:• Kiazi Bora, or \"Quality Potatoes\" in Swahili, uses a voice-enabled application that advises vulnerable women living in rural areas and marginalized communities of Tanzania on the nutritional values of Orange Fleshed Sweet Potatoes (OFSP), farming skills for better yields, and detailed market availability for raw or processed OFSP food products, all through a voice data set app.• LivHealth, a group that aims to correctly identify livestock syndromes and get timely interventions from qualified livestock practitioners. The project will build Kiswahili text-to-speech models for disseminating disease information to marginalized communities. They work closely with their partner, One Health Center in Africa (OHRECA), based at ILRI.• Imarika, a conversational chatbot offering digital climate advisory services in English and Swahili that will support smallholder farmers to adapt to changing weather patterns.• Duniacom Group, developers of a text and voice-based platform made available in the language of the underserved to provide wide access, adoption, and usage of digital agricultural advisory and financial services in Tanzania.In September of 2022, Common Voice announced that their 100th language would be Twi of Ghana, the first language of 18 million Africans, demonstrating their commitment to bringing the benefits of NLP to those outside of the default European-colonial languages, stating even Google and Wikipedia \"exclude almost half the African population on the basis of primary language\" [20].Examples of those taking advantage of the site include Babirye [17], who looked to expand SR into some of the less spoken Ugandan indigenous languages, including Runyankore-Rukiga, Acholi, and Lumasaaba, citing monitoring of local radio and dissemination of information for smallholder farmers among their primary motivations. They used available media on a text basis and Common Voice as their starting point for speech. They then described their process of attempting to gather more data by incentivizing communities within their universities to contribute to the existing data sets on Common Voice, creating monetary rewards for top speakers. The communities curated over 200,000 Swahili sentences and 100 hours of voice contributions from 80 participants in Kenya and 90 in Tanzania. For Luganada, they actually reached a state of 'over contribution,' where there was insufficient text data to satisfy the number of hours of recorded speech.Even more significant innovations are coming from within Hugging Face, which has revolutionized SR through Wav2vec [32] and XLS-R [39]. Traditionally, supervised machine learning is defined by its use of labeled datasets to train algorithms to classify data or predict outcomes accurately according to its label, as opposed to unsupervised methods, which look to discover hidden patterns or data groupings in unlabeled data. Wav2vec takes advantage of unsupervised pretraining, essentially allowing a model to learn from and recognize patterns in unlabeled data. To achieve specific 'downstream' tasks, such as SR of a new dataset, then is simply a matter of fine-tuning the model to the specific language or context under examination using this limited labeled dataset. In this case, Baevski et al. [32] use a linear labeled layer on top of the original model, establishing a method for achieving highly accurate language transcription with as little as ten minutes of labeled data, achieving a word error rate of 4.8/8.2.A team of researchers from some of the largest NLP groups, including Google AI and Hugging Face has built XLS-R [21,39] on top of Wav2Vec models, as demonstrated in Figure 2. It is a tool based on 436K hours of speech in 128 different languages, using data from across the largest open-source repositories, including Common Voice [38]. These data are 'pre-trained,' allowing the Wav2vec model to recognize patterns in the unlabeled data via several CNNs. Then they are fine-tuned for a specific task using a limited set of labeled data. To the best of their knowledge, they state, 'this is the largest effort to date, in making speech technology accessible for many more languages using publicly available data,' with the largest contribution being toward low and medium source languages. BABEL is of particular interest as it incorporates noisy telephone conversational data.Examples of applications include Le [40] and Zanon Boito [35]. Le[4 0] used the XLS-R to account for dialectical differences between Coastal and Congolese and Central Swahili and their translation to English and French, achieving a WER of 36.75% and 31.25%, respectively. Denisov [41], in the same competition, achieved 12.5/17.6%.Figure 2 XLS-R model [39] Applications of SR are wide. Wu [42] show how it can be used in the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease due to the distinct effect on the way sufferers talk, although the study was heavily dependent on the quality of sampling.In Agriculture, significant attention has been paid to chatbots or question-andanswer systems for farmers that simulate a real conversation. Mostaço [43] developed AgronomoBot, a Telegram-based app for Brazilian farmers, using both text and speech to rapidly and efficiently deliver farmers' data on field conditions, such as air and soil temperature, air relative humidity, soil moisture, rainfall and wind speed. Kung [44] had a similar project for the pig industry in Taiwan and [45] for Malaysian farmers to improve disease diagnosis. In a study with the World Food Program, [46] collect nutritional information in Ethiopia and Kenya using an app with a voice function to record each user's shopping list. They have been able to achieve a WER of 18% for Swahili audio transcription, dramatically reducing the effort necessary for participants to input their data.Machine translation (MT) is the use of computer-aided software to translate speech or text from one language to another. It allows communication at scale, with information being shared between different language groups with ease [22]. This is a significant need in Africa as news concerning the continent is almost exclusively published in English, French, or Arabic and is thereby inaccessible for speakers of only native African languages [47]. Like with SR, however, MT is similarly restricted in appropriate data sets. While the process of data acquisition is slightly easier, there are significant considerations and opportunities to introduce bias.Languages have different origins, vocabularies, dialects, structures, slang, and sociolect, all factors which affect the accuracy of any machine translation approach [22,48]. Challenges for NLP also include the range of different data types (audio or text, utterances, phrases, related words) and the different requirements for modeling, ranging from tens to hundreds of thousands of sentences [49].Underrepresentation of certain groups and languages in training corpora, which often disproportionately affects communities that are marginalized, excluded, or less frequently recorded or cultures where the educated are multilingual [48], is a major factor for the lack of engagement. Swahili, however, has been the subject of machine translation research for over 50 years and is purportedly well supported by mainstream language processing software like Google and Microsoft Translate [22], as is Hausa. Much of the research in MT is toward producing effective models to translate under-resourced languages using available datasets, that is, those that are not already used by Google or other popular translation services. The disadvantages met by speakers of languages outside of those covered by these services are stated as motivators for such research, especially in terms of exclusion from education resources and the dissemination of science [19].In this regard, Inuwa-Dutse [25], in their collection of Hausa datasets, identified serious problems with Google Translate, suggesting insufficient data on colloquialisms and local dialects. This can only be remedied by picking up on some of the informal or day-to-day terms used in the language obtained via online social media, not news websites or religious texts. They also provide a framework for obtaining further data. De Pauw's [50] early efforts to match Google's translation for Swahili found they were able to outperform them in translating from English, taking a deconstructed approach to Swahili vocabulary. The morphology of Swahili is quite complex, a single word representing a sentence of English. By breaking down the Swahili words into 'morphemes,' the machine may better interpret them. However, in the case of more obscure and difficult dialects, it has been shown that transfer learning and the creation of synthetic learning data is an effective strategy for developing translation models [22]. Massively multilingual models such as mBERT [51], XLM-R [21], or mT5 [52] use Wikipedia for pretraining and then fine-tuning downstream NLP tasks [49,51].Whilst transfer learning has made great leaps, there remain problems when using high-resource European languages to learn low-resource African languages.Improved results have been shown using different African languages to learn from each other. Thus [53] develop MMTAfrica, the first many-to-many translation system for six African languages. It uses a system of back-translation and reconstruction to train each language of the other.These models continue to be dependent either on the amount of labeled data or unlabeled content online. Those languages with neither have very little hope of soon becoming the subject of effective computational linguistics [49]. While in their taxonomy of successful NLP languages, [49] Swahili is listed as a 'rising star,' having benefited greatly from unsupervised learning in recent years and having a large online presence, low-resource languages often have little written history, with few language experts or those familiar with NLP. Thus, those attempting to develop MT tools often cannot speak the language they are working with [54].Nekoto et al. [54] demonstrate the efficiency of a participatory approach for sourcing data in low-resourced African languages. This entails ensuring that the speakers in the MT process originate from the countries where the low-resourced languages are spoken, involving lay persons in crowdsourcing data. However, they suggest citizen science projects involving participants in all stages of research are necessary for achieving quality evaluation, especially in languages unfamiliar to the NLP scientist. In their study, they employed 400 participants from at least 20 countries, enabling them to conduct a human evaluation study of model outputs, which has been one of the key limitations of previous approaches.Examples of these models applied in the real world include Translators Without Borders, a group that uses machine translation for humanitarian aid, ensuring that local communities with language restrictions have access to the best information.They have been instrumental during the outbreak of the Ebola virus in the DRC in 2019 and across Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their approach allows users to ask questions and receive answers in their own language [22].Wefarm is a platform to connect farmers to each other for the purpose of knowledge sharing through SMS without the need for internet access. The farmerto-farmer digital network connects farmers' questions and answers both online and through SMS. Wefarm intermediates the network, using machine learning to understand the request for information and patch it through to the right response.Founded in 2015, it exceeded 2.6 million users by 2020. It operates in collaboration with Amazon Web services (AWS), which offers a variety of services compatible with public and private cloud services and their open-source software base [55].Corpus linguistics is the study of language based on large collections of \"real life\" language use stored in corpora (or corpuses)-computerized databases created for linguistic research [56,57]. Corpus linguistics encompasses a number of analysis techniques that can be applied as needed rather than according to a particular protocol [58]. These include Key-word-in-context or concordance, collocations, word distribution, and corpus comparisons. A concordance displays all instances of a given the word in its immediate textual surroundings and helps the researcher to connect words of potential interest to the context [57].Collocations denote the co-occurrence of two or more words, uncovering the meaning imbued in words by those words they collocate with. The strength of collocation between two words can be measured and represented statistically by the mutual information score of these two words, or 'faithfulness ' [56,57,59]. Word dispersion measures the distribution of words over a number of texts rather than just one. Corpus comparison involves standing one's own text against a very large reference corpus to establish what is 'normal' and what is not, identifying the 'keyness' of certain words. A common comparison is the Brown Corpus [59].In this regard, while corpus linguistics is largely reliant on machines for analysis, it differs from traditional computer-aided text analysis in that it focuses on lexical patterns rather than on categories and always involves a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis [58]. It is, therefore, better suited for this analysis, demanding attention and participation from different stakeholders in interpreting and acting upon patterns in the data rather than simply monitoring answers and outputting statistics.For a full review of linguistic analyses in agriculture, see [60]. To briefly summarize their article, they reviewed applications of text mining in agriculture or to 'extract, organize and classify information from text data… [that] can be presented to the user in a manner in which they can make informed decisions'. They emphasize the lack of development in corpus linguistics for agriculture due to the absence of open data and the continued use of the intellectual property to restrict access to insights gained. Key themes were Information Retrieval, Information Extraction, and Sentiment Analysis. The most common application is disease monitoring, while Information Retrieval/Question-Answering is also prolific, but the systems surveyed fall short of their promise. Of interest to this study, they cite that knowledge discovery has been used in bio-medicine to discover previously unknown treatments, capitalizing on the knowledge of users. Therefore, perhaps similar discoveries should be possible in agriculture using similar techniques. It is not unreasonable to expect to see advances in areas such as herbicide and pesticide development from knowledge extracted from large collections like the FRI data repository. Specific examples include [61], who analyzed the sentiment of Twitter posts by farmers in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS). They were able to show that positive sentiment was shared among these countries when discussing agricultural policy and even when discussing the implementation of digital innovations such as blockchain. [62] suggest using linguistic corpora for improving the accessibility of ongoing trends in agricultural sciences to academic staff, for whom English is their second language, thus allowing more efficient dissemination of knowledge.Combining each of the tools mentioned here, the UN Global Pulse (2016, 2017) has funded and developed, in collaboration with Ugandan country and university partners, a tool for analyzing public radio. They were able to identify local farmers' priorities, how they reflected Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as health, education, or employment, and to link them to time and location. Their aims were to improve reporting of natural disasters, monitoring and tracking of the effectiveness of campaigns and early warning systems in \"Ugandan English,\" Luganda, and Acholi.The richest of all data sources was shown to be talk-show radio or discussion programs. UN Global Pulse (2016, 2017) noted, however, that the approach is difficult to scale, as their model required a separate configuration for each show they analyzed, in particular, what questions were asked and how the discussion was framed, suggesting the full impact of the project may not be fully accomplished.They achieved a word error rate of 50% for Luganda and 60% for Acholi. The speech was more easily recognized during news broadcasts, where presenters are trained to articulate clearly, and is less recognized during call-ins, where the quality of the audio is poorer, and the speech is a rapid conversational style. In human analysis and transcription, they revealed that the results were rarely relevant due to a series of biases, largely related to a misunderstanding of context. For example, 23% of identified words were part of a commercial. They found men largely dominated the conversation, whereas women were rarely heard. Finally, they focused on topic modeling and word filtering, seeking out issues specifically related to the UN's priorities rather than those stated by farmers.In this study, we suggest that by working directly with the radio stations and using a more qualitative corpus linguistics approach, we might be able to gain a fuller and truer-to-life idea vision of farmers' voices. Not only a form of co-design, working with the organization to design a tool that best suits their needs, but also accessing a broader swath of farmers beyond the framing of experts.The overall objective of this project was to make an efficient and easy-to-use tool for FRI based on free and open-source software. As such, all analysis was completed using Python programming software, implementing several modules and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).Google's speech recognition and translation served as the baseline for this study.They have several different APIs that can be implemented in Python. Those used include SpeechRecognition [64] and Google Cloud [28]. The second is a paid service with a free starter pack, used mainly for their increased parameter tuning and to explore potentially improved tools. For SR, the details of the models are not shared, but they claim to have hundreds of thousands of hours worth of training data and can achieve upwards of 95% accuracy. They provide a measure of accuracy for each piece of data processed. It is assumed that these models also incorporate much of the open data sets used to train the other tools in this study. Both models allow for a specific Tanzanian or Kenyan version of Swahili. For MT, Google Translate was the only tool used, assuming this is by far the most advanced tool in this regard.However, other tools may be considered in the future, pending human evaluation of translations.As described above, the XLR-S claims to be the largest attempt to incorporate open data for SR. It is trained on 75 hours of spoken Hausa and 91 hours of Swahili. It has similar accuracy levels as Google and offers other African languages, such as Amharic, Arabic, Ganda, Kabyle, Kinyarwanda, Lingala, Shona, Somali, Twi, Yoruba, and Zulu [39].SpeechBrain is an open-source and all-in-one speech toolkit designed to integrate well with Python, also based on Common Voice for SR. It was designed, however, to comprise a series of different tools for NLP, including speech recognition and detection. It is foremostly built on Pytorch, with emphasis on accessibility, ease of use, and replicability [65].The phases of analysis drew from [57,59,66]. The analysis began by generating a word frequency list to demonstrate which words occurred the most throughout the corpus. This involved tokenization, reducing sentences to strings of raw data, and lemmatization, the grouping of words based on their inflicted form so that they can be analyzed as one item (e.g., destroyed, destroys = destroy) [57]. In addition, stop words were removed, both common connectives and those unique to this corpus that would affect results. Finally, a quantified list was generated.Of those most frequently occurring words, a concordance sample was produced, indicating how they appear in context. In a larger corpus, a random sample of 25 combinations is usually provided for each word of interest, however, in this case, a selection of the more meaningful words was used, and all combinations were revealed, providing the context of 5 words to the left and right of the selected 'node words.' Next, a collocation analysis was conducted to calculate statistics that provide information about the strength of association (SOA) between lexical items. One key term was used ('farm') to measure 'faithfulness', or the probability of seeing the collocate given the presence of the target item. This goes for both the likelihood to occur when the target term is used and the likelihood the target term will appear given the collocate.Keyness was calculated using the Brown Corpus, testing the percentage difference between the FRI data and that of a 'normal' corpus. Finally, an n-gram analysis was conducted, connecting words together in a series to view which are most influential in a corpus. Noun phrases were identified, or a concordance that will show a repeated phraseology where the verb occurs followed by a noun group [57]. These were produced and visualized using Textblob and Wordcloud, respectively.Data was collected by the FRI using an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system called Uliza to present listeners with questions. The radio stations broadcasting the talk shows advertise a telephone number that farmers can call if they have something to comment on. Uliza will then return the call to the farmer such that they do not incur any cost. Callers are then asked a series of multiple-choice questions, which they answer using the dial pad before they answer an open-ended question with their voice.In past surveys, polls were able to gather stakeholder opinions on nutrition. For example, a higher percentage of women than men said that those in need should eat first, whereas many participants identified moving away from chemical pesticides and fertilizers as a key priority. These findings are contentious and fall outside the general conception or trajectory of conventional agriculture. They reveal a human side to agricultural development, based on local values and desires; over 90% of participants were willing to act to reverse the effects of climate change, whereas 1 in 12 said that the only way to cope would be to move to another place.They even spoke about the little-discussed issue of shrinking villages and changing occupations of farmers in the face of difficult conditions.The focus of the current work, however, is the voice reply. Questions are related to nutrition, food scarcity, climate change, information access, and how farmers felt they were at risk in each aspect. Answers are aggregated based on country, gender, and age. In general, one-third of calls are from women, while the majority appear to be over 30 years old. The potential audience is reported as 12,339,739 people [18].Each audio signal was either recorded in 8khz or 22khz and so was resampled to 16khz, the ideal for SR. They were also converted to a single channel, mono-output. This was a hindrance to SR, however, as the low quality of the recordings will not fare as well when converted to a spectrogram. Noise reduction was attempted, but this reduced the quality of the audio until it was unrecognizable. Each of the models described above was applied to each audio file.The linguistic analysis was performed on a human-transcribed Tanzanian Swahili dataset, as there was much more available data due to ethical and permission constraints.Swahili: What is the biggest threat to your family eating enough safe and nutritious food? Table 1 displays the same Tanzanian Swahili transcription for each model and its translation to English using Google Translate. The final row shows the actual human translation. Google SR is surprisingly superior to Google Cloud, its conscriptionbased counterpart. XLS-R by Akashpb13 seems to be the most accurate. The Swahili transcription has 65% accurate, according to WER. This can be improved through further fine-tuning and using higher-quality audio in the next iteration of this study; however, if this is to be executed on a large scale, such errors will be lost in aggregated data, as will be shown in the next section.Google SR (confidence: 0.83117056) hakuna bora na bora ni kupeleka pingamizi kujenga mwili na vipindi vya kulinda mwili wake kutoka kilimanjaro there is nothing better and the best is to send objections to build the body and periods to protect his body from kilimanjaro Google Cloud (confidence: 0.7421932) hakuna bora maboga nikapeleka player mwili kujenga mwili lavington yule mwizi funny mzee yusufu kutoka kilimanjaro there is no better pumpkin, I sent the player body to build the body, Lavington, the thief funny old man Yusufu from Kilimanjaro SpeechBrain uorauaborani haua kuilinda mwili aenga mwili nchainnaitani ya kulinda mwiliapani a fefu kutoka klimanjaro uorauaborani does not kill to protect the body, he protects the body, the body protects the body, apani a fefu from the beginningpa kule cha kula boro chakula bora ni chakulecha kulinda mwizi cha gujenga mwizi na cha trupin na vitani ya kulinda mwizi hafani mzea hivyo sefu kutoka kile majaro where to eat, the best food is the food to protect the thief, to protect the thief and to protect the thief in the war, he is not old, so safe from the old age.heutaka kula chakula borchakula bora ni chakula cha kulinda mwili cha kujenga mwili na chaprotimi na vita iya kulinda mwilihapani kimzeijosefu kutoka kilimanjaro a you don't want to eat bad food, the best food is food that protects the body, builds the body, and chaprotimi and war that protect the body.Nataka kula chakula bora, chakula bora ni chakula cha kujenga mwili (cha kujenga mwili) na cha protini na vitamini za kujenga mwili. Hapa ni mzee Joseph kutoka Kilimanjaro I want to eat good food, good food is body building food (body building) and protein and body building vitamins.Hausa: What is the biggest threat to your family eating enough safe and nutritious food?Table 2 displays the Hausa transcription for each model, and it is translated to English using Google Translate. SpeechBrain and Google Cloud were not tested due to their poor performance with Swahili. Hausa has received significantly less development as an SR language. The Google model is only a 'preview' which is reflected in its output. The XLS-R by Mofe seems to be the most meaningful output.Again, human evaluation is necessary for future fine-tuning. Google SR to barka madara haka sunana raira suna tabarauTo give good milk so saana sing lambsoburƙa murorhaƙaɗunarywon otɗa adaɗuna'maƙuron wanan i a ƙashir an pidapiloiluƙaɗuɗaƙonƙuaɗodumbard nuƙito hine ayon vi oɓoroicoviarcewdo'a wanciwocoɗalurorparcon'ƙ rauny unaeamun maƙal li na maɗara loloroidolunacare alurocovnitan'lpa mota muɗavaubutaƙiamagodeƙutalai It's important to have a good relationship with the country.cobarka mudor hakasunanrayn motsolemanandaga kaduna nakuro wanan cil a kashar ancibarbinitaɗada uƙuɗuguaganguɗatentambar da nukiditahine nayonjin rabara cobilitar cewa idan mutunada waniciwo otal lurartfagurcolta rauni yana i samunmatala ulina da matsalaraloreilanjinakarɗia lurar cbinancin hatan barfn ramota wtaba tabudatackenana goden gutalefiaTry to think like this, the Muslim man from Kaduna, I have a lot of problems with the development of the city and the city.Table 3 shows the most frequently used words in the corpus. The farm is an expected top return, whereas the minister and government show to whom the callers are looking in order to make their lives better. Support, plant, assistance, and money seem to be the most telling in how that change might take place, and thus were used in the proceeding analysis to put this in context.Table 4 demonstrates the concordance or 'key-word-in-context' of four of the most frequent words from Table 3. Using 'assist,' respondents appear to be seeking help accessing fertilizers or agrochemicals. Using 'plant,' they want both quality seeds and markets to sell their produce. 'Support' refers to loans and finance, while 'money' seems to tie each of these themes together, what the users seem to see as the bedrock of their activities.Looking at all the derivatives of the most commonly occurring root word 'farm,'Tables 5 and 6 indicate the level of probability that collocates will occur. Table 5 shows that when the word 'aid' appears in the corpus, there is more than a 150% chance that 'farm' will appear. This is because the farm may appear multiple times in each utterance. 'Materials' appears here for the first time, indicating its significance as a need of farmers.Table 6 indicates that the word 'to' will appear 67% of the time when the word 'farm 'appears. These words are large to be expected; however, 'support' and 'aid' occur again.  Other 'out of the ordinary' terms include 'fertilizers,' 'cocoa,' and 'mosquito.' The results in Table 8 indicate that 'there' has an 89% lower frequency in the FRI corpus than in the Brown Corpus. Again, while these are mostly to be expected, it is interesting that 'years' stands out as an absent theme. In the future, this tool could be more usefully applied, comparing new data with the existing FRI corpus.   Historically the relationship between farmers and extension organizations has not always been engaging and trustful, to say the least, with the introduction of new technologies and methods sparking the greatest amount of suspicion [4]. Issues of trust, accountability, and transparency must be paramount in forwarding this project. To aid in thinking about these questions, [48] have collected a series of biases apparent in the development of language processing models that should be mitigated in future work: I. Discrimination, hate speech, and exclusion are of particular interest here considering the low-resource languages under examination, but also how certain opinions may be overrepresented that are harmful. Reports or allegations made on the radio are not necessarily true, for example, where the speaker is motivated by sensationalist or political objectives.II. Information hazards, including accidentally revealing private data, be it trade secrets or those of users mentioning sensitive information whilst being recorded, may then be disclosed to a third party.III. Misinformation harms; as opposed to disinformation, this risk is caused by poor quality or misleading data, which may cause incorrect insights without direct malintent by the user.IV. Malicious uses; this is an intentional use of language modeling to spread disinformation, fraud, or malware.V. Human-Computer Interaction Harms; this refers to 'conversational agents' or, as commonly proposed for farmers, chatbots and the difficulties incurred in user interactions, potential biases they generate, and the power they have in nudging, deception and manipulation.VI. Environmental and Socioeconomic harms; this includes both the use of energy in building and operating language models and the environmental cost incurred and of exacerbating social inequalities by delivering uneven benefits or undermining and removing career opportunities.Points I, III, and VI must play a significant role in how the current project moves forward. The work must remain reflexive to opinions stated by callers, in the understanding that certain ways of thinking may be overrepresented due to the biases already present in those who have access to the radio or can call in. Ensuring that all incoming data is of the best quality is essential, perhaps exploring how to get callers to speak slowly and clearly, so as not to fall into the old principle of 'garbage in, garbage out.' The intention of the work is to listen to farmers and deliver benefits equally. Agricultural extension has a long history of elite capture and damaging residual effects on local communities. Thus, the work should strive to be inclusive of and complementary to a wide range of actors.Finally, reflecting on efforts by the UN Global Pulse [63], FRI has been successful in designing a system that incurs no cost for the user, allowing even the poorest members of a community to contribute to a discussion. There remain considerations, however, as to how talk show hosts frame the discussion and how this might affect chosen topics and useful answers. Some topics are less likely to be discussed on the radio because of social stigma or fear of retribution, adding to selection bias. It is unclear how FRI chooses topics, so they may be missing rarely discussed topics or those that they are not already aware of.If building a more diverse voice training dataset, it is important that we keep track of the metrics around the voice contributors, such as age group and gender, whilst also remaining respectful of their privacy [17].It is hoped that these thoughts will form the basis for future farmer-centered design, putting the voice of farmers first and foremost in the design of further Interaction, i.e., what are the lives they aspire to live [67] and how do they constitute success beyond yield [68]? -These are critical questions if we want to build lasting sustainability and complementary rather than coercive AI tools [7].Gender inequality continues to threaten food security in several African countries, restricting women's access to land, their participation in decision-making, and their ability to benefit from profits. FRI has provided examples of its approach to and impact on these issues. They aspire to respond to the communication and information needs of women, engaging in capacity building with local radio stations to ensure the production of programs that are aimed at both men and women and facilitating radio listening and participation by women.The Her Farm Radio project, which finished in 2017, partnered with 13 radio stations, providing them with 49 days of training, and provided wind-up radios to 134 community listening groupsThe ongoing Scaling Her Voice on Air project has reportedly been broadcast on 73 radio stations and reached 15 million people. They have made and broadcasted almost 700 radio shows that discuss women's rights, decision-making, and sharing the workload within the household. They also broadcast radio dramas that carry a positive message. Impact surveys suggested that 90% of participants found reduced violence and an increase in decision-making and access to land.FRI's newest project, which is about to launch, is named On-Air for Gender-InclusiveNature-based Solutions. The focus is on developing climate adaptation strategies according to the needs of women and youth. FRI intends to develop a series of 200 radio documentaries, aiming to shift inequitable social norms at household, community, and national levels, as well as the systems and structure that (re)produce them. It is here that the audio analytic tool comes into play; not only can it be used to more easily and efficiently gather insights on what topics are most useful to listeners and how that should be framed, but also learning from that data, how it compares to previous, male-dominated data sets, leading to a truly usercentered design of the radio show.","tokenCount":"8201"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f366efd8b9119780f9a589684f66ded6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8e84eadf-a790-4bef-9644-5ce6cc805c93/retrieve","id":"1462468436"},"keywords":["2","1","2 Flagship Budget Narrative 2","1","2","1 General Information CRP Lead Center's Name : CIAT Center Location of Flagship Leader : ILRI 2","1","2","2 Summary"],"sieverID":"66556329-3f20-4f25-8ef7-200a7b69d29a","pagecount":"229","content":"2. Provided more detail on scientific novelty, potential for advancing knowledge and IPG delivery, particularly at the Flagship level.3. Provided the evidence to support strategic decisions to expand or reduce work on different topics, particularly for Flagships 1 and 4. 4. Elaborated the scientific and impact pathway rationales for taking a \"climate-smart agriculture\" approach and for working in Climate-Smart Villages (CSVs), particularly within the scientific rationale and theory of change of Flagship 2, and strengthened the plans for \"site integration\" with other CRPs at research site and target country levels.5. Clarified and strengthened ways of working with AFS-CRPs to ensure that CCAFS maximizes the potential of AFS-CRPs to deliver the innovations needed to deal with climate change.6. Redesigned Flagship Program 1 (previously FP4) as outlined in the final section of this cover letter.CCAFS has put particular effort into developing the structure and functioning as an ICRP. The six Learning Platforms have been designed in participation with Centres and other CRPs to maximize the comparative advantage of CCAFS as a multi-subsector, multi-region program across the Centres by the use of common methods, data platforms, and tools that integrate information across subsectors. The co-location of CSVs in five of six high priority site integration countries provides additional opportunities for integrative research and supports continuation in these countries. CCAFS has also increased the focus on food security, for example by expanding attention to nutrition in Flagship Program 1 (in collaboration with A4NH) and on food waste in Flagship Program 3. Gender and social inclusion (GSI) has been elevated through new appointments and a new strategy.Climate change will have far-reaching consequences for agriculture and natural resourcesdemanding a response that integrates food and nutrition security, adaptation and mitigation, and puts greatest investment towards poor people whose agriculture-dependent livelihoods are most at risk (Porter et al. 2014;Kelley et al. 2015;Wiebe et al. 2015). The overall purpose of CCAFS is to marshal the science and expertise of CGIAR and partners to catalyse positive change towards climate-smart agriculture (CSA), food systems and landscapes, and position CGIAR to play a major role in bringing to scale practices, technologies and institutions that enable agriculture to meet triple goals of food security, adaptation and mitigation. Climate change is now mainstreamed throughout the CGIAR portfolio, so CCAFS' role is to integrate across CRPs, providing the tools and advice on priorities in different contexts, making the links to the climate science community, and representing CGIAR in climate-related policy processes.In 2015 a number of major global policy processes put emphasis on climate change and food security. The SDGs include a dedicated climate change goal \"13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts\", with the targets under this goal including work covered by CCAFS (both long-term change and extreme events; early warning; human and institutional capacity on climate change; climate change in national policies and planning; effective financing). Many other SDGs also have climate change elements, including that on poverty (SDG 1), hunger, food security and nutrition (SDG 2), gender (SDG 5), sustainable consumption (SDG 12, on food loss and waste), marine resources (SDG 14, on resilience and ocean acidification) and terrestrial ecosystems and forests (SDG 15). The SDGs provide a major global imperative to tackle climate change.After many years of slow progress on agriculture in the UNFCCC, in 2015 two substantive agenda items on agriculture were discussed in SBSTA, the Paris COP21 included text on food security (Meadu et al. 2015), and the national commitments to the UNFCCC included widespread reference to adaptation and mitigation in agriculture (Richards et al. 2015a,b). CGIAR and the global agriculture community must engage in key UNFCCC processes between now and 2020 to drive action and innovation on issues related to agriculture, help countries achieve ambitions expressed in their national commitments, and work with the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to deliver ambitious investments in agricultural adaptation and mitigation. The global processes are complemented by numerous similar developments on agriculture and climate change at national/ regional levels, often under the banner of climate-smart agriculture. More than 70 countries and other partners established the Global Alliance for CSA (GACSA) in 2014. The Africa CSA Alliance was initiated in 2014, facilitated by NEPAD. In 2015 two major regional alliances were established, one for West Africa hosted by ECOWAS, and one for Central America hosted by CAC. More than 25 countries refer to CSA in their UNFCCC national commitments.CCAFS Phase II builds directly on the experience of CCAFS Phase I but repositions CCAFS as an Integrating CRP, and thereby helps CGIAR achieve its ambitions for a more coherent and integrated portfolio. CCAFS will comprise four Flagship Programs (FPS): FP1: Priorities and Policies for CSA; FP2: Climate-Smart Technologies and Practices; FP3: Low Emissions Development; and FP4: Climate Services and Safety Nets. Mainstreamed in the FPs are six Learning Platforms (LPs, see Section 1.0.7). These are a key mechanism to integrate climate change work across CRPs while providing a facilitated platform for knowledge sharing, integration and coordination. Involvement of other CRPs in CCAFS LPs may include direct programmatic research involvement and/or co-investment.2030 outlook for climate change, agriculture and food security CCAFS' meta-analysis of future impacts of climate change finds that 70% of studies project declines in crop yields by the 2030s, with yield losses of 10-50% in half the studies (Challinor et al. 2014). The meta-analysis finds that incremental adaptation options (e.g. varieties and crop management regimes) can reduce but not eliminate losses. Climate extremes, which may exceed critical thresholds for agricultural production, will increasingly require effective mechanisms to mitigate risk (IPCC 2012;Cai et al. 2014, Thornton et al. 2014). Thus, even by 2030, we face a future in which both incremental and transformative adaptation options must come into play. Transformative changes might include shifts away from certain crop-livestock systems, moving out of agriculture, or changes in diets (Vermeulen et al. 2013;Rippke et al. 2016). While analyses of livestock systems and fisheries are less developed, we would expect similar patterns of impact and response, for example major shifts in fishing areas (Cheung et al. 2009). Turning to emissions, CCAFS analyses suggest that a reasonable target for mitigation in developing country agriculture is 1-1.2 Gt CO2e yr -1 by 2030 (Scholes et al. 2014;Wollenberg et al. 2015). Incremental actions, such as sustainable intensification to achieve emissions efficiencies, will be necessary yet insufficient to achieve these targets. Society will need to transform the whole food system, for example to manage waste, dietary patterns and use of biomass for fuels (Smith et al. 2013).The 2030 adaptation and mitigation challenges in agriculture are framed by rapid change in smallholder farming and food systems. Rapid urbanization is likely to reduce the importance of smallholder agricultural incomes in achieving food security, and lead to concentration in farmland (Collier and Dercon 2014). At the same time, rural development is likely to be geographically uneven (World Bank 2008), centred on development corridors along transport routes (Weng et al. 2013). Nonetheless, with population growth, the number of smallholder households globally is projected to grow from about 560 million today to some 750 million by 2030, largely in Africa and Asia (Campbell and Thornton 2014). Farming in 2030 is likely to be characterized by a higher degree of inequality in farm incomes, sizes, technologies and market linkages. Trends in feminization of agriculture may well continue (FAO 2011). For CCAFS, the implication of this 2030 future is to use the research process to distinguish more carefully among farming systems and households, some of which may follow non-agricultural adaptation pathways. The 'Stepping out' development pathway which focuses on on-farm accumulation of assets to move into other sectors (Dorward 2009) will have to be broadened to include strategies to facilitate migration as an adaptation option (Black et al. 2013;Kelley et al. 2015). CCAFS will provide the most policy-relevant outputs by including a range of options that in some cases go beyond smallholder agriculture sectors. Relevant options may lie in the realms of food system functions including governance, diets and nutrition (FP1), options to support \"stepping out\" (FP1), financial innovation in support of transformative adaptation (FP2), supply chain governance and food loss and waste (FP3), food security safety nets (FP4), and closing gender gaps in assets and decision-making (all FPs).The proposal for Phase II differs from that of Phase I by rising to the challenge of being an ICRP and by responding to the ISPC commentary as follows: (1) updated Theory of Change (ToC), particularly development of hypotheses on change mechanisms and assumptions on CRP behaviours promoting impact (Vermeulen and Campbell 2015); (2) more explicit focus on food systems and links to nutrition (particularly FP1); and (3) greater integration with other CRPs, both thematically and geographically . Retained from Phase I is the strong focus on outcomes and partnerships. To provide a platform for all CRPs to engage in climate partnership and policy processes, a LP \"Partnerships and capacity for scaling CSA\" has been established. The regional hubs, with Regional Program Leaders (RPLs), remain the central mechanism for connecting research and policy engagement across all FPs. The development of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) over the next 30-40 years will be particularly important. With populations projected to double (Cohen 2003) and current under-performance of the agricultural sector, SSA will remain a central focus for CCAFS.The FPs remain essentially the same having received a major update on the basis of learning during Phase I, but now each incorporates a LP to foster collaboration and synergy across CRPs. Dropped from Phase I is the knowledge-to-action research theme, now mainstreamed, while gender and social inclusion (GSI) has been elevated through new appointments and a new strategy.CCAFS will use the CSA concept to structure its approach to climate-responsive options. CSA is defined as agriculture that (a) sustainably increases agricultural productivity and incomes, (b) adapts and builds resilience to climate change, and (c) reduces and/or removes GHG emissions where possible (FAO 2013). The origin of the concept is in the realization that many proposed actions in agriculture deliver on both adaptation and mitigation, signalling a move away from the clear distinction between adaptation and mitigation streams within the UNFCCC negotiations. A wide range of public, private and civil society entities, including funds and development banks, are now committed to achievement of CSA. However, it is important for CSA to offer a scientific as well as a political frame. The IPG basis for using CSA as a scientific frame is agriculture's unique capacity among sectors to offer globally significant mitigation potential that may or may not have trade-offs for food security or for adaptation to climate change.The relative importance of outcomes for food security, adaptation and mitigation varies across locations and situations, as do potential synergies and trade-offs between objectives (Lipper et al. 2014), providing a challenge for prioritising investments. CSA is closely aligned with sustainable intensification at the farm level (Campbell et al. 2014) and also includes agro-ecological approaches (Sugden 2015). But the concept extends beyond on-farm practices to include landscape-level interventions (e.g. management of farm-forest boundaries), services (particularly information and finance), institutions (particularly market governance, incentives for adoption) and the food system (particularly consumption patterns and wider climate-informed safety nets). CSA may also be understood as a process that comprises parallel elements of institution-building (Lipper et al. 2014), as per CCAFS' ToC.Yet, as CCAFS has identified (Neufeldt et al. 2013), the scientific basis for CSA needs considerable work. Fundamentals include establishment of credible metrics for the three goals of CSA, empirical research to understand how selected interventions deliver on these metrics, improved understanding of trade-offs, and thus definition of which agricultural development pathways can lead towards a \"safe operating space\" (Beddington et al. 2012). These fundamentals need to be explored within a wider research design that addresses the enabling environment needed for CSA to deliver on green economy and SDG agendas (Steenwerth et al. 2014). CSA will be highly context-specific -for example, some technologies will deliver the \"triple-wins\" of CSA under some conditions but not others (e.g. Powlson et al. 2014 on no-till agriculture), and there is limited evidence on how technologies interact with other measures to address climate change (that include e.g. improved access to climate information services, local adaptation planning, enhanced social safety nets, insurance). A major challenge is to identify the context-specific technologies and supporting measures that may be needed; and the trade-offs and co-benefits that different combinations of options will deliver for different stakeholders including women (Beuchelt and Badstue 2013; Locatelli et al. 2015; Thornton and Herrero 2015).CCAFS proposes to address the fundamental questions via participatory research at Climate-Smart Villages (CSVs), sites ranging from village to district scale at which portfolios of CSA interventions are tested in a globally comparable manner with farmers, development agencies and the private sector (see Section 2.2.1.6 CoA 2.1 for detailed description of the CSV concept). This research will be linked to higher-level analyses (e.g. models of scaling processes and tradeoffs) to generate IPGs relevant to societal questions on alternatives for agricultural development. Ground-breaking science will include advanced methods to produce high-resolution historical meteorological data, multi-dimensional scenarios science applied to food systems at multiple scales, and gender analysis to explore intra-household differences in perceptions of and responses to climate change. A key feature of emerging adaptation science (and linked mitigation science) is that it is both basic -improving understanding of biophysical and socio-economic processes -and applied, being problem-focused and demand-driven (Moss et al. 2013).It is also important to recognize that none of the technical or institutional issues featured from a CSA perspective are unique to CSA. They are subject to active investigations and action in their own domains, whether agronomy, landscape functionality or policy research. This is the reason CSA generates so much heated debate: everyone has an interest and something to offer. But the unique focus and value-add of CSA in terms of delivering on IPGs is how these multiple goals come together in both theory and practice. This is also the reason that CCAFS will operate differently in Phase II, as an integrative platform across CGIAR and partners rather than as standalone entity.CCAFS will continue the internal learning processes that were successful in Phase I, including formal reviews, to develop a more nuanced focus on areas of comparative advantage. For example, FP4 has moved from the broad scope of climate risk management towards specific types of interventions for which the CRP has the clearest niche relative to other providers (e.g. climate information services and insurance products). At a finer scale, deliberative processes with partners have defined specific areas of comparative advantage, for example definition of precise research outputs that CCAFS can provide that complement the functions of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA). CCAFS has also used deliberative processes with development partners to avoid mission creep from research to development, defining clear research niches, for instance on decision tools and metrics for CSA to support the development work of USAID's Feed the Future program.The CGIAR SRF frames the context and structure of CCAFS. CCAFS focuses on all three SLOs, eight IDOs and 12 sub-IDOs (CRP Table 1; CRP Figure 1). All five sub-IDOs of the IDO \"Mitigation and Adaptation Achieved\" are targeted (though the sub-IDO on carbon sequestration is regarded as a subset of the sub-IDO on GHG emissions). The cross-cutting IDOs on capacity development and gender/youth are also targeted.The overall goal of CCAFS is to catalyse positive change towards climatesmart agriculture, food systems and landscapes, and thereby contribute to the SLOs on poverty alleviation, food and nutritional security, and natural resources. SLO targets have been calculated through a bottom-up process of considering the proposed activities and interventions in each target country, as well as the ambitions of key partners in these interventions and in global and regional initiatives (CRP Table 2).For the poverty SLO, CCAFS aims to have contributed by 2022 to 11 million farm households having adopted CSA (including improved varieties, breeds or trees, and/or improved management practices). Through this action, and through policy engagement that has benefits for other stakeholders (e.g. the urban poor), CCAFS aims to assist 9 million people, of whom 50% are women, to exit poverty. Because climate change is now mainstreamed throughout the CGIAR portfolio, CCAFS has a special role in bringing the technologies and practices developed in other CRPs into integrated CSA solutions, that also include local adaptation planning, climate information services and climate-informed safety nets. Overall, 59% of the budget is allocated to achieving these two SLOs (for all budget figures, allocations differ by funding source -see budget narratives).For the food and nutrition security SLO, CCAFS aims to have removed by 2022 nutritional deficiencies of one or more essential micronutrients in 6 million more people, of whom 50% are women. This work will be conducted jointly with A4NH, with CCAFS providing the climate lens on the actions and interventions, and CCAFS using its climate-smart village approach to test options in an integrated manner. Overall, 28% of the budget is allocated to achieving this SLO.For the natural resources SLO, CCAFS will have contributed by 2022 to reduction of agriculturerelated GHG emissions by 160 Mt CO2e yr -1 compared with the BAU scenario in 2022 (=0.16 Gt CO2e yr -1 ). This will involve close collaboration with the AFS-CRPs where the technical development of mitigation options will take place. A key partner here is the WBCSD which has set an ambitious target for emissions reductions in its member company supply chains. With FTA, the collaboration also focuses on avoided deforestation, with joint work aiming to conserve 0.8 million ha of forest. There is also collaboration with WLE on soil carbon sequestration. Overall, 13% of the budget is allocated to achieving this SLO.Flagship outcomes: To achieve the above SLO targets, and in line with the ToC, CCAFS has selected 12 sub-IDOs to target (CRP Figure 1). Each is associated with a specific outcome target (CRP Table 3). While the gender and capacity development sub-IDOs are truly cross-cutting, some of the specific climate change sub-IDOs are closely aligned with the poverty SLO and food and nutrition security SLO (improved forecasting of impacts of climate change and targeted technology development; enhanced capacity to deal with climatic risks, extremes; enabled environment for climate resilience), while one sub-IDO is directly aligned with the natural resources SLO (reduced net GHG emissions from agriculture, forests and other forms of land use) (alignment illustrated in CRP Table 1; CRP Figure 1). In some cases the FPs target different sub-IDOs, but in these cases it is often the collaboration amongst FPs that will deliver the outcome (e.g. FP1 providing improved enabling environment for the uptake of technologies in FP2). In other cases the FPs may target the same sub-IDO but have different statements for outcome targets -this often relates to the targeting of different stakeholders (e.g. FP1 working more at national to global levels, and FP2 working more at local levels).Target countries and regions -SRF geographical alignment: CCAFS is aligned with the SRF geographically, with around 42% of investments focused on Africa, 39% on Asia and 19% on poverty hotspots in Latin America, with small amounts of additional work in hotspots for agricultural mitigation (e.g. Brazil). CCAFS will work in 15 of the Site Integration countries (Annex Table 6). The bulk of the CCAFS work will be carried out in 21 countries (CRP Figure 2). CCAFS will focus on five regions -Latin America, West Africa, East Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia. There is much demand and pressure for work in other regions. Given the resources to CCAFS and the CCAFS External Evaluation that has a draft recommendation to focus in fewer countries, the intention is to maintain only five regions and specific target countries. Bilateral funds will enable some additional work in other regions. CCAFS will continue taking a dynamic approach to comparative advantage by phasing geographies as progress is made on outcomes, and by so doing address the specific Evaluation recommendations on particular countries. Several countries will be phased out in years 3-6, with the possibility of others being targeted. Geographic priority setting is based on a mix of modelling approaches, formalized scoring systems with stakeholders and regional consultations. Work in some countries may also be driven by the need to facilitate South-South learning on specific topics. South-South learning has proven a success in Phase I.Links to global targets and processes: CCAFS will deliver on the following SDGs: 1, 2, 5, 14 and 15, but the primary focus will be goal 13 on climate change (CRP Figure 3). CCAFS will also play a major role in goal 12.3 on food loss and waste -given that food loss and waste are seen as one of the crucial dimensions for achieving emissions reductions (see FP3). The CSA framework speaks directly to emerging metrics under the SDGs (CRP Table 4).Within the public and private sector, there is increasing focus on CSA and targets are being developed in GACSA, in the Alliance for CSA in Africa and in WBCSD, representing major commitments by CCAFS partners. More than 25 countries indicated an interest in CSA in their INDCs. CCAFS is involved in helping frame these targets and will co-develop activities to contribute to them, in line with a draft recommendation from the CCAFS External Evaluation.Being an Integrating CRP, CCAFS intends to position CGIAR to play a major role in national to global processes and implementation of CSA. It will draw on the options developed in various CRPs, provide tools and advice on priorities in different contexts (including information on trade-offs and co-benefits) and make the links to the climate science community. A particular focus will be on the various partnerships and alliances on CSA, the UNFCCC, the IPCC and the GCF.CCAFS has committed with partners (see Section 1.0.8) to globally ambitious targets for action in the face of climate change (CRP Table 3). Yet there are numerous challenges in agricultural research for development (AR4D) that are a barrier to rapid and sustainable transformation of agriculture. These include paralysis in the face of complexity and weak mechanisms for engagement and negotiation among relevant stakeholders (Sayer and Campbell 2004;Hall et al. 2014;Harrington and Fisher 2014). Uncertainty around future pathways and complex causal relationships under climate change create difficulties for clear-cut decisions (Vermeulen et al. 2013) and exacerbate scepticism and inaction. Solutions to the grand challenges require working from farmers' fields to global processes, forging linkages across the environment-agriculture divide, building bridges between the global change community and the agricultural community, and giving equal attention to technology, institutions, power and process.Fundamental to CCAFS is a series of nested \"impact pathways\" that link research activities and outputs to desired outcomes and impacts on people's wellbeing, up to the global level of the SDGs. The impact pathways depend in turn on a comprehensive ToC at program level, which recognizes impact pathways as non-linear, dynamic and polycentric (CRP Figure 4). The programwide ToC is linked to theories of change for the nested FPs (four thematic research programs), Regions (as an example of a Regional ToC, see Annex Figure 1), projects, and the cross-cutting area of work on gender and social inclusion, and on partnerships and capacity for scaling CSA.ISPC commentary has noted that in the Extension Phase CCAFS presented a set of coherent impact pathways linked to compelling IDOs, but was insufficiently clear on the ToC. The subsequent ISPC commentary on the Phase II pre-proposal was that the ToC at CRP level was informative and clear, but with hypotheses that were too generic and thus not testable, particularly at the FP level. CCAFS has subsequently reduced the number of hypotheses across the CRP, and has sought to standardize these as a set of hypotheses about the impact pathway from research to uptake and positive impact of CSA at scale -they are thus primarily hypotheses about the change process.Eight of these hypotheses are spelt out in the FP sections of this proposal (two per FP), and summarized in the ToC diagram (CRP Figure 4). Each FP also has a gender-related hypothesis, plus one stand-alone gender hypothesis (see Section 1.0.4), giving thirteen hypotheses in total (CRP Figure 4). Our ToC for how large-scale CSA adoption might occur builds on the theory presented by Lipper et al. (2014) for CSA, which proposes four areas for action: (1) building evidence; (2) developing capacity of institutions and services; (3) coordinating climate and agricultural policies; and (4) stable, strategic investment to reach scale. The CCAFS ToC, as shown in CRP Figure 4, locates twelve of the CCAFS hypotheses within the four areas of action:(1) Working with partners, especially implementing partners and local organizations, to build field-based evidence (bottom left corner of CRP Figure 4) (2) Working with partners, especially climate risk management service providers, to understand how to strengthen institutions and services through better use of climate information (top left corner of CRP Figure 4) (3) Working with partners, particularly policy partners, to understand what works for coordinated policy and governance (top right corner of CRP Figure 4) (4) Working with partners, particularly the large agencies and companies driving implementation, to understand what works for investment to reach scale (bottom right corner of CRP Figure 4)Each hypothesis has assumptions presented in the FP sections. Key assumptions relate to maintained political will and readiness to tackle challenges of future food security under climate change and institutional capacity to meet these political aspirations (CRP Figure 4). Project-level impact pathways within each FP will specify assumptions at a more detailed level. While unintended outcomes have largely been serendipitous and positive under Phase I (e.g. additional partners adding scale to outcomes, or unexpected results on gender differences leading to better tailoring of ICT services), regular evaluation and update of the ToC is crucial. Mechanisms for internal learning are introduced in Section 1.0.11 on program management and governance, and are elaborated on in Annex 3.0.5. On the basis of monitoring change, qualitative research that examines outcomes, processes and stakeholder perceptions, and on the basis of external review, the hypotheses will be revisited after two years of implementation.In general, we posit that the selected 12 sub-IDOs (CRP Table 3) will be achieved through largescale, equitable adoption of climate-smart practices, services and institutions, within the context of agricultural development pathways that prioritize resilience-building and, where appropriate, low emissions. We need to drive, with partners, implementation of CSA on the ground and simultaneously to foster policy and institutional change to enable such implementation (black boxes in CRP Figure 4). Partnerships -the \"who\" of the ToC shown in rounded brackets for each action area in CRP Figure 4 -are seen as crucial to the \"How\" of the ToC (see Annex Table 1 for examples of modes of working with partners).The \"How\" also involves the way that CCAFS should operate. CCAFS has used internal learning to develop 10 principles about how CRP behaviours can enhance the likelihood and quality of outcomes (Vermeulen and Campbell 2015). One of these is \"Navigate towards specific points of leverage\". We propose that an effective AR4D program inquires into complexity and confronts wicked problems, but -rather than get lured into either reductionist approaches or vast attempts to model complexity -uses \"best-bet\" prioritization to navigate towards a limited number of leverage points most likely to drive change. Another is \"Allocate resources in three thirds -needs, research, capacity\". We propose that an effective AR4D program invests a third of resources in working with next users to build relationships and to define their needs from research, a third on research per se (often with partners), and a third on enhancing next users' capacity so as to improve the uptake of the research. A further example of one of the principles is \"Tackle power and influence\". We propose that an effective AR4D program actively addresses gender and other power differences within deliberative approaches in which the CRP participates. One important aspect of this approach is recognition of the power and influence of the AR4D program itself. In most cases science is only one among many influences on policy and action, and scientific inputs are not given privilege on account of being more \"objective\" or \"factual\". These principles will be reflected on during internal learning and updated where appropriate.Capacity development is pivotal to the impact pathways of CCAFS as a whole and the individual FPs, providing the mechanisms whereby increasing abilities to demand, undertake and utilize research lead to sustainable improvements in capacity to manage climate change. Thus the CCAFS capacity development strategy (Annex 3.0.2) addresses the full ToC, with particular emphasis on developing capacity to generate policy-relevant knowledge on CSA (\"building evidence\" hypothesis of ToC) and developing institutional capacity particularly among boundary organizations to put knowledge into effective use (\"developing capacity\" hypothesis of ToC). CCAFS also understands knowledge management (including open access) and communications as central drivers of change (shown as gears CRP Figure 4). Integration of CCAFS with other CRPs is also a critical driver, both in terms of Site Integration but also at all levels up to the global arena (e.g. UNFCCC, GCF, GACSA) to provide a unified voice and powerful body of science on agriculture under climate change (see Section 1.0.8 on Partnerships and comparative advantage).Gender, youth and social inclusion are integral to the ToC. CCAFS has a LP on CSA, gender and social inclusion, described further below, which integrates gender into the four areas of action identified by Lipper et al. (2014). The LP on CSA, gender and social inclusion seeks to test five hypotheses on empowerment of women and youth; four hypotheses link with FPs while one is cross-cutting. Gender is built strongly into the CCAFS impact pathway, for example by selecting gender as a focal area for capacity development (see capacity development strategy in Annex 3.0.2) and direct engagement around gender at policy and institutional scales from local (e.g. women's self-help groups) through to global (UNFCCC Lima work program on gender). Youth is mainstreamed into the LP on CSA, gender and social inclusion, providing in particular engagement and capacity development activities aimed at youth. These are designed to use youth-friendly approaches such as ICTs to help to deliver CCAFS impact pathways for reaching CSA at scale.The preliminary recommendations of the IEA review of CCAFS propose that CCAFS can increase its policy-informing role and thereby be more effective in achieving movement along the higher level ToC. CCAFS will take on board this recommendation to undertake more concerted higher level policy engagement and synthesis. CCAFS will not expect impact pathways to happen by themselves, as a natural outcome of high quality scientific publications and other IPGs. Instead CCAFS will invest seriously in working with partners to ensure that CGIAR research is fully embedded into development cycles, and, vice versa, development embedded into research cycles. This will be done through a LP on Partnerships and Capacity for Scaling CSA. In terms of structure, this platform will include five RPLs and a Global Research Leader on Scaling CSA (CRP Figure 6) as well as communications and capacity development staff, taking forward a core team of staff from Phase I. Through this explicit and committed investment in impact pathways beyond research, with clear targets, CCAFS will make pathways from research to impact more measurable for performance evaluation, including value for money. The LP will aim to position the entire CGIAR as the leading global research organization for developing country food systems and climate change.Agriculture is the largest sector for women's employment in three regions -Oceania, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa -employing 60% of women. Rural women play an increasing role in smallholder agriculture as a result of out-migration of males (United Nations 2015b; Sugden et al. 2014). CCAFS research in the lead up to COP21 found that women and men farmers in developing countries have different vulnerabilities and capacities to deal with the impact of climate change on agriculture (Huyer et al. 2015; Gonda, in press; CRP Figure 5). Women appear to be less able to adapt because of financial or resource constraints and less access to information and extension. In rural Bangladesh, women are less likely to buy micro-insurance if risk is low-probability, while men are likely to buy more units of insurance CSA options have the potential to provide benefits for women -when they have access to information on CSA, they are just as likely as men, if not more so, to adopt the practices. However, the possibility of increased labour loads is a significant barrier for women ( These examples illustrate the centrality of gender in agriculture under climate change. Changes in farming systems that are likely to occur in the face of climate change, for example, instability of food supply and need for increased irrigation, make it even more important. Some are topics of research in CCAFS, such as accelerating out-migration and threats to food and nutrition security (FP1), massive investments in CSA (FP2) and the reshaping of climate-informed safety nets in response to increasing frequency of extreme events (FP4). Actions need to be put in place to ensure that gender and social inclusion is achieved, and that in fact, the gender gap in agriculture does not increase as a result of climate change.Social inclusion involves gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity and age, and affects dynamics around perspectives, needs and access to resources (FAO and CCAFS 2013). Differences exist among women and men according to these characteristics. Scientific information and agricultural assets are set within contexts of power relationships, so that existing gender norms and power inequalities will influence climate change impacts and adaptations (Roncoli 2006; Rossi & Lambrou 2008; Boyd 2010). CCAFS will take a problem-oriented, combined top-down and bottom-up approach (Vermeulen et al. 2013) that relies on engagement and capacity strengthening in the context of power relations analysis.To ensure that the CRP can deliver to the ToC, a new GSI strategy is in place 1 to integrate gender in keeping with commitments in the CGIAR SRF; it builds on research in Phase I (see the Gender Annex 3.0.3). The main goal of CCAFS GSI is to promote gender equality in CSA, food systems and landscapes. GSI contributes to the three CGIAR SLOs through research to inform, catalyse and target CSA solutions to women and vulnerable groups, increase their control over productive assets and resources, and increase participation in decision-making at local and national levelsin order to close the gender gap by 2030 (CGIAR 2015). The GSI Strategy places women at the centre of agriculture in developing countries within a framework of power and inclusion, recognizing their importance in agricultural production, food and nutritional security, and livelihoods. A focus on gender potentially opens spaces for other inequalities, and is thus complemented by other strategies to deal with marginalization in communities.GSI will undertake strategic and integrated research. 2 In particular, in line with the external evaluation, GSI will undertake inter-and intra-household level research on GSI and CSA adoption, including generation and analysis of gender-differentiated data through baseline and monitoring; develop frameworks for addressing GSI in project design; identify opportunities for generating benefits to women through LED (with FP3); and work with FPs and RPLs to increase gender and social inclusion expertise and analyse gaps and lessons learned. GSI Strategic research is cross-cutting across FPs and relevant to climate dimensions in all CRPs. It uses qualitative and quantitative methods in six categories mapped against the CCAFS ToC (see CRP Table 5): (1) Analysis of data in the Gender Household Survey conducted in CSVs, to provide a baseline for the gender and youth sub-IDOs (CCAFS et al. 2013), and updated in 2017 in six CCAFS sites across 4 countries -Kenya, Uganda, Senegal and Bangladesh. (2) Analysis of household decision-making methodologies in adaptation and mitigation. Studies in three countries in EA (to be expanded to LAM and WA) will include baseline analyses, surveys of existing research, testing of technologies and practices, and measuring behavioural change.(3) Enabling mechanisms, tools and frameworks for gender in CSA, along with strategies for scaling up and measurement frameworks will be tested in CSVs in all five regions. (4) The potential for climate finance instruments to support women's adaptation and mitigation-based enterprises will test the W+ standard with a pilot in Nepal; the CARE CSA/SuPER framework in EA and WA; and others. (5) Global and national climate policy research will investigate the extent to which women and gender are integrated. Research will include analysis of GSI in national and global climate policy. Work with WISAT will develop statistical and policy analysis in 21 countries. (6) Value chain research will assess women's engagement in supply chains, access to technical information, and barriers to participation with a focus on dairy, tree crops and agroforestry, coffee, cocoa and rice.GSI integrated research in all CCAFS projects (except those that are purely biophysical) will assess and synthesise gender research as well as support new research. Mechanisms include: (1) CSA gender focal points at each Centre; (2) gender analysis in design, implementation and ex post Impact Assessment; gender indicators, outputs and outcomes; (3) GSI integration into conceptual frameworks, research guides and workplans; (4) allocating resources explicitly to support Flagship research and activities. Strategic Partners will provide additional expertise as needed. Outputs include a gender and CSA impact assessment framework; GSI scaling up methodologies; gender and household decision-making methodology for CSA; genderresponsive climate finance instruments.Research will be communicated to researchers, advocacy groups and policy makers through policy briefs summarizing key findings and recommendations; toolkits; info briefs; and working papers. The CRP work will be disseminated through the CRP GSI website, contributions to international publications, presentations and panels.The GSI ToC integrates gender into the CRP ToC, and as described in Section 1.0.3, sees partnerships and capacity development as core to achieving the \"How\". As above, the gender ToC also embraces the four areas identified by Lipper et al. (2014) and Vermeulen (2015) for largescale, equitable adoption of climate-smart practices, services and institutions. CRP Each FP has identified gender indicators for one gender sub-IDO and at least one other sub-IDO. CCAFS focuses on two gender sub-IDOs (control of productive assets and participation in decision-making), taking into account effects on women's workloads. Of the 12 CCAFS sub-IDOs, six have outcome targets that include a gender dimension (CRP Table 6). The 2022 target for CCAFS is to bring benefits to at least 11 million women and assist 4.5 million women out of poverty (based on Targets implicit in CRP Table 3). FP4 aims to provide 8 million farm households with improved access to financial and other services (sub-IDOs in italics) and increase women's access to climate services and safety nets. Research on GSI dimensions of CSA will influence organizations and institutions to direct investment to optimize consumption of diverse nutrient-rich foods and enhance gender-equitable control of productive assets and resources (FP1). It will also involve identifying gender-sensitive CSA options for scaling out (e.g. by examining all technologies and practices for their gender implications as part of improving forecasting of impacts of climate change and targeted technology development) (FP2). This will include identifying trade-offs among food security, adaptation, and mitigation for men and women. FP2 will track how organizations adapt their plans and direct investment to increase women's access to, and control over, productive assets and resources. Research and MEL systems ensuring women farmers will benefit from LED options will contribute to reduced net GHG emissions (FP3). FP3 aims to influence organizations to adapt plans or direct investment to increase women's participation in decision-making about LED in agriculture. Partners will report annually on gender activities, achievements and indicators, so as to track progress to the outcome targets.Five gender-related hypotheses are proposed in relation to the ToC. H1-H4 are each aligned with one FP, while H5 is cross cutting CCAFS. CRP Table 7 indicates planned Flagship gender research to help to produce the outcomes outlined in the hypotheses. All these hypotheses will be examined in the course of the research, through MEL; qualitative research that examines processes, outcomes and stakeholder perceptions; and external evaluation. The hypotheses are:H1: Scaling up CSA through improved policies and programs, and increased investments, will influence national/ state organizations and institutions to adapt their plans and direct investment to increase women's access to, and control over, productive assets and resources, as well as enhance food and nutrition security.Context-specific knowledge on the GSI impacts of practices, technologies and information systems on CSA lead to investment and scaled adoption of CSA practices which increase women's control of productive assets at the local level and are scalable.H3: Improved evidence, incentives, technical capacity, and social mobilization for LED will support governments, the private sector and donors to implement LED policies and programs at large scales that will increase participation in decision-making and control of productive assets by women and vulnerable groups.Overcoming key gaps in climate information, knowledge and methods to effectively target and implement climate-informed services and interventions, and evidence of their benefits, leads to more effective use of climate information by women farmers and gender-equitable control of productive assets.Promoting equitable decision-making in the household will lead to women's increased control of productive resources and increased empowerment.CSA gender specialists, located in Centres, work across FPs. CCAFS will use mechanisms in place for addressing gender across FPs and Regions to design, implement, and report on youth activities (e.g. GSI team, gender focal points at centres, LP on CSA). Research will be shared through CCAFS products and platforms, CG networks, international publications and fora, and global policy processes). CCAFS will collaborate with organizations working on youth, e.g. FAO, IFAD, CARE, YPARD, and subnational organizations, networks and initiatives, e.g. Ecohabitats. CCAFS will also collaborate with national, regional, and global research and policy bodies to improve youth engagement in policy and programming.The CCAFS programmatic structure is shown in CRP Figure 6. There are four Flagship Programs. There are also six Learning Platforms that integrate with other CRPs and across CGIAR centres. Four of these are run under FPs and two are run independently, cutting across all FPs. CCAFS operates from farm to global levels, with different FPs having responsibility for different themes in different levels (CRP Figure 7). It is essential that the FPs coordinate their work streams.FP1: Priorities and Policies for CSA will improve evidence and tools on enabling policy environments and priority-setting for targeted investment to support the scaling of CSA technologies to ultimately contribute to food and nutritional security under climate change. The FPL will be based at ILRI. The FP will include a cross-CRP LP on Ex-ante evaluation and decision support for climate-smart options (LP1).FP2: Climate-Smart Technologies and Practices will provide the evidence on the synergies and trade-offs among technologies and practices, towards the achievement of the distinct pillars of CSA across a range of agro-ecologies and social contexts. The FPL will be based at CIAT. The FP LP5 on CSA, gender and social inclusion will undertake research to inform, catalyse and target CSA solutions to women and other vulnerable groups, increase the control of disadvantaged groups over productive assets and resources, and increase their participation in climate-relevant decision-making. The GSI Research Leader, based at strategic partner WISAT, will lead delivery of this LP in coordination with all FPs and the Partnerships LP, coordinating closely with the CGIAR Gender and Agriculture Network.LP6 on partnerships and capacity for scaling CSA will position CGIAR as the leading global research organization for developing country food systems and climate change, by managing partnerships and capacity development at global, regional and national levels to deliver impact from research. The Global Research Leader on Scaling CSA will lead a team of RPLs to deliver this LP in coordination with all FPs and CRPs.Until recently, global negotiation processes on climate change have maintained separate tracks for adaptation and mitigation, based on the concept of common but differentiated responsibilities among UNFCCC parties. The agricultural sector, including CCAFS, has consistently challenged this strict delineation, recognizing the many opportunities for co-benefits between adaptation and mitigation in farming and food systems. The external policy environment for climate change and food security is increasingly integrative across adaptation and mitigation, and across the whole food system. For example, Parties delivered integrated plans for both mitigation and adaptation to the UNFCCC call for INDCs to the post-2015, and the GCF invites funding proposals to deliver simultaneously on both goals. However, separate tracks can be expected to remain to some extent, and for good reason, due to the hierarchy of preference in how society tends to respond to climate change (mitigation, then adaptation, then compensation for loss and damage). Low emissions development in developing country agriculture is essential if we are to achieve globally agreed targets for emissions reductionsand hence needs a dedicated research track. An additional challenge is the mismatch between the multi-decadal timeframes for long-term adaptation, which involves transformation of entire agricultural and food systems, and the one to five year planning horizons of most governments and development agencies. Over these timeframes, farmers are experiencing climate change mainly as increasing risk associated with less predictable weather, or a growing frequency or intensity of extreme climatic events.CCAFS is structured around the reality of this external environment. FP1 and FP2 focus on CSA, i.e. the co-achievement of food security, climate change adaptation and reduction of GHG emissions associated with agriculture. FP1 deals with the over-arching policy context, aiming to assess how enabling policy environments and priority-setting for targeted investment can support the scaling of CSA technologies. FP2 addresses the level of technologies and practices, aiming to provide evidence on the synergies and trade-offs of different practices and technologies towards the achievement of the three goals of CSA across a range of agroecologies and social contexts. FP3 focuses on how low emissions development pathways can deliver globally significant mitigation outcomes in tandem with gains for adaptation, food security and national development. FP4 tackles current climate variability, aiming to foster the longer-term transition towards CSA in high-risk environments by supporting the development of climate information services and climate-informed safety nets that enable smallholder farmers to adopt more climate-smart production systems.The CCAFS LP on Partnerships and Capacity for Scaling CSA provides the central mechanism for cohesion across FPs at national, regional and global levels. It provides both synthetic learning functions and pathways to impact at scale, working with partners in each region as well as at the global level. It is designed to deliver these impact pathways for all CCAFS FPs and for the full body of CGIAR research on climate change. The LP on CSA, Gender and Social Inclusion provides for a rigorous treatment of gender and equity, in a climate context. It works across the full CCAFS portfolio. The pathway to impact for CCAFS depends critically on its capacity to integrate the adaptation-led Flagship Programs FP2 and FP4 with low emissions strategies (FP3) and institutional approaches to food systems (FP1), and to align all of these within an informed approach to social inclusion, to increase the CRP's contributions to IDOs, SLOs and SDGs.While CCAFS has programmatic research content, it also has a major role to integrate climate change across all CRPs, and in fact across a range of partnerships. The CCAFS strategy for achieving a fully integrated CGIAR portfolio, from farmers' fields to global processes, involves five mechanisms, as follows:(1) Impact pathways. CCAFS established integrated regional impact pathways, involving numerous partners and Centres (including scientists already participating in other CRPs). These will be revisited in relation to ongoing Site Integration planning. An integrated impact pathway focus helps to shape partnerships, cross-CRP collaboration and build common purpose. Annex 3.0.6 provides an example of the approach.(2) Learning Platforms (LPs). CCAFS will host six LPs -these will involve a body of research activities within their thematic area, exchange of lessons learnt on methods and tools, events focusing on emerging results, synthesis of results across CRPs, and communication. (4) Project Activity Planning: Each CCAFS project, and future CCAFS projects, will identify in the \"Planning and Reporting System\" (P&R) the linkages with other CRPs, including levels of coinvestment. Project collaboration often starts at the concept stage, through interactions between individuals from different CRPs.(5) Internal Learning: To ensure success in the Cross-CRP collaboration strategy, attention will be given to internal learning. This will consist of two elements. (1) Cross-CRP collaboration will be one element in MEL (Annex 3.0.5). For example, annual work plans for each LP will be developed, and will be annually assessed by relevant participants. MEL will also feed into decisions on which LP to phase out and which to start, as resource limitations preclude a focus on more than the six topics selected. For example, once work on index-based insurance is well advanced (LP4), it may be opportune to shift focus to another topic. (2) The effectiveness of the above mechanisms will depend on the skills of the individuals, e.g. Contact Points, leaders of LPs. All these individuals will have annual appraisal (including 360 degree feedback).Partners and the ToC: The Partnership Strategy (Annex 3.0.1) focuses at the national level as the key route to impact. This Strategy is seen as a crucial element of the ToC. • (5) Gender-sensitive approaches, e.g. training of women scientists and policy makers to enhance their opportunities for contribute directly to national reporting and decision-making on agricultural GHG emissions (FP3) and measurement of continuous improvement in gender-sensitivity, including National Assessments on Gender and STI (LP on CSA, Gender and Social Inclusion). The CCAFS governance model from Phase I, which has been favourably reviewed and which follows the recommendations of the IEA Review of CRP Governance, will be maintained with minor modifications (for roles and responsibilities see CCAFS website). The Lead Centre is CIAT.The Independent Steering Committee (ISC) is the overall advisory body, with CIAT Board taking final decisions on the Program of Work and Budget (POWB) in line with its fiduciary responsibility. The ISC has the following responsibilities: (1) Providing strategic direction to the CRP, including priority setting and the evaluation of results; (2) Approving the POWB developed by the Program Management Committee (PMC), and presenting it to the CIAT Board for final approval; (3) Overseeing external evaluations of CRP activities; (4) Maintaining awareness of stakeholder perspectives; (5) Serving as a programmatic report for the CRP Director; (6) Reporting annually to the Lead Centre Board (through the Board Chair); and (7) Serving as an expert resource to the PMC. The ISC will have: 7 independent members (with gender, geographical and disciplinary diversity, and mixed experience from academia, development agencies and the private sector) and 4 ex officio members, namely Lead Centre DG, CRP Director, Future Earth representative (representing non-CGIAR partners), and a DG representing CGIAR partners. It will meet twice per year.Initial feedback from the External Evaluation is positive and thus no change of leadership is envisaged. The core team will be: CRP Director, 4 FPLs, 5 RPLs, and 2 cross-cutting leaders (see Annex 3.0.7). All core team members will be performance-assessed by their organization's line manager, with inputs by the Director. All were selected competitively in previous Phases.The CRP Director will be responsible for intellectual leadership and representation; sign off on deliverables; facilitating fund raising (see draft fundraising strategy); ensuring that all CRP strategies are updated and implemented; and have decision-making authority with respect to day-to-day operations. The CRP Director will report administratively to the DG of CIAT and programmatically to the ISC Chair. The Program Management Unit will consist of the Director and administrative, MEL, data management and communications support (some part time). The FPLs will be primarily responsible for: Flagship programmatic coherence; facilitating and participating in the delivery of IPGs; technical backstopping for projects in their FPs; facilitating development outcomes through their global partners; and ensuring integration with the other ICRPs, particularly through the LPs. Phase I demonstrated the crucial role of the RPLs, who will be primarily responsible for: the updating of national to regional theories of change linked to ongoing climate change-related processes and the delivery of development outcomes, through coordination, strategic partnerships and capacity development; technical backstopping of projects; integration of work with AFS-CRPs, particularly through two LPs (LP2: Participatory evaluation of CSA technologies and practices in Climate-Smart Villages; LP6: Partnerships and capacity for scaling CSA); and delivery of IPGs. FPs and Regions will work in a matrix, which a Phase I evaluation (Ash 2013) has complemented for delivery of both IPGs and outcomes. The two cross-cutting leaders are responsible for delivery of outcomes and IPGs across the program. The GSI Research Leader will ensure that gender and social inclusion are mainstreamed in all activities, and facilitate the delivery of gender-related IPGs. The Global Research Leader on Scaling CSA will facilitate delivery of IDOs and IPGs related to global policy processes and private sector peak bodies (e.g. WBCSD), and research on scaling.The Program Management Committee (PMC), drawn from the above-mentioned core team, comprises Bruce Campbell (CRP Director, CIAT), Andy Jarvis (FP2 Leader, CIAT), Lini Wollenberg (FP3 Leader, U Vermont), Robert Zougmoré (West Africa RPL, ICRISAT), Pramod Aggarwal (South Asia RPL, CIMMYT), Sophia Huyer (GSI Leader, WISAT) and Sonja Vermeulen, Global Research Leader on Scaling CSA, Imperial College). They will meet 11 times per year (mostly virtually). They will have the following responsibilities: ensuring overall strategic focus; ensuring programmatic coherence across Centres, CRPs, FPs, Regions and partners; preparing and implementing all CRP strategies; preparing the annual POWB, annual reports, and inputs to the ISC.All Centres have expressed an interest to be Tier 1 Partners. It is not feasible for CCAFS to reduce this number as climate change is indeed of relevance to all Centres. Centres will have representation on the ISC through an elected CGIAR DG. Similarly, CCAFS has a number of non-CGIAR Strategic Partners -partners that: leverage significant resources for work on a CCAFSpartner jointly defined agenda (e.g. IRI, WUR); lead projects within CCAFS (e.g. CARE, IIRR); lead FPs within CCAFS (e.g. U Vermont); have a global or regional mandate for development (e.g. IFAD, GIZ); peak bodies for various stakeholder groups (e.g. WBCSD, PAFO). These partners will be represented on the ISC through Future Earth (for Strategic Partner roles -Annex 3.0.1, Annex Table 2).Each Strategic Partner will have a named Contact Point, with responsibilities tailored to the partner roles. The CGIAR Contact Point responsibilities include: building strategic and operational links between CCAFS and their Centre (including links with other Centre CRP activities); building effective cross-Centre collaboration; contributing to CCAFS strategic development and high-level IPGs. Contact Points report to their line managers with input by the Director.Given the large number of Strategic Partners, a Partnership Advisory Committee (PAC) will be established comprising Contact Points from Centres and non-CGIAR partners. PAC will meet once per year: to assess CCAFS' mission to deliver on \"Clear partnerships and collaborative arrangements built on trust, ownership and joint commitment to vision and impacts\" (Campbell et al. 2006); to discuss CCAFS strategies and possible changes; to review progress and lessons; and to discuss specific partnership issues needing resolution. PAC will feed directly into the ISC through ex officio representatives. To reduce transaction costs, PAC will convene on the sidelines of other global conferences.One of the ten principles in the ToC is that internal learning is crucial (Vermeulen and Campbell 2015). We propose that an effective AR4D program includes processes to review the ToC, re-align the strategy, and seize emerging opportunities in the dynamic policy spaces of climate and agriculture. Much useful internal learning can be informal, but more formal components provide a strong framework for institutional learning, adaptive management and change. These include formal online planning and reporting systems (P&R), results-based management (RBM), risk analysis, external evaluation of potentially problematic areas, longer-cycle learning utilizing baselines and ex-post Impact Assessment and ISC oversight. The CCAFS RBM system now incorporates the sub-IDOs to evaluate progress against impact pathways. Indicators are additive from projects to Regions to FPs and link to the targets in the Performance Indicator Matrix. Each project will establish baseline and MEL indicators, using standardized procedures across the CRP. Where there are economies of scale across several projects, and for specific indicators, CRP-wide baselines and MEL will be established. CCAFS has good experience in this area, having undertaken household, village and organization baseline surveys (Förch et al. 2014;Perez et al. 2015).CCAFS is in compliance with the CGIAR Principles on IAs (see Annex 3.0.9). CCAFS IAs include knowledge, databases, publications and other information products; they do not include improved germplasm, plant variety rights and patents. All products produced by CCAFS are, wherever possible, disseminated using open access principles, with clear branding to acknowledge authorship. When working with private sector, CCAFS clarifies its commitment to open access and abides by any rules that are placed on the partnership, but final products are made public in accordance with agreements.CCAFS values the traditional knowledge of farmers and sees such knowledge as a starting point for discussions about climate change adaptation and mitigation. CCAFS abides by national regulations on farmers' rights and the principle of prior informed consent. Publications referring to traditional knowledge give appropriate credit to the providers of such knowledge, though maintaining confidentiality when appropriate. While household information collected from farmers may be included in open-access databases, care is taken to protect confidentiality. CCAFS is committed to participatory research, as discussed in the ToC -this includes sharing results with the participating parties.Mechanisms to assure compliance with IA principles, include: (a) ensuring that partners pay attention to agreements and contracts; (b) maintaining a regularly updated IP portfolio (which in CCAFS case are lists of publications and databases); (c) checking that partners pay attention to prior informed consent principles; (d) ensuring that traditional knowledge is appropriately acknowledged; and (e) ensuring confidentiality where appropriate. The PMC have delegated IA oversight to the Communication and Knowledge Manager, with policy made by the ISC. Resources needed for the tasks are budgeted under other CCAFS functions (in particular under data management and communications). Link to full strategy.In keeping with the CGIAR Open Access and Data Management Policy (OADM), research data, tools, and associated information generated under CCAFS will be made available for indexing and interlinking, so that research outputs are open via FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Re-usable) to enhance innovation, impact, and uptake. The OADMP complements the CGIAR Principles on the Management of Intellectual Assets.In Phase I CCAFS developed a data management strategy and a set of user-support materials, and piloted its implementation in relation to reporting, collating outputs, and quality assessment of archived data. CCAFS designed and implemented an online Planning & Reporting system (\"P&R\") that has been used for three cycles of project planning and reporting to date. The online platform is a key component of CCAFS open access management in Phase II, setting out workflows and procedures for planning, reporting, and learning, including evaluation of data and tool outputs along with appropriate metadata (see Annex 3.0.8 for details). The CCAFS P&R will be modified to fit the requirements for Phase II, while the four ICRPs: A4NH, CCAFS, PIM and WLE have agreed on moving forward jointly on the design and implementation of a single, integrated online ICT platform.Open access management at CRP level includes setting policies and providing the overall framework, systems and structure. This is operationalized at flagship, region and project levels, where research outputs will follow CGIAR requirements and will primarily be hosted within the existing platforms CGIAR or CCAFS hosts (e.g. CGspace, Dataverse, CCAFS climate). Link to full strategy.Strategic communications offers a set of powerful tools and approaches that can contribute to CCAFS outcomes and CGIAR's SRF, and generate positive change. The CCAFS communications strategy (Annex 3.0.10) builds on five years of successful communications in Phase I (see strategy for examples).In Phase II, communications continues to strongly align with the program's impact pathways. In Phase I all communication staff took up impact pathway thinking and MEL, so that communications rose to the challenge of being an essential component of the ToC. Communication activities are thus designed to deliver on the program's overall goals as well as on measurable objectives that promote CCAFS science, inform major initiatives and policies on climate change, agriculture and food security, make knowledge open access, and encourage learning and sharing of information across the program and with partners.Phase II communications will employ well-established tools and approaches to deliver tailored messages to program partners and next users, who can help produce development impacts. Systematic monitoring and evaluation of communications activities will continue, to ensure that Phase II communications benefits from previous successes and lessons learned, and continues to learn and adjust as the program evolves.Communications is a shared responsibility by all program partners, and collective action and collaboration will be essential to deliver impact under CCAFS Phase II. Phase I demonstrated the benefits of strong central coordination of communication activities, coupled with contextualized communication in the regions.Communications will be supported through budget allocations and staff time including: a Global Communications and Knowledge Manager to lead program communication, working under the Global Research Leader for Scaling CSA; flagship communicators based in the regions; and dedicated communicators in CCAFS projects. Link to full strategy.Throughout Phase I, CCAFS maintained a risk catalogue that was updated at least once per year by the full PMC. The risk catalogue includes details on each of the risks, their likelihood and impact, mitigating measures and a risk owner. The results of the risk assessment were reported once per year to the ISP and to the CIAT Board, and included discussions each year between the CCAFS Director and the Chair of the CIAT Audit and Risk Committee of the Board, a specialist in risk management. These practices will be maintained in Phase II. Key risks that were dealt with in Phase I included budget stability and its implications for efficient management (this also forms one of the draft recommendations to CGIAR in the CCAFS External Evaluation), morale issues (in terms of Centre scientists and the change processes), problem with bilateral funding (e.g. insufficient being allocated to CCAFS themes on the one hand and the challenge of maintain a coherent strategy on the other).CRP Lead Center: CIATWe have followed the 2 nd Call Guidance as to the overall budget allocation, namely USD 21 million W1/W2 in 2017 and USD 57 million total budget in 2017, and 5% increase in budget per annum. In getting submissions from Centers, Centers have suggested that the W3/Bilateral funding level assumed in the current budget can be exceeded. If this is the case it will be dealt with through the Uplift budget.W1/W2 allocations to Flagships represent strategic choices by the Program Management Committee (PMC) and Independent Science Panel (ISP) (see Section 4 below for allocation processes), while W3/Bilateral allocations are largely based on Centre fundraising initiatives and opportunities, with oversight by PMC (see Section 2 below).A major share of the overall budget goes to FP2 (44%). This represents the heartland of the CGIAR (e.g. CSA technologies and practices in climate-smart villages). The amount is particularly high because of the large amount of bilateral that has been allocated here by Centers. Considering only W1/W2 funds, the allocation to FP2 is significantly lower -FP2 gets 31% of total W1/W2. Roughly equal levels of W1/W2 funding go to CSA policy-related work (FP1, 20%), the technical and institutional options for low emissions development (FP3, 21%), and climate services and safety nets (FP4, 19%). FP2 will deliver outcomes on the ground (which are nonetheless dependent on an enabling environment provided by FP1 and FP4, and on technical inputs provided for emissions reduction and LED by FP3. When the overall budget is considered, because of the allocations of W3/Bilateral, FP3 and FP4 become the smallest Flagships (16% and 16% of total budget), with FP1 slightly larger (20%). We hypothesize that the global community and developing countries will devote more attention to (a) climate extremes, risk management, early warming and safety nets in the coming years as extreme events intensify (FP4 issues) and to (b) emissions and mitigation in agriculture as the global community gears up to prevent temperatures rising further (FP3 issues). This is likely to increase the demand for research on these topics and make fundraising for them easier. Fundraising priorities will center on the smaller Flagships, and if there are shifts in W1/W2 over time they would be away from FP2 (see Section 4 on dealing with variances). W1/W2 funds will go to strategic research related to the CCAFS research and engagement strategy. Examples of such work are included in the budget narratives of Flagships.The budgets amounts vary significantly amongst Centers, with the six largest budget holders being Bioversity, CIAT, CIMMYT, ICRAF, ICRISAT and ILRI. It should be noted that CIAT, as Lead Center holds funds for a number of Strategic Partners that are allocated through the partnership budget line or are held by CIAT to administer on behalf of the Strategic Partner (some partners are unwilling to deal with CGIAR financial situation, e.g. the need for pre-financing). The six smallest Centers are AfricaRice, CIFOR, CIP, ICARDA, IRRI and WORLDFISH. Overall budget allocation is determined by the W1/W2 allocation process (see Section 4), success in raising W3/Bilateral funds and whether or not the Center hosts a Flagship Leader or Regional Program Leader.CCAFS has not allocated funds to a competitive grant budget line, for as explained in Section 4 below, a major portion of the budget has indeed been allocated through competitive processes.Personnel. Of the total budget 32% goes to personnel. This reflects the considerable staff inputs into the program.Travel. Of the total budget, 7% goes to travel. Given the program is globally distributed, there is a significant amount of travel, including South-South exchange. However, through virtual meetings there is also a significant budget reduction (e.g. the management team only meets once or twice per year face-to-face in association with other travel commitments, the monthly meetings being conducted via video-conferencing).Capital equipment. This is a very small percentage (0.3%) of the total costs, as CCAFS-related research is not dependent on high-cost equipment. Measuring GHGs can be very expensive, but because of this expense, CCAFS has strategized to form partnerships with Universities where such equipment is common.Other Supplies and Services. 21% of the budget goes to supplies and services. Costs here relate to Centres' Full Cost Recovery units such as IT, Facilities, Public Space, Research and Technical Support, as well as funds for workshops and operational services. This category also includes funds that are allocated for the external evaluations of the MEL strategy. The full list of evaluations is shown in Annex Table 5, and includes CCERs for each of the Flagships, as well as various external reviews of key topics (regional focus, effectiveness of Learning Platforms, gender and partnership strategy implementation, review of data and tools, effectiveness of how well ICRPs are collaborating). Also included under MEL are budgets for ex-post Impact Assessments conducted by external evaluators.CGIAR Collaborations. 2% of the total budget goes to Collaborations among CGIAR Centres but only with W3 and Bilateral funds as all W1/W2 budget are send directly from CIAT Lead Centre to Participating Centres via Program Participant Agreements (PPAs).Non-CGIAR collaboration. Partnerships for research and development outcomes are a crucial component of the ToC. Thus CCAFS strives to allocate 25-30% of its budget to partners. This amount is expected to leverage own-resources from within partners at 2-3 times that level. In the current budget 24% of the budget has been allocated to partners. The fundraising strategy places emphasis on increasing this level.Indirect costs. 15% is the average Indirect Cost rate that comes from the different rates among CGIAR Centers defined on estimated income.The outcome targets in PIM (see also CRP Table 2; CRP Table 3) are based on experience of outcome delivery in Phase I, collaborative planning with project teams, and analysis of scientific evidence. With respect to outcome delivery, for example, after three seasons of work in Senegal, climate advisories were distributed to 7 million farmers. After a few seasons of work in India, new weather-based insurance products reached more than a million farmers by the end of 2015. An ex-post impact assessment on Laser Land Levelling indicated that 0.5 million hectares were covered by this technology, with benefits for food production, adaptation and mitigation (Gill 2014). In all five CCAFS targeted Regions, multi-stakeholder scenario building with associated quantitative modelling (IMPACT and GLOBIOM) was the entry point for national engagement in about 15 countries and policy outcomes, providing further evidence of what can be achieved (Vervoort et al. 2014;Palazzo et al. 2014). Projects and regional programs have identified concrete opportunities in the public and private sector for the delivery of research-informed outcomes (e.g. as a key partner to the NEPAD project to deliver on CSA for 6 million farmers; as a partner with WBSCD to establish and implement CSA targets for major multi-nationals). Engagement strategies are in place or are being put in place to increase the likelihood of success. The CCAFS core team and partners are highly attuned to identifying opportunities for engagement with stakeholders that can deliver outcomes, one of the principles underlying the CCAFS ToC (Vermeulen and Campbell 2015).Based on such experience, Regional Program Leaders estimated outcome targets for each of the countries with CCAFS projects and engagement strategies. For outcomes related to organisational and institutional change, this included listing specific organisations that the CCAFS ToC will target and estimating the likelihood of achieving change. Similarly, for countries, examining the likely countries where specific Flagships would achieve a specified outcome. For the outcomes \"20 countries/states where CCAFS priority setting used to target and implement interventions to improve food and nutrition security under a changing climate\" these could come from countries other than the CCAFS targeted countries, because the Learning Platform in FP1 works with partners (and other CRPs) that focus on countries which are not the prime focus for CCAFS.Numbers were also checked against the literature and various databases. For example, farm household data of Lowder et al. 2014 were collated for all the CCAFS target countries and compared with outcome estimates for farm households, to check for outlying cases. The literature shows that adoption rates of even a highly profitable technology in developing countries is rarely >1% per year. It also shows that a considerable proportion of adopters will tend to be those with more assets (i.e., above the poverty line). In most CCAFS target countries, rural poverty headcount rates are 30-40%. There is some evidence relating technology adoption to poverty reduction (e.g. Asfaw et al 2011, found 33% adoption of pigeon pea in a random sample in Tanzania and a 10% change in the poverty headcount ratio between adopters and nonadopters). Based on these kinds of studies, we believe our estimates for farm households and poverty reduction are credible. The nutrition target was set in discussion with A4NH.The target for GHG emissions reduction was set using estimates of mitigation potential from Smith et al. (2008; 2013). Smith calculated regional mitigation potentials for 2030; we assumed 40% of these potentials to be achievable by 2022 and downscaled to the country level proportional to current emissions (for N2O and CH4) or area of cropland and grassland (for soil C sequestration). These potentials were then further scaled in consultation with Regional Program Leaders and project leaders according to CCAFS' current and foreseen level of involvement in each country, and checked against countries' prioritization of agricultural mitigation in their INDCs.The outcome target for forest area saved from deforestation was based on estimates of annual agriculturally-driven deforestation by Carter et al. (2015); 29 million ha of forest are lost annually to agriculture in Brazil and 3.5 million ha in Indonesia. We assumed that it would be economically feasible to halve these figures by 2022, and that CCAFS could contribute 5% of this mitigation potential per country. This target was derived through discussions with FTA staff. The target for GHG emissions reduction reflects the GHG mitigation implications of the deforestation target, calculated based on estimates of forest carbon stocks from Baccini et al. Calculations on value for money, using data in PIM Table A, indicate that over the 6-year period CCAFS will budget USD 12 per farm household to achieve CSA adoption, USD 10 per person for poverty alleviation and USD 19 per person to remove deficiencies of one or more essential micronutrients. For the natural resources SLO, USD 0.03 is allocated per tonne of carbon dioxide emissions reduced, and USD 20 per ha of forest saved from deforestation (equal to USD 0.03/t CO2e).For Flagships, some examples for value for money are as follows (based on PIM Table B), with differences amongst Flagships related to relative effort needed, and the degree to which external stakeholders are able to facilitate particular outcomes. CCAFS believes that it will reach high targets for investments in CSA (that have been informed by CCAFS science), with research costs of USD 1 informing over 20 times as much CSA investments for FP1, and also over 20 times as much for investments in climate information services and safety nets for FP4. USD 7 per farm household is needed to bring incentives (training, financial, programmatic, policy-related) to farm household for adopting CSA-related practices and technologies that potentially reduce production risks. An example from FP3 is that c. USD 400,000 is needed to facilitate an organisation adapting their plans or directing investment to increase women's participation in decision-making about LED in agriculture.Of its total budget, CCAFS will allocate c. 44% to research and engagement in Learning Platforms, indicating the degree to which CCAFS plans to play a role in systematic CGIAR-wide integration through Learning Platforms. This kind of investment will be crucial if the CGIAR is to achieve a coherent portfolio across CRPs/Centers. Each LP bears a portion of these costs. Some of this coinvestment is allocated to specific Site Integration plans, e.g. (i) climate-smart villages as sites where multiple CRPs can test innovations in a participatory mode with farmers; (ii) CSA sciencepolicy platforms. One of the evaluations planned in CCAFS (Annex Table 5) will examine the degree to which the Learning Platforms are functioning effectively.There are no particular risks to spending as planned. However, as noted in Section 1.0.15 (Risk management) it is crucial for the CGIAR to work towards more stable funding. Late budget additions and cuts in the past have made management difficult. Relative proportions of W3 and Bilateral are unknown, and thus we have used a single category of Bilateral to capture both W3 and Bilateral. 70% of W3/Bilateral is secured for 2017. However, Centres have predicted, through their budget submissions, that the budget for W3 and Bilateral will likely be exceeded for 2017. If additional funds are secured these will be dealt with through the Uplift budget.CCAFS has put in place a fundraising strategy for Phase II to make sure that funding gaps do not occur.Past allocations of W3/bilateral funds to CCAFS have been checked for coherence to the CCAFS strategic directions by the PMC. This will continue into the future. CCAFS PMC posits that a strong strategic focus is better than a large portfolio of dispersed activities driven by bilateral funding. The relative amounts going to different Flagships are less under the control of the CCAFS management team, as this is largely determined by partner success in fundraising (see discussion in Section 1 above).Because of the allocation processes conducted by CCAFS, for both W1/W2 funds (see Section 4 below) and W3/bilateral funds, in particular the need to maintain coherence and strategic orientation, the ratio of W1/W2 funding to W3/bilateral funding will likely be relatively low in 2017 (but close to the level in the 2 nd Call Guidance), but is likely to grow over time. We have nonetheless kept the overall ratio in the budget as 1:1.7 as per the Guidance, and will deal with deviations from this through the uplift budget. Flagship allocation process for W1/W2CCAFS has conducted top-down and bottom-up analyses of strategic priorities in relation to budget allocation that have determined the allocation of W1/W2 funds to Flagships. Top-down has included an analysis of the likely content of each Flagship and its relative priority for funding. This included Delphi-scoring exercises amongst the core team to determine relative priority of different Flagships. Bottom-up included calls for concept notes within each Flagship. During 2014, in preparation for the Extension Phase and specifically considering the needs for Phase II, a new portfolio of activities was developed linked to regional priorities and impact pathways, and to global challenges. This was accomplished through competitive selection of R4D concept notes followed by integrated planning at regional level (involving in all 140 scientists and practitioners, 45% non-CGIAR partners) where concept note ideas were modified and/or combined to establish a portfolio of inter-linked projects, many involving multiple Centres. Research and engagement gaps were identified and filled; and global engagement strategies and the delivery of key IPGs were planned. This planning remains relevant to Phase II, but with greater emphasis now placed on cross-CRP linkages. Final selection of the portfolio was based on a combination of the overall vision of priorities amongst Flagships (ie an \"ideal\" budget allocation amongst Flagships), the realities of what projects were likely to be the highest impact R4D activities, and a vision of achieving integrated, coherent and excellent R4D portfolios for the matrix of Regions and Flagships (criteria for final selection of activities included consideration of gender, partnerships and degree of external support, ie bilateral funding or leverage of non-CGIAR funding). The Program Management Committee developed the final portfolio and submitted it to the Independent Science Panel which had discussions and recommendations about the final results.Subsequent to these exercises CCAFS had various budget cuts and the portfolio had to be trimmed. The cuts proposed were based on a number of criteria, including performance to date, likelihood of a significant outcome, degree to which innovative science was likely to be delivered, and degree to which particular activities were crucial for delivering on a regionally and globally coherent R4D portfolio. Cuts were applied by the core team, with oversight by the Independent Science Panel.Full budget ownership is delegated to Flagship Leaders, though individual Flagship decisions about changes in directions and budget reallocations greater than 10% must be tabled for the attention of the Program Management Committee (PMC) and the Independent Scientific Committee (ISC). Through the Planning & Reporting (P&R) system all facets of implementation can be tracked, and the P&R provides the basic data for reporting. The Finance Manager will provide quarterly financial reports to Flagship Leaders.All Flagship Leaders will participate in annual performance management, whereby all major activities are assessed for progress (See RBM Annex 3.0.5). This will be a formal process involving scoring projects, Regions and Flagships on a range of criteria (drawing on the lessons learnt in Phase I performance management). Results are fed into PMC decisions about budget cuts, budget additions and performance bonuses.The PMC with oversight by the ISC will be responsible for making budget adjustments in W1/W2 funds, based on the funding available and performance (for performance management, see above). Targets for budgets will be communicated to all participants, and include a CCAFS-wide target for budget allocations to partners (25-30%), targets for the ratio of W1/W2 funds to W3/bilateral funds, and targets for gender research and capacity development. Indirect cost rates on W1/W2 are expected to be below 20% and follow the previous year's financial statements. Shifts of no more than 10% W1/W2 amongst budget lines are allowed without prior authorization.As explained in Section 1, major capital equipment is not a priority for CCAFS. All major capital investments (>$25,000) require authorization based on detailed justification. The priorities for the uplift budget are drawn from topics that have been cut entirely from CCAFS during 2016 as a result of budget cuts, or have experienced very deep cuts and have had their scope significantly reduced. Most of these topics were prioritized based on regional and national impact pathways and research novelty, were competitively selected based on concept notes, and had included deep stakeholder engagement in their definition and start-up. Depending on the level of uplift received, further prioritization may be needed. Given the current budget distribution of W3/bilateral funds, the priorities for uplift and the Flagship level are FP3 and FP4, followed by FP1, followed by FP2. Uplift will be based on performance management and strategic considerations, as described in Section 4.Gender. Hypotheses and scope. Research to achieve FP1 outcomes will target two hypotheses: H1: CCAFS projections, scenarios methods and priority setting tools will help decision makers target and implement policies and programs at various scales that improve food and nutrition security and reduce poverty. H2: Improved policies and programs, and increased investments can facilitate the scaling of CSA, which will contribute to food and nutritional security and reduced poverty under a changing climate.FP1 will bring CCAFS and partner science to decision-making at national, regional and global scales. Climate science, policy and environmental research, and agricultural modelling will be linked with food systems research and socio-economic scenarios to integrate climate concerns into food security and poverty reduction planning. Comparative analyses of scaling mechanisms, climate finance and sciencepolicy linkages will support research focusing on adaptation planning, including stakeholder engagement and social inclusion. Priority setting work, while evaluating different technology and policy alternatives, will also integrate climate change issues into breeding strategies to improve intervention targeting to the most climate-vulnerable. FP1 will continue its pragmatic identification of entry points in national policy processes, particularly related to INDCs. It will build on existing climate downscaling, crop/livestock and economic modelling, and vulnerability analysis to assess where loss and damage are occurring in agriculture and where compensation or transfer of risk may be warranted.To help coordinate climate change work across CRPs, CoA 1.1 will be a Learning Platform (LP), addressing the ex-ante evaluation of climate-smart options, linking with all AFS-CRPs and ICRPs, particularly PIM CoA 1.1 on foresight modelling, to help set CSA targets. In CoA 1.2, scenarios work will contribute to understanding the trade-offs and synergies implicit in the nutritional and environmental challenges posed by \"sustainable diets\" with A4NH and PIM. To address the grand challenges of food system policies, FP1 will connect with IFPRI and other Centres, PIM, A4NH and the Genebank Platform via joint case studies and economic analysis in CoA 1.3. Centre partners in FP1 include ILRI, CIAT, Bioversity, IFPRI, IITA, IRRI, ICRISAT, CIMMYT and WorldFish.Objectives. FP1's aim is to assess how enabling policy environments and priority setting for targeted investment can support the scaling of interventions, contributing to food and nutritional security and poverty reduction under climate change. Objectives are: (a) improved priority setting, trade-off analyses, and foresight; (b) improved understanding of effective enabling policy environments; (c) more evidence as to how CSA at scale can contribute to food security; and (d) effectively informed investment decisions. Primary target beneficiaries are climate-vulnerable and food insecure groups, including smallholder men and women, and (via national to global policy influence) the urban poor and broader populations in target countries.The main focus of FP1 is the improved food and nutrition security for health SLO (FP1 Figure 1; FP1 Table 1), but through cross-cutting IDOs it also contributes to the reduced poverty SLO. FP1 aims by 2022 to contribute to 6 million more people, of which 50% are women, without deficiencies of one or more essential micronutrients; and to 9 million people, of which 50% are women, assisted to exit poverty. FP1 targets four IDOs (bold) and five sub-IDOs (italics): Mitigation and adaptation achieved; via improved forecasting of impacts of climate change and targeted technology development, through priority setting, downscaling climate information and decision support tools; via enabled environment for climate resilience, through state, national, regional and global organizations using CCAFS science to enhance food security under climate change. Improved diets for poor and vulnerable people; via optimized consumption of diverse nutrientrich foods, through organizations at multiple scales that enact plans and increase investment toward improved access to diverse and locally acceptable diets. Equity and inclusion achieved; via gender-equitable control of productive assets and resources, through institutional actions and investments that empower women and marginalized groups. Equity & inclusion achieved: All CoAs contribute to a 2022 target of 20 organizations in selected countries/states adapting their plans and directing investments to increase women's access to, and control over, productive assets and resources to improve food security under a changing climate.Assumptions include political will to involve women in decision-making and investment priorities that recognize women's central role in food security. Outputs include GSI-focused modules in CSA priority setting (2017-2018), gender-and youth-focused policy guidance for CSA and novel youth engagement approaches (2019-2020), and GSI-focused analyses of CSA synergies and trade-offs (2021-2022).National partners and beneficiaries enabled: All CoAs contribute to increased capacity for innovation in partner organizations and in poor and vulnerable communities; by 2022, 11 policy decisions are taken based in part on engagement and information dissemination by CCAFS. Assumptions include capacity development as a continued R4D priority. Outputs include training materials and workshops to strengthen capacity for priority setting in country organizations (2017-2018), scenario-based strategic planning (2018-2019), and guidance on institutional capacity for scaling CSA (2020-2022).FP1's impact pathway is shown in FP1 Figure 1 and the FP's ToC is explained by the assumptions and strategy below. Partnership is critical to the ToC, including working with other CRPs and drawing on other CCAFS FPs to deliver on outcomes. Developing the capacity of key actors in the impact pathway from high-level investment to local institutions is central to envisaged change (see Section 2.1.1.10). The CCAFS LP on partnerships and capacity for scaling CSA will be a key route to achieve impact via engagement with public policy and business strategy at national to global levels. The FP1 ToC is aligned to the CRP ToC.FP1's ToC is that by improving enabling policy environments and catalyzing the increase of targeted investments across scales, food security can be improved in a changing climate. Research results will be used to engage with stakeholders: global actors directing finance to developing countries and national governments investing to help overcome constraints to scaling. Ample evidence exists of the links between improved nutrition and poverty reduction via increased productivity, capacity to participate in the economy, and cognitive development The FP will make use of tailored communications tools and approaches for engaging and informing next users to achieve its ToC, building on successes in Phase I. This includes learning events such as webinars, personal briefings with policy makers, media outreach at the national and global level to share critical results, and developing engaging training materials relevant to partner needs.A principle of contribution, not attribution, underlies FP1's ToC. Success along the impact pathway is interdependent with other actors and will only be achieved through cultivating and maintaining strong partnerships. Continued engagement with decision makers, co-production of knowledge, and building of trust are key enablers to the uptake of science into decision-making (Jones et al. 2015). FP1 will engage with partners all along the impact pathway: next-users of research outputs such as public planners and implementers; international NGOs and networks; bilateral partners for scaling out; climate finance institutions where CCAFS science may influence investment priorities; and the private sector to help reduce barriers to CSA uptake at scale. Much of this engagement will be done via the Partnerships and Capacity for Scaling CSA LP.FP1's ToC is based on several assumptions. One is that scientific knowledge is a desired input into decision-making and that decision makers recognize the need for both evidence and soft skills to use the former effectively. We assume that innovative tools / mechanisms can support national decision-making processes and women's participation in them, when scaled up through meaningful engagement with farmers, community organizations, policy makers, and ministry staff. We assume that it is possible to work with decision makers who have competing interests and priorities for investments. We assume that investment decisions can be moulded by learning from research on enabling policy environments and not only by providing technological solutions for CSA. A major assumption is that countries' adaptation needs (and mitigation targets) will attract climate finance, with mechanisms in place that allow CCAFS to inform donor decisions and strengthen country capacity to successfully compete for funding.Several cross-cutting issues are critical to the ToC. Regarding gender, women play a key role in achieving household food and nutrition security. FP1 will support women in adopting CSA interventions and strengthening food security primarily via identifying key policies governing ownership and control over assets such as land and agricultural inputs, and utilizing gender transformative approaches within scenarios engagement (and other) processes to attempt to alter the balance of power and empower women. There is evidence that shifting control over productive resources to women improves food security (Sraboni et al. 2014), and FP1 will work with partners to address this using a climate change lens.FP1 will compare approaches to youth engagement at national to global levels, as well as locally. Different methods of actively engaging youth will be tested, including communications through social channels, mobile telephony, radio, television, and citizen science. This will help inform the creation and refinement of food security futures under climate change in CoA 1.2, where gaming and other forms of innovative engagement will aim to empower youth to take centre stage in their development. Capacity development will focus on national research agencies, where staff will be enabled to run model-based analyses in-house to feed directly into decision-making.State of evidence. Gaps exist in our understanding of the synergies and trade-offs that occur in developing country agricultural systems, many of which involve women (FAO 2013; Development and curation will continue on a portal with state-of-the-art GCM data outputs and novel methods of downscaling through space and time. Cutting-edge participatory scenarios approaches will be extended to address food security at national and subnational levels, and novel ways developed to downscale scenarios and results to the local level.With partners, FP1 will develop new analyses of the synergies and trade-offs in CSA interventions and policies at different scales, including public and private costs and benefits of different alternatives, particularly in relation to women and other disadvantaged groups. Low-cost methods will be developed and applied to monitor the adaptive capacity of local populations using telephony and citizen science. Novel scientific methods of linking technical and policy research and engaging with decision makers at different scales will be developed and compared.Managing for science quality. Most work in FP1 was identified using competitive processes, based on independent peer review of project concept notes and proposals. Other projects have been commissioned directly to trusted performers. These mechanisms will continue. Several elements of FP1 will be reviewed and evaluated during Phase II (see Annex Table 5). The FP trialled a process of projectlevel results-based management (RBM) in 2014, and this has been extended to all projects as part of CCAFS's MEL mechanism (Schuetz et al. 2015). Agreed criteria are used to evaluate projects annually (including contribution to the peer-reviewed literature and to impact pathways). Projects use these evaluations to help plan future activities, and cases of better or poorer performance may be linked to shifts in budget allocations. CCAFS's online planning and reporting system gives projects the opportunity to modify their impact pathways and to document self-reflection and learning. This will be built on through annual strategic science reflection events with Project Leaders and science partners. FP1 has evolved from three related sub-themes in Phase I to one integrated FP. One sub-theme, research on knowledge into action, has been mainstreamed in all CCAFS FPs. The CoAs reflect several shifts: from understanding impacts of climate change on agriculture to evaluating trade-offs and synergies in bundles of practices at different scales; and to a greater food security focus beyond the production component, recognizing that climate change and other grand challenges will have impacts on many if not all spheres of human activity. Emphasis is being placed on enabling policy environments for scaling CSA and other food security-related interventions. All activities have an outcome orientation to R4D, underscoring the importance of new partnerships and skills in research teams.The uncertainties associated with climate change could have unintended consequences on SLOs that are not the primary focus of FP1, through underestimating its effects on downside risk at local and national levels. Strategies that strengthen adaptive capacity in the short-term for some groups may lead to maladaptation in the long-term or to increased vulnerability of other groups. Focusing on CSA may ignore other components of food securitysuch as access, utilization, and stability. Research on how GSI could be improved to strengthen gender-equitable control of productive assets and resources may challenge intra-household and intra-community decision-making and access to political (and other) capitals. A problem-orientated approach (Vermeulen et al. 2013) that relies on engagement and capacity strengthening and analysis of power relations may help here. Key next-users of FP1 science products will be engaged through a looped learning approach to ensure science relevance (Kristjanson et al. 2014). Adaptive management can be used to help maintain flexibility so that if negative consequences begin to appear, activities can be altered.In response to the ISPC comments on the CCAFS pre-proposal, changes have been made to the scope and focus of FP1. The CoAs have been reduced from four to three, removing the governance-focused cluster (and integrating some pieces into a new CoA 1.3 on enabling policy environments for CSA).Global policy engagement, which plays a critical role in the CCAFS ToC but is not core research, has been removed from FP1, thereby creating a LP. CoA 1.1 is reliant on availability and quality of data, issues that will be addressed as a LP across CRPs. Access to and better packaging of scientific information by themselves are not sufficient to inform policy decisions or change decision makers' behaviour. Better understanding is needed of science-policy linkages so as to more effectively support science-based policy making. In CoA 1.3 emphasis is shifted towards a focus on enabling policy environments, including a deeper articulation of policy and other governance mechanisms and of institutional change in specific contexts. CoA 1.1 is being strengthened to include breeding strategies under future climates in its portfolio.In response to draft recommendations from CCAFS's External Evaluation, we have modified and strengthened the focus of key FP1 components such as food security under climate change (rather than climate smart food systems), enabling policy environments (rather than governance and institutions) and investments that take GSI into account (rather than equitable institutional investments). These elements will be strengthened in Phase II and better integrated through the CCAFS LPs, as nontechnological factors influencing the adoption of CSA remain critical barriers to its scaling up (Westermann et al. 2015).Achieving FP1's target contributions to the IDOs and SLOs will depend in part on maintaining highly effective partnerships. Building on experience gained in Phase I, substantial efforts will be made to maintain and develop the strategic partnerships needed.FP1 will work in three CoAs, bringing the science undertaken by CCAFS and partners to decision makers at different scales: CoA 1.1 Ex-ante evaluation and priority setting, CoA 1. Another focus will be the development and maintenance of critical datasets such as downscaled climate data from continued improvements in climate models. FP1 may also be positioned as a platform where loss and damage in relation to agriculture can be better understood, quantified, and integrated into resilience policies and programs.Certain practices may be climate-smart in particular circumstances, but context largely determines the trade-offs and synergies for specific target groups and in differing enabling environments. Because of the mismatch between local (or sub-sectoral) and national objectives, analyses that consider the aggregate effects of local choices vis-à-vis national objectives are essential. Similarly, the effects of national policies on local realities will be investigated so that their feasibility can be assessed. Research undertaken in CoA 1.1 will help create tools that provide such analyses.As a LP, the cluster will interface with AFS-CRP breeding programs and PIM foresight modelling. It will provide support on integrating climate in breeding strategies so the next generations of crops, livestock, and fish contain the abiotic, biotic and nutritional quality traits required to make agriculture climatesmarter. Significant global investment is targeted on technology improvement within CGIAR and across national programs and private sector. These technologies need to be designed so that sensitivity to climate variability and change is reduced at local scales. Research will be undertaken in collaboration with the other three CCAFS FPs and the AFS-CRPs, the CoA acting as an entry point and platform for undertaking ex-ante evaluations with a climate change lens. These evaluations will make use of analogue tools to help select sites and environments and guide breeding strategies (e.g. with RICE FP3), spatial data analysis, climate data, crop-livestock-household models, integrated assessment models, and ex-ante economic impact assessment methods. Data maintained on CCAFS and partner websites, including up-to-date downscaled climate information that builds on current data portals (e.g. ccafs-climate.org) Decision support tools developed and curated by CCAFS and partners for helping to set priorities and target policy development for CSA, particularly analysing trade-offs to inform investment choices. Training materials developed and archived in the public domain, to strengthen the capacity of partners in applying decision tools in targeting, policy, and investment decision-making. Tools for cross-level analyses of policy alternatives in different contexts. Modelling of impacts on specific crop, fish and livestock species and quantification of uncertainties, in part fuelled by next generation G×E×M analyses and empirical/big data approaches to understand relevant abiotic constraints across climate gradients. Ideotypes identified that have climate-adaptive capacity using new and historical genetic, environmental, physiological and agronomic information.This CoA focuses on the scenario-guided formulation and implementation of policies and action plans relevant to food security under climate change. The work will be based on state-of-the-art, multi-level modelling (IFPRI's IMPACT, LEI WUR's MAGNET, IIASA's GLOBIOM) linked with PIM CoA 1.1, enabling a detailed exploration of food security, with a focus on food and nutrition security, poverty, and diversity in household choices in consumption and production. Modelling multidimensional food system outcomes still needs data and model improvement (Rutten 2013). Such modelling will support scenarioguided policy processes, building on widespread past successes in the collaborative guiding of national plans in several countries in five regions. The CoA will address food and nutrition security, engaging with national strategic processes that may not otherwise focus on climate resilience. This will allow for stronger collaboration with the private sector, in which scenario-guided planning has a long history.Harnessing insights from successful processes, uniquely multi-level collaborative approaches will be used that will allow for a greater level of inclusion of women and young people, as well as of subnational perspectives. The CoA will respond to commonly-expressed requests for further capacity development through hands-on training using real-life processes that combine learning and plan development. Coinvestment with CCAFS Regions, A4NH FP3 and PIM FP1 will extend cutting-edge food and nutrition security scenario research through a greater focus on climate impacts and GSI. Collaboration with A4NH, PIM and regions can be established through overlap in both scenario science, methods, results, and policy guidance processes. While the focus is largely on climate resilience, collaboration with FP3 ensures that climate mitigation and low emissions development is also part of the activity.This CoA will address these research questions in relation to scenario development and analysis: How can macro-level modelling tools be complemented with micro-modelling of consumer behaviour to assess and project food security futures at multiple scales and across sectors (health, environmental sustainability, economic viability), as well as be responsive to stakeholders' elicitation of established and understudied drivers of food security, such as gender, education and governance? How can scenario results be analysed to help understand key trade-offs? We will focus on the following research questions in relation to scenario-based guidance of policies, plans and investments: How can policies, private sector strategies, and other agendas affecting food security become more climate-smart through the use of scenario-based planning? What are the most successful approaches for creating multidimensional and multi-level scenarios of climate impacts (including extreme weather events) on food security, and why are they successful in comparison with other processes? How can scenario-guided planning processes assist in integrating policy across levels, to make them more gender-inclusive and impactful, helping to ensure implementation?The CoA will involve the development and application of multi-level participatory scenario approaches and modelling, using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative tools. Outputs will include the following: A toolbox of state-of-the art micro-level models of nutrition behaviour of individual consumers and macro-level models of natural resource use, food system activity, consumption and nutrition, with long-term time horizons and opportunities, for the quantification of future scenarios and the exploration of levers for innovation and policy reform. Cutting-edge scenario development methodology for incorporating many drivers of change and exploring multi-dimensional scenario possibility spaces in a structured process, beyond the limits of current methods. Innovative methodology developed for the analysis of composite scenario results, which supports the investigation of key trade-offs in mainstreaming climate adaptation in broader policy contexts and across food systems. Strategy documents, with a focus on implementation plans, informed by inclusive, multi-level scenario processes in several countries. Combined climate and food security scenarios developed across regional, national and subnational levels, with a link to global level scenarios, focusing on policy implementation across levels. Reports on scenario-guided investments by private sector partners in each focus region  Capacity for scenario-based strategic planning strengthened in national, regional, and global partners, emphasizing implementable and tractable plans.This CoA seeks to address issues around the effectiveness of enabling policy environments for CSA, by developing innovative approaches and conducting comparative analyses of the enabling conditions required for CSA adoption at scale. It seeks to help bridge the gap between science and policy and to mainstream climate change information into, and link policies for food security with, national agricultural implementation processes. Results and case studies from FP2's work in CSVs will be utilized, along with FP4's activities in climate risk management, in communicating benefits with decision makers. Research and engagement activities will address the evaluation and development of policies that can encourage farmers to adopt CSA at scale, aimed at enhancing the food security of target beneficiaries; and increase understanding of the enabling conditions that govern the transformative changes that may be required in future.The The CoA will utilize a range of methods, including case study syntheses, monitoring and evaluation of different policy processes, and economic evaluation of different policy alternatives using appropriate models and tools. CoA outputs will include: Syntheses of case studies of selected regional and global bodies and comparative analyses of current and emerging climate-related food security policies and \"good practice\" guidelines on engagement with national planners, and relevant international institutions, in different sectors. Monitoring and evaluation of climate and food security policy processes and their effectiveness.Capacity strengthening for formulating local and national priorities in regional and global fora.Novel analytical tools, indicators, and metrics for evaluating the effectiveness of enabling environments to support the scaling of CSA.Global syntheses and evidence of conditions that support scaling and learning under climate uncertainty, including those that are needed to facilitate transformative change.Innovative ICT-based tools and gaming to support accountability mechanisms in institutions at multiple scales and to engage youth in decision-making.Achieving the FP1 vision requires engagement with partners all along the impact pathway, primarily through the LP on partnerships and capacity for scaling CSA, which includes Regional and Global Programs. With the Regional Programs, FP1 has gone through several processes for selecting upstream research partners. Regional research priorities workshops were held in Phase I that built on the sciencepolicy platforms developed by CCAFS. These have included network analyses to analyse gaps and overlaps in specific regions to identify partner synergies, where appropriate. Similar processes will be used in future for selecting partners, linked to CCAFS, FP, and regional impact pathways.FP1 works with several key partners for research. Oxford University's ECI adds value through their work on food systems and their expertise on scenarios for policy guidance. Strategic research partner IIASA is a world leader in integrated assessment modelling, complementing CGIAR expertise with additional capacity in land-use and environmental modelling. CSIRO adds value in systems modelling at multiple scales. LEI WUR adds value in multisectoral economy-wide modelling of food system outcomes at different scales. FP1 has strong links with Future Earth's Earth System Governance project and other partners (Universities of Pretoria, Osnabrück, Indiana). Links with universities (Reading, Cape Town, Leeds, UCI) and IRI bring cutting-edge climate science to bear. IDS, IIED, ODI, IISD, and Stockholm Resilience Centre bring strong skills in R4D and policy analysis. Key partners at the proof of concept and scaling out levels include regional organizations such as NEPAD, ECOWAS, COMESA, AGN, IGAD, ASEAN, CAC, ECLAC, FLAR, and ASARECA, and international NGOs and networks such as CARE, CTA, GACSA, WEF, and WBCSD. International and bilateral partners for scaling out include FAO, IFAD, GIZ, World Bank, and in future, international investment and climate finance institutions such as GCF, where CCAFS and partner-produced science may influence investment priorities in target countries. Other key proof of concept and scaling out partners include national ministries and development agencies involved in policy planning and implementation, such as FANRPAN and ACCRA, meteorological services and climate change units in several countries in LAM, WA and EA, and existing climate change and agriculture platforms, e.g. in Senegal. Such partners are next-users of CCAFS's outputs. Communications for development partners such as Mediae will be increasingly important for scaling out, as they offer opportunities to reach millions of rural households.Links with the private sector are crucial to foster uptake of CSA at scale. The scenarios work has built several downstream partnerships: commercial farmers' organizations, agribusinesses, traders and commercial investment banks. Increasing opportunities exist to guide private sector investment. Initiatives such as SUSFANS, TRANSMANGO and CIMSANS that involve FP1 partners at ECI, WUR and CSIRO already have food industry partners (Unilever, Nestle, Mars).Comparative advantage of the CGIAR. Because of its reach and capacity to work in multiple locations at multiple scales, CGIAR is well positioned to generate scientific evidence and learning in different contexts, built around linkages to and among partners with different skills and expertise in all regions. This is a key comparative advantage of CGIAR. The integrative nature of most of the work planned in FP1 needs a systems' perspective in a multi-disciplinary setting. In Phase I, FP1 demonstrated not only research success (production of IPGs, high-impact publications, outcomes) but also an important convening role in bringing diverse partners together. This combination of high-quality science and outcome orientation is not readily found outside CGIAR. Work in Phase II can build on a solid foundation of success in Phase I.FP1 will help to address the global challenge of climate change via several channels. For example, CCAFS curates future climate data and tools (ccafs-climate.org). Several Centres contribute to this portal, and it is being used by many CRPs and Centres, helping to reduce duplication of effort in making the outputs from climate models used in the IPCC Working Groups available and accessible. CGIAR, led by work at IFPRI and PIM and involving several Centres, has become a global player in ex-ante analysis using integrated modelling at different scales, and FP1 is able to leverage (and contribute to) this work. The LP on ex-ante evaluation and priority setting for climate-smart options will play a particularly important role in setting global to national priorities on climate change actions. FP1 has successfully undertaken multi-and cross-Centre policy research during Phase I, and this will be built on in Phase II.These successes can be amplified with other, non-CGIAR partners. For example, the CCAFS climate data portal has tens of thousands of non-CGIAR users, from some 2200 organizations in 185 countries; to date, more than 300 refereed publications acknowledge use of the portal. Key partners include the Universities of Leeds and Reading, Future Earth, AgMIP, PIK, and ISI-MIP. The FP1 scenarios work led by ECI has attracted a broad range of non-CGIAR partners, including WUR, FAO and the World Bank. FP1 will contribute to a Future Earth Working Group, along with strategic partner CSIRO, on metrics for Goals 2 and 13 of the SDGs. FP1 is also linking with non-CGIAR partners including the Earth Systems Governance project of Future Earth, Indiana University, University of Osnabrück, and IDS, to strengthen research on climate change policy and governance and institutions issues.FP1 will contribute to the sub-IDO Gender equitable control of productive assets and resources. Women smallholders have less access to productive resources and to decision-making processes at local to global levels (FAO 2011; Holvoet and Inberg 2013; World Bank 2012), and gender is not well integrated into climate change policy (Gumucio and Tafur 2015; Huyer 2016). Men and women also play different roles within their communities and households in attaining food security (Karl 2009). Institutions that increase women's abilities to control and make decisions around the use of resources can contribute to improving child health and nutrition, enhancingfood security, and increasing expenditure on education, all of which contribute to poverty reduction (Meinzen-Dick et al. 2012). FP1 will highlight the need for GSI considerations when engaging with partners. In the past, a lack of sex-disaggregated data has resulted in underestimation of women's contributions to livelihoods, health, and food security, leading to gender-blind national policy making (Huyer 2014). Policies and programs need to be based on gender and equity assessments so that existing inequalities are not exacerbated (EIGE 2012). Sex-disaggregated data collected during CCAFS Phase I will be used to help understand the implications of CSA interventions on men, women, youth, and marginalized groups. ). This will include disseminating CCAFS GSI research outputs and examining whether and how the information is used by decision makers, with the aim of better integrating gender into climate change policy and investment decisions (see gender-related hypothesis in Section 1.0.4). FP1 will also investigate the ways in which women and the youth can engage with climate change at different levels, with a view to more effective representation and engagement than present (FP1 Figure 2). (2) Gender-sensitive approaches: Achieving FP1's target of organizations adapting plans and directing investments to increase women's access to, and control over, productive assets and resources will require a significant focus on building capacity for targeting, priority setting and regional science-policy dialogues (making use of the Gender & Inclusion Toolbox, for example), working closely with the LP on GSI. (3) Institutional strengthening: FP1 will work with the East and West Africa regions in the LP on Partnerships and Capacity for Scaling CSA to strengthen the negotiating capacity of AGN and other groups in UNFCCC. FP1 will also work to develop in-country capacity for integrated assessment of adaptation and mitigation. (4) Organizational development: The scenarios work is one vehicle by which decision makers engage with uncertainty, multi-disciplinary perspectives, and diverse societal voices. Scenario-guided policy processes will be combined with training of subnational planners to address local decision-making needs. (5) Research on capacity development, i.e. what works best in building the capacity of partners to create more enabling environments, and what are the most successful strategies for engaging with decision makers.FP1 is in compliance with the CGIAR Principles on the Management of Intellectual Assets regarding the dissemination of intellectual assets for maximizing global accessibility and impact (see Section 1.0.12). As far as possible, FP1 products are disseminated using open access principles, with clear recognition to those responsible. This includes situations in which farmers' traditional knowledge is utilized as a key ingredient of the research, and where confidentiality needs to be maintained, even in open-access databases. In keeping with the CGIAR Open Access and Data Management Policy, research data, tools, and associated information generated will be made available for indexing and interlinking according to FAIR principles.In Phase I, the FP, on behalf of the program, developed a data management strategy and user-support materials, and piloted its implementation in relation to reporting, collating outputs, and quality assessment of archived data, and this has now been mainstreamed throughout CCAFS. The FP oversaw the design and implementation of an on-line \"Planning & Reporting\" system that has been used for three project cycles. The online platform sets out workflows and procedures for planning, reporting, and learning, including evaluation of data and tool outputs along with appropriate metadata. Several openaccess databases will be maintained and expanded in Phase II, including:  Jointly with FP2, CCAFS-climate.org, a repository of future climate data and tools that makes the climate model outputs available and accessible to many thousands of users; In collaboration with FP2, FP3, FP4 and the Regional Programs, baseline data collected from 3,000 households and 140 villages spread over 21 sites in 17 countries in all CCAFS target regions, that will be used for evaluation and impact assessment in future (Förch et al. 2014). All survey instruments, training material and data are archived on the CCAFS website and Dataverse.ILRI will host FP1, continuing the relationship started in 2010, and FP1 will report into the CCAFS management system. ILRI is well placed to host FP1, with a long history of expertise in systems analysis, priority setting and impact assessment, as well as research groups on policy research and environmental issues. Given the predominance of mixed crop-livestock systems in the developing world (and their importance for future food security), the scope of ILRI's work is very wide. ILRI also has expertise in food security research, with strong linkages to non-CGIAR organizations working in this arena, and expertise in nutrition and zoonoses research.Philip Thornton will continue as FPL. He was competitively selected in Phase I in 2010. His Google H index is 50; his publications span a wide range of research. He has contributed to the IPCC's AR4 and AR5, to the UNFCCC SBSTA, and published highly-cited papers in high-impact journals (examples here).As FPL, he has fostered projects in all CCAFS regions with seven Centres, several of which have documented outcomes in the policy arena in the last two years. The RPLs will continue to be instrumental, through the LP on partnerships and capacity.ECI (Oxford University) and LEI WUR will co-lead CoA 1.2 on scenarios. ECI will be building on their leadership of successful scenarios processes in Phase I, while LEI WUR brings new tools and expertise related to food systems modelling at different scales. CoA 1.3 will be co-led by Wiebke Fõrch and the FPL, with strong links to the policy flagship of A4NH (SPEAR), PIM and IFPRI, which hosts a FP1 staff member seconded to the World Bank (Global Practice for Agriculture).CCAFS Contact Points in the Centres will continue their critical role in linking FP1 with other research activities. Learning and self-reflection workshops will be organized periodically, and these will also be used to identify possible future projects to add to the FP1 portfolio.Explanations of these costs in relation to the planned 2022 outcomes:(Outcome numbers as in PIM Table B)In The major budget share will support Outcomes 1.2 and 1.3. Under Outcome 1.2, modified versions of global, regional and local models will be developed and applied in specific countries to evaluate climate smart practices and technologies and the related trade-offs and synergies for CSA, as well as facilitate cross-level, cross-sectoral analyses in collaboration with AFS CRPs. New sets of integrated assessment model outputs will be produced that utilize next generational climate model outputs and, along with prioritized breeding strategies, will be used to prioritize the next generation of CGIAR priority investments on climate change adaptation and mitigation. Research activities will support cross-CRP ex ante analyses and data sharing through the Learning Platform, producing country-and state-level recommendations for policy alternatives that identify robust climate smart strategies within food and nutrition security policies. Under Outcome 1.3, novel analytical frameworks, new economic analyses, indicators and metrics will be developed to evaluate the effectiveness of enabling policy environments to support adaptation options and the scaling of CSA. This work will include comparative analyses of different engagement mechanisms that support climate smart outcomes and gender equity, and of different frameworks and tools to track climate and food and nutrition security policy implementation, and global syntheses of mechanisms that can support scaling and learning. With 22% of Flagship funds, the portfolio of projects for Outcome 1.1 will develop new methodology for multi-level multi-driver scenarios modeling with a focus on food and nutrition security and gender and social inclusion. These methods will allow the downscaling of scenarios to sub-national levels and targeted upscaling of local information to national decision-making levels, along with novel gaming approaches for youth engagement. These outputs will be used for multi-level policy development and implementation in selected countries and states focusing on climate and food and nutrition security policies. Fifteen percent of FP1 funding will be allocated to research activities focused on gender and social inclusion (Outcome 1.4), by integrating these components into CSA priority setting frameworks and by developing improved modules for gender and sex-disaggregated output data from integrated assessment models. This work will be complemented with bottom-up analyses to add gender dimensions to policy and investment recommendations. Global syntheses will be produced of gender and social inclusion in national plans and climate finance investment decisions. The outputs will inform gender-and youthfocused policy guidance for CSA, in relation to process participation, empowerment and equity in resulting policies and investment plans through policy briefs, guidelines and training materials. The remaining fifteen percent of the budget goes towards Outcome 1.5 as training materials are developed and workshops held to strengthen the capacity of national partners in applying decision support tools in targeting, priority setting, policy and investment decision making, as well as in articulating national priorities in global fora and implementing scenario-based strategic planning. FP1 capacity building will support national/state level planners in designing and monitoring climate smart food and nutrition security portfolios that meet the criteria for climate finance, CSA and sustainable development.In FP1, W1 W2 funding will be allocated to strategic research activities, with consideration of regional spread and center participation. In particular, W1 W2 funding is also used to support strategic flagship research that is innovative and new and therefore often hard to attract significant bilateral funds -for instance, research on science-policy-practice linkages and on enabling policy conditions for scaling CSA and facilitating transformative change in food systems, both led by ILRI, as well as global comparative analyses and syntheses of FP1 research across the portfolio. In Latin America, CIAT leads a project on climate change research embedded in national and regional decision making to influence policies in the region. In West and East Africa, two projects led by ICRISAT and IITA respectively are developing and testing science-policy exchange platforms at national and sub-national levels to mainstream climate change into national food security policies and bring local priorities to national decision making processes. In Southeast Asia, IRRI is implementing a project that combines food security, adaptation and gender research in priority setting for enhanced policy making in the region. In South Asia, IFPRI leads a research portfolio to understand enabling policy environments for scaling CSA. These projects were initiated with W1 W2 funding to support strategic research in CoA 1.1. and 1.3. and W3 funding is providing opportunity to expand activities. FP1 leadership aims to ensure that W1 W2 funding in these co-funded projects is not being used to co-finance W3 activities by ensuring that closely linked activities define separate sets of outputs. Co-funded projects, however, show joint contribution to FP1 outcomes. At the global level, FP1 projects contribute significant W3 funded activities to the portfolio, including the enhancement of modelling tools and policy engagement led by IFPRI and global policy support for biologically diverse, climate resilient agriculture led by Bioversity. Both projects exemplify strong W3 projects that receive strategic W1 W2 funding to ensure specific climate change and gender and social inclusion elements are included in the projects. Other strategic research activities that will be supported with W1 W2 funding include the scenarios work that is instrumental to CoA 1.2. due its high likelihood to produce ground-breaking scenarios methodologies while at the same time informing policy decisions in a range of countries; as well as strategic funding for gender and youth research that contributes to those milestones.The main center involved in FP1 is ILRI, partly due to its hosting funds for the FP1 leader. FP1 leader funds are primarily used to maintain strategic flagship functional capacities. Other centers with substantial funding include those that receive W1 W2 funds for strategic research, including IFPRI, ICRISAT, CIAT, IRRI, Bioversity and IITA. Substantial W3 funds are mapped into FP1, which help to deliver on FP1 outcome targets in the long term. A good example of this is WorldFish; that Centre is mapping priority setting and ex ante evaluation targeting of climate smart activities in the Pacific into FP1 so as to be able to deliver on key outcomes in the region.FP1 has allocated 2% of its budget to MEL. Of this USD 185,000 over the six-year period is allocated to external assessments. These are shown in Annex Table 5. FP1 will allocate funds to a CCER for FP1, and contribute to gender, regional and Learning Platform external reviews.Personnel. Some 33% of the total Flagship budget goes to personnel, reflecting the considerable staff inputs that are made into the Flagship.Travel. Of the total budget 8% goes to travel. Because the Flagship has activities in all the CCAFS regions, a significant amount of travel in involved. The Flagship utilises ICT as much as possible, such as holding virtual meetings using skype and video-conferencing. Face-to-face meetings are usually piggy-backed on other meetings (such as key international conferences) to reduce the overall costs of travel.Capital equipment. This is a very small percentage (0.3%) of the total costs, as Flagship-related research is not dependent on high-cost equipment. A small amount of budget will be allocated to ICT equipment such as tablets and smart phones for communications and engagement activities.Other Supplies and Services. See below in Section 2.CGIAR Collaborations. 0.3% of the total budget goes to Collaborations among CGIAR Centres but only with W3 and Bilateral funds as all W1/W2 budget are send directly from CIAT Lead Centre to Participating Centres via Program Participant Agreements (PPAs).Non-CGIAR collaboration. Partnerships for research and development outcomes are a crucial component of the Flagship's ToC. The Flagship thus will allocate 20-30% of its budget to partners. This amount is expected to leverage own-resources from within partners at 2-3 times that level. In the current budget 22% of funds has been allocated to partners. The fundraising strategy will try to increase this level.Indirect costs. 15% is the average Indirect Cost rate that comes from the different rates among CGIAR Centres defined on estimated income.Benefits:Using CIAT as point of reference, we assumed most of CGIAR Centers follow the following differentiation of benefits among National and International Staff:National Research Staff (NRS): Fringe benefits for national staff (costs for all benefits are added to the base salary to provide the total cost of the position) are comprised of legal benefits (local mandatory) and extralegal benefits (CIAT mandatory) and the provisions to cover local legal requirements such as: Pension -social security, training and development, occupational health, transportation costs and subsidies, work clothes and personnel protection requirement, and food subsidy.International Research Staff (IRS): Fringe benefits for international staff (costs for all benefits are added to the base salary to provide the total cost of the position) are comprised of housing allowance, education allowance, car allowance, Cost Of Living Allowance (COLA), hardship, home leave tickets, insurance, retirement contribution, occupational health, training and development, repatriation and relocation provisions.Of the total budget 24% goes to other supplies and services. Because Flagship 1 has a wide array of non-CGIAR partners, this implies a certain level of consultancy costs in bringing to bear specific expertise, particularly expertise related to climate science, for example. Other costs here relate to Centres' Full Cost Recovery units such as IT, Facilities, Public Space, Research and Technical Support, as well as funds for workshops and operational services.Relative proportions of W3 and Bilateral are unknown, and thus we have used a single category of Bilateral to capture both W3 and Bilateral.The Centres participating in FP1 are committing to raising 63% of total Flagship funds through Window 3 and bilateral contributions from 2017 onwards. At the same time, considerable effort will be made to jointly source and tap into bilateral funding for the Flagship with Centre partners and non-CGIAR partners alike. FP1 already has good linkages with national and international partners, with prospects of tapping into international finance (such as the GCF) for supporting activities revolving around countries' NDCs.Among FP1's partners, CSIRO bring expertise on downscaling climate change impacts, including incorporating variability, multi-scale livelihoods modelling in relation to climate smartness across scales, and a long track record on transformational processes and adaptation pathways (approximately USD 400k per year). ECI at the University of Oxford, in addition to co-hosting the scenarios team, will bring expertise on a range of different perspectives around food and nutrition security under climate change (USD 400k per year). LEI WUR adds value to FP1 through expertise in multisectoral economy-wide modelling of food system outcomes at different scales (USD 150k per year). IIASA brings world-class integrated assessment modelling with particular strengths and capacity in land-use and environmental modelling (USD 150k per year). GIZ will strengthen links between research and development initiatives involving FP1 and contribute to scaling out work (USD 150k per year, possibly including a Technical Expert). The World Bank will continue to host a FP1 staff member to strengthen and maintain researchto-practice links, including collaboration on CSA metrics and joint work on gender and social inclusion and capacity development. Several impact assessments (reviews and evaluations) related to FP1's activities are planned; in the period to 2019, these will include evaluations on data and tools, on MARLO, and on the effectiveness of the CoA 1.1 Learning Platform. In addition to these activities, in Phase II the Flagship will allocate USD 200,000 over the six-year period for a series of impact assessment studies designed to quantify the impacts of Flagship research. These studies will be selected in relation to the ongoing project portfolio, with a view to generating quantitative impact information that addresses a broad range of FP1 research activity (priority setting, scenario-guided planning, policy research) and geographic spread across CCAFS target regions.The budget for this is USD 8,000 per year (see also the paragraphs below on open access and data management, and communication). Flagship teams will contribute to implementing the CCAFS Intellectual Asset policy and ensuring that all knowledge products (primarily publications and databases) are, wherever possible, disseminated using open access principles, with clear branding to acknowledge authorship.Open access and data management FP1 will dedicate a budget of USD 132,000 per year. The Flagship will maintain and expand the downscaled climate data portal CCAFSclimate.org (jointly with FP2) and the CCAFS-wide repository of baseline data that is being collected in target regions and documented and archived using Dataverse.The budget for communications is approximately USD 690,000 per year. Flagship communications activities will contribute to delivery of outcomes through engagement with key stakeholders in sites, regions, at the national level, as well as in relevant communities of practice. Budget is allocated for partial salary of regional communications specialists (1 in each region, with responsibility for all flagships) and staff time for communications activities at project level. The budget covers delivery of communications products and initiatives through events, media engagement, field visits, training journalists, producing/disseminating publications, multimedia production, and staff travel.Uplift.Most of the topics selected for uplift are those downsized or cut completely from the CCAFS portfolio as a result of budget reductions, but which are considered to be a crucial part of the science and outcome agenda. These are listed below (with CCAFS project numbers shown). Governance and institutions for climate resilient food systems (P100, numbers refer to descriptions on the CCAFS Planning and Reporting System), Climate Change and Social Learning (CCSL) Initiative: Community of Practice and Evidence Base of social learning to up-scale outcomes (P62) and Macro-scale governance and institutions analysis through three country case studies (P193) (ILRI, IFPRI, IIED, CSIRO, U Osnabrueck, U Indiana, IDS, U Reading). CCAFS scenario-guided policy and investment planning (P63) (ILRI, U Oxford, regional and national organisations in all target countries). Household opportunities under future climates in the framework of CCAFS regional development (P68) (ILRI, IFPRI, IIASA). Priority-setting for building resilience and strengthening climate change adaptation in the Pacific (P67) (WorldFish, ILRI, U Oxford, IIASA). Climate science and policy engagement with national and regional meteorological organisations (P69) (ILRI, IFPRI, U Reading, Waen Associates, IRI). Analyzing the science-policy-practice interface in climate change adaptation in East and West Africa (P7) (ILRI, partners in Senegal and Ethiopia). Capacitating science-policy exchange platforms to mainstream climate change into national agricultural and food security policy plans (P1) (ICRISAT, AgMIP, CSIR).  Global policy support for biologically diverse, climate resilient agriculture (P66) (Bioversity, CBD, ITPGRFA, FAO, COMESA, AU, GIZ, and others).In addition, to the above topics some new ones have been proposed during discussions with partners in the development of the phase II proposal. These include: A4NH / SPEAR: research on nutrition and policy / enabling environments, an additional case study in a new country of mutual interest and history of CGIAR engagement (Ethiopia, for example). WHEAT, MAIZE: Climate model downscaling, identification of future climate hotspots, and exante impact modelling of GxExM interactions and new climate-proof genes / traits (linked to FP2 on testing). Bioversity: ex ante analysis of diversification and crop introduction and its potential impact on resilience, nutrition and income, to assist countries to set up their own R&D policy on strategically chosen sets of crops that address diversification in national adaptation strategies. The vision. The FP2 vision is that all farmers and livestock keepers, including women and marginalized groups, are resilient and food secure despite a variable and changing climate. FP2's key 2022 outcomes include: (a) 6 million farm households receiving incentives (training, financial, programmatic, policy-related) for adopting CSA related practices and technologies that potentially reduce production risks; (b) 15 subnational public/private initiatives providing access to novel financial services and supporting innovative CSA business models; (c) 50 site-specific targeted CSA technologies/practices tested, with all options examined for their gender implications; (d) 15 development organizations adapting their plans and directing investment to increase women's access to, and control over, productive assets and resources; (e) 10 policy decisions taken (in part) based on engagement and information dissemination by CCAFS (FP2 GACSA has the goal of reaching 500 million farmers with climate-smart agriculture practices, technologies and programs by 2030. This constitutes a challenge in scale of the likes rarely before seen in development. Farmers will require diverse and site-specific interventions and support to match their unique but changing growing conditions, socio-economic context, and markets. Meeting this objective will require demonstrating the maturity of CSA interventions in diverse contexts, encouraging adoption and investment by the myriad of actors required to take the concept to scale, particularly among women and the private sector. While the challenge is grand, the political and financial will is finally keeping pace. CSA options are in high demand by a host of development actors. Developing countries are looking to CSA to provide them with viable options for delivering on the INDCs (Richards et al. 2015) and SDGs in which all parties -developed and developing -will be asked to participate. Furthermore, major climate finance actors are aligning to CSA as a means of delivering sustained climate adaptation and mitigation for the agricultural sector. variations in yields (Wheeler and von Braun 2013). A CSA approach is proposed as a solution to transform and reorient agricultural systems to support food security under the new realities of climate change. CSA consists of co-achieving three objectives, or pillars, defined by the FAO (2013) as 1) sustainably increasing agricultural productivity to support equitable increases in incomes, food security and development; 2) adapting and building resilience to climate change from the farm to national levels; and 3) reducing or removing GHG emissions where possible.4Despite the significant global action and investment now being oriented towards CSA, the science is immature. There is scant evidence on the synergies and trade-offs among the distinct pillars of CSA of different practices and technologies across a range of agro-ecologies and social contexts. This FP focuses on supporting major players in the CSA space, including GACSA and its members, with researchinformed knowledge to bring CSA to scale effectively.Hypotheses and scope. Research to achieve outcomes will target two hypotheses: H1: Context-specific knowledge on the impacts of practices, technologies, business models and information systems on CSA-related outcomes as well as on their cost-effectiveness advantages compared to current practice, leads to adoption of CSA at the local level.H2: Improving and applying knowledge on socio-economic, technical, financial and political barriers to incentives for investment in and adoption of CSA technologies and practices will lead to adoption of CSA at scale. CRP links. This FP will closely align with other CRPs around the evaluation and testing of emerging CSA practices and technologies under the LP of CoA 2.1 that will build the evidence base across time-scales and geographies, primarily in CSVs, in collaboration with FP3 and AFS-CRPs. Details of other specific collaborations are given under the Clusters of Activities (Section 2.2.1.6). All CGIAR Centres will participate in this broad integrative FP, via direct programmatic research involvement (Centres with the largest budget share in FP2 are CIAT, ICRAF, CIMMYT, and IWMI), or co-investment in the LPs, or both.Objectives. To address the challenge of how to transition to CSA at scale, FP2 will work with partners to test, evaluate, promote and scale up CSA technologies and practices that meet the needs of farmersincluding women and marginalized groups. Its purpose is to build adaptive capacity and resilience to climate variability and change, while increasing food availability and generating mitigation co-benefits. This will be achieved by integrating and applying the best and most promising methods, tools and approaches for equitable local adaptation planning and governance, and developing innovative incentives and mechanisms for scaling up. The primary target beneficiaries of FP2 are climatevulnerable, food insecure and poor groups (smallholder farmers and women in particular). Research will also benefit development agencies working from grassroots through to national scales, as well as local and subnational institutions involved in agricultural planning, and the private sector that can support scaling up.Strategic relevance to CGIAR objectives and targets. FP2 is designed to make a significant contribution to the poverty SLO, which for CCAFS as a whole targets 11 million farm households with improved practices, and 9 million people for poverty reduction by 2022 (FP2 Figure 1; FP2 The impact pathway for FP2 is shown in FP2 Figure 1. The primary outcome for FP2 is to provide incentives (financial, technical and policy) to support 6 million farmers to adopt climate-smart practices and technologies, which explicitly contribute to increased resilience to climate shocks across a range of time-scales. This is to be achieved through engagement with key donors, governments and local institutions to invest in projects and programs that incentivize adoption. FP2 will produce and appropriately disseminate evidence and information to support these investments, making the business case for the best-bet CSA options for target geographies and beneficiaries.In developing the FP2 ToC with partners, some key knowledge gaps were identified to achieve the targets proposed, and the CoAs have been constructed around the knowledge gaps. Evidence is needed on which practices and technologies generate CSA-related outcomes, where these practices should be targeted, the costs involved and their expected co-benefits or dis-benefits (including gender and labour aspects). This context-specific knowledge leads to local CSA adoption in action research sites. Development of a field-based evidence base can then lead to better understanding of instruments for achieving impact at scale, including enabling multi-level policy environments (subnational to national), private sector involvement, new CSA business models and novel financing and incentive systems for CSA (including both climate-and development finance). CCAFS will assess the evidence of what works where and why for farmers and their supporting organizations and institutions (public, private and non-governmental actors). This knowledge will be shared with CCAFS downstream partners to support them to overcome barriers to investment and further adoption outside of CCAFS action sites delivers CSA at scale.Crucial components of the ToC include working with partners and AFS-CRPs to deliver on outcomes, action research grounded in local realities in partnership with downstream development actors, and building the capacity of key actors in the impact pathways from high-level investment to local institutions (see Section 2.2.1.10). Furthermore, the FP will make use of tailored communications tools and approaches for engaging and informing next users, building on successes in Phase I. This includes infographic-rich briefing materials, personal briefings with policy makers, media outreach at the national and global level to share high-profile results, and user-friendly websites and platform such as the CSA 101 guide. As per the FP2 ToC, achievement of the impact targets will largely be achieved through ensuring that CCAFS science is incorporated into the programming of large CSA investment programs and projects, hence downstream impact partners will be those with the greatest ambition and scope for CSA-related programming. Truly scaled impacts for this FP can only be achieved if viable business models are identified which incentivize autonomous adoption by farmers, and/or private sector actors to promote CSA as a component of sustainable business. Research under FP2 will contribute to knowledge on business models and the kinds of business relationships needed to lead to major private sector investment in making CSA happen across target geographies.Several assumptions underline this ToC. The FP2 ToC assumes that CSA differs from \"business-as-usual\" approaches by emphasizing the capacity to implement flexible, context-specific solutions, supported by innovative policy and financing actions (Lipper et al. 2014). The ToC also assumes that better information and evidence, packaged and communicated through appropriate channels, will not only increase investment, but also increase the quality of that investment towards the delivery of CSA related outcomes. This will be explored under CoA2.4. Additionally, this ToC assumes that CSA practices and technologies will be attractive to young people, and have the potential for gendered impacts above and beyond a \"business as usual\" approach. This is by no means guaranteed (e.g. when it requires increased labour inputs), hence the research will test this assumption through CoA 2.1.A risk in this ToC is that CSA continues to be a concept that is attractive to international and national agricultural development agencies. There is significant buy-in for the concept currently, but some regions and countries prefer not to use the term. Nevertheless, the work of this FP is not tied the term itself, but rather the principal of building crop and livestock systems that are productive, resilient and environmentally sustainable. FP2 will nevertheless manage the political risk of the term \"CSA\" carefully. The CCAFS External Evaluation validated the CSV approach as an effective means of testing and evaluating CSA technologies and practices and in building an evidence base for CSA scale-out. Hence CSVs continue to be central to the FP2 strategy. Calls for more adaptation science rather than impact science from the IPCC, coupled with reduced demand from national and local institutions on vulnerability assessment and stand-alone impact studies, has led to reductions in that area of work. Demand from donors and the private sector for more evidence on effective business models for CSA scaling means that this work will grow.How FP2 will advance the science. Recognizing that agricultural research has not been developed with a CSA lens, the novel scientific approach under FP2 will be centred on generating greater understanding of the role of climate in determining whether a specific practice or technology is appropriate or not for a given context. Research will focus on two aspects of this; 1) How can we better understand the CSA related benefits of a given technology/practice over space and time, and 2) Given that knowledge, how can it be transformed in a way that supports developing country farmers and their supporting institutions to make better decisions to confront climate challenges?Action research testing of emerging CSA practices and technologies will be combined with the development of models and approaches to understand the likely production, adaptation and mitigation (with FP3) benefits of a given technology or practice across heterogeneous geographies, and seamlessly over time. The adaptation lens must examine how a specific CSA option behaves under a range of climate stressors and risks, from extreme events, through to climate variability (including ENSO cycles), to transient climate state changes expected throughout the century. In some cases the models to do this exist, but the novel science will be in the application of these models to answer new problems. An example of this is the ongoing Risks-Households-Options (RHO) approach being developed by ICRAF, CIAT and ILRI, whereby crop-climate models and a large compendium of CSA practices are used to assess risks and CSA options that are then fed into a simple household-level option that allows assessing food Social science at local scales will understand farmer behavior with respect to climate stressors across timescales, and identify the constraints and barriers that hold back adoption. Biophysical modeling of CSA practices and technologies benefits across space and time is combined with social science insights on farmer behavior, acceptance and constraints/barriers to adoption of agricultural technologies and research on appropriate enabling environments at local and regional scale. The knowledge generated can reduce risk and increase the business case for CSA investment which through the ToC will generate CSA adoption outcomes.Managing for science quality. Research within FP2 is comprised of projects developed through a rigorous process. In 2014 FP2 engaged in a process that included: developing FP2's targets; soliciting concept notes; internal and external review of the notes; regional workshops to revise notes and impact pathways with Centres and regional stakeholders; and ISP approval. FP2 reviews Centres' annual plans for their clarity, completeness and provides feedback on how to improve impacts. Mid-year consultations indicate the state of progress and where adjustments are needed to reach goals. End-ofyear reports and bibliometric reviews inform evaluation of scientific merit and impacts of the project for the allocation of resources the following year. In addition to periodic oversight on science quality and development relevance by ISP, formal reviews and evaluation for FP2 will consist of: the CSV strategic approach reviewed in 2017; evaluation of CSA effectiveness for improving the food security of the climate vulnerable in Africa in 2020.The FPL, CoA leaders and project leaders within FP2 bring highly complementary expertise. Andy Jarvis as FPL is a proven research manager and creative thinker for driving direction of the FP and connecting it with global initiatives. Annemarie Groot (WUR) and Andy Challinor (U. of Leeds) bring complementary expertise on business models, financial incentives and local institutions, and agricultural modelling respectively. Combined, they have a list of publications that numbers more than 250. Specific projects within the FP are led by reputable scientists from ICRAF, Bioversity, CIAT, IIRR, and CIMMYT.The work in early years of Phase I was scattered and often non-strategic having been inherited from the pre-CRP period. A large volume of research evaluated individual CSA practices and technologies using different analytical frameworks and often with limited economic analysis of cost effectiveness. Through a major planning phase in 2014, non-strategic activities were trimmed and a new portfolio of projects was established for the Extension Phase, many of which are proposed to continue. In Phase II, FP2 will ensure greater co-location of activities in CSVs (but not exclusive to them), and ensure common analytical frameworks for evaluating benefits on productivity, adaptation and mitigation (with FP3) to get to grips with cost-effectiveness of CSA. Research will be embedded in local participatory platforms for understanding the social, gender and biophysical constraints and enablers for adoption. Much greater integration with AFS-CRPs will also ensure that CSA technologies and practices emerging from the CGIAR are systematically assessed for CSA outcomes.Phase I paid little attention to youth. In Phase II, some specific efforts in South Asia and Latin America address youth particularly, by introducing novel ICT tools to better manage climate related risks, integrated within CSA practice and technology adoption programs. ICTs have been identified as an instrument to attract and thus increase participation of youth in agriculture (IICD 2013), and these activities will be designed in a way that it stimulates younger ages to benefit from these innovations particularly.In response to the ISPC commentary various improvements in FP1 have been made. Greater articulation of the CSV concept and its role on the ToC has been provided in Section 2.2.1.6. Greater articulation between CoA2.2 and CoA2.1 is also provided to show how robust ex ante assessment of CSA options feeds into the selection of CSA technologies and practices for evaluation in CSVs. During Phase I, baselines were taken in all CSVs, and these will be revisited during Phase II to explore and understand changes using ex-post impact assessment approaches. The co-location of CSVs in 5 of 6 high priority Site Integration countries provides additional opportunities for integrative research and supports continuation in these countries. Emerging recommendations from the CCAFS evaluation have also been incorporated into the CSV concept.Some unintended consequence are that CSA is inherently context specific so efforts must be made to guard against the indiscriminant transfer of CSA technologies between different biophysical, socio-economic, and political settings, sometimes driven by organizational missions rather than context and local needs. Similarly, small-scale farmers are not uniform in their composition. They can range from subsistence to semi-commercial operations. CSA options must cater to this socioeconomic diversity as well, risking mal-adaption when these conditions are not met. Maladaptation is a cause of increasing concern to adaptation planners, where intervention in one location or sector could increase the vulnerability of another location or sector, or increase the vulnerability of the target group to future climate change (Noble et al. 2014). Effort must also be made to ensure the profit-signals driving private sector investment in CSA are not at odds with the FPs' efforts to reach truly vulnerable farmers, especially women. The private sector can deliver CSA at scale to a large number of actors, but it is historically biased towards actors capable of producing immediate financial return. This, in many cases, does not include marginalized groups.As identified by the ISPC, the key to success in Phase II of FP2 is effectively putting the CGIAR as a research and knowledge broker with a strong downstream partner strategy and significant effort will be invested to make sure that happens.This FP is organized around four CoAs to deliver IPGs and downstream impact targets. The first, and largest, CoA covers the testing of technologies and practices in Africa, Asia and Latin America (CoA 2.1). These multi-stakeholder LPs are situated within opportunities for scaling up, thus other CoAs focus on scaling through tools for making investment choices (2.2), subnational adaptation planning processes (2.3) and business models, finance and incentives (2.4). The FP contains a Learning Platform (LP2) on participatory evaluation of CSA technologies and practices in CSVs. Some of the CSVs are already testbeds for up to 5 Centres. In Phase II CoA 2.1 will constitute LP2 with AFS-CRPs and ICRPs. WISAT, IIRR, CARE, CIRAD, CATIE and GIZ will be Strategic Partners in LP2.Through Phase I, a key success has been the establishment of 19 CSVs across the original CCAFS target countries (FP2 Figure 2). These were selected in CCAFS priority countries based on a) governmental priorities, b) vulnerability, c) institutional capacities (CGIAR and non-CGIAR), d) representativity for CCAFS and e) potential for effective scale-out of success cases. In Phase II work will continue in the same CSVs where significant investment in the participatory research platform exists, and where local institutions are primed to deliver the expected results for this CoA.In late 2015, a multi-stakeholder workshop consisting of participants from all 5 CCAFS regions developed a common vision for CSVs moving forward, and identified a number of means of bolstering their learning potential and subsequent strategies for scaling. The emergent vision of a CSV is: A CSV is a test-bed for generating greater evidence of CSA effectiveness in a real-life setting (including technological, social, institutional, financial, value-chain and policy innovations), eventually leading to prioritization of the best and practical adaptation options for particular geographic areas aiming to improve food security, livelihoods, nutrition and resilience  A CSV is founded on participatory action research for grounding research on appropriate and location/context specific enabling conditions and generating R4D methodological innovations  The CSV plays the role of a platform for multi stakeholder collaborative work and codevelopment of scaling mechanisms towards landscapes, sub national and national levels. In establishing CSVs and in selecting particular activities, the vision must always be on scaling up, with partners engaged and processes implemented from the start to realize the vision. CSV successes and policy constraints should feed into FP1 (CoA 1.3) to build enabling environments for scaling.In other words, CSVs are \"lighthouses\" to show where communities test, co-develop and adopt CSA, providing evidence and demonstration of best-bet CSA options that are deserving of investment for scaling up. CSVs can be considered clusters of villages or landscapes that focus on climate change hotspots across a wide range of agro ecological zones with different farmer's typologies, climate risks and vulnerabilities. A key approach is to evaluate portfolios of options in addition to individual CSA options, and have robust action research to i) understand the effectiveness of options and ii) develop (no regrets) solutions in anticipation of future climate change impacts. CSVs promote local and incremental adaptation and build local capacities to continue to innovate, experiment, and adapt.Close integration with AFS-CRPs is envisioned to identify technologies and practices. For example, FP2 CoA 2.1 will perform on the ground testing of model outputs including socioeconomics, crop management and germplasm deployment from MAIZE and WHEAT CRPs. Similar agreements with other agri-food CRPs exist. Additionally, local institutions and communities themselves also select CSA options that they would like evaluated, and CSA development programs can also incorporate learning in their operations by co-locating CSA options in CSVs.The CoAs will draw on the successes of Phase I in 9 sites in Africa, 7 sites in Asia and 3 sites in Latin America. The CSV concept is now being taken up by other agencies (e.g. Maharashtra State government adopting the concept and investing in their establishment across the region) and CCAFS will contribute with information and advice in these other sites.The rationale is that significant investment is becoming available for scaling CSA, and a pipeline of tested CSA options, that can be adapted to different site-specific conditions, needs to be developed to maximize value for money of CSA-related finance.  On-farm tested, and evaluated and up-scalable gender sensitive and specific CSA options (e.g. climate-adapted germplasm, conservation agriculture, agroforestry, aquaculture, water harvesting, soil and water management options, livestock nutrition), including transformative options, and models of integrated crop-livestock-tree systems for increasing resilience. Improved understanding of farmer's and stakeholders perceptions along the value chain of CSA options, and assessments of the conditions for success and failure of interventions. Simulation of CSA options under different climate and socio-economic scenarios for informed decision-making (together with FP1) Empirical and big data analysis of climate-specific management options, generating climate sensitive extension schemes and climate-site-specific advisory systems (including precision agriculture) for farmers. A farmer citizen science approach for adapting CSA options to the local context and scaling up.This CoA will develop a range of tools, databases and knowledge products to help CSA investments make the best choices for delivering scaled impact. Significant CSA investment is in the pipeline (from both Where and when can a particular CSA option be considered climate smart, and how do the trade-offs between pillars vary in space and time?A suite of tools for different purposes and contexts will be developed and applied to support donors, governments and investors make better choices for CSA-related programming. These will draw from ground-truthed data from CoA 2.1 and transform into information relevant for decision-making. This will increase the relevance and likely impact towards the achievement of CSA-related outcomes at scale. Research outputs include: Further development of a compendium of CSA practices and technologies, with information on the associated costs, benefits and adoption constraints, including indicators on gender impacts. Understanding farming systems diversity and prioritization and decision support tools for guiding CSA investments, including spatial models to understand application domains in space and time of promising CSA options. Information notes on the benefits of a particular CSA practice or technology, with associated information on trade-offs, application domains and evidence of gender related impacts  Country and county climate-smart profiles that help identify priority CSA practices and technologies within a given country/regionWide-scale adoption of CSA technologies and practices will require an enabling environment which includes local, institutional, national and regional level plans and policies. This CoA will explore appropriate plans and policies at subnational levels (national policy is covered under FP1) that can provide incentives for CSA scale-out. This may include both public-sector policies and programs, as well as strategies from private sector or civil society. The rationale is that local level enablers for adaptation are needed for farmers to access credit, extension, technologies amongst other resources that will increase adoption rates of CSA technologies and practices. Yet there is limited knowledge on how subnational policies and programs can deliver incentives for farmers to adopt tried and tested CSA technologies and practices (hypothesis 2  Evaluation of LAPAs in South Asia and their efficacy in promoting adaptation and genderequitable CSA adoption. Evaluation of scaling up strategies and their efficacy across a range of contexts and regionsThis CoA will develop new business models for CSA at local levels, explore innovative value-chain based incentive mechanisms for CSA adoption, and explore emerging innovative finance instruments that will support CSA scaling up. The rationale is that technical knowledge and availability of CSA technologies and practices are not sufficient to achieve the ambitious goals of mass CSA adoption of global and regional initiatives aligned to GACSA. Business models, financial and other incentives need to be understood and leveraged to boost adoption levels and deliver scale out strategies that have the capacity to reach millions of farmers, including those that are marginalized. New business models can be explored that promote 1) scaling of promising CSA technologies /practices (linked to a technology push approach to business development) or 2) scaling of CSA (which is broader, allows for a value chain perspective and a demand driven approach to business development).CSA has opened new opportunities for novel financial instruments to promote agricultural technology adoption, including from climate finance. This opens up questions about how new finance streams, and value-chain innovations might be best harnessed to deliver benefits to smallholder farmers and deliver on the outcomes of CSA (hypothesis 2).Key research questions are: What motivates the private sector to take up and promote CSA? Which business models work for whom and when to support scaling up? What is the potential of impact investment to incentivize equitable adoption of CSA technologies and practices at local levels through a value chain approach? : Is certification of climate-smartness a viable and marketable business model that delivers equitable benefits to farmers, and in so doing, promote adoption of CSA technologies and practices? What other existing and innovative finance instruments exist (e.g. payment for ecosystem services) that will provide incentives to farmers to access, adopt and promote CSA practices and technologies, and what are their efficacy in reaching and positively impacting on those most marginalized (including women and youth)? What risks arise from market access for smallholder farmers and what are effective strategies to mitigate these risks?This CoA is crucial to the impact pathway in that it frames many of the strategies for scaling up CSA in support of ambitious national, regional and global goals. Insights generated from this research will inform CSA investment and increase the value for money of CSA investment by using appropriate gender-sensitive incentive mechanisms for adoption. Research outputs include: Synthesis of research on business models and approaches to business modelling across different biophysical and socio-economic contexts to find out which models and approaches are most useful for whom and under which conditions  Establishment of public-private-partnerships with value chain actors to develop evidence based certification schemes that facilitate entry points for CSA investment through commodity chains  Research on CSA certification feasibility in West Africa and Central America in coffee and cocoa value chains, and in SE Asia in the rice sector  Research on the reach and efficacy of impact investment and other novel financial instruments, including those originating from climate finance  Awareness raising on and preparation for innovative climate funds at multiple levelsThe FP2 ToC hinges on effective partnership. The CSV approach -essentially a multi-stakeholder LP at key sites -will be used to trial options with partners. Each CSV is established with its own ToC, or linked into a national ToC to ensure that case study work builds into plans for scaling up. Many local partners from Phase I in the well-established CSVs will continue in Phase II. These partners were selected through robust analysis of institutional capacities, mandates and commitments to long-term place-based action research. Continuity is a key criterion to ensure that the participatory platforms in CSVs deliver. Local NARES are a key partner in most CSVs. These partners receive long-term partner agreements with funding to cover their implementation costs. Local private sector actors will continue to be involved in CSVs in Phase II.For proof-of-concept and scaling up, FP2 will collaborate with the major multilateral and bilateral agencies facilitating CSA investment and implementation, including GACSA and its members, Alliance for CSA in Africa, FAO, World Bank, IFAD, DFID, USAID, GIZ, Gates Foundation, Climate-Smart Agriculture Programme (CSAP) and CTA, to develop the tools needed to prioritize, plan and bring CSA practices to scale. Regional bodies involved in CSA implementation are also involved, (e.g. Africa Union, NEPAD, ECOWAS, COMESA, APAN, CAC, ECLAC and IICA). A host of partners at national level (incl. government, private sector and civil society) will complement these efforts and ground the research in national realities. Impact partners are generally involved as self-funded collaborators and may leverage significant funding for the FP. Global and regional private sector partners are also crucial for the FP2 ToC, being heavily involved in the CoA related to innovative finance and CSA incentive instruments, including certification organizations (e.g. Rainforest Alliance), social impact investors (e.g. Root Capital), and major agri-food companies involved through the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform (SAI-Platform).CCAFS has been a lead agency in the development of the CSA approach and through Phase I has demonstrated its capacity to lead CSA related research, interfacing between academic institutions and development actors at multiple scales. CGIAR research is embedded in agricultural practice in a way that the Future Earth community, which focuses on modeling whole-earth systems such as the carbon cycle, is not. Developing of the evidence base for CSA is one key area in which CGIAR can synthesize the science across many agro-ecological and socio-economic contexts to complement Future Earth at the global level.FP2 can play a major role in addressing the global challenge of climate change. Climate finance and the key institutions behind CSA investment have a broad range of interests that go beyond specific crops, livestock systems or cropping systems. Thus, collaboration across the CGIAR is needed to support investors identify the best-bet options across a range of geographies and agricultural and social contexts. Hence, this FP is entirely focused on enabling the CGIAR to provide comprehensive guidance on CSA options, and through ambitious partnerships ensure that a two-way conversation occurs around when (and when not) CSA is a viable option for climate finance and mainstream agricultural investment. This holistic approach, rather than a crop or livestock specific approach, will likely yield much greater impact for the CGIAR.The Learning Platform (LP2) on participatory evaluation of CSA technologies and practices in CSVs is central to achieving CGIAR-wide collaboration around the topic of CSA technologies and practices. The LP will generate methodologies for evaluating CSA related outcomes for emerging practices and technologies, and build a CSA evidence base for CGIAR technologies that increase the potential impact and open new potential streams of investment from the climate community.Through partnerships with key development actors in the CSA domain, FP2 will place the CGIAR at the interface of the discussion between development and research to build evidence, design interventions and successfully roll-out CSA practices and technologies at scale. Thus, the CGIAR becomes a catalyst for smart CSA investment. ). FP2 will contribute to the gender and youth IDOs by identifying trade-offs of food security, adaptation and mitigation of CSA technologies and practices and whether they differ for men and women, young and old. For example,how do certain CSA practices or packages affect women's and youth's labour workloads? Who controls the benefits received from CSA technologies/practices?The CCAFS gender survey will be analyzed to further understand socially differentiated adoption profiles of CSA practices and technologies. Initial results indicate women are less aware of CSA practices but when they are aware they are just as likely (if not more so) than men to adopt the practices (Twyman et al. 2014; Bernier et al. 2015). Some factors influencing adoption by women include information, access to credit or finances, interaction with local institutions, and demonstrated effects on decreased workloads (Jost et al. 2015). Research will generate effective indicators for gender-related benefits of CSA and apply them in CSVs to understand sex-and youth-disaggregated adoption profiles for a range of CSA options, and allow cross-regional comparison and customizing of approaches of the primary barriers holding back adoption especially by women. This work will feed into CoA 2.4 to explore how incentive mechanisms can pro-actively target adoption of CSA by women farmers, focusing on value chain and financial incentives that empower women to be the agents of CSA adoption in the household. Addressing questions related to CSA and gender will help identify those technologies and practices that have positive impacts on the control of productive assets and resources within communities and contribute to achieving the gender and youth IDOs (see 1.0.4 for the gender-related hypothesis).In the 4 th Assessment Report, the IPCC reviewed the full literature on adaptive capacity and identified six determinants: economic wealth, technology, information and skills, infrastructure, institutions, and equity (Smit and Pilifskova 2007). FP2 is designed to produce outputs and outcomes in five of these six dimensions (excl. infrastructure). Capacity development is central to the FP's ToC: to make development more \"climate-smart\". In essence, this is achieved through the capacity strengthening of development actors, at individual, organizational and institutional levels, to manage towards improved CSA outcomes. During Phase I, FP2 has been closely engaged at the national level in several target countries with capacity needs assessments, working with national partners both within formal processes, such as the NAPA or NAFSIP in different African countries, and via stand-alone situation analyses like the CSA country profiles.Going forward, FP2 will focus on partner capacity building in five areas of the CapDev Framework: intervention strategy design, learning materials and approaches, gender-sensitive approaches, organizational development and institutional strengthening. Capacity development is planned to be especially high in CSV sites, where the participatory approach strengthens local economic wealth, technology, information and skills, institutions, and equity.Horizontally networked institutions among farmers and communities will be used as a mechanism for capacity development. For example, in Kenya, best practices identified in local Community Action Plans will be implemented through farmer-tofarmer extension and training. Likewise policy makers will be directly involved in all stages of research relevant to policy design and implementation to build capacity. For example in South Asia, CCAFS scientists will join with policy makers to undertake case studies of Local Adaptation Plans of Action (LAPAs).In Phase I FP2 was a CGIAR-wide leader in generating Open Access/Open Data products, and complying with the ambitious CGIAR OA/OD policy. This will continue in Phase II. Research methods, data, tools and associated information generated under FP2 will be made available for indexing and interlinking, so that research outputs are open via FAIR principles. Furthermore, the proposed FP Research Leader is also the co-lead on the Big Data and ICT platform proposal which includes a strong OA/OD emphasis.Targeted open access data bases to be produced or maintained during Phase II include:Agtrials.org: information portal that provides access to a database on the performance of agricultural technologies at sites across climate gradients. It builds on decades of evaluation trials.Compendium of CSA practices and technologies: Database of the benefits of different CSA technologies and practices, as reported in scientific literature, disaggregated for geographic regions and different farming systems  Ag-Impacts: Collation of impact studies from IPCC report and other sources that allows a user to query scientific literature on likely crop impacts  Site-specific management datasets and ICT platforms for delivery of optimal management recommendations under a varying climate  CCAFS-Climate.org (together with FP1): Global downscaled climate projections for use in agricultural modelling of impactsThe FP is not a primary generator of technologies and their related intellectual assets, but rather a user to stimulate adoption of emerging agricultural technologies. IP considerations will be taken into account when testing and promoting such technologies. Given the focus on participatory evaluation in FP2 (that includes attention to traditional knowledge and close work with farmers), FP1 will comply with the CGIAR Principles on IAs (see Section 1.0.12).   In FP2, W1/W2 will be used for highly strategic research and engagement with value as international public goods, whereas W3 bilateral activities will be tailored to specific locations and stakeholder groups as per funding conditions. Significant W3 funds are aligned to FP2 from centers, but are aligned through Flagship projects which were competitively selected and co-designed with Centers. Therefore, W1/W2 is being strategically used to fund core research activities including synthesis and partnership, whilst W3 bilateral is focused primarily on place-based efforts that complement and extend the depth and scope of research outcomes that CCAFS can achieve.FP2 budget will be allocated to all 15 centres as research under FP2 is fairly core to the CGIAR. Bioversity, CIAT and CIMMYT share the greatest budget allocation (29%, 23% and 17% respectively) and collectively receive 69% of total FP2 funds. A large proportion of Bioversity budget is W3/Bilateral, and so additional W1/W2 resources are also included under uplift. CIAT also receives a large share of FP2 funds as it will host the FP2 leader, house the RPL in LAM, and lead research on CSA value chains, CSVs in SE Asia and climate specific management systems. FP2 leader funds will support synthesis activities, and promote engagement and partnership with key global and regional CSA investors.FP2 has allocated 2% of its budget to MEL. Of this USD 227,550 over the six-year period is allocated to external assessments. These are shown in Annex Table 5. FP2 will allocate funds to CCERs for FP2 and CSVs, and contribute to gender, regional and Learning Platform external reviews.Personnel. Of the total budget 31% goes to personnel. This reflects the considerable staff inputs into the program.Travel. Of the total budget 7% goes to travel. Given the program is globally distributed, there is a significant amount of travel. However, through virtual meetings there is also a significant budget reduction (e.g. the management team only meets once or twice per year face-to-face, the monthly meetings being conducted via video-conferencing. Much travel is regional and focussed on researcher visits to CSV sites, although some south-south learning activities also contribute to trans-continental travel.Capital equipment. This is a very small percentage (0,4%) of the total costs, as CCAFS-related research is not dependent on high-cost equipment.Other Supplies and Services. See below in section 2.CGIAR Collaborations. 3% of the total budget goes to Collaborations among CGIAR Centres but only with W3 and Bilateral funds as all W1W2 budget are send directly from CIAT Lead Centre to Participating Centres via Program Participant Agreements (PPAs).Non-CGIAR collaboration. Partnerships for research and development outcomes are a crucial component of the ToC. Thus CCAFS will allocate at least 24% of the budget to partners of its budget to partners. This amount is expected to leverage own-resources from within partners at 2-3 times that level. The fundraising strategy will try to increase this level.Indirect costs. 15% is the average Indirect Cost rate that comes from the different rates among CGIAR Centers defined on estimated income.Benefits:Using CIAT as point of reference, we assumed most of CGIAR Centers follow the following differentiation of benefits among National and International Staff:National Research Staff (NRS): Fringe benefits for national staff (costs for all benefits are added to the base salary to provide the total cost of the position) are comprised of legal benefits (local mandatory) and extralegal benefits (CIAT mandatory) and the provisions to cover local legal requirements such as: Pension -social security, training and development, occupational health, transportation costs and subsidies, work clothes and personnel protection requirement, and food subsidy.International Research Staff (IRS): Fringe benefits for international staff (costs for all benefits are added to the base salary to provide the total cost of the position) are comprised of housing allowance, education allowance, car allowance, Cost Of Living Allowance (COLA), hardship, home leave tickets, insurance, retirement contribution, occupational health, training and development, repatriation and relocation provisions.Of the budget 23% goes to cover Supplies and Services. These represents most of Centres' Full Cost Recovery units such as IT, Facilities, Public Space, Research and Technical Support plus the considerable funds for consultancies, workshops and operational services.Relative proportions of W3 and Bilateral are unknown, and thus we have used a single category of Bilateral to capture both W3 and Bilateral.The Centres participating in FP2 are committing to raising 74% of total Flagship funds through Window 3 and bilateral contributions from 2017 onwards. Considerable effort will be made to jointly source and tap into bilateral funding for the Flagship with Centre partners and non-CGIAR partners alike. FP2 leader is strongly engaged in bilateral fundraising for core Flagship activities, and the prospects of maintaining and increasing these funds is good as there is considerable interest in CSA practices and technologies by donors. Given that much of the work is grounded in specific country-and local-contexts, national level funding from governments in emerging economies such as India and Colombia will be especially prioritized.Some of the key strategic partners to FP2 have already demonstrated a strong track record in generating in kind contributions to the Flagship. IIRR for example have already leveraged W1/W2 funds by 300% for activities in climate smart villages in Vietnam and in the Philippines. Other key partners such as the University of Galway have been strongly engaged in joint fundraising, especially tapping into science funding in Ireland, and through IrishAid missions in priority countries. WUR, with their significant contribution to FP2 can also potentially align student and other research programs to further bolster FP2 in kind contributions. Impact assessment FP2 has allocated c. USD 200,000 to impact assessments over the six-year period. These will focus on revisiting baselines from Phase 1 in climate smart villages (CSVs) in 15 countries, with a view to understanding poverty impacts of a range of CSA technologies and practices. Evaluations will also be performed on the CSV approach in 2020 as part of the comprehensive M+E approach of CCAFS.The budget for this is USD 8,000 per year. The budget for communications is c. USD 1.5 million per year.Flagship communications activities are central to the ToC and will contribute to delivery of outcomes through engagement with key stakeholders in CSV sites, at the regional and national level, as well as in relevant communities of practice. Budget is allocated for salary of regional communications specialists (1 in each region, with responsibility for all flagships), and staff time for communications activities at project level. The budget covers delivery of communications products and initiatives through events, media engagement, field visits, training journalists, producing/disseminating publications, multimedia production, and staff travel.Uplift. Most of the topics selected for uplift have been identified from topics cut from CCAFS as a result of budget cuts, but which are considered to be a crucial part of the science and outcome agenda. These are:  Additional funds for Impact Assessment to increase depth of CSV related assessment and poverty impact evaluation of a greater number of CSA practices and technologies. The vision. The FP3 vision is that low emissions development LED) will reduce agricultural greenhouse gas GHG) emissions while ensuring food security at large scales. Research will provide guidance for LED technical packages, monitoring, incentives, trade-offs and enabling conditions. Key 2022 outcomes are: a) 20 agricultural development initiatives where CCAFS science is used to target and implement interventions to increase input efficiency; b) 0.8 million hectares targeted by researchinformed initiatives for restoring degraded land or preventing deforestation; c) 10 low emissions plans developed that have significant mitigation potential for 2030, i.e. contribute to at least 5% GHG emissions reduction or reach at least 10,000 farmers, with all plans examined for their gender implications; d) 15 organizations adapting their plans or directing investment to increase women's participation in decision-making about LED in agriculture; and (e) 15 policy decisions taken (in part) based on engagement and information dissemination by CCAFS (FP3 Table 1).The challenge. FP3 addresses two of the greatest challenges of the 21 st century -the massive reduction of GHG emissions needed to avoid catastrophic climate change (SDG 13) and ensuring future food security (SDG 2).Globally, agriculture and related land use change contribute nearly a quarter of annual GHG emissions, ~10-12 Gt CO2e yr -1 (Smith et al. 2014). Emissions from agriculture and related land use must be reduced if global warming is to be limited by 2°C (van Vuuren et al. 2011), however, 3/4 of agricultural emissions originate from the developing world and ~1/3 come from smallholder farmers (1.7 Gt CO2e yr -1 ). To \"double agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers by 2030\" (SDG 2.3) and minimize further emissions, developing countries need options to achieve food security and value chain development while reducing GHG emissions.Options to reduce agricultural emissions include agronomic practices (can reduce 0 to 1.59 Gt CO2e yr Improving the science underlying LED in agriculture will provide the evidence for where LED makes sense and how to do it most effectively. Improved science can inform global policy to achieve both food security and climate goals, and contribute to more reliable national inventories or global monitoring of emissions and mitigation impacts.Hypotheses and scope. Progress on LED in agriculture is constrained by poor evidence of its feasibility for different production systems, incentives for farmers to change practices and weak technical capacities. FP3will examine the following hypotheses as part of the ToC: H1: LED practices for agricultural landscapes and value chains significantly reduce GHG emissions while ensuring rural food security and improved livelihood options. H2: Improved evidence, incentives, technical capacity, social mobilization and other enabling conditions for LED will support farmers, governments, the private sector and donors to implement LED policies and programs at large scales (> 250,000 farmers or 1 million ha per program). To test the hypotheses, FP3 will focus on high mitigation-impact practices relevant to smallholder development: carbon sequestration in agricultural landscapes, reducing methane from livestock and paddy rice, reducing nitrous oxide from fertilizer use in cereal crops, and reducing food loss (FP3 Figure 1).CRP links. FP3 will provide a Learning Platform (LP) to identify options for low-emissions development across all CRPs (CoA 3.2). FP3 will work with individual CRPs to: develop LED scenarios for ex-ante analysis (PIM); explore options for soil carbon sequestration (WLE and France's 4‰ Initiative); co-invest in LED for livestock systems (Livestock's Environment Flagship Program); collaborate on responsible finance for avoided deforestation (CoA 3.3)(FTA); and explore biological nitrification inhibitors for reducing N2O emissions and increasing nitrogen use efficiency in agricultural systems (MAIZE, WHEAT, DCLAS and LIVESTOCK. FP3-CRP collaboration will address grand challenges related to reducing GHG emissions, natural resource use efficiency (land, energy, nutrients, water) and reducing waste (post-harvest loss).Objectives. FP3's overall goal is to test the feasibility of reducing agricultural GHG emissions at large scales while ensuring food security in developing countries. Objectives are to provide evidence and tools for (1) improved estimates of emissions from LED in smallholder farming; (2) impacts of LED on emissions, food security and other outcomes and resulting priorities and (3) conditions enabling LED at large scales among smallholder farmers and in major supply chains. The primary beneficiaries of FP3 are smallholder farmers for whom LED practices can contribute to food security and climate resilience by increasing yields, reducing inputs and improving natural capital. Research will also benefit national LED efforts through better emissions estimates, technical capacities to implement and monitor LED, and policy development.Strategic relevance to CGIAR objectives and targets: FP3 will contribute to two CGIAR SLOs (FP3 Figure 2; FP3 Table 1): (a) Reduced poverty and (b) Improved natural resource systems and ecosystem services. By 2022, FP3 plans to reduce agricultural emissions in developing countries by 160 Mt CO2e yr -1 (4% relative to projected 2022 levels). It will contribute to five IDOs (bold) and five sub-IDOs (italics): Mitigation and adaptation achieved via reduced net GHG emissions from agriculture, forests and other forms of land use, through local, state and regional organizations using CCAFS science to develop low emissions plans for agriculture that have significant mitigation potential for 2030. Part of this outcome is achieved through carbon sequestered in biomass and soil, with FTA and WLE.  Natural capital enhanced and protected, especially from climate change via minimizing and reversing land, water and forest degradation, through research-informed initiatives for restoring degraded land or preventing deforestation and forest degradation in commodity supply chains.  Increased incomes and employment via more efficient use of inputs by farm households, through agricultural development initiatives where CCAFS science is used to target and implement interventions to increase input efficiency.  Equity and inclusion achieved via improved capacity of women and young people to participate in decision-making, through organizations adapting their plans or directing investment to increase women's and youth's participation in decision-making about LED in agriculture  National partners and beneficiaries enabled; via increased capacity for innovation in partner development organizations and poor and vulnerable communities, through partner organization and community engagement in CCAFS research and training.The three CoAs will support development of at least 10 low emissions agricultural development plans with significant mitigation potential, e.g. reduce GHG emissions by 5% or reach 10,000 farmers. Outputs: improved country targets for INDCs and LED priorities; \"proof of concept\" of mitigation practices for priority sectors; scenarios for food security and LED pathways; technical and policy guidance to focus countries, supply chains and donors; methods for MRV of agricultural emission reductions; business models and finance options for scaling of LED options.Natural capital enhanced and protected, especially from climate change: CoA 3.3 will help minimize and reverse land, water and forest degradation to achieve 0.8 million ha targeted by research-informed initiatives for restoring degraded land or preventing deforestation by 2022. With WLE, FTA, Livestock and France's 4‰ Initiative, FP3 will seek to improve soil carbon sequestration in grasslands and integrate soil carbon sequestration into LED decision-support tools, policy, MRV and CSVs (other than organic soils, which is addressed by FTA). Outputs: analysis of producer incentives; good practice guidelines for public, private and hybrid governance for improved sustainable commodity supply chains.Increased incomes and employment: CoAs 3.2 and 3.3 will enable more efficient use of inputs to achieve 20 agricultural development initiatives where CCAFS science is used to target and implement interventions to increase input efficiency by 2022. CoA 3.1 contributes indirectly by providing the evidence needed for identifying priorities and scaling up LED. Outputs (coordinated with FP2 and regions): analysis of farmers' incentives to increase input efficiency and reduce food loss and waste; technical and policy guidance on more efficient management options including impacts on women; analysis of lessons learned on using public-private dialogue to support scaling up of LED options in agrifood sectors.Equity and inclusion achieved: CoA 3.1 addresses the capacity of women scientists and policy makers to participate in LED decision-making and CoAs 3.2 and 3.3 address the role of women and youth farmers in implementing LED, contributing to a 2022 target of 20 organizations adapting their plans or directing investment to increase women's participation in decision-making about LED in agriculture.Outputs: metrics for monitoring and evaluation of impacts of LED on livelihoods and gender equity; strengthened capacity of young female scientists in GHG quantification; best practices for increasing women's and men's participation in NAMAs and LEDs.National partners and beneficiaries enabled: All three CoAs contribute to increased capacity for innovation in partner development organizations and in poor and vulnerable communities with a 2022 target of 10 policy decisions taken (in part) based on engagement and information dissemination by CCAFS. Outputs: improved options for global donors to support LED and agricultural climate readiness; countries trained in scenarios analysis for LED planning; improved capacity of UNFCCC focal points and NAMA or LED policy implementers to measure and monitor mitigation.The impact pathway for FP3 is shown in FP3 Figure 2 and the Flagship's ToC is explained by the assumptions and strategy below. Crucial components of the ToC include working with partners, other CRPs, other CCAFS FPs and the CCAFS Learning Platform on CSA, Gender and Social Inclusion to deliver on outcomes, and building the capacity of actors in the impact pathway (see Section 2.3.1.10). The CCAFS LP on Partnerships and Capacity for Scaling CSA will be a key route to achieve impact at national to global levels. The ToC is aligned to the CRP ToC.FP3's ToC is that programs and policies for agricultural development (e.g. irrigation and energy infrastructure, fertilizer subsidies, private or public investments in sustainable intensification or climate change adaptation) will be the primary platform for scaling up LED. Climate finance, policies, standards and infrastructure as well as consumer demands in some supply chains (e.g. oil palm, coffee) will catalyse the integration of LED into agricultural development programs, policies and practices, and gradually become the institutions shaping LED pathways to reduce net GHG emissions from AFOLU, increase above-and below-ground biomass, minimize and reverse land, water and forest degradation while ensuring rural food security and improving livelihood options.The ToC assumes: (1) suitable agricultural development programs and policies exist in the focus country;(2) programs and policies will implement LED to help meet mitigation targets, access climate finance, or better compete in global markets; (3) LED implementers require information on which practices reduce GHG emissions, viable business models, enabling conditions and tools to set priorities and assess feasibility of new practices and their potential impact on food security; (4) improved evidence for the compatibility of LED practices with food production in diverse production systems and through demonstration in CSVs will lead to scaling up.Based on these assumptions, FP3's strategy to achieve large-scale impacts is to use action research in countries pioneering LED where rapid implementation is likely and the CGIAR has a comparative advantage (Vietnam, Bangladesh, Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, Kenya). While budgetary and time commitments to some of these countries is not high (e.g. Costa Rica, Mexico), they are important for South-South learning. Research will engage farmers' groups, local governments, national government ministries, as well as development banks, donors, private sector suppliers, youth organizations, women's organizations, and investors in LED and agricultural development. In each country, research will improve emissions estimates (CoA 3.1), prioritize and test technologies (CoA 3.2) and provide evidence for scaling up (CoA 3.3). Research will include biophysical, social, economic and policy analysis. With successful country cases and working with global partners and ARIs, FP3 will build generalizable evidence for mitigation at larger scales.FP3's CoAs are organized to respond to gaps in knowledge: improved emissions estimates (CoA 3.1), technical options' impacts (CoA 3.2), and means for scaling up LED (CoA 3.3). Results from each CoA feed into the next. Better estimates are needed to assess technologies. Technological impacts are necessary to provide evidence for scaling up. Primary users of the research will be 1) national agricultural decisionmakers; 2) investors in agricultural development, including development banks, private finance, and farmers' associations; and 3) advocates for sustainable and low-emissions food systems, including NGOs such as the EDF and the Rainforest Alliance. FP3 will prioritize women and young scientists from developing countries for capacity strengthening.To ensure impacts, FP3 will work with well-established partners in CCAFS' regional programs and using regional platforms such as LAMNET to co-develop technical and institutional options in CCAFS' regional CSVs and other existing innovation hubs of CRPs and partners. Communication campaigns will be essential to increase the visibility of focal country experiences, new tools and new information platforms, making use of tools and approaches for engaging and informing next users, building on successes in Phase I. This includes learning events and workshops jointly organized with partners, sharing information with relevant communities of practice via e-newsletters and blogs, disseminating engaging briefing materials to decision makers, and placing key messages in high-profile media outlets to help disseminate results to global audiences. For example, media outreach on CCAFS INDC analysis of mitigation and adaptation targets was highly visible immediately before COP21 and contributed to deliberations and increased recognition of country adaptation and mitigation priorities in agriculture .To ensure technical capacities and impacts over the long-term, collaboration with local universities, training of young and women scientists and participation of women decision-makers in action research are essential. Enabling conditions include expected global agricultural investment of USD 83 billion/yr to meet 2050 food needs (FAO 2009) and climate finance from the Green Climate Fund and other donors.In the private sector, demands by consumers of beef and milk, oil palm and other major commodities will incentivize supply chain actors to lower carbon footprints and reduce deforestation.FP3 results will inform FP1, FP2 and the Partnerships and Capacity for Scaling CSA LP for CSA policy and implementation. FP1 analysis of food systems policies will enable better understanding of the context for LED. where high potential mitigation impacts were feasible and the knowledge needs associated with achieving impacts. To ensure relevance, also FP3 draws on priorities of \"LED leader\" countries, including Colombia, Vietnam, Kenya, Costa Rica, Brazil and Indonesia, as indicated in their climate change strategies, agricultural development priorities and mitigation commitments. Some of these countries will be crucial to South-South learning. Resulting priorities were carbon sequestration in agricultural landscapes, reducing methane from livestock and paddy rice, reducing nitrous oxide from fertilizer use in cereal crops, and reducing food loss. Centre and regional stakeholder exchange provided further development of specific research questions and hypotheses.How FP3 will advance the science. The FP3 portfolio will generate and synthesize evidence for the technical and policy aspects of how to achieve food security with mitigation co-benefits for smallholder farmers at large scales across multiple subsectors and regions. This is the only systematic research of this nature of which we are aware. Working with other CCAFS FPs, FP3 also will integrate low emissions approaches with practices and policies for resilience.FP3 will integrate findings across diverse methods, from future scenarios based on integrated assessment models and biogeochemical modeling of emissions, to value-chain analysis of gender impacts and spatial analysis of LED suitability. Using standardized, low-cost methods for quantifying emissions will enable more cost-effective data collection. Participatory action research will ensure the relevance of findings to policy and large-scale implementation. See CoAs for further details.Managing for science quality. The quality and relevance of FP3's research will be maintained through collaborative development of proposed projects, peer-review, internal and external scientific advisory mechanisms, formal evaluation and internal reflection and review. The research portfolio was developed by establishing outcome targets and potential impact pathways; soliciting concept notes contributing to these; conducting internal and external review of the notes; and holding regional workshops to revise notes and IPs with Centres and regional stakeholders. The CCAFS ISC will provide independent scientific advice and approval of the portfolio. FP3 will conduct an independent evaluation of CoAs in 2019 and 2022. The FP as a whole will be evaluated in 2022 (See Annex Table 5). FP3 reviews Centres' annual plans for their clarity, completeness and provides feedback on how to improve impacts. Mid-year consultations indicate the state of progress and where adjustments are needed. End-of-year reports and bibliometric reviews inform evaluation of scientific merit and program impacts for the allocation of budget resources.Research team qualifications. The 13 key FP3 research scientists have produced over a thousand publications and have 250 combined years of experience in biogeochemistry, agroecology, agronomy, animal science, climate change, economics, engineering, governance, irrigation, policy, resource management, gender and soil science. The team's recent high-impact publications include: contribution to IPCC guidelines, measurement and mitigation of emissions from livestock and rice, assessment of mitigation from no-till agriculture and biological nitrification inhibition (BNI), development of nitrogen efficiencies for annual crops, feasibility of market approaches in decreasing land use change, modeling and econometric analysis of land use data, governance of agriculture-forest landscapes, and analysis of country commitments (INDCs) to mitigation through agriculture for COP21. The team leads cutting edge participatory action research with a focus on enabling smallholder farmers -including women -to decrease emissions and emissions intensities while safeguarding agricultural productivity in the CCAFS regions.Building on Phase I experience with outcomes, in Phase II FP3 will focus on selected subsectors to concentrate resources and ensure significant contributions to SLOs. 2) Country-level outcomes will be prioritized to increase scale. By engaging with stakeholders throughout the research process, FP3 aims to ensure that rigorous science informs both practitioners and decision-makers. Given the high costs and technical demands of estimating GHG emissions reductions, collaboration with global partners such as the GRA, IPCC and FAO will enable FP3 to efficiently share data, build capacity and improve modeling and sampling. We have learned that consolidating information on a well-designed webpage supports wide user access. FP3 shifted from testing \"how mitigation increases incomes for the poor\" (e.g. via Carbon markets) to how \"agricultural development can deliver mitigation,\" due to carbon prices declines in 2012. This has meant aiming to mainstream LED technical options rather than increase smallholders' access to Carbon markets.In response to External Evaluations of CCAFS (2016) and FP3 (2014), FP3 will focus country efforts and review selection in 2019. F3 will compare alternative technologies and rigorously analyse finance, incentives and adoption barriers in all subsectors. FP3 will continue to develop methods for low-cost estimates of GHGs with special attention to improved N2O estimates using a statistical model.In response to ISPC comments on the preproposal: (1) the comparative advantage of CCAFS as a multisubsector, multi-region program across the Centres is demonstrated by the use of common methods, data platforms, and tools that integrate information across subsectors (see CoA 3.1, 3.2), analysis of agricultural sector-wide targets and landscape approaches to governing emissions (CoA 3.1, CoA 3.3). ( 2)The justification for targeting smallholders (Section 2.3.1.1) is their significant current emissions (twice the emissions from global aviation and four times the agricultural emissions of the EU or US), and evidence that mitigation in agriculture among developing countries will be needed to meet climate policy targets.(3) FP3's novelty is addressed in How FP3 will advance the science (Section 2.3.1.4). ( 4) Hypotheses have been reframed to focus on the testing of technologies to generate joint food security and mitigation benefits and the evidence and capacity needed to scale up technologies. The ToC and CoA questions have been stated more precisely and justified in the new review of the literature. (5) The research on supply chain governance and deforestation addresses finance and private-public mechanisms for linking responsible supply chain finance and standards. These are emerging mechanisms with little evidence available to date. (6) The research on food loss has been updated with more detail. FP3 will be integrated across CGIAR by identifying best practices for LED that link to Centres' and CRPs' aims, and working with CGIAR contact points and project leaders collaboratively to identify priorities and guidelines.Potential unintended consequences include: incorrectly estimating mitigation potentials; missing opportunities for mitigation based on priority-setting with limited information; overly rapid expansion of technical options not appropriate for farmers in some places. As part of the technology development process, FP3 will analyse trade-offs and monitor the impacts of interventions, reducing the risk of unintended consequences. We will use safeguard analysis to minimize unintended impacts for women and marginalized communities. Achieving targets can only occur through partnerships with implementation entities, and depends on global and national action to support enabling conditions.FP3 has three CoAs (italics). CoA 3.1, Quantifying GHG emissions from smallholder systems, will improve the reliability of GHG emissions estimates for smallholder mitigation practices through measurement and modelling. These results will feed into CoA 3.2, Identifying priorities and options for low-emissions development (Learning Platform -LP3), to assess technical options and LED priorities among smallholders. The evidence from CoA 3.2 will in turn provide the foundation for larger-scale action inCoA 3.3 Policy, incentives and finance for scaling up low emissions practices at national and subnational levels. This cluster will focus on incentives and institutional arrangements to scale up practices, including supply chain governance and food loss and waste, using results from CoA 3.1.A transition to LED requires robust information on GHG emissions and practical methods for monitoring. Standardized methods will be used across CRPs. Controlled, experimental trials on farmers' fields will be used to develop emission factors and mitigation potentials for prioritized systems and source categories (livestock, rice and soil nutrient management, see Development of research priorities). To optimize the benefit/cost ratio of emissions measurement, we will prioritize systems for measurement based on: (1) percent of GHG emissions from this source in the country/region; (2) expected mitigation potential based on the literature; (3) uncertainty of emissions estimates; (4) adoption potential of the practice and (5) ability to monitor the flux or stock change cost-effectively, including use of activity-based indicators. Livestock and nitrogen management were selected for field measurement due to their high relevance to smallholders, the large associated mitigation potentials and the high uncertainty associated with currently available emission factors and models.Measurements will be further targeted to specific mitigation practices and geographies based on the above criteria. Measurements of interventions for which mitigation is now relatively well-understood (e.g. water management in rice) will be phased out. A key component of this work will be testing and validation of low-cost methods for livestock emissions measurement to reduce future data costs. FP3 will improve models for N2O and test existing tools for estimating GHGs, such as the Cool Farm Tool, EX-ACT and SHAMBA. FP3 will also develop novel approaches to activity data, making use of ICT, crowdsourced data and large data sets. Existing data from analog sites, e.g. Australian semi-arid systems that resemble agro-ecosystems in Africa and South America, will be consolidated. Results will improve biogeochemical process and statistical models to reduce the costs of emissions estimates and feed into CoA 3.2 and 3.3 for impact. More reliable emissions estimates will enable countries to plan and monitor interventions and provide the evidence needed to access climate finance. Key outputs will be: Improved emissions factors and Tier 2 and 3 emissions estimates for key source categories and mitigation practices (e.g. reducing ruminant emissions through improved feeding) for smallholder production systems and consolidated on a single website. Improved GHG estimation models for smallholder conditions in the tropics (e.g. N2O emissions model for agriculture soils), including linkages with crop-soil models to better estimate productivity. Training of NARES scientists in use of models in CCAFS regions. Verified low-cost methods for monitoring. \"Big data\" spatial data sets and emissions factor platforms with the IPCC and the GRA, integrating results with existing data platforms and building on available data, feeding into FP4 and AgMIP.  Comparison and improvement of tools, such as the Ex-ACT tool to assess mitigation co-benefits from a wide range of agricultural activities (with FAO).  Metrics and systems for national and subnational monitoring and evaluation of impacts of LED on livelihoods, gender equity, food security and mitigation.  Improved accounting for GHG and soil C uncertainty and analysis of trade-offs among competing objectives (e.g. cost, scale and accuracy) to inform measurement and LED policy, with WLE.  Strengthened capacity of young scientists, 50% of which will be women, using the CLIFF-LAMNET Network.  Impact assessment of changes in capacity in NARES.Empirical evidence for the feasibility of LED for different production systems and impacts on emissions, food production, livelihood resilience, and equity is lacking. FP3 will provide decision-makers with exante analysis and tools to identify targets, low-emissions options, and the suitability of options for different production systems. It will also test the feasibility of different options for ensuring food security and reducing their trade-offs using farmer field trials. Among ICRPs, FP3 will synthesize findings across diverse technical options and AEZs. CoA 3.2 will build on CoA 3.1 results. Key research questions are: What are plausible global and developing country targets for reducing agricultural emissions and how can countries meet them? What are global and country-level best-bet, scalable technical and policy options for LED? What are technical options' feasibility and potential impacts in priority agro-ecological zones, production systems and target countries?The research design will involve participatory evaluation and comparison of different technologies using trials with smallholders in regions with expected high potential for mitigation and planning tools at national levels. Key outputs will be:  Global and country targets across all CCAFS regions for mitigation in agriculture and comparison with INDCs. Identification of global hot spots for emissions and mitigation opportunities across all subsectors in developing countries, especially among smallholders. Ex-ante analysis of LED pathways needed to meet targets based on scenarios using global data sets, RCPs and shared SSPs (in coordination with FTA, PIM).  Policy scenario tool to simulate impact of low emission strategies at the level of a region or a value chain, based on GHG coefficients per ha or per ton (with FAO).  Comparison of promising LED technical options and their trade-offs, including emerging options such as BNI, based on multi-year field-trials.  LED options for women in dairy value chains and identification of livelihood benefits and safeguards for women. User-friendly tool and training for mitigation planners to compare mitigation options and priorities. Current tools focus on emissions rather than mitigation options and lack smallholder data.  Global information platform synthesizing LED agricultural practices and evidenceThis cluster has three components: scaling up LED, private-public partnerships for supply chain governance in agriculture-forest landscapes, and an exploratory scoping of mitigation through efficient food systems. Similar to 3.2, FP3 will integrate information about policy and institutional options across CRPs. Each component of this CoA will use comparative analysis to identify and test promising models using participatory action research and pilot programs in target countries working in collaboration with national partners, agricultural input providers and producer organizations. This CoA will have strong links with CoA 2.4 (FP2) and policy results and options will be fed into FP1 scenario processes (CoA 1.2).CoA 3.3.1 Scaling up LED Building on options identified in CoA 3.2 and evidence for impacts, and with lessons learned from scaling up in FP2 and 4, FP3 will develop and test approaches for integrating mitigation into national agricultural development programs, sustainability initiatives and private sector investment to support large-scale implementation of low-emissions agriculture. Global experience in implementing LED is limited to a few pilot projects (Ha 2014; Seeberg-Elverfeldt & Tapio-Biström 2010; Woelcke 2012) and little information exists on the incentives, finance and business models, enabling conditions and accountability needed to implement LED(Branca et al. 2011). Integrated approaches to mitigation in landscapes and value chains are needed to support increasing Zero Deforestation commitments by the private sector and financial institutions' interests in embracing environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria. CoA 3.3.1 will link into work in many other FPs through the cross-CRP LP on partnerships and capacity for scaling CSA. Key research questions are: What evidence is needed to inform policy, incentives and finance and overcome adoption barriers to lead to successful farm-level changes in practices at large scales, especially to inform good agricultural practices and integrated crop management? How can promising mechanisms such as NAMAs, public-private institutional arrangements, support for farmer innovation and sustainable intensification or sustainability standards be improved to facilitate farmer-led, largescale change? What are their costs? What conditions enable new practices by women and men farmers, farm advisers, and supply chain actors? How can inclusiveness and the influence of women farmers in the design of mechanisms be improved? Key outputs will be:  Evidence for policy, economic and finance measures appropriate to different farmers, production systems and countries.  Comparative policy analysis of sustainable intensification, NAMAs, LEDS and private sector sustainability initiatives to inform up-scaling to multiple sites in countries.  Information platform on business opportunities for green investment in low emissions agriculture. Technical and policy guidance and standards broadly disseminated through communications and public outreach campaigns and partnerships, including messages about enabling conditions for women farmers.CoA 3.3.2 Responsible finance and standards for supply chain governance FP3 will advance knowledge of commodity supply chain governance to incentivize forest conservation and assess compliance in practical ways. Agriculture's largest contribution to mitigation is through reduced deforestation (Hosonuma et al. 2012). Responsible finance based on supply chain standards and private sector commitments for zero deforestation and reduced emissions can provide an incentive for alternative practices. Yet the challenges to implementing private sector commitments remain high and evidence for the impacts and improvement of supply chain governance poor. In this CCAFS-FTA collaboration, CCAFS will emphasize supply chain governance related to agriculture (e.g. soy, beef), while FTA CoA 3.3 will focus on governance for timber and high-value trees crops (e.g. oil palm, rubber). The work will improve generalizable models for finance and standards for commodities, and improve the coherence between national and local LED governance. Activities will take place in the Brazilian Amazon, and pending funds, Indonesia, and the Congo Basin. Findings will be shared with the LEDSGP AFOLU working group and UN-REDD, and business platforms (e.g. GCF, TFA 2020, IPOP, GTPS).Key research questions are: How do public regulations and incentives interact with corporate policies and pledges to create incentives for improved sustainability practices by producers? How can technical information and inputs be made available to all landholders (from large to small) to transition to LED? What are the most promising public and private arrangements at the national and sub-national level combining supply chain interventions and territorial-based ones for reducing deforestation and forest degradation? Is there scope for hybrid arrangements as a way for up-and out-scaling? Key outputs will be: Impact assessment of public regulations and private sector-driven sustainability initiatives avoided deforestation, carbon sequestration, and social impacts and trade-offs.  Good practice guidelines and options for public-private governance for improved social and environmental supply chain performance  Engagement in multi-stakeholder platforms (e.g. RSPO and GRSB) and national commodity sustainability initiatives (e.g. IPOP, ISPO)  Methods and tools to assess stakeholder compliance with sustainability commitments In the private sector, FP3 will partner with 1) agricultural input suppliers, 2) beef, dairy and palm oil companies, 3) producers' organizations and 4) standards groups to reduce the environmental impacts of supply chains, with leadership from Wageningen University in the fertilizer and dairy supply chains. Yara International will help collate and analyse data to develop improved N2O models and use findings to identify optimal regional fertilizer application strategies. With the Livelihood Fund we will support best management practices for LED dairy in Kenya. The producers' organizations CORFOGA, FEDEGAN and FEDEARROZ will support implementation of NAMAs in the livestock and rice sectors in Costa Rica and Colombia. The WBCSD and the Consumer Goods Forum are interested in how to best monitor emission reductions.Comparative advantage of the CGIAR. The CGIAR has grown to become a significant player in mitigation in developing countries, aided by the cross-Centre approach adopted in Phase I. This comparative advantage arises from CGIAR Centres' location in developing countries and work across sub-sectors, longstanding technical research on related agronomic practices, and national, regional and global partnerships. With the capacity to test technologies and policies in multiple sites globally, the CGIAR is well positioned to generate generalizable scientific evidence and syntheses for LED options. CCAFS can develop models, scenarios and decision support tools for landscapes across diverse production systems (e.g. livestock, rice, cereal crops, forest areas) and regions. As a global player, we are well positioned to partner with other global actors such as the GRA, FAO, WB, and CCAC. We complement the GRA's research on more basic science and methods by delivering science outputs for specific users and development outcomes. In comparison with GRA and FAO, we enjoy scientific independence from government.FP3 is designed to make a major contribution to the global challenge of climate change, in particular reducing GHGs and LED. Mitigation requires technical expertise; FP3 will establish a Learning Platform (LP5) on Priorities and Options for LED (CoA3.2) across all CRPs and with partners such as GACSA (see Annex 3.0.1, Annex Table 2) to marshal CGIAR-wide and partner expertise to support 1) country demands for comparison of mitigation options and priorities across the entire agricultural sector; 2) solutions that integrate information from plot-level measurements to NAMA-type policy analysis and global tools; 3) standardized guidelines and metrics for robust GHG estimation across subsectors; and 4) linking crop and livestock production with avoided deforestation (e.g. avoided land use change informed by future land use scenarios by IFPRI, pasture intensification options by CIAT and expected expansion of coffee agroforestry by ICRAF, CIAT and IITA). FP3 will facilitate shared databases (e.g. for emissions factors, nitrogen management) and mitigation decision tools.As a result of CGIAR-wide collaboration in Phase I, the CGIAR has positioned itself as a global actor for LED. In 2013, the CCAC invited CCAFS with GRA participation to lead a global initiative to consolidate information on and scale up mitigation in paddy rice. GACSA publishes practice briefs on CSA and CCAFS FP3 has led briefs on conservation agriculture, nutrient management, and integrated soil fertility management. In 2015, 34 individuals from more than 20 organizations, including six Centres, produced a global target for mitigation in the sector.Partners such as the IPCC, GACSA, GRA, FAO, CCAC, CTCN, Rainforest Alliance, TNC, the World Bank and the WBCSD, now recognize the value of CCAFS as an entry point to LED research in the CGIAR. In Phase II, a coherent FP3 program across Centres and CRPs will enable consolidated approaches to these partnerships and communications.A 2015 review of opportunities for improving women's benefits and participation in LED agronomic practices for rice, cattle and fertilizer use (Farnworth 2015, forthcoming; Farnworth et al. 2015) informs FP3 priorities for Phase II. Priorities included participatory technology development by men and women at the household, farm and community levels; identifying opportunities for strengthening gender relations in decision-making in supply chains; and increasing women's capacity as scientists and policy makers. These components will be embedded in regional and subsector programs to deliver the sub-IDO Improved capacity of women and young people to participate in decision-making (see Section 1.0.4 for the FP3 gender-related hypothesis). FP3 will prioritize training women scientists and policy makers in CLIFF-LAMNET. Post-doctoral positions for GSI specialists will support more gender-sensitive research in supply chains. The review also indicated that the dairy supply chain is an area where high benefits for women are probable; women make up ~2/3 of the world's 600 million livestock managers (FAO 2013b), and the value-added in dairy can provide significant increases in livelihood opportunities, income and child nutrition (Nicholson et al. 1999). FP3 will thus focus additional resources on facilitating women's role in LED and relationship with men in dairy value chains. Within supply chains, we will use methods from Prolinnova, FIPAH and others that create spaces for women and men to exchange views and information to support changes in gender relations (Hottle 2015). Achieving outcomes in both GHG mitigation and gender involves trade-offs. Men dominate some activities associated with priority mitigation options, such as beef cattle intensification in Brazil, and few opportunities exist for women to shift to these activities in the near-term. An FP3 goal is to identify where these trade-offs can be reduced by identifying enabling conditions to benefit women and men.In 2001 the UNFCCC established guidance on capacity building for mitigation technology priorities, barriers to their implementation and enhancing enabling conditions (2/CP.7, 3/CP.10, Metz et al. 2000). To develop locally appropriate LED, farmers, farm advisers, and policy makers need to know about technical options and their benefits and risks, as well as have the skills to test them. National governments will need capacity to set targets and estimate emissions reductions. FP3 will assess, build and monitor capacity in 5 areas to advance progress in FP3's impact pathway: 1) learning about LED options by farm advisers and mitigation planners through the use of tools such as IRRI's Crop Manager, CIMMYT's Nutrient Expert ® and the Mitigation Options Tool developed by the University of Aberdeen in collaboration with national policy makers; 2) institutional strengthening of ministries and producers' organizations to plan and implement LED at scale through collaboration in building LED scenarios and by convening multi-stakeholder platforms to generate policy-relevant information (e.g. with cattle ranchers, banks, and local policy makers in Brazil in partnership with CIRAD and FTA, and for scaling up paddy rice in Vietnam, Bangladesh and Colombia); 3)development of future LED research leaders using fellowships for post-graduate students from developing countries with priority given to women, to learn GHG estimation and measurement techniques at CGIAR Centres (through the CLIFF and LAMNET networks); 4) development of organizational capacities at ministries and NARS to develop and monitor LED policies and NAMAs by co-producing data, tools and scenarios about mitigation opportunities and impacts (NAMA design and MRV systems in Kenya); 5) continue bringing policy makers and scientists together in expert workshops with global partners such as FAO to assess needs and develop interventions.FP3 will continue to meet countries' and practitioners' demands for IPGs in low emissions development by facilitating open access to data, tools and methods, and research findings, guided by CCAFS intellectual asset and open access management strategies plan. Tier-2 emission factors resulting from CCAFS research will inform the IPCC EF database and GRA's database (available to its network of 46 member countries) will be freely accessible via an FP3 database sharing metadata and links to data sources (Dataverse). Emissions and sequestration accounting tools and methodologies (for example, cost-effective measurement methods, SHAMBA, MOT, suitability maps, methods for social and gender impacts), will render state-of the art-science available online and widely shared. Science and policy research-from measurement to decision-making to climate finance and scaling up-will be designed to inform users and meet their needs, feeding into international climate frameworks, national targets and policies and private sector mechanisms. Some of FP3 work includes participatory evaluation with farmers, and also involves traditional knowledge. FP3 will be in compliance with the CGIAR Principles on IAs (see Section 1.0.12). This includes attention to respecting the traditional knowledge of farmers, maintaining confidentiality where appropriate, embracing prior informed consent and ensuring that results are returned to all partners in the research process.The Gund Institute at the University of Vermont will host FP3. The Gund Institute's comparative advantage includes: an international centre of excellence for transdisciplinary research on global environmental challenges; expertise in climate change, agriculture and environment; ecosystem services and modeling; participatory action research; a network of more than 50 resident fellows plus affiliates from CATIE, Woods Hole Research Centre, Stanford University, ANU, McGill University, University of Minnesota and WWF.Lini Wollenberg, competitively selected in Phase I, will continue to lead FP3 with annual input from Centre Contact Points and project leaders and with the assistance of a science officer and program manager. The FPL (Google-H Index 30) is the lead editor of Climate Change Mitigation and Agriculture (Routledge, 2012); she also helped initiate the SAMPLES platform co-organized 22 articles for Environmental Research Letters on GHG quantification, and led a global effort for a target for mitigation with 34 co-authors.CCAFS Contact Points will play a strong advisory role in FP3 and facilitate links to CRPs, including Reiner Wassman (IRRI), to RICE; Henry Neufeldt (ICRAF) to FTA; Clare Stirling to WHEAT and MAIZE; Alex de Pinto to PIM; and Polly Ericksen to L&F. Sub-FP3 management arrangements include: advisory team (ILRI, ICRAF, CIFOR, CIAT and IRRI) for SAMPLES; WUR management of Food Loss and Waste (CoA 3.3.3); CIFOR management of Responsible Finance with FTA (CoA 3.3.2); CCAFS GSI leader input on gender; Global Research Leader on Scaling CSA input on private sector; CLIFF CIAT and CCAFS LAM on LAMNET. FP3 will manage risk of partners not delivering by selecting partners with known high performance, clarifying available staff time, using contracts that deliver the majority of payment upon approval of outputs, and working with partners to align activities and CCAFS objectives. Partner funds will be managed from CCAFS' CIAT office.CRP Lead Center's Name : CIAT Center Location of Flagship Leader : University of Vermont (UVM)Explanations of these costs in relation to the planned 2022 outcomes:(Outcome numbers as in PIM Table B) 45% of the FP3 budget will be used to achieve outcome 3.3: 10 low emissions plans developed that have significant mitigation potential for 2030, i.e., will contribute to at least 5% GHG emissions reduction or reach at least 10,000 farmers, with all plans examined for their gender implications. The major share of FP3 funding will be allocated to this outcome as the central theme of FP3, which, due to the novelty of LED, requires intensive evidence generation and stakeholder engagement. Budget towards this outcome will support proofs of concept for mitigation practices in priority sectors, technical and policy guidance for scaling up LED, policy analysis for LED pathways using future scenarios, finance options, decisionmaking tools and methods for estimating GHGs and conducting MRV. 20% of the FP3 budget will be used to achieve outcome 3.1: 20 agricultural development initiatives where CCAFS science is used to target and implement interventions to increase input efficiency. Programs and policies related to agricultural input use and efficiency (e.g. fertilizer subsidies, food waste and loss, livestock intensification, soil management, irrigation infrastructure) provide a platform for rapidly mainstreaming and scaling up LED, with increased decreased costs and increased incomes for farmers. This research will build on the results from outcome 3.3 to inform agricultural programs and policies. FP3 will invest substantial budget with an emphasis on sustainable intensification of livestock, soil nutrient management and value chain efficiency. FP3 will ensure that results for outcomes 3.3 and 3.1 are channelled into F2 for CSA planning and F1 for policy development.15% of the FP3 budget will be used to minimize and reverse land, water and forest degradation (including deforestation), achieving outcome 3.2: 0.8 million hectares targeted by research-informed initiatives for restoring degraded land or preventing deforestation. FP3 will collaborate with WLE, FTA, and Livestock to reduce agriculturally-driven deforestation and land degradation in commodity supply chains.10% of the FP3 budget will be used to achieve outcome 3.4: 15 organisations adapting their plans or directing investment to increase women's participation in decision-making about LED in agriculture. FP3 will focus on increasing the capacity of women scientists and policy makers to participate in LED decision-making and address the role of women and youth farmers in implementing LED using participatory technology selection and through mitigation in dairy value chains. 10% of the FP3 budget will be used to achieve outcome 3.5: 15 policy decisions taken (in part) based on engagement and information dissemination by CCAFS. National partners and community beneficiaries will have increased capacity for innovation in partner development organizations and in communities.The major budget share related to outcome 3.3 will support the development of improved estimates of smallholder emissions and mitigation potentials; technical and policy guidance to focus countries, supply chains and donors for LED priorities; and building the evidence base for finance and scaling of LED options, together with FP1 and FP2. Work contributing to this outcome will include experimental trials of mitigation options to develop emission factors and mitigation potentials for priority systems. Research will engage national governments, farmers' groups, local governments, as well as development banks, donors, private sector suppliers, youth organizations, women's organizations, and investors in LED and agricultural development. Another 20% of the budget will go towards projects contributing to outcome 3.1, supporting the implementation of agricultural development initiatives that increase input efficiency. These projects will test more efficient management options for fertilizer, feed, water and land use; analyse farmers' incentives to increase input efficiency; develop business models for scaling up efficiency measures; and recommend options for reducing food loss and waste in agricultural value chains. With 15% of FP3 budget, the portfolio of research contributing to outcome 3.2 will develop institutional innovations and public-private governance options for commodity supply chains in order to reduce agriculturally-driven deforestation and restore degraded lands. This work will pilot monitoring frameworks and examine producer incentives for commodity sustainability, with a focus on livestock products. Ten percent of FP3 funds (outcome 3.4) will be allocated to activities focused on the genderdisaggregated impacts of LED technologies and the potential for LED options to provide improved livelihood options for women, with a particular focus on dairy value chains where women play a large role. Research contributing to this outcome will also incorporate indicators for women's and men's participation and benefits into monitoring systems (MRV) for LED initiatives. Ten percent of FP3 budget will also go towards building the capacity of decision-makers in national governments and donor organizations to support LED implementation (outcome 3.5) by developing knowledge products and training materials on LED, emissions quantification, and MRV; engaging directly with policy-makers for scenario analysis; and convening multi-stakeholder platforms for commodity sustainability standards. Activities contributing to this outcome will also strengthen scientific capabilities for agricultural mitigation research in target countries.In FP3, W1/W2 will be used for highly strategic research and engagement with value as international public goods, whereas W3 bilateral activities will be tailored to specific locations and stakeholder groups as per funding conditions. W1/W2 funding will emphasize priority mitigation interventions relevant to smallholder agriculture in the focal countries of Colombia, Kenya, and Vietnam, among other countries, to assess the feasibility for implementation and develop relevant practices and policies. Practices include: reducing methane from livestock and paddy rice, reducing nitrous oxide from fertilizer use in cereal crops, sequestering carbon in agricultural landscapes, and reducing food loss. W1/W2 funds will be allocated across regions in consideration of mitigation potential, centres' sub-sectoral and regional strengths, and to ensure gender and social inclusion benefits. W3/bilateral funds will build upon on core W1/W2-funded work, expanding outcomes using complementary activities or expanding FP3's geographical scope. For example, W3/bilateral funds will contribute to scaling up the practice of AWD in Bangladesh and Vietnam through funding to IRRI from CCAC, and complement W1/W2 efforts to increase productivity and reduce emissions intensities in dairy value chain in East Africa, with funding from IFAD to ILRI. W3/bilateral funds demonstrate the private sector and development partners' interest in FP3 objectives and will allow for both mitigation at larger scales and institutionalization of LED practices in value chains. FP3 budget will be allocated to nine centres. CIAT will receive the largest share of FP3 funds as it will host the FP3 leader, house the RPL in LAM, and lead research on LED in the livestock sector in Colombia and Costa Rica. FP3 leader funds will support the LP on priorities and options for LED and ensure rigorous research and development outcomes. In addition to CIAT, CIFOR, ICRAF, IFPRI, ILRI and IRRI will lead W1/W2-funded initiatives and contribute W3/bilateral funds to FP3.FP3 has allocated 2% of its budget to MEL. Of this USD 185,000 over the six-year period is allocated to external assessments. These are shown in Annex Table 5. FP3 will allocate funds to a CCER, and contribute to gender, regional and Learning Platform external reviews.Personnel. 31% of the total budget is dedicated to personnel. FP3 is working with research and thought leaders in 10 centers. With twin foci on research excellence and application of research to climate change mitigation and development goals, FP3 personnel are noted for their productivity and influence at scientific and global, national, and sector-specific policy levels. In addition to advancement of the science and project management, personnel will also advance climate change mitigation integration in the CGIAR, lead and collaborate on fundraising, and coordinate with the mitigation LP.Travel. 7% of the budget will be for travel for research and to strategic events and meetings. Virtual meetings have significantly decreased the need for travel, and FP3 will focus on traveling when it contributes to outcomes. As such, the FP3 travel budget supports research -and research quality, learning events, especially for country partners, and influential conferences and events that are a platform for communications and engagement.Capital equipment. A very small percentage (0.04%) of FP3 total costs is needed for capital equipment. FP3 is not capital-dependent because it has developed a two-pronged strategy to keeping the costs of GHG measurement low. First, Phase 1 focused on developing methods and building capacity in low-cost measurement methods through collaboration with the FAO and SAMPLES. Second, in cases where expensive equipment is necessary. FP3 has strategized to form partnerships, in each region and globally, with universities and research centres that have the high-cost equipment to measure GHGs.Other Supplies and Services. See below in Section 2.CGIAR Collaborations. 2% of the total budget goes to Collaborations among CGIAR Centres but only with W3 and Bilateral funds as all W1W2 budget are send directly from CIAT Lead Centre to Participating Centres via Program Participant Agreements (PPAs).Non-CGIAR collaboration. FP3 will allocate 30% of its budget to partners, as partnerships for research and development outcomes are a crucial component of the ToC. Partners will leverage their own resources at 2-3 times the W1/2 budget level. The fundraising strategy aims to maintain or exceed this level. FP3 has developed strategic partners with 1) large-scale implementers (national ministries, local governments, private sector), 2) civil society organizations addressing farmers' interests, including producer, women's and youth organizations, and 3) biophysical and social science researchers developing and evaluating LED options (NARES, ARIs, GRA, the CGIAR). Partnerships with global organizations and businesses that bridge science and policy are either self-funded or provide bilateral or in-kind funding to FP3, for example the CCAC, FAO, GRA, World Bank, as well as Yara International and the Livelihood Fund from the private sector. Most partnerships with civil society and research organizations are co-funded between CCAFS and partners, including national ministries, producers' organizations, GACSA, IAE in Vietnam, INTA in Costa Rica, etc. F3 does not entirely fund any partners. Partnerships are built on our common agendas.Indirect costs. 15% is the average Indirect Cost rate that comes from the different rates among CGIAR Centers defined on estimated income.Benefits:Using CIAT as point of reference, we assumed most of CGIAR Centers follow the following differentiation of benefits among National and International Staff: National Research Staff (NRS): Fringe benefits for national staff (costs for all benefits are added to the base salary to provide the total cost of the position) are comprised of legal benefits (local mandatory) and extralegal benefits (CIAT mandatory) and the provisions to cover local legal requirements such as: Pension -social security, training and development, occupational health, transportation costs and subsidies, work clothes and personnel protection requirement, and food subsidy.International Research Staff (IRS): Fringe benefits for international staff (costs for all benefits are added to the base salary to provide the total cost of the position) are comprised of housing allowance, education allowance, car allowance, Cost Of Living Allowance (COLA), hardship, home leave tickets, insurance, retirement contribution, occupational health, training and development, repatriation and relocation provisions.Other Supplies and Services 19% of the FP3 budget is allocated to Supplies and Services. This includes Centres' Full Cost Recovery units, covering essential expenses such as IT, Facilities, Public Space, Research and Technical Support. Supplies and Services also includes funds for consultancies directly related to FP3 outcomes and MEL, workshops and learning events, and operational services such as payments for open access and book publishing, and MEL activities.Relative proportions of W3 and Bilateral are unknown, and thus we have used a single category of Bilateral to capture both W3 and Bilateral.Centres have committed to raising 51% of total Flagship funds through Window 3 and bilateral contributions from 2017 onwards. FP3 works closely with all centres to coordinate and collaborate around fundraising. Funding reductions in 2015 and 2016 triggered development and implementation of an FP3 fundraising strategy that will continue through Phase II, as contingency in case that full funding does not materialize. FP3 plans to exceed W3/bilateral fundraising targets by linking to climate finance opportunities for high mitigation-impact practices relevant to smallholder development: carbon sequestration in agricultural landscapes (4/mil initiative), reducing methane from livestock and paddy rice (CCAC), reducing nitrous oxide from fertilizer use in cereal crops (private sector), and reducing food loss (Champions 12.3). Documenting cutting-edge research and outcomes, and ensuring visibility of open access tools, information platforms, and engagement of next users can also help attract funding. Specific references to CCAFS and LED strategies in the February 2016 USAID report on Climate-smart agriculture in Feed the Future Programs and the March 2016 announcement by the CCAC of Phase II funding (2017-2019) for expansion of AWD work in Bangladesh and Vietnam show evidence of the high potential of fundraising for FP3. Potential sources of funding for FP3, and with whom FP3 has established relationships, include foundations and donors, such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the Asian Development Bank; the nascent Green Climate Fund; private sector leaders in sustainability in high-potential value chains such as Danone, location-and sector-specific sources such as the Amazon Fund; and research opportunities funded through the Natural Environment Research Council, the US Department of Agriculture and others. By working independently, with CCAFS regions, other flagships, centres and other CG partners, and with well-established strategic partners such as the GRA and the University of Aberdeen, FP3 is increasing the strength of its fundraising strategy while decreasing risks from a funding shortfall.FP3 expects significant collaboration involving in-kind support from a large range of partners. At the global level, FP3 expects to continue to collaborate with the CCAC, USAID, FAO, GRA partners and the World Bank in research, engagement, and events that support outcomes of mutual interest. Examples from Phase 1 include: in-kind contribution by FAO for half the costs of a series of capacity building workshops on rigorous, low-cost GHG emissions estimates with developing country partners and full World Bank support for gathering leading scientists, practitioners and financiers to identify actionable opportunities for meeting global food needs with lower emissions in reaction to the IPCC WGIII report release. FP3 has also leveraged funds for research partners to collaborate on FP3related priorities. For example, FP3 leveraged in-kind contributions from the Institute of Agricultural Management and Forest Certification (IMAFLORA), the Rainforest Alliance, and the Universities of Michigan, Oxford and São Paolo, with support from the Global Innovation Initiative, to investigate how private sector cattle certification may reduce the amount of deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions from cattle farming in Brazil.If fundraising and in-kind contributions cannot cover future budget reductions, decisions on which projects and activities to cut will be made in an equitable and transparent process involving project leaders, center contact points and CCAFS management. Based on CCAFS experience, the process would likely include assessment of projects and activities based on progress, ability to deliver stated outcomes, value for money, value to region, gender, center priorities. The process would also consider thresholds of funding necessary for continuation or early termination of projects.Please describe main key activities for the applicable categories below, as described in the guidance for full proposal mitigation opportunities and impacts (NAMA design and MRV systems in Kenya); 5) continue bringing policy makers and scientists together in expert workshops with global partners such as FAO to assess needs and develop interventions. In all of the above areas, capacity development will be designed to be gender-sensitive. Capacity development is funded through partnerships, staff, and operational expenses. Capacity building is a component of all FP3 outcomes.Impact assessments of FP3 in 2014 and CCAFS in 2015 are informing FP3's strategy for 2017-2022, including informing hypotheses and strategy to maximise impact, recognition of intended and unintended outcomes, and increased integration with national strategies and institutions. In Phase II, FP3 will allocate USD 200,000 to impact assessment over the six-year period and will support CRPwide assessments, as the latter will include a representative set FP3 activities. To evaluate the impact of research to reduce GHG emissions, FP3 is planning to assess a) GHG reductions and b) changes in input use efficiency as a result of CCAFS-informed adoption of mitigation practices. These assessments will inform FP3's ToC and project-level methodologies and objectives. As FP3 progresses, impacts will be assessed in specific geographies and subsectors, and for stakeholders and beneficiaries along the impact pathway. Gender and social impacts will be integrated throughout.The budget for this is USD 8,000 per year. Many topics under this category are dealt with under the following two activities. Flagship teams contribute to implementation of CCAFS Intellectual Asset policy. Activities will contribute to ensuring all knowledge products (primarily publications and databases) are, wherever possible, disseminated using open access principles, with clear branding to acknowledge authorship. FP3 will be in compliance with the CGIAR Principles on IAs (see Section 1.0.12), including respecting the traditional knowledge of farmers, maintaining confidentiality where appropriate, embracing prior informed consent and ensuring that results are returned to all partners in the research process. Uplift.Most of the topics selected for uplift have been identified from topics cut from CCAFS as a result of budget cuts, but which are considered to be a crucial part of the science and outcome agenda. By outcome contribution, these are listed below. Improving nitrous oxide globally (P22) (CIMMYT, YARA, U. Aberdeen, BISA). This topic responds to CCAFS external evaluation by providing more robust indicators for GHG efficiency. Supporting technical options and innovative private-public partnerships by linking sustainable beef production and landscape management (P11) (CIFOR, CIRAD, EMBRAPA, MPEG, Imaflora). This topic responds to CCAFS external evaluation by supporting better collaboration across CRPs on AFOLU. Mitigation in livestock and LED pathways in East Africa (P12) (ILRI, CIFOR, ICRAF, UNIQUE, KIT, Heiffer). This topic responds to CCAFS external evaluation by enabling better integration with FP1 and FP2. CRP links. FP4, with PIM, will develop a cross-CRP Learning Platform (LP) to share knowledge, coordinate research and synthesise evidence on weather-related agricultural insurance. FP4 will work with other CRPs to: advance and assess the role of insurance to enhance uptake of drought-adapted maize in EA and WA (MAIZE), and rice in SEA and Nigeria (RICE); integrate index-based livestock into climate-smart strategies for pastoralists in Kenya and Ethiopia (LIVESTOCK); and advance index-based flood insurance in India and Bangladesh (WLE). FP4 collaboration across CRPs will include guidance on appropriate use of climate information, and access to historic and seasonal climate information and related tools.Objectives. FP4 aims to work with partners to develop climate information and advisory services that support farmers, weather-related insurance that protects farmers and increases investment in CSA, food security early warning and safety net systems that protect livelihoods from extreme events, and climate informed planning by governments and by development organizations. These services will provide an enabling environment for smallholder farmers to transition towards more climate-smart production systems and climate-resilient livelihood strategies, while protecting them from climatic extremes.Research will develop the knowledge, methods, capacity and evidence needed to design, target and implement these interventions effectively at scale.FP4 is designed to make a significant contribution to the reduced poverty SLO, which for CCAFS as a whole targets 11 million farm households with improved practices, and 9 million people for poverty reduction by 2022 (FP4 Figure 1; FP4 Table 1). FP4 targets 8 million farm households by 2022 with improved access to capital, with increased benefits for women. Through the cross-cutting IDOs FP4 will also contributes to the food and nutritional security SLO. It will contribute to four IDOs (bold) and five sub-IDOs (italics): The impact pathway for FP4 is given in FP4 Figure 1. The Flagship's Theory of Change ToC) is explained by the assumptions and strategy below. Critical aspects of the ToC include working with partners, other CRPs, other CCAFS FPs and the CCAFS LP on CSA, Gender and Social Inclusion to deliver on outcomes, and building the capacity of actors in the impact pathway (see section 2.4.1.10). The CCAFS LP on Partnerships and Capacity for Scaling CSA will be a key route to achieve impact at national to global levels. The ToC is aligned to the CRP ToC.The overall ToC for FP4 is that effective climate information and advisory services for farmers, and climate-informed safety net interventions, will enable farmers in environments prone to climate risk to transition towards more climate-smart agricultural systems and climate-resilient livelihood strategies, while protecting their livelihoods from climatic extremes. Improvements to the information that is available to farmers and the institutions that serve them, research that addresses gaps in knowledge and methodology to design effective services, enhanced capacity to bring new innovations into implementation, and evidence that supports well-targeted investment will enable the relevant institutions to provide more effective services at scale.There is evidence that climate services, index-based agricultural insurance, and safety net interventions have potential to protect and enhance farmer livelihoods, but that a range of challenges currently limits the scale and impact of these interventions. These challenges include gaps between the climate-related information that is needed and what is routinely available; gaps in knowledge, methods, communication channels and capacity to develop services that meet famer needs; and gaps in evidence of benefit to inform donors interested in scaling up these interventions. Efforts to scale up successful pilot initiatives often reveal additional challenges, including supporting equitable benefit by disadvantaged subpopulations, and particularly women farmers. In some cases, unresolved questions about which challenges represent fundamental constraints, and which can be overcome through improved design and implementation, represent a critical knowledge gap.Recognizing CCAFS' comparative advantages, FP4's four clusters of activity and their associated research questions target these major gaps in knowledge, methodology, evidence and capacity that currently constrain the effective use of climate information to manage risk, enhance adaptive capacity and build resilience to a variable and changing climate. Addressing these constraints will be enabled through partnerships with the climate research, climate services, insurance and food security information communities. Work that is focused on developing effective climate services and weather-related insurance for smallholder farmers will pay particular attention to targeting women in order to address their differing needs and overcome gender-related inequalities. Given capacity limitations of many partners in the impact pathways, including national meteorological services and agricultural extension services in most CCAFS target countries, capacity development is an integral part of many activities.Capacity enhancement efforts will be structured to ensure participation of partners and, where appropriate, farmers in the co-development of products and services to ensure their usefulness. FP4 will prioritize women and young scientists for training activities in target countries.FP4 will make use of tailored communications tools and approaches for engaging and informing next users, building on successes in Phase I. This includes learning events such as webinars and workshops, media outreach at the national and global level to share high-profile results and initiatives, and field visits to share research in action with partners, potential investors and media. It also includes South-South learning.As a result of FP4 research and engagement, credible, accessible and equitable climate services coupled with innovative insurance schemes will contribute to enabling small-scale farmers to intensify production, adopt improved technology and practice, invest in their soils in climatically favourable seasons, and to protect scarce assets in unfavourable seasons. Improved climate-related information will also support public, private and civil society actors in the food system -whose decisions impact rural food and livelihood security -to better manage the impacts of climate shocks. Whenever the impact of a climate shock, such as a drought or flooding, exceeds the capacity of small-scale farmers to cope, climate-informed, timely, well-targeted safety net interventions will build adaptive capacity by protecting food security, productive assets and infrastructure. The security will foster investment in climate-smart technologies and practices. The safety net aspect of the research involves the participation of public and private sectors, and actors involved in the management of the whole food chain and those involved in emergency relief.The ToC depends on the following assumptions: (1) Interest in climate services and index-based agricultural insurance, by governments, development organizations and funders, will continue to grow.(2) Effective partnerships with relevant major organizations and initiatives working in climate services, agricultural insurance, and food security information and response will be maintained and expanded. (3) Investment in these interventions will be responsive to evidence, and will not be disrupted by major economic or political changes.  validated methods for seasonal and sub-seasonal prediction of agriculturally-relevant information; methods and tools to improve agricultural monitoring systems; forecast impacts of seasonal climate and extreme events on crops and biological threats; and extend the lead time and accuracy of food security early warning systems;  guidance on interpretation and appropriate use of climate change projections;  efficient methods to tailor historic and forecast climate information to farmers' needs;  facilitated access to available historic and seasonal climate information and related tools.CoA 4.2 Climate information and advisory services for farmers This cluster addresses the design, communication and institutional challenges in providing effective, equitable climate services that benefit smallholder farmers at scale (in line with CCAFS External Evaluation draft recommendations); including integrating climate information into agricultural advisory services and into the operations of institutions that support farmers. It will develop and evaluate communication strategies that address particular needs of women, and that involve youth and exploit students' influence on farm communities. With enabling institutional support and policies, climate information and advisories offer great potential to inform farmer decision-making, enabling farmers to better manage risk, take advantage of favourable climate conditions and adapt to change. CoA 4.2 therefore contributes to FP1 work on enabling policy environments for CSA (CoA 1.3). CCAFS is positioned to leverage growing interest among development organizations that see climate services as a way to support climate change adaptation and climate-resilient development goals. While mounting evidence of the potential benefits has made the case for climate services, a substantial body of research also shows that the availability of information is often not sufficient for smallholder farmers to benefit. Benefits are often constrained by gaps between known farmers' needs; and the types, scale, formats, and timing of the information that are routinely available (Hansen et al. 2011). Research targets five key challenges that have been validated by stakeholders in the initial CCAFS focus regions in Africa and SA (Tall et al. 2013), namely: salience, access, legitimacy, equity and integration. Key research questions are: How, and to what degree, can rural climate services be scaled up, while meeting context-gender-and age-specific user needs? What factors enable or constrain the ability of smallholder farmers -particularly women, youth and marginalized groups -to access and benefit from climate services; and what is the scope for enhancing capacity to respond? In a given context, how can actionable climate-related information best be identified, packaged and communicated along with its uncertainties? What are the best communication channels and institutional arrangements for coproduction of climate services at scale, that are sufficiently tailored to the differing needs of women and vulnerable user groups, and that engage the creativity and social media channels of youth? How can institutional communication networks and decision processes be optimized to take advantage of increased lead-time, in order to link early warning to early action? Research questions will be answered in the context of efforts to develop climate services at pilot to national scales including: ongoing work at CSV sites (with FP1 CoA 2.1), the new FP4 project portfolio, an expanding set of bilateral projects currently in EA and WA, and partner-led initiatives such as the GFCS. Participatory approaches will be integral. Evaluation of how farmers and other relevant decision-makers access, use and benefit from information will strengthen the evidence base. Expected research outputs include: evidence and insights from CSVs (with FP1), climate service pilots and national implementation initiatives;  scalable communication channels based on ICT and radio;  methods and curricula to equip intermediary organizations to deliver services to rural communities (with FP1);  methods to identify and meet particular climate service needs of women and youth;  institutional arrangements that foster sustainable co-production of services with relevant agencies and targeted rural communities;  tools and evidence to improve the nature, timing or targeting of climate-informed agricultural planning and food security interventions. Key research questions are: What are the key bottlenecks to effectively scaling up insurance for smallholder farmers, and are they amenable to intervention? How does insurance influence either adaptive or maladaptive behaviour in given contexts, and how can it be designed and targeted to maximize positive adaptation and minimize risk of maladaptation? What is the potential for advances in agricultural systems modelling, remote sensing, data assimilation and other relevant technologies to design scalable insurance products that capture the important risks and increase farmers' satisfaction? How can insurance be best designed, bundled with other synergistic risk management options, and targeted to address particular climate-related agricultural risks? What public-private partnership arrangements and business models best enable insurance for smallholder farmers in a given context, in a manner that is scalable and sustainable? What is the scope for index-based triggers to enhance the contribution of social safety net programs to climate resilience?Similar to CoA 4.2, research questions will be answered in the context of existing and new insurance programs, and pilots that are developed with a view to implementation at scale including ongoing work at CSV sites. Research will be coordinated with relevant external programs and networks. Work on developing improved insurance indexes will link closely with CoA 4.1. As a Learning Platform, CoA 4.2 will foster greater coordination and knowledge sharing within a community of researchers across the CGIAR. Collaboration with AFS-CRPs under this LP will emphasize the role of insurance in overcoming risk-related barriers to the adoption of innovation and investment in value chains. The research will be informed by efforts under FP2 to address constraints to adoption of CSA.Expected research outputs include: evidence of the benefits of agricultural insurance on smallholder livelihoods and adoption of CSA; and the factors that determine benefit;  tools and indexes that better cover important risks and raise satisfaction of farmers and insurers, including atlases of risks and triggers for weather index insurance in target countries;  science-based schemes for targeting and scaling insurance as an effective risk management option;  communications and capacity-building approaches, including South-South learning;  sustainable public-private partnership and business models.This cluster will support the development of climate services at scale, through analyses and evidence that guide climate service investment and integration into policy (with FP1). It will engage major stakeholders, policy processes and donors that support climate, and advance ex-ante analysis and synthesis of evidence of the development impacts of investment options. Economic analyses and evidence will support national efforts integrate climate services into policy and access adaptation funds. COA 4.4 complements FP1 work on ex-ante evaluation and priority setting (CoA 1.1) and enabling policy (CoA 1.3), and FP2 work on evidence and investment planning for CSA (CoA 2.2). Guiding integration of climate services into national policies and funding priorities, and shaping how major programs and donors invest in climate services, provide opportunity to expand the impact of FP4 research. CCAFS has developed relationships with the GFCS and several relevant investors (USAID, WB, DfID, IFAD). Despite mounting evidence that has supported the case for climate services, a gap remains in the quantitative evidence of the returns on investment that development donors increasingly require. An FP4commissioned evaluation (Feinstein 2015) and CCAFS External Evaluation draft recommendations highlighted this as a critical gap and research priority. Key research questions are: What are the costs and benefits of alternative options for investing in climate services for agriculture and food security? What methods can best overcome current address gaps in the knowledge and evidence needed to inform national and regional investments in climate services? How can donors and technical support institutions best target and coordinate efforts to build capacity for climate services, considering potential synergies and overlaps? How can climate services and early warning be best integrated into national adaptation and Food and Nutrition policies?The research will initially be addressed through a CCAFS position hosted by ACPC and supported by a small team of interested experts, to develop and adapt methods (e.g. WMO, WBG, GFDRR and USAID 2015) for ex-ante cost-benefit analysis of climate services investments, and apply them in Africa. Economic analyses and engagement with major climate services partners and funders will be tied to and informed by research and capacity development activities under CoA 4.1 and 4.2. synthesised ex-post evidence of impacts of climate services on agricultural livelihoods and food security;  improved methods for ex-ante evaluation of climate services investments;  strategy guidance to identify bottlenecks and target investments across the chain of climate services;  analyses of alternative climate services investments at national to regional scales;  strengthened capacity to integrate climate services within national adaptation policy and access climate finance;  analysis of the potential benefit of national open data policies, and the cost of restricting access in order to raise revenue by selling data. Research partners either provide expertise that complements CGIAR core strengths, or bring capacity in a particular area that enables rapid progress. U of Reading contributes expertise in use of meteorological data, and participatory communication approaches. U of Florida supports development and application of crop forecasting tools, leveraging the AgMIP crop modelling network and tools. Larger projects in the new FP4 portfolio involve regional research partners: CATIE in Latin America and AGRHYMET in W Africa. Most projects partner with relevant NARS or national universities.Most FP4 partners play a role in impact pathways, e.g. as service providers, policy drivers, change agents, or funders. Global partners include climate services (e.g. WMO, GFCS, GFDRR, USAID, DfID), and food security early warning and response (e.g. WFP, FAO, FEWSNET, ACF). CoA 4.1 involves national meteorological services; and climate (e.g. AGRHYMET, ICPAC, RIMES, IITM) institutions that also contribute to research. CoA 4.2 involves communications partners: agricultural extension and NGOs that work with rural communities (World Vision, CARE), and media and ICT (FRI, Manobi (Senegal), Esoko (Ghana), URAC (Senegal), AGRONET). CoA 4.3 engages insurance parastatals of India and Nigeria, the private insurance sector, and experienced technical partners (GIZ, Pula Advisors). Activities generally engage agriculture and other relevant ministries and agencies, as sustainability depends on government buy-in.Mutually reinforcing capacity constraints in the production and use of climate information have constrained the development of effective climate services in target regions, and must be addressed in parallel (IRI 2006). Likewise, investing in the capacity of insurers, local intermediaries (e.g. agro-dealers, agricultural extension), and in parallel enhancing the capacity of farming communities to understand insurance and contribute to its design, has contributed to scaling within several index insurance initiatives (Greatrex et al. 2015). Because resource constraints and mandates often limit the capacity of meteorological services to support agriculture, FP4 will work with NMS to assess capacity needs and inform intervention strategy, supporting efforts to ensure that development funds invested in NMS are well targeted and coordinated. FP4 will focus on partner capacity building in four areas of the CapDev Framework: (1) Learning materials and approaches: FP4 will incorporate successful approaches to communicating climate information with farmers into innovative learning materials, to mainstream them within agricultural extension and intermediary organizations. Experience with the design and delivery of innovative learning materials and approaches will also be extended to insurance, to enable local dealers and intermediary organizations to help rural communities make appropriate decisions about agricultural insurance options; (2) Gender-sensitive approaches: For example tailoring the content and format of agro-advisory services will to accommodate preferences of women farmers; (3) Organizational development: For example collaborative work (\"ENACTS\") with IRI to equip African NMS to reconstruct historic weather data, and make high-resolution products tailored to user needs available through web-based \"maprooms\"; (4) Institutional strengthening: Includes developing national governance frameworks for climate services, in coordination with WMO under the GFCS.FP4 will seek to maximize global accessibility and impact through its production and dissemination of public goods, in conformity with CGIAR Intellectual Asset Principles (see Section 1.0.12) and CCAFS Open Access Strategy (Annex 3.0.8).FP4 has a particular focus on climate-related information. The IRI, which hosts FP4, provides free access to an extensive set of climate and related data; and powerful data manipulation, analysis and visualization tools; through its online Data Library. Climate data and derived products, produced by CCAFS as global public goods, will be made freely available through the IRI Data Library and other appropriate open access data portals.Although CCAFS champions open access and the public goods nature of information, climate observations are often intellectual assets of national meteorological services (NMS). Most NMS in the developing world have restrictive data access policies that are driven by national policy or by requirements to raise revenues. When developing new climate information products, CCAFS will give priority to building the capacity of mandated information providers such as NMS, and avoid producing products that compete with these institutions. CCAFS will honour any restricted use policies and agreements. By working with partners such as WMO, GFCS and ACPC, it will also strengthen and communicate evidence of the benefits of free data access, and where feasible build capacity of NMS to develop alternative business models around value-added services.FP4 field-testing involves extensive work with farmers and local organizations. This includes working with traditional knowledge (e.g. traditional ways of predicting the weather of the coming season). FP4 will pay attention to respecting the traditional knowledge of farmers, maintaining confidentiality where appropriate, embracing prior informed consent and ensuring that results are returned to all partners in the research process. FP4 will be led by Jim Hansen, who was competitively selected in Phase I. His 20 years of research focused on climate information use and climate risk management for agriculture has contributed 120 research and technical publications (Google H-index 35). As FPL, he has overseen development of a portfolio involving 7 Centres across all 5 CCAFS regions. He was instrumental in positioning CCAFS within major climate service initiatives and mobilizing US$8M bilateral funds for climate services. His research receive an equal share of 10% each. Once innovations are developed, tested and brought into improved design and implementation of services for farmers, influencing investment and policy provide opportunity to scale out these innovations at relatively low cost to CCAFS.The 40% budget related to Outcome 4.2 is directed toward working with partners to develop, test and pilot promising tools and methods to provide decision-relevant climate-relate information, climate services for farmers, and weather-related agricultural insurance. This is divided roughly evenly between improving climate-related information (CoA 4.1) and developing climate services (CoA 4.2), with a smaller portion devoted to methods and tools for agricultural insurance (CoA 4.3). The 25% related to Outcome 4.1 is largely focused on scaling insurance that is targeted toward improving access to credit and uptake CSA and other agricultural innovations (part of CoA 4.3). Ongoing examples include efforts to improve farmer satisfaction with index-based insurance, and plans to support the development of a community of practice and public-private partnership to implement flood insurance, both in SA. Funds related to Outcome 4.4 are used for research under CoA 4.2 (climate services) and CoA 4.3 (insurance) to strengthen understanding of how climate services and agricultural insurance can meet the differing needs of women farmers; incorporate insights into efforts to scale up gender-responsive climate services and agricultural insurance; and test the effectiveness of those services on women's participation and empowerment. This is the primary focus of work on rural climate services led by CARE and ICRAF in SEA. Funds related to Outcome 4.3 support CoA 4.4 activities including: development of improved ex-ante valuation methods appropriate for climate information services, and engagement and analyses that inform major investments in climate services, beginning in Africa through partnership with ACPC. Funds related to Outcome 4.5 are used to strengthen evidence, and support engagement and science-policy dialogs that bring climate services and insurance into national agricultural development and adaptation plans (in collaboration with FP1). W1/2 funds will generally support development of the knowledge, methods, tools and evidence needed to design, target and implement FP4-related interventions (climate services, weather-related insurance and safety nets) effectively at scale. W1/2 funds will support development, piloting and testing of innovative methods to support these services. Because the research priorities and hypotheses are focused on scalable contributions to the adoption of CSA and transformation to more climate-resilient livelihoods, W1/2-funded core research to address key gaps must be undertaken in implementation contexts that include the early stages scaling. For example, in SA, W1/2 funds are being used to develop and test innovations in index-based agricultural flood insurance. To test the viability of the innovations at scale, the IWMI-led research involves development of public-private partnerships and engagement of the insurance industry that will test the viability and acceptability of the index-based flood insurance at sufficient scale to inform further investment by donors, governments and the insurance industry. As another example, W1/2 funds have been used to support the development, piloting and early scaling of the ENACTS approach to building NMS capacity to produce high-resolution climate information products (led by IRI), and the PICSA approach to building the capacity of agricultural extension services to communicate climate information with farmers (led by U. Reading). This provided a foundation for bilateral funding for a CCAFS-led project that will integrate these methods into operational climate services for the agricultural sector at a national scale in Rwanda, providing further evidence and insight to inform implementation and investment elsewhere. FP4 funds are allocated among 10 Centers. CIAT will receive the largest share, which includes funds for the FP4 Leader, LAM RPL, and leadership of W1/2 and bilateral FP4 projects on climate information and advisory services, and index-based in LAM. This is followed by ICRISAT, covering work led by the WA RPL under FP4, and leadership of W1/2 and bilateral FP4 projects focused on climate services, early warning and insurance in WA. The 16% of the FP4 budget allocated to ICRAF includes leadership of W1/2supported projects in WA and SEA, and substantial bilateral funding. Substantial allocations to CIMMYT (11%) and ILRI (10%) reflect their role in hosting the SA and EA RPLs, and their roles in project research on insurance (CIMMYT) and climate services (ILRI).FP4 has allocated 2% of its budget to MEL. Of this USD 185,000 over the six-year period is allocated to external assessments. These are shown in Annex Table 5. FP4 will allocate funds to a CCER for FP4, and contribute to gender, regional and Learning Platform external reviews.Personnel. Of the total budget 38% goes to personnel. This reflects the considerable staff inputs into the program.Travel. Of the total budget 6% goes to travel. Given the program is globally distributed, there is a significant amount of travel. Scientists from Centers (ILRI, IFPRI, CIMMYT) and partner institutions (IRI, U. Reading) lead work in locations far from the headquarters where they are based. The FP4 Leader is engaged with partners and funders based in Europe (WMO, WFP, DfID) and Africa (ACPC, ICPAC, Rwanda climate services project). Use of virtual meetings where feasible reduces travel costs. For example, the management team only meets once or twice per year face-to-face, and conducts monthly meetings via video-conferencing.Capital equipment. This is a very small percentage (0,4%) of the total costs, as CCAFS-related research is not dependent on high-cost equipment.Other Supplies and Services. See below in Section 2. CGIAR Collaborations. 1% of the total budget goes to Collaborations among CGIAR Centres but only with W3 and Bilateral funds as all W1W2 budget are send directly from CIAT Lead Centre to Participating Centres via Program Participant Agreements (PPAs).Non-CGIAR collaboration. Partnerships for research and development outcomes are a crucial component of the ToC. Thus CCAFS will allocate 25-30% of its budget to partners. This amount is expected to leverage own-resources from within partners at 2-3 times that level. In the current budget 23% of the FP4 budget is allocated to partners. This includes significant involvement of IRI (climate science, climate services, index-based insurance), U. Reading (participatory communication methods, materials and capacity development; NMS capacity development), and a range of regional and national partner institutions that participate in most FP4 projects. The fundraising strategy will try to increase this level.Indirect costs. 15% is the average Indirect Cost rate that comes from the different rates among CGIAR Centers defined on estimated income. that they serve in shared priority countries. Plans are already advanced to bring World Vision leveraged funds into ongoing FP4 project activities in Mali. The budget for communications is USD 530,000 per year. Flagship communications activities will contribute to delivery of outcomes through engagement with key stakeholders in sites, regions, at the national level, as well as in relevant communities of practice. In addition to raising awareness of the general public, communication campaigns will focus on particular issues (e.g., data as a public good, higher quality of national than international gridded climate data sets) targeting particular development and funding communities. Budget is allocated for salary of regional communications specialists (1 in each region, with responsibility for all flagships), and staff time for communications activities at project level. The budget covers delivery of communications products and initiatives through events, media engagement, field visits, training journalists, producing/disseminating publications, multimedia production, and staff travel.Uplift.Most of the topics selected for uplift have been identified from topics cut from CCAFS as a result of budget cuts, but which are considered to be a crucial part of the science and outcome agenda. These are:  In addition to restoring funds to projects adversely affected by budget cuts, new topics have been proposed during discussions with partners in the development of the phase II proposal. In line with the draft recommendations of the External Evaluation, uplift funds will be used to strengthen the evidence of the contribution of climate services and weather-related insurance and safety nets, and of FP4 research, to the uptake of CSA, the resilience of smallholder farmers to climate variability and change, to the poverty reduction SLO, and to target IDOs and sub-IDOs. Expansion of crop monitoring and forecasting in S Asia using CRAFT. The CCAFS Regional Agriculture Forecasting Toolbox (CRAFT) is being piloted part of the Nepal Food Security Monitoring System (NeKSAP) is a new initiative to incorporate crop yield forecasting in Nepal. With the uplift budget, funds will be used for a proof-of-concept study with a view to developing crop forecasting regionally. Outcome contribution: FP4.2: at least one additional institution or major initiative that uses CCAFS research outputs for services that support farm households' management of climatic risks. Enhanced crop monitoring and food security early warning in W Africa. As a partner in the ICRISAT-led CASCAID Flagship project in West Africa, AGRHYMET is exploring methods for improving model-based crop monitoring. With the uplift budget, funds will be used, and leveraged to mobilize bilateral funds, to enhance AGRHYMET's regional crop monitoring and food security early warning services by: (a) incorporating improved merged gridded ","tokenCount":"42977"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a9695e0112e3230cc18f696fe4a85e36","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8cd11ca7-ff6e-42c8-a8fd-45c9993a4b9b/retrieve","id":"1710401108"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"36107fa0-cd62-4886-85a7-d57a9ff907fb","pagecount":"48","content":"To the Boards of Trustees of Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo, International and Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo, A. C.:We have audited the accompanying combined financial statements of Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo, International and Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo, A. C. (collectively the \"Organization\"), both of which are under common management, which comprise the combined statements of financial position as at December 31, 2015 and 2014, the combined statements of activities, changes in net assets and cash flows for the years then ended, and notes, comprising a summary of significant accounting policies and other explanatory information. The combined financial statements have been prepared by management based on the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (\"CGIAR\") Accounting Policies and Reporting Practices Manual.Management is responsible for the preparation of these combined financial statements in accordance with the CGIAR Accounting Policies and Reporting Practices Manual, and for such internal control as management determines is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.Our responsibility is to express an opinion on these combined financial statements based on our audits. We conducted our audits in accordance with International Standards on Auditing. Those standards require that we comply with ethical requirements and plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the combined financial statements are free from material misstatement.An audit involves performing procedures to obtain audit evidence about the amounts and disclosures in the combined financial statements. The procedures selected depend on our judgment, including the assessment of the risks of material misstatement of the combined financial statements, whether due to fraud or error. In making those risk assessments, we consider internal control relevant to the entity's preparation of the combined financial statements in order to design audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances, but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the entity's internal control. An audit also includes evaluating the appropriateness of accounting policies used and the reasonableness of accounting estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the combined financial statements. (Continued) We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our audit opinion.In our opinion, the combined financial statements of the Organization for the years ended as of December 31, 2015 and 2014 are prepared in all material respects, in accordance with the CGIAR Accounting Policies and Reporting Practices Manual.Without modifying our opinion, we draw attention to Note 2 to the combined financial statements, which describes the basis of accounting. The combined financial statements are prepared to assist the Organization to comply with the CGIAR Accounting Policies and Reporting Practices Manual. As a result, the combined financial statements may not be suitable for another purpose. Our report is intended solely for the Organization and the Board of Trustees of the Organization as well as the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (\"CGIAR\") and its members.Our audits were made for the purpose of forming an opinion on the combined financial statements taken as a whole. The supplementary information included in the following exhibits: Exhibit 1 \"Schedule of Grant Revenue\", Exhibit 2 \"Restricted Pledges and Expenses\", Exhibit 3 \"Expenses by Natural Classification\", Exhibit 4 \"Schedule of Direct and Indirect Costs\", Exhibit 5 \"Shedule of Integrated Breeding Platform\", Exhibits 6 and 7 \"Schedules of Generation Challenge Program\", Exhibit 8 \"CRP Expenditure Report CIMMYT only\", Exhibit 9 \"CRP W1 and W2 Funding Report\", Exhibit 10 \"CRP Expenditure Report CIMMYT as Lead Center\" and Exhibit 11\" CRP W1 and W2 Funding Report as Lead Center\", are presented for purposes of additional analysis and are not a required part of the combined financial statements. Such information has been subjected to the auditing procedures applied in the audits of the basic combined financial statements and, in our opinion, is fairly stated in all material respects in relation to the basic combined financial statements taken as a whole. The combined financial statements include the financial information of CIMMYT Int. and CIMMYT A.C. and the transactions between both entities have been eliminated.The CGIAR financial guidelines included in the Manual are aligned with International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS). Accounting principles included in the Manual generally conform to International Financial Reporting Standards (\"IFRS\"), except for certain disclosure requirements and with the following main clarifications and differences:a.As IFRS do not specifically address issues unique to not-for-profit organizations, the Manual has drawn from other widely used standards to provide guidance on issues of importance to not-for-profit organizations.b.International Accounting Standard No. 1 provides that \"entities with not-for-profit activities in the private sector, public sector or government seeking to apply this standard may need to amend the descriptions used for certain line items in the financial statements and for the financial statements themselves\". In line with this provision, the Manual has, in places, applied descriptions that more closely reflect the nature of the Organization's activities.c. IFRS and the Manual differ with respect to the treatment of tangible assets for restricted projects. The main difference is that under the accounting principles of the Manual, the Organization depreciates 100% of some of the assets in the same year they are purchased or received, whereas under IFRS, such purchases would be capitalized and depreciated over the useful lives of the related projects.The Organization recognizes a provision for termination benefits in accordance with Mexican Law requirements. Under IFRS any effect of termination of the labor relationship is not recognized until it is demonstrable, and the Organization committed to pay such termination benefits.Preparation of these combined financial statements in conformity with the Manual policies requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the combined financial statements and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting period. Although management believes the estimates and assumptions used in the preparation of these combined financial statements were appropriate in the circumstances, actual results could differ from those estimates and assumptions.The combined financial statements of the Organization have been prepared on the accrual basis of accounting.(3) Significant Accounting Policies-A summary of the significant policies adopted in the preparation of the accompanying combined financial statements are as follows:(a) Revenue Recognition-The Organization recognizes revenue in accordance with the Manual's requirements as follows:i.Income on research projects finance with restricted Grants is recognized in the period in which expenditure is incurred.The Lead Center of a CRP is required to include in its Statement of Activity expenses incurred by subcontracted centers and the corresponding revenue.Partner Centers must include in their Statements of Activity expenses incurred for each CRP and the corresponding revenue.Fund Donors may designate use of the funds they contribute to the CGIAR Fund in three ways:Window 1 (W1)-These funds are allocated to the CRPs by the Consortium, and approved by the Fund Council.(Continued) iii. Rendering of services-Income for services rendered is recognized in the accounting period in which the services are rendered.Sales Revenue is recognized when the following conditions have been satisfied:(a) The Center has transferred to the buyer the significant risk and rewards of ownership of the goods; (b) The Center does not retain effective control over the goods sold; (c) The amount of revenues can be reliably measured; (d) It is probable that the economic benefits will flow to the Center; and (e) The costs incurred in respect of the transaction can be measured reliably.Interest revenue arises from the use of others of a Center's assets yielding interest and are recognized on a time proportion basis. Donor accounts receivable represents amounts recoverable from donors for restricted grants promised or pledged for which any conditions have already been met. Donor accounts receivable are stated at their gross principal amounts, less any allowance for doubtful accounts. The allowance for doubtful accounts is initially created once the recoverability of collectible balances becomes doubtful based on the management's periodic review and analysis of the receivable balances from Donors accounts, as well as an assessment of the prevailing and anticipated economic conditions. If subsequently, as part of the periodic analysis of Donors accounts, the management confirms that a previously created doubtful account becomes uncollectible, the outstanding grant receivable balance is removed from the books through the allowance for doubtful accounts.Cash and cash equivalents are comprised of cash on hand, bank current accounts, fixed term interest bearing bank deposits and publicly listed securities. The Organization considers all highly-liquid debt instruments purchased with an original maturity of three months or less to be cash equivalents.Inventories are assets held in the form of materials or supplies to be consumed in the Centre's operations or in the rendering of services. They comprise materials and supplies not immediately expended at the time of their purchase, such as scientific supplies, automotive parts, building materials, petroleum products, office and other general supplies.Inventories are measured at the lower of average cost and net realizable value. The cost of inventories applied to operations is based on the average method, and includes expenditure incurred in acquiring the inventories, and other costs incurred in bringing them to their existing location and condition. Inventories are written down to net realizable value on an item-by item basis. The allowance for inventory obsolescence is deducted from the related asset. The amount of write-down of inventories to net realizable value and all losses of inventories are recognized as an expense in the period the write-down or loss occurs.Land and buildings are initially recorded at acquisition cost and may be periodically revalued based on independent appraisals. Buildings are depreciated using the straightline method based on the remaining useful life as determined by management.The Organization considers as equipment to be capitalized items with an estimated useful life beyond one year and costs in excess of US$ 2,500 or its equivalent.Equipment is recorded at acquisition cost. Cost includes the purchase price and all other incremental costs incurred in bringing the asset to its present location and condition for its intended use. Depreciation of equipment is calculated on a straight-line basis so as to expense the cost of assets over their estimated useful lives, in accordance with the Manual guidelines, as determined by management.Estimated useful life for property and equipment is as follows: (g) Income Taxes-CIMMYT, Int. is tax-exempt; accordingly, no provision for income taxes has been made in the accompanying combined financial statements.Advance grant payments from donors represent grant payments received in advance from donors for restricted grants, for which the grant conditions have not yet been met. It also includes amounts payable to donors when donors require reimbursement of unexpended grant balances.These represent amounts to be paid in the future for goods or services received, whether billed by the supplier or not.In accordance with Mexican Labor Law, the Organization provides seniority premium benefits to its employees under certain circumstances. These benefits consist of a onetime payment equivalent to 12 days' wages for each year of service (at the employee's most recent salary, but not to exceed twice the legal minimum wage), payable to all employees with 15 or more years of service, as well as to certain employees terminated involuntarily prior to the vesting of their seniority premium benefit. The Organization also provides statutorily mandated severance benefits to its employees terminated under certain circumstances. Such benefits consist of a one-time payment of three months' wages plus 20 days' wages for each year of service payable upon involuntary or voluntary termination. Costs associated with these benefits are provided for based on actuarial computations using the projected unit credit method.End of service benefits for international staff such as costs of return flights and shipment of personal effects are accrued during the duration of the employment contract. Because of the unstable political and security context in countries where the Organization operates, a provision for end of service benefits for international staff has been included based on the estimated probability of having to close operations in specific countries.Provisions are recognized for current obligations that (i) result from a past event, (ii) are probable to result in the use of economic resources, and (iii) can be reasonably estimated.Reporting currency is the US Dollar. All foreign currency transactions are recorded, on initial recognition, by applying to the foreign currency amount the exchange rate between the US Dollar and the foreign currency at the month end.All significant monetary balances are revalued against month-end exchange rate. All cash investments are held in the form of deposits with reputable financial institutions.Investments in USD are as follows in the next page.(Continued) The Integrated Breeding Platform (the \"IBP\") is an initiative of the Generation Challenge Program that came to an end December 2015. It is hosted by the Organization.The aim of the IBP is to support and promote the use of advanced plant breeding technologies and knowledge in order to increase agricultural productivity, enhance food security, and improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers throughout the developing world.The IBP is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank (collectively, the \"Supporter Organizations\") and is governed by an independent Board of Trustees.The Organization, as host agent of the IBP assumes fiduciary responsibility and has duties of care, loyalty and impartiality in its role and is reimbursed by the IBP for direct and indirect costs associated with its operations. The Organization acts on instructions from the IBP with regard to disbursement of funds based on a plan of work and attendant budget that has been approved by the Board of Trustees of the IBP.The liability due to the IBP in the combined statements of financial position represents the resources provided by the Supporter Organizations that are held in the Organization's bank accounts and managed by the Organization as a host agent until the Board of Trustees of the IBP determines their distribution or application.The activity of the IBP is recorded in the Program accounting records, and therefore such activity is not presented in these combined financial statements.( The Organization believes that it has complied with all aspects of contractual agreements, grants and donor restrictions that could have an effect on the combined financial statements.The Organization is involved in a number of mostly labor-related lawsuits and claims arising in the normal course of business. It is expected that the final outcome of these matters will not have significant adverse effects on the Organization's financial position and results of operations. The estimated amount payable regarding these lawsuits amounts to US$227 and is included in provisions. ","tokenCount":"2420"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4cebf9437ec72715fb98b064500a01e2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a68a1b08-0287-48bc-9b83-4d80a912f198/retrieve","id":"-1465296291"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a9649a1d-fbfd-4da2-b8cd-487d78ffa541","pagecount":"79","content":"BACKGROUND TO THE DIALOGUE……………………………………………………………. I. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. i. Background to the Dialogue……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ii. Objectives of the Dialogue…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. iii. Major Outputs……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. II. Keynote addresses (Generic)………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. i. Dep. Of Agriculture -RSA…………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ii. FANRPAN Programme highlights……………………………………………………………………………………………….. iii. NEPAD………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. iv. Donors and FANRPAN partners -……………………………… III. Keynote addresses (3 conference Pillars)………………………………………………………………………………………………. A. Markets and Trade………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….i.Towards improved maize marketing and trade policies: The Zambia case……………………………………….. ii.Harmonising Seed regulations to promote seed trade in the region…………………………………………………..Food is the most basic necessity for all human beings. Providing sufficient food of adequate nutritional quality for everyone, in Africa and the world at large, should be the prime development objective of every government. Unfortunately, most African governments did not see food security and food self-sufficiency as their most fundamental development goal. After decades of political independence, hunger and malnutrition remain persistent problems in many African countries.In the SADC region, over 200 million people are faced with food insecurity challenges. Agriculture is still recognised as the prime driver of economic development across the region, but agricultural investments by governments in the region have remained low. Agricultural yields for crops and livestock have been declining. Food aid and food imports have almost doubled in the last 10 years. The HIV/AIDS pandemic, natural disasters and civil conflicts have further compromised the region's efforts to ensure food security.It is against this background that the SADC Ministers of Agriculture recommended the formation of an autonomous Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) in 1994 with the main objective of providing synthesised, evidence-based recommendations for the development of comprehensive agricultural policies in the SADC region that would reduce poverty and increase food security for the majority. FANRPAN was viewed as the entity that would synthesise and provide independent evidence-based policy recommendations for invigorating regional trade through the exploitation of the economics of scale. FANRPAN was mandated to be an information switchboard -a centre of excellence for disseminating state-of-the-art policy information across member states that would stimulate policy and legal reform for transforming the FANR sector.The FANRPAN mission and mandate has, thus, been to co oo or rd di in na at te e and f fa ac ci il li it ta at te e public policy research and analysis, as well as, organise multi-stakeholder dialogues at the n na at ti io on na al l, r re eg gi io on na al l and g gl lo ob ba al l levels in order to influence policy development in the food, agriculture and natural resources sector and turn it into a true engine for growth and economic development in the region. In pursuit of this mission and mandate, FARNPAN's core business has been to carry out specialised studies in selected areas, isolate critical findings and policy recommendations, and then organise regional policy dialogue events, fora and platforms for dissemination to a critical mass of stakeholders that are capable of stimulating positive change in their respective circles of influence.It is against this background that FARNPAN, in collaboration with several partners, organised its first high level regional policy dialogue in Gaborone, Botswana from the 26-27 March 2003, to discuss the region's agricultural recovery, food security and trade policies. This roundtable brought together leading stakeholders in the sector including: policy makers from governments in the region, international key note speakers on the subject matter, partner agencies including CTA, IFPRI, USAID, CIMMYT, ICRISAT, ISNAR, ODI, MSU, NEPAD, ADB, SACAU, SAPRN, farmer organisations and civil society. This was a remarkable opportunity to reflect and dialogue on food policy right at the peak 2002-2003 food crisis in the region.In 2004, a similar event was held in Plain Magnein, Mauritius, from 28-30 March 2004 to discuss policy strategies needed to promote permanent agricultural recovery and productivity growth in the SADC region. Again leading stakeholders in the sector came together to review and reflect on strategies discussed in 2003, as well as, chart a way forward for the region. The key policy issues discussed at this dialogue included: assessment of the 2004 food supply situation and key policies affecting agricultural recovery in the SADC region; the formulation of bankable actions and investment projects for the agricultural sector in the SADC region; the role and challenges faced by senior policy makers in formulating policy research into action; cassava as the new hope for food security and poverty alleviation in Southern Africa; improved maize marketing and trade policies to promote household food security in Southern Africa; The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD); ICRISAT strategies contributing to agricultural policy in the SADC region -Advances towards harmonisation of seed policies and regulations; Developing a workable agricultural biotechnology policy for SADC; and the shortage of improved seed limiting the commercialisation of the smallholder farming sector -experiences from the IDEA regional programme in Southern Africa.The 2005 annual dialogue was a follow up to the two previous dialogues and was held under the umbrella theme of \"creating a conducive policy environment for a food secure SADC\". The Johannesburg 2005 multi-stakeholder dialogue was held from the 4 -7 October 2005 at the Birchwood hotel, Johannesburg, South Africa.The objectives of the 2005 dialogue were 4-fold: 1) Strengthening the institutional capacity for supporting FANR policy formulation and implementation in the SADC region -through stronger advocacy by farmer organisations and the use of CSO evidence in developing pro-poor policies for food security 2) Developing strategies for improving knowledge management systems in SADC and disseminating FANRPAN research outputs 3) Developing stronger and strategic institutional alliances and partnerships that would ensure the enhanced use of research outputs in the development of effective regional agricultural policies 4) Strengthening the FANRPAN annual multi-stakeholder public policy dialogue platform and concept -as a forum for independent public policy debate and influence by a cross-section stakeholders in the FANR sectorThe biggest challenge common to both researchers and policy makers alike is the operationisation and implementation of the findings and policy recommendations. It was the objective of the 2005 dialogue to ensure that the delegates discuss and agree on key strategies for moving from evidence to action through strengthening strategic and institutional alliances, at both national and regional level, for effective policy development and implementation.The main driver of regional FANR policy is SADC. SADC is a regional forum established by SADC member states to allow for inter-governmental regional policy dialogue. The dialogue at SADC level is, therefore, government-driven and policy decisions are arrived at through inter-governmental processes often led by government technocrats, sectoral ministers and Heads of state. These processes leave little room for stakeholders outside the public sector to influence policy decisions at the regional level. This is where the multi-stakeholder FANRPAN platform plays a critical role to play. The previous annual dialogues and the 2005 dialogue are great opportunities for interaction between senior government policy makers and other stakeholders in the FANR sector. These dialogues are a great opportunity for mutual interaction and advocacy and there is good chance that policy recommendations arrived at through such mutual dialogues would find their way into national policies.The Johannesburg 2005 dialogue was a dialogue with a difference. It shifted away from the traditional design of dialoguing around a single policy theme and instead focused on a full display -a grand showcase -of all FANRPAN policy research outputs and outcomes over 2004-05 period under 4 pillars of: Markets and Trade; HIV and AIDS; Strengthening Institutional Capacity; and Knowledge Management Systems. This approach was aimed at sharing with all stakeholders and partners the vast knowledge and information base established by FANRPAN so far and to emphasise the need to move a step forward into developing strong policy knowledge and information management systems across the region -that will move this knowledge and information into the policy realm.The Dialogue PillarsThe main thrust of this pillar was to discuss how policy could be transformed to make markets work for smallholder farmers in the SADC region. The smallholder farmers constitute 70% of the agricultural labour force in the SADC region. Paradoxically, it is these same farmers that are the threatened by hunger, poverty and disease. Policy is often a direct reflection of political priorities and interests. The dialogue was an opportunity to lay strategies and design ways in which markets can be made to work for the poor. The discussions were based several FARNPAN studies carried out in 2004-05 including: Improved maize marketing in SADC; Harmonisation of seed regulations, Biosafety Systems and biotechnology in the region; multi-stakeholder biotechnology policy dialogues in partnership with IFPRI; and contract farming in Sub-Saharan Africa The dialogue was an opportunity to share the finding and recommendations from these studies with key stakeholders. It was also an opportunity for FANRPAN and IFPRI to launch their joint publication on the multi-stakeholder dialogue process they have been conducting on Biotechnology in Africa.This pillar was based on the premise that HIV and AIDS was sighted a contributing factor in declaring an emergency food situation in Lesotho and Swaziland. Other scholars suggest that the impact of HIV and AIDS on agriculture and food security is causing a \"silent famine\" in households -what others descried as the \"new variant famine\". Discussions on this pillar were based on a two-year FANRPAN study funded by the EU that has been carried out across 7 SADC countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. This study is one of the components of the overall SADC-EU HIV and AIDS project. Study findings and policy recommendations from the seven countries were discussed at the dialogue.The thrust of this pillar was strengthening institutional capacity for regional policy engagement and development at mainly three levels: Farmer Organisations (FO), Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), and FANRPAN country platforms -the nodes. The dialogue was an opportunity to explore strategies for strengthening farmer organisations, strengthening private sector organisations involved in FANR policy processes, strengthening civil society organisations for regional level engagement, and strengthening analytical capacity -especially policy analysis. The findings and recommendations of FANRPAN studies being undertaken in collaboration with CTA, SACAU, SAPRN, ODI and SAKSS were discussed at the dialogue.The main thrust of this pillar was moving from research to policy by maintaining a strategic balance between the supply and demand of knowledge and information. This was an underlying and crosscutting theme in all the discussions of the dialogue. Knowledge management was discussed as involving organizational adaptation through processes combining data, information processing and the creative and innovative capacity of human beings. It was discussed as a concept; as a business discipline and theory; as a collection of technologies; and as a philosophy. The theory, practice and processes behind the Strategic Analysis and Agricultural Knowledge Systems (SAAKS) project being implemented in partnership by FANRPAN, IWMI and ICRISAT was discussed. The role of knowledge in sustainable development was discussed. The factors of demand for knowledge within the development context were discussed. The supplydemand paradigm was discussed. The contributions of analytical and strategic contexts to planning were discussed.The dialogue took the form of plenary sessions in the mornings addressed by keynote speakers on the sub-themes for the day. Debate would then be opened up for input by the delegates in plenary and thereafter further debate and dialogue was breakaway parallel sessions based on 3 pillars: Markets and Trade; HIV and AIDS; and Strengthening Institutional Capacity. The fourth pillar of knowledge management was only discussed in plenary. Emerging recommendations from the parallel sessions were fed back to the plenary for the benefit of delegates in the different sessions. The IFPRI/FANRPAN joint publication: Biotechnology, Agriculture and Food Security in Southern Africa, edited by Omamo S.W and Grebmer K. was launched during one of the evening sessions.The 2005 dialogue was targeted at top-level executives in the private and corporate sector; top-level government policy makers -Ministers, Permanent Secretaries and Directors in FANR ministries across SADC; top-level leadership and technical advisers from Farmer Organisations in all SADC countries; top-level policy analysts from at least one University in each SADC country. All FANRPAN partners agencies including; CTA, opportunity to engage with the realities on food security in the SADC region. They pointed out that the severe humanitarian crisis in the region demanded truth and honesty. They noted that the triple threat of poverty, HIV & AIDS and food insecurity challenges governments, donors and non-public humanitarian and development agencies to respond promptly to avert prevailing hunger, disease and death across the region. The delegates observed that collective efforts in agricultural and rural development have, so far, fallen short of the appropriate response to community needs.They noted that at the heart of these failures, is the continued inability to implement appropriate policies and enable functional institutions to marshal resources in ways that optimise services, nutrition, and care for vulnerable communities.The delegates urged regional institutions and national governments to take greater responsibility for enhancing food security in SADC through the provision of a conducive policy environment. The delegates called upon governments to take initiative to facilitate more open and readily transactible trade and market development for food products and inputs in the region. They called upon governments to strengthen knowledge management on regional trade, marketing and regional development. They committed themselves to continue providing evidence-based information on the pros and cons of GMOs and to further develop the concept of contract farming.The delegates noted that the HIV and AIDS pandemic is truly causing a \"silent famine\" in the smallholder households in the SADC region. They pointed that out FANRPAN should use the current seven country studies as a benchmark for a wider regional longitudinal study to track the impact of HIV and AIDS on agriculture and food security over a longer period. They noted that the overall impact on households is increased vulnerability and asked FANRPAN to further develop the Household Vulnerability Index (HVI), discussed at the dialogue, as a tool for quantifying the impact of HIV and AIDS on agriculture and food security that will help governments to better design agricultural interventions for affected households. The delegates called for increased government involvement in the design of new and innovative HIV and AIDS related agricultural programmes and interventions for affected households and communities.The delegates noted the urgent the urgent need to strengthen agricultural policy analysis and advocacy skills at regional and national levels. They pointed out the urgent need for lead initiatives and programmes to empower farmer organisations across the region. The delegates pledged to further develop and strengthen the multi-stakeholder platform for policy engagement with government policy makers, policy analysts, farmer organisations and the private sector at both national and regional levels.The joint statement was expected to serve as a tool for sharing the deliberations and resolutions of the dialogue with a wider audience. It will also be forwarded to media houses as a press release.The joint publication cited as: Steven Were Omamo and Klaus von Grebmer, eds, Biotechnology, Agriculture and Food Security in Southern Africa, Washington, DC, and Harare: IFPRI and FANRPAN, 2005 -was successfully launched at the dialogue. Copies of this book were distributed to all delegates. The joint publication was an affirmation of the positive synergy available in collaborative programmes and research linking CGIAR centres with research networks in the region.The convergence of a total of 108 high level experts from all sectors in the food, agriculture and natural resources sector (FANR) to debate outstanding issues in agricultural markets and trade in the SADC region, the impact of HIV and AIDS on agriculture and food security in the region, and the strengthening of institutional capacity for agricultural policy development and implementation in the region -was clear evidence of the importance of such an independent forum in the region. All stakeholders debated with respect of one another -with no blame game. This is was the basis for a joint output reflecting a multi-stakeholder view of the situation.The dialogue brought top-level executives in the private and corporate sector; top-level government policy makers -Permanent Secretaries and Directors in FANR ministries across SADC; top-level leadership and technical advisers from Farmer Organisations in all SADC countries; top-level policy analysts from at least universities in the region, FANRPAN partners agencies including CTA, IFPRI, USAID, CIMMYT, ICRISAT, ISNAR, ODI, MSU, NEPAD, ADB, SACAU, SAPRN, FAO, Rockefeller Foundation, the French Government and farmer organisations. 22 civil society organisations were also in attendance. Development partners including donors, CGIAR and other high-level research institutions also attended. Regional organisations -SADC and NEPAD also attended the dialogue. FANRPAN has signed MOUs with most these institutions. This was an excellent recipe for strengthened partnerships. Each of these partners was assigned specific tasks at the dialogue. The outcome was a joint effort -a manifestation of strengthened relationships.In pursuit of the theme to \"create an conducive policy environment for a food secure SADC\" -the individual delegates at the dialogue represented an expert knowledge and information bank of sorts that will continue to be linked and strengthened through FANRPAN. The theory and practice of knowledge management was discussed as a basis for moving from research to policy actions. These concepts are the basis of the SAKSS project that has been designed to be permanent link between all institutions in the region generating agriculture related knowledge and information. The Southern Africa Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support Systems (SAKSS) project is envisaged to be the focal point in converting and moving knowledge into the policy realm. SAKSS was shared with all the delegates. SAKSS will host a regional agricultural database populated with data sets from the various knowledge-generating partners in the region.Policy briefs based on this data will be generated and shared with policy makers at the highest level. The SAKSS database is envisaged to serve as a regional central data bank or herb with links to other relevant databases.By the Deputy Director General -Agricultural Production and Resource ManagementThe DDG outlined the components of the strategic planning cycle that leads to the selection departmental priority areas and the design of departmental programmes and implementation systems. The first level is the cabinet priority setting processes. These are followed by the state of the nation address by the Head of State, which elaborates the government programme of work. This is then followed by sector needs assessment through a client survey. The Intergovernmental technical Committee on Agriculture then aligns the sector needs with the government programme of work to reach an agreement on key priorities and programmes for the department.These priorities and programmes are then taken through an engagement process with other public entities to ensure alignment with government priorities. An engagement process with the Minister and Deputy Minister on strategic imperatives for the department then follows. The Departmental Management Committee, through Quarterly Review Meetings, then engagements with the content to extract key agricultural result areas, strategic objectives, programmes and measurable indicators, as well as, to ensuring alignment across departmental programmes and the designing of optimal implementation systems. Strategic planning is cascaded within the entire department to ensure the development of directorate level operational plans, and individual performance agreements that support the departmental goals.The medium term strategic priorities are derived from the microeconomic reform strategy where agriculture is defined as a target sector in the light of its potential for growth, labour absorption and links to the manufacturing sector. These medium term strategies are influenced by the imperatives for addressing the consequences of social transition, and specifically, the second economy challenges -through land and agrarian reform, integrated food and nutrition security and integrated and sustainable rural development; the international environment with respect to the need for sustainable development; reform of world trade; and implementing NEPAD.The agricultural policy environment takes into consideration the possible implications of the scenario planning, the ten year review, the cabinet level analysis and priority setting processes, the agricultural sector plan The Integrated Food Security and Nutrition Programme is targeted at ensuring access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to all. The Agri-business and Agro-processing programme is targeted at eliminating the skewed participation in the sector. The agricultural sector strategy is designed to ensure maximum growth of the sector, remunerative jobs and income in agriculture. The Natural Resources Management (Landcare) programme is responsible for enhancing sustainable use and management of agricultural resources and ecosystems. Research & Development, and technology transfer will ensure knowledge and information management. The knowledge and information management systems will ensure efficient and effective governance of the sector. These programmes are all interlinked to create a net positive transformation in the sector.The Integrated Food Security and Nutrition Programme aims to achieve physical, social and economic access to safe and nutritious food for all South Africans. Its broad objective is to fight hunger, reduce poverty and to build a culture of self-sustenance through the promotion of food [home] gardens for family consumption needs as well as communal gardens as business directed enterprises. The Department of Agriculture is the lead department within the Social Cluster and Regional Food Security Interventions. Food Production support is the most significant support to the IFSNP. The IFSNP has a number of implementation Challenges. The Programme focuses on the poor and vulnerable -however identification of the target households is still a challenge. Food production needs to be complemented with other interventions within the social security system -yet multiple role players not always willing partners. Once engaged in food production and surpluses generated then storage and/or access to markets becomes an issue. Nutrition awareness critical and is linked to school feeding schemes.The main objective of the Agriculture is a strategic sector for most African countries but the sector is often undeveloped and under-resourced. Food security is often a post war or post conflict concern, drought, or the impact of HIV and AIDS, therefore there is need for an integrated approach. Most governments on the continent are dependant on donor funds who also have trade interests to protect. Water, infrastructure and market access and credit are a major limiting factor.The Department of Agriculture takes active membership and participation within the SADC-FANR unit. It is involved in the implementation of the 4 pillars of the NEPAD -Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP). The DoA' is involved in Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) leadership, which allows the region to benefit from international collaboration. FARA a strategic partner and serves as the technical arm of NEPAD. It brings together diverse stakeholders from Southern, Eastern, Western and Northern Africa, as well as, sub-regional organizations such as NARS, farmers' organizations, private sector, NGOs and development partners.The DoA has a strong relationship with the AU/NEPAD secretariat. South Africa has made a contribution of R140m to the WFP for specific interventions in the region. In responding to the report on the MDG's, the DoA's position is that it will take approximately 150 years for the region to attain the MDG goals as stated in the present form.In conclusion, the South African Agricultural Sector is a complex one but a critical leverage sector for growth, economic and social development in South Africa, SADC and Africa in general. Public Sector Financing -needs to take into account the need for a comprehensive approach in terms of services but also the need for complimentality in the roles of the different sectors of government. SADC countries must adopt an integrated approach for increased food production, access to sufficient food with good nutritional requirements.By Dr. Lindiwe Sibanda, CEO -FANRPAN Dr Sibanda gave a brief background that led to the founding of FANRPAN. She indicated that it is now an autonomous stakeholder-driven policy research network with a regional secretariat now based in Pretoria, South Africa. It is strategically positioned to deal with policy aspects of food security and natural resource management in the SADC region. It is represented in 11 of the 13 SADC countries through a multi-stakeholder platform designated as a \"country node\". University -funded by the Rockefeller Foundation 7) Contract farming as a mechanism for commercialisation of smallholder agriculture in the SADC region -funded by the French government 8) Annual regional level multi-stakeholder policy dialogues and publications -funded by the CTA 9) The Southern Africa Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support Systems (SAKSS) -a project being developed in the context of the USAID's Initiative to End Hunger in Africa (IEHA), in collaboration with IWMI and ICRISAT Dr Sibanda indicated that the current thrust is on strengthening the functional units of the network -the country nodes. She gave a brief outline of the main objectives and thematic thrust of the 2005 regional mult-stakeholder dialogue as enshrined in the living theme -\"creating a conducive policy environment for a food secure SADC\".  According to Dr Mundia, 40 -60% of the cost in maize marketing is borne by consumers of maize meal. Farmers are typically paid about US$80 -$140 per tonne for maize while consumers pay $150 -250 per tonne for maize meal. Low-income consumers pay as much as 30% of their income on maize or maize meal. There are two maize marketing channels in the Southern Africa region: Formal grain marketing and processing and Informal marketing which is generally small-scale. Hence, public investments and policies that can reduce the cost of marketing and processing can simultaneously help farmers and consumers. The formal sector is often well capitalized, holds most of the storage facilities other than those on-farm, has strong ties with firms in South Africa and other industrialized countries (e.g., Seaboard, a US firm, owns many large mills throughout the eastern and southern Africa region). The informal sector, on the other hand, is under-capitalized, but usually has lower cost services than the formal sector.Dr Mundia pointed out that there are increasing maize deficits in the SADC region. These deficits are increasingly being filled by maize imports from South Africa or outside the region. Smallholders in SADC need support to efficiently grow surpluses and find market outlets, but they are increasingly being left out of the equation as deficit requirements are sourced from elsewhere.The future prosperity of small farmer maize production will depend on reducing costs and barriers to informal trade and better integrating informal and formal channels. The Importance of strengthening informal trade derives from the need to improve marketing incentives for small farmers and reduce the cost of food for consumers. When maize supplies are available through informal channels -many consumers prefer to buy maize and take to local small millers for processing. This is a popular option especially among the urban poor and rural food deficit households because it is less expensive. Consumers can save up to 25% on maize meal costs as long as grain is available in local marketsWhen locally produced surpluses are depleted informal channels become thinly traded. Small millers and traders tend not to procure grain from South African suppliers because they are either unable or unwilling. Imports are coordinated between formal channel suppliers in RSA or USA and large millers, which n turn implies much higher milling and retail margins, and hence relatively high maize meal costs to consumers (approximately 25 -40% higher). In Zambia these findings have led to two major policy changes by the MACO: Reduction in inter-district grain levies and MACO announced the waiving of maize import tariff, although this is not yet enacted.Dr Mundia observed that several critical issues and questions still remain for consideration by policy makers. For example, during food shortfalls, how could governments ensure that grain remains available in local markets for consumers to be able to buy? If Food Reserve Authorities (FRA) import maize, could they sell in small lots to small traders in informal markets to ensure that grain is directly available for consumers and small mills? Could governments allow large traders and millers to import for themselves during deficit periods? How about export bans -what are their effects on regional trade, local production incentives and investment in the grain marketing system? How about Import tariffs -if there are possibilities that the tariff is to be waived, no private imports will occur up to that point, which could cause shortages. Markets need greater predictability about government position on tariffs and trade. This will allow markets to play a more positive role in importing adequate volumes during crises.Region -with a focus on Seed Certification, Crop Variety Release and Seed Phytosanitary Systems: By E.Zulu  In order to achieve maximum agricultural productivity in the region, availability and access to agricultural inputs especially seed is important. Seed determines the potential for yield as well as the productivity of other inputs. However, access and availability of quality seed continues to be a problem in the SADC region. Seed supply systems are weak and Movement of seed from one country to another is a problem due to a fragmented regulatory framework.There are varied levels of development of the seed industry in the SADC countries. The seed industry ranges from well developed and industrialized in some countries to nonexistent in others. Seed production ranges from completely private in some countries to state controlled in others. Seed legislation ranges from all-encompassing in some countries to no legislation in others. The current systems expensive and cannot be sustained. There is duplication of variety testing. This, in turn, means low returns on investment in crop development, delayed seed improvement, a large but fragmented seed market, seed companies relocating to other regions -and a general decline in investment in the seed industry. SADC countries must move towards a regional system of variety testing, registration and release that would enable new varieties be available to farmers in the shortest possible time in all the countries such a system is adapted.The SADC Seed Certification System -There are a number of differences in certification systems, standards and procedures being applied in the different SADC Member States. This implies diminished trust among seed certification authorities, differences in seed standards including seed certification classes, and over insistence for seed to move on orange international certificate (OIC). Only ISTA-accredited laboratories may issue OIC's and only 4 SADC countries have accredited ISTA labs. ISTA accreditation, membership & certificates are very expensive, adding to the cost of seed. Seed moving without an OIC requires re-testing and until the results are known, the seed cannot be sold or distributed. This affects timely access of seed to farmers that may be restricted to a very limited planting window, owing to climatic conditions. If the seed is not available at planting time, the season would have been lost. There is need to create trust in the regional seed industry by recognizing & accepting each others standards, adopting common seed certification classes & standards; adopt common testing methods based on ISTA, and running a proficiency program that keeps participating laboratories on common standard. There is need to organize an efficient and transparent system, which makes better use of resources available in the region and takes into account the practical realities on the ground. There is also need to adopt and implement the proposed harmonized SADC Seed Certification System, which will allow efficient movement of seed in the region, resulting in improved regional trade of seed of a known and consistent high quality.SADC seed phyto-sanitary issues -phyto-sanitary issues add to problems of delays of seed movements. Inspectors have to check for too many pests, some of which are not of economic importance or are seed borne. This leads to delays in the issuance of phytosanitary certificates, as well as, import and export permits. There is need to rationalize a shorter pest list based on science. A shorter list will reduce the time and costs for inspecting imports and export consignments at entry and exit points respectively, as well as field inspections and/or laboratory tests. This will enable speedy clearance and release of consignments. Other general barriers to regional seed trade include: export permits, export quotas, import permit, OECD certification, ISTA Orange International Certificates, import tariffs, and GMO-free certificates.Some progress has been made on harmonization of seed regulations. Technical procedures have been developed for: Regional Seed Variety Release, Regional Seed Certification and Quality Assurance and Regional Phytosanitary for seed. These draft technical procedures have been taken through consultations with member states at higher levels; a workshop for Permanent Secretaries of agriculture; and presentation to the SADC Council of Ministers. Harmonization of regional seed regulations will lead to a wider range of varieties for farmers to choose from; lower costs for satisfying seed regulations; faster releases of varieties; better cooperation in seeds among Member States, and a more competitive seed market in the SADC region. Harmonization would enable multinational and local seed companies to operate in a relatively free movement of seed and varieties environment -which would lead to a continuous stream of new varieties for major and minor crops to the benefit of farmers. Small farmers would gain access to improved varieties at a much cheaper cost. Seed companies competing for market share would reach out to expand sales and services to small farmers. In the end, farmers throughout the region will be able to walk into seed stores in small market towns near their homes and find a selection of seeds of improved varieties.In conclusion, harmonization of regional seed regulations is essential and urgent. Progress made to date should be accelerated. Full commitment is needed from all key stakeholders.The Impact of HIV and AIDS on Household Agriculture and Food Security in the SADC Region: Preliminary findings and Policy Implications of the FANRPAN Regional Study: By Dr Micah Masaku, University of Swaziland Southern Africa is facing a serious humanitarian crisis with severe long-term consequences affecting the entire region. Erratic rainfall, poor governance, poverty, unsustainable debt, failing agricultural policies, unfair international trade regimes, and collapsing public services have all contributed to the current situation, but without HIV & AIDS the crisis would, perhaps, not be of the same dimensions The HIV & AIDS pandemic is at the heart of the crisis, which threatens the lives of some 16 million people. In its 2004 report titled HIV & AIDS in Southern Africa, UNAIDS estimates that about 20% of the entire adult population aged 15-49 is currently infected in the nine southern African countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In some of the most affected countries, rates of HIV prevalence are as high as 33 percent, with widespread effects on health, education, and productivity throughout societyThere is growing evidence that HIV & AIDS epidemic is disproportionately affecting agriculture relative to other sectors. This is mainly because the structure of the agricultural sector, especially the smallholder sector, is less able to absorb the impacts of the human resource losses associated with the pandemic. Given the fact that about 70% of the population in most of the Southern African countries depends on agriculture as a means of livelihood, HIV & AIDS has far reaching impacts in this sector The devastation caused by HIV/AIDS is unique because it deprives families, communities and entire nations of their young and most productive people. The epidemic is deepening poverty, reversing human development achievements, worsening gender inequalities, eroding the ability of governments to maintain essential services, reducing labour productivity and supply, and putting a brake on economic growth. The worsening conditions, in turn, make people and households even more at risk of, or vulnerable to, the epidemic, and jeopadises national and global efforts to improve access to care. This cycle must be broken to ensure a sustainable solution to the HIV/AIDS crisis.The HIV & AIDS pandemic is being driven by the very factors that cause malnutrition i.e. poverty and inequality. The advent of a generalised HIV & AIDS epidemic in combination with the frequent droughts and food crisis is increasing the likelihood of HIV infection, as people are driven to adopt risky coping strategies in order to survive. These include traveling to search for food and additional sources of income, migrating, engaging in hazardous work, and, most lethally, women exchanging sex for money or food. For those already infected with the virus, malnutrition exhausts the immune system, which makes people more susceptible to malaria, tuberculosis, and other opportunistic diseases, and leads to faster progression from HIV to AIDS. People weakened by HIV & AIDS find it harder to access food, because they are often not strong enough to work or to walk long distances to the market.Although it is appreciated that successful efforts to improve food security and livelihoods of families should initially focus on reducing the probability of HIV infection and slow the progression of HIV & AIDS through care and prevention strategies, there is a need to take a developmental approach to mitigation of the impacts of the pandemic.Whilst trying to reduce the rate of infections, there is also a need to increase the resilience of households trying to recover from HIV-related illness and death. Proper nutritional support can speed recuperation from HIV-related infections, and allow people living with HIV & AIDS to participate directly in their own care. On the other hand provision of social support to the affected and infected, and creation of employment opportunities and access to markets for orphans and families taking care of orphans, will increase food security and reduce the chances for new infections.HIV & AIDS has the greatest impact on productive members of society, such as teachers, farmers, traders, and agricultural extension workers, thus increasing the number of dependents in a household. This reduces household productivity and caring capacity, and interrupts the transfer of local knowledge and skills from one generation to the next. In Malawi between six and eight per cent of teachers die each year. In Zimbabwe, maize production on communal farms fell by 54 per cent between 1992 and 1997, linked to AIDS-related illness and death. The impact on the public-health sector is also devastating, as health workers either die or leave employment to care for family members, leaving clinics with low levels of qualified staff. This in turn undermines preventative health measures and increases the burden on public-health structures.HIV & AIDS has critically diminished the agricultural labour force in some of the most badly affected sub-Saharan African countries, thus increasing food insecurity. As a result of HIV & AIDS, women, children, and elderly people now head more households. They are particularly vulnerable because they have often sold off many of their assets to care for sick family members, and have fewer opportunities to earn an income or grow crops. Many of these households also need to take care of sick relatives and orphans, which further stretches traditional family-based support networks.A preliminary analysis of the regional data contained in the regional database was carried out. The prevalence of opportunistic infections is evident in the SADC region with most households involved in the study, except for those in Lesotho, agreeing to have suffered or to have some members of their household who have suffered from HIV & AIDS related illnesses. In Zambia about 72% of the households interviewed had been affected in one way or the other from HIV & AIDS related illnesses. The corresponding figures for the other countries were: Zimbabwe 24%; Lesotho 2%; Botswana 34%; and South Africa 45%. In Lesotho households are still afraid of stigmatization and hence there were reserved responses as far as AIDS related illnesses. This is contrary to the finding that families in Lesotho have the largest average HIV & AIDS deaths in the region. The other countries did not collect comparable data. The common types of opportunistic infections identified in the study are diarrhea and tuberculosis (TB). Approximately 39% of households in the study have at one point dealt with diarrhea whilst 24% have also suffered from TB. Other types of illnesses included malaria, which is more prevalent in Zambia and swollen limps, which appears dominant in Swaziland. These results are indicative of the presence of predominant ill health in households in the smallholder sector of the southern African region. This has adverse implications on the region's food security status and the livelihoods of smallholder farmers who greatly depend on family labor as their main source of labour for agriculture.HIV and AIDS has altered household demographic characteristics. The mean household size for the entire regional sample was 6.1. About 5% of all households where headed by children under 18years. The actual figures were 6.4% for Botswana, 3.9% for Lesotho, 1% for Namibia, 1% for South Africa, 2.5% for Swaziland, 6% for Zambia and 3.8% for Zimbabwe. 30 % of households had 3 or more dependents. Of these, Zambian, South African and Namibian households had the largest numbers. 65% of Households reported field sizes of under 2 ha. There was no correlation between field size and amount of fertilizer used. 18.2 % of Households reported that HIV and AIDS illnesses and funerals deprived them of farming time. 75% of households have a dependency ratio greater than 1 i.e. have more dependents than economically active members.HIV & AIDS is affecting the demographic structures of households in the SADC region.Except for Zambia and Lesotho, most households were reported being headed by females whilst the men are either away or are dead. The pandemic is resulting in the cropping up of single parent and/or child headed households. These are posing a great challenge to the remaining parent or the orphans to carry out the productive and reproductive roles without comprising any part of their livelihood. The results are contrary to expectations for Swaziland. Approximately 12% of households in the study were widowed households whilst 0.6% were child headed households. In fact child headed households were only identified in Zimbabwe where one in every 33 households is child-headed. The presence of many widows compared to widowers which was statistically significant, may indicate that men are very susceptible to the HIV virus and are dying earlier than their spouses.Generally family sizes in the southern African countries involved in the study appear to follow expected trends as observed in literature with the average mean household size for all the countries being 6.5 members household. Botswana and Namibia have the largest family sizes with an average of approximately 8 members per household, although the data for Botswana also had a huge variance. Five of the seven countries collected enough data to calculate dependency ratios, that is, the number of dependents divided by the number that is economically active 1 . From these, all but Swaziland registered a dependency ratio above 1, which means that, on average, there is more dependency than economically active individuals. The presence of HIV/AIDS is sometimes perceived to lead to an increase in the number of orphans and thus the number of dependants in the families that act as sinks i.e. those that absorb the orphans. There is little evidence to support this logic from this study. Namibia has the largest dependency ratio of about 1.17.Generally the literacy levels in the study population were high among family heads in the communal areas. Most household heads in the studies had attained at least primary education. There are only a few household heads, approximately 2.8% of all households, who have reached the tertiary level of education whilst a considerable percentage of family heads (14%) were not formally educated. Despite the seemingly good levels of education there is rampant unemployment among family heads in the study sample. Except for Lesotho, unemployment among interviewed household heads is above 70% in all the remaining countries and it is alarmingly 100% for Zambia, Namibia and Swaziland. The lack of formal employment among family heads in most southern African countries is an indication that most of these households rely heavily on agriculture i.e. farming as a means of livelihood. And the fact mentioned above that women are the majority family heads in 5 of the 7 SADC countries in the study further complicates the issue.Most smallholder farmers in the study area own small plots. With the exception of Botswana and Swaziland where the average total field sizes are 5.5 and 3.5 hectares respectively the average field sizes for the rest of the region ranges from approximately 1 to 2.5 hectares per household. This, to some extent, constraints the farming activities of such households as there are disintegrated or no land markets that exists in most of these countries. The absence of proper land markets means that households that might be willing and able to rent land would not be able to do so. Most smallholder farmers in the study area, with an exception of those in Lesotho, fully utilized their pieces of land. Smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe, Botswana, Swaziland and South Africa cultivated at least 75% of their arable land in the 2003-2004 seasons. Lesotho's data shows that only 20% of the available hectarage is cultivated.The effect of high HIV/AIDS related deaths coupled with the effect of high unemployment among family heads in smallholder households, which are mainly headed by females, could be affecting land put under cultivation. The loss of an adult of a family triggers a shock in rural families as a result of losses of productive assets and essential family labour. Thus if households are not resilient to these shocks or find it difficult to deal with these shocks, it could affect their agricultural activities.Generally, female-headed households in the study sample, which are mainly households headed by widows, owned less arable land compared to their male counterparts and subsequently put less land under cultivation in the 2003-2004 production season (Table 8). This may indicate that the impact of HIV & AIDS is being felt in more in female-headed households compared to male-headed households. Traditional African customary laws and norms in most countries in the study that renders ownership of everything including land to the male counterpart and subsequently to his relatives upon his death could be resulting in more women being disposed of their land. There is generally less crop diversification in the study region. On average around 65% of smallholder households across the region are mostly growing maize. This is because maize is a staple food, which could also act as a cash crop when there is surplus. In addition a significant number of smallholder households in Zambia are also growing grain legumes, sweet potato and cotton. There is a considerable percentage of households in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Lesotho and Namibia that are growing small grains such as millet and rapoko. Besides maize, most households in South Africa also grow beans and different types of vegetables. Due to intensive labour demands and working capital demands, cash cropping has been rendered almost nonexistent in the region's smallholder farming sector. Only a handful of farmers in Zimbabwe are growing tobacco and paprika whilst a few farmers in Zambia are growing cotton. This reduces potential household income that they could have got from crop production.From the data, maize seed application rate is very low in Zimbabwe i.e. it is below the recommended 25kg/ha compared to Zambia which has an average maize seed rate of 36kg/ha. There was no data for Zambian smallholder farmers' use of basal or top dressing fertilizer in the production of their maize whilst farmers in Zimbabwe used a considerable amount of basal and top dressing fertilizer in maize production. Although there is no data on use by smallholder farmers in South Africa of the maize seed application rate, they indicated that they also applied top dressing to their maize crop though on average very little.HIV/AIDS is believed to be reducing farmers' ability to produce for the market in most countries in the region. From the study data, smallholder households are less involved in the marketing of both crops and livestock with the exception of those in Swaziland who marketed most of their produce in 2003-2004 production season. They also sold livestock. There is some marketing of livestock in Lesotho, Namibia and Botswana whilst in South Africa farmers did not sell livestock at all. The data collected for Swaziland seems inflated. 57.2% of households own at least one head of cattle, 11% ever sold an animal in the last year. 9% of households that ever sold a head of cattle now have none. 65.4% of households grew maize, and 44% sold the crop. Median Revenues were in the order of less that 100 Pula for Botswana, less than 100 Maluti for Lesotho, less that N$100 for Namibia, and less than Z$60,000 for Zimbabwe. This indicates that there is increased participation in the market, but more households are becoming impoverished. Households are selling the little they have to meet urgent needs.The impact of HIV/AIDS on asset ownership of rural households has been largely asserted as negative in many studies. Barnett and Rugalema, 2001, state that HIV/AIDS reduces household's ability to hold on to old and acquire new assets. In an effort to reduce the adverse impacts of HIV/AIDS, some rural households revert to the disposal of productive assets including domestic animals as a short-term mitigation strategy (Chen and Dunn, 1996). This has resulted in loss of animal products, reliable income and food reserve base in times of stress, draught power and organic fertilizers. The rate of livestock accumulation has been very low in Zimbabwe and Lesotho over the past decade due to a combination of factors i.e. poverty and environmental degradation that have reduced the capacity of livestock to grow. Smallholder farmers in Namibia and Swaziland averagely own relatively large numbers of all the identified livestock types compared to other countries in the region.HIV & AIDS threatens a given household's capacity to hold on to existing farm implements and to acquire new ones. On average every household in the study own an ox-drawn plough, except for those in South Africa. Other common types of farm implements, which are common, are the scotch cart and the wheelbarrow. On average every household in study sample, except for South Africa, owns at least one of these farm inputs. Smallholder farmers in southern Africa are having to divert their financial resources from other productive uses such as agriculture and education, to health care whilst, on the other hand time, spent on agricultural production is also being lost due to time devoted to nursing the sick. A considerable proportion of households, especially those in Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Botswana admitted to have sold either livestock or farming implements as a result of HIV & AIDS. This helps to bring out the short term but usually unsustainable coping strategies that are adopted by smallholder households in response to shocks induced by the HIV & AIDS pandemic.The data indicates a decline in monthly expenditures on food, clothing and health care in all the countries. Less income was earned from crop production as the major source of income, informal trading and casual labour. Farmers in Swaziland generally earn more and spend more than other smallholder farmers from the rest of the region. HIV & AIDS is increasing expenditures on health especially in Zimbabwe and Swaziland where over US$50 was spent on health care. Food expenditures though low, take a great proportion of household income in Zimbabwe and Swaziland. HIV & AIDS is also increasing expenditures on burials. A significant proportion of income in Swaziland households is going to funeral expenses. This takes away income investment into savings, human capital and agriculture. Investments into education are still high in Zimbabwe whilst agriculture investments are very small.The nature, magnitude and scope of the impact of HIV and AIDS is, in many ways, as devastating as the impact of drought or famine. Unfortunately because the impact of HIV and AIDS on agriculture and food security is gradual, widespread and not so easily visible or quantifiable -no publicly funded emergency-type programmes and aid have been instituted against the epidemic.1. One of the most important ways in which agricultural policy can contribute to reducing the spread and consequences of AIDS is to contribute effectively to poverty reduction. Risky sexual behaviors are, at least, partially related to limited opportunities to earn a livelihood through other means.Moreover, raising households' and communities' living standards over the long-run --through productivity-enhancing investments in agricultural technology generation and diffusion, improved crop marketing systems, basic education, infrastructure, and governance -will improve their ability to withstand the social and economic stresses caused by the disease.Agricultural policies and investments to promote productivity growth would have remained critically important regardless of whether HIV/AIDS had become a major development problem. But the onset of the epidemic makes agricultural productivity and rural income growth all the more critical, especially if poverty exacerbates the spread of the disease, as is increasingly believed.Therefore, greater focus on productivity-enhancing investments is likely to be a critical part of an effective response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and the extent to which progress is made in these areas over the next 20 years is likely to greatly influence living standards in these hardest-hit countries of eastern and southern Africa.2. Because resources are scarce, there is a gap between desired and available levels of funding and human resources for HIV prevention (e.g., vaccines, behavior change), treatment (e.g., ARV therapies), and mitigating the impacts of AIDS (e.g., social and economic programs to protect the living standards of afflicted households and hard-hit communities). Moreover, every dollar invested in AIDS prevention, treatment, and mitigation cannot be used to promote basic education, improved agricultural technology, the development of infrastructure and markets, and other long-term investments necessary to raising living standards.Therefore, governments and international organizations need solid guidance on the cost-effectiveness of alternative kinds of investments to simultaneously defeat the AIDS pandemic and the chronic poverty that characterized the region even before the onset of the disease but has been further exacerbated by it.3. While much of the AIDS-agriculture literature to date has conjectured that AIDS would have a major effect on the availability and cost of labour, it is possible that capital constraints and knowledge may become a more severe impediment on maintaining agricultural output and productivity.However, generalizations are unwarranted because of the heterogeneity of agricultural systems found in Africa. Researchers investigating the impacts of AIDS on the agricultural sectors need to carefully account for the context in which they are working, how their results may make sense within their specific context, and that their findings may not necessarily be generalized to other farming systems. Even within a particular agricultural system, there is also great heterogeneity, such that appropriate programmatic responses to AIDS may be household-specific, conditioned by the gender and household position of the deceased individual, initial vulnerability prior to the onset of illness, and a household's ability to attract new members.4. In terms of human capital, the key impacts of AIDS are on labour availability and the transfer of skills and knowledge. AIDS-affected households may have limited labour availability and there will be competing demands between caring and productive activities. Hence-responses should not place additional burdens on households' time and labour; if a new activity is involved, the returns to that activity should be greater than those to an existing activity, which could be substituted Interventions that increase labour availability will be useful, e.g. introducing labour-saving technologies, supporting production of less labour-intensive crops, but also assisting with caring and reproductive activities to free up time for other activities, and improving treatment for opportunistic infections so that less labour is lost due to illness and caring 5. AIDS can reduce financial capital through the extra healthcare costs during chronic illness, funeral costs, reduced income, and/ or increased costs from taking in orphans. Some potential responses, which must be tailored to the particular circumstances, include:Safety nets and direct welfare support, e.g. via cash transfers, food aid, agricultural input provision, support for costs of health and education Assistance with micro-credit, taking into account the particular difficulties that may be faced by AIDS-affected households in meeting repayment requirements and the considerations regarding their labour constraints Assistance with livestock multiplication or re-stocking 6. Interventions to support social capital are perhaps less obvious than those for other types of assets, and are probably also less tested. Nonetheless the following interventions could be considered: Providing support to households to repay local loans and maintaining the viability of such support systems Supporting households and communities or CBOs caring for orphans (either through direct safety nets, or by supporting community initiatives such as communal fields and vegetable gardens) Providing organizational support and capacity-building to relevant communitybased organizations Promoting greater gender equality and children's rights to reduce any cultural, social or stigma-related limitations on their participation in economic activities Promoting greater inclusion of children and child-headed households in community activities 7. Most of the interventions in support of human and financial capital will, in turn, support physical capital by reducing the need for households to sell off productive assets, or by increasing their stock of assets. Additional responses include: Direct provision of physical assets or of services for maintaining assets (e.g. veterinary services) Lobbying for changes in inheritance laws to reduce asset losses following the death of an adult male or both parents, or for greater respect for and enforcement of existing laws, which are not respected in practiceFinally, the assessment results should be the primary guide to the type of intervention or response to be carried out. It will usually not be the case that all AIDS-affected households are in need of support, and there will typically be many unaffected households who are also in need who should not be forgotten. There are a very wide variety of possible responses to the effects of AIDS on livelihoods, and a well thought out combination of interventions -particularly if they build upon possible synergies between one another and with interventions in other sectors relating to prevention, care and treatment -will be most effective.Ajay Vashee outlined SACAU's objectives as enshrined in its constitution. SACAU's main objective is to foster mutual cooperation and understanding between national farmers' organisations, agricultural leaders and the farming community in SADC with a view to strengthening the voice of agriculture. SACAU also disseminate views and information to agricultural organisations, governments and other bodies in SADC and well as internationally. SACAU endeavours to foster goodwill and understanding between member organisations and their leaders. SACAU membership is by bona fide national farmer organisations in SADC countries. The eligible farmer organisations must be representing farmers voluntarily, be autonomous, legitimately farmer controlled and independent of political parties.The current SACAU members were from Madagascar, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. SACAU has a target of having at least 10 countries in the region being members by 2006. They have recently been exploring possibilities of opening up membership to regional commodity associations. SACAU has a five-member board elected at the Annual Congress. A secretariat, based in Pretoria, was established in 2003 in response to an expanded membership. Funding for SACAU comes from annual membership fees, conference fees, donor agencies and other international partners.The main activities for SACAU have been in facilitating a trade desk; profiling farmer organisations and regional commodity associations; trade capacity building of farmer leaders; being inaugural chair of the SADC Business Forum. SACAU's 2006-2010 strategic plan seeks to strengthen its position as the leading regional farmer organisation focussing on: Capacity building support to farmer organisations in the region; Providing a platform for the collective voice of farmers on matters of common concern; Provision of policy related and other key agricultural information to farmer organisations.Vashee observed that farmer organisations are still faced with a number of challenges that included: limited capacity among national farmer organisations to represent and service the needs of their members; and very limited farmers' influence on agricultural related matters at regional and international levels. This has been as a result of farmer organisations having limited financial resources; weak governance and administration structures and limited technical knowledge to develop and implement programs. A proliferation of farmers' unions at national level leading to competition is another underlying weakness. SACAU is also constrained it its capacity to address regional and international issues.Vashee pointed that in order to be effective, SACAU needed support to improve its governance, administration and other management systems. It needed support to development of policy positions on key issues, as well as support for the research necessary in order to have informed positions. SACAU requires capacity building in policy advocacy, lobbying and negotiating skills, as well the, resources to support this process. SACAU needs strengthening in sourcing and disseminating trade and market information to its members. Further support is needed in the area of communicationboth internal and external -as well as, the use of ICT in development. SACAU also needs support to develop the financial sustainability of farmer organisations as well as their capacity to raise and manage funds in a sustainable manner.By Dr Lindiwe Sibanda, CEO-FANRPAN Dr Sibanda informed the delegates that FANRPAN is currently involved in strong drive to strengthen and revitalise its institutional capacity. This is a collaborative effort with Iowa State University through USAID's Regional Centre for Southern Africa. She observed that since inception in 2001, FANRPAN has been unable to implement effective stakeholder-driven policy programs due to lack of long-term personnel and non-systematic approaches at the national and regional secretariat levels.The strengthening process will address these shortcomings to create a stronger network that is better able to respond to the policy analysis and research needs of the SADC region. The quality of policy research undertaken will be enhanced. As part of this process and in order to service its clientele better, FANRPAN has re-located to Pretoria, South Africa. This process also envisions the involvement of FANRPAN, through the revitalised national nodes and local universities, in the harmonization of regional seed regulations and provision of a repository of knowledge for future seed policy development, so that regional seed policy can evolve over time to satisfy new and changing needs.The overall objective of this process is to transform FANRPAN into a reputable regional network, with enhanced human and institutional capacity for supporting policy formulation and implementation in the SADC region. The specific activities planned include: re-invigorating FANRPAN regional governance systems for effective peer review and strategic policy advocacy; equipping the regional secretariat with both human and financial capacity for coordinating policy research and advocating for effective policies in sustainable manner; revitalize the membership of the FANRPAN national networks for increased participation national policy dialogue; increased engagement of national institutions in quality policy research with a view of harmonizing regional policies; setting up new a national FANRPAN node in Angola; and building a sustainable funding base.According its constitution, FANRPAN should have a 10-member multi-sectoral regional board of governors composed of two permanent secretaries in FANR related ministries, two farmer representatives, two private sector representatives and two members from policy research institutions within SADC. There is a seat reserved for a donors' representative selected from donors active in the region. There is also a seat reserved for the SADC FANR directorate. However, out of these positions only four members are currently actively engaged. There is need to bring on board strong farmer and private sector representation. FANRPAN would like to bring on board agribusiness or trade body representatives. It would like to bring on board a representative for the donor community, and possibly stronger financial and legal skills into the board membership. As part of this capacity strengthening FANRPAN will also review its constitution to make it more proactive and effective. Key progress indicators in this are be: a full regional board by the end of 2006; an increase in frequency of board meeting per year; institutional arrangements formalised with all institutions represented on the board; more robust communication and information management system set up; and communication strategy developed. By the end of 2006 FANRPAN will have developed a comprehensive programme and operations monitoring and evaluation system.Due to limited funding, FANRPAN has been operating with only one technical officerthe CEO -with three support staff handling office accounts, administration and secretarial work. In this strengthening phase, FANRPAN has recruited two additional technical staff -a programmes officer and programmes assistant. The programmes officer will coordinate policy research and be responsible for communication while the program assistant will be responsible for office administration and management. The additional human resource will greatly strengthen the capacity of FANRPAN to undertake relevant strategic research and keep policy makers in the region abreast.FANRPAN was until May 2004 hosted at the SADC hub in Harare. As a result of the relocation of the SADC FANR secretariat, FANRPAN has been unable to remain at the high-rise expensive former SADC offices. Following a search in the region for alternative established host institutions, FANRPAN has been offered office premises by the International Water Management Institution (IMWI) in South Africa based in Pretoria, South Africa. As part this capacity building process, FANRPAN has already set up it new regional office at IWMI in Pretoria.The strengthening process will revitalize the membership of the FANRPAN national nodes in order to increase the participation of key stakeholders in national policy dialogue. FANRPAN is currently represented in 11 of the 13 SADC countries. According to the constitution, the network should operate through a national level inter-sectoral platform designated as a country node. The management of a country node is vested in a node management committee which should have, at least five, elected members comprising representatives from government, private sector, farming unions, policy research institutions and non-governmental organizations. The node management committee, in consultation with the regional secretariat, appoints a node coordinator who becomes the link between the national stakeholders and the regional secretariat. The role of the node management committee is to provide information on sectoral issues and support the node coordinator and stakeholders. The committee should provide oversight on the operations of the node, including supervision of budgets and work plans. The node coordinator should coordinate and facilitate policy research projects of the network taking place in-country. As the administrator of the node, the national node coordinator is responsible for all correspondence, budgets, work plans and the smooth running of the node at country level.Unfortunately these country level operational arrangements have never been fully operationalized for various reasons. Nine out of the eleven FANRPAN national nodes are coordinated by academics in a university environment. These are institutions where teaching rather than research is core-business and the setting traditionally precludes multi-stakeholder participation. While government and policy analysts have been adequately represented in FANRPAN policy processes, the private sector and farmer organizations representation in the majority of participating countries, is very weak and, in some cases, not sufficiently organized for effective engagement. In the instances where farmer organizations exist and are organized, engagement in policy processes has been minimal and has tended to represent the views of a few powerful individuals. Affiliation of the nodes to FANRPAN is too weak for effective accountability. There is very limited or no integration of FANRPAN activities within the organizations hosting the country nodes. The FANRPAN activities need to be mainstreamed into the activities of the host institutions rather than being considered as part-time marginal issues. The capacity strengthening process over the next two years will focus on reviewing the hosting arrangements if the nodes, as well as, the increased participation by other stakeholders in the activities of the node.FANRPAN would also like to increase the involvement of national level research institutions in quality policy research with a view of harmonizing regional policies. At the regional level, FANRPAN has signed MOUs with many technical partners including: IFPRI, IITA, Michigan State University, Iowa State University, US Grains Council, ICRISAT, AFRICA-Bio, and CTA who are all keen to assist in building the network's capacity through joint research partnerships, staff secondments and mentoring arrangements.These relationships have, so far, yielded little benefit at country level as there is no clearly defined entry point for engagement with country nodes. It is expected that through the planned in-country policy dialogue series, the various partners will be able to participate, assess the issues under discussion, and establish a working relationship with the node research protocols for addressing the identified issues. Under the strengthening process, FANRPAN will place emphasis on policy issues related to seed trade in the region. FANRPAN will work with IOWA State University, SADC Seed Security Programme, ICRISAT, CYMMT and other national, bilateral, regional and international partners to carry out studies on the impact of seed relief on seed trade; the impact of the seed voucher program on smallholder production; impact of trade agreements agricultural input trade with special reference to seed and fertilizer; the nature and extent of Plant Variety Protection agreements in the region; and a review of HIV and AIDS policies in the region to develop guidelines for the agricultural sector.The strengthening process will also include the setting up of a national node in Angola. The FANRPAN regional office has been approached and requested to help set up a national FANR network in Angola. The USAID RCSA's thrust under strategic objective 15 has incorporated Angola as one of five focal countries that will receive support. This presents an excellent entry point for FANRPAN. The network will seek support from partners working under Strategic Objective 15. The process of setting up a national network requires intense support because it involves sharing the vision, cultivating support and engaging of all key stakeholders. Key activities will include an inception/scoping visit, identifying host organisation, stakeholder consultation meeting organised, node committee selected and node facilitator appointed.Under the strengthening programme FANRPAN plans to establish a sustainable funding base. FANRPAN will develop and implement a comprehensive fundraising strategy. The host institution, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), will in the initial stages, provide administrative support. FANRPAN and IWMI will cost-share the receptionist and telephone services. The FANRPAN's website will be hooked up on the IWMI Internet network. A percentage-based fee will be charged for procurement services involving capital and consumable goods. Project money will be provided through Iowa State University for which an administrative fee is charged.The Look, Listen and Learn project for promoting the use CSO evidence in formulating food security policies in the SADC region was conceived through a tripartite collaborative effort of three organisations: the Southern Africa Regional Poverty Network (SARPN), the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), and the SADC Food and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN). The tripartite held a regional inaugural stakeholder consultative meeting for the project on May 25, 2005, in Johannesburg, South Africa aimed at identifying, in a participatory manner, the key on-going regional policy processes in the food security sector and assessing the level of CSO involvement and participation, as well as, the potential for deeper involvement through evidencebased policy advocacy.Strengthening the food security of poor and vulnerable people is an issue of increasing regional and international importance. The Millenium Goals Review process taking place this year (2005) will raise the profile of food security issues worldwide and thus provides a useful backdrop for this project. The Millenium Declaration adopted by world leaders in 2000 set a series of ambitious targets for contributing to a better and safer world in the 21 st Century, including a specific commitment to halving, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger (MDG-1 Target 2). In September 2005 a high-level UN summit was held to review progress towards these global anti-poverty goals. MDG-1 Target 2 was high on the agenda because it is central to improving lives and livelihoods but progress has been notably slow. The review of the MDGs is an opportunity for the development sector, especially civil society organisations (CSOs), to assess the progress made and to formulate new strategies for improved impact.Progress towards strengthening food security in the SADC region has been impeded by the humanitarian crisis, which affected the region between 2001 and 2003. Better policies for increasing food availability, strengthening effective access to food, and improving food utilisation are now recognised as a priority need in the SADC region and fundamental to the achievement of the Millennium goals. Accordingly a number of countries (e.g. Lesotho, Malawi and Mozambique) are conducting comprehensive reviews of national food and nutrition security policies, and a number of donors (for example, DFID, USAID and UN-WFP) are putting in place long-term funding to support policies and processes contributing to food security at national and regional levels.However, there is considerable evidence in the SADC region, that poor progress with strengthening food security over the last two decades has been as much the result of weaknesses in policy processes as failures in food production and utilisation technologies (e.g. negative outcomes relating to issues surrounding distribution and strategic grain reserves in Malawi; and the disastrous consequences of Zimbabwe's land reform policy implementation).A contributing factor to the weakness of policy processes has been the marginal participation of members of civil society organisations in the development and implementation of policies relating to food security. Hence strengthening the participation of CSO in policy processes in the region is an important component of the strengthening policy processes as a whole. This is largely because civil society organisations would provide hands-on and grassroots experience in strengthening policy processes because they operate in the arena between the household, the private sector and the state and can thus effectively negotiate matters of public concern.It is now clear that the likelihood for CSOs to successfully influence policy makers and policy practice is greater if their interventions are evidence based. The extent to which CSOs can be successful in representing such evidence is determined by the political context, by the nature of links between policy makers and other stakeholders, as well as by external influences that may be at play. The quality and credibility of the evidence must be the basis for the legitimacy of CSO advocacy. CSO engagement in policy processes needs to be strengthened through a SWOT analysis and strategies that will maximize the strengths and opportunities while minimizing the weaknesses and threats.Not enough is known about the context, evidence and links in policy processes for food security in southern Africa. This LLL project, which will be a collaborative effort between CSO networks working on food security in southern Africa, is aimed at developing understanding in this area, to test the impact of different approaches, and to disseminate lessons on both context and process, at national, regional and international level. The project is intended to engage with a range of development partners at national and regional level in southern Africa to: Promote the contribution of civil society organisations to the debate within southern Africa on food security policy; Promote the voice of Southern Africa civil society organisations in the international debate on food security policy; Publicise within the region and internationally the policy and practice lessons learnt; Disseminate within the region relevant evidence and policy lessons from civil society organisations elsewhere in the world.The project recognises that all three basic components of food security are important and these are: Food Availability; Food Access; Food Utilisation. The project will use action research to develop understanding around: Lessons about how CSOs use evidence to influence policy; lessons about how CSOs relate to their downstream and upstream partners; lessons about food security priorities for poor and vulnerable people in Southern Africa. Project activities for Stage 1 were mainly planning activities: Preparing and circulating draft concept paper; Inaugural project meeting; Stage 2 were regional activities -background research on the current food security policy processes at regional level; hosting one day country level consultative meetings; ongoing preparation of project alerts (policy briefs); and Stage 3 will be pilot influencing activities that will be developed at a regional meeting for the project.The three most critical outputs of the project will be: an increased and better understanding of policy processes relating to food security regionally and internationally amongst CSOs and other development partners in southern Africathrough project's collaborative action research, meetings, and project policy briefs; generalisable lessons about the role of CSOs in using evidence to contribute to propoor policy processes disseminated internationally -through Project Alerts and web alerts; and the voice of southern Africa poor people promoted in the international debate on food security policy -through selected dissemination activities by regional CSOs.According to Bartel, the role of knowledge in sustainable development is 3-fold: to provide information; to describe or predict trends; and to provide the appropriate tools for achieving development. The paradigm that drives knowledge generation is the ageold marketing paradigm of\" demand determines supply\". The knowledge begins as a set of raw data -some basic observations and trends. This data is turned into information through analysis. The information is turned into knowledge through a peer review and secondary analysis or approval system. This knowledge is then translated into actionthis could be a policy action in the case of FANRPAN.Three factors determine the demand for knowledge: timeliness, sustainability and reliability. In terms of ttimeliness, the choice of tool and level of complexity should yield information products within the decision-maker's time frame. In terms of sustainability, the choice of information system should be sustainable within the human and financial resource constraints of the operating agency. In terms of reliability -as the demand for information products is established, resources must be made available to improve and maintain reliability.People's knowledge base is directly dependent on their worldview -their paradigm of life. Technicians and policy makers often come from a positivist viewpoint. Communities often come from a traditionalist viewpoint. The selection of analytical tools should always attempt to bridge the gap between the different viewpoints.Bartel described the analytical context as consisting of 3 main knowledge processes: Assessment to identify lessons learned, characterization of these lessons or conceptualization, and then modeling for new of future scenarios. The strategic context, on the other hand, is driven by three processes: understanding the underlying theoretical framework; drawing hypotheses out of this theory and linking both the theories and hypotheses with conjecture. Most strategic programmes and activities are based on existing theory and its hypothetical derivatives. The analytical context contributes significantly to strategic planning -since a prescription can only be as good as the diagnosis. A good strategic plan will use the assessment, characterization and modeling processes of the analytical context and link these to existing theory and conjecture -to generate working hypotheses -which then become the legitimate basis on new programmes and activities.Knowledge management involves organizational adaptation through processes that combine data, information processing and the creative and innovative capacity of human beings. It as a concept, a business discipline and theory, a collection of technologies, and a philosophy. A knowledge system consists of several components: a knowledge base of domain related knowledge; a meta knowledge base; knowledge diffusion to components of the organization; the effects of knowledge diffusion in organizational component knowledge bases; a knowledge related technical infrastructure supporting retrieval, display, discovery, maintenance, communication, storage, knowledge base, integration, etc; educated, trained, personnel who can use the organization's knowledge base; and educated, trained personnel who can perform knowledge management. A knowledge system is a dynamic system. The core of any knowledge system is vision and strategy. From this a knowledge cycle evolves that includes: value(s) creation, learning and growth, business processes, and multiple stakeholder processes.Having described some concepts of knowledge and knowledge management -Bartel then went to discuss the concept of Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support Systems (SAKSS). He described SAKSS as a source of information and knowledge on rural development issues. Its objective is to provide an open platform for bringing objective research, analysis, and information to bear on the planning, monitoring, and evaluation of rural development strategies. SAKSS is a conceptual framework that seeks to organize information and evaluate investment and policy options for generating rapid and sustained increases in the productivity and commercialization of the rural economy -especially for smallholder agriculture. The core of this framework builds on economic and geographical data and analysis to guide the setting of investment and policy priorities at local levels, and on monitoring and evaluation to improve decisions and strategy formulation over time.SAKSS is a knowledge management system that integrates and builds upon existing data and information, analytical tools, accumulated knowledge, and existing national and international analytical capacity. SAKSS invests in new knowledge using the technical capabilities of modern information and communication technologies, geographical information systems, and knowledge management systems. SAKSS is implemented as a network of institutions and individuals who supply and use data and information. As an information tool it contributes to building and strengthening local capacity for policy analysis, monitoring and evaluation, and strategy formulation. SAKSS in an international public good for managing shared knowledge, data, and analytical tools in support of decision-making and implementing action plans for agricultural growth. SAKSS can be implemented both at country and regional level. At country level SAKSS addresses a full range of strategic issues related to rural-based economic activities and national food security. A country SAKSS includes information and analysis that help identify investment priorities for growth by examining the effects of macro-level policies and sector wide investments on rural economies and the options for increasing the productivity and commercialization of smallholder agriculture. Through spatial analysis SAKSS can integrate other important aspects of rural development such as the potential for growth in non-farm economic activities, the quality of rural health care and sanitation, access to education, and the extent of environmental degradation. At the national level country SAKSS are being piloted in Ethiopia, Ghana and Uganda.At regional level SAKSS informs decision-makers about the region-wide benefits or losses stemming from strategies, investments, and policy reforms implemented within and between countries. A regional SAKSS enables analysis of development alternatives that aim at generating growth spillovers through shared public-good investments in R&D and infrastructure, through greater economic integration and harmonization. In cooperation with NEPAD and the regional economic organizations, SAKSS regional networks are being launched in East, West and Southern Africa. This effort is being led by 4 CGIAR centers -ILRI, IITA, ICRISAT, and IWMI. SAKSS-Southern Africa will promote broader analysis of agricultural investment opportunities for enhancing rural incomes and growth. It will promote broader analysis of the impacts of agricultural programs on the alleviation of poverty and food insecurity. It will build capacity in the region for carrying out such analyses through a \"community of practice\". SAKSS will be a network of networks involved in sharing data, and synchronized research agendas and activities. SAKSS-SA will be involved in economywide analysis, review of best practices, monitoring trends and assessing impacts, as well as monitoring and evaluation of regional level policy processes. SAKSS-SA will establish a website for that will enable stakeholders to access data and documents, a workspace for discussion and dialogue, a calendar of events and contacts and links to key partners and websites. The website will also host a minimum central databasepopulated through searching partner databases. It will also host statistics for various economic and development indicators. It will also have statistical maps.The SAKSS-SA is being implemented by FANRPAN, IWMI and ICRISAT. Progress made so far includes: An inventory of poverty assessments relating to agriculture and natural resources investment southern Africa is in process; an inventory of spatial data sets and associated analytical capabilities that can be used for such poverty assessments is in process; an assessment of why policy analysis is not having is not having more impact on key decision makers (public & more impact on key decision makers) is in process; facilitated meetings to create a \"community of practice\" (an effective network of practitioners); in the process of establishing the SAKSS technical node with basic analytical and training capacities i.e. (with capability of completing initial spatial analysis of poverty/hunger trends.)In year 2, SAKSS-SA will Support poverty/ hunger analyses linked with policy dialogues in at least 2 countries; conduct three regional training workshops on techniques for analyzing the level and determinants of poverty/ hunger; and carry out knowledge sharing and dissemination. The expected outputs by the end of the second year include: a functioning network of partners, a functioning and growing knowledge base, common meta data and data standards in the network partners, increased analytical capacity among partners, emerging engagement patterns of decision-makers in the use of thirdparty analytical products. Starting in January 2004, the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) and Michigan State University (MSU) initiated a joint research and policy outreach activity on regional maize marketing and trade in the Southern Africa region. The objectives of this activity were to work closely with Ministries of Agriculture in the region to identify policy options for promoting small farmer welfare and national food security through improved maize marketing and trade in the region. Focus countries during this initial phase of policy analysis and outreach are Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zambia. An interim regional workshop was held in Pretoria South Africa on June 21-22, 2005 involving government officials, private sector stakeholders, and policy analysts from the region. In light of the emerging food crisis associated with another poor maize harvest in most of the region, three policy issues were identified as having a critical influence on the region's ability to address its food security challenges: 1) The need for greater investments in basic publicly-provided goods to support small farmers' agricultural productivity and access to markets; 2) The need for policies that would ensure better coordination between the large-scale \"formal\" and small-scale \"informal\" marketing channels in meeting the market access and food security needs of small producers and consumers; and 3) The need to promote clarity and transparency in governments' involvement in the distribution, storage, and trade of maize, so as to reduce the uncertainty facing private traders who might otherwise be able to at least partially redress imbalances in countries' production and consumption requirements through regional trade This policy synthesis describes the emerging food situation in the region for the 2005/06 season. It describes the on-going policy processes occurring in selected countries of the region (building upon the discussions at the Pretoria regional workshop) and major policy challenges to enable the region to effectively respond to the food situation during the 2005/06 season.Entering the 2005/06 marketing year, revised assessments indicate that all countries in Southern Africa, except South Africa, have cereal deficits ranging from 100,000 tonnes in Zambia to 1.62 million tonnes in Zimbabwe (SADC, 2005). Roughly 9.71 million people in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe are estimated to be in need of food assistance before the 2006 harvest, requiring roughly 730,000 metric tones of food aid (SADC, 2005). This season is an illustration of the apparently ever more frequent and severe food crises affecting the region. Governments in the region increasingly recognize the importance of harmonizing regional food trade policies and investments to respond better to transitory food crises and promote small farmer income growth and food security over the longer run. Most analyses now find support for the position that regional trade is becoming an important component of national food security for many countries in the region. However, the objective of maize \"trade without borders\" has been difficult to achieve, and recently a number of countries have taken steps to inhibit private maize trade through export bans, import tariffs, and state monopolies on trade.In recognition of this problem, FANRPAN convened its conference in Pretoria, South Africa on June 21-22, 2005 to explore options for addressing these issues. A number of follow-up processes have been initiated at country level, involving the Ministries of Agriculture and Finance in Mozambique and Zambia, the Zambia National Farmers Union, the Agricultural Consultative Forum in Zambia, FANRPAN, and other stakeholders. As an outgrowth of these policy processes, decisions have been made in both countries that will promote smallholder and consumer welfare. Two decisions stand out in Zambia: 1) First, local government taxes on maize movement across district boundaries were reduced substantially and harmonized to a uniform level (now less than $0.05 per bag of maize traded) in June 2005. The Zambian National Farmers Union and local policy analysts in the Ministry of Agriculture played an instrumental role in demonstrating the problems that the taxes imposed on small farmers, consumers, and traders. 2) Second, the Zambian government abolished the import duty on maize from non-COMESA countries in September 2005. Since the only country in the region with substantial maize surpluses is South Africa, which is not a COMESA member country, the import duty would have put upward pressure on Zambian prices.The elimination of the maize import duty is likely to have two major benefits. First, it provides a clearer signal to the private sector to import maize. Prior to the announcement, uncertainty over if and when the import tax would be lifted was causing private importers to wait, in possible anticipation of the tax's removal; the resulting uncertainty was raising the likelihood that imports to fill Zambia's maize deficit would arrive too late to avoid price spikes in local markets. Indeed, maize prices have increased dramatically in recent months. A second benefit of the elimination of the import tax is that it should significantly improve the country's ability to respond to the food crisis by allowing maize grain to be available commercially in Lusaka at roughly $242-263 per tonne, as opposed to $277-300 per tonne with the 15% import duty. While this will be a major help, it is clearly not a sufficient condition for meeting the current challenges.In Mozambique, policy makers recently exempted domestically-produced maize grain from the 17% value added tax (VAT) when it is sold to the domestic processing industry, and also simplified licensing and border procedures for food imports. The full implications of the VAT change are not yet clear, because large millers source the vast majority of their grain from South Africa for reasons beyond price, especially due to issues of quality and reliability of supply. Yet this exemption is clearly one important step in allowing domestic grain to compete with imported grain in supplying the growing domestic milling industry. Because it is technically illegal to charge VAT on imported grain if it is not charged on domestic grain, some traders have now petitioned the government for removal of VAT on imported grain, even if it is meant to be sold as grain into wholesale and retail markets. This final change, if it were to occur, could have positive effects on consumers by improving supply and reducing prices of grain during the hungry season (Tschirley et al, 2005). Other than the VAT, Mozambique has maintained its open borders policy on maize trade, which has been shown to have positive effects on both farmers and consumers. Continuing to simplify licensing and border procedures, especially for small traders, is important to fully realize the benefits of this open trade policy.The main policy challenges that the region must address include:1.Raising the Productivity of the Small Farm Even in a reasonably good rainfall season, at least 50 percent of small farm households in the region are buyers of maize or maize meal, and this percentage is higher in a bad year. The major long-run challenge is to raise the productivity of the smallholder so that rural households will be able either to grow enough food or purchase it through markets, rather than depending on food aid. Small farm productivity growth will require greater public investment in crop science (especially for semi-arid farming conditions characterizing most of the region), extension systems, physical infrastructure, health care, education, communications, and farm finance. This is a tall order in the face of highly constrained national budgets. Greater donor funding will be critical, but is not likely to emerge unless local governments re-allocate a greater portion of their own budgets to these investments. Raising governments' commitment to invest in African agriculture is already an important priority on NEPAD's agenda. Productivity growth in the smallholder sector is a very critical component of a more food secure Southern Africa region.The current food crisis in Southern Africa has led to an urgent call for food aid. But even during periods of national food shortfalls, most rural and urban poor rely more on markets than on emergency distribution to secure their residual food needs. Welldesigned targeted food assistance programs will be crucial to maintaining food security during the upcoming 6-8 months. Yet the cost and logistical difficulties of such programs can become prohibitive if markets do not move food efficiently to consumers with effective demand. Thus a comprehensive food security strategy in southern Africa requires that maize grain and meal, and other food staples such as cassava or rice, are accessible at affordable prices through the market.The future of the small-scale farming sector's ability to prosper from maize production and marketing will depend on strengthening the performance of the marketing system serving small-scale farmers, and on integrating the informal marketing system with the more developed \"formal\" marketing channels. Informal marketing and small-scale maize milling sectors play important roles in the region. Informal marketing channels in most of Southern Africa provide large shares of the maize meal consumed in rural and urban areas during the post-harvest months when supplies from domestic production are available. These informal channels rely mainly on small-scale, and relatively low-cost hammer mills (and in some areas, hand pounding) to grind maize into maize meal. As long as grain is available in local markets, a large proportion of urban consumers (and rural maize-buying farm households) buy grain from local vendors and pay a fee to mill the grain into meal (mugayiwa) at a local small mill.Mugaiwa is usually considerably cheaper than the refined packaged maize meals because of lower milling costs and fewer services (e.g., no packaging). Mugaiwa also has a higher nutritional content than refined packaged meal. Urban consumer surveys in Zambia and Mozambique show that most of the urban poor rely primarily on informal traders and small millers for their maize meal (Mwiinga et al., 2003;Nijhoff et al, 2003; Tschirley et all, 2005). Mwiinga et al (2003) found than consumers eating mugaiwa could reduce their expenditures on maize by 20% in urban Zambia compared to those purchasing the same amount of packaged roller or breakfast meal. However, during years of local production shortfalls, grain supplies in local markets dwindle later in the season, making it difficult for consumers to source grain for mugaiwa. Industrial mills linked to the formal marketing systems have traditionally been able to import maize, or to ensure preferential access to government-imported maize, resulting in a temporary increase in market share for industrial mealie meal.In Zambia, this occurred in 2001/02, following the importation of some 150,000 MT of maize facilitated by Government, channeled exclusively to industrial mills. Some of these mills, and the supermarkets that carry their meal, are affiliated with the large grain milling and retailing firms in South Africa and the United States. Low-income consumers were forced to pay a higher price for maize meal than would have been the case if imported grain were released onto local informal markets through small traders. These unnecessary price rises could especially jeopardize poor urban and rural consumers' food security. Avoiding this scenario in 2005/06 will require at least two steps: a) First, licensing and border procedures need to be simplified to encourage participation by small traders in regional trade; these traders are the most likely to sell grain in local markets and thus will have the biggest impact on the affordability of maize for poor consumers. b) Second, if governments choose to arrange imports themselves, they need to release significant shares of these imports onto public markets rather than channeling them exclusively to large commercial millers. Such a step will enable consumers to continue accessing less expensive mugaiwa if they so choose, thus reducing their staple food bill and improving their food security.In countries where government involvement in the staple food market is seen as part of a transitional phase towards full market liberalization (e.g. Zambia and Malawi), predictable and transparent rules governing state involvement would reduce the risks facing private traders, would facilitate greater coordination between private and public decisions, and would thus result in more stable and predictable staple food prices. Government interventions need to be consistent with the resources that are available. Overstating government import intentions has in the past led the private sector to conclude that it had no role to play in importation, which contributed to price rises above import parity levels in Malawi in 2001/02 and Zambia in 1999/00 (Rubey, 2004;Nijhoff et al, 2003).The Malawi government in late 2001 imported maize from South Africa to distribute at prices well below market levels, to protect poor rural consumers. However, the government imports arrived late and were not sufficient to meet demand. As a result, ADMARC depots began to experience stock-outs, and prices soared. Yet the private trade had not imported because they expected to be unable to compete against the low ADMARC official maize selling price. When it became clear that ADMARC's supplies were insufficient to last the full season, private traders scrambled to import, but for several months much of rural Malawi experienced grain shortages and prices as high as $450 per ton (Rubey, 2004;Tschirley et al, 2004).The lesson from this experience is that well-intentioned but poorly implemented government actions can exacerbate food price instability rather than reduce it. This interaction between subsidized government intervention in the market, or the threat of it, leading to private sector inaction, is one of the greatest problems plaguing the current policy environment of liberalized marketing systems. Given current prices in South Africa, it would be possible for a private trader to import maize into Zambia at roughly $245-260 (without an import tariff). In principle, a trader might make arrangements to import once local prices near these levels. However, if there is any risk that a government agency might import and sell the grain below full cost (e.g., at $170 per ton to local millers), private traders are unlikely to risk their capital to import, because their landed cost of $225 or $245 could not compete against the supplier selling at $170. In this way, the uncertainty regarding future government actions can impede the private sector from undertaking socially important tasks that it could do quite easily if government policy were more predictable.Formal trade regulations, even when they do not explicitly impede trade, can make it difficult for small traders to participate in regional trade. Yet when regulations are minimal, such trade can move very large volumes of grain very quickly, and can have major impacts on markets, as illustrated by the regular maize trade between northern Mozambique and Malawi. Some countries have simplified trade regimes for small traders, but these often accommodate only the very smallest traders who, due to their small size, face very high unit costs of importing. Revising these simplified trade regimes for small traders and expanding them to accommodate more and somewhat larger traders could have a measurable effect on the availability of grain in markets, because these traders are the most likely to sell their grain into the informal marketing system where it will be available at low cost to consumers.In considering how markets can be used as one of the tools of relief, the following are important considerations: a) The bulk of food moved in normal, as well as, in a crisis year in most countries is moved by the private sector. b) The fundamental challenge is to conceive and operate emergency food and income assistance programs for crisis years that are effective, but that also strengthen the role and reduce costs for the way private markets functions in both normal and crisis years. c) The hunger problem includes both emergency relief needs and problems of chronic malnutrition. The latter may kill many more children every year than the large, visible crises, but the chronic problems receive less media attention. A key challenge is to devise ways to deal with the shorter-term crises that also contribute to alleviating chronic malnutrition. This cannot be done without incorporating the private sector as a key part of the strategy, because a well-functioning, low-cost food marketing system is essential for an economically sustainable assault on chronic food insecurity.A market-friendly strategy to deal with a food crisis would include the following elements:1. Actions to reduce uncertainty and facilitate private-sector in-country arbitrage, as well as regional and international imports; 2. Making information widely available to all actors (including the private sector and farmers, who control most of the inventories in the system) on the nature of the problem, current market conditions, and production and import outlook. Here is where prior investments in market information systems and early warning systems have high payoffs; 3. Clear statements by government of its willingness to work in partnership with the private sector to facilitate private-sector imports and trade flows internally within the country (e.g. removal of trade barriers, facilitation of import procedures, tax exonerations, etc). This must be done in a way that ensures competition within the private sector rather than dealing with just a few large importers, who could monopolize the situation. 4. This approach does not imply that the government will be impassive. The government may engage in subsidized sales or limited free distributions of food in some markets, but needs to be transparent about the conditions under which these actions will be taken and to the extent possible, identification of where they will take place (intentions about where, when, and how much food aid government intends to distribute, then updates on actual progress and changes to the plans. The big problem is to avoid swamping the whole system with relief flows that are uncoordinated with what the private sector is doing, creating great uncertainty for the private sector and undermining its incentives to invest in longer-term food system development.analysis that is widely \"extended,\" may be as important as any research that is done. A major part of the \"comfort level\" among public decision makers about the role that the private sectors plays comes about because groups like the market information systems in Mozambique are steady partners of the private sector in bringing transparent information and analysis to the public policy debate.In conclusion, emergency food operations should follow a three-step process: I. Start by focusing on markets --food agencies and government should determine what markets are capable of supplying in terms of the volume of additional grain they can bring to the country through commercial imports (both formal and informal), geographical areas they can cover, and proportions of the population in these areas that will have sufficient purchasing power, at expected price levels, to ensure a minimally adequate diet. II. Facilitate market response -governments and emergency planners should then take concrete measures to facilitate the envisaged market response. Food markets in developing countries suffer from high unit costs for domestic marketing, constrained access to foreign exchange and credit to finance food imports, and frequent policy constraints that further limit import response. Combined, these factors can, in the short-run during a crisis, lead to skyrocketing food prices. This is especially true when the crisis affects an entire region rather than a country, as in a widespread drought in Southern Africa. Yet governments can, with selected assistance from donors, put in place temporary and longer-term measures, which may dramatically increase the ability of markets to respond to these crises. Eliminating policy barriers to trade and ensuring more transparent statements and actions by government regarding food imports should always be the first step. Mozambique has shown that this open and clear policy stance greatly facilitates trade's contribution to stable prices and food security. Additional balance of payments support from donors or a foreign exchange credit facility for use in importing food staples may be called for if import needs threaten macroeconomic stability. Additional measures could include direct cash transfers to affected households where markets could work but purchasing power may be limited, cash for work if done early enough that households' health is not already compromised, and even temporary transport subsidies on specific routes. Direct cash transfers and cash for work projects should be well publicized, including timing, location, and total cash to be disbursed, to ensure that traders realize ahead of time that there will be increased purchasing power in the area.III. Turn to food aid -finally, planners should turn to food aid if markets and marketfacilitating measures are expected to be insufficient to meet immediate food needs and protect vulnerable households from excessive indebtedness or asset depletion. These food aid programs should be designed to cover only those geographical areas and populations that markets are not expected to cover. Vulnerability assessments to assist in targeting, as was done in Southern Africa in 2002/03, should be an important part of this response. In addition, because even the best designed emergency programs can have important effects on markets, governments and relief agencies need aggressively to make information about the food aid program widely and publicly available. If traders fear that food aid quantities will be too large or poorly targeted, they will reduce the amount of food they import, further increasing the burden on the food aid program.Security in Central and Southern Mozambique: By Danilo Abdula, David Tschirley, and Michael Weber Mozambique's food production and marketing system faces a huge set of challenges over the next decade, driven by population and income growth, and by a rapidly rising urban share of population. These challenges are examined through the lens of the country's primary staple, maize, focusing primarily on the Center and Southern regions of the country.Mozambique's urban population share is estimated to be above 35%. Rural population growth rates were slightly negative between 2000 and 2005, compared to over 5% annual urban growth rates. These growth rates will lead to an urban population share of 48% by 2015. Even if economic growth slows from recent rates, total urban demand for maize grain is likely to double over the next decade while the number of farmers may actually decrease. The country will also need to continue feeding a large number of rural net buyers. The rise in urban demand represents a huge growth opportunity for Mozambican farmers. Yet the growth in demand could easily be satisfied by imports from South Africa if productivity in production and marketing in Mozambique does not improve.Less than five percent of maize producers account for over 50% of production and over 70% of sales. Unit marketing costs are very high, quality is poor, and it is difficult to provide reliable supplies to large buyers, especially in the South. As a result, the largest millers in the country, located in Maputo, rely almost exclusively on maize grain imported from South Africa. Medium-scale millers in the Center and in the South outside of Maputo rely primarily on local production, but hold very small market shares. Penetrating the growing industrial maize milling market will require major public and private investment in supply chain development.About 70% of rural households in the Center and South are net buyers of maize; total rural demand for maize rivals that in urban areas. Especially in the deficit South, this means that maize grain availability and prices during the hungry season can have major impacts on household real incomes.Maize meal prices are extremely high in Mozambique. The leading brand cost about US$800/mt in early 2005, while the cheapest was about US$440. Maize grain at retail was about US$280/mt during the same period in Maputo. These prices compare to a range of US$270-US$330 for comparable meals in Zambia, and grain prices of US$190. This very wide differential between grain and meal prices in Mozambique may be related to the structure of the industry: the two largest millers hold nearly a 100% market share in Maputo and also sell into major cities and rural areas throughout the country. At least three new millers have come into the market in recent years, but they have much lower milling capacity. At least in the South, they have a very small market share and do not appear to have had any effect on prices charged by the leading millers.Breakfast meal:rice price ratios range from 1.6 to 2.9 in Maputo compared to 0.61 to 0.75 in Lusaka. The relative affordability of rice means that its budget shares are relatively high. Maize shares in total food expenditure in urban Maputo province are 2.4%, compared to 7.4% for rice and 15.5% for wheat. The maize share rises outside of Maputo, to 14.5% in other southern provinces and 40% in the Center.Despite very high maize meal prices, only about one-third of maize consumers in Maputo rely primarily on maize grain for their maize supplies; about two-thirds primarily purchase refined maize meal. In cities outside of Maputo, about 70% of consumers rely primarily on maize grain. This is attributable to the surprisingly low share in Maputo relying on maize grain to the low price and widespread availability of rice, the resulting very low budget share of maize, especially for higher income consumers, and the buying habits of low income consumers, who tend to buy very small quantities at a time, making hammer milling infeasible and hand pounding less desirable.The urban hammer-milling sector boomed in the early 1990s, fed by market reform and large amounts of yellow maize food aid in the market. With the sharp reduction in food aid after 1993 and the rise of the maize mill CIM starting in 1997, the hammer-milling sector began to decline in the urban South. By 2003, it was difficult to find hammer mills in the city, and those operating mostly indicated that their main clients were small manufacturers of alcohol, not consumers or retailers of whole meal. Though about a third of consumers in Maputo, and 70% in other southern cities, rely primarily on grain for their maize supplies, nearly all of them process the grain at home, reflecting longstanding practice in this area of the country. Beira, and the Center in general, has maintained a much more active hammer-milling sector. Of 18 such mills interviewed in Beira in 2003, all indicated that their main clients were either retailers of mugaiwa or consumers; 70% of interviewed consumers in that city relied primarily on grain for their maize supplies, and 90% of these reported using hammer mills either wholly or partially to process the grain.Mozambique's 17% VAT is applied to imported maize but not rice or wheat. Maize meal is exempt but maize grain is not, meaning that grain imported for sale as grain must pay the VAT, while grain imported for meal receives a reimbursement. Thus, principle, the application of the VAT favors rice and wheat over maize, favors the availability of maize meal over maize grain at retail, and favors large industrial millers over smaller traders and hammer millers. In practice, however, imports of grain for sale as grain have not occurred despite several prolonged periods where such imports would have been profitable. We attribute the absence of imports by informal traders to complexities in import procedures and to the high degree of formality and large scale of the South African maize marketing system. Our explanation for the lack of imports by larger scale formal traders is essentially that consumers in Maputo have access to a low cost option in rice, that they spend very little on maize, and that most of them are therefore willing to pay the high premium for refined meals on the small quantities that they buy. While based on known facts about relative staple prices, staple budget shares, and buying habits of low income consumers, this explanation is partial and amounts to a researchable hypothesis.Government could take several steps to improve competition in the maize milling sector. All involve reducing the cost of supplying maize grain to Maputo so that more consumers can choose to purchase grain rather than meal, and either hand pound it or mill it in hammer mills. To reduce the cost of maize supplies from domestic production, government should collaborate with private sector in a maize supply chain development program. Key elements in this program would include:1. More active marketing information focused on farmers in the Center (and promising areas of the South) and the traders that supply the South from the Center. Making marketing information available through cell phones, possibly on a subscription basis, should especially be investigated; 2. Training for these traders in basic accounting and post harvest handling techniques; 3. Promoting more efficient rural assembly of grain through recognized market days, improved physical infrastructure in assembly points, and improved transport availability linked to these assembly points; 4. Improved marketing infrastructure in public terminal markets of Maputo, Beira, and perhaps other key cities of the South and Center. Improved storage and sales point infrastructure would be especially useful. 5. Financing of the program would need to involve public, private, and donor funds. Maize imports for the South will be a crucial complement to domestic production for the foreseeable future. At least two steps could be taken by government to facilitate efficient trade in maize. 1) First, government might consider converting the value limit in the simplified regulatory procedures for small-scale maize imports to a volume limit, and increasing this limit to perhaps 10 metric tons per month. This change would substantially expand the number of informal traders who could take advantage of these provisions, and would reduce their unit costs. 2) Second, government could consider phasing out the VAT on maize grain. Because all imports currently are for processing into grain, resulting in eventual reimbursement of VAT, the tax generates no permanent income for the state. Furthermore, although the VAT alone has not acted as a binding constraint on maize imports for sale as grain, it could become a constraint if the reforms in import procedures suggested above are instituted. Finally, if the above two measures are taken, government and donors could consider special programs to facilitate rehabilitation of the hammer milling sector in the South, which has steeply declined over the past decade. What was done? Early warning systems really were early -they sounded the alarm early, made regular updates, communicated clearly, and mobilized international and national (regional) communities. In other words -Early warning worked! By year end, about half the estimated gap was filled by registered inflows. Three-quarters of these were from official trade, not food aid. All countries in the region had timely information. They could have designed the \"right\" policies and measures. South Africa was very transparent in information and kept doors open. Mozambique kept its borders open. Zambia did a bit better than in 2001/02. Donor and trade response was sufficient to avoid \"humanitarian crisis and potential famine\". 77% of the food aid appeal had been \"committed\" by international community. Trade inflows were 3 times greater than food aid inflows Food aid needs were almost certainly overestimated. Vulnerability Assessment data was collected, but use was very uneven and the data was not broadly available. The Malawian Government underestimated private sector's role and Ignored informal imports, which arrived early. The Malawian government handled commercial imports and mobilized food aid, which arrived late. As much as 250,000 MT arrived under government programs. There was too much maize in the country and extremely low prices throughout 2003/04. The government was unable to sell the very large stocks except at very low prices.What was done right? The early warning systems worked right. There was transparency in information by some countries i.e. good investment in public management information systems. The private sector played an important role. As a whole -a humanitarian crisis was avoided.What What needs to be done? The fact that commercial imports in the 2002/03 crisis accounted for 75% of official inflows and food aid only 25% means that there is plenty of scope for trade even in poor years. Governments need to send clear and consistent signals to their private sector. Accurate, timely, and accessible information available from SAFEX and SAGIS in the Republic of South Africa is a positive force for transparent markets. Mozambique should maintain their policy on open borders. Governments should reduce uncertainty for private sector through clear statements.There is in need to continue refining the country food balance sheets. Better estimates of tuber production and better estimates of informal trade are needed. There is need to strengthen VAC system to better understand the real household needs because more than often vulnerable households need more than food. There is in need to experiment with non-food aid interventions.The main study objectives were to understand the trends in consumer demand for maize, understand the impact of small-scale millers on household disposable income and to understand the maize market barriers.In conclusion, there is evidence of growing consumer demand for straight run meal at discount prices. There are cost-savings available through informal markets -but an information gap exists.There is need to close this information gap -especially for the existing roller millers. There is also need to cad dumping practices.There is need to re-evaluate the impact of the food fortification initiative.Addressing the impact of Bio-safety systems and Regional Policies on Food Security and in the SADC Region: By Marnus Gouse, University of Pretoria Developing countries in general and in particular the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries, are at crossroads as to whether or not to embrace agricultural biotechnology related applications and products such as genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The African continent faces various challenges, including declining agricultural productivity as well as increasing food insecurity and it has been argued that GMOs might be able to address some of these challenges through a reduction in the need for insecticides and labour, lower environmental pollution, reduced human exposure to chemicals, increase in insect-control efficiency and increased farm level incomes. Conversely, concerns have been raised about the potential ethical, environmental and food safety threats that GMOs may pose.The pace at which SADC countries are engaging in biotechnology is a cautious and precautionary one. This is partly caused by the lag in their own internal policy and regulatory capacities to manage GMOs and fear of encountering difficulties in selling crops on some of the international markets and losing vital foreign currency. On the other hand, the cost of not adopting GMOs might be very high for the SADC countries.There is a likelihood of losing significant income gains through better technology and a danger of not being able to utilise emergency food aid from organisations such as the World Food Programme (WFP). Failure by the SADC countries to engage in agricultural biotechnology is likely to increase the technology divide in the region. The cost of establishing and implementing precautionary policies and biosafety infrastructure to assess risks that might be posed by GM crops and managing movement of GM materials across international borders are other major challenges for SADC countries.The configuration of countries into sub-regional initiatives, in this case SADC, complicates matters towards a common regional policy on biotechnology and GMOs in particular.While each country strives to establish the policy and regulatory frameworks on bio-safety and biotechnology, few have the capacity to fully enforce them. This makes the need for a common regulatory approach and policy position in the SADC region plausible through setting acceptable standards that could be approved across countries.The main objective of FANRPAN regional bio-safety research project is to document a balanced review of the technical information needed to inform SADC's regional biosafety policy choices responsibly. The initiative is designed to generate, for the SADC countries, new information about the possible economic and social costs and benefits of attempting to remain a \"GM-free\" region. This project will be undertaken in three SADC countries i.e. Malawi, Mauritius and South Africa. The three selected countries have active national FANRPAN networks, very strong national biotechnology institutions and have developed functional bio-safety policies and legislation.The specific objectives of the project include: undertaking a stakeholder analysis in the selected SADC countries highlighting opportunities, challenges, views and positions related to their engagements in trade, GMOs and food security; analysing possible impacts of GM crops on farm income and food security; analysing possible commercial risks of loosing regional and international export markets if GM crops were to be released for commercial production; estimating the impact of precautionary GMO principle on access to emergency food aid and food security in the SADC region; and identifying a range of regional biosafety policy options for decision-making on issues of GMOs and trade in SADC countries. This project is a collaborative effort between FANRPAN and the IFPRI-led Program for Biosafety Systems (PBS). It is financially supported by the USAID. PBS's main purpose in Southern Africa is to support the USAID's Initiative to End Hunger in Africa (IEHA) goal of product development to increase agricultural and to reduce barriers in the trade of agricultural GM commodities.FANRPAN will undertake research through its national nodes in the three focal countries represented by the University of Pretoria, University of Mauritius and Bunda College in Malawi. The technical partners include AfricaBio in South Africa, BioEroc in Malawi, and the Mauritius Sugar Industry Research Institute (MSIRI). The three technical partners are already involved in the ongoing PBS activities in Southern Africa, supported by USAID Southern Africa Regional Office.Malawi government position is that whatever developments occur in the scientific and technological fields elsewhere will affect Malawi and that the country cannot afford to remain behind the GM revolution. However, there is still need to build capacity to manage and regulate the use of biotechnology. Against this background, a comprehensive biotechnology policy is being prepared.According to NASFAM, genetically modified crops would improve yields and resistance to pests and diseases & drought. In contrast to NASFAM, the Farmers' Union of Malawi (FMU) has not taken any position of GM due to varying opinions of its membership. One reason why FMU does not have a stand is that GM crops are not a priority since farmers have as yet to realise and maximize the potential of already existing technologies. FMU is also cautious of the cost implications of GM technology and their approach is to advocate technologies that are neither inferior nor too advanced.While the legislators appear to appreciate the likely contribution of GMOs to food security, they are not well informed of the likely health effects of consuming GM food. The fear of negative effects also extends to traded commodities especially tobacco. Legislators have placed the onus on the scientific community to create public awareness of the effects of GMOs and also to propose strategies of how the country could overcome this dilemma.The stand of importers and exporters on GM crops is that Malawi should identify a specific zone to commercially exploit this type of technology on pilot basis to avoid contaminating non-GM crops. Further, they recommend investment in capacity development to effectively manage and regulate the technology. If capacity is not developed, the country is likely to import expensive technology which smallholder farmers may not be able to afford.Input suppliers consider GM technology unnecessary considering that smallholder farmers have not even reached half the productivity threshold of conventional technologies. The argument that genetic transformation would confer disease and insect pest resistance and that farmers would reduce cost of production was challenged on the basis that Malawian farmers do not apply any agro-chemicals due to capital constraint. Another observation made is that GM technology would lead to contamination of the gene pool due to cross-pollination between GMO and non-GMO fields. Citing South Africa, Input Suppliers were quick to observe that fields growing GMO crops are isolated from those growing conventional crops.The position CSOs is that Malawi should not accept GMO. Although FMU has not taken a stand on GM technology, it is a member of Participatory, Ecological, and Land Use Management (PELUM) that is totally against introduction of GMOs. PELUM has over 160 civil society organizationsincluding Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Lesotho, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. PELUM is calling upon all governments to put in place a moratorium on GMOs until they are proven safe.The Consumer Association of Malawi (CAMA) is totally against introduction of GMOs Malawi. One of the reasons against GMOs is that GM pollen could blow onto the fields of non-GM crops leading to contamination. Further, CAMA rationalise its position with the argument that some consumers are concerned with food safety, toxins and nutritional changes, allergies, antibiotic resistance, environmental changes that GMOs may bring.Research scientists do not appear to have a uniform stand on GM technology. The position taken by one group of scientists is that Malawians have been using GM products for a long time in form of pharmaceuticals such as insulin. However, most users are not aware of the origins of these products. In contrast, another group of scientists proposes a precautionary introduction to genetic modification in agriculture, food and feed. This position hinges around safety, concerns about human and animal health, and the environment. Other issue s influencing this stance include intellectual property rights and social concerns.Methodology used for the stakeholder analysis was a questionnaire and administered interviews to 34 representatives from: Academia (5), Regulatory bodies ( 6), Research and development organisations (5), Professional organisations (4), Civil society and consumer organisations (2), Laboratories and standard setting organisations (2), Interested stakeholders (2), Input suppliers and private sector (4), and others (2).Opinion on and impact of GM crops: 35.3% -no opinion; 44.1% -GM has a positive impact; 20.6% -GM has a negative impact. The study showed that those with an optimistic view of the impact of GM crops had a biological scientific background. Those belonging to civil society and consumers organizations were more pessimistic. Ranking of possible benefits, in order of importance, were firstly increased yields; herbicide resistance; disease resistance; increase profits for farmers; cheaper foods for consumers; reduced costs of production; improved nutritional quality; and lastly improved product quality.Knowledge about the technology -stakeholders had good knowledge. 90% of stakeholders claimed that consumers have poor awareness. No formal studies on GM foods have been carried out on awareness and acceptance of Mauritian consumers. Concerns about genetic modification: there were 4 main categories of concerns: Food safety; Environment; socio-economic; and Ethical. Public perception and willingness to buy GM products -the public in general lacked information about agricultural GM. Those that were aware are either reticent or afraid of side effects of GM foods. 38.2% stakeholders are willing to buy GM food if of same price as conventional food. 44.1 stakeholders were willing to buy GM food if cheaper than food produced in conventional ways -suggesting that price can be a determinant factor in GM food acceptance. GM production locally: 55.9% respondents aware that sugarcane has been genetically modified in Mauritius. 9 out of 34 were of the opinion that GM sugar has been commercialized. Only sugarcane has been genetically modified locally-but no field trial has so far been approved. Trade of GM crops: 50% of the respondents were of the opinion that Mauritius is an importer of GMOs. Maize imported from Argentina is certified to contain grains from GM events and therefore GM feed is used in Mauritius. Soyabean also imported from Canada, a producer and exporter of GM soya -high probability that Mauritius import GM maize and soyabean.International agreements: 20.6% respondents aware that Mauritius has ratified the Cartagena Protocol. Only one stakeholder aware that Mauritius is signatory to SPS (Sanitary and phytosanitary and TBT (Technical barrier to agreements. Biosafety framework: 53% respondents aware that Mauritius has enacted a GMO legislation and that a NBC has been instituted. Only 5 respondents knew that only part of the Act has been proclaimed. Only 35.3% respondents considered that it was necessary to have a GMO Act. IPRs -38.2% respondents were of opinion that courts and the judiciary system should enforce compliance with Patents, Industrial design and Trademark Act and Copyrights Act. 11.8% thought that they did not. The remaining did not know if they enforced or not. Two Bills are in preparation (Plants Varieties Bill & Seed Bill). There is a need to assess their use in accordance with existing legislation to protect IPRs of GM agro-products.Harmonizing regional biosafety systems: 73.5% of the respondents recognized the importance of a harmonized regional biosafety system. However, difficulty for it to materialize was acknowledged. Main constraints were seen as: financial, infrastructural, legal, capacity and expertise.The main recommendation is that there is a considerable gap of knowledge between what stakeholders know and actual state of affairs -this needs to be addressed. There is no national biotechnology strategy -this needs to be formulated. Legislation needs -Plant Breeders Right and Seed Bills are urgently needed. Need to strengthen capacity to allow implementation, monitoring and enforcing of GMO Act. Need to attach a Technical arm to the NBC. Need to boost public confidence by providing sufficient information. Regional approach -SADC should establish a concerted and integrated approach to deal with agricultural trade, including GM foods.In terms of Biosafety -there is one Institutional Biosafety Committee -in one research Institution. The UNEP/ GEF capacity building project -supported the formulation of the National Biosafety Guidelines for Safe Development and introduction of GMOs in Mauritius prepared in 1999 (MSIRI). On the CBD -Mauritius was the first signatory to convention in 1992. It ratified the Convention in 2003. In terms of Legislation -the GMO Act 2004 is now in place -but partly proclaimed. A National Biosafety Committee has been constituted.In the last 30 years, there has been a move from mono crop sugar cane to a diversified one. With erosion of preferential treatment under sugar protocol, change in policies resulting in Sugar Sector Strategic Plan to increase competitiveness and promoting diversification within sugar. Non-Sugar Sector Strategic Plan to increase food crop production locally. With increase in diversification, Mauritius is no longer a major food crops importer. Tomato and potato production has remained almost constant over the last 10 years. Maize production has dropped since 1993 -due to high cost of production locally. Mauritius is classified as a net food importer. Food imports have increased steadily over last 10 years -accounted by increase in number of tourists and a more diversified and sophisticated demand from Mauritians. Major agricultural imports are cereals and staples -rice, wheat -from Australia, France, Pakistan, India, China. Maize import primarily for poultry and livestock production -the majority imported from Argentina. Also a major milk and dairy importer-from Australia, New Zealand and Europe. Main agricultural export is sugar accounting for 90% of total agricultural exports. In last 5 years, a dramatic increase in exports of fish and fish preparations recorded -destined for EU and the Soviet Union.Food aid received reached a peak of 64 000 T in early 1980s (wheat, cereals and rice)received under aegis of World Food Programme. Countries sending food aid: UK, France, USA, Australia, Canada, Japan, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Austria, Netherlands, Ireland, Greece, Turkey and Switzerland. Food aid drastically reduced to almost nil in mid 1990s.In conclusion, Mauritius does not suffer from chronic food insecurity attherefore potential benefit of agri-biotechnology in ensuring food security is not pertinent locally. It is highly probable that GM foods and feed are imported -therefore proper risk assessments to be carried out to ensure that Mauritian consumers have possibility to make an informed choice. Mauritius has progressed in setting up a biosafety framework, by enacting a GM legislation. This must be fully proclaimed and the various components of the regulatory system put in place to ensure full benefits to be derived from GMOs and GM products.The main objectives of the project are to: examine potential of contract farming as an institution to promote commercialization of smallholders in SADC region; to link smallscale farmers with the private sector; to exploit potential of agro-processing sector to expand smallholder supply of raw commodities; to precipitate policy-action; promote long term sustainable (commercial) supply partnerships; reduce the danger of smallholder exclusion in modern supply chains.For purposes of the project, contract farming is defined as some form of contractual arrangement between a group of small-scale farmers and an agribusiness partner. It may be short term or long term, formal or informal. It encompasses a wide range of structures and is different in developed countries.The background to the study is that there is a longer history of smallholder development projects in Malawi and Zambia -different historical legacies. However there are common denominators in both countries. There is lack of policy with respect to contract farming and Agribusiness reluctance because of the high transaction cost involved.An Overview of Contract Farming in South Africa, Malawi and Zambia -contract farming (sometimes referred to as out-grower schemes) is being used for a wide range of raw commodities. In South Africa there is a long history of smallholder supply in sugarcane, timber, tea, cotton sectors (67 500 smallholders). In Malawi and Zambia the long out-grower history is in reference to tobacco, sugarcane, paprika, cotton, coffee, tea: between 60000-120000 smallholders in Malawi and between 6000-227000 in Zambia. Contract farming is now emerging in the supply of high quality fruit and vegetables to retailers The potential of agribusiness to promote smallholder contracting is based on mostly South African data. 2228 agro-processing companies are involved in manufacture, retailing of food and beverage products. 240 000 small-scale farmers (mostly in former traditional areas) supply 31 raw commodity supply chains. Concrete plans and/ or projects exist in 24 out of the 31 supply chain sectors. Small-scale farmers produce less than 10% of raw commodities procured. In fruit and vegetable production small-scale growers supply 3.6 % of procurement. If smallholder supply of just fruit and vegetable expanded to 10% an estimated 11 000 new farmers would be created. Smallholder production of sugarcane, timber, cotton is significant and there strategic plans for expansion. Similarly expansion is targeted in the other 31 raw commodity sectors.The Issues and Constraints -Raw commodities are barriers of entry into contract farming. There are both general, as well as specific barriers for the different raw commodities. Historical legacies like unequal access and skewed power relationships impact on trust. Regulatory issues include: no specific policy governing contract farming, poor land tenure systems and property rights, framework for contract enforcement-legal environment.The Complex Nature of Supply -is also barrier because smallholders will have to operate in a wide range of structures. These include formal and informal arrangements (handshake deals), dealing with agents, cooperatives, and intermediaries. There heavy reliance on trust, and reliability. Raw commodity supply is moving away from the open market (International trend + Africa).As a way forward, there is need for common vision for contract farming. There is need to convince governments that this represents a win-win opportunity. There is need to identify and ensure coordination of the key players. Meetings and workshops to finalize common vision are essential. Agribusiness companies must become first line initiators. Government should facilitate incremental agribusiness cost as well as provide necessary legislation. Farmers' associations, input suppliers, research organizations should work together to promote cost effective linkagesPRICING -Trade is triggered by prices differentials reflecting market conditions. Member states should invest in demand driven market information generation, dissemination and utilization to facilitate decision making by all stakeholders GMO AND FOOD SECURITY -Importation of GM maize is prohibited in all countries except in Mauritius where it is used as animal feed and in exceptional cases if milled. GM free certification is demanded before importation by most countries. Capacity to monitor and regulate GM technology differs among countries. There is need to harmonise and coordinate GM legislation and regulations at regional level.The private sector has an important role to ensure food security. Governments should: create opportunities for private sector maize trading; make import requirements small-scale trader friendly & facilitate linkages with financial institutions; and support small-scale farmers to take advantage of market opportunities. There is mistrust between Government and private sector on maize trading. There should be regular dialogue and communication between traders and government; government should give clear, accurate transparent & timely signals on demand for food & inputs; private sector profit motives should not compromise government objectives.There is overwhelming evidence that formal & informal regional trade has alleviated food insecurity. Trading in neighboring countries' currencies as legal tender should be formalised and expanded; SADC Governments should coordinate & harmonise legislative & regulatory framework for trade in food commodities and inputs; and all food transactions should VAT & duty free. STORAGE AND FOOD SECURITY -Storage is a very important aspect of food security, but only South Africa has accorded it high priority. Storage should be encourages at household and community levels and not just in big silos. Countries should share information on practical household/ community level food storage technologies.Preliminary findings on changes in family size and composition indicated that indeed HIV & AIDS infection reduces family size. The household structure changes leaving the young and the old looking after the household. More dependant orphans still at primary and early secondary were left behind. 20-29 and 30-39 age groups countrywide were more vulnerable with 62.4% married. 55.2% of the respondents reported living with HIV; 38% of the households reported someone in the household had died of AIDS related diseases. Among the PLWA's, 48% were males and 52% females; 79% of the ill stayed at home during their illness which meant more which was provided by the women In terms of the impact of HIV and AIDS on household labour -household labour for agricultural production and food security was adversely affected. 26% of respondents used hired labour, 11% hired it for agricultural activities. 14.8% saw hired labour as eroding the household budget. Community expectations of reciprocity hinder exploitation of traditional work because households and individuals affected are unable to reciprocate the support provided by other community members.The HIV and AIDS Effects on Agriculture -reduction of productive labour adversely affects agricultural production; household farming decisions regarding agricultural production were also affected; crop yields and livestock numbers declined during and after illness since they were sold to cover medical and hospitalisation costs. Some livestock got lost to thieves. Some household assets got sold to meet the costs of caring and others got stolen.Safety nets and social capital -Social safety nets were used by HIV affected households. Informal safety nets were more exploitable than formal ones. But formal ones tended to be more trusted for lack of stigmatisation. 51% of respondents reported to be nonmembers of the HIV & AIDS support groups though they were aware of their existence.Affected HH responses to HIV & AIDS -caring for the sick negatively affects agricultural production and food security by taking away required time and financial resources; households provided for their own members at all times. During illness, they depended more on donations and gifts to supplement their own supplies.In terms of household consumption and expenditure -expenditure on agricultural inputs for crop and animal production generally decreased during illness of HIVinfected member especially in the case of breadwinners; most households that had no arable land had to purchase their food supplies and they spent money on basic foodstuffs which were not necessarily nutritious; 49% of the respondents spent money on informal burial associations. For most of households more money was spent on medication and hospitalisation, than basic foodstuffs and other direct consumption. Spending on investment was minimal among those households that could still afford. Others were poor and spent very little on education and none on savings and long-term investments.In terms of household food and nutrition security -the factors that contributed towards household food insecurity included: low educational levels of members; high unemployment rate; illness and death of breadwinners; and low unsustainable agricultural production. Food security is a general problem in Lesotho and not only for households that were studied. However HIV and AIDS worsened their situation. There was very little nutritious food variety taken, which left household members vulnerable to infection by other diseases and those infected with less resistance; females sacrificed food for other household members especially the HIV-infected members.In conclusion -HIV and AIDS affected agricultural production by: -diverting household income into caring for the HIV infected members; removing the active labour force; and increasing the burden of orphans care on their old guardians. Food resources get depleted in the performance of burial rituals and rites of passage and hence increased food insecurity. A follow-up of the studied households over a longer period and a survey with a larger sample are recommended. The Lesotho Government has assisted schoolgoing children through school feeding programme and Free Primary Education. These efforts should continue to ensure that the feeding is of quality nutrition.. Main policy implications for Lesotho include: improvements and introduction of labour saving agricultural technology, eradication of famine and poverty; empowering women and redressing gender inequality and supervision and education of communities by extension farm workers, strengthening household coping capacity and strengthening of outreach programmes.Agriculture is the main source of livelihood of the majority of people in Swaziland. About 70% of the population live in rural areas and derive their livelihoods from agriculture. HIV/ AIDS poses a developmental problem and it challenges long-term strategy for poverty reduction and food security in the country. These challenges include the depletion of human capital, diversion of resources from agriculture, loss of farm and non-farm income together impacts negatively on agricultural productivity. The combined effect of these factors is lack of food and inaccessibility to food. The Swaziland study used three HIV and AIDS proxies: Morbidity -referring to households with chronically ill members; Mortality -referring to households with dead members; and \"Hybrid\" -to households with both dead and/ or chronically ill members. For purposes of the study a household was described as a family that eats from the same pot.Households with chronically ill members -In this study respondents were asked if there were any household members with symptoms of HIV/AIDS related diseases. The results show that, about three-fifth of the respondents did not have members with HIV/AIDS related diseases, whilst two-fifth was affected. The most affected households by having a sick member were from Shiselweni (47.1%), Manzini (42.4%) and Lubombo (42.4%) regions, whilst the Lubombo and the Hhohho regions were the least affected. The results reveal that 77% of the respondents had lost a family member as a result of HIV/AIDS related illnesses. A comparison of the affected households by regions indicate that the Shiselweni region had the highest (29%) households who lost their family members due to HIV/AIDS followed by the Hhohho and the Manzini region. Households with chronically ill members between 18 and 59 years -Analysing the study using the mortality and morbidity indicators for HIV/AIDS, the results indicate that on average, about 49 percent of the sampled households had their members between 18 and 59 years of age in the country's four regions died of HIV/AIDS related sicknesses and about 29 percent are suffering from the same sicknesses. The hybrid indicator for HIV/AIDS shows that about 66 percent of the households have their members between 18 and 59 years of age suffering from or died of HIV/AIDS related sicknesses.Analysed by regions it shows that Lubombo is leading with about 68 percent of its Households with an adult member sick or died of HIV/AIDS related diseases, while Hhohho follows with about 66 percent. Meanwhile the Manzini and Shiselweni regions have about 65 percent and 63 percent of their members suffering from or died of HIV/AIDS related sicknesses respectively. However analysing by regions using the mortality proxy for HIV/AIDS it turns out that Hhohho has the highest number of households with members living with HIV/AIDS related sickness of about 52 percent. Following close are the Lubombo and Manzini regions with about 51 percent and 50 percent of its households having sick members of the same illnesses. In a nutshell one is persuaded to conclude that the Lubombo region is the most affected by the epidemic if the results of the study are anything to go by. These therefore suffice to explain why this region is rated the poorest in the country and with so many orphans. The results are contrary to the Sentinel Surveillance Report (2005), which indicates that Manzini is leading in HIV/AIDS cases. This may be explained by the fact that this study is dealing with households, while the Sentinel Surveillance reports is dealing with pregnant women.The impact on agric production is reflected in reduction land utilization, loss in agricultural assets and livestock, reduction in food and crop production, decline in agric inputs, and change in labor time allocated to agriculture activities. Effects of HIV and AIDS on land utilization and accessibility -In households with an adult member, particularly a male died of HIV/AIDS related sicknesses there is a reduction in area under cultivation. Moreover, households who lost male members have difficulty in acquiring land in the rural area where farming is important. The impact of HIV/AIDS on the total land utilization was examined by first looking at how many of the households whose members are sick or died of HIV/AIDS and were living on farm, reported a change in their land utilization. Secondly changes in land used during illness and after a family member of the household has died were compared. The change in land utilization was measured for the affected households by the percentage change in land utilised.About 70% of the respondents stated that land utilization is affected by the illness and death of a family member. About 50% of the respondents indicated that HIV/AIDS has a big negative impact on land utilizationThe results indicate that, whilst a number of the affected households had the infected member living on farm, few of them reported a decline in land utilization. This study shows that in the Lubombo region 63 percent of the households with members infected with HIV/AIDS related illnesses, such members were living on the farm, but only 25 percent of them experienced a fall in land utilisation. In the other regions the study indicates that about 7 percent of the affected households realized a decline in land utilization. However, by bringing further information into play it has been observed that most households with male members with HIV/AIDS related symptoms and lived on farm were indicated a change in their land utilization. For example more than 50 percent of those in the Lubombo region have reported a change in their land utilization. This study confirms that there is a serious impact of HIV/AIDS on a range of land issues in Swaziland. The direct impact of HIV/AIDS is not only on productivity of the infected members, but also diverts income that could be used for agricultural activities to medical and funeral expenses. In households with members infected with HIV/AIDS related diseases, agricultural labour is also diverted from agricultural activities to take care for the sick. The combined effects of these would be a decline in agricultural land utilization. Because the disease in Swaziland normally affects young adults, especially those in the most economically productive phases of their lives and on whom younger and older generations depend, the epidemic has the potential of destabilizing the household's ability to maintain the land previously used for cultivation. This has in most cases resulted in land being left fallow or abandoned.On average the affected households have about 43 percent less on total arable land at homestead utilised and about 30 percent less of total arable land under dry-land cultivation utilised. The results of the study also show that the Lubombo region is the most affected followed by Shiselweni. This is in line with the observation that the Lubombo region is leading with households with members infected with HIV/AIDS related diseases. It is also noted that the majority of households in this region live primarily on farming which is another strong reason for the observed decline in land utilization in these regions as active adults fall sick or died. The study further revealed that households with HIV/AIDS infected members living on farm and reported a change in land utilization. In the Lubombo region, 81 percent of the households indicated that the impact of HIV/AIDS related illness and deaths on their ability to utilise arable land was big, whilst in the Shiselweni region were about 66 percent.There is a gender element to the impact of HIV/AIDS on household's ability to access or use land in Swaziland. The access of land by a household depends on the presence of the male adult in which case if the husband dies and lives behind the wife, the ability of that household to access and retain land becomes uncertain if there is no male child in the household. In addition land utilization declines in households headed by than men because they are unable to cope with some of the agricultural activities such as land clearing, ploughing where hiring of labour and tractors is not affordable. The results illustrate that in households with sick or dead adult male, there is less hectares of accessible and arable land compares to households headed by adult male. Acquiring additional land not previously utilised proved to be an easy task for households headed by men than those headed by women. Women-headed households in Swaziland risk having their husbands' land confiscated by the husband family, as women do not have the right to inherit land in the rural areas. Sometimes they also lose rights to land use. Forced removal of widows from land and property grabbing by her in-laws, which is common in Swaziland, is also an aggravating factor to poverty, which further increases the exposure to the risk of HIV/AIDS. Gender indifferences also prevail in decision making regarding land utilization in Swaziland. Decision-making on land is the prerogative of the household male members. Although the woman is consulted for her opinion, the final decision lies with the man. Decision making on land issues is only transferred to the woman after her husband dies. The result of women playing a secondary role in decision-making regarding land while the husband is still alive has far reaching implications regarding the change in land utilization when the man has died. When the woman assumes the responsibility of being the head with all decisions making bestowed on her, she may find it difficult to cope because of interference from relatives on land issues after the husband dies. This could have a negative impact on land utilization, as the relatives could make decisions against usage of some of the land.The study shows that the Lubombo region is leading with about 63 percent of its households living on farm with active adults sick or died of related sickness reporting a change in land access decision-making. The Shiselweni region is the second region with about 50 percent of its affected households reporting a change in land access decisionmaking. The Manzini and Hhohho regions have about 47 percent and 45 percent of its affected households reporting a change in land access decision-making respectively. It could be ascertained from the study that land access decision-making in the country has a tendency to shift from husband to wife then to son or from father to mother then to son. The study also shows that once the head of the household, who in this study is the husband or father (male) died, land access decision-making becomes the responsibility of the wife or mother (female) that often lacks knowledge on how to deal with some land issues. Given that land preparation for cultivation is a heavy task which fall entirely on men, it is within expectation that land utilization will decline as the head fall sick or died of HIV/AIDS related illness. This clearly illustrates the gender aspects of a household that has lost an adult household member. The situation is even worse if the mother or the wife who had assumed the responsibility of being the head becomes sick or dies since the son might be still lacking knowledge of farming or less interested in farming at all. The decline in land utilised manifest to a reduction in agricultural production in the country.Effects of HIV and AIDS on agricultural assets and livestock -It could be ascertained from the study's results that cattle are the mostly affected livestock, as it constitutes a large number of livestock in Swaziland. Poultry is also the most affected livestock, possibly because of its less complication to sell. These results are in line with the observation that a majority of the affected household members have/had distinct contribution in the upkeep of livestock either financially, knowledge, and experience or through work. When the male died, the remaining household members may lack skills, physical strength and financial backing to maintain livestock management and production. Again it has been observed that decision making with respect to the type, variety, number and selling of livestock shift from the head (husband or father) to wife or mother and then son or sometime brother to husband. The decline in livestock is therefore expected in women or child-headed households because of lacking knowledge on decision-making as in most households they are sidelined decision-making whilst the male is still alive.Yields from food and crop production declined because of a decrease in land allocated to crop production, decline in application of agricultural inputs, less time allocated to agricultural activities and reduction in knowledge to manage crops. In terms of maize production the results indicate that generally there is a decrease in maize production after the death of a family member, who was the main source of income. The most affected region with respect to maize production was the Lubombo region followed by the Manzini region. It is worth noting that the Lubombo region is also the most hit by drought, and hence the decrease in maize production could be the combined effect of HIV/AIDS and drought. There was a 44% decline in maize production in the Lubombo region and 22% in the Shiselweni region.However, the reduction in crop production amongst the affected households may not necessary be linked to the impact of HIV/AIDS given the persistent drought over the past years in the country, particularly in the Lubombo region. Given the dualistic agricultural practices in the rural areas with subsistence farming stronger than commercial, once households are affected they may switch from commercial to subsistence farming. This result in fewer crops sold to generate income for the households, hence less food security. The effect of HIV/AIDS on affected households living on commercial farming would be a reduction in cash crop as they switch from more demanding commercial farming to less demanding subsistence farming. It is noted that, although there was a decline in the production of other crops, there was an increase in the production of beans, especially in the Lubombo and Manzini regions. This could be attributed to the intervention programmes, which encourage the use legumes for their protein nutritional value, in coping with HIV/AIDS related illnesses.Effects of HIV and AIDS on agricultural inputs use -Despite the minimal decline in the use of agricultural inputs, it is observed that there was a negative impact of HIV/AIDS on the use of inputs. This means that expenditure on agricultural inputs decreased in all the regions. This implies that there is less use of agricultural inputs, and hence there is food insecurity. Effects of HIV and AIDS on land allocation to crop production -Households with infected members particularly male realize a changed in land allocation among crops. The results show that land allocated to maize production and to other crops decline except for soybean in households with members affected by HIV/AIDS related diseases. The results therefore explain why the decline in the production crops such as maize, groundnuts etc. and an increase in soybean production as previously. The HIV/AIDS impact on household food security -While natural disaster was the reason for food insecurity during the past years, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has since emerged as the most significant aspect of and reason for the crisis in the country. Generally there was an increase in income from crops and livestock. This could be a result of households selling to get income for taking care of the sick and pay medical bills.Whilst on average there has been an increase in income from the different sources this increase is very insignificant except for the Manzini region, which recorded a 59 percent increase in income from livestock production. This implies that a lot of livestock was sold in this region to gain income. Such income becomes useful in taking care of the sick person in the household.In the Shiselweni region a 5 percent decline in income from crop production was realized. The Lubombo region registered a decline in income of 4 percent and 5 percent fall in income from other off-farm agricultural and other onfarm non-agricultural practices respectively. Households with an infected or dead member change their expenditure pattern by channeling income to non-food items such as health care, transportation and funerals. This will compromise agricultural production, as less income is used to purchase agricultural inputs and other agricultural equipments. There was reduced expenditures on most agricultural inputs in Swaziland due to the prevalence of HIV/AIDS. The most affected input is crop inputs purchasing in the Lubombo region, which fell by 35 percent. The results are in line with expectations as reduced expenditure on agricultural items was observed in all the regions except for Hhohho. Meanwhile expenditure on medical bill and funerals in particular has gone up. The Lubombo region observed an average increase of E1765.18 and E2095.44 in medical bill and funeral costs respectively. The Shiselweni region incurred an average increase of E1109.12 in medical bill and E1767.17 in funeral expenses. The reduced incomes coupled with an increase in expenditure on non-food and non-agricultural items result in less economic access to food.The impact of HIV and AIDS on agricultural labour -As a result of households having an active adult male infected with or died of HIV/AIDS related diseases the responsibilities of performing agricultural activities fall entirely on female adult or children and on inexperienced male children. The death of a male head of household may mean the loss of the worker responsible for more demanding agricultural activities and farm management. The results show that the Lubombo region has the highest number of households who involve female and children in land clearing, planting, weeding, shelling and purchasing of inputs when the male household head is sick or death. The study further ascertain if the infected member had a distinct knowledge on agriculture and whether this knowledge has been transferred to surviving members who are expected to make use of this knowledge during production. The study shows that women and children in Swaziland become involved in agricultural activities previously done by male like land clearing, planting and purchasing of inputs when male members fall sick or died of HIV/AIDS. The study also indicates that about 33 percent of the households with infected members had distinct knowledge of agriculture. Out of these 67 percent were able to transfer the knowledge to the surviving members, and about 63 percent were able to make use this knowledge.Strategies for mitigating and coping with the impact of HIV and AIDS -In response to the impact of HIV/AIDS, households have adopted different coping strategies to keep life going. As a results of labour shortage, affected communities and households adopted coping strategies that included: increasing children's involvement in agricultural activities; exchanging labour with neighbours and relatives; shifting to less labour-intensive mono-cropping; reducing the areas under crops; using in-kind payments for labour; and working longer hours, Traditional mourning periods have been reduced, from between five and seven days to between three. During funerals, some households resorted to preparing the grave for burial a day before the funeral because of shortage of labour. In response to reduced per capita income, many families resorted to distress sales of household assets and livestock, dependency on forest resources increased. More women's and youth groups were established for group income-generating activities.The study concluded that the most affected component of agriculture was livestock, where, as a result of the pandemic households had resorted to sale their livestock as a means of sustenance and to pay for medical and funeral bills. Crop production had diminished as a result of the fall in land utilization, unaffordable inputs, household labour diverted to caring for the sick, and skilled people dying or falling sick, living behind people with limited skills on how to manage crop production. The high prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the Swaziland undermines government's effort to alleviate poverty, which in turn, makes people and households even more vulnerable to the pandemic. The death of a household member results in losses of finances that households used to get from wages and remittances from those members of the household who were in gainful employment before the household was hit by HIV/AIDS of household heads and remittances from employed members of the household. In order to get the required financial resources, households resort to selling of their physical assets such as household assets and livestock. Most of this money is spent in paying medical bills and caring for the ill members and also to cater for post death expenses, e.g. funeral and cleansing. Financially challenged household members also relatives and friends to assist, as the social capital from the nuclear family fails to cope. The natural capital is also under attack as households fail to utilize all their arable land and reduce acreage under cultivation.Policy implications -in response to the pandemic and its consequences there is urgent need for government and non-governmental organizations to combine their efforts to come up with a comprehensive set of policy measures. These policy measures should include direct policy, such as health policy targeted on improving the health of those already affected, whilst providing preventive health services to those not affected. Whilst Swaziland has adopted the Primary Health Care (PHC) strategy to provide preventive and promotional health services particularly in rural areas, fewer resources are channelled towards the provision of antiretroviral drugs and food, which will help to prolong the life and enhance productivity of the affected. It is also crucial to ease women's disproportionate care burden in HIV/AIDS affected households by supporting the home-based care centres, thus allowing them more time to concentrate on incomegenerating projects.As part of the policy measures there should be policy interventions that would assist the affected households to maintain their agricultural production and food security, such as agricultural policy, food-aid policy and rural development policy. These policy interventions should be aimed at mitigating the negative effects of HIV/AIDS on agricultural output. For example where labour resources are affected as a result of the pandemic, training by agricultural extension staff on the introduction of less labourintensive crops such as growing cassava instead of maize, because it has the same nutritive value. There is also a need to promote small livestock like poultry and goats as enterprises that affected households could engage in for their livelihoods.Government should also, through its community-based programmes, revive and support labour-saving cultural practices such as communal labour to assist labourconstrained households by introducing incentive systems at the community level. Small loan facilities should be readily available to the affected households to help them purchase agricultural inputs, fertilizers or even start some businesses to sustain themselves and be monitored by agricultural extension officers. To bridge the farming knowledge gap between the affected household members and the survivors, mainly women and children, there is need for both formal and informal training to assist them cope with the situation.To complement the above policies there is need to develop policy interventions derived from food security and rural development programmes. In pursuing these policies government in collaboration with NGOs should intensify its programme of distributing food aid by ensuring that HIV/AIDS households receive their quota. The study has clearly indicated that land rights are biased against women who as a result of the death of their husbands are not allowed to own or acquire land for agricultural production. It is therefore important for policy makers and development practitioners to support the land rights of the vulnerable people and further assist them to maintain usage of the land. Also in line with empowering women, cultural practices that expose women to vulnerability of contacting HIV/AIDS need to be considered, especially that of having women given to a brother in law without her consent when the husband passes away. The mourning period for women also needs to be reviewed to allow them to engage in productive work after the death of the husband.The study reviewed the mpact of the HIV and AIDS on rural agricultural producers in three regions of Namibia under three main themes: the dynamic nature of the pandemic, the differing ability to cope and the different types of interventions required. The study took advantage of NHIES in 2003/ 04 but provided control sample for comparison. This allowed for a fair large sample over three regions of Namibia with limited funds. The study areas included Kavango, Oshana and Oshikoto regions. Assistance was obtained from HIV support groups. In terms of dynamics -used both responses by affected populations and Sentinel Survey Results in the three regions. Also took a historical view of individual sites. Aside from a national decline new patterns emerge. Households merging -high rates of \"other relatives\" in sample were observed especially in Kavango, merging was moderate in Oshana and very low in Oshikoto Reviewing the differing ability to cope showed three groupings based on staple crop production (millet). The analysis of coping capacity was based on whether the households were growing enough to meet their daily caloric needs? \"Severe Crisis Households\" -86% out of 144 households did not grow enough for their daily caloric needs. These represented a group of households in a \"Severe Crisis\". 78% of these households produced less than 750 kg of millet while 11 of the households did not produce a crop. Livestock herds in this \"severe group\" were low: only 29 HH had cattle -15 of these with 11 head of cattle or less. 43 households had goats -with 22 of these having below 15 goats each. \"Crisis Households\" -were those households that produced between 751 -1500 kg of millet. 16% of sample (23 HH) was in this category. They were growing crops but not successfully. Livestock ownership in this sample was low -13 households had cattle with 7 of them having less than 15 head of cattle. 14 households had goats, with 7 of them having less than 15. \"Near Crisis Households\"were those households producing over 1501 kg of millet. Only 6% of sample (8 HH) was in this category. Livestock ownership in this sample was moderate -all the 8 households had cattle ranging from 6 -40 and goats ranging from 9 -63.In terms of appropriate Interventions, the \"severe crisis\" and \"crisis\" households need financial assistance, transfers, BIG, HIV disability, and orphan assistance. The \"near crisis\" households need financial assistance -but also have the capacity to absorb impact preventative interventions like less labor-intensive crops.In conclusion, there is need understand more about the pace of the epidemic, more about people's responses to it, and the responses in other regions with different farming systems. There is need to integrate the survey on the impact of HIV and AIDS on agriculture with national surveys e.g. the NHIES.HIV and AIDS prevalence rate in South Africa amongst highest in the region. Agriculture and related industries contributes about 13% to GDP and provide livelihoods to about 40% of population. The study was conducted in Capricon District, Limpopo Province. Summary of households using the HIV and AIDS proxies: Morbidity (households with chronically ill member) 24.8%, Mortality (households with dead member) 4.6% and Hybrid (households with both) 6.5%. The non-affected households were 54.1%.In summary: and AIDS impacts on household off farm income. There were no significant impacts on total labour input into agriculture. Changes in farm crop mix were not significant. There were some differences in input application rates. Impacts on household expenditure on food were worse in the case death. Higher medical expenditure and less education expenditure observed. There was no reduction in livelihood assets observed. Very limited participation in agricultural markets for all categories and effects on area cultivated, value of purchased inputs and labour input into agriculture varied according to gender of ill person. Some of the coping and mitigation strategies identified included: hiring of labour, seeking remittances from nonresident family members and relatives, food parcels, assistance from home based care groups and seeking government social grants Main policy recommendations included facilitating input access schemes for smallholder households engaged in agriculture; increasing small farmer access to land, particularly irrigated land; facilitating activities of CBOs and NGOs in the area of agriculture, food security and HIV/AIDS; promoting awareness on importance of nutrition and agriculture during illness; encouraging formation of cooperatives and farmer organisations in agriculture; and encouraging increased livestock production. There is also need to develop labour saving technologies that can easily be used by women. There is need to tackle issues of HIV and AIDS hand in hand with poverty reduction strategies. There is need to encourage income generating activities off-farm in rural areas. There is need for increased raising of awareness on the need for communities to openly discuss issues of HIV and AIDS. There is need for differentiated response programmes to the pandemic because impacts vary between affected households. There is need to facilitate further investigation into differentiated impacts and a longitudinal analysis of the impact on households.The impact on HIV and AIDS on agriculture and food security in Botswana: By K. Gobotswang, L.Gabaitiri P. Malope, P. Ntseane Data was collected from 190 households.103 (54.2%) households had experienced long illness during the past three years (affected).•87 (45.8%) households had no long illness during the past three years (non -affected)In HIV and AIDS has negatively affected both crop and livestock production in Botswana. Female-headed households are most affected. There is a significant shift in disease burden from urban to rural areas. Decision-making shifted from male heads to children and women.The regional database was designed to manage information collected on the impact of HIV and AIDS on households from the seven country studies. National databases were compiled first. In terms of process and method -each participating country started with the same generic questionairre for collecting raw data. Each country then adapted it to suit the local context. Data was then collected from households using methods agreed at country level. Data was entered into country level databases. A structure was proposed for regional database, noting the hypotheses that the databases sought to test. A regional workshop was called to make input into the proposed structure and hypotheses. A joint regional database populating initiative was then launched.The structure of the database was based on the original questionnaire, compared with those actually used at country level and picking out the common and relevant variables. There were differences among the various questionnaires, but common ground was possible. SPSS was chosen as the software for basic and advanced analysis. Microsoft excel was included because of its wide usage, and to serve as a platform for moving between applications. Microsoft access used as the main storage application. The data entry platform was developed in Epi info. Epi Info was also used for preliminary analysis. Epi info makes its output as web files.A regional workshop was called in Botswana between 23-24 May 2005 to desgn indicators and hypotheses that would be tracked. This meant that the variables to be included had to, as far as possible, ensure that each of the hypotheses would be testable. Hypotheses based on the five livelihood assets -human, financial, physical, social and natural were formulated. 9 key hypotheses were agreed upon: that HIV and AIDS have led to a decline in agricultural productivity; have reduced participation in the market, have reduced the number and quality of livestock, have increased the mobility of household members; have increased degradation of the environment; have reduced household consumption; have eroded the household productive base; have extension and research services; and have increased the household dependency ratios. Variables for tracking each of these hypotheses were also identifiedThe In terms of constraints -the regional database used country level databases that were not speaking to each other well. The survey questionnaires carried too much detail. Some data from the country level was dirty. The construction of the database was slow because of input from a number of stakeholders. The sample sizes used at the country level differed. Not all the countries submitted their data in time. Not all the countries attended the workshops set up by FARNPAN to harmonise the data. Analysis was subject to errors in the data provided, and any other errors that may have resulted during data manupilationThe impact of HIV and AIDS on households is based on three sets of circumstances: Chronic illness; death and support of orphans. Depending on the existing level of food security in the household, chronic illness can mean spending is switched from other household needs to healthcare or that assets are sold to raise extra cash. It takes time for the full impact of the death of a household member to become apparent, as the household may be undergoing significant transformation at the point of study. The research on the impact of death can often simplify the situation by focusing on changes that occur in a limited range of household activities before and after a death, and not considering the overall results for the food security of the household. In terms of the impact of supporting orphans -again in this context, there is a tendency to simplify the likely outcome by suggesting that taking in orphans adds to the burden of the household, with the limited income being stretched by having to support an additional dependent. In reality there can be a wide variety of outcomes depending on both the status of the orphan and the status of the host family.The overall impact on households is on the livelihoods and the main outcome is increased household vulnerability. Two sets of factors external to the household but which exert a significant influence on their livelihoods are the \"processes and structures\" and the \"vulnerability context\". Vulnerability is often described as having two components: \"external vulnerability\", which refers to exposure to shocks or hazards; \"internal vulnerability\", which refers to the capacity to cope with or withstand those shocks. The use of \"vulnerability\" as an absolute status -for example by simply describing chronically ill or female-headed households or orphans as vulnerable groups should be avoided. It should especially not be used synonymously with need, as it should reflect the likelihood of a particular outcome arising for that group in the future.The Household Vulnerability Index (HVI) is calculated to establish the different levels of vulnerability that the impact of HIV/ AIDS on agriculture and food security has introduced in households. The different Household Vulnerability Indices (HVI) reflect different degrees of vulnerability. Three levels of vulnerabilityare of special importance for social protection policy programme design: Vulnerability level 1 = Coping level Households (CLH) -a household in a vulnerable situation but still able to cope; Vulnerability level 2 = Acute level households (ALH) -a household that has been hit so had that it badly needs assistance to the degree of an acute health care unit in a hospital -with some rapid-response type of assistance the family may be resuscitated; Vulnerability level 3 = Emergency level Households (ELH) -the equivalent of an intensive care situation -almost a point of no return -but could be resuscitated only with the best possible expertise.The different dimensions of the HVI cut across the 5 livelihood assets -human, financial, physical, social and natural assets. The HVI is a compounded index that takes into account the impacts of HIV and AIDS across the pentagon of assets.Social protection has three key elements -vulnerability, unacceptable levels of deprivation, and public action. Initially, social protection was aimed simply at \"raising the consumption of the poor through publicly-provided transfers\", but more recently the focus has shifted to \"helping low-income households cope with income fluctuations as well\" (Morduch Sharma 2002). Formal safety nets are often short-term in nature and are designed to re-distribute resources to poor people to reduce chronic poverty or to protect them against risks to their livelihoods e. g. risks posed by disease, loss of employment, drought, conflict, financial crises, or macroeconomic adjustment. \" Social protection\" is a newer term that incorporates safety net programmes but also includes a role for \"renewed state involvement\", emphasizes a \"longer-term development approach\", includes \"social assistance and insurance, and is often \"advocated for as a right rather than a reactive form of relief\". Social protection policy, thus, addresses not only programmes aimed at reducing the impact of shocks and coping with their aftermath, but also interventions designed to prevent shocks and destitution in the first place (IFPRI, 2004).The main policy recommendations were: to monitor the situation on regular basis; to put in place an AIDS warning system; to design appropriate agricultural technologies; to build community coping capacity; to develop a transmission system of information, including -the dissemination of information available to farmers, strengthening the awareness in the rural area and -being creative; to develop support services; to improve the targeting through quantified vulnerability data; to identify and to develop a tool for targeting different programs for different levels of family vulnerability. To avoid free food service abuse it was recommended that the communities should be involved in targeting. They should be involved in implementing, monitoring and evaluating the healthcare programmes. Different interventions should be developed for different household vulnerability levels. It was recommended that policy should pick up the equity issues as real and critical issues; it should take into consideration the drivers of HIV; expand opportunities for off-farm income generating activities; and match the level of assistance with the intensity of vulnerability. Other policy recommendations included the need to make farming more attractive; the need to complement farm income generation; the need to undertake further research studies on the impact of the pandemic in rural areas; the need to address and quantify the impact on the extension workers & teachers; the need to build capacity for women extensionists targeting women farmers; and the need to strengthen the farmer to farmer extension.Discussions Issue 1: was noted that there were difficulties in trade policy issues since there was conflict between sectors such as livestock and crop farmers. The lack of common positions compromised their ability to influence national and regional governments. It was felt that farming unions needed to come up with win-win situation in matters of trade policies. Issue 2: The farming unions needed to know whether SACAU would be able to source for funding for regional capacity building on trade issues as these were vital for farming communities in the region. Response: Mr. Vashee explained that SACAU had sourced funding for trade negotiations training which would commence in the beginning 2006. Participants felt that there was need to establish agricultural trade forums to allow members to share experiences and draw up advocacy initiatives. SACAU noted that some forms of trade forums existed in South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe. The plenary felt that members needed to exercise extreme caution before establishing any new trade forums as it would not be sustainable to establish parallel forums. The policy issues that emanated from the presentation and discussion were: the need to strengthen regional forums such as SACAU, FANRPAN and their interactions with SADC; the need for SADC member states to develop common positions on trade issues especially with relation to WTO, EU and other trading blocs; the need for SADC governments were to improve the communication systems to facilitate trade access; the need to Improve and harmonise national and regional market information systems to add value; and the need for SACAU t0 come up with a regional capacity building programme for farmer organisations to understand trade issues and to develop a database for SADC trade negotiations and capacity building institutions on trade.Strengthening FOs engagement at regional level: Characteristics of current and potential SACAU members: By Ishmael Sunga, CEO SACAU Mr. Sunga presented the preliminary results of a regional research study on farmer organisations. The purpose of the study was to compile databases for farmer organisations in the region. The objectives of the study conducted in collaboration with FANRPAN were to: identify main national farmer organisations; develop a profile of these organisations; understand challenges faced by farmer organisations; and assess the potential for mobilising new members for SACAU. The landscape for farmer organisations in the region has not been systematically mapped. The data discussed was based on 48 questionnaires that were analysed. SACAU had in addition received 32 more questionnaires that would further be analysed and consolidated.Preminary findings showed that in terms of coverage -commodity associations account for 65 percent of the respondents; 8 percent were co-operatives whilst 27 percent were farming unions. In terms of characteristics of farming organisations -it was observed that there were only a few that were old and well established. Those in this category tended to be made up of large-scale commercial farmers. The majority were new, weaker in capacity and were mostly focussed on small-scale farmers. In terms of the key objectives for establishing the farmer organisations -48 percent indicated that farmer organisations were established to provide technical skills to members; although others wanted them to become a mouthpiece for members and to protect membership interests. One main finding was farmer organisations were extremely weak at lobbying and advocacy for effective orconducive policies. Farmer Organisations were also found to be very weak at facilitating marketing. This finding generated a lot of debate. There was a general feeling that this finding may have been a design fault in the questionnaire or that the wrong people had responded to the questionnaire. There was a general feeling that FOs have made so head way in these two aspects.In terms of Constraints and challenges faced in farmer organisations -these included poor access to inputs; high cost of production; poor access to markets, unfavourable political and economic environment and lack of technical training and extension on production. This was, however, thought contradictory as farmer organisations are initially established to provide technical skills. This finding demonstrated that most farmer organisations did not have capacity to provide their membership with technical skills. The overall findings showed that there were many farmer organisations with inadequate linkages at national and regional level. There is also a predominance of commodity associations in the region. The study also showed that there was a large pool of skilled human resources in the farming world but with little sharing of knowledge, since communication was very weak. main recommendation from the study was to promote a single farmer-led organisation at country level -as opposed to the plural nature of FOs that exist currently. This would reduce division among farmers and get farmers to speak with one strong voice.The discussions focussed on why HIV and AIDS had not been identified as an issue. It was pointed out that most Farmer organisations did not have HIV and AIDS mainstreaming in their projects/programmes. Issue 2: There was a discussion on how the new or younger member organisations could be better supported since government historically supported the stronger farmer organisations. It was felt that they could lobby for government support in terms of favourable policies as long as this would not jeopardize their autonomy. Some members of the session opposed government funding to farmer organisations. Issue 3: Over-reliance towards domestic markets by farmers in the region. This was not seen as a weakness as long as they were meeting the market requirements. The session urged SACAU to promote and market itself and program for the benefit of farmer organisations in the region. Issue 4: Having one umbrella farmer union per country was met with strong mixed feelings as it was felt that it would appear as though farmers were being forced into one organisation. Some felt that experience had shown that there were barriers to entry by small-scale farmers into such umbrella organisations. It was agreed that since some countries had different classes of farmers with different interests, it was better to have many unions existing to avoid other farmers being forced into situations they were not comfortable in. Policy recommendations included promoting institutional systems of confederation type similar to formalised platform that organises dialogue among farmer unions. SACAU was tasked to champion this role of ensuring that this occurs at country level.Various country consultants who collected the data made some brief presentations. Mr. Mupetesi presented the format of the database or directory. The database had five sections, which would allow for a selection of the SADC country desired by a user. Some of the information on the database included; key informants and links of the farmer organisations, and links to key documents related to members. The survey covered 81 percent of the targeted farmer organisations in the region. An example of Lesotho Horticultural Farmers Association (LEHOFA) was used to show how a particular association's database appeared on the web. The format was as below:Discussions dealt with possible gaps in the inventory. There were some farmer organisations that had been missed in the survey. It was felt that this exercise must be on-going not a one-off event for better results to be achieved. The session cautioned the financial information being posted on the internet as it may violate the trust given to FANRPAN and SACAU in this survey. The session recommended the following: restricting information to the most useful and less sensitive and avoid detailed financial information; ensuring that SACAU and FANRPAN get permission to publish any information on an organisation to avoid any further confusion in future; there is need for SACAU and FANRPAN to come up with a more creative way of maintaining the database developed so as to create interest and knowledge; the database should include other relevant civic society organisations who provide services such as NGOs to be included in the database through links; and building the capacity of farmer organisations with regards to facilitating market linkages and ensuring best practices. Strengthening FANRPAN nodes and the role of civil society in regional FANR: The case of ACF in Zambia: By Dr Athony Mwanaumo Dr Anthony Mwanaumo from Zambia presented a paper on strengthening FANRPAN nodded using the Zambian node as a case study. In his presentation, Dr. Mwanaumo outlined challenges that had been faced by FANRPAN node level. FANRPAN had not been able to implement effective stakeholder driven policy programs due to lack of longterm personnel at node level. In addition there was no systematic approaches at both national and regional secretariat levels. There was need to better respond to policy analysis and research needs in the SADC region. FANRPAN needed to improve the quality of policy research to be undertaken in various countries so as to have improved policy environment for smaller based agriculture.FANRPAN has funds from USAID to strengthen nodes in Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Angola and Namibia. This was meant to transform FANRAPAN nodes into reputable country network and enhance human and institutional capacity for supporting policy formulation and implementation in the SADC region. Through a tri-partite partnership between FANRPAN; Southern Africa Regional Poverty Network (SARPN); and ODI, a project to promote the use of civil society evidence in the development and implementation of sound food security policy at regional level, has been initiated. NGOs were selected to share their experiences in managing and implementing household food security. It was recommended that the FANRPAN Zambia node should be housed and supported by the Agricultural Consultative Forum (ACF). A node steering committee of 6-8 people should be constituted from government, policy research institutes, private sector, and agro-based NGOs, as provided for by the constitution. A node facilitator was to be recruited and housed by the Agricultural Consultative Forum. ACF would provide an office and logistics for the national node whilst FANRPAN would provide the monthly remuneration.The reason for selecting ACF to host the Zambia node was to create a stronger national node and dialogue platform, which is the basis for FANRPAN legitimacy. ACF has the capacity to bring together a cross-section of stakeholders including government, civil society, private sector, universities and policy analysts on a round table. ACF also has the ability to provide advisory services and has proven record of carrying out independent monitoring and evaluation of public research programs.reason behind placing FANRPAN node within civil society organisations is that they are grounded within communities of practice. It becomes expedient to get up to date issues and constraints that affect poor and vulnerable people whose voices may not otherwise be heard effectively in the policy process. The research process that will occur at local to regional level will begin with issues emanating and being debated at country level and cross cutting issues being dealt with at the regional level.Strengthening FANRPAN nodes and the role of civil society in regional FANR: The case of CISANET in Malawi: By Victor Muhoni -CEO, CISANET CISANET is a civil society organisation with a mission to promote agricultural development and sustainable livelihoods for the poor by influencing desirable change in policies, practices, and attitudes of government, donors, civil society and private sector through advocacy. CISANET structures consist of a board as the supreme decisionmaking body of the network. There are committees in charge of coordination, finance and thematic areas. FANRPAN will have a board member appointed as a focal-point person in one of the committees. CISANET has a secretariat in charge of coordination that organises dialogue meetings on various issues. The role of the secretariat is to build synergies and monitor and evaluate programs. CISANET's thematic areas of focus are marketing, irrigation, budgets, policies and livestock. The thrust is on research and policy analysis, advocacy. CISANET uses members' capacities to generate joint program implementation and enhance visibility. Issues of concern to CISANET include agenda setting in national and regional programs; managing donor agenda versus local agenda national programmes; managing the commitment of members; representation in regional advocacy forums; strong inter-country linkages and lesson sharing through mentorships; and ensuring equity and standardisation of systems so that they are more integrated.Issue 1: Why are we trying to change the nodes from their traditional homes? Issue 2: Why are only five nodes being strengthened, since all the nodes are supposedly weak and dormant? Issue 3: What was the actual reason for relocating nodded from universities to civil society organisations Issue 4: What should be done to strengthen country nodes? Response : FANRPAN country nodes have traditionally been located at universities but they have not performed as well as expected in some countries. In Zambia and Malawi these nodes are being relocated from universities to civil societies. Universities would still serve their roles in the nodes as policy analysts. Response: Nodes must be located within legal entities to avoid problems in future. Extreme caution must be exercised and a cost benefit analysis carried out before shifting entirely from universities to civil society organisations, as the real issue nodes have been inactive at university level has been as a result of lack of funds. Main recommendations included: a thoroughly review of country node activities; all country nodes in SADC need strengthening; the FANRPAN secretariat should hold workshops in each SADC country to review operations of country nodes with as a basis for strengthening them; new nodes such as Angola can benefit from look and learn tours to other nodes such as Zambia and Malawi; nodes should promote and market FANRPAN within their organisations. The severe humanitarian crisis here demands truth and honesty from all those embroiled in the causes and consequences for our SADC community of 260 million people in the region. The triple threats of poverty, HIV & AIDS and Food Insecurity challenge governments, donors and non-public humanitarian and development agencies to respond adequately to avert prevailing hunger, disease and death across the SADC region.Our collective efforts in agricultural and rural development have fallen short of the response and community needs, notwithstanding the effects of the droughts that frequently affect agricultural products in the region. At the heart of those failures, is our continual inability to implement appropriate policies, enable functional institutions and marshal resources in ways that optimise services, nutrition, and care for vulnerable communities.Regional institutes and national governments are urged to take greater responsibilities for enhancing food security in SADC through the provision of a conducive policy environment. Donors, relief and development agencies have also to engage with the limitations of their often well-intentioned efforts to avert hunger. This week, a widely representative group of over 100 regional African professionals and their development partners deliberated on the key issues, challenges and responses needed to overcome food insecurity and community vulnerability across the SADC region. Their conclusions reflect a refreshing candour on the causes of the chronic problems, the understanding needed to formulate appropriate policy responses and the actions needed to achieve sustainable impacts in institutional efforts to strengthen resilience and increase food production among rural communities of smallholder farmers in the SADC region.The Johannesburg 2005 Regional Multi-Stakeholder Public Policy Dialogue organized by FANRPAN, from 4-7 October 2005, on the theme of \"Creating a Conducive Policy Environment for a Food Secure SADC\" resolved to:-Take initiatives to facilitate more open and readily transactible trade and market development for food products and inputs in the region. -Strengthen knowledge management on regional trade, marketing and institutional development.-Continue to provide evidence based information on the pros and cons of GMOs in an effort to promote harmonization of biotechnology and biosafety policies -Facilitate stakeholder dialogue at national level to facilitate formulation of policies for contract farming.-Use the current FANRPAN coordinated studies as a bench mark for a regional longitudinal study on the impact of HIV and AIDS on agriculture and food security. -Develop a household vulnerability index (HVI) as a tool for quantifying the impact of HIV and AIDS on agriculture and food security as a basis for effective targeting of interventions for different levels of household vulnerability. -Advocate for increased government involvement in the design of new and innovative HIV and AIDS related agricultural programmes and interventions.-Strengthen agricultural policy analysis and advocacy at regional and national levels.-Lead initiatives and programmes to develop and empower farming organizations across the region.-Develop and strengthen a platform for policy engagements with policy makers, analysts and private sector at national and regional levels.The implementation of these resolutions demand that FANRPAN capacity be strengthened in terms of competency, capability and capacity.","tokenCount":"32141"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ab9295d2b6de54a08ad74b8032565ad6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/4b4cb140-9160-401a-96ed-1fe3ceb27de4/content","id":"-72398504"},"keywords":["Qu, J.","Chassaigne-Ricciulli, A.A.","Fu, F.","Yu, H.","Dreher, K.","Nair, S.K.","Gowda, M.","Beyene, Y.","Makumbi, D.","Dhliwayo, T.","et al. Low-Density Reference Plants 2022, 11, 3092 tropical maize","CIMMYT maize line (CML)","reference SNP dataset","fingerprinting","quality control","heterotic group PZA03211_6, C7_158970827_v3_22, PZE-110083653, PZA02746_2, C2_64580161_v3_22, C6_151676156_v3_22, PZA00223_4, C10_132535344_v3_22, C6_167167466_v3_22, C8_114824208_v3_22, C4_239917922_v3_22, PHM13440_13, C5_152469859_v3_22, and"],"sieverID":"76ad0715-2690-4dd5-b6d3-5d1c9146117e","pagecount":"19","content":"CIMMYT maize lines (CMLs), which represent the tropical maize germplasm, are freely available worldwide. All currently released 615 CMLs and fourteen temperate maize inbred lines were genotyped with 180 kompetitive allele-specific PCR single nucleotide polymorphisms to develop a reference fingerprinting SNP dataset that can be used to perform quality control (QC) and genetic diversity analyses. The QC analysis identified 25 CMLs with purity, identity, or mislabeling issues. Further field observation, purification, and re-genotyping of these CMLs are required. The reference fingerprinting SNP dataset was developed for all of the currently released CMLs with 152 high-quality SNPs. The results of principal component analysis and average genetic distances between subgroups showed a clear genetic divergence between temperate and tropical maize, whereas the three tropical subgroups partially overlapped with one another. More than 99% of the pairs of CMLs had genetic distances greater than 0.30, showing their high genetic diversity, and most CMLs are distantly related. The heterotic patterns, estimated with the molecular markers, are consistent with those estimated using pedigree information in two major maize breeding programs at CIMMYT. These research findings are helpful for ensuring the regeneration and distribution of the true CMLs, via QC analysis, and for facilitating the effective utilization of the CMLs, globally.Maize is one of the most important crops and is widely cultivated all over the world. Maize production of the tropically adapted germplasm occupied 30% of global maize production [1], and it is the preferred staple food for 900 million people living on less than 2 US$ a day, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), a non-profit international agricultural research and training organization, seeks to develop improved maize inbred lines and hybrids, with superior performance and multiple stress tolerance, in various agro-ecological zones across Africa, Latin America, and Asia in order to improve maize productivity for resource-constrained smallholder farmers [2]. Between 1984 and 2022, 615 CIMMYT maize lines (CMLs), adapted to the tropical/subtropical maize production environments, had been developed and released as international public goods and were accessible to all. These CMLs represent the broad genetic diversity of improved tropical maize germplasm in the Plants 2022, 11, 3092 3 of 19 typing cost per sample was decreased by reducing genome complexity with restriction enzymes, and multiplex sequencing the samples by using the barcode system [25][26][27][28]. A molecular characterization study on all of the CMLs before CML539 was carried out using GBS SNPs to better understand how to utilize these CMLs [2]. However, new CMLs are continuously being released and the genotypic datataset has to be updated to include new lines. A cost-effective genotyping platform with a short turnaround time, such as KASPar, is required to genotype all of the CML candidates before release in order to generate the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset for all CMLs, as a whole. This can then be used to examine the genetic purity and identity of the CML candidates, and will avoid the new CMLs having close genetic relationships with existing CMLs.In the present study, all of the currently released 615 CMLs (available till 2022) were genotyped with 180 KASPar QC SNPs, routinely used at CIMMYT, and two to five biological replications per CML were genotyped. The main objectives of the present study were to: (1) develop the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset of all currently released 615 CMLs; (2) implement QC analysis on two to five biological replications of each CML in order to identify suspicious CMLs in the CIMMYT gene bank with issues of genetic purity, identity, seed contamination or mislabeling during genotyping; (3) conduct genetic diversity analysis on all of the currently released 615 CMLs and 15 temperate maize inbred lines.All 180 KASP SNP markers were evenly anchored on the reference genome of B73_RefGen_V4, based on their flanking sequence information. In total, 179 SNP markers were anchored on the ten maize chromosomes, and one SNP marker was anchored on the B73_RefGen_V4_Contig104 (Figure 1). The number of SNPs on each chromosome ranged from 12, on chromosome 4, to 22 on chromosome 6, with a mean of 17.9 markers per chromosome (Table 1). The physical distance of two adjacent SNPs on each chromosome varied from 114 bp on chromosome 7, between SNP PZE-101093951 and SNP PZE0186065237, to 58.54 Mb on chromosome 4, between SNP PZE-101093951 and SNP PZE0186065237, with an average value of 12.30 Mb (Table S1). Among the 180 KASP SNPs, seven SNPs were breeder-ready markers for provitamin A (PVA); three SNPs were breeder-ready markers for resistance to maize streak virus (MSV); 10 SNPs were breeder-ready markers for resistance to maize lethal necrosis (MLN); 10 SNPs were breeder-ready markers for quality protein maize (QPM); and 2 SNPs were breeder-ready markers for resistance to tar spot complex (TSC).   In total, 360 alleles were detected for all the 180 KASP SNPs, with two alleles per SNP, as was expected. The SNP mutation type analysis indicated that 59.9% of the SNP mutations belong to the A/G, T/C type; 20.9% of the SNP mutations belong to the A/C, G/T type; and 19.2% of the SNP mutations belong to the A/T, C/G type. SNP is a type of mutation that occurs in a single nucleotide in the genome. In the present study, the number of KASP markers with the allelic types of A/G and T/C was higher than those with other allelic types. The summary information for all 180 KASP SNPs in the first round of genotyping dataset are shown in Figure 2a. The average heterozygosity rate across all the SNPs was 1.14%, with a range from 0 to 19.73% per SNP. In total, 172 of the 180 SNPs had a In total, 360 alleles were detected for all the 180 KASP SNPs, with two alleles per SNP, as was expected. The SNP mutation type analysis indicated that 59.9% of the SNP mutations belong to the A/G, T/C type; 20.9% of the SNP mutations belong to the A/C, G/T type; and 19.2% of the SNP mutations belong to the A/T, C/G type. SNP is a type of mutation that occurs in a single nucleotide in the genome. In the present study, the number of KASP markers with the allelic types of A/G and T/C was higher than those with other allelic types. The summary information for all 180 KASP SNPs in the first round of genotyping dataset are shown in Figure 2a. The average heterozygosity rate across all the SNPs was 1.14%, with a range from 0 to 19.73% per SNP. In total, 172 of the 180 SNPs had a heterozygosity rate lower than 5% (Table S1). The remaining eight SNPs with heterozygosity rates greater than 5%-i.e., C6_9203520_v3_22, PZA02746_2, C3_169075836_v3_22, C2_64580161_v3_22, PZA01919_2, PHM2350_17, C6_151676156_v3_22, and PZA00413_20-were excluded from the further QC analysis and development of the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset. The average missing rate across all the SNPs was 5.55%, with a range from 0.42% to 37.75% per SNP. In total, 164 of the 180 SNPs had their missing rates lower than 10%. The remaining 16 SNPs with missing rates > 10%-i.e., C3_11540103_v3_22, C7_141983951_v3_22, tory protein of opaque-2 and Zm00001d034385, aldehyde oxidase 3, associated drought stress tolerance (Table S2). In total, 204 of the 208 genes were annotated in GO terms, divided into three categories: 66 terms involved in biological processes, 4 terms associated with cellular components, and 25 GO terms correlated with mol functions (Figure 3; Table S3). In addition, four GO terms were associated with the opment and regulation of quality protein maize, including GO:0044267 (cellular p metabolic process), GO:0006464 (cellular protein modification process), GO:0019538 tein metabolic process), and GO:0005515 (protein binding). The genes associated with the KASP markers were used to perform GO analysis. In total, 164 of the 180 KASP SNP markers were associated with 208 genes, including 151 KASP SNP markers located in the genic region, 15 KASP SNP markers located within the two kb upstream intergenic region of a gene, and 34 KASP SNP markers located within the two kb upstream or downstream intergenic region of a gene. Among the 208 genes, 181 of them were annotated with potential function, such as Zm00001d018971, a regulatory protein of opaque-2 and Zm00001d034385, aldehyde oxidase 3, associated with drought stress tolerance (Table S2). In total, 204 of the 208 genes were annotated into 134 GO terms, divided into three categories: 66 terms involved in biological processes, 43 GO terms associated with cellular components, and 25 GO terms correlated with molecular functions (Figure 3; Table S3). In addition, four GO terms were associated with the development and regulation of quality protein maize, including GO:0044267 (cellular protein metabolic process), GO:0006464 (cellular protein modification process), GO:0019538 (protein metabolic process), and GO:0005515 (protein binding).The genetic purity analysis revealed that the average heterozygosity rate across two biological replications of all the 603 CMLs was 2.29%. In total, 556 of the 1206 samples, i.e., 46.10%, had heterozygosity rates lower than 1%, and the seeds of these samples achieved the required purity level. In addition, 1058 of the 1206 samples, i.e., 87.73%, had heterozygosity rates lower than 5%, indicating that the seeds of these samples achieved the basic purity level. The 151 CMLs with a heterozygosity rate of at least one biological replication greater than 3% were used for the second round of genotyping, and are listed in Table S4.  The genetic purity analysis revealed that the average heterozygosity rate across two biological replications of all the 603 CMLs was 2.29%. In total, 556 of the 1206 samples, i.e., 46.10%, had heterozygosity rates lower than 1%, and the seeds of these samples achieved the required purity level. In addition, 1058 of the 1206 samples, i.e., 87.73%, had heterozygosity rates lower than 5%, indicating that the seeds of these samples achieved the basic purity level. The 151 CMLs with a heterozygosity rate of at least one biological replication greater than 3% were used for the second round of genotyping, and are listed in Table S4.The genetic identity analysis revealed that the average similarity rate between the two biological replications across all the 603 CMLs was 98.54%, indicating that most of the CMLs were essentially identical for the two biological replications genotyped in the first round of genotyping. The similarity rates between the two biological duplications of 485 CMLs were greater than 99%, indicating that these CMLs were essentially identical. The similarity rates between the two biological duplications of 93 CMLs were greater than 95%, indicating that these CMLs were identical, with slight genetic divergences caused by genetic drift. The rest of the 25 CMLs had similarity rates lower than 95% between the two independent biological replications, indicating either a genetic identity issue of the seeds or mislabeling during genotyping. Among these 25 CMLs, eleven CMLs had relatively high similarity rates, of greater than 85%, and relatively high heterozygosity rates, of greater than 5% in at least one biological replication; this result indicated that the genetic The genetic identity analysis revealed that the average similarity rate between the two biological replications across all the 603 CMLs was 98.54%, indicating that most of the CMLs were essentially identical for the two biological replications genotyped in the first round of genotyping. The similarity rates between the two biological duplications of 485 CMLs were greater than 99%, indicating that these CMLs were essentially identical. The similarity rates between the two biological duplications of 93 CMLs were greater than 95%, indicating that these CMLs were identical, with slight genetic divergences caused by genetic drift. The rest of the 25 CMLs had similarity rates lower than 95% between the two independent biological replications, indicating either a genetic identity issue of the seeds or mislabeling during genotyping. Among these 25 CMLs, eleven CMLs had relatively high similarity rates, of greater than 85%, and relatively high heterozygosity rates, of greater than 5% in at least one biological replication; this result indicated that the genetic identity issue of these CMLs, including CML51B, CML95B, CML196A, CML208A, CML437A, CML473B, CML474A, CML487B, CML519B, CML521B, and CML523A, were probably caused by the issue of impurity seeds. The rest of the fourteen CMLs, including CML76A, CML80A, CML82A, CML83A, CML96B, CML100A, CML101A, CML107A, CML111A, CML112A, CML113A, CML116B, CML240A, and CML418B, had similarity rates lower than 85% between the two independent biological replications, and six of these fourteen CMLs, including CML76A, CML96B, CML100A, CML107A, CML111A, and Plants 2022, 11, 3092 7 of 19 CML240A, had relative high heterozygosity rates of greater than 5%. The genetic identity issue of these six CMLs was most likely caused by the issue of impurity seeds, and the genetic identity issue of the other eight CMLs was most likely caused by mislabeling during genotyping. In these 25 CMLs, the genetic distance between the two biological duplications of a few CMLs was greater than the between different CMLs, and they were selected in the second round of genotyping.Among the 540 samples of 180 CMLs genotyped in the second round, the heterozygosity rates of 482 samples, corresponding to at least one biological replication of 179 CMLs, were lower than 5%, including 323 samples with heterozygosity rates lower than 1%, and 111 samples with heterozygosity rates between 1% to 3%. The biological replications with heterozygosity rates lower than 3% from both rounds of genotyping were used to build the reference SNP dataset for the fingerprinting and QA/QC analyses. In addition, 13 of the 25 CMLs with similarity rates lower than 95% between the two biological replications in the first round of genotyping were identified with mislabeling issues in one biological replication in the first round of genotyping (Figure 4), based on the neighbor-joining tree results across all five biological replications. The reference fingerprinting SNP dataset for these thirteen CMLs, including CML76A, CML80A, CML82A, CML83A, CML96B, CML100A, CML101A, CML107A, CML111A, CML112A, CML113A, CML116B, CML240A, was built with the reliable genotypic data of the four biological replications from both rounds of genotyping.CML437A, CML473B, CML474A, CML487B, CML519B, CML521B, and CML523A, were probably caused by the issue of impurity seeds. The rest of the fourteen CMLs, including CML76A, CML80A, CML82A, CML83A, CML96B, CML100A, CML101A, CML107A, CML111A, CML112A, CML113A, CML116B, CML240A, and CML418B, had similarity rates lower than 85% between the two independent biological replications, and six of these fourteen CMLs, including CML76A, CML96B, CML100A, CML107A, CML111A, and CML240A, had relative high heterozygosity rates of greater than 5%. The genetic identity issue of these six CMLs was most likely caused by the issue of impurity seeds, and the genetic identity issue of the other eight CMLs was most likely caused by mislabeling during genotyping. In these 25 CMLs, the genetic distance between the two biological duplications of a few CMLs was greater than the between different CMLs, and they were selected in the second round of genotyping.Among the 540 samples of 180 CMLs genotyped in the second round, the heterozygosity rates of 482 samples, corresponding to at least one biological replication of 179 CMLs, were lower than 5%, including 323 samples with heterozygosity rates lower than 1%, and 111 samples with heterozygosity rates between 1% to 3%. The biological replications with heterozygosity rates lower than 3% from both rounds of genotyping were used to build the reference SNP dataset for the fingerprinting and QA/QC analyses. In addition, 13 of the 25 CMLs with similarity rates lower than 95% between the two biological replications in the first round of genotyping were identified with mislabeling issues in one biological replication in the first round of genotyping (Figure 4), based on the neighborjoining tree results across all five biological replications. The reference fingerprinting SNP dataset for these thirteen CMLs, including CML76A, CML80A, CML82A, CML83A, CML96B, CML100A, CML101A, CML107A, CML111A, CML112A, CML113A, CML116B, CML240A, was built with the reliable genotypic data of the four biological replications from both rounds of genotyping. The low-density reference fingerprinting SNP dataset was developed for all of the currently released 615 CMLs through the integration of the reliable genotypic data of all the biological replications for each CML. For CML1A to CML603A, 152 SNPs were used to develop the reference SNP dataset; the SNPs in the first round of genotyping with a heterozygosity rate greater than 5%, a missing rate greater than 10%, and a MAF lower than 0.05, were excluded from the reference SNP dataset. For CML604A to CML615A, only one biological duplication for each CML was genotyped with 85 of the 152 SNPs to develop the reference SNP dataset. In total, the reference SNP dataset included 584 CMLs with a heterozygosity rate lower than 5% and an average similarity rate greater than 95% between the biological replications for each CML; 22 CMLs with a heterozygosity rate lower than 5%, and an average similarity rate lower than 95% between the biological replications for each CML; and CML179A with a heterozygosity rate of 10.08% and an average similarity rate lower of 97.94% between the biological replications (Table S5). Genotyping data of CML543B, CML569B, CML585A, and CML605B were missing in the current reference SNP dataset. Among the 22 CMLs with heterozygosity rates lower than 5% and average similarity rates lower than 95% between the biological replications, the similarity rates between the biological duplications of eight CMLs were lower than the similarity rate with the other CML.The summary information of the 152 SNPs in the reference fingerprinting genotypic dataset in all the 584 reliable CMLs is shown in Figure 2b. The number of SNPs per chromosome ranged from 11 on chromosome 4 to 21 on chromosome 1, the average missing rate across all the SNPs was 2.50%, the average heterozygosity rate across all the SNPs was 0.60%, and the average MAF across all the SNPs was 0.34. The 152 SNPs in the reference fingerprinting genotypic dataset had lower missing and heterozygosity rates, and higher MAF than those in the original 180 SNPs dataset. In the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset, the average missing rate across all the reliable 584 CMLs was 2.50%, and the average heterozygosity rate across all the reliable 584 CMLs was 0.60% (Table S5).The genetic distance result for the 25 pairs of CML with pedigree-based close relationships is shown in Table 2, where the genetic distance between each pair of CMLs varied from 0.02 to 0.44, with a mean of 0.14. This result indicates that the high-quality reference SNP dataset developed in the present study is appropriate for fingerprinting, QA/QC, and genetic diversity analyses, and it can accurately reflect the relationships of the genetically close related CMLs.The result of the principal component analysis in all of the currently released 615 CMLs, along with the fourteen temperate maize inbred lines, is shown in Figure 5. The first three principal components explained 7.74% of the genetic variations, in total, and the genetic variation explained by the first principal component, the second principal component, and the third component was 3.12%, 2.58%, and 2.24%, respectively. A clear genetic divergence was observed between temperate and tropical inbred lines, while a clear clustering pattern was not observed between the BSSS and NSSS heterotic groups in the temperate maize, due to the small sample size of the temperate subgroup affecting the accuracy of cluster pattern analysis within this subgroup. The Highland Tropical subgroup, on the whole, was separated from the Lowland Tropical and Subtropical/Mid-altitude subgroups, whereas the Lowland Tropical subgroup and the Subtropical/Mid-altitude subgroup overlaid partially with each other.  0.14 a IR: imidazolinone resistant. b Q: quality protein maize. * indicated harvest with bulk method.The result of the principal component analysis in all of the currently released 615 CMLs, along with the fourteen temperate maize inbred lines, is shown in Figure 5. The first three principal components explained 7.74% of the genetic variations, in total, and the genetic variation explained by the first principal component, the second principal component, and the third component was 3.12%, 2.58%, and 2.24%, respectively. A clear genetic divergence was observed between temperate and tropical inbred lines, while a clear clustering pattern was not observed between the BSSS and NSSS heterotic groups in the temperate maize, due to the small sample size of the temperate subgroup affecting the accuracy of cluster pattern analysis within this subgroup. The Highland Tropical subgroup, on the whole, was separated from the Lowland Tropical and Subtropical/Mid-altitude subgroups, whereas the Lowland Tropical subgroup and the Subtropical/Mid-altitude subgroup overlaid partially with each other.  The pairwise genetic distance between all the 584 reliable CMLs varied between 0 and 0.63, with an average of 0.43 (Table S6). The results showed that 99.43% of the pairs of CMLs had genetic distances greater than 0.30, including 92.49% that had genetic distances between 0.30 to 0.50, and 6.94% with genetic distances greater than 0.50. Less than 1% of the pairs of CMLs had genetic distances lower than 0.30, including 0.49% ranging between 0.10 and 0.30; 0.08% of them ranging between 0 and 0.10; and ten pairwise of CMLs with genetic distances equal to 0, i.e., CML117A-CML133A, CML138B-CML367B, CML171B-CML172B, CML204B-CML208A, CML214A-CML216A, CML283A-CML284A, CML377B-CML383B, CML387A-CML504B, CML472B-CML474A, and CML563A-CML579A. Of the 86 pairwise of CMLs with genetic distances lower than 0.05, 34 pairwise of CMLs were siblings, and 14 pairwise of CMLs were selected from the same population. This information indicates that most of the lines in the entire panel are either not related or only distantly related to each other and reflects the high genetic diversity of the CML germplasm source. However, it also indicates that the genetic distances between the CML candidates and the existing CMLs should be greater than 0.05 to avoid releasing genetically close-related new CMLs.The average genetic distances between the different subgroups were calculated. The results indicated that the genetic distance between the tropical and temperate maize was greater than those among the three tropical subgroups. The genetic distance between the Temperate subgroup and each of the three tropical subgroups was 0.51. The genetic distance among each pair of all three tropical subgroups was 0.43 or 0.44.The analysis of the heterotic groups for each CIMMYT maize breeding program can facilitate the exchange and utilization of global germplasm resources. The 615 CMLs that are currently available have been divided into heterotic group A (HGA) and heterotic group B (HGB), according to the information of pedigrees and combining abilities. Within the Lowland tropical-Mexico (LLT) and East Africa (EA) CIMMYT maize breeding programs, a collection of key founder lines, including the most frequently used breeding lines and testers, were selected to investigate their genetic relatedness with each other (Figures 6 and 7). For LLT, 18 key founder CMLs, including 11 CMLs belonging to HGA and 7 CMLs belonging to HGB, were used to analyze the heterotic pattern in this breeding program. The average pairwise genetic distance within HGA, within HGB, and between HGA and HGB, were 0.28, 0.40, and 0.43, respectively. Within HGA, the CMLs are primarily derived from the Tuxpeño population, all the CMLs were closely related to each other, with a maximum genetic distance of 0.34, with the exception of two early-developed lines of CML247A and CML254A (Figure 6). Within HGB, fewer CMLs were selected, and most CMLs were distantly related to each other. In the LLT breeding program, the average pairwise genetic distance between the heterotic groups was greater than those within the heterotic groups, and the CMLs from the same heterotic group were more closely related to each other, particularly in HGA; this indicates that the heterotic pattern is being developed in this breeding program through breeding selection and recycling of a core set of key founder line.For EA, 44 key founder CMLs, including 28 CMLs belonging to HGA and 16 CMLs belonging to HGB, were used to analyze the trends of heterotic patterns in this breeding program. The pedigree-based heterotic pattern was consistent with that estimated using the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset, with the exception of three CMLs mixed between the two heterotic groups, i.e., CML519B, CML544B, CML567A. This indicates that the CMLs from the same heterotic group were more closely related, and heterotic patterns are being developed in EA. In addition, a few key founder lines developed by the LLT breeding program, i.e., CML495A, CML494B, and CML576B, are also being used in EA to broaden the genetic diversity. The heterotic group information of these introduced lines is consistent with that of the EA lines, showing the feasibility of harmonization of heterotic patterns and utilization of founder lines across breeding programs, via the global germplasm exchange.  For EA, 44 key founder CMLs, including 28 CMLs belonging to HGA and 16 CMLs   The collection of currently released CMLs, which represent the diversity of improved tropical maize germplasm, has been distributed to various public and private sectors worldwide to improve a significant number of value-added traits in temperate and tropical maize. The reference fingerprinting SNP dataset for all the currently released CMLs developed in this study is helpful for the CIMMYT germplasm bank; in order to regenerate, maintain, and distribute the CML germplasm worldwide, they can genotype the regeneration seeds with the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset to assess their genetic purity and identity. Seed requesters can also use the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset to evaluate whether the obtained CML seeds are what they expect. Moreover, the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset developed by the present study is also useful for the breeders from both CIMMYT and partner institutes to better understand how to utilize the currently released CMLs in their breeding programs to select parental lines, replace testers, assign heterotic groups and create a core set of breeding germplasm [2].Previous studies only genotyped part of the currently released CMLs, using different genotyping platforms to perform QC and genetic diversity analyses [2,6,21,29]. To the best of our knowledge, the reference fingerprinting molecular marker dataset had been not developed for all the currently released CMLs with any genotyping platform. In addition, single replication was genotyped for each CML, and a few CMLs were selected as technical replications in the previous studies. In the present study, two rounds of genotyping were applied to generate the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset for all the currently released 615 CMLs, and each CML was genotyped with at least two biological duplications to ensure the reliability of this reference fingerprinting SNP dataset. Using the genotypic data of the five biological duplications from both rounds of genotyping, mislabeled samples corresponding to thirteen CMLs in the first round of genotyping were also identified, and the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset for these thirteen CMLs was improved by removing the genotypic data of the mislabeled duplications. Furthermore, 28 SNPs with heterozygosity rates greater than 5%, missing rates greater than 10%, and MAF values lower than 0.05, were excluded from the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset. For the rest of the 152 SNPs, the average missing was 2.50%, the average heterozygosity rate was 0.60%, and the average MAF was 0.34. These results indicate that these 152 SNPs are high quality, and they are appropriate for further genetic diversity analysis, as well as for future QC studies.Due to a large number of germplasm requests all over the world, regenerating, maintaining, and distributing the CML germplasms has become a significant challenge. During seed regeneration, there is a possibility of contamination with seeds or pollen [3]. The QC genotyping is important for the regeneration, maintenance, and distribution of CML seeds. The genetic purity analysis of the present study showed that 12.27% of the samples in the first round of genotyping did not achieve the basic purity level. Most of these samples correspond to the early CMLs, developed with the recurrent method of population improvement, and the original seeds of these CMLs submitted to the CIMMYT maize germplasm bank were not purified completely. For preserving the genetic diversity of the CMLs, the bulk pollen method was applied for regeneration seeds, and it also maintained the heterozygosity in the regeneration seeds. The early CMLs, with a possibly high level of heterozygosity rate identified in the present study, need to be purified by the CIMMYT germplasm bank and restock the regeneration seeds. For the CMLs with a possibly high level of heterozygosity rate released in the past two decades, and still being frequently used by the breeding program, the CIMMYT maize breeding team take responsibility for purifying them and re-submitting the purified increased seeds to the CIMMYT germplasm bank. Then, the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset for these CMLs needs to be updated by sampling the purified new seed sources.Based on the first round of genotypic data, 25 CMLs were identified with the genetic identity issue, and eleven of these CMLs have both identity and purity issues; therefore, these CMLs need to first be purified, and then the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset of these CMLs need to be updated by sampling the purified new seed sources. Among these 25 CMLs, the genetic distance of seven pairs of CMLs, estimated with the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset, was zero, and most of these pairs of CMLs had similar genetic backgrounds and closer pedigree relationships. These results indicated that the CMLs with close pedigree relationships could not be distinguished by the low-density reference fingerprinting dataset of 152 SNPs and that, before release, all the CMLs candidates have to be genotyped with the same reference fingerprinting dataset as that of the currently released CMLs. In addition, the genetic relationships between the CML candidates and all currently released CMLs need to be estimated to avoid releasing any new CMLs that have close genetic relationships with the existing CMLs, and the seed purity of the CML candidates should be tested before being submitted to the CIMMYT maize germplasm bank for release. Moreover, the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset for all the CMLs can be updated as soon as the new CMLs are announced for release.The results of the genetic diversity analysis performed in the present study showed that the average genetic distance between all paired CMLs was 0.43, and 99.43% of pairs of CMLs had genetic distances greater than 0.30, indicating that high genetic diversity existed in the collection of the currently released CMLs, and most CMLs are distantly related. These results are similar to the previous studies [2]. The result of the principal component analysis and the average genetic distances between the different subgroups revealed that a clear genetic divergence was observed between temperate and tropical maize; the Highland Tropical subgroup can be distinguished from the Lowland Tropical and Subtropical/Mid-altitude subgroups. The Lowland Tropical subgroup and the Subtropical/Mid-altitude subgroup partially overlapped with each other; this reflects the current germplasm exchange flow from the Lowland Tropical breeding programs to the Subtropical/Mid-altitude breeding programs. The currently released CMLs are clustered according to their environmental adaptation groups and pedigree relationships.The heterotic patterns in maize are discovered based on whether phylogenetic and geographical isolation exists, as well as being enhanced by breeders through long-term selection [29]. The heterotic groups within a collection of maize germplasm can be estimated based on pedigree information and by combining ability tests, genetic distance, or kinship coefficient analysis. Using the molecular markers provides an alternative approach for revealing the heterotic patterns in a collection of maize germplasm. A previous study showed that only half of CMLs have heterotic information [2], which was provided by the individual breeding program based on the information of pedigree and combining ability. In the present study, the heterotic group information for all of the currently released CMLs was assigned to specific heterotic groups of CIMMYT: A and B. This will facilitate the germplasm exchange and utilization among the different maize breeding programs of CIMMYT. The pairwise genetic distances between all of the currently released CMLs were also estimated based on the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset, which is complementary to the updated heterotic group information to help breeders to better understand the utilization of the currently released CMLs in their breeding programs. In two major maize breeding programs at CIMMYT, the pedigree-based heterotic pattern of the important CMLs, widely used in breeding and tests, were mostly consistent with those estimated using the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset. There were only a few exceptions of inbred lines, mixed between the two heterotic groups, indicating that the CMLs from the same heterotic group were more closely related, and heterotic patterns are being developed through breeding selection and recycling of a core set of key founder lines. The correct parental combinations to maximize heterosis can be identified to develop high yield potential hybrids.In the present study, 615 CMLs and 14 temperate maize lines were used for genotyping in order to perform QC and genetic diversity analysis. Seeds of 615 CMLs were obtained from the CIMMYT Maize Germplasm Bank. The modified CTAB (cetyltrimethylammonium bromide) method was applied for DNA extraction from the leaf tissues [30]. All of the CMLs were planted at the Tlaltizapan experimental station of CIMMYT, with 25 seeds per line per plot. The leaf tissues of each CML were sampled by mixing 10 individual plants, and two independent biological replications were collected for each inbred line. For the second round of genotyping, a subset of 180 CMLs was selected; the heterozygosity rate of at least one biological duplication of these CMLs was greater than 3%, and the genetic distance between the biological replications of the same CML was greater than that between different CMLs. In the second round of genotyping, these 180 CMLs were planted in the greenhouse for tissue collection, a leaf sample from a single plant was collected for each independent biological duplication, and three independent biological duplications were collected for each CML. The latest batch of CMLs (CML604 to CML615), released in May 2021, was genotyped with a subset of 90 SNPs, and each CML was sampled by mixing three individual plants.Based on the environmental adaptation, all of the 615 CMLs developed by the different breeding programs were classified into three categories: 336 CMLs adapted to the lowland tropical environment, 230 CMLs adapted to the subtropical/mid-altitude environment, and 37 CMLs adapted to the highland tropical environment (Table 3). The maize breeding programs in Latin America released 464 CMLs, including 285 lowland topical CMLs, 144 subtropical/mid-altitude CMLs, and 35 highland tropical CMLs. The maize breeding programs in Southern and Eastern Africa released 110 CMLs, including 22 lowland topical CMLs, 86 subtropical/mid-altitude CMLs, and 2 highland tropical CMLs. The maize breeding program in Asia released 29 lowlands topical CMLs (Table 3). To increase the utilization of the CMLs in maize breeding programs globally, all the CMLs in the present study had been assigned to specific heterotic groups of CIMMYT: A and B, according to the information of pedigrees and combining abilities (personal communication, Felix San Vicente, 2021). The heterotic group assignment is represented for each CML after the CML number, for example, CML312A or CML444B. In total, 14 temperate maize inbred lines requested from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)-Agricultural Research Service (ARS) North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station (NCRPIS) in Ames, Iowa, were used in the present study as controls to assess the genetic divergence between temperate and tropical maize. These inbred lines were primarily the Germplasm Enhancement Maize (GEM) accessions and the maize inbred lines, with expired plant variety protection. The fourteen temperate maize inbred lines, including 11 inbred lines from the Stiff Stalk Synthetic (BSSS) heterotic group, and 3 inbred lines from the non-Stiff Stalk Synthetic (NSSS) heterotic group, were referred to as the Temperate subgroup in the present study.A set of over 1200 KASPar SNP genotyping assays was developed from the mapping data against the B73 reference genome [31] and a SNP mining study from EST sequences [32], which is now publicly available to the global maize genetics community, and it has been routinely applied at the Global Maize Program of CIMMYT for QA/QC, fingerprinting analysis, marker-assisted selection (MAS), and genetic diversity analysis. In total, 180 SNPs prioritized by CIMMYT for QC analysis were selected for genotyping all the currently released 615 CMLs and the fourteen temperate maize inbred lines in the present study (Table S1). The 180 SNPs were selected because of their high polymorphic information content (PIC), high minor allele frequency (MAF), and uniform coverage of the maize genome. Among these 180 SNPs, subsets of 50 or 100 SNPs were used in previous studies as the core set for routine QA/QC analysis [6], and dozens of KASPar SNPs converted from the DArT-Seq platform were developed for \"broad\" or \"rapid\" QA/QC analysis of CMLs [21]. In addition, some breeder-ready markers for implementing MAS were also converted into the KASPar SNPs and included in this marker set. These breederready markers are associated with several traits for tropical maize improvement (https: //excellenceinbreeding.org/toolbox/tools/kasp-low-density-genotyping-platform (accessed on 1 May 2022)) [33], including resistance to maize streak virus [12], resistance to maize lethal necrosis [34], kernel provitamin A content [35], quality protein maize [36], and resistance to tar spot complex [11,37] etc.The summary statistics of each SNP in the genotypic dataset across 1206 samples of CMLs in the first round of genotyping, including PIC, MAF, missing rate, and heterozygosity rate, was analyzed using an in-house Perl script. To evaluate the uniformity of distribution, 180 SNPs were anchored to maize reference genome B73_RefGen_v4 using BLAST software and an in-house Perl script [38,39]. The genes harboring the SNP or in a flanking region of two Kb were extracted and annotated using gene functional information, downloaded from the MaizeGBD database [40]. The physical position of the SNPs on the reference genome, and the candidate genes nearby these QC SNPs and their functions, are shown in Table S1.The gene ontology (GO) functional analysis was performed with the genes harboring the KASP markers using the singular enrichment analysis (SEA) with the online software AgriGO (http://bioinfo.cau.edu.cn/agriGO/index.php (accessed on 1 May 2022)) [41]. In the GO enrichment analysis, the reference gene set of \"Maize AGPv4 (Maize-GAMER)\" was chosen as the background and the \"plant GO slim\" was used as the gene ontology type. The p-value was adjusted using the hypergeometric test with a Benjamini-Hochberg false discovery rate (FDR). The visualization of GO enrichment was performed using the ggplot2 package in R.The QC analysis was performed on 603 CMLs. First, the missing rate and the heterozygosity rate, representing the genetic purity, were calculated on each biological replication for CMLs using the in-house Perl scripts (www.perl.org (accessed on 1 May 2022)). The genetic purity of each biological replication for all the CMLs was classified into three levels by their heterozygosity rates: purity level with a heterozygosity rate of less than 1%; basic purity level with a heterozygosity rate ranging from 1% to 5%; and heterozygosity with a heterozygosity rate greater than 5%. The CMLs with a heterozygosity rate of at least one biological replication greater than 3% were included in the second round of genotyping, with the leaf tissue collected from the individual plant and three biological replications per CML. For these CMLs, the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset was obtained by integrating the fingerprinting genotypic data of each CML from the five independent biological replications.Second, the genetic identity analyses were conducted between the two independent biological replications and among all the CMLs by evaluating the similarities between the two replications for the same CML or between the different CMLs. The similarity rate between the two replications or the two genotypes was calculated as the total number of identical alleles divided by the total number of non-missing alleles. The maximum identity value is 1, and the minimum identity value is 0. For the CML with the genetic distance between the two biological replications greater than that between different CMLs, the genotypic data from all the five independent biological replications was used to remove the mislabeled genotyping samples, and develop the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset.Third, the parent-offspring tests were performed on 25 pairs of CMLs with close relationships to test the accuracy of the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset. Some CMLs are converted from the existing CMLs through marker-assisted selection or backcrossing to improve some specific target traits, such as QPM, imidazolinone resistance for controlling Striga, MSV resistance, and drought tolerance. The genetic distances between the original CMLs and the corresponding converted CMLs were calculated with TASSEL V5.0 software [42].The reference SNP dataset for all the currently released 615 CMLs was obtained by integrating the fingerprinting genotypic data of each CML from the two independent biological replications in the first round of genotyping. The criteria for integration were as follow: (1) the SNP site containing the consistent alleles in both biological replications, was merged directly; (2) the SNP site containing homozygous alleles in one biological replication and heterozygous alleles in the other biological replication kept the homozygous alleles;(3) the rest of SNP sites were set as missing. The missing rate and heterozygosity rate of each CML across the reference dataset were calculated using the in-house Perl scripts. The SNPs with heterozygosity rates greater than 5%, the missing rate greater than 10%, and the MAF (minor allele frequency) values lower than 0.05 were excluded to develop the reference fingerprinting SNP dataset and to perform further genetic diversity analyses.Principal component analysis (PCA) was performed with all of the reference fingerprinting SNPs, on all tropical and temperate maize inbred lines genotyped in the present study, using the TASSEL V5.0 software. The first three principal components were plotted using the Scatter3dplot package in R to show the genetic relationships among the subgroups adapted to different environments.To reveal the genetic relatedness among all CMLs and the temperate maize inbred lines, the identity by state (IBS) genetic distances were estimated with all the reference fingerprinting SNPs in the TASSEL V5.0 software. The average pairwise genetic distances were also estimated within each subgroup, adapted to different environments, i.e., Lowland Tropical subgroup, Subtropical/Mid-altitude subgroup, Highland Tropical subgroup, and Temperate subgroup.Based on the pedigree information and the breeding knowledge, a core set of CMLs used by the Lowland Tropical maize breeding program in Mexico and the Subtropical maize breeding programs in East Africa, including the most frequently used CMLs and testers, was selected to investigate the heterotic patterns developed by Lowland tropical-Mexico (LLT) and East Africa (EA) CIMMYT maize breeding program. The phylogenetic tree was constructed based on IBS's genetic distance matrix for core CMLs in EA using the neighbor-joining algorithm in the ape package in R. The visualization of the phylogenetic tree was performed by MEGA7 software [43].In the present study, a set of 180 KASP SNPs was used to genotype all the currently released 615 CMLs to perform QC analysis, build the reference fingerprinting SNP","tokenCount":"7010"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"93d41ae4c2bd13cb3f5e9943c36e066c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/3b8d3a9b-d492-464a-ba9f-d1768552639f/retrieve","id":"-418061661"},"keywords":["Carotenoids","provitamin A retention","drying","sun","solar","hot air","vitamin A activity","sweetpotato Carotenoids, provitamin A retention, drying, sun, solar, hot air, vitamin A activity, sweetpotato"],"sieverID":"c7af7f72-2bc6-4f8c-97c0-74516fc5a57c","pagecount":"39","content":"Different drying treatments, cross flow, greenhouse solar, and open-air sun, were applied to an American orange-fleshed sweetpotato variety. Trans-β-carotene losses in flour made from dried chips varied between 16 and 34% in all treatments. Hot air cross flow drying retained significantly more provitamin A than sun drying. Solar and sun drying were not significantly different in terms of provitamin A retention. The shape of the sweetpotato pieces (chip or crimped slice) influenced provitamin A retention during sun-drying; crimped slices retained more provitamin A. Other minor provitamin A compounds in fresh sweetpotato included 13-cis and 9-cis-β-carotene and β-carotene 5,6-epoxide. No significant increase in the cis-isomers was observed after drying.Vitamin A activity in flours was found to be greater than 1,500 RE (β-carotene:retinol; 13:1) per 100g including in sun-dried samples. Flour from orange-fleshed sweetpotato therefore has potential as a significant source of provitamin A.The Editor Journal of Food Engineering Dear Sir Please find attached our publication entitled \"Effect of hot air, solar and sun drying treatments on provitamin A retention in orange-fleshed sweetpotato\" that we would like to submit to the Journal of Food Engineering.Professor Andrew Westby Director of Research Natural Resources Institute University of Greenwich [Direct line: +44 1634 883478] [E-mail: a.westby@gre.ac.uk]Reviewer #1: the work is valuable, interesting, well prepared and written, and therefore I recommend its publication in the present form.Reviewer #2: Authors present an interesting paper on the effect of Effect of hot air, solar and sun drying treatments on provitamin A retention in orange-fleshed sweetpotato; attention should be given to the following points:Drying experiments should be described with more detail and the delivery of information such as moisture of the outlet air must be avoided since it is not used towards the objectives of the paper.In order to provide a clearer view on the drying process the former Table 1 has been replaced by schematic diagrams of the cross flow dryer and the greenhouse solar dryer (Figures 1 and 2).Regarding evaluation of dimensions of samples , the estimations presented by authors need to be determined more precisely, possibly using an image analysis system and suitable software (Image J for instance). Moreover, proper evaluation of effects of drying air onto samples must consider the variation of dimensions of samples during drying and not only at initial conditions (Please see Table 4) Samples have been measured using the suggested image analysis system (Image J) that was downloaded from the internet. Three different photographs showing the samples at the initial stage; during drying (after 2h) and at the end of drying have been analysed using the ROI macro to measure slices' area individually (lines 123-132). Distribution of visible surface area has been plotted in Figure 3 and commented upon in the results (lines 249-252). The effect of visible surface area reduction has been shown in Figure 4 and commented in the results (lines 254-262) and mentioned in the conclusion (line 375).The actual velocity of air over the sample should be provided; airflow through inlet air pipe is of little use and no relevant information can be derived from these data. If air leaves chamber at 19-100% relative humidity, samples surely received very different thermal treatment when subjected to drying. What do authors inferred from such differences? Air at 100% RH does not dry and may even wet samples. Important differences toward moisture removal rates surely arise due to this. 1 and 2. Air at 100% was the outlet air after drying the sample; this has been removed from the text.At the start of drying very humid air is expelled from the dryer as samples dried then it would be anticipated that drier air would be expelled from the equipment.Authors surely are aware of the fact of actual air drying is carried out at higher temperatures than those used in their experiments, how do they justify the use of such low temperatures in this type of drying?The drying temperature used in cross flow dryer (42ºC) was chosen because it is close to that of the greenhouse solar dryer (38ºC)(lines 92-94).A very good comparison between damage to B carotene was performed, however, authors should expand on the discussion of radiation vs convection effects.We added a comment on the possible effects of sun radiation (line 260-262), but we feel that this as far as we can go with the data available from this particular study.In my opinion, authors need considering most of the above comments for his paper to be published in JFE.Sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam.) is an important food crop. It is cultivated in more than 100 countries and ranks third in terms of world root and tuber crops production (FAOstat 2006). In Africa white-fleshed varieties are currently mainly grown. However, recent studies by van Jaarsveld et al. (2005) in South Africa and Low et al. (2007) in Mozambique demonstrated that consumption of orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) significantly increased the vitamin A status of children. OFSP could therefore potentially contribute to tackling vitamin A deficiency in African countries, if orange-fleshed varieties were to replace traditional white ones.Sweetpotatoes are traditionally sun-dried in Africa for consumption in the dry season when fresh roots are not available. Roots are crushed or chipped and then dried for several days on stones or on dried cow dung. Dried pieces can be re-hydrated or milled into flour to be used in porridge. In urban areas, flour can also be used in a variety of baked products to partially replace wheat flour.Few studies have been reported on β-carotene retention in dried sweetpotato. Hagenimana et al. (1999) found that drying fresh slices from 24 sweetpotato varieties in a forced air oven at 60ºC for 12 hours reduced total carotenoids content by 30%. Kósambo (2004) similarly reported that drying fresh slices of 13 OFSP varieties from Kenya in an electric cabinet dryer at 58ºC for 4 hours caused an average loss of 35% in trans--carotene content. Losses in cabinet drying and open air sun drying respectively were 28% and 83% on SPK004 and 47% and 72% on Jonathan varieties (Kósambo 2004). Lower retention in open air sun drying was explained by the destructive effect of sunlight and the noncontrolled environmental conditions argued Kósambo (2004). Both van Hal (2000) and Kósambo (2004) reported that artificial cabinet drying generally retained more provitamin A than natural sun drying.With recent increased interest in using OFSP as a biofortification route to reducing vitamin A deficiency in sub-Saharan Africa, combined with the seasonality of the crop, there is renewed interest in the effect of drying on provitamin A retention. The studies reported in this paper aim to clarify the extent and nature of provitamin A losses during drying at low temperature.Sweetpotato roots having red skin and deep orange flesh imported from the United States of America were purchased locally in Montpellier, France (Rubina® Agrexco Carmel Rungis, France). No information was available on the variety, exact location, harvest batch and transport, but roots were all purchased in a single batch and stored in a conditioning room (14ºC) during the analysis time (1 month).Roots were peeled and chipped/sliced using electrical equipment: CL 50 Robocoupe (Vincennes, France) for crimped slices and A200 Hobart (Marne la Vallee, France) for chips. Precautions were taken to protect samples from light, such as by the use of foil and low light conditions during handling.Crimped slices and chips were dried in three dryers described below. Drying times were estimated by weighing the product at regular intervals to an estimated moisture content of 10-11%.The cross flow dryer made in wood, called SCec-T®, was developed by CIRAD for the drying of granular products such as couscous in West Africa (Méot et al. 2007). The air heating system consisted of a butane gas jet and a centrifuge fan (Gomez Eslava 2005).Experiments were carried out indoors. Two temperature probes were positioned between trays and one temperature/humidity probe was placed in the outlet (Gomez Eslava 2005).Hot air arrived through a pipe (200cm) underneath the drying trays with an air temperature between 24 and 45 °C (average 42 °C). Low temperature (mean temperature 42ºC) cross flow drying was used for a comparison to be made with solar drying (mean temperature 38ºC).Temperature, humidity, and air velocity through the sample are presented in Figure 1.The inlet pipe had three holes (100 mm) that let air rise and cross flow the food product placed on three overlaid trays (0.94 m x 0.6 m= 0.564 m² for each tray). The air velocity through the product was 0.28 m.s -1 . The external ambient temperature ranged between 24 and 30 °C and relative humidity between 33 and 59% (Figure 1). A 3-mm layer of chips or crimped slices was placed on the trays with an initial loading density of 8 kg.m -2 for chips and 15 kg.m -2 for crimped slices (Table 1).Solar drying is achieved by direct sun radiation and greenhouse effect. A polythene film covered the solar dryer similar to a greenhouse (Gomez Eslava 2005) of 6 m long x 2.5 m wide. A fan was used to force air into the dryer. Five wire mesh trays (2 x 0.94 m) placed 30 cm above the ground, were loaded with a 2 mm layer of crimped sliced or chipped sweet potato placed on terylene tissue.Two temperature probes and one temperature/humidity probe were placed between the trays to measure temperature and outlet air humidity. The temperature/humidity within the solar dryer ranged from 27 to 50 °C /14 to 52% compared to the external ambient range of 24 to 36 °C/24 to 52% (Figure 2). Air velocity was 0.04m.s -1 . Solar irradiance (Pyranometer Cimel CE 180 (Paris,France)) ranged between 421 and 1005 W.m -2 (9 am to 2 pm) depending on the course of the sun with an average of 751 W.m -2 . Temperature and humidity as well as air velocity through sample are presented in Figure 2. Tray loading densities were 3.5 kg.m -2 for both chips and crimped slices.Open air sun drying was carried out concurrently with solar drying and using the same tray loading density (Table 1). Wire mesh trays (0.43x 0.45 m) were placed in the sun on a stand 10 cm above ground level.Three photographs of samples (chips and slices together) in open air drying at the start of drying; after two hours and at the end of drying were analysed using Image J 1.40gSoftware (National Institute of Health, USA). Using the width of the drying tray as known measurement, pixels values were converted into distance units (cm) (11 pixels=1 cm in the three photographs). On each picture thirty chips and slices were selected individually and their visible surface area calculated using ROI (Region of Interest) manager macro in Image J software. Area measured using the Image J software was in agreement with earlier estimation by calliper measurement (0.01 mm precision) done on ten chips/slices at initial time.Dry matter contents were determined by drying triplicate 5 g samples at 105ºC to constant mass (AOAC 1984). Water activity (Aw) was determined in duplicate on finely blended flour samples using an Aqualab (Decagon, Pullman, WA, USA) controlled with a sodium chloride standard solution (Aw=0.75).Fresh samples were prepared according to Rodriguez Amaya and Kimura (2004). Five raw roots were randomly picked, peeled, quartered. Two opposites sections were combined and blended to a fine pulp using a Thermomix multi-purpose household food processor (Vorwerk, Germany). All operations were carried out under dim light. The samples were thoroughly mixed and packed into 100 ml closed plastic boxes wrapped in black plastic and stored at -20ºC before analysis (1 month maximum).After drying, chips or slices were collected tray by tray and milled into coarse flour using a Thermomix food processor (Vorweck, Germany). Flour was packed into sealed plastic bags under vacuum and stored at -20ºC. Samples were further milled into a fine flour (< 250 μm) on the Laboratory Mill 3100 (Perten Instruments, Roissy, France) before analysis. Concentrations were determined by comparison to a standard curve using pure β-carotene from Extrasynthese, Genay, France. Concentration was calculated by Lambert Beer law from the absorbance (Britton et al. 1995).Normality of distribution of sample visible surface area was verified by Kolmogorov-Smirnov test used for small sample size (n=30). Analysis of variance (ANOVA one wayhomogeneity of variance test) was carried out to determine whether there were significant differences between means; a significant difference between means was determined by a Tukey test. An independent sample T Test was carried out to determine significant differences between provitamin A compounds before and after drying. All data were integrated on SPSS 14.00 for Windows.Flour from dried sweetpotato was evaluated for its moisture content and water activity in order to assess its quality for storage. Tray loading and drying time for each treatment and the moisture contents and water activities (Aw) of flours are shown in Table 1.The flour moisture content was between 9.8 and 11.2%. Flour water activity that ranged between 0.38 and 0.45 should favour carotenoid stability. It was demonstrated on dehydrated carrots in different conditions that better stability of carotenoids was obtained with water activity of 0.43 (Arya et al. 1979) and between 0.31-0.54 (Lavelli et al. 2007).Moreover water activity below 0.7 also limits the risk of microbial deterioration and the lowest lipid oxidation is found between 0.2-0.4 (Rahman and Labuza 1999). The water activities of the dried sweetpotato flours were therefore considered suitable for storage.Provitamin A losses influenced by drying treatment are reported in the Table 2 for chipped sweetpotatoes.Losses with the different drying techniques ranged from 13 to 33% in total carotenoids content and 16 to 34% in trans-β-carotene content. Losses were low for all treatments including sun drying. Levels of loss in sun drying were in contrast to the high levels of loss reported (72 to 83%) previously by Kósambo (2004).Drying by hot air gave significant higher retention than sun drying (respectively 13% compared to 33% in total carotenoids content and 16% compared to 34% in trans-βcarotene content) in chips. There was no significant difference between drying by hot air and solar drying. Negi and Roy (2000) also reported that solar drying was equivalent to cabinet drying at 65°C in terms of provitamin A retention in various leafy vegetables (savoy beet, amaranth and fenugreek). However in other studies retention in solar drying was significantly less in comparison with artificial drying: the same authors found in another study that solar drying was found to induce more -carotene losses than cabinet drying at 65°C in savoy beet and amaranth leaves (Negi and Roy 2001). Solar drying results can be variable because it depends on the prevailing environmental conditions. In this study, temperature in the solar dryer was similar to the hot air dryer (42ºC). However the hot air cross flow dryer had a better drying performance; higher tray loading and quicker drying (8 kg.m -2 ; 2 h) compared to solar dryer (3.5 kg.m -2 ; 8 h) (Table 1). No significant difference between solar and sun drying was observed for samples dried under the same conditions (3.5 kg.m -2 ; 8 h). Similar results were reported by Mulokozi and Svanberg (2003) working with leafy vegetables, where on the whole solar drying retained more provitamin A carotenoids than open-sun drying. However when analysing individual results, it appeared there were no significant differences between solar and sun drying on five out of seven leafy vegetables.The low levels of losses obtained in this study with sun drying may be partially explained by environmental factors: the weather was hot and dry during the study with an ambient average of 29°C/39%, which allowed quick drying (8h).; the weather was also windy during the experiment which allowed rapid sun-drying. Traditionally in sub-Saharan Africa, sweetpotato pieces are sun-dried for 2-3 days. Chavez et al. (2007) reported 62.1% losses in sun dried cassava dried for 2-3 days up to a moisture content of 12%. However a recent study by Bengtsson et al. (2008) using Ugandan sweetpotato varieties confirmed the results of this study. Losses of trans-β-carotene in oven; solar and open sun drying on OFSP chips were respectively 12%; 9% and 16% in Ejumula variety from Uganda dried up to 10% moisture. Drying times and temperature were 10 h at 57ºC in oven drying; and between 6-10 h in sun (30-52ºC) and solar drying (45-63ºC). Bengtsson et al. (2008) indicated that there were no significant differences of retention between oven; solar and sun drying, contrary to previous publications. Bengtsson et al. (2008) likewise commented that a quick drying may result in higher retention.The influence of chip size on total carotenoids content under solar and sun drying carried out under the same conditions (same time and loading density) was investigated (Table 3).The distribution of mean sample visible surface area over 30 chips or crimped slices during drying followed a normal distribution (Figure 3). \"shrinkage\" of the visible surface area of the samples during drying was more marked for chips (51.2% of the initial area) compared to crimped slices (70.5% of the initial area) (Figure 4).When drying chips, there was a significant difference between sun and solar drying in terms of provitamin A content under the same conditions. The difference was, however, not significant in crimped slices. Although data are only available for sun-dried samples, it would appear that chips that had the greatest carotenoid loss also had the greatest degree of \"shrinkage\". It can be therefore hypothesised that there is relationship between the degree of \"shrinkage\" and carotenoid degradation, but this needs further investigation. It is possible that there could be a relationship between cellular collapse caused by \"shrinkage\" and susceptibility of degradation of provitamin A by sun radiation, but more research would be needed to understand this more fully.Several carotenoids were observed on the chromatogram of fresh sweetpotato (16; 17; 24; 25; 30; 32; 33; 34; 37; 39 minute retention times) (Figure 5). Carotenoids were identified by diode array by their three-peak spectrum at three wavelengths.Trans-β-carotene peak appeared at 37 minutes (peak 4). The spectrum of maximum absorption wavelength was 428-452-478 nm in ethanol/hexane, slightly staggered by 2.5 mm compared to literature and % III/II= 13% was in accordance with literature (Rodriguez Amaya and Kimura 2004). (%III/II is an indicator of fine spectral structure calculated as ratio of longest-wavelength absorption peak III and that of the middle absorption peak II).Apart from trans-β-carotene (peak 4), peaks 1 and 2 were clearly defined (retention time 16 and 30 minutes). Peak 1 did not appear constantly on all samples analysed; the peak 1 was definitely not a carotene: its retention time far from apolar β-carotene indicated a more polar molecular structure such as xanthophylls.Peak 2 was firstly thought to be β-cryptoxanthin because the retention time was identical to the β-cryptoxanthin standard when co-injected (retention time 30 minutes). However the calculation of the %III/II of peak 2 (%III/II= 46%) was contradictory with βcryptoxanthin's %III/II equal to 20%. On the other hand it was in agreement with βcarotene 5,6 epoxide's %III/II equal to 57% (Rodriguez and Rodriguez-Amaya 2007). It is to note that the molecular weights of β-cryptoxanthin and β-carotene 5,6 epoxide are the same (552g.mol -1 ) which make the identification difficult. Furthermore it was found that βcarotene 5,6-epoxide was present in the fresh roots of Kakamega sweetpotato variety (Kosambo et al. 1998); on the other hand -cryptoxanthin was not mentioned as part of the carotenoids of sweetpotato in literature.The amounts of both compounds, peaks 1 and 2, were small (less than 10% total carotenoids).Other compounds were less clearly defined; the peak 3 (retention time 34 minute) fitted a typical curved-cis and was identified as 13-cis-β-carotene by co-injection of 13-cis 15% of β-carotene respectively in Mulokozi and Svanberg (2003) whilst 3% and 6%respectively in this study. Mulokozi and Svanberg (2003) formulated the hypothesis that \"the stereo-isomeric forms of β-carotene could be strongly correlated with each other on light exposure and storage\"; which means that instead of isomerising, trans-β-carotene could have been converted into oxidative products as well as their isomers. This hypothesis was corroborated by the fact that ratio of trans-β-carotene, 13-cis, β-carotene 5,6 epoxide and 9-cis are the same in fresh and dried samples. This result was confirmed by Kidmose et al. (2007) on shade dried OFSP; same amount of 13-cis-β-carotene was found in root and flour made from dried chips (representing 1% of trans-β-carotene). An interesting and recent work by Hiranvachat et al. (2008) showed that a minimum of 5h at constant temperature of 60ºC was necessary to induce formation of 13-cis-β-carotene in oven-dried diced carrot. The absence of isomerisation could therefore be explained since the average temperature in the three dryers was around 40ºC and never went beyond 50ºC.Oxidation occurs through a free radical process and loss of water during drying has proved to be a risk factor (Chandler and Schwartz 1988). Therefore loss of carotenoids (by oxidation) would have occurred rather than isomerisation.The percentage of β-carotene 5,6 epoxide was significantly lowered after drying. This could result from quicker degradation of β-carotene 5,6 epoxide than β-carotene. A combination of factors (light, heat, exposure to oxygen) could have degraded β-carotene 5,6 epoxide slightly more rapidly than trans-β-carotene and stereo-isomers.Vitamin A activity was calculated using the recent conversion factor of Haskell et al. (2004), who demonstrated that bioavailability in fresh sweetpotato puree was -carotene:retinol 13:1. This updated the previous estimation of 6:1 by NAS/NRC (1974).Bioavailability of cis-isomers is estimated as half of trans-β-carotene and that of βcarotene 5,6 epoxide would represent also half of β-carotene activity because it has only one un-substituted -ionone ring instead of two. Carotenoids contents from minor provitamin A carotenoids and trans-β-carotene and an estimation of vitamin A activity are summarised in Table 5.Estimated vitamin A activity ranged between 1,596 and 2,012 RE per 100g flour and was 2,382 RE per 100g on fresh roots (dry basis). All flours, including sun-dried (1,596 RE), provided a substantial amount of vitamin (about 400% of daily nutritional requirements).These estimations do not take into account further significant losses occurring during the preparation of finished products from the orange-fleshed sweetpotato flours. An example of finished product is a traditional doughnut commonly eaten in Uganda called mandazi.Mandazis are usually prepared using wheat flour, but up to 30% of it can be substituted with sweetpotato flour (Owori and Hagenimana 2000). These authors reported that dried chips of Zappalo sweetpotato variety with a vitamin A activity of 1,170 RE per 100 g (db)resulted in a mandazi with vitamin A activity of 157 RE per 100g (fb) (Hagenimana et al. 1999). One hundred grams of the finished product could therefore meet 40% of the recommended intake of provitamin A for children. Another example is porridge made from sweetpotato-sorghum composite flour (70%:30%). Kosambo (2004) reported that dried chips of Jonathan sweetpotato variety with a vitamin A activity of 853 RE per 100g(db) resulted in porridge with vitamin A activity of 448 RE (db); considering a moisture content of 75% due to addition of water, one hundred grams of porridge (fb) would meet 30% of the recommended intake of provitamin A for children. In this present study greater vitamin A activities in flour of 1946 RE on average compared to Owori and Hagenimana (2000) and Kosambo (2004) should favourably result in greater vitamin A content in finished products. Products such mandazi and porridge made from orangefleshed sweetpotato could therefore contribute significantly to vitamin A intake in the diet.The effects of drying treatment and chip size on provitamin A losses in OFSP were investigated. Low levels of loss varying between 16 and 34% in trans--carotene were obtained for all the treatments. The significant findings are that sun-drying was not so damaging to provitamin A content compared to solar and hot air drying. Another finding was chip shape had an influence on retention: sun-dried samples exhibited significantly lower retention on chips but retention was greater with crimped slices. Crimped slice bulkiness or lesser degree of \"shrinkage\" may have protected them from damage from the sun's rays and oxidation. These low levels of loss may be attributed by quick drying (8h) due to the favourable dry, hot and windy climatic conditions. Contrary to expectations, there was not an increase in isomerisation (formation of 9-cis and 13-cis-β-carotenes) due to drying. A similar result was found on a study on sun and solar dried leafy-vegetables by Mulokosi and Svanberg (2003) and Kidmose et al. (2007), who suggested that all stereoisomers; trans-β-carotene, 9-cis and 13-cis, are likely to be oxidised following the same trend. OFSP flour therefore gave promising results with respect to provitamin A retention.Because of the high β-carotene content of fresh roots (close to 300 µg.g -1 db) and its high retention even in low cost-sun-drying treatment, orange-fleshed sweetpotato demonstrates a potential for a significant contribution to vitamin A in the diet.status of primary school children assessed with the modified-relative-dose-response.American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 81, 1080-1087.van Hal, M. (2000). Quality of sweetpotato flour during processing and storage. Food Review International, 16, 1-37.      Each value corresponds to an average of three extractions made on a puree from five fresh roots or on 100gflour from milled dried chips/slices. Values in the same column followed with different letters are significantly different *µg retinol equivalent (RE) = 1/ 13µg trans-β-carotene (Haskell et al. 2004)  ","tokenCount":"4177"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f40ef064265b9fcb02a3729aad68780d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e11f4c96-73d1-4e73-af38-de1bd8c51250/retrieve","id":"2016859236"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"5f72929e-bfbc-4875-90cb-3ca8e6e7027c","pagecount":"1","content":"The cultivation of rice (Oryza sativa) necessitates contemporary crop and soil management practices. Therefore, Rice Crop Manager (RCM), a web-based decision support tool has been developed to provide site specific nutrient recommendations in Odisha, India. The tool is functional and has been deployed by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to cater to the needs of the farmers based on a brief questionnaire about their current farming procedures. The data generated is now used to make informed decisions about ideal conditions of rice planting, adoption of optimized irrigation, weed management etc. Extraction of useful insights from the data by an extended use of statistics, artificial intelligence (AI), domain knowledge, predictive analysis comes under the parasol of the proposed work. Commencing from the year 2015 -till date 2,83,346 recommendations have been already spawned for 31 districts of Odisha state in eastern India. The analysis includes the most common varieties grown, the tentative date of sowing year-wise, the gender details, youth involvement and many more discernments. The functionality of RCM can be expanded to include not only the fertilizer recommendations but also to ensure decision making and develop support systems to cater to the needs of different stakeholders. The methodology makes use of cutting-edge technologies like machine learning to develop a model to select the optimum parameters involved to generate the recommendations. The target yield has been also estimated with a calibration and a validation ratio of 70:30 through performance evaluation particularly by computing R-Square, root mean square error and mean absolute error. The analysis showed that the approach is well suited for the kind of data acquired, later it may be automated to derive more valuable information for the benefit of the farmers.Shalini Gakhar 1 , Benedict Jardinero 1 , Preeti Bharti 1 , Rowena Castillo 1 , Jerome Vila 1 , Sheetal Sharma 1 1 International Rice Research InstituteUse of Artificial Intelligence for Rice Crop Manager (RCM) backend datasets to estimate yield in Odisha, IndiaThe FrameworkThe BackgroundDistrict, Field Size, crop per year, season, agroecology, establishment method, seedbed, Growth duration, seedling age, typical yield, harvesting method, residue management, weed control, herbicide, fertilizers used etc.1. Over 0.2 Millions observations have been collected through RCM, in Odisha.After rigorous data cleaning, the training file for the ANN model was created. 2. The observed yield from the on-farm experiments was taken for training the model, which was further used for remaining data to estimate yield. 3. Using Artificial intelligence and machine learning based approach the key parameters included to estimate the target yield will be identified that can substitute interviewing farmers. 4. The similar analysis will be extended to other districts of Odisha, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Philippines. 5. The acquired data can be used to derive useful insights for different stakeholders.","tokenCount":"457"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"12414f0242169655d3d1575207f617b0","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f02ede9d-ae69-4928-af38-f5394de2b37f/retrieve","id":"2024630282"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"af55883a-c20d-4b52-8efe-f0d77ef63143","pagecount":"11","content":"Titles in this series aim to disseminate interim research on the scaling of climate services and climatesmart agriculture in Africa, in order to stimulate feedback from the scientific community.Climate change continues to pose a significant threat to the agricultural and food systems in West and Central Africa, with serious implications for food and nutrition security. The impacts of climate change on food and nutrition security are multi-sectoral and affect the livelihoods of vulnerable populations in the region (Somda et al., 2017;Zougmoré et al., 2016). The agricultural sector, which is a critical source of employment for a vast majority of the rural population, remains highly vulnerable to climate change (Osabohien et al., 2019).Given that agriculture in the region is mainly rainfed, climate change threatens the food and nutrition security of marginalized groups, particularly due to their inability to adapt to extreme changes. Indeed, climate change, combined with existing gender inequalities, increases the vulnerability of marginalized groups, such as women, youth and indigenous peoples, in particular the very poor, with limited access and control to productive resources (Anser et al., 2021;Huyer, 2018;Huyer et al., 2021). On the other hand, there is strong evidence that promoting sustainable agricultural innovation and social inclusion is critical to ensuring food and nutrition security in the region. Increased social inclusion and innovation may improve food security levels (Anser et al., 2021;Douxchamps et al., 2016). Full access to and control over resources for women may also decrease their vulnerability to food insecurity and increase their expenditures on nutritious food.Building on 50 years of CGIAR research and innovation, the AICCRA project aims to scale-up proven CSA options and climate services to reach millions of smallholder farmers in Africa. AICCRA works with partners at national and regional levels throughout the continent. The project operates in six countries across two regions: East and Southern Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, and Zambia) and West Africa (Senegal, Ghana, and Mali). After nearly three years of implementation in the three AICCRA-anchored countries in West Africa, AICCRA has generated research outputs that serve as evidence of successfully inducing gender and nutrition outcomes for climate-smart agriculture (CSA) and climate information services (CIS) (Gondwe et al., 2022;Huyer & Chanana, 2021;Partey et al., 2020).Through collaborative efforts and engagement with the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research (CORAF), the AICCRA West Africa cluster is working to scaling up gender-and nutrition-sensitive technologies in West and Central Africa. From 12 to 15 September 2023, its partner, the CORAF organized the Market for Agricultural Innovation and Technology (MITA) Forum in Ouagadougou, Burkina-Faso.The MITA aims to accelerate the adoption and use of the best agricultural technologies and innovations to transform African agriculture. During the MITA, AICCRA West Africa (WA) collaborated with country and thematic clusters and regional partners (CORAF, AGRHYMET, and WASCAL/RUFORUM) to hold a side event aimed at promoting the latest AICCRA gender and nutritionsensitive CSA and CIS innovations from WA countries. Also, to identify spillover mechanisms through sub-regional organizations to support the scaling up of science-based gender and nutrition-sensitive CSA and CIS options.The event was structured in two main phases. The initial phase involved an introductory presentation of AICCRA's strategy and experience in scaling up gender-and nutrition-sensitive CSA and CIS, followed by presentations of potential gender-and nutrition-sensitive CSA and CIS innovations available for scaling up by each of AICCRA's clusters focusing on dry land cereals and livestock in Senegal, rice-based systems in Mali and roots and tubers in Ghana (Table 1). The second phase involved a panel discussion with sub-regional organizations on leveraging their initiatives at the regional level to create a ripple effect across West and Central Africa. A questionnaire was administered to participants at the end of the event to document participants' learning outcomes, key gender-and nutrition-sensitive climate-smart agriculture technologies of interest to them, and post-event scaling actions. Technology is proven to increase rice yield by 0.7 -2.0 t/ha and farmers' income by 172 -627 USD/ha, as well as food consumption score by 1 -5.Application domains are irrigated, rainfed lowlands and rainfed uplands. Ensure timely crop establishment, and reduce labour requirement by women.A means of imparting business skills, training, and increased access to finance among women owned or women dominated agro-enterprises. Applicable to all agroecological zones and value chains, targeting women agroentrepreneurs. The innovation contributed to improving profitability of women agri-SMEs in addition to job creation and income increases.The technology involves providing Pastoralist and Agropastoralists communities with tailored climate information services.The technology involves the formulation of rations: groundnut tops and cakes, panicum, Maral alfa, luzerne added with 58-74 cowpea. Additionally, yogurt made from the milk of goat. The technology is proven to contribute to addressing malnutrition in infants, as well as providing fodder resources for livestockCountries and participants profiles 49 respondents from 14 countries participated in the event. The countries represented were Benin, Burkina-Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Chad, Gambia, and Togo. National Agricultural Research System was the most represented among different stakeholders, accounting for 37%. National and regional projects and programs were also represented, accounting for 20%. Government entities, represented by delegates from the Ministries of Agriculture and Directories, made up 10%. Academia, Intergovernmental entities, International Research Organizations, and Civil societies were less represented. Though most of the participants had some prior knowledge of CSA technologies and practices (88%), the AICCRA event at MITA yielded two major learning outcomes (Figure 3). First, participants gained and deepened their understanding of climate-smart agriculture and related technologies, their importance and potential in the context of climate change. Secondly, participants gained awareness of gender in agriculture, gender-and nutrition-sensitive CSA technologies, and their ability to strengthen agricultural sustainability and women's empowerment in African nations. Participants at the event expressed their interest in gender and nutrition-sensitive (GNS) technologies. We found that the most preferred GNS technologies (45% of respondents) were the \"Pay-as-you-go solar powered irrigation business models\", which allows farmers to pay for the solar irrigation system in instalments, with each payment contributing to the total purchase price of the system; and the \"Integrated Rice-Fishery Production System\", where farmers can co-produce rice and fish in the same field. These two technologies are effective in reducing gender inequalities related to accessing and controlling productive resources. They also improve household food and nutrition security (Dossou-Yovo, 2023;Dossou-Yovo et al., 2021).The third most interested technology was smart maize seeds (39%). About 24% of the participants are interested in the Nutritional Package from the dairy sector. Other interesting technologies included the GEM rice parboiling method and the use of biopesticides, specifically Neem leaf extract, to treat diseases in soil.Figure 4: GNS technologies of interests to participantsParticipants gained valuable knowledge during the event and made commitments to promote gender and nutrition sensitive innovation. A significant number (51%) of participants intend to create awareness and disseminate gender and nutrition sensitive CSA and CIS through various events including seminars, workshops, conferences to different stakeholders including local farmers, processors, seed producers, communities, women cooperative groups, projects, etc. This further shows that the technologies presented at the event were relevant to the majority of the participants. Around 31% of the participants will share and report the knowledge gained with colleagues at their respective institutions. ","tokenCount":"1187"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1dfff46c4cce7cf3c4b08e61d1626616","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c90a1b58-4e81-48e1-a172-0a5ad294665f/retrieve","id":"354893330"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"ff631f48-6d5a-4c19-8b7d-d67c7b684664","pagecount":"3","content":"ood is failing us. The global food system is the single largest greenhousegas-emitting sector in the world 1 , and by far the largest cause of biodiversity loss, terrestrial ecosystem destruction 2 , freshwater consumption, and waterway pollution due to overuse of nitrogen and phosphorus 3 . It holds a firm grip over the stability of the Earth system and the future of humanity. Unhealthy food is the world's biggest killer, with diet-related chronic disease estimated to be responsible for 11 million premature deaths in 2017 alone 4 . Meanwhile, increasing numbers of people -more than 900 million -are undernourished. This increase is due in part to armed conflict, but climate change and the waterfood-environment nexus are increasingly identified as amplifiers of social instability 5,6 .The global food system is a prime driver -and generally the first victimof the Anthropocene. A swift global food transformation towards healthy diets from sustainable food systems is necessary, and without such a food transformation the world will not meet the targets set in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Climate Agreement 7 . Scalable solutions do exist, but the food sector lags 30 years behind the energy sector (despite the inertia in decarbonising the global energy system) in concerted efforts to transform the system towards a safe operating space on Earth.Modern agriculture was able to develop through the benign climatic conditions and abundant biodiversity of the Holocene. In the Anthropocene, however, the food system is the primary driver of our current Earth trajectory, which follows a path at risk of creating a cascade of interacting non-linear processes that propel the planet towards a radically different climatic state. Where certain tipping points lie is not yet well understood, but it is now increasingly established that warming beyond 1.5 °C places us dangerously close to those red lines 8 . The world has already warmed by 1 °C above pre-industrial levels; at 1.5 °C, tropical coral reefs are very likely to collapse; at 2 °C, Arctic summer sea ice would disappear and the Greenland Ice Sheet could tip towards disintegration; several glaciers of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet might already have passed tipping points, contributing over two metres of unstoppable sea-level rise in the long-term 9 . The oceans have buffered the effects of global warming by absorbing more than 90% of humancaused excess heat. However, social and environmental costs are mounting and, as oceans grow warmer, more acidic and less productive, coastal extreme events and sea-levels are on the rise 9 . Under climate change, the diversity of species and ecosystems is declining faster than at any time in human history 2 . Increasing evidence shows that tipping elements are connected and can trigger cascading effects 10 , for example, Arctic sea-ice melt amplifies regional warming, accelerating Greenland ice sheet melt, which in turn may have contributed to the recent 15% slowdown in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) 11 . The AMOC itself is connected to both regional rainfall dynamics in the Amazon and the West African monsoon 12 , with a further slow-down potentially triggering drought, amplifying global warming and risking food shortages. Without a major transformation across sectors and scales, we risk crossing points of irreversibility that threaten the Earth system as we know it.There is a critical need to scientifically define and move towards a safe operating space for food within planetary boundaries. This is a completely new positioning of the food system -a shift from the conventional focus on reducing environmental impacts at the 'farming system' scale towards defining science-based targets for food at the planetary scale, recognizing the global force that food constitutes today. A first attempt at this definition has recently been made for the planetary boundary processes directly associated with food -namely land, water, biodiversity, nutrient loading and climate change 7 . Globally, food transgresses all five of these planetary boundaries (Fig. 1).Food production and environmental conservation have traditionally, and falsely, been pitted against each other. Food production, dietary health and environmental sustainability have, at best, been advanced as separate, siloed disciplines with limited explorations of synergies and trade-offs. Food-system science, policy and action continue to largely be pursued as local or regional concerns, despite food's role as a global driver of planetary instability. Transforming food across the world might be our best bet in meeting the Paris Climate Agreement and the SDGs. The challenges we face call for rapid but thoughtful actions along five primary axes.Science-based targets. The 'planetary health diet' 7 is the first attempt to provide scientific targets for healthy diets from sustainable production systems. They provide a set of universally applicable scientific boundary conditions within which all diets should operate for both human health and Earth sustainability. Following the Paris Climate Agreement, there are 285 companies that have adopted science-based targets (SBTs) for climate through the SBT initiative. Now, there is a growing momentum to widen that initiative to set SBTs for the entire Earth system -that is, to establish quantitative science-based targets for all planetary boundaries to support business transformations towards sustainable development. Similar efforts are needed for cities and national governments. Food systems across the world can be the first sector to adopt system-wide SBTs for planetary health. Making the SBTs for food operational across scales, sectors and agents will require further development of the planetary health diet and major methodological advancements. Immediate challenges include defining the food boundary for atmospheric aerosol loading (air quality), and novel entities such as the contamination of land and water with plastics, antibiotics and biocides. comment Practices and policies. Modelling analyses suggest 13 that it is biophysically possible to feed 10 billion people a healthy diet within planetary boundaries, and in ways that leave at least 50% of natural ecosystems intact. Success hinges on triple action at a global scale: shifting towards healthy diets; increasing productivity while transitioning to regenerative production practices; and reducing food waste and loss by 50%.Major policy and investment shifts toward this global transformation are central to turning the food system from a primary threat to a primary solution space for human and planetary health. Grand challenges remain in how to accelerate and scale the pace of change, reconfigure food value chains from 'field to fork' , and support shifts in consumption. Overall, there is a need to test the planetary health diet hypothesis -that we can feed 10 billion people healthily within planetary boundaries -on the ground. The universal recommendation allows alignment across sectors and scales. However, what it implies for national transformation pathways is not uniform, but relies on the emergence of culturally and agroecologically diverse solutions 14 .Human and natural capital. A recent assessment 15 puts the 'hidden costs' of global food and land-use systems at $12 trillion, compared to a market value of the global food system at $10 trillion. If current trends continue, these hidden costs could rise to more than $13 trillion a year by 2030. Today, food is an exceptionally subsidized and socially sensitive commodity. Not only is the planet subsidizing the global food system at a level that probably exceeds its global market value, the food system is also receiving massive direct subsidies from governments around the world. The European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is perhaps most prominent, currently accounting for 37.8% of the total EU budget. Shifting these types of subsidies to reward the production of public goods (such as carbon capture, habitat creation and improved water quality) presents a ready option for securing the global commons while supporting farming communities.Food security, social instability and conflicts. The human pressures put on the entire Earth system are causing a rise in frequency and amplitude of extreme weather events 16 and a reduction in ecological resilience. Occurring simultaneously with decades of agricultural research and development that focussed on enhancing productivity over building resilience, this has resulted in heightened vulnerability as monocultures designed to operate efficiently under stable conditions are not adapted to handle shocks and stress amplified by global change.Food production is the first victim of environmental pressures arising in the Anthropocene. Our immediate scientific preoccupation with this worrying trajectory has been on mapping impacts on food production and seeking strategies to build food-system resilience. This may not be enough. Real world examples are providing evidence, while still debated, of the amplifying role of food-system collapse on social conflict and migration, ranging from the Arab Spring to the Syrian war, the Sudanese crisis and the Sahelian instabilities [17][18][19] . This is an area in need of integrated analyses that couple big data and qualitative insights on social movements (physical and political), livelihood conditions, food security, and biophysical trajectories and shocks.A new paradigm for our food future. Planetary boundaries for the food system define thresholds for the critical overuse of global commons. In the Anthropocene, when we are at risk of destabilising the Earth system, the global commons need to Here, the safe operating space (green) provides an estimate of the food-related share of the planetary boundaries, that is, not the entire planetary boundary space for all sectors in the world economy. The zone of uncertainty (yellow) defines dangerous risk, whereas high-risk (red) indicates where production has exceeded the assessed uncertainty range in science. The range of uncertainty originates both from quantitative assessments and from expert judgement. Control variables have been normalized for the zone of uncertainty; the centre of the figure therefore does not represent zero values for control variables. Processes for which the food system contribution or the planetary boundary itself have not yet been quantified are highlighted with a question mark. E/MSY, extinctions per million species-years; BII, Biodiversity Intactness Index; P, phosphorus; N, nitrogen. Values are based on Fig. 6 of ref. 7 ; image credit: PIK, 2019. comment be expanded from including only global externalities (high seas, atmosphere, polar ice sheets) to also include all major biomes and element cycles, which together contribute to regulate the state of the Earth system 20 . This puts the onus on food, and requires an urgent shift in mindset to recognize agricultural ecosystems as possibly the Earth's largest biome -and the biome with the largest impact on the planet's elemental cycles: nitrogen, phosphorus, water and carbon.A second major shift is to look beyond carbon and climate. Building resilient food systems requires a systems-approach integrating carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, water, soils, biodiversity and biome stability; and taking a truly inter-disciplinary planetary health approach by addressing food cultures, nutritional security and geopolitical stability, as well as the role of governance, trade and equity. In light of the significant lag time to drive global progress on climate mitigation, we cannot afford to have succeeded in tackling climate before moving on to other planetary boundaries. Approaches must be developed and tested at a scale that operationalises a global commons framework for the stewardship of all food-related planetary boundaries. The social costs of our current global food system are unprecedented in both inter-temporal and inter-regional scales 15 , providing crucial information for effective governance of the commons. Advanced methods of cost-benefit analysis and the application of the precautionary principle will allow the social costs of exceeding planetary boundaries for food to be used in the transition process of crafting and justifying government rules and interventions, such as agricultural subsidies and trade agreements, providing a new paradigm for navigating our 'Common Food Future' .Gone are the days when it was enough to 'think global and act local' . All our actions aggregate and are interconnected with the global commons and the Earth system. The global food system transformation to a future where healthy, culturally appropriate and adequate diets are available for all, from food systems that operate within planetary boundaries, is one of the grand transformation challenges for humanity over the coming decades. We must act across scales and along the entire food value chain to enable a prosperous and equitable future for humanity on Earth. ❐","tokenCount":"1981"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cf89f8be798ee03b568d130870140ba3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/921bba18-0511-4476-8451-ca679b5299b2/retrieve","id":"1347834680"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0ef80e93-85bb-4be4-b214-d5fac383d6cb","pagecount":"36","content":"and Uruguay) form a second major sphere of production, more recent in origin and now accounting for 20% of the world flock. Australia and New Zealand contain 192 million sheep, i.e. 13% of the world flock, or 870 sheep per 100 inhabitants. Together they form the largest small ruminant producer in the world. In Europe, the United Kingdom together with Ireland has been, and still is a fairly important producer of sheep, with a flock of 33 million, amounting to 56 sheep per 100 inhabitants. The rest of the world flock is found mostly in India and the Far East. However, in these areas small ruminant production plays a relatively minor role when compared with the size of their human population.By contrast, small ruminant production in tropical Africa and the Far East is almost entirely oriented towards meat and milk. Wool production in tropical Africa is negligible, barely exceeding 1% of world output. In other parts of the world small ruminant production generally has a threefold objective-meat, milk and wool-but in the Mediterranean, which accounts for over 60% of world output of sheep, and goat milk, milk production, which is usually processed into cheese, plays an appreciably greater role than it does elsewhere. Wool, on the other hand, plays a minor part.Meat production, which is globally the most important of the three, is more evenly distributed throughout the various production areas. In most developing countries, including those of Latin America, meat is produced almost entirely for local consumption, giving rise to only a small amount of trade. The sharp rise in consumption in the oil countries of the Middle East has nevertheless in recent years given rise to a considerable flow of imports into this traditional production area.In industrialized countries the consumption of mutton and lamb is negligible in relation to the overall consumption of meat. Nevertheless, the United Kingdom, where sheep production has always played an important part, is an exception. Britain's policy of seeking cheap food supplies meant that she was able to import from Australia and New Zealand at prices very much lower than her own production costs. As a result Britain was for many years the only customer of any real size on the world market, which is almost entirely supplied by Australia and New Zealand.The emergence of Japan as a relatively important customer, although still well behind Britain, and more recently that of the Middle East, have helped to diversify sales. However, supplies on the world market are governed by factors which are largely unconnected with the demand for meat, owing to the importance of wool production in the large-scale exporting countries. The fall in wool prices at the end of the 1960s,, caused by competition from synthetic fibres, led to deteriorating wool/beef and wool/cereals price ratios, enticing producers, especially in Australia, away from sheep towards cattle or cereal production. The shift away from sheep production, which continued in spite of the 1973 recovery of the wool market after the rise in oil prices, largely explains the sharp decline in flocks in the developed countries over the last ten years.Outside Australia and New Zealand, sheep and goat production has also shown a declining trend in other developed countries. Flock numbers, which stood at 185 million animals in 1961-65 (excluding Eastern Europe), were no more than 155 million in 1978. The drop in numbers has been particularly pronounced in the USA, which contained only 12 million sheep in 1978, whereas numbers stood at almost 60 million animals at the end of the second world war. Although there has been no actual decline in real terms in Western Europe, flock numbers have stood still for over 15 years.Various factors explain the declining trend. First, the downward trend of the wool market has deprived producers of a substantial source of income. But the most important factor is that sheep production, in all but the large-scale production areas of Australia, New Zealand and South America, continues to be managed along traditional lines, and is thus no longer compatible with the new forms of employment emerging in rural areas. Efforts to intensify husbandry systems are confronted with financial constraints, since sheep production requires a high labour input and thus faces competition from production alternatives such as pork, poultry or dairy production, where considerable advances have been made in terms of yields and labour productivity. It therefore tends to play an increasingly marginal role in agriculture, while at the same time high production costs act as a disincentive to the consumption of mutton and lamb, which are increasingly becoming luxury commodities. This trend is the reverse of that in developing countries, where sheep and goat flocks continue to show steady growth. Small ruminant production in these countries is sheltered from external influences and still compatible with the prevailing production conditions.-in US cents/kg- Tropical Africa contains almost one tenth of the world's sheep and over a quarter of its goats. Small ruminant production throughout this area takes place entirely under traditional systems, and since the meat produced is mostly for home consumption, a great deal of it escapes official marketing channels. As a result there is an undeniable lack of knowledge as to the part played by sheep and goat production, coupled with the belief that these animals are to blame for the decline of the environment. Consequently, despite its sizeable contribution to meat supplies for local populations, this subsector has been continually omitted from development projects and policies.As in the case of cattle, the small ruminant flock of tropical Africa is for the most part found in the Sahel countries and in eastern Africa 1 . However, its geographical distribution is evidently somewhat different to that of cattle. Sixty per cent of goats and over 50% of sheep are apparently raised in West and central Africa, whereas for cattle the corresponding figure does not exceed 40% (FAO estimates). As regards the rest of tropical Africa, small ruminants are mostly found in the Horn of Africa (Ethiopia and Spmali2), which is thought to contain one third of the sheep and 27% of the goats found in. tropical Africa (as against 220/0 of the cattle herd). The remaining countries of East Africa, which raise 29% of its cattle, probably possess only 11 % of all the goats and sheep raised in tropical Africa. Outside Ethiopia, relatively few small ruminants are thus found in the highlands of East Africa. Numbers are also low in southern tropical Africa. On the other hand, they increase again in the countries of non-tropical southern Africa (Namibia and South Africa).1. However, flock numbers are even less accurately known for small ruminants than herd numbers are for cattle, and breakdowns between sheep and goats are frequently only approximate.Owing to their considerable ability to adapt, small ruminants, and especially goats, manage to survive and flourish in extremely hostile environments, including not only the arid zones but also the humid areas of West and central Africa, where their adaptive powers are traditionally ascribed to their reduced size. The weight and size of small ruminants in tropical Africa, which, like those of its cattle, are very much lower than in temperate countries, tend to reduce steadily from the traditional, arid production areas towards the humid zones in which dwarf breeds have developed.Goats generally have a lower weight than sheep but are more prolific. Their feeding habits are quite distinct: goats browse mostly on leaves and are reputed to have a high digestibility coefficient for fibrous plants, whereas sheep feed mostly on grasses. Sheep and goat production are thus complementary to one another, and generally also to cattle production. Their browsing habit makes goats less susceptible to intestinal diseases than sheep, but on the other hand they are more inclined to suffer from protracted diseases.Three main types of small ruminants may be distinguished in tropical Africa, although it is not always easy to identify the different original breeds owing to the extent of uncontrolled crossbreeding. The three categories are as follows: the Sahel and desert breeds found in he arid and semiarid zones, the dwarf breeds of the humid and subhumid zones, and the sheep raised in the highland areas of East Africa. The sheep and goat breeds of the Sahel and desert areas, including the Blackhead Persian and Somali sheep of East Africa and the Nubian goats of Sudan, are adapted to very arid environments. Generally, they are large-sized animals, relatively heavy by African standards, although the size may vary considerably: an adult sheep weighs, on average, 40 to 50 kg in Sudan but usually under 40 kg in the Sahel. They are raised under transhumant or sedentary systems, often in association with cattle production. In the semi-arid zones small ruminants are raised for meat and also for milk production, particularly where goats belonging to transhumant pastoralists are concerned. Goat milk production in local breeds is low when compared with many exotic breeds, often leaving less than 0.5 kg/day for human consumption, although it is, in relative terms, considerably higher than that of indigenous cows raised under similar conditions. Some local goat breeds are, however, very productive. The Nubian goat produces two litres of milk per day, while the Red Sokoto or Maradi, which is a smaller animal, is also a good milker, yielding 1-1.5 kg/day.-in%- Some fattening practices are found in sedentary systems; usually these involve wethers, which are tethered in the family compound and fed intensively on forages and crop residues (moutons de case). According to a survey in Upper Volta (ref. 6), which took place in an intermediate zone and thus involved both Sahel breeds (notably Fulani) and those of the south (Mossi), fattening practices sometimes assume a substantial role, involving nearly 90% of males under one year and virtually 100% of those in higher age-classes. They enable weights equal to those of adult animals to be obtained in both males and females by the end of the first year. Nevertheless, the fattening period was generally found to be fairly long, lasting over a year in many cases. It also emerged that the fattening performance of Sahel sheep was better than that of breeds from the south. Similarly, the few data collected during the survey on Fulani sheep in Niger (the Bali Bali breed) showed average fattening weights which were very much higher than those of Fulani sheep in Upper Volta. Fattening performance thus appears to vary according to the breed.The skins are processed by small-scale local tanners and are also sold on the export markets, where some varieties, such as Maradi goat skins, fetch high prices. Wool production, on the other hand, is virtually zero, since the sheep raised in the arid and semi-arid zones are almost entirely of the coarse hair type. One wool-producing breed, the Macina, is nevertheless found in Mali, but yields are very poor in terms of both quantity and quality.A wide variety of sheep and goats are found in the subhurnid and humid zones. Their weights and heights diminish steadily towards the more humid climate zones. Varieties found include the Nilotic goat in southern Sudan, the dwarf goat of East Africa (notably the Mubende variety in Uganda), and the dwarf sheep and goats of West Africa, which are found from the mouth of the Senegal river to central and southern Africa (Angola). The latter breeds appear sufficiently similar to allow a simple classification : the Djallonké sheep, also known as the Fouta Djallon, which belongs to the southern Guinean or forest zone, constitutes the only group of sheep, while the dwarf goat of West and central However, the sheep and goats of the forest zone are smaller than those of the savannah, although Africa, or Guinea goat, again known as the Djallonke or Fouta Djallon goat, is the only type of goat. the latter are nonetheless still dwarf breeds.The small ruminants of subhumid and humid tropical Africa are generally raised on smallholdings. The animals are occasionally led out to graze, but usually they are allowed to roam freely over any uncultivated land round the farm to browse and scavenge. During the cropping season, however, they are generally tethered during the day to avoid crop damage.Although they may partly be fed on residues to supplement their basic ration, especially during the dry season, they do not receive any improved feeding in the proper sense.These animals are primarily raised for meat production. The small amount of milk produced is used entirely for feeding the young and is not taken for human consumption. Apart from a few breeds, such as the Mubende goats in Uganda, which produce skins which are highly sought after, the goat and sheep skins of the subhumid and humid areas are not used for tanning. Instead they are often consumed with the meat.Many of the sheep and goats raised in the East African highlands are to be found on small mixed holdings in the Ethiopian highlands (especially in the area north of Addis Ababa), which contain 75% of the sheep produced in the country and 20% of the total sheep population of tropical Africa. The sheep found in the Ethiopian highlands are small in height and are thought to belong to a fertile breed which is slow to reach maturity but has a long life expectancy.Their conformation is mediocre and average liveweight does not normally exceed 25 to 35 kg. They are raised for meat and skins and the latter, highly sought after on the export markets, account for a substantial share of the earnings derived from these animals. The milk performance of the ewes is poor. Most of the sheep of the Ethiopian highlands are of the coarse hair type. However, there are a number of wool-producing breeds, giving a product of inferior quality and poor yield which may be used for carpet making. There has been some crossbreeding with wool production breeds (Corriedale and Merino), but in Ethiopia this has been on a very limited scale. In Kenya, however, crossbreeding with Corriedales has been carried out on a larger scale, with the aim of producing both wool and meat. A few experiments in commercial fattening have also been launched by the private sector in Kenya, with the aim of producing prime quality lamb. However, the part played by the commercial fattening sector remains a minor one, given the background role of small ruminant production in general within the livestock sector.Adult body weight and production purpose of small ruminants in tropical Africa. a. Subhumid zone includedTo sum up, small ruminant production as practised in tropical Africa is an extensive production system, sometimes complemented by traditional fattening practices carried out on smallholdings. However, it is in no way integrated with other agricultural activities. The animals are raised for meat, as well as for milk in pastoral areas. Skins are usually processed by local tanners or sold on the export market, although in the humid zones of West Africa they are consumed together with the meat. Finally, as almost all the small ruminants raised in tropical Africa belong to coarse hair breeds, wool production is virtually nil.For the African stockowner small ruminants are chiefly a form of investment for petty cash. These animals have a relatively low market value, thus representing a lesser investment than the purchase of cattle, with the result that they are more widely distributed amongst the poorest households. This situation, together with the ability of local breeds to adapt to the harshest environments, has evidently promoted the widespread distribution of small ruminants throughout the rural community. Whereas the cattle population is normally concentrated, remaining in the hands of a restricted number of producers (the percentage of farmers owning cattle is estimated at under 20% in the semi-arid areas of northern Nigeria), ownership of small ruminants is almost always more extensive, generally involving over 50% of smallholdings in the livestock raising areas.Little is known about the productivity of small ruminants. There are few estimates on production parameters and these in any case are apparently highly variable, owing to the fact that slaughterings for the most part escape the statistical records, the bulk of available output being absorbed by home consumption. Even when production is marketed, it still remains largely unrecorded owing to the considerable part played by private slaughterings.Field surveys and on-station research both indicate that the sheep and goat breeds raised in tropical Africa may well have considerable development potential owing to their relative precocity and high fertility, resulting from their year-round breeding season. Average age at first parturition is estimated at 11-12 months for many breeds. First parturition thus occurs well before the females have reached their full adult weight at two to three years. It has also been shown, notably in the case of the dwarf breeds of West Africa, that 11-12 months in fact represents an optimum age, at which all the females mated were able to give birth to lambs or kids with a good survival rate. Unlike cows, in which maturity is traditionally retarded by difficult environments, does and ewes in tropical Africa thus reach sexual maturity at about the same age as, or even earlier than, exotic breeds 2 .2. Average age at first lambing which is generally 12 months in British breeds, frequently reaches 18 or even 24 motns, in Mediterranean breeds and in Merinos, which are raised mostly in Australia. Age at first lambing is also 18 months for a number of tropical African breeds belonging to the arid zones (Somali and Persian Blackheads) and to the Ethiopian highlands.First pregnancy and live birth rate for West African ewes. Prolificacy would also appear to be relatively high. The prolificacy rate, which is expressed as the average number of young per parturition, apparently varies between 110% and 140% for ewes. It is probably still higher in goats, frequently reaching 150%, owing to the considerable number of twin or triplet births, and as much as 180% in the dwarf goats of West Africa, according to the results of experiments conducted in Ghana. For the most part these high rates were observed on research stations, but various experts believe them to be linked to genetic factors, so that they would not be influenced by the relatively favourable conditions under which they were achieved (ref. 5). Prolificacy rates observed in goats compare favourably with those currently achieved by different breeds of small ruminants raised in other parts of the world. On the other hand, those observed for sheep appear comparable only to the rates achieved by the least successful breeds.A second major advantage in terms of fecundity is that potential fertility in indigenous females is relatively high, since their heat periods are not usually subject to seasonality, unlike most breeds raised in temperate zones 3 . As a result they are theoretically able to give birth every six to eight months, giving a fertility rate of 150-200%. In point of fact a rate of 150% (three parturitions every two years) is considered by experts to be the optimum rate. On this basis indigenous females, especially in the dwarf breeds of West Africa which are renowned for their prolificacy, could achieve a fecundity rate (expressed in terms of the average annual number of young per breeding female) of 165-180% for sheep and 225-250% for goats.In almost all females raised in temperate zones, heat occurs during the months in which day-length decreases (July to September in the Northern hemisphere)., leading to a single parturition per year. However, there are some exceptions to this rule, for example the British Dorset breed.Fecundity rates of over 250% for goats and 200% for sheep have actually been achieved for dwarf breeds on several research stations in West Africa (see table opposite). In Southern Darfur, rates were 208% and 148% respectively for seven herds of goats and ten flocks of sheep which were monitored for a period of 15 months. According to estimates used by the FAO in a study on livestock production in Ethiopia (ref. 1), fecundity rates are also higher than 200% for sheep in the Ethiopian highlands, which normally give birth twice a year, 10-15% on average being twin births. However, although few data are available, so that it is difficult to draw definite conclusions, the fecundity rates normally achieved at village or farm level appear to be much lower than these estimates, standing on average at 140-150% for goats and 110-120% for sheep. Analysis of flock composition leads to similar conclusions. Particularly in the case of females, all of which are assumed to be retained in the flock for breeding purposes, the proportion of young in the age-class 0-1 year is frequently far lower than the level which it should in theory reach on the basis of production parameters.The fecundity rates observed on research stations thus appear not to be achieved at village level, where environmental and management conditions are less favourable, leading to reduced fertility in females. Inadequate management doubtless leads in many cases to a situation in which too large a number of unproductive females are kept in the flock. Similarly, the lack of control over mating is conducive to an excessively rapid series of pregnancies, resulting in abortions and prenatal mortality. Unfortunately the data required to quantify these different factors with a fair degree of accuracy are not available. Available information, however, tallies with the theory that mortality rates are particularly high for small ruminants in tropical Africa. On different occasions mortality rates for lambs and kids have been estimated at between 15 and 20% during the first month of life and are evidently even higher in cases of multiple births. They are frequently estimated at 15-20% for the flock as a whole, which is a very high figure.Moreover, rates appear to fluctuate widely, reaching 40-50% in extreme cases. Despite their considerable adaptability small ruminants thus appear to be very prone to disease.Impact of parturition interval on survival rate of lambs. Source: Ref. 9-22 frequency of intestinal parasites, which accounted for over 50% of diseases diagnosed in small ruminants, fell considerably in the drier northern areas. Hence the impact of peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is thought to be important. It is also probable that morbidity caused by chronic diseases has adverse effects on animal productivity which are just as important as those caused by mortality, but here again the Information available is rudimentary.Generally speaking, a proportion of potential output is lost at the outset owing to inadequate management and environmental constraints. An additional loss factor is associated with the premature offtake of young males, which in many cases apparently begins at three or four months. It emerged from a survey conducted in two villages in the humid zone of Nigeria (ref 12) that 95% of males were sold after weaning, i.e. at three or four months. This was probably an exceptional case, but most surveys carried out in this field nevertheless show that the marketing of males at under one year old reaches considerable proportions.Marketing apparently begins at about the age of six months in flocks investigated in Southern Darfur (Sudan), in the Niger delta in Mali (ref.3), in Upper Volta (ref. 6) and in the humid zones of West Africa (Nigeria), where nearly half the young males are sold before they reach 15 months. These observations are confirmed by the analysis of flock composition, which shows there are a lower number of males than females in the age-class 0-1 year. Most of the sheep raised in the Ethiopian highlands are also sold before reaching maturity. According to a 1974 survey on 13 urban and rural markets in the highlands, 82% of the sheep sold had no permanent teeth, or in other words they were under 14-15 months old. The reasons for this premature offtake are not clear. They are probably connected with the pressure of demand (cash requirements, festivities requiring the consumption of meat) and not with any specific policy on the part of stockowners. Several experts have also come to the conclusion, from surveys carried out over the last ten years, particularly in West Africa, that sheep/ goat flocks are not only marketed prematurely, but that offtake exceeds replacement rate. There is a risk that the number of livestock will decline, although this does not emerge from the time series data published by the FAO. On the other hand, many estimates point to a stagnating trend, if not an actual decline, in the ownership of small ruminants on smallholdings throughout tropical Africa.In many respects very little is known about small ruminant production, which has not received a degree of attention from governments commensurate with its actual significance in real life. The contribution made by goats and sheep to meat supplies in tropical Africa is fairly large.According to FAO estimates it represents 45%, approximately the same as that of beef, i.e. some 780,000 tonnes in 1977, on the basis of an annual offtake rate of 29% for sheep and 30% for goats, with a yield per flock unit of approximately 4 kg of carcass weight (c.w.) far sheep and 3 kg for goats 4 . Moreover, it is possible that this contribution has been underestimated, since we have already seen that not enough information is available on production figures.4. In the rest of the world, offtake rates are about 36% for sheep and 39% for goats, with yields per flock unit standing at 5.6 and 4.6 kg c.w. respectively (FAO estimates).Consumption of sheep and goat meat plays an important part in rural areas, especially in the humid and subhumid zones, where sheep and goats frequently make up the bulk of domestic livestock. Owing to their better adaptation to hostile environments, small ruminants are also better able to resist drought, and it has been estimated that during the Sahel drought in the early 1970s sheep and goat losses were substantially fewer than those of cattle (Bulletin No. 3), thus providing disaster areas with some relief in terms of meat supplies. In northeast Mali, for example, where cattle losses were estimated at 80% in 1973-74, leading to a subsequent collapse in cattle slaughterings, sheep and goat slaughterings would appear to have risen substantially, according to the official figures. Small ruminants thus appear to play a reserve role during difficult periods. Sheep and goat meat also seems to be preferred by local populations. It has been observed that in most tropical African countries the price of sheep or goat meat is substantially higher than that of beef. Mutton is usually preferred to goat meat, although available statistics rarely distinguish between the two categories.However, in some countries, Ghana for example, the preference is probably for goat meat. In Nigeria, on the other hand, the prices of sheep and goat meat are roughly equal, but always lower than that of beef.Moreover, small ruminant production under existing systems is, like that of cattle, characterized by low costs and minimal inputs. In arid zones it uses marginal land where opportunity costs are almost nil, while in the humid zones it utilizes fallow land or household refuse which would otherwise be wasted.Price differences between mutton or goat meat and beef in tropical Africa.-number of countries- Compared to cattle production 5 it has the added advantage of greater productivity, expressed in terms of meat production per 100 kg of breeding female or per 100 kg of total flock liveweight. This is especially true in terms of potential. The needs of sheep and , goats are also often considered lower than those of cattle, since in relation to small ruminants the latter have been shown to be less efficient converters of the nutritive elements contained in their feed.5. In ILCA's report on trypanotolerant livestock in West and central Africa, a productivity index is given using the weight of progeny (and, for cows, the liveweight equivalent of milk produced) per 100 kg of female maintained per year. According to this index, productivity was estimated at 40.9 kg/100 kg of cow, as against 45 and 41 kg respectively per 100 kg of ewe/doe maintained per year. The index of productivity appeared to be still higher for trypanotolerant small ruminants: respectively 64 and 69 kg/ 100 kg of ewe/doe maintained, as against 37.1 kg/100 kg of trypanotolerant cow maintained.However, there are two conflicting schools of thought as to the possible advantages of developing small ruminant production. Those who argue against it acknowledge the ability of these animals, and especially goats, to digest coarse forages and their resulting higher productivity in certain environments, but maintain that they are only advantageous under extensive systems and that the cost involved in any search for improvements is not justified by their productivity. To this argument is added their reputation for destroying the environment. Owing to their ability to survive in degenerate areas small ruminants are often considered as a cause of deforestation and soil erosion. Their notoriety in this respect has in many cases evidently been a factor in their exclusion from livestock development strategies.However, this notoriety is disputed. The devastating effects attributed to sheep and goats may in fact be largely the result of poor management of the rangelands, which they inherit after these have been overgrazed by cattle. According to this school of thought, small ruminants may even play a positive part in the protection of the environment. Goats, in particular, are thought to be instrumental in controlling bush encroachment in humid' zones 6 . Furthermore, small ruminant production would appear to be complementary to cattle production, since sheep and goats graze herbage which is left untouched by cattle. Finally, many experts believe that there is a place for intensive fattening systems, basing their arguments on the digestive efficiency of small ruminants and on the apparent response of local breeds to traditional fattening methods. Development possibilities in this field are considered all the greater to the extent that the present level of offtake causes considerable losses which could be recovered immediately by merely postponing the marketing of young animals. Theories such as this, however, are based on results obtained from a limited number of samples and which are not necessarily universally transferable, taking into account the wide range of small ruminants raised in the differing ecological zones of tropical Africa.6. According to the conclusions of an FAO report on the decline of Mediterranean sheep breeds, the sharp drop in the number of sheep may have contributed in some areas (for example, the Pyrenees) to undesirable ecological changes amongst which bush encroachment in areas previously covered by pasture grazed by sheep.To sum up, despite a potential based on the apparent fecundity of indigenous animals and on the possible suitability of certain breeds for fattening, small ruminant production has until now been relatively little studied, so that the constraints to its development are all too often poorly understood. Future research on their potential performance under improved systems will therefore have to be accompanied by in-depth investigations to assess the results currently obtained by stockowners in existing production systems.The research on small ruminants undertaken by ILCA has been oriented in several different directions. In the first place data are collected in a number of countries in the semi-arid zone, among them Mali and Kenya, in order to obtain an in-depth understanding of the main production parameters, on which the information gathered in the past has been somewhat fragmentary. In addition there are plans to introduce a sheep production component as part of the East African highlands research programme at the Debre Berhan station in Ethiopia ( see Bulletin No. 4), as a means of harnessing the potential of the region in this field. However, the main focus of ILCA's research on small ruminants is on the humid zone. This zone contains a relatively large population of sheep and goats, but no development efforts have so far been devoted to them and there has been little specialized research. Many experts, however, believe that small ruminant production has a high development potential and is an important asset for the humid zone, especially since its unfavourable climatic conditions have traditionally thwarted the development of most kinds of animal production, leading to a severe protein deficit for its inhabitants. The ILCA research programme on small ruminants in the humid zone, launched in 1978 in southern Nigeria, is aimed at identifying possible ways of improving production under existing structures, not only on smallholdings but also involving the small-scale entrepreneur who is less directly connected with agricultural activities.The humid zone corresponds to the areas of low altitude found along the Atlantic coast of West and central Africa. These are covered by forest and receive an annual rainfall of over 1250 mm. The climate is slightly bimodal, with an unreliable dry season in July-August in addition to the long dry season. The temperature varies between 27 and 32° and relative humidity lies between 80 and 90%.The forest zone is bordered by a transition zone between it and the savannah, called 'derived savannah'. The humid zone covers an area of some 2 million km 2 . It is densely populated, containing about 75 million inhabitants (i.e. 38 inhabitants/km 2 ). There are, however, fairly sizeable variations, with population density exceeding 150 inhabitants/km 2 in some regions (eastern Nigeria, for example), whereas there are fewer than 20 inhabitants/km 2 in the humid zone of Ivory Coast.Crop production focusses primarily on tubers (yam and cassava) and a few cereals (notably maize), grown for subsistence needs, and on various cash crops, such as cocoa, coffee, oil palm, etc. The main production system until recently was shifting cultivation. Hence increases in drop production arose primarily from the expansion of the land area cultivated, rather than from intensification. Owing to population pressures and the extension of cash crops this situation has led to reduced land availability and shorter fallow periods. Diversification nevertheless seems to have taken place in some areas, where it takes the form of multistorey cropping, combining tree, grain and root crops, with improved water control and fertilization.Sheep/goat flocks in four countries of West Africa.-in 000- Since the entire zone is infested with tsetse fly, the vector of trypanosomiasis animal production is at present limited to those species which tolerate the disease. Apart from a few trypanotolerant breeds of cattle, most of the livestock consists of sheep and goats. In both the latter cases the animals belong to dwarf breeds weighing from 25 to 30 kg when adult. Their small size results from adaptation to a particularly difficult environment. ILCA estimates that the humid zone of Ivory Coast, Togo, Ghana and Nigeria probably contains some ten million small ruminants, of which eight million alone are found in Nigeria. Taking into account the estimated number of small ruminants in the other countries lying wholly or partly within the humid zone, the total number of small ruminants belonging to dwarf breeds is probably in excess of 25 million. Little is known as to the distribution of sheep relative to goats, but it is certain that the number of goats is far higher than the number of sheep, although this situation derives from the fact that in Nigeria there are 3.5 times as many goats as sheep. In fact, the reverse was found in other countries surveyed by ILCA, where the number of sheep was apparently slightly higher than the number of goats.The distribution of small ruminants appears to be relatively skewed. In Ivory Coast only 27% of rural households owned sheep in 1973, while 23% possessed goats. In the humid zone of Nigeria the figures stood at 8% for sheep and 37% for goats in 1974, according to the Department of Statistics. But as will be seen below, the numbers observed by ILCA in the study area selected for the humid zones programme were very much higher. The average number of animals per household owning them was found to be four or five. The number of sheep and goats kept tended to increase with the size of the enterprise, especially where sheep were concerned, albeit without ever reaching very high levels.The traditional village production system remains by far the commonest. It requires a minimum of inputs, since the animals are generally left to themselves during the daytime, except during the growing season when they are tethered to avoid damage to crops. They feed on herbage and any household refuse available, such as cassava, plantain and yam peels, etc. The animals usually receive no veterinary care and mating is not controlled. Production practices, which consist of sales and the culling of females, are generally determined by events external to the economics of herd management: emergency slaughtering of diseased stock, cash needs and the occurrence of festivities, etc. First and foremost, however, the animals play an important part in the socio-economic life of the community, and are widely exchanged or loaned between friends and relations. In southern Nigeria, for example, it was observed (ref. 9) that the customary way of obtaining breeding females was to borrow them from a relation or a friend. Particularly in the case of owners possessing only a few animals, a high proportion of them would thus be on loan (over half, according to the ILCA survey). Transactions of this kind appear to be a response to economic as well as social factors, arising from shortages of cash on the part of the borrower and of time on the part of the lender. These factors are largely assumed to determine the number of animals which each individual can obtain.In some areas attempts have been made to improve the existing system. In these instances the animals are permanently tethered and fed according to a cut-and-carry system. Manure is collected and spread on the fields to maintain soil fertility. Commercial operations, usually involving sheep production, have also developed on a fairly large scale in Ghana and Ivory Coast. Development in this field may be explained in terms of the successful results experienced by farmers who have improved their production methods. The resulting increase in their livestock numbers has encouraged them to set up farms specializing in livestock production, using improved methods such as rotational grazing, supplementary feeding and veterinary care. Entirely spontaneous development of this kind is encouraging. As in its other research programmes, the methodology adopted by ILCA for its work on small ruminants in the humid zone comprises three main, interconnecting phases 1 . In the first phase an initial problem analysis based on literature review and field survey is carried out, in order to obtain a first definition of existing production systems The second phase involves the formulation and testing of improvement packages on experimental management units under ILCA's control or with participating farmers at their own risk. An early result of this approach is the identification of gaps in available technology. More detailed studies on existing systems are continued during this second phase, while experiments on specific components offering the best prospects for future improvement are also carried out. The experimentation is entirely subject to the gaps identified in the initial problem analysis and during the testing of improvement packages. At the same time, mathematical models are constructed with a view to improving the understanding of production systems and assisting in the selection of new research topics and the transfer of results to related systems, When sufficiently conclusive results are obtained, the knowledge may be transferred to other farm or production units and ultimately to development schemes: This process forms the third phase, and is accompanied by the monitoring of progress as a means of initiating new problem analysis.1. This approach is described in detail in the ILCA 1979 brochure, recently published on the occasion of ILCA's fifth anniversaryIn 1978 ILCA established two research stations in southwestern Nigeria. They were located in contrasting environments. The first is in the forest zone, 80 km south of lbadan; it has an annual rainfall of circa 1800 mm and is typical of the humid zone climate. The second station is 60 km north of lbadan, in the derived savannah zone. It belongs to a drier climate, with annual rainfall standing at approximately 1100 mm, and is representative of the conditions found in many parts of West Africa.Farms in these two areas are usually small, under two or three hectares being cultivated in most cases, and often employ only one or two people. They are oriented towards both cash and subsistence crops, notably cocoa, maize, cassava and yam. Cocoa cropping predominates in the forest zone, occupying over half the land under cultivation, whereas subsistence crops, especially tubers, are foremost in the derived savannah. The proportion of land left fallow, generally for a period of three years, is also much higher in the derived savannah over 55% in 1971, as against 26% in the forest zone. These figures are, however, open to question. They correspond with estimates carried out on several different occasions, both in the south and the southeast of Nigeria but not with the results of the most recent surveys. The latter show that a large proportion of enterprises contain no fallow land. This contradiction may result from the recent reduction of fallow land caused by population pressures or by mechanization. In order to clarify this question ILCA intends to compare aerial photos taken in 1963 and 1975.Farming systems in ILCA research areas in Nigeria. Animal production plays a minor role, accounting for less than 5% of agricultural income. From the ILCA baseline survey it emerges that 85% of farmers interviewed in the rural forest zone own small ruminants and 70% in the derived savannah zone. Ownership of goats is clearly ahead of that of sheep. Nearly half the farmers in the forest zone possess sheep, many of the flocks being mixed, containing both sheep and goats. Generally speaking, the number of animals is limited to a few heads per owner: 4.3 goats on average in the derived savannah and 3 sheep/goats in the forest area. The survey also reveals that many town-dwellers own small ruminants. However, it does not disclose any precise link between the number of livestock and the size of farms. The pressure put on owners of larger flocks to lend some of their animals to relatives or friends apparently has a levelling effect on the size of flocks.The reasons given for keeping sheep and goats differ between the derived savannah, where home consumption appears to be the prime factor, and the forest zone, where the main purpose is to provide cash income in a rural environment. The difference doubtless arises from the fact that producers in the forest zone are nearer to the larger towns and markets, which offer them better chances of selling their animals. Nevertheless, the two reasons, cash requirements and home consumption, appear to be equal for the inhabitants of the forest zone as far as sheep are concerned, whereas for goats cash requirements are uppermost.It also emerges that in many cases animals receive supplementary feeding. This consists of household residues in rural areas and purchased feeds in towns. In contrast to what is generally believed, animals also receive a certain amount of veterinary care: 60% of farmers in the forest area said that they had bought drugs during the past year. Producers consider disease to be the major constraint to the development of their flocks, leading as it does to high mortality. From statistical surveys in which flocks were monitored for a nine-month period, ILCA has obtained an average mortality rate of approximately 15% (i.e. 20% on an annual basis). Mortality appears to reach 20 to 30% during the first three months of life, and the chances of survival until the end of the first year for young lambs and kids are only 55%. Mortality in higher age classes also appears to be high, as well as somewhat skewed. It reached 10% over 9 months (13% per annum) for animals over one year old in flocks monitored by ILCA in the derived savannah, but over 20% in the forest zone (27% annually).Mortality rates are thus distinctly higher in the forest zone, a situation confirmed by observations on disease. The more difficult climate conditions found in this area have a severe impact on animal health. The survey also throws light on the influence of nutrition on mortality, animals left to tend for themselves showing mortality rates up to four times greater than those of animals receiving supplementation in the form of crop residues or maize by-products.Mortality rates in sheep/goats flocks monitored by ILCA a .- To sum up, mortality in small ruminants is definitely a major obstacle to livestock and meat production in the humid zone of tropical Africa. High mortality rates are caused by the many diseases, amongst which peste des petits ruminants (PPR), intestinal and ectoparasitic diseases play an important part, and are further aggravated by nutritional deficiencies. To the losses arising from mortality are added those caused by the apparently low fecundity of does and ewes.The data collected by ILCA on other production parameters during the first nine months in which the flocks were monitored are still very fragmentary. Moreover, their interpretation is problematic owing to their disparity and inherent contradictions. According to these data, prolificacy rates (i.e. the average number of young per litter) for does and ewes average 160%, in the forest zones and 145% in the derived savannah. Preliminary estimates of average fecundity rates (the annual number of young per breeding female) show 110% in the forest zone and 166% in the derived savannah area, resulting in fertility rates of 83% and 114% respectively.The fertility and fecundity rates observed in the forest zone thus appear particularly low. ILCA had already had an opportunity to observe this phenomenon indirectly when, in 1978, the composition of flocks in the area was analysed. It became apparent that the number of females under one year old was abnormally low in relation to the number of breeding females, when compared with the levels observed in surveys on animals of the same species in other parts of Africa. The fecundity rates calculated on the basis of flock composition also appeared to be far lower than those observed on research stations. Although higher than that of forest animals, the fecundity of goats in the derived savannah area appears lower than the potential for this breed. These results thus demonstrate that at village level the fertility of dwarf breeds is very much lower than the optimum level of three gestations every two years achieved on research stations. The question is an important one, since it is necessary to obtain high fecundity rates in order to ensure the profitability of the intensive production systems which ILCA intends to apply.The data collected by ILCA also provide interesting information on the attitude3 of producers to the possible development of their flocks. Generally speaking owners felt that animal numbers could be doubled without undue strain on feed resources. They also felt that any large increase in animal numbers would lead them to impose some restrictions on animal movement or to adopt more sophisticated feeding techniques such as a cut-and-carry system or the fencing of grazing areas. Many indicated, however, that labour bottlenecks would probably thwart their efforts in this field.Fecundity rates of ewes/does derived from herd composition. During the first phase health problems have emerged as the major obstacle to increased production, and an improvement package consisting of veterinary inputs has already been formulated. It includes the control of ectoparasites, deworming and the prevention of epizootic disease, notably PPR. Soon the package will be tested at village level, in cooperation with the veterinary services and the Federal Livestock Department. Its cost, which could represent up to 10% of the market value of the animals, nevertheless threatens to curb its acceptability to farmers. If this initial stage meets with success, livestock numbers for farmers participating on the programme may show rapid development without, at least initially, meeting with any serious obstacles, especially given the resources available in the humid zone. However, it is hoped that the results obtained will bring home to producers the advantages of an improved management system, and will thus encourage them to change their methods. The way will thus be opened for a new phase in which producers will be encouraged to adopt a further package of innovations, once again in collaboration with the Government and other specialized agencies.Research is under way to develop these innovations. ILCA's approach in this field is based on the assumption that veterinary improvements will have to be combined with improved feeding regimes in order to realize the full productive potential of these animals by reducing mortality and increasing fertility. The improved systems now being tested on the two research stations have been designed in accordance with this assumption. They cover a wide range of innovations, designed to meet the needs of different kinds of producer with varying approaches depending on their access to the various production factors: land, capital and labour. For example, the system designed for smallholders, possessing limited financial and labour resources but some spare land, will have to allow a higher return on labour without incurring high cash costs. The entrepreneur, on the other hand, who has no land but owns the necessary capital, will obviously only be interested in the livestock component, and his primary concern will be with profitability.The improved systems currently being tested are four in number, consisting of improved fallow grazing, controlled pasture grazing, and intensive rearing and zero grazing systems using forages and/or agro-industrial by-products.They require quite different inputs, both in terms of labour, which is a limiting factor in many small enterprises, and of intermediate goods such as fertilizer, seeds, veterinary products etc, the purchase of which requires an initial financial outlay. The returns expected, whether calculated per hectare or per man/day, also vary very considerably, since the systems are designed for very different types of production.In order to assess the viability of these four systems, albeit on a highly provisional basis, ILCA has estimated their principal cash costs and returns on the basis of initial experiments and a number of assumptions, especially as regards fecundity. According to these estimates, the first system, that of improved fallow grazing, which is now being tested in the derived savannah zone on some 40 sheep and goats, would have a comparatively high return per man/day while incurring minimum labour and other inputs, and hence low cash costs. However, returns per hectare are relatively low. Nevertheless, the system might meet the needs of small farmers with some spare land, since the package would enable them to earn extra income in return for a limited initial outlay, while improving the fertility of their soil.The second system, that of controlled grazing, is tested separately for sheep and goats. It implies a higher volume of inputs and thus far higher cash costs, in terms of both labour and intermediate goods, but the returns per hectare are calculated to be two or three times higher than in the previous system. According to the preliminary estimates made by ILCA, returns would be close to or even higher than those obtained from the crops currently grown, regardless of whether the calculation system used is that of returns per hectare or per man/day. Nevertheless, this system implies relatively high cash costs, as well as a higher labour input. Recurrent cash costs would be two or three times higher than those incurred by crops with similar returns, a problem which may turn out to be a real financial constraint for many farmers.The prospects for the third system, that of intensive rearing with zero grazing, which will require a high labour input, appear more modest. Cash costs would be two or three times higher than in the second system, without any corresponding improvement in farm income over and above the benefits of the latter, even assuming relatively high animal productivity.Preliminary estimates for the fourth system, which unlike the others will be entirely oriented towards fattening on agro-industrial by-products to the exclusion of rearing operations, are still very fragmentary. In any case, the conditions for launching fattening operations on the ILCA stations are not at present favourable, owing partly to the unavailability of good quality animals on the market 2 and partly to the health problems encountered with those which have already been purchased. 2. To some extent this situation results from the fact that a large proportion of exchanges consist of loans or exchanges between relations and friends, and thus take place beyond the market.The management units were launched only in the second half of 1979, with the result that sufficient data are not yet available to enable an objective assessment of the initial results to be made. A number of problems have already arisen which may subsequently turn out to be real constraints. In the first place it has become clear that in the derived savannah zone animal feed supplies are inadequate during the dry season, thereby requiring supplementation in the form of forage or concentrates 3 . This situation is confirmed by research in similar en0ronments in Nigeria and Ivory Coast. Furthermore, improved fallow and grazing land is rapidly invaded by species which are unpalatable to livestock (e.g. Eupatorium odoratum in the forest zone and lmparata cylindrica in the derived savannah). These species are very common in the humid zone and may seriously limit not only the productivity of pastures but also the viability of the improved fallow system itself. Health control problems have also been acute, especially at the forest zone station, where mortality has once again proved far higher than in the derived savannah, owing to the harsher climatic conditions.3. Supplementary feeding trials using sugar cane are planned to take place at a later date, with a view to overcoming this constraint.Since the state of knowledge on small ruminant production is still limited and the ILCA research programme in this field is only in its early stages, it has not yet been possible to identify, even on a provisional basis, the improvement packages, other than for animal health, to be suggested to farmers wishing to participate in this programme. This third stage is currently scheduled for early 1981, assuming that the results expected for the present year materialize. Since it includes the transfer of improvements tested on the research station to village level, the third stage will doubtless raise a new set of problems in both technical (disease control and forage production) and socio-economic fields, limiting the ability of farmers to absorb innovations which are relatively foreign to their traditional approach. Consequently, socioeconomic studies are already being carried out with a view to screening the obstacles most likely' to act as blockages when the innovations are introduced, so as to anticipate the means to surmount them when the time comes.","tokenCount":"9085"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8c4fd4117f4efb9f339a61fb163c8e48","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/6a915bca-4ebb-4feb-939e-aa521648bc1b/retrieve","id":"-2096187103"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"56fb1644-77fd-41d2-8d7d-6cda0697b43f","pagecount":"5","content":"O ver the last three to four decades, farmers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have experienced weather-induced problems such as drought, prolonged dry spells, erratic rainfall, and floods. The average incidence of severe drought has been on the increase, with seven serious droughts occurring in Africa from 1980 to 1990 and 10 others between 1991 and 2003. The result is that drought-induced crop failures are prevalent in the region (FAO, 2005). There is broad agreement that one of the biggest climate change impacts will be on rainfall, making it more variable and less reliable (Lenton and Muller, 2009).To counteract such problems, various agricultural water management (AWM) technologies can be used by smallholder farmers to improve production and productivity (Mati, 2007). Rainwater harvesting (RWH), which is about collecting, conserving, storing, and utilizing rainwater for various purposes, is one such technology. Rockström et al. (2007) indicated that rainwater harvesting has great potential to contribute to poverty reduction efforts by improving land productivity and profitability in rainfed areas in Africa. Rainwater harvesting interventions could also be useful as an adaptation method responding to climate change.technical staff from the district office of agriculture. One peasant association (PA) from each stratum and 30 farmers per PA were then randomly selected. Field data were collected through farm visits and interviews. Data such as yield (kg/ha/year), farm-gate prices (US$/kg), amount and cost of all agronomic inputs, costs of husbandry practices, harvesting, handling, and marketing, and establishment and maintenance costs were collected. In total, 90 farmers were interviewed and their ponds assessed. In addition, group discussions were held with experts and leaders of the respective PAs.The average prices of inputs and outputs for the year 2007 were used as the basis for calculation. A profitability analysis was done using the average cost of inputs and farm-gate prices of produce. Return to family labor was determined by dividing the net income or profit, excluding the costs of family labor with the number of family labor inputs in adult-days.Evaluation criteria for financial feasibility such as the net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR), and return on investment (ROI) determined whether the technology was profitable or not. NPV compares the value of a dollar today to the value of that same dollar in the future, taking inflation and returns into account. The difference between the sum of all discounted benefits and costs represents the NPV. IRR is the discount rate under which the discounted benefits are equal to the discounted costs-i.e., where the NPV is exactly zero. ROI is also a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment. It is the ratio of money gained or lost on an investment relative to the amount of money invested.Results of crop productivity and profitability are presented comparing 'with' and 'without' scenarios. Under the 'without' scenario, farmers were mostly reliant on field crops-i.e., teff and wheat. After the introduction of RWH, farmers grew vegetables in small gardens as well as in the fields. Of special interest were onions, which have been dealt with in the analysis. Onions were important because the availability of harvested rainwater enabled farmers to grow onion seedlings during the dry season, In Ethiopia, massive RWH structures were constructed in 2003-04. For example, 14,976 structures were constructed in the Amhara Region alone (BoWRD, 2005). Nearly 88% of the structures were built in moisture-deficient districts. However, the returns on investment and socioeconomic impacts of this investment remain largely unquantified and, thus, unknown.The objective of the study was, therefore, to determine the impacts of RWH on agricultural productivity, household income, return on family labor and, overall, to assess the viability of the investment. The study explores the potential value of RWH in the transformation of smallholder agriculture and rural livelihoods but also warns against the dangers of inappropriate use of RWH not only in Ethiopia but also in SSA.This study was undertaken in Minjar Shenkora District of the Amhara Region, Ethiopia, where uneven and erratic rainfall is a common occurrence. The lack of potable water near homesteads increases the workload of women and children who have to travel long distances to fetch water as there are no permanent rivers in the area (MSWoARD, 2008).Rainwater harvesting in the area started in 2004 initially involving 308 households. By 2008, the number of those adopting the technology had expanded to 7,618 households. Some farmers even own more than one pond. About 45% of the harvested rainwater was used for onion seedlings and fruit production, 50% and 5% went to farm households' consumption and livestock, respectively. Pond size and water-holding capacity differed from one agroecology to another due to water evaporation and seepage losses. The net water volume harvested was estimated to be 95 m 3 , 90 m 3 , and 80 m 3 in the highland, mid and lowland areas, respectively. On average, 100 m 2 of land was cultivated with one RWH pond.The impact of the technology was evaluated by comparing the situation with and without (control) RWH schemes. Farmers, stratified into three categories based on altitude, (highland, midland, and lowland), were identified with the assistance of making them available for planting at the onset of the rains. This, in turn, made it possible for onions to be grown as a rainfed field crop by more farmers, including those without storage ponds. The area became a source of onions as a marketable crop. In the 'before' scenario, the average yields of teff and wheat were 1.85 and 2.84 tons/ha, respectively. Teff is considered a cash crop, earning an average farm gate-price of US$ 0.4708/kg compared with wheat at US$ 0.282/kg. Consequently, although wheat has higher yield, the gross incomes from teff and wheat were US$ 871/ha and US$ 801/ha, respectively (Table 1).On the other hand, onions are a bulky cash crop, yielding, on average, 13.36 tons/ha and an average farm-gate price of US$ 0.169/kg, which translates into a gross income of US$ 2,258/ha. In addition, onion seedlings were also sold as cash crops, produced on plots measuring 100 m 2 (0.01 ha) and using about 40 m 3 of water from the pond. Onion seedlings earned a gross income of US$229 (Table 1) when farmers sold extra seedlings. As a result, the gross incremental income due to RWH for onions alone adds up to US$ 2,487/year per household. The average net income of rainfed teff, wheat, and onion was US$ 523, US$ 525 and US$ 1,848/ha/ year, respectively. On the other hand, the average net income of onion seedlings was US$ 155/100 m 2 per year. Similar results were found by Mulinge et al. (2010) in Lare Division, Nakuru District, Kenya, where the increment in net income with supplementary irrigation was US$ 110, US$ 625, US$ 1,428, and US$ 4,603/ha for cabbage, kale, tomato, and onion, respectively, against rainfed agriculture. Profitability analysis was done using the average prices of inputs and outputs, excluding family labor (Table 1). The average net income excluding family labor was US$ 2,100/ha for rainfed bulb onions, while teff and wheat, also rainfed, earned US$728 and US$685/ha, respectively. The average net income of seedling production with RWH ponds was US$ 118.13/year from a 100 m 2 area of land. The costs of production are generally low since farmers use family labor and low levels of inputs. About 72% of the total cost of seedling production with RWH was family labor. It also comprised the largest share of input cost for rainfed field crops.Total family labor and gross economic returns to family labor are presented in Table 2. The return to family labor of RWH is determined by subtracting all costs from total revenue, excluding family labor inputs. Dividing this net profit with the number of family labor in man-days gives the gross return to family labor. Thus, the family labor used in the production of bulb onions, teff, and wheat per hectare was 150, 120, and 90 man-days, respectively. Meanwhile, onion seedling production used 13 man-days per 100 m 2 while production of bulb onion crop used 163 man-days per ha.The study indicates that the gross return to family labor from onion seedlings under RWH was US$ 13.6 per man-day, while incremental return to labor due to the rainwater harvesting intervention was US$ 15 per man-day. By contrast, the returns to family labor for rainfed wheat and teff were only US$ 7.6 and 6 per man-day, respectively. This indicates that the returns to labor with RWH are significantly higher than those in rainfed systems.A financial analysis (cost-benefit analysis) based on agricultural enterprises alongside RWH with storage ponds was done. Initial investment costs of RWH were US$ 154, 175, and 187 per pond in highland, midland, and lowland areas, respectively. The maintenance and production costs were US$ 48.8, 35.8 and 27.1 per pond in the highland, midland, and lowland areas, respectively. The gross incomes from seedling production were US$ 301, 212 and 174 in high, middle, and lowland areas, respectively.The average discounted benefits and costs of RWH for onion seedling production were US$ 1,527 and 304, respectively. In general, assuming a discount rate of 10%, the average NPV of investment in storage ponds over 7 years was about US$ 1,223.(The economic life of a RWH pond is estimated to be around 7 years in the study areas). Moreover, the average financial IRR for the three agro-ecologies was 202%. The average ROI was also 483%. All these showed the financial variability of RWH ponds (Table 3).The real benefits of RWH would have been much higher than the calculated values if the water amount used for domestic purposes and livestock (about 50% of harvested water) had been considered in the analysis. Rainwater harvesting reduced long distance travelling of animals to watering points and, thus, the energy wasted can improve the performance of animals in terms of more meat and milk. The work burden of women and children and the time required to fetch water from distant rivers and streams helped them engage in other productive farm activities such as watering onion seedlings.The economic potential of RWH is very clear as seen in this study. However, the history of RWH in Ethiopia is dogged by many failed programs. To ensure the uptake and sustainable use of the technology, attention needs to be given to policy support for the technology to encourage farmers to adopt it. The technology is also only appropriate where there is water stress. The exact technological options chosen are also critical and need to be both cost-effective and durable. For example, the concrete domes have not been as successful as geo-membrane structures, which themselves have failed where inappropriately laid or not maintained. In addition, the right crops for cultivation need to be selected, i.e., ones that generate a quick and high return, such as onions.Some health hazards associated with RWH and storage include pests, especially mosquitoes in lowland parts of the district. There were also safety concerns since the ponds are open, while contamination of the water reduces its value for domestic use. Many farm households fenced their water-harvesting ponds to prevent entry of animals and protect children from danger. Water treatment is also required if households use the water for domestic purposes.Rainwater harvesting has positive multiplier effectsimproving the productivity and income of smallholder farmers while addressing the prevailing problems of moisture stress in the area. In the study area, before RWH was introduced, high-value crops such as onions, which can bring about a quick and high return on investment, were not widely cultivated due to lack of water. With the advent of the RWH technology, it was possible for farmers to grow onion seedlings on about 100 m 2 in the dry season and sell or plant them during the rainy season. The results showed that the average net income from onion seedlings was US$ 155 per 100 m 2 plot, while that from rainfed bulb onions, once transplanted, was US$ 1848 per ha, making the contribution to farmer incomes from onions alone to be about US$ 2,003 per year, which is higher than what they earned from rainfed teff and wheat combined. Due to such visible benefits, the RWH technology has the potential, when properly constructed and supported, to have a transformational effect on livelihood.","tokenCount":"2030"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"910c8c8c2f6a4c405c779967e9eee6b7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/33d9dca8-d0bd-4d95-864e-c0c71ff85687/retrieve","id":"1060418717"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1f77d0cf-2ead-4f9f-ba28-b59b28da2d17","pagecount":"22","content":"CGIAR is a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for a food-secure future. The CGIAR Research Program on Livestock provides research-based solutions to help smallholder farmers, pastoralists and agro-pastoralists transition to sustainable, resilient livelihoods and to productive enterprises that will help feed future generations. It aims to increase the productivity and profitability of livestock agri-food systems in sustainable ways, making meat, milk and eggs more available and affordable across the developing world. The Program brings together five core partners: the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) with a mandate on livestock; the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), which works on forages; the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), which works on small ruminants and dryland systems; the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) with expertise particularly in animal health and genetics and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) which connects research into development and innovation and scaling processes.The Program thanks all donors and organizations which globally support its work through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust FundIn Ethiopia, improved access to veterinary drugs has increased their use in food-producing animals. Drugs are available over the counter; the use of drugs in livestock production is not commonly supervised by a trained veterinarian. In addition, knowledge on how these drugs work and how they should be used to achieve the intended impact is often not adequately passed on to livestock keepers.Community conversations are facilitated dialogues among community members to explore and analyse their perceptions on specific topics such as knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) about antimicrobial use and resistance. They create space for community members to freely share their views and discuss issues regarding antimicrobial use and resistance. Community conversations facilitate collaborative learning and sharing among community groups leading to community actions to reduce antimicrobial resistance.The community conversations about antimicrobial use and resistance were held in Yabello district on 18-19 October 2019 at Darito community and Menz Gera district on 6-7 November 2019 at Sine Amba community. Darito is an agro-pastoralist community in the Borana zone of Oromia region, while Sine Amba is a highland mixed-farming community in the North Shewa zone of Amhara region.The community conversations on antimicrobial use and resistance engaged men and women community members (including couples and women in male-headed households), community leaders and local research and development partners. At both sites, a total of 106 (48 female) community members and 10 (two female) research and development partners participated in community conversations. This community conversation module on antimicrobial use and resistance is part of a series of training modules developed under the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock which address smallholder livestock production challenges in Ethiopia.Facilitation team alignment on the methodology and facilitation process At both sites, the research team worked with local research and development partners. Community conversations require a team of facilitators who are familiar with the community and the facilitation process. We worked with local partners who helped with community mobilization, co-facilitation and documentation of community conversation sessions.In the Borana zone, we worked with the Yabello Pastoral and Dryland Agriculture Research Centre and the Yabello district Livestock Development Office, while in the North Shewa zone, we worked with the Debre Berhan Agricultural Research Centre, Menz Gera district Livestock Development Office, Women's Affairs Office and government Communications Office.At both sites, we had team co-learning sessions where local partners reflected on and shared their experiences with community facilitation. We began with an introductory team discussion on the purpose of community conversations, the process of developing the module and the overall methodology. We had discussions on antimicrobial resistance as a global issue. Then we proceeded with discussions on the conversation plan to ensure that local partners were confident in the process and could co-facilitate and document community conversation sessions. We also conducted pre-and post-community conversation KAP surveys to measure knowledge and attitude changes due to the conversations. We gave local partners copies of the community conversation module on antimicrobial use and resistance.Opening is an important step of the community conversation process to set the ground for open, frank and active discussion. Facilitators invited religious leaders or community elders to open community conversations with prayers and blessings. Then they explained the purpose of the community conversations and clarified expectations. The facilitation team explained that their role was to create space for community groups and facilitate the discussions, helping them identify issues, analyse the issues and develop community action plans to address the issues.At both sites, the facilitation team started the conversations smoothly through informal warm-up conversations, asking people about general life situations and leading to the discussion topics. This helped community groups to start talking freely and build rapport with facilitators. In Yabello and Menz Gera, community members had previous experience in community conversations. Participants in these sessions were open, interactive and engaged actively in the conversations.In Yabello, community conversations were held in the open under a big tree which provided shade for community members. This open space arrangement invited a lot of people including children and youth to the conversations. In Menz Gera, community conversations were held at the community meeting place.The facilitation team used interactive facilitation methods including small group discussions, storytelling, provocative questioning and reflection. After the introductory and warm-up conversation sessions, the facilitation team broke community members into men and women small discussion groups, which engaged community groups in an experiential and reflective co-learning process. Local partners paired with ILRI researchers to facilitate and document small group discussion results.Then, small discussion groups were brought together, and each shared the main issues and insights from their discussions in plenary sessions. Highlighting main points and issues from the feedback session, the facilitation team further facilitated dialogues among community groups and supplemented farmers'/agropastoralists' understanding with new knowledge and advice. Finally, community members were encouraged to consider alternative measures and identify community actions to reduce antimicrobial resistance.Yabello: Summary of community conversationsTo start the conversation and engage community members in active discussion about antimicrobial use and resistance, the facilitation team encouraged introductory conversations around animal diseases and their causes. The purpose of the warm-up discussion was to help community members understand and appreciate that various causative agents cause animal diseases and that the prevention and treatment of animal diseases depend on the causative agents. The aim of this was to encourage community members to think of and consider the critical importance of consulting trained veterinarians and closely following their advice. This introductory conversation clarified for community members the need for engaging in active conversations around issues of antimicrobial use and resistance.Community members described antimicrobials as drugs which are used to treat sick animals. Women participants understood antimicrobials as drugs from traditional agro-pastoralists called 'cirreessa' and modern drugs from veterinary pharmacies.When discussing their understanding of antimicrobial resistance, community members observed that animal diseases do not also respond to drugs. A male participant said, 'Medicines become ineffective when they don't reach the diseased parts of the animal.' Community members described antimicrobial resistance as situations when drugs do not work and when diseases 'tolerate' drugs. A male participant said, 'We noted that animals don't cure from diseases after long-term treatment.'Community members understood antibiotics as drugs used to treat sick animals. Men and women groups mentioned different types of antibiotics. There were also gender differences in the use of antibiotics.Women reported that they treat small animals like poultry, goats and sheep with tablets. They prepare drugs for poultry by mixing with water or maize flour. They also mix human tetracycline with water and give to calves orally by syringe, and crush and mix anthelmintic bolus with water to treat sick sheep and goat.Men reported that they treat large animals like cattle and camels by injection. They also crush tablets and mix with water to inject sick animals orally by syringe.Men and women participants identified sources of information and advice on antibiotics use. They indicated that they obtain information from pharmacies, veterinary clinics and community animal health workers (CAHWs) about types of antibiotics, dosage, treatment duration, place and method of injection and specific information such as pregnant animals should not swallow bolus. Other information sources identified were government vaccination officers and community members. Community members indicated that the veterinary pharmacy and veterinary clinics are the most trusted information sources on antibiotic use.Community members take a stepwise approach to treating sick animals. First, they treat sick animals with traditional medicines. If these are not effective, then they buy drugs from a veterinary pharmacy and self-treat their animals. A male participant said that 'It is only when we have difficulty or when self-treated animals don't respond to drugs that we call CAHWs for help. When CAHWs can't treat the animals, we go to a veterinary clinic'.Community members reported that they consider age, size and body condition of animals to determine dosage and treatment duration. They also indicated that they use human drugs for veterinary purposes. A male participant said, 'We use tetracycline in newborn camel calves if we don't have animal drugs at home to prevent infection.' Women participants also indicated that they use tetracycline to treat diarrhea in sheep, goats, calves and poultry.Men and women community members identified sources of veterinary drugs. The most trusted and preferred drug sources were government veterinary clinics and private veterinary pharmacies for advice/information and because drugs are properly stocked and stored in clinics and pharmacies. Other sources of veterinary drugs include roadside markets, private human pharmacies and CAHWs. Asked if they consider quality when they buy veterinary drugs, community groups considered drugs from veterinary pharmacies as quality drugs due to better storage. They believe that drugs from veterinary pharmacies are not exposed to sunlight, do not easily deteriorate and can be stored longer. They said that 'We don't have any information about veterinary drugs from roadside markets or other informal sources.' Asked if they can identify falsified drugs, community members mentioned that roadside market drugs change colour. For example, oxytetracycline changes to black when expired. They also ask CAHWs to check expiry dates of drugs.Community members could identify the effect of using falsified veterinary drugs. They mentioned that expired drugs do not cure animals. Some believe that falsified drugs can cause diseases in animals.Community members indicated that they keep leftover drugs for later use and dispose of expired drugs in the open. Some said, 'We dispose of expired drugs in holes like termite mall or latrine pit.'In the community conversations, community members demonstrated a lack of information and knowledge about withdrawal periods after antibiotic use. They reported consuming animal products like milk and meat immediately after antibiotic treatment of animals for any disease. They also sell animals on treatment. They are not aware of the public health consequences of consuming animal-source foods immediately after treatment with antibiotics. They think that animal drugs do not cause problems in humans.Community members described situations which indicate antimicrobial resistance problems in animals. They think that repeated use of a medicine over a long period of time makes it ineffective.Community members identified a lack of veterinary drug regulation, limited veterinary services and limited community knowledge on the use of veterinary drugs as problems that could lead to emergence of drug resistance.When discussing the causes of antimicrobial resistance, community members mentioned use of expired or inappropriate drugs and over or under dose of drugs. A male participant said, 'Drug resistance can occur when we always use the same drugs, when we use expired drugs and when drugs and diseases are mismatched.' Alternative measures to reduce antimicrobial resistance Community members think they can reduce emergence of antimicrobial resistance. They mentioned that responsible use of quality drugs can reduce antimicrobial resistance. They identified practices such as not using leftover drugs for injection, changing drugs and consulting trained animal health workers as measures to reduce emergence of antimicrobial resistance. Community members also mentioned infection prevention measures to reduce the use of antimicrobials such as vaccination, sanitation (cleaning stables) and nutrition (providing enough feed, water and salt).At the end of the community conversations, community members agreed to take the following actions:• consult professionals about disease causes for proper drug choice, dosage and number of injection days;• contact a professional person to prescribe drugs for diseased animals;• do not use expired drugs or treat animals with leftover drugs;• store drugs in a safe and clean place;• do not use drugs which change from the original colour;• consult a veterinarian before buying an animal drug;• do not add to drugs without consulting an animal health worker; and• do not use human drugs for veterinary purposes.In closing the community conversations, local partners reflected on their takeaways from the discussions and assured community groups that they would follow up on the community action points and consider some of the action points in their institutional planning process and interventions.The community conversations in Menz Gera followed the same process as in Yabello. The research team worked with local research and development partners. Before the start of the community conversations, the facilitation team held a co-learning process to foster a shared understanding on the conceptualization and localization of technical areas and how best to facilitate the conversations using expressions, examples and concepts which are familiar to community members. In this preparatory process, local partners shared examples and cases which demonstrated community members understanding of animal diseases and preventive and treatment measures.Below, we provide a summary of main points and issues that emerged from the community conversations.To stimulate the discussion about the use of antimicrobials and resistance issues, the facilitation team engaged community members in discussions about animal diseases and their causes. Farmers identified local names of many animal diseases. They name animal diseases based on clinical signs and effects on sick animals. They understand that the main cause for animal diseases is poor animal husbandry. They mentioned environmental stress factors like poor sanitation and nutrition as enabling conditions for animal diseases.Building upon farmers' understanding of animal diseases, the facilitation team explained that animal diseases differ by causative agents and that their treatment or prevention measures also differ.In preparation for the community conversations, the facilitation team identified local terms and expressions for antimicrobials and antimicrobial resistance. The local expression for antimicrobial resistance in Amharic used in the community conversations is 'yebeshita medhanit melemamed'.When asked to describe their understanding of veterinary antimicrobials and antimicrobial resistance, community members described antimicrobials as 'animal medicines including antibiotics and anthelmintic used for treatment' while they initially found it difficult to conceptualize antimicrobial resistance. Some described it as 'medicines working well for the animal'. Upon further probing, some farmers described antimicrobial resistance as 'animal diseases tolerating medicines overtime.' Community members described situations that indicated understanding of drug resistance in animals. For example, a male farmer said, 'Despite repeated treatment, animals do not cure from disease. We think that the disease is unique and uncurable, or the animal is inherently diseased. So, we rather sale [sic] the animal than trying to cure it through repeated treatment.' Farmers think that diseases can overcome/tolerate drugs over time.Asked if drug resistance is only a household issue, community members argued that it is a community issue.The facilitation team used a local term, 'tsere-bakteria', for antibiotics. Community members understood antibiotics as injectable drugs, and they gave some examples. When asked to describe differences in the use of antibiotics among men and women, community groups reported no gender differences. They mentioned that both men and women take their animals to veterinary clinics and follow prescriptions or advice of animal health workers.Community members identified animal health workers (vet clinics), researchers, private vet pharmacies and other farmers as sources of information about animal drugs. They mentioned the kind of information they get from animal health workers (veterinary clinics) as dosage, treatment duration and withdrawal periods.Community members argued that men have more access to information about animal drugs than women. They indicated that men have more exposure and contact with animal health workers, and they also have the confidence to ask animal health workers about animal diseases and use of drugs. We noted this difference during the pre-and post-KAP survey. Some women participants found it difficult to understand some of the questions; they appeared confused and struggled to explain their views, while men understood the questions and provided explanations for their responses.In Sine Amba, community members mentioned that animal health workers diagnose and prescribe animal drugs. They do not buy animal drugs on their own from informal sources and they usually do not self-treat their animals as they do not know about the diseases and the quality of the drugs. Though not common, community members indicated that some farmers self-treat their animals for gastrointestinal parasite control since they know what the health workers usually prescribe for some clinical signs.Community members indicated that they follow prescribed recommended dosage and treatment duration. If they discontinue treatment, farmers think that the animal will not cure completely. It may show good health temporarily, but the disease may hide and reoccur, making the disease more difficult to treat. Farmers said, 'Either the first or the last administered drug would work, so the animal should get the recommended number of treatments.' Asked about the use of human medicines for veterinary purposes, community groups reported this is rarely practiced though they indicated some may use tetracycline for poultry.Community members identified sources of veterinary drugs as public veterinary clinics, research centres, private veterinary pharmacies and informal markets. They mentioned that public veterinary clinics are the main source of veterinary drugs. They indicated that they do not buy drugs from private veterinary pharmacies and informal markets as they think that drugs from these sources may be poor quality or expired. They believe that the drugs are stored longer in private veterinary pharmacies as few people procurer drugs from this source.A male farmer said, 'Use of poor-quality drugs will exacerbate the disease in sick animals and the disease would also tolerate the drugs.' Asked about purchasing veterinary drugs from informal sources, a woman participant said, 'It is not a commodity like coffee which we buy from a shop.' Community members argued that they can know the quality of drugs by smell, eye (change of colour), and its texture and expiry date.In Sine Amba, community members reported that they do not keep leftover drugs for later use. A male farmer asked, 'How can we keep leftover drugs? The veterinarian prescribes what is only needed for the animal, so nothing is left.' During the conversations, however, they mentioned that some people may keep leftover drugs to use for other animals. A male farmer said, 'I know a farmer who bought drugs from towns for self-treatment and kept leftover drugs. But I believe this is a wrong practice that must be discouraged.' Community members think that if leftover drugs are stored for too long, they could expire and may not cure sick animals. Some even think that expired drugs can kill animals.Asked about how they dispose of leftover drugs, community members reported that some may dispose of leftover drugs in toilets or by burning them. They indicated that they do not dispose of a leftover drug in the open environment as they fear children may find it.In Sine Amba, community members demonstrated knowledge of withdrawal periods following antibiotic use. They discussed reasons for avoiding the consumption of milk, eggs and meat immediately after treatment of sick animals. The commonly mentioned reason is prevention of disease transmission from sick animals to humans. Upon further probing, some participants think that drug residues pass to humans through consumption of animal-source foods, and this could lead to drug resistance in humans.Community members mentioned that the use of expired or poor-quality drugs, use of drugs for unknown diseases, and inappropriate dosage and treatment duration can cause antimicrobial resistance.They also complained about the lack of laboratory diagnostic facilities and that veterinarians do not physically examine sick animals; they prescribe drugs based on farmers' description of clinical signs. Community groups think that this practice can also lead to drug resistance in animals.Community groups identified the following actions as alternative measures to reduce the need for antimicrobial use and thus resistance:• isolate sick and treated animals;• administer preventive vaccinations;• follow prescription/advice of trained veterinarians;• buy drugs from veterinary clinics as prescribed by trained veterinarians;• clean barns;• engage in community-based grazing land management; • improve feed management and feeding strategies; and• follow the recommended duration of treatment.The facilitation team summarized the main discussion points and issues from the community conversations. They then encouraged community members to act to reduce antimicrobial resistance and consider the benefits of acting.In summary, the following were the community action points agreed upon during the community conversations:• vaccinate to prevent infectious diseases;• consult trained veterinarians;• improving sanitation of animal shelters;• prepare feed resources;• buy prescribed drugs from approved sources;• isolate sick and treated animals from the flock/herd;• bury dead animals; and• share information and influence other community members. Support needed from local partners/service providers includes:• provide mobile vaccination and treatment services;• improve animal health extension services including advice through mobile phones; and• Regulate the informal drug market.In closing, local partners reflected on the community conversation process and thanked community groups for their interest and active participation. They indicated that antimicrobial resistance is a threat to their work, and they will follow up and continue engaging with community groups about drug resistance issues.Preparatory team alignment and co-learning discussion Before the community conversations, the research team held co-learning and preparatory discussions with local research and development partners to align the methodology and create shared understanding around the conversation issues and facilitation process. While the technical areas of antimicrobial use and resistance were not new to local partners, they found communicating these issues to community members in understandable terms challenging.Before the community conversations, the research team went through each discussion point and discussed how local partners would communicate issues regarding antimicrobial use and resistance with community members in understandable local terms and expressions.We noted the need to conceptualize and localize technical areas in words and expressions that are familiar to men and women community members.Reflection is an interpretive and insight-making process. At both sites, we held an after-event reflection and lessons learned session about the community conversation process. Local partners reflected on their takeaways and insights into the approach. We reflected on the main issues arising from the conversations for each discussion question.Figure 2 After action team reflection and analysis at Yabello.In Yabello, while this increased team learning and sharing through reflection, it also helped the research team understand the local context and obtain a summary of main issues arising from the conversations as we had limited command of the conversation language. The conversations were translated as they occurred which helped us follow the conversation and ensure that the discussion issues were covered.Reflecting on the role of community conversations to raise awareness about antimicrobial resistance, local partners mentioned the usefulness of engagement at different levels including livestock health experts, regulatory bodies, policymakers and pharmacy providers.Effective communication with community groups is important for local animal health service providers. Development of livestock health extension messages for the local context and language can facilitate communication with community groups.There is a need to strengthen the communication and extension material development capacity of local research and development partners through a participatory process engaging local partners in collaborative learning and co-creation of local concepts and expressions that are meaningful to community groups. Communication and extension materials will be improved through review and revision by community members and communication experts to ensure that materials are appropriately written and presented to maximize understanding within the local context.We noted that local partners require capacity building in the facilitation and encouragement of self-reflective learning and sharing with community members. They tended to extract/collect information by asking questions superficially rather than facilitating a deeper level of reflection and learning among community groups through contextualizing, probing with examples or stories and summarizing/paraphrasing. New learning and insights into an issue in question happens through dialogic and self-reflective social learning practices, which result in attitudinal changes and motivation to act.Agro-pastoralists and highland mixed-farming communities In Yabello and Menz communities, there were differences in KAP regarding antimicrobial use and resistance. At both sites, community members demonstrated knowledge of animal diseases and contributing factors. They cited various animal diseases using local names based on clinical signs and identified poor sanitation and feed as major contributing factors to animal diseases.In Yabello, community groups reported that they have limited access to animal health services. They buy drugs from veterinary pharmacies and informal markets and self-treat their animals. They were not aware of antibiotic withdrawal periods. They reported that they consume milk, eggs and meat immediately after treatment of animals with antibiotics.Meanwhile, in Menz, community members considered the consequences of self-treatment of animals. They seek services from animal health service providers and buy and use drugs from formal sources as advised by animal health workers. They demonstrated awareness/knowledge about antibiotic withdrawal periods and explained the reasons for this. They indicated that they get advice on withdrawal periods from local animal health workers and researchers.The pre-community conversation KAP survey helped the research team get a glimpse of how community members think about antimicrobial resistance and familiarized the team with the perspectives and reasoning of community members about animal diseases and treatment options.It is a common practice that local service providers mix English words in their communication with community groups. We noted that farmers/agro-pastoralists used incorrectly pronounced English words in their interaction with the facilitation team. This may demonstrate a limitation of local service providers in conceptualizing, localizing and communicating technical messages in words and expressions understandable by community groups. This is again a communication problem which limits farmers'/agro-pastoralists' understanding of livestock health extension messages, suggesting the need for improving the communication and advisory/consulting skills of animal health workers/ veterinarians.It is important that local animal health service providers are familiar with farmers'/agro-pastoralists' conceptualization and thinking frame. Local people name animal diseases based on contributing stress factors, clinical signs and effects on the animal. They also name drugs by their colour and relate drug shapes with objects they are familiar with. For example, farmers in Menz name dewormers 'madaberia' meaning fertilizer; they associate the effect of dewormers as weight gain in thin animals, just as chemical fertilizers make crops grow and flourish.In Menz Gera, community members complained that animal health workers prescribed medicines without laboratory diagnosis or physical examination of sick animals. This may cause a lack of trust from community members regarding the advice of animal health workers.    ","tokenCount":"4398"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8b5452be4cfd8d27a1e438f781665857","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/71a929ea-f2a3-45ed-85a9-d167578c766d/retrieve","id":"470095797"},"keywords":["GOV EX","IN","FS","PP","RD","RG","TR","TM","RU"],"sieverID":"879e28ca-2b78-4b0f-a5dd-6b1c89b71bf0","pagecount":"100","content":"In view of the above it is recommended that action should be taken to assist the agricultural sector of The Bahamas in formulating a strategic information plan.The CTA's main goal is \"to develop and provide services that improve access to information for agricultural and rural development, and to strengthen the capacity of ACP countries to produce, acquire, exchange and utilize information in this area.\"The objectives of the study are as follows;• To identify agricultural information needs of key actors/beneficiaries for CTA products and services.• To identify needs of potential actors/beneficiaries of CA activities and services in terms of building capacity for information and communication management. • To identify potential partners/beneficiaries for CTA activities and services.• To develop some baseline data to facilitate subsequent monitoring activities.The methodology employed in the study comprised three components:• Briefing session at the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI), St. Augustine, Trinidad. • A desk review of available literature and information services including the findings of program findings. • Face-to-face interviews were undertaken by interviewing officials and senior management personnel in ten institutions of which were from the public sector, and the remaining four were non-governmental organizations (NGO's).In conjunction with the above, \"The study should assist the three operational units of the CTA as well as it's local representatives to improve and better target interventions and activities aimed at political partners and beneficiaries (including women, youth, private sector and civil society organizations); to have a more informed picture of their needs and ix aid in the elaboration of a strategy and framework of action. The study should also highlight where there are specific needs for CTA's products and services thereby enabling improvement in the delivery of the same.\"With reference to information, the needs which were ascertained were statistical (sectoral and national), field data for crop forecasting and marketing, crop and livestock yields and trade information i.e. EU legislation, state of industry / agribusinesses and general public policy plans.Capacity building needs were centered on manpower development and training in order to upgrade skills and expertise in information and communication technology (ICT).In concluding it was apparent that the public sector lacked a clear understanding of the following:• The importance of an effective ICT program as an integral part of the agricultural sector and as a mechanism to assist in regulating the sector. • There was also little evidence that steps were being taken to establish a national information system generally and specifically in the agricultural sector. INTRODUCTION 1.Established in 1983, the original mandate of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) -European Union (EU), Technical Cooperation for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) has been modified following the signing of the new ACP-EU framework agreement (Cotonou Agreement) in 2000.Since 2000, the CTA's responsibilities have been \"to develop and provide services that improve access to information for agricultural and rural development and to strengthen the capacity of ACP countries to produce, acquire, exchange and utilize information in this area.\" To undertake these responsibilities, the CTA, as stated in this study's terms of reference, has designed programs around three main activities:• \"Providing an increasing range and quality of information products and service and enhancing awareness of relevant information sources.• \"Supporting the integrated use of appropriate communication channels and intensifying contacts and information exchange.• \"Developing ACP capacity to generate and manage agricultural information and to formulate information and communication management (ICM) strategies.\" (CTA, TOR)3. This is undertaken within the framework of three operational departments as defined in the CTA's Strategic Plan (2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005):• Information Products and Services • Communication Channels And ServicesWorking in conjunction with the operational department is Planning and Corporate Services (P&CS), which performs a support role to these departments by providing \"the methodological underpinning…and monitoring of the ACP environment to identify emerging issues and trends.\" It is from this perspective that programs like information needs assessment emerge from the CTA.The Bahamas is an archipelago situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, southeast of Florida and northeast of Cuba. It covers an area of 13,935 sq. km. of which 10,070 sq. km. is land. The archipelago experiences a tropical maritime climate with winter incursions of modified cold air and generally neither frost, snow, sleet nor extreme temperatures. Humidity is high during the summer months, which also corresponds to the hurricane season.There are 30 populated islands in the archipelago. The 2000 census of population recorded that there were 303,611 people and, by 2003, the figure had climbed to 316,298. Life expectancy at birth for males is 68.3 years and for females 75.3 years. The average annual population growth rate was 1.9% in 2002 (DOS).HIV/AIDS is a health condition of major concern as some figures indicate there is a 3% adult prevalence rate with some 5,600 (2003 est.) living with the disease.The Bahamas gained its Independence from Britain on July 10 th 1973 and continues the tradition of constitutional parliamentary democracy under a bicameral system (Upper Chamber -Senate (16 seats) and lower Chamber -40 seats House of Assembly). Being an archipelago, there are 21 administrative districts.8. An overview of the economy shows that The Bahamas with its stable government and democratic traditions has developed an economy which is service orientated and dominated by tourism and financial services. With a gross domestic product (GDP), in the area of about 4.04 to 4.24 billion Euros (B$5.1 to B$5.5 billion), being fueled by strong performances in tourism (40%), financial services (15%) and a boom in the construction of hotels, resorts and residences this has led to solid economic growth in recent years. The per capita income has been estimated to be between 11,570 to 13,113 Euros (B$15,000 to B$17,000) per annum.The labor force in 2002 was 167,980 workers, and unemployment is conservatively estimated to be less than 10%. Employment is highest in the tourism sector, with agriculture accounting for less than 5%.The Bahamas is well endowed with infrastructure as there are some 29 airports with paved runways, an outstanding telecommunications system and major port facilities in Nassau and a transshipment container terminal in Freeport, Grand Bahama.The agricultural sector in The Bahamas contributes 3% to GDP. Of this, about 2% is generated by the fishing industry and the remaining 1% from agribusiness and small farmer output.12. Agribusiness, small farmers and fisheries fall within the portfolio of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Local Government. The Ministry is responsible for the general administration of the sector. The administration is headed by a Permanent Secretary with two directors -Department of Agriculture (agribusiness and small farmers) (DOA) and Department of Fisheries (DOF).13. Unlike the fisheries sector, which is growing in both output and the number of individuals employed, the agribusiness and small farmer sector is facing a crisis of declining numbers in the farm population. In 1978, there were almost 10,000 individuals; by 1994 it had decreased to less than 7,000, and in 2005, the figure is possibly around 5,000.As New Providence becomes more urbanized, farming is becoming an endangered activity as land which was formerly used for farming has been redeveloped for housing purposes. In the 1994 census there were 1,825 individuals engaged in farming in the age groups 55 to 75 years and over.Using the life expectancy figure of 67 years for Bahamian males, it is likely that most of the 1,030 males are probably dead. This is also the group (667) with 15 or more years of experience.The citrus canker outbreak on Abaco will adversely affect the acreage under citrus production and the citrus export market to the United States. The government of The Bahamas has chosen the course of grove destruction to eradicate the canker. This will decrease the acreage under production thereby putting thousands of acres of cultivated land out of production as well as decreasing the number of individuals employed by agribusiness.Despite this scenario, agribusinesses and small farmers recognize their vulnerability to market forces, which have been accelerated by globalization through the liberalization of agricultural trade and the move to create a hemispheric trading body in the form of the Free Trade Area of The Americas (FTAA). As a result agribusinesses and small farmers have formed national commodity groupings or associations such as The Bahamas Agricultural Producers' Association (BAPA), or the New Providence Livestock Producers' Cooperative Society (NPLPCS) and participate in regional bodies like the Caribbean Poultry Association (CPA) and the Caribbean Agribusiness Association (CABA).It is anticipated that, through a reformed Produce Exchange and Packing House system in conjunction with a reinvigorated DOA and Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Corporation (BAIC), output from agribusinessesand small farmers could be increased as this segment seeks to become more competitive.The fisheries industry employs some 1200 individuals as fishermen, food safety technicians and processing plant workers. It generates 77,140,000 Euros annually principally from the export of crawfish or lobster to global markets like the EU, Canada, and USA. The Fisheries industry is a major earner of foreign exchange for The Bahamas.Fisheries processing facilities have to meet EU food safety standards in order for Bahamian crawfish to enter the EU market. Fisheries processing facilities are located in fishing communities on Andros, Long Island, Abaco, and Spanish Wells in North Eleuthera, and also two facilities in New Providence.Forestry's output is limited, principally to exports of the Cascarilla Bark and the burning of Pinus caribae (pine trees) for charcoal for the local market. Cascarilla bark is found mainly on the islands of the South-Eastern Bahamas (Cat Island, Acklins, and Crooked Island). Only a small number of people ( 50) are engaged in collecting the bark for which the European Union (Italy) is the main market. In 2003 the value of exports was 203,922.52 Euros (DOA). Charcoal burning activity is unregulated and its value is difficult to ascertain, it is undertaken in some communities on North Andros, Abaco, and Grand Bahama.The institutions interviewed comprised the following: Association: The Bahamas Agricultural Producers' Association (BAPA) Organization: Bahamas Chamber of Commerce (BCC)In the Public Sector, there is a registry for office files for which there is a responsible office or supervisor (these people do not hold degrees, and have basic clerical training); this includes BAIC. In the MAFLG, DOA and DOF, there is no specific individual with the responsibility for public education, preparation of audio-visual or newsletters. At BAIC, the preparation of newsletters and publications is undertaken by the marketing division and steps have been taken to place ICM with the Accounts Department.The availability of equipment in the various ministries, such as scanning equipment and hardware/software is not a problem. In the MOT, there is a dedicated department headed by a Director for Research and Development with the responsibility for tourism data and analysis via information technology. In the MOTI, in addition to a registry supervisor, there are three officers responsible for website maintenance and the monitoring of the content on the Internet, particularly matters relating to trade. In MAFLG, BPE and DOA, only senior officers (these staff generally have degrees or post-grad qualifications) have access to the Internet whereas in the DOF all officers can obtain access to the Internet. The Bahamas Government has a centralized website, which is administered through the Ministry of Finance data processing unit. Some ministries such as the Ministry of Tourism work independently.The DOA has an officer who works out of the office of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) two days each week for the purpose of accessing agricultural information from the Internet. This is a joint program between IICA and DOA. This individual has received some training in data processing.In the Departments of Agriculture and Fisheries respectively the analytical work is completed by professional officers with some knowledge of ICT, hence the publication of statistical data. In the MOTI the individuals working on the website have no specific expertise in ICT, just on-the-job working knowledge.Among the NGOs, only the BCL and BCC have individuals with the responsibility for information. In the BCC, there is a program coordinator for publications as well as a part-time web-site Administrator. The BCL has one individual performing registry and ICM functions.In the public sector, particularly agriculture, the main sources of agricultural information services are the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and IICA. For the Bahamas Produce Exchange, marketing information on prices is obtained from the Florida Department of Agriculture. Some technicians in the DOA obtain information from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRT).The Ministry of Trade and Industry and The Bahamas Trade Commission receive their information on trade from the World Trade Organization (WTO), The Caribbean Regional Negotiation Machinery (CRNM), CARICOM Secretariat and the office of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).The DOF, in addition to FAO, receives a great deal of information from the University of the West Indies Centre For Resource Management and Environmental Studies (CERMES). On the other, the MOT collaborates on information services with the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), the WTO, the World Travel and Tourism Council and Global Insight.With reference to NGOs, members of cooperatives and the association rely on input suppliers i.e. feed companies for their source of information. In some instances, small farmers utilize the Department of Agriculture's Extension Services whereas agribusinesses depend on input suppliers.Entities like the BCC utilize, for trade matters, the In the Public Sector and among the NGOs, it is obvious that information needs are being satisfied primarily from external sources like the FAO, IICA, WTO and input suppliers as very little information, in a usable form, is emanating from national bodies or agencies.In conjunction with this, NGOs are looking to the Public Sector for basic statistical data and information to assist in planning and business decisions. This is compounded by the fact that there are manpower limitations resulting from the lack of expertise and management skills in the public sector and among the NGOs.One of the needs in the public sector is a sectoral update of agribusinesses and small farmers. Heavy dependence in the past has been placed on census returns.Since independence, two censuses have been conducted: one in 1978 and the other in 1994. Decision-makers in the Department of Agriculture have encountered serious difficulties in trying to plan the orderly growth and development of the sector without vital information like the number of farmers, their ages, location, type of farming/agribusiness activity.In order to address this issue, the Department has introduced an annual farmer registration scheme, or program which facilitates the granting of duty-free exemptions to bona fide farmers and agribusinesses. However, difficulties are being encountered in the analysis of the data which is captured by the scheme and devising a methodology which will enable the department to use the information as a planning tool or mechanism is proving to be challenging.The MOT has a program where it utilizes the immigration card to extract information on visitors. From this information, they have developed a database, which is the basis of their marketing program and has enabled them to pin point the demands of the visitor. A similar retrieval system could be adapted for the farmer registration scheme.The DOA has had difficulties in obtaining production yield statistics for crops and livestock (small ruminants and pigs). The diverse growing environment and climatic conditions in the southeastern Bahamas have created a demand for this type of information for crop and livestock professional officers as well as farmers.The Bahamas has a very open economy as it is heavily dependent on imports to generate revenue as well as to provide the funds to purchase goods to keep the country functioning. This impacts the Customs Department which is responsible for collecting the data on imports and turning that information over to the Department of Statistics.Ministries like MAFLG, DOA and MTI monitor imports; however, obtaining this information on a timely basis poses difficulties due to communication differences between the different government departments. For years the Statistics Unit of the DOA has disagreed with the DOS and The Central Bank of The Bahamas in the manner in which agricultural statistics are represented to reflect the agricultural sector's contribution to the country's GDP. There is a central data processing facility in the Ministry of Finance as well as a Department of Statistics. Placing the information in a format which is usable by all ministries, department and statutory bodies creates difficulties.Tourism spending is an important component in determining the GDP of The Bahamas. This data is compiled by the Central Bank of The Bahamas Research Department in conjunction with the MOT. Collecting and analyzing this information in order to provide ministries like MTI and the DOA on a timely basis is proving to be a difficult task. The difficulties stem from the fact that import statistics from the Bahamas Customs Department have to be included to arrive at a figure for national food consumption. Inputting customs returns along with compiling the statistics being generated by the other ministries is the responsibility of the DOS, and this has been the basis for some of the delays in the preparation of statistics on a timely basis. Determining food consumption habits by visitors is a critical aspect of production planning for both crops and livestock as well as the processing and marketing of fresh and processed foods.The Bahamas Produce Exchange and Packing House system is constrained by the inability to obtain crop-forecasting information. This has had implications on the capability of the Produce Exchange to set prices and to meet market demands on a consistent basis, which in turn, adversely affects the capacity of The Bahamas Produce Exchange to take advantage of linkages to the tourism sector, i.e. hotels, gourmet restaurants and the fast food US franchise outlets.As a result of the liberalization of markets, the eventual membership of The Bahamas in the WTO, its participation in the FTAA, the possibility of joining the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME), and the EU/ACP Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), trade issues are a growing area of importance to The Bahamas.The DOF has had difficulties obtaining information on EU legislation as it relates to fisheries commodities entering the EU. For The Bahamas, the EU is a major market for Bahamian crawfish which is one of a few commodities in which The Bahamas is a major exporter on the global scene.The Bahamas Trade Commission in the MTI, and the DOA view trade information and data as critical components in the execution of their duties. Sources such as the DOS and the Central Bank of The Bahamas do not always have up-to-date information readily at hand. This can frustrate the efficiency of the analytical work of these agencies.BAIC is encountering challenges in finding sources of information on industrial standards for a range of commodities and cash flow analysis for the development of agribusinesses and general business plans.The most critical information need for NGOs is the availability of public sector statistics on a timely basis and policy details for macro and micro planning in order for intelligent projections to be made. This is a major concern of the BCC and BAPA.The BCL is also unable to obtain financial information and information on the status of membership from its affiliates; particularly the Producer/Supplier Cooperatives which, apart from NPLPCSL, are located in the Family Islands (in view of the fact that 85.1% of the population reside between the islands of New Providence and Grand Bahama, the remainder of the islands are referred to as The Family Islands; these islands are significantly less developed than New Providence and Grand Bahama which are the urban centers of The Bahamas) .In the public sector, the Government of The Bahamas has launched an egovernment program to introduce and implement the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in all ministries and departments. However, the ministries and departments interviewed were either marginalized or constrained in ICT usage for a number of reasons such as funding, human resources and equipment.Among the Ministries interviewed, only the Ministry of Tourism had technology as a cornerstone in its strategic or business plan. Information was channeled to two departments -Research and Development and the Electronic Marketing Services. The basis for generating the data came from the immigration cards which are filled out by visitors, residents and citizens on arrival into The Bahamas. The success of the MOTs program stems from the fact that there is expertise, understanding and appreciation for the process of data collection, collation, assimilation and distribution.The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Local Government, its departments (Agriculture and Fisheries) and Sections/Units (Bahamas Produce Exchange) as well as the statutory body (BAIC) have stated that they are constrained by the lack of trained manpower in the use of ICT and the analysis of data, e.g. the Farmer Registration Program.Even though there may be a budgetary allocation to purchase equipment (computers, scanners and Internet access) or to hire personnel, the freezing of funds and employment prohibits action by the departments or units to address these constraints.54. Among the NGOs, there is recognition for greater use of ICTs; however among the cooperatives and in the BAPA there are limitations due to the lack of financial resources to employ this kind of expertise. Moreover, in most Family Island communities there is the possibility to access computers and the Internet yet farmers are not linked. This is a problem faced by the Bahamas Produce Exchange and its Packing Houses where the state of crop production in the Family Islands is unknown. Despite the fact that competent extension personnel may be unavailable on some islands, the farmer could be a source of information if he or she was trained and a system established.Among the producer/supplier cooperatives, there is little communication with the BCL on issues affecting them vis-à-vis policy, marketing problems, trade concerns, and organizational matters. This stems from the fact that there is no \"network\" in place to foster a two-way flow of information between the cooperative affiliate and the BCL. A network among producers/suppliers cooperatives and the BCL would be a tremendous asset in generating information.As the BCC expands into the Family Islands, there is a growing need for ICTs and it is recognized that two additional employees are needed -a full-time administrator and a webmaster. In the archipelagic environment of The Bahamas, the Internet is a tool which is being increasingly appreciated; however, funding the manpower and training is difficult for Family Island communities which are competing with the urban enclaves of Nassau and Freeport for competent workers. NGOs like the BCC with its family island branches and the BCL with it's producer/supplier cooperatives are hard pressed to find manpower with ICT expertise. Among the producer/supplier cooperative a program will have to be established to train farmers or utilize the youth who are participating in cooperative as an ICT resource.There is no agricultural research and development work taking place under the aegis of the MAFLG through its Agriculture or Fisheries departments. This has created an enormous void in the information network. The situation prevails because there is no scientifically and technologically trained manpower coming forward to participate in this aspect of agriculture. It is this deficiency which makes agribusinesses, small farmers, food processing facilities and marketing entities so dependent on external sources because the national capacity in this area is either lacking or non-existent. It is the lack of this research capacity in particular which makes it necessary for the sector to adapt production figures, particularly crop and livestock yields/output from external sources. In an archipelagic nation like The Bahamas, access to information is fundamental as it strives to remain competitive in the two most important sectors (tourism and financial services) of its economy and attempt to maintain a viable agricultural sector so as to sustain some Family Island communities.A serious constraint in information availability is the lack of capacity in key institutions both in the public sector and among the NGOs. The situation is more acute in the public sector as the private sector has the capacity to outsource work and projects for external analysis (unlike government departments and NGOs which are constrained by budgets).In the DOA and DOF there is a lack of information to support decision making as many officers do not have access to the Internet, not only for external information, but also for information from the Family Islands. There is very little contact with other ACP countries as there is a tendency to look towards North America. In final analysis, it appears that ICT and ICM are not priority areas in order to enhance the performance and efficiency of these government departments.Even though The Bahamas has an \"e-government\" program, the only ministry with a strategic plan which comprises ICM/ICT is the Ministry of Tourism, specifically in its Research and Development Department and its Electronic Marketing Services. The basis of the problem for other public sector entities interviewed was the lack of a strategic information plan.With a strategic information plan, the following problematic areas would be identified:1.Programs and policies that require information support; 2.Identification of information resources needed to implement programs; 3.Provides strategies \"to capture\" the required information; 4.A strategic plan needs to be put in place to achieve goals in a timely manner, in order to make the department more ICT 'ready'.Among the NGOs there is a clear recognition and appreciation for ICM/ICT, however resources, both financial and manpower, present limitations; this is particularly in the case of the BCC and BAPA.The other aspect which is problematic to the NGOs specifically BCL and the corporative movement is the lack of knowledge of what is available to assist in generating information and what in the long term would improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their organizations.Entities like the BCL and BCC lack a strategic information plan.Generally, the following are some of the key problems:i.There is limited availability of national statistics on a timely basis. ii.Heavy dependence on externally published information, particularly from international agencies i.e. FAO, IICA. iii.The mechanisms to generate and analyze information from local sources in New Providence, Grand Bahama and the Family Islands are absent or not in use. iv.No electronic networking among members of association /cooperative meetings or as affiliates with the BCL. v.Extreme failure to take advantage of conventional media i.e. newspaper, radio and television to communicate information. vi.Lack of training in ICM systems and, in some cases, limited access to ICT. vii.Consistent with the objectives of the study, the key problems have hindered:• Access to information products and services;• Have identified the weaknesses of those organizations and their capacity to manage the information and utilize the various communication channels; • There is virtually no knowledge about the products and services, which are offered by the CTA. 90% of the institutions interviewed were unfamiliar with the CTA. DOA has some familiarity.Based on the information in the data capture form, there is virtually no usage of CTA products or services. This stems from several factors, namely the decline in the importance of agriculture specifically farming for the economy of The Bahamas. For the DOF there is a market in the EU for Bahamian crawfish, however, the MOTI and the DOF had no knowledge of the CTA's agri-trade link. With tourism and financial services dominating the Bahamian economy the orientation of The Bahamas is essentially towards the U.S.A., lessening the focus towards exploring the EU and other ACP markets.The major information needs in the various institutions stemmed from the following which are listed in a broad framework in order to present a general assessment of the information needs.Indigenous data:• Inability to obtain data locally for planning and developmental work. As a result of this inability, institutions are unable to plan properly. • There needs to be more co-ordination of national statistics and access to that information.Other data types:• As a result of globalization, trade information has become critical and the ability to retrieve trade data is highly relevant. • Lack of research and development focus has created a dependence on foreign data which has to be applied to, or modified for, local situations.These scenarios exist because The Bahamas lacks a national planning division to co-ordinate developmental activities; this is why departments are not generating national data on a timely basis. With effective co-ordination (essentially a national planning division) these challenges (compiling indigenous and other data) are essentially short term concerns and can be rectified within two fiscal years. This observation is based on my years as a former public officer in the public service of The Bahamas.Based on the consultant's observations there seems to be a great appreciation of information and information technology by the NGOs in comparison to the public sector. This disparity is greatly influenced by the manner in which funds are allocated in the annual budget. Apart from the MOT, no provisions are being made to train personnel in ICT in order to generate the desired information from existing and new sources of data by the ministries and departments interviewed. In discussions with officials in the Department of Archives placing agricultural historical information and data on the Internet is not even being considered. Until there is a greater realization of the need for a national information service, information needs in the public Bahamas Electricity Corporation sector and in low priority ministries, such as Agriculture, will not receive the attention they deserve.The MOT has evolved as a distinct entity from other Ministries, hence its approach to information gathering, collation, and analysis, is based on its role in the economy. There has to be an awareness of the need to generate indigenous data. The Manager of the Produce Exchange is handicapped by the inability to obtain inventory data on fruits and vegetables from the seven packing houses on the Family Islands. If there were greater sensitivity to this need a marketing network could be instituted to address this deficiency. The implications for the introduction of ICT to the marketing network would go a long way to improve incomes in the farming communities of the various family islands.From the consultant's perspective based on interviews and knowledge of the agricultural sector, the following are priorities:Information Needs:• The sector is being constrained by the lack of a research capacity hence the inability to obtain production information on crops, particularly varieties and yields.• Marketing information has been a limiting factor, particularly in linking farm output to the tourism sector. • The inability to obtain national statistics on a timely basis.• Analysis of trade information, particularly food consumption patterns based on food imports. • Organizations such as BAPA and BCC are hampered in their planning by the inability to obtain some national information causing them to look to input suppliers and fellow organizations in the region for relevant information.Budgetary allocation in the public sector will determine the time frame in which these issues will be addressed. Some immediate provision could be made for equipment. Manpower training, dependency on the type and level of training, would be undertaken on a short term basis (short courses) or long periods requiring 12 to 24 months depending on the expertise being developed.There is a general recognition among the institutions interviewed that there was a need for capacity building. The primary reasons were as follows:Human Resources:• Lack of skilled technical manpower in ICT;• At the Ministry and Departmental levels there needs to be more attention given to manpower development in ICM/ICT; • Additional staffing was required for specialized ICT areas i.e.webmaster; • Lack of staff needed to analyze data; • Institutions do not recognize the range of skills necessary to run successfully an information and communications program; • Limited skills/lack of expertise in information resource management; • When information is available, lack of manpower to put information in usable form -booklets, pamphlets.Equipment:• In some institutions there was a lack of equipment and, in some cases, where there was equipment (computer, Internet access) there was a minimal knowledge in the use of the equipment.• Lack of training in ICM leads to the poor utilization of ICT;• Some institutions are not \"ICT\" ready and are therefore unable to access information; • Marginal understanding of the resources needed to develop and carry on information system;• Among the NGOs funding for training in ICM and ICT is a major limitation even though on most family islands there is access there is access to ICT via Cable Bahamas or BTC Bahamas.Data Analysis and Generation:• Many institutions knew the type of information which is needed to perform its duties but were unable to access it; • Instances where institutions would generate the data but could not analyze it or put in a format which could assist in planning.74.The Bahamas Cooperative League (BCL) is an apex organization with affiliates throughout The Bahamas. Its affiliates comprise credit unions and cooperatives.With reference to cooperatives, they embody producer/supplier cooperatives and cooperatives which are orientated to youth. These youth cooperatives are aligned with various schools in the urban areas of Nassau and Freeport as well as in the Family Islands under the aegis of a cooperative or credit union.The Producer/Supplier Cooperatives of which New Providence Livestock Producer's Cooperative Society Limited is the most successful (income wise) is an affiliate of the BCL.Because of its national reach, BCL through credit unions and cooperatives reach women, the young, small farmers, agribusiness as its beneficiaries.BCL is a highly structured entity with 9 fulltime staff members and an annual budget of slight in excess of 1 million euros.BCL also undertakes advocacy work for the producer/supplier cooperatives and has had an outstanding working relationship with IICA in studies to strengthen the producer/supplier cooperatives. The tomato bottling project geared to improve tomato processing for the small farmer in the farming communities of the southeastern Bahamas -the poorest region of The Bahamas is an example.BAPA is a newly formed national umbrella association of agribusinesses and small farmers. In addition to the over 1,200 odd registered farmers, BAPA, as a non-profit entity, has three types of members -ordinary, allied and associate. This configuration enables it to attract a broad spectrum of individuals, groups and entities to its membership.BAIC, as a statutory body, has a national thrust. Its offices in Freeport, Grand Bahama, Marsh Harbour, Abaco, Hatchet Bay, Eleuthera, Nichol's Town, and North Andros places it in direct contact with Family Island residents, particularly small farmers, women and youth. BAIC's agricultural section has organized a number of institutions on a national and island levels to benefit small farmer and their communities.With reference to structural stability the BCL offers the best choice when compared to BAIC, which has been known to be politically influenced operationally. BAPA has not gained full acceptance by the agri-business and small farmer community due to its newly formed status. However, the BCL has been around for almost three decades and has gained an outstanding reputation for its advocacy of the cooperative movement.The background for the above mentioned points are based on the CTA's criteria as outlined in the 2005 program of activities. The evaluation of the individual organizations is centered on this criteria.The Bahamas is a group of islands where the agriculture sector represents only 3% of GDP 4.24 billion Euros. Further, recent statistics show where there has been a decline in farming operations. In 1994 there were 1727 holders, today there are only 1242 -a decline of almost 500 since the last census. On the other hand, the fisheries sector is expanding.Even though the agricultural sector of The Bahamas has not been integrated into the activities of the region and has lagged behind in a number of areas, it is within this framework that the following recommendations are being made:The Bahamas needs a strategic information plan for the agricultural sector. This will address some of the information and capacity building needs, particularly:• Manpower development and training;• Equipment selection, upgrade and utilization;• Information generation; usage and dissemination.In view of the fact that there is an e-government policy, a plan to implement a strategic information program would enhance this initiative.A prime institution to commence this program is the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Local Government, which has under its aegis the Departments of Agriculture, Fisheries, Local Government and Cooperative Development, and units like The Bahamas Produce Exchange and Packing Houses as well as Research.One of the challenges facing the BCL is that of obtaining reliable and timely information and data from its affiliates; some of whom are in the Family Islands. Though most of them have access to ICT; there is very little application. This has been a constraint to the development of producer / supplier cooperatives.In this regard, a national electronic network should be established with all of the producer/supplier cooperatives using the BCL as a coordinator.A network would bring some cohesiveness to this grouping and being a technological medium, could attract the youth in the Family Islands thereby having the distinct possibility of attracting a new cadre of farmers or agribusiness persons to a sector which is endangered. This will also facilitate a regional connection to the CAIS.In view of the fact that the CTA's services are not well known in The Bahamas, it would be appropriate to introduce a pilot project to improve access to agricultural information. The CAIS could spearhead a Question and Answer Service (QAS). This is badly needed when one of the most requested information need is access to production data, particularly yields. This question and answer service (QAS) could be handled by the MAFLG or BAIC.The Produce Exchange and Packing House system plays an important role in the Family Islands as the system enables small farmers, many of whom are women, to receive an income from farming on-island. The manager of the Produce Exchange is often faced with difficulties in finding commodity prices for a range of produce grown under the traditional cut and burn system of agriculture. The present source of information is the FDA commodity prices.The Produce Exchange and Packing Houses should be linked to the Caribbean Marketing Intelligence Network (CAMID). This would also benefit the members of BAPA and NPLPCSL as well as BAIC.The Bahamas is not a member of CARDI and is therefore not a beneficiary of the work which takes place in CARDI. However, the limited applied research which takes place in The Bahamas and the need by technical officers for information and data on matters such as crop varieties and animal breeds, indicate that there is a role for PROCARIBE.Mutton producers in The Bahamas could immediately benefit from the existing CASRUNET (Small ruminants network), and CARI Fruit (fruit network). The Produce Exchange would also benefit from CAPHNET (post harvest technology network)Out of the Strategic Information Plan, the information resources needed would be identified. This will include the following:• Human resources;• Information technology and communication equipment;• Information systems;• Documents and reports;• Communications and public relations functions;• Documentation centers and libraries registries.Some immediate provision could be made for Internet access and associated equipment. Manpower training, dependency on the type and level of training, would be undertaken on a short term basis (short courses) or long periods requiring 12 to 24 months depending on the expertise being developed.CTA programs such as those providing support to non-CTA training schemes for courses in Agricultural Information Management and agricultural communication for individuals in the MAFLC, DOA, DOF and the NGOs can address the capacity building needs of organizations like BAPA, BCC, and BCL.100. The CTA offers a range of products and services for the ACP states. As a CARICOM state outside of the trade component this has placed the Bahamas in a special category causing it to have a limited involvement in many EU programs. This limitation has hindered The Bahamas' involvement with the CTA, specifically in knowledge of its services and products.101. In reviewing the CTA criteria for partners the BCL through its credit union and cooperative programs and its strong working relationships with women, youth and the small farmer (producers/supplier's cooperative). It is a recognized national organization with a national resource base to partner with the CTA, particularly on programs which will enhance the economic status of those who are members of rural or family island organization like the producer/supplier cooperative. Out of its headquarters' in New Providence, the BCL has the capacity to conduct on-going programs.102. On the other hand, BAPA is a fledgling association which shows definite promise, and BAIC's role in the sector is still evolving. which is charged with the methodological underpinning of their work and monitoring thee ACP environment in order to identify emerging issues and trends and make proposals for their: translation into programs and activities. This current exercise, therefore, falls within the mandate of P&CS.A comprehensive regional information needs assessment was undertaken in the Caribbean region, by CTA and the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARD!), over the period between 1995 and 1997. This study detailed the information needs, habits and priorities, of eleven sub-groups of users relevant to the agricultural and rural development sector, presented in sixteen national reports and a regional overview. The results of the studies were followed by a series of national consultations, missions and regional meetings, as well as pilot studies in information and communications management all aimed at arriving at or designing a strategy to meet information needs within the sector. The strategy proposed the development of a Caribbean Agricultural Information Service (CAIS) with a two pronged approach to improving access to information within the Caribbean region:Working with institutions at the national level to improve capacity in various aspects of information and communication management (e.g. network development, training, sensitization).Developing information products and services to meet specific information needs identified.The CAIS strategy has been implemented since 2001. A number of capacity building exercises were executed including workshops and training courses; provision of technical assistance; network development, policies and systems. Since the implementation of this strategy in 2001, there have also been a number of changes within institutions in the region with respect to their awareness and use of information and communications tools and technologies.CTA works primarily through intermediary organizations and partners (nongovernmental organizations, farmers' organizations, regional organizations, etc.) to promote agriculture and rural development. Through partnerships, CTA hopes to increase the number of ACP organizations capable of generating and managing information and developing their own information and communication management strategies. The identification of appropriate partners is therefore of primordial importance.The \"Evaluation of the Implementation of the Mid-Term Plan (1997 -2000)\" emphasized the need for CTA to develop a more pro-active approach and elaborate criteria for decision-making with regard to the choice of partner organizations and beneficiaries. Based on this evaluation, the \"Strategic Plan and Framework for Action -2001 -2005\" identifies strategic issues for CTA being: improved targeting (including partnerships and beneficiaries), geographical coverage, decentralization, regionalization and thematic orientation. The Plan also expresses concern about the extent to which CTA's activities are relevant to and reach the poor, gender awareness and how to identify potential partners especially in the independent sectors.Besides partner identification and selection issues, the observation has also been made that, the Caribbean region could benefit further from CT A's program and activities. Finally, various national and regional partners with whom CT A has had a longstanding relationship have requested the current study which would serve to update the earlier studies done and allow them to provide more targeted assistance to their beneficiaries.The objectives of the study are as follows:To identify agricultural information needs of key actors / beneficiaries for CTA products and services; To identify needs of potential actors / beneficiaries of CTA activities and services in terms of building capacity for information and communication management;To identify potential partners / beneficiaries for CTA activities and services;To develop some baseline data to facilitate subsequent monitoring activities.The study should assist the three operational departments of the CTA as well as its local representatives to improve and better target interventions and activities aimed at potential partners and beneficiaries (including women, youth, private sector and civil society organizations); to have a more informed picture of their needs and aid in the elaboration of a strategy and framework of action. The study should also highlight where there are specific needs for CTA's products and services thereby enabling improvement in the delivery of the same.The consultant will use a combination of qualitative and quantitative rapid appraisal methods including:The desk review of available literature and information sources including the findings of program evaluations;The conduct of face-to-face interviews with relevant stakeholders/concerned parties;The limited use of questionnaires.The rapid appraisal approach will allow a general overview of the key issues and company / organizational profiles on a per country 2 basis and may give rise to more in-depth studies as and when needed in the future.One main report per country not exceeding 20 pages according to the following List of all institutions involved in agriculture and rural development activities, including private sector and civil society organizations, with name, contact details, type and role of institution Select list of key institutions involved in agriculture and rural development, with extensive data and information on the institution, the problems faced and why it is considered a key actor.It is also expected that the results of this study will lead to identification / update of some priority agricultural information themes which will feed into a possible prioritysetting exercise in the region in 2004.The country reports will not exceed 20 pages (excluding annexes). The annexes should include a list of acronyms, of persons/institutions interviewed with addresses, phone, fax umbers, e-mail addresses (if any) as well as bibliography.Draft final report is to be submitted within three months after contract signature by CTA Final report due two weeks after receipt of comments from CTA.The expert should have a university degree or equivalent by experience. The BahamasAt the end of World War II, The Bahamas embarked on an economic development strategy to transform its economy from one based on agriculture to services in tourism and off-shore banking. In 2004, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of The Bahamas was pegged between 4.09 billion Euro to 4.24 billion Euro.Tourism has evolved from a seasonal activity attracting 32,018 visitors in 1949 to a year-round business of 5 million visitors in 2004, representing 40% of the GDP and generating 1.35 billion Euro in 2003 (Central Bank). Off-shore banking has been developed into a Financial Services Sector which accounts for 15% of the GDP.The economic impact of tourism and financial services on the economy has made The Bahamas an urban society. This is reflected in the fact that two urban centers -Nassau on New Providence and Freeport on Grand Bahama -accounts for 85.1% of the population of The Bahamas.Tourism and financial services have been sustainable economic activities thereby enabling the Bahamian economy to perform in an outstanding fashion throughout the second half of the 20 th century. The agricultural sector, on the other hand, has remained relatively small and this is reflected in the stagnant production figures over the past three decades. (See Graph: Agribusiness and Small Farmer Output)Source: Planning Unit, Department of Agriculture, 2004 This has resulted in The Bahamas becoming a food importing country (almost 90% of its food requirements) which has been estimated to be between 192.85 million Euros to 231.42 million Euros in 2004, coming from the United States. With an expanding tourism sector, the trend is likely to increase.Despite being a food deficit country, The Bahamas does not have a food security problem. Earnings generated from tourism more than adequately pays the State's food bill.The sector contributed only 10% of crop products, 20% of animal products consumed in the country and about 6% of value of domestic exports, largely in permanent crops, such as citrus.The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Local Government handles agricultural sectoral policies and programs through the following departments:   1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 19901992 1994 1996 19982000 2002 YearFamily Islands through this government-subsidized system generates a substantial income for farm families in these Family Island communities.The Ministry is also responsible for a Fish and Farm Supply Store which is located at Potter's Cay in Nassau. This store sells inputs at subsidized prices to the farming and fishing communities. A program is also in place to enable farmers and fishermen to purchase inputs on credit.For those who do not utilize the Fish and Farm Supply Store, farm and fishing inputs are exempt from duty either through legislation or on application to the Ministry. Farmers, fishermen and cooperatives are eligible for duty free exemptions.The Ministry also operates in New Providence an abattoir and feed mill.It is recognized that the agricultural sector has the potential to make a substantial contribution to the national economy and enhance the quality of life in the Family Island communities; however, it is necessary for the sector to increase its competitiveness by seeking to become internationally competitive. This will force the Sector to improve its production output thereby achieving higher standards of efficiency.Agribusinesses and small farmers, in most instances, are surviving financially; however the small farmer is an endangered species as this grouping is aging without youthful replacements who have migrated, particularly, from the southeastern Bahamas to Nassau and Freeport. Fisheries, on the other hand, is vibrant and expanding.There have been two censuses of agriculture, one in 1978 and the other in 1994. Ten years have lapsed since the last census. With the life expectancy for males in The Bahamas, based on the years 1989-1991, being 68.3 years and females at 75.3 years, it can be estimated that there are about 500 farmers less than in 1994.Based on the 1994 census, about 30% of the farmers in The Bahamas are female.  Based on the numbers of individuals engaged in farming (6,933) and fishing (12,304), the agricultural population is estimated to be 19,237. Because of aging among farmers, a more conservative estimate would put the figure somewhere between 18,000 to 19,000 individuals engaged in farming.The Bahamas comprises a land area of 5,372 sq. miles or 13,913.48 sq. km. These figures were compiled as a result of two consensus of Agriculture; these censuses were done by the Statistics Unit of the Department of Agriculture in conjunction with the Department of Statistics and technical assistance from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).In comparing the census figures for 1978 and 1994, a decline in the area occupied by farm holdings is projected as there were 89,565 acres in 1978 to 50,250 acres in 1994.It has been reported that this decrease in acreage stems from the fact that areas of pine and coppice lands which were excluded from 1994 census were included in the area of farm holdings in 1978.The 1994 Census of Agriculture shows that the 13,621 acres or 27.11% of arable land was under cultivation. Over the period 1978 to 1994 temporary crop production declined from 10,000 acres in 1978 to 3,443 acres in 1994. The acreage of permanent crop production increased from 4,861 acres in 1978 to 9,684 acres in 1994. Approximately 44% of farm holdings were less than 3 acres with about 35% between 3 to 10 acres. Only 6% of holdings were larger than 50 acres. The Bahamas had a thriving lumber industry in the Pine Islands of Abaco, Grand Bahama and North Andros. In recent years, however, the industry has been non-existent. The pine in some of these areas is harvested for fence posts or burnt for charcoal.Forestry experts have advised that The Bahamas needs a comprehensive policy to enable it to manage effectively its forest resources, which have been assessed at about 500,000 acres or 2,023.44 sq. km. to generate income, while ensuring long-term sustainability. With little commercial utilization of the forest, there is the tendency to regard these areas as \"wasteland.\"There is a minimal forestry unit in The Department of Lands and Surveys, which has administrative responsibilities for forestry. Generally, there are three categories of forest on Crown Lands -forest reserves, protected forests and conservation forests.In the southeastern Bahamas on the islands of Acklins, Crooked Island and Cat Island, Cascarilla (Croton Eleuthera) grows in the wild on these drier islands. The Cascarilla bark is harvested from the wild (through labor intensive methods), dried and exported for use in the process of manufacturing of \"Campari\". Other potential usages are i.e. oil as an ingredient in the international cosmetic industry and in \"natural\" medications.The Bahamas encompasses area of 13,935 sq. km. with a shallow water area of 116,550 sq. km. Fisheries play a noteworthy role in the economy of The Bahamas as its contribution to the GDP in 2003 was 1.9%. This resulted from vessel owners and    1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001    1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 YEARS $B  1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000  The Bahamian archipelago can be divided on the basis of vegetation and capability into two types of Islands -Pine and Coppice. The Pine Islands, namely Andros, Abaco and Grand Bahama, are located in the Northern Bahamas. These islands have large reserves of fresh water with thin layers of brown soil covering soft limestone rock. The rock has the potential to be broken down mechanically so that the thin layer of soil is mixed into the crushed rock creating a free-moving soil. This action increases the agricultural potential of the Pine Islands. Andros, Abaco and Grand Bahama combine for a total of 180, 000 acres of land that could be cultivated using mechanical agricultural technology.The Coppice Island, on the other hand, comprises the islands of the southeastern Bahamas. These islands are generally narrow, rugged, with hard rock and limited fresh waster reserves and lend themselves to labor intensiveness employing the slash and burn approach or the system of pothole farming.The Department of Agriculture launched a program to increase and diversify production in The Bahamas by targeting specific commodities for specific islands and regions. (See Table : Production Potential of Specific Crops for the Islands of The Bahamas).  Climate, Geology and Water Resources. (August 1996).In the southeastern Bahamas, pot-hole farming is practiced. It is a system of farming which began with the Arawaks. The rocky nature of the Coppice Islands has forced the inhabitants of these islands to develop the production technology of 'pot-hole farming' for this type of topography 3 .Mechanized technology is utilized on the Pine Islands and this has enabled large scale fruit and vegetable production to take place. This has enabled The Bahamas to become an exporter of winter vegetables and citrus.Capital intensive farming is practiced principally on Grand Bahama and New Providence where livestock operations in poultry (broiler meat and table eggs) and pork are carried out.Extensive livestock production in the rearing of small ruminants (sheep and goats) is taken on \"bush pastures\" on the Coppice Islands of the southeastern Bahamas.There is a burgeoning nursery industry producing a range of ornamentals for the landscapers, homes and offices. These nurseries employ the latest technology utilized in ornamental horticulture. Nursery production is one of the fastest expanding sub-sectors in the agricultural sector of The Bahamas.Agriculture (farming, fishing and forestry) is a relatively small sector in the economy of The Bahamas accounting for only about 3% of GDP (4.09 to 4.24 billion Euros). Agribusiness / farming 1% and fisheries 1.9%. The GDP of 3% in terms of dollar value is the realm of 115 -123 million Euros. According to the Central Bank of The Bahamas, if the costs of inputs are included, the total industry output is in the low 154.28 million Euros.There has been very little growth in the Agribusiness and Small Farmer sub-sector of the agricultural sector (See Graph: Section II.1) even though the Fisheries Sub-sector has grown and expanded. In 1995, contribution to the GDP for the agricultural sector was 4%.In 2003, the Government of The Bahamas through the Produce Exchange and the Packing House Network of seven outlets spent 3.32 million Euros to purchase 4.31 million kilos of various crops, principally from small farmers in the Family Islands.The Produce Exchange, as the distribution point, is located in Nassau, while Packing Houses have been sited on Eleuthera (3), Long Island, Cat Island, Exuma and North Andros.The state-sponsored marketing system handled some 69 different types of produce of which the main ones were as follows: The fisheries Sub-Sector is the main exporter as it exports crawfish to the United States and the European Union, which are the main export markets. The U.S. is the main export market for Bahamian citrus.The U.S.A. is The Bahamas' chief trading partner, as The Bahamas is heavily dependent on trade, especially imports since the economy is service based as a result of the dominant sectors of tourism and financial services. In terms of the FTAA process, The Bahamas is a partner in the CRNM alignment and supports the CRNM in its negotiations.The Bahamas was a signatory to the Lomé Convention and continues with Cotonou Agreement, hence making it a member of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group.The accession to the WTO by The Bahamas will have profound implications for agriculture in The Bahamas. In order to successfully accede to the WTO, The Bahamas would have to design new methods to support the agricultural sector while at the same time addressing the issue of international competitiveness.There are no special trade agreements for agricultural commodities between The Bahamas and the U.S. With the EU, the Bahamas is treated like any other ACP State.The Agricultural Sectoral policy has been centered around the following for several years:• To diversify the economic base by developing an economically viable and sustainable sector;• To make a major contribution to the attainment of food security;• To increase the contribution of agriculture to the GDP;• To contribute meaningfully to the provision of employment for Bahamians; • To provide the means for a significant percentage of the rural or Family Island population of The Bahamas to attain a relatively good standard of living; and • Within the context of the national goal of the protection and conservation of the environment, encourage all agricultural activities to provide for the improved protection and conservation of the national resources of the country.It is within this framework that policy makers hope to protect the Sector and put it on the road to economic sustainability.Being an archipelagic nation, successive governments of The Bahamas have adopted a very guarded policy framework for the Fisheries Sub-sector. Governments of The Bahamas have adhered to the policy that the commercial fishing industry, as far as is practical is reserved for Bahamian nationals. Commercial fishing vessels fishing within the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) must be 100% Bahamian owned. Seafood processing facilities have been placed on the list of areas specifically targeted for overseas investors. All investment projects with non-Bahamian interests must have the approval of the Government's National Economic Council (NEC).Despite two devastating hurricanes in 2004, the Tourism Sector was able to achieve its highest level of visitor arrivals by reaching the figure of 5 million visitors in 2004. Hurricane Francis hit in September and was the first hurricane in decades to affect the entire archipelago. In October, Hurricane Jeanne struck causing additional damage in the northern Bahamas on the islands of Grand Bahama and Abaco.These natural disasters have not dampened the investment climate in The Bahamas as the government of The Bahamas signed Heads of Agreement with two companies to engage in billion dollar tourist resort developments -billion dollars expansion by the Kerzner Group of the world-famous Atlantis property on Paradise Island and the BahaMar Group which recently purchased three hotels on the famous Cable Beach strip which will be re-developed to the tune of US$1.2 billion.These two projects with an expanded and improved international airport in Nassau are projected to fuel tourism growth and development. The expectations are that these developments will take Bahamian tourism to new heights.With this highly buoyant economy, The Bahamas has been inundated with illegal immigrants from the region especially Haiti, Jamaica, and Cuba.The Bahamas has the third highest pre capita income in the region at US$16,400 per annum. Recognizing the fact that the country may be facing an urban crisis the government has devised two policy strategies to address this issue. Firstly, the government has enunciated that there will be at least one major anchor project on each island. The model for this strategy has been the island of Exuma where the multi-million dollar resort, Emerald Bay, has come on stream. Secondly, in the densely populated area of Nassau called Over-the-Hill the government has launched a massive urban renewal program to address issues like poor housing, drug addiction, unemployment, deteriorating infrastructure, crime and environmental degradation.A population census is conducted every ten years at the beginning of a decade. The results of the census the population of The Bahamas was 303,611, in 2001 it was estimated to be 307, 000 and 316,298 in 2003 (Department of Statistics). School attendance to the age of 14 years old is mandatory in The Bahamas. This policy applies to all children who are residents of The Bahamas.Illegal Haitian immigrant children have created over-crowding in certain school districts and there are cases where these children are unable to speak English causing the Ministry of Education to engage in a program of teaching Haitian children with an English language deficiency in Haitian Creole.The Ministry of Education embarked on a program to teach Spanish by recruiting Spanish teachers from Costa Rica.  There are no figures available. operates a community channel and carries the parliamentary channel, which transmits live broadcasts of parliamentary debates and proceedings.A number of Bahamians subscribe to US satellite companies like Direct TV and Dishnet for television viewing.TV 13 airs agricultural subjects and Cable Bahamas carries agricultural events on its Community Channel.A household survey by the Department of Statistics has provided data on the number of households by island with television, cable and satellite services. (See Tables for the year 2000). ","tokenCount":"10246"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d696855708ada68481ac61d3824427b6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H029656.pdf","id":"-1379314888"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c0a8f61e-7675-49cd-bd3e-729425cf8d48","pagecount":"24","content":"Water crisis in the state is deepening. This is because of limited water resources are increasingly not in a position to meet the requirements arising from population growth and development process. At the same time Water Resources Development efforts are governed on quality and quantity of rainfall, geo hydrological conditions, quality of infrastructure (electricity) and cooperation between government and Non Government Organisations. Water problems also have great deal of spatial variability. In Saurashtra due to hard rock formation the possibility of holding large quantity of water is quite remote. In North Gujarat there is over exploitation of groundwater leading to severe deterioration of quality of water. This has created grievous situation in Sabarkantha and Mehsana Districts. South Gujarat is blessed with good rainfall. Hence, extraction of groundwater is comparatively less. However, due to topological conditions major quantity of rainwater of South Gujarat goes away to sea. There is a problem of water logging in Surat and Valsad Districts of South Gujarat. At the same time the coastal areas of both the districts have the problem of water qualityespecially salinity ingress.In order to understand the various facets of Ground Water Economy, a Collaborative Research Study was undertaken by the SPIESR with International Water Management Institute (IWMI). In this collaborative study, 30 participants -mainly College and University teachers from Social Science discipline were asked to submit the research proposals related to particular aspects of Ground Water Economy. The study attempted to analyze the nature and magnitude of problems related to groundwater, impact of groundwater on rural agricultural economy, the local solutions evolved by the people, water conservation efforts with the help of Government and NGOs. Two days Workshop was organized to provide guidelines and necessary changes were incorporated in their research proposals. First Workshop was held on 14 th and 15 th October 2001. Follow up Workshop was organized on 8 th and 9 th of January, 2002 where each of the participants presented the draft of the paper and received comments from the invited experts.The paper presents the synthesis of the papers submitted by the participants related to Ground Water Economy. Majority of the papers were based on analysis of field data and people's perception regarding the issues related to groundwater. List of papers submitted by the participants is appended.Ground Water Use has increased in a very significant way. Insufficient use of canal water is one of the factors for increasing use of groundwater in agriculture. Increasing availability of ground water has definitely increased yield rate, crop intensity and sometimes change in cropping pattern. Some of the studies have also reported increase in agriculture employment and agricultural income.Study 1 of two villages of Padra Taluka of Baroda district has shown that extraction of groundwater and its use in agriculture has resulted into the increase in irrigation cost. The study has also indicated that over extraction of groundwater has resulted into the loss of groundwater availability and it also affected the quality (in terms of increase in salinity).Analysis of field data from Sabarkantha, Banaskantha and Mehsana districts has revealed that erratic rainfall, geo-hydrological conditions, insufficiency of canal water for irrigation have led to the over exploitation of groundwater. The study based on Sabarkantha 2 district has shown that number of tubewells in Prantij Taluka has increased at an alarming rate during the past 20 years. There were three tubewells during 1964-65, which increased to 619 in 1996-97. Similarly, the number of bore wells has also increased over the time. For example, in Pogalu there were 300 borewells in 1994-95, which increased to 500 in 1996-97.Another study 3 of Sabarkantha District noted that due to introduction of Watershed Development Programme in Malpur Taluka of Sabarkantha district, the number of employment days increased from 173 in 1995-96 to 186 in 2000-2001. Similarly, the agriculture income also rose due to increase in water availability. The studies have observed the rise in crop productivity, increase in crop intensity. However, rise in each of this varies significantly across space.During the field visit it was observed that the people were aware of the consequences of the increasing water use but they were reluctant to exercise its judicious use. It was also noted that Non Government Organizations were not active in the district for water conservation efforts. Districts of North Gujarat suffer acutely of water shortage. As noted above, the withdrawal of groundwater is higher than the recharge in these districts. It is because of shortage of water for irrigation that has prompted the development of water market in the region. The examination of groundwater market in Banaskantha 4 revealed that the large farmers are involved in sale of water. The water table has gone down from 600 to 700 feet in 1996-97 to more than 1200 feet in some parts of the district. As a result, the cost of construction of tubewells has gone beyond the means of an individual farmer and hence, water market is taking a shape of Group Marketing Society. At the same time available water from the tubewells can cater the water requirement of more than one farmer and hence they join hands to form an enterprise resembling a joint stock company for the construction of tubewells and water supply.  Water is sold/purchased in two ways -either in terms of share in production of crops for which the water is supplied or the number of hours of water supply. Water demand also varies across the crops and seasons. Larger part of the water is purchased for the wheat followed by Raydo. The study revealed that maximum water is supplied for \"ALFALFA\" -a fodder. This fodder takes on an average 32 watering during the year. The demand for water for irrigation purpose is increasing. At the same time the water table is going down and therefore small farmers can no longer afford to extract water at an affordable cost Hence, majority of the small farmers have to purchase water from the tubewell owners.The study of Umreth Taluka of Kheda District 5 showed that in water trade large number of small and marginal farmers sell water to relatively large farmers. This implies that since groundwater is available at a relatively lesser depth and lower cost compared to Banaskantha District, small farmers are in a position to sell water from their open wells/tubewells. The water sold by these farmers is an additional source of income. This study has not indicated the share of water sale to the total agricultural output. However, the study of Banaskantha revealed that turnover from water sale was around 4% in case of large farmers and around 6% in case of small marginal farmers of their agricultural output..Umreth study has also pointed out the impact of irregular and inadequate power supply on agricultural activities. It indicated that because of irregular power supply farmers had to depend on diesel machines for lifting water for irrigation purpose and this was costlier than lifting water through electric supply. Both these studies indicate that water trade is independent of size of land holding but largely related with water availability and power supply.Another study attempted to analyze the relationship between water scarcity and its socio-economic impact in coastal area. Water scarcity in the study villages of Mahuva Taluka 6 affected adversely the agricultural employment and income generation. However, there was no significant impact on education and health. This may be because drinking water supply (through tankers) is taken care of by district/Taluka authorities. A study which attempted to analyze the impact of water scarcity on women in Kanpar village of Vallabhipur Taluka 7 has shown that water scarcity increased the burden of women to bring potable water for domestic consumption. It also indicated that water scarcity has adversely affected the education of female children.The respondents observed that due to lack of water conservation efforts and insufficient rain, the water level in wells of selected villages had gone down in 30 wells that were studied. There was no empty wells during 1991. The number of such wells increased to four in 1995 and further increased to 18 during 2001. Due to nearness to the sea, salinity has increased in the area that has adversely affected in a significant way the area under cultivation, agriculture production and agriculture employment. However, possible adverse impact on children's education and migration was curbed due to availability of drinking water through tankers.Contrary to this, a study 8 in the same area, having water conservation structure called `Bandhara', had positive impact on agricultural activities and eased the problem of drinking water. The study noted the decline in salinity because of construction of Bandhara in the coastal villages. The cultivators in these area reported that there was decline in salinity and in some cases the decline considerable. Decline in salinity is based on people's perception and needs to be scientifically verified and tested. Bandhara may be an ideal water conservation structure to overcome water scarcity in coastal areas. .Most of the water conservation structures are concentrated in Saurashtra area. This may be because the people's perception about water crisis and for self evolved solutions. Periodical water scarcity led people to find out affordable and reliable solutions for water scarcity. The Non Government Organizations became active, generated awareness among the people and provided technical support to erect water conservation structure. This led to the development of check dams in Saurashtra. It may also be mentioned that major portion of Saurashtra is topologically suitable for erection of check dams. As a result there have been more than 13000 check dams erected by the end of 2000. 9 These efforts need to be intensified. A rough and ready estimate shows that the total requirement of check dams in Saurashtra & Kutch are close to three lakhs. The investment requirements would be around Rs. 2300 crores. 10In such cases investment is shared in the ratio of 60:40 by Government and People. The people's share is mainly in terms of labour.The joint efforts of constructing check dams have not only helped in terms of increase in water availability but in many cases eased social tensions among the different castes. The increased water availability has reduced hardships faced by women for fetching drinking water. It is necessary to mention the pivotal role played by some of the NGOs, namely Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) and Shree Vivekanand Research & Training Institute (VRTI) in creating necessary water harvesting structures and generating awareness among the people about the water use in the villages of Saurashtra and Kutch. Government efforts also supported water conservation programmes particularly in Saurashtra and Kutch by initiating an elaborate programme of constructing check dams. Government of Gujarat implemented \"Sardar Patel Sahabhagi Jal SanchayYojana\" to encourage people for co-operation in mass movement related to groundwater recharge activities through construction of check dams. Jamkhambhaliya study 11 indicates (Table -3) that check dams led to increase in crop intensity. Main crops viz. Groundnut and Wheat have maintained their relative importance in cropping pattern, despite inclusion of new crops viz. Garlic, Chana etc.In a scientific assessment and monitoring of Groundwater near to check dams for two consecutive years showed that water level in Aug-2001 to Aug. 2000 rose by 8.14 m to 6.40 m. in Jamnagar district, 2.35 m in to 5.81 m. in Surendranagar district and 4.57 m to 5.79 m. in Rajkot. 12 This is also supported by a study of Jamkhambalia Taluka. According to this study water table in all the wells at village level increased significantly due to the construction of check dams. After the construction of check dam the data revealed that in all 102 wells the water table rose by 5 ft to 25 ft. Table -4.The study indicated that due to the checkdams the duration of water availability in selected villages of Jamkhambhalia taluka had also increased. As shown in Table-5, majority of respondents stated that previously water was available for seven to nine months, now, after the checkdams, majority of respondents stated that water was available throughout the year.Before   Would nearness of a well to checkdam raise the water level? We tried a statistical relationship between the increase in water level and the distance of the well from the check dam. Ordinary Least Square (OLS) method was applied taking increase in water level (for the well) as dependent variable (Y) and distance of well from the check dam (X) as an independent variable. Y = 16.13 + 0.0006X(1) Both the coefficients have theoretically correct signs but the correlation coefficient (R 2 ) was estimated to be 0.0008. That means the assumed positive relationship between these two variables is not supported by the observations. This may be because of topological conditions of the wells.The above relationship also suffers from measurement errors, since the distance as well as the water level are not accurately measured. At the same time increase of water level in a particular well is \"an average effect of other check dams in the vicinity of the well.\" Hence it was assumed that the 'average increase in water level' in a representative well at a village level is positively related with number of checkdams in a village. This assumption nullifies the topological factor affecting the water level. Therefore, another hypothesis regarding the increase in water level and number of check dams was tested by assuming a direct relationship between \"the average increase in water level of a representative well in a village\" as a dependent variable (Y) and \"number of check dams in a village\" as an independent variable (X). OLS method was used to test this hypothesis. The regression equation is as below:The coefficients have theoretically correct signs. Lower value of R 2 (0.11) implies that the data do not support the hypothesis regarding the increase in water level. However, improved value of R 2 is observed in this equation 2. The lower ratio of R 2 may be due to many factors apart from error of measurement, and non inclusion of other variables like capacity of storing of water of individual well etc. might also be affecting the increase in water level. Jamkhambhalia study also observed that due to perennial availability of water the land value increased. Thus the water conservation efforts in Saurashtra have definitely helped the farming community in increasing the cropping intensity, increase in yield rate, introduction of new crops, increase in asset value and easing the drinking water crisis. NGOs in some cases have not been successful in generating awareness among the people regarding the water crisis and uniting them for the common cause. This was primarily due to the societal fibre at the village level. Organized Pani Committee somewhat surprisingly showed absence of commitment for the maintenance of check dams. This was noticed during the field visits to villages of Jamkhambhalia taluka.There were four papers that attempted to analyze the issues and problems related to drinking water in Gujarat. One of the papers attempted to analyze the drinking water crisis in urban areas -particularly that of Rajkot city. 14 The study revealed that with all existing water supply mechanism the city is facing a drinking water crisis. No more than 15% of additional water requirement could be generated even if efficiency of existing systems were improved and roof top harvesting taken on extensive scale.Another study 15 attempted to analyze drinking water problem of Memnagar -part of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation agglomeration. For all practical purposes Memnagar is a part of Ahmedabad city. The growth of population in Memnagar during the last decade resulted into increase of demand of water. It also noted that water table of bore wells had gone quite rapidly. The study noted that private bores (owned by Housing Cooperative Societies) were more than the public bores (owned by Memnagar Nagar Palika). Some of the residents received water exclusively from public water supply system or private water supply system and some received from both the systems. Study noted that private water distribution system supplied more water to the citizens than the water supplied by public distribution system. The study estimated the water supply as 180 Litres Per Capita Per Day (LCPD) while the demand/consumption was estimated to be 106 LCPD.It is difficult to estimate the wastage of water. The difference between water supply and water consumption does not give correct estimate of wastage of water since the surplus water can be stored. If the water storing capacity is nil then the difference between the water supply and water consumption can be defined as wastage of water. What are the factors causing the wastage of water at household level? Wastage at domestic level may be caused by excess water supply, water consumption pattern and type of residence, (flat, tenements, bunglows, slums etc.) size of family etc. For this an attempt was made to understand the factors affecting the wastage of water. OLS method was attempted taking per capita wastage of water as a dependent variable (Y) and size of the family (X1) & per capita water supply (X2) as independent variables. The estimated coefficients have theoretically correct signs. However, the variable `size of the family' was not found to be significant. While the variable `per capita supply of water' was quite significant.The other type of relationship was pertaining to wastage of water and type of residence. The three separate regression equations were estimated using OLS method. Two separately for households living in flats, as well as households living in tenements. The third equation was estimated by pooling all the observations (households). The estimated equations are as below:Y= -25.389+0.73** (4) (5.28) R2= .55 ** Implies significant at 1% level.Y= -106.89+1.009 X** (5) R 2 = .85 ** Implies significant at 1% level. All the Households Y= -95.72+0.986 X** (6) R 2 = .79 ** Implies significant at 1% level.Value of R 2 indicates that hypothesis regarding the linear relationship between per capita wastage and per capita supply is supported by the observations, i.e., increase in per capita supply of water increases wastage. The values of slope parameter vary according to the different types of residence. Result indicates that residents living in flats waste comparatively less water than the people living in tenements, bunglows etc. Further, the study pointed out that per household operation and maintenance cost of privately operated bore wells is higher compared to publicly operated bore wells. Recovery charges for operation maintenance of privately operated bore wells are higher than the operation and maintenance cost. However, it is reverse in case of publicly operated bore wells where the operation and maintenance charges are higher than the charges recovered from the residents.The third paper addressed the drinking water problem in village Shilaj to the city of Ahmedabad. 15 The village community is provided water by the public bores or public distribution system. Some of the households have their own private water supply arrangement. Keeping the same definition of wastage as discussed above, study estimated that there was 33 percentage of wastage of water by domestic users . Comparison of the estimates of wastage arrived at by Memnagar study and this study, clearly indicates that domestic users of semi urban area waste more water than the domestic users of water living in rural area. Village Panchayat level officers' state that water is supplied to the villagers for the whole day. This however was not confirmed during the meeting with some of the villagers, particularly those at a favorable location. The old tubewells that were constructed in late 70s are now abandoned and new tubewells were dug 8 years back. The water level in the tubewell is decreasing every year. However, no measures are taken for reducing hours of water supply. The electricity supply for drinking water purpose is 'free' in the rural areas. Since the cost towards the power supply is borne by the State Government there is a high level of subsidy on rural water supply. Is it possible to rationalize the level of subsidy? What are the factors one should consider before subsidizing water supply for drinking purpose in rural area? These aspects should be studied.Source: Dilip H Parikh, 2002 Swati Dave andIla Shah, 2002 The study also attempted to test the hypothesis regarding the positive relationship between wastage of water and water supply using OLS method. For this, per family wastage of water (Y) was assumed to have positive relationship with per family water supply (X). The estimated equation is as given below: Y= -086.66 +0.60 X** (7) (15.58) R 2 = .77 ** Implies significant at 1% level. The result implies that with increase in water supply, wastage of water is likely to increase. The results of \"Memnagar & Shilaj\" studies indicate that water supply needs to be controlled in order to control wastage of water.Fourth study pertained to drinking water problems in the coastal area of Jallalpore Taluka 16 of Navsari District. State has 1600 Kms. of coastal line. Salinity ingress and water scarcity have resulted into out migration. The villages selected for the study have mainly rainfed agriculture activities. Since the villages are at the tail end of Ukai's irrigation system they do not receive enough surface water for irrigation purpose. The quality of groundwater is not suitable for cultivation as well as for drinking purpose. During the field visits to one of the villages, it was observed that drinking water facilities consisting of well and storage capacity, constructed by the government were subsequently handed over to the Village Panchayat. Gram Panchayat on an average charges Rs. 10/-per household per month. However, people do not pay even these small charges regularly. Some of the villagers stated that the quality of water deteriorates during the summer and they have to purchase drinking water from the market -which costs much higher than the monthly charge of water levied by the village Panchayat. All this creates problems for operation and maintenance of overhead tank that badly needs repair. People generally can afford to pay more for water, if forced.Interestingly in one of the villages in South Gujarat, it was observed that the people of particular community (Patel's) united for getting quality water by erecting a Bisleri Plant. The cost of getting quality water for drinking purpose was stated to be 10 paise per liter. It was decided to distribute five liters of water per day per person. The water is not supplied to the respective household at the doorstep but water is to be collected from the water works office. The operation maintenance cost of this plant is mostly covered by selling the water at a little higher price during some special occasions.The foregoing discussions brings out clearly the contrast between the community determined system for solving the drinking water problem viz. a viz. officially supported system.Drinking water problem in Mehsana District was analyzed by two studies. 17&18 One of the studies extended the scope of analysis by assessing the impact of fluorine on animals while the other analyzed the impact of excessive fluorine on human beings only. In the first study it was observed that number of villages having excessive fluorine in drinking water had increased over the time in the district. This shows negligence on the part of the State Government to find out some permanent solution to provide drinking water facility in the villages. Both the studies have brought out that people above the age of 35 are more prone to the sufferings of excessive fluorine content in drinking water. Studies have brought out clearly that affected people have to be contended with loss of employment hours and income. The other study observed that number of children suffering due to excessive fluorine content in drinking water had increased since last five years. The Study also observed that fluorosis in the family adversely influenced the children education.. During the field visit the information was gathered pertaining to the impact of excessive florine content water on animal health from the animal owning households. Many of the respondents asserted that animals were also affected due to intake of this water. This affects the animal's teeth and legs. This observation was also supported by some veterinary doctors. Both the studies observed that preventive machinery was not adequate to fight against the fluorosis. Fluorosis is incurable and hence, preventive measures are essential. The government generally provides drinking water in these areas through water tankers. However, very recently the water supply through Dharoi canal has been initiated which needs to be monitored for quality and quantity of water supplied.All the studies pointed out the increase in use of groundwater. Rate of groundwater extraction is noted to be higher in many cases than the rate of recharge of water.Increasing demand of water has increased the water conservation efforts particularly in water scarce region like Saurashtra and Kutch. As a result number of check dams in Saurashtra and Kutch have increased. This development raised the water level in open wells resulting in increased water availability leading to higher crop intensity, changes in cropping pattern and introduction of new crops. This has often resulted to the increase of land values. Drinking water crisis in water scarce villages of Saurashtra and Kutch has overcome to a considerable extent and the quality of water also improved in most cases. Improvement of quality and access to drinking water have been particularly beneficial to women folk. The water conservation efforts have also been instrument for the positive change in the social fabric of the rural society.The location of water conservation structure, particularly that of check dams, depends on Geo-Hydrological conditions of a region, rainfall and such other factors. For construction and maintenance of these assets, factors like commitment of people, support of Non Government Organizations in providing technical guidance and generating awareness at a village level, and financial support of the government are important.In catchment area of some of the check-dams the water utilization has also increased with increased availability. Water utilization has increased either in terms of increase in numbers of watering to a crop or in terms of enhancing cultivation of water intensive crops. This was observed in case of field data available from Jamkhambalia taluka, Padara taluka. (Table -7 ) Farmers have a tendency to give more water to crops than recommended by experts. The farms of selected villages of Padra taluka and that of Jamkhambhalia taluka are no exception to this tendency. Similarly, as the water availability has increased in Jamkhambhalia taluka large number of farmers give more number of watering to the cultivation of summer groundnut and wheat. In Palanpur taluka it was observed that the number of watering for fodder crop (ALFAFA) is very high. Ownership of water source generally accentuated this tendency. From Padara and Palanpur talukas farmers owning tubewells often supplied more than required number of watering to the crops compared to nontubewell owner farmers. A study related to wastage of water in Bardoli Taluka 19 also substantiated the relationship between water availability and wastage of water in Sugarcane cultivation. Water use across the space thus varies depending upon location and ownership pattern. geo-hydrological conditions and rainfall. These structures would gain from proper maintenance and the beneficiaries need to be skilled in this respect.Water conservation efforts seem to be concentrated in Saurashtra and Kutch under the watershed management programme. The movement of water conservation has not picked up in other districts. Considering the geo-hydrological factors the check dams are most suitable for Saurashtra. The impression is formed that there is an absence of alternative suitable water conservation structures in other districts. The alternative water harvesting structure namely, Bandhara 1 , Khet-Talavadi 2 , deepening of ponds etc. may play an important role in conservation of water and reducing the degradation of soil. the wastage of water, continuous efforts are needed to augment water resources in Gujarat. The investment requirements for development of water resources and water conservation are quite substantial. Government financial support and support by Non Government Organizations are very much required in solving/easing the water crisis. The effectiveness of water conservation structure, however, depends heavily on rainfall and management. These structures seem to be short-term solutions for averting water crisis. Long-term solution would be judicious use of ground and surface water as also efforts at water conservation and water harvesting.One of the studies 20 has applied Linear Programming Model for overcoming the water crisis. The study used available data from Mahi Right Bank Canal (MRBC) of Matar division. The study recommended the `blending' of ground water and surface water in such a way that salinity content of blended water is reduced to \"tolerable limit\". According to this study (by blending of surface water and ground water in this way) the blended water serves three purposes: (1) it can be used for cultivation. (2) Ground water having high level of salinity can be brought to the use; and (3) additional surface water can be used for drinking water. The study suggested monitoring of water blending process by establishing a network of blending stations. Such blended water may help in curtailing the extraction of ground water. Can we think of such a network for blending of Ground Water and surface water when Narmada water flows through water scarce areas of the State? This perhaps requires sizable investment from Government, support from NGOs and cooperation from community in the management of water resources.Issues relating to the ownership of water resources require rigorous debate.. If the water is common property, what about the ownership of the wells? What role can be effectively played by Government, NGOs, and Community for water resources development and management? Investment decisions in water management calls for integrated water policy at state level. The policy may spell out the size and sphere of investment decision in a phased manner for water sector. It may also provide for periodically examination of water charges for different stakeholders, pollution control measures etc.Providing safe drinking water should be on top of the agenda while discussing various aspects of water sector. Drinking water has assumed crisis situation in fluorosisaffected areas. It may increasingly assume an insurmountable character in coastal areas due to salinity ingress and in tribal areas due to topological conditions constraining water retention measures.","tokenCount":"5006"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f29ea52b866d174e91a57cf31e1289f7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/007e0509-c5a0-4f81-b9ea-cb076ac6d95b/content","id":"148567578"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"4a416bfb-6d96-466a-83e0-bfd276fc9dfa","pagecount":"71","content":"e) to report on progress and provide updates of the projects and programs that have phytosanitary, and diagnostics components related to MLN; f) to provide information for the review of maize seed certification and import/export procedures in relation to MLN for formulation of appropriate SOPs.•East African Community(EAC) / CIMMYT organized a regional MLN meeting on 22 nd to 24 th May 2018 in Nairobi where 28 participants attended.•Training workshop on MLN free seed SOPs and rapid MLN field diagnostics -KEPHIS on 30 th -31 st July 2018.•The sampling procedure must ensure that all parts of the field are adequately and proportionately represented in the plants inspected with in the various usual microclimates of the field.•The pattern of field inspection can vary as far as the above condition is met (CDFA Phytosanitary Certification Manual, 1985)(CDFA Phytosanitary Certification Manual, 1985)Procedure for leaf sampling Precautions :• Choose the right plant and leaf.• Avoid the plants with abiotic symptoms such as (mechanical ) wilt, nutrition deficiency, pesticide injury, due to drought. • Try to avoid samples with multiple symptoms such as leaf blight, yellowing along with mosaic. • If you are in doubt, please look for fresh plant sample.• It is important that the samples should be collected before pesticide application.• The sample should be taken from the youngest leaf of the plant.To carry out the sampling procedure, the diagnostician should wear laboratory gloves.• Leaf samples should be collected as follows:-Select approximately a leaf of newly developed symptomatic tissue.Using a clean sheet of fresh tissue paper, enclose and hold the leaf to be sampled. Use bleach-cleaned scissors to cut off a 5-6 cm leaf segment ( • Stick completed sample labels and a unique QR code on each sample bag and record the unique sample code. Place each labelled sample bag inside a zip lock plastic bag, this will protect the label from damage). • Place 6 individually labelled leaf sample bags from the same plot inside one large plastic bag (Bulk sample bag). This will keep the 6 leaf samples from the plot to be used for one bulk immunostrip assay together (Fig. 5). It is essential to stick another unique QR label onto this bulk sample bag and record the unique bulk sample code. Always use separate bags for each set of 6 leaf samples i.e., if 12 leaf samples in total are collected from a plot there should be 2 uniquely labeled bulk sample bags for the plot.   ","tokenCount":"407"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e0b22048a19705b5cc854c9c0de48c31","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/7069cf98-17cb-4e26-a325-02e3698e8fae/retrieve","id":"579119924"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b8c6400b-c322-4887-b489-45468501e1dd","pagecount":"75","content":"For more information about the project, please refer to http://www.hpai-research.net. Pro-Poor HPAI Risk Reduction iv Acronyms COT Certificate of Transport DOC day-old chicks FAO Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations FGD focus group discussion HPAI highly pathogenic avian influenzaPoultry populations in Kenya, by province and category, 2006 (thousand birds)   Since its re-emergence, HPAI H5N1 has attracted considerable public and media attention because the viruses involved have been shown to be capable of producing fatal disease in humans. While there is fear that the virus may mutate into a strain capable of sustained human-to-human transmission, the greatest impact to date has been on the highly diverse poultry industries in affected countries. In response to this, HPAI control measures have so far focused on implementing prevention and eradication measures in poultry populations, with more than 175 million birds culled in Southeast Asia alone.Until now, significantly less emphasis has been placed on assessing the efficacy of risk reduction measures, including their effects on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and their families. In order to improve local and global capacity for evidence-based decision making on the control of HPAI (and other diseases with epidemic potential), which inevitably has major social and economic impacts, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) has agreed to fund a collaborative, multidisciplinary HPAI research project for Southeast Asia and Africa.The specific purpose of the project is to aid decision makers in developing evidence-based, pro-poor HPAI control measures at national and international levels. These control measures should not only be cost-effective and efficient in reducing disease risk, but also protect and enhance livelihoods, particularly those of smallholder producers in developing countries, who are and will remain the majority of livestock producers in these countries for some time to come.: 5 to 6-month-old female layer ready to lay eggs Farm Categories (FAO 2010) Sector 1 farm : Industrial integrated system with high level of biosecurity and birds/products marketed commercially (e.g. farms that are part of an integrated broiler production enterprise with clearly defined and implemented standard operating procedures for biosecurity)Sector 2 farm : Commercial poultry production system with moderate to high biosecurity and birds/products usually marketed commercially (e.g. farms with birds kept indoors continuously; strictly preventing contact with other poultry or wildlife)Sector 3 farm : Commercial poultry production system with low to minimal biosecurity and birds/products entering live bird markets (e.g. a caged layer farm with birds in open sheds; a farm with poultry spending time outside the shed; a farm producing chickens and waterfowl)Sector 4 farm : Village or backyard production with minimal biosecurity and birds/products consumed locally vThe Kenyan poultry industry is characterized by dualism, comprised of both smallholder and largescale poultry producers. The industry is characterized by two main production systems namely (i) the commercial hybrid poultry production system and (ii) the indigenous poultry production system. This study examines the poultry industry in Kenya with the aim of identifying the actors, assessing poultry and poultry product flows, and highlighting some of the policies and regulations relevant to potential outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Kenya. Specific aims included:i) Characterizing the structure of the value chain;ii) Assessing the relative importance of specific flows of poultry and poultry products;iii) Identifying the various actors involved in the poultry trade and their linkages;iv) Providing insights on potential pathways of HPAI introduction in the value chainThe study was conducted in Kikuyu and Ndeiya Divisions in Kiambu District, Vihiga and Sabatia Divisions in Vihiga District, Nakuru and Rongai Divisions of Nakuru District, and Kikambala and Ganze Divisions of Kilifi District. The study areas were selected based on their relative density of poultry populations. A value chain approach was employed that entailed the use of semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with various stakeholders including hatcheries, farmers, input sellers, processors, retailers and other intermediaries in four different value chains: commercial broilers, commercial layers/eggs, indigenous chicken, and guinea fowl/ducks.Our value chain analysis indicates significant heterogeneity in the types of chains present in the poultry sector in Kenya, both by chain and region. Broilers and layers are more important in Kiambu and Nakuru, compared to Kilifi and Vihiga. Layer and egg value chains tend to be significantly longer and more diffuse than the value chain for broilers and indigenous chickens. For broilers, shorter chains reflect greater integration among actors through contractual (formal and informal) arrangements, while for indigenous poultry, most non-subsistence trade involves direct sales between farmers and buyers (who include other farmers and retailers). Outside of formalized, vertically integrated arrangements, governance relationships are largely ad hoc, although there are some qualifications to this. In Kiambu, contract broiler production involving strict biosecurity is more commonplace, while in Nakuru, contracts for broilers are more informal. There is also more 'structure' in the form of relational forms of transactions as products move into urban areas. In rural areas, by contrast, trade patterns are much more diffuse.Biosecurity practices parallel the governance structures present in all of the sampled chains. Larger, more commercialized actors involved in formalized arrangements tend to have much stronger biosecurity practices than smaller-scale farmers. Hatcheries, for example, have strict regulations on handling and disposal of poultry and poultry products and hence risks of rapid spread of HPAI at this point of the value chain in case of possible outbreak would be negligible. These biosecurity measures are imposed on all farmers contracted by the hatcheries to produce broilers, usually under contract. This makes the contracted farmers, mostly found in Kikambala, Nakuru and Kikuyu Divisions have better biosecurity controls than the non-contracted farmers. While regulations exist at various parts of the chain in terms of processing, handling and transport of poultry products, these are largely vi ignored outside of the most formalized chains. For instance, some farmers and brokers reportedly transport live birds in open carriers of or inside passenger vehicles, contrary to government regulation. Others transport live birds using hand and ox-carts without government movement permits. Still others transport live birds on bicycles and motor bikes. All these modes of transportation of birds entail great risks of exposure of and to infectious disease. The study further finds that some feed millers transport and deliver feed from one poultry farm to another which can exacerbate the spread of an infectious disease as the truck moving with feed could potentially transmit the disease into all farms it visits.In Kilifi, regulations governing slaughter in particular are much more strictly followed, ostensibly in response to demand for products with higher levels of food safety from domestic and international tourists. Not surprisingly, intermediaries in Kilifi tend to have more long-term relationships with other actors in the chain. This suggests that regulations can be credibly applied and enforced with respect to HPAI, but require some sort of local context (e.g. ensuring the sustainability of ancillary sectors like tourism) to promote buy-in among local actors. Such measures need to not only involve the poultry sector, but also other local stakeholders as well.The impacts of the HPAI scare in 2007 were short-lived, but had sharp impacts on the commercial sector in particular. In terms of impact of the scare on livelihoods, the study finds that the most affected farmers were those that reared broilers since the scare was mostly perceived to relate to the consumption of poultry meat. Broiler and layer producers were especially affected, with prices falling by up to half, and production and employment in these sectors experiencing a temporary decline. Recent research by Rich and Wanyoike (2010) suggested a role for associations in the livestock sector to reduce risks associated with future Rift Valley Fever outbreaks, and a similar recommendation could be made particularly for smaller and medium-sized commercial poultry producers. This will require significant strengthening of associations to move beyond marketing roles and towards more proactive advocacy and support roles for the industry as a whole. Such developments would not only assist with future animal health emergencies, but also strengthen the sector as a whole.The indigenous sector was largely unaffected by the scare, but one should not underestimate the potential impact of a real outbreak on this sector. For example, indigenous poultry serve an important role as a source of \"quick income\" for producers who could be jeopardized by an HPAI outbreak; these specific livelihood impacts need to be teased out more carefully in further research.In addition, the timing of an HPAI outbreak matters greatly. Because farmers often sell their birds en masse prior to the main cropping season, an outbreak that occurred at such a period could provide farmers with difficult decisions -either sell birds at a lower price or risk retaining birds and incurring crop losses they may cause. Future research should pay close attention to the seasonality of impacts in gauging how HPAI broadly affects the agricultural economy.The Kenyan poultry industry is characterized by dualism, comprising both smallholder and largescale poultry producers, with the former forming the majority in terms of population of birds. The industry is characterized by two main production systems namely (Nyange 2000):i) the commercial hybrid poultry production system ii) indigenous poultry production systemThe commercial hybrid production system relies on imported exotic parent and grandparent stock and is exclusively market oriented. From the standpoint of biosecurity, farms in this production system fall under sector 1-3 classification used by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) (see Glossary above). The commercial hybrid production system is further divided into layer and broiler subsystems. Commercial poultry production constitutes 23.8% of the total poultry population, with broilers representing 16.2% and layers another 7.8%. Other poultry species such as ducks, guinea fowl, and turkeys comprise about 2.2% of the total poultry population produced by commercial production systems (Animal Production Division 2006). The commercial production system is concentrated in major towns including Nairobi, Nakuru, Mombasa, Kisumu and their environs.The indigenous poultry production is the dominant poultry production system in Kenya. It is mainly concentrated in rural areas and involves 75% of rural households. Approximately 71% of eggs and poultry meat in Kenya are derived from indigenous poultry (Republic of Kenya 2008a). The indigenous poultry system is characterized by unconfined birds that scavenge around the homestead and often interact with wild bird species in the process.Table 1 summarizes poultry populations by category for the eight provinces of Kenya. Trade in poultry and poultry products in Kenya is characterized by extensive movement of live birds and their products within Kenya (i.e. between regions) and from neighboring countries across the border into Kenya. The dominance of the indigenous poultry production system in Kenya with its limited biosecurity combined with the nature of the poultry trade poses a potentially significant challenge to the design of strategies necessary to prevent possible outbreaks of avian influenza in Kenya.This study is part of a wider study that examines the Kenyan poultry industry to assess its preparedness against a possible outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). The wider study has four components: a livelihoods component, a risk assessment and risk mapping component, an analysis of the costs and benefits derived from the prevention of HPAI, and an analysis of poultry value chains, which forms the basis of this report.The role of value chain analysis in this study is to highlight the impacts that HPAI has throughout the poultry marketing chain. These impacts are often overlooked in policy circles, with policymakers focusing instead on the upstream impacts at the producer level. However, the cumulative downstream impacts that HPAI has on traders, slaughterhouses, retailers, casual employment, and support services is often larger than the impacts of the disease at the farm level. More significantly, the failure to capture these diverse impacts may further have important implications on the evolution and control of disease that may accentuate its impact. In particular, the socio-economic linkages embedded in livestock value chains may serve as important risk factors for the entry, spread, and persistence of disease. Thus, an understanding of these linkages is critical to inform policy and understand the broader livelihoods impacts of the disease.Our value chain analysis was conducted in four districts in Kenya that were selected based on the relative importance of the poultry industry. It included personal and key informant interviews and focus group discussions (FGD) with various actors in different poultry and poultry product (including table eggs) value chains in Kenya that were administered during February and March 2009. The specific terms of reference of this study were to: i) Characterize the structure of the value chain;ii) Assess the relative importance of specific flows of poultry and poultry products;iii) Identify the various actors involved in the poultry trade and their linkages; iv) Provide insights on the potential introduction of HPAI into the value chain.The rest of this report is organized as follows. The remainder of this section provides more details on the sites selected for this study. Section 2 describes the value chain actors present in the different poultry value chains in Kenya. Section 3 characterizes the value chains for the various poultry and poultry products traded in Kenya, including table eggs. Section 4 highlights the potential impact of the introduction of HPAI in Kenya in a value chain context, while Section 5 summarizes the HPAI policies and regulations enacted or strengthened in response to the HPAI scare. Section 6 provides some concluding comments and implications for policy and future research.This study was conducted in Kikuyu and Ndeiya Divisions of Kiambu District; Vihiga and Sabatia Divisions in Vihiga District; Bahati and Rongai Divisions of Nakuru District; and Kikambala and Ganze Divisions of Kilifi District (See Figure 1). The rationale was to choose two divisions in each district that contained high and low densities of poultry to capture the differences in management strategies used by mostly subsistence farmers (low density areas) and mostly commercial operations (in the high density areas). In each division, interviews were held with officials from the Ministries of Agriculture and Livestock, poultry hatcheries, poultry processors, large and small-scale commercial poultry farmers, indigenous poultry farmers, feed and veterinary medicine stockists, poultry transporters, poultry traders (wholesalers, retailers, and intermediaries [brokers]) and meat inspectors.In Kiambu, we selected Kikuyu Division because it mainly falls under sectors 1-2 in the FAO classification scheme, and is characterized by a high concentration of commercial poultry produced under a system that both monitors the production process and has a system of managing waste. By contrast, Ndeiya Division has a larger population of poultry that falls under sectors 3-4 in FAO's classification. In Nakuru, we focused on Rongai Division, which not only falls under FAO sectors 1-2, but also contains a high concentration of indigenous poultry. Vihiga mainly contains sectors 3 and 4 types of production with a focus on indigenous poultry. In Kilifi, we selected Kikambala and Ganze Divisions. The former contains sectors 1-2 poultry that is dominated mainly by broiler production in contracted farms and medium-scale commercial production. Ganze Division, on the other hand, is dominated by indigenous chicken and falls under sectors 3-4.Additional interviews were also held with major supermarkets and retail markets as well as fast food outlets that serve as major outlets for poultry in our study districts. Information generated through these interviews was supplemented by detailed FGD with poultry actors in each division selected.Appendix 1 provides the list of the numbers and types of chain actors interviewed in the four study regions. Additional secondary data on poultry and poultry product prices and other poultry production costs were collected from Divisional and District Livestock Offices.Poultry is only one of the activities farmers in the study districts engage in. In Section 2.1 of this chapter, we provide the background on each study district and identify some of the key actors in the poultry value chain. Section 2.2 then briefly characterizes the actors by describing their role and how they are linked to each other.Poultry production: Kiambu District Kiambu District has a total area of 1,324 km 2 , 90% of which is arable land (Republic of Kenya 1997).Its economy is dominated by agriculture which employs approximately 75% of the population. The major agricultural activities undertaken by households in the district include dairy production, poultry keeping, crop production and pig farming. Coffee and tea formed the major cash generating activities in Kiambu District until the early-to mid-1990s. However, the poor performance of tea and coffee markets has led to a shift to livestock, especially dairy and poultry production. The shift to dairy and poultry production in Kiambu is also driven by the high demand for milk and poultry products in surrounding urban centers, notably Kiambu and Nairobi (ibid.).Kiambu is one of the most renowned districts in poultry production in Kenya mainly due to its egg production. The district mainly produces chickens, but there are a few farmers that keep ducks and turkeys. Farmers keep different types of chicken including broilers, layers and traditional (backyard) chickens. Broilers and layers are produced by commercial establishments. Approximately 85% of the chickens raised in Kiambu District are exotic. On the other hand, traditional poultry (comprising 15%) is mainly produced for subsistence in backyard settings. The production of layers is much more widespread than broiler production in Kiambu. However, at the time of the survey, the production of layers and commercial broilers in particular was significantly below that in the previous year (2008) and much lower than in 2007. The majority of the respondents interviewed in this survey attributed the declining trend to the spiraling cost of feed.There are two systems of commercial poultry production in Kiambu District: contract and noncontract production. Under the former, farmers keep poultry under contract with one of the breeders. Approximately 1000 farmers raise broilers in Kiambu District under contract with Kenchic.The contracted farmers are part of an integrated poultry production system that is controlled by the breeder. The breeder supplies day-old chicks (DOC), feed and veterinary services, while the farmer provides land/housing and management (i.e. care) under the advice of the breeder. In other words, the farmers are under a production management contract (Minot and Ngigi 2010). The marketing of mature birds (especially broilers) is managed by the breeder and sold mainly to upscale clients in Nairobi and Mombasa such as Steers Restaurant (15%), Nakumatt Supermarkets (70%) and Kenchicappointed retailers (15%). In this case, farmers are paid mainly for their management labor and some amount to compensate for the cost of their land/housing. Not all farmers are able to produce under contract with Kenchic Ltd. Only farmers who can raise a minimum of 3000 birds are awarded such contracts. In addition, the farmer must be able to raise an advance cash capital of Ksh 80-90 1 per chick and follow Kenchic's farm-to-fork quality assurance and production protocols. The farm must also be located at least 50 km from the breeding facility in Athi River (Nyaga 2007). Most contracted farmers had chicken flocks averaging 5000-6000 birds. Contracted farmers also kept dairy animals and/or were engaged in tea production. Chicken production ranked third as a source of livelihood in Kiambu, suggesting that it ranks third as an income source for contracted broiler farmers. Nyaga (2007) characterizes this production system as sector 1 because contracted farmers strictly follow the biosecurity procedures/controls set by Kenchic.The non-contract mode of production is the more common poultry production system in Kiambu District. All layers and indigenous poultry (which comprise 85% of chickens produced in Kiambu District) are raised without a contractual arrangement. Under this system, farmers are responsible for meeting all production costs and for the marketing of their birds. Some non-contracted farmers work independently while others use formal producer and/or marketing organizations. These organizations mainly help farmers to market their poultry and poultry products and also to access technical information through training. However, only a small number (approximately 10%) of noncontracted farmers belong to these organizations. 2 Non-contract poultry in the district falls under low biosecurity production regimes because there are no checks on how waste and diseased birds are managed. Poultry waste (feathers, offal and blood) are often left at the spot where the birds are slaughtered.Indigenous chickens produced in Kiambu are mainly kept for subsistence and hospitality purposes.The majority of households (about 75%) keep up to 10 traditional chickens. The results of our FGD indicate that about 6% of farmers in Kiambu produce indigenous chickens for commercial purposes. Indigenous chickens are mainly left to scavenge for insects, kitchen leftovers, green leaves and minerals in a free-range system. However, this backyard system of production is constrained by the availability of land as high population pressure in the district has significantly reduced land sizes. Thus, commercial poultry production under more intensive systems is much more preferred by farmers.Most of poultry production is concentrated in Kiambu West, particularly in Kikuyu, Ndeiya and Limuru Divisions (see Figure 2). In terms of poultry populations, Kikuyu Division has the highest population of birds while Ndeiya has the lowest. Table 2 below presents the distribution of poultry populations in Kiambu West. The highest population of indigenous chickens is found in Ndeiya Division, while Kikuyu Division leads in both total population of poultry and the population of layers.1 The Kenya Shilling (Ksh) was changing at approximately Ksh 80 for 1 US Dollar (USD) during the study period.2 Some of the poultry production and marketing organizations were collapsing due to high cost of feed at the time of this survey.  The high concentration of poultry production in Kikuyu Division is probably due to its proximity to Muguku Farm Hatcheries, a major source of DOC, and also the ease of access to external markets. Unlike the other divisions, Kikuyu Division is connected to major (i.e. Nairobi) and local markets by a good network of paved roads. It is also much closer to Nairobi than the rest of the divisions. The major local poultry market -Wangige -is located within the division and metropolitan Nairobi is approximately 15 km away. By comparison, the majority of farmers in Ndeiya Division have to travel an average of more than 20 kilometers on roads that are impassible during the two wet seasons to reach the nearest major poultry market in Wangige.A number of actors are involved in the marketing of poultry and poultry products between the farm and the final consumer in the district. These include brokers/traders, rural retailers, rural wholesalers, urban retailers and urban wholesalers. Other actors that provide services in the value chain include veterinarians, transporters, millers and feed traders. Appendix 2 provides a summary of the actors interviewed in the district during this study.Nakuru District (see Figure 3) lies within the Rift Valley with a human population of 471,514. The major drivers of the economy in the district are agriculture and tourism. It has high levels of poverty and unemployment. Poultry and wheat production are among the major agricultural enterprises in the district in terms of earnings, with wheat production dominating the other enterprises. The main poultry type produced in the district is chicken. Poultry production in the district falls under the same system as in Kiambu District, with farmers producing either under contract or without contract.The proportion of farmers producing chickens under contract in Nakuru is higher than in Kiambu.Interviews with key informants and traders indicated that majority of broiler producers (approximately 80%) produce their birds under contract with buyers. However, unlike Kiambu, contracts are mostly informal and take the form of verbal agreements with traders, hotels and fast food outlets. Only producers who raise broilers for hatcheries have formal contracts. Such farmers comprise about 15% of broiler producers in the district. More farmers in the district keep layers compared to those producing broilers, which is likely due to the strong demand for eggs in Nakuru and other distant markets, notably Kisumu and Mombasa. However, unlike Kiambu District, most farmers produce eggs only on prior arrangement with the buyer, a form of futures contract. The farmer is responsible for all the production costs. The buyer collects the eggs at the farm gate and hence deducts transport costs. However, farmers who can afford transport deliver the eggs directly to the buyer.Poultry production in the district has benefited from a number of public and donor projects implemented in the district to address the high incidence of poverty and unemployment. These poultry improvement projects include \"Njaa Marufuku Kenya\", National Agriculture and Livestock Extension Programme, and Smallholder Poultry Commercialization Development Project. These projects target increasing poultry production in the district by at least 20% over a period of 10 years. Farmers there keep on average 300 to 3000 birds per farm. As noted earlier, the majority of poultry farmers do not produce under formal contract with breeders. In order to overcome some of the poultry production and marketing challenges, some farmers have formed producer associations. These associations have in turn formed an umbrella association that, as one of its key functions, constructed a slaughter facility for its members. Most poultry production in Bahati Division falls under sector 1-2 of the FAO classification. Rongai, on the other hand, is dominated by farmers who keep indigenous birds (more than 90%) in traditional sector 4 production systems. Not surprisingly, there are greater controls on the movement of poultry and poultry products in Bahati (and hence better biosecurity) than in Rongai, where birds are largely left to scavenge.Apart from the poultry promotion activities by the government and donor groups noted above, production in Nakuru District is driven by two other factors. First, there is high local and regional demand for eggs produced in Nakuru District. Local demand emanates from the large population of egg consumers among the residents of Nakuru Town and its environs and also from the demand by tourist hotels and large organizations such as colleges. Regional demand for Nakuru-sourced eggs extends to Bungoma District and Kisumu City. These areas depend on Nakuru more than any other area (such as Wangige Market in Kiambu and Kampala) for most of their eggs because of the lower transport costs from Nakuru.Appendix 3 presents the various poultry chain actors interviewed in Nakuru District. As in Kiambu District, these actors included rural traders, rural assemblers/brokers, rural wholesalers, urban retailers and urban wholesalers. Other actors included hatcheries and service providers, namely transporters, veterinary doctors, feed millers and feed retailers.Kilifi District (see Figure 4) covers an area of 3053 km 2 and borders Malindi District to the north, Mombasa District to the south, and Kaloleni and Kwale Districts to the southwest. The main livestock enterprises are poultry and dairy production. Poultry is produced under both commercial production and traditional subsistence systems. The types of poultry kept by farmers in the district include indigenous/backyard chickens, layers, broilers, ducks, turkeys, and guinea fowl. Table 3 below summarizes the poultry population in Kilifi District as of 2008.Indigenous/backyard chickens account for more than 75% of the poultry kept in Kilifi and are concentrated in Ganze Division. Unlike Kiambu and Nakuru Districts, broiler production is the leading commercial/exotic poultry enterprise in the district. Broiler production accounted for 12.5% of the total poultry population in the district in 2008 (Table 3). Table 3 also shows that Kikambala and Bahari Divisions lead in the production of broilers. The dominance of broiler production in the two divisions is due to their close proximity to Mombasa and Malindi. Both cities are major tourist centers on the coast and hence centers of high demand for broilers by tourist hotels.  Unlike Kiambu and Nakuru District, Kilifi does not have contract production of poultry. However, there are producer organizations that try to help smallholder poultry producers market their poultry and poultry products. A notable one is the Kilifi branch of the Kilifi Poultry Farmers Association (KIPOFA), an affiliate of Kenya Poultry Farmers Association. A key biosecurity function performed by KIPOFA is the provision of slaughter facilities to its members. The Association had 36 registered members at the time of the survey.Kikambala is one of the major centers of commercial layer and broiler production in Kilifi. Indeed, it is the leading producer of both broilers and layers in the whole district. Kikambala also hosts the most important poultry market in the district, the Mtwapa Market, which is situated near many of the tourist hotels in the area.The major poultry actors in Kilifi District are the same as those in the first three districts discussed above. They include breeders (hatcheries), rural assemblers, rural retailers, rural wholesalers, urban wholesalers and urban retailers. The actors also include service providers, i.e. transporters, feed millers, feed retailers and veterinary doctors. Two other service providers that play important roles in Kilifi are veterinary drug stores and meat inspectors. Veterinary drug stores in Kilifi District act as retail outlets and/or distributors of DOC, especially to smallholder farmers. Unlike Kiambu District, the inspection of dressed poultry carcasses is strictly enforced by meat inspectors in Kilifi District. Kilifi poultry farmers interviewed in this study indicated that they would not sell uninspected carcasses for fear of being fined or their chicken being destroyed if caught. Hotels in Mombasa, Kilifi and Malindi help to enforce this rule by only buying carcasses that have been inspected and stamped by government meat inspectors.Vihiga District is one of the smallest districts in Kenya with an area of 200 km 2 and just three administrative divisions: Sabatia, Vihiga, and Chavakali (Figure 5). The district has a population of 261,037 people. Agriculture and livestock are the main livelihood activities in the district, although livestock production plays a much less significant role due to small landholdings. Poultry and cattle are the main livestock enterprises in the area. The dominant poultry production system is that of traditional poultry raised mainly for subsistence (Table 4). There is production of commercial layers and broilers in the district, with more farmers keeping layers than broilers. The flock size of an average farmer ranges from 100 to 300 birds. There is no contract production of commercial layers in Vihiga District. Farmers generally produce eggs and sell to hotels or large traders who buy in bulk and transport to hotels in Kakamega or Kisumu.    Source: Republic of Kenya, 2006As indicated above in Table 5, Kenchic dominates the DOC industry in Kenya both for layers and broilers. Kenchic hatches the fertilized eggs in its Nairobi hatchery farm and transports the DOC to its depots located in other parts of the country. The main hatchery supplying poultry farmers in Vihiga is located in Kisumu; a second hatchery, LekChick, was of less importance. The Kenchic depot in Kisumu gets its supplies from the Athi River Kenchic hatchery in Nairobi and supplies the whole of Nyanza and Western Provinces. The depot sells 10,000-15,000 DOC per week depending on the season, of which 70% are layers and 30% broilers. In terms of distribution, 50% of DOC are sold to Kisii District, 20% in Kisumu District, 20% in Western Province and 10% in Kericho. Vihiga District has to share the 20% sold to Western Province with the other districts in the province.However, the Kenchic depot in Kisumu is unable to meet the high demand for DOC in western Kenya. The commercial poultry farmers we interviewed indicated that they are sometimes forced to wait for 3-6 months to have their orders delivered. Consequently, some farmers get their DOC directly from Kenchic in Nairobi or Kenbrid in Naivasha. Some intermediaries in Vihiga take advantage of the gap between demand and supply of DOC by buying layer and broiler DOC from Nairobi and Naivasha at Ksh 85 and Ksh 52, respectively, and selling them to farmers in Vihiga at Ksh 100 and Ksh 60, respectively. The DOC shortage has also encouraged an active production of indigenous poultry in Vihiga, as indicated by Figure 6.Muguku Farm and Kenchic Ltd are the main suppliers of DOC to farmers in Kiambu, Mombasa, and Nakuru. These hatcheries sell up to 60,000 DOC per week. Kenchic sells 80% of the DOC to farmers and retains 20% for their farms and contracted farmers.Farmers in Nakuru District obtain their DOC from KIM Poultry Farm, Kenchic Ltd, Golden Chick, Sigma and Muguku Farm Hatcheries. Interviews with key informants indicated that these hatcheries together sell approximately 50,000 layer DOC and 6,000 broiler DOC per week to farmers in the greater Nakuru District, indicating that broiler production is relatively more important in the district. Table 6 gives the distribution of volumes of DOC sold by the different hatcheries in the district. As shown, Kenchic, Kenbrid and Kim Poultry dominate the DOC market in the district. Interviews with other actors in the poultry value chain in Nakuru District further revealed that 30% of farmers buy between 100-200 chicks; 60% buy 300-500 birds and 10% buy over 500 birds.KIM Poultry Farm gets its parent stock of 6000 birds every 2-3 months from Kenchic Ltd and hatches approximately 20,000-30,000 DOC per week. It sells 60% of its DOC to contracted outgrowers and 40% to contracted agents who distribute to poultry farmers. It therefore does not deal directly with farmers.  The parent stock chicks mature at the age 4.5 months, after which they start laying fertile eggs for hatching into broiler/layer DOC. The fertile eggs are screened for fertility and diseases, especially Salmonella. The hatcheries normally vaccinate DOC before being sold to farmers either directly or through sales agents. To reduce the mortality rate and improve the vitality of DOC, hatcheries follow a feeding and vaccination program recommended by breeders in the exporting country. Disease control measures are also undertaken to minimize disease risks. The most common control measure involves placing disinfectant foot baths at all entrances to the hatchery. There are also strict disease control procedures that all visitors must follow when they visit the farm. In addition, all workers handling DOC undergo regular medical tests and bathe before handling the chicks. The hatcheries also maintain clean surroundings, clearing bushes mainly to keep away wild birds and rodents.Hatchery units are also spaced and located so as to control the spread of a disease.The hatcheries have numerous biosecurity measures in place. These relate to the handling of dead birds, waste and the movement of live DOC. Chicks that are rejected due to deformation are gassed, crushed, and dumped into secured disposal pits. Other waste (poultry droppings) are sold as manure or used by the hatchery farm. The hatcheries we visited sold poultry manure 3 to neighboring crop farmers. Several other measures are taken by hatcheries to control any outbreaks or spread of diseases within and outside the hatchery farms. First, visitors to a hatchery should not have visited another poultry farm in the last 48 hours. Second, workers go through routine medical tests. Third, shoes must be disinfected when entering a poultry farm. Hatchery workers must also take a shower before entering chicken houses. Fourth, poultry units are sufficiently spaced apart so that the spaces act as barriers against disease spread.Most the interviewed hatcheries had sales agents. The sales agents link the more distant farmers with the hatcheries. They therefore serve farmers that are too far from the hatcheries and unable to afford the costs of transporting DOC from the hatchery to their farms. The agents take orders from farmers and then place bulk orders with the hatchery and collect the chicks from the hatcheries on behalf of the farmers. The agents are often veterinary drug stores (popularly known as agro-vet shops) that double up as collection points for farmers who prefer to order their DOC through such stores. However, there are also independent agents who sell DOC for the company as brokers. Some hatcheries, especially in the case of Kenchic, have formal contracts with the sales agent that specifies the storage and handling procedures, among other conditions. Some of the agro-vet shops offer veterinary services to the farmers. For instance, they administer vaccines as part of their service package. This package is especially attractive to small-scale farmers who cannot afford to buy a complete dose. Some of the agro-vet shops also provide vaccination under interlinked credit schemes that involve payment after selling the eggs or broilers. However, this kind of package is offered only to preferred customers with long-term (usually more than 3 years) business relationship.Some hatcheries issue farmers with a vaccination and feeding program at the time of purchase.However, the source of information used by farmers depends on the production sector (Nyaga 2007). Contracted farmers (sectors 1-2) use the breeder as their information source while farmers belonging to sectors 3-4 depend on government extension staff for information.The relationship between the government and the breeder farms (i.e. hatcheries) is mainly limited to regulation. The government regulates the means of transportation used for DOC and also the movement of spent parent and grandparent stock. In the latter case, the regulations relate to the movement of live birds which require a movement permit. The hatcheries, however, depend on the government for the provision of public goods especially infrastructure (electricity, water, roads). A number of breeders have formed an association that lobbies the government for both fair regulation and the provision of public goods. The association also performs other roles such as the training of members, disseminating of information about disease control and promoting the consumption of poultry products.A number of poultry and poultry product intermediaries exist in the different poultry value chains. Generally, there are three broad categories of intermediaries in the marketing of poultry and poultry products: live-bird traders, egg traders, and traders that handle dressed carcasses of poultry. Among these intermediaries, the first two are more common in the study districts. Most of these intermediaries are specialized in their functions in the chain, either in the handling of eggs only or live and dressed birds only.Live-bird intermediaries deal in live exotic and/or indigenous poultry but sometimes handle dressed birds, especially when the client prefers to have dressed carcasses. Indeed, there were no intermediaries that dealt in dressed carcasses only. On the other hand, the majority of the intermediaries that handled eggs did not handle dressed chicken in Kilifi, Nakuru and Kiambu Districts where commercial layer production was more important.Intermediaries mainly serve farmers who are unable to transport their live birds or eggs to the market due to high transport costs, who need urgent cash and cannot wait for a market day, or who lack information on where to sell or who to sell to. High transaction costs have indeed been attributed to the choice by many farmers in Africa to trade at the farm-gate rather than walk their produce to the market (Fafchamps and Hill 2005;Fafchamps and Gabre Madhin 2006). In the current study, poultry farmers use intermediaries to market their poultry and poultry products. These intermediaries operate at different stages of the value chain. However, they generally link the farmer to the rural or urban consumer. The intermediaries include rural assemblers, rural retailers, rural wholesalers, urban retailers, urban wholesalers and urban retailers.The number of intermediaries in any of these value chains differs depending on the market and district. The typical number of intermediaries ranged between one and four, indicating that some poultry chains are highly fragmented and hence entail high transaction costs (Shiferaw et al. 2007;2008). The first kind of intermediary was the rural assembler who collected live birds or eggs from farmers at the farm-gate and assembled eggs in bulk before transporting to the market. The majority of these rural assemblers paid for the birds or the eggs on the spot (95%) thus taking ownership whereas others collected the birds or eggs on credit (5%) and remitted the money after sale. Where credit is involved, the arrangement or agreement on price and time of payment is verbal.There were two categories of rural assemblers in the study districts. The first category deals with only a few birds or crates of eggs and does not necessarily sell in rural markets. These types of rural assemblers trade around 10-20 birds or crates of eggs and sell them generally by hawking the birds/eggs to hotels in the rural towns or door to door in residential estates in urban centers. The nature of relationships between buyers and rural assemblers differed among the study areas. In Kiambu, there was no long-term relationship between buyers and sellers. However, in Kilifi, most assemblers (approximately 60%) had repeated and long-term trading relationships. Some of these assemblers also supply rural retailers on market days. The majority of this first category of rural assemblers trade in indigenous poultry and use bicycles to transport the birds and eggs from the farm to the buyer. The second type of rural assemblers deals with much larger volumes of birds or eggs, acting as buying agents of larger traders such as rural and urban wholesalers. These assemblers deal in hundreds of birds or crates of eggs at a time and usually target commercial layer and broiler farmers. They collect the birds or eggs either on bicycles, ox or human-drawn carts, or small trucks (i.e. pick-ups) depending on the distance. The sale can be in cash or credit. For the latter, verbal agreements are made to remit payment after sale. These rural assemblers sometimes buy their birds or eggs from the first category of assemblers, usually to fill up their orders. They then sell to rural and urban wholesalers and in most cases transport live birds or eggs to the buyer.The second type of intermediary in the poultry value chain in each of the study districts is the rural retailer. Rural retailers purchase live birds or egg either directly from farmers who walk their birds or eggs to the market, or from rural assemblers. These transactions are made on a cash basis. The majority of these rural retailers have no business relationships 4 with the farmers they buy from. However, some have had repeated transactions with certain rural assemblers that have led to the development of trust. Indeed, the findings of the FGD suggest that approximately 10% of assemblers sell their birds to rural retailers on credit. The farmer delivers chickens to retailers and collects cash after the retailer has sold them, usually at the end of day. Rural retailers sell their live birds mainly to rural restaurants and individual consumers. The sale of eggs and live birds to final consumers, however, was strictly on a cash basis.Rural wholesalers of live birds are uncommon in most districts covered by the study. However, this category of traders is found in Vihiga District where they deal mainly in traditional chickens. They purchase live birds from other traders and assemble them in bulk before selling to the next actor in large consignments only. This was especially the case where birds came into the rural livestock market from other districts, e.g. Nandi. The intermediary bought or received the consignment and sold to other traders in larger numbers at a wholesale price. Rural wholesalers also operated in Kilifi District. The majority of rural wholesalers traded mostly in indigenous chickens, but a few sold exotic chickens. Some rural wholesalers have business relationships with the traders they buy from that have been mainly forged through repeated transactions. Some rural wholesalers acted as typical brokers in the sense that they assist distant traders to market the traders' consignment without actually taking ownership/possession of the birds.In the case of eggs, however, there were several individuals that played the role of rural wholesaler.The most active participation of rural wholesalers in the poultry value chain was in Wangige Market in Kiambu District. In this market, rural wholesalers assembled large volumes of eggs by buying from rural assemblers and selling them to urban-based brokers. Some of the rural assemblers in the Wangige Market bought their eggs from large-scale farmers.Urban wholesalers and retailers are located in major cities supplied by the districts covered in this study. They include Nairobi, Kilifi, Mombasa, Malindi, Nakuru, Vihiga, Kakamega and Kisumu. These intermediaries are supplied by rural assemblers and transporters who buy large consignments from rural wholesalers or directly from medium and large-scale farms. The majority of urban wholesalers have business relationships with their suppliers forged through repeated transactions over many years. Such urban wholesalers therefore receive regular consignments from their suppliers and usually can specify the volumes they want. The weight of the birds is the major quality parameter used but some traders check the physical condition (such as the alertness) of the bird, too. The sale of chickens can be on cash or credit basis depending on the length of the relationship. The relationship, however, remains informal and the agreements made are not formalized into written contracts. Approximately 85% of the wholesalers bought their chicken from traders that they have dealt with before.One of the categories of urban retailers that have gained significance in the last few years is the urban supermarket. Major supermarkets in Mombasa, Nairobi and Nakuru sell both dressed chicken and table eggs. However, these retailers, especially Nakumatt in Nairobi and SunBeam in Mombasa, buy their supplies from established hatchery farms such as Kenchic which in turn raised the birds on contracted out-grower farms. Transporters play an important role in the movement of poultry from various production points to final consumers. The transport of birds is made by producers, brokers, and small-scale retailers from farm or intermediate markets to the end market in different ways in each of the study districts. For instance, in Kiambu, transporters used specialized pick-up trucks designed for poultry transportation with an upper and lower carrier and that can accommodate approximately 500 birds. On average, a single transporter can transport up to 2500 birds per week during the high season and 1000 birds during the low season. 5 Transport services are offered right from the farm-gate to rural intermediate markets and distant urban end markets such as Kariokor and Burma Markets in Nairobi. Some farmers and brokers have their own transport trucks that double-up as transporters.A few brokers transport birds using public service vehicles.In Nakuru District, poultry transporters use public service vehicles (buses, mini buses and taxis). A few farmers and brokers have their own unspecialized vans for taking birds to the market. Similarly, there are no specialized poultry transporters in Kilifi District. Small-scale producers and traders therefore use public transport and taxis to get poultry to the market. Large-scale producers have their own conditioned trucks for transport. On the other hand, contracted broiler farmers in Nakuru get transport from the firms they raise chickens for. KIM Poultry Farm, for instance, provides transport services to its contracted farmers. A similar arrangement exists for Kenchic's contracted farmers in Kiambu District.There are numerous government regulations that govern the transportation of poultry. In particular, transporters of processed birds are required to obtain a certificate of transport (COT) issued by the veterinary officer to the owner of the carcass. Additionally, all transporters of live poultry/birds are required to obtain a transport/movement permit at an annual fee of Ksh.3500. Most of the transporters interviewed said they would not transport for any trader without a movement permit or COT or with any sick bird. In Vihiga and Nakuru Districts, such regulations were largely unenforced and most actors were unaware of their existence. In Kilifi District, a movement permit and COT are issued upon payment of an annual fee of Ksh 100 and Ksh 20 per consignment, respectively.The influence that transporters exert on the ultimate price that farmers receive or consumers pay for poultry and poultry products depends on the district. As expected, in districts where there are many specialized poultry transporters, the cost that farmers or traders pay for transportation is lower due to greater competition among transporters. Thus farmers and traders in Kiambu, where there were approximately 50 traders, paid much lower prices for transport. Farmers and brokers in Kilifi mainly use public transport and hence have no specific fee they pay per bird for transport as this varies from one carrier to another. Transport fees for public-service vehicles vary given the illegality of transporting poultry in such types of vehicles. Vehicle owners usually charge higher fees in anticipation of paying bribes to police when stopped. The bribe is worked into the transport fee, thus increasing the price consumers pay for the final poultry product.A number of feed millers supply poultry farmers in the study districts. These include Jubilee Feeds Ltd, Chania Feeds Ltd, Trust Feeds Ltd, Ohami Feeds Ltd, Pwani Feeds Ltd, Sirari Millers, Unga Millers Ltd, Pembe Feeds Ltd, Malindi Millers Ltd and Naku Modern Feeds Ltd. The other known feed milers serving especially Kilifi District poultry farmers are Kitui Millers, Unga Feeds, Pwani Feeds and Dola Feeds. Most of these millers have distributors. Some, such as Sirari Millers Ltd, sell feed directly to farmers and even deliver feed to the farm. The delivery of feed directly to the farm benefits farmers by reducing the costs usually charged by intermediaries for their services. However, it can increase faster spread of disease in case of an outbreak because trucks can spread the disease as they move from one farm to another. Other millers, e.g. Hedge Farm Millers Ltd in Kilifi District, only serve their farms. The types of feed delivered by various millers include pellets, chick mash, grower mash, layer mash, broiler starter, broiler finisher, bone meal, fish meal and coconut seed cake.Apart from commercial millers, farmers and breeders manufacture their own feed. In some contracted farm systems, delivered feed is made and directly sold to the farm by the breeding company. Some large-scale farmers also formulate and mill their own feed.In theory, the formulation of feed by some large-scale farmers and breeding companies is expected to reduce the influence that feed millers have on feed prices by introducing some competition. However, this effect went largely unnoticed in our study districts. Feed prices remained very high regardless of the direct milling by some farmers and breeding companies. There are two reasons why millers still control feed prices in the study districts. First, most farmers still depend on feed from registered milling companies because farms that mill their own feed do not usually sell to other farmers. Second, government regulations require that commercial millers obtain a milling permit and this has limited commercial milling of poultry feed by farmers.All millers are registered members of the Association of Kenya Feed Manufactures (AKFEMA) and are required to pay a registration fee of Ksh 20,000 per annum. A government regulation in force requires that all feeds meet the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KBS) quality requirements and hence the bags must bear the KBS logo.Most feed stockists we visited sell feed in smaller packages and quantities to make it affordable to smallholder farmers. The majority sell feed in 70 kg bags and also in smaller packages. Feed millers deliver feed to the stores from which farmers buy directly. Most of the stockists interviewed knew how much feed their regular customers need and are able to plan ahead accordingly.Some of the rural-based stockists interviewed indicated that they sell about 140 bags of feed (each of 70 kg) per month, while those located in larger trading centers sell up to 300 70-kg bags of feed in a month. The amount sold, however, depends on several factors including the extent of direct sales by feed milers, the poultry production season, and the extent to which farmers use homeformulated feeds. Some feed millers, especially Dola Millers Ltd in Kiambu, deliver feed directly to farmers. This especially occurs among large-scale poultry farms and/or contracted firms when the breeder buys feed from a miller and delivers to its farmers.Some of the biosecurity practices undertaken by feed stockists include using feed bags only once, keeping free-ranged chicken away from stores, and not allowing customers to touch or handle opened bags of feeds they are buying. A number (approximately 10%) of large feed stockists extend in-kind input loans to their trusted farmer clients. They also provide regular feedback to the millers regarding demand supply conditions and consumer preferences. The feedback is usually in terms of customer complaints and satisfaction about feed.The stockists interviewed indicated that 2007 was a much better year for the business than 2008. In 2008, poultry feed sales declined substantially, especially towards the end of the year. The decline in sales could be associated with maize shortages in the country that dramatically increased the price of feed. Maize is a major component of most poultry feeds. Table 7 below represents the buying and selling prices of various products facing feed merchants and poultry farmers in Kiambu at the time of the interview. One of the areas to which the HPAI scare brought substantial change was in the slaughter of poultry.In this section, we describe the two main ways poultry is slaughtered in the study districts. In particular, we examine the home slaughter of poultry and slaughter in municipal slaughter facilities.Most indigenous poultry farmers slaughter their birds at home. The chicken is slaughtered by severing the head after which blood is drained off onto the ground or grass. The body is then immersed into hot water, and the feathers removed by hand plucking. None of the farmers interviewed in Nakuru, Kiambu and Vihiga indicated that they called in the veterinary officer to inspect birds before slaughter or the carcass after the slaughter as required by the law.Waste was in most cases dumped in open pits where domestic waste is disposed. However, some farmers simply left the waste at the slaughter site. What constituted waste differed among different districts. For instance in Kiambu and Nakuru, the head, offal and lower legs are considered as waste and were given to dogs and cats or simply thrown into disposal pits along with the feathers. However in Vihiga District, only the feathers were considered waste. The intestines, the legs, and the head are cleaned, cooked and eaten as a meal. In Kilifi, the common practice was to give the lower part of the legs, the head, and offal to the people hired to de-feather the birds as part of their pay.The second system available to farmers for the slaughter of their chicken is through municipal council slaughterhouses. Some small-scale commercial farmers, brokers, and retailers in Nakuru District mainly used this system. The Nakuru Municipal Council's slaughterhouse is located in Bondeni and farmers who wish to use it must transport their chickens there. Farmers complained of the high cess fees charged by the Council and the cost of transporting chickens to the facility.Consequently, many farmers and traders opt instead to slaughter their chickens on farm or at home. Farmers paid for each bird Ksh 2 for inspection, Ksh 12 for de-feathering, and a Ksh 10 council fee.The Council issued a slaughter certificate only upon the payment of these fees. Defaulters when caught are fined Ksh 1000.Chickens slaughtered at the Municipal Council slaughter facility are done so by first severing the head after which it is dipped in a drum containing hot water and turned around for about 2 minutes to ease de-feathering by hand. De-feathered birds are washed clean in running water and placed on a table for evisceration, by cutting one side of the abdomen and extracting all the viscera. The cloaca is cut to remove the intestines. Feathers are put on a wheelbarrow and taken to a municipal disposal site.Previously, the poultry slaughtering facility was housed within the retail market but was later moved to the slaughterhouse in Bondeni following the HPAI scare. Before the move, traders only paid Ksh 10 but now pay Ksh 20 in both facilities in addition to transport costs to and from the slaughter facility.One major difference between Kilifi District and the rest of the study districts was in the way birds are slaughtered in municipal units. In the former, the birds are slaughtered on a slab made of cement and blood drained into a covered pit. This system of slaughter is recommended for smallscale exotic chicken farmers due to the high cost of transporting a few birds to a municipal slaughterhouse described below. However, it is only in Kilifi District where this system of poultry slaughter is enforced. Poultry farmers in Kilifi District indicated that meat inspectors insist on slaughtering the birds on the slab. None of the farmers interviewed in the other districts indicated that they were required to do this. At the same time, Kilifi poultry farmers noted that they would not sell their uninspected chicken unlike farmers in the other districts. The veterinary staff interviewed in this study attributed this to the types of consumers in Kilifi District, the majority of which are tourists. Thus, the veterinary department in the district chooses to be strict on the safety of chicken sold by enforcing government regulation relating to safety of livestock products including poultry. However, the construction of this type of slaughter facility entails a cost that a farmer must bear (if in the backyard) or the trader bears if it is in a market center. In the case of Mombasa, it was traders who met the construction cost of the slaughter facility. Appendix 4 presents the costs of constructing a slaughter slab. However the cost of building the slab is a one-time investment. It was not possible to ascertain whether farmers and traders who built the slab passed on the costs to consumers as the respondents interviewed argued that they did it to comply with the regulation, and thus implicitly bore the cost.The main poultry processing plants serving Kiambu West District are Kenchic Ltd, Alfa, and Farmer's Choice. Kenchic Ltd has its plant in Tigoni, while Farmer's Choice is located in Uplands. The Kenchic follows the \"Farm-to-Fork\" code of practices. This code ensures that the product is traceable from hatchery/farm through the processing stage to the consumer's table.The major products of poultry processing include whole chickens (capons), chicken pieces (i.e. thighs, drumsticks, etc.), sausages and burgers. Capons are sold to retail shops and outlets such as hotels and restaurants, supermarkets, Kenchic distributors/retailers, fast food outlets (e.g. Steers Restaurants) and butcheries, National Airport Services (NAS) and caterers. Sausages, which make a small proportion of the output, are sold to NAS and caterers, and to leading supermarkets. The leading buyers of Kenchic's processed poultry products are supermarkets (especially Nakumatt), the Steers restaurant chain, Kenchic fast food outlets, and butcheries.Kenchic sells its branded poultry products to final consumers through appointed retailers usually as whole chicken or branded sausages and hamburgers. At the time of this survey (February-March 2009), Kenchic's whole chicken sold at Ksh 280 per kg, hamburgers at sh 175 for a 400-gram pack, and sausages at Ksh 364/kg. Kenchic products from Kiambu poultry farms are sold as far away as Naivasha, some 350 km away on the Nairobi-Nakuru highway.Poultry processors in Nakuru District include KIM Poultry Farm, Poultry Farmers Association of Kenya, and the Municipal Council slaughterhouse. KIM Poultry has its own private slaughter facility but does not offer slaughter services to other farmers as a biosecurity measure. The farm keeps 18,000 broilers at any given time, usually rotating in lots of 6,000 birds. It slaughters the entire lot of 6,000 birds once birds have attained the right weight.As noted in the preceding section, small-scale farmers, brokers and retailers in Nakuru District process their birds at the Municipal Council's slaughterhouse in Bondeni and pay fees for a council certificate, which serves as a certificate of quality. On a typical week, the number of ex-layers, indigenous birds and broilers processed at the Nakuru Municipal Council slaughterhouse are an estimated 90, 294, and 205, respectively. The relatively low number of birds slaughtered at the council's slaughter facility is probably due to the high fees since most poultry farmers were used to slaughtering their birds in their backyards at no fee. Most of the farmers and brokers we interviewed indicated that they found council fees too high. It also implies that poultry products sold in the district are often either slaughtered at home or by KIM Poultry Farm. It was not possible to establish the veracity of this, however. Nonetheless, major supermarkets in Nakuru, such as Tuskys and Gilanis, have stringent quality requirements on the poultry products they retail and demand inspection or quality certificates from their suppliers.Some non-contracted farmers in Nakuru District have formed an association called the Poultry Farmer Association of Kenya. The association also has a processing facility and cold storage unit with a capacity of 15,000 birds. The association buys birds from its members at between Ksh 200-220 and sell at Ksh 280-300 per bird. The profits made by the Association go towards meeting its operational costs. On average, the association processes a minimum of 400 birds per week.Poultry products from the Nakuru slaughter facilities are sold both within and outside of the district.In terms of distribution, 20%, of the processed birds are sold in Nairobi, 60% are sold in Nakuru, and the remaining 20% are sold in Kisumu. In Nakuru, 80% are sold to retailers such as restaurants, hotels and colleges (especially Egerton University). The remaining 20% is sold to individual consumers (i.e. Nakuru residents) who usually buy 1-5 birds at a time for home consumption.The main poultry processors in Kenya are Kenchic, KIM, Alfa, Ideal, and Farmer's Choice. These processors sell some of their products to fast food chains in Nairobi, Kisumu, Nakuru and Mombasa.The amount sold to this specific type of client varies by firm but roughly ranges between 20% and 40% of total throughput. Kenchic, for instance, is sells approximately 11,000 capons per day to fast food outlets.In this survey, we interviewed only one fast food retailer: Steers Restaurant. Steers Ltd, one of the oldest modern fast food chains in Nairobi, gets its supplies of chicken from Kenchic. The fast food chain imports the rest of its raw materials (especially spices, sauces, packages, etc.) from South Africa. The company has its own production department that further processes and marinates whole chicken purchased from Kenchic prior to distribution to its retail shops. This section describes and characterizes each set of actors in the table egg, spent-layer, broiler, and indigenous poultry value chains. Where data were available, we also present information on the available volume of poultry and/or poultry products flowing through different points along the chain.Layer farmers mainly produce eggs and spent-layers for the market. The by-product of their production process is poultry waste which is used as dairy feed and as farm manure. The main variable inputs into their production process are DOC, feeds, vitamins, dewormers, disinfectant, charcoal (for heating), and vaccines. Fixed inputs are brooders and poultry houses. These inputs are the same across the four study districts because they are based on the recommendations of the hatcheries which are standard for the industry. The main actors in the commercial layer value chain include producers, hatcheries, brokers, final consumers, feed stockists, service providers (e.g. transporters, veterinary doctors and livestock production officers), retailers and processors. Each of these actors has defined roles in the value chain as the products move down the chain. Appendix 5 presents the costs of these inputs and benefits generated in the form of a gross margin analysis.Most layer farmers in Kiambu District produce eggs on a year-round basis. To ensure consistency in the production of eggs, they keep flocks in cohorts staggered every 6 months. Most commercial layer producers keep 100-1000 birds. A farmer with 500 birds collects an average of 13-15 trays 6 per day for the first 15 months. Production, however, decreases to 6 trays per day during the last 2 months at which point the birds are sold off as spent layers (or ex-layers).All of the commercial poultry farmers we interviewed across the four districts indicated that they mostly follow the recommended feeding and vaccination regimes received from hatcheries (for larger established farmers) and (for smallholders) government extension staff or agro-vet stores from whom they buy DOC. They also perform routine hygiene and disease control practices including cleaning the feeders and drinkers, clearing the bushes around the poultry units to keep rodents away, ensuring the presence of disinfectant foot baths for visitors to reduce disease outbreaks, and constructing the poultry units away from direct air movement. These practices reduce chicken mortality and increase egg production per cycle.Commercial layer farmers buy their DOC from hatcheries either directly or through their appointed agents. Small-scale farmers mainly buy their DOC from agents of hatcheries, while medium-to-largescale farmers buy directly from the hatcheries themselves. The use of appointed agents for DOC was more prevalent in Kilifi and Vihiga Districts which were mainly supplied by the Athi River-based Kenchic Ltd. Farmers in Nakuru and Kiambu, on the other hand, mainly got their DOC directly from hatcheries because these facilities were close. The hatcheries and appointed agents ensure that chicks are packaged properly in approved boxes and that the farmer has appropriate means of transport. These requirements have to be met before layer DOC are released to the buyer and are meant to reduce losses due to stress and/or death during the transportation to the farm.Farm-level layer production practices were almost uniform in all the districts covered in this study. Slight differences existed in small-scale farms where there was much less adherence to recommended practices. Such farmers seek to save on the costs of some expensive practices, notably feeding, by mixing purchased feed with their own milled maize bran. During the first 8 weeks, chicks are kept in a brooder and fed on starter mash. During this period, the poultry unit is frequently disinfected to keep off parasites. Some farmers administer vitamins along with vaccines or drugs to increase the vitality of the chicks and reduce the level of stress. Between day 1 and 3, the chicks are vaccinated against Newcastle disease.The administration of vitamins is followed between day 7 and 14 with the first dose of Gumboro vaccination. Some farmers, however, reported administering the vaccination against Newcastle on day 21. Most farmers repeated the Gumboro vaccination between day 22 and 30. Fowl pox and fowl typhoid vaccines are given at different times by different farmers. The majority administered fowl typhoid and fowl pox vaccines in the 8 th and 10 th week, respectively. Some of the large-scale producers give the Reovox vaccination at the 16 th week. Reovox vaccination is aimed at controlling salmonella but is not administered by small-scale farmers due to its high cost. From the age of 8-18 weeks, farmers feed layers on growers mash until they start laying eggs, at which point layers mash is introduced. Due to high feed costs, some farmers mix growers mash with maize germ or bran in equal proportions, usually for the mature chickens. The chicks are dewormed frequently at all ages.The birds start laying eggs once they reach a weight of 1.6 kg.Figure 7 presents the channels used by Kenyan egg producers. Producers usually sell their eggs directly to retailers or through agents/intermediaries known as brokers. Two types of brokers are involved in the egg business, namely rural and urban. Rural brokers comprise the village assemblers who mediate transactions between the farmer and other market actors, usually through informal agreements.Most of the rural brokers we interviewed pay cash on the spot and hence do not require any form of agreement other than on price. Farmers contact the brokers (by phone or by walking to the market) when they have eggs to sell. The use of phones to contact traders was mostly common in Kikuyu (Kiambu), Rongai (Nakuru) and Kimbala (Kilifi). These are all peri-urban areas and have traders with mobile phones. In the rest of the areas, farmers travelled to urban centers to find traders. Those farmers that walked to urban centers in search of buyers indicated that it allowed them to talk to several buyers without incurring high phone call costs. The transactions in this case can be either repeated or single, depending on the size of operation of the farmers. Farmers raising large numbers (more than 2000) of birds on regular rotations tend to have repeated transactions and often contact specific brokers by phone when they have a flock to sell. This occurred among interviewed farmers in Kikuyu, Rongai and Kikambala. Less commercialized farmers in the other study areas changed their buyers often and sold to the one with best price. While farmers generally know the buyers whom they sell to, there are no binding relationships between them in any of the study areas. The farmers we interviewed indicated that they contact (e.g. by phone) a few buyers to ask for their price before deciding on a buyer. In doing so, they are able to choose the buyer with highest price and are also able to bargain. Hence, a single buyer does not have complete power to dictate price due to this type of competition among traders. In Kiambu and Kilifi Districts, some farmers sell their eggs directly to rural retailers (hotels, supermarkets and restaurants), usually through prior orders. Others (especially the larger ones) sell eggs directly to urban retailers in Nairobi and Mombasa towns usually through advance orders and advance payments. It was not possible to estimate the volume of eggs moving in each of these channels due to lack of data. Even the Livestock Department did not have information on the volumes of eggs handled by traders in each of the chains. At the same time, most smallholder producers in Kiambu preferred selling their eggs in the local market. Such farmers argued that transporting eggs to these markets earned them higher income than selling at the farm-gate, an indication that the margin earned through sales to rural brokers was small. Smallholder farmers use public service vehicles to transport eggs to the market, while larger farms use their own vehicles.The majority of the farmers we interviewed transported their eggs to the market twice a week in Kiambu and delivered at least 34 trays each market day. The most active egg market is the market in Wangige. Key informant interviews indicated that approximately 10,000 crates of eggs are traded in this market each week making it the largest egg market in Kenya. The price of eggs in Wangige Market varies depending on the type of buyer. Rural brokers in Kiambu are on average able to collect 100-300 crates of eggs in a week from farmers at a price of Ksh 150-165 per tray. The rural brokers sell the eggs to urban brokers and rural retailers at Ksh 170-195 and pay a fee of Ksh 5 per tray to the County Council. They also incur an additional cost of transporting the eggs to the market. The cost of transport differs for different brokers. Most (80%) use bicycles and ox-carts, with a cost ranging between Ksh 50-100 per bike trip (if not using their own bike) and Ksh 250-300 per ox-cart trip. Rural retailers eventually sell the eggs to the final consumer who buys at Ksh 180-200 per tray. Farmers who sell in the market have to pay a council fee of Ksh 5 per tray. Some of the brokers we interviewed indicated that they could buy up to 50 trays on a market day. There are approximately 60 egg brokers in Wangige Market. Urban brokers transport the eggs to Nairobi and sell to urban wholesalers in Burma, Kariokor and City Markets. Some of the eggs from Kiambu District are sold as far as Mombasa, Malindi, Kisumu and Tanzania by urban wholesalers. Some rural brokers in Kiambu perform the function of transportation as well. Interviews revealed that these brokers assemble and then transport eggs to these urban centers where they sell to urban brokers and wholesalers under informal (90%) or formal (10%) contractual arrangements.Within Kiambu District, more eggs were sold through rural brokers in Ndeiya than in Kikuyu Division probably because the main egg markets (Wangige and Nairobi) were more distant, with direct sales to the market entailing higher transport costs. These findings corroborate those of Fafchamps and Gabre-Madhin ( 2006) that indicated that smallholder farmers sell their produce at the farm-gate to avoid the transport costs of travelling to the market.Brokers were also the dominant actors linking farmers to the next level of egg buyers in Nakuru. A few large-scale farmers in Nakuru sold eggs directly to wholesalers (usually at Ksh 195 per tray) and other distant markets including Nairobi and Kisumu. However, most farmers sold their eggs to rural brokers at the farm-gate at Ksh 185-200 per tray. Rural brokers handle 82% of the eggs sold in the district. These rural brokers sell the eggs after consolidating them to retailers or urban brokers at Ksh 195-220 per tray.In Kilifi District, different farmer types sell their eggs through different channels. The established large-scale farmers sell eggs under contracts directly to hotels and supermarkets in Kilifi, Malindi and Mombasa at Kshs 200 per tray. Approximately 1,400 trays of eggs move through this channel per week. The smaller egg producers sell their eggs to rural brokers and rural retailers. Rural brokers handle 65% of the eggs sold by smaller farmers with another 25% sold by farmers directly to rural retailers and 10% sold directly to final consumers. Rural brokers buy eggs from farmers at the farmgate at Ksh 150-170 per tray and transport them to the main local market, Mtwapa, where they sell eggs to urban brokers and retailers at Ksh 200-210 per tray. Some traders transport eggs to local towns (Kilifi and Malindi) where they sell them door-to-door to final consumers at Ksh 230-240 per tray. One interviewed rural broker handles 20-60 trays per week depending on the season. Most urban brokers sell their eggs to hotels and urban retailers.Retailers buy their eggs from rural brokers and farmers (in the case of rural retailers) and urban brokers and wholesalers (in the case of urban retailers) in all of the study districts. These retailers included local supermarket/grocery stores, retail shops/kiosks and restaurants. In Nakuru, retailers handle 20% of the eggs produced in the district with one supermarket store selling up to about 20 trays of eggs per day. Approximately the same amount of eggs is handled by retailers in the other districts. Some of the brokers sold eggs both in bulk or single pieces, with one egg selling at Ksh 8-10. In Kilifi, retailers buy eggs from producers at Ksh 175-195 per tray or brokers at Ksh 200 per 30-egg tray and sell them at Ksh 240 per tray or Ksh 8-10 per egg.Figure 8 below summarizes the flow of eggs (highlighted in blue) and the prices of a 30-egg tray at each point along the egg value chain for all study areas. Note that substantial amounts of eggs are consumed by rural consumers. Indeed, the data presented indicated that more than two-thirds of the eggs sold by farmers end up being consumed by rural consumers. This finding is likely due to the survey locations. Apart from Ganze, the remaining study locations were peri-urban where consumption of eggs is usually higher (Ngigi 1998). The high consumption of eggs in rural and periurban areas is also likely to be due to the fact that eggs offer cheaper animal protein source than the alternatives (i.e. meats and fish).In each of the four study districts, spent layers are disposed of at the age of 18-24 months after the egg laying percentage falls below 50% from their peak. Large-scale producers sell their culled birds to brokers at Ksh 220-230 per bird and will usually sell the entire flock at the time of sale. In Kilifi District, spent layers were sold as live or processed birds. Poultry farmers sell their spent layers to rural brokers who in turn sell the birds to hotels (i.e. retailers) in Kilifi town or to urban retailers in Malindi, Kilifi or Mombasa. Most rural brokers have no specialized transport and sometimes transport culled layers in passenger vehicles with other luggage. The farm-gate price offered by most brokers ranges from Ksh 170-260 depending on the season. Rural brokers sell birds to retailers and urban brokers at Ksh 220-350 depending on the season. Urban brokers mainly sell spent layers to urban retailers based in municipal/county council markets, hotels, or door to door in urban areas. Retailers sell spent layers to final consumers at Ksh 400 per bird.Numbers highlighted in red are prices in Ksh per 30-egg tray Numbers highlighted in blue are volumes of eggs in trays In Nakuru, farmers sell culled birds to rural brokers at a farm gate price of Ksh 200-250 per bird. These rural brokers sell the birds to retailers (in retail markets), hotels and restaurants at Ksh 260-280 per bird. The traders interviewed did not mention hawking spent layers from door to door as in Kilifi District. However, some brokers sell live spent layers on roadsides. In Vihiga District, on the other hand, farmers sell their culled birds mainly at the farm-gate at a price of about Ksh 300 per bird. The majority of these farmers sold their culled birds directly to consumers in villages due to high demand for poultry in Vihiga.In Kiambu, some farmers have their own means of transport and therefore take their culled birds to local markets where they sell to rural brokers at Ksh 270-290 per bird. Other rural brokers buy culled birds directly from farmers at a farm-gate price of Ksh 250-270 per bird. Rural brokers then sell culled birds in local markets to rural and/or urban brokers at Ksh 270-290 per bird. From here, urban brokers sell the culled birds to retailers in major urban markets, such as Nairobi, at Ksh 300-320 per bird. A consumer in an urban market will then buy the culled birds from urban retailers at an average price of Ksh 400 per bird. Figure 9 illustrates the distribution of culled birds along the value chain.Notably one-half of spent layers from medium and large-scale farms are sold in urban markets through urban brokers, while another 35% is sold through rural brokers. This suggests that this chain is heavily dependent on the various intermediaries to market its birds.Overall, the total number of spent layers marketed per week in the study areas was approximately 10,000 birds with the bulk coming from Kiambu and Nakuru Districts where layer production is a more common practice. These two districts accounted for more than 70% of the total spent layers sold by farmers at the time of this study. Figure 10 presents the volume (number of birds) flowing through the spent-layers chain (highlighted in blue) and prices at each of the points along the chain per week. One important difference in this chain compared to the egg value chain is that most of the birds are consumed in urban areas rather than in rural ones. This is not surprising given the higher cost of chicken meat compared to alternatives such beef and pulses (especially beans).Transactions in the commercial layer value chain mainly involve informal relationships based on armlength transactions. These relations are short-term with one trader dealing with different buyers at different times depending on the price offered by one buyer relative to the others. There are no written contracts between the different actors in the chain in each of the four study districts. The only exception is in the sale of DOC that involves either the hatchery or their appointed agents and in the contract production of broilers by farmers in Nakuru and Kiambu. In the former, agents using an interlinked credit scheme involving the provision of DOC and other veterinary inputs to farmers on loan have formal written contracts that allow them to recover the cost of inputs and services from their sales. In the latter, farmers sign contracts with the hatchery that also facilitate recovery of the cost of inputs and services from the sales. These regions in which contract-oriented arrangements are found include Kiambu, Rongai and Kikambala where commercial production dominates. Poultry production in these areas fall under sectors 1-2 because the contracting hatchery farm enforces stringent biosecurity measures similar to those on their farms. The remaining actors trade with each other either through informal agreements or non-repeated transactions.Some farmers in our study districts belong to farmers associations formed to help farmers with the production and marketing of poultry and poultry products. These include the Kilifi Poultry Farmers Association (KIPOFA) and Tumaini Youth Group in Kilifi District and the district chapter of the Kenya Association of Poultry Farmers (KEPOFA) in Nakuru. The main goals of these poultry farmers associations include:Helping members pool resources, especially financial, to expand production; Upgrading of production through the use of the hybrid cockerels and engaging in common procurement of farm inputs; Negotiating better prices for their products; Capacity building for members through training activities; Training members on how to formulate their own poultry feed.These associations have regulations on membership and require members to pay an annual subscription of Ksh 200 and monthly contribution of Ksh 200 per member. KIPOFA is an affiliate of the Kenya Poultry Farmers Association (KEPOFA) and benefits from information, inputs and access to loans through KEPOFA.A branch of KEPOFA also existed in Nakuru District. The branch, in addition to providing the above services to its members, had a slaughterhouse for use by members at a fee (see section 3.2 below for a discussion on this). We did not find any active farmers association in Vihiga and Kiambu Districts. These farmer associations did not enforce biosecurity controls in members' farms, as production decisions are made by farmers individually. Rather, these associations mostly handled marketing activities, although they facilitated the training of members on general poultry production and marketing strategies by inviting guest trainers. Public policy and regulations relating to layer production cover both the production of DOC and sale of spent layers. Regulations regarding the acquisition of parent and grandparent stock of DOC include the need to have a sanitary certification issued by the responsible authorities of the exporting country together with an import permit. Besides this regulation, hatcheries are required have the brooder inspected regularly by veterinary officers.There is also a government regulation related to the movement of spent layers. These regulations require that: Transporters of spent layers possess a movement permit issued by a veterinary doctor. The permit costs Ksh 100 per year; Only inspected and stamped carcasses of spent layers can be sold to consumers; Transporters of spent layer carcasses must obtain a COT (Certificate of Transport). COT for each consignment costs Ksh 20; The container and carriers used for the transport of carcasses should be licensed and painted red and white.The extent of enforcement of these regulations differed among the study districts. There was stricter enforcement of regulations especially relating to the slaughter, handling and marketing of spent layers in Kilifi District than in all other districts. The veterinary staff in Kilifi and Mombasa worked together to enforce requirements relating to the sale of dressed spent layers. This stricter enforcement in Kilifi and Mombasa may be attributed to the sensitive nature of the market dominated by tourists. The veterinary staff in Kilifi and neighboring Mombasa District also enlisted traffic police in the strict enforcement of regulations regarding the transportation of live and dressed spent layers. We did, however, find similar strictness in the movement and marketing of eggs in Kilifi while the enforcement of regulations relating to production, movement and marketing of live/dressed spent layers and eggs by veterinary staff in Nakuru, Kiambu and Vihiga was largely absent. The traffic police also did not strictly enforce these regulations in these three districts. Instead, some police officers allowed birds to be transported without a permit after receiving bribes. Thus in terms of biosecurity, Kilifi District was way ahead of the other districts and is better prepared to deal with an outbreak because of stricter control and regulations related to biosecurity, except for transportation. In the latter, the movement of delivery trucks among farms can be a source of introduction and spread of an infectious disease.Commercial broiler production is unique in its extent and scale of production in each of the surveyed districts. Broiler production is less popular than the production of layers in three of the four study districts due to narrow profit margins caused mainly by high feed costs. Appendix 6 provides representative costs and revenues in broiler production in the form of gross margin analysis. As shown, costs account for approximately 74% of the revenues from production as compared to only 35% for layer production 7 . The higher profitability of layer production arises from the fact that there are more products (e.g. spent layers and manure 8 ) sold besides eggs. In Vihiga District, where chicken is the most popular among the different meats consumed, traders interviewed indicated that consumers preferred traditional indigenous chicken to broilers. Commercial production of broilers is also constrained by poor management skills, especially among poultry farmers in Vihiga District, resulting in high chick mortality and general losses to disease. In contrast, broiler production is more popular in Kilifi District, ostensibly because of the high demand for poultry meat by local and urban tourist hotels in the district and in neighboring Mombasa and Kwale Districts.Broilers are produced by both large-scale and small-scale farmers. Large-scale poultry production involves farmers who keep an average of 1000-2000 birds per cycle 9 for about 50 days while smallscale producers keep around 100-600 birds per cycle. Most commercial broiler farmers follow a feeding and vaccination program provided by the hatcheries. As in the production of layers, broiler farms that we visited in the four study districts follow strict disease control measures including foot baths with disinfectants at the entrance of the poultry units, regular disinfection of feeders, water troughs, and brooders, and the general hygiene of staff. Most broiler producers have poultry units that are separated from residential buildings.Some integrated farms such as Kenchic Ltd and KIM Poultry Farm produce broilers under contractual arrangement with out-growers. These firms produce DOC and poultry feeds, and process the birds. They provide all the needed inputs and make all the decisions, with the farmer providing labor, production site, housing, and management of birds. To obtain a contract with Kenchic, a farmer must have the capacity to rear a lot of 9000-12,000 birds at any one time. Such contracts therefore target large-scale farmers.As in the case of layers, the kind of management depends on the scale of the farm. Large-scale farmers in all four study districts adhere to the feeding and management practices recommended by breeders more strictly than do small-scale farmers. The feeding and vaccination programs used depend on the hatchery but farmers in the surveyed areas had similar practices. However, in general, birds are fed on broiler starter mash from the 1 st to 3 rd week. From the 4 th to 6 th week, broiler finisher, pellets and crumbs are used.Poultry vaccines are administered at various ages. During the 2 nd week, birds are vaccinated against Gumboro, followed by Newcastle disease and infectious bronchitis vaccinations in the 3 rd and 4 th weeks, respectively. During the 4 th week, Gumboro vaccine is repeated. Vitamins are given 3 times per week until broilers are sold, while deworming is done every 2 months. These practices did not differ much by study district.Birds require regulated heating and lighting especially during the early stages of production. The type of heating in each study district differed depending on the scale of production. Large-scale producers use automatic heaters to regulate the heat and electricity for lighting. Such heating systems were common in Kikuyu (Kiambu) and Kikambala (Kilifi). In Vihiga, the use of electric heaters were less common with farmers (mostly medium-scale) using charcoal heating. Small-scale farmers generally use charcoal burners for heat regulation and lantern lamps for lighting.Broilers are reared for meat, with the main product of broiler production being dressed chicken. As shown in Figure 11, farmers sell their broilers through a number of market outlets. These include other farmers, consumers, rural and urban brokers, urban wholesalers and rural and urban retailers. Broilers are either sold as live birds or dressed carcasses. In the latter case, the slaughter is done by the firm (as in the case of Kenchic and Farmer's Choice) or in council slaughterhouses for smallholder broiler farmers as described above for culled layers. In Nakuru District, farmers used either the municipal slaughter facility or the one owned by the KEPOFA Nakuru branch. The association has a processing facility and cold storage with a capacity for holding 15,000 birds that farmers can use when their birds reach mature age and before they find a buyer. In Kilifi District, the use of slaughter slabs was common, while the majority of medium and smallholder farmers slaughtered the birds in the backyard in Kiambu and Vihiga.Established firms like Kenchic and Farmer's Choice produce a range of poultry products. These include whole dressed chickens, chicken pieces (e.g. legs, thighs and breast), sausages and burgers. Overall, capons represent about 80% of the share of these products with chicken pieces, sausages and burgers accounting for 5%, 3% and 2% respectively Poultry processors sell capons to rural and urban retail shops and outlets including hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, distributor agents, butcheries, NAS (National Airport Services) and other caterers. NAS is unique among these buyers because it demands traceability and the adoption of international food safety standards. The sale of poultry products to NAS was common only in Nairobi and Kilifi (Kikambala) and less so for Nakuru. In Vihiga, there were no sales to NAS. Producer firms have supply contracts with their clients. For instance, Kenchic Ltd sells 70% of its processed capons to supermarkets (Nakumatt) and 20% to Steers Restaurant under formal contracts, and the rest to Kenchic distributors. Poultry products from all study districts end up in the major supermarkets (especially Nakumatt).In Nakuru District, small-scale broiler farmers produce broilers under formal and informal contracts with local hotels and restaurants. Indeed, smallholder broiler farmers we interviewed indicated that they only produce broilers under contract with buyers because of the high cost of feeding the birds beyond their market age. The majority of the broiler farmers who produce birds without prior contracts with buyers are members of the Nakuru branch of KEPOFA.In Kilifi District, large-scale broiler producers sell 80% of their birds (dressed broilers) to the Mombasa tourist hotels, 15% to Malindi and Kilifi hotels, and the rest to hotels in Nairobi. A few large-scale farms sell their dressed broilers to supermarket outlets in Mombasa town. These producers sell dressed broilers at Ksh 220-260/kg depending on the season. On the other hand, smallholder broiler producers sell live birds to either rural brokers or dressed birds directly to hotels and restaurants in local towns. The majority sell their live birds to rural brokers at a uniform price of Ksh 200-300/piece depending on the season, with the highest prices prevailing during festive seasons (April, August and December). Some (about 10%) rural brokers pay the whole cost of the entire flock but collect the birds in bunches of 10-100 depending on the order and the quantity bought. Such brokers pay towards the costs of feeding the birds during the post-purchase period.Some smallholder broiler producers sell to retailers such as hotels and supermarkets, usually on order, at Ksh 220-280/piece, and also to the final consumer at Ksh 280-300/piece depending on the season. The major local market for smallholder broiler farmers in Kilifi District is the Mtwapa Market. Farmers who are unable to get buyers and do not wish to sell to rural brokers transport their live birds to Mtwapa Market where they sell to urban brokers. Some 26 rural and urban brokers trade in both live broilers and culled layers in the market. Rural brokers assemble birds from farmers (usually known contacts or neighbors of such contacts) and bring them to Mtwapa Market where they, too, sell to urban brokers. Some (4) rural brokers double-up as retailers in the market. Other rural retailers are mainly local hotels. 10 Approximately 8000 birds (comprising both broilers and spent layers) are traded in the market every week.The majority of urban brokers buy their supplies based on prior orders made primarily by urban hotels, supermarkets or colleges. Where the buyer wants dressed broilers, urban brokers must meet the cost of inspection (Ksh 2/bird) and COT (Ksh 200 per consignment). Figure 12 presents the flow of broilers along the value chain in terms of number of birds bought and sold per week (highlighted in blue) and the prices charged by each actor (in red).Approximately 50,000 broilers were traded per week at the time of this survey in all the study areas combined. As in the case of layers, the majority of broilers (88%) are consumed in urban areas.Unlike the spent-layer chain, the majority of broilers sold in both rural and urban areas do not pass through intermediaries (rural and urban brokers). This is probably because the majority of farmers produce broilers under prior arrangements with buyers (hotels or hatcheries). Most farmers opt to produce broilers under prior arrangements because the weight at which the birds must be sold is an important parameter in the sales process. Most interviewed buyers have specific dressed weights that they require. Farmers who cannot sell off their flock when the weight is attained therefore lose on feeding costs because the buyers pay the same price regardless of weight. Compared to the layer value chain, the broiler chain is more integrated. The high cost of feed generally discourages the production of broilers in each of the study districts. Farmers in all four districts generally preferred to keep layers and only kept broilers if they had a production or futurestype of contract. However, production costs are just one of the factors affecting non-contractual production of broilers. An important factor is consumer preference for indigenous chickens. These factors have encouraged contract production of broilers based on formal/written contracts between breeders and farmers, and that targets high-end markets such as retail supermarkets, tourist hotels and the aviation industry. These outlets are more discerning about quality than other broiler consumers.The contract typically specifies production practices to be followed. DOC are provided by the breeder who owns the birds until they exchanges hands with the buyer of dressed carcasses. The contracting farm also usually requires that the farmer follows similar production and biosecurity procedures as the contractor. Indeed, some breeders, particularly Kenchic, have introduced safety protocols that assure the final buyer of product safety from farm to fork. In such production arrangements, the breeder basically determines the volume and quality of broiler products produced by its contracted farmers. However, the breeder is in turn subject to the quality specifications of its final clients. Some of these high-end broiler markets, especially tourist hotels and the aviation industry, have adopted international food safety quality schemes such as the hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) or farm-to-fork protocols, thus forcing their suppliers to comply (e.g. Kenchic Ltd). Some international hotels and major supermarkets in Kenya have a system of monitoring production practices, although this system is weak compared to that used in fresh vegetable production for export to the more demanding European supermarkets.The above integrated production system, however, only involves large-scale broiler producers that are common in Kiambu, Kilifi (Kikambala), and Nakuru Districts. The other study areas did not have such integrated production systems for broilers. Small-scale farmers either raise the birds and look for buyers when the birds are ready for sale, or already have orders from buyers. In the latter case, farmers generally have informal agreements with buyers, which include small fast food restaurants in major towns or colleges/schools to supply dressed chicken. These kinds of arrangements were common in Ndeiya and Sabatia and Rongai Divisions. Such arrangements do not specify how the chicken should be raised or even its quality but generally specify the sale weight and price. Thus, the farmer in this case retains some power in determining what is sold in the market. However, some of these fast food restaurants and colleges require the stamp of quality approval by government inspectors as an indication of the safety of the dressed carcass.In all study districts, there were some urban-based brokers that supplied certain fast food restaurants. Some of these brokers had informal arrangements with broiler farmers for the production of broilers. However, these intermediaries also do not specify the production practices to be followed by the farmer, but focus rather on price, time of sale and weight.A number of broiler farmers belonged to farmer organizations that are formed to help farmers produce and market poultry and poultry products. In addition to the general functions of such associations discussed in section 3.1.4 above, broiler associations operating in Kilifi and Kiambu Districts sought to confront the marketing challenges their members faced. One such challenge was that of poor market access. Brokers typically bought broilers from individual farmers in the two districts and supplied the same clients they targeted. At the same time, such brokers insisted on taking broilers on credit but some failed to remit the payments after collecting the birds. Thus, to overcome this challenge, the association sells chickens on behalf of its members. In doing so, the association was able to negotiate better prices for its members and handled the payment mechanism to avoid non-repayment. In this manner, the association has been able to reduce the marketing power that brokers had over the determination of price and generally over the broiler market in these two districts. The extent to which the association exercises market power is not known, but unlike their counterparts who do not belong in such associations, members were able to negotiate much higher prices (up to 20% higher) for their broilers.The public regulations relating to the production and marketing of broilers are the same as those for layers. These regulations cover the management of broiler DOC, the management of broilers and transportation of live birds and carcasses. In addition, however, a government regulation requires that if upon inspection the carcasses are found to be unfit for human consumption, a certificate of condemnation should be issued by the inspector barring the sale of such products. The farmer is then required to dispose carcasses in a way specified by a public health officer.The demand for indigenous poultry is high in all study districts. Some consumers prefer indigenous chicken to meat from broilers and layers because, they argue, it tastes better and it is more nutritious. In addition, the cost of producing indigenous chicken is lower due to its alleged higher resistance to diseases (Bebe and Owuor 2008). In the four districts surveyed, indigenous chicken and their products fetched a higher price than layers and broilers For instance, the price of a broiler/layer was Ksh 250-300 per 2.5-3.0 kg liveweight, while a traditional chicken of similar weight sold for Ksh 350-400 in Kiambu, Nakuru and Kilifi. In Vihiga, a traditional chicken of the same weight costs less at about Ksh 300, probably due to the high population of traditional chickens in this district compared to other study districts.The majority of interviewed farmers keep indigenous poultry. These birds are raised under a freerange system in which they are free to scavenge for food. In Kilifi District, indigenous chickens are mainly found in Ganze Division, while in Vihiga, populations of indigenous chickens dominate hybrids in both Vihiga and Sabatia Divisions.Most producers build their stock by buying 2-3-month-old birds (locally referred to as 'growers') from other farmers at Ksh 50-100 per bird until they acquire the desired flock size. Some farmers raise their own indigenous chickens by maintaining a breeding stock with good qualities in terms of health, weight and good physical appearance. Others buy eggs for breeding at Ksh 12-15 from neighbors with breeding stock. Other farmers are given parent stock as gifts by relatives. The total number of birds per homestead varies between 10-100 birds. Traditional chicken production is of major importance to the livelihoods of the more commercially-oriented farmers, but is of relatively less importance to those who keep them for subsistence. Among farmers in the latter production system, crop production is the major source of income.Most indigenous chickens in Kiambu District are concentrated in Ndeiya Division. Almost every homestead in the division has indigenous chickens. The majority of households have an average of 15 birds with the minimum number of birds being 5 birds and the maximum 100.Most households in Kilifi District, Ganze Division also keep indigenous poultry. The lowest number of indigenous birds per interviewed household in Kilifi was 5 birds while the maximum was 200 birds. Indigenous chickens are kept mainly for home consumption, though some (approximately 80%) farmers produce commercially.In Nakuru District, Rongai Division had a higher population of indigenous chicken than Bahati. Most farmers started their flock of indigenous chickens with a pullet and a cockerel bought from other farmers at an average of Ksh 200 and Ksh 250 per bird, respectively. Others started by buying chicks for rearing at an average price of Ksh 100 per chick. In Vihiga District, on the other hand, the source of the breeding stock varied greatly. Most farmers were given a pullet, a cockerel, or both as a gift by relatives and multiplied them. Other farmers bought the parent stock at Ksh 300 for a pullet and Ksh 350 for a cock from neighbors or the local market. Still other farmers raised their stock by using eggs from those who raise breeding stock. Eggs for breeding purposes sell at Ksh.15-20 per piece in Vihiga.Some farmers in Kiambu, Nakuru and Vihiga Districts expanded their stock of indigenous birds by using turkeys to brood chicken eggs (i.e. turkeys lay on fertilized eggs of indigenous poultry until they hatch). To synchronize the 30-day brooding period of the turkey, farmers will give the turkey one dummy egg to sit on for the first ten days before introducing fertilized chicken eggs. Another practice observed in Vihiga, Nakuru, and Kilifi Districts was synchronized hatching whereby a dummy egg is given to every hen that becomes broody until the desired numbers of hens have all reached broodiness. The dummy eggs are then removed and fertilized eggs introduced at the same time.Upon hatching, chicks are separated from their mothers and put into an improvised facility to grow.Another method used in Nakuru and Vihiga Districts to build up the stock of indigenous chickens was through continuous/consecutive hatching whereby the hen is made to sit on eggs for two or more consecutive cycles by removing chicks every time they hatch and replacing them with new eggs. Farmers used this method to rapidly build up the flock of indigenous chicken.In Nakuru and Kilifi Districts, some farmers had developed improvised incubators. In Kilifi, a container is one-quarter filled with dry maize germ. The eggs are placed on this layer and another thin but sufficient layer of maize germ is added on top. This system helps the incubated eggs hatch after a normal incubation period. Interviewed farmers indicated that the system achieves a hatching efficiency of 80%. In Nakuru, on the other hand, a homemade wooden incubator was used with 95% performance efficiency. In all cases, some of the chicks are sold and others are kept as replacement stock.Farmers of traditional chickens do not have a routine feeding and disease management program for their birds. Birds generally scavenge and are unconfined. Some farmers supplement their feeding with cereal grains, such as maize, and domestic waste including kale leaves.Control of disease outbreaks is done by keeping the compound and poultry house clean, usually by sweeping. No fumigation is done. In the event that there is a disease outbreak, some farmers administer herbal concoctions as a treatment. The most common \"treatments\" include juices made from a mix of water and the leaves of aloe vera or the neem tree. Some farmers pound African bird eye chili and mix with water and administer to the birds while others give lemon juice. The herbal treatments are administered irrespective of disease symptoms. A few commercial indigenous chicken farmers give the Newcastle vaccine in the chicks' first 21 days before they are allowed to scavenge in a free-range manner. These farmers were mainly found in Kiambu and Vihiga Districts and averaged about 5% of the indigenous chicken farmers in these districts.Hatched chicks are transferred to a warm home-made brooder and fed on fine sieved maize germ, fish meal and water. They are removed from the brooder after 3 weeks, then free ranged.Figure 13 presents the channels through which indigenous chickens are sold in the study districts. In Kiambu and Nakuru Districts, approximately 90% of traditional chickens kept by non commercial farmers was sold, with only 10% consumed by the household. On the other hand, the majority of traditional chickens (80%) in Vihiga and Kilifi Districts are consumed by the household. Commercialized indigenous chicken farmers sold 100% of their birds, as would be expected.Indigenous chickens are mainly sold locally to neighbors, rural brokers and in the local market. As in the case of layers and broilers, rural brokers collect and assemble chickens from different farmers and sell onwards to urban brokers and rural retailers. Urban brokers transport chickens to urban centers where, in the case of Kiambu, chickens are sold in Burma and Kariokor Markets. Indigenous chickens in the other districts are also sold in major towns including Kilifi, Malindi, Mombasa, Nakuru, Kakamega and Kisumu. In Vihiga District, the high demand for indigenous poultry has created a strong market for such birds from neighboring districts. For instance, traders interviewed indicated that there was an active trade in the sale of indigenous poultry in Vihiga by traders who transport them from Nandi District.Regional trade involving Nandi and Vihiga Districts involves traders (known as market-link traders) that assemble indigenous chicken from farmers and transport them to Vihiga due to high chicken prices there. Traders interviewed indicated that they buy chickens in Nandi District at Ksh 250-280 per bird of approximately 3 kg liveweight. The birds are then transported in special cages using public service vehicles (passenger minibuses and buses) at an average cost of Ksh 4 per bird and usually in batches of at least 50 birds. Once in Vihiga, these traders sell the chickens to rural brokers at Ksh 300-320 per bird. Some of these distant traders sell directly to other actors (final consumer or retailers) in the Vihiga County Council Market. The county council levies a fee of Ksh 200 per trader per day, or about Ksh 4 per bird for the 50 birds handled on average. Each market trader sells/handles about 200 birds per week. In Majengo Market alone, more than 2000 indigenous chickens are traded per week.The free-range system of poultry production has a number of challenges. In particular, it has a high chick mortality rate estimated at 75% due to predation and diseases. The focus group discussion (FGD) with farmers in the four districts attributed the challenges to:1. Low chick survival rate of between 20% to 30% due to poor poultry management and predation 2. Disease outbreaks that sometimes wipe out the whole flock, forcing farmers to start all over again 3. Conflicts 11 especially during planting season. To avoid confrontation with neighbours, farmers in Nakuru, Kiambu and Vihiga Districts said that they sell most of their birds just before planting season and retain only a few for continuity.The value chain for indigenous poultry is presented in Figure 13. There are no production contracts between indigenous poultry farmers and the buyers in the chain. However, there are trading relationships between the different intermediaries in the marketing of live birds. Trading relationships are mainly based on long-term repeated transactions and are neither dictated by kinship nor tribe. Some rural assemblers have informal arrangements with urban based traders that involve an agreement on the volume of birds to be delivered and an average price. The most complex kind of arrangement involves Nairobi-based traders (based in Burma, City, and Kariokor Markets) and rural assemblers from Machakos and Kangundo Districts.Rural assemblers from these districts have informal arrangements with the Nairobi-based brokers 12 to supply traditional chicken. These rural assemblers bulk and transport birds to Nairobi, but cannot themselves sell in these markets because the Nairobi-based brokers have formed a cartel that bars any trader from outside from trading traditional chickens in the three main city poultry markets. The brokers therefore have power over the buying and selling prices of indigenous chickens in these markets. The brokers generally offer about the same buying and selling price indicating that there is a degree of collusion. One of the more known public policies relating to the production of indigenous chickens is that the farmers should not sleep under the same roof with chickens. However, this policy is largely unenforced since the standard practice in many rural areas is for birds to be housed in the family residence. Other public policies relating to the movement and transportation of live birds and dressed carcasses apply to indigenous chickens as well. A few farmers interviewed in the study districts kept other kinds of domesticated birds. These included guinea fowl, ducks, and turkeys. Guinea fowl were mainly present in Kilifi and Vihiga Districts. In Kilifi District, only a few large-scale farmers kept guinea fowl. Farmers who kept guinea fowl collect guinea fowl eggs from nests in the wild laid by undomesticated birds and then mix these with chicken eggs to hatch normally. Others bought young birds from established guinea fowl farmers as parent stock. The fowl are mainly kept for meat and their feathers. Some large-scale farmers keep the birds for aesthetic beauty and mainly to target tourists. In such cases, guinea fowl birds are kept alongside other birds such as ostriches.One large-scale farmer in Kilifi indicated that he hatches approximately 1000 guinea fowl keets per year. The keets are kept together with chicken chicks and are subjected to the same disease management and feed regimes given to chicks. The guinea fowl keets are then separated from the layer chicks at 6 weeks and transferred to the layer flock. While in the layer flock, guinea fowl are fed on the chicken growers mash and, later, layers mash. The farmers interviewed in this study usually keep 30-50 guinea fowl birds at any one time. Guinea fowl production for such farmers is an important but not the only source of livelihood for such farmers. These farmers also produced crops for sale and a few (5%) had other kinds of poultry, especially ducks and traditional chickens.The main buyers of guinea fowl are farmers who grow them further to establish their own stock or for feathers. Some farmers raise guinea fowl for sale in tourist hotels in Mombasa and Nairobi that serve wild meat. Farmers buy 3-month-old guinea fowl keets at Ksh 400-600 per keet and sell mature birds to hotels at about Ksh 800 per bird. Hotels in Mombasa buy mature guinea fowl birds at Ksh 800-1000 per bird.There is also an expanding trade in guinea fowl feathers. Some traders 13 of guinea fowl feathers contract farmers to produce the feathers for them. The contract is usually written and specifies the volume of feathers, delivery time, and price to be paid. The farmer is responsible for both production decisions and costs, although the buyer offers technical advice. However, there are not many alternative buyers of guinea fowl feathers in Kenya. Consequently, buyers still have considerable market power over the price of feathers. Indeed, the farmers we interviewed indicated that contracting buyers usually offer a fixed, non-negotiable contract price.Other buyers of guinea fowl feathers do not contract farmers but instead place advance orders for feathers with farmers. This kind of arrangement is based on an informal verbal agreement in which the farmer agrees to provide feathers while the buyer agrees to collect the feathers when ready. In this case, prices are usually determined at the time of collection and therefore depend on the price reigning in the market at the time of collection. Under this arrangement, the farmer holds some bargaining power over the price and can choose to sell to another buyer if one buyer offers a price that is not acceptable.In both cases, the feathers are collected when guinea fowl shed them or upon slaughter. The feathers are usually weighed before sale. Farmers sell guinea fowl feathers at Ksh 500 for every 400 grams or the equivalent of Ksh 1.25/gram. Buyers use the feathers to decorate clothes, hats, and wall coverings.Unlike the trade in feathers, there is no contracting in the supply of guinea fowl meat to hotels that buy such meat. Most farmers raise guinea fowl until they are mature and look for markets when they want to sell. However, some farmers receive orders from hotels or brokers supplying the hotels to supply dressed carcasses. Such arrangements are usually informal and the price is usually agreed upon at the time of delivery. Where a broker is involved, the broker collects dressed birds from the farmer. In some cases, the broker is also responsible for the slaughter and dressing of the birds. As in the case of broilers and spent layers, some brokers collect birds on credit and remit payment later. Such traders tend to have considerable influence over the price the farmer earns and determine the size (weight) at which birds are sold.The same government regulations relating to the transportation of live birds and poultry meats hold for the transportation of live guinea fowl and dressed carcasses. In addition, there is a government (Ministry of Wildlife and Natural Resources) regulation that discourages widespread domestication of these or other wild birds. However, this regulation is usually not enforced and there is ambiguity over what number of guinea fowl constitutes \"widespread domestication\". Indeed, most of the farmers we interviewed are not even aware that it is illegal to keep and/or trade in large populations of guinea fowl.Some farmers in our study districts kept ducks. Of the farmers that kept ducks, approximately 80% raised them for subsistence. while 20% raised them purely for commercial purposes. Subsistence farmers held from 1-5 ducks, while commercial farmers maintained an average of 100-500 ducks.Duck producers bought the parent stock from other farmers at Ksh 200 per duckling and raised the desired population through a series of hatchings and growing ducklings. Most farmers argued that ducks are easy to keep since they scavenge around the homestead like indigenous chickens. Indeed, subsistence farmers did not have a routine disease management and feeding regime for their ducks. Some farmers, however, offered supplemental feeding, mainly involving maize germ and maize bran, to their ducks.Farmers sell ducks when they attain a dressing weight of at least 1.5 kg to hotels at Ksh 400 per kg. Unlike the previous cases, most duck farmers sell ducks directly to hotels and restaurants. Only a few farmers indicated that they sell their ducks to brokers who then sell them on to retailers (hotels) and final consumers. The limited involvement of brokers in the duck trade is likely due to the low demand for duck meat in Kenya.There is no formal contracting in duck production. The only form of trading relationship that exists in the chain involves brokers and farmers. Some brokers have informal arrangements with commercial duck farmers to raise the ducks for them. Such brokers collect the ducks when mature, selling to hotels and remitting payment later.The HPAI scare emerged at the end of January 2006 following media reports in late November 2005 of mortality of commercial and wild birds in different parts of the country. The public announcement caused fear and panic among consumers, leading to sharp declines in the consumption of poultry products in food outlets and most homes. Farmers and farm workers even feared handling birds. This fear lasted through the end March 2006. The panic was exacerbated by the outbreak of HPAI in Southern Sudan about the same period. The government immediately imposed a ban on imports of poultry and poultry products. Strict control measures were instituted at all ports of entry. For example, a consignment of powdered eggs from China was impounded and refused entry into the country, while a consignment of poultry soup from Egypt was also rejected at the port of call in Mombasa. In addition, in order to control the potential spread of HPAI, the local slaughter of indigenous poultry was encouraged by establishing local poultry slaughterhouses to prevent live birds from being transported to larger cities. At the same time, the government through the veterinary department made frantic efforts to send surveillance missions to the border with Southern Sudan, with rapid response teams sent to sites reported to have high mortalities of domestic or wild birds. The samples taken from all these missions proved negative for HPAI, however. Consumer rejection or avoidance of poultry and poultry products ended following an outbreak of Rift Valley Fever towards the end of 2006, which led to an acute shortage of beef and goat meat and markedly reduced demand for such products. At the same time, the government undertook a campaign to educate consumers about the HPAI scare insisting that it was safe to eat poultry and poultry products. Families and food outlet patrons thus resumed eating poultry meats as an alternative to the unavailable beef and goat meat.The impact of the HPAI scare in Kenya affected all parts of the value chain, from consumers to farmers. Although there has not been an outbreak in Kenya, information obtained primarily from the government's veterinary department through the press (radio and newspaper) highlighted the impact of the 2005-2006 scare on consumption of poultry products (Nyaga 2007). In this section, we describe some of the effects of the 2005-2006 scare, based on anecdotal evidence that was pieced together from interviews with the various stakeholders in the poultry industry. While both indigenous and exotic poultry can contract and transmit the disease, there was no discernable impact on indigenous chicken production based on our field interviews. However, indigenous chicken farmers indicated that they feared handling chicken during this time. The main impact of avian influenza was therefore confined to commercial broiler and layer production. Below, we discuss some of these effects.The impact of HPAI differed for different actors in the poultry value chain depending on study district and the importance of poultry in their overall livelihood. Among the study districts, the contribution of poultry to livelihoods of the farmers depended on the type of poultry kept. Overall, farmers who keep layers and broilers depended much more on poultry income for their livelihoods. During the FGD, farmers in Kikambala, Nakuru and Kiambu Districts, where farmers kept many more exotic chickens than traditional breeds, ranked poultry as their first or second most important source of income. In Kiambu, poultry ranked second after dairy cattle, while in Kikambala, poultry was ranked as the leading source of income for broiler producers. On the other hand, the majority of producers of traditional chickens did not depend much on poultry for their livelihoods. Indeed, poultry was ranked last in Vihiga District and Ndeiya (study areas dominated by traditional chickens) as a livelihood source after crops and dairy.Overall, at both the farm and chain level, layer producers incurred much lower losses because the consumption of eggs was less affected by the scare. Table 8 summarizes gross value added for certain chain actors on a weekly basis, reflecting important proportions of value added accruing to downstream actors such as traders and retailers. As shown in Appendix 5, the income from sale of eggs constitutes the greatest percentage of the income received from layer production. Hence, layer producers still earned income from poultry relative to broiler producers. However, farmers who had spent layers to sell incurred similar losses as broiler producers given the closure or dislocations in live-bird markets. For farmers who fully depended on broiler and layer production, the extent of the loss could be estimated as the net profit (gross margins) forgone, in the worst case scenario, should markets be closed. This loss could thus be higher than Ksh 24,000 per production cycle as shown by Appendix 6 for broiler production, and even higher for layer production assuming that the farmer totally abandons chicken production. If chicken production continues, then the loss would be equal to the income forgone from the sale of chicken (dressed or live) since we assume that the farmer will sell eggs and manure as before 14 . In this case, the loss due to the scare is less, i.e. Ksh 250-350/bird lost. The effect of this loss would have been greatest during months of peak demand for chicken meat in Kenya, namely April, August and December which are associated with festivities. Farmers usually increase their flock size as they target these months. In the case of Kilifi District, the peak period runs from October to early February during the tourism season. In addition, while the impacts on indigenous poultry were relatively muted, it should be noted that many farms sell their birds prior to planting (usually between March and April) so that an outbreak that took place during this period could have impacts both on poultry income and on crop production, should there be increased conflict from farmers retaining their flocks. Fortunately, the fear of an outbreak came into full effect between January and March (Nyaga 2007). By this time, most farmers who targeted the high Christmas season had already sold most of their stocks of birds and eggs.There were at least two kinds of effects of HPAI on livelihoods in Kenya. The first relates to the loss of welfare due to the public's fear of consuming poultry products. Overall, the stakeholders we interviewed indicated that the first response to the HPAI scare by most people was to stop consuming poultry products, especially poultry meat. Most consumers, especially those in urban areas (served by Kikambala, Kikuyu and Ndeiya), received information about the scare earliest and switched to the consumption of other meats; some abstained from meats altogether. The remoteness of the other study areas (Ganze Division and Vihiga District) created some lag in information spread, thus delaying the onset of the switch from poultry; this served to reduce the impact somewhat. Available data indicated that consumption of chicken meat dropped by between 20-90% during the height of the bird flu scare, with larger effects felt in fast food outlets in urban centers. The extent of the drop in sales of chicken among fast food outlets depended on the type of outlet and its strategic response to the scare. Thus, while some smaller outlets registered a drop in sales of deep fried chicken by 90%, the established outlets such as Steers Ltd recorded only a 20% drop in the sale of their prepared chicken products. The latter was able to manage the bird flu scare more successfully than smaller outlets by spending money on campaign ads that assured its customers of the food safety procedures it follows to ensure that only safe birds reach the consumer's table.The HPAI scare also had an employment effect. Most farms responded to the reduction in the consumption of poultry products by laying off some their workers or freezing the employment of causal workers. The number of workers laid off due to the scare depended on the size of operation.The majority of small-scale commercial farmers depends on family labor and therefore were not affected as they still had to care for the birds in anticipation of improvements in demand. However, medium-and large-scale establishments made considerable cuts in labor, ranging from 50-80%. This effect was felt not only at the production level but also in other downstream segments of the value chain including fast food outlets that sell chicken as a main accompaniment to fries. Even major fast food stores such as the Nairobi-based Steers and Galitos were affected by the HPAI scare. However, the labor displacement was lower higher up the value chain.Commercial broiler farmers were the most affected group by the HPAI scare. The scare in Kenya was triggered by high mortality of commercial layer birds and other wild birds in different parts of the country (Nyaga, 2007). Broadcast of news about the mortality of birds fuelled fear in Kenya. However, it was the outbreak of HPAI in southern Sudan and reports of mysterious deaths of wild birds in Nakuru that elicited government reaction. Soon after the outbreak of HPAI in southern Sudan, the government imposed a temporary ban 15 on the importation of poultry and poultry products. These events caused fear among consumers. Farmers could not sell their chickens at the time as hotels and fast-food restaurants cut back on purchases. Hence farmers had to keep the birds for an extended period thus incurring additional feeding costs. Where chickens could be sold, there were disposed of at very low prices of Ksh 100 instead of the prevailing market price at the time of between Ksh 180-200. Consequently, farmers that had mature ready-for-market broilers lost significant amounts of money 16 . If we extrapolate from the data provided in Table 8, a reduction in prices throughout the chain by up to 50% would lead to a weekly loss in the chain value-added of at least Ksh 3.6 million per week.The HPAI scare affected not only sales of dressed and prepared broilers, but also sales of live chickens in most poultry markets in Kenya. Following the 2005 HPAI scare, restaurants in the surveyed areas recalled that consumers were scared of consuming the chicken meat and even farmers afraid of handling poultry. The situation improved when the government declared poultry meat to be safe for consumption. In particular, the Ministry of Livestock intensified campaigns to increase poultry product consumption by using slogans such as kuku ni salama 17 .The FGDs revealed specific losses from the HPAI scare. One large-scale farmer indicated that he lost 20,000 birds in a period of 3 months in Kilifi due to the ban. The proprietors of three hotels and two fast food joints we interviewed indicated that they suffered large reductions in sales of poultry products of between 85-95%. A notice from the public health service required hotel operators to get a certificate at a fee of Ksh 1500 and a daily inspection fee of Ksh 2 per bird. Customers shifted to fish and beef for fear of HPAI. Some producers slaughtered their birds and hired a freezer to preserve them at a cost of Ksh 1000 per month for 6 months. Others gave away chicken for free to save on feeding costs. Some farmers in Kilifi abandoned poultry and shifted more to crop farming.The sale of eggs was also affected by the HPAI scare. Some of the interviewed farmers indicated that they were unable to sell their eggs as their clients cancelled orders. Farmers therefore accumulated eggs hoping to sell later when the situation improved. Other farmers simply crushed their eggs, dried 55 them and mixed them with feed to reduce on the costs of feeding the layers. These impacts were not uniform, however --commercial egg producers in Vihiga indicated no loss of business as eggs sold in normal fashion, probably because of the remoteness of the district from Nairobi. Moreover, the FGD revealed that most consumers did not perceive the consumption of table eggs as being risky. Thus, the consumption of eggs was much less affected compared to that of broilers.One positive effect of the HPAI scare is that it led to some concerted efforts by the government to train farmers about HPAI. Some of interviewed actors indicated that they were trained on how to prepare for and handle HPAI outbreaks by field staff of the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries. For instance, transporters were trained on the importance of disinfecting their vehicle after every trip, the need for a transport permit or COT, to transport only one species of poultry, and not to transport any sick birds to the market. Producers were trained on the importance of observing cleanliness, and not to live under one roof with poultry.Many restaurants, both small and large and especially fast food chains, recorded high losses during the HPAI scare. On average, poultry meat sales fell by 60% as consumers shifted to other meat types such as pork, mutton, lamb and beef. There were direct losses emanating from the spoilage of stored dressed birds that had to be thrown away. One operator we interviewed lost on average 70 birds weekly valued at Ksh 39200. In addition, restaurants that had stocked uninspected chicken had to destroy them following a directive from the Livestock Department that hotels and restaurants stock only inspected and stamped carcasses of poultry. This directive emanated from a government regulation that all meat be inspected before sale to consumers; the HPAI scare simply resulted in the strengthening of this existing regulation.In this section, we briefly review some of the government laws, policies and regulations that can affect the control of possible outbreaks of HPAI in Kenya. Overall, a number of government laws and regulations affect livestock movement and marketing in Kenya. Some of laws that became relevant during the HPAI scare include Animal Diseases Act, Stock Traders Licensing Act, and Hatcheries Act (Export Processing Zone Authority, 2005). The Animal Diseases Act empowers the Veterinary Director to:1. Declare areas infected, issue provisions affecting infected areas (isolation, disinfections and movement of animals), and search for and destroy infected animals 2. Prohibit importation of animals, slaughter and disposal of forfeited animals and carcass of infected animals, search and detain animals suspected to be diseased 3. Indemnify and pay compensation for destroyed animals 4. Prescribe fees for drugs and vaccines or prohibit use of vaccines or drugsThe Act also incorporates the Subsidiary Legislation of The Animal Disease Rules related to the importation and movement of animals, including birds. This legislation also includes the requirement of a license for importation of animals through Mombasa or Lamu ports or through Kisumu, Nairobi and Mombasa airports. It further covers the examination of imported animals and requires that certificates of importation accompany consignments of imported animals. The certificates must specify tests carried out.The Stock Traders Licensing Act Cap 498 prohibits trade in stocks without a license except for farmers/traders who sell stocks in local/own residential areas. The Act empowers the Provincial and District Commissioners to issue annual licenses and the police, veterinary and administration officers to inspect the licenses.The Hatcheries Act is the first significant government regulatory policy/law in the poultry industry that deals specifically with the operations of the hatcheries. All workers in hatcheries are required to have health certificates issued by the Ministry of Health. Every hatchery is also expected to obtain an inspection certificate issued by a designated veterinary officer. Prior to the issuance of the certificate, the hatchery is inspected for cleanliness and vaccination procedures. The veterinary officer also inspects fertilized eggs before incubation.All sales agents of poultry hatcheries are also required to obtain licenses allowing them to buy DOC from recognized hatcheries only. There are also government regulations on procedures and practices for handling, transportation and storage of DOC. Of these regulations, requirements on transportation and storage are relatively more enforced. For instance, traffic police arrest transporters when found transporting chicks in cartons/boxes.Transportation of birds between regions and to the market is also regulated under the Stock Traders Licensing Act. A poultry transporter is required to obtain a poultry movement permit issued by a veterinary officer. Among other things, the veterinary officer, before issuing the permit, must certify that the live birds will be handled well and that they will not be transported in the open carriers of vehicles. In addition, transporters of dressed/slaughtered birds are required to obtain a certificate of transportation issued by a certified meat inspector upon inspection of the birds prior to and after slaughter. Every dressed bird must also bear an inspection stamp certifying that it is safe for human consumption. Consequently all slaughter houses require the presence of an inspector to stamp the carcasses before sale. The regulation also requires that birds slaughtered in backyards are inspected and the carcasses stamped before sale. The carcasses must further be transported in an approved container. These primarily apply to the commercial sector; as noted earlier, transport in a number of surveyed regions relies on informal means of transport in spite of the regulation. Regulations require transport of poultry in specially modified pickups and no mixing of birds with people in public service vehicles. Though, this rule was yet to be implemented by small-scale farmers.Another important policy enacted by the Kenya government in response to the HPAI threat is the regulation of poultry slaughter. Prior to the outbreak of HPAI in Asia, poultry farmers were allowed to slaughter birds in their backyards while traders could slaughter the birds in the market. Following the outbreaks of HPAI in Asia and Europe, the government directed that poultry slaughter be done in conventional slaughterhouses or an approved slaughter facility, albeit with limited success (except in Kilifi District). The latter include slaughter slabs in the case of small-scale farmers. Thus, the slaughter of chicken can only be done in slaughterhouses with meat inspectors or on slabs whereby an inspector is called in to inspect the carcasses after slaughter. As noted in the earlier analysis, with the exception of Kilifi, many of these practices, particularly in the traditional sector, are not adequately enforced. Moreover, the government through the Ministries of Livestock and Health has been advocating to farmers not to sleep under the same roof with poultry. However, small-scale farmers in Ndeiya and Ganze were yet to respect this regulation.This report examined the poultry industry in Kenya with the aim of identifying the actors, assessing poultry and poultry product flows, and highlighting policies and regulations that relate to the effect and control of possible outbreaks of HPAI in Kenya. In particular, the study characterized value chains for broilers, layers, table eggs, indigenous chickens and other domesticated birds.Our value chain analysis indicates significant heterogeneity in the types of chains present in the poultry sector in Kenya. Layer and egg value chains tend to be significantly longer and more diffuse than the value chain for broilers and indigenous chickens. For broilers, shorter chains reflect greater integration among actors through contractual (formal and informal) arrangements, while for indigenous poultry, most non-subsistence trade involves direct sales between farmers and buyers (other farmers and retailers). In general, outside of formalized, vertically integrated arrangements, governance relationships are largely ad hoc, although more 'structure' in the form of relational forms of transactions exist as products move into urban areas. In rural areas, by contrast, trade patterns are much more diffuse.Biosecurity practices parallel the governance structures present in each of the sampled chains. Larger, more commercialized actors involved in formalized arrangements tend to have much stronger biosecurity practices than smaller-scale farmers. While regulations exist at various parts of the chain in terms of processing, handling and transport of poultry products, these are largely ignored outside of the most formalized chains. For instance, some farmers and brokers reportedly transport live birds in open carriers of or inside passenger vehicles contrary to government regulation. Others transport live birds using hand and ox-carts without government movement permits. Still others transport live birds on open bicycles and motor bikes. All these modes of transportation of birds entail greater risks of exposure to infectious disease. However, in Kilifi, regulations governing slaughter in particular are much more strictly followed, ostensibly in response to demands for products with higher levels of food safety from domestic and international tourists. Not surprisingly, intermediaries in Kilifi tend to have more long-term relationships with other actors in the chain. This suggests that regulations can potentially be credibly applied and enforced with respect to HPAI, but require some sort of local context (e.g. ensuring the sustainability of ancillary sectors like tourism) to promote buy-in among local actors. Such measures need to not only involve the poultry sector, but also other local stakeholders as well.The impacts of the HPAI scare in late 2005-early 2006 were short-lived, but had sharp impacts on the commercial sector in particular. Broiler and layer producers were especially affected, with prices falling by up to half, and production and employment in these sectors experiencing a temporary decline. Recent research by Rich and Wanyoike (2010) suggested a role for associations in the wake of future Rift Valley Fever outbreaks, and a similar recommendation could be made for HPAI, particularly for smaller and medium-sized commercial producers. This will require significant strengthening of associations to move beyond marketing roles and towards more proactive advocacy and support roles for the industry as a whole. Such developments would not only assist with future animal health emergencies, but also strengthen the sector.The indigenous sector was largely unaffected by the scare, but one should not underestimate the potential of a real outbreak on these groups. For example, indigenous poultry serve a strategic role as a source of \"quick income\" for producers that could be jeopardized by an HPAI outbreak; these specific livelihood impacts need to be teased out more carefully in further research. In addition, the timing of an HPAI outbreak matters greatly. Because farmers often sell their birds en masse prior to the main cropping season, an outbreak that occurred during such a period could provide farmers with difficult decisions -either sell birds at a lower price or risk retaining birds and impacting crop production. Future research should pay close attention to the seasonality of impacts in gauging how HPAI broadly affects the agricultural economy. ","tokenCount":"22760"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"25cdb9763df8c389b074a21f1a960d62","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/616b8d9d-456b-417c-97dc-128447b2ea13/retrieve","id":"900834676"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e2e12028-e342-40e5-bbed-a9d7c7a7fa32","pagecount":"27","content":"Le recours continu à l'expansion des superficies et à l'empiètement sur les terres forestières et les terres marginales en tant que principales stratégies de croissance agricole en Afrique n'est ni écologiquement ni socialement durable 2 Construire la résilience des systèmes agricoles africains aux chocs et aux facteurs de stress pour assurer une sécurité alimentaire et nutritionnelle durable, ainsi que la croissance et la transformation économiques, nécessite de passer de l'extensification à l'intensification. Cette évolution doit s'appuyer sur des pratiques de gestion intégrée dans les exploitations.Résilients en AfriqueLes actions pratiques pour les gouvernements africains, les partenaires de développement et d'autres parties prenantes pour renforcer la résilience et la durabilité des systèmes de production agricole d'Afrique comprennent :• fournir des incitations aux agriculteurs pour qu'ils adoptent davantage des pratiques de gestion qui augmentent l'efficacité de l'utilisation des éléments nutritifs du sol et de l'eau ; • fournir des incitations qui stimulent la demande des agriculteurs pour les engrais inorganiques et augmentent la disponibilité et l'utilisation d'intrants organiques ; • créer des environnements politiques et réglementaires favorables aux entreprises d'engrais • soutenir le financement du commerce des engrais par le biais de garanties de crédit et de crédit fournisseur ; • augmenter le financement de la R&D&E agricole ; • créer des incitations et investir dans l'irrigation, et • donner la priorité aux actions politiques qui renforcent les synergies et évitent les collisions de politiques.Introduction1 23456Accroître la production agricole pour nourrir la population mondiale croissante est un défi majeur en matière de durabilité, et l'un des plus cruciaux pour l'ASS où se produira la majeure partie de l'augmentation prévue de la population mondiale d'ici 2050 et où la demande de céréales devrait tripler (Canning et al. 2015 ; van Ittersum ). On estime que la production agricole devra augmenter de 60 à 80 % pour répondre à la hausse prévue de la demande alimentaire (van Ittersum et al. 2016).La demande alimentaire croissante en Afrique peut être satisfaite par toute combinaison des voies suivantes : (1) l'augmentation des importations de denrées alimentaires ;(2) l'augmentation de la production agricole due à l'expansion des superficies consacrées à la production alimentaire ;(3) la réduction des pertes et gaspillages alimentaires, qui représentent actuellement environ 30 pour cent de la production agricole ; et/ou (4) la production d'une plus grande quantité de produits agricoles sur les terres agricoles existantes, c'est-à-dire une approche de la croissance agricole axée sur la productivité. L'ASS a atteint le taux de croissance de la valeur de la production agricole le plus élevé de toutes les régions du monde depuis 2000, avec une croissance de 4,3 pour cent par an en dollars US corrigés de l'inflation entre 2000 et 2018, soit environ le double de celle des trois décennies précédentes (Jayne et Sanchez, 2021). La moyenne mondiale sur la même période était de 2,7 % par an. Toutefois, environ 75 pour cent de la croissance de la production agricole de l'ASS provient de l'expansion des zones cultivées et seulement 25 pour cent de l'amélioration du rendement des cultures (Jayne et Sanchez, 2021). Au début du 21ème siècle, le rendement céréalier moyen de la région était d'environ 1 t/ha (tonne par hectare), alors que les rendements étaient en moyenne de 3 t/ha en Amérique latine et en Asie du Sud et du Sud-Est, de 5 t/ha en Chine et de plus de 10 t/ha en Amérique du Nord, en Europe et au Japon (Sanchez, 2019). La raison biophysique majeure pour laquelle l'ASS se trouvait au bas de l'échelle était l'épuisement de la fertilité des sols dans les petites exploitations, car elles ne pouvaient pas reconstituer les nutriments enlevés par la récolte avec suffisamment d'engrais minéraux et d'apports organiques (Sanchez, 2002). Les données empiriques issues d'expériences en milieu paysan suggèrent que les rendements céréaliers en ASS peuvent augmenter jusqu'à 3 t/ha en utilisant les technologies actuelles largement disponibles (Sanchez, 2010: Sanchez, 2015). En 2019, les rendements céréaliers moyens de l'ASS ont augmenté à environ 1,5 t/ha, à mi-chemin de ceux de l'Amérique latine et de l'Asie du Sud et du Sud-Est, ce qui indique qu'il est possible d'améliorer encore considérablement les rendements.En raison des enjeux environnementaux, notamment la conservation de la biodiversité et la destruction de la végétation naturelle, continuer à compter sur l'expansion des surfaces comme principale source de croissance agricole n'est pas une option viable (FAO, 2017). Dans certaines communautés, toutes les terres agricoles potentielles sont déjà cultivées, ce qui signifie qu'une population croissante limitera encore davantage l'accès des jeunes à des terres de qualité, ce qui pourrait déclencher des conflits sociaux (voir chapitre 3, tableau 1). L'expansion des terres cultivées est une cause majeure de déforestation, qui engendre la variabilité climatique en augmentant les températures (Vargas Zeppetello et al. 2020). Par exemple, en Zambie, l'expansion des terres cultivées par les petits exploitants représente environ 60 pour cent des 250 000 hectares de forêt perdus chaque année (Ngoma et al. 2021). Curtis et al, (2018)  La population rurale de l'Afrique devrait augmenter de 305 millions pour atteindre 810 millions d'ici 2050 (Headey et Jayne, 2014). Il y a dix ans, la densité de population sur le continent était en moyenne de 117 personnes/km 2 de terres cultivées (c'est-à-dire les terres arables et les terres en cultures permanentes selon la définition de FAOSTAT), la moyenne étant beaucoup plus élevée avec 172 personnes/km 2 dans les zones à forte densité (Headey et Jayne, 2014). Environ 74 pour cent de la population rurale en ASS est regroupée dans des zones densément peuplées opérant sur 20 pour cent des terres arables qui reçoivent de bonnes précipitations (Chamberlin et al. 2014).La hausse prévue de la population rurale pose deux défis importants aux systèmes agricoles et alimentaires du continent. Premièrement, elle implique une pression croissante sur les terres cultivées et une fragmentation accrue des terres. Deuxièmement, étant donné les pressions sur les terres, la croissance agricole devra s'appuyer sur l'intensification comme voie durable à long terme. Or, les données indiquent qu'à des niveaux très élevés de densité de population, la relation positive entre la croissance agricole et l'intensification des terres boserupienne s'effondre (Josephson et al. 2014 ;Muyanga et Jayne, 2014). Cela implique que les améliorations de rendement sur les terres existantes devront être basées sur des pratiques d'intensification durables pour la croissance agricole.La dégradation des terres constitue la perte de capacité de production due à la réduction de la fertilité des sols et à la perte de biodiversité (FAO, 2002). On estime que l'Afrique est la deuxième région la plus touchée par la dégradation des terres après l'Asie, avec environ 73 pour cent des terres (soit 10,5 millions de km2) dans les zones sèches dégradées (Barman et al. 2013). Barbier et Hochard (2016) ont estimé qu'environ 157,2 millions de personnes (soit 38 pour cent de la population rurale) en ASS vivaient sur des terres agricoles dégradées en 2010, contre 32 pour cent en 2000. Avec l'augmentation de la pression foncière sur le continent, il existe un risque de dégradation accélérée des terres agricoles arables existantes et d'empiètement de la population sur des terres dégradées impropres à la production agricole.La perte de fertilité des sols est une source majeure de dégradation des terres qui a considérablement affecté les rendements des cultures et la production agricole en ASS. Les sols de l'ASS ont subi un appauvrissement en nutriments au fil des ans, ce qui les rend moins fertiles pour la production agricole (FAO, 2016 ;Morgan et al. 2019 ;Vanlauwe et al. 2015)  Des preuves de plus en plus nombreuses indiquent que les contraintes en matière de ressources des petits exploitants et les déficiences de la fertilité des sols doivent être traitées de manière holistique pour que les petits exploitants obtiennent un meilleur rendement des engrais minéraux et pour augmenter la rentabilité et la demande d'engrais (Marenya et Barrett, 2009 ;Lal, 2006 ;Tittonell et Giller, 2013 ;Vanlauwe et al., 2015 ;Burke et al., 2017 ;Sanchez, 2019, Roobroeck et al. 2021) Le changement climatique est l'un des défis les plus importants pour la résilience des systèmes agricoles et alimentaires dans le monde. Cela est d'autant plus vrai dans les pays en développement qui disposent de ressources limitées pour atténuer les effets des chocs climatiques. Source (Girvetz et al., 2018) Variation des précipitations totales (%)  (Schlenker et Lobell, 2010). Ces prévisions brossent un tableau de vulnérabilité de haut niveau pour une grande partie des petits exploitants agricoles d'ASS qui dépendent de la production agricole pluviale avec de faibles niveaux d'intrants et un accès limité aux services de base tels que des infrastructures et des informations améliorées (Girvetz et al., 2019).L'épidémie récente de COVID-19 fait peser une pression supplémentaire sur le secteur agricole africain, qui est déjà sous la pression d'une série d'autres défis. Étant donné qu'environ 70 % de la population africaine est engagée dans l'agriculture, l'apparition de cette pandémie menace les systèmes de production qui sont principalement à forte intensité de main-d'oeuvre (Obayelu et al. 2021 ;Nchanji et al. 2021). Bien que de nombreuses petites exploitations dépendent de la main-d'oeuvre familiale, l'application de directives sanitaires strictes, en particulier les restrictions de mouvement et les fermetures pour enrayer la propagation du virus, peut limiter la mobilité et la disponibilité de la main-d'oeuvre pour les exploitations de taille moyenne qui dépendent de la main-d'oeuvre extérieure embauchée. Le nombre d'exploitations de ce type (5 à 100 hectares) augmente rapidement dans certains pays africains et représente une part croissante des terres agricoles totales (Jayne et al. 2016). La surface cultivée et les rendements peuvent diminuer en raison de la réduction de la main-d'oeuvre pour la production agricole due aux confinements et aux restrictions de mouvement (Ilesanmi, 2021). Les restrictions de mouvement ont également contribué à l'augmentation du gaspillage et des pertes alimentaires pour les produits agricoles hautement périssables (Ilesanmi, 2021 ;Nchanji et al. 2021 ;Mulenga et al. 2020)    La santé des sols des petites exploitations agricoles d'ASS peut être restaurée ou, si elle est déjà bonne, maintenue par le fait de préserver une couverture végétale sur le sol tout au long de l'année, par l'utilisation appropriée et en temps voulu d'engrais minéraux et d'intrants organiques, par le retour au sol des résidus de culture et par l'utilisation de pratiques de conservation.Une couverture du sol protège le sol des pluies très érosives, minimisant ainsi le ruissellement et l'érosion. La plantation de jachères améliorées par l'agroforesterie ou de cultures de couverture intercalées avec la culture principale pendant la saison des pluies fournit une couverture pour protéger les sols, recycler les nutriments du sous-sol à mesure que le système racinaire se développe en profondeur et, s'il s'agit de légumineuses, elles peuvent fixer une quantité considérable d'azote pendant la saison sèche, qui est utilisée par la culture de la saison des pluies suivante (Buckles et al., 1998 ;Kwesiga et al., 2003 ;Sileshi et al, 2008 ;Akinnifesi et al, 2007). Les investissements basés sur l'agroforesterie produisent des effets à long terme (Sanchez, 2019). À ce titre, des incitations financières telles que des subventions pour leur utilisation en combinaison avec des engrais minéraux et des droits de propriété clairs et sûrs faciliteraient ce type d'investissement.Les légumineuses à grains arbustives à longue durée de vie, comme le pois d'Angole, qui sont dans le champ pendant les trois quarts de chaque année jusqu'à maturité et qui ont une capacité de repousse végétative après avoir été coupées près du niveau du sol (ratooning), sont particulièrement utiles pour prévenir l'érosion par l'eau pendant la saison des pluies ainsi que l'érosion par le vent pendant la saison sèche.Pour Un apport important de matière organique est une condition nécessaire à la mise en place de systèmes agricoles résilients dans la plupart des régions d'Afrique (Sanchez, 2019). Les sols riches en matière organique retiennent l'humidité plus longtemps et aident les plantes à faire face aux périodes de sécheresse. Comme les engrais minéraux ne contiennent pas de carbone, les apports organiques doivent faire partie de l'équation pour la santé des sols. Il existe de nombreuses preuves en ASS que les intrants organiques doivent être appliqués en même temps que les engrais minéraux (Sanchez 2019).Même si les fumiers de bovins sont utilisés dans toute l'Afrique comme intrants organiques et que ceux-ci sont généralement de haute qualité nutritive, la plupart des fumiers utilisés par les petits exploitants agricoles sont souvent de faible qualité nutritive car les bovins broutent des herbes de faible qualité cultivées sur des sols appauvris en nutriments. Les résidus de culture tels que les cannes de céréales sont principalement utilisés pour nourrir le bétail, mais lorsque les rendements des cultures céréalières font plus que doubler, comme c'est souvent le cas avec les engrais minéraux et le matériel génétique amélioré, les résidus de culture doublent également. Il est donc possible de satisfaire les besoins du bétail tout en restituant au sol des quantités importantes de résidus de culture contenant 45 % de carbone.Très peu de pays disposent d'une forme de marché fonctionnel pour les intrants organiques, en partie à cause de l'encombrement de la ressource. La variabilité des précipitations exacerbe les problèmes liés à la faible fertilité des sols dans les systèmes de culture à base de maïs en Afrique subsaharienne. Même avec des investissements élevés en engrais, le risque de mauvaises récoltes reste élevé en raison des précipitations faibles et irrégulières. L'amélioration de la stabilité des rendements et l'utilisation efficace des nutriments et de l'eau sont donc à la base du renforcement de la résilience.À cette fin, la diversité fonctionnelle des cultures qui intègre les légumineuses à grande échelle est un moyen évident d'améliorer le cycle des nutriments et l'utilisation efficace de l'eau du sol.Le régime alimentaire de nombreuses personnes est fortement tributaire du maïs, qui est produit de manière inefficace avec peu d'engrais, ce qui se traduit par des rendements inférieurs à 1 t/ha. Le maïs est également dépourvu de nutriments essentiels, ce qui expose les ménages agricoles à des risques de carence en nutriments. Malheureusement, les légumineuses à grains qui sont riches en nutriments (teneur élevée en protéines, macronutriments essentiels) sont cultivées de manière disproportionnée sur les petits champs des exploitations. Et ce, malgré le fait que les légumineuses à grains fixent biologiquement l'azote (N2) atmosphérique gazeux et l'accumulent dans la plante via la fixation biologique de l'azote, qui a lieu dans les nodules de leurs racines (figure 4.4). En fixant l'azote atmosphérique, les légumineuses à grains le mettent à la disposition de la plante hôte, fournissant ainsi de l'azote aux cultures suivantes grâce aux résidus laissés sur le sol ou incorporés (Giller, 2001). À moyen et long terme, les résidus de légumineuses de haute qualité et les résidus de cultures céréalières accumulent progressivement du carbone organique dans le sol, améliorant ainsi la réponse des cultures aux engrais et favorisant une production végétale plus résiliente.Pour résoudre le double problème de la malnutrition et de la pauvreté des sols, il faut diversifier les systèmes de culture dominés par le maïs pour y inclure une composante substantielle de légumineuses à grains.Certaines légumineuses à grains sont également intéressantes en tant qu'options à faible risque pour l'intensification des systèmes de culture, car elles sont adaptées au stress de la sécheresse (Franke et al. 2017 ;Ojiem et al. 2014). L'amélioration de la productivité et du cycle de l'azote présente un intérêt particulier pour les petits exploitants agricoles, qui ont généralement du mal à s'offrir des intrants nutritifs externes (Tittonell et Giller, 2013). Pour les petits exploitants qui n'ont qu'un accès limité aux engrais minéraux azotés, l'efficacité accrue de l'utilisation des engrais est un avantage extrêmement positif des systèmes de rotation. L'encadré 4.1 donne plus de détails sur l'écologie et les avantages de l'intégration des légumineuses à grains dans les systèmes de culture.    Les légumineuses à grains sont sélectionnées pour accumuler l'azote dans la composante grain, ce qui donne un indice de récolte d'azote élevé. L'ampleur des avantages de la culture des légumineuses pour la fertilité du sol dépend largement de la manière dont les résidus de légumineuses sont utilisés. Lorsque les résidus de culture sont retirés du champ ou brûlés (comme c'est souvent le cas dans les petites exploitations dans le cadre de la préparation du sol), l'apport d'azote de la légumineuse à grain est nominal, voire négatif. Ainsi, tant pour le carbone organique du sol que pour l'azote, il est nécessaire de conserver la tige de la légumineuse (feuilles et tiges de la plante) dans le champ. En général, les légumineuses à grains sont moins efficaces que les céréales pour récupérer l'azote inorganique du sol (Jensen et Hauggaard-Nielsen, 2003). Il en résulte des niveaux plus élevés d'azote inorganique dans le sol après une culture de légumineuses qu'après une culture de céréales, en particulier dans les couches profondes. C'est ce que l'on appelle généralement l'effet d'\"épargne de l'azote\" ou de \"conservation de l'azote\" dans les systèmes de rotation légumineuses-céréales.   Cette stratégie de gestion des engrais permet d'optimiser l'efficacité de l'utilisation des ressources pendant les bonnes saisons des pluies, tout en garantissant un gaspillage minimal en cas de sécheresse grâce à la réduction des apports d'engrais. L'adoption de cette pratique nécessitera certainement des systèmes de vulgarisation plus efficaces.Il est nécessaire de promouvoir l'assurance fondée sur les indices météorologiques pour aider à réduire l'impact négatif des chocs liés au climat sur la production agricole. L'assurance fondée sur les indices météorologiques est moins coûteuse à gérer pour un grand groupe d'agriculteurs car l'indemnisation en cas de perte est basée sur un seuil de précipitations vérifiable dans une zone définie couvrant l'exploitation. Il est également prouvé que l'assurance fondée sur les indices météorologiques incite les agriculteurs à accroître leurs investissements dans l'exploitation en adoptant davantage d'intrants agricoles productifs (Karlan et al. 2014). Toutefois, l'adoption souvent faible de l'assurance indicielle à des prix commercialement viables est un défi majeur qui doit être relevé (Carter et al. 2017 ;Ahmed et al. 2020). Pour soutenir et encourager l'adoption de ce type d'assurance, il faudra déployer des efforts soutenus pour former et éduquer les prestataires d'assurance du secteur privé et les agriculteurs sur les avantages et les coûts de l'assurance indicielle. Les agriculteurs qui ont un faible pouvoir économique et qui se trouvent dans des zones exposées aux risques météorologiques ont besoin que le coût de l'assurance indicielle soit subventionné. Dans une étude expérimentale menée au Kenya, Butle et al. ( 2020) ont constaté que l'association d'une assurance subventionnée et de semences certifiées entraînait une plus grande adoption des deux. Toutefois, l'étude a également révélé que les agriculteurs étaient prêts à payer pour une assurance, mais que leur évaluation du produit d'assurance était bien inférieure au prix du marché. Cela implique que le marché émergent de l'assurance indicielle en ASS nécessitera des subventions pour soutenir les agriculteurs et établir un marché stable.Construire la sécurité financière des agriculteurs en favorisant l'épargne et l'accès au crédit peut contribuer à atténuer les effets négatifs des chocs climatiques au niveau élémentaire des systèmes alimentaires.Encadré 4.2 : Stratégie flexible de fertilisation azotée répondant à la variabilité des précipitations Piha (1993) a comparé deux stratégies de gestion des nutriments, dans deux agroécologies contrastées, qui impliquaient soit :• Un taux d'application d'azote fixe (N) pour des agroécologies spécifiques, conformément aux recommandations normalement données aux agriculteurs par le système de vulgarisation, ou• L'épandage d'azote varié(N) selon les pluies, qui était fonction de l'agro-écologie générale ainsi que de la qualité de la saison des pluies en cours.Ce système de fertilisation flexible a permis une production de maïs plus efficace, en particulier pour les sites à fort potentiel agroécologique (figure 4.6). Les essais réalisés sur les champs des agriculteurs sur une période de cinq ans ont permis d'obtenir un rendement supérieur de 25 à 42 % et un bénéfice supérieur de 21 à 41 % par rapport à un modèle basé sur les recommandations existantes en matière de fertilisation. Ces résultats sont significatifs car ils confirment qu'une agriculture productive et rentable est possible sur des sols pauvres et dans des conditions semi-arides avec l'utilisation judicieuse et stratégique d'engrais inorganiques. Cette stratégie de fertilisation adaptative optimise l'efficacité de l'utilisation de l'azote pendant les bonnes saisons des pluies, bien que les pertes soient minimales en cas de sécheresse, car les apports supplémentaires d'azote sont suspendus dans des conditions d'humidité du sol non optimales. Les résultats sont plus positifs lorsque des mesures de conservation de l'eau dans les champs, telles que la mise en place d'un système d'attache, sont utilisées.Cela est particulièrement important pour les ménages agricoles à plein temps, qui tirent un revenu des récoltes une ou deux fois par an, mais doivent consommer tout au long de l'année et utiliser ce même revenu pour acheter des intrants pour la production de l'année suivante. Il est prouvé que l'accès au crédit en temps opportun (DeepL) permet aux agriculteurs de reporter la vente de leurs produits et de les stocker pendant la récolte lorsque les prix sont bas et de les vendre pendant la période de soudure lorsque les prix sont élevés, augmentant ainsi les revenus agricoles (Bulte et al. 2019 ;Channa et al. 2021). L'accès à de meilleures technologies de stockage a des effets similaires (Chengere et al. 2021 ;Omotilewa et al. 2018 ;Aggarwal et al. 2018).L'agriculture de conservation ?  de Piha, 1993) La réduction du travail du sol est de loin la composante la plus adoptée par le plus grand nombre de petits exploitants (Nyamangara et al. 2013). Le maintien d'une couverture d'au moins 30 % de résidus de culture tout au long de l'année est la composante la moins adoptée en raison de la combinaison de faibles rendements (moins de 1 t/ha) et de revendications concurrentes concernant l'utilisation des résidus dans les exploitations, principalement pour l'alimentation du bétail (Giller et al. 2009) et le carburant. La rétention des résidus de culture dans le champ est la composante la plus critique parce qu'elle fournit un nouveau carbone pour le sol ainsi qu'une couverture du sol tout au long de l'année, alors que les effets de la rotation des cultures sont plus souvent liés au contrôle des mauvaises herbes, des parasites et des maladies.La réduction du travail du sol se traduit généralement par une pression des adventices et des besoins en maind'oeuvre pour le désherbage manuel nettement plus élevés, ce qui fait de l'utilisation d'herbicides une condition essentielle de cette pratique (Haggblade et a. 2017 ;Nyamangara et al. 2013). Bien que les herbicides soient souvent promus pour permettre l'adoption de l'AC en Afrique (Giller et al. 2015 ;Lotter, 2015), leur utilisation est extrêmement limitée. Par exemple, les données indiquent que seulement 1 % des agriculteurs au Malawi et un peu plus de 25 % en Éthiopie et au Ghana utilisent des herbicides (Ganesa, 2009 ;Haggblade et al. 2017). Les quelques ménages qui adoptent l'utilisation d'herbicides sont souvent les plus aisés et qui sont également une source de filet de sécurité communautaire car ils fournissent des opportunités de travail occasionnel pour le désherbage manuel à leurs voisins pauvres. Bouwman et al. (2021) suggère que les nouvelles technologies qui déplacent la main-d'oeuvre peuvent, par inadvertance, aider les plus aisés au détriment des pauvres, aggravant ainsi l'insécurité alimentaire et les inégalités.  Giller et al. (2009) ont noté que les preuves empiriques de la contribution de l'AC aux gains de rendement ne sont pas claires, alors que Nyagumbo (1999) a signalé que la performance de l'AC par rapport aux technologies existantes est très variable et dépend des caractéristiques du site et de l'agriculteur. La principale contrainte est probablement la nécessité de disposer de machines agricoles puissantes pour entraîner les outils de travail réduit du sol (Sanchez, 2019).L'utilisation appropriée des engrais a été suggérée comme un quatrième principe de l'AC afin d'accroître la similitude des avantages pour les petits exploitants agricoles (Vanlauwe et al. 2014). Une méta-analyse des principaux essais d'AC à long terme menés dans le monde entier a indiqué que le rendement des céréales était positif lorsque l'engrais N minéral était appliqué à des taux supérieurs à 100 kg N ha (Rusinamhodzi et al. 2011). Les performances de l'AC dans des conditions semi-arides sont améliorées par l'ajout de petites quantités d'engrais azotés et de fumier de bovins -souvent appelé micro-dosage. Ces études illustrent le rôle central de l'application optimale des nutriments dans l'amélioration du rendement des cultures sous AC, par opposition à l'interprétation de l'AC comme une solution miracle en soi.Les avantages et les limites de l'AC, notamment en tant qu'outil de séquestration du carbone et d'atténuation du changement climatique, ont fait l'objet de débats dans la littérature scientifique (Lal 1989 ;Giller et al. 2009 ;2011 ;Palm et al. 2014 ;Powlson et al. 2014 ;Pittelkow et al. 2015) ainsi que dans des publications à vocation politique de la FAO et de la Banque mondiale. Plusieurs analyses suggèrent que l'AC ne procure pas toujours les avantages largement médiatisés. Une méta-analyse a révélé que lorsque seule la composante de travail réduit du sol est appliquée, les rendements des cultures étaient inférieurs de 11 % à ceux de l'AC. Lorsque le travail réduit du sol était combiné au retour des résidus de culture, la pénalité de rendement de l'AC était réduite à environ 5 pour cent, et lorsque toutes les composantes étaient appliquées, la différence était réduite à pratiquement rien (Pittelkow et al. 2015).L'AC fonctionne bien dans de nombreuses exploitations mécanisées à grande échelle, mais elle est généralement difficile à mettre en oeuvre dans les petites exploitations qui n'ont pas un retour suffisant des résidus de culture, n'utilisent pas d'herbicides et utilisent souvent des sillons liés. Néanmoins, il existe des systèmes d'AC réussis pratiqués dans de petites exploitations d'Amérique centrale et dans le sud de la Zambie.Il est essentiel de construire la résilience des systèmes de production agricole aux chocs et aux facteurs de stress pour que l'Afrique puisse atteindre durablement la sécurité alimentaire et nutritionnelle ainsi que la croissance et la transformation économiques. L'expansion des terres cultivées dans les forêts naturelles anciennes et les habitats riches en biodiversité, qui a été le principal facteur de croissance de la productivité agricole sur le continent, est intenable. À l'avenir, des efforts concertés sont nécessaires pour intensifier durablement la production et augmenter les rendements sur les terres agricoles existantes afin de répondre à la demande alimentaire croissante et aux exigences de durabilité environnementale. La variabilité de la réponse des cultures aux engrais, due à la dégradation des sols et à la variabilité du climat, accroît la vulnérabilité des petits exploitants. La croissance rapide de la population, la hausse des revenus moyens et les changements démographiques ont eu une incidence sur l'évolution des coûts relatifs de la terre, de la main-d'oeuvre, des intrants monétaires et de la demande alimentaire. Increased carbon sequestration under CA is considered one of the main pillars of CSA. Due to considerable variation in carbon sequestration in the top 40 cm as a result of differences in texture, mineralogy, initial soil organic carbon content, amount of crop residues added, and the crop rotation schemes, the data, does not provide a clear trend (Palm et al. 2014). Data on nitrous and methane emissions do not show a clear trend either. Therefore, the carbon sequestration function of CA cannot be taken for granted. Soil organic carbon (SOC) increases in the top 10 cm of the soil after 5 to 10 years of continuous zero tillage, particularly if it is accompanied by crop residue return. The increase in SOC under CA results in higher biological activity, including that of macrofauna such as earthworms and termites and improved nutrient cycling. Plow pans are eventually eliminated by root and macrofauna activity. However, heavy no-till planters sometimes cause soil compaction. Occasional deep tillage is often needed to eliminate compacted layers.   ","tokenCount":"4574"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"25e1a75d098e7e56807964654a89e9d2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://data.iita.org/dataset/6c6fa323-673c-4369-94a5-739229b5a3b2/resource/e6852a76-939c-48f8-831f-a2275d1426da/download/iita-cowpea-sop05-trial-management_validated.pdf","id":"2019803343"},"keywords":["Crop","Cowpea Function","Trial management SOP # 05 IITA-CP-SOP05 Revision #1 IITA-CP-SOP05-01 Crop","Cowpea Function","Trial management SOP # 05 IITA-CP-SOP05 Revision #1 IITA-CP-SOP05-01 Crop","Cowpea Function","Trial management SOP # 05 IITA-CP-SOP05 Revision #1 IITA-CP-SOP05-01"],"sieverID":"5249cc65-0deb-4f11-9b53-545a46c992c4","pagecount":"7","content":"Breeder (Ousmane Boukar) Approval Date 10/05/2022 filling, thinning, weeding, fertilizer placement, and pest control. This SOP describes key considerations for managing cowpea trials.After establishing the trials, they need to be managed to ensure the required data quality. The management of trials includes a series of agronomic activities ranging from gapThe SOP covers all the agronomic management for cowpea trials, including gap filling, thinning, weeding, fertilizer placement, and pest control.Trial management in this SOP is defined as systematic planning, organization, and execution of agronomic management practices to ensure the plant breeding experiments generate valid and reliable data. This process is critical for ensuring the reliability and validity of experimental results. Agronomic practice refers to a set of techniques and principles applied in the cultivation and management of crops to enhance their growth, yield, and quality while ensuring sustainability and environmental protection. These practices encompass various aspects of crop production, from soil preparation and planting to pest control and harvesting. Gap filling is the practice of re-planting to fill the gaps created in plots due to poor germination of some cowpea lines. Thinning in plant breeding experiments is the practice of removing some plants from a population to reduce plant density. Thinning in cowpea experiments is used to manage population size and maintain experimental design integrity. It helps in focusing on specific traits by selecting plants that exhibit desired characteristics.Weeding is the process of removing unwanted plants, typically weeds, that compete with the desired crop plants for resources such as nutrients, water, light, and space.Cowpea scientists, Research supervisors, and field technicians must use the Trial management SOP to be able to manage all the cowpea trials effectively. No alteration should be made to the procedures unless approved exceptionally by the program leaders.The individuals responsible for each section of the SOP are listed below. Entomologist: Responsible for advising on the kind of management required for each established cowpea trial. He is also responsible for identifying appropriate pesticides for cowpea trials, including advice on recommended dosages.Research supervisors: Responsible for assigning trial management tasks, following up, and reporting any issues related to field trial management. Field technicians: Responsible for implementing the activities related to managing the trials, including identifying the local resources (causal labours, discussing costs, etc) need to implement the activities.• Gap filling is necessary in case there is poor germination. Gap filling must be done early enough, at most six days after initial planting.Caution should be undertaken to use the exact variety for each plot to be replanted.Seeds should be treated (using for example, benomyl (50%) or Carbendazine, Captan, or Thiram at the rate of 3 g/kg (1 sachet) of seeds, or with Apron Plus at the rate of 10 g/4-5 kg of seeds (1 sachet), or Apron Star 42 WS at the rate of 10 g/8 kg of seeds/1 sachet) and not more than 2 seeds per hill should be re-plantedStep2: Thining • Thinning should be done 10-15 days after planting.For mechanized planted trials, thinning may be done to reduce plant population to around 40 plants per row.For manually planted trials, thin the plants to 2 seedlings per hill.Always remove weaker plants when thinning. Plots should be kept free of weeds, and as such, plots should be monitored regularly from the time of planting till harvest to ascertain the right time to weed. Weeds can significantly affect the yield data and quality of seeds produced. Here are issues to consider for effective weed management:Manual weeding • During weeding, the task should be accomplished on a replication-replication basis, following the experimental design used. That is, the smallest unit of operation is a complete replication.If you have sufficient labour, then you should weed the entire trial in a single day NOT just part of it as this will introduce external variations within the plots.Perform the first weeding at 1-2 weeks after planting and second one at 5-6 weeks after planting. BUT note that weeding time must be determined based on weed pressure in the field.Avoid weeding right after it has rained as this will allow the weeds to regrow immediately.A good practice is to weed and pack the weeds out of the plot to reduce chances of the transplanting the weeds when the soil is too wet.• Pre-emergence herbicides can be sprayed in plots with known high weed history immediately after planting.A mixture of paraquat (against grass and broad leaf weeds) and pendimethalin (for weed seeds germination) is recommended.With the identification of post-emergence herbicides, we need to advocate the use of these herbicides given that the manual weeding are not always effective in controlling the weeds mainly when it is raining frequently. ","tokenCount":"768"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1a0179c77dc463704d18c51c707c19b9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d8f34dd7-aa67-4250-8dcf-788159637975/retrieve","id":"2044873431"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"56aeae69-fe9a-4e45-8c6b-968f3c7899e2","pagecount":"26","content":"Rurale ACP-UE-EU pour le développement agricole et rural des paysACP nouveaux acteurs, nouveaux médias et thèmes prioritaires de du du CTA Paris,Juin L'information pour le développement agricole et rural des pays ACP :nouveaux acteurs, nouveaux médias et thèmes prioritaires Rapport de synthèsedu séminairedu CTA Juin 2000 Centre technique de coopération agricole et rurale Le Centre technique de coopération agricole et rurale ACP-UE (CTA) a été fondé en 1983dans le cadre de la Conventionde Lomé entre les Etats du groupe ACP (Afrique, Pacifique)et les Etats membres de européenne. Le CTA a pour mission de créer et de procurer des services favorisant l'accès des pays ACP àl'informationpour le développementagricoleet rural, et de renforcer les capacités de ces pays produire, acquérir, échanger et exploiter l'information dans ce domaine. Les programmes du CTA sont articulés autour de trois axes principaux: renforcer les centres d'information des pays ACP, encourager les échanges entre les partenaires du Centre, et des informationssur demande.Une mondialisation économique qui a modifié les relations entre les échelles internationales, nationales et locales ainsi que les enjeux de production et de commercialisation, d'accès aux marchés, aux capitaux et à l'information.Le développement de nouvelles technologies, notamment dans le secteur de 1'information et des biotechnologies.Une libéralisation économique qui a provoqué une forte diminution de emprise de sur la gestion du développement rural. Les logiques de type planificatrices laissent progressivement place à un pilotage du développementpar le marché. Le rôle du secteur privé s'en trouve considérablement renforcé.Une démocratisation politique qui s'est traduite par la possible participation des différents acteurs de la société civile au débat sur les orientations en matière de développement rural.Ces mutations correspondent à une transformation importante de l'environnement des acteurs du développement rural des pays africains.La libéralisation du commerce international promue par l'organisation Mondiale du Commerce (OMC) affecte différemment chaque pays, et plus encore les différentes communautés l'intérieur des pays. En particulier, les petits producteurs, notamment dans l'agriculture de subsistance, courent un risque réel d'exclusion, de marginalisation et de paupérisation.La réduction des barrières commerciales, des droits de douane, des subventions à l'agriculture nationale a été très bénéfique pour les pays dont les filières de production agricole et agroalimentaire déjà bien développées. En revanche, de nombreux pays en développement, notamment les pays ACP dont l'économie dépend en grande partie de l'agriculture, sont mis en difficulté par la libéralisation croissante des marchés internationaux des produits agricoles.Les produits importés bon marché envahissent les marchés nationaux,au détrimentde la production nationale, moins performante. Parallèlement, la croissance attendue des exportations des produits des pays ACP n'a pas eu lieu. Ceci, en partie à cause de la difficulté des producteurs et des entrepreneurs se conformer aux normes de qualité requises par le marché mondial. Sans accès aux technologies, et surtout à l'information sur les opportunités technologiques et commerciales, les ACP risquent de se faire de plus en plus distancer.Les situations nationales et régionales sont très diversifiées. Mais pour la plupart des Etats ACP, se posent deux questions clés : celle des types de systèmes de production qui pourraient garantir la croissance de la productivité sans laminer les petits producteurs, et celle des politiques agricoles qui faciliteraient une entrée progressive, à de bonnes conditions, de la production des ACP sur le marché mondial.Face aux adaptations rapides qu'exige la mondialisation, les politiques de développement rural des ACP ne semblent aujourd'hui ni assez efficaces, ni suffisamment coordonnées. La régulation par les marchés conduit à une surconcurrence et à une chute des cours de la plupart des produits tropicaux. La régulation de l'offre de façon à réduire la surproduction et à maintenir les prix de vente à pourrait être une des réponses. Mais des stratégies de ce type passent par des politiques nationales et surtout de coopération entre pays.La plupart des problèmes ne peuvent être résolus par chaque pays individuellement. Les pays ACP ont besoin de s'associer pour accroître leur influence lors des négociations sur le commerce international. Identifier de nouveaux créneaux de production commercialement plus favorables, adopter des normes sanitaires et des normes de qualité basées sur les standards internationaux, moderniser les systèmes et les techniques de production, renforcer les stratégies commerciales :ces orientations ne se mettent pas en oeuvre en quelques mois, et surtout pas sans accompagnement.Nombre de producteurs agricoles ne peuvent actuellement pas adapter leur offre, parce qu'ils sont laissés seuls pour trouver les bonnes réponses, et disposent de trop peu de conseils, d'informations, d'orientation et de protection politique.Face aux bouleversements introduits par la mondialisation et la libéralisation, les décideurs des pays ACP ont rencontré des difficultés à réorienter correctement les stratégies de développement. Les politiques agricoles se sont bien souvent centrées uniquement sur 1'améliorationde la compétitivité àl'exportation.Pendant plusieurs années, produire pour produire et pour exporter a souvent tenu lieu de politique agricole. La tendance à l'extension des exploitations agricoles au nom de l'efficacité a marginalisé de nombreux groupes ruraux, aggravant ainsi l'exode rural et fragilisant l'identité culturelle des communautés rurales.Dans le même temps, les indispensables réformes institutionnelles se sont mises en place tardivement, comme la modification des relations entre le secteur public et le secteur privé, la promotion du dialogue social entre les acteurs ou l'organisation de services d'appui stratégique aux décideurs et aux producteurs. Ceci a limité les bénéfices que les pays auraient pu tirer des grands accords internationaux ou régionaux de libéralisation du commerce.Les Ministères de l'Agriculture n'ont souvent engagé de réorganisation que lorsqu'ils y ont été forcés. En attendant, les changements se poursuivent, les acteurs émergents affirment leur territoire et, dans certains cas, leur base politique.Le processus de démocratisation initié depuis une décennie apporte l'espoir que l'étau se desserre autour des libertés et que la société civile puisse participer à la définition des orientationsdu développement rural. Pour que la participation des ruraux soit effective, le processus doit s'accompagner d'une décentralisation du pouvoir Bien souvent sous la pression extérieure, les Etats ACP ont commencé à se désengager des rôles qu'ils jouaient jusque là d'agents principaux des économies nationales. S'en est suivi le démantèlement d'une grande partie des services d'encadrement du développement rural. Mais les ruraux et leurs organisations professionnelles sont souvent peu préparés à ces nouvelles règles du jeu.Pour assurer leurs nouvelles responsabilités, les nouveaux acteurs ont besoin de moyens, de compétences et d'informations. Or les délégations de responsabilités se sont souvent faites de façon rapide, sans transfert de moyens financiers, sans formation et sans la mise à disposition de l'information nécessaire.Face aux insuffisances des Etats, les organisations non gouvernementales ont de plus en plus occupé le champ des réflexions stratégiques au point de devenir les sources principales des idéologies du développement qui circulent dans le monde rural et en structurent l'action, malgré lui.De fait, la pensée et les stratégies de développement paraissent très en retard par rapport aux dynamiques de changement dans les zones rurales. Ce décalage souligne la nécessité de consacrer davantage d'efforts à redéfinir des stratégies de développement adaptées, en des spécificités des différentes zones des pays Aujourd'hui, les décideurs des ACP semblent hésiter quant aux orientations et aux contenus à donner aux stratégies de développement rural. Les analyses des spécialistes du développement paraissent déphasées, et n'intègrent pas suffisamment les changements actuels et futurs.Les pays ACP ont besoin de concevoir et mettre en oeuvre de nouvelles politiques agricoles qui répondent aux grands enjeux actuels : la répartition équilibrée du foncier, les besoins d'emplois et de croissance des ressources, la maîtrise des flux de capitaux, l'augmentation des revenus des populations pauvres, l'amélioration de la gestion des compétences dans les institutions publiques et enfin de meilleures prévisions et réactions aux catastrophes naturelles.Les situations sont très variables selon les régions et les pays, comme au sein d'un pays. Elles sont aussi mobiles et dynamiques : les acteurs appartiennent à différents groupes, changent de rôle et occupent souvent plusieurs fonctions à la fois (production, consommation, prise de décision, etc.). L'augmentation du nombre et de la variété des acteurs se reflète dans le nombre d'organisations de producteurs et dans le rôle croissant qu'elles jouent au sein du secteur en matière de recherche, de vulgarisation, de production et de marketing.Le désengagement de de la gestion directe du développement rural a conduit les associations professionnelles de producteurs à assurer ::améliorationet diversificationde la production ;appui au développement d'activités de transformation organisation de produits et services collectifs.;crédit aux agriculteurs ;foncier ;investissements publics en milieu rural.Quant aux collectivités territoriales, elles commencent à assurer la définition concertée de plans de développement et la supervision de leur mise en oeuvre, ainsi que la gestion décentralisée des investissements et des services d'appui aux producteurs.Ces évolutions du rôle des acteurs du développement ont provoqué de nouveaux besoins d'information.La libéralisation économique implique que les différents acteurs aient une capacité rapide de réponse aux évolutions du marché, qu'ils opèrent les bons choix en termes d'investissements, de techniques de production et de commercialisation. Les producteurs restent les acteurs clés du développement rural et donc des activités du CTA.Le rôle des femmes rurales qui jouent pourtant une fonction essentielle dans la production et la commercialisation, est encore trop souvent négligé.A cette catégorie de producteurs s'ajoutent les entreprises agricoles qui commercialisent leur production ou en assurent une première transformation, les coopératives et les organisations paysannes qui regroupent les petits producteurs ruraux.Le groupe des producteurs familiaux se transforme. Des jeunes scolarisés retournentà la campagne ainsi que d'anciens fonctionnaires. En outre, on note le développement d'une capacité de ces producteurs à négocier, à se regrouper et à opérer dans plusieurs sphères à la fois. La structuration sous différentes formes d'organisation, du groupement villageois à l'organisation de type syndical, devient une nouvelle caractéristique du milieu paysan,. Des réseaux encore balbutiants entre producteurs se créent pour répondre à un besoin d'échanges et pour une plus grande efficacité.L'évolution du rôle des producteurs est la conséquence de ces caractéristiques et du nouvel environnement dans lequel ils travaillent. La préoccupation prioritaire n'est plus seulement la production mais la nécessité d'adapter l'offre à la demande et de conserver, commercialiser, transformer. Les associations de producteurs prennent de plus en plus de responsabilités : gestion des services d'appui, défense et préservation de leurs intérêts et de leur profession auprès des opérateurs économiques et des services publics.Les ruraux et leurs organisations sont de plus en plus conduits négocier des choix politiques.Les informationsrecherchées concernent la production, la transformationpremière de cette production et le marché (prix, quantité, qualité,normes exigées). Ces informations techniques sont liées aux systèmesde production et les priorités varient selon les zones.Les informations sur les ressources naturelles et leur gestion ne sont pas suffisamment disponibles.Il convientde travaillersur les capacités des agriculteurs à évaluer leurs propres besoins en information et à les traduire en stratégieset activités de communication.De nombreuses contraintes doivent encore être levées pour permettre de répondre de façon efficace à ces besoins : analphabétisme,faiblesse des réseaux de communication (infrastructuresdéficientes ou inexistantes), appui inadapté de la part des prestataires de service. Enfin, les producteurs et leurs organisations professionnelles sont encore trop rarement considérés comme des partenaires.Ce sont soit des démembrements de comme les services de vulgarisation ou les administrations,soit des ONG.Les premiers, du fait du désengagementde voient leurs activités diminuer et se transformerau profit des collectivitéslocales et surtout des ONG.Le rôle des ONG s'est considérablementrenforcé. Elles se voient ainsi confier la mise en oeuvre de nombreux projets. Mais un bon nombre manquent encore de compétences,d'indépendancepar rapport aux bailleurs et parfois même de déontologie professionnelle. De plus elles ne sont pas toujours préparées à la nécessaire prise en compte de la dimension politique de leurs actions.Les ONG ont un rôle d'appui qui inclut des domaines très variés : technique, économique, commercial, institutionnel, social.. . Elles influencent fortement la structurationéconomique, sociale et culturelle du monde rural, en se substituantd'une certaine manière aux services publics, souvent déficients.Les innovations (nouvelles techniques de transformation, nouveaux produits) restent encore très faibles par rapport aux besoins et au potentiel. Enfin, certains ont parfois une vision stratégique à court terme et comprennent encore mal l'intérêt d'adopter une politique de qualité.Leur rôle évolue dans la mesure où les producteurs de base ou leurs associations commencent à être en mesure de négocier avec le secteur des entreprises de transformation ou avec les commerçants. La libéralisation économique les conduit à mieux prendre en compte les logiques de marché, les notions de qualité et de marketing. Une meilleure organisation des filières de production et un développement des exportations implique d'améliorer les relations entre producteurs, transformateurs, commerçants et clients.Les acteurs du secteur privé ont besoin mieux informés sur les innovations et améliorations techniques, ils ont aussi besoin d'informations qui les aident à mieux répondre aux demandes du marché. Enfin, ils gagneraient à mieux maîtriser les réglementations et les normes (sanitaires et autres), ainsi que les techniques de marketing. Enfin, la communication avec leurs partenaires, en aval et en amont de leurs activités, devrait être renforcée.Le secteur public est principalement représenté par les Ministères de l'Agriculture. Ils doivent contribuer la formulation des politiques de développement agricole, définir des orientations et un cadre favorable de travail pour les acteurs. Les Ministères de l'Agriculture et leurs démembrements doivent acquérir une bonne compréhension de leur rôle en matière d'information, ce qui suppose des structures institutionnelles appropriées et les compétences pour assurer une bonne gestion de l'information et des prises de décision efficace.Le secteur public a besoin d'informations qui facilitent de nouvelles politiques de développement et de dispositifs de suivi pour évaluer l'efficacité des mesures adoptées, prévenir et gérerà temps les difficultés.Les services publics ne sont plus les seuls décideurs. Le secteur privé, les ONGs et en général les prestataires de service participent aux décisions sur les orientations du développement rural. Le dernier venu parmi ces décideurs, qui est d'ailleurs appelé à prendre de plus en plus d'importance, est représenté par les associations de paysans et de producteurs, leurs fédérations et syndicats.Le rôle de chacune de ces catégories est important pour l'ensemble des décisions de politique ou d'organisation des systèmes agricoles nationaux. S'ils disposent d'une information cohérente et fiable, ils pourront participer effectivement aux choix de développement, aux échelles nationales et locales.Leurs besoins en information sont du même ordre que tous ceux qui participent à la décision. Ce sont en général des informations synthétiques et actualisées, des indicateurs simples et dynamiques sur les tendances d'évolution et sur l'impact des politiques. Ils manquent souvent d'informations leur permettant de bâtir des scénarios alternatifs.reste beaucoup de contraintes à lever, la principale est la compétence à définir des stratégies cohérentes et opérationnelles d'informations puis à les mettre en oeuvre de façon efficace : analyser les besoins, collecter l'information, évaluer la qualité de l'information, savoir la traduire en termes compréhensibles pour chaque type d'acteurs et enfin choisir les outils et médias pour la communiquer et l'échanger.Ce sont le théâtre, les griots, les sketches, les tambours, les visites d'échanges.Organismes de développement et d'appui, organisations paysannes. Les destinataires des messages sont les communautés rurales villageoises. Ces outils sont très proches des gens et culturellement adaptés au contexte.-ils utilisent des langages et des approches qui sont familiers aux destinataires et les coûts sont faibles. Ces outils sont bien adaptés aux informations sociales.Ces moyens sont en général d'un coût abordable. A condition d'avoir reçu une formation, les ONG ou les associations paysannes peuvent les maîtriser. Ils s'accordent aux habitudes ou de lecture des populations rurales et sont culturellement adaptés. Ils conviennent aux possibilités financières limitées des destinataires et utilisent des langages et des approches qui leur sont familières. Une utilisation innovante, plus libre de ces outils conventionnels renforce l'attrait des utilisateurs.Les outils traditionnels ont une portée et un champ d'action limité. Le message oral peut s'oublier. est excellent pour les activités de sensibilisation, mais il ne peut servir de support pour des informations très précises, comme les informations techniques par exemple.Les expériences nouvelles qui utilisent les médias conventionnels dépendent souvent de fonds extérieurs, et restent donc peu pérennes, malgré la disposition récente du public rural àpayer l'information.s'agit de la presse, des ouvrages, des affiches, des magazines.Les associations paysannes, les organismes de développement, les services de de se rendre compte qu'il existe des outils d'information fiables accessibles et actualisés, qui répondent leurs attentes.Le manque d'alphabétisation des populations rurales, la dégradation rapide du support papier, le coût élevé du transport et la faiblesse des réseaux de diffusion et de distribution.s'agit essentiellement des radios et revues rurales utilisées par les villageois. Ces médias se donnent comme rôle de contribuer au développement rural par biais de l'information. Ce ne sont pas des organismes commerciaux, et ils ont parfois du mal survivre. Néanmoins leur succès montre qu'ils répondent à un besoin et qu'ils ont comblé un vide. Les revues traitent de thèmes divers : questions techniques ou économiques mais aussi questions sociales, de promotion féminine, de démocratie.. .Ces médias ont besoin de disposer d'informations mieux ciblées et d'une meilleure connaissance des publics qu'ils veulent atteindre. En outre, leur personnel manque souvent de compétences et de formation.Les cadres juridiques et réglementaires ne sont pas toujours favorables aux initiatives de communication la base.La plupart des familles rurales disposent d'un poste de radio et, après avoir conquis les villes, la télévision se répand en zone rurale. L'information peut être répétée fréquemment. La radio peut être utilisée pour appuyer le travail des animateurs sur le terrain.La radio n'est pas capable de transmettre tous les types de messages. C'est un médium pour des récits, des reportages, des débats ou des informations factuelles courtes. des auditeurs est souvent peu concentrée. Les informations complexes ou les longs temps de parole ininterrompue conduisent souvent l'auditeur décrocher. La production d'émissions télévisées reste coûteuse. L'information n'est pas permanente.Les utilisateurs sont principalement des centres de recherche et d'enseignement urbains. Mais Intemet est utilisé par des centres agronomiques, des associations paysannes, des stations de radio locale et des journaux.Ils permettent l'accès àdes bases de données, l'information y circule très rapidement,en grande quantité, le coût des communications internationales est peu élevé ; enfin Intemet permet une communication quasi instantanée travers le monde entier. A condition de savoir bien chercher, le nombre d'informations disponibles sur Intemet est considérable.Les infrastructures nécessaires pour l'utilisation de ces moyens de communication sont d'un coût prohibitif pour la très grande majorité des acteurs du développement rural dans les pays Le manque de lignes téléphoniques et de tuyaux puissants limitent l'usage à quelques villes et ne permettent pas d'obtenir les vitesses de transmission acceptables. Intemet passe par l'usage de langues internationales. Son accès reste hors de portée pour la plupart des villages ruraux. Former les professionnels des médias, et notamment des radios locales, au traitement de l'information sur le développement rural. Renforcer la production des radios locales et les échanges de programmes entre elles (par réseau électronique notamment).Réaliser un guide méthodologique pratique (livre de recettes) sur la gestion efficace de l'information dans les pays Réaliser un guide sur les différents outils de communication disponibles, leurs avantages et inconvénients, leurs conditions d'utilisation, avec des conseils pratiques.Apporter un appui des structures et centres locaux de gestion de l'information.   ","tokenCount":"3118"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"0f7d1c3aba071d39bfe9df11096d7565","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/14da581d-cb18-4c46-862b-2cfa00698179/retrieve","id":"-1524717726"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"4f8b6a0f-b07b-46fb-a81e-13af590a6706","pagecount":"30","content":"Tanzania is endowed with abundant natural resources including land, water, forages and a large livestock herd. The country ranks third in terms of cattle population in Africa after Sudan and Ethiopia. Despite this large population, however, livestock's contribution to the national economy has not been significant.In 2012, based on the National Economy Survey (URT, 2012), the livestock sector contributed 3.3% to the country's GDP. The sector grew by 3.1% in 2012, compared to 3.5% in 2011, and grew by 2.4% in 2015 (URT 2015). This level of growth is much lower than the 9% growth rate that is projected in the National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (URT 2010) and is attributed to poor production performance attributes due to low growth and high mortality rates, low reproductive rates, and poor product quality. Modest improvement of these production coefficients coupled with value addition through processing could significantly increase output and income from the livestock industry.The objectives of this report are 1.To describe the management and use of animal genetic resources in Tanzania through an inventory of the country's animal genetic resources using national and international data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Domestic Animal Diversity Information System (DAD-IS), and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) Domestic Animal Genetic Resources Information System (DAGRIS) and by describing the characteristics of these resources and their level of use in the different production systems (grassland system, mixed rain-fed system, mixed irrigated system, and others) in the country.To identify the local policies for genetic resource management by analysing the strategies and intervention methods for conserving and selecting local breeds, on one hand, and for importing and using improved genes, on the other hand.Globally, industrial livestock operations are growing twice as fast as traditional mixed farming systems and six times as fast as traditional grazing systems (FAO 2006). To keep with this pace, and to meet the growing need, there is a strong move to depend on few specialized livestock species and breeds. This neglects the emphasis on improving the productivity of local breeds, and thus developing countries, including Tanzania, are not able to meet the food demands of the increasing human population using local breeds. This is because livestock productivity is too low to sustain the increasing human population (FAO 2015). This situation is further compounded by the fact that more than 20% of domesticated animal breeds in the world are at risk of extinction (Lokhit and Ilse 2005), and globally, the rate of losing animal genetic resources is an average of one breed per month (FAO 2006cited in FAO 2015). The loss is further aggravated due to disasters such as prolonged drought, emerging epidemics and sporadic diseases, which are associated with climate change (FAO 2007cited in FAO 2015). In Tanzania, some of the vulnerable indigenous breeds could disappear before anything is known about them.In this context, there is compelling need to determine the extent of differentiation among livestock breeds at phenotypic and molecular levels. In this study, the focus is on the phenotypic characterisation, parameter estimates, and documentation of the local policies and interventions. This lays the ground for setting up of conservation priorities for indigenous livestock breeds in Tanzania.3. The Livestock Sector Investment Toolkit (LSIPT) as a tool to characterize animal genetic resources in TanzaniaThe genetic potential of animals used by producers is an important component of herd productivity and its adaptation to the constraints of livestock production. Critical evaluation of local and exotic breeds in the country and improvement attempts and plans is crucial to achieve the intended result.This evaluation aimed to support the development of suitable genetic improvement strategies after assessing the animal genetic resource of the country; and evaluating different programs and policies planned and/or already practised. The Livestock Sector Investment Toolkit (LSIPT) was used to generate information required on the genetic animal resources. The animal genetics tool in LSIPT assisted in:• Inventorying and characterization of animal genetic resources in Tanzania The methods used included data collection to fill in the genetics tool as well as literature review to document the policies and interventions on management of livestock genetic resources.i.Inventory and characterization of the animal genetic resources in the Tanzania• Desk review of secondary data from web-based sources using DAGRIS, DAD-IS, and published documents on breeds, breed characterization and parameter estimates in Tanzania.• The Excel file (m4_sm2_a5_TOOL_genetic.xlsm) contained four sections and was filled as described below.• Characteristics of genetic resources: Provided an overview of animal genetic resources in the country.• Representativeness of breeds/genetic types: Allocated the numbers of the genetic types in the main livestock production systems described in M3-SM1-A1, according to the country's livestock production typology.• Technical and economic parameters that characterised the production potential of the genetic resources. Where possible, the production potential of the genetic resources in the livestock production systems was characterized where these resources were used, according to the classification previously defined. Information was collected on productivity by number (fertility, prolificacy, mortality), the productivity by weight (average weight of the different categories of animals), or by yield (milk) and the animals' commercial value.• An inventory of programs i.e. conservation and cross-breeding that were planned and being implementation was provided.ii. Desk review to find out about the local policies for genetic resource management.• Described the regulations adopted by animal genetic resources stakeholders.• Drew up an inventory of the collective structures set up for managing breeding animals (conservation structures, breeding schemes, crossing schemes, and artificial insemination centres), which facilitate producers' access to quality genitors.• Described the context of the health regulations governing the circulation of breeding animals or genetic material (semen, embryos).It is estimated that 90-98% of Tanzania's livestock are indigenous types that have low genetic potential, and hence, low productivity indices (URT 2012; URT 2013). Where there is potential for increased productivity, poor management systems prevent livestock keepers from achieving their goal of improving their livelihoods.Although the Tanzania indigenous livestock are of low genetic potential, they merit well in terms of resistance to diseases. Resilience to diseases, community preferences and high twining rates in small ruminants, are the characteristics considered in animal genetic resources (AnGR) programs that focus on breeding and conservation.The important species and their respective breeds as per the characterization tool of the LSIPT are cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and poultry, mainly chicken (see Annex 1). The mapping of these breeds/breed types, and level of use in different livestock production system typology is summarized in subsequent sections.The total population of nine breeds of cattle in the country such as Tanzania Shorthorn Zebu, Sanga (Ankole and Fipa), Mpwapwa, Boran, Ayrshire, Friesian, Jersey, Sahiwal and their crosses is approximately 26 million animals. These breeds are well maintained and their numbers are increasing, apart from the Mpwapwa breed, which is endangered.The main livestock products are meat, milk, drought, hides and blood. Also indigenous cattle breeds are used in traditional festivals. All cattle breeds, except the Boran and Sahiwal, are found almost in all production typologies: lowland grazing (LG), mixed production (MR-Coastal and Lake) and highland (MI) zones. The pure Boran is found in the LG, while the pure Mpwapwa breed is found in the LG and MI. To a large extent, the Tanzania Shorthorn Zebu is found in every typology; while the exotics breeds are mainly found in MR and MI. At present, conservation and selection programs on local breeds involve Tanzania Shorthorn Zebu, Mpwapwa, Sanga and Boran (see Annex 2).Parameter estimates show that local and exotic breeds have annual parturition/calving rates from 0.61-0.67, respectively. Generally, the annual mortality rates are higher in local breeds than in exotics-ranging from 2-20% for local breeds and 2-10% in exotic breeds. Levels of management affects breed mortality. For adult local breeds of cattle, live weights range between 260-380kg, compared to 350-400kg for adult exotic cattle breeds. Dressing percentage ranged between 51-53%. Prices for adult live animals is higher for exotic breeds (TZS 1,500,000-3,000,000) compared to TSZ 500,000-1,000,000 for adult local breeds. It is indicated that milk production for most of the exotics dairy cattle in Tanzania ranges from 1550-2,200 litres per lactation period (305 days), with an average of 1990 litres of milk per lactation, while the local breeds' milk production is between 1200-2700 litres that gives an average of 517 litres per lactation (250 days). Thus, for a lactation period of 305 days, indigenous cattle breeds could produce 630 litres per lactation.The Parameter estimates show that local and exotic breeds have a near similar parturition/lambing rate that ranges from 1.5-1.6. Local breeds have slightly higher prolificacy rates (1.2) than exotic breeds (BHP sheep) which have a rate of 1.1. Generally, the mortality rate is slightly higher in local breeds than exotics; it ranges from 2-7% for local breeds and 2-6% in exotic breeds. This might be due to breed differences as all are kept in the same environment under similar management practices. The exotic breeds are heavier than local breeds with estimates showing body weight of 47-50kg for adult exotics, and 38-40kg for local adults. Dressing percentage is higher in exotic breed (50%) compared to the local breeds which is between 45-47%. The average price for adult exotic breed ranges from TZS 80,000-90,000, while that of local breeds ranges from TZS 60,000-80,000.The total goat population in the country is approximately 17 million comprising seven breeds (Small East African-SEA, Malya, Anglo-Nubian, Boer, Norwegian, Saanen, Toggenburg and their crosses) which are found in all typologies (LG, MR an MI) in different proportions. According to Livestock Sector Analysis (LSA) done by TLMP ( 2016), the main products from goats are meat, milk, skins and blood. The use of indigenous goat breeds extends to traditional festivals and rituals. Indigenous breeds are highly adapted to the environment and are resistant to drought and diseases while exotics are prone to drought and diseases but have higher productivity. Current goat conservation and selection programs focus on the SEA goats (Pare white, Gogo white and Sonjo), Malya and Boer breeds (see Annex 2).Parameter estimates show that local and exotic breeds have similar parturition/kidding rates which is an average of 1.5. In local breeds, SEA has shown low prolificacy rates (1.3) than the Malya and exotic breeds which have an average of 1.5 prolificacy rate. The mortality rates are slightly higher in local breeds than in exotics. It ranges from 2-20% for local breeds and 2-12% in exotic breeds. This might be due to better management of exotic breeds compared to local breeds. The exotic breeds are heavier than local breeds with weight ranging from 49-70kg for adult exotics compared to 38-65kg for local adults. Dressing percentage is similar for Malya goats and exotic breeds with an average of 50%. SEA goats have the lowest dressing percentage of 48% while Boer goats have the highest (53%). Prices for live animals are similar for Malya goats and exotic breeds with an average of TZS 150,000 per adult whereas for local (SEA) the price is TZS 80,000. Local breeds/types are used mainly for meat production while local Malya goats are used as a dual purpose breed for milk and meat. They produce 90 litres of milk per lactation (180 days) compared to an average of 500 litres per average lactation of 187 days in exotic breeds.The total pig population in Tanzania is 1.9 million, and comprises six breeds-Landrace, Hampshire, local Tanzanian, Saddleback, Large White-and cross-breeds. Their distribution along the typology (LG, MR an MI) is not known. The main pig products are meat and skin. Local breeds are highly adapted to the environment and are resistant to drought and diseases while exotics are less well adapted to the environment, are prone to drought and diseases but have higher productivity. No pig conservation and selection programs are currently ongoing.Parameter estimates show that local and exotic pig breeds have a similar parturition rate of 2. Local breeds have low prolificacy rates (estimated to be 6), compared to exotic breeds that have prolificacy rates of 8-10. Generally, the mortality rates are slightly higher in local breeds (2-30%) than that in exotics (2-15%). This might be due to breed differences and better management of exotic breeds compared to local breeds. The exotic breeds are heavier than local breeds; with ranges from 72-90kg, and 55-60kg of adult live weights for local and exotic breeds, respectively. Dressing percentage (70%) is higher in exotic breeds compared to local breeds (60%). The prices for a local adult live pig is far lower than that of exotic breeds, with price of TZS 60,000 and TZS 150,000 respectively.The two main poultry production systems in Tanzania are traditional, that include indigenous chicken breed-types such as Kuchi, Bukin, Kawaida, Kinyavu, Kishingo, N'zenzegere, Singamagazi and Ching'wekwe, and commercial systems which include exotic breeds such as Black Astrorp, commercial broiler hybrids, commercial layer hybrids, White Leghorn, Light Sussex, Rhode Island Red and theirs crosses with indigenous breeds. The total population of poultry in the country is 76.5 million. Their distribution along the different typologies (LG, MR and MI) is not known. The main products are meat and eggs and the local breeds are also used in traditional/cultural festivals and rituals. Local breeds are highly adapted to the local environment and are resistant to diseases; while exotics are less well adapted to local conditions but are more productive. There is an ongoing conservation and selection programs for the Kuchi, Horas, Kishingo, Kinyavu and Kawaida local chicken breeds (see Annex 2).The mortality rates are higher in local chicken breeds (8-40%) compared to the exotics (2-5%), which could be attributed to breed differences and level of management. The live weight of adult chicken ranges between 1.2-1.5kg, and 1.2-1.6kg for the local and exotic breeds, respectively. Dressing percentage is slightly higher (85.5%) in exotic breeds, compare to that of local breeds, which averages 80%. Price differences were noted between the adult local and exotic chicken with values ranging from TZS 4,000-10,000 for local chickens and TZS 6,000-8,000 for exotics.The Agriculture and Livestock Policy of 1997 guides the Tanzania agricultural sector. The policy addresses agriculture and its crop and livestock sub-sectors well, but industry specific guidelines are not clearly spelled out, and issues of conservation of indigenous livestock resources are not adequately addressed. For example, a national workshop of livestock stakeholders in Arusha, in 2001, found that the statements in the policy on provision of improved livestock breeds were too general and did not give clear guidelines to enable stakeholder participation in the production of these breeds.Nevertheless, the policy document adequately covers other livestock issues, such as improved livestock management including the provision of adequate land for grazing, good feeding including provision of adequate water, control of animal diseases and parasites, provision of veterinary services and drugs, provision of infrastructure, slaughterhouses and preservation of livestock products. Guidelines on market information generation and dissemination, provision of other services such as research, extension and education and soliciting the participation of the private sector in the industry are also well spelled out.The policy contributed to the establishment of the Ministry of Livestock Development in 2006. The ministry then came up with its own National Livestock Policy (NLP) in the same year. However, the NLP does not give the required emphasis to animal breeding issues. Only one section (3.9) outlines that 'good quality breeds are an important input for increased livestock productivity. However, most of the national herd is characterized by animals of low genetic potential resulting in low production and productivity. Nevertheless, some animals possess desirable characteristics such as good mothering ability, high prolificacy and growth rates. Genetic improvement of these animals can result in increased productivity. The development of Mpwapwa breed and blended goat are examples of these efforts'.Furthermore, according to this policy (URT 2006), animal breeding is constrained by inadequate expertise and infrastructure, insufficient improved genetic resources, and lack of livestock breeders' associations and societies. Thus, the policy envisions, the objective is to enhance genetic improvement of livestock to increase production and productivity. It ends with the following policy statements:i. The government will promote livestock breeds inventory, characterization, evaluation and genetic potential improvement.ii. The government will strengthen technical support services in animal breeding.iii. Efforts will be undertaken to promote breeders' associations, clubs and breed societies for sustainable conservation and breeding.The 2006 NLP lacks well-defined principles for breed selection, cross-breeding and introduction of pure-breeds in accordance with agro-ecological conditions and prevalent management levels in the country. The general strategy in animal breeding should focus on optimization of genetic potential according to production factors, the needs of the market, the ecological environment and future development (Wollny 1995). In low input-output systems, the sustainability of animal breeding efforts to improve animal productivity becomes a dominant factor (Wollny 1995), hence selection should be practised within the adaptive environment and under sustainable management conditions (Valle-Zárate 1996). There is therefore a strong need to develop a clear animal breeding policy which will put more emphasis on selection and breeding of suitable genotypes for the different production systems.In 2008, FAO organized a workshop on 'Formulation of policies and strategies for the development of animal genetic resources in Tanzania', which emphasized the importance of an animal breeding policy in Tanzania. Such a policy would guide improvement of indigenous livestock resources to meet the economic and nutritional need of the present generation and assist partly in conserving livestock for future generations.Another policy relevant development was the output of a National Report for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20, published by the Vice President's Office, Division of Environment, United Republic of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, 2012, that gave recommendations on how to develop the livestock sector. The conference also helped set the national vision for this sector in line with Tanzania's Vision 2025 which aims to have, 'by 2025, a livestock sector which to a large extent shall use well-bred and productive livestock that are commercially used in a sustainable way to contribute to the improved nutrition and well-being of all the livestock keepers and all Tanzanians in general without causing harm to the environment'.Despite the few efforts noted above, to date, there is a lack of a policy document that can guide the interventions and address challenges of animal genetic improvement. There is need for a road map that will guide the establishment of a legal framework for regulation, coordination, and improvement of Animal Genetic Resources (AnGR) in Tanzania.In this context, an animal breeding policy is essential. However, with a national livestock policy already in place, the proposed Animal Breeding Act can facilitate the establishment of institutions that will coordinate AnGR activities in the country and enable implementation of the livestock sector development goals of the country's Vision 2025.The World Bank, FAO, ILRI and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) have predicted that by the year 2020 increases in livestock products in the developing countries could be more spectacular than those achieved for cereals from the 'Green Revolution'. Higher income are associated with increased protein intake of people, particularly in urban areas, and the expected higher incomes in these countries by 2020 will result in higher demand for animal products (SoW-AnGR 2004).Currently, Tanzania is putting in place improved markets and communication infrastructure (roads, telephones and air transport) to facilitate the movement and sale of agricultural produce including livestock and livestock products. There is need, therefore, to urgently put in place a policy and strategies to ensure farmers have access to and keep more productive livestock species to increase the supply of livestock products for internal and external markets. It is for this reason that breeding programs that produce, in large quantities, species of animals and poultry including animals and birds that are currently neglected; such as donkeys, turkeys, ducks, geese, guinea fowls, guinea pigs, rabbits, ostriches, and fish (especially Nile perch, trout and tilapia) is being recommended in this policy.Genetic improvement programs that use selected breeding animals can result in small but cumulative increases in efficiency of animal production. With adequate breeding strategies and plans, the small but cumulative responses to selection achieved in nuclei of males breeding herds or flocks are passed on to commercial herds or flocks. This potential for expression of small changes in traits such as milk yield, growth rate, eggs or meat output in thousands or millions of animals is what makes genetic improvement programs one of the most powerful and cheapest means of increasing efficiency of animal production. These efforts should be supported by the Animal Breeding Act.Similar to breeding programs in dairy cattle, interbreeding between the Tanganyika Shorthorn Zebu and exotic cattle or cross-breeding between larger bodied animals like the Boran with exotic breeds of cattle can provide animal that produce more beef to bridge the current deficit in meat demand. Findings from research in Tanzania by Said et al. (2003) showed the possibility of achieving market weights of 350-450kg and 450-800kg from male cross-breeds of Friesian and Boran at four years of age, respectively, when the indigenous dams are crossed with exotic beef breeds like Angus, Charolais and Chianina.The management of AnGR is facing several challenges that hinder progress including the following:i.Currently, only a few government research institutions and private farms provide improved breeding animals in the country. These institutions are unable to produce enough breeding animals to meet the demand for improved stock.ii.Absence of a national recording system for selection and breeding programsThe former National Livestock Registry, based in Mpwapwa, ceased coordinating livestock recording in the early 1980s due to resource constrains. The system was also too complicated for rural livestock keepers to participate and access the information and it was difficult to run because of a lack of computers that could store and handle large data sets. However, if a simpler recording system that is easily manageable is developed and used, it could become the basis for identifying and selecting breeding animals for future genetic improvement programs. Such a system should be linked with the work of the Directorate of Livestock Identification Registration and Traceability.iii.There have been a growing number of exotic breeds imported into the country in terms of live animals, semen and embryos with little information on the pedigree, performance and guarantee that the imported animals do not come from farms harbouring genetic defects and zoonotic disorders such as mad cow disease. Trade in breeding animals among local institutions is done without proper performance records that would protect the interests of sellers and the buyers.These and other challenges were observed in a 2013 workshop that assessed the status of livestock genetics in Tanzania (see Annex 3).Tackling these and other problems affecting the livestock industry requires collaborative efforts between livestock sector stakeholders and the public and private sectors. Policy, infrastructure and procedural issues can be prioritized as short-to medium-term investments of one to three years. On the other hand, the more significant technical challenges such as enhancing livestock productivity and its contribution to the economy in the long-term need more detailed analysis and strategies. These efforts will also require financing from government and other partners.Regardless of the strategies adopted for livestock improvement in the country, it is important to consider the genetic uniqueness of existing livestock breeds in country, particularly the indigenous breeds, their adaptive traits, the degree of endangerment, relative value for food/economic importance, their functional traits and their ecological, historical and cultural values.The formulation of the Tanzania Livestock Master Plan (LMP), which is based on the Livestock Sector Investment and Policy Toolkit (LSIPT) will be a big step forward in supporting efforts at gathering comprehensive information on the country's animal genetic resources. The LSIPT tool for characterization of AnGR will be essential in setting benchmarks for further animal genetic improvement in the country in response to, for example, findings from using the tool that indicate that breeds' management and environment differences are sources of variation in production systems.The LMP also needs to build on ongoing breeding initiatives on characterization of traits, utilization, risk of genetic erosion, productivity improvement, and conservation and farmers' livelihood improvement (see Annex 4). The government through the Tanzania Livestock Research Institute (TALIRI) is working with the Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH) to increase capacity building for research institutions in conducting livestock genetics research and training farmers and experts. These initiatives will all contribute to AnGR improvement in the country in coming years.Despite their lower productivity, indigenous livestock possess desirable traits such as heat tolerance, adaptability to low-quality tropical forages and resistance to certain diseases. In addition, cross-breeding of indigenous breeds with exotics imported into the country since the 1920s has not led to significant large-scale genetic improvements. However, the National Livestock Policy 2006 and an envisaged Animal Breeding Act will provide pillars to further animal genetic resources improvement in Tanzania. An efficient and well-managed livestock improvement program in the country will enhance market-oriented livestock productivity, livestock conservation, and environmentally-friendly livestock production systems in the country.Annex Conservation of animal genetic resources (AnGR) refers to all human activities including strategies, plans, policies and actions undertaken to ensure that the diversity of animal genetic resources is maintained to contribute to food and agricultural production and productivity, or to maintain other values of these resources (ecological, cultural) now and in the future. In short, conservation of AnGR refers the 'sustainable utilization of AnGR' that maintains the gene pool.There are two types of conservation of AnGR, which are in situ and ex situ.In situ conservationConservation of livestock through continued use by livestock keepers in the production system in which the livestock evolved or are now normally found and bred.Currently, there is no official or formal conservation program in the country. However, pastoral communities have managed to maintain this diversity through their rigidity to change their indigenous livestock for exotic ones. This has helped to come up with indigenous breed-types such as:Cattle: Tarime, Sukuma, Singida White (Mkalama), Mbulu, Maasai, Iringa Red. Some communities could not afford to conserve their animals because of extinction of some breed types such as Gogo, Pare and Chagga.Goats: Newala, Gogo White, Pare White, Maasai, Sonjo, Sukuma and Ujiji.Poultry: There are no 'indigenous' chicken in the country that have been specifically selected and bred by unique communities. Rather, local chickens are found in different areas of Tanzania and their names do not refer to any community like in other livestock species. In this context, Tanzania has local chicken breed types such as Kuchi, Kawaida, Kishingo, Kinyavu and Bukini. The naming of these breed-types depended on their morphometric characteristics.NB: Indigenous names refer to the communities like Maasai, Pare, Gogo while local refers to an area like Malya, Mpwapwa etc.There are two kinds of ex situ conservation-in vivo and in vitro.i.This is conservation through maintenance of live animal populations not kept under native management conditions (e.g. zoological parks and in some cases government or private farms) and/or outside of the area in which they evolved or are now normally found.ii.This is conservation external to the living animal in an artificial environment, under cryogenic conditions including, inter alia, the cryoconservation of embryos, semen, oocytes, somatic cells or tissues having the potential to reconstitute live animals (including animals for gene introgression and synthetic breeds) later. Involve farmers and encourage private sector participation in genetic improvement systems.• Targeting farmers with specific and accurate data and information and recording systems.• Addressing farmers' disaggregation and seeking their input and preferences in the design of genetic improvement systems to ensure sustainability.• Stimulating private sector investment in provision of inputs and services especially establishment of AI infrastructure and service delivery.• Encouraging private-led sector efforts.Maintain/develop appropriate genotypes and streamline breeding efforts for better impact.• Ensuring proper and goal-oriented breeding, multiplication, delivery and regulation of germplasm.• Having well-worked out breeding strategies to address uncoordinated unsustainable breeding efforts.• Developing agro-ecological/management-specific genotypes.• Improving productivity without losing indigenous genotypes.Establish reliable and sustainable germplasm delivery systems.• Developing and effectively operating infrastructure systems for sustainable germplasm delivery.• Improving AI service delivery including access to high-quality semen, and service providers.• Establishing reliable and cost-effective germplasm delivery system with wider coverage.Sustaining intervention and optimize productivity in each environment.• Establish a recording system that allows animal evaluation -what animal breed for what environment?• Optimizing productivity in each environment.• Identifying/defining a production system.• Ensuring adequate and sustainable funding efforts.• Establishing long-term intervention programs.Establish/strengthen institutional arrangements and policies for livestock genetic improvement.• Establishing strong institutional support for inputs and services i.e. capacity building, animal health, finance, etc.• Strengthening linkages/relationships between actors (researchers and farmers).• Establishing a forum to coordinate and harmonize breeding efforts.• Creating effective breeders' societies.• Establishing effective self-regulating genetic institutions.• Lobbying for a conducive policy environment.• Developing favourable breeding policy.• A clear breeding direction/plan and breeding policy objectives.• Proper implementation of existing policies and regulations.• Clear breeding goals and strategies.Annex 4: Ongoing animal breeding projects in TanzaniaOngoing animal breeding projects focus on characterization of traits, utilization, risk of genetic erosion, productivity improvement and conservation. They include:i.This five-year project is implemented in four agro-ecological zones -the Lake, Central, Southern highlands and Western zones. The Tanzania Livestock Research Institute (TALIRI) Mpwapwa is providing technical coordination and financial implementation while TALIRI Mabuki is the lead centre and the four other institutes, depending on their agro-ecological zone status, are implementing the project in close collaboration with TALIRI Mabuki. The centres are TALIRI Mpwapwa (Central), TALIRI Uyole (Southern highlands) and TALIRI Kigoma (Western).Its goal is to contribute to poverty reduction and improved food security in livestock keeping communities and the country at large by improving beef cattle productivity and beef products.Specific objectives include:i. Identification, characterization and conservation of indigenous species with beef production potential.ii. Formulating and disseminating cost-effective beef-based technological packages.iii. Improving and multiplying appropriate beef cattle breeds.iv. Enhancing public private partnership in beef research.v. Establishing, retooling and rehabilitating of beef research infrastructures in research institutes.vi. Enhance collaboration with relevant international, regional institutions and development partners.This is a five-year project coming being implemented in three agro-ecological zones namely: Southern highlands, Eastern and Central zones. TALIRI Uyole is the lead centre. Other TALIRI centres, Mpwapwa (Central) and TALIRI Tanga (Eastern) operate the project based on their geographical mandates.It aims to develop and disseminate technically viable technologies to the dairy industry that will contribute to income and food security by improving dairy productivity, income and livelihood of livestock farming communities in rural areas Specific objectives include:i. Strengthening dairy cattle breeding and production research and improving coordination and networking.ii. Developing and disseminating technological innovations for improving dairy cattle productivity and quality of dairy products.iii. Conducting socio-economic studies on the introduced dairy technologies.iv. Carrying out capacity building on human, physical and financial resources.This project is being implemented in the Central (Dodoma and Singida regions) and Southern highlands zones (Iringa, Mbeya, Ruvuma and Rukwa regions) and is under supervision of TALIRI. The centre is responsible for technical coordination, implementation, and monitoring, as well as financial and accounting management of the project.Its broad objective is to improve farmers' livelihoods through development and dissemination of technologies that will increase pig productivity, food security and reduce poverty.Specific objectives include:i. Developing pig production technological innovations (feeding, breeding and selection and management).ii. Disseminating pig production technological innovations.iii. Conducting socio-economic studies on introduced technologies related to pig production.iv. Building capacity of researchers, farmers and other pig sector stakeholders and improving access to financial resources and physical infrastructure as well as technical materials to institutions.The project is carried out both on-farm and on-station. The on-farm activities are in 15 regions, but the benefits and effects of implementations are expected to spill over to other areas of the country. These zones and regions (in parentheses) include Central (Dodoma and Singida), Eastern (Morogoro and Coast), Northern (Arusha, Manyara and Kilimanjaro), Southern (Mtwara and Lindi), Lake (Shinyanga, Mwanza, Mara and Kagera) and Western (Kigoma and Katavi). The on-station activities will concentrate in four TALIRI centres namely: TALIRI Kongwa and TALIRI Mpwapwa in central zone, TALIRI Naliendele in southern zone and West Kilimanjaro in the northern zone.It will contribute to poverty reduction and improved food security in livestock keeping communities of Tanzania by improving livelihoods of farmers through sustainable productivity of small ruminants.Specific objectives include:i. Developing environmentally-friendly breeding and feeding technologies for sheep and goat production and product processing.ii. Disseminating developed technologies on sheep and goats to small-, medium-and large-scale farmers.iii. Conducting socio-economic studies on small ruminant production and productivity.iv. Improving physical and intellectual capacity in sheep and goat research.The project covers the Central (Dodoma, Tabora and Singida regions), Lake (Mwanza and Shinyanga regions) and Southern zones (Lindi and Mtwara regions) which have the highest population of indigenous chickens in the country.Its goal is to contribute to poverty reduction and improved household food security while contributing to the national economy. The general objective of the project is to improve productivity of indigenous chickens and enhance income and nutrition of households that will lead to improved standards of living.Specific objectives include:i. Developing appropriate feeding, breeding and management technologies that will improve poultry productivity.ii. Disseminating feeding, breeding and management technologies to the end users for better utilization.iii. Conducting studies on adoption rate and impact of the introduced technologies on the farmers' livelihood.iv. Improving human resource capacity by providing tailor-made training to researchers, key stakeholders and equipping the institutes with scientific equipment and materials.ISBN: 92-9146-513-5The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) works to improve food security and reduce poverty in developing countries through research for better and more sustainable use of livestock. ILRI is a CGIAR research centre. It works through a network of regional and country offices and projects in East, South and Southeast Asia, Central, East, Southern and West Africa, and in Central America. ilri.org CGIAR is a global agricultural research partnership for a food-secure future. Its research is carried out by 15 research centres in collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations. cgiar.org","tokenCount":"5577"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"85dbdcacf7a8e7321431645bcab7015d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/711b605c-4a11-4a12-ac40-6fa99a42915f/retrieve","id":"-2038613774"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a3fd76e5-9766-4135-8079-b2292b5435e5","pagecount":"48","content":"Cali Come Mejor\" es un proyecto destinado a promover políticas locales y/o regionales que contribuyan eficazmente a reducir las desigualdades, a mejorar el bienestar alimentario de las poblaciones urbanas y rurales vulnerables, estrechando los vínculos entre éstas y los agricultores. Los conceptos esenciales usados movilizan el referencial de \"sistema alimentario sostenible\" y \"transición nutricional y alimentaria\" para caracterizar y analizar las condiciones y problemas encontrados en la población pobre de Cali (reporte 1). En une secunda parte movilizaron una revición de literatura científica sobre la alimentación, una encuesta participativa con los actores públicos y privados (reporte 3). Este reporte da cuenta de los análisis complementarios usando las bases de datos identificadas.Los resultados principales caracterizan dificultades mayores que encuentra la población vulnerable en el acceso a una alimentación suficiente y saludable. Un problema mayor se encuentra en los precios muy elevados de esos productos. El carácter elevado de esos precios se explica por la estructura oligopólica del sistema de distribución de alimentos que se concentra en las cadenas de supermercados. Otro problema reside en la falta de acceso a los mercados. Los elementos mayores de información y de conocimientos de este reporte han estructurado el programa y la organización del taller de restitución a los actores en la plataforma del 10 diciembre (reporte 5). Esta jornada permitió debatir y fortalecer una modelización de los sistemas de alimentación de la población vulnerable que se centra en los desafíos principales para las políticas públicas y en los objetivos de estudios complementarios necesarios (reporte 6)La identificación y el análisis de los problemas de alimentación de la población de Cali en relación con la guía metodológica tienen como objetivo movilizar el concepto de Sistema de alimentación sostenible. Este concepto se está construyendo en el seno de la comunidad científica. Está también en el centro de foros internacionales que organizan las relaciones entre el mundo de las políticas públicas de investigación y empresas para orientar las innovaciones institucionales, organizacionales y tecnológicas que permiten una transición del proceso de alimentación de las poblaciones hacia una \"alimentación que sea sostenible\". Las principales definiciones que se encuentran en la literatura científica son las siguientes:1979: \"la manera en que los hombres se organizan en el espacio y el tiempo para obtener y consumir su comida... Sistemas de alimentación son todas las actividades que contribuyen a la función de oferta en una sociedad dada \" (Malassis, 1979) 1997: \"todos los procesos involucrados en alimentar a una población e incluye la entrada y salida generados en cada paso. Opera dentro de un sistema alimentario y está influenciado por el contexto social, político, económico y ambiental \" (Goodman, 1997) 2015: \"pensamiento que se entiende, a menudo, como un enfoque que considera los sistemas de alimentos como todos los elementos del sistema alimentario que están interrelacionados y pueden ser afectados por incentivos que ajustan sus relaciones mutuas y los resultados finales de intercambio (nutrición) \"(Herforth Lidder y Gill, 2015).El uso de una definición está ligado a un contexto político, a las disciplinas o a la competencia de los investigadores involucrados. Hay dos comunidades de prácticas que usan este concepto (Touzard et al. 2013). Para la primera comunidad, el concepto constituye una forma concreta que representa la realidad. El objetivo es su descripción y analizar su eficacia de funcionamiento. Eso permite implementar políticas de estrategias que mejoren el sistema. Para la segunda comunidad, el concepto es un modelo de representación que conduce a identificar las condiciones que se deberían realizar para que el \"sistema\" se transforme en una forma concreta.El referencial analítico de \"sistema\" tiene como idea central que las sinergias, entre actividades, proyectos, actores aumentan la eficacidad del uso de los recursos alimenticios con el objetivo de lograr una \"alimentación sostenible\".De acuerdo con la utilización de este concepto en diferentes proyectos de investigaciones, proponemos movilizar un cuadro metodológico estructurado de la forma siguiente: Describir los componentes estructurantes del sistema  Contextualizar las fronteras territoriales  Analizar la organización  Comprender la dinámica de evolución a) Identificar el objetivo común que asegura la coordinación De manera general, el objetivo primero de \"un sistema alimentario\" es la seguridad alimentaria de las poblaciones en relación con: la disponibilidad, utilización, accesibilidad y regularidad de la alimentación (Touzard et Temple 2014). De manera específica un \"sistema alimentario sostenible\" debe responder a dos objetivos complementarios:  Reducir las desigualdades entre las poblaciones: clases de ingreso, rurales y urbanas, entre países, entre hombres, mujeres y niñas.  Mejorar el medio ambiente: reducir la intensidad de emisión de carbono, residuos, la contaminación en el agua, la disminución de la biodiversidad... En el proyecto \"Cali come Mejor\", la noción de sostenibilidad está mas enfocada a la dimensión social de la población vulnerable que al impacto sobre el medio ambiente. Esta previsto enfatizar mas la parte del medio ambiente en un fase futuro del proyecto … b) Contextualizar el sistema con un territorio: las fronteras La hipótesis de existencia de un sistema de alimentación sostenible es que las relaciones entre los actores dentro de este territorio son más fuertes que con el exterior de este territorio. Este territorio puede ser ubicado en \"una ciudad\", pero también puede ser \"regional\" y \"nacional\". Una vez que se han delimitado las fronteras territoriales del sistema, se analizan las relaciones entre el sistema y su entorno.c) Describir los componentes que estructuran el sistema: Variables estructurantes: actores, actividades  Variables de flujo y relación  Circuitos y cadenas de alimentación d) Analizar la organización de este sistema:Se estructura la organización de un sistema de alimentación por la existencia de relaciones de complementariedad o de integraciones entre tres subsistemas: El subsistema de consumo alimentario de los consumidores  El subsistema de abastecimiento y de producción de alimentos que se estructura en diferentes canales de distribución y cadenas  El subsistema de gobernanza política.El conjunto es que esas relaciones de complementariedad-integraciones entre los tres subsistemas permiten optimizar el uso de los recursos existentes o la generación de nuevos recursos para lograr el objetivo común. e) Comprender la dinámica Analizar la dinámica implica caracterizar (determinar) las siguientes variables:  Variables de gobernanza institucional a través de políticas públicas o demandas sociales: proyecto político urbano…  Variables cognitivas que son producidas por:o modelos de representación de la diversidad en la organización de la alimentación de las poblaciones o conocimientos sobre las causalidades entre la alimentación y la malnutrición  Variables macroeconómicas, transiciones democráticas, mercados internacionales  Variables de innovaciones traídas por los cambios tecnológicos y la ciencia El cuadro de investigación movilizado en el proyecto Cali come mejor no permite realizar un análisis completo de toda las etapas mencionadas. Por supuesto, en relación con:  el cuadro metodológico (Reporte 1),  las informaciones de la literatura científica identificada (Reporte 2)  las de conocimientos que salen de las encuestas (Reporte 3). Sintetizamos los resultados sobre el conocimiento del subsistema de abastecimiento y de producción de Cali para mejorar el conocimiento de los problemas mayores que se encuentran en el abastecimiento de las poblaciones vulnerables.2 El sistema de abastecimiento de Cali y sus disfuncionalidades La noción de sistema de abastecimiento alimentario se construye mediante el conjunto de referencias metodológicas en economía de cadenas (Temple et al. 2011, Naoum et al, 2014).Esta noción permite identificar y analizar el encadenamiento de los operadores económicos que realizan las etapas complementarias de producción, transporte, transformación y distribución de los productos alimentarios. Eso permite identificar las complementariedades y las sinergias entre dichas etapas, de modo que se puedan reducir los costos de las transacciones y del comercio entre la \"producción\" y el \"consumo\". Así pues, se pueden identificar los vínculos que permiten relacionar la demanda alimentaria de la ciudad con la oferta.Este método sirve para definir acciones susceptibles de reforzar aquellas complementariedades favorables a la sostenibilidad del sistema, adecuar la oferta alimentaria y el precio de los alimentos.El diagnóstico del sistema de abastecimiento, como el análisis del sistema alimentario está basado en el encadenamiento lógico de dos componentes.Una primera parte \"descriptiva\" de elementos que estructuran las cadenas de abastecimiento: a) Las zonas de producción b) Los actores involucrados en el proceso de abastecimiento de la población c) Los flujos de productos entre actores Una segunda parte focalizada sobre una secuencia analítica del funcionamiento del sistema para identificar las debilidades en la organización de la cadena de alimentación que abastece a la población vulnerable de Cali: consumidores, pequeños o medianos productores de alimentos en las zonas rurales.Para realizar esos dos análisis utilizamos en este informe informaciones, conocimientos de la literatura científica y de los medios de comunicación identificados en internet e informaciones de las memorias de encuestas realizadas (cf. Reporte 1).Zonas de producción e importación agrícola en el Valle del Cauca La caña de azúcar y el café son los cultivos principales cultivados en el Valle del Cauca, al ocupar 46 % y el 14 % del total del área cosechado del departamento (AGRONET 2015b). En tercer lugar, en cuanto a la participación dentro del área total cosechada, se encuentran los cultivos del maíz de zona plana, el plátano y el arroz, que representan un 10 %, 6 % y 2 %, respectivamente. Con respeto a la producción en toneladas, la caña de azúcar es sin duda el producto principal con 91% de la producción dentro del departamento. Los otros cultivos, como el maíz, el plátano o el banano tienen individualmente un aporte de menos de 2 % (véase ilustraciones 2 y 3, AGRONET (2015b)). La producción de alimentos para el autoconsumo está muy reducida, debido a que la mayoría de familias trabajan en las grandes explotaciones comerciales y no destinan ni tiempo ni espacios en sus fincas para la producción de alimentos (ALCALDÍA DE CALI s.f.).El Valle del Cauca produce aproximadamente entre el 20 % y 35 % de los alimentos que se consumen en la ciudad de Cali. El resto de los alimentos (~ 65-80 %) que se consumen en Cali viene de otros departamentos y un pequeño porcentaje del exterior de Colombia (memorias de CAVASA, Súper Inter, Éxito, IMCA).Por tipo de producto, el porcentaje importado para el consumo de Cali puede variar. Por ejemplo, la gran mayoría de los granos (lentejas, fríjoles) viene de Tolima o del exterior (Canadá o Chile) y las frutas del interior (entrevista con Moisés Quintana de CAVASA).Los productos básicos de la dieta caleñael arroz, la papa, el plátano, la yuca, el tomate y la cebollason en su mayoría importados de otros departamentos. La producción de verduras y especialmente frutas está basada en pequeños cultivos que se ubican sobre todo en el centro y el norte del Valle del Cauca (Súper Inter, Éxito, IMCA, Prod. de VallenPaz):Papa: Nariño, Cundinamarca, Boyacá, Medellín, Cauca; Exterior: Ecuador, Perú, Venezuela, Chile, EEUU, Holanda, China; Valle: Palmira, Pradera, Yumbo, Cali, Cerrito, Vijes, Candelaria, Dagua, Yotoco Arroz: Casi no se vende en CAVASA y tampoco mucho en las otras galerías, en general el arroz (en riego) se produce principalmente en los departamentos Tolima (48%), Huila (14%), en el Norte de Santander (11%), Casanare (7%) y Cesar (6%) (Fuente: AGRONET (2015a), datos de 2013).Plátano: Quindío, Pereira; Valle: Palmira, Caicedonia, Sevilla, Dagua, El Águila, Candelaria, Darién; Exterior: Ecuador Yuca: Cauca, Quindío, Pereira; Valle: Palmira, Buga, Pradera, Dagua, Candelaria, Zarza, El Águila, El Cairo, Ansermanuevo, Darién, Sevilla, Caicedonia, Alcalá, Florida, Exterior: Ecuador Tomate: Cauca, Nariño, Pereira, Quindío, Huila, Bucaramanga y Tolima; dentro del Valle viene de: Dagua, Palmira, Pradera, Darién, Restrepo, Candelaria, Florida, Cali, El Dovio, Tuluá, La Cumbre, Buga, Yumbo, Cerito, Guacarí, Andalucía, Caicedonia, Sevilla, Ginebra Cebolla cabezona: Cundinamarca, Boyacá, Nariño, Cauca, Bucaramanga El problema de acceso a la tierra en relación con el monocultivo de la caña que concentra el uso de los suelos parece bloquear el desarrollo de la agricultura urbana de proximidad que permitiría el abastecimiento de la población o incluir productos de proximidad en este abastecimiento. Eso se traduce por un abastecimiento de la ciudad desde zonas lejanas: otros departamentos (Antoquia) u otros países (Ecuador). A raíz de esta observación, podemos establecer que los productores alimentarios de Cali tienen precios más elevados que en las otras ciudades del país.  Actores claves del sistema de abastecimiento En relación con la tipología de actores identificada en la estructuración de las encuestas participativas, analizamos cada tipo de actores involucrados en actividades relacionadas con procesos de abzstecimiento o de producción.2.1.2.1.1 Actores de la producción agrícola y agroalimentarias.Los productores involucrados en al abastecimiento alimentario se clasifican de manera convencional entre pequeños, medianos y grandes. En Colombia, en general, predominan los pequeños y medianos productores que aportan la mayoría de los alimentos (PERFETTI et al. 2013, LAU et al. 2011). Según la fuente, el aporte de alimentos producido por pequeños productores varía, sin embargo, entre el 50 y 65 %.El Valle del Cauca destaca por la alta producción de la caña de azúcar en las zonas planas y la importancia de los ingenios azucareros que son dueños de la mayoría de las tierras agrícolas (PERFETTI et al. 2013) y que tienen mucha influencia sobre las estructuras políticas y económicas.. La producción agrícola en el Valle del Cauca es dominada por pequeños productores (Super Inter, SAG, IMCA) que se ubican principalmente en las zonas laderas del Valle. De hecho, los costos de logística para comercializar esos productos son elevados. A causa de la reivindicación de la mayoría del área cultivable por la caña, gran parte de los alimentos consumidos en el Valle del Cauca, y especialmente en Cali, vienen de otros departamentos.Se implementó una caracterización de los productores basada en sus condiciones de acceso al mercado urbano:  Los productores de la agricultura urbana (se hace la diferencia entre los productores intraurbanos y los productores periurbanos que se encuentran dentro del Municipio de Cali o en los alrededores.  Los productores de las zonas rurales que se encuentran en la proximidad del Valle del Cauca  Los productores de regiones lejanas y/o de otros departamentos o de otros países.Según las encuestas, es decir, según los conocimientos de los actores encontrados en relación con sus experiencias profesionales o según las cifras que existen en diferentes informes de proyectos, la contribución de la agricultura (peri) urbana al abastecimiento de los mercados de la ciudad se situaría alrededor de 3 %. Por supuesto, esta cifra es potencialmente más elevada si se contabiliza la producción agrícola que sirve al autoconsumo de los pequeños productores urbanos o rurales.Los pequenos productores involucrados en el abastecimiento de Cali están agrupados en tres principales organizaciones identificadas que son las siguientes: Asociación de los productores de la Paz. La asociación reúne 40 productores del corregimiento La Paz (Municipio de Cali) y se fundó hace 7 años. Los campesinos de la Paz producen sobre todo hierbas, plantas medicinales y en pocas cantidades flores. La asociación, con su presidente Jammer Hoyos, está en proceso de establecer una organización que une todas las asociaciones de los 15 corregimientos de Cali para tener más poder de negocio en la defensa de las necesidades de los productores. Actualmente están negociando un centro de acopio para los productores del Municipio de Cali pero hasta ahora la alcaldía no les hizo caso. Por ende, los productores venden sus productos en la Calle 10#10 en el centro de Cali. Sin embargo, las condiciones de venta son precarias y está prevista la construcción de un centro comercial en esta zona, de manera que dentro de poco los productores ya no podrán comercializar sus productos allá.Asociación de los productores de Felidia. La asociación organiza los productores del corregimiento Felidia (Municipio de Cali) y tiene alrededor de 40 miembros. Entre ellos hay productores pequeños y medianos, los grandes productores de la zona no forman parte de la asociación (no están interesados). Los productores de Felidia producen diferentes legumbres y hortalizas, sobre todo espinaca, lechuga, brócoli y calabacín.Asociación de productores agroecológicos del Valle del Cauca. La Asociación de Productores Orgánicos del Valle del Cauca y del Cauca se fundó hace 14 años. La asociación tiene cerca de 30 miembros constantes pero en total hay más productores que están relacionados a la asociación (~300 productores). Los productores de la asociación producen una variedad de productoslácteos de cabra, hortalizas y frutas y también hay huevos orgánicos. Ellos organizaron una red de 12 mercados agroecológicos en el Valle del Cauca (el coordinador se llama Gustavo Suárez). La gran mayoría de los productos de estos agricultores llegan a los mercados agroecológicos. En Cali se encuentra en el parqueadero de la Corporación Autónoma Regional del Valle del Cauca (CVC) (Carrera 56#11). Sin embargo, la CVC solo les dio permiso para formar su mercado hasta finales de 2015. La ubicación del mercado en Cali es un problema permanente porque no lograron encontrar un sitio donde se puedan quedar de manera constante. Los productores están ubicados en todo el Valle del Cauca y en el Cauca. Se trata de familias campesinas que gracias al mercado orgánico han podido mejorar su calidad de vida a través de un aumento y un mejoramiento (en sentido ecológico) de la producción. En el mercado ecológico se venden los productos de manera directa del productor al consumidor, no hay intermediarios. Los productores de la asociación no venden a los supermercados, por un lado porque los productos no cumplen las normas de estética de los supermercados y por otro lado porque a la asociación no le interesa colaborar con los supermercados. Ellos quieren, más bien, tener un contacto directo con los consumidores y construir una comunidad.La asociación ya no trabaja con una certificación orgánica oficial sino con el \"sistema participativo basado en la confianza\" (es un concepto internacional IFOAM). En su historia tenían una certificación oficial pero desde hace unos años no la renovaron por falta de recursos económicos. Antes, esta cuota (entre 3-5 millones COP por productor) fue pagada unas tres veces por la CVC. La asociación decidió no renovar la certificación, no solo por falta de recursos, sino también porque el sistema de la confianza de la IFOAM ya tiene en muchos países una autorización oficial. La asociación tiene un sistema de control interno que incluye los siguientes pasos: 1) cada productor tiene un registro de producción, 2) tiene que montar un plan de extensión, 3) tiene que explicar los métodos que está aplicando y 4) tiene que describir los problemas con los cuales se ve confrontado. La asociación trabaja con el concepto de agrosistemas ecológicoseso implica que no se trata de simples cultivos sino que se implementa el concepto integral de una finca que se basa en la multifuncionalidad. Ellos tienen una énfasis fuerte en la conservación del suelo, utilizan sólo fertilizantes ecológicos, aplican la rotación de cultivos, la asociación de cultivos y el biocontrol (este concepto está basado en la alta diversidad de variedades que generan sinergias para evitar plagas).Las empresas agroindustriales. Esta categoría de actor de la producción no fue estudiado!!! 2.1.2.1.2 Los actores del sistema de distribución de alimentación 5 486 empresas formales aseguran la distribución de los productos alimentarios y dicha distribución genera más de 20 000 empleos. Los datos disponibles permiten diferenciar las empresas especializadas en un tipo de productos (agrícolas, carne, leche...) de las empresas que comercializan diferentes productos. El subsector de las empresas especializadas tiene casi exclusivamente pequeñas empresas de menos de 2 empleos por empresa. Se pueden diferenciar las empresas según las funciones principales en la distribución de alimentos.Son los principales distribuidores detallistas. Tienen la mayor importancia en el mercado de alimentos en Colombia y a diferencia de otros países todavía no han sido totalmente substituidas por los supermercados (Navas et al.2009). Se caracterizan por una oferta básica de productos alimentarios, una gran flexibilidad de horarios, la disposición de fiar a sus clientes y la cercanía al cliente (tanto en sentido espacial como social). Las variables relevantes para comprar en las tiendas son principalmente: la cercanía, presentaciones pequeñas de los productos y la opción de compra por unidad (Cardona y al. 2016).Con la hipótesis que las empresas no \"especializadas en alimentos\" de menos de 2 empleos son principalmente tiendas de barrios, éstas se pueden estimar a más de 3000 tiendas con los datos oficiales públicos. Según el censo de Inforcomercio, realizado por Servinformación, existen 5275 tiendas de barrio en Cali. Según informaciones de actores de cadenas se puede estimar entre 10 000 y 16 000 tiendas en Cali.Aunque las tiendas de barrio existen en barrios de todos los estratos suelen tener una importancia mayor en los barrios de estratos bajos 1, 2 y 3 (EL PAÍS 2014). Uno de los mayores problemas de las tiendas de barrio es poder respetar las normas higiénicas y fiscales (Guarín 2009).Asotenderos [http://mercatienda.com.co/mercatienda/asotenderos.htm] que trabaja por el mejoramiento de las condiciones económicas, culturales, sociales y profesionales de sus asociados. Se busca proteger a las actividades de los tenderos a través del mejoramiento y desarrollo de una política de distribución y abastecimiento de víveres, abarrotes y mercancías en general, que igualmente alcancen a favorecer al consumidor final.El crecimiento de los supermercados en América Latina y en Colombia es general con la urbanización de los modos de vidas (Reardon et al. 2008). Este crecimiento contribuye a una transición no saludable de la alimentación con la promoción de productos industriales con muchas grasas, azúcar y las gaseosas. En otros contextos geográficos se observa que los supermercados tienen pocos impactos sobre el abzstecimiento de las poblaciones más vulnerables (Figiue et Moustier 2009). Sin embargo, hasta ahora su importancia con una participación en las ventas al por menor de 47 % sigue siendo menor a la de las tiendas de barrio con el 53 % (EL TIEMPO 2014).Existen varias cadenas de supermercados grandes y supermercados de barrios (que tienen una menor oferta y muchas veces precios más bajos que los grandes). Las principales cadenas de supermercados son La 14, Éxito, Olímpica, Comfandi, Super Inter (recientemente comprado por el Grupo Éxito) y el Mercamío/Mercatodo.De estas cadenas, Comfandi, el Super Inter y el Mercamío se direccionan más hacia el consumidor de bajos recursos, sobre todo por su ubicación en estratos bajos. Sin embargo, las cadenas Éxito y Olímpica están en el proceso de acercarse más a poblaciones de estratos bajos con una estrategia de abrir un formato de tienda de barrio o de comprar pequeñas tiendas en los barrios (EL TIEMPO 2015, PORTAFOLIO.CO 2013).Debido a la baja productividad, a graves deficiencias en la infraestructura de transporte y en la información de los mercados, el sistema de abastecimiento se caracteriza por la importancia de intermediarios que compran los productos de los productores y los venden a otros intermediarios o a lugares de venta final.En el centro de la cadena tenemos a los distribuidores mayoristas que compran a productores y venden a distribuidores minoristas o también a empresas o supermercados. Por lo tanto, el intermediario puede ser una persona individual, en algunos casos raros él mismo también puede ser productor, o puede ser una empresa intermediaria.  En Cali, actualmente se encuentran activos 25 comedores comunitarios, de los cuales 23 son abastecidos por la arquidiócesis de Cali quienes reciben alimentos provenientes del banco de alimentos de Cali y de donaciones de parroquias de la ciudad o de donaciones hechas por personas naturales. Estos 23 comedores atienden aproximadamente 1700 personas diariamente.Por su parte, la Alcaldía de Cali, apoya a los comedores comunitarios otorgándoles el equipo de cocina necesario para el funcionamiento. En periodos anteriores, la alcaldía realizó aportes significativos para apoyar a los comedores del sector oriente de Cali, sin embargo, en la actualidad no se dispone de recursos para proveerlos de alimentos.En esta estrategia dirigida por la pastoral social de la arquidiócesis de Cali no se dispone de asistencia nutricional, cada familia responsable de cada comedor comunitario se encarga de definir el menú, de acuerdo a los alimentos que se tienen disponibles diariamente \"se cocina lo que hay\". De esta manera, por los pocos recursos y alimentos disponibles, muchas veces las comidas carecen de verduras y carne.Pese a lo anterior, en la comuna 18 ubicada en la zona occidental de la ciudad, hay 3 comedores comunitarios que cuentan con el apoyo de una ONG, poseen recursos adicionales para compra de alimentos, asistencia nutricional, capacitaciones a los agentes comunitarios y seguimiento por parte de la Secretaria de Salud Municipal; lo cual garantiza que 360 niños de la comuna 18 tengan acceso a alimentos nutritivos y con condiciones sanitaria óptimas.Otros dos comedores comunitarios funcionan por iniciativa de ABC Prodein, es una entidad benéfica católica que ofrece 700 almuerzos semanales en el sector oriente de la ciudad. Los recursos de sostenimiento provienen también de donaciones empresariales y particulares.Los comedores escolares que en toda Colombia funcionan por El Programa de Alimentación Escolar (PAE). El PAE brinda un complemento alimentario a los niños, niñas y adolescentes de todo el territorio nacional, registrados en el Sistema de Matrícula -SIMAT-como estudiantes oficiales, financiados con recursos del Sistema General de Participaciones. Pese a que la alimentación es un derecho universal, y en este caso las familias, la sociedad y el Estado deben concurrir para garantizar el acceso universal a la alimentación escolar, la magnitud de la población escolar por debajo de la línea de pobreza en el país es muy alta, por ello es necesario aplicar una estrategia de focalización para la selección de los beneficiarios.Los criterios de priorización para la focalización de los beneficiarios son los siguientes:1. Instituciones educativas que prestan el nivel de educación preescolar y de básica primaria 2. Instituciones educativas con población perteneciente a grupos étnicos (indígenas, afrocolombianos, raizales) y una alta proporción de población víctima del conflicto armado.La cobertura de estudiantes en Cali es del 70 %, el próximo año se espera llegar al 90 % o 100 % de la población estudiantil. Diariamente se entregan: 189 000 raciones de desayuno en 350 sedes de Cali, 17 000 raciones contratadas por instituciones o fundaciones privadas, 2500 almuerzos para estudiantes en jornada única y 7000 almuerzos para estudiantes en jornada complementaria.Los alimentos son suministrados por operadores quienes son seleccionados luego de presentar sus propuestas en cada municipio. En la actualidad, predomina la línea de alimentos denominados \"listos o industrializados\" donde se ofrece un refrigerio que contiene leche, avena, yogur u otras bebidas en bolsa y un alimento como galletas, pan o pastel.Las instituciones beneficiadas que poseen jornada única o complementaria y reciben almuerzo, desarrollan el sistema de preparados (donde la misma institución prepara sus alimentos), según la percepción de la comunidad, los alimentos son más nutritivos y es mayor la cantidad. En el futuro se espera que cada institución cuente con su restaurante escolar en modalidad de preparados (SECRETARÍA DE EDUCACIÓN 2015).El abastecimiento de las cadenas de supermercados se estructura principalmente por contratos: cada cadena de supermercados tiene sus propias políticas de contratos con diferentes normas de calidad y diferentes unidades de compra. Esta diversidad no favorece la transparencia sobre el conocimiento de los precios. Las condiciones contractuales son poco conocidas en Cali.El segundo mecanismo de coordinación se estructura por los mercados físicos. Hay tres tipos de mercados físicos: los mercados mayoristas, las galerías y los mercados móviles.Los mercados mayoristas juegan un papel estratégico en el buen funcionamiento de los sistemas de abastecimiento alimentarios de ciudades de Colombia, principalmente Medellín y Bogotá (Maritza et al. 2012). Son centros de abastecimiento de la ciudad, sobre todo de productos frescos pero también son lugares de formación de los precios directores que permiten la coordinación entre los actores de la producción, distribución, consumo. En un mercado calificado de mayorista los vendedores son en su mayoría intermediarios, organizaciones de productores. Los compradores son mayoristas, detallistas, empresas. Hay dos principales mercados mayoristas en la ciudad de Cali El mercado de CAVASA.Está ubicado en las afueras de la ciudad. Allí venden sobre todo intermediarios y algunos productores grandes del Valle del Cauca y otros departamentos. Los pequeños productores no suelen vender sus productos allí debido a los costos de venta, los altos requerimientos de calidad y las pequeñas cantidades que pueden ofrecer. CAVASA es una entidad privada con control público (Entidad con Vigilancia y control Fiscal) establecida hace 40 años en la zona rural del municipio de Candelaria Valle. Los accionistas de CAVASA son: Corporación Autónoma Regional del Valle del Cauca (CVC), Industria de licores del Valle, Centrales de Transporte S.A, Alcaldía de Santiago de Cali, Gobernación del Valle del Cauca, Ministerio Agricultura, Universidad Icesi, Corfecampo, Emsirva, Sociedad Promotora Cafetera y Empresas Municipales de Cali (EMCALI). Los recursos de sostenimiento de la entidad están sustentados en los cargos administrativos que deben pagar los arrendatarios y los impuestos por descarga de alimentos generados a los transportadores. CAVASA tiene un papel central en el abastecimiento del mercado institucional de la ciudad. El mercado de Cavasa ofrece 1800 empleos.Por supuesto, en comparación con el volumen de transacción de los mercados mayoristas de las otras ciudades importantes come Bogotá (110 000 toneladas) y Medellín (79 000 toneladas), Cavasa con 20 841 toneladas es un pequeño mercado (Cf. Cuadro siguiente). Por supuesto, si este mercado es el único mercado de referencia para la formación de los precios hay dudas sobre el carácter representativo del proceso de formación de esos precios para el papel de adaptación de la oferta a la demanda. Así pues, el papel de abastecimiento de Cavasa no es suficiente y actualmente se complementa por una parte con el mercado de Santa Elena y por otra parte con las proveedurías que son centros de abastecimientos de las cadenas de supermercados sobre los cuales hay pocas informaciones.Tabla 2: Volumen de alimentos transados en las centrales mayoristasEl segundo mercado mayorista de le ciudad de Cali es el mercado de Santa Elena pero que funciona como mercado mayorista principalmente en la noche. En el día Santa Elena tiene más un papel de abastecimiento de los consumidores de las comunas de proximidad que son comunas vulnerables. Santa Elena tiene así dos papeles estratégicos para el abastecimiento y la seguridad alimentaria de la población vulnerable: el de abastecer a la vez los tenderos y directamente los consumidores de las zonas vulnerables.Ningún estudio identificado permite cuantificar el número de actores en Santa Elena y los volúmenes de transacciones. El desinterés de la política municipal por el mejoramiento de la galería de Santa Elena desde 2011 (ninguna inversión pública) se traduce en una situación donde no se respetan las normas sanitarias. También se mencionó que eso favorece una situación de informalidad del comercio (los actores no pagan los impuestos municipales) y mafias locales. Esta situación catastrófica está ligada al problema de la situación legal de los predios (bienes públicos o fiscales) de la galería de Santa Elena que bloquea la posibilidad de inversión para mejorar las infraestructuras.Las Proveedurías son sitios de venta para tenderos donde las poblaciones se pueden abastecer de productos básicos de manera económica con el fin de reducir los márgenes de intermediación entre los proveedores y las tiendas de barrio y, además, facilitar el acceso a alimentos económicos para poblaciones en áreas de bajos recursos. Las proveedurías se basan en la venta directa entre productor y tendero, sin embargo, por lo general no venden productos frescos. Fueron establecidos por la Fundación Carvajal en el Distrito de Agua Blanca y desde el año 2008 las tres proveedurías están operadas por Comfandi -Caja de Compensación del Valle del Cauca (FUNDACIÓN CARVAJAL).Son centros de abastecimiento donde se concentran diversos vendedores (muchos de ellos son intermediarios) de productos alimentarios, sobre todo frutas y verduras frescas. Las galerías se caracterizan por una gran oferta de productos, muchas veces con precios bajos, debido, en parte, a la menor calidad de los productos. Las galerías pueden ser sitios de abastecimiento para otros distribuidores, como las tiendas de barrio, y pueden ser sitios de venta final al consumidor -se vende al por menor y al por mayor.En Cali, además de Santa Elena existen cinco galerías: La Alameda, Alfonso López, Porvenir, La Floresta y Siloé (El Lido) (ALCALDÍA DE CALI & DEPARTAMENTO ADMINISTRATIVO DE PLANEACIÓN MUNICIPAL 2014). Las galerías en Cali se enfrentan a problemas de falta de administración gubernamental, falta de higiene y presencia de carteles de poder (EL PAÍS 2015, ALCALDÍA DE CALI 2013).Son sitios de venta de alimentos, sobre todo de frutas y verduras, que se mueven por varias ubicaciones dentro de la ciudad. Los mercados móviles tienen lugar en ciertos días y horarios, quiere decir que no son permanentes. Muchas veces tienen un estado informal dado que se instalan sin permiso en sitios públicos como áreas verdes, andenes o en las calles. Las condiciones de venta suelen ser inapropiadas por las condiciones de higiene, por la (mala) calidad de los productos, por contaminación ambiental y por precios y pesas incontroladas (EL TIEMPO 1991).El mercado móvil puede ser un sitio de venta directa del productor al consumidor, sin embargo, también hay mucha intervención de intermediarios. No obstante, están surgiendo más y más mercados campesinos o mercados móviles comunitarios que se enfocan precisamente a la venta directa del productor al consumidor y promocionan productos frescos y sanos (por ejemplo el mercado agroecológico o los mercados campesinos de OXFAM.En Cali existen 42 mercados móviles registrados (ALCALDÍA DE CALI & DEPARTAMENTO ADMINISTRATIVO DE PLANEACIÓN MUNICIPAL 2014). Se debe distinguir los mercados móviles y los mercados campesinos (Oxfam 2011). Los mercados campesinos se caracterizan por la mayor frescura de los productos, la venta directa por pequeños productores y un lugar fijo de venta.Banco de alimentos. La Fundación Arquidiocesano Banco de Alimentos de Cali es una institución sin ánimo de lucro que desde el año 2000 colabora en la solución del problema del hambre en la región, ofreciendo una intermediación organizada e integral. Los Bancos de Alimentos son organismos sin ánimo de lucro que trabajan en pro de la Seguridad Alimentaria de los países donde operan. Reciben alimentos excedentarios de comercios, empresas o particulares, para su debida distribución entre población necesitada.El banco de alimentos tiene empresas y personas naturales asociadas, las cuales les donan alimentos con cercana fecha de caducidad, o también, aportan económicamente a la suma por alimentar el futuro. En estos términos, cada una de las compañías les proporcionan los recursos necesarios, para que el Banco de Alimentos funcione y beneficie a las instituciones o fundaciones que apoyan a este tipo de grupos marginales, en especial, a niños de bajos recursos, personas de la tercera edad y madres gestantes y lactantes. Entre estas empresas se encuentran: Fundación ÉXITO (de almacenes ÉXITO), UNILEVER, Fundación grupo Nutresa, Federación Nacional de Avicultores de Colombia, ANDI (Gerencia de responsabilidad social empresarial) y Coca-Cola.(Véase memoria Banco de Alimentos) Las ONG. Aparte de esto existen varias Organizaciones No Gubernamentales (ONGs) que trabajan en el ámbito de la agricultura y/o de la seguridad alimentaria, entre ellos están VallenPaz y OXFAM que son las principales que tienen actividades en el abastecimiento  VallenPaz tiene actividades en proyectos de apoyo a los productores para comercializar en Cavasa y en los supermercados  Oxfam apoya a la gestión de mercados campesinosLos hábitos de compra varían dependiendo de los ingresos (SECRETARÍA DE SALUD PÚBLICA, 2009). La población vulnerable adquiere los alimentos de manera diaria y en pocas cantidades lo que aumenta los costos comparado con compras en cantidades mayores (Fao, 2011). La población vulnerable de Cali compra así gran parte de los productos alimentarios en las tiendas de barrio (y de vendedores ambulantes …), primeramente porque obtienen pocos recursos monetarios que solamente permiten la compra de día a día y en pocas cantidades. Las tiendas de barrio permiten este modo de compra y, además, existe la posibilidad de fiaruna opción que no existe en los supermercados. Por algunos productos como las verduras y frutas la población de estrato 1 compra también en los mercados móviles (OXFAM, 2011).Según esta encuesta, la tienda de barrio es la principal fuente de compra de alimentos (45 %), seguido por los supermercados (35 %) y los mercados móviles o las galerías (ambos 10 %). Aparte de la disponibilidad de fiar, la tienda de barrio tiene la ventaja de la cercanía espacial que permite obtener productos sin gasto de desplazamiento (ALCALDÍA DE CALI s.f.).El grafico siguiente muestra cómo se modifica la estructura del abastecimiento en alimentos en relación con el aumento de los ingresos. Nos permite hacer dos observaciones: Cuando la población vulnerable ve crecer sus ingresos hasta la categoría \"tres\", aumenta sus compras en los supermercados y baja sus abastecimientos en las tiendas y los mercados físicos. La categoría de ingreso 3 es la que más se abastece en los supermercados.  Cuando los ingresos pasan de la categoría tres a la categoría 6, el abastecimiento en las tiendas sigue bajando, pero el abastecimiento en los supermercados baja también con el aumento de las compras en los mercados físicos.El lugar de compra varía con el lugar de residencia dentro de la ciudad: las tiendas de barrio tienen mayor peso en las zonas centro y sobre todo en el suroriente, las zonas donde se encuentran los barrios más vulnerables de la ciudad (Oxfam, 2011).Ilustración 5 : Evolución de la estructura del abastecimiento alimentario en Cali en relación con al aumento de los ingresos (Cat = estrato)Otro factor explicativo es que la mayoría de las cadenas de supermercados no tiene almacenes en las zonas más vulnerables de Cali (Distrito de Agua Blanca, Zona Ladera y ciertos barrios en el centro de Cali). El transporte hacia el supermercado sería entonces un costo adicional que desfavorece la compra en los supermercados. Además, no existen muchas ofertas en los supermercados que sean atractivas para la población vulnerable o los productos a precio de oferta son de baja calidad (memoria SAG). Eso explica que en esas zonas los lugares de compras de alimentos están focalizados en dos actores que son respectivamente los Con los mapas de localización de las plazas de mercado y de los supermercados construidas en el proyecto (Ilustración 4) hemos cuantificado el número de plazas de mercado y de supermercados en cada comuna. Come la metodología de localización es homogénea en todas la comunas podemos hacer comparación entre esas comunas. Haciendo la división de la población de cada comuna por el número de mercados y supermercado, y un promedio de esas dos cifras respectivamente en las comunas vulnerables y no vulnerables podemos construir la ilustración 6. Identificamos así que en las comunas clasificadas como vulnerables (13,14, 15, 18, 21) por habitante hay respectivamente: 3 veces menos de números plazas de mercado ,7 veces menos de números de supermercados que en las comunas de mayor estrato socioeconómico.Eso quiere decir que la población vulnerable en relación con sus ubicaciones geográficas tiene un acceso difícil a los mercados físicos pero también a los supermercados y que para realizar sus abastecimientos en alimentos esa población tiene un costo de transporte y de logística de acceso más elevado que las otras poblaciones calificadas de vulnerables que son las comunas. Es decir que la población vulnerable además de ser vulnerable tampoco tiene un buen acceso de proximidad a los productos en comparación a las comunas menos vulnerables.Abastecimientos de las tiendas de barrio La galería Santa Elena es el principal centro de abastecimiento de las tiendas de barrios. Queda más cerca que CAVASA, lo que implica un ahorro en gastos de transporte y, además, gastos de ingresos. Tienen también otros medios de abastecimientos respectivamente por medio de diferentes intermediarios y de varios proveedores en frutas y verduras o a nivel del centro de abastos que pertenece a cadenas de supermercados como Comfandi, por ejemplo. Algunas tiendas de barrios próximas a CAVASA tienden probablemente a abastecerse en este mercado mayorista pero son pocas.La galería de Santa Elena, se abastece de una gran cantidad de intermediarios. Algunos productores también van allá para vender sus productos directamente. Sin embargo, la venta en la galería de Santa Elena es complicada porque existen carteles de poder que no permiten un acceso libre de cualquier intermediario o productor. Los costos para los \"servicios de seguridad\", las llamadas vacunas, son bastante altas de manera que la mayoría de los pequeños productores no los pueden pagar. La venta en Santa Elena sin pagar las vacunas y sin tener el permiso de los carteles puede ser muy peligrosa teniendo en cuenta que ocurren amenazas de muerte y asesinatos. Los actores encuestados mencionaron la presencia de mafias para los siguientes productos: tomate de árbol, cebolla larga, mango, cilantro, tomate, banano, plátano. En la galería de Santa Elena, además de los problemas de acceso logístico también existen dificultades de acceso al espacio de venta: o esos espacios no están disponibles o hay que negociar con mafias.En el mercado de Cavasa algunas informaciones cualitativas de entrevistas identifican qua Cavasa se abastece principalmente en el Valle de Calle: 70 % de abastecimiento en tomate, 100 % en papa, lechuga y cebolla, 30 % en plátano. Otros productos son importados de otros departamentos como el arroz o del mercado internacional como las lentejas.Para casi todos los actores económicos, el problema de las condiciones logísticas y de acceso a los mercados mayoristas actuales que son Cavasa y Santa Elena tienen una responsabilidad alta en los costos de comercialización que conducen a precios altos sobre los productos alimentarios. Así, el problema de la ubicación y de las carreteras entre Cavasa y la ciudad bloquean la capacidad de este mercado mayorista a abastecer la ciudad en una manera efficaz. Si bien Cavasa sigue siendo el mercado donde se forman los precios directores del sistema de abastecimiento, los costos de comercialización impiden a los detallistas que abastecen los barrios vulnerables que vayan ahí comprar. Este mercado mayorista de manera central funciona para abastecer el mercado institucional, la restauración y una parte las cadenas de supermercados y algunas tiendas de barrio de la cercanía.A nivel complementario, los mercados mayoristas son de difícil acceso para los productores que quieren organizarse para comercializar en común sus productos en los mercados físicos de Cali no tienen espacios organizados para eso y se ven casi obligados a comercializar en los supermercados. Como, en muchos casos, pueden con dificultad responder a las condiciones de calidad o de contratos comerciales de esos supermercados, esas dificultades limitan las inversiones de los pequeños productores en el aumento de la producción de hortalizas.Ciertos supermercados, como el Super Inter y el Merca Mío, compran sus productos frescos prioritariamente a los productores. Estas dos cadenas no tienen un centro de abastecimiento en la ciudad, por eso, los productores tienen que pasar cada día por todos los almacenes de la cadena para ofrecer sus productos. Otras cadenas como Comfandi o LA14 tienen sus productores aprobados y capacitados.Dependiendo del producto y de la oferta, los supermercados también compran a intermediarios y/o de CAVASA, siempre intentando involucrar la menor cantidad de intermediarios. La compra en CAVASA tiene ciertas desventajas para los supermercados: ellos mismos tienen que ir hasta CAVASA para comprar los productos (mencionado por SuperInter y Éxito), y  los productos en CAVASA son menos frescos y se venden en unidades inapropiadas para los supermercados (se venden en bultos mientras que ellos compran en kilos o toneladas). Para el caso de compra por intermediarios, los supermercados tienen por lo general ciertos intermediarios fijos para abastecerse.El Éxito, el SuperInter y el Mercamío son cadenas que compran gran parte (entre 70 y 85 %) de sus frutas y verduras (frescas) directamente de los productores. También Comfandi o La14 se abastecen de frutas directamente del productor. Sin embargo, para estas dos cadenas son volúmenes más pequeños y con productores específicamente capacitados.Entrevistas con informantes claves (no representativas) identifican que alrededor del 80 % del abastecimiento de los supermercados se hace por compra por contratos directos a asociaciones de productores o productores y 20 % por intermediarios como por ejemplo la empresa Agrofresco que compra a productores para vender a los supermercados.La falta de armonización y de legislación de los estándares de calidad en los supermercados se traduce en una fragmentación de los mercados de compra y de venta que no aseguran las transparencias de los precios. Cada supermercado tiene actualmente diferentes normas (privadas) que forman diferentes precios de venta o a la compra (usando por ejemplo \"empaques de productos diferentes\"). Eso permite difícilmente a la población vulnerable (productores o consumidores) tener una idea clara sobre la situación del mercado. Por supuesto esta ausencia de transparencia es un problema de eficacidad colectiva.Según informantes claves, algunos de los comedores comunitarios se abastecen en el Banco de Alimentos que recibe donaciones de alimentos y otros productos por parte de cadenas de supermercados, empresas y federaciones (véase memoria Banco de Alimentos). Los comedores comunitarios encuestados (La Pastoral Cali) se abastecieron por un lado en el Banco de Alimentos y por otra parte a través de donaciones monetarias. Los responsables de compra de los comedores comunitarios realizan sus compras, por lo general, en los supermercados cercanos (por las ofertas) y/o en las tiendas de barrio.El Proyecto de la Alimentación Escolar se ejecuta solo desde el 2013 en Cali. La alimentación que se entrega no representa una comida completa sino un complemento alimenticio. Los comedores escolares pueden recibir la alimentación de dos formas diferentes, 1) alimentos empacados entregados por empresas (el \"menú\" completo), 2) alimentos preparados de productos frescos en las instituciones escolares (véase memoria PAE).La empresa Quick & Tasty que es el proveedor principal de refrigerios (platos preparados) de los mercados institucionales: Programa Alimentación Escolar, Bienestar Familia y las cadenas de supermercados Los productos frescos vienen raramente de pequeños productores debido a que ellos no siempre pueden entregar las cantidades y productos requeridos y, aparte de esto, se les dificulta por el modo de pago por parte de las instituciones gubernamentales (que es cada 90 días).En una situación donde hay pocas plazas de mercados accesibles a los productores (insuficiencia de las inversiones públicas en las infraestructuras de mercados en Cali), los pequeños productores intentan algunas veces comercializar en los supermercados pero la mayoría de los pequeños productores son incapaces de vender sus productos a los grandes supermercados porque no pueden cumplir ni con los estándares de calidad ni con los horarios de entrega de los grandes supermercados. Además, los precios de compras de los supermercados son muy bajos (GUARÍN 2013).Si bien algunos actores indican que faltan organizaciones de productores para incluir los pequeños productores en el abastecimiento del mercado de productos frescos, a nosotros nos parece más bien que es por falta de oportunidades para comercializar en los mercados físicos y por los bajos precios de compra de los supermercados que quedan elementos que bloquean las inversiones de los pequeños productores para formar organizaciones colectivas de comercialización de sus productos.Con la dificultad de acceso a los mercados, los circuitos cortos que son calificados en la literatura (revisión bibliográfica) como los principales medios que permiten integrar los pequeños productores al abastecimiento de los mercados son muy débiles en este sistema (opción del circuito corto de las cadenas de supermercado que funcionan con contratos). Un circuito corto se define como una situación sin intermediario o con máximo un intermediario en el proceso de venta desde el productor hasta el consumidor (Chifoleau, et al. 2013).Existe en Cali un solo mercado agroecológico que permite a pequeños productores que tienen productos naturales poder abastecer la población de clase media y alta ya que la población de bajos recursos no tiene los recursos para realizar compras en este tipo de mercado. Este único mercado manejado por la asociación de productores agroecológicos existe con el acuerdo de Comfandi que autoriza el acceso a un sitio. Según las últimas informaciones Comfandis prohíbe el acceso al espacio de comercialización por lo que este único mercado podría desparecer.Otras ocasiones de circuitos cortos pueden ser identificadas en la situación siguiente: compras directas de consumidores en el centro de Cali (Calle 10#10) donde venden productores de las zonas rurales de Cali ciertos productos (hierbas, plantas medicinales, flores).  varios mercados móviles en la ciudad pero no se ha podido comprobar cuales están realmente en funcionamiento y quienes venden y compran allí. La razón de compra es la cercanía al lugar de residencia y los precios económicos de los productos  proyecto de Valle en Paz en el mercado de Cavasa La identificación de todas esas ocasiones y el análisis de sus condiciones de desarrollo tendrían que ser confirmado en las próximas etapas del proyecto.Las diferentes informaciones y conocimientos identificados durante las entrevistas permiten establecer un primer borrador de gráfico de representación de las cadenas de abastecimiento alimentario de la población vulnerable. Los \"n\" indican el número de actores (vendedores, empresas) identificados en las encuestas/entrevistas o con las diferentes fuentes. Este gráfico no tiene como objetivo referirse al número de supermercados o de mercados móviles.El análisis del funcionamiento debe ocuparse de rastrear los lugares, ya en el espacio, ya en el tiempo, ya en las organizaciones, donde pueden encontrarse las posibles razones del problema de seguridad alimentaria de la población pobre. Estos problemas, cuando se les estudia en relación con el modelo causal y la definición de \"seguridad alimentaria\", suelen girar alrededor de: el acceso, los precios, la calidad, la regularidad. En el estado presente de nuestros instrumentos teóricos y del conocimiento que hemos recabado en las bases de datos disponibles, el análisis del funcionamiento se focaliza en el uso de los bases de datos disponibles a nivel de los precios de las empresas involucradas en el sistema de distribución de alimentos.Aquí procederemos a un análisis de los datos disponibles sobre la evolución de los precios alimentarios en Cali, para determinar las tendencias desfavorables a la seguridad alimentaria de la población vulnerable.Movilizamos dos fuentes de datos: respectivamente los datos del DANE sobre Cali y un análisis comparativo con un promedio de 8 otras ciudades de Colombia que son Baranquilla, Bogotá, Bucarama, Cartagena, Cucuta, Manizales, Medellin, Monteria, Neiva, Paso, Pereira, Vilavicencio.El índice de precio al consumidor es cada año más elevado en Cali que el promedio nacional, y eso de manera significativa entre 2010 y 2012 y las informaciones que tenemos sobre los años 2013, 2014 indican que esa diferencia aumenta con el tiempo. Eso significa que la población vulnerable de Cali tiene, de manera general, menos acceso económico a los productos alimentarios, ya que los ingresos en la ciudad no son más altos que en otras ciudades 2 .Si nos interesamos por los precios de los productos importantes para una alimentación saludable como los jugos naturales: el diferencial de precio entre los jugos en Cali y los jugos de las otras ciudades es más amplio que el diferencial de los precios de todos los otros productos.Si nos interesamos por la diferencia de precio de un promedio de 20 productos (frutas y verduras): el diferencial de precio entre Cali y las otras ciudades es más amplio que el diferencial precedente sobre los jugos naturales.El acceso a los productos saludables que son los jugos de frutas y de las frutas es mucho más difícil para las poblaciones vulnerables en Cali que en cualquier otra ciudad del país. Eso en un contexto donde el nivel de los ingresos de la población de Cali es más bajo que en las otras ciudades del país (Pena J., 2015).Las observaciones precedentes son promedios de una canasta de alimentos. Dentro de esta canasta hay situaciones particulares según los productos. Hemos buscado algunas de esas situaciones y encontramos dos buenas sorpresas para una alimentación saludable de la población vulnerable.Primera buena noticia: los precios del plátano son 20 % más bajos para el consumidor de Cali que para el de las otras ciudades. Eso se comprueba con otros productos básicos y muestra que la población vulnerable de Cali tiene un buen acceso comparativo a productos energéticos. Otra buena noticia: el diferencial de precio entre Cali y las otras ciudades sobre el tomate no es tan importante en el largo plazo (Anexo 7).Segunda buena noticia: los precios de las gaseosas son 20 % más elevados en Cali que en todas las otras ciudades. Eso quiere decir que la población vulnerable no tiene un bueno acceso a esos productos que nos son buenos para la salud.Ilustración 10: Las buenas noticias de (algunos) preciosEl resultado sobre los precios (relativamente altos) de las gaseosas podría parecer extraño porque la industria de producción de Gaseosas de Colombia está principalmente concentrada en Cali y exporta a las otras ciudades. Esta observación nos conduce a establecer la hipótesis que el disfuncionamiento mayor del sistema de abastecimiento alimentario se logra con el sistema de distribución de los alimentos. Para comprobar esta hipótesis hemos analizado los datos disponibles sobre la estructura de la oferta del sistema de distribución de los alimentos en la ciudad de Cali.Movilizando la base de datos de la Cámara de Comercio sobre 5 600 empresas del sector de la comercialización de los alimentos en Cali. Usamos dos indicadores de análisis de concentración de las cadenas de distribución que son respectivamente: los activos y los empleos. Eso nos permite construir la tabla 4 y las observaciones siguientes: 11 empresas de comercio de alimentación (cadenas de supermercados principalmente) representan menos de 1 porcentaje del total de las empresas de este sector, pero realizan: o 85 porcentaje de los activos o 41 % del empleo del sector  5486 microempresas (menos de 2 empleos por empresa) que son las tiendas de barrios principalmente y que abastecen en su mayoría a la población vulnerable constituyen un 96% del total de las empresas del sector, pero realizan o 43 % del empleo (más que los supermercados) o solamente 2 % de los activos.Entre los dos grupos, es decir el nivel de los otros intermediarios hay pocas empresas.En relación con esas observaciones cuantitativas establecemos la hipótesis de que las cadenas de supermercados manejan alrededor de 60 à 70 % de la distribución de la alimentación de la población vulnerable pobre (hemos visto que las tiendas de barrio se abastecen en parte en las cadenas de supermercados). Esta hipótesis define claramente una situación que se califica en economía de \"oligopolio\".Un oligopolio es un mercado dominado por un pequeño número de vendedores o prestadores de servicios, debido a que hay pocos participantes en este tipo de mercado. En un oligopolio se establece una situación de equilibrio en el grupo de oferentes, con lo cual deja de existir competencia de mercado... Lo trascendente por tanto, en el oligopolio, es la falta de competencia real, lo cual afecta a los consumidores (demandantes de bienes o servicios). Por medio de su posición, las empresas oligopólicas ejercen poder de mercado provocando efectos negativos para los consumidores entre los que se cuentan: que los precios sean más altos, la producción sea inferior, bajos niveles de calidad o impidiendo el ingreso de nuevos oferentes.Hay dos impactos mayores de un oligopolio sobre el funcionamiento de un sistema de alimentación. La primera es que la competencia en realidad no existe. El comercio está destinado a un número limitado de oferentes (Empresas), ya que éstas manejan más del 60-70 % del mercado. La segunda es que se utiliza mucho el dumping (bajar los precios, incluso por debajo de los costos de producción es decir los precios de compra a los productores), es decir une estructura de mercado donde hay pocos vendedores frente a bastantes compradores.La situación de oligopolio permite explicar que las condiciones de contratos entre los supermercados y los productores sean muy difíciles para los productores que no tienen muchas oportunidades de comercialización. Eso favorece más a los grandes productores que pueden responder a los contratos.En esta estructura de mercado, desde un punto de vista teórico, se sabe que la poca transparencia no permite la correlación entre los precios a los consumidores que pueden subir y los precios a los productores que pueden bajar al mismo tiempo (lo que se puede observar para las gaseosas).Por supuesto eso explicaría que los precios de los alimentos en la ciudad son muy elevados (lo que hemos verificado haciendo la comparación con las otras ciudades del país) y que los precios a los agricultores son muy bajos. Por supuesto esos no tienen incentivos a inversiones en la comercialización de sus productos para abastecer el mercado de alimentación. Con una encuesta directa sobre algunos productos realizada en el proyecto, mostramos en el gráfico siguiente que los precios en los supermercados grandes o pequeños son muchos más altos que en las tiendas y en el mercado de Santa Elena.Tabla 4 : Estructura de empresas del sistema de comercialización de alimentos de CaliEl oligopolio quiere decir también que los márgenes de comercialización que agarran los supermercados son muy elevadas. Por otra parte, significa que el problema del sistema de abastecimiento de la ciudad de Cali no son los intermediarios sino que no hay suficiente número de intermediarios y competencia en el sistema de comercialización de alimentos para que el sistema de precios realice sus funciones principales de ajustar la oferta a la demanda.Ilustración 11 : Acceso a frutas y verduras en Cali: indicador de precioEl estudio descriptivo/calitativo y de funcionamiento del subsistema de abastecimiento y de producción de alimentos incluyendo el proceso de abastecimiento de la población vulnerable permite identificar las dificultades mayores que encuentra esa población en el acceso suficiente a una alimentación saludable -con productos frescos. Un problema mayor se encuentra en los precios muy elevados de esos productos en un contexto donde los ingresos de la población vulnerable de Cali son más bajos que en las otras ciudades. El carácter elevado de esos precios se explica por la estructura oligopólica del sistema de distribución de alimentos que se concentra en las cadenas de supermercados. Otro problema reside en la falta de acceso a los mercados en las comunas de bajo estrato social que se traduce con un costo de transportes y logístico más elevado para la poblaciones vulnerables que para las otras poblaciones. Las tiendas son el principal lugar de abastecimiento de las poblaciones vulnerables pero hemos visto que esas tiendas se abastecen por una parte en el mercado de Santa Elena que tiene problemas de calidad sanitaria y por otra parte en las cadenas de supermercados donde los precios de venta son elevados. Los circuitos que permiten a los pequeños productores de las zonas de proximidad abastecer la ciudad en alimentos son identificados en algunas situaciones pero siguen siendo marginales. El único mercado de productos agroecológicos que permite a los pequeños productores una comercialización directa tiene actualmente dificultades con la falta de acceso al lugar de venta. Los elementos mayores de información y de conocimientos de este reporte han estructurado el programa y la organización del taller de restitución a los actores en la plataforma del 10 diciembre. Esta jornada permitió debatir y fortalecer una modelización de los sistemas de alimentación de la población vulnerable que se centra en los desafíos principales para las políticas públicas y en los objetivos de estudios complementarios necesarios. -Falta de recursos monetarios -Falta de continuidad en los proyectos CEDECUR -Falta de conocimiento de los productores acerca de plagas etc.-Falta de análisis de suelos CEDECUR, Asoc. de Prod. de Felidia -Alto uso de agroquímicos CEDECUR Insuficiente apoyo en la comercialización, falta de sitios de venta directa IMCA, CEDECUR Falta de organización entre los productores CEDECUR En partes, los productores no se animan a mejorar sus condiciones ellos mismos sino que esperan todo el apoyo del gobierno  política paternalista CEDECUR Costos de transporte para los productores IMCA Alta dependencia de los intermediarios por parte de los pequeños productores IMCA, CEDECUR Alto poder de los supermercados: piden grandes volúmenes y pagan tarde (dentro de 1 o 2 semanas); también los programas gubernamentales de los comedores escolares pagaron solo después de 90 días IMCA, CEDECUR Situación legal caótica de predio de las galerías, falta de seguridad OXFAM, CEDECUR Falta de voluntad de la parte del gobierno en apoyar los productores IMCA Alta influencia de grupos de poder (los papeleros, los caneros, los ganaderos) en la política pública, falta de gobernanza continua IMCA Falta de consumidores solidarios IMCA 6.2 Anexo 2. Glosario de actores del sistema de abastecimiento AfroZorca AfroZorca es una organización que trabaja con alrededor de 30 asociaciones de campesinos de la zona rural de Cali. Tiene recursos económicos para apoyar proyectos productivos y mejorar la calidad de vida de los campesinos. AfroZorca también colabora con VallenPaz. CEDECUR http://www.cedecur.org/mision-vision.html El Centro de Educación e Investigación para el Desarrollo Comunitario Urbano y Rural, CEDECUR, es una Organización de la sociedad civil no gubernamental (ONG), tiene 32 años, sin ánimo de lucro y regida por derecho privado. Misión Contribuir al desarrollo equitativo de la Sociedad Colombiana, a través de la investigación, asesoría, asistencia técnica, interventoría, capacitación y ejecución de programas y proyectos de carácter social, ambiental, productivo y agropecuario, integrales y/o sectoriales con personas y organizaciones, comunidades urbanas y rurales, sustentadas en los componentes de institucionalidad y participación comunitaria.Asesoría técnica y capacitación a las unidades productivas campesinas y las cadenas agropecuarias urbanas y rurales, para que reciban formación en el manejo de los recursos naturales para el desarrollo de proyectos ambientalmente sostenibles.Las acciones y proyectos de esta área corresponden a temáticas como: Elaboración de planes generales de asistencia técnica -PGAT.  Fortalecimiento de asociaciones de campesinos.  Asistencia Técnica Agropecuaria.  Asesoría en Buenas Prácticas Agrícolas.  Fortalecimiento de organizaciones campesinas.Comfandi fue fundado por una iniciativa del estado en los años 1950 como caja de compensación con la función de compensar los trabajadores con servicios adicionales aparte del salario -por ejemplo servicios de educación, de salud, de vivienda, de diversión y también los supermercados. Comfandi es competitivo en la parte de medicamentos, alimentos y también ciertos productos no-alimentos. Comfandi solo existe en el departamento del Valle del Cauca, en total hay 25 sedes de los cuales 12 están ubicadas en Cali. Comfandi posicionó sus supermercados de manera poliestrato desde estrato 1 a 5. Sin embargo, la mayoría de las sedes está en sectores populares. Comfandi tiene diferentes productos y ofertas para poblaciones de bajos recursos: Precios más bajos en unos pocos sectores (precio diferencial), bonos de 50 % del valor de la compra para clientes que están incluidos en la caja de compensación (son solo ciertos días cuando dan estos bonos), programa \"vecino fiel\" que permite acumular puntos con los cuales los clientes pueden recibir bonos y ciertos días hay descuentos de 30-40 % en productos básicos como la papa, la cebolla, el tomate, la yuca, la naranja, el limón, la papaya, el aguacate, la manzana o la habichuela.Es una cadena de supermercados que forma parte del Grupo Éxitoel Grupo Éxito une varias cadenas de supermercados, entre ellas están la Carulla, el Super Inter y el Éxito mismo. La cadena del Éxito tiene alrededor de 500 almacenes en toda Colombia y 8 almacenes en Cali. Los almacenes dentro de Cali están ubicados en áreas de todos los estratos excepto el estrato 1. Sin embargo, la clientela del Éxito viene de todos los estratos. El Éxito tiene una estrategia dirigida hacia la mujer pero no tienen un enfoque a cierta clientela/clase económica. Existe una marca, los productos \"econo\", que están específicamente diseñados para poblaciones de bajos recursos. Esta línea también incluye productos frescos (frutas y verduras).(Información de Milton Guerrero, negociador de frutas y verduras del Éxito Cali) Grupo de investigación en agroecología de la Universidad Nacional sede Palmira El grupo de investigación en agroecología se formó hace 25 años y desde hace 12 años está catalogado por Colciencias como A 3 . La Universidad Nacional de Palmira fue pionera en establecer estudios académicos acerca de la agroecología en Colombia. El grupo de investigación trabaja en enseñanza, investigación y extensión. El enfoque de la agroecología es, al contrario de la producción orgánica, integral. Eso quiere decir que no solo se trata de substituir abonos y pesticidas sino que es un concepto holístico y sistémico que también incluye aspectos políticos, como por ejemplo garantizar la soberanía alimentaria. El proceso va desde el control de la semilla, la cosecha, el procesamiento hasta la comercialización.Los proyectos del grupo de agroecología incluyen todos los pasos: el apoyo en la enseñanza, en la producción, en la comercialización, en la construcción de certificación de los productos y en parte también en las políticas públicas. Más concreto, ellos van a diferentes fincas en el Valle y hacen diagnósticos para identificar problemas y limitaciones y posibles soluciones (por ejemplo formas de riego, manejo sostenible de vacas para hacer compost, organizar mercados). Las fincas agroecológicas producen por lo general una gran cantidad de diferentes frutas y hortalizas, siguiendo el concepto agroecológico que incluye sacar provecho de la simbiosis entre diferentes especies. Aparte de esto tuvieron un proyecto enfocado en los servicios ecosistémicos de la agricultura familiar campesina que está enfocado por un lado a ver las fincas agroecológicas como una entidad social/familiar y por otro lado como una entidad que favorece los servicios ecosistémicos como proteger el agua, los suelos, capturar CO2 y otros GEI, fortalecer la presencia de animales silvestres y razas criollas.El grupo de investigación y la red de mercados agroecológicos elaboraron en un proyecto un sistema participativo de garantía. Se trata de un certificado de confianza (como un sello de certificación) que garantiza que los productos fueron producidos bajo diferentes principios y cumpliendo ciertas reglas de producción. Aparte de esto apoyaron a ciertos mercados en la comercialización y presentación de los productosincluyendo la presentación de los productos en las mesas, el diseño de ropa que indica que se trata de productores agroecológicos etc. Uno de los mercados agroecológicos de referencia es el mercado de Tuluá. Este mercado funciona muy bien y está conformado por 12 productores que tienen un vínculo muy directo con el consumidor.http://www.imca.org.co/quienes_somos.php?id_quienes=1Es una ONG orientada por la Compañía de Jesús y han venido acompañando desde 1962 a las comunidades campesinas más necesitadas del centro del Valle del Cauca, Colombia. En conjunto con diferentes actores sociales e institucionales, contribuyen a la construcción y consolidación de propuestas de vida y proyectos de desarrollo territorial de impacto local, regional y nacional.Tiene un enfoque a la sostenibilidad, tanto ambiental como social. La institución acompaña procesos de formación, planificación investigación, construcción de conocimiento y gestión de la sostenibilidad.Actualidad. A finales del Siglo XX y principios del Siglo XXI, la agudeza del conflicto armado en el Valle del Cauca afecta directamente las comunidades acompañadas por el IMCA, la respuesta es la construcción de alternativas de vida y de paz en medio del conflicto como una forma de superarlo y de acompañar a las víctimas en sus procesos de resistencia pacífica y a las comunidades desplazadas para su retorno y/o reubicación.El IMCA apuesta por esa dinámica a través de tres procesos: la consolidación de alternativas productivas de seguridad y soberanía alimentaria y nutricional (abordando la construcción de políticas públicas, autoconsumo y mercadeo alternativo, conservación de recursos genéticos, biodiversidad y el patrimonio hídrico); formación para la sostenibilidad regional (a través de las escuelas de formación campesina a nivel regional y nacional, en convenio con el CINEP y la Fundación San Isidro); y la construcción y fortalecimiento del tejido social y la democracia (donde se promueve el fortalecimiento y la articulación de las organizaciones campesinas en torno a dinámicas regionales y la cualificación de las relaciones interinstitucionales).En la actualidad, el IMCA en coordinación con la institucionalidad local y apoyados por el proceso de regionalización de la Compañía de Jesús en el Valle del Cauca, acompaña el Programa de Gestión Participativa de la Sostenibilidad Local y Regional. Desde el Programa de Sostenibilidad Local y Regional se ponen en práctica las estrategias de formación continua con énfasis en Participación y cultura política; planificación territorial participativa para la formulación de Planes de Vida, Planes de Desarrollo Municipal, conformación y renovación de Consejos Territoriales de Planeación, Concejos Municipales de Desarrollo Rural, Comités Interinstitucionales de Educación, entre otros; Gestión de proyectos, donde nos jugamos el mejoramiento de la calidad de vida de familias y comunidades en la gestión, ejecución, seguimiento y evaluación de proyectos locales y regionales de sostenibilidad. Finalmente, la investigación y sistematización del proceso se realiza en coordinación con la academia, de tal manera que se pueda aportar la experiencia a otros actores, sectores y regiones.Es una confederación internacional no gubernamental, compuesta por 17 organizaciones que trabajan junto a organizaciones socias y comunidades locales en más de 90 países, proporcionando ayuda de emergencia, llevando a cabo proyectos de desarrollo a largo plazo y haciendo campaña por un futuro más justo. El objetivo es restablecer el equilibrio para que las personas tengan acceso a recursos necesarios para mejorar sus vidas y medios de subsistencia, y para que puedan participar en la toma de las decisiones que afectan a sus vidas. Las áreas de trabajo son las siguientes: derecho a ser escuchadas -alzar la voz para decidir, derechos de la mujer, desigualdad y servicios sociales básicos, recursos naturales, salvar vidas, sistemas alimentarios sostenibles: Trabajan para conseguir que las pequeñas explotaciones sean más rentables formando a los productores locales para que puedan aplicar nuevas técnicas de cultivo más sostenibles. Ayudan a los agricultores y agricultoras a adaptarse a los efectos del cambio climático y a asegurar y proteger su acceso a la tierra.En Colombia han desarrollado proyectos de investigación en convenio con la Universidad Nacional \"Seguridad alimentaria, Políticas y nuevos modelos de negocios entre pequeños productores y mercados en tres contexto de América Latina\" 2011.Es un organismo de la iglesia católica que realiza acciones de asistencia social, promoción integral de las personas y las comunidades; se enfoca primordialmente a favorecer a los sectores más vulnerables de la ciudad. En la ciudad se encargan de la asistencia y seguimiento de 23 comedores comunitarios y de garantizar la disponibilidad de alimentos provenientes de donaciones y del banco de alimentos.http://www.sagvalle.org/index.php Es una entidad sin ánimo de lucro que representa y agremia a los agricultores y ganaderos del Valle del Cauca, participa en la definición de la política agropecuaria a nivel regional y nacional, presta servicios de asistencia técnica agropecuaria de manera integral con proyección a nivel nacional e internacional; brindando un acompañamiento en la formulación, gestión y administración de proyectos, a través de talento humano idóneo y capaz, con tecnología de información actualizada para ofrecer a todos sus asociados un servicio de alta calidad, en busca del crecimiento y consolidación del gremio, y una generación de ingresos apropiada para la autosostenibilidad de la organización.Sus objetivos, entre otros, son identificar y promover negocios agroempresariales, identificar las oportunidades de inversión, propiciar negocios (crear conciencia exportadora), promover proyectos agroindustriales y obtener y difundir información. Aparte de esto quieren participar en las decisiones y la formulación de políticas del sector a nivel nacional y regional, liderar la vocería del sector, propiciar espacios de concertación y conciliación entre los diferentes actores de la actividad productiva y el Lobbying. Actualmente tienen 48 miembros afiliados.Es una cadena de supermercados en Colombia que tiene 26 almacenes en el Valle del Cauca y 26 almacenes en la zona cafetera. El Super Inter fue en gran partes comprado por el Grupo Éxito en el año 2014. Dentro de Cali tienen almacenes en el Norte, en el Centro y en el Sur pero no hay almacenes en el Distrito de Agua Blanca y ni en la zona ladera. La oferta del Super Inter se dirige a todo tipo de clientela, sin embargo los almacenes están ubicados principalmente en barrios de estrato 1 y 2. No tienen una línea de productos que fue diseñada específicamente para poblaciones de bajos recursos pero cada fin de semana hay un descuento del 20 % en ciertos cítricos y verduras.Unidad de asistencia Técnica Agropecuaria es un eje temático de la Secretaría de Desarrollo Territorial y Bienestar Social, tiene como labor generar acciones tendientes a mejorar, orientar, apoyar y fortalecer las actividades productivas de los pequeños y medianos productores de los corregimientos del Municipio de Santiago de Cali en asuntos de aptitud de los suelos, selección del tipo de actividad agrícola, aplicación y uso de tecnologías y recursos, mercadeo, promoción de la organización de los productores, entre otros, a través de la asistencia técnica directa rural, conforme lo definido en la ley 607 de 2000.Realizan un trabajo dedicado y constante con los pequeños productores de los diferentes corregimientos de Cali, sin embargo los recursos para la ejecución de sus propuestas son limitados.Es una corporación privada sin ánimo de lucro dedicada a incentivar el desarrollo humano y socioeconómico de los pequeños agricultores de las regiones más azotadas por el conflicto armado, en el suroccidente colombiano. Fue creada en enero de 2000 y actualmente tiene cerca de 800 miembros de las más diversas procedencias: empresas, iglesias, universidades, ONG, entidades privadas y gubernamentales, además de ciudadanos de todas las etnias que viven en su zona de influencia. Para su operación, VallenPaz moviliza recursos del sector público, de la empresa privada y de cooperantes internacionales, con una inversión total 18.6 millones de dólares, en 10 años. Estos son los recursos con los que ha financiado la totalidad de sus intervenciones en el suroccidente colombiano, brindando acompañamiento a 8876 familias.La metodología de intervención que utiliza VallenPaz ha definido líneas de acción que agrupan las actividades que dan contenido al trabajo de acompañamiento a las familias rurales: Organización social, Empresarial; Seguridad alimentaria; Productiva; Infraestructura productiva y riego; Comercial; Cultura de Paz y derechos humanos. VallenPaz realiza programas en 31 municipios de los departamentos del Valle del Cauca, del Cauca, Nariño y Risaralda. En el Valle del Cauca interviene las zonas rurales de los municipios de Palmira, Pradera, Cerrito, Florida, Jamundí, Dagua, Buenaventura y en la zona rural de Cali.","tokenCount":"12144"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3a14ca538a16fb6bf367819cdb442da9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/98ffdbd2-9a6e-43d9-880b-a87b36eaf0cb/retrieve","id":"-303716289"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"57ca6884-91fa-4078-8f59-2304e664f656","pagecount":"48","content":"ien que le changement climatique fasse peser de nouvelles menaces sur les moyens d'existence déjà précaires des petits agriculteurs, très peu des financements adaptés au changement climatique sont directement axés sur l'agriculture. Il va pourtant devenir de plus en plus difficile de nourrir la planète sans des investissements plus importants, estime Margarita Astralaga, directrice de la Division environnement et climat du Fonds international de développement agricole (FIDA).Parmi les régions du monde nécessitant des solutions intelligentes figure le Sahel africain, où des sécheresses plus longues et fréquentes perturbent le calendrier de plantation. \"Les agriculteurs ne savent plus quand planter le maïs ou le manioc, parce qu'ils ne peuvent prévoir ce qui va arriver\", explique Margarita Astralaga. Les agriculteurs des petites îles du Pacifique -déjà souvent isolées des marchés externes ou des chaînes d'approvisionnement -sont confrontés à une diminution de leurs ressources en eau douce alors que l'élévation du niveau des océans menace de réduire les superficies cultivables.\"Le financement lié au climat peut, en mélangeant subventions et instruments de financements commerciaux et quasi commerciaux, déverrouiller des ressources issues du secteur privé pour soutenir une agriculture intelligente face au climat (AIC) à l'échelle appropriée\", souligne Oluyede Ajayi, coordinateur senior du programme du CTA pour l'agriculture et le changement climatique.Les financements mixtes -combinant des fonds publics et privés -se sont révélés particulièrement efficaces pour financer l'AIC. Nombre de ces plans comportent une composante de subvention assurée par un organisme public ou une organisation philanthropique ou de développement qui, associée aux fonds d'un prêteur commercial, diminue les intérêts exigés des emprunteurs. Certains plans mixtes incluent une garantie que les prêteurs récupéreront une partie des fonds prêtés en cas de défaut de remboursement de l'emprunteur. Cela diminue le risque pris par les institutions financières et les encourage à proposer des prêts plus nombreux ou importants aux emprunteurs ou secteurs à haut risque, ou à leur offrir des conditions plus avantageuses comme des périodes sans intérêt ou des calendriers de remboursement favorables.La composante de subvention de nombreux plans de financement mixte peut persuader les gouvernements, organisations ou entreprises des pays qui ne sont pas directement responsables du changement climatique qu'emprunter pour en atténuer les effets peut tout de même servir leurs intérêts. Selon Margarita Astralaga, une fois qu'ils ont constaté les avantages d'investissements judicieux sur le plan climatique, en agriculture ou dans d'autres secteurs, ils ont tendance à emprunter plus facilement, par le biais de plans de financement mixte ou même de prêts purement commerciaux. D'autres sont persuadés de devoir faire ce type d'investissements, mais ne peuvent tout simplement pas se permettre d'emprunter sans réduction des taux d'intérêt. \"De nombreux pays ne peuvent emprunter qu'avec une composante de subvention\", précise-t-elle.En 2012, le FIDA a lancé son programme phare d'adaptation de l'agriculture paysanne (ASAP), qui canalise des financements pour les petits agriculteursAlors que le changement climatique pose de nouveaux défis aux agriculteurs des pays ACP, les bailleurs de fonds, les banques de développement et les prêteurs privés développent des solutions innovantes de financements mixtes et de partage des risques. Les banques de développement réduisent les risques L'utilisation de structures mixtes pour assurer une première tranche de perte, ou tranche subordonnée, qui \"atténue la douleur initiale\" des financements climatiquement ingénieux, peut être \"très efficace\", affirme Hans Bogaard, directeur à la Banque néerlandaise de développement (FMO). Une fois ce dispositif mis en place, les banques commerciales ou les prêteurs comme la FMO sont souvent disposés à fournir en plus des financements ordinaires.Les projets agricoles résilients au changement climatique présentent moins de risques pour les prêteurs du secteur privé, tout en aidant les banques de développement, les bailleurs de fonds et un nombre croissant d'investisseurs privés à atteindre leurs objectifs de durabilité. Ainsi, affirme Duncan Turnbull, cofondateur de Pomeroon Trading, la résilience au changement climatique a été un élément déterminant pour les investisseurs qui ont permis à l'entreprise de réunir 2,6 millions d'euros afin de réhabiliter 280 hectares au Guyana. Dans sa pépinière de semis, l'entreprise effectue de nombreux essais sur des graines de noix provenant de tout le Guyana pour garantir que celles plantées sur le domaine appartiennent aux meilleurs stocks génétiques et produisent des arbres à meilleur rendement que ceux qui poussent dans le pays. Outre la plantation de 50 000 arbres susceptibles de piéger 24 000 tonnes d'équivalent carbone, Pomeroon a mis en place un système de gestion de l'eau et fait des essais de cultures intercalaires afin d'introduire des cultures commerciales comme les noix et les agrumes ou des superaliments comme le moringa. La durabilité n'est pas le critère essentiel pour les investisseurs institutionnels, qui fournissent environ 25 % des fonds. Mais elle l'est pour les partenaires privés, qui contribuent à environ 40 % des fonds, et constitue une mission centrale pour les fonds de développement fournissant le reste. Pomeroon prévoit de lever encore 8,7 à 13 millions d'euros dans les 12 prochains mois afin de réhabiliter 2 000 hectares supplémentaires.Par exemple, la MASSIF et le Fonds de développement des infrastructures permettent à la FMO \"de prendre un peu plus de risques\", assure Hans Bogaard.De son côté, la FMO soutient aussi un partenariat dirigé par la banque commerciale de prêts Rabobank et le Programme des Nations unies pour l'environnement, qui vise à développer à plus grande échelle une agriculture durable respectueuse de la forêt en utilisant des financements mixtes. Selon Hans Bogaard, la FMO a accepté de partager ses connaissances en matière d'agriculture et de sylviculture durables avec le partenariat -qui, en octobre 2017, a créé une structure de 867 millions d'euros -et de mobiliser ses propres ressources de financements mixtes. Cette structure vise à proposer des subventions, instruments de réduction des risques et crédits à des clients impliqués dans une agriculture durable, la transformation ou le commerce des matières premières agricoles, et s'engageant à protéger et réhabiliter la forêt et à faire participer les petits agriculteurs. Elle n'a toutefois pas encore distribué de fonds.La Banque de développement de la Jamaïque (DBJ) soutient des projets climatiques dans le cadre du Programme pilote pour la résilience climatique de la Jamaïque, développé par le gouvernement en collaboration avec la Banque interaméricaine de développement et la Banque mondiale pour investir dans l'adaptation au climat dans divers secteurs prioritaires, dont l'agriculture. Le programme favorise l'AIC par des subventions et des garanties partielles de prêts pour les prêteurs, à partir de ses propres fonds et par le biais d'une ligne caribéenne de crédit bancaire pour le développement, explique la directrice générale Edison Galbraith. Par exemple, pour de petits prêts de moins de 38 750 €, la DBJ peut garantir jusqu'à 80 % du montant sur la base d'une clause pari passu -ou partage des pertes.L'une des initiatives que la DBJ prévoit de soutenir par des garanties est un programme mené par l'organisation humanitaire internationale INMED Partnerships for Children, qui aide les petits agriculteurs à créer des entreprises de production aquaponique intelligentes sur le plan climatique en Jamaïque. INMED s'emploie actuellement à mettre en place, avec des banques commerciales et des coopératives de crédit jamaïcaines, des montages financiers dans le cadre desquels des prêteurs pourront offrir des taux d'intérêt plus bas et de meilleures conditions, comme des garanties réduites et une période initiale sans remboursements plus longue, pour aider les entrepreneurs à acheter des systèmes aquaponiques modulaires. Le montant des prêts variera selon le système envisagé, dont le coût peut atteindre 17 340 € pour un équipement commercial assez important, mais qui peut simplement comprendre un module, deux bacs de culture et un bassin à poissons. INMED prévoit d'attribuer les premiers prêts avant la fin 2018 et vise à soutenir 150 agriculteurs dans les prochaines années.La DBJ octroie aussi des fonds par l'intermédiaire du bailleur de fonds local Jamaica National, qui propose des prêts subventionnés pour soutenir des activités comme la récupération des eaux de pluie. Le programme de prêts axé sur le changement climatique de Jamaica National propose aux entrepreneurs des prêts de 1 295 € à 32 360 € pour financer des activités d'adaptation au changement climatique et des projets éco-énergétiques dans l'agriculture et le tourisme. Ces prêts offrent des taux d'intérêt annuels de 4 % et des calendriers de remboursement pouvant atteindre 48 mois, avec une période de moratoire maximale de six mois.D'après Hans Bogaard, répondre à la fois aux besoins des petits agriculteurs et des prêteurs dans le cadre d'investissements intelligents sur le plan climatique est très délicat. Il peut être difficile pour les banques de développement d'investir dans des projets d'AIC axés sur l'adaptation, comme l'amélioration de la résistance au changement climatique d'une ferme. Toutefois, explique le directeur de la FMO, si les interventions sont évolutives, elles deviennent davantage finançables. De plus, la capacité à mobiliser des investissements intelligents sur le plan climatique autour de grands projets bénéficiant aussi aux petits agriculteurs des environs est la solution miracle visée par toutes les banques de développement.Dans un projet auquel a participé la FMO -un producteur rwandais d'aliments complémentaires nutritifs destinés à lutter contre la malnutrition (voir l'article de Spore, Rwanda : Moins de pertes grâce à des céréales nutritives, https://tinyurl.com/ybjncjhm) -Africa Improved Foods (AIF) a mis en place en 2017 des centres de collecte du maïs. Les prêteurs de fonds offrent de plus en plus des mesures d'incitation échelonnées, comme de meilleures conditions ou des taux d'intérêt réduits, aux agroentreprises emprunteuses au fur et à mesure qu'elles atteignent certains objectifs liés au climat, comme la mise en oeuvre de systèmes d'irrigation plus résilients. Il est toutefois difficile de mesurer précisément l'impact des interventions intelligentes sur le plan climatique, et encore davantage, pour les banques commerciales, d'évaluer dans quelle mesure ces actions réduiront le risque financier auquel s'exposent les prêteurs, et d'améliorer la capacité des emprunteurs à rembourser leurs prêts. La durabilité de ces structures de financement est par conséquent incertaine, affirme Hans Bogaard. La FMO préfère soutenir des clients présentant une capacité de développement, par exemple en remboursant 50 % du coût des consultants engagés pour aider les agriculteurs et développeurs de projets à améliorer leur résilience au changement climatique.Ce projet vise à répondre au problème croissant du rejet des récoltes par les acheteurs en raison de leur teneur possible en champignons producteurs d'aflatoxines. Ce taux de rejet a diminué de 52 % pour la deuxième récolte de 2017 -après la création de points de collecte -par rapport à la première, et était nul à la troisième récolte.Les banques de développement peuvent aussi contribuer à l'adaptation au changement climatique en émettant des obligations ou des prêts verts, en passant par la clientèle des institutions financières, ajoute Hans Bogaard. En général, les banques s'intéressent surtout aux investissements axés sur l'atténuation du changement climatique, comme les projets de sylviculture qui piègent le carbone. Pour les projets à long terme, pour lesquels il faut plusieurs années avant d'obtenir une production et des revenus, les banques doivent être prêtes à renoncer au paiement d'intérêts dans les premiers temps, peut-être en échange d'un partage ultérieur des profits.Afin de trouver des solutions de financement plus innovantes pour l'AIC, le FIDA explore les possibilités de production participative, ainsi que des méthodes permettant de faciliter l'accès aux instruments de couverture des marchandises et des risques climatiques et d'aider les institutions de microfinance à mesurer et évaluer les risques climatiques.Le risque reste une préoccupation majeure pour les gouvernements et institutions financières. Lorsqu'ils prêtent aux petits agriculteurs, les organismes de microfinance ont souvent des doutes concernant les taux d'intérêt exigibles pour refléter les risques liés au changement climatique et la mesure dans laquelle ces risques sont diminués par les initiatives d'adaptation ou d'atténuation. Il faut \"renvoyer des informations aux prêteurs pour qu'ils puissent mettre au point leurs propres produits à partir des renseignements que nous leur donnons sur les risques climatiques\", affirme Margarita Astralaga. Le FIDA espère pouvoir lancer un produit ou service de ce type début 2019.Le risque est aussi une préoccupation importante pour la DBJ, qui veut soutenir le développement d'une assurance-récolte liée au climat en Jamaïque. Pour l'instant, les tentatives de la Jamaica International Insurance Co (JIIC) d'offrir une assurance intempéries se sont heurtées à la difficulté de proposer des cotisations abordables. En 2013, la JIIC s'est associée à la Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility, qui vend des couvertures contre les tempêtes et tremblements de terre aux gouvernements, pour tester des contrats de protection des moyens d'existence visant à protéger les revenus des individus après de graves épisodes venteux ou pluvieux (voir l'article de Spore, Des assurances innovantes pour minimiser les risques climatiques : https:// tinyurl.com/y8qd5sbw).Pour Edison Galbraith, c'est en innovant ainsi que les institutions financières seront encouragées à proposer davantage de financements axés sur l'agriculture durable. ■ Les initiatives faisant preuve de résilience climatique représentent un risque moins élevé pour les prêteurs privés.Busani Bafana E n 2012, en retournant dans sa région d'origine, dans le nord de l'Ouganda, Agnes \"Mama Rice\" Apea a été frappée par l'extrême pauvreté des femmes du district d'Amolatar. Victimes de conflits et de déplacements, beaucoup semblaient incapables d'améliorer leurs moyens de subsistance. Pour les aider, Agnes Apea a innové en introduisant la culture du riz dans ce district.L'entreprise sociale Hope Development Initiative (HDI) a ainsi été lancée en 2012 autour de vingt femmes, recrutées pour faire pousser du riz de montagne. Depuis, plus de 11 000 agricultrices de cinq districts du nord du pays ont bénéficié de soutien pour cultiver, transformer et vendre du riz sous la marque \"Mama Rice\". \"Il existe un marché pour le riz\", explique Agnes Apea. \"C'est un aliment nourrissant et facile à préparer, ce qui en fait une culture de choix pour les femmes.\"À travers son modèle de coopérative, HDI fournit des intrants, des facilités de crédit et des services de mécanisation aux agricultrices. Elle les forme à de bonnes pratiques agronomiques. Les membres paient des frais d'inscription annuels de 4 800 shillings ougandais (1,11 €) et peuvent acheter des parts de l'entreprise HDI contre 9 635 UGX (2,23 €).À la fin de la saison, HDI leur achète le riz au prix du marché. Ces agricultrices produisent jusqu'à 1 000 kg de riz par saison et gagnent environ 3 400 UGX/kg (0,79 €/kg). Le riz est ensuite blanchi, emballé et vendu à des grossistes en Ouganda -ou exporté vers le Kenya et le Soudan du Sud -au prix de 3 850 UGX/kg (0,89 €/kg).\"Je suis devenue 'Mama Rice' parce que le riz n'était pas cultivé dans cette région, mais les choses ont changé\", s'enthousiasme Agnes Apea. \"Au cours des six derniers mois, nous avons distribué 500 tonnes de semences à crédit et ouvert plus de 2 000 hectares de terres pour la culture du riz.\" Les agricultrices produisent également leurs propres semences de riz dans la ferme de 100 hectares de HDI, au lieu de dépendre de semences achetées ailleurs. Elles devraient ainsi produire 11 000 agricultrices cultivent, transforment et vendent du riz sous la marque \"Mama Rice\"Dans le nord de l'Ouganda, l'entreprise sociale HDI a formé plus de 11 000 femmes pauvres à la production de riz pour leur fournir une source de revenus.SPORE 191 | 9 C réée par Aboubacar Karim en 2017, Investiv réalise, avec ses six drones et ses pilotes formés au sein de l'entreprise, des plans d'aménagement et diagnostique les zones de maladies, les zones les moins fertiles ou les moins hydratées. Analysées, les données permettent d'ajuster l'épandage d'engrais et de produits phytosanitaires de manière précise, de mieux gérer la ressource en eau et d'économiser les intrants.Sur la plateforme d'Investiv, les clients ont accès à des informations actualisées, des photos, des vidéos et des rapports de visite. \"Grâce à l'aide d'Investiv, je cultive de la tomate sur 250 m 2 et je récolte 3 tonnes. C'est presque le double de mon rendement en culture normale\", témoigne Abel Bléon, un agriculteur qui s'est assuré le soutien d'un investisseur et les services d'Investiv pour développer une parcelle en culture hors-sol à Azaguié, à environ 45 km d'Abidjan.\"Nous avons déjà cartographié plus de 5 000 hectares de parcelles pour une trentaine de clients, soit plus de 100 missions réussies dans huit villes différentes en Côte d'Ivoire. La demande est de plus en plus forte\", se réjouit Aboubacar Karim. Investiv compte aujourd'hui 9 employés permanents et 13 contractuels.En 2017, Investiv a bénéficié, entre autres, d'une bourse de 10 000 dollars (8 500 €) de la fondation Avec ses drones, l'entreprise Investiv permet aux agriculteurs de cartographier leurs terres et de mieux gérer leurs ressources.2 000 tonnes de riz en 2018, contre 1 500 tonnes en 2017.En 2013, HDI a ouvert, à Amolatar, une usine de transformation capable de blanchir 3 tonnes de riz par jour.  En moins de deux ans, plus de 7 000 agriculteurs ont déjà bénéficié de 13 683 parrainages. La plateforme compte à présent plus de 64 000 utilisateurs et les investissements ont permis de mettre en culture près de de 6,5 hectares de terres supplémentaires. \"Avant le lancement de Farmcrowdy, je ne cultivais qu'une ou deux parcelles. À présent, j'en cultive une quinzaine, sur une superficie totale d'environ 1 hectare\", détaille Blessing Jacob, 24 ans, qui cultive du manioc dans l'État d'Akwa Ibom. Comme les autres membres de sa coopérative, elle a reçu le soutien technique et les conseils agricoles des agents de terrain de Farmcrowdy. \"Nous avons appris comment planter sur un lit de semis et espacer correctement les tiges. Les rendements sont à présent plus élevés et le manioc de meilleure qualité.\" ■ © FARMCROWDYAu Nigeria, une start-up met en commun les fonds d'investisseurs urbains pour soutenir des agriculteurs à travers une plateforme numérique. L'hydroponie consiste à remplacer la terre par des solutions nutritives. Des lampes LED économiques assurent un éclairage optimal et le système d'irrigation en circuit fermé consomme 85 % d'eau en moins que les systèmes extérieurs traditionnels.Les tours permettent de cultiver environ 2 500 plantes, soit une agriculture à haute densité dans un espace restreint. Avec cette exploitation \"mobile\", il est facile de faire parvenir les produits aux acheteurs (restaurants et supermarchés) quelques heures après la récolte. Le conteneur équivaut à près de 0,5 hectare de terres agricoles et produit 40 kg de végétaux par semaine, dont trois variétés de laitue, de la menthe, du basilic et des fleurs comestibles. La demande est considérable et la récolte hebdomadaire s'écoule entièrement. \"Nous importons trop. La population des Caraïbes va augmenter et nous devons trouver des méthodes plus durables pour produire des denrées alimentaires en quantité suffisante\", explique Warren Kellman, l'un des dirigeants d'Ino-Gro Inc.À Sainte-Lucie, une installation locale d'aquaponie biologique est promue par les ministres de l'agriculture d'Antigua-et-Barbuda comme un modèle pour le reste de la région, en raison de son utilisation très efficace de l'espace au service d'une production alimentaire économique. Green Haven Fresh Farm, une exploitation agricole biologique spécialisée dans la culture intégrée de légumes, de tilapias et de crevettes, dispose de 10 structures verticales pour la culture des légumes et de quatre réservoirs à poissons superposés, et s'appuie sur un système de collecte de l'eau de pluie d'environ 363 700 litres fonctionnant à l'énergie solaire. L'exploitation utilise aussi des lampes équipées d'une minuterie automatique et des ventilateurs de circulation pour contrôler la zone de culture et maximiser la production. Ce système, créé en 2016, produit 1,8 tonne de laitues par mois et 7,25 tonnes de tilapias par an. ■ EN OUGANDA, un service de réponse vocale interactive (IVR) fournit aux éleveurs des informations pour assurer la prévention et le contrôle des maladies chez les porcs. Lancé en mai 2018 par l'Institut international de recherche sur l'élevage, ce système d'IVR dispense des leçons de 4 minutes dans la langue locale pour sensibiliser les éleveurs aux maladies, comme la peste porcine africaine. Les messages peuvent être mis à jour et adaptés au contexte local. Le système permet de savoir quelles leçons l'agriculteur a déjà écoutées et de poser des questions pour déterminer si les informations ont été retenues. Ce service d'IVR gratuit fait l'objet d'un projet pilote auquel 230 petits exploitants du district de Masaka peuvent accéder sur leur téléphone portable.Pour surmonter les difficultés de production liées à la variabilité du climat, de jeunes entrepreneurs de la Barbade et de Sainte-Lucie ont recours aux techniques de l'hydroponie et de l'aquaponie.Grâce à l'aquaponie, l'entreprise Green Haven Fresh Farm produit 1,8 tonne de laitues par mois.Au Rwanda, les agriculteurs formés à l'usage des services d'information sur le climat ont recours à de bonnes pratiques agricoles et sont préparés à d'éventuels bouleversements. Les bulletins météorologiques sont envoyés par SMS en anglais à des agriculteurs influents, qui relaient l'information en langue locale auprès des autres producteurs. Le projet a établi un partenariat avec la Société nationale de radiodiffusion de Zambie (ZNBC), forte d'une audience de 6 millions de petits agriculteurs dans tout le pays. Le projet collabore avec des radios communautaires dans les districts pilotes pour diffuser les prévisions saisonnières en langue locale et former les présentateurs à l'interprétation de ces informations. \"Nous savons désormais que les méthodes traditionnelles pour prévoir la météo ne fonctionnent pas\", observe l'agriculteur Sililo Musepei.En étant mieux informés pour décider quand, comment et quoi planter, les agriculteurs obtiennent de meilleurs rendements et voient ainsi leurs revenus augmenter. \"Grâce aux informations météorologiques, ma production de maïs est passée de moins d'une tonne par hectare à 5 tonnes\", assure l'agricultrice Roida Zulu.Au Burkina Faso, une émission de radio hebdomadaire lancée par la FAO en collaboration avec l'Agence météorologique nationale fournit également des prévisions météorologiques et des conseils agronomiques à plus de 200 000 agriculteurs-éleveurs. Parmi les sujets abordés figurent notamment la gestion des ressources naturelles, la fertilité des sols et l'utilisation de pesticides, ainsi que la prévention et l'éradication des maladies animales. \"Avant, je produisais uniquement du maïs, mais, comme l'émission me donnait une idée de la pluviométrie au cours de la semaine, j'ai aussi produit du riz pendant les périodes plus humides\", explique Moussa Sékou. \"En suivant les conseils de Radio Climat, j'ai fauché beaucoup d'herbes que je vais conserver et sécher pour nourrir mon petit troupeau pendant la saison sèche.\" ■En Zambie, des agriculteurs reçoivent des prévisions météo via la radio et leurs téléphones.Au Burkina Faso et en Zambie, la radio diffuse des informations météorologiques pour aider les petits producteurs à atténuer les effets du changement climatique.  Le panel MaMo a pour but de fournir des données probantes et précises aux intervenants clés afin d'orienter la prise de décision en Afrique et de garantir une agriculture durable, compétitive, productive et transformatrice sur tout le continent. Actuellement, le secteur agricole africain a de très faibles taux de mécanisation, ce qui le rend globalement peu compétitif, avec une productivité assez basse. Vous découvrirez dans ce rapport que bon nombre d'économies africaines, en particulier celles qui dépendent largement de l'agriculture, exportent principalement des marchandises non transformées ou semi-transformées et qu'elles importent des biens hautement transformés à forte valeur ajoutée. Dans une économie mondialisée, les pays africains doivent davantage s'employer à produire et commercialiser des produits agricoles transformés et à plus haute valeur afin d'augmenter la productivité, créer des emplois et améliorer la sécurité alimentaire. Et c'est ici que la mécanisation entre en jeu.Le rapport s'est penché sur différentes chaînes de valeur agricoles en Afrique. Ses conclusions montrent que la mécanisation permettrait d'augmenter sensiblement la productivité, la compétitivité, la durabilité et même favoriserait la création d'emplois. Le faible taux de mécanisation limite non seulement la transformation des produits agricoles à valeur ajoutée, mais il contribue aussi à un important gaspillage alimentaire tout au long de la chaîne de valeur. La contribution africaine au gaspillage alimentaire dans le monde s'élève à environ 36 %, dont près de 30 % est dû à une mauvaise manipulation des denrées après la récolte. La mise en oeuvre de technologies visant à améliorer le traitement après récolte et réduire les pertes qui y sont liées permettra de renforcer la production alimentaire en Afrique.Je tiens à souligner les progrès significatifs réalisés par l'Éthiopie, le Maroc et le Nigeria. Ces trois pays ont oeuvré en faveur d'un système qui soutient la mécanisation agricole en fournissant un accès au financement et à la formation, et en développant une base de fournisseurs de services qui peuvent produire et entretenir les équipements. Au Maroc, le département d'agronomie a mis en place un centre de formation sur la mécanisation agricole, qui sert d'espace de rencontres pour les chercheurs et le secteur privé, en vue du développement de nouvelles technologies. Grâce à ce centre, des producteurs laitiers ont été mis en relation avec d'importantes entreprises de transformation, comme Nestlé, et la production de lait a augmenté sensiblement à la suite de l'introduction et de l'adoption d'outils de mécanisation.En Éthiopie, des agriculteurs ont été formés à l'utilisation et à l'entretien de différents outils et équipements de mécanisation. Une académie a été lancée pour former une trentaine de jeunes chaque année, ce qui contribue à créer un écosystème soutenant la mécanisation. C'est très important car, en Afrique, on voit souvent des tracteurs qui ont été \"Une mécanisation non durable est inenvisageable\"Directeur pour l'Afrique du Centre international d'agriculture tropicale (CIAT) et membre du panel Malabo Montpellier (MaMo), Debisi Araba explique comment la mécanisation peut créer des opportunités dans les chaînes de valeur agricoles sur le continent.Stephanie Lynch Enfin, au Nigeria, on observe des avancées prometteuses dans la réponse aux pertes après récolte. La start-up Cold Hubs se concentre sur l'amélioration de l'efficacité de la chaîne du froid à travers des systèmes de réfrigération hors-réseau (voir l'article de Spore, Chaîne du froid : renforcer le maillon faible). L'entreprise a installé des modules frigorifiques solaires dans les marchés et les fermes, ce qui permet aux producteurs laitiers, aux grossistes et aux détaillants de conserver, stocker et transporter leurs produits plus facilement.La jeunesse est un thème transversal de l'économie en Afrique en raison de la jeunesse de la population sur le continent. Tous les gouvernements africains, ainsi que le secteur privé, doivent envisager des mesures pour inciter les jeunes à se lancer dans l'agriculture et investir dans la création ou l'élargissement de points d'entrée leur permettant d'intégrer le secteur. Nous devons faire en sorte que les gens soient davantage actifs en amont de la chaîne de valeur. L'une des manières d'y parvenir repose sur la mécanisation -l'introduction de technologies de transformation dans et hors des champs, de l'irrigation, de technologies électriques hors-réseau et de services abordables et durables autour de ces technologies créera des opportunités d'emploi pour les jeunes.Peu de choses ont été faites pour les femmes dans l'agriculture et nous devons être exigeants sur la façon dont nous ciblons les interventions en leur faveur dans ce secteur. L'accès à des financements abordables et à des droits de propriété et fonciers, et la capacité à transférer des actifs en leur nom propre sont quelques-unes des principales batailles que nous devons mener avec elles. Actuellement, les femmes sont défavorisées dans tous les secteurs de l'économie, mais plus particulièrement dans l'agriculture, parce qu'elles ont peu de droits fonciers. Associer l'accès aux financements à d'autres actifs que les terres permettrait à davantage de femmes de développer des agroentreprises et leur donnerait accès à des outils de mécanisation spécifiques à leurs besoins qui allégeraient leurs tâches agricoles éreintantes.Dès sa création, il y a 51 ans, le CIAT a été en première ligne du déploiement d'innovations agricoles de pointe tout autour du globe. Dans le domaine de l'agriculture climato-intelligente, nous collaborons avec un large spectre de partenaires dans de multiples secteurs sur la recherche pour le développement et nous continuons d'explorer de nouveaux partenariats afin d'être capables, durablement, de diffuser ces innovations à ceux qui en ont besoin. Au Nigeria, par exemple, nous avons noué un partenariat avec l'initiative Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending, que nous aidons à concevoir et développer des profils de risques climatiques. Ces profils orienteront la prise de décision et la planification des investissements du secteur financier pour l'agriculture. Les secteurs du crédit et de l'assurance les utiliseront aussi pour concevoir des outils pour leurs clients -des petites, moyennes et grandes entreprises d'agribusiness -en se basant sur une meilleure compréhension des risques climatiques. Il est vraiment passionnant de voir que ces technologies rendent les agroentreprises plus productives, durables et rentables. Nous sommes fiers d'être partenaires de cette transformation de l'agriculture en Afrique. ■Pour aider les petits agriculteurs à sortir des pièges de la pauvreté, les systèmes de marchés ont un rôle très important à jouer. Les agriculteurs eux-mêmes font évidemment partie du secteur privé ou peuvent s'y intégrer s'ils disposent des bons outils, de technologies adaptées et de modèles commerciaux idoines. Il y a ensuite les entreprises qui fournissent les technologies et les intrants dont ces agriculteurs ont besoin pour améliorer leurs rendements. Enfin, des organisations plus grandes, telles que les transformateurs alimentaires en aval, approvisionnent les consommateurs dans les zones urbaines.L'aspect le plus délicat consiste à améliorer l'accès au financement des petites et moyennes entreprises (PME), qui collaborent avec les petits exploitants, et à financer ces derniers. Les institutions financières ont donc aussi un rôle à jouer en fournissant l'appui financier nécessaire aux agriculteurs et aux PME.En matière de mécanisation, nous pensons généralement aux tracteurs, mais nous avons besoin de technologies bien plus diversifiées. La Fondation Syngenta se concentre sur des technologies telles que les tracteurs et les moissonneuses, mais aussi les outils et les applications qu'ils sous-tendent.Dans un projet conjoint avec le CTA, nous recourons à certaines de ces technologies dans le cadre de la production de riz dans les vallées des fleuves Sénégal et Niger au Mali. Certes, nous utilisons des tracteurs et une série d'outils de plantation et de gestion des terres, mais nous soutenons aussi la chaîne d'approvisionnement de pièces détachées et la constitution d'un réseau d'experts formés en maintenance.Les infrastructures, généralement fournies par le secteur public, doivent être financées et bien gérées afin de contribuer au transport de machines de grande taille. Il faut aussi mettre en place des infrastructures numériques, c'est-àdire des réseaux mobiles et de données de bonne qualité afin que les services de TIC fonctionnent efficacement. Par ailleurs, le secteur public doit encourager l'adoption de machines de qualité, avec des subventions à l'importation d'équipements spécifiques. Il faut aussi inciter à la location de services de type Uber : les coopératives ont commencé à acheter des machines qui peuvent être partagées entre leurs membres. De plus, les entrepreneurs achètent des machines et fournissent des services de location aux agriculteurs. Une bonne combinaison de subventions favorisera le développement de davantage de services de location.Nous Au Bénin et au Nigeria, le projet \"Augmentation du microdosage des engrais et de la production et de l'utilisation de légumes indigènes en Afrique de l'Ouest\" vise à améliorer la nutrition et la sécurité des revenus grâce à l'accroissement de la production et de l'utilisation de légumes indigènes. Le projet, soutenu par le Fonds canadien de recherche sur la sécurité alimentaire internationale, a développé des solutions facilement utilisables et abordables pour les agriculteurs. Parmi celles-ci figure une méthode de microdosage des engrais qui consiste en des applications ciblées de petites quantités d'engrais sur les semences ou à leur proximité. Utilisé en association avec de l'engrais organique, le microdosage produit assez de macronutriments dans le sol pour obtenir des légumes de façon durable. Avec ce procédé, la production de légumes indigènes a doublé entre 2015 et février 2018. Les revenus des entreprises produisant des légumes indigènes sont passés d'environ 600 euros à 1 800 euros par semaine pendant la haute saison (sèche). \"À l'aide de solutions simples, abordables et concrètes, nous transformons des légumes sous-utilisés en cultures rentables pour les agriculteurs locaux\", se réjouit Pierre Akponikpe, chercheur principal du projet. En outre, un système innovant d'irrigation par capillarité a été testé dans des pépinières de légumes-feuilles. Entre 1,2 et 7,4 millions de litres d'eau par hectare ont ainsi été économisés sur une saison de croissance. Pour que ces solutions soient adoptées à grande échelle, le projet a créé une MicroVeg Innovation Platform qui facilite la coordination et la coopération entre agriculteurs, négociants, transformateurs, vendeurs d'intrants, décideurs politiques et institutions financières. Des essais de démonstration de production de légumes ont été réalisés et des producteurs de semences ont reçu des formations sur, entre autres, les périodes de récolte et les meilleures techniques de manipulation post-récolte. En tout, près de 340 000 agriculteurs ont bénéficié d'informations sur les technologies et de pratiques améliorées de production de légumes. La coopération entre les acteurs de la chaîne de valeur a permis d'appliquer des solutions agricoles à grande échelle. Mais il a fallu faire face à de nombreux défis : une mauvaise maîtrise de la ressource en eau, des difficultés à adopter des outils différents de ceux utilisés depuis toujours ou bien encore le besoin d'adapter certaines techniques aux conditions locales. Pour surmonter ces difficultés, les responsables des projets ont dû réhabiliter ou construire les infrastructures hydroagricoles, mais aussi, dans certains cas, mettre en place des structures de pérennisation des actions en instaurant des réseaux de microfinance pour résoudre le manque d'accès au financement et soutenir des Centres de services agricoles afin de garantir la continuité des services aux producteurs. Le secteur privé a fourni une partie du matériel d'entreposage des récoltes, en construisant de petits magasins d'intrants et en formant leurs propriétaires, ou encore en formant des paysans semenciers.\"Passer à l'échelle nécessite souvent de profonds changements qui peuvent avoir des implications variées pour la société et l'environnement, à la fois positives et négatives\", prévient Lennart Woltering, spécialiste du scaling au CIMMYT. \"Par exemple, un projet d'irrigation peut bénéficier à certains agriculteurs, mais d'autres membres de la communauté peuvent souffrir d'un manque d'eau ou de taux de pollution plus élevés sur le long terme. On ne doit donc pas uniquement chercher à atteindre 'le potentiel maximum' mais 'l'échelle optimale ou responsable'.\" Il est ainsi important, ajoute le chercheur, \"d'évaluer l'impact des ambitions de changement d'échelle et les risques associés, au-delà des limites géographiques, sociales et temporelles définies par le projet\".Le programme de recherche CCAFS (Changement climatique, agriculture et sécurité alimentaire) a ainsi analysé onze cas d'études spécifiques à l'agriculture intelligente face au climat (CSA, en anglais) dans des pays en développement. Cette analyse a permis de mettre en avant trois types de stratégies basées sur : l'implication du secteur privé dans la chaîne de valeur ; les TIC et les services de conseils ; les politiques publiques. Là aussi, des défis sont apparus : la difficulté à estimer les coûts et les bénéfices des activités de changement d'échelle ; l'intégration des connaissances aux niveaux nationaux et locaux ; enfin, la prise en compte de l'équité des bénéfices de l'adoption des interventions CSA.\"La tension entre le contexte et les spécificités des petits agriculteurs d'une part, le besoin d'atteindre un très grand nombre d'entre eux d'autre part, est un vrai défi\", souligne Philip Thornton, chercheur à l'ILRI et au CCAFS.Autre problème : en Afrique, les technologies agricoles souffrent d'un faible taux d'adoption par les petits producteurs. \"Ceci est attribué au fait que les agriculteurs ne sont pas informés des bénéfices que les nouvelles technologies peuvent fournir, que ces technologies ne sont pas disponibles au moment où elles seraient nécessaires, ou qu'elles ne généreraient pas de profit pour des raisons d'usage des terres et de la main-d'oeuvre\", résume une étude de l'ONG de recherche Partnership for Economic Policy. L'on pourrait ajouter à cette liste : un manque d'accès aux marchés, des financements insuffisants pour acheter des semences améliorées ou s'offrir un service mécanisé, des produits d'assurance peu adaptés aux besoins des agriculteurs, voire une préférence gustative pour des semences traditionnelles au rendement moins élevé.Prendre en compte les particularités locales \"est l'un des grands enjeux du changement d'échelle\", ajoute Philip Thornton. Un projet réussi à tel endroit ne donnera pas nécessairement les mêmes résultats ailleurs.Au Zimbabwe et en Éthiopie, en particulier, le CIMMYT a choisi de concentrer son effort de changement d'échelle sur la création d'un \"marché pour les pauvres\" autour d'un service de petits tracteurs en direction de ceux pour qui l'achat d'un gros tracteur est impossible. Le projet FACASI (Farm Mechanization and Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification, Mécanisation agricole et agriculture de conservation pour une intensification durable) est articulé différemment selon les spécificités des pays : en Éthiopie, la commercialisation se fait sous l'impulsion du gouvernement qui a fait de la mécanisation un axe politique primordial ; au Zimbabwe, à l'économie plus libérale, c'est le secteur privé qui soutient le projet. \"Dès que nous avons la preuve qu'une machine peut augmenter la productivité de la main-d'oeuvre et peut constituer un business viable pour un fournisseur de services rural, nous soutenons le système de marché autour de cette machine\", explique Frédéric Baudron, un agronome du CIMMYT. Cela implique de créer de la demande au travers de démonstrations et d'une aide à l'investissement de départ, de former les acteurs de la chaîne de valeur, en particulier les fournisseurs de services mécanisés ruraux et les artisans, de fournir des informations sur le marché et de coordonner les importateurs, les transformateurs, les fournisseurs de services et les centres de formation vocationnelle. Depuis le lancement du projet en 2014, plus d'une centaine de fournisseurs de services ont ainsi été formés en Éthiopie et au Zimbabwe.Le secteur privé occupe une place grandissante dans les projets de Neuf leçons pour la mise à l'échelle de l'agricultureNeuf leçons pour la mise à l'échelle de l'agriculture Conçues pour aider les décideurs et privilégier des investissements limités a n d'obtenir un impact optimal à un coût minimum, ces leçons ont déjà servi à étendre ou reproduire des pratiques éprouvées au pro t de béné ciaires aux pro ls variés.  En Inde, le CRDI a soutenu le développement de la production de sel doublement enrichi pour lutter contre l'anémie chez les enfants et les femmes enceintes. L'innovation a été diffusée largement grâce à un partenariat avec des responsables politiques, qui ont subventionné le coût de ce sel pour les consommateurs des États du Jharkhand, du Madhya Pradesh et de l'Uttar Pradesh, soit 50 millions de personnes. Une stratégie de changement d'échelle faisant appel aux TIC s'est également révélée particulièrement efficace au Bénin et au Nigeria, où le CRDI a touché plus de 18 millions de personnes grâce à des programmes de radio rurale. Mais même les meilleures stratégies ne constituent pas une garantie de succès. Les facteurs sociaux et culturels, et notamment la façon dont les individus perçoivent les innovations, représentent parfois autant de freins.On pense souvent que, si une innovation fonctionne au niveau local et est économiquement viable, le secteur privé sera en mesure de s'en saisir et de l'exploiter. Or ce n'est pas toujours le cas. Dans le cas du sel doublement enrichi, il aurait été difficile pour le secteur privé de diffuser seul cette intervention à plus grande échelle car la réussite de son déploiement dans les trois États reposait sur la mise en oeuvre d'une réelle politique relative au sel doublement enrichi. Si le secteur privé représente souvent un acteur important, son rôle varie en fonction de l'innovation à mettre à l'échelle.Les pays africains ont déjà fait d'énormes progrès en matière d'investissements dans le secteur agricole. La plupart des investissements sont consacrés à l'accès aux intrants, à l'infrastructure et au financement, avec pour objectif d'augmenter la production. Il y a néanmoins lieu d'accorder la priorité au secteur éducatif, car il est nécessaire de former sur le continent davantage d'experts agricoles capables de renforcer les capacités agricoles africaines et de faciliter la diffusion des innovations réussies.Renaud De Plaen, du CRDI, explique le rôle crucial des secteurs public et privé dans la diffusion à grande échelle des innovations.© IDRCu Bénin, 61 000 agriculteurs -dont 20 000 femmes -sont acteurs de partenariats public-privé établis autour de PME locales, grâce au soutien de l'incubateur d'agribusiness 2SCALE. Présent dans neuf pays d'Afrique subsaharienne et financé par le gouvernement néerlandais, 2SCALE s'attache à créer des réseaux autour de \"champions\" locaux (organisations de producteurs, commerçants, transformateurs, fournisseurs de services agricoles…) afin de les aider à \"produire, transformer et fournir des produits alimentaires de qualité\" vendus sur les marchés locaux et régionaux. L'objectif est que l'ensemble de la chaîne de valeur change d'échelle, en répondant aux objectifs commerciaux des entreprises, en intégrant les petits producteurs et autres entrepreneurs ruraux, ainsi qu'en ciblant les consommateurs à faibles revenus.\"Notre approche est focalisée sur le marché\", explique Éric Lakoussan, leader du secteur horticole de 2SCALE, basé au Bénin. \"Nous travaillons à partir d'une idée d'affaire d'une entreprise pour développer une chaîne de valeur inclusive, et nous utilisons les fonds publics néerlandais de 2SCALE pour nouer un partenariat avec ce 'champion' et d'autres acteurs de la chaîne.\"Parmi les réussites de l'incubateur figure celle de Promo Fruits. En 2013, 2SCALE a ainsi aidé l'entreprise, leader régional des jus frais d'ananas, à négocier un prêt de 800 000 USD (697 000 €) auprès d'Oikocredit International pour investir dans de nouvelles machines, ainsi que pour augmenter la productivité et l'accès au financement de 2 500 petits producteurs membres du réseau de fournisseurs de l'entreprise.Aaron Akinocho et Claude BiaoL'année suivante, Promo Fruits a négocié de nouveaux emprunts afin d'investir 3 470 000 USD (3 millions €) dans son usine d'Allada, à 56 km au nord de Cotonou. L'entreprise a cofinancé avec 2SCALE un réseau de techniciens pour former et conseiller les agriculteurs à de meilleures pratiques agricoles. Quelque 12 000 agriculteurs ont ainsi été intégrés au réseau d'approvisionnement de Promo Fruits, faisant passer la quantité de fruits fournis à l'entreprise de 11 200 à 21 500 tonnes par an. Au final, avec l'augmentation de ses capacités de transformation, l'approvisionnement régulier en fruits et la diversification de ses produits, Promo Fruits a doublé le volume de jus vendus, de 5,2 à 11,5 millions de litres par an. Au début de son partenariat avec les producteurs d'ananas en 2016, l'entreprise Promo Fruits a ainsi organisé des rencontres au cours desquelles il a été possible de discuter avec les agriculteurs des difficultés spécifiques liées à l'acheminement des fruits et de trouver des solutions, soit en mettant des camions de transport à la disposition des producteurs pour acheminer les fruits, soit en organisant une première transformation sur place, avant l'acheminement vers l'usine. \"Il est important d'amener les acteurs d'une chaîne de valeur à comprendre qu'en travaillant ensemble ils peuvent se faire davantage confiance et améliorer leur productivité et leur compétitivité\", conclut Éric Lakoussan.Au Bénin, 355 PME sont partenaires de 2SCALE. Comme la Coopérative de transformation, d'approvisionnement et d'écoulement de soja (CTAE) qui s'engage auprès des agriculteurs à acheter une certaine quantité de produits lors de chaque campagne, notamment pour alimenter ses unités de production d'huile et de goussi (condiment) de soja. La coopérative a ainsi sécurisé ses filières d'approvisionnement et est passée de 6 000 tonnes de soja transformé fin 2016 à 12 000 tonnes en 2018. C'est pour renforcer ces partenariats que les entreprises s'engagent aussi à développer des services en amont de la chaîne de valeur.De son côté, l'Union régionale de producteurs des départements de l'Atlantique et du Littoral (URP-AL), qui réunit des producteurs de soja et est partenaire de 2SCALE, s'investit dans la formation de ses membres afin que ceux-ci puissent produire du soja de première qualité, le conserver et l'acheminer dans les meilleures conditions. Pour cela, l'URP-AL a besoin de financements afin de contribuer aux frais de déplacements des agriculteurs prenant part aux formations. \"Pour tenir sur le long terme et pérenniser les actions de formation, il nous est nécessaire d'avoir un meilleur accès au crédit, qui est la principale difficulté\", explique Bernard Dedjelenou, coordinateur de l'URP-AL. Il s'agit donc de trouver des entreprises qui s'engagent à acheter leur production, ce qui offre une garantie auprès des sociétés de microfinance pour assurer les crédits octroyés aux agriculteurs.Cependant, il n'est pas toujours facile de trouver des entreprises qui acceptent de participer au développement de partenariats équitables avec les producteurs. \"Beaucoup d'entreprises opèrent sans volonté d'inclusion. Il y a par exemple des entreprises qui veulent simplement acheter la matière première et ne veulent avoir aucun contact avec les producteurs\", regrette Éric Lakoussan. 2SCALE se tourne donc vers des entreprises souhaitant être compétitives sur leurs marchés et avoir un impact social auprès des autres acteurs de la chaîne de valeur.La même logique prévaut pour des partenariats plus modestes. \"Le principal apport de 2SCALE est que désormais nous parvenons à gérer notre production comme une véritable petite entreprise\", explique ainsi Bénédicte Ahouansou, transformatrice de soja, dans la commune de Djakotomey, dans le sudouest du Bénin, et membre d'une coopérative d'une vingtaine de femmes qui vend ses produits finis -fromage, lait, farine et galettes -sur les marchés locaux. \"Grâce à 2SCALE, nous sommes parvenues à identifier quatre agriculteurs qui produisent des graines de bonne qualité. Nous les leur achetons soit en payant comptant, soit à crédit et nous les transformons en fromage, en lait, en farine ou en galettes.\" Bénédicte et les membres de sa coopérative ont ainsi pu gagner environ 30 000 francs CFA (45 €) par mois, contre un peu moins de 10 000 francs CFA (15 €) avant le début de leur activité de transformation en 2017. ■ En créant des réseaux autour de \"champions économiques\", l'incubateur en agribusiness 2SCALE a aidé plus de 61 000 agriculteurs du Bénin au sein de partenariats public-privé.Stephanie Lynch Au Salvador, les petits agriculteurs, en plus d'avoir un accès limité aux marchés officiels, ont aussi du mal à savoir quels sont les produits recherchés et à quel prix les vendre. Ils finissent souvent par les céder à des intermédiaires pour des prix moins élevés que leur juste valeur marchande. Toutefois, depuis la création d'Acceso en 2013, l'entreprise est devenue le leader national de l'approvisionnement direct auprès des petits exploitants agricoles. Elle achète plus de 60 types de fruits, légumes et fruits de mer à plus de 1 000 petits exploitants et vend ces produits à des acheteurs nationaux et internationaux tels que Super Selectos (le plus grand supermarché national avec 96 magasins au Salvador), les 84 restaurants Subway du pays et d'autres chaînes de restauration.\"Le modèle que nous avons développé est vraiment formidable\", déclare Carlos Calleja, vice-président de Grupo Calleja, propriétaire de Super Selectos. \"Acceso joue un rôle incroyable, non seulement en livrant des produits d'excellente qualité à bon prix et dans les délais prévus à nos magasins, mais aussi en améliorant la capacité des agriculteurs à augmenter leur production et développer la valeur de leurs produits.\" Pour garantir que les agriculteurs répondent à la demande des grossistes en termes de quantité et de qualité, Acceso leur propose des formations aux bonnes pratiques agricoles (BPA), comme l'utilisation adéquate et le bon entreposage des engrais et les meilleurs mécanismes de lutte contre ravageurs et maladies.En 2016, Acceso est devenue la première entreprise d'Amérique centrale à réussir le contrôle des BPA dans les parcelles de ses agriculteurs imposé par Yum! Brands. En garantissant que les agriculteurs produisent régulièrement des cultures respectant des normes de qualité strictes, Acceso a pu approvisionner de gros acheteurs de manière fiable et à l'échelle requise. L'entreprise a aussi gagné la confiance de ses acheteurs, avec qui elle a établi des partenariats à long terme. Une condition indispensable pour un impact à grande échelle d'Acceso.Lorsque l'entreprise approche un nouveau client, son équipe locale d'experts évalue quelles lacunes des chaînes d'approvisionnement ses petits producteurs peuvent combler, en tenant compte des exigences de l'acheteur en matière de volume.En conseillant une association de 14 femmes et en les formant à produire des cultures commerciales telles que les concombres, les tomates et les poivrons verts -qui répondent à une demande locale -, Acceso a garanti à ces petites productrices un marché rentable pour leurs produits. \"Ce qui a été formidable, c'est de voir que nous pouvions être compétitives sur un marché officiel\", s'est réjouie une femme de l'association. Auparavant, ces femmes vendaient leur production sur des marchés informels où les prix variaient énormément d'une semaine à l'autre. Elles reçoivent désormais un revenu régulier pour leurs produits qui, bien qu'ils se vendent à un prix élevé en raison de leur qualité, restent moins chers que les mêmes marchandises importées.En plus de répondre aux demandes des acheteurs en matière de variété, qualité et quantité des produits agricoles et d'offrir des prix compétitifs, Les centres de collecte ont amélioré les revenus de plus de 3 200 agriculteurs et ouvriers agricoles et ont créé 114 emplois › Les centres de collecte d'Acceso au Salvador achètent plus de 60 types de fruits, légumes et fruits de mer à plus de 1 000 petits exploitants.Acceso gère le regroupement, le conditionnement et la livraison de la production des petits agriculteurs. \"Nos clients peuvent passer par nous pour acheter la production de notre réseau d'agriculteurs. Ils n'ont pas besoin d'aller voir chaque agriculteur, nous le faisons pour eux\", explique Andres Baiza, manager général d'Acceso. D'après ce dernier, les services de regroupement bénéficient aussi aux agriculteurs pour qui l'entreprise représente une solution unique de services : elle classe en effet leurs produits avant de les livrer aux marchés officiels. Acceso gère quatre centres de collecte à Chalatenango et Ahuachapan, qui contrôlent la qualité, lavent et conditionnent 750 000 unités de produits par mois. Environ 300 producteurs approvisionnent le centre de collecte de Los Planes, à Chalatenango, avec près de 58 produits différents. \"Avant, il nous fallait cinq heures pour déposer nos produits au marché, sans être sûrs qu'ils seraient acceptés. Aujourd'hui, un trajet de cinq minutes [jusqu'au centre de collecte] suffit pour tout organiser et nous sommes certains qu'ils achèteront tout ce que nous apportons\", indique un agriculteur.En plus d'améliorer les revenus de plus de 3 200 agriculteurs et travailleurs agricoles des communautés environnantes, les centres de collecte ont créé 114 emplois dans la collecte locale et la transformation, ainsi que des postes pour les techniciens agricoles travaillant directement avec les agriculteurs. Une femme qui travaille au centre de collecte de Los Planes déclare : \"Ma vie a changé. Je viens au travail, je passe du temps avec mes collègues, j'apprends de nouvelles choses et je rentre le soir à la maison. Le plus important, c'est que j'ai un salaire et des ressources pour subvenir à mes besoins.\"La solution agroalimentaire développée par le CGEP bénéficie aux acteurs intervenant tout au long de la chaîne de valeur, des petits agriculteurs aux gros acheteurs, qui économisent temps et argent grâce à la fiabilité de l'approvisionnement en produits de qualité. En veillant à ce que tous les intervenants profitent de ses activités, Acceso a pu devenir rentable en 15 mois et assurer la croissance continue de ses revenus, qui ont atteint presque 5 millions d'euros en 2017. \"Nous cherchons à créer une situation profitable à tous, aussi bien les agriculteurs que les acheteurs\", conclut Frank Giustra. \"Ce n'est pas facile, mais il est possible, avec de la constance, de créer des entreprises viables et ces types d'investissements ont un impact fort sur le plan du rendement social du capital.\" Au Salvador, cette approche a permis au CGEP d'avoir un impact positif et durable à grande échelle. Peut-être que certains pays ACP s'en inspireront. ■Bien que beaucoup d'agriculteurs haïtiens dépendent de la culture de l'arachide, les exportations de cacahuètes vers les États-Unis et l'Europe sont limitées. En cause : des prix peu concurrentiels et des taux de contamination aux aflatoxines élevés en raison de mauvaises conditions de stockage et de contrôles insuffisants de la qualité. Pour relancer le secteur, accroître la production des petits agriculteurs et leur permettre d'accéder aux marchés officiels, le CGEP a lancé l'initiative Acceso Peanut Enterprise Corporation. Avec plus de 3 000 fournisseurs, l'entreprise sociale a mis en place l'un des plus importants réseaux officiels de petits agriculteurs d'Haïti. Pour éviter la contamination par les aflatoxines et améliorer leurs rendements, ces agriculteurs haïtiens sont formés aux bonnes pratiques avant et après récolte. L'entreprise permet aussi aux agriculteurs de se procurer à crédit des intrants (semences de qualité et engrais). Leur coût est déduit du prix auquel Acceso achète les produits à la fin de chaque saison. Avant d'adhérer à ce programme, Sinous Chavre, un agriculteur de 78 ans, avait du mal à trouver des crédits et des semences.Désormais, en plus de bénéficier de semences de qualité, d'engrais et de formations, il apprend des pratiques améliorées de préparation des terres et de stockage après récolte auprès de deux techniciens agricoles. Il a ainsi pu accroître sa production agricole et augmenter ses revenus mensuels de 40 %. \"En faisant partie d'Acceso, je n'ai plus besoin de travailler ailleurs ou de trouver une autre source de revenus pour faire vivre ma famille.\" Acceso regroupe et stocke les arachides dans ses neuf dépôts construits sur le plateau central d'Haïti et analyse leur teneur en aflatoxines. En 2016, l'entreprise a pu étendre ses opérations à d'autres cultures (citron vert, mangue, sisal, ricin et moringa), vendues sur les marchés locaux et à l'exportation. Par ailleurs, Acceso Haïti gère une pépinière commerciale qui produit des plantules (plus d'un million à ce jour) et les distribue aux agriculteurs. Le modèle commercial de l'entreprise, qui permet aux agriculteurs d'accéder à tout ce dont ils ont besoin pour augmenter et vendre leur production, a généré plus de 1,2 million d'euros de revenus en 2017.En garantissant que les agriculteurs produisent des cultures respectant des normes de qualité strictes, Acceso a pu approvisionner de gros acheteurs de manière fiable et à l'échelle requiseGuérir les Caraïbes, une tasse de thé à la foisDes en-cas sains pour stimuler la production de céréales Lancé en 2014, le Projet d'investissement et de développement des marchés agricoles (PIDMA) de la Banque mondiale a permis de conclure un accord de partenariat entre le ministère de l'Agriculture et neuf entreprises privées des secteurs brassicole et de la boulangerie. Le PIDMA, doté d'une enveloppe de 76 millions d'euros, coopère avec des chercheurs de l'Institut international d'agriculture tropicale pour la fourniture de variétés améliorées de manioc, ainsi qu'avec l'Institut de recherche pour le développement agricole, qui fournit des semences de maïs et de sorgho à haut rendement et résistantes aux maladies.Dans le cadre de ce partenariat, des entreprises agroalimentaires locales utilisent les matières premières fournies par les organisations de producteurs pour fabriquer des farines et de l'amidon de manioc. Plus de 200 boulangeries locales utilisent désormais cette farine pour leur pain. Quant à l'amidon, il est employé par Nestlé, par exemple, dans des produits tels que les cubes de bouillon Maggi, ainsi que par Guinness Cameroon et les Brasseries du Cameroun, pour la fabrication de bières. En important moins, les entreprises ont ainsi diminué de plus de 50 % leurs dépenses totales. \"Les cultivateurs de ces produits de base sont devenus prospères car ils peuvent écouler leurs produits sur un marché stable, tandis que les entreprises ont pu réduire leurs coûts de production\", explique Christopher Ekungwe, délégué régional à l'agriculture et au développement rural pour la région du sud-ouest du Cameroun. Selon le ministère du Commerce, les brasseries et les boulangeries utilisent chaque année environ 400 000 tonnes de maïs, 300 000 tonnes de sorgho et 20 000 tonnes de manioc produites localement.Grâce à la fourniture de semences de qualité et à un meilleur accès aux marchés locaux, les producteurs de maïs et de sorgho bénéficient de revenus plus élevés. Alice Ngum, qui cultive du maïs à Buea, au sud-ouest du pays, gagne aujourd'hui environ 475 000 francs CFA (720 €) par saison, soit trois fois plus qu'avant le lancement de l'initiative. \"Dans le temps, nous vendions nos produits à un prix dérisoire et nous n'avions pas la possibilité de négocier avec les acheteurs qui nous imposaient des prix très bas\", ditelle. Alice a pu construire une maison et est désormais en mesure de payer les frais de scolarité de ses enfants. ■ \"Nous utilisons des matières premières locales de qualité supérieure pour créer nos recettes médicinales, qui sont ensuite mélangées avec d'autres ingrédients pour le bien-être et le goût\", explique l'entrepreneuse. \"Nous avons commencé par proposer un seul mélange, et nous en produisons aujourd'hui cinq, dont aucun ne contient de sucre ajouté, d'agents de conservation, d'arômes ni de colorants. À l'exception de notre mélange de thé blanc à la cardamome et au gingembre, qui contient un peu de théine, tous nos autres mélanges sont sans théine.\" Ces thés sans calorie, 100 % vegan et sans gluten contiennent également des ingrédients dont les effets antioxydants et les bienfaits pour le système immunitaire ont été prouvés.Malgré des difficultés d'approvisionnement local à la création de l'entreprise, 75 % des 20 matières premières utilisées proviennent désormais de la région. \"Nous contrôlons la production de nos thés 'de la plante à la tasse', en effectuant des visites sur le terrain, en analysant les techniques agricoles employées et en testant les cultures\", souligne Sophia Stone. Des partenariats avec des petits producteurs garantissent à l'entreprise la qualité et l'uniformité de ses thés. Beaucoup d'ingrédients proviennent de Trinité (écorce de bois mabi, fleurs d'hibiscus, oseille, zeste d'orange, citronnelle, gingembre et curcuma), tandis que les grains de poivre noir, l'anis, la cannelle, les clous de girofle, les gousses de cardamome et le gingembre (quand l'approvisionnement local est insuffisant) sont importés, principalement de la Grenade.Récemment, la directrice exécutive Stacy Seeterram a collaboré avec exporTT sur des accords de cofinancement et des formations pour mieux se préparer à l'exportation. Par ailleurs, la première édition locale du programme Shell Livewire 2018, qui offre un soutien après la phase de démarrage, comme du mentorat et des financements, a permis à l'entreprise de prendre part à plusieurs compétitions internationales. Son thé \"Relaxation tropicale\" a ainsi remporté la médaille de bronze au Championnat mondial du thé Grâce à la fourniture de semences de qualité et adaptées, de serres et de formations aux bonnes pratiques agricoles, les agriculteurs kényans diversifient leurs cultures en se lançant dans la production de fines herbes.Bob Koigi A u Kenya, plus de 2 000 petits agriculteurs accèdent aux marchés internationaux et augmentent leurs revenus grâce à la culture de plantes aromatiques. Pour répondre à la hausse de la demande mondiale, l'entreprise Premier Seed collabore avec les agriculteurs et leur offre des formations sur la production de fines herbes et le respect des normes de sécurité et de qualité alimentaires internationales.Les fines herbes, comme le basilic et la ciboulette, sont des plantes vivaces qui arrivent à maturité en 45 jours seulement -contre au moins 3 mois pour le maïs ou les haricots -et peuvent être récoltées tous les dix jours, offrant ainsi un revenu régulier et fiable. \"Nous voulions convaincre les agriculteurs des avantages des plantes aromatiques et changer leur modèle agricole\", explique Eunice Wanjohi, agronome en chef chez Premier Seed. La culture traditionnelle de céréales et de légumineuses est peu rentable, entre autres en raison des attaques de nuisibles et des maladies.En 2012, un projet pilote a impliqué 50 agriculteurs de Nakuru, dans la vallée du Rift, qui ont été formés à la production de basilic et de ciboulette. Le projet concerne désormais 2 000 petits exploitants dans des régions agricoles clés du Kenya. D'autres plantes aromatiques ont été introduites, telles que l'origan, le thym, le romarin et l'estragon. Premier Seed travaille avec des sélectionneurs des Pays-Bas qui produisent des variétés de semences adaptées au climat sec et aux sols alcalins. \"Les semences sont à la base de toute entreprise agricole, donc nous devons être sûrs de fournir les meilleurs produits de base dès le départ\", affirme Simon Andys, PDG et fondateur de Premier Seed.James Kuria a cultivé du maïs, des haricots et des pois pendant 40 ans. Il gère désormais quatre serres où il cultive du basilic, de l'aneth et du thym. \"Avant de me mettre aux plantes aromatiques, je gagnais en moyenne 23 500 Ksh par mois [200 €] et j'avais du mal à subvenir aux besoins de ma famille. Aujourd'hui, je gagne 47 000 Ksh par mois [400 €]\", explique-t-il. \"Ma femme a quitté sa boutique pour venir m'aider, tellement les résultats sont impressionnants. Nous avons encouragé 20 autres agriculteurs à se lancer dans cette culture.\"En plus de recevoir des semences de qualité, les agriculteurs suivent des formations sur les bonnes pratiques agricoles, comme l'usage approprié des produits chimiques et de l'eau, la gestion des nuisibles et la traçabilité des produits. Premier Seed construit aussi des serres à des prix abordables pour les agriculteurs grâce à des partenariats avec des institutions financières. Les banques étendent les facilités de crédit aux agriculteurs et, une fois que leurs exportations commencent à rapporter, une partie convenue au préalable de ces revenus est déduite pour rembourser le prêt.Après avoir initialement ciblé le marché européen, Premier Seed s'est tournée vers les États-Unis et le Moyen-Orient. L'entreprise recrute davantage d'agriculteurs pour répondre à la hausse de la demande et forme actuellement 2 500 petits exploitants supplémentaires. Son but : travailler avec 7 000 agriculteurs de plus d'ici 2020. ■ L'entreprise emploie plus de 200 agriculteurs qui l'approvisionnent en mil. Dix autres exploitants fournissent des arachides. Le miel provient de deux groupes de jeunes producteurs. \"Dans notre équipe, nous avons des agrochimistes qui garantissent que les matières premières fournies correspondent à nos spécifications\", précise Irene Etyang. Les agriculteurs qui fournissent l'entreprise sont formés à la culture du mil, à une bonne utilisation des engrais, aux méthodes de contrôle des nuisibles et au traitement post-récolte de leur production. \"La qualité et la sécurité alimentaires sont essentielles, car nous produisons des aliments à destination des gens et nous devons nous plier aux politiques et législations alimentaires.\"Dans sa petite usine du comté de Busia, dans l'ouest du pays, l'entreprise utilise une meuleuse pour la transformation des arachides et du mil en farine. \"Notre capacité de production est de 500 barres par jour, que nous vendons 100 Ksh [0,86 €] pièce\", indique Irene Etyang. Les clients de l'entreprise sont principalement des citadins soucieux de leur santé et la demande est en plein essor. \"Notre grand problème est l'absence de matériel de transformation. Notre production est majoritairement manuelle. Nous espérons automatiser le processus au fur et à mesure de notre expansion afin de produire davantage face à l'augmentation de la demande pour les produits.\" Cela permettrait également à l'entreprise d'élargir sa gamme de produits, notamment en confiserie. D'après Gladys Emojong, l'une des agricultrices qui fournissent du mil à l'entreprise, la plupart des agriculteurs avaient abandonné la culture de cette céréale à cause des prix bas et du travail intensif requis. La production de l'entreprise a ressuscité cette production. Autre productrice de mil, Tabitha Apurut explique : avant, \"je vendais 1 kg de mil pour 25-35 Ksh [0,21-0,30 €]principalement à des intermédiaires -alors qu'Akimaa Africa les achète pour 100 Ksh [0,86 €]. Cela m'a encouragée à en cultiver davantage\". Mère de cinq enfants, elle prévoit de louer plus de terres que son unique hectare actuel pour planter ses céréales. ■L'en-cas nutritif Tasty Millet Meal Bar d'Akimaa Africa permet à 200 agriculteurs de bénéficier d'une nouvelle source de revenus.Au Kenya, des agriculteurs fournissent du mil, des arachides et du miel à une entreprise de transformation afin de produire des en-cas nutritifs et d'améliorer les filières locales.ans de nombreux pays ACP, les obstacles aux solutions traditionnelles de financement empêchent les femmes de développer leurs entreprises. Selon la base de données Global Findex de la Banque mondiale, seules 50 % des femmes possèdent un compte bancaire dans les pays en développement. L'an dernier, les prêts aux femmes ne représentaient que 28 % du portefeuille de financement agricole d'Opportunity International, contre 85% pour l'ensemble de son portefeuille de prêts, indique Timothy Strong, directeur des opérations \"financement agricole\" de l'organisation à but non lucratif.Améliorer l'accès des femmes au financement agricole exige une approche globale et l'intégration de la dimension du genre, d'après Timothy Strong. Opportunity International a récemment engagé des consultants pour évaluer les attitudes au sein de son personnel et dispenser une formation sur l'égalité des sexes. Un outil de contrôle a aussi été mis au point pour déterminer si les valeurs des partenaires de l'organisation dans ce domaine s'alignent sur les siennes. Opportunity International a ainsi fait passer la part des femmes dans son portefeuille de financement de l'agriculture africaine à 49 %, pour un objectif initial de 40 %.\"Il est très difficile de convaincre les institutions financières d'investir dans une nouvelle catégorie de clients, sauf s'ils peuvent bénéficier de l'un ou l'autre mécanisme -un système de garantie de crédit ou de subventionnement -qui les encourage à approcher ce segment de la population et leur permet de constater ainsi que l'octroi de prêts à ces emprunteuses est une activité rentable\", explique Niclas Benni, spécialiste du financement et de l'investissement en milieu rural à la FAO. Au début des années 2000, le CUMO -le numéro un des services de microfinance rurale au Malawi -a ainsi reçu un financement initial du Department for International Development (DFID), l'agence d'aide au développement du Royaume-Uni, afin de promouvoir l'inclusion financière des femmes. En juin 2018, le CUMO affichait un taux de remboursement de 99 % pour un portefeuille de prêts composé à 83 % de femmes.L'absence de garanties, comme des titres de propriété foncière ou immobilière, reste toutefois un obstacle pour la plupart des petits exploitants en recherche de crédit. Ce problème concerne davantage les femmes, qui sont plus rarement propriétaires de terres ou d'exploitations. Une solution, pour les organismes prêteurs, consiste à accepter les garanties collectives, y compris l'épargne. C'est ce que fait le CUMO : des groupes de 10 à 25 femmes placent de l'argent sur un compte de dépôt commun pour constituer une garantie -sous la forme d'une épargne égale à 5 % du prêt demandé.La distance physique qui sépare les petits exploitants des zones rurales des agences bancaires implantées dans les villes est un autre obstacle. La plupart des femmes ont un accès limité aux transports et se déplacer seules est parfois risqué, explique Maxi Ussar, directrice de JustImpact Consulting, au Malawi. Les obstacles culturels sont aussi nombreux : les femmes doivent parfois demander une autorisation pour se déplacer, certaines n'osent pas pousser la porte d'une banque ou bien les hommes gardent la main surLes femmes, de bonnes clientes pour les banques L'amélioration de l'accès des femmes des régions rurales au financement représente une opportunité commerciale pour les fournisseurs de services financiers prêts à adapter leurs produits et à surmonter les obstacles sociaux et logistiques.la gestion des finances familiales. Enfin, la double responsabilité des tâches agricoles et de la garde des enfants restreint les déplacements de nombreuses femmes. Le modèle de prêt du CUMO en tient compte : une seule personne peut se charger des démarches administratives relatives à un compte bancaire commun. Les technologies mobiles pourraient aussi être utiles, mais plus de 1,7 milliard de femmes dans le monde n'ont pas de téléphone portable.Une étude financée par le DFID a montré que les femmes préfèrent être en contact avec des responsables crédit de sexe féminin. Opportunity International a donc décidé d'examiner comment recruter davantage de femmes pour cette fonction au sein même des communautés, explique Lydia Baffour Awuah, responsable principale du programme. En outre, les hommes contrôlant souvent les actifs, les ressources et les intrants, il est important de leur expliquer que l'ensemble de la communauté peut tirer des avantages des investissements dans les entreprises dirigées par des femmes. \"Nous ne pouvons pas aborder la question des inégalités entre les sexes, au détriment des femmes, sans sensibiliser les hommes et les impliquer\", insiste Lydia Baffour Awuah.Les organismes de prêt devraient également identifier les cultures gérées par les femmes -le plus souvent des produits maraîchers ou des cultures vivrières -et les contacter par le biais des associations paysannes ou des fournisseurs d'intrants, explique Lydia Baffour Awuah. De son côté, Maxi Ussar, qui a été consultant pour le projet de transformation du secteur des oléagineux au Malawi, note que, lorsqu'elles ont commencé à entrevoir des débouchés commerciaux pour le sésame, les entreprises du secteur privé ont été encouragées à signer des contrats avec les cultivatrices traditionnelles plutôt qu'avec leurs maris, comme c'était le cas auparavant. Les femmes ont ainsi acquis davantage d'autonomie financière et ont pu suivre une formation complémentaire pour améliorer les rendements et la solvabilité.Les données relatives aux revenus des petits exploitants recueillies par le Groupe consultatif pour l'aide aux pauvres (CGAP) ont montré que les femmes préféraient l'épargne au crédit, ce qui remet en question la pratique courante des banques qui proposent des solutions groupant épargne et prêt, risquant ainsi de forcer les femmes à accepter un produit dont elles ne veulent pas, affirme Niclos Benni. L'expert ajoute néanmoins que mettre l'accent sur l'épargne peut aussi favoriser chez les femmes une culture de prudence qui les fait hésiter à dépenser de l'argent pour leur entreprise ou à y investir. ■ © HEMIS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTOAfin d'atteindre un plus grand nombre d'agricultrices, les prestataires de services financiers doivent adapter leurs produits en fonction de leurs aspirations, de leurs modèles de revenus et de leurs préférences en matière d'emprunts. Telles sont les conclusions d'un récent document du CGAP (https://tinyurl.com/ycyaet54). S'appuyant sur des données issues de registres des transactions bancaires et sur les flux de revenus recueillies auprès de ménages de petits exploitants du Mozambique et de Tanzanie en 2014-2015, le document montre que les agricultrices donnent la priorité aux dépenses familiales et domestiques. Les femmes sont en outre confrontées à des manque de liquidités sur de plus longues périodes que les hommes et ont moins de pics de revenus pendant l'année. D'après Niclos Benni, coauteur du document, accorder aux femmes des produits de crédit à plus long terme, en particulier en période de manque de liquidités, peut leur permettre d'acquérir une certaine indépendance économique.Les founisseurs de services financiers commencent à adapter leurs produits et services aux besoins et priorités des femmes.algré la prédominance de l'agriculture dans les économies des pays en développement, le secteur exporte peu. En Afrique, les produits alimentaires ne représentent que 4 % des exportations globales du continent. En cause, entre autres facteurs : le manque de sécurité sanitaire des aliments. Aligner les standards de qualité alimentaire sur le reste du monde tout en améliorant l'efficacité des chaînes de valeur est donc indispensable pour transformer l'agriculture des pays ACP en un secteur compétitif et promouvoir le commerce régional et international.\"Dans notre recherche d'une meilleure production alimentaire, plus durable et plus nutritive, en Afrique, nous ne devons pas perdre de vue l'importance de la sécurité des aliments et pas seulement pour des raisons sanitaires. Si les petits agriculteurs ne peuvent pas profiter des opportunités de marché croissantes, y compris des exportations, ils ne seront jamais capables d'échapper au cycle de la pauvreté\", a ainsi prévenu Michael Hailu, directeur du CTA, lors du lancement de l'Indice africain de sécurité sanitaire des aliments (AFSI, Africa Food Safety Index), au Sénégal, le 2 octobre 2018. Réalisé en partenariat avec l'Union africaine, le centre de recherche CGIAR, la FAO et l'OMS, cet indice vise à structurer et coordonner les actions en faveur de la sûreté alimentaire sur le continent. Cet indice sera intégré par les 55 pays de l'Union africaine au processus de la Déclaration de Malabo.Le président de la Banque africaine de développement (BAD), Akinwumi Adesina, a indiqué l'an dernier que la valeur des importations alimentaires du continent -actuellement de 35 milliards d'euros -devrait passer à 110 milliards d'euros d'ici 2025. La sûreté des aliments concerne tous les acteurs de la chaîne de valeur, à commencer par les petits agriculteurs qui, dans l'ensemble, évoluent sur des marchés informels dépourvus d'équipements d'inspection sanitaire et de moyens de sensibilisation aux bonnes pratiques. \"Ce que nous faisons consiste à s'assurer que nous regroupons ces agriculteurs au sein d'unités de production et de commercialisation\", explique Elisabeth Nsimadala, présidente de la Fédération des agriculteurs d'Afrique de l'Est (EAFF, Eastern Africa Farmers' Federation). En particulier, l'EAFF utilise la plateforme e-Granary accessible sur smartphone pour mieux organiser les 103 000 agriculteurs kényans dont le profil a été dressé. L'EAFF peut ainsi aisément chercher et diffuser les technologies et pratiques susceptibles d'aider ses membres à améliorer la sécurité sanitaire des aliments.Ce genre de technologies joue un rôle important, mais les agriculteurs s'en détournent sans aide extérieure qui permette de s'assurer que des aliments sûrs se retrouvent sur le marché, a rappelé Kelley Cormier, cheffe de la Division du développement du marché inclusif à l'USAID. D'après elle, le système alimentaire en Afrique est caractérisé par \"de bas niveaux d'investissements publics et privés\" ainsi qu'un \"système de sécurité des aliments confus et onéreux\". Pour y remédier, a-t-elle résumé, l'USAID agit selon quatre principes : aider la collaboration entre les différents acteurs de la sécurité alimentaire, promouvoir l'expansion de marchés pour les produits sûrs, encourager le leadership du secteur formel et le renforcement des compétences, enfin faciliter l'adoption des meilleures pratiques en matière de sécurité alimentaire dans le secteur informel.D'après Cris Muyunda, président de la coalition des acteurs non étatiques du CAADP (CNC), les communautés économiques régionales d'Afrique pourraient servir de moteur pour la mise en place de standards de sécurité sanitaire des aliments. ■ uguba, qui signifie \"grande place de marché\" en langue mandé, vise à augmenter, en Afrique de l'Ouest, le nombre de start-up dans lesquelles investir. La plateforme fournit des méthodes pratiques pour les transformer en entreprises prospères.Tous les business ne sont pas égaux. Certains ont des équipes très fortes et déjà constituées, avec toutes les compétences techniques, managériales, financières, etc. C'est un cas de figure très différent d'un porteur d'idée d'entreprise qui se présente seul, peut-être très doué techniquement, mais qui n'a aucune connaissance sur la préparation d'un bilan financier, sur la façon de lever des fonds, etc. Donc, à Suguba, nous commençons par dresser un diagnostic de l'entrepreneur, de ses compétences, peut-être des opportunités de développement en termes d'équipe, de stratégie financière, de ses capacités à mobiliser les fonds nécessaires pour permettre à l'entreprise de croître. Ce diagnostic initial nous permet d'établir une approche personnalisée pour que cet entrepreneur passe à l'étape supérieure et améliore la performance de son entreprise. Il bénéficiera aussi des conseils et des connexions que nous allons lui permettre d'avoir avec des mentors, des coaches et des experts dans différents domaines.Cette compétition allie deux éléments fondamentaux pour le développement socio-économique de l'Afrique :  L'entrepreneuse choisie est très dynamique, très motivée, et son business model est parfaitement aligné avec la vision de Suguba, qui consiste à favoriser le commerce entre pays francophones au lieu d'exporter des matières premières et d'importer des produits transformés chers. Fenou Packaging est le type de compagnie qui servira de levier de croissance pour le commerce intrarégional en Afrique de l'Ouest et permettra le développement d'industries d'agrobusiness.Fenou Packaging produit des emballages de très bonne qualité et entièrement biodégradables. Cela préserve l'environnement et améliore la qualité des produits fabriqués chez nous. Dans notre région, il y a de plus en plus de produits transformés localement disponibles dans des supermarchés, par exemple, mais la mauvaise qualité de l'emballage décourage les consommateurs et les incite à préférer des produits importés.La première chose que nous faisons est d'essayer de connecter les entrepreneurs de nos différents pays. Par exemple, on peut mettre un producteur de mangues au Mali en relation avec une usine de confitures au Sénégal. Pour l'instant, une bonne partie des mangues produites au Mali est exportée dans des pays de l'Union européenne, où plus de la moitié est rejetée pour des problèmes de qualité. Nous voulons connecter les entrepreneurs pour que la valeur soit créée et conservée dans notre région.Ensuite, nous travaillons sur la conférence Made in West Africa, prévue pour l'année prochaine. Il y aura une grande exposition qui mettra en lumière les meilleurs producteurs, les meilleures entreprises locales. Notre objectif est de connecter ces entrepreneurs avec des investisseurs pour favoriser le développement de ces industries. En marge de cette exposition, nous projetons d'organiser un sommet avec des ministres du Commerce de la sous-région et d'autres intervenants clés, afin d'encourager nos dirigeants à prendre des engagements concrets pour promouvoir le commerce régional et la mise en oeuvre de l'accord sur la zone de libre-échange continentale africaine (ACFTA).Nous avons mis les femmes au coeur des activités de Suguba parce qu'en Afrique elles sont confrontées à des obstacles plus importants que les hommes. Nous essayons d'identifier ces obstacles, les solutions que nous pouvons apporter, y compris à travers notre réseau de coaches, d'experts et de mentors. Dans le domaine de l'agriculture et l'agribusiness, les femmes sont celles qui travaillent le plus, mais qui retirent le moins de bénéfices. Suguba s'est donné comme mission d'essayer de rectifier ce déséquilibre et de remettre les femmes à leur juste place dans la chaîne de valeur. ■Sonita Tossou, de la start-up Fenou Packaging, a reçu le prix de la meilleure entreprise en agribusiness dirigée par une femme lors du Pitch AgriHack.Publié en septembre 2018 conjointement par la FAO, le FIDA, le PAM, l'OMS et l'UNICEF, le rapport annuel sur l'État de la sécurité alimentaire et de la nutrition est sous-titré \"Renforcer la résilience face aux changements climatiques pour la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition\". Entretien avec Dominique Burgeon, de la FAO.Nous confirmons le constat de l'an dernier : après une dizaine d'années d'amélioration, l'état de la sécurité alimentaire se dégrade ; 60 % des 2,5 milliards de petits agriculteurs du monde sont exposés régulièrement à différentes catastrophes, qu'elles soient liées à des conflits, à des catastrophes climatiques, à des ravageurs ou à des maladies animales. Après avoir pointé l'an dernier l'impact des conflits, toujours d'actualité, le rapport de cette année met en lumière l'impact des catastrophes climatiques.Le nombre de catastrophes naturelles liées au climat a plus que doublé entre 1990 et 2015. On compte désormais au moins 213 catastrophes climatiques d'ampleur par an : cyclone, tsunami, sécheresse, etc. C'est malheureusement devenu une nouvelle normalité. Or, en moyenne, 25 % du coût de telles catastrophes sont absorbés par l'agriculture. Pour une sécheresse, cette part est encore plus élevée, jusqu'à 80 %. Nous devons réagir face à cette lame de fond. Cela passe notamment par la préservation des moyens de subsistance des petits agriculteurs, comme l'apport d'intrants agricoles ou la vaccination des animaux.Il s'agit globalement d'améliorer la résilience des agriculteurs pour qu'ils puissent se relever le plus vite possible après une catastrophe. Nous mettons en oeuvre toute une série de mesures à différents niveaux. La première mesure concerne la prévision globale. Ainsi, nous savons déjà, grâce à l'Organisation météorologique mondiale, que le phénomène El Niño va de nouveau frapper. Nous attirons l'attention des pays sur l'émergence de ce risque pour les inciter à des actions de prévention sur les cultures, les modes de conservation de l'eau, les vaccinations les plus pertinentes pour les animaux, etc. Le deuxième niveau, c'est celui des pays, qui doivent disposer d'une réelle gouvernance pour ces risques avec des institutions et des politiques de développement sectoriel sensibles à la dimension des risques. Par exemple, si une région développe sa couverture forestière, il faudra aussi qu'elle prenne en considération les risques d'incendie. Enfin, le troisième niveau concerne bien sûr les communautés les plus pauvres.Il existe une large gamme d'interventions possibles via les bonnes pratiques agricoles, que ce soit la nature de la fertilisation des champs de riz pour anticiper une sécheresse, la diversification La FAO travaille depuis plus de trente ans avec ses partenaires sur des dispositifs \"champ-école paysan\". Nous formons leurs formateurs à cette technique, qui a démontré son efficacité. Un groupe de 25 agriculteurs vient une fois par semaine dans une école au champ. Celle-ci comporte deux parcelles : l'une conduite par les producteurs de manière traditionnelle, l'autre conduite avec la nouvelle technique à diffuser. Par exemple, actuellement, pour lutter contre la chenille légionnaire d'automne qui s'attaque notamment aux maïs en Afrique, nous avons plusieurs écoles de ce genre où les agriculteurs apprennent à identifier le ravageur et les bonnes pratiques d'éradication, mais sans produit chimique. ■Le changement climatique pose des défis inédits à l'agriculture. Le secteur doit trouver des solutions pour l'atténuer. Sur le sujet, trois approches coexistent : l'agriculture climato-intelligente (dont le concept, mal interprété, doit être reposé), l'agroécologie (approche multifonctionnelle) et l'initiative 4 pour 1 000 qui vise à augmenter le stock de carbone des sols de la planète. Au-delà des divergences conceptuelles, les auteurs de ce numéro de Perspectives du CIRAD soulignent les complémentarités de ces trois approches pour mieux nourrir les populations. Ces mauvais résultats sont dus à l'exacerbation des conflits et de la violence dans plusieurs régions du monde, mais aussi à la nécessité de faire face à des phénomènes climatiques extrêmes plus complexes, plus fréquents et plus intenses. Ces altérations et l'augmentation de l'imprévisibilité des conditions météorologiques ont des impacts puissants et entraînent un manque de disponibilité des produits alimentaires (tant au niveau de la production que du stockage), rendent l'accès à ces produits difficile, diminuent la qualité des aliments et leur diversité, ont des effets sur la disponibilité de l'eau et l'assainissement, augmentent les risques sanitaires et de maladies. En conclusion, le rapport appelle à \"accélérer les actions et à les porter à plus grande échelle, afin de renforcer la résilience et la capacité d'adaptation à la variabilité et aux extrêmes climatiques\". Dans le cadre de leur projet \"Valoriser les céréales locales au Sénégal\" mis en place en 2015, l'ONG SOL (Alternatives agroécologiques et solidaires) et la Fédération des organisations non gouvernementales du Sénégal (FONGS) publient deux livrets de recettes en français et en wolof accessibles gratuitement sur Internet : les recettes des boulangers et celles des transformatrices. Chaque livret présente des recettes de pain, de cookies, de biscuits et de brioches pour le premier, de crêpes, de gâteaux, de beignets et de crèmes pour le second. Ces recettes -à base de mil, de maïs, d'arachide ou de niébé -sont illustrées de croquis et de photos. Elles ont été validées par les 36 boulangers et les 180 femmes transformatrices impliqués dans ce projet. L'objectif est d'encourager l'utilisation des céréales locales, au lieu du blé importé. Il a fallu trois ans de travail pour sécuriser les débouchés de 150 producteurs de mil et de maïs et garantir l'activité des boulangers et des transformatrices, tout en améliorant la qualité nutritionnelle des pains et des pâtisseries consommés localement. Le Sénégal importe en effet près de 50 % de ses denrées alimentaires. La consommation de blé est ainsi passée de 22 kg par personne en 2012 à 32 kg en 2016, alors que la consommation des céréales locales a décru de 88 à 61 kg.Les farines de mil et de maïs sont respectivement trois fois et deux fois plus riches en fer que la farine de blé et permettent de lutter contre l'anémie, très répandue au Sénégal. Elles apportent également plus de phosphate, de vitamines B6 et E, de zinc, de magnésium et sont moins riches en amidon. ■ La prestation de services de mécanisation agricole peut constituer une solution précieuse pour les petits agriculteurs des pays ACP. Il arrive en effet souvent qu'ils ne disposent pas du capital nécessaire pour investir dans les machines agricoles, pourtant essentielles pour augmenter le rendement des terres sans les épuiser. Organisé en cinq modules et 27 sessions, ce nouveau manuel de formation pour les prestataires de services de mécanisation agricole à petite échelle, édité par la FAO et le CIMMYT (Centre international d'amélioration du maïs et du blé), est élaboré autour du concept d'apprentissage par l'expérience. Les auteurs proposent de former les prestataires existants ou potentiels pour qu'ils assurent la fourniture de ce type de service non seulement sous la forme d'opportunités commerciales viables pour ces entrepreneurs, mais aussi pour l'accroissement de la productivité agricole de manière responsable et respectueuse de l'environnement. L'ouvrage s'adresse aux formateurs chargés de concevoir, d'organiser et de dispenser des programmes de formation qui doivent combiner une expertise en machinisme/mécanisation agricole, ainsi qu'une expertise en économie.La nature interactive du programme exige que les formateurs soient bien préparés : la plupart des exercices sont ainsi adaptés à une grande variété de situations. Le manuel ne couvre sans doute pas toutes les éventualités, certains aspects de la mécanisation différant suivant les régions. D'une façon générale, les auteurs rappellent également que cette formation met l'accent sur une gestion efficace dans un contexte d'équipement limité.Les cinq modules couvrent les aspects économiques et pratiques : l'entreprise de services de mécanisation agricole, évaluation du marché potentiel, procédures techniques et financières, aspects techniques du fonctionnement et de l'entretien des matériels, gestion de l'organisation. L'unité \"session\" se présente sous forme de fiches à distribuer aux participants, augmentées de ressources en ligne (vidéos, exercices pratiques, conseils aux formateurs…) et de notes à l'intention du formateur. Les sessions pratiques sur le terrain détaillent également des exigences spécifiques. Dix jours au minimum sont nécessaires pour assurer la totalité du programme. ■ Les agriculteurs bénéficient-ils du partage de données ?Dans le secteur agricole, tout l'intérêt est de savoir si les données présentent un avantage face à la concurrence pour chaque agriculteur (un secret commercial) ou ne prennent de la valeur que si elles sont partagées avec autrui (par exemple, la localisation). Le CTA a contribué à l'examen des séries de données les plus utilisées par les organisations d'agriculteurs en Afrique afin de fournir des services à leurs membres.En approfondissant le travail de terrain avec l'Organisation panafricaine des agriculteurs et AgriCord dans le cadre du projet Data4Ag, le CTA a découvert que les petits agriculteurs devaient être convaincus de la valeur du partage de données et rassurés sur l'utilisation de celles-ci.Le partage de données agricoles permet de mieux adapter les informations relatives à la vulgarisation aux agriculteurs concernés. En ayant accès aux données relatives aux rendements, les associations d'agriculteurs ou les entreprises agricoles peuvent en outre centraliser l'accès aux marchés et mieux représenter les intérêts des agriculteurs. Par exemple, avec son service e-granarydata, la Fédération des agriculteurs d'Afrique de l'Est a trouvé des acheteurs pour les produits de ses membres en améliorant l'approvisionnement sur la base de meilleures prévisions de rendements. Elle collabore avec les autorités locales sur les questions de sécurité alimentaire, en utilisant les données partagées par ses membres sur les rendements. L'organisation utilise également les données fournies par les agriculteurs pour offrir des assurances à ses membres.Le CTA collabore par ailleurs avec Women in Business Development Incorporated (WIBDI), à Samoa. Les données permettent à WIBDI d'organiser un approvisionnement constant de produits bio aux hôtels et aux restaurants grâce à son application \"du champ à l'assiette\". Les données d'inscription des exploitations sont utilisées pour garantir que la certification bio de chacune est à jour. Cette approche intégrée de la gestion de la chaîne de valeur rend le partage de données avantageux.Il faut tenir compte de ce que l'Open Data Institute appelle le \"spectre de données\". Cela signifie que différents droits peuvent être associés à différentes séries de données et utilisations de celles-ci. Le CTA collabore avec Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) et, depuis plus récemment, avec le Forum mondial pour la recherche agricole (GFAR) afin d'encourager le partage de données pour les agriculteurs. Dans un article publié par GODAN (en anglais), le professeur de droit de l'Université d'Ottawa Jeremy de Beer explique les mesures de protection en place afin de protéger les droits des agriculteurs, tout en examinant les différents modèles qui gouvernent les données partagées, des accords internationaux à la certification sociale.Les horizons qui s'ouvrent aux agriculteurs par le partage des données sont clairement très divers. Toutefois, il faut ajouter que les centres de confiance doivent jouer un rôle afin de préserver leurs intérêts. Diverses approches sont adoptées afin d'y remédier. Au CTA, nous examinons la capacité des coopératives d'agriculteurs et des entreprises agricoles à jouer ce rôle. Les nouvelles technologies peuvent également y contribuer. Nous avons récemment présenté plusieurs applications blockchain dans l'agriculture, ce qui montre que les agriculteurs pourraient bénéficier de nouveaux dossiers sécurisés sur la chaîne de valeur. Les consommateurs peuvent également accéder aux données des agriculteurs via des systèmes logiciels de confiance qui garantissent la traçabilité sur la filière. Cela permet une meilleure inclusion des agriculteurs dans la chaîne de valeur et contribue à prévenir les fraudes. Ainsi, les agriculteurs qui collaborent avec Moyee Coffee (la première entreprise éthio-néerlandaise de culture et de torréfaction de café équitable) reçoivent des commentaires des consommateurs de leur café via une application blockchain.En résumé, le partage de données ouvre effectivement une myriade de possibilités pour les agriculteurs. Il contribue à l'accès au financement, à l'assurance, à de nouveaux marchés et à la vulgarisation. Cependant, ce sont les agriculteurs qui doivent poser les limites afin de garantir la protection de leurs droits. Les agriculteurs ont besoin de plus de contrôle sur la façon dont sont partagées leurs données.En partageant des données sur les cultures, les agriculteurs peuvent utiliser des services de conseils sur mesure.Partager des données augmente les chances des agriculteurs d'accéder aux marchés et au financement.Il n'y a pas assez de protection pour garantir les droits des agriculteurs.Visitez les pages Opinion sur le site de Spore pour lire l'avis d'un troisième spécialiste sur le sujet. Un nouveau débat est mis en ligne tous les mois.http://spore.cta.int/fr/debates.htmlL'agriculture reste à la traîne de la révolution mobile et numérique. À une époque où le taux de pénétration de la téléphonie mobile atteint des records partout dans le monde, la solution aux problèmes des agriculteurs pourrait littéralement être entre leurs mains.Pour les entreprises d'agritech des marchés émergents, le principal obstacle est le manque de données primaires sur les agriculteurs, pourtant essentielles pour mettre en place des systèmes efficaces permettant de rapprocher les agriculteurs de l'agriculture de précision. Soucieux de la confidentialité et de la sécurité de leurs données, ceux-ci hésitent toutefois à partager \"leurs\" informations.Imaginez qu'un agriculteur envoie ce SMS : \"Je veux planter un demi-hectare de pommes de terre à Arusha\" et qu'il reçoive un message lui indiquant : \"Dans un rayon de 30 km, 1 000 agriculteurs ont planté des pommes de terre cette saison. Nous prévoyons des prix très bas. En revanche, seulement 100 agriculteurs plantent des tomates et nous nous attendons donc à des prix élevés. Ne pourriez-vous pas planter des tomates ou différer d'une semaine votre date de plantation de pommes de terre ?\" Pour qu'un tel système fonctionne, il faut qu'une masse critique d'agriculteurs partagent leurs informations et qu'ils n'en fassent pas un mauvais usage, pour évincer leurs concurrents, par exemple. Cette approche pourrait aussi être bénéfique aux agriculteurs pendant la période de récolte, en leur permettant de vendre collectivement leur production, en sachant qui vend quoi, où et quand.Quelle que soit son expérience, un agriculteur n'a pas toutes les données en main pour prendre les bonnes décisions. Les possibilités d'améliorer le secteur agricole grâce aux données partagées par les agriculteurs eux-mêmes sont infinies et essentielles pour une véritable transformation de l'agriculture. Pour cela, les entreprises de technologie agricole doivent être prêtes à proposer des méthodes intelligentes pour inciter les agriculteurs à partager leurs données, mais aussi à collaborer avec eux afin que des accords appropriés sur le partage des données puissent être conclus entre les agriculteurs et les fournisseurs de services. ■ Jamila Abass, directrice pays, Wefarm Kenya","tokenCount":"15077"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ae857078058bf7f2bab942c0b9586511","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/1b27b4d3-6946-4667-8985-f499b666f763/retrieve","id":"567369560"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f78d5d54-c91f-4160-a80e-9bb7962da35b","pagecount":"57","content":"CGIAR is a global research partnership for a food-secure future. CGIAR science is dedicated to transforming food, land, and water systems in a climate crisis. Its research is carried out by 13 CGIAR Centers/Alliances in close collaboration with hundreds of partners, including national and regional research institutes, civil society organizations, academia, development organizations and the private sector. www.cgiar.orgWe would like to thank all funders who support this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund: www.cgiar.org/funders.In Mali, due to the country's strong agropastoral tradition, animal husbandry is an important activity in the family farm economy. Livestock is the main source of subsistence income for more than 30% of the population (Sidibe et al. 2019). In total, 85% of rural households own ruminants, which reflects the economic and social importance of livestock in Mali. Livestock production provides 80% of the income of rural populations living in pastoral systems and 18% in agropastoral systems (Kassambara et al., 2021). Mali's national herd is the largest in the WAEMU and the second largest in ECOWAS after Nigeria (FAOSTAT, 2020). The small ruminant population in 2020 is 47,953,230 of which 20,142,677 were sheep and 27,810,553 were goats (FAOSTAT, 2020). Livestock contributes 13.6% to GDP, 24% to production in the rural sector and nearly 20% to export earnings (Sidibe et al., 2019).Arable land represents 14% of the total area and 73.2% of its population lives in rural areas (OCHA, 2009). Over the past 30 years, the effects of climate change have become increasingly evident. Rainfall is more variable and concentrated in a shorter period. Sometimes storms are so severe that they cause local flooding. Droughts are also more severe. Overexploiting the land makes the situation worse: soils are depleted by conventional agricultural practices and are unable to retain water (Besancenot et al., 2004). Producers are therefore tempted each year to move to new farmland by cutting down the little woodland that remains, aggravating desertification and food insecurity. As a result, families and especially young people, are discouraged and leave in search of better opportunities elsewhere.The multifunctionality of livestock production services mitigates these negative trends and offers new opportunities, including:o Food security and income by providing the population with milk and meat reducing malnutrition and poverty in rural areas.o Increased agricultural yields by providing labor for animal traction including ploughing and manure which improves soil fertility and reduces inputs. However, developing the livestock sector challenges technical structures and research institutions to respond to the growing demand of animal source food of the population.A strong urgency exists to implement sustainable interventions on animal health, feeding and herd management.This manual presents an integrated package for herd health for small ruminants in Mali to better meet the various challenges faced by producers and other livestock value chains actors.Facilitate implementing the integrated small ruminant herd health package to improve livestock productivity and livelihood resilience.o To provide guidelines for implementing the integrated package.o Standardize the different interventions.o Strengthen the capacities of actors involved in implementing the integrated package.The main diseases of small ruminants in MaliHealthy goats or sheep can be recognized by their behavior, physical appearance and healthy body functions (Koeslag et al., 2015):o They are generally energetic and walk briskly. They are curious and keen-eyed. They have a good appetite and ruminate after eating.o Their coat is smooth and glossy and they are not cachectic.o The mucous membranes of the eyes, mouth, nose and vulva (females) of a healthy animal are pink.o Good ingestion can be recognized by the animal eating habits. A healthy animal also ruminates regularly when resting. If it assimilates its feed well, it produces plenty of round and firm droppings.o Blood circulation, respiration and urine evacuation being indicators of heart, lung and kidney function. The heart of a healthy kid/lamb at rest beats 110-120 times per minute, of a yearling 80-120 times per minute and of an adult 70-80 times per minute. Animals with a high production level or in an advanced gestation stage have higher heart rates. Calm breathing indicates good lung function: the number of respiratory movements per minute are 12-20 in young animals, 12-15 in adults and 9-12 in older animals. The presence of clear and yellow urine is an indication of adequate kidney function.o Body temperature is an important health indicator and is best measured by inserting a thermometer in the anus for at least one minute. Young sheep/goats have a temperature of up to 39.0°C (102.2°F). In adult sheep/goats, the temperature is around 38.5°C (101.3°F). Sheep/goats may have a higher temperature the first few hours after ingesting feed.o Milk production is another important indicator. A healthy udder is soft and supple, just before parturition, it may be swollen and hard. The milk must be homogeneous, without an unpleasant smell. A sudden drop indicates that something might be wrong. It is however common for a sheep/goat to produce a little less milk when in rut.A sick goat or sheep can be recognized by its behavior, which is different from the rest of the herd. The symptoms are most obvious in the case of rapidly developing acute diseases. If the goat or sheep is losing weight rapidly, you need to act quickly, as weight loss leads to rapid physical deterioration which can be fatal. If the disease is contagious, you need to act quickly because the rest of the herd is at risk (Koeslag et al., 2015).In the case of chronic (long-term) illnesses, the symptoms are less clear. Sometimes, you simply notice that the goat or sheep is losing weight and produces less. Comparing with other animals in the herd and neighboring herds helps to see if you're dealing with a chronic disease. To detect health problems, it can also be useful to take notes.This disease, which resembles rinderpest, is caused by a virus and occurs mainly in Africa. Infection results from inhalation of the virus from the nasal mucus of sick animals (Kumar et al., 2014).Symptoms: 4 to 5 days of incubation are followed by 6 to 8 days of acute fever with decomposition of tissues in the mouth, inflammation of mucous membranes, excess nasal mucus and diarrhea (Figure 1). Mortality is high, within a week. Possible secondary lung infections, especially in young animals.Prevention: Vaccination is effective. Restrict movement to prevent contamination of other animals.Treatment: Treatment of sick animals is costly but can be considered at an early stage. Otherwise, it is best to slaughter the animal. Secondary pulmonary infections can be treated with medication.Source: Kassambara et al. (2021).This form of contagious lung infection is caused by a small single-cell organism known as mycoplasma mycoide, which is spread through suspensions in the air or nasal mucus. Inhaling infected aerosols is the main transmission route and the main source of contamination is direct contact with affected animals. Infected objects, vectors, fomites and animal products are yet to be known in transmission role (Figure 2). In the case of permanent housing the whole herd is contaminated. Mortality can be as high as 100% (Iqbal Yatoo et al., 2019).o Symptoms: rapid breathing and coughing. The animal moans when it exhales and often has a runny nose and high fever.o Prevention: well-ventilated shelter; vaccination.o Treatment: arsenic preparations and antibiotics. Caused by the Pasteurella bacterium (Mannheimia haemolytica, Bibersteinia trehalose and Pasteurella multocida).All ruminants can catch it, especially in humid tropical plains or at the start of the rainy season. Spread by airborne suspension or nasal mucus. The bacterium becomes more virulent when transmitted from animal to animal. Stressed animals are more susceptible. Mortality: 80-90% of infected animals Benchohra. (2019).o Symptoms: After an incubating two days: high fever, lack of appetite, rapid breathing, high saliva production, rapid infection of the eyes, swollen mucous membranes. If the disease is less acute, symptoms include throat and tongue infection, within the final stage of the disease possible suffocation diarrhea with blood.There are two distinct syndromes of pasteurellosis: a) Septicemia: Generally caused by Bibersteinia trehalosi, this condition is most commonly characterized by sudden death or moribund animal. Treating affected cases is rarely successful. Outbreaks can be substantial and result in significant mortality.b) Pneumonia: During an outbreak of pneumonia, mortality can be as high as 25%. The disease causes most pneumonia in sheep and is a threat at all ages. Death and treatment costs can easily attain 8% of production costs, without considering reduced stock performance, subclinical illness and additional personnel costs.Clinical signs are influenced by the age of the animal and mortality in young lambs can be high. The diagnosis of pneumonic and septicemic forms of pasteurellosis is based on autopsy, macroscopic and histopathological observations and the isolating organisms from a series of tissues. Lesions include subcutaneous hemorrhages, epithelial necrosis of the tongue, pharynx, esophagus or, occasionally, abomasum and intestine, enlargement of the tonsils and retropharyngeal lymph nodes and lesions embolic, multifocal and peracute necrotizing infections in the lungs and liver (Figure 3).o Prevention: There are various preventive vaccines available, to be administered 1 or 2 months before the hot, humid season.o Treatment: Sulfonamides and/or antibiotics. This viral disease affects the mouth, hooves, udder and teats. It is spread by direct contact, contaminated feed, vaginal discharge and placenta of infected animals, wind and birds.o Symptoms: Incubating 3 to 8 days, followed by excessive saliva production and a frothy mouth. Small blisters form in the mouth and on the legs (Figure 4). The animal walks with difficulty and avoids moving. Animals do not die from foot-and-mouth disease, but productivity decreases and growth slows or stops.o Prevention: Vaccination is possible. If only a few isolated groups of goats are affected, it is best to slaughter them to avoid an epidemic. Quarantining sick animals, disinfecting all animals (foot baths) and banning the transport of animals within the locality or region are all measures that can limit the spread of the disease.o Treatment: Encourage goats to eat by giving them sweet, tasty feed. Anthrax mainly affects cows, sheep, pigs, horses and humans, but rarely goats. Caused by the bacterium Bacillus antracis, it is spread through water and food infected with blood or feces (Alam et al., 2022).o Symptoms: Incubating 1 to 3 days or more. The first signs are high fever and sudden death. After death, blood flows out of body orifices.o Prevention: annual vaccination campaigns are highly effective. To avoid an epidemic, carcasses of dead animals must be burnt to the ground or buried in quicklime at a depth of two meters. This will prevent the spread of the disease by scavengers (and dogs). Do not open the body yourself. An autopsy to determine cause of death should only be carried out by highly specialized personnel, due to the high risk of infection.In the event of sudden death of animals, it is best to consider anthrax (if there are any similar symptoms) and take the measures indicated above. It is dangerous to eat infected meat.o Treatment: Antibiotics (as a cure) are effective, but given the rapid development of the disease, treatment often comes too late.This disease is common in goats, especially in the humid tropics, but is generally not serious. It is highly contagious through direct contact (Herenda et al,1994).o Symptoms: Lesions (blisters) on and around the lips. As these sores multiply, at some point the goat can no longer eat and becomes thin.o Prevention: Proper housing. Vaccination is recommended for young animals kept in infected stalls. The vaccine is applied to a small, lightly scarified area of skin.o Treatment: Isolate infected animals and disinfect wounds frequently. Offer them soft, tasty food. Newly weaned kids are vulnerable, especially when their permanent front teeth are developing.This common form of infectious miscarriage in sheep/goats is best known for its transmission to humans. o Treatment: Contaminated animals must be slaughtered.Mastitis (inflammation of the udder) is common. It can be acute or chronic and is bacterial in origin. Main cause is poor hygiene during milking. The milk of affected animals is unfit for human consumption (Cobirka et al., 2020).o Symptoms: Sick animals have swollen udders, which are sometimes only partially affected. The milk is lumpy and has an unpleasant smell. The goat refuses to let its young suckle and does not like to be milked.o Prevention: Good milking hygiene. Use a teat cup to detect possible infection at an early stage; look for flakes in the milk.o Treatment: Milk the swollen teat as often as possible and massage it at least four times a day. Administer antibiotics after milking, by injection into the teat orifice.Pneumonia is a disease of the lungs. It is common in young goats and spreads more rapidly in cold weather. It is caused by lung viruses, bacteria, worms or fungi (Mekibib et al., 2019).o Symptoms: loss of appetite, coughing, dejection, nasal discharge, breathing difficulties and fever.o Prevention: Well-ventilated housing, good management (ample space) and quality feed. Deworm if necessary.o Treatment: Keep the sick animal warm and separate, provide good quality feed. Antibiotics may be beneficial.African animal trypanosomoses are parasitic diseases caused by flagellate protozoa living in the blood of their hosts and mainly transmitted by tsetse flies. In sub-Saharan Africa, animal trypanosomoses caused by Trypanosoma vivax, T. congolense and T. brucei are the most important vector borne diseases of ruminants. Sheep and goats are usually less affected than cattle. Trypanosomoses cause fever, anemia, emaciation, abortion and even death (Toure et al., 1977).The lack of specific clinical expression leads to confusion with several other hemoparasitoses, helminthoses or even intoxications. It is therefore necessary to recall the symptoms of these diseases, for a differential diagnosis to select the laboratory techniques to confirm clinical suspicions (Desquesnes, 2004).Clinical signs are not specific: undulating fever and anemia, accompanied by paleness of the mucous membranes, weakness, accelerated respiratory rate, loss of appetite and weight loss. These febrile attacks alternate with periods of apparent remission. The following signs may also be observed: prickly hair, ganglion hypertrophies, bilateral lacrimation, inoculation chancre, nervous disorders with paresis and pica, oedema and abortions.Effective treatments include diminazene aceturate (3.5 to 7 mg/kg intramuscular injection), which almost always has a good immediate curative effect. Recurrences can sometimes be observed with the 3.5 mg/kg dose. A dose of 7 mg/kg is generally recommended. Isometamidium chloride also has a curative effect but is recommended for prophylaxis.Sheep pox and goat pox are major, fatal diseases characterized by a generalized rash. Sheep and goat pox viruses are related and are also related to lumpy skin disease virus. At least some strains appear capable of infecting both species.The incubation period for sheep pox is 4 to 8 days and for goat pox 5 to 14 days. The clinical picture is similar for both diseases but is generally less severe in goats. Symptoms include fever, swollen eyelids and mucopurulent discharge crusting the nostrils. Extensive skin lesions develop and are most easily seen on the muzzle, ears and areas devoid of long hair. Palpation can detect inconspicuous lesions (WOAH, 2024).Lesions start as erythematous areas on the skin and rapidly evolve into raised circular plaques with congested edges caused by local inflammation, oedema and epithelial hyperplasia.In severe cases, lesions may develop in the lungs. In some sheep and breeds, the disease may be benign or the infection inapparent.The disease is transmitted by air, by direct contact with lesions or mechanically by biting insects.In both species, the disease must be differentiated from contagious ecthyma (orf), a milder infection that mainly causes crusty, proliferative lesions around the mouth.The infection produces a strong, long lasting immunity. Live attenuated virus vaccines induce longer lasting immunity than inactivated virus vaccines.Species affected:Sheep are the most affected species; the disease can also affect other domestic ruminants and even wildlife (Baird and Shipley., 2021).o Inflammation of the skin between the hooves (warm, painful feet, characteristic necrosis smell (Figure 5)).o Lameness due to lesions in the interdigital space, which may lead to o Hoof loosening (after one month).o Lack of appetite, weight loss and reduced production.Mode of transmission: Indirect: lack of hygiene, especially damp bedding (weakens hooves), muddy soil.Measures to be taken when the herd is affected: Call in the veterinarian as soon as possible so that treatment can be started to limit contamination.Disease prevention measures: i) as a general rule, improve hygiene conditions; ii) transport animals in suitable conditions (adequate, spacious vehicle with bedding etc.) to avoid stress; iii) inspect ewes' feet every 3 weeks and cull animals that remain lame after antibiotic treatment. Source: Kassambara et al. (2021).The effectiveness of vaccination is conditioned by many factors related to the vaccine, the vaccinator, the animal and the environment, which must be considered when developing a vaccination protocol for specific conditions.The current vaccination protocols are based on recommendations from the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and lessons learned from the eradication of rinderpest (Diall and Dione, 2021).These recommendations answer the following questions:Well-trained veterinary, paraveterinary or community workers.Animals older than 3 months that are in good health and in good condition.To reach 70% immunity, ideally, all eligible animals are vaccinated.The vaccination timing depends on: (1) the availability of farmers and presence of animals (agricultural and transhumance calendars), (2) the period of high contamination risk.The vaccination frequency depends on the relationship between the herd dynamics and immunity levels.In pastoral and agropastoral systems in arid or semi-arid zones: due to low birth rates and production levels a single vaccination per year is sufficient, at the start of the high risk cold season when transhumant livestock return (October-December).In peri-urban production systems: one or two vaccinations per year, in August-October and possibly in March-May, depending on the turnover rate; a second vaccination is advisable when frequent sales occur.All production systems: all eligible animals for two successive years, followed by newly born animals for one or two successive years.N.B.: Two annual vaccinations are always better than one, including in pastoral systems (2nd vaccination: May-July).To improve effectiveness, it is recommended to deworm the animals 15 days before vaccination; for logistical reasons, this can also be done on the vaccination day.Can the vaccine be administered in a mixture or at the same time as other vaccines?PPR vaccine can be combined with goat or sheep pox vaccine. However, the PPR vaccine cannot be combined with a killed vaccine because the product used to kill the microbe could inactivate the PPR vaccine. PPR vaccine can also not be mixed with a live bacterial vaccine, because antibiotics in the PPR vaccine could be harmful.Ideally, vaccination should be carried out in parks built for this purpose.In the absence of specific vaccination parks, vaccination takes place \"door-to-door\", particularly at sedentary farms with small numbers of animals, makeshift enclosures made of branches, or, usually in pastoral areas, in the open air.Where possible, animals should be put together in an enclosure to limit movement, which is especially essential for injection efficiency and safety.Temporary tagging is applied to distinguish vaccinated and non-vaccinated animals, to avoid duplication and omission. This can be done with paint (in a can or spray can) or with a marker. The marks are easily identifiable and applied on top of the head or the back. Permanent marking is necessary for seromonitoring studies and to avoid vaccinating the same animals several times because one vaccination is enough for lifelong protection.Information on the date, batch of vaccine, manufacturer, vaccinator, farmer, number of animals vaccinated, target disease etc., should be recorded as a source of information for the vaccination report and for a vaccination certificate issued by an authorized veterinarian.The PPR vaccine does not pose any risk to humans or animals. Empty vials and used vaccination materials are cleaned with boiling water and can be recycled. Otherwise, these empty vials should be destroyed by the Veterinary Services Directorate of the region.Same recommendations as for PPR vaccination with the following specificities:It is recommended to use Pastovin, an inactivated vaccine against small ruminants pasteurellosis manufactured by Laboratoire Central Vétérinaire (LCV) Bamako. Pastovin is a mixture of Pasteurella anacultures (Pasteurella multocida A and D and Pasteurella hemoltica), obtained through a continuous biofermentation process, inactivated by formalin, aged at 37°C and supplemented by alumina hydroxide.N.B. Any serious suspicion about the quality of the vaccines used in the field should be subject to quality control by an independent and authorized laboratory (e.g. PANVAC).The vaccine (Pastovin) is applied twice a year at six months intervals, preferably at least one month before or after administering live vaccines (PPR for example). The first injections can be given between March and May and the second between September and November.Can the vaccine be administered in a mixture or at the same time as other products?The pasteurellosis vaccine can be administered in association with another vaccines, but only within the framework of a national strategy. The vaccine cannot be combined with a live vaccine such as PPR vaccine.When an animal shows any signs of disease, it is imperative to isolate it from the rest of the herd and notify the veterinarian for appropriate care.Any outbreak of a contagious disease must be reported to the veterinary services, so that appropriate measures can be taken to contain its spread to other localities and regions of the country.Farmers must avoid treating their animals themselves without veterinary advice and supervision.Livestock farmers should have their animals vaccinated against diseases for which vaccines are available.Misuse of antimicrobials results in the development of antimicrobial-resistant germs, leading to the major public health problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).Farmers and their families need to be aware of the existence of diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans and vice versa (zoonoses). Veterinary services need to raise awareness of appropriate hygiene measures to avoid such contamination.Goat internal parasites (particularly worms) are one of the greatest challenges facing goat keepers today. Some internal parasites develop quickly and can be deadly. They fall into two categories-parasitic intestinal worms and other internal parasites. Internal goat parasite infections are particularly difficult to deal with because their nature and severity are difficult to determine. In the past it was therefore recommended to deworm on a regular basis. However, this provoked resistance and many anthelmintics are no longer effective.Internal parasites are one of the major sources of economic loss in sheep and goat farming.Internal parasites are the first cause of illness and death in sheep and goats under 1 year age.Most common internal parasites are: i) Helminths (multicellular): Roundworms (Nematodes), Flat worms/Tapeworms (Cestodes), Flukes (Trematodes); ii) Protozoa (Single cell): Coccidia, Giardia, Cryptosporidium; iii) Nasal bots.Table 1 gives an overview of internal parasites of sheep and goats. o Strategic deworming is the best major option in preventing internal parasites.o Pasture management, such as reducing the density of animals and rotating pastures, is also important to combat repeated infestations.o Fecal test is mandatory before deworming.o Strategic deworming means deworming as per necessity. Monitoring parasite load by periodical fecal testing once a month for species and for EPG count before the appearance of clinical symptoms.o Periodic deworming: Deworm the flock on a regular basis and as per necessity. When there is no possibility of fecal test before deworming, sheep and goats in grazing systems must be treated every 60 days or as advised by the local veterinarian.Drenching necessity and frequency is decided by  Source: Gutiérrez et al. (2022).FEC sampling (1): i) Each test must be based on at least 10 individual samples; ii) Samples must be taken at random. Do not try to pick and choose; iii) Samples must be from fresh dung.FEC sampling (2): i) Mob samples can be taken either by gathering sheep in the corner of a field for a few minutes, then picking up samples when they move; ii) or, carry pots/bags when out sheep herding and take a sample as lambs get up.FAMACHA categories \"D(4)\" and \"E( 5)\" (Figure 6):o Always deworm category \"D(4)\" and \"E(5)\" sheep and goats.FAMACHA categories \"A(1)\" and \"B( 2)\" (Figure 6):o Do not deworm categories \"A(1)\" and \"B(2)\" animals unless there are other signs of parasitic disease such as the presence of diarrhea, poor body condition, dull coat or abnormal fleece.FAMACHA category \"C(3)\" animals (Figure 6):Consider deworming if o >10% of the herd scores \"D(4)\" and \"E( 5)\".o Lambs and kids (generally recommended).o Pregnant or lactating does/ewes (generally recommended).o Animals in poor physical condition.o Concerned about an animal's general health and wellbeing, e.g. if an animal is in poor physical condition or suffers from another illness.o Always err on the side of caution.o After assessing drenching necessity, select a suitable/specific dewormer as per fecal report.o Understanding dewormers and life cycle of worms is much required by a veterinarian for selecting suitable dewormer and for repetition of deworming.o The general length of lifecycle of internal worms is 21-28 days under favorable agroclimatic conditions.o Dewormers are two types: broad spectrum and narrow spectrum.o Dewormers can easily be identified by their color.o Broad spectrums are suggested in mixed infestations.o Ensure quality of available/purchased dewormer.o As per requirement ensure sufficient quantity (doses) of dewormer is available/procured.o Dewormer doses depend on bodyweight and on worm load.o For adults: consider the bodyweight of the heaviest sheep/goats of flock to determine dewormer dose (and not the average weight).o For lambs/kids for each age group: consider the bodyweight of the heaviest animal to determine dewormer dose (and not the average weight).o Deworm all sheep of flock above 2 months.o Check expiry date.o Ensure to carry sufficient disposable syringes (as per dose) or a working drenching gun.o Strictly follow the instructions of the manufacturer.o Ensure that animals have an empty stomach or have fasted 12 hours before deworming. Hence drenching is preferred in the early hours of the day.o Keep all sheep/goats in a tight enclosure for easier handling.o All persons involved must cover their mouth and nose.o Drenching must be done by one person.o Another person must restrain the animal while avoiding choking.Stepwise procedure to be followed as explained below 1. Restrain the sheep/goat.2. Open the mouth.3. Slightly raise the head (as shown in Figure 7).4. Prepare the syringe.5. Put syringe into side of the mouth toward the left side and place the syringe over the tongue's base toward the back of the throat.6. Slowly push the contents inside.7. Never hold the mouth closed.8. Follow moves or jumps as much as possible to avoid injuries to the roof of the mouth.9. Mark the drenched animal.10. Before releasing the animal, ensure it swallowed the dewormer. o Administer correct dose.o Underdoses are not only less effective but may also enhance parasite resistance to the drugs.o Plan to drench lambs/kids before adults.o Do not offer feed or water for 3-4 hours post drenching.o Check EPG on 7th day post drenching to assess effectiveness of deworming.o Repeat drenching if reduction in FEC is less than 80%.o Keep proper record of fecal testing and drenching.o Age of lamb/kid at first deworming should be more than 60 days.o As long as sheep/goats are raised on a farm, keep deworming as per FEC.o Ewes should be drenched 21-28 days prior to lambing.o Always consider the withdrawal period of drugs for animals to be slaughtered.o Do not introduce untreated/newly arrived animals to an existing flock without quarantine and drenching.o Rotate anthelmintics/dewormers annually, to avoid resistance.o For preventing Coccidiosis, Coccidiostats must be added in creep feed from day 15 until weaning.o Treatment: Ivermectin (Macrocyclic lactone's) or Closantel.Ectoparasites (parasites that live on or under the skin) can seriously affect small ruminants, reduce milk and meat yields, downgrade wool and leather quality and require expensive control measures. Rather than waiting until the problem of external parasites becomes serious, farmers should maintain a strict preventative regimen to control external parasites.o Conduct a thorough physical evaluation of your sheep and goats at least once weekly. Run your hand over each animal's hair coat, visually inspecting for excessive hair loss, flakes of loose skin, areas of skin irritation and any crusty lesions or bumps that might indicate infection with an external parasite.o Immediately separate and place any animal that shows sign of parasite infection or seems to be unthrifty. This helps to reduce the chances of passing infection to the rest of your animals. Quarantined animals should not be mixed with the main flock until treatment is complete and the parasite eradicated.o Isolate newly introduced animals and treat them for external parasites before mixing them with other animals.o Practice good sanitation habits.o Clean animal houses regularly.o Seal with cement or mud all cracks in the floor and walls of livestock housing.o Remove grass/plants around the barn.o All litter and discarded wool must be collected and burnt or deposited out of animal contact.o Spray housing with an appropriate pesticide every two weeks if possible.o Farmers should also be aware of ways to reduce the number of ticks on pasture.o Rotate the land where livestock graze.o Avoid pasture which has many ticks if possible.o Chickens can be kept in places where there are many ticks, for example around watering places etc.o Control by good animal hygiene.o Shearing sheep regularly-against lice and kids.o Shearing and wetting/washing animals regularly with detergents effective especially against lice.o If the above measures are not effective, treat the animals with appropriate pesticide.Treatment with various parasiticides to reduce or eliminate ectoparasites is often required to maintain health and to prevent economic loss in food animals.Parasites that live permanently on the skin, such as lice, kids and mites, can be controlled by directly treating the host.Ectoparasites with stages that live off the host (ticks, flies etc.) are less easily controlled. Only a small proportion of the ectoparasite population can be treated on the host at any one time and other hosts may maintain them.Many ectoparasite infestations are seasonal and predictable and can preventively be countered by ectoparasiticides. Treatments can be targeted at anticipated times of peak activity to limit parasite populations and diseases.Products are available for parenteral administration or for topical application by various methods, including dips, sprays, pourons, spotons, dusting powders and ear tags. The products and method used depends on the target parasite and the host (Table 3). When using chemicals, please always respect the laboratory recommended dosages. Do not hesitate to ask for help if you are not sure. Using too high concentrations may kill the animal and make the operator ill. Please take the following precautions during the application of chemicals:o Apply pesticides only as directed on the labels. Stop and read all warnings, directions and precautions carefully before using any pesticide.o DO NOT spray animals in a confined, non-ventilated area.o DO NOT dip animals when thirsty or overheated. Water animals well before treatment so they will not drink the vat fluid.o DO NOT contaminate feed or drinking water.o DO NOT apply insecticides to sick animals or animals under stress.o DO NOT apply pesticides to lambs/kids less than 3 months old. Use light applications on lambs 3 to 6 months old.o DO NOT treat sheep and goats just before slaughtering-check the time interval recommended for the pesticide used.o Store all pesticides in their original container away from food or feed and out of reach of children and pets.o Wear gloves (or plastic bags) to avoid any contact with the skin.o Wear protective clothing, goggles and face mask to avoid any chemical splashing into the eyes or mouth. If there is any contact, wash immediately with soap and water.o Never use cooking pots to mix chemicals.o DO NOT eat, smoke or drink while handling chemicals.o Take care not to damage the environment. Do not pour into rivers or ponds any unused solution. Dip contents can be drained into pits. The pits should be at least 150 m away from water sources.o Clean sprayers immediately after use.o It is extremely dangerous to reuse an empty acaricide container. The containers should be punctured or crushed. The containers should then be buried in an isolation area at least 50 cm below ground surface.o Wash yourself and your clothes well with soap and water after treatment is finished.Farmers should identify areas heavily infested with parasites and vectors and avoid grazing their animals there.It's a good idea to carry out coprology tests on your entire herd at least once a year, to find out which species of gastrointestinal parasites are present, and to apply the appropriate prophylaxis.The use of dewormers and acaricides must be responsible enough to ensure effective treatment and avoid the development of parasite resistance to the products used.Infectious respiratory disorders are divided into two groups: the diseases of upper respiratory tract, namely, nasal myiasis and enzootic nasal tumors and diseases of lower respiratory tract, namely, Peste des petits ruminants (PPR), parainfluenza, Pasteurellosis, Ovine progressive pneumonia, mycoplasmosis, caprine arthritis encephalitis virus, caseous lymphadenitis, verminous pneumonia and many others (Chakraborty et al., 2014;Kumar et al., 2014). They are often of infectious origin (bacterial, viral or fungal), but environmental pollutants, toxicants and mechanical induction of respiratory distress may also cause these diseases. Depending on the environmental, physiological and etiological factors, respiratory conditions might be acute, chronic and/or progressive in nature.A good knowledge of etiology can facilitate the control of those diseases ( Appropriate animal housing is important to:o Protect animals from bad weather and health constraints.o Promote more effective disease management and make monitoring of the animals' health easier.o Allow for easier breeding and monitoring of breeding.o Promote integrating agriculture and livestock, which will, among other things, reduce the costs of grazing and produce organic manure to fertilize agricultural plots.Where the animals are housed or located should be chosen with the following in mind:o A location should be easy to access, have shade, be close to the fields to facilitate the transport of residues and manure, be slightly elevated and have good drainage (avoid forming a quagmire and stagnating water. It should also be 10 or more meters away from any well, to avoid possible water contamination. The infrastructure should be oriented according to local climatic conditions, considering position of the sun (Figure 8), prevailing winds and rainfall direction (Figure 9).  o The floor of the building or structure should be impermeable (clay or compacted earth, cement coated pebble concrete), easy to disinfect and clean, not slippery and ensure the drainage of washing water and manure.o In humid environments, the best solution is to install a slatted floor made of bamboo stalks or wooden planks (Figure 10). Source: Koesiag et al. (2015).Basically there are two housing systems, the elevated ground level shed recommended in the more extensive systems and the stilted goat shed, which is most common in the intensive and semi-intensive system; however, (\"closed\") ground level sheds are also practiced (Koeslag et al, 2015).In this system there is a thatch roof for shade in a fenced night yard provided for the goats. This system is more suitable for arid and semi-arid areas climates where goats graze in the day time and is advised for extensive systems with meat production as the main purpose. It is simple to build and not costly. However, it requires a protective enclosure. The shed floor is raised with earth about 30 cm above the ground level and slightly sloped (see figure 11). In this way water and urine can run off at the same time preventing rainwater to enter the shaded floor, so the floor stays dry. As goats like to play, some rocks or tree trunks can be placed in the yard. As the stilted shed (figure 12) requires quite some investment, the system is more applicable for intensive milkand meat production systems and certainly advised for humid and semi-humid climates. The slatted floor, with about 1.5 cm space between the slats, is elevated about 70-90 cm above the ground. Goats reach the shed by climbing a wooden ramp. The slatted floor is preferably constructed from wood as bamboo may cause wounds to the feet. The shed protects the goats from rain, strong winds 22 and excessive sunshine. Infection stress and problems with internal and external parasites are strongly reduced and the goats are protected from dogs and wild animals. The shed is easy to clean and manure can be efficiently collected. The walls should be built with slats with a width of about 5 cm all around. At the lower part of the wall the slats should be about 5 to 7.5cm apart, at the higher part of the wall (1 m and above) between 20 and 30 cm apart. The walls can be constructed from wood or bamboo. This allows for efficient and sufficient ventilation, essential to prevent respiratory diseases. The eaves of the thatched roof should be long enough to prevent rain from coming in the shed during strong and windy rain showers. Division of compartments in the shed are made for the milking goats, the kids and the buck. If possible, there should be a separate pen for sick animals away from the main shed. A similar shed can be built on ground level, but the hygiene of the floor has to be considered. Daily cleaning or a system of piling up the bedding is necessary (Koeslag et al., 2015).  Source: Kassambara et al. (2021).In any shelter system, distributing fodder and water is of great importance. If fodder is spread on the ground, it will be trampled, soiled and lose quality.Hence the importance of a rack (Figures 14 and 15). Sheep/goats must raise their heads to eat the fodder, which does not touch the ground. To make a rack, use wooden stakes or slats, metal dowels and harmonica mesh (5 × 5 cm mesh). Make sure that the green fodder is partly dry, as when wet it is poorly assimilated. It is also possible to hang roughage such as stems and branches on a rope or put grass/hay in a net.  Source: Koeslag et al. (2015).A good habitat enables the farmer to organize his work properly, while at the same time providing the best possible comfort for the animals.A good habitat protects the animal from bad weather (rain, wind, sun, etc.).A good habitat protects the animal against theft, wandering and accidents.A good habitat increases productivity, reduces health care costs and increases profits.Record keeping is an important part of keeping livestock. Records allow you to make better decisions. For example, they tell you how your animals are performing in relation to reproduction and growth, the major health issues in your herd, which animals to select for breeding and which to cull. Records can also be kept on all expenses and income associated with your herd, allowing you to determine how much profit (or loss) you have made.Types of records to collect include the following: Manure is made up of the feces and urine of domestic livestock, including small ruminants, along with other materials like straw, hay or bedding material. The mixture is left to decompose for a set of period (minimum of 3 months and maximum of 6 months) which allows a complete transforming of plant debris thanks to the combined action of heat and humidity. It provides the soil with the elements that it lacks and restores what crops have taken away. It is an excellent alternative for farmers who regularly face the problems of high fertilizer costs, lower soil fertility and lower crop yields. It is essentially used as a natural fertilizer for land for being a rich source of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, all of which are essential nutrients for plant growth. This resource should be well used and managed to improve nutrient cycling and soil health, fertility and biodiversity and to reduce the environmental footprint of farms.Manure also poses a risk of contaminating people in the household and thus a public health problem. According to the FAO, \"Domestic animals such as poultry, cattle, sheep and pigs generate 85% of the world's animal waste, which is proportionally much more than the human population's contribution (Penakalapati et al., 2017). Poor management of these feces in the environment of humans especially in developing countries represents a real public health risk (Dione et al., 2022).Appropriate biosecurity measures must be applied in manure management to avoid human contamination. Pens dedicated to the safe management of manure will be put in place to minimize the risk of contamination. Avoid contact with other domestic and wild animals to prevent the spread of any germs.Livestock manure is a major source of methane and nitrogen dioxide emissions and thus needs to be managed well. Manure should be removed regularly and used as a natural fertilizer for food crops and forage plots.Manure management comprises three main steps, namely collection, storage and utilization.A. Collection: a proper collection of manure must be performed to reduce nutrient loss and to minimize the risk of pollution.o Regular collection: Manure should be collected from pens, barns and pastures on a regular basis, typically daily (enclosures) or at least once a week (open spaces, like pastures).o Manure removal equipment: The farm should be equipped with appropriate tools for collecting and handling manure, such as a manure fork, wheelbarrow or skid steer (for large farms).o Handling and transport: Manure should be handled and transported in a manner that minimizes the risk of contaminating food, water and environment and reduces odors.B. Storage: proper storage minimizes the risk of pollution and maximizes the nutritional benefits of manure. In addition, it was important to comply with local regulations regarding manure management and disposal. This may include permits, inspections and record keeping requirements.o Designated area for storage: The design of the storage area must ensure biosecurity and help minimize nutrient lost. Preferably, manure should be stored in a covered area to protect it from rain, which can cause nutrient loss and increase the risk of pollution. In addition, the storage area should be designed with good drainage to reduce the risk of runoff and leaching. The location of the area should be easily accessible for manure collection and handling as well as sufficiently far away from the path of water drainage and wells and residential areas.o Composting: Composting is a common method of managing manure in small ruminant farms. This process is natural, as it uses micro-organisms (worms and/or aerobic bacteria) to break down organic matter into a nutrient for soil. The manure should be mixed with other organic materials, such as leaves, straw or sawdust before starting the composting process. Composting can be a good way of storage of small ruminants' manure, since it reduces the volume of manure produced, improves its nutrient content, reduces odors and kills pathogens and parasites.o Aeration: Oxygen is necessary for the micro-organisms to thrive and break down the organic matter since composting is an aerobic process. This can be achieved through turning the pile. Lack of oxygen can lead to anaerobic condition which can cause a higher moisture level. Air should occupy at least 50% of the pile volume. To achieve this, stir the pile as often as possible (every 4 to 6 weeks) to aerate it thoroughly.o Moisture: The compost pile should be kept at a moisture level of around 40-60%. If the compost is too wet (malodorous), it must be mixed with additional bulking agents such as dry wood chips, cardboard pieces or newspaper strips to alleviate the problem. These help to improve aeration and to absorb moisture. If the compost is too dry, the microbial activity will be reduced. This situation can be resolved by adding water as necessary or by covering the pile to retain moisture.o Temperature: Composting proceeds through three temperature phases: First, the mesophilic or moderate temperature phase, which lasts for a couple of days and during which, organic decomposition speeds up and produces heat. Secondly, the compost pile should be kept at a temperature between 40-70°C during the decomposition process (or, thermophilic phase). It was important to aerate the compost pile to provide oxygen for the bacteria and to maintain the temperature at around 70°C. If the temperature is too high, bacteria will die and microbial activity will come to a stop. After that, the compost should be allowed to cure for several weeks or months before it is used. During this time, the temperature will decrease and the compost will become more stable (maturation).o Record keeping: It was important to keep records of manure storage, including the amount of manure stored, the date it was stored and when it was removed.C. Utilization: manure can be used in many ways for many different purposes:o Fertilizer: Manure can be applied to pastures, hayfields and croplands as a fertilizer. This will help to improve soil health, fertility and productivity as this resource provides a valuable source of nutrients. This can be done by incorporating the manure into the soil prior to planting or by using it as a top dressing during the growing season.o Incorporating manure into agroforestry systems: Manure can be used as a fertilizer for agroforestry systems which have trees and other plants grown in combination with crops and/or livestock.o Litter for livestock: Manure can be used as a source of litter for small ruminants. The undigested pieces of feed fibers can be separated from manure and used as litter for small ruminants (Dried Manure Solids).o Energy production: Manure can be used as a source of energy through the production of biogas (methane) by means of anaerobic digestion.A. Principles:Managing young stock is a critical part of livestock rearing. This includes management to avoid illnesses as well as ensuring the young animal can grow well and thrive. o If you are concerned that the lamb/kid has not ingested enough colostrum from its mother, you may consider supplementing its intake. Ideally, within one hour of birth, the lamb/kid should receive colostrum from its own mother at a rate of 50 mL/kg live weight, with a further 200 mL/kg divided into three further feedings over the first 24 hours. Cow colostrum can also be used, but this is not ideal, in which case the lamb should be offered 30% more or the equivalent of five feedings, during its first 24 hours.o Allow the animals to suckle, artificial milk should only be used when necessary.o Providing ewes/does with appropriate feed (good quality and sufficient quantity) and water during lactation, so they can produce sufficient milk while remaining healthy.o Risk: Stress o Management: The duration of lactation is usually 12 to 14 weeks but may vary depending on climate conditions (drought) and the nature of milk provided to the new born (lamb/kid raised on artificial milk may be weaned at 4 to 6 weeks of age). If weaning through removal of mothers from the young, solid feed should be provided 2 weeks before weaning to reduce stress in. Alternatively, natural weaning can be practiced where the lambs/kids stay on pasture with their mothers until 4 to 6 months old. While this significantly reduces stress a lower weight gain may be observed.o Accurate identification of each animal in the flock is necessary for accurate recording on the animals.Ear tags: Small tags are easy to apply in young lambs/kids, with one tag applied to each ear. Color coding of the tags can also be useful to identify year of birth. Tattoos: Permanent identification of animal can be achieved through tattoos, that are; most applied on their ears. So the tattoo is visible use black ink on white eared animals and green ink on dark eared animals. National animal ID: It is helpful for diseases outbreaks control and management. It is a modern information system that can help producers and animal health officials to coordinate their efforts and respond quickly, efficiently and effectively to animal disease events. The incubation period of tetanus varies from one to several weeks but usually averages 10-14 days.Localized stiffness, often involving the masseter muscles and muscles of the neck, the hind limbs and the region of the infected wound, is seen first; general stiffness becomes pronounced ~1 day later and tonic spasms and hyperesthesia become evident. For tetanus, a vaccination should be given immediately after birth. Infection with C. perfringens types B. and C causes severe enteritis, dysentery, toxemia and high mortality in young lambs < 3 weeks old. Many may die before clinical signs are seen, but some new born lambs stop nursing, become listless and remain recumbent. Fetid, blood tinged diarrhea is common and death usually occurs within a few days. During infection with C. perfringens types D, usually, sudden deaths in the best conditioned lambs are the first indicating enterotoxaemia. In some cases, excitement, incoordination and seizures occur before death. Opisthotonos, circling and pushing the head against fixed objects are common neurologic clinical signs; frequently, hyperglycemia or glycosuria is present. Diarrhea may develop. Occasionally, adult sheep are affected, too, with weakness, incoordination, seizures and death within 24 hours. In goats, the course of disease ranges from per acute to chronic, with clinical signs that vary from watery diarrhea with or without blood to sudden death. For Enterotoxaemia, prevention includes avoiding increased feed intake, sudden changes in diets and vaccination. For lambs/kids whose mothers received a booster 4 to 6 weeks before lambing/kidding, the first vaccine should be given in the first 5 to 8 weeks of age. For others, whose mothers did not receive a booster before giving birth, the first vaccine should be given in the first 2 to 3 weeks of age. And a second shot must be given to young animals at the age of 6 months and then 1 shot every year.o Acute pneumonia and septicemia (see diseases section above): Acute pneumonia and septicemia are most caused by Pasteurella multocida or Mannheimia haemolytica. This disease occurs under periods of stress and immunodeficiency as the causing agents can normally be found in healthy sheep and goats. Consequently, prevention of acute pneumonia and septicemia requires good animal management to reduce stress.o Coccidiosis: Coccidiosis is caused by many species of the genus Eimeria and the average of pre patent period (period from the start of infection to the detection of eggs in the feces) is 2 to 3 weeks.Clinical disease occurs in lambs 4-8 weeks old reared in a contaminated environment. When lambs are all a similar age, most may show clinical signs. Acute infections result in sudden onset diarrhea, anorexia, dullness and abdominal pain. Dehydration may result and there is marked loss of weight and body condition. Fever is unusual. Severe acute infections may lead to diarrhea before any oocyst shedding and, especially with Eimeria ovinoidalis, it may be bloody. Chronic infections result in a reduction in feed consumption, feed conversion and growth rates.Most goat kids have an inapparent infection. In subacute or acute infections, the usual signs are poor fecal pellet formation (pasty feces), decreased appetite, stary coat and decreased weight gain. More severe acute cases show diarrhea with or without blood presence, possible tenesmus, dullness, anorexia and weight loss. Severe problems lead to rapid onset of diarrhea, often with blood, tenesmus, signs of abdominal pain, lethargy, weakness, recumbency and death. In chronic infections, there is increased time to puberty, increased time to finish, decreased weight gain and decreased feed intake.Lambs and kids that are 4 to 8 weeks old have higher risk of infection. It is, therefore, essential to apply an adequate protocol for coccidiosis control and prevention:o Diagnosis: collecting and analyzing fecal samples from bloody scours + post mortem examination.o Separate ill animals from the rest of the flock and treat them appropriately with coccidiostat.o Avoid accumulating dung in high traffic areas.o Group lambs of similar age together and decrease stock density.o Feed and water troughs should be raised from the ground to prevent fecal contamination.Feeding small ruminants have specific nutritional requirements that must be met to ensure their overall health and wellbeing. These requirements include a balance of macronutrients (protein, energy), micronutrients (minerals, vitamins), water and fiber. These basic nutritional requirements vary depending on animals' stage of life, physiological condition (growth, pregnancy, lactation) and type of production (milk, meat). To meet these nutritional needs, farmers must carefully manage their animals' diet. Some strategies for managing feed component in small ruminant farms include:Feed resources vary spatio-temporally. Agro-ecological principles can be incorporated in feed management by using local feed resources and diversifying the feed resources. In the Sahel, ruminant livestock nutrition depends largely on naturally growing pastures which fluctuate both quantitatively and qualitatively with the season (Table 5). Besides the natural pastures, many livestock farmers in the region depend on crop residues, which is an important feed resource during the dry season. These crop residues (figure 16) are becoming a dominant feed resource as rangelands are being converted into crop fields in the Sahel. Low feeding value associated with low metabolizable energy, low protein and mineral contents, is the most obvious limitation to the utilization of crop residues as small ruminant feed. However, several technologies are available to improve the nutritional value of crop residues. They include physical treatment (grinding, chopping, soaking, boiling), chemical treatment (with urea, NaOH, etc.), biological treatment and supplementation. When applying agro-ecological practices, farmers would basically rely on forages and crop residues as the primary feed component for their animals. In addition to forages and crop residue, small ruminant farmers may also use other feed components, such as by-products from agro-industrial processes, kitchen waste and other organic matter, as supplementary feeds. No inflorescence (Presence of cluster of flowers on a branch or a system of branches)Inflorescences (Absence of cluster of flowers on a branch or a system of branches)Poor taste, poor ingestionNo addition of fertilizerLow protein and medium energy contentDoes not cover maintenance needs Elephant grass (Figure 17) is recommended for breeding in permanent stalls because it is a high yielding species; it stimulates milk production when cut at the right height and is well maintained (fertilized and weeded); it remains green during the dry season and withstands drought better than most grasses and it mows well.Figure 17. Young elephant grass is good roughage, but when it was old, it was not so good.Source: Koesiag et al. (2015).Elephant grass can be a good forage for animal feed. The desired dry matter composition must be considered when organizing the mowing (see Table 6). Feed should be formulated based on the nutritional needs of the animals, considering factors such as species, age, sex, weight and stage and type of production. Feed should be balanced for energy, proteins, minerals, vitamins, water and fiber:Energy: Small ruminants require enough energy in their diet to respond to their metabolic needs for growth, milk production and reproduction. Energy is also important for maintaining an optimal body condition and for supporting the immune system. The best sources of energy are the most plentiful feeds available, namely grains, hay and pastures and browses. A lack of energy intake will lead to decreased productivity, reproductive issues, increased mortality and increased vulnerability to diseases and parasites. It is crucial to assess the effectiveness and overall performance of a feed or ration. A parameter known as Total Digestible Nutrients (TDN) is used for this purpose. TDN is a broad term that indicates the energy content of a feed or ration. According to the department of animal nutrition of the College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry of Jabalpur:o Lambs have a higher TDN requirement than adult sheep, similarly breeding, pregnant and lactating ewes require more energy than non-pregnant and non-lactating ewes.o A non-pregnant, non-lactating ewe requires 10 g/kg LW (Live Weight) of TDN for maintenance and wool production.o Requirement will be 50% more at the last 6 weeks of pregnancy and 100% more at first 10 weeks of lactation.Proteins: The primary role of protein is to support the repair and growth of tissues (referred to as \"Anabolism\"). In small ruminants, the quantity of protein consumed is more determining than its quality. Also, it is important to note that ruminants can convert Nonprotein Nitrogen (NPN), namely urea, biuret and ammonia, into good quality microbial protein. The main sources of protein are pasture (plants in vegetative state), forages (legume hays) and by-products of agroforestry and agro-industries, such as leaves and pods from trees and food processing waste.According to the department of animal nutrition of the College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry of Jabalpur:o Daily requirement of Digestible Crude Protein (DCP: the amount of crude protein absorbed by the animal) for maintenance is 1 g/kg LW.o During pregnancy, the requirement for DCP increases by approximately 50%. And, during lactation and growth, it increases by 100%.Minerals: Small ruminants require multiple minerals in their diet, yet, in smaller quantities than energy and protein. Their need in minerals include Calcium (Ca), phosphorous (P), sodium (Na), chloride (Cl), potassium (K), iron (Fe), copper (Cu), cobalt (Co), selenium (Se), zinc (Zn) etc. The sources of these essential trace elements are mainly diet, mineral supplements (powder and block) and water supply (depending on the source). It is important to mention that high levels of copper can be toxic to sheep. However, goats need a higher level of the same mineral. Consequently, it is unlikely that the same diet can be safely given to both sheep and goats, as it could lead to copper toxicity in sheep or copper deficiency in goats.Vitamins: Small ruminants require a variety of vitamins in their diet, including vitamins A, D and E, whereas vitamin K and all the B vitamins are produced in the rumen. Vitamins are important for maintaining good health, supporting the immune system and for proper growth and reproduction. Supplements can be used to correct vitamins' deficiencies in diet. For example, supplementing vitamin E (and selenium) may be essential to prevent White Muscle Disease (WMD) in lambs and kids.Water: Small ruminants require enough clean and fresh water to maintain good health and productivity as it is necessary to maintain vital functions (digestion, urination, temperature regulation etc.). Daily requirement in water for small ruminants is 2 to 3 liter/kg of dry feed consumed.Fiber: It is an essential compound in small ruminants' diet as it supports proper digestion and ensures an optimal ruminal function by increasing rumination and salivation. Feed that are rich in fibers include any type of hay, silage or fresh forage.Below (Tables 7 8 and 9) are some examples of rations based on local products (component) available in Mali.Ration 1: Peanut tops (800 g) + 0.5 kg of cottonseed meal + 0.5 kg of rice bran Ration 2: Cowpea tops (1 kg) + 0.5 kg of cottonseed meal + 0.5 kg of rice bran Source: Kassambara et al. (2021). Rice bran (from wheat or corn, rice polishings etc.) 5 kgCoconut flour (cottonseed cake, soy flour etc.) 1 kgGround shells, rock salt or commercial mineral mixes 0.1 kg Source: Garcia and Restrep, (1995) What are multinutrient blocks?Multinutrient blocks are supplements for ruminants (goats, sheep, cattle and buffaloes) which contain energy, urea, essential minerals and vitamins. Multinutrient blocks have been developed for housed ruminants or animals grazing on low quality pastures.Multinutrient blocks provide minerals, vitamins, energy and urea to ruminants. Multinutrient blocks are needed when animals are fed low quality forages or when animals are kept in barns or stables.To make multinutrient blocks we need to go through the following steps (Garcia and Restrepo,1995).o o Mix all the ingredients.o Pour the mixture into the molds.The innovation platform in Farakala comprising the women cooperatives of the commune has developed the production of multinutrient feed block. The cooperative group were supported by ILRI with a learning visit to other regions where multinutrient feed block business thrives better for capacity development. y (Figure 18).  Feed ingredients should be of high quality, free from toxins or contaminants and should respond to small ruminants' specific nutritional requirements. Feed quality is often affected by handling, storage and sourcing.Feed should be stored in a dry, cool and well-ventilated area to maintain its nutritional value and to prevent spoilage, mold or any other contamination.Feed costs typically account for about 70% of the total production cost in sheep and goat farming either for meat or milk enterprise. Feed costs can be a significant expense for small ruminant farms. Thus, it was important to budget for feed and to monitor feed costs. A least cost ration incorporates all the available feed stuffs having good nutritive value and which is available at reasonably low cost. Therefore, it may be defined as an economic ration for animal which provides nutrients in balanced proportion with lowest possible cost.Improving livestock productivity requires a balanced diet adapted to the animals' physiological stage (growth, gestation, convalescence, etc.) and production objectives (reproduction, meat, milk, etc.).Give priority to local raw materials in the composition of animal rations to minimize production costs and overcome the constraint of input availability.Ensure proper feed storage to avoid contamination by pathogens (bacteria, molds, etc.), which are responsible for stock damage and sometimes food poisoning in animals.Sheep and goats are kept for meat production or both meat and milk production with an early weaning of the lambs/kids. If meat is the main objective, sheep/goats can be managed for an accelerated reproductive pattern of 3 parturitions (birthings) in two year. The low seasonality of the sheep/goat breeds in Mali is an advantage to reach this objective, but care should be given to appropriate feeding and animal health management. If the main objective is milk production, other experiences have shown that one parturition per year leading to the establishment of one lactation per year is the recommended management pattern.Sheep/goats have an average estrous cycle of 21 days varying between 17 and 22 days. However, and unlike sheep, goats may show a high frequency of abnormal short or long cycles. When mating is natural, such variability does not affect fertility in the flocks if the bucks are experienced and have good libido.During estrous period we can see the following signs on female sheep and goats including redden of the vulva and discharge from vulva, tail wagging, mounting other animal, seeking male, frequent bleating, raising her hind quarter in the presence of the male and standing for mating (standing reflex) (Mohana et al., 1999):Breeding bucks or rams reach sexual maturity quickly, as early as five months. However, they should not be used too young or too frequently. Their libido is high but their sperm production (quantity and quality) is still limited and reaches acceptable levels when the buck is one year old.Here o The estrous period lasts for about 24-36 hours in ewes and 34-38 hours in does.The criteria for selecting a breeding sheep/goat are a good physical constitution and good development. Make sure animals undergo a detailed breeding soundness examination (BSE) before they are being used in the flocks.The guidelines for BSE focus on the general health, physical examination, scrotal circumference, sperm morphology and motility (Table 12). Breeding soundness examination should be performed at least two months before breeding season to allow animals to recover from pathologies or poor physical conditions (Tibary et al., 2018).Rams and bucks can be classified as excellent, satisfactory, or questionable based on the results of their BSE. Rams or bucks that are found to be questionable should be rechecked in 4 to 8 weeks. It is also of great importance that they are vaccinated against the infectious diseases that prevail in the region and this is particularly true if the animal is to be used outside its original flock/herd.Any disease that can affect the normal function of the testes or the epididymal will affect the fertilization capacity of the sperm. These include systemic diseases, fever, or pathological processes in the scrotum, testes, or epididymis.It is important to know how to examine and recognize abnormalities or lesions of this part of the genital organs (Table 13). Animal should be placed in a \"sitting\" position in order to visualize the preputial opening.The penis is extended by pushing the sigmoid flexure upward and retracting the prepuce with the other hand at the same time.The surface of the penis and the urethral process should be examined closely for lesions.Ulcers at the junction of the skin and mucous membrane (can be associated with orf)Abnormal discharge: bloody or purulent (frothy whitish discharge may be normal) Segmental aplasia of the body of the epididymis (polled and horned goats).Source: Tibary et al. (2018) Male animals should be in good body condition, masculine, legs should be stronger and free from defects.The libido of the male is important to achieve desirable breeding. Poor libido may result from inadequate feeding, extreme heat stress or ill health.Females should have spacious hindquarters to facilitate gestation and parturition. Udders should be supple and well-formed. They should have good active foraging ability and come from dams with good maternal instincts.Females with poor milking ability, short jaws or broken mouths, blind teats and fleshy udders should not be used as breeding stock. A good breeder should have a wide, spacious hindquarters with good space between the inner sides of the two thighs. This indicates good future udder development. We recommend buying breeding stock from a farmer who looks after his animals well, rather than from the weekly markets. Females from dams that are able to give birth to 2 or 3 kids at a time have surely acquired the same aptitudes. Choose females with soft, shiny skin, as this indicates good health. Females with wider backs and rumps are better breeders. A broad back and rib cage indicate that the female has a better capacity to ingest food. On the other hand, a wide hindquarters indicates better reproductive characteristics (easy whelping). The female must come from a mother who has the maternal character to protect her young and who has better milk-feeding abilities. Females with well-developed, homogeneous udders are to be preferred. The udder should be carefully checked for defects before purchase.Females of native breeds selected for breeding should be between 18 and 24 months of age, depending on their body condition. Breeding females that are too young will result in a higher number of weak animals, and therefore a greater loss of offspring. As a guideline, females should only be bred when they reach 70% of the average adult body weight. The body weight of a female put to stud should normally be less than the body weight of an adult female of that breed (Mohana et al.,1999).To maintain a good balance between generations, a productive flock should be made up of around 20% ewe lambs/ kids, 60% ewe/goats aged 2 to 5 years and 20% ewe/goats aged 5 to 7 years. The best-performing females are in the 2 to 5 age brackets. Ewes aged 7 and over should be culled.To ensure genetic variability, rams and bucks should be renewed every two (02) years. The newly introduced rams or bucks should not be related to the other animals in your herd. Remember to record sire numbers and tag to monitor their offsprings.Choosing the right breeding stock (broodstock) is very important for the productivity of your breeding operation, in line with your production objectives.Good management of breeding animal's careers (production period) is important for constant renewal and improvement of productivity of the herd. It also helps avoid inbreeding problems.Different breeds perform differently, so choose the right breed for your operation.Crossbreeding can be advantageous because it bring desired performance and characteristics from both crossed breeds.Select both good breeding rams and ewes, as each contributes half the genetics to their progeny.Selecting breeding females from your own herd, select animals at a young age that have grown well, are disease resistance, and have mothers / sisters with good reproductivity and mothering ability. Ensure these animals are kept as breeders and not sold from the herd.Mating related animals can result inbreeding, resulting in animals that can be weak, have low reproductive potential etc., thus this should be avoided.Welfare and behavior of small ruminants Animal welfare is the mental and physical state of an individual animal as it experiences and engages with its environment. Sheep and goats can suffer, feel pain and discomfort, and experience positive emotions. Their welfare is impacted by their environment, the resources it has available to it and human attitudes and behaviors.Providing good welfare is important to an animal's health, including disease resilience, and performance, and farmers also describe giving good care to their animals as being important to themselves (Lemma et al., 2022).Animal welfare can be considered from three different components: the need for a natural life (such as fresh air and the ability to express important natural behaviors), affective needs (free from negative states such as pain and fear and being able of feel positive emotions) and the normal biological functioning (growth, health) of the animal.Key stakeholders in Mali's small ruminants' value chain identified several key welfare issues for different classes of stock. Issues relating to behavioral and affective state needs of goats and sheep are in Table 14. Other welfare issues related to biological functioning, like disease and nutrition, are covered in other sections of this manual. Adequate maternal nutrition is essential for lambs and kids survival. A sudden chance in diet or short-term starvation in pregnant ewes or does can result in reduction of maternal body reserves and have negative consequences that will affect the welfare of both mothers and infants, such as low birth weight, impaired neonatal behavior, and poor ability to thermoregulate. Malnourished dams may show reduced expression of maternal behavior and a lower availability of colostrum and milk. Consequences of maternal undernutrition will cause distress and suffering to adults and infants, because of poor nutrition, even in the absence of hunger from food deprivation per se. On the other extreme, overweight ewes and does are also at higher risk of metabolic disorders, foot problems and increased neonate mortality.Providing small amounts of high-quality feed exclusively to young animals, known as creep feeding, has a number of benefits. It can meet nutritional gaps that can occur when young animals are left behind while dams graze; it can sensitize the animals to new feeds reducing neophobia and sensitizing the rumen to feed prior to weaning; and ultimately it can aid growth and reduce mortality in the young kids/lambs by providing good quality protein feed to them. This approach has been used successfully to improve the survival, growth and price paid for small ruminants by small holder (Campbell et al., 2022).Providing small amounts of high-quality feed exclusively to young animals is also a cheaper, strategic approach for farmers as it requires less financial investment compared to something like fattening of finishing animals. By creating an area where young animals can access the creep feed, but adults cannot, young animals are not forced to compete with adults and the small amounts of feed are not 'wasted' on adult animals. This was recognized as a welfare issue by stakeholders (Table 14).A typical creep pen is a fenced area with 3 to 4 gaps in fence each 4 inches (10cm) wide. These gaps should be small enough for young animals only to fit through. The creep pen can be made out of cheap materials like wood or bamboo, and kids/lambs should be able to freely access the creep area for at least part of the day so they can consume the creep feed.Creep feed is made up of one third (1/3rd -33%) good-quality feed and two thirds (2/3rd -67% ) poorer-quality feed and are fed at small amounts per young animal per day (  Welfare considerations for adults and hoggetsSmall ruminants are gregarious and group living provides them group cohesion and ecological integration, better protection from predators, assistance to find sexual partners and food, and helps with care and protection of the infants.Sheep and goats normally perform activities at the same time as others in the group, such as feeding, drinking, and ruminating. For this reason, when providing supplementary feed having adequate bunk and water through space is important otherwise agonistic behaviors can develop. In general, goats are less affected by flocking behavior and are more reactive and aggressive than sheep. (i.e., when they are attacked, goats tend to face the attacker, while sheep usually flee). Goats also exhibit more exploratory behaviors, whereas sheep are more fearful and cautious.Goats and sheep can both be aggressive towards each other when mixing unfamiliar animals. Crowding of sheep may lead to damaging aggressive and submissive behaviors as animals try to maintain personal space. Smothering and suffocating can occur when space is limited or when animals pile together when stressed. Adult males will fight, particularly when competing for females. This can be so preoccupying for them that they fail to service females in heat if there are too many males to females. Mature rams can service >45 ewes. Bucks can service less does, with this ratio being ~1 buck to 30-40 does.When small ruminants need to be tethered, they should be provided with shade, at a safe distance from other animals/objects to not get tangled and be in visual contact with each other to avoid stress. Access to water and feed needs to be available too, particularly in hot seasons as they can experience heat stress. When sheep are physically restrained they will still have a strong flight distance, and so this can be both stressful and dangerous for them. Having opportunities to move freely daily is important for welfare, and to reduce the risk of abnormal behaviors from developing.Sheep and goats are well adapted to harsh environmental conditions, but they can also be reared in confinement systems with permanent housing, that requires specialized husbandry practices. In intensive systems, sheep and goats are confined with a high density of animals per unit area, with controlled feeding, regular management practices. Less resting area and possible accumulation of feces and urine may negatively impact their welfare.The quality of human-animal relationships (HAR) influences the performance of goats and sheep and the ease of handling them, as well as the satisfaction of the handler. Good quality HAR can be a reward for animals, act as a social enrichment, and balance those negative experiences the animals usually have in the farm. Positive human interactions with pregnant goats, including calm handling and familiarizing the animal to the presence of people/the kidding environment, has a positive effect on maternal care and on the behavior of their goat kids.Key points to encourage positive human interactions with small ruminants:o Early, frequent positive social interactions of small animals with humans can help to reduce stress due to manipulation procedures and getting animals used to handling.o Gentle treatments, such as friendly talking, gentle touching, stroking and frequent hand feeding, can have a positive effect on HAR.o As sheep and goats are a precocial species, lambs and kids can interact with humans since the beginning of their developmental stages, thus allowing an early establishment of social bonds with humans.o Sympathetic handling by stockpersons may reduce the impact of handling, particularly repeated handling, even for sheep generally fearful of man.o Most management actions, even if gentle but occurring in a place where an aversive procedure has happened previously, may cause sheep stress. This can be reduced to some extent by quiet, skilled and gentle handling, and keeping aversive contacts to a minimum.o Changes in environmental and social conditions should occur as little as possible in sheep flocks to minimize their impact on animal welfare.Extensive details on recommendations for the transportation of animals have been outlined by the Terrestrial Animal Health Code of World Organization for Animal Health in Chapter 7.3 Transportation of animals by land (WOAH, 2023).During transport, considering the social dynamics of sheep and goats are important. Sheep will be stressed when isolated, and goats may be at risk of aggression when mixed with unfamiliar animals. Both are sensitive to new noises and general novelty, will find transportation stressful, and can jump/flee when isolated or stressed, being a risk to themselves and people nearby.Standard Operating Procedures for ruminant fecal egg countNematodes (roundworms) are important parasites of both equine and ruminant species with heavy parasite burdens having a negative impact on both animal health and financial returns form production animals. This Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) describes the quantity of nematode eggs in ruminant and equine feces for treatment decision-making, surveillance purposes and detecting anthelmintic resistance.Parasitic burden and/or egg shedding and pasture contamination risk can be relatively easily estimated from counting egg numbers in fresh feces. To achieve this, a measured amount of fecal material is mixed and suspended in a saturated salt solution. Eggs with a lower specific gravity (SG) than the solution will float while most debris will sink and can be ignored. The specimen is then sampled and the eggs floating up under the coverslip are counted in a chamber of known volume allowing an accurate measurement of eggs per gram (epg) to be calculated. For ruminants, a saturated NaCl solution is adequate providing the SG of the solution is at least 1.20. Equine and porcine specimens require a saturated MgSO4 solution.Trematode (fluke) eggs are heavier than nematode eggs and thus require a sedimentation technique for detection.Fecal material will often carry eggs from parasites, in addition to micro-organisms (bacteria, fungi, viruses): always wear gloves when handling feces.PPE including laboratory coat and gloves must be worn when handling ruminant and equine feces. Refer to the attached Risk Assessment and relevant MSDS for safety requirements for salt solutions.Mixed faucal solutions can be disposed of down the sink with running water. The remaining fecal material can be disposed of in normal garbage providing it is securely bagged first.Fresh ruminant or equine feces. This can be stored for up to 4 days at 4°C or 7 days at 4°C sealed in plastic with the air removed. If not then the feces should be bagged with as little air as possible and stored at 4°C for no more than 72 hours before examination.2. Storage for longer than 48 hours or at temperatures higher than 4°C will induce eggs to hatch and decrease counts.1. Specimens are processed in numerical order to avoid confusion. Record the specimens in order from top to bottom on separate result sheets four at a time. Place the counting chamber on the first answer sheet with the wide opening facing to the right.2. Fill the open ended 10 ml syringe to ~8 ml with salt solution. Withdraw the plunger until the liquid level is at the 3 ml mark. Add feces until the syringe is full. This equates to 3 g of feces by displacement.3. Transfer this mixture to the measuring cylinder (or to a labelled container to soften first). Fill the measuring cylinder to 60 ml with salt solution and gently agitate using an up and down motion of the brass plunger until the mixture is homogenous. Vigorous agitation will result in air bubbles in the mixture making counts difficult to perform. (If less than 3 g of feces is available then adjust the volume of saturated salt solution used accordingly-20 ml of solution for each gram of feces).4. Working quickly, place the sieve tube into the cylinder and then use the pipette to agitate the liquid in the sieve tube by gently drawing and expelling 2 to 3 times. Pipette around 0.5 ml from the middle of the sieve tube and expel any air from the tip.5. Ensure the first counting chamber corresponds to correct specimen number on the answer sheet. Still working quickly, hold the pipette at around 45° and touch the tip against the side of the chamber and fill by gently squeezing the bulb. (Delays during these two stages will result in excess flotation of eggs leading to inaccurate counts).6. Repeat for other specimens or until all 4 chambers are full.7. Allow >10 minutes for the full flotation of all eggs and then, with the extended opening of the chamber to the front of the microscope stage, count the eggs in each chamber starting with the one on the right hand side (working right to left on the slide will appear left to right under the microscope). Count using the 4 × objective lens magnification within the gridlines on the chamber. Both the gridlines and air bubbles can serve as aids for accurate focusing. Lowering the condenser to its lowest position will improve the contrast.8. Use a mechanical counter to record the number of eggs. Record numbers of all eggs within the gridlines of the chamber and multiply for 40 to calculate the eggs per gram (epg) count. Note the presence of coccidian oocysts. 9. Record the results in the laboratory book.Two chambers are counted for each specimen tested and the resulting count is multiplied by 20 for the epg. calculation.Saturated magnesium sulphate is used instead of saturated sodium chloride. Four chambers are counted for each specimen and the resulting count is multiplied by 10 for the epg calculation.If egg counts are unexpectedly negative 1. Check the SG of the salt solution. 'The solution should be saturated (NaCl SG of 1.20,MgSO4 SG of 1.3). Salt crystals should be present at room temperature.2. If samples have been stored before processing, check that they have been kept at 40°C. Higher temperatures will allow eggs to develop and eventually hatch, becoming undetectable. Freezing will destroy the eggs.3. Check when counting that the microscope is focused on the upper level of the counting chamber (bubbles will be visible) and that the condenser is at its lowest position.4. If count remains negative or unexpectedly low consult the laboratory manager.If egg count is unexpectedly high 1. Make sure all equipment is well rinsed between samples so contaminating a negative sample with eggs from the previous sample is unlikely.2. When sampling, ensure that the suspension inside the sieve tube is well mixed by drawing up and down a pipette 2-3 times. This ensures a homogeneous sample.3. If count remains unexpectedly high consult the laboratory manager.Total nematode eggs per gram (epg) is calculated by multiplying the total number of eggs counted by 40 (this accounts for a dilution of 1 in 20 [3 g in 60 ml] plus the volume of the counting chamber [0.5 ml]).Two chambers are counted for each bovine specimen tested and the resulting count multiplied by 20.Four chambers are counted for each equine specimen tested and the resulting count multiplied by 10.Results for trial work are to be recorded according to the individual trial protocol.Results for diagnostic work are to be recorded in Sample Manager.Sheep worm egg counts guide to interpretation.Discuss results with a suitably experienced veterinarian.Standards Operating Procedures for weighing and condition scoring of small ruminantsTo record the live weight and body condition score.There are no practical alternatives.Weighing scales and crate.o Walk the individual animal into the weighing crate.o The gates should shut to restrain the animal in the crate.o Record the weight.o Gently feel the degree of fat and muscle cover over the short ribs and spine.o Score the degree of cover using the standard 0-5 scale and record.o Release the animal.o If only condition scoring is being recorded, the procedure may be conducted with animals restrained as a group in a race.Weighing and condition scoring has no impact on animals other than the restraint required to hold animals in the weighing crate or race for a short time. Handling by experienced operators will minimize that impact.Not needed. The procedure should not cause pain.Animals will be observed for signs of distress during the procedure. The procedures will be conducted quickly to allow release of animals from the crate, minimizing distress. These procedures have no aftereffect, but animals will be observed immediately after release to ensure normal behavior.Animals are usually measured at periods no more frequently than once weekly, depending on the needs of the investigation.Qualification, experience or training necessary to perform procedure o Competence in handling small ruminants.o Experience in use of equipment and condition scoring.","tokenCount":"13823"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a4ae68da46e015743aa5f80ec236de27","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/cc3e8154-0151-410e-b624-2f31a2da4b52/content","id":"1695789621"},"keywords":["Wheat","Rice","Agricultural development","Zero tillage","Farming systems","Rotational cropping","Water use","Environmental factors","Production costs","India AGRIS Category Codes: E16 Production Economics F08 Cropping Patterns and Systems Dewey Decimal Classification: 338.91"],"sieverID":"d0c1f452-bce3-4665-a13b-9dfb0a40c01a","pagecount":"41","content":"The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, known by its Spanish acronym, CIMMYT® (www. cimmyt.org), is an international, not-for-profit research and training organization. With partners in over 100 countries, the center applies science to increase food security, improve the productivity and profitability of farming systems, and sustain natural resources in the developing world. The center¹s outputs and services include improved maize and wheat varieties and cropping systems, the conservation of maize and wheat genetic resources, and capacity building. CIMMYT belongs to and is funded by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) (www.cgiar.org) and also receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks, and other public and private agencies.Page No.Table 1. Rice, wheat and rice-wheat systems in South Asia ..     The present report is an expanded version of Laxmi et al. 2007, and  To date, the most widely adopted resource conserving technology (RCT) in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) has been zero-tillage (ZT) for wheat after rice, particularly in India. This report reviews and synthesizes the experience with zero tillage in the Indian IGP. Zero tillage of wheat after rice generates significant benefits at the farm level, both in terms of significant yield gains (6-10%, particularly due to timelier planting of wheat) and cost savings (5-10%, particularly tillage savings). These benefits explain the widespread interest of farmers and the rapidity of the diffusion across the Indian IGP, further aided by the wide applicability of this mechanical innovation. The study subsequently reports on the findings of village-level focus-group discussions in Punjab, Haryana and Eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP). These typically corroborate the findings reported in the reviewed literature. They also highlight the significant extent and speed of ZT adoption in each village as well as the attendant substantial cost savings and yield increases. A conservative ex-ante assessment of supply-shift gains alone (excluding other social and environmental gains), shows that the investment in zero tillage/reduced tillage (ZT/RT) research and development by the Rice-Wheat Consortium of the Indo-Gangetic Plains (RWC) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, Mexico (CIMMYT) was highly beneficial with a benefit-cost ratio of 39, a net present value (NPV) of US$ 94 million and an internal rate of return (IRR) of 57%. The study highlights the potential gains from successful technology transfer and adaptation in natural resources management (NRM).During the early 1990s, with the emerging concern over the sustainability of productivity of growth in ricewheat cropping systems, the need for the establishment of an international research consortium was felt. As a consequence, an eco-regional program of the CGIAR was launched in 1994, in the form of the RWC. This consortium involves national agricultural research systems from Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan and international centers including CIMMYT, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), and others (see http://www.rwc.cgiar.org). The RWC is a special kind of research network, which addresses natural resources management (NRM) issues and problems of agricultural productivity and sustainability within a geographically defined area. Over the past 10 years, the RWC has developed and promoted a number of resource conserving technologies that increase farmlevel productivity, conserve natural resources, and limit negative environmental impacts (Gupta and Sayre 2007;Gupta and Seth 2007;Hobbs and Gupta 2003).To date, the most widely adopted resource conserving technology in the IGP has been zero-tillage (ZT) wheat after rice, particularly in India. The present report reviews and synthesizes the experience with ZT in the Indian IGP to better understand and document the impact of this technology and related research.The next chapter introduces the ZT technology in the context of India's rice-wheat systems including a brief historic overview of the related research and development (R&D). Chapter 3 presents the methodology of the study while chapter 4 reviews the reported ZT adoption and impacts. Chapter 5 presents the findings of focus-group discussions and chapter 6 estimates the welfare impacts of ZT. Chapter 7 presents the conclusion.Rice-wheat systems provide the staple grain supply for about 8% of the world's population, making these systems critically important for global food security (Ladha et al. 2003b;Timsina and Connor 2001). In South Asia, rice-wheat systems produce more than 30% of the rice and 42% of the wheat consumed (RWC-CIMMYT 2003:24) and cover about 14 million hectares of cultivated land, with most of the area located in India and the IGP (Table 1).During the 1950s and early 1960s, South Asia suffered frequent, severe food shortages. Beginning in the late 1960s, however, production of rice and wheat increased dramatically throughout the region during the 'Green Revolution,' spurred by new high yielding wheat and rice germplasm, a favorable resource base, rapid expansion of irrigation infrastructure, and an extremely supportive policy environment. The Green Revolution greatly reduced the incidence of hunger and starvation through rapid growth in agricultural production, particularly in India's rice-wheat systems.Recent studies indicate a slowdown in the productivity of growth in the rice-wheat systems of India (Kumar et al. 2002a). Evidence from long-term experiments shows that crop yields are stagnating and sometimes declining (Duxbury et al. 2000;Ladha et al. 2003a). Current crop cultivation practices in ricewheat systems degrade the soil and water resources thereby threatening the sustainability of the system (Ali and Byerlee 2000;Byerlee and Siddiq 1994;Duxbury et al. 2000;Fujisaka et al. 1994;Gupta et al. 2003;Hobbs and Morris 1996;Kumar and Yadav 2001;Ladha et al. 2003a). The prevailing policy environment has encouraged inappropriate land and input uses (Pingali and Shah 1999), and crop system constraints have encouraged unsuitable responses. At the same time, rapid urbanization decreases the land available for agriculture. As a result, food security in the region remains a challenge for the future. If the supply of food is to keep pace with the rapidly growing demand, rice-wheat farmers will have to produce more food from fewer resources while sustaining the environmental quality. This will require rapid changes towards technologies that are more productive but less resource-degrading. The Zero Tillage TechnologyZero tillage (ZT) implies planting crops in previously unprepared soil. It is also known as zero till, no till or direct planting. This ancient practice continues to be followed by farmers in developing countries.The modern concept of ZT tends to imply seeding a crop mechanically in undisturbed soil-covered plant residues. \"Though the name refers to only one practice, no till is actually a farm management system that involves many agricultural practices, including planting, residue management, weed and pest control, harvesting, and rotation\" (Ekboir 2002). Zero tillage differs from RT in the sense that the latter still retains some minimal tillage prior to seeding, although this often still implies a significant reduction in tillage intensity compared to conventional farming practices. Data limitations sometimes imply that no clear-cut distinction can be made between ZT and reduced tillage, leading us to sometimes consider them jointly (ZT/RT).Zero tillage in rice-wheat systems ranges from surface seeding to planting with seed drills drawn by four-wheel tractors (Hobbs et al. 1997). In surface seeding, wheat seeds are broadcast on a saturated soil surface before or after rice harvest (Tripathi et al. 2006). It is a simple technology for resourcepoor farmers requiring no land preparation or machinery, but its use is still largely confined to low-lying fields that remain too moist for tractors to enter, particularly in the Eastern IGP. Mechanical seed drills typically open a hole, narrow slot, trench, or band of the smallest width and depth needed to obtain proper coverage of the seed. The prevailing ZT technology in the rice-wheat systems uses a tractor-drawn zero-till-seed drill to establish wheat in the rice stubble. This specialized seeding implement allows wheat seed to be planted directly into unplowed fields with a single pass of the tractor. Often, use is made of a zero-till-seed-cumfertilizer drill: a conventional seed drill fitted with sharp-edged modified furrow openers, a calibrated engraved disc, and a cup mechanism for placing fertilizers. The machine opens a number (6-13) of narrow slits for placing seed and fertilizers at a depth of 7.5-10 cm into the soil (Mehla et al. 2000). The ZT drills are made domestically and cost around US$ 400 (Parwez et al. 2004).'Conservation agriculture' is the term used for a diverse array of crop management practices that involve minimal disturbance of the soil, retention of residue mulch on the soil surface, and use of crop rotations (FAO 2007;Harrington and Erenstein 2005;Hobbs 2007). Within the context of conservation agriculture, ZT implies the retention of crop residues as mulch on the soil surface and its year-round application to all crops in the cropping cycle. In the Indian context, farmers still typically apply ZT only to the wheat crop; maintaining adequate residue levels for an effective mulch has proven problematic-in terms of both prevailing crop residue management practices (Erenstein et al. 2007d;Timsina and Connor 2001) and sowing wheat in the presence of significant rice residues with the current ZT drills (Pandey et al. 2003).In the IGP, wheat is grown in the cold and dry weather from November to March while rice is grown during the warm humid/semi-humid season from June to October (Timsina and Connor 2001). Zero tillage of wheat is particularly appropriate for these systems and addresses four important constraints.First, rice-wheat systems were often characterized by late planting of wheat, which significantly reduces wheat productivity. The delay in planting of wheat crop is mainly due to the late harvest of the previous crop and/or a long turn-around time. The late harvest of the previous rice crop can be linked to both the late rice establishment and the duration of the rice crop. For instance, in some parts of the IGP, farmers grow fine-quality rice (especially basmati), which takes longer to mature. The long turn-around time often reflects intensive tillage operations, soil-moisture problems (too wet or too dry), unavailability of draft and mechanical power for plowing, and the urgency to store the rice crop before preparing land for wheat cultivation. Conventional tillage (CT) practices for wheat are very intensive and involve multiple passes of the tractor to accomplish plowing, harrowing, planking, and seeding operations. Farmers perceive the need for intensive tillage due to the difference in soil management practices for rice and wheat being grown under anaerobic and aerobic conditions, respectively. Zero tillage greatly reduces the turnaround time allowing wheat establishment in a single pass almost immediately after the rice harvest.Second, continuous rice-wheat cultivation has led to the buildup of pests and diseases. The major weed affecting wheat in the IGP is Phalaris minor, which shows emerging resistance to isoproturon herbicide after repeated and widespread use. By reducing soil movement ZT serves as an effective control measure of P. minor (Malik et al. 2002c).Third, rice-wheat systems have led to land degradation. Excessive groundwater pumping has led to lowering of the water table in some of the ricewheat areas (Kataki et al. 2001;Malik et al. 2002a).Zero tillage potentially reduces irrigation water use-alleviating pressure on aquifers.Fourth, rice-wheat systems need to enhance their cost competitiveness in the context of trade liberalization. Zero tillage potentially includes savings in energy, water, labor, and other inputs. Zero tillage drastically reduces the use of machinery (less wear and tear and depreciation) and the cost of the tillage operation-a major cost of crop production in the IGP. Compared to broadcasting, the ZT drill saves seed and fertilizer, placing them at the desired depth and vicinity and in the right quantities.The advantages of ZT technology are thus manifold.On the one hand, this practice generates higher yields at lower production costs and, on the other, it is an environment-friendly practice that saves water and soil (Hobbs et al. 1997).In India, research on ZT for wheat started almost three decades ago (Ekboir 2002). Several state agricultural universities tried ZT in the 1970s but their efforts failed due to technical difficulties, such as the lack of adequate planting equipment and the difficulty in controlling the weeds chemically. This line of research was soon abandoned by all except a handful of researchers working in isolation.In 1990, CIMMYT's regional wheat agronomist introduced inverted-T openers to Indian researchers.  Seth et al. (2003:67) list the main reasons for the rapid success of ZT in India as:• The initiative was responding to a strong farmer demand where the private sector could see substantial market opportunities for their products.• The RWC played a crucial catalytic role in promoting the public-private partnership, nurtured it through its formative stages, and facilitated technology transfer from international and national sources. In addition, the RWC established a small revolving fund to facilitate delivery of machines at district points.• Close linkages of scientists and farmers with the private manufacturers including placement of machines in villages for farmer experimentation allowed a rapid feedback and refinement of implements.• Involvement of several manufacturers ensured competitive prices, good quality, and easy access to drills by farmers along with a guarantee for repairs and servicing.• Strong support from state and local government officials helped with dissemination.The importance of institutional support in India is also highlighted by neighboring Pakistan, where institutional rivalry has slowed the significant spread of ZT so far (Erenstein et al. 2007a).The RWC played the innovative role of information provider, capacity builder, and technology clearing house. As research for a development network, the RWC works closely with international organizations, government organizations, the private sector and farmers. In doing so, it facilitates their collaboration, strengthens interlinkages, encourages informationsharing and feedback, circumvents institutional blockages, and mobilizes resources.approach in a closed economy framework with linear supply and demand functions and a parallel research-induced supply shift (Alston et al. 1998).These welfare impacts were used to estimate the ex ante rate of return on R&D investment on zerotillage wheat. Table 2 presents the main contrasts between the 'with' case (with the RWC and CIMMYT investments) and the 'without' case used to estimate the rate of return. The Annex provides further details on the estimation of the costs. The economic impact of R&D was calculated for two 'with' case scenarios to test for sensitivity of the findings. Table 3 presents the main parameters used and the differences between the conservative and optimistic scenarios.The assumption of \"no other changes in the farming system\" applies.It is important to stress here that the modeled economic impact only reflects the ZT-induced downward supply shift for wheat. Data limitations preclude us from including and valuing environmental and social impacts of ZT at this stage (e.g., externalities, intangibles, and long-term and distributional effects). Reliable estimates of these effects are typically still scanty as apparent from the review. Compounding the issue, the extent and durability of the ZT wheat environmental gains are debatable with current farmers' practices for the subsequent rice crop and crop-residue management. Overall though, ZT typically implies positive environmental impacts, so that estimates of our economic impact can be seen as conservative underestimating the true social value of the technology and the social rate of return.We can only make a reasonable assumption about the counterfactual in the absence of the efforts of the RWC and CIMMYT.  and Haryana) where adoption of zero tillage is more widespread (Figure 2). Villages were chosen purposively for having reported adoption of ZT. The exercise in each village included both adopters and non-adopters (including dis-adopters, i.e., those who had discontinued the use of ZT). Where feasible, the group was divided into rich and poor farmers on the basis of landholding, and discussions were carried out separately for males and females. The focus groups were conducted to analyze the socioeconomic impact of ZT wheat firsthand and for validating the secondary data.For the third component, we modeled the economic impact of research and development on zero-tillage wheat in India's IGP. The aggregate welfare impact of ZT was estimated using the economic surplus start. In this process, CIMMYT has assumed the role of an 'honest broker' in building up confidence of the applied research and testing process. The RWC has been key in achieving and building on the initial gains for zero tillage in the Indian Indo-Gangetic Plains-through fostering prototype zero tillage equipment, farmer experimentation, and information sharing. The efforts of the RWC and CIMMYT thereby played an important role in accelerating the adaptation and uptake of ZT in India. As in Vincent and Quirke 2002:31, we assume that, without these efforts, ZT would have been introduced to the region, but with a lag of five years. This assumption seems consistent with the traditional diffusion pattern of successful technologies, whereby key interventions such as technology adaptation and facilitation can significantly accelerate uptake. The exact number of years remains ambiguous though, and we assume the five years to be a conservative lower bound as it could well be also up to 10 years.Attribution also remains problematic. The RWC as a network could not have functioned on a standalone basis, but its presence and perseverance have generated synergies and a momentum that, otherwise, were unlikely to have been achieved. Indeed, success tends to generate an upward spiral of interest and additional resources. The RWC thereby takes shared credit for the successful spread of zero tillage. Here we attribute the gains of bringing the ZT uptake five years forward to the efforts of the RWC and CIMMYT in India, without further attribution to consortium partners.Note: TGP: Trans Gangetic Plains; UGP: Upper Gangetic Plains; MGP: Middle Gangetic Plains; LGP: Lower Gangetic Plains.   2004).In 2004-05, the total estimated area under the combined zero tillage/reduced tillage was approximately 1.6 million hectares in the Indian IGP (Shoran 2005). The 2004-05 estimate for the first time disaggregated the estimated ZT and reduced-tillage areas, with ZT comprising 27% and reduced tillage 73%.Figure 3 highlights the acceleration of the diffusion of ZT/RT over the recent years. In the second half of the 1990s, the technology was primarily in its testing phase, with farmers' interest in the Western IGP driven by late planting, herbicide resistance (P. minor), and labor scarcity. With the turn of the century the diffusion started to pick up, aided by the demonstration effect of early adopters and the participatory research for development initiatives by the consortium of international, national and state research organizations, private manufacturers and input agencies including farmers. The zero-tillage technology is currently in the mass adoption phase in the Indian IGP.The present chapter reviews the reported adoption and impacts of zero tillage in the Indian IGP. In the first section, we look into the reported adoption of ZT and reduced tillage in India. The second section reviews the reported farm-level impacts of ZT in India, including (i) effects on land preparation and crop establishment; (ii) effects on water use; (iii) effects on soils, weeds, pests, and diseases; (iv) yield effects; and (v) cost savings and profitability. The third section reviews the socioeconomic and system impacts. The fourth and final section reviews the environmental impacts.In India's rice-wheat systems, adoption of zero tillage is primarily in the wheat crop and concentrated in the Northwestern IGP. On an annual basis, the RWC compiles estimates of the scale of adoption of various resource conserving technologies (Gupta 2004;RWC 2004;www.rwc.cgiar.org). These estimates are primarily expert estimates at the state level using a range of indicators. Estimates of ZT area are often based on the sales of ZT drills and average area coverage per drill (e.g., Malik et al. 2005c:6-7).In these estimates, it is problematic to reliably separate ZT from reduced tillage so that these two technologies are typically lumped together. These estimates also primarily reflect tillage level and the use of ZT drill for individual crops-without explicit consideration of crop residue management.In 2003-04, the total estimated wheat area under the combined zero and reduced tillage was approximately 820,000 hectares in the Indian IGP (Table 4). Most of the adoption was concentrated in Haryana (46% of 2003-4 ZT/RT area), Punjab (26%), and Western UP (21%). These areas are characterized by high agricultural productivity. The ZT/RT adoption has started to pick up in the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where agricultural productivity is lower. So far, ZT has spread more widely in the better-endowed areas. For instance, the  1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 Area ('000 ha, 1GP) The aggregate ZT/RT adoption estimates can be triangulated against other available adoption indicators. A recent random survey of 400 farm households in Haryana's rice-wheat belt included 34% ZT users in 2003-04 (Erenstein et al. 2007b). A random survey of 759 farm households in Punjab included 12% ZT users and 5% reduced-tillage users in 2003-04 (Joginder Singh, pers.comm.). These studies provide further support for the significant levels of ZT adoption in Haryana and Punjab.The adoption estimates can also be contrasted with the reported sales of ZT drill machines. A recent study in Haryana and Punjab, where most of the adoption is concentrated, has compiled the number of ZT manufacturers and the number of ZT drills sold annually over the last 10 years (Parwez et al. 2004). Both indicators have shown a significant increase in recent years (Figure 4). These data highlight that, by the end of the year 2003, a cumulative total of 15,700 ZT drill machines had been sold in the two states. 4 If we assume all machines to be operational, and unreported sales to cancel out against eventual exported machines to other states, then the reported 565,000 hectares of ZT/RT in the two states in 2003-04 (Table 4) imply an average of 36 ha planted per zero-tillage drill. This compares well with the results of a survey of 153 ZT drill-owning farmers in Haryana, which showed that, on average, each ZT machine had planted 42 hectares of wheat in 2001-02 (Punia et al. 2002). However, this may only reiterate that some of the ZT area estimates are primarily based on drill sales.In principle, the zero-technology technology could be extended to the entire mechanically tilled wheat area in the IGP. However, in the medium term this does not seem realistic due to a range of agro-climatic and socioeconomic factors that limit its applicability. A significant number of the current generation of farmers will likely adhere to their traditional preference for intensive tillage. There are also potential interactions between ZT and soil type, seasonal factors and cumulative effects that will cause farmers to adhere to intensive tillage in some plots or seasons (e.g., as preferred option to control a weed flush due to unseasonal rains and/or to control perennial weeds).A recent study on ZT adoption indeed found partial adaption to prevail, with an average of only half the ZT adopters' wheat area under ZT (Erenstein et al. 2007b). In any event, achieving blanket access to ZT knowledge and timely access to ZT drills will remain a challenge in the Indo-Gangetic Plains, whereas further adaptations may be needed to adapt ZT to the smallest of plots in the Eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains. As in Pal et al. 2003, we estimate the adoption ceiling for ZT/RT to be a relatively conservative 33% of the wheat area in the rice-wheat systems of the Indo-Gangetic Plains-a potential ZT/RT area of 3.43 million hectares. Figure 4 (leftmost line, with case) depicts a logistic curve fitted to the reported ZT/RT adoption estimates and the 33% ceiling-thereby highlighting the acceleration of the diffusion of ZT/RT over the recent years. In the same figure we have also included the same curve with a five-year lag which corresponds with our counterfactual: the shaded area thereby highlighting the differential adoption attributable to the contribution of the RWC and CIMMYT.  The current stage of mass adoption calls for ongoing analysis of the experiences of adopters and making the necessary modifications in the technology and diffusion process to suit the local needs and enable even wider adoption and adaptation. This calls for a good understanding of farmers' perceptions and practices and the drivers and modifiers behind these. Some farmers use the ZT drill, but maintain a limited degree of tillage-i.e., RT (or partial adoption). Some adopters continue to use ZT and conventional tillage side by side on the same farm (Erenstein et al. 2007b;Pandey et al. 2003). Of the 400 randomly surveyed farm households in Haryana's rice-wheat belt, 10% had dis-adopted ZT in the survey year (Erenstein et al. 2007b) including 'temporary' dis-adoption, whereby farmers had reverted to reduced tillage for various reasons (e.g., to control a rainfall-induced flush of weeds).The ZT technology is dependent on affordable and timely access to ZT drills and their correct operation-an issue particularly in the early stages of adoption. Custom-hiring of ZT drill services have thereby been a key ingredient for the rapid diffusion of ZT. A survey of ZT drill-owning farmers has highlighted that 69% of the wheat area planted with each drill was under custom-hiring (Punia et al. 2002). Similarly, another survey found 60% of ZT adopters in Haryana to have relied on contracted ZT drill services (Erenstein et al. 2007b). Surveyed disadopters in Haryana mentioned the nonavailability of ZT machinery as the main reason for dis-adoption (Nagarajan et al. 2002). The focus groups in Eastern Uttar Pradesh also included cases of dis-adoption due to untimely availability of ZT drills, reflecting the inability of a few ZT service providers to meet the demand during wheat establishment time. Availability of machinery is still likely to restrain adoption in the eastern plains in the near future.The present section reviews the direct farm-level impacts of adoption of zero-tillage wheat in ricewheat systems in the Indian IGP, based on the available literature. The emphasis here is on the reported direct, immediate, and pecuniary effects attributable to the ZT technology at the plot/farm level-i.e., the on-farm impact on productivity and production costs. Most of the available literature relates to the northwestern parts of the IGP-the Trans Gangetic Plains and the Upper Gangetic Plains-which are characterized by areas of intensive agriculture.Conventional tillage practices for wheat are very intensive in India's rice-wheat systems (Table 5).For instance, tillage alone encompasses around 25% of the total cost of conventional wheat production (Karnal, Haryana). Due to the adoption of ZT technology, the number of field operations for the establishment of the wheat crop (including tillage) decreased from an average of seven to only one (Sharma et al. 2002a). Due to this, about 8 to 12 hr/ha of tractor operational time were reportedly saved (an 80-88% savings- Malik et al. 2004;Sharma et al. 2002a;Yadav et al. 2002b; Table 6).The corresponding seasonal savings in diesel for land preparation is reported to be in the range of 15-60 liters/hectare (l/ha), representing a 60-90% savings (Hobbs and Gupta 2003;Laxmi et al. 2003;Malik et al. 2002a;Malik et al. 2004;Yadav et al. 2002b; Table 6). In Haryana, ZT saved 59 l/ha of fuel, 8 hr/ha of tractor time, and approximately 3,000 Mega Joules/ ha of energy in tractor operations as compared to The reduced turn-around time was reported to have allowed wheat planting to be advanced by 7-10 days in Haryana and by 8-25 days in Bihar (Gautam et al. 2002;Nagarajan et al. 2002;Singh et al. 2002c).Zero tillage is reported to save irrigation water in the range of 20-35% in the wheat crop. In Haryana, ZT saved an average of 7.5 cm-ha of water in presowing irrigation (Karnal District; Nagarajan et al. 2002). Commonly, ZT reduces water usage by about 10 cm/ha, or approximately 1 million l/ha (Mehla et al. 2000). The savings arise because, with ZT, it is possible to sow wheat just after rice harvest making use of residual moisture for wheat germination. Moreover, irrigation water advances faster in untilled soil than in tilled soil. The savings are generally reported for the first irrigation (e.g., 8-10 hr. with ZT and 13-17 hr with conventional tillage; Hobbs et al. 1997). The problem of waterlogging and yellowing of the wheat plants after the first irrigation is thereby reduced (RWC-CIMMYT 2003:95). Zero tillage can also imply savings of one irrigation (Hobbs et al. 1997;Laxmi et al. 2003;Malik et al. 2002b;Malik et al. 2002a;Mehla et al. 2000). The irrigation savings tend to translate into immediate cost savings whenever farmers rely on lift irrigation, as in the case of electric-or diesel-operated wells.Zero tillage typically improves soil quality in various dimensions, including soil structure, soil fertility, and soil biological properties. Rice-wheat systems typically have low soil organic carbon (Duxbury et al. 2000). The ZT soils reportedly have higher organic carbon contents than CT soils-but they also have a lower pH (due to nitrification; Chauhan et al. 2002).The same study reported that the higher stability of soil aggregates under ZT (due to accumulation of organic matter) results in reduced soil erosion (due to wind and rain). Studies have also reported that the upper soil surface for ZT was comparatively soft and had a higher moisture content and that there was no significant difference in bulk density under both tillage systems (Kumar et al. 2002b;Malik et al. 2002c;Yadav et al. 2002a). However, such gains during the wheat crop will only present seasonal gains as long as the subsequent rice crop remains intensively cultivated and anaerobic. For enhancement of the structural soil quality the whole cropping system would need to shift to aerobic and ZT conditions with adequate residue management.With the adoption of ZT in rice-wheat systems in the IGP, comparatively less weeds were found in the wheat crop (Chauhan et al. 2002;Franke et al. 2007;Malik et al. 1998a;Malik et al. 2002c;Malik et al. 2004;Prasad et al. 2002;Sen et al. 2002;Singh et al. 2002a;Singh et al. 2002d;Yaduraju and Mishra 2002). With ZT, the early emergence of wheat and no or less soil disturbance in the uncropped area resulted in less and late emergence of weeds (especially P. minor). Therefore, weed competition to the wheat crop is  Sharma et al. 2002a; source for sites 3 and 5 is Laxmi et al. 2003; source for 7 is Malik et al. 2004. * Significant at 5%. greatly reduced. Malik et al. (1998a) reported that in fields with problematic weeds the saved time in ZT could be used for stimulating weed emergence followed by effective control with a nonselective herbicide.Both long-term trials and farmer surveys suggest a change in the weed spectrum in ZT wheat fields. Malik et al. (1998a) found a change in the weed spectrum in ZT wheat fields, particularly an increase in the population of broad-leaved weeds. Singh et al. (2002b) conducted a long-term experiment in Haryana (Karnal District) and found that the intensity of P. minor decreased by 30-40% in ZT when compared to CT, while the intensity of broadleaved weeds increased. Yadav et al. (2002a) in their long-term study in Haryana (1997-98 to 2001-02) also found less infestation of P. minor under ZT. Laxmi et al. (2003), reported that 51% of farmers in Haryana and 85% of farmers in Bihar perceived that weed infestation had decreased due to the adoption of ZT in wheat.Zero tillage also alters the dynamics of selected pests and diseases (Chauhan et al. 2002;Laxmi et al. 2003) and has reportedly no harmful effect on the population density of insect pests in general and the yellow stem borer of rice in particular (Chauhan et al. 2002;Jaipal et al. 2002). In fact, ZT enhanced the earthworm population in rice fields and predator diversity and density in wheat. Dabur et al. (2002) reported a reduction in the population of nematodes in the wheat crop due to ZT adoption.The generally positive yield effects of ZT on wheat are mostly due to (i) timely sowing and (ii) efficiency of increased input use and weed control (Mehla et al. 2000). Terminal heat implies that the potential of wheat yield decreases by 1-1.5%/day if planting occurs after 20 November (Hobbs and Gupta 2003;Ortiz-Monasterio et al. 1994;Randhawa et al. 1981). Approximately 30% of wheat cultivation is under late sowing in the Indian IGP, and zero tillage allows for timelier establishment.On-station trials across the Indian IGP reported significant increases (3-73%) in wheat yields under zero tillage (Dhiman et al. 2003;Prasad et al. 2002;Sen et al. 2002;Yadav et al. 2002b). The few exceptions without an increase in ZT yield tend to be in Punjab (e.g., Chahal et al. 2002), which may reflect that planting of wheat in Punjab is already timely (Hobbs 2001). On average, an 11% (400 kg/ha) increase in wheat yield was reported with zero tillage in each year (2000-01 and 2001-02) across six research centers in the IGP (Dhiman et al. 2003)-ranging from a marginal 1% (50 kg/ha) decrease in the Punjab to a maximum of 26% (600 kg/ha) increase in Eastern UP for the two years combined (Table 7). Table 7 shows some variation in the relative yield increases in each year but, per site, the ZT advantage tends to be consistent and of a similar order of magnitude. The increase in yield was reported significant in the Middle Gangetic Plains and insignificant in the Trans Gangetic Plains.On-farm trials across the IGP have also highlighted the higher yields with ZT, with increases ranging from 1-15% in the Northwest to 9-36% in the East (Gautam et al. 2002;Malik et al. 2004;Nagarajan et al. 2002;Sharma et al. 2002b;Yadav et al. 2002b). Table 8 shows increases in wheat yields in farmers' fields under ZT across sites, ranging from a marginal 1% increase in Punjab to a maximum 12% increase in Bihar (Malik et al. 2004). On average, a 280-kg/ha increase in wheat yield was reported in 112 farm trials (46 in 2000-01 and 66 in 2001-02) across five states in the IGP (Dhiman et al. 2003)-average increases ranging from 110 kg/ha in Punjab to 490 kg/ha in Bihar. Both on-station and on-farm trials thereby highlight significant yield gains with ZT-with the gains increasing from Punjab towards the middle Gangetic plains reflecting the increasing importance of timeliness. Long-term monitoring of six sets of farmer fields over eight years in Haryana has shown that ZT had consistently higher or similar yields to CT (Malik et al. 2005d:16).As yet, relatively few farm surveys are available to document yield effects of zero-tillage adoption in the IGP. In one adoption survey of 34 farmers in Uttaranchal, zero-tillage adopters significantly outyielded conventional tillers with 5% (=200 kg/ha, 4.4 vs 4.2 t/ha; Pandey et al. 2003). One survey of approximately 400 farmers in 2003 contrasted zero-tillage adopters with non-adopters in Haryana and Bihar (Laxmi et al. 2003). In Bihar, zero tillage significantly outyielded CT with 9% (220 kg/ha; Table 9). In Haryana, the 6% difference in yields was not statistically significant. Another study of 398 farmers over three years in Haryana reported a significant 153 kg/ha yield increase for ZT adopters (Malik et al. 2005b). Yet another survey of 400 farmers, again in Haryana, revealed a similar significant yield advantage of 170 kg/ha (or 4.0%) for zero tillage over CT plots of adopters in the survey year (2003-04), although not in the preceding years (Erenstein et al. 2007b).Most of the available studies concur in highlighting the profitability of ZT wheat production over conventional practice. Two factors contribute to the overall profitability of ZT: the value of the yield increase and the savings in production cost-particularly savings in land preparation and crop establishment. Savings in irrigation pumping and inputs may add to this. Comparison of the various studies is somewhat complicated by their site-specificity and methodological differencesincluding the source of the data and costs included. Most calculations typically use the local cost of hiring ZT services as the opportunity cost of the ZT drill (e.g., Rs 715/ha; Punia et al. 2002).A number of profitability estimates have been derived from on-station and on-farm trial data. These typically comprise savings derived from partial budgeting and the value of the yield increase (Table 10). On-station cost savings for ZT have been reported to range from Rs 1,700 to 2,300/ha (Dhiman et al. 2003;Prasad et al. 2002;Singh et al. 2002c;Yadav et al. 2002b). For on-farm trials in Bihar and Haryana, slightly lower savings of Rs 1,400/ha have been reported, which together with the value of the additional yield (Rs 3,000/ha) provided an overall net profit of Rs 4,400/ha for ZT (Gautam et al. 2002;   in use in farmers' fields have been selected under conditions of conventional tillage and variety-ZT interactions have been reported (Erenstein 2006;Mehla et al. 2000). Conceivably, varieties selected under ZT conditions are likely to enhance the benefits of ZT. Zero tillage also has the potential of increasing cropping intensity and diversity in selected areas of the IGP (e.g., moving towards double cropping in rice-fallow systems; introducing triple cropping in rice-wheat systems). The benefits of ZT wheat would also be significantly enhanced when the subsequent rice crop is cultivated under aerobic and ZT conditions-as well as opening the scope for further diversification.Beyond the farm level, ZT opens a new service industry-be it for machinery manufacturers or custom hiring services (Dixon et al. 2007).The potential multipliers associated with these changes-particularly intensification, diversification, and service industries-are likely to more than compensate for the relatively limited, direct ZTinduced labor displacement, particularly in view of the prevailing mechanization levels. However, time, monitoring, and further studies are needed to substantiate such potential impacts.The ZT/RT wheat has several environmental benefits. Foremost amongst these are fossil fuel savings and reduced greenhouse gas emissions (Grace et al. 2003;Hobbs and Gupta 2003;Malik et al. 2002a). Using a conversion factor of CO 2 emission of 2.6 kg/l of diesel (Grace et al. 2003) and a relatively conservative estimate of 35 l/ha diesel savings, we estimate an annual ZT savings in CO 2 emission of 91 kg/ha. Adoption of ZT on a potential area of 3.43 million hectares of wheat would annually reduce emissions by 0.31 million tons of CO 2 and save 120 million liters of diesel. At the current price of diesel (or crude oil equivalents) this saving alone would imply US$ 50 million of benefits annually. Other greenhouse gas emissions, including methane and nitrous oxides, have an even greater effect on global warming. Grace et al. (2003) have highlighted that ZT with residue-retention and with 50% of the recommended NPK application, could effectively halve the total carbon equivalent emissions to 14 t C0 2 /ha/yr compared to a high-input conventionally tilled cropping system with residue burning and organic amendments due to improved nutrient use and environmental efficiency.In the Northwest IGP crop residues are often Nagarajan et al. 2002). In the Haryana trials, the savings amounted to 6% of the total cost (zero tillage, Rs 22,800 vs CT, Rs 24,200/ha; Nagarajan et al. 2002).For on-farm trials in Western UP, savings ranged from Rs 2,300 to 2,800/ha, which together with the value of the additional yield (Rs 900-2,500/ha) provided an overall net profit of Rs 3,400-4,800/ha for zero tillage (Malik et al. 2004). For Eastern UP, higher cost savings were reported (Rs 3,500-4,900/ha for ZT; Malik et al. 2004). Some of these findings were subsequently also reported by Malik et al. (2005a).The limited farm surveys also report significant cost savings (Table 10). Compared to conventional tillers, ZT adopters saved Rs 1,700 and 2,200/ha in Haryana and Bihar, respectively (Laxmi et al. 2003).Zero-tillage adopters in Uttaranchal reportedly saved Rs 3,900/ha (24%), which together with the value of the additional yield (Rs 500/ha) provided an overall net profit of Rs 4,400/ha (43%; Pandey et al. 2003).Another survey in Haryana reported the net benefit for ZT adopters to be a significant Rs 2,600/ha higher than that for those who practiced CT (Malik et al. 2005b). Yet another survey of 400 farmers, again in Haryana, revealed a conclusive advantage of zero tillage over CT plots of adopters amounting to Rs 3,100/ha in the survey year (2003-04), composed of a 'yield effect' of Rs 1,200 and a 'cost-saving effect' of Rs 1,900 (Erenstein et al. 2007b).Both large and small landholders adopt ZT (Laxmi et al. 2003;Malik et al. 2005c). This is facilitated by the ability of smallholders to contract ZT drill servicesjust as they do for their tillage services in general. Malik et al. (2004) have highlighted the benefits of ZT to be relatively scale-neutral: smallholders achieving similar gains in net returns (zero tillage 7,700 vs CT 6,000 Rs/ha) as large landholders (zero tillage 9,000 vs CT 7,100 Rs/ha). In terms of the yield gains and cost savings reviewed above, the areas with less intensified agriculture conceivably gain more from ZT than the highly intensified agricultural areas, thereby potentially reducing regional inequality. For now though, the technology has spread far more significantly thereby primarily benefiting the betterendowed areas. In much the same way, the early adopters of ZT tend to be better endowed (e.g., larger landholdings, better educated; Erenstein et al. 2007b;Pandey et al. 2003).The use of ZT in wheat opens the scope for new technologies including the application of ZT to other crops (e.g., pulses and cereals) and permanent beds and the diffusion of new varieties. Most varieties burnt, creating severe seasonal air pollution/smog and human health hazards in the area. Zero tillage is being further adapted so as to maintain crop residues as mulch without burning or incorporation. The burning of crop residues is not considered as a CO 2 source to the atmosphere by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as on an annual basis there will be no change in the C stock. Zero tillage does reduce CO 2 emissions by slowing oxidation of the carbon soil stock due to reduced soil disturbance (Grace et al. 2003;Hobbs and Gupta 2003).Water is becoming an increasingly important constraint to agriculture in the IGP as competition for domestic and industrial uses increases and water use efficiency is poor (Hobbs and Gupta 2003). Zero-tillage wheat enhances water use efficiency, reduces irrigation requirements, and thereby helps save irrigation water. This benefit is especially important for the Northwest where water shortage is already acute, leading to interstate political conflicts. In Haryana and Punjab, irrigation through tube wells meets around 60-65% of the total irrigation requirement. Due to excessive exploitation, groundwater resources are depleting at an alarming rate. In Punjab, 59% of blocks are critical (with groundwater exploitation >85% of the annual recharge) and in Haryana 69% districts have declining water tables (Minhas and Bajwa 2001). Zero-tillage farming on 0.25 million hectares in the IGP reportedly saved 75 million m 3 in 2002-03 (Malik et al. 2004). On paper, the adoption of ZT on a potential area of 3.43 million hectares of wheat would save an estimated 1,029 million m 3 of water each year. Empirical measurement and modeling are needed to better quantify these savings scientifically and estimate the value of these water savings (Ahmad et al. 2007;Erenstein et al. 2007a;Jehangir et al. 2007).Thus, ZT primarily has positive environmental impacts and this would enhance the social returns to the research and development investment. However, further research, some of it already initiated, is needed to substantiate these impacts more rigorously. At the same time, the current use of ZT only for wheat limits the extent of some of the potential environmental gains. More significant environmental gains are likely when the whole rice-wheat system converts to year-round conservation agriculture.Chapter 5 Results of Village-Level Focus-Group Discussions group composition of adopters and non-adopters.There was also no apparent consistency between the two villages that suggested a clear association with ZT adoption. The group members in Punjab typically fell in the medium-to-large farm category, a characteristic of the state that is in contrast to the lower IGP region of Eastern UP and Bihar, where most of the farmers have very small landholdings (Erenstein et al. 2007c).Zero tillage has been used since 1999-00 in Kaunke Kalan and since 2000-01 in Gurusar Kaunke. In both villages, ZT diffusion was relatively slow at first, but started picking up rapidly since 2002-03. In Kaunke Kalan, the ZT wheat area amounted to 54% of the total village area and involved 80% of the farmers and 11 ZT drills by 2003-04. In the smaller Gurusar Kaunke village, the ZT area amounted to 85% of the area and involved 91% of farmers and 7 ZT drills by 2003-04.Table 12 shows the diffusion of ZT in these villages.Despite the number of ZT drills some villagers still reported a shortage of these drills. If we assume no other drills were operational in the villages (i.e., the village ZT area to be sown by village drills only), it would indeed imply a coverage of 69 ha/ZT drill in Gurusar Kaunke and up to a hefty 110 ha/drill in Kaunke Kalan. Despite the advance of ZT there were still reports of a lack of awareness amongst some of the non-adopters. Other farmers faced some constraints or remained to be convinced to adopt ZT.This chapter presents the findings of the focus-group discussions conducted within the context of this study. The first three sections report the findings for Punjab, Haryana, and Eastern UP, respectively. Each section synthesizes the findings from the two surveyed villages in each state, putting particular emphasis on the ZT technology, its diffusion, its impact on stakeholders, and some of the underlying constraints within the communities. The fourth section summarizes the three survey locations.The two survey villages in Punjab were Gurusar Kaunke and Kaunke Kalan in the Ludhiana District (Figure 2). The village lands are irrigated with fertile clay loam soils. Rice and wheat are the main crops.Other crops include potato, mint, mung, and maize. The average farm size amounts to 2.25 hectares in Kaunke Kalan (1,000 farm households, 2,250 hectares) and 5.2 hectares in Gurusar Kaunke (110 farm households, 572 hectares). Agricultural operations are carried out primarily with tractors and for the cereal harvest the use of combine harvesters prevails.In each village, separate focus group discussions were held with the male adopters, male non-adopters and women. The male participants were further split in terms of rich and poor farmers. Table 11 presents some of the characteristics of the groups and their members. There were some differences between the  For instance, some non-adopters reported deriving satisfaction from the traditional way of cultivation, feared crop failure or lesser yield, and disliked the disheveled appearance of the ZT field.Both villages largely concurred on the sources of ZT dissemination, which included the Punjab Agricultural University, State Agricultural Department, demonstrations in friends' fields, and newspapers. However, in Gurusar Kaunke the National Agro Industry (a major ZT drill producer) reportedly played a major role, and farmer fairs (Kissan mela) were specifically reported in Kaunke Kalan.Farmers, and particularly adopters, were generally appreciative of the ZT technology. The direct economic benefits of ZT adoption as perceived by the farmers are savings of time, money, water, and fuel, and an increase in the wheat yield (Table 13).The two villages generally concur in terms of the type of savings, although there can be quite some variation in their magnitude. The villages concur that ZT decreases tractor use time by 4-5 hr/ha as there is less field preparation under ZT. The less wear and tear of the tractor also resulted in less tractor depreciation under ZT. Both villages also concur on diesel savings, but the estimated savings vary from 15 to 42 l/ha. Some farmers reported an increase in fuel consumption for some operations because of heavier tractor load and perceived soil compaction. Total time savings for ZT were estimated at 20 hr/ha in one village and 7 hr/ha in the other. One village reported that ZT saves one irrigation compared to conventional tillage; the other village reported some labor savings. Zero tillage allowed for more timely sowing of wheat, which normally gets delayed under CT tillage due to the long turn-around time after the rice harvest due to elaborate land preparation. Despite some of the differences, the two villages concur that ZT in wheat:• saved Rs 2,000-2,500/ha in expenditures;• increased the yield by 0.5 ton/ha; and• increased income by Rs 4,400-5,000 /ha.Zero tillage reportedly decreased the weed population of P. minor but increased the population of broad-leaved weeds such as Rumex maritimus. Some weeds that emerge late under ZT conditions were problematic to control and some farmers were afraid of a weed outburst. Some farmers reported that if the weed problem arises, the cost of weed control will increase to Rs 1,500/ha. A few farmers reported an increase in chemical requirements, including an increase in fertilizer use (49 kg/ha in diammonium phosphate [DAP] and 123.5 kg/ha in urea). Some farmers also reportedly perceived an increase in the rodent population in the ZT fields.Sowing difficulties associated with the remaining rice residues in the field were reported by some farmers. Some farmers were of the view that a cutter was needed on the drill for its easy movement in the field. Some other farmers opined that ZT drill maintenance and repair mechanisms should be better. Yet others reported lack of proper germination in the heavy soils, weak establishment of wheat crop, an increase in the seed rate of 5 kg/ ha, and a decrease in straw quality.Farmers reportedly used the time savings for various income-generating activities such as involvement in other agricultural operations, giving more time to livestock rearing, and repair and maintenance of farm equipment and machineries. Women in both the villages were of the view that there was a decrease in the workload with ZT, which helped them concentrate on childcare and education. The shortening of the turn-around time with ZT has reduced the time pressure which usually prevails between the paddy harvest and sowing of the wheat crop. Some of the women reported that ZT reduced the mental and physical pressure on the men and thereby reduced their consumption of liquor. Yet other women disagreed, reporting that the free time and less expenditure increased the habit of drinking and playing cards among men, especially for large farm holders.The two survey villages in Haryana were Pirthala in the Fatehabad District and Teek in the Kaithal District (Figure 2). Both villages have a similar number of farm families, but Pirthala is a large village (total population 10,800) while Teek is smaller (total population 4,500). The village lands are irrigated with fertile loam and clay loam soils. Rice, wheat and cotton are the major crops grown in this area. The average farm size is 1.2 hectares. Use of the tractor and combine harvesting are widespread.In each village, separate focus group discussions were held with the adopters and non-adopters, further split between rich men, poor men, and women. Table 14 presents some of the characteristics of the groups and their members. No major age difference was apparent between adopters and non-adopters. However, in Teek, the farm size of ZT adopters was a multiple of the farm size of nonadopters, reflecting the lack of rich non-adopters in the focus groups in Teek (Table 14).Zero tillage has been used in Teek since 1996-97 and since a subsequent year in Pirthala. Both villages saw a rapid diffusion of ZT up to the survey year of 2003-04. In Teek, the ZT wheat area amounted to 85% of the total village area and involved some 30 ZT drills by 2003-04. In Pirthala, the ZT wheat area amounted to 80% of the total village area and involved some 300 farmers and 50 ZT drills by 2003-04 (Table 15). Assuming no other drills were operational in the villages, this would imply a coverage of 32-34 ha/ZT drill.Both villages concurred on the importance of the Haryana Agricultural University and the State Agricultural Department as major sources of ZT dissemination. In Teek, the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (outreach stations of NARS at district level) reportedly played a major role, whereas in Pirthala what was reported was the role of demonstration effects of early adopters and private company agents.Farmers reported savings of time, fuel, water, and money and an increase in yield as immediate economic benefits of ZT adoption (Table 16). As in Punjab, the two villages generally concur in terms of the type of savings, although there again can be quite some variation in their magnitude. Zero tillage farmers reported tillage savings of 5-10 tractor hours, diesel savings of 27-62 l/ha, and cost savings totaling Rs 2,500-3,000/ha.In Pirthala, farmers reported irrigation savings of 2.5 hr/ha with ZT over conventional tillage, whereas in Teek there was a 50% water saving in the first irrigation and a 25% water saving in the subsequent irrigations. These water savings relate to irrigation water advancing more rapidly over an untilled field, thereby reducing the time needed to irrigate the entire field. Farmers reported that ZT helped achieve good drainage in the field and that with ZT there was less yellowing of the wheat crop after the first irrigation.In Pirthala, yields reportedly increased with 0.5 ton/ha under ZT, whereas in Teek a yield increase was reported for the initial years of adoption only (two years according to the men, 3-4 years according   to the women). Farmers attributed the higher wheat yield under ZT to a number of factors, including less lodging, improved soil health, and better and more homogeneous crop establishment. At the same time, some farmers reported a poorer quality of bhusa (wheat straw used as livestock feed) due to a stiffer stem with ZT, particularly in the case of wheat after basmati rice.ZT reportedly decreased the P. minor weed population which was beneficial for yield. The lower weed population under ZT also drastically reduced the consumption of herbicides, which saves costs and reduces soil and water pollution. This reflects the problems farmers face in controlling P. minor and its emerging herbicide resistance, particularly in Haryana (Malik et al. 2002c). However, the population of broad-leaved weeds reportedly increased (e.g., Rumex retroflex ['Jungli palak'] and 'buton buti'). Some farmers also feared a drastic yield reduction in the event of a weed outburst. Some farmers were afraid of the risk of soil compaction, and there was a general perception that the soil needed at least one plowing after 3 to 4 years of ZT adoption. Some farmers also reported that an extra plowing was required for the subsequent field preparation for rice after ZT wheat although a separate farmer survey in Haryana found no such evidence (Erenstein et al. 2007b). The danger of crop failure in case of heavy rain after seeding but before germination was also flagged. An increase in the rodent population due to the presence of loose straw in the fields was reported. Some farmers reported difficulties in operating ZT drills in fields with loose residue and suggested that the need for a straw cutter on the ZT drill to remove the stubbles in the field while sowing. Other farmers pointed out the difficulty in using zero tillage practices in former cotton fields which were perceived to harbor large numbers of insects and pests.Farmers reported that, with CT, timely sowing of wheat was problematic in view of the needed turnaround time after the rice harvest. With ZT, timely sowing became easier as it involved no tillage for the wheat crop, with ample time being available between rice harvest and wheat sowing. Consequently, ZT adopters felt that less tension prevailed at the time of wheat sowing. Women of adopting households also reported that ZT assures timely sowing and more peace at home due to ZT decreasing the tension that normally prevails at home because of the hectic schedule of field operations under conventional tillage. Some adopters also reported that ZT facilitated planning and participating in ceremonies and social events. The time savings are reportedly utilized in other agricultural activities, maintenance of agricultural implements, and animal care. Women also acknowledged that ZT helped save time and that some of their men helped them more in animal care and children's education due to the extra time available. Some women believed that ZT would lead to overall prosperity in the village. But other women reported that their men used the saved time and money in unproductive ways such as playing cards, gossiping, and smoking hookahs (water pipes).In Teek, the focus group of non-adopting women was primarily composed of landless daily-wage laborers. The discussions on the impacts of ZT shed some light on some of the implications for the landless poor who primarily depended on daily wages for their livelihoods. Zero tillage reduced the demand for labor and some male laborers thereby lost seasonal work opportunities in land preparation while women laborers lost work opportunities in weeding and other inter-cultural operations. Some women estimated they had lost work at least 10 days/year because of the introduction of ZT. Some of the landless men work as permanent laborers for large farmers earning some Rs 12,000-15,000/year. The landless felt that, over time, the scope of finding daily or permanent labor was waning. Some alluded that half of the landless had left the village because of a reduction in employment opportunities. The available data do not allow for a closer assessment of the livelihood perspectives of the landless poor or of the relative role of ZT diffusion and the overall economic trends therein. Still, even such an incomplete assessment reminds us of the varying implications of agricultural technology for different stakeholders.The two survey villages in Eastern UP were Bhurkura and Karhat from the Mirzapur District (Figure 2). Bhurkura is a large village (total population 5,000) while Karhat is a small village (total population 700). The soil types are loam and clay in Bhurkura and black loam in Karhat. Irrigation prevails and rice and wheat are the major crops grown in this area. Other commonly grown crops are lentil, pea, and pigeon pea. The average farm size is 0.4 hectare in Bhurkura and 1.0 hectare in Karhat. Land preparation is largely by tractor, with non-tractor owners relying on providers of tractor services.In each village, separate focus group discussions were held with the adopters and non-adopters, further split between men and women and the rich and poor. Table 17 presents some characteristics of the groups and their members. Again no major differences were readily apparent between adopters and non-adopters.Zero tillage has been used since 1998-99 in Karhat and since the subsequent year in Bhurkura. Both villages saw a rapid diffusion of ZT in the subsequent 4-5 years. In Karhat, the ZT wheat area amounted to 75% of the total cultivated area and involved some 50 farmers and three ZT drills by 2003-04. In Bhurkura, the ZT wheat area amounted to 61% of the total cultivated area and involved some 100 farmers and three ZT drills by 2003-04 (Table 18).The limited number of ZT drills was reportedly still a major constraint for ZT adoption as it constrained its timely availability. Assuming no other drills were operational in the villages, this would imply a coverage of 51 ha/ZT drill in Bhurkura and 81 ha/ZT in Karhat. Timely access is likely further exacerbated by the relatively small farm sizes. Rich farmers in the Bhurkura village even opined that ZT was not costeffective for small farmers. Lack of awareness about ZT was not a constraint and reflects the significant spread of ZT in the two villages.Both villages concurred on the importance of the Banaras Hindu University, the State Agricultural Department, and fellow farmers as major sources of ZT dissemination. The same two villages were also covered in a different study (Joshi et al. 2007).As in Punjab and Haryana, farmers again reported savings of time, fuel, water, and money, and yield increase as immediate economic benefits of ZT adoption (Table 19). However, there was again quite some variation in the reported magnitude of savings. Zero-tillage farmers reported tillage savings of 5-7 tractor hours and also seed savings of 20-40 kg/ha. In Karhat, ZT implied diesel savings of 10-20 l/ha. Farmers reported irrigation savings amounting to 7 hr/ha in the first irrigation and 2-5 hr/ha in the subsequent irrigations. The reported cost savings amounted to a relatively high Rs 5,500-7,500/ha. Farmers also reported yield increases of 0.2-0.4 t/ha as compared to CT.Farmers were of the view that due to the adoption of ZT in wheat the weed population of P. minor had decreased. At the same time, there was a reported increase in the population of broad-leaf weeds and some other species (e.g., tipatiya and genhu mala). Women concurred that the population of weed had decreased.Farmers' views on the implications of ZT for fertilizer and chemical use diverged. Whereas some ZT adopters reported fertilizer savings of up to 20 kg/ha, others reported hefty increases. One farmer even alluded to the doubling of fertilizer use, although it remains unclear to what extent this is attributable to ZT. Women also gave inconclusive accounts on the eventual changes in fertilizer use. Some farmers reported increases in herbicide use (e.g., 2,4 D), whereas others reported reduced insecticide and pesticide use.   The farmers in the Karhat village reported improvements in the soil quality, whereas those in the Bhurkura village expressed concerns about soil compaction. In the latter village, farmers opined that the rear tractor wheel compacted the soil thereby making the seed drilling difficult. In the Karhat village, poor farmers suggested that the distance between the drilled rows should be reduced and that the width of the tines should be less.Male and female respondents of adopting households concur on the higher income with ZT.The additional income is variously used, including for children's education, agricultural production (e.g., buying better seeds and more fertilizer), consumptive purchase (e.g., household articles, clothing and luxuries), and social functions (e.g., marriages). Some farmers reported that the enhanced income increased their creditworthiness.Both male and female respondents in the two villages concurred that ZT was time-savings. In Bhurkura, this allowed for a 10-day earlier sowing.The time savings reduce the work pressure and thereby the tension that usually prevails during the wheat sowing time-both for farm operations and within the home. Zero tillage also implies less work in the field, and the corresponding labor savings are variously used for other productive (incomegenerating) and consumptive activities, including more time for children, relatives and friends, social activities, recreation, and rest.The ZT labor savings are a boon to the farmers, but imply a decrease in employment opportunities for agricultural laborers. In the Burkura village, poor farmers reported reductions of up to two thirds in wage employment. In the same village, landless laborers-particularly women-perceived that the employment opportunities at the time of land preparation reduced from 10-12 days earlier to 2-3 days now due to ZT. With ZT there was also reduced wage employment for manual removal of weeds. Some women opined that ZT had contributed to an increase in out-migration.Again, the available data do not allow for a closer assessment of the livelihood perspectives of the landless poor or of the relative role of ZT diffusion and the overall economic trends therein. Furthermore, it merits mentioning that both villages have received considerable outside support and interventions (e.g., Joshi et al. 2007). For instance, village farmers had received training in seed production from the National Seed Corporation and scientists from BHU. These farmers are now producing wheat seed which is being procured by the NSC. The seed production is generating additional income to farmers with large holdings and employment opportunities for agricultural laborers.For instance, landless women revealed that some of them got an additional five days of employment during seed preparation time. According to one seed producer, ZT played an important enabling role in seed production as he is now able to sow in time, and the quality of his wheat crop has improved.The focus groups conducted within the context of this study do not provide a representative sample (six villages from adoption areas). Still they typically corroborate the findings reported elsewhere and as reviewed in the previous chapter. All villages highlight the significant extent and speed of ZT adoption in each village. The focus groups also found some farmers who discontinued ZT due to problems including the perceived need for occasional tillage, formation of hardpan and weed control.Compared to the review, which is one of the thee components of this study, the focus group meetings revealed similar savings in tractor operational time for land preparation (13, 7 and 6 hr/ha in Punjab, Haryana and Eastern UP, respectively) and in corresponding diesel use (27, 35 and 14 l/ha, respectively). The lesser quantity of diesel savings in UP is due to the lower level of mechanization in this area. In UP, people reported advancement of wheat sowing by 10 days. The focus groups reported similar water savings as reported elsewhere-be it in terms of one irrigation savings or reduced duration of primarily the first irrigation. The focus group meetings also reported a perceived increase in soil quality, a decrease in P. minor, and an increase in broad-leaf weeds. Rodent damage was occasionally reported and is seemingly associated with residue retention, which calls for closer monitoring.The focus group meetings confirmed the positive yield effect of ZT. The discussions reported a ZT yield gain of 500 kg/ha in Punjab and Haryana and 325 kg/ha in Eastern UP-an approximate 10% yield gain in each site.The focus group meetings in Punjab and Haryana reported cost savings of Rs 2,000-2,500/ha and an overall net profit of Rs 4,400-5,000/ha for ZT. In Eastern UP, reported cost savings were significantly higher with Rs 7,500/ha, with an overall net profit of Rs 9,500/ha for ZT. These last estimates seem somewhat high compared to the other estimates but, in general, the focus groups confirm the significant cost savings and increase in profitability attributable to ZT. The similarity of reported savings and profits attributable to ZT are striking, providing support to the relatively wide applicability of this technology.The focus group discussions also showed that both large and small landholders had adopted ZT. The large landholders benefited due to less risks of delays in wheat establishment. The smallholders reported that they could also reap the advantages of ZT wheat if they were able to get the machines in time on custom hiring. The rate of hiring a zerotillage drill with tractor is Rs 300/day in Haryana and Rs 320/day in Eastern UP.Although the authors perceive the labor-saving nature of ZT wheat to be relatively limited, landless laborers, both men and women, are reported to have been adversely affected, some commenting they lost their seasonal wage employment. Migrant and landless laborers raised concerns about the possible adoption of ZT in paddy, as they fear the more significant loss of earning during paddy transplantation.The time and resource savings were variously used by the adopters. Both males and females reported having more time to undertake other incomegenerating/-saving activities (such as livestock raising, carpentry, electrician work, tailoring, etc.) as well as leisure (e.g., social ceremonies).Women generally appreciated ZT. They acknowledged that after the adoption of ZT in wheat there was less tension, which normally prevailed because of the hectic schedule of field operation under CT, and this has resulted in more peace at home. Women also reported that, with ZT, their drudgery was reduced and that their male counterparts were helping them in animal care and children's education. Women in the low-productivity areas were less informed about ZT than those in high-productivity areas. Zero tillage as such has not played any role in school enrollment or dropout rates of children, especially of girls.The significant farm-level impacts of ZT in terms of yield increase and cost savings translate into a downward shift of the supply curve. The aggregate welfare effect of this shift was estimated through the economic surplus approach and was used to estimate a rate of return to the 'with' case (with the RWC and CIMMYT investments), using various assumptions and parameters as outlined in the methodology (Chapter 3, Table 2 and Table 3). A fundamental assumption is that the observed adoption levels (and NARES expenditures) would have lagged five years in the 'without' case (Figure 4). We attribute the differential benefit stream (primarily consumer and producer surplus and some savings of the National Agricultural Research and Extension System cost) to the RWC and CIMMYT investments. The estimates of the benefits are conservative in the sense that they only include the welfare effects attributable to the tangible direct benefits. The positive environmental impacts addressed in the section on Socioeconomic and system impacts would only add to the social value of the technology.For the conservative scenario we assume 6% ZTinduced yield gains and 5% cost savings, and half of these values for reduced tillage. The results show that even with these relatively conservative values, the ZT/RT research program is highly beneficial with a benefit-cost ratio of 39 and a net present value of US$ 94 million. The IRR was 57% (Table 20).The discounted economic surplus (US$ 96 million) indeed dwarf the discounted cost of the 'with' case (US$ 2.5 million). The economic surplus primarily benefited consumers (65%) compared to producers (35%). For the more optimistic scenario, we assume that ZT induces 10% yield gains and 10% cost savings (and half these values for reduced tillage). In this case, the estimated NPV is US$ 164 million with a benefit cost ratio of 68 and an internal rate of return of66% (Table 20).Results of a sensitivity analysis of the conservative scenario to changes in various key indicators are presented in Table 21. For each indicator, two alternative values were imputed, ceteris paribus. For the discount rate 10%-and 0%-values were imputed.But even under a discount rate of 10% the returns to ZT/RT research and development remained highly beneficial-albeit that net present value was halved. Four other indicators altered are the yield gain, the cost savings, the contribution of reduced till, and the assumed time lag. For these indicators, scenarios were typically computed without and with only half the original values. The calculations are most sensitive to variations in the assumed yield. Without any yield increase, NPV is reduced by 77% but even so the 'with' case still proves beneficial with a benefit cost ratio of 10 and an internal rate of return of 37%. The results are relatively less sensitive to the assumed cost savings-without any cost savings NPV is reduced by 25%. The assumed contribution of reduced tillage (estimated at 50% of ZT values) also proves influential, mainly as result of the significant area share under reduced tillage relative to zero tillage. Without any contribution from reduced tillage, NPV is reduced by 59% but the investments remain favorable. Finally, the results are also relatively sensitive to the assumed time lag. In the case of only a one-year lag, NPV would be reduced by 81% but the benefit cost ratio and internal rate of return again remain favorable.Zero tillage and reduced tillage thus generated high welfare gains from a relatively small investment of the RWC and CIMMYT. These gains are relatively robust and persist even under more stringent assumptions. The investment was relatively small in view of the positive spillovers and sunk costs of previous research both in the region and elsewhere. This drastically reduced technology-development time and cost towards relatively cheap adaptive research and allowed for rapid institutional learning.  To keep pace with the rapidly growing food demand, South Asia's farmers will have to produce more food from fewer resources while sustaining environmental quality. Zero tillage is one technology that fits this need and is being rapidly adopted in the Indian IGP in wheat after rice. The successful diffusion of zero tillage is due to the concerted efforts of the National Agricultural Research and Extension System (including State Agricultural Universities) and the private sector. CIMMYT and the RWC have played a pivotal and innovative role as facilitator and information provider, technology-clearing house, and capacity builder. Zero tillage of wheat after rice generates significant benefits at the farm level, both in terms of significant yield gains (6-10%, particularly due to more timely planting of wheat) and cost savings (5-10%, particularly tillage savings). These benefits explain the widespread interest of farmers and the rapidity of the diffusion across the Indian IGP, further aided by the wide applicability of this mechanical innovation. Small-scale machine manufacturers have played a key role in meeting and creating an increasing demand. Service providers have enhanced technology access by making it divisible and they are key promoters having the expertise and personal interest to successfully spread the technology. It all required a timely congruence of a profitable opportunity and the willingness to adapt by several key champions.A conservative ex-ante assessment of supplyshift gains alone (excluding other social and environmental gains), shows that the investment in ZT/RT research and development by the Ricethe Wheat Consortium of the Indo-Gangetic Plains and CIMMYT was highly beneficial with a benefitcost ratio of 39, a net present value of US$ 94 million and an internal rate of return of 57%. The sensitivity analysis highlights the influential role of the yield gain, the contribution of reduced tillage (i.e., partial adoption), and the assumed time lag. Significant positive spillovers of sunk ZT research and development costs-both previous and from elsewhere-also contributed to the high returns.The case thereby highlights the potential gains from successful technology transfer and adaptation in NRM.The present study has valued impact, based on private gains alone, with environmental and social gains as added non-valued benefit. To a large extent, this was dictated by data limitations, and yet the approach has merits. Private gains correspond more closely with the interest of farmers and the private sector and, therefore, with potential and rapid adoption. The challenge for NRM research thereby is to generate technologies that are privately attractive in their own right with environmental gains as an added benefit. The present case also highlights the potential of a phased approach, building on the easy wins to subsequently use the momentum to address secondgeneration problems. In some instances, such an approach may be more successful than tackling NRM issues head on.Zero tillage primarily has a positive environmental impact (savings of fossil fuel, reduced emissions of greenhouse gas, water savings), and this would enhance the social returns to the R&D investment. The water savings in the wheat crop are particularly interesting in view of excessive groundwater exploitation in intensive rice-wheat growing areas. Further research to substantiate and value the environmental impacts is needed. There is also significant scope for enhancing the environmental impact of ZT in rice-wheat systems. Two areas that merit particular attention in this respect are management of crop residue and shifting towards direct-seeded aerobic rice. However, leaving more crop residues as mulch has implications for both ZT drill functioning and potential trade-offs between residue use for livestock feed and conservation agriculture (Erenstein et al. 2007d).Zero tillage tends to be adopted first by the betterendowed farmers. Rental services of ZT have however made the technology relatively scale-neutral and divisible. Time and resources saved through ZT are variously used by the adopting farm householdsfor productive, social, and leisure purposes. Thus adoption of ZT enhances farmers' livelihoods. So far, ZT has spread more widely in the betterendowed areas. The challenge remains to extend these gains to the less-endowed areas of the IGP, where it has significant potential and can contribute to poverty alleviation.The present study has reviewed a wealth of information in relation to zero tillage and ricewheat systems in the Indian IGP, supplemented by village-level focus group discussions. Although the various sources differed in rigor and detail, the same consistent messages come through, validated by focus groups and farmer adoption. The combined yield increase with cost savings implies that returns to ZT adoption are pretty robust, thereby significantly reducing the risk of adoption. Still, significant knowledge gaps exist. Most studies either focus on the plot level or the macro level. Gaining a better understanding of the intermediate levels and potential interactions is needed to assess the degree to which the gains are actually realized on the ground and the scope for scaling up from plot-level impacts. Available information on the cost of ZT research and development and attribution also proved problematic. Most studies report on the technical and private financial gains of ZT at plot level-with limited documentation of socioeconomic, livelihood, and environmental impacts. Addressing these knowledge gaps would significantly strengthen endeavors on future impact assessment.Zero tillage therefore offers high potential economic, environmental, and social gains in the Indian IGP. Nonetheless, significant challenges remain, not least in terms of actually realizing these potential gains on the ground. This implies moving beyond mere production cost savings to natural resources savings and using ZT as a stepping stone to conservation agriculture. Zero tillage is also no panacea, and complementary resource conserving technologies that are privately and socially attractive are needed. Technological intervention also needs to be complemented with policy reform to create an enabling environment for sustainable agriculture. This could easily prove even more significant, but implies addressing some of the more thorny policy issues such as the subsidy and taxation schemes that currently undermine the sustainability of rice-wheat systems.For accounting purposes we take 1994 as the base year. The spread of ZT in India benefited from investments made elsewhere and earlier. These are considered as positive spillovers of sunk costs and are not accounted for in the current calculation thereby somewhat inflating our estimated returns. For the cost side we consider two main cost components: RWCand NARES.For the RWC total annual cost data are available from its inception in 1994 till 2003. However, available cost data are generally aggregated and a number of assumptions are needed to derive estimates for the specific cost of RWC ZT research and development activities in India.The Review Panel Report (Seth et al. 2003) estimates RWC investment patterns in donor funded projects by research themes. These estimates show that, at the time, the largest investment was for tillage, crop establishment, diversification, and machinerydevelopment work (29%) followed by Human Resource Management (HRD, 21%) and knowledge management (19%). We assume that the first category primarily relates to ZT-related work. In addition, we assume that 29% of the generic but contributing themes such as HRD, knowledge management, and socioeconomics are related to zero tillage. Taken together, 42.6% of the total RWC cost is assumed to be related to zero tillage.The zero tillage investment of the RWC relates to all the four countries of the consortium. Singling out the share attributable to India needs further assumptions. Attributing these costs equally among the four countries underestimates India's share, India having the largest rice-wheat area (75% of the South Asia area, Table 1) and being host to the RWC facilitation unit. Attributing these costs solely on the national share in the regional rice-wheat area overestimates India's share, as resources tend to be shared more equitably and transaction costs are higher for the smaller three partners. Therefore, we assume an intermediate value of 50% of the RWC zero-tillage-related costs to be attributable to India. Taken together, we thus assume 21.3% of total RWC costs to be attributable to zero tillage in India.For 1994 to 2003, we assume 21.3% of RWC total annual cost to be attributable to zero tillage in India (increasing from U$13,000 in 1994 to US$ 257,000 in 2003). For 2004 to 2008, we assume a similar investment as the average for 2002-03 (US$ 251,000/ annum). For 2009 to 2013, we assume a linear decline to zero as ZT-related activities are phased out.The Indian National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems have made significant investments in ZT. However, data limitations imply a number of assumptions are needed to derive estimates for the specific cost of ZT research and development activities in India. The review panel of the RWC (Seth et al. 2003) estimated that the total rice-wheat-related research expenses (operational plus staff) of Indian NARS were approximately US$ 5 million/annum during 2000-2003. Pal et al. (2003) ) estimated that approximately 5.4% of total expenditure is incurred on tillage and residue management. Taken together, we thus assume the Indian NARS to invest US$ 270,000/annum in zero tillage for 2000-2003. For 1994to 1999, , we assume a linear increase to the reported levels in 2000. For 2004 to 2008, we assume continuation of investments at the same level as for 2000-03. For 2009 to 2013, we assume a linear decline to zero as ZT-related activities are phased out.Estimating the extension component of ZT in India is even more problematic. We therefore simply assume the same pattern as the NARS costs, but with a fiveyear lag. In the conservative scenario, extension costs are assumed to be at the same level as NARS. In the optimistic scenario, extension costs are assumed to be 50% of the NARS costs.","tokenCount":"13242"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fee28f422ac47cb90632113ce2c1769e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/32386b5e-7bb6-445d-9df8-baea4cd296ea/retrieve","id":"1601451323"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"fcf34e93-758c-4123-b404-d62a08070dda","pagecount":"46","content":"La expansión del consumo de maíz Opaco-2 con base en la producción comercial La expansión del consumo del maíz Opaco-2 entre los productores Factores claves aparentes Cursos de acción Fuentes de infarmación Encuestas a los productores Encuesta de mercadeo Encuesta a los consumidores Otras fuentes de información Rendimientos relativos y costos de producción Rendimientos Rendimientos experimentales Rendimientos de las pruebas de campo Rendimientos comerciales Costo relativo de producción y almacenamiento en la finca Actitud del agricultor hacia eL cambio y sn habi!lidad para efectuarlo Semilla mejorada Otras tecnologías mejoradas Actitudes hacia el maíz Opaco-2 Aspectos de mercadeo Diferenciales en los costos de mercadeo Actitudes de las agencias de mercadeo respecto al maíz Opaco-2 Preferencias relativas del consumidor Maíz sin procesar Patrones de consumo y conocimientos sobre nutrición humana Patrones de compra Conocimiento de precio Aceptabilidad del maíz Opaco-2 Características culinarias Preferencias personales Maíz procesado Aceptación del maíz Opaco-2 para el consumo del productor Patrones de consumo Conocimientos relacionados con la nutrición humana Aceptación del maíz Opaco-2 para el consumo Referencias Apéndices 1. Procedimiento del muestreo y características de las muestras Encuestas al productor Encuesta de mercadeo Encuestas a consumidores 11. GlosarioApreciado Dr. Pinstrup -Andersen:La Divisjón de Ciencias Agrícolas está planeando llevar a cabo la evaluación de la productividad de los híbridos de maíz Opaco-2 con alto contenido de lisina que han sido desarrollados par el programa conjunto de mejoramiento del maíz del ICA y el CIAT.Este proyecto está diseñado para establecer par'celas de evaluación con diez agricultores, si es posible, en cada una de las regiones de Colombia en donde el cultivo de maíz es importante o con potencial par'a desarrollarlo.Este estudio se llevará a cabo en forma coordinada entre el ICA y el eIAT. El ICA proveerá ayuda técnica y a-poyo administrativo, en tanto que el CIAT contribuirá con el servicio de seis agrónomos, a cargo de quienes estarán las actividades relacionadas cuu esta evaluación. También, el CIAT contribuirá con ' E\"l costo de los insuIDns y los gastos de viaje que se requieran..Consideramos que este proyecto ofrece una magnífica oportunidad para estudiar las variables técnicas, económicas y sociales que puedan tener importancia en los problemas. de aceptación ° rechazo de estos nuevos maíces por -parte de los agricultores y de los consumidores. Además, la información que se obtenga será útil para el momento en que se intente-expandir' la producción y la utilización de estas nuevos híbridos con mejor calidad de proteína.Tenemos la esperanza de que los economistas agrícolas del CIAT puedan participar en este estudio~ para ayudar a identificar e interpretar los problemas económicos y ,'\"ociales que puedan tener relevancia para el mismo.Atentamente, Eduardo Alvarez-Luna Director' Aústente Ciencias AgrícolasColaboraron en este estudio varias agencias y personas, incluyendo el Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario, ICA; Cresemillas, Caja Agraria; el Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar; la UnhTersi~ dad del Valle y las cmpreEas Maizena y Quaker.No se pretende enumerar a todas las personas que contribuyeron a la elaboración de este estudio. Los principales colaboradores fueron: Daniel Sarria, del ICA, Palmira; Eduardo Alvarez-Lulla, Francis C. Byrnes, Charles A. Francis y Gerald 1. Trant, del Centro Internacio' nal de Agricultura Tropical, CIA T.Seis ingenieros agrónomos colaboraron en las pruebas de campo CIAT-ICA del maíz Opaco-2 para r'ecolectar información entre los productores de maíz: Rafael Barreneche, César Augusto Bonilla, Carlos Escobar, Juan Darío Gómez, Hernán Sánchez y Gustavo Vera. Rafael Barreneche también participó en la encuesta de mercadeo y las entrevistas relacionadas con la encuesta a consumidores fué dirigida por Colombia Molina. Por último, Camilo Alvarez procesó gran parle de los datos.Se agradece la colaboración de las agencias y de las per.spnas men-cÍonadas así como Qtras que cooperaron en este estudio. El ~utor asUme la completa responsahilidad por los errores que puedan aparecer en este estudio..Los objetivos de este estudio fueron identificar los principales obstáculos sociales y económicos para la introducción y expansión de la producción~ el mercadeo y el consumo humano de maíz Opaco-2 en Colombia; determinar bajo cuáles circunstancia~ dicha introducción y expansión podrían ser factibles y ~ además, sugerir líneas de acción para la ciencia, el gobierno y la empresa privada para desartollar este programa.5'e consideraron dos medios de introducir y expandir el consumo humano de maíz Opaco-2: a) el consumo del producto por consumidores compradores de maíz, o sea, el consumo del maíz Opaco-2 basado en la producción comercial y b) el cnllsumo del maíz Üpaco-2 por los mismos productores, es decir. el consumo casero en la misma finca productora de maíz Opaco-2.Se puede concluir que una rápida expam;ión de la producción comercial del maíz Opaco-2 para consumo humano directo no es factible actualmente sin subsidios gubernamentales apreciables. La promoción del maíz Opaco-2 para el consumo casero entre los pequeños agricultores puede ~er exito~a con costos bajos por parte del gobierno.. Los obstáculos para una rápida expansión de la producción y consumo comercial de maíz Opaco-2 se deben primordialmente a su blandura y apariencia. Por lo tanto~ se debe enfatizar el desarrollo de un maíz cristalino de alta lisina.En el estudio se consideraron siete factorc:'> potencialmente claves que podrían influir sobre los resultados de los esfuerzos orientados para la inttoducción, expansión de la producción y el consumn de malz Opaco-2. Además~ fe esquematizaron algunas medidas alternativas de carácter político' público que podrían ser puestas en práctica por el gobierno colombiano respecto al maíz Opaco-2.Los datos básicos se obtuvieron de cinco encuestas llevadas a cabo entre productores de maíz~ agencias de mercadeo y consumidores~ y se realizaron análisis cuantitativos para estimar la importancia de cada uno de los factores claves potenciales y como podrían l:'er adaptados para crear condiciones favorables para la producción y el consumo del maíz Opaco-2.Tres factores podrían inhibir 10.'3 esfuerzos pal'a estimu]ar la producción del maíz Opaco-2 entre los agricultores, a menos que se tomen medidas correctivas. Estos factores son: 1) bajos rendimientos del maíz Opacu-2 comparados con los de otros híbridos disponibles, 2) actitudes negativas de los agr'icultüres con respecto al maíz Opaco-2.y 3) dificultades para almacenar el maíz Opaco~2 en la finca.~1ientras que los rendimientos experimentales de maíz Opaco-2 amarillo son más o menos iguale:; a los rendimientos del mejor' híbrido común, la capacidad de rendimiento del maíz Opaco-2 blanco es apa\" rentemente menor.Recientes pruebas de campo indican que la introducción de maíz Opaco-2 blanco~ ya sea sólo o como parte de un paquete de insumos, probablemente aumentaría los rendimientos del maíz entre aquellos agricultotes que actualmente no cultivan el mejor híbrido.De la misma manera, si el maíz Opaco-2 se introduce como un componente de un paquete completo de insumüs, el agricultor que actualmente cultiva el mejor híbrido con bajos niveles de tecnología puede mejorar su rendimiento. Sin embargo, en ambos casos, el aumento en rendiminto probablemente sería más alto si se introduce el mejor híbrido común en vez del híbrido Opaco-2. Alternativam€nte~ si el agricultor cultiva el mejor híbrido siguiendo los niveles más altos de tecnología, el cambio al maíz Opaco-2 prohablemente reduciría los rendimientos. En esta forma, el agricultor comercial que se capacite para aplicar la nueva tecnología con el fin de aumentar el r'endimiento del maíz, encontraría más lucrativo escoger el mejor híbrido común en caso de que el precio de venta del maíz Opaco-2 sea igual o inferior al del precio del maíz común; pero, si el maíz se produce primordialmente para el consumo casero. el conocimiento del alto valor nutritivo del maíz Opaco-2 haría que se inclinara a sembrarlo.Los esfuerzos para introducir el maíz Opaco-2 entre los productores pueden obstaculizarse por el menor peso del maíz Opaco-2 y por su apariencia tan diferente del maíz ya conocido por los agricultores. Lna gran mayoría de los agricultor'es prefirió el maíz cristalino común al Opaco-2.Los agricultores informaron que el deterioro causado por los insectos durante el almacenamiento fue más severo en el maíz Opaco-2 que en los maíces de tipo cristalino. Se encontró que el almacenamiento en la finca~ aún por cortos períodos de tiempo, sin utilización de insecticidas, representaría pérdidas apreciables.Los esfuerzos orientados a introducir y extender la producción de maíz Opaco-2 están sujetos a los mismos problemas generales que se enfrentan al intentar intfoducir otras tecnologías nuevas. Las actitudes y habilidades del agricultor con respecto al cambio, y el enfoque y la capacidad del agente de cambio son variables importantes en un programa de esta naturaleza.Se encontró que el nivel de tecnología actualmente utilizado por los agricultores es bajo. J\\.'1enos de la mitad de los agricultores entrevistados sembraban semillas mejoradas, un tercio de ellos utilizaba fertilizantes en el cultivo del maíz y la mitad utilizaba insecticidas. Las principales barreras para una rápida expansión en el uso de tecnologías mejoradas fueron la falta de crédito y poco conocimiento sobre el cultivo del maíz.En base a este estudio se puede concluir que no es factible promover la producción comercial del maíz Opaco-2 blanco a menos que el precio al productor' sea superior al precio corriente del maíz común. Se necesitan pruebas de campo más amplias a nivel semicomercial para determinar los rendimientos relativos de los últimos cruces de maíz Opaco-2 amarillQ para poder tomar decisiones con respecto a la promoción de este maíz.Podría :;¡er factible la promoclon de la producción del maíz Opaco-2 para el consumo casero entre los pequeños agricultores. Pero su aceptación entre las esposas de los agricultores tendería a ser baja a menos que se les convenza de su alto valor nutritivo. Se requerirían esfuerzos cOlIsiderables para informar y educar las familias campesinas en este aspecto.Además, la introducción del maíz Opaco-2 a los agricultores tendría que acompañarse de un trabajo -efectivo de exten&ión con respecto a prácticas de culti\\'o y almacenamiento.. Algunos de los riesgos que el agricultor afronta~ a menos que se tomen medidas de precaución, son pérdidas apreciables durante el almacenamiento, rendimientos bajos inesperados y reducción en el valor pro.teico debido a la fertilización del cruce con variedades locales o híbridos cultivados en la cercanía.Los esfuerZos orientados a promover la producción comercial del maíz Opaco-2 fracasarían si no existe una diferencia de precio que contrarreste el efecto de rendimientos inferiores sobre el ingreso total por las ventas.La falta de interés entre los mayoristas para comprar el maíz Opaco-2 puede ser una barrera seria para una producción sostenida. Solamente el ocho por ciento de los mayoristas entrevistados indicaron que comprarían maíz Opaco-2 a un precio igual al del maíz común.Bajo condiciones de un mercado perfecto, las pr'eferencias al nivel del mayorista se determinan por las preferencias del consumidor. Por lo tanto, considerando la baja aceptación del maíz Opac'O-2 entre los consumidores, no sorprende encontrar que los mayoristas no estén dispuestos a comprar el maíz Opaco-2. Sin embargo, los resultados de la encuesta de mercadeo indicaron que los mayoristas desconocían el nivel potencial o actual de aceptación del maíz Opaco-2 por parte del consumidor.Debido a la escasa comunicación entre los consumidores y los mayoristas en el mercado colombiano de maíz, no se conoce si es posible o cuán rápidamente los mayoristas se adaptarían a una mayor aceptación por parte del consumidor.La encuesta de mercadeo mostró que un agricultor productor de maíz Opaco-2 puede encontrar serias dificultades en la v,enta de su producto, a menos que lo cultive por contrato con una firma procesadora. Además de la diferencia de precio antes mencionada, los agricultores o los mayoristas tendrían que estar seguros de que hay un mercado para el maíz 0paco-2 para tener' éxito en los esfuerzos para introducir y extender su producción comercial.Se encontró que la principal barrera para una rápida expansión del consumo del maíz Opaco-2 era la baja aceptación por parte del oon-sumidor~ dehido principalmente a su textura harinosa. Además, por razón de su apariencia~ el consumidor en general lo consideró ínferio.r al tipo cristalino así como también a otros maíces harinosos. La mayoría de las amas de casa entrevistadas señaló algunas caracterí,sticas culinarias diferentes entre el maíz Opaeo-2 y el maíz cristalino común. E~.tas diferencias se asociaron con la blandura del cndospermo. :Mientras la mayoría de las entrevistadas afirmó que el maíz opaco era de más sencilla preparación debído ti su blandur'a~ también consideró que únicamente podría ser utilizado en algunas preparaciones culinarias o platos especiales. La mayoría indicó que compraría el maíz cristalino común en lugar del Opaco-2 sí ambos tuvieran el mismo precio.S'e encontró que las amas de casa estaban bastante enteradas de los precios. Dada la baja preferencia por el maíz Opaco-2, no parece factible introducirlo a un precio al detal superior al del maíz común. Aún dado el caso de que existiera un diferencial apreciable de preferencia por' el Opaco-2, la falta de poder adquisitivo seguramente haría prohibitivo el rápido reemplazo de las variedades actualmente disponibles por el maíz Opaco-2 a un mayor precio al detaL Puede estar bien fundada la creencia de que el maíz Opaco-2 puede utilizarse únicamente en la preparación de algunos productos o algunos platos alimenticios. Si se utilizan métodos tradicionales de cocción el resultado al usarse el maíz Opaco-2 puede ~et un fracaso. Sin embargo, si se modifican ligeramente los métodos culinarios~ el maíz Opaco-2 podr'Ía utilizarse con resultados satisfactorios. Los esfuerzos orientados 3 aumentar la aceptación por parte del consumidor deben incluir una campaña educativa que explique cómo se podrían modificar los métodos culinarios utilizados actualmente.La mayoría de las amas de casa sabía que los alimentos de or'igen animal son de un mayor valor nutritivo que los productos de origen vegetal, pero la mayoría de ellas desconocía la razón para hacer esta afirmación. La promoción del maíz Opaco-2 basada en el argumento de su mayor calidad proteica, seguramente no tendrá éxito, a menos que ep,té precedida por una campaña educativa mediante la cual el consumidor conozca la importancia de las proteínas en la dieta. Es posible que ~e puede promover con éxito el maíz Opaco-2 'a través de una campaña que indique que su valor nutritivo es igual al de la leche o. la carne.Una campaña promocional or'ientada a introducir el maíz Opac.o-2 debe dirigirse tanto al ama de casa como al jefe de la familia. En una gran mayoría de las familias de ingresos bajos, el esposo es quien compra el maíz y quien toma las decisiones. Los resultados indican que para llegar a los grupos de ingresos bajos, el maíz Opaco-2 debe estar a la venta en las plazas centrales de mercado y en algunas tiendas y graneros.La mayor parte de las familias estudiadas no obtenía suficientes proteínas de alta calidad, debido primordialmente a la carencia de poder adquisitivo. Hasta qué punto podrá el maíz Opaco-2 satisfacer las deficiencias proteicas entre las familias de ingresos hajos? El consumo semanal de maíz Be estimó en 0.6 Y l. O kilogramos pet cápita para las dos submuestras de consumidores, respectivamente. Si, como indica Clark, el requerimiento diario de aminoácidos esenciales de un adulto puede satisfacerse con 250•350 gramos de maíz Opaoo-2, las familia-e, de las dos suhmuestras podrían obtener cerca de un tercio~ y casi la mí~ tad, respectivamente~ de los aminoácidos esenciales requerídos si cambiaran a maíz Opaco-2 y mantuvieran ~u nivel actual de consumo de maíz.Aunque el reemplazo del maíz común por el maíz O-paco-2 probablemente reduciría considerablemente el actual alto nivel de desnutrición entre las familias de ingresos bajos en Colombia, ese reemplazo no se produciría bajo condiciones de mercado libre de p:t'ecios~ excepto posiblemente entre los mismos productores. -U na rápida expansión del consumo del maíz Opaco-2 entre consumidores compradores de maíz, podría presentarse solamente si se puede desarrollar un maíz cristalino de alta lisina G si el actual maíz Opaco harinoso\" puede vender'se a un precio interior al del maíz común. Dado su más bajo rendimiento~ el productor comercial no tendría ningún incentivo en producir Opaco~2 a menos que los -precios de venta fueran superiores al del maíz común. Por lo tanto, se necesitaría un subsídio si se pretendiera aumentar rápidamente la producción comercial y el consumo humano del maíz Opaco~2 harinoso. Además, seria necesario efectuar una campaña promodallal intensiva entre consumidor'es y productores.Suponiendo que el consumidor cambiase del maíz común al Opaco-2 blanco con una diferencia de precio del 10 por ciento, el valor del subsidio gubernamental necesario para promover el actual maíz Opaco-2 harinoso estaría determinado por un diez por ciento del precio en la finca y un diez por ciento del precio al detal~ además de los costos pro~ mocionales. El rendimiento del maíz Opaco-2 blanco es aproximada~ mente de un diez por ciento menos que el del híbrido común. Los actuales precios al nivel del productor y del minorista son alrededor de .$ 1.70 y$.2. 20 pesos colombianos, respectivamente, por kilogramo. POI' lo tanto, 'el subsidio seria de 0.39 centavos por kilo. El consumo humano total de maiz en Colombia es más o menos de 560 mil toneladas anualmente l. Por lo tanto, el costo para el gobiernO' pata reemplazar el maíz común por el maíz O-paco-2 seria de $ 218 millones de lJiesos colombianos anuales, mas los costos de promoción entr'e productores, consumidores y agencia~ de mercadeo.Si el rendimiento del maíz Opaco~2 harinoso pudiera igualarse al del maíz común, posiblemente se necesitaría sólo un pequeño diferencial del precio al productor ~ para reemplazar la producción del maíz común por el Opaco-2. Sin embargo, esto no variarla el diferencial necesario del precio al detal. Los costos guhernamentales serían de S 123 millones de pesos colombianos anualmente, más gastos promocionales. Si se desarrollase un tipo cristalino de Opaco-2 pareee que no sería necesario el diferencial de precios al detal; en este caso, los costos gubernamentales estarían limitados a la campaña promocional.  . 52, 1969). Alrededor del 67 por dento de la cantidad producida se utiliza para el consumo hllmano (Manual de Costos, Caja de Crédito Agrario, Colombia, 1967).Se :recomienda que de inmediato se le dé un mayor énfasis a la investigación con el fin de desarrollar un maíz tipo cristalino de alta lilSina con una capacidad de rendimiento igual al de los híbridOlS comunes 2, Tan pronto esté disponible un híbrido oomer'cial con estas caracteIÍs.ti-cas~ debe presentarse acompañado de una promoción adecuada, dirigida a productores, agencias de mercadeo y consumidores a fin de obtener la substitución del maíz común.Una vez que se conozca que el maíz cristalino de alta lisina tiene una capacidad de r'endimiento competitiva y la aceptación del consumidor, podría considerarse descontinuar con la producción y la venta de semilla de los híbridos comunes~ para aceler'ar en esta forma la adopción del maíz de alta lisina. Esta actitud no es recomendable tratán• d03e del maíz Opaco-2 harinoso, actualmente disponible. Es recomendable, además, que mientras se desarrolla un tipo de maíz de alta lisina de tipo cristaIíno~ se promueva el actual maíz Opaco-2 harinoso para producción y consumo casero entre los agricultores de bajos niveles de nutrición. Tales esfuerzos promocionales sólo deben ensayarse como parte de un paquete completo de insumos que incluyan crédito y asistencia técnica prestados al agricultor posiblemente empleando un enfoque regional similar al del Proyecto Puebla en México. Es esencial que el agricultor obtenga semilla de maíz Opaco-2 para siembra orientada al consumo casero así oomo semilla del mejor híbrido para sÍ-embra orientada hacia las ventas. Dada la situación actual del mercado del maíz Opaco-2 no se puede recomendar que se entregue al agricultor una mayor cantidad de semilla de maíz Opaco-2 para producción comercial hasta que se haga un arreglo que asegure al agricultor un mercado para el maíz Opaco-2 a un precio superior al valor del maíz común. Tal arreglo podría consistir en contratos con las firmas pr'ocesadoras o en subsidios gubernamentales.La decisión de estos subsidios depende del gobierno de Colombia y podría determinarse en base a prioridades relacionadas con la urgencia de reducir el nivel de desnutrición~ el costo social involucrado y las alternativas de inversión pública. \"Mientras que el subsidio oficial puede per-mitir una rápida expansión del CCflsumo del maíz Opaco-2 a un costo relativamente alto, los esfuerzos que se hagan para desarrollar un man de tipo cristalino de alta lisina permitirán un rápido aumento de la tasa de consumo a un costo público relativamente bajo, pero en un ténnino de 3 a 5 año-s.La promoción de una producción comercial del actual maíz 0))aco-2 blanco para consumo humano no puede re•comendar'se sin efectuar arreglos especiales respecto al mercado. Tal promoción segul'amente reduciría los ingresos para lOE agricultores y produciría una falta de confianza en las agencias promotoras de técnicas nuevas.Se recomienda que l~ investigación adelantada pOl\" la industria para incorporar el maíz Üpaco-2 en productos complejos tales como alimen-tos para niño& sea continuada y apoyada, encaminándola también a determinar la relación social y económica con respecto a la producción~ mercadeo y consumo del maíz Opaco-2. Debe prestarse especial atención a la obtención de información específica sobre mer'cados. En especial, sería importante obtener infor'mación sobre ]a relación entre la preferencia del conSumidor, precio relativo al detal del maíz Opac.o-2 y la cantidad comprada, a fin de determinar el precio máximo del maíz Opaco-2 en relación con el precio del maíz común conforme al cual el consumidor cambiaría de maíz común a maíz Opaco-2. ~Ie deben considerar regiones en las cuales se consuma maíz harinoso así como también regiones en las que se utilice maíz cristalino.El desarrollo de los híbridos de maíz con un alto contenido. de aminoácidos esenciales presenta nuevas posibilidades para reducir la gran deficiencia proteica que prevalece entre las familias de ingreso bajo en los países en vía de desarrollo.l\\.lientras la producción de at'roz y de trigo va aumentando rápidamente en algunos países en desarrollo, poco se ha adelantado en la producción de artículos alimenticios que contengan proteínas de alta calidad. Medido en términos de calorías, el precio de los artículos tradicionales de alta calidad proteica, como carne y leche, es alto en relación al pt'ecio de artículos qie contienen proteína de más baja calidad, como trigo o ar:r'oz. Por lo tanto, mientras las familias de ingresos bajos pueden satisfacer necesidades calóricas, a menudo no tienen el poder adquisitivo para satisfacer sus requerimientos de proteínas.Existen otros artículos alimenticios menos costosos que contienen proteínas de alta calidad, romo torta de soya y harina de pescado, pero que, sin embargo, la mayoría de los consumidores no acepta fácilmente. Con frecuencia, estos productos necesitan un proceso costoso y complicado para hacerlos aptos para el consumo humano. Las fa~ milias de ingresos ha jos son reacias a consumirlos aún ya procesados por falta de costumbre.Una solución ideal para reducir o eliminar las deficiencias pro-teÍcas entre las familias de ingreso bajo en 10'8 países en vía de desarrono sería mejor'ar la calidad de la proteína de los productos básicos consumidos tradicionalmente en grandes cantidades.En América Latina~ el maíz es uno de los alimentos básicos más inlportantes -entre las familias de ingresos bajos; por lo tanto, el me.toramiento de la calidad proteica del maíz ofrece una oportunidad única para reducir deficiencias proteicas entre la población latinoamericana.Normalmente, la proteína del maíz es deficiente en los aminoácidos esenciales: lisina, triptófano y m-etionina. El maíz Opaco-2, el más conocido por su alto grado de lisina, contiene de setenta (70) a cien (IDO) por dento más lisina y alrededor de 70 por ci-ento más de triptófano que el maíz híbrido común. Investigaciones recientes indican que cantidades razonables de maíz Opaco-2 pueden satisfacer las necesidades de aminoácidos esenciales para un adulto y en esta forma, eliminar la deficiencia proteica 3.La semilla de maíz Opaoo-2 fue introducida por primera vez en Colombia en 1964. Investigaciones genéticas posteriores llevadas a cabo por el InstitutO' Colombiano Agropecuario, lCA, y la Fundación Rockefeller en Colombia, han dado como resultado dos híbridos comerciales de maíz Opaco-2 adaptados a las condiciones del suelo colombiano entre los 600 y los 1200 metros de altura sobre el nivel del mar 4.El lugar destacado que ocupa el maíz en la dieta colombiana, particularmente entre los grupos de ingreso bajo, y las grandes deficiencias proteicas existentes entre las familias de este grupo, parecen justificar la introducción y expansión de la producción y el consumo del maíz Opaco-2 en el país. Sin embargo, antes de promover su producción y su consumo, deben encontrarse respuestas a las siguientes pre• guntas básicas: l. Bajo cuáles circunstancias sería económicamente factible intr'odu w cir y extender la producción y el consumo humano del maíz Opa-00-2 en Colombia? ¡¡. 2. Cuál seria el papel de la ciencia, el gobierno y la empresa privada en la promoción y la aceleración de la producción, mercadeo y consumo del maíz Opaco~2? Este estudio intenta suministrar información de la cual se pueda obtener respuestas tentativas para estas preguntas. Además, se destacan necesidades específicas para análisis futuros. Sobre tal base, estas respuestas tentativas podrían verificarse y se podría obtener información más detallada. Los objetivos -específicos de este estudio son:1 . Identificar los principales obstáculos económicos y sociales para la introducción y extensión de la producción~ m,ercadeo y consumo humano del maíz Opaco-2 en Colombia. 2, Determinar, con base en los resultados obtenidos. en el punto 1, bajo cuáles circunstancias puede ser factible la introducción y la extensión de la prouucción y el consumo humano del maíz Opa-co~2 en Colombia~. y cuáles serían los papeles de la ciencia, el gobier'no y la empresa privada.Como primer paso en el cumplimiento de los objetivos anteriol'1es, es importante establecer un marco de referencia con respecto a los tre;<. factores siguientes:1 . Los posibles medios de inh'oducír y extender la producción y el consumo humano del maíz Opaco-2. 2 . Los factores claves que determinan el resultado de esta introduc-cÍón y expansión. 3. Los cursos de acción a seguir para acelerar la introducción y ]a eh'}lansión. Una Íntroducción y expansión del consumo de maíz Opaco-2 podría efectuarse entre los consumidores compradore.s de maíz, o sea, consumo basado \"en producción comercial o entre los mismos productores; en otras palabras, consumo casero del maíz Opaco-2 cultivado en la finca.La expansión del consumo de maíz Opaco -2 con base en la producción comercial La expansión del consumo de maíz Opaco -2 entre los productores Una gran parte de agricultores del mercado marginal y de subsistencia en Colombia~ cultivan pequeñas parcelas de maíz~ principalmente para el consumo casero. Un reemplazo del maíz actualmente cultivado, ya sean variedades l'Ocales 'O híbridos, por el maíz Opaco-2 puede significar un paso importante hacia la reducción 'O la eliminación de las deficiencias proteicas entre l'Os campesinos.Las decisiones que lús agricultores de subsistencia hacen sobre los cultivos y variedades pueden ser' hasta cierto punto independientes de lDS precios relativos de mercado de l'Os productos.El éxito o el fracaso de lGS esfuerzos que se hagan para intr<oducir y extender la producción y el ,consumo del maíz Opaco-2 entre los agricultores del mercado marginal y de .subsistencia, puede en esta forma depender menos del precio de mercado del maíz Opaco-2~ en relación con el precio del maíz; común, y más de otros factores.Los esfuerzos orientados a introducir el maíz Opaco-2 entre los pequeños agricultores seguramente encontrarían problemas similares a los encontrados al tratar' de introducir otra tecnología mejorada. La actitud del agricultor hacia el cambio y su habilidad para ¡efectuarlo y el enfoque y eficiencia del agente encargado de introducirlo l son factores clave en cualquier programa para introducir tecnología nueva. La actitud del agricultor obedece principalmente a la firmeza de la tradición, su nivel de educación y su confianza en la nueva tecnología. Su habilidad para cambiar se determina esencialmente por la calidad y la cantidad de los recursos a su disposición, incluyendo su habilidad administrativa.Además de estos factores generales, los esfuerzos que se hagan para introducir el maíz Opacú-2 deben considerar patrones familiares de consumo y preferencias con respecto al maíz.Difer'encias en el costo de producción y en los rendimientos pueden ser importantes. A menos que el maíz Opaco-2 tenga un rendimiento considerablemente mayor que el del maíz actualmente producido por el agricultor, que en la mayoría de los casos no es híbrido, y dadas las restricciones de recursos, es dudoso que el agricultor mantenga interés :en el maíz Opaco-2. También se presenta la cuestión del rendimiento del maíz Opaco-2 en compar'8ción a los otros híbridos disponibles. Si se pueden establecer canales de comunicación a través de los cuales la nueva tecnología puede llegar a los pequeños agricultores, la selección de cuál maíz se debe utilizar, puede estar deternúnada por los rendimientos relativos de las variedades e híbridos disponibles. Sin embargo, si el agricultor y su familia prefieren el maíz Opaco-2 al maiz común, puede decidir producido aunque disponga de otros híbridos de mayor rendimiento. Finalmente, rendimientos hajos o alto costo de producción del Opaco-2 pueden compensarse mediante un subsidio gubernamental a la producción.Con base en lo anteriormente discutido, los factor'es claves que influyen sobre los resultados de los esfuerzos que se hagan con el fin de introducir y extender la producción y el consumo del maiz Opaco-2, ya sea comercialmente o para consumo casero, aparentemente son: l. El rendimiento del maíz Opaco-2 en comparación con el de las variedades cultivadas actualmente y los mejores híbridos disponibles. 2. El costo relativo de producción y de -almacenamiento en la finca de maíz Opaco-2 en comparación al de .otros maíces.3. Las actitudes del agricultor hacia el cambio y su capacidad para efectuarlo. 4. La política gubernamental con respecto a subsidios de-producción y precios. l. El tamaño de la parcela donde sea cultivado el maíz Opa-co~2.2. La cantidad producida~ o 3. La cantidad de insumo comprado. utilizando, por ejemplo, un esquema dual de pl'ecios -para los fertilizantes. Este curso de acción puede combinarse ya sea con a),. ó b). d) Iniciar esfuerzos masivos con el fin de extender el USo de tecnología mejorada entre los agrícultores~ dándole énfasis especial a ]a introduccion de la semilla del maíz Opaco-2. Introduciendo la semilla del maíz Opaco-2 ('~mo un ingrediente de un paquete complejo de insumos, las posibles desventajas en rendimiento pueden no ser notadas debido al incremento en el rendimiento resultante de los otros oompu-nentes del paquete de insumas. Este curso de acción puede ser' combinado con a), b) ó c). e) Retirando del mercado la ~cmilla de maíz Opaco-2, actualmente existente, mientras se concentran en el desarrollo. e) Introducir suhsidio~ de precio para el maíz Opaco-2 con el fin de reducir los precios al consumidur y/o de aumentar 10& precios al productor. Este curso de acción puede combinarseconb). d) Introducir subsidios de mercadeo con el objeto de reducir su costo. Esto puede c'Ombinar~e con b) ó e). e) Llevar a cabo campañas promocionales encaminadas a mejorar la disposieíón de las age.ncias de mercadeo con respecto al maíz Opaco-2. Esto puede combinarse con b), c) ó d). En las siguientes secciones se trata de determinar el estado actual de cada uno de los factores claves y de señalar los curSos de acción más factibles pata crear condiciones favorables para la introducción del maíz Opaoo-2. Fuentes de información l,os datos primarios se obtuvieron a través de cinco encuestas realizadas entre productores, agencias de mercadeo y consumidores de maíz. Los procesos de muestreo y algunas de las características. de las muestras se tratan ,en el Apéndice.En tres encuestas de pr.oductores ~e buscaron datos relacionados con los siguientes siete tópicos principales: estado actual de la tecnología utilizada en la producción de maíz, actitQ.d-e.s y habilidades para el cambio; utilización del maíz producido; algunos aspectos de mercadeo y almacenamiento; estado nutritivo actual; nivel de conocimiento con respecto a algunos aspectos de nutrición humana y aceptabilidad del maíz Opaco-2. Las -encuestas se llevaron a cabo entre 154 agricultores de 12 Departamentos de Colombia (Figura 1).Se llevó a cabo una encuesta entre 25 mayoristas de maíz en cinco ciudad~ del Departamento del Valle:! El objetivo de la encuesta fue determinar las actitudes de los mayoristas hacia el maíz Opaco-2.La encuesta se limitó al Valle del Cauca debido al mayor conocimiento del maíz Opaco-2 en este Departamento. Este may(':.r conocimiento se debe sobre todo al trabajo efectuado por dos compañías en Cali Aun cuando los mayoristas han negociado poca cantidad de maíz Opaco-2 se creyó que sus opiniones y su disposición hacia el producto podrían ser factores importantes para considerar en un estudio de esta naturaleza.En la encuesta de consumidores se entrevistaron 50 amas de casa sobre el consum,o y los patrones de compra del maíz, sus conocimientos de, ciertos aspectos de la nutrición humana y su reacción al maíz Opaco-2. Treinta de la amas de casa residían en un barrio de ingresos bajos de Cali y veinte en un pueblo rural de ingresos hajoiJ cerca a Palmira, Valle. Cada una de ellas recibió: dos paquetes de maíz de una libra cada uno~ con maíz Opaco-2 blanco. y maíz común cristalino, respectivamente; se les solicitó que cocinaran cada uno de los dos tipos en dos días diferentes. La decisión de cómo cocinarlo y 6. Fueron entrevistados cinco mayoristas en cada una de las siguientes ciudades: Cali, Palmira, Buga, Tuluá y Cartago. Figura 1. Ubicadón de los lugares en que Se hicieron encuestas con agricultores que cultivan maíz en relación con la posible aceptación del maíz Opaco-2 (En el mapa no aparecen las intendencias de San Andrés y Providencia).el producto final que prepararían se dejó a su propia iniciativa. Tres días después se entrevistaron nuevamente con el fin de \"Ohtener su reacción sobre los do::. tipos de maíz.Se obtuvo información secundaria de varias fuentes incluyendo el lCA, Quaker y Maizena.Rendimientos relativos y costos de producción Rendimientos La capacidad de rendimiento del maíz Opaco-2 ~e analiza por medio de tres comparaciones de rendimiento: l. Los rendimientos relativos obtenidos en las Estaciones Experimentales del lCA. 2. Los obtenidos en las pruebas de campo entre agricultor'es tanto comerciales CGmo de subsistencia~ utilizando tecnología de diferentes niveles, y 3. Los obtenidos por los agricultore~ comerciales utilizando un alto nivel de tecnología.Los experimentos genéticos llevados a cabo por el ICA en CoJombia relacionados con el maíz Opaco-2, han tenido -po!\" objeto incorporar el gene del Opaco-2 en los híbridos comuneE de alto r.endimiento H-207 (amarillo) y H-253 (hlanco). Con ha,e en estos experimentos se han desarr-ollado dos híbridos de maíz Opaco-2: H-208 (amarillo) y H-255 (blanco). Los rendimientos experimentales de estos dos híbridos de Opaco-2, como de los híbridos de maíz común, dur'ante seis cosechas, se muestran en el Cuadro l.Se han obtenido aumentos notables en el r,endimiento de los dos híbridos de Opaco-2 por medio de cruzamientos regresivos. El rendimiento \"Obtenido en la cuarta generación de retrocruzamiento es casi el doble del obtenido ,en el primer cruzamiento simple.'1'l De acuerdo con los resultados del Cuadro 1, parece que el híbrido Opaco-2 amarillo ha alcanzado una capacidad de rendimiento igual al del híbrido común amarillo, mientras que la capacidad de rendimiento del actual híbrido blanco es un poco inferior a la del híbrido común blanco.  Se inició un proyecto conjunto del CIAT y del lCA para comprobar el rendimiento del maíz Opaco-2 blanco bajo condiciones reales agrícolas a diferentes alturas. Cada pl'ueba de campo incluyó cinco tratamientos. El maíz Opaco-2 blaneo .se cultivó bajo dos niveles de tecnología; el utilizado actualmente por el agricultor y el considerado óptimo para la localidad. El maíz cultivado tradicionalmente por el agricultor' fue igualmente cultivado bajo los düs nivele.s de tecnQlogía. Finalmente, se cultivó el mejor híbrido conocido para la región bajo altos niveles de tecnología. Los rendimientos promedios y las diferencias se muestran en el Cuadro 2.Los rendimientos del maíz Opaco-2 fueron superiores a los de las variedades o híbridos actualmente cultivados por los agricultores que partíciparon en las pruebas de campo. Los rendimientos del maíz Opaco~2 fueron superiores en Un 12 por ciento a los de la8 variedades corrientemente cultivadas bajo la tecnolagía actual y aproximadamente superior en un 20 por ciento al utilizar tecnologías óptimas. Por lo tanto, parecería que si estos agricultores reemplazaran el maíz actualmente cultivado por' el Opaoo-2 aumentarían los rendimientos. Si la introducción del Opacn-2 se efectum:e como parte de un paquete de insumas con el fin de mejorar la tecnología actual entre los agricultores participantes, se podría aumental' el rendimiento un 80 por ciento, El impacto sobre los rendimientos del maíz en IOf: agricultores individuales dependería del nivel de tecll\"vlogía actual incluyendo el tipo de semilla utilizado, lJ n agricultor que cultive actualmente el mejor híbrido con alto nivel de tecnología. obtendría una reducción de rendimiento de aproximadamente un 10 por ciento. si cambiase a maíz Opaco-2, l.a semilla de maíz Opaco-2 utilizada en estas pruebas fue un híbrido de maíz Opaco-2 blanco de quinta generación de retrocruzamiento. La capacidad de rendimiento de este retrocruce aún no ha sido dada a conocer por el lCA. Sin embargo. la capacídad de rendimiento del cuarto l'etrocruce es de 89 por ciento de la capacidad de rendimiento del híbrido común-H-253~ según informes del ICA. Pur lo tanto, la diferencia en rendimientos obtenida en las pruebas de campo con respecto al quinto retrocruce del híbrido Opaco-2 y del mejor híbridQ común, fueron esencialmente iguales a la diferencia en rendimiento entre el retrocruce de cuarta generación y el híbrido. común H-253. obtenido en la Estación Experimental del leA.Con base en l~s resultados de las pruebas de campo~ se puede concluir que la introducción de la semilla de maíz Opaco-2 blanco ya sea sola o como parle de un paquete de insumos, seguramente aumen-taría el rendimiento del nlaÍz entre agricultores que actualmente no cultivan el mejor híbrido. Igualmente, si el maíz Opaco-2 se int:ro~ duce como parte de un paquete completo de insumos~ el agricultor que actualmente cosecha el meJor híbrido con baJos niveles de tecnología, puede mejorar su rendimiento. Sin embargo, en ambos casos es probable que el aumento en el rendimiento ,sea superior' si se introduce el mejor híbrido común en lugar del híbrido de maíz Opaco-2 blanco. Alternativamente, si el mejor híbrido se cultiva a un alto nivel de técnica, la introducción de maíz Opaco-2 blanco reduciría el rendimiento. Por lo tanto, el productor comercial dispuesto a aplicar nueva tecnología, aumentaría su rendimiento económico escogiendo el mejor híbrido común si ,el precio de venta del maíz Opaco-2 es igualo menor al precio de venta del maíz común. Sin embargo, si el maíz se produce principalmente para el consumo ca:;;er'o, el conocimiento de su alto valor nutritivo puede llevarle a preferir el Opaco-2.Los rendimientos promediú8. del maíz Opaco-2 producido b'ajo contr'ato para dos firmas procesadnras.de Cali fue, de 3.1 y 3.2 toneladas por hectárea. Las áreas cultivadas fueron de 23' y 130 hecfáreas~ respectivamente. El maíz se cultivó en el Valle~ en buen suelo y con alto nivel de tecnología. Se utilizó semilla de quinto retrocruoe. Estos rendimientos parece que fueron inferiores a los obtenidos en el Vane del Cauca~ con el híbrido común, empleando el mismo grado de tecnología.A los agricultores que producen el maíz Opaco~2 por contr'ato con las dos firmas mencionadas anteriormente, se les garantiza un precio de un quince a veinte por ciento sU'Perior al preci<o corriente del maíz, para compensar los bajos rendimientos esperados. Igualmente, el precio que recibe el agricultor productor de semilla para la Caja Agraria es en un quince por ciento superior al precio recibido por producír semilla de maíz común.Costo relativo de producción y almacenamiento en la finca El costo de la producción del maíz Opaco-2 por unidad de superficie cultivada puede ser un poco superior al costo de la producción de maíz común debido al mayor costo de la semilla. El precio de la semilla del maíz Opaco-2, en el tiempo en que se efectuó este estudio~ variaba entre siete y nueve pesos. por' kilo. De acuerdo con la encu,lBSta de productores~ el precio promedio de venta del maíz era de $ 1.28 pesos colombianos por kilo~ y el precio de maíz no híbrido utilizado como semilla variaba entre $ 1.80 Y :$ 2.20 pesos. colombianos pnr kilo. El precio de semilla de híbrido era alrededor de $ 4.50. Lo. agricultores entrevh;tados sembraban un promedi1) de 18.5 kilos por hectárea.El ('.osto adicional para un agrieultor que actualmente utilice el maíz prooucido en la finca c-omo semillal variaría entre :$ 106 Y 143 pesos colombianos por hectárea si deseara cambiar al maíz OpacQ-2. Esta puede llegar a ser' una suma considerable para un agricultor pequeño pero sería de poca trasc.endencia par'a un productor comercial. Sin embargo, aunque los costos de producción por unidad de superficie pueden ser esencialmente iguales l las diferencias en rendimiento pueden causar diferencias considerables en el costo por unidad de producción.Una encuesta entr'e veinte agricultores, efectuada 3 -4 meses después de cosechar sus cultivos experimentales de maíz Opaco-2 señala que el Opaco-2 es rnenog resistente a los insectos durante el período de almacenamiento que el maíz común de tipo cristalino.Un ochenta y cuatro por ciento de los agricultores manifestó que el deterioro causado por los insectos era mayor en el maíz Opaco-2 que en el maíz común tipo cristalinQ. Algunos agricultores opinaron que era extremadamente difícil almacenar el maíz Opaco-2 bajo condiciones tradicionales de almacenamiento aún por períodos cortos.Quince de los veinte agricultores entrevistados. (75 por ciento) no tenían ya maíz Opaco-2 cuando se realizó la entrevista.Puede concluirse que el riesgo del almacenamiento del Opaco-2 en la finca~ sin mejores prácticas de almacenamiento, es alto.Actitud del agricultor hacia el cambio y su habilidad para efectuarlo En esta parte del estudio se trata de proll'OSticar los obstáculos para la introducción y extensión de la producción del maíz Opaco-2 que pw drím surgir debido a actitudes adversas de los agricultores y a ]a falta de recursos. Además, se sugiere la furma como tales obstáculos podrían evitarse o-superarse. 24 -, El análi:;;,is consta de tres paxles: 1) El nivel del uso de la semilla mejor'ada~ la habilidad para aumentar este nivel y las actitudes hacia las semillas mejoradas, 2) un análisis de Jos mismos factores con respecto a otro insumos mejGrados tales como fertilizantes, insec-ticidas~ matamalez8s e irrigación~ y 3.) las actitudes actuales hacia el maíz Opaco-2.Semilla mejorada r n poco menos de la mitad de los agricultores entrevistados utilizan semilla mejorada. Los hibridos más frecuentemente usados son: leA H-104, H-207 y H-253; cada uno de estos híbridos es utilizado, aproximadamente, en un diez por ciento.En promedio, los agricultores que usaban las semillas mejoradas lo habían hecho durante dos años. Setenta y ocho por ciento de ellos habían cambiado de una variedad local y el resto no había cultivado maíz anteriormente.Aproximadamente. la tercera parte de los agricultores que habían cambiado a semilla mejorada, lo hicieron debido a información obtenida de parte de amigos y vecinos. Veinte por ciento dijo haber' cambiado en ba~,e a información obtenida del leA, y diez y nueve por ciento mencionó la Caja Agraria. ena introducción acelerada de semillas mejoradas entre los pequeños y los medianos agricultores debe basarse en medios que conduzcan a facilitar una comunicación extensa entre los. agricultores.Se les preguntó a los agricultores que habían cambiado de semilla local a mejorada~ la razón para haberlo hecho. La respuesta más frecuente fue: ••porque me dijeron que los rendimientos eran superiores•'\\ (58 por ciento). \"El diez y ocho por ciento dijo haber cambiado después. de ver los resultados de los experimentos verificados en su finca o en las de los vecinos. Se encontró que casi la mitad de los agricultores que efectuaron el cambio, no obtuvieron los aumentos esperados en el rendimiento.El cuatenta y uno por cÍento de los agricultores entrevistados:,: o sea, el 78 por ciento de los que no utilizaban semilla mejorada, conservaban la semilla del maíz cultivado en su finca para la siembra siguiente. La mayor parte de los que utilízaban híbridos sabían que no podian sembrar híbridos de segunda generación y mantener a la vez un alto rendirráento. Otra razón principal para comprar' -semilla era que el maíz producido en la finca era consumido Ü' vendido en su totalidad antes de la siembra siguiente. Finalmente~ se dijo que el almacenamiento del maíz desde la época de la cosecha hasta la próxima siembra era dificil debido a los insectos.De los 154 agricu1t(}res entrevistados, diez y nueve por ciento ir'ri~ gaba el maíz. Aproximadamente la cuarta parte de aquellos que no irri~ garon, afirmaron que no había necesidad de hacerlo. La mayor parte de los que consideraban necesaria la irrigación no tenían agua disponible.La tercera parte de los agricultores utilizaba fertilizantes para, su maíz, la mitad hacia uso de insecticidas y el seis por cienta utilizaba herbicidas. El fertilizante más frecuentemente usado fue la úrea; casi todo el matamalcza8 usado fue el Gesaprim y los insecticidas utilizados por la mayoría de los agricultores fueron AldrÍn y Cehicid.A 10:-' agricultor'es que no utilizaban uno o más de estos insumos se les preguntaron los m'otivos. Respecto a fertilizantes, casi la mitad de ellos dieron como causa la falta de dinero y de crédito. Diez y siete por' ciento no creía que el uso de estos fuera rentable~ )' el quince por ciento no sabía cuál tipo de fertilizante necesitaba.La razón más frecuentemente dada -para no utilizar herbicidas era que se disponía de suficiente manG< de obra para controlar las malezas mecánicamente. La cuarta parte de los agricultores dijo que no empleaban herbicidas pues no sabían ni cómo ni cuando aplicarlos. Diez y seis pOl\" ciento de ellos creía que los herbicidas esterilizan el suelo.La explicación más cnmún para no utilizar insecticidas era que no se observaba daño algunü caw:ado por insectos. Sin embargo, la falta de dinero y de crédito resultó ,ser también una razón importante. El diez y seis por ciento no utilizaba in)\"ccticidas pues los creían nociv'Ds para niños y animales, mientras que el once por ciento desconocía cuál necesitaba y cuándo y cémo debía aplicarlo.Una indicación del conocimiento de los agricultores acerca de 108 rendimientos potenciales del ma.Íz cultivado en relación con el rendimiento logrado. sc obtuvo por medio de do~ preguntas: una se refería a Su opinión sobre el. rendimiento normal y la otra sobre el rendimiento vbtenido anteriormente por ellos. El promedio del rendimiento obtenido realmente por los agricultores fue de 1.480 kilos por hectárea y el rendimiento normal -esperado del maíz cultivado se calculó en 2.300 kilos pur hectárea.El setenta y ocho por ciento de los agricultores creía poder aumentar el r'cndimiento del maíz actualmente cultivado. Al preguntarles como lo podrían lograr~ la mitad respondió que utilizaría fertilizantes~ el veintidos por ciento dijo que aplicaría técnicas mejoradas de producción tales oomo una mejor preparación del terreno y el diez por ciento indicó que usaria insecticidas. Al preguntarles cuánto creían podel' aumentar el rendimiento mediante las acciones sugeridas. las r'espuestas fluc\" tuaron entl'e 72 a 3.400 kilos por hectárea, con la mayor frecuencia fluctuando entre 500 y 1.500 kilos por hectárea.Si estos agricultores ,sabían como podían aumentar los rendimientre, por qué no lo hicieron? La mitad de ellos 1\"espondió que no tenían ni el crédito ni el dineto necesario, Catorce por ciento no sabía ejecutar las accione\", sugeridas.Al preguntarles si en el pasado se habían hecho esfuerzos considerables con el fin de aumentar el rendimiento del maíz, más de la mitad de ellos respondió en forma afirmativa. Los esfuerzos mencionados con mayor frecuencia eran: el uso de fertilizantes~ de semillas mejoradas e insecticidas, así como también mejores prácticas en la preparación de la tierra. El ochenta y seis por ciento menciono que los rendimientos habían aumentado considerablemente como resultado de estos esfuerzos.Poco~ de los agricultores entrevistados habían visto el maíz Opaco-2 antes de la entrevista, pero aproximadamente la mitad de ellos lo habían oído mencionar. El cuarenta por ciento,. por medio de la radio, el veintiocho por ciento a través de conversaciones con el personal del ICA y el siete por ciento, por conducto de sus vecinos. En esta etapa inicial, aparentemente, la comunicación entre los agricultores no habia tenido aún mayor efecto.Con el fin de evaluar la cantidad de promoción necesaria para convencerlos que produjetan el maíz Opaco-2, se les mostraron tres fotografías. Primero\\ una fotografía de tres cerdos, uno alimentado a base de maíz común únicamente, otro a hase de maíz Opaco-2 únicamente, y el tercero a base de maíz común y torta de soya. Se les explicó la razón de la diferencia en apariencia de los tres cerdos. Luego se les preguntó si estarían interesados en producir este tipo de maíz (Opaco-2) si los rendimientos fueran iguales a los que estaban obteniendo actuahnente. Setenta y ocho por ciento dijo que sí~ cuatro por ciento dijo que nó y diez y ocho por ciento estaban indecisos. A quienes respondieron en forma negativa o incierta se les mostró la fotografía de un niño afectado por deficiencia de proteína y otra fotografía del mismo niño después de tl\"es meses de dieta a base de maíz Opaoo-2. Al preguntarles nuevamente si estaban interesados •en cultivar maíz Opaoo-2, ninguno respondió que nó y solamente el once por ciento estaba indeciso.Existen ciertas dudas acerca de la validez del procedimiento mencionado anteriormente para la obtención de respuestas fiables. Los agricultnres tenían dos alternativas~ una de las cuales era claramente mejor que la otra. La r'espuesta \"más inte1igente~' era obvia. Es bastante dudoflo que todas las personas que vieron las fotografías y que dijeron que les gustaría sembrar el maíz Opaco-2~ lO' hagan.Aun cuando dispusieran del dinero suficiente para comprar la semilla y los tendimientos esperados del maíz Opaco-2 fueran iguales a los ya obtenidos por ello.s~ algunos de los agricultores que aparentemente quedaron convencidos con bastante facilidad preferirían las semillas tradicionales. La apariencia del maíz Opacü-2 puede ser una razón para lo anterior. Se le mústró a cada agricultor cuatro mazúrcas: de maíz Opaco-2 blanco y de amarillo; y de maíz c-omún blanco y de amarillo, respectivame.nte fl , y se les pidió que las clasificaran en orden de sus preferencias personales. lUedido en una hase de frecuencia se clasificaron las cuatro mazorcas e.n la siguiente forma, siendo ptefer-ida la primera: l. Maíz común blanco.3. Maíz Opaco-2 blanco.Solamente cuatro por ciento de los agricultores clasificó el maiz Opaco-2 amarillo• como el de mas pr'eferellcia mientras cincuenta y cinco por ciento lo clasificó como el de menos preferencia. El maíz Opaco-2 blanco tuvo mejor aceptación; el veintisiete por ciento-de los agricultores lo clasificó en primer lugar y el catorce por' cÍento de último.Los dos factores más comunes utilizados por los agricultores para preferir el maíz común al maíz Opaoo-2 fueron; el peS<! superior de la mazorca del maíz común y su semejanza con el maíz sembrado tradicionalmente. Por 10 tanto. una intrnducción rápida del maíz Opa-co~2 a los agricultores podría ser desventajosa por las. actitudes adversas con respecto al menor peso de la mazorca y por su falta de semejanza con el maíz cristalino, el único conocido en algunas regiones.Antes de tratar de promover y acelerar la producción comercial del maíz Opaco-2, es importante identificar las razones existentes para que 5u pl'oceso de mercadeo pueda ser diferente al del maíz común.Solamente se consideran aquí los factores relacionados con el mercadeo y el proc.esamiento antes de que el producto, sea ofrecido al consumidor final. La aceptación por parte del consumidor se analizará en otra sección de este estudio.El análisis consta de dos partes. En primer lugar. se analizan las diferencias en el costo de mercadeo del maíz Opaco-2 ante las del maíz común, luego sigue un análisis de la actitUD de las agencias de mercadeo con relación al Opaco-2.Los resultados de la encuesta a productores muestran que el maíz Opaco-2 es de menor resistencia a Jcs ataques de los insectos durante el periodo de almacenamiento. Por lo tanto el costo de insecticidas y su aplicación \"puede ser más alto. Un aspecto serio es el riesgo de almacenar el maíz sin el empleo de insecticidas.Vnicamente fe identificaron diferenciales menores en los costos de mercadeo del maíz Opaco-2 no procesado. Dos compañías~ l\\laizena y Quaker ~ son las más importantes procesadoras comerciales del maíz Opaco-2 en Colombia.El procesamiento del maíz Opacü-2 está todavía en un nivel experimental y ~ tiene poca información sobre los costos relativos de pro-ceEjamiento. Parece que el procesamiento del Opaco-2 es un poco más dificil que el del maíz de tipo cristalino. Una de las compañías informa que el rendimiento de harina es algo más bajo con el Opaco-2, pero la otra dice que es igual al rendimiento obtenido con .,el maíz cristalino. Los rendimientos de la sémola, utilizada en la masa para arepas, parecen considerablemente inferiores al utilizar maíz Opaco-2. Aparentemente, el problema mayor para procesal' el Opaco-2 es que la maquinaria utilizada en el procesamiento del maíz cristalinO' no es apta para el Opaco-2. Es difícil estimar los diferenciales reales en los costos de procesamiento~ hasta que se disponga de mayor información.El maíz Opaco-2 puede utilizarse en productos complejos como reemplazo, por lo menos parcial, de ottos artículos de alta proteína tales como la torta de soya y la leche en polvo. Uno de los problemas que Se presenta al usar la torta de soya y algunos otro;s artículos de alto valor proteico en productos complejos para el consumo humano, e5 que el sahor de estos articulos pueda dis.minuir la aceptación del producto final. Si estos pr'oductos -pueden ser reemplazados por' el maíz Opaco-2, total o parcialmente, la aceptación por parte del consumidor podría mejorar, a la vez que se conserva ]a calidad proteica del producto.Además, puede ser rentable utilizar el maíz Opaco-2 para reemplazar la leühe en polvo, la cual es relativamente costosa.Si el maíz Opaeo-2 se va a vender al consumidor final en competencia directa con el maíz común, por ejemplo en forma de harina o masa para arepas~ el mayor costo. de producción y procesamiento del Opaco-2 únicamente podría jus.tificarse con diferenciales de precios en 105 productos finales. El difer'encial de precios dependería de la preferencia del consumidor, como ~e analizará más adelante.Actitudes de las agencias de mercadeo respecto al maíz Opaco• 2La pOSlClon que adopten las agencias de mercadeo puede ser un faclor importante de tener en cuenta al tratar de iniciar la producción comercial de un producto nuevo. Existen razones claras para que las agencias de mercadeo lo rechacen. La comunicación entre las agencias de mercadeo y el consumidor final con frecuencia es deficiente o to•-tcImente nula. A menudo se impulsa al agricultor a cultivar productos nuevos sin efectuar pruebas de mercadeo. Como resultado~ ni las agencias de mercadeo ni los agricultores pueden COnocer la estructura de la demanda antes de comprometerse en el manejO' de un producto.Como se expuso anterior'mente, se efectuó una encuesta con el fin de determinar la posición actual de los mayoris.tas de maíz en el Valle del Cauea respecto al maíz Opaco-2 lO. Primero, se trató de determinar su conocimiento acerca del maíz Opaco-2. Solamente uno de las 25 mayoristas entrevistados no había oído hahIar de él. El cuarenta por ciento estaba enterado a través de agricultores y el 60 por' ciento restante por medio de la radio o la prensa. La promoción que se hizo por estos medios masivos la llevó a cabo una de las fírma5 procesadoras~ eomo parte de una prueba de mercadeo de un alimen• to para niños.Menos de la mitad de los mayorístas habían visto el maíz Opaco-2. A nueve de ellos (36%) les habían -ofr'ecido maíz Opaco-2 pero solamente cuatro ]0 compraron. Los cinco restantes se aootuvieron de comprarlo pues consideraron que no lo podrfan vender. De los cuatro mayoristas que lo compraron, uno lo vendió a un procesador y 105 otros a detallistas de maíz.A los mayoristas se les entregó una muestra del maíz Opaco-2 blanco. Luego se les preguntó si comprarían este tipo de maíz si Be les ofreciera~ y a qué precio en relación con el del maiz blanco común. El cincuenta y seis por ciento resp'Oudió que no lo compraría aunque tuviera un precio ínferior al precio corriente del maíz blanco. El doce por' ciento dijo que posiblemente lo compraría pero a un precio inferior al de otros maíces blanco~. Dns, mayoristas (8 %) respondieron que comprarían el maíz Opaco-2 a un precio igual al de los otros maíces blancos. La cuarta pa-rte no expresó su opinión.El cíencuenta y seis por ciento de los mayoristas que Do comprarían el maíz Opaco-2 pensaron que nn habría un mercado pata éL La mayor parte de los demás opinó que el mercado actual era ,pequeñ,o e inestable, pero que~ quizás, existía la posibilidad de desar¡1al1ar un mercado en el futuro.Los entrevistados expresarGu temor de comprar maíz Üpaco-2 expr'esando distintas razones: las experiencias anteriores con 'Otros productos agrícolas nuevos que fueron rechazados por lo~ consumidores; 8!lgunos creían que las d'Os firmas procesadoras del maíz Opaco-2 tenían un monopolio sobre él. Sin embargo, la falta de información respecto a las preferencias del consumidor .. fue una de las razones principales para no estar dispuestos actualmente a comprar el maÍ'z Opaco-2.Averíguacíoncs hechas entre los agricultores partIclpantes en las pruebas de campo apoyaron la conclusión de que 105 mayoristas no estaban interesados en la compra del maíz Opacw2.Veinte agricultores en cuyas fincas ~:e llevaron a cabo las, pruehas de campo fueron entrevistados 3 -4 meses después de la cüsecha. Nueve de ellos (45 ~;-o) quisieron vender el maíz, pero cuatro fueron rechazados por los mayoristas. Tres de los, cinco que vendieron el maíz, lo hicieron a un precio inferior al precio corriente del maíz común, y dos de los agricultores lo vendieron al mismo precio que el maíz común.Se puede concluir que el productor del maíz Opaco-2 puede tener seúas dificultades en la venta de su producto, a menos que lo produzca bajo contrato con una firma procesadora.I~a gr'an mayoría del maíz adquirido para el con¡o.umo humano en Col()mbia~ es comprado por el consumidor en forma de grano. Esto ocurre especialm'ente en las familias de ingresos bajos, Estas mi3mas familias son las que carecen de suficiente proteína de alta calidad en sus dietas lo cual ocasiona la desnutricíón~ especialmente entre la niñez. Debido a esto, se creyó que debía darse un énfasis especial al análisis de las posibilídades de introducir el maíz OpacrJ-2 como un artículo básico no. procesado.El oonsumQ promedio semallal de maíz por familia en las dos suhmuestras estudiadas. resultó ser de 3.9 kilogramos en Be1Javista y B.l kilogramos en Coronado. La cantidad total fue comprada en forma de grano. El cnnsumo .'semanal de maíz per cápita se estimó en O . 6 kilogramos en Bellavista y l. O kilogt'amo en Cnronado. Según esto, el, maíz ocupa un puesto importante en la dieta de las familias entr'evistadas.Conforme se mencionó anteriormente, si el requerimiento diario de aminoácidos: en un adulto \"puede ~atisfacerse COn 250-350 gramos de maíz Opaco-2, las familias de Coronado recibirían aproximadamente la mitad de lo':l. aminoácidos esenciales del maíz, si cambi.a5en al Opaco-2 y mantuvieran el nivel ,actual de consumo. El consumo del maíz Opaco-2 en Bellavista .<:uministraría la tercera parte de los requerimientos de aminoácidos en las familia~.PQtrones de consumo y conocimientos sobre nutrición humana Se obtuvo información sobre los patrones de consumo con el fin de evaluar la necesidad que existe de más proteínas de alta calidad; se buscó la información para determinar el conocimien to de las amas de casa acerca de la nutrición humana, con -el fin de obtener una guía para la promocíón y las campañas educativas relacionadas con la introducción del maíz Opaco-2.Se le pidió al ama de casa que enumera.se los. cuatro alimento':l. que la familia consumía con más frecuencia. Los alimentos más comunes fueron: maíz. arroz y frijol. Los alimentus de origen animal fueron poco mencionados. Luego~ se le preguntó cuáles de estlos alimentos consideraba ella más saludables. Aproximadamente una cuarta parte de ellas mencionó el frijol y otra cuarta parte, la sopa. Aproximadam,ente, la quinta parte escogió el maíz~ y otra quinta parte seleccionó los productos de origen anímaI. Sólo pocas amas de casa podían explicar la razón para que un alimento fuer'a mejor que otl'o.Aparentemente. las amas de casa tenían poco conocimiento básico acerca de nutrición o tan poco poder adquhdtivo que solamente podían comprar alimentos de menor precio. Con el fin de obtener mayor información de -sus conocimientos, se les pidió a cada una de ellas que colocaran diez tarjetas, cada una con un artículo alimenticio Con el fin de conocer su concepto sobre el valor nutritivo de }.os pr'oductos.Los resultados se describen en el Cuadro 3. El ochenta y ocho por ciento de laB amas de casa creía que los productos de origen animal tenían un mayor va~or nutritivo. La evaluación hecha por' cada una de las amas de casa fué verificada conforme a clasificaciones \"correctas\"\", para estimar' el nivel de conocimiento con respecto a los Yalores nutritivos relativos. 11 Cincuenta y dos por ciento basaron sus clasificaciones en algún conocimiento de los valores nutritivos relativos de los diez alimentos, y cuarenta y ocho por ciento utilizó otra base en la clasificación.J.!! Se determinó que la clasificación general por frecuencias que se muestra 11, La información de la clasificación \"correcta\" se obtuvo del Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar, 12. Se utilizó una prueba de correlación por rango. La información fue probada con un nivel de probabilidades del noventa y cinco por ciento.La prueba se explica en R. Clay Sprowls, \"Elementar)' Statlstics\". Cuadro 3. Opiniones de las amas de casa no rurales acerca del valor nutritivo de varios alimentos. 1. Solamente se muestran seis de las diez clasificaciones.2, El producto alimenticio con la mayor frecuencia en cada clasificación, se tomó como representativo de esa clasificación.en el Cuadro 3 había sido hecha con base en algún conocimiento de los valores nutritivos.Se -encontró una diferencia considerable entre las dos submuestras en relación al conocimiento de los valores nutritivos relativos. l\\Hentras aproximadamente dos terceras partes de las amas de casa de Bellavista basaron ~u elección en algún conocimiento de los valores nutritivos relativ06 l las amas de casa de Coronado, solamente 10 hicieron en una tercera parte.Se puede concluír que las amas de casa entrevistadas poseían conocimientos considerables <.tcerca de los valores nutritivos de los alimentos que les eran familiares. Con el fin de determinar' la percepción con respecto al valor nutritivo de un producto nuevo, es necesario conocer las características utilizadas en la evaluación del valor nutritivo de un producto alimenticio. Si tradicionalmente se cree que la leche es buena y la yuca mala, qué influye en -s.u opinión sobre un producto nuevo? \"Mientras más se conozca sobre este puntol más fácil será seleccionar el mensaje más eficaz para una posible campaña educativa conectada con la introducción del maíz Opaco~2.Aproximadamente la mitad de las an1aS de casa no podían explicar por qué razón el alimento que habían escogido como el mejor, era superior a los otros. Ninguna de ellas mencionó el contenido proteico.Los factores más frecuentemente relacionadns con el alto valor nutritivo fueron: vitaminas, calcio y fósforo.Parece que las familias incluidas en el estudio no obtenían suficientes proteínas de alta calidad. La razón principal para ello fue la falta de poder adquisitivo. La mayor parte de las amas de casa sabía que los alimentos de origen animal tienen un mayor valor nutritivo que los productos vegetales. Sin embargo, la mayor parte de ellas no sabía la razón. La promoción del maíz opaco basada en el argumento de que posee proteína de más alta calidad, posiblemente fracasaría a menos que sea precedida por una campaña educativa que le enseñe al consumidor la importancia de las proteínas en la dieta alimenticia. Sin embargo, la promoción del Opaco-2 se podría hacer con éxito, comparando sU valor nutritivo con el de la carne y de la leche.La mayor parte de las familias entrevistadas (57%) únicamente compraban maíz blanco. El trece por ciento compraba únicamente maíz amarillo y el tr'einta por ciento los dos tipos de maíz. El setenta por ciento de las amas de casa que sólo compraba maíz de un color señaló que las razones principales para preferir ese colnr eran la costumbre y la tradición. Otras razones importantes fueron las diferencias que existían entre los dos tipos de maíz tespecto a la calidad de la cocción y el sabor. las Un poco menos de la mitad de las familias compraba su maíz en galerías centrales y la mitad restante lo adquiría en tiendas y graneros.La mayoría de las familias (66 %) compraban maíz únicamente una vez por semana, el veinte por ciento dos veces por semana, y el restante catorce por ciento sólo cada quince días.La compra del maíz era efectuada por' las amas de casa en el sesenta por ciento de las familias entrevistadas; el marido en treinta y seis por ciento de ellas; el esposo. y la esposa en el cuatro por ciento.Parece que el maíz Opaco-2 blanco tiene mayor posibilidad que el amarillo de ser aceptado en la región estudiada. Sin embargo, se necesita hacer una encuesta a escala nacional para poder determinar las preferencias regionales en el color del maíz que puedan afectar la aceptación por parte del consumidor.Con el fin de alcanzar los grupos de ingresos hajos~ el maíz Opa-00-2 debe venderse en las plazas centrales de mercado y graneros.Una campaña promocional enfocada hacia la introducción del maíz Opaco-2 debe ser dirigida tanto a las amas de casa como al jefe de la familia, pues en gran número de ellas el esposo compra el maíz y ocupa una situación de importancia en la toma de decisiones\" en particular, entre las familias de ingresos bajos.Si no existe un diferencial de preferencia entre el maíz Opaco-2 y otros maíces, el conocimiento de l{lB precios' entre los compradores, puede ser un factor importante para determinar el precio relativo de venta de maíz Opaco-2.El setenta y dos por ciento de las amas de casa entrevistadas sa~ bía el precio que había pagado por el maíz durante las d'08 semanas anteriores a la entrevista. El veintiocho por ciento restante desconocía el precio principalmente porque sus esposos habían efectuado la compra. De la misma manera, su conocimiento de las variaciones del precio entre los vendedores mostró un considerable conocimiento de los precios entre las amas de casa entrevistadas.Puede concluirse que. a menos que exista un diferencial de preferencia considerable, no será factible introducir el maíz Opaco•2 a un precio mayor que el precio corriente del maíz actualmente dísponi• hle. Aunque exista este diferencial de preferencia, la falta de poder adquisitivo puede impedir el reemplazo acelerado del maíz actualmente en uso por el Opaco-2. Por otra parte,. sí no existe diferencial de preferencia, un conocimiento agudo de los precios puede implicar que un valor un poco menor haría que las amas de casa reemplazaran rápidamente el maíz común por el maíz Opaco-2, pel'o si se cree que el precio relativo está asociado con la calidad relativa, el reemplazo no se efectuaría.Durante la segunda entrevista, se preguntó a las amas de casa su opinión acerca de los dos tipos de maíz. 1 : 1 Las opiniones se obtuvieron a tr'avés de preguntas estructuradas y preguntas abiertas, relacionadas con la~ características culinarias. otras diferencias y preferencias personales. En ningún momento se les informó acerca de las diferencias nutritivas de los dos tipos de maíz.El uso dado al maíz presenta en el Cuadro 4. La mayoría de las amas de casa utilizó el maíz común en mazamorra y el Opaco-2 en coladas. El ochenta y ocho por ciento de ellas encontró el maíz Opaco-2 más blando, y por lo tanto, no consideró que fuera apropiado para preparar mazamorra. Esta era una opinión predeterminada. Al preguntárseles si habían ensayado prepararla con Opaco-2, la mayoría respondió negativamente.Cuadro 4. Utilización que se dió a las dos libras de ma;z recibidas por las amas de casa. Se puede concluir que la mayor diferencia que encontraron las amas de casa entrevistadas entre el OpacQ-2 y el maíz cristalino común fue el grado de blandura. La mayor parte de ellas se convencieron con sólo mirar el Opaco-2, que no podía usarse para la prepar'ación de ciertos productos.Esta creencia está bien fundada. Con los métodos tradicionales de cocimiento~ el Opaco~2 puede ser un fracaso. Sin embargo, variando ligeramente los métodos de cocción, el Opaco-2 puede utilizarse con buenos resultados. Por lo tanto, los esfuerzos encaminados hacia la mejor aceptación del Opaco-2 por parte del consumidor, deben incluir campañas educativas que expliquen las variaciones necesarias en el método de cocción,Se les preguntó a las amas de casa cuál de los dos tipos die maíz preferían. El cuarenta por cicnto dijo preferir el Opaco-2, el veintiseis por ciento el maíz común, y el treinta y cuatro por ciento fue im~ parcial.Las entrevistadas que eligieron el Opaco-2 manifestaron que por su blandura era de más fácil preparación. La razón principal para preferir el maíz común fue la creencia de que éste era apto para un mayol' número de pl\"Oductos. Las diferencias subjetivas en sabor no parecen ser un factor importante. El veintiuno por ciento de las amas de casa que preferían el maíz Opaco-2 y el diez y siete por ciento de las que preferían el común, dieron como razón el sabor.El cincuenta y dos por ciento dijo que sus espü50s no tenían una mayor preferencia por ninguno de los dos tipos de maíz. El veinticua~ tro por ciento prefirió el Opaco-2 y el doce por ciento, el maíz común.Al preguntarles por' la reacción de los niños, el cincuenta y siet¡e por ciento de las amas de casa respondió que les era indiferente cualquiera de los dos tipos de maíz; el diez y siete por ciento prefería el Opa-36 co-2 y el once por ciento, el común. Aunque en la primera entrevista se les solicitó a las amas de casa que obtuvieran las opiniones de los €sP0slos y de los hijos, no se pudo determinar este factor debido a la influencia de los prejuicios-de las espo.sas para brindar estos informes. Por lo tanto, es poco fiable interpretar independientemente las reacciones de la esposa, el esposo y de los hijos.Obtenidos los datos sobre las diferencias entre los dos tipos de maíz, se les preguntó a las amas de casa cuál tipo de maíz comprarían en caso de que tuvieran el mismo precio en el mismo. almacén. El cincuenta y uno por' ciento dijo que el maíz común, y el cuarenta. y siete por ciento, el Opaco-2. No hubo diferencias apreciables entre las. doo submuestras. 14 Mientras la mayor parte de las entrevistadas preferían el Opaco-2, solamente la mitad dijo que lo compraría si el precio fuera igual al del maíz cristalino común. Esta tendencia se mostró en ambas submuestras. La razón principal para esta aparente paradoja consiste en que, a pesar de que dijeron que preferían el maíz Opaco-2 principalmente _por su blandura y de ahí su cocción más fácil, esta misma cualidad les hacía pensar que el Opaco-2 únicamente podría utilizarse en la preparación de ciertos platos alimenticios.Se trató de comprobar la validez de las respuestas obtenidas sobre el tipo de maíz Opaco-2 que las amas de casa pr'eferirían comprar. Aproximadamente~ tres semanas después de la segunda entrevista fueron visitadas nuevamente. El entrevistador llevó dos canastos con maíz, uno con maíz Opaco-2 y otro con cristalino común. Se les diJO' a las amas de casa que hahía sobrado maíz de la encuesta y que se deseaba distribuirlo entre las participantes. Cada una 'Podía elegir una porción del maíz de su preferencia que pesara una libra.Para imitar los' métodos empleados en la venta, se llevó el maíz en canastos abier'tos en lugar de bolsas. Además, como ya habían transcurrido tres semanas desde la entrevi'3ta anterior, '3e confiaba en que ellas olvidarían cuál tipo de maíz habían citado a menos que tuvieran una marcada preferencia po•r Un detenninado tipo de maíz. Finalmente, los posibles errores causados por exceso de sensibilidad durante la entrevista anterior podrían eliminarse debido a que las entrevistadas no consideraban esta última visita como parte de la encuesta.La información adquirída con respecto a las preferencias del maíz Opaco-2 y del cristalino común, durante las dos entrevistas, se resume en el Cuadro 5.Se halló una gran diferencia entre la preferencia señalada por las amas de casa de Bellavista y sus preferencias sobre el tipo de maíz que comprarían según la visita -final. Mientras el cuarenta y cuatro por ciento de ellas dijo que com-prarían el maíz O-paco-2, solamente el treinta y tres por ciento lo escogió en esta visita final. Esta diferencia no fue hallada entre las entrevistas de la submuestra en Coronado.14. Un análisis Chi2 mostró que no había diferencia significativa al nivel del noventa y cinco por ciento.Cuadro 5. Preferencia relativa de la. ama. de casa por el mal>:Opaco-2 y el maíz cristalino común. Se notó la tendencia de que las entl'evistadas trataban de seleccionar el tipo de maíz que creían era más adecuado para prepar'ar el plato de eSe día. Esto puede explicar algunas de las diferencias que se encontraron. Otra explicación puede ser que, al no considerar la visita final como parte de la encuesta, eligieron el producto que tradicionalmente compraban. En tooo caso, es probable que la selección efectuada en la última visita se refleje en el mercado si el Opaco-2 se vende al mismo precio que el maíz común. Se intentó determinar las características de las amaS' de casa y de sus familias que pudieran influir en la selección del tipo de maíz. Se halló que esta selección dependía un poco del lugar de nacimiento-del ama de casa. Sin embargo, se requiere una muestra a mayor escala paTa obtener una información fiable al respecto. Las familias con un ingreso mensual inferior' de quinientos pesos parecían preferir más el Üpaco-2 que las familias de mayor ingresO'. Finalmente, las familiaS; que por lo oomún compraban luaíz blanco, preferían el Opaco-2; las que únicamente compraban maíz amarillo preferían el maíz blanco común y las que r.ompraban el hlanco y el amatílIo. indistintamente. estaban divididas entre la preferenda por el Opaco-2 y el blanco común.Se han realizado pr'uebas de mercadeo a dos productos que contienen maíz Opaco-2. Uno de ellos, un alimento para niños, Duryea. fue bien recibido por el consumidor y se lanzó comercialmente al mercado colombiano. El otro producto, una masa para arepas, Ricarepa, no tuvo la aceptación esperada por parte del consumidor y actualmente se está tratando-de mejorarlo.Se ha tratado de utilizar el maíz Opaco-2 en otros productos, como el pan. pero estos ensayos todavía se encuentran en un nivel experimental.Los informes de Maizena respecto a la aceptación de Duryea son optimistas. Después de realizar las pruebas de mercadeo durante ocho meses en la ciudad de Cali, una encuesta hecha por Maizena entre 300 familias con hijo.s pequeños, demo.str'ó que el diez y nueve po.r ciento. de las familias entrevistadas usaban Duryea en su casa en la época en que se realizó la entrevista. 1'0. existe información sobre la cantidad utilizada po.r cada niño. o por cada familia. Maizena indicó que las ventas mensuales de Duryea en Cali, después de seis meses de estar en el mercado, so.n de 17 toneladas mensuales.La factibilidad de utilizar alimentos pro.cesado.s con contenido de maíz Opaco-2 co.n el fin de reducir la desnutrición depende de hasta qué punto estos alimentos procesados sean consumidos por familias de bajo ingreso económico. En la encuesta hecha por' Maizena sc encontró que el diez y seis por ciento. de las familias entrevistadas de bajo.s ingreso.s, tenían Dur-~ea en su casa. No. se ha definido la cantidad consumida por cada nino. ni tampo.co. los: producto.s que la reemplazan en su co.nsumo. Se requiere mayor investigación en este campo.. Aceptación del maíz Opaco-2 para el consumo del productor El objetivo. de la investigación cuyos resultado.s se expo.nen en esta sección~ fue analizar algunos de los mayo.res obstáculo.s para. la introducción y la expansión del consumO. del maíz Opaco.-2 entre los cultivadores de maíz y tratar' de identificar los méto.dos para superarlos. Se le dio un interés especial a los agricultores de ingresos bajas.Unicamente se analizarán aquí los aspectos relativos al consumo. Debe tenerse presente que los obstáculos a nivel de producción también influirán en la magnitud en que los -productores de maíz cambiarán sus patro.nes de consumo. de maíz común a Opaco-2.No se pretendió estimar el grado de deficiencia proteica entre la!' familias rurales que fueron entrevistadas.Con el fin de determinar la importancia que tiene el maíz en la dieta~ se le solicitó al agricultor que mencionara los cinco artículos alimenticios que consumían con más frecuencia. El maíz fue citado con mayor frecuencia (69 por ciento), después la catne (65 por ciento), el arroz (63 por ciento), el plátano (60 por ciento) y la yuca (48 por ciento). La tercera parte de las familias consumían todo ~l maíz producido en la finca. Además. la mayor parte compraba malZ adicional porque la producción propia no les era suficiente.Aproximadamente, la tercera parte de los agricultor:es. entrevistados dijeron que vendían todo o parte del maíz producido~ y compraban el maíz para uso casero. Al preguntarles por qué no conservaban una cantidad suficiente para el consumo, más de la tercera parte de ellas regpondier'on que no podian almacenar el maíz debido a los insectos. Veinte por ciento dijo que vendía el maiz inmediatamente después de cosechado, para obtener dinero y el veinte por ciento respondió nQ tener medios para trillarlo y par lo tanto l Jo vendían para comprar harina.El maíz Opaco-2 es más susceptible a los ataques de los insectos durante el período de almacenamiento. Los agricultores que participaron en las pruebas de campo señalaron la magnitud de los problemas de almacenanliento. Es dudos-o que los pequeñns agricultores puedan conservar el Opaco-2 de una cosecha a la otra si no se mejoran considerablemente las prácticas para su almacenamiento y se enseñan las formas de realizarlas. Los esfuerzos para que el pequeño agricultor produzca el Opaoo-2 par'a ce'nsumo casero, seguramente fracasarán a menos que se emprenda un programa efectivo de carácter educativo con métodos para el mejoramiento de las prácticas de almacenamiento.A cada uno de los agricultores entrevistados se le entregaron diez tarjetas, cada una indicando un artículo alimenticio. Se les pidi6 que colocaran las tarjetas conforme a los valores nutritiva•s de los alimen~ tos. Los resultados se muestran en el Cuadro 6. Las tres cuartas partes de los agricultores conceptuaron que los productos de origen animal tenían un valor nutritivo más alto.Si la esposa del agricultor estaba presente, también se le solicitaba que efectuara la selección de los diez alimentos. Los resultados fueron en cierto grado similares. Treinta y nueve por ciento de la setenta y dos esposas entrevistadas opinó que la leche tenía el mayor valar nutritivo y treinta y einco por ciento dijo que entre los diez alimentos~ la yuca tenía el menor valür nutritivo. Sesenta y tres por ciento de las esposas tenía algún conocimiento sobre el valor' nutritivo relativo de los productos.Parece que los agricultores y sus esposas estaban mejor informados acerca de los valÚ'res nutTitivos relativos en comparación con las amas de casa del sector urbano.Se les preguntó a los agricultores la razón para que indicaran que el artículo que seleccionaban era más nutritivo que. los otros nueve artículos. La cuarta parte de eIlos consideraba que ese alimento tenía más cantidad de vitaminas que los otros y el nnce por ciento dijo que mayor cantidad de energía. Cuadro 6. Opiniones de los agricultores respecto al valor nutritivo relativo de diez productos alimenticios. Según este estudio, pareciera que las caract.erísticas que los agricultores colombianos asociaron en mayor grado Con el alto valQr nutritivo de los alimentos fueron las siguientes en orden de importancia: Es posible que los agricultores acepten mejor un producto nueve si se promueve en base a su alto contenid'O' de vitamina en lugar de su alta calidad o cantidad de proteína. En el caso del maíz Opaco-2 el mensaje más eficaz para una campaña promocional entre los agri r cultores seria que su valor nutritivo es igual al de la leche o la carne. La mayoría de los agricultores saben que estos do-s productos son de alto valor nutritivo, pero DO conocen las razones para esta afirmacíón.Aceptación del maíz Opaco• 2 paro. el consumo La preferencia relativa del maíz Opaco-2 y del maíz cristalino común basada en la apariencia 1 .seguramente influirá en el nivel con que se adopte el Opaco-2 tanto para el cünsumo eOIDO para la producción. Les resultados de las encuestas relacionadas con este factor y presentados en la sección de las actitu•des de los agricultores, se aplican igualmente a este análisis.Después de haher tenido tiempo suficiente para prepal'ar' y consumir varias veces el maíz Op8co-2~ se Ie¡:, preguntó a los agricultores que participaron en las pruebas de campo sus opiniones y su experiencia sobre las caracteristicas culinaría:c:, así como. su preferencias sohre el maíz Opaco' 2.Los platos a base de maíz que más fl.'ecuenteluente preparaban las familias campesinas entrevisladas. según su orden de frecuencia, fueron: colada~ mazamorra~ arepa y wpa. Dos terceras partes de las en• trevistadas afirmaron que el Opaco~2 era más fácil de prepar que el maíz común mientras que la tercera parte de ellas dijo que el Opaco~2 el'a d'C más difícil preparación.Casi todas las esposas de los agricultores que mencionaron que ha• hia diferencia en las características culinarias entre el maíz ordinario y el Opaco-2, la atribuyeron a la suavidad del Opacú~2. En general, las amas de casa estuvieron de acuerdo en que las dÍficultades más serias encontradas en el Opacw2 estaban en la preparación de la mazamorra y las arepas. Por otro lado, como el Opaco-2 era más fácil de moler~ según ellas, podían preparar fácilmente ciertos otros pro~ duetos con este maíz.Ni los agricultores ni sus esposas indicaron diferencias en el sabor del Opaco-2 y el maíz común . .El ochenta y cuatro por ciento> de las entrevistadas dijo que preferirían el Opaoo~2 al maíz común si el precio fuera igual. Debe notarse que cada una de estas familias hahía participado en la prueba del cultivo del Üpaco-2 en su finca y habían sido infol~madas del alto valor nutritivo de esta maíz varias veces durante su cultivo. Este hecho :o:e notó en que al preguntarles por qué preferían el maíz Opaco-2, casI todas las entrevistadas líespondieron \"debido a su alto valor nutritivo~'. Es difícil determÍnar cuántas de eUas estaban verdadetamente convencidas de las ventajas nutritivas del maíz Opaco-2 y cuántas trataban úni<:umente de com~ placer al entrevistador.Sin embargo! puede lIegane a ]a conclusÍón de que la mayoría de ellas no utilizarían el Opaco~2 en la preparación de dos de lOB productos de maíz de mayor consumo como son la mazamorra )' las arepas! si pueden utilizar maíz común. Pero~ seguramente, preferirían el Üpaco-2 para Ja preparación de otros alime.ntos tales COmo. coladas. Si la información sobre el alto \"alor nutritivo hubiera ido acompañada de una descripción de las nuevaS recetas culinarias para el Opa-co~2! es factible que las entr:evistadas hubieran manifestado deseos: de reemplazar', en su totalidad o en parte~ el maíz común por el Opaco-2. Apéndices l. Procedimiento de muestreo y características de las muestras La información primaria .se obtuvo a través de cinco encuestas llevadas a cabo entre productores, agencias de mercadeo y consumidores de maíz.Las encuestas al productor se efectuaron en colaboración con un estudio agronómico del CIAT-ICA para analizar el resultado del maíz Opaco-2 en seis r'egiones de Colombia. Se entrevistaron 154 agricultores, de los cuales 42 participaron en el estudio agronómico. La distribución-geográfica de la muestra se presenta en la Figura l.Los agricultores fueron seleccionados por los ingenieros agrónomos del CIA T que llevaron a cabo el estudio agronómico de cada región. Solamente fueron incluídos en la muestra los cultivadores de maíz que aparentemente eran representativos de los agricultores de la región, aunque se dió el mayor énfasis a las entrevistas a los pequeñ0F3 agricultore:::. Utilizando el conocimiento que tenían de la región y basándose en algunos casos en informaciones suministradas por el ICA, el INCORA y la Caja Agraria~ cada agrónomo visitó y entrevistó cerca de 25 agricultores. incluyendo los participantes en el estudio agronómico.El tamaño promedio de las fincas. incluidas en la encuesta fue de 71 hectáreas; la tercera parte de ellas tenía menos de 50 hectáreas y solamente cuatro por ciento tenia más de 500 hectáreas. El prome~ dio del área de maíz incluído en la muestl\"a fue de 8.2 hectáreas.El trece por ciento tenía menos de O. 5 hectáreas, mientras que solamente el veintiuno por ciento tenía áreas de maíz mayores de cin~ co hectáreas y el tres por ciento, cultivaba más de 50 hectáreas de maíz. Aunque muchas de las fincas eran relativamente grandes, pocos de los agricultores tenían extensos cultivos de maíz. La tercera parte consumía en la finca la totalidad del maíz ptoducido.La edad promedia del agricultor entrevistado fue de 44 años. El tl'ece por ciento fueron agricultores de 60 años o mayores. En promedio, los agricultores tenían 4. 5 años de educación primaria; dos y tres años de escuela primaria resultó muy común (15 % en cada caso). El diez por ciento no había asistido a la escuela y el veintiocho por ciento había t.'ecibido más de cinco años de educación primaría.El tamaño promedio de la familia en la fínca era de 6.7 perso-na8 1 2. 7 niños menores de 14 años y un promedio de cuatro adultos por cada familia.Se notó que había una gran migración interdepartamental entre los agricultores entrevistados; cincuenta y uno por ciento inf.ormaron que no habían nacido en los Departamentos en donde actualmente vivían.Durante el mes de Mayo, 1970~ se nevó a cabo una encuesta entre veinticinco mayoristas de maíz en cinco ciudades del Departamento del Valle del. Cauea \"'.Aproximadamente~ la mitad de las firmas entrevistadas fueron empresas privadas y las restantes~ corporacio-nes. El cuarenta y cinco por ciento de las empresas compraban menús de cien toneladas de maíz por año mientras que el diez por ciento de ellas compro más' de mil toneladas anuales.Considerando no solamente las actividades en el maíz sino también en el total de sus transacciones, veinticinco por ciento de las firmas fue considcl'ado pequeño en comparación con empresas de tipo similar en Colombia; treinta v dos por ciento eran de tamaño mediano r cuarenta y tres por dento eran grandes.El dueño de la firma fue entrevistado en el cincuenta y seis por ciento r el administrador en las restantes.La información básica referente a la aceptaclon del consumidur del Opaco-2 se obtuvo a través de una encuesta llevada a cabo en dos partes, durante Marzo y Abril, 1970. Una de las encuestas se hizo en Bellavista~ un barrio de ingresos bajos de la ciudad de Cali, capi-1 1l n~l\\artamento del Yu.!le del Cauea. Se seleceio.u.ó una. mue,l. lid I':\\l UIII.. una alta proporción de migl'aClOn, puede ser posible identificar las diferencias en los factores de interés causadas por patrones y tradiciones determinadas geográficamente.La sef!Unda encuesta se llevó a cabo en Cor'onado, un pueblo de ingresos bajos en la cercanía de P'almira~ situado a 30 kilómetros _de fa ciudad de CalL Se 8eleccionó una muestra al azar de veinte familias• entre las 95 residentes en el pueblo. El cuestionario y loS' procedimientos utilizados en \"las entrevistas fueron similares a -los de -Bie-Uavista.Electuandú la encuestaen un .\"ector de la ciudad como en un ))ue--blo pequeño se creyó da-r mayor veracidad a la información obt'e•nida, y a la vez, -poder identificar diferencias si.e;nificativas entre los factores dp,terminanfes oe la acentabilidad del maíz Opaco-2 entre dos tipos iJe población. No obstante. debe ~,eñaJllr5le que las Jos encuestas se verificaron a una distancia de treinta kilómetros. Po-r-c()nsiguiente~ los resultados no tienen necesariamente una amplia validez geográfica.A cada una de }RS cincuenta amas de casas se le for'muló una listll de preguntas con el fin de determinar los patrones de consumo y de compra relacionados con el maíz. y su conocimiento en aJJ!Unos aspectos de nutrición hll1nana. Lue~o, se les entregaron dos liJnas de maíz. una con maíz Ollaco-2• y_ otra con 'maíz blanco común de_ tipo r:rntafino -y ~e le¡;; pidió que cocinAsen los dos -üpos ~e maí:,;• en :d(r~ días dHerentes: el método de cocción v el producto final se deió._ a la iniciativa de] ,,,lIla de casa. Tres días después de la entre_vIsta las. vi-:-siúrron e-on ~ el fin -de :u•brener ~u reacción fobre losdos tipoS de, maíz.•t-res -de las CIncuenta amas de casa entrevistadas rehúsa-ro-tf iiár iri-_fo!Jl!.~c_i6~ ~l?-_ la segunda entrevista. Por cQnsiguiente~ eI-\"núinerode muestras se redujo a 28• y 19, respectivamente.El tamaño prnmedio de Ja famiBa fue de 6.6 personas en Bel1avjs• ta y dé 7. B en Coronado,'y el\"promedio de niño::; meno.res oe 14 años fu~ de 2.9 y 3.8, re\"pectiv~mente. El nivel ele educación d~ las aJTla~ de casa era aprüximadamente igual en las dos muestras: 2. 5\" y 2.4 años de escuela nrim;uia, respectivamente. Sin ernharRo, 8C hallaron diferencias considerables entre los entrevistados. En la encuesta de Rellavista tenían un promedio de 4. O años de escuela primaria y los de Coronado 2. 5 años de escuela primaria.El ¡ngre.so familiar era un poco más alto entre las familias entrevistadas de Bellavista. Nin~na familia dijo tener un ingreso< mensual menor de cíen pesos, el treinta. y nueve pOl\" ciento de ellas. dijo que sus ingresos variaban entre los óen y los quinientos pesos men-~males, y el cincuenta y cuatro por ciento de ellas tenían un ingre8ü mensual mayor a los quinientos pesos. El siete por ciento de las amas '•de casa no sabían cuál era su ingreso. En Coronado. el cinco pár ciento de las familias tenía un ingreso mensual menor a los cien pesos; treinta y dos por ciento entre cíen y quinientos pesos lnensuales, cuarenta y siete por' ciento sobrepasaba los quinientos-pesos mensual-e~, y el diez y seis por ciento de ellas dijo no ('j()nocer la cifra.La mayor parte de los esposos cuyas esposas fueron entrevistadas eran obreros industriales (ochenta y tres por cieuto y sesenta y siete por ciento, respectivamente), el trece y el once por ciento tenían un negocio particular; el cet'o y el diez por ciento eran trabajadores agrícolas y el cuatro y el cinco por eiento~ respectivamente, eran desempleados. La tercera parte de las amas de casa entrevistadas en BeIlavista, trabajaban fuera de su hogar mientras que solo el diez por ciento de las entrevistadas lo hacían en Coronado. Dos de las amas de casa de Bellavista y una de Coronado habían nacido en esos lugares. La mayor parte nadó en el VaIle del Cauea. El sesenta y -ocho PQr ciento de las amas de casa entrevistadas en Bellavista y el noventa y cinco por ciento de las entrevistadas en Coronado dijeron haber vivido algún tiempo en el Departamento del Valle del Cauca antes de trasladarse al sitio actual de residencia. Sopa espesa de maíz. Pan de maíz trillado sin levadura. Se prepara cocinando el maíz, moliéndolo luego y la masa obtenida se forma en pancitos que se hornean o se asan a la brasa. En ciertos casos, se añade queso,. huevos y mantequilla antes de hornear o asar.Sopa hecha de maíz co.cido, leche y azúcar sin refinar (panela). Hecho de harina de maíz, queso, huevos, polvo para hornear y sal. Se hacen pequeñas bolas de esta preparadón, se fritan y se sirven calientes. Dulce de apariencia gelatinosa, hecho con maÍz~ agua y azúcar sin refinar \\ generabnente se sirve con una capa -de canela en polvo.BIBL.IOrECA","tokenCount":"15088"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fd73160942561400d7f0c485f94aa1a5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8fee4d26-e105-425a-ad85-9d420758d35c/retrieve","id":"2045565844"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c43c82c6-4620-40c3-a692-7b5cbba06177","pagecount":"12","content":"OPERATIONAL PLAN 1992PLAN -1996 l. INTRODUCTION Two distinct operational functions will be brought together in the Institutional Development Support Program (IDSP): the communications support function and the collaborative mechanisms support function. The former has components which will be assembled in operational units around methodological affinities. Training and conferences, which deal fundamentally with face to face interpersonal communications, readily constitute such a unit. Informationjdocumentation which deals with collecting, organizing, giving access to, and redistributing already published information, conforms another one. The rest of the former training and communications support program--publications and graphic arts--deal with media communication of information created by CIAT. These will be integrated into a communications media unit.The collaborative mechanisms support function is an emerging function in the evolutionary path of CIAT's institutional development activities. First, these have passed from training collaborators to strengthening partner institutions by means of training and information delivery . Now, they are moving towards enhancing an international research system of which the Center is a significant but not central partner. This expanded research-systems-enhancing function implies the needs of knowing the systems of continuously increasing complexity and of facilitating the linkage among relevant institutions which are part of it. These needs will be addressed in an operational area dedicated to collaborative mechanisms, initially under a rather loase organizational arrangement, which may eventually be more formally structured if and when this preves itself necessary. This document will discuss the activities of the various areas and the human resources adjustments required to execute them; finally it will justify the program•s needs of senior staff positions.Training on commodity research is changing its emphasis from introductory to advanced research training. The NARDS capability to supply the less advanced research training, as well as commodity production training for technoloqy intermediaries, will be supported by training trainers. Training in resource management will be initiated, and as the new resource management division•s inter-institutional projects come on line they may be used as training grounds for research management of such operational arrangements, in collaboration with ISNAR/IICA. This set of new or modified activities requires adjustments in the support staff's numbers and responsibilities.During the 1980s, nine associates supported training at CIAT and in-country on a commodity-specific basis: two associates for each of the Center•s four commodities and one for the seed unit .The support to training at CIAT consisted of: 1. Coordinating both course contents and sequences, and the participation of Center staff as instructors; 2. Making logi~tic arrangements for lectures and practicals; 3. Some subject-~atter teaching. Support to in-country courses consisted in l. Course design and coordination of instructors• participation; 2. Coordination of logistics; 3. Substantive quantities of subject-matter teaching.During the next quinquennium the associates will continue their coordinating activities and giving logistic support. In their subject-matter expertise, however, they will gradually change from supplying commodity-production expertise to providing adult education support under the guidance of the training and conferences head.In the first part of the quinquennium two additional training associates will be necessary to support the training of trainers. This increase is required because in the early part of the quinquennium some of the older type training activities will not yet have been phased-out while the training of trainers will already be on line.By the end of the quinquennium the two additional positions will be converted to serve the training in resource management. At about the same time it will be possible to phase-out two of the original associate positions as advanced non-degree training shifts to post-graduate degree training, and because visiting scientist rather than trainees will be coming to CIAT to interact with the Center•s scientists.In summary, two additional training associates are necessary at the beginning of the quinquennium, but by the end of the period the total number will be the same than at the beginning, although they will be serving four more programs.During the 1980s a special group of six support staff was dedicated to the production of audiotutorials. Four of them will shift from producing exclusively stand-alone training materials to producing mainly materials for the direct support of the Center•s training activities, especially for the training of trainers and for use by the new national trainers. The other two members of the group will be transferred to the communications media unit to work on audiovisual and electronic media.The logistics of bringing conferences participants to CIAT, of supporting them while being at the Center, and of having the infrastructure and equipment in good working order have been dealt with satisfactorily during the l980s.But the productivity of conferences depends not only on adequate logistic support. Careful planning and management of participants interactions is equally necessary. At present this is done by CIAT's senior staff involved in the ad hoc coordination of conferences. These activities could, however, be performed by support staff. This would not only save senior scientist time; it would also allow to reap the benefits from having one person methodologically specialized in the subject who, additionally, would capitalize on the cumulative experience to be gained in the performance of hisjher duties. It is consequently proposed to incorporate a conferences support assistant to give the aforementioned support under the guidance of the training and conferences head.The communications media unit will consist of four sub-areas: l. Writing and editing, that is the development of printed materials; 2. Audiovisual and electronic media, i.e. the development of audiovisuals, and of media based on more recent technology such as electronic support for computer software and optical media, or on the combination of severa! of them (multimedia); J. Materials production and distribution, which will include the photography, design, and printing facilities for media production and multiplication, and the infrastructure for media distribution; and 4. Machine translation.Personnel in the writingjediting and in the machine translation sections will report to the unit's head through section supervisors at associate level. The audiovisual and electronic media group will work with a post-doctoral media specialist, and materials production and distribution will be lead by a GAS position.A senior writer of the Director General's office will interact with the unit h.ead to utilize the communications media resources while reporting to the DG.It is now clear that under-staffing in the writing and editing area has been a major cause of delays in delivery which in recent years have become painfully evident (other contributing causes such as lack of equipment have already been brought under control). CIAT' s full publica. tiort needs have consistently exceeded the human resources production capacity . Production of serial publications was maintained on schedule at the expense of building up a backlog of delayed books, and when attention was given to reducing this backlog, serials production fell behind schedule. This non-sustainable situation became aggravated by the addition of the demand for communication support from CIAT's rice program which previously had received much less support than the other research programs. Now the Center is incorporating new research areas which will require additional communications s upport, and more institutional interfaces will need addressing with newsletters or equivalent media.To overc ome the under-staffing carried over from the past, and to me et the additional demand from the Center's new thrusts, three support staff at the assistant;associate level are necessary in the writingjediting area which pre sently has only two assistant writers.A shift in the support staff's profile from mainly editing (three Spanish and two English editing associates, and one editorial assistant) to more writing responsibilities will also be necessary. For this, only materials that absolutely require it, will be submitted to the extremely exacting editing standards which have characterized CIAT. More abundant writing power, also, should substituta for much of the scientists' time devoted in the past to newsletter and Center report production. One of the writerjeditor associate positions will function as section supervisor.To help defining the audiovisual and electronic media activities and to upgrade the in-house expertise on the subject a post-doctoral media specia. list is requested. Hejshe will work with the two assistants who--as already stated--will be transferred from the former audiotutorials production team.Machine translation made substantial progress at CIAT over the last three years. The Center's experience is unique in the CG-system and ought to be fully capitalized. The output of the translation system is limited almost solely by the number of post-editors because the machine translates approximately 700 words per minute (172,800 words per minute of CPU time) while post-editors finish the machine-produced product at a rate of \"only\" 15-20 pages of text in a day's working hours. It is proposed to expand the human resources to include one translatorjpost-editor section supervisor at associate level and two more at assistant level. The section supervisor position would not be new; rather it •would be the upgrading of an existing assistant position to the associate level. The two assistant positions would be self-financed by charging for the translation services, which in addition to in-house clients would be offered to sistér Centers and to other international, regional, or national agricultura! research and development institutions.Adjustments in the materials production and distribution area will be by phasing-out positions which can be replaced more efficiently by machines. Support staff is thus to be reduced by five positions over three years. The savings will be used to upgrade the remaining staff and improve the areas' output in quality and quantity. Simultaneous with the phasing-out of support staff, the publishing equipment (hardware and software) will need to be modernized to make the whole area more labor-efficient.The distribution and marketing arrangement, located in the present publications unit, has an assistant-level supervisor and two auxiliary staff. The latter will be incorporated into the materials production and distribution area, directly under the section's head's supervision; and the supervisor position will be converted into a program leader's assistant position.Since 1989, the informationjdocumentation unit has undergone substantial modernization, to fully incorporate state-of-the-art technology for the benefit of both CIAT's own scientists and NARDS partners. As a consequence, interna! and external demand for the unit's services has grown markedly • and is expected to continue to grow in the foreseeable future as resource management activities expand. Capital investments will undoubtedly have to be made to meet the growing demand and to keep the unit at the technological forefront. Whether human resources will need to be expanded is not clear, however, at least with regard to core funded resources. It is proposed to distinguish between a core clientele, which is to be served with core funds, and a non-core clientele which ought to be served with funds from other sources (special projects, revenue from charging for services, donations, etc.) . The information unit's statistics at present do not allow to draw this distinction and it may take about two years to collect the necessary data.An exception to this uncertainty is the need of establishing a rice information syste m for Latin America comparable to those deve loped for the rest of the Center's commodities. It is proposed that this need be met with an associate position to be covered with funds e ither from IRRI, or from a special project, or from core.The addition of a new area of collaborative mechanisms to the former training and communications support program is a vital step in the cha nge from single-institution-enhancing activities towards a research-systems-enhancing approach. The new approach has three fundamental implications: it is necessary to know the research systems of increasing complexity (need of an information system), to strengthen the various component institutions or teams, and to also strengthen the links among the m. This is a challenging new dimension which requires overcoming traditional attitudes of institutional closeness to develop a system based on truly horizontal c ooperation among all partrters. For this, CIAT will build upon its strengths d e veloped over the years in networking a nd other cooperative mechanisms.Projects will be an organizational arrangement of increasing importance in CIAT's collaborative activities, be they research efforts, pre-de velopme nt activities, or human resources d e velopme nt programs. It is therefore proposed to establish in-house e x pertise on project design and d e velopment by means of a senior staff equivalent position to be funded from project overhead revenues.A fundamental operational objective is to establish an information system on the research systems to be strengthened. It will be a tool for supporting the Center's programs' collaborative activities with the NARDS, and to help prioritizing and targeting the Center's institutional development activitie~. This is in line with meeting a specific recomme ndation of the Third External Program Review Panel that \"CIAT systeinatize its on-going inventory of national program tra i ning needs\". The system will be deve loped in close interaction with all CIAT programs and units, and it should be shared with sister Centers and NARDS. A consultant's advice on how to develop the system on the basis of presently existing databases will • be sought, andan associate position• is proposed to full-time support this activity.The system's database(s) should be in place at the end of 1993. The completely structured system, containing permanently updated information on institutions, persons, and on inter-institutional linkages, ought to be fully operational by the end of the quinquennium.In addition to the institutional information system, expertise on inter-institutional linkages may be necessary. Initially this would be obtained through consultants. In a more advanced stage a research fellow could be dedicated to the subject, and given the affinity with ISNAR's objectives and activities, the sister Center could be invited to detach an associated scientist to team-up with the CIAT feliow for mutual complementation . If the course of events did finally show a need for it, a specialist on inter-institutional linkage mechanisms would eventually be incorporated at senior staff level. ","tokenCount":"2265"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"29f78ad5e4af2d0aac9f2cab06b43c9f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/78c0995b-46d2-4f09-bae9-5273a40a2905/retrieve","id":"-915702749"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b1cb2062-aeaa-4c2e-8127-199af7a9e5f2","pagecount":"15","content":"CGIAR is a global research partnership for a food-secure future. CGIAR science is dedicated to transforming food, land, and water systems in a climate crisis. Its research is carried out by 13 CGIAR Centers/Alliances in close collaboration with hundreds of partners, including national and regional research institutes, civil society organizations, academia, development organizations and the private sector. www.cgiar.orgWe would like to thank all funders who support this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund: www.cgiar.org/funders.Applying Citizens' Juries to the Global South Pre-Analysis-Plan and Pre-Registration Information Section 1: IntroductionEmploying Citizens' Juries (CJs) for Identifying Pathways to More Sustainable Food Systems is one of the proposed research endeavors of work package 3 (WP3) within the One-CGIAR initiative \"Mitigate+: Low-Emission Food Systems\" (2022-2024).Applying a Living Labs (LLs) approach, WP3 (also called, Living Labs for People or LL4P) implements participatory action research to support food system (FS) stakeholders and partners in important FSs to co-design, experiment, and implement integrated socio-technical innovation packages to reduce GHG sources and enhance sinks, whilst improving social outcomes and providing public good co-benefits. In this context, we aim to organize and analyze CJs in one LL4P site (Colombia) in 2023 and 2024 to complement other activities in achieving the LL4P outcomes. In CJs, bottom-up decision-making processes are facilitated by the incorporation of balanced expert knowledge and stakeholder input supplemented by alternative forms of learning. CJs create spaces where randomly selected representatives of the respective target population deliberate on an issue of public importance, before making policy recommendations based on these deliberations. In this way, local knowledge and stakeholder interests are blended with expert information to inform policy decision-making (Coote & Lenaghan, 1997;Crosby, 1995;The Jefferson Center, 2004;Wakeford et al., 2015).Technical ReportIn the context of the Mitigate+ LL4P in Colombia, our research team aims to empirically investigate the CJ approach in the Global South from different perspectives. To inform a scientifically backed adaptation of the CJ approach to the specific socioeconomic and cultural contexts encountered in the Global South, we first aim to investigate how different selection methods into the CJ affect the degree of CJ representativeness relating to gender, age, and minority groups, as well as individual opportunity costs, knowledge, motivations/interests and social network connections (Task 1). In order to evaluate the transformative potential of the CJ approach on CJ participants themselves, we secondly intend to develop and apply a measurement tool for biased information processing and changes in individuals' information processing and mental models relating to FS issues and climate change action (Task 2). Thirdly, ex-post to the implementation itself, we aim to conduct a survey experiment in the wider population of interest, using the Discrete Choice Experiment methodology. Thereby, we want to investigate how respondents evaluate the legitimacy and procedural fairness of CJ policy proposals (Task 3). This preanalysis plan outlines the current state of plans relating to our research endeavor.Previous academic research on the effects of political participation indicates that CJs can have the potential to circumvent elite capture (Björkman & Svensson, 2009;Pande, 2011;Pimbert et al., 2010) and behavioral biases in individual and group decision-making (Wright & Wells, 1985), which can naturally benefit public policy-making processes. Further evidence suggests that policy recommendations originating from CJs feature a high degree of acceptance amongst both community members and high-level decision-makers (Munno & Nabatchi, 2014;Setälä et al., 2021). In socioecological environments characterized by complex power dynamics and sizeable power gaps between stakeholder groups, CJs could thus provide a valuable tool to mitigate issues related to such imbalances by increasing the sense of agency amongst community members, all while increasing the legitimacy of the entire decision-making process. Thus, we argue that our research will bring forward theoretical and empirical advancements on the functioning of such interventions in the Global South, thereby providing evidence of their potential as \"deep leverage points\". Using the analogy brought forward in (Meadows, 2008), every small change within a system can incur significant impacts on the system as a whole. Deep leverage interventions, however, can exert a transformational influence on the overall system in that they affect peoples' norms and values, the implicit or explicit goals of how the system operates, or even the underlying paradigms that reproduce the system. Changes at this level are supposed to enable profound systemic changes (Bryant & Thomson, 2021) and deliberation within CJs might potentially go in such a direction if these liberations also have high perceived legitimacy among citizens and political leaders.As indicated in the previous paragraph our research generally aims to provide evidence on an empirical foundation for the overall functioning of CJs in the Global South. As outlined in more detail in an accompanying literature review on CJ performance, while the body of literature is quite extensive regarding CJ application in different public policy contexts in developed and especially English-speaking countries in the Global North (see e.g., Aldred & Jacobs, 2000;Coote & Lenaghan, 1997;Haigh & Scott-Samuel, 2008;Kenyon et al., 2010;Lenaghan, 1999;Moretto et al., 2014;Ross et al., 2021;Street et al., 2014;Wakeford et al., 2015), the evidence on their implementation in countries of the Global South, is relatively scarce and mostly relies on descriptive experience reports of the implementing parties (Pimbert et al., 2001(Pimbert et al., , 2010;;Pimbert & Wakeford, 2002;Rusike, 2005;Wakeford et al., 2015). Against this more general backdrop, our research aims to contribute to the literature on CJs in the Global South along three specific and quantitative research tasks:-Task 1: Building on the CJs approach above-mentioned elite-capturing potential (Björkman & Svensson, 2009;Pande, 2011;Pimbert et al., 2010), CJs appeal of breaking down long-established hierarchical and patriarchal power structures in decision-making processes of rural communities of the Global South is already addressed in a few publications. While (Chen, 2021;Fishkin et al., 2017;Pimbert et al., 2010) report positively on the performance of public deliberation methods on perceived representativeness and empowerment of otherwise unheard societal groups, as well as their value in consulting local knowledge to address complex policy problems, (Humphreys et al., 2006) provide experimental evidence that the political will of local authority figures is still overly represented within policy recommendation outcomes of public deliberation proceedings, even if participants' opinions differ from those of the leaders. Still, the introduction of the CJ concept can support respective communities with a tool to potentially increase the legitimacy of public decision-making processes. In the context of this research task, we would like to investigate the effect of different selection methods into the CJ on group representativeness, as well as individual knowledge and motivations. While a purely random selection of citizens into CJs represents the norm in the Global North, in the Global South such procedures are often obstructed by different issues undermining the legitimacy of such forms of decision-making processes. These include social norms related to traditional power dynamics, the lack of available census data for random selection, as well as the habituation of non-formalized invitation methods leading to convenient sampling based on people's interests or opportunity costs. We aim to perform an analysis of the mode of participant selection into the pool of CJ members including the number and reasons for declined invitations.-Task 2: Group deliberation and group decision-making processes have long been shown to help in mitigating the influence of behavioral biases (Wright et al., 1996;Wright & Wells, 1985). It can facilitate long-term and social thinking,while also leading to a potential increase in values that individuals assign to ecosystem services. Naturally, incorporating these aspects into decision-making processes is of special importance in the context where often short-term economic interests are at stake and the long-term health of natural resource systems is neglected. By performing individual surveys with jury members both before and after the CJ intervention, we aim to measure how CJ participation affects individual biases in information searching and processing, participants' locus of control, as well as potentially prevalent valueaction gaps. Naturally, the outcomes of this part of the analysis will also be evaluated for the impact of heterogenous CJ selection criteria, as introduced in Task 1.-Task 3: After the implementation of the CJs in the context of this research project, we aim to conduct an additional empirical investigation on the perceived legitimacy of CJ policy proposals, as well as opinions regarding the procedural fairness of the CJ process. We would hereby like to enhance the work of (Christensen et al., 2022;Setälä et al., 2021) by experimentally investigating the public's perception of CJ policy recommendations in the context of FS issues in the Global South. We aim to apply a survey experiment (using discrete choice experiment methodology) among the wider population of interest, thereby eliciting respondents' evaluation of the procedural fairness and legitimacy of CJ policy proposals. In doing so, the survey content will randomly vary who issued the proposal (connection to Task 1 by varying between e.g., higher-level politicians, expert panel, random jury, convenient jury, etc.) and additional policy attributes describing the consequences of the CJ recommendations in order to investigate how respondent preferences react to facing different attribute combinations and tradeoffs.Section 2: Study DesignTask 1.1: (If randomization is feasible in the research context) Random participant selection into the CJ will increase CJ representativeness with respect to gender, age, and minority groups, as well as incorporate a wider range of knowledge, motivations, and social network connections into the CJ proceedings.Task 1.2: Invitations to CJ will more frequently be declined in the convenient CJ sampling condition over the fully randomized CJ sampling condition.Task 2.1: Participating in the CJ will lead to a measurable average decrease of behavioral biases related to individual decision-making, as well as to changes in information processing and mental models related to FS management in the study context.Task 2.2: (If feasible) randomized selection into the CJ (see Task 1) will further strengthen the effects described under Task 2.1.Task 3.1: Respondents will prefer policy proposals from CJs over alternative sources.Task 3.2: Respondents will prefer policy proposals from randomly sampled CJs over conveniently sampled CJs.Experimental treatments are planned to be implemented at two stages of the research proceedings:During Task 1&2: Going for a 50/50 sample split, we aim to conduct half of the CJs using fully randomized sampling, while in the other half, we intend to conduct convenient sampling (to be specified at a later point). The effects of these treatments will be measured on basis of the two individual CJ participant surveys, one of which will be conducted before and one after the CJ proceedings.During Task 3: The discrete choice experiment will be designed according to state-of-the-art experimental design considerations using the Ngene software. Following this approach will lead to a randomized confrontation with differently composed choice alternatives among respondents. The treatment effects will be evaluated on the basis of coefficient estimates generated from mixed logit and latent class logit models (Greene & Hensher, 2003;Hensher & Greene, 2003;Mcfadden & Train, 2000).As of now, we aim to conduct the study in and around the city of Florencia, Caqueta, Colombia. The CJs themselves are supposed to be held at a suitable location in Florencia and will be conducted by a trained team of research assistants and a moderator to facilitate the proceedings. Expert witness statements will be conducted either in person or via video calls, depending on the availability of the respective persons. To compromise a reasonably large number of CJs, we currently plan for the CJ proceedings to last over the course of two days (preferably over the course of one weekend). We currently estimate the CJ proceedings, and thus the data collection for Tasks 1&2 to start in October 2023 and last until the first quarter of 2024.The exact number of CJs is still subject to scheduling (in coordination with other LL4P activities) and budgeting questions. The data collection for Task 3 is expected to commence in the first quarter of 2024. Here, we currently aim for a total sample size of 400-500 individual observations following common recommendations for discrete choice experiment power (de Bekker-Grob et al., 2015).The overall study population comprises the population of people living in Florencia and the surrounding settlements of the municipality. Depending on the sampling mode (random vs. convenient) the CJ members will either be representative of the study population or not. While both sampling modes can be expected to be at least somewhat skewed towards people that have the urge to participate in policymaking (or even already have experience in doing so), we expect this skewness to be much stronger in the convenient sample. This forms the basis for our analysis referred to as research Tasks 1 & 2 in this manuscript. There are currently no plans for the implementation of strict exclusion criteria to be applied in the sampling process.The data forming the basis for all three analytical Tasks will be collected employing digital survey work using the ODK-Collect Android application. A team of research assistants accompanying the CJs will be trained to conduct these surveys in the weeks leading up to the first CJ. The enumerators will collect basic socioeconomic information as well as responses to questions that are specific to research Tasks 1&2 (see accompanying tentative survey instrument for reference). Once the final CJ has been conducted and the CJ outcomes have been analyzed, the choice situations to be implemented within the discrete choice experiment will be updated and pre-tested accordingly. The choice experiments will then be conducted by a locally employed survey company. The data generated from this phase of interviews will form the basis of our analysis relating to Task 3. There are currently no plans for the use of secondary data outside of what we aim to collect during the surveys initiated by our research endeavor. No, no data have been collected for this study yet.We aim to empirically investigate the Citizens' Jury (CJ) approach in the Global South (in our case in Bogotá, Colombia) from different perspectives. To inform a scientifically backed adaptation of the CJ approach to the specific socioeconomic and cultural contexts encountered in the Global South, we aim to investigate CJ performance relating to three research questions:1.) We first aim to investigate how different selection methods into the CJ affect the degree of CJ representativeness relating to gender, age and minority groups, as well as individual opportunity costs, knowledge, motivations/interests and social network connections (Task 1). 2.) To evaluate the transformative potential of the CJ approach on CJ participants themselves, we secondly intend to apply a measurement tool for biased information processing and changes in individuals' information processing and mental models relating to FS issues and climate change action (Task 2). 3.) Ex-post to the implementation itself, we aim to conduct a survey experiment in a wider population of interest, using the Discrete Choice Experiment methodology.Thereby, we want to investigate how respondents evaluate the legitimacy and procedural fairness of CJ policy proposals (TaskThe CJs themselves, as well as the survey work related to all three Tasks, will be conducted with local partner organizations (Universidad Javeriana and Fundación Iguaque) and in close collaboration with the project partners from the One-CGIAR initiative \"Mitigate+: Low-Emission Food Systems\" (2022)(2023)(2024). Data analysis will be performed by Marco Nilgen and Björn Vollan, who will not have worked with the data or seen it prior to its analysis.Based on the Tasks outlined above, we formulate the following working hypotheses: Binary variable indicating the choice for a specific policy alternative that is defined by a set of attributes (including the CJ sampling mechanism)3.4. How many and which conditions will participants be assigned to?Experimental treatments conditions are planned to be implemented at two stages of the research proceedings:During Task 1&2: Half of the CJs will be conducted using fully randomized sampling of participants, while convenient sampling (to be specified at a later point) will be applied in the other half.During Task 3: The discrete choice experiment will be designed according to state-of-the-art experimental design considerations using the Ngene software. Following this approach will lead to a randomized confrontation with differently composed choice alternatives among respondents.Relating to Tasks 1.1 & 1.2:We will use Mann-Whitney-U-Tests (or independent sample t-tests) where appropriate based on the nature and distribution of the respective data to test for mean differences between both experimental groups (random vs. convenient sampling)regarding the outcome variables defined under 3.3.Relating to Tasks 2.1 & 2.2:We will use Mann-Whitney-U-Tests (or paired sample t-tests) where appropriate based on the nature and distribution of the respective data to test for mean differences in pre-CJ and post-CJ scores of CJ participants regarding the outcome variables defined under 3.3.Relating to Tasks 3.1 & 3.2:The discrete choice experiment will be designed according to state-of-the-art experimental design considerations using the Ngene software. Following this approach will lead to a randomized confrontation with differently composed choice alternatives among respondents. The treatment effects will be evaluated on the basis of coefficient estimates generated from mixed logit and latent class logit models (Greene & Hensher, 2003;Hensher & Greene, 2003;Mcfadden & Train, 2000).Relating to all Tasks: Only respondents over 18 are allowed to participate.Only participants who attended the entire CJ proceedings will be included in the analysis outlined for Task 2.3.7. How many observations will be collected or what will determine the sample size? No need to justify decision but be precise about exactly how the number will be determined.The exact sample size for the CJ-related Tasks 1 & 2 is yet to be defined based on scheduling and budgeting concerns.Regarding Task 3, we aim for a total sample size of 400-500 individual observations following common recommendations for discrete choice experiment power (de Bekker-Grob et al., 2015).","tokenCount":"2894"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ec9ba212098a422cc9c165d05bcaa8ca","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c1957030-7d18-4463-bf2d-684925d35d7b/retrieve","id":"-59395367"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"54868faa-9253-4573-9fba-085017b26a6a","pagecount":"1","content":"Geographic Scope: RegionalOutcome Impact Case Report:• 3128 -Governments and industry include pathways for sustainable, low-emissions, intensification of maize production in sub Saharan Africa policy making (https://tinyurl.com/22x4sxhb)• 2627 -Fertilizer industry uses Global Yield Gap Atlas (GYGA) for long term minimum nutrient requirements estimates targeting enhanced productivity and minimum GHG emissions (https://tinyurl.com/y8kypsgs)• I83 -Estimating minimum nitrogen requirements (N gaps) for yield gap closure and greenhouse gas mitigation (https://tinyurl.com/2j4f4z2g)• I310 -Estimating minimum nutrient (N,P,K) requirements for climate-smart intensification of maize cropping (https://tinyurl.com/2mm23vzc)• 10 -Closed yield gaps through improved agronomic and animal husbandry practices ","tokenCount":"90"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7c21c34bd2db2e06dd85cf608710dd1c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/303dce33-c599-4a9e-97c5-b1ba29dbb0bd/retrieve","id":"-2048744715"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"facf6662-3bf1-418e-af9f-caf103b8caf0","pagecount":"72","content":"We acknowledge the contributions of the following persons from Oyo State government that were part of the team that provided guidance and support during the execution of the consultancy contract on the soil survey and analysis of Eruwa and Fasola farm settlements:This report provides a concise overview of the soil survey and analysis of Eruwa and Fasola farm settlements as part of preparatory stage to convert the settlements into farm estates through Public-Private Development Partnership (PPDP). IITA-BIP was commissioned to assess the suitability of the land for mechanized commercial agriculture. This assessment is therefore to be considered a general assessment that characterizes the area in various ways and for different agribusiness purposes. The various approaches and methodologies which were used in the study are properly documented. A detailed description of the land use and land cover, topography, terrain and soil conditions and their implications in relation to large scale mechanized agriculture as apply to Eruwa and Fasola have been provided. The soil characteristics were examined following standard operating procedures, and important soil functional properties are discussed and mapped. Land units are delineated based on land use and land cover characteristics, terrain and soil characteristics, such that the units are relatively homogenous in terms of land and soil properties. What could be done in each of the land units are suggested with associated management practices. In Eruwa, land units Group 1 to 4 are the most suitable for commercial crop production. These areas allow for sustainable intensive crop production provided that the soils are properly managed and are suited for many arable and permanent tropical crops. Group 5 should be used for less demanding crops and for plantations such as cashew and Citrus. Groups 6 and 7 it is suggested that alternative uses to crop prodcution are shought. This could be for cattle barn, establishment of office complex, storage and processing facilities, and residential area, for example. Similarly, at Fasola, land units Group 1 to 2 (49% of the farm area) are the best portions of the land in terms of overall suitability for commercial crop production. At Fasola, land units Groups 4 to 6 are considered very marginal and unsuitable for crop production due to several constraints which might make agricultural enterprise unprofitable and unsustainable in those land units. Groups 4 and 5 are therefore best intended for residential use, office buldings, structures for keeping livestock, storage and processing facilities, and other, while permanent vegetation should be maintained on thel and units of Group 6. Comparatively, Fasola farm settlement has more potential for commercial crop production than Eruwa farm settlement. These are seen in terms of better accessibility because of well-connected roads, better drainage networks and more favourable soil conditions. The more favourable soil conditions lie in deeper soils, less gravel content and more fertile soils. General recommendations are provided, further specific recommendations to optimize fertilizer use will depend on the attainable yield level of the specific crop to be planted, the agricultural practice and a more detailed and precise assessment of the soil properties of the field in which the crop is cultivated. This will require nutrient response trials on the most important land units. However, for the selection of the possible crops to be considered for the farm estates, this assessment suffices. We do hope that the information contained in this report provides the insight required to make investment decisions on the land for agricultural purposes. If the objective remains the establishment of Farm Estates, and to develop these farms for investment in modern mechanised agriculture, IITA-BIP will be happy to support further planning of possible pilot projects or general planning for the development of the Farm Estates.Oyo State is often referred to as the food basket of Southwestern Nigeria. However, with the current level of food production and the rise in human population in the State, there may be food insecurity due to ageing population of farmers; inadequate youth engagement in agribusiness and inadequate land utilization It is on this premise that the present government of the State under the leadership of the Executive Governor: Engr. Oluseyi Abiodun Makinde decides to prepare and implement a robust master plan for the development of agribusiness in Oyo State using the State's agricultural comparative advantage to boost her economy through Public-Private and Development Partnership (PPDP).The government decided to transform the farm settlements into farm estates. This action was expected to focus on integrated farming system; production; processing and marketing all clustered farms within each farm estates as a model. It was expected that for the first year, over 2,000 youth and farmers would be engaged and grow to establish Agro-based Small and Medium scale Enterprises (SMEs); the next four years would have engaged 100,000 youth through multiplier effect; women would have benefitted and be transformed from subsistence farmers to commercial farmers; private sector involvement and development partners would also be able to harness their resources in an enabling environment for profitable and sustainable agribusiness.The goal is to develop Agro-based economy that would establish Oyo State as the model for an Agribusiness hub in Africa by creating a cohesive satellite of private sector-driven farm estates in the State, enhancing the development of SME among young leaders and particularly women; and creating enabling environment for agribusinesses to thrive through PPDP for economic growth and development.Akufo and Eruwa farm settlements were selected to be the pilot areas for the development of the agribusiness hub in Oyo State. Later, Akufo was replaced with Fasola farm settlement. Eruwa has 3,067 ha and Fasola has 812 ha. The government understands that both Eruwa and Fasola farm settlements are underutilized; lack basic infrastructure and are presently not suitable for agribusiness. Some portions of the land are either degraded or nutrient deficient, neither attractive nor conducive for private sector engagement. Hence, the need to fully develop and convert the farm settlements to farm estates through PPDP. The two estates would therefore serve as a model for the development of other settlements and non-farm estates into agribusiness hubs in the State.As part of the preparatory stage of revamping the farm settlements into farm estates, the State government through OYSADA engaged the IITA-Business Incubation Platform to conduct the soil survey and analysis of the two farm settlements. This was necessary to provide the basis for further planning of the project and as input for whole farm planning, concerning the allocation of land resources to the production of the target crops as well as to identify the works that are needed to make the land suitable for large mechanized production, infrastructural development required as well as other input required for a sustainable and profitable agribusiness. This report presents the results and the findings from the land and soil suitability assessment.IITA-BIP was asked to make an assessment of the suitability of the land and soils for commercial farming. The suitability assessment took into account aspects that are considered important in making investment decisions: Accessibility of the terrain  Topography: slope and relief  Water resources and availability of water  Land use and land cover to identify available land and possible implications for land clearing  Soil properties and site characteristicsThe general requirements which are relevant to modern and mechanised farming are defined. Constraints were identifoed and described in relation to these requirements. For accessibility that means the terrain needs to be accessible for smaller trucks, tractors etc. For the slope/landform the requirements are that the land needs to be flat to gently undulating to allow for mechanized operations and slopes need to be straight and not converging. For the water resources focus was on surface water only; that is the drainage network, streams and rivers that may serve as a source of water for (supplementary) irrigation. Investigating the ground water resources is outside the scope of this study. The current land use and land cover are assesed to identify potentially cultivatable land and to identify the requirements for land clearing.For suitability assessment of the soil, the following criteria were considered:  Stoniness at soil surface and in the soil profile in relation to possibility for mechanised field operation  Soil depth (effective), in relation to possible rooting depth restrictions  Soil drainage in relation to possible drainage restriction and water logging risk related to soil aeration  Soil texture and physical properties in relation to water holding capacity, infiltration, workability and soil degradation  Soil fertility in relation to possible nutrient limitations for crop production, including soil reaction, organic carbon, macro and micronutrient levels in the soil. Map layers were generated for the following themes, based on which the evaluation is done: Road network (access roads, tracks)  Drainage network, rivers and streams  Topography: elevation, slope and contour  Land use and land cover  Rock outcrop  Built-up area and settlements Mapping of these different features is done using satellite imagery. The most recent, commercially available, high-resolution imagery of the area and the publicly available imagery were acquired. Recent imagery is used for mapping of the features mentioned above by image interpretation and on-screen digitizing, and these are verified in the field. Elevation is mapped using existing STRM data.In the field, observations are made on land use and land cover, terrain, and soil characteristics. The sampling design included 120 and 60 sampling points for Eruwa and Fasola respectively using a fixed grid sampling approach to determine the locations in the field. The observations in the field are made according to standard operating procedure and data was recorded electronically using ODK Collect, and forms designed for this purpose and adapted to this study. The data collected were used for ground truthing for the image interpretation and for the validation of data and maps generated.At each point of observation soil samples are taken from the topsoil (0-20 cm) and subsoil (20 -50 cm) for analyses in the laboratory. The soil samples were analysed for gravel content, particle size, organic carbon, exchangeable acidity, total nitrogen, available phosphorus, exchangeable potassium, exchangeable sodium, exchangeable calcium, exchangeable magnesium, sulphur, manganese, zinc, boron, copper, and iron using a combination of spectral and wet chemistry standard analysis procedures.Activities have been carried out in the chronological order as indicated in the table below.  The area is located about 70 km northwest of Ibadan and a short distance from Eruwa Township. The area measures about three thousand hectares. The Area of Interest (AoI) is a cultivated area, meaning that those parts that allow for cultivation are in use. The area falls within the transition zone of the derived savanna to the southern guinea savanna ecological zone. However, there are no forest patches remaining and there are cashew plantations and woodland patches scattered within the landscape. Majority of the trees have been cut for cultivation and the total cropped area account for over 60% of the farm settlements while the remaining land is either fallow, cashew plantation or water bodies. This observation was made using data from satellite imagery, validated by information gathered on the ground (ground truthing).The landform and soils are typically those that are derived from the basement rock complex, which consist of hard crystalline and metamorphic rocks (granite and gneisses), on which soils have developed in-situ. The landscape is classified as level to hilly with slope classes ranging from 'flat to almost flat' to 'sloping'.Around the higher elevation there are find large rock outcrops though these are effectively at the fringes of the farm. The soils in the AoI have developed on the same type of rock and are of light texture. The soil depth may vary considerable depending on the depth of the bedrock and patterns of erosion and sedimentation which relates to the historical land use. Map 1 presents the locations where soil samples were collected and field observations made.There are two main access roads, one originating from Eruwa Township, another from Abeokuta-Igboora-Iseyin road that run more or less parallel but bridged within the farm settlement. These roads unlock the different parts of the terrain. The larger central and northern parts of the terrain are accessed through a network of dirt roads (all-weather) that enter from Map 1. Map of Eruwa farm settlement showing the boundary of the study area, roads and tracks, drainage networks and locations of the sampling points both the east and the west. The Abeokuta-Igboora-Iseyin road is a tarmac road in good condition and this passes through the farm from the West to the East in the Southern part of the farm. The north-west section of the terrain is accessed through a minor road which may give difficulty during the rainy season.There are many single dirt roads that connects the different sections of the land. Generally, accessibility to the terrain is good. The only section that might be difficult to access currently is the section in the northwest extremity of the land. The accessibility of this part of the area needs to be improved by the construction of an access road. The whole southern section is having a better road infrastructure. There are fine networks of tracks that seem to be in good condition. The road network is mapped in Map 1.The main drainage channels run in the general direction from north-east to south-west. The drainage pattern is dendritic. There is an artificial lake which effectively occupies the centre of the farm settlement that is create by the dam that has been constructed for the purpose of power generation. It is no longer in use as such, and the lake could be an important source of irrigation water at least for areas directly surrounding the lake. The whole area is part of one, quite large catchment area, upstream of the lake. It means that all the water that falls within the catchment will be concentrated at this point and the dam has enormous potential to provide sufficient water for irrigation throughout the year if well managed.The elevation ranges from around 77 to 182 masl, with the highest elevation found in the fringes of the land both in the south and in the north. The lowest elevation points are associated with the lake and the main river running from north-east to south-west (see Map 2). Also, there are several hill tops located at the extremities of the land area. In this landscape developed on the basement rock complex, The landforms are characterised by hills with often rock outcrop on the top, giving rise to an undulating to rolling landform with a radial pattern in the direction of the slope (Map 2). In the case of Eruwa farm settlement, rock outcrops are found only at the outer limits and even outside the AoI. The slope gradient class varies from 'flat to almost flat' to 'moderately steep'. Flat areas hardly occur and the whole area is sloping to varying degree. The larger part of the areas falls within the 'flat to almost flat' and 'gently sloping', slope steepness classes, and should not pose any problem to mechanised operations.The shape of the slopes in this eastern section is convex, and the length may be up to 500 meters but is generally less (though more than 200m), which allows for the construction of fairly large plots, but not enough for large scale mechanized farming operations. There is very little flat terrain and most of the land is gently undulating to sometimes rolling or sloping terrain. (See Figure 1 for the profile of the west to east transect).Similarly, the north -south transect is part of the valley system in the middle of the land. The landscape is undulating, and slope class is predominantly 'moderately sloping'. There are more variations in the elevation class and the slope map shows relatively more yellow colours. Most of the land has been cleared at some point in time and currently 56% of the Aol is cropland (Map 3). All the southern, the eastern and the north-eastern parts are open and presently being used for farming. The north-western sections of the farm are either occupied with Teak plantation or with secondary regrowth. There is a teak plantation in the southwest corner covering an area of 161 ha. There are numerous patches of cashew plantation across the entire land.The vegetation is generally very open, with low tree densities and some shrub vegetation or herbaceous vegetation as understory. Major parts of the woodland are teak and cashew plantations (rather than considering these to be part of a long-term fallow system). These woody vegetation patches are therefore indicative of less suitable land and soil conditions. The cultivated land is mainly used for cassava, maize and soybean cultivation. Soil depth and texture Soil depth restrictions are measured by augering, indicating the depth at which one cannot further drill down in the soil. Depth restriction does not equate to rooting depth restriction but is a good indicator of effective soil depth. Restrictions generally occur because of the increasing gravel content with depth associated with plinthite formation. Crop roots will have difficulties penetrating such soil layers. The soil depth varies from very shallow (<25cm) to deep (>100cm). The very shallow soils occupy about 35% of the AoI, whereas 45% is shallow (>25 cm<50 cm depth), and 20% deep (<50 cm >120 cm). See Map 4 for the variation in soil depth across the farm. The extreme southeast, southwest and fringes of the western and the north-western sections are areas of very shallow soils with an average of 57% gravel content where the highest gravel content in this section of very shallow soil is about 77%. This will very much impact on the possibilities for crop production in the area, with the area suitable for arable crops being effectively less than 30% of the land. The deep soils are located at the lower slopes and valley bottom and vary in gravel content from 4 to 21%. Gravel content was determined for all soil samples. Gravel content varies widely from 1 to 77% and the regions of high gravel content (40 -77%) are widespread and are not localized to a particular section within the AoI. On average the gravel content of the soil is 21%. Gravel content is associated with the soil depth. The shallower the soil, the higher the gravel content is likely to be. The probability of finding soil depth restriction is high (35%) and when these occur the restrictions are also severe with soils having a depth of less than 25 cm. The implication of high gravel content is that the soils have an effectively lower clay and silt percentage, which may put them effectively in a different soil textural class and which will negatively affect the hydrological properties (i.e., water holding capacity especially). However, also the SOC content and available nutrients in actual sense will be lower than the measured values (because the analysis is done on the samples from which the gravel has been removed). This needs to be taken into account when interpreting the results of the analysis.Soils in this area are derived from the Basement Rock Complex, which generally results in Map 4 Soil depth distribution within the farm settlement light textured soils. The soil textural class varies between loamy sand (51%) and sandy loam (42%), though quite a few of the soils have a textural composition that puts them on the transition between the 'loamy sand' and 'sandy loam' textural classes. Occasionally there are soils with higher clay content (up to 23%) that shifts the textural class to sandy clay loam, and these are prevalent in the area immediately surrounding the lake. Based on the textural composition, over 90% of the sampling points are categorized as belonging to either the 'less' or 'least desirable' soil textural type, implying a low moisture holding capacity and indicating the moisture available for plant uptake at field capacity is rather low. The soils have been classified as 'well' to 'extremely well' drained in all cases and there is very little structural development.Together with the shallowness of the soil this means that there is a strong risk for shortage of water available for plant uptake at particular moments, even in intermedia and high rainfall areas if the rainfall distribution pattern is somewhat irregular. Moisture deficit may occur only after a few dry days and irrigation needs to be done quite regular to prevent it. Moisture deficit affects the availability of nutrients and impacts on the uptake of the nutrients by plants. The sandy and gravelly texture and little developed structure affect root development as well. Soil amendments are needed to improve the soil physical characteristics and the only practical measure is to increase soil organic matter by adding manure, compost, or other organic resources.The soil contains considerable and varying amounts of gravel, and the gravel percentage is used for correction of the soil nutrient concentrations in order to reflect the effective amounts of plant nutrients available for plant uptake. The rating of sufficiency levels is based on these corrected values.Soil organic carbon (SOC) is an important quality indicator as it supplies many plant nutrients and regulates many other soil properties. About 78% of the Aol has soils which are either very low (SOC<0.7%) or low (<1.2%) in soil organic carbon (OC) but the low OC soils are prevalent. Soils with adequate to high level of organic carbon only occupy 22% of the Aol. The SOC variations reflect land use and land cover pattern across the AoI (Map 5), in which the very low and low SOC areas are associated with the intensively cropped areas. The SOC has a strong influence on other soil properties especially for Map 5 Soil organic carbon distribution the sandy soils of the farm, whether related to hydrologic properties, soil chemical properties or soil biological properties.Soil pH is a master variable in soils because it controls many chemical and biochemical processes operating within the soil. pH is a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of a soil. Soil pH is very important in crop production due to the fact that soil pH regulates plant nutrient availability by controlling the chemical form of the different nutrients and herewith also influences their chemical reactions. As a result, soil and crop productivity are linked to soil pH value. Soil pH is generally at optimum level within the Eruwa Farm settlement with about 97% of the soils having optimum pH (5.5<pH<7.0) of the topsoil (Map 6). There are no management concerns with respect to the soil pH.The capacity of the soil to hold nutrients other than N and P (that is Ca, Mg, K and Na, as reflected in the ECEC), is strongly related to the soil organic carbon content, for this type of soils. The ECEC is considered critically low in 34% of the land, low in 57%, adequate in 8% and high in 2% of the land. Regions of extremely low ECEC are prevalent in the south end of the land (Map 7). The soils of the AoI are limiting in nitrogen with over 90% of the land being very low in soil nitrogen and follows a similar pattern of variations as that of the ECEC across the land (Map 8). Phosphorus is critically low in 39% and low in 57% of the AoI. Regions of adequate phosphorus content are about 4% of the total farm settlement area. Potassium is relatively adequate in the soils at Eruwa where 60% of the farm has adequate level of potassium in the soil. Among the other soil nutrients, calcium is the most sufficient with over 90% of the AoI being at adequate level. Magnesium is however low in about 83% of the land. In terms of the micronutrient Map 6 Soil pH distribution Map 7 Distribution of the effective cation exchange capacity of the soil content, manganese, iron, copper, and zinc are at adequate levels in over 95% of the land. Meanwhile boron is limiting in over 90% of the AoI (See Appendix). Generally, the soil fertility is rated low and therefore requires nutrient application in form of mineral fertilizer and manure for sustainable crop production. Tables and maps of soil nutrients characteristics are included in the Appendix.Land units have been defined based on a combination of land and soil characteristics that are defined in terms of the soil type. These characteristics are: land use and land cover, soil depth, slope, soil organic carbon and cation exchange capacity (CEC). For land use focus is on the field patterns. The maps of these properties are overlain, and by looking at the spatial distribution patterns of these properties it is possible to delineate land units that are homogeneous in terms of the composite characteristics with clear differences between the units in terms of the property values. The units are subsequently characterized in terms of pH, fertility status, soil texture, soil depth, etc. Based on these characteristics, an integrated evaluation of the suitability of the land for commercial agricultural use is made, which looks Map 8 Distribution of nitrogen and potassium in the top and subsoils of the farm at suitability for mechanised operations, suitability for the different types of crops and soil fertility. All units are labelled and are grouped based on these characteristics the groups subsequently rates in terms of suitability. The various groups have been given their unique colour coding (See Map 9). 5, 23, 25, 26, 31, 33, 36, 40, 49 & LU 56) Units of group 1 are located in different parts of the AoI and seems to be associated with the area surrounding drainages. LU 23 and LU 36 are found in SW of the Aol while LU 25 and LU 26 are in the southeast. Group 1 essentially lies in the lower elevation area; some units coincide with the main river course, while others are associated with some of the main tributaries. The soils seem relatively fertile because of the relatively high SOC content, which may be attributed to their position in the landscape and the debris that might have been deposited here as a consequence, or, on the other hand, be attributed to the seemingly less intense land use that will also have contributed to an accumulation of organic matter. This group and the individual units are a mix of shrub and grassland and cultivated land. The soils are of light texture (sandy loam), though with a relatively high clay content of about 16% clay, which makes these soils fall in the class of favourable textural properties. The soils are moderately deep and has a favourable soil pH. The soils contain relatively high levels of organic carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. The soil organic carbon and potassium levels are adequate for most arable crop. Water availability is not a concern, and the topography is very gentle undulating making mechanization possible without any major restrictions. This encapsulates the best units of the land in terms of soil fertility conditions, water availability, road accessibility and suitability for mechanization (topography). Group 1 is suitable for the cultivation of many arable crops, among which the more demanding crops like maize and rice to some degree. But these are relatively small patches rather than extensive areas. LU 5 measures 193.5 ha, LU 23 measures 65.4 ha, LU 25 measures 8.3 ha, LU 26 measures 4.9 ha, LU 31 measures 22.6 ha, LU 33 measures 10.9 ha, LU 36 measures 21.3 ha, LU 40 measures 36.3 ha, LU 49 measures 63.1 ha and LU 56 measures 10.3 ha. Group 1 measures an area of 436.6 ha and covers 14% of the entire farm settlement.Group 2 is situated along the main drainage networks and their distributaries of the Aol and lies in the low elevation area, like Group 1. The soils fall within the sandy loam textural class and occassioanlly there are more clayey soils which shift the textural class to sandy clay loam, thus making the soil texture to fall within the desirable class. The soils are moderately deep and the pH is favourable for the growth of most arable crops. The soil organic carbon is relatively high and not less than 1.1% in most cases. The soil nitrogen is highest for these units (Group 2) relative to the other portions of the Aol.Potassium and other macronutrients are at adeqaute levels while the micronutrients are also within the sufficiency thresholds. The soil fertility is rated high for this kind of highly weathered soils. The decomposition of debris deposited along and around the river course and its distributaries may account for this observation. On the other hand, there are dense woody vegetation in this riverrine area and along the drainage channels. The soils of the units within Group 2 are suitable for intensive agriculture, like the soil in Group 1. However, these units are mostly narrow strips of land along the drainages/streams and rviers and therefore not suited for large scale mechanised farming, but maybe suited for specific and dedicated forms of land use (e.g., vegetables). Soil fertility should, however, be maintained for sustainable crop production. LU 4 measures an area of 55.6 ha, LU 18 measures 15.0 ha, LU 29 measures 36.9 ha and LU 42 measures an area of 194.6 ha while the enitre Group 2 measures a total area of 302 ha and covers 10% of the AoI.Group 3 is only LU 43 and it is situated in the extreme northeast of the AoI. This is a relatively high elevation area but with flat to almost flat lands. The unit is under intensive cultivation with contiguous fields and all woody vegetation has been cleared. The soil is sandy clay loam though still gravelly but falls within the class of favourable textural properties having good water holding capacity. Soil depth varies from being very shallow to moderately deep but there are more occurrences of the moderately deep soils. The soil pH is optimum for sustainable production of many tropical crops. Soil organic carbon content is high with values up to 2.2%. There do not seem to be nutrient limitations, whether related to macronutrients or micronutrients. This unit is a spot of highly fertile soils. LU 43 measures an area of 37.1 ha which is 1% of the farm settlement.Group 4 (LU 6, 10, 14, 17, 19, 35, 38, 39, 44, 45, 50)Group 4 also falls within the low elevation area but is not associated with the drainage network like Groups 1 and 2. A large part of this group falls within the eastern section of the Aol. The units are intensively cropped area and cassava is the dominant crop. The soil pH is optimum for a wide range of agricultural crops. The soil organic carbon content ranges between 0.7 and 1.10%. The soil is moderately deep in most cases with average of 60 cm depth. The soil has low nitrogen content whereas potassium and other macronutrients are at adequate levels though phosphorus level is also low. Soils of these units are well supplied with micronutrients such as iron, zinc and copper. The capacity of the soil to hold nutrients is low with ECEC values of less than 7.0 cmol/kg in most cases. In terms of soil fertility and general suitability for agricultural use Group 4 comes after Groups 1 and 2. LU 6 measures an area of 32.6 ha. LU 10 measures 41.7 ha. LU 14 measures 113 ha. LU 17 measures 302.4 ha. LU 19 measures 22 ha. LU 35 measures 31.8 ha. LU 38 measures 6.9 ha. LU 39 measures 18.7 ha. LU 44 measures 8.3 ha. LU 45 measures 6.2 ha and LU 50 measures 13.2 ha. In total, Group 4 measures an area of 596.8 ha and covers 19% of the AoI.Group 5 (LU 2, 3, 8, 9, 21, 22, 30, 34, 48, 52 & LU 54)These land units spread across the entire land from the north to the south. These units are associated with the mid-slopes. The units are neither close nor associated with the rivers and streams (the valleys) or with the upper slopes and hilltop area. The drainage channels or streams are not very far away though. Apart from LU 3 and 48 which are more of shrublands, others are cropland with large to moderate sized fields of cassava and soybean. The topography is gently undulating and does not vary within this group, making mechanization a possibility without major restrictions, though measures need to be taken to control erosion. Soil depth varies between very shallow (<25 cm depth) and shallow (<50 cm) with associated high gravel content. The gravel content in the topsoil reduces with increase of soil depth. The soil textural classes are sandy loam and loamy sand textural classes, with the sandy loam class occurring more frequently. However, when considering the gravel content, the soil texture will effectively be lighter than what the sand, silt and clay percentages as determined by analysis indicate (the actual clay and silt percentages are less than indicated), with the implication that the soils fall within the class of less desirable textural properties. That is, light textured soils with very limited water holding capacity and therefore with limited capacity to provide water for plant uptake. This will have most severe consequences for annual crops with less developed root systems.The soil pH does not vary much and is within the desirable range for most arable crops. The soil organic carbon percentage is low though relatively high (mean SOC = 1.0%) for this type of sandy soils. The soil nitrogen and phosphorus follow similar patterns as the SOC. These types of soils are quite vulnerable to loss of soil organic matter, and because soil organic matter is such an important aspect of soil quality and has an important role to play in maintaining soil functions especially in these sandy soils, extra attention needs to be directed to the management of soil organic matter and maintaining and actually improving SOC content.Most of the micronutrients are at adequate levels, particularly Mn, Fe and Zn. The capacity of the soil to hold nutrients (ECEC) is low for all land units in Group 5. If low soil fertility and water availability are addressed, the units can be used for less demanding crops; that is sorghum, cassava (if soil depth permits), soybean, and others, but less suitable for maize for example. LU 2 measures an area of 79.2 ha, LU 3 measures 24.6 ha, LU 8 measures 85.8 ha, LU 9 measures 50.8 ha, LU 21 measures 250.6 ha, LU 22 measures 84.7 ha, LU 30 measures 26.5 ha, LU 34 measures 42.6 ha, LU 48 measures 291.4 ha, LU 52 measures 22.8 ha while LU 54 measures 67.7 ha. Group 5 measures a total area of 1,026.7 ha which is 33% of the entire farm area.These units are found in the eastern section of the Aol and are associated with the midslopes. Similar to Group 5, the units are also not connected with the rivers and streams with the exception of LU 24. Group 6 is a cropland with large to moderate sized fields of cassava. The topography is gently undulating, making mechanization feasible without major restrictions, though measures need to be taken to control soil erosion. Soil depth varies between shallow (<50 cm depth) and moderately deep (<100 cm) with average gravel content of 22%. The soil textural class is predominantly loamy sand, with the implication that the soils fall within the class of less desirable textural properties. This implies that the soils are light textured with very limited water holding capacity. Thus, the soil capacity to make water available for plant uptake is limited. The consequence is severe (more severe than Group 5) for annual crops with shallow root system.The soil pH varies from 5.9 to 6.5 being moderately acid to slightly acid but still within the desirable range for most arable crops. The soil has organic carbon content that varies considerably from 0.59 to 1.66% but with an average of 0.94%. The soil has low level of nitrogen but moderate level of phosphorus. The soils of Group 6 fall among the vulnerable soils described in Group 5.Most of the micronutrients are at adequate levels, particularly Mn, Fe and Zn. The capacity of the soil to hold nutrients (ECEC) is low for all the land units. This group may be used for less nutrient demanding crops as specified under Group 5. LU 12 measures an area of 65 ha, LU 24 measures 26.8 ha, LU 28 measures 88.1 ha, LU 46 measures 24.2 ha. Group 6 measures a total area of 204 ha and covers 7% of the AoI.Group 7 (LU 1, 7, 20, 27, 37, 51, 55)Group 7 is an extensive area of land covering mostly the southeast section of the AoI and some spots along the western border of the land. This is a relatively high elevation area, and the land varies from being gently sloping to moderately sloping. This type of terrain is still suitable for mechanised operations, but erosion control measures need to be put in place.There are few streams (river tributaries) that run through LU 1, 27 and LU 37. The units are at some distance from the lake and from the main river. The streams are seasonal, which makes water availability a challenge, particularly during the dry season.The land is used for continuous cropping predominantly, and there are few scattered patches of shrubland. The soils are very shallow and, in most cases, less than 40 cm deep. The gravel content is high (up to 40% in most cases) which increases with depth. The sand fraction of the soil increases towards the north from about 74% to 80%, resulting into less desired soil textural classes which in this case vary from sandy loam to loamy sand but with a higher incidence of loamy sand soils. This implies that the water holding capacity of the soil is very limited. The soil pH in this group is least among others but still suitable for most arable crops and tree crops. The soil organic carbon is low, while nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium levels are very low. The effective cation exchange capacity of the soil, which is the ability of the soil to hold nutrients is rated low. The group perhaps has the lowest soil fertility and the least desirable attributes for sustainable cultivation of arable crops, but with sound agronomic practices and careful selection tree crops could thrive. Alternatively, one could think of grassland (or trees in combination with grassland), also as a possible strategy for enhancing the soil quality. LU 1 measures 388 ha, LU 7 measures 12 ha, LU 20 measures 38.6 ha, LU 27 measures 66 ha, LU 37 measures 40 ha, LU 51 measures 15.6 ha while LU 55 measures 13.1 ha. Group 7 measures an area of 573.3 ha and covers 19% of the farm settlement.LU 47 is not a land unit as such but a lake constructed along the main drainage course that passes through the Aol. The artificial lake covers an area of 96 hectares and situated almost at the centre of the settlement. Presently there are extensive fishing activities going on within the lake and the lake is also being used by some peasant farmers for irrigation. Some of the dwellers of the settlement also use the lake as a source of potable water. The reservoir has great potentials to provide water for irrgiation during dry spells or dry season thereby making all year round food production a possibility. Over the years, the lake has accummulated a lot of debris thereby reducing the volume of water it contains. Transforming the farm settlement into farm estate will require that the lake be dredged to remove all accummulated sediments.In summary, there are some major constraints for the development of Eruwa farm settlement to make it suitable for commercial agricultural use. In the end it is about weighing the options for the commercial exploitation of the land, considering the conditions and investment required to amend the constraints to make the land suitable for its potential and intended use. At this point this report indicate and map the constraints giving a general recommendation as to the type of land use that can be considered.There is a dense network of dirt roads that provides access to the whole area. However, these dirt roads need to be upgraded to improve access and allow easy traffic within the area for cars and light trucks to facilitate the development of the area for commercial farm operations. The upper western section of the land is the least accessible, but it is at the same time also the area with the lowest priority for being developed. The access roads, especially the road that provides access to the eastern and northern parts of the area of interest will require upgrading.Most of the land that is suitable for agricultural use has been cleared. There may be secondary regrowth and shrubs and bushes, but it will not require heavy machinery for land clearing. The teak plantation in the southwest corner (clearly mapped out in the land use and land cover map) should be maintained.The topography is such that mechanized crop production is possible in most places; however, the shallow depth (very shallow and shallow soils) being the main obstacle for any mechanised operation, and especially land preparation. Based on the soil depth map a considerable area can be excluded for mechanised farming, but the units belonging to Group 1, 2, 4 and 3 (to a lesser degree) have limited restrictions and should, therefore, be prioritized for developing the area for mechanised and commercial agriculture. Group 4, having larger stretches of land that is not intersected by drainages, providing the best opportunities to establish larger plots suited for mechanised operations. Land units 31, 33, 40, 42, and 49, amongst others, that have favourble soil conditions, but are stretched out as narrow finrges of land along the drainage channels give less opportunity for establishment of larger plots required for large scale mechanised operations.In terms of slope there do not seem to be major impediments. For slope class 2 'Gently sloping land' there is also no impediment, but soil conservation measures need to be taken to control erosion. This should consist of ploughing along the contour lines to limit runoff and the construction of contour bunds (graded bunds). However, because of the light texture the bunds can be constructed at some distance from each other. For slope class 3 'Moderately steep slopes' there are still no major restriction for tractor operation (at least up to 10% slopes), though it becomes less practical and less efficient. More far-reaching measures will need to be taken to control erosion, like strip cropping or use of vegetation strips or terracing. The possibilities for terracing in this case are limited because of the relative shallow soils.The soil condition requires attention. The light texture, sandy soils in combination with the low soil organic carbon content, requires careful management of the soil to increase the soil organic matter and herewith also the fertility of the soil. It makes this type of soil (Group 5 and 6) less suitable for high demanding crops like maize. The soil fertility is low and it can be corrected by using fertilizer but only in an integrated approach, in combination with other measures to increase the SOC content for example and applying agronomic practices adjusted to the soil conditions to make sure that there is proper response to the fertilizer application (micro-dosing and spot application for example).Of the various land units that have been identified, Land units in Group 1 to 4 have the most favourable conditions and these occupy 44% of the AoI. The area is suitable for arable cropping, for grain crops and root and tubers, but attention should be given to good agronomic practice to maintain and build up the soil fertility status. These are small units and strips of land along the river and could be prioritized for pulses and vegetable and rice production maybe at a small scale. Group 3 preferably should be prioritized for nutrient demanding crops like maize particularly during the rainy season. Group 4 should be prioritized for large scale mechanised operation.Group 5 and 6 are considered marginally suitable for high nutrient demanding crops like maize. Group 5 can be considered for the cultivation of oil palm for example where the soil condition is more moist which may help to satisfy the water requirements of oil palm in the dry season. Otherwise, perennial crops such as cashew could be considered. If the low soil fertility is addressed, culivation of cassava and soybean could be considered, but expectation of high yields should be moderated.Group 7 land units are less suitable for arable cropping. The steeper slopes require measures to control erosion and the occurrence of shallow soils limits the possibilities for terracing. There may be patches of land that are suitable, but these are not very extensive. The low soil fertility is a further limitation. Under these conditions a tree crop would likely be a more suitable solution. Cashew with its lateral root system would probably do well. Citrus and other tree crops such as teak could probably be considered but would also suffer from the low soil fertility status.Groups 6 and 7 cover about 26% of the farm settlement. These two groups have units that spread across the different sections of the farm. They are not suitable for crop production. They are however suitable for various forms of animal husbandry, office complex, processing centres and residential buildings such as staff quarters.The area is located about 75 km north of Ibadan, Oyo State and it measures eight hundred and twelve hectares. The Area of Interest (AoI) is a farm settlement located directly opposite Fasola Township. The AoI is not actually in use as such, but there are several cropping and grazing activities going on within the 'farm' premise. There are few buildings and some infrastructures on the land, most of which are in dilapidated condition. There are extensive areas of cultivated land spread across the settlement and crops grown include cassava, soybean, yam, maize and rice. There are some plantations of Gliricidia Teak in the eastern part of the AoI. Fulani herdsmen herd their cattle within the farm in considerable numbers. The area falls within the transition zone of the derived savanna to the southern guinea savanna ecological zone.The landform and soils are typically those that are derived from the basement rock complex, which consist of hard crystalline and metamorphic rocks (granite and gneisses), on which soils have developed in-situ. The landscape is classified as level to hilly with slope classes ranging from 'flat to almost flat' to 'sloping'. Map 10 presents the location of the sampling points, the drainage channels and the road networks. There are rock outcrops at the fringe of the southsouth boundary but too small to appear in the satellite imagery. The soils in the AoI have developed on the same type of rock and are of light texture. The soil depth varies considerablydepending on the depth of the bedrock and patterns of erosion and sedimentation which will relate to the historical land use.There is a regional road that provides access to the farm connecting Oyo to Iseyin. This road demarcates the northern boundary of the farm settlement and runs in the East -West direction. There are several dirt roads that nicely connects the different sections of the farm. Generally, accessibility of the farm settlement area is good and the accessibility of the various sections of the land is also good. The road network is mapped in Map 10.The main drainage channel runs along the eastern and southern border of the settlement area. This river is a third or fourth order permanent river. The river is called the Awon river which is actually a confluence of the Awon and Oloya river that join at the most extreme eastern point of the terrain. The catchments area is relatively small, meaning that, while there is plenty water during the rainy season, water will be little during the dry seasons (Map 10). The river is already dammed halfway along the southern boundary, creating a reservoir of not too big a size. The reservoir provides opportunities for irrigation, if it were for supplemental irrigation only. There seems to be an opportunity for creating an additional reservoir to increase the water available for irrigation. There are two seasonal streams within the western section that connect to the main drainage channel in the south. There is another stream that demarcates the western boundary of the farm settlement area. There is a borehole facility (with water tank) in working condition located in the centre of the land. In the past the tank was used to supply water to the water troughs to provide the cattle of water. That means there is some infrastructure that can be upgraded and used for irrigation purposes, maybe. This can be an asset for the further development of this land into a farm estate.The elevation ranges from around 200 to 276 masl, with the highest elevation found in the north towards the centre of the land. The lowest elevation points are associated with the drainage networks within and at the fringe of the farm (see Map 11). In this landscape developed on the basement rock complex, the landform is characterised by hills with often rock outcrop on the top, giving rise to a gently undulating to undulating topography (Map 11). In this particular case, rock outcrops are limited to the fringe of land in the south of the AoI. The slope gradient class varies from 'flat to almost flat' to 'sloping' in some parts. Flat areas hardly occur and the whole area is sloping to varying degree.The elevation profile of the land in the west to east transect shows an undulating terrain and the slope length varying from about 300 -800 meters or more (Fig. 2). There are relatively long slopes in the western section of the transect.The situation in the southnorth transect is the same, with generally more gently sloping land. The landscape is level to nearly level particularly around the south while around the north the land is gently undulating with long slopes.Map 12 is from a global database of land use and land cover data which does not relate the current state of the land. Most of the land has been cleared at some point in time and currently over 60% of the land is being used for cultivation. The entire western section is more intensively cultivated than the other parts of the land. There are Gliricidia plantations dispersed across the land but more prevalent in the eastern section of the farm. Crops grown are yam, cassava, maize and soybean. There are a number of staff residential quarters which are still in good condition. Also, there are several office buildings around the north section of the farm Soil depth and texture Soil depth restriction is measured by how deep one is able to dig with the soil auger. The depth restriction is indicated by the depth at which it is not possible to drill further down the soil profile. Depth restriction does not equate to rooting depth restriction but is a good indicator of effective soil depth. Restrictions generally occur because of the increasing gravel content with depth. Crop roots will have difficulties penetrating such soil layers. The soil depth varies from very shallow to moderately deep. The soils are generally moderately deep (>50 cm); 25% of the area is shallow (>25 cm<50 cm depth) and only about 3% of the area is very shallow (<25 cm). See Map 13 for the variation in soil depth across the farm settlement. Soil depth is associated with the areas of higher elevation (hilltops) and are found predominantly in the northwestern section and there is also a spot of shallow soils in the northeast. Gravel is present in the soil profile, and gravel content is generally associated with soil depth, in which the shallow soils have higher gravel content. The gravel content of the soil varies widely from 1 to 100% but generally the average gravel content is 17%. The very shallow soils are not suitable for agricultural production. The shallow soils do present a constraint specifically to mechanised operations. If claypans occur within shallow depth it will affect the drainage capacity of the soil.Soils in this area are derived from the Basement Rock Complex, which generally results in light textured soils. The soil textural class varies predominantly between loamy sand (44%) and sandy loam (45%) with few occurrences of sandy clay loam and loam. The sandy clay loam is found in the subsoil and these type of soils are located along the drainage channels. Based on the textural composition, and considering the gravel content, about 70% of the sampling points are categorized as belonging to soil type having either less or least desirable soil textural properties, implying a low moisture holding capacity and indicating low moisture availability for plant uptake at field capacity when the soils are well drained. The soils have been classified as well to extremely well drained, though we see some spots of poorly drained soils connected with the drainage channels.Based on the aforementioned characteristics, there is a potential risk for shortage of water for plant uptake, even under condition of fairly regular rainfall. Moisture deficit may occur only after a few dry days and irrigation needs to be done quite regular to prevent it. Moisture deficit affects the availability of nutrients and impacts on the uptake of the nutrients by plants. The sandy and gravelly texture and little developed structure affect root development as well.Map 13. Soil depth variations across Fasola farm Soil amendments are needed to improve the soil physical characteristics and the only practical measure is to increase soil organic matter by adding manure, compost, or other organic resources.Soil organic carbon is an important quality indicator as it supplies many plant nutrients and regulates many other soil properties. The spatial distribution of SOC in the topsoil reflects the elevation pattern and soil depth distribution across the farm settlement (See Map 14). Soil organic carbon was very low in 26% of the sampling points, low in 43%, and 31% of the farm has SOC ranging from adequate to high levels. The regions of adequate to high level of SOC are in the southern and eastern sections of the land. There are relatively high SOC content in the direct vicinity of the drainage channels that are not cultivated. The SOC distribution is also connected with the land use history of the farm, in which the regions of very low and low SOC are associated with areas that have been more intensively used for cultivation and where most of the infrastructure and houses and buildings are situated. Soil organic carbon has a strong influence on other soil functional properties whether related to hydrologic properties, soil chemical properties or soil biological properties, and is of importance especially for sandy soils in which these properties are less suitable. The management of soil organic matter is, therefore, imperative in the management of soil water and water availability to crops, in the management of soil fertility and increase of nutrient availability to the crop, and in management of the soil biological quality and reduction in soil borne pests and diseases.Soil pH is one of key soil functional properties and it affects nutrient availability in soils. At very low pH and very high pH nutrient limitations set in as soil nutrients become unavailable for plant uptake. As a result, soil and crop productivity is linked to soil pH value. Soil pH is at optimum level within the Fasola Farm settlement (Map 15) and there is hardly any variation. There are no management concerns with respect to the soil pH.The capacity of the soil to hold nutrients other than N and P (that is Ca, Mg, K and Na, as reflected in the ECEC), is strongly related to the soil organic carbon content. The ECEC is considered critically low in 31% of the land, low in 52%, and adequate in 17% of the land (Map 16). The pattern of distribution follows the same trend as that of the SOC (Map 14). The central part towards the main entrance are areas that are critically low in SOC. This is an expected trend due to the high proportion of bare land, and more intensely cropped land within this region of the farm. The distribution pattern for nitrogen and potassium follows the same trend. The soils of the AoI are limiting in nitrogen with about 91% of the land being considered very low in soil nitrogen concentrations. Soil nitrogen is at adequate level in only 9% of the farm settlement area and these regions of adequate soil nitrogen are found in the fringes of the farm settlement area along the river (Map 17). Phosphorus is critically low in 49% and low in 46% of the AoI. Regions of adequate phosphorus content are about 5% of the total farm settlement area. Potassium is less limiting. In 53% of the Fasola farm settlement area the level of available potassium is adequate. This occurs mostly in the eastern section which is cropped less intensely. The soil is however low in available potassium in about 47% of the land and the pattern of Map 15 Soil pH distribution on Fasola farm Map 16 Variations in effective cation exchange capacity of the soil at Fasola distribution is connected with the distribution pattern of SOC and CEC. Calcium is at adequate level in all portions of the farm; areas around the east border and the south-western corner are particularly high in calcium content. The distribution pattern of calcium follows the same pattern as those of SOC, ECEC and soil nitrogen. Magnesium is however low in about 69% of the land. The other portions of the land have adequate magnesium level. In terms of the micronutrient content, manganese, iron, copper and zinc are at adequate levels in over 95% of the land. Meanwhile boron is limiting in over 90% of the AoI (See Appendix). Generally, the soil fertility is rated moderate for this type of soil and therefore requires sound agronomic management and nutrient application in form of mineral fertilizer and manure for sustainable crop production. Tables and maps of soil nutrients characteristics are included in the Appendix.Land use zoning and suitability assessment Land units have been defined based on a combination of land and soil characteristics that are defined in terms of the soil type. These characteristics are: land use and land cover, soil depth, slope, soil organic carbon and cation exchange capacity (CEC). For land use focus is on the field patterns. The maps of these properties are overlain, and by looking at the spatial distribution patterns of these properties it is possible to delineate land units that are homogeneous in terms of the composite characteristics with clear difference between the units in terms of the property values. The units are subsequently characterized in terms of pH, fertility status, soil texture, soil depth, etc. Based on these characteristics an integrated evaluation of the suitability of the land for commercial agricultural use is made, which looks at suitability for mechanised operations, suitability for the different types of crops and soil fertility. All units are labelled and are grouped based on these characteristics the groups subsequently rates in terms of suitability. Map 18 presents the land units within the Aol.Map 17 Variations in soil total nitrogen and exchangeable potassium across Fasola farm Group 1 (LU 6, 9, 11, 12, 15 & LU 20)Group 1 comprises 6 land units with a total acreage of 206.8 ha and covers 25% of the entire AoI. LU 6 is located in the extreme northeast section and bounded in the east by the major drainage channel around the area. The unit is open and under continuous cropping. The unit has an undulating terrain with slopes varying from gently sloping to moderately sloping. LU 9 is small unit located in the extreme eastern section of the Aol, bounded in the east by the major drainage channel. LU 11 is a larger unit located in the eastern section of the land stretching towards the south of the land and bounded in the east and south by the major river that is also the boundary of the Aol. The river is dammed providing the land unit with good water resource for irrigation. LU 12 and LU 12 are again small units situated in the south and bounded in the south by the river. LU 15 is located in the centre-west part of the AoI; the elevation is relatively low with the main stream within the Aol passing through it. Irrigation water for this Group 1 is available will need to be pumped up. LU 6, LU 12, LU 20, and LU 15 are purely agricultural lands with extensive cropping activities presently on going while LU 11 is composed of a mix of cropland and woodland (old tree plantations). A major portion of LU 11 is poorly drained and may be considered suitable for rice or other crops that do not mind Map 18. Fasola Land units' map wet feet. Generally, the land is moderately deep (>60 cm depth) with lower gravel content. The soil texture is mostly sandy loam and, in some cases, sandy clay loam with good water holding capacity are found. Group 1 comprised land units with the best agricultural potential in the entire AoI. The soil is optimum/adequate for a number of soil quality parameters such as pH, SOC, macroand micronutrients. These make the soil fertility and highly suitable for agricultural activities. Caution should be taken however to prevent erosion and depletion of the soil fertility. LU 6 is 8.7 ha, LU 9 is 2.3 ha, LU 11 is 127.2 ha, LU 12 is 7.8 ha, LU 15 is 41.6 ha while LU 20 is 19.2 ha.The units of Group 2 are closely associated with the units of Group 1, and they share the same physiographic unit. All units of Group 2 are adjacent to units of Group 1 and they share many of the same characteristics. Apart from LU 19 all the land units in Group 2 are bounded by the river. LU 10 is located in the west-end of the Aol. LU 17 is located in the eastern part bounded by the Oloya river. LU 19 is sited more or less in the centre of the farm settlement while LU 13 is located in the southern section and LU 22 in the southwest section. The topography is gently undulating with long slopes without any major restrictions for mechanization. The soil is sandy loam, moderately well drained and moderately deep with no rooting restrictions. Group 2 has the highest effective cation exchange capacity with values greater than or equal to 10 cmol/kg, and which distinguishes this Group from Group 1. The soil pH is suitable for most arable crops. The soil organic carbon is at adequate levels with values greater than 1.2% in most cases. The macro-and micronutrients are at adequate levels with little or no concerns for nutrient limitations. The soil fertility level of Group 2 is good and the units should be considered as the priority areas for arable cropping. LU 10 measures 13.6 ha, LU 13 measures 79.3, LU 17 measures 50.3 ha, LU 19 measures 21.9 ha and LU 22 measures 28.4. In total, Group 2 measures 193.5 ha and occupies 24% of the farm settlement.LU 1 is located at the middle of the Aol encapsulating LU 19. LU 2 is situated in the western section stretching from north to south. LU 7 is found around the northeast section while LU 23 is located around the southwest of the Aol. These units (Group 3) are sited on the high elevation area of the Aol though just not including the highest points. The slopes are long and straight and ranging in steepness from almost flat to gently undulating. Thus, from this point of view mechanisation is possible without major constraints. These are seasonal streams that run through some of these units, but they do not carry much water and do not provide a viable source of water. The land use is that of a continuous cropland (LU 2, 7 and 23), but the southern part of LU1 has tree cover that constitutes about 30% of the land area for this Group. The soils are moderately deep and well drained. The soil texture is sandy loam but with considerable amount of gravel. The soil pH is optimum for the growth of many arable crops and soil organic carbon is adequate (>1.2%). The soil nitrogen though within the low threshold but relatively high for this type of sandy soil. The ECEC ranges between 6 and 10 cmol/kg. The soil is well supplied with a range of micronutrients. The soil fertility for this Group is considered moderate and the units can be used for many arable crops. LU 1 measures an area of 99.7 ha. LU 2 measures 99.5 ha. LU 7 measures 42.6 ha while LU 23 measures 6.4 ha. Group 3 measures in total an area of 248.2 ha and covers 31% of the AoI.Group 4 consists of only LU 5 and is found in the area with highest elevation of the Aol. but with relatively flat land and very gently undulating terrain. This unit houses the major administrative and residential buildings within the settlement. There are no streams within this unit but there is an existing borehole facility that is fairly in good condition which may be explored for irrigation at small scale. In the past this facility has been used for watering the cattle. The land cover includes some croplands, buildings, some shrubland and tree cover (old Gliricidia plantation). The soil is gravelly with about 30% gravel content and the soil texture falls in transition between sandy loam and loamy sand textural class. However, if correction for gravel content is done, the texture will be loamy sand with less favourable hydrologic conditions (very limited water holding capacity) The soil pH is optimum, but the soil organic carbon is very low. The soil concentrations of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium including the micronutrients are very low. The soil is poor in plant nutrients and other soil quality parameters indicate a poor quality. LU 5 measures an area of 56.2 ha, covering 7% of the enitre AoI.Land units in Group 5 covers 11% of the AoI and are basically located in the northern section of the land with LU 3 and 4 bordering the regional road (Oyo-Iseyin Road). LU 8 is in the northeast section. A small seasonal stream passes through LU 3 and LU 4 while there are no drainage channels within LU 8. LU 3 and 4 are solely croplands, apart from the areas directly bordering the streams, while in LU 8, some parts are cultivated while others are either on fallow or under tree cover. LU 4 houses some of the old buildings of the settlement. Soils within Group 5 are shallow with average depth of about 50 cm. The soils are gravelly and well drained. Group 5 has soils with are optimum in pH (6.3 -6.8) for most crops. Soil organic carbon is very low (<0.7%) and the group represents units with the lowest soil organic carbon content within the entire settlement. Nitrogen and other macronutrients are also critically low. The soils have low concentrations of micronutrients (among the lowest soil micronutrients content within the Aol. The overall capacity of the soil to hold nutrients (ECEC) is also very low. The soil fertility level is low and the potential for crop production is limited. These soils require careful management to restore soil fertility and should be used for the cultivation of less demanding crops (e.g., tree crops).Group 6 has four small land units all situated in the southwest section of the settlements. These land units are associated with terrain that has moderately steep slopes which distinguishes these units from the other land units of the Aol. The risk of erosion is highest in this Group. These areas are less suitable for mechanised operations though still possible and would requires measures for erosion control. The soils are under extensive cultivation. Soil fertility parameters such as soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, available phosphorus, exchangeable potassium, zinc, copper and ECEC among others are either very low or low. The soils of this units are therefore considered marginal for sustainable commercial agricultural crop production. LU 13 measures an area of 14.3 ha, LU 16 measures 2.3 ha, LU 24 measures 1.8 ha and LU 25 measures 1.7 ha. Group 6 measures a total area of 20.1 ha which is 2% of the enitre AoI.There are no major constraints for the development of Fasola farm settlement in terms of its suitability for commercial agricultural use. The access to the farm settlement is good and within the settlement there are numerous road tracks that nicely connect to different sections of the farm, and that could be upgraded to make them trafficable also during the rainy season where and when needed. There are numerous tracks that have been created by the activities of farmers and the nomadic herdsmen in the area.The topography provides opportunity for large scale mechanized crop production without any major constraints. The slope classes are 'flat to almost flat', 'gently sloping', but there is 'moderate sloping' land only in some few and small parts of the terrain. There are large stretches of land surfaces that are not dissected or fragmented, which is required for large scale mechanized operations.A considerable part of the land (approximately 70%) is cleared and currently in use. A good portion of the Aol (by approximation 30%) has dense woody vegetation composing of either woody vegetation with a single structural layer or of multi-layered woody vegetation. The single-layered woody vegetation is mainly Gliricidia septium plantation. It consists of small trees (light vegetation) that could be cleared with relatively light machinery if needed. The dense multi-layered woody vegetation in most cases relates to secondary vegetation that has established on previously cultivated land, and it still does not represent a major obstacle for clearing of the land. There are large continuous stretches of land which are cultivated with yam, cassava, maize and cowpea. There are also parts where cropland is alternated with woodland or shrubland resulting in a patchy distribution pattern and this is prevalent in the eastern section of the farm. There are local depressions in the landscape where the conditions are more wet and that lend themselves very well to the growing of rice, maize or other demanding crops.There are artificial and natural sources of water that could be explored for irrigation. The settlement is bounded by a small river in the west, and the Oloya and Awon river in the east and south. There are also some seasonal streams within the land particularly within the western section. During the late rainy season, the broad and shallow valleys associated with these streams serve as cropland for rice production and in some part as grazing land for cattle. Two borehole facilities were also observed within the farm premises and which are still in good condition and that might provide irrigation capacity for small scale intensive cultivation (e.g., production of vegetables in screen houses). In the extreme south, there is also an artificial lake which carries water all year through; not enough to ensure extensive irrigation for a larger part of the terrain, but probably enough for the strip of land bordering the river to the north. There may be an opportunity to construct a second dam and herewith a second reservoir to increase the water resrouce avaiable for irrigation. There is, therefore, no major water related constraint for further development of the farm.In terms of soil condition distinction needs to be made between the land and soils of the higher elevation parts of in the centre of the AoI (Groups 3 and 5) and the land and soil on the middle and lower slopes of the terrain towards the outer boundary of the farm settlement area (Groups 1 and 2). The latter two Groups are the most suitable and covers 49% of the AoI. The soil condition is good. The soils are moderately deep (greater than 60 cm depth). The soil texture is more favourable, soil organic carbon levels are adequate and soil fertility status is reasonable. This land has the highest production potential of the AoIThe land in the centre on the other hand (Groups 3 and 5) has a less favourable physical characteristics (high sand and gravel content), has low soil organic carbon levels and also has nutrient limitations. Careful management is required to restore soil fertility and physical characteristics and would still not result in a highly productive area. At the same time, because of the lower potential, it is not suitable for all types of crops and consideration should be given to growing less demanding crops and possibly tree crops when cultivation is done in the open field. Otherwise, cultivation in greenhouses or screenhouses can be considered for high value crops, but this will require a lot of investment that could possibly benefit from the existing infrastructure of boreholes and pipelines. The management of soil organic matter will play a crucial role to improve and maintain soil quality. But also, careful management of the water and nutrients for crop production is required to ensure efficient use of fertilizer and water resources. (The soils have low capacity to hold water and nutrients for crop uptake; fertilizers can be used to correct nutrient limitations but sound, adapted and integrated agronomic practices are required to make sure that there is sufficient response to fertilizer application). These soils are considered vulnerable because they are susceptible to loss of soil organic carbon.Most of the land units are suitable, to varying degree for agricultural crop production. A few units are considered unsuitable and thus should be excluded from crop production. Land units that fall under Group 5 and 6 should be considered and possible alternative land uses assigned; Group 4 because of the poor soil conditions and Group 6 because of the terrain conditions. For the establihsment of facilities, like barns, storage and processing facities, offices and houses, the land units of Groups 4 and 5 could best be targeted. Group 6 should be maintained under permanent vegetation.  ---------------------------------cmol+/kg------------------------------------------ ","tokenCount":"12366"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f851db707302ec83c6e626972ab167ab","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a3e0defd-e6a2-43d3-8c5e-faf945ee6fd4/retrieve","id":"-638972093"},"keywords":["Sustainable livestock systems","ex-ante environmental assessment","responsible innovation","intersectional typology","inclusive interventions August 2024 | Introducing the I-CLEANED Framework 4"],"sieverID":"58f243c4-f5d2-41ab-b327-145b92ccdc94","pagecount":"13","content":"August 2024 | Introducing the I-CLEANED Framework 2 Contents Key messages.Agri-food and livestock systems face pressure to increase production while maintaining sustainability (Rockstrom et al., 2009). Livestock is crucial for meeting the demand for animal-source foods, especially in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, livestock contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions (FAO, 2006) and has a large land and water footprint (Carbonell et al., 2021).Investors in livestock systems require tools to address trade-offs, unintended consequences, and synergies. The CLEANED tool, developed by the Alliance Bioversity-CIAT, in collaboration with the International Livestock Research Institute (IRLI), the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), is a minimum-data tool for rapid ex-ante assessment of the environmental footprint of livestock systems. It helps develop sustainable livestock plans by modeling impacts of interventions and production system changes on land use, productivity, economics, water, GHG emissions, and soil health.Effective climate-smart livestock programs must however consider the heterogeneity of smallholder farmers (Brandt et al., 2017). The updated I-CLEANED tool includes socio-economic aspects, considering the dynamics and experiences of different social groups within livestock systems, using differentiated scenarios to identify socially inclusive solutions (Kihoro et al., 2022),Responsible innovation involves co-responsibility for ensuring positive impacts and avoiding negative consequences, requiring adaptive management of the innovation process (Gee, 2013). Elinor Ostrom's 'socio-ecological systems' framework suggests that social, economic, and political settings influence system interactions and outcomes, necessitating integrated approaches for sustainability (Fischer et al., 2015). This has led to the increased use of foresight and ex-ante analyses to anticipate negative unintended outcomes of interventions and promote responsible transitions towards sustainable food systems (Klerkx & Rose, 2020;Marty, 2021). Stakeholder involvement and dynamic changes in agricultural initiatives impact multiple developmental outcomes, often involving trade-offs between positive and negative impacts across domains (Mausch et al., 2020). These trade-offs vary across societal segments, influenced by factors like wealth, employment, or religion (Hammond et al., 2020). Selecting beneficial interventions is challenging due to conflicting objectives (Klapwijk et al., 2014;Salmon et al., 2018), and current evidence is often insufficient for effective decision-making (Lipper et al., 2014). It is thus necessary to identify locally relevant technologies and visualize their performance across sustainability domains (Snapp et al., 2018;Michalscheck et al., 2019).Research often differentiates between farm types but rarely between individual farmers within a household, treating them as unified entities (Bensch et al., 2015;Tsiboe et al., 2016). However, households exhibit non-unitary decisionmaking and resource allocation behaviors (Alderman et al., 1995;Haddad et al., 1997). Men, women, and youth may have divergent roles and preferences, with distinct responsibilities in agricultural systems (Carr, 2008). Women's and men's roles in livestock keeping are shaped by access to resources and social norms, impacting productivity and resource efficiency (McKune et al., 2015;Kristjanson et al., 2014).Livestock production provides a critical livelihood and food security to millions of families, yet also contributes to environmental degradation through greenhouse gas emissions and unsustainable resource use. Social norms influence decision-making power, resource access, and income control, affecting livestock enterprises' environmental footprint (Rietveld et al., 2024).Typologies help understand diversity within farming systems by categorizing farms into subsets based on criteria like resource bases and enterprise patterns (Kuivanen et al., 2016). This can be data-driven or participatory, including diverse farmers (Michalscheck et al., 2018). Typologies consider task allocation, resource access, and social norms, identifying specific challenges and designing targeted interventions (Meinzen-Dick et al., 2012).An inclusive typology approach suggested by Michalscheck et al. (2018) facilitates a more holistic comprehension of individuals' experiences and roles within farming systems, encompassing diverse intersectional dimensions of identity-such as sex, resource endowment, age, and other intersecting facets. An intersectional approach offers a nuanced perspective that acknowledges the complex ways in which different aspects of identity intersect and influence one another in an individual's life (Tavenner and Crane 2019).Livestock systems can support biodiversity, nutrient deposits, and carbon capture if managed well (Broom et al., 2013;Thompson et al., 2023). However, they also contribute to environmental issues like greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity erosion (Gerber et al., 2006). Emission intensity varies significantly within and between systems, necessitating tailored recommendations for different farm types (Ndung'u et al., 2022). Access to resources and markets, and labor distribution are not gender-neutral (FAO, 2013). Intersectional analyses are needed to understand how vulnerabilities affect livestock enterprises' output and intensification potential (Fischer et al., 2017). This is crucial for interpreting environmental assessment results and making inclusive recommendations (McGuire et al., 2023).I-CLEANED is a new tool that includes a social lens but builds on the previous 'CLEANED', which measures the environmental footprint of livestock enterprises (Figure 1). It maintains the existing indicator framework estimating biomass, water and nutrient flows when assessing four dimensions of environmental footprints (Notenbaert et al. 2014) but introduces an intersectional livestock enterprise typology approach (Meinzen-Dick et al. 2012;Michalscheck 2019) and the inclusion of type-specific scenarios for more relevant ex-ante testing of environmental footprints of differing livestock enterprises The CLEANED \"systems boundary\" for assessment extends to the inputs linked to the livestock enterprise and therefore does not extend to assessing the entirety of the farm. The system includes the livestock herd, manure management practices, feeds (natural or cultivated) including crops whose residue is fed to the livestock, area used to produce feeds, silvopastoral component, and fertilizer inputs. You can access the tool here: https://bit.ly/CLEANED I-CLEANED is set up as a stepwise procedure (Figure 2). Within CLEANED, a well-defined study area is determined, and the heterogeneity of livestock enterprises is identified, the system defined, and its practices and value chain described (step 1). In the new tool, before environmental baselines are collected to determine impacts of interventions (step 2), an intersectional typology is developed. Thereby, baseline assessments are conducted for each contextualized livestock enterprise type, followed by estimating the potential impacts of various typology-specific intervention scenarios (Figure 3). This enables comparison of the potential impacts, considering the specific constraints and enabling conditions that each typology might hold. In the interpretation of environmental impact indicators, considerations must also be made for the diverse social impacts of environmental changes, particularly concerning gender roles and power dynamics that may affect the ability of women or marginalized groups to take up recommendations that involve greater investment or changes in land allocation. Moreover, during the out-scaling phase, regional impacts are assessed to identify potential trade-offs and risks, with a focus on recommending gender-responsive interventions that accommodate the adoption of sustainable practices within livestock enterprises. In the below sections each step is outlined further.  Calculated within the tool for each type-specific scenarioFollowing the development of the intersectional farm typology, intervention scenarios are selected, considering the different types identified e.g. by labour division of women or exploring perspectives of different age groups. Examples of typology-specific scenarios (see also Notenbaert et al. 2014) include 'improved feed in a low-resourced, small-sized, women-led goat enterprise', and 'integrated interventions of improved breed and feeds in high-resource, large, male-led dairy enterprise'.The change in the above indicators between the baseline and scenario assessment is then calculated to determine the specific footprint. In addition, a simple economic feasibility (cost-benefit) analysis is calculated that comprises of a comparison of annual values of production (VOP) and change in gross profit (GP). The result is an overall 'environmental footprint' assessment that is used to come up with feasible recommendations, based on a differentiated interpretation of results by type, as described further below.The CLEANED tool identifies impact indicators encompassing land usage for feed production, GHG emissions linked to feed, milk and meat production, water consumption in feed, milk and meat production, and nitrogen balances within feedproducing regions. Yet these are all determined by resource availability (land, labour and inputs), and the decisionmaking processes that govern the intensity of production. Furthermore, changes amongst these indicators also have environmental trade-offs. For example, increased feed production might increase value of production but expansion of land-use for feed might have several negative side-effects. Should feed crops supplant food crop production, potential trade-offs in terms of overall food security may arise. Similarly, the conversion of non-agricultural land to feed animals could yield adverse effects on biodiversity (Kihoro et al. 2022, Notenbaert et al. 2020).As demonstrated above, environmental change can result in varying impacts on women and men, mainly because of the different roles they play in society and decisions they can and/or do make in livestock enterprise management. The low-resourced, women-led goat enterprise will experience a lower environmental footprint overall but will also have greater challenges in implementing new feed practices that may require more land or inputs -neither of which she may be able to decide upon alone, or have the financial means to do so.All I-CLEANED results thus have to be interpreted in relation to socially differentiated impacts of environmental change to flesh out unequal effects of changing ecosystems on men, women, youth, and minorities due to gender-based roles, responsibilities, and power dynamics. The interpretation of changes in environmental footprints will have to take into account how different groups in society cope with land availability, food security, climate change, soil fertility issues, and water scarcity. Furthermore, economic and social power dynamics often limit women's and vulnerable groups' access to resources such as land, finance, knowledge and technology, which restricts their ability to adopt the recommended interventions emerging from each of the scenarios. Furthermore, some might be unlikely to be implemented due to lack of decision-making power. This gender-based inequality can result in increased vulnerability and loss of livelihoods for women and youth, in cases where commercialization through intensification might result in men taking over (Tavenner et al. 2019). Either of the above situations will result in different adoption rates in the CLEANED out-scaling module described below. For instance, greater access to natural resources, involvement in decisionmaking processes, and better economic opportunities, would result in vulnerable groups' boosted ability to apply recommended sustainable production practices. Some interventions may have positive impacts on women and vulnerable groups, however, as is the case of labour-saving technologies, or extension support (Baltenweck et al. 2024).Furthermore, when considering how the results might have broader applicability, or the scenarios might be similar in the same region, explained in the out-scaling section below, it is critical to again consider the heterogeneity of livestock enterprises within diverse farming systems.Through the identification of environmental impacts of typology-specific scenarios, it is possible to identify complementary (gender-) responsive interventions that are recommended after completion of the tool to account for the factors inhibiting and supporting the adoption of sustainable practices within livestock enterprises.Within the out-scaling phase of the tool, the results of I-CLEANED assessments -the cumulative alterations in environmental footprints -can provide insights into trade-offs between environmental impacts beyond single enterprises to encompass the community and regional scale.The premise driving the out-scaling process is the assumption that agricultural strategies hold similar significance and cause similar changes in individual environmental footprints for enterprises of the same category, thus allowing for the widespread application of recommendations and aggregation of estimated enterprise-level impacts throughout the study area. Regional impacts should be determined by considering the anticipated achievable level of technology adoption for each scenario and the significance of each enterprise type within the broader area.In order to flag potential risks, projected footprints must undergo comparison, or benchmarking, with a critical value or assessment against identified constraints and limited resources. (Isiaho and Gonzalez-Quintero 2023).This brief highlights that while focusing on development priorities, like improving yields and farmer incomes, often guides development actions, this approach may inadvertently neglect environmental concerns and contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, land use change, depletion of water resources and pollution. Moreover, underlying social norms and resulting relationships and distribution of labour, capital, and land, not only determine varying environmental impact but also restrict women and other marginalized groups in acting upon recommendations. While the discourse surrounding livestock production typically emphasizes environmental effects, given that the well-being of livestock-dependent communities hinges on a balanced environment, it is crucial to demonstrate how increased meat and milk output can be achieved while minimizing detrimental effects on local and regional ecosystems. Therefore, it is crucial to conduct exante assessments that prioritize minimizing the environmental footprint, while also accounting for and contributing to socioeconomic factors.The I-CLEANED framework underscores the importance of understanding and catering for the gendered heterogeneity of livestock enterprises, and its implications on environmental outcomes. It serves as a rapid screening tool for evaluating interventions in farming systems during early stages of development, facilitating qualitative analysis. It enables the swift assessment of diverse scenarios, aiding in the identification of promising intervention options for more detailed quantitative evaluation and estimating aggregated impacts at regional or global levels. Additionally, it empowers users to anticipate the gender-differentiated consequences of implementing specific scenarios and encourages them to consider the feasibility of wide-scale adoption by different (socially differentiated) livestock producers.Targeting decision-makers across various sectors, including donors, government agencies, and NGOs, the framework offers a rapid ex-ante assessment of potential environmental impacts and associated trade-offs at different scales.Its potential applications range from evaluating project proposals to informing investment decisions at local levels, both in public and private spheres. However, the challenge remains in ensuring its effective integration into decisionmaking processes across diverse contexts and levels of governance. Therefore, there is a pressing need to promote its adoption and adaptation in different local settings and decision-making contexts to foster more targeted, inclusive, and sustainable livestock systems. We encourage piloting of the tool in diverse contexts to examine its potential.","tokenCount":"2217"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1002a8d65a4c1c97fadc845ede572567","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9840a654-d296-4135-bab9-802e9438944e/retrieve","id":"1619986043"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"33dee3bf-1503-43c9-8540-e32070d7a186","pagecount":"60","content":"At this moment, I would like to congratulate Prof Mitiku for successfully leading Mekelle University College into a full university status and for being its first President. ILRI and IFPRI were very pleased to be part of the inauguration ceremony that took place earlier this month in Mekelle. Also I would like to thank especially the participants from Tigray and the Amhara regions, who travelled long distances by bus to attend this seminar and also participants from distant places in Oromiya.As many of you know, ILRI is one of the 16 centres supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a consortium of more than 55 member nations, foundations and donor agencies supporting international agricultural research to address poverty alleviation, food security and environmental protection. The CGIAR sponsors are the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). ILRI's mission is to help reduce poverty, hunger and environmental degradation through livestock research to enhance productivity and sustainability of agricultural systems in the developing world. ILRI has a global mandate for international livestock research. Our principal activity continues to focus on sub-Saharan Africa. A major part of ILRI research is development-oriented and is conducted in collaboration with partners from national and international research organisations. ILRI research spans the spectrum from biological research on cattle, sheep and goats to assessing the social, economic and environmental impact of livestock production to economic analysis providing information for policy makers.Recently ILRI re-organised its research into eight major programmes and four production-toconsumption projects to address the multiple challenges these developments pose to research. These programmes are:1. Systems Analysis and Impact Assessment The production-to-consumption projects include:1. Market-oriented smallholder dairy 2. Market-oriented livestock systems in West Africa 3. Crop-livestock systems in mountain regions 4. Crop-livestock systems in rain-fed lowland regions in South-East Asia.The goal of the Policy Programme of ILRI, which I have the honour and privilege to coordinate, is to provide information on the impact and consequences of government policies affecting the livestock sector with a view to determine better policy options to alleviate poverty, improve food security and promote sustainable use of natural resources in developing countries. The outputs we expect to produce include: increased knowledge on policy options and strategies to enhance technology adoption policy options to promote smallholder participation in livestock markets policy options and institutional options to reduce environmental effects of livestock production methods, models and databases capacity strengthening in policy analysis.We work in partnership with many institutions. But the most prominent in the CGIAR is IFPRI whose mission is to identify and analyse alternative national and international policies for meeting food security and nutritional needs as well as making the results available to policy makers. Our joint project on 'Policies for sustainable land management in the highlands of Ethiopia' is a principal activity in which ILRI and IFPRI collaborate strongly.The issues we are addressing in the joint project are timely because like the rest of the countries in the East African Highlands, the highlands of Ethiopia are characterised by low agricultural productivity, poverty and land degradation. Grain yields are less than two tonnes per hectare and a large proportion of the rural population live in absolute poverty. The highlands of Ethiopia are also characterised by severe land degradation where mining of soil nutrients and soil erosion are the major problems. We are aware that technical solutions to these problems are being researched. Many potential technologies have been identified. However, it is not clear that these technologies are applicable everywhere. Socio-economic and policy research is needed to identify the socio-economic and policy factors that prevent on-farm adoption of sustainable practices. Some of the socio-economic policies include issues such as land tenure, land/forest use regulations, infrastructure development, market liberalisation and input supply policies to name but a few.To address these problems, a regional (East Africa) workshop was organised during February 1997. This was followed by three workshops in Ethiopia: one in Tigray (in March 1997), one in Amhara and one in Oromiya in October and November 1998, respectively. These workshops led to the development of proposals that were funded principally by the governments of Norway and Switzerland. We are also using support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and are still looking for funding to support additional activities in the Oromiya region. I am especially pleased that Dr Mauro Ghirotti of the Italian Development Co-operation is participating in this meeting as we are negotiating possible funding from them. We thank all the donors for their continuing support to CGIAR research for development.The research began in Tigray in January 1998, in Amhara in March 1999 and in Oromiya in a limited way in April 1999. Significant progress has been accomplished to date in each of these regions.The objectives of this seminar are to:familiarise key policy makers and other stakeholders in Ethiopia with the objectives and activities of the project review the progress and findings of the project so far consider key policy issues affecting the prospects for sustainable land management in the highlands of Ethiopia.Dr John Pender will elaborate these objectives later. I would like to thank you for your attention.Vice-Minister, Ministry of Agriculture Government of the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Distinguished guests! Seminar participants! Ladies and gentlemen! It gives me a great pleasure and honour to be with you here for this important national seminar on 'Policies for sustainable land management in the highlands of Ethiopia'.As part of a series of workshops on policies for land management, it is my understanding that this seminar aims to review results and findings of ongoing and completed related-research activities.Making use of this ideal forum, we can look into policy and institutional constraints to sustained development in the Ethiopian highlands which are, in large part, dissected and predominantly sloping and which include approximately 85-90% of Ethiopia's farmers, over 95% of the cropped area, around 66% of its livestock, almost 50% of its land area and over 90% of the national economic activity. However, these areas of great magnitude are seriously threatened by various constraints such as limited infrastructure development, limited competition in input supply markets and their impact on soil erosion.Soil erosion is a severe problem in sloping areas, especially in the northern and central highlands where vegetative cover is very low and soils are already very shallow. Erosion is most severe on cultivated lands, average 42 tonnes/hectare (t/ha) per year on currently cultivated lands and 70 t/ha per year on formerly cultivated degraded lands.Land degradation could indeed be a potentially serious threat to food production and rural livelihood by the year 2020, particularly in more densely populated pockets of rural poverty. Further expansion of cultivation into areas of fragile soils or critical habitats for biodiversity preservation can lead to significant environmental deterioration unless carefully managed.Although technical solutions are being developed to arrest soil degradation, we believe that appropriate policy greatly contributes to combat soil erosion and degradation in general.Ladies and gentlemen! Secure property rights and rights of access to natural resources are essential for long-term investment by farmers in land conservation and improvement as well as to enable farmers or communities to negotiate in the development of management plans.Protection of grazing areas for herders is an emerging issue where crop production is expanding into traditional grazing areas. Insecure access and property rights for women farmers are important problems, particularly in areas where women are the principal land managers by tradition or due to migration by men.Coming to the Ethiopian situation, under the new Ethiopian constitution, all land is property of the state and it may not be sold or mortgaged. The rights of peasants and pastoralists of free access to land are guaranteed. The constitution also guarantees the rights of individuals to improvements they make to land, including the right to bequeath, transfer, remove or claim compensation for such improvements if the right to use expires.With regard to the scarcity of land, measures are being taken to involve farmers with very small holdings to participate in various income generating schemes in the rural areas. Besides, in order to ensure the land tenure security of the rural community, efforts are being made to issue land title certificates.Ladies and gentlemen! At this juncture, I would like to seize the opportunity to recommend this august body: to look for ways and means: of increasing investment opportunities and capacity of the research and extension system; to recognise the need for greater integration of productive technologies with efforts to conserve soil and water; to assess the effects of different policy and institutional interventions on land management; and also to build local capacity for policy analysis particularly in the area of land management.As you gather together in this important forum, I trust you will address all these very important issues during your deliberations, and discuss and consider key policy issues, which will lead to the prospect of sustainable land management in the highlands of Ethiopia.I look forward to the outcome of this seminar as I am optimistic that it will contribute to our efforts to the formulation of policies for sustainable land management in the highlands of Ethiopia which I believe can be achieved by working together with international institutes such as the International Livestock Research Institute and the International Food Policy Research Institute with which we continue to have very positive relations. I believe that working at the regional level by using all resources available will be mutually beneficial. I wish you will success and now declare the seminar open.Overall project leadership and co-ordination: IFPRI and ILRI determining comparative advantage of different development pathways likely include agricultural potential, market access and population density. For example, intensification of cereals production using high levels of external inputs and expansion of perishable cash crops are two development pathways that likely have strong potential in areas with high agricultural potential (or irrigation) and high market access; whereas in lower potential areas further from markets and with low population density an appropriate development pathway may be to increase the productivity of the mixed crop-livestock system by improved management of grazing lands and woodlots and integrated soil nutrient management on cultivated land. These development pathways may be interdependent (e.g. intensified and more productive cereal crop production may enable farmers to devote more land and resources to perishable cash crops). The policy requisites for different development pathways may differ (e.g. input supply and credit will be critical for high external input oriented pathways, while improved institutions for managing communal grazing lands and woodlots may be critical to increasing productivity of mixed crop-livestock systems in more remote areas).The policies of the national and regional governments in Ethiopia have emphasised conservation based agriculture led industrialisation, through liberalisation of markets; decentralisation of planning and resource management; widespread investments in improved infrastructure, education, health facilities and other public services; an emphasis on community resource conservation and management through establishment of community woodlots and enclosed areas; promotion of private adoption of resource conservation measures; promotion of use of improved agricultural inputs, such as improved seeds and fertiliser and availability of short-term agricultural credit; and promotion of development of farmer organisations and other local organisations. Evidence on the impacts of these policies and other factors on land management and implications for agricultural productivity, natural resource conditions and poverty is still scarce, though some useful evidence was provided by the papers presented in the seminar, particularly for Tigray (where the research project is most advanced).Based on analysis of the Tigray community survey, Pender et al. (in this working paper) found that there has been broad improvement in access to infrastructure and public services (e.g. roads, irrigation, schools, health facilities, extension services and credit) in the Tigray region since 1991, though many communities are still lacking in access. There has been widespread adoption of resource conservation measures by communities and households, as well as adoption of modern agricultural inputs (especially fertiliser, vaccines and improved seeds). These investments have contributed to perceived improvements in many measures of human welfare and natural resource conditions. However, commensurate improvements in yields were not observed in the community survey. This could be due to problems in obtaining reliable yield data in the community survey or poor yields in the particular year (1998) for which recent yield data were collected; however, it could also be an indication that uncertain rainfall and/or land degradation are limiting crop yield improvement, despite investments and adoption of new technologies. Consistent with the latter interpretation, the authors also found that food availability was declining in many communities. Declining availability of grazing land and fuelwood are also important resource concerns in Tigray.There are significant differences in land management practices and their implications across communities in Tigray and these were found to relate to differences in livelihood strategies, agricultural potential, access to infrastructure, technical assistance, population pressure, education and other factors. Cereal crop production is the dominant livelihood strategy in all communities surveyed in Tigray, but communities where non-farm employment was the secondary activity of men performed better than other communities in terms of several indicators of productivity, resource and welfare improvement. Perishable annual crop production was also associated with improvement in some resource conditions, compared with areas where livestock production was the secondary activity. These livelihood strategies thus offer potential as pathways of more sustainable development. Both of these strategies are strongly associated with the presence of irrigation and with proximity to Mekelle, the largest market in Tigray. Thus irrigation investment and market development may help to stimulate sustainable development pathways in the region.Although irrigation development was found to contribute to some livelihood strategies, it did not lead to as much adoption of improved technologies, increases in yields or welfare indicators as might be expected (controlling for livelihood strategies). Many farmers continue to use traditional technologies even when irrigation is available, limiting the productivity impact of irrigation (Girmay Tesfaye et al. in this working paper). Some indicators of human welfare, including food availability and child mortality, were more likely to worsen where modern irrigation development was occurring, suggesting that irrigation may be promoting changes in crop production that are reducing food security. These results are not conclusive but suggest that more research on the impacts of irrigation investments in Tigray and possibly policy interventions, to increase the returns and ameliorate the negative impacts, are needed. Research and policies on the institutional requirements of irrigation projects (e.g. clarifying water rights and responsibilities for cost sharing and maintenance) are also needed (Girmay Tesfaye et al. in this working paper).Road development has also contributed to changes in farming systems, shifting production away from cattle and towards cash crops (Pender et al. in this working paper). It is associated with reduced burning of dung fuel, increased yields and food availability, and improvement in the quality of grazing land and water. By contrast, proximity to towns had more negative impacts on several indicators of resource management and resource conditions, suggesting that priority should be given to addressing resource degradation problems in areas close to towns, where there are greater demands on resources. Proximity to town is also associated with less effective collective action in managing community woodlots (Berhanu Gebremedhin et al. paper on woodlots, in this working paper) but with mixed effects on collective action to manage grazing lands (Berhanu Gebremedhin et al. paper on grazing lands, in this working paper).The extension and credit programme of the Tigray Bureau of Agriculture and Natural Resources appears to have effectively promoted adoption of more productive and soil conserving land management practices, contributing to higher crop yields, increased food availability and household wealth. However, the programme is associated with degradation of grazing lands, probably because it has contributed to increased oxen ownership. Thus options to improve management of grazing lands should be considered as a priority by the bureau.Population pressure has been associated with adoption of several measures of labour and capital intensification of agriculture in Tigray (Pender et al. in this working paper). However, it is not associated with increased crop yields (as one would expect), suggesting that cropland degradation has resulted from population pressure. Perceived decreases in the quality of grazing land are also associated with population pressure (Pender et al. in this working paper). This is consistent with the finding of Berhanu Gebremedhin et al. (grazing land paper, in this working paper) that violations of use restrictions on grazing land were more common at high (greater than 200 persons/km2) than at intermediate (between 100 and 200 persons/km2) population densities. Collective action in managing community woodlots was also found to be more effective at intermediate than high population densities (Berhanu Gebremedhin et al. woodlot paper, in this working paper).Collective action to manage woodlots was found to be less effective for woodlots that were promoted by an external organisation (usually the Bureau of Agriculture), suggesting the potential for undermining collective action by external intervention and the need for greater local participation in decisions about community woodlots (Berhanu Gebremedhin et al. woodlot paper, in this working paper). Communities in Tigray generally believe that they are not yet allowed to harvest trees from their woodlots and this may undermine incentives of people to contribute to collective action to manage these woodlots, especially if the woodlot is viewed as having been promoted by an outside organisation. There appears to be a lack of clarity about the policies in Tigray regarding if and when communities are allowed to harvest trees from woodlots and how the benefits should be distributed (this point was acknowledged in the discussion by officials from Tigray, who indicated that the policies are being developed). Clarification of these policies by the Bureau of Agriculture and Natural Resources may increase the benefits received by communities from these resources and the incentive of communities to manage them effectively. It may be most effective to devolve these decisions to the tabia or village level (Jagger and Pender in this working paper).Another current policy issue related to tree management in Tigray is whether to allow or promote private tree planting (or other conserving uses) on degraded lands. A policy on this issue has been enacted in the Amhara region (Lakew Desta et al. in this working paper) but this is still being studied in Tigray (though it is being pursued on a pilot-scale basis in Tigray). Evidence from the Tigray community survey, which shows high survival rates of trees on such private woodlots where this has been tried, suggests potentially very large economic returns from expansion of this approach (Jagger and Pender in this working paper). However, there are ecological concerns about increased private tree planting-particularly given the preference of households for eucalyptus-due to potential negative effects of eucalyptus on nearby crop production (via competition for water, nutrients, sunlight and allelopathic effects of eucalyptus leaves). Available evidence suggests that such negative impacts can be minimised by careful placement of private or community woodlots and that there are numerous potential ecological benefits of tree planting as well (e.g. uptake of water run-off, reduced mass wasting of slopes, reduced wind erosion, reduced burning of dung and crop residues due to increased fuelwood availability). Given the potentially large benefits and limited alternative development opportunities in Tigray, serious consideration should be given to allowing/promoting expanded private tree planting on degraded lands.Evidence on the impacts of policies and other factors on land management in the other regions (Amhara and Oromiya) are more limited at present, since the surveys have not been completed there yet. In much of Amhara (especially the lower rainfall areas in the north and east of the region), many conditions are similar to those in much of Tigray (e.g. low and uncertain rainfall, high population pressure, thin and degraded soils etc.) and most of the policies being pursued are similar to those in Tigray (Fitsum Hagos et al. 1999;Lakew Desta et al. in this working paper). Thus we expect similar responses and implications from these areas, though this hypothesis cannot be tested until the data from the Amhara survey are analysed.Data from one village in the lower potential part of south-eastern Amhara (Andit Tid, which represents a situation of high market access, high population density and low agricultural potential) indicate that a downward spiral of declining farm size, land degradation, reduced crop yields, and increasing poverty is occurring (Holden and Bekele Shiferaw in this working paper). This spiral is being driven by population growth, and is occurring despite the fact that this village has good access to roads and markets and that there has been a long-term effort to promote sustainable land management practices in this village through the Soil Conservation Research Project (SCRP). Thus reliance on market forces alone or heavy emphasis on soil conservation technologies appears insufficient to achieve sustainable land management in such a highly degraded area. Part of the problem is that the soil conservation technologies that have been promoted reduce farmers' crop output and incomes for several years (since they reduce cropped area), making them unattractive, especially to poorer farmers who have access to very little land and may have a short-term perspective. The topdown approach to promoting soil conservation technologies in this village likely contributed to this problem, though it is not clear whether a participatory approach could have been more successful if more suitable technologies are not available. Other factors that also appear to contribute to the poor performance of agriculture in this village include imperfections in the markets for land and oxen, and land tenure insecurity caused by the expectation of land redistribution. Policies that attack the multiple constraints to more profitable and sustainable land management are needed, and may include approaches that interlink different constraints and policies. For example, increased tenure security could be linked to farmers' soil and water conservation efforts on the land, giving them greater incentive to undertake and maintain such investments.In much of western Amhara and Oromiya, agricultural potential is much higher and land is not as degraded as it is in Tigray and eastern Amhara (Lakew Desta et al. in this working paper; Bezuayehu Tefera et al. in this working paper). Detailed data collection and bio-economic modelling work completed in the Ginchi microwatershed in Oromiya (a community with high market access, high population density and relatively high agricultural potential, though with problems associated with Vertisols in the valley and shallow soils on the steep slopes) indicate that substantial land degradation is occurring in this village (Okumu et al. in this working paper). Continuation of limited technological intervention in the village is predicted to result in continuing problems of soil erosion and nutrient mining, although incomes may increase modestly. Model simulations show that adoption of a package of available technologies (shifts to higher yielding varieties, increased adoption of manure and fertiliser, tree planting on steep slopes and community investments in drainage in the valley) can lead to large increases in incomes, increased food consumption and reduced soil erosion and nutrient depletion. The policies needed to achieve this potential include increased availability of credit, improved extension services (emphasising a more site-specific approach to land management recommendations) and land tenure security. Collective action to construct and maintain a communal drainage system would also be important. Preliminary results from a bio-economic model of farms in the Holetta area of Oromiya also indicate the importance of access to credit for increasing adoption of improved inputs and incomes (Ahmed and Ehui in this working paper).Overall, the evidence provided by the papers provides cause for hope as well as concern. There has been improvement in many measures of land management, natural resource conditions and human welfare in Tigray, despite the harsh environmental circumstances and high population pressure there. Small-scale irrigation systems are being established, adoption of improved inputs and conservation practices is occurring, woodlots and enclosed areas are regenerating, and indicators of wealth, health, education and other aspects of welfare are improving. Nevertheless, improvements in crop productivity have not been as large as one would hope and the availability and quality of grazing lands and fuelwood remain serious concerns. In lower potential areas as in much of Tigray and eastern Amhara, emphasis is needed on increasing the overall production of useful biomass (for food, feed, fuel and soil fertility) and on the policies that will help to achieve this (e.g. allowing private tree planting on degraded lands, improved institutions for grazing land management, inter-linking tenure security with conservation investments on private land etc.). In higher potential areas as in western Amhara and much of Oromiya, there is greater potential for improved technologies relying on high levels of external inputs, especially in areas closer to roads. In these areas, policies relating to road development, supply of inputs and credit are likely to be very important in achieving the potential for more rapid and sustainable development.The discussions of the papers and issues among seminar participants provided many important insights and identified several areas where further refinement of the research questions and methods is needed. We will not attempt to provide an exhaustive list of these comments, insights and suggestions here but will summarise some of the key points raised.'Sustainability' is a multidimensional and dynamic concept, encompassing considerations of interrelated economic, social and environmental factors. In order to be sustainable, development must be socially and environmentally sustainable, as well as economically sustainable. Although economic, social and environmental factors are all incorporated into the conceptual framework of the project, their relationship to sustainability needs to be clarified.The concepts of 'agricultural potential', 'market access' and 'population pressure' are also multidimensional and dynamic. Agricultural potential reflects differences in climate, soils, topography, access to water and other factors, and may vary over time in response to land degradation or improvement. Market access is more than access to roads or towns; it also depends on availability of transport services, purchasing power of consumers, access to international markets etc. Population pressure also means more than simple population density; it relates also to population growth, the density of people relative to arable land etc. These concepts also interact with one another; for example, the effect of increased market access may be different in high vs. low population density settings. These points are well taken and some of them are discussed in some of the papers presented, though they were not emphasised in the presentations. It is difficult to account for every dimension of such complex concepts in empirical analysis, though effort will be made to reflect these considerations to the extent possible.Other development pathways should be considered in addition to those discussed in the papers. For example, there is little mention of forestry. Opportunities for income diversification and increasing the value added in Ethiopian agriculture should be considered. Some of these opportunities are discussed in the papers in considering non-farm activities and high-value products but were not emphasised in the presentations. One participant argued that the types and evolution of farming systems should be taken as an organising principle for the research, to help simplify and clarify the policy implications. This is in fact what is intended by the concept of development pathways, which includes the evolution of farming systems as well as non-farm livelihood strategies. Another participant argued that the framework for considering development pathways, based on population density, market access and agricultural potential is too static, whereas the pathways should be dynamic. The project leaders clarified that these underlying factors are dynamic, though in many cases they change only slowly over time. The static presentation of these factors is to simplify the presentation but dynamic aspects can be (and have been) taken into account in the empirical design and analysis. These issues should be presented more clearly in the future.Many policy issues were raised and considered in the discussions. Land policies were of considerable interest. Differences in the land policies across regions of Ethiopia were noted, and the need for learning from the different experiences of the different regions was apparent. For example, Tigray has formally ended land redistributions, Amhara implemented a redistribution in 1997 and Oromiya is still considering whether to have one. The implications of these different approaches for farmers' investments in soil and water conservation, tree planting etc. would be valuable to investigate. There are also differences among regions in policies towards land leasing, allocation of degraded lands, private tree planting and other issues that are worth exploring.The problems of managing small-scale irrigation systems and the impacts of these systems were also of great interest. It was recognised that a lot of emphasis is being placed on investments in irrigation while the impacts have not been fully studied. Many participants were surprised by the limited impact of irrigation on adoption of inputs and yields found, and some did not believe these results. More information is needed to verify these results (some will be forthcoming from the household-and plot-level surveys but a more targeted survey of irrigated areas would also be very useful). The impacts of irrigation systems on downstream users and on health also need to be studied. One study of the impacts of micro-dams on malaria in Tigray was discussed; that study found a strong association between distance to a dam and malaria at lower elevations, and that farmers were willing to pay significant amounts for health and preventative measures to address malaria problems.Policies relating to management of community woodlots and grazing areas were also discussed. To some participants, it is remarkable that communities are not allowed to cut trees from woodlots in Tigray. Policy makers from Tigray indicated that communities are supposed to have discretion in how to use woodlots but also stated that policies are being developed to clarify to communities their roles and responsibilities. Several participants mentioned problems due to the free grazing system and the need to consider alternatives was suggested. It was commented that more information is needed on the effectiveness of woodlot and grazing land management (i.e. to measure to what extent management of these resources is 'optimal').The issue of eucalyptus planting was controversial. Many participants agreed that the economic returns to eucalyptus are high but argued that ecological risks are also high and that these trade-offs need to be clearly elucidated. The absence of information on long-term effects of eucalyptus planting and broader hydrological effects is problematic. The authors clarified that studies on these issues are limited and that those that are available indicate potential ecological benefits as well as risks. The impacts of large-scale planting of eucalyptus on pole prices and profitability was raised as a concern; the authors clarified that conservative (low) estimates of pole prices were used to evaluate large expansion of planting and that information on the price response to increased supply is not yet available. One participant clarified that the policy in Tigray of not allowing eucalyptus planting in farmlands was not enacted for environmental reasons but because of food security considerations. The authors agreed that tree planting on farmlands could reduce food security in the near term but pointed out that tree planting could be beneficial for food security in the long term, by giving farmers an alternative source of income in a drought year. Further research on these issues is needed (and is planned as part of a targeted survey of community and private woodlots).The role of credit in promoting improved land management was discussed. It was argued that wealthier farmers might not demand credit because they do not need it, while poor farmers may avoid using credit for fear of losing their assets. The issue of how to obtain repayment when farmers suffer from a drought or other adverse event was raised: does it make sense to provide more credit to such farmers so that they may be able to repay? The effects of credit policy on land use, crop choice, conservation investments, land management practices, resource conditions and poverty should be investigated. Some participants stressed the importance of social organisation and social capital. Local land tenure institutions, organisations, religion, labour mobilisation campaigns and other factors may have a large impact on land management and its implications. The project leaders indicated that information on such factors has been/is being collected but has not yet been fully analysed. It will be easier to assess the impacts of some of these factors (such as religion and organisations) when data are available for all regions, since there is more heterogeneity in those factors across regions than in the Tigray region. These issues will be studied further as more information becomes available.This document summarises results of the preliminary phase of the research project to characterise the nature and causes of land degradation in the highlands of the Amhara region and to examine the opportunities for more sustainable land management and development. The preliminary phase was based on literature review, consultations with key officials, brief visits to selected field sites and discussions with farmers and key informants, and analysis of existing secondary data. The aim of this phase was to draw upon what was already known about the problems of land degradation and management to help develop research hypotheses and areas of focus for a community survey of 50 kebeles that was launched in September 1999. The major objectives of the community survey are to identify the dominant . pathways of development. 2 in the region and to suggest hypotheses about their causes and implications for agricultural productivity, sustainable land management and poverty. The hypotheses formulated will be tested using data collected in subsequent household-and plotlevel surveys.2. A pathway of development is defined as a common pattern of change (or stagnation) in agriculture and livelihood strategies, associated with its causal and conditioning factors.Amhara National Regional State is located in the north-western part of Ethiopia between 9°N. 13°45. N and 36°E. 40°30. E, with a total area of 170,152 km 2 . Of the total area, cultivation and grazing land make up 30% each. Forest, shrub, bush and woodland, bodies of water and wasteland make up 17%, 4% and 16% of the total area, respectively, and the remaining 3% is taken up by settlement. The total regional population is about 14.4 million, with an average land holding of 1.7 hectares. About 35% of the nation. s livestock population is found in the region, with the major feed sources being communal grazing lands, fallow lands, crop residues and stubble.Soil erosion. Site-specific test-plots andexperiments in 1987 and1988 at Soil Conservation Research Project (SCRP) stations in the region showed soil loss rates between 0.04 and 212 tonnes/hectare (t/ha) per year. About 29% of the total area of the region experiences high erosion rates (51. 200 t/ha per year); 31% experiences moderate erosion rates (16. 50 t/ha per year); 10% experiences very high erosion rates (>200 t/ha per year); and the remaining 30% experiences low erosion rates (<16 t/ha per year).Nutrient depletion. Loss of fertility is manifested through limited recycling of dung and crop residues in the soil, low use of chemical fertilisers, declining fallow periods, soil and organic matter burning, and soil erosion. Although the farming system in the highlands of Amhara is primarily mixed crop. livestock, nutrient flows between the two are predominantly one sided, with feeding of crop residues to livestock but little or no dung returned to the soil. For example, UNECA (1996) data show that even though almost all households (90%) fed crop residues to their livestock, only 40% used manure on their farmlands.Deforestation. Removal of forests is prevalent and contributes to land degradation. About 20,000 ha of forests are harvested annually in the Amhara region for fuel, logging and construction purposes. Since harvested trees are not replaced and, thus, expose the soil, about 1.9 to 3.5 billion tonnes of fertile topsoil are washed away annually into rivers and lakes due to deforestation alone.The direct causes of land degradation, including declining use of fallow, limited recycling of dung and crop residues to the soil, limited application of external sources of plant nutrients, deforestation and overgrazing, are apparent and generally agreed. Factors underlying these direct causes include population pressure, poverty, high cost and limited access to agricultural inputs and credit, fragmented land holdings and insecure land tenure, and farmers. lack of information about appropriate alternative technologies. Affecting many of these factors are government policies on infrastructure and market development, input and credit supplies, land tenure, agricultural research and extension, conservation programmes, land use regulation, local governance and collective action, and non-governmental programmes.Considering the nature and causes of land degradation in the region, policy, institutional, and technological strategies for more sustainable, productive and poverty-reducing development are identified. The main hypothesis is that the strategies for sustainable development in any given situation depend largely on the comparative advantage of alternative livelihood strategies in that situation. While many factors determine comparative advantage, we focus on three: agricultural potential, market access and population pressure.Agricultural potential is an abstraction of many factors that influence the absolute advantage of producing agricultural commodities in a particular place, while access to markets is critical for determining the comparative advantage of a particular location, given its agricultural potential. Population pressure affects the labour intensity of agriculture through the land:labour ratio and may also induce innovations in technology, markets and institutions, or investments in infrastructure; and, thus, it affects the comparative advantage of labour intensive strategies of development. These three factors interact with each other in complex ways, and we can classify the highlands of Amhara into eight major types, considering two levels (high and low) of each factor. The hypotheses about what opportunities exist in each situation are shown in Table 1. In areas with relatively high agricultural potential and good market access, there is strong potential for intensified production of cereals using high levels of external inputs, commercial production of perishable cash crops such as fruits and vegetables, and/or intensive production of commercial livestock products such as dairy and poultry products. There is also strong potential for rural non-farm development linked with agricultural development. Priority initially should be on intensified cereal production, since the need for food security is likely to constrain farmers. ability to expand production of other (perhaps more profitable) products until cereal production is adequate. Development of credit, and input and output marketing systems will be critical to the success of these pathways.In areas with high agricultural potential that are more remote from markets, comparative advantage is likely to be greater in production of high value (relative to volume) nonperishable cash crops such as nuts or coffee and/or intensified production of easily transportable livestock (e.g. small ruminants). Even more than in areas of good market access, farmers. ability to produce sufficient food is likely to constrain their ability to expand production of such products. Thus, high priority should be given to increased cereal production in such areas with food deficits, through the use of imported inputs (particularly seeds and fertiliser). This may require subsidising the cost of transporting inputs in the near-term, as well as medium-or long-term credit to allow farmers to finance investments in perennial crops.In areas with low agricultural potential but good market access, development opportunities are likely to be related to: investment in irrigation where feasible and profitable; intensification of cereal production using limited amounts of inputs integrated with soil and water conservation and organic fertility management measures; intensification of livestock production through improved management of grazing lands and development of private woodlots (especially in lower population density settings); and rural non-farm development. These areas are likely to remain deficit producers of food and so food aid may be needed in the near-term, until the development potentials are more fully realised.Opportunities for agricultural or rural non-farm development are even more limited in areas with low agricultural potential and poor market access. Intensified cereal production using limited amounts of inputs integrated with soil and water conservation practices and intensified livestock production are likely to be important. Bee-keeping may also be an attractive option in some areas and could be linked to vegetative regeneration in area enclosures (especially in lower population density settings). Food aid and migration are likely to be essential. Thus, policies with respect to food aid, agricultural extension, education and training in non-farm activities, and land tenure will be of particular importance for these areas.Common property resources 1 are important sources of timber, fuelwood and grazing lands in developing countries. Unrestricted access or ineffective use regulations have resulted in overexploitation of the resources. Reliance on appropriate policies and technologies, or efficient market prices alone cannot solve the problem of resource degradation in developing countries. Local level institutions and organisations play an important role in resource management. However, there is lack of evidence in developing countries regarding the nature and effectiveness of local level institutions and organisations of resource management. This paper seeks to address this lack of evidence on management of community woodlots in Tigray, northern Ethiopia. The paper evaluates the nature and impact of community woodlot management and investigates the determinants of collective action and its effectiveness.1. Common property resources are defined as those resources that are owned and managed by a given community. They are to be contrasted with open access resources that have no defined owner.The Tigray region is located in northern Ethiopia on the Sudano-Sahelian dry lands zone. More than 80% of the population depends on mixed crop-livestock subsistence agriculture. Since 1991, the region has embarked on a conservation-based agricultural development strategy.The major natural resource conservation strategies include soil and water conservation investments on farmland, protection of area enclosures, development of community woodlots, development of small-scale irrigation and reforestation. Popular participation has been an integral part of the resource conservation effort in the region.Results are based on a survey of 50 tabias (the lowest administrative unit in Tigray consisting usually of 4-5 villages) and 100 villages in the highlands 2 of Tigray in the 1998-99 cropping season. A semi-structured questionnaire was administered with a group of representatives at both levels. Information was collected on changes in agricultural and natural resource conditions between 1991 and 1998, and their causes and effects. Analysis of descriptive information and econometric analysis were conducted.2. Highlands are defined as those areas >1500 m above sea level.The factors used to explain variations in collective action included population density, access to market, agricultural potential, the presence of external organisations, whether the woodlot is managed at the tabia or village level and the area of woodlot. The indicators of collective action and its effectiveness in managing woodlots used in the econometric analysis included the amount of uncompensated labour contribution per hectare (ha) invested in managing the woodlots, whether there were any violations of use restrictions of woodlots, whether the community pays for a guard to protect the woodlot, the number of trees planted per ha on the woodlot since establishment and the survival rate of the trees planted.Almost 90% of tabias have woodlots, with an average of nine woodlots per tabia and an average woodlot area of 8 ha. Most of the woodlots have been established since 1991 and have been promoted by an external organisation, usually the regional Bureau of Agriculture and Natural Resource Development (BoANRD). The most common use allowed on woodlots is to cut and collect grass for feed and construction. In almost all cases, a hired guard paid in cash or in kind protects the woodlot. A cash fine set by the community council usually punishes violations of community rules. The most common violations of use restrictions reported in 1998 included cutting grass, grazing animals, and cutting trees and branches. More violations and lower benefits were reported on tabia-managed than village-managed woodlots. Moreover, villages tended to use a more intensive management strategy. Woodlots contribute, on average, more than 5 million Ethiopian birr (EB; US$ 1 = EB 8 in 1998) per community to community wealth.Multiple regression analysis to explain the labour intensity of woodlot management, whether the community pays for a guard, whether any violations of use restrictions occur and the survival rates of trees supports the hypothesis of an inverted U-shaped relationship between collective action and population density (i.e. greater collective action to protect and manage woodlots at intermediate population density than at low or high density), perhaps because of less need for collective action when population density is low and difficulties of maintaining collective action when density is high. Communities that are more remote from markets provide greater collective labour input, plant trees more densely and achieve higher tree survival rates, perhaps because the opportunity costs of labour or the opportunities to escape community sanctions for non-co-operation are less further from markets. The presence of external organisations was negatively associated with whether the community pays for a guard, since external organisations often pay for the guard. The presence of external organisation was also negatively associated with tree survival, suggesting that external programmes may not be achieving full participation of local communities in woodlot management. We failed to find evidence of economies of scale in woodlot management in Tigray.Collective action in managing woodlots generally functions well in Tigray, supporting the role of community resource management in redressing resource degradation. Despite small current benefits, woodlots contribute substantially to community wealth. Benefits are higher and management problems lower on woodlots managed at the village level. We found some support for the hypothesis of an inverted U-shaped relationship between collective action and population density. Access to market appears to undermine the intensity of collective management of woodlots and its effectiveness, probably by increasing the opportunity cost of labour and/or the 'exit options' of community members. The results imply that community resource management can be an effective means of redressing resource degradation and increasing community wealth. Public intervention in community resource management needs to be demand driven and complementary to local effort. Community woodlot management may be more effective if conducted at the lowest level.Communal grazing lands are important sources of livestock feed in developing countries. In the presence of sufficient demand for livestock and livestock products, unrestricted access to grazing lands would result in overexploitation of the resource. Community grazing land management is being recognised as a viable alternative to privatisation or state ownership and regulation to reduce the problem of grazing land degradation. However, there is a paucity of evidence regarding the nature and effectiveness of local level institutions and organisations for grazing land management in developing countries. This paper seeks to contribute to this gap in knowledge for the northern Ethiopia region of Tigray. The paper evaluates the nature and impact of community grazing land management and investigates the determinants and effectiveness of collective action for the management of grazing lands in the region.The study area, Tigray, is in northern Ethiopia and covers an approximate area of about 80 thousand km 2 . More than 80% of the population depends on a mixed crop. livestock system, with oxen power supplying the only draft power for traction. According to the 1998 livestock census, the region has about 3.05 million cattle, 0.94 million sheep, 1.47 million goats, 0.42 million equines and 0.013 million camels. Feed shortage is the major constraint to livestock production in the region. Free and uncontrolled grazing is the dominant grazing system in the region. In most parts of the region grazing lands are severely degraded.Results are based on data collected during the 1998. 99 cropping season by a survey of 50 tabias (the lowest administrative unit in Tigray usually consisting of 4. 5 villages) and 100 villages in the highlands 1 of Tigray. A semi-structured questionnaire was administered in a group interview with community representatives at tabia and village levels. Data were collected on changes in agricultural and natural resource conditions between 1991 and 1998, and their causes and effects. Analysis of descriptive information and econometric analysis were conducted.1. Highlands are defined as those areas >1500 m above sea level.Factors used to explain variations in collective action and its effectiveness in managing grazing lands include population and livestock densities, access to market, agricultural potential, area and age of the grazing land and presence of external organisations. Collective action to manage grazing lands and its effectiveness were measured in terms of whether a community had any grazing areas with use restrictions, whether communities established penalties for violations of use restrictions, whether there were any violations of use restrictions and whether violations were penalised when they occurred.Restricted grazing areas are common in Tigray. Every village has some type of grazing area and 74% of the surveyed villages had restricted grazing areas, with an average area of 24 ha/village. Most restricted grazing lands were not promoted by external organisations. Only about 17% of the restricted grazing areas were established after 1991, indicating that there is a long tradition of developing and enforcing use regulations of grazing lands in the region. Almost all restricted grazing areas were managed at the village level. This study investigates changes in agriculture and land management practices between 1991 and 1998 in the highlands of Tigray, northern Ethiopia, and the causes and implications of these changes, based upon a community-level survey conducted in 100 villages in 50 tabias.Since 1991, a broad process of development has been occurring in Tigray, involving substantial investments in roads, irrigation and other infrastructure and improved access to education, health care, water, agricultural extension and other public services. These investments and services have resulted in improvements in many aspects of life in Tigray, reflected in the relatively upbeat responses that survey respondents provided to most of our questions about changes in welfare. The improvement in access to infrastructure and services has been greatest in areas that were less favoured in 1991, helping to equalise access across the region, though improvement is still needed in most areas.In addition to public investments and services, farmers have undertaken a substantial amount of private and community investment, including accumulating livestock assets (especially oxen), planting trees (both privately and in community woodlots) and investing in various soil and water conservation structures. They have also adopted more labour and capital-intensive agricultural management practices. These private investments have contributed to improvements in resource conditions, most of which were also perceived by farmers to be improving in general.We have investigated the determinants of changes in agricultural and land management practices and their implications for productivity, resource conditions and human welfare, and have identified a number of important tentative findings (subject to verification through analysis of ongoing household-and plot-level surveys in the region). The agricultural extension programme appears to have effectively promoted more intensive land management and conservation practices, contributing to higher crop yields, and increased wealth and access to food. However, it also appears to have contributed to worsening grazing land conditions. The Tigray Bureau of Agriculture and Natural Resources Development (BoANRD) should investigate this problem further and consider options to intensify and improve management of grazing lands.Irrigation was found to be an important factor underlying different livelihood strategies, favouring production of perishable cash crops as well as non-farm activities as sources of cash income rather than ruminant production. Irrigation has contributed to intensified land use and to changes in crop choice but has been associated with less adoption of fertilisers and improved seeds, and less improvement in yields than expected. As a result, it appears that the returns to modern irrigation investment so far have been relatively low. This issue should be of high priority for further study, given the large amount of resources that are being invested in this development and options should be considered to improve the returns to irrigation investment in Tigray. These options may include increasing the priority of extension activities in irrigated areas and increasing the emphasis on promotion of high-value crops in such areas.Complementary investments in roads or other infrastructure may also be important in some areas.Road development appears to have contributed to shifts in production away from livestock (especially cows) towards greater production of some cash crops. Road development is not as strongly associated with adoption of purchased inputs as we expected but has contributed to changes in some agricultural practices, particularly reduced burning to prepare fields. This may be an important reason why yield improvement for barley and maize has been greater in areas with better road access, since burning is associated with declining yields. Road improvements are associated with increased food availability, improvement in the quality of grazing land (probably as a result of reduced emphasis on livestock production), and improved availability and quality of water. Overall, road development has contributed to agricultural development and improved resource management and human welfare.Population pressure was found to increase several indicators of the labour and capital intensity of agriculture. However, this intensification did not result in significantly increased yields, suggesting that land degradation caused by population pressure is reducing cropland productivity. The quality of grazing land is also being degraded by population (and associated livestock) pressure. Despite these negative indications, differences in measures of human welfare were generally unrelated to population pressure and in some instances population pressure was associated with improved conditions. This is likely due to greater investments in infrastructure or public services in areas with greater population pressure, suggesting the importance of such investments in maintaining and improving welfare in the region despite high population pressure.Educational improvements appear to have contributed to several aspects of agricultural intensification and technology adoption, including use of fertilisers and vaccines, and adoption of some intensive land management practices such as composting, planting trees and live fences. Despite this, there is a puzzling association between education and declines in soil fertility and yields of some crops. This may be related to the fact that fallowing is declining more rapidly in areas where farmers are more educated. This suggests the importance of teaching principles of sustainable land management in school curricula. Aside from this negative association of education with soil fertility, the impacts of education on many other natural resource conditions (e.g. the quality of grazing land, forest and water) are positive and large. Education is also strongly associated with reductions in infant mortality. Thus the overall benefits of improved education for resource management and human welfare appear to be quite substantial.Differences in livelihood strategies have also led to important differences in land management and in productivity, resource conditions and human welfare. Areas where non-farm employment is important have performed better than other areas in several respects, including improvement in crop yields, food availability, reduced erosion, and improved availability and quality of water. Promotion of non-farm development thus appears to offer potential as a more productive and sustainable development pathway for the region. Realisation of this potential appears to depend upon agricultural development, however, given the strong association of this strategy with irrigation investment. Development of cash crops, including perishable annual crops and perennials, is strongly associated with irrigation investment and also helps to reduce pressure on grazing land and cropland erosion. In many areas, however, the potential for development of cash crops or non-farm activities is low. Livestock will continue to be critical to the development strategy of these areas. A critical issue for these areas will be to increase the productivity and sustainability of grazing land management.Overall, development in Tigray since 1991 has been impressive and conditions are generally improving. Nevertheless, important problems and challenges remain. It is hoped that this study will help policy makers to identify some key areas to focus on, in order to continue to achieve broadly shared and sustainable development in the region.Irrigated agriculture is at the heart of the agricultural development-led industrialisation and food security strategy of the Ethiopian Government. Increased availability of irrigation and less dependency on rain-fed agriculture is taken as a means to increase food production and selfsufficiency of the rapidly increasing population of the country.In line with the development policy of the country, the Regional Government of Tigray is promoting irrigation development so as to increase and stabilise food production in the region. Since the establishment of the Commission for Sustainable Agriculture and Environmental Rehabilitation (Co-SAERT) by the regional government, many earthen micro-dams and river diversions have been built or rehabilitated. Other non-governmental organisations and communities are also undertaking water resource development activities with the same objective. Besides development of new schemes, some traditional systems are also being rehabilitated.The major emphasis of the irrigation development initiatives in Tigray has been on technical issues. Issues such as beneficiaries selection, land tenure, water use rights and allocation, determination of minimum irrigable plot size, operation and maintenance, water fee, and establishment and strengthening of water users associations are important for sustainable and effective irrigation development. The implementation of irrigation projects will bring changes in land use pattern and intensity, land and labour productivity, household resource requirements and tenure issues which require management and institutional consideration. However, very little is known about how these socio-economic and institutional factors are affecting irrigation development in Tigray. This paper tries to assess the status of irrigated agriculture development in Tigray and to identify the major management and institutional issues which are worthy of further consideration.The results are based on data collected in two separate surveys: a survey on land tenure issues in small-scale irrigation development in Tigray conducted in 1999-2000; and a community-level survey on land management conducted in 1998-99. The former survey covered seven selected irrigation sites, including both traditional and newly constructed irrigation schemes. The community survey also covered experiences relating to irrigated farming in 50 tabias or communities in Tigray. Descriptive information generated from the survey was used to characterise the irrigation systems, and the role of local communities and external organisations in irrigation management in Tigray.Tigray is the northern most region of Ethiopia and it covers an approximate area of 80 thousand km2. It has a population of more than 3.3 million and an annual population growth rate of 3%. The region is one of the most drought prone and food insecure regions of Ethiopia.The climate of Tigray is mainly semi-arid and for most of the region the major rainy season (locally called kiremti) lasts for 3 to 4 months, between June and mid-September. The mean annual rainfall ranges from 980 mm on the central plateaux to 450 mm on the north-eastern escarpments of the region. The annual rainfall shows a high degree of variation with a coefficient of variation ranging from 20% in western to 49% in eastern parts of Tigray.Temperature ranges depend on altitude and vary from temperate type in the higher areas to tropical in the lower areas. The average temperature in the region varies from 16°C in the south west to 25°C in the extreme eastern areas.The economy of Tigray is entirely dominated by peasant agriculture involving traditional methods of crop production and livestock rearing. Agriculture accounts for 64.5% of the regional gross domestic product. However, the annual growth rate of production is only 1.2%, which is below the national average, while population is growing at 3% per annum.The water resource of Tigray is not well studied. Available studies indicate that only about five perennial streams have flow rates of more than 10 litres/second. The loss of water through the three major drainage systems of the region during the annual rainy season is immense. In total through the Tekeze, Mereb and Dennakil basins 9 billion cubic metres of water goes from Tigray to neighbouring countries every year; this is almost equivalent to the 9.21 billion cubic metres of the total estimated rainfall in the region. If 50% of the 9 billion cubic metres of runoff was used, 500 thousand hectares (ha) of land, which could feed three-times the present population of Tigray, could be irrigated. Thus, water harvesting and management practices are of paramount importance so that excess water can be stored and used later for irrigation and other purposes. In Tigray, the estimated irrigation potential is 324,286 ha; currently, only 15,495 ha are irrigated, mainly through traditional practices. Large-scale water resource development has not yet started.Although there is inadequate documented evidence regarding the history of irrigation practices in Tigray, some evidence dating back to 500 BC indicates that irrigation was practised in the ancient village of Yeha in Adwa and some other places. Descriptive data from the 50 communities surveyed indicate that 49 of the communities have access to two or three minor irrigation sources. Data also indicate that 90% of the micro-dams and 62% of the introduced river diversions were constructed after 1991.In Tigray, surface irrigation is the predominant form of irrigation; it includes spring development, river diversion, flood spreading, micro-dams and pond systems. The canal systems are mainly unlined and the density of tertiary canals on farmers' fields is often not high enough to ensure efficient water management. There are also limited ground water systems.Study results indicate that within the communities surveyed, a total area of 1895 ha is irrigated using spring systems. Moreover, irrigated agriculture in the region constitutes about 4500 ha by river diversion systems, 5000 ha by flood diversion and spreading systems, and 2018 ha by micro-dam systems. The significance of the pump and pond system is, however, not well known.Results of the descriptive analysis indicate that there are a few cases in which farmers encounter minor problems of farmland loss, conflict over access to irrigation or increased incidences of diseases and pests. In the majority of irrigation systems these problems are almost non-existent. However, some of these problems evolve over time and their absence currently does not mean that they will not occur in the future. Thus, to protect and control these problems regular follow-up and proper management is necessary.The following issues were identified as being worthy of further consideration to ensure the effectiveness of irrigation development in Tigray:Economics of small-scale irrigation in Tigray are not well understood. Economic evaluation of optimal plot size, cropping patterns, technologies, agronomic practices and resources utilised in the irrigation schemes is necessary. Small-scale irrigation systems are often scattered widely and thus the provision of inputs, services and technical advice may be difficult given the poor infrastructure. Promotion of complementary enterprises should be given due attention, so as to optimise the efficiency of irrigation systems.The relationship between water rights and rights to land is not clear in Tigray. It requires clarification so that expensive irrigation water can be utilised properly.In water resource development, harmonisation of the different demands for water, establishment of irrigation priority rights between upstream and downstream users, and consideration of the rights of existing users of water from floods, which may be modified by dams, is essential. However, this issue has not been addressed in Tigray. Currently, local communities resolve the matter through their community norms; however, it requires a formal institutional approach based on local experience. A comprehensive irrigation policy which clarifies the water rights, water fee and cost recovery systems, irrigation technology, intervention affecting traditional irrigation practices, and the role of local communities and individuals should be finalised and implemented.Rapid growth of small-scale irrigation constitutes a major achievement for the agricultural development and food security strategies in the region. However, this achievement should be assessed in an integrated manner. The planning process for irrigated agriculture should assess the socio-economic, institutional and management issues as well as the technical issues.The role of trees for sustainable management of less favoured lands: The case of eucalyptus in Ethiopia P. Jagger and J. Pender International Food Policy Research Institute, USA Northern Ethiopia is currently suffering from severe woody biomass shortages, water scarcity, soil erosion and land degradation. These environmental problems are exacerbated by the problem of increasing numbers of poor people practising subsistence agriculture on less favoured or marginal lands. One of the most promising medium-term responses to the problem of woody biomass depletion and land degradation in Tigray is the planting of fast growing eucalyptus. This resilient tree species performs better than most indigenous woodland and forest tree species in northern Ethiopia. In addition to increasing biomass and providing ground cover that slows land degradation, the sale of eucalyptus poles and products has substantial potential to increase farm incomes, reduce poverty, increase food security and diversify smallholder farming systems in less favoured areas of northern Ethiopia.Despite the potential for eucalyptus to improve rural livelihoods, since 1997 the Regional Government of Tigray has imposed a ban on eucalyptus tree planting on farmlands. The ban is a result of the government wanting to ensure that farmlands are utilised primarily for food production and is also related to the belief that there are significant negative environmental externalities associated with eucalyptus trees. The regional government promotes planting of eucalyptus and other species in community woodlots and has recently begun to allow private planting of eucalyptus on community wastelands and steep hillsides. Information on the ecological and economic impact of eucalyptus tree planting in this region is needed.The ecological impacts of eucalyptus are mixed. Fast growing eucalyptus may be the best short-term option for providing critically required biomass in the region. Eucalyptus produces more biomass than other tree species under similar conditions in Ethiopia (i.e. the minimum mean annual increment of eucalyptus on poor quality sites is approximately 10 m3 compared with 1.2 m3 for indigenous species). By providing a source of fuelwood, eucalyptus may reduce burning of dung and crop residues and thus help to reduce farmland degradation by allowing more of these organic sources of nutrients to be recycled to the soil. With respect to soil erosion, evidence indicates that the effect of eucalyptus on soils and topsoil retention on degraded hillsides is positive, due to strong root systems that halt the mass wastage of slopes and reduce wind erosion. However, there is also evidence that eucalyptus can out-compete crops for nutrients-leading to soil depletion. Furthermore, allelochemicals in eucalyptus leaf litter alter soil mineral content and may be responsible for reduced growth in teff and chickpea. The ability of eucalyptus to withstand water-logging and to tap deep water sources during times when food crops may fail is beneficial; however, there is evidence that water can be competed away from other crops as far as 10 m away from where eucalyptus trees are planted. The long-term and broader hydrological impacts, including down-stream effects of wide-scale eucalyptus planting are not known. Finally, the species of eucalyptus commonly grown in Ethiopia (Eucalyptus camaldulensis and E. globulus) are drought, flood and fire resistant, and are not currently threatened by pests.Because smallholders and communities make land use decisions based upon socio-economic criteria as well as potential ecological implications, it is important to consider the economic conditions that facilitate tree planting. We hypothesise that the areas best suited to eucalyptus will be areas: with low opportunity cost of land (e.g. wastelands and other areas with low agricultural potential) where potential negative externalities can be minimised (e.g. in low population density areas); with good access to inputs (i.e. seedlings); with efficient and elastic output markets; where households have low discount rates and access to long-term credit; and where access to benefits is not restricted by local institutions. Only some of these characteristics are present in Tigray. For example, there is substantial wasteland area with low or no opportunity cost, and tree seedling production and distribution is currently sufficient to meet demand. However, the elasticity of output markets (i.e. primarily markets for construction poles and fuelwood) is uncertain, discount rates are likely high, there is no access to long-term credit and access to woodlot benefits are limited due to lack of a clear policy allowing harvesting of woodlots by local communities.To provide some information on the economic potential for eucalyptus production and also to assess some of the potential effects of ecological impacts on returns to investment we provide ex ante internal rates of return (IRR) estimates for four scenarios using community survey data from Tigray. In our baseline scenario, we estimate a minimum IRR of 19% for tabia managed community woodlots on a site where the opportunity cost of land and wage rates are high, pole prices are low and three consecutive coppice crops are harvested on a 10-year rotation, with harvests being adjusted for average tree survival rates. On sites with low opportunity costs of land under conditions where wage rates are low and pole prices high, ex ante IRR estimates are as high as 67% for privately managed woodlots situated on degraded community land. In our second scenario, we consider the impact of variable rotation ages on rates of return and find that reducing the rotation age to 5 years yields ex ante IRR as high as 173% and lengthening the rotation age to 15 years yields IRR as low as 10% for tabia managed woodlots. Our third scenario, addresses the issue of potential crop production losses. Estimates indicate that even a 100% crop production loss in an area extending 10 m from a 1 ha woodlot results in only 4-6% decrease in social rate of return estimates. Finally, we consider the variability of rates of return among administrative zones in Tigray.Based upon our discussion of the ecological and economic parameters affecting smallholder decisions to plant trees, as well as our ex ante benefit-cost estimates, we discuss several potential policy options for eucalyptus tree planting in Tigray. These policy options (which are not mutually exclusive) include:promoting more localised woodlot management by increasing local communities' authority to manage community woodlots or by encouraging management of community woodlots at the kushet (village) level rather than at the tabia (community) level privatising management (but not ownership) of community woodlots allocating hillsides and degraded land for private tree planting allowing eucalyptus tree planting on farmlands, subject to regulation promoting eucalyptus planting and sustainable management through availability of longterm credit, training and education.As criteria for evaluating these policy options we consider factors such as the potential impact on aggregate income and wealth, potential impacts on food security, distribution of costs and benefits, ecological and sustainability impacts, and the ease and cost of implementation.The policy option with the greatest potential economic benefit, as well as favourable ecological implications, is to allocate community wasteland for private tree planting. If the estimated 334 thousand ha of wasteland in Tigray were planted to eucalyptus at the median planting density of private woodlots (approximately 3000 trees/ha), 70% of the trees survive and trees worth 17 Ethiopian birr (EB; US$ 1 = EB 8 in October 1999), a conservative estimate based upon our price data, are harvested every 10 years, the annual increase in income would be more than 370 EB/capita (almost half of the 1998 Ethiopian gross domestic product/capita) if we assume a relatively elastic and stable market for woodlot products. Assuming a 10% social discount rate, the net present value of this investment would be about 2000 EB/capita. Gains in income and wealth would likely lead to improved food security, with potentially very large benefits for the landless and land poor who could be priority recipients of wasteland allocations. The potential positive ecological implications of this policy option include reduced pressure on indigenous forests, reduced burning of dung, watershed protection and reduced erosion. However, the long-term implications, particularly with respect to downstream effects are unknown. This policy is likely to be relatively easy to implement, though the supply of seedlings, as well as the provision of forestry extension education and support may be constraints.More localised management of community woodlots is also a favourable policy option that could be considered. More localised management is likely to: increase returns to woodlot investments; improve food security through income generation; and improve environmental sustainability by providing woody biomass for fuel, replacing or substituting the high proportion of dung and crop residues currently utilised for fuel in Tigray. Allowing the planting of eucalyptus on farmlands also offers substantial benefits; however, there are much greater costs (i.e. opportunity costs) and environmental risks. Moreover, this could undermine the profitability of other options, such as allocating wastelands for tree planting. Thus we do not recommend that this policy be pursued, at least in the near term. Finally, access to long-term credit as well as the facilitation of forestry education and training, including emphasis of the importance of planting indigenous trees as well as fast growing exotic species, would be complementary to all policies.The objective of the paper is to identify the nature of and principal factors causing land degradation in the Oromiya region and to provide empirical evidence relating to land degradation based on available literature and secondary data. This will lead to identification of gaps in knowledge about land degradation processes and its causes, and to development of hypotheses about possible pathways to intensify agriculture in a sustainable way. These hypotheses will be tested with field data collected at later date.Oromiya is located in the central part of Ethiopia extending from 3°20'N to 10°35'N and from 34°05'E to 43°11'E, with a total land area of 353,690 km 2 . It constitutes about 31.2% of the total land area of the country, making it the largest of the 14 regions of Ethiopia.The region has variable topography consisting of a high and rugged central plateau, which is divided into two by the Great East African Rift Valley, and the peripheral lowlands. Elevation in the region ranges from less than 500 to over 4300 m above sea level, with the highlands constituting about 48% of the region's area. Mean annual temperature ranges from 10°C to 22°C in the highlands 1 and from 22°C to 30°C in the lowlands. Annual average rainfall in the region ranges from 200 to over 2100 mm.1. Highlands are defined as those areas >1500 m above sea level.The total human population in the region was 20.5 million in 1998 and has an annual population growth rate of 3%; the livestock population is estimated to be about 18.7 million tropical livestock units (TLU). The highlands host more than 80% of the total human population and 70% of the livestock population in the region and account for over 90% of the cropland. Almost 90% of the economic activities of the region are concentrated in the highlands.The major forms of land degradation in the region are deforestation, soil erosion and soil nutrient depletion. Some of the proximate and underlying causes of land degradation are discussed below.Soil properties: Soils vary in their resistance to erosion. For instance, Inceptisols and Vertisols by their very nature are fragile and sensitive to both geological and man-made erosion. These soil types are among the major soil groups in Oromiya covering the Chercher highlands (Harerge), the central highlands and basins in western Oromiya where soil degradation rates are also observed to be high.Major climatic factors that determine soil erosion in the region include rainfall and wind. Rainfall intensity is more important than rainfall amount in causing erosion because a high proportion of rainfall occurs in a short period. Sheet and rill erosion are by far the most widespread kinds of erosion and are more significant to agricultural production than other kinds of erosion. Rainfall with an intensity exceeding 7.6 cm/hour (h) for 5 minutes (min), 3.6 cm/h for 15 min, 2.5 cm/h for 30 min, or 2.0 cm/h for 60 min is classified as an excessive and erosive rate of rainfall. Rates much higher than these threshold levels are common in the region and such intense rainfall events caused about 50% of the total soil loss from some test plots in the region.Soil formation vs. loss rates: Estimated rates of soil formation in Ethiopia vary between 2 and 22 tonnes/hectare (t/ha) per year, while soil loss rates range from 51 to 200 t/ha per year (dominantly from 51 to 100 t/ha) in some parts of Sidamo and the Bale highlands, and from 100 to 200 t/ha per year on sloping cultivated land in parts of Illubabor.Vegetation and land cover: Generally, erosion rates are lowest in areas of undisturbed forests. The removal or destruction of vegetative cover and frequent tillage lead to soil erosion. Due to decreases in the degree of vegetation cover, increased tillage that leave the surface smooth, the large number of livestock and their frequent trekking for water and grass, and poorly constructed roads, both water and wind erosion are becoming serious problems in Oromiya, especially in the rift valley and associated lowlands. Recent estimates indicate that 3.1% of the natural forests in Oromiya are lost annually. A study in three Peasant Associations (PA) of Adaba and Dodola (Bale zone) during 1993-97 showed that the annual rates of deforestation were 1.6%, 9.4% and 5.6%, respectively. Another study conducted during 1996-98 in the Belete forest and the Gera forest of Jimma zone showed that the annual rates of deforestation were 9.5% and 4.7%, respectively.Nature of economic activities and land use practices: Different types of economic activities and their associated techniques of production or practices cause varying levels of land degradation. For instance:In the Metu area, a test plot covered by teff, which requires fine tillage, exhibited runoff almost four-times higher than that of a plot under maize (runoff = 437 vs. 112 mm) under the same slope conditions (both gradients = 18%). Forest coffee on much steeper slopes (gradient 51%) showed the least runoff throughout the test period, with a maximum of only 36 mm. Over 81% of soil erosion in Chiro wereda has been attributed to practices such as cultivation on steep slopes, runoff from surrounding fields, cattle tracks and footpaths, and defective soil conservation measures.An equivalent of about 22.6 to 28.5 million giga joules (GJ) of energy from animal dung is used for fuel in the region each year. Use of dung as fuel means denying the soil of this effective conditioner and fertiliser. This practice is most pronounced in areas where forest cover has more or less disappeared and where an acute fuel shortage is occurring, as in East Shewa, North Shewa, West Shewa, Arsi and Bale. Some other local practices for soil management are also decreasing in importance.Generally, the rate of mineralisation is high in the absence of natural cover, as when topsoil is exposed to unusual extremes of temperature and humidity. There is evidence that soil organic matter content increases as the length of fallow period increases, whilst it decreases as cultivation period becomes longer. In the Metu area, Illubabor zone of the Oromiya region, soil organic matter content decreased from 20% to 7% in less than 3 years of continuous cultivation as a result of mineralisation.About 52% of the total land in the crop-livestock system of the highlands is used for grazing and browsing. Current estimates indicate that the total feed requirement in the region is higher than the naturally available feed potential. Accordingly, the feeding balance estimation made based on fodder unit (FU) reveals that there is a significant deficit (23.5%) of feed supply in the region, resulting in overgrazing of pasture lands at least in some parts of the region.Population pressure and poverty: Population pressure has led to cultivation of marginal land and steep slopes, causing land degradation. The level of poverty of people, their level of knowledge, perception and attitudes, and degree of infrastructure and local market development also impact on land degradation. For example:Throughout highland and mid-land Chiro, eastern Oromiya, despite a guideline to cultivate only lands with slopes with gradients below 35%, increased population pressure has forced farmers to cultivate areas with gradients of 50%, thereby contributing to the degradation process. In Melkedera PA of Ambo wereda in Oromiya, population increased by 25% between 1984and 1994. Moreover, resettlement in 1984-85 is reported to have increased the population of Sor awraja, Illubabor, by up to 12%, leading to pressure on land and its quality.In some parts of the region, increasing population pressure has led to fragmentation of land and intensive cultivation without better quality inputs and this has led to degradation. A study in Dizi catchment in the Metu area showed that in 1957 and 1982, respectively, the amount of cultivated land was 30% and 41% of total area or 38% and 51% of the land available for cultivation, causing the crop:fallow cycle ratio to decrease from about 1:2 to 1:1 over this period. About 29% of the families in Ambo wereda do not have access to land, while at least 30% of the households hold less than half a hectare of land. A survey in Agucho village in West Harerge showed that cultivated land per capita decreased from 0.29 ha in 1983 to 0.12 ha in 1988.People's level of poverty also determines their behaviour in terms of conservation or degradation of natural resources. For instance, due to the increasing poverty in Melkedera PA in Ambo wereda, reliance on off-farm activities including marketing forest products has become common practice for the people. A forest dependency survey conducted in the area showed that 22% and 33% of the households in the PA are occasional and regular dependents on forest, respectively, for their livelihoods.Land tenure policies: Land tenure has, over the years, been one of the most important institutions that affect land management decisions in Oromiya. Theoretically, tenure security and investment in land, and hence better management of land including use of appropriate technologies are positively related. Land tenure security has been poor generally under all the three political regimes in recent periods: the feudal, Derg and current regimes. During the feudal period, the Emperor confiscated and granted all the lands as and to whom he chose.During the Derg and current regimes, rural farmlands belong to the people but are controlled by the government. As a result, there have been frequent redistributions by the government to accommodate new families. For instance, in Tiyo wereda, there have, on average, been 3.5 land redistributions per household while 17% of all PA members have experienced five or more redistributions since their first allocation in the mid-1970s. Such uncertainty would be expected to reduce incentive for investment in better management of land.The history of agricultural research and extension in the region is not very long. Moreover, research and extension activities throughout the past periods have concentrated on crop improvement and productivity increasing technologies and inputs. Conservation per se has received little attention. Also, research and extension have served the large-scale private and state-owned commercial farms rather than the smallholder sector. Consequently the vast majority of smallholder farms has benefited very little from research and extension programmes. Some efforts have been made by both government and development agencies to introduce conservation technologies but these technologies were not sustained once the outside initiatives and support were discontinued.As erosion reduces crop productivity, the degree of control of erosion declines due to decreasing vegetative cover. Therefore, once crop productivity begins to decline because of soil degradation, land degradation becomes selfperpetuating. Crop yields on severely degraded soil are much lower than those on protected soils because erosion reduces soil fertility and water availability. In West Harerge, a 72% yield reduction of barley was observed as a result of soil erosion over a 15-year period.The major factors that may determine comparative advantage of different development pathways include agricultural potential, market access and population density. In terms of agricultural potential, Oromiya region falls into three broad agro-ecological zones: a high potential cereal zone, a low potential cereal zone and a perennial zone. Vertisol soils are a major land resource in the high potential cereal zone but major constraints in this zone are water-logging and drainage. In the low potential cereal zone, low productivity, high risks and limited options are constraints. In the perennial zone, soil acidity is a general problem. Each agro-ecological zone has domains with a combination of population density and market access gradients, which also define opportunities and constraints. Therefore a diversity of situations exist in the region requiring identification of different sets of appropriate technology options, and policy and institutional support mechanisms. However, policy options may be more general and widely applicable than technology options. For example, intensification of cereal production using high quality external inputs and expansion of perishable cash crops may form two major strategies for the high potential cereal zone with good market access. In the low potential cereal zone with low market access and a low population density, an appropriate strategy may be to increase the productivity of the mixed crop-livestock system by improved management of grazing lands and woodlots, and integrated soil nutrient management on cultivated land. Given that this area is inherently degraded or of low fertility, special attention for improvement of soil quality may be needed. The potential of these possible pathways will be validated through household-and plot-level surveys. Land degradation, low productivity, poverty and declining human welfare are the dominant problems of the crop-livestock production systems prevalent in most parts of the tropical highlands. This study examines soil nutrient balances arising from the driving forces behind these problems using a watershed framework of analysis, as opposed to a farm household approach, and applying a bio-economic model, as opposed to a purely economic or biophysical model. The model is validated in the Ginchi watershed in the central highlands of Ethiopia. The current situation of limited technological and policy intervention in the watershed is compared with a situation involving single and multiple interventions. Given the current shift in focus from increasing agricultural production per se (through overcoming soil constraints to fit plant nutrient uptake by use of purchased inputs) to minimisation of external inputs use and maximisation of their efficiency, this study utilises a nutrient balance monitoring technique to gain insight on the effects of proposed technology and policy interventions on the gains and losses of major nutrients in the watershed. Hence judicious measures that manipulate nutrient flows to result in a reduction in nutrient losses or an increase in nutrient gains are explored.Cross-sectional socio-economic and biophysical data from four land categories found in the Ginchi watershed, for the years 1995, 1996 and 1997, are  Two versions of the bio-economic model are generated; a static goal programming version; and a dynamic non-linear mathematical programming version. The static goal programming approach simultaneously optimises both environmental and economic goals of the watershed and its results are used to validate the dynamic model. The dynamic model optimises an aggregate watershed utility function that is indirectly linked to the biophysical aspects of the watershed through an exponential soil loss-yield decline model with single year time lags. Soil losses in one year determine yields of various crops in the following year, given the ameliorative effects of chemical and dung fertiliser. Both versions of the model take into account seasonality in input and output supplies, labour substitutability, the various roles of gender, crop and livestock constraints, minimum household food requirements, forestry activities as well as the biophysical aspects of soil erosion and nutrient balances arising from these activities.With limited technological intervention over a 12-year planning period, incomes increase by 50% from a very low base and average per hectare (ha) soil nutrient balances stand at -58 kg for nitrogen, -32 kg for phosphorous and -114 kg for potassium. Associated soil losses are 31 tonnes/ha. With a set of new technologies involving use of new high yielding crop varieties, agroforestry, organic (animal dung) and inorganic fertilisers, construction of a communal drain to reduce water logging and some limited land user rights, results show a 10-fold increase in incomes, 20% decline in aggregate erosion levels and an increase in the dependence on livestock for dung manure, oxen draft, milk and cash. Moreover, a minimum daily calorie intake of 2000 per adult equivalent is met from on-farm outputs and per ha nutrient losses after interventions are reduced to -25 kg nitrogen, -14 kg phosphorus and -68 kg potassium on average. There is hence a reduction in nutrient losses despite the higher reliance on the watershed for subsistence food requirements. The bias towards replenishment of nitrogen and phosphorous nutrients at the expense of potassium may, however, not be resolved. Emissions (leaching, gaseous losses and erosion) could be higher than imissions (atmospheric deposition and nitrogen fixation) in both situations.Soil losses are also compared under three scenarios: only modest chemical fertiliser application to achieve a consumption target of 1500 calories/adult equivalent per day; multiple technology intervention to achieve a consumption target of 1500 calories/adult equivalent; and multiple technology intervention to achieve a consumption target of 2000 calories/adult equivalent. Security in land was assumed for the long-term. Results showed that with multiple technological and policy interventions and consumption targets of 2000 calories/adult equivalent per day, soil losses are likely to be higher than those generated under the multiple intervention situation with a minimum calorie intake of 1500/adult equivalent per day. With limited intervention and a similar calorie intake of 1500/adult equivalent per day, soil loss levels may be the highest. We may, therefore, conclude that when the set of multiple technologies are combined with a conducive policy environment such as a secure land policy, the result could be an outward shift of the watershed production possibility frontier that could enable higher outputs at lower biophysical and economic costs than before. The extent of this shift may, however, be reduced if self-reliance on food production for consumption at recommended levels is emphasised. Dependence on the market to meet some of the household food supplies, therefore, impacts positively on the sustainability of the watershed by enabling use of land based on land suitability and flow of outputs from surplus households to deficit ones through exchange. It also allows benefits related to the law of comparative advantage and the related economies of scale to be realised.From a policy perspective, these results imply a need for a more secure land tenure policy than currently prevailing and provision of credit to ensure uptake of the above land management package. They also suggest a shift from a general approach to land management to a relatively more site-specific approach that emphasises spatial and intertemporal variability in input use based on land quality. Such variable rate technology is known to be an efficient nutrient management strategy as it enables farmers to apply optimal rates of fertiliser for each field and in each period. Moreover, residual nutrient loading is simultaneously reduced. Implementation of such a strategy may be difficult in a developing country situation but an attempt to do so may yield results that are significantly better than at present.Provision of credit to smallholder farmers is one strategy for promoting adoption of improved crop and livestock technologies. Governments have often used credit programmes to promote agricultural output and credit policy could play a more efficient and equitable role in development if appropriate policies were adopted. However, advancing credit to smallholder farmers for encouraging technology adoption is a complex policy issue. Among the related issues are amount and form of credit, the interest charged, targeting of specific farmers' groups and specific activities, and repayment schemes. The objective of this ongoing research is to identify the appropriate credit policies for encouraging intensification. In this paper, we analyse the impact of advancing credit in kind in form of fertiliser on three groups of smallholder farmers with different levels of wealth.Land degradation is severe in the highlands of East Africa. Soil erosion and soil nutrient depletion are critical problems. Ethiopia is among the sub-Saharan Africa countries with the highest rates of soil nutrient depletion. FAO (1986) has estimated that 50% of the arable lands in the Ethiopian highlands are moderately to severely eroded. These problems are contributing to low agricultural productivity, poverty and food insecurity and malnutrition in the highlands.The technological response to soil erosion and nutrient depletion is adoption of effective erosion control measures and improved soil fertility management technology, principally use of inorganic fertilisers. In the absence of technological response, poor smallholder farmers respond by cultivating more land to compensate for low crop yields. As with the situation in the Ethiopian highlands, the high population growth shifts the demand for food outward.To respond to the increasing food demand, crop cultivation expands into pasture and steeply sloping marginal lands. The immediate consequence is further crop yield decline and rapid soil erosion rates. With the expansion of cropland, farmers need to keep more and more animals for traction, leading to a higher animal population. Besides, the cultivation of pasture land reduces feeds available for livestock, where feed inadequacy leads to low milk yields, high young stock mortality, longer parturition intervals and low animal weights. The consequences are poverty resulting from low crop and livestock productivity, malnutrition and food insecurity. Therefore, soil nutrient depletion, low crop productivity, inadequate livestock feed availability and inadequate human nutrition are strongly linked.The lack of adequate quality feeds is the major constraint to improving livestock productivity in the highlands of Ethiopia, mainly because of shortages of grazing land due to expansion of crop production on grazing areas, lack of concentrates and the generally low quality of available pasture. Despite recognition of this and the efforts to overcome it through feed research and development, progress in extending feed technologies, particularly forage crops, has been slow. This is principally because farmers cannot afford to allocate land to forage at the expense of food production. In modelling results for Selale, increased fertilisation of barley, the major crop in the area, increased adoption of on-farm production of oats or vetch intercrops, substantially. This suggests that increasing land productivity with improved soil fertility management will ease the competition for land between food and feed crops since now higher output can be produced from the same or smaller land area, freeing land for on-farm forage production.Substantial evidence exists supporting the productivity and profitability gains from fertiliser application and intensification. With the increased use of mineral fertiliser during the 1995-96 and 1996-97 crop seasons, Ethiopia recorded its highest harvests of the major crops ever.Intensification also reduces the necessity of expanding cropping onto steep slopes and, thus, reduces erosion. Thus, intensification is a land saving strategy and impressive savings, similar to those that have accrued to China and India through application of modern technology to increase yields, can be expected. Since improved soil fertility management enhances crop stands and vegetative growth, this will also enhance straw production for animal feeds, thus, improving animal productivity. Improving animal productivity will contribute to food security, better nutrition and increased incomes. Besides, availability of more manure will contribute to further improvement in soil fertility and structure.However, adoption of intensive crop production technologies requires that inputs be available to farmers and that farmers can afford them, provided that these technologies are profitable.Farmers often lack financial resources to purchase inputs. A sound credit policy helps to alleviate this financial constraint either by providing inputs when credit is given in kind or allowing them to buy these inputs when cash credit is considered without constraining their consumption plans.A mathematical programming household model was developed and applied to data collected from the Holetta area (located 40 to 70 km west of Addis Ababa) to model the effect of credit on adoption of fertiliser technology. Substantial variability in crop allocation decisions exists among smallholder farmers. This variability is due to differences in level of resources such as land and labour, goals and needs. Moreover, the level of the farmer's wealth is among the important determinants of adoption of new technologies. As such, farmers cannot be treated as a homogenous group in predicting adoption and impact of new technologies. In this study, the Holetta sample farmers were disaggregated into relatively poor, medium and rich (by local relative standards) farmers taking into account livestock holding size, cropland area and family size as an indicator of labour availability. For each group, the impact of fertiliser credit is modelled. The model selects the cropping plan, the level of fertiliser used and the level of credit borrowed.Because satisfying subsistence requirements of the household and production of sufficient quantities of straw are typically the principal objectives of the Ethiopian highlands smallholders, fertiliser credit is used by the three groups on the two major cereals: wheat and teff. In each case, the farmer borrows sufficient quantity of fertiliser for the entire area of these crops, according to the model results. However, the areas of these two crops differ between the three wealth groups and are a function of total crop area of the household, available area and consumption requirements of the household (a function of family size). This scenario contrasts sharply with cropping allocation without credit where no fertiliser is used, according to modelling results. These results suggest that purchases of fertiliser compete unfavourably with consumption plans at planting time. Because of the low crop and livestock productivity caused by soil nutrient depletion, most farmers may have little food reserves and cash until next harvest. Some may need to sell some of their livestock. The last option was not included in this analysis.The quantity of borrowed fertiliser is relatively small and ranges between 115 kg for poor farmers to 240 kg for rich farmers or 207-431 Ethiopian birr (EB; US$ 1 = EB 8 in October 1999) worth of credit. The area fertilised is also relatively small, ranging from 0.9 to 1.87 hectares (ha) with moderate rates of application. Nevertheless, the income effects were substantial. Poor farmers increase their income by 25%, while rich farmers increase their income by 57%. Moreover, application of fertiliser allowed substantial increases in the quantities of residues (straw) produced for livestock feeding, since fertilisation also enhances the growth of the above ground biomass.The above analysis considers the effect of fertiliser credit advanced to smallholder farmers disaggregated by their wealth. The results support our hypothesis that credit will encourage intensification of the smallholder farming system of the Ethiopian highlands. This is expected to indirectly respond to the prevailing animal feed constraint. Based on this analysis and the empirical framework introduced, several hypotheses are formulated and will be tested in subsequent research:1. Credit is an effective policy option to encourage adoption of intensive agricultural technologies.2. Beside wealth, market participation is a major determinant of the amount of credit demanded by farmers. For example, credit demands of smallholder dairy farmers with crossbred cows are expected to be higher than those of subsistence farmers.3. Intensification of crops and livestock reinforce each other, e.g. crop intensification allows market-oriented smallholder farmers to free some land for on-farm production of fodder and feeds for their herds, which, in turn, leads to livestock intensification.4. Since the conditions are already favourable for intensification in the highlands (population pressure and land scarcity), in-kind or cash credit will have the same effect, provided that farmers have access to these inputs.5. Given the tendency for low crop prices immediately after harvest, the repayment terms of the credit are important in determining farmers' decisions regarding the amount of credit to borrow and the crops to produce.Andit Tid may be described as an area with low agricultural potential, good market access and high population density. The high population pressure on the steep terrain has led to severe land degradation. We study the changes that have taken place over the last 15 years and look for policies that may be used to create incentives for more sustainable land use.Our objectives are to:analyse the current situation and recent trends in land use and household welfare in the study area assess key constraints to sustainable land management in the area present alternative policy options for discussion on how best to promote more sustainable land use and improve the welfare of farm households in Andit Tid and the Ethiopian highlands in general.Andit Tid is located in North Shewa along the highway linking Tigray to central Ethiopia. It is a high altitude area (>3000 m above sea level). The land is located in two altitude zones: the dega zone (<3200 m above sea level) and the wurch zone (>3200 m above sea level). Most crop production takes place in the dega zone but barley is also grown in the wurch zone in the belg season (January to May). The two dominant soil types are Andosols and Regosols. Andosols dominate in the wurch zone while Regosols dominate in the dega zone. Andosols are rich in organic matter. The grass turf is collected in heaps and burnt 1 before planting of barley. This releases nutrients for the crop but also causes considerable losses of organic matter and soil nitrogen. One estimate suggests that 75% of the land is on steep slopes (gradients >25%).The main crop in the area is barley, followed by wheat, horse bean and field pea. Lentils and linseeds are also commonly grown. The average rainfall is 1336 mm/year distributed over two growing seasons. Droughts have not been common in the area until very recently when the belg rains have failed in three consecutive years. Hailstorms and frost have, however, commonly damaged crops. The farming system is a typical crop-livestock system where crop residues are used as animal fodder and animal manure is used for fuel or as manure on crops.Changes in key variables are summarised in Table 1. We see a considerable decline in farm size, an increase in average household size and a decrease in livestock numbers per household but an overall increase in livestock population pressure. Only 5% of the fodder was obtained from communal land while 16% was purchased, making the farm itself the major source of animal fodder. A population growth of about 3% per year has contributed to the increasing land pressure that has caused an increase in cultivated area and reduction of fallow land area. Two per cent of the land has degraded to bad land over two decades. Degraded land is used for grazing and tree planting. Crop yields have declined significantly. The recent droughts have caused an acute food insecurity problem and have converted the area to dependency on food aid. One-third of the cereals consumed in 1999 were received as food aid.Missing information: Is lack of awareness about the problem or about solutions an important constraint? -Lack of awareness is probably not the problem due to the presence of the Soil Conservation Research Programme (SCRP) since the early 1980s.-The technical solutions provided to farmers appear to have been unattractive. Technology: Do technological solutions exist and do they pay?-More sustainable technologies exist; but -Conservation technologies are unprofitable, fertiliser use is risky, eucalyptus is profitable but appears to have a limited market; and -More research on technology options is required, emphasis should be given to fodder for improved livestock production and horticultural crops, and the potential complementary effects of combining fertilisers and conservation technologies. Tenure insecurity: Is tenure insecurity reducing investment in conservation?-The 1997 land redistribution may have caused a reduction in number of households planting trees.-Other constraints appear more important than tenure insecurity as constraints to SLM in Andit Tid. Resource poverty: Are people too poor to conserve their resources?-Land scarcity appears to create incentives for farmers to remove conservation structures, to increase cultivable farm size and to increase production in the shortrun.-Poverty causes high discount rates and reduces incentives to invest in conservation. Market imperfections: Do they prevent adoption of SLM and cause non-sustainable land use?-Imperfections in rental markets for land and oxen in Andit Tid appear to cause overstocking of oxen.-Access to credit appears not to constrain fertiliser use; rather production risk and high fertiliser prices are limiting its use. Policy failures: Have the past top-down policies undermined local participation and collective action and caused conservation technologies to be rejected? -Top-down implementation and choice of technology may be an important reason for rejection or removal of conservation structures in Andit Tid.-It is uncertain whether a participatory approach would have been much more successful if it were to rely on the same technologies. Land tenure policies: Tenure security appears to be a necessary but insufficient instrument to promote SLM. Credit and input supply: Care must be taken so that provision of credit and fertiliser does not become a substitute for conservation. Pigouvian taxes and subsidies: Taxes and subsidies may be used to internalise environmental externalities (e.g. land degradation). Taxes and subsidies may be used on inputs as well as outputs. Careful analysis is required to do this properly. Interlinkage of policies, markets and technologies: Interlinked ('package') approaches may be used to reduce transaction costs, address simultaneously several constraints and improve targeting of policies. This is a knowledge demanding approach that must be fit to the local circumstances. Local participation and commitment is required for such policies to work. Examples: -Linking (subsidised) input and credit supply to conservation requirements.-Use food-for-work for conservation investment.-Labour taxation (mobilisation) for conservation investments.-Tenure security linked to conservation requirements.-Collective action to improve local markets.Andit Tid has followed a Neo-Malthusian development path in the period 1980-2000. Reliance on market forces alone is insufficient to achieve SLM in this highly degraded area. Policies that attack the multiple constraints to SLM are required. Local participation is crucial for proper design, implementation, monitoring and enforcement of such policies.","tokenCount":"17352"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f735a644392a06298fff1f1d42d2d65f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5b10f266-b600-41ff-9f7c-205456cf7ebd/retrieve","id":"315200166"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"26cb7ef1-8876-4885-899d-f2133442b3af","pagecount":"24","content":"Some of the genetic approaches to achieve sustained dairy genetic improvement Would include … ▪ International efforts -broadening breeding goals ▪ Harmonizing trait definitions ▪ Establishing data collection protocols for difficult to measure traits ▪ International dairy genetic evaluations leading to having a broader set of top bulls available to maintain genetic diversity ▪ Introgression of desirable alleles Worldwide summary of the relative weights on various major traits in national economic indexes for dairy cows from 1917 to 2017 (Miglior et al., 2017).Proportionate estimates of response world-wide for major traits in the national economic indexes for dairy cow from 1917 to 2017 (Miglior et al., 2017).Some of the following issues in dairy cattle breeding in the face of climate change • Trait = rate of decline in milk yield with increasing THI; h 2 ≈ 0.20• \"how well does an animal cope?\" ~ resilience• Dairy sires being selected in Australia based on resilience to heat stress measured on the basis of productivity using THIEvaluating the impact of heat stress on milk yield using THI for small holder dairy system The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effect of heat stress on milk production and describe the pattern of response of milk yield to increasing heat load as measured by temperature-humidity index (THI) on test day milk yield in small holder dairy cattle populations in the sub-Saharan African climate of Tanzania. The goal of this study, was to evaluate changes in genetic parameters for milk yield and heat tolerance in small holder dairy cattle population of Tanzania under different heat stress (THI) thresholds as a first step toward including this trait in selection indices for dairy cattle in the region.Evaluating the impact of heat stress on milk yield using THI for small holder dairy system • Feeds account for about 70% of production cost• Difficult and expensive to measure• Genomics has allowed/enabled international evaluation of dry matter intake (DMI) using feed intake data pooled from 9 countries ( Berry et al, 2014)• About one third of feed consumed is used for body maintenance and this is directly related to the body size.• A number of countries have implemented the saved feed cost index for maintenance using genomic models Milk yield, h2= 0.12 , body weight, h2 = 0.22 and rg = 0.34• Restricted index: improves the rate of milk production but with restrictions on body weight • More efficient cows produce milk without increasing the amount of feed consumed.The moderate to high accuracy (0.53-0.83) indicates that selection on the basis of genomic prediction is feasible in smallholder dairy systems and is the most realistic pathway to realizing sustained genetic gains.• Indigenous breeds represent a unique set of genotypes adapted to surviving under harsh conditions and are disease/parasite resistance.• Genomics provide the means for understanding the genetic basis of this adaptation• Kwondo et al 2020 identified several loci in African cattle related to immunity, heat-tolerance trypanotolerance and reproduction-related genes.Incorporating the genetic basis of adaptation • With genomics indexes for selection of genetically superior animals with incorporation of difficult to measure traits within the context of small holder systems is possible and starting to emerge and will ensure sustainability.• Genomics provide the basis for understanding and utilizing adaptive traits in indigenous breeds to ensure sustainability Ethiopia.","tokenCount":"545"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1f0219d40831549df27e3a0810ea2394","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/bb2ee360-783d-493e-ba6e-b4c4eb4afe52/retrieve","id":"-1147141436"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"19bb4be6-c3ac-4c99-9524-d9874332fb44","pagecount":"16","content":"How is land use in the broader landscape impacting farmers' livelihoods?How does management and use of the broader landscape affect ecosystem services that impact farmers' livelihoods? e.g. water quantity, erosion 5• Small-holder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa face various interconnected ecosystem degradation challenges:• soil erosion, loss of soil fertility, deforestation, decreasing water availability• This negatively impacts their food security and livelihoods • Participatory mapping allows for farmers to assess the condition of ecosystem services and impacts on their livelihoods  • Where is this resource?• Have there been any changes in the resource?• What do you think is driving these changes?• How do these changes affect your lives?• How often are you accessing this resource?• Who has access to this resource -are there any restrictions?What information can these maps generate?Demonstrate patterns for further investigationAreas where conflicts arise over different resourcesCrop production Soil fertility (nutrient regulation)Wild vegetables and fruit (mushrooms, wild fruit, wild vegetables)Water quantity and quality (Domestic, irrigation, livestock) The arrows show whether an ecosystem service was declining, increasing or had not changed over timeThe green boxes show those resources that people use to generate income These include multiple offfarm sourcesCrop production Soil fertility (nutrient regulation)Wild vegetables and fruit (mushrooms, wild fruit, wild vegetables)Water quantity and quality (Domestic, irrigation, livestock) The red boxes show the resources that community members now have to buy because their natural supply is dwindling.There is less money available for investing in on-farm management.Mapping land access and soil status In Tanzania, women said that dry season scarcity of water meant they could spend an extra 2-3 hours a day fetching water.These women are unable carry out their daily activities normally in the dry seasonMapping with different groups (men, women and youth) illuminates differences in importance, access and perceptions of change of resources 14In Malawi, the youth identified new plots along the river and wetland while the older men and women said there were no newly cultivated areas The youth are under pressure to find scarce farmland and may need targeted land management or livelihood alternatives to conserve forest and wetland areas• This approach identifies who has a stake in any changes in land management • These changes will impact users' access to resources or require adoption of certain natural resource management practices • Need solutions that are locally relevant and likely to be accepted by local communities • Identify areas where investment may be necessary to enhance ecosystem service benefits and sustained improvement in livelihoods","tokenCount":"407"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/3538092931.json b/data/part_1/3538092931.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..6ab9d6724f961ae8994dc2e0c29a1d4d411a50da
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a147741990fb881abe0058f26c90e436","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0c24784e-d25d-4bc9-81ba-cd9ff5cc4cf2/retrieve","id":"-725371119"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"474ba4f0-2ab3-4174-a8bc-110b870acc8e","pagecount":"50","content":"Since 2011, the CGIAR program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) has supported research in different parts of the world on how climate-smart technologies, practices and information can address the challenge of transitioning to climatesmart agriculture at a large scale under the new realities of climate change. The working paper critically examines how CCAFS researchers have conceptualized and practiced the scaling of climate-smart agriculture interventions. The review of CCAFS research is complemented by a discussion of some of the recent social science literature on scaling and closely related topics, such as (diffusion of) innovation and institutionalization. Although more recently the conceptual, methodological and practical challenges related to scaling of climate-smart agriculture have received more attention, there remains a need for the development of a more coherent theory of scaling informed by insights from sociology, political sciences and gender studies.In the work of CCAFS globally, scaling has been an important and recurring topic. Scaling mechanisms expected to be useful, according to CCAFS, include agricultural and climate (change) related policies, government (investment) programs, improved supply chains, information and communication technologies (e.g. agro-advisories), impact investment by the private sector, financial services, and social networks (e.g. farmer to farmer exchanges) (concerning the role of social networks, see the review by Martínez-Barón et al. 2018 3 ). In a recent blog (December 2018), CCAFS states that best CSA practices \"eventually need to reach 500 million farmers\". 4  A recent (early 2018) search in the CCAFS on-line publication repository using the keyword scaling (the English term only) gave 113 references spanning the whole programming period since the start in 2011. A repeated search (December 2018), gave 144 (two are in Vietnamese). A poster title of 2015 captures succinctly why CCAFS pays attention to scaling (Girvetz et al. 2015): \"25 million African farming families by 2025: science-development partnerships for scaling climate-smart agriculture\". A working paper from the same year reinforces this: \"Reaching more farmers. Innovative approaches for scaling-up climate-smart agriculture\" (Westermann et al. 2015). Not only aspirational publications can be found; also more practical. A CCAFS Info Note published in 2016 has the title 'CSA Plan': A guide to scaling climate-smart agriculture -Concepts and lessons from designing CSA programs and policies in sub-Saharan Africa (Rosenstock et al. 2016). More recently, Aggarwal et al. (2018) claim that the climate-smart village approach is an effective framework of an integrative approach for scaling up adaptation option in agriculture.The 113 references found in early 2018 in English all concern CCAFS work in Africa and Asia. Of the 144 references found by the end of 2018, nine concern Latin America. When searching in the CCAFS on-line repository using the Spanish term for scaling, \"escalamiento,\" 26 references were found early 2018 (e.g. Boa et al. 2015, Bouroncle et al. 2015, Bouroncle et al. 2017, CCAFS 2013); unexpectedly, they were reduced to only two at the end of 2018. Among the 26, one was the Info Note Diseño de una metodología para el escalamiento de las prácticas de agricultura sostenible adaptada el clima en Cauca, Colombia or Design of a methodology to scale sustainable agricultural practices adapted to the climate in Cauca, Colombia (Mora Montero 2017). The Info Note reported on a scaling methodology based on the identification of analogue sites with similar climate and socioeconomic characteristics as the CCAFS reference site, in this case the CCAFS denominated \"climate-smart village\" in Cauca. The InfoNote is one of the examples of practical (methodological) guidance to scaling or a how to guide.The study produced by Westermann et al. (2015) 5 is likely the most comprehensive review of 'CCAFS scaling' to date. The authors underline that CCAFS scaling is required to achieve impact beyond the plot or site level and reach more people over wider areas [similar to what usually is called scaling out or horizontal scaling], and to impact on institutions and policies that drive the interest in scaling up [sometimes called vertical scaling] and have a substantive impact on poverty. They argue that inherent in the notion of climate-smart agriculture is the need for hundreds of millions of smallholder farmers to adopt climate smart practices and technologies, which will inevitably involve new and innovative ways of moving to scale (ibid: 11; emphasis added). From this obvious circular argument, it is not so surprising that a push approach appears as the preferred CCAFS scaling approach. However, the authors observe that not necessarily the (CCAFS) researchers themselves have to bring things This research paper is largely based on a literature review of CCAFS publications available on-line (in English and Spanish) complemented by a number of non-CCAFS scientific publications. Originally, the idea was to elaborate on the review findings by including the answers to a small number of questionnaire responses that we sent to 10 researchers in Latin America working on agricultural development (some involved with CCAFS and some not involved with CCAFS) about their experiences with scaling agricultural innovations (see Annex 1 for the questionnaire). Four completed questionnaires were received. Two questionnaires dealt with ongoing research and reported that it was too early to comment on the scaling approach used. Two questionnaires described the scaling experience in detail. The answers to these questionnaires were transcribed and can be found in section 4 in the form of non-CCAFS case studies. The limited (completed) responses to the questionnaire is one of the limitations of the research paper.The research paper benefits from the practical involvement of both authors with CCAFS research planning, implementation and monitoring during the last seven years in Africa, Asia and Latin America.This research paper will be complemented by a Guatemala field study report that focuses on the views of local stakeholders on scaling. A third area researched macro-level policy issues such as the identification of priority actions for adaptation in Guatemala's agricultural sector (Boa et al. 2014, Bouroncle et al. 2015).Part 2: The CCAFS scaling approach −on paper− In the CSV approach, a village could also be an agroecologically defined area, e.g., a small watershed. In Spanish, the word 'territorio' (territory) is used in the concept of Territorio Sostenible Adaptado al Clima (TeSAC), literally, climate-adapted sustainable territory. The spatial difference between village and territory is important. Originally, the CSV approach focused on practices and technologies related mainly to crops (in a village). The territory approach is more holistic and agroecosystem based. Not only does it focus on a larger geographic area, but also considers the diversity of natural resource use, the maintenance of 7 Not included here is social equity. Some authors have argued that what equity actually means in the context of CSA has been poorly theorized and discussed by CCAFS. They asked the question if CSA produces 'triple wins' or 'triple faults'? (Karlsson et al. 2017). Equity is not one of the three pillars of CCAFS' approach to promote CSA, which are productivity, adaptation and mitigation. An analysis of equity requires an analysis of power relationships -hardly included in any CCAFS publication.ecosystem services and the importance of collective action (Sherr et al. 2012. Louman et al. 2015). The evolution of the approach is evident in the first series of profiles of Climate-Smart Agriculture for Latin America jointly prepared by CIAT  This section reviews CCAFS scaling practices (approaches, methods, tools, mechanisms) from around the world as described in publications by CCAFS researchers often together with their national and/or international partners. The review starts with single practices followed by more complex practices. One non-CCAFS example is presented: the Collaborative Participatory Plant Breeding Program in Central America.ICRAF has experimented with community innovation funds in Vietnam, simple kick-start funds to support farmer interest groups who have limited access to formal financial services for implementing climate-smart agriculture practices. A Community Investment Fund (CIF) can be implemented as sole fund or as co-investment to community savings and loans groups (ICRAF 2018). A CIF functions as a kind of village saving and loan association usually is a group of 10-25 people who save money collectively and take small loans from those savings.The activities of the group run in cycles of one year, after which the accumulated savings and the loan profits are distributed back to members. The purpose is to provide simple savings and loan facilities in a community that does not have easy access to formal financial services.Both these mechanisms put farmers in the driver seat allowing demand driven adoption of CSA technologies. Other authors (non-CCAFS related) have more deeply analyzed the role of community-based organizations, such as in Bangladesh (Karim and Thiel 2017). In the CCAFS literature, this remains an under-researched area.Son et al. (2018) report on the use of climate-related risks maps and adaptation plans for the Mekong Delta of Vietnam that serve to recognize climate-related risks, identify potentially affected areas and develop regional and provincial adaptation plans for rice production in the Delta region. The maps are used by the provinces in the Delta to recommend changes in the rice cropping system and sowing/transplanting systems to be adopted by farmers. The recommendations take into consideration flood, drought, and salinity intrusion risks at subecological zonal level, but based on an integrated regional approach. While the map itself can be considered a tool at scale, it allows recommendations to be made at a smaller scale. It is not clear if farmers have started to make changes based on the recommendations. 8Another, very particular, linear scaling approach used in Vietnam is the so-called 'large field model' which simply argues that to make scaling possible smallholder farm plots should be \"aggregated\" into large farms so that new technologies can be rolled out over a large area without the hindrance of multiple boundaries and barriers (Thang T.C. et al. 2017). It seems that the authors mean physical boundaries and barriers; discussion of socio-economic or other boundaries and barriers is strikingly absent.In the Philippines, the local CCAFS teamed up with the Philippine Federation of Rural Broadcasters (PFRB) to develop a campaign on climate change 9 . The campaign started in 2016 and involves 150 rural broadcasters in the Philippines who mobilize the rural sector (particularly farmers, fisherfolk and rural women) and advocate the practice of climate smart agriculture. CCAFS staff will provide members of the PFRB and their network of community radio practitioners with ready-to-be-aired interviews and scripts on climate-smart agriculture.The broadcast materials will be produced in the languages of selected pilot regions. To motivate broadcasters, a reward and incentive system based on listenership and impact will be put in place. It is assumed that listeners will adopt the CSA practices promoted on the radio (Cruz et al. 2016).8 CCFS South-east Asia has supported two other CSA scaling projects in recent years, one to scale CSA horizontally (from farmer to farmer), one vertically (from farmer to government). Unfortunately, no useful reports were provided by CCAFS about the scaling results of the two projects. More information and some stories about the two projects can be found at: https://ccafs.cgiar.org/evidencescaling-out-climate-smart-agriculture-southeast-asia#.XBDOaNOWwcQ 9 For more information about the work in the Philippines, see: https://ccafs.cgiar.org/publications/towards-portfolio-climate-resilient-technological-optionscommunity-level-participatory#.XBDPLNOWwcQ One of the important findings is that in the country differentiated solutions are needed given that impacts of climate change are often unique to specific locations and tend to differ considerably, even from community to community.Poudel et al. ( 2017) used an extrapolation approach based on field evidence from Nepal to help CSA policy-makers and implementers at national and subnational levels to make informed decisions and invest in a strategic CSA portfolio 10 . This approach uses analogue sitessites which display similar current and/or future climatic conditions to the CCAFS pilot project districts. Cultivation areas for rice, wheat, maize and millet in each district were used to estimate the geographic potential for scaling up of the selected CSA options. More than 50% climate similarity was assumed to be a favorable condition for technology transfer from one location to another (3)(4). This was complemented by a detailed review of the national policy environment to evaluate the possibility of scaling up CSA: 1) determine The study concludes that efforts to scale up CSA options need to take account of complex and continuously changing interactions between biophysical, social, economic, environmental, climatic and institutional factors. The complexity is compounded as these factors interact with different agricultural management levels (local to national, and geographically) over different time frames. Existing pathways to scale-up, however, do not adequately take into account these complex realities and embrace the common approach of \"find out what works (in one place) and do more of the same (elsewhere)\". ( 7)In Nepal three models are proposed to support the pathways for scaling up of CSA options. 4. Verify these conditions of one (or more) analog units to identify opportunities and obstacles for scaling.5. Continue to adapt the methodology through repetitions in other units.One of the conclusions was that the process of scaling needs to be two directional: from bottom to top to find funding sources, influence policies and institutions that can implement;and from top to bottom to build on local organizations and social dynamics that can guarantee sustainability (3). Unfortunately, the study does not describe how effective the methodology was in terms of scaling outcomes so it is hard to assess its utility.Building The ICRAF study argues that the models include specific components that are contextspecific and not scalable, but the technologies and the approach developed for identifying CSA practices can be generically applied. This study offers a useful conceptual refinement of scaling theory.In a number of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, Bioversity International and partners have piloted a novel (vertical) scaling approach to climate change adaptation 11 .Based on the assumption that adoption of climate-smart agricultural options needs a constant and quick-paced process of discovery to identify locally appropriate solutions, researchers took insights from citizen science and crowdsourcing to design a new methodology named \"tricot\" (for triadic comparison of technologies) in which hundreds or even thousands of farmer are involved as citizen scientist or researchers (Steinke and van Etten 2016). The tricot approach allows for the participation of many more farmers in participatory trials than usually is the case, which has a direct effect on variety dissemination. Results are scaled using digital technologies and simple formats that allow for unsupervised participation.Farmers receive packages of seeds with three different varieties and submit their feedback in a simple format, ranking the 'best/middle/worst' of each package for different traits. Each package contains a different combination of varieties (an \"incomplete block\"), which allows for testing a diverse set of varieties. The farmer-generated data are then combined with environmental and socio-economic data and analyzed with specific, novel statistical methods for ranking data.The tricot approach has been able to demonstrate how varieties are differentially adapted to different growing conditions across large areas. The approach has already been adopted by a number of large-scale initiatives in South Asia, East Africa, e.g.the Integrated Seed Sector Development program in Ethiopia supported by the Dutch government), and Central America. ISSD-Ethiopia used the approach with 5,995 farmers, who subsequently shared seeds with others and created seed demand, affecting an estimated 1.3 million farmers (Bioversity International 2018).In recent decades, a number of agricultural initiatives were implemented by international and national organizations, some of which were reviewed to develop the initial CCAFS program for Latin America. 12 However, with regard to lessons learned for scaling purposes, not much evidence could be found As an interesting example of such an initiative we present here a short review of one of the longest running agricultural programs in Central America with a reach of tens of thousands of farmers is the Central American participatory plant breeding programme. 13 This example points to two important insights: 1) horizontal scaling through a capacity development approach based on peer learning is feasible, but it takes much and continuous effort and a very long time to mature; and 2) scaling processes are embedded in and influenced by particular complexities of socio-economic and political dynamics. Garming and Waibel (2005) described two main intervention strategies of the programme.The \"zig -zag\" approach (CATIE 2001), different from Field Schools, which involves trainings and meetings of farm families, extensionists and trainers; with feedback routines at all levels during the crop cycle, from the preparation of the planting to the harvest. This allows for timely attention to perceived problems and the development of proposals to find solutions together with farmers. The second strategy was to support regional and national committees to involve decision-makers in planning of programme activities.An evaluation report of the programme (Dumazert 2001) emphasized the preexistent organization level as a key factor so that producers are actively counterparts of the providers of technical assistance. Other factors that influence effective horizontal scaling are the economic capacity to innovate and the interest in intensification models (for example, coffee producers are more likely to adopt and disseminate new practices). A later evaluation report (Braun et al. 2002) stressed the importance of the integration of the regional and national committees to other areas (such as commercialization) to improve the sustainability and impact. This last report also pointed out the importance of advocacy in academia as a future scaling factor.In Investments in capacity building (for farmers, experts, and decision makers alike) and knowledge dissemination (through public extension services, universities and academia, or the private sector) are critical for ensuring the widespread adoption of CSA, particularly to enable the vital but complex implementation of integrated measures.\" (Sova et al. 2018: 6) This study, richly illustrated with colorful but not so easy to understand figures and tables, illustrates the lack of consultation with farmers about their experiences with CSA interventions across the world and their views on the potential for scaling. A farmer focused assessment study of the CSV approach in one of the CCAFS sites in Vietnam, contradicts the aforementioned conclusion in the Sova et al. report and instead highlights that not capacity development is a major hurdle, but the availability of farm labor (Vernooy et al. 2017).The Sova et al. report emphasizes that CSA options are highly context specific and recommends that it will be very important \"to further develop and test location, and systemspecific knowledge on CSA technologies as well as delivery mechanisms and required policy and enabling environments\" (ibid: 29).Totin et al. (2018), in a recent global overview study, observe that there has been a gradual shift from a technology-oriented approach to climate-smart agriculture to a more systemsoriented approach that considers the complexity of farming systems. Using the innovation system framework, the study analyzed 137 peer reviewed CSA publications. They observed that interest in institutional perspectives of CSA technologies has gradually grown over the years.Several studies conducted in the agricultural innovation domain have shown that when focusing on technologies alone, one overlooks the enabling and constraining factors that determine whether technologies are available, accessible, and are able to make a difference for farmers. They state that there has been little research to understand the role of local rules, historical legacies, cultural influences, social identities, and political competition in the uptake of CSA technologies. Many scholars argue that the institutional context in which a given technology is promoted is inevitably a component that shapes the uptake process (12).Although the existing literature acknowledges the importance of some institutions in the In Eastern Africa, CCAFS partners have set up a learning alliance to build capacity under the umbrella of the so-called PACCA project. They key challenge to scaling is seen as They observe that multi-stakeholder platforms (MPSs) bring together a group of stakeholders working in different sectors. In the course of the MSPs, participating stakeholders, i.e.individuals, groups, and organizations, come together and \"get things done\". What is \"done\" depends on stakeholders' characteristics such as their capacity and motivation and how they integrate into multi-stakeholder innovation networks that give them access to different benefits such as information, markets, and finance. Integration into these innovation networks is effected through other stakeholders in these networks, i.e. innovation network stakeholders, and depends on the connections among them both in and outside MSPs (page 2).Ouédraogo et al. (2018)  The authors conclude that these may be the ones ready for scaling. However, in the region, (wide) adoption of agricultural innovations is constrained by several socioeconomic, institutional, infrastructural, biophysical and political factors, including high illiteracy among farmers, their poor technical capacity, low dissemination of information on CSA options, limited availability of inputs and equipment for implementing CSA. The study argues that removing these barriers will require actions towards capacity building of farmers and the provision of agricultural credits and subsidies to deliver required agricultural inputs and organize logistics. One opportunity is to link CSVs to development programs in the region and to policies. Westermann et al. (2015), in a CCAFS working paper, making use of 11 case studies from around the world, conclude that multi-stakeholder platforms and policy making networks are key to effective upscaling, especially if paired with capacity enhancement, learning, and innovative approaches to support decision making of farmers. They note though that these novel approaches still face challenges of promoting uptake, which remain contextualized and thus require a certain level of local engagement (the need to scale down), while continuously paying attention to farmer's needs and situations (34). They note that scaling up of CSA technologies and practices, in particular, brings its own issues, given considerable uncertainty, incomplete or contradictory knowledge, and massive stakes for billions of people.The complexity of the climate change challenge in general, but particularly in terms of its cross-level dynamics, requires a multi-dimensional approach to scaling up CSA responses ( 14). Authors conclude that scaling up often needs to have some element of local engagement ('scaling down', in effect), and while this may be a trade-off we have to live with, the approaches used can help to address this. ( 33 The authors group the scaling used in the 11 cases as follows:Value chain approaches: provide a mechanism for linking multiple actors around a common objective by creating space for dialogue, knowledge exchange, capacity building and strengthening negotiation capacities. Value chains can act as a delivery mechanism for government and private extension services, credit, and subsidy programmes. They provide market-driven demand (currently, often towards green and more organic products) that may Policy change: implies the creation of appropriate and effective institutional and governance mechanisms to co-generate information, ensure broad participation and harmonize policies.Creating a political space, through advocacy and outreach, is to have the eyes and ears of major political actors and key constituencies who may facilitate or provide political obstacles to large-scale developmental processes. Creating a policy space is an opportunity to influence policy making and strategies through the provision of technical input to the formulation and implementation of policies that are robust in the light of uncertainty. (23-24)Newel and Taylor (2018) further elaborate on the political blindness of proponents of climate-smart agriculture, arguing that the promotion of the concept is a smart move by private-led transnationals, FAO, WB and the CGIAR to distract the public from key issues around sustainable agriculture and to avoid the question who will benefit from it and who will not? They argue that the (what could be seen as the scaling) agenda proposed by these actors of reduction of emissions through technology (fixes), land consolidation, reinforcement of property rights and the reinvention of GMOs as climate-smart technology, is highly political. The agenda denies alternative solutions, such as trading access to technology and innovation, redistribution of land, and the collective sharing of rights (108-129).Newel and Taylor (2018) did not mention that FAO's comprehensive sourcebook about CSA (2013) actually included a careful and comprehensive scaling approach. FAO argued that the scaling up of climate-smart practices will require appropriate institutional and governance mechanisms to disseminate information, ensure broad participation and harmonize policies. It may not be possible to achieve all the CSA objectives at once. Context-specific priorities need to be determined, and benefits and tradeoffs evaluated. FAO warned that CSA is not a single specific agricultural technology or practice that can be universally applied/scaled. It is an approach that requires site-specific assessments to identify suitable agricultural production technologies and practices (FAO 2013: X).This 'nuanced' approach promoted by FAO (page X):1. Addresses the complex interrelated challenges of food security, development and climate change, and identifies integrated options that create synergies and benefits and reduce tradeoffs;2. Recognizes that these options will be shaped by specific country contexts and capacities and by the particular social, economic, and environmental situation where it will be applied;3. Assesses the interactions between sectors and the needs of different involved stakeholders;4. Identifies barriers to adoption, especially among farmers, and provides appropriate solutions in terms of policies, strategies, actions and incentives;5. Seeks to create enabling environments through a greater alignment of policies, financial investments and institutional arrangements; Another strong theoretical critique on scaling has been made by several authors who point out that studies of innovation and diffusion (scaling) often use an overly prescriptive view of technologies (they should be used as an input) while ignoring their suggested use (one could say, they should be seen as an idea) allowing adaptions by users (Akullo et al. 2018). \"Scaling up and out is less of a straightforward concept than we might expect it to be, given the ease with which so many use it in pleas and proposals. When we unpack the concept, we find it loaded with associated processes and dimensions and linked to a range of possible approaches and other concepts. There appears to be a tendency towards linear thinking and an instrumentalist take on the concept and practice of scaling (up) in the context of international development. In many of these cases, where the term 'scaling up' is used, the term 'scaling out' would have been more appropriate. We quite regularly come across the idea of scaling up \"what works\" or \"best practices\". The idea of 'roll-out' is very much related to this kind of thinking. In the context of AR4D this seems not to provide the full picture because of two important fallacy concepts concerning scale: the ecological fallacy (what works at one scale will work at another), and the composition fallacy (what is good for one person is good for everyone).\" (Wigboldus and Leeuwis 2013: 13-14.) Scaling always depends on actors' views on scaling practices and their perceived capacities to support it. Building on the work of Geels ( 2002), these critics propose a nuanced, systemic analytical framework in which the interplay and trade-offs between different forces are taken into consideration and unplanned and unintended consequences are factored in. This framework is called the PRactice-Oriented Multi-level perspective on Innovation and Scaling (PROMIS) and has 14 aspects or dimensions (Wigboldus et al. 2016: 46). The framework is useful to develop an operational theory of change/scaling that addresses two key questions:how scaling is expected to happen? and what will happen if this goes to scale (both positively and potentially, negatively)?Wigboldus further developed these ideas for a theory of responsible scaling in a paper with Leeuwis (and 2013) and another paper with Brouwers (2016) and, more recently, in his PhD thesis (Wigboldus 2018). Responsible scaling requires addressing four dimensions:opportunities (what and for what); societal values and interests; capacities and conditions;anticipations (effects of and on scaling). These dimensions can be assessed by asking 15 questions along the unfolding scaling process (adapted from table 20, Assessment of readiness for responsible scaling, page 87, Wigboldus and Brouwers 2016). The questions are:Design phase  Is there clarity of vision on what value addition is aspired to? Is there clarity of vision on the core element of (aspired) success? Have a number of variations on the (success) theme been explored/developed? Is there clarity of connections to relevant stakeholder perspectives and energies? Is there clarity of conditions of success in the envisaged application contexts? Is there an articulation of assumptions underpinning the Theory of Scaling?Change process phase  Is there enhanced variability in relation to core success factors? Is there stakeholders' connectivity towards convergence? Is the nature of the scaling perceived as collaborative by key actors/stakeholders? Are the original assumptions underpinning the Theory of Scaling correct? Have the scaling pathways been adapted based on new insights? Do the available options align with user preferences? Is there improved access to options? Are there improved tailored options/variations on common theme? Is there stakeholders' agreement about value addition? Gargani and Mclean (2017), working on the other side of the Atlantic (in North America)propose something similar to Wigboldus et al. They argue that what is needed is a dynamic, non-linear scaling theory of change (emphasis added) that has three basic components: a path to scale, a response to scale, and partners for scale. They argue that scaling is not only about numbers and commercial success, but about ethics and social impact. Their definition of scaling impact is \"a coordinated effort to achieve a collection of impacts at optimal scale that is only undertaken if it is both morally justified and warranted by the dynamic evaluation of evidence.\" (p. 36) One of their main arguments is that chances of successful scaling increase when the actors affected by it will be meaningfully involved because ultimately they will be the people best placed to assess scaling success. The authors observe there are very few scaling/innovation models that do this well. A second argument they make is that scaling usually has an optimum level, which is seldom the maximum. Scaling usually implies tradeoffs (a key point Wigboldus et al. make as well).Building on the concept of responsible scaling (although not discussed in detail), the PPB Lab Food and Water in collaboration with CIMMYT recently launched a tool called the scaling scan, a practical tool to determine strengths and weaknesses of a particular scaling ambition or proposal. This planning and ex ante self-assessment tool consists of 10 \"ingredients\" or elements that together define the potential and challenges of a particular scaling ambition (PPB Lab Food and Water and CIMMYT 2018). Users can score -based on their best of knowledge-these 10 elements based on answers to a series of guiding questions.The ingredients are: Technology/Practice -An effective and efficient solution for the issue at stake The authors caution that the scaling scan is not meant to design a scaling strategy or scale a project or program, but only to assess the scaling potential of specific innovations.This tool is useful to reflect about the importance of context, although it remains heavily supply oriented.\"Climate-smart agriculture has shown promise at the local scale, but it has still not reached scale in most countries.\" (Aggarwal et al. 2018)  What is exactly meant by scaling in the CCAFS literature? How does CCAFS know that the technologies and practices that it wants to scale are effective (e.g. defined in technical, economic terms, social terms) beyond the pilot sites they have been testedin to some degree and with the involvement of some farmers?The predominant meaning of scaling seems to be to push so-called proven CSA interventionsto more people, more places and into development policies, programs and projects. Although a good amount of critical scaling thinking has taken place in recent years in academic and research circles, including under the umbrella of at least one CGIAR CRP (Innovation Systems for the Humid Tropics), it seems that CCAFS programming has only adopted a few of the conceptual, methodological and practical insights gained. That seems a missed opportunity. Apart from societal factors that may hinder the scaling of CSA (some of them mentioned by Aggarwal et al. 2018), there may also be an important conceptual barrier.Although Although recently a more nuanced scaling discourse has emerged (Koerner et al. 2018) 19 and efforts have been stepped up to develop a CCAFS gender and social inclusion strategy 20 , the prevailing CCAFS approach so far represents a strategy of straightforward replication and adoption (a push approach) without a clear theory of scaling. It seems based on the belief that scaling something \"good\" will produce more \"good\" things. The possibility that \"bad\" things could result from the scaling seems to be overlooked. Authors have called this kind of thinking the fallacy of generalizations. It is informed by the lack of (critical) capacity to anticipate positive and negative outcomes and impact (Wigboldus 2018). How scaling is supposed to be done/happen in a stepwise and not necessarily linear process -as many societal processes unfold (including conflicts and struggles)− remains in a black box. 2119 Koerner et al. (2018: 2) observed that: \"There is still poor conceptual clarity on what scaling is, which results in a narrow focus on numbers, with the assumption that a certain adoption rate at a defined time, usually the end of the project, will lead to the desired impact, in a sustainable way. But is more always better?\" 20 See: https://ccafs.cgiar.org/flagships/gender-and-social-inclusion 21 Wigboldus (2018) contends that CGIAR programming at large lacks a clear theory of scaling.Overly simplistic views of scaling ignore the fact that technology development, adoption and adaptation are part of a social process imbedded in larger societal configurations and processes. These configurations and processes are usually the result of a long history characterized by competition, conflicts and struggles over resources (e.g. land, capital, knowledge), but also by forms of collective action, coordination and cooperation. ). In other regions where CCAFS operates, the term innovation platform is not used. We could not find much evidence that farmers are involved in scaling debates there. Our ongoing study in Guatemala about CCAFS scaling (Vernooy and Bouroncle 2019) is a systematic (although small in scope) attempt to ask local stakeholders about their views and interests in scaling and the development of a demand driven approach. This differs from asking development experts about their views and interests. Such a approach aims to develop a shared perspective on (the options for) scaling among stakeholders. Wigboldus identifies 12 scaling spaces or domains that need to be analyzed through stakeholder engagement: environmental, political, cultural, social, analytical, partnership, legitimacy, competency, management, facilitation, financial and learning (2018: 168). The scaling scan method, borrowed from Wigboldus, has 10 interrelated analytical elements (see section 4) offering a holistic and responsible scaling approach. One suggestion is to pilot the scaling scan method in Guatemala where there is still ample scope to design a scaling approach that takes into account the emerging lessons learned from other regions.For Honduras, see: https://ccafs.cgiar.org/publications/innovation-platforms-climate-smart-agriculturehonduras#.XE-qzVVKjIU and https://ccafs.cgiar.org/node/55647#.XE-q1lVKjIU","tokenCount":"5678"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cf61fc4e699cc83a877653b74ef86dcd","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e4712f20-079e-4244-b19b-e44b21b69040/retrieve","id":"211791694"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7a92a486-44e0-4765-842b-941d1f0eee8d","pagecount":"1","content":"Zambeze-1 is located within the Mukumbura administrative post (Magoe district, Tete). There are 20 project beneficiaries in this community: 14 men and 6 women. Most of them are crop farmers that also keep goats and some keep cattle. A few don't have animals yet, but are planning to keep them. As in the other project communities, lack of animal feeding in the dry season and high goat mortality mostly due to poor housing were the main constraints faced in goat keeping.Lead by Mr Motsi, the community based animal health worker, and with technical input from the project, this group has shown the potential of working together in achieving a common goal: better livelihoods through livestock.Although some of the group members participated in the training on dry season feeding techniques held in 2010; the real breakthrough in the project was the construction of improved goat shelters in 2011. The group decided that the first shelter should be constructed at Mr Motsi's place because he is a role model in the community and his house is near a local road ensuring visibility of the shelter. All group members contributed to its construction: the men cut trees and transported them; the women cut the grass for the roofing.After that, 9 more shelters were built and 4 are still under construction. It is estimated that around 500 persons have enquired about the improved shelter and how they can also benefit from the project. Group members supported 5 goat keepers from nearby (non-project) communities with the construction of improved shelters. The group also built a treatment corridor for goats and a forage tree nursery.Through the project activities, the group members realized that selling healthy goats on a regular basis can be an important source of income for their families.\"Before this project, we never had access to improved technologies on goat husbandry. We used to do what our parents did\" \"At the beginning we didn't know if there would be a change…but now we can see that our animals die less and they are healthier\"","tokenCount":"339"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c5b41ad64af39fcb2c838cf42d0f9cfc","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b53f17f4-b411-4863-83e8-f474ceff30cc/retrieve","id":"-1665226118"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"26f1799d-2e27-4036-a15f-112ca3532c2b","pagecount":"64","content":"Post-graduate research projects are an effective method for building new research capacity in sub-Saharan Africa. The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) offers a graduate fellowship programme for scientists from developing and developed countries. This is done in partnership with universities in African and Asian countries, Europe, Australia and North America. To date such programmes have not been adequately assessed to find the impact on national research capacity, the graduate fellows and the partner institutions. To assess the value of this training, ILRI conducted an impact study of its graduate fellows in Kenya and Ethiopia between 1978 and 1997. This report presents the tools and methods used in this study. Others may use these freely, but appropriate acknowledgement of the source will be appreciated. Future users may modify these instruments for their own impact studies; and indeed are encouraged to do so. We recognise that many improvements could be made and request feedback from others on how they have accomplished this. This report also presents part of the results to enable those interested in future impact studies in Ethiopia or Kenya to use the data as a benchmark.In recent years the impact of graduate degree training of students from sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been debated widely (Pires et al. 1999). These studies have focused mostly on 'rates of return', i.e. the number of students returning to work in Africa after completing their degree courses. While these surveys of overseas study among trained African scientists are useful, there are many other important hypotheses to explore. Little is known, for instance, about either the direct or indirect outcomes of training programmes on long-term capacity building within developing countries.In late 1998 an impact assessment of graduate training at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and at the founder institutes, International Livestock Centre for Africa (ILCA) and International Laboratory for Research on Animal Diseases (ILRAD) was undertaken. 1 The impact study covers 60 graduate fellows from Kenya and Ethiopia who undertook the research component of their degrees at ILRI between 1978 and 1997. Graduate fellows (GF) are staff members of national agricultural research systems (NARS) who are students registered for a graduate degree (e.g. MSc, DEA, MPhil or PhD) in their home countries or elsewhere. The GF undertake a major part (sometimes all) of the research component of their degree at ILRI, working in an ILRI research project and supervised by an ILRI staff member. Over 75% of the 307 graduate fellows over the 1978-97 period were from African countries and almost without exception they returned to or entered into the NARS after their degree training. It was to these students that the assessment was addressed.Demand for graduate training at ILRI remains high as NARS in SSA continue to develop capacity. The desired outcomes of this study were to:• be able to identify the contribution that ILRI had made to institutional development and building new capacity from NARS institutes• ascertain the sustainability of that new capacity • determine whether changes were necessary in the current and future ILRI programmes. This paper documents the tools, process and collected data of the impact assessment of graduate training at ILRI. It is published with the intention of making these instruments available to other international and national research institutes interested in evaluating their graduate study and capacity building programmes. Analysis and discussion of the results appear in a follow-up paper (Eley et al. in preparation).for the evaluation. In other words the tools determine rather than provide the service to the outcome.As Foxon (1989) and Taschereau (1998) noted, the most common evaluation techniques range from simple questionnaires to complex statistical procedures. Review of evaluation methods in education and training programmes identifies three main techniques. Firstly direct interviews that can include interviewing the trainee, trainer or trainee's supervisor. A second method involves the use of questionnaires (without interviews), which generate qualitative or quantitative data or both. The third method involves statistical measures that tend to compare an evaluated group of participants with a control group. Some literature does, however, suggest that a mix of methods is preferable to the selection of one of these methods. It is advised, for instance, to combine inter-views with questionnaires, and to collect both qualitative and quantitative data (Brannen 1992;Kirkpatrick 1994).In the course of this study evaluation reports were made available to us from other international research institutes. Unfortunately, most have not been published and all have had limited dissemination. Consequently tools and process were not widely available. Moreover they have focused primarily on informal analysis of training impact and primarily on short-term training activities (e.g. for International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) the study by Nagur (1993)). An exception was in 1988 when International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), followed 231 of their 1205 trainees from the 1984-1987 period and undertook a more methodologically rigorous approach (Kearl 1991). Unfortunately, there were few (if any) graduate students followed up.Perhaps the most extensive follow up to graduate training has been by International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) (Raab et al. 1998). Three associated questions were asked. What did IRRI's training programme do in terms of a) advancement of rice science, b) dissemination of rice-related knowledge and technology and c) the development of national rice research systems? A questionnaire was developed and sent to all 612 MSc and PhD fellows who were at IRRI from 1962 to 1995. Over 60% (374) responded. Although the methodology was not published, results indicated that questions were asked as to how IRRI contributed to scientific competence in terms of acquiring scientific and technical skills and scientific product (to answer (a) above) and to teaching (question b). Development of NARS (question c) was based on numbers of ex-trainees working in the NARS, with the premise that the higher educational level of trainees over the years, the increase in disciplinary areas worked and ability for local universities to undertake their own course work rather than depend on overseas support, were indicators for development.This IRRI report stands alone in assessing degree related training and despite interest expressed by all the CGIAR centres to strengthen the evaluation component of training and capacity building activities, achievements in this regard are few. For example, in a recent survey of genetic resources training activities, all 16 centres of the CGIAR indicated that they conduct first-level evaluation of training activities, which immediately follows the training event. However, only four centres reported conducting long-term or impact evaluation of training, namely International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI), International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR), ICARDA and ILRI (ISNAR/SGRP 1999).As noted above for the most part the few tools and processes needed to undertake impact assessment have not focused on degree training, but rather short course training (Hambly et al. 1999). The first task of ILRI was therefore to set out its evaluation objectives and hypotheses and develop relevant tools and a process for assessing the impact of its graduate degree training programme.The first graduate fellows started at ILRAD in 1978 andin ILCA in 1985. The major goal of those institutes was, and now of ILRI's training programme is, to increase the research capacity within the NARS. In the graduate degree training context, the training of existing or future NARS researchers increases this capacity. The NARS, as defined in this study, include not only government research and extension organisations but also university departments of agriculture, veterinary medicine and science and non-governmental organisations. From 1978 to 1997, ILRI hosted a total of 307 graduate fellows; 233 from 26 African countries and 74 from 15 developed countries.ILRI has emphasised the importance of graduate study as part of its research programmes for several reasons. Firstly ILRI's mandate is to assist in sustainable development for poverty alleviation through the enhanced productivity of livestock. Such development must involve the NARS where skilled human resources are directly linked to research output and effectiveness in addressing the problems at hand. Graduate training contributes to a sustained human resource capacity increase among NARS. Consequently, although the training benefits the career development of the graduate fellow as an individual, it is an important part of the institutional strengthening. Secondly ILRI benefits from graduate study programmes directly through the contribution of the student's research towards its own research outputs, and subsequently through the creation of partnerships with the ex-trainees and their NARS.The overall purpose of the review of ILRI's graduate fellowship programme was to assess the impact of the programme over a 20-year period. The contribution that ILRI had made to build new capacity among NARS institutes and the sustainability of that new capacity provided the rationale for the study.The specific objectives of the impact study were therefore identified as follows:• to determine the impact of graduate training to capacity building in agricultural research in developing countries• to provide self-evaluation by the training programme to facilitate improvement in the programme, including monitoring and evaluation• to systemise feedback on the programme on the programme and,• to provide information to interested donors and attract further funding.The study set out six key hypotheses that would respond to the above objectives: 1. ILRI graduate fellows obtain new research knowledge, attitudes and skills during their fellowship programme. 2. ILRI graduate fellows return to their NARS to practise their newly attained abilities. 3. ILRI graduate fellows continue to use and sustain these new research skills. 4. ILRI graduate fellows continue to make useful contributions to their NARS. 5. ILRI graduate fellows contribute to ILRI's own research programme. 6. Universities, NARS and NARS employees perceive ILRI as a high quality location for graduate degree research.The immediate problem for implementing the study was that ILRI knew of no tools that would achieve the desired result. Furthermore the evaluation literature suggests that no single methodology exists for assessing the impact of graduate training and capacity building efforts. ILRI addressed this challenge by designing a process that would allow for maximum data capture, with minimal cost associated with tracking ex-graduate fellows. The tool developed consisted of six separate questionnaires that could be used alone or in combination to address the hypotheses. The respondents of the various questionnaires were a) the recipients of the training, i.e. the graduate students themselves, b) representatives from ILRI and universities who contributed to the training as supervisors and c) potential beneficiaries of the training, i.e. the users or clients of the graduate fellows knowledge and skills. The potential beneficiaries consisted of people who were considered best able to assess performance of the trained personnel.Officer and the Head of Training Resources met during several brain-storming sessions and listed the often-asked questions about impact. Between them the three officers had over 50 years of experience in postgraduate training through their employment in 3 NARS and 9 international institutes. Over a number of years these questions had been posed by the specialists themselves and also had come from ILRI's donors, board members, observers and the NARS. 2. The often-asked questions were grouped and from these groups the six key hypotheses were formulated. 3. Questions to test each hypothesis were then developed and grouped. For each section indicators were developed to provide a measure of achieving the objectives for that section. Following discussion and iterations within the Training Programme, external input was sought and an independent consultant was recruited. Working with the ILRI team, the consultant transferred the broad questions to a recording form that was used to refine the questions. The questions were formulated to provide multiple choices; very few were open-ended. This was done to facilitate data processing and to avoid ambiguous responses. Finally the questions were divided in several separate questionnaires; each one to be answered by a different person associated with the same graduate fellow training activity (Appendices 1-6). • Questionnaire 2A is intended for university supervisors. It contains questions assessing the contribution of the supervisors in guiding students and their assessment of the environments in ILRI and NARS.• ILRI supervisors complete Questionnaire 2B. They give information regarding their interaction with the student, their opinion on the student's abilities and assessed the training environment within ILRI.• Current NARS supervisors complete Questionnaire 3A or 3B depending on whether they were the supervisor at the time of the award of the fellowship. The questionnaires focus on soliciting information on students' skills acquired at ILRI and university environments.• Team leaders, deans and chairpersons of university departments complete Questionnaire 4. They provide information on career development and insight on training at ILRI versus non-ILRI and African versus outside Africa context.The following statement prefaced each questionnaire: The purpose of this Review is to assess the value and impact of the ILRI Graduate Fellow programme as a whole over the past 20 years. It is not a review of any individual graduate student, nor of any supervisor, registering university or NARS institute, and data will remain confidential.The questionnaires were pre-tested in Ethiopia with a subsample of graduate fellows and supervisors.To define the size of the sample, the team addressed the question 'How many graduate fellows will be enough to provide meaningful results?' Following guidelines from the literature (Neuman 1997) and the advice of the ILRI biometrician, we realised that for a small population (under 100), a large sampling ratio (about 30%) is needed for high degree of accuracy.ILRI maintains a database of all trainees in all categories of technical and scientific training. This amounts to nearly 3500 training activities over the 1977 to 1997 period. All graduate fellows were extracted from this database and from this subset a list of Kenyan and Ethiopian graduate fellows was developed. For each graduate fellow details available included their name, years at ILRI, degree, university of registration, supervisors' names, thesis area and employer.Both Kenya and Ethiopia had just over 60 graduate fellows each and a 50% sample size of 30 graduate fellows from both was selected. No sample stratification was deemed necessary since there was little significant variation within the graduate fellow population in terms of educational background, age and employing institution. The variation that was found relating to, for example, the choice of registering university was random and considered as having no direct bearing on the outcome of the study.In both Kenya and Ethiopia external consultants were hired to conduct the interviews. Both consultants were faculty members of university departments, were trained to doctoral level and neither had a vested interest in ILRI. They were each given the list of graduate fellows within their own country and asked to contact 30 at random. The consultants identified the whereabouts of the graduate fellows using the employer's address on the database as the first place for contact.Almost without exception ILRI graduate fellows are NARS employees before their fellowship and are bonded to return to their employer. Consequently, contact for the majority was not too difficult, although one or two individuals had left employment and others were not available as they were away on study leave. Eventually 30 who were available for interview were reached. Over a one-month period the consultants interviewed in person all subjects.The first part of the study stressed the graduate fellows themselves, however, where they were available their university, ILRI and NARS supervisors were also interviewed. The numbers of each are given in Figure 1 where, as expected, the number of respondents for each questionnaire reduced quite dramatically from Questionnaires 1 to 4. For example, as many of the registering universities were in Europe and North America, university supervisors were unlikely to be interviewed in person, thereby preventing exact comparisons. Also several ILRI and NARS supervisors were expected to have left and/or had more than one student. Finally as several trainees came from the same institutions, Questionnaires 3 and 4 would have the least number of respondents of all.The raw data were coded, cleaned and entered into computers for subsequent analysis using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) software.Coding involved assigning numerical values to verbal answers to enable analysis. After all the coding was completed, a codebook was prepared to describe the coding procedures and the location of the data variables.During data entry care was taken to detect errors and omissions. Data cleaning also involved checking the categories of all variables for impossible codes and entry errors. Analysis of data started with generation of basic frequency and descriptive tables. The frequency distributions and averages of all variables helped identify coding or entry errors and these were corrected. Outliers were checked against the original questionnaires.A consultant, independent of the ILRI training programme, did all data coding, cleaning and analysis. This consultant was not involved with the data collection and like those who collected the data, had no vested interest in the outcome of the study.Results were classified by nationality (Kenya and Ethiopia). Further classification by gender or other variables of interest was not attempted because of the small sample size. Even though this publication provides tools and methods on the impact of graduate fellowship, only results from the application of Questionnaire 1 are tabulated in Appendix 7. The aim is to highlight the results and to enable those interested in future impact studies in Ethiopia, Kenya or other African countries to use the data presented in this study as a benchmark. The next section reveals the need for further studies that treat certain issues in more depth, e.g. cumulative effect of training and the challenge to separate the effect of ILRI's training with that obtained elsewhere.The tools used in this study combined both participant questionnaires and an interview process. This is the preferred methodology for impact assessment. The depth of the questions and the identity of the respondents allowed us to assess many aspects of impact as well as evaluate the training programme itself. While inclusion of the supervisors interviewed in the methodology was not as widely used as desired, recent work in the area of training impact assessment reinforces the need and importance of this feedback (Abernathy 1999).Our emphasis was ILRI's involvement in impact assessment and Questionnaires 1 and 2b were the principal components of the instruments that were used. Subsequent work will make more use of the other components to make a more thorough assessment.Using retention of ex-graduate fellows within the NARS as the principal indicator of contribution to capacity building is not ideal. It is not a true indicator of impact although it is an indicator of capacity building or institutional strengthening. However, it must be remembered that although ILRI has control over the capacity building success it has little control over the use of that increased capacity by the NARS. These are dependent upon many external factors.The difficulty remains, however, as to what constitutes impact and to whom may it be attributed. The study does consider the cumulative effect of training and the challenge is to separate the effect of ILRI's training with that obtained elsewhere. There appear to be no tools available to tease out these factors and attempts to do so will involve substantial trial and error.Inevitably, the assessment of training impact will have to address the changing context of the national systems and the multiple actors involved in development. Collaboration with other international agricultural research centres (e.g. ISNAR), regional associations and the NARS themselves will be essential.Although preliminary in nature the assessment study has provided insight into the programme, namely:• ILRI provides a high quality environment for graduate students     1) None 2) Less than 25% 3) 25-50% 4) Less than 75% University supervisor: 1) None 2) Less than 25% 3) 25-50% 4) Less than 75% 32. Estimate the contribution to the expansion of the concept into a full proposal and work-plan? Yourself: 1) None 2) Less than 25% 3) 25-50% 4) Less than 75% ILRI supervisor:1) None 2) Less than 25% 3) 25-50% 4) Less than 75% University supervisor:1) None 2) Less than 25% 3) 25-50% 4) Less than 75% 33. Estimate the contribution to methods of data collection and analysis of research project.Yourself: 1) None 2) Less than 25% 3) 25-50% 4) Less than 75% ILRI supervisor:1) None 2) Less than 25% 3) 25-50% 4) Less than 75% University supervisor: 1) None 2) Less than 25% 3) 25-50% 4) Less than 75% 34. Estimate the contribution to software selection for analysis of your research project.Yourself: 1) None 2) Less than 25% 3) 25-50% 4) Less than 75% ILRI supervisor:1) None 2) Less than 25% 3) 25-50% 4) Less than 75% University supervisor: 1) None 2) Less than 25%     Repeat your answer on a separate page if you have written more than three project proposals 62. Were any of these joint proposals with ILRI scientists?    ","tokenCount":"3411"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"051cf333b704eaf14056bbe04fd0ba4b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/34d92e4c-39b2-47aa-ad85-691876140d03/retrieve","id":"307690647"},"keywords":["MXI!","NTRfIioe","LA tlUJ:l:lI..J'!a CONTXI!Nl!' 37% OP.: LOTl\":1\"\"I CON ~HJR\"con PF:PP:CHO!5. '''>1'':"],"sieverID":"0de214a8-194e-4df3-8e99-162a9ea2ec16","pagecount":"23","content":"Antecedentes CENTRO Dt DOClJMENTACIOIll.;¡ Adrian Maitre En la zona frijol era de San Gil se observan procesos erosivos fuertes, ocasionados por el agua y por el viento 2 • Durante recorridos en la zona por parte de integrantes del CIAT y del ICA~. se ha observado una práctica de siembra que facilita la erosión y que es la orientación de surcos en el sentido de la pendiente.En el semestre 1991A se han iniciado trabajos agronómicos, dirigidos a controlar la erosión. Dentro de estos trabajos se está incluyendo como factor la orientación de los surcos. Se quiere comparar la supuesta práctica del agricultor (surcos en el sentido de la pendiente) con la práctica recomendada por la investigación (surcos atravesados o por lo menos inclinados).~ ______________ -JSin embargo, na Siempre los agricul tor'es siembran en el sentido de la pendiente. 4 En los campos de agricultores se observa tanto la siembra en el sentido de la pendiente como en un ángulo distinto (inclinaélo o atravesado). Existen, entonces, dos gr\".pos de agricultores. El primer grupo que observa la medida de conservación de suelos (surcos inclinados/atravesados) y el segundo que no la observa.• Objetivos del Estudio 1.Se quiere conocer las razones que tienen los agricultores del grupo 1 (quienes ':Con.servan el suelo\") y las que tienen los agricultor'es del grupo 2 (quienes \"no conservan el suela'I).Se intenta averiguar si hay una relación entre la orientación de los surcos y el porcentaje de la pendiente de los lotes o el tipo de suelo encontrado.En cuanto formulado a los dos primeros objetivos las siguientes hipótesis:del estudio se han 1.Las ag r i c:u 1 tores tener la siembra conocen el efec to nega ti VD que en el sentido de la pendiente.puede 2.Los agricultores quienes siembran en el sentido de la pendiente lo hacen para facilitar las subsiguientes labores culturales (deshierbe y aporque).No hay interacción entre la orientación de los surcos y algún otro aspecto pertinente del lote (como pendiente, tipo de suelo). La orientación de los surcos depende, entonces, ónicamente de la decisión de los agricultores.El estudio se basa en:(1) La observación directa de lotes de frijol (con pet1diente) (2)Una encuesta corta a 105 agricultores Se han visitado 28 agricultores (y 30 lotes) en los muniCipios de San Gil (16) Y Villanueva (12).  (3) lotes con surcos de una orientación intermedia (\"inclinados\"). No se ha buscado obtener un dato sobre la distribución real de los tres grupos en la zona frijolerao. La meta más bien era tener un número suficientemente grande de cada categoria para poder comparar entre los grupos .Orientación de surcOS y grado de pendientePartiendo de la hipótesis (3) que descarta la influencia del grado de pendiente sobre la decisión del agricultor de sembrar en una determinada forma, se agruparon los 30 campos visitados en las siguientes categorias: A parte de esto, no fue posible tampoco detectar otro aspecto de los lotes que haya podido explicar la decisión sobre como orientar los surcos. En cuanto a los suelos encontrados en los lotes visitados, no se ha podido detectar una influencia sobre la orientación de los surcos. Todos los suelos son de textura suelta y de un drenaje rápido. La estructura de los suelos es generalmente (861.) de bloques (angulares y subangulares). Los pocos casos (141.) de suelos de estructura granular se encuentran en los tres grupos de orientación de surcos (D, 1 p.3ra la Forma de siembra Razón Atravesado 1 1 Para evitar que el aguacero se lleve la tierra 2) Si no, corre el agua y arranca las matas y el abono3) Es mejor porque el ª.gua se atranca cuando llueve recio 4) Asi dieE!n qUE! es mejor, p\",ro es maluco para tr.3bajarInclinado 1) El agua se gueda, se conserva la humedad 2) Si no, el agua se lleva la tierra y las matas 3) Si no, el agua se lleva el abono 4) Para evitar que el aguacero se lleve I la tierra Derecho 1 ) Mejor para el deshierbe ( y otras labores culturales) -----------------------------------------2  , .• pal abras, los agr icu 1 tores quienes siembran derecho no lo hacen por la falta de percepción del fenómeno de procesos erosivos. Tampoco la hay en cuanto a las medidas propuestas por los agricul tares para controlar la erosiÓn. En ambos grupos se mencionaron principalmente las siguientes soluciones: (i) la siembra en surcos atravesados, (ii) la elaboración de zanj as de desviación y (i ii) 1 a siembra de árboles (véase anexo 4). Entonces se comprueba la hipótesis que la decisión discutida dep',\",flde princ:ipalmefl\"te de~so rela1::,,~vo que tiene ,PE!::,.\"\" el aqricul tor la me,flgr incomodi<J\"ad <tel trabajo por un .... Jado, y la reducción de los procesos erosivos por otro lado.En este contexto es importante recordar nuevamente qUE> el porcentaje de siembras \"derechas\" en la realidad no es tan alto como en el estudio (37X), en el cual se ha estratificado la muestra, aumentando de esta manera el porcentaje de lotes con surcos derechos. En la zona, sin embargo, se ha observado solamente en aproN.10X de, los casos lotes con surcos derechos.• Entonces, no deb~rta preocuparnos tanto el efecto de las prácticas de siembra 'de los agricultores sobre la erosión. Pero cómo es el caso de la preparación del terreno?La preparación del terreno con tractor 1 0Mientras la siembra se realiza a mano, se efectúa la preparación del terreno con tractor. A diferencia de la siembra hecha por el mismo agricultor (o sus trabajadores), los tractores son manejados por tractoristas extraños a la finca. Como en el caso de la siembra, se quiso conocer en Que sentido el tractor realizaba la arada (y la rastrillada).~Q  En base a los datos sobre la siembra y la preparación de la tierra llegamos a la siguiente conclusión 1.A diferencia de la siembra con surcos derechos que se observa en un porcentaje relativanl~rlle baju de los ca~c)s(aprox, 101.), se realiza gran parte (92%) de las aradas en el sentido de la pendiente.2.La decisión la agricultores). toman tractoristas (según los 3, En muchos lotes se siembra dos '\"Vec.es al año frijol, lo que implica dos aradas por año. No es raro encontrar campos que vienen siendo cultivados con frijol desde hace varios años, resul tanda un número correspond iente de aradas seguidas.Les agricultores, en su mayoria (79X), consideran esta practica como necesaria.El frecuente uso del tractor tiene efectos ... neqa.\\:ivos? tropicales y templados\"\"'. En este contexto han sido introducidos los conceptos de \"labranza minima\" y de \"cero labranza\". En una oportunid.ad se ha identi fic.ado la acción del tractor (arada en el sentido de la pendiente) como el elemento más d.añino en cuanto a la conservación del suelo y de su fertilidad en l.a zon.a de San Gil~3. Y los agricultores? Cuál es la percepción de ellos al respecto? Veámos el cuadro B.Arar l.a tierra con frecuencia tiene algún efecto negativo? Agricultores Si 581.Cuadro 8Casi 6 agricultores de cada 10 perCiben un efecto negativo de la arada frecuente, lo que contrasta con el dato anterior sobre la necesidad de la misma arada (cuadro 6) .'. Ahora, después de 10 años del \"milagro\" del frijol, se ha iniciado la discusión sobre los efectos ecológicos negativos del cultivo permanente de frijol:l.C\" Parece interesante que los mismas agricultores -o mejor dicl\"lO una ligera mayoría de ellos-observan algunos efectos negativos en la arada permanente. Sin embargo, las opiniones son divididas. Hay quienes insisten en que el cultivo de frijol (+ gallinaza + t~actor) ha abierto el paso a la siembra de otros cultivos (como tabaco y maíz) en campos que antes no habian podido ser sembrados.Los ag~icultores han invertido la riqueza adicional creada por el cultivo de frijol en la mejora de su nivel de vida (electrodomésticos, vehículos, compra de fincas) y no en el • que si hay problemas ecológicos\"?', los agricultores de San Gil han realizado en el pasado \"soil mining\" (explotación del suelo) para mejorar su nivel de vida. Y este \"soll míning\" lo han hecho en tierras que an tes eran de poco uso y dI? poco valor. Esto es una situación muy distinta a la de un recurso natural (suelo) que ha sido de mucha utilidad primero y que después se iba deteriorando por mal manejo  Entre los tres grupos de lotes con orientación distinta de los surcos (0, 1, A) no SE? ha podido encontrar' \\,Jna diferencia grande en la densidad de siembra. Varía un poco la distancia entre surcos, pero con los ligeros cambios entre sitios se impide ver una tendencia entre lbs tres grupos. Beltrán (1990)  encontró un dato comparable en un proyecto de seguimiento a parcelas de agricultores.:\" u \" e o . . (no entra el sol)La planta necesita que entre el viento 97.Los agricultores quienes piensan que seria posible aumentar la densidad de siembra, siempre tienen sus reservaS: \"Si llueve bastante\", Il pero en verano se acaloran las plantas 'l , Iltal vez sale más menudo (el grano), pero hay que fertiliza!'\" bien\", son algunos comentarios hechos por ellos.En otras palabras, agricultor entrevi~tado está realmente convencido de que se podría aumentar la densidad de siembra .. pero en este contexto se trata de:(ii ) una época seca que se presenta dentro de un ciclo cultivo, fenómeno que se presenta inesperadamente y forma parte de los riesgos que deben enfrentar agricultores.Entonces en el verano -según la definición (ii)-, las plantas compiten por la poca humedad q.ue queda disponible y entre más cerca estén sembradas las plantas vecinas, mayor es la posibilidad de que se acaloran {\"las hojas duermen\", \"la mata se seca\")~ el 50% de los agricultores quienes no están de acuerdo con una densidad de siembra más alta, llegaron a este punto de vista en base a pruebas realizadas por ellos mismos. Los demás (50%)o 10 han visto donde un vecino o saben l!antiguamente H que no se puede aumentar la densidad. Los que si hicieron una prueba con una densidad más alta, coinciden en que no era adecuada esta práctica. 80% observaron una merma en la cantidad y calidad de la producción, 40% manifiestan que se habían acalorado las plantas y al 25% se le presentaron dificultades en el deshierbe> .Anexo 3P~eparación del te~reno con tractor 1.El tractor se emplea solamente en la preparación de la tierra (arada y rastrillada). Como son muy pocos los agricultores que poseen tractor, tienen que contratar a tractoristas. Hay tres tipos de tractoristas operando en la zona:Tracto~istas particulares de la zona Tractoristas de la cooperativa(1)Tractoristas de otra zonas (m*s que todo de Boyacá)2.En 1990 se sembró frijol en 6.000 has., 3.600 has. en la siembra de año (1990A) y 2.400 has. en la atraviesa (1990B).Esto significa unas 28.800 horas de uso de tractor en 1990A y otras 19.200 horas en 1990B, o sea un total de 48,000 horas\"'-'-. La hora de tractor vale 53. 500/hora\"'''' , lo que dá un monto de 5100'800.000. en 1990A y 567'200.000. en 1990B. o sea un valor total de 5168'000.000. en el año a nivel de toda la zona frijolera.Una buena parte de este dinero sale de la regiÓn debido a la presencia de tractoristas de Boyacá. A parte de la Inano de obra adicional que obtienen los productores de frijol de San Gil en otr-<lS zonaS de la provincia (p.e. Mogotes) y de la gallinaza pr-oducida en galpones cerca de Bucaramanga, este es el tercer factor económico que implica un flujo importante de valores hacia fuera de la zana~ Actualmente las cooperativas de Villanueva y 8arichara están gestionando la compra de maquinaria agricola adicional, lo que les permitiría participar más en este sector de servicíos_Los agricultores dependen actualmente casi en su totalidad del servicio prestado por Jos tractor-istas. Con la introducción de Jos tractores y la desaparición de la yunta de bueyes, perdieron la \"autonomia\" en cuanto a la preparación de la ti\",rra a cambio de una labor más eficiente que permitió a desaparecer la yunta de bueyes. Hoy se observa en la zona frijolera de San Gil solamente un número reducido de yuntas~ Tal vez una en el municipio de San Gil, posiblemente ninguna en el municipio de Villanueva y no más de 10 en el municipio de Barichara (veredas de San José Alto, El Salitre y Parami to) .En algunas partes del area de estudio no es posible el uso del tractor, sea por una pendiente demasiado fuerte o sea por la presencia de piedras grandes en el lote. En este caso la preparación del terreno es manual.Erosión y medidas de control según los agricultores \" , La gran mayoría de los agr~cul tares está famil iarizado con el fenómeno de erosión, aunque no todos utilizan esta misma palabra. 92% de los agricultores quienes han identificado procesos erosivos en su finca manifiestan que el agua no solamente se lleva la tierra,. si no qUE.? puede afectar la prodL1cción ~or!!I.5~~.~~.f.L!~tEl (mediante pérdidas de abono y plantas principalmente).Cuáles son las medidas de control propuestas por los agricultores? Medidas de control de erosión (Según los agricultores)Hacer zanjas (de drenaje, desviación) 60¡:Sembrar inclinado/atravesado 50/.Sembrar árboles 25% Cuadro 13 ..... _ ...... ~-----._----Llama la atención que el establecimiento de ocupa el primer lugar. Se trata en muchos casas de zanjas en la parte alta del lote, lo que deberia reducir la cantidad de agua que entra en el campo. También se pueden ver zanjas que pasan por todo el lote, recolectando y desviando al agua producida an lluvias fuertes.En una zona relativamente seca, con una distribución írregular de la precipitación, 10s agricultores están sujetos tanto al daño ocasionado por la falta de humedad cl¡~mc también al daño causado oor el exceso de humedad. Sin embargo, la solución actual para el segundo problema podría aliviar el primero: Al almacenar El agua de las lluvias tormentosas, se podría contar con una forma sencilla de riego en semanas secas5~~ ","tokenCount":"2287"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f147e59616dc77a6682bb9c87de3d561","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f7267292-4681-4e0d-a290-073dba42bc8a/retrieve","id":"-1784272683"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"4d627de6-3692-4979-9260-14743b49acfa","pagecount":"7","content":"WLE Greater Mekong is a 'research-for-development' (R4D) programme that implements research that will yield positive developmental impacts. Communications are the primary way that WLE Greater Mekong delivers its research results into developmental impact, and are integrated into all sectors of its planning and implementation.WLE Greater Mekong has developed this strategic approach to its communications work, an approach that will (a) more practically position WLE Greater Mekong to better deliver upon its mandate; and (b) strengthen the programme and its methodology.WLE Greater Mekong's R4D focus is on the development of water resources, and related land and ecosystems. These are highly politicised resources in this region, largely because of their development.The strategy described here is for 'active communications', as distinct from 'passive communications', which may comprise a research publication in a journal, the authors of which take no action to communicate its findings beyond academic and research circles. Active communication refers to the deliberative act of promoting and advocating the use of research results amongst the programme's target audiences. The strategy employs a variety of ways to do this so as to improve the chances that they may generate outcomes; using the results to inform debate; and basing its advice and recommendations on the results. Importantly, WLE Greater Mekong sees those who produce this knowledge as active, responsible participants in its communication.The primary mission of WLE Greater Mekong's Communications Strategy is to deliver the programme's research products into use. (c) To ensure that the knowledge generated and/or synthesised by the programme is relevant to, accessible by, and understandable to those who would use it.(d) To increase WLE Greater Mekong's convening power and its role as a trustworthy producer and manager of relevant knowledge.The WLE Greater Mekong Communications Strategy comprises four elements:The task: to ensure that programmatic outcomes are derived from the research outputs that the programme generates by employing a variety of vehicles that encourage uptake, and by ensuring that its knowledge products are accessible, understandable and relevant to its target groups.The vehicles: vehicles comprise the mechanisms that WLE Greater Mekong will employ to implement this strategy: (a) dialogues; (b) fora; and (c) media.The focus: this strategy shall focus on influencing the knowledge, attitudes and skills (KAS) of (a) governments and regional and international organisations; (b) private sector land and water developers; and (c) students attending regional universities and other centres of higher learning.The role: to guide programmatic implementation in ways that ensure that research outputs yield positive development outcomes, and to ensure that programmatic knowledge is relevant, accessible and understandable.The graphic below illustrates the 'shape' of the WLE Greater Mekong Communications Strategy. The strategy's primary entry point is 'the hook', which focuses on messaging. Such messages are intended to generate sufficient interest in a solution that target groups want to find out more.If so, they 'drill down' into the next level, where they can obtain overviews of the state of knowledge about a particular subject matter. The intent here is to provide the 'big picture', what is known and what is not, and why the matter is important.If the 'Big Picture' level is successful, a target group will drill down further into the technical material generated by the programme's research.The WLE Greater Mekong Communications Strategy has two key tasks. The first of these relates to ensuring that programmatic outcomes are derived from the outputs it delivers. The programme will draw primarily upon its vehicles in order to achieve this. This process will be supported by: (a) strategic partnerships; (b) extensive regional and international networks; (c) the evidence-based knowledge it offers; (d) creating dialogue spaces in which its staff, partners, projects, and target audiences participate; (e) supporting its projects to engage with target groups; and (f) via its credibility as a reliable and trustworthy source of knowledge.The second key task is ensuring that the knowledge generated by the programme is accessible, relevant to its target groups and understandable. Once again, this task is supported by this strategy's vehicles.WLE has three primary vehicles, which are strategic implementation mechanisms by which we will generate the communications products and outcomes described above.> Dialogues: for WLE Greater Mekong, dialogues serve to create the field into which new knowledge is planted. Dialogue allows actors to share perspectives and experiences on difficult, often politically contentious issues. Dialogue, under the premise of empathetic learning, dispels stereotypes, builds trust and enables people to open up to perspectives different from their own. Dialogue can, and often does, lead to both personal and collaborative action. Deliberation is a closely related process with a different emphasis -the importance of examining options and trade-offs to make better decisions. All projects in the WLE Greater Mekong programme are expected to contribute to the programme's dialogues.> Fora: WLE Greater Mekong will develop multiple, politically neutral, spaces within which such dialogues will occur. These may be casual or more formal. In the latter case, these may be small, round table meetings, workshops or much larger regional fora, such as the Mekong Forum on Water, Food and Energy. They may also be on-line spaces (for example, chat rooms, blog posts, etc). In addition, WLE Greater Mekong will take advantage of fora implemented by other agencies and interests, aiming to contribute to constructive dialogue, networking and informed discussions. These may be international, regional or national conferences and events, or other fora designed to gather interests from the water development sector. Above all, WLE Greater Mekong aims to structure dialogue through novel methods of facilitation and negotiation with a view to obtaining consensus between potentially polarised interests and worldviews, and to reinforce its convening power.To remain innovative and accessible to all stakeholders, WLE Greater Mekong will develop a communications platform named 'Mekong Citizen'. Its objective is to: 'to improve the dialogue surrounding Greater Mekong-related decisions through the creation of spaces, negotiation and facilitation'. Its goal is to foster a sense of belonging to the Mekong and the understanding that all basin residents have a role to play in improving and maintaining the management of the Greater Mekong for present and future generations, including its environmental integrity.All projects within the programme are expected to actively participate in these fora.> Media: WLE Greater Mekong will develop four different types of media, all of which are channels to the program's target audiences. All of these function in the service of the overall programme. The first three of these will be run through Mekong Citizen; the last two will be run through the programme directly. Visual media -Film, including TV programming, stand-alone films, photography, comics and other printed media. Distribution channels include online platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo, and Flickr, supported by traditional (offline) channels. These media seek to explain the problems WLE Greater Mekong addresses, the solutions it proposes, and why these matter. Audio media -Radio broadcasts and podcasts, delivered in English and regional languages, that the address the same foci as visual media. Tangible media -WLE Greater Mekong will develop branded products in distinctive, eyecatching designs and formats, with the intent of creating influential visual saturation in communities. These products serve as additional channels through which to communicate with audience groups. Verbal media -Information, ideas and knowledge delivered through the spoken word -as story and/or anecdote -at workshops, conferences, round table discussions, and social, oneon-one interactions with members of the program's audience groups. Written media -Pamphlets, journal articles, newspaper articles, articles in popular literature, presentations, a website, and collective commons sites. WLE Greater Mekong, it should be noted, considers written media a lesser format to other media types, and in order to improve its potential impact, WLE Greater Mekong requests its researchers to publish in open access journals and/or regional language journals.WLE Greater Mekong will focus on delivering outputs that are either copyright-free and/or accessible via the collective commons. Research published under the programme must be in open access journals (unless published in regional language journals) or copyrighted to be held in trust for open access and not-for-profit use. Through its own media and other international platforms, WLE Greater Mekong will ask its beneficiaries to engage in regional and international debates.How these vehicles relate to each other is illustrated in the graphic below.Target audiences Broadly, WLE Greater Mekong comprises knowledge producers, and knowledge users. Knowledge producers generate the knowledge that the programme (at all levels) will deliver to targets. They comprise the projects that WLE Greater Mekong commissions, and include researchers, communities, and CSOs and NGOs.Knowledge users are those who the programme targets, and comprise those whose knowledge, attitude and skills the programme seeks to influence. These are (a) governments and regional/international organisations; (b) private land and water developers; and (c) university students. Combined, the first two of these groups exert the greatest influence over the water and related land resources development sectors, and consequently merit concerted targeting. The third group is a subset of the regional youth, whose futures water and land development will shape, and who, by virtue of their occupations, have a desire and willingness to learn.Changes will occur in both producers and targets, and these groupings are not mutually exclusive. For clarity, however, we focus on changes amongst target groups.This audience comprises state electricity generating agencies, ministries of development, planning, environment, agriculture, forestry and/or water; as well as international agencies, particularly those who are involved in development, including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the Mekong River Commission. Amongst the audiences that WLE Greater Mekong targets, this group has tremendous influence over the ways in which water and land is managed and developed.This group comprises individual private companies and agencies who set out to develop, manage and/or operate dams, irrigation, plantations, and other water and terrestrial infrastructure. This audience exhibits great caution when it comes to engagement, which is rarely unconditional.Opportunities for engagement are perceived in increasing pressure within the sector to develop viable corporate social responsibility programs, the imposition of environmental and social safeguards by international development banks, and other protocols and guidelines.The youth of the Greater Mekong are a powerful source of change. WLE Greater Mekong targets students, for they stand to benefit from the knowledge that the programme generates. Because they are enrolled in university programmes, they are primed to learn, and therefore represent a willing, curious and interested group amenable to WLE Greater Mekong knowledge and outputs. WLE Greater Mekong will engage such students through its capacity building activities, input into the development of relevant curricula, through the fora it conducts, and other knowledgesharing vehicles.Behaviour: Knowledge, attitude and skills Knowledge refers to the assimilation of information through learning. This is the information required to perform a task. The knowledge produced by WLE Greater Mekong is derived from the outputs that its research projects generate.Attitudes are the established ways of responding to people and situations. Attitudes are learned based on beliefs, values and assumptions, and colour the ways in which new knowledge is received, interpreted and acted upon. Key attitudes that WLE Greater Mekong focuses on are: willingness to engage, willingness to consider alternative perspectives, ideas and approaches, the desire to find solutions to difficult problems, a willingness to attempt and experiment, and an ability to think critically.Skill refers to the ability to apply knowledge. Skill encompasses experience and practice, and the gaining of skill leads to unconscious and automatic actions. Skill is more than just the following of rule-based actions. In the absence of knowledge and attitudes, skilled persons may have no ability or capacity to react to situations outside 'normal conditions.'The WLE Greater Mekong Communications Strategy complements the WLE Global's Engagement, Communication and Knowledge Management Strategy. Of the latter's objectives, the WLE Greater Mekong Communications Strategy in particular contributes to (1) A new discourse and engagement in global/regional for a, through it's focus of dialogues, dialogue spaces and fora. (2) Strategic Communication, and (4) Making information accessible, through the vehicles it deploys, the target audiences it engages, and Mekong Citizen. WLE Greater Mekong communication and engagement team will link to and work with the WLE global program team and other focal region teams to transform knowledge into accessible products for use by different audiences and contribute to the overall knowledge base being developed by WLE.","tokenCount":"2019"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2e0756392af49cd3a31a93819128548e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/36c3e005-66cc-4e86-9445-c71ce3eef9c9/retrieve","id":"-1859707220"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8358c60f-c8a1-4395-8901-6550952b3670","pagecount":"17","content":"The policies and institutions component of the CGIAR research program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) aims to enable millions of farmers to adapt to a changing climate while boosting food security and low-emissions development by contributing to better and more conducive policies and institutions which support the integration of climate change into agricultural policies and vice versa. One of the ways it does this is by attempting to embed original scientific research in ongoing policy processes such as through multi-level learning alliances and national science-policy exchange platforms. However, questions of whether, why, how and how effectively such modes of science-policy interface work remains poorly understood. There is a need for empirical analyses of policy formation and implementation as social processes that involve complex interactions amongst a wide variety of stakeholders, including global policy and research actors, donor agencies, national policymakers, government ministries and their staff at various levels, civil society stakeholders, and sub-national political actors. The focus of the CCAFS project is 'Analysing the science-policy-practice interface in climate change adaptation in East and West Africa' (referred to from this point on as the Science-Policy-Practice Interface project).The direct interaction between scientists and policymakers and the processes put in place for science to inform policy are certainly relevant here. However, policy processes take place both beyond formal mechanisms such as policy platforms, and across levels, with linkages both upwards to supra-national dynamics such as global political pressures and changing donor networks and priorities, and downwards to spaces where policy implementation occurs (or not) and interacts with rural livelihoods. The array of policies in place, including the synergistic and antagonistic interplay among policies, institutional structures, discourses, and power and interests together create what can be thought of as an emergent 'policy environment'.One category of the kind of empirical analyses that is needed, therefore, is analysis of national policy environments, including the cross-level interactions between science, policy and practice. Examination of connections from national level upwards will need to devote particular attention to relationships between national policy actors and donor agencies, to the ways in which supra-national forces shape the formulation of national policies, and to questions of whether and how feedback occurs in the other direction from national policy actors back to donor agencies. Analysis of interactions between the national and lower levels will need to consider how multiple policies and social factors intersect and interact in spaces of implementation. In essence this kind of analysis looks at policy as a networked social process rather than a simple product.This document is a contribution towards such efforts. It presents an analytical framework to guide case study research on cross-level science-policy-practice interaction and the 'policy environments' that this interaction creates.Combining concepts drawn from science and technology studies, political ecology and governance research, our framework starts with assumptions that a) science and policy are mutually constitutive, b) both institutional structures and individual agency affect governance processes and c) complex cross-level and cross-scale interactions affect governance outcomes.2. Science-policy interactions and policy environments 2.1 Conceptual approach for multi-dimensional research into policy environmentsThe subject matter in the kind of research described here can be understood as a series of concentric circles (Figure 1). At the centre is a particular policy or perhaps a set of policies. The next circle out is made up of the set of social networks, institutions, incentives, and formal and informal policymaking processes and mechanisms, within which and through which policies are formulated. In the Science-Policy-Practice Interface project, the place and role of science in these policymaking processes is of particular interest. The third, broader circle relates to the synergistic and antagonistic interplay among the array of policies in place, institutional structures, discourses, power and interests, and the policy implementation through day-to-day practice. Together, these features of the second and third concentric circles constitute an emergent policy environment.Figure 1: Policies, policymaking processes and policy environments.The causal influence of the policy environment can be thought of as being directed both 'inwards' and 'outwards'. The policy environment exerts causal influence inwards in that diverse factors including power relations, institutions, and national and international discourses and the interactions amongst them all shape the ways in which stakeholders can and cannot interact in trying to influence policy, the ways in which science can and cannot inform policy, what policy options are on or off the table, and the nature of the policies that are created. The policy environment also exerts causal influence outwards, for instance on the kinds of actions that individuals, households and communities can take, enabling and constraining what is possible for livelihoods and for adaptation to climate change. The causality that flows from particular policies to livelihoods and adaptation choices can be thought of as through the policy environment.The causal influence of the policy environment can be thought of as being directed both 'inwards' and 'outwards'. The policy environment exerts causal influence inwards in that diverse factors including power relations, institutions, and national and international discourses and the interactions amongst them all shape the ways in which stakeholders can and cannot interact in trying to influence policy, the ways in which science can and cannot inform policy, what policy options are on or off the table, and the nature of the policies created. The policy environment also exerts causal influence outwards, for instance on the kinds of actions that individuals, households and communities can take, enabling and constraining what is possible for livelihoods and for adaptation to climate change. The causality that flows from particular policies to livelihoods and adaptation choices can be thought of as being transmitted through the policy environment.The third concentric circle exists at multiple levels. Indeed, cross-level interactions are key aspects of the policy environment. Among these are interactions between international discourses, organizations, and funding priorities and national level policymaking processes; between policy and practice at the level of implementation; and between the implemented policies and actions taken at household livelihood level.The framework presented here is not directed at analysing particular policies or particular mechanisms put in place to help science to inform policy, but rather at understanding the science-policy interaction 'space' in some particular policy domain and the broader policy environment for that domain. In initially delineating a case, therefore, there may or may not be a focal policy or program. In some situations, there may have been fora, platforms and other policy dialogue processes all explicitly aimed at formulating a particular policy. In other situations, there may be initiatives directed towards a number of policies that would all contribute towards a common objective. Similarly, a case may involve a single science-policy interaction mechanism such as a policy platform; or it may involve a number of different such fora, platforms and formal policy processes; or there may, in some situations, be only informal channels through which science is influencing policy. In other words, in terms of the concentric circles described above, the starting point of defining the case is the second concentric circle, but the focus of study also incorporates the third, broader circle.In delineating and initially describing the case, the researcher should aim to do the following:• Describe the domain of interest (e.g. livestock policy as it pertains to pastoralist regions).• Briefly describe how this domain relates to climate change.• Summarize the main topical issues in this domain.• Describe the focal policy, program, initiative, etc., if any (e.g. development of a livestock master plan for the country).• Summarize the formal policymaking processes being used, including mechanisms-platforms, fora, policy dialogue processes, etc.-for stakeholder engagement and science-policy interaction 1 .• Summarize the most important informal spaces of science-policy interaction in this domain.• Identify the pathways through which the initiative of interest is implemented or translated into spaces that affect agro-pastoral livelihood practices.1 While an in-depth examination of policy platforms, multi-stakeholder fora and other mechanisms put in place for science to influence policy are important and in need of study, these are not the focus of the analytical framework described here. The scope of a study of cross-level sciencepolicy-practice interactions will be much broader than these kinds of formal mechanisms. Describing such science-policy interaction mechanisms here, therefore, is intended to be brief and to be only one part of describing the case.3. Initial analysis of science-policy interactions: Three lensesThe case being thus defined, analysis then takes a wider perspective to examine the broader policy environment and the policymaking process(es) within it. There are a number of factors that will affect policy environments and policymaking processes. The framework described here uses three main 'lenses' for examination of these factors based on three main categories of causal influences: discourses, structures, and power and interests. These three lenses should not be taken as entirely discrete categories, but are meant instead as heuristic tools for the examination of fundamentally intertwined factors.Discourses are institutionalized linguistic and narrative frames that shape actors' interpretations of information, as well as inform their action choices. Discourses can interact in public and policy dialogues, whether synergistically or competitively, and are part of change processes. For example, rural development issues can be variously framed in terms of neo-liberal economic imperatives (e.g. privatization of land), moral imperatives (e.g. food sovereignty), technical imperatives (e.g. agricultural modernization), etc., all of which carry different assumptions, values and implications.Discourses are complex phenomenon to study because they can be engaged in a variety of ways. On one hand, they can be strategically shaped and employed by actors in an effort to pursue political objectives. In this case, discourse is effectively an instrument of power. On the other hand, discourses can be internalized to the point where actors do not necessarily realize that there are alternative ways of framing an issue. In this case, discourses are more or less invisible to people reproducing them.Discourse analysis may aim to understand what narratives shape activities in the particular sector or policy domain, how they are used strategically by various actors and how they affect material practices and outcomes. However, because of power dynamics, of who gets 'a seat at the table', and of other factors, the discourses that are present in a sector generally may not all find expression within specific policymaking processes. How discourses interact with structures, interests, power and practice is also important. Ideas, for example, work through interests and structures, and it is important to understand the ways in which each, and their interactions, determine outcomes for climate change adaptation (Purdon 2014).Questions   In examining science-policy interactions and working towards an understanding of what we have called a 'policy environment', the institutional structures within which the direct science-policy interaction and policy implementation take place will be important. Here we are placing the policymaking process within the realm of governance. The structures comprise the organizations, institutions, and relationships and interplay amongst them. Here we distinguish between organizations and institutions: Organizations are the collective actors in society; institutions are the rules and norms which provide the framework for action. Organizations are groups of people joined together to achieve a specific purpose; institutions are clusters of rights, rules, and decision-making procedures that give rise to social practice, assign roles to participants, and guide interactions (Young et al. 2008).Some institutions take the form of procedures directing, for example, how interaction is to proceed, how decisions are taken, and so on. By shaping what kinds of questions are asked, which kinds of knowledge are privileged, what kinds of analyses are used and communicated, and what kinds of policy options considered, procedures can have an important influence on what kinds of climate adaptation responses are on or off the table. This may push the policy formulation processes to subtly favour either infrastructural, social, or economic types of interventions, either incremental or else transformational options, etc.Diverse schools of thought in the social sciences have tended to treat institutions as epiphenomena-as features which are caused by, rather than features which cause, other phenomena. In such perspectives, the role of institutions in causality is primarily one of transmitting the influence of more fundamental and more powerful phenomena, whether these relate-depending on the particular social science paradigm-to power, to the calculation of interests, to norms and expectations, or to discourses. The framework described here, on the other hand, treats institutions and governance as important causal factors in and of themselves that shape as well as being shaped by factors such as power relations, interests, norms, modes of interaction, discourses, and cognitive framings. It also takes the stance that any of these factors can be relevant. Scott (1995), for instance, treated three main categories of influences on institutions as 'pillars' of institutions rather than as representing distinct paradigms. Scholarship on deliberation (Midgley 1992;Miller 1992;Smith 2003;Meadowcroft 2004;Stadelmaier 2006) and on complexity in social-ecological systems (Young 1999;Young 2010) suggests additional pillars. Each of these pillars implies certain causal pathways through which institutions can exert influence. These pathways, adapted from Young (1999), are summarized in Table 2.• How do discourses, structures and power and interests interact with each other?• How do they shape policymaking processes?4.3 National-international relations• What information (about livelihoods, needs and aspirations, adaptation choices, the success and failure of policies, the ways in which policies are being implemented, policymaking processes, the objectives of national policy actors) flows from the national level policy environment upwards to international actors?• How does the national level policy environment shape the ways in which international discourses, donor priorities, etc. are transmitted to national-level actors?While this document describes a conceptual framework rather than a particular methodology, we offer here some broad suggestions as to how to structure research that is informed by this framework. Assuming that the researcher has identified a particular domain of interest (e.g. land policies in the livestock sector), he or she would then research what could be described as two types of case studies.The first type is a case study of policy formulation. It would explore how the relevant policy or policies were formed, or are being formed, and what factors have influenced that. An examination of the role played by any fora, platforms or other formal policymaking mechanism played would feature prominently here, as well as an investigation of informal processes including social networks. In all of this the role played by science and scientists is of particular interest. This is a task of starting with policy formation and tracing causality backwards to understand what is influencing policy formulation, with particular attention to the role played by discourses, structures and practices. Figure 2 depicts some of the causal relationships of interest in carrying out a case study of policy formulation.The second type is a case focused around policy implementation. This would be an exploration of how the policy or policies of interest are being implemented, including how in implementation they interact with other policies. This interaction of policies and their implementation, and the interaction between discourses, structures and practices and implementation, constitute the policy environment at sub-national levels. This component of the research would be concerned also with impact of the policy environment on adaptation choices.A third component of the research aims to unite the two case studies into an overall analysis of policy formulation and implementation as a social process, highlighting it as an interacting set of practices within the aims to understand cross-level interactions and how scientific information is transformed as it moves through different social spaces. It would explore how the policy environment at national level affects the implementation space at more local levels, and ultimately how these in turn affect adaptation practices. It would also identify influences in the other direction, including tracing ways in which information from the local level, including information about the impact of policies on livelihoods and adaptation and also information on how policies are being implemented and the challenges being faced, is fed back upwards to inform policy formulation, if at all. This is potentially one of the roles of science in policy formulation-ensuring that information from 'the ground' is collected, understood and communicated to feed back into policy formulation. The cross-level aspects of the work would also consider influences on, and from, the international level.","tokenCount":"2664"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a48c6abe047a6a665425ef61653fba98","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/dc2ca106-6017-458c-95a0-85e877ab6610/retrieve","id":"1633183848"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"ceec5b32-1468-43ef-b0db-22bef56ba103","pagecount":"19","content":"Cassava is a major export-oriented cash crop in Vietnam. Unlike other cash crops, such as coffee, fruits, and maize, cassava requires limited agricultural input and labour and can grow in nutrient-poor uplands. Research on cassava breeding, seed systems and value chains in Southeast Asia is increasingly focused on market-oriented aspects such as developing hybrid varieties favourable to the cassava starch industry, disease control on largescale farms, and seed systems driven by the private sector. However, in the northern mountainous areas of Vietnam, ethnic minority farmers use cassava roots, leaves and sticks for numerous reasons, including starch production, fish and animal feed, firewood, and home consumption. Women play significant roles in those nonmarket-oriented activities (often collecting left-over small roots in the field, drying roots, and cutting leaves and stems) but little is known about how this work influences women's roles, decision-making and opportunities in cassava value chains. Hence, this study provides that data with an eye to see how women may find more opportunity for creating small business enterprises with cassava. Fieldwork was conducted in July 2021 in the Chieng La commune (Thuan Chau district) and the Muong Bon Commune (Mai Son district). Findings show that although women are less involved in decision making on cassava production and overall agricultural investment, they play important roles in cassava production and post-harvest activities. Therefore, it is extremely important to collect and analyze women's preferences, concerns and constraints in cassava research and interventions. In the conclusion, we highlight additional areas for research on this topic.Cassava is a major cash crop in some North Vietnamese provinces. Although its fresh root prices fluctuate considerably each year, it is still an attractive crop for poor smallholder farmers, including those from ethnic minorities, as it grows well in nutrient-poor uplands with little technical and financial investment compared to other major cash crops from this region (e.g., mangoes, coffee and maize).Although using new hybrid varieties of cassava to increase productivity has been the major focus for previous research and interventions on cassava, ethnic minority smallholders still prefer to use local varieties (despite their comparatively lower productivity) because they have other household uses as animal feed and household consumption and because local varieties have established local seed systems based on selfmultiplication and exchange among the farmers. Understanding farmers' perspectives for their crop choices and local varieties is, therefore, necessary for providing appropriate support to meet their needs. However, the existing literature leaves a gap in our understanding of smallholder knowledge, practices and decisions at the household level, and in particular, intra-household gender relationships and the role and influence of women in cassava value chains.To answer these questions, this study pursues three objectives:1. Providing details on intra-household decision making over crop choices and farming strategies; 2. Assessing the value of cassava for ethnic minority farmers, especially women farmers; and 3. Proposing possible entrepreneurial opportunities for women in cassava value chains.Taken together, these objectives will help develop support plans that can support ethnic minority women farmers through interventions such as the distribution of quality planting material, post-harvest technologies, and improved market opportunities that meet women's needs and interests.In the next section, we briefly explain the methods employed in this study. Section 3 outlines the research contexts based primarily on data from a household survey conducted in 2020. Section 4 presents findings across three themes: 1) intra-household decision-making in agriculture-related issues; 2) the market and nonmarket-oriented value of cassava for ethnic minority farmers; and 3) opportunities for women in cassava value chains. In the final section, we discuss the importance of understanding multiple uses for cassava roots and leaves as these areas are of greatest significance for female cassava users. Finally, we propose possible areas for future research.A qualitative case study was conducted in July 2021 in Thuan Chau and Mai Son districts in Son La Province. Data were collected via focus group discussions (men and women separately), key informant interviews (input suppliers, cassava traders, female dried-chip entrepreneurs, a male cassava factory owner) and in-depth interviews with eight couples who participated in a household survey in 2020.The selection of respondents was conducted by village leaders as the Vietnamese government does not allow researchers to lead this process. To avoid bias, we provided criteria for the respondents, and the village leader listed potential respondents that met these criteria. However, as the number of respondents was more than double the required number, we randomly selected respondents from the list provided. The respondents for the in-depth interviews on the impact of Covid were selected based on guidance from a female local government officer who was knowledgeable about migration in the commune. We requested that only respondents with typical cases who have been affected by the pandemic be selected. All the respondents were female because women's migration has been affected more seriously than men's and their experiences include intersectional constraints based on gender, ethnicity and poverty.The tables below present the characteristics of the respondents for both the in-depth interviews and key informant interviews. Names have been changed to ensure anonymity. All interviews lasted around one hour, with translators present for the interviews with the Thai women. In addition, we visited the respondents' cassava farms where possible. Interviews were not recorded but a notetaker took notes with informed consent.Son La province is located in Northwest Vietnam. With an area of 37,017 hectares (ha) and with 439,657 tonnes of cassava produced annually, Son La was the 5 th largest cassava producing province in Vietnam in 2019. Mai Son, Thuan Chau and Phu Yen are some of the major growing districts within the province (Vietnam General Statistics office, 2020).According to the household survey conducted in Son La province by the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT in 2020 1 , and the planting season starts between February and April, with harvesting from October to March. In addition to cassava, farmers also grow rice, maize, coffee, fruit trees, forest trees and other crops, typically on separate plots of land. Intercropping with cassava remains very low.Over the past two decades, cassava production has been growing steadily, averaging about 7.6% annually. The yield has also been relatively stable since 2010, at around 12 tonnes/ha (Figure 1). According to the forementioned household survey (39 cassava-growing households) conducted in Son La in 2020, the average farm size per household for cassava production was around 0.38 ha, yielding approximately seven tonnes of harvest. The average household profit from the crop was around USD 711 annually, which makes up 35% of agricultural activities and 17% of the total household income (farming, non-farming and other sources).Most households used their own planting materials; only two households said that they purchased planting materials. None of the respondents reported using pesticides on their cassava fields. The total investment cost for fertiliser, herbicide and planting material was around USD 43 per cropping season (USD 40 for fertiliser, USD 1.7 for herbicide, and USD 0.4 for planting materials). In Son La, cassava production is mainly undertaken by family members (of which 54 % are women). On average, only around 6% of the total labour was hired labour, where both men and women were usually paid VND 140,000-180,000/day (USD 6-8/day) for work such as land preparation, planting, fertiliser application, weeding, harvesting and transporting.Major problems identified by the household survey included soil erosion and poor soil conditions (36%).Unfavourable weather was also a key issue, with 18% of the cassava farmers listing it as one of the major problems that has affected cassava production in the past. Additionally, all of the village-level survey respondents reported rainfall being either too little/too much and ending either too early or too late last year. The village of Chieng La commune, Thuan Chau district was selected for this study as the majority of villagers grow cassava. The village was newly established in 2009 for the resettlement of people whose home villages were taken over for hydroelectric power generation. While this new village has good road infrastructure compared to their home villages, it is located far from any water source and the village does not have paddy fields. The main income source from agriculture is livestock. All villagers are from Thai ethnic minority groups, and many women (except for young women in their 20s) do not speak Vietnamese.The village of Muong Bon Commune, Mai Son district was selected because of its proximity to a cassava processing factory. Most of the villagers are Kinh, and they are progressive farmers. Fruit production for export has become increasingly popular in this area.In Son La, the majority (72%) of households reported that they are currently growing Lá Tre (bamboo leaf), a plant characterised by long skinny leaves and red stems, sometimes referred to as the Đỏ (red) variety.Additionally, 20% of households mentioned that they were growing the Cao Sản (high yielding) variety. The Xanh (green) variety was also cited by 15% of the cassava farmers. Smaller numbers of respondents also mentioned growing the Trắng (white) variety and the Mới (new) variety, whose name is unknown.Son La contains one processing factory, the Son La Starch Processing Factory, located in Muong Bon commune, Mai Son district. The factory belongs to the Fococev conglomerate, 3 which is based in Ho Chi Minh city and currently owns 11 cassava starch factories throughout Vietnam. Son La factory can process more than 1,000 tonnes/day. Although fresh roots are purchased from local traders without formal written contracts, the links between the factory and local collectors and traders are relatively stable and long-lasting (Sen et al., 2018).However, because of COVID-19, the factory only managed to purchase 50,000 tonnes of fresh roots and only produced 14,000 tonnes of starch during the 2019-2020 production season, which were mainly exported to China. For the 2020-2021 season, it plans to purchase around 120,000 tonnes of fresh roots from within the province at stable prices of between 1,750-1,800 VND/kg (USD 78/tonne). Other than the main product of starch, the factory also sells cassava residue to livestock producers for use in animal feed (Thuan, 2020).The survey sample indicated that farmers mostly sold their produce to local traders (72%) at the cassava plots or at local markets/collection points. Four households (10%) also reported selling cassava to the starch factory. The average selling price was 1,276 VND/kg (USD 55.5/tonne) in the last harvesting season before the survey (2019/2020).According to the household survey, on average, households in Son La sell most of their root crop (93.6%); only 6.2% of the roots are used in animal feed and only 0.2% are for home consumption. These data do not appear to include roots left in the fields.Only fresh cassava roots are sold; none of the respondents reported selling dried chips or any processed products. After harvesting, more than half of the households (56%) sold their cassava to traders on the spot (at the cassava plots). The village-level survey revealed that none of the cassava was stored prior to selling.In Thuan Chau, cassava growers use cassava for animal feed, such as sticks for cattle and goats, leaves for fish and leftover roots for pigs. This was not properly recorded in the household survey, which focused on the utilisation of the roots. We will discuss this later in the section on findings. 3) The research team on the way to visit the next household; 4) Cassava farms in the uplands.According to the household survey and the key informant interviews, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 did not affect cassava and maize production at the study site as the produce were traded within the province. It did affect fruit producers, however, as the major routes to trade destinations were disrupted by COVID restrictions.For example, Mr Tong Van Hau, a long-distance trader/truck driver used to have a fruit trading business, delivering bananas, mangoes, and longans from Son La to exporting stations such as Hai Duong and Lai Chau. He stopped driving long distances in late 2020 due to rising concern over COVID measures, with many checkpoints established on route. As a result, the price of mangoes decreased sharply from around VND 5,000/kg to VND 2,000/kg, according to mango producers in Mai Son.By contrast, cassava prices were relatively high during the previous season. The Vice-Director of the Mai Son processing factory said that the price of fresh cassava roots was VND 1,600/kg at the beginning of the 2020-2021 harvesting season before prices increased to a high of VND 2,800/kg due to China's economic recovery from the Covid pandemic. Furthermore, some factories in Northern Vietnam used to import fresh roots from Laos to process in their factories. However, since the closure of the border with Laos, some Vietnamese factories sent traders to Thuan Chau to purchase more roots from Northern Vietnam to fill the gap. This also helped increase prices in the district.According to the focus group discussion, both farming and non-farming (labour migration) activities are considered as collective household work, undertaken by both men and women. Husbands and wives often go to their farms together during the planting and harvesting seasons. It is also common for a couple to migrate toHanoi or other industrial areas during the winter season. These data agree with the household survey in Son La (n=39), where 64% of the respondents (F=16 M=23) perceived men and women to be earning equal incomes.On the other hand, focus group discussions show that there are some demarcations in gender roles and decision-making within those joint activities. Both men and women stated that women have more knowledge, labour input and decision-making power than men in major areas of animal husbandry (e.g., feeding, health monitoring, and breeding chickens and pigs), home garden vegetables and fruit selling. By contrast, men have more knowledge, labour input and decision-making power than women regarding upland crop production (e.g., cassava, elephant grass, fruit trees) and areas of animal husbandry such as rearing and selling fish, cattle and buffaloes.In-depth interviews with eight households, with husbands and wives interviewed separately, revealed the nuanced notions of decision-making between the spouses. Although women participate in farming and other economic activities, the final decisions relating to important issues regarding agriculture are usually made by the men, including which crops to grow and which new breeds of crops and livestock to invest in.For example, Mr Dat (45) decided to stop growing cassava and to invest in cardamon and coffee to increase his long-term profits from agriculture. However, when these new crops failed, he returned to cassava. It was his decision because, according to him, he knows more than his wife about market trends, where to buy new breeds of crops and how to grow upland crops. This may also be related to the language barrier the most of Thai women in our study site has as well as their limited mobility (women tend to stay home) in general. His wife, Quyen (45) stated that, in her household, her husband makes the final decisions for both agricultural and household matters, including how much to invest in cassava. Quyen also stated, 'my first son (who lives with her) is the second most important decision-maker in my household. Although I participate in discussions, I have very little (almost no) decision-making power in important issues in agriculture.' This is because she 'stays at home, mainly looking after the livestock'.Similarly, a Kinh couple, Tien and Yen, work together in the fields. The husband, Tien, has more decision-making power regarding agriculture. For example, he made the decision to stop growing cassava and to invest in fruit trees as cassava requires a lot of labour for land preparation every year, which is his role. His wife, Yen, agrees because it was her husband who had to work the hardest. Tien went to a district market to buy planting materials (e.g., plum, mango, longan, etc.) and to negotiate with a gardener to graft his trees.However, men having greater decision-making power does not mean that women know nothing about cassava production. Ms Thuc (58) believes that she knows more about cassava than her husband in terms of details about the selection and preparation of planting materials, the best angle to plant, and the distance between the individual plants -knowledge and skill that she has acquired through her own experience. Nevertheless, she said: 'I could have an opinion, but the final decision is made by my husband for agricultural matters…(because) my husband is more responsible for activities on the farms while I am more responsible for our home garden and animal husbandry'. Her husband believes that he knows more about agricultural market trends and investment costs as he is the person who interacts with people both inside and outside the village and also goes to the farm every day to monitor crops (as his wife cannot ride a motorbike).A young Thai couple, Quan (34) and his wife Binh ( 26), have similar arrangements to those of the older generation. The husband, Quan, said, 'I arrange the work and tell my wife to go to the cassava fields or to do weeding or fertilising... I make the decisions'. His wife says, 'I join discussions, but the final decisions are made by my husband. When we were living with my parents-in-law, my father-in-law was the most influential decisionmaker, then my husband, my grandfather-in-law, my mother-in-law... I had the least power in the household'.However, she also says that she has gained her influence implicitly, as she has autonomy in some areas (e.g., vegetable selling, animal husbandry) and now makes significant labour and income contributions compared with when she was busy with childcare and domestic work (as she was living with a large family, with in-laws).For the Kinh ethnic majority in the Mai Son district, women have fewer constraints in terms of language and mobility compared to the ethnic Thai minority. Khanh (29) from Mai Son is a full-time farmer. She does not have children and her husband works as a truck driver for a local fruit factory. Therefore, she is responsible for managing the family farms, including 2 ha of cassava. She says that 'December is the time to take care of the mango flowers and spray buds. February to March is the time to fertilise the coffee plants and spray longan.April is for maize, weeding and preparing the soil for planting. March is the time to prepare the land for cassava'.Although their farms are still owned by her father-in-law, who lives next door, she believes that she is the farm manager and that she will make the decisions on technical matters (agricultural input, the timing of selling, etc.) while decisions on changing crops and investing in new crops/varieties will need to be cleared with her fatherin-law and her husband whose opinions would be reflected in the final decision. In her experience, fruits require a lot of pest control, while market prices fluctuate on a daily basis. Therefore, she needs to make quick decisions at the right time throughout the year, which she does on her own based on her experience. Compared with mangoes, she has noted that cassava is an easy crop to grow with few decisions/changes required both in production and selling.Thus, for the couples we interviewed, important agricultural decisions related to crop change, risks and investment were made by the male heads of the households. Other male household members such as fathersin-law are also influential, as shown in the cases of Quyen, Binh and Khanh.On the other hand, Thai women have significant autonomy in matters regarding animal husbandry and selling fruit and vegetables in the local markets. These two areas are exclusively women's domains. According to the in-depth interviews, all the Thai female respondents state that they regularly went to the local markets to sell fruits and vegetables, and had significant control over their income from those, as opposed to income from upland crops, which are considered as under joint control.Thuc, for example, cannot ride a motorbike and does not feel confident speaking basic Vietnamese. However, her husband takes her to Nong Lay market every 5 days 4 (about 7 km away from the village), and she sells her produce to traders and individual customers from 4 am to 8 am. She knows the market prices and can negotiate with traders. Apart from her fruit selling, she is also very proud of her role in animal husbandry, income from which enabled her son to go to university. Both fruit production and animal husbandry are joint activities (e.g., the men collect banana leaves and flowers, leftover cassava roots and elephant grasses in the upland, while the women prepare animal feed from them). However, in this way, women have a small but significant sphere of autonomy, which has important implications for agricultural interventions towards female empowerment.Therefore, it was clear that men and women at the study sites depend on each other's labour, knowledge, and decisions to sustain their livelihoods, although men tend to be the final decision-makers. The implications of these results for agricultural interventions show that it is important to provide information related to crops, markets, pests and diseases to both men and women as both play complementary roles. Women need to have primary access to information and knowledge, as men do, instead of secondary access via their husbands, because women are affected by the consequences of decisions made by their husbands.In Thuan Chau, farmers have grown a local cassava variety, La Tre, since the 1980s. While some farmers had either tried to grow or have adopted hybrid varieties on some of their plots, La Tre still predominates at the study site. The productivity of La Tre (18 tonnes/ha based on the data from the household survey with 26 households) is lower than the high-yield variety grown at the study site (20-22 tonnes/ha, based on the data from nine households) although it is hard to compare yields directly as soil conditions differ significantly between plots. We argue that productivity is not necessarily a priority for poor smallholders in mountainous regions.Additionally, there are various advantages of using local varieties, which cannot be measured by an economic analysis. Instead, we will describe the advantages of using a local variety from the men and women farmers' points of view.At the study site, animal husbandry is a major income source for both the poor and the better-off families, accounting for as much as 75% of total household income. Some households earn VND 60-70 million per year.Livestock includes Muscovy ducks, chickens, fish, pigs, buffaloes, cattle and goats. Cassava and bananas are an important source of animal feed for those who have limited land and capital to grow maize and elephant grass.The cost of agricultural input for maize is much higher than that of cassava as maize requires fertiliser twice per season and seeds every season (2-3 times per year).In the upland fields, it is very hard to carry fertilisers and pesticides from the village to the field, meaning that growing crops with limited agricultural input is better for both men and women. La Tre is edible, and its leaves are used for feeding fish, while its sticks and leftover roots are eaten by cattle, buffaloes, pigs and goats. Women are often in charge of drying the leftover roots. According to the in-depth interviews with female cassava growers, the number of leftover roots unharvested in the fields is around 200-700 kg depending on the plot size.In addition, two households stated that they kept 1000-1500 kg of cassava roots for livestock use.Furthermore, La Tre leaves are consumed as vegetables and the women grow cassava in their gardens for home consumption. Cassava sticks can also be used for firewood for cooking animal feed, reducing the need for men and women to collect firewood from the forest. Another benefit of La Tre mentioned by both the men and women is that this local variety can be kept in the soil for up to two years. This allows farmers to be flexible with their harvest times depending on market prices. Sometimes, if the price is extremely low one year, some households keep the roots for another year.La Tre has been grown for more than three decades without major problems with pests and diseases. According to the household survey, only 10% of the households in Son La said that pests and diseases were a major problem, compared to 73% in Tay Ninh Province where farmers grow hybrid varieties and have serious issues with the cassava mosaic disease.Although both agricultural input and productivity in the northern mountain region is low compared to lowland areas in the southeast and south-central regions, productivity is not a priority in this mountainous region where animal husbandry is critical and carrying fertiliser to the uplands requires a lot of labour.The choice of cassava varieties is closely associated with women's spheres in agriculture and their social networks. First, women play central roles in animal husbandry in Thuan Chau. According to the focus group discussions and in-depth interviews, both women and men believe that women are responsible for feeding and taking care of the animals. Therefore, their voices must be heard when developing hybrid varieties. Second, the planting material of La Tre has been exchanged among farmers, including their matrilineal relatives, for decades.All of the household survey respondents in Thuan Chau have exchanged La Tre with relatives and neighbours in the past, compared with 25% of the households in Tay Ninh Province. Obtaining new hybrid varieties requires a new network outside the community or an official network through the local factory or farmers' union, which women may be excluded from or marginalised in. This runs a risk of reducing women's perceived joint decisionmaking and perceived joint contribution to household incomes. Also, it may affect a small number of already disadvantaged matriarchal households and the households which men are absent due to labour migration as they are not directly connected with men's social and agricultural networks.While most of the fresh cassava roots grown at the study sites are sold to factories within the province via traders, there are some local dried-chip enterprises whose produce has different value chain networks from a producer-trader-factory chain. The scale of business varies from a few hundred tonnes to a few thousand tonnes in the form of fresh roots. The largest dried-chip enterprise uses the runways of Na San Airport (a few thousand hectares) for sun-drying by using big construction machines such as power shovels and conveyor belts.We interviewed two females, medium-scale dried-chip entrepreneurs in Mai Son who also grew cassava, maize and fruits. Nguyen Thi Ha (53) buys 400 tonnes of fresh roots to make sun-dried chips in her household's 4-ha yard (with a maximum capacity of 500 tonnes), which is also used for growing maize. After harvesting the maize, the farm is used for drying cassava. Her business is seasonal, running for four months between October to January during the peak cassava harvesting period. She hires seasonal workers to unload the cassava from trucks (all male), and to use machines for drying and correcting (50% female). There are two types of dried chips: a four-day sun-dried type and a six-day sun-dried type. The former are sold to traders for export to China, while the latter are for the Vietnamese domestic market. Traders keep them in storage and sell them when market prices are sufficiently high.Nguyen Thi Ha started her small business in 2014 using her own cassava and purchasing roots from neighbours.She eventually expanded her business as there was high demand from both cassava producers and dried-chip traders. Her business has three characteristics which are different from the main cassava (fresh roots) value chains to the factories. First, her business is based on Facebook, where she directly communicates with producers without intermediates. She posts prices (depending on varieties and market prices) along with her phone number and address. Producers contact her, pay her online and arrange a truck for delivery, thereby providing them with autonomy independent of intermediates.Second, her business is based on trust. She has been selling her dried chips to the same traders since 2014, which allows her some flexibility in terms of time, amount and prices by negotiations. Third, her Facebook-based agri-business enables her and her clients to obtain or offer cassava planting materials to other districts, which is very different from current local cassava seed systems in which planting materials are only exchanged through local friends and relatives or from a factory to their cassava producers.Similarly, Nguyen Thi Kieu (38) started her business seven years ago. She began as a cassava producer. However, when the price of cassava was particularly low, she decided to dry it and to wait until prices increased again.This strategy worked very well for her. She initially purchased a slicing machine with 10-15 tonnes of capacity.Eventually, she invested in larger machines to increase her processing capacity. Currently, she rents a 4-ha yard in a vacant area of the industrial park where construction has not started yet. She hires ten people daily and handles 3,000 tonnes of fresh cassava over a two-month period. She purchases cassava from small-scale traders who collect fresh roots in the Thuan Chau district, where cassava production is high, but the factory is relatively far away. She also travels to the cassava factory, 5 km from her house, to purchase unqualified roots (below 27% of starch content) from traders.After drying, most of her dried chips are sold to animal feed companies in Hoa Binh and Hanoi, while the remaining 50 tonnes goes to Lang Son (on the Chinese border) for export to China.This business enabled her household to work themselves out of poverty. After marrying at 18, she and her husband struggled to earn money from farming. She used to work as a porter to carry agricultural produce at collection points, which was badly paid and extremely labour-intensive. Her cassava business enabled her not only to invest in farming but also to pay for her children's university education.Both of these female entrepreneurs identified a niche market in cassava fresh root value chains. Their business supports local producers and traders as it offers an alternative market and reduces dependency on cassava factories and Chinese market prices. They also create new entrepreneurial opportunities for female farmers as drying roots for animal feeding is traditionally a woman's domain.It is well documented that cassava offers an important cash income for poor families in the mountainous regions of Southeast Asia. This study confirms that cassava, and particularly a local variety, La Tre, is particularly important for poor ethnic minority households, due to its multiple uses as animal feed, firewood, home consumption and planting materials for the following season. In this respect, cassava production does not stand alone as a cash income; instead, it is incorporated into broader livelihoods and into household food security, including livestock production for both home consumption and extra income sources. These multiple utilisations of the cassava plant may contribute to women's significant involvement in and labour contribution to cassava production and processing.Leftover cassava roots in the field play a significant role as an indirect source of cash income. It is difficult for economic research to adequately include the leftover roots in the fields and the multiple utilization of those in household economy as both farmers and researchers often under-estimate and under-value non-marketoriented utilization of crops. Further research on leftover roots is required to see how they can more easily be utilised to save women's labour and time (for collecting roots, drying and slicing). In addition, listening more to women's opinions on cassava varieties, seed distribution and agricultural input is also extremely important as women have significant roles in production, processing and selling.Cassava also offers niche business opportunities in dried-chip production to female entrepreneurs, which also helps producers to cut out the intermediaries and increase their profits with direct bargaining power. This may be an area in which further research can help us develop alternative markets for flesh roots to benefit poorer families as well as create jobs for ethnic minority women and the youth population.Although beyond the focus of this report, our interactions with farmers confirm that better-off male farmers, both Thai and Kinh, are unafraid of and are more flexible regarding decisions on crop/livestock changes and investment. Given the rapid market fluctuations during the Covid pandemic, single-crop-focused research and interventions may overlook a bigger picture of agrarian change including labour migration and changing market demands for agricultural produce. Fruit trees are increasingly gaining in popularity among small-scale farmers in Son La Province. Views from the main roads confirm that large areas of cassava and maize farms have been planted with mango, longan, and plum trees. There is no single-crop prescription that can alleviate poverty. It is also important to understand the agricultural strategies for on-farm and off-farm income diversification, and the gender roles therein, in order to provide appropriate support particularly for ethnic minority women.","tokenCount":"5429"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"682088a54b2a6ebb41a9c1296b706abb","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0ea67033-e25f-45ad-bb56-9d6dca833e23/retrieve","id":"2077346258"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e66bc174-3e73-411b-b796-e5977129cc85","pagecount":"111","content":"Cuadro 1: Característica de los sistemas de producción por zona agroecológica en el valle de Mantaro Cuadro 2: Sistema de cultivo de papa en la sierra Sur del Perú Cuadro 3: Composición química promedio de estiércol por tonelada métrica Cuadro 4: Contenido de nitrógeno fósforo y potasio en las diferentes muestras de estiércoles Kg/Tn por especies de animales Cuadro 5: Composición química de las diferentes muestras de estiércoles de las zonas de: Sincos, Quilcas, Molino y Aramachay años 2005 y 2006 del Valle del Mantaro Cuadro 6: Composición química de las diferentes muestras de cenizas de la zona de Sincos y Aramachay año 2005 Cuadro 7: Cantidad de estiércol depositado en el establo de diferentes grupos de animales en Kg M.S. por día Cuadro 8: Cantidad de elementos extraído por la papa para producir una tonelada de tubérculo Cuadro 9: Extracciones de los elementos por toneladas en el cultivo de papa obtenidas por varios Autores Cuadro 10: Extracciones de los elementos por toneladas en el cultivo de papa obtenidas por varios autores (Kg) Cuadro 11: Dosis de abonamiento que produjeron el máximo rendimiento en el cultivo de papa Cuadro 12: Clase textural de los suelos de Aramachay (campaña 2004 -2005) Cuadro 13: Características químicas de los suelos en la comunidad de Aramachay (Campaña 2004-2005) Cuadro 14: Época de siembra del cultivo de papa en las diferentes zonas agroecológicas de la Comunidad de Aramachay (Campaña 2004 -2005) Cuadro 15: Cantidades de semillas empleadas por variedades en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay (Campaña 2004-2005) Cuadro 16: Variedades de papa preferidas en la Comunidad de Aramachay Cuadro 17: Distanciamientos de siembra y número de golpes/Ha en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay (Campaña 2004-2005) 42Cuadro 18. Tiempo de ejecución de las diferentes labores agronómicas en el cultivo de papa con relación a la siembra en la comunidad de Aramachay (Campaña 2004(Campaña  -2005)  )   45Cuadro 19: Distribución de la mano de obra empleada en el cultivo de papa por procedencia y género comunidad de Aramachay (Campaña 2004(Campaña  -2005)  )   46Cuadro 20: Distribución de la mano de obra empleada para las diferentes labores agronómicas en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay (Campaña 2004(Campaña  -2005)  )   46Cuadro 21: Tamaño de las parcelas evaluadas en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay (Campaña 2004(Campaña  -2005)  )   47Cuadro 22: Sistema de rotación de los principales cultivos en la comunidad de Aramachay 48 Cuadro 23: Dosis de nitrógeno inorgánico aplicados en la siembra y el Aporque en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay (Campaña 20042005) 55 Cuadro 24: Dosis de fósforo inorgánico aplicados en la siembra y el aporque en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay (Campaña 2004-2005) 55 Cuadro 25: Dosis de potasio inorgánico aplicados en la siembra y el aporque en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay (Campaña 2004-2005) 56 Cuadro 26: Cantidad de estiércol aplicado al cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay (Campaña 2004 -2005) 57 Cuadro 27: Cantidad de nutrientes aplicados por la materia seca en el guano agregado al cultivo de papa en la Comunidad de Aramachay (Campaña 2004-2005) 57Cuadro 28: Análisis de cenizas aplicadas a la mezclas de estiércoles en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay (Campaña 2004(Campaña  -2005La presente investigación fue desarrollada en la comunidad campesina de Aramachay (distrito de Sincos, provincia de Jauja), durante la campaña 2004-2005. Los objetivos fueron caracterizar y analizar las diferentes prácticas culturales, insumos y actividades relacionadas al almacenamiento, manejo y uso de la materia orgánica que los agricultores aplican en el cultivo de papa; y evaluar el efecto de las diferentes dosis de fertilización y la aplicación de materia orgánica en el balance de nitrógeno del mismo cultivo. La información fue obtenida a través de talleres participativos, y visitas periódicas a 33 parcelas distribuidas en las diferentes zonas agroecologicas de la comunidad. El área de cada parcela de papa fue medida al momento de la siembra y los insumos empleados en esta actividad fueron pesados. Durante la campaña del cultivo de papa (desde inicios de octubre del 2004 a inicios de mayo del 2005), las parcelas seleccionadas fueron visitadas con una frecuencia de al menos de dos veces al mes, para evaluar y registrar los insumos aplicados durante la misma. La cantidad de mano de obra fue registrada en términos de horas efectivas de trabajo durante toda la campaña. Al momento de cosecha, el rendimiento del cultivo, la producción de materia seca y la extracción de nitrógeno por los tubérculos en cada parcela de papa fueron determinados para determinar la cantidad de nitrógeno que el cultivo de papa ha extraído y determinar el balance de nitrógeno en el sistema.Los datos obtenidos fueron analizados haciendo uso de parámetros descriptivos (valor mínimo, máximo, promedio; desviación estándar, y coeficiente de variabilidad).El periodo de siembras del cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay durante la campaña 2004 -2005 se concentró entre el 15 de Octubre y el 30 de Noviembre. La actividad que requirió mayor cantidad de mano de obra fue la cosecha con 36 jornales, seguida de la siembra con 20 jornales, el aporque con 18 jornales y finalmente el desmalezado con 17 jornales por hectárea. La cantidad de mano de obra que no es remunerada con dinero represento el 67% y la procedencia de la mano de obra masculina fue de 80%. La variedad más sembrada fue Yungay, la cual representó un 83% del área en estudio.Las dosis de la aplicación de nitrógeno fósforo y potasio fertilizante utilizadas tuvieron un promedio de 133 -150 -110 Kg/Ha, respectivamente. La dosis promedio de aplicación de materia orgánica fue de 10,962 Kg/Ha. El manejo de la materia orgánica es de vital importancia para el sistema de cultivo de papa en la comunidad, porque todas las parcelas aplicaron este insumo en el momento de la siembra y el manejo que se le da antes de ser aplicado al suelo (aproximadamente de 2 a 3 meses) constituye una de las herramientas esenciales.El nitrógeno total disponible en el sistema fue analizado mediante un balance al término de la campaña de papa y del siguiente cultivo de rotación con cebada. En el primer cultivo todas las parcelas estudiadas dejan un residuo de nitrógeno disponible para el siguiente cultivo de rotación. En el siguiente cultivo de la rotación (cebada) el 64 % de las parcelas estudiadas presentó un balance positivo de nitrógeno disponible y el 36 % de las parcelas evaluadas mostró un déficit de nitrógeno. Se concluye que más del 50 % de las parcelas son manejadas conservando la fertilidad del nitrógeno en el suelo.Palabras claves: Labores culturales, fertilización, balance de nitrógeno, manejo materia orgánica LISTA DE FIGURAS Figura 1: Distribución de frecuencia de los niveles bajo, medio y alto de algunas características químicas de los suelos cultivados en papa en la comunidad de Aramachay Figura 2: Temperatura promedio mensual en la comunidad de Aramachay Figura 3: Precipitación promedio mensual en la comunidad de Aramachay Figura 4: Variedades utilizadas en función al área de las parcelas de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay Figura 5: Porcentaje totales de fertilizantes aplicados en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay Figura 6: Calendario agrícola en la comunidad campesina de Aramachay ( Campaña 2004( Campaña -2005 ) ) Figura 7: Resumen de las prácticas culturales realizadas en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay Figura 8: Fertilizantes empleados en la siembra en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay Figura 9: Fertilizantes empleados en el aporque en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay Figura 10: Fuentes de nitrógeno inorgánicos utilizados en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay Figura 11: Fuentes de fosforo inorgánicos utilizados en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay Figura 12: Fuentes de potasio inorgánicos utilizados en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay Figura 13: Balance de nitrógeno totales (rango <190) en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay Figura 14: Balance de nitrógeno totales  en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay Figura 15: Balance de nitrógeno totales (Rango >260) en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay Figura 16: Balance de nitrogeno totales (Rango<190) en rotación papa -cebada en la comunidad de Aramachay Figura 17: Balance de nitrógeno total  en rotación papa-cebaba en la comunidad de Aramachay Figura 18: Balance de nitrogeno total (Rango>260) en rotación papa-cebada en la comunidad de AramachayFoto 1: Acumulado del estiércol en el corral por diferentes especies de animales en la comunidad de Aramachay (campaña 2004-2005) Foto 2: Apilado y mezclado del estiércol en los corrales en la comunidad de Aramachay (campaña 2004Aramachay (campaña -2005) ) Foto 3: Fermentado del estiércol y llenados de sacos en la comunidad de Aramachay (Campaña 2004(Campaña -2005) ) Foto 4: Traslado del estiércol a las diferentes parcelas en estudio en la comunidad de Aramachay (Campaña 2004(Campaña -2005) ) Foto 5: Distribución del abono orgánico en las parcelas de la comunidad de Aramachay (Campaña 2004(Campaña -2005) ) LISTA DE ANEXOS Anexo 1: Resultados de los Análisis Físicos y Químicos de Suelos antes de la Campaña de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay (Campaña 2004(Campaña -2005) ) Anexo 2: Análisis Químicos de los suelos de Aramachay (Campaña 2004(Campaña -2005) ) Anexo 3: Distanciamiento de siembra en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay (Campaña 2004(Campaña -2005) ) Anexo 4: Tamaño de las parcelas de estudios con relación a las variedades sembradas (Campaña 2004(Campaña -2005) ) Anexo 5: Épocas de aplicación y dosis de los Fertilizantes en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay (Campaña 2004(Campaña -2005) ) 88En nuestro país el cultivo de papa (Solanum tuberosum) se desarrolla extensamente en la región andina, tanto en los valles como en zonas altoandinas. Es uno de principales cultivos para el agricultor pequeño y mediano, y constituye en algunos casos el principal sustento de las familias.Los ciclos de rotación de cultivos realizados por los pequeños productores de la zona altoandina del Perú, incluyen tubérculos, granos y leguminosas. La rotación se inicia frecuentemente con el cultivo de la papa; no solo por su importancia comercial, sino porque constituye la base de la subsistencia de la familia campesina. Es por ello que el cultivo de la papa ha recibido tradicionalmente la mayor atención por parte de los organismos de investigación en cuanto a técnicas de manejo lo cual incluye temas relacionados a: manejo de semilla, de insectos y enfermedades, de fertilización, sistema de rotación y mejoramiento genético.En la mayoría de áreas de cultivo de papa en zonas altoandinas, la producción se ve limitada por suelos con una baja fertilidad, topografía accidentada, clima y de falta de red de acceso. Estas dificultades hacen que los agricultores tengan difícil acceso a insumos externos, como los fertilizantes químicos, por los elevados costos que demandaría la obtención de éstos, lo que incrementa el uso de insumos obtenidos en el mismo campo o comunidad.La comunidad de Aramachay (Distrito de Sincos, Provincia de Jauja), se caracteriza por la producción de cereales y papa, como cultivos principales. La mayor cantidad de insumos disponibles (materia orgánica, fertilizantes químicos, etc.) son aplicados al cultivo de papa, el cual genera los mayores ingresos. Los demás cultivos de la rotación, por lo general se nutren a partir del efecto residual de la fertilización aplicada a la papa (Salvatierra, 1985). Esto puede generar una disminución en el contenido de materia orgánica propia del suelo, con la consecuente perdida de la fertilidad natural y la disminución de rendimientos La pérdida de la calidad de los suelos, es uno de los problemas críticos en la agricultura, sobre todo en la zona altoandina, donde la disponibilidad de materia orgánica se ve muy limitada por las escasas fuentes de la misma y por el medio ambiente, que impide un rápido proceso de degradación de las materias existentes. En ese sentido, los agricultores de las zonas mencionadas han probado por años formas diversas de manejar la materia orgánica para incorporarla al suelo, para hacerla más disponible para su cultivo, especialmente al cultivo de la papa.Hipótesis: Las prácticas culturales -y principalmente la fertilización -que los agricultores de la comunidad campesina de Aramachay aplican en el cultivo de la papa, no conserva la fertilidad de los suelos en forma sostenible debido a la baja reposición de los nutrientes extraídos por el cultivo.En ese sentido cabría plantear las siguientes preguntas de investigación: ¿Son las prácticas actuales de fertilización que los agricultores de la comunidad de Aramachay realizan en el cultivo de la papa, adecuadas para la conservación de la fertilidad del suelo?, ¿Cuáles son las principales fuentes de nutrientes del cultivo de papa usados por los agricultores?, ¿Cuáles son las principales fuente de materia orgánica?, Por esta razón, se plantea el presente estudio para registrar, analizar, difundir y utilizar el conocimiento local en el manejo de la materia orgánica con la participación activa de los propios agricultores, con los siguientes objetivos:• Caracterizar y analizar las diferentes prácticas culturales aplicadas en el cultivo de papa, particularmente las relacionadas al manejo de la fertilidad del suelo, en campos de la comunidad campesina de Aramachay.• Describir el sistema de cultivo de papa en la comunidad: (prácticas más frecuentes, variedades empleadas, fertilizantes, otros insumos, etc.) • Identificar y cuantificar las diferentes fuentes de nutrientes (orgánicos e inorgánicos) que los agricultores utilizan para fertilizar el cultivo de la papa.• Describir los procesos que realizan los agricultores para la preparación, almacenamiento, manejo y uso de la materia orgánica (flujos) en el cultivo de papa.• Caracterizar el efecto de las diferentes dosis de fertilización y la aplicación de materia orgánica en el balance de nitrógeno de las parcelas en estudio.Se define un sistema, como un arreglo de los componentes físicos, relacionados de tal manera que forman y actúan como una unidad funcional operativa, en que sus elementos están ligados por un cierto número de relaciones (Fulcrand y Ríos, 1988).La definición del sistema incluye la precisión con que se describen las variables, obstáculos y procesos varían según los objetivos de análisis. El objetivo puede ser la maximización de la producción animal, la eficiencia energética, la rentabilidad, minimizar costos o el peligro de fracaso, etc. La optimización de los procedimientos de programación es útil para identificar las estrategias, si las variables de los procesos pueden describirse cuantitativamente (Norman, 1980).Normalmente la oferta tecnológica que se brinda a las poblaciones rurales no es pertinente a las condiciones físico-biológicas, socio-económicas e histórico-culturales, en que se determinan la estructura y el funcionamiento de la pequeña agricultura o ganadería. Es tal la complejidad del desafío de producir tecnología mejorada y adoptable por el pequeño productor, que la investigación demanda una aproximación sistemática de la realidad. El conocimiento adecuado de las circunstancias del pequeño productor es pues, la piedra de toque de todo el proceso posterior de investigación y transferencia tecnológica, la cual debe ser elaborada a la medida de dichas circunstancias y de sus limitaciones y posibilidades (Escobar, 1988).La estrategia de investigación y el desarrollo agropecuario tradicional ha tenido un relativo éxito de mejora en la calidad de vida del productor, sin embargo generalmente las prioridades de investigación se determinan en la estación experimental y el productor no participaba en el proceso. En contraste la estrategia de investigación con un enfoque de sistemas se fundamenta en dos ideas:• El desarrollo de la tecnología relevante y viable para los productores debe basarse en un conocimiento completo del sistema real de la finca.• La tecnología debe evaluarse no solamente en términos de su desempeño técnico sino también en términos de su identificación con las metas, necesidades y condiciones socio-económicas de la finca, y del productor como elemento central (Norman, 1980) La esencialidad de los sistemas está en que: El sistema se ubica en un espacio geográfico, económico, social, etc. que forma el exterior del sistema y con el cual se dan entradas y salidas (Fulcrand y Ríos, 1988).El Valle del Mantaro está situado aproximadamente a 300 Km. al este de Lima, la capital del Perú. Es un valle interandino que comprende unos 70 Km.entre las capitales provinciales de Jauja y Huancayo. Los rangos altitudinales comprenden entre los 3,100 y 4,000 m.s.n.m., si se incluye el piso del Valle y la parte de la selva alta que se levanta al otro lado de los Andes (Mayer, 1981). El valle del Mantaro puede ser dividido en tres grandes zonas agroecológicas: zona baja, zona intermedia y la zona alta (Mayer, 1981;Fernández y Huaylinos, 1986;y Fernández, et.al. 1986) En la zona intermedia se encuentran situadas el 56% de las comunidades campesinas del Valle del Mantaro. Es en esta zona donde se encuentra la comunidad campesina de Aramachay (Swindale, 1985).Esta zona posee los recursos más importantes por su extensión de tierras, acceso al agua de riego y extensiones forestadas. El clima en esta zona es templado-seco, con lluvias periódicas de diciembre a marzo.Presenta una precipitación media anual que puede alcanzar los 735 mm y una temperatura media anual que varía entre los 10°C y 12°C, siendo el rango de temperaturas máximas de 25°C a 30°C y las mínimas sobre cero (INEI, 2004). En algunas partes de esta zona se encuentran quebradas (Quebrada Honda en Cajas), que dan cauce a riachuelos y pequeños ríos temporales (Río Seco de Matahuasi y Yacus de Jauja) y los ríos Sullcas y Cunas del Mantaro en Huancayo. (Fernández y Huaylinos, 1986).  papa, cebada grano, avena, quinua, habas, arvejas, trigo, cebolla, ajo, col, rabanito, nabo, tumbo, níspero, guinda, duraznero, aguaymanto, membrillo, alfalfa, trébol y ryegrass (MINAG, 2006). Por otra parte, Tapia (1997) manifiesta que en esta zona los cultivos de mayor importancia son: el maíz y los pastos cultivados.Su clima es templado-frío, con una mayor oscilación que la zona baja entre el día y la noche. La temperatura media anual es de 11°C. Esta zona se caracteriza por tener abundantes precipitaciones que tienen lugar entre los meses de enero a abril, que pueden alcanzar los 800 mm anuales en promedio (INEI, 2004).Esta zona se caracteriza por tener terrenos quebrados y quebradas cortas con cierta amplitud para sembrar y pastar. Pequeñas y grandes pampas como las del Valle de Yanamarca, Llacuaripampa y Masacancha.Hay cerros elevados a ambos lados del Valle y cordilleras, como el Huaytapallana. En las faldas, laderas y terrazas amplias y pequeñas, se desarrolla la agricultura. Los terrenos de la zona intermedia son en su mayoría cultivados en secano; sin embargo, hay pequeñas y medianas extensiones de tierras de riego ubicadas a las orillas de los ríos afluentes del Mantaro, como el Cunas, Canipaco y Sullcas (Fernández y Huaylinos, 1986).En esta zona la disponibilidad de forraje es menor que en la zona baja. Sin embargo, se crían ovinos, vacunos, caballos, mulas, porcinos y cabras. Se siembra de acuerdo a varios sistemas de rotación. El número de años que un campo es descansado, aumenta conforme aumenta la altura. Se produce en orden de importancia: papa, cebada grano, trigo, haba grano seco, arveja grano seco, haba grano verde, quinua, etc. (MINAG, 2006). Tapia (1997), señala asimismo que los cultivos de mayor importancia para esta zona son: Tubérculos andinos y los cereales, del primero se destaca la papa con mayor superficie sembrada, y del segundo la cebada para grano.Esta zona se caracteriza por presentar un clima frío. La temperatura oscila entre los 20°C y menos de 0°C, durante el día y la noche respectivamente. Siendo la temperatura media anual de 7°C y 0°C (INEI, 2004). Topográficamente está constituida por pendientes abruptas, laderas, peñascos rocosos, cordilleras cubiertas de nieve perpetua como la del Huaytapallana. Además hay hoyadas, colinas y cerros cubiertos de pastos naturales; superficies desnudas fuertemente erosionadas;quebradas pronunciadas y terrazas inclinadas aptas para la agricultura (Fernández, et.al, 1986).En la zona alta hay dos sistemas de tenencia: En uno las tierras se asignan a las familias cada año, en cantidades iguales y por la duración del ciclo de cultivos, luego las tierras regresan a la comunidad por los años de descanso. En el segundo sistema, las familias son \"dueñas\" de sus parcelas en cada sector y las vuelven a trabajar cada vez que todo el sector entra al ciclo de producción. Durante los años que el sector está en descanso, los derechos a la propiedad individual están, por decir así, en hibernación o latente. Se produce en orden de importancia: cebada grano, papa, haba, arveja, olluco, quinua, etc. (MINAG, 2006). Por otro lado, Tapia (1997) menciona que en ésta zona el área de terreno se dedica principalmente para pastizales.Un resumen más detallado sobre la caracterización de los sistemas de producción por zona agroecológica en el valle del Mantaro puede apreciarse en el cuadro Nº 1. Fuente : Fernández, et.al, (1986); INEI (2004); Tapia (1997);MINAG (2006).Las rotaciones son combinaciones temporales y espaciales de diferentes especies que en el caso de las laderas de sierra, toma como objetivos generales: a) Mantener la fertilidad y productividad de los cultivos.b) Controlar la erosión de los suelos y, c) Mantener un nivel bajo la población e incidencia de plagas y enfermedades.Así por ejemplo, en la zona agroecológica quechua (2000-3400 m.s.n.m) en el departamento de Huancavelica, la rotación es como sigue:Maíz -maíz -maíz -alfalfa -alfalfa -alfalfa -alfalfa Papa -maíz -(arveja o haba) -cebada -descanso -descanso -descansoMaíz -maíz -arveja o haba -cebada -descanso -descansoTrigo -haba -arveja -pasto -pasto -pastoMaíz -trigo -haba -papa Maíz -haba -cebada -descanso (Vásquez, 2000) Por otro parte, Tapia, (1988) menciona un sistema de rotación que se realiza en la zona sur del altiplano del país. Así por ejemplo, las leguminosas como el haba, arveja y tarwi; permiten un incremento de 20 a 40% de la producción. Experiencias con parcelas que seguían a un campo de alfalfa de 6 a 8 años, produjeron hasta 40 toneladas por hectárea de papa en condiciones de 3800 m.s.n.m en Ayacucho y Cuzco. También realiza un resumen del sistema de cultivo de papa en la sierra Sur del Perú (Cuadro 2) se puede apreciar que conforme aumenta la altura los años de rotaciones de cultivo disminuyen, además que las papas dulces se cultivan como máximo hasta los 4000 m.s.n.m.  , et. al. (2004) Ciclo de cuatro años Papa-maíz-haba-cebada En conclusión, en la perspectiva de Vásquez (2000), la rotación de cultivos se ajusta de acuerdo con la zona de producción, clima, mercado, formas tradicionales de agricultura, problemas sanitarios y la rentabilidad de las secuencias de cultivo.La materia orgánica del suelo esta constituìda por todo tipo de residuo orgánico (vegetal o animal) que es incorporado al suelo (Guerrero, 1993). Se denomina materia orgánica o humus a la parte orgánica que cumple un papel esencial en el suelo (Gros y Domínguez, 1992). Por otro lado, no existe una definición de humus con los que todos los especialistas estén de acuerdo, pero, en general, el término humus designa a la sustancia orgánica variada, de color pardo y negruzco, que resulta de la descomposición de materias orgánicas de origen exclusivamente vegetal. Esta considerada como la fuente principal, mientras que, los restos de origen animal (estiércoles) como fuente secundaria (Wild, 1992).La materia orgánica del suelo es una sustancia muy compleja, de naturaleza variable y de origen diverso contiene un sinnúmero de materiales cuyos porcentajes varían de acuerdo con la clase de residuos (de plantas o animales) y de su estado de descomposición. Dichos materiales son los siguientes:• Carbohidratos que incluyen azúcares, almidones, celulosas, etc. que contribuyen del 1 al 28 % de la materia orgánica • Proteínas, aminoácidos, y otros derivados nitrogenados.• Grasas, aceites y ceras • Alcoholes, aldehídos, cetonas y otros derivados óxidos inestables• Ácidos orgánicos (ácidos acéticos, que pueden alcanzar un miliequivalente por cada 100 gr. de suelo) • Minerales como calcio, fósforo, azufre, hierro, magnesio, y potasio• Productos diversos de gran actividad biológica como hormonas, enzimas, carbohidratos, así como otras sustancia muy activas en pequeñas concentraciones (Cepeda, 2002) La cantidad de humus en el suelo depende de muchos factores, tales como la incorporación de nuevos restos orgánicos al suelo y su velocidad de descomposición de la materia orgánica existente ya en el suelo, la textura del suelo, la aireación, la humedad y los factores climáticos. También, las prácticas de manejo del cultivo pueden tener un efecto sobre este parámetro ya que por ejemplo, el empleo de abonos minerales acelera la descomposición de la materia orgánica en el suelo. Esto es una manifestación del crecimiento de la actividad biológica, que se traduce en la práctica en una mejora de la fertilidad y por tanto del rendimiento (Gros y Domínguez, 1992)Cuando se agrega los residuos orgánicos de cosechas al suelo, el nitrógeno y otros elementos se inmovilizan y no pueden ser aprovechados por las plantas hasta que la materia orgánica se haya transformado en humus por acción de los microorganismos y después que éstas se hayan muerto y descompuesto. La materia orgánica cuya proporción C:N sea 20-30:1 dará por sí mismo todo el nitrógeno necesario para este proceso a una proporción menor de 20:1 el nitrógeno es disponible aún cuando la materia orgánica no se haya descompuesto.Esto explica porqué cuando se adiciona guano sin descomponer con gran cantidad de paja o se entierran los residuos de cosechas, se observan algunas veces, síntomas de deficiencia de nitrógeno en las plantas a menos que se apliquen grandes cantidades de fertilizantes (Cruzado, 1977).Al descomponerse, los restos vegetales dan una serie de reacciones bioquímicas que incrementa la actividad microbiana del suelo, fomentando una mayor cantidad y diversidad de microorganismos, que se encargan de la mineralización de los elementos nutritivos que descomponen la celulosa, los que a su vez refuerzan con sus secreciones la característica de los agregados del suelo, que son necesario para el correcto equilibrio del agua y del aire del suelo (Sánchez, 2003).Además, la materia orgánica del suelo forma complejos orgánicos con los nutrientes manteniendo a estos en forma aprovechable para las plantas y la reducción de la erosión de los suelos, al aumentar la resistencia de los agregados a la dispersión por el impacto de las gotas de lluvias y al reducir el escurrimiento superficial (Fuentes, 1989).La influencia del humus sobre las propiedades físicas del suelo es sin duda muy importante en cuanto a lo que se refiere a la estructura del suelo y el uso más eficiente del agua. En el primero, formando agregados e incrementando la estabilidad estructural, combinándose con las arcillas y formando el complejo de cambio, disminuye la plasticidad del mismo y la densidad aparente (Graetz, 1997) y en el segundo, mejora la infiltración y el drenaje del suelo de textura fina, y por lo tanto, ayuda a una mejor distribución del agua en el perfil del suelo, reduciendo la pérdida del agua por evaporación y percolación profunda y la aireación en los suelos propiciando, el mejor crecimiento y funcionamiento más eficaz de las raíces (Cepeda, 2002). También promueve un sistema de raíces más profundas que permiten el uso del agua en esas capas. Al oscurecer el suelo en los climas templados fomenta su calentamiento y por ende, promueve una mejor germinación y el fácil aprovechamiento del agua (Marshall, 1992).En lo que se refiere a las propiedades químicas, la materia orgánica aumenta la fertilidad de sus suelos por los siguientes motivos: Primero, aporta elementos fertilizantes que el humus con la arcilla constituyen el complejo arcillo-húmico que regula la nutrición de la planta. Segundo, los ácidos húmicos estimulan el desarrollo del sistema radicular y con ello se hace más efectiva la acumulación de nutrientes (Fuentes, 1989) Tercero, la capacidad tampón del suelo favorece la acción de los abonos minerales y facilita su absorción a través de la membrana celular de las raicillas (Gaetz, 1970). Cuarto, el aumento del intercambio de aniones, especialmente fosfatos y sulfatos, y finalmente, la disponibilidad de N.P.S, favoreciéndola a través de los procesos de mineralización (Fassbender y Bornemisza, 1986).Y finalmente el relacionado a las propiedades biológicas, cuando las condiciones de humedad, temperatura y aireación son adecuadas, la materia orgánica favorece la proliferación de microorganismos, puesto que proporciona: Carbono, para la formación de la estructura orgánica para su oxidación como fuente de energía, y nitrógeno para la síntesis de las proteínas y otros elementos nutritivos esenciales para la vida.También aumenta considerablemente la cantidad de la fauna del suelo (lombrices, larvas, insectos, etc.), esta tiene efectos favorables sobre la estructura del suelo en cuanto favorece la circulación del aire y del agua (Fuentes, 1999), la mineralización, el desarrollo de la cubierta vegetal, que sirve de alimento a una multitud de microorganismos y estimula el crecimiento de la planta en un sistema ecológico equilibrado (Graetz, 1997).Existen tres tipos de materia orgánica:Entre las fuentes orgánicas de origen vegetal podemos destacar a los residuos de cosecha y a los abonos verdes. Los residuos de cosecha son los desechos orgánicos que deja el cultivo saliente en o sobre el suelo, en forma de hojas, tallos, raíces y otros órganos aéreos o subterráneos. Pueden representar, de 500 a 800 Kg. de humus al año en promedio (Gros y Domínguez, 1992).Los abonos verdes son especies cultivadas y desarrolladas específicamente con el propósito de ser incorporadas al terreno antes de su fructificación, para elevar la fertilidad del suelo (Monroy, 1990). Por lo general se emplean leguminosas como abonos verdes, por su capacidad de fijar nitrógeno atmosférico en asociación con bacterias.El compost es la mezcla de sus componentes principales desiguales por su resistencia a la descomposición microbiana. Uno de ellos (material vegetal) desempeña por preferencia el papel absorbente de la humedad y del amoniaco, se descompone débilmente, y el otro es rico en microflora, contiene suficiente cantidad de compuestos orgánicos nitrogenados que se descompone fácilmente (fecal, purín, etc.). Siendo esta preparación biológica.Aquí se encuentran los estiércoles, purín, gallinaza y todos aquellos residuos producidos por animales. Estos abonos orgánicos sirven de fuentes de elementos nutritivos (macro y micro) para las plantas, como mejoradores de las propiedades del suelo (Yagodin, 1986).Es la principal fuente de humus de las explotaciones que poseen Ganado, utilizan su paja para hacer estiércol (Gros, y Domínguez, 1992), el mal manejo del estiércol conduce a fuertes pérdidas de nitrógeno por volatilización, y de este y otros nutrientes, por lavado. Las pérdidas aumentan por el desecamiento, el viento, el pH alcalino y las altas temperaturas, por lo tanto un buen almacenamiento deberá considerar la compactación del material, circulación de la fracción líquida y protección contra el sol, el viento, la lluvia y escurrimiento. Puede incluso utilizarse aditivo minerales, como superfosfato, roca fosfórica, ácido, etc. para estabilizar al nitrógeno y enriquecer la materia orgánica. En su aplicación al terreno, el estiércol debe incorporarse al suelo lo más rápidamente posible mediante barbecho (Monroy, 1990).El estiércol esta formado por una mezcla de la cama de animales y de deyecciones, que han sufrido fermentaciones más o menos avanzado en el establo y después en el estercolero la composición varía entre límites muy amplios según los animales, la naturaleza de la cama, la proporción de pajas y de deyecciones, la alimentación de los animales, la fertilización que haya realizado el agricultor, la forma de explotación del ganado, el procedimiento de fabricación del estiércol, los cuidados proporcionados para conservarlos, su estado de descomposición, etc. De acuerdo a lo anteriormente mencionado Gros y Domínguez (1992) reportan los siguientes valores (Cuadro3: Sobre composición química promedio de estiércol) Se puede admitir aproximadamente que un animal en estabulación permanente produce anualmente alrededor de veinte veces su peso en estiércol.Así el estiércol producido por cada cabeza de ganado vacuno adulto en estabulación es del orden de 10 a 12 Tn/ año, siendo de 5 a 6Tn , si pasa sólo 6 meses en el prado suponiendo que el estiércol pesa de 650 a 700 Kg/m 3 , deberá preverse un espacio de 10 m 3 para el almacenamiento del estiércol producido por cada cabeza de Ganado durante el periodo invernal de estabulación (Gros y Domínguez, 1992).Por otro lado, se presenta unos datos obtenidos en el valle central en cuanto a excreción de estiércol del ganado bovino (Cuadro7). Se nota claramente una mayor deposición del estiércol durantes las fase activas que tiene el ganado bovino; durante el pastoreo, el ordeño, etc. (Augstburger, 1989). El nitrógeno es un elemento muy móvil entre la atmósfera y el suelo, y los organismos vivientes (Davelouis, 1991).Por otro lado, el contenido medio de nitrógeno total en el suelo es muy variable y principalmente esta en función del nivel de materia orgánica. En zonas templadas, la capa arable de la mayoría de los suelos cultivados contienen de 0.02 a 0.4%.En zonas áridas, suele encontrarse menos del 0.1% e incluso niveles inferiores de 0.025 % de nitrógeno (Domínguez, 1989).La expresión mineralización del nitrógeno se utiliza, generalmente, para designar la transformación del N combinado orgánicamente (principalmente como grupos amino o nitrato, aunque no exclusivamente) a formas inorgánicas como amonio o nitrato. La conversión en nitrato es un proceso separado que requiere la actuación de organismos especializados, por lo que debe considerarse independientemente de la primera etapa que designamos, específicamente como amonificación o amonización.La capacidad de un suelo para proporcionar el N mineral que demandan los cultivos durante el ciclo completo de desarrollo depende en gran medida de sus reservas de N orgánicos, de la naturaleza de los residuos orgánicos y de la capacidad amonizadora de la población microbiana (Wild, 1992).La transformación del amonio en nitrato requiere la oxidación del nitrógeno desde su forma más reducida (estado de oxidación -3) hasta la más oxidada (estado de oxidación +5). El proceso se realiza en dos etapas en las que intervienen organismos distintos. Aunque se produce un cambio considerable de energía libre, este cambio se distribuye de forma desigual entre ambas etapas, como se indica a continuación.Etapa NitrosomonasLos factores que afectan los pasos de la nitrificación en los suelos son: en una enumeración rápida. 1) el suministro del iòn amonio; 2) la población de organismos nitrificantes; 3) la reacción del suelo; 4) la aireación del suelo; 5) la humedad del suelo; y 6) la temperatura (Tisdale, 1991).Las bacterias nitrificantes requieren temperaturas elevadas, entre 25 y 30 °C, para su actividad óptima. Por ejemplo, en suelos cuyas temperaturas medias sean aun más altas, pueden así mismo, ser superiores a la óptima, demostrando una gran capacidad de adaptación a las condiciones climáticas. Por otra parte, a temperaturas inferiores a 4 o 5 °C, la nitrificación es muy lenta y el nitrógeno amoniacal aportado al suelo en forma de fertilización durante el otoño puede permanecer sin nitrificar hasta la primavera.La humedad del suelo juega un papel importante en la nitrificación, por sí misma y por su influencia en la aireación. Para bajos niveles de humedad. La actividad microbiana es reducida y la mineralización del N orgánico es pequeña por lo que la cantidad de amonio es limitada (Wild, 1992). Por otro lado, los límites de reacción entre los que la nitrificación ha dado lugar han sido dados generalmente entre pH 5.5 y pH 10 con el óptimo alrededor de 8.5 (Fassbender y Bornemisza, 1986).En nuestras condiciones los valores óptimos de estos factores son: una temperatura de 28 °C, un pH de 6.8 a 8, humedad a capacidad de campo y condiciones aeróbicas. Bajos estas condiciones se produce una mineralización del suelo de 3%/Ha/año del contenido de nitrógeno orgánico del suelo. Como en el humus la relación C/N guarda una proporción de 10 a 1 y el contenido de carbono del mismo es de 50%, se deduce que el contenido de nitrógeno orgánico del suelo en humus, fuente estable de materia orgánica del suelo es de alrededor del 5%.En condiciones adversas de clima y manejo, el coeficiente de mineralización del nitrógeno del suelo es reducido a 1% o menos, con el consiguiente perjuicio para la planta y para el agricultor, quien tiene que suplir esta necesidad con una fuente externa, sea esta orgánica o mineral vía fertilizantes (Davelouis, 1991).Como regla general, cuando los materiales orgánicos con una relación C:N mayor de 30 se añaden a los terrenos hay una inmovilización del nitrógeno del terreno durante el proceso de descomposición inicial.Para relaciones entre 20-30, puede que no haya ni inmovilización ni liberación de nitrógeno mineral. Si los materiales orgánicos tienen una relación C:N de menos de 20, hay usualmente una liberación de nitrógeno mineral al principio del proceso de descomposición (Tisdale, 1991).Además, hay que considerar que cuando un abono verde o un residuo de cosecha con bajo contenido de N o una amplia relación C:N, se asocia con una lenta descomposición del mismo. Sin embargo, esto no debe generalizarse, porque existen otros componentes del material orgánico que deben considerarse también, como la lignina y los polifenoles, los cuales varían no solo con la edad de la planta sino con la especie o variedad de la misma. A mayor contenido de lignina y/o polifenoles menor será la velocidad de descomposición de los abonos verdes o residuos de cosecha (Davelouis, 1991).La finalidad de la fertilización es alcanzar los niveles de producción deseados y una cosecha de calidad. Además de las exigencias específicas en nutrientes, la papa tiene preferencia por suelos de textura arenosa-(suelos ligeros). Estos, se caracterizan por ser muy permeables y con débil retención de los nutrientes, sobre todo nitratos, que se pierden por lixiviación a capas profundas, no alcanzables por las raíces, y como consecuencia, se produce una deficiente absorción de nitrógeno. Otro factor importante en la fertilización es el pH del suelo, cuyo valor óptimo se estima entre 6-7. También debemos tener presente que el cultivo de la papa es exigente en nutrientes, sobre todo en potasio (determinante en la calidad de la cosecha).Para realizar una correcta fertilización de la papa, debemos considerar el rendimiento obtenido en relación con los nutrientes extraídos del suelo.Lógicamente, la producción esperada estará directamente relacionada con otras variables como el potencial genético de la planta y las condiciones ambientales donde se desarrolla el cultivo (suelo, clima, agua, etc.) (Alonso, 2002) 3.11. Funciones de los elementos nitrógeno, fósforo y potasio en la nutrición vegetalEs el motor del crecimiento de las plantas, que suple de uno a cuatro por ciento del extracto seco de ésta y es absorbido del suelo bajo la forma de nitrato (NO 3 -) o de amonio (NH 4 + ) (FAO, 2002).Sin embargo, casi todo el nitrógeno que absorben las plantas se hallan en forma de nitratos. Debido a que, existen dos razones básicas para ello. Primero, el nutriente es móvil en el suelo y se desplaza en el agua hacia las raíces de las plantas, donde es absorbido. Por otra parte, el amonio esta ligado a la superficie de las partículas del suelo y no se puede mover hacia las raíces. Segundo, en condiciones adecuadas de temperatura, aireación, humedad y pH del suelo, los organismos transforman todas las formas de nitrógeno del suelo a nitrato (CPHA, 2004).Una vez en la planta, el nitrato es convertido rápidamente en amonio el cual se combina con los hidratos de carbono formados en la fotosíntesis para dar lugar a aminoácidos y finalmente, a proteínas (Simpson, 1991), también, esta involucrado en todos los procesos principales de las plantas y en la absorción del rendimiento (FAO, 2002).Que suple del 0.1 a 0.4 por ciento del extracto seco de la planta, las raíces de ésta absorben el fósforo bajo la forma de ión ortofosfatos) (Simpson, 1991) Por otra parte, las investigaciones han demostrado que la plantas absorben una mayor cantidad cuando se agrega nitrógeno amoniacal junto con fertilizantes fosfatados. Este efecto sinérgico aumenta al máximo cuando el fertilizante se aplica en banda.Existen varias teorías para explicar esto: el aumento en el crecimiento de la raíz, cambios fisiológicos que hacen a las células de la raíz más receptiva al fósforo, mayor transferencia del fósforo a través de la membrana de la raíz al xilema y disminución del pH del suelo como resultado de la nitrificación del nitrógeno amoniacal. (CPHA, 2004).Tiene un papel absolutamente indispensable para la planta, por formar parte del núcleo de las células, es imprescindible en la división celular y aquí que sea sobre todo importante a nivel de los puntos de crecimiento de ésta, es decir en el tejido de los meristemas, importante en la transferencia de energía, por eso es esencial para la fotosíntesis y para otros procesos químicos fisiológicos (FAO, 2002). La técnica auto radiográfica, utilizada en plantas tratadas con fosfatos radioactivos, proporciona imágenes de una extraordinaria concentración de fósforo al nivel de los puntos de crecimiento, tanto de las hojas como de las raíces.También, la concentración de fósforo en las células que se hallan en división puede ser hasta mil veces superior a la existente en las células maduras (Simpson, 1991).El potasio que suple del uno al cuatro por ciento del extracto seco de la planta, Es fácilmente absorbido por las raíces de estas bajo la forma de ión potasio (K + ) y este es principalmente retenido en el jugo celular (FAO, 2002). A diferencia de los demás elementos mayores el potasio no forma parte ni de las proteínas, ni de los hidratos de carbono, ni de cualquier otro de los componentes principales de la planta. Este elemento tiene una gran movilidad para pasar del suelo a la planta y también para pasar de una parte a otra dentro de la misma planta. En consecuencia, si en el suelo existe una gran cantidad de potasio asimilable, se puede producir una absorción excesiva de potasio que puede impedir la absorción de otros iones, sobre todo el ión magnesio, determinando una carencia de magnesio en la planta (Simpson, 1991).Tiene un papel importante en la planta, interviniendo en la regulación de la presión osmótica y en el mantenimiento de la turgencia de la planta, en los procesos indispensables de la fotosíntesis y de la respiración así como el transporte de los hidratos de carbono desde una parte a otra dentro de la misma planta. Por ejemplo, la transferencia de los azúcares de las hojas a los tubérculos de las papas donde se convierten en almidones. También, tiene muchas funciones activas más de 60 enzimas (sustancias químicas que regulan la vida), estimula el crecimiento de la raíz y mejora la resistencia de los cultivos a las enfermedades. Favorece la formación de vasos xilemáticos más grandes y distribuidos de manera uniforme en todo el sistema radical. Y finalmente, mejora el tamaño y la calidad de los frutos, granos y hortalizas (CPHA, 2004).El cultivo de la papa para producir una tonelada de tubérculo fresco (cosecha económica) necesita extraer del suelo (Cuadro 8).  (Swindale, 1985) y pertenece a la zona agroecológica intermedia (Mayer, 1981).La comunidad de Aramachay en el año 1966 contaba con 137 habitantes (Fernández et al., 1986). Según el censo del año 2005 indica que la comunidad actualmente tiene 667 habitantes (INEI).Treinta y tres parcelas agrícolas cultivadas con papa (primer cultivo del ciclo de rotación) durante la campaña agrícola 2004 -2005 y evaluadas en el estudio de optimización del uso de compost de residuos verdes en suelos altoandinos del Perú serán seleccionadas para el presente estudio.La mayor parte de materiales para las fases de planificación, levantamiento de información en campo, fase de laboratorio y la fase de gabinete fueron proporcionados por: la División de Manejo Integrado de Cultivos del Centro Internacional de la papa ( CIP ) y el Instituto de la Pequeña Producción Sustentable ( IPPS -UNALM).• Mapas participativos de recursos de la comunidad de Aramachay.• Información sobre las diversas preparaciones de materia para aplicación al cultivo de papa. • Papelógrafos.• Cuadernos de campo.• Plumones.• Herramientas: (lampas, espátulas, recipientes de plástico, latas de aluminio, etc.) • Bolsas de plástico y papel.• Útiles de escritorio: (etiquetas, lápices, plumones indelebles, pabilo).• Balanza romana.• Balanza analítica.• Estufa.• Hojas de resultados de análisis de suelos de las parcelas en estudio. • Hojas de datos de campo de labores culturales de las parcelas en estudio.• Base de datos 4.5. MetodologíaLa planificación del presente estudio se inició con los contactos iniciales y la presentación del estudio a la comunidad de Aramachay.Posteriormente, un grupo de 12 familias de agricultores interesados fue formado para la ejecución de las actividades del estudio. Los objetivos del mismo fueron presentados al grupo y se definieron responsabilidades.Los responsables del estudio de investigación, fueron presentados a las autoridades locales y representantes de la comunidad y junto con los agricultores se elaboró el cronograma de trabajo en campo.A través de talleres participativos facilitados por el IPPS, se elaboraron los mapas participativos de zonas agroecológicas y de recursos naturales de la comunidad de Aramachay: (suelos, pastizales, recursos forestales, etc). El mapa de zonas agroecológicas fue elaborado por los agricultores, quienes identificaron tres principales pisos y definieron las rotaciones de cultivos aplicadas comúnmente en cada uno de ellos.En talleres participativos, se determinaron asimismo los principales tipos de abonos orgánicos empleados, los cuales fueron caracterizados mediante la proporción de sus componentes y las labores para el procesamiento de los mismos, seleccionándose los tipos existentes en la zona de estudio para el presente trabajo de investigación.Para la evaluación de los sistemas de cultivo de papa en la comunidad, un total de 33 parcelas a ser cultivadas con papa durante la campaña 2004 -2005 fueron seleccionadas y distribuìdas en las tres zonas agroecológicas definidas, procurando ocupar todos los suelos identificados en el mapa participativo. Las variedades fueron elegidas en forma libre por cada agricultor dentro del grupo de estudio.Un formato de recolección de datos de campo fue diseñado por el equipo técnico del estudio, para uniformizar la información a ser colectada de cada campo de papa y poder realizar comparaciones adecuadas (Anexo 16)A partir de la información obtenida en los talleres participativos y validando la información a través de entrevistas personales y familiares a los agricultores responsables de las parcelas en estudio; se identificaron los componentes de las mezclas de materia orgánica utilizadas para el abonamiento del cultivo de papa, así como el proceso de preparación de dicha materia orgánica Muestras representativas de las preparaciones de materia orgánica fueron tomadas para el análisis físico químico respectivo.La capa arable del suelo de cada parcela del ensayo fue muestreada antes de la siembra y aplicación de materia orgánica, y enviada al Laboratorio de Análisis de Suelos, Plantas Aguas y Fertilizantes (LASPAF) para su análisis físico químico.El área de cada parcela de papa seleccionada para el estudio fue medida al momento de la siembra. La cantidad de semilla de cada variedad de papa sembrada y los insumos aplicados junto con la semilla (abonos orgánicos, fertilizantes, etc.) fueron pesados en cada parcela de papa en estudio.Durante la campaña del cultivo de papa (desde inicios de octubre del 2004 a inicios de mayo del 2005) las parcelas seleccionadas fueron visitadas con una frecuencia de al menos de dos veces al mes, para evaluar y registrar los insumos aplicados durante la misma (segundo abonamiento, pesticidas, etc.) así como los problemas bióticos y abióticos: (heladas, sequías, plagas, enfermedades, etc.) que se presentaron en la papa durante el período de cultivo y que pudieran afectar los rendimientos.Al finalizar la campaña (cosecha), el rendimiento del cultivo de papa fue determinado en las parcelas experimentales, ya sea mediante el pesado de la producción total (en parcelas pequeñas) o estimándose a partir de los tubérculos cosechados en secciones de surco de 10 m de longitud (en parcelas grandes).El suelo de la parcela fue muestreado luego de la cosecha para el análisis químico respectivo.Muestras de los tubérculos cosechados, así como del follaje presente en campo antes de la cosecha, fueron tomadas en cada parcela, llevados al LASPAF de la UNALM, secados a 70 °C hasta peso constante, y luego analizadas químicamente para estimar la cantidad de materia seca, carbono y nitrógeno asimilados por el cultivo de papa.Una muestra representativa de cada forma de preparación de materia orgánica, así como de los insumos empleados en la preparación (estiércoles, residuos vegetales, cenizas, etc.) fueron llevados al LASPAF para el análisis físico químico respectivo: (humedad, contenido de materia orgánica, nitrógeno, fósforo, potasio, etc.).Las muestras de suelo obtenidas previamente a la siembra y antes de la aplicación de la materia orgánica al cultivo de papa en cada parcela, fueron llevadas al LASPAF y sometidas al análisis de caracterización.A partir de la información colectada en campo y laboratorio se realizó:• Un registro detallado del proceso de preparación, manejo y almacenamiento de la materia orgánica, más empleados en la comunidad de Aramachay.• Estimación de la cantidad de nutrientes mayores (C, N, etc.) provenientes de fuentes orgánicas, aplicados al cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay, a partir de la composición química de las materias orgánicas.• Estimación de las dosis de fertilización química (N, P 2 O 5 , K 2 O) más frecuentemente aplicadas al cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay, a partir de la cantidad de fertilizantes químicos empleados.• Estimar el balance de nitrógeno en el sistema suelo en el cultivo de papa y rotación papa -cebada, a partir de la cantidad de nitrógeno extraído por los cultivos y la cantidad de nitrógeno aportado por: el suelo, el estiércol y el fertilizante.Para analizar los datos se hizo uso de los parámetros descriptivos (mínimo, máximo, promedio, desviación estándar, y coeficiente de variabilidad), en las variables de: cantidades de semillas empleadas, densidades de siembra, distribución de la mano de obra, tiempo de ejecución de las diferentes labores agronómicas, tamaño de las parcelas, dosis de fertilización, cantidad de nitrógeno aportado por la materia orgánica, y cantidad de nitrógeno extraído en el tubérculo, también se estimó el área sembrada con cada variedad en términos porcentuales.Respecto a las características físicas, los suelos de clima frío de la zona de Aramachay presentan texturas medias, en el Cuadro 12 se puede observar un predominio de las texturas Franca (Fr) con 64.5 %, la Franca arcillosa (Fr.Ar.) con 25.8%, la Arcillosa (Ar) con 6.5% y la Franco-Limoso (Fr.L) con 3.2%, éstas dos últimas con un bajo predominio. En el estudio se procesaron 33 análisis de suelos y se agruparon en los niveles: bajo, medio, y alto de acuerdo a los siguientes valores (Cuadro 13).Cuadro 13: Características químicas de los suelos en la comunidad deEn la figura 1 se observa que predominan los pH ácidos y los altos contenidos de P. se presentan un amplio predominio de los contenidos medios de la materia orgánica, esto puede tener su origen principalmente por la bajaPotasio (ppm) <120 120-240 >240pH(1:1) <5.5 5.5-6.5 >6.5 temperatura y la cantidad de estiércol de origen animal que aplican los agricultores más de 11Tn/ha (Gamarra, 1989), también el contenido de K esta entre alto y medio principalmente, confirmando con los datos de Cano (1968); sobre un total de 6524 muestras realizadas en región de la Sierra manifestando que la disponibilidad de potasio y materia orgánica es media.La temperatura del aire promedio mensuales en la comunidad de Aramachay, durante el período vegetativo fue de 11.3˚C y 8.2˚C para los meses de noviembre y julio respectivamente. Por otro lado, en el mes de noviembre la diferencia de temperatura entre el mínimo (noche) y el máximo (día) fue de 14.5 ˚C. Mientras que, para el mes de julio la diferencia de temperatura entre el mínimo (noche) y el máximo (día) fue de 21.08˚C (Figura 2). También, se puede ver que estas diferencias de temperaturas comienzan a incrementarse en el mes de abril hacia adelante y es en la quincena de mayo aproximadamente cuando la temperatura desciende sobre los cero grados centígrados.  Las principales características y prácticas agronómicas empleadas en la producción de papa en la comunidad campesina de Aramachay se resumen a continuación:La preparación del terreno comprende dos actividades: el barbecho, que es generalmente realizado en el mes de marzo y consiste en un volteo del suelo, y la cruza, realizada pocos días antes de la siembra y que consiste en un mullido del suelo.El barbecho se realiza aprovechando la época de lluvia y sirve adicionalmente para controlar las malezas, ya que los terrenos corresponden a zonas en descanso en donde la cubierta vegetal ha crecido considerablemente.Las herramientas que se utilizan son: el pico, el arado de yunta y el tractor.a. En terrenos de menor pendiente se barbecha con yunta (o tractor) y b. En terrenos con pendiente pronunciada se barbecha con pico Esta distribución coincide con la reportada por Gamarra (1989), quien también encontró las dos formas de realizar esta labor en la comunidad anteriormente descritas.Las cruzas de arado antes de la siembra tienen como objetivo desterronar y mullir el suelo, acondicionándolo para la siembra. Gamarra (1989), menciona asimismo que un objetivo de la cruza es retener la carga de agua en el suelo mojado al romper las raíces de las malezas que han germinado con las primeras lluvias. Las funciones de la preparación del terreno son:a. Asegurar adecuadas relaciones hídricas en el suelo.b. Asegurar un buen crecimiento de las raíces y, c. Reducir la presencia de malas hierbas (Egúsquiza, 2000).La campaña de siembras en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad campesina de Aramachay, se encuentra entre la segunda quincena de octubre hasta finales de noviembre (Cuadro 14), más allá de esta última fecha los agricultores siembran con el objetivo de obtener papa para semilla, también corren el riesgo del problema de heladas. Para esta labor se emplean 162 horas efectivas de trabajo (20 jornales/Ha) ver el (Cuadro 20 sobre uso de mano de obra en el cultivo de papa). Estos resultados coinciden por lo reportado por Marina (1986), quien realizó un estudio en el empleo de la mano de obra en elValle de Mantaro, para el cultivo de la papa. Los agricultores de la comunidad de Aramachay obtienen sus semillas de parcelas sembradas en la campaña anterior en las diferentes zonas agroecológicas. La selección de las semillas para la próxima siembra es realizada en el momento de la cosecha, y es una labor exclusiva de las mujeres. Esta selección es simultánea a la selección de tubérculos comerciales y puede ser realizada en el campo, antes de la venta a los intermediarios o en el corral de sus casas de los agricultores, cuando se transporta toda la cosecha de papa desde el campo con una movilidad propia o alquilada.Por otro lado, Gamarra y Flórez (1989), mencionan que en la comunidad las modalidades de selección dependen de las necesidades del manejo de cada semilla. Por ejemplo, la semilla de papa debe ser pequeña (que \"ande\" más porque cubre mayor área de sembrío con menor peso).La cantidad de semilla empleada en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad Los distanciamientos de siembra variaron mucho de acuerdo a los siguientes factores: fertilidad del suelo en el cual se va sembrar, la variedad empleada y la profundidad del suelo. Los distanciamientos encontrados en las parcelas de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay fueron en promedio de 0.4 m para el distanciamiento entre plantas y 1.0 m para el distanciamiento entre surcos. La densidad de plantación promedio fue de 25.293 golpes/Ha (Cuadro 17).La distribución de la semilla en campo es una labor casi exclusiva de la mujer. Por lo general, se siembran dos tubérculos semilla por golpe si son pequeños (de 24 a 56 g) y un tubérculo de semilla por golpe si tiene un peso mayor de 94 gr. Ver (anexo 12 sobre selección de tubérculo de papa durante la cosecha y anexo 17 y 18 sobre clasificación de tubérculo). Es una práctica común el intercalar la semilla pequeña con la más grande entre golpes. Todas las parcelas de papa evaluadas en la comunidad de Aramachay recibieron un abonamiento que incluyó una aplicación de abono orgánico y de fertilizantes químicos en la siembra, en la cual la mezcla de estiércol es colocada en el fondo del surco a línea corrida o por golpe y la mezcla de fertilizantes es depositada sobre la materia orgánica. El 75% de las parcelas recibieron una segunda fertilización en el momento del aporque. Por otro lado, del total de fertilizantes químicos empleados en las 33 parcelas en el momento de la siembra y el aporque durante la campaña evaluada tuvieron una participación en porcentaje como sigue: fosfato diamónico con un 41%, seguido del cloruro de potasio con un 22%, úrea con 18%, un Compuesto (13-13-15) con 12% y finalmente el nitrato de amonio con un 7% (Figura 5) Estos fertilizantes son obtenidos al contado por los agricultores generalmente después de la cosecha de papaEl deshierbo o desmalezado, fue realizado entre los 14 y 82 días después de la siembra (Cuadro 18), empleando para esta labor 134 horas (17 jornales por hectárea) (Cuadro 20). Esta información coincide con datos reportados anteriormente por Marina (1986).La herramienta más frecuentemente empleada para el deshierbo es el pico. No se registró la aplicación de ningún tipo de herbicidas en el control de las malezas en papa en la comunidad.El aporque es una labor que nunca es descuidada por el agricultor. Es una labor agronómica que consiste en elevar los camellones de los surcos trasladando la tierra al cuello de la planta de papa.El aporque fue realizado entre los 31 y 84 días después de la siembra (Cuadro 18), empleando para esta actividad 140 horas (18 jornales por hectárea) (Cuadro 20). Mediante el aporque los agricultores co malezas, protegen a la planta contra el ataque de insectos y enfermedades, y aprovechan para incorporar los fertilizantes químicos.La principal plaga es el gorgojo de los andes ( el control de esta plaga químicos durante la campaña. La primera aplicación es realizada aproximadamente a los 35 días después de la siembra. Los agricultores mencionan que el momento de aplicación es reconocer algunas comedu las hojas, ya que es muy difícil encontrar a los insectos adultos de día pues estos permanecen debajo de la tierra.Compuesto (13-13-15) 12%El aporque es una labor que nunca es descuidada por el agricultor. Es una labor agronómica que consiste en elevar los camellones de los surcos trasladando la tierra al cuello de la planta de papa.El aporque fue realizado entre los 31 y 84 días después de la siembra (Cuadro 18), empleando para esta actividad 140 horas (18 jornales por hectárea) (Cuadro 20). Mediante el aporque los agricultores co malezas, protegen a la planta contra el ataque de insectos y enfermedades, y aprovechan para incorporar los fertilizantes químicos.La principal plaga es el gorgojo de los andes (Premnotrypes el control de esta plaga se realizan entre dos a tres aplicaciones de productos químicos durante la campaña. La primera aplicación es realizada aproximadamente a los 35 días después de la siembra. Los agricultores mencionan que el momento de aplicación es reconocer algunas comedu las hojas, ya que es muy difícil encontrar a los insectos adultos de día pues estos permanecen debajo de la tierra. Las dosis y el gasto de agua por hectárea se muestra en el anexo 11, también hay que subrayar que el gasto de agua es mayor conforme aumenta el follaje del cultivo y las aplicaciones son mayores en los campos con variedades comerciales que en los de variedades nativas, porque las primeras son destinadas para el comercio, mientras que las últimas son para su autoconsumo.La enfermedad que se presento más frecuentemente en los campos evaluados fue la rancha o hielo fungoso (Phythophthora infestans). Los productos químicos más empleados fueron los recomendados para el control de esta enfermedad. Los ingredientes activos identificados fueron: oxamil cymoxamil y propineb. Las dosis aplicadas fueron superiores a las recomendadas por los fabricantes ver (anexo 11 sobre. plaguicidas aplicados al cultivo de papa) Entre uno a dos aplicaciones de productos fitosanitarios son realizadas durante la campaña. Ellos manifiestan que el criterio de decisión para la aplicación preventiva es la ocurrencia de condiciones de alta precipitación y temperatura durante el día seguida de noches frías, lo cual requiere prevenir contra el ataque de la enfermedad.Se encontró un mayor énfasis en el tiempo y la dosis de aplicaciones en las variedades comerciales que para las variedades nativas.La labor de cosecha es realizada con la participación de toda la familia, siendo necesario en algunos casos contratar mano de obra adicional. La cosecha demandó 289 horas, equivalentes a 36 jornales por hectárea ver el (Cuadro 20), siendo efectuada entre los 143 y 286 días después de la siembra (Cuadro 18). La cosecha en la comunidad puede realizarse empleando arado de yunta o tractor. Cabe señalar que la cantidad de jornales depende de la modalidad de cosecha. Si es empleada la tracción animal se requieren entre 25 a 30 operarios, pero si la cosecha es mecánica es de 15 a 20 operarios por hectárea (Egúsquiza, 2000). Marina (1986), reporta por su parte 41 jornales por hectárea para el cultivo de papa en el caso de una unidad agrícola familiar, donde la cosecha fue realizada en forma manual empleando picos.Por otra parte en el anexo 12 , 17 y 18 se puede ver la selección de tubérculos de papa en la cosecha realizados principalmente por las mujeres; cabe señalar que esta selección depende del tamaño de las variedades de papas Cuadro 18. Tiempo de ejecución de las diferentes labores agronómicas en el cultivo de papa con relación a la siembra en la comunidad de Aramachay En la Figura 1 se observa que la mayor mano de obra requerida al cultivo de papa se encuentra entre la quincena de noviembre y finales de diciembre sumando en promedio 53 jornales/ha durante este periodo. Por otro lado, el momento de la cosecha de papa es realizado a los 180 -280 días después de la siembra teniendo un rango de dispersión de 100 días. El primer momento de cosecha el agricultor sembró la papa con el objetivo de obtener semilla y el segundo momento de cosecha el agricultor dejo un mayor tiempo del promedio requerido por la papa en el campo por tratar de conseguir un mejor precio en el mercado de dicho producto.Por otra parte, la precipitación durante el periodo fonológico del cultivo de la papa sumó aproximadamente 600 mm, siendo muy marcado durante los meses de noviembre a abril favoreciendo el desarrollo del cultivo de papa. Se considera un año seco por la cantidad de precipitación medida esperándose un mejor rendimiento si la cantidad de precipitación hubiera sido mayor (Figura 2)Cuadro 20: Distribución de la mano de obra empleada para las diferentes labores agronómicas en el cultivo de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay Las diferentes fuentes de nutrientes orgánicos e inorgánicos que se emplearon en el cultivo de papa se resumen a continuación.De las 33 parcelas evaluadas en el cultivo de papa, se encontró que en la siembra las parcelas que aplicaron los fertilizantes fueron: un 91% el cloruro de potasio, un 88% el fosfato diamónico, un 27% la úrea, un 21% el nitrato de amonio y finalmente un 15% el compuesto (13-13-15), de estos se puede ver que los fertilizantes más utilizados fueron el fosfato diamónico y el cloruro de potasio, debido a que, éstos son la base para la fertilización en el momento de la siembra, además son las fuentes más conocidas por los agricultores en la comunidad (Figura 8).Por otro lado, en el momento del aporque de las 33 parcelas evaluadas al inicio sólo 25 parcelas realizaron la segunda fertilización y de éstas se registro lo siguiente: el 84% de las parcelas aplica la úrea, un 36% el fosfato diamónico, un 16% el cloruro de potasio, un 8% el compuesto (13-13-15) y finalmente un 4% el nitrato de amonio, de estos datos se puede ver que las parcelas que aplicaron en mayor porcentaje el fertilizante inorgánico fue la úrea, debido a que, es la fuente de nitrógeno que más se conoce y esta al alcance por el agricultor (Figura 9). No Aplico compuesto (13-13-15) con sólo un 8% de estos los fertilizantes los más empleados son la ùrea y el fosfato diamónico ambos suman un 83%, siendo las principales fuentes nítricas registradas (Figura 10).Las fuentes de fósforo inorgánico aplicadas en la campaña de papa en la comunidad son: el fosfato diamónico y el compuesto (13-13-15), los que aportan 93% y 7% del P 2 O 5 aplicado, respectivamente (Figura 11) además, cabe señalar que el fosfato diamónico también aporta nitrógeno (Figura 10 ).Las diferentes fuentes de potasio aplicado en el cultivo de papa son: cloruro de potasio y el compuesto (13-13-15). Éstos aportan 88 % y 12% del K 2 O aplicado, respectivamente (Figura 12).  (1985). Esto demuestra que los agricultores en la comunidad de Aramachay, realizan una alta dosis de aplicación de fertilizantes inorgánicos, porque están cultivando con destino comercial.Las fuentes orgánicas aplicadas en el cultivo de papa son provenientes de mezclas de estiércoles de ovinos, vacunos, porcinos, cuyes, aves, y burros, que son acumulados durante un año en el corral. Los estiércoles de diferentes animales: vacunos, ovinos, burros, cerdos cuyes, gallinas, etc. Son las principales fuentes de materia orgánica de las cuales disponen los agricultores de la comunidad para el abonamiento de los cultivos. Los estiércoles son generalmente fermentados en mezcla con materiales de origen vegetal como restos de cosecha (siendo la paja de cebada el principal residuo), alimento de animales (heno) y desechos de cocina.La descomposición aeróbica de éstos materiales incluye la adición de cenizas, las cuales proceden principalmente de las cocinas a leña de las casas de los agricultores. Dentro de las especies más frecuentemente empleadas como combustible destacan el eucalipto (Eucalyptus sp), el quinual (Polylepis sp) y el aliso (Alnus sp.). Cabe señalar que las cenizas no constituyen un aporte significativo de carbono, pero sí de elementos minerales como el potasio, calcio y magnesio, enriqueciendo de esta manera los estiércoles.El agua es otro componente importante durante el proceso de maduración de los estiércoles, pudiendo ser aplicada en forma de riego o ser aportada por la lluvia.Siendo la papa, el cultivo \"de caja\" para los agricultores de la sierra peruana, recibe por lo general las mayores dosis de fertilizante químico, y casi la totalidad del abonamiento orgánico. Esto fue encontrado el la comunidad de Aramachay, donde la disponibilidad de materia orgánica por lo agricultores, fue empleada en las parcelas de papa a ser sembradas durante la campaña.Un proceso común para la preparación y el manejo de los estiércoles disponibles fue identificado entre los agricultores de papa en la comunidad de Aramachay:animales en el corral permite formar capas de estiércol en el mismo piso. El espesor de estas capas varía depe peso de los animales en el corral, pudiendo el estiércol encontrarse muy compactado y apisonado. El proceso de acumulación ocurre entre los meses de Septiembre a Agosto del año siguiente. el estiércol obtenido de las capas es acumulado en pilas altas para favorecer su descomposición aeróbica. Los estiércoles de animales que no son criados en el corral (cuyes, cerdos, etc.) así como los restos de la alimentación del ganado y residuos de cocina son mezclados en las pilas, las cuales son luego uniformemente mezcladas. Esta labor es realizada en Octubre.Acumulado: La acumulación constante de las deyecciones de los animales en el corral permite formar capas de estiércol en el mismo piso. El espesor de estas capas varía dependiendo de la cantidad y peso de los animales en el corral, pudiendo el estiércol encontrarse muy compactado y apisonado. El proceso de acumulación ocurre entre los meses de Septiembre a Agosto del año siguiente. volteadas una vez durante este proceso para facilitar la maduración de la capa más externa de la pila que se seca mas rápidamente. En el volteo, la parte exterior de la pila es colocada en el centro del nuevo apilado. Es frecuente asimismo en este período, la adición de cenizas procedentes de los fogones o cocinas a leña. El fermentado tiene por objetivo disipar el calor generado por la respiración microbiana, permitiendo su aplicación directa sobre los tubérculos semilla, así como el enriquecimiento del abono con microorganismos benéficos. El proceso de fermentado culmina con un estiércol maduro y altamente poblado de actinomicetos Streptomyces, etc.), la cual puede ser identificada por la coloración grisácea y el olor a tierra fresca del estiércol maduro.Las pilas de estiércol anteriormente descritas, son que sean convenientemente mojadas por las primeras lluvias de la temporada, para permitir una rápida descomposición aeróbica. Estas pilas pueden permanecer a la intemperie entre uno a dos meses, lo cual ocurre comúnmente entre mbre; y pueden asimismo ser volteadas una vez durante este proceso para facilitar la maduración de la capa más externa de la pila que se seca mas rápidamente. En el volteo, la parte exterior de la pila es colocada en el centro del nuevo te asimismo en este período, la adición de cenizas procedentes de los fogones o cocinas a leña. El fermentado tiene por objetivo disipar el calor generado por la respiración microbiana, permitiendo su aplicación directa sobre los tubérculos mo el enriquecimiento del abono con microorganismos benéficos. El proceso de fermentado culmina con un estiércol maduro y altamente poblado de actinomicetos , etc.), la cual puede ser identificada por la coloración tierra fresca del estiércol maduro.  Las salidas de nitrógeno del sistema pueden ser repuestas mediante la adición de residuos de cosechas y de abonos orgánicos; mediante la rotación de cultivos con leguminosas y con la aplicación de fertilizantes nitrogenados (Davelouis, 1991).Las parcelas bajo estudio fueron agrupadas en tres categorías de acuerdo al nivel de aplicación de nitrógeno disponibles totales en el cultivo de papa, para un mejor análisis del balance de salidas de este elemento del suelo en el sistema productivo de papa: El contenido de materia orgánica en los suelos analizados en el presente estudio arrojó un promedio similar entre las parcelas agrupadas bajo los tres niveles de aplicación de N fertilizante. Las parcelas con niveles bajo medio y alto de fertilización nitrogenada, presentaron contenidos promedio de materia orgánica fue de 2.5 %, 2.4% y 2.5%, respectivamente (Cuadro 30).La cantidad de nitrógeno aportada por la mineralización de la materia orgánica del suelo al cultivo de papa durante un año fue estimada a partir de los siguientes valores: el contenido promedio de materia orgánica en los suelos de las parcelas con niveles bajo, medio y alto de nitrógeno disponible total (Cuadro 30); el peso promedio de la capa arable del suelo (2500 TM), cuyo valor fue obtenido multiplicando la densidad aparente de un suelo de textura franca (predominante en la zona; Cuadro 12) por el volumen de la capa arable del suelo (considerando una profundidad promedio de 0.20 m); el contenido de nitrógeno en el humus estable del suelo (asumido en 5%; Nazario y Aguirre, 2004); y un coeficiente de mineralización de 1% considerado para zonas altoandinas (Davelouis, 1991).Cuadro 30: Porcentaje de nitrógeno de la materia orgánica de los suelos antes de campaña de siembra del cultivo de papa de la comunidad de Aramachay La cantidad de nitrógeno aportada al suelo por el abonamiento orgánico (estiércoles fermentados) fue estimada a partir del contenido promedio de nitrógeno en las cinco muestras de estiércoles analizadas en el LASPAF (Capitulo 2). La variación en el aporte de nitrógeno es por ello proporcional a la cantidad de estiércol aplicado a las parcelas de estudio (Cuadro 32).La disponibilidad del nitrógeno procedente de los estiércoles para el cultivo de papa (asimilación rápida) fue estimada en 50% del total de nitrógeno aplicado. Asumiendo que el 50% restante es consumido por los microorganismos o incorporado en la formación de humus del suelo. Los rendimientos promedios obtenidos durante la campaña para los niveles bajo, medio y alto de disponibilidad total de nitrógeno fueron: 29,196,28,053,23,754 Kg/Ha,respectivamente (Cuadro 34). Pudiéndose apreciar que conforme aumenta la disponibilidad total de nitrógeno, los rendimientos disminuyen. Los rendimientos varían en función de una serie de variables ecológicas, botánicas tecnológicas y económicas (Meyer, et. al, 1992)  Por otro lado, la eficiencia de uso del nitrógeno para los niveles de disponibilidad total de nitrógeno bajo, medio y alto fueron: 195, 123 y 75 Kg de papa/Kg de N (Cuadro 35). Puede apreciarse una mayor eficiencia en el nivel bajo, la cual disminuye progresivamente si la disponibilidad total de nitrógeno se incrementa. Estos resultados parecen indicar, que elevadas dosis de fertilización nitrogenada química y orgánica no son aprovechadas por el cultivo, pudiendo resultar en pérdida de nitrógeno del sistema suelo.La eficiencia de uso del nitrógeno en parcelas que presentaron un nivel bajo de disponibilidad de nitrógeno total coincide con lo reportado por Villagarcía (1990) quien halló una extracción de 4 a 6 Kg de N para producir una tonelada de tubérculo; aunque esta extracción puede variar dependiendo de la variedad sembrada, el tipo de suelo, y de la fertilización aplicada.   La cantidad de nitrógeno fertilizante aplicado al cultivo de papa es superior a lo recomendado por Villagarcía (1990) en los rangos medio y alto de disponibilidad total de nitrógeno. Esto puede deberse a que los agricultores cuentan con los recursos económicos para comprarlos. En el Capítulo 1 pudo apreciarse que los bajos costos de producción de papa están relacionados con fuente de mano de obra que emplean los agricultores, la cual es no remunerada en un 67.3%. La tenencia de la tierra es propia. La obtención de semilla de campañas anteriores es a bajo costo, en tanto que el estiércol es obtenido de sus propios animales o comprada de corrales vecinos o de otras comunidades en el caso de aquellos agricultores que manejan una mayor extensión de terrenos ya que estos están cultivando con fines principalmente comerciales por lo tanto los costos de producción representados en términos monetarios son: la compra de fertilizantes químicos, fertilizantes orgánicos y los pesticidas para el cultivo de la papa. Estos factores resultan en un bajo costo de producción. El costo de los insumos representa el 37 -52% del costo de producción dependiendo de la tecnología empleada para la sierra incluyendo el costo de la semilla (Quevedo, 2006).El balance de nitrógeno después de la campaña de papa se ha realizado considerando los sistemas de rotación más frecuentemente practicados en la comunidad (Capítulo 1), que son:1. Papa-cebada-descanso 2. Papa-cebada-haba-descanso.No se esta considerando el sistema de rotación número 3 debido a que existe pocas muestras para realizar un balance más detallado.   (1989). Los contenidos de nitrógeno de grano y follaje fueron obtenidos de los resultados de análisis de muestras procedentes de la comunidad y analizadas en el LASPAF (anexo 9).Hay que señalar que el manejo de la paja de cebada por los agricultores es destinada para la preparación del alimento para sus animales que serán guardados en el corral en tiempos de escasez y el pastoreo de estos La cantidad total de nitrógeno extraída por la cebada en la comunidad de Aramachay fue de 91 Kg/Ha (Cuadro 36).Siguiendo el mismo procedimiento se estimó la cantidad de nitrógeno extraído por el cultivo de haba, pero aplicando un índice de cosecha de 0.44 (Livz et al., 1986). Este índice corresponde a la producción con aplicación de una alta tecnología, un buen manejo de plagas y enfermedades y una buena disponibilidad de la humedad para el cultivo del haba. Este cultivo se rota con la finalidad de incrementar la fertilidad del suelo y como fuente de alimento para los agricultores. La cantidad de nitrógeno extraído por el cultivo de haba fue estimado en 85 Kg/Ha.  et al., 1992). Sin embargo, hay que considerar algunos factores que influyen en la capacidad de fijar el nitrógeno como pueden ser: • Competencia de las cepas inoculadas con las cepas nativas.• Contenido de nitrógeno combinado en el suelo.• pH del suelo.• Contenido de agua del suelo.• Temperatura. Se ha estimado por ejemplo, que la temperatura óptima para la fijación de nitrógeno se encuentra entre 20 y 25 o C, y que temperaturas inferiores o superiores afectan tanto la capacidad infectiva como la actividad de la enzima nitrogenasa (Almaraz et. al, 2000).No todas las leguminosas necesitan ser inoculadas, puesto que un gran número de ellas establece simbiosis efectivas con las cepas nativas del suelo, tal es el caso del haba y alfalfa (Almaraz et..al, 2000). También se han reportado de manera general mayores tasas de actividad de la nitrogenasa a mayores altitudes que a nivel del mar debido a la influencia de los fotoperíodos y la temperatura media como factores determinantes.  , 1988). Sin embargo con respecto a las dosis de abonos orgánicos ha permanecido constante en el tiempo, también hay que señalar que las dosis de materia orgánica aplicadas son superiores a otras comunidades de la sierra para el cultivo de papa. Pero, mencionar que los agricultores no fertilizan después de la siembra de papa cuando siembran otros cultivos de rotación como: el haba y la cebada principalmente ya que la elección de estos cultivos que se reportan son influenciados para el agricultor por el clima y el mercado preferentemente.El manejo de la materia orgánica es de vital importancia para el sistema de cultivo de papa en la comunidad, esto se demuestra porque ningún agricultor dejo de aplicar este insumo en el momento de la siembra. Los agricultores mencionan los siguientes beneficios de la materia orgánica: conservan la humedad, el fertilizante aguanta más, la papa se cocina mejor.Aparte de ello esta, el manejo que se da antes de ser aplicado al suelo aproximadamente de 2 a 3 meses constituyendo una de las herramientas esenciales, ya que proporciona nutriente al cultivo y todo este proceso que los agricultores realizan antes de la incorporación al suelo en el momento de la siembran lo hace más disponibles y sostenible en el tiempo.El recurso nitrógeno que se esta analizando en el balance de los diferentes niveles disponibles al cultivo de papa se aprecia que al término de la campaña todas las parcelas están dejando un residuo. Pero cuando se realiza la rotación del cultivo papa -cebada, el 36 % de las parcelas evaluadas tienen un déficit de nitrógeno para satisfacer sus requerimientos de nitrógeno en la cebada y el 64 % reportan un balance positivo de nitrógeno. Esto demuestra que más de la mitad de las parcelas son manejadas de tal manera que se conserva su fertilidad en términos de nitrógeno en el suelo.Presentamos a continuación las conclusiones del presente trabajo, basados en el análisis y la descripción del sistema de cultivo de papa en la comunidad campesina de Aramachay (campaña 2004Aramachay (campaña -2005) ) 1. La campaña de siembras del cultivo de papa en la comunidad se concentra entre el 15 de Octubre y 30 de Noviembre. La actividad que requiere mayor cantidad de mano de obra es la cosecha con 36 jornales, seguida de la siembra con 20 jornales, el aporque con 18 jornales y finalmente el desmalezado con 17 jornales por hectárea.2. La variedad más frecuentemente sembrada fue Yungay, representado un 83% del área en estudio.3. La procedencia de la mano de obra que no es remunerada con dinero represento el 67%, y la distribución por genero de la mano de obra masculina es 80%4. Los fertilizantes químicos más utilizados en la comunidad de Aramachay fueron: fosfato diamónico, cloruro de potasio y úrea. La dosis promedio aplicada al cultivo de papa fue 133-150-110 Kg/Ha. de N, P 2 O 5 y K 2 O, respectivamente.5. La principal fuente de materia orgánica es de origen animal (mezcla de estiércoles de diferentes especies) y en menor proporción de restos de cocina y cenizas, la dosis promedio aplicada al cultivo de papa fue de 10,900 Kg/Ha.6. El balance de nitrógeno en el suelo después de la campaña de papa en todas las parcelas, arrojó un efecto residuo de este elemento en todos los niveles de disponibilidad de nitrógeno totales. Pero esta cantidad de nitrógeno corre el riesgo que pueda perderse por las condiciones climáticas propias de la zona para el siguiente cultivo de rotación.7. El residuo de nitrógeno dejado en la campaña de papa cubre la necesidad de nitrógeno para el cultivo de cebada en rotación en el 64% de las parcelas evaluadas.Como recomendaciones que se desprenden del presente trabajo de investigación tenemos:1. Se recomienda para trabajos posteriores, evaluar la extracción de nutrientes en un sistema de rotación de cultivos en las zonas altoandinas que comienza con el cultivo de papa-haba-cebada-descanso o cualquier otro sistema, para poder determinar el balance de nutrientes en el suelo luego de un ciclo de rotación.2. Para poder determinar el efecto de algunas propiedades químicas del suelo, se sugiere evaluar el efecto de la cantidad de carbono luego de la aplicación de nutrientes de origen orgánico al final de la campaña de cultivo, analizando preferentemente este elemento durante un período de 3 años como mínimo 3. Se recomienda que la cantidad aplicada de nitrógeno disponible bajo la forma de fertilizante al cultivo de papa por considerarlo un cultivo de caja, debe ser suministrada al siguiente cultivo de rotación (cebada) de manera independiente, ya que el nitrógeno residual presente en el suelo corre el riesgo de perderse por las condiciones climáticas de la zona y el propio manejo de agricultor, desaprovechando de ésta manera su uso. ","tokenCount":"13368"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d9f7a25079a672c67d81a3c5dbf5bc62","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ef19c7ff-9d4c-4aff-91a9-bc0fb0c8473f/retrieve","id":"-1004022929"},"keywords":["Padulosi","S. (Stefano)","editor. | King","E. D. I. Oliver (E. D. Israel Oliver)","editor. | Hunter","Danny","editor. | Swaminathan","M. S. (Monkombu Sambasivan)","editor Germplasm resources conservation. | Millets-Breeding-Case studies. | Agrobiodiversity. | Agrobiodiversity conservation. | Plant species diversity. | Plant diversity conservation. | Food security. | Sustainable agriculture. Classification: LCC SB175 .O77 2021 (print) | LCC SB175 (ebook) | CAB International. Ulian","T.","Diazgranados","M.","Pironon","S.","Padulosi","S.","Liu","U.","Davies","L.","Howes","M.-J.R.","Borrell","J.","Ondo","I.","Pérez-Escobar","O.A.","Sharrock","S.","Ryan","P.","Hunter","D.","Lee","M.A.","Barstow","C.","Łuczaj","Ł.","Pieroni","A.","Cámara-Leret","R.","Noorani","A.","Mba","C.","Womdim","R.N.","Muminjanov","H.","Antonelli","A.","Pritchard","H.W. and Mattana","E NUS for nutrition-sensitive agriculture 57 Cambridge University Press","Cambridge. Ulian","T.","Diazgranados","M.","Pironon","S.","Padulosi","S.","Liu","U.","Davies","L.","Howes","M.-J.R.","Borrell","J.","Ondo","I.","Pérez-Escobar","O.A.","Sharrock","S.","Ryan","P.","Hunter","D.","Lee","M.A.","Barstow","C.","Łuczaj","Ł.","Pieroni","A.","Cámara-Leret","R.","Noorani","A.","Mba","C.","Womdim","R.N.","Muminjanov","H.","Antonelli","A.","Pritchard","H.W. and M attana","E Willett","W.","Rockström","J.","Loken","B.","Springmann","M.","Lang","T.","Vermeulen","S.","Garnett","T.","Tilman","D.","DeClerck","F.","Wood","A.","et al"],"sieverID":"99b9a00f-2955-4b47-bb2e-86ef0e3bf79b","pagecount":"471","content":"Orphan Crops for Sustainable Food and Nutrition Security discusses the issues, challenges, needs and opportunities related to the promotion of orphan crops, known also as neglected and underutilized species (NUS).The book is structured into six parts, covering the following themes: introduction to NUS, approaches, methods and tools for the use enhancement of NUS, integrated conservation and use of minor millets, nutritional and food security roles of minor millets, stakeholders and global champions, and, building an enabling environment. Presenting a number of case studies at the regional and country levels, the chapters cover different but highly interlinked aspects along the value chains, from acquisition and characterization of genetic diversity, cultivation and harvesting to value addition, marketing, consumption and policy for mainstreaming. Cross-cutting issues like gender, capacity building and empowerment of vulnerable groups are also addressed by authors. Representatives from communities, research for development agencies and the private sector also share their reflections on the needs for the use enhancement of NUS from their own perspectives. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of food security, sustainable agriculture, nutrition and health and development, as well as practitioners and policymakers involved in building more resilient food and production systems.For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Issuesin-Agricultural-Biodiversity/book-series/ECIAB This series of books is published by Earthscan in association with the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT. The aim of the series is to review the current state of knowledge in topical issues associated with agricultural biodiversity, to identify gaps in our knowledge base, to synthesize lessons learned and to propose future research and development actions. The overall objective is to increase the sustainable use of biodiversity in improving people's well-being and food and nutrition security. The series' scope is all aspects of agricultural biodiversity, ranging from conservation biology of genetic resources through social sciences to policy and legal aspects. It also covers the fields of research, education, communication and coordination, information management and knowledge sharing.Today we are confronted with two major paradoxes globally -the persistence of hunger in the midst of an impressive technological capacity to grow more food; and the narrowing of crop diversity within global food systems in the face of a fast-growing world population. Both conditions call for urgent actions to ensure a world without hunger.Agriculture is the mother of nutrition security. It is believed that agriculture or settled cultivation began over 12,000 years ago with women growing crops of importance to life on earth. Yet, over time, the importance of genetic variability was not given adequate recognition, leading to an over-reliance on a few crops such as rice, wheat and maize. Not only has this resulted in a large number of plants becoming extinct, but it has also put the food and nutrition security of the poor and marginalized, dependent on a range of crop species, at risk. With a focus on the standardization of production systems, not only are species lost, but so are markets -national and international -as is research interest in improving the productivity of these crops. This is why planned initiatives for the conservation, cultivation, consumption and commerce of genetic resources are important.Maintaining the genetic diversity of crops is even more critical in today's context of climate change. It is, in fact, the dynamic maintenance of agrobiodiversity operated by farmers in situ/on farm that could help make our food systems more resilient. Whereas the world can feel relatively comforted by the 1,450 gene banks that have been built to safeguard crop diversity -including the Svalbard Vault in Norway -much more needs to be done to map, collect, characterize, document and evaluate the thousands of orphan and underutilized crops, today just marginally conserved in gene banks, but whose survival is thanks to the laborious work of millions of farming communities around the world, a service done for the public good -but at their own personal cost! In that regard, the work pursued by the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation and other NGOsxxiv Preface and acknowledgments in building capacities of farmers in conserving local crop needs should be encouraged and supported.Given the scarcity of land, we must recognize that ensuring food security cannot be addressed by expanding land available for agricultural activities. We need to embrace a different paradigm that, while using less land, can provide more food from crops that are better adapted to climate change. At the same time, we need to do more to safeguard biodiversity so as to kee foodscapes healthy and productive; reduce the depletion of finite resources like water and soil; promote equitable, gender-inclusive food systems and foster greater synergy between scientific and indigenous knowledge. The role of women in feeding the planet needs to be better recognized and supported.One of the great achievements of science was the development of our ability to describe the genomic structure of major crop species and their wild relatives, which has provided a wealth of information useful for increasing both crop production and productivity. However, what we are witnessing now is that yields of major crops are reaching a plateau that may not be easy to overcome. More innovative solutions are needed to address the yield bottleneck. Leveraging agrobiodiversity to grow more and diverse nutritious food in difficult areas with poor soil and challenging climatic conditions should receive greater attention. This is not new to us, since risk-aversion practices have always guided generations of farmers who have been growing different crop and varietal mixes to buffer against shocks. Farming families have often been motivated by a desire to minimize risks, not just maximize profits; hence, the wisdom underlying the decisions to balance subsistence and market motivations needs to be recovered.In fact, significant progress in agronomic research and the adoption of systems approaches have shown the many benefits that biodiversity-based practices can bring about in challenging conditions, not just to the environment, but equally to ensuring the food and nutrition security of local communities. Crops considered 'orphan, underutilized and neglected' are all extremely valuable as not only are they often more nutritious than the major cereals, but also tend to need less water and are more tolerant of high temperatures and grow better in difficult climatic conditions.I have stressed, on various occasions, the disparities in access to technology that we are witnessing today. Despite the many exciting developments -be it in digital and precision agriculture, biotechnologies or ecotechnologies -we still register what I describe as a 'technological apartheid', which is contributing to 'orphan crops remaining orphans' in relation to the choice of research areas for their use enhancement. A good example is the case of technology for processing minor millets, which until recently was hardly accessible for rural households, discouraging the consumption of these nutritious foods where they are most needed.Back in 1968, I warned that if all locally adapted crop varieties were replaced with one or two high-yielding strains, it could lead to serious damage from pests, pathogens and weeds, contributing to the making of major agriculturalAgricultural biodiversity represents a strategic resource in ensuring food and nutrition security for humankind (Thrupp, 2000;Frison et al., 2006;Bioversity International, 2017). It keeps us healthy, as diets with poor biodiversity often lack crucial vitamins and micronutrients and are associated with diet-related non-communicable diseases (diabetes, heart attacks, overweight, obesity and cancer), which are a leading cause of death at the global level (Branca et al., 2019). Diversity on our plate is of paramount importance to everybody, and making sure this diversity is safeguarded and promoted should receive the utmost attention of decision makers, both at the national and the international level.The period of intense agricultural growth from the early 1960s to mid-1980s, known as the Green Revolution, 1 was characterized by an u nprecedented expansion in the production of staple crops through the development of high-yielding varieties (HYV). The Green Revolution contributed to a r eduction of poverty. An increase of approximately 15% in per capita GDP as a result of a 10% use increase of the HYV in the period 1960-2000 was observed, with an associated reduction of food insecurity for billions of people, and an estimated 18-27 million hectares of natural ecosystems safeguarded from being converted to agricultural land (Hazell, 2003;FAO, 2011;Pingali, 2012;Stevenson et al., 2013;Gollin et al., 2018). Among the key players of the Green Revolution were the international agricultural research centers of the CGIAR Consortium, responsible for the development of HYVs of major staples-mostly cereals-whose production more than doubled in developing nations between the years 1961and 1985(Tribe, 1994;;Conway, 1998). Unfortunately, this success came with a heavy cost to the environment (e.g., in the loss of wild and cultivated biodiversity, water scarcity, increased crop vulnerability to pests and diseases and loss of soil fertility), and caused a deterioration in human nutrition 1 NUS What they are and why we need them more than ever Stefano Padulosi, Gennifer Meldrum, E.D. Israel Oliver King and Danny Hunter (e.g., with essential amino acid deficiencies and a general lack of balanced essential fatty acids, vitamins and minerals from cereal-dominated diets), as well as increased health hazards from the widespread use of pesticides. This period also brought about socio-political instabilities (e.g., rural-urban migration of farmers unable to afford introduced technologies, as well as social conflicts and marginalization) (Jennings, 1988;Fowler and Mooney, 1990;Pingali, 2012).The greater availability of calories resulting from the Green Revolution's efforts has not represented an escape from hunger for millions of people, as HYV have been scarcely adopted in Africa, for instance, and the narrow crop diversity has led to food systems simplification, reducing options for healthy diets (Mooney and Fowler, 1990;Vanhaute, 2011;Willett et al., 2019). Nearly one in three people globally are still afflicted by malnutrition-a situation predicted to worsen in coming years based on current trends (FAO et al., 2018;UNSCN, 2018).The diversity reductionist approach followed by the Green Revolution has influenced the way agricultural development strategies and programs have been developed in every country for decades. This approach continues to have an influence today at different levels; however, it is increasingly questioned and less accepted, with urgent calls for a global transformation of the food system growing (Schutter and Vanloueren, 2011).As we tackle the ambitious Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG2) of achieving 'zero hunger' by 2030, we are faced with the disturbing paradox that is hindering our efforts: of the 5,000 food crops estimated to exist worldwide, global food systems are dominated by just three (rice, wheat and maize), which provide half the world's plant-derived calories (FAO, 2015;Willis, 2017). An incredible wealth of nutritious crops, and other wild edible food plants, is largely overlooked in our battle to produce food and tackle malnutrition, and this is happening now when the need for diversification of production and food systems has never been greater. Crop uniformity and standardization of agricultural fields are causing food systems to be enormously vulnerable to climate change, reducing farmers' capacity to absorb shocks and leaving consumers with fewer choices for nutritious and healthy diets (Padulosi et al., 2019). Those thousands of nutritious plant species left behind by the Green Revolution, which we call 'neglected and underutilized species' (NUS), represent a unique treasure for humanity that must be recovered from their state of neglect and must be mobilized to fuel a truly evergreen agricultural revolution (Swaminathan, 1996(Swaminathan, , 2020)).Neglected and underutilized species have become a popular topic lately, both in public debates and scientific papers. Different terminologies (orphan, forgotten, lost, alternative, minor, novel, local, traditional, etc.) are interchangeably used to refer to these species, creating confusion among researchers and development practitioners. It is one of the aims of this book to dispel this confusion. NUS is a terminology subject to different interpretations, reflecting people's own cultural background and sensitivity, and we hope to put everybody on the same level of understanding through the following observations.In simple words, NUS are plant species that-although appreciated at local level-are forgotten, abandoned or rarely explored by researchers and other agriculture and food systems R&D actors, for various reasons (e.g., low economic competitiveness; lack of improved seed, adequate cultivation practices, or processing technologies and reduced consumer appeal). They include wild, semi or fully domesticated plants from different food plant groups (including cereals, vegetables, legumes, roots and tubers, fruits, nuts, spices, etc.), diverse growth forms (herbs, shrubs, vines, trees, etc.) and life cycles (annual, biennial, perennial) (Padulosi et al., 2018). Although this book focuses solely on food plants, we should point out that NUS as a concept may well refer to other species too (plants or animals), as exemplified by the growing interest in the use of insects as a source of sustainable and cheap proteins for food and feed (van Huis et al., 2013;Dickie et al., 2019).The reduced use of NUS over time has led to the loss of both their genetic diversity and a wealth of traditional practices and associated knowledge that was developed by generations of traditional farmers for managing sustainable harvests (if occurring wild), cultivation, processing and preparation. Also contributing to this marginalization is the widespread perception, registered particularly among younger consumers, that NUS are the legacy of backwardness and hardship of traditional rural societies, the food of the poor, and should therefore be abandoned (Durst and Nomindelger, 2014;Padulosi et al., 2019).The term 'neglected and underutilized species' was first conceived by IP-GRI (the predecessor of Bioversity) in the late 1990s (Eyzaguirre et al., 1999). The reason why this term was chosen relates to its usefulness in conveying two key messages upfront: firstly, the status of neglect by research and development efforts of these traditional resources; and secondly, the status of underuse in relation to the multiple benefits they can bring to improving nutrition and health, livelihoods, the environment and biodiversity conservation, if better harnessed by society. Furthermore, the use of the word 'species' instead of 'crops', was also preferred in reminding people that NUS do encompass both naturally occurring species that are harvested in the wild and domesticated species. Lastly, the word 'neglected' is useful for evoking in our narratives those millions of 'neglected' people (vulnerable groups, marginalized members of society), who rely on NUS for their livelihood and for whom the improvement of these resources, to which they are culturally connected, represents an opportunity of economic growth, empowerment and reaffirmation of identity.The term 'orphan crops', present also in the title of this book, is often used interchangeably with NUS, though the latter is broader in scope as it includes both wild and cultivated species that may not immediately convey the messages with the same intensity described in Box 1.1. For more reflections on the semantics of the term NUS, the reader can refer to Padulosi et al. (2004Padulosi et al. ( , 2008)).Description SourceNeglected \"Neglected crops are those grown primarily in their centres IPGRI, crops of origin by traditional farmers, where they are still 2002 important for the subsistence of local communities. Some species may be widely distributed around the world but tend to occupy special niches in the local ecology and in local production and consumption systems. While these crops continue to be maintained by sociocultural preferences and the ways they are used, they remain inadequately documented and neglected by formal research and conservation\". NUS \"Acronym standing for Neglected and Underutilized Padulosi et Species and applied to useful plant species which are al., 2013 marginalized, if not entirely ignored, by researchers, breeders and policy makers; they belong to a large, biodiverse group of thousands of domesticated, semidomesticated or wild species; they may be locally adapted minor crops as well as non-timber forest species. The 'NUS' term is a fluid one, as when a crop is simultaneously a well-established major crop in one country and a neglected minor crop in another. NUS tend to be managed with traditional systems, use informal seed sources and involve a strong gender element\". In a wider sense, the term NUS also could be used to refer to animal species. Orphan crops \"Orphan crops are defined as crops that have either Mabhaudhi originated in a geographic location or those that have et al., become 'indigenized' over many years (> 10 decades) 2019. of cultivation as well as natural and farmer selection (Dawson et al., 2007). The term 'orphan' has often been used to refer to crops that may have originated elsewhere, but have undergone extensive domestication locally, thus giving rise to local variations, i.e., 'naturalized/indigenized crops' (Mabhaudhi et al., 2017)\". Underutilized \"Underutilized crops were once grown more widely or IPGRI, crops intensively but are falling into disuse for a variety of 2002 agronomic, genetic, economic and cultural reasons. Farmers and consumers are using these crops less because they are in some way not competitive with other species in the same agricultural environment. The decline of these crops may erode the genetic base and prevent distinctive and valuable traits being used in crop adaptation and improvement\".Beyond the terminology used, the best way to describe NUS is to refer to their key characteristics, which can be helpful in identifying the common limitations behind their marginalization as well as the multiple useful traits that can be leveraged for their promotion. Box 1.2 provides a list of these recurrent features that we have been documenting around the world, during our work focusing on the use enhancement of NUS. In fact, such a list of features could be well considered a 'terms of reference' for a shared comprehension of NUS by workers.Referring to these key features of NUS is useful in making a clear distinction between NUS and landraces of major crops (e.g., local varieties of wheat, rice or beans), whose status of neglect and underuse is also recorded in many countries. Our position is that these varieties should not be considered NUS, because their status can be improved by leveraging the vast network of research focusing on major crops that already exists in most countries. The growing interest on NUS by the research community and development practitioners (and hopefully accompanied by much needed funding!) should, therefore, strategically be used to tackle the promotion of NUS 'sensu stricto' instead of being used for underutilized v arieties of major crops for which the R&D infrastructure already exists.• Low competitiveness: little R&D investment has left NUS behind in terms of advances in their conservation, cultivation, harvest, postharvest, marketability, nutritional profiles, gender, policies and legal frameworks.Relevant only to local consumption and production systems: being intimately linked to local food cultures, NUS are used in traditional food preparations and are associated with social and religious ceremonies and rituals.Adapted to agroecological niches and marginal areas: NUS often demonstrate comparative advantages over commercial crops due to natural selection or selection carried out by local growers against biotic and abiotic stresses, which makes them perform comparatively better under low input and biological agriculture techniques.Resilient to climate change: compared with commodity crops, NUS are perceived by local growers as highly adapted to biotic and abiotic stresses related to climate change, something that is being increasingly confirmed by scientific research.Represented by ecotypes or landraces: owing to the poor attention received from breeders, they are often represented by germplasm material that is not performing so well, requiring some degree of genetic i mprovement-a fact that hinders their competitiveness in production systems.With regard to how many NUS exist at the global level, we can safely say that taking into account both wild and cultivated species, the number is in the order of thousands (Padulosi et al., 2018). In fact, most of the estimated 5,000 cultivated food crops recently recorded as existing (RBG Kew, 2016;Ulian et al., 2020) are in some state of marginalization. For instance, in the case of cultivated vegetables, within the family Leguminosae, there are an estimated 23,000 species (Plant List, 2020), of which some 653 have been cultivated (Khoshbakht and Hammer, 2008). Taking as an example the 127 species of cultivated vegetables belonging to this family, the majority have been found to be neglected, based on three key indicators viz. (a) number of records in Google Scholar as indicator of research effort devoted to the species, (b) number of accessions maintained in ex situ germplasm collections worldwide and (c) production data from the FAO's FAOSTAT, an indicator of knowledge on species distribution and production levels (Meldrum et al., 2018). Similarly, in the family Compositae the numbers are as follows: of its 27,000 species, 284 are cultivated plants, of which 85 vegetables are also largely neglected.Further complications in a shared understanding of NUS may arise also from the fact that some species that are clearly underutilized in one country are, on the • Rich in traditional knowledge: in view of the ongoing cultural erosion affecting traditional societies, associated knowledge on NUS is being rapidly lost, which, in turn, leads to the loss of genetic diversity and continued opportunities for appreciation by consumers, especially the younger generation.Poorly represented in ex situ gene banks: their genetic diversity is maintained largely in situ and on-farm and (possibly) in private seed collections (e.g., the one maintained by the Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds Company 2 ) or community seed banks (such as those maintained by MSSRF in south India 3 ).Characterized by poorly developed or non-existent seed supply systems: inferior quality of seed that has a negative impact on their performance in cultivation.Highly relevant in Indigenous Peoples' societies: for Indigenous communities, NUS are the result of sophisticated trials and accumulation of experience over many centuries and generations: they are a manifestation of a systematic process that involved intricate ways of learning and accumulating experience (Padulosi et al., 2019).Multi-functionality and multiple benefits: they are often able to provide people with not just nutritious food, but also valuable non-food products and ecosystem services. Excellent examples of such multi -functionality can be found in Bambara groundnut, chaya or minor millets that are presented in the chapters in this book.NUS: what they are and why we need them 9 contrary, very popular in another. This is the case for the cereal tef, (Eragrostis tef ), a staple food in Ethiopia, that is hardly consumed outside the country, except in small amounts primarily by the Ethiopian diaspora. The opposite case is that of quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa), which was an underutilized crop until a few years ago, when it started to spread from the Andean region across all continents to become a global commodity (Bazile et al., 2016). The spicy rocket (collective name for Eruca sativa and Diplotaxis spp. originating from the Mediterranean/Central Asia) was another typical underutilized vegetable until the early 1990s (Padulosi et al., 2008); yet, today it is being cultivated on all continents, with 400,000 tons/ year produced in a small area near Salerno (\"Piana del Sele\") in south Italy alone, representing 73% of the entire Italian production (Pignataro, 2019).The status of NUS nowadays changes rapidly (for better or for worse) and it becomes hard to keep track of these changes in a consistent manner. What we see today, is very often a 'mosaic' situation, with a crop being popular in one country (or region) and highly marginalized in others. Such a scenario poses great challenges to workers engaged in setting priorities for choosing the 'best' NUS to support agricultural development programs. In our opinion, more than a silver bullet, what the world really needs today are portfolios of 'silver baskets' of NUS diversity to meet the various needs of consumers from different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds across regions and countries. The reader may find more on priority-setting approaches for NUS in Chapters 2, 9, 13 of this volume, and in the wider scientific literature (Padulosi, 1999a,b;Hunter et al., 2019Hunter et al., , 2020;;Ulian et al., 2020, and references therein).The chapters in Part I provide several examples of benefits associated with the use enhancement of emblematic NUS from India and other regions of the world. An overview of livelihood benefits arising from the use enhancement of NUS can be also found in the works of Ravi et al. (2010), Padulosi et al. (2011Padulosi et al. ( , 2013)), Massawe et al. (2015), Mabhaudhi et al. (2019) and Raneri et al. (2019).In Table 1.1, we have summarized the wide range of the benefits associated with NUS and compare these to similar ones that can be obtained from commodity crops. As can be appreciated, benefits from the wider cultivation and use of NUS far outweigh those associated with commodity crops. Research investment is urgently needed to translate these potential benefits into concrete realities by providing high-quality seed, refined cultivation practices, more efficient processing technologies, marketing that is more efficient, etc. It is worth stressing-as mentioned by Professor Swaminathan in his foreword to this book-that our societies are well equipped to address the bottlenecks hindering the use of NUS; what is most needed is the political will to leverage the enormous technology and expertise accumulated from working on commodity crops, to benefit of the NUS cause (see also Chapters 3, 13 and 17 for more on mainstreaming needs and opportunities). Consistent with this long list of benefits is that NUS can be powerful levers in support of important activities framed in the context of International Treaties and Agreements, such as those of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (for example SDGs 2, 7, 12, 13, 15 and 17, the Aichi Biodiversity Target 13, 5 Activity 11 [and others as well] of the FAO Second Global Plan of Action on PGRFA, 6 the IFAD Action Plans on Mainstreaming Nutrition 7 2019-2025, the IFAD R ural Youth Action Plan 2019-2021 8 and IFAD Strategy and Action Plan on Environment and Climate Change 2019-2025 9 ). Interesting to note is that in 2014, at the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), member states acknowledged the key role played by diversified and sustainable diets, including traditional foods such as NUS, in reducing malnutrition 10 (see the UNSCN's commentary provided in Chapter 31).With regard to climate change, one of the most interesting examples of the drought-escaping capacity of NUS in stress-avoiding strategies comes from minor millets and in particular from barnyard millet (Echinochloa colona), whose grains can reach maturity just 45 days after sowing (Hulse et al., 1980), and hence represent ideal crops in areas with very short rainy seasons. Minor millets can produce a reasonable harvest with only about 10% of the water required to grow rice, which makes them an ideal (and cheap) alternative source of carbohydrates and other important micronutrients for areas like South Asia, which are suffering from climate change and where the cultivation of rice is increasingly challenged (Padulosi et al., 2009). Similarly, the highly nutritious tepary bean (Phaseolus acutifolius)-which completes its reproductive cycle rapidly and thus avoids subsequent drought (Nabhan, 1990)-is able to produce mature beans in just 60 days (Wolf, 2018). This legume is a precious source of protein, especially in Central America, where the crop used to be popular in the past and where it could help counteract the decline in common bean production as a result of recurrent droughts (Bioversity International, 2018). Cañahua (Chenopodium pallidicaule), a close relative of quinoa, is a very nutritious and hardy crop but its fate has been very different from that of the popularity of quinoa. In fact, cañahua is capable of withstanding cold stresses, a trait not present in quinoa and one that makes it much desired by local farmers who are experiencing more frequent morning frosts around Lake Titicaca in Bolivia and Peru. Unfortunately, the abandonment of this crop by farmers, who replaced it with the more remunerative quinoa, has led to the disappearance of its germplasm, making its re-introduction to farming communities hard to realize (Bioversity International, 2017).Supporting evidence also exists in the literature for the risk-avoidance practices adopted by small-scale farmers in areas where the crop diversity of NUS is particularly high (Altieri, 1987;Holt-Gimenez, 2006). An example of mixed production systems in which farmers can harness the multiple and complementary benefits (agronomic, economic, social) from NUS to mitigate harvest failures due to climate change (Mijatovic et al., 2019) is that of the 'baranaja' mixed cropping system. This farming practice, used in the Garhwal region of the state of Uttarakhand in India, involves sowing 12 or more crops on the same plot, including various types of beans, grains and millets, and harvesting them at different times (Ghosh and Dhyani, 2004). Several of these crops are NUS and such practices help farmers make the best use of limited land, save on the cost of chemical fertilizers through the N-fixing capacity of some species and make use of enhancing soil capacities and different maturity times of crops to help secure a regular and nutritious supply of foods to households.Other NUS that are often mentioned in the literature for their drought tolerance/adaptation include the baobab (Adansonia digitata), pigeon pea ( Cajanus cajan), jute mallow (Corchorus olitorius), chaya (Cnidoscolus aconitifolius), fonio (Digitaria exilis), moringa (Moringa oleifera), tepary bean (Phaseolus acutifolius), Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea), jujube (Ziziphus mauritania), strawberry tree (Arbutus spp.), marula (Sclerocarya birrea), amaranth (Amaranthus spp.) and grass pea (Lathyrus sativus) (Padulosi et al., 2011).From a nutritional point of view, it is very important to highlight that NUS have similar or sometimes remarkably higher nutritional profiles than those found in commodity crops (Hunter et al., 2019). Considering that the 51 essential nutrients needed for sustaining human life (Graham et al., 2007) cannot be found easily in the few staple crops feeding the world today, we can make a strong case for the theory that the vast NUS portfolio that fortunately still exists at local level is a strategic source of vital nutrients in the fight against malnutrition (Raneri et al., 2019). The diversity of NUS can be a source of essential nutrients year round and, at the same time, can make peoples' meals more delicious, tastier and more enjoyable. More NUS diversity on the plate helps people of different age groups better meet their own nutritional needs, and can allow the fulfillment of individual health requirements and food preferences. Interestingly, 10 of the 17 essential micronutrients and 13 (out of 13) vitamins can be found in fruits and vegetables, a category of crops represented by thousands of species that are today largely underutilized.Furthermore, whereas affluent people nowadays have the privilege of accessing food originating from all parts of the world on supermarket shelves at any time of the year, for the majority of the world's population such a privilege is largely denied. It is a fact that for most people living in vulnerable areas of sub-Saharan Africa or Asia, food security is largely dependent on crops grown locally. Due to the shrinking of the food basket that these areas are seeing, local populations are more vulnerable to the so-called lean season, the period preceding the harvest of main staples during which households have often exhausted their household food reserves. In this regard, our research in Mali, India and Guatemala has discovered that several local NUS (wild and cultivated) that are currently scarcely used due to low awareness of their nutritional values, lack of seed or other constraints can be revitalized and become helpful allies in fighting food insecurity during the lean season (Lochetti et al., 2020). More on the seasonal calendars developed to guide local populations in managing this untapped diversity is provided in Chapter 14, whereas a more extensive articulation of NUS and nutrition-sensitive agriculture is provided in Chapter 3.As stressed previously, the promotion of NUS can be leveraged to support the empowerment of local communities, because it is in those areas-inhabited especially by Indigenous Peoples-that a great diversity of NUS is found. Agricultural systems in Indigenous Peoples' territories have not been subjected to intensive cultivation practices and local communities living there have been safeguarding a great amount of diversity compared to other societies (IFAD, 2019;Singh and Rana, 2020). The intimate link between NUS and local communities, whose own identity is quite dependent on these foods, offers an opportunity for the revitalization of the gastronomic culture through, for instance, agritourism approaches as practiced in depressed areas of Lake Titicaca by Bioversity and its partners in the mid-2000s (Taranto and Padulosi, 2009).As noted in previous publications (Eyzaguirre et al., 1999;Padulosi et al., 2013;Hunter et al., 2019;Borelli et al., 2020;Hunter et al., 2020), NUS are often called 'minor' crops in view of the fact that their production volume is much lower compared to that of 'major' crops (commodities or staples). In terms of their multiple livelihood and other benefits, NUS are not minor at all and, hence, call for more robust and consistent actions by decision makers for their recognition and promotion.Tapping the portfolio of an estimated 653 leguminous NUS (Khoshbakht and Hammer, 2008) to provide proteins to a hungry world in ways that are more sustainable to the environment, using less water and fewer chemical fertilizers as compared to livestock farms, is, for example, an important contribution to safeguarding our planet and is consistent with the objective of the so-called 'sustainable intensification' of agriculture that is advocated by many (Cassman and Grassini, 2020).Dramatic climate change scenarios predicted in the not-too-distant future warn that a rise in the sea level is expected to submerge many coastal areas around the world, and most affected would be the small islands of the Pacific and other such low-lying regions (Nurse et al., 2014). The NUS basket can certainly be of great help to those areas, for providing plants adapted to cope with increasing levels of salinity and water logging associated with such changes; thus, this approach deserves the urgent attention of governments, researchers and other stakeholders.The intense urbanization all over the world is also leading to greater demand for more nutritious food, which-by encouraging the practice of growing locally and leveraging the diversity of well-adapted (smart') NUS-could help mitigate the impact that increased food production would have on the environment. The potential of tapping this diversity to provide fresh, healthy, safe and tasty food to millions of people living in large cities through vertical farming is also another opportunity worth seizing.The dramatic COVID-19 pandemic that the world has been experiencing lately is also reminding us of the need to strengthen localized sourcing of food in order to help communities cope with shocks of this nature. DOI: 10.4324/9781003044802-3Looking back at the last 50 years, we can comfortably say that both public and private institutions have been slow in recognizing, appreciating, and supporting research on neglected and underutilized species (NUS). Many are the reasons behind such a tepid position regarding the promotion of these species, but above all stands the strong influence exerted by the Green Revolution's legacy in setting research priorities in agriculture at both the national and international levels. The focus on a few staple crops to feed the world has been inhibiting the development of research for non-commodity/non-staple crops around the world. Notoriously, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the largest organization engaged in agricultural research spends almost its entire budget on a few strategic staple crops, viz. lentils, cowpeas, groundnuts, m illets, wheat, coconuts, maize, pigeon peas, potatoes, rice, soybeans, sweet potatoes, and yams. 1 Most of these crops have been receiving dedicated funding since the early 1960s, whereas very limited resources have been directed towards developing NUS. Low attention to NUS is also registered among National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) as reported in national country reports dedicated to the conservation and use of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGRFA) (FAO, 1996(FAO, , 2011)). Although a number of global institutions and NARS have been playing over the years a commendable role in support of NUS in terms of implementing supportive policies, programs and projects for their sustainable conservation and use, we would like to emphasize that it is I ndigenous Peoples and other ethnic groups who have been so far the true custodians of these local resources and the promoters of their continued traditional use (Padulosi et al., 2019).Stefano Padulosi andDanny Hunter 20 Stefano Padulosi andDanny Hunter Period: 1970-1980 This period is characterized by a predominant R&D focus on major commodities (staple crops and industrial crops). Though the work of agricultural research institutes (including the CGIAR) have yielded important impacts in terms of hunger and poverty reduction, it is also causing the marginalization of hundreds of nutritious crops (especially minor cereals, pulses, vegetables, and fruits) that are no longer competitive with the high yielding varieties massively promoted by governments. Deployment of a broader basket of species to mitigate the impact of crop failures and, hence, to fight periodic food insecurity is far from becoming a key issue of this decade. A milestone in the advocacy for opening the door to research on NUS is the USA National Academy of Sciences' (NAS) document drawing attention to underutilized species (NAS 1975); the paper was the outcome of a NAS-commissioned \"extensive survey of underexploited tropical plants\" as possible crops for the future. Among the 36 species addressed by this report, the winged bean (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus) was particularly recommended to the research community for further attention due to its \"exceptional merits\".This is when attention on NUS starts building up. This is due to increased recognition of the importance that crops' wild relatives gained within the CGIAR as well as within FAO (Hunter and Heywood, 2011). An example of this is the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), which started a programme supported by the Italian government in 1990 to survey and collect wild Vigna species (Padulosi et al., 1991). A similar programme supported by the German Agency for Technical Cooperation GTZ (today GIZ) was also launched at IITA to survey, collect and study Bambara groundnuts (Vigna subterranea) in Africa (Begemann, 1988). In 1987, the International Conference on \"New Crops for Food and Industry\" was held at the University of Southampton and as a result of one of its recommendations, the International Center for Underutilized Crops (ICUC) was established the following year. In 1988, the University of Purdue (USA) organized the first of a series of International Symposia on New Crops, mainly looking for alternatives to major crops, targeting US farmers ( Janick and Simon, 1990).Also relevant is the CSC/ICAR Delhi International Workshop, held in 1987, on the maintenance and evaluation of life-support species in Asia and the Pa cific region (Paroda, 1988). The publication in 1989 of Lost Crops of the Incas (NRC, 1989) was the first of several books from a highly prestigious source that focuses on NUS in Latin America (subsequent volumes of the book would be dedicated to NUS in Africa, viz. NRC, 1996, 2006, 2008). India recognized the importance of underutilized species as a means to attain sustainable agricultural production, improve the nutritional value of food for large sections of the population and reduce the country's dependence on food imports. Thus, in 1982, the All-India Coordinated Research Project on Underutilized Plants was launched, focusing on a list of priority species (Tyagi et al., 2017). International collaboration on underutilized species was also promoted through newly funded biodiversity projects such as that of the Department for International Development (DFID), meant to support ICUC research (focusing on underutilized tropical fruit trees 2 ). Another important publication is New Crops for Food and Industry (Wickens et al., 1989).The drawbacks of the Green Revolution were beginning to be acknowledged in literature at this time as well (Smale, 1997). The concept of sustainable agriculture made its first appearance in scientific papers (Dimitri and Richman, 2000), as did innovative approaches based on the deployment of greater diversity in farmers' fields using species thus far considered underutilized (see f.e. the case of alley-cropping introduced in sub-Saharan Africa by IITA, revolving around the use of leguminous crops such as Leucaena spp. to maintain or restore fertility in farmers' fields [FAO, 1995]).In 1992, the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) stressed the concept of sustainability, 3 rooted in agricultural and cultural diversity supportive of nutritional needs, incomes and greater protection from biotic and abiotic stresses. It also drew attention to the significant contribution of Indigenous Peoples to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity (Article 8J). It is important also to recall the establishment of the Work on Agricultural Biodiversity proposed by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention, which decided to establish a multiyear programme of work on agricultural biological diversity (Decision III/11), 4 aimed -inter alia -aimed at \"promoting the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources of actual and potential value for food and agriculture\" (Box 2.1).The CBD had a tremendous impact in raising the awareness in people at the highest levels of the value of biodiversity, including underutilized species: it helped introduce new values such as the environmental services provided by biodiversity, which would have a profound impact in the years to come in influencing countries' strategies in agricultural activities, to make them more conducive than in the past to safeguarding less commercialized crops and species.In 1992, the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVR DC -The World Vegetable Center), launched a number of projects focusing specifically on traditional African vegetables (Dinssa et al., 2016). The CGIAR revised its mission statement, limiting it no more to food security, but broadened it by including poverty reduction and protection of the environment; opportunities to work on species not necessarily used in food production were highlighted. An IDRC (International Development Research Centre)-supported study recommended IPGRI's greater involvement in medicinal plants in view of the fact that many of these species were underutilized and neglected by R&D despite their high-income generation potential (Leaman et al., 1999).The decade was marked by a remarkable increase in support from Overseas Development Agencies (ODA) for NUS. Italy, the IDRC, the Asian Development Bank, the European Commission, the Netherlands and other donors joined Germany and the UK in financing ad hoc projects and networks dealing with NUS (e.g., MEDUSA [\"Network on the Identification, Conservation and Use of Wild Plants in the Mediterranean Region\"],BAMNET [International Bambara Groundnut Network], UTFANET [Underutilized Tropical Fruit in Asia Network], SEANUC [Southern and East Africa Network on Underutilized Crops], PROSEA) [Plant Resources of South East Asia] ( Williams and Haq, 2000).In 1994, IPGRI launched \"The Underutilized Mediterranean Species\"(UMS) project, which established four NUS-focused networks, guided by the outcome of a Mediterranean-wide survey of 400 researchers and aimed at advancing knowledge on challenges, needs and opportunities in the promotion of NUS as well as promoting close cooperation for NUS use enhancement across regional research institutions (Padulosi et al., 1994;Padulosi, 1998).Nevertheless, funding still remained limited against the background of large R&D gaps to fill. Therefore, international cooperation was advocated in several meetings as the only way to achieve a visible impact in this domain.The four key elements of the CBD programme of work on agricultural biodiversity:1 Assessments: to provide an overview of the status and trends of the world's agricultural biodiversity, their underlying causes and knowledge of management practices 2 Adaptive Management: to identify adaptive management practices, technologies and policies that promote the positive effects and mitigate the negative impacts of agriculture on biodiversity, and enhance productivity and the capacity to sustain livelihoods, by expanding knowledge, understanding and awareness of the multiple goods and services provided by the different levels and functions of agricultural biodiversity 3 Capacity Building: to strengthen the capacities of farmers, Indigenous and local communities, and their organizations and other stakeholders, to manage agricultural biodiversity sustainably so as to increase their benefits, and to promote awareness and responsible action 4 Mainstreaming: to support the development of national plans and strategies for the conservation and sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity and to promote their mainstreaming and integration in both sectoral and cross-sectoral plans and programmes.Other Symposia on New Crops were organized by the University of Purdue ( Janick and Simon, 1993;Janick 1996;Janick, 1999;Janick and Whipkey, 2002); such meetings provided an important platform to the scientific community for sharing experiences and lessons directly related to NUS and their development of new crops.The FAO process of the International Conference and Program for Plant Genetic Resources, leading to the 1996 Leipzig FAO IV Technical Conference on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGRFA), raised the visibility of NUS at the UN level. Preparatory national and regional meetings to the conference (especially the European meeting held in Nitra, Slovakia on 15 October 1995) contributed through country-driven, bottom-up approaches to the development of the Global Plan of Action (GPA) for PGRFA (FAO, 1996). The GPA, listing 20 activities across an array of themes from conservation to the sustainable use of PGRFA, provided unprecedented visibility to NUS, while an activity specifically dedicated to them (Activity 12: cfr. \"Promoting development and commercialization of underutilized crops and species\" 5 ) was also included.In 1994, IPGRI launched a series of projects focusing on African leafy vegetables that would end in 2004; these efforts were an important contribution to improving the methodological approach in NUS promotion especially in Kenya, contributing to changing \"the food of the poor\" stigma so often associated with these crops and helping draw policymakers' attention to their use enhancement (Gotor and Irungu, 2010).The 1996, the FAO State of the World Report outlined a worrying situation with regard to the conservation of NUS: less than 22% of the estimated six million germplasm samples held in gene banks around the world were noncommodity crops, and of this portfolio (inclusive of NUS), species were scarcely represented in terms of intra-specific diversity. More than 80% of these, on average, were made up of less than ten accessions (Padulosi et al., 2002).In 1998, in the framework of Italy's campaign in support of the development of the FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources, a panel of experts gathered in Florence, Italy to discuss the development of an alternative list of species to Annex I of the International Treaty. At this meeting, specific discussions were held on the possibility of including NUS in the treaty (Padulosi, 2000). It is interesting to note that Annex I of the approved treaty contains today a total of 80 genera, of which only 15 include some underutilized species. The discussion on the inclusion of NUS in Annex I was re-opened in 2013, but the debate is still ongoing today.Also, an important endorsement of the value of NUS (particularly fruit trees, vegetables and medicinal and aromatic plants) was recorded at the World Conference on Horticultural Research held in Rome in 1998 (Morico et al., 1999).In 1999, the IFAD-supported workshop organized in Chennai, India, by the CGIAR PGR Policy Committee, chaired by Prof. M.S. Swaminathan, covered NUS specifically (GRPC, 1999). The meeting yielded large support from attending CGIAR centres and donor representatives. It is interesting to note that this meeting represented the first time ever that the CGIAR discussed NUS in a formal way. Important publications focusing in large part on Asia and the Pacific were also published (Bhag Mal 1994;de Groot and Haq, 1995;Smartt and Haq, 1997).How underutilized species also play an important role in enriching the landscape and local cultures was covered at an international workshop focusing on the Mediterranean region, organized by the Italian National Research Council in Naples, Italy in 1997 (Padulosi, 1997).The Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) discussed NUS at a meeting in Dresden, Germany (GFAR, 2001). As a follow-up to that meeting, a small group comprising IPGRI, ICUC, IFAD and the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) recommended the establishment of a Global Facilitating Unit (GFU), to pursue the goal of drawing attention to the potential contribution hitherto underutilized species could make to food security and livelihood of marginalized and poor communities so that an increasing number of research institutions, extension services, policy makers and donors include the development of underutilized species in their programmes and plans. 6   The unit was established in 2002 and was housed at IPGRI in Rome. The GFU was a major effort that aimed at increasing the contribution of underutilized species to food security and poverty alleviation of the rural and urban poor through facilitating access to information on underutilized species, performing policy analysis and providing advice to policymakers on how to create an enabling policy environment for underutilized species and enhancing public awareness on these species. 7  In addition, Germany also funded a GTZ multi-regional project \"People and Biodiversity in Rural Areas\" that supported national partners in improving existing value-chains of underutilized crops and breeds, and that analyzed the economic potential of other underutilized species and breeds in selected regions. Several publications on the topic were published and workshops organized, such as the excellent publication by GTZ on Promising and underutilized crops and breeds (Thies, 2000).In 2003, the PROTA (Plant Resources of Tropical Africa) Network was launched to provide access to information on 7,000 tropical African plants, most of them little known or underutilized (Schmelzer and Omino, 2003).AVRDC launched its strategy for 2001-2010, one objective of which was to increase the diversity of indigenous and underutilized vegetables for better nutrition, health and income (AVRDC, 2001).The first global project on NUS (Grant 533) was also implemented from 2001 to 2005 by IPGRI, thanks to the support of IFAD (focusing on Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Yemen, Egypt, Nepal and India). This project would provide a unique opportunity to test the hypothesis that NUS are strategic crops in supporting poverty reduction and the empowerment of the poor. The results of the first phase of the project showed extremely encouraging results in the areas of income generation and empowerment of local communities, particularly in India and Latin America (Padulosi et al., 2003). Follow-up phases of this first UN-funded programme on NUS would be implemented until 2020. 8  IPGRI published its strategy on NUS (Eyzaguirre et al., 1999), recommending interventions in eight main strategic areas, namely, (1) gathering and sharing information, (2) priority setting, (3) promoting production and use, (4) maintaining diversity, (5) marketing, (6) strengthening partnerships and capacities, (7) developing effective policies and (8) improving public awareness, which would then be translated into five languages (IPGRI, 2002). Interesting to point out that this is the first time the acronym \"NUS\" was used to refer to neglected and underutilized species (wild and cultivated) (see also Chapter 1). A joint ICUC-IPGRI analysis of the status of underutilized species was also published in 2002 (Williams and Haq, 2000).A BMZ-funded workshop on underutilized species was organized by GFU, GTZ and InWEnt in Leipzig, Germany (Gundel et al., 2003) during which the need for mainstreaming NUS in the R&D agenda was stressed as necessary action to successfully exploit the potential of these species.An issue of the LEISA magazine entirely dedicated to underutilized species was published in 2004 (LEISA, 2004), earning a largely positive consensus among stakeholders (see Padulosi and Hoeschle-Zeledon, 2004).At the 7th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the CBD in 2004, a relevant pro-NUS recommendation of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA) was endorsed. This recommendation suggested activities that contributed to improved food security and human nutrition through the enhanced use of crop and livestock diversity, and the conservation and sustainable use of NUS. The SBSTTA underlined that the identification of constraints and success factors in marketing underutilized species is a key aspect for their promotion and that capacity building at different levels was highly needed.For the first time, in 2004, a major donor (EU) made a specific call within its 6 th Framework for \" [r]esearch to increase the sustainable use and productivity of annual and perennial under-utilized tropical and sub-tropical crops and species important for the livelihoods of local populations\". The EU recognized that these crops have potential for wider use and could significantly contribute to food security, agricultural diversification and income generation.In 2005, the International Horticultural Assessment commissioned by US-AID was published. This work (which engaged 750 participants, 60 countries and three regional workshops, and which involved a major survey) was a strong endorsement of the value of underutilized crops to revitalizing an agricultural sector in crisis. More than a third of promising horticultural species were underutilized according to the report: of the 226 listed fruits, vegetable crops, herbs, spices and ornamentals, 79 belonged to the NUS category. Excerpts of the report related to horticulture in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America were also supportive of underutilized species. For instance, in sub-Saharan Africa, the report stressed that despite diverse biophysical constraints such as droughts and low soil fertility, the region called for expanded cultivations of its underutilized and indigenous crops adapted to harsh conditions (such as the leafy vegetables Cleome gynandra, Solanum aethiopicum, Solanum macrocarpon, Moringa oleifera and Hibiscus sabdariffa and fruits like Ziziphus mauritania). In Latin America and the Caribbean, underutilized fruit trees represented opportunities to generate new markets. One recommendation suggested compiling regional knowledge about the cultivation and traditional uses of these species at a regional and national level.In 2005, at the end of a broadly participative process, the CGIAR published its research priorities for the period 2005-2015. 9 In this document, NUS were given high visibility under System Priorities 1b (\"Promotion, conservation and characterization of underutilized plant genetic resources to increase the income of the poor\") and 3a (\"Increasing income from fruit and vegetables\" in consideration that many of the latter are considered underutilized species). In addition, underutilized species were also considered indirectly through Priorities 3d (\"Sustainable income generation from forests and trees\") and 4d (\"Sustainable agro-ecological intensification in low-and high-potential environments\"). The emergence of niche and high-value markets for underutilized crops in developed countries provides a potential pathway out of poverty for farmers in developing countries, hence, underutilized plant genetic resources (UPGR) were relevant also to Priority 5b (\"Making international and domestic and domestic markets work for the poor\").In April 2005, 100 R&D experts and policy makers with varied backgrounds from 25 countries took part in a consultation at the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai, India. This meeting represented a major milestone in support of agricultural biodiversity, including NUS. The consultation, jointly organized by IPGRI, GFU and The M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), was called to discuss how biodiversity could help the world achieve the UN's Millennium Development Goals -in particular, the goal of freedom from hunger and poverty. The \"Chennai Platform for Action\" that resulted from this consultation, in its ten recommendations, emphasized the importance of underutilized species and called upon policymakers to promote specific interventions in support of these species. 10  During this period, increased visibility on underutilized species was provided by dedicated websites developed by both international and national agencies.In 2006, a ICUC-IPGRI-GFU electronic consultation to design a strategic framework for R&D on underutilized species was carried out; this was followed by two regional strategy workshops held in Colombo, Sri Lanka , and Nairobi,   ( Jaenicke and Höschle-Zeledon, 2006).An International Conference on Indigenous Vegetables was held in Hyderabad, India, on December 2006 (Chadha andLumpkin 2007). The International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS) launched a Working Group on Underutilized Species within its Commission on Plant Genetic Resources, which was jointly chaired by GFU and ICUC. In 2004, the ACP-EU project on NUS value-chains for Africa was launched (Rudebjer, 2014).In 2009, a new organization, Crops For the Future (CFF) was established through the merger of the International Centre for Underutilized Crops (ICUC) in Sri Lanka and the Global Facilitation Unit for Underutilized Species (GFU) in Rome (Gregory et al., 2019). Based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the m ission of this new agency consisted of four major objectives, viz. (1) increase the knowledge-base for neglected crops, (2) advocate policies that do not discriminate against crop diversity; (3) increase awareness of the relevance of neglected crops for rural livelihoods and (4) strengthen capacities in relevant sectors. In 2001, the CFF Research Centre was created in Malaysia to provide research support to the global CFF organization. 11  In 2010, the FAO Second State of the World Report on PGRFA (FAO 2010) reported on still poor conservation statuses for NUS, calling for urgent actions to be taken to safeguard these resources, important allies in the fight against food insecurity around the world. In 2011, the second ISHS International Symposium on \"Underutilized Plants: Crops for the Future, Beyond Food Security\" was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia ( Jaenicke, 2013).On December 2012, an international conference on the \"Lost Crops of XXI Century\" was held in Cordoba, Spain (Padulosi et al., 2013). The conference, attended by the Spanish Minister of Agriculture, the Director General of FAO, the Director General of Bioversity and the Chairman of the Slow Food Movement, was held to debate how to fight hunger and rural poverty through the greater deployment of NUS (called here \"promising crops\"). 12 The conference also celebrated the launch of the 2013 UN International Year of Quinoa. An important collective document, the Cordoba Declaration 13 was released by the participants, and called for a number of important actions in support of the use enhancement of NUS, viz:• Raising awareness of these crops and their strategic roles • Conserving genetic and cultural diversity • Promoting their use in small-scale family farming to improve rural livelihoods • Developing value-chains from production-to-consumption and to gastronomy • Changing incorrect perceptions and developing an evidence base • Enhancing research and capacities for promotion • Building inter-sectoral and interdisciplinary collaboration • Creating a conducive policy environment • Establishing an ombudsman to represent the rights of future generations in national and international decision-making Among these, the last was a particularly innovative idea, and helped underscore the fact that the conservation of agricultural biodiversity and other relevant natural resources are relevant both to present and future generations. A highly strategic policy recommendation also proposed in the document was the launching of a new international dialogue on PGRFA to explore ways in which the International Treaty on PGRFA (IT-PGRFA) could further support the conservation, exchange and sustainable use of NUS.The following year, a major pan-African conference on NUS was organized by Bioversity in Accra, Ghana, through the support of the European Union (ACP-EU project) and the IFAD-NUS Project. The \"Accra Statement for a food-secure Africa\" that emerged from the conference set out nine action points to promote greater use of NUS (Bioversity International 2014), viz:1 Include NUS in national and international strategies and frameworks that address global issues 2 Establish a list of priority NUS on which to focus R&D 3 Support research on NUS and their agronomic, environmental, nutritional and socioeconomic contributions to resilient production systems 4 Support the development of value-chains and small agri-businesses for NUS 5 Strengthen collaboration and information-sharing between researchers, extension specialists, the private sector, farmers and their organizations 6 Promote the cultivation of NUS through campaigns to raise awareness of the commercial opportunities they offer and their agronomic and nutritional benefits 7 Increase support for conservation of NUS in situ, on-farm and ex situ, and strengthen seed systems 8 Empower custodian farmers and support farmers' rights to share the benefits from NUS 9 Strengthen the capacity of individuals and organizations in R&D and education of NUS.An important paper on agrobiodiversity highlighting the role of NUS in strengthening food security, health and income generation appeared in Agronomy for Sustainable Development (Kahane et al., 2013). Bioversity's revised strategy for NUS was published in 2013 (Padulosi et al., 2013) offering an analysis of the NUS status of conservation and use, based on country reports produced for the FAO 2010 SWR on PGRFA. This document stressed eight key areas of action to realize the effective promotion of NUS (Box 2.2).India approved, in 2013, its Food Security Bill, which included \"coarse grains\" (millets, sorghum and maize) in the Public Distribution System (PDS). This move, which represented an unprecedented recognition of NUS, never made by any previous government, was done in appreciation of the following aspects: (1) the importance of finger millets and others coarse cereals of high nutritional value for the diversification of the food basket;(2) the inclusion of millets would expand the quantum of food that can be procured at the same time and (3) promote climate resilient farming, which would more appropriately cater to the food habits of different regions (Padulosi et al., 2015). 14 Notably, these crops were set to be used also to reinforce several nutrition-related schemes and activities, including the Integrated Child Development Services, mid-day meals and community canteens. The Second International Conference on Nutrition Framework for Action called, in its recommendation (no. 10), for the \"the diversification of crops including underutilized traditional crops\". Two seminal papers on the holistic value-chain approach developed by IFAD-NUS were published (Padulosi et al., 2014(Padulosi et al., , 2015) ) along with a strategic document from Bioversity on the way forward for the promotion of NUS (Padulosi et al., 2013).In 2016, the Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG) at Kew developed its internal strategy on useful plants, which focuses on NUS, while use enhancement along the lines of Bioversity's work on holistic value-chains is being developed (Ulian et al., 2015).Sustainable markets for NUS need to be developed and and upgrade strengthened at the local, national and international levels market chains while ensuring that benefits are shared fairly. Support to develop effective value-chains for NUS (through enhanced vertical and horizontal integration) is also needed. Domestic demand for NUS and value-added NUS products needs to be expanded and trade barriers for NUS products in developed countries need to be removed. The links between farmers, researchers and consumers need to be strengthened, and programmes need to highlight the growing importance of NUS in gastronomy.Legal frameworks are needed to protect NUS (wild or supportive cultivated). National governments also need to put in policy place policies to effectively conserve and use NUS. environment There need to be incentives for managing NUS on-farm. Policies, guided by principles of equity and fairness, need to safeguard germplasm for crop improvement and sharing, and provide better access to international markets. 8 Increase NUS are local and traditional, but are globally significant cooperation and thus require scientific and political attention beyond the local and national levels. More needs to be done to strengthen cooperation among stakeholder groups and create national, regional and international synergies.In July 2016, the FAO International Treaty for PGRFA organized a meeting at Volterra, Italy, to address the development of a \"toolbox\" for the use enhancement of agricultural biodiversity, including NUS.In November 2016, Bioversity and its partners from Africa, organized in Benin an expert meeting on NUS value-chains in sub-Saharan Africa for strengthening agricultural diversification, the UN Agenda 2030 and climate-change responses; among the recommendations that emerged from this meeting the following needs were seen as the most critical to advancing the NUS agenda in the region: (1) strengthening capacities of young scientists working on NUS;(2) mainstreaming NUS in school and university curricula; (3) greater PPP to boost local NUS entrepreneurs; (4) continued advocacy and lobbying with decision-makers at national and international levels for developing supportive policies for NUS and (5) facilitating access to NUS knowledge and material among workers.Over the course of 2015 and 2016, three expert meetings were organized under the leadership of CFF in Paris, Kuala Lumpur and Rome, to discuss the implementation of a newly developed Global Action Plan for Agricultural Diversification (GAPAD), designed to meet the needs of a heating world. The alliance formed around GAPAD aimed at promoting agricultural diversification and NUS crops, in particular, which were recognized as a strategic means to contribute to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs), with special reference to SDGs 2, 7, 12, 13, 15 and 17. In 2016, an international consultation was jointly organized by FAO and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research under FAO RAP's Regional Initiative on Zero Hunger Challenge (RI-ZHC), in Bangkok, Thailand. Its purpose was to identify promising NUS crops that are nutritionally dense, climate resilient, economically viable and locally available or adaptable, and to provide strategic advice to decision-makers. These promising NUS were to be referred to as \"Future Smart Food\" (FSF). The consultation, attended by representatives from eight countries and several international agencies, aimed at four specific objectives: (i) validating the preliminary scoping report on crop-related NUS in the selected countries; (ii) ranking and prioritizing highpotential NUS based on established priority criteria, (iii) identifying five to six crop-related NUS per country and (iv) strategizing to enhance production and the utilization of selected crops in local diets (Li et al., 2018). The meeting identified ten recommendations for policymakers (Box 2.3) A similar meeting was also organized in Bangkok in 2017 by APAARI and was attended by representatives of 16 countries from the Asia-Pacific region (Tyagi et al., 2018a,b).Two more projects worth mentioning have also sprung up over the last few years, viz. the GFAR's Collective Action on \"Harnessing forgotten foods for improved livelihoods\" (GFAR, 2017) and the campaign of the USA-based Lexicon on \"Rediscovered Food\", which includes inter alia some well-packaged introduction on 25 forgotten nutritious NUS and success stories of farmers, scientists and chefs from 14 countries. 15  In September 2020, a major publication by the RBG (Ulian et al., 2020) was released in conjunction with the State of the World's Plants and Fungi 2020 report published by the same organization (Antonelli et al., 2020). Drawing on the results of the report, the paper reiterates that narrow reliance of humankind on a small handful of food crops, in spite of 7,039 documented edible species. In fact, the majority of these edible plants belong to NUS and should be better promoted in recognition of their role in improving the quality, resilience and self-sufficiency of food production. In order to unleash such potential, the authors call for renovated efforts especially with regard to: (1) filling knowledge gaps on the biology and ecology of NUS; (2) gaining a better understanding on the impacts of climate change on NUS to allow their better deployment in future climate-change coping strategies; (3) promoting the better integration of methods and tools developed by farmers and researchers for the cultivation of major crops, with the traditional knowledge of uses and practices regarding NUS; (4) providing further aid to strengthen research programs focusing on NUS, including supporting information exchange; (5) promoting participatory decision-making processes in NUS enhancement and ( 6) fostering the development and implementation of legal and policy frameworks accompanied by economic incentives and subsidies in support of NUS.Box 2.3 Recommendations to policymakers emerging from the FAO regional meeting for Asia and the Pacific on smart food foods/NUS held in Bangkok in 2016 existing coordination mechanisms, and build partnerships at national and regional levels, including academia, civil society and the private sector, to enhance research and consumption and to attract the private sector to boost production, processing, value addition, product development and marketing of FSF. 10 Establish a regionally coordinated network on FSF to facilitate the exchange of information, policy, technologies and genetic resources, as well as FSF promotion, in target countries.Although we have come a long way from those isolated pro-NUS activities of the early 1980s, all the way to the international conferences and projects dedicated to NUS that have been launched lately, we are still far from having reached the \"graduation\" of NUS (with the exception of a few crops like quinoa, which has become truly a commodity crop). While we can affirm that methodologies for the use enhancement of NUS have been successfully developed, what is needed these days, rather, is to scale the many successful approaches recorded around the world in order to have a wider impact. Mainstreaming NUS into government actions is today the key pursuit for workers engaged in the movement and, to achieve that, enabling policies covering a range of priority areas (from conservation to resilient food systems, sustainable cultivations, equitable marketing and nutrition security) are urgently needed (the inclusion of minor millets into the PDS system in India is, to that regard, a most illuminating example). These policies will require lobbying from all stakeholders who should be working closely together to achieve the shared vision. One of the propositions that has been  2000000-978 (2016-2020, focusing on Guatemala, Mali and India) and co-funded also by the EU. 9 ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/nonfao/ah893e/ah893e00.pdf 10 http://www.underutilized-species.org/documents/PUBLICATIONS/chennai_ declaration_en.pdf 11 https://www.nottingham.edu.my/CFFRC/index.aspx 12 https://tkbulletin.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/this-week-in-review-cordobaseminar-hears-from-fao-director-general-on-value-of-underutilized-cropssustainable-diets/ 13 http://www.nuscommunity.org/fileadmin/templates/nuscommunity.org/upload/ documents/Publications/2012_Cordoba-Declaration-on-Promising-Crops-for-the-XXI-Century.pdf 14 http://bit.ly/2wKepWM 15 https://www.thelexicon.org/ 16 https://www.bioversityinternational.org/news/detail/spotlight-on-forgottencrops/#:~:text=Annual%20Report%20stor y.,This%20year%20neglected%20 and%20underutilized%20species%20found%20the%20spotlight:%202013,the%20 world's%20%E2%80%9Cforgotten%20crops%E2%80%9D.(cited in text plus selected papers published over the 50 years deemed particularly relevant for NUS; entries marked with * include priority setting and/or lists of priority species). Anonymous (2012) Cordoba Declaration on Promising Crops for the XXI Century. Retrieved on 10 May 2020. http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/food_ composition/documents/Cordoba_NUS_Declaration_2012_FINAL.pdf Anthony, K., Meadley, J. and Röbbelen, G. (1993a) New Crops for Temperate Regions.Chapman & Hall, London. Anthony, K., de Groot, P. and Haq, N. eds. (1993b) Underutilized Fruits and Nuts in Asia.CSC, London.DOI: 10.4324/9781003044802-4Neglected and underutilized species (NUS) can be strategic allies in developing nutrition-sensitive agricultural food systems and value chains. This statement is supported by the numerous benefits linked to these resources, as highlighted in Chapter 1 (Fanzo et al., 2013;Baldermann et al., 2016;Bioversity International, 2017;Fanzo, 2019;Hunter et al., 2020). The central message reiterated throughout this book is that the diversification of food and production systems is urgently needed to adapt to climate change and fight malnutrition in all its forms, and to that regard, NUS offer a tremendous opportunity for impact. How to translate this vision into reality is not an easy task as many barriers need to be addressed, including the lack of or very poor germplasm conserved in ex situ gene banks, lack of improved varieties, poor seed systems, low competitiveness in production systems and markets and little awareness from consumers of their livelihood benefits. Tools to assist practitioners, and more generally all actors, involved in the use-enhancement and promotion of NUS are needed. As an answer to this call, in 2019, Bioversity and IFAD published an operational framework to assist experts of IFAD and other agencies at the national and international levels, in promoting the wider use of biodiversity, especially NUS, to improve the lives of people, particularly the more vulnerable members of society (Padulosi et al., 2019). This document complements other valuable strategic papers recently published (e.g., Hunter et al., 2015;Kennedy et al., 2017;Romanelli et al., 2020), briefly presented later in the chapter. The scope of this chapter is to present this framework and enrich it with reflections prompted by the 2020 global COVID-19 pandemic, for which we believe NUS can prove to be a valuable instrument to strengthen the resilience of local communities, their weakened economies and food systems. Key messages we would like to convey through this chapter include:• The deployment of local crops in food and production systems is a valid contribution in addressing malnutrition and making food systems more resilient and adapted to changes such as those brought about by the current pandemic. • NUS are highly adapted to agro-ecological niches and marginal areas and are able to withstand climatic stresses. These traits are of great value to feed the world's growing population and, as such, should be better recognized and leveraged in support of agricultural strategies and development plans. • The enhanced use of NUS offers important opportunities for income generation and empowerment of both rural and urban communities, benefiting also vulnerable members of society. • Bringing NUS out of their condition of marginalization requires a viable market that creates incentives for local value-chain actors, to secure their continued cultivation, processing and marketing. Upgrading NUS value-chains must, therefore, be a central element of their overall promotion strategy. • A holistic value-chain approach is needed for the promotion of NUS. 'Siloed' formulas focusing on specific aspects (e.g., only on the conservation, cultivation or marketing), as typically practiced for commodity crops, cannot work for NUS. These resources have been for too long at the margins of research and development, and multiple technological gaps need to be filled.The holistic approach we are advocating for NUS should be interdisciplinary, multi-sectorial, highly participatory and gender sensitive. According to FAO, nutrition-sensitive agriculture is \"a food-based approach to agricultural development that puts nutritionally rich foods, dietary diversity, and food fortification at the heart of overcoming malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies\" and nutrition-sensitive value chains are those that leverage opportunities to enhance supply and/or demand for nutritious food, as well as opportunities to add nutritional value (and/or minimize food and nutrient loss) at each step of the chain, thereby improving the availability, affordability, quality and acceptability of nutritious food. For lasting impacts on nutrition, this approach must be placed in a sustainability context as well. (FAO, 2014a,b) Numerous publications have addressed issues and the strategies needed to make agriculture and value chains more nutrition sensitive (e.g., Jaenicke and Virchow, 2013;Gelli et al., 2015;FAO, 2017;De la Peña and Garrett, 2018). Among these, worth mentioning is the outcome of the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), which specifically calls upon governments to \"[P]romote the diversification of crops including underutilized traditional crops, more production of fruits and vegetables, and appropriate production of animal-source products as needed, applying sustainable food production and natural resource management practices\" 1 (FAO and WHO, 2014). While referring to basic concepts contained therein, through this chapter we will focus exclusively on interventions to leverage the value of NUS for better attaining these goals.In the NUS operational framework published by Bioversity and IFAD, we indicate five basic steps for making a project focusing on NUS more nutrition-sensitive, viz:• Step 1. Explicitly incorporate improved nutrition into the project's outcomes and integrate nutrition-relevant indicators into the project logical framework • Step 2. Include a situation analysis on the nutrition context, addressing nutrient gaps of the targeted beneficiaries • Step 3. Include nutrient-dense NUS in agricultural development interventions to complement the nutritional role played by staple crops, guided by a diversity-based sustainable diet approach • Step 4. Trace the impact pathway -i.e., the steps from breeding and production to seed systems and consumption needed for the interventionto improve nutrition along the NUS value chain. Design and i mplement project actions that will affect that pathway in a systematic way. For example, determine if a change in dietary habits is needed to encourage the consumption of some wild edibles and, if so, implement actions to promote such changes. Allocate dedicated financial resources to implementing nutrition-sensitive activities • Step 5. Through policy engagement and partnerships, address opportunities and constraints that affect the pathway and the effectiveness of the intervention, such as the institutional environment, gender and/or environmental sustainability, and define implementing arrangements for the delivery of nutrition-sensitive activities.The central element of efforts needed to mobilize NUS in support of nutrition-sensitive agriculture is the holistic value-chain, as represented in Figure 3.1. This approach consists of highly interlinked interventions in each of the segments of a typical value chain for agricultural products, namely input supply, production, harvest, processing, marketing and final consumption. For those products realized by farmers exclusively for home consumption, marketing interventions would not be necessary. The holistic value-chain approach has been designed to tackle simultaneously three key challenges: climate change, nutrition and the economic insecurity of local communities. As shown in Figure 3.1, the synergistic interaction among the outcomes resulting from these multiple interventions is expected to ultimately strengthen the resilience of livelihoods as a whole, which should be the ultimate goal of our efforts. A description of the key entry points along the value chains in order to realize such an impact with regard to NUS is provided in the following section.This is the first entry point that is often overlooked by agricultural development projects, interested more in the income-generation dimension with little or no attention paid to the inter-and intra-specific diversity needed to strengthen nutrition. Our experience is that too many rural development projects focus minimally (or not at all) on plant genetic resources. Most often, attention is dedicated to only a handful of commodity crops (and few varieties therein) with the intent of boosting agricultural food production and fighting poor nutrition, neglecting the wealth of wild and cultivated species that can be mobilized for climate-smart and nutrition-sensitive agriculture. In such a segment of the value chain, the following interventions are, thus, highly recommended:• Include NUS in the design of projects (especially species that might identify key nutrient gaps that cause local malnutrition problems) and ensure that their diversity is well represented at both inter-and intra-specific level. Provision of germplasm should be accompanied also by enhanced cultivating practices, where both scientific and traditional knowledge should be leveraged. This is very relevant for NUS, whose knowledge is highly vulnerable due to the abandonment of cultivation. The selection of species to focus upon should be carried out in a highly participatory fashion, involving all stakeholders and giving ample space to women, who are the strategic nexus between biodiversity and nutrition in households (King and Padulosi, 2017). • An assessment of the nutrition needs and seasonal dynamics of hunger in target communities should be also carried out in conjunction with the previous activity so as to develop an inventory of local food species (wild and cultivated) to allow all players to gain a good understanding of spectrum of species that can be potentially targeted by the project. The result of these surveys will be then used to develop seasonal calendars that can guide local populations in making best use of existing overlooked nutritious food species and to strengthen their capacity in fighting nutrition insecurity, especially during the 'hungry season' (see also Chapter 14). • Support an ex situ/in situ integrated conservation of the genetic resources of NUS and their associated traditional knowledge. This is a fundamental intervention that must be factored into projects if we are to secure continued access to the genetic diversity of NUS by user communities and safeguard, at the same time, associated relevant practices (agronomic, value addition, food preparation, ceremonies, rituals, etc.) that allow the cultivation, use and appreciation of these traditional resources across generations (Padulosi et al., 2012). • Encourage visibility of NUS in local and regional media such as newspapers, radio and TV programs, as well as social media. Great opportunities exist in this regard by involving renowned chefs who can help remove the 'food of the poor' stigma associated with many NUS (Amaya et al., 2019). • Promote the use of NUS in schools and universities through curriculum development -describing the multiple values of NUS -and associated activities such diverse school gardens (for more in this regard, see Rudebjer and Padulosi, 2018;Hunter et al., 2020). The agronomists of the future need to be informed on the value of crop diversification for supporting nutrition security and, at the same time, as future consumers, need to be aware of the multiple values of NUS, too often disregarded by younger generations as the food of the poor. Campaigns on the importance of NUS should be done in an enticing fashion, that is, by linking NUS to nutrition and health benefits as well as to other important benefits, such as the sustainability of our planet, keeping options for the future, building resilient food systems in difficult times (including those experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic) and maintaining cultural and territorial identity. Lastly, consumers should all be made aware that by bringing NUS back to the table, there will be more options for tastier, more exciting, more attractive and more enjoyable foods!• By nature of their definition, NUS are largely undervalued by the scientific community and, as such, there is often limited data available on their potential, such as micronutrient content or climate-change resilience. In cases where micronutrient content is unknown, it can be estimated with a similar food or categorized according to the common nutritional traits of its food group characteristics (e.g., dark green leafy vegetables can contain iron and vitamin A). Local and scientific knowledge associated with prioritized species is essential, as some may have toxic or anti-nutrient properties, and must be consumed in small amounts or be processed in special ways to reduce toxin content.Once NUS species have been selected, the second entry point for nutrition along the value chain is related to production activities, such as selecting better varieties, developing better practices and improving seed. In order to support these activities, decentralized seed-selection and production systems should be pursued (de Boef et al., 2013;Vernooy et al., 2015). Increased use of NUS should be promoted to help farmers take maximum advantage of the hardiness of these species, especially in vulnerable, drought-prone areas where such crops are able to exploit residual soil moisture and scarce rainfall regimes. NUS should be included by projects and research managers in crop selection programs/participatory variety selection, and national and international players should cooperate to build up a knowledge base on the performance of these species, which is currently lacking. More studies should be carried out on their agronomic performance, including climate-change adaptation, which will allow for comparisons with staple crops. Such a process should involve all value-chain actors and encourage the active participation of women, Indigenous Peoples and youth. Evaluation activities should go hand-in-hand with the characterization of germplasm for nutritional content to support the selection of resilient, nutritious and economically interesting species (Shanthakumar et al., 2010).More efforts should be deployed in improving cultivation practices for NUS, aiming at the elimination of drudgery in the field and the introduction of innovative cultivation approaches based on the blending of traditional knowledge and scientific findings (Padulosi et al., 2015).Improved harvesting methods and storage are extremely relevant for NUS, especially for perishable, nutritious-dense fruits and vegetables. In view of the great progress achieved in these disciplines for commodity crops, there is ample scope for leveraging such knowledge for the benefit of NUS. Our experience has often demonstrated that modest investments in support of innovation to improve harvest operations can be highly valuable, as in the case of amaranth, where a simple modification in the sieve of the harvesting machine used by farmers in Peru has resulted in a significant reduction of grain loss during harvest operations (Padulosi et al., 2014).Improved processing can play a key role in making nutritious NUS foods more convenient, increasing their shelf life and facilitating transportation and storage. However, processing enhancement of NUS should be done in ways that respect their nutritional value and do not prioritize convenience or aesthetic values only. For instance, in the case of fonio and minor millets, polishing operations have been observed to eliminate important micro-nutrients. Grains will look more appealing to consumers, but will be of reduced nutritional value. Improved processing can be achieved by building on Indigenous technology and local wisdom and/or by blending it with scientific findings. Our work on minor millets in India has also taught us that simple, inexpensive processing technology mobilized by local communities has played a strategic role in boosting local consumption of these crops at the household level, while also supporting women-led cottage industries and local entrepreneurship, and has contributed to building greater self-esteem and empowerment among vulnerable women groups (King and Padulosi, 2017).Marketing aspects for NUS are crucial to bringing about sustainability in their use enhancement. Nutritious local crops should be effectively marketed if we are to strengthen nutrition-sensitive agriculture and value-chains. A highly strategic component of this domain of action (but equally relevant also for the other areas) has to do with making food more diverse and healthier and, at the same time, delicious and appealing to the consumer, but doing so in ways that involve and incentivize all actors in the food systems, taking into account multiple agendas and values (Béné et al., 2020). Some of the actions related to marketing NUS more effectively include:• Supporting the identification and promotion of nutrition-friendly packaging solutions, including approaches accessible by local vendors and small markets. Strengthen collectives (e.g., cooperatives, farmer-producer companies, confederations of producers/MSMEs) that are required to build reliable distribution systems for NUS that are typically produced locally and by farmers not well-linked to other value-chain actors. • Dissemination of nutrition information as well as any other information on useful traits present in NUS (including resilience) for promoting greater adoption of these species by value-chain actors.This is the last segment of the value chain and the one most strategic in influencing the wider utilization of NUS purchased in markets or self-produced/bartered and consumed in farmers' households. Key actions at this stage include:• Building greater awareness among consumers on the importance of NUS for crafting more nutritious and healthy diets. • Developing products, and marketing healthy and sustainable options, as appealing and delicious, rather than focusing on messages of health, sustainability or abstemiousness (Sunstein, 2015;Vermeulen et al., 2020). • Supporting the development of more attractive food recipes and food products that have NUS as ingredients, by organizing cooking sessions with community members and forming alliances between growers, value-chain actors, chefs and food movements to promote local foods that are also culturally appealing; and challenging niche-identity associations of these products through marketing and branding. • Raising awareness of decision-makers to get their buy-in regarding NUS in government actions and seeking their commitment to developing enabling policies that mainstream NUS into agricultural development programs.Policy-makers should be engaged from the start of NUS projects in order to solicit a sense of ownership in the promotion of NUS. Among the policy interventions for NUS, the most strategic are those favoring their inclusion in procurement programs (e.g., targeting school feeding programs) (Hunter et al., 2019), or those regarding the inclusion of NUS in school/university curricula, which can have important multiplier effects (Rudebjer and Padulosi, 2018;Amaya et al., 2019;Hunter et al., 2020). • Making healthy and sustainable options highly visible and increasing the quantity of them available in menus, supermarkets, at catered events, schools, canteens or other public places (Vermuelen et al., 2020). • Supporting food festivals and using these occasions to recognize the invaluable work done by custodian farmers, Indigenous Peoples, women and youth organizations for safeguarding the wealth of NUS and traditional knowledge, and, at the same time, support a better understanding of the Indigenous approach to marketing. • Introducing marketing intelligence systems that allow the sharing of information on offer and demanding estimates via mobile phones across value-chain actors, as successfully practiced in Kenya and other African countries. Such an approach should be complemented by the development of mobile apps for local communities that can provide information about where to find NUS in the community, how to use them and how to buy and sell them. These apps could be particularly helpful in situations when people's movements are limited, such as conditions experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.Promoting local foods through convenient mobile apps can the winning card for bringing NUS to the masses; to that end, it could be useful to replicate (or join) currently available systems that link consumers with farmers markets (see f.e. apps like Farmstand and Locavore). 2In addition to the entry points mentioned above, there are interventions that can be considered that cut across the entire value chain. The NUS operational framework (Padulosi et al., 2019) stresses, in particular, those related to capacity building and empowering vulnerable groups.Scaling up best practices to more effectively use NUS will need a robust investment in capacity building that benefits different stakeholders and covers highly interlinked themes, including adaptation to climate change of agricultural production, food and nutrition security, value chains and marketing issues, raising public awareness and policy advocacy. Strengthening the governance and technical capacity of farmer associations, especially Indigenous food community associations, will need to be pursued as part of a broader public-private partnership initiative and investment goal in the agricultural marketing of NUS. Dealing with NUS calls for a broad interdisciplinary understanding of their roles, which is too often not registered among R&D experts and rural advisory services in most NARS (Raneri et al., 2019). During project design we should, thus, create opportunities for an interdisciplinary dialogue among stakeholders where knowledge about NUS is provided and shared. These interactions will allow all stakeholders to become acquainted with the roles of NUS, especially regarding their resilience, nutritional values and income-generation opportunities and understand the importance of building synergy across such disciplines for sustained impact (Ulian et al., 2020). These participatory reviews can be supported through ex ante analysis to capture existing values of NUS in the socioeconomic context of the target areas through available data and food system modelling.Strengthening the capacities of community members, including women, youth and Indigenous Peoples, is needed in order toto boost production efficiency, improve post-production, technologies, business and entrepreneurship skills as well as enhance markets and market information, sustainable investments in physical infrastructure and access to produce.With regard to access to markets, the networks of local, weekly markets present in most countries can be leveraged to sell NUS. This will be sustainable only if NUS marketing bottlenecks are effectively addressed, such as the possible isolation of production areas from marketplaces and the existence of poor infrastructure for storage, processing and packaging. Specialized technical assistance for NUS products and market development, along with agri-business capacity-building and mentoring of producer groups, should be also pursued. Innovative technologies for NUS processing and their commercial viability need to be tested in a commercial context to promote scalability.The promotion of wild species should be done with caution so as to avoid overharvesting; domestication can be an effective intervention to mitigate that risk (Padulosi et al., 2002). In view of the considerable efforts needed in the domestication process (long-term field and laboratory experiments, marketing research, etc.), it should receive the support of government research institutions, universities and the private sector and could also benefit from being included in agricultural and rural development projects (Heywood, 1999).Locally available biodiversity may not be able to address all the issues related to poor diet quality and malnutrition. A combination of that, along with other approaches, including the introduction of nutritious species from elsewhere, may be required to fill possible gaps.Cross-collaboration between agricultural extension and rural health services can be effective for promoting resilient and nutritious NUS in diets and production systems. Training extension agents on the agronomy, marketing and nutrition aspects of NUS is a strategic way to leverage their role for the promotion of NUS (Raneri et al., 2019). Strengthening their familiarity with the wild and semi-domesticated plants in the local environment will support their role in assisting communities in the identification of priority species. Understanding local diets and nutrition issues in target populations supports the prioritization process. Sensitization on local consumption preferences and perceptions, and how to engage with farmers to collect this type of information, is also important for understanding demand-side issues. Building the capacity to recognize important actors in the value-chain and establishing a proactive attitude to reach out and engage these actors to overcome bottlenecks will help advance the use-enhancement of these nutritious species.The dearth of data on crop adaptation can be addressed through the use of participatory varietal selection done in farmers' fields. Crowdsourcing can be a highly effective way to select the best varieties whose performance is assessed in the context of where the need is, and not at the research stations (van Etten et al., 2017).The use-enhancement of NUS can be a cost-effective and culturally appropriate way to improve the resilience of local food systems, as well as farming household incomes and nutrition. NUS can be integrated into existing extension programs that focus on commodity species. For example, NUS of fruits and vegetables should be considered in any project working to increase the availability and marketing of major staples (Padulosi et al., 2018).The use-enhancement of NUS is a robust way to empower women, Indigenous Peoples, rural youth and other vulnerable groups who depend on these species for their livelihoods. Economic empowerment should be at the core of these actions. This includes designing interventions targeted at strengthening community institutions and farmer groups as a tool for empowering marginalized communities. Groups should be supported in the areas of adaptive extension, leveraging local agrobiodiversity, market access, agro-processing and value addition, paying particular attention to business skills development and market orientation. These actions should be designed through a culturally sensitive lens. Use-enhancement of NUS along the value chain should be driven by equity considerations and the inclusion of vulnerable groups (Rosado-May et al., 2018).While Indigenous Peoples and local communities have been nurturing and using NUS for many generations, it is only in the more recent post-Green R evolution period that NUS have become a focus of global policy in general (see Chapter 1) and, only even more recently, that they have been considered a portfolio of foods that can substantially contribute to more sustainable solutions to global malnutrition. The operational framework supporting nutrition-sensitive a griculture through the greater use of NUS described in this chapter is an additional resource to the growing basket of tools that aims to mainstream NUS into more projects, programs and investments for improved nutrition, and which are important instruments for strengthening collaboration between the agriculture, nutrition and health and environmental sectors.A major milestone in the recognition of the important role NUS, and biodiversity more broadly, can play in improving nutrition and human health was the establishment of the Framework for a Cross-Cutting Initiative on B iodiversity for Food and Nutrition in 2006, within the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In 2004, the CBD's Conference of the Parties (COP) formally recognized the linkages between biodiversity, food and nutrition, and the need to enhance sustainable use of biodiversity to combat hunger and malnutrition. The COP requested the CBD's Executive Secretary, in collaboration with FAO and the former International Plant Genetic Resources Institute -now Bioversity International -to undertake a cross-cutting initiative on biodiversity for food and nutrition, which was adopted by the COP in 2006 (WHO/CBD, 2015). The recently completed GEF-funded Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition Project has been a major vehicle for the implementation of this cross-cutting initiative and has demonstrated, at a country level, how to prioritize NUS for mainstreaming into relevant policies, programs and markets so as to improve nutrition. It has also developed a range of methods, tools and other resources to support mainstreaming (Hunter et al., 2020;see Chapter 13).Around the same time, the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA) also requested that FAO evaluate the relationship between biodiversity and nutrition. In 2005, via the Intergovernmental Technical Working Group on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, eight high-priority actions and six lower-priority actions were identified. Subsequently, the CGRFA, at its 14th session in 2013, formally recognized nutrients and diets, as well as food, as ecosystem services, in order to further increase the awareness of human nutrition as a concern for the environmental sector, and the awareness among human nutritionists of the importance of biodiversity. It also requested the preparation of guidelines for mainstreaming biodiversity into all aspects of nutrition, including education, interventions, policies and programs (WHO/CBD, 2015). The Voluntary Guidelines for Mainstreaming Biodiversity into Policies, Programmes and National and Regional Plans of Action on Nutrition (FAO, 2015) was adopted at the 15th Session of the CGRFA in 2015 and provides a framework to mobilize NUS for improving nutrition.The Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), jointly c onvened by the FAO and the WHO in 2014, focused on policies aimed at eradicating malnutrition in all its forms and transforming food systems to make nutritious diets available to all. Participants at ICN2 endorsed the Rome Declaration on Nutrition and the Framework for Action, with Recommendation 10 being particularly for the NUS community (ibid. p. 45). \"[P]romote the diversification of crops including underutilized traditional crops, more production of fruits and vegetables, and appropriate production of animal source products as needed, applying sustainable food production and natural resource management practices\".In 2015, the WHO and CBD jointly published a \"state of knowledge\" review, Connecting Global Priorities: Biodiversity and Human Health (WHO/CBD, 2015), which contained a chapter dedicated to NUS, biodiversity and nutrition (Hunter et al., 2015). This was followed, in 2017, by the publication by Bioversity International of the Mainstreaming Agrobiodiversity in Sustainable Food Systems report (Bioversity International, 2017), which included a chapter on the importance of NUS and food biodiversity for healthy, diverse diets (Kennedy et al., 2017). Both publications highlight approaches and opportunities to better mainstream NUS in order to improve nutrition and diets. Most recently, the WHO has published further Guidance on Mainstreaming Biodiversity for Nutrition and Health, which focuses on the importance of NUS and their value chains (Romanelli et al., 2020).Collectively, this presents an ever-improving, enabling policy environment for the promotion of NUS, especially in the context of addressing malnutrition challenges. However, as Chapter 1 and other chapters of this book highlight, there are still many constraints and barriers on both the supply and demand side that need to be addressed. One such need that is urgent is better collaboration across the NUS community, not just in the agriculture sector but with others who champion NUS in sectors such as health, environment and education. Greater coherence between global and national policies is also needed to ensure that the NUS community collaborates more effectively in developing and implementing projects and investments, to ensure the most efficient use of limited resources.The importance of promoting NUS for making agriculture and value chains more effective in supporting nutrition has been particularly appreciated over the last decade, and the recent COVID-19 pandemic has made even more apparent the resilience role that NUS can play in buffering communities against both supply and demand shocks. The world needs NUS and we need societies to steer food systems in the right direction, a pathway that is sustainable for our own lives and for the planet.1 Recommendation 10 of ICN2 2014/3 Corr.1 2 More example at https://foodtank.com/news/2015/01/harvesting-the-best-10-appsfor-healthy-organic-shopping/ DOI: 10.4324/9781003044802-5Agrobiodiversity provides diverse options for people's strategies in cultivating, collecting and processing a diversity of plants for their food, nutrition, livelihood security and resilience. Only in the last two decades has the attention of agricultural research started to slowly broadening from staple crops and vegetables to \"neglected and underutilized species\" (NUS) or \"orphan crops\". This chapter is largely based on three baseline studies in Myanmar, Peru and Zimbabwe. The objective is to understand people's perspectives of NUS in relation to their concept of nutrition and their food security strategies. Particular attention is paid to women's access and use of NUS and the biodiversity source of household diets. A combination of methods were used:• Household surveys of socio-demographics and agricultural crops, and a modified version of Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS) (FAO, 2010). • A gender-disaggregated community resource flow map (Manicad, 2002(Manicad, , 2004)), which consisted of area mapping farms and the landscape, and the collection and use of plants. A focus group discussion identified people's folk taxonomy, uses, locations, seasonality, collection and propagation of NUS (Oxfam Novib, 2018). • Participatory Rural Appraisal, including a seasonal calendar developed to identify the NUS availability and locations for the entire year (ANDES, 2016).The methods were applied twice, once each during the plenty and lean seasons of food availability. The studies involved Indigenous and local peoples, who are mostly engaged in subsistence farming and employ largely rain-fed agricultural practices. The three countries represented diverse crop systems in distinct agro-ecologies, from the delta in Myanmar to the high altitudes of Peru and the semi-arid regions of Zimbabwe (see Table 4.1).One of the most widely accepted characteristic of NUS is the neglect of science and markets. During the surveys, the term \"neglect\" and \"underutilisation\" consistently created confusion amongst local people. In Peru, NUS have \"strong sacred value as they are conceived as fruits of the Pachamama (Mother Earth), and are crops sent by the Apus (natural divinities), or are blood of the Apus and species used to purify the body\" (ibid.). However, while NUS may be sacred to some, they also carry the stigma of being \"poor people's food\". In Zimbabwe, Tsine (or \"Black Jack\") is perceived as a food consumed by those suffering from hunger and as curative item for people who are HIV positive (CTDT, 2015).A key defining feature of NUS is that these are highly localised plants involving specialised local knowledge of mostly women, who are often marginalised and impoverished. Through lessons learnt, the confusion over NUS terminology was better managed through a combination of the following techniques: (i) prior to the survey, we harmonised the community custodians' local concepts of NUS with a set of working definitions of it. (ii) We properly sequenced the material resource-flow map to first enumerate all the plants collected. This was followed by key informant interviews to classify which of the collected plants were NUS; and then we characterised each NUS according to the local knowledge of folk taxonomy, ethnobotany, seasonal availability, locations, harvesting, propagation and processing methods. This was followed by (iii) the collection of specimens, (iv) verification with the wider community and (v) discussions with research organisations about, for instance, the NUS' scientific names and its nutritional composition.A \"lean\" or \"hunger\" period refers to recurrent food shortages amongst the poorest households. Reflecting the seasonality of agricultural production, the lean period often occurs just before the upcoming harvest when food supply is at its lowest and when it coincides with the low demand for agricultural labour.In the coastal Irrawaddy region of Myanmar, the lean period also coincides with the cyclone season. Hence, the lean season often combines the stresses of lack of food, lack of wages to buy food and, in some cases, environmental calamities. The lean period is a predictable, seasonal \"sink or swim\" time when households either survive from one season to the next, or they lose assets, accumulate debt and sink further into poverty.The survey on the lean period, referred to as \"hunger\" or \"scarcity\" periods, proved highly sensitive. In Peru for example, \"scarcity\" (\"escasez\" in Spanish) does not have an equivalent in Quechua and is often associated with poverty. Asking someone about their food scarcity or hunger were considered taboo in all three countries. These sensitivities were managed by keeping the survey private within households, and ensuring that trusted local people were part of the study team. Table 4.1 shows that a substantial percentage of the sample populations confirmed that they regularly experienced hunger. However, the percentages for each country cannot be compared due to the difficulties in covering the topic and the likely different interpretations across cultures of the hunger period.Most respondents referred to the lean period as the time when they had low access to food supply and as a period of physical stress and mental anxieties. In Myanmar, respondents associated hunger with a shortage of rice. This could be attributed to the importance of rice in their culture, diet and income. It is also likely that the lack of carbohydrates directly manifest in the sensation of hunger.The three countries have common some coping strategies. This includes consumption of food preserved or stored during the season of plenty; aspects of reciprocity, such as borrowing or receiving food from relatives and friends; and buying food on credit or shifting to cheaper and lower quality and taste. More vulnerable households turn to harmful strategies such as reducing their portion sizes or skipping meals. In some households, adults may reduce or skip meals in favour of children; in other households, working members are prioritised. In more desperate circumstances, some households in Myanmar and Zimbabwe resort to eating premature crops. This is an example of households losing assets during lean periods, such as their next harvest and seeds for the subsequent growing season. For example, the over-harvesting of perennial crops such as taro is likely to reduce yields, and the consumption of cereal seeds is a major threat to seed security. In Zimbabwe, many respondents also rely on food aid.All respondents referred to the collection and consumption of NUS as an important part of their coping strategies. Most households collect semi-wild and wild plants to supplement their diets and for market sales. NUS are cultivated and collected from home gardens, on farms and roadsides and in forests, wetlands and pasture areas. They also referred to the traditional knowledge of the elderly for understanding the availability of different NUS during specific times and at specific locations. The responsibilities for executing the coping strategies, including the collection of NUS, are shared within the household, with women having a prominent role.In all three countries, the local people stated that they have limited knowledge of nutrition since they lack access to their governments' nutrition education programme. In Myanmar, the respondents said that they are less aware of the nutritional impacts of their food choices. The communities showed a very limited understanding of micronutrients such as vitamins. However, in all three countries, there were good indications that local people traditionally have a functional knowledge of the association between dietary diversity and well-being.NUS are particularly important for the people's sense of well-being and are appreciated for both the eating satisfaction, as well as their health and healing values. These knew cures for gastroenteritis, anaemia, colds and flu, prostrate and liver inflammation, muscle cramps and various pains. A number of NUS consumed as food were also valued for their contraceptive uses, or for easing menstruations (ANDES, 2016). In Myanmar, NUS were consumed because of their associated good health benefits. The uses of NUS as medicines are most helpful during hunger periods when money is tight. In general, however, people increasingly prefer to purchase medicines from pharmacies (Metta and Searice, 2015). In Zimbabwe, the most important NUS were believed to have curative properties against malaria, dehydration, pain and HIV/AIDS (CTDT, 2015). These findings concur with that of other studies (e.g. Pieroni and Price, 2006) on the lack of distinction between food and medicine in traditional food systems. The surveys indicated that inter-generational transfer of knowledge might need to be better understood and further enhanced.In the Lares Valley, the equivalent concept of well-being is \"Sumaq kausay\", which means \"good living\". They refer to Sumaq kausay as the balance and reciprocal relation between the individual and collective, and nature and ecosystem services. Aspects of cultural identity, leisure, celebrations and knowledge heritage are also integrated in their concept of well-being (ANDES, 2016).In all three countries, most of the respondents' sense of well-being was connected to healthy ecosystems with diverse land use, including farming and gardening. People derived their dietary diversity from the biodiversity on farms and within landscapes. This was articulated in the NUS flow maps in Myanmar, Zimbabwe and Peru, which illustrated where people gather domesticated, semi-and non-domesticated plants. Many were NUS, which vary across time and space. In Peru, a high dietary diversity resulted from a combination of more intensive food production, gathering of plants within diverse ecologies and the purchase and barter of a wider variety of food. In the Lares Valley, women's networks operate five traditional barter markets involving farms within the three levels of agro-ecologies from the top, middle and lower zones of the region (see Table 4.1). This enables the exchange of a variety of vegetables, fruits, spices, condiments and beverages. The barter markets enhance local resilience based on diverse land use combined with the traditional social relationships of reciprocity and redistribution (ANDES, 2016).Similar links between dietary diversity and agrobiodiversity were established in a study involving Indigenous and local peoples in the East Usambara Mountains in Tanzania (Powell et al., 2017). In this study, local farmers indicated that maintaining multiple land uses increases crop diversity, which helps ensure their food security and dietary diversity. In another study in Mount Malindang in the Philippines, the Subanens also displayed a diverse collection of biodiversity on farms and in the wild from diverse ecologies within their landscape (Manicad, 2004). Similar to Peru, the study further alluded to the people's integrated landscapes perspectives with the management of biodiversity on farms and in the wild. In both the Subanens in the Philippines and the Quechua in Peru, traditional beliefs and social relations also help regulate the sustainable and equitable harvesting and distribution of biodiversity in the wild (ibid and ANDES, 2016).The studies in Myanmar, Peru and Zimbabwe indicated that land degradation, farming, environmental pollution, extensive mining and deforestation threaten their well-being and food sources. In Peru and Zimbabwe, malnutrition was associated with the lack of consumption of local wild foods and the occurrence of diseases in cultivars. In Myanmar, the respondents directly linked the inaccessibility of diverse diets as a main cause of malnutrition in their communities.The respondents in the three countries also referred to changing climates as a threat to the diversity of their food sources. They pointed to increased pest and disease infestations, and the worsening scarcity of wild plants. In Zimbabwe, they pointed to climate change and the total drying up of wetlands in Uzumba, Maramba and Pfungwe (UMP), which in turn resulted in the disappearance of indigenous vegetables that used to grow there during the lean seasons (CTDT, 2015). This indicates that not only does climate change threaten livelihoods and food security, it also threatens people's coping strategies.Social Relations  The baseline studies in Myanmar, Peru and Zimbabwe contribute to the understanding of NUS as integrated in local peoples' land use and agrobiodiversity management. Local people associate agrobiodiversity, including NUS, with dietary diversity, which they closely link with their sense of well-being. These baseline studies indicate that NUS are part of people's strategies for food and nutrition security during both the lean and the plenty seasons. For the further enhancement of NUS for people's well-being, a few courses of action are suggested:1 Research and development interventions on NUS need to be guided by the principle of equity. For effective interventions on NUS, it is important to understand and address the underlying gender and social relations within households and between generations, including the youth. 2 Considering the rich cultural context and the sensitivities within which NUS are managed, training and engaging local communities and researchers can contribute to a more robust and user-oriented results. This also creates capacities to implement and follow through on plans for intervention.Joint planning and periodic reviews of methods, measurements and analysis can mitigate the trade-off between diverse local research and global comparisons. 3 This chapter concurs with a study in Tanzania (Powell et al., 2017) ). There are varieties especially in little millet and proso millet, which mature in 60-70 days, yet provide reasonable and assured harvests even under most adverse conditions. India, being the primary or secondary centre of origin and domestication of small millets, is a storehouse of highly valuable genetic variability. Asia and Africa are the major producers of these species at the global level, and India is possibly the largest producer of millets, with an estimated production of around 16 million tonnes annually. Exports and imports of millets are negligible, indicating low demand and/or unreliable availability of marketable surpluses in local/world markets. Urbanites by-and-large have forgotten the amazing foods and dishes made out of millets. Being eco-friendly crops, they are suitable for fragile and vulnerable environments and for sustainable and green agriculture. The promotion of these crops can lead to more efficient natural resource management and a holistic approach to sustaining precious agrobiodiversity.Millet grains are very nutritious as they contain good quality protein and are rich in minerals, dietary fibre, phytochemicals and vitamins. A cursory look at the proximate composition of various food grains (Table 5.1) would reveal the distinct nutritional superiority of millets over major food grains such as wheat and rice. This needs to be exploited in terms of its health and nutritional benefits for alleviating nutritional deficiency, the result of changed food habits and a shrunken food basket. Millet, with its unique grain properties, exhibit considerable opportunities for diversification of its food use through processing and value addition.Securing the existing cultivation area for millets is a matter of concern. As shown in Table 5.2, in the past six decades, the area used for growing millets has gone down by 62.57%, dropping from 36.34 million ha (1955)(1956) to around 13.84 million ha (2017)(2018)). Yet, the production targets of all millet crops were maintained as a result of an increase in productivity per hectare -over four times in pearl millet and more than two times in sorghum, finger millet and small millet crops -over the decades.Even though small millets are cultivated in almost every Indian state, the distribution of individual millets is not uniform. The major finger millet growing states are Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. Karnataka has the largest area under finger millet, accounting for nearly 60% of the total area. Kodo, little millet and foxtail millet are grown widely in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. In Madhya Pradesh, both kodo and little millet are predominant, whereas foxtail millet is important in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana. Barnyard millet and proso millet are grown largely in hills of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, the north-eastern regions and plains of north Bihar and western Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.The bulk of millets produced in the country are consumed at the farm level and very little finds its way to organised markets. Millets provide much-needed food and feed security, especially to vulnerable groups. However, it is important to note that food security at the national level will only be effective when regionally important crops are allowed to play their due role in meeting the food and fodder needs of the region. Such a vulnerable situation calls for an urgent intervention from policy makers; an ideal correction would be to produce the required food within the state/region itself, by promoting and developing locally and/or regionally important rainfed crops. The promotion of millets can lead to much more efficient natural resource management and, ultimately, to a more holistic approach in sustaining precious agrobiodiversity.  1955-1956 1965-1966 1975-1976 1985-1986 1995-1996 2005-2006 2017  (Seetharam, 2015). In view of this, India is recognised as a secondary centre of diversity for this crop. The highly variability found in finger millet is divided into five cultivated races viz. coracana, vulgaris, elongata, plana and compacta; they are distinct essentially on the basis of inflorescence morphology. Foxtail millet, Setaria italica (L.) P. Beauv., and its closest wild relative, Setaria italica subsp. viridis (L.) Thell., originated in the highlands of China some 5,000 thousand years ago and later spread to India as a cereal crop (Prasad Rao et al., 1987). Proso millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) is native to Manchuria (China) and moved to Europe some 3,000 years ago. Little millet (Panicum sumatrense Roth) is native to India and is widely cultivated across the country in many states. Indian barnyard millet (Echinochloa frumentacea Link), domesticated and cultivated in India, is highly variable. Kodo millet (Paspalum scrobiculatum L.), domesticated in India some 3,000 years ago, is widely distributed in wet damp habitats, grown in several states from Tamil Nadu in the south to Uttar Pradesh in the north. By and large, small millets in India are important to hill and tribal agriculture.In the past, small millets breeders had limited access to germplasm and worked with very limited accessions that lacked diversity, which blunted opportunities for yield improvement. This situation was, to some extent, rectified in the 1960s, when first attempts were made by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) to pool the collections under the \"PL 480 Project\". Conservation activities gained further momentum with the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR) in New Delhi, which has been playing a key role in augmenting the initial small millets collection. Recognising the importance of conservation and greater access to germplasm, the All-India Coordinated Millets Improvement Project (AICMIP) established a germplasm unit in Bangalore in 1979 to cater to these species. This unit, since then, has been making efforts to collect pool germplasm from various sources and make it available to breeders. The unit is also recognised as one of the NBPGR's National Active Germplasm Sites (NAGS) and has the mandate for the collection, conservation, evaluation and documentation of small millets germplasm within the country. Presently, the Bangalore unit maintains one of the largest collections, with more than 15, 000 accessions of six small millet species, incl. 7,122 accessions of finger millet, 2,821 of foxtail millet, 1,537 of kodo millet, 939 of proso millet, 1,657 of little millet and 988 of barnyard millet (AICSMIP, 2012).Full utilisation of germplasm depends on two factors: (a) evaluation and characterisation and (b) identification of useful gene sources. These two areas have received attention during the last 25 years and the majority of millet accessions have been screened for desirable agronomic and grain quality traits. A good data base is available for most accessions conserved.In order to improve the efficiency of germplasm use, core subsets of the collection have been formed and made available to breeders. The identification of several sources of stable resistance to blast disease in finger millet and their deployment in breeding research has been highly rewarding with regard to the development of high-yielding blast-resistant varieties of finger millet ( Ravikumar et al., 1990( Ravikumar et al., , 1991;;Byre Gowda et al., 1999). The secondary gene pool of subsp. africana has been of interest from the breeding point of view as a source of useful genes for improving tillering abilities, fodder yield and quality, drought tolerance, finger number and length. Pre-breeding is required for the introgression of characters from E. africana to E. coracana, so as to derive lines useful in breeding programs.Exotic collections of finger millet, especially from Africa, have been used in recombination breeding, resulting in the release of many superior, high-yielding varieties (HYVs) in many states. The African germplasm has thick stem, dark leaves, robust growth, large ears and high grain density and is a source of resistance to blast disease (Naik et al., 1993). Hybridisation between African and Indian elite varieties has been highly rewarding and has resulted in the release of many HYVs.Several useful genetic stocks have also been identified in the germplasm of small millets with regard to higher protein content, desirable agronomic attributes with high carbon dioxide fixation and low leaf area, suitable for rain fed situations and germination under conditions of limited moisture and a hard soil crust (Sashidhar et al., 1983;Seetharam et al., 1984). Accessions capable of producing higher biomass, dual purpose types with superior stover quality are available for improving the grain and stover yield of cultivars (Schiere et al., 2004). There are finger millet accessions that have significantly higher grain calcium and protein content. In foxtail millet, new sources of dwarfing genes controlled by oligo genes have been also identified. These accessions are useful in breeding dwarf foxtail millet. The variability available for protein content (7.176-15.73 g) and seed fat content (4.0-7.1 g) in foxtail millet is enormous and can be exploited in breeding (Seetharam, 2015). Optimising the use of germplasm in small millets is a priority for crop improvement, in order to make these species competitive vis-à-vis other crops.Small millets improvement efforts have been in progress since the beginning of the twentieth century (Seetharam, 2015). The launching of coordinated crop improvement programs during the late 1950s has contributed significantly to the development of new superior varieties and enhanced production and protection technologies in small millets. The release of improved varieties and production packages has contributed to a threefold increase in grain productivity in the country. Small millets have been the last crops prioritised in the agriculture developmental agenda in the country, with finger millet receiving a little more attention than other species. An attempt has been made here to trace the progress in crop improvement of small millets over the last nine decades.In the 1950s and 1960s, crop improvement for small millets was confined to a few states such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. The emphasis was on varietal improvement through selecting better types from local varieties. In Tamil Nadu, a Millet Research Station was established in 1923 at Coimbatore, under the erstwhile Madras Presidency. Finger millet work in Karnataka dates back to 1900, initiated in Bangalore especially with finger millet, and in Uttar Pradesh at Kanpur and Gorakhpur in 1944.The first finger millet variety released in the country was H22, as early as 1918 in Karnataka. Other finger millet varieties released were Co6 (1935); R0870, ES13, K1 and ES11 (1939);Hagari1 (1941);Co1, Co2, Co3 and Co4 (1942);VZM1 andVZM2 (1958) andT36 B (1949). Finger millet improvement received a boost in Karnataka during the 1950-1960 period, and several new varieties such as Aruna, Udaya, K1, Purna, ROH 2 and Cauvery were released. Similarly, many varieties were released for other small millets in other states as well (Seetharam, 2015), including little millet variety Co 1 (1954); foxtail millet varieties Co1, Co2, Co3 (1943), H1, H2 (1948), T 4 (1949); kodo millet varieties PLR 1 (1942( ), T2 (1949( ), Co1 (1953)); proso millet variety Co1 (1954) and barnyard millet varieties T25 and T46 (1949).During the 1950s, with food production remaining stagnant and with population growing, the importance of millet crops in Indian agriculture, as important resources for dry land agriculture, started gaining recognition. A project for the intensification of research on cotton, oil seeds and millets was launched during this period, with several centres working on millets alone. The importance of genetic resources as primary raw material for crop improvement was recognised prior to initiation of coordinated project. The first attempt to collect the germplasm of millets in the country was made in 1961 under the PL 480 Project \"Storage, Maintenance and Distribution of Millets Germplasm\", which resulted in the collection of nearly 3,000 genetic stocks of various species including 718 samples of finger millet, 584 of kodo millet, 431of little millet, 615 of foxtail millet, 250 of proso millet and 399 of barnyard millet.Millets, in general, started receiving attention with the launch of the AICMIP in 1969. Small millets also started receiving some attention in a few selected centres. Crop improvement received a major boost during 1978-1979 through an International Development Research Centre (IDRC)-funded project of five crop-specific lead research centres in the country (viz. Almora in Uttarakhand [barnyard millet], Dholi in Bihar [proso millet], Dindori in Madhya Pradesh [kodo millet], Semiliguda in Orissa [little millet] and Nandyal in Andhra Pradesh [foxtail millet]). The project continued until 1985 and was replaced subsequently by the \"All-India Coordinated Small Millets Improvement Project\" (AICSMIP) in 1986. The centres that were operating under the IDRC project became part of AICSMIP. Small millets research has focused all along on the development of varieties and agro-production and protection technologies suitable for different regions. Currently, there are 14 centres functioning under the AICSMIP, spread across the country. Their work is multidisciplinary and applied in nature.Crop improvement is aimed at developing HYVs with resistance to blast disease quality fodder, early and medium maturity and white seed in finger millet, resistance to head smut in kodo millet and resistance to shoot fly in both proso and little millets. So far, a total of 293 varieties for the six small millet species have been released in the country from 1918 to 2020. Out of this, 86 were released before 1986 (pre coordinated-era) and 207 during 1986-2020 (post coordinated-project era) (Table 5.3).Modern finger millet varieties have the genetic potential of producing five to six tonne/ha under optimum cultivation conditions. Recombination breeding has resulted in the release of many superior varieties in foxtail, proso and barnyard millets as well. Large-scale variety testing on farmers' fields in participatory mode (Gowda et al., 2000) and frontline demonstrations have helped in spreading HYVs among farmers. Seed production and distribution, which is key to the successful adoption of HYVs is weak in many states. This has deprived farmers of many benefits arising from the cultivation of improved millets, in most parts of the country. Harnessing the yield advantages from these improved varieties is the need of the hour in order to make the cultivation of small millets truly competitive and economically viable.Packages of information about best practices such as the optimal time for sowing/planting, choice of varieties, time and method of application of fertilisers, etc. have been developed for different regions of the country. Management practices for aberrant weather conditions, for mitigating early, mid-and late season drought have been worked out. Remunerative cropping systems involving different pulse crops in millet for different regions have been created. Technology transfers attempted through frontline demonstrations on farmers' fields and large-scale station demonstrations have also helped narrow down the yield gap that exists between farmers' fields, demonstration plots and research station trials (Seetharam, 2015;Prabhakar, 2017). Plant protection measures to control economically important diseases and pests have been enhanced for small millets (Seetharam, 2015). Several blastresistant lines have been identified from the germplasm available at NAGS, and better crop protection practices for these diseases have been recommended.After years of neglect, millets are finding a place in agricultural research and agendas of large private companies, and from there are reaching supermarkets everywhere. They are increasingly being recommended by doctors and nutritionists as important foods for health and wellness, and as being helpful in preventing many diseases related to modern lifestyles, including obesity and diabetes. Numerous elite food chains have begun selling millets and millet-based products as health foods. As it stand, today, the productivity of small millets can be increased by more than 50% by adopting improved production practices, allowing more people to take advantage of these nutritious and healthy crops. In recent years, milling technology has been considerably improved to enhance grain quality. Millet mills are available for cottage-level and large-scale processing. Millets can be further processed for making various food items such as flakes, quick food cereals, ready to eat snacks, supplementary foods, extrusion cooking items, malt-based products, weaning foods and, more importantly, health foods.Farmers who had shifted from millets to other crops are keen now to go back to millets in view of the stable harvests ensured, the easy crop production, its drought resistance and eco-friendly production perspectives. The higher prices being offered in many parts of the country -especially for small millets, duly recognising their unique nutritional features -is making millets production a remunerative proposition vis-à-vis other crop options available in each region. The R&D efforts made in the area of grain processing and value addition through the development of novel diversified foods especially in sorghum, finger millet and other millets are opening new avenues for expanding the consumer base and enhanced the absorption of production for food use.The immediate needs for supporting millet promotion are:I Sustain and increase production of nutritionally rich millets and expand opportunities for value addition as incentives. II Conserve the genetic resource base and provide superior germplasm possessing the required attributes for food, feed and other diversified use-needs. III Overcome production constraints by providing technological inputs appropriate to each region. IV Raise awareness among the general public, policy makers, traders, farming communities, consumers, entrepreneurs and donors on the role of nutrientdense millets, thereby increasing demand and use.Keeping all the above in view, research activities are to be restructured and should reflect closely the location-specific needs in each region. Millet R&D should not be viewed from crop and productivity angles only, but also should be more holistic, reflecting other benefits such as acquiring greater ecological balance and climate change adaptation of production systems, as well as strengthening the food, nutrition and health security of people at large.After years of neglect, small millets suitably designated as climatic-resilient or climate-smart crops, or as nutri-cereals, are now receiving more attention in India's agricultural R&D agenda. Their rich crop diversity has made these plants well suited to contingency crop planning and also to address issues related to climate change. Highly versatile millets like foxtail, barnyard, proso and little millet would fit into any situation of climatic change and could save farmers from total crop failures. Future research priorities for small millets include the utilisation of trait-specific germplasm, basic and strategic research for resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, varietal diversification, developing viable crop production and protection technologies and value addition. Small millets are viewed as important crops for the health and wellness of people and can help in preventing many kinds of diseases related to modern lifestyles, including obesity and diabetes. Lately, plenty of elite food chains have begun selling millets and millets-based products as health food. Increased popularity of small millets as nutri-cereals paves away for further strengthening nutritional security in India. DOI: 10.4324/9781003044802-7Africa's dominant food systems heavily rely on exotic species (National Research Council, 2008). Some of the main staples across the continent, such as maize (Zea mays) and cassava (Manihot esculenta), as well as a number of widely grown fruits and vegetables such as papaya (Carica papaya) and tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum), were introduced from the 'New World'. Other species widely present on the continent such as mango (Mangifera indica) and irrigated rice (Oryza sativa) were imported from Asia.Nonetheless, a number of species originating from the African continent have made it into global value-chains, including coffee (arabica [Coffea arabica] and robusta [Coffea canephora]), oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), and a cotton species (Gossypium spp.) (Van Damme and Termote, 2008). Africa is also a center of diversity for a number of commodities of importance, that are as yet underresearched and under-invested in. Staples such as sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum), yams (Dioscorea spp.), finger millet (Eleusine coracana), fonio (Digitaria exilis) and teff (Eragrostis teff ); legumes such as cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) or lablab (Lablab purpureus); vegetables such as African eggplant (Solanum aethiopicum) or okra (Abelmoschus esculentus); and fruits such as tamarind (Tamarindus indica) or baobab (Adansonia digitata) have entered national or regional value-chains, but are yet to be used to their full potential (Van Damme and Termote, 2008). At the same time, the continent harbors an enormous amount of locally important species -such as fumbwa (Gnetum africanum), spider plant (Cleome gynandra), weda (Saba senegalensis), safou (Dacryodes edulis) and African locust bean (Parkia biglobosa) to name but a few -that have potential to be further developed and to contribute to the livelihoods and nutrition security of smallholder family farmers.Céline Termote, Stepha McMullin, Hendre Prasad However, scientists and policy makers often remain unaware of the great nutritional, socio-cultural, economic and environmental potential of these resources to African food systems (Akinola et al., 2020). Therefore, this chapter presents a number of examples on how to increase interest in these species through research, domestication, production, marketing, consumption and promotion of these valuable species.Ethnobotany is the science that documents human-plant interactions, or, in other words, how humans use the plant biodiversity surrounding them for food, feed, arts, medicines, etc., allowing new crops to be discovered (Van Damme and Termote, 2008).Ethnobotanical surveys have been and are still being carried out all over the continent in order to document the rich knowledge on edible species held by the inhabitants of specific villages, tribes or regions (e.g., Termote et al., 2011 on wild edible plants in Tshopo District, DR Congo or Ojelel et al., 2019 for wild edible plants in Teso-karamoja, Uganda). Most of the studies only cover specific regions or tribes and it is much harder to find national overviews, such as the book by Maundu et al. (1999) Traditional Food Plants of Kenya. Other authors only deal with a specific food group such as fruits (e.g., Gueye et al., 2014, wild fruits from the Malinke in Senegal) or vegetables (e.g., Achigan-Dako et al., 2010, Traditional Vegetables in Benin).While there is plenty of information available on African edible plants that merits inclusion in accessible national and regional databases, there are still many gaps in terms of coverage of ethnic groups, agro-ecological zones and/or regions, in order to unravel the continent's rich botanical heritage before it's lost (Akinola et al., 2020). In that regard, the open access PROTA book series, 1 presenting plant resources for tropical Africa in different volumes, is an interesting resource to start with.A number of these species have the potential to be further developed and promoted for niche markets (Van Damme and Termote, 2008). Such markets allow for price setting by the farmers and offer many more opportunities for smallscale, resource-poor farmers to earn decent livelihoods compared to global commodity markets for items such as coffee, tea or cocoa, where prices are set by international players at the expense of the farmer. As the resources for further morphological, genetic, nutritional, economic or socio-cultural characterizations as well as domestication trials and market development are limited, a prioritization of species for further development is required, a process that should include beneficiary communities.For example, in northern Benin, Bioversity International (BI) worked with local stakeholders to prioritize 11 multi-purpose species (Table 6.1), which are currently undergoing full characterization (nutritional composition, sociocultural and economic value, and agronomic potential). Combined with studies on threats, conservation status and domestication potential, species knowledge products are in development and will support ongoing interventions using local biodiversity to improve diet quality and nutrition of vulnerable populations in northern Benin.In Northern Kenya (Turkana county), BI researchers documented local knowledge on 64 wild edible plant species (WEPs) (unpublished data); however, almost none of these species were found in the diets of 240 mothers and small children surveyed in pastoralist and agro-pastoralist communities in Loima sub-county (Aluso, 2018). Nonetheless a number of them have the potential to improve dietary quality of women and small children in the area. Six of these wild foods (some naturalized) were selected based on availability of nutrient content data and their potential contribution to closing nutrient gaps (Sterculia africana [African-star chestnut], Berchemia discolor [wild almond], Grewia tenax [white crossberry], Amaranthus hybridus [amaranth], Solanum americanum [American nightshade] and Celosia argentea [celosia]), to model the lowest-cost, most-nutritious diets with and without these wild foods using the Cost of Diet linear programming tool developed by Save the Children, UK. 2 Results showed that the addition of the three wild vegetables resulted in cost reductions of 30%-71% compared to the models without wild foods, as well as making up for iron and zinc gaps in the models without wild foods (Sarfo et al., 2020). Many NUS have higher nutrient values than their cultivated counterparts (Akinola et al., 2020); however, they do not always contribute as much as they could to closing nutrient gaps or improving livelihoods. In a study around the Lama Forest in southern Benin, 91% of households mentioned they sometimes collect WEPs, but only 8 of the 61 WEPs documented in the area were found in 37% of the 240 24h-dietary intake recalls carried out during the lean season. Fermented Parkia biglobosa kernels were consumed the most (Boedecker et al., 2014). Similar results were found in a study on WEP consumption in Tshopo District, DR Congo by Termote et al. (2012) with only 11 out of 77 known WEPs reported in 30% of the recalls carried out in Yaoseko village. Both studies found that people who consumed WEPs the previous day, compared to those that did not, had higher dietary diversity scores and/or higher nutrient intakes for that day. Other studies, such as Dovie et al. (2007) in South Africa, found much higher contributions of WEPs to micronutrient intakes.Increasing knowledge on the nutritional and livelihood benefits of NUS through nutrition education or counseling -whether or not in combination with trainings on how to grow, prepare, conserve and market them -has been successful in several projects throughout the continent. One of the earliest examples (Box 6.1), is the African Leafy Vegetables (ALV) project carried out in Kenya by BI and partners from 1996 to 2003, wherein the multifaceted approach of prioritizing, characterizing, improving production and simultaneously creating demand through nutrition education and media campaigns led to better livelihoods for hundreds of ALV farmers (Gotor and Irungu, 2010). Building on this early work, an integrated community-based approach for farm, market and diet diversity was developed in Vihiga county, Kenya. 3 A diagnostic survey documented dietary intake patterns and agricultural biodiversity. Subsequently, community groups were taken through a series of workshops wherein (a) the importance of nutrition and balanced diets was explained, (b) the diagnostic survey results were discussed and (c) community action plans (CAP) were drafted. All groups decided to grow ALVs and legumes in kitchen gardens and some even added poultry activities. During CAP implementation, the groups were guided through agricultural trainings and nutrition counseling. An end-line survey after one year showed that dietary diversity scores had significantly increased for women as well as for small children in the whole community. The percentage of children meeting minimum dietary diversity (consuming foods from a minimum of four out of seven food groups) also increased significantly (Boedecker et al., 2019). The approach is currently being further piloted in two new contexts in Kenya (in Turkana and Busia counties).Other interesting models currently being pilot-tested in Kenya to promote production and consumption of NUS are f.e. (1) direct food procurement for school feeding programs, linking ALV farmers with schools in Busia county with the double goal of improving school meal quality, nutrition and performance of pupils as well as improving farmer incomes and livelihoods (Borelli et al., in press); and (2) multi-stakeholder platforms to connect ALV farmers with markets, facilitate business plan development and attract investments in Nakuru (SASS project 4 led by the European Centre for Development Policy Management) and Kisumu (Healthy Food Africa project 5 led by BI), with the aim to build inclusive value-chains that support food system resilience and diet quality.To support this work, a range of tools to raise awareness on the nutritional and livelihood benefits of NUS have been developed; for example, in southern Benin, BI researchers developed a picture-based recipe book integrating NUS into traditional recipes to improve their nutritional quality (Bodjrènou et al., 2018). Another tool developed and refined within several BI projects is the seasonal food availability calendar to assist extension workers and consumers with yearround selection of foods from different food groups to meet minimum dietaryRealizing that nutritious traditional leafy vegetables were rapidly disappearing from plates and fields, BI and its partners started implementing a project on ALV in the mid-1990s. Through ethnobotanical surveys, 210 different ALVs were documented, of which few were found to be regularly consumed by those surveyed. Germplasm was collected for conservation in the national gene-bank and characterized. Eight species, including Amaranthus (Amaranth spp.), spider plant (Cleome gynandra) and cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata), were prioritized for further research. Their nutritional composition was determined and the effects of storage and processing on their nutrient composition was studied.Subsequently, the project worked with farmers and consumers to optimize agronomic protocols and increase knowledge on the nutritional benefits of ALVs. Four hundred and fifty farmers benefited from seed starter packages and training on growing ALVs. Farmers were linked with market outlets and public awareness strategies such as cooking contests; recipe booklets and radio station coverage were organized. As a result, ALVs started appearing in supermarkets in Nairobi (EIARD, 2013). Three years after the project ended, an impact study revealed that the production of ALVs in peri-urban Nairobi had increased more than ten-fold since 1997. Almost 23% more farmers grew a minimum of one ALV, and the average number of ALVs grown increased from 1.5 to 2.3 (Gotor and Irungu, 2010). Women played a key role in the production, marketing and consumption of ALVs, and incomes increased in regions where farmers were linked to markets. Increased awareness of the nutritional value of ALVs was identified as a key driver for the increased demand.diversity standards and, thus, increase chances of covering all individual nutrient needs (Lochetti et al., 2020).The World Agroforestry (ICRAF) developed the food tree and crop portfolio approach to enhance the seasonal availability of nutritious foods in local food systems (McMullin et al., 2019). These nutritious food portfolios are location-specific recommendations for cultivating a greater diversity of indigenous and exotic food trees (those that provide fruits, leafy vegetables, nuts, seeds and oils) with complementary vegetable, pulse and staple crops that could address food harvest and micronutrient gaps in local households' diets. Additionally, the tool shows the nutritional value (vitamin A, vitamin C, iron and folate) of selected species using a scoring system to simplify nutrient content information, which is very useful in supporting decision-making for species selection. Indigenous and underutilized species are included in the portfolios as they are socio-culturally relevant in local food systems, and are adapted to individual landscapes, with a diversity of species enhancing resilience to more variable environmental conditions (Dawson et al., 2019). Tree-foods are often available when other crops fail, and also during the \"lean\" season. They complement and diversify the predominantly staple-based diets of rural households through the year (Kehlenbeck et al., 2013).Another tool to support mainstreaming micronutrient rich tree-foods in local food systems is ICRAF's Priority Food Tree and Crop Food Composition Database, 6 which presents nutrient data of over 90 food-tree and crop species. The database presents the backbone of the portfolios but can also be used for dietary assessments, developing training materials, and selecting nutrient-rich species for domestication and breeding programs. However, for a range of indigenous species, nutrient content data is still missing due to a lack of research and private sector interest and investment in these species (Dawson et al., 2018).One of the biggest challenges to growing a diversity of food-tree species, and NUS in general, is the lack of availability and access to quality planting material. Attention to delivery systems for planting material has been identified as an important success factor for mainstreaming orphan crops (McMullin et al., 2021). To effectively reach large numbers of smallholder farmers, well-functioning, decentralized systems for delivering seeds, seedlings and associated management information are required (Dawson et al., 2012).ICRAF has been working on domesticating and improving its mandate trees, many of which fall into the category of NUS. The Genetic Resources Unit of ICRAF maintains more than 120 tree species either as seeds or in-situ collections. Most trees have a very long lifespan, are propagated using vegetative means and are difficult to breed using traditional methods. Traditionally, trees have been bred using simple methods like selecting good performing ones, known as \"(plus)+\" trees, which are then supplied as clonal improved material; but further steps are needed for major increments in phenotypic traits and better performance. To enhance tree-breeding efforts, the African Orphan Crops Consortium (AOCC 7 ) is developing genomics resources for 101 crop species, around half of which are trees while the remaining are annual species. The AOCC aims to improve the nutritional value, productivity and climate adaptability of these traditional food crops and to increase their use in African diets (Hendre et al., 2019;Jamnadass et al., 2020). A number of AOCC species have been considered by ICRAF for developing advanced breeding programs using modern genomics tools (Table 6.2). Africa is home to a lot of promising species with the potential to improve diets and livelihoods. Only a few African species have made it into global value-chains, but a large number of them have regional, national or local importance, albeit with their full potential still yet to be discovered. While knowledge gaps remain on the nutritional, economic, socio-cultural and ecological importance of these species, ongoing research into context-adapted models promoting NUS production and consumption are generating evidence on how these have the potential to enhance diet quality, nutrition and incomes. Given that NUS are also well adapted to their local environments and support farm resilience, they could play an important role in the transition towards healthy, sustainable and inclusive African food systems. Latin America is home to an extraordinary diversity of nutritionally important fruit-tree species (Kermath et al., 2014) and, for millennia, local people have selected and domesticated useful species in their landscape (Levis et al., 2018). Despite the high diversity of nutritionally rich fruit trees, the homogenization and Westernization of consumption patterns in the region have driven the spread of poor diets, particularly in rural areas. Diets, especially of Indigenous communities are increasingly based on staples and processed food with lower nutritional values (Coimbra et al., 2013). Farming in Latin America is increasingly based on unsustainable and environmentally damaging practices, which drive tropical forest degradation and deforestation (Dobrovolski et al., 2011). Over 80% of Latin American farms are managed by smallholders (Leporati et al., 2014), who are incentivized by policy initiatives to prioritize fruit cash-crops at the expense of on-farm diversity (Sthapit et al., 2016). Although crops such as palm oil Elaeis guineensis), cacao (Theobroma cacao) and banana (Musa sp.) can play an important economic role in the region, monocultures make farmers increasingly vulnerable to socioeconomic and environmental shocks (Maas et al., 2020).The advantages of adopting a greater diversity of fruit-tree species clearly extend beyond economic resilience. One premise of this chapter is that ecological benefits, including restoration of landscapes and delivery of ecosystem services -carbon sequestration, pollination, soil protection, and fauna habitat connectivity -will be generated through increasing the role of underutilized fruit species in local, national and international markets. This will also contribute to the conservation of important genetic resources (vanHove and VanDamme, 2013;Thomas et al., 2018;van Zonneveld et al., 2020). In the Americas alone, there are several thousand fruit-bearing tree species with the potential to generateRobin Van Loon, Elisabeth Lagneaux, Gabriela Wiederkehr Guerra, Fidel Chiriboga-Arroyo, Evert Thomas, Bruno Gamarra, Maarten van Zonneveld, Chris Kettle income and improve diets (Bioversity, 2004). Despite considerable evidence supporting their ecological, cultural, nutritional, and livelihood-related benefits (Santos, 2005;Jansen et al., 2020), many of these native fruit species remain neglected or underutilized (NUS). While it is clear that not all fruit species have the potential to become global market sensations, significant opportunities exist to increase the range of promising species at regional or national levels, improving community food security and local economies.We reviewed a representative sample of 150 NUS across 27 families from various Latin American ecoregions. From this species list, we identify 25 highpotential species, considered to have the greatest scope expanding their commercial horizons (Table 7.1). We identify and discuss a range of barriers to adoption of native fruit-tree species, across farmer-facing obstacles, gaps in the value-chain and barriers in consumer demand (Table 7.2). We describe examples of how these specific barriers have been lifted in the past. Finally, we make suggestions on how these solutions can be extended to other contexts in the future, unlocking the potential of a broader range of Latin American biodiversity -thus meeting growing consumer demand for supply-chain transparency and benefiting farmers throughout the continent.Multiple factors can inhibit the uptake of native fruit-tree species in diversified farmer production systems and consumers' diets (see Table 7.2). The barriers are compiled into three main categories: (i) farmer-facing constraints at the production stage; (ii) value-chain related obstacles and (iii) challenges related to consumer demand and marketability.On-farm challenges in fruit production can prevent farmers from adopting certain crops, thereby limiting the diversification of agroforestry systems. These challenges are often related to a lack of knowledge or capacity. In a study on native Amazonian fruit species selected for their high economic, social and ecological benefits, the identified barriers to adoption, whether for home consumption or as cash crops, were primarily socio-technical rather than market or profit oriented (Lagneaux et al., 2021). The most common limitations were, in order of frequency: lack of knowledge about the species, skepticism about productive potential given soil conditions, challenges related to harvests (e.g., in the case of tall palm species) and limited access to seeds and seedlings. This suggests that the factors keeping farmers from integrating more NUS fruit species are diverse and not exclusively economic.For greater uptake of NUS it is helpful to understand which species are compatible with important commercial crops. Coffee in Central America is often Selection of 25 high-potential Latin American fruit-tree NUS along with their possible uses, current geographical distribution and recommended scale of market interplanted with fruit species that are complementary in terms of size and ecology, such as guava (Psidium guajava) and hog plum (Spondias mombin) (de Sousa et al., 2019). However, in many cases, in-field compatibility among fruit species may be limited; therefore, optimizing the designs of farm parcels is crucial to achieve successful outcomes. The lack of agronomic knowledge is also a significant barrier to the adoption and success of NUS -albeit one that can be overcome with training and horizontal knowledge sharing among farmers, such as in farmer field schools (see section 3). Decision-making on which species to plant is sometimes influenced by the time it takes for a species to become productive. The Amazonian Brazil-nut tree (Bertholletia excelsa) for example is a hyper-dominant species, delivering multiple ecosystem services (Thomas et al., 2018). However, the trees only become profitable after 15-20 years or more and concerns in the region about its future market viability are increasing despite some enrichment planting (Bronzini, 2019). The investment required to bring this species to productive age may discourage its use when other species can deliver returns quicker. This serves to illustrate how a species' ecology -and the level of knowledge thereof -can act as barriers to adoption, in this case by smallholders in the Amazon.Two of the most significant challenges faced by smallholders in rural areas are post-harvest storage and the transport of fresh fruit to market. Given the perishability of many tropical fruits, processing them into value-added products with longer shelf-life is crucial for producers to fully benefit from the economic potential of these species. Farmers often face basic infrastructural limitations such as lack of electricity or potable water, restricting fruit processing options (Smith et al., 2007). Many fruits are never folded into even local market supply-chains due to the simple lack of transportation access to those markets, despite the fruits being delicious and highly nutritious. Fruits are typically moved at the farmer's expense by boat, motorcycle or truck to intermediate buyers, leading to less profitable transactions and an increased risk of damage to the product, resulting from a lack of operational cold chains. Consequently, market opportunities for fresh fruits are often extremely limited, and improvements to on-farm processing are needed for the development of viable fruit value-chains. Fresh copoazú (Theobroma grandiflorum), a relative of cacao, has a rather short shelf-life, perishing only four days after fruit-drop if it is not cold stored or processed. Other fruits are even faster to lose their color or flavor after harvest. For such species, the constant monitoring of trees, quick harvests and rapid transport to the closest local market are required in the absence of on-farm infrastructure.Another Amazonian fruit, camu camu (Myrciaria dubia), prized for its outstanding nutritional value (Rodrigues et al., 2001), requires careful handling for optimum quality. If harvested semi-ripe, the fruit contains high amounts of vitamin C -the highest of any fruit -but its color and flavor are less attractive.Harvested ripe, it possesses an impressive color and flavor, but the vitamin C content is less stable. Promoting fruits such as camu camu requires research and investment in more sophisticated fruit processing capacity, which, in this example, would enable the stabilization of vitamin C while also preserving organoleptic qualities.Many native fruits are unknown to urban consumers, hampering their inclusion in national diets. In big cities, fruit consumption is often limited to conventional, familiar fruits. Even though copoazú and Brazil-nuts are major income generators in the Peruvian Amazon, they are almost unknown in the capital Lima, where their consumption is surpassed by strawberries and almonds. This was also historically the case for camu camu -until 2019 when the Aje Group, Peru's largest soft-drink company, carried out a national publicity campaign and established the fruit as the main ingredient in a beverage on the market. This example demonstrates the impact that effective awareness-raising and marketing can have on increasing the visibility of NUS fruits. Public institutions can also play an important role in educating the masses on the benefits of a variety of locally produced fruits -for example, municipalities organizing cultural and gastronomic events.On the other hand, consumer preference for local fruits in the Global North can amount to an obstacle to the promotion of underutilized Latin American fruits in international markets. This is mainly because of concerns about sustainability, the carbon footprint of airfreight and the lack of transparency of supply chains in remote countries. Novel tropical-fruit products can benefit from expanding conscientious markets ( Jansen et al., 2020); consumers are increasingly demanding ethically sourced products that demonstrate traceability and provide guarantees of ecological sustainability and social fairness. Value-chains in which brands and retailers are committed to tracing fruits back to farmers can provide powerful incentives to continue growing native fruit species. A new product is mainly successful when it offers great taste, high quality and competitive pricing, but marketing can also break through by focusing on nutritional, social or environmental benefits.For any particular NUS, multiple barriers to adoption are often present. The removal of one significant barrier can sometimes be sufficient to unlock the potential of a species. We do not necessarily need to confront all barriers to adoption to effectively address crucial bottlenecks.Farm-facing solutions: In general, the removal of on-farm barriers requires engagement, working closely with farmers at each stage in the production process. This is especially the case when scaling-up diverse farming systems, where longterm species are intercropped with short-and medium-term income-generating species -successional agroforestry. Government and other programs can help reduce the risk of traditional cultivars being replaced with monocultures by promoting diverse agroforestry systems with multiple perennial species, such as in the case of cacao cultivation in Central America (de Sousa et al., 2019). Diversity fortifies resilience, both on the farm and in the market, yet does require effective decentralized platforms for delivery of technical support, capacity building and knowledge transfer on species selection, planting design, management and harvesting strategies. Agronomic knowledge on the compatibility and complementarity of different native fruit species in agroforestry systems also needs to be more widely available and horizontally shared.Finally, gaps in infrastructure and know-how for propagation (nurseries) and distribution in rural, remote areas with limited accessibility must be addressed if promising species are to be widely adopted. In the example of cherimoya, access to selected cultivars in combination with improved management (e.g., introduction of new pruning approaches) has resulted in increased incomes for Andean farmers in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia (Vanhove and Van Dammel, 2013).Another example is ramón (Brosimum alicastrum), a hyper-dominant forest species that is now embraced by local communities in the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala. Community-and farmer-facing outreach focused on the economic and nutritional benefits of new fruits is fundamental to the success of such non-profit programs. At the same time, the organization of fruit harvesters in associations -in this case with the collaboration of associations such as Asociación de Comunidades Forestales de Petén and NGOs like Rainforest Alliance (Izabela et al., 2019) -can be key to hitting export volumes and for successful co-investing in necessary infrastructure.Value-chain development: A critical aspect of fomenting the adoption of native fruit species is the provision of economic incentives to farmers through reliable and equitable value-chains. In parallel, ensuring a consistent product through processing is critical to resilient value-chains. In Latin America, numerous examples of successful fruit processing exist, including pulp, dried fruit, flour, jams and freeze-or spray-dried powders (e.g., Moraes et al., 1994). All these added-value mechanisms help remove fruit transport barriers, though each has its own disadvantages. For example, the production of freeze-dried powder requires expensive equipment and fruit pulps need strict cold chains; meanwhile, jams are niche products with low overall consumption and demand. Opportunities exist for private and public sector actors to innovate. One alternative for overcoming fruit durability and transport barriers while preserving most of the fruit's natural features is the production of purees, a pasteurized form of fruit pulp that is highly versatile and can be used as an ingredient in a variety of final products. Puree is simple and cost-efficient to process and it can be stored and transported without a strict cold-chain. This is a solution that can be managed at the farm-level, keeping the added value of fruit processing in the hands of farmers.Many of Latin America's most economically significant trees provide other commodities such as seed oil for cosmetic or edible use. Brazil-nut, murumuru (Astrocaryum murumuru), and andiroba (Carapa guianensis) are just a few of the many native seed oils that have been successfully commercialized in Brazil (Plowden, 2004;Campos et al., 2015;Smith, 2015). Basic equipment -in this case oil presses -is all that is needed to enable small producers or cooperatives to offer value-added products to national markets. When this barrier -lack of access to capital or know-how for value-added equipment -is removed, fruits that previously were left to decompose on the forest floor can incentivize sustainable management of natural forest resources and the augmentation of wild production via agroforestry planting. In the example of Brazil, accessible financing terms are offered to farmers for investment in equipment and infrastructure (Machado de Moraes, 2014). Economic policies that promote the establishment of village-level infrastructure and development of local market-facing supply chains play a key role in successfully lifting a species from NUS status. The establishment of robust cooperatives or producer associations can help secure financing for equipment and strengthen producers' negotiating power with buyers and is, therefore, a vital component of fair trade certification standards -ensuring consumer satisfaction while also making a compelling argument for the consumption of unique fruits from distant regions.Up-scaling NUS access to consumers: The Amazon is home to a rich diversity of palms that are extremely abundant producers of nutritious and culturally significant fruits. The pulp of açaí (Euterpe oleracea) is now a globally consumed, antioxidant-rich \"superfood\" that was traditionally prominent in the forest economy and food security of the lower Amazon basin (Muñiz-Miret et al., 1996). This product became known beyond Brazil's borders thanks both to well-positioned flagship brands in foreign markets (such as Sambazon in the US) and to a range of policies that support farm-and village-level producers (OECD, 2011).In addition to açaí, acerola (Malpighia glabra), burití (Mauritia flexuosa) and copoazú have reached markets beyond the Amazon basin, but the lesson learned from Brazil suggests that establishing domestic as well as international markets is important for the creation of resilient value-chains. Brazil boasts a tremendous diversity of effectively domestically marketed products from the Amazon bioregion that remain underutilized in neighboring Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia, presumably due to a lack of similar national economic policies. Species that remain underutilized throughout their native range but which have been developed in Brazil include peach palm (Bactris gasipaes), pama (Pseudolmedia macrophylla), pitanga (Eugenia uniflora), patauá (Oenocarpus bataua) and charichuelo (Garcinia madruno).Governmental organizations, NGOs and Brazilian agricultural research institutes have promoted the consumption of native fruit species, resulting in the publication of a national ordinance that officially recognizes the nutritional value of more than 60 native food plants (Beltrame et al., 2016). With this policy support, federal and local governments have been able to achieve the inclusion of several fruits in subnational and local school lunch programs. Farmers who supply these programs are able to diversify their farms with nutritious food plants because the officially mediated procurement market incentivizes them to do so (Wittman and Blesh, 2017). Significant secondary benefits are achieved by introducing NUS in such school lunch programs, enhancing cultural acceptance and leading the way to the development of more robust local economies for these fruits.The promotion of new fruit products in national or international markets requires investment. For successful adoption, knowledge about the fruit diversity of a region must be shared among producers, practitioners and distributors and with food businesses, including restaurants and end-consumers. Food fairs such as Lima's massive Mistura Food Festival, academic presentations and social events are just some of the many platforms that can be used to promote new tastes and raise awareness of the nutritional, social and ecological values of fruits.A key component is the involvement of adequate first-market adopters including tastemakers and celebrity chefs such as Virgilio Martinez and Pedro Miguel Schiaffino, two of Latin America's most important voices currently at the intersection of gastronomy and biodiversity. Successfully promoting new and exotic tastes involves customers that are curious and open, for example, to exotic and innovative cuisine, as found in some of Latin America's top-ranked restaurants. To reach these customers and further broaden these fruits' clientele, creative cultural solutions are needed -a challenge that is multifaceted yet of great importance if broader acceptance of unfamiliar fruits is to be achieved.The barriers to adoption for underutilized fruit species in Latin America are as complex and diverse as the fruits themselves. The challenges in mainstreaming these fruits in food systems span from on-farm barriers, such as a lack of infrastructure or knowledge, to gaps in the value-chain, such as inability to process, stock or transport raw material, to lack of consumer demand because some products are not affordable or accepted. Heterogeneous and unfamiliar products struggle to scale up market access and consumer awareness. There are burgeoning examples of native fruit species that were, until recently, underutilized, but that now provide much-needed sustainable livelihood options for rural communities across the region. As demonstrated in this chapter, innovative processing systems, social institutions, ethical consumption and awareness-raising all play a role in lifting barriers (Table 7.2), to establish more resilient agroecological systems using the extraordinary genetic diversity of Latin American fruit-tree species. To synergistically contribute to income generation, diet diversification and resilient landscapes, poly-cultural food production using a greater diversity of fruit trees generates benefits from the local to the global scale. Simultaneously, better social outcomes are achieved, such as the creation of diverse diets with increased fruit consumption and associated public health improvement, development of more resilient farming systems, enriched livelihoods and the strengthening of local food security in cases of catastrophes. The diversity of fruits in Latin America is considerable and, while often overlooked, has the potential to help farmers overcome many of the biggest challenges they face. In order to unlock this transformative potential, practitioners from all sectors -governments, academia, businesses and NGOs -must collaborate on generating and sharing the practical knowledge of successes and failures that represents our most viable strategy for diversifying the food system.Buckwheat is an annual crop native to China. There are two main cultivated types, namely, common buckwheat and tartary buckwheat. The former is also called sweet buckwheat, while the latter is also called bitter buckwheat. Buckwheat is used for multiple purposes. The flour from the seed can be used to make a variety of foods. The straw and leaves can be used as fodder and medical raw material. Buckwheat grain is rich in protein, vitamins, minerals, plant cellulose and other nutrients, and contains flavonoids, especially rutin, which has pharmacological effects for reducing blood fat and cholesterol and preventing cardiovascular diseases (Lin, 2013). Buckwheat is very adaptable to poor soil and cool weather conditions. The growth period of buckwheat is short -it generally takes about 60-90 days to mature. The annual planting area for the crop in China is 0.6-0.8 million hectares, and the total output is 0.5-0.6 million tons (Zhang and Wu, 2010). Buckwheat is a minor crop in China, as its cultivation area is small compared to staple crops such as rice, wheat and corn. However, buckwheat is considered an advanced food due to its high nutritional and medical values. The market demand for it at home and abroad is constantly expanding, which brings opportunities for strengthening buckwheat research and development (R&D) in China. This chapter aims to systematically review the current status of buckwheat biodiversity and its R&D in China, as well as identify research gaps and needs, and put forward action plans for improving the sustainable development of the buckwheat industry.Buckwheat is a pseudo-cereal crop belonging to the genus Fagopyrum, Family Polygonaceae. Fagopyrum species are widely distributed in Eurasia, with theirprimary diversity center being China. Before 1998, there were nine species and two varieties of Fagopyrum recorded in China (Li, 1998). Over the past 20 years, however, both Chinese and foreign scholars have discovered and reported more than 20 new wild species of Fagopyrum (Xia et al., 2007;Fan et al., 2019), particularly the ancestor species of buckwheat, namely, F.esculentum ssp. ancestrale (Ohnishi, 1998a) and F. tataricum ssp. potanini (Ohnishi, 1998b), were identified in the southwest of China. There are two main cultivated species, namely, F. esculentum Moench and F. tataricum (L.) Gaertn in China. Due to its medicinal use, F. cymosum (Trev.) Meisn. is being domesticated and some cultivated forms have been developed in China (Yuan et al., 2019).During the long history of its cultivation and domestication in China, two major types of buckwheat formed, namely, the cross-pollinated common buckwheat with high genetic diversity within its population, and the self-pollinated tartary buckwheat with high genetic diversity between populations. With years of effort, China has collected 3,085 accessions of buckwheat germplasm, including 2869 landraces (Zhang and Wu, 2010), accounting for 93% of the total. Landraces of tartary buckwheat were mainly from southwest regions, including Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou and Tibet, while those of common buckwheat were from north, northeast and northwest, including Shanxi, Shaanxi, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Jilin.The ex situ conservation of buckwheat biodiversity is managed by the National Crop Genebank (NCG) at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS). Buckwheat accessions were identified, multiplied, catalogued and stored for the long term in a temperature of -18°C. At the same time, samples of these accessions were also stored under mid-term conditions. Researchers from national organizations can access the accessions stored in NCG for research purposes (Zhang and Wu, 2010).As F. cymosum (Trev.) Meisn. has very important medicinal value, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs established in situ conservation sites in the Hubei and Hunan provinces to prevent important populations of F. cymosum (Trev.) Meisn. by using the way of physical isolation (Zheng et al., 2019). For onfarm management, Bioversity International and a partner of the Chinese Academy of Sciences initiated a study on in situ conservation of buckwheat in Liangshan, Sichuan province. The investigation showed that tartary buckwheat is a staple food crop of the Yi ethnic group that is native to Lianshan. A variety of landraces of tartary buckwheat were managed by local farmers. The living customs in the Promoting buckwheat in China 111Yi ethnic group and the ecological conditions in Liangshan were all conducive to the on-farm management of buckwheat biodiversity (Zhao et al., 1998).The characterization of agronomic traits of buckwheat biodiversity is mainly carried out by the relevant national research organizations coordinated by NCG at CAAS. Traits of plants, flowers and grains were measured; the growth period, lodging property and seed-shattering were accounted; and the contents of protein, fat, amino acids, vitamins and trace elements were analyzed. The analysis showed that buckwheat accessions had a rich diversity of agronomic traits, which was not only reflected in the traits themselves, but also showed great variation among materials from different regions. For example, the plant height ranged from 34 cm-205 cm, averaging 98.7 cm. The 1,000-grain weight of common buckwheat (26.68g) was significantly higher than that of tartary buckwheat (19.30g) (Zhang and Wu, 2010).With the rapid development of biotechnology, DNA molecular marker technology has been widely used in the study of the genetic diversity of buckwheat. Bioversity International, in cooperation with the CAAS and other relevant partners in China, analyzed the genetic diversity of buckwheat by using ISSR (inter-simple sequence repeat) markers. The results showed that there were significant genetic differences among local buckwheat cultivars in Yunnan, and there were significant genetic differences among local cultivars in Guizhou, Hubei and Yunnan (Zhao et al., 2006). A genetic linkage map of buckwheat was constructed by combining morphological and molecular markers, laying a foundation for gene mining in buckwheat (Du et al., 2013). Recently, Bioversity and CAAS carried out the transcriptome analysis with a focus on rutin accumulation at filling stage seeds among three buckwheat species (Gao et al., 2017) China attaches great importance to the improvement of buckwheat varieties. With the support of relevant national and local projects, many research institutions and universities have participated in breeding new buckwheat varieties, aiming to improve the yield per unit area, lodging resistance and quality, so as to meet the farmers' needs for more income generation by growing buckwheat. Breeding technology was mainly based on systematic selection. With the mechanism of cross-pollination of common buckwheat, natural hybridization was the source of variants for selection. With mutagenesis technology to enhance the germplasm, a batch of new buckwheat varieties were bred (Ma et al., 2015). Marker-assisted selection technique is used in buckwheat breeding, by identifying useful diversity, constructing genetic linkage map, and developing molecular indicators such as SSR (simple sequence repeat) markers for identifying the heterozygotes of interspecific hybridization (Yang et al., 2019).In the 1950s, the annual planting area of buckwheat in China crossed two million hectares. Later, it was squeezed by high-yielding crops, and the annual sown area has been 0.6-0.8 million hectares in current years. At present, buckwheat is grown in more than 20 provinces and regions, in which tartary buckwheat is mainly present in the southwest and common buckwheat in the north, northeast and northwest. According to buckwheat distribution, the production area can be divided into four ecological regions:1 Northern spring buckwheat region: This area includes the plateau and mountainous areas along the Great Wall and to the north, including parts of Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Hebei, northern Shanxi, Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai. This area is also the main producing area of common buckwheat. 2 Northern summer buckwheat region: This area is centered on the Yellow River Basin, bounded to the south by Qinling mountain and Huaihe River, west by the Loess Plateau and east by the Yellow Sea, where is also a traditional winter wheat region. Buckwheat is planted as a second crop, generally seeded in June-July. 3 Southern autumn and winter buckwheat region: This region includes the south of Huaihe River, the middle and low reaches of, and the south of the Yangtze River. This region has a wide area, warm climate, long frost-free period and abundant rainfall. It is dominated by rice with buckwheat used to fill vacant fields, and is sowed in September-November. 4 Southwest high land spring and autumn buckwheat region: This region includes Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and the hills of Sichuan, Hubei, Hunan and Guizhou. It has a high altitude, as well as complicated ecological and geographical environments, with more clouds, less sunshine and large temperature differences between day and night. Tartary buckwheat is mainly planted in this region.The processing of buckwheat products is an important part of the value-chain.Early enterprises engaged in buckwheat processing were very small and were mainly based in the areas of buckwheat production. The processing products were mostly primary products, such as flour and noodles from common buckwheat, and flour and tea from tartary buckwheat. In recent years, buckwheatprocessing technologies have developed rapidly, and the product-market chain has extended dramatically. New products include kernels, roasted buckwheat rice, instant noodles, biscuits, beer, liquor, flavonoids, shell pillows, leaf powder, etc. Some traditional buckwheat food such as nest head, vinegar and powderedPromoting buckwheat in China 113 jelly also have been revitalized and popularized for driving the consumption of buckwheat, and achieving good economic and social benefits from the crop. Buckwheat is largely consumed by farmers themselves. However, considerable quantities are also made available to local and international markets. Bioversity and the Shanxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences worked on buckwheat value-chains with farmers, processors, traders and consumers to promote its production, processing and marketing, and contribute to income generation for farmers by adding the value to buckwheat produce and linking farmers to markets. However, great changes are have been taking place in buckwheat markets in China in recent years. With the increase of domestic consumption demand driven by its health value, China, an exporter of buckwheat, began to import buckwheat in large quantities -for example, 270,000 tons were imported in 2018 and 365,000 tons in 2019.China attaches importance to the R&D of buckwheat. In 2011, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) integrated buckwheat into the modern agriculture technology system by establishing the national buckwheat R&D center, including laboratories and experimental stations tasked with the roles of organizing and coordinating the efforts in buckwheat R&D in the country, involving germplasm and breeding, cultivation, pest and disease control and processing. In 2017, the MARA, together with other relevant ministries and commissions, formulated the Outline of Action Plan on Advancing Special Agricultural Products, including buckwheat. Some local governments in buckwheat-producing provinces also issued relevant policies related to buckwheat R&D. In 2014, the government of Liangshan Prefecture of Sichuan Province promulgated the \"Suggestions to Promote the Development of Tartary Buckwheat Industry;\" In Guizhou Province, buckwheat was regarded as a green agricultural product in its \"Green Agricultural Products Project Work Plan (2017Plan ( -2020)).\" In 2019, the government of Shanxi Province formulated the \"Suggestions on Accelerating the Development of the Whole Industrial Chain of Miscellaneous Cereals\" including buckwheat as one of the eight miscellaneous crops prioritized.Due to the extension of high-yield crops such as corn and potato, the acreage of buckwheat is unstable, and many local varieties are at risk of being lost. In addition, the identification and evaluation of buckwheat germplasm resources are not sufficient, and many social, ecological and economic values of buckwheat remain unrevealed and underutilized.Buckwheat yield-per-hectare is low, and generally is below than one ton per hectare. There is a significant gap in productivity, specifically, a lower benefit from growing buckwheat than that from other crops such as potato. Therefore, the benefit of planting buckwheat has become the main concern of farmers and local governments, and is also a key problem that needs to be solved through research on improving yield and market value.The annual consumption of buckwheat in China is about 0.4 million tons, less than a half kilogram per capita. As buckwheat is recognized as a nutritional and healthy food, a diet centering on it has entered the public's cookbooks. Therefore, there is a huge potential for expanding the consumption of buckwheat in nutritional and healthy diets in China.Although the central and local governments have issued some support policies for buckwheat R&D, there is still a big gap compared to those for staple crops, including insufficient funds for research, weak in personnel capacity, lack of seed subsidies and fewer opportunities to secure loans from state-owned banks. Therefore, the sustainable development of buckwheat needs more favorable policies at the local and national levels.Efforts should be made to effectively evaluate and use buckwheat biodiversity for food, nutrition and income generation. More landraces and improved varieties should be made available for responding to consumer demand for nutritional and healthy foods and managing climate risks under changing environments. To achieve this objective, the following research activities should be undertaken:• Strengthening integrated conservation of buckwheat biodiversity through linking ex situ collections in genebank to in situ conservation in the wild and field.• Evaluating and identifying buckwheat biodiversity for useful traits with integrated morphological and molecular approaches. • Using local buckwheat biodiversity to improve yield and nutrition quality for new varieties and meet the needs of farmers, processers and consumers through integrated modern and participatory breeding methods.Planting mode and farming practices are critical for productivity and quality in buckwheat production. Strengthening the research on cultivation technology of buckwheat will contribute to increasing the yield potential, highlighting its nutritional characteristics and improving benefits from planting buckwheat. To achieve this, the following research activities should be strengthened:• Promoting green production of buckwheat with low inputs to maintain the nutritional and health value. • Promoting multiple cropping with buckwheat, by filling seasonal gaps to increase the efficiency of land use as well as farmers' incomes. • Advancing the mechanization for planting and harvesting to address labor shortage issues.Processing and marketing is an important part of the buckwheat value-chain and an effective way to realize the nutritional value of the crop. Only by making buckwheat popular with the masses, will consumers realize its nutritional and health value. To achieve this, the following research activities should be strengthened:• Promoting the value-chain of buckwheat by linking farmers to processors, traders and consumers. • Understanding and being aware of the nutritional and health value of buckwheat diets. • Promoting communication to change consumer behavior for dietary diversity.The external environment of buckwheat R&D includes relevant supporting policies and research programmes. Through strengthening the partnership with research institutions, enterprises and farmers to understand their need for support the relevant policy suggestions should be put forward to relevant government departments. To achieve this objective, the following policies must be promoted:• Subsidizing buckwheat seed production and distribution.• Financial support to support buckwheat activities, including funds for research, loans for businesses and small loans for farmers. • Enhancing national action in mainstreaming buckwheat for nutritious and healthy diets.Buckwheat is an underutilized crop, mainly used for food, feed and medical raw materials. Buckwheat biodiversity is the material basis for its improvement and options for farmers to improve their livelihoods. With the support of relevant national programmes and international collaboration, great progress has been made in buckwheat research on biodiversity conservation, variety improvement, production practice and food processing and marketing. The gaps and opportunities for further development of buckwheat have been identified in this chapter, and key action plans were put forward to promote the conservation of biodiversity for variety improvement, farming practices for high productivity, the value-chain for income generation and relevant policies for the revival and sustainable development of the buckwheat industry. DOI: 10.4324/9781003044802-10Mexico is a megadiverse country, harbouring at least 23,314 species of vascular plants, around half of which are endemic (Villaseñor, 2016) and distributed in ecosystems ranging from arid to wet and tropical to temperate types (Sarukhán et al., 2009). This high biodiversity is complemented by considerable cultural richness, encompassing 62 ethnic groups speaking 290 languages and over 360 linguistic variants (Eberhard, 2020), making Mexico among the top-ten countries for linguistic diversity and cultural richness (Sarukhán et al., 2009;Casas et al., 2016a) and home to one of the most important biocultural legacies of the world (Sarukhán et al., 2009). Such tremendous biocultural diversity has resulted in more than 9,000 plants with known uses (Casas et al., 2016a), including 2,168 documented as edible (Mapes and Basurto, 2016). From prehistoric times, southern Mexico together with Central America has been a centre of origin of plant domestication ( Harlan, 1971;MacNeish, 1992;Vavilov et al., 1992), including for many current main crops, such as maize (Zea mays), beans (Phaseolus vulgaris, P. coccineus, P. acutifolius), pumpkins (Cucurbita argyrosperma, C. pepo), and chilies (Capsicum annuum). These crops contributed to shaping the agricultural system known as 'milpa' -meaning cultivated field in Nahuatl -which gave origin to and sustained Mesoamerican cultures (Moreno-Calles et al., 2010).In Mexico, there are nearly 200 native species of plants bearing clear signs of domestication. Moreover, nearly 1,200 species are under some form of management, such as let standing and planting enhancement, or special care dedicated to desirable plants. Such interventions may affect vegetation composition and promote particular 'types' (phenotypes of some species with favourable traits) and incipient domestication processes (Casas et al., 2007(Casas et al., , 2016b)).Status and priorities for their conservation and sustainable use Tiziana Ulian, Hugh W. Pritchard, Alejandro Casas, Efisio Mattana, Udayangani Liu, Elena Castillo-Lorenzo, Michael Way, Patricia Dávila Aranda, and Rafael Lira Within the edible plants basket, plentiful are the neglected and underutilized species (NUS) relatively unknown outside Mesoamerica. These are of importance locally for both food security and people's livelihoods. Being highly adapted to marginal environments, they contribute significantly to agroecosystem resilience and are crucial in our efforts to fight food and nutritional insecurity and help communities cope with pervasive climate change (Padulosi et al.. 2011;Ulian et al., 2020). This chapter reviews NUS in Mexico, in relation to the urgent need to secure their conservation and promote their sustainable use.From the great diversity of edible plants occurring in Mexico, it is possible to cluster species in three main groups:1 Traditional vegetables, such as the quelites (plural for 'quilitl' in Nahuatl, meaning 'greens'). These are herbs from several plant families, mainly used as food, but also include some species of trees and shrubs with edible flowers (Bye and Linares, 2016). Examples include Anoda cristata (alache), Crotalaria pumila (chipil or chipilin), Amaranthus hybridus, A. hypochondriacus, A. cruentus (quelites or amarantos), Dysphania ambrosioides (epazote), Chenopodium berlandieri (huauzontle), and Porophyllum ruderale subsp. macrocephalum (pápalo or pápaloquelite) whose young leaves -and in some cases inflorescences or seeds -are used as food (leaves from this taxon and D. ambrosioides are used as condiment as well as in anthelmintic treatments [Frei et al., 1998]). Young leaves and flowers from trees, such as Leucaena spp. (in náhuatl 'guaxquilitl' meaning quelite de guaje) are eaten as vegetables (Bye and Linares, 2016). It is very common that quelites are gathered in the wild for family consumption, grown in marginal cultivations, or sold in traditional and regional markets (Bretting, 1982;Casas et al., 2007;Blanckaert et al., 2012;Casas et al., 2016a,b;Mapes and Basurto, 2016;Vibrans, 2016). 2 Edible flowers and/or fruits of agave and cacti. Since prehistoric times, the leaves, flowers, and shortened stem (corm) of numerous Agave species have been used for fibres, food, and beverages. Alcoholic drinks such as pulque are at least 3,000 years old, while distilled beverages (mescal, bacanora, sotol, and tequila) are more recent innovations. Some species have been used also for medicinal and ceremonial purposes. Incipient or advanced domestication has been documented only in few species (i.e., A. fourcroydes, A. salmiana, A. americana, A. mapisaga, A. tequilana, A. angustifolia, A. hookeri) (Figueredo-Urbina et al., 2017;Álvarez-Ríos et al., 2020). Demographic and genetic studies indicate that around 20 species (including A. marmorata, A. potatorum, A. kerchovei, A. tequilana blue variety, A. inaequidens) are at a high risk of extinction due to the degradation of their habitat, low genetic variation and/or overexploitation (Colunga García- Marín et al., 1996;Figueredo-Urbina et al., 2017;Aguirre-Planter et al., 2020).120 Tiziana Ulian et al.Among the cacti, the Opuntia species have been used since prehistory. This group of around 80 species and 200 local varieties native to Mexico (Reyes-Aguero et al., 2005) are used as living fences, to enhance soil conservation and/or combat desertification. Its cladodes (modified stems called nopales or nopalitos in Spanish) and fruits (grouped into two types, tunassweet -and xoconostles -sour) of about 10 species, are appreciated as sources of food, forage, medicinal remedies, additives for cosmetics, and used for feeding cochineal insects from which a carmin pigment is obtained (widely used as colourant in the food and cosmetic industries). Artificial selection (e.g., spineless cladodes), traditional management (Opuntia streptacantha), or partial domestication (O. hyptiacantha) or full domestication (O. ficus-indica) are known. Several food products, juices, and alcoholic beverages are commercially produced from cladodes and fruits. For example, 'colonche' (also referred to as coloche and nochoctli) is fermented from fruits of different cactus species, including columnar cacti (Ojeda-Linares et al, 2020). More recently, there has been an improvement of quality and safety, reduction of production costs, and development of marketing strategies for products of Opuntia (Illoldi-Rangel et al., 2012;López-Palacios et al., 2012).Several species of columnar cacti are used as food (e.g., Escontria chiotillaStenocereus stellatus [pitaya de agosto] and S. pruinosus [pitaya de mayo]) (Casas and Barbera, 2002;Casas et al., 2007Casas et al., , 2016b). These have great economic and cultural importance in several regions of Mexico (including in the Tehuacán Valley and the Balsas River Basin in the south-central region). The fruits of wild-cultivated Cephalocereus tetetzo (tetecho) and Pachycereus weberi (cardón) are highly appreciated by local people and are commonly left standing in agroforestry systems. 3 Fruits of trees and shrubs. Mexico has at least 2,885 native tree species (Tellez et al., 2020), many of which produce fruits that have been consumed by native populations since pre-Hispanic times (González and De-lAmo, 2012). Four species of well-documented management practices and domestication processes are Brosimum alicastrum (ramón), Leucaena esculenta (guaje), Sideroxylon palmeri (tempesquistle), and Ceiba aesculifolia ssp. brevifolia (pochote) (Casas and Caballero, 1996;González-Soberanis and Casas, 2004;Avendaño et al., 2006). Brosimum alicastrum is one dominant tree species that grows in perennial and sub-deciduous tropical forests along both coasts of Mexico. The fresh pulp of the fruit and the seeds are edible, while the leaves provide good fodder for animals. Its seeds, roasted and ground, are used as a coffee substitute and for preparing dark-coloured dough used for making bread and tortillas. They are rich in carbohydrates and protein (12% in dry weight), tryptophan (an amino acid poorly represented in maize), and also contain calcium, phosphorus, iron, and vitamins A, B, and C. The abundance of this tree in Mayan archaeological sites is an indication of its management and cultivation by this ethnic group (Mapes and Basurto 2016).Leucaena esculenta [guaje] is mainly used as food by the Mixtec, Nahua, and Tlapanec peoples in the state of Guerrero, as well as by the Popoloca people in the Tehuacán Valley, Central Mexico. Its leaf buds, flowers, seeds, and young pods are eaten, and local gatherers have ensured morphological divergence between managed and unmanaged wild populations (Casas and Caballero, 1996;Casas et al., 2007;Blancas et al., 2010). Sideroxylon palmeri fruits are consumed in the Tehuacán Valley, where the species is widely commercialised (González-Soberanis and Casas, 2004). Flowers, roots, and seeds of C. aesculifolia subsp. parvifolia are consumed by local people, while stems and branches are used as firewood. Occasionally, the bark is used as a medicinal remedy to cure kidney disorders and skin infections, as well as to decrease blood sugar levels. In addition, locals protect individual trees and can favour varieties with purple-reddish fruits (Avendaño et al., 2006).In Mesoamerica, the Sapotaceae is among the most important fruit tree families (González and DelAmo, 2012). Manilkara zapota (zapote or chicozapote) grows in tropical forests in southern Mexico, where its fruits are consumed raw, used for making preserves or preparing sherbets and ice cream. At the global level, this species is better known for its latex, which is used in the production of the chewing gum. Pouteria campechiana (zapote amarillo, canistel), whose fruits are consumed raw, also thrives in the tropical forests of Mexico and is also commonly found in home gardens. Similarly, P. sapota (mamey), also occurring in tropical forests, is much appreciated for its fruits, which are consumed raw, or used in the preparation of sherbets, ice cream, and refreshing beverages. Mix cropping of these trees with other species is known, e.g citrus, ornamentals, and timber species, and they can be found in cocoa and coffee plantations to provide shade. Chrysophyllum cainito (caimito or cayumito) is a common tree of tropical forests with two variants of its fruit (purple and yellow/green) which are edible (Mapes and Basurto, 2016). Finally, about 13 species of Pinus (pinos piñoneros) are valued for their edible nuts (the most important being Pinus cembroides, P. nelsonii, P. maximartinezii and P. culminicola). These are distributed mainly in northern Mexico, and their seeds, rich in lipids and proteins, are collected from the wild and are used in desserts and snacks, and marketed all over the country (Mapes and Basurto, 2016).Traditional forms of plant management in Mexico range from the cultivation and selection of plant varieties to different types of management in situ, and to the gathering of plant products directly from the wild (Blancas et al., 2010). The degree of artificial selection and divergence between managed and wild populations is guided by farmers' needs (Casas et al., 2007;Blancas et al., 2010) and multiple approaches might be applied in the same field (Blancas et al., 2010; 122 Tiziana Ulian et al. -Calles and Casas, 2010). When plants are cultivated, they are sown by seeds or planted in agriculture fields or home gardens (Blanckaert et al., 2004). Some useful plants (wild or weedy forms) that already grow there may be spared by farmers and may be protected in various ways against herbivores, competitors, cold spells, intense solar radiation, and drought (Blancas et al., 2010). Their presence can be also increased through the dispersal of sexual or vegetative propagules. Among those plants maintained through seed dispersal, there are many quelites, such as A. hybridus, C. pumila, and A. cristata (Mapes and Basurto 2016).In contrast, many species of columnar cacti, several Opuntia species, agaves, and trees (e.g., L. esculenta and S. palmeri) are multiplied through vegetative propagation (Blancas et al., 2010). Nonetheless, many plant products are still extracted directly from the wild, based on sound ecological understanding and following sustainable practices, as recorded in the Guerrero Mountains, the Tehuacán Valley (Casas et al., 2007;Blancas et al., 2010), and the Sierra Tarahumara of the Chihuahua State (LaRochelle and Berkes, 2003). Since February 2002, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew), and the Facultad de Estudios Superiores, Iztacala of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Fes-I UNAM) have been banking seeds of wild plant species, including crop wild relatives from the arid and semiarid areas of Mexico (León-Lobos et al., 2012). Seeds have been collected and deposited at Fes-I UNAM, with duplicates stored at RBG Kew's Millennium Seed Bank (MSB), under an Access and Benefit Sharing Agreement. This has been achieved in the framework of the Millennium Seed Bank Project (now Partnership), which acts globally to safeguard plant diversity, focusing in particular on plants most at risk and most useful for the future of humankind (Liu et al., 2018). The partnership in Mexico served as a catalyst also for two further projects, viz. 'The MGU -Useful Plant Project' and the 'Science-based conservation of tree species in Mexico'. Overall, 2,598 wild plant species (more than 10 % of the Mexican flora) have so far been conserved ex situ as seeds in Mexico, with duplicates stored in the MSB. However, only 62 seed samples of 21 species from the most important groups of NUS mentioned here have been safeguarded through seed banking, and it is hoped that such a significant gap in the long-term conservation of NUS in Mexico can be filled in the near future.In situ and on-farm conservation realised by local communities in Mexico is an important facet of integrated plant conservation (Blanckaert et al., 2004(Blanckaert et al., , 2007;;Rodríguez-Arévalo et al., 2017). Traditional management systems have been recognised, in fact, to have higher capacity for conserving biodiversity and ensuring the resilience of socioecological systems than industrial systems (Berkes et al., 2000;Blancas et al., 2010;Chappell and LaValle, 2011).Many NUS in Mexico do occur in a wide range of traditional agroecosystems, such as milpa (corn-bean-squash field), chilar (chili pepper field), frijolar (bean field), and cafetal (coffee groves) (Mapes and Basurto, 2016), or are grown as crops in forests and agroforestry systems (Moreno-Calles et al., 2013). These are crucial places for the conservation of biodiversity and represent important reservoirs of plant genetic diversity (Blanckaert et al., 2004;Larios et al., 2013).Seed banking is highly complementary to these traditional management systems. However, seed conservation needs to be better targeted to adequately capture the great genetic diversity of NUS present in Mexico. More research on seed germination requirements and dormancy is also needed to support large-scale species propagation. Moreover, seed conservation is still highly challenging for numerous species with recalcitrant, desiccation-sensitive seeds, therefore alternative conservation measures (e.g., cryopreservation of embryos and embryonic axes) should also be deployed (Li and Pritchard, 2009;Wyse et al., 2018). In addition, there is a need to promote the 'cross pollination' of ideas between agriculturalists focusing on major crops and farmers working on traditional forms of management (Turner et al., 2011), if we are to really strengthen the development of sustainable agriculture practices.Although NUS are mainly collected for family consumption, some species are exchanged among households (Arellanes et al., 2013;Blancas et al., 2013) or are traded in markets (tianquiste), including those in big cities (Arellanes et al., 2013;Farfán-Heredia et al., 2018). Local and regional media, schools, NGOs, social organisations, and some governmental institutions promote the conservation and sustainable use of native plant resources and their associated traditional knowledge. However, greater mainstreaming and inclusion of NUS in policy and legal frameworks is much needed, as noted in 'The National Report on the Status of The Phyto-genetic Resources for Agriculture and Food Supply' (Molina-Moreno and Córdova-Téllez, 2006). In this regard, the Mexican Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO), serves as an important bridge between academia, governmental agencies, and other sectors of society, by compiling and sharing knowledge on biological diversity, and promoting its conservation and sustainable use. 1 CONABIO now leads the project 'Securing the Future of Global Agriculture in the Face of Climate Change by Conserving the Genetic Diversity of the Traditional Agro-ecosystems of Mexico,' that seeks to support agrobiodiversity conservation, sustainable use, and resilience, 2 in line with the Nagoya Protocol of the Convention on Biological Diversity (https://www. cbd.int/abs/). However, strong participatory-driven decision-making (Padulosi et al., 2011;Noorani et al., 2015;FAO, 2019), economic incentives, and subsidies (Padulosi et al., 2019) are needed for such a process to be truly successful.Like other elements of nature such as minerals and fossil fuels, plant genetic resources are not dispersed evenly around the globe, being found in greater abundance in certain regions, especially in tropical countries (Shulman, 1986). The process of evolution, adaptation and migration of human beings across the planet and the exchange of germplasm was and continues to be decisive for the great variety of grains, fruits, vegetables, roots and tubers available, even if the majority of this diversity is still neglected and underutilized (NUS). During the period of the world's great navigations, between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, there was a substantial exchange of species (Hue, 2008) and some acclimatized on different continents, which became the basis of the world economy, resulting in strong global interdependence. Another important contingent of species, native to each region, was slowly being replaced by exotic species that were being introduced and, over time, these species stopped being used and fell into relative obscurity, though pockets of this biodiversity have been maintained by many different communities. Thus, thousands of native species have not received their due attention or support from research, despite the fact that their economic value and nutritional advantages have already been demonstrated in many instances (Coradin et al., 2018). With the greatest biodiversity on the planet, Brazil seeks, on the one hand, to increase the production of exotic commercial species that form the basis of most mainstream agriculture and food production in the country. On the other hand, also seeks to draw increasing attention to the wealth of NUS, native or naturalized, which can become new cultivation options, diversifying the agricultural and food portfolio, and bringing economic and socio-environmental advantages while also addressing many of the increasing malnutrition, health and environmental concerns of the country.Nuno Rodrigo Madeira, Valdely Ferreira Kinupp and Lidio Coradin Many initiatives from different sectors of the federal and state governments, non-governmental organizations and the private sector have emerged to expand knowledge of NUS in the country. By valuing these species, which are more resilient and adaptable to adverse soil and climate conditions, thus requiring fewer external inputs, people's perception of their potential is increased and there is now greater awareness of the opportunities and possibilities of using such a vast diversity.Brazil presents a great variety of biomes and climates. Its geographical, environmental, climatic and cultural diversity is reflected in its food diversity, one of the greatest on the planet, as shown by the several sources of carbohydrates (rice, beans, corn, wheat, cassava, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams) and meats (cattle, poultry, pigs, fish, goats and sheep) consumed.When the Portuguese arrived in Brazil, in the year 1500, most Indigenous Peoples (around 300 ethnic groups at the time, 180 nowadays) had a diet based on cassava, sweet potatoes and corn, complemented by hunting and fishing. However, as hunters and gathers, there is also evidence of the use of many other species (Lopes, 2017).During the colonization process, intense cultural miscegenation took place, with the introduction of exotic ingredients that joined those already present in Brazilian territory. Cascudo (1983) concluded that Europeans introduced technique and sophistication in taste to existing Indigenous and African elements. Madeira et al. (2008) mention the exchange of vegetables by the Portuguese, directly and intentionally but also indirectly, through the enslavement of Africans.After the 1960s, with intense urbanization and globalization, there was a loss of the reference of the home gardens production and a strong influence of market power in food choices and in the strengthening of large supermarket chains, driving dietary simplification and prioritizing species with structured production chains, resulting in the reduced use of local species with subsequent social, economic and environmental impacts (Brazil, 2013).However, some NUS with significant cultural importance in certain regions of Brazil continued to be used, mainly by local people (Brasil, 2015). Table 10.1 presents examples of these NUS, including assaí, cupuaçu, peach palm, Brazilian nut, jambu and waterleaf in the north; buriti, babassu, uricuri, umbu, hibiscus and yam in the northeast; Brazilian grape, pereskia, taro, arracacha, taioba and Malabar spinach in the southeast; feijoa, pindo, horseradish, Brazilian pine and mate in the south; and pequi, baru, Brazilian copal, cagaita and guariroba in the mid-west (Coradin et al., 2018). Other species that were once part of daily life are now largely forgotten, including arrowroot, mangarito, yam bean and sweetcorn root (Table 10.1), in a process termed \"food extinction\" by Madeira and Botrel (2019).In Brazil, there is some confusion regarding the use of the term \"NUS\" and which species call under this terminology proposed by IPGRI (2002). Other terminologies also used in Brazil are \"traditional vegetables\" (Madeira et al., 2013), \"unconventional vegetables\" (Cardoso et al., 1998) and PANC -\"nonconventional edible plants\" in Portuguese (Kinupp and Lorenzi, 2014), the last of which is nowadays the most accepted term in Portuguese for NUS. Kinupp and Lorenzi (2014) defined PANC as \"unconventional and nonordinary plants that have one or more parts that can be used as food, or even unconventional parts of conventional plants, as banana navel or papaya tree marrow.\" Madeira and Kinupp (2016) add that PANC don't have a structured production chain. This term being very expressive and euphonic in Brazil (PANC in Portuguese sounds exactly like \"punk,\" giving it a curious double meaning) seeks to promote and disseminate the use of these plants that are still considered unusual by the vast majority of the Brazilian population.In Brazil, a considerable number of studies on individual species can be found, but academic studies on the broader themes of NUS or PANC are rare or few in number. The lack of studies regarding the cultivation and promotion of NUS use is a real concern and requires special attention being given to further research, as well as development that might stimulate their greater conservation, production and consumption. In this context, a series of initiatives related to the promotion of NUS use in Brazil have been developed and continue to be encouraged. One classic work is the Dictionary of Useful Plants of Brazil and Cultivated Exotic Plants, written by Pio Corrêa and published by the Ministry of Agriculture between 1926 and 1978 in six volumes, with the collaboration of Penna for volumes 3-6, and reissued in 1984. With the objective of promoting regional food culture, Cardoso (1997) released the book Non-conventional vegetables from the Amazon, emphasizing their full adaptability to high temperatures and humidity and low soil fertility.The sustainable use of the Brazilian genetic resources is limited to areas of natural occurrence and involves complex activities, from bioprospecting and research to the transformation, production and creation of new markets and commercialization.To tackle this issue, the Ministry of the Environment has developed, since the 2000s, the \"Plants for the Future\" initiative, which aims to identify native species that can be used for crop diversification to expand opportunities for investment by the private and public sectors and to reduce the vulnerability of the agri-food system.As biodiversity is used and valued, its conservation is enhanced and the number of species used is expanded, together with its contribution to climate change adaptation. Through partnerships with governmental and non-governmental institutions, the academic and business sectors and civil society, the initiative has been building strategies that also contribute to the rescue and valorization of knowledge and flavors of traditional and regional Brazilian cuisine (Santiago and Coradin, 2018).More than 800 species have been prioritized in the five geopolitical regions of Brazil. In each of these regions, the species were organized into different groups of use: food, aromatic, medicinal, oilseed and ornamental, among others. A richly illustrated and technically comprehensive book has been published for each region (Figure 10.1). In 2011, the first book, Native species of Brazilian flora with actual or potential economic value: Plants for the Future -South Region, was published. In 2017, the book for the mid-west region was released; in 2018, the one for the northeast region; and the books for the north and southeast regions are set to be launched in 2021, concluding this series, which has involved the contributions of hundreds of experts.These books collectively and for the first time present to the wider Brazilian society quality information about the value o f native biodiversity for health, food security, wellbeing, employment opportunities and income generation -all of which are key objectives of the Plants for the Future initiative. It's the first effort of this kind carried out in a megadiverse country. It also represents an important step for the implementation, in Brazil, of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), as well as of the Targets of the Global  Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) and will no doubt be an important platform for the country to enhance the conservation and use of NUS in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) post-2020 global biodiversity framework.Furthermore, the partnership between Plants for the Future and the Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition project 1 has enabled greater collaborations with different sectors of society, in addition to creating new opportunities for mainstreaming biodiversity into already existing federal initiatives related to food and nutrition (Figure 10.2) (Hunter et al., 2020). This facilitated the capacity building of many technicians and students and the publication of recipe book -Brazilian Biodiversity: tastes and flavours. With 335 classic and contemporary recipes, the book has revived traditional flavors and techniques, presenting new tastes and textures (Santiago & Coradin, 2018). This partnership also facilitated the organization of a list of native Brazilian socio-biodiversity species of nutritional value (Ordinance MMA/MDS nº 284/2018) to guide governmental actions, while also creating incentives for family farmers who produce and commercialize these species (Coradin et al., 2018).In 2007, Kinupp defended his doctoral thesis on native plants known as bushes and weeds in the urban area of Porto Alegre, Brazil, whose economic potential was then little-known (Kinupp, 2007). He estimated the local floristic wealth of 1,500 species, out of which 311 (21%) could be used for food, proving the NUS in Brazil 133 undeniable potential of NUS for enriching the human diet. As of 2020, this document had been accessed online more than 54,000 times. Later, Kinupp and Lorenzi (2014) released the book Non-conventional Edible Plants (PANC) in Brazil: identification guide, nutritional aspects and illustrated recipes, which is a significant reference volume in Brazil about NUS. The book is richly illustrated (with 2,510 photos) and presents data on 351 species (205 of which are native), including a brief botanical characterization, agronomic recommendations and three culinary recipes for each species, totaling 1,053 recipes. This book and the associated research that has arisen from it has led to considerable advances in the promotion of NUS in Brazil. Through interaction with traditional and social media, this work has given fresh impetus to the topic and has helped shine a light on some of the uses of NUS in daily life of Brazilian society, especially for those in search of healthy diets. Embrapa Vegetables, located in the Federal District, maintains an important collection of traditional vegetables (Figure 10.3), with about 400 accessions and 80 NUS. It is responsible for research focusing on the rescue of traditional vegetables, of which many are native while others are considered \"naturalized\" thanks to their full climatic adaptation. More recently, some NUS new to Brazil that have traditionally been used in other countries, such as moringa and chaya (Table 10.1), have been incorporated into the Embrapa collection due to their resilience and adaptability. This work began officially in 2006 and has been responsible for building partnerships with different institutions working on traditional vegetables, and for encouraging activities in different regions of the country. These vegetables were once maintained by farmers, which is why the term \"traditional vegetables\" is used to refer to them. Besides the maintenance of the collection and conservation of the species, the studies encourage the cultivation and consumption of these vegetables, improving production systems, diversifying production and increasing the income of family farmers (Madeira et al., 2013). Source: Lidio Coradin (used with permission).In a partnership between Embrapa, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply, and the Technical Assistance and Rural Extension Agency of Minas Gerais State, including family farmers' organizations, the cultivation and consumption of traditional vegetables was encouraged in Minas Gerais through the establishment of community seed-banks, the organization of events (technical lectures, field days, culinary and agronomic workshops, etc.) and the publication of booklets and books (Brasil, 2013;Pedrosa, 2013), benefiting more than 50 municipalities and 5,000 family farmers. Other important partners of this work are the Agricultural Research Company of Minas Gerais, Viçosa Federal University and Lavras Federal University, all of which have established collections of traditional vegetables and have carried out important research on the topic. These actions were also expanded to the states of São Paulo and Santa Catarina, through partnerships with research and rural extension state agencies (Castro and Devide, 2013;Calegari and Matos Filho, 2017), also influencing the states of Goiás, Paraná and Bahia.Many NUS have recognized functional effects as nutraceuticals. Important nutritional studies were carried out by the VP Functional Nutrition Center, analyzing the nutritional value of several NUS, showing that they contained high levels of proteins, minerals and functional compounds (Paschoal et al., 2017).The Ministry of Health, in partnership with several institutions, released Dietary Guidelines for the Brazilian Population (Brasil, 2014) with ten steps for establishing an adequate and healthy diet. They also published the book Brazilian Regional Foods (Brasil, 2015) with 191 foods (123 NUS) emphasizing that healthy eating involves, besides the choice of suitable foods, biodiversity conservation and the recognition of cultural heritage.The Slow Food organization has described 186 food communities in Brazil, out of which 110 are food plant species and 98 are NUS (Slow Food Brasil, 2020).Another important aspect of the promotion of NUS in Brazil is the organization of technical and scientific events in the country. In 2007, in Porto Seguro, Bahia, the 47 th Brazilian Horticulture Congress prioritized the theme \"Rescuing and Valuing Underutilized Vegetables.\" In 2018, Brazilian biomes and their NUS were the themes of the 14 th International Congress of Functional Nutrition in São Paulo.In 2017, Embrapa Vegetables and its partners organized, in Brasília, the 1 st HortPANC -National Meeting for Non-conventional Vegetables, focused on agriculture (Figure 10.4), but also promoting dialogue about nutrition and cooking and linking producers with cooks and chefs. The second HortPANC was held in São Paulo in 2018; the third in Curitiba, Paraná State, in 2019; and the fourth was postponed to 2021 in Salvador, Bahia State, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important to highlight the growing number of researchers, and related initiatives, in Brazil that are developing studies with NUS. Today more than 1,000 researchers, professors and students use the acronym PANC in their curriculums, as registered in the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq) platform.Finally, it's noteworthy that the interest of the population and the use of NUS are growing in Brazil, which can be verified by the large number of social media communities that are using the acronym PANC on platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram. And, as a response to that, there is a growing number of farmers and entrepreneurs investing in the production of NUS.Actions to promote the valorization, production and the consumption of NUS, which are part of Brazil's socio-cultural heritage, are very important not only for food security but also for food and nutritional sovereignty, since they contribute to increasing diversity and richness in diets, in addition to promoting good eating habits that encompass cultural, economic and social aspects. Such actions also bring to light more resilient species with a high capacity to mitigate the negative effects of climate change.Current European agriculture results from half a century of dramatic transformation, mostly driven by the Common Agricultural Policy, which, after being launched in 1962, pursued food security and self-sufficiency through increased productivity and farm restructuring at the expense of crop diversity. Despite policy shifts from a productivist to what Ward et al. (2008) call a post-productivist paradigm in the 1970s and 1980s (mostly aiming at managing produce surplus, and balancing agricultural production with environmental protection and rural development), the picture of European cropland is today far from being biodiverse. The development of European agriculture has been characterised by high concentration and specialisation, which led to a remarkable hegemony of a small number of crops, both in cultivated areas and in breeding efforts. In fact, Europe is no exception to the dominance of the \"big three\" crops in food systems -rice, maize and wheat -that cover 40% of worldwide arable land and provide 55% of humankind's total caloric intake (Stamp et al. 2012).Looking at the EU's combinable crops area -the sector where biodiversity loss is most severe (Stamp et al., 2012), and which this chapter mostly focuses onthere is a striking dominance of cereal crops (82%), followed by a 16% of oilseed crops and just 2% of protein crops. As of 2020, 64% of the total combinable area is covered by just three species: common wheat, grain maize and barley. The European common catalogue of plant varieties shows a similar picture: only two species (common wheat and maize) have more than 2,000 registered varieties, and three (barley, oilseed rape and sunflower) have more than 1,000, whereas all protein grain crops comprise 633 varieties, of which 411 for just one species (Pisum sativum). Both the area partitioning and the number of registered varieties show the remarkable dominance of major cereal (common wheat, maize) and oilseed (sunflower, oilseed rape) crops, and the alarming trend of disappearing grain legumes (Zander et al., 2016) in the agricultural as well as in the research and development landscape. It is against this extremely hegemonic landscape that the diversification of the seed and crops basket should be framed, as part of an overall transition towards more sustainable agricultural system (Chable et al., 2020).With awareness that long-term stable and sustainable development through locally adapted agricultural systems will depend on increasing crop biodiversity, the EU H2020 Framework Programme (2014-2020) targeted, under the Societal Challenges 2 \"Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry\", the rediscovery and valorisation of underutilized genetic resources for food and agriculture.As part of this effort, the project \"Embedding crop diversity and networking for local high-quality food systems -DIVERSIFOOD (2014-2019)\" has explored a wide range of species, both major and those actually neglected and underutilized, and the potential of diversification in the context of communities of users. This project aimed to go beyond mere conservation of diversity, emphasising innovation and appreciating these genetic resources as a key asset to restore agricultural diversity. In a continuous debate over the meaning of \"orphan\", \"neglected\", \"underutilized\" and \"alternative\" crops, the DIVERSIFOOD project formulated a working definition according to which an underutilized crop is classified as \"a plant genetic resource with limited current use and potential to improve and diversify cropping systems and supply chains in a given context\". According to this conceptualisation, underutilized crops are not to be looked at in isolation.On the contrary, the focus needs to shift from the plants to the processes of their (re)introduction as related to agricultural diversification in specific contexts. In the European context, at least three interconnected processes are worth exploring to purse this goal: (i) shifting cultivation areas; (ii) reintroducing \"minor\" species and (iii) diversifying the genetic structure of major and minor species.Shifts in cultivation areas of cultivated plant are a process that has characterised human history for millennia. As demonstrated by Vavilov (1935), cultivated plants were domesticated in relatively small foci, the \"centres of origin\", from which their cultivation expanded into larger areas. In several instances, species have crossed geographical barriers, like the acquisition of a huge variety of species in Europe following the colonisation of the Americas, sometimes generating further diversification centres far from the centre of origin, like for maize in Europe (Thenaillot and Charcosset, 2011). Shifting cultivation areas is a continuous process and is still ongoing (Khoury et al., 2016).A first notable trend is that some species start to be cultivated commercially in a region whose climate is not too dissimilar from their home region, as e.g., for quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Wild.). This annual species, a staple food for Andean Amerindian people going back millennia, is currently cultivated in 95 countries worldwide, notably in Europe, as a result of significant research efforts in the 1990s (Bazile et al., 2016). Quinoa is possibly a \"model species\" of underutilized crop, for its success as well as for the problematic implications of such a success. The renaissance of its demand and production was due to the discovery of its interesting nutritional properties (Repo-Carrasco et al., 2003) as well as to its high level of genetic diversity, which facilitates its adaptation (Ruiz et al., 2014). However, the sudden explosion in interest in this species has also roused non-negligible and still unsolved concerns of equity and fairness regarding the exploitation of the value added to its genetics by generations of Andean farmers (Chevarria-Lazo et al., 2015).A second trend is plants following human migrations: \"exotic\" crops introduced on a non-commercial basis, grown for family consumption as part of growers' cultural heritage, and that are rarely surveyed or subjected to formal documentation and conservation. A notable example is the \"Sowing New Seeds\" work conducted in the early 2010s on the plants cultivated by overseas immigrants in their allotments in the English Midlands, which highlighted the potential of non-professional cultivation and selection of exotic species for more general resilience and the diversification of agriculture (Kell et al., 2013).A third trend is expanding cultivation areas following, or anticipating, changes in climate. A remarkable example is the northwards expansion of field crops in northern Europe, due to milder winters and potentially longer growing seasons, and the subsequent opportunities (Peltonen-Sainio et al., 2009) as well as challenges of pests and diseases expansion (Hakala et al., 2011).During the process of the modernisation and standardisation of European agriculture, which led to massive concentration on a few species, a large number of species has been abandoned. This is true both in dominant and currently shrinking sectors, like cereals and protein crops, respectively. In cereals, among the most widespread and most intensively bred crops in Europe is wheat, mostly common wheat (Triticum aestivum) with a small fraction of durum wheat (Triticum durum) in Mediterranean regions. However, the genus Triticum comprises many species that were once more widely cultivated but that are now relegated to the status of \"minor cereals\" and cultivated in limited amounts, often in marginal areas. The hulled wheats are typical examples of this: the hexaploid spelt (Triticum spelta), the tetraploid emmer (Triticum dicoccon) and the diploid einkorn (Triticum monococcum), in order of decreasing acreage, have seen increasing market interest due to their nutritional properties as well as to their rusticity and adaptation to stressful environments (Cubadda and Marconi, 2002;Zaharieva et al., 2010;Zaharieva and Monneveux, 2014).Amongst Triticum species, of particular interest is Triticum turgidum L., known as \"Rivet wheat\" in the British Isles or \"Poulard wheat\" in France. It is a close relative of durum wheat, particularly common in mountainous areas and Atlantic climates, the object of some breeding efforts in England during the 1930s (Zeven et al., 1990), but then abandoned and nowadays virtually non-existent. The European Search Catalogue for Plant Genetic Resources (EURISCO) database 3 records more than 14,000 accessions of T. turgidum conserved in European genebanks, 38% of which are in Italy. A large representation of these accessions was tested during the DIVERSIFOOD project, highlighting a great variability in physical properties of the grain, which makes it a good candidate for both bread-and pasta-making, also in regions (like north-western France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) that are not suitable for durum wheat (Chable, 2018;Costanzo et al., 2019).The shrinking number of species is only part of the loss of diversity resulting in modern European agriculture. In fact, for many crops -notably the most widespread and those with the largest number of registered varieties -crop phenotypic diversity is drastically reduced to extremely homogeneous crop types, such as pure line varieties (e.g., wheat and barley) and F1-bybrids (e.g., maize), to the detriment of historic varieties, landraces and genetically diverse populations. Increasing genetic and phenotypic diversity within species is, however, a key process to enhance sustainability and resilience through functional diversity (Newton et al., 2009) and a key priority in \"neglected\" as well as mainstream species. For instance, whilst testing einkorn entries in view of exploring their potential for UK organic farming, a striking yield advantage of landraces over a modern, dwarf commercial einkorn variety (Costanzo et al., 2019) was a reminder that the reintroduction of forgotten species cannot be separated from a rethinking of the relationships between breeding and target cropping systems. In fact, marginal environments, with low input use and high exposure to climatic extremes, need, and can be added value by, more resilient/rustic phenotypes for both minor (like einkorn) and major crops (like wheat and barley). However, diversification of the genetic structure of crops goes well beyond the \"rediscovery of the old\", towards the development of decentralised, evolutionary (Phillips and Wolfe, 2005) and participatory breeding methods, that have extensively been applied in wheat (Van Frank et al., 2020), showing clear advantages in terms of performance, robustness and stability (Goldringer et al., 2020).It is important to point out that, whilst the rediscovery of forgotten species mainly faces practical and economic constraints, genetic diversification within species encounters further obstacles in the legislative structure developed by and for mainstream agriculture, such as the UPOV (International Union for the Protection Of New Varieties of Plants) convention and national and international seed legislation (European catalogue and seed certification for seed marketing). In fact, the official conditions for cereal seed certification, namely the \"sufficient identity and varietal purity\" (Art. 1, 66/402/EEC of 1966), effectively ruled out any marketing of cereal seed that was not distinct, uniform and stable in appearance, until a \"temporary experiment\", under the Commission Implementing Decision 2014/150/EU, allowed the marketing of \"populations\" of wheat, oats, barley and maize, under quantitative restrictions. The legality of genetically heterogeneous seeds and of genetic structures not covered by the above \"temporary experiment\" is currently under discussion in the context of the Revised Organic Regulation that will come into force in 2021 (Costanzo and Bickler, 2019).In the DIVERSIFOOD project, nine species have been tested with hundreds of accessions in 33 different trials across Europe. Seeds have been sourced from a variety of both informal and formal, ex situ and in situ collections, and evaluated in participatory experiments with multi-actor communities of researchers, farmers and potential users. Four main outcomes have been noted:• Certain traits that during modern breeding had been lost have reappeared, including undesirable traits that might have played a role in the abandonment of certain species or phenotypes, like the brittle rachis in einkorn that can generate huge grain losses, or the extreme straw height of certain winter cereals like rivet wheat, which creates problems of lodging. Moreover, many genetic resources show considerable within-crop phenotypic heterogeneity, either linked to their genetic structure, them being landraces or resulting from intentional or even accidental mixtures occurred during in situ informal conservation. • Agroecosystem performance of the same genetic resource can vary greatly depending on where it is grown and must, therefore, be looked at on a very local scale. As obvious as it might seem, this reinforces the importance of deploying and testing genetic resources in multiple farms rather than on research stations, to identify the potential for local adaptation. • The yield of \"underutilized genetic resources\" can be a serious limiting factor, as the tested material can be either low-yielding or difficult to harvest, but, in many cases, can be a relief for marginal conditions. Species such as einkorn, emmer or rivet wheat can thrive where their commonly grown closest relatives (e.g., durum or bread wheat) are not a viable option. This is one of the key benefits expected from underutilized crops: they can be a valuable resource for more marginal land. • A diversity of crops triggers a diversity of products that, in turn, need adaptation in both processing and the methods and concepts used to assess their quality. Grains from minor cereals are not necessarily suited to industrial milling but provide an opportunity for artisanal millers and bakers, whose processing methods are more flexible and adaptable to the raw material, to add value to highly nutritious grains.A series of booklets covering practical aspects of research, farming, marketing and policy around increasing crops diversity on the farm and in the supply chain has been produced by the DIVERSIFOOD project, including a guide to participatory experiments on underutilized genetic resources (Costanzo and Serpolay, 2019) and case studies of the marketing of products from newly bred lines and underutilized crops (Padel et al., 2018).European agriculture faces the urgent need to diversify its crop basket, to overcome the dominance of a very limited number of crops and the related socio-technical lock-ins that prevent easy diversification (Meynard et al., 2018).Neglected and underutilized crops have a huge strategic importance in the transition towards more sustainable agricultural systems. However, diversification is a complex process, not limited to the (re)introduction of a few species, but encompassing all aspects of cropping systems' design, connection between genetic resource conservation and use, more inclusive breeding systems and stronger connections between producers and consumers.Oceania represents a considerable array of agro-ecosystems comprising an equal diversity of wild and cultivated plant species that, at one time or another, have been used for food and other purposes. This diversity of crops and trees has played an important role in the lives and development of populations throughout the islands that comprise Oceania. However, today only a small fraction of this diversity is regularly used or found in markets and value-chains. Bringing back these foods to the tables of consumers will play a strategic role in supporting local production systems in adapting to pervasive climate change, and will also help re-establish healthy food habits to tackle a growing public-health nutrition problem and safeguard cultural identity. For the purpose of this chapter, we define Oceania broadly as to include the islands of the Pacific, including Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia, as well as New Zealand and Australia. Communities in Oceania have historically created an enduring relationship with the landscape and its compliment of flora and fauna. With 60,000 years of settlement, Indigenous Australians have developed an intimate relationship with and knowledge of a diverse range of ecosystems (Mulvaney and Golson, 1971;Clarke, 2003a). Today, this reliance on traditional foods is still evident in some communities, such as those in Arnhem Land, Cape York and the Torres Strait, where hunting, gathering and fishing supplement significantly modern store-bought diets. But in most instances these communities have been disconnected from their traditional foods and food systems. Around 30,000 years ago, people started to move into the western part of the Pacific, including Papua New Guinea (PNG), the Solomon Islands and northern Australia, taking with them their traditional foods such as taro, yams, banana, coconut, breadfruit pandanus, sago and arrowroot, before moving further east into the more scattered islands of the Pacific Ocean  (Denham, 2008;Denham et al., 2009aDenham et al., , 2009b;;Haden, 2009). Pacific Islanders have developed farming and food systems that have exploited a unique range of ecosystems in high and low islands throughout the region and which employ a diversity of plant and animal species. Many of these crops, such as taro, have adapted to range of agro-ecologies, resulting in hundreds of unique cultivars (Iosefa et al., 2013). Significant and unique genetic diversity exists in many other traditional Pacific Island crops, and this is true also for nutritional diversity (Englberger et al., 2009). A thousand years ago, the indigenous Māori, on settling Aotearoa-New Zealand from the more tropical Pacific Islands, had to adapt their horticultural practices to a new environment of unpredictable and limiting climate with extremes from sub-tropical features in the north to sub-Antarctic in the south, thereby shaping a lifestyle that was based on a subsistence approach, including both cultivated and uncultivated plants and the seasonal harvesting of birds and fish. While this chapter can only provide a very general and brief survey of NUS from Oceania, it also looks at those factors that have undermined traditional food systems and diversity, particularly colonisation and globalisation, and the impacts this has had on food systems, diets and nutrition. The chapter highlights recent efforts to promote and reinvigorate traditional food systems and NUS, and highlights the challenges and opportunities for their promotion.The nutrition transition -the process by which development, globalisation, urbanisation, poverty and subsequent changes in lifestyle have led to excessive calorific intake, poor-quality diets and low physical activity -is particularly prevalent among communities of Indigenous People in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. This has been exacerbated by inappropriate development, health, food and trade policies that support imports of less healthy foods, as in the case of the Pacific, or the availability of culturally inappropriate and nutritionally poor foods in remote stores, as in Australia (Lee et al., 2009;Brimblecombe et al., 2013). Urbanisation and lifestyle changes, including in eating habits, also seriously threaten the very existence of many traditional food crops. An alarming dietary shift from traditional foods and healthy diets towards the consumption of poor-quality processed foods and diets has taken place, which has led to the dramatic emergence of obesity and associated chronic diseases, especially among Indigenous compared to non-Indigenous groups. In addition to over-nutrition and obesity, there are problems of deficiency of vital micronutrients (hidden hunger) among communities of Indigenous People in Oceania, which can -in extreme situations -contribute to early death or to impaired physical and intellectual development, especially of children. For example, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), recently ranked among the most obese countries in the world, is also a country where pockets of Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) are among the highest in the world (Englberger et al., 2003(Englberger et al., , 2011)). Studies of Indigenous peoples' diets in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific consistently report low intake of fruit and vegetables; high intake of soft drinks, refined cereals and sugars; excessive sodium intake and limited availability of several key micronutrients. This is contributing to a rapidly growing health burden, including both physical and psychological illnesses, as countries try to deal with the associated healthcare costs, reduced productivity and shorter lifespans.The great irony is that few of these health problems existed prior to European contact, colonisation or development. Indigenous foodways contained a diversity of animals, plants and trees that were nutritionally rich and that provided ample levels of both macro-and micronutrients for a healthy diet. Englberger et al. (2003Englberger et al. ( , 2011) ) highlight reports from early visitors that suggest that island communities consumed a diversity of foods and appeared healthy. There was little evidence of malnutrition, diabetes or hypertension before the 1940s, with VAD not documented until 1998. Many of the traditional foods of these Indigenous foodways have now been marginalised or forgotten, and the traditional ecological knowledge associated with them lost or threatened. Furthermore, inappropriate policy and regulatory frameworks have, especially in the Pacific, increased dependency on food imports through the promotion of culturally unsuitable foods, which have resulted in changes in the pattern of agricultural production towards cash-and export-oriented cropping, ignoring the potential of nutritionally rich local foods (Englberger et al., 2003).Indigenous foodways of Māori and Aboriginal Australia have also fared poorly, been marginalised and been forgotten (Haden, 2009). Davy (2016) reports that the much higher rate of illness and disease among Aboriginal populations in Australia compared to non-Indigenous ones is directly related to food insecurity and poor diet, including through poorer access to nutritious foods. Bussey (2013) highlights that, prior to European contact, levels of diet-related illness among Indigenous Australians were non-existent. National health surveys in New Zealand consistently reveal the high prevalence of obesity and non-communicable diseases (i.e., cardiovascular disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes) among the Māori -the indigenous people of Aotearoa-New Zealand. These trends have been mostly attributed to sedentary lifestyles and poor dietary choices, as the Māori move to urban areas and away from their lands and highly adapted food production systems. With the shift to urban settings, much of the traditional knowledge surrounding the production, processing and storing of local foods is being lost and agricultural/cultural systems are reportedly being further threatened by biosecurity risks and corporate ownership (Roskruge, BFN website 1 ).Increasingly there are calls to revitalise these Indigenous foodways and the nutrient-rich foods they contain (Kuhnlein et al., 2009;FAO, 2021). The access, availability and use of traditional foods have the potential to recover, improve and safeguard food security, especially among remote Indigenous communities, now and in the future, and, thus, demands further research (Bussey, 2013).A short chapter of this nature, dealing as it does with such a large geographic area, prevents a comprehensive inventory or description of the neglected and underutilized species (NUS) present in Oceania. Rather, what we aim for here is a brief introduction highlighting some of the key NUS with most potential for development and utilisation. For those interested in exploring the NUS of Oceania in more detail we provide some important references.Although the land area of the Pacific is small, it is recognised as a centre of diversity and/or origin of a small number of crops, for example, taro (Colocasia esculenta), which comprises thousands of distinct cultivars grown and eaten throughout the region (Rao et al., 2010). In 2009, participants from 15 countries representing the three sub-regions of the Pacific (Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia) came together for the first time to develop a regional priority list of NUS/species groups, including a strategy for their conservation and sustainable use, addressing: generation and collection of knowledge/research; communication and dissemination; policy advocacy, market development and partnerships; capacity building and institutional strengthening (Taylor et al., 2009). Regional priorities were clearly breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis), bananas (Musa spp.) of the Fe'i group and/or Pacific plantain, Polynesian chestnut (Inocarpus fagifer), and tava (Pometia pinnata). Other priority species included bele/aibika (Abelmoschus manihot), pandanus (Pandanus tectoris), noni (Morinda citrifolia), football fruit (Pangium edule), pitpit/duruka (Sacchurum edule), arrowroot (Tacca leontopetaloides), saijan/ drumstick (Moringa oleifera), Spondias dulcis, Diplazium esculentum, fig tree (Ficus tinctoria), sago (Metroxylon sagu), aupa (Amaranthus spp.), fern (Diplazium spp.), Malay apple (Syzygium malaccense) and mangrove (Bruguiera spp.). Some locally important underutilized nut species were also identified, including Galip nut (Canarium indicum) and nuts from Terminalia catappa, Barringtonia edulis and B. procera. Some of the tree species mentioned here, and others with edible parts, have also been prioritised and described in detail more recently by Thomson et al. (2018). Much of this diversity remains under threat in the Pacific, as a result of urbanisation and lifestyle changes, including changes in eating habits as well as pests and diseases (Box 12.1).Highlands pitpit (Setaria palmifoliai) has been a crop of significant value in terms of food, medicine, bride price ceremonies and other traditional uses since ancestral days, matched with a diversity of varieties and traditional names found across the Highlands region (Figure 12.1). For instance, the Imbbonggu people of the Southern Highlands call it moi in the local Imbbonggu language, while it is known as wotani in the Gahuku language of the Eastern Highlands. The different varieties of highlands pitpit are characterised by colour, leaf shape and other morphology. The local people believe that the geographical location of the crop contributes to its attributes. For example, the Imbbonggu District of the Southern Highlands Province has four main varieties: Moi kapatumbe (sacred colourful variety); Moi arimoka (white stem variety); Moi gene (green variety) and Moi leruku (purple stem variety). There is also considerable nutritional diversity among the many varieties (Semese, 2018). Highlands pitpit is only eaten within Melanesian society, especially in PNG. The inner thickened soft base of the plant is the main edible portion and is cooked as a green vegetable or in a mixed meal with meat and other vegetables. Cooking recipes differ per region and tribe. The most common approach to cooking is the traditional mumu, a hermetic form of underground cooking. In addition, highlands pitpit is used as stock-feed across the region, especially for pigs, which have currency value in PNG. Many believe the fibrous nature of the plant helps grind the pigs' teeth and keeps them healthy. It is also a good supplement food for pigs in times when other food crops are limited in supply or during natural disasters such as drought due to its potential to withstand drought periods. Today, introduced crops, urbanisation and climate change all contribute to the declining production and use of highlands pitpit. A number of horticultural plants have featured in traditional M ori society in Aotearoa-New Zealand and most are underutilized today. They provide the basis for a body of knowledge or mātauranga aligned with traditional horticulture; however, not all plants used by the Māori were cultivated (Best, 1976). There was also the availability of food stores from 'uncultivated' plants such as aruhe (fernroot, Pteridium spp.) a range of seaweeds including kārengo (pārengo or sea lettuce, Porphyra columbina) and berries or fruit of tree crops such as the hīnau (Elaeocarpus dentatus) and miro (Prumnopitys ferruginea), which were often located near settlements and harvested in much the same way as cultivated plants were. While these crops were considered uncultivated, they were no less managed to ensure maximum production of the harvested plant parts, e.g., the timing of harvest or minimising competition between plants for the best quality produce. The primary cultivated crops included kūmara (sweet potato, Ipomoea batatas), taro (Colocasis esculenta), the uwhi or yam (Dioscorea alata), various species of pūhā or rauriki (Sonchus spp., see Box 12.2), varieties of tii kouka (Cordyline australis and related species) (Fankhauser, 1990) and kōkihi (NZ spinach, Tetragonia tetragonioides). Since colonisation, a number of other crops have been introduced in traditional gardens and are now considered traditional Māori foods. These include kamokamo, a local selection of Cucurbita pepo, taewa or Māori potatoes and kānga or Indian corn. Roskruge (2014Roskruge ( , 2015) ) has worked with the national Māori āPūhā (also known as pūwhā, rauriki, kautara, tiotio or pororua) is a generic term for the introduced leafy green plant commonly called sow-thistle (various plants of the Sonchus spp.) in other countries, which is now a favourite utility plant for both the food and health needs of the Māori (Figure 12.2).Traditionally not a cultivated crop by early Māori but harvested from the wild, pūhā has previously been described as a culturally important plant to the Māori (Taylor and Smith, 1997;Roskruge, 2013Roskruge, , 2015)). The traditional whakatauaki or proverb in the subheading above is recognition in itself of the value of pūhā to Māori, which is now considered an uncultivated Indigenous vegetable or food by most New Zealanders. The reliability of pūhā as an available green vegetable plant throughout most of the year has perpetuated its usefulness in the New Zealand diet. Coincidentally, the resurgent interest in traditional crops such as pūhā has enhanced its potential to contribute to the cultural and economic future of the Māori, including as a processed product, similar to new and innovative spinach products that are frozen, canned and/or mixed with other base products. Looking at the diversity of vegetable-based products on supermarkets shelves, the opportunities seem endless: a good example is pre-packaged liquid soups sold in a ready-to-heat pouch. Source: Nick Roskruge (used with permission).Historically, pūhā was only ever used as a fresh green vegetable, especially in the spring and early summer, and was provided a relish for meals, primarily fish. For the Māori, there are several ways in which pūhā is utilised in the diet. Primarily, it is a basis for a meal that includes pūhā, meat, potatoes and, sometimes, further relishes such as plain dumplings (colloquially termed dough-buoys). Often substitute green vegetables such as kouka (Cordyline spp.), kōkihi (Tetragonia tetragonioides), tohetaka (native dandelion, Taraxacum magellanicum), watercress (Nasturtium spp.), silverbeet (Beta vulgaris) or cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. capitata) are used to replace the pūhā when it is out of season or is in limited supply. A further use for pūhā is as a base for toroī or bottled/preserved pūhā and mussels (Dixon, 2007). In this case, the older, more stringent or bitter plants are often preferred. Penupenu is a mash of vegetables generally prepared for infants or invalids. In this meal, the pūhā forms the basis of a mix of vegetables usually including taewa (Māori potatoes) and kamokamo (Cucurbit spp.).154 Danny Hunter et al. horticultural collective Tahuri Whenua to highlight the diversity of the traditional Māori diet and this has contributed to a resurgence in the cultivation of these foods.With 60,000 years of continuous settlement of the land and an ongoing intimate relationship with and knowledge of many different ecosystems and the possible array of plants and animals available therein, it is almost impossible to comprehend the extent to which these would have been used for food. A comprehensive database of Australian Aboriginal food-plants (currently containing about 1,400 -and rising -plant/fungi species, including 100 insect-based foods) has been constructed in a project at the University of Adelaide, funded by the Orana Foundation. 2 This inventory is based primarily on historical sources but, by extension, the true number of edible plants used by Aboriginal foragers likely would have been greater when accounting for the many species of Acacia etc. that were also probably utilised as food. A few writers and researchers have written generally about some of the more common or key plant-food species that have been used, including Tim Low in his two books Wild Food Plants of Australia (1988) and Bush Tucker: Australia's Wild Food Harvest (1989) or, more recently, John Newton's The Oldest Foods on Earth: A History of Australian Native Foods with Recipes (2016). Other researchers such as Peter Latz have written in considerable detail about Indigenous plant use in a specific geographical region, such as Bushfires and Bushtucker: Aboriginal Plant Use in Central Australia (1995). There is a considerable literature on this topic and the reader is guided to key publications by Clarke (2003aClarke ( ,b, 2007Clarke ( , 2018;;Jones and Clarke, 2018) for more information. The list of plant species used for food alone runs in the thousands and covers environments ranging from temperate to arid and tropic. Indigenous food sources include native fruits like wild fig (Ficus platypoda), desert quandong (Santalum acuminatum), native gooseberry (Cucumis melo), native plum (Santalum lanceolatum), bush banana (Leichhardtia australia), finger lime (Citrus australasica), Kakadu plum (Terminalia ferdinandiana), bush tomato (Solanum centrale), pandanus (Pandanus tectorius, Figure 12.3). They also comprise greens (various pigweeds [Portulaca spp.], wood sorrels [Oxalis spp.]); wild seeds (including grasses, beans and nuts) such as various Acacia spp., native millet (Panicum decompositum); woolybutt (Eragrostis eriopoda), Oryza spp., wild sorghums, cycads (Cycas media), desert kurrajong (Brachychiton gregorii), bunya nut (Araucaria bidwillii); roots and tubers (bush potato (Ipomoea costata), nalgoo (Cyperus spp.) and murnong (Microseris lanceolata) to highlight relatively few. It should also be mentioned, that many of these heavily relied-on food sources are highly toxic and labour intensive to prepare, which is a challenge when attempting to reintroduce them into contemporary food pathways.There are a number of past and ongoing initiatives to promote NUS in Oceania such as bringing back traditional, forgotten foods through links to gastronomic initiatives and chef alliances, food tourism, community-based initiatives to promote improved food security through healthier diets based on local foods and efforts targeting schools and the youth.Ongoing initiatives in New Zealand aimed at reviving traditional crops and traditional food systems as well as exploring production systems, markets, Indigenous branding, education and research include those led by the National Māori Horticultural Collective known as Tahuri Whenua, 3 which has projects aligned with food crops/plants including:• 'Ahi kōuka i te ata, he ai i te po -the value of kōuka from a Māori lens' 4 a project looking at the traditional knowledge and use of the Tii Kouka/cabbage tree (Nga Pae o Maramatanga funded). • E moe tonu ana te tohetaka, kaore ano i kohera -a project to identify and document heritage food-plants (primarily introduced during colonisation); Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (New Zealand) (MBIE) (Government) funded.• Kaore te kumara e korero mo tona ake reka -a project to establish protocols for a germplasm collection of traditional Māori foods; MBIE funded (Tahuri Whenua/Massey University collaboration).The Tahuri Whenua has also been active in reconnecting young Māori with their traditional food heritage through school gardens (māra) and other schoolbased activities (Roskruge, 2020).In the Pacific, probably the most high-profile initiative to promote healthier diets and better nutrition based on local NUS has been the 'Let's go Local' approach (see Box 12.3), implemented in the FSM (Englberger, 2011;Englberger and Johnson, 2013). A more recent similar example to leverage neglected and underutilized food crops for improved nutrition in the Pacific is the Community Food and Health project. Other efforts to promote the utilisation of neglected and underutilized crops in the Pacific include initiatives to link local foods to tourism, gastronomy and chef alliances, e.g., the Pacific Island Food Revolution, 5 and other market opportunities (CTA, 2017;Berno, 2020), as well as through schools and school garden activities (Redfeather and Cole, 2020; Ming Wei and Bikajle, 2020)The FSM has recently witnessed significant dietary shifts and increasing dependence on imported, often unhealthy, foods. Traditionally, these islands have relied on sustainable agriculture practices producing nutritious staples such as roots and tubers, breadfruit and banana for food security and nutrition. Since the middle of the twentieth century onwards, however, less nutritious, cheaper imported foods have dominated the food supply and have contributed to the poor health of the population. VAD levels in this community are among the highest in the world, as are levels of obesity and being overweight, and non-communicable diseases like diabetes.These problems occur despite a remarkable biodiversity of underutilized nutritious foods available in the country. Pohnpei state alone has 133 varieties of breadfruit, 55 bananas, 171 yams, 24 giant swamp taros, nine tapiocas and many pandanus varieties documented. To address these health-and foodsystem problems, efforts were started in 1998 to identify local plant foods that could be promoted to alleviate the VAD problem. Local biodiversity experts highlighted the rare Karat and other yellow-fleshed banana varieties as potential options. Subsequent nutrient compositional analyses demonstrated that Karat, a variety traditionally given to infants as a weaning food, was rich in beta-carotene, the most important of the provitamin A carotenoids, with amounts much higher than those found in common white-fleshed bananas.A number of the earlier mentioned publications have raised awareness of the importance of traditional foods in Australia, which have largely been neglected and unexplored despite the multiple benefits they might bring. Bussey (2013) stresses that the gaps in literature on the access, availability and use of traditional foods should be examined further, as they have the potential to recover, improve and safeguard food security in remote Aboriginal communities. While there is increasing attention being paid to the importance of traditional foods and Indigenous food systems in Australia -through school-based education (Dawe et al., 2020), improving food security and nutrition in a more sustainable manner, links to sustainable gastronomy initiatives (such as The Orana Foundation 6 and Black Olive Catering 7 ) and other niche markets for native foods, as well as other livelihood and income-generating opportunities -there is still some way to go in developing a suitable environment that enables and ensures that the benefits arising from the sustainable use of traditional foods are accessible for Indigenous communities, the long-time custodians of these genetic resources.2019 will be remembered as a landmark year for food and nutrition reports, which have laid bare the nutritional and environmental disruptions our global food system is causing (FAO, 2019;IPBES, 2019;IPCC, 2019;Willett et al., 2019). In many of these and in preceding reports, the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity for food and agriculture features as one critical pathway to diversify diets, improve livelihoods and contribute to environmental outcomes (Mouillé et al., 2010;FAO, 2015;Bioversity International, 2017;FAO, 2019). Meanwhile, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 has exposed the limitations of our food systems and has highlighted the importance of localising food production and consumption as well as the need to re-evaluate local foods including neglected and underutilized species (NUS) (HLPE, 2020).Despite the existence of guiding principles to support countries in increasing the use of biodiversity in the agriculture, climate change, food security and nutrition and other relevant sectors (FAO, 2016), their implementation constitutes a challenge for many countries (FAO, 2017). Partly to blame are the limited examples of effective cross-sectoral collaboration and multi-disciplinary platforms to make the case for investing in biodiversity for better food and nutrition (Hunter et al., 2016). It is with these challenges in mind that, in 2018, the Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition (BFN) 1 project sought to fill the existing information gaps by putting together the Biodiversity Mainstreaming for Healthy & Sustainable Food Systems Toolkit -a compendium of experiences and lessons learned, gained by Brazil, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Turkey during project implementation (Figure 13.1). The BFN toolkit provides concrete examples that can help implement these guidelines and provides a framework to support countries in transitioning toward healthier, more sustainable diets as indicated by the recent WHO Guidance on Mainstreaming Biodiversity (WHO, 2020). Underpinning the BFN project is a comprehensive three-pillar approach for mainstreaming biodiversity for better food and nutrition into policies and practices by: 1) Providing Evidence, 2) Influencing Policy and 3) Raising Awareness ( Figure 13.2). Originally conceptualised by the Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia research consortium in its effort to improve understanding of how agriculture and food systems could be better designed to enhance nutrition in the region (Hunter et al., 2016), the approach had never been tested on the ground. With limited examples and literature to guide the countries at the onset of the project, Brazil, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Turkey put the theory into practice and took stock of the experiences gained (and challenges faced) during project implementation to assist fellow practitioners wishing to replicate the approach. In the final stages of the project, implementers from each country came together during a writing workshop to lay the groundwork for the toolkit.The toolkit lays out the fundamentals of biodiversity mainstreaming, including NUS, into sectoral policies and practices, including how to facilitate and align activities to support achieving national targets linked to biodiversity conservation i supply factual evidence that justifies NUS mainstreaming for the specific purpose of improving food and nutrition ii identify suitable entry points for effective implementation iii establish a positive enabling environment and gain financial and institutional support iv increase market interest and capacity to produce NUS v develop awareness-raising campaigns vi set up a monitoring and evaluation framework.The approaches used to implement activities across the three pillars are not prescriptive and are likely to vary depending on country context and the different social, cultural or economic backgrounds. In implementing the BFN project, for example, it was found that efforts to increase the appreciation of local NUS wasStrengthen scientific evidence of the importance of local food diversity, e.g. food composition data, traditional knowledge and the benefits of using local plant and animal species to improve diversity and nutrition.Integrate locally important biodiversity for food and agriculture into nutritionrelated policies, programmes and action plans and increase their availability in production systems and markets.Communicate the multiple benefits of biodiversity for food and nutrition to different audiences (e.g. producers and consumers). easier in some countries and less so in others. Efforts to step up production and consumption of the target species proved easier in Turkey and Sri Lanka than in Kenya, a country where, under colonial rule, traditional crops were displaced by European staples and which were, until recently, associated with backwardness, poverty and/or famine (Raschke and Cheema, 2008).To reverse these perceptions, scientific evidence of the nutritional quality of NUS is critical. The toolkit dwells on the methodologies that facilitate the generation of nutrition information to gain support for increasing the production and consumption of NUS. Of chief importance is establishing effective research partnerships, determining what information already exists and the country's capacity to fill any research gaps, and identifying which species to prioritise for further research and marketing. In Kenya, selecting the species for food composition analysis was undertaken following a market survey and ensuing ranking exercise carried out by the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization in close collaboration with local communities (Figure 13.3). Similarly, in Brazil, partnerships established with federal universities and research institutes helped build the nutritional profile of 64 native species (mostly fruit and nuts) identified by the project (Figure 13.4) (Gee et al., 2020).Solanum spp.Amaranthus spp. FIGURE 13.3 Indigenous neglected and underutilized species that were targeted by the BFN project in Kenya for food composition analysis. (Credit: BFN Kenya.) Used with permission.The BFN Mainstreaming Toolkit 167Once data is available, time and resources should be made available to identify and engage the most strategic and like-minded allies to achieve the intended mainstreaming aims as well as to understand the policy landscape in which these partners operate. Pre-existing multi-stakeholder policy platforms that deal with food and nutrition security are an ideal starting point to garner policy support for the greater use of NUS (Gee et al., 2020). However, platforms will often need to be built from scratch. Considerable time can be spent in creating the enabling environment needed for durable mainstreaming to occur and this should carefully be accounted for during the planning process (Gee et al., 2020). An entire section in the toolkit outlines several fruitful strategies for targeting receptive policies, such as the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAPs), as well as agricultural and nutrition policies. It also highlights ideal partners to engage. These can range from sectoral ministries to universities and research organisations, as well as civil society actors such as community groups, nongovernmental organisations, Indigenous groups and professional associations that have an interest in promoting NUS. However, non-conventional partners such as schools and chefs can also help promote the use of these unfamiliar ingredients. Long-term behavioural change and the acceptance of NUS in food systems and diets requires coordinated action on both the supply and demand side of the food value-chain as well as the public and private institutions working together to develop and implement policies and strategies that support more sustainable and diversified food systems centred on NUS. These actions include:• Building the capacity of producers to incorporate NUS in their production systems • Improving or creating market infrastructure for biodiversity • Raising consumer awareness to increase demand for food biodiversity.In the toolkit, one example from Kenya illustrates how business training and technical assistance provided to small-scale farmers helped establish market linkages with schools and how this increased the sustainable production of African indigenous vegetables and forgotten pulses such as bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranea). Additional examples are provided in Module 2 of the BFN e-learning course and in Hunter et al. (2019), Borelli et al. (2020) and Gee et al. (2020). Naturally, where the aim is increased production of species that are collected or managed in the wild, domestication programmes and/or sustainable collection or management guidelines will need to be considered to avoid overexploitation (Gee et al., 2020).The BFN Mainstreaming Toolkit 169The toolkit also demonstrates how to select NUS that are more suited for marketing. Most likely biological, environmental, cultural, economic and nutritional considerations, such as the presence of limiting nutrients, will come into play. An interesting example is offered by the ad hoc sustainability index developed by Turkey to reduce an initial sample size of 43 species, mostly wild edibles, to three target species -foxtail lily (Eremurus spectabilis), golden thistle (Scolymus hispanicus) and einkorn wheat (Triticum monococcum) -which have since been the object of domestication research as well as post-harvest handling and value-chain analysis (Table 13.1).Once the target species have been identified, new marketing options can be explored that make it profitable for actors along the food value-chain -from producers to consumers -to engage. Such is the case for the 28 NUS identified by Sri Lanka. Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus), water lily (Nymphaea pubescens), traditional cowpea (Vigna unguiculata), black gram (Vigna mungo) and horse gram (Macrotyloma uniflorum) varieties, as well as traditional rice varieties, are among the NUS currently on offer at Helabojun, 18 BFN-supported food outlets that source their ingredients directly from local communities and which sell freshly prepared local foods. The outlets also employ and empower rural women who receive nutrition, food and business training from the Women Farmers Extension Program of the Department of Agriculture and can earn a reasonable wage by working at the stores.In terms of awareness-raising, the toolkit illustrates how practitioners can make the most of ongoing activities in the country that revolve around gastronomy and ecotourism, such as the Alaçatı herb festival in Turkey, and national and regional campaigns on healthy eating, to get the messaging across (Figure 13.5). It also discusses the benefits of engaging the health sector to target the development and revision of national dietary guidelines or the advantages of engaging the education sector to include the teaching of biodiversity for food and nutrition in health and nutrition education in schools and vocational training programmes. The BFN Mainstreaming Toolkit 171Careful monitoring of increased use of NUS can help garner additional support for their inclusion in food and nutrition security strategies. For this reason, desired mainstreaming outcomes should be established early in the planning phase and be SMART, 2 tailored to the specific country context as well as the resources that are available (Hunter et al., 2018). SMART objectives can range from community-to policy-level improvements, and enough time should be devoted to establishing a baseline against which the suggested monitoring indicators can be measured. These include, but are not limited to:• Level of funding/resource mobilisation to support NUS for improving diets/nutrition in research and interventions. • Extent of NUS mainstreaming for healthy diets and nutrition in relevant national instruments including in national dietary guidelines, NBSAPs or multi-sectoral nutrition action plans and strategies. • Level of diversification in public food procurement and school feeding programmes.• Increase in scientific literature focusing on the composition or consumption of NUS.In conclusion, the BFN Mainstreaming Toolkit provides practitioners with a foundation and much-needed guidance on how to achieve wider appreciation of biodiversity, including NUS, in health, nutrition, agriculture and food security programmes, as envisaged by the FAO Voluntary Guidelines for Mainstreaming Biodiversity into Policies, Programmes and National and Regional Plans of Action on Nutrition and the Committee on World Food Security (CFS)Voluntary Guidelines on Food Systems for Nutrition of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS). However, in implementing the BFN approach, it has become apparent that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the challenge of using biodiversity and NUS to transform our current food systems. Without a doubt, there are countless possibilities waiting to be explored. We encourage workers to identify the most suitable and culturally appropriate solutions for their individual countries that can help transition the BFN approach into actionable policies that matter for people and the planet. Seasonality is a concept that can often be overlooked, particularly in Western countries where people are accustomed to having constant access to fresh plant foods even out of season. Economic development and consequent urbanisation have produced a shift in food systems, which have become more global and standardised worldwide, particularly in urban areas. It is, in fact, not uncommon to find food products out of season in markets and supermarkets, which have been transported from the other side of the world at a high cost to the environment.While this might go unnoticed by the inattentive consumer, seasonal patterns and food availability are still very much at the core of the food systems and their efficient functioning, and are important for the sustainable management and use of agrobiodiversity, as well as understanding market fluctuations and the consequent availability of and access to food. Particularly in low-and middleincome countries, food production is dependent on the passing of seasons, and understanding how seasonal patterns influence the availability, diversity and abundance of food is key to implementing strategies to eradicate malnutrition and to improve food security and diets globally.Recent statistics (FAO et al., 2019) show how malnutrition is still widespread, with 821 million people undernourished and 10% of the world population still severely food insecure, meaning that they lack sufficient accessibility, availability, stability or utilisation of food. The relationship between seasonality and food and nutrition security is no longer an obscure one, as highlighted by a considerable body of literature (Leonard, 1991;Dercon and Krishnan, 2000;Savy et al., 2006). Furthermore, changes in diet quality, both in terms of energy and nutrient intake, as well as dietary diversity, are often due to seasonal variation in foodSeasonal calendars for sustainable diets in Guatemala, Mali and India 175 availability (Ferguson et al., 1993;Hirvonen et al., 2016;Stelmach-Mardas et al., 2016;Broaddus-Shea et al., 2018;Oduor et al., 2019).Understanding the role of food availability and its patterns, characteristics and seasonal variation can be an entry point to achieving more diverse, healthy and nutritious diets, and to ultimately improving food security. Suboptimal diets are a major health risk that contributes to the global burden of disease (Hall et al., 2009;Afshin et al., 2019). Furthermore, global diets are becoming less diverse, in a process that has been defined as 'nutrition transition' (Drewnowski and Popkin, 2009), and are also becoming more and more reliant on a handful of economically important animal and plant species. The agricultural intensification required for these changes has had detrimental effects on environmental health and agrobiodiversity, critical for both food system sustainability and climate change resilience (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005;Mijatović et al., 2013). Despite the estimation that over 5,000 food crops exist worldwide (RGB Kew, 2016), 51% of energy intake relies on rice, wheat and maize (FAOSTAT, 2018). Poor and monotonous diets, characterised by a low consumption of fruits, vegetables and other nutrient-dense food increases the risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and other non-communicable diseases (He et al., 2006). This biodiversity loss in diets is of severe concern, considering that diet diversity has been associated with nutritional adequacy, health outcomes, food self-sufficiency and food security (Arimond and Ruel, 2004;Kennedy et al., 2007;Sibhatu et al., 2015;KC et al., 2016;Lachat et al., 2018).Improving dietary diversity and quality is, therefore, a key strategy for alleviating the global burden of malnutrition. Healthy and diverse diets provide a vast and diverse array of macro and micronutrients, such as vitamins, minerals and bioactive compounds, which are fundamental for human health. As a result, understanding seasonal food availability patterns is crucial.While there are numerous ways to assess local available agrobiodiversity and its fluctuations throughout the year, the best method can be decided based on the scope and purpose of a specific research project. Production and market surveys can enable a more concrete and factual understanding of seasonal availability, but can also be both time and resource intensive, and can often overlook important sources of nutrients in the landscape, such as those stemming from wild resources, or those exchanged within communities. Participatory research approaches, on the other hand, have a strong focus on local perspectives and can capture more efficiently the availability of wild, cultivated and exchanged species, which may be of particular relevance in the local context. Furthermore, participatory ap proaches enable the creation of a space for mutual learning, where communities can discuss and identify locally tailored action plans (PAR, 2018;Mijatović et al., 2019).The assessment of seasonal food availability through participatory approaches entails organising focus group discussions (FGDs). Seasonal food availability FGDs are a very versatile and straightforward participatory data collection method that allows the collection of information on local food species availability and their sourcing, as well as different types of other information (PAR, 2018). A detailed methodology guide on how to collect seasonality data through this participatory approach has been recently published and can be found online (Lochetti et al., 2020).These FGDs normally last up to a day, depending on the available agrobiodiversity, the scope of the research and the interests of participants. The data collected using this participatory methodology corresponds to perceived seasonal availability, and the quality of the results is dependent on participants' knowledge and interest in the foods being discussed. Selecting participants who are familiar with the seasonal dynamics of the foods of interest, such as experienced farmers and merchants, is advisable, in order to gather data of the highest quality. Data collected with this method enables the mapping of seasonal periods of food shortages and gaps in food availability. At the same time, it is also possible to identify periods of high availability of nutrient-dense foods, which are vital entry points to improving year-round availability of healthy and diverse foods.FGDs can provide key insights to the obstacles and barriers to the production and the consumption of locally available species, and participants should be encouraged and challenged to develop locally relevant solutions to these bottlenecks, with the aim of ultimately leading to the improvement of food and nutrition security, diet diversity and the resilience of smallholder farmers.Within the IFAD-EC NUS project 'Linking agrobiodiversity value chains, climate adaptation and nutrition: Empowering the poor to manage risk', implemented from 2015 to 2020, 1 several FGDs on seasonal availability were organised in the three countries targeted by the project, namely, Guatemala, India and Mali. The project aimed to revitalise the use of local agrobiodiversity, which typically includes a large assortment of nutritious species well adapted to local conditions, but which are underutilized for a variety of reasons, including a lack of awareness and promotion. Overall, 12 villages across the target countries took part in the data collection and contributed significantly to the assessment of local available agrobiodiversity and its seasonal patterns.The relevance of locally available agrobiodiversity for the livelihoods of the villages involved in the project was immediately apparent. In particular, these FGDs, compared to the production surveys carried out during the baseline assessment, were able to capture the presence of numerous wild-sourced species, which, in the study areas, make important contributions to household diets.One fundamental legacy of this project was the creation of location-specific seasonal food availability calendars, created from the data collected in the FGDs. In total, four different calendars were created for the three countries, and in each country translations into local languages were also arranged.The resulting calendars (Figure 14.1) are colourful and graphically pleasing products, easily comprehendible to children and people with a low level of literacy. Furthermore, by drawing on baseline results and closely working with local partners, calendars were enriched with nutritional education and awarenessraising materials in booklets that were distributed back to participating communities (Bioversity International and IER, 2018). These booklets relied on simple graphics and text in the national or local language to present basic nutrition information derived from national guidelines, when available, and included a section with an overview of the state of food and nutrition security specific to each locality, and of local diet quality and consumption levels of fruits and vegetables. A section with easy tips on how to improve diet diversity and year-round consumption of nutritious foods was also included. When available, national food-based dietary guidelines were provided as a starting point to present information on how to achieve a more diversified and healthy diet. Cooperation with national ministries for public health or national institutes of nutrition should be sought to update or improve existing nutrition education material or to develop new guidelines if national ones are not currently available in the country. At the time of the IFAD-EC NUS project, national food-based dietary guidelines were not available in Mali, leading to close cooperation with local nutritionists and the Ministry of Public Health to develop dietary guidelines that were relevant to the local context. Source: Bioversity International and IER (2018).Building from local experience and knowledge, calendars can thus guide diversification both in terms of food consumption and in terms of production and landscape management. Diversified agroecosystems, leveraging ecosystem services and the interactions between different species are key strategies for strengthening resilience to climate change and other external shocks (Oliver et al., 2015;Rioux et al., 2016). They can optimise yields, provide additional sources of income and contribute to food and nutrition security (Powell et al., 2013(Powell et al., , 2015;;Boedecker, et al., 2014;Isbell et al., 2017;Mijatović et al., 2019). This is particularly pressing when considering accelerating climate change and widespread ecosystem degradation. The seasonal food availability calendars, and the discussions they build upon, can be very helpful tools for raising awareness of the presence of local food species that may be neglected and underutilized, and can then be promoted through follow-up actions and projects. Finally, the participatory nature of this tool can play a fundamental role in the documentation and preservation of whole sets of traditional knowledge related to local agrobiodiversity, including local names, traditional cultivation practices and uses related to these species.Seasonal food availability calendars can be used to explore and understand seasonal variations and changes in the availability, abundance and diversity of foods present in both wild and cultivated environments. They can be relevant both at the urban and the rural levels, as consuming a diverse array of foods that are available across different seasons will ultimately lead to positive health gains, a reduced burden of disease and lower impacts on the environment, thereby also eventually improving the overall sustainability of food systems. The understanding of seasonal food availability patterns contributes to the analysis of the local food system and can be fundamental in fostering knowledge and raising awareness of local underutilized species and their potential role in both food and nutrition security, and income generation. When the calendar builds on participatory approaches, it can be used to inform and create awareness of local constraints and barriers to the production and consumption of diverse food, allowing the development of tailored and relevant nutrition education materials. This tool is an example of a bottom-up strategy that can help improve food and nutrition security and the livelihoods of smallholder farmers as well as people's food sovereignty. A greater knowledge and understanding of locally available food biodiversity can enhance peoples' right to define their own food and agriculture systems, reducing the reliance on external imports and inputs. In fact, this year, the Covid-19 crisis has underscored the world's overdependence on long food supply-chains, and has highlighted the need to diversify locally available options that can ensure communities' food security. These calendars, therefore, represent a valuable tool in increasing food knowledge and access, especially for vulnerable groups. Increasing the awareness in the final consumers of the role of and opportunities in consuming seasonal food, whether they live in rural Guatemala or a major European city, has the potential to lead to positive health outcomes and significantly more sustainable approaches to food production and consumption.Many African grains including pearl millet, sorghum, finger millet and some legumes are declining in importance. Crops such as maize, rice and wheat, which enjoy big market shares and attention from researchers, the private sector and government agencies, are replacing these minor crops. Rural women producers of these minor grains are being disenfranchised as their market shrinks. Over the last few decades, agricultural production has received a boost thanks to enhanced cultivation methods, but the majority of agricultural food products in Africa are still sold in local markets as fresh produce or in raw forms. The main challenge experienced by farmers is the lack of appropriate technologies for harvest operations and post-harvest processing before consumption. In particular, research in processing technologies for minor cereals is needed in order to develop novel ways of consuming local grains other than the conventional preparation methods of porridge or \"ugali\", which are considered highly monotonous foods, especially among younger consumers.In order to promote the use of local food resources and to enhance the appreciation of neglected and underutilized species (NUS) by people, scientists from the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, in partnership with a multi-disciplinary group, pioneered a community-led intervention that added value to local cereals and legumes through the production and marketing of \"pressure popped\" snacks (Figure 15.1). Pressure-popping is a technology that uses high temperature and pressure to puff cereals and legumes such as sorghum, finger millet, green gram and a variety of other seemingly \"unfashionable\" grains (Figure 15.2).Partnerships in a success story of a pop cereal business in KenyaThe machine is user friendly and cheap to maintain as it is manually operated and requires little wood fuel to be operated, making it easily accessible in rural areas.Since 2016, through the financial and technical support from the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and the Japan Association for International Collaboration of Agriculture and Forestry ( JAICAF), a prototype machine was tested and fabricated by a Kenyan private company, DK engineering Co. Ltd, using locally available materials with technical support from Japanese engineers. The same financial support enabled IEDA Confectionary Limited, a Japanese private company, to work with three local communities in the Kitui, Embu and Migori counties to initiate the experimental production of popped grain and value addition. The popping properties of a number of local grains were explored and the training of community members on value addition carried out. The groups embarked on marketing the new products, providing cheap, natural and healthy snacks for both rural and urban people, targeting especially children.The intervention motivated local individual entrepreneurs to purchase the machine using their own funds and start local business focused on popping grains. This technology has proved to be a novel way of adding economic value to local food resources through their use as snack, thus providing income and several business opportunities to local groups and individual entrepreneurs.These efforts have demonstrated great potential to contribute to food security and enhanced livelihoods in Kenya, particularly with regard to:• The increased use of local food resources (in our case, local grains) and boosting their appreciation as new sources of nutrition and income by local consumers • Creating new business opportunities, especially for youth and women interested in growing, selling and adding value to local crops • Enhancing partnerships between farmers and private companies, promoting entrepreneurships and local value chains • Conserving local agrobiodiversity, production landscapes and the culture associated with local foods.Because cereal popping is still relatively new to most Kenyans, in order to raise consumers' interest in popped cereal snacks, the project team carried out practical demonstrations in the three target counties and elsewhere in the country about the popping technique and the marketing of its products.Overall, 25 of these events were held between May 2017 and February 2018. The events, which included agricultural shows, seminars and workshops, were able to be organised also in neighbouring countries. These public demonstrations generated great interest, as evidenced through the high level of public participation and the many enquiries received. People following the events were keen to know more on how to start a business and how to access local manufacturers, besides requesting more information on technical aspects concerning the popping machine and its operation. Over the course of these events, the project team received 37 public awards from 14 agriculture shows attended. The activities were also widely covered by public media (12 events were covered in Kenya and 15 in Japan between March 2019 and January 2020). Annex I lists some relevant media releases covering the events in Kenya.Worth mentioning as well is that the popping activity helped strengthen the cohesion in communities, bringing success to some groups, while failing to do the same in others (apparently due to some financial mismanagement and disgruntlement among some members, caused by lack of clear role allocation and experience in business activities). Another lesson learnt is related to the case wherein the popping machine was donated to the community by some supporters: here we registered some problems when the machine needed servicing; the repair, instead of being dealt with by the group as a whole, fell upon just a single individual who was not particularly happy with that situation, As a result, the project started to encourage self-financing for the purchase of the machine as a way to assign greater responsibility among all members of the group, including when it came to servicing work.The following factors were key to the success of this initiative:1 The economic benefits arising from the initiative were among the strongest factors that led to a shift in the attitude of farmers, traders and consumers towards minor grains, which were no longer seen as crops of the poor with no future. 2 The pop cereal machine could be fully fabricated locally. DK Engineering played a key role in providing the technical backstopping for the machines' servicing, spare parts, training in operating procedures and maintenance. A business relying solely on imported machines tends to progress less due to the high costs of machines and spare parts, the extra time spent obtaining the spare parts and the lack of management information and human resources to offer necessary repairs and follow-ups. 3 Multi-disciplinary partnerships including community groups, entrepreneurs, private companies, development agents, local governments and scientists played a strategic role in providing action-oriented solutions. These partnerships also created opportunities for individual consultations, providing information and practical trainings to those who were interested in starting the business. They supported, furthermore, the development of unique community products, promoting the use of different varieties of local cereals and seasoning and flavouring through natural products. 4 Steady demonstration sales during public events and business fairs, supported by well-crafted communications messages spread through public and social media. This created opportunities to demonstrate local innovations in their products, i.e., presentations in labelling, packaging and marketing strategies.Following are two case studies that share the experiences of two private companies who ventured into the popping business. The first case is from Kieru Foods Ltd., owned by Gichangi Mahinda, a new company based in Embu that manufactures popped cereals from local grains such as pearl millet and sorghum.The second is from DK Engineering Co. Ltd. in Nairobi, whose sales manager, Daniel Kirori, offers his perspective on playing a key role in promoting the wider use of NUS.Case 1: Kieru Foods Ltd., Embu, KenyaIn the year 2008, together with my wife, Lilian Gichangi, I opened a cereal retail shop in the Embu market (Gichangi Cereals & Spices). After earning a living for many years as cereals farmers and traders, we decided to explore new opportunities of value adding technology for our produce. We initially roasted groundnuts and soybean, selling these products in our shop in the Embu market, together with other grains.In the year 2016, at a farmers' field day organised by Bioversity International, I saw a novel technology for making popped local grains such as pearl millet and sorghum. I was much impressed by this innovation and decided to order a popping machine fabricated locally by DK Engineering and received the necessary training for its operation from Bioversity International and JAICAF. In 2017, JAICAF facilitated my further training at the IEDA Confectionary Ltd. Company in Japan, where I gained additional knowledge on popping techniques and product development. The training in Japan was a real eye-opener for me, as the company I was exposed to was capable of dealing successfully with large volumes of raw material processed and readily sold. Back home in Kenya, I established Kieru Foods Company and spent about 300,000 Ksh (around US$3,000) as initial capital to purchase a popping machine, drying chambers, packaging materials and other items needed for our new business.Compared with other local businesses, such as the processing of juices from local fruits, popping has several advantages, including easy and low cost operations and management, from production to sales; therefore, starters have a high chance of success.The work at Kieru Ltd. focused initially on pearl millet, which is often mixed with roasted groundnuts and flavoured with soya flour, baobab, hibiscus, turmeric, ginger and cinnamon powder; sesame oil and honey are also added to churn out a nutritious delicacy. As indicated in Tables 15.1 and 15.2, we found that by implementing this production and sales schedule four times a month, the expenses of the machine would be repaid after 13 weeks, or a little over three months. The company is able to pop about 40 kg of cereals daily, which we package and sell to retailers. One kg of pearl millet, which we buy from farmers at a rate of 70 Ksh, yields more than 144 small-sized bars of snacks called \"kashata\" (Figure 15.3), which we sell at 10 Ksh each, gaining a total of 1,440 Ksh. I regard this income an exponential monetary value appreciation! Commercialisation I can say that whatever the reasons are for maintaining these local crops, we have to ensure that these products are able to satisfy the three major needs faced by rural farmers, viz. income generation, food sufficiency and good health. Food processing technologies are important to strengthen the resilience of local farming communities against social and environmental transformations, and, at the same time, to provide opportunities for diversifying diets and generating additional income. Credit: Y. Morimoto Kieru Foods Ltd. offers a variety of popped cereal products from local grains that are already familiar to consumers. It should be noted that the diversity of crops used in the snacks is not the only factor behind customers' appreciation. Added flavours (obtained from local fruits, vegetables and aromatic plants) are also very important. To that regard, the company has been investing in innovative ways of flavouring and seasoning popped cereals, as in the case of flour from roasted soybeans and Bambara groundnuts, by-products of popping, that are good for making porridge also. The company is currently marketing its products through bulk selling to retailers and supporting commercialisation with advertisements and public awareness campaigns in crowded places like bus parks (Figure 15.4).The increased marketing of traditional foods in urban areas will create more demand for the raw materials and, hence, will boost the cultivation of these local crops. At the same time, the traditional knowledge associated with the use of these crops, as well as the genetic diversity of these resources, will be preserved. I also believe that the establishment of local industries revolving around the use of such crops will help tackle the problem of rural-urban migration so common among younger ones. More awareness on the health benefits of these foods will also help popularise their use, which is in great decline due to changing preferences and modernisation of local food cultures. Most of our products in the  Profit rate (%) (6)/(5)Source: Y. Kanda et al. (2017, p.38).market have basic nutritional information printed on the packages. However, a more complete nutrient profile is also needed.Popping cereals represent a new snack to Kenyan people and their promotion is, thus, very important. When we started this business, we had to give free samples of snacks to potential customers in order to popularise the products. According to one of our regular customers, the snack bar is handy food for children, easy to pack and consume at school, and this is certainly helped spread this product among younger kids.I have been providing training on popped cereal techniques to individuals wanting to start their own popping businesses (Figure 15.5). The trainees also learn tips on how to avoid failures in their business: f.e. we advise trainees on ways to modify product packaging in accordance with the new policy of the Kenyan government, which bans the use of single-use plastic shopping bags.More needs to be done, however, to support the promotion of popping products in Kenya, and I advocate for greater research support to foster the development of new ideas to help the wider popularisation of these healthy foods.In collaboration with some of our trainees, we are creating a formal association of Kenyan poppers. This group will act on behalf of its members, presenting their grievances and requests to relevant authorities and facilitating the acquisition of the Quality Mark from the Kenya Bureau of Standards, which costs entrepreneurs time and money. The association would be tasked with bringing members together for information sharing and training. The network will provide many innovative ideas for developing new products, as well as approaches for optimising prices, boosting sale volumes, increasing public demand and raising business expectations.Our venture has now picked up quite well and the good returns so far give us hope for widening our marketing and expanding our business within and beyond Embu, to other towns in Kenya. We envision having a processing factory able to offer a good market for neglected crops, which will be very helpful for struggling smallholder farmers, and we trust that we shall contribute to making better foods of high nutritional value, while also opening up job opportunities to the youth and women.Our income has decreased as the number of people in markets decreased, as a result of COVID-19 policies, including a ban on demonstration sales in the open market. Many sectors, such as restaurants and tourism, have been affected by the disruptions caused by the pandemic and many people have lost their jobs. Sectors related to basic food, production and sales, however, tended to be less affected. Many people are eating at home and, as children are staying at home due to restrictions, people are becoming also more conscious of the importance of healthy diets. To that regard, we have registered an increase in consumers' interest in locally made, healthy, traditional foods. In line with the need for greater hygienic and sanitary procedures, our company has also introduced in our factory a new packaging machine to wrap products individually (Figure 15.6).The development of novel marketing strategies is always a continuous need for every entrepreneur. In that regard, we continue to interact with scientists to explore together alternative snack-making machines that cheaper and easier to carry around. For instance, some of the latest technologies developed -the handgrill and puff-cracker machines -each costs less than a quarter of the price of a popping machine; furthermore, in addition to being affordable, they are easy to maintain since they require little technical expertise and are operated by just one person (Figure 15.7). Whereas the popping machine converts grains to snacks, the cracker utilises flours of sifted cereals like cassava, wheat, rice, pearl millet, maize, amaranth, sorghum and finger millet -among others -to come up with the snacks (Figure 15.8). I strongly believe that these types of innovations can help tackle many challenges facing our society; they can create employment for younger ones and help curb food insecurity, wastage and malnutrition.  Case 2: DK Engineering Co. Ltd., Nairobi, Kenya DK Engineering Co. Ltd. was established in 1986 in order to provide engineering technology solutions in food processing and related service support. The company has been a key player in providing machines to industries within and across regions, focusing on bakeries, fruit juices, peanut butter, honey, wet and dry vegetables and institutional/restaurant kitchen equipment.After inspecting the prototype popping machine brought from Japan, DK Engineering expressed interest in fabricating a facsimile using locally available materials. It studied the design of the Japanese model, investigated the materials used and identified areas requiring redesigns using local materials.The major challenges experienced during the development process included the following:• Developing a cylinder vessel that would hold the required high pressure without leakage. • Moulding the lid guide and locking the peg that would fit tight on the lid.• Designing the entire machine with the same precision of the original made in Japan. • In addition, the pressure tight adjustment screw bolt was often bent due to accumulation of pressure, and the locking peg was broken upon hammering to open the lid. The selection and appropriate heat-resistant material was not precise, so we had to engage in trial-and-error methods repeatedly, which consumed time and resources.To solve all these problems, a request for engineering guidance was made to JAICAF and also to Mr. Yoshimura of Pop Cereal Machine Sales Ltd., Japan, who was the original designer of the popping machine (Figure 15.9). Based on their guidance, we applied a super-alloy containing a large content of sulphur constituent (\"En9\") to increase the strength and also contracted a steel foundry to cast the lid guide and locking peg.In terms of challenges encountered in selling the machine, customers expressed some concerns over the loud noise of the machine; others found that although the machine requires the use of relatively little wood fuel, this could be still a limiting factor if the equipment is to be used in urban settings.Our knowledge regarding the fabrication of the popping machine has been greatly improved, thanks not only to interactions with the project team, but also Further improvements to the popping machine are in the making, including replacing the wood stove with a gas stove, adding an insulated panel for reducing the noise and developing mobile equipment that would allow users to reach strategic points of sale.So far, we have sold about 30 machines in our region; our customers include local farmers groups, individual entrepreneurs, companies, NGOs, local governments and a UN agency interested in promoting the use of local cereals through this technology.The Lake Titicaca basin is the center of origin for numerous domesticated crops. Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa), potato (Solanum tuberosa), oca (Oxalis tuberosa), isaño (Tropaeolum tuberosum) and cañahua (Chenopodium pallidicaule) are some of the crops domesticated in the region, that have, in some cases, been credited with permitting the development of complex civilizations throughout the Andes (Erickson, 1988;Mann, 2011). Crops such as potatoes serve as globally important staple foods that today are the primary source of nutrition for hundreds of societies (Pearsall, 2008;Bradshaw and Ramsey, 2009).Over millennia, Indigenous farmers in the Andes not only domesticated single crops from wild plants but, in many cases, developed hundreds and even thousands of varieties of each (Pearsall, 2008). In Bolivia, it is estimated that farmers have developed as many as 2,963 varieties of quinoa and up to 1,944 varieties of potato (INIAF, n.d.). Such high levels of diversity have arisen in part due to the highly variable topography, soil and climate regimes in the region, leading to farmers continually having to select the varieties that are best adapted to local conditions, dietary requirements and constantly shifting cultural practices and preferences (National Academies Press, 1989;FAO, 2009).Despite its importance for traditional diets and cuisines, alleviating and combating food insecurity and adaptation to climate change, the loss of agrobiodiversity is widespread in the Andes (Padulosi et al., 2011;Zimmerer, 2013). In recent decades, large-scale and rapid migration from rural to urban areas, shifting weather patterns and the globalization of food systems have led to a decline in agrobiodiversity in Bolivia and elsewhere around the world (Padulosi et al., 2011). Furthermore, as rural populations age and older farmers die or cease to farm, knowledge and techniques for maintaining crop diversity areStephen R. Taranto, Eliseo Mamani Alvarez and Wilfredo Rojas lost, contributing to the extinction of many varieties (Thrupp, 2000;Zimmerer, 2014).In response to this genetic erosion, in recent decades Indigenous Aymara and campesino farmers and farming communities in Bolivia and Peru, and their allies from the public and private sectors, have been identifying and experimenting with a variety of practices aimed at halting the loss of agrobiodiversity. This includes in situ and ex situ conservation of germplasm, disease control, soil management, market development and commercialization of products and agritourism (Gandarillas, 2001;Coca, 2010cited by Rea, 1995;Córdoba, 2017). This chapter shares the results of an ongoing community-based agrobiodiversity conservation project and assesses the potential of agritourism to contribute to the in situ conservation of Andean crops in a traditional farming community on Lake Titicaca.Between 2008 and 2014, Bioversity International and the PROINPA Foundation of Bolivia collaborated on the conservation and commercialization of native Andean crops on the Neglected and Underutilized Species (NUS) project, supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development. In Latin America, the NUS project was implemented in Bolivia and Ecuador (Rojas et al., 2010(Rojas et al., , 2014) ) and worked with Indigenous farming communities, agronomists, government agencies, tour operators, restaurants and other stakeholders to identify and implement sustainable interventions to prevent further loss of Andean agrobiodiversity.NUS interventions in Bolivia included the design and implementation of a community agritourism pilot project. Community-based tourism (CBT) is an increasingly popular approach to tourism that seeks the greater participation of local communities in tourism activities and services. CBT initiatives are designed to extend a greater share of the benefits of tourism to local communities by reducing the outsourcing of certain services to external actors, such as private tour operators, restaurant owners and transportation providers (Dangi and Jamal, 2016). Since the mid-1990s, dozens of CBT initiatives have been developed in Bolivia and elsewhere, with highly variable results. Challenging to implement and difficult to sustain, CBT projects are often located in remote rural communities associated with high-biodiversity protected areas and under intense pressure from migration (Baldinelli, 2013), climate change (Meave and Lugo-Morín, 2014) and illegal timber extraction and mining, and where food systems tend to decline in diversity (Blundo-Canto et al., 2020).To identify a pilot site for a CBT agritourism project and assess the feasibility of its sustainable implementation, PROINPA worked with Sendas Altas, a private tour operator in La Paz experienced in supporting and promoting CBT initiatives and familiar with its challenges. As a component of its corporate social responsibility program, Sendas Altas was actively working with several CBT initiatives in protected areas (T. Sivila, personal communication, 20 April 2018).For the NUS agritourism pilot project -and based on PROINPA's recommendations -four communities, Cariquina Grande, Cachilaya, Coromata Media, Santiago de Okola and Titijoni, were evaluated as potential pilot project sites under four criteria: agrobiodiversity levels; project acceptance by the community; accessibility of the community and the presence of tourist attractions beyond agrobiodiversity.Approximately 1.5 hours by ferry from the Island on the Sun in Lake Titicaca, the most important non-urban tourist destination in Bolivia, and four hours from the city of La Paz, the village of Santiago de Okola on Titicaca was selected for the project. Community members expressed interest in developing a tourism project and, in fact, the village had been receiving tourists informally for several years (T. Laruta Hilari, personal comm, 28 February 2008). In addition to the high levels of agrobiodiversity inventoried by PROINPA ( 2008) and Torresin, who identified 136 useful plant species in the village (2015), the community possesses numerous landscapes, sites and activities of interest, in particular the Sleeping Dragon bluff, an important archaeological site on the shores of the lake (Calla et al., 2013) that until today is used for traditional Aymara rituals (Gil, 2017).Together with community members and PROINPA, Sendas Altas f acilitated the participatory design of the CBT project based on the interests and abilities of participating community members, the identification of complementary attractions and activities, the generation of income and the use of agrobiodiversity. Through group discussions, skill-building workshops, field trips and other participatory methods, tourism skills and services such as interpretation, hygiene practices, food preparation and accommodation were developed. Agrobiodiversity was integrated into the project in various ways, including its inclusion in meals, the design of a cookbook highlighting agrobiodiversity, interpretive walks that include information on agrobiodiversity and traditional production systems and the creation of a community museum highlighting agrobiodiversity.Since the start of the project in 2008, an estimated 3,500 tourists have visited Santiago de Okola, many crossing Lake Titicaca from the Island of the Sun and others coming by land from La Paz. Furthermore, in parallel with the NUS project and to this day, a sustained series of additional, externally funded projects have been implemented in the community, including the d evelopm ent of a low-impact trail system on the Sleeping Dragon bluff, the organizational strengthening of the Integrated Tourism Association of Santiago de Okola (ASITURSO) -the formal community organization that emerged from the project -and the construction of a community center. Recently, the project has received support from the Italian Cooperation with a particular focus on the remnants of Qhapaq Ñan, the Great Inca Trail that passes directly through the town, which is being developed as a long-distance regional trekking route from Ecuador to Chile (see Figure 16.1).The objectives of this study are: a) to evaluate whether the last 12 years of agritourism in Santiago de Okola have contributed to the conservation of the Andean crop varieties inventoried at the beginning of the project; and b) assess the impacts and potential of agritourism to contribute to the in situ conservation of Andean agrobiodiversity. At the beginning of the NUS project in 2008, 12 families from Santiago de Okola agreed to participate in the agritourism pilot project and were surveyed in Aymara and Spanish by PROINPA and Sendas Altas to assess established perceptions about tourism and to inventory household agrobiodiversity (Mamani et al., 2008). Researchers visited each family independently after the 2008 harvest and asked respondents to display and name each variety. Once all the families were surveyed, a database of crops and crop varieties was generated and recorded as present (1) or not present (0) in each household. The same method was used for the 2020 surveys and the data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, with the household as the unit of analysis.To evaluate changes in household agrobiodiversity levels, we compared levels reported in 2008 to those reported in 2020. The 2020 surveys were conducted with the same families and with the same questionnaire. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, only seven families (58%) were surveyed; however, the remaining families will be surveyed when safe access to the region is secured and the data presented here will be updated.Today, the agricultural systems of the Lake Titicaca basin reflect five centuries of crop exchange with food systems from around the world and the diets of both rural and urban consumers reflects deep integration with introduced crops such as broad beans, wheat and barley. Farmers in Santiago de Okola cultivate a broad array of native and introduced crops; however, for the purposes of this study, results are presented only for the seven native Andean crops inventoried during both the 2008 and the 2020 surveys. Four tubers (potato, oca, isaño and papalisa) and three grains (quinoa, cañahua and maize) were inventoried, while introduced crops such as barley and wheat were excluded, in order to evaluate the impact of the project on native Andean crops rather than all crops present in the systems. Figures 16.3 and 16.4 summarize the change in the number of varieties of each crop that each household cultivated in 2008 and in 2020. Increases in the number of varieties grown by each household were reported for the seven crops in six of the seven households: oca increased from an average of four to eight varieties, isaño from one to four varieties, papalisa from one to four varieties, maize from three to nine varieties and quinoa from one to six varieties per household. While in 2008 cañahua was not cultivated by any participants, in 2020 one family reported cultivating four varieties of it. The greatest change was registered for potatoes, with an increase in the average number of varieties from 12 to 32 (Figure 16.4). The change in number of varieties of potato is presented separately because while potatoes were not a focus crop of the NUS project, they are central to food security in rural communities and their diversity is crucial to monitor and conserve.The results also served to evaluate changes in the overall composition of crops and their varieties at the intra-family level between 2008 and 2020 (Figure 16.5). Traditional Andean farming systems are characterized as poly-culture systems and Figure 16.5 summarizes changes in crop variety composition with Families 2 and 3 increasing the total number of crop varieties by 131% and 71% respectively; Families 5, 6 and 7 increasing the number of varieties by more than 200% each and Family 4 increasing the number of varieties by more than 500%. Family 1 did not ultimately participate in the project and reported a 50% reduction in number of varieties.The results of this initial analysis show promise for community-based agritourism projects to contribute to the in situ conservation of Andean agrobiodiversity. While five households remain to be interviewed, the consistent and sustained increases both in the number of varieties of each crop cultivated by participating families and in the overall diversity and complexity of household farming  systems suggest that varieties at risk of loss are, in fact, being conserved among participating households. While there is little evidence, with the exception of cañahua, of new varieties being introduced from outside the community, the results clearly show that participating families are actively exchanging varieties amongst themselves and, as such, are establishing multiple, highly diverse in situ conservation plots within the village.There are a number of factors that may have contributed to these outcomes. First, it is important to mention that from the early stages of the project there was a steady flow of tourists visiting the community and paying to experience its agrobiodiversity. Santiago de Okola's agricultural landscape was highlighted in promotional materials used by local tour operators to attract visitors, with offers of homestays and traditional meals with families, an agrobiodiversity and medicinal plant walk, cooking workshops and visits to the community museum with exhibits on the food and farming systems of the village and region.At the same time, project technicians from PROINPA and Sendas Altas were supporting community members by providing skill-building and organizational strengthening, helping participants respond to the needs of visitors, fundraising for new projects and managing the marketing efforts required to sustain the flow of tourists. Together, the internal and external efforts made by project partners and the consistent focus on agrobiodiversity combined to motivate participants to internalize the importance of agrobiodiversity not only for local food security requirements but also as a source of income linked to being the stewards of such a valuable resource.Qualitative data collected during the 2020 inventories support the notion that the combination of receiving income during and beyond the early stages of the project while also simultaneously developing services and skills associated with tourism focused on agrobiodiversity caused the revaluing of crop varieties by both tourists and community members. During the 2008 inventories, for example, many respondents could not remember the names and uses of the varieties surveyed, while in 2020 farmers demonstrated much greater knowledge of varieties and much more interest in conserving them. Further, cultivating a greater number of varieties has become a source of pride and positive competition among project participants as they report the desire to demonstrate their commitment to stewarding cultural patrimony not only for tourists but also for neighbors and nearby communities, ostensibly elevating the village's status among its peers.Finally, positive developments achieved in Santiago de Okola took place in the context of broader national and international efforts to revalue traditional food and farming systems (M. Taha, personal communication, 12 August 2020). The rise of Indigenous leadership at a national level in Bolivia, for example, greatly influenced increasing pride in traditional cultural practices, including native cuisine. The year 2013, for example, was declared as a Year of Quinoa by the Food and Agricultural Organization. These are just two examples of larger trends that have elevated appreciation for and consumption of native crop varieties and that have influenced tourist interests in the same.At the time of writing, and most unfortunately, the 2020 global coronavirus pandemic has brought tourism in Santiago de Okola to a halt and throws into doubt the long term sustainability of agritourism to contribute to agrobiodiversity conservation in the community. The virus' impact on elderly populations is severe, placing Santiago de Okola's aging farmers at risk and, with them, the cultural and agroecological practices associated with the agrobiodiversity they conserve.Diets low in consumption of fruits, vegetables, and other nutrient-dense foods and high in energy, fats, free sugars, and salt are a leading cause of non-communicable diseases in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), underpinning millions of premature deaths (Afshin et al., 2019). The World Health Organization recommends the consumption of 400 grams or five portions a day of fruits and vegetables for good health. However, healthy diets that include fresh vegetables are unaffordable for more than half the households in SSA (Harris et al., 2019;Hirvonen et al., 2020).Traditional African vegetables (TAVs) are diverse in taste, flavors, and nutrient content. They present one way to improve people's diets in SSA countries at low cost with food plants suited to local taste and flavors, and which are connected to people's cultural history and adapted to local agro-ecological environments. Yet these vegetables are often neglected and underutilized for multiple reasons, including (i) shifts in food habits and preferences; (ii) agricultural and food policies promoting only a handful of energy-dense staple crops and exotic vegetables; (iii) poor planting materials available to smallholders; and (iv) poor crop management practices and postharvest handling due to inadequate extension and infrastructure.This chapter gives a brief overview of the World Vegetable Center (WorldVeg) and its partners' efforts to promote TAV production and consumption in SSA and safeguard TAV biodiversity before it is lost. The lessons learned from these efforts will contribute to an African vegetable revolution to improve diets in the continent.TAVs are vegetables native to SSA or vegetables that have been introduced to SSA and adopted by farmers in their traditional production systems. ThreeSognigbe N'Danikou, Maarten van Zonneveld, Fekadu Fufa Dinssa, Roland Schafleitner, Jody Harris, Pepijn Schreinemachers and Srinivasan Ramasamy primary regions of crop diversity of TAVs have been identified: (i) Dahomey gap in western lowland tropical Africa; (ii) the Ethiopian highlands; and (iii) South Cameroon (van Zonneveld et al., 2021). Tanzania and Eswatini are two regions of TAV diversity of predominantly wild vegetables; Angola, DR Congo, and South Sudan are areas of potential diversity that require further investigation because of the currently low number of observations (van Zonneveld et al., 2021). Madagascar is another fascinating region of vegetable crop diversity as a historic meeting point of people originating from SSA, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, who each introduced their own crops and varieties. More than 400 species are reported to be used as traditional vegetables in Africa, with over 60% being leafy vegetables (van Zonneveld et al., 2021). A more detailed study among 126 TAVs indicates that about one-third are domesticated, another third are semi-domesticated, and the rest are predominantly harvested in the wild (van Zonneveld et al., 2021).Many local varieties of domesticated and semi-domesticated species are lost due to underutilization. For wild species, habitat loss and overexploitation are major conservation concerns. WorldVeg maintains a global key collection of TAVs in the public domain in its genebank in Tanzania, which includes germplasm of amaranth, African nightshade, okra, roselle, and jute mallow, among other crops. This collection comprises about 2,400 accessions of TAV landraces and their wild relatives, collected from 38 African countries. The early collecting missions date back to the 1990s through different grant projects. In partnership with National Plant Genetic Resources Centers in SSA, WorldVeg is implementing a plan to rescue African vegetable biodiversity and support ex situ conservation of TAV biodiversity and breeding in Africa. Thanks to these partnerships, new collecting missions have started in western, eastern and southern Africa to fill geographical gaps in the conservation of TAVs.The TAV collection at WorldVeg is held in trust for humanity. It can be accessed for breeding and research in accordance with the guidelines of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.In addition to distributing germplasm for research, education, and breeding, WorldVeg distributes vegetable seed kits to international and local NGOs, farmer groups, and local governments, which share the kits with households for the direct cultivation of these crops. Most seed kits aim to improve nutrition through home consumption and to diversify incomes by selling TAVs in local markets. WorldVeg also distributes seed kits to organizations for disaster relief to support smallholders affected by crises such as displacement due to civil unrest or crop failure because of extreme weather events. For example, from 2013 to 2020, the WorldVeg genebank distributed nearly 47,000 seed kits containing about 211,000 seed samples of improved lines and purified promising accessions to smallholder farmers in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Madagascar through development projects and programs. Bulk seed distribution in Tanzania, Benin, and Mali was part of the Center's effort to support communities affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. These large numbers reflect increasing recognition among government and development organizations of the relevance of TAVs for income and nutrition.The lines distributed are open-pollinated, allowing growers to produce and save their own seeds for future seasons. These lines of promising genebank accessions, selections, and WorldVeg improved lines have been tested under local conditions for yield, disease resistance, and consumer preference. Seed kits are distributed along with training in vegetable production and seed saving. Each kit contains a booklet with planting instructions that follow good agricultural practices and information on each crop's nutritional values. Seed kit distributions are intended to be one-time only to avoid dependency or crowding-out local seed enterprises. The provision of healthy seed kits to households coupled with behavior change communication has been shown to raise consumers' nutritional awareness of TAVs (Afari-Sefa et al., 2016). Such actions have resulted in significant improvements in households' dietary diversity, particularly for children under five and women of reproductive age (Ochieng et al., 2018).In areas where formal and informal seed sectors of TAVs are underdeveloped, vegetable seed kits help introduce good quality seed in local seed systems. Seed kits are also a promising tool for participatory variety evaluation with farmer organizations and local seed enterprises, which, in turn, inform seed enterprises and seed companies about farmer preferences to tailor their supply to local demand. As seed companies and public institutions expand their portfolio with traditional vegetables, the role of the WorldVeg genebank shifts from seed kit distribution to supplying germplasm resources for variety development by seed companies and public institutions. Thus, the WorldVeg genebank optimizes the distribution of vegetable diversity by working with partners in both formal and local seed systems and aims to contribute to integrated seed system development.Farmers in several SSA countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, and Mali are already adopting varieties developed from WorldVeg genebank materials supplied to seed companies in Africa. For instance, 51% of amaranth areas planted in Kenya and 70% in Tanzania were from WorldVeg improved lines that were released in these countries (Ochieng et al., 2019). Also, 2.9 tons (59%) of amaranth seeds sold by companies in 2016 used WorldVeg-based germplasm. WorldVeg's amaranth lines have reached about 231,000 households in Kenya and Tanzania alone (Ochieng et al., 2019).The germplasm improvement of TAVs at WorldVeg started in 1992 with a handful of the most popular TAVs, namely amaranth, African eggplant, and Ethiopian mustard. Through repeated selection, purification, and farmers' participatory variety selection, plant breeders quickly identified promising lines for release as improved cultivars of amaranth and African eggplant in Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Cameroon (Figure 17.1).A WorldVeg breeding program for amaranth and African eggplant started in 2015 to develop advanced lines with enhanced yield, nutrients, product color, shape, size, taste, and late and early maturation. These lines have been distributed to national agricultural research systems, private seed companies, and other partners in Africa (Dinssa et al., 2016). They have been adopted at large scales by farmers in several countries such as Tanzania and Kenya (Ochieng et al., 2019). As a result, improved cultivars of amaranth and African eggplant have been released in several countries in the continent. Most seed companies directly use the released varieties and multiply the seed for commercialization. A few advanced companies have started using WorldVeg improved lines in their breeding programs. The increasing commercialization of seed suggests commensurate increasing consumer demand for these vegetables and, consequently, more interest from farmers to invest in amaranth production. Further research will help provide further insights into these dynamics and how to further scale vegetable seed supply in SSA.To further advance variety release and supply quality vegetable seed, the Africa Vegetable Breeding Consortium (AVBC) was established in 2018. The AVBC is a joint initiative of WorldVeg and the African Seed Trade Association to develop a strong vegetable seed sector in Africa. All WorldVeg improved lines are publicly available and can be requested. AVBC members have limited exclusivity claims to some WorldVeg-developed lines before they become a global public good.WorldVeg improved lines include African eggplant accessions resistant to shoot borer Leucinodes orbonalis, and sources of resistance in amaranth have been identified for foliar pests and stem weevils (AVRDC, 2003;Othim et al., 2018). In combination with appropriate pest and disease management practices, farmers can boost TAV supply to meet growing demand. These practices include removing and destroying infested crop debris, crop rotations with non-host crop species, eradicating weeds, good drainage, and growing healthy seedlings. Grafting African eggplant on suitable resistant rootstocks is an important control measure to overcome bacterial wilt and Verticillium wilt diseases. Soil fumigation and soil solarization are important means to control pathogens and root-knot nematodes. Damping-off diseases can be controlled by treating seed with fungicides (including bio-fungicides such as Trichoderma) or hot water. Using disease-free seedlings, removing and destroying diseased plants, and protecting fields and nurseries from insect vectors are further recommendations to help manage virus diseases. Yellow sticky traps (for whitefly, leafminer, leaf hopper, and aphids) and/or blue sticky traps (for thrips) should be erected on the windward side of fields and nurseries to help trap these pests, some of which also act as vectors of virus diseases. Application of predatory mites and insects and entomopathogenic fungi such as Neozygites floridana, Beauveria bassiana, and Metarhizium anisopliae help reduce infestations of pests such as spider mites. The application of bio-pesticides, including neem formulations, reduces insect pests and also conserves natural enemies such as predatory ladybird beetles and syrphid flies, as well as parasitoids. Extension and training in improved production and postharvest practices support farmers in boosting the TAV supply in SSA, as would adequate infrastructure to get vegetables to appropriate markets.Vegetable consumption is generally low in SSA. Only 7% of countries in Africa reach a mean consumption of 240 g/day, as recommended by WHO/ FAO guidelines (Kalmpourtzidou et al., 2020), though there is wide variation between regions and countries in SSA (Afshin et al., 2019). Data specifically on TAV intake at individual or population level is not readily available, because national data-collection systems focus predominantly on economically important vegetables (Herforth et al., 2019). Further research is needed to understand the intake of TAVs at household and individual levels in many SSA countries.Behavior change communication programs have been tested in several countries to promote fruit and vegetable consumption, including some TAVs. Among these approaches are school garden programs used to stimulate interest of children at a young age (Schreinemachers et al., 2019); and integrated home garden programs-coupling garden-based training with nutrition behavior change-to increase the household-level availability of vegetables while simultaneously stimulating demand (Olney et al., 2015). Other approaches include media campaigns, cooking demonstrations and competitions, promoting local food ambassadors/champions, and holding food and seed fairs (Ochieng et al., 2019). Over the last three decades, tens of thousands of households in western (Mali, Burkina Faso), central (Cameroon), eastern (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Madagascar) and southern Africa (Malawi, Zambia) have been trained on the nutritional benefits of TAVs and how to prepare them by different organizations including WorldVeg, Bioversity International, and their national partners.Thanks to a series of interventions on both the demand and supply sides, TAVs are successfully being mainstreamed in Kenya and Uganda, especially in the capital cities like Nairobi and Kampala, through a revival of traditional eating patterns among the middle classes. This has been possible because of policy support to create an enabling environment for vegetables in food systems. The recognition of quality declared seeds (QDS) boosted TAV supply to meet increasing urban consumption in these cities (Mabaya et al., 2019). QDS provides farmers with access to quality (though not nationally registered) seeds of less highly bred crops such as TAVs. The QDS process involves local seed enterprises, boosting livelihoods and making diverse vegetables available for healthy diets.However, in most cases, interventions are fragmented because they address only part of the value chain. There is a need for systems-based actions that encompass the whole value chain and that are enforced by enabling policies to support sustainable production and consumption. Many food and seed policies do not explicitly consider vegetables or desired dietary outcomes for national populations. Therefore, more work is needed to understand how these system-level interventions can connect the production and consumption of nutrient-rich vegetable foods.Despite increased interest from the scientific community in the ongoing work on TAVs, there are still important steps left to achieve an African vegetable revolution to improve diets in the continent. We here identify three significant areas that need a clear commitment from high-level institutions in Africa and worldwide.a Enabling policies to mainstream African traditional vegetables into food systems. Policies to shape the food system to nourish people, not just feed them, must look across the food system from inputs to production and food environments. Multidisciplinary research is key to reveal gaps and opportunities for increasing TAVs in food systems, starting with the desired outcomes-including healthy diets, fair livelihoods, and sustainable environments (McMullin et al., 2021). A critical component of this research is the investigation of seed policies and how to make them more inclusive by (i) recognizing farmer-saved seeds; (ii) supporting the development of nutritious vegetable varieties; and (iii) making these vegetable seeds available to and affordable for farmers. Policies that support farmers in risk management will encourage them to grow TAVs. These include providing subsidies for nutritious foods and insurance programs for TAVs, and connecting growers with consistent institutional markets such as school feeding programs while demand increases. b Promotion and outreach to boost consumption of TAVs. There is increasing evidence of the impact of promotion campaigns on public awareness of the nutritional value of TAVs and their role in dietary diversity at the household level (Afari-Sefa et al., 2016;Ochieng et al., 2018). Specialized government agencies (e.g., Food and Nutrition Councils and their equivalents) can be tasked with such campaigns. c Strengthen regional R&D programs and initiatives to enhance the use of African vegetable germplasm. This will require governments and funders to invest and stakeholders to organize efforts to rescue the biodiversity of TAVs and strengthen vegetable breeding programs in Africa. An example of such an initiative is the AVBC, which brings WorldVeg and seed companies together to build capacities and exchange knowledge on new breeding techniques. A regional action plan with public, societal, and private actors will be essential to rescue and make efficient use of TAV biodiversity in Africa.While notable efforts are ongoing to mainstream TAVs in production and food systems in SSA for healthier diets, improved livelihoods, and the protection of genetic diversity, several bottlenecks remain: policies to create an enabling environment are needed to integrate these vegetables into people's diets; awareness campaigns to encourage consumption will enhance the adoption and acceptability of TAVs; consistent investment to safeguard TAV biodiversity is essential for resilient production and supply to meet consumer demand; and supply of high-quality seeds to farmers in combination with extension will help build capacity among farmers for safe and sustainable production practices. DOI: 10.4324/9781003044802-20Slow Food (SF) is a global grassroots organization and movement founded in 1989 to counter the acceleration of frenetic consumerism by renewing interest in food and the pleasure of eating, protecting local food cultures, and ensuring that everyone has access to food that is good (healthy and delicious), clean (produced and consumed with respect for the environment), and fair (contributing to social justice) (Petrini, 2005). Since its inception, SF has articulated a multifaceted concept of gastronomy that understands food as a web of relationships linking pleasure and wellbeing, people and landscapes, producers and consumers, cultures and ecosystems (Schneider, 2008). SF's activities and initiatives focus on education, traditional knowledge, agroecology, empowerment of women and Indigenous Peoples, participatory management of foodscapes, policy and advocacy, and the creation of short, equitable supply chains. A commitment to defending the biological and cultural diversity on which the resilience of human communities and the global food system depend underpins all of this work. This is in keeping with the growing political, popular, and scientific interest in the role that traditional food systems can play in combatting and potentially reversing the erosion of biocultural diversity (Maffi, 2001) that has accelerated in recent decades. Particular attention is now paid to neglected and underutilized species (NUS) (Padulosi et al., 2013), which may hold solutions to challenges facing socioecological systems and human health and nutrition. Not just governments, research institutions, and private sector organizations, but also local and international food movements have made important contributions to recovering NUS (Goodman et al., 2012;Counihan and Siniscalchi, 2014). Several grassroots initiatives identify, document, and promote neglected and marginalized products and their associated biocultural and gastronomic value (Nabhan et al., Charles Barstow, Edie Mukiibi and Dauro Mattia Zocchi 2010). In this chapter we discuss aspects of SF's approach to what it calls 'endangered food products'. While this term overlaps in its meaning with NUS, it refers to a broader domain than the latter, as we will illustrate. Our focus is on the systems-based approach and the underlying values of SF's global biodiversity projects.The Ark of Taste, coordinated by the SF Foundation for Biodiversity, is an online catalogue of endangered varieties, breeds, and processed products from cultures and territories around the world (for more information on the Foundation, see www.fondazioneslowfood.com/en/). The criteria that products must satisfy for inclusion on the Ark help define the \"ecogastronomic unit of concern\" (Nabhan et al., 2010).First, items must be food products, including domesticated plant varieties and animal breeds, populations, wild species, and processed products. Second, Ark products must be of distinctive organoleptic quality. This criterion points to one of SF's distinguishing features, its concern with pleasure and 'good taste', which implies affording as much importance to what 'tastes good' as to what is healthy. 'Quality' is defined within the relevant local context; understanding the factors that contribute to perceptions of quality requires intercultural dialogue, and pleasure is often what brings people into the conversation. Third, Ark products must be linked to a specific territory and the memory, identity, and traditional knowledge of a particular community. This underscores the importance of landscapes and 'foodscapes', the human-natural systems in which the cultural and ecological values of the ecogastronomic unit (the product) take shape and acquire meaning, and where traditional knowledge and management practices are created, maintained, and transmitted (Stepp et al., 2003;Barthel et al., 2013).Finally, Ark of Taste products must be produced in limited quantities and at risk or endangered due to various social, economic, and ecological factors. These factors include habitat degradation and land use conversion, forced or voluntary migration, sedentarization of mobile populations, lack of intergenerational knowledge transfer, barriers to market entry, one-size-fits-all hygiene regulations, climate change, environmental and genetic pollution, incentives to adopt improved or foreign varieties and breeds, changing sentiments due to education and the media, and the general mechanization, industrialization, and standardization of the food system.Looking at these criteria, there are key similarities and differences between SF's concept of endangered food products and the various working definitions of NUS (as elaborated, e.g., in Delêtre et al., 2013). Among the important differences are that, for SF, the local is privileged over the global, the 'what' (i.e., the unit of concern) is more broadly defined, and the 'why' is motivated primarily by questions of culture and identity rather than unrealized market potential. These differences have a number of important implications, as elaborated on below.SF relies on the wisdom of the crowd-its global network of farmers, fishers, herders, artisans, cooks, educators, academics, activists, Indigenous Peoples, and consumers-to identify endangered products. Ark of Taste products most often result from nominations submitted by people across the globe who may or may not be formally associated with the SF network. If a nominated product meets the criteria described above, it is boarded on the Ark to raise awareness and increase its visibility; individuals and communities can then take action, in their own way or through the implementation of other SF projects. In other cases, Ark products arise from biodiversity mapping undertaken by members of the network with technical support from SF and local experts, or by SF staff during field visits. Mapping is one of the methodologies that appear in the literature on NUS (e.g., Will, 2008), though the order of the steps involved, the elements to be mapped, and the justifications for selecting certain products differ slightly in the SF approach.Critically, SF does not select products in advance; it works to support and facilitate the efforts of communities in its network, not set an agenda for them. Likewise, SF does not undertake field research or projects in a territory without being invited. This approach seeks to put technical support, networking capacity, and scientific knowledge at the service of local communities, not merely supplement research and development with those communities' traditional knowledge and solicit their input and involvement. In addition to products themselves, SF maps stakeholders within the foodscape. These could be farmers, processors, civil society institutions, tourism and hospitality organizations, and markets. Without understanding this constellation of stakeholders, and particularly how it links rural and urban areas, identifying and promoting endangered products is rarely fruitful. Likewise, it is impossible to promote products according to SF's values without interest and commitment from local communities.While 'protecting' and 'promoting' serve and create opportunities for each other, there is potential for opportunities to become threats (Will, 2008), such as when resource use and market attention become too intense in relation to one product at the expense of other endangered products and the environment. Therefore, economic potential alone is insufficient to warrant SF's attention, and when it comes to such potential, emphasis is primarily on local economies and food sovereignty rather than the global market and food security. SF challenges the assertion that global food production must increase 50%-100% by 2050 (Foley et al., 2011;FAO, 2019). Calls to drastically increase production are used to justify a progressist narrative of growth, liberal trade, and technological fixes, the disastrous consequences of which are evident (Ghosh, 2010;Tomlinson, 2013;Hunter et al., 2017). Feeding everybody while protecting biocultural diversity and maintaining production potential in the long term requires multiple local Slow Food and NUS 219 strategies tailored to local complexities (Cunningham et al., 2013). Moreover, though small-scale production alone is insufficient, it is absolutely necessary for achieving these goals-such production already feeds a huge proportion of humanity while simultaneously supporting ecosystem services and high levels of biodiversity (Ricciardi et al., 2018).With these issues in mind, the SF Foundation for Biodiversity has developed several projects to promote traditional and endangered products-such as those on the Ark of Taste-and their associated biocultural contexts within a broad view of promotion as a means for protection. For example, the Gardens in Africa project is a continent-wide network of school and community gardens designed to protect traditional varieties of plants and promote nutrition and knowledge transfer using gardens as productive and educational spaces. Subsistence is rarely 'mere subsistence'. The importance of subsistence agriculture for biodiversity conservation, nutrition and dietary diversity, and food sovereignty based on access to wild and cultivated traditional foods-particularly among poor and Indigenous communities-is well documented (Kuhnlein and Receveur, 1996;Roche et al., 2008;Galluzzi et al., 2010;Jones et al., 2014;Powell et al., 2015).The SF Presidium project, a more market-oriented initiative, supports groups of producers committed to reviving or revitalizing endangered products. The SF Foundation provides training and technical assistance and works with producers to create production protocols similar to those for products with Protected Designation of Origin or other geographical indications, but designed to foster flexibility, innovation, and subtle differences between producers, all in the spirit of subverting standardization (Friedman and McNair, 2008). Presidia raise the visibility of these products on the market and producers may legally use SF's registered snail logo, which has become a highly regarded seal of approval for good, clean, and fair foods. Furthermore, Presidia use narrative labels to highlight each product's connection to a particular territory and the knowledge of producers, replacing the 'fast' reading of traditional certifications and label texts with the 'slow' reading of biocultural contexts.One distinguishing feature of SF Presidia is their increasing focus on systems of production rather than single products. An example of this is the recently launched Presidium for the Chiapas Milpa System, which uses agroecology to grow several Ark of Taste products, supports the reproduction and sharing of traditional seeds and knowledge, and empowers women involved in producing and marketing traditional corn products. Another example is the Presidium for dried nettles (Urtica massaica) from Kenya's Mau Forest. The Gikuyu and other local Indigenous communities use nettles as food and medicine for themselves and their livestock. Because deforestation has reduced the availability of wild nettles, Gikuyu women have brought them into cultivation in disturbed areas around dwellings and the fertile soils of formerly grazed land. The Presidium assists with production and promotes both fresh and dried powdered nettles in restaurants and in local and regional markets.As some NUS literature points out, value addition can be key for bringing marginalized foods to wider markets (Will, 2008;Padulosi et al., 2013). SF takes this a step further, considering processed products like cheeses, honey, and cured meats. The importance of traditional knowledge, techniques, and technologies associated with these products is clear. What may be less apparent is the biodiversity and cultural value of non-food species behind these products, including Source: Oliver Migliore, SF Archive (used with permission).Slow Food and NUS 221 bees, forage plants, and microorganisms responsible for fermentation. Promoting such products can contribute to the protection of these species, their habitats, and their associated ecosystem services. Two examples help clarify this. Honey is vitally important to the gastronomy of the Ogiek, another Indigenous community of the Mau Forest. Many of the melliferous species upon which local bees rely, while inedible to humans, provide materials for tools and beekeeping equipment.One is Dombeya torrida, known locally as silibwet, a sacred tree that yields the Ogiek's most valued honey (Zocchi et al., 2020). The Ogiek Honey Presidium helps protect this tree and the Mau Forest ecosystem generally.Another example is the relationship between forage plants and the qualities of dairy products. Sahrawi nomads in Western Sahara know exactly how the plants that camels eat affect the sensory and nutritional qualities of their milk, and believe that this milk retains the medicinal properties of the plants ingested (Volpato and Puri, 2014). Similar observations have been made by Raika camel herders in Rajasthan (Köhler-Rollefson et al., 2013), whose milk is an Ark of Taste product. In Europe, the astonishing diversity of mountain cheeses results directly from biophysical variation across mountain pastures. Promoting these cheeses and their value chains could help reduce agricultural abandonment, which threatens landscape diversity and traditional cultures (MacDonald et al., 2000). SF has recently promoted natural cheeses (those produced with raw milk and natural fermentation) across Europe. Such cheeses have increased organoleptic complexity that reflects the specific communities of microorganisms in the pastures and dairy facilities where they're produced, and their producers are not beholden to companies that make and distribute selected fermentation cultures. These examples refer to landscapes that produce little or no plant-based food for humans, but whose biocultural diversity and contributions to ecological structure and function are worthy of attention. Food can be an effective entry point and rallying cry in this regard.Over the last three decades, parallel to concerns about the sustainability and equitability of the global food system and its effects on biodiversity, SF has developed a grassroots approach that identifies food systems as both cause and victim of the current ecological crisis, as well as a potential solution. Recognizing that protecting and promoting endangered food products and NUS is insufficient on its own, SF addresses the wider sociocultural and ecological systems of which these products are a part. Social movements, institutional initiatives, and policies must emphasize and rigorously defend the inherent value of these systems. This means using the market in service of these values, not the other way around, and it requires leaving decision-making power in the hands of local communities so that they don't become dependent on market channels over which they have no influence. While global logistics and communications make it increasingly easy to promote and market NUS, endangered foods, dietary diversity, and local, seasonal  produce in cities and the Global North-which is desirable-such promotion must never come at the cost of failing to protect these things where they already exist in rural areas and the Global South. Furthermore, financial and other benefits must be returned to and shared with communities. The task, then, is to create a new gastronomy that incorporates biodiversity, cultural diversity, and traditional knowledge into agricultural systems and foodscapes, both rural and urban, and that generates markets and networks of solidarity that incentivize and derive pleasure from these diversities, while recognizing their full value.Underutilized crop genetic resources are imperative for sustainable agriculture and small millets belong to this important group of crops (Vetriventhan and Upadhyaya, 2019). Plant genetic resources play a significant role in enhancing the adaptation and resilience of agricultural production systems. With the global population expected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050, there is an urgent need to enhance food production by 60%-70% from the current level. The Green Revolution signified an immense transformation in agriculture in the form of a broad spectrum of species, including locally adapted cultivars and landraces, which are needed to harness livelihood potential to cope with extreme climatic conditions, marginal lands and other biotic and abiotic stresses along with nutritional security (Fita et al., 2015). The Indian subcontinent is bestowed with an immense wealth of agrobiodiversity, which can be utilized to take up this challenge. One such group of vastly promising crops is that of small millets. This group is represented by six species viz. finger millet (Eleusine coracana L. Gaertner), kodo millet (Paspalum scrobiculatum L.), foxtail millet (Setaria italica L. Pal), little millet (Panicum sumatrense Roth ex Roemer and Schultes), proso millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) and barnyard millet (Echinochloa crusgalli and E. colona L. Link) that have climate-smart features (Saxena et al., 2018). The cultivation of small millets in India has progressively deteriorated over the last few decades due to their lower economic worth compared to major cereals and, lately, to horticultural crops. This has resulted from a variety of factors including the lack of high-yielding varieties, good quality seed, better cultivation practices, proper food processing technologies and poor value-chains (Upadhyaya and Vetriventhan, 2017). Overcoming these major bottlenecks can allow economically viable opportunities for farmers in areas where theKuldeep Singh, Nikhil Malhotra, Mohar Singh production of major cereals like rice, wheat and maize may be steadily declining due to climate change. In such scenarios, small millets offer a better alternative, as these are known to possess tremendous nutritional benefits. Overall, time demands immediate thrust for directing more research and development towards these crops.Globally, the largest ex situ germplasm collections of small millets are maintained by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research at the International Crop Research Institute for Semi-arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Hyderabad, India, for long-term conservation. The ICRISAT gene bank conserves more than 12,000 accessions of six small millets (finger millet, barnyard millet, foxtail millet, proso millet, little millet, kodo millet and proso millet). The majority of these accessions belong to finger millet (5,947 accessions) followed by foxtail millet (1,542 accessions) (http://genebank.icrisat.org/IND/Core?Crop=-Finger%20millet). Other than the ICRISAT gene bank, small millets germplasm is also conserved in national gene banks across the world. Three gene banks viz. the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi, India, and the national active germplasm site at the All-India Coordinated Small Millet Improvement Project (AICSMIP), Bengaluru; the national gene bank of the Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China; and the gene bank of the United State Department of Agriculture maintain more than 15,000, 22,000 and 4,000 small millets accessions, respectively. Most of these collections are dominated by accessions belonging to finger millet and foxtail millet (Saha et al., 2016). A survey of these collections indicates that although the hot spots of small millets are well represented, gaps exist for wild and weedy relatives belonging to secondary and tertiary gene pools; for example, wild and weedy species constitute less than 10% of finger millet and foxtail millet global germplasm collections (Upadhyaya and Vetriventhan, 2017). Therefore, it is necessary to investigate these gaps and augment these collections with wild and weedy relatives harboring genes for biotic and abiotic tolerance along with agronomic and nutritional traits.Small millets germplasm contains significant variations for agro-morphological, quality and stress tolerance traits, and promising germplasm sources have been reported amongst them. A large-scale phenotypic characterization across the globe has revealed extensive genetic variations for traits of economic importance in germplasm collections. More successful utilization of these collections relies on their wide evaluation for agronomic traits in multiple locations exhibiting high genotype x environment interactions. However, multi-location evaluation of large collections is resource consuming and a constraint to obtain reliable phenotypic data for economic traits to identify trait specific accessions. In addition, for adequate assessment of grain quality and stress tolerance of a wide array of genetically diverse material, it is necessary to reduce the potential number of accessions requiring evaluation. Their use can be enhanced by developing a 'core collection' of reduced sample size, which represents the complete genetic spectrum of the base collection. By virtue of its reduced size, the core collection can be precisely evaluated for economic traits in replications under multiple locations for identification of trait-specific accessions. Germplasm diversity representative subsets (core and mini-core collections) have been developed and evaluated in small millets for agronomic and nutritional traits.Small millets germplasm conserved globally exhibit a wide range of variations in yield and other important agronomic traits. Extensive genetic variations have been reported in core and mini-core collections of small millets developed at ICRISAT. The multi-location evaluation of finger millet core and foxtail millet mini-core collections in India led to the identification of diverse accessions with earlier maturity, higher tillering, larger grain size and higher grain yields than existing control cultivars (Upadhyaya et al., 2011a, b). Likewise, an evaluation of the barnyard millet core collection in the Himalayan region identified promising trait donors for earliness, basal tillering, smut resistance and grain yield (Sood et al., 2015). In proso millet and little millet, a wide variation for morphological traits and trait-specific sources for productivity have been observed (Vetriventhan and Upadhyaya, 2016Upadhyaya, , 2018)).Core and mini-core collections of small millets have been characterized for grain micronutrients and protein contents. The finger millet mini-core collection has large variations for grain iron (1.71-65.23mg/kg), zinc (16.58-25.33 mg/kg), calcium (1.84-4.89 g/kg) and protein (6.00-11.09%) contents (Upadhyaya et al., 2011b). Likewise, substantial genetic variations for grain calcium (90.3-288.7 mg/ kg), iron (24.1-68.2 mg/kg) and zinc (33.6-74.2 mg/kg) have been reported in the mini-core collection of foxtail millet (Upadhyaya et al., 2011a). Wide genetic variations for iron (41-73 mg/kg), zinc (26-47 mg/kg) and calcium (91-241 mg/ kg) have been reported and trait-specific donors have been identified in global proso millet germplasm collections (Vetriventhan and Upadhyaya, 2016).Among various biotic stresses, blast in finger millet and foxtail millet, grain smut and sheath blight in little millet and barnyard millet, and sheath blight and bacterial spot in proso millet are important diseases affecting their production worldwide. These diseases are economically very destructive and are reported to cause over 50% yield losses (Esele and Odelle, 1995). The identification of trait-specific robust resistant sources is the most economic disease-management strategy to overcome such constraints. Mini-core collections have proven to be excellent reservoirs of resistant sources against many of these diseases. In finger millet, a screening of mini-core collection in both field and glasshouse conditions identified 66 accessions with combined resistance to leaf, neck and finger blast (Babu et al., 2013). Similarly, 21 accessions exhibiting resistance to neck and head blast under field evaluation and 11 accessions exhibiting seedling leaf-blast resistance in controlled conditions were identified in the core collection of foxtail millet (Sharma et al., 2014). In barnyard millet, accessions of Japanese E. esculenta germplasm were reported to have a strong immune response to grain smut, while a multi-location screening of Indian E. frumentacea germplasm did not yield favorable results (Gupta et al., 2010a). However, some landraces of E. frumentacea from Karnataka and Bihar are reported to have low grain-smut resistance (Gupta et al., 2010b).Small millets are suggested crops for drought-hit, marginal and fragile ecosystems. Substantial genetic variations for drought (Krishnamurthy et al., 2016a, b) and salt tolerance (Krishnamurthy et al., 2014a, b) have been reported and traitspecific sources have been identified in mini-core collections of finger millet and foxtail millet. Finger millet accessions (IE5201, IE2871, IE7320, IE2034 and IE 3391) belonging to mini-core collections are reported to exhibit higher root and shoot growth at the seedling stage under low phosphorus stress (Ramakrishnan et al., 2017).The ex situ germplasm collections across the world have a huge impact in terms of genetic improvement for yield enhancement and tolerance to various biotic and abiotic stresses. Among the six subtypes, proso millet is the most important species where germplasm augmentation has a major impact on enhancing productivity through cultivar development in the USA (Habiyaremye et al., 2017). Out of the 15 proso millet cultivars, nine were direct selections from the adapted landraces preserved in the USDA gene bank (Rajput and Santra, 2016). Similarly, in Africa, where systematic breeding efforts are limited, elite landraces of finger millet have been released as cultivars in Tanzania (Upadhyaya and Vetriventhan, 2017). Likewise, in India, the active germplasm collection of AICRP-small millets, Bengaluru, has a major impact on promising cultivar development for different agro-climatic zones of the country. So far, a total of 272 varieties in the six small millets have been released in the country and a majority of them are the pure line selections from promising germplasm lines of indigenous and exotic origins. Apart from pure line selection, the utilization of promising germplasm lines in recombination breeding has resulted in many high-yielding cultivars and new plant types in small millets. In a report by Upadhyaya and Vetriventhan (2017), hybridization between trait-specific donors followed by pedigree selection has remained the main breeding method for foxtail improvement in China since 1970s, which has resulted in the development of more than 870 cultivars.Towards the development of new plant types, isolation of awnless semi-dwarf genotypes of Japanese barnyard millet (E. esculenta) is a promising endeavor from the Vivekananda Parvatiya Krishi Anusandhan Sansthan (VPKAS) in Almora, India. These awnless derivatives with reduced plant height and great fodder potential are affirmative initiatives for improvement of barnyard millet (Sood et al., 2015).Yield and yield-contributing parameters are the most targeted traits in the improvement of small millets. Germplasm collections exhibiting substantial variation for various traits, including maturity duration can be subjugated to breed tailored cultivars as per eco-geographical conditions (Upadhyaya et al., 2014;Vetriventhan and Upadhyaya, 2018;Vetriventhan and Upadhyaya, 2019). Hybridization to generate variability followed by assortment in segregating population has been a major breeding method in small millets especially in finger millet, foxtail millet and proso millet. In finger millet, 45% of the cultivars released in India were obtained from hybridization and selection breeding methods, followed by 22% in foxtail millet and 29% in proso millet (AICSMIP, 2014). Emasculation and crossing methods have also been reported in small millets (Gupta et al., 2011). However, the exploitation of hybrid vigor is limited in small millets due to difficulties in hybridization. Thus, developing male sterile lines would be a feasible alternative to use heterosis, which is being effectively implemented in major crops for commercial hybrid seed production.Trait-specific germplasm characterization is a primary requirement to identify genotypes contrasting for desirable traits, and genomic resources such as DNA markers, linkage maps and genome sequence are essential for gene tagging, gene mapping and marker-assistant selection for rapid crop-improvement. In small millets, genomes of foxtail millet, finger millet, proso millet, little and barnyard millet have been sequenced till date (Table 19.1). Foxtail millet has the smallest genome size (423 Mb) while finger millet has the largest one (1.5 Gb), followed by barnyard millet (1.27 Gb). However, the draft sequence information is adequately informative for large-scale genotyping applications and gene mining. In a study, the Solexa sequencing technology and the Genome Analyzer II were employed to re-sequence the genome of a foxtail millet landrace 'Shi-Li-Xiang' and to analyze its genetic structures (Bai et al., 2013). The results provided a rich tag library for future genetic studies and molecular breeding of foxtail millet and its related species. In barnyard millet, Wallace et al. (2015) genotyped the core collection using the genotyping-by-sequencing approach to investigate the patterns of population structure and phylogenetic relationships among the accessions. Further, most agronomically important traits are determined by several genes, which is called quantitative trait loci (QTLs). With the rapid development in sequencing technology, marker-assisted crop breeding has resulted in the acceleration of genetic improvement of small millets. Gimode et al. (2016) have identified single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers in finger millet by next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies, using both Roche 454 and Illumina platforms. Wang et al. (2017) reported a high-density genetic map and QTL analysis of agronomic traits in foxtail millet using RAD-seq and identified 11 major QTLs for eight agronomic traits along with the development of five co-dominant DNA markers. A finger millet genotype ML-365 was also sequenced using Illumina and SOLiD sequencing technologies (Hittalmani et al., 2017). Later, Kumar et al. (2018) reported high iron and zinc content QTLs using diversity array technology (DArT) and SSRs markers to generate a genetic linkage map using a population of 317 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) in pearl millet. Many other studies have focused on drought tolerance and fungal diseases in pearl millet using marker-assisted selection approaches.Although genetics and genomics have allowed for noteworthy progress in studying millets, transcriptome-based gene expression profiling has also contributed significantly. In this regard, Rahman et al. (2014) analyzed the salinity receptive leaf transcriptome of distinct finger millet genotypes and identified numerous differentially expressed genes in the tolerant genotype. Similarly, Parvathi et al. (2019) analyzed transcriptome dynamics in leaf samples of finger millet exposed to drought stress conditions. The foxtail millet transcriptome was the first to be released, where Zhang et al. (2012) sequenced the total RNA of root, stem, leaf and spike 'Zhang gu' strain. Recently, Li et al. (2020) sequenced the transcriptome of foxtail millet during Sclerospora graminicola infection, and identified many candidate genes for advanced functional characterization. Further, comprehensive protocols for callus regeneration and transgenics have been reported for all small millet species except little millet (Plaza-Wüthrich and Tadele, 2012). The Agrobacterium-mediated system has been predominantly used in small millets transformation as reported in studies by Bayer et al. (2014) and Li et al. (2017). In addition, the availability of standardized protocols for genetic transformation has resulted in the application of a transgene-based approach in a few small millets. The use of clustered, regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)/Cas mutagenesis was reported in foxtail millet (Lin et al., 2018), where a mutation of the foxtail millet PDS gene by CRISPR/Cas9 system has been achieved through protoplast transfection.Small millets have the potential to serve as an alternate to major crops because of their diverse adaptation to adverse conditions and their great nutritional qualities. They fit very well into multiple cropping systems both under irrigated and rainfed conditions. The major bottleneck, however, is inadequate information on their genetic diversity, which limits their effective utilization in crop improvement programs. Therefore, effective germplasm collection is the effective solution to categorize trait-specific resources, which can be utilized in small millets breeding programs. The yield barrier in small millets can be surpassed by a male sterility system and by employing hybrid vigor and genomics-assisted crop improvement. Further, NGS techniques can facilitate the molecular characterization of small millets germplasm along with RNA interference and genome editing tools like CRISPR/Cas, which reduce antinutrients of small millets to make them more useful to feed growing population. Moreover, a coordinated multidisciplinary approach involving farmers and public-private partnerships is needed to speed up research and development programs in small millets. With the ever-changing climate scenario and prevailing conditions of hidden hunger, greater research and developmental focus on small millets is the key to achieving future nutrition security. DOI: 10.4324/9781003044802-23Globally, there is a re-emphasis on the revival and conservation of neglected and underutilized species (NUS), including small millets. Such crops are seen as alternatives to rice and wheat, especially for the poor in the peripheral areas of the Global South (Muthamilarasan and Prasad, 2020). Millets require much less water than rice and wheat and are ideally suited for upland rainfed regions.Can a species, including small millets, be sustainably conserved without preserving the ecosystem in which it is cultivated? This chapter argues that it is important to consider both the natural and social ecosystems in which these NUS are cultivated as well as the interaction between social and natural systems. It draws on and supplements the findings of an earlier work (Mitra and Rao, 2019) in Koraput district of Odisha.Koraput had a tribal population of 50.6% in the 2011 census. It is a district where the 'Special Programme for Promotion of Millets in Tribal Areas of Odisha,' also called the Odisha Millet Mission (OMM) has been implemented since 2017 (NCDS, 2019). Small millets are typically cultivated in the rainfed uplands of ecologically sensitive areas of the district. The agrarian landscape, along water flows, is rather complex, but millet cultivation using natural fertilisers like dung and crop residue mulch has been critical to the growing of indigenous rice varieties in the lowlands. These practices were evolved over centuries by tribal women and men, with women playing a critical role in the maintenance and reproduction of these systems. Women decided the species, the area to be planted, household consumption and sale specifics but did not plough or sow. Crop diversity, including mixed cropping on the same plot, was practiced. Despite the existence of the concept of private property in land, the ecosystem 20was collectively owned. The overall productivity of the ecosystem, instead of individual crops, was focused on.Relations between men and women were of asymmetric mutuality. While hierarchies have always existed, today some of these hierarchies have grown and are perhaps behind the near breakdown of the social systems that nurtured NUS.This chapter argues that with the rapid usurpation of the uplands in the Koraput district for corporate eucalyptus plantations, the ecosystem (natural and social) has transformed drastically. The landraces of paddy and small millets reduced sharply between the 1950s and the 2000s. Only eight small millet landraces were extant in 2000 (Mishra, 2009). The soil quality in the area has deteriorated (Bannerjee, 2015). Long-term field observations reveal a drop in the cattle population.Small millets are essentially a woman's crop. Eucalyptus, in the domain of men, has skewed gender relations in these areas. The uplands in which small millets were cultivated are now under eucalyptus plantations (Mitra and Rao, 2019). Community relations are giving way to individualisation and increasing wage labour. These transformations are to the detriment of both the NUS and the people belonging to a range of tribes. With rising inequalities, distress migration is the order of the day (Mitra and Rao, 2019).India has the third largest area under small millets cultivation in the world. Cultivated small millets comprise six species -finger millet (Eleusine coracana), little millet (Panicum sumatrense), Italian or foxtail millet (Setaria italica), barnyard millet (Echinochloa crus-galli), proso millet (Panicum miliaceum) and kodo millet (Paspalum scrobiculatum). Taken together, they are grown over approximately two million hectares, mostly in semi-arid, hilly and mountainous regions. Finger millets predominate, comprising 60% of the area and 70% of the production (Bala Ravi et al., 2010). These are hardy crops and are quite resilient to agroclimatic shocks like diminished rainfall and falling soil fertility. They are important in local food cultures, being an important source of food and beverages. The straw is valuable fodder. Nutritionally, they are rich in micronutrients, especially calcium and iron, and are high in dietary fibre. Their grain protein is richer in sulphur and other essential amino acids than all other major cereals (Bala Ravi et al., 2010).Hills and forests interspersed with numerous streams and rivers are a part of the landscape of the Koraput district, Odisha. Over centuries, local tribes have transformed the landscape into productive systems, both private and public, to meet their food and housing needs. A unique cropping pattern, the Myda system, which involves mixing the seeds of long-and short-duration paddy varieties in the same plot, and nurturing them through carefully monitoring the levels of water and vegetative growth, evolved (Mishra, 2009). Land-use patterns developed along water flows, enabling optimal and sustainable use of the environment.The present day Koraput district was a part of the Jeypore princely state until 1947. Disruptions in local indigenous land-use patterns began in the midnineteenth century with the exploitation of forests by the colonial state's forest department. The British extended the Madras Forest Act to Jeypore state in 1891, reservation began in 1900, and protected forests were demarcated in 1916. By 1940, reserved area quantity rose five times, leading to a substantial increase in state revenues (Bell, 1945: 101). Critically, a lot of the village commons and even the uplands were usurped as protected forests and were planted with teak. This impacted adversely the cultivation of NUS and reduced the availability of uncultivated crops (Mitra and Rao, 2019).Post-Independence, the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, and the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, further changed land-use patterns by halting shifting cultivation, and also enhanced usurpation of village commons.The local people, however, classify forests into two types: bon and jangal. Bon corresponds to the protected forests and jangal to the reserved. Most subsistence needs like fuel, roots, tubers and leaf litter come from the bon. Cattle also graze there. The bon are the commons upslope of the habitat. Above the bon lies the jangal, often consecrated in the name of a deity. There are strict rules about the use of usufructs of these sacred groves but the trees cannot be cut, a norm often violated by the Forest Department for commercial plantations, including of eucalyptus (Mitra and Pal, 1994).The forest department fells trees from the bon too, clearing the land for eucalyptus plantations and changing traditional land-use patterns (Mitra and Rao, 2019). The undulating lands between and along the forests and the settlement has been shaped into four types of croplands: uplands ([dongar] on the hill slopes), midlands (bhettabeda), lowlands (khalbeda), and terraces ( jholas, that start from the dongar and go down to the stream below) (Mishra, 2009). This complex land-use pattern has been developed over centuries through humannature interactions. It is driven by household consumption needs, maintenance of soil fertility, sustainable water use and safeguarding against the vagaries of nature. Local communities nurture and conserve water by harvesting rainwater, diverting river flows into farm ponds during the monsoons, cultivating varietiesespecially of paddy -suited to water availability and not using chemical fertilisers in the dongar, to avoid polluting the ground water aquifers (Mitra and Rao, 2019) The leaf litter from the bon above the dongar fertilises the crops grown there. This underscores the need to consider crop lands and forest lands as parts of an integrated ecosystem essential for the conservation of NUS.In 2006, the Government of India enacted the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act that acknowledged that 'traditional forest dwellers' are integral to the very survival and sustainability of the forest ecosystem. By recognising their customary rights, this Act sought to ensure livelihoods and food security, while empowering the people to sustainably use and manage forest biodiversity (Deb et al., 2014). In districts like Koraput, managing forest biodiversity is essential to sustainably managing agrobiodiversity, including that of NUS. At the end of a decade, while close to 78% of individual claims to forestland were met in Koraput district, with about 27,628 households receiving an acre of land each, only 9% of community land claims had been granted. Gaining legal legitimacy for using what they have seen as their land -and, indeed, life -has not been easy (CFR-LA, 2016). The central government's recent enactment of the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act 2016 appears to be diluting the very intent of the 2006 legislation. Apart from bypassing locally elected bodies and community forest-management groups, and being dominated by the forest bureaucracy, civil society actors fear it will both displace forest dwellers and promote large-scale commercial eucalyptus plantations with little benefit to the local people (Ibid). This reflects a further marginalisation of collective responsibility for social reproduction and care of the environment, and a focus on capital accumulation and individual profits.While the regulations, as well as state interventions to improve agriculture, did not consider the interconnections and distinctions between different types of land and their contributions to food and consumption needs, cultivation practices and the crops grown remain sensitive to the local landscape. Thus, the dongar lands are used to grow a mix of millets, pigeon pea, cowpea, niger, turmeric, sesame and arums, high in nutrient content and not water-intensive, primarily for domestic consumption. The duration of these crops differ. Some are shallow rooted while others are deep rooted. Each crop has an attached ritual. Thus, traditional land-use patterns meet cultural, spiritual, consumption and ecological needs, instead of emphasising the productivity of a single crop (Niyogi, 2020). In the field, it is observed that the nature of the soil and the slope, and whether the plot is on the windward or the leeward side are important determinants of the crop mix and even the landraces of a particular crop. However, not much research has been done in this area.Men support the processes of land preparation and transportation of the harvest, but the cultivation is mainly managed by women. In fact, dongar lands are often considered women's plots, wherein they control decisions around crop choices and use, including income from sales, if any (Mitra and Rao, 2019).Paddy is cultivated in the bhettabeda and khalbeda and if water is available, so is a second winter crop of pulses or vegetables. They are considered household plots but fall under male control. Both men and women have to contribute labour to the cultivation of the basic 'household' staple in one season, but can cultivate their own 'individual' crops in the second season to fulfil their shared and separate responsibilities towards household provisioning (Ibid).Eucalyptus plantations started in Koraput in the 1960s. In 1990, the Jeypore-based JK Paper Mills launched a farm forestry programme under which it added 7,000 hectares annually by distributing over 40 million saplings to farmers (https://jkplantation.wordpress.com/about-jk-paper-ltd/jaykay-paper-mills-ltdrayagada/). In 2003, the paper industry, through a front NGO under a corporate social responsibility scheme, secured consent from the tribals to plant eucalyptus on their uplands with assured buyback and lump sum payments upon each successive harvest (in the fourth, eighth and twelfth year after planting). Farmers do not have to invest initially as the advances by the company are deducted from the first payment. A study of 2,004 households who planted eucalyptus on 3,360 acres of land showed gross earnings per acre to be Rs 86,000, Rs 150,000 and Rs 82,500 (at the rate of Rs 4,500/metric tonne) for the three successive harvests (Mahana, 2014).The rapid conversion of land, especially dongar, to eucalyptus plantations, has led to a loss of food, especially protein and micronutrients (from millets and vegetables). Soil humus and fertility is likely to decline, as are the water flows, given the displacement of traditional systems of fuel, fodder and water management (NABARD, n.d.; Stanturf et al., 2013). Planting eucalyptus on dongar lands impacts fields downstream as the high synthetic fertiliser inputs affect the organic cultivation of aromatic landraces of paddy, including the kalazeera rice for which the district is famous.Apart from education and house construction, a major reason for growing eucalyptus is the desire for large amounts of ready cash. Cropping patterns earlier adhered to community decisions; however, now each household situates the decision to cultivate eucalyptus within the dynamics of their own household structure and its needs, reflecting a transition to a society based on individualism rather than reciprocity.Yet, some women and men are resisting the commoditisation of their land and labour. While hired wage labour is now widespread in the area, the Parojas and Gadabas still continue the Palli (exchange) system. Men have succumbed more easily to both the commodification of their land, seen in the rapid shift to eucalyptus planting, and labour, pushed by the growing need for cash in an increasingly neoliberal, market-driven economy. Migration, still rare amongst the Gadabas, is now rising amongst most tribes, especially in the lean, summer season, prior to the start of paddy cultivation. However, migrant work is effort-intensive, with little rest and restricted diets. The men often return home unwell and are unable to contribute much to household activities. Their absence and subsequent return only enhances the burdens on women (Mitra and Rao, 2019).Corporate plantations have led to the individualisation of the ecosystem. These plantations on the uplands have consequences for the entire cropping pattern, as well as for social relations. This has been accompanied by the introduction of mono-cropping in contrast to the old mixed-cropping practices led by women. To promote millet cultivation, contemporary state-and NGO-led efforts seek to promote the mono-cropping of finger millets, which has led to a decline of, for instance, vegetable cultivation by women. Thus, in Kadaguda village (name changed) even five years ago, the women grew vegetables and various greens in small plots behind their homestead. Now finger millets are grown in these plots, forcing households to cut down on their vegetable consumption. This is happening in many villages in the area.Although rice was the major staple consumed by the people, there were many varieties. Millets were a major food supplement. With the distribution of highly subsidised rice and wheat by the state, the consumption of millets is being significantly reduced (Bala Ravi et al., 2010).There has been a recent spike in urban demand across the country for small millets as health foods (Kulkarni, 2018). It is important to ask whether and to what extent the thrust on conserving and reviving the cultivation of small millets, especially in the mission mode, benefits small and marginal tribal farmers of districts like Koraput. The OMM baseline survey of the Koraput district, in 2017, found that millets were being cultivated in 1,311.9 ha land by 2,605 millet-cultivating households of the seven blocks surveyed. Finger millets comprised 87.5% of this area and 12.5% was under small millets. Interestingly, 95% of these households consumed millets in summer, 90.7% in winter and 80.9% during the monsoons. The dip in consumption during the monsoons is probably due to a decline in household stocks (NCDS, 2019).The survey does not mention the crop mixes nor the kind of land in which a particular type of millet is cultivated and by whom. No doubt a lot of the millets will be sold in markets by the men, impacting the villagers' already poor dietary diversity (Mitra and Rao, 2017). The OMM's practices are essentially mono-cropping of finger millets with much higher external inputs, without considering the social and natural ecosystem (Sood and Jishnu, 2015;Niyogi, 2020) This is already furthering inequalities, including of gender, and will lead to the loss of agrobiodiversity and Indigenous knowledge.Small millet cultivation by tribals in districts like Koraput formed an integral part of the Indigenous natural resource management system, involving forests, uplands, midlands, low lands and water flows. Based on exchange labour systems grounded in reciprocity and mutuality between women and men, small millet cultivation involved an element of individual choice that did not adversely affect the welfare of others.The first blow to this equilibrium came with the introduction of corporate eucalyptus plantations in the uplands. Market penetration individualising the economy and breaking down both the social and natural ecosystems has had deleterious consequences for NUS.Under these circumstances, efforts to increase the production of small millets and other NUS through a 'kit' approach, of governments giving beneficiary farmers free kits that include fertilisers, bio-fertilisers, micronutrients, seed treatments and plant protection chemicals (Sood and Jishnu, 2015), will have tremendous social and ecological costs. From the policy point of view, it might be more productive to adopt an interdisciplinary, research-based approach that seeks to conserve the ecosystem and the cultures of which these crops are an essential part.Though humans have utilized a vast number of plant species for food (Ulian et al., 2020), today, food security is confined to very few major crops, such as maize, wheat and rice and a few other commodity crops. This has led to the marginalization of many nutritious crops, including 'neglected and underutilized species' (NUS) (see Chapter 1), among which the millet species belonging to the genera Eleusine, Panicum, Setaria and Paspalum, continue to be cultivated and consumed by smallholder families inhabiting marginal environments.Landraces of millets are preferred by farm families, but not solely for their nutritional qualities. They are appreciated also because of their inherent resilience to withstand the vagaries of weather as well as pest and disease attacks (Bala Ravi, 2004;Nagarajan and Smale, 2007). These crops are well suited to smallholder agro-ecology and are an important part of local food cultures. Conventional millet farming practices include mixed cropping and crop rotation, and are commonly subsistence oriented. In the past, the selection, preservation and exchange of seeds were popular practices encountered across farming communities. For instance, labour exchange practices within kinship units and communities were conventionally used to minimize cultivation costs, for traditional crops like millets also. The role of custodian families has also been strategic for the conservation and management of landraces and traditional knowledge associated with NUS crops.In India, small millets are known for their adaptability to marginal and drought-prone areas. Compared to rice, these species contain higher levels of minerals, fibre, vitamins and many essential amino acids (Hulse et al., 1980;Malleshi and Desikachar, 1986) interventions, inadequate processing technologies and market forces have resulted in the decline of on-farm agro biodiversity, aggravating the already fragile conditions of local communities (Gruere et al., 2009). Other constraints include low productivity, lack of good quality seeds and disorganized value chains. Nevertheless, about two million farm households across India still depend primarily on these species for their livelihoods. Furthermore, climate change scenarios and the global food price crisis have brought to the forefront the strategic role that these crops can play in strengthening resilience in agricultural production systems and mitigating the shocks caused by shortages in major cereals that may occur due to various reasons.The case studies in this chapter highlight some key research and development (R&D) interventions carried out (Plate 21.1.1-21.1.6) in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand, since 2000, thanks to the support of various national and international agencies.In the last three decades, Kolli Hills in the Eastern Ghats of Tamil Nadu has witnessed land-use changes due to introduction of cash crops like cassava, coffee and pepper. This fact, accompanied by the expansion of roads and food subsidies, has greatly affected the cultivation and use of millets. Furthermore, the low profitability of millets vis-à-vis cassava, the weakening of traditional seed systems, the drudgery in millet processing and their poor market opportunities have also contributed to relegating these highly nutritious and resilient crops to smaller areas.Since the early 1990s, the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) has been collaborating with poor smallholder farmers to prevent the erosion of millet diversity by creating an enabling environment for their continued use, thanks to highly participatory R&D efforts. MSSRF has nurtured family farmer groups to conserve and enhance the use of millets and has facilitated the establishment of 'Kolli Hills Agrobiodiversity Conservers Federation' (KHABCoFED, now evolved into the 'Kolli Hills Agro-Bioresource Producer Company Limited' KHABPCOL), to revitalize millet cultivation. Major activities included the scouting of local growers; assessment of traditional knowledge; collection, characterization and evaluation of landraces; multiplication of high-quality seeds; revitalization of seed storage and exchange systems through community seed banks and dissemination of best cultivation practices (including intercropping millets with cassava). Additional measures undertaken included the provisioning of low-cost processing machines accessible to communities, value-addition skill-enhancement, development of novel products, branding, strengthening of community-based institutions and linking local production to peri-urban and local markets.Challenges and best practices of nutri-millets in India 247Land-use changes have resulted in the erosion of on-farm millet diversity (Bhag Mal et al., 2010). Since 2001, KHABCoFED has been promoting collection, multiplication and distribution of 21 landraces belonging to five millet species and associated crops, through a network of 15 village seed banks functioning across seven Panchayats (village councils), spread across 45 settlements. The KHABCoFED has developed mechanisms to manage and share germplasm through Community Seed Banks and Seed Exchange Networks, whereby farmers are able to choose varieties apt for changing weather conditions and evolving markets. Custodian farmers are empowered for carrying out effectively their strategic role as conservers of seeds and managers of seed networks.Over the years, the 15 local seed networks have evolved into Village Agrobioresource Centres, where community members are able to access quality seeds and relevant information regarding millet landraces, conservation, cultivation practices, value-addition and marketing. It also provides training on agricultural best practices, leading to better yields, higher income, more diversified food baskets and, ultimately, strengthened livelihood resilience.Improved agronomic practices like the usage of farmyard manure, highquality seeds, line sowing, intercropping with cassava and agroforestry, which reinforce the sustainability of natural resource management, have resulted in an average increase of 24.36% productivity and 37.23% net income. A blend of traditional and modern agro practices are disseminated through capacity-building interventions.The enhancement of cultivation practices and value-adding technologies has led to 75% to 85% reduction in drudgery and time spent on processing These included the introduction of row seeding (one-meter length with six blades and 20 cm gap between blades), cono-weeder, improved spades for intercultural operations (six inches width and six inches length) and the use of pulverizers (mechanical flourmill pulverizers and de-husking machines -see next section).Drudgery in processing is a major limitation, as all seeds but finger millet have several layers of hard coats, requiring high abrasive force to break through. Traditional decortication processes using mortar and pestle are physically tedious and are almost exclusively performed by women. The above-discussed interventions facilitated the establishment of improved technology for de-hullers and pulverizers, adaptable to different types of millet species and catering to many households. This has helped the community, especially women, who now are capable of carrying out the processing of millets without suffering fatigue, benefiting them in terms of health and time saved.The established KHABCoFED greatly facilitates the skill development of women (members of self-help groups) to reap the market potential of millets and other NUS products through training on value-addition, quality standards, packaging, labelling and marketing. Trained women are now able to produce with success -inter alia -products like malt, rava (semolina), and millets flour mixes, all contributing to raising their income. \"Kolli Hills Natural Foods\" has become a popular brand, successfully marketing 11 products across Tamil Nadu. This is a fully self-sustainable value-chain of local natural products, consisting of seed conservers, farmers and other actors engaged in procurement, valueaddition and marketing.Encouraged by such successes, the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) of Tamil Nadu provided financial support for establishing small-scale mills along with providing guidance on legal matters to local communities. Individuals and organizations committed to organic farming and natural health foods have also supported the momentum by purchasing and promoting the products of the KHABCoFED. Participation in exhibitions and fairs (melas) has provided an additional opportunity to further expand the KHABPCOL, including additional networks, research institutions and Community Based Organisation, and developing new market linkages.The KHABCoFED has grown steadily, and as of 2020 includes 109 associations consisting of 985 men and 526 women members; its assets include machineries, value-addition units and a procurement centre worth more than US$53,000. Over the years, cultivation, procurement, value-addition, diversification and sales have generated a gross income of approximately US$98,708.Notably, the KHABCoFED has contributed to strengthening the conservation of millet diversity, making agriculture-based livelihood systems resilient to climate change, improving access to nutritious foods and contributing to an effective interplay of natural, social, economic and infrastructure capitals for the fulfilment of livelihood, empowerment and self-esteem needs of local communities.In the tribal areas of the state of Odisha, like in the Koraput district, millets have traditionally occupied a central place in people's diets and in local cropping systems. Most farmers inhabiting these areas are resource-poor and are largely dependent on monsoons. Growing crops in uncertain agro-climatic conditions is challenging because of frequent dryland stresses and limited access to quality inputs, especially seeds and suitable technologies. The seed replacement rate in millets is very low, i.e., 1.62 t in Odisha, which implies that agriculture mostly relies on traditional practices, and seed is either self-saved or acquired through local networks. Saving and exchanging seeds among farmers is certainly a key part     of maintaining local diversity, but too often such practices are not being integrated with the introduction of good quality seed. In order to address the diffuse shortage of quality seeds among farmers, an alternate seed system model (Figure 21.2) was tested out. Components of this model included the dissemination to farmers of a package of best practices, as well as reconnaissance surveys to assess seed demand, seed systems and associated constraints faced by local farmers.The model encompassed a plan for improving seed availability and accessibility to improved varieties seeds for resource-poor farmers and capacity building at the community level to enhance productivity. This model involved the Farmer Producer Organization (FPO) the \"Kolab Farmers Producer Company Limited\" (KFPCL), in order to ensure the timely and sustainable supply of good quality seed at affordable prices and the creation of self-sustainable seed enterprise.Participatory selection of varieties, demonstrations of best practices in farmers' fields, involvement of self-help groups, village-based seed committees; capacity building for seed production, processing, packaging, storage and distribution, business planning and administration were key actions of these interventions.MSSRF built the capacity of the KFPCL for quality seed production. Improved varieties of seeds were obtained from research institutions and were demonstrated in farmers' fields through participatory variety selection and evaluation trials. The best performing and preferred varieties were selected for large-scale seed production. The KFPCL followed the norms and standards of the Odisha State Seed and Organic Products Certification Agency for seed A processing unit comprising of an aspirator and grader cum de-stoner was established at Machhra village, Umuri Gram Panchayat to improve seed quality. The KFPCL has an arrangement with the Odisha State Seed Corporation Ltd. to directly procure seed materials at the rates fixed by government. In the very first year, KFPCL was able to sell 132 quintals of certified seeds of finger millet to the Odisha State Seed Corporation Ltd. and around 35 quintals to other farmers, institutions and NGOs. Besides the quality millet seed business, members of the KFPCL are also involved in the preparation of value-added millet products including ragi powder, ragi malt, laddus, chakli and processed grains of little millet, foxtail millet and barnyard millet.Tamil Nadu is one of the few states in India where almost all small millets are cultivated across different agro-ecological zones. However, from 1980 to 2011, the area under small millets fell drastically, with a 49.4% reduction in finger millet areas and 84.8% in other small millets areas. A 2012 study by the DHAN Foundation on the value chains of small millets in the state highlighted, as the reason for the decline, poorly organized supply chains characterized by seasonal uncertain production restricted to few pockets of land, erosion of varietal and crop diversity and lack of assured farm gate prices, leading to uncertainty in supply, quality and prices of raw materials to the small millet processors and food enterprises. Other critical factors included:• Lack of local processing infrastructure, with few large-scale processors in south Tamil Nadu primarily serving as semi-processors for Maharashtrabased processing units. • Existence of few millet food enterprises and largely of limited capacities.• Poor consumer demand due to low awareness of millets, lower culinary skills and low availability, coupled with high prices. • Inadequate policy support for the production, processing, market development and, moreover, consumption of small millets.Realizing the importance for the nutritional security and ecological wellbeing, since 2001, the DHAN Foundation has undertaken a set of interrelated interventions, targeting regional value chains in collaboration with the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Canadian research institutions and several value-chain actors. These efforts resulted in the establishment of the Small Millet Foundation, an exclusive organization dedicated to scaling-up proven interventions across India, which included:i Streamlining supply chains through (a) capacity building of Farmers Organizations (FOs) in millet clusters (four in Tamil Nadu and two in Odisha) (b) productivity enhancement and (c) collective marketing ii Promoting decentralized processing through (a) the development and commercialization of improved small-scale millet processing equipment;(b) facilitating their adoption across India and (c) building capacities of eight small-scale equipment manufacturers iii Developing 56 appealing, small-millet-based food products and their commercialization through training 662 persons and providing onsite incubation support to 66 food enterprises iv Building capacity of 152 pushcart millet-porridge vendors v Promoting household consumption through dissemination of promotional materials, organizing promotional events and media campaigns, and building capacity of 85 women and FOs located in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha vi Linking FOs, millet processors and food enterprises with consumer organizations for shortening the value chain vii Synthesizing and sharing policy lessons emerging from these efforts with provincial and national governments.The Overseas Development Institute (ODI), UK, on reviewing the initiatives in 2017 (Keats and Jeyaranjan 2018) and 2019, identified the following positive outcomes:• Farmers are able to access new varieties and increase cultivation, sell their produce collectively, reduce drudgery and time by using processing equipment and increase consumption (cf. during 2018-2019, 87  • Millet-based food entrepreneurs have increased production and sales, developed new millet-based products and improved marketing techniques (cf. 66 existing enterprises improved their millet food business and 69 entrepreneurs and NGOs ventured into the small-scale millet food business. One hundred and fifty two pushcart millet-porridge vendors improved food hygiene and registered with the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). TNAU has integrated small millet huller and food products developed as part of its ongoing incubation program, thereby sustaining their commercialization). • Low-income consumers enrolled in the women's and farmers' organizations have improved their awareness of the health benefits of millets, haveChallenges and best practices of nutri-millets in India 255 enhanced their skills in cooking healthy recipes and are able to access millets at lower than the market price (cf. FOs and Kalanjiam Thozhilagam Limited [KTL], an associated enterprise of DHAN Foundation, have supplied 300 tons of small millet rice between 2016 and 2018). • With new knowledge and access to millets, women were able to improve their family's diet. Women farmers saved time and energy using processing equipment and women entrepreneurs increased their income and improved their status (cf. knowledge of 725 women extension staff to promote millet consumption, the skills of 12,993 women on the inclusion of small millets in diets and the entrepreneurial skills of 39 women in millet food businesses were enhanced).Such interlinked efforts were key to transforming the value chain of small millets in Tamil Nadu, which was the result of the cooperation of many stakeholders, including the government and media. Large processors in southern Tamil Nadu started focusing on regional consumption and the market network has widened, leading to an increase in the availability of less polished small millets rice and value-added products, even in small towns. The share of the product moving out of Tamil Nadu has decreased with increased inflow from other states. The transformation of small-millets-based food products from the 'elite food' category towards the 'mass food' category has been accomplished to an extent. channels and difficult processing have contributed to their decline as convenient and profitable crops with better market access and wage labour opportunities have developed. The production of small millets on isolated sloping and rocky lands where other crops are difficult to produce remains important among tribal farmers, yet low yields and poor marketability limit the benefits to these vulnerable groups.To secure greater benefits from small millets for producers and to encourage their wider use, a holistic approach addressing bottlenecks in their supply and demand was followed in the project \"Linking agrobiodiversity value chains, climate adaptation, and nutrition: Empowering the poor to manage risk\". Activities sought to connect producers to markets and to enhance and multiply impacts for food security, conservation, profitability and women's empowerment. The stakeholder consultations carried out from 2015 to 2019 guided the pro-poor and gender-sensitive interventions. Farmer producer companies, along with local women shareholders, were a major focal point of interventions to raise productivity and enhance commercial potential (King et al., 2018;Meldrum et al., 2020).Of the 104 million Indigenous People inhabiting India, 12% of them, with over 200 tribes and sub-tribes, with their own unique languages, cultures and p olitical structures, reside in the North Eastern region of the country (Xaxa et al., 2014). Meghalaya, a state in this region, is largely inhabited by Indigenous communities (86.1%) like Khasi (includes Khynriam, Bhoi, War, Pnar and Lyngngam sub-groups) in the east and Garo in the west. Women play a pivotal role in maintaining and preserving the rich biodiversity in the area, as they are closer to nature (Ellena and Nongkynrih, 2017).North East Slow Food and Agro biodiversity Society (NESFAS), a grassroots organization, works towards the promotion of traditional food for food security and nutrition in the North East. In 2011, it initiated work towards promoting millets in Nongtraw village, on the southern slopes of Meghalaya, in the Khatarshnong Laitkroh Block, in collaboration with the Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty. In close collaboration with custodian farmers, mostly women, it campaigned the slogan \"No Woman, No Krai\"millet is known as Krai among the Khasis.For Indigenous communities, millets are not only staple food but also play a central cultural role. Documentary evidence reveals that the Khasis cultivated millets as far back as the late nineteenth century and there are wild species/ relatives as well as the edible forms of millets (Singh and Arora, 1972). Millet is usually grown in the jhum or shifting cultivation fields, wherein seeds, usually traditional and preserved by custodian farmers, are used (Nongtraw Village, 2011). Commonly cultivated millets are finger millets (Eleusine coracana) known as kraitruh (in Khasi) and Job's tears (Coix lacryma-jobi), locally known as adlay.Post-harvest processes include sun-drying the grains and storing them in cloth or gunny bags. De-husking is done when needed using a mortar (Thlong) and iron or wooden pestle (Synrei), and finally winnowed using an open mat-type container (Prah) (Singh and Arora, 1972). This process is quite labour intensive, and both men and women are involved. The Nongtraw community celebrate a harvest festival for millet called \"Bom Krai\", where millet sheaves are laid on a bamboo platform and smoked from underneath with a particular wood to enhance the flavour of the grain. The seeds that escape through the gaps are used for planting the next season. The elders know just when to end the process. Next, the millet is threshed with sticks (pduh krai) by men and women, followed by further separation of the seeds by stamping on the millets accompanied by singing, which is most enjoyed by the children (Nongtraw Village, 2011;NESFAS, 2016).Traditionally, millet is cooked and consumed as much as rice or, more often, one part millet is mixed with two parts rice. Previously, a kind of bread was prepared out of millet flour; though it is still made, nowadays it is chiefly consumed as porridge (Singh and Arora, 1972). In the East Khasi hill areas like War Pynursla, millet is used for brewing local liquor (Caritas India, 2018). In winter, millet also provides fodder for cattle. The straw is dumped on cow dung or in pigsties, where pigs trample it and this mixture is then utilized as compost. It has strong roots and acts as a soil binder, reducing soil erosion (Singh and Arora, 1972).However, the cultivation and consumption of millet reduced after the introduction of the public distribution system, specifically after 1997, with its focus on providing subsidized rice to below-poverty-level families . With rice being more easily available, cultivation of millet became secondary. In addition, rice was easier to cook, while millet required lot of work; thus, given the easy alternative, people reduced the production and consumption of millet. As a result, the market for millet by the late 1990s and early 2000s was very low.Custodian farmers from Nongtraw shared that by 2010, only two out of the 37 households cultivated millets and, of the four available varieties, only one variety of finger millet was still cultivated. However, with the work of NESFAS and custodian farmers, by 2014, 13 of the 46 villages in Khatarshnong area were cultivating millet, and this revival is spreading also to other areas, including the Mawkynrew Block of East Khasi Hills, Lyngngam area in the West Khasi Hills and Garo Hills. NESFAS has also facilitated the farmers from Nongtraw getting an organic certificate through the Participatory Guarantee Scheme (PGS). In 2019, 12 farmers in two groups received the PGS organic certificate. This has benefitted and boosted marketing, as consumers prefer certified organic products. Around the same period, opportunities opened up with a dealer from Gujarat in west India requiring 200 kgs of organic millet every season.Traditionally, \"millet rice\", or even millet mixed with rice, was a staple food, but the youth and younger children do not seem to like it. To encourage their consumption, millet flour is now used to make products like porridge, pancakes, cakes, bread, biscuits, doughnuts, etc. Since 2018, NESFAS has conducted cooking demonstrations monthly to encourage the consumption of millets in different forms at the Meiramew Farmers' Markets. Other steps include sharing the recipe of a simple millet pancake while selling millet flour, and encouraging local bakers to sell millet-based bakery products in the farmers' markets, along Enhanced consciousness and motivation among farmers and consumers (used with permission).Challenges and best practices of nutri-millets in India 259 with traditional snacks called pusla. Farmers' markets are a platform where millet flour is sold, though sales are not limited here, as NESFAS facilitates sales on the basis of orders also, since locally grown millet is not available in the local market.NESFAS also publishes the nutritional value of millet in its packaging materials and engages with the public through local newspapers. This way, the Meiramew Farmers' Market has been able to enhance consciousness regarding millet being a staple of the Indigenous communities, to educate consumers on the ways to consume millet and its nutritional benefits and to improve access to millet. This has improved the sale of millet; on average, NESFAS sells at least 10-15 kgs of millet flour in every farmers market each time.There are of course challenges in the value-chain development. Generally, farmers in Meghalaya are marginal farmers, with small landholdings (55.34% own less than one hectare and 27.23% own one to two hectares) (Department of Agriculture, Government of Meghalaya, n.d.). Millet-producing communities also grow other crops and, therefore, the share of millet production is low. Thus, farmers cannot always meet the demand for millet. However, understanding the demand, NESFAS has encouraged other communities who were not growing millet earlier to cultivate it. In early 2020, NESFAS was able to facilitate an exchange of millet seeds through a millet network among four new villages in the East Khasi Hills and Ri Bhoi district.Exchange visits and learnings among farmers were facilitated locally, to states within North East India such as Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh and across the region. Such experiences have instilled confidence among farmers and have motivated them to cultivate millet.Another challenge is in the pounding of millet grains into flour, which is labour intensive. NESFAS has promoted mechanical grinding with a millet machine in Nongtraw, which helped farmers a great deal. This also motivated other farmers to expand their millet production. However, this growth was sustained only for about two years (2015)(2016)(2017), as the farmers were unable to keep up with expenses of the electricity bill and equipment maintenance, making it unviable for the community. This experience helped NESFAS understand the importance of conducting feasibility studies before installing machinery in a village.The low participation and interest of youth in promoting millet -and in agriculture, in general -is the greatest challenge. To address this, NESFAS promoted a youth group in Nongtraw and trained them on millet processing, including the packaging, labelling, and costing of millets while following hygienic standards. Throughout the process, they served as a marketing platform for millets and other traditional foods. The group was registered as Nongtraw Multipurpose and Marketing Cooperative Society in 2017.At present, Farmer Groups that are certified by the PGS are taking forward the work of marketing millets.With increased consciousness about the nutritional benefits of millet, coupled with the knowledge that it used to be the staple food of our Indigenous communities, there is an interest among farmers and consumers alike in the production and consumption of locally grown millet.Drought and low soil-moisture conditions are likely to increase in the future, and will affect crop production and further impact negatively farmers inhabiting hilly, rainfed, semi-arid and dry areas, who are most vulnerable to the vagaries of climate change. Millet farming is a climate-resilient system consisting of hardy crops suited to low and erratic rainfall and varied soil nutrient conditions.Based on the diverse interventions carried out in various Indian states, we would like to recommend that the following pathways and critical issues be taken into consideration for moving the NUS agenda forward:• The holistic '4C' approach that concurrently addresses conservation, cultivation, consumption and commerce has proven to be an effective pathway for retaining and using millet farming systems in a changing socioeconomic context. • Village seed banks for revitalizing and promoting farmer-to-farmer seed exchanges, improved agronomic practices, additional income derived through millet-based livelihoods in the supply chain, enhancing on-farm millet conservation, reinforcing seed exchange networks in target communities and creating better linkages with value-chain actors and private companies. • Collective initiatives harnessed the adaptive capacity of local communities to deal with climate change by leveraging the potential of resilient crops and production systems. • The availability, consumption and access to diversified diets of micronutrientrich foods like millets can contribute to better health, enhanced incomes, sustainable agriculture and a more resilient production system. • Small millets can be a valid instrument of economic and social empowerment for women and vulnerable and marginalized groups. The facilitation of an effective interface between scientific institutions and value-chain actors for participatory research and commercialization of research outputs can aid in value-chain development. • State-funded medium-term support measures for value-chain actors, including medium and small enterprises (MSEs), are necessary to develop value chains and millet foods, along with identifying and supporting pro-poor stakeholders like vendors, women self-help group federations and farmers' organizations in reaching everyone. • The active participation of women in Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) needs special attention, because although their membership is high, cultural values and local norms do not encourage their active engagement. • More research to validate nutrition and health claims supported by Indigenous knowledge is needed.• Consistent sensitization of local governments in order to develop supportive policies and projects towards millet production and the use of NUS can contribute at a grassroots level. • Despite tremendous efforts, still more needs to be done to address the e rosion of landraces, lack of improved varieties, knowledge on cultivation practices, post-harvest technologies, skills and processing facilities, disorganized markets, the limited participation of the private sector and poor credit support for value-chain development.Millets are C4 crops with high nutrition and climate-resilience qualities and are native to the rainfed areas of India (NAAS, 2013). Among them, finger millet and other small millets were largely grown, historically, and were part of the diet of the tribal communities of Odisha. Among small millets, little millets are grown in the districts of Bolangir, Koraput, Malkangiri, Mayurbhanj, Sundergarh and Rayagada (DMD, GoI [2014]). In the case of finger millets (Eleusine coracana), the area of cultivation declined from 0.25 million hectares in 1990-1991 to 0.11 million hectares in 2017-2018 and the yield per hectare in the same period declined from 10.23 quintals per hectare to 8.80 quintals per hectare in 2017-2018 (Status of Agriculture in Odisha). The decline is further escalating due to a lack of support for cultivation, lack of appropriate processing technology and poor market development (Bhag Mal, et al., 2010). However, since 2010 onwards, there has been a growing interest in promotion of millets both by the Union and state governments. The Initiative for Nutritional Security through Intensive Millets Promotion, Rainfed Area Development Programme and Integrated Cereals Development Programmes in Coarse Cereals-based Cropping Systems Areas (ICDP-CC) under the Macro Management of Agriculture are some of the initiatives that were launched by the Union government. But these have not been successful in bringing about changes in the millet landscape (RESMISA, 2012).It is in this context of the decline of millets that the Planning & Convergence Department, Government of Odisha (GoO) and Nabakrushna ChoudhuryDinesh Balam, Saurabh Garg, Srijit, Bhagyalaxmi, Mallo Indra, Jayshree Kiyawat The key objectives of the OMM were to increase household consumption of millets by about 25% to enhance household nutrition security and to create demand for millets with a focus on women and children; promote milletprocessing enterprises at the Gram Panchayat (GP) and block levels to ease processing in households and for value-added markets; improve productivity of millets crop systems and make them profitable; develop millet enterprises and establish market linkages to rural/urban markets, with a focus on women entrepreneurs, and include millets in state nutrition programmes and the public distribution system. Taking millets to the millions 265The Block was chosen as a unit of the implementation and the OMM targets were extended from 1,000 to 2,500 acres within a Block in five years. The OMM started in 30 blocks across seven districts and later extended to 76 blocks covering 14 districts in a phased manner. The SS consists of a programme secretariat (PS) and a research secretariat (RS). The Watershed Support Services and Activities Network (WASSAN) was selected as PS. NCDS was chosen as the research secretariat in addition to SS.The annual reports of OMM (Garg and Muthukumar 2017, 2018, 2019) elaborates on the design and initiation of the project, progress and achievements.Awareness on millets were built up on a massive scale through food festivals, cooking competitions, awareness campaigns, district-level melas and millet recipe training events with active participation from different district-line departments.To reduce drudgery during the post-harvest and processing of millets, the OMM aimed to set up post-harvest and processing machinery at the GP and block le vels. It was proposed that about 10 post-harvest/processing units (threshers, d estoners, graders, dehullers and pulverisors) be set up in each block through WSHGs/FPOs. The technical specifications of the machines are finalised through a state-level committee on processing consisting of different experts. WSHGs/FPOs are selected through a expression of Interest process at the district level through another committee consisting of members from ATMA, District Social Welfare Officer, Odisha Livelihood Mission and FAs. Against the target of 444 threshers, 299 are placed in the district.Encouraging farmers through the provision of incentives for a period of three years for adoption of improved agronomic practices such as System of Millet Intensification, line transplanting, line sowing and intercropping. Incentives to farmers are designed to be gradually reduced over a period of three years. No chemical inputs are supplied to farmers under the OMM, with the farmers encouraged to adopt agro-ecological practice (Table 22.1).Farmer-preferred and locally appropriate seeds were promoted under the OMM. This was done through participatory varietal trials with varieties released by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), State Agricultural Universities (SAUs), and the government. The best-performing varieties are then selected and multiplied through seed farmers. A working group has been formed for developing alternate seed system for indigenous landraces under the OMM. For the first time, four finger millet landraces -namely, Bati Mandia, Kalia Mandia, Bhadi Mandia and Mami Mandia -are being considered for release by DA&FE and the GoO (Table 22.2).Locally appropriate implements are supplied on a for-hire basis through c ustom hiring centres to reduce drudgery in various intercultural operations. Eight sub-centres within block-level Custom hiring centres are anchored by SHGs/ FPOs/CBOs per block under the OMM.  The comprehensive revival of millets in a Block requires service delivery. The community/farmer-level institutional base varies from Block to Block. FPOs will be formed at the block level. These FPOs will also anchor the different enterprises by linking with SHGs and other smaller collectives (Table 22.3).The GoO approved the initiation of ragi procurement in 2018. Accordingly, a three-year proposal for US$42.78 million was also approved. The Tribal Development Cooperative Corporation Odisha Limited was selected as the nodal procurement agency. The Department of Agriculture & Farmers Empowerment issued the finger millet procurement guidelines, with the concurrence of the Food Supplies & Consumer Welfare Department, to the concerned district administration. The District-Level Procurement Committee, under the chairpersonship of the Collector and District Magistrate, finalise the timelines for farmer registration, the points and dates for procurement, procurement infrastructure and effective awareness campaigns in their respective districts.In KMS 2018-2019, the first year of the procurement programme, unforeseen challenges restricted procurement to 17,986 quintals against the target of 75,000 quintals. Finger millet was distributed at the rate of 1 kg per ration card through the PDS scheme in six districts. In Malkangiri District, it was distributed at the rate of 2 kg per ration card. Millet procured in Sundergarh District was provisioned for inclusion in ICDS in Keonjhar District.The learnings from KMS 2018-2019 were used to lay the groundwork for KMS 2019-2020. A procurement target of 100,000 quintals was approved for 2019-2020. The Government of India declared the Minimum support price for the KMS 2019-2020 as US$43.04 per quintal. By making changes based on past experiences, the procurement increased more than five times, totalling 94,745 quintals in KMS 2019-2020 (Table 22.4). In the KMS 2020-2021, a procurement target of 1,65,000 quintals has been finalised by DA&FE and GoO. For the first time, the procurement of finger millet shall also be done by 16 FPOs in different blocks. Finger millet procured by these FPOs is proposed to be utilised in the ICDS and PDS.Following the successful procurement witnessed in year 2, finger-millet-based entitlements were included in the PDS and ICDS schemes. Finger millet laddu was piloted in the anganwadi menu in Keonjhar District on July 2, 2020 and in Sundergarh District on August 15, 2020. Distribution of finger millet in PDS is planned in the 14 procurement districts in lieu of rice. The High Powered Committee of the OMM has approved the inclusion of millets in ICDS and MDM through DMF.The NCDS baseline report has shown that among the beneficiaries of the OMM, yield has doubled and income has tripled. Based on the successful outcomes, the Government of India has asked all states to adopt the OMM model for the promotion of millets, pulses and oilseeds. Niti Aayog has chosen Odisha and Karnataka as two progressive models and is willing to facilitate learnings for the same. The Governor of Maharashtra has requested the GoO to extend support to initiate a similar project on millets in the state of Maharashtra. The Government of India has set up a task force to understand the framework of the OMM and include the learnings of the OMM into new guidelines of national sub-mission on nutri-cereals.Keeping in view the crop failures, farmer indebtedness and poor nutrition profiles, the District Administration of Vikarabad, Government of Telangana, initiated a pilot project to include sorghum in ICDS with the support of WASSAN. A series of three millet food festivals were organised to build consensus around the inclusion of millets in ICDS. Children and mothers were given millet-based foods at the festivals. To understand the public perception on including millets in diets, feedback was taken from the community, mothers, people's representatives, anganwadi teachers, helpers and children. Resolutions passed in the mothers' committees were also taken to understand the view on these millet-based efforts. Through such participatory approaches, diverse menu options were selected, which also included inputs from the community and from scientists at the National Institute of Nutrition. Such innovative, nutritious and appealing preparations included a preliminary menu of foxtail millet kitchidi and sorghum upma, which were given to the children in 45 Anganwadi Centres (AWCs). The initiative was launched on April 14, 2017. The cost of one normal rice-based meal per child per day is US$0.08. As millets were not subsidised under PDS, cost of the korra (foxtail millet) kitchdi and jonna (sorghum) upma is about US$0.11 and US$0.14 respectively. Additional funds were provided from the District Collector through the Flexi-Funds Scheme. For the pilot of three months, covering 45 AWCs and 1,000 children, an additional expenditure of Rs. 1.73 lakhs was incurred. The Civil Supplies (CS) Department procured millets through farmer cooperatives as per approved specifications.Based on the success of the Vikarabad initiative, the Women Development & Child Welfare Department, Government of Telangana, is now planning to champion the inclusion of millets in ICDS on a large scale. A proposal for decentralised pilots for three aspirational districts was also submitted to Niti Aayog. The proposal was approved in the 13 th Empowered Committee meeting of Niti Aayog on July 10, 2020. In addition, the state of Telangana has also received an outlay of 355 Metric Tonnes of jowar and 607 MT of bajra under ICDS for piloting millets in ICDS (Deverajan, D. [2020] \"Note on inclusion of millets in Telangana\").Mahila Arthik Vikas Mahamandal (MAVM), Department of Women & Child Development, Government of Maharashtra, encouraged WSHGs to take up the value addition and marketing of millet products. As a result, 404 WSHG members started cultivating finger millets in 78 acres of land and harvested 300 quintals of the crop; of this, 200 quintals were kept aside for household consumption, while the rest was purchased by the Community Managed Resource Centre (CMRC) for the preparation of different finger-millet-based products such as malt, biscuits, laddoo, etc. CMRC also opted for FSSAI certification and proper branding and packaging was tackled.The revenue generated from this was US$19,677.51, against a total cost of US$14,129.54. The CMRC with the support of MAVIM tied up with Dr. Balasaheb Konkan Agriculture University, Dapoli for technical support. CMRC also linked with Shri Vivekanand Research and Training Institute, at Lote, and the corporate social responsibility wing of Excel Industries Pvt. Ltd to purchase small machinery.The MAVM initiative is a good example of how proper micro-planning combined with strong grassroot institutions and convergence can make a substantial difference in the lives of millet-growing farmers.The Mahila Vitt Evam Vikas Nigam (MVEVN), Government of Madhya Pradesh, through the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), supported the Tejaswini Project, which initiated the promotion of kodo (kodo millet) and kutki (little millet) in the Mehandwani area in Dindori District in 41 tribal villages in 2013. Initially, 1,497 women farmers from SHG Federations were trained on improved agricultural practices to take up millet cultivation in at least 0.5 acres of land. By 2017, the area under millet cultivation had increased from 748.5 to 3,750 acres, with an associated growth in total production from 2,245.5 quintals to 15,000 quintals. The total income increased from US$122,738.45 to US$819,896.15, with a net profit increase from US$53,416.23 to US$562,995.35. Apart from the increase in area, productivity, income and profit, the number of women farmers who took on the goal of millet cultivation rose to over 7,500 farmers. Inspired by this success, Taking millets to the millions 271All these interventions show that a multi-stakeholder approach involving different departments, civil society and farmers'/women's collectives and that focuses on the value chain within and outside government programmes leads to success. Transforming food systems for meeting the emerging needs of climate change and malnutrition will need a multi-stakeholder approach.farmers from other nearby blocks like Sambalpura and Shahpura are also adopting these processes and are reaping benefits through millet cultivation.Further, with support of MVEVN, the SHG Federations shouldered the responsibility for processing, marketing, FSSAI certification and branding. For a wider reach, marketing and promotion was undertaken in various avenues like women's clubs, exhibitions, melas etc., covering cities like Nagpur, Nasik, Jabalpur and Bhopal. A pilot on the inclusion of Kodo-Kutki Bar in 226 Aanganwadi Centres for about 5,000 children was taken up. The efforts of Tejaswini in spreading the use of millets in everyday diets has been recognised at multiple forums and has also won the Sitaram Rao Livelihood India Case Study Award and SKOCH Order of Merit Award.According to the FAO, an increasing number of people are going to bed hungry, and more than a billion people are known to be nutritionally poor (Swaminathan 2010). Agroecology-based intercropping -growing more than one crop at the same time on a given piece of land -is now regarded as a promising approach for addressing food security in an environmentally and socially sustainable way (Brooker et al. 2015;Duchene et al. 2017). Many studies have shown that intercropping provides greater resource use-efficiency, reduced soil erosion and nutrient losses, and improved soil moisture (Maitra 2020;Triveni et al. 2017). Water is arguably the single most important factor that limits crop production in agriculture, particularly in rainfed or dryland ecosystems, and a consideration of plant hydraulic lift of soil water may help in designing a sustainable intercropping system (Liste and White 2008).Soil microbes such as arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and plantgrowth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) may be beneficial as well, particularly the former with their capability to form a common mycorrhizal network (CMN) that extends beyond plant root systems, facilitating long-distance nutrient mobilization and water transfer (Aroca and Ruiz-Lozano 2009). Sustainable intensification through intercropping may be achieved with many different crops but requires the integration of various sciences such as agronomy, soil, microbial and social sciences (Brooker et al. 2015). This chapter deals with millet-based intercropping systems as an example. Specifically, we show results from our recent studies, revealing the contribution of CMN in mediating \"bioirrigation\", a process where the hydraulically lifted water by a deep-rooted legume such asNatarajan Mathimaran,Devesh Singh,Rengalakshmi Raj,Thimmegowda Matadadoddi Nanjundegowda,Prabavathy Vaiyapuri Ramalingam,Jegan Sekar,Yuvaraj Periyasamy,E. D. Israel Oliver King,Bagyaraj Davis Joseph,Thomas Boller,Ansgar Kahmen and Paul Mäder 274 Natarajan Mathimaran et al. pigeon pea provides water to the neighboring shallow-root cereal finger millet (Singh et al. 2020).Millets can be intercropped with many crop species, particularly with oil seeds such as sesame, or with legumes such as black gram, cowpea and pigeon pea. The choice of companion crop with the millets is usually decided by the farmers based on the economic value/benefit-cost ratio, land equivalent ratio (LER) and social factors like labour availability. However, legumes are particularly interesting because of their potential to fix atmospheric nitrogen in symbiosis with rhizobia and thereby to increase soil fertility, as shown, for example, in grain legume-pearl millet intercropping systems (McDonagh and Hillyer 2003).In addition, studies have shown facilitation in intercropping systems, where one species promotes the growth of the other (Callaway 2007;Li et al. 2009). Studies by Li et al. (2016) clearly show that in a maize and faba bean intercropping system, the root exudates of maize increase nodulation and enhance nitrogen fixation of faba bean. A trial conducted by Dass and Sudhishri (2010) with a combination of finger millet with pulses revealed enhanced productivity and increased resource conservation by a significant reduction of soil runoff. Several studies have reported the yield of millet to increase under legume intercropping systems, particularly in low fertile soils and low-input systems (Runkulatile et al. 2015;Triveni et al. 2017;Bitew et al. 2020). Significantly increased LER, more efficient water and better nutrient utilization were observed in intercropping systems than in monocropping (Yu et al. 2016;Daryanto et al. 2020). Among different legume-millet intercropping systems, the pigeon pea-finger millet system is a widely adapted practice by the farmers, particularly in the rainfed regions of south India. We discuss this example in more detail below.Many herbs, grasses, shrubs and trees are known to lift water via roots from subsoil and redistribute it to topsoil in a process known as hydraulic redistribution. The lifting of water by roots is passive and driven by leaf transpiration and stomatal closure. The redistributed water into topsoil might provide su fficient moisture for shallow-rooted plants growing adjacent to a deep-rooted plant (Caldwell et al. 1998). Using a stable isotope deuterium tracer, Sekiya and Yano (2004) found that pigeon pea could redistribute hydraulically lifted water to neighboring maize plants. Furthermore, the hydraulically redistributed w ater into dry topsoil is known to trigger microbial activities, which, in turn, could initiate v arious biogeochemical cycles, eventually leading to plant nutrient availability. This important ecophysiological process is an inherent part of many intercropping Millet-based intercropping systems in the tropics 275 systems, particularly where a deep-rooted legume such as pigeon pea is grown with shallow-rooted cereals such as finger millet.Numerous studies have shown that below-ground niche complementarity and resource sharing, combined with improved plant water relations, forms the basis for the overall productivity of the system. Measurements using various techniques, including stable isotope tools, have shown improved plant water relations, particularly under drought conditions (Zegada-Lizarazu et al. 2006). A classic work by Querejeta et al. (2012) showed the facilitative role of mycorrhizal hyphae in redistributing the water hydraulically lifted by oak. Catabolic response profiling of the microbial community obtained from the native shrubs grown in drylands at Sahel showed greater microbial diversity and a more active microbial community in the rhizosphere compared with a monocropping system (Diakhaté et al. 2016). Microbiome analysis in millet rhizosphere showed that an intercropping system can harbor potentially huge number of beneficial microbes (Debenport et al. 2015). Although there is ample information about rhizosphere microbial diversity, only limited knowledge is available with regard to ecophysiological and/or functional ecology of microbes involved in complex below-ground interaction. In particular, our current knowledge on the role of microbes in the facilitation of nutrients and water (Duchene et al. 2017) is limited.Despite some studies showing role of beneficial microbes in facilitating hydraulic lifts, mostly in tree species, currently there are only few studies showing the role of CMN in combination with PGPR in facilitating \"bioirrigation\" in crop species, particularly in cereals and legumes. In this regard, we conducted a series of research, first starting to unravel facilitative role of CMN in combination with PGPR in pigeon pea-finger millet intercropping systems (Figure 23.1).In one of our earliest studies in this context, we tested whether finger millet, a shallow-rooted cereal, can profit from neighboring pigeon pea, a deep-rooted legume, in the presence of \"biofertilization\" with AMF and PGPR, under drought conditions. Our results showed that \"biofertilization\" with AMF alleviates the negative effects of drought conditions on finger millet, indicating that CMN connecting pigeon pea and finger millet exert clearly a positive influence in this simulated intercropping system (Saharan et al. 2018). In our latest work in this regard (Singh et al. 2020), we used stable isotope and classical physiological measurements such as stomatal conductance to better understand the ecophysiology of bioirrigation. We found that pigeon pea can indeed promote the water relations of finger millet during a drought event. The observed facilitative e ffects of pigeon pea on finger millet were partially enhanced by the presence of a CMN. In contrast to the facilitative effects under drought, pigeon pea exerted strong competitive effects on finger millet before the onset of drought. This hindered the growth and biomass production of finger millet when intercropped with pigeon pea, an effect that was even enhanced in the presence of a CMN. The results from our study, thus, indicate that in intercropping, deep-rooted plants may act as \"bioirrigators\" for shallow-rooted crops, and that a CMN can promote these facilitative effects. In more general terms, our study shows that the extent to which the antagonistic effects of facilitation and competition are expressed in an intercropping system strongly depends on the availability of resources (Singh et al. 2020).Furthermore, we conducted field trials over three consecutive seasons at two sites in India, an intercropping and biofertilization scheme to boost their yields under low-input conditions. Our major findings are (i) the effects of the biofertilizers were particularly pronounced at the site of low fertility; (ii) the dual inoculation of AMF+PGPR to finger millet and pigeon pea crops showed increased grain yields more effectively than single inoculation; (iii) the combined grain yields of finger millet and pigeon pea in intercropping increased up to 128% due to the biofertilizer application and (iv) compared to direct sowing, the transplanting system of pigeon pea increased their average grain yield up to 267% across site, and the yield gains due to biofertilization and the transplanting system were additive (Mathimaran et al. 2020).Finally, as millets are considered neglected crops, at least in the recent past, the diversity of millets is yet to be brought back the mainstream farming for nutritional security. King et al. (2009) have reviewed the importance of agrobiodiversity and conservation of millets for tribal populations in south India. The adoption of millets-legume intercropping systems by smallholders are governed by several socioeconomic factors. In one of our studies in south India we found that access to market, the choice of companion intercrops and the cost of cultivation are major influencing factors for adopting a legume-millet intercropping system by smallholder farmers. Similar scenarios have been seen in several African countries, corroborating our study in south India. For example, a study by Ortega et al. (2016) in Malawi found that labour constraints and market access are the key factors governing farmers' adoption of maize-legume intercropping practices despite their ecological benefits. Another important variable that is considered in the decision-making process is the availability of family labour while adopting intercropping systems in Uganda (Ekepu and Tirivanhu 2016). Last, but not least, the value-chain models for the intercropping system have yet to be developed for different combinations of crops and biological inputs, including the biofertilizers, so as to make millet-based a model for sustainable farming, both in socioeconomic and environmental dimensions. A study by Magrini et al. (2016) has pointed out the need for combined actions both in the research and development of catalytic technologies, institutional innovations and market support to upscale the adoption of millet-legume intercropping systems. Similarly, access to quality seeds and markets, as well as policy support, were highlighted as key factors essential to upscaling millet and legume intercropping systems in sub-Saharan Africa (Mugendi et al. 2011).Agroecological farming methods, such as intercropping, have been in use by farmers for centuries. However, practicing intercropping on a larger scale has been always a challenge for various reasons that include limited understanding of complex interactions, particularly below-ground microbial interactions at the rhizosphere, involving various biotic and abiotic factors. Thanks to recent advancements in molecular and ecophysiological tools, there has been an increasing amount of research on the role of microbes in the intercropping system, eventually allowing us to explore possibilities for adapting microbial-facilitated 278 Natarajan Mathimaran et al.intercropping to a larger scale. Yet mainstreaming intercropping requires further basic and applied research to optimize productivity and economic sustainability, as shown by our studies of the millet-based intercropping systems.Minor-grained cereal grasses are collectively described as 'millets' and are one of the oldest cultivated foods known to humans. The major group of millets includes crops like sorghum and pearl millet, while minor millets consist of finger millet, foxtail, kodo, barnyard, proso and little millet. Millets are a traditional staple food of the dryland regions of the world. In India, they are grown in about 15 million ha with an annual production of 16 million tonnes and contribute slightly less than 10% to the country's food-grain basket. Nutri-cereals are known to have high nutrient content, including protein, essential fatty acids, dietary fiber, B-vitamins, and minerals such as calcium, iron, zinc, potassium and magnesium. Although millets are nutritionally rich like other fine cereals, their consumption has significantly declined over the last three decades. The decline is mainly due to the rather laborious and time-consuming process involved in the preparation of millet and government policy to supply fine cereals at subsidized prices. Therefore, it has become necessary to reorient efforts on millets to generate demand through value addition of processed foods. Value addition in food processing has a high degree of interdependence with forwarding and backward linkages, which can play an essential role in accelerating economic development. Through value addition, the shelf life and storage quality of food can be improved.• Lack of appropriate processing technologies that yield stable shelf products constitutes a significant limitation in the utilization of millet grain to d evelop value-added products.An overview • Consumer-level preferences include food that is convenient, tasty and attractive, with good texture, which may not always be the case with millet products. • The size of grain is minor so processing is a challenge.• The outer seed coat of most minor millets has about 1-7 layers, making it further difficult to process with available means. • Polishing minor millets as done for major food cereals may lead to nutrition losses, defeating the purpose of consuming it. • Lack of proper mechanism to separate unhulled grains from de-hulled grains.• No serious processing interventions are attempted because of lack of demand for these millets. • The market is limited as primarily poor farmers from tribal regions and typical dryland regions produce and consume millets. • Absence of grades and standards.• Lack of awareness with regard to grain and product quality standards.• Regular supply of grains is inadequate for demand from large-scale manufacturing lines. • Non-availability of local millet processing units.• Lack of grain storage options.Processing grains enhances its consumer acceptability and adds to its convenience. Though millet is known for its nutritional qualities, its consumption has declined due to the unavailability of ready-to-eat (RTE) and ready-to-cook (RTC) millet products. It is also regarded in many countries as an inferior food. A decrease in millet consumption is found to be proportional to an increase in expenditure. Besides, increased income is accompanied by increased consumption of wheat and rice, as products from these fine cereals are easy to prepare and have better 'keeping' quality. At the same time, people now tend to eat a greater variety of foods. Technological change could perhaps shift the status of millets, improving its production and utilization. Processing also improves the food value in terms of increasing the variety of products and improving carbohydrate and protein digestibility.The primary processing of millets revolves around the grading of millets (which depends on the size of the grain), de-stoning (removal of stones and other impurities), de-hulling (removal of outer indigestible husk layer), and p olishing. Its essential aim is the removal of waste, stones, and glumes from the grain, which are necessary for proper storage and consumer acceptance. The majority of primary processing is still performed with inefficient machinery and demands skilled operators, making it uneconomical for farmers and minor-scale entrepreneurs. The primary processing of millets is a vital step to converting the grain into an edible form and thereby enhancing its quality. Although processing millets without husk (naked grains) -i.e., sorghum, pearl, and finger millets -are easy, processing millets that do have husk -i.e., little, proso, kodo, barnyard, and foxtail millets -are more complicated, as they have an inedible husk that needs to be removed through primary processing (Figures 24.1,24.2).Constraints identified in the existing primary processing machinery 1 As of now, no machinery is available that can effectively perform the process of cleaning, grading, de-hulling, and separation. The development of FIGURE 24.2 Different de-hullers available for primary processing of millets. such machinery will prove to be a helping aid for various entrepreneurs and minor-scale industries. 2 The de-hulling efficiency of millets is influenced by impeller speed, hence a provision to control the working speed of machines should be incorporated. 3 Separation of de-hulled and raw grains from the de-huller output is due to the slight difference in specific gravity. Hence, because of improper sieve sizes and the design of reciprocating sieves, nearly 1.0-1.5 kg of material falls through the sieve holes and accumulates deep inside the machine, leading to wastage. 4 The collection of husk is burdensome, and causes spillages all over the working station, sometimes getting mixed with de-hulled output. 5 After the de-hulling activity, the next stage is to separate the de-hulled grains and raw grains. The separation stage is imperative and dramatically affects overall grain recovery; nearly 1 kg of de-hulled grains (for every cycle of separation) is prone to wastage due to inefficient separation methodology.Not all minor millets can be de-hulled by one machine due to the different size and shape of each millet. Specific and suitable machine is required for proper recovery.A study was conducted on minor millets by using different existing de-hulling machines, and the recovery was observed (Table 24.1). The study indicated that the minor de-huller was best suited for barnyard, foxtail, and kodo millet, while the single-stage de-huller best fit proso and the double-stage was suitable for little millet.Secondary processing involves using the primary processed raw material for different RTE and RTC millet products such as flour, millets-based multigrain flour, semolina (fine and medium), millet cookies, vermicelli, pasta, etc., which minimize the cooking time needed and make them convenient foods. It also increases the shelf life of products. Busy lifestyles and the lack of inspiration to cook make convenient nutritious RTC and RTE products more appealing and accessible (Alavi et al., 2019). These products have a multi-billion dollar market worldwide. ICAR-IIMR has developed and standardized millet-based products such as atta, semolina (fine and medium), flakes, cookies, cold extruded products (pasta and vermicelli), RTE snacks, etc. using different processing technologies.Flaking is the process where moistened and roasted grain is pressed into flattened flakes and dried. It can be applied to any millet grain, irrespective of variety, size, and shape. However, the pericarp color of the grain impacts the color of the flakes.The machines used for different flaking technology are:1 Edge runner -produces thick flakes like rice flakes 2 Roller flaker -produces thin flakes like corn flakesThis technology comprises many sub-processes like soaking the grains in excess water to hydrate their equilibrium moisture content. After soaking, the grains are washed appropriately by changing the water thrice; otherwise, the grain's sliminess will affect the storage life of the flakes. This soaking method is similar for both edge-runner and roller-flakes processing (Figures 24.3,24.7,24.8).Cold extruded products such as vermicelli, pasta, and noodles are generally made from durum wheat or refined wheat flour. These products can also be manufactured with millets by the same machine, called a \"cold extruder.\" In millet-based cold extruded products, the raw material should be fine-sized millet semolina (355 µ); otherwise, the binding nature will be very low, which would increase the cooking losses. Currently, every millet-based product is blended with wheat semolina/suji (500 µ), as the millet grains are devoid of gluten, and so lack the binding properties and strength of the texture. Extruded millet products are mixed in a blender with different ingredients and desired moisture levels to make a wet homogenous mass. Subsequently, it is forced through an opening in a perforated plate or dies with a design specific (it varies for vermicelli, pasta, and noodles), and is cut to a specified size by blades. Now this moist product goes through the drying process (Figures 24.4,24.9).The popular and world-famous snack popcorn is commonly made from maize. Likewise, expanded rice or murmura is also a very popular and simple traditional snack. However, similar products from other cereals are rare. \"Gun popping\" is another traditional method of cereal popping, widely used in East Asian countries, but not popular in India. Recent R&D has shown that millet-expanded snacks can also be processed using the gun popping method. Mainly this technology requires decorticated and polished grains to deliver puffs/pops with high functional and highly acceptable sensory qualities. The puffing occurs due to the quick transmission of heat from the barrel to the grain and converts its moisture levels into steam form. It gelatinizes the starch and produces high pressure in the core part of the grain, resulting in the expansion of the grain, forming its puffy nature. These products are milky white and have a pleasant aroma, with an attractive appearance and soggy texture. The roasting process can be applied to improve its crispiness (Figures 24.5,24.10).Baked goods are RTE and the most popular snack foods across the world. They include cookies, biscuits, bread, buns, rusks, doughnuts, etc., with cookies being the most consumed by the population. Currently, the ICAR-IIMR has developed 100% pure millet-based cookies and cakes with improved textures by applying different emulsifiers, which are closely comparable to famous wheatbased cookies in the market. The machine used for cookie and cake processing are the cookie/biscuit-cutting machine, rotary rack oven, cake-filling machine, planetary mixer, etc. In the cookie process, the millet in the form of fine flour (150 µ and 180µ particle size) is used. Millet cookies are manufactured by the creaming process (vegetable fat/vegetable oil and sugar) and the addition of leavening agents, flavors, and millet flour, along with desired moisture levels, and making it into soft dough, cutting and baking at 180 °C for 18-20 minutes. Its attractiveness can be improved by incorporating different ingredients like cashew nuts, almonds, chocolate chips, etc. These products lack the sponginess of wheat bread and pizzas because they do not contain gluten protein (Collar et al., 2019) (Figures 24.6, 24.11).       The government programs spearheaded by the Ministry of Agriculture were primarily focused on improving the supply of millets. Minor millets are na turally nutrient-dense cereals (Malleshi et al., 1982), and so making them available through public-funded schemes can help deal with the problem of micronutrient deficiency or hidden hunger among the less-privileged sections of the population. Within the Indian context, as a healthy food, minor millets have great potential to address this challenge due to their nutritional qualities ( Durairaj et al., 2019). The effective delivery of millets under public-funded schemes could have far-reaching implications for tackling the problem of malnutrition. Most public food programs do not include millets, except for the inclusion of finger millet in Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) in a few states of the country. There are no exclusive government schemes/projects/programs for minor millets. However, many Indian states are gradually starting to support the consumption of millets through government-sponsored schemes; for instance, Karnataka was the first state to distribute millets through the PDS; Odisha has started the Millets Mission; Andhra Pradesh supplies finger millets and jowar through PDS, and Tamil Nadu has included millets in its MGR Nutritious Meal Programme 2011-12 and in ICDS. It is necessary to include millets in public-funded schemes in all states to minimize malnutrition and mortality rates throughout India.There are limited policies and schemes that explicitly include millets, with not many exclusive government schemes/projects/programs for minor millets. Of the extant schemes, the most important ones are Initiative for Nutritional Security through Intensive Millets Promotion as part of the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY); Rainfed Area Development Programme as part of Rashtriya Kristi Visas Yolanda (RKVY); and Integrated Cereals Development Programmed in Coarse Cereals-based Cropping Systems Areas (ICDP-CC) under the Macro Management of Agriculture. There is a lot of variation across the states on how they utilize these opportunities for promoting millets.The processing of minor millets has come a long way; however, one grey area is the lack of availability of efficient de-hullers and separators in primary processing that have a greater than 80% efficiency. This is an important determinant for secondary processing, as quality raw material will lead to greater scope of diversified millet products through secondary processing. Secondary processing technologies like flaking, puffing, milling, and baking are standardized, but current raw material costs do not favor viable products except as niche markets. The greater the efficiency in primary processing, the higher the share of farmer producers in the consumer's rupee. Further bioavailability studies of millet-based products need to be conducted to develop standards and grades, to identify suitable minor millet cultivars for specific end-products for large-scale production, and to strengthen the use of minor millets, which are storehouses of nutrition. There should be an in-depth policy shift from the government towards accommodating the inclusion of minor millets in public-funded schemes to address malnutrition and lifestyle diseases.Small millets are well adapted to poor quality soils and rainfed, low moisture conditions, while also producing grains that have superior nutrient values compared to paddy and wheat (Saleh et al. 2013;Behera 2017, Figure 25.1). For these reasons, small millets are recognized as key assets for ensuring food security under climate change (Padulosi et al. 2015;Davis et al. 2019). To inform strategies to leverage their role in climate change adaptation, the precise mechanisms by which small millets support food security should be clarified in consideration of the many parameters and constraints of farm and livelihood systems.Millets may contribute to climate change adaptation through several mechanisms. Because of their drought tolerance, including millets in a diversified farm portfolio can support harvest security in drought years (e.g., Prieto et al. 2015;Renard and Tilman 2019). If drought stress becomes very severe, minor millets could replace more drought-sensitive staples (e.g., Kurukulasuriya and Mendelsohn 2008). Because of their capacity to produce a harvest on marginal soils, minor millets could enable more areas in the landscape to be brought into production, which can help mitigate the effect of yield losses resulting from climate change. The ability of millets to be stored for long periods can also provide a fallback source of nutrition and income under variable weather conditions. The contribution of millets to climate change adaptation may derive from one or a combination of these mechanisms, among other possibilities.To sharpen understanding of the mechanisms by which minor millets support food security under climate change, a scenario modelling exercise was carried out. The study focused on the Mandla and Dindori districts of eastern Madhya Pradesh, India, where kodo (Paspalum scrobiculatum) and kutki (Panicum sumatrense) millets are cultivated by tribal farmers in marginal lands. Kodo and kutki are grown especially on rocky and sloping lands, whereas flatter richer soils tend to be used for paddy cultivation. Millets have received limited attention from the research and development perspective in India. Agricultural schemes in Madhya Pradesh have even pushed to replace these \"low-value crops\" with higher-value ones like oil seeds and pulses in recent decades (Gupta 2003;Catalyst Management Services Ltd. 2009). Improved rice varieties have been promoted in the region, while improved varieties of millet have only been promoted more recently and their adoption is still limited (Bioversity International and ASA 2016).A simple model for household production and consumption was devised as summarized in Figure 25.2. The model considered household production of rice and minor millets, storage of rice and millet, and consumption of millets and rice in fulfilling household energy requirements. The production levels of millet and rice varied depending on whether or not drought was faced in a given year. Once family requirements were met, surplus grain from the current year's production would be placed in storage. The model assumed that the household would preferentially consume rice over millet and fresh grains over stored grain.The model was built as a series of linked equations as presented in Table 25.1 using the R statistical programing language (R Core Team 2018). The parameters for the model are summarized in Table 25.2. A single iteration of the model provided data for an individual household over a 20-year span. For a given set of parameters, the model was applied over the full range of drought risk values (0-1) and repeated for 1,000 iterations. The initial amount of rice in storage was set as half of the household's annual energy requirement, as was done for the initial store of millets. Three distinct investigations were completed with the model in which the yield values or the area planted with rice and millet were varied, while the remaining parameters were left constant. The questions explored in these investigations were as follows:• Investigation 1: How do different values for crop yield in drought and good years affect household food security under increasing levels of drought risk? • Investigation 2: How does the area planted with small millets and rice affect household food security under increasing levels of drought risk? • Investigation 3: How would increasing yield values for small millets affect household food security under increasing levels of drought risk?The first investigation explored the effect of different yield values in drought and non-drought years. The values for millet and rice yields under drought and non-drought conditions were defined with reference to the government's yield and weather data for a 35-year period (1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014). General linear models of millet and paddy yields obtained for total rainfall by district were developed and the predicted values were used in defining the parameters for the scenario model. For drought years, we used two alternative yield values, which were the predicted yields under the minimum level of precipitation experienced over the previous 20 years (Min) and the predicted yields for below-average precipitation levels (Q1). For non-drought years, we used four alternative yield values, which were the predicted yields for mean precipitation levels (Avg); the predicted yields for above average precipitation (Q3); the predicted yields under the maximum level of precipitation (Max); and the absolute highest yields for rice and millet in the dataset (AbsMax). The combinations of yield values that were simulated are shown in Table 25 A1.The area planted with millet and rice was held constant in the first investigation. The area values were defined based on a household survey in the focal area with 297 households across 30 villages (Bioversity International and ASA 2016). The survey results showed that the mean area households assigned to paddy was 0.6 Ha and 0.6 Ha to small millets. These values were used as the parameters for crop area in the first investigation. Local consultations suggested that farmers use their best quality soil with black color for rice and their rocky red soils not suitable for paddy to grow millet. These discussions suggested that farmers could grow millet in areas where rice is currently grown but that rice may not be easily cultivated in areas where farmers currently grow millet. The second investigation explored this nuance, in considering that intensifying drought conditions may mean that planting millet on black soils -effectively replacing some area of rice cultivation -could bring greater harvest and food security. The combinations of areas planted to rice and millet are shown in Table 25A2, which assumes millets could be grown on land currently used by rice but not vice versa. The simulations in the second investigation used the most optimistic yield values (Q1 in drought years, AbsMax in good years).The third investigation assessed the role of improved millet varieties in supporting climate change adaptation. Starting with more optimistic yield values • The energy content of rice (RiceE) was set to 3,533,200 kcal/ton (Longvah et al., 2017;Saleh et al., 2013;Shobana et al., 2013) • The energy content of millet (MilE) was defined as 3,278,500, which is the mean value for kodo and kutki (combined: 327.85 kcal/100g; kodo: 320 kcal/100g; kutki: 335.69 kcal/100g; Longvah et al., 2017;Saleh et al., 2013;Shobana et al., 2013) • Yield values for drought years (RiceYLow, MilYLow, value greater than 0) and non-drought years (RiceYHigh, MilYHigh, value greater than 0) were defined with reference to government yield data (see Tables 25A1 and 25A2)• The drought probability (Drought Prob) was set to a value ranging from 0 to 1 • The initial quantity of rice and millet in storage (RiceEStore0 and MilEStore0) was set to half the energy requirement of the household in the first year and as the amount remaining from the previous year for subsequent iterations (RiceEStore1: defined inStep 7; MilEStore1: defined in Step 11).2 Drought=sample(c(0:100),size=1,replace=T) Whether a drought occurs in given year (Drought, TRUE/FALSE) depends on the <(DroughtProb*100) probability of drought (DroughtProb: defined in Step 1).11The amount of millet energy in storage at the end of a given year (MilEStore1, kcal) is MilESurProd calculated as the amount remaining in storage from the previous year (MilEStore0: defined in Step 1) minus the amount consumed (MilEConSto: defined in Step 10) or plus the amount added from surplus production (MilESurProd: defined in Step 9).12 MilECons=if((ProdRiceE+RiceEStore0)> If production (ProdRiceE: defined in Step 4) and storage (RiceEStore0: defined in Step 1) =Ereq) 0 else availability of rice meet the family's needs, then no millet will be consumed (MilECons, if ((ProdMilE + MilEStore0)>= (Ereq -kcal). Otherwise, the family will attempt to make up their energy requirements with (ProdRiceE + RiceEStore0))) (Ereq -millets, consuming (MilECons, kcal) just enough to fill the gap if quantities are (ProdRiceE + RiceEStore0)) else available, or consuming the full amount in storage (MilEStore0: defined in Step 1) ifthere is a shortfall.13 Econs=RiceECons + MilECons The total energy (Econs, kcal) consumed by the family in a given year is assumed to be the total of rice consumed (RiceECons: defined in Step 8) and millet consumed (MilECons: defined in Step 12) 14 FoodSecure=(Econs>=Ereq) A family is food secure in a given year (FoodSecure, TRUE/FALSE) if their consumption (Econs: defined in Step 13) is greater or equal to their energy requirements (Ereq: defined in Step 1).in a normal year and a drought year (Q1:AbsMax), the effect of progressive yield increases from 125% to 350% over the base values were modelled, assuming equal percent yield increases in drought and normal years.Yields of paddy recorded in the region ranged from 0.364 to 2.640 ton/ha with a mean of 0.947 ton/ha. The yields of small millets (kodo-kutki) ranged from 0.089 to 0.903 ton/ha with a mean of 0.266 ton/ha. Precipitation ranged from 480.2 mm to 1595.0 mm with a mean of 1090.0 mm. Above average precipitation (Q3) was 1163.0 mm and below-average precipitation (Q1) was 965.9 mm. The regression analysis showed a significantly increasing trend for yields of both paddy (slope 0.00104±0.00045, t=2.330, p=0.0267) and small millets (slope 0.00038±0.00014, t=2.634, p=0.0132) with higher monsoon precipitation. The slope was steeper for paddy, meaning its yields were more impacted by poor rainfall than the yields of millets, but the yields of small millets were always considerably lower than those for paddy (Figure 25.2). The scenario modelling revealed that households only achieved their annual energy requirements under the most favourable climate conditions (Figure 25.3 top-left panel). The role of millets for food security was most significant when yields were high in good years, which allowed households to store millets for use in drought years.Optimal food security was achieved under the current 'average' situation, with rice grown to the maximal area available with adequate soil quality. The worst outcomes for household food security were seen under the scenario where millet replaced or nearly replaced rice. This was because rice is higher yielding than millets, so producing it on the largest area possible maximized the harvest and the household energy consumption. Millets showed an important food security role when surpluses could be stored in good years. The scenario models investigating the effect of yield-enhancements revealed that yield increases of millet as low 150% notably increased food security when drought risk was high (0.5 to 0.8).This modelling exercise provided useful insights into the mechanisms by which millets may contribute to climate change resilience and adaptation. A key result was that the low yields of millet limit their role in food security in the face of increasing drought risk. Modest yield increases resulted in food security benefits in our modelling, and the values would be realistic to achieve with existing varieties. For instance, yields as low as 0.350 tonne/ha in drought years and 1.355 tonne/ha in good years showed notable food security benefits in the model results. Kodo variety DPS 9-1 has a yield ranging from 2.7 to 3.0 tonnes/ha, while the kutki variety DHL M36-3 has a range of 1.4-1.6 tonnes/ha (ICAR nd). The yields of these varieties obtained in farmer fields may be lower than these values achieved under more controlled experimental conditions, but the numbers reveal good potential for these improved varieties (and others that are already available in the region) to contribute to improved food security outcomes. The major role of millets for household food and climate security was seen in terms of their storability. Millets provide a source of food from marginal soils with little effort that provides a fallback for food security. Discussions with farmers in the project area have highlighted the storability of millets as a cherished quality and our results point to this characteristic as one that deserves more attention in discourses and research regarding the role of millets in climate change adaptation.It is acknowledged that the model oversimplifies the farm and livelihood system, such as by excluding any links to the market and the diversity of other crops and livestock, as well as wild harvesting, which is quite prevalent. We note that this simplicity was a conscious choice to focus on the tradeoffs in cultivating and consuming the most important cereal crops of the region. The fact that the households generally did not achieve their energy requirements in our models may reveal that there is an important role for other crops, the market, or the public distribution system in supplementing food security, which is not captured by the model. Otherwise, this result may reflect upon the extent of the poor n utrition that exists in Madhya Pradesh, where 60% of children under five years of age are underweight as compared to 43% at the national level (IIPS and Macro International 2007, p 269 and p 273). Scheduled Castes and Tribes, which are the predominant population in the focal area, are disproportionately affected by malnutrition (WFP and IHD 2008;Das and Bose 2015;Jain et al. 2015;Kapoor and Dhall 2016).It is noted that this was a quick exercise and that the model could benefit from further validation and verification. More sophisticated modelling approaches for cropping systems and household nutrition exist and could provide more reliable results. This simple approach was nevertheless useful because it was possible to devise using open source software. It has clarified expectations and understanding within a short project timeline. The model can easily be modified to consider other nutrients aside from energy and to vary additional parameters that have not been explored in this paper. E.D.I. Oliver King, and Stefano Padulosi were fundamental in conceptualizing the model. Thank you for sharing your insights on the role of millets in improving the livelihoods of farming communities in the focal area and in other regions of India.   The main challenges of the 21st century are population growth, climate change, water scarcity and soaring food prices, all of which could trigger a great threat to agriculture and food security worldwide (Kulkarni et al., 2018). Globally, the burden of malnutrition, in all its forms, remains a challenge. Nearly 8.9% (~690 million) of the world population is undernourished according to 2019 estimates; and 21.3% of children under five years of age are stunted, 6.9% wasted and 5.6% overweight (FAO et al., 2020). Nutrition insecurity is a major threat to the world's population, which is highly reliant on cereal-based diets (seen in both developing and under-developed countries), particularly refined cereals that are deficient in micronutrients. Today the bigger threat comes from the triple burden of malnutrition -under-nutrition co-existing with micronutrient deficiencies and over-nutrition. Economic losses equal to 5%-6% of Gross National Product (GNP) were estimated due to deficiencies of iron, zinc and vitamin A in South Asia, leading to illness and poor performance (Shivran, 2016). Both micronutrient deficiencies and economic loss could be averted with improvements in nutritional status through enhanced quality, agriculture productivity (De Benoist et al., 2004) and cereal staples consumption. Agricultural research needs to engage in novel t echnologies and strike a balance between boosted food production with better crop genotypes and improved nutritional quality of food crops (Saha et al., 2016). The process of biofortification is one means to improve the micronutrient content (vitamins and minerals) of food grains is improved, through plant breeding and agronomic practices. Staple crops, when biofortified and consumed routinely, could have a greater positive impact on the nutritional status of vulnerable populations.Millets are a highly promising alternative option to strengthening rice-and wheat-based diets, as they can survive in arid conditions, leave a smaller carbon footprint and still offer higher nutritional value (Bergamini et al., 2013). These ancient grains have been used as cereal staples by millions of people in arid zones across sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, and for fodder, feed and industrial purposes in developed economies (Pasha et al., 2018). Despite India being among the largest producers of small millets (SM), consumption of these crops is currently low (Kulkarni et al., 2018), as they have been replaced largely by rice and wheat since the Green Revolution. One of the factors hindering the wider use of SM is their cumbersome traditional processing; but today, this can be effectively replaced with novel techniques capable of creating more value-added and readily acceptable products. Such innovations represent, indeed, a robust strategy to increase the consumption of these (Kulkarni et al., 2018).SM are a group of small-seeded cereals of the grass family Poaceae. They include finger millet (FM) (Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.), kodo millet (KM) (Paspalum scrobiculatum L.), little millet (LM) (Panicum sumatrense Roth), foxtail millet (FXM) (Setaria italica (L.) P. Beauv.), barnyard millet (BM) (Echinochloa spp.), proso millet (PM) (Panicum miliaceum L.) and brown top millet (BTM) (Brachiaria ramosa (L.) Stapf ) (Figure 26.1). FM, FXM and PM are important crops cultivated globally, while the other millets are region or country specific. For example, KM, LM and BTM are cultivated as cereals in India (Vetriventhan et al., 2020).The climate-resilient and nutrient-dense characteristics of SM make them highly relevant crops for food and feed, even in agriculturally marginalized areas FIGURE 26.1 Small millet grains.Unleashing the nutrition potential of small millets 311 that are characterized by scarce water and poor soil. SM are excellent sources of carbohydrates, micronutrients and phytochemicals with nutraceutical properties. They are also excellent sources of B-group vitamins. Although their proteins are poor in lysine and tryptophan, their consumption can be easily complemented with lysine-rich (leguminous) vegetables and animal proteins. Because of their high nutritional value, millets have been recently renamed 'nutri-cereals' by the Government of India through a Gazette Notification (Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, 2018).In recent times, there has been noticeable progress in the development of millet processing machinery, enabling a more effective preparation of value-added products from SM. Each subtype of SM has unique physical, nutritional and processing qualities. Varietal selection within each SM with desired nutritional and processing traits is a prerequisite for making value-added products or novel food items and recipes. Today, there are many new varieties of SM, including biofortified ones, which could be utilized to boost nutritional security.Germplasm characterization is the process allowing a detailed description of accessions at phenotypic, biochemical and molecular levels. Owing to their unique genetic diversity, combined with great nutritional properties, SM offer a tremendous opportunity for diet diversification, which should be better capitalized on. Over 133,000 germplasm of SM have been conserved globally (Vetriventhan et al., 2020). The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) conserves over 12,000 accessions of six SM, and germplasm diversity sub-sets evaluated for grain nutrients composition have revealed significant variability; numerous trait-specific germplasm have been identified so far in support of crop improvement (Table 26.1). Some of the millets, in general, contain lower amylose compared to wheat and rice, which may be a factor that results in high glycaemic index. There is, thus, a need to identify varieties of SM with higher amylose for slower sugar assimilation that would, thus, be better suited for diabetics.SM are neither ready-to-eat (RTE) nor ready-to-cook (RTC) grains and need to be processed (Saleh et al., 2013;Jaybhaye et al., 2014). Commonly followed, conventional, contemporary and novel processing techniques to exploit the nutritional and value-addition potential of SM (Figure 26.2) are discussed below.The term 'milling' in the context of SM refers to de-husking and de-branning operations, similar to those done in rice, and to size reduction and gradation as done in wheat. In the case of SM except FM, the grains can be de-husked in a centrifugal sheller, rubber roll sheller or even in the traditional disc mills and then de-branned to a desirable degree of polish. Decorticated as well as de-branned millets can be cooked as rice or may be flaked or used to prepare expanded grains or pulverized and size-graded to prepare flour or semolina for conventional food preparations. Hardening the endosperm through hydrothermal treatment improves dehulling efficiency. Milled millets have improved bioavailability of   nutrients and higher consumer acceptability. The bran fraction from SM has higher oil and nutraceutical content whereas FM seed coat, rich in phenolics, may serve as functional food additive (Devi et al., 2014). L arge-scale SM milling systems involve high capital investments. However, today, small-scale, low-cost millet dehullers and integrated millet mills equipped with pre-cleaner, destoner, dehuller and gravity separator are also available.Grain popping is a popular dry-heat (high temperature short time-HTST) treatment, which is simple and least energy-intensive processing method followed to prepare RTE products. Wholegrain SM are used to prepare popped/ puffed grains. Normally, the expansion volume of popped SM ranges from 7 to 12 ml/g (the highest being for PM and the lowest for BM). A few good popping varieties of SM have been identified (Malleshi, 1989;Delost-Lewis et al., 1992, Mirza et al., 2015). During popping, due to the heat, the lipases get denatured and this enhances the shelf life of the product. Now-a-days, expanded SM are also emerging, which are prepared using dehulled/debranned grains following gun-popping process or processingparboiled millets similar to rice (murmura). Expanded millets have high potential for confectioneries, low-fat breakfast cereals, cereal bars and also as a thickener in soup mixes.Parboiling or hydrothermal treatment hardens SM and improves their decortication or milling, as well as cooking, characteristics. The process also facilitates resistant starch formation, minimizes the loss of vitamins and minerals during milling and improves the storage qualities of millets (Shobana and Malleshi, 2007). Normally, SM with denser endosperm and high amylose content yield better quality parboiled millets. Parboiling is not practiced extensively but it has very high potential for extended uses of SM.Flakes from millets are prepared by traditional edge runner, roller flaker and extrusion cooking methods. RTE flakes result from the process of starch gelatinization; they are used for a wide range of snacks, roasted flakes find applications in granola bars, breakfast cereals and muesli formulations. Generally, bold grains with well-filled starchy endosperm yield better quality flakes.FM has unique potential for malting and its malt is a storehouse of active hydrolytic enzymes, andtermed as\"Amylase Rich Food\". Thus, it finds a place in the preparation of infant, weaning and enteral food formulations. Germination lowers anti-nutrients and enhances mineral bioavailability. Varietal variations of malting characteristics in FM have been observed and varieties 'Indaf ' 1, 3 and 9, and Annapurna have been identified as good malting strains (Malleshi and Desikachar, 1979). Further screening of germplasm for identifying or breeding malt-millet accessions deserve attention.Popular fermented FM-based alcoholic beverages in India are 'Kodo ko jaanr', 'Koozh' and 'Chhang', while lactic fermented beer is popular in sub-Saharan Africa. Fermented products have higher protein and starch digestibility and lower antinutrients. Ambali, a mild, auto-fermented thin porridge, is a popular product made from FM. Currently idli, dosa and other traditional Indian f ermented products are prepared from all types of SM.Various food products from SM are produced by adapting both cold and hot extrusion technologies. SM are non-glutinous cereals and, hence, need special pre-treatments for the preparation of cold extruded products such as vermicelli and pasta (Malleshi, 2007;Ushakumar and Malleshi, 2007). Shobana et al. (2018) successfully prepared medium GI gluten-free vermicelli from SM by cold extrusion. RTE snacks, breakfast cereals and specialty foods such as 'Smoothix' are produced from SM (Ushakumari et al., 2004). Normally, millets with higher amylose content are more suitable for preparing cold extruded products with a firm and chewy texture, whereas hot extruded products are generally not varietal specific. Information on the suitability of SM varieties for such products would be valuable so as to enhance the production of these high-value products for both the national and international markets.Due to an absence of gluten, SM are a challenging ingredient to use for bakery and confectionary products similar to those obtained from wheat. However, composite flours consisting of wheat and SM flours (up to 30%) can be used for the preparation of pizza, cookies, cakes, muffins, flatbread, etc. FM varieties GPHCPB-149 and VL 324 are more suitable for biscuits (Kaur et al., 2020). According to Desai et al. (2010), 50% of malted FM flour can be utilized in cake formulations. Based on these findings, there is a need for greater screening of SM germplasm in order to identify varieties suitable for each of these products.There is ample scope for the preparation of SM-based RTE and RTC products such as papad, sandige, murukku, chakkuli and ready-to-warm rotis (similar to Mexican tortillas) on industrial scale, as such products are in great demand.Papads from FM are very popular whereas multi-millet baked as well as deepfried snacks are also gaining popularity. The use of SM for making ice cream, halwa, idli, dosa and traditional sweet and savoury products is now possible thanks to the latest findings in food technology.SM are starchy grains and can be used for the industrial-level production of starches and starch derivatives such as resistant malto-dextrins (soluble fibre with less viscosity) and glucose. However, lower level of starch content in SM hinders their use in Industrial level production of starch and allied products including ethanol. Suitable SM germplasm with desirable carbohydrate characteristics need to be identified for this purpose.All these are contemporary technologies being applied to SM for the development of healthy, wellness, weaning and supplementary foods; milk-based beverages can be also prepared.Another area that can be explored is the application of nanotechnology to prepare millet flours with characteristic physical and rheological properties for diverse food applications with enhanced bioavailability of nutrients and phytochemicals. Milk and millet-malt-based fermented probiotics indicate a possible use for millets in synbiotic foods (Chaudhary and Sreeja, 2020).The glycaemic properties of SM preparations range from low to high ( Shobana et al., 2013); however, the information on varietal variations is still lacking. Identifying suitable germplasm for high amylose and soluble dietary fibre contents and complex-rigid protein and starch architecture may help in identifying low glycaemic index (GI) millet products.Identifying suitable germplasm for specific foods, developing value chains for consistent supply of such varieties to processing industries and creating public awareness about the health benefits of SM need to be better addressed.SM are important alternative cereal grains to help mitigate malnutrition, of both the under and over kind. Millet varieties with higher protein, dietary fibre and micronutrient content, and better bioavailability of nutrients would be suitable for preparing holistic SM-based products, while high-amylose varieties could beAgriculture and allied activities are a major source of livelihood for almost 60% of the Indian population. Nearly 85% are small and marginal farmers with less than five acres of land (GoI, 2011). Within this scenario, leveraging agriculture for nutrition is a strategic pathway to impact that should be decisively promoted. There are six main pathways linking agriculture to nutrition. Three are related to the nutritional impacts of farm production, farm incomes, and food prices. The other three are related to agricultural linkages with gender, i.e., how agriculture can influence women's empowerment, childcare and feeding, and women's and children's nutritional outcomes (Kadiyala et al., 2014). In spite of a major share of population dependent on agriculture, and agriculture's potential to improve nutritional outcomes, the nutritional indicators of India's population tell a different tale. In 2015-2016, 38.4% of India's children below the age of five were stunted, 35.7% were underweight, and more than 50% of women and children were anaemic (IIPS and ICF, 2017).Millets promoted as a part of leveraging agriculture for nutrition through nutrition-sensitive agriculture policies and programmes have the potential to improve nutrition outcomes. Farming System for Nutrition (FSN) is an example of nutrition-sensitive agriculture policy, defined by Prof. M. S. Swaminathan as \"the introduction of location-specific agricultural remedies for nutritional maladies by mainstreaming nutritional criteria in the selection of farming system components involving crops, animals and wherever feasible fish\" (Nagarajan et al., 2014). Nutrition awareness is an integral component of the FSN approach. The M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) undertook a study between 2013 and 2018 to demonstrate the feasibility of an FSN approach to addressing undernutrition under the research programme \"Leveraging Agriculture forNutrition in South Asia\". The study was undertaken in a core set of seven villages (658 households, 2,845 people) in the Koraput district, Odisha, and five villages (556 households, 2,254 people) in the Wardha district, Maharashtra, both areas of millet cultivation and consumption (Bhaskar et al., 2017).The promotion of nutrient-dense millets (sorghum in Wardha and finger millet in Koraput) represented a key crop intervention under the approach. The National Food Security Act (NFSA), enacted in 2013, provides for the inclusion of millets in government food distribution programmes like the public distribution system (PDS) and supplementary nutrition programme (SNP) under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS). Karnataka was the first state in the country to introduce the procurement of millets for supply under the PDS. 1 This chapter examines the acceptability and viability of millets as a component of the FSN approach and in the PDS.Finger millet and sorghum are hardy, nutrient-dense, largely rainfed crops that have been a part of the traditional diet of Indigenous communities in many parts of the world. In India, different millet species are cultivated in different regions of the country. Overall, their cultivation and consumption has been on steady decline (Raju et al., 2018).Finger millet (Eleusine coracana) is among the major crops cultivated in the Koraput district, Odisha. It is grown in the kharif season ( June-September), on marginal lands in the upland and hilly regions, with few external inputs, either as a pure crop or under mixed-cropping systems. 2 It is sold directly as a grain or is brewed into local beer for sale in local markets. However, the area under finger millet cultivation in the district declined by 55%, from 144,480 ha in 1980 to 65,160 ha in 2013, leading to reduced consumption (GoO, 2015). Due to traditional cultivation practices, the grain yield is as low as 4 q/ha under the broadcasting method; even with traditional transplanting methods, the yield is only 9 q/ha (Adhikari, 2014). The primary reasons for low production are poor crop management (use of low-quality seeds, broadcasting method of sowing leading to low plant population, lack of nutrient and/or weed management practices, etc.) and the replacement of existing millet fields with commercial plantations of eucalyptus, leading to reduced consumption of this food by local communities (Pradhan et al., 2017). One possible way to improve the food and nutrition security of the population is to improve the yield of this native crop that is highly adaptive to the local climate, has a high nutrient value, and can efficiently withstand biotic and/or abiotic stresses. Therefore, under the FSN study, one intervention was to focus on increasing the productivity and profitability of finger millet, alongside nutrition awareness initiatives (Pradhan et al., 2019).The traditional practice of cultivation included broadcasting local landraces of finger millet at a high seed rate (25 kg/ha), carried out by farmers as a safeguard measure against poor seed quality and uncertain soil moisture; this practice results in a very dense crop, causing crowded plant populations and high competition for water and the scarce nutrients present in the soil. Inadequate fertilization coupled with poor crop management practices results in low yields. Seeds saved from these fields also turn out to be of inferior quality, with considerable physical mixing, which further adversely affects the yield potential. The FSN study included on-field demonstrations (OFD) in the fields of seven farmers over 0.52 ha in kharif (2015)(2016), in order to select the most suitable variety and appropriate agronomic practices for higher productivity. GPU-67, a high-yielding finger millet variety selected under a participatory varietal selection programme conducted earlier, was taken along with farmers' varieties for comparison (Mishra et al., 2014).GPU-67 is a semi-dwarf (non-lodging) medium-duration variety (114-118 days) with desirable traits like good panicle shape, no grain shattering, and a yield potential of 30-35 q/ha. Improved agronomic practices adopted in the intervention included: (a) nursery raising with seed rate of 5 kg/ha -1 ; (b) line transplanting of three to five week old seedlings; (c) population density at 20 cm × 10 cm; (d) application of recommended doses of fertilizer in the order of 40:20:20 kg nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P), and potassium (K) per ha; and (e) timely weeding and need-based plant protection measures. Each farmer's field in the OFD was considered as a replicate, and the allotted area under each farmer was split into four treatments for yield comparison. The details of the treatments with farmers' variety and improved variety are provided in Table 27.1. GPU-67 under improved agronomic practices (T1) produced the highest grain yield of 2,067 kg/ha, 31% higher than that with farmers' variety and with traditional practices, providing a larger quantity of nutrient-rich food to farmers' households. It was, thus, chosen for promotion and upscaling. The farmers' adaptability to the recommended practice was so good that by kharif 2017-2018, it was being cultivated by 167 farmers across 23.5 ha in the seven core study villages, and by 87 farmers in 11 ha in 18 other neighbouring villages. For sustainability, triple-layered bags were distributed among the farmers for the safe storage of seeds. A village-level seed bank was also established for timely availability of quality seeds and to help farmers in distress. Small-scale, village-level millet processing mills were installed to encourage farmers to process and consume their produce. Furthermore, several nutrition awareness initiatives were conducted about the nutrient content of the crop, its consumption benefits, and recipe demonstration, in addition to exposure visits to finger millet fields and trainings on improved agronomic practices. The end-line food consumption survey revealed an increase of 13% in the average intake of finger millet over the baseline (70 g/person/day). In addition, the number of households consuming finger millet daily increased from 172 during the baseline to 187, with 68% sourcing it from their own production versus 47% during the baseline.Akin to finger millet, the area under sorghum has been also falling in Wardha (Rukmani and Manjula, 2009). A similar approach was followed to promote the cultivation of that crop and its consumption. The experience in the five core study villages was analogous to that of finger millet in Koraput, with 26% of households cultivating and consuming sorghum at end-line as compared to 6% during baseline; there was also an increase of 64% in average sorghum intake over the baseline (150 g/person/day).Given that millets are naturally nutrient-dense cereals, making them available through the PDS can help address the problem of micronutrient deficiency among poorer households (Raju et al., 2018). After the enactment of the NFSA in 2013, the Karnataka government began to procure millets for distribution through the PDS -finger millet in south Karnataka and sorghum in north Karnataka as traditionally the cultivation and consumption of these two millets happens in these respective geographical areas. The scheme, titled \"Anna Bhagya Yojana,\" had the double objectives of buying millets from farmers, which supported income generation for rural farm households, and allowing households with PDS cards to gain access to nutritious food grains at low prices (KAPRICOM, 2014).As part of the study by MSSRF, primary surveys were carried out in four districts of the state. Districts with the highest numbers of procurement and distribution of finger millet through the PDS (Mandya and Tumkur in south Karnataka) and of sorghum (Gadag and Dharwad in north Karnataka) were selected for the primary survey. Two hundred farmers (50 in each district) were interviewed to collect information on issues related to production, pricing, and procurement. A consumer survey was conducted across 50 rural and 50 urban households in each district, after ensuring that they were either BPL (below poverty line) or Antyodaya Anna Yojana cardholders and eligible to receive grains under the PDS (Rajshekar and Raju, 2017).The state government had offered attractive procurement prices, including a bonus over and above the Minimum Support Price (MSP) announced by the Central Government (Rs 2,250 per quintal for finger millet and Rs 2,300 per quintal for sorghum), to encourage farmers to grow millets and ensure sufficient quantities for procurement. Interviews with farmers showed that the MSP did cover the actual cost of production (A1) and imputed cost of family labour, making it attractive for them to cultivate millets. However, the time taken for payment after the government's procurement ranged from about three to four weeks, as against payment received in one to two days in the case of open market sales in all the surveyed districts. This time-lag offset the benefit of the higher price offered by the government. If announced on time and sustained, and if the procurement window is increased, this price should encourage farmers to switch to millets from cotton and maize.On the consumption side, 87% of households in Karnataka reported consuming finger millet or sorghum. For 48% of the population of rural and urban Karnataka, millets accounted for 20%-40% of total cereal consumption. The average per capita monthly consumption of finger millet by rural households fell from 1.8 kg in 2004-2005 to 1.2 kg in 2011-2012, and from 1 kg to 0.8 kg for urban households. Similarly, the per capita monthly consumption of sorghum for rural households declined from 2.3 kg in 2004-2005 to 1.4 kg in 2011-2012, and from 1.2 kg to 0.7 kg for urban households in the same period. Wheat and finger millet or sorghum were consumed in equal quantities in urban areas, while in rural areas, millet consumption was higher than that of wheat. The majority of the respondents, when asked about desired changes in the PDS, did not want an increase in the quantity of millets supplied if it came at the cost of a lower quantity of rice. The main reasons given were that the quantity of rice supplied was already insufficient and that farmers could grow finger millet and sorghum if required, but could not grow rice as easily. Reasons given for the strong preference for rice were its taste, ease of preparation, and popularity with children. Finger millet and sorghum were preferred for their nutritive value and by those engaged in physical labour. Consumer preferences for different kinds of millet in different parts of the state call for a decentralized procurement and distribution mechanism. Consumer preferences and cultural factors need to be taken into account, and awareness needs to be created regarding the benefits of consuming millets (Raju et al., 2018).The Green Revolution dominated by rice and wheat was backed by public policy and price support. Similar support is required for millets. The NFSA ( 2013) is a major step in this direction. The FSN study by MSSRF showed the potential for increasing the consumption of millets by increasing their production and processing, and promoting awareness on their nutritive value. The study on introduction of millets in PDS highlighted the need for streamlining the government procurement and payment mechanisms and for decentralized processing. Millet farmers in a block or district could be linked with the PDS and institutional feeding programmes, providing them an incentive to cultivate and supply their crops for a ready market. Across India, in many states, different millets are grown in small pockets of lands. Such pockets can be identified and mapped for local procurement in the distribution system to improve food and nutrition security, while also increasing the procurement window and reducing the time between procurement and payment.Millets are generally regarded as women's crops and do not receive the attention given to rice and wheat. This has to change. Agriculture department officials and extension staff need to be sensitized on how to guide farmers to follow improved cultivation practices and use improved varieties of seeds. Millets should be promoted as climate-resilient crops and more R&D should be done by agricultural universities and research institutes to produce high-yielding varieties that are profitable for farmers. A few initiatives are underway and need to become more widespread. The government of Odisha launched the Odisha Millet Mission in 2017, in partnership with NGOs and research institutes, to increase production and consumption of millets. 3 Decentralized cluster-level millet processing units managed by self-help groups or farmers' groups in villages can reduce the drudgery in millet processing faced by women and also boost consumption by producer households.Awareness-raising has to happen at two levels: first of all, at the level of production and production techniques (e.g., line sowing, timely weeding, and proper application of fertilizers); secondly, nutrition awareness under the Prime Minister's Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition, also called the POS-HAN Abhiyan 4 of the National Nutrition Mission should actively highlight nutritive value of millets and promote their consumption. Nutrition awareness workshops should also be conducted at the local level by the ICDS centre workers and ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activists) in villages at regular intervals, highlighting the nutritive value of millets and providing recipe demonstrations. They can be trained and incentivized to conduct such workshops at least once a month, which would increase awareness about the nutritive value of various food groups and the combinations of food to be eaten for better nutrient absorption. Sharing recipes can also be promoted along with the organization of cooking competitions; millets can be cooked in ways that would be more attractive to children (such as snacks) and this can raise their interest in this food instead of viewing it as something they are forced to eat and don't enjoy.The Covid-19 pandemic has turned the spotlight onto the already vulnerable and is expected to further worsen their nutrition status. The closure of schools and ICDS centres has, for instance, put a halt to the noon-meal served to children attending them. At this time, the government issued directives for distribution of Take Home Rations (THR) in lieu of the meal (Bhavani and Rampal, 2020). Millets procured can be a nutritive and integral component of this THR. In fact, millets can also be used for free distribution along with other grains and pulses in food distribution programmes during the pandemic and also during other disasters in future. This would provide income to the farmers while also providing additional nutrition to vulnerable populations. Notes DOI: 10.4324/9781003044802-32Food system solutions incorporating a Smart Food Triple Bottom Line approach 'Food security' was the key focus in developing countries while mass starvation was a real threat. Alleviating hunger was a driving force for the Green Revolution (Behera, 2017). Awareness of hidden hunger then surfaced, and 'nutrition security' was added to the rhetoric. More recently, the UN and other organizations have underlined the imperative for 'sustainable diets', defined as \"diets with low environmental impacts which contribute to food and nutrition security\", and the urgency to set targets to strive towards this.The next critical step is to cater to all these needs and go one step further with solutions that are not only good for you and the planet, but also for the farmer. The Smart Food Triple Bottom Line advocates for solutions that approach all these three areas in unison. This is recommended as a framework for food system solutions. It will also help break down both discipline and sector silos.Applying these solutions with crops that are 'smart foods', that is, foods that are inherently good for you, the planet and farmer, will strengthen our ability to achieve the 'Smart Food Triple Bottom Line'. Many NUS may fit the criteria of being a smart food. They may be good for the farmer and environment because they bring diversity to the farm, are more suitable crops for varying agroecologies, are crops that need fewer inputs and are resilient to the vagaries of climate change. However, without well-developed value chains that are sensitive to consumer awareness and demand, it is challenging to make them financially viable for the farmer.It is paramount that having less-developed value chains do not become the excuse for continuing to support the same few major crops. It is regularly expressed that we need to transform the food system. A purposeful and consistent strategyThe importance of the triple bottom line and diversifying staples Joanna Kane-Potaka, Nigel Poole, Agathe Diama, Parkavi Kumar, Seetha Anitha and Oseyemi Akinbamijo for the said transformation becomes imperative and the 'Business as usual' will not achieve this. Changing where we invest resources and supporting policies are needed, and strengthening value chains of smart foods so as to mainstream them is an opportunity for us to contribute to many of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in unison.A project in Kenya applied the 'Smart Food Triple Bottom Line' approach with NUS, tackling diversity in diets, diversity on farms and diversity in incomes, with the aim of crops being commercially viable as well as being consumed by the local community to improve diet diversity and nutrition. Six smart foods including millets, sorghum and legumes were selected and focused on. Families of over 60,000 children below the age of five were reached through volunteer Smart Food Ambassadors, who spread nutrition messages and conducted fun activities like cook-offs. The integration of education, health, nutrition and a fun approach in conveying the same message imparted strong knowledge of millets, sorghum and legumes.In just one year, the behavior patterns of the women and children changed significantly towards adopting a more micronutrient-rich diet, indicated by an increase of 15% in dietary diversity score for women and of almost 80% in the children's dietary diversity score. Similarly, consumers showed a considerable change in buying patterns. Rich in iron and fiber, both cowpea and pearl millet sales at the farm level more than doubled. Production also increased for all the smart food crops except finger millet. Consumption of four of the smart food crops increased. Households became more commercially oriented and sales of four of the crops increased.(ICRISAT, 2018)To complement this approach of all food solutions having a Smart Food Triple Bottom Line, there is also a specific objective under the Smart Food initiative to diversify staples. Big impacts can be achieved by focusing on diversifying staples, given that across Africa and Asia staples can typically constitute as much as 70% of what is on the plate, and are often refined and low-nutrient carbohydrates, with approximately 60% of calories in developing countries coming from cerealsa number that can even be more than 80% in the poorest countries (Awika, 2011;Anitha et al., 2019a). The diversification of staples with foods that fit the smart food criteria of being good for you, good for the planet and good for the farmer will require dissolving the boundaries of the 'Food System Divide', where the largest investments have for decades gone into the Big 3 staples -rice, wheat and maize -including government support, private industry investment, R&D, product development and even development aid.NUS can regain their popularity and enter the mainstream through concerted multi-pronged efforts across the whole value chain. Lessons can also be learnt from the successes of the Big 3, but approaches must be applied in an appropriate, sustainable and healthy way.Some steps key to diversifying staples being pursued as part of the Smart Food initiative are:1 Dedicated effort on just a couple of smart foods: Breaking the food system divide will take a focused approach and significant investments to develop value chains. Hence, an approach focused on just a couple of foods at a time is required. This complements initiatives that work broadly on popularizing NUS to bring diversity to farms and diets, and also builds niche markets that can be the springboard for larger markets in the future. 2 Selecting millets and sorghum first: Millets and sorghum were selected as the first foods to focus on and mainstream as they fit the profile of a smart food. Moreover, they were already the staples across many countries in Africa and Asia, with different millets originating from many countries and continents and growing from the Sahel to the Himalayas. They also fit into many global health food trends -being a super food, an ancient grain, gluten free with a low glycemic index (GI), high in fiber, good for managing weight, and good with strong health management.In particular, millets and sorghum are highly nutritious and fulfil some of the biggest health needs. For example, a few millets are very high in iron and zinc, which are among the top three micronutrient deficiencies globally. Taking bioavailability into account, the right varieties can provide as much iron as white or red meat. Finger millet has three times the amount of calcium found in milk. Most millets have a low GI, which is extremely beneficial within the context of community/public health due to the growing incidence of non-communicable metabolic disorders like diabetes; they are also a good alternative to other food sources high in complex carbohydrates like white refined rice (Anitha et al., 2021). They also have high fiber, reasonable levels of protein and, when combined with legumes, create a complete diet of protein with good levels of all the essential amino acids (Longvah et al., 2017;Anitha et al., 2019b).From a sustainable resource management point of view, millets and sorghum have a low carbon footprint. They are typically grown and thrive with minimal inputs like pesticides and fertilizers. They tolerate high temperatures and survive with very little water. They are often the last crop standing in times of drought, are climate smart and are a good risk-management strategy for farmers. They have multiple uses, from food, feed and fodder, to brewing and biofuels (Tonapi et al., 2015;Davis et al., 2019).3 Create global commodities: While the goal is to contribute to the SDGs and especially help poor and malnourished communities across Africa and Asia, in order to mainstream smart foods as staples, they need to be widely adopted commodities globally. Focusing on portraying millets and sorghum as staples is also a key part of the plan for them to be affordable. 4 The consumer comes first: Most efforts and investments to date in millets and sorghum have been at the farm-production end. There is an urgent need to drive demand, by investing at the consumer end, changing perceptions, building awareness and creating a 'buzz' and desire around these smart foods. This is being achieved by working with food processors, governments and other key influencers. Some key approaches that the Smart Food initiative has used to drive consumer demand include:• Working with the hidden middle: Social entrepreneurs who genuinely want to change the food system for the better, and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) who are typically the pioneers in creating new consumer preferences, struggle as much as farmers do. Until MSMEs are equally supported, smart foods and NUS won't be available, affordable and, hence, accessible and demanded by consumers. They are often called 'the hidden middle' and need to be recognized as change-makers rather than only as operators in the value chain. Policy support is required to create a better enabling environment for MSMEs to thrive. The Smart Food initiative has launched a 'millet finder' that maps products around the globe to bring attention to the wide availability and silent revolution of millet and sorghum products being made available by MSMEs (smartfood.org, a). • Make it delicious, convenient and easy -the image and the reality:For smart foods to be popularized, they have to be sought by the consumer. Although different foods are consumed for different purposes, to be popular in the mainstream and to reach the largest number of people, in general, food needs to be tasty, convenient and easy to make. • Promotion through chefs: The catering sector is a conduit to taking new foods to the consumer as well as the way to change the food's image. The Smart Food initiative has engaged ambassador chefs, organized cooking master classes in West Africa, including with the President's chefs and a Smart Food Culinary Challenge for student chefs pan-India, and in Tanzania, chefs were introduced to street venders, who were trained on using millet and sorghum flour (smartfood.org, b). • Ambassadors and champions: Influencers are important when perceptions and behavior need to be changed or significant awareness needs to be built. The Smart Food initiative has engaged VIPs to achieve this (smartfood.org, c), e.g., the First Lady of Niger, Dr. Malika Issoufou, became a Smart Ambassador, leading the way to a greater mobilization and commitment by the government for the cause of smart foods. She initiated an international millet festival (FESTIMIL), which captured a lot of attention among consumers, value-chain actors, farmers, processors and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and served as a platform for a science and policy dialog on better developing value chains. This ledThe smart food approach 331to Senegal announcing its interest in following suit to create an annual millet festival. • Media and social media outreach: Outreach has been key in building awareness and reaching wider audiences (Diama et al., 2020). One example is the smart food reality show on Kenyan national television that reached 800,000 viewers (Vital, 2018). • International platforms: Influencing researchers, governments, donors and industry are important and can be achieved through high-level panel discussions and international symposia (Diama et al., 2020).5 Scientific backing on nutritional benefits: As far less R&D has been invested in NUS compared to the major staples, the field requires additional investment. The Smart Food initiative is currently collating and analyzing all existing nutrition studies on millets and sorghum, and is identifying research gaps. Some nutrition and consumer acceptance studies undertaken by the Smart Food initiative include:• India school feeding study: A millet-based meal introduced for three months with 1,500 adolescent children had significantly higher nutritional levels compared to the control group of iron fortified rice-based meals, see Figure 28.1, and led to:-growth in terms of BMI and height, 50% more in the intervention group relative to the control group; and -high acceptance scoring ≥ 4.5 out of 5 for taste (Anitha et al., 2019a).Key lessons learnt on how to introduce millets to maximize nutritional benefits and acceptance, along with policy recommendations were identified and are shown in Figure 28.2.• Tanzania school feeding study: Over 2,800 students in four boarding schools were introduced to finger millet and pigeon pea in their menu cycle in a participatory approach, taking into account cultural sensitivities. Fifteen months later, the schools were revisited and surveys identified that: • 80% of the students changed their negative perception of finger millet; • >95% of the students wanted to eat the finger millet dishes at school (Wangari et al., 2020). • Myanmar malnutrition and acceptance study: This had a positive impact on the extent of wasting and underweight children between 2 and 14 months of age. Also sensory evaluations showed an average score of four out of five for all recipes and products (Anitha et al., 2019c).Guiding the development of smart foods to keep or maximize their nutritional benefits is critical; this includes:• Popularize whole grain: As most small millets have to be de-hulled, there is a risk they will also be polished to make them whiter and quicker to cook. It is important that consumers are exposed to the unrefined taste and convenient products made with the whole grain. Building awareness about the nutritional value of whole grain is essential. • Not ultra-processed or excessive added ingredients: Efforts to diversify and popularize orphan crops will be to no avail if they are then over-processed and lose their nutritive value or if unhealthy ingredients like sugar, salt, saturated and trans fats and artificial additives are incorporated in high levels.• Selection of biofortified varieties: Nutrition levels vary significantly by variety of the millets, so value chains from seed to consumer need to be The smart food approach 333 developed and branded to recognize biofortified varieties in order to maximize the nutrition levels.The Smart Food vision is a world where food is healthy, environmentally sustainable and contributes positively to the welfare of those who produce it, especially smallholder farmers. Studies have shown the positive nutritional benefits of millets and sorghum and high consumer acceptance for them. With 2023 declared by the UN as the International Year of Millets, this will be the turning point for millets to be globally recognized and popularized. Asia and Africa need value chains developed to be able to leverage the impending millet revolution. This can be the opportunity for millets and sorghum to return to their status as staples across many countries and be globally recognized, heralding their reach as a major staple, showing the potential for smart foods and NUS to gain popularity and acceptance and move into the mainstream.Farming communities have played a crucial role in the conservation and management of agrobiodiversity, including the rich diversity of nutritive crops that their ecosystem supports. Communities and farmers are the key stakeholders in the conservation of NUS, which plays a crucial role in their livelihoods and wellbeing. This chapter records the perspectives of custodian farmers, and the community-based and non-governmental organizations that support them, across the Indian landscape. Frequently identified bottlenecks in the cultivation and consumption of neglected and underutilized species (NUS) include lack of awareness, inadequate skills, drudgery (including limited access to available technology), inadequate support price mechanisms and procurement arrangements by the state, and limited marketing arrangements.To address these issues, key interventions included working on all aspects of millet cultivation. The formation of core groups of millet farmers and selfhelp groups, and participatory assessments of traditional knowledge related to millets were important initial steps to ensure continuity. The technical aspect included the nutritive value assessment, seed collection from farming communities, quality seed production, distribution to farmers, revival of seed storage systems along with exchanges through community seed banks, demonstration of modified methods of cultivation including line sowing, intercropping to increase yield and additional income, and the provision of machinery to reduce drudgery in de-husking millets. The commercial aspect included training on value-addedThe custodians of neglected and underutilized species products preparation, the creation of suitable rural infrastructure, facilitating enterprise units, and identifying and linking producers with potential markets.Smt. Sunadei Pitia and Shri Loichan Sukia of Machhara Village, Smt. Tukuna Burudi, Khiloput and Shri Sunamani Muduli of Janiguda Village of Koraput District Facilitator: Prashant Kumar Parida, MSSRF Millet has a long history of cultivation in the high lands of this region, so much so that Koraput is called the island of mandia (finger millet). Millets, especially mandia, are the staple food of the tribal people of Koraput. They begin their days, especially in the summer, with the consumption of mandiapejo (ragi gruel).Though millets are still part of subsistence agriculture in Koraput, the industrialization of the recent past has had a major impact on their cultivation. The area under millets has reduced drastically as farmers have shifted to commercial crops, with eucalyptus tree plantations and maize replacing large areas previously occupied under millets cultivation.Most NUS crops like finger millet, little millet, foxtail millet, pearl millet, niger, horse gram, red gram, dolichos lablab, wild vegetables, etc. were mainly part of shifting cultivation practices (Podu Chaso). Now, the Forest Department or community forest groups like the Vana Surakshya Samiti (VSSP) prohibit such practices. Moreover, people are not so interested in cultivating NUS crops in their meagre land, replacing other crops that may fetch better returns. These NUS crops are mostly suited for cultivation on the uplands rather than other land categories. Other factors for the decline included the lack of marketing opportunities for NUS crops with remunerative prices. Since no processing facilities for NUS are available in rural areas, there are very low-level value-addition opportunities, leading to distress sales of surplus grains. Modernization has also influenced the present generation a lot, especially children who are not so interested in consuming millet in their daily diet, with the supply of rice in Public Distribution System (PDS) by the state government having changed the dietary preference of most tribal people.Interventions to be pursued for their effective promotion:• Institutions should create opportunities for processing at the Village/Gram Panchayat level, along with value addition, marketing, and remunerative prices, which will encourage farmers to cultivate more NUS crops. • Researchers have to revisit the crop species available in the region and fo cus on seed purification and quality seed production of traditional varieties,The custodians of NUS 339 blending with improved varieties, and must make available quality seeds at reasonable rates at the right time. • There is a need to shift from monocropping systems to traditional cropping systems such as mixed cropping, intercropping, multiple cropping, and crop rotation practices, with the introduction of modern technologies and sustainable agricultural practices and a focus on capacity building of farmers.Mr. Loknath Naure, Kearandiguda, Bisamacataka, Rayagada, Odisha Facilitator: Mr. Biswa Sankar Das, WASSAN.NUS such as millets, pulses, and oilseeds are very important. They are very healthy for humans and for soil. This also reduces pest incidence and provides different foods for consumption.Previously, people used to grow different crops for meeting their food security needs. But after PDS has come in, people have slowly stopped growing different crops. In addition, the younger generations are more used to the taste of rice, and prefer not to consume millets and coarse cereals. Without the need for consumption, there will be reduction in production.The government should create awareness and build prestige around these crops. They should also be included in schools and hostels so the youth does not lose interest. Some incentives should be given to promote them.Ramkali Bai, Meera Bai, Magartagar Village, Dindori District Phool Bai, Bhilai Village, Indra Bai, Dhiravan Village, Dindori District Facilitator: Mr. Sharad Mishra, Action for social Advancement, BhopalViews with regard to NUS?Kodo and kutki millets are well known in Madhya Pradesh and many farmers maintain their seeds. These crops are the lifeline of the tribal communities, and they are eager to learn of improved practices for their cultivation and use. The availability of improved varieties of millets, better linkages of farmers with markets, and improved processing units to reduce the drudgery of women are key interventions in our view.Farmers in the Kachchh District are conserving diverse traditional seeds, which they use to cope with climate variability. For example, if there is an early monsoon, they grow bajra (pearl millet), but if the rains are delayed by a month, they opt for sorghum. Similarly, they choose white sesame in the case of early rain, and prefer brown sesame for mid-late rains or brown type for late rain. This is to say that the more crops and varieties we keep in the communities, the more options we have to adapt to climate variability and satisfy other livelihood needs.Today, only few farmers still maintain traditional seeds, with low genetic purity. This is because traditional crops have been widely replaced by modern ones, promoted aggressively by the government and private seed companies. Extension agents denigrate NUS as being inefficient crops and this is not helpful.• All NUS should be documented for their traits like drought tolerance or disease resistance, and their germplasm should be protected against bio-piracy. • The government should change their attitude and promote NUS for their special features such as nutritional value, drought tolerance, etc. • Incentives should be provided to farmers for the conservation and cultivation of NUS.Mrs. Nanchiyamma & Manikandan, Kallakkara Village & Rami and Maruthi, Marrappalam Village, Sholayur Panchayath, Attappadi Block; Maruthan Ganeshan, Nakkupathi Village, Agali Panchayat Facilitator: Mr. Girigan Gopi, MSSRF Attappadi is valley in the Western Ghats inhabited mostly by tribal communities. People here appreciate traditional crops like NUS for its adaptation to harsh climates and difficult environments and for being an important source of food. The area under NUS has shown drastic reduction since the 1980s for various reasons, including the abandonment of agriculture by youth, changes in traditional diets, high competition from subsidized rice, laborious processing of NUS, and preference towards modern foods.Millets and other NUS would be very helpful to fight the growing malnutrition recorded in Attappadi; however, farmers feel that it will be very difficult to bring NUS back into cultivation. We believe, however, that some interventions from the government can help towards that goal, e.g., the promotion of collective ownership of land, more credit opportunities to farmers, dissemination of improved know-how, more irrigation, and protection from wild animals. As for younger farmers, we believe that if the cultivation of NUS were shown to be profitable, they would be happy to remain in their farms without migrating. In this regard, the creation of local markets for NUS will help realize fair prices for these products and improve their commercialization. Many varieties of NUS have been lost and we need support to better safeguard their seeds; we also need improved varieties, more irrigation for our fields, promotion of collective actions, improved processing (especially for millets), and application of the PDS also for these local crops.Ms. Ridian Syiem, Khweng, Ms. Bibiana Ranee, Nongtraw Facilitator: Dr. Melari Shisha Nongrum, North East Slow Food & Agrobiodiversity Society (NESFAS), MeghalayaWe belong to Indigenous communities that altogether form a numerically small minority of India's population. The state of Meghalaya is inhabited largely by the Khasi people (including Khynriam, Bhoi, War, Pnar, and Lyngngam sub-groups) and Garo Indigenous communities. Our forests are rich in biodiversity and agrobiodiversity, with many wild edibles (green leafy vegetables, fruits, tubers, shoots, nuts and seeds, and mushrooms) used in traditional food preparations. Wild edibles are important to us as Indigenous communities and they are an integral part of our ancient food culture. These edibles are safe foods as compared to most market foods, which contain a lot of toxins due to the heavy use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. They can be found both in the wild and in home gardens, and are precious foods to supplement our diets, especially during lean seasons. Even during the lockdown period due to the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020, many of these plants (wild and cultivated) helped households with a secure source of food.Though wild edibles are integral to the traditional foods of the Indigenous People, we are seeing a change in their availability and consumption. Due to growing populations in the Villages, there is increased pressure on land and forest resources. There is exploitation of forests for various purposes, either for fuel wood, the heavy collection of non-timber forest products, wood collection for making charcoal, stone quarrying, mining of coal, or limestone mining, which destroys both land and forests. Also agricultural activities such as cash crop cultivation can be deleterious for wild edibles, due to massive land clearing associated with them. Because of these facts, we need now to walk increasingly longer distances to gather wild edibles, which is affecting regular access to and consumption of these plants. Also, these days, much of the youth and many young mothers regard wild edibles as a not-so-nutritious food. Major crops dominate markets and the difficulties in accessing these for wild edible sellers are also important limiting factors for their popularization.Despite these challenges, the translation of research evidence of the high nutritive values of wild edibles into local and simple languages by organizations like the NESFAS has really helped the youth and people at large regain confidence in wild edibles. More of such awareness-raising is required for school children and youth so that they understand the importance of wild edibles in enriching their diets.Knowledge sharing among farmers is key to sustaining and continuing the existence of this knowledge. This sharing can be done across different platforms such as Agroecological Learning Circles, a platform of farmers that NESFAS has facilitated in many communities; the Indigenous Food Communities Alliance among the youth; and also in the school gardens where children can grow and learn about the wild edibles. From our experiences, this sharing of knowledge has led to sharing seeds. \"If we lose our seeds, we have lost our food,\" said one custodian farmer. Preserving and promoting the cultivation of underutilized crops is very important. Thus, it is important to preserve traditional seeds as individual farmers or in community seed banks.We can also allow wild edible plants to grow in kitchen gardens and cultivated fields. This will enhance access to these edibles as we frequent the fields regularly. This will enhance the access and consumption of wild edible greens.The participation of the private sector is widely considered critical in order to achieve a truly sustainable conservation and use of agrobiodiversity. The role of the private sector is particularly relevant for the use enhancement of neglected and underutilized species (NUS) (Padulosi et al., 2013(Padulosi et al., , 2019) ) whose promotion requires knowledge of the proper functioning of value chains -from farm to fork -that is rarely available to communities, community-based organizations (CBOs) or even government organizations. Experiences and competences from the private sector are highly complementary to those of other stakeholders; thus, canvassing the cooperation among all actors should be central to all projects and programmes focusing on NUS. This is not a minor task though. Different are too often the sensitivities of private firms with regard to the methods, approaches and tools for the sustainable use of NUS, in terms of type of biodiversity to deploy in production systems (e.g., landraces vs. uniform, high-yielding varieties), participation of vulnerable groups, interest in safeguarding traditional knowledge, fair and transparent sharing of benefits among value-chain actors, capacity building of local actors, especially youth, women or Indigenous People, to just mention a few. The 11 contributions included in this chapter (from Guatemala, Brazil, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Kenya) are brief testimonials of private companies engaged at various levels in business activities dealing with NUS. The most common messages across all contributions include calls for the greater involvement of private companies in NUS projects, greater support from governments for upgrading the processing technologies of private firms engagedAna Luiza Vergueiro, Daniel Kirori, Jacqueline Damon, Jose Alfredo Lopez, Leon Kenya, Mahesh Sharma, Ram Bahadur Rana, Margaret Komen, Meghana Narayan, Michael Ngugi, Rohan Karawita, Sergio Vergueiro, Serkan Eser, Shauravi Malik, Simon Nderitu, Sohini Dey, Sridhar Murthy Iriventi, Vikram Sankaranarayanan in the promotion of NUS, greater support from governments in raising peoples' awareness of the many livelihood benefits associated with NUS, greater sharing of research findings with the private sector, capacity building where the private sector can be both a recipient and giver of knowledge, and enabling policies in support of entrepreneurship for the cultivation, processing and marketing NUS. General perspectives about NUS are provided along with some examples on specific issues related to the cultivation, processing and marketing of minor millets or other emblematic NUS.Dr. Rohan Karawita, National Food Promotion Board, Ministry of Agriculture, Colombo, Sri LankaThe main task of Sri Lanka's National Food Promotion Board (NFPB) is to promote local and indigenous foods (there are many NUS among these) as our citizens have become increasingly dependent upon poorly nutritious starchy foods and junk foods rich in fats, and have become used to consuming their meals in short eats. These food habits are not healthy as they cause the spread of non-communicable diseases among the population. As a way to counter these negative trends, the NFPB has been carrying out several programs and projects aimed at increasing peoples' awareness about Sri Lanka's valuable, rich biodiversity and promoting its greater use. Thanks to the Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition Project (BFN), 1 NFPB was able to strengthen these efforts and successfully develop three underutilized fruit drinks, sold in 80 ml ready-to-serve (RTS) bottles (namely 'Ceylon olive', 'Sour soup' and 'Ceylon mango'), all very natural and free from artificial additives and preservatives. These drinks are now being commercialized by the Peradeniya Agriculture Department's Food Research Unit in Gannoruwa.Though NFPB has manufactured RTS drinks in the past, the demand for such products has always exceeded our capacities. Due to a number of factorsincluding the lack of novel technology, insufficient labor force, high unit costs and limited fruit pulp preservation capacity -we were, in fact, unable to manufacture RTS products regularly throughout the year. Not helpful either have been NFPB's efforts in disseminating relevant technologies to local communities in the hope that they would pick them up through cottage-based productions.What is much needed to broaden the use of NUS in Sri Lanka is the strengthening of their commercialization through the close involvement of the private s ector.Although at NFPB we already sell RTS products made out of NUS through the company 'Thriposha Limited' and our two outlets in Narahenpita and Dehiwala, we do recognize the need to invest more in marketing efforts. To that regard, NFPB has now taken all the steps necessary to transfer RTS technology to a fruit-processing factory, the 'V and J Industries', 2 located in Pallekele (Kandy).All is ready for the new arrangements to take off and as soon as the COVID-19 pandemic eases up the pressure on our work, we are ready to start this new joint venture. The legal agreement between this company and NFPB will allow the mobilization of the company's know-how and physical capacities to support the wider promotion of NUS products across the country. This is expected to create greater demand of NUS raw products for farmers and, in so doing, boost local incomes, open up job opportunities and ultimately contribute to empowering smallholder farmers as per our vision.Margaret Komen, MACE FOODS Ltd., Eldoret, KenyaThe increasing awareness of the pro-health properties of non-nutrient, bioactive compounds found in fruits and vegetables has directed immense attention towards vegetables as vital components of our daily diets. For Kenya and sub-Saharan Africa in general, such an attention is very significant, as leafy vegetables have long been indispensable ingredients in the traditional sauces that accompany carbohydrate-rich staple foods. As a result, demand for traditional vegetables such a black nightshade, spider plant, common amaranth and cowpea leaves have been on the rise in local, urban and regional markets across Kenya. These vegetables have been typically growing in the wild, or in disturbed areas such as wheat farms, disused cow sheds and other farm areas.In 2009, Mace Foods Ltd. (MFL) embarked on an ambitious project to produce, process and market five varieties of African leafy vegetables (ALV) for the East African diaspora and medium-income markets in urban areas. Mace Foods Ltd aimed at bridging the demand and supply gap between rainy and dry seasons as well as delivering high-quality, hygienic and nutritious food options to busy working-class women, who have little time to spare for selecting, plucking, cooking and serving these vegetables on a regular basis.Since its inception, MFL has mobilized, recruited and trained many farmers in the production of ALV. So far the enterprise has piloted black nightshade (managu), common amaranth (dodo), spider plant (saga), cowpea leaves (kunde) and kales (sukuma wiki 3 ).• More information be provided to consumers about the health benefits associated with the consumption of NUS. Both governmental and nongovernmental organizations should provide platforms to educate the publi c on this matter, for example through media, road shows, trade fairs, schools and organized visits to research institutions • Major institutions like ministries of agriculture, should lobby for policy bills in support of the wide dissemination of food processors like flour mills and snack processors that can help people make better use of local crops, to produce foods like 'ugali' from composite flour (i.e., maize plus millets flour, rather than only maize flour) or snack bars and breakfast cereals from NUS One of the main technical challenge encountered in processing NUS had to do with the popping machine. Through numerous trials using modified parts of the machine, we were able, in the end, to address successfully such a problem and our company is now able to use the right pressure for the popping any type of cereals, including NUS.Ing. Jose Alfredo Lopez L., EUROTROPIC, S.A., Guatemala Central AmericaEurotropics S.A. is a Guatemala-based import-export company established in 2003, dealing with exporting food and ornamental plants. In 2011, we were contracted by the National Council of Science and Technology, the University of San Carlos, the University Del Valle de Guatemala and the University Mariano Galvez, to characterize endemic species of high nutritional and medicinal value. After five years of research, planting, germinating, cultivating, pruning, harvesting and analyzing roots, seeds, stems, leaves and flowers of numerous species, grown from 14 m a.s.l. to 3,240 m a.s.l. in the high mountains of Los Cuchutamanes, we discovered plant species with amazing properties for pregnant women, kids, young, adults and elderly people! We decided, thus, to rescue those amazing plants to help Guatemala strengthen food security and the health of its people. This country has a shameful 49% level of malnutrition among children under five years old! Almost half the population has low corporal weight, and low neuronal development. This is no longer acceptable and we wanted to help change that.First of all there is a lack of education related to Mesoamerican plants that are much underutilized in our current food systems. About 25,000 years ago, these plants grew wild in this marvelous, biodiversity-rich region, and we have documents indicating that such plants were already being widely used by the Mayan civilization some 4,000 years ago. Though still used today by some Mayan tribes, they are rarely known by the young people. Very sadly, knowledge about these plants is fast disappearing among common citizens. Universities do not teach ancestral knowledge regarding these plants, and schools do not educate students on their importance. Governments and policy makers do not pay attention to them at all.The Ministries of Health, Education, Agriculture, Environment and Development are not spending enough efforts to leverage NUS knowledge to improve peoples' livelihood. There is a need to establish national programs to educate students about NUS, starting from kindergartens to the doctoral degree level. Chefs, cooks, farmers, industry managers and food manufacturers have to be all involved in such programs too; they should be mobilized to help create a 'Certificate of Origin of Mayan Superfood in Mesoamerica' for all kinds of NUS foods, such as drinks like atole, 4 crackers, powders, cookies or tortillas, and people ought to learn about those amazing nutritional and medicinal properties that are helpful in strengthening our health. The importance of these traditional species is even more relevant today, as we are frantically struggling against the COVID-19 pandemic. It is realistic to say, in fact, that these neglected medicinal plants from the NUS basket may well harbor important biochemical compounds that could boost our immune system for better fighting this disease as well; hence, more research is needed on them! Unfortunately, humankind spends more efforts in building hospitals rather than preventing diseases through the education, promotion and cultivation regarding nutritious local plants as well as in processing them into high-quality products that are cheap and available to national, regional and international markets. I strongly believe that greater focus on NUS would reduce malnutrition, especially among pregnant women and children, and it would create new jobs, reduce youth migration and protect weak national currencies from depreciation. Guatemala is the eighth richest megadiverse center of biodiversity on Earth and such natural wealth is not sufficiently put to work! I hope my plea for a better future will be heard!Ms. Meghana Narayan, Shauravi Malik & Sohini Dey Slurrp Farm, New DelhiFood is a fundamental need in our lives. But food isn't merely a substance for staying alive, but rather a means to enhance the quality of life by assuring the required nourishment for our body. The lack of dietary diversity is well known 350 Ana Luiza Vergueiro et al.to be a major cause for malnutrition, not just in India but across the globe. With the long-standing popularity of rice and wheat as the main foods in peoples' diets, experts are calling for urgent changes in our meals: more diverse crops are needed to fill the nutritional void left by the overconsumption of just few grains in our diet.At Slurrp Farm we believe that millets are indeed among those underutilized species that need to be better promoted, and through our work, we hope to play a role in bringing them back to the plate. We believe that millets, with their inherent high nutritional benefits, can be part of the solution in tackling food and nutrition insecurity in India. Lately, we have seen a rapid rise in the use of oats and quinoa, a South American staple that has truly become a world commodity in just few years, and minor millets could well follow the same trend.Millets are rich sources of fiber, vitamin B-complex and minerals, as well as polyphenols, lignans, phytosterols, phytoestrogens and phytocyanins, which act as antioxidants, detoxifying agents and immunity modulators. Additionally, millets are gluten-free grains, an advantage in the midst of increasing cases of celiac disease and gluten intolerances that restrict or entirely prohibit the consumption of wheat for lots of people. The nutritional benefits of various millets are elucidated in other chapters of this book and here we just want to stress that the value of these grains is based not only on their nutritional merits, but also on the important contribution that they can make to supporting sustainable agricultural practices and resilience in times of a continuously changing climate. Millets are highly resistant to adversities of cold, drought and salinity, and are, thus, highly suitable for cultivation in dry and arid lands (Padulosi et al., 2009).In India, farmers are struggling with the effects of drought on their cultivations, and this is raising great concerns over the sustainable provisioning of the food necessary to feed 1.2 billion people. To that regard, the capacity of millets (including small millets) to thrive in harsh climatic conditions offers an immense potential to rescue agricultural communities ridden by drought and poverty. The revival of underutilized and neglected crops such as millets can exert significant influence on the cultural traditions and diversity and contribute to the self-identity, self-esteem and visibility of local communities.Limited awareness and nascent consumers' demand are the major challenges. For customers used to decades of diets based only on rice and wheat, transitioning to millets will be a challenge. Low awareness accompanied by a lack of interest in taste can be a deterrent for consumers, who may be unable to understand the value of these nutritious food in their dietPost-cultivation drudgery remains one of the greatest challenges for millet farmers and a major obstacle in the popularization of these and other NUS. Apart from finger millet, pearl millet and sorghum, all small millets must be threshed and de-hulled before they are ready for consumption (more details on millet processing technologies are provided in Chapter 26 of this)As emphasis has always been placed on improving a few grains for large-scale commercial use, the consumption of millets has declined steadily as a result, which has impacted negatively their production and potential for growthWe live in times of ever-changing food trends and rapidly mingling culinary cultures. Globally, chefs are continuously pushing the bar for innovation, combining far-flung ingredients, reinventing traditional recipes and presenting food not simply as a means of subsistence but also as a multi-sensorial experience. This new trend is very helpful for the revitalization of NUS and the time has come for millets to be put back on the global food map. To that end, we believe the following are three most robust solutions currently needed:A Develop innovative millet products that are tasty, convenient and affordable Using millets to develop products that are tasty, affordable and in a convenient easy-to-use format is most critical. Finger millet (ragi), which was among the lesser-known crops until a few years ago, is now making its way back into mainstream markets as an ingredient in a variety of products, from pre-packaged dosa and pancake mixes to chips. Similar product development will also increase the popularity of other small millets. B Launch a nationwide awareness campaign Millets are often called forgotten foods because the communities that once consumed them regularly are now out of touch with their benefits and associated food cultures. A national advertising campaign similar to the 'Egg Campaign' or the 'Operation Flood Milk Campaign' are the need of the hour if we are to push the agenda for nutritious millets, good for our health and the planet. Bollywood stars like Alia Bhatt, Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli have all shown ways in which they include millets in their diets and it would be great to also include top nutritionists, sports stars and movie celebrities in such campaigns too.Millets have remained out of the R&D sphere for decades, with only a handful of institutes investing time and resources into studying and promoting them. Having turned to mainstream crops in recent years, many farmers are unaware of the many advantages of growing millets. Giving farmers access to information on best practices and facilitating small-scale testing can help them assess the conditions that are best suited for each millet species and variety. Leading research into the nutritional content of millets is imperative in order to better understand the numerous health benefits of these crops. Making scientific information accessible to millet-based product manufacturers, as well as consumers, can also have a positive impact. With a number of independent companies around the country working on millet-based products, instead of conventional food grains, active support from research organizations can aid product development and enhancement.Simon Nderitu, Leon Kenya and Jacqueline Damon African Forest, Nairobi, KenyaAfrican Forest is a holistic agro-forestry social enterprise established in 2006 and located on the edge of the Soysambu Conservancy in Kenya, a 22,000 ha ranch surrounding Lake Elmenteita, in the Rift Valley. African Forest has an indigenous organic plant nursery, seed center and trial plantations. We produce and promote, in conjunction with local communities, a wide range of non-timber forest products. These include medicinal plants, vegetables and other food crops, skincare products, bee products, fibers, oils, tannins and dyes. African Forest also offers services such as plantation establishment and management, reforestation, gardening and sustainable development planning and implementation, as well as assistance in raising 'green' finance.Our 'Planet Positive Forestry' program involves planting a mixture of indigenous climax and pioneer tree/shrubs, to create a bio-diverse forest. These are intercropped with foods, fruits and herbs.The livelihoods of the world's population depend on food systems and food value-chains. There is a dire need to make our food systems more sustainable, especially in view of climate change, cultural changes and the many adversities affecting production systems. We strongly believe that food systems that are socially inclusive should be promoted, as opposed to the current ones that are controlled by corporations. Currently, it is estimated that 50% of the world's population cannot meet its food needs. Research also estimates that to meet the population's food requirements in 2050, measures need to be implemented to facilitate a 70% increase in current production. And these measures have to be inclusive of women, youth and Indigenous People.Out of the 1.4 billion people in the world living in extreme poverty, 70% live in rural areas and are the most affected by drought and famine. Climate change has created unpredictable weather conditions, presenting challenges for Indigenous producers who depend on natural conditions for farming.With the emphasis on Western lifestyles, critical Indigenous knowledge has been lost and is no longer being transmitted from one generation to the next. This is depriving our societies of knowledge on vital foods, while at the same time new lifestyles are compromising people's health.We have, nevertheless, registered lately an increased awareness of the prohealth properties n indigenous vegetables, rich in micronutrients and bio-active compounds. Vegetables should be, therefore, core components of peoples' daily diets. Scientific findings are also confirming that local species and varieties are rich in compounds that have antioxidant properties, such as β-carotene, as well as in iron, calcium and zinc.More demonstrations of the production, processing, cooking, marketing, distribution and consumption methods of NUS should be carried out in communities, in order to leverage Indigenous People's knowledge about these species and help promote their wider use. Critical publications of research findings on these species have been made, but these are not readily accessible to the Indigenous People. More should be done to disseminate relevant findings to strengthen farmers' knowledge of sustainable production and the use of these species.The main obstacles for the enhanced use of indigenous vegetables includes access to production means, including quality seeds, land tenure, soil additives, water, etc. Indigenous farmers barely get access to knowledge on best practices. The perishability of many NUS vegetables and fruits, caused by their short shelf-life, is also a great challenge in their effective storage and marketing.• Train traditional farmer communities on the sustainable production and use of NUS to empower them. Training packages should cover inter alia small-scale, diversified farming and the use of environmentally sustainable technology • Implement participatory guaranteed systems, giving greater role to women, youth and farmer groups, building on trust, social knowledge and networks • Provide support and outreach programs including extension, helping farmers establish their own community structures. Interventions could start with one ward in a county (e.g., Mbaruk ward in Nakuru County, Kenya) and 1-2 villages for demo production sites (e.g., the Kasambara and Echaririe villages of the Mbaruk ward, Kenya) • Provide farmers with quality seed for the focus NUS and demonstrate potential for including other species in value chains We believe traditional crops, especially nutritionally dense cereals and vegetables, are going to be one of the strategic sources of food for the ever-increasing number of urban consumers around the world. In Nepal, NUS are playing an instrumental role in meeting the food and nutrition security needs of households, particularly those residing in hilly and mountainous areas, where farming systems, to a large extent, rely on traditional crops and varieties. Needless to say, growing the use of NUS contributes to a healthier environment, as these plants require less chemicals and pesticides. Some NUS are also known to be climate resilient, meaning they perform reasonably well even in harsh growing conditions (they are cold and drought tolerant, need low external input environment, etc.), thus contributing to household food security in rainfed farming systems.Popularizing NUS among health-conscious urban consumers may spur demand for these traditional crops, which in turn would contribute to improving smallholder farmers' livelihood.Anamol Biu was established 10 years ago and, since its inception, has been working closely with rural farmers in the seed supply chain, where community seed banks (CSBs) have played pivotal role in preserving and promoting NUS crops. We source our vegetable and cereal seeds primarily from CSBs under a buy-back guarantee system. With technical support provided through LI-BIRD, Anamol Biu has diversified its seed portfolio with the inclusion of several NUS into its activities. Amaranth, coriander, faba bean, fenugreek, broad leaf mustard, local beans, cucumber and many other vegetables are included in our 'Vegetable Seed Composite Kit', a family-nutrition-targeted product, that has become highly popular among development efforts such as the SUAAHARA Project 5 and the Home Garden Project, 6 both implemented in Nepal. In recent years, this tool has become a standard approach for distributing seasonal vegetable seeds to farmers by development organizations and government agencies alike, thereby increasing the potential for mainstreaming NUS in seed supply systems. In order to capitalize on the increasing demand for selected NUS products (including minor millets, amaranth, mountain beans, sticky rice, etc.), Anamol Biu, with the support of several agencies, is investing in the establishment of a 'Packaging House', planned to come into operation in early 2021. The Packaging House is expected to aggregate, clean, grade and package NUS products in a particular brand before marketing them in domestic and international markets. We will be starting a line of composite vegetable packets comprising NUS vegetables for rooftop urban gardens in the near future, as we have received an increasing number of requests during agricultural fairs/melas. Unfortunately, the mainstreaming of NUS varieties into formal seed systems, securing a niche for themselves in the current seed market is still rather low. Many factors are responsible for such slow progress, including unfavorable government policies and programs, limited research and development support, lack of awareness on the part of consumers and lack of best practices knowledge among the growers. It is, therefore, highly imperative that responsible actors increase their investments in the R&D of NUS, if we are to really help these crops emerge from their marginalization.Although the promotion of NUS features in strategic policy papers of the Nepalese government, in reality this area has garnered the least priority in research investments, resulting in negligible progress towards the identification of promising species and their varietal enhancement. On the other hand, the private sector in Nepal is rather weak, in financial and technical terms, to be able to invest in R&D and is interested in acting only at the stage of popularization where heritage crops are concerned. As a matter of fact, a market system for NUS crops including access to quality seeds is yet to be developed in the country. So even if a NUS variety is registered, there remains a serious problem in the supply chain. When the market demands a significant amount of a particular NUS crop, the reality is that producers cannot actually be located to meet such a demand. This is the case for instance of the local amaranth variety 'Ramechhap Hariyo Latte', which was successfully registered at the national level by the Seed Quality Control Centre in 2018, upon which Anamol Biu was able to purchase 17 kg of the seeds from a farmers-managed CSB in Jugu, Dolakha district; the following year, however, we required at least 10 kg of that seed but the CSB in Dolakha was not able to provide such amount. We met the farmer representatives and the program staff from LI-BIRD, and learned about problems that the producers were experiencing, which related mostly to price and financial issues. Anamol Biu agreed to meet the farmers' price expectations, and LI-BIRD helped as well in multiplying the seeds in the Sindhupalchok and Lamjung districts.The irony is that when producers have something to sell, they complain about market availability and accessibility issues, which is a reflection of dysfunctional market for NUS crops. The government is not very helpful because it has failed to come up with any longer-term monetary and non-monetary schemes to promote NUS.Two factors hindering the promotion of NUS are the limited number of food recipes available for their popularization among consumers and the persistence of incorrect socio-cultural beliefs regarding NUS, often termed 'crops of the poor' or 'famine foods'.As mentioned already, R&D throughout the value chain, from production to consumption, is one critical area policymakers should think seriously of investing in, so as to promote NUS effectively. This will pave the way towards solving production limitations and marketing challenges.On a positive note, we should say that in Nepal, the government has made the registration of local crop varieties in the formal seed system a much easier task, something that is expected to benefit the popularization and commercialization of these neglected crops. But more essential interventions are still needed from the government, such as access to soft loans, support in machinery and tools for production and post-harvesting operations, and financing crop insurance to lure producers and make the cultivation of NUS crops more competitive and profitable for farmers. Furthermore, policymakers need also to help promote NUS through the national education system: NUS education for healthy diets and improved nutrition should be promoted in schools, college cafeterias and even office canteens.Public-private partnerships (PPP) often prove to be a fruitful and sustainable venture for promoting the value chains of products such as NUS, where women and youth can be targeted at large through attractive schemes.Lastly, we foresee a potential alternative of promoting NUS as organic crops, targeting upper economic classes and regions. Such an approach could prove very helpful: once the supply chain is firmly established it can then gradually cater to the needs also of middle-to low-income classes and thereby contribute to the wider popularization of these nutritious crops.Simlaw Seeds, Nairobi, KenyaThe importance of these neglected species of plants cannot be over-emphasized.Here in Kenya, NUS have been used as source of food for generations by many communities. Sadly, government research bodies have given them little attention insofar, focusing instead only on main food crops such as maize, wheat and beans.We at Simlaws do appreciate the importance of NUS in food security and, most importantly, in nutrition. These species can grow well with minimum use of inputs. They have stable yields in local environments where they are highly adapted and able to thrive where exotic crop species are challenged, such as in marginal lands where rainfall is scarce and irrigation is not affordable.Most communities would normally go to pick NUS vegetables in the wild, because these species are not easily found under cultivation due to the lack of seed systems dedicated to them. Consequently, there has been erratic supply of these food crops in the market. This despite their inherent superiority in terms of resilience, disease and pest tolerance. Unfortunately, private seed companies have not been availing NUS seed in the formal market either.For the successful promotion of NUS there should be a concerted effort in funding projects involving both national governments and the international community. This will ensure that these species are collected, safeguarded, characterized, selected, improved and massively produced for wider use. Training should be undertaken especially in the fields of breeding, conservation, seed production, agronomy, nutrition and value addition. The private sector should be also involved in training, so as to leverage its knowledge, which is helpful in promoting NUS at affordable prices more widely. Moreover, communities will need also to be educated through demonstrations on how to grow and use these nutritious crops more efficiently.Serkan Eser, Bilgi Sistem Yönetimi -İthalat & İhracat, Serik Antalya -TurkeyWe are located in the Mediterranean region and we have good knowledge about the biodiversity there, including those species occurring in the wild that have not been properly researched yet. We support several research projects involving scientists, who are directing the attention to all the promising leafy greens NUS growing in this region.NUS need to be better considered by both household users as well as people involved in the so-called 'horeca' sector (hotel/restaurant/café) who should devote continuous attention towards their use enhancement. Unfortunately, today this is not happening, and such a situation is limiting the wider use of NUS by chefs, which, in turn, is hindering their wider promotion. With regard to home users, these traditional crops need to be suitable for kitchen use and food cultures. The many good qualities of NUS should be highlighted and leveraged through novel, versatile and easy recipes in order to promote their popularization as home foods; to that end, more research on cooking aptitudes and methods is needed.A We need to do more for the promotion of NUS, especially among chefs B We believe that geographical indications would play a highly strategic role in the marketing of NUS C It would be extremely helpful to create an ad hoc brand, as has been done for other products. For instance, in the case of coffee: the majority of Turkish people refer to standard American coffee as 'Nescafe' so as to distinguish it from the classic Turkish coffee; so this commercial brand is applied widely to refer in fact to many types of coffee. When thinking about that, I realize that advertising is extremely powerful and could be, indeed, leveraged for the promotion of these nutritious but little-known foods.GoBhaarati Agro Industries and Services Pvt. Ltd., IndiaMr. Sridhar Murthy Iriventi, GoBhaarati Agro Industries and Services Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad, TelanganaConsumers' food behavior is mostly cultural. Throughout human history we see cultural evolution has been a function of local contexts, including the policy framework implemented in that place. Like lifestyles, food styles have their own comfort zones ingrained into the unconscious pattern of choices of items on people's plates.For the last ten years or so, our company, made up of first generation of entrepreneurs, has been at the forefront of food innovation and of introducing 10 varieties of millets, including sorghum, in three states of India. Over the years we have observed a significant rise in people's awareness with regard to NUS, especially millets, and this has been very helpful in promoting the consumption of these foods. We see NUS as the food of the future -good for the consumer, for the planet, for the farmer and for the economy too. Over the last decade, we have interacted with more than 50,000 customers, in hundreds of road shows, conferences, cooking competitions and other events, and the lessons we learned during these interactions can be summarized as follows:• Consumers wouldn't mind using NUS in traditional recipes. For example, a traditional Indian recipe like idli, can well be made with little millet too, and this innovative food will be as palatable as that prepared with conventional ingredients like rice • Entrepreneurs/private sector cannot carry out NUS promotion alone. Ideally, the private sector should focus on marketing NUS products while research institutions and governments should focus instead on studying the health or nutrition benefits associated with NUS; thus, the outcome of such work can inform the private sector for their campaigns. I think this would be an ideal partnership for the promotion of NUS • NUS, especially minor millets, contain many important nutrients that can be strategic in achieving a balanced diet, but more needs to be done to highlight this fact in promotional campaigns • During interactions with our customers, we register comments ranging from, \"We don't know millets\", to \"We are Millet Ambassadors\". While we are happy to inform customers on the value of millets and contributing, thus, to filling the gap in awareness, there are a number of obstacles in doing that, viz.:• Food is first and foremost a cultural experience that goes back to what we ate in our childhood when our mothers fed us with love. Most of the current adult generation has been fed by mothers who had access to basic food grains through the Public Distribution System (PDS), which focused (until very recently) only on rice and wheat. • The millet basket is made of many species and, owing to the poor knowledge that people have about these crops, it is normal to register some kind of hesitation in consumers when they need to make a decision on which type of millet to buy. • NUS products change continuously and do not last on the shelf for more than a year or so. This is not good for their popularization, as clients fall back into the 'comfort zone', i.e., purchasing the usual foods made out of wheat or rice. • 2018 was declared by the Indian government as 'The Year of Millets'. This was a good move, but unfortunately the awareness campaigns on millets that followed did not do it justice in presenting in a convincing manner the many potentials of these crops. Much more and better needs to be done to promote NUS! • Policies in favor of millets need to be better implemented to bring change! What we observe, unfortunately, is that most work for the promotion of NUS is led by scientists and bureaucrats who don't appreciate entrepreneurial efforts. For instance, our company has made a breakthrough in packaging, which has increased the shelf-life of de-hulled millets by 300%! Yes, we have been appreciated for this outcome, but were not supported beyond that in scaling-up such novel processes.A Instead of encouraging Farmer Producer Organizations to do everything from farm to fork, governments should encourage instead centers of excellence to take care of specific activities along the value chain B Develop a 45-day off-season business education program for farmers on how NUS can improve their standard of living and the quality of their jobs. Such capacity building sessions can be steered by business professionals with inputs from both academicians and administrators. We believe that this business education can be very helpful in promoting the establishment of effective 'micro business models' at the farm-gate level C Reduce bureaucracy and let government and research institutions invest more in NUS promotion through well-crafted public awareness campaigns, while entrepreneurs focus more on marketing aspects. NUS products must be included in government canteens, PDS and other programs, with entrepreneurs participating through healthy competition and not bidding/auction models.Ana Luiza Vergueiro and Sergio Vergueiro ECONUT Comércio de Produtos Naturais Ltda., BrazilBrazil has abundant natural resources and, among those, is the majestic Brazil nut tree (Bertholletia excelsa Bonpl.), notable for its size and its edible seeds (the Brazil nut), which are the greatest natural source of selenium known. Even though it is a traditional product in the Brazilian export line, the Brazil nut is one of the main NUS. The tree grows along the entire Amazon rainforest, but it is mainly found along the Brazilian share of the region. Considering the vast area covered by these long-living trees, there is no precise data regarding its production, and our hypothesis is that 90% of the natural nut production is not harvested, left abandoned on the forest floor. Even though Brazil nut exploitation is a traditional activity in the country, the main obstacle to its improvement is organizing a value chain. The process starts with the harvesters that live in the forest, who should receive a better salary for their hard work. At the end of the chain are the consumers that demand -rightly so -that quality and safety requirements are followed during processing operations. To that end, there is a need for clearer quality and food-safety regulations for the processing of Brazil nuts, along with appropriate packaging of the final product for proper preservation during its shelf-life.In light of the above, and in order to achieve the effective promotion of the Brazil nuts, we propose three main measures tackling environmental, socioeconomic and commercial viability as follows:• Environmental viability: the development of species cultivation, recovering deforested areas in the Amazon rainforest and considering viable logistics to exportation control points • Socioeconomic viability: support for harvests taking place in the forests, with minimum regional prices along with the establishment of classification, drying and packaging stations in the producing regions, in addition to tax exemption for the entire production chain • Commercial viability: promotion and marketing of the product and its qualities (regarding production and nutrition) to national and international consumer regions, as well as the simplification of bureaucracy for exports.SanLak Agro-Industries Pvt. Ltd., IndiaVikram Sankaranarayanan, Director, SanLak Agro-Industries Pvt. Ltd. Coimbatore,Given the current debates surrounding food and nutrition security under the threat of climate change, stakeholders engaged in food value-chains, both public and private, are exploring new sources of food from resilient and nutritious crops, so as to complement what is already available in the market. Another push in that direction is also coming from the increasing interest of consumers, which is shifting from food-fortification approaches to a more effective deployment of biodiversity, in order to achieve a more sustainable diet. These trends are contributing to the growing interest in NUS.From an entrepreneurial perspective, NUS, under the aforementioned context, offer myriad market opportunities to tap at a time when consumers are also keen to explore wellness and nutrition through alternative plant-based diets. Our company, through the guidance and mentorship of Ms. Santha Sheela Nair, began working on minor millets, crops that have been long forgotten due to overdominance of rice and wheat, promoted under the Green Revolution.Following are some examples of our work on NUS, focusing on millets and amaranth, which are central to our public awareness campaigns and which are needed to inform consumers about the multiple nutrition and health benefits of these species, so much marginalized also for the pejorative labeling of them as 'low-status' foods. Fortunately, perceptions are changing gradually but steadily, with even the nomenclature being rightly changed from 'coarse grains' to 'nutri-cereals'. Millet consumption is gradually gaining momentum in our food systems also in reaction to the rise of non-communicable diseases and the need to make healthier food choices for our own wellness.Minor millets are a group of cereal crops that are climate change resilient and low resource-intensive. They require one-sixth of the amount of water necessary for rice (some 3,000-4,000 liters on average, depending on the rice variety). They are capable of growing well in degraded soils, under drought conditions and can withstand temperatures up to 48 o C. They are gluten-free grains and offer a range of micronutrients naturally produced, vital in combatting the rise in non-communicable diseases as well as malnutrition, present in numerous areas of India, especially among women and children, and afflicting poor and vulnerable members of society.There is certainly a great opportunity to be seized in millets, in terms of widening their consumption by all citizens. Such an outcome is, however, contingent on proper institutional intervention, needed to ensure that millet valuechains receive the same attention that has been directed for decades at other commodities.Numerous factors have diminished and constrained momentum in the growth of millets use, from farm to fork. These factors, grouped under institutional, market and consumer behavior, are summarized as follows:Although the Government of India, in its official ordinance in favor of millets (called 'nutricereals' therein) has requested the Indian states to include these crops in their respective PDS, such a request has not been implemented by most states. The failure to do so seems most likely to have been caused by the lack of proper coordinated efforts, and sadly, it did not help the fact that millets are being acknowledged as vital crops for our food and nutrition security. Furthermore, given that minor millets do not fall under the category of cash crops and are not given a 'minimum support price' (MSP), the lack of guaranteed pricing has discouraged farmers, traders and processors from entering this space. Double-digit variation in pricing has been observed between harvests, which has rendered minor millets difficult commodities to trade. Some states such as Karnataka have taken the lead in value-chain development for minor millets and establishing farm-to-market businessto-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) linkages. Under the previous Hon'ble Minister for Agriculture, Govt. of Karnataka, Mr. Krishna Byre Gowda, minor millets gathered momentum with wide market reach and demand pull, catalyzing a subsequent product push from the farm-gate. Such strong political support is very much needed, as it strategically addressed the politics of food. In Tamil Nadu, the Ex-Vice Chairman of the State Planning Commission, Ms. Santha Sheela Nair, undertook similar initiatives, which resulted in a number of successful state schemes, such as the 'Mission on Sustainable Dryland Agriculture'. Indeed, a continuous thrust from the political establishment and administration is much needed in order to circumvent macro-barriers for the introduction of NUS.In India, one of the main bottlenecks in millets value-chains is the lack of availability of evenly distributed processing infrastructures. Processing machinery developed so far for these crops has, in fact, not been successful at all, lacking proper food-grade standards and processing efficiency. In view of this prominent gap in technology, our company has invested a lot in R&D, and these efforts have led us to developing 'Borne SMART' (Small Millet Aleurone Retention Technology), which allow the effective processing of millet grains. This technology includes machinery for carrying out several processing steps at the same time: pre-cleaning, de-gluming (to remove the glume layeron barnyard, kodo and browntop millet [Brachiaria ramosa]) as well as de-hulling, fine separation and gravity separation. Borne SMART machines are available in different dimensions, with processing capacities of 100 kg/hr, 250 kg/hr, 500 kg/hr, 1 ton/hr or 2 ton/hr. Though these machine could help process many NUS, they are being requested by our clients especially for millets.Market-based factors are to be addressed from a value-chain perspective, in a holistic manner. Starting at the farm-gate, cluster formations of millet growers are imperative if we are to gain economies of scale. Such an approach was developed through the 'Raitha Siri' program in Karnataka, wherein dry-land clusters were selected, and a sum per acre was distributed to farmers within these clusters, with each cluster focusing on the cultivation of a specific variety of minor millet. It was a successful initiative at the farmlevel but, unfortunately, it was not effective in ensuring that millets reached the market effectively, as the forward integration of traders, processors and companies were not developed. Understanding and proper coordination of value chains are vital in ensuring that these crops reach the targeted consumers effectively. Such a major bottleneck is prevalent in various parts of the country, and needs to be addressed on war footing.A key link between producers and the market is processing and, although machinery is now available for all the end-to-end processing steps needed for minor millets, this technology is yet to reach stakeholders at a mass level. Previous initiatives undertaken between 2009 and 2012, whereby machinery was distributed, failed miserably due to the low quality of machinery processing output, lack of food-grade standards and breakdowns encountered. Although improvements in processing technology and protocols have been established, such as those of the Borne SMART line mentioned earlier, their uptake is slow, due to lack of investor confidence and previous bad experiences faced by clients. D Consumers' behavioral factors Though the private sector has acknowledged the scope for growth in minor millet consumption, there is still limited awareness among consumers, regarding the nutritional virtues of the range of minor millets. Robust public awareness campaigns are much needed in order to catalyze attention and promote wider consumption of these NUS.1 See Chapter 13 for more about this project 2 ISO certified company; for more see http://www.vandjindustries.com/ 3 Var. acephala of cabbage (Brassica oleracea), characterized by the lack of the close-knit core of leaves (a \"head\") like other cabbages 4 Corn-based traditional hot drink 5 https://www.usaid.gov/nepal/fact-sheets/suaahara-project-good-nutrition 6 http://www.b4fn.org/case-studies/case-studies/home-gardens-in-nepal/#:~:text=-This%20project%20has%20worked%20to,increase%20income%20in%20poor%20 households.Research for Development (R4D) agencies have historically played an important role in promoting the conservation and sustainable use of neglected and underutilized species (NUS) around the world by providing investments and assistance to vulnerable communities that has helped build research partnerships and capacity, which has enabled them to benefit from sustainable livelihoods, improved diets and nutrition, food security and enhanced resilience and adaptation to pest and diseases, water scarcity and changing climate. The historical development of the NUS movement, the key agencies and actors involved as well as landmark events and publications are highlighted in Chapter 2 of this volume. Furthermore, many R4D agencies are profiled in Chapter 33, and it is largely through the efforts of these agencies that financial and other needed resources have been, and continue to be, directed towards fundamental research partnerships on NUS, though the gap in research budget allocated to the top few staple crops alone and the wider NUS portfolio remains huge. IFAD promotes a holistic and pluralistic approach to inclusive rural transformation and agricultural food systems as a part of its lending programme, which currently exceeds USD 1.5 billion, annually. NUS are viewed by IFAD as an intrinsic part of its arsenal of nature-positive, biodiversity-friendly approaches. They are increasingly promoted by IFAD for their promise in contributing to an economically remunerative and environmentally sustainable future -for rural communities and their habitats -depending on the socioeconomic, cultural, institutional and biophysical context. IFAD pursues people-centred approaches and, in the context of the NUS-sustainable livelihoods nexus, we believe that the theory of change is really about positioning rural communities (including Indigenous Peoples as the key custodians of NUS) to make the most out of the promising nature of rich, nutrition-sensitive markets and the values chains they are linked to.IFAD investments in the NUS-based food systems of rural (Indigenous) communities (and their local knowledge embedded in those) are strongly associated with multiple positive relationships with incomes, nutrition and health of humans and their habitats. They drive financially attractive investment projects with outcomes that are poverty reducing, nutrient rich, diet-diverse, environmentally friendly and climate smart. It would be hard to find a better win-win strategy in any inclusive rural transformation agenda pursued by the international development community.Over the past two decades, IFAD has developed experience in supporting NUS and has used key lessons learned to develop guidance on how, when, and why to incorporate considerations of NUS into nutrition-sensitive agricultural projects, with due attention paid to the inclusion of Indigenous Peoples and the enhancement of their livelihoods and wellbeing. The focus has been on a multitude of truly participatory rural development and transformation approaches incorporating the importance of NUS and their contribution to biodiversity conservation, improving nutrition (in the context of dietary diversity), quality traditional diets and Indigenous Peoples' food systems and their knowledge on these.The advent of the very recognition of so-called NUS in formal sciences and by international agricultural research for development systems started with IFAD's pioneering grant support back in the late 1990s. The Fund's first grant was to establish a strategic, global, multi-stakeholder partnership led by the erstwhile International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (now the Alliance of Bioversity International and International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)).This initiative benefitted immensely from the passionate, scientific leadership of a few individuals, and IFAD's investment scaled-up the so-called NUS agenda and placed it in the global research and development spotlight -pursuing the multiple objectives of \"conservation-through-utilisation\" and, later, a more composite goal of \"sustainable utilisation\".With the strong conviction that NUS were neglected and underutilized for counter-intuitive reasons, a global constituency became established in the early part of this century. This community of practise views NUS as the \"crops of and for the future\" and as multi-dimensional \"weapons of poverty alleviation\" (ironically) in the hands of the world's most marginalised communities -who are the true custodians of NUS and most of the world's biodiversity.In early IFAD-sponsored international conferences, we conceived a new, global multi-stakeholder initiative. For instance, in 1999, the IFAD-supported workshop organised in Chennai, India, by the CGIAR Plant Genetic Resources Policy Committee, focused specifically on NUS. This landmark meeting drew broad-ranging support from participating CGIAR centres and donors. It is interesting to note that this meeting represents the first time ever that the CGIAR discussed NUS in a formal way.This milestone conference received the intellectual guidance of Professor MS Swaminathan, who cautioned us early partners and practitioners against the use of negative nomenclatures connoting the neglect and underutilisation of such a promising set of crops and commodities.Indeed, on the other hand, these have been often regarded as strategic assets of rural poor communities (especially Indigenous communities) -resources that have helped these otherwise marginalised communities build resilience and cope with the challenges of food and nutrition insecurity, health calamities and pandemics, climate change and in their struggle against economic and social disempowerment.Since the early 2000s, IFAD has actively helped build new alliances with global initiatives such as the Global Forum on Agricultural Research and Innovation's (GFAR) Collective Action on Forgotten Foods. Given the multi-stakeholder and interdisciplinary nature of GFAR and the power of the IFAD-investment portfolio in supporting community-based, participatory workshops aimed at enriching beneficiary knowledge on resilient cultivation practices, financing rural infrastructure and small and micro-enterprises for improving processing and consumption options has helped improve small-scale producer links to NUSdriven value chains and niche markets.Incorporating NUS into food systems affords a more dynamic, in situ \"peoplecentred\" approach to addressing the biophysical challenges of modern agriculture. The above meetings provided a deeper understanding of the incentive structure of farming communities in managing risks and how strategic production choices (e.g., of cultivating NUS) can strengthen resilience, especially of resource-poor farming systems.Informed by these important scientific exchanges, IFAD-grants financed multi-locational research programmes in all the developing regions of the globe and have generated a series of evidence-based innovations, which have been incorporated into multi-million dollar loan project designs.The innovative deployment of nature-positive and environmentally sensitive components in agricultural development projects, is bringing to light the immense value of the orphan crops of the past -from relative obscurity into prominence. They exhibit attractive transformational characteristics and elite traits -a metaphorical reference to the tale of \"Cinderella\" (hence the label).Neglected no more, the increasing production and trade of erstwhile NUS (quinoa, amaranth, finger millets and other [mislabelled] \"coarse\" grains like sorghum, maize and kiwi fruit to name a few) represent a vast spectrum of hidden gems.They have demonstrated improved and multiple beneficial outcomes while simultaneously including robust local adaptability, better incomes, improved livelihoods and nutrition and ecosystem benefits -all of which are designed to improve the resilience of smallholders to biophysical and socioeconomic adversities and shocks. The range of the potential of NUS is so extensive that it is now becoming an increasingly inherent part of conventional food production systemsmaking them valuable in so many respects, well beyond the local context and the niche markets that they were associated with in the past -now, they are a part of the economic mainstream.The multipurpose species of the future NUS are increasingly better known as the promising multipurpose species for the future, resurrected from their general underutilisation and even disuse (as indigenous knowledge systems on their utility had eroded over the generations). A more development-outcome-led formal research system has brought to light cuttingedge knowledge on the multiple benefits and high value embedded in NUS. The agrobiodiversity associated with NUS \"production\" systems is also a direct contributor to the diverse range of micronutrients that NUS have made available to the diets of Indigenous and other rural communities. Such dietary diversity is known for addressing their micronutrient deficiency and under-nutrition, and also spontaneously targeting some of the root causes of stunting and wasting among children while improving the resilience of adults to health shocks.The extensive use of NUS will, thus, ultimately contribute not just to SDG2, which is associated with zero hunger; reduction of all forms of malnutrition and sustainable agriculture, they will also help reach several targets under SDGs 7, 12, 13, 15 and 17, as well as relevant targets within the context of the CBD post-2020 global biodiversity framework. IFAD's Strategic Objective 1 (increase poor rural people's productive capacities), which focuses heavily on improving nutritional knowledge and behavioural change communication on healthy diets for all, has NUS elements. IFAD's Action Plan on Mainstreaming Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture has a predominant NUS focus and the recently published Bioversity-IFAD operational framework in support of nutrition-sensitive agriculture through NUS will certainly help promote the adoption of NUS for sustainable food systems.Yet, much more is needed to help countries mainstream NUS through participatory, pro-poor, gender-sensitive, multi-sector, multi-stakeholder and multidisciplinary approaches. Further development and testing of NUS to promote replicability and transferability to other contexts; an advocacy role for policy change at the global level and the engagement of development practitioners (through participation in training and capacity building) are key. Innovative policy sensitisation is required to provide an enabling institutional environment so that the rural poor can achieve the twin objectives of income generation along with the positive nutrition potential currently locked inside their local NUSbased farming systems.We will continue to need new investments in innovations systems, including by bringing leading-edge science to build on local and Indigenous knowledge systems -for instance, developing appropriate food technologies to maximise the nutritional benefits from local crops. The international community needs to better appreciate the power of the crops of the future and unleash their potential in addressing the challenges of faltering food systems. We need to trigger a paradigm shift towards the adoption of more (bio-)diverse agricultural systems -and a departure from current food systems, which are precariously focused on an ever-shrinking portfolio of crops and commodities -ironically, where there are a large variety of robust but overlooked Cinderella species-in-waiting.Paul Wagstaff, Senior Agriculture Advisor, Self Help Africa and Isabella Rae, Head of Policy, Research and EvaluationNUS in Africa are a complex topic and one where limited generalisations can be made. Traditional fruit, vegetable and grain species have been neglected due to declines in demand, a decline in access to wild plant foods, low yields and poor adaptation to the livelihoods and workloads of farmers, particularly women. It is important to distinguish between NUS that are preferred \"luxury\" foods, and those that are only eaten in desperation during times of famine. Though not traded internationally, NUS are uniquely adapted to their local environments and play a vital role in supporting diverse diets in sub-Saharan Africa.Self Help Africa (SHA) focuses on improving family nutrition and household economy through diversifying incomes and linking farmers to markets, both of which have to take into account climatic factors and women's access to and control over resources. SHA, therefore, looks at the nutritional, crop diversity and market potential of NUS, including the possible impact on women's workloads related to the collection or cultivation of NUS.One of the biggest drivers of the marginalisation of NUS has been the radical changes in diet, especially in East and Southern Africa, where \"chicken and chips\" have become the \"aspirational\" foods that have driven traditional foods out of local restaurants, with local foods being seen as a \"poor person's food\" (less so in West Africa and Ethiopia). In complete contrast, some neglected crops are enjoying a renaissance and are being considered \"status foods\" for the urban middle classes, and \"comfort food\" for the diaspora.Several NUS with significant potential as resilient food crops are not more widely used due to the presence of toxic, anti-nutritive, excessively bitter or allergenic compounds, which must be taken into account when promoting NUS for home gardens. Some of the best-known examples include:• Grass pea, a highly drought-tolerant legume that can cause lathyrism when eaten in significant qualities; • Solanaceous crops that have not been exposed to generations of selection for low solanine levels can pose a health risk; • Water lily roots, Nymphaea, an important famine food in the wetlands of South Sudan and Uganda, contain a toxic alkaloid, and young ferns, a delicacy in Sierra Leone, can be carcinogenic; • Members of the Cruciferae can be goitrogenic in areas of low natural iodine while species high in tannins, oxalic acid and phytic acid can inhibit the uptake of iron, a disadvantage in countries with high levels of anaemia.By definition, the term NUS implies little research interest. While this is true when compared to the level of research conducted on the main staple crops, a significant amount of research on NUS does take place but is often confined to MSc and PhD thesis and project reports, which receive little attention. The promotion of NUS can be politically sensitive, and NUS research and market development initiatives are sometimes treated with suspicion by some sectors of civil society.A lack of investment and research into these crops has led to farmers planting them less and less, reduced access to high-quality seed and loss of traditional knowledge.Creating demand: Researching niche markets and creating demand for NUS as \"aspirational\" foods, starting with the urban middle classes. Chia seeds are a well-known example, with affluent health-conscious consumers in Europe creating demand for chia seeds grown by farmers supported by SHA in Uganda.Addressing NUS seed and germplasm shortages: This requires a vibrant, diverse seed sector, that supports farmer-to-farmer seed exchanges and SME-and farmer-owned seed enterprises as well as large-scale commercial seed production of a wide range of crops and varieties. Diversifying crops and varieties will require the adoption of newer techniques, such as \"Crop Innovation's Genetic Finger Printing\" for registering new varieties and recognising the intrinsic value of genetic diversity in landraces. Small-and medium-scale NUS seed production requires a reliable source of EGS. SHA's Edget Cooperative Union model in Ethiopia has proved that a union of seed producer cooperatives can produce EGS for its member co-ops, an approach also used by co-ops in the USA and Canada. Other EGS models that show promise include contracting out EGS production to specialist EGS companies (Brazil) and Agriculture Universities (USA and India), and setting up commercial spin-off EGS companies from National Agricultural Research Organizations (Nigeria, Uganda).Plant breeding to improve the nutritional value and commercial viability of NUS: Using conventional plant breeding, plant breeders in India have produced varieties of grass pea with very low toxicity and there is considerable potential to use gene editing to disable genes for toxins and anti-nutritive compounds. The domestication of wild NUS is important to address the reduction in access to wild foods and can also reduce the time taken to reach maturity, especially for wild tree crops. Conversely, farmer-managed natural regeneration of degraded lands can increase the availability of wild fruits through the selective protection of wild fruit-trees with desirable traits. Agriculture, food security and nutrition are consolidated priority areas of intervention for Italian development cooperation, centred on family agriculture and small-scale farmers and contributing to the achievement of SDG2 and other related SDGs. In this context, the Italian Development Cooperation Agency (AICS) approach entails: the promotion of sustainable agro-ecological practices that protect the environment and preserve biodiversity; strengthening networks that improve access to resources and local markets and increasing resilience to shocks and climate change by addressing the economic, social and environmental causes that underlie poverty, conflict and migration.Moreover, AICS aims at strengthening and developing sustainable production chains, with particular emphasis on the enhancement of local/typical products with the objective to increase productivity and improve quality while also promoting good agricultural practices, aimed at the conservation of production areas. In this framework, AICS shares fully the growing interest around NUS and is highly aware of the strategic role that NUS can play in improving food and nutrition security, resilience to climate change, income generation and the empowerment of vulnerable people and communities.In recent years, the yearly average disbursement of AICS for initiatives concerning agriculture and food security, rural development, including biodiversity conservation and protection of the environment, have amounted to around €150 million. AICS believes that in advancing the agenda of NUS at the global level, there are some aspects that should receive greater attention, with particular reference to the conservation of wild and cultivated diversity of such species, through ex situ and in situ methods, in order to allow countries to safeguard precious resource assets that are now under threat of being lost. Another relevant aspect is the enhancement of capacities of National Agricultural Research Systems in carrying out strategic research needed to tap effectively the potential of NUS for tackling the key challenges highlighted above. Lastly, the importance of strengthening appropriate information sharing tools to harness the wealth of knowledge currently scattered for the improved conservation and sustainable use of NUS needs to be understood.The interventions promoted by the Italian Cooperation in this domain are aimed at enhancing the use of climate-resilient varieties, encouraging the production and consumption of high-quality and nutritious food and promoting healthy diets, identifying markets and raising awareness of communities. In this regard, AICS has supported several projects targeting biodiversity conservation and valorisation, both bilaterally and multilaterally through the Rome-based UN agencies (FAO, IFAD and WFP), Bioversity International, UNIDO and CIHEAM-Bari. The involvement of Italian research institutions and academia is also promoted.Among the principal areas of intervention by AICS has been: the enhancement of Tunisian plant genetic resources (cereals, olives, fruit trees, food legumes) either through in situ or ex situ conservation actions, by strengthening the National Gene Bank of Tunisia through providing capacity building for Tunisian technical and institutional staff; value-chain development of local crops with high nutritional value in Ethiopia and the diversification of local communities diets in Oromia region; ongoing support to the FAO Mountain Partnership to better utilise NUS and support to the production, productivity and value chains of moringa (M. stenopetala and M. oleifera) in Ethiopia. Finally, AICS recognises the pivotal role of women in NUS conservation and use through initiatives aimed at supporting women and youth to grow, process, market and cook healthy food. Founded in 1962, International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (CIHEAM) is an intergovernmental organisation focused on the sustainable development of agriculture, from food security to food quality and nutrition in rural and coastal areas, including the sustainability of local natural resources, agro ecosystems and fisheries in the Mediterranean. Its member countries are Albania, Algeria, Egypt, France, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia and Turkey, and operations are carried out through its four institutes based in Bari (Italy, CIHEAM-Bari), Chania (Greece), Montpellier (France) and Zaragoza (Spain) and the headquarters in Paris. The CIHEAM Strategic Agenda 2025 provides an innovative development framework that revolves around four pillars (viz. protecting the planet, food security and nutrition, inclusive development and crises and resilience) divided into 15 thematic priorities, the fifth one being \"enhancing agrobiodiversity conservation and agro-ecological practices\".The Mediterranean Basin is one of the world's 25 hotspots of global biodiversity, presenting a high level of diversity of different food species, forages, aromatic and medicinal species. CIHEAM-Bari provides education and knowledge building on agrobiodiversity conservation and agro-ecology in its M.Sc. course on Mediterranean Organic Agriculture. It also works on the conservation of Mediterranean biodiversity through projects on the protection of endangered species (e.g., MEDISLANDPLANT -ensuring the survival of endangered plants in the Mediterranean) and/or the conservation of local and ancient species (e.g., Crop Wild Relatives) and local crop varieties (e.g., Tunisian Phytogenetic Resources Better Conserved and Enhanced). Furthermore, it carries out institutional capacity-building and promotes networking among national plant conservation centres through programs such as GENMEDA (Network of Mediterranean Plant Conservation Centres). CIHEAM-Bari also carries out analyses of agriculture and natural systems sustainability, cropping systems management, soil quality and participatory approaches in the management of natural resources. Particular attention is also paid to biodiversity's role in safeguarding and promoting the Mediterranean diet.CIHEAM-Bari believes that NUS can help in addressing several challenges such as climate change, food and nutrition insecurity, livelihoods vulnerability and poverty, biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. However, NUS development requires research and innovation investments. However, many constraints hinder the wider adoption of NUS, most of them relating to seed production and seed systems, agronomic practices, genetics and eco-physiology, use and markets. Furthermore, different factors hamper the promotion of NUS, among them: lack of sound data on their nutritional properties; low awareness by farmers, researchers and extension workers; poor economic competitiveness; inefficiencies in value chains (production, storage and processing) and limited availability of germplasm.Research and innovation (R&I) are important for NUS to play an essential role in building a resilient and economically vibrant agricultural sector, able to sustain food and nutrition security needs and sustainable rural livelihoods under climate change. In this respect, cross-country collaboration is of paramount importance to set up an R&I strategy to bridge existing gaps and overcome the issues highlighted above. The strategy should address all relevant scientific disciplines, from natural and agronomical sciences (e.g., agronomic research on adaptation of NUS to changing climate, poor soils and dry environments) to social sciences and economics. Investigating the connection between NUS and food security, nutrition and livelihoods of rural communities could raise the awareness of all actors, both in the academic and policy arenas, on the benefits of mainstreaming NUS in farming systems and local diets. Attention should be also paid to adopting adequate policies and institutional/governance arrangements to enhance NUS in relation to agriculture, the environment, health and gender. In particular, concrete political support is needed to include NUS in national strategies for climate change adaptation and sustainable food systems, with the view of fighting environmental degradation and natural resource depletion that constrain the productivity of NUS in the context of agroecosystems, especially in remote rural communities.CIHEAM-Bari pursues strengthening research on NUS within the Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems by developing a long-term international agenda for research, innovation and development through concerted efforts involving relevant stakeholders from researchers to policy makers, farmers and consumers at different levels (from local to regional). An example of common engagement and shared efforts by different actors is given by the EU-funded project SUSTLIVES (Box 1). This project will play an important role in unlocking NUS potential in Burkina Faso, Niger and beyond (e.g., West Africa, Sahel), while also addressing the SDGs and the Paris Climate Agreement. In conclusion, it appears essential to build and support multi-actor partnerships that engage in raising joint funds for R&I on NUS, especially in the countries of the Global South.376 Claudio Bogliotti et al.The UNSCN does not have a formal view regarding NUS. However, it does have a clear understanding that unhealthy diets these days are the major contributors to disease. Therefore, the promotion of healthy diets is an importantThe project SUSTLIVES (SUSTaining and improving local crop patrimony in Burkina Faso and Niger for better LIVes and EcoSystems) falls under the thematic priority \"Vegetables, legumes, roots and tubers\" of the DeSIRA initiative (Development Smart Innovation through Research in Agriculture). It is under the direct management of AICS and brings together partners including CIHEAM-Bari, Bioversity International, Italian National Research Council (CNR), University Roma Tre, the Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE), the University of Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) and the University of Niamey (Niger). It has a budget of €6 million and a duration of four years. SUSTLIVES aims to improve food and nutrition security and livelihoods of rural communities in Burkina Faso and Niger through agrobiodiversity. Agrobiodiversity, and particularly the valorisation of NUS, constitutes the driving force behind our ability better meet nutritional needs of rural communities, to create income-generating opportunities for youth, farmers and women and to support national and local institutions to cope with climate change and its effects on agriculture. SUSTLIVES consists of three expected results: (i) identifying and assessing stress-tolerant crops, target areas, local stakeholders and their needs, and achieving a higher resilience of agroecosystems; (ii) raising awareness of communities and consumers about stress-tolerant NUS, and empowering local actors, especially youth and women, in inclusive NUS value-chains and (iii) ensuring policy-making and sustainable planning on agrobiodiversity, supported and in coordination with EU planning and priorities. The main direct beneficiaries are value-chain actors (farmers -especially smallholders -processors, etc.) and their organisations, women and young people, local administrations, research institutions and extension services and local seed producers and companies. Indirect beneficiaries include rural communities as well as consumers.part of the solution. A major characteristic of healthy diets is diversity. Diets are an outcome of food systems and the current dominant food systems do not deliver healthy diets. In addition, food systems are also major contributors to biodiversity loss (and to the pollution of water, soil and air, as well as to climate change). Our current food system utilises and promotes a very limited number of crops and species. During the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), in 2014, member states acknowledged the key role played by diversified and sustainable diets, including traditional ones, in reducing malnutrition. At the same time, the ICN2 acknowledged the importance of cultural identity in relation to diets. This resulted in formal commitments to, among other things, enhancing sustainable food systems and promoting safe and diversified healthy diets. It also recommended strengthening local food production and promoting diversification of crops, including underutilized traditional crops. Many studies have shown that NUS can play an important role in improving nutrition. Their nutritional value is often higher than corresponding exotic or imported foods. In addition, they are locally adapted and are often part of cultural heritages. In summary, they can play an important role as part of sustainable healthy diets, to confront the challenges described above.A major obstacle for the enhanced sustainable use of NUS are some of the very same positive characteristics listed above. They are so locally adapted and context specific that it is often difficult to bring them to the forefront in one solid overarching definition. One could say they are so contextualised that they are difficult to (sustainably) promote beyond their immediate context or locality. There is no common understanding of what NUS are -thus, the beauty of NUS is also its weakness. In addition to this, and possibly linked to it, is the lack of knowledge about the nutritional value of many species and varieties. The lack of a common understanding of what exactly NUS are has also contributed to their \"neglect\" or insufficient protection in (international) law. At the level of individual crops, additional issues can pop up, such as: consumers have lost the habit of preparing them or don't appreciate the taste, smell or colour (anymore), and producers don't see their potential (anymore) because they have become used to more dominant crops that have been promoted at liberty by companies, government services and policies. However, obstacles to the uptake of individual crops (as opposed to NUS in general) can be overcome more easily (relatively speaking) -see below, under Question 3. More worrisome are the obstacles that extend to the promotion of NUS overall. There is a lack of:• recognition of NUS' potential roles; • awareness on NUS potential among governments; • adequate research (especially in the nutrition field);• coherence and adequate protection in local and international legal frameworks; • interest from the private sector to invest in NUS; • funds and advocacy to local communities to implement all the above. Solving these gaps requires political solutions as well as the collaboration of various sectors and stakeholders.Solutions can be distinguished for individual crops and NUS in general. For individual crops, chefs or other champions (farmers, caterers, etc.) in various settings such as in school gardens (e.g., biodiversity project Brazil) or in the tourism sector (tourism in Uganda) can handle promotion. Whenever NUS are promoted in their endemic areas, it is important to take care not to over exploit a specific crop, for example, by establishing value chains abroad. The local population must continue to have access to it and benefit. To promote the uptake of more NUS in general, it is paramount to do more research and make an inventory of NUS and their nutrient content. NUS can also be promoted by advising people to include them in their diets. A very helpful tool for this is the national food-based dietary guidelines (FBDG), especially those that have sustainability criteria. FBDG take into account the actual consumption of the population, as well as cultural acceptability and preferences. FBDG also consider what is locally available and accessible. As such, FBDG can prove to be a very good tool to promote locally produced crops and species, including NUS!The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (International Treaty) 1 was negotiated by FAO and adopted in 2001 to create a global system that provides farmers, plant breeders and scientists access to plant genetic materials. It aims at:• protecting and promoting Farmers' Rights, recognising the enormous contribution of farmers to the diversity of crops that feed the world; • promoting the exploration, conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic diversity in an integrated manner and • establishing a global system to provide farmers, plant breeders and scientists with access to plant genetic materials, while ensuring that recipients also share benefits they derive from the use of these genetic materials.NUS are local crop varieties -also known as landraces or farmers' varietiesproviding basic daily food nutrition and livelihoods, but also socio-cultural and environmental values that are fundamental for sustainable agriculture and local economic development. Economically, they have enormous potential for fighting poverty, hunger and malnutrition. Around the world, smallholders and peasant farming communities, particularly those in remote rural and marginal areas, rely on a wide range of NUS for their food, nutritional and health security, and livelihoods. NUS not only provide diversified healthy food and nutrition, but most of them, with ancient origins, have been conserved and sustainably managed until today because of their unique social and cultural values, as well as environmental importance.To date, the International Treaty is the only legally binding international agreement that recognises the enormous contributions that farmers from all regions of the world have made, and will continue to make, for the conservation and development of plant genetic resources as the basis of food and agricultural production. Article 9 of the International Treaty lists some measures that recognise and promote Farmers' Rights, 2 or the rights of farmers to crop genetic resources for food and agriculture. These measures are closely linked to one of the core objectives of the International Treaty -the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources. Promoting the expanded use of local and locally adapted crops, varieties and underutilized species is specifically suggested by the International Treaty as a means of sustainably using plant genetic resources. The implementation can be realised through a list of measures at national levels that could be taken to protect, promote and realise these rights. 3 Farmers' Rights are critical to ensuring the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) and, consequently, for food securitytoday and in the future. Now, 15 years since the International Treaty came into operation, the need to realise Farmers' Rights is more relevant than ever. With an estimated 1.2 billion of the poorest people living in rural areas and depending largely on traditional agriculture and their own local crop varieties, promoting their rights to crop genetic diversity can be a valuable channel for the eradication of poverty, hunger and malnutrition. Many of these local crops are nutritionally dense, and, therefore, their erosion can have immediate consequences for the nutritional status and food security of the poor, while their sustainable use can bring about better nutrition and success in fighting hidden hunger. For most of these rural farmers, access to commercial varieties and the required production inputs, such as fertilisers and pesticides, are unaffordable. Thus, they depend on the diversity of their local traditional crops. Crop diversification can provide insurance against crop failure due to pests and diseases, or adverse climatic conditions, such as drought or floods, while the produce may be central to traditional local cuisine and specific dietary requirements. Furthermore, diverse crop genetic resources are an important source of locally adapted genes for the improvement of other crops, to build climate-change-resilient agricultural production systems. Therefore, enabling farmers to maintain and develop this crop diversity, and recognising and rewarding them for their contribution to the global gene pool are basic prerequisites for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG1: no poverty; SDG2: zero hunger; SDG15: life on land).To date, the enormous potential of NUS for food security and nutrition, hunger and local economic development have not been fully explored or utilised. This is despite increasing awareness and discussions at various fora highlighting the nutritional, economic, social, cultural and ecological values of NUS. The enabling environments, such as strategies for promotion and institutional mechanisms to support NUS, were always missing or were not mainstreamed in existing food and nutrition security policies, programmes and agendas. NUS are still not a priority for many governments, and investments in researching and improving the productivity, adaptability and utilisation are not yet in place. The lack of investments in local crops has meant that their potential benefits remain undervalued and untapped. If there are no enabling environments and supporting polices, and if there is no value and demand for NUS, farmers will ultimately give up the cultivation of these crops. In addition to this, the lack of institutional mechanisms to support NUS farmers, e.g., market incentives, marketing support for producers, access to financial and technical services, etc., is making it difficult for them to continue conserving and sustainably using NUS. The widespread adoption of high yielding uniform varieties has contributed to the diminishing exploitation of many NUS and other diverse local varieties, along with the knowledge systems associated with their cultivation and use. Therefore, appropriate infrastructures need to be in place to support NUS farmers to continue the cultivation of local traditional crop varieties -varieties that are genetically diverse due to repeated cycles of selection, seed-saving and re-planting, which has resulted in their adaptation to local environmental conditions. The promotion of local crop varieties, increasing knowledge and raising awareness are important elements in efforts to sustain their cultivation.It all starts with the seed. Farming begins with seeds. Without seed, there can be no crops and no food production. Farmers and other crop maintainers depend on access to sufficient quantities of good quality seeds of their varieties of choice, and for these seeds to be available in time for planting when they need them. Seed systems -from production, through processing, storage and distribution -are, therefore, central in efforts to sustain local crop diversity. The top three solutions are:1 Mainstream NUS into national and local policies and programmes to create an enabling environment and to support farmers by providing technical support and access to financial services 2 Create institutional mechanisms to support rural livelihood strategies and household income diversification, such as access to market and market facilities, develop market value-chains -markets for local products, linkage to tourism and other potential income-generation support for NUS farmers 3 Strengthen local seed systems and increase the number and quality of local seed banks to promote sharing and exchange of seeds among farmers.These solutions might help address the challenges that confront smallholder farmers and Indigenous local communities in conserving and sustainably using local crops and NUS. No difference should be made in terms of \"formal\" and \"informal\" seed systems at the local level to facilitate access to plant genetic resources. A supportive legal and policy framework for the cultivation and marketing of local crop varieties is lacking in many countries. There are activities that can help enhance their unique value and support the creation of new in situ diversity. This may, in turn, serve to inform and influence the development of a more appropriate, supportive policy environment. This is particularly critical in the many developing countries where as much as 80-90 percent of seed requirements of smallholder farmers are sourced through local exchange networks, as well as from markets and household stocks.A further tangible way to safeguard local crop varieties and to secure the seed supply for local communities are Community Seed Banks (CSBs). CSBs serve as repositories of local crop diversity that is often adapted to prevailing climate conditions, including biotic stresses, such as pests and other infestations, and facilitate farmers' access to seeds in time for planting. This is particularly necessary during periods of calamities, natural disasters or emergencies/crises. Many experiences, including through the Benefit Sharing Fund 4 of the International Treaty, operating in more than 60 countries around the world, highlights the importance of local seed banks for local food security and the empowerment of local communities, as well as for maintaining traditional knowledge and raising awareness of the value of local crop diversity. Therefore, supporting farmers and local communities in developing and maintaining these seed systems is important to sustaining diversity and ensuring local food and nutrition security.Creating stable value chains for crop produce is one option that is widely considered to be central to efforts promoting the sustainable use of local crop varieties. Effective commercialisation and innovative marketing systems can promote NUS and maximise their economic value. This can involve a range of stakeholders, including farmers and farmers' cooperatives, local promotional associations and businesses, research and development organisations, food processing companies and local government agencies. To enhance marketing options, value-adding measures should include the development of new products from raw sources, the use of high-quality processing methods and packaging and registration through schemes such as Geographic Indications (GI) and traditional knowledge. Products may be sold in local markets, grocery shops and supermarkets, and via internet-based outlets, 5 as well as to restaurants.Lastly, knowledge management and information dissemination is crucial to the conservation of local crop diversity. The International Treaty promotes knowledge sharing and information dissemination through a Toolbox for Sustainable Use of PGRFA. 6 The toolbox is aimed at assisting countries in designing and implementing measures to promote sustainable use. It caters to those seeking information or guidance on policies, strategies and activities that can promote and enhance the sustainable use of PGRFA, particularly at the national and local levels. Intended users may come from a wide range of stakeholder groups, including those working in or associated with public research institutions and gene banks; government agencies; farmers' associations; agro-NGOs; local and Indigenous community enterprises; seed networks; educational establishments; international bodies; networks and services; private plant-breeding companies and the commercial seed and plant production industries, as well as independent plant breeders, farmers and seed producers.To demonstrate the top three solutions to safeguard local crop diversity, below are some of the living examples extracted from the national measures and practices on the implementation of Farmers' Rights under the International Treaty. 7  These examples support the conservation of local crop diversity while enhancing food and nutrition and the livelihoods of farmers and rural communities.In 2017, the Ecuadorian government adopted a Law for Agrobiodiversity, Seeds and Promotion of Sustainable Agriculture. One of the important components of the law is the conservation of native seeds. The main objectives of the law are to protect, revitalise and promote the dynamic conservation of agricultural biodiversity; ensuring production and free and permanent access to quality seeds, including by strengthening scientific research and promoting sustainable agricultural production models. It also respects the diverse identities, knowledge and traditions that guarantee the availability of healthy, diverse, nutritious and culturally appropriate foods to achieve food sovereignty and contribute to \"Good Living\" (\"Sumak Kawsay\"). It guarantees the free use and exchange of peasant seeds, and establishes rules for the production, certification and commercialisation of certified seeds. The law is a normative instrument that would allow the conservation of diverse agricultural biodiversity species of nutritional and economic importance, as well as with industrial potentials.The Heirloom Rice Project, started in 2014, is supported by the Department of Agriculture of the Philippines and the International Rice Research Institute. It aims to enhance the productivity and enrich the legacy of heirloom and traditional rice varieties by empowering communities in rice-based ecosystems in the Philippines. Heirloom rice varieties, grown and handed down for generations by small landholders, have exceptional cooking quality, flavour, aroma, texture, colour and nutritional value. There is high demand for these varieties, and they command higher prices in both domestic and international markets. However, there are also challenges hindering farmers from seizing these opportunities, and some varieties are at risk of extinction. The Heirloom Rice Project takes a market and product development approach, from characterising the existing heirloom or traditional varieties alongside modern climate-resilient varieties to capacity development and enterprise building in farming communities, and identifying opportunities for value addition and market linkages. The project resulted not only in an almost 80% increase in the production of heirloom rice varieties in six years but also, more importantly, in providing opportunities for farmers to increase their income-generating capacity.During the 2013-2014 period, Agenzia Lucana di Sviluppo ed Innovazione in Agricoltura (ALSIA), an agency of the regional government of the Basilicata region in Italy supporting agricultural development and innovation, carried out a survey among farmers of the region to identify rye growers. Four farmers cultivating a total area of two hectares with an old variety called \"Lermana\" or \"Germana\" were identified. In 2018, ALSIA succeeded in registering the local \"Lermana\" rye variety in the Italian National Seed Catalogue in the \"Conservation Varieties\" section. This was followed by activities for value-chain development, which increased the area cultivated with \"Lermana\" rye from 2 hectares to 15 hectares, and also increased the number of farmers cultivating the variety from 4 to 30. This success demonstrates the importance of the \"conservation through use\" approach for the conservation of local PGRFA, and also the role that local authorities can play in supporting local development through on-farm conservation of traditional varieties.CSBs have been established in many countries to safeguard local crop varieties and to secure seed supply for local communities. CSBs are commonly established and managed by farming communities but may also involve collaboration with NGOs or research institutes. The CSB in Ejere, Ethiopia, attracts many visitors each year, from Ethiopia as well as abroad, who wish to learn about their achievements and success. Through conservation and the participatory improvement of local crop diversity and related activities, the CSB has significantly improved seed and food security, nutrition and livelihoods in the whole area. Initiated in 1990 by USC Canada 8 in collaboration with the erstwhile Plant Genetic Resources Centre, Ethiopia, the work was later taken over by the Ethio-Organic Seed Action, with support from the Development Fund of Norway. The initiative promotes sustainable climate-change-adaptation practices among farmer communities through enhanced capacity to sustainably manage, develop and utilise local agrobiodiversity as an adaptive mechanism. To bolster local crop diversity conservation, it supports implementation of practical actions on the ground, such as a reintroduction of traditional crops; participatory varietal selection to adapt promising crops to changing environmental conditions and improve desired properties; quality seed production and distribution; seed fairs and training in advanced organic production methods and income-generating activities. The global resurgence of interest in neglected and underutilized species (NUS) like millets, including viewing them as a panacea for fighting food and nutrition insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic, is welcome. These crops are being considered as alternatives to rice and wheat, especially for the poor in the peripheral areas of the Global South (Muthamilarasan and Prasad, 2020). However, the focus on millets will be counter-productive if social equity, including gender concerns, are not taken into account in their promotion, as happened in the case of major staples, especially during the Green Revolution.Debates on male versus female farming systems, especially in the African continent (Boserup, 1970), have highlighted the social and technical reasons as to why particular crops are considered as men's or women's. Instead of sophisticated machinery, women often used hoes to cultivate; due to lower access to resources and assets they used fewer inputs than men; and, importantly, given their role in ensuring household food security, their cropping patterns often prioritized food and subsistence crops over cash crops. Therefore, highlighted the importance of recognizing women's roles and contributions to farming in national accounts and supporting them through better access to and provision of resources, inputs, services, and markets.Women are often portrayed as risk-averse subsistence farmers, perhaps due to the choices they make or the constraints they confront. Policies, hence, ignore their crops (Devkota et al., 2014), as does research (Donatti et al., 2019). Despite their low social standing, these crops are crucial to household food and nutrition security, and the optimum and sustainable use of the ecosystem including soil management. Using counter-examples from Zambia and Zimbabwe, Jackson (2007) demonstrates how risk behaviours of women in farming are strongly related to the nature of marriage,Nitya Rao, Amit Mitra and Raj Rengalakshmi conjugality, and gendered notions of insurance and dependence. Further, most crop production systems involve both men's and women's labour, making it important to understand relational dimensions, including gendered contributions, in order to ensure gender equality and household food and livelihood security, alongside sustainable resource use (Rao, 2017;Doss et al., 2018).Small millets and other NUS, like roots and tubers or wild fruits have been integral to farming systems, especially in the hills and mountains or their adjoining forests in rural India and elsewhere across the world. These traditionally included multiple crops, meant for both consumption and sale. Crop rotation, mixed/inter-cropping including of non-cultivated edible greens or fodder for livestock, and practices such as bund crops to reduce soil erosion on slopes, growing pulses, or mulching crop residues helped maintain soil fertility. Overall biomass productivity was enhanced by effectively sharing resources (water, sunlight, nutrients), ensuring regulation of pests and attacks from wild animals, and collective action to maintain a uniform sowing time, sharing seed resources, and maintaining informal seed networks and crop watching at harvest time. All these actions, directed at maintaining the ecosystem, also strengthened resilience to climate variability (cf. Voelcker, 1893). This strategy diversified sources of income and food and contributed to ensuring diverse diets and nutrition security. Additionally, the system helped generate and stabilize employment by extending the cropping season throughout the year.Importantly, such diversified farming systems were premised on principles of social equity, including gender equity, involving elements of mutuality, albeit asymmetric, in production, processing, and consumption (Mitra and Rao, 2019). With changes in land tenures and agricultural modernization as well as the emphasis on agricultural production as a source of income, there has been a shift to mono-cropping of high-value crops. Single varieties are subject to higher risks from price fluctuations and climate change. They conform to more individualized forms of production, with little attention given to the collective management and maintenance of the larger ecosystem. Using the example of millets, we draw insights the broader dimensions of inequalities and the mechanisms of their production and reproduction over time. We focus particularly on the evolution of three dimensions of inequalities: access and control over resources including knowledge and skills; labour relations; and decision-making processes in the production, processing, sale, and consumption of millets. These dimensions impact gender and the wider relations between people, collective action, and the natural environment. The reflections in this paper come from the long-term engagement of the authors with communities in the Kolli Hills in Tamil Nadu and Koraput in Odisha. Tribals, historically seen as 'marginalized' and 'backward' communities in the Indian context, predominate in both sites.What do we mean by social equity? There are multiple levels of inequity prevalent in any society, based on many social and economic markers including class, landownership, caste, ethnicity, age, educational status, and gender. While our emphasis here is on gender, we understand gender identity as embedded in other social relations of caste, class and ethnicity. We adopt an intersectional perspective on gender, exploring the experiences of women -not as a category, but, rather, seeing women and men, as heterogenous groups, and how their experiences are shaped by their particular social position (Rao, 2017).Gender analysis unpacks the power relations involved in resource access, especially land, a critical resource for agriculture, but equally reflected in both labour contributions and control over income and decision-making processes. We find variations in women's labour and time burdens depending on the quantity, quality, and the location of land in the ecosystem, and crop choices. Most tribal communities in the study areas manage cultivation with household labour. Hired labour is uncommon, though harvesting, threshing, and cleaning draw, at times, on reciprocal community labour (Mitra and Rao, 2019).Women's knowledge of cultivation, especially in seed management and forming seed exchange networks, was valued and recognized in scenarios where millets were cultivated regularly. Additionally, women were free to choose the crop mixes in particular types of lands, especially the uplands. Plantation crops, like eucalyptus, in which agreements are mostly made by men and lumpsum payments received in cash, are now replacing millets in the uplands (Mitra and Rao, 2019). With market-driven cropping systems, including of millets, gaining ground, women have lost their say in crop choices, but equally in the kind of crops to be sold as well as the quantities. Their knowledge, needs, and preferences, including for domestic consumption and assuring basic nutrition, are no longer given due consideration.The final issue relates to decision-making control or the exercise of agency. Priorities clearly are negotiated within the household (Sen, 1990). Changes in the types of land and the types of cultivation practiced, upland versus lowland, are accompanied by shifts in decision-making control. This is because uplands are often associated with women and their crops, used for subsistence, while lowlands are seen as better-quality lands, for paddy cultivation, which lies in men's domain (Rao, 2008). This normative distinction is linked to gender roles, with men considered 'providers', responsible for the staple crop, and women 'home-makers', responsible for the food accompaniments rich in micronutrients (Carney and Watts, 1990). With the growing need for cash incomes to meet needs beyond food, which is considered to lie in the public (male) domain, there has been a shift towards greater male control decision-making over land use and household expenditures. In the process, women's central role as farmers is forgotten.In India, social position matters in shaping both access to agricultural land, and the nature of cultivation practiced. In Koraput, the experiences of the landed and slightly better-off Bhumiya tribe differ from the near-landless Parojas or the landless Scheduled Caste Doms. While for the Bhumiyas, their crop choices are increasingly based on the exchange value of particular species in the markets, the driving factor for the Parojas is still the use-value of different varieties for a range of purposes like food, liquor, fuel, and social rituals. Among the small millets, finger millets constitute the bulk of the production, as they can be fermented easily, and the straw used for fodder and housing material. Little millets are still offered to the gods. The Doms, dependent entirely on wage labour, are not necessarily aware of the intricate drivers of crop choices. While both the Bhumiyas and Parojas cultivate millets, the former are shifting to mono-cropping finger millet (ragi) in their lowlands due to growing market demand. The Parojas, mostly upland cultivators, continue to grow multiple millet varieties mixed with pulses and vegetables (Mitra and Rao, 2019). This suggests a growing gap between those with access to resources, particularly lowlands, and those without. Yet this gap in landownership does not necessarily translate into dietary diversity in household food consumption. In fact, higher incomes through sales of surplus production are invested in expenditure on education, capital assets, and at times health, rather than better food.A second, related trend in land management is a shift from diversified cropping systems suited to particular land types towards cash crops, be it a shift from millets to tapioca/cassava in the midlands in the Kolli Hills, or to eucalyptus plantations in the uplands of Koraput, both crops that are contracted to industry. In the Kolli Hills, the local Malayali people regularly practiced mixed cropping, crop rotation, and inter-cropping (Vedavalli and Rengalakshmi, 2019). The poramboke lands (uncultivated commons), often interspersed with the rocky steep slopes (kolla kadu), provided fuel, fodder, uncultivated foods, and leaf mulch for millet cultivation in the uplands or paddy in the wetlands. Diverse farming systems also contribute to soil health, maintaining water resources and managing ecosystem services. While the new cash crops do bring in assured cash to the individual household, this is at the cost of environmental health and regeneration. Here too, the negative effects on household nutrition are visible, as is the shift in decision-making and control from women to men.In terms of formal land tenures, the notion of private property was introduced by issuing pattas (recorded land titles) in men's names in the first half of the twentieth century in Koraput, a princely state until 1947. In the Kolli Hills, annexed by the British in 1792, the ryotwari system of revenue collection (where the state collected revenue directly from the cultivators) was introduced in 1797-1798 (Saravanan, 2010). While in Koraput many non-tribal outsiders, clerks, and moneylenders occupied tribal lands (Behuria, 1966) -similar to experiences in the tribal parts of colonial British India (Rao, 2008) -in the Kolli Hills, major land-use changes began with the introduction of commercial tapioca in the early 1970s (Vedavalli and Rengalakshmi, 2019).Despite the changes in the local economy due to the land settlements and commercial crops, the de-facto situation did not change much for a long time on the ground as women continued to cultivate upland plots. While individual ownership was recognized over individual plots, the ownership and management of the ecosystem remained a collective responsibility. A farmer could not make changes or cultivate crops that would adversely impact plots downstream (Mitra and Rao, 2019). In both sites, contrary to the images of life being on the margins of subsistence, there was food self-sufficiency, considerable trade in forest products, and various arts and handicrafts. Surpluses might not have been large, but there was a balance and reciprocity with the natural environment (Mitra and Rao, 2019).Each crop has a different set of timings for different activities from planting to weeding, irrigating, and harvesting. These are gendered, with men normally performing land clearing and ploughing activities, while women are involved in sowing and weeding. In Koraput, where households now cultivate both lowland and upland crops -the former usually for sale in the market and controlled by men -women's labour is diverted to this crop, with little time available for weeding or attending to their traditional varieties, often millets and pulses, grown on the uplands. This results in a decline in the production and consumption of NUS (Rao and Raju, 2019), with negative effects also on soil productivity.An analysis of gendered time use across seasons in Koraput highlighted that it was major crops like paddy that were most time intensive for women, both during planting and harvesting. In fact, during these seasons, women had much less time available for domestic work, or household care, including self-care. Rest and leisure are not just critical for ensuring women's own health, but also the squeezing of time for domestic work directly impacts time spent on cooking and feeding, with potentially negative outcomes for children and, indeed, the entire family. Interestingly, women from the Gadaba community, who continued to practice a more diversified cropping and livelihood system, did not confront the severe time shortfalls or seasonal bodyweight losses during the peak cultivation seasons as did the Bhumiya women (Rao and Raju, 2019).There is renewed interest in diversified farming systems on grounds of food and nutrition concerns. It needs to be highlighted that these systems also valued women's time and labour, alongside ensuring they had control over the crop and its use. In India, more research that accounts for women's labour in the calculation of costs and prices of different agricultural commodities is needed. As women are counted only as 'unpaid household helpers', their labour tends to remain undervalued, with negative effects on their decision-making control, nutrition, and indeed health.A key decision area relates to the choice of crops across different types of landlowland, midlands, and uplands. Each of these land types and crop choices have different contours, water resources, and labour needs. The available market opportunities also shape household decision-making processes. This is evident in the case of Kadaguda (name changed), a village in Koraput district. Women from Paroja households used to cultivate a variety of crops, including small millets, niger, and pulses on the uplands, like all other villages in the area. Almost every household had one or two vegetable plots owned and managed by the women. Changes began about 15 years ago with the introduction of eucalyptus plantations on the uplands, and sweet potatoes on their vegetable plots. The cash income, however, officially accrues to the men, though it involves the labour of both men and women. It is not spent on the purchase of food, so dietary diversity has declined. The villagers now rely on cheap cereals from the Public Distribution System. Kadaguda was famous in the area for the quality of its fermented millet beer. This has now been replaced by cheap country liquor and Indian-made foreign liquor. Women used to drink the nutritious millet beer but now are discouraged from consuming alcohol. Their labour is appropriated, but they receive neither cash nor nutrition in return. Further, not only is crop diversity lost, but so too is women's knowledge in adapting to the microenvironment nullified. This is not to say that diversified farming systems in these communities were gender equitable. Men have always held leadership positions in the community and the household, with women excluded from participation in village or community-level decisions (Rao, 2008). Yet, similar to the case of the New Guinea Highlands, despite their exclusion from the ritual, political sphere, women's participation in production, and the social acknowledgement of that, ensured that they had a voice both in the household and in the community (Strathern, 1988). Their voice, though negotiated, could not be ignored. If this happened, women found everyday forms of protest, including through withdrawing their labour from the men's crops (Carney and Watts, 1990;Rao, 2008).The situation began to change with the introduction of the notion of private property and the issuing of pattas (Land Title) in men's names, seen as the 'heads of households'. As social relations, especially vis-à-vis the state, became more male-centric, this tendency moved down to the community level too. Bride price was gradually replaced by dowry, as women were seen as a burden, to be looked after, rather than as productive members of the household. Women's rights in terms of the choice of marriage partner, the right to divorce and remarry, and control over their bodies more generally started being restricted.While women's freedoms were curtailed, their work burdens were not. They continue to hold the primary responsibility for land management, production, and processing, yet their ability to make decisions on how to do so is constrained. While some women do resist their marginalization, new forces of development, including education, organized religion, and a cash economy based on enhancing the productivity of single crops, have limited their opportunities for resistance. As many women noted across sites, they now have fewer children and aspire to educate their children. This means that they lack household labour to manage a diversified farming system, ultimately giving in to men's pleas to shift to cash crops or contract farming (Rao and Raju, 2019). Despite a weakening in their material basis in this process, they nevertheless hope that their hard work for the household will ensure a degree of jointness in both production and consumption.The above analysis has several implications for gender-sensitive policy. While clearly recognizing women as farmers is key, and ensuring their basic entitlements to assured credit, insurance, remunerative prices, value-addition technologies, and so on, this is not sufficient. Specific constraints confronting the cultivation of NUS and maintaining diversified farming systems need to be acknowledged and addressed.An important emergent need in rural communities is that of enhancing cash earnings. This has led to the devaluation of NUS, largely seen as subsistence crops. To enhance the status and value of NUS, urgent research is needed to improve the productivity of local, resilient varieties, but equally to value addition of the entire plant biomass, including straw and husk and not just the grain. This has been attempted in case of paddy, and some plantation crops such as coconut and banana, but continues to remain neglected for millets. A second strategy to ensure minimum incomes from the cultivation of NUS is through public procurement at assured prices, provision of insurance, including at the warehouse level, and credit provision to women farmers. While minimum support prices are announced, very little of the produce is actually procured at these prices or, indeed, made available for mass consumption. In fact, due to the nutritional quality of millets, the elite, rather than the poor, are now consuming them.From a social equity and gender perspective, it is important to recognize women's contributions, both in terms of their knowledge of seeds, soils, and water management, and their time and labour spent on the cultivation and processing of these crops. Women in the Kolli Hills told the first author that they did not like to cook millets at home, not just because their children did not have a taste for it, but also because it required hand pounding and was too labour and time intensive to prepare. Research and policy need to focus on the development of labour-saving technologies that value and support women's labour in relation to NUS.Finally, promoting the cultivation of millets by adopting a cluster approach would help to enhance ecosystem services along with the collective management of pests that damage the crops. This is in the interest of all farmers, and will ultimately benefit not just women, but the entire community. DOI: 10.4324/9781003044802-39Through this updated list of key players and initiatives focusing on neglected and underutilized species (NUS) around the world, we hope to facilitate possible synergies, collaborations and partnerships among organizations interested in advancing the conservation and sustainable use of these resources. Far from aiming to be exhaustive, our analysis results from consulting various sources of information obtained from published literature, unpublished reports, the internet and LinkedIn profiles. The list includes research institutions (national and international), NGOs, universities, networks, consortia, major NUS conferences, private sector companies and donors who have been supporting/are supporting NUS activities. This chapter also complements Chapter 2, which highlights some of the historical landmark events related to NUS.A number of centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) are engaged in research and development of a crops, landraces, and other plant and tree species that can be considered NUS. Here we only highlight some of the key centres.The recently launched Alliance is bringing together expertise of two centres, Bioversity International (formerly IBPGR, IPGRI) and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), both with an active engagement in the promotion of NUS. With regard to Bioversity, its work on NUS dates back to its very establishment, at a time when the organization developed regional conservation strategies and priorities that included NUS (IBPGR, 1981). Currently Bioversity has just ended the fifth phase of an IFAD-EU supported programme on NUS, which was implemented from 2015 to 2020 in Guatemala, Mali and India (Padulosi et al., 2019), and a GEF-UNEP Project ended in 2019 and implemented in Brazil, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Turkey (Hunter et al., 2019) specifically addressing the nutritional value of a large portfolio of NUS. A three-year research project funded by GIZ on NUS has been also recently launched in Ethiopia and Kenya to help communities develop their own action plans to improve nutrition and diet diversity, harnessing local agrobiodiversity (Nowicki, 2019). CIAT maintains in its germplasm collection numerous species of NUS legumes and forages of tropical origin and involved in their use enhancement.This CGIAR centre is active in promoting NUS, mostly tree species, such as moringa (Moringa oleifera), the safou plum (Dacryodes edulis) and the medicinal African plum (Prunus africana). The centre is a major partner in the African Orphan Crops Consortium (AOCC -see later) Website: http://worldagroforestry.org/ICRISAT as a centre actively involved in the promotion of millets, for which it holds a large ex situ germplasm collection. Currently engaged in a global initiativethe \"Smart Food Initiative\", described in Chapter 28 -which covers several NUS cereals and pulses (Smart Food Executive Council, 2019). Website: www.icrisat.orgCrops for the Future (CFF) Crops for the Future was established in 2009 out of the merger of the Global Facilitation Unit for Underutilized Species (GFU) and the International Centre for Underutilized Crops. In 2011, it launched the CFF Research Centre in Malaysia, which comprises laboratories, offices and a field research centre (Gregory et al., 2019), which is currently being relocated to another country. CFF and CFF-RC became one entity in 2014. Website: http://www.cropsforthefuture.org/ Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG), Kew, UK In 2007, Royal Botanic Gardens-Kew launched Project MGU known as \"The Useful Plants Project\", which aims at enhancing the ex situ conservation of native useful plants for human wellbeing across Africa and Mexico by building the capacity of local communities to successfully conserve and use these species sustainably. Since its establishment, the project has been working with partners in Botswana, Kenya, Mali, Mexico and South Africa to conserve and sustainably use indigenous plants that are important to local communities (Ulian et al., 2016). More information on the project is provided in Chapter 9. Website: https:// www.kew.org/science/our-science/projects/project-mgu-useful-plants-project. Worth mentioning here is also RBG Kew's latest publication by Ulian et al. (2020), released in conjunction with the RBG's State of the World's Plants and Fungi 2020 report (Antonelli et al., 2020), in which authors stress the urgency for the better promotion and recognition of NUS' role in improving the quality, resilience and self-sufficiency of food production.The FAO has been actively involved in the promotion of NUS for some time. As a matter of fact, IPBGR (the first predecessor to Bioversity International) was established in 1974 within the FAO and from there it operated until its separation from the UN system in 1993. Through the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, the FAO is active in promoting, inter alia, the genetic resources of underused species. The FAO's second Global Plan of Action for the Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of PGRFA is another important not legally binding multilateral framework that promotes NUS as well through its activities. The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (International Treaty) considers NUS one of its priorities (Article 6e) and efforts are deployed to promote their sustainable use through its Access and Benefit-Sharing Funding Mechanism (see Chapter 31). The FAO is also active in the use-enhancement of NUS through its efforts to safeguard Indigenous Peoples' food systems. 1 Within the FAO, the Global Forum for Agricultural Research Key Focus Area 1 contains a specific collective action (1C) dedicated to \"Rediscovering Forgotten Foods and Ensuring Benefits to Smallholder Farmers Foods\". Worth mentioning is the initiative implemented by the FAO's Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific on \" Future Smart Foods\", defined as NUS, carried out in the context of its efforts to achieve zero hunger. Its programme on non-wood forest products also covers many NUS in forest areas. With regard to nutrition, it is important to mention the work of its INFOODS programme, which includes information on the nutritional profile of several NUS crops and species. Website: https://www. fao.orgThe GCDT launched, in 2017, the Food Forever Initiative, a global partnership to raise awareness of the importance and urgency of conserving and using agricultural biodiversity to achieve SDG Target 2.5. This initiative is very active in promoting the wider use of crop diversity for improved nutrition, including NUS. Website: https://www.food4ever.orgThe Lexicon, USA This media company (\"The Lexicon for Sustainability\") was founded in 2009 to accelerate the adoption of practices that build more resilient food systems and help combat climate change; it is currently implementing -with the support of several organizations (including Bioversity) -the \"Rediscovered Food Initiative\", which focuses on 25 NUS from around the world. Website: https://www. thelexicon.org/rediscovered/This research centre has many activities dealing with NUS, including the maintenance of a germplasm collection of fruits, vegetables and palms (Ebert et al., 2007). Website: https://www.catie.ac.crThe World Vegetable Centre (AVRDC) This international nonprofit research and development institute, is committed to alleviating poverty and malnutrition in the developing world through the increased production and consumption of nutritious and health-promoting vegetables, many of which fall into the NUS category, such as traditional African leafy vegetables (see Chapter 17). In support of such a mission it maintains the world's largest public vegetable germplasm collection with more than 61,000 accessions from 155 countries, including about 12,000 accessions of indigenous vegetables, many of which are NUS. Website: https://avrdc.org/our-work/ managing-germplasm/This French agricultural research and international cooperation organization works for the sustainable development of tropical and Mediterranean regions. In its key area dedicated to biodiversity, it works with partners to study the conditions in which conserving, restoring, mobilizing and exploiting biodiversity, including NUS, could help alleviate poverty and boost food security and safety. Website: https://www.cirad.fr/enWith 50 years of service at the global level, the German Agency for International Cooperation works in the field of sustainable development and international education; it engages in a variety of areas, including the sustainable use of agrobiodiversity in which it funds numerous projects, including the recently launched \"Improving Dietary Quality and Livelihoods using Farm and Wild Biodiversity through an Integrated Community-Based Approach in Ethiopia and Kenya\", which will target several highly nutritious indigenous NUS (see also Chapter 6). Website: https://www.giz.de/en/html/index.html OXFAM This international NGO is very active in the promotion of NUS to tackle food insecurity, poverty and the marginalization of vulnerable peoples. Particularly relevant is its \"Sowing Diversity=Harvesting Security\" programme, which aims to improve access and use of crop diversity (including NUS) to change the current unsustainable and unequal food production systems. Website: https://www. sdhsprogram.org/ United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Among its efforts, UNESCO has numerous initiatives focusing on the safeguarding of wild and cultivated genetic food species, including NUS. The work of UNESCO for the documentation and valorization of traditional food cultures entrenched with NUS is particularly relevant; see, for example, some of the activities carried out in the context of \"The Man and the Biosphere Programme\". Website: https://en.unesco.org/This USA-based advocacy NGO works to build a global community for safe, healthy, nourished eaters. It spotlights and supports environmentally, socially and economically sustainable ways of alleviating hunger, obesity and poverty and creates networks of people, organizations and content to push for food system change. Many of its initiatives focus on NUS and their sustainable promotion in today's food systems. Website: https://foodtank.com/Slow Food is a global grassroots organization founded in 1989 to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions, counteract the rise of fast food and combat people's dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from and how our food choices affect the world around us. Through its Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity, it works to defend local food traditions, protect food communities, preserve food biodiversity and promote quality artisanal products, with an increasing focus on the global south. Many of its projects focus on A network established in 2001 to promote the conservation and use of the genetic resources of crops of local importance in order to ensure long-term conservation and access to these genetic resources by Pacific Island populations, which in turn will contribute to sustainable development, food security and income generation. Some of the NUS that have been the focus of PAPGREN and CePaCT (below) are highlighted in Chapter 12. Website: https://lrd.spc.int/ the-pacific-plant-genetic-resources-network-papgrenThe Centre for Pacific Crops and Trees (CePaCT) An internationally recognized gene bank established in Fiji to assist Pacific Island countries and territories in conserving the region's unique genetic resources and providing access to the diversity they need. It is a propagation material vault operated by the Pacific Community's (SPC) Land Resources Division. It conserves the region's major crops with over 2,000 accessions, including the world's largest taro collection (over 1,100 accessions). Website: https://www. spc.int/about-us For further information on other organizations working directly or indirectly on NUS such as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the World Conservation Union (IUCN), Botanic Gardens Conservation International, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and other crop-specific collaborations and thematic networks, including relevant civil society and Indigenous Peoples' networks, the reader is directed to Chapter 2 of Maxted et al. (2020).An online platform for sharing research results, development news and policy advice regarding the use and conservation of NUS. It aims to support research and promote the use of NUS to strengthen food security; build more resilient, climate-smart agriculture and empower people through income generation and revitalized local food culture. It also provides access to information and lessons from projects that Bioversity International implements jointly with research and development partners around the globe. In addition, it serves as an information hub in support of human capacity development and synergy building among practitioners engaged in this field. Website: http://www. nuscommunity.orgMajor NUS actors and ongoing efforts 401Funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition (BFN) initiative (formally known as Mainstreaming Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Use for Improved Nutrition and Well-Being) commenced in 2012 and was led by Brazil, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Turkey, coordinated and executed by Bioversity International with implementation support from the UNEP and the FAO of the United Nations. The project prioritized nutrient-rich NUS in participating countries, demonstrating and providing evidence for their nutritional value by supporting significant research on food composition. Using this expanded knowledge-base, the project undertook the challenge of strengthening the enabling environment to better promote and mainstream NUS for improved diets and nutrition, including through the development of policy incentives, markets, public food procurement, school feeding programmes and food-based dietary guidelines. The initiative also undertook considerable awareness raising, working closely with chefs and gastronomy movements, school garden networks and consumer groups. Website: http://www.b4fn.org/countries/ Crops for the Future Its website provides useful online resources on NUS, including relevant publications, portals, online libraries, weblinks and publications. More resources can also be found at the website (still accessible) of the CFF predecessor, GFU, at http://www.underutilized-species.org/MasksSearch/SearchInstitutionDetail_ id_55.html Website: http://www.cropsforthefuture.org/FutureCrop-@-LandingArticle. aspx#Other_Online_ResourcesA journal that is sensitive to NUS and has been covering them in various articles. It has also published a number of special issues on various NUS. Website: http:// www.new-ag.info/en/focus/on.php?a=423A useful site developed and maintained by Green Deane on wild greens and their foraging. It contains an online database with more than 1,000 wild edibles. Website: http://www.eattheweeds.com/An international foundation that networks with a large number of R&D organizations, within and outside tropical Africa to facilitate access to the Similar to PROTA, this international cooperative programme has the main goal of documenting information on plant resources in South East Asia, and making it widely available for use by the education, extension, research and industry sectors, as well as for the end-users, for the betterment of the livelihoods of regional communities. Website: http://proseanet.org/prosea/A collaborative space for the exchange of information on useful plants (including NUS) and their uses. It is not intended to duplicate existing encyclopedias (such as Wikipedia), but to offer additional features such as online resources, thematic literature, species lists, etc. Website: https://uses.plantnet-project.org/ en/Introduction_to_useful_plants Food Plant Solutions, Australia A project of the Rotary Action Group designed to address malnutrition through the use of readily available and local food sources. It creates educational publications that help people understand the connection between plant selection and nutrition, and empowers them to grow a range of highly nutritious plants with differing seasonal requirements and maturities. It focuses on NUS, defined as plants that are growing in and adapted to their environment, which are high in the most beneficial nutrients. Website: https://foodplantsolutions. org/about-us/ This is a free information-exchange platform devoted to the promotion of moringa and other NUS with a strong potential to improve the quality of life in developing countries. It offers consultancy services to help create and implement research, development and communication projects for NGOs and businesses. Moringa News offers through its website its knowledge, know-how and experience, as well as its still-evolving professional network of international partners. Moringa News implements research, development and communication projects (publications and seminars) with or without the partnership of other associations, businesses, farmer groups, research centres and universities. Website: http:// www.moringanews.org/gb/ The Mediterranean Germplasm Database, Italy A rich database used as reference for the germplasm collection of food crops of the Institute of Biosciences and Bioresources of Research Council (CNR), Bari, Italy. The collection contains some 56,000 accessions belonging to more than 100 genera and over 700 species and it devotes particular attention to landraces of major crops and NUS, including plants potentially useful for the extraction of bioactive or technological compounds. Website: https://ibbr.cnr.it/mgd/ National governmental research institutions Kenya: Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) KALRO focuses on a broad range of crops, including many considered to be NUS and supports research to generate and promote crop knowledge, information and technologies that respond to farmer needs and opportunities. KALRO also hosts the Genetic Resources Research Centre, which contains a number of NUS accessions. Most recently, through the earlier mentioned BFN project, KALRO has been active in the promotion and mainstreaming of African leafy vegetables (ALVs) in school feeding programmes and in organizing and linking local growers of ALVs to school markets.One of the largest ex situ genebanks, it maintains genetic resources of many wild and cultivated NUS and it hosts a NUS-dedicated programme (All-India Coordinated Research Network on Potential Crops) focusing on the use-enhancement of 17 of them (see later on in this chapter). Website: http://www.nbpgr.ernet.in/IER is involved in collecting, conserving and characterizing NUS, as well as in carrying out research on agroecological adaptation, propagation, food technology, marketing and promotion. Currently, it is implementing a project on NUS in partnership with Bioversity focusing on fonio and Bambara groundnut (Mbosso et al., 2020). Website: http://www.ier.gouv. Action for Social Advancement (ASA), India One of the leading NGOs in the sector of farm-based livelihoods for the poor and for natural resource management. It is engaged in the field implementation of NRM projects with active community participation, supporting communities in financial inclusion, sustainable agriculture, establishing farmer producer companies, capacity building and institutional development. ASA is involved in the cultivation, promotion and marketing of minor millets, partnering also with Bioversity in the implementation of the IFAD-EU Global Programme on NUS. Website: https://asaindia.orgAn Italian non-profit foundation, located in the Umbria region of Italy and focusing on the conservation, study and promotion of local fruit-tree diversity (some 150 ecotypes rescued so far, belonging to both popular species and NUS, like quince and sorb tree). Germplasm is maintained in a field collection near Perugia. Website: http://www.archeologiaarborea.orgCABI's mission is to improve people's lives worldwide by providing information and applying expertise to solving problems in agriculture and the environment. Several of its knowledge management resources are relevant for NUS, including books, e-books and multimedia tools, the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition Action and the mobile advisory services such as m-Kisan and m-Nutrition. Website: https://www.cabi.org/ Crops of the Future Collaborative (COTF), USA Crops of the Future is a public-private collaborative established by the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research to enhance US and global agriculture by developing the crops needed to feed a growing population. COTF aims to expand knowledge of the genes and traits that give rise to the characteristics crops need to adapt to a changing future. Website: https://foundationfar.org/ cotf-crops-of-the-future-collaborative/ ECHO Community, USA An international NGO engaged in promoting sustainable agricultural practices and providing assistance to local communities through training activities and other interventions. Involved in the promotion of NUS and advocating their greater use for improving the resilience, nutrition and incomes of local communities. Website: https://www.echocommunity.orgThe PROINPA Foundation promotes technical innovation to improve the competitiveness of Andean crops (including NUS), food security and the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources, for the benefit of farmers and Bolivian society as a whole. Website: http://www.proinpa.org/web/A Nepal-based organization that carries out numerous projects focusing on NUS, committed to capitalizing on local resources, innovations, and institutions for sustainable management of natural resources for improving livelihoods of smallholder farmers. Long-standing partner of Bioversity and other international R4D organizations. Website: http://www.libird.orgThe MSSRF was established in 1988 as a not-for-profit trust. MSSRF was envisioned and founded by Professor M.S. Swaminathan with proceeds from the First World Food Prize that he received in 1987. The Foundation aims to accelerate use of modern science and technology for agricultural and rural development to improve the lives and livelihoods of communities. MSSRF follows a pro-poor, pro-women and pro-nature approach and applies appropriate science and technology options to addressing practical problems faced by rural populations in agriculture, food and nutrition. It is involved in numerous projects focusing on NUS (see also Chapter 21). Website: https://www.mssrf.org/This Indian, Odisha-based NGO has worked with 20,000 tribal and farmer households on sustainable, biodiversity-based farming, community resilience and climate justice, land and forest rights, natural resource conservation and management and nutrition for the last two decades. It gives special emphasis to community-led processes for the conservation of agrobiodiversity and has extensively campaigned for mainstreaming millets since 2011. Website: https://www.nirmanodisha.org/ 408 Stefano Padulosi et al.The Italian Farmers' Seeds Network was established in 2007 and, as of 2014, consisted of more than 30 associations conserving and promoting local agrobiodiversity, including NUS. RSR supports farmers, politically and scientifically, in the creation and dissemination of self-and truly sustainable organic farming processes. Its objective is to rebuild sustainable agricultural systems starting from the re-localization of agriculture, territorial re-contextualization of agricultural research and the technical, political and cultural centrality of farmers and rural areas. Actively engaged in the PGR advocacy policy arena. Website: https:// www.semirurali.it/ Native Seeds/SEARCH, USA A seed conservation organization based in Tucson, Arizona, whose mission is to safeguard and promote the arid-adapted crop diversity of the southwest USA in support of sustainable farming and food security. In its gene bank, it maintains about 2,000 varieties of crops adapted to arid landscapes, including many NUS and their wild relatives. The collection represents the cultural heritage and farming knowledge of over 50 Indigenous communities and recent immigrants. Website: https://www.nativeseeds.orgIt is involved in the conservation of plant varieties and breeds. SAVE is also engaged in the documentation and promotion of the genetic diversity of NUS, including fruits and berries in Europe. Website: http://www.save-foundation. net/en/ Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions (SRISTI), India SRISTI is a developmental organization aiming to strengthen the creativity of grassroots communities, including individual innovators. It supports eco-friendly solutions to local problems. It also nurtures ecopreneurs engaged in conserving biodiversity, including NUS, common property resources, cultural diversity and educational innovators. Website: http://www.sristi.org/A company based in Bharatpur, Chitwan, its work is driven by a \"triple bottom line\" approach of pursuing economic, social and environmental objectives.It provides good quality seeds to farmers, for both popular varieties as well NUS, such as broadleaf mustard and amaranth. Website: https://www.anamolbiu.com/ Oroverde, Switzerland It operates, with selected tropical fruits (many of which are NUS), a trading business from the farmer to the industrial partner, encourages production models of ecological cultures, initiates the bio-certification of fruit culture regions and processing plants in Amazonia as well as of products in the consumer countries, implements quality promotion and quality assurance, develops new innovative products with and for customers and is characterized by its proximity to the producers, co-operatives and communities. Website: http://www.oroverde-fruits. com/EN/fruits.htmlThis is an online magazine for Zimbabweans and everyone else with a passion for our natural foods, natural health and our natural environment. It showcases news, stories, opinions, recipes, interviews, trends and profiles of companies to entertain and educate readers on local foods, many of which are NUS. Website: https://naturallyzimbabwean.com/2015/07/01/welcome-to-the-1st-edition/ Tulimara Specialty Foods, Zimbabwe This company focuses on processing and commercializing NUS such as indigenous beans, wild fruits and herbal tea. Website: https://www.organic-bio.com/ en/company/5173-TULIMARA-SPECIALITY-FOODS UNILEVER Its brand Knorr has teamed up with WWF-UK, plus leading scientists, nutritionists and agricultural experts, to compile the Future 50 Foods report, aiming at promoting the wider consumption of highly nutritious NUS from around the world. Website: http://www.knorr.com/uk/future50reportACIAR is Australia's specialist international agricultural R4D agency, whose purpose is to broker and fund research partnerships between Australian scientists and their counterparts in developing countries. It supports numerous efforts to research and promote NUS in the Pacific, Asia and Africa, including the promotion of traditional vegetables in Papua New Guinea, sustainable taro production in Samoa and other Pacific countries and the promotion and consumption of ALVs in schools and communities in Kenya. Website: https://www.aciar.gov.au/The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) funds research in developing countries to promote growth, reduce poverty and drive large-scale positive change. The agency works with numerous development partners and brings innovations to people around the world. Many of its supported projects focus on agrobiodiversity and NUS in particular, and aim at enhancing their sustainable conservation and use. They are based in Canada with five regional offices spread across South America, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Website: https://www.idrc.ca/enIFAD is an international financial institution and food and agriculture hub of the United Nations. It has been championing financial support for the useenhancement of NUS since 2001, funding numerous projects (the most important being the Bioversity-led IFAD-NUS Programme). In 2019, it published jointly with Bioversity an operational framework for the promotion of NUS in its loans programme and through other R4D projects (Padulosi et al., 2019). Website: https://www.ifad.org/en/The EU has supported, over decades, numerous projects focusing on NUS. Particularly worth mentioning is the DESIRA Programme (Development of Smart Innovation through Research in Agriculture) and the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, Horizon 2020. Both cover NUS through numerous international efforts focusing on Europe and other regions of the world. Website: https://europa.eu/european-union/index_enThe GEF is the financial mechanism of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and provides financial support to countries for the implementation of projects to help meet their commitments within the framework of the CBD. Mainstreaming biodiversity conservation and sustainable use into production landscapes is recognized as a key strategy to secure the objectives of the CBD, and as a major objective for projects supported by GEF. Over the last few decades, the GEF has provided much support for projects that actively promote the conservation and sustainable use of NUS (Hunter et al., 2019). For example, many of the projects undertaken by the UNEP as a GEF-implementing agency over the past 20 years, many with the execution support of Bioversity International, have provided a rich body of experience for ensuring the effective conservation and use of NUS. Fourteen projects in 36 countries have been implemented in diverse agricultural landscapes by a wide range of national and international partners, supported by civil society and in collaboration with local communities who continue to maintain and use globally important agricultural biodiversity (Mijatovic et al., 2018). These projects have made a substantial contribution to achieving GEF's mainstreaming strategy as well as contributing to the CBD's Aichi Biodiversity Target 13 (maintenance of genetic diversity of crops, animals and other socio-economically important species).The goal of its Collaborative Crop Research Programme is to improve access to local, sustainable, nutritious food using collaborative research and knowledgesharing with smallholder farmers, research institutions and development organizations, working to ensure a world where all have access to nutritious food that is sustainably produced by local people. Website http://www.ccrp.org/ Accessed 5 March 2020The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Germany GIZ is Germany's development agency that provides services in the field of international development cooperation. It funds and/or supports several projects focusing on NUS to strengthen food and nutrition security, income generation and the empowerment of vulnerable groups. https://www.giz.de/en/html/ about_giz.htmlThe Foundation supports projects dealing with agrobiodiversity, including NUS, and aims at the conservation of plant genetic resources, and the enhanced use of NUS for improved nutrition and income generation (see A4NH-led Project in Nigeria and Vietnam, the African Orphan Crops Consortium and the Crop Trust). Website: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ USAID Actively engaged in fighting hunger at the global level, through its programme \"Feed the Future\", it covers also the use-enhancement of NUS. One of its projects being implemented in Kenya (FOODSCAP) addressed the shortage of improved crop varieties and plant protection options for orphan crops or open-pollinated varieties. Website: https://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do/ agriculture-and-food-security/increasing-food-security-through-feed-future 412 Stefano Padulosi et al.Committed to empowering the disadvantaged, this organization works on providing solutions to some of the world's most complex social, agricultural and environmental challenges, partnering with communities to develop and implement strategies that boost food production and that are resilient in the face of a changing climate, including NUS as well in these interventions. Website: https://www.winrock.org/about/ Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA)It provides financial and technical support to a number of projects focusing on NUS. Website: https://www.ipixel.ch/images/Syngenta_Review_2018.pdfThe consortium was established in 2011 to facilitate the genetic improvement of NUS, through the genomic characterization of 101 traditional African local food crops. Its core founding members are the World Agroforestry (ICRAF), Mars Inc., AUDA-NEPAD, the University of California -Davis (USA) and WWF. Website: http://africanorphancrops.org/Operating under NBPGR (ICAR), New Delhi, this collaborative network has as its main objective the generation of improved technologies in selected crops of minor economic importance for food, fodder and industrial use. It coordinates and conducts research on 17 crops of food, fodder and industrial value through various centres across agro-climatic zones of India. Website: http://www.nbpgr. ernet.in/AICRN_on_PC.aspxISHS is actively engaged in promoting knowledge sharing on horticultural crops, including NUS, through conferences and symposia. It has a Work Group on Underutilized Plant Genetic Resources that meets usually during the Symposia on Underutilized Plant Species (see below). Website: https://www.ishs.org/This was established in 2007 to promote community action for the revival of millet-based farming and food systems, placing control of food, seeds, markets and natural resources in the hands of the poor, especially women. Today, it is a large alliance of over 120 members representing over 50 farmer organizations, scientists, nutritionists, civil society groups, media persons and women. They represent over 15 rainfed states of India. Website: https://milletindia.org/ The Forgotten Foods Network, Malaysia A global initiative launched by CFF that collects and shares information on foods, recipes and traditions in danger of being lost. The objective is to promote the rediscovery of foods that can transform the way people eat and that could better nourish future populations. Website: http://www.forgottenfoodsnetwork.org/The Asia-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions (APAARI) APAARI was established by the FAO in 1990, it is a membership-based, apolitical, multi-stakeholder and inter-governmental regional organization working to bridge gaps between national, regional and global stakeholders to bring about collective change in the agri-food systems of Asia-Pacific. They are involved in numerous initiatives for the promotion of NUS, including dedicated NUS conferences (see Tyagi et al., 2017). Website: https://www.apaari.org/This is a network of more than 250 members of civil society organizations/NGOs working with small-scale farmers in East, Central and Southern Africa engaged in promoting participatory ecological land use and management practices including promoting indigenous foods/NUS. Website: https://www. pelum.net/This is a Southeast Asian initiative focusing on the conservation and useenhancement of plant and animal genetic resources, including NUS (focus on local vegetables). Website: https://field-indonesia.or.id/en/participatoryenhancement-of-diversity-of-genetic-resources/The many initiatives listed above are a genuine indication of the fact that concrete interest in NUS has become a reality at both the national and international levels. While this is an excellent development, more should be done to connect isolated efforts to avoid duplications, allow better use of limited funding and build a robust collaborative network at the regional and international levels to bring impact to scale. In particular, more resources should be directed in support DOI: 10.4324/9781003044802-40In what could be considered a modern food paradox, current human diets have narrowed to a very small number of food items worldwide, even though globalization and people's mobility should increase the availability and integration of foods from almost anywhere into more diversified diets everywhere. Many factors have led us to this condition. Well before the onset of agriculture, the diet of early humans consisted of a wide variety of fruits, grains, leaves, seeds, nuts, tubers, mushrooms, lichens, flowers and even plant saps, collected over vast territories by communities of hunter gatherers. From the roughly 375,000 plant species known in the world today (Christenhusz and Byng, 2018), it is estimated that between 6,000 and 7,000 are edible for humans (FAO, 2019). Many of them may have been part of the diets of human population around the world. Sedentarization, made possible by the invention of agriculture around 10,000 years ago, brought more predictable and available food sources and accelerated human population growth. But it also had some unintended consequences. It triggered a gradual process of erosion of the number of plant species and food sources that provide the necessary nutrients for human survival. From the vast number of viable food sources, only around 200 plant species were subsequently cultivated, and the continued race for higher yields and selected plant characteristics further reduced that number to about 30 major crops that constitute today the large majority of our plant-based foods. Three of them -maize, rice and wheat -alone account for around 60% of our global energy intake (Seck et al., 2012).Modern agriculture has undeniably improved food available but it has not yet succeeded in providing sufficient calories and adequate nutrients to everyone on the planet. Despite significant progress over recent decades, the number of undernourished people is growing again, rising from 784 million in 2015 to 820A well-nourished world and NUS on the table 417 million in 2018 (FAO et al., 2019). Insufficient food consumption is only part of the challenge; today, more than two billion people, many of them children, do not consume sufficient micronutrients. There is also a realization that the success in increasing agricultural productivity has come at a cost: the progressive reduction in nutrient content for most cultivated species, particularly the major staple foods (Willett et al., 2019). This constant impoverishment of food diversity is masked by the industrialization of food processing, which transforms a small number of plants and ingredients into a multitude of products and presentations, giving the false impression of a great abundance and diversity of food sources. Processed foods are typically high in energy and poor in nutrients. As our consumption of industrialized foods increases, the impact becomes apparent and difficult to ignore. More than two billion people in both developed and developing countries have become overweight or obese. This is now recognized as one of the major challenges to global health that societies have to address (WHO, 2018).If we want to achieve the UN's Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, business as usual is not an option, and our food systems need a drastic and rapid transformation. Several changes are necessary, and part of the solution is at handbringing back more diversity to our diet and reintroducing or revalorizing some of the numerous crops that used be part of our ancestral diets (Mayes et al., 2012). We must use our knowledge on best agronomic practices to increase the production of these crops without losing their nutrient value, and must take advantage of existing and novel food technologies to add value and create new products based on those crop species. In the next sections, we would like to illustrate how this can be achieved.A growing body of scientific evidence (Ebert, 2014;Nyadanu and Lowor, 2015) shows that traditional but undervalued and underutilized food sources, frequently have a higher nutrient content and are particularly rich in minerals, vitamins and dietary fibre, which are the missing component in many \"modern aliments\". Recognizing the potential of traditional food, the Agriculture and Food Security Program 1 of the International Development Research Centre in Canada 2 launched, a decade ago, an ambitious research initiative to generate scientific evidence on the potential of underutilized crops for our food systems. The effort targeted communities that still consumed undervalued traditional foods and looked at ways to reintroduce or increase the production and consumption of plant species with high nutrient content from various regions of the world. Two large programs supported this work: the Canadian International Food Security Research Fund, 3 jointly funded by Global Affairs Canada, and the Cultivating Africa's Future program, 4 a joint initiative with the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research. Results from these programs clearly showed the potential for underutilized crops and the willingness of local populations to produce and consume them, but also demonstrated that they could represent an attractive and viable business model for new agri-entrepreneurs, particularly for the youth and women. Scientific methods documented the potential of indigenous species to contribute to daily diets (as components of new foods or through new presentations of traditional foods), and as new sources of compounds for the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industry.The following examples illustrate this potential.Ancient crops, new terrains: In the narrow terraces of Nepal, the availability of arable land and crops species that can thrive on terraces present major constraints. The \"Nepal Terrace Farming and Sustainable Agriculture Kits\" 5 project tested an innovative public -private model to scale up low-cost and regionally relevant sustainable agriculture kits to address these limitations, reduce drudgery for farmers -the vast majority of whom are women -and increase farmers' income and food security. Implemented as a collaboration between LI-BIRD 6 in Nepal and the University of Guelph in Canada, researchers developed a set of options to make use of the terrace's vertical walls. The toolkit included species of local value such as climbing beans, and also introduced others such as chayote (Sechium edule -originally from Central America), and yams (Dioscorea spp. from Southeast Asia). Yams were planted in sacks at the base of the walls, which simplified the harvesting of the tubers and provided an important source of income for farmers, while chayote found a niche in local cuisines and as food for small livestock and poultry.The toolkits included inputs and seeds for growing high-protein legumes and micronutrient-rich vegetables, as well as small technologies such as manual corn shellers and kneepads from which farmers could select based on their preferences, needs and opportunities. The project also took advantage of established local retailers to sell products that farmers identified as needed and for which they were willing to pay. Overall, the project reached more than 60,000 smallholderfarming households in nine districts in Central Nepal, impacting more than 173,000 people. Adoption of the toolkit earned families up to US$200 a season and reduced female drudgery (Chapagain and Raizada, 2017) while at the same time allowing households to significantly increase their dietary diversity. The project proved that when technologies are affordable enough and are properly explained using tools such as picture books (Raizada and Smith, 2019) designed for illiterate farmers, they can be quickly and widely adopted.Greens to the plate: In Nigeria and Benin, the project \"Microveg\", 7 run by a consortium of universities from Benin, Nigeria and Canada, reintroduced and promoted several species of indigenous vegetables particularly rich in micronutrients, iron and zinc that were locally produced and consumed but not on a commercial scale. The project identified the best-yielding varieties with high micronutrient content, established seed multiplication systems by farmer cooperatives and trained farmers on the best agronomic practices. Four species of indigenous vegetables were particularly appreciated and were adopted by farmers in the two countries: fluted pumpkin (Telfairia occidentalis), African eggplant A well-nourished world and NUS on the table 419 (Solanum macrocarpon), amaranth (Amaranthus cruentus) and African basil (Ocimum gratissimum).The project trained more than 250,000 farmers who increased, by ten-fold, the area cultivated with indigenous vegetables (from 8,090 to 82,000 ha in three years) (Kanyinsola et al., 2018). It increased the demand for indigenous vegetables, developed new products based on these crops such as syrups and bottled beverages, breads and cookies and expanded markets through promotional campaigns. Over 20,000 women were involved in the marketing of indigenous vegetable products. New business, mostly operated by young entrepreneurs from the community were initiated and have continued operating successfully. Novel research identified a variety of polyphenol compounds extracted from these indigenous vegetables, with potential applications in the nutraceutical industry (Moussa et al., 2019), and suggest that they can reduce blood pressure and control diabetes (Olarewaju et al., 2018). The potential of these products is immense and will hopefully spearhead research on other underutilized crops in Africa and beyond (Odunlade et al., 2019). The project organized the first International Conference on indigenous vegetables in Cotonou, Benin in 2017, which led to the publication of a special issue on African vegetables in the Acta Horticulturae Journal in 2019.Pulses once again on the menu: Legume seeds (or pulses) are particularly rich in proteins, iron, zinc and micronutrients and have been an important part of traditional diets. They are not only good for human nutrition and health, but also play a role in improving soil quality, thanks to their symbiotic association with soil microorganisms (Rhizobia) that fix nitrogen from the atmosphere, making it available to plants. Legumes have dispersed from their sites of origin to reach almost every place where agriculture is practiced. Common beans from Mesoamerica are now cultivated globally, and lentils, faba beans, and chickpeas from the Middle East have become staple foods in South Asia and are widely consumed worldwide, particularly in developing countries. Despite this apparent success, the true potential of pulses for global food systems is far from being realized.In Ethiopia, despite recent progress on food security, malnutrition remains a challenge. The levels of stunting ranks among the highest in the world and anaemia affects nearly 37% of children under the age of five. The project \"Pulse Innovations: Food and Nutrition Security in Southern Ethiopia\" 8 tested and adapted technologies to allow farmers to increase their incomes by planting pulses on land that was often left idle after the cereal harvest. The establishment of women's micro-franchises increased employment for women and their participation in production and marketing, improved household nutrition, and popularized pulse products. Consumers in 15 districts were introduced to ready-to-eat, pulse-rich products and more than 23,000 female-led farm households in 52 villages benefited from recipe demonstrations, complementary food preparation training, improved children feeding practices, and nutrition education (Kabata et al., 2017) and demonstrated that the dietary diversity of children and lactating mothers improved with pulse consumption. A unique partnership between male and female farmers, processors, consumers, universities, and the government transformed subsistence agriculture into a dynamic and market-oriented enterprise. There has been especial interest in expanding the use of the Hawassa Dume seed variety, which produced higher yields, is preferred by consumers, and has proven to be highly resilient to heavy rainfalls and flooding.Another project on \"Scaling Legume Technologies in Tanzania\" 9 aimed to introduce soybeans and locally desirable common bean varieties in Tanzania where demand is growing and legumes are fetching good market value. Over a period of two years, an estimated 656,000 farming family members were provided consistent information on improved legume technologies through multimedia campaigns. Six radio series were created and broadcasted nationally, and interactive radio campaigns were launched to target large audiences. Community radio listening groups, with space for listeners to question and discuss information, proved particularly effective at reaching women and youth. A dedicated series of a comic book called Shujaaz, developed and distributed nationwide to reach young people in bean-farming families in target areas, reached more than 23% of Tanzanian youth. These multimedia campaigns, complemented by farmer-to-farmer exchanges and demonstration schools, resulted in an estimated 128,589 farming family members adopting at least one of the improved legume technology practices such as improved seeds, row spacing, fertilizing, weeding, and storage (Kansiime et al., 2018). The adoption of soya bean, introduced by the project, led to the rapid increase of production to feed small livestock and poultry and is being progressively integrated into local diets. The international market is booming, and the government is facilitating an increase in national production for export. Soybean is a good example of legumes that can and should play a role in local food systems. The project successfully influenced key policies in Tanzania to speed-up seed varieties registration, cut input costs, and expand communitybased seed systems for the adoption of new varieties. The Agricultural Seed Agency (ASA) significantly altered its business model by stocking seeds for both soybean and common bean varieties, and private-sector seed producers are following suit. ASA developed a network that trained 75 agro-dealers on input business management.The declaration of 2016 as the \"international year of pulses\" by the FAO brought to the forefront the potential of underutilized species, contributed to their dissemination, and opened new opportunities for farmers in many regions. The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and its partners worked with a high-level group of public-and private-sector experts to develop an internationally coordinated pulse crop productivity and sustainability research strategy for the following ten years. 10Finger millets, from obscurity to supermarkets: Finger millet was domesticated more than 5,000 years ago in the highlands of Ethiopia. It spread within Africa and rapidly reached northern India, where it has been part of traditional dishes for centuries. The manual processing of small millets is tedious and labour intensive, which contributed to a rapid decline in their consumption. Lower yields compared to other cereals, weak supply chains, poor consumer awareness, inadequate or inefficient processing facilities, and policy neglect led to the quasi disappearance of finger millet from markets. Implemented by the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, the DHEA Foundation in India, and the University of Toronto, the project \"Scaling up small millet production and consumption in India\", 11 developed and reintroduced improved higher-yield varieties into a large number of farms in northern India. It also developed more efficient and user-friendly equipment for de-hulling and processing small millets, which increased production and reduced women's drudgery. Increasing equipment manufacturers' capacity to produce and sell more de-hulling machines supported the development of decentralized small millet processing infrastructures in eastern and central India. Over the course of the project, 72,490 people, mostly women, farmers, and schoolchildren, were trained on the health benefits of small millets (Adekunle et al., 2018) and more than 200,000 people learned about the values of small millets through programs aired on community radio and local TV, and through text and audio messages.A wide range of small millet food products such as cookies, flour, chips and noodles were developed collaboratively with women farmers; the project worked with 66 food enterprises, 152 pushcart millet-porridge vendors, four Farmer Producer Organizations, and 15 non-governmental organizations to expand the market for ready-to-eat small millet products. Private-sector involvement was instrumental in the marketing of these new products and close coordination with local governments facilitated seed production and distribution systems, making it possible for finger millets to be sold, once again, in most markets and supermarkets in northern India. Small millets are being introduced through public food programs in India and there are opportunities to scale up the experience in other countries in South Asia and Africa, where the demand for drought-resistant varieties is growing and where millet is slowly being reintroduced into local diets and avant-garde cuisines in urban centres.A new time for traditional cereals: Sorghum is a staple food consumed by more than 60 million people in Ethiopia. The crop is also a major source of animal feed, fuel, and building material. However, sorghum production is risky and the increased frequency and severity of droughts compound the challenges faced by Ethiopian farmers, exposing them to food shortages and livestock losses due to a lack of feed. Currently, 70% of sorghum grain is consumed domestically, with women providing most of the labour and trading for the crop. The project \"Climate-smart interventions for smallholder farmers in Ethiopia\" 12 is trying to revalorize the production and consumption of sorghum through the development and promotion of improved and drought-tolerant sorghum varieties and post-harvest management technologies, and the development of new value chains. The project will improve productivity and climate resilience for 240,000 smallholder sorghum farmers, reduce post-harvest loss through farm-scale grain storage options, and increase economic opportunities for women through value-added products, small-scale threshers, and improved storage facilities. It is implemented by the Ethiopian Agricultural Research Institute.An ancestral taste from the Andes going global: Even though quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) is increasingly marketed in Western countries as a \"superfood\", it has been, for millennia, the main staple food of the Indigenous Peoples of the highland Andes in Bolivia and Peru. It is a robust plant that can grow at high elevations, tolerate extreme temperature fluctuations, and adapt to dry zones and even saline soils. Appetite for this gluten-free cereal with a high nutritional value is growing rapidly among the affluent consumers in Europe, North America, and Asia. Limited research investments to improve varieties and agronomic practices has led to the tripling of yields and quinoa has made rapid strides to become a commercially significant crop in a relatively short time. Quinoa production increased globally ten-fold in one decade and the cereal is now grown in more than 70 countries. Given its remarkable qualities, it constitutes a viable alternative for many regions of the world (Bastidas et al., 2016), especially where water is in short supply and where soils are depleted. The project \"Scaling up Quinoa Value Chain to Improve Food and Nutritional Security in rural Morocco\", implemented by the International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture, brought experts in quinoa production from the Andes to select and introduce best varieties and agronomic practices in Morocco. Although the project is still ongoing, it has generated strong interest from farmer cooperatives and local governments, which are promoting its integration into local diets and developing the value chains necessary to supply a growing external market.Following efforts from the Government of Bolivia, supported by IDRC, 2013 was declared by the UN as the \"International Year of Quinoa\". That helped to bring together different sectors and stakeholders, farmers, governments, scientists, and the private sector and contributed to advancing the crop internationally. The example of quinoa illustrates how underutilized species can evolve from being forgotten and underutilized to becoming important staple crops beyond their homelands.There is a renewed interest worldwide in expanding and diversifying food sources. The body of scientific literature on underutilized and undervalued food crop species is slowly growing and receiving international attention, as illustrated by publications on quinoa, which have multiplied ten-fold in the last five years (Inglese et al., 2017;FAO, 2018). Attention to underutilized species is growing in many countries. Quinoa and lentils have been prioritized in the National Food Security Plans of the Government of Bhutan, and taro and moringa by several countries in South and Southeast Asia (Li and Siddique, 2018).The hype about \"superfoods\" and a new generation of food-conscious consumers represent an opportunity to bring back some of the great diversity of colours, shapes, and flavours that humanity once consumed. To move forward, we urgently need to preserve germplasms and select high-yield and high-nutrientcontent varieties that can adapt to diverse conditions and locations. We must also change the common misperception that these species are \"poor people's crops\". Local knowledge is rapidly eroding and urgent efforts are required to recover and document traditional knowledge and practices regarding underutilized species. Production and post-harvest practices need to be modernized, value chains for added value products developed, and resources made available to enhance the capacity of researchers, policymakers, extension agents, farmers and farming cooperatives, and especially the private sector to realize the full potential of underutilized crops.The resilience of food systems and their capacity to provide sufficient healthy food to a growing population require the inclusion of a greater diversity of crops, many of which are currently undervalued. Many cultures around the world have successfully preserved the culinary knowledge, cultural value, and cultivation and processing techniques for underutilized crops over time; it is now time for science to support their efforts and contribute to the improvement of desired traits and the enhancement of productivity and income-generation opportunities. Underutilized crop species have allowed ancient civilizations to flourish and can, once again, regularly feature in our diets and lead to the development of new food preparations and even new medicines. The IDRC is committed to continuing its efforts to rescue and revitalize underutilized crops and alternative food practices as a key contribution to the development of equitable and resilient food systems. ","tokenCount":"108025"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"78a98893679db316df462d4fd3d263fa","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://dataverse.harvard.edu/api/access/datafile/:persistentId/?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/1K4GCI/EZF6DL","id":"-940439786"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"4b748d4a-5b8a-4625-9047-87ba15fab4ba","pagecount":"11","content":"One of the most important questions to be answered in plant breeding relates to the parents to be used in the generation of new germplasm. This is particularly true for cassava, given the time required to evaluate segregating progenies and the large genetic variation generated with each cross due to the highly heterozygous nature of the crop. In the past, cassava breeding at CIAT focused on properly identifying the best clones, from large, segregating progenies. However, the process was not designed to take advantage of all the potential information that could be generated. Significant steps have recently been taken at CIAT to modify the evaluation scheme, particularly during the first clonal evaluation stage, with the following objectives: a) obtain information that allows an approximation to the general combining ability of progenitors; b) shorten the length of the evaluation process; c) improve the probabilities of identifying superior germplasm; and d) detect new potential traits that can be incorporated into the selection criteria. The modifications have been implemented and improved during the past three years. The new breeding scheme has already produced important benefits. Parents are currently selected based on the quality of progenies they produce. Leaf retention at five month of age and in the absence of biotic or abiotic stresses, has proven to have a large effect on root yield. The evaluation cycle has been shortened by 16 months, and it is expected that the new scheme is more efficient in identifying superior germplasm.Cassava germplasm development at CIAT is centered on the development of improved gene pools for specific edapho-climatic zones with importance for cassava production. The most relevant ecosystems are the semi-arid and sub-humid tropics, for which the majority of efforts are devoted. The main selection activity is conducted in sites selected to represent the conditions of the target ecosystem. For each zone, a recurrent selection program with a progressive set of stages is followed. As the stages progress, more emphasis is given to traits of lower heritability, because more planting material for each genotype is available, and the evaluation can be conducted in bigger plots with replications. Certain selection criteria are of general importance across ecosystems (i.e. yield potential, dry matter content), while others are specific for each ecosystem (i.e. specific pests and/or diseases).The traditional evaluation and selection procedure has a few important drawbacks: a) breeding cycles were long; b) no data was taken at the early stages to allow estimates of general combining ability effects of the progenitors employed; and c) it took several steps in the selection process until replicated evaluations could be performed. Cassava has unique opportunities to increase its relevance in tropical agriculture and agro-industries. To take advantage of these opportunities a more dynamic and efficient breeding scheme is required to meet the new demands on this crop. This article describes the modifications introduced into the cassava breeding scheme at CIAT and some of the initial observations made upon their implementation.Traditionally in CIAT headquartes at Palmira, the progenies generated from the crossing blocks (F1) were planted in screenhouses and the seedlings transplanted to the field after two months (Figure 1). At six months after planting, two stakes were harvested from each plant and given a consecutive number according to the plant. One of the stakes was planted at CIAT-Palmira, the other was planted at the main selection site (F1C1).Selection was conducted at harvest on individual plants at the main selection site. Planting material taken from the selected genotypes, but using the replicated source at CIAT-Palmira, was used subsequently to establish a non-replicated, 6-plant plot, at the main selection site (Clonal Evaluation). Evaluation was done using three central plants. The remaining three plants were used as source of planting material which now started to originate at the selection site. The following stage (Preliminary Yield Trial) was planted in non-replicated 20-plant plots. Evaluation was done on the central six plants, and the remaining 14 outside plants were left as source of stakes. Selected genotypes were then passed to the Advanced Yield Trials at one or two sites, with three replications of 25-plant plots. Genotypes selected over 2 consecutive years at the Advanced Yield Trial level were considered as \"elite genotypes\" and incorporated in the germplasm collection and the crossing blocks. Since each year a new breeding cycle was initiated, all the stages were simultaneously being conducted in each site (Figure 1). Some modifications to the traditional scheme have now been introduced. A major constraint of the traditional evaluation methodology was that the first three stages of selection (F1C1, Clonal Evaluation, and Preliminary Yield Trial) were based on nonreplicated plots. In addition, large amounts of material was maintained at headquarters just to have duplicates of the very few materials that would eventually reach the status of \"elite genotype\" in each selection cycle. The changes introduced will speed up the selection process, allow for the evaluation of larger number of progenies and, hopefully, will increase the efficiency of the selection process. The main changes are as follows:1) The F1 plants are grown for ten months rather than six. At that age they produce up to 8-10 stakes. The stakes are then sent to the proper evaluation site for the Clonal Evaluation. This implies that the F1C1 stage is eliminated and that no duplicate of each genotype is maintained at CIAT headquarters. 2) The Clonal Evaluations are based on up to eight plants, rather than six as before. An important modification for the sub-humid environment is that most measurements in the Clonal Evaluation are carried out in two stages: at the normal harvest time only two plants are harvested to measure % of dry matter in the roots. This trait varies considerably with the time of harvest and age of the plant. Therefore, to estimate it correctly, the plants need to be harvested at the proper time. The remaining six plants of each plot are harvested just prior to normal planting time (one week before) and yield potential is measured again. A few other traits are also measured or estimated (using visual scores): plant architecture, foliar health (for insects and diseases separately), above-ground biomass (for measuring harvest index), and root aspect. A  selection index was used to make an efficient and fast selection of the approximately 1000-2000 genotypes evaluated at this stage, for each ecosystem.3) The changes described above allows taking stakes from no less than six plants (except for those cases where stakes did not germinate or plants died), rather than three, as in the past. For eco-regions different from the sub-humid environment, only one harvesting is carried out using all the available plants (seven).The six plants harvested at the second harvest time, produced no less than 30 cuttings, which were used for the first replicated trial based on three replications and two row plots with ten plants per plot. It is recognized that this evaluation results in some competition effect among neighboring plots. However, it is hoped that the number of replications will neutralize most of these effects. Also, row spacing between plots was increased and the plant to plant distance within the plot reduced. This maintained the density unchanged, while favoring competition among plants from the same genotype. 4) A final important modification to the evaluation process is that data was taken and analyzed for all the progenies evaluated. In the past, data was taken only for those families that went beyond the Clonal Evaluation stage. Therefore it was difficult to estimate combining ability effects of parental materials, because most of the crosses did not produce balanced data (many progenies had been discarded in the field before any data was taken). The changes introduced allows us to base the selection of the parental materials on its breeding value (related to general combining ability) rather that its performance per se, or empirical appreciation of their potential as progenitor.A selection index (SI) is just a way to simplify the selection process. Once all data from an evaluation is taken and downloaded into a computer file, the SI summarizes all the relevant information in a single number. The data set can then be ranked from the highest SI to the lowest. In this way, the best germplasm concentrate in the top of the file. Having the best materials grouped together facilitates the analysis of each individual genotype for a final selection. It should be emphasized that SI does not provide any new information and does not improve the quality of the data either. So, cassava breeding remains hard work and a demanding activity in the field. What the SI does is to facilitate the analysis of the data obtained.The SI integrates, in a single number, the information from several variables that the breeder renders as important. Generally, three to five variables are included. Too many variables in the SI should be avoided, because the progress for each individual trait decreases when the simultaneous improvement of numerous traits is expected. So, the first element that defines the SI is the variables to be included:where X 1. refers to the first variable in the SI (for example fresh root yield), X 2. refers to the second variable (for example dry matter content), and so on. For each case, there is a dot as a reminder that each genotype has its own SI value.The procedure to define a SI requires some weights for each variable to be included (Baker, 1986). Some variables are more important than others: the higher the relevance of the variable, the higher the weight it will have in the index. The relative importance of each variable depends on each breeder's criteria. The SI used at CIAT in Colombia does not necessarily have to be used by other cassava breeders. A particular SI can be defined for each region, particular end use, or breeder's preferences and/or priorities.A second element in the SI is the relative weight that each variable will have in the SI. There are numerous criteria to define weights (Baker, 1986). In some cases an economic value for each trait is used. In other cases the heritability of the trait contributes to the definition of its weight in the SI. Furthermore, genetic correlations among variables can also be considered. In the example below, a weight based on the breeder's judgement is used. It is assume that the simplicity of the proposed method, although not scientifically precise or sophisticated, is very appealing. The formula for the SI, therefore, evolves to be as follows:Where W 1 , W 2 , W 3 , … W n are the respective weights for each variable.The SI, as developed, is already complete. There is, however, an additional point to explain before applying the procedure. In the last equation, it should be clear, SI is a linear function of the n variables included in the formula. One problem that this SI presents is the issue of units. Different variables are measured in different units: fresh root yield will be around 30 t/ha, number of commercial roots may be around 6 per plant, and harvest index is around 0.60. The fact that each variable is measured in different units, with large differences in their magnitude creates a problem because those variables measured in higher magnitude would have a higher weight in the definition of the SI. This problem can be solved if the variables are standardized, using the classical statistical formula (Steel and Torrie, 1960):where X i. ' is the standardized value, X i. is the original value, μ is the mean of the population, and St. Dev. is the standard deviation for the variable analyzed. The standardization procedure changes the units of a given variable (t/ha, %, etc.) into units of standard deviation. After the variables are standarized they should have a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one.After the SIs are calculated, the results are analyzed and eventually some adjustment on the weights are made. In other words, the results of a given SI may give too much emphasis to dry matter content and not enough to plant type, for example. So the analysis is a dynamic process involving a few iterations until the desirable results are obtained. The selection index used at CIAT for the sub-humid environment is: SI = ( FRY x 10) + ( DMC x 8) -(PTS x 5) + ( HI x 5)where FRY means Fresh Root Yield, DMC is Dry Matter Content, PTS stands for Plant Type Score, and HI represents Harvest Index. The weights used for each variable were 10, 8, 5, and 5, respectively. These weights are the result of a subjective process by the breeder. As said above, each breeding program will have its own weights, addressing its own priorities.It should be clarified why in the formula, the value for PTS (plant type score) is negative. The reason is simple: the best plant type is rated 1, and the worst is rated as 5. In this case, the index should \"reduce the expression\" of the variable, because the best material are those with a low score. By utilizing the negative sign the formula will automatically give preference to those materials having negative standardized values, which are those with a low score.Once the SI value for each genotype has been obtained the entire data set can be ordered by the SI variable. Most of the superior clones will be on top (or the bottom, depending on how the ranking is made) of the file. It is then highly advisable for the breeder to carefully analyze the results, because it is frequent to still find a few undesirable clones among the ones favored by the index.In the North Coast of Colombia, the Clonal Evaluation Trial was handled in a particular fashion. Because of the bimodal distribution of rainfall, with the rainy season starting towards the end of April to early May, cassava is traditionally harvested in February or March. Plants harvested at this time cannot be used as seed source because the stakes deteriorate by the time the rains arrive in May. Consequently, the Clonal Evaluation Trial used to be evaluated during the dry season, using three plants. The remaining three plants were left as seed source, being cut in May. When the rains arrive, the cassava plant reinitiates its growth, thus extracting energy that had been accumulated in the roots. As a consequence, dry matter content drops to the extent that starch and chip-drying industries usually either reject the roots or pay low prices for them.The Clonal Evaluation Trial was modified by increasing the number of plants representing each clone to eight. Of these eight plants, two were harvested in March, to measure dry matter content during the optimal time for taking this measure. The remaining six plants stayed in the field until the rains arrived and were finally harvested in mid-May, when root yield and dry matter content were measured again. Despite the duplication of work, it was hoped that this procedure would allow for the identification of clones with capacity to maintain high dry matter content even after the arrival of the rainy season. It should be pointed out that an important modification introduced in the new selection system is that the F1C1 stage has been eliminated and the first stage of selection is now the Clonal Evaluation Trial. In addition to the modifications introduced into these trials mentioned above, there is another major change: since no selection has been made previously, the new Clonal Evaluations are much richer regarding genetic variability.In this paper the results of the Clonal Evaluations conducted in the Sub-humid environment of Colombia's north coast and harvested in 2001 and 2002 are presented to illustrate the advantages of the new evaluation scheme.Table 1 presents the results from the Clonal Evaluation Trial harvested early in 2002. The trial included the evaluation of 1967 clones from a total of about 52 full-sib families. The codes for identifying full-sib families changed this year from CM to GM, because the CM code already reached the number 10,000. The information provided in this table is very valuable because it offers balanced data about the general performance of each family. This data, in turn, is useful for identifying parents that tend to produce superior performing progenies (≈ breeding value).For instance, family CM9923 was composed of 34 clones of which 24 were selected (70.6%). The average of selected clones across the evaluation was 16%. It is obvious therefore that this family showed an outstanding performance. In contrast, full-sib family GM281 had 39 clones of which none were selected. Furthermore, it is clear that family GM281 has very low dry matter content (23.0%) and low root yield (14.0 t/ha). On the other hand CM9923 had much higher root yield (32.2 t/ha) and dry matter content (31.2%), as well as excellent plant type (2.03).Once the information of each family is consolidated, some conclusions can be drawn from their respective progenitors. Moreover, because a given clone participates as progenitor in more than one family, very reliable information about the progeny of each progenitor can be produced to feed back into the breeding process (Table 2). Those clones with superior progenies are maintained and those with mediocre ones are eliminated.The new procedure for the Clonal Evaluation permits measuring dry matter content in each clone on two occasions: during the dry season (March) and after the rains arrive (May). Figure 2 illustrates the relationship between dry matter content in March and that in May for the 1,350 genotypes harvested during 2001.From the information provided in Figure 2, it can be concluded that a relationship exists between the two sets of dry matter contents, corroborated by a correlation coefficient of 0.689. However, observations made in March do not allow to predict with precision those materials that will present high dry matter content in May. For example, clone \"A\" in Figure 2 had high dry matter content in March (> 40%), but very low content in May (< 25%). In contrast, clone \"B\" showed a mediocre performance in March (< 35%), but it was outstanding (about 37.5%) after the rains arrived in May. Based on these data, 20 clones were selected in 2001 not only for their high dry matter content, but also because their DM content decreased little upon the arrival of the rains. These 20 clones were planted again and harvested in May 2002. Dry matter content values in 2001 and 2002 had a good correlation (0.65), confirming that this trait has relatively high heritability, and that the selection scheme as the one implemented is likely to be successful. Another significant result obtained from the Clonal Evaluation harvested in 2001 was the observation that some genotypes had the capacity to retain leaves for longer periods during plant growth observed by the end of October. At that time, the crop was 5½ months old and a differential capacity to retain leaves was already obvious. Although in most materials (1,225 or 90.7%), leaf abscission had already occurred in the lower 2/3 of the plant, the remaining 125 clones (or 9.3%) had still retained their leaves (Figure 3). Leaf retention capacity was recorded at that time.Table 3 presents the averages of different traits for the 1,225 clones that did not retain their leaves and for the 125 that did. The notable difference observed between the performances of the two groups suggest that the capacity to retain leaves at five months of age (at a time when no marked water stress has yet occurred in the region) has, indeed, a profound effect on overall performance measured at ten months of age. The materials that retained leaves yielded, on average, 26% more fresh roots (24.96 versus 19.75 t/ha), which represents an addition of about 2 t/ha of dry matter. Furthermore, leaf retention was also observed to associate with higher dry matter content (between 1% and 2% more, depending on when it was measured) and with a higher harvest index (by about 10%). These results are significant in that a trait has been identified that is most likely to be of high heritability (i.e., easy to select and fix in populations adapted to sub-humid conditions) and has a positive effect on the agronomic performance of cassava in this region.    The positive effects of leaf retention on the general performance of cassava was predicted earlier by Cock and co-workers (1979). These results confirmed the predictions based on theoretical models and have been further confirmed with other evaluations whose results are not presented here. The distinctive variation for leaf retention was apparent because a large number of clones (new Clonal Evaluation) were represented by eigth rather than one plant per genotype (old F1C1 stage).The main advantages of the new evaluation scheme can be summarized as follows:-The duplication of materials maintained at CIAT headquarters is avoided until they reach status of \"elite genotype\". -The selection of a large number of segregating progenies, at the F1C1 stage, which was based on single plant observations, is avoided. -The time required to reach the stage of replicated trials is minimized.-The total length of each cycle of selection is reduced by almost a year.-Data records will allow for selecting parental material based on general combining ability. -The total cost for each cycle of selection should be reduced. -Selection will be less subjective by using appropriate selection index specifically developed for that purpose. -Genetic differences among clones are much more apparent in the new Clonal Evaluation than in the old F1C1 stage. -For environments with rains concentrated in one season, there is a possibility of selecting clones able to maintain high dry matter upon the arrival of the rains.","tokenCount":"3587"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a65265dced11cd2507b2428b4fcff43f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/1dc035de-56b1-49db-9465-447445805e93/retrieve","id":"-1421903549"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"dc09ece4-7b8b-41da-a887-8f73c895246a","pagecount":"134","content":"C l i m a t e C h a n g e a n d g e n e t i C d i v e r s i t y Bioversity International is an independent international scientific organization that seeks to improve the well-being of present and future generations of people by enhancing conservation and the deployment of agricultural biodiversity on farms and in forests. It is one of 15 centres supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), an association of public and private members who support efforts to mobilize cutting-edge science to reduce hunger and poverty, improve human nutrition and health, and protect the environment. Bioversity has its headquarters in Maccarese, near Rome, Italy, with offices in more than 20 other countries worldwide. The Institute operates through four programmes: Diversity for Livelihoods, Understanding and Managing Biodiversity, Global Partnerships, and Commodities for Livelihoods.The international status of Bioversity is conferred under an Establishment Agreement which, by January 2007, had been signed by the Governments of Algeria,Climate change is increasingly recognized as one of the most important challenges faced globally by ecosystems and societies alike. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate change could increase average temperatures by 2-4°C in Europe over the next 50 years and cause considerable changes in regional and seasonal patterns of precipitation. This will alter the environmental conditions to which forest trees in Europe are adapted and expose them to new pests and diseases. Climate change will thus create additional challenges for forest management, with consequent impacts on the economic and social bene ts that societies and individuals derive from the forests, and on the biological diversity in forest ecosystems.Sustainable forest management aims at using forests in such a way that their capacity to provide a vast array of products, socio-economic bene ts and environmental services do not diminish over time. Long-term conservation of forest genetic diversity is therefore a cornerstone for sustainable forest management, especially under climate change. Genetic diversity ensures that forest trees can survive, adapt and evolve under changing environmental conditions. Genetic diversity is also needed to maintain the vitality of forests and to cope with pests and diseases. Ultimately, forest genetic diversity also has a crucial role in maintaining forest biological diversity at both species and ecosystem levels.Forest genetic resources in Europe are still facing several threats, including habitat destruction, fragmentation, pollution, poor silvicultural practices and use of low quality or poorly adapted forest reproductive material. The threats and the distribution of forest genetic resources do not respect national borders, and thus countries are dependent on each other's forest genetic resources for practising sustainable forest management. This interdependence of countries in terms of forest genetic resources is likely to increase in the future due to climate change.Because of the threats, the rst Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE), held in Strasbourg in 1990, addressed the importance of conserving forest genetic resources (Strasbourg Resolution 2). This happened well before the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), organized in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, brought biodiversity into the global agenda. UNCED launched a new era in the international dialogue on forests and recognized, through the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), that countries have a sovereign right over their own genetic resources but also a responsibility to manage these resources sustainably. The workshop continued with technical presentations by leading experts during three sessions that focused on (1) the regional policy context; (2) climate change and forest trees in Europe; and (3) the role of forest genetic diversity in forest management under climate change. The presentations and subsequent discussions are summarized below.On the second day of the workshop, the participants formed three working groups to address the following issues: (1) silvicultural practices and forest genetic diversity;(2) forest reproductive materials; and (3) regional and national strategies for forest genetic diversity and climate change. The working groups reported the results of their discussions during a plenary session. The workshop recommendations were then developed and adopted based on the outputs of the working groups. The workshop recommendations are presented at the end of this Executive Summary.session 1: regional policy context In his presentation, Dr Antoine Kremer (INRA, France) focused on evolutionary processes, the rate of evolution and responses of forest trees to climate change. There is some evidence, based on long-term empirical data, that climate-change-induced evolution is already taking place and that trees have started to adapt to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, at both individual and population levels.According to Dr Kremer, evolution in forest trees can occur over a few generations or less than 200 hundred years. In some cases, even one generation is enough for local adaptation, as demonstrated by the transfer of a Norway spruce (Picea abies) provenance from Germany to Norway as part of a provenance experiment.Dr Kremer remarked that most climate models predict a dramatic shift in the range of forest trees, but they assume that the climatic envelopes of the species will not change. However, this assumption is unlikely to be valid as the climatic envelopes will probably change due to evolutionary processes. The climatic envelope of a species refers to the range of climatic variation within which the species can persist, provided its non-climatic environmental requirements are met. Dr Kremer concluded that it is unlikely that the widely-occurring tree species will face extinction at species level due to climate change. However, local extinctions of tree populations may occur as a result of fragmentation and lack of reproduction. Human interventions, such as transfer of forest reproductive material, may thus in particular be needed to enhance local adaptation of rare and scattered tree species.Dr Outi Savolainen (University of Oulu, Finland) emphasized that natural tree populations adapt as a result of selection and migration based on total fitness, not just growth. These processes are likely to be slow in comparison with the rate of the xv e x e C u t i v e s u m m a r y predicted climate change. She further pointed out that landscapes are very fragmented in most of Europe, making migration of forest trees even more difficult. Dr Savolainen highlighted that climate change will affect tree populations very differently in southern Europe compared with northern Europe. For example, in higher latitudes, Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) populations can migrate northwards under climate change, but at the southern edge of the species' distribution range, the species is likely to withdraw to more suitable sites. Furthermore, large and diverse tree populations have higher probable potential to adapt to new climatic conditions than have fragmented tree populations. She concluded that a cautious transfer of forest reproductive material has a role in facilitating migration of tree species and increasing the intensity of selection. She also stressed the need to integrate ecology and genetics in further experiments, as currently there is limited data available on the fitness of tree species facing simultaneously competition from evolving species.session 3: the role of forest genetic diversity in forest management under climate change Dr Marcus Lindner (European Forest Institute, Finland) pointed out that future climate projections still include a considerable degree of uncertainty and that this creates a big challenge when designing adaptation strategies in forest management.However, what seems more obvious is that the frequency of extreme weather events is increasing and that such events are likely to be the most important drivers of ecosystem change. While the productivity of forests is likely to increase in northern Europe, it is expected to decrease in southern Europe due to more severe drought periods. Subsequently, forest fires will become an even more serious problem in southern Europe. Furthermore, storms may become more frequent also in the northern and central parts of Europe, and new pests and diseases are likely to spread northwards. Dr Lindner highlighted that different tree species respond differently to extreme weather events, such as drought. Overall, mixed forests are likely to withstand better a broad range of climatic conditions, and broadleaved species are more susceptible to disturbances. Dr Lindner concluded that diversification of adaptation strategies leaves more options to cope with uncertain future climatic conditions. No single adaptation strategy is the best one. Thus, he recommended diversifying species, forest types, forest management practices, forest products and services.Dr Koen Kramer (ALTERRA, Netherlands) focused on the concepts of equilibrium, non-equilibrium and resilience. He noted that traditional thinking is largely based on the concept of equilibrium, i.e. that species coexistence is due to niche differentiation and that species' distribution areas are in equilibrium with climate. Due to climate change, however, species are in disequilibrium with the prevailing climate.Moreover, the future equilibrium states of species composition in a forest and of species' distribution areas are essentially unknown. Forest management guidelines and policies based on the restoration of a historic pre-disturbance reference are not necessarily still attainable. A non-equilibrium approach is therefore needed, focusing on setting conditions so that the system can adapt to environmental changes.Resilience is then defined as the rate of return to the stable state, i.e. how well a system can absorb disturbances and environmental stress and still persist. Hence, Dr Kramer proposed that the concept of resilience be made operational by quantifying both genetic and ecological aspects of diversity at the stand, landscape and regional scales. He then presented the DYNABEECH project as an example where genetics, ecophysiology and silviculture were successfully integrated to formulate forest management practices that optimize the adaptive capacity, as measure of nonequilibrium resilience, of beech (Fagus sylvatica) stands.Professor Csaba Mátyás (University of West Hungary) reviewed results of various field trials and stressed the need to use quantitative genetic knowledge in forecasting adaptive responses of forest trees to climate change, formulating mitigation strategies and in supporting adaptation of trees by human interventions. He stated that results of field trials show a remarkable range of adaptability in forest trees even to dramatic changes in thermal and moisture conditions. However, he emphasized that there are genetically set limits to adaptation and that some tree populations are seriously threatened by climate change. He emphasized that tree populations at the xeric limits, such as the Mediterranean region and continental Europe, are the most threatened ones. Concerning the role of spontaneous migration in adaptation of forest trees to climate change, Prof. Mátyás expressed his doubt that spontaneous migration could occur in most parts of Europe. This is mainly because fragmented and intensively managed landscapes pose considerable obstacles to migration. He therefore considered that human interference is necessary to facilitate the adaptation of forest trees to climate change. He then recommended the development of flexible pan-European guidelines for the use of forest reproductive material, and the incorporation of climate change and adaptation issues into national forest programmes.Dr Bo Jellesmark Thorsen (Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Denmark) discussed the role of forest genetic diversity in maintaining the supply of numerous benefits derived from forests. In addition to supporting supply of many marketable forest products, forest genetic diversity also contributes indirectly to securing the long-term health of forest ecosystems and the services they provide. He underlined that climate change implies increased uncertainty, which is a key factor in economic considerations. He further highlighted two economic aspects of uncertainty. Firstly, uncertainty can be perceived as risk and handled by diversification. Secondly, with uncertainty ahead, we may benefit from strategies that retain options open for later adjustment. The time horizon of the implications of the climate change may be of little importance to an individual forest owner, but of great importance for society pursuing sustainable development. He recommended that forest owners and policymakers pursue flexible strategies and decisions on forest genetic diversity, as these are likely to increase both the private value and social values of the forests. He also emphasized that diversification through increased use of forest genetic diversity is a recommendable risk-reduction strategy for an individual forest owner.Ms Mari Rusanen (Finnish Forest Research Institute) provided an overview of Finland's National Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change. The strategy was prepared in a collaborative effort of all relevant sectors and was finalized in 2005. It identifies actions and measures for each sector (including forestry), and also takes into account changes occurring outside Finland (transboundary effects). Furthermore, the strategy places special emphasis on cross-cutting adaptation, such as public sector capabilities (e.g. risk assessments, environmental impact assessment and management systems), observation and warning systems, research and development, communication and information sharing. The strategy highlights the role of the National Forest Programme as a planning and implementation tool for the adoption of specific adaptation measures for the forest sector. Also, it addresses the need to conserve forest genetic resources and the new challenges for tree breeding and seed production. Regarding forest management, the strategy proposes actions such as revision of silvicultural guidelines, rapid harvesting of forests destroyed by storms, control of pests and diseases, and better maintenance of forest roads. Ms Rusanen summarized that the lessons learned were that key elements of the comprehensive strategy involved integration of mitigation and adaptation measures and implementation through specific sectors. The strategy will be reviewed within 6 to 8 years.Dr François Lefèvre (INRA, France) gave an overview of the institutional framework for the conservation of forest genetic resources in France, and analyzed the effects of climate change on gene conservation strategies. He stated that 11 in situ or ex situ networks of gene conservation units have been established throughout the country for different tree species. All units are located in public forests and gene conservation is incorporated into the management plans of these forests. Dr Lefèvre observed that there is a need to re-evaluate and improve the existing gene conservation networks in the context of climate change. The objectives of the gene conservation networks should not only focus on genetic diversity per se, but also on plasticity, adaptation and migration potential of tree species. Subsequently, process-based rather than di-versity-based criteria and indicators should be developed for the management of the gene conservation units. The robustness of the existing gene conservation networks to extreme weather events should be assessed and monitored, as there are already examples of such events destroying particular units. He stressed that there is a need for better coordination between habitat and gene conservation programmes. Gene conservation efforts for several scattered tree species should also be managed on a larger scale than that of the stand.Working Group 1: silvicultural practices and forest genetic diversityThe working group recognized that there is still considerable uncertainty in the future climate projections based on different models. However, it is likely that climate variability and the frequency of extreme weather events will increase, bringing storms and extended drought periods. Furthermore, there may well be combined effects of climate change, pests and diseases on forests. It was also emphasized in the discussion that there are regions where forests are facing high risks (e.g. southern Europe) due to climate change, while forests in other regions are likely to have lower risks. Furthermore, the working group agreed that specific silvicultural and gene conservation measures should be taken to protect species that are endangered or of special interest.The working group stressed that silviculture should help forest ecosystems to regenerate and thus evolve under climate change. In this regard, an important question is the balance between natural and artificial regeneration, i.e. to what extent promote natural regeneration and when to encourage planting of seedlings, possibly originating from different climatic conditions. The occurrence of frequent natural regeneration is fundamental for continuous natural selection in forest ecosystems, thus maintaining the evolutionary process of forest trees. Artificial regeneration is needed to complement natural regeneration and, in some cases, to accelerate the adaptation of forest trees to climate change. The working group concluded that forest genetics can play an important role in identifying the most feasible regeneration methods in terms of adaptation to climate change.The working group highlighted that knowledge-based use and transfer of welldocumented and characterized forest reproductive material can be an effective tool to ensure that forests are able to cope with climate change. Existing networks of provenance trials of various tree species and the research results already available provide plenty of information and a solid basis for the assessment of provenance regions. The working group recognized that climate change is likely to alter the existing provenance regions in most countries. Consequently, there is a need to revise the delineation of the present provenance regions of forest trees in most countries, and to modify these regions according to the predicted climate change scenarios.The working group also underlined that new strategies and guidelines were needed at pan-European level to support and promote appropriate use of forest reproductive material.The working group welcomed that most European countries have implemented the EC Regulations on the marketing of forest reproductive material (1999/105/EC) in their legislation, but pointed out that there is still a need to promote the use of high quality and well adapted material. It was noted that long-term economic analyses confirm the benefits of using high quality reproductive material. The working group also urged European countries to keep better records on the transfer and use of forest reproductive material so that the origin of a forest stand could later be verified, even after a long period. This would enable future analyses of the long-term performance and economic aspects of natural versus artificial regeneration under climate change.Working Group 3: regional and national strategies for forest genetic diversity and climate change There is widespread concern that forest tree species may not be able to cope with future environmental changes. Such concern arises from the discrepancy between the generation period of trees and the time span of climate change, in addition to the general assumption that, according to palaeoecological data, the rate of evolution is slower than the rate of present climate change (Davis et al. 2005). Expected temperature increases are far higher than those that occurred during the interglacial periods of the Quaternary. The concern also stems from the growing body of papers predicting extinctions in plants and animals as a result of climate change (Thomas et al. 2004;Thuiller et al. 2005). This debate was further strengthened by the publication of forecast distribution maps for forest trees at the end of the current century that clearly indicate that major changes, if not local extinction, may be expected (Thuiller 2003;Badeau et al. 2005). However, none of these papers have considered the various responses that tree species may adopt and the evolutionary changes that populations may undergo. For example, the niche-based models that are used to predict future distribution of species are based on the conservation of species' climatic envelopes, ignoring the capacity of populations to modify their ecological niche (Thuiller et al. 2006). In this paper, I will challenge these views by confronting these perspectives with recent results obtained in population genetics of forest trees, and expectations based on evolutionary processes.'How fast will a tree population respond to climate change?' remains one of the main questions. Monitoring evolutionary changes in trees is a challenging task, as only diachronic approaches can be used; hence, there is a dramatic lack of experimental data to answer this question. There are, however, various sources of information that can be assembled to provide arguments as to how trees may be able to cope with the ongoing climate change: results of provenance tests, quaternary palaeoecological records of evolutionary changes, and arti cial transfer of populations from cool to milder climates. Evolutionary mechanisms contributing to the adaptation of a given species may be acting at different levels: individuals, populations and species. I will review some of these processes, and concentrate on those that have been at least partly documented in the forestry literature.Adaptive mechanisms of individual trees have been gathered under the generic term plasticity, but they may actually cover different processes, acting separately or in combination.There is a wide body of literature on the distribution of individual heterozygosi-ty in tree populations, based on isozyme investigations (see Bush and Smouse (1992) for a review). Older stands exhibit usually higher heterozygosity than younger stands. Interpretation of these results is still controversial, as some authors advocate that increased heterozygosity was the mechanistic consequence of elimination of inbred genotypes, due to correlation between homozygosity and inbreeding depression (Ledig 1986). Others have claimed that heterozygosity at the specific study loci (overdominance) contributes to higher fitness (Mitton and Grant 1984) or that heterozygous individuals exhibit greater buffering capacity towards environmental change (Mitton 1997). Whatever the evolutionary significance of heterozygosity might be, there are examples where individual heterozygosity has been correlated (surrogate or cause?) to adaptation to strong environmental changes. This is illustrated by the comparative analysis of heterozygosity in sensitive versus tolerant beech populations in heavily polluted areas during the late 1970s in Germany (Müller-Starck 1988). In this example, the observed heterozygosity of each tolerant beech population was greater than the heterozygosity of sensitive populations wherever the comparison was made, and the difference was larger at higher altitudes where pollution was stronger.Acclimation is the phenotypic change of a single individual to gradual environ-mental modification, i.e. it is a reversible process. The premature leaf fall of some trees during dry summers is an example of rapid acclimation. A well illustrated case of acclimation response over the lifetime of a tree is the gradual decrease of leaf stomatal density on a single birch tree that was observed over 50 years (Wagner et al. 1997) as a response to the steadily increasing atmospheric CO 2 concentration. The genetic basis of such phenotypic response has not been elucidated, and to date it is considered to probably be a physiological adaptation to environmental change. However, a recent investigation in quantitative trait loci (QTL) detection of ecophysiological traits in seedlings of forest trees has indicated that the number and contributions of QTLs might vary substantially according to the CO 2 concentration (Torti 2005).Many epigenetic responses have been documented in plants as a response to temporary, severe environmental or biotic stresses (Madlung and Comai 2004). This review indicates that changes in gene expression may be generated by structural changes (e.g. quantitative modification of repetitive DNA; insertion or deletion of transposable elements) or by change in DNA methylation. Epigenetic effects under milder environmental changes have not received as much experimental support, with the exception of the modifications in chromatin of target loci on vernalization in plants (Sung and Amasino 2005).In a series of repeated experiments on offspring originating from the same parents but with the mothers raised under different weather conditions, it has been shown that the climate during sexual reproduction influences the development of seedlings (Skrøppa et al. 1994;Johnsen and Skrøppa 1997). It has been clearly shown that the timing of bud break in spring, leader shoot cessation in summer, bud set in autumn and the lignification of the annual ring are all processes that will be advanced or delayed according to temperature during female reproduction. Temperature-induced regulation of the level of gene expression (through methylation) in the developing embryos is supposed to last in the progenies as an 'epigenetic memory' (Johnsen et al. 2005).Natural selection has driven population differentiation throughout the natural distribution of forest trees. The response is a continuous shift in gene frequencies or phenotypic values of traits. There is ample evidence of the efficiency of natural selection shown by the large body of literature on provenance tests (see Wright (1976) and Morgenstern (1996) for reviews in North American species, and König (2005) for a review in European species). In almost any tree species for which provenance tests have been established, significant variation between populations has been observed for fitness-related traits. There are sev-eral clinal patterns of geographical variation that are congruent across species living in different continents, suggesting that these patterns result more probably from directional selection pressures than from stochastic, demographic or historical effects. For example, bud burst shows a clear latitudinal variation in all conifers, with northern provenances flushing earlier and setting bud earlier than southern populations (Wright 1976).Other evidence that selection is the most likely evolutionary force responsible for provenance variation is given by the comparative analysis of 'historical' versus 'geographical' factors of variation.In oaks, it was shown that extant populations stemming from the same source (refugial) of glacial origin but growing today in different ecological sites exhibit strong phenotypic differentiation for fitness-related traits, while the populations are not differentiated for neutral genetic markers (Le Corre et al. 1997;Kremer et al. 2002).Besides the processes acting at the individual or population level, there are also important processes acting at the metapopulation level of a species. These may contribute to increasing the fitness of a given population that encounters severe selective pressures. Migration of alien genes through gene flow will change the genetic composition of the receiving population. Subsequent changes might be unfavour-able or favourable, depending on the source population (Lenormand 2002).If the migrating gene has a positive effect on fitness, it will rapidly increase its frequency in the receiving population. The dynamics of migrating genes (migration rates, subsequent frequency variation and change in population fitness) have never been monitored in forest tree populations, but deserve to receive more attention within the focus of climate change. Clearly, a species that has a continuous distribution across contrasting ecological sites might be able to 'import' genes contributing to higher fitness in areas exposed to severe stress. However, a species having a scattered and disrupted distribution may not be able to benefit from alien genes. Extensive research has been done on gene flow in forest trees at a rather narrow spatial scale (Smouse and Sork 2004;Austerlitz et al. 2004).Most of these theoretical and experimental studies have shown that gene dispersion has both local and large-distance components, as revealed by the existence of the 'fat tails' of the dispersion curve. The second component is, of course, more relevant in the context of climate change, as drier sites where potentially favourable genes are likely to exist, may be separated by rather long distances from the sink population that would benefit from the imported gene. Dispersion from the source to the sink populations may take one or more generations, depending on the spatial connectivity between the two.The time scales where these mechanisms may act should be separated into two components (single or multiple generations), depending on whether their effects are cumulative over generations or not.Mechanisms acting at the individual level will of course take place during the lifetime of a tree. However, they may not be cumulative over successive generations in a directional pattern. Individual heterozygosity would be cancelled out after each generation as meiosis and random mating will disrupt allelic associations in diploid organisms. Acclimation or epigenetic responses may also be erased when passing to the next generation, depending on their inheritance. The genetic basis of methylation or other epigenetic sources of change is not fully understood, and their inheritance remains speculative at this stage.Natural selection would induce recurrent and cumulative directional evolutionary change over successive generations. Significant effects can already be expected within one single generation. Genetic change within one generation depends on the level of genetic variation (selection differential), and the further cumulative change over generations results from the combined effects of genetic variation and heritability (selection response) (Falconer 1989;Conner and Hartl 2004). Investigations in quantitative genetics of forest trees have shown that there is large genetic (additive) variance for most traits studied so far (e.g. growth, form, wood quality) but rather low heritability (except for wood physical properties and phenology) (Cornelius 1994;Kremer 1994). Hence, genetic variation, rather than heritability, is the most important driving factor of evolutionary change. Unfortunately, fitness-related traits have not been studied in such detail and the amount of genetic variation for these traits is less known. Nevertheless, based on the data on other traits and the additional results obtained with gene markers, one might also expect a high level of genetic variation. Significant evolutionary changes can therefore be expected within one generation, as a result of the predominant role of genetic variation versus heritability. Norway spruce (Picea abies) has colonized southern Scandinavia during the last 2000 years by natural spreading or through human-mediated dispersion (Bradshaw et al. 2000;Bradshaw and Lindbladh 2005). This is probably the most recent documented spreading of a European tree species. Provenance tests established with seeds originating from Scandinavia or North Baltic regions (Hannerz and Westin 2000;Danusevicius and Gabrilavicius 2001) showed evidence of population differentiation for all traits investigated, and particularly for phenological traits. Moreover, the trend of geographic variation follows a clinal latitudinal pattern in each study, suggesting that natural selection occurring during the past 2000 years was the main evolutionary driver of population divergence.For other European tree species, where colonization was achieved over a longer period, population differentiation is of less interest because the time scale for divergence was expanded over much longer periods. For example, pedunculate oak (Quercus robur) and sessile oak (Q. petraea) have occupied their extant range in Central Europe since 8000-6000 years ago (Brewer et al. 2002), and they have also diverged extensively for phenological traits (Ducousso et al. 1996). It was further demonstrated that the observed provenance variation in a provenance test was generated by diversifying selection due to different environmental conditions occurring at the original sites of the provenances (Kremer et al. 2002) rather than historical factors.differentiation between source and transferred populations (European species)  (Bouvarel 1960).differentiation between source and transferred populations (exotic tree species) These examples clearly suggest that evolutionary rates might be quite substantial, despite the long generation intervals of trees. Forest tree populations may exhibit significant differentiation in a very few generations. Rapid evolution may result from the contribution of different evolutionary processes acting at the individual, population or species level. An important motor of evolution is obviously the level of diversity that resides within tree populations. There is also a more mechanistic interpretation that derives from the complex genetic architecture of adaptive traits. For a trait that is controlled by a large number of genes, differentiation builds up not only from the differences in allelic frequencies at the different genes, but also from the complementary contribution of alleles at different genes. As the number of genes increases, so will the number of favourable associations, and they will be captured right at the beginning by diversifying selection (Le Corre and Kremer 2003).Climatic projections for the end of the 21st century predict that today's climatic envelopes of forest tree species will be shifted northwards and eastwards, on average, by a few hundred kilometres (Thuiller 2003;Badeau et al. 2005). In these predictions, the future tree distributions are projected on the assumption that current envelopes reflect species' environmental preferences, which are assumed to remain the same under climate change. To illustrate these predictions in the case of sessile oak and beech (Fagus sylvatica), France will be out of their new climatic envelope, whereas central Finland is likely to be included within the envelope. Although strictly based on a 'copy-and-paste' approach of constant climatic envelopes, these projections raise in concrete terms the issues that forest trees are facing. What will happen at the western and southern limits that are likely to be out of the climatic envelope? Will there be a progressive decline of the species and extinctions? Will local populations adapt to the new conditions? What will happen at the eastern and northern limit, where new areas will be included in the climatic envelope? Will trees be able to migrate at such distances to cope with the shift of the climatic envelope? Species will most likely respond differently to these challenges, depending on their ecology, demographic and genetic structures, and biotic interactions with other species. Additional reasoning on how trees will respond should take into account evolutionary processes leading to changes in their climatic envelope over time. We are lacking experiments to answer these questions, as evolutionary change would need to be monitored over successive generations. However, two sources of information can help to understand and predict future responses: lessons of past evolution of trees in response to climate change occurring over longer time scales; and results from multi-site provenance tests. By assembling elements from these sources of information, one can make some speculations on the risks of extinction, migration potential of the species to cope with the shift of the climatic envelope, and adaptation to environmental change.During the past two million years (Quaternary era), forest trees have been confronted with successive glacial periods (lasting from 70 000 to 100 000 years), alternating with interglacial periods (lasting from 10 000 to 20 000 years). More • • than fifteen periods generated by orbital oscillations of Earth (so called Milankovitch oscillations) occurred successively during the entire Quaternary era (Hays et al. 1976). These repeated drastic environmental changes were followed by important alternating retractions and expansions of tree species distributions, placing them in different habitats over time and space, and preventing them from specialization. It is thought that repeated climatic oscillations selected species for their dispersability and low specialization (Dynesius and Jansson 2000). Indeed, extinctions of European forest trees occurred between 2.4 to 1. 7 million years ago, during the early severe glacial cycles of Quaternary. Many species that existed in Europe at the end of Tertiary, based on fossil evidence, disappeared and are nowadays only present in North America and Asia (e.g. species belonging to Magnolia, Liriodendron, Nissa, Taxodium and Sequoia) (Skelton 1993). Periodic climate changes during the Quaternary period resulted in important extinction rates during the earlier oscillations, but selected species with reduced specialization and efficient dispersability, mitigating extinction in the long term. It is intriguing to notice that there has been no tree species extinction during the most recent periods, despite the occurrence of very rapid climate changes (Dansgaard-Oeschger events). Indeed, rapid warming episodes occurred during the last glacial periods every 1500 years, followed by gradual cooling over longer periods (Alley 2000). During Dansgaard-Oeschger events temperature increased by from 5° to 10°C over a few decades. These rates are of the same magnitude as the future predicted changes, but the warming occurred during the glacial periods. No extinction of tree species has been reported from the investigations of those periods. Quaternary evolutionary history suggests that past climate changes have selected species able to prevent extinction, thanks to their rapid dispersion and colonization of contrasting habitats. Natural selection induced by climate changes therefore produced, in particular, species with large distributions in northern latitudes (Dynesius and Jansson 2000). One might conclude from these speculations that extinction risks under the present climate change are lower for those species, whereas highly specialized species occurring at lower latitudes may be exposed to higher risks.Postglacial history of forest trees provides additional information on the dispersal capacity of trees. Since trees were major components of past European landscapes, they produced large quantities of pollen that survive in fossil remains (Huntley and Birks 1983). Migration rates were inferred from historical species ranges reconstructed using pollen fossil data for several European tree species (Birks 1989) in the British Isles and on a continental scale in oaks (Brewer et al. 2002) and beech (Magri et al. 2006). The average rate of spreading varied between 100 and 700 metres per year, depending on species and the periods of colonization. Earlier dispersion rates (11 000 to 9000 BP) were usually higher and strongly correlated with climate change, whereas more recent rates (6000 to 4000 BP) were lower, as competition between species constrained their spread (Birks 1989). Despite the limitation of migration rates derived from pollen data (McLachlan and Clark 2004), these figures could be used to provide some rough estimates predicting future natural dispersion. At maximum, trees would be able to shift their range from 10 to 70 km during the next coming hundred years, not taking into account that land fragmentation and agriculture would actually reduce migration. This is far less than the shifts of range predicted for oak or beech based on the climatic envelope projections, which amounts to a few hundred kilometres (Thuiller 2003;Badeau et al. 2005). Hence, natural dispersion would need to be assisted by artificial seed transfer to cope with the shifting climatic envelopes.Predictions of the potential adaptation of trees to climate change can be made from provenance tests that were established under various environmental conditions. When a given provenance is planted in many different environments, the response function of a measured trait can be constructed if the mean value of trait is plotted as a function of any en-vironmental variable of the testing site. Unfortunately, most provenance tests were established on a limited number of sites and thus do not allow the construction of these functions. There are, however, a few cases where large scale provenance test were established (Rehfeldt et al. 2002 for Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris); Rehfeldt et al. 1999 for Lodgepole pine). Rehfeldt and co-workers constructed response curves for two surrogates of tree fitness: survival and height growth as a function of mean temperature of the testing site. These two case studies provided convergent results that can be summarized in three points:The response curve usually follows a parabolic function, although the maximum of the function is not a peak. The curve reaches a plateau extending over a few Celsius degrees. The plateau indicates, therefore, substantial plasticity in the provenances.When compared to the temperature where the provenance reaches the maximum value for the fitness surrogate, the temperature of the site where the provenance originates is, on average, lower. The difference being on average 2.8°C in Lodgepole pine (Table 8 in Rehfeldt et al. 1999) and 2.6°C in Scots pine (Page 921 in Rehfeldt et al. 2002) for height growth.The temperature difference between the inhabited climate and the optimum climate is related to population latitude. Northern provenances tend to be native to cooler climates than their optimum whereas southern provenances tend to originate from climates near their optimum (Figure 6 in Rehfeldt et al. 2002 for Scots pine; Figure 10 in Rehfeldt et al. 1999 for Lodgepole pine).These observations suggest that the predicted temperature increase for the next century would still fall within the optimal region of the response curve. These preliminary optimistic results should, however, be taken with caution as they rely only on surrogates of fitness (height growth and survival). Secondly, they concern widespread tree species of northern latitude, which have actually been selected for generalism and plasticity, as described earlier (Dynesius and Jansson 2000). Responses of other tree species of southern latitude and with scattered distributions or highly specific habitats also need to be studied.There is a growing body of evidence stemming from different sources of information (Quaternary evolutionary history; lessons from population and species transfers; provenance experiments) that trees may have resources and mechanisms to respond to climate change. Overall, the pieces of evidence are fragmentary and refer to separate case studies in different time and space settings. It remains an open research field as to how strong and how prevalent these mechanisms will be in the evolutionary setting of future climate change. Unfortunately, such investigations would need longterm experiments and would not be able to answer short-term concerns. In the meantime, however, a few recommendations can be made for further research that could lead to practical short-term implementations.Provenance tests have been widely established during the past 50 years in Europe, either through national or international initiatives. For most economically important species, the data sets are, however, scattered among different research institutions, limiting their compilation for the construction of response curves. In-depth exploitation of the data-in a similar manner to the Rehfeldt studies-requires assembling the different data sets, and remains undone. Full exploitation may be limited by the heterogeneity of sampling strategies or experimental designs used. Nevertheless, the results of these investigations would provide some clues regarding the transferability of forest reproductive material. A strong recommendation is the assessment of different complementary surrogates of fitness, and particularly sexual reproduction.There are many historical examples of artificial transfers of tree populations or species (in the case of exotics). In some cases, these transfers mimicked climate change, e.g. transfer from cooler to milder climate. A review of these scenarios and their final outcome (success or failure) should be made. Of particular interest is the estimation of the evolutionary changes -and particularly adaptationthat was associated with these transfers. Introduction scenarios, including tracking of source populations by molecular fingerprints, could be reconstructed and evolutionary change monitored. These investigations would ideally complement the provenance test analysis, as a few generations have usually elapsed since introduction, whereas provenance tests only reveal changes after one generation. Additionally, transferred populations or species have usually been implemented over larger areas than provenance tests and the transferred material has been tested in a real forestry context, rather than an experimental plantation.As the environment changes, trees and other plants can respond in different ways. They may have high phenotypic plasticity and the existing genotypes or populations can simply tolerate the environmental change. Alternatively, they may become extinct due to lack of ability to cope with the abiotic changes. About 10% (8750) of the nearly 100 000 tree species are on the endangered species list, for many different reasons (Old eld et al. 1998). Further, following changes in the abiotic environment, trees can migrate through seed movement to more suitable areas and thus maintain their 'climatic envelope'. Range extension has been historically a very important way of migration (Bradshaw and McNeilly 1991). Historically, trees have been able to spread fast, largely based on events of long-distance dispersal (Clark 1998). The dispersal rates in general are between 10 and 100 m per year, or a maximum of 100 km per 100 years. These are nevertheless short dis-tances, compared with what is required by current climate change (Malcolm et al. 2002). Range extension is currently occurring. For instance, the Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) forest limit in northern Finland moved 6 km to the north between 1935 and 1995 (Sirén 1998).The above-mentioned possibilities have been extensively considered as responses to the current human-induced climate change, but populations may also be able to evolve and genetically adapt to new conditions. This was suggested early by Bradshaw and McNeilly (1991). More recently, Davis and colleagues have examined the potential for evolutionary responses (Lynch 1996;Davis and Shaw 2001;Davis et al. 2005). The genetic structure of many tree populations demonstrates that, in addition to migrating to different areas with changing climate, a common response of tree populations has historically also been to evolve through genetic differentiation Savolainen,O., Bokma, F., Knürr, T., Kärkkäinen, K., Pyhäjärvi, T. and Wachowiak, W. 2007. Adaptation of forest trees to climate change. In: Koskela, J., Buck, A. and Teissier du Cros, E., editors. Climate change and forest genetic diversity: Implications for sustainable forest management in Europe. Bioversity International, Rome, Italy. pp. 19-30. with respect to the geographically varying climatic conditions. Thus, this possibility deserves attention.In this paper, we discuss the extent of local genetic adaptation in trees, the evolutionary forces that generate this differentiation, and then evaluate possibilities for trees to adapt to the changing climate, in both natural populations and under silvicultural conditions. We use Scots pine as a special case study, but aim to make some general conclusions on the adaptation of forest trees to climate change. We especially consider northern Europe.By definition, locally adapted populations have the highest fitness when compared with other populations at their growing site (Kawecki and Ebert 2004). At other sites, they will have lower fitness than the local populations (Figure 1). Thus, the appropriate test of local adaptation is the ranking (against other populations) of lifetime fitness at the local site. This does not mean that the locally adapted population would not grow better elsewhere, just that they are best at home. This kind of full information is not available for forest trees, but is it needed? Tree breeders are of course not directly interested in this evolutionary definition of local adaptation, because growth and survival in different environments are of more immediate interest. However, it can be important to also consider reproduction or competitive ability in intra-and interspecific competition. During climate change, economically important tree populations may be intensively managed with silviculture to directions decided by humans but other, natural tree populations will follow the rules of natural evolution. Thus it will also be important to understand the evolution of local climatic adaptation and to take both natural and human directed evolution into account.Results on local adaptation in trees come from two sources: provenance trials and patterns of clinal variation. Provenance trials of forest trees differ from classical local adaptation experiments of other plants in many ways (Clausen et al. 1948). Seedlings are planted as plots of seedlings of the same origin, in spaced plantings, where both intraspecific and interspecific competition are avoided, or at least reduced. Not surprisingly, reproductive fitness is practically never studied in such trials. Thus, two important fitness components, early survival in competitive conditions and reproductive ability, are not included.Provenance trials are generally not designed to test for local adaptation, but for finding genetic materials that could be used to increase productivity. Eiche (1966) and Eriksson et al. (1980) found in large Scots pine experiments that seedlings transferred southward [in the northern hemisphere] had increased survival. Beuker (1994) also found that volume production of northern provenances increased upon transfer to the south. The results of a very large Scots pine provenance trial (Shutyaev and Giertych 1997) were used by Rehfeldt et al. (2002) to assess Scots pine response to climate change. Again, northern provenances transferred south to warmer climates had higher growth than at their original location. Thus the northern populations are likely to benefit from the warming climate. However, this large-scale study also predicted that the southernmost populations in the northern hemisphere are likely to suffer from the warming climate. This suggests that the limiting factors of Scots pine populations differ in the different parts of the range. Findings of increased (radial) growth upon climate change in the expected elevated temperatures have also been made in experimental studies (Kilpeläinen et al. 2005).Note that compared with the above definition, the studies do not address the issue of whether forest trees are locally adapted. The northern populations transferred to the south may grow better than at home, but worse than the southern populations at those sites. But is the local population best in fitness? Wu and Ying (2004) analyzed provenance trial data of Lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta). They used height growth as a surrogate for fitness, and found that, in a large part of the range, the local population was optimal for height growth. The large study of Scots pine also found evidence of local adaptation (Shutyaev and Giertych 1997). Very northern and very southern materials in the northern hemisphere were not found silviculturally interesting, because they were inferior in growth performance to those from more central latitudes, except locally. This finding of local superiority is evidence of local adaptation. Thus, even when just using height as a fitness surrogate, provenance trials do show evidence of local adaptation.We also know that Scots pine has limits to its adaptation. In northern Scandinavia, the distribution range ends without any geographical barrier. While survival is high in areas of temperature sums of more than 800 day degrees, in colder areas (e.g. northern Sweden, about 67°N at low altitudes) survival rapidly decreases (Eiche 1966). Likewise, northern populations in areas with temperature sums less than 1000 day degrees show poor adaptation in terms of seed maturation (Harju et al. 1996). Thus, it seems the populations may not be able to fully adapt to the severe conditions. The existence of genetically determined clinal variation in adaptive traits along environmental gradients is also evidence of local adaptation, especially if neutral markers in the genome show no corresponding differentiation (Prout and Barker 1993;Merilä and Crnokrak 2001;McKay and Latta 2002). Evidence of such clines is abundant in forest trees, For instance, in common garden experiments in the northern hemisphere, Scots pines of northern origin set their terminal buds before the southern ones (Mikola 1982;Hurme et al. 1997;García-Gil et al. 2003). Figure 2 shows an example of such a cline over the Scandinavian latitudinal range for timing of bud set of one-year-old Scots pine seedling, grown in common garden conditions (as described earlier, e.g. by García-Gil et al. (2003)). In the same range, the divergence at neutral markers is much lower (Karhu et al. 1996;García-Gil et al. 2003). Similar variation patterns that are concordant with climate variation have been found in many forest trees, such as Norway spruce (Picea abies) and Lodgepole pine (Lagercrantz and Ryman 1990;Yang et al. 1996). Cold hardiness also shows such patterns of variation in Scots pine (Aho 1994;Hurme et al. 1997) and in many North American conifers (as reviewed by Howe et al. 2003). In sessile oak (Quercus petraea), there is a longitudinal cline in timing of bud flush (Kremer et al. 1997). The latitudinal ecotypes of other woody perennials, including species of willows (Salix spp.), also show photoperiod-dependent variation in cessation of growth (Junttila 1982). Furthermore, populations of forest tree species show differences in adaptation to drought. In the Mediterranean region, summer drought is a major factor limiting plant distribution and growth. Variability in ecophysiological response to drought is found among geographical races of maritime pine (Pinus pinaster) (Fernandez et al. 1999). Adaptation to different soil water conditions may also be due to structural rather than physiological variation, as was found in Scots pine (Palmroth et al. 1999).In most of these cases, there is little differentiation at neutral markers. The steepness of the clines and the degree of differentiation depends on the balance between gene flow through seeds and pollen, as well as natural selection (Ennos 1994;Barton 1999). The low differentiation of marker genes reflects high migration rates. In the oak clines, traces of history have been eliminated, as shown by Kremer et al. (2002). In Norway spruce, the quantitative trait differentiation is partly also reflected at marker genes, suggesting that history is also reflected in patterns of quantitative variation, in addition to selection (Lagercrantz and Ryman 1990).The genetic response to selection depends on the heritability of the trait and on the intensity of selection. The familiar breeder's equation states that R = h 2 S, where R is response, h 2 is heritability and S the selection differential. Forest trees are highly variable in most quantitative traits. Much of this variation is genetic, giving rise to moderate and high heritabilities (Cornelius 1994). Specifically, this has also been found to hold true for timing of bud set in Scots pine, where heritabilities in two populations were 0.33 to 0.67 (Savolainen et al. 2004). Also, cold tolerance is found to be heritable, with more variable results, as reviewed by Howe et al. (2003). The real potential for evolutionary response is measured by additive genetic variance. A high heritability does not guarantee an evolutionary response if both additive genetics variance and total phenotypic variance are low (Houle 1992). Selection in tree populations can be strong, as mortality can be high. Thus, there is considerable capacity for high selection differentials. The populations are large, and there is much gene flow, so that genetic drift is expected to be a minor factor. The conditions for a selective response are therefore favourable. In simple situations that correspond to the model, there can be very rapid genetic change. Introduced plant populations sometimes adapt rapidly to the local climatic conditions. Introduction of exotic tree species or provenances has quickly produced new landraces under the combination effect of natural and artificial selection (Eldridge et al. 1993;Hahl 1978). Large-scale provenance transfers of Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) to Europe have resulted in locally adapted populations (Kleinschmidt and Bastien 1992). Evolution in natural conditions can also be relatively rapid. Novel photoperiodic genotypes adapted to the very long days of northern Scandinavia evolved in silver birch (Betula pendula) during colonization after the last glacial maximum, taking only a few thousand years (Viherä-Aarnio et al. 2005).Gene flow influences the process of adaptation. When new areas are colonized, seed migration is especially important (Austerlitz et al. 2000). In the later stages, pollen flow is especially effective. This is reflected in the lack of differentiation for most of the genome. Gene flow can hamper adaptation in marginal populations, but it also provides more genetic variability for selection to act upon. These general features of forest trees show that selection is likely to be powerful. This has led some authors to conclude that forest trees will be able to adapt to the current climate change without problems.Evolution during the current climate change is a more complicated situation than colonization and adaptation after the ice age. The present environmental changes are taking place rapidly. In northern Europe, temperature is expected to increase by at least 4° to 6°C within the next hundred years (Houghton et al. 2001). The landscape is not empty but filled with existing plant species. This will make colonization of new areas much more difficult for many trees (Malcolm et al. 2002). For some species, such as Scots pine, interspecific competition is predicted to be more intense, as climate change is likely favour other species, such as birch (Kellomäki et al. 2001). Ecologists have thus predicted that Scots pine will decline, while tree breeders have suggested that it will do very well in the northern areas under the warming climate (Kellomäki et al. 2001).As the biological situation is quite complex, we used simulations to evaluate the potential of trees to adapt genetically to a new environment, through local selection and through gene flow, mostly by pollen (Savolainen et al. 2004). The basic assumption is that the genetic composition of the population, with respect to timing of growth (or cessation of growth), should follow the 'climatic envelope'. The temperature sum at latitude 68°N is expected to be approximately like the temperature sum at latitude 61°N currently. Thus, the population at 68°N should evolve to have the timing of growth characteristics of the population currently found at latitude 61°N.We simulated adaptation of 10 Scots pine populations equally spaced along a latitudinal climate gradient, all consisting of 1000 individuals that reached maturity at 20 years and a maximum age at 150 years. Vacancies left by individuals that reached the maximum age were filled by the best adapted (see below) of 20 seedlings, the mothers of which were sampled at random from the population where the vacancy occurred, while the fathers were sampled from a randomly sampled population. This reflects that dispersal in Scots pine is mainly by pollen. Paternal populations were sampled from a normal distribution with zero mean and unit variance, which translates into pollen dispersal distances that make the 10 populations correspond approximately to the latitudinal range of Scots pine in Finland.Contrary to adult trees, seedlings (i.e. individuals younger than 20 years) may die due to frost damage. We assumed that the autumn onset of frost varies linearly from south (late onset, long growing season) to north (early onset, short growing season). Seedlings must set bud (and become frost hardy) before the onset of frost, otherwise they die. Timing of bud set was modelled as a quantitative trait with 50% heritability, governed by 5 additively acting loci on different chromosomes, with two alleles per locus. Seedlings that set bud after the onset of frost quickly die in the simulations. In contrast, seedlings that set bud too early remain small due to their short period of growth. They are therefore likely to lose the competition for space. We assumed that competition for space takes place dominantly during the seedling stage. Therefore, the 'best' seedling, that fills a vacancy, is the largest of the 20 seedlings that did not die due to frost damage. There is thus a stabilizing selection, with frost selecting against late bud set and competition against early bud set. As the onset of frost varies clinally, so the point towards which selection acts differs clinally between populations.From random initial genotypes and age distribution, the populations were set to adapt to a stable (but clinally varying) climate for 5000 years. Then climate change began, with the onset of autumn frost changing by equal increments each year and in every population for a period of a hundred years. The magnitude of change is such that the northernmost populations experience the climate of the southernmost after 100 years. That corresponds to the prediction from climate change models that, in a hundred years, northern Finland will have the climate that is currently found in southern Finland. The magnitude of change depends in this way only on the steepness of the initial cline. After 100 years of climate change, the response of the populations was monitored for another 400 years, during which no further climate change took place.After having grown adapted to a stable, clinally varying climate, the simulated Scots pine populations are clearly locally adapted, as population average bud set date closely follows the cline in onset of frost (not shown), with early bud set in the north and late in the south. Climate change evokes a response in the clinally adapted Scots pine populations. The change in the mean of the overall populations (including all age classes) is shown in Figure 3. Because adult trees do not die due to frost damage or competition, the response of the populations to changing climate is much slower than the climate change itself. Thus, these simulations that are based on the biology of the species, suggest that the genetic change in Scots pine will be very small during the next 100 years. In northern Europe, the existing trees will survive for a long period under the warmer climate and there will be few sites available for the new, genetically more adapted seedlings. At the same time, the surviving trees will act as a buffer against an immediate population decline.Change was achieved through new individuals that enter the population only when vacancies occur, which happens relatively rarely in a long-lived species like Scots pine. Under climate warming, pollen migration from the south can increase the rate of adaptation (within reasonable values). a d a P t i n g t o C l i m a t e C h a n g e phenotypic and genetic change in the populations cease. Interestingly, that period does not depend on the intensity of climate change: if the initial cline is shallow, and consequently climate change is less intensive, the response of populations is also smaller, but it continues about as long. In all simulations, irrespective of the intensity and direction of climate change, it takes approximately 500 years before genotypic and phenotypic response is complete. Rehfeldt et al. (2002) considered how long it would take for local populations to evolve to a new optimum, using the simple models. They suggested about 13 generations, which in Scots pine could be much longer than the time that we predict here. The difference is at least partly accounted for by considering migration.Evolution may be slowed down by various factors. Etterson and Shaw (2001) found that negative genetic correlation may slow down the response. Also note that, in our case, migration from the south contributes to speeding the response to climate change. However, the southern populations will not experience any migration from the south, and migration from populations in the north will have the opposite effect, preventing adaptation. Rehfeldt et al. (2002) predicted that some southern populations might become extinct if they are not able to evolve. Lynch (1996) reviewed the theoretical results of quantitative genet-ics. Initial responses of populations with high genetic variability can be very large for many generations, accompanied by high mortality. However, the long-term sustainable response within individual populations per generation is only a few percent of the phenotypic standard deviation.Competition between species may have very important effects. In the southern part of the distribution range, the situation may be quite different due to different selective agents (i.e. drought stress instead of adaptation to cold). Sabaté et al. (2002) studied impact of climate change on growth of five forest tree species (Quercus ilex, Pinus halepensis, P. pinaster, P. sylvestris, Fagus sylvatica) at seven Mediterranean sites representing different environmental conditions, with a broad range of elevation, latitude, rainfall and temperature patterns. The simulations show that increased temperature and rainfall in the region, together with increased atmospheric CO 2 , will have positive effects on forest growth and wood production. However, the response of different tree species may differ.The effects of changes in interspecific competition and reproductive potential should be included when considering climate change effects. Research on the possible impacts of climate change on forests in Europe and the development of adaptation and mitigation strategies started in the early 1990s, shortly after rst concerns were raised about the consequences for Earth's climate of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (e.g. Kanninen and Anttila 1992;Burschel et al. 1993;Kräuchi 1993;Bugmann 1994). Since then, assessments of climate change, its impacts and subsequent consequences to natural resource management have been the focus of continuous research efforts (Brown et al. 1996;Kellomäki et al. 1997;Kellomäki et al. 2000;Lindner 2000;Lasch et al. 2002;Lindner et al. 2002;Kellomäki and Sanna 2005). basis for the following analysis of possible adaptation strategies. Opportunities and risks of adaptive forest management will be discussed, and based on this discussion, conclusions and recommendations will be drawn.The scientific community largely agrees that our climate is warming due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (Houghton et al. 2001)  (Ciais et al. 2005).Different studies on the potential impacts of climate change to European forests indicate a broad range of results, including both positive and negative growth responses (e.g. (Kellomäki et al. 2000;Lasch et al. 2002;Nabuurs et al. 2002;Sabaté et al. 2002;Schröter et al. 2005). While some of the differences in the results can be attributed to the application of contrasting climate change scenarios or to different responses in the simulation models to similar changes in climate (see e.g. Loehle and LeBlanc 1996), there are also large regional differences in the sensitivity of forests to climate change. This sensitivity depends strongly on the present environmental conditions of the forests. Figure 1 presents simulated growth response patterns for Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) at three different sites under boreal, temperate-continental and Mediterranean climates. Growth responses to increases in temperature and changes in precipitation compared with the current climate vary drastically between the three sites. In Northern Finland, temperature is currently the main limiting growth factor and consequently the production at this site will increase quite strongly with higher temperatures. According to the simulation model applied, water availability at this site is not influencing the growth within the investigated range of precipitation changes. In a temperate-continental climate, temperature is less important because the main limiting growth factor is water availability. Reduced precipitation leads to drastic decreases in productivity, higher precipitation in contrast increases growth.Small temperature increases may still increase growth at a given level of precipitation, but the positive effect of increasing temperature diminishes when increases are larger than 3°C. In Spain, at the southern end of the distribution range of Scots pine, the growth response patterns are again different. The previous section presented many faces of climate change: improving productivity in the north, increasing drought in the south, increasing variability in weather conditions, and possibly more severe extreme weather  events and disturbances all over Europe. This listing alone already suggests that there cannot be only one way to adapt forest management. So how can forest management be adapted to cope with these challenges? Different adaptation strategies are needed in different situations.\"Adaptation refers to the actions that people take in response to, or in anticipation of, projected or actual changes in climate, to reduce adverse impacts or take advantage of the opportunities posed by climate change.\" (Tompkins and Adger 2004).There is a growing literature on the subject of adaptation of forest management to climate change (Lindner 1999(Lindner , 2000 Different forest management options create opportunities and trade-offs. In the following, pairs of contrasting management alternatives will be used to illustrate opposing orientations.A reduced inputs strategy to respond to climate change relies on natural regeneration to maintain a wide genetic diversity, mixed species forests with varying ecological characteristics, and only restricted salvage logging after disturbances. This strategy aims at using natural processes as much as possible to maintain or develop a high adaptation potential. The reduction in the risk of adverse effects would be achieved with low costs.An increased inputs strategy to cope with climate change, in contrast, would include planting of genetically improved seedlings, fertilization, optimized and possibly intensified thinning, and salvaging of deadwood after disturbances. This strategy aims to mobilize all possible potentials. The higher costs associated with this strategy would be at least compensated through increased yields.In addition to stand-level management, there are also management options at higher hierarchical scales of management units, which are linked to other land use types creating landscape patterns. At this scale, the contrasting management strategies could be coined an integration approach versus a segregation approach. The integration approach favours multi-species mixtures and aims to achieve risk reduction in each individual stand. This requires compromises in species selection because the most productive tree species would be mixed with species having a wider climatic amplitude, but often also lower productivity. Thus, the applied cautionary principle would result in a reduced production capacity. The segregation approach, in contrast, mixes forest types and management regimes at the district level. Risk reduction would be achieved through diversifying forest types, but the opportunities for high growth po-f o r e s t m a n a g e m e n t a n d C l i m a t e C h a n g e tentials from productive species would be utilized on appropriate sites.The integration approach has been traditionally supported in Central European management systems. For example, Müller (1997) suggested that natureoriented mixed forests would be best adapted to a broad range of climatic conditions. Conversion of even-aged Norway spruce (Picea abies) monocultures to mixed forests has been supported in several countries because broadleaved species are less susceptible to disturbances (Spiecker et al. 2004). In other parts of the world, the segregation approach is more common. New Zealand is a well-known example of using intensive plantation forestry for wood production, while larger areas of natural forests are protected to enhance biodiversity.Let us assume that all German forest managers would follow an integration approach with a reduced inputs strategy by implementing a conversion of all even-aged Norway spruce forests into mixed uneven-aged forests. On the one hand, this would reduce the risk of some adverse impacts of climate change, such as bark beetle infestations (Lexer and Hönninger 1998), but, on the other hand, such a change in management would also affect many other forest functions. One consequence would be that the forest area would become more uniform, with less variation between stands.Another possible change in management for the abundant even-aged Norway spruce forests could be to replace them with Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) stands. This species is also very produc- Changes in the environment and in society expose forest managers to new challenges. In the environment, not only the climate is changing but also inputs of nitrogen and air pollution to a forest, for example. In society, not only timber is demanded from a forest but also a wide array of wood and non-wood goods and services. These include carbon sequestration and water holding capacity, biodiversity conservation, and recreation. Changes in the environment mean that the forest is no longer in equilibrium with the prevailing abiotic conditions. Consequently, the genetic composition for functional traits of trees needs adjustment, and it may even mean that the species composition of forests needs adjustment.Classically, in genetic and ecological theories, the assumption is that the system is in a dynamic equilibrium. For example, in seed collection protocols it is generally assumed that all parent trees contribute alleles to a seed sample in proportion to the allele distribution in the parent population. However, a spa-tial genetic structure may exist in the forest due to limited dispersal of pollen and seed rather than due to selection caused by local abiotic differences.The distribution of adaptive traits istherefore not yet in equilibrium with the distribution of abiotic gradients, such as moisture and nutrient availability, which in uences an optimal sampling protocol. An ecological example of an implicit equilibrium assumption is succession of tree species. This is often considered a predictable sequence of events based on niche differentiation between species. Niche differentiation supposes that species either co-exist, because after a long evolutionary process they are sufciently dissimilar, so that competitive exclusion is eliminated; or that the better competitor replaces the poor competitor under the prevailing conditions. The implicit equilibrium assumption is that the plant-to-plant interactions operate for a suf ciently long period for competitive exclusion to reach its conclusion. This assumption is disputed by the non-equilibrium explanation of species co-existence, discussed below. Kramer, K. 2007. Resilience of European forests: towards a non-equilibrium view for the management of diversity. In: Koskela, J., Buck, A. and Teissier du Cros, E., editors. Climate change and forest genetic diversity: Implications for sustainable forest management in Europe. Bioversity International, Rome, Italy. pp. 43-52.The validity of assuming equilibrium or non-equilibrium has been largely a rather abstract, academic discussion, especially in ecology. However, climate change requires an urgent response to the question of how to manage forests that are not in equilibrium with the local climate, in terms of both genetic and species composition. This challenging situation demands the rapid integration of genetic, ecological and silvicultural research to arrive at common standards for the evaluation of management options that aim to maintain genetic and ecological diversity in the forest and to provide the goods and services required by society.A non-equilibrium concept of resilience is proposed in this paper as a tool for such an evaluation of the effects of climate change on forests by different scientific disciplines. With this concept of resilience, existing guidelines on forest management and general forest policies should be re-evaluated for their validity in the context of climate change.The overall aim of this paper is to provide an introduction to the concepts of equilibrium, non-equilibrium and resilience in genetics and ecology, and to suggest guidelines for the management of forests in the face of climate change and varying societal demands.Equilibrium or non-equilibrium is assumed in many theories in genetics and ecology, either implicitly or explicitly. The purpose of this section is, firstly, to present a general introduction on equilibrium versus non-equilibrium in ecology considering the co-existence of species and species distribution, and to discuss some of the underlying genetic and evolutionary assumptions. Secondly, this section aims to present a concise introduction to the concept of resilience from both equilibrium and non-equilibrium points of view.Many alternative hypotheses on co-existence of plant species exist in the literature. Without going into the details of each of these, only the broad categories are considered here. One hypothesis assuming equilibrium between the species and the abiotic environment is based on the principle of the balance of nature, and another assumes non-equilibrium between the species and the abiotic environment due to variation in space and time in the species' environment. The equilibrium and the non-equilibrium approaches are often considered to be so fundamentally different that they are referred to as different paradigms (Hengeveld and Walter 1999).The 'balance of nature' paradigm assumes that tree species living together in an area have a long history of joint evolution, which has resulted in each species becoming adapted to a specific set of biotic and abiotic conditions, which together represent its niche. It is thus assumed that the climate is stationary relative to the rate of adaptation, although it is recognized that the climate and the abiotic environment are variable during that time-span. Abiotic conditions form boundary conditions to which a species must adapt so that it survives and reproduces in the first place. Nevertheless, differentiation between species is ultimately explained by biotic causes. This species differentiation results in prevention of competitive exclusion leading to sustainable coexistence and thereby species communities. Increasing specialization leads to increasing species diversity and increasing community complexity. Population dynamics are thus assumed to be mainly controlled by density-dependent factors leading to numerical equilibria between species. Research should focus on demographic behaviour of species, which is why the equilibrium paradigm is also termed the demographic paradigm in ecology (Hengeveld and Walter 1999).The non-equilibrium paradigm, in contrast, recognizes that nature is variable in space and in time at all scales, and that stochastically occurring disturbances drive that variability. Hence, the adaptive response of species ever lags behind trends in both the climate and abiotic factors. Co-existence between tree species that share limiting resources is then explained by the fact that competitive exclusion is slow relative to ongoing disturbances that make these resources available again, such as nutrients, water and space. A tree species must therefore 'track' the availability of suitable sites to regenerate, establish, grow and reproduce for its sustainable existence. This tracking of suitable sites can be either through dispersal of seeds and vegetative propagules to find those suitable sites at other locations, or by using a 'wait-and-see' strategy by establishing dormant seeds in a seed bank at the location where the adult plant is eventually replaced. In the non-equilibrium paradigm, evolution shapes a plant species with life history traits so that it uniquely responds to competitors, climatic factors and the availability of regeneration sites created by disturbances. The non-equilibrium paradigm thus focuses on the individualistic behaviour of tree species, which is why this paradigm is also called the autecological paradigm (Hengeveld and Walter 1999).Much of the assessments of the impact of climate change on species distribution are based on modelling studies that ignore genetic processes. Species distribution models can be grouped into two general classes: climatic envelope models, and dynamic models.Climatic envelope models assume, firstly, that climate exerts a dominant control over the natural distribution of species (Pearson and Dawson 2003), and, secondly, that the current species range is in equilibrium with its climatic potential area. If valid, statistical correlations between climate variables at the limits of the species' geographical distribution can be used to describe current ranges. Critical macroclimatic factors include minimum frost temperature, duration of the growing season, and indicators of water stress during the growing season. Implicitly it is thus assumed in these models that physiological mechanisms have evolved, such as (1) frost hardiness of vulnerable tissues to tolerate frosts;(2) perception of cues from the environment, such as photoperiod or chilling, and forcing requirements to break dormancy for the synchronization of the climatic seasonality of the site with the active growing phase of the tree; and(3) stomatal mechanisms or a hydrological architecture to avoid or tolerate water stress.Dynamic models for the range of tree species can again be broadly divided into two classes. One class of models dynamically considers physiological limiting mechanisms for winter cold tolerance, drought tolerance, and either photoperiod or forcing and chilling requirements to break dormancy and start the growing season (Sykes et al. 1996). These limiting mechanisms are often also represented by bioclimatic variables, hence with essentially the same genetic assumptions on tolerance as the envelope models. The second class considers forest succession models that include not only descriptions of the physiological limiting factors, but also biotic interaction, including competition for limiting shared resources such as light, water and nutrients (Prentice et al. 1991), and dispersal of propagules and the occurrence of stochastic disturbance events (Kramer et al. 2003). In addition to implicit genetic assumptions on adaptation to abiotic factors, forest succession models assume adaptation to biotic interactions too. These models are therefore explanatory tools for transient dynamics following environmental changes, as well as for eventual equilibrium states.Both the climatic envelope models and the dynamic models based on bioclimatic variables thus follow the equilibrium paradigm, whereas the forest succession models based on gap-phase replacement assume the non-equilibrium hypothesis. In the face of climate change, land use change, nutrient deposition and pollution, equilibrium models cannot produce a reliable future projection of even the potential distribution of plant species or biomes, and we therefore need to apply non-equilibrium approaches.The concept of resilience differs fundamentally between the equilibrium and non-equilibrium paradigms. In equilibrium theory, resilience is the time required to return to a stable state (Pimm 1991). The quicker the return time, the larger the resilience, and therefore the system is more predictable. In genetics and ecol-ogy, much of the theory is developed to determine equilibrium conditions, and therefore the return rate to a stable state. In ecology, examples of equilibrium approaches include the widely-used Lotka-Volterra equations and refinements thereof, and the resource-ratio equations of Tilman (1985) to assess the possible co-existence of plant species. In genetics, stable states are described by the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium of allele frequencies, and assessments of the effects of selection pressure thereon. The time to return to pre-disturbed equilibria can be calculated based on first-order derivatives. A technical but crucial point of this theory is that it applies only to small deviations from the stable state. This notion of resilience is equivalent to stability, or, more precisely, to neighbourhood stability (Lewontin 1969). Neighbourhood stability needs to be distinguished from temporal stability, which refers to constancy or lack of variability.In non-equilibrium theory, resilience refers to the conditions that allow a system to absorb changes in the environment and still persist (Holling 1973). This notion of resilience recognizes that random events, spatial heterogeneity and changes in external drivers can bring a system to a state far from equilibrium. Changes in climate, land use, nutrient deposition and pollution may very well push the system so far from equilibrium that stability analysis is no longer applicable.Therefore, an alternative approach is needed to the classical theory on return time to a pre-disturbed stable state.In ecology, much research is done on the importance of spatial processes, including disturbances (Tilman and Kareiva 1997) and dispersal limitation in fragmented landscapes, as exemplified by many studies on metapopulation dynamics (Hanski and Gilpin 1997). A general condition for a resilient metapopulation is that there should be sufficient connectivity between habitat islands to allow a metapopulation to persist despite recurring local extinction.In forest genetics, an example of this notion of resilience is the often-stressed importance of having sufficient genetic variation in a forest as a general condition to allow adaptation. However, relatively new is the insight that populations are not in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium for adaptive traits, nor for genetic markers. Indeed, spatial genetic structure in both adaptive traits and genetic markers (see case study below) is often found, violating the elementary assumption of the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. This urges us to study gene flow through pollen and seeds, which is now possible as a result of techniques using the highly polymorphic genetic markers that are available for many tree species.Hence, in both genetics and ecology, the scientific approaches move from the demographic, population-genetic, equilibrium point of view towards the individualistic, autecological and nonequilibrium point of view. However, scientific insight has not yet resulted in refined forest management strategies to maximize adaptive potential of tree species. An example of a study that aimed to provide the first steps in that direction is outlined below.The DynaBeech project was aimed to bridge genetics and ecology to provide management recommendations for sustainable management of European beech (Fagus sylvatica) (Kramer 2004). The interactions between selection for adaptive traits, gene flow and management practice were studied to evaluate the impacts of forest management on the dynamics of genetic and ecological diversity of European beech. The overall aim was to assess the adaptive potential of beech, as a model tree species, to environmental changes based on its genetic and ecophysiological characteristics. Three sub-aims were formulated: (1) the development of a coupled genetic-ecological individual-tree model and its parameterization for beech, either based on field studies performed within the DynaBeech project or obtained from literature sources; (2) the evaluation of the adaptive response of a beech stand to environmental changes (through sensitivity analyses of (a) initial genetic diversity, (b) pollen dispersal distance, (c) herita-bility of selected phenotypic traits, and (d) forest management, ranging from the least intensive system without management to the most intensive system represented by so-called sheltercut management); and (3) the evaluation, by model simulation, of the responses of selected phenotypic traits and their genetic diversity to a range of management systems applied at the study plots.In summary, the main results of the DynaBeech project were:Gene flow: a substantial proportion of pollen was coming in from outside the stands (44.6% and 71.8% for the Sainte-Baume and Ventoux sites, respectively (G.G. Vendramin, personal communication). The results of the sensitivity analyses showed that, with a short pollen dispersal distance, the genetic diversity decreases over time, and more so in the sheltercut system compared with a no-management system. Thus, longdistance gene flow can be an important mechanism to counteract the loss in genetic diversity caused by selection and drift (Hamrick 2004).Heritability of phenotypic traits: selective responses are low if the heritability is low, and vice versa. The results of the sensitivity analysis show that genetic diversity indeed declines with increasing heritability of a functional trait under the sheltercut system. In that system, selection on emerging recruitment is allowed to operate about every 120 years, thereby removing poorly adapted saplings and thus reducing genetic diversity. Such a trend is much less apparent in the no-management system because effective selection moments are determined by the longevity of beech, i.e. about 250 years.Selection pressure on a trait: a given environmental change will not affect all traits similarly. In DynaBeech, we evaluated four types of trait: (1) a neutral trait, which is selected neither for nor against, and changes due to genetic drift only; (2) bud burst day, which changes due to natural selection only; (3) spiral grain, which changes due to artificial selection only; and (4) height growth rate, changing due to both natural and artificial selection. Based on the simulated responses, the selection pressure imposed on the selected traits increases in this order and genetic diversity decreases proportionally to the selection pressure. Of the adaptive traits, bud burst day shows a small response, and height growth rate shows a strong one, even though the heritabilities were set to the same value in the model.Recruitment interval: the rate of adaptation of trees to environmental changes depends not so much on the longevity of individual trees, but on successful recruitment events during the lifetime of a tree. Recruitment interval is in most forests determined by the management practice rather than through natural forest dynamics. Our modelling analysis on the effects of forest management at 10 study sites showed that the loss of genetic diversity is directly related to management activity, which increases from the no-management system to the sheltercut system (with several management regimes of intermediate intensity). The results indicated that selection mainly operates during recruitment events. Hence, the duration of the interval between the recruitment events is an important factor determining the adaptive response of the forest.Overall, the modelling results indicated that the highest level of genetic variation is maintained in a forest by applying no forest management. However, the nomanagement regime also led to a spatial genetic structure for some traits, hence inbreeding circles. If environmental conditions change, this system is the least suitable, as there are few moments in time where adaptation most effectively operates, i.e. the recruitment stage. These adaptive moments occur more frequently with increasing management intensity, thereby increasing the selective response of adaptive traits. This takes place with a minor loss of both genetic diversity and potentially adaptive alleles.Hence, by spatial-explicit modelling of competitive interactions between individual trees, dispersal of seeds and pollen, and including a simple genetic model to allow adaptive responses of functional traits, the non-equilibrium approach to the dynamics of a beech forest is applied, while allowing equilibria in frequencies of alleles for adaptive traits. The modelling tool, named FORGEM, can be used to assess transient responses of tree populations and tree species composition to climate change and to determine optimal forest management to meet multiple goals.An interesting observational result was that in the virgin forest site of Dobra, indications existed of a spatial structure for bud burst phenology. This suggests that so-called 'inbreeding circles' of closely related adults occur in a group rather than throughout the forest. In the half-sib experiments of DynaBeech, phenology was found to have a relatively high narrow-sense heritability (Teissier du Cros et al. 2004), and in the full-sib trial, indications of quantitative trait loci were found for bud burst (Scalfi et al. 2004). This makes bud burst phenology a good candidate to assess phenotypically whether a spatial genetic structure exists in a forest, without extensive laboratory tests. It is still under debate whether bud burst phenology of beech is also a good candidate for the evaluation of climate change effects because the experimental findings on a control by either photoperiod or temperature or both are conflicting (Falusi andCalamassi 1990, 1996;Heide 1993a, b).Society demands today from forest managers not only a reliable supply of timber in sufficient quality and amount, but also a wide array of goods and services, ranging from carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, water retention and purification to aesthetic values. Guidelines for forest management to optimize the genetic diversity in a stand for a sustainable yield must therefore be embedded in guidelines for the management of other forest functions.Changes in climate, land use, nitrogen deposition and air pollution occur simultaneously, resulting in a situation where stands, forests and species distributions are no longer in equilibrium with the prevailing abiotic conditions. This situation demands that forests be managed in a way that enables adaptation (in a genetic sense) and adjustment (in an ecological sense) to such changes. Genetic diversity, structural diversity and species diversity are, in general terms, conditions that allow the forest to adapt and adjust.From a research point of view, more integration between genetic, ecological and silvicultural disciplines for the management of diversity is required. This should include studies on stand productivity, tree species composition of forests, biogeochemical cycling at the landscape scale, and changes in geographic distributions of tree species. It is essential that both field studies, e.g. provenance trials, and modelling studies, should be used simultaneously to complement each other. Additionally, common quantifia-ble concepts should be developed. Here the concept of resilience, defined as the conditions that allow a system to absorb disturbances and environmental stress, should be made operational and quantified for both genetic and ecological aspects of diversity at the stand, landscape and regional scales. From a genetic point of view, the resilience concept is already quite well developed at the stand scale with the importance of maintaining genetic diversity, whilst taking a spatial genetic structure and limitations of gene flow into account. Matching ecological concepts may, however, need further attention.From a forest policy point of view, the current situation is that international policies on biodiversity, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), recognize that humans have caused a dramatic loss in biodiversity. This has led to the development of policies and management guidelines aiming to prevent ongoing loss and to restore biodiversity. Such guidelines, protocols and (inter-)national policies on forest genetics should reflect the realization that classical equilibrium concepts may no longer be valid for systems that are now essentially in non-equilibrium due to climate change. Implementation of policies aiming at returning to a pre-disturbed reference situation may therefore not be feasible and the resilience of forests to ongoing environmental change becomes of central importance.Institute of Environmental Sciences, University of West Hungary, Sopron, HungaryIn view of the current concern over climate change, the fundamental question is how forest cover and tree populations will react, and what the chances are to maintain and enhance their adaptability. Modelling of vegetation shifts according to various climate change scenarios has been widely applied in the temperate zone. For Europe, it has been forecast that the Mediterranean scrub will invade the British Isles, broadleaved forests might grow in the High Alps instead of conifers, and that treeless grasslands could conquer not only the Carpathian Basin, but also the central part of eastern Germany and Poland.Apart from the great uncertainty in forecast scenarios (especially regarding the amount of rainfall), the preparation for expected changes of this magnitude presents tasks not encountered before in forestry. The large-scale preparation and conversion of forests to future climatic conditions will present grave economic and technological challenges. However, it would be a very biased approach to treat this problem solely as an economic and ecological question, since forests bear also important cultural, aesthetic and emotional values. The existence of forests is an important element of life quality in the European tradition.Predicted climate change demands that a high priority be assigned to the study of the climatic requirements of forest tree species and zonal forest types (i.e. vegetation types determined primarily by macroclimate), especially of their xeric or lower limits, which are determined by tolerance to water stress and high temperatures. The climatic (zonal) limit of greatest concern is the lower limit of closed temperate forests and its dominant species towards continental grasslands or Mediterranean scrub, because the shift of this limit has dramatic consequences for forestry and ecology, as well as for life quality in general. Mátyás, C. 2007. What do eld trials tell about the future use of forest reproductive material? In: Koskela, J., Buck, A. and Teissier du Cros, E., editors. Climate change and forest genetic diversity: Implications for sustainable forest management in Europe. Bioversity International, Rome, Italy. pp. 53-69 the neglected synthesis of ecology and genetics in climate change studies Any prediction about the effects of future climate change scenarios on stability and yield of forests requires information on the tolerance and adaptability of tree species. The maintenance of adaptive and evolutionary capacity has to be considered as a precondition for stability of forest ecosystems (Ledig and Kitzmiller 1992;Eriksson et al. 1993;Mátyás 1997). It is strange to observe that, although the mentioned requirement is hard to interpret without genetic background, there are practically no ecological or conservation biology studies dealing with climate change effects that incorporate the aspect of genetic regulation of the response. Applied ecology papers dealing with the responses of species to climate change (reviewed by Hulme 2005) cover limited geographical areas and short periods, and usually concentrate on responses in abundance with time or spatial distribution. Practically none of the papers reviewed by Hulme (2005) deals with the genetics of adaptation.Nor have quantitative response to change and limits of tolerance-seemingly trivial questions-been among the priority themes of current genetic research. One of the reasons for this neglect lies in the limited scientific reputation of research in quantitative trait variation. In addition, such studies are time-consuming and expensive. It also has to be conceded that until recent decades, behaviour of populations under changed or extreme conditions had little practical relevance.Current forest genetics research concentrates on molecular genetic analysis because this approach promises a faster elucidation of genetic regulation of stability and tolerance, although ecological interpretation of molecular markers with adaptive value has remained dubious in most cases. Out of genetic forces shaping variability, the random effects of migration, mutation and drift have been studied most, while adaptive response to selection has received significantly less attention.The genetic system and adaptability of trees have been shaped by eons of evolution. On an evolutionary scale, most species are ephemeral creatures on Earth. Forest trees, especially the evolutionarily more ancient conifers, certainly belong to the more persisting class of species. Tree species have not only successfully survived changing geological periods, but also endure during an individual's lifetime considerable fluctuations of environment without the chance of escaping to more favourable habitats. Environmental instability, evolutionary history and genetic forces have shaped the natural adaptive strategy of trees; a life form with extremely long generation times, incomparably high within-population genetic diversity and heterozy-gosity, and immense population sizes, both areally and numerically.There are various genetic and non-genetic mechanisms operating on the individual, population, species and ecosystem levels, balancing changes in environmental conditions. On species and ecosystem or landscape levels, a possibility of responding to large-scale changes in the environment is migration through seed (and pollen) dispersal. Palaeoecological evidence of migration during the epochs of glacials and interglacials is abundant-and this is the response mechanism expected and described by most ecologically-oriented future scenarios as well. On the level of populations, natural selection adjusts the average fitness of a population to changing conditions. The directed genetic change of the population's gene pool towards an optimum state is genetic adaptation in the strict sense. It is a well-accepted concept that the basic precondition for fast and effective genetic adaptation lies in sufficiently large variation, i.e. in genetic diversity. Long-term genetic adaptability is therefore directly depending on the conservation or even reconstruction of adaptive genetic variance.On the individual genotype level, environmentally influenced phenotypic plasticity provides the ability to survive in a wide range of environments, without genetic change in the classic sense. Plasticity means that the phenotypic expression of genes is influenced by the environment, thus the organism may modify its responses within genetically set limits. Phenotypic plasticity will set the limits of environmental heterogeneity in which a genotype or population can endure within its lifetime.Environmental signals might also trigger genetic carryover effects. Genetic carryover effects (imprinting, 'after-effects') are lasting changes in genetic regulation, which can be inherited (Jablonka et al. 1995; for a review, see Martienssen and Colot 2001). First proofs of existence of such effects in certain forest trees were detected in boreal populations of Norway spruce (Picea abies) (Skrøppa and Johnsen 2000) and some other conifers. The significance of genetic carryover in adaptation is so far unclear and should be treated with caution.When preparing to meet the challenges of changing climate, it is important to realize which of the described mechanisms will gain importance in adaptation, what their action time frame is, and which mechanisms might be even negligible.Natural selection is eliminating the genotypes of low fitness and tolerance in the lifetime of a population, and this leads to better adaptation. Although some studies on adaptation deal with selection processes and with changes in the genetic composition, few studies have in practice been implemented under conditions of severe change where populations are reaching their tolerance limits. In such margin situations, the effectiveness of adjustment through selection ceases and mass mortality may follow.A much less observed mechanism, phenotypic plasticity, provides the ability of individual adjustment without any change in the inherited genetic resources of the population. Mainly for reasons of difficulty of experimental analysis, reaction norms and limits of adaptability set by phenotypic plasticity are rarely considered in connection with adaptation. Compared with plasticity, spontaneous natural selection will play a smaller role than presumed, due to the speed of expected changes, as explained below. Plasticity should gain therefore an increasing role as a preferred trait for forest reproductive material in artificial regeneration, nature conservation and restoration ecology.Studies on long-distance gene flow through pollen have shed light on this very effective mechanism of constant replenishment of genetic resources, which probably contributes to the unexpectedly high diversity of boreal tree populations. A possibility for responding to large-scale changes in the environment is also migration through seed dispersal. Preconditions for effective adjustment in both cases are landscape connectivity (availability of pollen or seed) and suitable speed, matching the pace of change. The constraints for both are discussed below.A basic question of mitigation strategy is how much natural genetic processes, such as migration, gene flow and natural selection, will spontaneously compensate for the effects of climate change. Migration and genetic adaptation are investigated here as they are usually taken for granted in climate change modelling.It could be argued that, as in the past, species and communities will keep pace with changes and counterbalance these changing scenarios by colonizing new habitats. Authoritative studies on the effects of climate change on vegetation cover take the automatic adjustment of distribution areas of species (i.e. adaptation through migration) for granted, irrespective of the migration possibilities and potentials. Analogies could be taken from observation of spontaneous changes in the insect fauna. However, there are fundamental differences between the migration potential of insects and of forest trees. It should be emphasized that changes in distribution areas and vegetation cover are predicted to be of such a magnitude that they could never happen through natural succession and migration of forest trees. There are two obvious reasons for this.Firstly, the natural migration ability of forest trees is slower than the forecast scenario change. Effective species migration has to match, inter alia, the pace of expected change. For Central European conditions it can be shown that, based on a scenario of an average temperature increase of 2°C in 35 years, isotherms would move north at an average speed of 3 km per year, and vertically 12 m per year in altitude (see Box 1). This has to be compared with the natural migration speed of tree species. It is known from palaeobotanical studies that tree populations migrate-depending on migration abilities-at rates of 0.1 to 0.4 km per year (Davis and Shaw 2001). The difference between the expected and the potential value is roughly one magnitude for horizontal migration (vertical migration seems to be possible if geomorphologic and distribution patterns are favourable).Secondly, insurmountable obstacles to migration are the intensely managed and fragmented landscapes of temperate Europe. Even if tree migration could catch up with the speed of climate shift, and if migration routes were available, spontaneous changes would be impeded due to the nearly total human domination of forest ecosystems through forest management, which has regulated regeneration and species composition for centuries. As much as it is an obstacle, this situation also offers a serious opportunity for human support to natural processes.Another constraint to migration into new habitats is the limited availability of such new habitats, due to unfavourable geomorphological and distributional conditions. Typical examples are populations restricted to mountain tops, such as Spanish fir (Abies pinsapo) in northern Africa (Eriksson and Ekberg 2001)  or Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) in Spain, which simply have nowhere to migrate. In general, any tree species settled in a habitat that does not provide a spatially contiguous escape route will be affected.In addition to high-altitude tree species, coastal Mediterranean species may also be exposed to this threat.are genetic adaptation mechanisms sufficient?Regarding the genetic component of climatic adaptation, there is no general agreement, even among geneticists, on the urgency and modes of mitigation measures. Some scientists (e.g. Hamrick 2004) argue that in the temperate zone, no silvicultural measures will be needed to mitigate the effects of changing conditions because: there is enough genetic variability in the populations, which might be further replenished by migration; regeneration is secured through the persistence, phenotypic plasticity and long life cycle of forest tree populations; palaeoecological data indicate that enough variation accumulates and is saved in refugia, and the selection pressure of recent climatic fluctuations was without effect; and genetic adaptation may happen in relatively short periods, within two or three generations. These arguments may be valid, but primarily in boreal regions with predominantly nature-close conditions, where human land use has yet had no seri-• • • • ous impact. In certain nature conservation areas or national parks, cyclical changes of vegetation do not pose serious problems as long as the dynamism of vegetation and fauna is accepted (Westphal and Millar 2004). However, in landscapes and regions transformed by humans, there is no room left for such fluctuations, especially when approaching the lower distribution limits of a vegetation type or a species. This approach does not consider genetically set tolerance limits, and assumes practically limitless adaptation. And last but not least, ecological and economic consequences for forestry and human life quality are omitted completely from these arguments.A support for accelerated adaptation of populations is the flux of pollen from distant sources. Depending on random wind trajectories, this long-distance migration probably plays a certain role in adaptation (Lindgren et al. 1995). The speed of adaptation of a gene pool through pollen flow can be assumed to be higher than that deriving from migration by dispersed seed. It is the central and northern part of distribution ranges in the northern hemisphere where influx of pollen might contribute to adjustment to change. Relatively continuous distribution of a species, populations close to the natural state and general application of natural regeneration techniques are, however, general preconditions for effective gene flow. Neither of these can be taken for granted. In addition, the adaptability-improving role of gene flow comes into effect only in subsequent generations.From the point of view of selection effects of climatic extremes, studies on tolerance and plasticity traits are essential. Tolerance can be defined as the ability of a genotype to maintain its fitness despite damage. Tolerance is presumably genetically correlated with phenotypic plasticity, i.e. with growth vigour across environments (Weis et al. 2000;Mátyás and Nagy 2005). Limits of tolerance are genetically set and will determine the presence or absence of species (Figure 1). Even under zonal conditions, the limit cannot be described properly in terms of average climate, as limiting conditions are bound to irregularly appearing extremes, usually triggering damage by diseases and pests. The effects of climate parameter shifts are frequently modelled but seldom studied; observations on tolerance limits are scarce, as forest management strives to operate well above the tolerance limits to secure economic returns.The study of the effect of natural selection and the phenotypic response of forest trees presents serious methodical challenges in the field (Berki and Rasztovics 2004). Such effects are much easier to follow in common-garden tests, i.e. in provenance trials. Provenance tests established since the second half of the 19th century are probably among the most important contributions of foresters to the science of biology. They are unique because they have been established with natural-state populations, adapted to specific conditions. They are unique also because these tests have been established across continents, at many sites and maintained over decades. Nonetheless, these tests have remained unnoticed by evolutionary ecologists.When testing a set of populations at a given site, a characteristic response pattern can be observed, where growth and vigour of populations originating from the area of the test site tend to be the best and the performance of less adapted populations decreases with the ecological distance from the location of origin (Mátyás and Yeatman 1992). Equations describing these phenomena have been developed by a large number of authors, and response functions have been broadly utilized to define seed transfer rules and to delimit seed zones. Most of these models rely on describing genetic variation patterns on a geographical basis using latitude, longitude and elevation as independent variables to describe variation patterns for a given area. The ecological relevance of these variables is ambiguous.The idea of transfer analysis, i.e. modelling of responses and forecasting responses to scenarios based on provenance data, was proposed originally by Mátyás and Yeatman (1987) and Mátyás (1994). The principle of this approach is the use of ecological variables to express the change of environment through transfer to the test site. Adaptive responses to changes can be interpreted, generalized and compared more easily if expressed as ecological distances. To observe tolerance and plasticity, populations (provenances) are assessed in different environmental conditions. Regression analysis can be applied to describe the change in fitness. The slope of the function represents the sensitivity to change and the possible limits of tolerance. Taking growth and health condition as proxy for fitness, the function is interpreted as the species' reaction norm of fitness to the variable in-vestigated (precipitation, drought). Thus, growth and survival of natural populations adapted to a given site, transferred and tested in other environments as part of common-garden tests, can be interpreted as a simulation of ambient changes at the original location. The transfer analysis facilitates the forecasting of adaptive response and of effects of environmental change (Mátyás and Nagy 2005;Rehfeldt et al. 2003).The quantitative assessments of common-garden tests have yielded some generally valid results, which are summarized below. Analysis of field tests shows remarkable width of adaptability and persistence (and, in consequence, the extended width of 'local' adaptation) in the face of even dramatic changes in thermal conditions and, to a lesser extent, in moisture supply. This phenomenon indicates the substantial conservatism in the climatic adaptation of numerous tested tree species, which has an inherent genetic basis and may have been enhanced by evolution (Mátyás and Nagy 2005).The superiority of locally adapted, autochthonous populations is an unchallenged axiom in silviculture. The evaluation of provenance tests shows a more differentiated picture. It seems that the fitness of local sources expressed in (height) growth is clearest at locations with extreme conditions. Under more favourable conditions, locally adapted provenances show less superiority (Mátyás 2002).An important outcome of analysis results is the asymmetry of response. The effect of environmental change on populations in different parts of the distribution range is divergent as different climatic factors exert their selection pressure. It should be noted that a species is not responding as a monolithic unit, due to within-species genetic structure. The boreal limit of tree distribution is temperature dependent. In provenance tests, populations originating from the upper limit of a species distribution show their maximum performance in much milder conditions. The effect diminishes with increasing temperature sum of the location of origin.At the southern limit of distribution, drought stress is the main controlling factor. Transfer of populations towards a cooler climate (and better moisture supply) results in accelerated growth.Transfer distance to optimum diminishes with decreasing temperature sum of the location of origin. Accordingly, the reaction of indigenous tree populations to changing conditions will differ according to climatic zones (Figure 2). In the thermally-limited northern-boreal zone, the expected rise in temperature will lead to strong growth acceleration with no significant genetic change. At lower altitudes, in the temperate-maritime zone, growth will accelerate too, along with higher temperatures and increasing or at least unchanged rainfall. In the semiarid temperate-continental and semi-arid Mediterranean zones, however, even relatively minor temperature increases, coupled with growing drought stress, will trigger loss of compatibility, higher susceptibility to diseases, and increased mortality. As a result, temperature increase leads to relatively fast growth and productivity loss, and selective mortality (Berki and Rasztovics 2004;Mátyás 2005).It should be noted that the described phenomena are generalizations. Substantial deviations may be caused by the genetic system of the species, the evolutionarymigratory past, and regional or local site effects. For example, there are indications that in certain regions of the boreal zone, where moisture stress is already present due to low precipitation, higher temperatures and increased drought stress may also lead to incremental decline (Lapenis et al. 2005).Expectable genetic changes will be minor in the northern part of the distribu-tion range despite the speed of predicted change. Improved growing conditions can be utilized through the plasticity potential of tree populations, without much selection. As inherited plasticity will determine the response to change, there is little room left for genetic adaptation. In the temperate-Atlantic Europe zone, where moisture stress is predicted to stay low, populations will also be well buffered by their adaptability.The situation is completely different along the xeric limit of main tree species, and at the limit of closed temperate for- ests. Here, natural selection becomes effective in the form of irregularly appearing health decline and mortality waves following weather extremes. The symptoms of pests (gradations) and diseases might be mistaken for primary causes (this was the case in many countries in recent decades). High mortality rates will certainly exert a strong effect on the genetic resources of exposed populations, and if stress situations aggravate, it may lead to local population extinction, even for once well-distributed, dominant species. This underlines the importance of management and conservation of forest genetic resources.Studies on quantitative genetic variation patterns and adaptive response indicate significant differences between species' reactions-a result of differences in their genetic systems and evolutionary history. Therefore, potential distribution areas of different species will not shift uniformly. A corollary is that changing climatic conditions will generate communities not identical with the present ones. The coupled grave effect of changes in fauna and flora of forest ecosystems are not discussed here as this question is well covered by literature on species biodiversity change and conservation.Expected warming also affects the functioning of the forest ecosystem as a carbon sink. Increased drought frequency leads to growth decline and the quantity of sequestered carbon decreases. Simultaneously, the decomposition rate of dead organic matter accelerates, causing additional carbon release into the atmosphere. In areas favourably affected by temperature increase, growth acceleration leads to higher yields, as observed already across Western Europe (Kramer and Mohren 2001). Closer to the boreal limit, however, the carbon balance might turn strongly negative because of accelerated decomposition rates.In drought stress climates, incremental loss and higher incidence of diseases and pests will challenge the economics of forest operations, and will move emphasis more towards maintenance of ecological functions and conservation of stability and of genetic resources.Thus, considering the long regeneration cycle of trees, the pace of the predicted climate change will be too swift to permit sufficient time for proper genetic adaptation of tree populations. A temperature shift will in any case negatively affect a large part of the area of a species' distribution. At low elevations and in the southern outliers of distribution areas, close to the lower (xeric) limit of the species, temperature increase will certainly lead to the thinning out and local extinction of the species.At the northern limits, temperature increase will bring an improvement in site conditions. This offers the theoretical possibility of a migration advance for the species, as often modelled in climate scenarios. However, even in the long term, the utilization of climatically improved zones outside the present forest limits will be constrained by soil conditions. The development of soil profiles takes millennia, and the usually shallow, less developed soils of high altitudes and high latitudes will not change fast enough. Consequently, contrary to general belief, high altitude and high latitude site potential will not immediately follow the improvement in climate.It can be concluded that mitigation policy cannot rely on natural self-regulation and acclimation of ecosystems.Tasks are imminent both in forest management and in conservation of genetic resources. The two areas are closely linked by our knowledge of the genetics of forest trees, which provides the basis for action. As a consequence, human interference will be essential for the maintenance of adaptability under changing conditions, not only in the present distribution range of the species, but also to extend the ranges of species at the northern peripheries of their distribution. This will be especially the case in the boreal zone, where possible temperature increases might be considerably higher than at medium latitudes (See Box 2).In general, in the core distribution area of widely dispersed tree species with effective gene flow, there is still no emergency for preparatory measures if the stands have been properly managed and regenerated. However, even major, widely distributed tree species need special consideration in the following situations: where there are isolated populations on the southern or continental fringes of the distribution area; where there are isolated mountain populations with no 'reserve altitude'; in locations where conditions in the potential colonization area are unsuitable (high alpine or boreal conditions); where the areas were regenerated with reproductive material of obviously low adaptability; and where there are populations with high phenotypic plasticity. Populations at the southern or continental distribution limits are threatened in particular due to strong productivity loss, i.e. weakened competitive ability and hindered sexual reproduction (Mátyás 2000). Investigations have shown that changes in climatic conditions may affect reproduction processes, which may influence regeneration and dispersal ability of the species. In addition to decline in fructification and higher mortality of mature trees, low regeneration success and high interspecific competition (especially with shrubs and weeds) demand additional efforts to maintain genetic diversity and adaptive potential. In the case of seriously threatened minor tree species and valuable populations, active gene conservation measures will be necessary through evacuation or transfer to gene banks. At the same time, the maintenance or reconstruction ofrandom allelic frequency patterns is less pressing. A typical example of this would be the maintenance of random, non-adaptive geographic variation patterns due to colonization, such as detected for European white oaks (Petit et al. 2002).When deciding on priorities in conserving and utilizing climatically threatened genetic resources of tree populations, genetic information on adaptability should be used, if available. There is a generally accepted approach to judging adaptability, based on genetic diversity at biochemical or molecular level. Much of recent evidence indicates, however, that inference based on quantitative genetic characteristics, such as phenotypic plasticity and adaptedness on the basis of molecular genetic parameters, is at present unreliable. Therefore, adaptively important, quantitative traits should receive at least as much attention as molecular genetic diversity. For the quantitative assessment of these traits, field experiments are indispensable and will remain so for the coming decades.Climate change mitigation is a newly emerging aspect of regulating the use of forest reproductive material. The present guidelines usually leave this aspect unconsidered in most countries. Rules and guidelines should be reconsidered in the light of recent research findings. The general need to reconsider regulations should be utilized as an opportunity to reach flexible, effective, genetically sound, continent-wide guidelines that derive from generally accepted principles. To reach consensus on these questions should be an eminent task for the coming years. Artificial support for migration, i.e. guided transfer of identified provenances and preferring populations exhibiting plasticity, offer probably the most efficient possibilities for mitigation through proper use of forest reproductive material. Among the possible silvicultural management options, the most efficient interference is the proper selection of tending measures in threatened regions by regulating species mixture, canopy closure and stem density in order to improve stability. Genetically, supporting effective gene flow by selecting proper natural regeneration techniques might be sufficient in the mildest cases of climatic threat. When planning silvicultural mitigating strategies, tasks in natural and anthropogenic forests have to be considered separately.There is a strong need to put into practice the principles and guidelines of gene conservation that have been formulated as a Europe-wide common effort under the auspices of EUFORGEN. This calls for cooperative action irrespective of national boundaries.The challenge of environmental instability introduces new dimensions for forest genetic research and demands a review of current research priorities. It points towards more efforts to elucidate natural selection processes and regulation of phenotypic responses. Both continentwide international collaboration and trade opportunities for forest reproductive material have developed enormously following the political and economic changes in Europe in recent years. For the use of forest reproductive material, this means new challenges, both positive and negative. Scientific collaboration through international research networks must deal with these changing challenges and find proper answers. In parallel, there is a need to review results of common-garden tests established during the last century and to identify gaps in our knowledge, with the aim of agreeing on new, complementary test networks to provide a solid foundation for future use of reproductive material.The fundamental basis of adaptability is the genetic variability inherent in natural tree populations. Climate change research results indicate that, because of the conservative nature of the genetic adaptation process, and the relative speed of expected change, even agricultural crops will demand a strategy to facilitate adaptation. Long-lived, immobile organisms, such as trees, will especially need human interference, in spite of an impressive adaptation capacity. To counteract genetic erosion and extinction, populations and outliers along the southern (or low-elevation) limits of species' distribution areas will need special attention.Through international cooperation, guidelines for adaptive silviculture and for the use and transfer of forest reproductive material have to be adjusted in the face of climate change. The tasks and principles described have to be incorporated into the agenda of national forest programmes. To elaborate genetically sound guidelines, strengthening of field experimentation should be promoted. In a period of scarce financial support for this, efforts should be joint and based on international cooperation and sharing of responsibilities.In the face of climate change and the inherent uncertainty it implies, there is a need for reconsidering the way we evaluate and undertake different decision alternatives. While this could be said to be true for so many things in everyday life liable to be affected by climate change, it is likely to be particularly true and important for decisions with a long time horizon. Such decisions abound in many aspects of forest management and, among them, perhaps the most long-ranging decisions are those concerned with forest genetic resources and their diversity at various spatial scales. In this paper, we will brie y point out how decisions concerning forest genetic diversity may affect the state and ow of values of our future forests. We provide some practical considerations and recommendations on ways such decisions could better incorporate the aspects of uncertainty related to climate change.Throughout this paper, forest genetic diversity is taken to concern the genetic variation within the tree component of forests, e.g. tree species, provenances or individual trees or clones. In line with Namkoong et al (1996), we also include the concern for genetic processes that can ensure continued adaptability. We realize that forest genetic diversity in this narrow de nition ('tree genetic resources') constitutes only part of forest biodiversity in general, but it should be noted that it constitutes a very important component. Trees are keystone species in the forest ecosystem and forest genetic diversity may prove crucial for maintaining various forest habitats at all scales, which support forest biodiversity at large and hence also the values derived from biodiversity in a broader perspective.The point of departure here is that large values may be at stake. Many of the commercially planted trees have natural distribution areas covering several ecogeographical regions. A century of provenance research in many countries worldwide has shown that for many species provenances are strongly differentiated, and it is therefore important to choose seed sources that are adapted to the growing conditions at a given site. In Denmark, for example, we have accumulated knowledge from a large number of provenance studies, and for many tree species (e.g. Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii)), selecting the wrong provenance can lead to total failure of the plantings. As a consequence, detailed recommendations for selecting seed sources exist in Denmark, as well as in many other countries, including seed transfer guidelines limiting the transfer of seed across strong environmental gradients (see e.g. Lillesø et al. 2001;Ledig 1996;Sorensen 1992;O'Neil and Yanchuk 2005a). Many large-scale tree improvement programmes cope with this genotype × environment interaction (i.e. the fact that the relative superiority of genetic material depends on the site (Matheson and Cotterill 1990)) by breeding in multiple zones (cf. Namkoong et al. 1980) with the objective to develop separate gene pools for different zones. In Sweden, this concept has been refined to cover a range of environments, including some that may develop as a result of climate change. All this work reflects the important finding that one must expect regional adaptation to be common. The implication is that climate change will be a challenge to the local genetic resources everywhere, and that the effects in terms of reduced health, growth and stability, could be substantial.Our paper is structured in the following manner. We begin with a brief overview of the economic benefits that could be dependent on or affected, directly or indirectly, by our decisions on forest genetic resources, with climate change or not. Following that, we focus on the uncertainty concerning the implications of climate change for the health and vitality of forests, notably tree species, and point out key economic aspects of this uncertainty. We highlight the possible role of forest genetic diversity in trying to control the economic implications. Because decisions of the type considered here have such a long time horizon and tend to be irreversible, there is a lot to be said for flexible management strategies when facing the uncertainty of climate change. We devote a section to discussing and illustrating the economic value of flexibility in forest management, i.e. the embedded value of real options, and we provide simple examples of how forest genetic diversity might play an important role in preserving flexible management options in the face of climate change. We conclude with a brief section pointing out some recommendations, or perhaps more precisely some considerations, for policy-makers, decision-makers and forest managers to bear in mind when making decisions on the future status of forest genetic resources and diversity.It is almost trivial to point out that we derive a large variety of goods and eco-nomic value from forests as such. Most prominent is, of course, the wood produced for a number of possible uses; improvement in the production of wood, either volume or quality, has been and remains a primary aim of forest genetic research. A number of other goods, however, also show considerable value in the market place. In Denmark, hunting leases is one such prominent good; in other places, berry and mushroom picking produce significant marketable values.These values are all easily identified because they are traded in the marketplace. However, as pointed out by so many others before us (Elsasser 2005;Caparrós et al. 2003;Hultkrantz 1992), large parts of the value societies derive from forests are not in the form of marketed products. They are instead non-market goods or services, and their value is more difficult to assess, but in many cases easily observed and identified. This is because the non-marketed goods also comprise a number of so-called use-values, i.e. values we derive from continuously using forests or forest products, or both. An important such non-market use is the recreational use of forest areas for hiking, picnicking, etc. Other uses are more indirect, but sometimes equally important in terms of economic value. These include soil preservation and erosion control, flood and avalanche control, and filtration and protection of water resources. The value of the indirect uses represented by many environmental services can be very significant, and are part of the reason for the large value estimates found in studies trying to assess the total value of ecosystems, or even the global ecosystem (Costanza et al. 1997).Apart from the distinction between marketed and non-marketed goods, we have already started to use the widespread distinction between use (including indirect use) and non-use values. The nonuse values are usually divided into two groups: option values, and existence (or intrinsic) values. We will spend more time below on the option values, and only note here that option values arise when uncertainty exists about the future value of a resource, coupled with decisions which imply irreversible shifts in the state of the resource.An example close to the topic of this paper is the much discussed potential of discovering new important pharmaceuticals in the biodiversity hotspots of tropical forests (Mendelsohn and Balick 1995;Simpson et al. 1996). The potential application of a given genetic resource for planting in different countries or new environments is another option value that should be considered in the face of climate change. As an example, Kjaer et al. (1998) mention gum acacia (Acacia senegal), a very important species in the Sahel region producing many goods, including gum arabic. Trees adapted to areas with low precipitation are important, because such trees are potential seed sources for future plantings on similar dry sites in the Sahel region. However, such gene pools are already being lost due to ongoing desertification in the region (SYGGA III 1989 passim). The lost potential of using such adapted seed sources will represent lost options for all people who would like to grow this species in the future. With ongoing climate change in the region, this loss of options is serious, because many areas are likely to become increasingly dry in the future.The genetic resources of many rare, high value tropical species is another example of a resource that potentially has an important option value (Kjaer 2004). The value of the species in terms of timber trade will typically be small (because they are rare and therefore seldom harvested), but the potential economic benefit of growing such high value timber species in plantations may be enormous, given that appropriate silvicultural or horticultural regimes and marketing are implemented. Many such tree species are at present endangered, and their genetic resources quickly erode even if the option value may be very large (Leakey and Newton 1994). Kjaer et al. (2004) mention Thailand rosewood (Dalbergia cochinchinensis) as an example. It is a very valuable rosewood species that apparently can grow well in plantations. Annual increment is estimated to be 10 m 3 ha -1 , worth of thousands of US dollars, but the species is not planted at present, and the gene pool of the species is endangered. There are many such 'valuable under-utilized species' where the option value must be considered to be much larger than the value of the present timber occasionally harvested from natural forests. Loss of such species will be a loss of options.The existence value, or intrinsic value, i.e. beyond the potential future use of trees, is also a widely acknowledged component of the value of many natural resources. This part is the hardest to grasp and measure (Dasgupta 2000; see Haab and McConnel 2002 for an excellent introduction to technical and applied aspects of environmental valuation techniques). We may think of it, for example, as the value people apply to the simple existence of forest species or entire forest habitats-even if they know they are never going to derive any direct use from them. An example from Denmark is a recent study of the willingness-to-pay for increased efforts to preserve the remaining Danish heath lands (J.B. Jacobsen, personal communication). It revealed a significant willingness-topay for the preservation of 25 threatened species, approximately € 1.5 per year per household for each species. The point being that most of the species in question are small and insignificant insects, lichens and mosses, which most people would never experience themselves. Yet, the respondents identified them as having a value in their own right.Forest genetic research has primarily had as its aim to improve the use value of forests related to wood production. Examples include breeding and provenance trials for improved productivity in terms of wood volume, wood quality, frost hardiness and the like (see e.g. Burley et al. 2004;Hansen and Kjaer 1999). The theoretical value of such gains has been explored to some degree (Löfgren 1988(Löfgren , 1990(Löfgren , 1992)), and estimates of 'likely gain' based on different scenarios have been calculated (see e.g. Foster et al. 1995). Applied, empirical economic evaluations of genetic gains are not abundant, although examples exist (see e.g. Ahtikoski and Pulkkinen 2003;Li et al. 1999;SkogForsk 1995). More holistic analysis of the economics of 'tree gene management programmes' are rare, even if these are underpinned by legislation in EU and many OECD countries and considered to be an important public obligation in many countries worldwide (see, e.g. Graudal and Kjaer 2001).Economic analysis of tree improvement programmes as such is fairly straightforward as it needs primarily to deal with marketed goods, and the techniques for partial analysis using cost-benefit analysis are well developed. However, the actual quantification of the actual realized gain is less easy to achieve, because of the time span from the initiation of a breeding programme to harvest of the improved trees at the end of rotation. The amount of empirical data on realized gains is therefore limited, even from the improvement programmes initiated in the 1960s and 1970s. Nevertheless, one could expect more ex ante or simulation studies to exist in the literature. Economic analyses of genetic gains in agriculture are easier to perform and so more common, but still not as common as one would expect-given the many activities and costs associated with genetic improvement strategies (Drucker et al. 2005).The value of forest genetic diversity as such is broader and difficult to handle. Examples of option values from genetic resources were given above, but they are difficult to assess in economic terms. Conservation of forest genetic resources for keeping 'options open' seems to be an important strategy, but as there are thousands of tree species with potentially endangered genetic resources and conservation is costly, choices must beor inevitably are-made as to which ones to conserve, but it is difficult to assess if those conserved are the more valuable. This is not new, and some guidelines are provided by Graudal et al. (1997).It is important to realize that the presence of genetic diversity is a prerequisite for future adaptation of any species because natural selection only works when genetic diversity is present. This is well known, through the Darwin-Wallace 'Survival of the fittest' theory (cf. Darwin 1902) and is even more clearly pictured in Van Valen's (1973) 'Red Queen Theory' that sees all species as being exposed to constant competition from other species. Species compete and interact continuously, and co-adaptation and development is therefore necessary for any species in order to avoid extinction over time. In the face of rapid climate change, the need for genetic diversity becomes evident because of the likely speed of the changes. The response to natural selection is proportional to the level of genetic diversity (Fisher 1958), so less diversity will cause slower response. Maintaining genetic diversity within and between populations of trees in that sense becomes a parameter for the future stability of tree populations and hence forest ecosystems. Therefore, forest genetic diversity may prove crucial for the maintenance of various forest habitats at all scales, and consequently also the values, goods and services derived from forest ecosystems. Thus, because decisions concerning forest genetic diversity may influence the long-term ecosystem stability and health, these decisions may influence the future flow of indirect use values derived from the environmental goods and services. In general, we would worry if lack of genetic diversity would put this flow under risk.The existence or intrinsic value of biodiversity is a much analyzed and discussed issue. The question here is 'Does forest genetic diversity in itself possess such a value? ' Elsasser (2005) points out that the concept makes little sense at the genetic level, but this will depend on how 'genetic level' is defined. At the species level, it is quite obvious that intrinsic values also exist for forests and trees. For example, the national tree of Brazil, Brazilwood (Caesalpinia echinata) is known to many Brazilians because it gave name to the country. Harvesting and reduction of the Atlantic Coastal Forest have reduced the distribution of this species dramatically, and exploitation probably still continues because of the highly valued timber. The potential loss of Brazilwood implies much more than loss of (present and future) timber production value, because the species is also the symbol for the country. The UNEP-Flora and Faunas 'Global Tree Campaign' highlights Brazilwood as one of thousands of endangered tree species (See http://www.globaltrees.org/ reso_tree.asp), and that kind of focus is probably due to the extra intrinsic value affiliated to this particular species.One can argue that intrinsic values make sense only when discussing the protection values of rare species or significant habitats-not for specific genetic variations in DNA base-pair sequences. At the same time, intrinsic values are also affiliated to genetic diversity lower than the species level. This is the case when preserving the 'native Danish sessile oak' (Quercus petraea) or even 'local sessile oak', although these species are by no means endemic to Denmark. The long life time of forests means that they often 'tell history', and the crooked stem form of sessile oak in western Denmark, believed partly to be due to dysgenic human selection and deforestation over centuries (and disqualifying them from production of high value timber) can therefore be of intrinsic value. The Danish Forest and Nature Agency thus recommends plantings 'of conservation value' in Danish shrub oak forests to be limited to seedlings of local origin, to support the shrub forests in maintaining their bended and twisted phenotypes. Surely, some people also attach intrinsic value to preserving 'local populations of species' even if the species as such is not endangered. The same can probably be the case for unique trees and their progenies. Planting of a small grafting from Denmark's oldest tree ('Kongegen'-expected to be 1500 years old and with declining health) was for example an event that was broadcast by the national television service (DR) in 2005.Actually, all genetic variation-both between species and within species-is due to DNA base-pair differences. Forest gene conservation programmes target species and populations as well as the genetic processes ensuring future evolution (Guldager 1975;Erikson et al. 1993). Because forest genetic diversity may play a big role in sustaining the existence, health and stability of many forest habitats, it also sustains the existence of a much wider array of species in the ecosystems-and their existence value.Returning from the more abstract values to ones more mundane, we should note that for a decision-maker such as a forest manager, diversity is not always an obvious good. From a traditional production point of view, a critical trade-off may exist between diversity and wood production potential. In a deterministic world, optimized production of wood in plantation forestry may imply the use of the best tree species, provenances or clones on all suitable sites, as evident from the fact that monocultures with only very few clones (genotypes) have been considered to be an optimal way to run plantation forestry when dealing with well tested planting material (Lindgren 1992). Deviating from the single species, provenance or clone perceived to be best is generally seen as a costly alternative, especially when highly improved material is available, due to values 'forgone' from not harvesting the added gain from genetic improvement. This, however, requires planting material that is carefully tested, and can be deployed by the forester according to the specific results, at least in cases where genotype × environment variation is substantial. Such detailed, fine tuned knowledge is rarely available-neither in terms of specific site × genotype matching nor in terms of knowledge on which type of product will obtain best prices in future markets. The strategy can therefore change if we bring uncertainty into the picture, and in the face of climate change, uncertainty is perhaps the dominant feature.For decades, the threat of human-induced climate change has been climbing ever higher on the agenda of scientists and interest groups initially, followed by the general public, politicians, and now even decision-makers in private industry. Consequently, scientists have debated the likely effects of climate change on trees and, more broadly, on forest ecosystems (Mohren et al. 1998). Much has been accomplished and revealed about various climate-tree interactions, and yet much remains to be discovered and elucidated. In particular, the exact directions climate change will take in various regions around the world simply remain to be seen. The predicted climate change may occur quite swiftly compared to the length of a tree generation, not to mention the adaptive mechanisms of long-lived ecosystems like forests, and the overall changes within a single tree generation can be substantial (O'Neill and Yanchuk 2005; see also http://genetics.forestry.ubc.ca/cfgc/projects. html#climatechange). Nevertheless, it will appear too slow for decision-makers to have any clear idea of its direction and the consequences for forests they manage. Hence, decisions must inevitably be made in the face of great uncertainty. In economics, the issue of decision-making under risk and uncertainty has been of great interest. We will draw forward two aspects from the economics research, which can be used to illuminate important economic aspects of the management of forest genetic diversity.The first aspect is that of risk and the disutility associated with risk for most individuals. Since the seminal work by von Morgenstern and Morgenstern (1953), it has been recognized that because people tend to be risk averse, risky returns are less desirable than certain returns, ceteris paribus. Climate change implies a greater uncertainty concerning the future returns to any forest investments, because it is unknown how climate change will affect the growth, health and stability of forest stands.Forest owners have the option to diversify against risk in their forest management, and a forest's genetic diversity could be one vehicle to secure such diversification-also with respect to climate change. If we expect different species, provenances or clones to react differently, at least to some extent, to climate changes, then we can reduce the risk by increasing our use of species, provenances or clones, as appropriate and relevant. An example from Denmark is Norway spruce (Picea abies) which is an exotic species in the Danish forestry sector and which is expected to suffer impaired health if winters become milder. Current thinking is that such impairment in health can be expected and would probably be quite serious for the long-term health of the species under Danish conditions, and therefore undermine any economic justification for the species. In contrast, Douglas fir is an exotic species that at present often suffers from climatic damage. One can therefore expect this species to gain from milder climates, whereas colder climates could be quite problematic. The future development of the climate in Denmark is unknown, although we currently expect the climate to warm. By having more tree species with varying climatic preferences in the forests, we reduce risk. The same situation applies in choosing provenances. Field trials in Denmark have shown that it is not the same provenances of pedunculate oak (Quercus robur) that are expected to be the best performers on protected sites compared with more exposed sites. The forest owner must therefore choose a provenance depending on the growing conditions as they anticipate them to be for the next 100 years. For improved clones of Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) or other highly selected clones, the same will be the case. At the time of establishment, the forest owner can choose clones that perform well on milder sites, or clones that perform best at more exposed sites. Without knowing what climate change will bring, picking different clones with different preferences will reduce the risk.In most economic decisions, diversifying to reduce risk in returns comes at a cost in terms of lower expected returns. This may also be the case for the forest owner, but since the risk in this case may not be well defined or known for the various choices available, it is perhaps impossible to say which choice of species is likely to reduce the expected returns. Apparently, diversification against climate-change-related risk may not differ much, in principle, from diversifying against roundwood price variations through mixed-species forestry, except that the risk is better described and known in the case of roundwood prices. The forest owner may be able to achieve the risk reduction by having, say, n species (or provenances or genotypes) growing in n different homogenous stands in his forest. Some stands will cope and provide the forest owner with economic returns, whereas other stands may be less fortunate, develop poorly and perhaps even collapse. On average, the forest owner will in principle be just as well off with n pure stands as they would have been had they used n species in, say, 3n stands-i.e. smaller stands, but still monocultures. In fact, if there are returns to scale in establishing the stands, they might favour larger stands and hence the n-stand version.For society, however, this choice of how to implement risk diversification may not be trivial, even if society as such is less concerned with the risk in returns of the single forest owner than they themself might be. The problem for society is that if climate change implies the risk of severe stability and health problems, and potential collapse of larger forest areas, then these areas may also stop producing a number of the non-marketed environmental services of great value to society. An example from Denmark is the problem of serious nutrient leaching following large scale windthrows of Norway spruce. The larger the area in question, the more likely negative impacts will be. Hence, society may prefer the forest owner to implement diversi-fication in a much more elaborate way than might be considered optimal by the forest owner. The reason is that the social value function of forests includes a number of elements likely to be of much less importance to the forest owner than to society.An elaborated kind of risk diversification in plantation forestry could be random planting of several species in each reforestation site-resulting in a high degree of inter-specific forest genetic diversity in the stand. This kind of mixed-species forestry, however, is often impossible for silvicultural reasons. Very different species tend to develop very differently in their early stages, and often such initially diverse stands quickly grow into more or less monocultural ones through inter-species competition in the young stand-in which case little or nothing has been achieved by the high cost in terms of management and production lost. A different approach would be to plant stands of one species per stand while ensuring large levels of genetic diversity in each stand. Kjaer et al. (1995) suggested deploying seed sources for long rotation species that maintain an effective population number of 20 or above. Assuming that different genotypes fit in different climates (genotype × environmental interaction), such an approach will reduce risk in returns, compared with selecting a more narrow genetic basis for the planting material, and would ensure that sufficient genetic variation is present for selection to have an effect. A low-risk strategy could further be supported by selecting genotypes that perform well over a suite of different sites (little genotype × environment interaction). Use of genetically diverse, unimproved provenances might be an easier alternative, but if improved planting material is available, such a strategy will imply a cost penalty, i.e. 'values forgone' in terms of productivity by not using sources based on selected trees. Different species can be planted at different sites matching soil conditions and diversifying the species grown.In continuous-cover forestry, where natural regeneration is the norm, the handling of climate change risk through decisions concerning forest genetic diversity could imply the introduction of exogenous genetic material to the forest. In that case, the considerations will be much as described above.What we have discussed so far is the potential for forest genetic diversity to reduce risk in a traditional portfolio selection way (Markowitz 1952). This way of coping with climate change risk is likely to be important at the individual or firm level. In this specific case, we argue that the way diversification is undertaken in forest management is likely to also have great influence on the expected societal value of forests.It is implicitly assumed above that once we have decided upon some specific forest genetic diversity in or between our new forest stands, we will wait for climate change to unfold itself and see which stands fail and which stands succeed. The planning mode is best described as anticipatory. The forest owner would make a loss with the stands that fail (as would society), relative to those that succeed. With this approach, the next decision point for the forest owner would be to salvage the poorly performing stands (to reduce the loss of alternative production forgone) once they can recognize them, and replace them with new trees of different and perhaps better genotypes. The initial decision on forest genetic diversity is an irreversible decision in an economic sense because the initial costs of establishing the forest and the production lost because of poorly performing types cannot be recovered.When decisions are irreversible and there is uncertainty about the future value of some decision alternatives, delaying the irreversible decision includes an option value. This is the second important economic aspect we wish to discuss in relation to forest genetic diversity. Having the option to delay important irreversible decisions requires that we are able to design and implement flexible forest management strategies. Flexible strategies 'buy time'. We will discuss these possibilities in the next section.As we briefly pointed out in the second section, one component of the value of any natural resource is the option value. This value arises when there is uncertainty about the future (use-)value of a natural resource and decisions concerning its use are irreversible. The option value was first identified by Arrow and Fisher (1974) and Henry (1974) in the cases of irreversible development of a nature reserve, whose future value is known to be uncertain. They showed that conserving the nature reserve for some time period implies an option value in addition to the current (use-)value of the reserve. This option value arises because conservation over a period embeds the option to see if the value of the nature reserve increases or decreases, and then make a new decision based on this information. If it increases further, conservation may still be optimal, but if it decreases too much, it may be optimal to develop the nature reserve. This does not imply that conservation is always optimal but it does imply that for development to be optimal the value should exceed not only the use value of conservation but also the option value of developing the reserve later, should it prove optimal at that stage. This kind of adaptive decision-making was later also described in managerial economics as the 'value of waiting' (McDonald and Siegel 1986) and it has been developed into the field of real options analysis (Dixit and Pindyck 1994).We will briefly discuss how flexible forest management strategies with respect to forest genetic diversity may incorpo-rate such option values related to the uncertainty caused by climate change. For example, if we can defer the decision of which species, provenance or clone we want to use as a dominating and primary wood producer on a piece of land, we may learn more about the evolution of climate change and the effects on the various kinds of tree. The simplest and crudest way of doing that is, of course, to simply plant a new stand. This, however, may be impossible in the case of reforestation of forest land, and is certainly likely to be too costly if the land cannot be used for other purposes while waiting. In the case of afforestation of agricultural land, it may be a reasonable option (Thorsen 1999).Another approach to introduce flexibility into the forest management plan is to establish a stand with two or more species, provenances, clones or whatever is relevant, and then observe their evolution as they grow and climate change evolves and affects their growth. Next, the forest manager may enter the young or medium-aged stand and through selective thinning remove the trees, provenances or species that turn out to be ill-fitted to the climate change and allow the better fitted to make use of the space liberated. Of course, such an approach requires rotations of some extended time span or climate changes of some speed and magnitude to result in significant option values. See Jacobsen and Thorsen (2003) for a deeper analysis of such a case. It would probably be right to argue that such species or genotype mixes will sometimes be impossible for silvicultural reasons, or because they are costly in terms of higher establishment and management costs. The gains in option values should exceed these additional costs-otherwise the approach is not advisable. Note, however, that what has been described here is in fact similar behaviour to that exhibited in many forest management plans in which forest stands are established with a stem number much larger than that aimed for in the final mature stand. The superfluous trees are subsequently removed through selective thinning, at a time when the forest manager is able to take advantage of new knowledge (i.e. which trees turned out to have the better genetic material or to be planted at the better microsite).Climate change effects will occur only after some time. Societies must therefore support strategies that allow for an adaptive strategy over such long time horizons. For plantation forestry, it is important that forest genetic diversity is not reduced through widespread deployment of genetically narrow seed sources. Because we have imperfect knowledge of which species, provenances or genotypes will do well in the future, we need to have a variety of these growing under a variety of conditions to gain new knowledge on which to base future decisions. In continuous-cover forestry, where natural regeneration is dominating, other challenges may appear: what if the genetic material in these forests is already quite narrow? Will they be able to adapt swiftly enough to survive under the future pressure of climate change? Or should forest management also seek to introduce increased variation through genetic enrichment plantings? Close-tonature forestry increases the role of the forest owner in terms of genetic management because trees are in general based on natural seed fall and less often planted from seed sources outside the forest. In Denmark, large-scale planting of ash trees (Fraxinus excelsior) from a 2-clonal seed orchard has taken place during the last four decades. Genetic studies of the consequences of this are in progress, but it may be that, at least in some close-tonature-driven forests, there is a need to consider introducing planting material from more diverse seed sources in order to mitigate any effect of inbreeding and to speed up adaptation. Naturally regenerated forest also presents challenges from a genetic perspective (see e.g. Namkoong 1999) and these must also be considered when planning for sound genetic management of forests. In any case, forest genetic research on species with long rotation cycles should probably not focus only on bringing about increasingly specialized clones to be deployed at very specific planting sites. Rather, tree improvement and deployment strategies for long-rotation species should ensure that genetic variation is mobilized and maintained in forests not only to facilitate response and adaptation, but also to buy time and flexibility for the forest owner. This is not about abandoning forest genetic research and doing nothing in the field-to the contrary, it requires development and implementation of genetically sound forest management.With little interdisciplinary research in the field of forest genetics and economics, and inadequate knowledge on the future effects of climate change, we have relied on general economic principles to address some of the issues in this paper. Several recommendations follow from the above discussion:We know too little about the socio-economic value of forest genetic improvement and genetic management programmes in a wider perspective than simple increase in wood production. It is recommendable that policy-makers close this knowledge gap by requiring more applied societal cost-benefit analyses to be undertaken.As a consequence of little knowledge on the global socio-economic value of forest genetic improvement, we also know too little about the value of forest genetic diversity. It is therefore recommended to develop economic theory and tools to assess this. This research would need to address the aspects of uncertainty, as well as potential gains and losses, from increasing genetic diversity. Such analysis can draw on available knowledge on genotype × environment interaction as can be observed in international species, provenance, progeny and clonal trials. International cooperation in this field should therefore be encouraged.It is advisable to take risk considerations into account before pursuing forest genetic management strategies that are vulnerable to failures of specific genotypes. Diversification through increased forest genetic diversity could be a recommendable risk-reduction strategy for the forest owner.The social value of forests might be better protected by risk-diversification strategies, including strategies based on the proactive use of genetic diversity in forest plantings. It is therefore recommended-on a case-by-case basis-to examine to what extent private and social values of forests are optimized at the same or different levels of genetic diversity.It is recommended to develop different policy instruments designed to provide incentives for private forest owners to choose optimal diversification strategies from the point of view of society in situations where this differs from the private optimum.Option values are potentially very big for forest genetic resources, especially in the face of climate change. Forest management strategies and decisions on forest genetic diversity that provide flexibility with respect to adaptation strategies for climate change should be encouraged as they may increase expected both societal and private value of the forest. Management of natural resources, and forestry in particular, is one of the key sectors to be in uenced by climate change. Genetic diversity ensures the success of species in environments that are subject to change. Ultimately, the genetic diversity of trees forms the basis of forestry and related forest industries. Therefore, genetic aspects should be integrated in the forest policy through the National Forest Programme.In this article we summarize the contents and the preparation process of the National Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change, with emphasis on the links to forest genetic diversity. In addition, the National Programme for Forest Genetic Resource Management is brie y described.The rst National Climate Strategy, in 2001, emphasized mitigation of the negative effects of climate change. However, it soon became obvious that in addition to mitigation there was also a clear need to identify possible ways to adapt to the change. The current climate scenarios show no signi cant downturn in the global warming trend for decades into the future, regardless of the mitigation measures taken in different scenarios. The need to identify adaptation measures to climate change was identi ed in the Parliament and the preparation of the National Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change began at the end of 2003, through a broad-based working group (Anonymous 2005). The objective of the Adaptation Strategy is to reinforce and increase the capacity of society to adapt to climate change. Adaptation to climate change refers to the capacity of nature and humans to adjust to the environmental changes, either through minimizing the adverse impacts or by taking advantage of the benefits.The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry coordinated the actual work, while representatives from the Ministry of Transport and Communications, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Ministry of the Environment, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Finnish Meteorological Institute and Finnish Environment Institute took part in the preparation process. The work used as its reference a set of existing scenarios for future climate in Finland, and the Government Institute for Economic Research prepared long-term economic scenarios. Several top Finnish scientists in the field of climate change and its impacts, other experts and representatives of various sectors were also involved in the work. The draft strategy was circulated widely for comments, and Finnish stakeholders and citizens had the opportunity to offer their comments on the Internet. The comments were duly taken into account in finalizing the strategy.The strategy includes all the key sectors of society, namely natural resources (agriculture and food production, forestry, fisheries, reindeer husbandry, game management and water resources), biological diversity, industry, energy, transportation and communication, land use and construction, health, tourism and insurance.The third assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that Earth's average temperature is expected to rise by 1.4 to 5.8°C between 1990 and 2100, and the increase in Finland will be at least the same rate. Globally, sea level is estimated to rise by 0.09-0.88 m, but in Finland the expected rise is less because land uplift relative to mean sea level still continues. Globally, precipitation is expected to increase, but there will be considerable variation in the magnitude of the change between different regions. Over Finland, precipitation is expected to increase, especially during winter. Climate change is expected to increase the occurrence of extreme weather events. Estimates concerning increased storminess in Finland involve a great deal of uncertainty, but winter storms and thunderstorms may occur more frequently. All in all, the increases in the frequency or magnitude of extreme weather events can be expected to have more significant negative impacts on different sectors of the Finnish economy and the functioning of society in comparison with gradual and sometimes beneficial average changes.The Adaptation Strategy gives a detailed account of the impacts of climate change in different sectors and presents measures to be taken until 2080. The main elements of the strategy are also included in the National Energy and Climate Strategy, which focuses on measures to be launched during the next 5 to 10 years. Priorities identified for increasing adaptation capacities include:mainstreaming climate change impacts and adaptation into sectoral policies; addressing long-term investments; coping with extreme weather events; improving observation systems; strengthening the research and development base; and enhancing international cooperation. The main negative impacts on the forest sector will probably be connected with reduction in ground frost and an increase in various pathogens, whereas the most important advantages will be the increased growth and better seed yields of forest trees. Climate change will also change the relative proportions of species, as broadleaves-mainly birch (Betula spp.)-will benefit from the change. However, the development of stand composition will also be steered by forest management, and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and Norway spruce (Picea abies) will continue to thrive in southern Finland. A summary of the possible impacts is presented in    A major target of the Adaptation Strategy is that a detailed assessment of the impacts of climate change be incorporated into the regular planning, implementation and monitoring processes of the different sectors. All sectors should enhance their use of research results and increase cooperation and coordination with different administrative sectors, institutes and other actors. In its first stage, the mainstreaming of climate change impacts and adaptation calls for the development of research and assessment methods. At the same time, relevant aspects of climate change may be incorporated into environmental planning, environmental impact assessment and risk management. There is an obvious need to strengthen policy-relevant research and development. In addition to general research on future climate, processes of climate change adaptation and the costs of impacts and adaptation, sector-specific studies are also needed. A five-year research programme on adaptation was launched in Finland in 2006. It aims to reinforce adaptive capacity and help build a sufficient knowledge base to support practical adaptation measures. The programme was prepared jointly by different ministries during 2005, and its main objective is to produce information and methods that can be applied in practice. The information obtained by the new research programme will be used to further specify necessary adaptation measures in different sectors. The information will also be used for the revision of the Adaptation Strategy.The National Adaptation Strategy identified the following sector-specific adaptation measures as important priorities for the forest sector:Incorporation of climate change into the planning of national forest policy. Development of forest management, wood harvesting and prevention of The wood quality of conifers may sufferDevelopment of insurance systems against damage caused by extreme weather events. Clarification of the division of tasks and responsibilities between public and private insurance. Among other measures, the use of forest genetic resources for adaptation to climate change has been mentioned in the strategy, stating that genetic diversity in the common tree species is extensive enough to make adaptation possible. Forest management methods can be used to shorten the time needed for nature's own adaptation measures. In forest regeneration, it is important to use suitable tree species of appropriate origin that can adapt to the changing climatic conditions. Preference in artificial regeneration should be given to provenances originating somewhat south of the place of cultivation. However, forest reproductive material should be moved carefully, with proper attention to tree survival through the seedling stage, during which the climate might not yet have warmed as much as in the subsequent stages of growth. Scots pine of Central European origin cannot be successfully moved to Finland because the provenances have adapted to different photoperiods. Trees of southern origin will also be vulnerable to Scleroderris canker caused by the fungus Gremmeniella abietina because they are in a susceptible phenological state when they become exposed.The testing of tree species' origins must be carried out across the boundaries of • • the current breeding zones, and different targets for improvement can be established within the breeding zones. Properties to be improved in the future include, among others, adaptation to increased mean temperature and an extended growing season, as well as resistance to pests and diseases. The most significant method of utilizing the results of tree improvement in practical forestry is to establish seed orchards and promote them as preferred sources of seed. In order to prepare for climate change, it is important to know as precisely as possible the genetic origin of the artificial regeneration material. This will make it possible to determine the potential use area for a certain batch of seed, taking into consideration climate change. In this respect, seed from seed orchards is much better and safer than seed collected from forests.The National Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change is being implemented between 2005 and 2015, primarily through sector-specific programmes and actions. Citizens are also likely to respond to the changes through their own voluntary actions. The implementation of the Adaptation Strategy will be evaluated within 6 to 8 years, by which time research and dissemination activities in different sectors should have produced new and more detailed information and views on climate change, its impacts, and the need and means for adaptation. It is also likely that there will be more information available on mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions at a global scale, as well as a clearer idea of the pace at which climate change is progressing.The management of genetic diversity has been given high priority in Finland. A National Plant Genetic Resources Programme, covering plant genetic resources in agriculture, horticulture and forestry, was launched by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to promote the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources (Anonymous 2001). The implementation of the programme for agriculture and forestry is monitored by an advisory board, which acts as a link between various ministries, participates in the preparation of legislation concerning plant genetic resources and deals with the Nordic and international issues related to plant genetic resources. The Finnish Forest Research Institute, which is responsible for all forest tree breeding in Finland, is also responsible for the conservation of forest genetic resources.The purpose of conserving forest genetic resources is to maintain hereditary variation in species and local populations far into the future so that their viability and adaptability would be sufficient to cope with changing environmental con-ditions. The appropriate methods for genetic conservation depend on ecological and biological variables, the most important ones being reproductive biology, colonization habits and competitive ability of a given species. In the strategy for forest genetic resource management, indigenous tree species have been classified roughly into two groups. The first group includes wind-pollinated species bearing light seed and having moreor-less continuous distribution, and the second group contains rare species that have limited gene flow because of fragmented distribution, requirement for insect pollination or short-distance seed dispersal. The main conservation method for the first group is in situ gene reserve forests, whereas for the second group, ex situ collections are the predominant gene conservation method. The strategy is described in detail in Rusanen et al. (2004).In situ conservation normally requires that a representative area of undisturbed natural forest or a naturally regenerated commercial forest is set aside as a gene reserve forest. Currently (late 2006) there are altogether 42 gene reserve forests in Finland, and their combined area is about 7000 ha. As these forest stands are spread over different climatic zones, they include a large range of adaptive traits. Gene reserves are mostly selected for conservation of Scots pine, Norway spruce, silver birch (Betula pendula) and pubescent birch (Betula pubescens).The basic requirements for a gene reserve forest are that it is of local origin and preferably has been naturally regenerated. Normally, a stand is selected as a reserve for a certain tree species, but a mix of other species is allowed. The area should also comprise several age classes of the target tree species. Gene reserve forests of windpollinated tree species should be large enough for sufficient pollination to be secured within the forest. The general objective is that a gene reserve forest should cover an area of at least 100 ha, but initially the area can be smaller if it can be expanded later using a seed source from the same stand. Since pure birch or Norway spruce forests are seldom large enough in southern Finland, suitable mixed stands consisting of two or three tree species have also been selected as joint gene reserves. For noble hardwoods, which are rare and only grow in small patches, strips or mixed stands in Finland, smaller areas covering only a few hectares are accepted as gene reserve forests.Protected areas and habitats that are mentioned in the Nature Conservation Act may support genetic conservation in certain areas for some species. However, the principal objective of national parks and nature reserves is to preserve forest ecosystems and they have limitations for genetic conservation purposes. In many cases, the protection prevents forest management that would be needed to promote regeneration, and often the regulations of the protected areas also restrict the utilization of genetic resources. The objectives of ecosystem and gene conservation are more consistent in the natural forests rich in noble hardwoods or black alder (Alnus glutinosa) and juniper (Juniperus communis) meadows. For these protected habitats, the Nature Conservation Act allows treatment that does not endanger the special features (e.g. noble hardwoods) of the areas.Ex situ conservation is appropriate when the tree species is rare and grows only in small patches, when the site is threatened or when regeneration is uncertain. The principal method for the ex situ conservation of forest tree species is the establishment of tree collections. The individual trees are either propagated by grafting and the grafts moved to clone collections, or seed is collected from the original trees and so-called family collections are established with seedlings. In the family collections, several seedlings of one family are planted near each other, and thinning is carried out so that only one tree, representing the family is finally left growing. The families representing the same forest are distributed within the collection so that they can also be used for seed production after thinning. One of the benefits of the tree collections is that some selection takes place within them. They produce welladapted and genetically variable seed that can be used in forest regeneration or in landscaping.The ex situ collections have been established mainly for noble hardwoods, namely Norway maple (Acer platanoides), common ash (Fraxinus excelsior), pedunculate oak (Quercus robur), smallleaved lime (Tilia cordata), mountain elm (Ulmus glabra) and European white elm (Ulmus laevis). Material for the collections has been gathered from several (20 to 90) forest stands, usually from 5 to 10 trees in each stand, so that the whole distribution area of the tree species is covered. The number of stands and trees per stand varies among species because the availability of seeds has directed the practical work. The trees selected for genetic resource collections are not necessarily the best trees from the point of view of forestry and the economy as the aim has been to collect a random sample of the existing genetic variation.The National Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change is quite comprehensive and covers all the key sectors of society. This was possible because the Parliament gave a clear political mandate and requested an adaptation strategy to complement the earlier mitigation strategy. Scientific information together with expert assessments and judgements formed the basis for identifying key actors and priority measures. Broad participation and transparency were ensured not only through various working groups and political meetings but also by making it possible for the public to provide feedback through the Internet.Although the strategy has been drafted with a long-term perspective, it identifies several key activities, the implementation of which can start immediately. However, further research is needed, and when more information becomes available, the actions and priorities will be reviewed accordingly. The sectoral strategies will be monitored through a follow-up process and the complete Adaptation Strategy will be reviewed within 6 to 8 years.The linkage between the Forest Genetic Resource Management Programme and the objectives of the Adaptation Strategy is obvious, but since the latter covers broad societal needs, there is very little emphasis on genetic aspects. A natural instrument to connect management of forest genetic resources with adaptation to climate change would be the National Forest Programme. The National Forest Programme 2010 defines the objectives of forest policy for the next few years. The aim of the Programme is to guarantee work and livelihood based on forests, the biodiversity and vitality of forests, as well as the recreational and cultural values provided by forests for the entire population. The Programme was evaluated in 2005 and is currently under revision. This provides an opportunity to address the role of genetic resources in the adaptation of the Finnish forest sector to climate change.Forest gene conservation programmes aim at preserving genetic diversity in the long term to maintain the capacity of forests to respond to societal demands in the context of environmental change. National conservation strategies for forest genetic resources contribute to the collective effort towards sustainable management of European forests. Since 1994, international coordination of these efforts has been strengthened by the European Forest Genetic Resources Programme (EUFORGEN) as part of the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE) process. These conservation strategies are generally developed at species level and combine ex situ and in situ approaches in a complementary way. The ex situ approach (germplasm collections) can be used for any species that is vegetatively or generatively propagated, but it becomes time consuming and costly when the objective is to achieve dynamic gene conservation. The in situ approach is a dynamic gene conservation strategy based on natural regeneration, but it is classically limited to those species that form large populations in a reasonably manageable area, and suitable methodologies for scattered or pioneer species have not yet been developed. Beside speci c conservation networks, other activities such as silvicultural practices and natural reserves also have a signi cant impact on long-term evolution of genetic resources.In this perspective, climate change is a challenge because of the magnitude and time scale of the environmental shift, which was not expected when conservation programmes were initiated in the 1980s. Will the current forests withstand the change that is occurring within one or two generations of trees? Will the forests have time to evolve and adapt genetically to new conditions? Will the tree species have the capacity to migrate in latitude or elevation and follow the shift of their potential distribution range?In this paper, the French forest genetic resources conservation programme is used as a case study. Its aims, principles Lefèvre, F. 2007. Conservation of forest genetic resources under climate change: the case of France. In: Koskela, J., Buck, A. and Teissier du Cros, E., editors. Climate change and forest genetic diversity: Implications for sustainable forest management in Europe. Bioversity International, Rome, Italy. pp. 95-101 and achievements are reviewed with a focus on each decision step. Then, basic principles for gene conservation are re-considered in the context of rapid climate change. Finally, recommendations are made in terms of the definition of the objectives for genetic resources conservation, as well as for conservation methodologies.The French forest genetic resources conservation programme is 20 years old (Teissier du Cros et al. 2001). A first working group on forest genetic resources (FGR) was initiated by scientists (M. Arbez and G. Steinmetz) in 1985. Four years later, in 1989, the National Commission of Forest Genetic Resources was created by the Ministry in charge of agriculture, with the objective of maintaining a large resource of genetic diversity for priority species in the long term, by implementing specific conservation networks at national level, to preserve the adaptive capacity of the resources. Five pilot species were selected to develop a conservation strategy based on conservation networks (beech (Fagus sylvatica), silver fir (Abies alba), wild cherry (Prunus avium), elm (Ulmus laevis) and black poplar (Populus nigra)). In 1991, the first in situ conservation networks for beech and silver fir were officially established by the Ministry. In 1997, a charter for the conservation of FGR was prepared by the Commission, and signed by all partners of the 'FGR chain': the public forest service, representatives of the private sector, research and development organizations, and forestry schools. Today (in 2006), 11 specific conservation networks are operational (the five initial pilot species plus sessile oak (Quercus petraea), maritime pine (Pinus pinaster), Norway spruce (Picea abies), service tree (Sorbus domestica), wild service tree (S. torminalis) and walnut (Juglans regia)) (Balsemin and Collin 2004). Priority is given to in situ conservation as a dynamic strategy that allows the evolution of genetic diversity in response to environmental changes. Ex situ conservation is reserved for the most threatened species or when an in situ approach is not applicable. The national strategy developed by the Commission includes the following decision-making steps: selection of a range of pilot tree species for which conservation strategies are specifically adapted (in situ or ex situ or both) and strategies that can be extended further to any other species having the same biological or ecological characteristics; establishment and management of in situ conservation networks: selection of the conservation units that will contribute to the network, definition of the management plan for each conservation unit, and definition of criteria and indicators for monitoring the conservation units and the network; establishment and management of ex situ collections: definition of a sampling strategy to establish and regularly update the collection, and definition of the conservation methodology (in vivo or in vitro) and procedures; definition of a strategy for the valuation of conserved genetic resources; and public awareness. As an illustration, I will briefly review the decision steps for in situ conservation.It is considered that a network of 30 gene conservation units offers a good compromise with sufficient diversity in a still manageable organization. The objective assigned by the French Commission to the network of in situ conservation units is to represent the adaptivediversity existing in the main distribution range of the species, including some marginal populations, all material being autochthonous. Of course, the information available for the establishment of the network varies among species. The first conservation networks for beech and silver fir have been extended several years after their initial establishment, to account for the most recent results on the structure of genetic diversity, whereas, by contrast, much more detailed information was initially available when establishing the conservation network for sessile oak. Legal status and ownership of the land is also important information for the selection of conservation units. In the case of silver fir, we are facing a situation where a potentially original resource in the western part of the country only occurs on private land, and the question is how to ensure long-term conservation of such conservation units.Each conservation unit has a common structure with a core area, where the target species must be autochthonous and be represented by more than 500 seed trees, with a minimum density of 60 trees/ha, and a peripheral zone where no alien origin of the target species is allowed. Management plans of the conservation units allow any silvicultural treatment, but the following three objectives should be met:(1) natural regeneration is sufficient in quantity (it can be assisted by using local seed from the core); ( 2) good genetic quality of the regenerated seedlings is ensured (enough diversity and reduced consanguinity); and (3) local phenotypic identity is maintained (mainly adaptation to local conditions). In particular, in even-aged silviculture, regeneration of the core must be conducted prior to the peripheral area, applying given critical values for the number and density of seed trees. Natural regeneration is preferred, but assisted regeneration from local seed sources is an alternative when the three previous requirements can not be met.As previously mentioned, this speciesbased approach cannot be applied to all forest tree species. Moreover, classical in situ methodology is not readily applicable to highly scattered species that do not form obvious populations or stands, nor to strictly pioneer species in which regeneration dynamics is governed by extinction versus colonization processes not related to silvicultural management (e.g. in riparian forests). Ex situ strategies are preferable in such cases. This also emphasizes the need to develop criteria and indicators for monitoring the evolution of genetic resources under 'normal silviculture' outside specific conservation networks, and the need for enhanced coordination between genetic resources conservation and habitat conservation programmes.how does climate change influence forest genetic resources conservation programmes?Various climate change scenarios have been predicted on a regional basis (see http://www.ipcc.ch). Although the predictions still vary from one scenario to another, it is likely that once changes start occurring, they will be rapid (within a time scale of one tree generation) and differ among geographical zones. For example, in Europe, the Mediterranean area will experience a decrease in annual rainfall, whereas northern areas might rather experience seasonal fluctuations within each year, not necessarily accompanied with total annual deficit. Climate change might also result in higher frequency of exceptional weather events, beyond biological thresholds, leading to catastrophic damage to the present forests. In practice, climatic events have already affected our forest genetic resources: the big storm of 1999 destroyed large parts of in situ conservation units of beech in north-east France and the severe drought of 2003 led to die-back of silver fir in south-eastern parts of the country, and the mortality of silver fir in 2006 was still increasing as an after effect. Experimentally, these situations also provide an excellent opportunity to evaluate the robustness of our genetic resources conservation networks, but this evaluation has not yet been done.Theoretically, climate change can influence each of the decision steps listed above. Firstly, it should be incorporated within risk assessment more explicitly than before: what are the areas of higher risk due to climate change (drought, temperature, catastrophes)? What are the species or habitats most susceptible to climate change? These considerations will affect the choice of priority species and priority areas for gene conservation. One problem is that the real impact of climate change on forest genetic resources results from complex processes and is not yet predictable. Therefore, we must reconsider our objectives and make them evolve from the preservation of existing genetic diversity to the conservation of the capacity of forest genetic resources to 'keep on running'. It is clear that we have to manage adaptive capacity in the long term. Genetic resources must be considered from a dynamic perspective and exposed to constant evolution. The current values of diversity parameter estimates should not be simply considered as an objective for management, but rather as indicators of evolutionary processes. For sustainable management of forests in the context of rapid environmental change, three conditions are required: (1) existing resources do not completely disappear; (2) remaining trees are able to regenerate and produce a new generation better adapted to the new conditions (examples of transplantations have shown that genetic changes in adaptive potential can occur in just one generation (Skrøppa and Kohmann 1997;Rehfeldt et al. 2001)); and (3) the migration process allows trees to follow a geographical shift in their potential distributional range.Rather than just genetic diversity, gene conservation strategies should focus more directly on adaptive capac-ity, which includes three components: (1) plasticity, i.e. the capacity of existing trees to respond differently to different environmental conditions; (2) adaptation, which includes adaptive genetic diversity and the occurrence of natural selection in a dynamic management system; and (3) migration potential through natural dissemination of seeds or artificial seed transfer, or both. In other words, forest genetic resources conservation programmes must evolve from a perspective with a focus on population management, to the management of evolutionary trajectories. This must be seen as an adjustment of our objectives, not a complete shift.From a scientific point of view, information on climate change scenarios, as well as on the biological processes underlying adaptive capacity, is rapidly increasing. However, the knowledge of biological processes has increased for so-called model species, but little effort has been made to transfer this knowledge to non-model species, which represent the vast majority of the genetic resources of interest. Therefore, the challenge is to develop dynamic forest genetic resources conservation programmes and permanently integrate the most recent research results into these programmes to improve their effectiveness.We have to improve the conservation programmes of forest genetic resourc-es in a context of rapid environmental change, i.e. conservation plans will probably need to be evaluated in a context that differs from when these were initially elaborated. More than ever, it is clear that we must develop processbased conservation strategies rather than just diversity-based strategies, i.e. move from the management of genetic diversity to the management of the evolutionary processes that shape the diversity. Research priorities should be to study plasticity, adaptation and migration processes. Applied conservation strategies should benefit from the most recent research developments in biology and modelling. This requires specific efforts by the scientific community towards vertical integration (from the molecular to the ecosystem scale) and horizontal transfer (from model species to broader biodiversity) of biological knowledge.The development of genetic criteria and indicators for in situ management is an urgent need. Some lists have recently been proposed at the level of the population, but they are still rarely used (Namkoong et al. 1996;Brown et al. 1997;Koski et al. 1997;Lefèvre et al. 2001;Eriksson et al. 1993). However, the context of climate change has not really been taken into account yet. This work is favoured by the emergence of new process-oriented rather than species-oriented working groups as part of Phase III of EUFORGEN. Furthermore, effective coordination among all programmes and activities that directly or indirectly contribute to the conservation of genetic resources is urgently needed, including in situ and ex situ conservation networks, nature reserves and protected habitats. This could require the development of new criteria and indicators for the management of genetic resources at ecosystem level, although the proposed frameworks for genetic criteria and indicators are probably acceptable. The problem lies in their practical implementation. Furthermore, MCPFE has adopted a decision that the ecosystem approach and sustainable forest management are consistent one with the other.Since climate change scenarios vary geographically, international coordination for monitoring the impact of climate change on forest health at regional scale is also needed for prioritizing areas, habitats and species for conservation. Scientific knowledge should be continuously assimilated into FGR conservation strategies. However, a common trend in research is to increase scientific knowledge vertically, based on a limited range of biological models, with little horizontal transfer across species. It will become a challenge to apply research results from a large diversity of organisms in a diversity of local contexts. Therefore, two priorities emerge for research: (1) the integration of the various disciplines and approaches that address the questions of plasticity, adaptation and migration, such as integrative biology, demo-genetic modelling or the study of biotic interactions at ecosystem level; and (2) the transfer of scientific knowledge based on model species to a broader biodiversity. The Network of Excellence EVOLTREE (http://www. evoltree.org) should provide a major contribution to these efforts.Finally, we can conclude that existing conservation networks in France were based on objectives and principles that remain valid in the context of climate change. However, they need to be extended, as follows:the objective should be extended from genetic diversity alone to plasticity, adaptation and migration potential; process-based rather than diversitybased criteria and indicators should be developed, which consider processes at all scales; there is a need for coordination between habitat and FGR conservation programmes; priority areas, priority ecosystems and priority species should be identified in relation to climate change scenarios; European forest genetic resources conservation programmes should pay attention to the situation outside Europe, in particular in the Mediterranean and boreal zones; and robustness of existing networks regarding climatic hazard should be monitored whenever singular climatic events occur. ","tokenCount":"30549"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cb25c10c0c059ded508a0ecf3f16dcd2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/7600d2bc-4f8f-436b-a266-9f6a4ebb74ac/content","id":"-1152864239"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0a56cfc9-3fca-4ff7-abb3-ad04c9b1de29","pagecount":"13","content":"In order to leverage novel sequencing techniques for cloning genes in eukaryotic organisms with complex genomes, the false positive rate of variant discovery must be controlled for by experimental design and informatics. We sequenced five lines from three pedigrees of ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS)mutagenized Sorghum bicolor, including a pedigree segregating a recessive dwarf mutant. Comparing the sequences of the lines, we were able to identify and eliminate error-prone positions. One genomic region contained EMS mutant alleles in dwarfs that were homozygous reference sequences in wild-type siblings and heterozygous in segregating families. This region contained a single nonsynonymous change that cosegregated with dwarfism in a validation population and caused a premature stop codon in the Sorghum ortholog encoding the gibberellic acid (GA) biosynthetic enzyme ent-kaurene oxidase. Application of exogenous GA rescued the mutant phenotype. Our method for mapping did not require outcrossing and introduced no segregation variance. This enables work when line crossing is complicated by life history, permitting gene discovery outside of genetic models. This inverts the historical approach of first using recombination to define a locus and then sequencing genes. Our formally identical approach first sequences all the genes and then seeks cosegregation with the trait. Mutagenized lines lacking obvious phenotypic alterations are available for an extension of this approach: mapping with a known marker set in a line that is phenotypically identical to starting material for EMS mutant generation.One of the most effective and convincing methods to demonstrate gene function is the molecular identification of allelic variation responsible for induced mutant phenotypes. This gene function discovery approach, originally known as genetics and now sometimes referred to as \"forward genetics,\" has dramatically expanded our understanding of development, physiology, and biochemistry over the last century (Rice 2014). Much of this understanding has been generated in genetic model systems, which are characterized by simple laboratory culture, short generation times, and small genome sizes, but limited in their physiology, anatomy, and biochemistry (Hunter 2008;Trontin et al. 2011). Historically, identification of the genes responsible for mutant phenotypes was accomplished by map-based cloning. Traditional map-based cloning relies on outcrossing, which introduces phenotypic diversity that can confound mutant scoring. Mutant phenotypes with dramatic differences and insensitive to variation introduced by the crossing partner are the most amenable to map-based cloning approaches. Linkage of the mutant phenotype to a chromosomal region is used to generate a list of candidate causative genes. Recombinant genotypes sufficient to recapitulate the mutant phenotype are then used to narrow the candidate gene list. Mapping genetic loci with sufficient precision to identify a single locus requires ruling out polymorphisms introduced by the outcrossing partner and sequencing a limited number of candidates to identify a single remaining causative polymorphism.While the number of polymorphisms in a mutagenized genome may scale with the overall genome size, the number of genome positions capable of affecting a change in a phenotype does not. EMS mutagenesis induces a few thousand polymorphisms per individual; a relatively small number when compared to the hundreds of thousands that differ between diverse lines. Unlike insertion mutagenesis (e.g., transposons or T-DNA) or natural variation, chemical mutagens induce changes in phenotype by modifying protein-coding capacity and only very rarely are noncoding sequence mutations in cis-regulatory sequences identified as causative mutations. Essentially, a genome's coding capacity determines the phenotypically affective mutational target. For example, in a genome with 30 Mbp of protein-coding sequence, a 1/125,000 bp mutation rate would correspond to 240 genic mutations. As approximately one-third of all EMS alleles result in synonymous changes (Ashelford et al. 2011;Henry et al. 2014;Thompson et al. 2013) this would mean 160 potentially causative nonsynonymous mutations per line. EMS is an effective way to induce mutations in protein-coding sequence, which results in an observable phenotype.Most applications of next-generation sequencing (NGS) for gene identification by forward genetics utilize large segregating populations to clone genes by bulked segregant analysis (BSA; Michelmore et al. 1991). This has been demonstrated in a variety of species including Arabidopsis, Tef (Eragrostis tef), rice, zebrafish, Sorghum, and Drosophila (Abe et al. 2012;Austin et al. 2011;Lindner et al. 2012;Mokry et al. 2011;Schneeberger et al. 2009;Uchida et al. 2011;Q. Zhu et al. 2012;Y. Zhu et al. 2012;Rizal et al. 2015). In organisms in which extensive pedigree data are often kept, as is the case for many crops and model systems, subtraction of preexisting variation and variants present in unaffected siblings would allow the rapid elimination of large genome sections as possible sites for mutant loci. In self-fertile organisms, recurrently selecting heterozygous individuals and selfing them to make advanced single lineage families can drive all loci but the mutant locus to homozygosity. This creates affected and unaffected siblings that vary for the single causative polymorphism only. Such an approach leverages the polymorphism discovery by NGS and the use of pedigree information to identify the causative polymorphism.Sorghum is a self-fertile diploid panicoid grass that includes crops for food, forage, and biomass products. The adaptation of Sorghum to hot and arid environments makes improved Sorghum a major contributor to global food security. The Sorghum genome of accession BTx623 was sequenced (Paterson et al. 2009). Substantial genetic variation in Sorghum accessions has been described (Casa et al. 2008;Hamblin et al. 2004;Mace et al. 2013;Nelson et al. 2011). A number of induced variation collections have also been generated (Blomstedt et al. 2012;Xin et al. 2008). The fully sequenced genome, diploid inheritance, moderate genome size, and availability of induced mutants makes Sorghum an excellent system to demonstrate mutant gene identification in complex eukaryotes and organisms of human importance. This would expand the reach of these advanced applications of sequencing and mutagenesis technologies beyond genetic model systems.Next-generation, short-read sequencing technologies are errorprone and this can produce a number of artifacts. These errors, when summed over the length of a complex eukaryotic genome, can result in incorrect inference. Controlling the sources of these errors in the analysis of whole-genome sequencing results may lead to better gene mapping and cloning procedures. Some of these errors result from the inherent error rate in the sequencing technology (Minoche et al. 2011;Quail et al. 2008Quail et al. , 2012) ) and these problems can be overcome by sequencing genomes at greater depth. Other artifacts differentially affect specific positions making them error-prone, including alignment errors at insertion or deletion alleles (R. Li et al. 2009), SNPs resulting from mis-takes in the reference assembly, variation in research material relative to the reference assembly, poor alignment performance (Cheng et al. 2014;Fredman et al. 2004;O'Rawe et al. 2013), alignment to repetitive or paralogous sequences (Cheung et al. 2003;Estivill et al. 2002), and the alignment of sequence from DNA encoded by unassembled genomic regions to an incomplete digital reference genome (Teo et al. 2012). When mutagenesis only induces a few thousand true changes to the genome, the number of false positives can be far greater than the number of mutations. Methods to remove these errors are needed to make gene identification from mutants of complex eukaryotes become routine and reliable.In this work, we compared the results of whole-genome, short-read sequencing of a Sorghum dwarf mutant to similar data from independently-derived EMS-mutagenized lines. By collecting whole-genome sequence data from two phenotypically unaffected individuals in an EMS population and using the data from a previously published unrelated mutant in dhurrinase2 (Krothapalli et al. 2013), we were able to identify nucleotide positions in the Sorghum genome that resulted in SNP calls in more than one lineage. These positions cannot be the causative mutation for any phenotypes unique to one lineage. Initial SNP calls were not consistent with the result of guanine residue alkylation, the mechanism of EMS mutagenesis. After removal of the shared alleles identified between the three mutants and considering only the coding sequence SNPs, the proportion of G:C to A:T changes, the expected changes from EMS treatment, ranged from 79 to 91% per line. We measured allele frequencies of these SNPs in sequence data from wild-type, heterozygous and, dwarf siblings. The vast majority of these SNPs displayed allele frequencies incongruent with the mutant allele status of the line. Allele frequencies for one region on chromosome 10 segregated with the mutant phenotype, identifying this region as encoding the dwarf mutant. One, and only one, coding sequence change was present in the delimited interval in the dwarf, missing from the wild-type sibling, and heterozygous in the heterozygote sibling's genome. This polymorphism introduces a premature stop codon in the ent-kaurene oxidase gene of Sorghum (Sobic.010G172700), encoding a putative enzyme in gibberellin biosynthesis. The mutation cosegregated with the dwarf phenotype, which was reversed by GA application, and confirmed the causative nature of this polymorphism. Using EMS-induced SNP variation as molecular markers permits any phenotypically unaffected line to act as an EMS Variation-Induced Lines (EVIL) twin for mapping crosses without introducing the segregation variation of a distinct and diverse genetic background. The use of preexisting data to remove error-prone positions to improve SNP calling and EVIL twins for mapping should improve both the accuracy and sensitivity of forward genetics.All plant material was grown in the Purdue Horticulture and Landscape Architecture greenhouse in an equal mixture of Turface (Profile Products LLC, Buffalo Grove, IL), potting soil (Conrad Fafard Inc., Agawam, MA), and sand (U.S. Silica, Frederick, MD). For NGS, whole leaves were collected 1 wk after germination for a pool of 17 10-2 individuals, in which all individuals planted were of normal size, and 10-dwarf individuals, in which leaves from all dwarfs germinated (13 dwarf individuals) across all individuals were collected and pooled. DNA genotyping leaf tissue was collected 6 wk after germination from multiple individuals. DNA was isolated from leaves collected from 12 tall individuals in the 10-3 family, which segregated for tall and dwarf individuals. Leaves from normal-height 12-2 individuals were collected from a population segregating for a dominant tall variant (data not shown). The dhr2-1 library was previously described and generated from a single individual (Krothapalli et al. 2013).A dCAPS (Derived Cleaved Amplified Polymorphic Sequences; Neff et al. 2002) was designed for the genomic position 50,477,994 on chromosome 10 using the Washington University in St. Louis dCAPS interface (http://helix.wustl.edu/dcaps/). Primers for PCR amplification were: dCAPs_BstN1-F (59-TGTGGAAGAGTATGGGAAGGTT-39) and dCAPs_BstN1-R (59-CCTCTCCACGTGCAATTCTT-39). Post PCR-amplification, 10 ml of the PCR product was digested using five units of BstN1 (New England Biolabs, Catalog #R0168S) and 1 • NEB Buffer 3.1 in a 25 ml total reaction. Digestions were carried out overnight at room temperature and examined using a 2% TAE agarose gel. BstN1 digestions only occurred if the PCR amplicon was wild-type for the causative SNP, i.e., were 44 bases smaller than the uncut amplicon for individuals with the mutation. Individuals were either wild-type (183 bp fragment), dwarf (227 bp fragment), or heterozygous (both 183 and 227 bp fragments).We generated whole-genome sequencing data for the five EMS-treated Sorghum individuals using Illumina sequencing technology. The individuals 12-2 and 10-3 were sequenced using an Illumina GAIIx instrument, while the 10-2 and 10-d individuals were sequenced using an Illumina HiSeq instrument. Sequenced reads from the 12-2 sample were 80 bases long and single-ends, while the remaining sequenced samples were 100 bases long and paired-ends.We used BWA version 0.6.2 (Li and Durbin 2009) to align the NGS data to the BTx623 Sorghum reference genome sequence (version 2.1; Paterson et al. 2009), which was downloaded from Phytozome (Goodstein et al. 2012). Suffix array coordinates for each query sequence were generated using the BWA aln command with nondefault parameters: \"-t 8.\" Paired-end alignments were generated using the BWA sampe command with nondefault parameters: \"-P -r \"@RG\\ tID:SampleID\\tSM:SampleName\\tPL:Illumina\".\" In the case of the single-end reads, sequence alignments were produced using the BWA samse command. Sequencing data and mapping statistics were obtained using the SAMtools flagstat command with default parameters. Genome coverage statistics were generated from the sequence alignment files using a combination of SAMtools and BEDTools (Quinlan and Hall 2010). We used the SAMtools view command to uncompressed BAM files and sent the results to standard output. We then used the BEDTools genomeCoverageBed command to estimate the coverage depth from the uncompressed alignment BAM output. The SAMtools view command parameter options were \"-u -q 0,\" while the BEDTools genomeCoverageBed command parameter options were \"-ibam stdin -g.\"SNP calling and quality filtering SNP detection was performed using the mpileup command in the SAMtools package version 0.1.18 (H. Li et al. 2009). The nondefault options invoked were \"-B -Q 20 -P Illumina -C50 -uf\" and the result was piped to the BCFtools view command with nondefault parameters: \"-vcg.\" These settings require bases to have a quality score of 20 or higher, downgrade the consideration of base calls from poorly mapped reads, and disable the base-alignment quality scoring function in SAM-tools. Further quality filtering was performed as follows. Removal of SNPs residing in repetitive regions was performed using the varFilter command within perl script vcfutils.pl varFilter with options \"-D100\" to remove SNPs with coverage depth .100 or ,2. Other default settings for this command also removed SNPs with root mean square quality of ,10 and SNPs found within three bases of a gap (R. Li et al. 2009). All nucleotide positions for which more than one polymorphism was noted were removed using a custom awk script leaving only biallelic positions. Using the SnpSift program (Cingolani et al. 2012a), additional filters were applied. Only homozygous variant positions with a minimum SNP quality of 20 were retained. We required no reference base reads and at least one observation of the SNP base call from each strand. EMS mutations result in G:C to A:T mutations, whereas false positives could be any change. Thus, we retained only the alleles that corresponded to G:C to A:T mutations using SnpSift (see Supplemental Material, File S1, File S2, File S3, FileS4, File S5, File S9, File S10, File S11, File S12, and File S13 for details).Since the three individual plants (10, 12-2, and dhr2-1) were obtained from seeds, which were independently treated with EMS, we subtracted all overlapping high-quality SNPs detected in the progenies of these individuals. To remove false positive shared SNPs, we searched for genomic position overlaps in the high-quality homozygous G to A, and C to T SNP positions for the five EMS-mutant individuals. For each of the 10-derived individuals (10-2, 10-3, and 10-d) we subtracted the overlaps with the dhr2-1 and 12-2 individuals. Similarly, we subtracted SNPs in dhr2-1 with genomic positions overlapping SNP positions in 10-2, 10-3, 10-d, and 12-2. The process was repeated for 12-2 by subtracting SNPs with positions overlapping 10-2, 10-3, 10-d, and dhr2-1 SNP positions. We used the BEDTools intersect command (version 2.17.0) with options \"-wa\" to find common SNP variations detected in different samples. Similarly, we used the BEDTools subtract command with options \"-A\" to detect pedigree-and sample-specific SNPs for each of the samples.For each of the five individuals, we calculated the allele frequencies at all genomic positions corresponding to called variants in each of the other four individuals. To do this, we reran the SAMtools mpileup command and generated a new version of the variant call output files by modifying the BCFtools view command nondefault parameters to \"-Ncg.\" The BCFtools view command parameter changes resulted in a new variant call output file that contained genotype calls for both variant and not variant sites, in which the genome reference nucleotide base was known. We used the BEDTools intersect command, and the coding region information specified in the Sorghum genome annotation \".gff3\" file, to derive a second set of files containing only the coding region allele information. We then used both the genome-wide and coding region files for each individual and calculated allele frequencies. We subtracted SNPs shared among the members of the 10 pedigree. The BEDTools subtract command with options \"-A\" was used to detect the subset of high-quality homozygous SNPs that were unique to 10-d and absent in 10-2 and 10-3. These positions were examined in the allele frequency plots to find SNPs that cosegregated with the dwarf phenotype.We used the version 3.1 of the SnpEff program (Cingolani et al. 2012b) to predict the effect of the SNPs on Sorghum gene function. We downloaded Sorghum version 2.1 whole-genome, proteome, and coding sequences, and the genome annotation \".gff3\" files from Phytozome (version 9.1; www.phytozome.net; Goodstein et al. 2012). These files were used to generate a custom SnpEff database using the SnpEff build command with parameter options \"build -gff3.\" This required editing the \"snpEff.config\" file to create an entry for Sorghum version 2.1. The SnpEff-annotated variant call file was generated using the SnpEff eff command with parameter option \"-c snpEff.config.\" SNPs that altered the amino acid coding capacity of genes were classified as \"MODERATE\" if they were a nonsynonymous change or \"HIGH\" if they resulted in a nonsense codon, splice loss, or loss of the start codon.Functional information for the genes affected by these SNPs was obtained as follows. We downloaded the latest proteome sequences and the corresponding annotation files for Sorghum BTx623 (version 2.1), maize B73 (version 5b.60), and Arabidopsis thaliana (TAIR release 10) from the Phytozome web portal. We created BLAST proteome databases for each of the three plant species using the makeblastdb program with parameter options \"-input_type fasta -dbtype prot.\" We used the blastp program (version 2.2.28+) in the BLAST package (Altschul et al. 1990) to align the Sorghum proteome to maize and Arabidopsis. The following blastp nondefault parameter options were selected: \"-evalue 1E-05 -num_threads 32 -max_target_seqs 5 -out -outfmt 6 -seg yes.\" The sequence annotation for the detected maize and Arabidopsis homologs of the Sorghum genes were appended to the SNP call \".vcf\" files, using a custom program (appended as File S6, File S7, and File S8).Dwarf mutant complementation with GA 3 in the dark An M2 segregating population of mutant and wild-type siblings was grown in the dark for 7 d at 25°with 90% humidity in a Conviron E8 growth chamber (Conviron, Pembina, ND). Seedlings were planted in 72-cell germination flats in a 1:1 mixture of peat germination mix (Conrad Fafard Inc.,) and Turface (Profile Products LLC). Seedlings were allowed to germinate for 2 d (before emergence) and then were treated with 1.75 L per flat of 0.2% ethanol and 0.005% silwet (\"no treatment\"), or 10 mM GA 3 (Gold Biotechnology, St. Louis, MO), 0.2% ethanol, and 0.005% silwet (\"10 mM GA3 treatment\"). Seedlings were harvested and photographed after 7 d total in the dark. Mesocotyl length was measured from the root-to-shoot transition zone to the proximal end of the coleoptile using ImageJ (Abramoff et al. 2004).Dwarf mutant complementation with GA 3 in the light An M2 segregating population of mutant and wild-type siblings was grown in the light for 14 d under greenhouse conditions: 27°(day) and 21°(night) with 16 h supplemental lighting. Seedlings were grown in media as previously stated. Seedlings were allowed to germinate for 2 d then treated with 1 L per flat of 0.2% ethanol and 0.005% silwet (\"no treatment\"), or 10 mM GA3, 0.2% ethanol, and 0.005% silwet (\"10 mM GA3 treatment\"), every third day until harvest. Seedlings were harvested and photographed after 14 d in total. Plant height was measured from the distal end of the mesocotyl to the first leaf collar using ImageJ (Abramoff et al. 2012).The Illumina NGS datasets associated with this project have been submitted to the NCBI Sequence Reads Archive. The NCBI SRA project ID is SRP077001 and the BioProject ID number is PRJNA326607. The NCBI BioSample accessions for the individual samples are SAMN05290415, SAMN05290416, SAMN05290417, SAMN05290418, and SAMN05290419.Observation of a dwarf mutant segregating in an M4 generation Sorghum BTx623 seeds were mutagenized in a prior study and the resulting offspring selfed for three generations to generate M4 individuals (Xin et al. 2008). We screened a limited number of families for aphenotypic EMS-treated derivatives. Two M4 individuals from independent lineages, lines 10 and 12, were selected because they had no obvious mutant phenotypes. When these lines were selfed, the progeny of line 12 were all normal while the M5 progeny of line 10 segregated for extreme dwarfism with reduced leaf lengths and compact internodes (Figure 1). Multiple tall M5 siblings were self-pollinated and M6 families were grown and scored for the dwarf phenotype. Dwarfism segregated as a monogenic recessive trait. One M6 family, the selfed progeny of M5 individual 10-2, was replanted and determined to be a homozygous wild-type derivative of line 10. Another M6 family, the selfed progeny of M5 individual 10-3, segregated 3:1 for tall:dwarf and indicated that individual 10-3 was a heterozygote. Figure 1 shows the pedigree and dwarf phenotype expression of the sequenced lines. We used these materials to test our approach to clone EMS-induced mutants by using all of the EMS-induced variants as molecular markers and to build the bioinformatic analysis pipeline necessary to link NGS and genetic mapping.We sequenced individuals derived from line 10 based on their segregation for the extreme dwarf phenotype. DNA was isolated from a pool of dwarf mutant tissue designated 10-d, a pooled sample of tall heterozygous siblings (the M5 10-3 individual), and a pool of homozygous wild-type siblings from line 10-2. The DNA from each sample was sequenced. In addition, we sequenced another line, 12-2, which showed no gross morphological defects and was independently derived from the same mutagenesis experiment as line 10 (Xin et al. 2008). Finally, we reanalyzed the sequencing data used to clone the dhurrinase2 (dhr2-1) EMS-induced Sorghum mutant, which was found in a different mutant population (Krothapalli et al. 2013). A total of 1,036,765,083 Illumina NGS reads were generated from DNA samples derived from the five Sorghum EMS-mutant individuals (Table 1). Using the BWA shortread aligner (Li and Durbin 2009), 91% (942,006,177) of the sequenced reads mapped to the reference BTx623 Sorghum genome (Paterson et al. 2009). Using the alignment results, the estimated median paired-end insert sizes for the 10-2, 10-3, 10-d, and dhr2-1 sequenced reads were 249, 307, 260, and 297, respectively. The alignment results also showed that 88% (889,860,334) of the paired-end reads were properly paired within the range of the above insert sizes. Table 1 shows the summary statistics for the sequencing and alignment to the Sorghum genome assembly version 2.1 available at Phytozome (www.phytozome.net). Between 88 and 94% of the reads mapped to the reference genome. The coverage depths for the homozygous aphenotypic line 10-2, the previously described dhr2-1mutant, and the extreme dwarf 10-d were 45-fold, 43-fold, and 30-fold genome coverage, respectively (Table 1). Two other individuals were sequenced at lower depths. The aphenotypic 12-2 line and the heterozygous sibling 10-3 individuals were sequenced at threefold and sevenfold genome coverage, respectively (Table 1).We detected SNPs according to a procedure outlined in Figure 2 and described in detail in the Materials and Methods section. In short, alignments were scored for likely deviation from the reference sequence and then sequentially filtered for coverage, homozygosity, and a requirement that reads map to both strands and sequence data quality. Following this, SNPs were further filtered to remove all variants unlikely to be obtained by EMS treatment, which primarily induces G to A mutations (Greene et al. 2003) that also appear in sequence data as the reverse complement, C to T. Table 2 summarizes the SNP detection results and filtering steps. We obtained a total of 920,834 likely deviations from the reference sequence in initial SNP calling for the five samples using the SAMtools SNP calling package (Li and Durbin 2009). Discarding low-quality SNPs and SNPs of repetitive origin reduced the total by 59% to 376,533. Due to the low coverage and depth of sequencing data from the 12-2 sample, an unusually high number of sites initially scored as variants but derived from singleton reads were detected. These positions were efficiently removed by our procedure. Further filtering to retain only SNPs likely to be homozygous with a minimum Phred quality score of 20 retained 125,308 positions, removing 27% of the initial SNP calls. If we further require all reads overlapping a SNP site to contain the mutant allele and for reads to derive from both forward and reverse DNA strands, only 71,058 highquality homozygous SNPs remain from the five lines. EMS-induced alleles are almost exclusively G:C to A:T transitions unlike background mutations, which could be any of the eight possible sequence changes. Removing all but the high-quality G:C to A:T SNPs removed 51% of the remaining SNPs. The count of likely EMS-induced changes (high-quality G:C to A:T) ranged from 9668 changes in 10-2 to only 2635 in the low coverage sequence data from 12-2 (Table 2). An average of 6914 high-quality G:C to A:T SNPs were identified per sample.Independent mutagenesis as biological replication for the experimental identification of false positive SNPs SNP calling is a statistical likelihood procedure (Nielsen et al. 2011) for each nucleotide position in the genome. As a result, the number of false positives will scale with the overall genome size. Moreover, chemically mutagenized lines have a low true positive rate (1/125,000-1/ 500,000 bp) resulting in a relatively higher proportion of false positives. This is in stark contrast to the use of SNP calling for distinguishing natural populations, in which multiple orders of magnitude more true positives are present. We initially attempted to score each SNP as a molecular marker in our sequencing data and found that many adjacent neighboring SNPs were not linked in the three fully sequenced individuals that shared the \"10\" pedigree. This violates the predicted inheritance of these chromosomes and DNA segments (data not shown). We hypothesized that a high ratio of false positives in the SNP calling procedure was interfering with mapping and cosegregation. To detect positions in the genome that were false positive SNP calls, we identified genomic positions that were scored as variant in more than one independently mutagenized line. We compared SNP calls from the line 10 derivatives (10-2, 10-3, and 10-d), the aphenotypic EMS-treated line 12 (12-2), and the previously published dhr2-1 mutant (Krothapalli et al. 2013). SNPs shared between independent lineages are highly unlikely to be due to independently mutagenized chromosomes. Far more likely, any SNP variation shared between the 10, 12, and dhr2-1 pedigrees would be caused by systematic bias in the generation and analysis of sequencing data. These shared SNPs should detect (1) errors in the reference sequence, (2) differences between the mutagenized material and the originally sequenced line, and (3) positions in the genome that frequently return a likely SNP call due to structure or paralogy. Furthermore, only those SNPs present in the 10 lines and not in 12-2 or dhr2-1 can be causative for the extreme dwarf locus segregating in that lineage. Figure 3, A-C displays Venn diagrams showing the overlap in SNP positions between each of the sequenced line 10 derivatives with the independently mutagenized 12-2 and dhr2-1 lines. In each case, a large number of SNPs were identified in multiple lineages, indicating that these SNPs are unlikely to be the result of EMS mutagenesis and cannot encode the causative alleles for the extreme dwarf phenotype in line 10. The majority of the shared SNP variation was detected in pairwise comparisons. Only a minority of differences was found when comparing the three lineages of line 10, which indicates that the majority of these shared SNPs are not the result of base calling errors in the reference sequence. Table 3 provides the filtered common SNP variations for individual samples considering either genome-wide SNP data or only SNPs in coding sequences.The subtraction of common variants selectively enriched for EMSinduced G:C to A:T SNPs. In the initial SNP calling, only 20% of the SNP calls were G:C to A:T transitions. After quality filtration (previous section; Table 2), 49% of the high-quality SNPs were G:C to A:T variants (Table S1). Detection and removal of the SNPs shared between pedigrees resulted in further enrichment, with 79% of all lineage-specific SNPs (28,176 SNPs) encoding G:C to A:T transitions (Table S1). Thus, roughly one-fifth of SNPs in our stringent sequential SNP filtering procedure were due to false positives arising at reproducible, and therefore detectable, positions in the genome. This proportion was even greater for the coding sequence positions (Table 3), suggesting that paralogy and failed assembly of repeats may contribute to these error-prone positions. When considering only the coding sequences, we observed that 93% of the SNPs remaining after removal of shared variant positions were G:C to A:T transitions in the line 10 derivatives (Table 3). This strongly suggests that the overwhelming majority of independently-derived, high-quality SNPs called by this sequential method are homozygous, true-positive EMS-induced variants, and that the common variants were induced by technical or biological processes distinct from EMS mutagenesis.If our SNP calling procedure is specific and comprehensive, segregation of the called SNPs within the 10 pedigree should follow Mendelian inheritance and identify the genomic region encoding the dwarf mutant. SNPs linked to the dwarf mutant should be consistently inherited with the recessive trait. SNPs linked to the causative polymorphism will be encoded by their EMS alleles in the 10-d sample, homozygous for the reference allele in the 10-2 wild-type sample, and heterozygous in the 10-3 sample. Figure 4 is a Hormigas plot, so named because each dot representing a SNP resembles an ant, of allele frequencies measured in the wild-type 10-2 at all high-quality G:C to A:T SNP positions identified as homozygotes in 10-d. Only one segment of the 10-2 genome encodes the reference alleles for positions identified as SNPs in the dwarf mutant. This locus on chromosome 10 is predominantly homozygous wild-type in 10-2 and located within a region of chromosome 10 conspicuously lacking homozygous 10-d SNP calls, consistent with segregation and recombination in the heterozygous parent that gave rise to the pool of dwarf plants that were sequenced (Figure 4). Thus, based on the sequence data from two libraries, the dwarf mutant can only be located within a relatively narrow window of 5 Mb present on chromosome 10.The Sorghum ent-kaurene oxidase ortholog is responsible for the extreme dwarf phenotype In a classical map-based cloning procedure, a mapping interval is first identified. Once the effort to identify additional recombinants is greater than the effort of sequencing the genes in the region, coding sequence changes are sought. In our case, we already have the sequence of all genes in the genome. Thus, in an effort to identify SNPs likely to alter the line's phenotype, we tabulated the protein-coding sequence changed by all high-quality SNPs in each line. About 85% (23,997) of the high-quality SNPs were in intergenic regions and 2113 SNPs were within annotated introns (data not shown). In all five lines, a total of 967 SNPs were predicted to alter the coding capacity of an annotated protein-coding gene. Of these, 927 SNPs were missense mutations, 26 were nonsense (stop codon gain) mutations, and an additional 14 encoded stop codon loss or splice site mutations. A total of 296, 209, and 252 high-quality G:C to A:T SNPs impact protein-coding capacity in the 10-2, 10-3, and 10-d Sorghum individuals, respectively (Table 3). Of these, only those polymorphisms that are homozygous in the 10-d dwarf mutant and not called in either the wild-type sibling or heterozygous sibling could be the causative polymorphism for the dwarf phenotype. Among the 252 SNPs in 10-d, 154 were shared with both 10-2 and 10-3, and an additional 89 were shared with either 10-2 or 10-3 (Figure 5). This left six SNPs as possible causal EMS-induced mutations for the dwarf phenotype. Of these six, only one sits within the critical window on chromosome 10 identified by allele frequency mapping of the EMS-induced alleles in the wild-type segregant. The detected EMS-induced G to A mutation occurred at genomic location 50,477,994 on chromosome 10 in the Sorghum genome (Table 4).We utilized a similar allele frequency analysis focusing on highquality G:C to A:T SNPs in coding regions to provide additional evidence n Table 3  for the causative polymorphism on chromosome 10. The causative polymorphism for the dwarf mutant will be present as a homozygous mutant allele in 10-d, present in intermediate frequency in the reads from the 10-3 heterozygote, and present as the homozygous reference BTx623 allele in 10-2. The allele frequencies from all high-quality homozygous G:C to A:T SNPs affecting protein-coding changes present in the dwarf mutant, 10-d, are presented as Hormigas plots for both 10-3 and 10-2 in Figure 6. Among all 252 homozygous coding sequence differences identified in 10-d, exactly one change was homozygous wild-type in 10-3 and heterozygous in 10-2. Again, this corresponded to the G to A mutation at genomic location 50,477,994 on chromosome 10. PCR-based genotyping of this polymorphism was done for 23 dwarf individuals derived from 10-2, as well as 97 dwarfs from six independent families from the initial 10 line. There was complete linkage of the dwarf mutant phenotype and the SNP at 10:50,477994 (data not shown).The sequential filtering that resulted in the identification of this single SNP is presented in Figure 7. The mutation resides in the Sorghum gene Sobic.010G172700 (Table 4), which encodes a 508-amino acid protein, and results in a conversion of the 225th codon from a glutamine (CAG) to an amber stop codon (TAG). Sobic.010G172700 encodes cytochrome P450 CYP701A6 and is the Sorghum ortholog of the ent-kaurene oxidases from rice, Arabidopsis, and Pea (Davidson et al. 2004;Helliwell et al. 1999). This enzyme is responsible for multiple reactions in the biosynthesis of the plant hormone GA.To confirm that disruption of GA biosynthesis was responsible for the dwarf phenotype, we tested whether the dwarf phenotype could be reversed by the exogenous application of GA 3 . Application of 10 mM GA 3 to light-grown seedlings fully restored wild-type growth to the homozygous dwarf phenotype (Figure 8, A and B). Similarly, the elongation of mesocotyls in dark-grown seedlings was restored when dwarf plants were provided 10 mM GA 3 (Figure 8C). Application of GA into to the whorl of light-grown plants substantially rescued the dwarf phenotype in adult plants (data not shown), demonstrating that this phenomenon extended beyond seedlings. The dwarfism in the 10-d line was reversible with GA 3 application, consistent with the mutation discovered in Sobic.010G172700 resulting in a disruption in GA biosynthesis. We therefore name the mutation ent-kaurene oxidase dwarf-1 (eko-1).Figure 4 Mapping of the critical region for the 10-d mutant using the EMS mutations in the line and no outcrossing. Hormigas plot of the allele frequencies (y-axis) in the wild-type segregant 10-2 for homozygous polymorphisms detected in 10-d (x-axis). The only segment not displaying EMS-induced variation is present on chromosome 10. EMS, ethyl methanesulfonate. We identified the causative eko-1 polymorphism using recursively selfed, but still segregating (M4), mutagenized material. The SNP calling approach and removal of false positives by comparing our mutant to other lines improved NGS processing for EMS-mutant cloning, increased our confidence in SNP calls, and permitted the use of EMSinduced variants as molecular markers for mapping (Figure 5 and Figure 6). In addition, by sequencing pools of pedigreed materials we could better distinguish causative polymorphisms from inconsequential background mutations (Figure 1B, Figure 5, Figure 6, and Figure 7). Our success suggested to us that a forward genetics crossing scheme and experimental design that takes advantage of comprehensive information available from whole-genome sequencing was worth exploration.All sequenced samples were derived from EMS-treated BTx623 plants. Two of these, (10-2 and 12-2) were selected because they had no visible morphological defects. As a result, we have discovered thousands of EMS-induced SNPs that can be used as molecular markers in mapping novel genetic variation without impacting whole-plant phenotypes. In addition, the dhr2-1 mutant has a recessive and screenable blue/white Cu + reduction phenotype (Krothapalli et al. 2013) that can be used to confirm F1 cross success when the dhr2-1 mutant is used as the seed parent. The thousands of EMS mutants segregating in that line could then be used as molecular markers in F2 populations derived from confirmed F1 crosses. In order to maximize the utility of these materials, we identified the SNPs unique to each of the 10-2, 12-2, and dhr2-1 lines. This resulted in 2288-8050 SNPs that can be used for mapping (File S1, File S2, File S3, and Table 5). The two phenotypically unaffected lines in the BTx623 background enable the mapping of mutants of small effect as well as traits strongly affected by the genetic variation between Sorghum lines. A cross between these phenotypically normal EVIL twins and any independently-derived mutant provides sufficient molecular markers for mapping without also introducing phenotype-altering segregational variance.While it would be tempting to conclude from these results that any mutant can be cloned just by sequencing a few lines, there are three essential components to our study that were combined to make it efficient and accurate. First, to limit the mapping procedure to actual polymorphisms, it is necessary to remove all error-prone positions in the genome. Second, we were able to impose logical expectations for SNPs linked to the phenotype that ruled out 98% of the genome using a pedigree containing a true wild-type (no dwarf progeny), a segregating sibling, and a dwarf mutant. If a segregating pedigree is not available, using the EMS-induced SNPs as markers still has many advantages for mapping. The largest advantage is that, due to their scarcity, far fewer recombinations will be necessary to reduce the possible mutation space to a manageable list. Finally, the nature of the mutagen used allowed us to narrow down the search space to the point where we had one and only one causal locus. The overwhelming majority of the mutations caused by EMS are G to A (with its complement C to T). Furthermore, SNPs affect phenotypic alterations in mutagenesis experiments via disruptions in protein-coding sequences, as very few single SNPs within noncoding portions of the genome can have large effects on phenotype. Thus, the causal SNP for a mutant phenotype in an EMS-mutagenesis experiment can be identified among G:C to A:T changes that alter protein sequence, as previously discussed (Krothapalli et al. 2013). Other mutagens are more likely to cause insertion/deletion polymorphisms, which can affect gene function while acting in noncoding regions (for example by deleting the promoter). Insertion/deletion polymorphisms are also much more difficult to detect using short-read sequencing, compounding the problem. It is only with all three factors together that we are able to make our assignment of function.  It is also important to note that getting full coverage of the nonerrorprone portion of the genome is an important requirement for this approach, which relies on full coverage of all potential protein-coding mutations. False negative SNP calls will lead to the misidentification of SNPs that are identified as being more likely to be the one and only one remaining SNP in the window. The number of false negative results will increase as the coding sequence length of an organism increases. In addition, genomes with CG bias or with recent polyploidy in their ancestry, where the unique alignment of reads is impeded by a lack of complexity, will also be problematic for this approach. Polyploid genomes in particular, where paralogs do not allow unique assignment of reads to all positions of the coding sequence (Tsai et al. 2013), will also be difficult to analyze using this approach. Any region of the coding capacity of the genome in which mapping is reduced or SNP calling is prevented by paralogy can invalidate the assumption that all SNP variants are known. In Arabidopsis, simulated experiments estimate that a genome coverage of 20-50 times was optimal for NGS mapping by BSA, depending on line-cross population type (James et al. 2013). For large genomes, this depth may remain cost-prohibitive for whole-genome sequencing. The cost per lineage can be dramatically improved if exome-sequence capture is used instead, and the cost for sequence capture at similar depths of coverage demonstrates that this as a more cost-effective option for larger genomes (Henry et al. 2015). Beyond cheaper sequencing, informatic strategies to improve SNP call precision that would perform well at lower coverage could help overcome this barrier. Additional approaches to find SNPs within nonuniquely assigned reads that map to paralogs could also reduce the problem of false negatives that limits the application of our approach.Fully sequenced lines from the wild-type pedigree (10-2 and 12-2) have great utility for future mapping studies. The lines have no obvious phenotypes and a defined set of real polymorphisms, which make them ideal crossing partners for mapping mutants from mutagenesis types that cannot use the methods described here. With reference to a common theme in literature and popular culture, we have named these lines EVIL twins to denote their status as phenotypically identical but genetically different to the wild-type. The advantage of crossing to an EVIL twin line is that the only phenotypes that will be segregating in the population are those that are present in the mutant. This could be especially important for cloning of mutants with small effects, in which the phenotypic diversity of the outcross lines can obscure the signal. In addition, radiation mutagenesis induces a wide variety of deletion/ insertion polymorphisms along with SNPs, so many of the logical filters we applied here will not work to reduce the false positive calls, whereas crossing a radiation-derived mutant to a congenic EVIL twin can be used to introduce markers for mapping without causing additional segregation variation. Three of the lines from this study are candidate EVIL twins: 10-2, 12-2, and the dhr2-1 line. From our analysis, each of these lines has over 2000 unique SNPs that can be used for mapping (Table 3).A number of called variants visible in Figure 6 are present at frequencies that are not possible for a single sequenced individual. These variant positions depart from the axis of all other SNPs linked to them and appear to defy Mendelian genetics. This pattern was also observed in allele frequency counts from the other genotypes (data not shown). We suspect that these positions represent false positives from errorprone positions that were identified as homozygotes in only one of the lines. When the allele frequencies of these positions are then tallied from the read data and graphed, we observe an allele frequency that is highly unlikely both due to the proportion and the absence of any recombination breakpoints. This is exactly what would be expected if the SNP filtering procedure thresholds an underlying error distribution that is nonrandomly distributed across the genome. The subtraction of error-prone positions from the five sets of sequencing data presented here are capable of identifying many, but not all, of the false positive positions present in the Sorghum genome. Further sequencing experiments by the community will continue to identify positions prone to false positive errors. Indeed, preliminary analysis of a larger set of sequenced lines indicate that additional moderate-frequency shared variants are present in sequence data sets derived from BTx623, and that their discovery was not completely saturated after sequencing 600 mutant lines (C. Addo-Quaye and B. P. Dilkes, unpublished data).The identified gene responsible for the dwarf allele encodes an enzyme that is the target of paclobutrazol inhibition of GA biosynthesis (Hedden and Graebe 1985). Mutations of the ortholog of this gene are responsible for the Gibberellic Acid 3 dwarf mutant of Arabidopsis, the lh dwarf mutant of Pea, and the semidwarfing allele from Tan-Gibozou rice that contributed to the \"green revolution\" in Japan (Itoh et al. 2004). Of the maize mutations affected in GA biosynthesis, none have yet been recovered for blocks in these steps. The maize genome encodes two of these enzymes resulting from a tandem duplication expressed at dramatically different levels (Supplemental Material). If both were functional, this would explain why this step has not been identified mutationally in maize.Recently, other studies have found gene mutations in the GA and brassinosteroid biosynthesis pathways that impact not only plant height but other important traits in Sorghum. Petti et al. (2015) identified a dwarf Sorghum mutant, dwf1-1, that mapped to a frameshift in a presumed GA20-oxidase. In addition to dwarfism, this also caused male sterility and impacted cellulose biosynthesis. This mutation occurs later in the GA biosynthetic pathway than the ent-kaurene oxidase mutation identified in this study. Ordonio et al. (2014) identified four loss-of-function mutations [ent-copalyl diphosphate synthase (CPS; SbCPS1), ent-kaurene synthase (KS; SbKs1), ent-kaurene oxidase (KO; SbKO1), and ent-kaurenoic acid oxidase (KAO; SbKAO1)] early in the GA biosynthetic pathway that lead to severe dwarfism and culm bending in sweet Sorghum. Finally, Rizal et al. (2015) found that a mutation in a cytochrome P450 (CYP90D2) in brassinosteroid biosynthesis leads to decreased vein density in Sorghum.The application of EMS mutagenesis and cost-effective short-read sequencing is driving rapid progress in our understanding of the control of crop plant architecture. Additional improvements in experimental design can further accelerate this and extend the utility of these methods. If we can reliably detect all of the sequence polymorphisms in a given genome, whole-genome sequencing allows us to invert the typical process for mutant identification. When all possible causative SNPs are known, only recombinants distinguishing the putatively causative SNPs are needed. This reduces the number of individuals necessary to identify one and only one potentially causative polymorphism in a line. In addition, by using all of the EMS-induced alleles in a mutagenized line, even those in noncoding sequences, we can remove the need to cross a phenotypically selected mutant to a genetically distinct stock. No incidental segregating variance needs to be introduced and, thus, environmentally labile or adaptively consequential mutant phenotypes that would be masked by background variation are now amenable to cloning. Moreover, because there are few mutations of putative effect, and less segregation variance that might drown out the effects of induced alleles with small phenotypic consequences, we can use this approach to quickly and cost-effectively clone mutations that have moderate to small effects.Using a novel combination of full genome sequencing, experimental design, and bioinformatics algorithms, we have cloned the gene for an EMS-induced dwarf mutant in Sorghum bicolor. By comparing the sequence of several lines within the pedigree, removing error-prone positions, and focusing on polymorphisms that EMS will induce, we were able to narrow the polymorphisms down to one and only one mutation, an induced stop codon in the cytochrome P450 gene Sobic.010G172700. We have demonstrated that this approach can change the current paradigm for mapping mutants. We have also produced three lines that can be used as EVIL twins for mapping in the BTx623 background without introducing additional phenotypic variation.","tokenCount":"7680"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c5d220e21a472b616b21adb1fca29fd2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/1c6403e9-52b6-4860-8d0b-1bc45ffb71d4/content","id":"-1897359920"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e378074b-75d0-4e46-a1e3-960389de9181","pagecount":"17","content":"Tanzanian legislation for women's rights is a product of decades of indigenous women's struggles and considered amongst the most progressive in Africa. However, implementation has been problematic and some elements in the current discourse appear to push back against gender equality with an essentialist framing of women and men as naturally different. This paper draws on the perspectives of 144 women and 144 men, in four rural communities in different regions of Tanzania, to build an understanding of how they perceive gender equality, and how their perceptions relate to decision-making, women earning incomes, women as homemakers, and control over assets. Understanding gender as a performance we contextualise our analysis through a historical overview of women's struggles to secure rights from colonial times to the present day. We find that while local discourse appears to embrace the idea of gender equality, practice remains quite different with the threat of sanctions restricting the scope for re-negotiation of gender. The paper demonstrates how the continuous performance, reproduction and renegotiation of gender takes place as part of everyday life, as women and men seek to secure their personal well-being in a context of limited cultural and economic options.In 2006, the Global Gender Gap Report ranked Tanzania number 1 of 115 countries, with respect to the women's economic participation sub-index (and 24 th for its combined ranking across a range of indicators) (World Economic Forum, 2006). Ellis, Blackden, Cutura, MacCulloch, and Seebens (2007) praised the Government and civil society for developing numerous policies and strategies in support of gender equality and women's empowerment. In the 2018 Global Gender Gap Report, though, the women's economic participation sub-index ranking for Tanzania had fallen to number 72 (and 71 for its combined ranking across a range of indicators) (World Economic Forum, 2019). The discrepancies between rankings only 12 years apart speak perhaps to a naive optimism that creating progressive policies would translate rapidly into women's economic and other forms of empowerment. In fact, almost the opposite has happened. The Human Rights Watch Global Report (Human Rights Watch, 2019) notes that girls, women, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQI) people face increasing discrimination and harassment in Tanzania. In 2017, the Government overturned four decades of policy when it banned pregnant girls and young mothers from attending school. Many schoolgirls routinely face forced pregnancy testing. In 2018, the Government suspended USAID-supported messaging on birth control. Consensual adult same-sex conduct is punishable with up to life in prison, and a severe crackdown on LGBT communities initiated by the current government continues (Human Rights Watch, 2019). In agriculture, the gender productivity gap (the difference between the average value of agricultural output per hectare/acre on women-managed and on men-managed plots) remains large. The World Bank (2015) estimates that the gender productivity gap in Tanzania amounts to USD 105 million (0.46% of GDP), and that closing the gender productivity gap could lift 80,000 Tanzanians out of poverty each year and eliminate malnourishment in the same number. However, TGNP Mtandao (2018), a transformative feminist umbrella organisation, notes that the Government's Vision 2025 includes no measures to address the agricultural gender productivity gap. How are we to make sense of what is happening? Why is there a tendency for gender to take on an essentialist aspect, creating women and men as having clearly binary identities with different responsibilities, roles, and rights?Against this backdrop, we examine how women in the study communities are taking advantage of new opportunities for income generation and in relation to the gender equality narrative promoted over recent decades. We explore how women's response to these opportunities is shaped by local gender norms; and whether norms are changing as a consequence of women's engagement. We draw upon Butler's work (1988) which suggests that gender is performed: it is constituted from repeatedly performed acts. Gender, she argues, is also performative: the very idea of gender arises from the repetition of these repeatedly performed acts. That is to say, gender is created by its own performance. It is so successful in obscuring its non-natural origins that it actually comes to appear natural, obvious and important (Morgenroth & Ryan, 2018). At the same time, because gender is non-natural, its very performance also allows scope for renegotiation (Butler, 1988).We use these insights from Butler's conceptual model to help us analyse qualitative data produced through the Gennovate research initiative (Badstue et al., 2018;Petesch et al., 2018) into gender norms and agency in four farming communities in different parts of Tanzania. We hypothesise that although gender is continually being re-enacted and reproduced, spaces are emerging for women and men to renegotiate gender. We investigate the nature of these spaces, and we also investigate the degree to which injunctive sanctions, which arise from local normative understandings of what it means to be a man or a woman in these communities, impose restrictions on renegotiation.We open by presenting some of Butler's ideas. We then provide a short historical overview of how the identities of Tanzanian women have been contested and shaped during the colonial era and following Independence. This allows us to gain an appreciation of gender as a process in Tanzania.Women have long sought a variety of identities, and likewise have had identities imposed upon them. Next, we describe our research methodology and study sites. We then turn to our findings. In the discussion, we reflect on the usefulness of Butler's model to our interpretations of the data. We also bring an analysis of power to help explain how normative sanctions continue to structure gender behaviours and restrict the scope for change. Butler (1988) writes that gender is not an essential, biologically determined quality or an inherent identity. 'Gender is not a fact, the various acts of gender create the idea of gender, and without those acts, there would be no gender at all' (Butler, 1988, p. 522). Rather than being something one is, gender is something one does, or performs. Gender identity is not an inner truth but is rather a product of repeated gender performance [our emphasis] (Morgenroth & Ryan, 2018). The constant repetition of gendered performance possibly involves some degree of conscious artifice (Meyerhoff, 2015). However, continual reproduction of gender also means that it becomes performative. In other words, repeated performance creates the very idea of gender itself and the illusion of two natural, essential selves. 'Individuals act as women and men. This creates the categories of women and men (Morgenroth & Ryan, 2018). In this way gender becomes naturalised. '(Gender) is woven so tightly into the social fabric that it seems like a necessary part of reality rather than a contingent production of history' (Jones, 2018).The authors of this article interpret these ideas as meaning that the interaction between repeatedly performing gender, and gender as performative, leads to a continual co-creation of each other. This makes gender exceptionally robust. These interactions create norms, which provide 'scripts' for gendered behaviours, that are endlessly renewed. According to Butler (1988), when a person acts a specific gender, this is an act that began before they arrived on the scene. It is like a script, which 'survives the particular actors who make use of it, but which requires individual actors in order to be actualized and reproduced as reality once again' (Butler, 1988, p. 526). Butler argues that although gender is necessarily acted and is not something real, gender is forced to comply with a model of truth and falsity. This model serves social policies of gender regulation and control. Performing one's gender 'wrong' triggers direct and indirect punishments. Performing it 'right' provides reassurance that there is an essentialism of gender identity after all (Butler, 1988). This leads us straight back to the opening of our paper, where we presented data that suggests, that far from moving towards gender equality, current Tanzanian policy is moving towards promoting an essentialist understanding of gender, whereby different behaviours for women and men are expected -and policed. Consequently, different life outcomes are countenanced even though there are terrible costs to the nation, for men as much as for women, as the price it is necessary to pay to maintain gender difference and male superiority. Morgenroth and Ryan (2018) explain that sanctions do not exist by chance. Rather, they argue, sanctions are the tools of a system, which is trying to reproduce and sustain itself. This is a patriarchal system of compulsory heterosexuality, which is proscriptive -it represses deviating gender performance, and prescriptive -it demands hetero-normative gender performance (Morgenroth & Ryan, 2018). In all this, Butler does not deny people agency. Since gender is constructed, it is neither completely arbitrary and free, nor completely determined. This leaves room for re-structuring, subversion, and for disrupting the status quo (Morgenroth & Ryan, 2018).This article proceeds as follows. In the literature review, below, we set the stage for our fieldwork findings. We examine how gendered interactions in selected domains contribute to the performance of gender in Tanzania. We start with women's roles in resisting colonialism, and then move onto the period of African socialism termed Ujamaa. We then highlight some insights on women's relationship to land and food management. We see how all this feeds into the contrary ways in which gender is expressed in national legislation and policy. Figure 1 visualises how key domains interact and influence each other to produce how women and men 'perform gender'.This necessarily short overview sets the scene for reporting from our four study communities.Women were important players in the struggle for Independence. However, analyses by Kinunda (2017), Mbilinyi (2016), Geiger (1996) and Brain (1978) suggest that the role of women has been largely suppressed in the way the past has been recalled in national narratives. Mbilinyi (2016) explores history as process: it is continually being negotiated between women farmers; powerful local classes; pre-colonial, colonial, post-colonial political and economic institutions; and actors -including men -at community level. Kinunda's (2017) study shows that during (and indeed after) the colonial period women negotiated their labour power in cash cropping and protested actively against detrimental events in relation to land and agriculture. Geiger (1996) argues that women, during the 1950s, did not only respond to how the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) defined an emerging national consciousness. Many thousands of women, acting across tribal lines, were key players in constructing 'what nationalism came to signify for many Tanzanian women and men' (Geiger, 1996, p. 465). Brain (1978) concurs largely with these analyses. He emphasises that the colonial -followed by the post-colonial -authorities in Tanzania exacerbated gender inequalities. In pre-colonial society women and men held different roles, with women often holding high office and enjoying high status as food producers. However, Europeans introduced concepts around Victorian ideals of 'gentility' for women at the same time -for example that women are homemakersalongside introducing cash crops which greatly increased demands upon women's labour. These colonial conceptualisations of women's roles remain powerful today (Brain, 1978).3.1.1. Gender in Ujamaa. Modern Tanzania was formed in 1964, when mainland Tanganyika merged with Zanzibar. Tanganyika won Independence in 1961and Zanzibar in 1963. Ujamaa (literally 'familyhood', 1964-1975) aimed to transform Tanzanian society through returning it to precolonial values. The process included villagisation, collective farming, nationalisation of industry and banks, increased self-reliance at a personal and national level, and the development of a strong national culture (Lange, 1995;Mbilinyi, 1972). Ujamaa, according to Mbilinyi, 'through the reconstitution of agrarian relations, offered poor rural women a chance to become aware of 'the contradictions of their own lives and […] to realise their own true abilities and potentialities ' (1972, p. 72). Fortmann (1982) acknowledges that the transformative potential of Ujamaa for women was realised at times. However, although women could acquire land under Ujamaa, they did not always benefit. This is because 'structures for equality […] tended to be overwhelmed by male-dominated tradition' at the village level (Fortmann, 1982, p. 167). Women often did not get good land, or sufficient land, nor did they have much control over their produce (Fortmann, 1982). Women's work in the field was often unrecognised (Croll, 1981). Lal (2010) argues that the Tanzanian state's understandings of the rural family and the Ujamaa project 'were deeply riddled with internal tensions.' Distinctive gender roles for women and men were normalised, and a generic ideal of the nuclear family was celebrated ( Lal, 2010). Women were promoted primarily as homemakers; it was never suggested that men could engage in house and care work (Croll, 1981). In reality, Tanzanian women have always moved in and out of motherhood, working in the field and off-farm (Lal, 2010). Women's multiple roles were recognised at the time by some observers: 'The African woman thinks of herself as more than a wife and mother. She is a cultivator, a weaver, a trader, and her occupational role is part of her self-image' (Mbilinyi, 1972, p. 60). Despite this, strengthening women's equality was never explicit in Ujaama official policy (Fortmann, 1982).During the 1980s, Ujaama was largely reversed. Men increasingly migrated to urban areas and rural women took on many tasks previously considered men's (Mbilinyi, 2016). Land became commercialised and increased rapidly in value during the 1990s and into the 2000s.The conflicting and complex ways in which men and women, and the national State, sought to perform gender during the struggle for Independence and during Ujamaa, is reflected in contestation around normative conceptions of 'who owns land'.Although under Ujamaa women had had the right to own land, the issue of ownership of land between husband and wife was excluded from legislation in the National Land Policy of 1995. Women's organisations then mobilised for equal treatment under the law. Their struggles resulted in the Land Act and the Village Land Act, 1999, and the Courts (Land Disputes Settlements) Act of 2002. These are considered amongst the most progressive legislation in Africa (Pedersen & Haule, 2013). Legally, women may hold, own and dispose of property, and women have the same land rights as men. Laws provide for strong protections of women landowners, recognise a wife's right to household land upon widowhood or divorce, prevent village land councils from discriminating against women, and allocate to women a certain number of seats on the councils, which administer occupancy rights and adjudicate land disputes in rural areas (Pedersen & Haule, 2013). However, these rights are rarely realised. Customary land tenure continues to vest control of property in men across Tanzania: in such systems women's rights to land are generally dependent on maintaining their roles as wives or daughters (Ewans School of Public Affairs, 2011). Women and men generally have little knowledge of national law, local institutions have low technical and financial capacity to implement national legislation, and women's participation in community level decision-making bodies is weak (Sutz et al., 2019). Daley's (2005aDaley's ( , 2005b) ) study of the relationship between land and social change in Tanzania from colonial times to the present illustrates how gendered differences in wealth and education, as well as marital status and kinship, influenced and continues to influence women's ability to formalise their rights to land and other assets. Thus, women across Tanzania are highly vulnerable to dispossession of land upon the death of their husband or separation (Dancer, 2015; see also Schlindwein et al., 2020). The negative impact of norms has been sharpened by the commercialisation of land from the 1990s to the present day. Between 2000 and 2015, foreign and/or national investors acquired 1,321,731 ha of land with, in many cases, few benefits to the local population (Dancer & Sulle, 2015). Such investments have sharply increased the value of land and thus the potential for contestation (Kinunda, 2017;Mbilinyi, 2016). Furthermore, families headed by women tend to be poorer than those headed by men, and 'only those [women] both \"without men\" and with independent means [are] able to make most use of the land market' (Daley, 2005b, p. 558).Women have continued the struggle for gender equality in land. Over the past few years, for instance, the Tanzania Women Lawyers Association (TAWLA) has been working with the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and other national and international organisations to support villages to adopt 'gender-sensitive' bylaws. This ongoing project has been successful in around 130 villages across six districts, including all villages in the first district (Sutz et al., 2019).A study conducted in the Dodoma region of Tanzania (Bonatti, Borba, Schlindwein, Rybak, & Sieber, 2019;Schlindwein et al., 2020) found that women lived within a complex set of domestic relationships between violence, food, and malnutrition. Both women and men had clear concepts of femininity and masculinity, which they literally acted out in the study through participation in Forum Theatre drama exercises. Men associated masculinity with decision-making, and strongly resented women asserting power within the household. When women are 'over-empowered', men feel their ideas are not respected, and that they need to beat women to restore order and ensure appropriately submissive behaviours. Women felt isolated and shamed when physically chastised and could not call on anyone for help. They felt it important to express their femininity through ensuring that they could provide their husbands with more to eat, and more meat, than other household members (though from a nutritional point of view children and women of reproductive age have greater need of good nutrition). Being feminine was associated with eating later, eating less, and eating less meat. However, women did not see their performance as good wives at the table as a way to avoid violence. Rather, they argued that by prioritising their husbands at the table they were expressing their love for him (Bonatti et al., 2019). Returning to Butler's analysis, this is a perfect example of how gender becomes performative: the very practice of gender creates gender. Its non-natural origins are obscured through myth-making around the concept of a good wife. The role of sanctions is also clear in this example. Women, who men perceive as stepping out of line -primarily through posing a challenge to male dominance in decision-making -are subjected to physical violence. The case exemplifies the idea that effective gender performance is an intensely personal affair, which individual women need to 'do right' (hence they have no right to ask others for help). As such, the performance of gender -and gender-based violence -is depoliticised.The overview so far shows that 'how to do gender right' in rural Tanzania has been contested for decades and is still being contested. As a consequence, different understandings of what it means to be a woman, or a man, permeate national legislation. Performance is not cohesive.The Constitution of 1997 prohibits discrimination against women. Tanzania has signed all major international and regional gender equality protocols and instruments. It has ratified the 2030 SDG Agenda and the long term 2063 Agenda (both of which include commitment to gender equality). The country has made some efforts to align implementation of the SDGs with national planning frameworks. However, the current National Development Plan does not fully capture gender equality issues and women's empowerment. In fact, only half a page from 124 pages is dedicated to discussion of gender equality -with a few gendered indicators on other pages (Ministry of Finance and Planning, 2016). By way of contrast, the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children (2016) in its 'Country Gender Profile'(139 pages) notes considerable weaknesses with respect to legislation in employment, property ownership and credit, and weak mainstreaming of gender in planning and budgeting at sector level. Inadequate gender-disaggregated data in key economic sectors prevents a good grasp of the situation of women and gender relations and hampers monitoring (Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children, 2016). Outside observers note the overall lack of alignment between polices to advance gender equality and sector-specific policies of government ministries -as noted above with respect to land legislation (Acosta, Ampaire, Okolo, Twyman, & Jassogne, 2016;USAID, 2018). TGNP Mtandao asserts: 'gender mainstreaming continues to remain a lip service, whereby the Government creates national gender instruments, but commits insufficient funds to attain them' (2018). Taken together, these observations point to a tension at the heart of government. This tension arguably arises from the long-standing contestations around what a man, and a woman, should be and should do, that have characterised Tanzania over the past century and more.Performing gender in rural Tanzania 315 We now turn to our study to explore these issues further. We present the methodology and study communities before moving to the findings and discussion.The overall focus of the study, conducted in 2015, was upon understanding -from the respondents' point of view -how gender norms and agency shape the capacity of men and women to learn about, adopt and benefit from agricultural innovations (Badstue et al., 2018). The selection of study communities was based on purposive, maximum diversity sampling focused on four variables: high or low gender gaps (assessment of educational achievements, income-generation, mobility, and so forth) and high or low economic dynamism (assessment of markets, infrastructure, services and so forth). In each community, research teams conducted fifteen research activities, all but one disaggregated by gender. These included six focus group discussions (FGDs) with women and men in lowand middle-income categories (aged 25 to 50), and with young women and men (aged 14 to 24). Also, four semi-structured life-story interviews (two with women and two with men), and four semistructured individual interviews with recognised women and men agricultural innovators, as well as a community profile (with both genders) were conducted. Study participants reflected on a wide variety of questions related to, for example, gender norms and household and agricultural roles; gender norms surrounding household bargaining over livelihoods and assets; labour market trends and gender dimensions; women's physical mobility and gender norms shaping access to economic opportunities and household bargaining (see Petesch et al., 2018 for further discussion of the methodology 1 ). In total, the article draws on the perspectives of 144 women and 144 men living in four rural communities.Table 1 provides an overview of selected characteristics in each community. All community names are anonymised. Each community generally grows a mix of grain-based food security crops, vegetables, tree crops, and some other cash crops. Considerable ethnic diversity contributes to a mix of matrilineal and patrilineal kinship arrangements. Ethnic community and religious affiliation were noted but did not in themselves form selection criteria and thus comparative analysis on these data points is not possible.The presentation of findings focuses on capturing understandings and meanings from the point of view of the respondents met during the study and thus uses direct quotes in many cases. Relying on respondent terminology and framing of some key concepts aims to provide the respondents with some agency in directing the analysis (Farnworth, 2007). This approach is based on the epistemological understanding that the nature of knowledge means that there is no ultimate truth, but rather partial knowledge and multiple truths. Feminist enquiry aims to challenge binary oppositions, thinks relationally, and considers that research is never a neutral process (Feldman, 2018).The findings are presented as follows. First, we explore concepts of gender equality and how these are expressed in intra-household decision-making. This section helps to contextualise those, which follow. Second, we provide an account of men and women's responsibilities for income generation. Third, we examine the concept of women as homemakers, and fourth, we assess the reality that men are primary asset holders and managers.Respondents in the low-income focus groups were asked to discuss their understanding of gender equality. Overall, both men and women support the concept of gender equality, but they differ in their understandings of what this entails.Although the communities of Medu and Kilosha were characterised as having high gender gaps, low-income men generally viewed gender equality positively. One man in Medu argued that 'Equality helps to make a woman feel comfortable as a human being.' It was widely argued that gender equality can help to strengthen relationships, which 'increases happiness in the family' (Kilosha). The sense that harmonious relationships are important were broadly shared by men and women across the data set. Low-income men respondents explicitly linked harmony to improved economic outcomes. 'If a man and a woman don't agree there is no development' (Mogorowi). 'Gender equality is good because both respect each other and whatever they do succeeds', and 'Gender equality increases production since both are able to participate in farming or productive activities' (Tanwa). Low-income women focused less than men on how gender equality can enhance income and productivity, and more on the timesaving benefits. Women in Kilosha, for example, argued that gender equality 'saves time because if a woman is working on one activity and the man on another activity, then work is done in a reasonable time'. Performing gender in rural Tanzania 317Four low-income men's FGDs, and three low-income women's FGDs, asserted that violence against women and girls fell over the decade prior to the study. They ascribed this to awarenessraising efforts by NGOs and more effective enforcement of laws against domestic violence. Two women respondents, in Tanwa and Medu, associated gender equality with reduced violence, commenting respectively 'This means stopping dictatorship of a man over a woman. In the past men used to dominate women. Through equality this habit ends', and 'Equality is good because it protects women against mistreatment.'The study assessed whether positive attitudes towards the concept of gender equality is reflected in actual intra-household decision-making processes. Evidence of collaborative decision-making is weak. Some low-income men in Tanwa argued that 'in the past men used to decide on everything concerning the family, but with equality both a man and woman can decide.' However, such sentiments were rarely expressed. Although some low-income women in Mogorowi argued that, a husband 'must be able to communicate with his wife. They must discuss their income and expenditure distribution together', it was much more common for low-income men to argue that a wife should be humble, hospitable, 'listen carefully to whatever she is being told' (Medu), and demonstrate respect for her husband as well as 'provide satisfactory answers to whatever question' men may pose (Kilosha).Across the four communities, middle-income women agreed that most decisions are taken by men. A woman in Mogorowi argued that some women never have full decision-making power, because they are 'dependent on men for almost everything.' Women in Tanwa considered 'Women make decisions under fear. In order for a woman to make decisions, she has to seek approval from the husband so that her decision can go right.' A different nuance was that collaborative decision-making in itself reduces women's capacity to take decisions. 'Once a woman gets married, her freedom to make decisions decreases. Most issues are decided upon jointly' (Mogorowi). The implication here is that women have less agency in decision-making processes, particularly over expenditure decisionseven if they are ostensibly collaborative in some cases.Respondents illustrated the weak agency of married women by describing how their incomegeneration potential can be circumscribed. One woman in Mogorowi said, 'They make you grow crops to eat at home. You cannot have cash crops, that will allow you to become rich.' Women in Tanwa noted that, 'Most men do not trust their wife. Even if she is doing business, a man wants to control her money. This forces some women to separate and live alone so as to have freedom in doing their private activities'. Another added, 'As a woman, if you are seen having any amount of money, the first question your husband asks is -where have you got that money from? Even if you happen to provide good reasons, men never believe you.' Some separated women enjoyed their autonomy. A single woman in Mogorowi said, 'When I was married most decisions were made by my husband. Even the little decisions I used to make were undermined by him. Today however I can make full decisions. Men are dictators over women. They normally consider women's decisions are useless'. Single women from Kilosha focused on their ability to manage money. 'Now I make decisions without any obstacle. When I was living with the husband, despite the fact, that everyone works to make money, it was my husband who made decisions over income. After the harvest he was the one to sell the produce and at the end of the day I did not benefit from the income we made.' Another added, 'We used to harvest what was enough for us to consume as a household and my husband used to sell what remained to get some money. At that time, I had no control over money.'Across the four communities the normative association between men and their role as economic provider and decision-maker was deep-rooted and strong. While women are widely expected to contribute to income generation, economic success on their part can challenge men's position. One reason why men across the data set asserted control over income may be normative associations between men and their role as economic provider.In Tanwa, low-income men and women argued respectively that men are expected to 'cater for household needs', and to 'struggle to provide household necessities.' Respondents in Kilosha made very similar remarks, with men adding it was a male responsibility to pay for the 'education of children, health costs and diet-related issues.' Yet it was common for respondents to comment that women had to earn money to provide for their families. Indeed, in all communities almost all women were engaged in a wide range of on-farm and off-farm income generating activities. On-farm activities include cropping, poultry and livestock rearing, as well as selling crops like bananas, mangos, oranges, vegetables, maize and rice, and preparing maize beer. Off-farm work in all study communities includes casual work as farm labourers and selling other people's produce at the market. In Kilosha, a number of women work on a large horticultural estate and in Medu, many women have found work in the lively hotel and service sector. In Tanwa, which experiences particularly low economic dynamism, programmes supporting vulnerable families, and the establishment of a sunflower processing plant, is providing economic opportunities for women and men.Although off-farm income-generation opportunities are opening up in all communities, women involved in paid labour were widely described as suffering and struggling. Low-income men in Mogorowi explained 'the community has no problem with a woman struggling to make her life.' Low-income men in Kilosha argued that 'People sympathise with her, because she is working hard for her family needs', and 'They admire her for working far away to sustain the family.' Women respondents in Mogorowi and Kilosha explained, 'Women selling vegetables in the market is a common practice here. No one worries about it' and 'This is normal practice. Actually, this is what women do.'One reason why women are considered to struggle when they take on paid work, or market products, is their general lack of control over expenditure decisions -particularly when married -as noted above by low-income respondents. Discussions with middle-income men and women centring on a hypothetical vignette-based exercise whereby a man previously sold vegetables the wife had grown -because he expected his wife to focus on household work -to a new situation where the wife herself joins a women's marketing group, revealed strong fears among men that they will lose access to money. 'The husband will take this decision as a way to stop him from getting the income he has been earning', according to men. Women added, 'He will use all reasons to prevent his wife from going to sell vegetables on her own. He will tell her to remain doing domestic activities.' In all four communities respondents agreed with these assessments.Another hypothetical vignette focused on a couple, where the wife has become successful in her market enterprise. Women and men agreed that the husband, who broadly agreed with his wife's entrepreneurial spirit, would appreciate his wife's financial success. However, it was widely agreed that such a man would be concerned. Men respondents said, 'He will accept what has happened, but he will worry about the future. Because of her wealth his wife can turn against him any time' (Medu) and 'He will fear that in future he will have no say when it comes to making decisions over the accumulated resources' (Kilosha). The concern that a wife may 'turn against' the husband was linked to a widely held belief that an economically successful wife may marry another man, or court other men to obtain money.A second reason why women, who work outside the home, are considered to suffer and struggle is that women are strongly associated with household, parenting and care roles in all communities. This has considerable implications for the ability of women to balance their time. Yet, normatively, the thought of a husband conducting domestic tasks and care work was viewed ambivalently.Performing gender in rural Tanzania 319 Women and men in low and middle-income categories agreed, that working women must never neglect their childcare responsibilities. At the same time, low-income women in particular argued that gender equality should translate into stronger participation by men in household and care work. 'Gender equality means giving freedom to the wife to work in business, as well as assisting each other in the responsibility of taking care of the children' (Tanwa). 'Gender equality means, that if the woman has gone for harvesting in the farm, the man can help in caring for the children' (Mogorowi). In some cases, men are contributing more. Women in Mogorowi said, 'Women and men are able to work together now, different from the past where women seemed to work alone in most of the domestic activities', and that 'Gender equality is good, because today men are encouraged to take children to the clinic' (Medu). However, men did not make any statements relating to their willingness to participate in household work.A third hypothetical vignette-based exercise, whereby the wife is a successful market vendor and her husband manages housework and childcare, led respondents to expect both parties losing respect. Regarding the wife, women respondents explained, that 'The community will consider her a woman with no concern for her family' (Mogorowi). She will be judged for making him do activities that are 'not worthy to be done by a man' (Medu), and for making him look like a 'house girl' (Tanwa). Accusations of witchcraft would be made, and men in the village would shout at the wife, that 'what she does is no good.' According to men respondents, the husband would be despised, because 'he does the opposite of what men are supposed to do' (Medu). 'It is abnormal, and it would look like the wife paid bride-wealth for the man' (Mogorowi). Both women and men agreed that the husband would not have time to engage in social occasions with other men, because he would be too busy working on his chores. Despite the strong condemnation, it is not clear whether women would in fact welcome such a husband. Rather, the comments make it clear that men who openly engage in tasks associated with women are marginalised and scorned.Although low-income men in Medu argued that gender equality meant 'women can share family assets, not as in the past whereby assets were only reserved for men', in general women were recognised to have very low command over assets. Women were considered entitled to use assets during their marriage, and in so doing, contribute to the family's livelihoods and further asset creation. However, when the marriage ends, whether due to death of the spouse or separation, most women have to leave their households empty-handed, and have no call upon the land. A middle-income woman in Tanwa said, 'I separated from my husband, and I had to leave all the crops in the farm. My husband told me, that I can only take my clothes'. Poor women in Kilosha explained 'Women fall into poverty after they separate. They leave every belonging and asset with their husband.' Because of their loss of assets upon separation, it is very difficult for most single women to start over and develop a sufficient asset base to provide adequately for themselves and their families. Respondents remarked, 'Some women are household heads and have no men. You find that their husbands died, or they separated. They work hard to earn a living for their households, but they cannot do much to move their households ahead' (Tanwa, lowincome men). 'There are women, who are poor, because their husbands or children, who used to provide for them, have died' (Medu, low-income men).Following Butler (1988), we hypothesised, that although gender is always being re-enacted and reproduced, spaces are continually emerging for women and men to renegotiate gender. Women and men perform gender endlessly, but they have the potential to use their agency to also challenge their own performances.Our literature review indeed suggests that gender in Tanzania is in flux. To some extent the indigenous feminist movement has been successful, and progress has been achieved for instance in legislation. However, at the same time other elements appear to be pushing back, seeking to essentialise gender differences in ways that systemically afford women a weaker position. Gender equality legislation is not effectively implemented. The gender productivity gap is not addressed. Denying pregnant schoolgirls schooling means gender differentials in national capacity are likely to be reproduced inter-generationally.Our fieldwork findings show a similar lack of cohesion. Men as much as women espouse support for gender equality. This may be associated with decades of indigenous activism, perhaps engagement by international development entities -as well as men's and women's personal beliefs. Even so, most (though not all) men respondents generally tend to associate the concept of gender equality with rather instrumental views on improving production, whereas women highlight reductions in genderbased violence and collaboration. However, the majority of men respondents place an interesting price on gender equality. This is that gender equality is contingent on men retaining primacy in decision-making, and that men control household income, including women's income. In this, the term 'joint' may well mask an actual norm, that men take the final decision. Acosta et al. (2019) report that in rural Uganda local understandings of joint decision-making includes situations where there is in fact no discussion at all. Women define jointness to include being informed by their husband that a decision has been made. Conceptions of jointness extend to discussions where the wife's ideas are considered, but the man has the final say -there were no examples of women actually taking the final say (Acosta et al., 2019). It is possible that a wide range of understandings of jointness pertain also to the case study communities.In contrast to men respondents in our study, women respondents argue for genuinely equal decision-making. There is a suggestion in some responses, though, that women are afraid to take decisions due to the threat of physical violence. As a reminder in relation to this, Bonatti et al. (2019) consider that gender-based violence is a central element of how food and nutrition is organised in their study communities in Tanzania. They go further to suggest that violence against women is intrinsic to a society -like Tanzania -with segregated gender roles and a patriarchal, hierarchical social system. Male domination and consequent female subjugation, to use their language, can only be maintained in this way (Bonatti et al., 2019, p. 10). This reminds us of Morgenroth and Ryan (2018) remarks on the importance of sanctions to a patriarchal system, which is trying to reproduce and sustain itself. In a study of Maasai women in Tanzania (Grabe, Dutt, & Dworkin, 2014), women considered that men's 'right' to express violence against women was associated with men's land ownership. When women own land, women are no longer men's 'property' and therefore must be treated differently (Grabe et al., 2014). This indicates that violence may be considered not only as a sanction to induce conformity, but also a signifier of men's ownership of women. In our study, this aspect was not researched, though study participants perceived rates of gender-based violence to be lessening as a consequence of broader normative change. Indeed, law enforcement agents are literally policing this. At the same time, it is clear that violence continues to some degree.The question of equal decision-making is also tied to the control of assets. The findings show that the reality on the ground in our case study communities lies at a substantial distance to national legislation. Considering our data, it is hard to imagine that 'legally, women may hold, own and dispose of property, and women have the same land rights as men. Laws provide for strong protections of women landowners, recognise a wife's right to household land upon widowhood or divorce' (Pedersen & Haule, 2013, p. 2). In the study communities, the majority of women -together with their children -become destitute, if their marriages fail or if their husbands die. In such a situation, women are left with little option but to construct themselves as feminine, submissive and docile. Thus, whilst married women may seek equality in decision-making, their generally very low control over -and ownership of -assets, means that they perform acts of submission in ostensible support of men's decision-making. Maintaining their access to assets trumps attempts at decision-making autonomy. However, single women are freed from such a performance, and women respondents, who are financially secure, expressed a preference to be single in order to experience decision-making autonomy. These findings suggest performances of gender are differentiated by household typology.Mbilinyi, cited above, said 'the African woman thinks of herself as more than a wife and mother (1972, p. 60). She is a cultivator, a weaver, a trader, and her occupational role is part of her selfimage.' Our findings show, that whilst women in the study communities may well think of themselves in those terms, men in the study communities find such a construction of women challenging.Local norms indicate that men are supposed to provide for their families, even though the reality is that in all locations women are engaged in on-and off-farm income generation. However, when women earn money locally, important performances of masculinities (man as breadwinner) and femininities (woman as housewife) are inevitably questioned. In this light, it seems very important to men, particularly, to create an image of women who work as 'struggling'. Such language serves to relativise and diminish women's contributions in relation to those of men. Couching women's contributions as purely economic -and as under the control of men -allows men to retain dominance as decision-maker. In men's remarks, there is no hint that women may actually want to earn money or to see themselves as breadwinners. Brain (1978) comments that women became homemakers during the colonial period. The literature review and our findings show, that the merging of women's identity with homemaker is pervasive and thoroughly naturalised. It is here, that Butler's concept of gender being performative has particular heft. At the same time, there are tantalising hints that men may be engaged in housework and childcare by simple virtue of women expressing this as a possibility. Admitting in public, though, that men carry out any form of housework is taboo. The fervent denials of this prospect, particularly by men -'It is abnormal … ', '(It is) the opposite of what men are supposed to do' suggest that associating men with the domestic sphere threatens their masculinity in a very deep way. Feinstein, Feinstein, and Sabrow (2010) make very similar observations. They found that Tanzanian men express traditional expectations regarding gender roles, whilst women have more progressive expectations. Men generally felt that women should be responsible for children and do more work than men overall. Interestingly, their respondents suggested that disparities between women and men are natural, and they minimised the scale of any disparities (Feinstein et al., 2010) Our findings show that understandings of gender are far from hegemonic. Women and men do engage, constantly, in gendered performances, and there is evidence that this behaviour is -at least to an extent -deliberative rather than a mere reflection of cultural norms. Women and men act to secure their personal well-being in the context of a limited range of cultural and economic options. Women in particular demonstrate 'a differential consciousness, a new subject position that permits functioning within, yet beyond, the demands of dominant ideology' (Sandoval, as cited in Grabe et al., 2014). Our fieldwork findings are redolent with remarks by women -and men -that speak to a much wider understanding of gender equality than is currently expressed in their daily lives. Butler (1988) allows for agency in her model, simply because gender is an artifice -it is not real. Our study shows that women, and men, face very real limits to their personal agency. These limits are structural and as such pervasive. Even so, we came across tantalising evidence that, behind the scenes, a few married women and men may be acting gender in more gender equal ways. However, this cannot (yet) be expressed at community level. Maintaining a 'gender norms façade' appears critical (Galiè & Farnworth, 2019). Women and men must be seen as conforming to gender norms in public, but in private they may be doing something else altogether.We have already noted the feminist transformative movement in Tanzania is developing indigenous analyses and strategies for promoting understandings of women as equal to men in all ways. A limitation of this study, which could be addressed in further research, is that we have not discussed the construction of masculinities, nor indigenous men's movements for women's equality. These include MenEngage Tanzania, which brings together 29 civil society organisations for women's equality and positive masculinities (MenEngage Tanzania, n.d.). Since gender is obviously relational, achieving a deeper understanding of how men perform gender in rural communities (beyond sexuality, which is well-researched) would be valuable. Broqua and Doquet (2013), for instance, cite various studies to show that African men's identities have undergone as much transformation as women's have over the past century or so. They argue the history of masculinities is 'directly marked by the colonial conquests, which altered their forms.' This was achieved, they consider, through destabilising existing power systems, weakening the power of elders, and through subordinating black men to white men. Beyond this, they highlight the importance of working towards plural definitions of masculinity. 'Men are not a single, uniform category, with inherently superior power. According to their properties and the geographical, ethnic, class, age, or other groups to which they belong, men's relationships to gender norms and their positions in relation to women vary widely' (Broqua & Doquet, 2013, p. 9). A large British study (Sweeting, Bhaskar, Benzeval, Popham, & Hunt, 2013) using longitudinal data, examined associations between gender role attitudes (GRAs), actual gender roles (marital status, household chore division, couple employment) and psychological distress in working-age men and women. They found that women, young people, and participants in less traditional relationships were less likely to express gender traditional attitudes. However, psychological distress (measured on a 12-point scale including items like feeling unable to perform normal activities and losing confidence in oneself) was higher among people -particularly menwith traditional GRAs. These findings have some clear parallels with our own study. It would be interesting to carry out a more detailed study bringing together the concept of performing gender with the psychological effects of attempting to maintain specific types of femininity and masculinity in similar rural settings in Tanzania.In this paper we have provided a summary of the debates surrounding the relationship between progressive national policy and changing gender norms at local level in Tanzania. Our study complements this overview by adding further evidence to established findings and demonstrating how the continuous performance, reproduction and renegotiation of gender takes place as part of everyday lived experience in rural Tanzania as new livelihood opportunities challenge local normative understandings of what it means to be a woman or a man. We conclude that although national and local discourse embrace the idea of gender equality, practice is quite often different. Understanding how women and men seek to deploy their agency to create space for manoeuvre is an important aspect of recognising gendered performance and providing supportive measures","tokenCount":"7974"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c70c4850d24cb6d65dc0347035831cc1","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/17273f67-0942-4125-b4e9-479e812861e1/retrieve","id":"967814008"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7741d685-13a7-4d8d-a699-195c6521eb07","pagecount":"11","content":"ACP producers are global leaders in cocoa production, which is concentrated in West and Central Africa, with fine/flavoured cocoa also being produced in the Caribbean and Pacific. While there are ambitious plans to develop cocoa production in non-ACP countries, these are unlikely to challenge the dominant role played by ACP producers in the short term.Average cocoa prices showed a recovery in the first 9 months of 2012, before falling back by February 2013 to price levels slightly below those prevailing in December 2011, some 36.7% below the February 2011 peaks. While political conflict in Côte d'Ivoire and subsequent uncertainties linked to domestic reform policies might have helped support prices, the stabilisation of international cocoa prices, which was expected following the implementation of Ivorian cocoa reforms, has not yet occurred.Although corporate actors are concerned over long-term cocoa supplies, this has not been reflected by higher, more stable prices. Since 2007, price volatility has been pronounced, albeit around higher average price levels.Serious challenges are faced in stimulating investment in new cocoa plantations, improving tree management strategies and attracting young farmers into the cocoa sector. A growing range of publicprivate partnerships are being launched to try to meet these challenges.Issues of environmental and social sustainability -particularly the elimination of child labour -are still high on the agenda. It is unclear whether these issues will be backed by regulatory requirements. In the fisheries sector, the EU is formulating regulatory reforms which will link access to the EU market for fisheries products with certified compliance to environmental and social standards. These regulatory Getting to grips with ensuring markets provide sustainable net incomes to cocoa farmers Getting to grips with stricter food safety and sanitary and phytosanitary standardsStrengthening the functioning of internal cocoa supply chains in Africa Building on growing Asian demand Developing pan-ACP cooperation in marketing strategies for fine cocoa developments warrant close scrutiny, given their potential wider application to the agricultural sector (e.g. moves towards certification of production methods as being free of child labour as a prerequisite for market access).Demand for sustainably produced cocoa is rising. However, the distribution of costs and benefits of sustainability certification along supply chainshas not yet been addressed. This is complicated by the multiplication of certification schemes and a questioning of the rigour of traceability processes applied (e.g. whether fair-trade produced cocoa actually ends up in chocolate bars certified as fair-trade). ACP producers will need to stay on top of these trends by developing operational strategies to address underlying concerns.Efforts continue to expand cocoa grindings in West and Central Africa, with a range of corporate investments taking place in support of these efforts. However, an additional area of con-cern relates to EU regulations on cadmium levels in cocoa and chocolate products.One key policy challenge relates to future strategies to support the repositioning of ACP producers within global cocoa value chains in response to shifting patterns of global demand for cocoa products.For fine/flavoured cocoa producers in the Caribbean and the Pacific, efforts are under way to develop closer relationships between producers and end users. This raises issues regarding the future role of commodity boards, with pragmatic solutions apparently emerging in some countries, while regulatory reforms are in motion.In the Caribbean, there is a need to reconcile the push towards strengthening commercial relations with existing end users, and with wider efforts to promote greater local value-added processing of cocoa into final consumer products. In the Pacific, however, the focus is on targeting expanding premium-priced cocoa market components that are more resilient to economic downturns.Global demand, production and price developments in 2012/13The slow and negative growth in demand in the main global markets for cocoa (US and EU) has only partly been compensated by the emerging markets' rising demand for cocoa products, which continued to grow throughout 2012 (see Table 1). The demand in Europe for high-value, highcocoa-content chocolate has been particularly hard hit by the economic downturn.  One outcome is that the government of Cameroon is taking measures to conduct more rigorous analysis of beans prior to export, and taking action against sub-standard drying practices, which can increase cadmium levels.Cocoa producing countries had previously called for a 5-year delay in the implementation of these regulations to allow time for producers to adjust to their requirements.The multi-dimensional nature of sustainability issues in the cocoa sectorThe issue of sustainable cocoa production was high on the agenda of the November 2012 World Cocoa Conference, held in Côte d'Ivoire. The Abidjan Cocoa Declaration that emerged from the meeting set out more detailed proposals under the Global Cocoa Agenda, aimed at creating a sustainable future for the cocoa sector.Sustainability is an issue of commercial concern to cocoa processors and users, since lack of investment in new trees, crop diseases, poor yields, poor farming practices, an aging cocoa farming population and growing competition from other crops are all threatening to undermine the availability of cocoa in the face of growing global demand.On the demand side, environmental concerns linked to deforestation and social concerns linked to the use of child labour are creating a growing market for cocoa certified as sustainably produced. While the demand for sustainably produced cocoa is growing, a 2012 review undertaken by KPMG for ICCO found that only 6% of world cocoa supplies were produced under conditions that secured sustainability certification.Indicative of this trend is the commitment from Dutch cocoa users to achieve by 2025 100% use of cocoa guaranteed as sustainably produced, and the launch in Germany in 2012 of the Sustainable Cocoa Forum. Furthermore, a growing number of com-panies (Mars, Barry Callebaut, Ferrero and, from 2012, Hershey) have committed themselves to using 100% sustainably sourced cocoa by 2020. This is being backed up by substantial financial commitments from these companies.\"A growing number of companies have committed themselves to using 100% sustainably sourced cocoa by 2020\"Supply concerns and demand pressures pre-empted the launch in 2012-13 of a growing number of sustainability initiatives supported by cocoa users (see Box: Sustainability initiatives 2012-13).Developing sustainable supply chains A key challenge will be in successfully consolidating these investment plans and ensuring full capacity utilisation in the face of growing competition from non-ACP production zones located closer to regions of expanding demand for cocoa-based products. the Cocoa Processors Association of Nigeria (COPAN) drew the attention of the federal government to the 6% tariff that the EU was imposing on imports of Nigerian-processed cocoa products.\"The Nigerian government aims to boost cocoa production to 500,000 tonnes by 2015\"Since no tariff is imposed on raw cocoa, COPAN says that Nigerians are now more attracted to exporting raw cocoa to the EU, which they say is \"killing companies that have invested billions to set up cocoa processing factories\".Cameroon has a strong cocoa policy but, in terms of volume, progress is rather slow. In 2011/12, production reached 200,000 tonnes and according to national estimates is projected to increase to between 220,000 and 250,000 tonnes in 2012/13 There is growing interest in Cameroon in organic cocoa production as well as origin-related quality cocoa. Furthermore, tax reforms are under discussion to encourage investment in local processing.\"In West Africa, pests and diseases are the main challenges to a sustainable cocoa economy\"In West Africa, pests and diseases are the main challenges to a sustainable cocoa economy, accounting for more than 40% of global crop losses, resulting in reduced income for cocoa farmers. The recent emergence of parasitic plants such as mistletoe and epiphytes is of particular concern.In There is reportedly growing interest in the Pacific in converting to organic cocoa (see Agritrade article 'Going organic seen as way forward in Vanuatu', 18 May 2013). Although globally the production of organic cocoa is estimated to have doubled since 2003, in 2012 it still only accounted for 1% of global cocoa production, some 30,000 tonnes. However, organic cocoa reportedly receives price premiums of US$200-400 per tonne. This needs to be balanced against the increased costs of cultivating organic cocoa.Getting to grips with ensuring markets provide sustainable net incomes to cocoa farmersGrowing demand for sustainability certification raises the issue of the distribution of the costs and benefits of sustainability certification along the supply chain. The reality is that as sustainability certification becomes the industry norm in major mature markets, any price premium that may currently be enjoyed will disappear.This will require some form of structured initiative to promote dialogue along supply chains on the distribution of the costs of sustainability compliance and certification, with the aim of establishing market-based initiatives to ensure sustainable, remunerative prices and net incomes to cocoa producers. Without the attainment of remunerative net incomes that provide a decent living wage to cocoa farmers, the economic imperatives that drive unsustainable patterns of cocoa production will undermine current efforts to promote more sustainable forms of cocoa production.There would appear to be a need for aid-for-trade support to assist ACP cocoa producers in: Despite the overall success of cocoa sector reforms in Côte d'Ivoire, there remains considerable tension along internal supply chains. These could be eased if effective measures were taken to reduce the costs associated with illegal roadblocks and checks, which serve to strip value out of the cocoa supply chain. This forms part of a much wider agenda for policy change, where some progress is being made within the framework of the Borderless Alliance's road governance programme. These efforts need to be extended and consolidated in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, with a particular focus on cocoa supply corridors and crossborder traffic.Rising demand in Asia offers opportunities for repositioning ACP cocoa producers within evolving global cocoa/ chocolate/confectionery supply chains. A critical question is how to use evolving global demand to leverage investment in greater value-added processing to more directly serve emerging markets in Asia (and potentially, in the longer term, in Africa). While progress is being made in expanding local grindings in the main African cocoa producing countries, it needs to be borne in mind that the main cocoa/chocolate processing companies are themselves investing in such strategic repositioning in the light of their own corporate needs (recent investments in Indonesia are illustrative in this regard).This suggests that considerable care will need to be taken in designing strategies to foster greater local value-added processing, with these being closely linked to consolidating and expanding the basis of cocoa production.Developing pan-ACP cooperation in marketing strategies for fine cocoaIn the Caribbean and Pacific, efforts are under way to develop new marketing arrangements for fine/flavoured and organic cocoa. There already exists a body of experience in differentiated marketing of cocoa among ACP countries, suggesting scope for experience sharing across ACP fine/organic cocoa producing countries. This could cover areas such as:ensuring required quality standards are attained on a sustained basis;developing producer organisations;strengthening the branding and marketing capacities of producer organisations and negotiating strategies when dealing with confectionery companies.However, these initiatives need to be balanced against competing efforts to move into local production of high-value, cocoa-based consumer products.","tokenCount":"1804"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3938118722784a2eaf4bd930d656610c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c0cfe4b3-a8ef-40b9-8576-7e4c02eb5846/retrieve","id":"-1825258001"},"keywords":["genome ancestry","Musa spp.","hybridization","domestication","genetic diversity"],"sieverID":"e54d3c05-363a-42d6-9e4a-8e690b767eed","pagecount":"17","content":"Hybridizations between Musa species and subspecies, enabled by their transport via human migration, were proposed to have played an important role in banana domestication. We exploited sequencing data of 226 Musaceae accessions, including wild and cultivated accessions, to characterize the inter(sub)specific hybridization pattern that gave rise to cultivated bananas. We identified 11 genetic pools that contributed to cultivars, including two contributors of unknown origin. Informative alleles for each of these genetic pools were pinpointed and used to obtain genome ancestry mosaics of accessions. Diploid and triploid cultivars had genome mosaics involving three up to possibly seven contributors. The simplest mosaics were found for some diploid cultivars from New Guinea, combining three contributors, i.e., banksii and zebrina representing Musa acuminata subspecies and, more unexpectedly, the New Guinean species Musa schizocarpa. Breakpoints of M. schizocarpa introgressions were found to be conserved between New Guinea cultivars and the other analyzed diploid and triploid cultivars. This suggests that plants bearing these M. schizocarpa introgressions were transported from New Guinea and gave rise to currently cultivated bananas. Many cultivars showed contrasted mosaics with predominant ancestry from their geographical origin across Southeast Asia to New Guinea. This revealed that further diversification occurred in different Southeast Asian regions through hybridization with other Musa (sub)species, including two unknown ancestors that we propose to be M. acuminata ssp. halabanensis and a yet to be characterized M. acuminata subspecies. These results highlighted a dynamic crop formation process that was initiated in New Guinea, with subsequent diversification throughout Southeast Asia.Characterizing the contribution of crop plant progenitors is important to understand crop domestication, provide relevant resources for breeding, and inform conservation strategies. Bananas (Musa spp.) are cultivated throughout subtropical and tropical regions worldwide, mainly for their fruits, which can be consumed raw as dessert bananas or cooked as a starch-rich staple food. They are one of several crops (including sugarcane [Saccharum officinarum] and yams [Dioscorea spp.]; Denham et al., 2020) that were domesticated in a region extending from Southeast Asia (SEA) to Melanesia. In banana, the main features selected by humans are related to fruit edibility, i.e., the absence of seeds in the fruit and the development of pulp-enriched fruits without fertilization (parthenocarpy) (Perrier et al., 2011;Simmonds, 1962). Due to their reduced fertility, naturally occurring vegetative propagation has been used to perpetuate and disperse cultivars (Denham et al., 2020;Perrier et al., 2011).The genus Musa is divided into two clades. One clade is comprised of former sections Ingentimusa, Callimusa, and Australimusa (2n = 14, 18, or 20), and the second clade is comprised of former sections Eumusa and Rhodochlamys (2n = 22) (Häkkinen, 2013;Li et al., 2010). Hybridizations between several Musa species and subspecies from the second clade were proposed to have played an important role in banana domestication (Perrier et al., 2011;Simmonds, 1962). One of these species, Musa acuminata (A genome), is fundamental in the cultivar formation process (Simmonds, 1962). It is sometimes combined with Musa balbisiana (B genome), resulting in a conventional cultivar classification based on different global genomic groups (e.g., AA, AAA, AB, AAB, ABB; Baurens et al., 2019, Cenci et al., 2021, Simmonds & Shepherd, 1955). A third species, Musa schizocarpa (S genome, 2n = 22) from New Guinea, was proposed to be involved in a few minor cultivars (AS genome) and in East African Highland Bananas (Carreel et al., 2002;Nemeckova et al., 2018). Fe'i cultivars found in New Guinea and Polynesia and some rare interspecific cultivars are derived from species from the first clade (former Australimusa section, T genome, 2n = 20; De Langhe et al., 2009).The species M. acuminata has diverged into several subspecies, whose numbers and classification status vary throughout the literature and databases (Häkkinen & Väre, 2008;Perrier et al., 2009;Shepherd, 1990;Simmonds, 1962). Different molecular marker analyses have shown the involvement of the subspecies M. acuminata ssp. banksii from New Guinea, M. acuminata ssp. zebrina from Java, and M. acuminata ssp. malaccensis from Malaysia and Sumatra in the genome of banana cultivars, and minor contributions of the burmannica group (Boonruangrod et al., 2008;Boonruangrod et al., 2009;Carreel et al., 2002;Christelová et al., 2017;Perrier et al., 2009;Sardos, Perrier, et al., 2016). The burmannica group is comprised of the three subspecies M. acuminata ssp. burmannicoides, M. acuminata ssp. burmannica, and M. acuminata ssp. siamea (Southeast India and Myanmar to Vietnam), which have been proposed to correspond to one genetic group (Dupouy et al., 2019;Martin, Cardi, et al., 2020;Perrier et al., 2009). The described M. acuminata diversity also includes M. acuminata ssp. truncata (Malaysia), M. acuminata ssp. microcarpa (Borneo), M. acuminata ssp. errans (Philippines), and several subspecies or botanical varieties from Indonesia (Häkkinen & V äre, 2008;Nasution, 1989;Shepherd, 1990). Accessions from the burmannica group, M. acuminata ssp. malaccensis, M. acuminata ssp. zebrina, and also M. balbisiana bear different large chromosomal reciprocal translocations that emerged in these genetic groups and were transmitted to many cultivars (Martin, Baurens, et al., 2020;Shepherd, 1999).Morphological and molecular marker analyses of banana diversity associated with archeological and linguistic approaches led to a domestication model outlined by Perrier et al. (2011). It proposes that during the Holocene, pre-domesticated forms of banana originating from M. acuminata subspecies have been selected for various uses and transported by humans out of their natural range across the New Guinea and SEA region (Kennedy, 2009;Perrier et al., 2011). Hybridizations with local M. acuminata subspecies in different contact zones resulted in edible diploids (Perrier et al., 2011). Disturbed meiotic processes in these edible diploids, linked to their hybrid status, sometimes resulted in the production of diploid gametes, which in turn led to the formation of edible triploids. Long-term and large-scale vegetative propagation of the main selected cultivars resulted in a secondary diversification attributed to somaclonal variation (cultivar subgroups).The observation that some diploid cultivars from Papua New Guinea (PNG) may be directly derived from M. acuminata ssp. banksii suggested a different domestication process on the island of New Guinea, where the hypothesis of inter(sub)specific hybridization as a main driving force of banana domestication may not apply (Sardos, Perrier, et al., 2016;Sardos, Rouard, et al., 2016).New approaches based on sequencing data were recently developed to precisely define ancestral contributions in interspecific hybrids through the characterization of ancestry mosaics along the genome (Baurens et al., 2019;Cenci et al., 2021;Martin, Cardi, et al., 2020).Here, with these approaches, we analyzed whole genome sequencing data from a large and diverse sample of wild and cultivated banana to gain further insight into the genetic make-up of cultivated bananas and their domestication process. We identified single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers that enabled the characterization of ancestral contributions along banana chromosomes, including contributions of two unknown ancestors. Phylogenetic analysis and screening of publicly available sequencing data were carried out to better characterize the two postulated unknown ancestors. The obtained genome mosaics of cultivars, analyzed in relation to known geographical origins, shed new light on cultivated banana domestication and formation processes.We generated DNA sequencing data from 150 Musaceae accessions and 12 F1 diploid hybrids. High-coverage genome sequencing data of 25 banana accessions were retrieved from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) to complement this dataset (Table S1). A total of 42 011 682 biallelic SNP variant sites were obtained after read mapping on the M. acuminata reference genome V4 (Belser et al., 2021) and filtration steps. As segmental aneuploidy can occur in banana accessions (Breton et al., 2022), coverage information of the SNPs was used to detect deviations from expected ploidy along chromosomes. A total of 40 accessions had aneuploid regions (Table S2). Such events may be due to vegetative/in vitro propagation or structural differences between ancestral genomes. In one case, triploid accession Lady Finger, an entire supernumerary chromosome 8 was detected.The SNPs were used to identify genetic groups contributing to cultivars (i.e., ancestral groups) and their corresponding representative alleles in a four-step procedure (Figures S1 and S2; Methods S1-S4). This procedure was set up to take into account the presence of introgressions in some wild representatives, particularly within M. acuminata, and the implication of unknown ancestors (Martin, Cardi, et al., 2020).In a first step, multivariate analysis and allele clustering were performed with SNPs from representatives of Musa species and subspecies that were previously reported to be contributors to different banana cultivars. This led to the identification of alleles representing six genetic groups, which we named based on the main (sub) species from which they were derived: balbisiana (M. balbisiana), schizocarpa (M. schizocarpa), zebrina (M. acuminata ssp. zebrina), malaccensis (M. acuminata ssp. malaccensis), burmannica (M. acuminata ssp. burmannica, burmannicoides, and siamea), and banksii (M. acuminata ssp. banksii, M. acuminata ssp. microcarpa accession Borneo, and M. acuminata ssp. errans accession Agutay).In a second step, because the clustering approach could not be applied to larger numbers of genetic groups, the potential contribution of the other sampled Musa species and subspecies was evaluated with a different approach. The proportion of alleles present in these accessions but not in the six groups of the first step was calculated. The analysis of shared proportions of these alleles among wild and cultivated accessions allowed the identification of three additional ancestral groups: Australimusa (all Australimusa spp.), sumatrana (M. acuminata ssp. or var. sumatrana, hereafter referred to as ssp. sumatrana), and truncata (M. acuminata ssp. truncata). No contributions have been identified from seven Musa spp. (Musa coccinea, Musa itinerans, Musa ornata, Musa velutina, Musa sanguinea, Musa rosea, and Musa laterita). In a third step, a private allele approach was used to identify representative alleles, for the three additional ancestral groups, for E. ventricosum used as outgroup, and to refine the set of M. balbisiana alleles.A preliminary analysis of ancestry along chromosomes using representative alleles of the nine Musa ancestral groups and the outgroup Ensete (chromosome ancestry painting) was then performed. It showed that large chromosomal regions not corresponding to aneuploid regions and present in many cultivars and a few hybrid wild M. acuminata accessions were not assigned to an ancestral group, thereby supporting the hypothesis of unknown ancestral contributors (Martin, Cardi, et al., 2020).A fourth step thus involved the identification of representative alleles for these unknown ancestral groups using an iterative approach mainly based on three diploid accessions ('Pisang Jari Buaya', 'Pisang Madu', and 'EN13') that displayed, in the preliminary analysis, chromosome-scale regions of unknown origin (Method S4; Figure S2). This led to the identification of ancestry informative alleles from two unknown ancestries named M_1 and M_2. During this process, we noted that in contrast to M_1, no sampled accession showed a complete haploid chromosome set of M_2 origin.Ultimately, a total of 6 562 307 alleles representing 12 genetic groups (11 banana ancestral groups and one outgroup) were obtained. They have been used for the determination of ancestry informative allele ratios along chromosomes of the studied accessions and for drawing their chromosome ancestry mosaic. All mosaics are presented in Figure S3 together with identified aneuploid regions.Examples of chromosome ancestry mosaics of wild Musa genetic groups that contributed to cultivar genomes are presented in Figure 1a in relation to their geographical distribution. The cumulative proportions of the genome covered by each ancestry for all wild accessions of these groups are presented in Figure 1b. Accessions are numbered (Table S1) and indicated in between brackets in the text. Accessions from M. balbisiana or Australimusa spp. were found homogenous for their respective genetic groups. Most M. acuminata subspecies and M. schizocarpa accessions although globally homogenous displayed a few interspersed small segments of different M. acuminata origin (e.g., accessions 29, 30, and 37; Figure 1a; Figure S3). In a few cases, introgressed segments of several megabases have been identified (e.g., 26-28 and 34; Figure 1a,b; Figure S3). Some segments in (peri)centromeric regions may be overpredicted due to the complexity of such regions. The M. acuminata ssp. errans and M. acuminata ssp. microcarpa accessions (40 and 41; Figure 1b; Figure S3) showed an expected global banksii origin with many interspersed small segments from other M. acuminata subspecies reflecting some divergence compared to M. acuminata ssp. banksii of New Guinea. The mosaics of M. acuminata ssp. truncata and M. acuminata ssp. sumatrana showed large contributions from malaccensis (45 and 46; Figure 1b). A few wild accessions had a more complex mosaic resembling cultivars or had mosaics suggesting that they could be hybrids between subspecies (e.g., 47-54; Figure 1b). Among them, wild accession 'EN13' from Indonesia was hybrid between zebrina and M_1 (54; Figure 1b).The chromosome ancestry mosaics of diploid cultivars involved three up to seven predicted ancestries (Figure 2a, b; Figure S3). A region of origin is known for most diploid cultivars with few exceptions (Table S1), which allows analyzing ancestry patterns in relation to geographical origin (Figure 2a,b). Accessions involving the lowest number of ancestries were six AA cultivars (AAcv) from PNG that showed a dominant banksii contribution with introgression from zebrina and schizocarpa (106-111; Figure 2a,b). A dominant banksii contribution always associated with zebrina and schizocarpa introgressions was predicted for most of the other analyzed AAcv from the New Guinea region (Figure 2b), together with malaccensis introgressions or combined with malaccensis, M_2, and sometimes M_1 introgressions. Two accessions from PNG showed one complete haplotype of schizocarpa origin in addition to one haplotype of banksii origin with zebrina, malaccensis, and schizocarpa introgressions (112 and 113; Figure 2a,b; Figure S3). Diploid AAcv from SEA (Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, and Indonesia [excluding the New Guinea part]) generally showed mosaics with four up to seven origins (Figure 2a,b). The three ancestries banksii, zebrina, and schizocarpa were present in all of them except for one accession, 'Pisang Jaran' from Indonesia (82; Figure 1b), which showed no schizocarpa ancestry. These three ancestries were often together with malaccensis and/or M_2, M_1, and in a few cases burmannica or sumatrana. The regional features illustrating contributions from local or geographically close subspecies were observed for SEA accessions, with a dominant zebrina contribution for a few accessions from Indonesia (e.g., 82-84; Figure 2a,b), a large malaccensis contribution in some accessions from Thailand or Indonesia (e.g., 62-72; Figure 2a,b), and a burmannica contribution in two accessions from Thailand (61; Figure 2a,  b) and the Philippines (85; Figure 2b). Three diploid accessions from Indonesia (68, 69, and 71; Figure 2a,b) showed a  S1). Numbers on the left refer to accessions listed in Table S1 and present  few regions assigned to sumatrana. The truncata contribution was limited to very small segments (Figure S3).The 'M_1' unknown ancestral group was apparently present as a complete haplotype in one cultivar from continental Malaysia ('Pisang Jari Buaya', 79) and one from the island of Borneo ('Pisang Madu', 78; Figure 2a,b). A centromeric region on chromosome 9 was also assigned to M_1 in several cultivars from different areas (Figure S3).The M_2 unknown ancestral group contributed large chromosomal regions in a majority of AAcv from SEA and in some accessions from New Guinea (Figure 2b). It is also present in the Sucrier dessert banana (74, 75, and 89; Figure 2b), the only globally distributed diploid subgroup (Stover & Simmonds, 1987). In contrast, its contribution was more limited or absent in East African accessions (Mchare subgroup and Paka, 55-58; Figure 2a,b) and a few AAcv from the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia (Figure 2b).Finally, AB interspecific cultivars (59 and 60; Figure 2a, b; Figure S3) thought to be of Indian origin displayed some A/B recombined chromosomes. Their A genome was predominantly of malaccensis origin, with large banksii and zebrina regions and a few schizocarpa introgressions.In contrast to most diploids, triploid cultivars have diffused in different regions of the world and their geographical origins are less precisely known. Figure 3a displays the mosaics of some popular cultivars worldwide or in tropical/subtropical regions (i.e., Cavendish, Plantains, Pome, East African Highland Banana, Ney Mannan, Pisang Awak), which illustrates the diversity of obtained ancestry profiles. The analysis of ancestral contributions (Figure 3b; Figure S3) showed that all triploid cultivars involving M. acuminata (AAA, AAB, ABB, and AAT) had contributions from banksii, zebrina, and schizocarpa and that some contributors were more dominant in some accessions (Figure 3b, Figure S3).The majority of AAA cultivars showed mixed mosaic profiles with regions of banksii, zebrina, schizocarpa, malaccensis, M_2, and sometimes M_1 on chromosome 9 (Figure 3b; Figure S3). Commercial Cavendish dessert banana cultivars came under this category (Figure 3a), in addition to accessions representing the Ambon (117), Orotava (121), Gros Michel (124), and Red (125 and 126) subgroups (Figure 3b; Figure S3).A dominant zebrina contribution was found for East African Highland Bananas, also with large banksii regions and schizocarpa introgressions (132-134; Figure 3a,b), while a dominant malaccensis contribution was observed for Ibota (115 and 116; Figure 3b).The A/B interspecific triploid cultivars showed a global AAB or ABB structure with some recombined A/B chromosomes (Figure 3a; Figure S3). Profiles of mixed or different dominant ancestries for their A genomes were observed (Figure 3b). The A genomes of AAB cultivars representing the Mysore (137), Pome (141), Nadan (142), and Nendra Padathti (143) subgroups were mixed, with at least four to six origins (Figure 3a,b; Figure S3). A dominant banksii contribution with introgressions from zebrina and schizocarpa was observed for AAB accessions representing Maia Maoli/ Popoulu, which are mainly found in the Pacific Islands (151 and 152; Figure 3b), and for ABB accessions representing the subgroups Bluggoe, Monthan, Ney Mannan, Saba, and Pelipita (153-157; Figure 3a,b; Figure S3). A similar profile, but with additional malaccensis introgression, was obtained for AAB Plantains, which are major crops in West Africa (146-149; Figure 3), for Laknao (150) from the Philippines, and for Iholena (145). Finally, a dominant malaccensis origin with banksii, zebrina, and schizocarpa regions was observed for representatives of ABB Pisang Awak (158-160; Figure 3) and AAB Silk (138-140; Figure 3b).No major burmannica contributions were predicted in our set of triploids, and sumatrana regions were found only in the AAA Indonesian accession 'Pisang Papan' (122; Figure S3).We also showed that Fe'i cultivars were of homogenous Australimusa ancestry (Figure S3), and the mosaic of cultivar 'Karoina' (161; Figure 3b) revealed an AAT composition consistent with cytogenetic analysis findings of (D'Hont et al., 2000) and suggesting hybridization between an introgressed banksii-rich individual and an Australimusa species.The observed cultivar genome mosaic patterns suggested that some breakpoints between segments of different origins may be shared between accessions. Notable patterns included several schizocarpa/banksii introgressions in many cultivars, two banksii/balbisiana recombination breakpoints on chromosome 9 in some A/B genome hybrids, and a few banksii/zebrina recombination breakpoints in East African AAcv Mchare and some AAcv from PNG. To validate these observations, the precise position of several of these recombination breakpoints was determined and scored.Seven schizocarpa/banksii breakpoints on chromosomes 1, 2, 4, and 9 were selected (BKS1-BKS7; Table 1; Table S3). The breakpoints were found distributed in 21 to 69 accessions (Figures 1c, 2c, and 3c; Table 1; Table S3). Each breakpoint was present in at least one of the six PNG cultivars with the simplest mosaic (106-111; Figure 2; Figure S4). All cultivars of our sample (excluding Fe'i) had at least one of these seven breakpoints, with two exceptions: 'Pisang Jaran' (82; Figure 2; no schizocarpa introgression) and 'IDN110' (69; Figure 2). The 'IDN110' cultivar had only one M. schizocarpa introgression, present on chromosome 2 and visible in other cultivars from different origins but  absent from the six cultivars with the simplest mosaic (69; Figure S3). Two of these breakpoints were also present in two introgressed wild accessions (Figure 1c). Four zebrina/banksii breakpoints present in PNG accessions with the simplest mosaics were also selected. They were shared between 9 to 21 cultivars (BKZ1-BKZ4; Figures 2c and 3c; Figure S5; Table S3). One of them, BKZ2, was shared between all six PNG accessions and four other PNG accessions, two, BKZ1 and BKZ3, were shared between some of the six PNG accessions and mostly , and the fourth one, BKZ4, was shared between four of the six PNG accessions and 17 other diploid and triploid cultivars, including AA Mchare (57-58) and AAA Cavendish (118-120).Using the same approach, we also validated that the two banksii/balbisiana breakpoints on chromosome 9 were shared between eight and nine accessions, respectively, corresponding to the AB diploid cultivar 'Kunnan' (60; Figure 2c  S3).To investigate relationships between the two unknown contributors M_1 and M_2 and the other ancestral groups that contributed to cultivars, we performed maximum likelihood phylogenetic analysis on one region for each of the 11 reference chromosomes. These regions were those where M_1 and M_2 haplotypes could be defined and where either haplotypes or consensuses from wild accessions could be derived from concatenated SNPs.Four monophyletic groups were identified on all 11 phylogenies (Figure 4; Figure S6). Group I was comprised of M. coccinea, Musa textilis, Musa lolodensis, Musa maclayi, and Musa peekelii. Group II corresponded to M. balbisiana accessions. Group III was comprised of M. ornata, M. velutina, and M. sanguinea. Group IV was comprised of all accessions from M. acuminata subspecies, as well as M. schizocarpa, M. rosea, M. laterita, and haplotypes from unknown contributors M_1 and M_2. The M. itinerans accession generally branched at the basis of the monophyletic group formed by groups III and IV (10/ 11 phylogenies).Within group IV, accessions from the same (sub)species consistently formed monophyletic groups according to their classification, with the exception of the M. acuminata ssp. malaccensis accession 'DB_malaccen-sis_2012_1154' (Figure S6e,f,j). The M. laterita and M. rosea accessions formed a monophyletic group that always clustered with the group formed by M. acuminata ssp. burmannica and M. acuminata ssp. siamea accessions. Musa schizocarpa generally grouped with the remaining M. acuminata subspecies (10/11 phylogenies). Accessions/ haplotypes of M. acuminata ssp. errans and M. acuminata ssp. microcarpa 'Borneo' were always grouped with M. acuminata ssp. banksii.In 10 phylogenies, the haplotype representative of the M_1 unknown origin (purple in Figure 4) was placed at the base of a monophyletic group formed by itself and M. schizocarpa accessions. Musa acuminata ssp. sumatrana usually clustered at the base of this group (nine phylogenies; Figure 4; Figure S6). In 10 phylogenies, the haplotype representative of the M_2 unknown origin was placed at the base of a monophyletic group formed by itself and M. acuminata ssp. zebrina accessions. In one phylogeny (chromosome 5; Figure S6d), both M_1 and M_2 haplotypes formed a monophyletic group with M. schizocarpa accessions as well as M. acuminata ssp. zebrina and M. acuminata ssp. sumatrana.The M. acuminata ssp. truncata accession usually clustered at the base of the group comprised of M. acuminata ssp. banksii, M. acuminata ssp. microcarpa ('Borneo'), and M. acuminata ssp. errans (Figure 4; Figure S6). For one phylogeny on chromosome 10, it clustered at the base of the group containing M. schizocarpa accessions and the M_1 haplotype.We extended our search for M_1 and M_2 wild representatives by using low-coverage genome skimming sequencing data for 39 Musa species or subspecies available in the NCBI database (Table S1). The analysis of profiles of normalized ancestry informative allele ratios obtained for the 39 accessions suggested that M_1 corresponded to M. acuminata ssp. halabanensis (Figure S7). No wild representative for M_2 was identified. We analyzed a sample of 175 Musaceae accessions in which we identified 11 genetic groups that contributed to banana cultivars. Previous studies had already identified M. acuminata ssp. banksii, M. acuminata ssp. zebrina, M. acuminata ssp. malaccensis, M. acuminata ssp. burmannica, M. balbisiana, and, in a few cases, Australimusa and M. schizocarpa as contributors to cultivar genomes (e.g., Boonruangrod et al., 2008, Boonruangrod et al., 2009, Carreel et al., 2002, Perrier et al., 2009, Simmonds & Shepherd, 1955). The contribution of the species M. schizocarpa was until now thought to be restricted to a few AS cultivars (Carreel et al., 1994) and suspected to be present in East African highland bananas (Nemeckova et al., 2018). We showed here that M. schizocarpa was a contributor to all cultivars. The only exception, 'Pisang Jaran', is quite seedy (https://www.crop-diversity.org/mgis) and thus may be considered as a non-typical cultivar. To these groups, we also added the contributions of two unknown ancestries, M_1 and M_2, one of which we identified as M. acuminata ssp. halabanensis, and identified local sumatrana and possibly truncata contributions.The informative alleles of these 11 genetic groups allowed precise evaluation of their contributions to cultivated banana genomes. They also revealed the presence of introgressions in wild (seedy) individuals, particularly within M. acuminata, which may be remnants of hybridizations between geographically close or introduced subspecies (e.g., Rouard et al., 2018) or may have resulted from gene flow from partially fertile cultivars.For two ancestral groups, i.e., banksii and burmannica, the representative alleles were identified from accessions morphologically described as belonging to several M. acuminata subspecies. The close relationship between M. acuminata ssp. burmannica, M. acuminata ssp. burmannicoides, and M. acuminata ssp. siamea forming the burmannica ancestral group was supported by our phylogeny results and previous research (Boonruangrod et al., 2009;Christelová et al., 2017;Dupouy et al., 2019;Martin, Cardi, et al., 2020;Perrier et al., 2009). This genetic group was also found to be phylogenetically related to M. laterita and M. rosea, which was in line with the geographical distribution of these species (Janssens et al., 2016). The phylogenetic analysis also supported the close relationships between M. acuminata ssp. banksii, M. acuminata ssp. microcarpa accession 'Borneo', and M. acuminata ssp. errans accession 'Agutay' forming our banksii ancestral group. Recently, a common genetic background was suggested between these three subspecies with, however, some variability specific to M. acuminata ssp. errans/M. acuminata ssp. microcarpa that may have contributed to cultivars (Sardos et al., 2022).The subspecies M. acuminata ssp. sumatrana and M. acuminata ssp. truncata were, each, only represented by one individual from Northwestern Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, respectively. These areas are close to that of M. acuminata ssp. malaccensis. Their mosaics suggested that they might have been introgressed by M. acuminata ssp. malaccensis or are more related to this subspecies. The phylogenetic analysis did not help clarify their relationships and will require a larger sample.We previously proposed that two unknown ancestral groups contributed to banana cultivars (Martin, Cardi, et al., 2020). Further studies based on ribosomal DNA polymorphism (Jeensae et al., 2021) or global population structure approaches (Sardos et al., 2022) supported this assumption. We postulated two ancestors of unknown origin, i.e., M_1 and M_2, based on the most parsimonious interpretation of the observed mosaic profiles in our iterative approach to identify informative alleles for unknown ancestors. The M_1 and particularly M_2 ancestral groups explained the origin of a majority of chromosomal segments not attributed to the nine groups of known origin in cultivars. However, the origins of a few chromosomal segments could not be determined, particularly in accessions of a dominant malaccensis, zebrina, or M_2 origin. Some might originate from more divergent forms of these contributors, while others could correspond to M_2 regions not represented in the sample used to determine M_2 alleles.Phylogenetic analysis suggested a close relationship between M_1 and two geographically distant groups M. schizocarpa (PNG) and M. acuminata ssp. sumatrana (Sumatra, Indonesia). The analysis of low-coverage sequencing samples from public databases suggested that M_1 corresponded to M. acuminata ssp. halabanensis. This wild banana was described in Sumatra (Hotta, 1989;Meijer, 1961;Nasution, 1989) and was accepted as an M. acuminata subspecies (Häkkinen & Väre, 2008). It was recently proposed to be present in cultivar 'Pisang Jari Buaya' (Ahmad, 2021). The identification of M. acuminata ssp. halabanensis as representative for M_1 validates the hypothesis that M_1 represents a single genetic pool and demonstrates the contribution of additional wild Musa to the formation of cultivars.The M_2 contributor was present in many cultivars, particularly accessions from SEA. Alleles representing M_2 were defined with different accessions based on chromosomal regions that were often, but not always, overlapping. The consistency of 10 out of 11 phylogenies that grouped M_2 haplotypes close to M. acuminata ssp. zebrina (from Java, Indonesia) supports the hypothesis that M_2 is a single missing genetic group. A large reciprocal translocation involving chromosomes 1 and 7 was previously identified in cultivar 'Pisang Madu' (Martin, Cardi, et al., 2020), which bears both M_1 and M_2 contributions for these chromosomes. Comparing the distribution of this 1/7 translocation in cultivars (Martin, Baurens, et al., 2020) in relation to the observed genome mosaics supports an M_2 origin for this translocation.In Indonesia, 15 morphological types were described as botanical varieties of M. acuminata (Nasution, 1989;Nasution 1991;Pollefeys et al., 2004), some of which are generally considered to be subspecies (malaccensis, zebrina, microcarpa, halabanensis). The substantial genetic diversity of M. acuminata in this area has been confirmed by molecular marker analysis (Poerba et al., 2019). The central zone of Musa diversity is thus a good starting point to look for the M_2 ancestor.Ó 2022 The Authors. The Plant Journal published by Society for Experimental Biology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.,The Plant Journal, (2023), doi: 10.1111/tpj.16086The genome mosaics results demonstrated the complex inter(sub)specific hybrid origins of all sampled cultivars involving at least three to seven ancestries. The only exception concerned Fe'i cultivars, which were found to be solely derived from Australimusa ancestry. Their possible hybrid status within this genetic group has yet to be investigated. We found that the three ancestries banksii, schizocarpa, and zebrina were present in all of the other sampled cultivars (except 'Pisang Jaran') and thus can be considered as a 'core' contribution to cultivated bananas. The banksii, zebrina, schizocarpa, and malaccensis genetic groups were also found to be dominant ancestral contributions in cultivars from regions where these wild species or subspecies are present. For example, the increased malaccensis contributions in some cultivars from SEA were consistent with the M. acuminata ssp. malaccensis distribution from the Malay Peninsula to Sumatra. This consistency was also observed for major contributions of banksii and schizocarpa in New Guinea or zebrina in Indonesia. Contributions of burmannica were also in line with the cultivar origins, but were limited in number, as previously noted with samples of similar diversity (Perrier et al., 2009). Musa acuminata ssp. sumatrana and M. acuminata ssp. truncata contributions may have occurred locally, in a limited fashion.The M. acuminata ssp. halabanensis (M_1 ancestry) contribution did not seem widespread in sampled cultivars and may have only occurred in a few Indonesian or Malaysian cultivars. The halabanensis origin assigned to the (peri)centromeric region of chromosome 9 in several cultivars will need confirmation due to the more limited number of markers and/or possible halabanensis overprediction in this region. In contrast, M_2 was a major contributor to different banana cultivars, including those producing dessert bananas such as Cavendish, which accounts for around half of the current world banana production, as well as its predecessor Gros Michel, which was almost completely wiped out by Fusarium wilt. Many cultivars used as dessert bananas (e.g., Sucrier, Cavendish, Gros Michel, Ambon, Mysore, and Pome) had mixed mosaics with large malaccensis and often M_2 regions, in addition to the 'core' contributors. Recently, a quantitative trait locus contributing to banana pulp acidity was located on one haplotype of M_2 origin in 'Pisang Madu' (Biabiany et al., 2022). This suggests that M_2 could be an important contributor to fruit quality traits in dessert cultivars such as Cavendish.Different types of A/B interspecific triploid cultivars, mainly belonging to the starchy banana subgroups Plantain, Iholena, Maia Maoli, Popoulou, Laknau, Bluggoe, Ney Mannan, and Monthan, were previously predicted to be derived from M. acuminata ssp. banksii for their A genome (Hippolyte et al., 2012;Lebot et al., 1993;Perrier et al., 2009). We found that their A genomes were more complex than expected and quite similar to those of diploid banksii-rich New Guinea hybrid cultivars. This supports the use of such diploids in Plantain and starchy banana breeding programs.Finally, recombination between A and B genomes was visible in almost all of the analyzed A/B interspecific hybrids, thus confirming that there were several interspecific hybridization steps at their origin, as previously suggested (Baurens et al., 2019;Cenci et al., 2021;De Langhe et al., 2010). The conserved A/B recombination breakpoints observed for some accessions representing different subgroups (Kunnan, Nadan, Nendra Padaththi, Silk, Mysore, Bluggoe, Monthan, Ney Mannan, and Saba) indicated a shared origin of these accessions. This is in line with the proposed common region of origin of these subgroups in India (De Langhe et al., 2010;Stover & Simmonds, 1987) and illustrates shared pedigree relationships between some cultivars.In general, the observed mosaics together with available geographical information suggest that banana cultivars bear core ancestral contributors but also went through a diversification process in different regions, by hybridizations/introgressions with local wild genetic pools.Previous molecular marker studies have identified a pool of AA cultivars from PNG that were closely related to M. acuminata ssp. banksii (Carreel et al., 2002;Perrier et al., 2009;Sardos, Perrier, et al., 2016), supporting the idea that this subspecies had a pivotal role in banana domestication, while suggesting that domestication in New Guinea might not have been based on inter(sub) specific hybridization (Carreel et al., 2002;Sardos, Perrier, et al., 2016). Our ancestry analysis at the chromosome level brought more precise information on AAcv from PNG. We found that the cultivars with the simplest mosaics were indeed from PNG and displayed a major banksii contribution. However, this banksii contribution was always accompanied by introgressed regions from schizocarpa. Musa acuminata ssp. banksii and M. schizocarpa are sympatric in PNG (Argent, 1976;Arnaud & Horry, 1997). Both were described as preferentially autogamous, but natural hybrids between them were observed (Argent, 1976;Eyland et al., 2020) and confirmed in molecular studies (Carreel et al., 2002). We showed that several schizocarpa introgression breakpoints into banksii were shared between New Guinea accessions and all of the diploid and polyploid cultivars of our sample, but with one exception. This indicates that individuals bearing these schizocarpa/banksii breakpoints are common ancestors to current cultivars. In addition, since M. schizocarpa has not been reported outside of New Guinea, this suggests that schizocarpa introgressions into banksii occurred on the island of New Guinea and that the resulting introgressed individuals were selected by humans in the New Guinea region, were transported across SEA, and gave rise to current cultivars.In addition to schizocarpa, the New Guinea accessions we analyzed also always had introgressions from zebrina. It is unclear whether introgressions of M. acuminata ssp. zebrina, native to the island of Java, directly occurred in New Guinea. Movements of populations in the Wallacea and New Guinea area during the Holocene (Donohue & Denham, 2009;Pedro et al., 2020;Soares et al., 2011) favored plant exchanges in the area, and these may have included M. acuminata ssp. zebrina, which has a high ornamental value. Yet cultivars resulting from hybridizations between banksii/schizocarpa early cultivars and zebrina in Indonesia could have been brought back to New Guinea.Archeological investigations at the Kuk Swamp site in PNG suggested that bananas were intensively cultivated there at least 6950 to 6440 years ago (Denham et al., 2003). In addition, Mchare and Plantain cultivars are believed to have been transported from the SEA-New Guinea region to Africa in a proposed time frame of 1000 to 3000 years ago, depending on evidence and sources (Grimaldi et al., 2022;Perrier et al., 2019). The conserved schizocarpa/banksii and zebrina/banksii breakpoints between some PNG diploid cultivars and Mchare or Plantains cultivars suggest that introgression events associated with these breakpoints took place at least 1000 years ago.The fact that the simplest mosaics were found in diploid cultivars from New Guinea, that they involved two contributors originating from New Guinea (banksii and schizocarpa) that were core contributors to banana cultivars, and that banksii/schizocarpa introgression breakpoints were shared between these simplest diploid cultivars and with the other cultivars leads us to propose that banana domestication was initiated in the New Guinea region.This domestication process was based on interspecific hybridizations involving banksii, schizocarpa, and potentially zebrina ancestral groups. The fertility of hybrids between banksii and schizocarpa (and zebrina) must have been sufficient to allow backcrosses with M. acuminata ssp. banksii, resulting in the observed introgression patterns in the PNG accessions. Such introgression events may have been rare and/or particular hybrids may have been selected by humans for their traits of interest, thereby explaining the shared introgression patterns. Inter(sub) specific hybridizations may have disrupted finely regulated fertility and fruit development mechanisms, resulting in parthenocarpic banana fruit, as proposed for natural sources of parthenocarpy in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) (Picarella & Mazzucato, 2018). Some resulting individuals bearing more pulp-rich edible fruits were selected, disseminated, and transported westwards. Further diversification occurred thanks to residual fertility, along diffusion paths in SEA, through hybridizations involving local Musa individuals, i.e., wild or selected for various uses. These hybridizations, combining multiple ancestries and accompanied by polyploidization, resulted in diverse diploid and triploid cultivars. Further movements of wild Musa or of partially fertile hybrids from SEA regions towards New Guinea might explain the introgressions of Western origin in banksii-rich New Guinea cultivars.Our approach revealed more complex banana cultivar origins than previously thought with at least 11 genetic groups involved and several crossing steps. Yet shared recombination breakpoints between cultivars of diverse origins suggest that initially a rather limited number of successful combinations from New Guinea was disseminated, thereby participating in the formation of the current pool of cultivars.These findings and resulting hypotheses are important to help broaden or more precisely target useful breeding resources. Identifying the M_2 unknown ancestor will be essential in that respect.A set of 226 Musaceae accessions was used for this analysis (Table S1). It included 111 accessions from the Guadeloupe CIRAD field collection hosted by CRB Plantes Tropicales Antilles CIRAD-INRAe (http://crbtropicaux.com/Portail) and 37 accessions from the in vitro Bioversity International Transit Center in Leuven (Belgium) (https://www.bioversityinternational.org/banana-genebank). DNA from two accessions was provided by X. Perrier (CIRAD) from material described in (Perrier et al., 2019). The 12 F1 individuals were provided by the CIRAD banana breeding platform in Guadeloupe. For these 162 individuals, total DNA was sequenced using an Illumina HiSeq 4000 platform at Genoscope (https://jacob.cea. fr/drf/ifrancoisjacob/english/Pages/Departments/Genoscope.aspx), except for one accession for which DNA was processed with the Dovetail™ Hi-C protocol and sequenced using HiSeqX at Dovetail Genomics (https://dovetailgenomics.com/). For 64 additional accessions, whole genome sequencing data were collected from the NCBI public database (Table S1), including 39 accessions with low sequencing coverage that we only used to search for wild representatives of ancestries of unknown origins (Table S1).Reads were quality-filtered and adapters were removed using Cutadapt (Martin, 2011). Quality filtering and adapter removal were already performed for reads provided by Genoscope.Variant calling was performed using M. acuminata reference sequence V4 (Belser et al., 2021)   (Baurens et al., 2019) for whole genome sequencing reads. The vcf file was filtered to remove variant sites found on annotated transposable elements and also on tandem repeats identified by Mreps (Kolpakov et al., 2003). Biallelic sites with no insertions/ deletions (Indels) were selected from the resulting vcf file. In addition, for each accession, sites supported by less than 10 reads or more than 1000 reads and heterozygous sites with alleles supported by less than three reads or less than 10% reads were converted to missing data.To detect large Indels or potential aneuploidy, the SNP coverage was plotted for each position in the vcf file along chromosomes of M. acuminata reference sequence V4 (Belser et al., 2021) using vcf2allPropAndCov.py and vcf2allPropAndCovByChr.py from the vcf toolbox (https://github.com/SouthGreenPlatform/VcfHunter) (Baurens et al., 2019). The size of large regions showing dosage change was estimated visually based on the graphical representation. The most common event was a 4-Mb duplication in the pericentromeric region of chromosome 8 that was shared by 23 accessions and considered as a single event (Table S2). Thus, a total of 21 deletions (estimated size range 0.1-25 Mb, average 8.3 Mb) and 10 duplications (estimated size range 0.1-4 Mb, average 3.8 Mb) were identified. One accession (Lady Finger) showed one entire supernumerary chromosome 8. Of the aneuploid segments, 14 were at least partly located in the pericentromeric regions of chromosomes (defined as a 10-Mb region centered on the average location of the centromeric repeat Nanica). Only the aneuploidy of the complete chromosome 8 in Lady Finger was considered for final chromosome painting. Large aneuploid segments are indicated with shaded boxes on the final painting representations (Figure S3) and the genome mosaic interpretation in these regions should be based on allele ratio profiles.The process of identification of ancestry informative alleles is summarized in Figures S1 and S2 and detailed in Supplementary Information files (Methods S1-S4; Tables SM1-SM13; Figures SM1-SM11). The first step (Figure S1; Method S1) was to identify specific alleles from predicted Musa contributors: M. balbisiana, M. schizocarpa, and M. acuminata subspecies (i.e., ssp. banksii, ssp. errans, ssp. microcarpa 'Borneo', ssp. burmannicoides, ssp. burmannica, ssp. siamea, ssp. malaccensis, and ssp. zebrina). As wild accessions can be introgressed (Martin, Cardi, et al., 2020), it was necessary to select the most homogenous representatives. For this, private alleles of the most homozygous and the second most homozygous accession of each genetic group were identified using IdentPrivateAllele.py (i.e., alleles present in the most homozygous accession and not in members of other groups). They were independently used to generate local ancestry plots, representing along chromosomes of each accession normalized values of the proportion of reads supporting private alleles of each genetic group. The process was performed using allele_ra-tio_group.py, allele_ratio_per_acc.py, PaintArp.py, and plot_al-lele_normalized_mean_ratio_per_acc.py. Selected homogenous accessions and chromosomes were used to identify informative alleles using correspondence analysis (CoA) for each of the 11 banana chromosomes and subsequent meanshift allele clustering (vcf2struct.py; Martin, Cardi, et al., 2020). Alleles representing six genetic groups were obtained (banksii, zebrina, malaccensis, burmannica, M. schizocarpa, and M. balbisiana). The second step was to search for additional contributors in a larger sample of wild Musa species (Figure S1; Method S2). Using IdentOtherAncestry.py, for each banana accession, two values were calculated: (i) the proportion of alleles that were not found in any of the accessions used as ancestors in the multivariate approach and (ii) the proportion of these alleles present in other Musa species and M. acuminata subspecies. The third step was to identify private alleles of identified additional contributors as well as improving the set of private alleles from M. balbisiana (Figure S1; Method S3). The process was performed for all genetic groups using IdentPrivateAllele.py. The level of fixation of private alleles was estimated as the average of read proportion values supporting each private allele, calculated in accessions of the corresponding genetic group, using allele_ratio_group.py. This added a set of private alleles for M. acuminata ssp. sumatrana, M. acuminata ssp. truncata, Australimusa, and Ensete as outgroup. For the M. acuminata subspecies of step one and M. schizocarpa, the alleles attributed using the CoA approach were kept because they introgress each other and thus a private allele approach is not appropriate. The M. balbisiana alleles that were kept, were those of the private allele strategy that allowed eliminating basal alleles shared with Australimusa and Ensete. Normalized ancestral allele ratios were calculated for each private allele of the 10 resulting genetic groups in the dataset of 187 individuals and a mean value was calculated on sliding windows of 5601 SNPs (allele_ratio_per_acc.py and PaintArp.py). The mean normalized ratios along chromosomes were drawn to visualize local ancestry profiles (plot_allele_normalized_mean_ra-tio_per_acc.py).In the fourth step, iterative approaches were used to select private alleles of the M_1 and then the M_2 unknown contributors (Figure S2; Method S4). Phased data (haplotypes) used in this process were obtained from parent-child trios with PhaseInVcf.py. Globally, iterations were a three-stage process (Figure S2): (i) identification and selection of accessions/haplotypes with large regions of unknown ancestry, (ii) determination of private alleles for M_1 or M_2 from selected accessions/haplotypes using all defined ancestral genetic groups, (iii) the arbitrary attribution or calculation of a level of allele fixation for the M_1 or M_2 set of alleles, (iv) the calculation of normalized allele ratio profiles on the complete dataset with all defined ancestral groups, and (v) drawing of ancestry plots to identify other accessions or parent-child trios that would allow improvement of the M_1 or M_2 private allele set. The location of regions with two haplotypes of known origin that could not be used to identify M_1-or M_2-specific alleles was identified using DrawRatioDetailInterractive.py. For M_1, private alleles were first identified in iteration 1 using 'Pisang Jari Buaya' that had a complete haplotype of unknown origin, then in iteration 2 using accession 'EN13', and in iteration 3 using two parent-child trios involving 'Pisang Madu'. The final set of M_1 private alleles was based on all accessions of the three iterations. For M_2, private alleles were identified in iteration 1 using 'Pisang Madu' haplotypes from the M_1 iteration 3 step, in iteration 2 they were identified using five other diploid cultivars with M_2 regions, and in iteration three they were identified using eight different parent-child trios that allowed access to M_2 haplotypes. The final set of M_2 private alleles was based on alleles derived in iteration 3. New scripts developed to perform this analysis were added to the vcfhunter toolbox (https://github.com/SouthGreenPlatform/VcfHunter).Identified ancestry informative alleles were used to analyze ancestral contributions along chromosomes of the 226 accessions. For this, representative accessions of ancestral groups have been used to infer, for each position j corresponding to an informative allele, the observed proportion A ijk of reads supporting an allele Ó 2022 The Authors. The Plant Journal published by Society for Experimental Biology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., The Plant Journal, (2023), doi: 10.1111/tpj.16086 from an accession i from a given ancestral group k. These values were used to calculate P jk as the mean proportion of reads supporting the given allele observed in the n accessions representative of the group k that were not introgressed from another group in this region (P jk = 1 n ΣA ijk ). This was performed using the allele_ra-tio_group.py script added to vcfhunter toolbox. The P jk value was arbitrarily set to 0.47 or 0.66 for the M_1 origin in regions in which three or two accessions were used to identify specific alleles of this origin (Method S4 for detailed calculation). The P jk value was arbitrarily set to 0.8 for M_2 origins.The observed proportion of reads (O ijk , similar to A ijk but for accessions to be characterized) was then calculated using the script allele_ratio_per_acc.py. For 187 individuals that did not show many missing data, data points that showed SNP coverage equal to or greater than 10 were used. For 39 individuals that were less covered, data points that showed SNP coverage equal to or greater than 3 were used.These proportions were then normalized (N ijk value) for each j SNP position on sliding windows of 5801 SNPs by dividing, for each ancestral origin, the sum of proportions of observed ratios by the sum of the expected ratios:The value obtained was generally between 0 and 1 and was considered as 1 in the rare cases where it exceeded 1. These values were used to calculate the ancestral contributions to a given position in terms of ancestral haplotype composition by calculating the haplotype composition probabilities based on binomial distributions. Then, as the SNPs were not phased, a minimal number of recombinations was assumed for each accession and therefore contiguous regions of the same ancestry were arbitrarily attributed to one of the homologous chromosomes, resulting in pseudohaplotype representations. These steps were performed using the PaintArp.py script.Normalized values (N ijk ) were visualized along chromosomes using the plot_allele_normalized_mean_ratio_per_acc.py script. Deduced pseudo-haplotypes were drawn using the hap-lo2kar.1.0.py script. Due to low-coverage sequencing, only the normalized mean ratio plots were analyzed for the 39 least-covered individuals. To summarize mosaic information, cumulative proportions of the genome covered by each ancestry were calculated for each accession based on reference genome size and global ploidy.Recombination/introgression breakpoints, corresponding to regions along chromosomes where there is a switch between two distinct ancestral origins, were determined by visual inspection of graphic representations depicting, for each position with an assigned ancestral origin, the proportion of reads supporting this origin in the studied accession. This was done using the DrawRatioDetailInterractive.py script with data generated during the chromosome painting step. A graph was generated for each origin along each chromosome of the accession. These graphs showed a succession of clusters of colored dots corresponding to each origin, the ends of cluster blocks thus locating the position of recombination regions (Figure S4). By clicking on the first or the last point of the introgressed block, we obtained breakpoint coordinates which were then compared between accessions. The schizocarpa, zebrina, and banksii allele coordinates were noted, respectively, for schizocarpa/banksii, zebrina/banksii, and banksii/ balbisiana breakpoints. Described breakpoints were selected based on their distribution in the sample and on the breakpoint determination precision.Phylogenetic analysis was performed using wild representatives of genetic groups used for genome mosaic determination, accessions representing Ensete and other Musa species, and haplotypes from parent-child trios. The phylogenetic analysis consisted of four main steps (detailed in Method S5, Tables SM14 and  SM15, and Figure SM12): (i) Identification for each chromosome of the largest region in which haplotypes of M_1 and M_2 could be defined using DrawRatio.py. These M_1 and M_2 regions were defined in accessions 'Pisang Madu' or 'Manang'. (ii) Identification, in selected regions, of introgressions in accessions representative of genetic groups. (iii) Production of a multifasta file from the vcf with identified non-introgressed accessions and haplotypes using PhaseInVcfToFasta.2.0.py (Table S4). (iv) Phylogenetic analysis using PHYML v3.1 (Guindon et al., 2010) with the GTR + Γ model (−m GTR −b − 5 −v e −c 4 −a e −s BEST options) and tree visualization using FigTree v1.4.4 (http://tree.bio.ed.ac.uk/ software/figtree/) with trees manually re-rooted with E. ventricosum and colored using ReformatTree.py. Maximum likelihood phylogenetic analysis was performed based on chromosomal regions of 52 to 55 accessions from which representative consensus or haplotypes were reconstructed from concatenated polymorphous sites. Regions of 2.5 to 15.0 Mb were used, with a total of 87 827 to 498 129 sites and between 72 785 and 410 907 polymorphic sites (Table S4).             SM1. Accessions used to select private alleles in order to identify accessions for the multivariate approach. Table SM2. List of accessions and chromosomes used for the identification of group-specific alleles through a multivariate approach. Table SM3. Number of alleles per chromosome used for the multivariate analysis. Table SM4. Number of alleles attributed to ancestral groups after each step of allele attribution. Table SM5. Global analysis of specific alleles.Table SM6. Accessions and origins used for the private allele approach described in Method S3. Table SM7. Accessions and origins used for identification of unknown contributor M_1. Table SM8. Location of regions that could not be used for unknown contributor M_1 in DYN078_EN_13_IDN075. Table SM9. Location of regions that could not be used for unknown contributor M_1 allele identification in DYN304_Pisang_-Madu haplotypes. Table SM10. Location of regions that could not be used for unknown contributor M_2 allele identification in DYN304_Pisang_-Madu haplotypes. Table SM11. Accessions used for identification of unknown contributor M_2. Table SM12. Location of regions that could not be used for unknown contributor M_2 (in five additional accessions). Table SM13. Location of regions that could not be used for unknown contributor M_2 (in accessions in which we can access haplotypes). Table SM14. Accessions and chromosomes selected for the phylogenetic analysis. Table SM15. Haplotypes used in the phylogenetic analysis according to studied chromosomal regions.","tokenCount":"8460"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"57c93307472c9dcaf5d3d2d759fc3876","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/03b5853a-810b-446e-b8e6-f34004bb40ee/retrieve","id":"562383864"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b7f88c35-d2c1-4134-bae2-d0645316714e","pagecount":"7","content":"Milk yield and concentrate feeding are key determinants of the GHG intensity of smallholder dairy production in central Kenya.Consumption of dairy products in Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to increase significantly in the coming decades. As production increases, there will be an increasing need to reduce the environmental impacts of dairy production. One way to reduce the carbon footprint of milk production is to increase productivity: more productive cows use a greater proportion of feed energy and protein intake for milk production than less productive cows. Because more milk is produced for a given level of feed intake, the carbon footprint of milk can be reduced.Productivity may be increased by a range of management practices, such as improved breeds, use of higher quality feeds, animal health interventions and more. Often these measures are implemented as technology packages. For example, stall-feeding often involves adoption of improved dairy breeds and changes in feed sources and feed quality. Adoption of more intensive management practices is commonly linked to increased commercialization so that intensive production remains profitable. While most smallholders sell to informal markets, linking smallholders to the formal market (e.g. cooperatives and processing firms) is also seen as one way to incentivize and enable increased milk production. Thus, Kenya's proposed dairy NAMA intends to promote intensification of production practices on farm to increase milk yields, and link dairy farmers to cooperatives and formal sector milk processors to strengthen market-based incentives for increased milk production (SDL 2017).However, previous research in Kenya suggests that gender affects the ownership of assets and involvement in decision-making by men and women, adoption of dairy management practices on-farm, as well as gendered participation in and benefits from milk marketing (see Box 1). Intensification, marketing, commercialization and formalization of milk production may limit the potential for women to benefit from initiatives such as Kenya's dairy NAMA.This Info Note summarizes key findings from a survey conducted in central Kenya -an area targeted by Kenya's proposed dairy NAMAto establish the relationship between milk yield and the carbon footprint of milk. It uses data on gendered aspects of milk production and marketing to examine whether and how gender affects milk yields on smallholder farms in the region.In January to February 2018, 382 households with dairy cattle were interviewed in Embu, Kiambu, Kirinyaga, Meru, Murang'a, Nakuru, Nyandarua and Nyeri counties in central Kenya. The survey collected data used to estimate GHG emissions from dairy farming (Wilkes et al. 2019), as well as data on the household members involved in decision making and activities related to dairy production and milk sales.The average household had about 3.4 dairy cattle (average of 1.8 cows, 0.6 heifers, 0.7 calves, 0.3 adult males). Of the 1284 cattle on these farms, about 64% were stall-fed all year round (zero-grazing), 11% mainly grazed on natural pastures with limited feed supplementation, and 25% were both stall-fed and grazed (i.e., 'semi-zero grazing'). Different feed resources are used in different feeding systems (Table 1). Feed digestibilityan indicator of feed qualitywas higher on zero-grazing than other farm types. Concentrates and feed supplements were fed on most farms in all feeding systems, but higher average amounts of concentrate were fed on zero-grazing farms (3.2 kg per cow per day) than on other farm types (2.5 kg). Average milk yields were significantly higher on zero-grazing farms (7.3 kg of fat and protein corrected milk [FPCM] per cow per day) than on other farm types (5.8 kg FPCM per cow per day).After GHG emissions on each farm had been quantified, analysis found that milk yield explained just under half the variation in the carbon footprint on dairy farms in central Kenya (Figure 1), and the amount of concentrate fed per farm explained about half of the remaining variation in the carbon footprint (i.e. the distance of each circle from the prediction curve in Figure 1). • Productive assets tend to be owned by men.1• Inconsistent evidence on the role of gender variables in adoption of zero-grazing, improved breeds and concentrate feeding.2• Intensification may increase women's labor burden, unless hired labor is used.1• Intensification may increase joint decision making within the household.3• With increased milk sales, women may lose control over the use of milk and income from milk sales.3• Women prefer selling to informal milk markets because they can control the income from these sales.4• Women may lose control over milk income and decision-making when milk is sold to formal markets.4• Women may be reluctant to join collective marketing institutions (e.g. cooperatives).5• Participation in collective milk marketing may increase women's decision-making about production and control of income.6  Here, we use the survey data to ask:(1) How does gender affect milk yield and management practices associated with higher milk yields?(2) How does commercialization relate to milk yields and gender? and(3) How does selling milk to the formal market relate to milk yields and gender factors?To analyze the effect of gender and other variables on milk yield of 702 cows, we tested the significance of selected variables in a linear regression, clustering the standard errors at household level to account for similarities between cows raised on the same farms (Table 2). Further associations were explored through ttests (for continuous variables) and Chi-square tests (for categorical variables).Intensification may be one way to reduce the carbon footprint of milk production: Cows kept in zero-grazing systems, Holstein-Friesian or Ayrshire breeds, cows with a higher parity index (i.e. cows that have given birth more times) and cows with higher daily feed intake tended to have higher milk yields (Table 2). These findings indicate that intensification through adoption of specialized dairy breeds and zero-grazing systems can increase milk yields.Milk yields are higher in male-headed than in femaleheaded households because of more intensive management practices: Fifteen percent of the 382 households interviewed were female-headed households, and the remainder were male-headed. There were no significant differences in the numbers of cattle owned by male-and female-headed households. However, Chisquare tests show that male-headed households were more likely to have zero-grazing feeding systems and specialized dairy breeds. As a consequence, cows in male-headed households had significantly higher milk yields (av. 6.0 kg FPCM per day) than cows in female headed households (av. 4.6 kg FPCM), and Table 2 shows a negative sign on the coefficient for the gender of the household head. Household wealth or labor resources could be potential explanations for these differences.Increasing women's ownership of cattle per se may not directly increase either milk yields or women's involvement in milk sales: Out of 702 cows enumerated in the survey, 170 cows (24%) were jointly owned by men and women, mostly in male-headed households; 122 (17%) were owned by women, 100 of which were in female headed households, and 22 were owned by women in male-headed households. Thus, about 58% of cows were owned solely by men. Within male-headed households, female-owned and male-owned cows were equally likely to be raised in systems, and overall there was no significant difference in milk yields of male-owned, female-owned or jointly owned cows.Female and joint ownership of cows were not associated with the gender of the household member who sells milk.Zero-grazing is not associated with less involvement of women in decision-making, except about concentrate feed purchases: There were no statistically significant differences between zero-grazing and other households in the proportion of households in which women made decisions over breeding, milking, marketing or fodder production. However, in households with zerograzing systems, women were significantly less likely to make decisions over purchase of feed concentrates.Training to improve concentrate feeding may need to address gendered constraints: Concentrates are expensive, in addition to which production of each kg of concentrate emits more than 1.3 kg of GHG emissions. The amount of concentrate fed was not significantly related to milk yield. Only 43% of households reported fluctuating the quantity of concentrate offered to cows, as their energy needs vary through the lactation cycle. This suggests that improving concentrate feeding practices could be an important measure to reduce household production costs while also reducing the carbon footprint of milk. Overall, cows were fed a significantly higher amount of concentrate if the decision was made by male household members (av. 3.1 kg per farm) than if the decision was made by female household members (av.2.6 kg per farm). This may be because men have more access to cash and less competing demands from household expenditure needs than women.Milk yields are higher if women make decisions over cow breeding: If women made decisions over cow breeding, milk yields were higher (Table 2). Women's role in decision making over breeding is significantly and positively related to household membership in a cooperative. This could be related to the role of cooperatives in facilitating access to artificial insemination, but the effect of cooperative membership itself on milk yield was negative (Table 2). This may be because cooperative members tend to have less intensive feeding systems than non-members.About 82% of households surveyed sold milk the day before the survey; almost all of these households sold morning milk and about 60% also sold evening milk.Informal milk markets include sales to individuals and small traders, while formal marketing channels were almost all to cooperatives. Informal markets were the main channel for both morning (54% of milk sellers) and evening (65% of milk sellers) milk sales, and about onethird of households selling milk sold to both informal markets and cooperatives.Women are more likely to make milk sales when yields are lower: Of the 314 households that sold milk the day before the survey, women made the actual sales of morning milk in 34% of cases and evening milk in 21% of cases. Milk yields were significantly lower if milk sales were made by women (5.5 liters (L) compared to 6.5 liters), as also shown by the negative sign on the gender of the milk seller variable in the model in Table 2. It is important to note, however, that this says nothing about the direction of causality: it may be that women are more likely to participate in milk sales when milk yields are lower or when milk is a less important source of household income. This is suggested by the data on gender roles in decision making, which indicates that average milk yields are significantly higher when marketing decisions are made by males (6.5 L compared to 5.5 L), and that about 10% less milk is sold if marketing decisions are made by women (after controlling for differences in the number of cows per farm).In about 65% of households, decisions about milking were made by male household members and 35% by female household members. If women make decisions about milking or marketing, the likelihood that a woman sells the milk is significantly higher and vice versa. However, the gender of the person who makes milking or marketing decisions was not significantly related to milk yield and is not included in the model in Table 2.Milk prices are higher when women sell milk: Although sale of milk by women is associated with lower yields, the data clearly show that if women sell milk, they obtain a significantly higher price: on average a 7% higher price for morning milk and a 12% higher price for evening milk. This has to do with women's preferences for sales to informal markets, as average prices were higher in the informal market (Ksh 40.3/L) than in formal marketing channels (Ksh 35.1/L).Of all milk sold on the day before the survey, 57% was sold to formal marketing channelsalmost all to cooperativesand 43% to the informal market (i.e. individuals, small traders). A greater proportion of households sold morning milk to informal markets (54%) than to cooperatives (46%), and the difference was even greater for evening milk (64% compared to 36%).Thirty percent of the 382 households surveyed were dairy cooperative members. Unsurprisingly, cooperative members are significantly more likely to sell morning milk to the cooperative, but cooperative members and nonmembers are equally likely to sell evening milk to informal or formal markets, and 33% of households that are not cooperative members also sold to cooperatives.Women are significantly more likely to sell to informal markets: 63% of morning sales by women were to the informal market compared to 47% for sales by men, and 76% of evening milk sales by women were to the informal market compared to 52% for sales by men.Milk yields are higher for households that sell to the formal market: Irrespective of cooperative membership, milk yields are significantly higher for households who sell to cooperatives (ca. 7.2 L compared to 5.2 L), even when the number of cows per farm is accounted for. This is further supported by the positive coefficient on the formal market sales variable in Table 2. Sellers to the formal market are more likely to have zero-grazing systems than those who only supply the informal market, but there are no differences in the breeds raised or the amounts of concentrate fed. It is possible that in households with higher yields, men prefer to sell to cooperatives because of their greater purchasing volumes than individual buyers or small traders. Control over milk income may also be a factor.Overall, cooperative membership has a negative relationship with milk yield (Table 2). This is most likely because cooperative members tend to have less intensive feeding systems: cooperative members are less likely to have zero-grazing feeding systems, feed about the same amount of concentrate to cows, but are more likely to have specialized dairy breed cows. This may be because of the role of cooperatives in providing access to artificial insemination. Households with a cooperative payment account tend to have higher milk yields: Just under half of cooperative members reported having a payment account with their cooperative, probably because these households are regular suppliers to the cooperative whereas other members supply irregularly: among cooperative members, those with payment accounts had significantly higher milk yields (8.6 L compared to 5.4 L) and fed significantly more concentrate per cow (4.2 kg compared to 2.7 kg). However, with few households owning payment accounts in the sample, this variable was not significantly related to milk yields and is not included in Table 2.Cooperative payment accounts in the name of a female household member is associated with higher milk yield: Of the 54 payment accounts, 28 were in the name of a male and 26 in the name of a female household member. Cooperative members with a payment account in the name of a female household member used similar amounts of concentrate but had higher average milk yields than if the payment account was registered to a man (7.5 L compared to 6.1 L). Men and women with payment accounts can likely obtain inputs such as concentrate using the cooperatives' checkoff systems (in which inputs can be obtained against the value of milk supplied to the cooperative). This relaxes households' finance constraints, enabling greater quantities of concentrate purchase. Given the relatively equal number of male and female account holders in our sample, it seems that both men and women are able to take advantage of this system.Women in cooperative member households still prefer to sell milk to the informal market: Similar to women in other households, women in households that are cooperative members are more likely to sell morning milk to the informal market (41% of sales) than if sales are made by men (19% of sales). For evening milk, women were also more likely to sell to the informal market (68% of sales), but the difference with men (50% of sales) was not significant.Sales to the formal market are not associated with decreasing participation of women in dairy-related decision-making: Considering all households, survey respondents suggested that women are the decision makers in less than 50% of households across all decision-making domains. The percentage of households where women make decisions related to dairy production and marketing were very similar between households that sold to cooperatives and households that supplied only informal markets. Therefore, the development of formal markets appears not to directly affect gendered household decision making patterns.Comparing only households that sold milk to cooperatives, there is a tendency for women to have greater participation in decisions when the household is a cooperative member. However, in most cases the differences are not statistically significant (Table 3). While women's role in decision making about dairy production and marketing is often constrained, for households that supply to cooperatives, cooperative membership may have positive effects. Omondi et al. (2014) also reported positive effects of participation in collective milk marketing on some aspects of women's empowerment.The carbon footprint of milk production on smallholder farms in central Kenya is strongly related to milk yield and concentrate feed use. Quantitative analysis suggested some direct and indirect links between gender variables and milk yield, and between gender variables and concentrate feeding. The relationships between these factors are complex, in part because of parallel ongoing processes of intensification, commercialization and market formalization in Kenya's dairy sector.Female-headed households are less likely to adopt zerograzing and specialized dairy breeds, and male decisionmaking is correlated with higher concentrate feeding. Women prefer to sell to informal markets, but have higher milk yields, men tend to engage in milk marketing and prefer to sell to formal markets. Since who sells milk is related to control of dairy income, this supports previous suggestions that there may be a trade-off between increasing milk yield (and thus reducing carbon footprint) and benefits for women (Tavenner and Crane 2018).Our findings also provide suggestive evidence that when households do engage in formal markets, cooperative membership may increase women's roles in household decision-making, although the effect is not strong and the mechanism is still not clear. Just under half of cooperative members surveyed had payment accounts, which were registered to male and female household members in relatively equal numbers. When women had a payment account in their own name, milk yields were higher. This suggests the need to further explore the potential of cooperatives in promoting gender-inclusive outcomes in dairy development in Kenya. This may also make sense from a GHG mitigation perspective, as cooperative members tend to have lower milk yields, indicating greater potential to reduce the carbon footprint of milk production.","tokenCount":"3015"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9875393436a7b69d8c944b786696e118","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/479ed43f-71ea-4c06-a117-d8423f0fd02c/retrieve","id":"931555148"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f4df598f-3e7c-4c2d-98ff-79c189dd1b4c","pagecount":"2","content":"N o 26 Junho de 2005 A Série Destaques resume resultados de investigação e implicações de políticas resultantes do trabalho do CIAT e seus parceiros em ÁfricaO s sistemas de monitorização e avaliação participativa (M&AP) baseados na comunidade oferecem novos meios para as pessoas reforçarem a aprendizagem e a mudança a nível comunitário. Esta abordagem de M&AP é única na medida em que o seu enfoque se baseia num sistema que é desenvolvido, gerido e apoiado pelas comunidades locais para os seus próprios interesses. Neste processo os comités acordam as suas metas e o que é necessário fazer para as alcançar, que mudanças se espera, que indicadores locais podem ser identificados para acompanhar estas mudanças e, finalmente, quais os factores que podem contribuir para o sucesso ou insucesso dos seus projectos. Através destes processos a população local participa na recolha e análise dos seus próprios dados e toma as suas próprias decisões sobre como ajustar as suas actividades de forma apropriada usando indicadores definidos localmente.A pesquisa do CIAT sobre M&AP baseada na comunidade focaliza-se no desenvolvimento e refinamento do processo de M&AP, no papel que desempenha na capacitação das comunidades rurais, nas estratégias de aumento da escala do processo e nos custos e benefícios que traz para as comunidades e para as instituições de investigação e desenvolvimento (I&D) que com elas trabalham.O processo de M&AP baseado na comunidade (abaixo descrito em seis passos) é concretizado através de sessões de aprendizagem prática e participativa. O facilitador tem por objectivo criar competências práticas e confiança dentro do grupo, sem deixar de estar sensível ao comportamento social, género e questões de equidade.A representação gráfica do ciclo agrícola (representado por uma cultura ou uma empresa com que a comunidade esteja familiarizada) é apresentada ao grupo da comunidade e este é encorajado a discuti-lo. Perguntas baseadas no ciclo (tais como o que este significa para elas, se isto é relevante para as suas vidas) ajudam a comunidade a conceptualizar a monitorização e avaliação (M&A) e os seus benefícios. Os membros da comunidade são convidados a citar exemplos práticos da utilização de M&A no seu dia-a-dia. O desenvolvimento de termos locais para M&A e o desenvolvimento e utilização de gráficos que representem situações locais foram importantes para o desenvolvimento de um entendimento comum de M&A a nível da comunidade. O conceito de indicadores para M&A baseada na comunidade (que mostra se o grupo está a progredir, em que direcção está a avançar e a que distância se encontra das metas previamente definidas) é discutido usando gráficos e histórias familiares da vida dos camponeses (tal como sinalização do mercado, por exemplo).Os indicadores comunitários para medir as mudanças são desenvolvidos durante uma sessão de discussão e reflexão de grupos de camponeses para cada resultado ou objectivo. Grupos pequenos asseguram a contribuição da maioria dos membros da comunidade, representando a sua diversidade. A perspectiva dos vários membros em relação aos indicadores difere consoante o seu envolvimento no projecto, género, riqueza ou as suas expectativas em relação a uma determinada actividade.O grupo elege um comité que se encarrega de recolher e analisar dados e fornecer o seu feedbak à comunidade. Este processo envolve a) o desenvolvimento de critérios para a selecção de membros do comité; b) a facilitação do desenvolvimento de instrumentos simples para a recolha de dados e c) formação do comité sobre como gerir os processos de M&AP (por exemplo, quando recolher dados sobre indicadores, como os analisar e quando comunicar os resultados).As comunidades gerem o processo de M&A usando instrumentos simples para a recolha e análise de dados. Alguns instrumentos comuns de recolha de dados incluem mapas para recolher dados iniciais (baseline) e mudanças ocorridas, listas de assiduidade dos participantes para registar a participação nas actividades comunitárias (Figura 1), livros de registo de visitantes para registar ligações com outros e registos de insumos, produção e contabilidade para registar a rentabilidade da empresa. Com a assistência do facilitador, a comunidade realiza análises simples dos seus dados (por exemplo dados de níveis de assiduidade para demonstrar tendências).Este é um processo que ajuda a comunidade a analisar o que funciona, o que não funciona e as respectivas razões. A reflexão permite aos membros reflectir sobre o progresso do projecto em termos do alcance dos objectivos e ajustar as actividades conforme necessário. Isto proporciona um fórum de intercâmbio e avaliação de informação e permite aos membros da comunidade rever sistematicamente as suas actividades. As reflexões precisam de ser feitas para cada resultado (ou actividade ou processo) e respectivos indicadores, um de cada vez. Pode ser feita usando gráficos simples ou perguntas, para examinar os resultados de qualquer análise de dados. O grupo deve tomar decisões sobre as implicações da informação analisada para as partes interessadas e sobre a tomada de decisão no contexto do projecto.O objectivo da M&AP baseada na comunidade é capacitar a comunidade local para começar a ter controlo sobre os seus próprios projectos de desenvolvimento e implementar uma acção correctiva sempre que for necessário. Aprender a lidar com o processo de M&AP cria capital humano e social no seio da população rural pobre, resultando frequentemente no melhoramento das condições de vida rurais através de melhoramentos atempados e relevantes dos projectos locais de agro-empresas. Sistemas de M&AP eficazes também são úteis para criar na comunidade local capacidade para fazer exigências apropriadas aos provedores de serviços e para o melhoramento da disseminação de informação entre as comunidades e as instituições de I&D. ","tokenCount":"902"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"123bee3ee7823db84eaf3bfb4a87df89","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/62c90158-854d-4d1b-835f-01237cf92c7a/retrieve","id":"975701125"},"keywords":["seed system","social seed network","on-farm conservation","farmers","Tartary buckwheat landraces"],"sieverID":"da1bfc04-fc9d-4407-afef-3430e40e779d","pagecount":"14","content":"The Yi ethnic group in Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan Province in Southwest China have cultivated Tartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum) for at least a thousand years. Tartary buckwheat landraces are maintained through their traditional seed system. Field work and social network methodologies were used to analyze the seed sources and their flows, and to create a seed network map. Self-saving, exchanging with neighbors and relatives, and purchasing from the market were the main means farmers used to save and exchange Tartary buckwheat seeds. The flow of seed within villages was higher than between villages. Wedding dowry was an important pathway for seed flow among all of the villages. Of the 13 Tartary buckwheat landraces maintained, four landraces were exchanged frequently. The seed exchange network structure was affected by the number of Tartary buckwheat landraces, the age of nodal households, geographic environment, culture, and cultural groups. Nodal households play an important role in the conservation and on-farm management of Tartary buckwheat landraces.Farmer seed exchange networks allow for the transfer of domesticated or undomesticated plant seeds via farmer-to-farmer gifting, swapping, bartering, or purchase, as well as trade or sale, which occurs outside of the commercial seed sector and formal seed regulation [1]. These methods are classified as informal seed systems, as contrasted from formal seed production within companies or public institutions [2]. Over 80% of smallholder farmers in developing countries depend on informal seed systems for their seed supply [3]. Farmer seed exchange networks are important not only for rural people's livelihood, but also for on-farm conservation of crop diversity and landraces' evolution [4].Farmer seed exchange networks are an important method for the on-farm conservation of crop landraces, allowing for the continued adaption and evolution of crops to changing conditions [5][6][7][8].The circulation of seed among farmers is central to agrobiodiversity conservation and dynamics. Crop varieties are often the result of the work of selection and exchange by generations of farmers and farming communities [9]. Seed exchange is commonly built upon trust, with such seed systems embedded in a pre-existing social structure and dependent upon farmers' social identity [10,11]. Social seed network analysis can help to understanding the factors that contribute to, or limit, the maintenance of diversity [12]. A network is formally defined by a set of nodes and a set of edges connecting those nodes together. Farmers represent the nodes in the network, and their seed exchanges represent the edges. Network centrality analysis can help us in understanding the dynamics and structure of the social seed network [13].Local farmers use different channels to exchange seeds. Seed exchanges typically occur between relatives, neighbors, or friends, usually within the same ethnic group [14]. Often seed exchange and circulation takes the form of gifts. In small-scale farming communities, the circulation of crop landraces is often determined by marriage networks [15,16]. Marriage prohibitions and the exchange of seed through marriage influence the movement of seeds among villages, thereby shaping crop diversity at local and regional levels [17]. Kinship is another channel to exchange seeds. It determines the connectivity of farmer populations by favoring or limiting exchanges between communities [17]. In addition, kinship determines the connectivity of crop and livestock populations [18,19]. Marriage and kinship systems are often dependent on indigenous knowledge and culture, which influence the flow of seed among farmers, creating culturally defined agricultural environments that are akin to other environments occupied and used by humans [18].Farmers also may choose to cultivate new varieties or seek alternative seed supplies. Such decisions often occur when farmers encounter disasters, which may be of a personal (e.g., poor health and individual production failure) or more general (e.g., floods, drought, and war) nature, creating an increased demand for off-farm seeds [19]. In these circumstances, farmers may acquire seeds via cash transactions, barter, as gifts, by exchanging one variety of seed for another, as a loan to be repaid upon harvest, or even by theft from another farmer's field [20][21][22]. Farmer seed networks can provide quality planting materials [23], increasing the resilience and autonomy of small-scale farmers, while reducing dependence on commercial seeds [24,25]. The role of farmer seed systems is central to the current debates on seed sovereignty and the conservation of crop germplasm [26].Southwest China is famous for its rich biological and cultural diversity. It has been regarded as a global biodiversity hotspot [1]. According to our recent field surveys, most traditional seed systems have disappeared. Only in a few remote ethnic communities in southwest China do a very limited number of seed systems continue to be adopted by the local people [27,28].Tartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum) is a minor crop based on global distribution, but it serves as a one of the staple foods for the Yi people in Liangshan [29]. The Yi people value Tartary buckwheat as a dietary staple for livestock feed, as well as part of their creation of myths and festivals [30]. A Yi proverb states that buckwheat is the mother of all crops [31,32]. Complicated climate and topographical differences in Southwest China increase the frequency of genetic exchanges between local wild and sibling species, cultivars and wild relatives, and within cultivars. Cultural customs, religious traditions, dietary habits, and other customs of the Yi affect local farmers' agricultural activities, which provide a cultural motivation for the conservation of agrobiodiversity. Above all, natural and human factors enrich the local seed systems, and guarantee that multiple varieties of crop landraces are cultivated. With the development of the modern economy and the erosion of traditional culture, farmers' seed exchange networks are being lost. If these networks cannot be conserved, they will disappear rapidly.The purpose of this study was to analyze the dynamics that structure social networks that influence seed exchange, as well as how these dynamics impacts on Tartary buckwheat's on-farm conservation. In order to understand the practices of on-farm conservation and seed circulation, we investigated traditional practices of on-farm conservation in Liangshan of Sichuan Province in Southwest China. We documented the flows of Tartary buckwheat seed within and between communities, we characterized the seed networks in three villages, we analyzed the landraces in the seed exchange network, and we analyzed the factors influencing farmers' seed exchange. We suggest that these findings are applied so as to facilitate on-farm conservation and breeding development.The Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture is located in the upper Yangtze River watershed of southwest Sichuan Province, near the Hengduan Mountains. It is the largest community of Yi people in China, with a population of 2.64 million. The community has a long and rich folk culture. For several reasons, Liangshan is a poverty-stricken area, and has been designated as an important region for poverty reduction by Chinese authorities. Study sites were selected from Zhaojue and Meigu counties of Liangshan (Figure 1). Four districts were identified based on their importance in Tartary buckwheat production and consumption; all of the districts were located at an altitude of greater than 2050 m (Table 1 and Figure 1). Four to six villages were selected based on their resources for cultivating Tartary buckwheat, giving a total of 21 villages across all four districts. In addition, three villages were selected from District A for an additional case study (Figure 1). Some background of the study sites is provided in Table 1.Sustainability 2019, 11, x; doi: FOR PEER REVIEW www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability conservation. In order to understand the practices of on-farm conservation and seed circulation, we investigated traditional practices of on-farm conservation in Liangshan of Sichuan Province in Southwest China. We documented the flows of Tartary buckwheat seed within and between communities, we characterized the seed networks in three villages, we analyzed the landraces in the seed exchange network, and we analyzed the factors influencing farmers' seed exchange. We suggest that these findings are applied so as to facilitate on-farm conservation and breeding development.The Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture is located in the upper Yangtze River watershed of southwest Sichuan Province, near the Hengduan Mountains. It is the largest community of Yi people in China, with a population of 2.64 million. The community has a long and rich folk culture. For several reasons, Liangshan is a poverty-stricken area, and has been designated as an important region for poverty reduction by Chinese authorities. Study sites were selected from Zhaojue and Meigu counties of Liangshan (Figure 1). Four districts were identified based on their importance in Tartary buckwheat production and consumption; all of the districts were located at an altitude of greater than 2050 m (Table 1 and Figure 1). Four to six villages were selected based on their resources for cultivating Tartary buckwheat, giving a total of 21 villages across all four districts. In addition, three villages were selected from District A for an additional case study (Figure 1). Some background of the study sites is provided in Table 1.   We conducted fieldwork in 2017 and 2018 to investigate Tartary buckwheat landraces and seed exchange networks. Approximately ten households per village were surveyed (Table 1 and Figure 1) via participatory rural appraisal (PRA) using key informant interviews and semi-structured interviews [33][34][35][36]. As mentioned above, three of the villages (22, 23, and 24; Table 1 and Figure 1) from District A were selected for a case study, for the purpose of analyzing network centrality data. During this case study, we lived and worked with the local farmers to learn their customs, indigenous knowledge, and seed exchange networks. In total, including the case study, we surveyed 242 households (Figure 2) across the 24 villages. The seed source data were analyzed to characterize the seed flows within and between villages, as well as between different people. The exchange count was defined as the total number of seed exchanges, summed across all 242 households. The seed network data analysis and mapping were All of the 242 households were given a questionnaire that covered several topics, including Tartary buckwheat landraces, seed management practices, seed sources, and seed flow (Supplementary S1). In addition, the fifty-five households from the case study (villages 22, 23, and 24) were interviewed for seed source and flow data, which was used for the network map development.The seed source data were analyzed to characterize the seed flows within and between villages, as well as between different people. The exchange count was defined as the total number of seed exchanges, summed across all 242 households. The seed network data analysis and mapping were performed using UciNet, version 6.21 [37]. These analyses resulted in three main measures of network centrality, namely: degree centrality, closeness, and betweenness centrality [38].The degree centrality of a household measures its level of direct connectedness to other households; a higher number indicates greater connectivity. The closeness centrality of a household measures its minimal distance in the network to all other households; a smaller number indicates that it has more direct connections to other households. The betweenness centrality of a household is a measure of the number of shortest paths that go through the household; a high value indicates more indirect connections via these shortest paths.Furthermore, we define a nodal household as a household with a degree greater than five and connected to at least three other households. A connector household has degree less than five and is connected to at least two other households. Finally, Pearson's R correlations were computed pairwise between the number of landraces per household, the age of household, and the centrality degree using SPSS 20.0 software (SPSS, Chicago, IL, USA).Self-saving, exchanging with neighbors and relatives, and purchasing from the market were the main methods used to acquire Tartary buckwheat seed across all of the villages. Most of the households interviewed used their own seeds or exchanged with neighbors and relatives (Figure 3). One hundred and seventy-seven households exchanged seeds with neighbors, while only 25 households obtained seeds from the market. In Districts A and C, almost all of the households used seeds obtained from relatives and neighbors, and only a small number of households obtained seeds from the market. In Districts B and D, only two households each obtained seeds from the market. Figure 2 illustrates that the sources of Tartary buckwheat seeds used by households are various. A higher proportion of seeds were obtained within villages, rather than from outside the village. Within the villages, the majority of households indicated that they obtained seeds through exchanging with non-relatives. One third of the households obtained seeds through exchanging with their immediate relatives. About 33% of households obtained seeds through borrowing. Only 15 households purchased seeds from markets. Between villages, it was observed that the seed sources were primarily exchanged with relatives, which relates to marriage. Fifty-three households accessed seeds through exchange with non-relatives, and 35 households through borrowing from friends. Another important pathway for obtaining Tartary buckwheat seed is through marriage dowry. Only 23 households cultivated agriculture bureau seeds.  In the 21 villages surveyed in the study area, 13 Tartary buckwheat landraces were recorded. The household demand for Tartary buckwheat landraces is illustrated in Table 2. Farmers indicated that they obtained seeds of landraces numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4 from their relatives, neighbors, and from marriage dowries. From the exchange count of these four landraces, we conclude that these landraces are the most popular ones. The second popular are landraces 5, 6, 7, and 8; the frequency of seed exchange is much lower than the most popular landraces. According to the farmers, landrace 6 is exotic or hybrid, so it was obtained through the agriculture bureau. The exchange count of landraces 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 were the lowest. Farmers used multiple seed sources and cultivated multiple varieties. The demand was dominated by the most popular four landraces (1, 2, 3, and 4), and 66% of the interviewees exchanged these landraces with neighbors and relatives within the village. About 35% of interviewees exchanged seeds with relatives outside of their own village. Approximately 5% of interviewees obtained the most popular varieties from markets. About 30% of interviewees exchanged seeds through marriage dowry. No interviewee obtained the most popular landraces from the agriculture bureau. The flow of Tartary buckwheat landraces was primarily between neighbors,  In the 21 villages surveyed in the study area, 13 Tartary buckwheat landraces were recorded. The household demand for Tartary buckwheat landraces is illustrated in Table 2. Farmers indicated that they obtained seeds of landraces numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4 from their relatives, neighbors, and from marriage dowries. From the exchange count of these four landraces, we conclude that these landraces are the most popular ones. The second popular are landraces 5, 6, 7, and 8; the frequency of seed exchange is much lower than the most popular landraces. According to the farmers, landrace 6 is exotic or hybrid, so it was obtained through the agriculture bureau. The exchange count of landraces 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 were the lowest. Farmers used multiple seed sources and cultivated multiple varieties. The demand was dominated by the most popular four landraces (1, 2, 3, and 4), and 66% of the interviewees exchanged these landraces with neighbors and relatives within the village. About 35% of interviewees exchanged seeds with relatives outside of their own village. Approximately 5% of interviewees obtained the most popular varieties from markets. About 30% of interviewees exchanged seeds through marriage dowry. No interviewee obtained the most popular landraces from the agriculture bureau. The flow of Tartary buckwheat landraces was primarily between neighbors, relatives within villages, and relatives outside villages (Table 2). The seed network analyses were conducted based on household surveys from 55 households in three adjacent villages. Table 3 shows the characteristics of the households that were active in the seed network, and their nodal data including degree, closeness, and betweenness. It also shows the households' position in the network, such as a nodal farmer and connector farmer.Households were characterized as nodal (NC) and connectors (C) in this study. There were 21 nodal households (NC; degree >5.00), defined as households linked to three or more other households. In addition, there were 19 connector households (C; degree <5.00), defined as households linked to two other households. Nodal households connected with other members of the network and occupied positions between networks. By linking together more households, connector and nodal households form a network for seed flow. Seven, five, and nine NC households were found in the three case study villages, respectively (GJ0270, JJ2472, and MS3640). Most interestingly, the age of the nodal households was older than that of the connector households. Other households were designated as access households, defined as households located in the end of one chain of network. For example, DT0135 and WG0748 in village #1 only obtained seed from other households, and did not exchange with others. Above all, the nodal and connector households were evenly distributed in each village, and made up a network for Tartary buckwheat seed flow.   The seed network analyses were conducted based on household surveys from 55 households in three adjacent villages. Table 3 shows the characteristics of the households that were active in the seed network, and their nodal data including degree, closeness, and betweenness. It also shows the households' position in the network, such as a nodal farmer and connector farmer.Households were characterized as nodal (NC) and connectors (C) in this study. There were 21 nodal households (NC; degree >5.00), defined as households linked to three or more other households. In addition, there were 19 connector households (C; degree <5.00), defined as households linked to two other households. Nodal households connected with other members of the network and occupied positions between networks. By linking together more households, connector and nodal households form a network for seed flow. Seven, five, and nine NC households were found in the three case study villages, respectively (GJ0270, JJ2472, and MS3640). Most interestingly, the age of the nodal households was older than that of the connector households. Other households were designated as access households, defined as households located in the end of one chain of network. For example, DT0135 and WG0748 in village #1 only obtained seed from other households, and did not exchange with others. Above all, the nodal and connector households were evenly distributed in each village, and made up a network for Tartary buckwheat seed flow.  The seed network analyses were conducted based on household surveys from 55 households in three adjacent villages. Table 3 shows the characteristics of the households that were active in the seed network, and their nodal data including degree, closeness, and betweenness. It also shows the households' position in the network, such as a nodal farmer and connector farmer.Households were characterized as nodal (NC) and connectors (C) in this study. There were 21 nodal households (NC; degree >5.00), defined as households linked to three or more other households. In addition, there were 19 connector households (C; degree <5.00), defined as households linked to two other households. Nodal households connected with other members of the network and occupied positions between networks. By linking together more households, connector and nodal households form a network for seed flow. Seven, five, and nine NC households were found in the three case study villages, respectively (GJ0270, JJ2472, and MS3640). Most interestingly, the age of the nodal households was older than that of the connector households. Other households were designated as access households, defined as households located in the end of one chain of network. For example, DT0135 and WG0748 in village #1 only obtained seed from other households, and did not exchange with others. Above all, the nodal and connector households were evenly distributed in each village, and made up a network for Tartary buckwheat seed flow.  The seed network analyses were conducted based on household surveys from 55 households in three adjacent villages. Table 3 shows the characteristics of the households that were active in the seed network, and their nodal data including degree, closeness, and betweenness. It also shows the households' position in the network, such as a nodal farmer and connector farmer.Households were characterized as nodal (NC) and connectors (C) in this study. There were 21 nodal households (NC; degree >5.00), defined as households linked to three or more other households. In addition, there were 19 connector households (C; degree <5.00), defined as households linked to two other households. Nodal households connected with other members of the network and occupied positions between networks. By linking together more households, connector and nodal households form a network for seed flow. Seven, five, and nine NC households were found in the three case study villages, respectively (GJ0270, JJ2472, and MS3640). Most interestingly, the age of the nodal households was older than that of the connector households. Other households were designated as access households, defined as households located in the end of one chain of network. For example, DT0135 and WG0748 in village #1 only obtained seed from other households, and did not exchange with others. Above all, the nodal and connector households were evenly distributed in each village, and made up a network for Tartary buckwheat seed flow.  The seed network analyses were conducted based on household surveys from 55 households in three adjacent villages. Table 3 shows the characteristics of the households that were active in the seed network, and their nodal data including degree, closeness, and betweenness. It also shows the households' position in the network, such as a nodal farmer and connector farmer.Households were characterized as nodal (NC) and connectors (C) in this study. There were 21 nodal households (NC; degree >5.00), defined as households linked to three or more other households. In addition, there were 19 connector households (C; degree <5.00), defined as households linked to two other households. Nodal households connected with other members of the network and occupied positions between networks. By linking together more households, connector and nodal households form a network for seed flow. Seven, five, and nine NC households were found in the three case study villages, respectively (GJ0270, JJ2472, and MS3640). Most interestingly, the age of the nodal households was older than that of the connector households. Other households were designated as access households, defined as households located in the end of one chain of network. For example, DT0135 and WG0748 in village #1 only obtained seed from other households, and did not exchange with others. Above all, the nodal and connector households were evenly distributed in each village, and made up a network for Tartary buckwheat seed flow.  The seed network analyses were conducted based on household surveys from 55 households in three adjacent villages. Table 3 shows the characteristics of the households that were active in the seed network, and their nodal data including degree, closeness, and betweenness. It also shows the households' position in the network, such as a nodal farmer and connector farmer.Households were characterized as nodal (NC) and connectors (C) in this study. There were 21 nodal households (NC; degree >5.00), defined as households linked to three or more other households. In addition, there were 19 connector households (C; degree <5.00), defined as households linked to two other households. Nodal households connected with other members of the network and occupied positions between networks. By linking together more households, connector and nodal households form a network for seed flow. Seven, five, and nine NC households were found in the three case study villages, respectively (GJ0270, JJ2472, and MS3640). Most interestingly, the age of the nodal households was older than that of the connector households. Other households were designated as access households, defined as households located in the end of one chain of network. For example, DT0135 and WG0748 in village #1 only obtained seed from other households, and did not exchange with others. Above all, the nodal and connector households were evenly distributed in each village, and made up a network for Tartary buckwheat seed flow.  The seed network analyses were conducted based on household surveys from 55 households in three adjacent villages. Table 3 shows the characteristics of the households that were active in the seed network, and their nodal data including degree, closeness, and betweenness. It also shows the households' position in the network, such as a nodal farmer and connector farmer.Households were characterized as nodal (NC) and connectors (C) in this study. There were 21 nodal households (NC; degree >5.00), defined as households linked to three or more other households. In addition, there were 19 connector households (C; degree <5.00), defined as households linked to two other households. Nodal households connected with other members of the network and occupied positions between networks. By linking together more households, connector and nodal households form a network for seed flow. Seven, five, and nine NC households were found in the three case study villages, respectively (GJ0270, JJ2472, and MS3640). Most interestingly, the age of the nodal households was older than that of the connector households. Other households were designated as access households, defined as households located in the end of one chain of network. For example, DT0135 and WG0748 in village #1 only obtained seed from other households, and did not exchange with others. Above all, the nodal and connector households were evenly distributed in each village, and made up a network for Tartary buckwheat seed flow.  The seed network analyses were conducted based on household surveys from 55 households in three adjacent villages. Table 3 shows the characteristics of the households that were active in the seed network, and their nodal data including degree, closeness, and betweenness. It also shows the households' position in the network, such as a nodal farmer and connector farmer.Households were characterized as nodal (NC) and connectors (C) in this study. There were 21 nodal households (NC; degree >5.00), defined as households linked to three or more other households. In addition, there were 19 connector households (C; degree <5.00), defined as households linked to two other households. Nodal households connected with other members of the network and occupied positions between networks. By linking together more households, connector and nodal households form a network for seed flow. Seven, five, and nine NC households were found in the three case study villages, respectively (GJ0270, JJ2472, and MS3640). Most interestingly, the age of the nodal households was older than that of the connector households. Other households were designated as access households, defined as households located in the end of one chain of network. For example, DT0135 and WG0748 in village #1 only obtained seed from other households, and did not exchange with others. Above all, the nodal and connector households were evenly distributed in each village, and made up a network for Tartary buckwheat seed flow.  The seed network analyses were conducted based on household surveys from 55 households in three adjacent villages. Table 3 shows the characteristics of the households that were active in the seed network, and their nodal data including degree, closeness, and betweenness. It also shows the households' position in the network, such as a nodal farmer and connector farmer.Households were characterized as nodal (NC) and connectors (C) in this study. There were 21 nodal households (NC; degree >5.00), defined as households linked to three or more other households. In addition, there were 19 connector households (C; degree <5.00), defined as households linked to two other households. Nodal households connected with other members of the network and occupied positions between networks. By linking together more households, connector and nodal households form a network for seed flow. Seven, five, and nine NC households were found in the three case study villages, respectively (GJ0270, JJ2472, and MS3640). Most interestingly, the age of the nodal households was older than that of the connector households. Other households were designated as access households, defined as households located in the end of one chain of network. For example, DT0135 and WG0748 in village #1 only obtained seed from other households, and did not exchange with others. Above all, the nodal and connector households were evenly distributed in each village, and made up a network for Tartary buckwheat seed flow.  The seed network analyses were conducted based on household surveys from 55 households in three adjacent villages. Table 3 shows the characteristics of the households that were active in the seed network, and their nodal data including degree, closeness, and betweenness. It also shows the households' position in the network, such as a nodal farmer and connector farmer.Households were characterized as nodal (NC) and connectors (C) in this study. There were 21 nodal households (NC; degree >5.00), defined as households linked to three or more other households. In addition, there were 19 connector households (C; degree <5.00), defined as households linked to two other households. Nodal households connected with other members of the network and occupied positions between networks. By linking together more households, connector and nodal households form a network for seed flow. Seven, five, and nine NC households were found in the three case study villages, respectively (GJ0270, JJ2472, and MS3640). Most interestingly, the age of the nodal households was older than that of the connector households. Other households were designated as access households, defined as households located in the end of one chain of network. For example, DT0135 and WG0748 in village #1 only obtained seed from other households, and did not exchange with others. Above all, the nodal and connector households were evenly distributed in each village, and made up a network for Tartary buckwheat seed flow.  The seed network analyses were conducted based on household surveys from 55 households in three adjacent villages. Table 3 shows the characteristics of the households that were active in the seed network, and their nodal data including degree, closeness, and betweenness. It also shows the households' position in the network, such as a nodal farmer and connector farmer.Households were characterized as nodal (NC) and connectors (C) in this study. There were 21 nodal households (NC; degree >5.00), defined as households linked to three or more other households. In addition, there were 19 connector households (C; degree <5.00), defined as households linked to two other households. Nodal households connected with other members of the network and occupied positions between networks. By linking together more households, connector and nodal households form a network for seed flow. Seven, five, and nine NC households were found in the three case study villages, respectively (GJ0270, JJ2472, and MS3640). Most interestingly, the age of the nodal households was older than that of the connector households. Other households were designated as access households, defined as households located in the end of one chain of network. For example, DT0135 and WG0748 in village #1 only obtained seed from other households, and did not exchange with others. Above all, the nodal and connector households were evenly distributed in each village, and made up a network for Tartary buckwheat seed flow.  The seed network analyses were conducted based on household surveys from 55 households in three adjacent villages. Table 3 shows the characteristics of the households that were active in the seed network, and their nodal data including degree, closeness, and betweenness. It also shows the households' position in the network, such as a nodal farmer and connector farmer.Households were characterized as nodal (NC) and connectors (C) in this study. There were 21 nodal households (NC; degree >5.00), defined as households linked to three or more other households. In addition, there were 19 connector households (C; degree <5.00), defined as households linked to two other households. Nodal households connected with other members of the network and occupied positions between networks. By linking together more households, connector and nodal households form a network for seed flow. Seven, five, and nine NC households were found in the three case study villages, respectively (GJ0270, JJ2472, and MS3640). Most interestingly, the age of the nodal households was older than that of the connector households. Other households were designated as access households, defined as households located in the end of one chain of network. For example, DT0135 and WG0748 in village #1 only obtained seed from other households, and did not exchange with others. Above all, the nodal and connector households were evenly distributed in each village, and made up a network for Tartary buckwheat seed flow.  The seed network analyses were conducted based on household surveys from 55 households in three adjacent villages. Table 3 shows the characteristics of the households that were active in the seed network, and their nodal data including degree, closeness, and betweenness. It also shows the households' position in the network, such as a nodal farmer and connector farmer.Households were characterized as nodal (NC) and connectors (C) in this study. There were 21 nodal households (NC; degree >5.00), defined as households linked to three or more other households. In addition, there were 19 connector households (C; degree <5.00), defined as households linked to two other households. Nodal households connected with other members of the network and occupied positions between networks. By linking together more households, connector and nodal households form a network for seed flow. Seven, five, and nine NC households were found in the three case study villages, respectively (GJ0270, JJ2472, and MS3640). Most interestingly, the age of the nodal households was older than that of the connector households. Other households were designated as access households, defined as households located in the end of one chain of network. For example, DT0135 and WG0748 in village #1 only obtained seed from other households, and did not exchange with others. Above all, the nodal and connector households were evenly distributed in each village, and made up a network for Tartary buckwheat seed flow.  The seed network analyses were conducted based on household surveys from 55 households in three adjacent villages. Table 3 shows the characteristics of the households that were active in the seed network, and their nodal data including degree, closeness, and betweenness. It also shows the households' position in the network, such as a nodal farmer and connector farmer.Households were characterized as nodal (NC) and connectors (C) in this study. There were 21 nodal households (NC; degree >5.00), defined as households linked to three or more other households. In addition, there were 19 connector households (C; degree <5.00), defined as households linked to two other households. Nodal households connected with other members of the network and occupied positions between networks. By linking together more households, connector and nodal households form a network for seed flow. Seven, five, and nine NC households were found in the three case study villages, respectively (GJ0270, JJ2472, and MS3640). Most interestingly, the age of the nodal households was older than that of the connector households. Other households were designated as access households, defined as households located in the end of one chain of network. For example, DT0135 and WG0748 in village #1 only obtained seed from other households, and did not exchange with others. Above all, the nodal and connector households were evenly distributed in each village, and made up a network for Tartary buckwheat seed flow.  The seed network analyses were conducted based on household surveys from 55 households in three adjacent villages. Table 3 shows the characteristics of the households that were active in the seed network, and their nodal data including degree, closeness, and betweenness. It also shows the households' position in the network, such as a nodal farmer and connector farmer.Households were characterized as nodal (NC) and connectors (C) in this study. There were 21 nodal households (NC; degree >5.00), defined as households linked to three or more other households. In addition, there were 19 connector households (C; degree <5.00), defined as households linked to two other households. Nodal households connected with other members of the network and occupied positions between networks. By linking together more households, connector and nodal households form a network for seed flow. Seven, five, and nine NC households were found in the three case study villages, respectively (GJ0270, JJ2472, and MS3640). Most interestingly, the age of the nodal households was older than that of the connector households. Other households were designated as access households, defined as households located in the end of one chain of network. For example, DT0135 and WG0748 in village #1 only obtained seed from other households, and did not exchange with others. Above all, the nodal and connector households were evenly distributed in each village, and made up a network for Tartary buckwheat seed flow.  The seed network analyses were conducted based on household surveys from 55 households in three adjacent villages. Table 3 shows the characteristics of the households that were active in the seed network, and their nodal data including degree, closeness, and betweenness. It also shows the households' position in the network, such as a nodal farmer and connector farmer.Households were characterized as nodal (NC) and connectors (C) in this study. There were 21 nodal households (NC; degree >5.00), defined as households linked to three or more other households. In addition, there were 19 connector households (C; degree <5.00), defined as households linked to two other households. Nodal households connected with other members of the network and occupied positions between networks. By linking together more households, connector and nodal households form a network for seed flow. Seven, five, and nine NC households were found in the three case study villages, respectively (GJ0270, JJ2472, and MS3640). Most interestingly, the age of the nodal households was older than that of the connector households. Other households were designated as access households, defined as households located in the end of one chain of network. For example, DT0135 and WG0748 in village #1 only obtained seed from other households, and did not exchange with others. Above all, the nodal and connector households were evenly distributed in each village, and made up a network for Tartary buckwheat seed flow.  The seed network analyses were conducted based on household surveys from 55 households in three adjacent villages. Table 3 shows the characteristics of the households that were active in the seed network, and their nodal data including degree, closeness, and betweenness. It also shows the households' position in the network, such as a nodal farmer and connector farmer.Households were characterized as nodal (NC) and connectors (C) in this study. There were 21 nodal households (NC; degree >5.00), defined as households linked to three or more other households. In addition, there were 19 connector households (C; degree <5.00), defined as households linked to two other households. Nodal households connected with other members of the network and occupied positions between networks. By linking together more households, connector and nodal households form a network for seed flow. Seven, five, and nine NC households were found in the three case study villages, respectively (GJ0270, JJ2472, and MS3640). Most interestingly, the age of the nodal households was older than that of the connector households. Other households were designated as access households, defined as households located in the end of one chain of network. For example, DT0135 and WG0748 in village #1 only obtained seed from other households, and did not exchange with others. Above all, the nodal and connector households were evenly distributed in each village, and made up a network for Tartary buckwheat seed flow. 33 tshu 33  1 0 1 0 0 1 13 en g chu n Table 2. Tartary buckwheat landraces seed source. The seed network analyses were conducted based on household surveys from 55 households in three adjacent villages. Table 3 shows the characteristics of the households that were active in the seed network, and their nodal data including degree, closeness, and betweenness. It also shows the households' position in the network, such as a nodal farmer and connector farmer.Households were characterized as nodal (NC) and connectors (C) in this study. There were 21 nodal households (NC; degree >5.00), defined as households linked to three or more other households. In addition, there were 19 connector households (C; degree <5.00), defined as households linked to two other households. Nodal households connected with other members of the network and occupied positions between networks. By linking together more households, connector and nodal households form a network for seed flow. Seven, five, and nine NC households were found in the three case study villages, respectively (GJ0270, JJ2472, and MS3640). Most interestingly, the age of the nodal households was older than that of the connector households. Other households were designated as access households, defined as households located in the end of one chain of network. For example, DT0135 and WG0748 in village #1 only obtained seed from other households, and did not exchange with others. Above all, the nodal and connector households were evenly distributed in each village, and made up a network for Tartary buckwheat seed flow.  The seed network analyses were conducted based on household surveys from 55 households in three adjacent villages. Table 3 shows the characteristics of the households that were active in the seed network, and their nodal data including degree, closeness, and betweenness. It also shows the households' position in the network, such as a nodal farmer and connector farmer.Households were characterized as nodal (NC) and connectors (C) in this study. There were 21 nodal households (NC; degree >5.00), defined as households linked to three or more other households. In addition, there were 19 connector households (C; degree <5.00), defined as households linked to two other households. Nodal households connected with other members of the network and occupied positions between networks. By linking together more households, connector and nodal households form a network for seed flow. Seven, five, and nine NC households were found in the three case study villages, respectively (GJ0270, JJ2472, and MS3640). Most interestingly, the age of the nodal households was older than that of the connector households. Other households were designated as access households, defined as households located in the end of one chain of network. For example, DT0135 and WG0748 in village #1 only obtained seed from other households, and did not exchange with others. Above all, the nodal and connector households were evenly distributed in each village, and made up a network for Tartary buckwheat seed flow. The seed network were conducted based on household surveys from 55 households in three adjacent villages. Table 3 shows the characteristics of the households that were active in the seed network, and their nodal data including degree, closeness, and betweenness. It also shows the households' position in the network, such as a nodal farmer and connector farmer.Households were characterized as nodal (NC) and connectors (C) in this study. There were 21 nodal households (NC; degree >5.00), defined as households linked to three or more other households. In addition, there were 19 connector households (C; degree <5.00), defined as households linked to two other households. Nodal households connected with other members of the network and occupied positions between networks. By linking together more households, connector and nodal households form a network for seed flow. Seven, five, and nine NC households were found in the three case study villages, respectively (GJ0270, JJ2472, and MS3640). Most interestingly, the age of the nodal households was older than that of the connector households. Other households were designated as access households, defined as households located in the end of one chain of network. For example, DT0135 and WG0748 in village #1 only obtained seed from other households, and did not exchange with others. Above all, the nodal and connector households were evenly distributed in each village, and made up a network for Tartary buckwheat seed flow. Based on the analysis of the network and centrality data, the network map was generated through UciNet. The information and location of the households provides a visual representation of the association between the households in the network and Tartary buckwheat landraces conservation (Figure 3). The color of the node indicates the number of Tartary buckwheat landraces owned by households. The size of the node shows the degree of the households. The number next to the node corresponds to the identification number of the households. The first two alphabetical characters are the name abbreviation. The last two numbers are the age of the household. The network was divided into three parts, according to the village boundary. As the previous results showed, seeds were exchanged mainly among neighbors and relatives within the village. The network had a low density between villages, indicating that there were few ties between relatives who exchanged seed (Figure 4). Based on the analysis of the network and centrality data, the network map was generated through UciNet. The information and location of the households provides a visual representation of the association between the households in the network and Tartary buckwheat landraces conservation (Figure 3). The color of the node indicates the number of Tartary buckwheat landraces owned by households. The size of the node shows the degree of the households. The number next to the node corresponds to the identification number of the households. The first two alphabetical characters are the name abbreviation. The last two numbers are the age of the household. The network was divided into three parts, according to the village boundary. As the previous results showed, seeds were exchanged mainly among neighbors and relatives within the village. The network had a low density between villages, indicating that there were few ties between relatives who exchanged seed (Figure 4). Tartary buckwheat seeds are primarily sourced and circulated via farm-saving and exchanging with neighbors and relatives. The seeds flow more frequently within villages than between villages. Seed flow between villages is primarily carried out through relatives. Another important pathway for seed flow is marriage dowry. Some studies have suggested that seed exchange is not the main mechanism for seed acquisition, as households only exchange seeds occasionally [39][40][41]. In contrast, our research showed that households obtained seed mainly through farm-saving and seed exchange. Purchasing seed from markets accounted for a low proportion of seed acquisition. Seed flow between farmers affects the diversity of Tartary buckwheat. Most studies on farmer seed exchange systems indicate that a high level of exchange between neighbors or family members has a positive impact on the flow of the genetic diversity of crops [14,42]. Vigouroux and Delêtr reported that seeds are often Tartary buckwheat seeds are primarily sourced and circulated via farm-saving and exchanging with neighbors and relatives. The seeds flow more frequently within villages than between villages. Seed flow between villages is primarily carried out through relatives. Another important pathway for seed flow is marriage dowry. Some studies have suggested that seed exchange is not the main mechanism for seed acquisition, as households only exchange seeds occasionally [39][40][41]. In contrast, our research showed that households obtained seed mainly through farm-saving and seed exchange. Purchasing seed from markets accounted for a low proportion of seed acquisition. Seed flow between farmers affects the diversity of Tartary buckwheat. Most studies on farmer seed exchange systems indicate that a high level of exchange between neighbors or family members has a positive impact on the flow of the genetic of crops [14,42]. Vigouroux and Delêtr reported that seeds are often inherited via gifts or dowry at weddings in developing countries [18,43]. Also, in matrilineal societies, the continuous inflow of manioc landraces through marriages increasing varietal diversity at the community level [17]. In small-scale farming communities, marriage networks are often used as a channel for the circulation of crop landraces [16]. In our study, almost all of the households obtained or supplied Tartary buckwheat landraces through marriage dowry. In addition, even after the wedding, households still continued to exchange seeds. Households joined by marriage, therefore, influence the movement of Tartary buckwheat landraces, helping to maintain Tartary buckwheat diversity at a local and regional level, as well as to conserve crop genetic diversity on-farm.The low adoption of Tartary buckwheat varieties issued by the agriculture bureau can be explained by these varieties having poor environmental adaptability. Despite the lower yields available, households often choose to continue cultivating or exchanging local landraces, because the yields are stable and predictable, and their consumption characteristics are well known [18]. The high yield and environmental adaptability may be a result of seeds that have adapted well to local conditions after generations of farmers' selection, with regular seed exchanges leading to yield stability [44,45].Our study shows that local farmers continue to cultivate Tartary buckwheat landraces, obtaining seeds through traditional exchange practices. There are 13 Tartary buckwheat landraces flowing among the households, with four landraces being the most popular. The local farmers expressed satisfaction with their seeds and crop yield. Taking landrace 1 as an example, farmers evaluate it as the most trustworthy landrace because its hardiness, drought resistance, good yield, high altitude plantation, and high nutritional value. It can be concluded that seed exchange is an important usage of traditional knowledge, and that it enriches the diversity of Tartary buckwheat landraces.Through a centrality analysis of the seed network, we can understand the patterns of exchange and flows of seed within and between villages. Our results suggest that, at a household level, measures of network centrality are associated with families that conserve Tartary buckwheat landraces. These central or nodal families retained four to eight Tartary buckwheat landraces, and many also have a rich traditional knowledge. Other studies have found that centrality in the seed exchange network is associated with local landraces conservation and knowledge, reinforcing previous findings on the importance of seed exchanges in ensuring the maintenance of local agrobiodiversity [44,46]. Households in Liangshan are connected in complex seed exchange networks [47,48]. Understanding the households' position in seed networks can be useful for the design of intervention strategies targeting conservation [38].Nodal households in the seed exchange network are vital for maintaining crop diversity on-farm, and for managing related knowledge [49]. An example is household AJ3460, an NC household that links seven others households and two other villages. This household retained eight Tartary buckwheat landraces. Our survey also showed that this household had significant knowledge of the characteristics of each of the eight landraces. The household obtained these eight landrace seeds from outside the village, and then supplied the seeds to the other households within their own village. In addition, they also obtained the seeds from within the village, and then supplied it to households in other villages. These nodal households are essential for maintaining diversity of seed exchange both within or outside of villages. Supporting or training these nodal households on seed cleaning and multiplication could enhance crop genetic diversity [38]. Seed exchange network analysis could be an efficient method for on-farm genetic diversity management by supporting Tartary buckwheat landraces to flow within the community.From the network map, we could identify the level of some dense links between households, and the main factors impacting the seed exchange network. First, the number of landraces contained by households and the centrality degree are positively correlated (Pearson's r = 0.73; p < 0.01). This indicates that the more landraces retained by households, the more important the household's role will be in the network. Second, although the age of the nodal household is not correlated with the centrality degree (r = 0.06), all of the nodal households' age is over 42. This suggests that age plays an important role in the network. As Figure 2 shows, village 2 is located in the valley, whereas villages #2 and #3 are located on the hillside and hilltop. Village #2 connects villages #1 and #3. However, between villages #1 and #3, there is not seed exchange. Thus, the terrain of the village also affects the network structure. Elders from villages #1 and #3 told us that it was convenient to exchange seeds with village #2, because they did not want to climb another mountain for exchanging seeds. Furthermore, they got a high yield from the Tartary buckwheat seeds that came from village #2. This is similar to a study by Chambers et al. [45], which showed how both the physical and human geography of landscapes influence the varieties of maize grown, and thus affect the seed acquisition practices. The impact of culture and ethnic groups on seed exchange networks has been widely documented. Confirming this, our study found that culture and cultural groups influenced the seed exchange and diversity of Tartary buckwheat landraces. For example, households RX0548, AN1580, and GG4662 are the bimo, a shaman responsible for hosting various rituals. As professional ritualists of the Yi ethnicity, the bimo is a high-position religious specialist, who is a master of the ancient Yi language scriptures, including astronomy, calendar systems, epics, and medicine in their village. Their centrality degrees were 6.87, 8.47 and 10.16, indicating that their position in the network is important. They master the culture of the Yi people, and they know about the uses of Tartary buckwheat in rituals. They even plant a small amount of multiple Tartary buckwheat landraces, supplying it to the other households, along with management knowledge.In this study, we have revealed four main types of seed sources for Tartary buckwheat, namely: self-saving, exchanging with neighbors, exchanging with relatives, and purchasing from the market. Four of the 13 landraces were the most popular, flowing among the households frequently. Seed network analysis was used to identify the households who play different roles in the seed exchange system. An analysis of the centrality and the network map showed that there were 21 households that played nodal roles in the network. These household both retained four to eight Tartary buckwheat landraces, and had rich traditional knowledge of the characteristics and management of buckwheat landraces. To support the conservation of Tartary buckwheat landraces, training on seed cleaning and seed management should be provided for the nodal households. Combining fieldwork with network analysis, we concluded that the seed exchange network structure is impacted the most by the number of Tartary buckwheat landraces, the age of nodal households, geography, and culture and ethnic groups. Seed exchange networks help farmers meet their production and cultural needs. Understanding these networks can provide guidance to local governments to support the maintenance of local traditional seed exchange systems, teaching locals how to select seeds and reducing interference from modern varieties. Understanding seed networks and social culture can contribute to increasing seed security and resilience to current and future environmental change.","tokenCount":"8976"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8f8a20eff8bec92dfdf764cad0085d67","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0dc1b3ba-3569-4869-87ce-0f83ee2d04a8/retrieve","id":"-2125561906"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"3e9d1994-075a-497d-b23d-af75374f383e","pagecount":"19","content":"This is a collaborative project between the Bean Breeding Program (Dr. S.P. Singh) and the BRU that was initiated in 1989. The main objective of this project is to transfer multiple desirable traits such as drought, heat, Empoasca and bacteria! blight resistance, from cultivated tepary bean lines (P. acutifolius) to common bean genotypes possessing desirable agronomic traits.Two different backcross strategies are being followed to achieve this goal: The classical or introgressive backcross and the cong ruity backcross which consists of backcrossing the F 1 hybrids alternatively with lines of each species (Haghighi and Ascher, 1988). The partial results of this project can be seen in the accompanying Table 1. (See also BRU Annual Report 1989 and1990). Because hybrid embryos were aborted following interspecific crosses, it was necessary to apply embryo rescue techniques in most of the crosses to allow embryo germination and growth in vitro.The choice of the right parental genotypes, mainly that of the P. vulgaris seed parent, was decisive for obtaining mature F1 plants. Using ICA Pijao as proposed by Parker and Michaels (Parker and Michaels, 1986), in combination with the P. acutifolius varieties G40001 and G40066, 62 vigorous growing hybrids were obtained. All the F1 hybrids were self-sterile, but embryos that could be rescued and grown to plants were obtained when the hybrids were backcrossed with severa! advanced breeding varieties of P. vulgaris. Thirty four BC1 plants were obtained, 16 of these were self-fertile and produced mature BC 1-F2 seeds. With the second backcross with P. vulgaris lines, large numbers of mature BC2 seeds were produced.These materials have been planted in Santander de Ouilichao and a large number of BC1-F 4 and BC2-F 3 progenies are presently being evaluated by the Bean Breeding Program. Stable introgression of P. acutifo/ius traits has been detected, both morphologically and biochemically, by the analysis of total seed protein with SDS-PAG-Eiectrophoresis of BC1 -F 5 seeds.After the second backcross to P. vulgaris, BC1 plants were backcrossed with P. acutifolius lines to generate congruity backcross 2 (CBC2) hybrids. The embryos of these crosses were aborted very early, 8 to 12 days after pollination. The embryo rescue technique u sed earlier to obtain F1 and BC 1 plants was not adequate for obtaining plantlets of the CBC2 embryos, that could otherwise suNive the transfer to the greenhouse. Only after a modification of the embryo rescue technique (BRU Annual Report 1990), 60 CBC2 hybrids cou ld be established.All the CBC2 plants were self-sterile but immature embryos and mature CBC3 seeds were obtained when backcrossed to P. vulgaris lines. lnitially in this cross, problems with abnormal embryo growth and plantlet lethality appeared, but these could be solved by changing the parental lines used. Sixty five CBC3 plants were established in the greenhouse. Most of them have shown to be self-fertile, producing mature CBC3-F 2 seeds.Currently, we are backcrossing the CBC3 plants with the best P. acutifolius lines and we are obtaining immature embryos and mature CBC4 seeds (the first after a backcross with P. acutifolius) which reached a greater development and have presented fewer difficulties for in vitro culture and their transfer to the greenhouse as the homologous embryos of the past congruity backcross cycle (CBC2). Since they have the same P. acutifolius parentals, this has been interpreted as being caused by an improved recombination ability between P. vulgaris and P. acutifolius genomes. Twenty-three CBC4 hybrids are now flowering in the greenhouse and we hope that with the present embryo rescue efficiency, we will reach our goal of obtaining 200 flowering CBC4 hybrids in a few weeks.The CBC4 x P. vulgaris backcross has been initiated and the first resulting embryos are presently being grown in vitro.Haghighi KR and Ascher PD (1988) \"Fertile, intermediate hybrids between Phaseolus vulgaris and P. acutifolius from congruity backcrossing\". Sexual Plant Reproduction 1, 51-58.Parker . JP and Michaels TE (1986) \"Simple genetic control of hybrid plant development in interspecific crosses between Phaseolus vulgaris L. and P. acutifolius A. Gray\". Plant Breeding 97, 315-323.The common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is an example of a non-centric crop in that it can be divided between two centres of domestication : Middle America and Andean South Ame rica. Morphologically, the Middle American bean is characterized by its small size re lativa to that of Andean material, typically characterized by larger seed sizes.A system of landrace classifications for the commo n bean has been established by Singh, et al. (1988) with respect to site of origin, environmental adaptability, as Varieties utilized efficiently as parentals: in arder of efficiency well as the other following agronomic traits : growth habit, days to maturity, yield/per hectare (kg/ha). This classification system conforms to six landraces : Middle Ame rica (M} , Durango (0), Jalisco (J), Nueva Granada (N), Chile (C), Peru (P). The first three landraces correspond to the Middle American centre of domestication, while the latter three belong to the Andean group.There exists an average yield differences of 1500 kg/ha between the two mai n centres, orgroups, thus emphasizing the need to develop seeds possessing a higher yield potential. Nevertheless, genetic incompatíbility problems (F1 hybrid weakness, dwarfism, heterosis) between the larger-seeded Andean material and its smallseeded, higher-yielding Middle American counterpart have prevented successtul crossing of materials between the two groups.The purpose of this study is to evaluate recombinant inbred lines (Rils) derived from four contrasting populations. Each population differs from the other in terms of its morphological characters and agronomic traits. This study is being conducted to determine the existence of correlative relationships of these morpho-agronomic traits with existing polymorphisms of the seed proteins (phaseolins, lectins, albumins) and selected isoenzymes. This work is a Ph.D. thesis (W. Welsh, University of Manitoba, Canada) carried out at CIAT in collaboration with the Sean Breeding Program (S.P. Singh).In this study, 79 recombinant lines {Rils) have been developed for each of the tour following populations: Population 1. Population 2. Population 3. Population 4.Canadian Wonder x A486 (79 Rlls and 2 parents) G-76 x MAM4 (79 Rlls and 2 parents) ABA58 x G4830 (79 R\\Ls and 2 parents} ICA L23 x G3807 (79 Rlls and 2 parents)Population \"One\" involves two cultivars of determínate growth habit 1, both possessing large seed size. This is a cross between two Nueva Granada landraces. Therefore no genetic incompatibility is expected as this population represents the control.Population \"Two\" represents a cross between G-76 (Nueva Granada landrace) and MAM4 (Durango landrace). The form er possesses a determínate type 1 growth habit and large-sized seeds. The latter parent possesses a type 111 indeterminate growth habit and medium-sized seeds. The Durango landrace is known to possess generally higher yielding capacities than other lines of the comm on bean.Population \"Three\" is a cross between a parent of a determínate type 1 growth habit possessing large-sized seeds (ABA-58, Nueva Granada) and a parent of indeterminate type 11 growth habit possessing small-seeded material (G4830, Middle America). Of all the populations, this population represents a cross between two parents with the greatest genetic distance between them. This population contrasts with population \"One\" in terms of genetic distance.Population \"Four\" represents a cross where growth habit has been maintained between the two parents, but where seed size is different : ICA L23 (large seed-Nueva Granada) x G3807 (small seed-Middle America).The recombinant inbred lines (Rils) of each population represent F2 generation-derived plants of the F6 generation. All tour populations were planted in duplicate randomly ranked rows (approximately 40 plants/row) at two localities over two growing seasons. The first site was Popayán (1750 m.a.s.l.) on May 02/90 and Oct 03/90. The second site was Palmira (1 000 m.a.s.l.) on May 29/90 and Oct 09/90. Average growing periods for Popayán and Palmira are four and three months, respectively.The following morpho-agronomic traits were evaluated: days to flowering, flower colour, bracteole type , bracteole size, leaf type, chlorophyll content, 5'h-6rh internodal length, days to maturity, grainfilling trait, number of seeds/pod, 100 seed weight, harvest index, growth habit, seed yield.All 79 Rlls and their respective parents were analyzed electrophoretically on 1 O% starch gel system in a lithium borate buffer system.The tissue material evaluated was taken from growing two 115 days old plants. Extraction buffer to tissue ratios were: 1 :1 (root tissue), 1 :2 (leaf tissue). The buffer used was a Tris-Malate based extraction buffer (see CIAT Working Doc No. 40).The following isoenzymes were analyzed in the root material: diaphorase (DIAP), malic enzyme (ME), malate dehydrogenase (MDH), shikimic dehydrogenase (SKDH).For the leaf tissue : acid phosphatase (ACP), rubisco (RBSC) , glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase (GOT).The seed proteins were separated on ene-dimensional SDS-PAGE systems and stained with Coomassie-Biue G. The parental materials for each population were used as standards. Each RIL was run in triplicate , therefore a subtotal of 243 lines per population were run . Consequently, an overall total of 992 lines were analyzed on the SDS-PAGE system.The isoenzymes that demonstrated the greatest polymorphism in the evaluated populations were the following:In the root tissue : DIAP, SKDH, and MDH In the leaf tissue : ACP and RBSCSeed proteinsPattern differences were occasionally encountered within the lines, each run in triplicate. In population 'Two', 121ines presented this problem. In population 'Three', three lines, and in population 'Four', 23 lines. These differences are most likely attributed to the slight occurrence of mechanical mixture and/or a small degree of segregation.Sorne differences within certain lines were found for the lectin patterns (e .g.: population 'Two', RIL 157).• There seems to be a relationship between the pattern of the lectins and the albumins. lf the lectin profile of one RIL was similar to that of the second parent, the albumin profile of the same RIL would have the albumin profile of that second parent.• lt was also revealed that there were combination s or contributions of both parents in the formation of bands in a region in the gel, above the albumins.At present, statistical analysis of both the morpho-agronomic data and biochemical data is being conducted in order to visualiza existing correlations between the biochemical markers and the agronomic characters studied in order to properly select parental materials that will permit effective crosses between landraces, avoiding the genetic incompatibility problem.Concurrent with the statistical analysis, DNA is presently being extracted from each of the Rlls and their respective parents to be used in restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) studies. This approach will address the problem of indirect genomic analysis (proteins, isoenzymes) and bypass those problems associated with analyzing a (possibly post-translationally modified) product of gene expression by focussing directly on the genome itself.Within a collaborative project with the University of Bonn (Prof. H.J . Jacobsen, now at the University of Hannover, Germany), and as a part of a Ph.D. Thesis (A. Mejía), we have been conducting work on the regeneration of Phaseolus bean plants from cell cultures. Development of in vitro regeneration techniques is a pre-requisite for the application of genetic transformation, in vitro selection, haploid induction, and somatic hybridization tor the improvement of beans.For the first time, in 1991 we have been able to initiate morphogenic cell suspension cultures and differentiate buds on callus cultures of the cultivated P. acutifolius genotype G40043. The methodology is similar to the one developed by Kumar et al. (1988) for the regeneration of Vigna unguiculata, and involves the following steps:• lnduction of callus from root or hypocotyl of 7 day old seedlings in the medium M-MS with 2 mg/1 2,4-0 and BAP.• Selection of green, compact, callus and transfer to the medium M-MS with 1 mg/1 thidiazuron. In this medium, a more friable granular callus is formed and used to initiate cell suspensions.• Cell suspensions are initiated in liquid M-MS medium, with 2 mg/1 2,4-0 and BAP, and supplemented with 5 mg/1 L-asparagine.• Weekly subculturing of the dense suspension fraction (cell clusters which can be readily decanted). Green, compact, calli are formed in this suspension .• Plating of green, compact calli (clusters larger than 5 mm) on the medium M-MS with 2 mg/1 BAP.We have obtained bud induction on callus in two independent experiments and using different separate cell suspension lines. We are now developing medium conditions for shoot elongation. Elongated shoots will be rooted for transfer to soil.We have screened a number of genotypes from cu ltivated Phaseolus species and their wild relatives for the formation of organ ogenic callus similar to P. acutifolius. Organogenic callus is compact, light yellow-greenish or green in color, comprising small spherical, non-vacuolated cells. Genotypes of most of the Phaseo/us species tested (P. coccineus, P. polyanthus, P. lunatus, P. filiformis and P. xanthotrichus) formed organogenic type calli , with the exception of the P. vulgaris genotypes. The latter formed white or brown soft, spongy callus comprising large vacuolated ce lis. Among the P. vulgaris genotypes tested we included 1 O wild genotypes from Mexico down to Argentine . This work has shown that the induction of organogenic callus is highly dependent on the genotype, with P. vulgaris being the only bean species not form ing organogenic callus. Furthermore, we have found that induction of callus from tissues of interspecific P. vulgaris x P. acutifolius hybrids (congruity backcross 3-F1 and congruity backcross 4-F1 plants from our work on interspecific hybridization) showed the segregation of two callus types: an organic callus similar to P. acutifolius and a nonorganogenic callus like P. vu/garis. This suggests the feasibility of transferring regenerability genes from P. acutifolius to P. vulgaris by se xual crossing.Our future work will focus on :• optimization of the protocol for bud differentiation , shoot elongation and rooting.a adapt the technique to the Phaseolus spp.• select recombinant lines from the project on interspecific hybridization wh ich respond to the treatment.a because our resu lts with the species indicate that the P. vulgaris callus may lack a critica! regenerati on factor, we will design a series of systematic experiments to modify the cultu re medium and provide the required facto r(s).Research on the genetic transformation of common beans using the Agrobacterium and the particle gun systems was initiated last year in the BRU as part of the PhD thesis of Martine Korban, from McGill University, Montreal, thus linking the efforts of Alvaro Mejía and Rodrigo Hoyos, on regeneration of beans from suspension cultures.Several grain legumes, including beans, have been reported to be susceptible to Agrobacterium infection. However, little is known about bean genotype vs Agrobacterium strain specificity in this crop species. Plant compounds can interact with the virulence functions of an Agrobacterium strain, and their presence may change according to the wounding response and the stage of development of the plant. Phenolic compounds, like acetosyringone, have been reportad to enhance virulence functions of Agrobacterium tumefaciens (Stachel et al., 1985).Therefore, as a first step in this study, it was important to determine the relative susceptibility of bean tissues to infection by strains of Agrobacterium. Screening of a collection of wild Agrobacterium strains (including A. tumefaciens and A. rhizogenes) was carried out on four greenhouse-grown bean varieties (lea Pijao, Nuña Pava, lea Viboral and Calima) as well as on in-vitro-derived seedlings. Virulence was scored as the ability to form opine producing tumors on the inoculation site for plants, and growth on hormone-free medium for explants.After selecting A. tumefaciens C58 as the most virulent strain on beans, and lea Pijao as a very susceptible variety, we concentrated on plant regeneration and transformation. A regeneration protocol from bean cotyledonary nades was adopted to carry out transformation experiments (McCiean and Grafton, 1989).Multiple, adventitious shoot formation at a meristematic ring structure around the cotyledonary node explant was reproducibly achieved, as shown by histological analysis. Preformad shoots were eliminated early during the treatment.The virulent Agrobacterium strain C58 was transformad with a binary vector containing marker genes of interest. The resident Ti megaplasmid of A. tumefaciens (around 200 kb, and therefore difficult to manipulate) can provide the transfer functions in trans, i.e. any DNA within the \"25 bp Border Sequences\" of the T-DNA will be integrated into the plant genome by the vir-gene functions. These border sequences, called Left and Right Borders, are incorporated into a small plasmid (around 13 kb), which can be easily manipulated. We used the pGV1 040 plasmid, which has two selectable marker genes, the aph 11 (npt 11) gene, which confers resistance to kanamycin , and the bar gene which confers resistance to Basta, a non-specific herbicide, whose active component phosphonitricin , a tripeptide analog, inhibits glutamine synthase in plants. This plasmid also carries a scorable marker gene, the uidA or gus A gene, that codes for B-glucuronidase , which can be detected in transformed tissues using histological assays. The plasmid also includes resistance genes against the antibiotics streptomycin (Sm) and spectinomycin (Sp) to select the plasmid-containing bacteria on selective media.Agrobacterium was transform ed with pGV1 040 using a novel methodology that obviates conjugation of the binary vector from E. coli to Agrobacterium (Hofgen and Willmitzer, 1988). Direct transformation was achieved by rendering Agrobacterium cells competent through a CaCI 2 treatment combined with freezing and thawing of the bacteria. Transformed bacteria were selected on Sm/Sp containing plates.Basta sensitivity tests were carried out on the shoots regenerated from bean cotyledonary nodes of the variety lea Pijao to determine the minimal lethal concentration that should be used du ring the selection phase after transformation with pGV1 040. The lethal dosis was established at 1 mg/1 Basta in the medium. At 0.8 mg/1 growing shoots were still observed after 7-1 O d of treatment.Transformation experiments on half cotyledonary nodes of the common bean variety lea Pijao were carried out by testing two inoculation methods, dipping or pricking. The effect of acetosyringone (AS) was tested by applying it to the bacteria either before or at the time of infection at concentrations ranging from 25 to 200 J.LM. Transformation efficiency was scored by histological visualization of gus gene expression in the regenerated shoots.The complete dipping of the half cotyledonary node tissue was not a good inoculation treatment, since it hindered shoot regeneration and permitted excessive multiplication of the bacteria. Bacte ri a could be better controlled following pricki ng of the node area. The best antibiotic treatment for the elimination of bacteria was achieved by combining cefotaxim (a cephalosporin) at 800 11g/ml and carbenicillin (a penicillin) at 500 J.LQ/ml. In addition, the regenerative capabi lity of the explants was not hindered. Control shoots showed no GUS expression .No sig nificant differe nce was observed when AS was added to the bacteria, with respect to the regeneration or the transformation efficiency of the inoculated explants as compared to controls. Regeneration of bean shoots is decreased by inoculation with C58 (pGV1 040), many explants necrotized during the procedure. In the average, 5-1 O adventitious buds arose from these explants. Of those which survived the treatment, GUS positivas were scored as the number of regenerating buds showing positiva GUS activity. Results of five separate experiments are presentad: (i) 14 buds out of 161, stemming from 28 explants. (ii) 6 buds out of 37. (iii) 4 out of 15 (iv) 2 out of 27, containing 200 J.lM AS. (v) 5 out of 24, containing 25 J.LM AS.These preliminary transformation experiments have permitted the selection of pricking as an inoculation method in transformation experi ments. Moreover, the addition of AS did not particularly increase transformation efficiency. Expression was detected in buds, and hence indicate that bean cotyledonary nodes are amenable to transformation and subsequent regene ration.Transient gene expression using the particle gun has been achieved on cotyledons as well a:• around isolated apical meristems of germinating beans. For this purpose the plasmid pGV1 040 was directly coated by CaCI 2 precipitation onto 1 J.Lm tungsten microprojectiles. We have been working on the improvement of the impact density on target tissues, which is extremely important as to increase the probability of hitting a cell that will give rise to a regenerated plant.Future studies include the following :1. Study the early events of Agrobacterium-medíated transformation by determining the spatial arrangement of regenerable ce lis of bean cotyledonary nodes that are amenable to transformation usi ng an improved gus gene construct, the gusintron construct (Vancanneyt et al. , 1990). The use of an intron-containing gene completely eliminates background expression by the bacteria, which could hamper evaluation of GUS expression. Only eukaryotic cells are capable of splicing , which is the act of assembling exons to give rise to the mature mANA. The GUS assay also allows forthe analysis of DNA transfer events independently of tumor formation. Tumor formation is the result of phytohormones produced by the T -DNA gene products, and the resulting hormonal imbalance in the transformad tissue. An efficient DNA transfer could pass inadverted if the hormonal imbalance does not lead to tumor formation.2. Finally achieve genetic transformation of common beans and study the stable incorporation of the genetic information into the genome by molecular and genetic means. These include measuring gene expression at the transcriptional and translational levels, as well as studies on Mendelian inheritance of the traits. The synthesis of a cONA library from Phaseolus vulgaris was accomplished this year, after solving sorne problems encountered in the last step of the procedure , described in last year's BRU Annual Report. This library will serve as the source of genetic markers to further saturate the linkage map generated by C.E. Vallejos at the University of Florida, which is made up mostly of genomic ONA markers. The genetic map of Phaseolus currently comprises around 250 markers covering about 800 cM. Our work is part of the MSc thesis of H. Ramirez, UNC Palmira, aimed finally at the mapping of valuable agronomical traits, like resistance genes to the bruchid Acanthoscelides obtectus, to Anthracnosis ( Colletotrichum lindemuthianum), to Apion, orto Sean Golden Mosaic Virus (BGMV).The problems encountered in the production of the cONA library seem to have been in the low amount of cONA obtained befo re ligation into the plasmid vector. We overcame this inconvenience by utilizing a recently published protocol which uses the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) to amplify the synthesized cONA by several orders of magnitude (Jepson et al., 1991 ). Usually so me sequence information is needed in order to synthesize the oligonucleotides which will prime the reaction catalyzed by the thermostable Taq Polymerase. In this case the longer of the adaptors, which are used to generate sticky ends at both ends of the cONA, is used as primer, after filling the coh esive ends (see Fig . 1 ). The cONA was amplified over 35 cycles, that is equivalent toan amplification factor of 2 35 or more than 10 10 . After the amplification, cohesive ends were regenerated by digestion with Eco Rl, the 3'ends were dephosphorylated with alkaline phosphatase to prevent self-ligation, and finally the cONA was ligated into the pUC19 plasmíd vector and transformed into E. coli. 100 insert-containíng cONA clones, with an averag e size of 600 base pairs, have been selected. Their level of polymorphism is currently being assessed by hybridization to ONA of the bean parental lines selected for the tagging studies.   The overall goal of the project is to study the genetics of BGMV resistance and tag BGMV resistance tolerance genes (simply or quantitatively inherited} using molecular markers. BGMV is a geminivirus transmitted by the whitefly Bemisia tabaci. lt is the most important bean disease in Latín America. The incidence and severity of the BGMV are increasing in various countries due to the change in agricultura! practicas favoring the whitefly vectors. The preferred strategy for dealing with BGMV has been the screening of germplasm and the deployment of tolerant genotypes.Breeding for resistance has been slow and laborious due to the lack of true BGMV resistance sources. The sources of tolerance initially used belong to the tropical black beans gene pool such as the landrace \"Porrillo\". Additional sources of tolerance ha ve been recently identified. They be long to: 1) Mexican highland germplasm such as the Pinto 114 and Garrapato, 2) Andean germplasm, 3) P. coccineus germplasm. Combining sorne of the different sources has resulted in the release of severa! lines in Guatemala and other countries of Central America. The lines tested in the field (e.g., DOR 364, DOR 500 etc.) have consistently outyielded previous sources of tolerance and local landraces.Screening of populations is frequently complicated by difficulties in managing the Bemisia vector and in controlling extraneous problems in the field. Recent developments in the area of biotechnology have produced molecular tools that could assist breeders in managing the BGMV constraint. Molecular markers such as restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) and random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPO; Williams et al. , 1990) could provide additional tools for plant breeders to better characterize the progenies generated and to select lines with the desired gene combinations.RFLP markers from the already constructed bean map are being used on two populations: 1) a backcross recombinant population and 2) a recombinant inbred population. The backcross recombinant population was derived from a cross between DOR 60 (Porrillo source) and APN 18-1 while the recombinant inbred was derived from a cross between DOR 364 (Pinto and Porrillo source} and A 686. The screening for BGMV has already been conducted under field conditions in Guatemala.In addition to RFLP, prelimi nary work is being initiated with random primers to look at the feasibility of usi ng the random amplified polymorph ic DNAs (RAPO) technique on resistant and susceptible bulk for the mapping (Michelmore et al., 1991 }. The DOR 60 by APN 18-1 population is also being used for two additional traits, Apion and anthracnose, race Kappa. The Apion characterization will be conducted in Honduras, and like BGMV is a trait difficult to screen for and does not occur in Colombia. Molecular markers will facilitate the breeding effort, specially by combining them with BGMV markers. Tagging the anthracnose resistance gene to race Kappa will allow a pyramiding scheme for disease resistance. levels of mortality in the first instar and diminished female fertility. The genetic is turning out to be more complex than it is the case with arcelin, a protein from the lectin family leading to high levels of resistance against the other important bruchid, the Mexican Sean Weevil (Zabrotes subfasciatus). Arcelin stands for tour, probably five, related allelic genes of simple inheritance, which are mutually exclusive in the homozygotes. The resistance to the Sean Weevil seems to be inherited as two recessive genes, and no protein product has been identified so far that goes with the resistance trait (Kornegay and Cardona, 1991 ), but the data are not conclusive yet. Cytoplasmic inheritance is one of the possibilities that remains to be studied, still.Together with the Sean Entomology Group, C. Cardona and coworkers, we have started the search for factors involved in the resistance to the Sean Weevil in order to understand the underlying mechanisms and thus develop breeding strategies and tools for that purpose , like biochemical or serological tools for screening programs.So far, purified proteins like phaseolin , phytohemagglutinin or arcelin have not shown to confer resistance when added to artificial seed. In a first attempt to pinpoint down a possible resistance factor, we have fractionated protein extracts. Protein was extracted with 0.3 M NaCI pH 3, and the extract either fractionated by acetone precipitation in three steps (0-20, 20-40, 40-80 vol% acetone) or precipitated as a single 80 vol% acetone step. Another 0.5 M acetic acid extract was precipitated directly with 80 vol% acetone. The precipitates we re then lyophilized for inclusion into artificial seed on a susceptible background flour (lea Pijao). This type of fractionation gives a rough separation of proteins by molecular weight; the solubility in acetone depends largely on hydrophilicity parameters (Fig. 1 ).Extracts and protein fractionation were done from a resista nt bean accession (G12954), an intermediate (G12880) anda susceptible one (lea Pijao). The 80 vol% fraction from the resistant accession led to high levels of mortality as compared to the corresponding fraction from the susceptible one. Other fractions showed a dosis response, this is also true for the susceptible cultivar, which can be interpretad as a hyperproteic diet. The results are entomologically relevant and highly significant on a statistical basis (see Fig. 2 for percent emergence data).The feeding trials and its evaluation took severa! months. After thorough evaluation and discussion we went into a second round of experimentation. A new wild susceptible accession was included (G1 0019). The interesting 80 vol% acetone fracti on has been further fractionated (40-60 and 60-80 vol% acetone) to narrow down the antibiotic factors. This time more flour was extracted asto obtain enough protein from each fraction to be able to test severa\\ concentrations in the artificial se e d. lnhibitors of the insect's digestiva processes have been described as resistance factors for other crops. Protease inhibitors are a main source of resistance (Ryan, 1990), a-amylase inhibitors have been cited in connection with resistance to bruchids (Huesing et al., 1991 ;lshi moto and Kitamura, 1991 ). The subunits of the a-amylase inhibitor are small, 15-18 kD glycoproteins, which is the range of proteins in the 80% fraction. lndividually isolated middle guts of the Sean Weevil are the source of a-amylase activity to check for inhibitory activities in extracts from resistant vs susceptible accessions. This survey has just been started.Severa! non-proteinaceous factors conferring resistance against bruchids have been extensively studied in legume seeds (Gateh ouse et al., 1990). Complementary research on aromatic compounds and sugars using HPLC technology to look for factors specifically involved in the resistance to the Sean Weevil is being carried out (see HPLC, the Multipurpose Approach) . Fiq. l Bean protein fractions incorporated int o artificial seed. N umbers represent % acetone for precipitation; Ac, acetic acid extract; T, total protein (Ac and T were precipitated with 80% acetone; n, non-precipitated). P, Pijao, susceptible check; R, Gl2954, resistant accession. ","tokenCount":"4938"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4f196c9b93395b311dd10652e41d6fee","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/96b8108d-8465-435a-b656-e8133ae68a07/retrieve","id":"1886706146"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b241b8cc-d77e-4680-a0ca-4e53cac740a3","pagecount":"4","content":"Tadelle's ODK! Take the survey! Wherefore (art thou) ILRI? Jimmy Smith opened our APM yesterday with a quick review of where the institute has come from, where it is now and where it's going. If, unlike Mr Hastings (see PPT), we are not lost, where are we going? Well, for example, we're moving:  from pathways out of poverty to better lives through livestock.  from reactive responses to proactive management of livestock 'bads'.  from regional presence to regional programs.  And from action research to development in action.And how will we get there? We must:  make ILRI the world's renowned research for development institution.Yesterday, the first day of ILRI's 2013 APM, many ILRI staff gathered to discuss strategic issues and to simply get to know each other better. I'm part of the organizing committee of this year's meeting. It's been hard work to come up with a program of activities that will keep a mixed crowd of researchers and administrators engaged for three days. We also are ambitious that the meeting helps us figure out how ILRI can better unlock livestock development potential through science, influence and capacity development. This is all part of delivering ILRI's new strategy. Together with ILRI's Barry Shapiro and Peter Ballantyne (based in Addis), Boni Moyo (Mozambique), Iddo Dror, Stuart Worsley and Silvia Silvestri (Nairobi), along with a local army of helpful and dedicated colleagues, we've worked under the direction of Peter Thorne (Addis) to devise an interesting program of activities, to set up a field of tents (one of which is half the size of a football field), to make arrangements to feed and house 300-plus participants-and to try to keep everybody happy!The night before the opening day, some of us were anxious that the 'sauce' we'd prepared for our colleagues might not go down so well. Too much chilli, metmita on our injera perhaps??? Bon appétit! jocadilhon.blogspot.com Livestock-a 'bank on legs'  Forage Genebank hits 30 ILRI genebank manager Alexandra Jorge reported that the popular livestock forage known as Napier (or 'elephant') grass is suffering from two life-threatening diseases, smut and stunt.To better control these diseases, ILRI and partners tested many Napier varieties and determined those that both produce a lot biomass and possess resistance to these diseases.Jorge argued that ILRI's 30-year old Forage Genebank is an undertapped resource and challenged ILRI scientists to find innovative ways to exploit its possibilities more fully in future.Responding to Jorge's remarks, Girma Kassa, of the USAIDfunded Livestock Market Development project, noted that lack of feeds is among the issues that are top of his agenda.'Drought-tolerant forages would be of tremendous help in pastoral areas', he said. But how, he asked, should these varieties be taken up by policymakers and upscaled? Edmealem Shitaye, project manager at FAO, underlined the need to work with local people.Tadesse Sori, of the Ethiopian Ministry of Livestock Development, said that livestock feed is indeed critically important in Ethiopia. 'There will be great interest in this grass once the upscaling path is clear', he said.People think goats are good for women; our research in Mozambique suggests otherwise (Birgit Boogard)The grass is always greener at ILRI. Sorry Alexandra, the sheep didn't like your forages!!! Profiling Boni Moyo 1. The best thing about her job I'm a people person, so I really like that I get to meet many people in my line of work from farmers to researchers to ministers and all the people involved in research.Being a wife, a mother of 3 beautiful daughters. And being a grandmother to a boy who turns 1 this Friday completes me!APMs and other events that bring people together! I like how we get to know each other better in such events and bond as a family! 4. My APM expectations I already learnt much from yesterday's session and am looking forward to more of such learning and sharing. ","tokenCount":"644"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"524e34baeca2b9274b2afbdf4ec4b31b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8e747990-5d1b-44c8-ae56-cc7bbfe01fb6/retrieve","id":"-1135261207"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6e7fe3f5-d9e6-4ce3-a911-97e3f9fee2e4","pagecount":"12","content":"L'Institut international des ressources phytogénétiques (IPGRI) fait partie des 16 centres de recherche du Groupe consultatif pour la recherche agricole internationale (GCRAI). Il a reçu le mandat de promouvoir la conservation et l'exploitation des ressources phytogénétiques au profit des générations présentes et futures. Sa volonté de travailler avec les instances nationales chargées des ressources phytogénétiques se reflète dans le choix de ses huit priorités stratégiques, qui sont: le renforcement des systèmes nationaux, la collaboration avec divers réseaux, l'amélioration des stratégies et techniques de conservation, l'intensification de l'usage de ressources phytogénétiques, la gestion et la diffusion de l'information, la résolution des problèmes socio-économiques et politiques, et la conservation, ainsi que l'utilisation, de certaines cultures spécifiques et des ressources génétiques des forêts.À cet égard, l'application à l'échelon national des dispositions du Traité international sur les ressources phytogénétiques a été citée comme priorité des priorités, de même que la mise sur pied de nouveaux forums de discussion chargés de se pencher sur les questions soulevées par ledit Traité. Le reste de la liste comprend l'identification de nouvelles parties prenantes et la mobilisation des ressources nécessaires pour relever les défis de la mise en oeuvre. Les participants ont préconisé l'harmonisation des approches, la coordination et la coopération à l'échelon régional lorsqu'il s'agira de développer les capacités nécessaires pour adapter le Traité aux réalités locales, et l'élaboration de législations nationales appropriées. L'organisme éthiopien chargé de la conservation et de l'étude de la diversité biologique, l'IBCR (Institute for Biodiversity Conservation and Research), puis le Centre des ressources phytogénétiques de la SADC (SPGRC) et l'Union africaine ont, chacun, présenté des exposés sur les perspectives des ressources phytogénétiques aux plans national, sous-régional et régional. L'importance cruciale des processus destinés à faire connaître et à populariser la Loi-modèle sur les ressources phytogénétiques proposée par l'OUA a été mise en relief. Pour suppléer les initiatives régionales, il a été suggéré de créer des réseaux de banques de gènes nationales dotées de capacités accrues qui seraient chargées de conserver des collections régionales de pools géniques spécifiques.On a évoqué la possibilité d'améliorer la participation de l'Afrique aux processus mondiaux qui ont lieu autour du thème de la diversité biologique afin d'assurer que les normes élaborées répondent bien aux attentes du continent. À ce propos, les sujets de préoccupation les plus importants étaient :• la prise en compte des problèmes de l'Afrique dans le programme d'action mondial L a ville de Nairobi, au Kenya, a été, du 2 au 3 avril 2002, le cadre d'un des événements marquants de cette année, en l'occurrence, la Table ronde sur les ressources phytogénétiques dans le renouveau de l'Afrique, une réunion destinée à identifier, examiner et promouvoir des moyens d'intégrer la conservation et l'utilisation durable des ressources phytogénétiques, ainsi que le partage des bénéfices tirés de leur exploitation, dans le programme du Nouveau partenariat pour le développement de l'Afrique (NEPAD).Töpfer et de deux hauts responsables du PNUE, MM. Paul Chabeda et Donald Kaniaru. Les deux représentants de l'IPGRI ont informé le Directeur exécutif du PNUE de la mission de l'IPGRI en Afrique, une région riche en centres de diversité agricole qui n'a pas fini de dévoiler ses trésors botaniques. Ils l'ont ensuite mis au courant de la façon dont l'IPGRI travaille avec ses partenaires, de la participation du GCRAI au Sommet mondial sur le développement durable qui devait se tenir sous peu ; et du rôle que l'IPGRI est appelé à jouer, aux côtés du PNUE, dans le volet environnemental du NEPAD.M. Töpfer a souligné l'importance, pour leurs deux organisations, de rester en contact régulier afin de pouvoir discuter des modalités de leur coopération dans les domaines de la sécurité biologique, des ressources génétiques, du développement des capacités par le biais du FEM, de l'agriculture, de la foresterie et de la Convention sur la diversité biologique, pour ne citer que les L'IPGRI a une longue pratique de la collecte de germoplasmes et de leur conservation ex situ -en chambre froide pour les semences orthodoxes et en champ, sous forme de plantes entières, pour les espèces qui ont des semences récalcitrantes. Cela lui a permis de remarquer une importante lacune qui handicape de nombreuses banques de gènes, à savoir, l'absence de procédés économiques de séchage de semences. En effet, la plupart d'entre elles font appel à l'ultradéshydratation, une méthode qui manque de fiabilité et gonfle la facture d'électricité. Le goulot d'étranglement créé par cette situation a incité l'IPGRI à consacrer davantage de ressources à la mise au point de techniques peu coûteuses (séchage sous abri, à l'énergie solaire, au gel de silice, etc.). Il est actuellement en train d'évaluer, en collaboration avec la GBK, l'impact de ces techniques sur la qualité des semences.D'après ce qu'on dit, l'Afrique est un centre de diversité de Coffea. Le record de la plus grande diversité génétique caféière est détenu par Madagascar. La Tanzanie arrive en deuxième position, avec 14 espèces endémiques. Les collections de germoplasmes de caféiers dont le continent dispose ont été créées, il y a des années, par la FAO. Elles sont conservées en champ, dans des banques de gènes qui en hébergent parfois plusieurs au même endroit. Les risques d'érosion et de perte de certaines des ressources génétiques les plus importantes sont, de ce fait, très élevés. Malheureusement, en dépit des résultats de quelques études qui montrent que certaines d'entre elles peuvent être orthodoxes, les graines de café se classent parmi les semences récalcitrantes et ne peuvent donc pas être conservées à long terme au moyen de méthodes normales. L'IPGRI a, en conséquence, décidé d'accorder une importance particulière à la conservation in situ, à la mise au point de techniques complémentaires de conservation (cryoconservation) et à la culture in vitro. Des efforts similaires sont faits pour la conservation des semences d'arbres récalcitrantes.Les études de diversité sont des outils dont on se sert dans la conception d'initiatives de conservation. Dans le cadre de ces activités, l'IPGRI a participé à la coordination et à l'orientation scientifique de la conservation in situ, ainsi qu'à l'élaboration de méthodes d'évaluation de l'érosion génétique du riz et de l'éleusine. À l'heure actuelle, il assure, conjointement avec la SUA et le NPGRC, la coordination d'un projet de conservation de la diversité biologique agricole de la région montagneuse de l'Uluguru, en Tanzanie. Étant donné que l'IPGRI ne possède pas de laboratoire, les travaux tels que la culture in vitro et l'analyse génétique moléculaire se font en collaboration avec des institutions partenaires qui disposent d'installations appropriées, à l'exemple de la Jomo Kenyata University of Agriculture and Technology et du KARI.   ans l'esprit du public zambien, les légumesfeuilles traditionnels africains (LFA) vont de pair avec la cuisine des paysans. En effet, dans les communautés rurales de ce pays, même celles où l'élevage prédomine, plus de 90 % des plats en contiennent.Les habitants des villes, eux, mangent surtout des légumes exotiques du genre chou, navette, chou de Chine, etc., qui sont spécialement cultivés à leur intention. À cause de la crise économique, la consommation de ces légumes a continuellement augmenté, en particulier chez les populations à faible revenu. Des quantités limitées de légumes traditionnels aussi bien frais que séchés sont quand même disponibles sur les marchés urbains.Cela dit, les choses sont en train de changer petit à petit. Il y a environ cinq ans, les quantités de LFA acheminées vers les centres urbains ont commencé à augmenter en réponse à un accroissement de l'intérêt des citadins pour ces légumes et à une hausse consécutive de la demande. Il se peut aussi que cette évolution ait été causée par la pression économique qui a poussé bon nombre de gens, en particulier chez les femmes, à s'engager dans divers petits commerces.Ces dernières années, on a assisté à l'entrée progressive des LFA dans le circuit commercial. À l'heure actuelle, ce sont les hôtels, les restaurants et les supermarchés qui assurent leur promotion. Au début, les grands hôtels n'en servaient qu'une fois par semaine, lors de \"soirées africaines\" consacrées à la cuisine traditionnelle du continent. À ces occasions, on pouvait généralement trouver des plats comportant des LFA, la plupart du temps, des feuilles de courge, de l'amarante ou du gombo. Comme l'a révélé l'enquête menée par l'IPGRI,Photo : Patrick Maundu production de feuilles en saison sèche ou en saison des pluies auprès des producteurs et l'acheminent dans les grands centres urbains par des cars de transport en commun. Dans les marchés de ces villes, les détaillants vendent les feuilles de Bissap en tas ou en bottes de 10 à 100 FCFA suivant le marché et la saison. La production des feuilles se fait en monoculture durant la saison sèche. En saison des pluies, les feuilles peuvent être récoltées à l'état sauvage. Les calices de ce bissap vert sont souvent utilisés à l'état frais ou après séchage. Les producteurs sont tellement familiarisés avec le Bissap vert qu'ils arrivent à distinguer deux variétés en fonction des préférences des groupes ethniques. La variété à feuilles larges ou \"Mame Diarra\" et celles à feuilles étroites ou \"Bambara\" plus acide. La première est surtout utilisée par les ethnies \"Ouolof, sérère et Toucouleur\" et est consommée sous forme de \"Teumbeul\" dans le plat national à base de riz et de poissons. La variété \"Bambara\" est surtout préférée par l'ethnie \"Diola\" pour la préparation du \"Mbeugeuth\" qui accompagne le plat de riz blanc. Lors de la commercialisation, les feuilles de la variété Bambara sont vendues en premier, suivies de \"Mame Diarra\" et en dernier lieu celles des variétés de Bissap rouge.Les feuilles des variétés de Bissap rouge sont achetés seulement lorsque les deux premières variétés (\"Mame Diarra et Bambara\") sont épuisées. Le Bissap rouge est principalement cultivé pour ses calices. Ils sont récoltés puis séchés au soleil et servent à la confection de boisson largement consommée dans les ménages sénégalais et dans la plupart des restaurants des villes du Sénégal.On note la présence de plusieurs acteurs dans la commercialisation du bissap : Les producteurs, les intermédiaires et les détaillants.Emballage du Bissap avant le transport, Sénégal Photo: Mikkel Grum M algré les vastes possibilités que les légumes-feuilles d'Afrique (LFA) offrent au plan de l'amélioration de la nutrition, la sécurité alimentaire des populations aussi bien urbaines que rurales du continent ne cesse de se détériorer. Il est à présent de plus en plus certain que la faute en revient au manque de semences et à l'absence d'un système de distribution semencière adéquat, deux facteurs qui constituent des obstacles importants à une plus grande disponibilité de ces légumes.On remarquera en effet que les LFA sont véritablement des \"plantes alimentaires délaissées\" : les agriculteurs n'attachent aucune importance à leur amélioration, et les connaissances relatives à la collecte, au traitement et à la propagation de leurs semences sont en train de sombrer rapidement dans l'oubli. Cette négligence a conduit à un dangereux amenuisement de la base alimentaire de tout le continent.À cela se rajoute l'opinion largement répandue que, puisque ces plantes ont été envoyées par le ciel, leurs semences ne devraient pas être monnayées, attitude qui a réduit le commerce de ces dernières à un minimum, alors que rien dans la tradition ne s'oppose à ce qu'on les vende, surtout si leur collecte et leur traitement exigent beaucoup de temps.Ainsi, lors d'une enquête sur la production et la distribution de semences de LFA effectuée dans le district de Nyeri, au Kenya, par le groupe d'entraide \"Help\" qui opère dans la circonscription administrative de Kieni East, la plupart des personnes interrogées n'ont fait que rire de l'idée qu'un tel commerce puisse être lucratif. Effectivement, les échanges entre amis, voisins ou parents y sont le moyen le plus courant de se procurer des semences de LFA, raison pour laquelle les magasins d'articles agricoles de la région n'en vendent pas. L'enquête a montré que seuls 2 % des 170 agriculteurs étudiés en ont acheté, des transactions qui n'ont porté que sur trois sortes de plantes, en l'occurrence, le 'kahurura' (Cucurbita ficifolia), la courge et l'amarante.Si, en plus de tout ce qui précède, on tient compte du fait que la \"distribution parallèle ou accidentelle\" ne prévoit pas le stockage des graines en vue d'une utilisation ultérieure, qu'elle dépend des caprices de la météo, et que les semences ainsi obtenues sont donc principalement destinées à être plantées immédiatement, on arrive à la conclusion qu'il est nécessaire non seulement de réorganiser le système de distribution, mais surtout de faire comprendre à la population qu'on peut vendre les semences de LFA et qu'il est possible d'en faire une source de revenus. L es polyphénols sont d'importants produits du métabolisme secondaire des plantes. On les trouve en abondance dans les parties vertes et les feuilles de ces dernières. À l'heure actuelle, le nombre des composés phénoliques connus se monte à des milliers. Ils sont partout, dans la nature. Et, bien qu'ils n'en constituent qu'une toute petite partie, ils jouent un rôle important dans notre alimentation. Ils sont à l'origine de l'astringence de certains aliments et de l'amertume que d'autres laissent sur la langue. Ils sont aussi, en partie, responsables de la couleur mi-jaune mi-brune de certains fruits et légumes.Les polyphénols étaient autrefois considérés par les nutritionnistes comme des éléments anti-nutritifs qui entravent l'assimilation des protéines ; une alimentation riche en polyphénols peut effectivement provoquer une carence apparente en protéines même si les apports en la matière sont adéquats.Mais, ces dernières années, les effets positifs qu'ils exercent sur l'organisme humain en leur qualité d'antioxydants ont commencé à être reconnus, notamment dans le domaine de la médecine Une visite instructive entre voisins suite de la page 2 nous donna, plus tard, l'occasion de rendre la plante à la communauté. Un membre de la famille qui vivait à quelque 65 km de là en avait encore en sa possession et était prêt à en donner des graines à la banque de gènes, ainsi qu'à l'Institut et à la communauté. Une fois les graines entre leurs mains, les femmes nous promirent de veiller à ce que ce genre de problème ne se reproduise pas. Ayant été à deux doigts de perdre le plus savoureux et le plus apprécié de leurs légumes-feuilles, elles étaient maintenant bien conscientes de la nécessité d'assurer la viabilité à long terme des récoltes. Il s'agit, à n'en pas douter, d'une belle réussite pour le projet ! Note : On est maintenant en train de procéder à l'étude taxinomique de la plante. Nous vous communiquerons son nom scientifique dans le prochain numéro.Pour en savoir plus, contacter : Ineke Vorster, ARC-Vegetable and Ornamental Plant Institute, South Africa ; Ineke@IGS1.AGRIC.ZA (env. 625 m2) et où les maisonnées comptent, en moyenne, huit personnes. Les champs, à la fois exigus et surexploités, y présentent une productivité extrêmement faible, ce qui rend l'agriculture moins intéressante que le petit commerce, activité pratiquée par un pourcentage considérable des habitants de cette région. Une enquête initiale effectuée auprès des membres de quatre groupes appartenant à la tranche active de la population (Esabalu, Mundabala, Ebulako et Sunga) a, de plus, révélé que seules les femmes d'un certain âge cultivaient des légumes locaux.Ayant constaté l'existence de lacunes non seulement dans l'instruction mais aussi dans l'engagement des jeunes et des enfants de la région, l'organisation a décidé d'axer ses efforts de popularisation des LFA sur ces deux groupes. L'idée s'est avérée payante. Leur intérêt éveillé par les démonstrations en milieu réel effectuées dans les communautés -pour les éléments non scolarisés -et dans les écoles, ces jeunes et ces enfants se sont mis à planter des légumes locaux et à participer davantage à leur vente. Il n'y a pas longtemps, ils ont procédé à des échanges de recettes et à la documentation de ces dernières.On peut donc dire que le programme a été bénéfique, et qu'il l'a été tout particulièrement pour les écoliers et pour les communautés qui y ont pris part.Pour en savoir plus, contacter : wfidelis@hotmail.com L e \"Maseno Inter-Christian Welfare Project\" (MIWP) est un programme oecuménique d'action sociale qui, en collaboration avec les communautés, vient en aide aux enfants dits \"marginaux\" (\"borderline children\"), terme par lequel on désigne, dans le parler local, les enfants d'âge scolaire privés d'accès à l'éducation et à d'autres besoins essentiels tels que nourriture, logement et soutien émotionnel. Le MIWP intervient dans de nombreux domaines, dont la promotion des ressources locales pouvant servir à améliorer la production agricole. C'est dans ce cadre que s'inscrit l'action en faveur des légumes-feuilles africains qu'il entreprend conjointement avec l'IPGRI depuis le mois d'août 2001.Le projet se déroule dans une région où les parcelles font moins d'un huitième d'acre Leçons de choses et travaux pratiques L es habitants de Mars et Glenroy, deux villages situés à 500 mètres l'un de l'autre, dans la province sud-africaine de Limpopo, ont beaucoup de choses en commun. Ils travaillent, prient et jouent ensemble. Ils se font les mêmes soucis à propos de leurs deux problèmes principaux, à savoir la sécheresse et les incursions du bétail dans leurs champs. Et ils ont ensemble fait l'expérience de ce que ces problèmes peuvent occasionner à leurs légumes-feuilles traditionnels (LFA).Tout a commencé le jour où les femmes des deux villages se sont penchées sur les utilisations des LFA et les systèmes semenciers en usage pour ces derniers. C'était en hiver; il faisait froid. Les femmes étaient en train d'établir la liste de leurs priorités quand la conversation, qui s'était portée sur le \"phara\" (j'ai pu reconnaître le mot car il était sur la liste) devint très animée. Le vulgarisateur nous en expliqua la raison : personne dans les deux villages n'avait plus de semences de cette plante, à part l'une d'entre elles, qui en avait gardé une petite quantité. La décision de commencer à collecter des graines à partir de la saison suivante fut prise sur-le-champ. Elles convinrent de toutes s'y mettre car il ne fallait pas que la plante disparaisse de la région.Lors de la réunion d'évaluation participative rurale suivante, les villageois nous demandèrent de les aider. Il ne restait plus aucun pied de \"phara\" dans le voisinage. La sécheresse et les vaches en avaient anéanti toute la population. Après un court débat, les femmes décidèrent de demander aux villages des environs s'ils en avaient encore. On discuta des stratégies à adopter au cas où la réintroduction de la plante réussirait. Nous expliquâmes l'importance des systèmes semenciers et de la viabilité à long terme des prélèvements. Cette première vraie campagne de sensibilisation à l'importance de l'utilisation durable fut un succès. Tout le monde se rendit mieux compte de l'influence que leur environnement particulier peut avoir sur les légumes-feuilles.  ","tokenCount":"3066"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"842ded92e08b9feb70e49a22238fd65e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/6d4d8f21-c74f-4927-b412-290fe0b476cd/retrieve","id":"-94295991"},"keywords":["Traiter les nombres","les unités","les abréviations et la nomenclature"],"sieverID":"f65b806f-672a-4442-8ac5-5e30b73ab527","pagecount":"202","content":"Centre technique de coopération agricole et rurale (CTA) est une institution internationale conjointe des États du Groupe ACP (Afrique, Caraïbes, Pacifique) et de l'Union européenne (UE). Il intervient dans les pays ACP pour améliorer la sécurité alimentaire et nutritionnelle, accroître la prospérité dans les zones rurales et garantir une bonne gestion des ressources naturelles. Il facilite l'accès à l'information et aux connaissances, favorise l'élaboration des politiques agricoles dans la concertation et renforce les capacités des institutions et communautés concernées. Le CTA opère dans le cadre de l'Accord de Cotonou et est financé par l'UE. Pour plus d'informations sur le CTA, visitez www.cta.int.Je me réjouis de constater que le CTA continue de jouer un rôle important en abordant le sujet de la rédaction scientifique dans la recherche agricole.La recherche agricole dans les pays d'Afrique, des Caraïbes et du Pacifique (ACP) se caractérise par une communication médiocre et une utilisation limitée de ses résultats par les bénéficiaires. On peut notamment pointer du doigt le manque de programmes de formation formels à la rédaction et à l'édition scientifiques. Par conséquent, bien qu'on investisse beaucoup dans la recherche, le contenu accessible aux utilisateurs demeure pauvre, qu'il s'agisse des publications évaluées par des pairs ou des supports de vulgarisation. Normalement, une fois leurs recherches terminées, les scientifiques devraient communiquer et partager leurs résultats avec leurs collègues et l'ensemble de la communauté scientifique. Pour y parvenir, les scientifiques doivent développer la culture de la rédaction et de la communication afin de promouvoir la diffusion et l'utilisation efficaces des résultats de leurs recherches.Une communication efficace fait partie intégrante du travail scientifique. Les scientifiques et les agents de développement sont motivés par des raisons diverses à rédiger des articles de recherche et à les publier dans des revues générales et techniques. L'initiative originale d'AfricaRice (anciennement WARDA) et du CTA visant à améliorer la rédaction scientifique dans la recherche agricole a été très bien accueillie. Face aux progrès d'Internet et des autres technologies de la communication, la publication originale (1995) a été révisée pour refléter les nouveaux développements, en incluant notamment la publication électronique et les revues en ligne. Nous croyons que cette révision apportera une contribution utile aux efforts des chercheurs agricoles, des éditeurs et de l'ensemble de la communauté scientifique.Cette édition révisée aborde les questions pratiques auxquelles les chercheurs agricoles sont confrontés quotidiennement. Elle vise à prodiguer des orientations et des conseils précieux aux scientifiques agricoles des pays ACP, qui peinent souvent dans la rédaction et la publication d'écrits de recherche scientifique. Le présent ouvrage aborde par ailleurs la difficulté de communiquer avec des publics non scientifiques et de les informer des avantages de l'investissement dans la recherche agricole.Je tiens à remercier les contributeurs qui ont consacré leur temps et leur énergie à la révision et, dans certains cas, à la réécriture de divers chapitres de cette publication. Je voudrais également exprimer ma reconnaissance profonde envers les anciens stagiaires des cours de rédaction scientifique du CTA, dont les questions et les commentaires ont fourni un retour utile et une inspiration aux auteurs lors de la mise à jour de ce manuel.Directeur du CTALors de la préparation de la nouvelle édition de « Rédaction scientifique pour les chercheurs agricoles », la conception du manuel a été envisagée et pensée dans deux optiques majeures. Premièrement, cet ouvrage se veut un guide pour les scientifiques dans la recherche agricole et les autres professionnels de la rédaction d'articles de recherche pour la publication dans des revues scientifiques et dans la préparation d'articles de recherche. Deuxièmement, il sert de manuel de ressources en formation pour l'organisation de cours de formation en rédaction scientifique.Par rapport à l'édition originale, cette nouvelle édition est agrémentée de deux nouveaux chapitres :-Rapporter des résultats statistiques dans les documents de recherche ; -Publication électronique.De plus, les chapitres originaux ont été réécrits afin de refléter les développements actuels en matière de communication des informations scientifiques et de rendre le contenu plus complet et facilement compréhensible.À la fin de certains chapitres, quand cela se justifie, des exercices sont proposés pour faciliter la compréhension du sujet du chapitre. L'annexe de cette nouvelle édition présente des orientations pour un cadre de planification et de gestion des cours de formation en rédaction scientifique, ainsi que des exercices qui peuvent servir de guide pour préparer des exercices pratiques dans les cours de formation en groupe. Ces exercices peuvent être adaptés aux circonstances particulières de l'organisation des cours de formation.Nous espérons et croyons que cette nouvelle édition atteindra les deux objectifs susmentionnés. Le CTA et les éditeurs remercient tous les auteurs qui ont contribué à cette nouvelle édition. Nous espérons que cet ouvrage sera utile pour la promotion efficace de la communication des résultats de la recherche agricole et pour le soutien aux cours de formation en groupe en rédaction scientifique à destination des scientifiques spécialistes de la recherche agricole.Plusieurs institutions, organisations et réseaux pour la recherche et le développement agricoles en Afrique ont identifié la nécessité d'organiser des formations ciblées pour les scientifiques spécialistes de la recherche agricole de la région sur les procédures et les techniques de rédaction et de publication des résultats de leurs recherches.Au début des années 1990, la West Africa Rice Development Association (WARDA) et le West African Farming Systems Research Network (WAFRSN), coordonnés au sein du projet de recherche et de développement des céréales alimentaires semi-arides (SAFGRAD), se sont réunis à Bouaké (Côte d'Ivoire) pour discuter de ce besoin de formation, et ce dans un effort conjoint visant à organiser une série de cours de formation en rédaction scientifique à destination des scientifiques spécialistes de la recherche agricole en Afrique de l'Ouest. Cette discussion a débouché sur une consultation d'experts à Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) avec le soutien de la Fondation Ford et du Centre technique de coopération agricole et rurale (CTA) en 1991.Lors de cette consultation, le public cible de ces cours a été identifié, les détails du cursus de formation et les modèles d'instruction ont été élaborés et un projet de formation triennale a été mis au point. Un des composants importants de ce projet était le développement et la publication d'un manuel de formation pour accompagner ces cours.Les formations en groupe ont débuté au Togo en 1991 et se sont poursuivies les années suivantes, avec, depuis 1994, la collaboration du Centre international pour la recherche en agroforesterie (ICRAF). Nos objectifs à atteindre dans ces cours sont les suivants :-Renforcer les capacités de communication scientifique des scientifiques dans la recherche agricole en Afrique ; -Encourager et promouvoir une culture de la publication scientifique parmi les chercheurs agricoles ; -Créer une communauté de chercheurs agricoles communiquant régulièrement les uns avec les autres et ainsi réduire au maximum l'isolement scientifique ; -Partager des expériences sur les problèmes rencontrés par les chercheurs cherchant à publier leurs recherches.Lors des sessions de formation, nous nous concentrons sur l'analyse de la structure d'un rapport de recherche scientifique, sur l'organisation du processus de rédaction, sur le respect du style et de l'éthique dans la rédaction scientifique, sur la citation correcte des références et sur la présentation orale des résultats de la recherche agricole.Nous adoptons une approche à plusieurs facettes alliant cours, interactivité totale entre les formateurs et les stagiaires et entre les stagiaires eux-mêmes, apprentissage par l'expérience et les commentaires, exercices pratiques, activités en groupe, discussions et critiques en groupe, démonstrations et enfin utilisation d'enregistrements vidéo.Ce manuel de référence de formation a été mis au point et testé lorsque nous avons mis en place ce projet de formation. En le rédigeant, nous nous sommes efforcés d'inclure les procédures de citation des références qui sont spécifiées dans le Manuel révisé du Conseil des éditeurs en biologie Scientific Style and Format, publié en 1994. Nous espérons qu'il servira de guide pour les jeunes scientifiques de la recherche agricole qui commencent leur carrière dans la recherche et la publication scientifique.Le manuel peut également être utilisé pour la préparation de cours et de notes de cours de formations à la rédaction scientifique au niveau national. Dans de tels cas, il est fortement recommandé d'adapter le cursus aux besoins particuliers du public cible en sélectionnant les unités et les sujets du présent ouvrage et en mettant l'accent nécessaire sur ceux qui présentent un intérêt particulier pour le groupe formé.Dans leur forme initiale, les revues de recherche peuvent être largement diffusées, sous forme papier ou en ligne. Dans leur forme secondaire, où les titres et les résumés sont publiés par l'entreprise de publication secondaire, elles sont diffusées à l'échelle mondiale.Il est très courant d'évaluer le succès et la promotion d'un scientifique à l'aune du nombre d'articles publiés. Aux États-Unis et dans certains autres pays, cela va même plus loin : si un scientifique ne publie pas d'articles de recherche, il ne peut obtenir de financement et peut perdre son travail.Les conclusions de la plupart des articles de recherche internationaux sont considérées comme des faits avérés, car elles ont été évaluées et jugées par des experts du domaine avant que leur publication soit autorisée. La publication dans les journaux étrangers étant généralement soumise à des exigences strictes, il est souvent difficile d'obtenir l'acceptation d'un article local.L'objectif principal de la publication évaluée par les pairs est de rendre plus accessible un travail qui mérite d'être publié. Les scientifiques devraient être récompensés non pas pour avoir rédigé un article, mais pour avoir réalisé un travail d'un niveau suffisant pour en tirer un article acceptable pour un public critique. Le système ne peut mesurer le mérite et la promotion si n'importe quel article est accepté et publié sans évaluation critique.La publication internationale des résultats de recherche stimulera le débat et encouragera la réalisation de travaux supplémentaires sur le sujet. Cela facilitera l'échange d'informations, approfondira les connaissances avancées et ouvrira de nouveaux horizons pour la recherche. Pour ce faire, l'article devra être soumis à une revue spécifique lue par un public adapté de chercheurs intéressés.« Le contenu technique de n'importe quelle publication est essentiel à la compréhension du public visé. »Les conférences permettent aux scientifiques de présenter des résultats de recherches qui sont encore au stade préliminaire, mais qui affichent cependant des développements intéressants. Les sessions de conférences étant limitées dans le temps, les articles présentés oralement sont nécessairement courts. Ils se limitent habituellement à une présentation succincte des méthodes et, surtout, des résultats, qui peuvent être préliminaires, ainsi que de certaines questions clairement soulevées lors de la discussion. Des réflexions personnelles peuvent être introduites : l'interprétation est de loin l'aspect qui produit le plus d'impact. La version présentée pour la publication peut être plus approfondie. Les organisateurs de conférences acceptent ou rejettent les documents sur la base d'un extrait soumis par l'auteur.Les réviseurs compilent une liste de documents et les répartissent dans les diverses sections de la conférence. Habituellement, tous les articles soumis ne peuvent être lus. C'est pourquoi les organisateurs proposent aux auteurs d'articles moins importants, mais tout de même intéressants, de présenter une partie de leur travail sous la forme d'une affiche. Les auteurs disposent d'un espace muralhabituellement de 1 m x 1,5 m -sur lequel ils présentent leurs conclusions. Ils peuvent également discuter de leur travail avec les scientifiques présents.La thèse est une démonstration écrite d'une recherche soutenue développant une hypothèse donnée dans un nouveau domaine, sur une période de temps assez importante, habituellement 5 ou 6 ans. Elle se caractérise principalement par sa longueur. Elle contient généralement une critique approfondie de la littérature, ainsi que les résultats d'une série d'expériences visant à démontrer une hypothèse unique. Une partie du contenu peut avoir déjà été publiée dans une série d'articles de recherche pendant la période de recherche.Le chapitre de livre est une synthèse des connaissances et des informations sur un sujet particulier. Il présente rarement une hypothèse fondamentale. Il représente plus souvent une partie d'une liste globale de contenus qui, pris ensemble, décrivent de manière exhaustive un aspect clairement défini d'un domaine scientifique.Les rapports annuels contiennent des descriptions directes du travail réalisé sur un an ou une période de 12 mois. L'intention n'est pas tant de prouver une hypothèse que de décrire les activités, justifier les dépenses budgétaires en termes de recherche menée et démontrer l'impact en vue d'attirer un financement plus important. L'approche traditionnelle des rapports annuels consistait à décrire toutes les activités de tous les programmes d'une institution. Cette approche permet de donner une idée générale du travail de l'institution et d'en déduire un compte rendu historique. Cependant, de tels rapports peuvent être longs et très détaillés. Une des tendances plus récentes consiste à se concentrer sur un aspect du travail de l'institution ou à sélectionner les domaines de travail qui ont eu le plus d'impact.Un document de travail ou un rapport technique peut être un rapport préliminaire d'une partie de la recherche qui est intéressante, adaptée ou prévue pour la publication évaluée par des pairs. Souvent, un document de travail peut être ultérieurement transformé et enrichi en un article scientifique. Fréquemment, les auteurs rendent publics leurs documents de travail pour partager des idées sur un sujet ou pour obtenir des commentaires avant de le soumettre à une conférence ou une revue académique évaluée par des pairs.Le but d'un bulletin d'information est de communiquer rapidement les faits qui présentent un intérêt pour ses lecteurs. C'est pourquoi le contenu de n'importe quelle contribution est factuel, avec peu d'accent sur la justification ou la méthodologie. Ayant habituellement un lectorat plus général, les bulletins d'information ne devraient jamais être considérés comme des substituts de réelles publications de résultats de recherche.Une proposition de projet présente la justification d'un programme de travail visant à obtenir des résultats mesurables qui, une fois démontrés, atteindront un objectif clairement défini. Comme un article de recherche, elle s'appuie sur une hypothèse à l'origine de la proposition d'action et du programme de recherche conçu pour tester le concept.La plupart des institutions de recherche disposent désormais d'un site Internet, où elles présentent leurs résultats actualisés ou significatifs, décrivent l'institution et ses programmes de recherche et proposent une liste du personnel. On y trouve également souvent une liste de publications. Certains sites proposent en outre de télécharger des exemplaires de publications institutionnelles, de documents de travail, etc.Le public cible des sites web est très large et présente des niveaux d'expertise divers.Les scientifiques peuvent ainsi faire connaître les résultats et l'impact de leur recherche à des groupes de personnes différents des scientifiques habituels.1.3.12 Blogs et groupes de discussionUn blog (contraction du terme « web log ») est un type de site Internet, habituellement maintenu par une personne, avec des entrées régulières de commentaires, de descriptions d'événements, ou d'autres sources telles que des graphiques ou des vidéos. Les blogs sont personnels, reflètent les vues du rédacteur et permettent aux scientifiques de proposer leurs propres idées, sans les contraintes de l'institution au sein de laquelle ils travaillent.Les groupes de discussion sont des lieux de réunion électroniques, où des groupes de personnes qui ont un intérêt commun peuvent partager leurs vues au sein d'une discussion soutenue.Plusieurs groupes de personnes sont concernés par la recherche agricole d'une manière ou d'une autre, mais ils ont des besoins très différents et reçoivent l'information de manière différente également. Parmi les publics les plus courants, citons :-les chercheurs d'un domaine spécifique de recherche ; -les chercheurs avec un intérêt marginal dans un domaine de recherche ; -les gestionnaires de recherche ; -les agents de vulgarisation ; -les professeurs universitaires ; -les étudiants ; -les décideurs politiques ; -les donateurs ; -les comités gouvernementaux de coordination de la recherche ; -les techniciens ; -les intérêts commerciaux ; -les agriculteurs.Les diverses communications de recherche poursuivent des objectifs différents. Elles utilisent la même information de base et la modifient afin de faciliter la compréhension des différents publics, selon leurs niveaux de compréhension scientifique (voir Tableau 1.1).Le contenu technique de n'importe quelle publication est essentiel à la compréhension du public visé. Si la personne qui lit le document ne peut pas le comprendre, tout l'intérêt du travail est perdu. Cela aura évidemment des conséquences énormes sur l'impact du travail et sur ses bénéfices pour le rédacteur.Établissez une liste des différents types de publications que vous devez rédiger.-Pour qui écrivez-vous ? -Quel niveau de contenu scientifique devrait avoir chaque type de publication ? -Compilez vos réponses dans un tableau qui servira ultérieurement. Aujourd'hui, les recherches publiées sont tellement nombreuses qu'une science entière est consacrée à l'évaluation de leur impact et à l'analyse de leurs citations. Les analystes de l'information consignent soigneusement quels documents sont cités et qui les rédige. Les carrières en dépendent, ainsi que le succès et le prestige des revues et la réputation des départements universitaires et des institutions de recherche. Il convient donc de cibler la rédaction et la publication afin de maximiser les chances que quelqu'un lise votre document et utilise vos conclusions.Dès que vous avez décidé d'écrire un article et qu'il s'agit de passer à l'action, réfléchissez à votre public. Dès le début, ayez pour objectif que l'article soit lu par le public idoine. Dans cette optique, soumettez votre article à une revue spécifique lue par les personnes que vous souhaitez atteindre. Avant de commencer à organiser votre article, vous devez décider dans quelle revue vous souhaitez le publier. Ce choix va influencer le format et le style de votre article, ainsi que sa préparation. Par exemple, de nos jours, nombre de grandes revues n'acceptent que des soumissions en ligne.Au terme de ce chapitre, vous serez capable :-d'évaluer la politique de rédaction, la portée et le contenu d'une revue ; -de définir les exigences spéciales de production d'un article à publier ; -de choisir la meilleure revue pour votre travail.La plupart des revues reçoivent bien plus d'articles qu'elles ne peuvent en publier. Les meilleures ont des critères de sélection d'articles très stricts et un taux de rejet très élevé. Demandez-vous si votre article est assez bon pour être envoyé à la meilleure revue. Il serait peut-être préférable d'en choisir une de moindre importance afin de maximiser les chances que votre article soit accepté. Il y a de nombreux facteurs à prendre en compte. Une étude a publié des numéros de diverses revues et a examiné leurs sites web. Nombre d'entre elles proposent de nombreuses informations pour vous aider à comprendre leurs exigences et préparer un article à soumettre.Étudiez les archives de la revue et posez-vous les questions suivantes : mon travail est-il aussi bon, voire meilleur, que les articles publiés dans la revue ? Qui est le rédacteur en chef ? Qui fait partie du comité de rédaction ? Quels auteurs sont publiés dans la revue ? La revue s'adresse-t-elle à un public international ? La revue exige-t-elle des projets de recherche complets ou accepte-t-elle des rapports de travaux en cours ou des rapports préliminaires ? Introduction2.3.3 Quelle est la fréquence de parution de la revue ?La publication scientifique est habituellement un processus lent, et une revue biannuelle aura un délai de publication potentiel bien plus long qu'une publication bimensuelle. Vous devez vous demander si un délai de publication de 15 mois va affecter la pertinence de votre article. Si le rapport doit être publié rapidement, vous pouvez l'envoyer à une revue à publication rapide, mais si la rapidité de publication n'est pas essentielle, alors les rédacteurs d'une telle revue vont probablement rejeter votre rapport immédiatement sur ce simple critère et non sur la base de sa qualité scientifique.Vous êtes-vous conformé à ce modèle ? De nombreuses revues ont un format spécifique pour les articles qu'elles publient, par exemple la méthode IMRED (Introduction, Matériel, Résultats et Discussion ; voir Chapitre 3). Si votre article ne correspond pas à ce modèle, il peut être rejeté. Si votre article est long de 20 pages et que la revue ne publie que des articles de cinq pages, il sera également rejeté -non pas sur la base de son contenu scientifique, mais uniquement de son format.2.3.5 Y a-t-il des conditions de soumission à la revue ?  « Dès le début, ayez pour objectif que l'article soit lu par le public idoine. »L'origine du travail et ses objectifs ?Les sources utilisées ?Ce qui a été accompli ?Ce qui est arrivé ?Ce que cela signifie ?Les conséquences des résultats ?La structure d'un article de rechercheIl est très important de donner un bon titre à un article. Le titre éveille l'intérêt du lecteur et est utilisé par les services de recension bibliographique. Il doit être précis et informatif. Le but est de donner autant d'informations que possible en un minimum de mots. Mettez la partie la plus importante de votre travail en début de titre. Le lecteur qui parcourt une liste pourra ainsi la voir plus facilement.Vous pouvez formuler votre titre en une affirmation ou utiliser un format titre/ sous-titre.Par exemple, vous pouvez écrire :Effets de la sécheresse, du vieillissement et de la teneur en phosphore sur l'activité de l'acide phosphatase des feuilles de rizActivité d'acide phosphatase des feuilles de riz : effets de la sécheresse, du vieillissement et de la teneur en phosphoreLes lecteurs supposeront que le sujet qui vient en premier dans le titre est le sujet principal de l'article. Assurez-vous qu'il reflète son contenu.Une troisième façon de rédiger un titre est l'affirmation :L'activité de l'acide phosphatase des feuilles de riz est diminuée par la sécheresse, le vieillissement et la teneur en phosphore.Il s'agit d'une approche très claire, presque un petit résumé du rapport.Le premier auteur devrait être la personne qui a mené à bien la plus grosse partie du travail, les autres étant mentionnés par ordre décroissant selon leur contribution. Le scientifique qui a supervisé le travail est habituellement placé en dernier. Indiquez quel auteur devrait recevoir les courriers et les témoignages (l'auteur de contact), avec son adresse e-mail et postale.Mentionnez une adresse pour chaque auteur présent sur la page de titre -plus précisément son adresse au moment où le travail a été réalisé. Si un auteur a déménagé, veuillez inclure son adresse actuelle en note de bas de page.  L'introduction devrait répondre aux questions « Pourquoi avoir réalisé ce travail ? » et « Que souhaitiez-vous découvrir ? » Elle devrait s'articuler en trois parties :-le contexte du travail et une courte critique de la littérature pertinente afin de permettre au lecteur d'évaluer le travail réalisé ; -la logique qui a mené à la réalisation du travail et votre hypothèse ; -une affirmation claire des objectifs du travail.Montrez le développement logique de votre théorie ou de votre objectif dans le contexte des travaux existants. Expliquez l'origine de votre hypothèse en passant brièvement en revue les travaux publiés sur le sujet. Utilisez des références pour soutenir tout ce que vous affirmez. Initialement, la plupart des auteurs rédigent une introduction trop longue en intégrant trop d'informations sur le contexte, par exemple : « Cette culture est l'une des plus importantes cultures alimentaires du monde ». Si vous avez dépassé les 2 pages, le résumé est probablement trop long.Ici, les questions sont « Qu'avez-vous utilisé ? » et « Qu'avez-vous fait ? » Dans cette section, vous décrivez simplement le matériel utilisé et les méthodes adoptées dans votre travail. Vous ne devez rien interpréter. Cependant, vous devez vous assurer que vous avez tout décrit de façon suffisamment détaillée pour qu'un autre scientifique puisse reproduire votre expérience après la lecture de votre description.Résultats : Dans ces revues, la structure IMRED a commencé à être utilisée dans les années 1940. Dans les années 1970, elle atteignait un taux d'utilisation de 80 %, puis, dans les années 1980, elle est devenue le seul schéma adopté pour les articles originaux.Conclusions : Bien que recommandée depuis le début du XX e siècle, la structure IMRED n'a été adoptée comme structure majoritaire que dans les années 1970. L'influence des autres disciplines et les recommandations des éditeurs font partie des raisons qui ont contribué à l'adoption de cette méthode par les auteurs.Justifiez votre choix d'une méthode ou d'un traitement par rapport aux autres. Indiquez les suppositions que vous avez faites. Cela permettra aux lecteurs de comprendre le but des méthodes que vous allez décrire. Suivez un ordre logique. Cette section s'articule naturellement en deux sous-sections : le matériel en premier lieu, puis les méthodes.Décrivez le matériel utilisé -produits chimiques, animaux, plantes, équipement, etc. Identifiez les composants chimiques (engrais, etc.) afin que les autres chercheurs soient capables d'obtenir le même matériel. Si vous utilisez des noms commerciaux, incluez le nom chimique ou le principe actif en entier à la première mention. Certaines revues exigent que vous donniez le nom et l'adresse du fournisseur ou du fabricant du matériel.Utilisez les normes reconnues au niveau international pour nommer le matériel et utilisez également des unités métriques, une nomenclature standard, etc. Mentionnez le genre, l'espèce, la race, la variété, le cultivar ou la ligne de chaque plante, animal ou microorganisme utilisés dans l'expérience. Les noms des espèces peuvent être abrégés une fois qu'ils ont été entièrement décrits.Vérifiez les instructions aux auteurs de la revue pour un usage et une terminologie corrects.Dans cette section, vous répondez aux questions « Qu'avez-vous fait ? » et « Comment avez-vous procédé ? » Décrivez votre expérience dans un ordre logique. Si vous avez utilisé des méthodes connues, contentez-vous de donner leurs noms et une référence. Mais si vous y avez apporté des modifications, celles-ci doivent être expliquées. Les lecteurs du rapport étant eux-mêmes des scientifiques, vous n'avez pas besoin de décrire de façon détaillée les choses familières. Soyez bref, mais ne laissez pas de côté les informations importantes telles que les tailles et les volumes.Décrivez les techniques statistiques utilisées, sans aller dans le détail. La plupart des tests sont connus et ne nécessitent pas beaucoup de description. Si une technique n'est pas très connue, vous pouvez en donner une référence. Vous ne devez décrire une méthode en détail que si celle-ci est nouvelle ou originale. Si une revue exige un certain type de traitement statistique, respectez les recommandations à la lettre.Dans les résultats, vous décrivez ce qui est arrivé lors de vos expériences. Vous pouvez présenter vos résultats sans les commenter, en donnant vos propres interprétations plus tard dans la section Discussion. Une autre approche consiste à interpréter les résultats jusqu'à un certain point -pour faire le lien entre les diverses affirmations -, mais en donnant plus de détails dans la section Discussion dédiée. Une troisième possibilité est de combiner les résultats avec une discussion sur chaque point.Quelle que soit la technique choisie, présentez les résultats selon une séquence correspondant à vos objectifs initiaux. Rapportez les résultats négatifs qui influenceront votre interprétation par la suite. Présentez tous les résultats pertinents dans cette section afin de ne pas avoir à introduire de nouvelles informations dans la Discussion. Ne perdez pas de vue votre objectif initial. Dans un rapport expérimental, vos objectifs vous guident dans ce que vous devez écrire. Les résultats qui ne se rapportent pas à ceux-ci ne devraient pas être mentionnés.De nos jours, beaucoup de revues vous autorisent à inclure de grands tableaux ou d'autres formes de données sur un site Internet dédié et à mettre le lien du site dans votre article. Cela vous permet de publier des ensembles de données complets, sans essayer de les inclure tous dans votre article, dont la longueur est limitée. Dans la Discussion, vous devez répondre aux questions : « Que signifient mes résultats ? », « Pourquoi cela est-il arrivé ? » et « Quelles sont les conséquences ? ». Il s'agit de la section la plus réfléchie et la plus exigeante du rapport, mais également la plus importante. Vous devez interpréter vos résultats pour vos lecteurs afin qu'ils puissent comprendre la signification de vos découvertes. Parmi la masse d'informations dont vous disposez, vous devez distinguer et sélectionner les informations les plus pertinentes pour votre hypothèse. Utilisez une série de découvertes et d'affirmations pour en arriver à une conclusion claire. Cette conclusion doit correspondre à votre objectif initial.Utilisez la Discussion pour interpréter vos résultats et mettez un accent particulier sur l'hypothèse ou les objectifs formulés dans l'introduction. « Discussion » est une contraction de « Discussion des résultats ». Cette section ne sert pas à passer en revue la littérature sur le sujet. Tout document cité doit avoir une fonction de soutien aux arguments sur vos résultats. Associez vos conclusions à de précédents travaux et, si ceux-ci ne sont pas en accord avec votre travail, expliquez alors pourquoi. Discutez chaque résultat négatif.Dans cette section, vous traitez des raisons pour lesquelles certaines choses ont eu lieu et d'autres non et vous insistez sur les forces et expliquez les faiblesses de votre travail. Vous parlez de la pertinence de votre recherche pour le domaine spécifique et soulignez sa relation avec les autres domaines, en formulant des recommandations à partir de votre travail. Vous pouvez également mentionner le travail en cours, les questions sans réponse et les possibles pistes de recherche future.Dites ce qui est important à l'aide d'affirmations telles que « L'aspect le plus important de ces résultats est… ». Mais n'utilisez pas cette formule trop souvent, sinon les lecteurs vont rapidement être lassés d'entendre à quel point votre travail est « important ».L'un des défauts les plus courants de la Discussion est sa longueur. Elle peut être difficile à suivre ou elle peut répéter trop de données de la section Résultats.Dans la Discussion, vous devez généraliser, faire des comparaisons et formuler des conclusions. -bonnes raisons justifiant cet argument ; -preuves solides pour le soutenir.Vos preuves doivent être fondées, discutables et explicites :-fondées -qui ont une base solide dans la réalité et sont donc importantes ou significatives ; -discutables -défendables lors d'un débat ; -explicites -claires et détaillées, qui ne laissent aucun doute.Votre argument est soutenu par des preuves, qui doivent être exactes, précises, suffisantes et dignes de foi (solides, car elles sont vraies et exactes).Avant tout, vos données doivent être correctes. Toute remise en question de la validité de vos informations fera douter le lecteur de votre travail. Demandez-vous, « De quelles preuves suis-je certain ? ». Ensuite, posez-vous la question de savoir quelles preuves pourraient être plus fiables. Vous pouvez inclure des preuves non fiables si vous reconnaissez leur qualité et que vous expliquez les anomalies dans les données. En fait, souligner de tels problèmes renforce la crédibilité des autres données.Soyez précis dans la présentation de vos données, notamment par rapport à vos techniques de collecte. Ne soyez pas trop précis ni trop vague et quantifiez toujours vos arguments. Présentez vos données sous la forme qui illustre le mieux ce que vousvoulez démontrer. Vous devez également assimiler les données brutes afin que les modèles et les tendances sous-jacents soient plus évidents. Pour ce faire, on utilise généralement des statistiques, des tableaux, des schémas et des graphiques. Précisez ce que vous voulez que les lecteurs comprennent. Ne partez pas du principe qu'une tendance qui est évidente pour vous le sera pour le lecteur. Présentez un schéma ou un tableau en mettant l'accent sur ce que vous voulez que les lecteurs remarquent et expliquez en quoi cela est intéressant.Vous devez présenter suffisamment de données pour convaincre votre lecteur que les arguments que vous posez s'appuient sur des preuves suffisantes. Par exemple, bon nombre de revues agricoles n'accepteront pas d'articles basés sur des données d'une seule saison culturale ou d'une seule récolte. Elles veulent que les données soient clairement répétées.Tous vos arguments doivent être soutenus par des preuves provenant soit de vos propres données, soit de la littérature. Les informations de référence doivent être primaires (provenir de revues ou de travaux de conférence) et actualisées. Une liste de références caduque n'est pas convaincante. De la même manière, les sources secondaires, comme les références à des ouvrages, doivent être dignes de foi plus que populaires.Souvent, la section Conclusions ne devra pas être rédigée, car vous aurez déjà établi vos conclusions principales dans la section finale de la discussion. N'introduisez jamais de conclusion simplement pour répéter ce qui a été dit dans la discussion. Cependant, si vos résultats et la discussion qui en a découlé sont particulièrement compliqués, il peut être utile de compiler vos conclusions.Cette section cherche à signaler l'aide technique et les conseils prodigués par d'autres. Les organes ou les particuliers qui vous ont prêté de l'argent pour soutenir votre recherche ou encore les auteurs de l'article doivent être mentionnés. Cette partie doit cependant demeurer succincte.Voir Chapitre 7 sur les citations et les références. Certains scientifiques peuvent concevoir les articles dans leur tête et se mettre aussitôt à les rédiger, mais la plupart des gens en sont incapables. Le moyen le plus simple de rédiger un article est avant tout de le planifier, de compiler les informations, puis de commencer à écrire. Mais avant de commencer à planifier, vous devez avoir quelque chose à dire -un message à faire passer. Il vous faut en principe examiner votre recherche dans son ensemble et en sélectionner des parties comme contenu d'un article individuel. La plupart des revues de recherche veulent des « résultats significatifs » ou des « articles consacrés à des avancées significatives dans les connaissances ». Il s'agira de l'une des premières questions que les éditeurs se poseront quand ils recevront votre article. Les informations qu'il comporte sont-elles importantes et novatrices ? Tâchez d'envisager votre travail de manière objective, comme si quelqu'un d'autre l'avait écrit. Mettez-vous à la place d'un éditeur ou d'un pair. Ils se poseront la question : « Pourquoi devrais-je publier cet article ? » Vous devez vous assurer que la réponse sera : « Parce qu'il rapporte des résultats significatifs. » Ce que vous écrivez devra résister à l'examen de l'éditeur et aux critiques des pairs. Une fois que vous avez choisi une revue, préparez votre manuscrit dans le style et le format de celle-ci (voir Chapitre 2). La plupart des revues publient des guides détaillés pour les auteurs ou des « informations aux auteurs ». Ils sont habituellement disponibles en ligne, sous forme de livret séparé, ou publiés dans la revue elle-même, souvent dans la première ou la dernière édition du volume ou de l'année. Procurezvous-en un exemplaire, lisez-le attentivement et respectez-en toutes exigences dans votre manuscrit. Si quelqu'un d'autre s'occupe de la préparation et de la dactylographie de l'article, veillez à ce qu'il comprenne également les exigences.Examinez la subdivision des articles dans la revue choisie (voir Chapitre 2). Les différentes sections (voir Chapitre 3) vous orienteront avant tout sur la planification initiale de votre article. Il est préférable d'utiliser les subdivisions les plus courantes de la revue. L'éditeur et les lecteurs préféreront une telle structure, car le format leur sera familier. Une organisation logique facilite la localisation d'informations spécifiques. Cependant, si vous avez de bonnes raisons d'opérer vos propres divisions, n'hésitez pas. Généralement, votre éditeur acceptera votre plan si celui-ci est Il est généralement préférable de mettre vos résultats sous forme de graphiques ou de tableaux avant de commencer à écrire. En règle générale, vos données seront abondantes et il vous faudra sélectionner celles qui soutiennent les arguments de votre article. En faisant cela, vous déciderez également de ce que vous voulez exactement montrer et des meilleurs moyens d'illustrer vos conclusions.Il s'agit de constituer votre rapport étape par étape. Examinez la liste des éléments ci-dessus et commencez à réfléchir aux réponses. Cela vous aidera à développer un aperçu de l'article. Tout d'abord, déterminez les principales sections de l'article. Cela signifie que vous avez un plan général qui vous aidera dans votre tâche suivante, qui consistera à élaborer des plans distincts de ce que vous inclurez dans chaque section. Cherchez un titre simple, par exemple « Matériel et méthodes ». Vous pouvez immédiatement le subdiviser en une section « matériel » et une section « méthodes ». Maintenant, pensez au matériel que vous avez utilisé. Vous pouvez rédiger des titres comme « Produits chimiques », « Animaux », « Équipement », « Sols », etc. Établissez ensuite une liste de subdivisions ou de sections.Beaucoup de programmes de traitement de texte, comme Microsoft Word, disposent d'un service de cartographie de documents qui vous permet de repérer facilement tous vos titres. Vous obtenez une liste de titres de sections qui, rassemblés, formeront par exemple la partie « matériel » de la section « Matériel et méthodes ». Le plan de l'article est déjà en cours de développement. Vous pouvez faire de même pour chaque partie de l'article, en organisant le contenu de chaque section. Consacrez-y un peu de temps, car il est toujours plus facile de rédiger à partir d'un plan que de rédiger du début à la fin.« Subdiviser le travail en étapes articulées les unes en fonction des autres peut simplifier la rédaction d'un article de recherche. »Maintenant que vous avez un plan directeur, comment procéder ? Certaines personnes commenceront à rédiger, parce qu'elles se sentent confiantes dans ce qu'elles veulent exprimer. Mais si ce n'est pas le cas, vous pouvez poursuivre votre approche étape par étape en prenant note du contenu de chaque partie de chaque section. Une fois que vous avez terminé de prendre des notes, votre article est en fait déjà rédigé. L'article devrait donc s'écrire tout seul.À présent, il est temps de passer en revue ce que vous avez fait. Examinez à nouveau toutes vos preuves. Sont-elles pertinentes et vitales pour l'article ? Un tableau ne pourrait-il pas être mieux présenté sous la forme d'un graphique ? Avez-vous vraiment besoin de tous ces longs tableaux ? Ne peuvent-ils pas être exprimés plus simplement sous forme de schémas ? Si vous ne le faites pas maintenant, l'éditeur ou le pair vous demanderont certainement de le faire plus tard. Avez-vous laissé quelque chose de côté ? N'y aura-t-il pas trop de détails ? Essayez de vous poser les questions les plus difficiles maintenant afin de pouvoir modifier la structure de l'article avant d'avoir trop avancé dans sa rédaction.Parfois, il est difficile de commencer la rédaction. Prenez en considération votre journée de travail et les moments où vous pouvez travailler sur votre article. Vous devez développer une méthode de travail qui correspondra à la façon dont vous écrivez dans le temps disponible. Vous choisirez peut-être de commencer à rédiger la section la plus facile -« Matériel et méthodes » -qui est une simple description de ce que vous avez utilisé et de ce que vous avez fait. Puis vous pouvez vous pencher sur les résultats, encore une fois, car il ne s'agit que d'une description de ce qui est arrivé. À partir de là, vous devriez être impliqué dans l'article et prêt à entamer la tâche la plus difficile qui consiste à interpréter les résultats dans la discussion. Une autre solution consiste à essayer d'écrire la section la plus difficile en premier -la discussion -qui contient davantage d'interprétation et de pensée indépendante. Après cela, tout est plus facile.Une fois que vous avez commencé la rédaction, il est conseillé d'écrire aussi vite que possible. Ne vous préoccupez pas de la langue, de la grammaire, du style ou de l'orthographe. Dans la mesure du possible, écrivez tout ce que vous pouvez tant que la fluidité de la section que vous rédigez est claire dans votre esprit. Essayez d'écrire simplement. De cette façon, vous posez une base sur laquelle travailler plus tard. Il est toujours plus simple de revenir sur quelque chose que de commencer à remplir un canevas vierge. Concentrez-vous sur le contenu scientifique et rien d'autre.Écrivez dans le langage qui vous paraît le plus simple. Vous pourrez toujours le transformer plus tard -il s'agit là simplement d'écriture mécanique. Le plus important à cette étape est de transformer vos notes en langage rédigé. Terminez chaque section avant d'entamer la suivante. Ne revenez pas sur ce que vous avez écrit pour le modifier avant d'avoir véritablement terminé votre écrit. Pensez pratique.Une fois votre premier jet terminé, vous pouvez commencer à réviser l'article. Vous devez toujours être préparé à réviser ce que vous avez écrit. Demandez-vous :-Toutes les parties de l'article sont-elles correctement décrites ? -Y a-t-il besoin de changements importants ? -La logique de l'article est-elle solide ? -L'ordre de présentation est-il satisfaisant ? -Tout le texte est-il indispensable ? -Certains schémas ou tableaux peuvent-ils être éliminés ou combinés ? -Chaque fragment de texte est-il dans la section correcte ? -La séquence des paragraphes est-elle correcte ? -Y a-t-il assez, ou trop, de titres et de sous-titres ? Révisez le contenu scientifique de l'article jusqu'à ce que vous soyez certain qu'il est correct. Mettez-le ensuite de côté pendant quelques jours, puis relisez-le. Vous éloigner du travail pendant quelque temps vous donne une perspective qui vous permettra d'évaluer ce que vous avez écrit. Une fois satisfait du niveau de votre travail, adaptez l'article au style de la revue. Donnez ensuite l'article à vos coauteurs ou à quelques collègues et demandez-leur de commenter le contenu scientifique en soulignant les erreurs de logique et d'interprétation, en notant les passages maladroits et en formulant des recommandations afin de l'améliorer. À présent, vous devriez être confiant sur le contenu scientifique de votre article. Vous devez maintenant examiner le langage et le style afin que le texte soit facile à lire et à comprendre. C'est l'une des choses que les éditeurs vérifieront. Utilisez un correcteur orthographique. Cependant, la plupart des correcteurs grammaticaux ne traitent pas très bien les textes scientifiques sans « formation » préalable (voir Chapitre 5).À ce stade, vous devez vérifier que toutes les références listées à la fin de l'article sont mentionnées dans le texte. Puis, faites l'inverse et vérifiez que toutes les références du texte sont incluses dans la liste de références. Si vous utilisez un programme de « gestion des références » comme EndNote, ce processus est plus simple, mais il est possible de le faire manuellement. Si vous utilisez le système de numérotation (voir Chapitre 7), cochez chaque référence dans la liste quand elle est citée dans le texte et poursuivez. Assurez-vous que toutes les références sont numérotées dans l'ordre où elles sont mentionnées. Si vous utilisez un système nom-date (voir Chapitre 7), vous devez être plus attentif. Vérifiez d'abord que les références sont dans l'ordre correct, soit dans l'ordre de citation, soit, plus communément, par ordre alphabétique. Vérifiez ensuite que l'orthographe du nom de l'auteur dans le texte correspond à celle dans la liste. Si elles sont différentes, vérifiez l'original et vérifiez également la date.Combien d'auteurs apparaissent dans la référence ? S'il y en a deux, alors les deux noms doivent être présents dans le texte. S'il y a plus de deux (ou parfois trois) noms dans la référence, il est conseillé d'utiliser le nom de famille du premier auteur suivi de « et al. » dans le texte (voir Chapitre 7). « et al. » doit-il être en italique ? C'est là une autre question à laquelle il est possible de répondre en regardant dans la revue. La date dans le texte est-elle la même que dans la liste ? Serait-il judicieux d'utiliser a, b, c pour distinguer les références des mêmes auteurs de la même année ? Passez l'article en revue en vérifiant chaque page et chaque référence. Lorsque vous avez terminé, vérifiez que vous avez coché toutes les références de la liste. Si certaines ne le sont pas, vous devez revenir en arrière afin de voir où elles devraient être citées dans le texte ou afin de les supprimer. Après avoir fait tout cela, vérifiez -dans la mesure du possible -la référence initiale afin de vous assurer que toutes les informations dans la référence sont correctes.Voyez les Chapitres 8 et 9 sur la manière de préparer les schémas et les tableaux. Le Chapitre 10 traite des statistiques de votre article, mais vérifiez dans les « instructions aux auteurs » de l'éditeur la manière de manipuler les tableaux et les schémas. Vous devrez peut-être rassembler tous les tableaux à la fin de votre article et soumettre tous les schémas dans des fichiers séparés. Beaucoup d'auteurs préfèrent coller leurs schémas dans le fichier informatique où ils sont mentionnés, mais cela pourrait poser un problème à l'éditeur. Vérifiez sur le site Internet de la revue.Gardez à l'esprit que la revue attend de vous que votre article soit conforme à ses instructions. Peut-être estimez-vous que cela n'est pas important, mais l'éditeur de la revue ne sera pas du même avis. Vous ne devez vous préoccuper que de votre propre article, l'éditeur doit se préoccuper de la revue entière. L'éditeur souhaite que toutes les unités, les abréviations, etc. soient les mêmes dans chaque article de la revue. L'éditeur cherche ainsi à assurer la cohérence de la publication.Parcourez à nouveau la revue et les instructions aux auteurs. Certaines sont très détaillées. Notez la taille des marges demandées, l'espacement des lignes, la place des titres (à gauche ou au milieu de la page), l'utilisation des caractères en gras ou en italique, etc. Numérotez les pages et insérez un en-tête dans le fichier informatique afin de rappeler votre nom et un court titre de votre article.Sur la page de titre, assurez-vous que sont mentionnés le titre, l'orthographe correcte des noms des auteurs, une liste exacte des adresses des auteurs, un résumé et des mots clés si cela a été demandé. Vous devez également préciser dans le manuscrit à qui les épreuves de l'article doivent être envoyées. C'est-à-dire qui est responsable de l'article et qui l'éditeur doit contacter. Si vous ne le précisez pas, l'éditeur supposera qu'il s'agit du premier auteur sur la page de titre.Certaines revues demandent une lettre de présentation qui donne les informations basiques, comme les coordonnées de l'auteur de contact, le titre et les auteurs de l'article. Il est possible qu'on vous demande également de décrire brièvement le domaine spécifique de l'article et les compétences scientifiques qui éveilleraient l'intérêt de la revue. L'éditeur utilisera ces informations pour vérifier que l'article s'inscrit dans la portée de la revue et déterminer à quel pair l'envoyer.De nos jours, beaucoup de revues encouragent activement à soumettre les articles par e-mail (voir Chapitre 15). C'est plus rapide que l'envoi de manuscrits par courrier à travers le monde. Vérifiez sur le site Internet de la revue les modalités de soumission d'un article par voie électronique. Certaines revues ont leur propre formulaire de soumission en ligne. Étant donné qu'ils peuvent prendre un certain temps à remplir, assurez-vous d'avoir tous les fichiers dont vous avez besoin dans le format correct et de disposer d'assez de temps sur l'ordinateur pour effectuer la procédure. Notez, par exemple, que l'American Journal of Agricultural Economics n'acceptera les manuscrits qu'au format PDF (https://editorialexpress.com/ cgi-bin/e-editor/e-submit_v12.cgi?dbase=ajae).Si vous soumettez une version papier (certaines revues l'exigent en complément de la soumission par e-mail), vérifiez que vous avez le bon nombre d'exemplaires, puis emballez l'ensemble solidement. Trouvez ensuite l'adresse exacte du destinataire dans la revue. Vous devrez souvent envoyer l'article à un éditeur ou un comité de rédaction à une adresse différente de celle de la maison d'édition. Veillez à sélectionner la bonne. Certaines revues ont différents éditeurs s'occupant de différentes régions du monde ou de différents domaines thématiques. Toutes ces informations figurent habituellement sur la couverture avant intérieure de la revue ou sur le site Internet. Assurez-vous d'avoir lu attentivement toutes les informations. Envoyez le manuscrit par avion et attendez un accusé de réception.Les soumissions en ligne permettent aux auteurs et aux pairs internationaux de faire partie de la communauté de la revue. En tant qu'auteur, vous pouvez vérifier l'évolution de l'évaluation de votre article par les pairs. Habituellement, tout est géré et suivi en ligne et le processus est consigné et rapporté. Le processus est conçu pour être simple pour toutes les personnes impliquées. -L'article concerne-t-il un travail nouveau, significatif ou innovant ? -Le titre est-il exact et informatif ? -Une introduction décrit-elle le contexte et les objectifs du travail ? -Les méthodes sont-elles expliquées assez clairement pour que le lecteur puisse reproduire le travail ? -Les résultats sont-ils valides et correctement présentés et décrits ? -Les critiques et les évaluations sont-elles bien réfléchies, soutenues et documentées ? -Des parties de l'article doivent-elles être raccourcies ou allongées ? -L'article est-il référencé de façon adéquate ? -Tous les schémas, tableaux et illustrations sont-ils nécessaires ? -L'article peut-il être amélioré d'une quelconque façon ? L'article peut-il être :-Accepté tel quel ? -Accepté sous condition de révisions recommandées ? -si oui, faites-en une liste -soumise à réexamen après les révisions recommandées ? -Rejeté ?Le style scientifique dans les articles de recherche 5 L'édition est un domaine très compétitif et les revues reçoivent bien plus de bons articles qu'elles ne peuvent en publier. À qualité scientifique similaire, un éditeur sélectionnera plutôt un article bien écrit et bien présenté qu'un article maladroitement écrit et présenté. La langue et le style sont comme un emballage : un bon emballage ne peut pas compenser un contenu pauvre, mais un emballage attractif renforce un bon contenu. Une rédaction claire et concise donne une impression de confiance et de savoir, de crédibilité et d'autorité. Elle passe par la maîtrise d'éléments à des niveaux différents, mais coordonnés entre eux. Ainsi, on trouve le niveau des mots, celui des phrases, celui des paragraphes. La ponctuation est un code complémentaire que l'on utilise pour renforcer et nuancer le sens du message verbal. En outre, celui-ci est complété par des éléments graphiques comme les illustrations, les cartes et les tableaux, qui facilitent la formulation et la perception du message.Le style scientifique est précis, concis, lisible, sans vocabulaire familier, onomatopées images, exclamations ou émotions. Il est construit selon un schéma simple (sujet + verbe + complément d'objet) et comporte peu d'adjectifs. Il n'emploie pas de synonymes, chaque mot y a un sens et un seul. Pour le rapport annuel, le style scientifique pur serait un peu trop sec. Le style journalistique peut lui apporter certaines de ses dimensions : imagé, plein d'émotions et d'économie, il est direct et évocateur ; on peut introduire un peu de variété dans le texte du rapport, sans en abuser.Au terme de ce chapitre, vous serez capable :-de reconnaître un bon style de rédaction et de comprendre qu'il améliore la compréhension ; -de distinguer les caractéristiques d'un style bon et médiocre dans la rédaction de rapports de recherche ; -de corriger le style et le français dans un rapport en vue d'en améliorer la lisibilité.Pour que le style soit accessible au lecteur, il faut qu'il soit adapté à ce dernier. Les principaux lecteurs peuvent être des chercheurs qui ne maîtrisent pas toutes les spécialités des décideurs politiques, des bailleurs de fonds et éventuellement des groupes de producteurs, des journalistes ou des personnes du public.Il faut donc utiliser un style qui convienne au plus grand nombre. Afin de produire un texte clair, il convient : -d'employer un langage simple, clair, concis, concret ; -d'éviter les ambiguïtés et les répétitions ; -d'utiliser un langage spécifique et non vague ; -d'éviter le jargon spécialisé ; -d'utiliser des verbes actifs ; -d'éviter des sujets « irréels » ou abstraits ; -de développer les sigles et acronymes à la première mention (notamment s'ils doivent être utilisés souvent) ; -de conserver un vocabulaire cohérent et d'employer les mêmes mots pour les mêmes choses ;Il convient en outre, pour augmenter la lisibilité, de construire des phrases courtes (30 mots maximum) avec des mots courts ; sinon, le texte ne sera pas compris. Éviter les qualificatifs imprécis tels que : appréciable, judicieux, considérable, conséquent, un grand nombre, toujours, la majorité, important, intéressant, nombreux, etc.Exemple : au lieu de « la superficie de l'eau était ainsi réduite de manière importante », écrire « la superficie de l'eau était réduite de 20 ha ».Éviter les abréviations non normalisées et non connues du public. Écrire par exemple : « l'Indice de la Valeur d'Importance (IVI) a permis de donner une idée sur le degré d'utilisation des espèces végétales par la population locale ».Respecter l'orthographe des mots (les accents, les genres, etc.) ; en tout état de cause, on écrit avec un dictionnaire, voire plusieurs, sous la main (dictionnaires de la langue, de synonymes, etc.).Elles commencent par une majuscule et se terminent par un point. En règle générale :-composer des phrases courtes ; -alterner phrases courtes et phrases longues ; -structurer les phrases longues à l'aide de conjonctions et d'adverbes qui en balisent le sens ; -mettre l'information principale en début de phrase ; -préférer la voie active et les sujets réels ; -préférer une structure classique : sujet + verbe + complément d'objet ; -faire attention au temps des conjugaisons (préférer le présent).Il faut là aussi être précis et concret : « défaut d'appareillage » sera remplacé par « panne de vanne » ; « une vaste région » par « région de 150 000 km² ».Éviter les phrases de plus de 30 mots (on ne les mémorise pas), les longues énumérations, les accumulations d'adjectifs, de noms et de propositions. Elle est très importante, car le sens de la phrase dépend de la ponctuation. Comparer : « L'élève dit : l'inspecteur est un âne » et « L'élève, dit l'inspecteur, est un âne. » Ou encore : « Il regarde passer les enfants de l'école » et « Il regarde passer les enfants, de l'école ». « J'ai taillé tous les arbres qui étaient sans fruits » et « J'ai taillé tous les arbres, qui étaient sans fruits ». « On a cueilli toutes les pommes qui étaient mûres » et « On a cueilli toutes les pommes, qui étaient mûres ».-Le point : fin de phrase ou signe d'abréviation (M., Prof., ill., etc.) ; -Les points de suspension : phrases inachevée ou sous-entendu (…) ; interdits dans un article de recherche ;-Les points d'exclamation et d'interrogation : le second est toléré, mais rare dans les textes scientifiques.-Le point-virgule : marque une pause plus forte que la virgule ; sépare deux membres de phrase de même nature, notamment quand la phrase est longue. Utilisé dans les énumérations et les listes ;-Les deux points : annoncent une énumération, une explication, une conséquence, une justification, une conclusion ou une citation ;-Les parenthèses et les crochets : encadrent des informations secondaires dans le texte.-Les crochets sont des parenthèses renforcées. On les utilise pour mettre entre parenthèses dans des parenthèses ou pour indiquer qu'on a abrégé le texte ;-Les guillemets : entourent une citation ou un mot utilisé dans un sens inhabituel ;-Les tirets : valorisent des mots Pour énumérer, on utilise les petits tirets : -la zone sahélienne ; -la zone soudanienne ; -la zone guinéenne.Chapitre 5 -Le style scientifique dans les articles de recherche Et dans le cas d'une incise, on utilise les grands tirets :« les parcelles étaient inondées -il avait plu toute la nuit -et tout labour était impossible avant plusieurs jours ».-La virgule : elle marque une pause légère à l'intérieur d'une phrase entre des éléments non reliés par des termes de coordination ou de subordination ou entre les éléments d'une énumération.On l'a vu, elle peut modifier complètement le sens d'une phrase. Au terme de ce chapitre, vous serez capable :-de comprendre l'importance de l'usage correct de la typographie et de la nomenclature dans les publications scientifiques ; -d'utiliser les unités, les abréviations, la nomenclature et la terminologie courantes dans les articles de recherche.Les abréviations et les symboles peuvent revêtir plusieurs formes et des mots anglais simples peuvent apparaître différemment. En fait, beaucoup de mots en anglais peuvent adopter différentes formes correctes (par ex. « appendices », « appendixes »). Il existe de multiples façons de présenter et d'utiliser les nombres, les unités et les abréviations. Même une unité simple peut avoir plusieurs variations, par exemple :-29 kg/ha (espace avant l'unité) ; -29kg/ha (pas d'espace avant l'unité) ; -29 kg per ha ; -29kg per ha ; -29 kg ha -1 ; -29kg ha -1 ;Un chiffre est plus rapidement lu et compris qu'un mot, par exemple « 2006 » se lit mieux que « deux mille six ». S'il n'y a pas d'unité, une convention standard veut que l'on écrive en toutes lettres les nombres de un à neuf et en chiffres les nombres supérieurs à 10, par exemple, « plus de deux » et « supérieur à 500 ».Qu'importe le style, commencez votre phrase par des mots.Utilisez les chiffres lorsque la valeur est accompagnée d'une unité de mesure, même lorsque le chiffre est inférieur à 10.3 ml ; 5 m ; 10 kg.Une convention standard dans les rapports techniques et scientifiques veut qu'un espace soit mis entre le nombre et l'unité (5 ml), sauf si le guide de style l'exige autrement.6. Ajustez vos unités pour éviter trop de zéros dans les nombres en dessous de un, par exemple 45 mg et non 0.000 45 g. Une autre technique consiste à utiliser des chiffres suivis de facteurs de 10.3 500 000 = 3.5 × 10 6 .Utilisez les milliards pour représenter 1000 millions. Pour éviter l'ambiguïté d'un usage plus ancien (un million de millions), définissez cela dans une liste d'abréviations ou dès la première mention (en mettant 1000 millions entre parenthèses).Certaines revues utilisent l'exponentielle négative avec les unités, par exemple 560 mg kg -1 plutôt que 560 mg/kg, même si la page Internet du SI utilise la forme mg/kg.Les nombres en chaîne sont habituellement écrits en entier, par exemple 1992-2003, pour éviter toute ambiguïté. Certaines revues exigent la forme 1992-03. Vérifiez dans les instructions aux auteurs. Au terme de ce chapitre, vous serez capable :-de reconnaître les trois styles courants de citations et de références dans les sciences biologiques ; -de citer une référence correctement dans le texte ; -d'être conscient des éléments d'une publication qui sont inclus dans une référence ; -de construire une liste de références dont les éléments sont listés correctement.Les références citées sont définies comme l'ensemble des articles de recherche, des livres et ouvrages écrits sur un sujet bien précis que l'auteur a consultés et utilisés pour la rédaction de son article. L'expression « références citées » est choisie de préférence à l'expression « références bibliographiques », impropre et trop générale.La bibliographie concerne l'ensemble des articles et des livres écrits sur un sujet précis ou sur un auteur. Les références contiennent la liste des articles qui ont été cités dans le texte et auxquels le lecteur peut se référer. Dans un article de recherche, les références servent à justifier tout fait énoncé. C'est un principe fondamental de la démarche scientifique.-dans le chapitre « Introduction », elles renseignent sur le contexte des études ; -dans le chapitre « Matériel et Méthodes », elles permettent de se référer aux travaux cités ; -dans le chapitre « Discussion », elles permettent de rapporter les travaux effectués par d'autres auteurs.  (Huguier, 1994). -Si une référence a été oubliée, elle peut être introduite facilement.C'est un système adopté par de nombreuses revues.Ce système rend le texte plus difficile à lire lorsqu'il y a beaucoup d'appels de références.Exemple 1 : « En solution ils sont le siège d'oxydation secondaire (FIELD et LETTINGA, 1989). Ils sont toxiques pour les animaux à sang froid, surtout aquatiques (MAHADEVAN et MUTHKUMAR, 1980 ;DESCHAMPS, 1985). Ils possèdent aussi des propriétés antimicrobiennes (BASARABA, 1964 ;GOLD-STEIN et SWAIN, 1965 ;BENOIT et STARKEY, 1968 ;FIELD et LETTINGA, 1985, FIELD et al., 1989 ;SCALBERT, 1991 ;FIELD et LETTINGA, 1992). Ils ont aussi une structure chimique très stable à cause de leur noyau aromatique (BERRY et al., 1987). Ils peuvent néanmoins être dégradés par certains micro-organismes (WILLIAM et EVANS, 1973 ;BERRY et al., 1987 ;FIELD et LETTINGA, 1992 ;DESCHAMPS, 1985 ;NELSON et al., 1995). La présence de composés taniques dans les tourteaux de karité va donc influencer leur processus de biodégradation ».Avantage Le système offre une facilité de lecture.L'exemple 1 précédent devient : « En solution ils sont le siège d'oxydation secondaire (1). Ils sont toxiques pour les animaux à sang froid, surtout aquatiques (2,3). Ils possèdent aussi des propriétés antimicrobiennes (4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10). Ils ont aussi une structure chimique très stable à cause de leur noyau aromatique (11). Ils peuvent néanmoins être dégradés par certains micro-organismes (12-16). La présence de composés tanniques dans les tourteaux de karité va donc influencer leur processus de biodégradation ».Pour introduire une nouvelle référence, il faut renuméroter toutes les références suivantes avec des risques d'erreur.Il combine les avantages et les inconvénients des deux systèmes précédents.Article de périodique (Nom de l'auteur, année d'édition, titre complet de l'article, titre non abrégé du périodique, volume, numéro, pages de début et de fin de l'article). Il est indispensable de présenter les références selon le système adopté par la revue à laquelle l'article est destiné. On peut également consulter les articles déjà publiés par la revue.Erreurs à éviter -Des affirmations comme « d'après la littérature, à notre connaissance, à l'heure actuelle, selon les auteurs, il est admis que, la grande majorité des auteurs pensent que… » ne peuvent être acceptées dans un article de recherche. -Des références trop nombreuses ne traduisent pas toujours des connaissances étendues, mais plutôt l'absence d'esprit critique.Articles d'accès difficile, thèses, résumés de congrès publiés dans des actes de séminaires ou congrès, lettres, communications personnelles, articles « sous presse ».Résumé de congrès non publié dans des périodiques, articles « soumis pour publication », communications orales, références de seconde main.Ce qu'il faut retenir :-tout document cité doit avoir été lu par l'auteur ; -mettre de préférence des références d'articles de recherche accessibles ; -éviter de mentionner les documents internes, de congrès, etc. ; -donner une liste de références représentatives du sujet traité ; -préférer les publications les plus récentes ; -donner tous les éléments nécessaires à l'acquisition du document cité ; -une référence peut être citée plusieurs fois dans l'article. New York : Wiley (ou Wiley, New York, États-Unis).Washington, DC : Banque mondiale (ou Banque mondiale, Washington, DC, États-Unis).Austin, Texas : University of Texas Press.Les communications personnelles ne sont pas incluses dans la liste de références. Puisqu'il est impossible au lecteur de les consulter pour en savoir plus, il ne sert à rien de les répertorier. Elles sont simplement reprises dans le texte : (Anthony Youdeowei, comm. pers. 1999)  -Les tableaux permettent de présenter des données numériques précises.-Les graphiques illustrent le mieux les tendances et les relations entre des séries de variables. -Les schémas et les photographies fournissent des preuves frappantes des découvertes de la recherche.Au terme de ce chapitre, vous serez capable :-de reconnaître les erreurs dans des tableaux mal préparés ; -de construire des tableaux bien conçus.La première question à prendre en considération dans l'organisation de vos tableaux est : où comptez-vous publier votre rapport ? Si vous écrivez pour une revue en particulier, commencez par obtenir et suivre le guide de style de la publication. La plupart des guides des revues ne spécifient pas les dimensions des tableaux qui sont acceptables. Vérifiez la taille et la mise en page de la revue pour savoir ce qui rentrera. Efforcez-vous de faire tenir vos tableaux dans une colonne ou sur toute la largeur de la page (pour une disposition en deux colonnes). Dans la mesure du possible, évitez les tableaux trop larges par rapport à la largeur de la page. Pensez à diviser les grands tableaux en plusieurs tableaux plus petits. -Chaque tableau d'un manuscrit à publier doit comporter un numéro et être numéroté de manière séquentielle : Tableau 1, Tableau 2, etc. N'utilisez pas de modificateurs pour numéroter un tableau, comme Tableau 1a.-Les tableaux doivent être numérotés dans l'ordre d'apparition dans le texte.-Les tableaux doivent présenter des données analysées et résumées et non des données brutes.-Donnez au tableau un titre clair et concis, qui indique immédiatement son contenu au lecteur.-Le titre doit exposer précisément ce que le tableau montre et non son sujet général.-Faites simple : créez des tableaux séparés selon les sujets.-Appliquez une logique à la séquence dans laquelle les données sont présentées dans les tableaux.-Soyez cohérent : utilisez la même séquence de colonnes et de rangées dans les tableaux présentant des informations similaires.-Utilisez les mêmes unités, les mêmes symboles et la même terminologie dans le texte, les tableaux et les graphiques. Par exemple, n'utilisez pas t/ha dans un tableau, puis kg/ha dans le texte.-Dans le texte, traitez les informations dans le même que dans les tableaux ou les graphiques.-Ne mettez pas de données dans un tableau si elles peuvent être facilement et clairement présentées dans le texte. Une des règles empiriques veut que le champ du tableau contienne au moins huit éléments.-Choisissez des titres de colonnes courts.-Essayez d'éviter les abréviations. Si les abréviations sont essentielles, expliquez celles qui sont peu courantes (par ex. vous n'avez pas besoin d'expliquer « kg ») dans une note de bas de page, même si vous les avez déjà expliquées dans le texte.-Mentionnez toujours l'unité de mesure, en général du système SI, soit dans le titre du tableau, soit dans l'intitulé de la colonne, selon ce qui convient. Si des unités non métriques sont utilisées dans l'enquête, convertissez-les en unités métriques pour la publication.-Si des pourcentages sont utilisés (par ex. dans la description des solutions), notez la distinction entre les pourcentages au poids (w/w) ou au volume (v/v).-Alignez les données dans les colonnes pour faciliter la comparaison de haut en bas. Dans la plupart des cas, cela impliquera d'aligner les numéros en fonction du point décimal.-Les données doivent être arrondies : 76.4 et non 76.42796.-Soyez précis dans la collecte de données : par exemple, si vous rapportez un essai mené à bien sur une petite parcelle, est-il judicieux de noter un rendement de grains de 5671 kg/ha plutôt que de 5.7 t/ha ? -Utilisez un zéro (0) lorsque vous écrivez des données inférieures à 1, par exemple 0.25 kg.-Choisissez des unités permettant d'éviter un trop grand nombre de chiffres, par ex. 240 μg plutôt que 0.000 24 g.-Utilisez les puissances de 10 pour éviter les nombres avec une série de zéros : 39 200 000 devrait être écrit 3.92 x 10 7 . Pour les titres de colonne, ajoutez « 000 aux désignations d'unités pour indiquer les milliers et utilisez 42 comme entrée pour 42 000.-Évitez l'utilisation du tiret (-) dans les tableaux, indiquez plutôt là où aucune donnée n'était disponible (nd), où l'élément n'est pas applicable (na) ou toutes autres circonstances, en utilisant des notes de bas de page si nécessaire.-N'utilisez pas de nombres avec multiplicateurs dans les titres de colonnes, car ils peuvent perturber.-Utilisez les symboles appropriés pour identifier les éléments qui sont expliqués dans les notes de bas de page, en respectant le style de la revue. Il peut s'agir de numéros en exposant ( Une autre considération est la séquence dans laquelle présenter l'information. S'il y a un traitement ou une entrée de référence (Robusta, dans le cas du Tableau 8.5), il est préférable de le mettre à la première ou à la dernière rangée. Idéalement, la variable la plus importante, celle sur laquelle vous souhaitez que vos lecteurs se concentrent (le poids de la plante entière, dans ce cas), devrait se trouver dans la première colonne, bien que cela dépende de la logique si, par exemple, l'intérêt se porte sur un paramètre dérivé.Ici également, la séquence des variables ou des rangées indépendantes doit être guidée par le message que vous voulez transmettre à vos lecteurs avec ce tableau. Si, par exemple, vous voulez mettre en avant les plantes avec le plus grand poids, vous pouvez organiser les rangées de la plus lourde à la plus légère (en laissant la rangée de référence tout en haut ou tout en bas).En se basant sur ces considérations, le Tableau 8.5 pourrait être amélioré en organisant les rangées dans l'ordre décroissant selon le poids de la plante et en retirant les colonnes des paramètres qui ne montrent pas de variations significatives -ceux-ci peuvent être mentionnés dans le texte, par une simple fourchette de valeurs dans les traitements (Tableau 8.7). Ces changements améliorent la lisibilité des tableaux et en diminuent la taille, ce qui simplifie la disposition du rapport final dans sa forme imprimée.Pourquoi le tableau est-il inclus ?Que montre-t-il ?Le tableau est-il complet en lui-même ?Le tableau se suffit-il à lui-même sans le reste du texte ?Le tableau se rattache-t-il correctement au texte ?Le tableau est-il bien placé et référé dans le texte ?Le titre est-il clair, concis et pertinent ?Les titres des rangées et des colonnes sont-ils corrects et appropriés ?Les notes de bas de tableau sont-elles identifiées avec les symboles appropriés ?Les données du tableau sont-elles correctes ?Les données sont-elles présentées de manière logique pour faciliter la compréhension ?Y a-t-il trop de données dans le tableau ?Avez-vous vérifié que les totaux et les informations statistiques dans le tableau sont corrects ?Le tableau est-il bien conçu ?Tous les tableaux ont-ils été bien numérotés ? Au terme de ce chapitre, vous serez capable :-de comprendre les principes de base de la préparation d'illustrations pour les articles et les documents scientifiques ; -de reconnaître les erreurs dans des illustrations mal préparées ; -de préparer de bonnes illustrations à partir de données numériques.-être simples et claires ; -contenir des légendes pertinentes ; -être indépendantes du texte et des autres illustrations ; -être visuellement attirantes et non surchargées ; -être organisées de la façon dont sont présentées les données.Selon le Conseil des éditeurs en biologie (1988), les illustrations doivent parvenir aux objectifs suivants :-montrer les données sans modifier ce qu'elles signifient ; -amener facilement le lecteur dans la substance même des données ; -encourager des comparaisons entre différentes données ; -présenter les informations statistiques de manière sélective, sans être trop denses (par ex. bonne composition) ; -adapter le contenu et le style de la présentation aux capacités, connaissances et préférences du public visé ; -prendre en compte la production finale/le processus d'impression.   Il montre les relations entre deux ensembles de données ou une comparaison dynamique dans le temps.Il montre la répartition des fréquences des observations pour chaque classe de variables, comme le poids ou les rendements des plants.Il compare les tailles et les proportions des composants d'un système.Il explique un processus ou un système.Carte thématique Elle montre le schéma d'une disposition expérimentale ou une carte géographique de la répartition des parasites, par exemple, dans un pays ou une région.Il illustre des objets ou présente des données numériques.Elles montrent l'apparence réelle d'un spécimen ou quelque chose que vous souhaitez décrire.Vos schémas doivent être assez simples pour que le lecteur puisse comprendre instantanément le message. Une image qui essaie de montrer trop de choses finit généralement par ne rien montrer de façon claire. L'image que vous soumettez à la publication doit être dessinée et intitulée soigneusement, car il se peut qu'elle ne soit pas redessinée pour la publication.Les revues proposent des orientations sur la présentation des illustrations. Il est normalement préférable de soumettre chaque schéma sur une page séparée avec des légendes appropriées. L'éditeur incorporera chaque schéma dans le texte à la place la plus adéquate sur la page de la revue.La taille de police, la police et les styles sont utilisés pour faire ressortir l'information -suivant son importance. Les titres des axes doivent être les indications les plus grandes et les plus voyantes du schéma. Pour une lisibilité maximale, conservez les légendes en majuscules et en minuscules, en caractères sans empattement de taille moyenne. Les unités de mesure sont entre parenthèses en lettres minuscules : (°C).- « Les illustrations présentent des informations sous une forme qui, autrement, nécessiterait beaucoup de mots. »Rapporter des résultats statistiques dans un article de recherche Les conclusions de vos recherches doivent être consignées dans la section Résultats de l'article scientifique. Dans ce chapitre, nous supposons que vous avez déjà rédigé les sections précédentes de votre rapport, que vous avez effectué une partie de l'analyse et que vous avez produit des tableaux (Chapitre 8) et des graphiques (Chapitre 9) provisoires.Vous approchez de l'issue de votre recherche. Tout comme pour la construction d'une vraie route, cette étape est d'autant plus motivante que vous touchez au but. C'est également une étape essentielle. On vous a octroyé une subvention de recherche ou d'autres types soutiens pour votre travail et les personnes interrogées et les collaborateurs ont donné de leur temps, et ce dans l'espoir que des lacunes dans la recherche allaient être comblées. Pour garder la métaphore de la route, ne produire aucun rapport ou document reviendrait à prendre des fonds pour construire une route et les gaspiller sans aucun résultat. Produire un rapport superficiel reviendrait à construire une route de qualité médiocre devant bientôt faire l'objet de réfections, car elle ne répond pas aux attentes.Beaucoup de personnes sont convaincues que prendre de l'argent pour construire une route, puis gaspiller les fonds sans construction durable s'apparente sans conteste à de la corruption. Prendre des fonds pour la recherche et ne pas rapporter les résultats revient au même.Au terme de ce chapitre, vous serez capable :-de mener à bien l'analyse nécessaire pour rapporter vos résultats de recherche dans des articles scientifiques. Encadré 10.4) reproduisant simplement les éléments qui sont plus clairement visibles dans le tableau correspondant. Au lieu de cela, le texte doit attirer l'attention sur les points importants qui seront interprétés ultérieurement (bas de l'Encadré 10.4).-« Significatif » a une utilisation quotidienne différente de l'utilisation statistique et cela peut perturber certains lecteurs. « Significatif » au sens général est à peu près synonyme du terme « important », alors qu'un résultat statistiquement significatif peut ne pas revêtir d'importance pratique.-Il n'y a pas de délimitation claire entre « significatif » et « non significatif ». L'utilisation de 5 % et de 1 % était pratique avant l'arrivée des ordinateurs, quand les tableaux pouvaient être préparés pour seulement quelques niveaux de probabilité. Des expressions comme « preuve évidente pour… », « quelques preuves de… » ou « peu de raisons de croire que… » permettent de présenter de façon plus informative l'état actuel de vos connaissances.-  (homme âgé, Kirimamboga, Wakiso).La présentation orale des résultats de recherche est une méthode importante de communication des résultats des efforts de recherche. Cette méthode est couramment adoptée dans les séminaires institutionnels, les conférences internationales, les ateliers et les cours de formation. La présentation orale est importante pour une communication efficace des résultats de recherche.De bonnes compétences en présentation améliorent l'efficacité de la communication. Les scientifiques de la recherche agricole, ainsi que les autres chercheurs, doivent donc les développer.La présentation orale :-permet au public de voir, d'écouter et d'entendre l'orateur ; -donne au public un temps limité pour entendre et comprendre l'orateur ; -utilise des visuels pour améliorer le processus de communication ; -permet une interaction mutuelle entre l'orateur et les auditeurs en vue de faciliter la communication.Ce chapitre fournit quelques orientations pour une présentation orale efficace des résultats de recherche.Au terme de ce chapitre, vous serez capable :-d'identifier les erreurs principales d'une mauvaise présentation orale de résultats de recherche ; -d'améliorer vos compétences dans la préparation de présentations pour des réunions scientifiques ; -de développer des techniques plus efficaces pour réaliser des présentations.Il existe des différences majeures entre un article scientifique écrit pour la lecture et un article écrit pour être présenté lors d'une réunion scientifique. Un scientifique qui lit un article écrit a le luxe de s'attarder sur le texte pour retenir et comprendre le contenu et même de revenir sur un paragraphe pour saisir la signification de quelque chose plus loin dans le texte. Mais lors d'une présentation orale, l'auditeur n'a qu'une seule occasion de comprendre le matériel présenté. L'orateur doit donc présenter chaque idée clairement -et peut-être même répéter les points et les idées clés.Les recherches ont montré que lors d'une présentation orale, il faut environ 3 minutes pour faire passer une nouvelle idée. L'orateur doit répéter et développer une idée plusieurs fois pour que le public reçoive le message. Dans la plupart des réunions scientifiques, chaque orateur (sauf les orateurs principaux et les invités spéciaux) n'a droit qu'à 15 minutes. L'orateur doit consacrer 2 minutes à la présentation de l'introduction et 1 minute à la conclusion. Cela lui laisse environ 12 minutes pour présenter les résultats réels de la recherche. Ce schéma proposé se compose comme suit :-Introduction -2 minutes ; -Les faits -12 minutes ; -Conclusion -1 minute.Qu'est-ce qu'une présentation orale ?Il s'agit d'un temps très court pour présenter des résultats de recherche qui ont probablement nécessité plusieurs mois, saisons, voire années de travail. Ce n'est pas une tâche facile et les scientifiques qui souhaitent présenter leurs résultats de recherche lors d'une réunion scientifique doivent prendre le temps de se préparer correctement à cet événement.Quelques questions clés doivent être prises en compte dans le processus de préparation des présentations orales.-Tout d'abord : déterminez l'objectif de la présentation. Le but premier d'une présentation scientifique est d'informer votre public des résultats de votre travail de recherche. Il peut également être de persuader vos auditeurs d'accepter vos idées et de prendre des mesures appropriées -en particulier quand des recommandations spécifiques sont formulées dans votre présentation -ou même de divertir votre public.À côté des considérations sur l'objectif de la présentation, d'autres considérations clés viennent s'ajouter :-Définissez votre public -qui est-il ? Le public est-il un groupe de personnes ayant des contextes techniques et sociaux mélangés, un groupe homogène ou clairement défini de spécialistes, par exemple des entomologistes ou des spécialistes de la protection des plantes ? Et quels sont les intérêts de votre public ?-Quel est l'objectif de votre présentation ? À quoi souhaitez-vous parvenir à travers celle-ci ?Voici quelques conseils sur la manière de préparer et d'effectuer une présentation orale lors d'une réunion scientifique.Le processus de préparation et de réalisation des présentations orales des résultats de recherche se compose des éléments suivants : actions préparatoires, révision avant présentation et présentation ou discours en tant que tel.Une préparation adéquate est nécessaire pour une présentation orale réussie. Soyez attentif aux points suivants :-préparez toujours votre présentation soigneusement ;-décidez du sujet spécifique de la présentation -il doit être simple et clair. Couvrez un nombre limité d'idées, deux ou trois par exemple.-Renseignez-vous pour savoir combien de temps vous est consacré -en règle générale, le temps de présentation dans les conférences est de 15 minutes maximum. -Concentrez-vous sur les idées importantes -pas le temps pour les détails.Après avoir écrit votre présentation, utilisez soigneusement le texte pour préparer les diapositives de présentation PowerPoint. Préparez ou sélectionnez soigneusement votre matière illustrative (les diapositives PowerPoint, par exemple). Veillez à ce que toutes les illustrations soient pertinentes par rapport au sujet et renforcent vos propos.-N'encombrez pas les visuels avec trop de données.-Utilisez un double interligne ou des grandes lettres pour que le texte soit facile à lire.-Dans votre texte de présentation, notez les moments exacts où les visuels seront présentés. -Organisez vos illustrations dans l'ordre séquentiel dans lequel vous comptez les utiliser et numérotez-les en série. -Répétez votre présentation avec un collègue pour savoir si elle tient dans le temps imparti. -Anticipez les questions et préparez de courtes réponses.Habillez-vous soigneusement et évitez les vêtements voyants ou tape-à-l'oeil qui attireront une attention inutile.Avant d'effectuer votre présentation, il est utile de vérifier les équipements disponibles dans la salle de conférence.De nos jours, la plupart des présentations se font au moyen de diapositives PowerPoint. Approfondissez vos compétences de conception et de présentation PowerPoint.-Quelques minutes avant l'heure prévue de votre présentation, généralement pendant la pause-café ou déjeuner, chargez vos diapositives PowerPoint sur l'ordinateur.-Testez le déroulement de la présentation afin de vous assurer que la séquence des diapositives est correcte et que la projection sur l'écran est facile à réaliser et que la qualité est bonne.-Relisez le texte et les visuels afin de vous assurer qu'ils correspondent.-Familiarisez-vous avec la configuration du public et le type et l'emplacement du microphone -devez-vous le tenir à la main ou s'attache-t-il au revers d'un col de chemise ?-Familiarisez-vous le cas échéant avec le mécanisme de télécommande de la salle de conférence.-Vérifiez que le mécanisme de pointage utilisé pour souligner les points spécifiques à l'écran pendant la présentation fonctionne correctement. Il peut s'agir d'un pointeur laser ou d'une règle. Il est fortement recommandé d'avoir son propre pointeur laser lorsque l'on effectue une présentation lors d'une réunion scientifique.-Parlez très distinctement -et parlez au et non vers votre public.-Parlez lentement, mais pas trop pour ne pas ennuyer votre public.-Présentez une seule idée ou un seul fait de différentes manières en variant votre construction et la modulation de votre voix. N'oubliez pas de ne présenter qu'une nouvelle idée toutes les 3 minutes et répétez-la pour permettre à votre public de la saisir.-Adoptez un style oral simple -ne criez pas vers votre public.-Soyez détendu et confiant. Regardez le public, et non le sol ou la fenêtre, peu importe votre niveau de timidité.-Répartissez votre temps de présentation selon le schéma suivant :-Faites une pause après chaque nouvelle diapositive afin de laisser le temps au public d'assimiler le nouveau matériel.-Ne distrayez pas votre public en vous baladant dans la salle, en trébuchant sur le câble du microphone ou en tripotant continuellement celui-ci. Ne le placez pas trop près de votre bouche, car la qualité du son en sera diminuée.-Faites passer clairement votre message. Dites à votre public ce dont vous allez parler (l'introduction), parlez-en (méthodes, résultats et discussion) et abordez les conséquences de ce que vous avez dit (conclusion).-Si possible, terminez votre présentation 2 minutes avant la fin du temps imparti. Ne vous opposez pas au président de la conférence, qui s'efforcera de vous faire taire. Donnez aux autres orateurs la chance de présenter leurs travaux en respectant le programme de la conférence.-À la fin de votre présentation, remerciez le président et le public pour leur attention.Les résultats de recherche agricole sont parfois présentés sous la forme de posters, qui sont en général fixés sur les murs des salles ou des couloirs des institutions de recherche. Lors des conférences scientifiques, il est courant de trouver beaucoup de posters scientifiques présentés dans des salles d'expositions réservées à cet effet.Lors de certaines réunions scientifiques, des sessions spéciales pour les posters sont organisées. Au cours de ces sessions, les scientifiques se tiennent à côté de leurs posters afin de répondre aux questions et de fournir des explications.Au terme de ce chapitre, vous serez capable :-de comprendre les principes de base de l'utilisation de posters pour la communication des résultats de recherche agricole ; -de planifier et de concevoir des présentations de résultats de recherche sous la forme de posters pour les conférences.Un poster scientifique est une grande page unique contenant toutes les informations à communiquer. En effet, un poster est une forme abrégée d'un article de revue. Il suit donc la structure IMRED (Introduction, Matériel, Résultats et Discussion) (voir Chapitre 3).Les posters sont un moyen de communication scientifique très efficace généralement utilisé pour les séminaires techniques, les conférences et les autres réunions scientifiques.Un poster peut également être utilisé efficacement pour présenter des images qui racontent une histoire entière ou une activité de recherche, ainsi que les résultats. Les informations d'un poster sont fournies en grande partie grâce à l'utilisation de visuels. Un poster efficace doit donc être visuellement attirant.Le but principal d'un poster scientifique est de présenter l'information à travers l'utilisation de visuels et au moyen d'une combinaison bien coordonnée et organisée de texte et de matière illustrative.Idéalement, un bon poster scientifique doit :-être simple et très informatif ; -raconter entièrement et complètement une histoire ; -être facile à lire et à comprendre et contenir des légendes pertinentes ; -être visuellement attirant et intéressant pour encourager les gens à le lire ; -contenir du texte et de la matière illustrative combinés harmonieusement en vue de produire une présentation efficace ; -contenir un minimum de couleurs conflictuelles, afin de ne pas perturber les lecteurs.12. Poster décrivant le cycle de vie du foreur des tiges du riz et ses dégâts sur les plantations de riz -Les stades de la vie du foreur des tiges du riz.-Photographies ou dessins clairs avec de courtes légendes descriptives.-Plants de riz à différents stades de dégâts causés par le foreur des tiges du riz.-Photographies ou dessins avec de courtes légendes descriptives.-Répartition du foreur des tiges du riz selon les régions géographiques concernées (par ex. une carte bien légendée de l'Afrique de l'Ouest permettant d'indiquer l'incidence de l'insecte dans les différents pays).Poster sur le projet des Services d'information sur le riz en Afrique de l'Ouest (WARIS) de la WARDA à Bouaké, en Côte d'Ivoire -Photographies en couleur de la bibliothèque et du centre de documentation de la WARDA, montrant des étagères de livres et de revues. -Photographies du personnel de la bibliothèque de la WARDA impliqué dans la production en interne de documents et la distribution de documents aux scientifiques étudiant la riziculture. -Texte expliquant brièvement l'éventail des services d'information sur les sciences du riz fournis par le projet WARIS. -Photographies des rangées de CD-ROM contenant les bases de données agricoles disponibles à la WARDA.Pour la réalisation d'un poster scientifique, il est conseillé de suivre les étapes suivantes.-Avant de commencer la préparation d'un poster, décidez du sujet ou de l'objet précis que vous souhaitez aborder. Veillez à ce que l'histoire soit intéressante et si possible nouvelle. -Ensuite, procédez à la planification du poster de la même manière que vous le feriez pour un article de recherche destiné à une revue (voir Chapitres 3 et 4). -Rédigez le texte complet de l'histoire. Révisez-le minutieusement jusqu'à ce que vous soyez convaincu que toutes les informations que vous souhaitez communiquer ont été incluses. -Éditez consciencieusement le texte afin de le rendre bref, sans pour autant compromettre la qualité ni les détails techniques. -Identifiez les parties du texte que vous souhaitez illustrer. Entrez en contact avec un artiste graphique et décrivez exactement ce que vous souhaitez montrer dans le poster. L'artiste produira une ébauche de poster que vous devrez réviser et approuver. Étudiez attentivement le design. Si vous en êtes satisfait, donnez votre approbation à l'artiste afin qu'il procède à la finalisation et à la production du poster.Si vous ne pouvez avoir recours à un bon graphiste, vous pouvez préparer un bon poster par vous-même. Voici quelques conseils pour vous aider dans la préparation d'un poster destiné à être présenté à une conférence.-Planifiez, rédigez et éditez le texte de votre poster.-Décidez de ce que vous souhaitez illustrer.-Arrangez-vous pour faire des impressions grand format des images dont vous avez besoin pour le poster. -Faites un grand croquis des graphiques et des diagrammes que vous prévoyez d'inclure. L'importance relative du matériel illustré déterminera les tailles relatives de vos illustrations. -Mettez le texte en police de grande taille, environ 20-36. Travaillez sur le texte afin de le rendre concis, bref et clair. -Imprimez les groupes de textes sur des feuilles de papier séparées, la taille va varier selon la quantité de texte. -Vérifiez la taille générale du poster. Si vous vous préparez pour une conférence, l'organisateur vous fournira normalement des informations sur la taille maximale des posters. -Préparez une planification grossière de la disposition (Schéma 12.1) en indiquant où chaque élément se trouvera sur le poster final. -En utilisant cette disposition comme guide, mesurez les tailles réelles du texte et de la matière illustrative et placez-les sur un prototype du poster en taille réelle. -Copiez les différentes sections sur le poster -veillez à ce qu'elles soient alignées, tant horizontalement que verticalement. -Afin d'améliorer l'apparence de votre poster, vous pouvez imprimer le texte sur du papier coloré ou sur du papier blanc et copier les blocs de texte sur du papier coloré en contraste. Les photographies, les dessins et les graphiques peuvent également être copiés sur un arrière-plan coloré en contraste. Si vous avez suffisamment de connaissances informatiques ou si vous avez accès à un savoir-faire et aux équipements nécessaires à la publication assistée par ordinateur (DTP), vous pouvez préparer votre poster de manière électronique en utilisant les logiciels de DTP standards comme PageMaker, PowerPoint, CorelDraw, Adobe Illustrator ou InDesign. Une fois votre poster élaboré par ordinateur, il peut être imprimé à la taille que vous désirez. Pour ce faire, copiez le fichier sur une clé USB et confiez-la à un imprimeur fiable qui dispose d'installations adaptées à l'impression de votre poster à la taille désirée.Enfin, ne quittez jamais votre domicile pour vous rendre à une conférence scientifique sans le poster que vous avez préparé pour communiquer votre travail de recherche. Évitez de vous retrouver dans l'embarras.Voici quelques points importants à retenir lorsque vous présentez un poster lors d'une session de posters de conférence :-exposez votre poster à l'endroit qui vous est attribué ; -n'oubliez pas de vous tenir près de votre poster au(x) moment(s) approprié(s) afin d'interagir avec les personnes qui le regardent ; -anticipez les questions et préparez des réponses ; -n'oubliez pas d'inclure vos coordonnées de contact dans le poster.« Les posters sont un moyen de communication scientifique très efficace généralement utilisé pour les séminaires techniques, les conférences et les autres réunions scientifiques. »Rédiger des propositions de recherche est une activité centrale et essentielle pour les chercheurs scientifiques. Sans propositions de recherche, les financements pour la recherche deviennent très difficiles à obtenir, voire inexistants. Les scientifiques doivent par conséquent développer un niveau raisonnable de compétences en rédaction de propositions de recherche afin que ces dernières soient dignes de subventions. Ces compétences sont développées et renforcées au moyen d'une pratique régulière sur de nombreuses années.Les propositions de projet de recherche sont, fondamentalement, des mini rapports de recherche qui n'ont pas atteint le stade de mise en place réelle. Les propositions de recherche ont un nombre d'éléments bien définis qui, s'ils sont rassemblés avec soin, devraient déboucher sur le financement du projet.Ce chapitre fournit des orientations générales sur les éléments à intégrer dans la rédaction de propositions de recherche afin que celles-ci soient dignes de subventions.Au terme de ce chapitre, vous serez capable :-d'analyser les éléments d'une proposition de recherche agricole aboutie ; -de développer des compétences en rédaction de propositions de recherche agricole abouties répondant aux besoins des potentielles agences donatrices externes et internes au pays.Comme pour la rédaction d'un rapport de recherche, vous devez soigneusement déterminer la cible de votre proposition de recherche avant même de commencer à écrire. Les différents donateurs ont des priorités bien définies et des exigences spécifiques pour les demandes de financement de projets. Ces priorités ne sont pas constantes et sont modifiées périodiquement selon l'évolution des politiques et des stratégies d'aide au développement. Heureusement, la plupart des donateurs publient des manuels et des guides complets qui détaillent comment les propositions doivent être élaborées. Ces guides pour la rédaction de documents de projet sont également postés sur les sites Internet des organisations donatrices.Les éléments de base habituels d'une proposition de projet de recherche se composent :-du titre ; -du chef de projet ; -d'un résumé de synthèse ; -des abréviations et acronymes ; -d'une définition du problème et de sa justification ; -des objectifs ; -des résultats escomptés ; -de la méthodologie ; -des collaborateurs :-du délai de mise en place du projet ; -d'un plan de travail du projet ;13.1 IntroductionChapitre 13 -Rédiger des propositions et des rapports de recherche -du cadre logique ; -du budget du projet.Ces éléments sont organisés de manière différente selon les différentes agences donatrices. Avant de démarrer la rédaction d'une proposition de projet, procurez-vous les guides spécifiques à la préparation et à la soumission de documents de projet auprès de l'agence donatrice de votre choix.Par exemple, depuis 2010, la structure approuvée pour la rédaction d'un document de projet de coopération technique destiné à l'Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture (FAO) est présentée dans l'Encadré 13.1.Encadré 13.1 Programme de coopération technique de la FAO  Comme pour un article de recherche, le titre est l'une des parties les plus importantes de la proposition de recherche. Il doit immédiatement éveiller l'intérêt d'un donateur potentiel. Ainsi, il est conseillé d'adopter un titre concis qui, surtout, reflète précisément le contenu du document de projet.Dans la plupart des propositions de projet de recherche, vous devrez désigner un chef de projet et inclure un curriculum vitae abrégé. Les donateurs souhaitent savoir qui sera responsable du projet. La plupart des donateurs précisent les exigences détaillées dans les formulaires de demande de financement de projets. Si aucune exigence ne concerne la désignation du chef de projet, donnez au moins son nom, son adresse institutionnelle et de correspondance, ses qualifications, son expérience, une liste des missions de chef de projet similaires entreprises et une liste de publications sélectionnées.Le document de projet doit comporter un résumé de synthèse complet, détaillé sans être trop long et écrit selon une séquence logique.Les évaluateurs baseront souvent leur jugement préliminaire du mérite de votre projet et de son adéquation immédiate aux besoins des donateurs potentiels sur le résumé de synthèse. En seulement quelques phrases, vous devez justifier le projet, présenter le plan de travail et décrire les résultats escomptés et leur signification.Cette liste contient le sens de toutes les abréviations et acronymes utilisés dans le document de projet.Examinez le contexte de ce que le projet vise à faire, dites brièvement pourquoi vous estimez que le travail devrait être fait et reliez-le à ce qui est déjà connu ou à un travail similaire réalisé par d'autres chercheurs sur ce problème.Indiquez ce que vous souhaitez atteindre en menant cette recherche. Votre déclaration peut avoir deux niveaux, par exemple un objectif immédiat que les activités du projet rempliront et un objectif de développement sur le long terme auquel le projet contribuera.Les résultats escomptés indiqués doivent être significatifs, mais aussi limités et mesurables. Par exemple, ne dites pas que vous comptez augmenter la productivité dans la sous-région du Sahel. Dites plutôt que vous visez à augmenter la productivité d'une culture spécifique d'une quantité prévue dans une région précise durant un délai limité. C'est l'un des grands défauts de beaucoup de propositions de projet : les résultats ne sont pas clairement définis et il est impossible de déterminer quand le projet a atteint ses objectifs.Établissez une liste des noms de chaque scientifique national ou international ou de chaque organisation qui collaborera en tant que partenaire à la réalisation des activités du projet. Le rôle de chacun de ces partenaires ou collaborateurs devrait être clairement établi. Tâchez d'obtenir le consentement des collaborateurs et des partenaires avant qu'ils ne soient inclus dans la proposition de projet.Dès le départ, indiquez la durée du projet (par ex. 18, 24 ou 36 mois). Ce délai est différent du plan de travail ou du calendrier des activités du projet de recherche.Décrivez le calendrier des activités que vous comptez suivre pour la mise en place du projet. Spécifiez le moment au cours du cycle du projet auquel chacune des activités sera programmée. Notez que les résultats de projet spécifiques mènent à d'autres résultats et que ce schéma devrait être reflété dans le plan de travail du projet.Certains donateurs précisent que toutes les propositions de projet soumises à financement doivent inclure un cadre logique (log frame). Ils fournissent également un format pour la préparation du cadre.Le cadre logique est un outil de planification et de gestion de projet couramment utilisé en vue d'aider à la mise en place. Il constitue ensuite un instrument d'évaluation du projet. Le cadre logique est présenté comme un simple tableau ou matrice qui résume clairement les éléments du projet, comme les indicateurs associés, les moyens de vérification, l'impact, les résultats, les produits, les activités du projet et les hypothèses importantes qui influenceront probablement la mise en place des activités. Ces éléments du cadre logique sont présentés dans une matrice comme la version simple du Tableau 13.1. -Les résultats correspondent aux résultats escomptés du projet, qui sont une conséquence de l'impact.-Les produits sont les accomplissements obtenus à travers la mise en place des activités du projet.-Les activités sont les actions spécifiques menées à bien pendant la mise en place du projet (par ex. la formation des femmes productrices de niébé pour l'adoption de pratiques de gestion intégrée des parasites).Les activités concernent les actions réelles ; les produits sont ce que ces actions accomplissent.Le budget est la partie la plus importante du document de projet. Les donateurs fournissent toujours des guides et des formats pour la construction des budgets des projets qu'ils financent. Le budget doit être préparé de façon à se conformer rigoureusement au format spécifié par le donateur potentiel. Il doit être réaliste, détaillé et correct. Il doit inclure les coûts de personnel, les équipements, le matériel et les fournitures, les voyages, ainsi que toute autre dépense importante. Les coûts du personnel peuvent inclure le personnel de soutien à recruter spécialement pour le projet, le personnel technique et administratif à plein temps ou à temps partiel impliqué dans le projet et les consultants. Estimez chaque élément du budget avec précaution et prévoyez une marge pour l'inflation, car il existe habituellement un long décalage entre la demande de fonds, son approbation et le versement des fonds. Ne prévoyez pas de montants importants pour les imprévus ou pour d'autres usages vagues. Incluez un plan de dépenses spécifiant le moment précis du projet auquel les fonds seront nécessaires. Il vous sera peut-être nécessaire de justifier séparément les voyages pour les réunions et les voyages pour la réalisation des activités du projet.Enfin, n'oubliez pas d'inclure les coûts liés au rapport -les coûts de préparation des rapports de recherche et de publication des articles qui émaneront des activités de recherche.Budget du projetSi votre proposition est bien écrite et terminée, vous recevrez une dotation de la part du donateur afin de mener à bien le projet de recherche. Durant la réalisation du projet, le donateur s'attendra à recevoir des rapports sur la progression de la recherche. Dans beaucoup de propositions de projet, un calendrier de rapports est inclus afin d'orienter la soumission des rapports. Les donateurs attendent habituellement des rapports d'étape, des rapports finaux et des rapports financiers.En règle générale, c'est le scientifique qui prépare le rapport de recherche ; le rapport financier est préparé par le responsable financier de l'institution en consultation avec le scientifique. Outre la préparation des rapports de recherche pour le donateur, les scientifiques des instituts de recherche sont censés préparer des rapports d'étape périodiques ainsi que des rapports annuels de leur recherche. Ainsi, les principaux types de rapports de recherche que les scientifiques rédigent habituellement sont :-le rapport d'étape de l'exécution de la recherche ; -le rapport de fin de projet ; -le rapport annuel de recherche.Avant de rédiger un rapport de projet, prenez des décisions à propos :-du type de rapport nécessaire -un rapport d'étape, un rapport annuel ou un rapport final ; -des aspects particuliers du travail de recherche qui sont assez bien avancés pour être rapportés ; -du schéma du rapport ; -du délai requis pour la soumission du rapport.Certains donateurs fournissent des orientations pour la préparation des rapports de recherche et des rapports financiers. Dans ces cas-là, respectez rigoureusement le format fourni. Il est dans votre propre intérêt d'agir ainsi afin de satisfaire le donateur et de rester dans ses petits papiers afin de recevoir des considérations favorables dans de futures propositions de projet.Quand aucun format spécial n'est fourni, les rapports de recherche sont habituellement préparés selon la structure Introduction, Matériel, Résultats et Discussion (IMRED) (Chapitre 3).Idéalement, le schéma d'un rapport de recherche doit comprendre les éléments suivants :-titre ; -nom de l'auteur/des auteurs ; -adresse de l'auteur/des auteurs ; -résumé de synthèse ; -introduction ; -matériel et méthodes ; -résultats ; -discussion et conclusion/recommandations ; -remerciements ; -références ; -annexes. Notez que la structure d'un rapport de recherche est semblable à celle d'un article de recherche, à l'exception du fait qu'un article de recherche peut contenir une annexe, qui peut être un résumé de données à partir desquelles les tableaux ont été préparés ou d'autres informations auxquelles il est fait référence dans le corps du rapport. Le rapport de recherche doit être organisé de manière à répondre aux objectifs et aux concepts de la proposition de projet. À l'instar des activités de recherche ou d'un article de recherche rédigé à des fins de publication, la rédaction efficace d'un rapport de recherche requiert une planification soigneuse. Pour la rédaction de rapports de recherche, adoptez les procédures décrites au Chapitre 3 pour la rédaction d'articles de recherche.Un dernier conseil : dans chaque rapport de recherche, n'oubliez pas de remercier le donateur pour le soutien financier accordé pour la mise en oeuvre du projet de recherche.Communiquer les sciences à des publics non scientifiquesles médias grand public, les gouvernements, les responsables et les décideurs politiques « Si le lecteur doit saisir ce que l'écrivain veut dire, l'écrivain doit comprendre ce dont le lecteur a besoin. » (Gopen et Swan 1990) En plus de communiquer leur recherche à leurs pairs dans la communauté scientifique, les chercheurs agricoles doivent également toucher diverses parties prenantes avec leurs découvertes, et ce dans un langage et un format qui convient le mieux possible aux publics visés. Ce chapitre porte sur cette obligation. Il a pour objectif fondamental d'aider les chercheurs à comprendre l'importance de ce type de communication et à identifier et choisir les moyens de développer les messages appropriés.Au terme de ce chapitre, vous serez capable :-de discuter le besoin de communiquer avec un public plus large que la communauté scientifique ; -d'identifier les différents publics non scientifiques et les types de médias adaptés à chaque public ; -de décrire les exigences spéciales de la rédaction pour un large public ; -d'adapter le contenu d'un article scientifique à un article d'actualité pour le grand public.La communication peut être définie (voir le Macquarie Little Dictionary) comme « donner à quelqu'un d'autre, conférer, transmettre, faire connaître, avoir un échange de pensées ». Cette définition met en jeu trois concepts :-la sensibilisation -« pour faire connaître » ; -l'échange d'informations -« pour donner à quelqu'un d'autre, conférer, transmettre » ; -le dialogue -« pour avoir un échange de pensées ».Les chercheurs agricoles peuvent penser que les gens ordinaires, le grand public et les médias ne s'intéressent ni à eux ni à leur recherche. Cependant, ils doivent être conscients que pour que leur travail ait un sens pour les parties prenantes concernées, une communication efficace est nécessaire.Il serait impossible de tenir à jour les dernières découvertes scientifiques dans toutes les disciplines sans des moyens de communication variés. Ces derniers doivent rendre possible la transmission des résultats de recherche dans des formats plus facilement compréhensibles pour un large public de non-scientifiques.Le financement d'une recherche dont les résultats sont publiés dans les médias pour le grand public ne sera probablement pas réduit si le public trouve ces résultats utiles et pertinents pour la résolution de ses problèmes. -les donateurs (à la fois nationaux et étrangers), qui décident quelles recherches (et quels chercheurs) reçoivent leur financement ; -les contribuables, qui payent les factures et élisent les gens qui deviennent décideurs politiques ; -les décideurs politiques, dont les décisions peuvent être influencées par les découvertes de la recherche et dont les fausses idées préconçues peuvent bloquer votre financement ; -les éducateurs, formateurs et responsables de la vulgarisation, qui transmettent les découvertes de la recherche et dont la compréhension et l'approbation de vos découvertes faciliteront leur adoption et leur utilisation ; -les groupes d'utilisateurs, qui bénéficient des découvertes de la recherche et dont les questions et commentaires amélioreront l'orientation de votre recherche ; -les collaborateurs potentiels, qui peuvent vouloir se joindre à vous pour de futurs projets.Il existe beaucoup de supports pour communiquer au grand public la valeur des sciences agricoles et les bénéfices potentiels de la recherche.14.5.1 Quel support et pour qui ?Les scientifiques ont besoin des médias. Ils doivent donc également apprendre à intéresser les médias à leur travail et à écrire des articles de base qui transmettent l'information -clairement et simplement -à un large public. Les scientifiques devront adapter leurs messages au public visé, sans compromettre leur qualité et la validité de l'aspect scientifique.Les supports de communication les plus courants sont indiqués ci-dessous.Les conférences de presse Pensez à inviter la presse à une conférence scientifique organisée par votre institution ou votre réseau. Identifiez les présentations qui pourraient susciter l'intérêt des médias et organisez votre invitation autour de celles-ci.Sortez un communiqué de presse le jour de la conférence, soulignez les présentations et les éléments d'intérêt général.Rédigez des articles de fond sur votre domaine de recherche pour les journaux et les magazines, et ce en collaboration avec les médias. Les faits essentiels de chaque article doivent répondre à six questions simples :-qui ? -une personne peut être largement connue dans le domaine, nationalement ou internationalement (s'applique aussi aux organisations) ; -quoi ? -l'idée ou l'événement peut être plus intéressant ou significatif que la personne qui le réalise ; Ce chapitre donne des informations sur les différents types de revues en ligne sur lesquels les scientifiques peuvent tomber. Il explique également certaines des différentes attentes que les auteurs et les revues peuvent avoir en ce qui concerne l'édition en ligne.Au terme de ce chapitre, vous serez capable :-de comprendre et prendre des décisions sur l'édition en ligne en toute connaissance de cause ; -d'expliquer ce qu'est le libre accès et quels avantages et inconvénients il apporte aux revues et aux auteurs ; -d'identifier quels avantages sont importants pour les auteurs et les lecteurs ; -de vous sentir confiant pour soumettre vos articles à une revue en ligne.La communication de la recherche a été grandement touchée par l'essor d'Internet et a largement utilisé ce moyen pour améliorer la vitesse et l'efficacité de la diffusion des résultats de recherche. La vitesse de communication et le potentiel de contact avec des chercheurs à travers le monde a mené à l'adoption rapide du web dans tous les secteurs de praticiens, de chercheurs et d'universitaires. Internet a également changé la manière de travailler des chercheurs en encourageant une meilleure collaboration et discussion entre les pays.Internet a également modifié les attentes -par exemple, les auteurs ne sont plus disposés à attendre des mois (ou même des années) pour voir leur travail publié, car leur crédibilité peut être réduite si leurs articles ne sont pas disponibles en ligne. Il a également affecté les attentes des lecteurs, car les articles doivent désormais faire référence aux pensées et découvertes actuelles.Quand les revues ont commencé à publier en ligne, le contenu était généralement un fac-similé de la version imprimée. Mais cela a changé et vous devez connaître les différents types de revues en ligne qui existent aujourd'hui.Au cours des dernières années, un nombre croissant de revues ont été lancées comme titres exclusivement en ligne (par ex. The African Journal of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicines, 2010, www.africanethnomedicines.net/ journal.php). Au début, ces revues étaient considérées comme inférieures aux revues qui conservaient un format imprimé et certains index ne les incluaient pas. Le souci était qu'elles étaient éphémères, comparées aux titres imprimés, et que la qualité de leur contenu était douteuse.Le temps a montré que les titres en ligne ne sont pas aussi éphémères qu'on le pensait et ils sont maintenant acceptés comme des publications valides. Les index les plus importants les incluent au même titre que les journaux imprimés et les universités les acceptent comme des publications valides que leur personnel peu utiliser et dans il peut publier.En ce qui concerne la qualité, il est maintenant admis que la qualité d'une revue n'est pas déterminée par son format -imprimé ou en ligne. Une revue de qualité a un comité de rédaction respecté et publie des articles dont la qualité est assurée (habituellement grâce à la révision par les pairs). Il existe beaucoup de revues imprimées qui ne se conforment pas à ce test de qualité et beaucoup de revues exclusivement en ligne qui imposent un contrôle de qualité de haut niveau. Dans certains domaines, il existe une idée fausse selon laquelle les revues en ligne ne révisent pas leur contenu, mais il s'agit d'une simplification injuste : certaines revues ne contrôlent pas la qualité de ce qu'elles publient -cela n'ayant aucun rapport direct avec le fait qu'il s'agisse d'une revue en ligne ou imprimée.Dès que les revues ont commencé à publier en ligne, elles ont mis en place quelques différences entre les versions en ligne et les versions imprimées. Le supplément en ligne le plus courant est l'utilisation de la couleur. Beaucoup de revues ne peuvent pas se permettre d'imprimer des images en couleur (sauf si l'auteur les subventionne), mais elles peuvent utiliser la couleur en ligne. Ainsi, il est relativement courant pour une revue imprimée de contenir une image en noir et blanc qui est disponible en couleur en ligne. Certaines revues permettent aux auteurs de fournir un contenu additionnel qui n'apparaîtra que dans la version en ligne. C'est le cas d'annexes ou d'ensembles de données ou parfois d'images supplémentaires. Cette différence trouve son origine dans le coût de l'impression -si l'auteur veut inclure une longue annexe descriptive (par exemple 20 pages), cela peut être trop cher à imprimer, mais cela ne coûte pas grand-chose de la mettre en ligne.Quand les revues ont commencé à publier sous les deux formats, la version en ligne était un fac-similé de l'édition imprimée. Cependant, aujourd'hui, de plus en plus de revues publient une sélection différente de contenus selon les versions.Un bon exemple de cette tendance est le South African Family Practice (www.safpj. co.za), la revue bimensuelle de l'Académie sud-africaine de la médecine de famille. La revue en ligne publie des articles de recherche originaux. La version imprimée inclut seulement des résumés de ces articles, ainsi que d'autres contenus, dont les actualités, les avis, les dates de réunion, les profils et d'autres contenus généraux. Un autre exemple de prestige est le British Medical Journal (BMJ). Le texte complet de tous les articles de recherche acceptés est publié en entier en ligne (bmj.com), avec libre accès et sans limite de mots, dès qu'il est prêt. BMJ pico est un format abrégé d'une page de ces articles, qui apparaît dans la revue imprimée. La raison de ce fractionnement de contenu est d'économiser des pages dans la revue imprimée et d'en augmenter le contenu.Dans les revues, le problème le plus courant est le délai entre la soumission, l'acceptation et la publication finale -certaines revues s'en sortant mieux que d'autres. C'est un problème particulièrement important pour les domaines scientifiques qui évoluent rapidement, comme la physique ou la biologie moléculaire -mais non moins frustrant pour les auteurs de rapports sur les sciences sociales et les humanités. Dans la version papier, les auteurs sont obligés d'attendre le rassemblement et l'impression de l'édition, mais beaucoup de revues en ligne ont adopté des politiques pour la prépublication des articles afin de garantir que le contenu est disponible aussi vite que possible.Pour illustrer cela, citons la revue Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (www. atmospheric-chemistry-and-physics.net). Cette revue réalise une évaluation initiale des rapports qui lui sont soumis et, s'ils passent l'évaluation, ils sont postés sur le site pour recevoir des commentaires supplémentaires des lecteurs (un système ouvert de révision par des pairs). Après un certain temps, l'article est retiré et l'auteur est prié de le réviser et de le resoumettre. Il passe ensuite par un processus traditionnel de révision par des pairs et, sur acceptation, est officiellement publié. Cette approche permet une « publication » rapide du travail de l'auteur.Plus communément, beaucoup de revues de grands éditeurs mettent les rapports acceptés (ceux qui ont été révisés et sont programmés à la publication) sur leur site Internet avant la parution de l'édition. À ce stade, les articles peuvent être cités par les utilisateurs comme « dans la presse ». Comme exemple, on peut citer le cas du service « d'affichage préliminaire » fourni par Wiley Blackwell. Dans ce système, les articles programmés à la publication sont rendus accessibles (aux abonnés) dans une partie séparée du site Internet de la revue. Une fois qu'ils ont été sélectionnés pour une édition et que cette édition est publiée, l'article en affichage préliminaire est retiré du site (www3.interscience.wiley.com/aboutus/journals.html).Dans tous les cas, les auteurs peuvent demander à ce que leurs rapports ne soient pas prépubliés s'ils ont une raison de le faire (peut-être qu'ils ont un brevet en attente). Cependant, la prépublication signifie que l'article peut être lu et cité plus tôt que la publication finale attendue -et cela peut être un avantage pour l'auteur (ainsi que pour la communauté de recherche).Chapitre 15 -Publier un article dans une revue en ligne Notez qu'une fois qu'un article est rendu accessible, il est associé à l'auteur et la recherche contenue dans l'article est attribuée à l'auteur. Ainsi, la prépublication peut aider à protéger les auteurs contre le « vol » de leur travail.Certaines revues publient chaque article dès qu'il est prêt à la publication -pas en tant que prépublication, mais en tant que publication supplémentaire, en attendant que l'intégralité du contenu de l'édition soit rassemblée. C'est notamment le cas du South African Journal of Chemistry (http://journals.sabinet.co.za/sajchem). Cette revue ouvre un volume chaque année au 1 er janvier et y ajoute les rapports dès qu'ils sont prêts. À la fin de l'année, le volume est fermé.La plus grande publication au monde fonctionne de cette manière. PLoS One est une revue lancée en 2007 qui publie des articles médicaux dès qu'ils ont été acceptés et formatés et les regroupe dans des volumes annuels (www.plosone.org).La plupart des revues publient les articles au format PDF. Cela reproduit l'apparence d'un article imprimé et est pratique à imprimer -mais il n'est pas facile à lire en ligne. Idéalement, les revues en ligne devraient publier les articles au format HTML (en tant que page Internet) en plus du PDF.Publier en PDF présente plusieurs avantages : chaque lien hypertexte est rapide à rejoindre et fournit un moyen intégré pour les utilisateurs de naviguer dans le contenu ; les pages HTML, elles, sont souvent des fichiers de taille plus petite que leurs équivalents en PDF, elles s'ouvrent ainsi plus rapidement quand l'accès Internet est lent.Le format PDF est un format idéal pour l'impression, puisqu'il fournit une série de pages nettes et propres qui sont faciles à lire. Cependant, les tailles des fichiers peuvent être grandes. Ouvrir un article au format PDF peut dès lors prendre du temps quand l'accès Internet n'est pas idéal.Habituellement, le titre et le résumé de l'article sont rendus accessibles au format HTML, disponibles pour tout le monde. Cela est très important puisque le résumé est fréquemment lu pour déterminer si l'article entier est intéressant pour l'utilisateur. Il est donc important que la revue en ligne fournisse un accès facile au résumé.Certaines revues permettent à l'auteur de publier du contenu dans d'autres médias -fichiers audio, clips vidéo et illustrations animées. Dans certains cas, ceux-ci peuvent grandement améliorer la compréhension des lecteurs. Si l'auteur pense qu'ils sont nécessaires, il est donc important de choisir une revue qui les autorise.La publication en ligne présente l'avantage important de rendre le contenu d'une revue interactif. Certaines revues ont ajouté un forum de discussion, encourageant les lecteurs à commenter les articles et à engager des débats. La publication en ligne offre également un moyen plus efficace de mettre à jour le contenu et de corriger les erreurs plutôt que de publier les traditionnels errata dans les revues imprimées.Cependant, les avantages les plus importants que les revues en ligne apportent sont la recherche, les liens hypertextes, les alertes, la diffusion large et les statistiques sur l'utilisation.Les services de recherche en ligne sont considérablement utilisés par les chercheurs. Il est prouvé que de plus en plus de chercheurs se fient aux outils de recherche (par ex. Google et Google Scholar) plutôt qu'au feuilletage des revues. Il est donc important que votre article ait un titre clair et que vous utilisiez des mots clés adaptés dans le titre et le résumé, puisqu'ils aideront les utilisateurs à atteindre votre article quand ceux-ci feront des recherches dans leur domaine d'intérêt.En raison du design du site Internet, certaines revues ne peuvent pas facilement être trouvées par les moteurs de recherche en ligne (Yahoo, Google, etc.) Il est donc important de sélectionner une revue dont la visibilité en ligne est élevée. Vous pouvez vérifier cela en faisant une recherche en ligne et en voyant si le moteur de recherche trouve rapidement la revue. L'une des avancées les plus importantes dans l'édition en ligne a été l'introduction du lien hypertexte. Ce type de lien, le plus courant et sans aucun doute le plus utilisé, permet aux lecteurs de naviguer d'une citation de texte vers une référence complète à la fin de l'article, et de là directement vers l'article cité.Dans un sondage d'auteurs entrepris par l'Association of Learned, Professional and Society Publishers en 1999, Swan et Brown (2003) ont constaté que le lien de référence était l'un des suppléments les plus valorisants pour les revues en ligne -puisqu'il permet aux lecteurs d'entreprendre facilement leur recherche d'informations en passant d'un article à l'autre. Il existe également des preuves plus récentes qui montrent que les auteurs suivent (et répètent) plus fréquemment les citations qui présentent un lien -ainsi, si une référence dans la liste d'articles ne possède pas de lien vers l'article sur Internet, elle a moins de chance d'être utilisée et citée par le lecteur (Evans 2008).Lors de la rédaction d'un article (indépendamment du fait qu'il soit destiné à une revue imprimée ou en ligne), il devient de plus en plus important de donner une adresse Internet pour les références (quand elles sont disponibles) afin que le lecteur puisse les consulter en ligne. Lorsqu'un article soumis inclut des adresses Internet dans ses références, l'éditeur de la revue peut les utiliser pour ajouter un lien hypertexte dans l'article en ligne. L'adresse Internet la plus couramment inclue est l'URL (par ex. www.plosone.org/ article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0001470). Cependant, ces liens sont maladroits, sont vulnérables aux changements de location en ligne et peuvent mener Il peut être extrêmement important pour les revues de mettre en place un système d'alerte pour prévenir l'utilisateur quand une nouvelle édition (ou un nouvel article) a été publiée. Cela ramène les lecteurs à la revue, plutôt que d'attendre qu'ils consultent le site Internet dans l'espoir qu'une nouvelle édition ait été publiée.Il existe trois systèmes d'alerte : les alertes de la table des matières, les alertes de recherche et les flux RSS. L'utilisation de ces types d'alerte dépend de la sophistication de l'éditeur.Le système le plus courant est l'alerte de la table des matières, dans lequel un utilisateur s'inscrit pour recevoir un e-mail à chaque fois qu'une nouvelle édition est publiée. Le système de flux RSS est similaire, mais au lieu d'envoyer un e-mail, il ajoute l'alerte au lecteur RSS de l'utilisateur qui peut se trouver en ligne, sur le bureau, ou sur un appareil mobile. Une alerte de recherche permet à l'utilisateur d'entreprendre une recherche pour ses termes préférés et d'être ensuite alerté dès que des articles correspondants à ces termes sont publiés.Ces types d'alerte sont très importants pour promouvoir la revue -et garantir que les lecteurs potentiels sont avertis des articles qui ont été publiés.Toutes les revues en ligne devraient fournir aux auteurs des statistiques sur l'utilisation -combien de fois leur article a été téléchargé, et (si possible) d'où (quels pays ont accédé à l'article et l'ont téléchargé). C'est un indicateur important pour l'auteur, qu'il doit utiliser afin de déterminer l'importance de son article. Pour éviter les idées exagérées du nombre de téléchargements à attendre, la revue devrait également fournir un nombre moyen de téléchargements pour que l'auteur puisse comparer son article aux autres de la même publication.Sur son site, la revue PLoS One fournit une variété d'indicateurs qui sont rendus accessibles à tous les utilisateurs ainsi qu'aux auteurs. Allez voir sur www.plosone. org/static/almInfo.action et estimez quels avantages ce type d'informations apporterait aux utilisateurs et aux auteurs.Renseignez-vous sur l'accessibilité de votre article une fois qu'il sera publié, puisque cela affectera le nombre de personnes qui liront et citeront ensuite votre travail. Dans la version imprimée, il est restreint au nombre d'abonnés et aux autres personnes qui reçoivent la revue. Dans la version en ligne, l'accès au texte complet peut être limité de façon similaire, mais des non-abonnés pourront également être au courant des articles lorsqu'ils apparaissent dans les résultats d'une recherche.Le libre accès est un facteur supplémentaire qui peut grandement améliorer la diffusion.Depuis l'introduction de l'édition en ligne, il y a eu des mouvements croissants affirmant qu'il conviendrait que les informations de la recherche soient rendues accessibles à tous ceux qui en ont besoin -et en particulier à ceux qui ont financé la recherche originale (les institutions mères des auteurs, les organismes de financement et les contribuables).Ces préoccupations ont mené à deux développements parallèles : les répertoires d'articles et les revues en ligne en libre accès.Cette technologie a été mise au point afin de permettre aux institutions de placer leur contenu de recherche (les thèses, les articles, les documents de travail, les travaux de conférence, etc.) dans une base de données rendue ensuite accessible sur l'intranet de l'université ou au monde entier sur Internet (Lynch 2003). Ces nouveaux systèmes sont appelés « répertoires institutionnels » (IR) et leur nombre a énormément augmenté, en particulier dans les universités européennes et américaines, mais également en Afrique (il existe plus de 2700 IR enregistrés dans le monde -voir http://roar.eprints.org/view/geoname).Il existe également quelques répertoires à thème spécifique destinés à capter chaque article/rapport d'une discipline particulière. Parmi les mieux établis, citons www.arxiv.org (pour les rapports sur la physique) et www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed (pour les rapports biomédicaux et sur la santé). Ceux-ci ne sont pas reliés à une institution particulière et fonctionnent comme des sites communautaires, autorisant fréquemment les commentaires sur les articles que les auteurs publient. La relation entre ces répertoires et les revues a évoluée et est passée d'une situation de méfiance (les revues étant réticentes à accepter des articles qui avaient déjà été « publiés » dans un répertoire) à une situation dans laquelle la majorité des revues acceptent que les règles institutionnelles et de financement exigent que les auteurs placent leur article dans ces systèmes et que cela n'influence pas la publication de la revue.Lors de la soumission à une revue, tâchez de savoir s'il existe un répertoire dans lequel vous devriez placer votre article -par exemple, au sein de votre propre institution. Vous devez vérifier (1) que la revue à laquelle vous soumettez l'article l'autorise ; (2) quelle version de l'article la revue vous permet-elle de soumettre -le manuscrit soumis, la version acceptée (après la révision par les pairs) ou un PDF de 15.11 Diffusion -accès libre ou fermé l'article final ; et (3) s'il existe une période d'embargo -par exemple, ne pas vous autoriser à poster votre article dans un répertoire pendant les 6 mois suivant sa publication. Il est également important de ne pas oublier de fournir l'information de citation de la version publiée dans l'article du répertoire afin que le lecteur puisse trouver la version « définitive » publiée -et la citer.Les revues en libre accès permettent à chaque utilisateur dans le monde d'accéder et de lire l'article entier de la revue (sur son site Internet) sans abonnement. Les articles doivent également être libres à la réutilisation pour tous (avec citation complète) dans des cours ou dans d'autres publications.Il est prouvé que rendre les articles accessibles librement en ligne augmente leur utilisation et renforce ainsi l'impact de la recherche. Cependant, il existe également d'autres recherches qui prouvent le contraire. La règle générale est que, bien que l'édition en libre accès augmente le nombre de lecteurs, la qualité et la pertinence de l'article pour les utilisateurs restent les caractéristiques déterminant s'ils le citent ou non (OpCit Project 2009).Il existe différents modèles financiers pour l'édition en libre accès et beaucoup de revues demandent aux auteurs de payer les frais d'édition. Certains demandent une petite contribution de soumission pour couvrir le processus de révision par les pairs, puis un second paiement si l'article est accepté. Certaines revues proposent aux auteurs d'acheter le libre accès pour leur article (s'ils ne paient pas, l'article reste en accès aux abonnés seulement) -ce qui est souvent appelé un modèle hybride. La plupart des revues sont disposées à renoncer aux frais si les auteurs ne sont pas capables de payer, bien qu'ils ne le déclarent pas publiquement. Les montants demandés par les revues varient considérablement.Rédiger un article, qu'il soit destiné uniquement à l'impression ou uniquement aux revues électroniques, requiert les mêmes compétences et qualités de présentation. La seule différence est qu'une revue en ligne peut autoriser différents types de matériel à soumettre -par exemple des images en couleur, des enregistrements audio et éventuellement des vidéos.Pour des instructions basiques sur la manière de rédiger et de publier un article scientifique, voir Falaiye et Smart (2004) et Mainali (2005).Attention : au moment de la rédaction d'un article destiné uniquement à la publication en ligne, il est tentant d'écrire des articles très longs, puisqu'il n'y a souvent pas de limite de mots (comme c'est habituellement le cas pour les publications imprimées, où chaque page à imprimer coûte de l'argent). Cependant, la capacité d'attention des lecteurs est souvent courte et c'est d'autant plus le cas pour les publications en ligne. Un bon article est précis et concis et pas plus long que nécessaire.Beaucoup de revues exigent aujourd'hui une soumission en ligne des articlesmême si la revue ne publie pas en ligne. Soumettre en ligne rend le processus de révision par les pairs et la décision finale plus rapides, puisqu'ils ne dépendent pas des systèmes postaux lents. Cependant, cela requiert que vous soyez capable de numériser tous les éléments de votre soumission -le texte, les illustrations et les autres contenus.La plupart des revues fournissent des instructions aux auteurs détaillées en ce qui concerne la soumission -si ce n'est pas le cas, elles devraient ! En règle générale, le texte doit être soumis sous la forme d'un fichier de traitement de texte et toutes les illustrations doivent être envoyées dans un format de fichier générique -tiff, jpg ou eps.Si la revue inclut différents contenus selon les formats en ligne et imprimés, elle doit l'indiquer clairement lors de la soumission -par exemple, si vous voulez qu'une image soit en couleur en ligne, mais en noir et blanc dans la version imprimée, vous devez demander à la revue si deux versions doivent être soumises ou si elle se chargera de changer l'image couleur en noir et blanc.Le droit d'auteur et les règles entourant l'utilisation juste (raisonnable) du contenu sont exactement les mêmes pour les versions en ligne que pour les versions imprimées. On pourrait craindre que le fait qu'il soit si facile de couper et coller à partir d'un article en ligne encourage le détournement ou les vols de contenus. Toutefois, à l'inverse, il est très facile de détecter le plagiat dans les versions en ligne.Si vous publiez dans une revue imprimée ou en ligne, vous devez :-vous assurer que vous avez la permission de reproduire n'importe quel contenu publié précédemment ; -vérifier quels droits vous avez de réutiliser votre propre contenu après publication.Si vous reproduisez du contenu précédemment publié (par ex. une illustration provenant d'un livre), vous devez obtenir la permission de la personne qui détient le droit d'auteur de ce contenu. Cette permission doit être donnée par écrit (un e-mail peut suffire). Parfois, un formulaire de permission standard inclut seulement la permission de reproduire le contenu en imprimé. Ainsi, si vous publiez dans une revue en ligne, vous devez vous assurer que la permission en ligne est accordée.Soumettre un article pour une publication en ligneLorsque vous soumettez votre article à une revue (imprimée ou en ligne), vous devez explicitement donner votre permission à la revue de publier votre travail. En général, les publications vous demanderont de leur céder le droit d'auteur -cela signifie que la revue « est propriétaire » du contenu et que vous ne pouvez rien faire (par ex. l'utiliser pour l'enseignement de la littérature, le republier, etc.) sans sa permission. La plupart des formulaires d'attribution du droit d'auteur indiquent clairement quels droits l'auteur conserve et les bonnes publications vous autoriseront à utiliser votre propre article à des fins non commerciales, comme l'enseignement, sans demander la permission.Les revues les plus éclairées utilisent maintenant un formulaire de « licence de publication », dans lequel vous, en tant qu'auteur, conservez le droit d'auteur de l'article, mais attribuez à la revue le droit de publier votre travail. Cela signifie que vous pouvez réutiliser votre travail comme vous le souhaitez sans permission et que la revue doit obtenir votre permission pour réutiliser votre travail sous n'importe quelle autre forme. Notons que beaucoup de formulaires de licence comme ceux-ci donnent à la publication des droits « exclusifs » de publier votre travail. Il est donc possible que vous ne puissiez pas republier votre travail ailleurs.Lorsque vous soumettez votre travail en ligne, beaucoup de publications demandent simplement de cocher une case qui confirme votre approbation des accords de droit d'auteur. D'autres systèmes requièrent que vous signiez et retourniez le formulaire imprimé. Avant de signer n'importe quel formulaire (ou de cocher une case en ligne), assurez-vous que vous avez l'autorité pour le faire -que vous détenez le droit d'auteur de ce que vous soumettez. Si l'article a été écrit dans le cadre de votre emploi, vous pourriez ne pas être habilité à attribuer le droit d'auteur sans l'autorisation de votre institution.Les éditeurs et les revues expérimentent la publication en ligne et il existe quelques développements très intéressants qu'il serait judicieux de suivre. Il est recommandé de consulter PloS One, ainsi que la revue Cell (www.cell.com), qui utilise une nouvelle présentation pour les articles en ligne (les articles publiés dans les premières éditions de 2010 sont accessibles librement). Dans le domaine de l'édition scientifique, il existe un code d'éthique strict qui vise à garantir la qualité et l'intégrité de l'information publiée. Ignorer ce code peut avoir des conséquences épouvantables allant de la mise sur liste noire de revues importantes à la mise en péril de votre carrière scientifique.Au terme de ce chapitre, vous serez capable :-de comprendre l'éthique en édition scientifique ; -de vous conformer aux conventions internationales reconnues en matière de droit d'auteur et de propriété intellectuelle.En signant un contrat de publication ou en soumettant un rapport à une revue, l'auteur garantit que :-le travail est original ; -l'auteur en est le propriétaire ; -aucune partie n'a été publiée précédemment ; -aucun autre accord de publication de l'ensemble ou d'une partie n'est en cours.Si l'une de ces affirmations est fausse, vous ne devriez pas soumettre votre texte pour publication.Si vous avez publié une partie significative du texte ailleurs, vous devez obtenir la permission écrite du propriétaire du droit d'auteur de le réimprimer et envoyer une copie de cette permission à l'éditeur. Vous devez également mentionner cette question de droit d'auteur dans votre rapport.La double publication consiste à utiliser le même corpus de données pour produire deux rapports publiés à deux endroits différents. Si un article ou un corpus de recherche a déjà été publié en tant que communication préliminaire, lu lors d'un colloque important ou publié dans des actes, signalez-le à l'éditeur. Reconnaître que votre texte a déjà été publié n'implique pas automatiquement que votre texte sera rejeté, mais le dire à l'éditeur est une courtoisie élémentaire et vous évitera des ennuis à l'avenir.Si l'article est publié pour la première fois, vous aurez besoin de la permission de l'éditeur pour imprimer le rapport dans un travail de conférence, même si vous lisez le rapport à la conférence avant de l'envoyer à la revue. Si le rapport est destiné à être publié dans une revue et que les travaux de conférence sont déjà publiés, vous aurez besoin de la permission de l'éditeur de la conférence pour publier l'article dans la revue. D'une manière ou d'une autre, vous publierez deux fois les mêmes résultats de recherche, ce qui énerve un peu les éditeurs.Comment résoudre ce problème ? C'est tout simple. N'agissez pas de la sorte. Retirez l'article des travaux de conférence avant de le soumettre à la revue ou ne le soumettez pas. N'attendez pas de voir si la revue l'accepte avant de le retirer.Beaucoup de rapports lus lors des conférences sont préliminaires ou font partie d'un travail plus grand. Dans ce cas, vous pourrez soumettre plus tard le travail entier à une revue, mais là encore, vous aurez besoin des droits d'auteur pour certaines parties du travail. Vous devriez prévenir l'éditeur de ce que vous faites dès le début.Le plagiat -faire passer les mots ou les idées de quelqu'un d'autre comme les siens -est considéré comme une faute scientifique et pris très au sérieux. Voici quelques conseils concernant les auteurs :-le premier auteur devrait être la personne qui a réalisé la majorité du travail et qui a rédigé la majeure partie du rapport ;-le second devrait être la personne qui a supervisé la planification de l'étude et l'activité du premier auteur et a aidé ce dernier pour la rédaction du rapport ou la personne qui a réalisé une plus petite partie du travail ;-les autres auteurs sont ensuite listés dans l'ordre décroissant en fonction de leur contribution.Dans Bien que ces matériaux aient été utilisés avec succès dans plusieurs cours de formation en groupe, cela ne signifie pas que les idées qu'ils véhiculent sont immuables. Utilisez-les comme cadre général pour préparer votre matériel de formation.Bien que ces guides aient été développés pour des cours de formation en rédaction scientifique, les mêmes principes s'appliquent aux autres cours de formation en groupe. Vous pouvez ainsi modifier les détails exposés ici en vue d'élaborer et d'assurer d'autres cours de formation en groupe dans le domaine de l'agriculture.Pour l'élaboration et la gestion de l'organisation d'une formation à la rédaction scientifique, la première étape consiste à :-identifier les besoins de formation ; -définir soigneusement les objectifs.Les besoins de formation peuvent être identifiés en cherchant les réponses aux questions suivantes :-Les scientifiques agricoles de votre localité ou de votre pays reconnaissent-ils le besoin de formation en rédaction scientifique et de communication des résultats de leur recherche ? -Les scientifiques sont-ils disponibles et prêts à être formés pour améliorer leurs compétences en rédaction et en communication scientifiques ? -Quels sont les aspects prioritaires de la communication scientifique que les scientifiques considèrent comme les plus difficiles dans leurs efforts de rédaction et de communication ?A1.1 Guides pour élaborer et assurer des cours de formation en rédaction scientifique pour les scientifiques de la recherche agricole.Si les réponses à ces questions mènent à la conclusion que la formation en rédaction et en communication scientifiques est nécessaire :-Quels seraient les objectifs d'une telle formation ? -Combien de scientifiques de la recherche agricole requièrent une formation et combien pouvez-vous en former lors de chaque session de formation ? -Qu'accomplirait spécifiquement la formation ? Listez vos objectifs.Lorsque vous avez bien réfléchi et décidé que la formation était nécessaire, préparez une proposition de formation qui répond aux questions suivantes :-Quel est le titre de la formation ? -Pourquoi est-elle nécessaire ? -Qui sera formé ? -Quels sont les bénéficiaires primaires et secondaires visés par cette activité de formation ? -Quel est le contenu de la formation ? -Comment, quand et où aura lieu la formation ? -Quelles ressources seront nécessaires ? -Quelle expertise sera nécessaire pour assurer la formation ? -Quelle méthodologie sera adoptée ? -Quel est le résultat escompté ? -Comment sera évaluée la formation ? -Quelles actions de suivi sont envisagées après la formation ? -Quel est le coût général de la gestion de cette formation ? Préparez un budget réaliste.Rédigez votre proposition et soumettez-la à vos collègues et à votre superviseur afin de recueillir leurs commentaires. Révisez et finalisez la proposition avant de la soumettre définitivement à votre superviseur pour que l'activité de formation soit programmée dans le plan de travail annuel de votre institution.Planifiez la formation à la rédaction et à la communication scientifiques bien à l'avance, en prenant en considération les trois éléments importants suivants :Déterminez le contenu général de la formation en organisant une consultation technique entre les formateurs potentiels, qui se basera sur les considérations des besoins de formation. Le contenu technique devrait être bien fixé afin de répondre aux besoins de formation identifiés et d'ainsi atteindre les objectifs de la formation.Définissez clairement le profil des scientifiques de la recherche agricole ou d'un domaine connexe qui devraient bénéficier de la formation. Faites-le en considérant et en définissant les critères de sélection des participants sur la base des critères suivants :Exercice 3 Activité de travail en groupe -la structure d'un rapport de rechercheLa structure basique d'un rapport de recherche suit le format IMRED :-Étudiez ces sections. À quelle question importante répondra chaque section afin de former une série logique ? Listez la question en dessous de chaque section.Quelles sont les caractéristiques majeures de chacune de ces sections ?Pour chaque section, discutez des difficultés majeures rencontrées dans la rédaction de cette partie du rapport. Listez ces difficultés dans un tableau.Pour chaque section, discutez de quelle manière ces difficultés peuvent être surmontées. Ajoutez ces solutions au tableau.Sélectionnez un membre du groupe de travail pour présenter votre rapport de groupe lors de la session plénière.Travaillez en petits sous-groupes :-Étudiez soigneusement les phrases suivantes.-Identifiez le message véhiculé.-Faites une liste de toutes les erreurs dans ces phrases.-Réécrivez chaque phrase dans un français plus clair.-Rapportez vos découvertes lors de la session plénière.1) Une expérience au champ pluriannuelle déjà décrite par ailleurs (Wey et Obaton, 1978 ;Wey et al. , 1978 ;Cissé et Vachaud, 1987et 1988) a été mise en place en 1972 en vue d'étudier l'influence de certaines pratiques culturales (fumure minérale, chaulage, enfouissement de fumier) sur la symbiose fixatrice d'azote et le rendement de l'arachide, en raison des symptômes inquiétants de chlorose azotée, voire de « nanisme jaune », en extension, que présente l'arachide dans cette région.2) Ces données sous-estiment l'importance de l'agriculture dans les économies des pays de l'Afrique de l'Ouest car elles ne reflètent pas la proportion des économies de la région qui dépendent directement de l'agriculture, que ce soit en amont (intrants, équipement et services) ou en aval (commercialisation et transformation), dont une bonne part relève souvent du secteur informel.3) Étant donnée l'importance du secteur à la fois comme moyen de subsistance et source de revenus pour la grande majorité de la population, également comme source de recettes pour les finances publiques et de devises étrangères grâce aux exportations agricoles et enfin comme base du développement industriel, la réalisation et le maintien de l'objectif de croissance de 6 % du Programme détaillé pour le développement de l'agriculture en Afrique (PDDAA ) reste un défi essentiel pour tous les pays de la région dans le cadre des efforts qu'ils déploient pour la réduction de la pauvreté et de l'insécurité alimentaire. Gambie (OMVG) etc, ainsi que les centres du Groupe consultatif pour la recherche agricole internationale (GCRAI) suivants, qui sont présents dans la région : le Centre Africa Rice, le Centre mondial pour l'agroforesterie (ICRAF), l'Institut international de recherche sur les cultures en zones semi-arides (ICRISAT), l'Institut international de recherche sur les politiques alimentaires (IFPRI), l'Institut international d'agriculture tropicale (IITA), l'Institut international de management de l'eau (IWMI), etc.6) Les valeurs mesurées ont montré que l'usage des pesticides entraîne la pollution des nappes phréatiques dans toute la zone. Sur les 30 puits dont l'eau a été analysée, seuls 4 puits de Malika soit 13 % ont montré des teneurs en pesticide ne dépassant pas les normes édictées par l'OMS (1994) et l'Union européenne (2003) qui sont de 0,1 mg/l par substance (à l'exception de l'Adrénaline, de la diéldrine, l'Heptachlore et de l'époxyde Heptachlore pour lesquels la norme est de 0,03mg/l) et 0,5 mg/l pour le total des matières actives. ","tokenCount":"23068"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"82316962098ccc48e0e5b32d44f2cfa5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/cde877d2-400b-42bf-8a9c-5261cc27feee/content","id":"1774881888"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a230e7a8-1dac-4a1a-95c7-bf283d75be74","pagecount":"11","content":"Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is an essential food security crop in Afghanistan. To determine the contribution of wheat breeding to increasing productivity, we analyzed data obtained from 192 trials conducted over 11 locations from 2002-2003 to 2015-2016.  Using this data, we estimated annual genetic gains for grain yield, days to heading and plant height over the 14-yr period. We used best linear unbiased estimates to measure genetic gains across CIMMYT Elite Spring Wheat Yield Trials per se and for the top 5 and top 10% performing genotypes relative to checks. Mean realized genetic gain for grain yield was 115 kg ha -1 yr −1 , whereas the top 10 genotypes achieved annual yield gains of 123 kg ha -1 . The continually replaced local check s also contributed an annual genetic gain for yield of 107 kg ha -1 . The associated adaptive traits days to heading and plant height varied in their response over time with the top 10 yielding genotypes having a 1.82 d annual reduction in heading date while plant height increased by 0.77 cm yr −1 for the same set of genotypes. Results show that continual breeding improvements confer yield gains, contributing to increasing Afghan wheat productivity. This has wider relevance for demonstrating the value of continued investment in public sector plant breeding supporting wheat production and food security in Central Asia.The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) develops and distributes improved germplasm targeted toward diverse wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) grow- ing regions in the developing world. The distribution and testing of CIMMYT-derived advanced wheat breeding lines across environmental zones worldwide has characterized global wheat production into several mega-environments or target population of environments, and its wheat improvement priorities are targeted accordingly (Braun et al., 2010;Rajaram et al., 1993). The target population of environment concept has been recently substantiated by studies showing wide diversity among the sites where CIMMYT's collaborative yield trials have been historically evaluated (Crespo-Herrera et al., 2021). This extensive global environmentaldiversity presents both challenges and opportunities to breeders attempting to develop or select wheat cultivars with both high yield potential and wide adaptation. Cultivar choice remains the single most important factor in maximising wheat yields. The CIMMYT, together with national wheat programs, operates the Elite Spring Wheat Yield Trial (ESWYT) comprising newly developed highyielding, disease, and climate resilient wheat germplasm for optimal environments. All countries in South Asiaincluding Afghanistan, where wheat is the fundamental staple food-participate in this wide international wheat testing network.Wheat is the most important food crop in Afghanistan with an average annual per capita wheat consumption of over 160 kg, against a global average of 65 kg (FAO, 2013). In Afghanistan, approximately 54% of the population lives below the poverty line (ADB, 2020) and wheat accounts for up to 60% of the calorific intake of an average Afghan (Chabot & Dorosh, 2007). Wheat is grown on over 2.5 million ha in Afghanistan, occupying 80% of the total cereal acreage, and producing 4.5 to 5 million t of wheat per year. Environmental, climatic, and topographical conditions for wheat production vary from a 300 m elevation in the northern Amu river basin to 2,500 m asl in the central highlands. Rainfed wheat accounts for about half of the acreage; however, its contribution to total production is low, ranging from 10 to 30% (APR, 2012). Irrigated environments more reliably contribute to Afghan wheat production, although water deficit and biotic stresses remain a major challenge.Between 2007 and 2020, data from ESWYT trials has contributed to the release of eight high yielding wheat cultivars in Afghanistan (Obaidi et al., 2011(Obaidi et al., , 2014(Obaidi et al., , 2015;;Soofizada et al., 2018). Recent work by Dreisigacker et al. (2019) surveyed wheat cultivars grown on 560 farms in Afghanistan, and used DNA fingerprinting to demonstrate that 74% of farmers were growing cultivars released after 2000, indicating a general trend away from landraces.World food demand is growing. New wheat cultivars must have higher yield potential, tolerance to warmer temperatures, improved water use efficiency and drought tolerance, and a wide spectrum of disease resistances. Thus, assessing genetic gain in wheat production is of fundamental importance for monitoring breeding progress. Graybosch and Peterson (2010) estimated genetic gain of 0.86 to 1.28% per year over a 50-yr period in two sets of wheat yield trials from the Great Plains of North America. The CIMMYT Global Wheat Breeding Program has periodically monitored the genetic gain of its global wheat improvement programs. This has provided extensive evidence documenting the genetic gain delivered across both selection and target environments (Crespo-Herrera et al., 2017, 2018, 2021;Dreisigacker et al., 2019;Gerard et al., 2020;Lopes et al., 2012;Manès et al., • Genetic gain for yield shows an increase over a 14yr period, contributing to food security.shows increased gain in comparison to checks. • Adaptive traits also show changes over time indicating fine-tuning to agri-environments.2012; Mondal et al., 2020;Sharma et al., 2012). In this study, we analyzed multi-environment grain yield (GY) performance and adaptive trait data generated for ESWYT trials in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2016 to quantify genetic gain over time.This study used data from ESWYT trials conducted in the 2002-2003 to 2015-2016 wheat growing seasons throughout Afghanistan. The ESWYT is a replicated yield trial containing new elite spring bread wheat germplasm developed by CIMMYT, and adapted to optimally irrigated, low rainfall areas (Crespo-Herrera et al., 2017). The trial generally contains 50 elite lines selected with data from 2 to 3 yr of yield testing under optimum and stress conditions in Ciudad Obregón, Mexico, as well as data from multiple disease resistance screens, and end-use quality assays. New lines are included annually in each ESWYT trial, providing new elite germplasm for multilocation testing. The 14-yr set analyzed in this study represents approximately 700 unique entries. The ESWYT trials include -three to four CIMMYT checks and a local check (LC), which is generally the top performing commercial cultivar in the testing region. The CIMMYT checks (three to four selected based on stable performance in previous international trials rather than for performance in Afghanistan per se) are updated every few years with overlaps maintained between years (and replaced one at a time to ensure overlap). The analysis included 192 ESWYT trials conducted across 69 site × year combinations. The trials were distributed throughout wheat producing regions (Supplementary Table S1). The ESWYT trials were sown in an α-lattice experimental design with two replicates, following locally recommended agronomic practices in all years. Each entry was sown in six rows of 5-m length at a row-to-row spacing of 20 cm. A fertilizer dose of 120 kg nitrogen and 60 kg phosphorus was applied to all trials. Only trials with complete data for GY (t ha -1 ), daysto heading (number of days from planting; DTH) and plant height (PTH; cm) were used in the analysis and interpretation. The datasets were screened to remove outliers, assess the normality of distribution for continuous traits and to calculate trial CVs and heritabilities. The correlations between the three measured traits (GY, DTH, PTH) were also calculated.First, we calculated the best linear unbiased estimate (BLUE) and the best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) values and used Meta Analysis with R to compute the broad-sense heritability (repeatability) and genetic correlation matrices through a combined analysis of the evaluated lines across sites (Alvarado et al., 2020).For BLUEs estimation, the following linear mixed model was used:where μ is the general mean, \uD835\uDC46 \uD835\uDC56 is the fixed effects of the sites (i = 1,. . . , s), \uD835\uDC45 \uD835\uDC57 (\uD835\uDC46 \uD835\uDC56 ) is the random effects of the replicates (j = 1, 2) within sites (environment), assumed to be independently and identically normally distributed (IID) with mean zero and variance σ 2 r(s) , \uD835\uDC46\uD835\uDC35 \uD835\uDC58 (\uD835\uDC46 \uD835\uDC56 \uD835\uDC45 \uD835\uDC57 ) is the random effects of the sub-blocks (k = 1,. . . ,10) within sites and replicates, assumed to be IID with a mean of zero and the variance σ 2 sb(r s) , \uD835\uDC3A \uD835\uDC59 is the fixed effect of the wheat lines (l = 1,. . . ,50), and \uD835\uDC46 \uD835\uDC56 × \uD835\uDC3A \uD835\uDC59 is the line by site interaction. The term ε \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC57\uD835\uDC58\uD835\uDC59 is a random residual associated to the lth wheat line, in the kth sub-block of the jth replicate of the ith site and assumed to be IID with a mean of zero and the variance σ 2 ε . The model computing the BLUPs was the same as the model of Equation 1, with the lines now considered as random effects.The broad-sense heritability was calculated according to Equation 2:where σ 2 \uD835\uDC54 , σ 2 \uD835\uDC54\uD835\uDC52 , and σ 2 ε are the genotype, genotype by site interaction and the error variance components, respectively, and nloc and nrep are the number of sites and number of replicates, respectively. The genetic correlation matrices among sites were calculated using equations from Cooper and Delacy (1994):where ρ \uD835\uDC5D \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC57 is the phenotypic correlation among sites i, and i / and ℎ \uD835\uDC56 and ℎ \uD835\uDC56 ′ are the square roots of the sites i and i / , respectively.Overall increase in grain yield in Elite Spring Wheat Yield Trial trials grown across Afghanistan over a 14 yr trialling period. The yield increase was observed for both the mean performance and top 10 lines per trial (R 2 = 0.45; P < .05). GY, grain yieldGenetic gains for GY, DTH, and PTH were calculated by regressing the BLUEs of all lines in the ESWYT on the year of testing. Genetic gain was also calculated (a) with the BLUES of all lines across all sites in one particular year, (b) with the BLUES of only the 5 and 10 highest yielding lines recorded in each year, and (c) with the mean of all lines in each year.In addition, the BLUEs were expressed as percent of the LCs (GYplc), calculated as in Equation 3 as a ratio:where BLUEs represents the estimated GY value of a line, and Mean LC represents the estimated GY mean of the LCs. Genetic gain was then calculated using these BLUEs (expressed as GYplc) (a) across all lines across all sites in one particular year, (b) with the BLUES of only the 5 and 10 highest yielding lines recorded in each year, and (c) with the mean of all lines in each year.Significant upward trends were observed for GY over the 14 yr of testing (Table 1), returning a gain of 115 kg ha -1 yr -1 with a significant R 2 of 0.44 (Figure 1). The overall mean of GY performance in the ESWYT over 14 yr was 5.02 t ha -1 and ranged from a low of 3.58 t ha -1 (2005)(2006) to the highest annual average of 5.97 t ha -1 in 2008-09 (Table 1)   types tested varied significantly in 6 of the 14 yr tested, and there was no clear trend in genetic variance over time. Genotypes interacted significantly with location in 9 of the 14 yr analyzed (Table 1). Grain yield heritabilities of 0.37 or higher were observed in 6 of the 14 yr, with the highest heritability (0.62) observed for 2011-2012. Low GY heritabilities (0.05 or less) were observed in 3 of the 14 yr tested (Table 1).For the top 10 genotypes in the ESWYT sets, the annual rate of yield gain was 2.7%, representing a gain of 123 kg ha -1 yr -1 (Figure 1). The slope of the regression was highly significant (p < .01; R 2 = 0.44). To assess genetic gains for GY over time, we calculated both the per se performance, as well as how the selected group of genotypes performed in relation to local and/or CIMMYT checks. The latter criterion was used as expressing genotype performance relative to a check's performance is a more accurate representation of performance improvement over time compared with performance per se.We also analyzed genetic gains for GY against the performance of LCs as this is the major criterion for varietal registration and release. Compared with LCs, the mean of all genotypes showed a yield gain of 3.85% (Figure 2a) from 2002 to 2015, which translated to 118 kg ha -1 yr -1 . The LCs also showed a yield gain of 107 kg ha -1 yr -1 during the same period. The top 10 genotypes brought in a yield gain of 3.88% (Figure 2b), which was 120 kg/ha/yr compared with 103 kg ha -1 yr -1 of LC. The increase in performance of the top 5% of ESWYT genotypes was 124 kg ha -1 yr -1 compared with 103 kg ha -1 yr -1 for LCs, and 125 kg ha -1 yr -1 for CIMMYT checks (which are selected based on performance in international trials and therefore generally better performing than LCs).There was significant within-year variation for DTH amongst the ESWYT genotypes in all years, except for 2002-2003 for which no data was available. Days to heading ranged from 99 to 133 ds, with a mean value of 116 d (Table 2). Significant genotype × location interactions were also detected in all 14 yr. The trial heritability for this trait exceeded 62% in 12 of the 14 yr, and in 6 yr the DTH heritability was 80% or higher. Overall, DTH declined significantly over time (R 2 = −0.45) by 1.82 d yr −1 compared with the ESWYT mean (Figure 3a). Significant differences were also observed for PTH in 10 of the 14 yr of testing (Table 3), with no data available for 3 yr (2005-2006, 2013-2014, or 2015-2016). However, genotypes interacted significantly with locations in 11 of the 14 yr. Seven of the 14 yr had PH heritabilities of 75% or more, however 2 yr had very low heritabilities of 0.21 or less.Contrary to DTH, mean PTH increased over time at the rate of 0.74 cm yr −1 (Figure 3b). The mean correlations between all three of the analyzed traits (GY, DTH, PTH) and their significance values are given in Supplementary Table S2. Grain yield was positively correlated with PHT in 8 yr with a mean value of 0.05, whereas GY had a positive correlation with DTH in 9 yr with a slightly higher mean positive correlation of 0.10. Plant height and DTH had the highest mean positive correlation of 0.24, with a negative trait correlation recorded in only 1 yr.Afghanistan is a regular wheat importer owing to deficient domestic wheat production. In the absence of strong local wheat breeding programs, the release and widespread cultivation of improved spring wheat cultivars is reliant on improved germplasm from international programs, such as CIMMYT.It is therefore important to monitor and quantify the genetic progress of CIMMYT germplasm introduced to Afghanistan, and its potential to be released there as new cultivars. Periodic estimation of local yield gains is also a measure in determining effectiveness of CIMMYT's delivery of improved material tailored to diverse production environments. This is becoming increasingly important given climatic instability and increasing threats of diseases, including rapidly evolving wheat rusts (Obaidi et al., 2011).T  F I G U R E 3 Over 14 yr, days to heading reduced by 1.82 d yr −1 (a) although did not decrease relative to local checks (b). Plant height increased by 0.74 cm yr −1 (c) although the increase relative to checks over the same time period was lower (d). DTH, days to heading; PHT, plant heightSeveral approaches have been employed to estimate genetic gains for GY. Generally, the choice of a method depends on factors such as available computational and data resources, the structure of the dataset/s and the study objectives (Rutkoski, 2018). In this study, we estimated the rate of breeding progress through introduction of elite genotypes from CIMMYT's international ESWYT evaluated over 14 yr across multiple environments in Afghanistan. The yield gain was calculated both as mean progress per se and the progress for the top five and ten genotypes as compared to the local and/or CIM-MYT checks. The checks are used to address the question as to whether observed gains have arisen only from changes in disease resistance. The LCs used by the co-operators are the best resistant cultivars available in the region and are updated over time (Singh et al., 2007). This ensures that comparisons are appropriate to identify superior yielding genotypes with disease resistances that have potential to be released and find farmer acceptance in the region.In this study, the trends observed in yield gains were consistent, exhibiting highly significant (p < .01) regression slopes and genetic gain of over 2.7%, and over 110 kg ha -1 yr -1 or more in absolute values under all the analyzed scenarios. This finding is in line with previous reports of yield gains over time for CIMMYT germplasm in other parts of the world (Crespo-Herrera et al., 2017;Gerard et al., 2020). Crespo-Herrera et al. (2017), Lopes et al. (2012), Sayre et al. (1997), andSharma et al. (2012) reported yield gains of 90.1 kg ha -1 yr -1 and 28.7 kg ha -1 yr -1 compared with the CIMMYT cultivar 'Attila' and LCs, respectively, from 8 yr of ESWYT across 426 locations. Specific to mega environments, Rajaram et al. (1993) reported yield gains of 102.7 kg ha -1 yr -1 and 46.65 kg ha -1 yr -1 compared with CIMMYT and LCs, respectively. More recently, Crespo-Herrera et al. ( 2021) reported GY gains in India of 118 kg ha -1 yr -1 for the optimally irrigated North-Western Plains Zone; 46 kg ha -1 yr -1 for optimally irrigated, heat-stressed North-Eastern Plains Zone; and a high of 123 kg ha -1 yr -1 for the drought-stressed Central-Peninsular Zone. The CIMMYT's High Rainfall Wheat Yield Trial was also shown to confer relatively variable GY gains across 239 international testing locations (Gerard et al., 2020). In high-rainfall environments, the annual GY genetic gain per se was 160 kg ha -1 yr -1 and only 65.1 kg ha -1 yr -1 compared with the LC. The gains in low-rainfall environments were 40 kg ha -1 yr -1 for GY gain per se and 33.1 kg ha -1 yr -1 compared with the LC, respectively. In the present study, results segregated on the basis of production zones in Afghanistan could not be recorded as a repeatable delineation of Afghan wheat acreage is yet to be undertaken but should be investigated further in future.In comparison with yield gains reported in other parts of the world, Thomas and Graf (2014) reported an increase of 1.4% yr −1 in on-farm yields in Manitoba, Canada. Hochman et al. (2017) reported closure of yield gaps in Australia created by decline of water limited yield potential over 25 yr with gains achieved by technology which led to an increase in relative yield from 39% in 1990 to 55% in 2015. They attributed this decline to reduced rainfall and rising temperatures while elevated CO 2 prevented a further 4% loss. The Hochman et al. (2017) study however, demonstrated technology overcoming climate driven challenges and stillcontributing to gains. Another Australian study (Robertson et al., 2016), also cautioned against up to 10% reduction in crop yield potential due to negative impact of climate change. Our study also revealed adaptive changes in ESWYT genotypes over time, reflecting CIMMYT's progress in breeding for phenological and plant architecture that are productive in low rainfall and irrigated environments, such as those in Afghanistan. Understanding how key associated adaptive characteristics change with gains in yield provides insight to potentially guide future breeding efforts (Yao et al., 2019). Across the ESWSYT sets, there was a 1.8 d per year reduction in DTH (Figure 3a). No decrease was observed relative to LCs, indicating a similar trend in reduced duration in Afghan cultivars (Figure 3b). Taken together with GY increases, this demonstrates that despite modest reductions in crop duration (DTH), yield gains were not compromised. Crop durations in many parts of the world will be reduced due to climateassociated stresses (Tanaka et al., 2015), particularly late season heat that impacts final grain quality (Barrero et al., 2020). However, further work is required to understand the actual impact of a 1-2 reduction in DTH and the mitigation of late season (as well as mid-season) stress response. Shorter crop duration may also become increasingly useful to farmers in Afghanistan from the viewpoint of improving crop production logistics (Sheehan & Bentley, 2020).In contrast to a decrease in the number of DTH, PTH showed an increase of 0.74 cm yr −1 , using means for all genotypes (Figure 3c), and of 0.77 cm yr −1 for the top ten genotypes. Although a negative correlation between PTH and GY has been reported (Akin et al., 2017;Beche et al., 2014;Yao et al., 2019), this study shows that despite increasing PTH, yield gains continued to increase. Interestingly, the PTH increase was less marked when compared to the LC over the same time period (Figure 3d), indicating that height has increased across wheat germplasm in Afghanistan over the study time period. Increased PTH is often an indicator of higher biomass, which drives higher yield provided lodging tolerance is simultaneously maintained. Wu et al. (2014) analyzed 65 yr of data and suggested that further improvement in the yield potential of wheat would need to involve increasing biomass. Higher biomass is also required in many developing countries, including Afghanistan, to produce straw as a secondary product used as dry fodder feed for livestock although it is not currently a primary selection target in the ESWYT germplasm.Earlier studies have shown that CIMMYT's major wheat selection and testing location in Ciudad Obregón, Mexico, is correlated to a variable extent with other sites in the southern United States, Middle East, North Africa, southern Africa, and Indian subcontinent where wheat is grown (Braun et al., 1992). Trethowan et al. (2001Trethowan et al. ( , 2003) ) reported clusters of similar performing testing sites located in Mexico, South America, Africa, and South Asia. Lillemo et al. (2005) used CIM-MYT's High Temperature Wheat Yield Trial to predict performance in similarly stressed locations across continents. The study reported good ability of data generated from a January planting date in Obregon, Mexico to predict yield performance in many heat-stressed environments. Our results indirectly support these findings as the top five genotypes at Afghan locations and CIMMYT checks returned similar yield gains of 124 and 125 kg ha -1 yr -1 for the 14-yr period covered by this study. The CIMMYT checks are superior genotypes selected based on their recent international performance (and are generally released as cultivars elsewhere) and the top five genotypes from current trials showed comparable gains. Also, genotypes within each ESWYT set performed consistently across Afghan testing sites as evidenced by high trial heritabilities. This is also evidenced by the fact that at present more than 80% of wheat seed produced in Afghanistan can be traced back to CIMMYT origin varieties (MAIL, 2019), which has also been confirmed by DNA fingerprinting (Dresigacker et al., 2019).Our study shows continual increases in genetic gains from CIMMYT ESWYT material trialled across Afghanistan over a 14-yr period. This demonstrates the potential of genetically improved germplasm to increase yields, resistance to diseases, and other adaptive traits. Our study makes a case for continued investment in plant breeding and for the collaboration in germplasm evaluation for release in Afghanistan. A continued collaboration is expected to further enhance wheat production and productivity, support the country to reduce its dependence on wheat imports, and ensure future food and nutrition security in Afghanistan.","tokenCount":"3897"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"584a81cc4f28c000915989178974924f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H006901.pdf","id":"-478089284"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"fe25bc31-dc71-44db-9920-66ff6b1d7b5e","pagecount":"8","content":"k IRR~GATION SECTOR in Indonesia is currently under pressure to shift its emphasis from consmction and rehabilitation to the development of a self-sustaining operation and maintenance program aimed at slowing, if not stopping, the typically rapid rate of deterioration of irrigation systems. The current irrigation subsector loan programs with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank are directed at allocating proportionately more funds to operation and maintenance and at introducing new policies aimed at making operation and maintenance more efficient and sustainable.Perhaps the two most prominent of the new policies in the shift towards sustainable operation and maintenance are, charging for irrigation services and the turnover of small irrigation systems.The irrigation-service fee is payable under a policy, currently being tested, of collecting fees from water users in agency systems to recover operation and maintenance costs at the main-system level. The objective of the turnover program is to transfer operation and maintenance responsibility from the provincial irrigation services to the farmers in all systems below 500 hectares (ha) within 15 yearsof the 1987/88 budget year. This willamountto7Opercentofall systemscurrently listed in the government inventory of irrigation systems, or 21 percent of the total public-irrigated area in the counny. During and after turnover, it is expected that provincial irrigation services will take on a more macro-level role to improve water management between systems along river courses. Assistance to small systems should then be provided only where solving the problems is truly beyond the capacity of local water users' associations. These policy changes constitute a basic revision of thinking about the appropriate management roles for the government and for the farmers. Since provincial-and district-budget allocations are generally based on area irrigated by agency systems there has been an incentive to reclassify village systems as agency systems, often regardless of the amount of provincial irrigation-services investment in the systems, if any. prior to \"incorporation\" into the provincial irrigation services. A small-scale provincial irrigationservices system may not actually be managed by, nor be dependent upon, the agency.Much change has occurred in both the degree and type of provincial irrigation-services investment, and correspondingly in the degree and type of farmer dependency on the agency in small irrigation systems. However, even a pattern of occasional provincial irrigation-services repair assistance to a small system may discourage the development of a routinely active water users' association, if the assistance given is solely from provincial irrigation services and if it replaces routine maintenance. The water users' association would not bother to maintain all parts of the system because it would expect the agency to repair them eventually. As long as essential structures continue to divert, convey, or divide water in accordance with the users' basic system objectives (e.g., two rice crops a year) they may be content to allow the structures to deteriorate even thoughtheeventual costof \"heavy repairs\" (whatfarmersassumeistheroleoftheagency) may exceed the cost of \" properroutine maintenance\" (what the agency assumes is therole of the farmers).The government hopes to break such patterns of dependency during the turnover process, because full responsibility for operation and maintenance in small systems will be transferred to the farmers. The government seeks to implement a turnover process which will prepare the farmers institutionally and repair the system physically (if need be), so that the farmers will find it simple to manageoperationandmaintenanceunaided, inthefuture. Thetaskoftheinstitutional organizer is not so dramatic as might be assumed, as many of the management rasks are even now being done by farmers, albeit informally.Implementation ofthe turnover program began with 12 systems irrigating atotalareaof 1,200 ha. The program quickly spread to other systems, sections, and provinces, and will reach 2.304 systems with a total command area of 185,300 ha, by 1992/93. During the fifth Five-Year Plan (Pelita V), the turnover program will be limited to only systems of 150 ha or less, except for two pilot systems of about 500 ha each. If the process progresses as planned, within 15 years all systems below 500 ha will have been turned over to water users' associations.The for the turnover work by theFordFoundation. These participants meet periodically as \"working groups\" at the national, provincial, and section levels.Under the turnover process currently being implemented and tested, all systems below 150 ha in a given section are divided into three categories: A, B, and C.System categories for the turnaverprogram. In its mostcomplete form (category C) theturnoverprocessconsistsofsix basic stagesatthefieldimplementation level:1. An inventory of field data is made in all systems eligible for turnover and is divided by category.In the B and C categories, a \"profile\" is conducted to obtain more detailed information. It involves additional walk-throughs of the system, making a sketch map of the system, and in-depth interviews of fanners and water users' association leaders. 5. Where no official water users' association exists, one is created. Repeated monitoring and guidance by provincial irrigation services are felt to be needed for institutional development. 6. Official transfer of operation and maintenance authority and change of status of the system are expected to occur about 12 to 14 months after the inventory stage begins.In past experiments with the use of community or institutional organizers in the development of water users' associations, university-trained institutional organizers (usually social scientists)were recruited from outside the agency to live and work in the field. They were usually responsible foronly oneor two small systems ortertiary blocks. For theturnoverprogram,at least in the initial three-year pilot phase, the government has decided to use provincial irrigationservices field-operations staff (usually the juru pengairun, or irrigation inspector) as institutional organizers. There are six main reasons for this decision.1. On a national scale, there are no sufficient funds to hire non-agency institutional organizcrs, nor are there enough university-mined recruits. 2. In thelong-run, thissuategyisexpectedto helpdeveloptheagency's capacitytouseamore sociotechnical approach to irrigation development. In part, this means more systematic interactions with farmers as water \"managers,\" not just as \"users.\" The role of the institutional organizer is not perceived as a \"position\" but rather as a \"task\" of the field staff.To some extent, using agency staff as institutional organizers frees the agency from dependence on outside organizations in its dealings with the social aspects of imgation development, and prevents the rather perverse outcome of having the agency become detached from the social aspects, in the very process of seeking assistance in dealing with them.Many agency field staff have experience working in systems that will be turned over and are already acquainted with some of the and people involved. It is that most have the potential for learning the requisite social skills, given proper training, supervision, and incentives. 5 . Non-agency institutional organizers recruited on the open market tend to have a shorter span of attention and dedication since they have no long-term career security.The institutional organizer experience helps reorient not only staff but the bureaucracy itself towards a more macro-level, coordinative, interactive, and service-providing role in the future.The irrigation inspector is the key field operation and maintenance position at the third level of the provincial irrigation-services hierarchy and supervises the lowest level of subsection staff -the weir, gate, and ditch tenders. Most of his tasks are technical in nature. The inspector% used to receiving precise, tangible targets, and instructions and is not accustomed to being creative. Nevertheless, realities in the field may require some creativity in implementing even the most narrow instructions and some tasks do require communications and meetings with farmers. There are several factors such as relatively large area, distances which must be traveled, and the large number of gates to be set and inspected which tend to restrict the extent to which the irrigation inspectorinteracts with farmers incarryingout hisduties. In the samples in westandcentral Java, most inspectors reported having sideline-income earnings which sometimes may compete for time. Most did not have motorcycles.Clearly, if an irrigation inspector with his relatively restricted technical orientation is to be given an assignment as an institutional organizer which requires frequent and intensive interaction with farmers, in systems being turned over to the users, he will have to be given training in institutional-development skills, clear delegation of specific tasks (so as not to require too much creativity in this new endeavor), and an adequate transportation or overtime allowance. There will also be need for more frequent on-site visits by supervisors. There may be a need to decrease some of his routine work load during periods of intense activity as an institutional organizer.Under the turnover program most institutional organizers are assigned two systems which are located within his jurisdiction as an irrigation inspector.The irrigation inspector-cum-institutional organizer is called upon to act as: collector of social and technical information, individual and group interviewer, draftsman, lay consulting engineer, mediator between agency and farmers, bookkeeper, and water users' association institutionaldevelopment adviser. This follows the procedures listed earlier with regard to the turnover process.The physical repair is intended as a catalyst for institutional development of the water users' association. During this stage, which should not exceed four to six months, the institutional organizer collects and makes sketches of all farmer suggestions for repairs, holds meeting with farmers in which they prioritize proposals, and then makes a farmers' version of design. This is later integrated with a \"technical\" version of design for use in actual construction.Simultaneously with the implementation of the design and construction stage institutional organizers should be making efforts to form water users' associations or to strengthen them. This includes three basic elements: first, identifying key farmer representatives and informants; second, (if there is no formally established water users' association) assisting in the formation of the water users' association; and third, involving the key farmer representatives in the turnover activitics. Assisting in the formation of an official water users' association involves helping farmers to hold meetings to select the water users' association leaders, preparing a water users' association charter and constitution, seeing to the approval of the charter and constitution by the appropriate local-government authorities, and possibly holding a meeting for the legal establishment of the water users' association attended by farmers and local-government officials.The final stage is immediate preparation for turnover. At this time the main activities are 1) testing and possibly correcting newly construckd structures, 2) formal legalization of the water users' association (if not yet done), 3) preparation of the waler users' association post-turnover operation and maintenance work plan, 4) possible planning and conducting of agency-staff relocations or reallocation of assignments, and 5) arranging and conducting formal turnover procedures and meetings.It is expected that following turnover of the small systems, the irrigation inspector will collaborate with farmers in a more macro-level role in coordinating planting dates, crop types, and diversion of water between systems along river courses. He will provide technical advice and arrange for provincial irrigation-services assistance for repairs, only if solving the problems is considered to be beyond the capacity of the water users' association. It is hoped that the experience of the inspector as a turnover-institutional organizer will develop his capability to handle these tasks with a more balanced sociotechnical approach.The institutional organizers are trained for varying periods of time prior to each task: for three days prior to conducting the inventory; for eight days prior to use of the sociotechnical profile; for six days prior to design and construction phase; for an as yet undetermined period prior to preparation for turnover. During Ihc current pilot phase the Institute for Social and Economic Research, Information, and Education has been conducting the training.The experience of being an institutional organizer appears to be positive in helping the irrigation inspectors discover the value of farmer experience and knowledge and the importance of social factors related to imgation. Many inspectors hear for the first time the farmers' rationale for why a certain type of srructure is needed and not another. For example, they discover that farmers can tell them exactly what typeof lining is neededandwhere. The farmers know this by experiencing relative degrees of water loss under different levels of water discharge through the channel. The institutional organizer realizes that this is knowledge which is not ascertainable by aconventional technical survey. The institutional organizer also learns that farmers request simple structures, such as lining, only where they are really needed so as to spread out and better use the Limited funds available.Institutional organizers are also receiving proposals from fanners which would not be perceived as a need by an inspector, were the farnicrs not consulted. For example, farmers know they need more sediment-flushing gates because of the amount of labor required to clean out the channels. Also the tendency of the proposals to emphasize the conveyance system as opposed to the diversion structures (which tend to be emphasized by the agency) makes the institutional organizer more sensitive to designing for fanner-management needs.Through the profile the institutional organizer learns that although there may not be an active and functioning official water users' association, numerous management tasks are being accomplished by the users through informal or traditional mechanisms. Seeing the extent of current farmer-management practices, the institutional organizer discusses with the farmers their complete takeover of operation and maintenance, and repair work after turnover.There is an apparent feeling among the institutional organizers expressed in working group discussions or in one-to-one interviews that they are a select group which has been given a challenge to implement a new type of program in which they are expected to use initiative in the field. They have come to realize that working with and motivating farmers to take on operation and maintenance tasks will be an increasingly important measure of their success as inspectors, rather than application of conventional job-performance measuresof how timely they fill in forms or do operation and maintenance tasks themselves.The problems observed to date, after one year of turnover-field activities, seem to be related mainly to the operational skills, supervision, and work incentives needed to support their work.It is the conclusion of these authors that most irrigation inspectors are intellectually capable of understanding and performing their tasks as institutional organizers. These tasks are of two types: 1) making physical repairs with farmer participation and 2) water users' association development. The key constraints are training, supervision, transportation. and operating expenses, and work incentives such as overtime. If these constraints can be overcome, the irrigation inspector as institutional organizer should be able and willing to see that the program successfully accomplishes its goals, which are to turn over operation and maintenance responsibility to the water users' associations and to reorient the way the agency relates to small irrigation systems.","tokenCount":"2394"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fa954f4d54fcb798180408530329206e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/2f2c305f-662b-4de1-8a7c-e5608031f8fb/retrieve","id":"-1220402969"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"ad53e5ff-53c1-42f8-942e-761092ded558","pagecount":"13","content":"¿Por qué?• El frijol forma parte de la dieta alimenticia de los hondureños y representa una fuente importante de proteína• Ha habido fluctuación en la producción debido a problemas relacionados con el cambio climático (sequías y lluvias intensas), enfermedades, costo y uso de insumos, entre otros• Inclusividad y sostenibilidad a lo largo de la cadena es cada vez más relevante Objetivos del estudio:1. Proveer evidencia sobre los desafíos actuales que enfrentan los actores, a lo largo de la cadena de valor de frijol, en un contexto post pandemia 2. Identificar innovaciones o soluciones para un crecimiento inclusivo y sostenible de la cadena de valor del frijol en Honduras ¿Qué y cómo?1. Dos rondas de revisión de literatura:• Primera ronda: 89 referencias (21 artículos científicos) ➔ informó diseño de evaluación rápida• Segunda ronda: enfocada en 4 temáticas; 67 artículos científicos ➔ complementó resultados de evaluación rápida• Se identificó una muestra de un marco muestral, para cada eslabón en la cadena • Entrevistas realizadas del 7 al 18 de noviembre de 2022, usando guía desarrollada para este fin 11 categorías de innovaciones/soluciones (6 más relevantes, muchas opciones dentro de cada categoría):✓ Proveer asistencia técnica productiva con enfoque holístico => baja productividad, baja calidad, falta de información ✓ Promover el uso de tecnologías orientadas a incrementar la productividad ✓ Aumentar la disponibilidad de infraestructura productiva y de almacenamiento ✓ Proveer asistencia en asociatividad y desarrollo empresarial ✓ Facilitar servicios financieros especializados 1. A nivel productivo, los cuellos de botella más importantes se relacionan a infraestructura (almacenamiento, procesamiento) y factores relacionados a la comercialización 2. Organizaciones de productores adicionalmente tienen retos con la disponibilidad de mano de obra 3. A nivel de comercializadores, la cantidad y calidad del grano son un reto, siendo este último el reto más importante para la industria de alimentos 4. Hay diversas soluciones, siendo la asistencia técnica (en distintos niveles y temáticas) aún necesaria 5. Otras soluciones requieren incidencia política, para adaptar/modificar normas o regulaciones existentes","tokenCount":"327"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a09579c82f46a7562dd8477b60361076","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/7e8f852f-6e8f-491f-aa03-b19ace6311b1/retrieve","id":"1347748211"},"keywords":["agricultural risks","risk perceptions","risk management","locus of control","structural equation modelling","uncertainty","COVID-19","Kenya"],"sieverID":"54232803-6b94-4034-a35b-825f15cef9e7","pagecount":"26","content":"Analysis of farmer risk perceptions is usually limited to production risks, with risk perception as a function of likelihood and severity. Such an approach is limited in the context of the many risks and other important risk attributes. Our analysis of the risk perceptions of farmers extends beyond production risks, severity of the risks, and their likelihoods. We first characterize agricultural risks and identify their main sources and consequences. We then analyze risk perceptions as a hierarchical construct using partial least squares path modelling. We determine the most important risks and risk attributes in the perceptions of farmers, and test for differences in the perceptions between men and women. Results show that severity and ability to prevent a risk are most important in forming risk perceptions. Second, probabilities (ability to prevent) tend to matter more to men (women) for some risks; lastly, low crop yields and fluctuating input prices have greater total effects on the overall risk perception. Our results provide an impetus for risk analysis in agriculture to consider risk attributes that cause affective reactions such as severity and perceived ability to prevent the risks, the need for input price stabilization, and redress of the rampart yield gaps in small-scale agriculture.The role of risk and uncertainty perceptions on the decisions of small-scale farmers is increasingly acknowledged [1,2]. However, the lens through which perceptions of risk and uncertainty are addressed in agriculture is blurry in several ways. There are three issues that deserve consideration for a more comprehensive understanding of the risk perceptions and behavior of farmers.First, risk and uncertainty are conventionally addressed as functions of probabilities, where, according to Knight [3], the former is associated with known probabilities while the latter is associated with unknown probabilities. In classical economics, expected utility theory-which dominates the literature on decision-making under risk-considers risk as a product of likelihood and stakes (magnitude), where choice is a result of the assessment by an individual of the magnitude and likelihood of an event [4]. However, the empirical literature shows that individuals do not always follow the tenets of expected utility in making decisions under risk [5], especially in the absence of insights about objective probabilities such as in the case of small-scale farmers in developing countries. In addition, in some cases, even with probabilities, individuals may portray probability insensitivity [4], while in other cases the probabilities may be less important [6]. Such evidence warrants extending risk and risk perception analysis beyond likelihood and stakes, which are just a fraction of the risk attributes.Second, most research on risk in agriculture focuses on production risks, yet farmers face several other types of risks. Komarek et al. [7] characterize risk into five types, namely production, market, financial, institutional, and personal. These risks are interlinked with each other in the sense that some risks may cause some others, while others reinforce each other as shown in the analysis by Ansah et al. [8]. This interlinked nature of agricultural risks complicates both the analysis and the design of risk management tools for farmers. Methodologies that can disentangle the complex nomological networks of risks, risk sources, and risk attributes are needed to enhance the understanding of agricultural risk and, ultimately, management.Third, each risk is associated with several attributes, either objective or subjective. The attributes (characteristics) include controllability, voluntariness, degree of uncertainty, and catastrophic potential [9], as well as the consequences, familiarity and sources of the risk [10]. According to the psychometric paradigm of risk analysis, the attributes of risk influence risk perceptions [11]. For this reason, people have as many risk perceptions as there are risks, contexts, and situations around them. Notwithstanding, the current analysis of attributes of the many risks in agriculture, and their role in shaping the risk perceptions of farmers, is limited.The objective of this paper is to shed more light on the concept of risk and uncertainty from the perspective of a small-scale farmer in a developing country, considering the issues discussed above. A small-scale farmer in our case farms on less than two acres of land [12], produces mostly for subsistence with minimal use of inputs such as fertilizer and certified seeds, and has a dominance of family labor in running their farm operations. A better understanding of the risk perceptions of these farmers is important for informing the appropriate design of risk management tools relevant to them in building their adaptive capacity and resilience. Our work builds on Weber et al. [13], who show that the attitude of an individual towards risk differs across various risk domains; hence, the need to assess the specific risk attitudes and perceptions in the concrete context of the smallscale farmer that is characterized by many simultaneous risks and risk domains. We also build on Wilson et al. [6], who tackle important confounding issues in the study of risk perceptions. Most importantly, the authors argue that risk is multi-dimensional, and such multi-dimensionality calls for approaches that go beyond consideration of just likelihood of, and exposure to, risks. We follow this approach and model risk perceptions as a hierarchical construct. Specifically, we seek to assess how multiple risks, risk attributes, and risk domains interact to shape the risk perceptions of farmers.To achieve this objective, our concept of risk encompasses all dimensions given by Hardaker [14], namely risk as the variation in an outcome of interest, probability of unwanted outcomes, and uncertainty of outcomes. In this sense, 'risk' entails both risk and uncertainty. Our use of risk to also include uncertainty is further justifiable in our context given two additional reasons. First, our subjects, namely small-scale farmers in a developing country, do not differentiate between the two concepts since they use the same term in their local dialect to mean both risk and uncertainty; second, most farmers do not have objective probabilities for most of the events related to agriculture. Instead, the farmers impute subjective probabilities (Important to note is the difference between probability weighting and subjective probabilities. Weighted probabilities are surrogates of objective probabilities, while subjective probabilities are probability substitutes, which form individually where there are no objective probabilities). The substitution of objective probabilities, which are usually weighted in actual decision-making [15], with subjective probabilities blurs the intuitive difference between the concepts of risk and uncertainty.Our analysis is divided into two distinct but related parts. In the first part, we provide a characterization of the risks experienced by the farmers. We adopt the characterization of risk by Komarek et al. [7] that divides agricultural risks into five main types, which we call domains. We add a sixth domain, namely consumption risks, based on evidence from Ethiopia regarding its role in technology adoption [16].We proceed by mapping out the main sources, severity, perceived ability to prevent (cope with), and the main consequences of every risk in each of the six domains. For the purposes of discussion, we report findings for the most problematic (important) risks only. Importance in this case is based on a ranking of the risks performed by the farmers themselves during the survey we conducted. Details about the other risks are given in the Appendix A.In the second part of the paper, we use 435 respondents to assess the most important risks and the most important risk attributes contributing to risk perceptions of farmers, using a partial least squares structural equation modelling approach (PLS-SEM). We focus on three problematic risks, namely low crop production, fluctuating input prices, and reduction in agricultural incomes, as discussed in detail in the subsequent sections. It is noteworthy that all farmers included in this second part of our analysis have experienced the three risks in the previous five years from the time we conducted our survey.Risk perceptions, which refer to how individuals relate, collect, select, and interpret signals about uncertain impacts of events, activities, or technologies [17], are influenced by three broad factors, namely individual characteristics, risk attributes [18,19], and trust in communicating institutions [20]. Individual characteristics such as gender, age, education, and wealth, as well as other innate attributes, create the lens through which a person assesses various risks and the attributes of them.Based on the three broad factors, four main approaches, namely attribution (attention and selection filters), heuristics and biases, psychometrics and semantic images, and cultural theory of risk, dominate the literature [21] (p. 346). In this study, we take an integrative approach that entails the first three approaches in order to address the issues we have highlighted in earlier sections. Such an integrated approach has been suggested by Renn and Rohrmann [22].In our context, the three approaches represent three stages of the process of forming a risk perception. The attribution approach, which represents the final stage in our case, assumes that the choices of individuals are based on the perceived impact of an event regardless of the probabilities of the event. Following this framework, farmers are likely to worry about risks and risk attributes that invoke affect, as we discuss in the following paragraphs. The psychometrics and heuristics approaches are intricately intertwined. The psychometrics approach relates to how individuals assess various risk attributes, while the heuristics approach entails the cognitive processes (biases) involved in assessing the risk attributes. The integrated approach perfectly fits our construct of risk perception that starts from individual attributes (heuristics and biases), which are the lenses through which individuals assess risks and risk attributes (psychometric), and finally to the overall perception (attribution) of whether a risk or risk attribute is of importance in the order outlined in Figure 1.Two main ontologies explain how individuals assess (perceive) risk and associated risk attributes, namely risk as a \"feeling\", and risk as an \"analysis\" [23]. Risk as a feeling, advanced by Loewenstein et al. [4], involves emotion, intuition, and instinctive reactions to uncertain events. Risk as analysis, in contrast, involves logic and reason. Unlike in a risk as feeling assessment, individuals systematically and objectively process information about a risk in the \"analysis\". Theoretically, since some risk situations may be greatly consequential, individuals should be more objective about how they assess situations and properly act either to cope/prevent the risk from happening or to avoid it. However, evidence shows that risk as feeling tends to override the risk analysis in actual decision-making [11]. Two related theories on cognitive processing, namely the experiential and rational modes developed by Epstein [24], as well as System 1 and System 2 developed by Kahneman [25], explain the dominance of risk as feeling in actual decision-making. The experiential mode (System 1) operates automatically, is more rapid, encodes reality in concrete metaphors and narratives, and is mediated by past experience, while the rational mode (System 2) devotes effort to more complex computations. System 1 originates impressions, ideas, and feelings, which form the blueprints for the judgment of System 2 [25]. System 2 uses various mental strategies and heuristics in reducing complex information to manageable levels. Reduction of the complex risk environment depends on the degree to which the mental strategies or heuristics of an individual provide readily accessible and coherent beliefs about certain risks. In the language of Lindell and Perry [18], when someone has a certain schema (heuristic)-a generic knowledge structure defined by instances, attributes that differentiate these instances, and interrelationships among the attributes-beliefs about a risk encompassed by that schema are rapidly accessed to produce an overall judgement that is congruent with the available information about the risk situation. Some of the heuristics discussed in the literature include the availability heuristic, anchoring, and the affect heuristic. The availability heuristic refers to the tendency of people assessing events based on the ease with which instances or occurrences are easily recalled [26]. Anchoring refers to the tendency of people making estimates from a certain reference that is adjusted to give a final answer. For example, people are likely to use historic probabilities to make judgments about future likelihoods of risks, or historic input prices to infer to possible prices in the future. Lastly, the affect heuristic involves the instinctive and intuitive reactions to risk [4].Our framework is also built on the philosophy that the diverse socio-economic environments and diverse psychological states of farmers will result in heterogenous risk perceptions even when we consider the same risks and set of risk attributes. Such heterogeneity is likely to be observed not only across individuals, but also across risks and risk domains for the same individual. Some studies have already shown differences in risk perceptions across groups such as men and women [11]. Noteworthy is that although our analysis does not explicitly consider individual attributes except for gender, we control for them in an extra stage of analysis using a multiple linear regression. We find that the individual characteristics explain less than 10% of the variation in risk perception, hence we do not discuss the results of this final stage here (see Table A6 for details).Given the above background, we test the following hypotheses non-parametrically:Hypothesis 1. Risks under the production domain are not the most important to the farmer.Most of the research and risk management work is focused on the production domain [7]. However, not only is there insufficient evidence to support such a narrow focus, but also insufficient evidence on which specific risks under the production domain matter most. In addition, we hypothesize that other risks in other domains might be even more important to the farmer. We, therefore, first characterize different risks to assess which is the most important in each risk domain; second, we use structural equations to determine the most important risk across domains.Hypothesis 2. Historic and future frequencies of risks are not the most important risk attributes to the perception of risks by the farmer.Though risks are associated with several attributes, many studies measure risk perceptions as the product of probability and magnitude [6]. Such an approach is limited in agriculture since agricultural risks are associated with many other attributes such as controllability, ability to prevent the risk, consequences, and sources. The risks are also likely to be interlinked. For example, a weather shock may result in low yields, which in turn will result in a reduction in agricultural incomes. Therefore, whether the frequencies matter in how farmers perceive the risks in this complex environment is non-trivial. We are not aware of any studies that empirically assess the role of other risk attributes, other than probabilities in forming the risk perceptions of farmers. Hypothesis 3. There are no statistically significant differences in the perception of risk attributes and the risks themselves between men and women.Many differences between men and women influence the uptake and choice of risk management strategies. For example, several studies have documented differences in risk attitudes and perceptions between men and women [27]. However, it is not clear from the literature how male and female farmers value risk attributes, and whether their perceptions of relationships across risk attributes and the risks are different. We hypothesize that there are no statistically significant differences between men and women when it comes to perception of various risk attributes and relationships across them.Under the psychometric paradigm of risk analysis, risk attributes play an important role in influencing risk perceptions [11]. A taxonomy of risk and risk attributes exists in the literature [28]. The qualitative attributes, which include risk sources, consequences, severity, and ability to control [10], relate to how an individual assesses self (feelings and emotions) with respect to the risk. Such an assessment will depend on how clear the various risks and their attributes are understood by the individual.A challenge arises in the context of agricultural risks, since the taxonomy of risk and attributes, such as sources and consequences, is not straightforward. There seems to be no clear distinction of risks, their sources, and consequences in the literature. For example, Komarek et al. [7] identify the broad risk categories, namely production, market, financial, personal, and institutional, as risk types. Duong et al. [29] and Harwood et al. [30] identify them as risk sources. Though there is no empirical evidence of the extent to which such arbitrary taxonomy may limit understanding and management of the risks by farmers, there is a likelihood of such a limitation, not only on the side of farmers but also for other stakeholders in agricultural risk management. Nevertheless, it is not our goal to disentangle these issues in this paper. However, for the sake of maintaining clarity, we endeavor to explain our use of the terms risk type (risk domain), risk sources, and consequences.With regard to risk sources, we consider first-and second-level sources. For instance, in cases where a weather-related hazard causes low crop yields, and the low crop yields in turn cause a reduction in agricultural incomes, the weather-related hazards and low crop yields are first-and second-level sources of reduction in agricultural incomes, respectively.The final implication of the risk on any aspect of the life of a farmer forms the consequence. Noteworthy is that some outcomes (consequences), such as reduction in agricultural incomes, are considered as risks as well. Following the classification we have outlined, we briefly discuss the risks and their attributes in the subsequent paragraphs.Production risks entail all risks relating to the production stage. Therefore, risks relating to quality of inputs, farm equipment, produce at the field, and produce off the field (postharvest) all fall under the production category. Risk sources in the production domain will include weather-related shocks, pests and diseases, and input quality.Market risks relate to all risks entailing acquisition of the inputs and marketing of produce. The risks include fluctuating prices and poor access to markets (in cases of physical markets). Sources of market risks include information asymmetries and weather shocks. Favorable weather may, for instance, cause an upside risk, which in turn will cause gluts in the markets that result in low output prices.Financial risks relate to all risks entailing financing of farm operations, and sources include variation in wage rates, interest rates, and access to credit. Current COVID-19 restrictions can be considered as additional sources of financial risks.Institutional risks include risks relating to formal and informal laws and regulations in the agricultural sector, such as tenure security, price controls (or lack of them), and export or import tariffs. Regulations on land use and policies on, for instance, irrigation are all considered institutional risks.We incorporate consumption risk based on evidence from Ethiopia about the role of consumption risk in technology adoption [16]. Though consumption risk in the mentioned paper relates more to its financial meaning regarding the uncertainties associated with investing in something in expectation of higher returns in the future instead of current consumption, we use the term to relate more to food security since food expenditure constitutes the largest portion of household expenditure in Kenya. Consumption risks include reduced number of meals, reduced quantities of food, food contamination, and food lacking sufficient nutrients. Some of the sources of consumption risk include climate hazards and volatility of food prices.Lastly, personal risks relate to the health and social problems of an individual, which affect farm operations. Some of the personal risks include illness, death, and divorce.We used survey data collected from four sub-counties of Machakos County in Kenya, namely Machakos Central, Yatta, Kathiani and Mwala. Machakos County is one of the arid and semi-arid counties of Kenya. Farming in the county is largely small-scale; average farm sizes are below 2 acres [31]. Production, which is mostly subsistence, is characterized by low use of inputs such as fertilizers and certified seeds. In addition, family labor is the most dominant source of labor for the farms.Although agriculture is the main economic activity in the county, the sector is vulnerable to many shocks including climate shocks, especially droughts and dry spells. The county has two rain seasons: the October and December short rains, and the March and May long rains. The short rains season is the most important for crops. The county receives about 500 mm to 1250 mm of rainfall annually, with disparities in temporal distribution. The studied sub-counties were purposively selected to have a representation of the variation in rainfall as well as the agricultural activities for the county and the whole country in general. On one hand, the Mwala and Yatta sub-counties, where livestock production is dominant, are very dry. The two sub-counties usually receive less than 500 mm of rainfall annually. On the other hand, Machakos Central and Kathiani are wet sub-counties most suitable for crop production.We surveyed 792 farmers in November and December of 2020. Important to note is that we needed a minimum of 768 participants from our sample size calculations assuming a 5% margin of error, a confidence interval of 95%, and a 50-50 distribution of men and women in the population. Participants were randomly selected. The random selection was systematic in the sense that we did random walks skipping at least three households to the next participant. The starting point was a point agreed upon with the local village administration heads, who were our contacts at the village level. The willingness of farmers to participate in the survey and their availability also determined the number of households skipped until the next participant as well as the starting points. For each of the households, we interviewed the household head, or the person who made agricultural decisions if it was not the household head. Figure 2 shows a map of the study area and the geo-positioning system (GPS) points of the sampled farmers. Each of the farmers was asked several questions on socio-economic characteristics (individual attributes) and risk attributes, as we discuss below. We chose the attributes based on direct or indirect relevance to risk perceptions.The individual and farm characteristics that we focused on are: sources of capital for financing farming, household information (household size, education level, age, and employment), welfare and wealth status (asset counts, household dietary diversity, annual expenditure, and satisfaction with life), non-cognitive skills (locus of control), whether directly affected by COVID-19, reported propensity to take risks, and risk preferences.Dietary diversity was measured using the 24 h recall questions adopted from the Food and Agriculture Organization [32]. The final dietary diversity score is obtained by summing up the number of food groups the respondent consumed. The score ranges from 0 to 12. Individuals with higher values are considered to have a higher dietary diversity. Dietary diversity is of relevance in risk perceptions especially for the consumption domain.We adopt the brief scale, by Rotter, in measuring the locus of control of the farmer [33], but also incorporate 5 more items to make a total of 11 items (Appendix A). Locus of control is the extent to which people believe that the outcome and circumstances around them are creations of their choices and decisions [34]. According to this scale, individuals either have an internal locus of control in that they believe that they control their lives and circumstances, or an external locus of control in that they believe that their lives and circumstances are controlled by strong others. We determine the locus of control score by first reverse-coding the negatively phrased items, and then finding the difference between the sums of the positively phrased items and those of the negatively phrased items. In this sense, a higher score means that the individual has an internal locus of control, and vice versa. Locus of control has been found to vary with factors that influence differences in risk perceptions, such as gender and age [35].We adopt the approach by Tanaka et al. [36] to measure risk aversion. Following this approach, farmers responded to 28 hypothetical questions (Series 1 and Series 2, each having 14 questions) involving small monetary stakes (Appendix B). We asked the farmer to choose either Option A or Option B for each of the questions in Series 1 and 2. The farmers were allowed to switch only once between Option A and Option B in each series. The risk game was incentive-compatible, since farmers played for real money in the last round of the risk game. We use the switching points from Series 1 and Series 2 to obtain probability weights and risk aversion measures as estimated by Tanaka et al. [36] (Noteworthy is that our stakes were in Kenyan Shillings. Therefore, we factored the stakes in Tanaka et al. (2014) [36] by three to make them decently comparable in value to the Vietnamese Dong. In this analysis, we assume that such factoring will not have an impact on the risk parameters), who use prospect theory. In prospect theory, value is attached to changes in wealth and not the final asset position, as in expected utility theory. We assume a piecewise power function and the probability weighting function by Prelec [37]. The values of σ and α for every possible switching point are provided in Table A2.Tables 1 and 2 provide a summary of the characteristics of our respondents based on the variables outlined above. We note that men tend to register higher scores that are significantly different from those of women regarding annual household expenditures, asset count, locus of control, and propensity to take risks. There tends to be no difference across the sub-counties, except for Machakos sub-county, which is statistically significantly different from the other sub-counties regarding life satisfaction, reported propensity to take risks, and average household size (Table 1). Regarding other characteristics, farming is the main economic activity for about 73% of our sample, many of whom finance farm activities from either their own savings or income from the previous season. Many of the respondents tend to have a primary or secondary level education, and about 57% of the sample reported to have been directly affected by COVID-19.  The bulk of the questions were dedicated to assessing risk perceptions of the farmer. Assessing risk perceptions entailed asking farmers questions about several risk attributes for every risk in each domain. The risk attribute questions were asked only if the farmer mentioned having experienced the risk. The risk attributes we focused on were historic and future return frequencies of the risk, severity of the risk, the perceived ability of the farmer to prevent the risk, the number of sources of the risk, the number of consequences caused by the risk, and whether the farmer did anything to adapt to the risk. Table 3 provides a summary of the risk attributes and how they were measured. Measuring risk perceptions is as elusive as the concept of risk itself [38]. The diverse definitions of risk are associated with specific measurement strategies. However, even though there is no single unified measure of risk perception [39], most studies measure risk perception as a unidimensional multiplicative function of likelihood and severity [6], with the assumption that individuals are objective when assessing risk. The studies use Likert-scale items for the two variables, and data reduction through factor analysis or principal components analysis. Such a unidimensional view of risk perception can be limited on several accounts. The most important account is about how individuals make judgements under uncertainty as we discuss in our theoretical framework. Emotional and experiential assessment of risk through mental strategies such as the affect heuristic, availability heuristic, optimism, and unrealistic optimism tend to dominate over objective, logical, and intellectual assessment [24,25,40]. Therefore, a measure considering probabilities and magnitude only is not reliable. The second account is on the interlinked nature of agricultural risks. Some of the risks have common sources and consequences, while some other risks cause or reinforce each other. The nomological network of the risks, sources, and consequences may mask or amplify some risk attributes. Our estimation strategy extends the analysis beyond just probabilities and magnitude, to consider the inter-connectedness of the risks we study. Though contexts are different, our estimation strategy is comparable to that of Wilson et al. [6], who use confirmatory factor analysis to assess risk perception as a multidimensional construct. We use partial least squares path modelling for the reasons explained below.PLS SEM is a variance-based multivariate analysis approach. Unlike the covariance based approach (CB-SEM) that seeks to increase covariance of the items of a common factor, PLS-SEM seeks to reduce unexplained variance of a construct using ordinary least squares as the estimation method [41]. PLS-SEM is appropriate in our analysis because of the following reasons. First, our concept of risk entails a nomological network of risk attributes and risks in different domains. Second, we do not want to assume that our data achieves the requirements such as multivariate normality necessary for other estimation methods such as CB-SEM; lastly, PLS-SEM supports estimation of formative constructs. Studies such as Burns et al. [42] recommend the use of partial least squares in analysis of risk perceptions.The PLS-SEM model is composed of measurement (outer) and structural (inner) models. The measurement model is the interaction of manifest variables with the constructs that they explain. The structural model is the interaction between the various constructs.Our measurement model consists of the risk attributes and the important risks. Though our manifest variables are the same (Table 3), based on our assumption described in previous sections, we consider the attributes for each risk as different variables. These attributes explain low crop yields, fluctuating input prices, and reduction in agricultural incomes, which are our formative lower-level constructs. Noteworthy is that only the manifest variables that have sufficient weights, and/or significant outer and inner loadings, are included in the final model.The lower-level constructs interact to explain the overall risk perception, which is our higher-level construct. The structural model is also formative, in the sense that all the lower constructs point to the higher-level risk perception construct. Based on our findings from the risk characterization, there is also some mediation among the constructs, i.e., some risks are sources of other risks. For example, fluctuations in input prices cause low crop yields, while low crop yields cause a reduction in agricultural incomes (see Figure 1).We use SmartPLS 3 in the PLS SEM modelling. Our analysis focuses on three of the six most frequently cited problematic risks, namely low crop yields, fluctuating input prices, and reduction in agricultural incomes, which represent the production, market, and financial domains, respectively. All the farmers included in this analysis have experienced all the risks in the past five years from the time of data collection; hence, our sample reduces from 792 to 435. The objective of the path modelling is to determine the most important risk attribute(s) and the most important risk(s), as perceived by farmers. We use the weights from the measurement model as proxies for importance of risk attributes, and the path coefficients (structural model) as proxies for importance of the three risks in forming risk perceptions.We consider two models in this analysis to represent two different perspectives of risk by the farmer (Figures 3 and 4).  In Model 1, we assume no interaction across risks (i.e., the farmer evaluates the risks in isolation), while in Model 2 we consider interactions. The interactions and their directions are informed by the findings from the characterization in the first part of the paper (Figure 5). Based on findings from the characterization, low crop yields cause a reduction in agricultural incomes and fluctuating input prices cause low crop yields. In this sense, fluctuating input prices cause a reduction in agricultural incomes through reduced crop yields, as shown in Figure 3. ([+] means there are hidden variables to the construct). Since Model 2 is supported by theory, we use it to test whether there are differences in perceptions between men and women. We use the multiple group analysis (MGA) in smartPLS to test for the differences.Noteworthy is that before arriving at the models shown above, we first estimated models with all the risk attributes in Table 3. We use the results from the first step to eliminate risk attributes that do not significantly explain our risk perception composite according to the requirements for partial least squares path modelling [43]. Manifest variables in the model should have outer weights greater than 0.7, otherwise be significant, possess significant loadings, or otherwise be at least 0.5 if not significant [44]. Since we are estimating a formative model, the focus is on the outer weights and collinearity among manifest variables. Collinearity among indicators should have a variance inflation factor (VIF) of less than three (Important to note is that for formative models, model checks such as construct reliability and average variance explained are not relevant [44]). The two models we estimate achieve all these criteria. Table A5 provides the results from the test for collinearity.We use a repeated indicator approach in the estimation. The repeated indicator approach is one of the two approaches used to model higher order composites. The approach has the advantage of considering the entire nomological network hence reducing loss of information compared to its counterpart two stage approach [45]. Our PLS SEM algorithm entails a path weighting scheme. Though the available weighting schemes yield almost similar results, the path weighting scheme is recommended [41].In this section, we provide results for the most problematic risks in each of the six domains (see Tables A3 and A4 for more details) (Important to note is that the most (least) frequently mentioned is not necessarily the most (least) problematic). Low crop yields, fluctuating input prices, reduction of agricultural incomes, sickness, price controls, and reduced number of meals were the most frequently mentioned problematic risks in production, market, financial, personal, institutional, and consumption domains. Table 4 provides a summary of the risks focusing on the assessment by farmers of the severity of risks, ability to prevent (cope with) the risk, and why the risks were rated as most problematic. The figures represent percentages of the total number of farmers who experienced the respective risks.  * M and F stand for male and female, respectively.The results show that though most of the farmers are not at the extremes when it comes to rating the risks, more than half of those who experienced the risks rated the risks as severe, very severe, or extremely severe. More than half also reported that they were just able, unable, or extremely unable to prevent (cope with) the risks. Low crop yields was by far the most frequently mentioned production risk by farmers, and more than half of the farmers rated it as most problematic.The results also show that consequences of a risk affecting most aspects of the farmer and those affecting all members of the household were the most frequently cited criteria for classifying a risk as most problematic.Regarding risk sources, weather related shocks as well as pests and diseases are the main causes of low crop yields. Drought was the most frequently mentioned source (about 79% of all the farmers who experienced low crop yields) (Figure 5). The most frequently mentioned consequences of low crop yields were reduced availability of food (78% of the farmers), and reduction of agricultural incomes (63% of the farmers). Regarding market risks, the most frequently mentioned cause of fluctuations in input prices was high demand and low supply in the market. Consequently, about 64% of the farmers who experienced fluctuations in input prices mentioned that they used traditional inputs as a result. Noteworthy is that for the case of market risks, fluctuating input prices was selected as the most problematic even though fluctuations in output prices was the most frequently mentioned market problem (see Appendix D for details).For the case of reductions in agricultural incomes, low yields, low output prices, and pests and diseases were the main sources. The most frequently mentioned (70% of the farmers) was low crop yields. Reduced availability of food, children sent out of school, and low crop yields were identified as the main consequences of reduction in agricultural incomes. Sickness, old age, low incomes, and unavailability of food were identified as the main causes. The main consequences of sickness were reduced working hours, reduced incomes, and going into debt. In this regard, a shock in incomes is likely to have a double effect on households that are experiencing sickness.Regarding institutional risks, price controls (or the lack thereof) was the most problematic. The risk applies mostly to output prices since oversupply in the market was identified as the main cause. Consequently, farmers end up selling at extremely low prices. Lastly, regarding reduced number of meals, drought/dry spell, unavailability of food, and high food prices were identified as the main sources, while increased purchases from the market, reduced labor productivity, and low crop yields were identified as the main consequences.A critical evaluation of the risks, main sources, and consequences shows how interconnected the risks, risk sources, and consequences are. For example, drought directly causes low crop yields and reduced number of meals, indirectly. Low crop yields result in a reduction in agricultural incomes that in turn cause a reduction in availability of food.Reduced availability of food (reduced number of meals) in turn is among the main causes of sickness and low crop yields. Sickness in turn causes a reduction in agricultural incomes. The cycle continues. It therefore becomes evident that though we only consider a limited number of risks, tracing the whole cycle of risks, their sources, and consequences is a nontrivial task that presents a \"chicken\" and \"egg\" situation. Such a complex interconnection of risks, risk sources, and consequences requires a bundle of risk management strategies to effectively manage the risks.We now turn to determining the most important risk attributes and risk (Hypothesis 2). The results from the path modelling show no difference between Model 1 and Model 2 (Table 5). All the indicators included significantly explain both the lower and higher constructs at 1%, albeit with weak associations (i.e., the weights are less than 0.3). Both models show that perceived ability to prevent a risk from happening or cope with it and its severity have the strongest effect on perception of the three risks and the overall risk perception. However, the similarities in the outer weights notwithstanding, there are differences in path coefficients for the two models, as shown in Table 6. For Model 1, the path coefficients for the three risks are comparable, with reduction in agricultural incomes having a slightly greater contribution to the overall risk perception. Model 2, on the other hand, shows that low crop yields and fluctuating input prices have bigger total effects following the direct and indirect effects on the overall risk perception. are significant at 1% on both the lower and higher constructs. The f, m, and p prefixes before the risk attributes denote the domain of the risk, namely financial, market, and production, respectively.for the case of low crop yields. Similar to reduction in agricultural incomes, men tend to have on average a bigger weight. Table 7 provides more details on these findings. We do not find any significant statistical difference in the path coefficients for both groups. However, we find a significant difference at 5% in the total effects of fluctuating input prices on the overall risk perception. Women tend to have bigger weights on average compared to men (Table 8).  Our risk analysis entails characterization of agricultural risks, determination of risk attributes that matter in forming the risk perception of a small-scale farmer, and testing whether there are differences in the perceptions between men and women. Results from the risk characterization show that indeed small-scale farmers face many important risks across the different risk domains, as has been highlighted in many studies already. Low crop yield is the most frequent (in terms of mentions) risk among the farmers, and is the most problematic in the production domain. Fluctuating input prices, reduction in agricultural incomes, price controls (and lack thereof), reduced number of meals, and sickness are the most problematic in the market, financial, institutional, consumption and personal risk domains. We find that risks that affect many aspects of the life of the farmer as an individual, and those that affect many household members, are deemed the most problematic. Return frequencies of the risks had the least mentions by farmers as the main criterion for ranking a risk as most problematic. These two findings point to the possibility of dominance of the affect heuristic in risk assessment among farmers. Intuitively, farmers are more likely to take action against risks that invoke affect.We also identify main sources and main consequences of the risks in the characterization. We find that other than sources such as climate-related shocks, including drought and dry spells, farmers know that some risks cause other risks. For example, farmers are aware of the role of low crop yields in reducing agricultural incomes as well as the role of fluctuating input prices on low yields and, ultimately, low incomes. This is an interesting finding, since we can infer from it the pathways for adaptation and risk management that the farmer thinks are relevant. For example, the problem of low farm incomes can be addressed through addressing factors that cause low crop yields (weather-related factors and pests and diseases) and fluctuating input prices (seasonality in demand and government controls or lack of them). Consumption, or income smoothing, should be used when all available pathways have been exhausted. These results further provide empirical evidence on the importance of multiple risks assessment in the context of small-scale farmers. The need to assess multiple risks in agriculture becomes more elaborate when we compare Model 1 and Model 2. From the comparison, we find that considering the links from one risk to another shifts the importance of various risks as perceived by the farmer. We find that, independently, reduction of agricultural incomes has a relatively bigger contribution to forming the risk perceptions of farmers. However, Model 2, which incorporates the interconnectedness of the risks, shows that low crop yields and fluctuating input prices tend to be more important when we consider total effects. Therefore, effective management of the risks will entail offering farmers a wide range of risk management strategies, through well-coordinated networks of government agencies, market actors, and the farmers themselves [46].Analysis of risk attributes and their importance in forming risk perceptions shows that, first, both historic and future probabilities of risks, perceived ability to prevent a risk, and severity of the risk significantly influence the risk perception of a farmer. Though our findings are in tandem with theory and the literature, when it comes to probabilities and severity of a risk [20,47], we find that perceived ability to prevent (cope with) has the biggest weight; hence, it is the most important in forming the risk perceptions of farmers. Other studies have also found probabilities to be less critical in the way individuals assess risks [6,48]. Our results are plausible when we view risks as either catastrophic or normal [21]. Though catastrophic risks are less frequent, they can be more detrimental than the more frequent risks. In this case, consideration of probabilities might be misleading when rating the importance of a risk. Consequently, in the context of small-scale farmers, consideration of attributes that invoke affective reactions, such as the ability to control a risk when designing risk management mechanisms, is likely to increase the relevance of such strategies to the farmer. Special attention should be given to those risks that the farmer has dismal control over (involuntary), or ability to cope with them. However, of importance is also filtering for the tolerance levels of the farmers to various risks when considering ability to prevent risks. High tolerance to a risk may give a false impression of high ability to control the risk (cope with it). High risk tolerance is likely to keep farmers in risk-induced poverty traps [49]. Our results also have implications on risk communication. Since risk perception is usually considered a function of probability and severity, most risk communication is in terms of these two attributes. A good example in agriculture involves weather-related agri-advisories, which are usually communicated in terms of probabilities. Farmers are likely to perceive such information as less useful. As such, risk information that aims to nudge farmers to take precautionary measures should be packaged and synthesized around the severity and involuntary nature of the risks.Second, the data supports our initial hypothesis that risk attributes, such as return frequencies that may be considered objective, are interpreted differently by farmers in the same geographical location with almost similar \"objective\" exposure to the risks. Interpretations of the attributes depend on the risk and the gender of the individual as we discuss in subsequent sections. Such high heterogeneity poses a challenge when it comes to prioritizing adaptation options for certain groups of people or even regions. Though participatory and co-creation approaches can be used to reconcile varied perceptions, effort should be put towards addressing behavioral factors that cause biases in the perception of risks. The biases may inhibit the adoption of effective risk management strategies by farmers.Further analysis of the risk attributes shows that the four risk attributes consistently, and significantly, influence perceptions for low crop yields and reduction in agricultural incomes. However, historic probabilities tend to matter less (have small weights) for the case of fluctuating input prices. Therefore, our data does not support the notion that a certain set of risk attributes can fully generalize the concept of risk across many risks, such as in the case of agriculture. Similar to our first finding, considering all risks as a function of probability and severity may be misleading.Third, we find some differences in the risk perceptions between men and women, as already shown in some studies [50]. We find that historic probabilities tend to matter more to men compared to women when we consider reduction in agricultural incomes and low crop yields, while the ability to prevent a risk tends to matter more to women compared to men when it comes to reduction in agricultural incomes. Both the similarities and differences are justifiable, as discussed by Gustafson [51]. The similarities point to the possibility of both groups employing the same strategies in understanding the risks around them. The differences point to the possibility of one group having higher sensitivity to affect, different exposure to the risks, or more knowledge and awareness about a risk and associated attributes, or a combination of all three of those factors. In our context, we attribute the differences first to the level of knowledge and understanding of the risk attributes where men are likely to have more understanding of probabilities than women, and second to the differences we find in wealth status (annual expenditure and asset count), locus of control, and propensity to take risks. Scores for men tend to be significantly higher than those for women. Poor scores, especially in terms of wealth status among women, may also mean more exposure to risk relative to men.The contribution of our study to the knowledge on risk perceptions among small-scale farmers is evident. However, we need to point out some limitations of this study. First, we consider the entire farm enterprise, making our scope wide instead of focusing on a particular enterprise, crop, or livestock. Notwithstanding, studies with a wide scope such as this one are useful in informing more focused studies. We recommend the use of the approach we have used for specific farm enterprises. Second, there is a likelihood that the attributes of the risks are also linked to each other, in the sense that the ability to prevent, for instance, low crop yield correlates with the ability to prevent fluctuations in input prices or reduction of agricultural incomes. Future research should also consider this interconnectedness of the risk attributes. Lastly, though the goal of this paper is to inform the design of risk management tools relevant to small-scale farmers, we do not extend the analysis to assess the effect of the perceptions on selection and the use of various risk management strategies. Future studies should fill this knowledge gap.In this paper, we have addressed three issues that challenge analysis of risk perceptions in agriculture to enhance understanding of the risk perceptions of small-scale farmers. A clear understanding of the risk perceptions by farmers is paramount for effective support in managing the risks. We achieved our objective by first characterizing agricultural risks, and then using an integrative approach to analyze the risk perceptions. We extend the analysis beyond risks in the production domain. We also consider other risk attributes on top of severity and likelihood of the risks.Our qualitative assessment of risk perceptions across the six risk domains highlights the most problematic risks that matter to the farmer, namely low crop yields, fluctuating input prices, reduction in agricultural incomes, reduced number of meals, price controls (or the lack thereof), and sickness. Though the risks are interlinked with regard to sources and consequences, no single strategy can simultaneously address all of them. Therefore, bundling risk management strategies is imperative in effectively addressing the risks. Future studies should test this claim and identify an optimal mix of risk management strategies that simultaneously address the risks. Noteworthy is that the most problematic risks are those that affect many aspects of the life of the farmer and many members of the household.Findings from the PLS SEM modelling have shown that though likelihood of a risk, severity, and the perceived ability to prevent or cope with the risk significantly affect farmer risk perceptions, the perceived ability of farmers to prevent a risk is the most important (has the biggest weight) for all three risks we consider. Probabilities are the least important. This finding has implications for risk perceptions research. Future studies on farmer risk perceptions should give more attention to risk attributes that invoke affective reactions such as severity and ability to prevent or cope with a risk. Such attention is lacking in the current literature. Another implication of this finding is for risk communication. We use the example of weather-related advisories and forecasts. Since risk is usually considered a function of severity and probabilities, most weather advisories are communicated in terms of probabilities. Therefore, packaging weather agri-advisories around other risk attributes (especially that affect invoking) may be a good way of enhancing relevance and usability of the forecasts and other risk information by the farmers to plan their farming activities.Our results have also shown that neglecting the interlinkages across risks may misguide risk prioritization. Considered independently, reduction in agricultural incomes is relatively more important. However, fluctuating input prices and low crop yields tend to be more important when we consider total effects on the risk perceptions. Therefore, mechanisms that stabilize input prices and those that address the problem of low yields should be addressed first. Stabilization of input prices is likely to enhance the uptake of technologies such as fertilizers and improved (certified) varieties, ultimately addressing the problem of low farm incomes.Lastly, we find some differences in the perceptions of the risk attributes and the linkages across risks between men and women when it comes to perceived ability to control or cope with a risk. We attribute this difference to wealth status, locus of control, and reported propensity to take risks. As such, disparities in access to resources between men and women might be an important issue to consider when designing risk management tools that target women. ","tokenCount":"8465"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c7820cbe6c143942ffeaf32a5129e4bd","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4539a244-953f-4a4f-b186-a27bc6aa2def/retrieve","id":"-1089980574"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"047ec288-20f1-4c9e-996e-5ab457e018b2","pagecount":"7","content":"Very weak collaborations currently exist between the key stakeholders required to promoting sustainable access and use of CIS in the intervention zone of the GGW in Mali; n Through inclusive and participatory consultations, all key stakeholders i.e., Orange-Mali, MALI METEO, Institute for Rural Economy (IER) and the Great Green Wall Agency (ANGMV) are now engaged and committed to develop PPPs for CIS dissemination n Three potential PPP business models have been developed, of which the model for Business to Business to Client (BBC) with revenue sharing has been validated as the best actionable option within the GGW by all involved actors;n The model for Business to client (B2C) can be run across the entire Mali.n Differentiated roles and responsibilities have been defined for each involved actor along with a work plan for next steps.Most environmental issues in Mali include desertification, deforestation, soil erosion and drought affecting ecosystem balance in about 51% of the country and resulting in a loss of arable land and drop in productivity. The Great Green Wall initiative (GGW) is a symbol of hope to face desertification, one of the biggest challenges. Launched in 2007 by the African Union, this game-changing African-led initiative, aims to restore Africa's degraded landscapes and transform millions of lives in one of the world's poorest regions, the Sahel (Dia and Duponnois, 2012). One of the main objectives of GGW is to develop sustainable management of land and water in targeted landscapes and climate-vulnerable zones. In Mali, the GGW has undertaken actions to strengthen the resilience of populations in arid and semi-arid zones through tackling climate change, desertification, and biological diversity degradation, and to promote partnership and synergy of actions between the players for the sustainable implementation of the initiative.Through the present research activity, CCAFS/ICRISAT aims to analyze current collaborations in order to establish the public-private partnerships (PPP) required to promote the sustainable use of climate information services (CIS) and agro-advisories for improving management of climatic risks by farmers and pastoralists from the GGW area in Mali.This research activity pursues three specific objectives: 1) Evaluate existing collaboration and mechanisms for mainstreaming CIS and agro-advisories into the activities conducted by the Great Green Wall National Agency of Mali; 2) Develop Public-Private Partnerships for the sustainable management of climate risks in the zone of the Great Green Wall; 3) Define activities, roles and responsibilities and possible contractual issues for the sharing of costs and benefits between the actors involved in Climate Information Service activities in Mali.The methodological approach of this research was a participatory and inclusive co-development and establishment of \"win-win\" business models. We first identified key partners based on experts' knowledge and on our working experience on the GGW zone which was considered as entry point and used at first for validation of partners list. A meeting was organized with the leaders and staffs of the respective partners department to share the objectives in order to obtain their commitment to the initiative. For the evaluation of existing partnerships and CIS mainstreaming into the GGW area and work planning, we organized interviews and focus groups with each of the four main partners ( Subsequently the activities were identified and roles of partners were identified along with future work plan. Then, a second two days' workshop was organized with only 16 actors in order to better deepen the ideas and validate the current situation of partnerships and respective business models followed by action plan for 2022. This last workshop consisted of presenting the analysis of the first workshop (potential business models) results to the actors. We finally described the roles and responsibilities for each actor for the implementation of the validated business models.The zone of the Great Green Wall in Africa covers a strip 9,000 km long and 15 km wide on average. In Mali, the Great Green Wall extends over a length of 2,066 km and a width of 215 km crossing 8 administrative regions, 24 districts, 204 municipalities and more than 2,622 villages ( with a population of about 4 million people.In application of article 5 of the Convention of the Pan-African Agency of the Great Green Wall regarding the establishment of national agency in the member states, Mali government created firstly the Management Unit of the Great Green Wall (UGMV) in March 2016. This Unit was erected into the National Agency of the Great Green Wall (ANGMV-Mali) by the government in 2019. The Great Green Wall Agency in Mali was considered as main partner in the present activity because all the PPP activities would be implemented in its intervention zone.Picture 1: Group discussion to identify areas of partnershipThe profile assessment indicated that the GGW Agency is newly created and what the research team expected from them (to lead the PPP process with other) will be difficult because the agency does not have staff in the field and it relies on the service providers and the field staff of the Ministry of Agriculture when it has activities. Also, the agency is running on projects and program funding because the government allocated only the running fees to the agency on the national budget.Less activities are funded by the government budget allocation which makes the Agency to depend on external funding. This finding may change the plan that the research had for the agency.In terms of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and availability to have public private partnership focused on climate information services for farmers and pastoralists in its zone, the research showed that the agency has currently many funding partners but not a PPP. However, they are willing to go with PPP in order to achieve its goal.The current situation of the agency is that it has many funding partners but not a PPP. However, they are willing to go with PPP in order to achieve its goal.The National Meteorological service was established as agency in 2012 called MALI-METEO with the mission for observation and study of the weather, climate and atmospheric to ensure the safety of population and contribute to the economic and social development of Mali through the provision of information and services to the users. It participates to the development of the national meteorological policy and coordinates its implementation and monitoring for the country.MALI-METEO is the only public service that has the mandate to provide weather forecast either for private or public sectors in Mali. The agency has then the mandate to provide seasonal weather forecasts which is freely accessible through national TV and radio or through partnership. Currently MALI-METEO relies on ground stations which provide large scale forecasts resulting on large uncertainty. For instance, through national TV or radio, MALI-METEO provides rainfall forecast for the allregion of Koulikoro which represents 90,120 km² and comprise 106 communes while it may rain only in few communes and may not reach other places where farmers are expected. Such large-scale rainfall forecasting is limited for farmer decision-making.However, \"if MALI-METEO is able to provide localized forecasts, we will have confidence in them and this will help us to better plan our field activities \"said a representative of farmers during the first workshop of PPP development\" and this indicates farmers' needs for localized forecast.In terms of the strengths, MALI-METEO can timely provide weather forecast all over Mali and represents the only public service that has the mandate to provide weather forecast such as daily temperature, wind speed, seasonal and daily rainfall either for private or public sectors in the country. Specific climate data sharing with partners depends on partnership agreement however clients can also pay the CIS based on negotiated cost.As far as weaknesses are concerned, MALI-METEO cannot provide localized (9 km2) weather forecasts because the agency do not have the appropriate equipment and they are also in lack of qualified human resources. Although MALI-METEO uses national TV, radio and community radios as well as community-based groups to share CIS, they still need more updated and direct ways of information sharing with users. MALI-METEO then express the needs for more resources to implement its activities in order to achieve the goal. The agency depends on the national budget of the government and this budget allocated to the agency cannot cover all the activities planned per year.In terms of opportunities and availability to go for PPP to provide CIS to farmers and pastoralist, MALI-METEO can generate weather information and share directly with the IER needs more PPP in order to share and facilitate access to the research results with rural communities.As opportunities and the availability to go for PPP, IER can make available research results through other private or public services because their communication unit is not able to cover the wide communities. The Institute showed a willingness for PPP to support rural communities in the Great Green Wall zone in Mali with the technologies and research results.In the current situation there is a formal collaboration between IER and the MyAgri (Senekela) service of Orange Mali and also between IER and MALI-METEO which consisted of climate information and advice conception then provision to farmers and pastoralists through mobile phone platform or through local radios or communitybased organization in Mali. This collaboration (Orange-IER and MALI METEO-IER) is not focused on the GGW zone. Also, the GGW agency, municipalities, extension workers and community radios are collaborating informally in some villages of the GGW zone.As of current, it seems the collaboration between the key stakeholders (Orange-Mali, MALI METEO, IER and GGW) for using CIS in the intervention zone of the GGW in Mali is very weak or even nonexistent (Figure 1). Based on their respective mandates and what each partner can bring or receive from the others, stakeholders developed and validated a \"Business to business to client\" model between CIS providers (MALI-METEO and IER), dissemination services (Orange Mali Extension workers) and the end users such municipalities, radios and farmers organization with a focused on the GGW intervention zone of Mali (Figure 2). The GGW zone and agency will be like a connector between service providers, dissemination and users.MALI-METEO, with its new acquisitions of equipment, would be able to provide localized daily rainfall and seasonal forecasts that the sènèkèla platform can share with farmers after voluntary subscription and payment of the service fees to Orange Mali. In this model, the GGW through its connection in field and link with agricultural or livestock extension services and radios will play the role of organization, mobilization, coordination of the CIS provision at the community level. Based on the daily and seasonal rainfall forecasts provided by MALI-METEO, IER will develop and provide a series of agricultural advisories such as adapted varieties according to different agroecological zones, appropriate planting dates and water harvesting technologies etc. to the sènèkèla platform of Orange which will disseminate to farmers, local radio and municipalities through mobile SMS, mobile voice and Call center while taking into account the geolocation of users. In this model, although Senekela transmits the information directly to the farmers, the local radio and the municipalities represent also mainly relays for dissemination to the whole community. End users are mainly farmers but municipalities can also be potential users.The connected dash curve lines represent the feedback of the information. For example, based on forecasts farmers share with the senekela platform the quantity of observed rainfall and which will be reported to MALI-METEO and IER for the capitalization, database but also for the elaboration of short-term recommendations.Expected results such as numbers population using CIS and CSA technologies with the support of PPP will be capitalized as contribution for building community' resilience to climate change and variabilities in the zone of GGW in connection with the government's national policy.Advantage of this model is that its operation depends on the involvement of each partner as well as its sustainability depends on the sharing of revenues generated by the system and collected through the sms and voice sms system of the senekela platform of Orange Mali.  The business-to-client model is primarily based on direct interactions between CIS providers and the users. The connected solid curve lines represent information flow from services providers to the dissemination or to end users while the connected dash curve lines represent feedback information among actors. In this model (Figure 3): Mali-Meteo generates climate forecasts and make it available to IER which in turn elaborates technical advices and recommendations which will be shared back to MALI-METEO. Both MALI-METEO and IER respectively provide weather forecasts and agricultural advice to the \"Senekela\" platform of Orange Mali.Orange Mali is responsible of the dissemination of climate information and advices provided by MALI-METEO and IER with farmers for making agricultural decisions.Local radio can also receive directly CIS from MALI-METEO upon an agreement including fees for dissemination.The connected dash curve lines represent feedback information. In return, the benefits collected by Orange Mali from users (subscription cost, SMS cost) will be a subject of contract negotiation to be shared with MALI-METEO and IER. Feedback on services will be collected from producers and users and through the \"Senekela\" platform using SMS and voice calls. This model can be run across the entire Mali because the GGW is not essential for the running of this business model. In case GGW is not able to play its key role of community mobilization/marketing next to users, this model is free from the GGW agency and zone. This BBC model with revenue sharing aspects has been validated by all the public and private stakeholders involved. In addition, the actors have step by step indicated plans for revenue sharing based on contribution of everyone including donors (Figure 4). In the model, the connected dash curve lines represent feedback information while the dash curve lines in pink color and blue color indicate respectively the revenue sharing flows and any technical and financial support from external donors such as projects, government and INGO. When farmer organizations and other users will subscribe to receive from Orange Mali the CIS and agro-advisories, they will pay Orange Mali prior to the generation by MALI-METEO and IER. This revenue will be shared by Orange Mali with MALI-METEO and IER. Also, if the GGW Agency is able to play the role of mobilization to permit Orange to have a targeted number of users, then Orange Mali is ready to have a non-monetary revenue sharing system (capacity building…) with the GGW.In this model, MALI-METEO and IER are CIS services producers and they will respectively exchange climate information and agro advisory information in the GGW intervention zone. Orange Mali, as CIS dissemination channel receives daily weather forecast from MALI-METEO and agro advisory from IER.Orange Mali in turn will use the services of the GGW agency which is considered as community mobilizer and facilitator among actors to reach the end users. The extension workers and local NGOs are considered as the field workers in the GGW intervention zone to mobilize and trained farmers and pastoralists on using of CIS and technologies.Donors such as government, projects and INGOs are considered as support providers to the other stakeholders for system establishment especially in the beginning. This support can be used to promote use of CIS in new areas and specially to subsidize the costs of text messages and voice calls and benefits as well to service providers (Orange, IER and MALI-METEO) with equipment and capacity building. Local radios needs also support from donors broadcasting CIS. Finally, GGW agency may benefit from their funding to play their roles and responsibility in the model especially for community mobilizing and facilitation. As return, donors, (Government, project and INGOs) would have contributed to building community resilient to climate change.The revenue sharing will be a contracting negotiation between Orange Mali and MALI-METEO and between Orange Mali and IER. Based on designed and validated business models (Figure 2, 3 and 4), stakeholders have elaborated comprehensive work plans for the next step of contracting aspects and activities implementation. Orange Mali and MALI-METEO agreed to share feedback of PPP validation workshop in their respective Agencies and companies on January 2022 followed by a meeting between the technical teams of the two partners to discuss the partnership contract on February 2022 and develop the partnership contract on March 2022. Climate information service will be provided to farmers and municipalities from May to October 2022.We found that in the GGW zone, the main partners evolve individually according to their interest, and there is lack of coordination, indicating a need to setting partnerships for climate information services use. The development of PPP business models through this activity allowed participants to get to know better each other but also to engage in a win-win partnership under which each partner will play a key role based on their zone of expertise.The validated and consensual model was the BBC with revenue sharing part as it involved all the partners and provides sufficient room for sustainability. The B2C model is optional and could be run nationwide in Mali. From the findings from this research, we recommend:1. To MALI-METEO to be able to provide localized daily and seasonal forecasts to Orange Mali and IER;2. To MALI-METEO to start early capacity building of MALI-METEO staff on the management of localized data;3. To all the PPP partners to implement the activities of the action plan in order to have agreements for CIS provision to farmers and pastoralists during 2022; 4. To Orange Mali to have an agreement on sharing the profit with partners (MALI-METEO and IER) 5. To Orange Mali to evaluate the profitability of business models for suppliers as well as for users 6. To CCAFS/ICRISAT to follow up, monitor and evaluate components for the process 7. To CCAFS/ICRISAT to have a coordination mechanism among all the stakeholders for the implementation of the PPP and to maintain a facilitation role over the next steps described above. ","tokenCount":"2942"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"0dc9f83e47fd446a18599aabf2d4b55f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/29092aef-43d9-4d66-9cd1-cd516295a406/retrieve","id":"-497231444"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d27e7419-cbc9-4e51-87c9-a86d0731c785","pagecount":"11","content":"Methane is a potent but short-lived greenhouse gas targeted for short-term amelioration of climate change, with enteric methane emitted by ruminants being the most important anthropogenic source of methane. Ruminant production also releases nitrogen to the environment, resulting in groundwater pollution and emissions of greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. We hypothesized that inhibiting rumen methanogenesis in dairy cows with chemical inhibitor 3-nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP) would redirect metabolic hydrogen towards synthesis of microbial amino acids. Our objective was to investigate the effects of 3-NOP on methane emissions, rumen fermentation and nitrogen metabolism of dairy cows fed true protein or urea as nitrogen sources. Eight ruminally-cannulated cows were fed a plant protein or a urea-containing diet during a Control experimental period followed by a methanogenesis inhibition period with 3-NOP supplementation. All diets were unintentionally deficient in nitrogen, and diets supplemented with 3-NOP had higher fiber than diets fed in the Control period. Higher dietary fiber content in the 3-NOP period would be expected to cause higher methane emissions; however, methane emissions adjusted by dry matter and digested organic matter intake were 54% lower with 3-NOP supplementation. Also, despite of the more fibrous diet, 3-NOP shifted rumen fermentation from acetate to propionate. The post-feeding rumen ammonium peak was substantially lower in the 3-NOP period, although that did not translate into greater rumen microbial protein production nor lesser nitrogen excretion in urine. Presumably, because all diets resulted in low rumen ammonium, and intake of digestible organic matter was lower in the 3-NOP period compared to the Control period, the synthesis of microbial amino acids was limited by nitrogen and energy, precluding the evaluation of our hypothesis. Supplementation with 3-NOP was highly effective at decreasing methane emissions with a lower quality diet, both with true protein and urea as nitrogen sources.Methane (CH 4 ) 2 is a potent greenhouse gas 28 times stronger than carbon dioxide at trapping heat within a 100-year timeframe. Because CH 4 s life-time in the atmosphere is considerably shorter than carbon dioxide's, mitigation of anthropogenic CH 4 emissions is strategic for short-term amelioration of global warming (Saunois et al., 2016;Beauchemin et al., 2020). Enteric CH 4 from rumen fermentation is the most important source of anthropogenic emissions of CH 4 (E.P. A., 2012;Hristov et al., 2013). Methane emissions from ruminants are also an energy loss for ruminants, ranging between 2 and 12% of ingested gross energy (GE) (Johnson and Johnson, 1995). Thus, because of both environmental and animal production reasons, there is much interest in decreasing CH 4 emissions from ruminants.A second environmental issue associated to ruminant production is the release of excess nitrogen (N) to the environment. Rapid digestion of dietary protein and deamination of amino acids (AA) in the rumen, and intraruminal N recycling, can surpass the capacity of rumen microbes to incorporate ammonium (NH 4 þ ) into the synthesis of amino acids (AA), and excess NH 4 þ is absorbed through the rumen wall. Although part of the absorbed NH 4 þ is recycled back to the rumen as urea, most excess N is eliminated as urea in urine (Firkins, 1996;Wallace et al., 1997;Bach et al., 2005). In the soil, urea is rapidly hydrolyzed to NH 4 þ , contaminating groundwater and producing nitrous oxide, a very potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potential 298 times greater than carbon dioxide in a 100-year scale (Eckard et al., 2010;Hristov et al., 2013). Elimination of excess N to the environment is particularly relevant in temperate regions such as southern Chile, where forages can have a high content of rumen degradable protein (Valderrama and Anrique, 2011).Maximizing the incorporation of NH 4 þ into the synthesis of microbial AA in the rumen decreases the absorption of NH 4 þ through the rumen wall while increasing the supply of AA available for absorption at the small intestine (Wallace et al., 1997;Hartinger et al., 2018). At non-limiting NH 4 þ concentration, incorporation of NH 4 þ into carbon chains by the mixed rumen microbiota is predominantly catalyzed by low-affinity NAD(P)H-dependent dehydrogenases. Oxidative deamination, as the reverse reaction, necessitates the oxidized co-factors, NAD þ or NADP þ , to act as electron acceptors (Wallace et al., 1997;Pengpeng and Tan, 2013).Inhibiting methanogenesis in vitro increased the NADH/NAD þ ratio and decreased deamination (Hino and Russell, 1985). It has been proposed that the incomplete recovery of metabolic hydrogen observed when rumen methanogenesis is inhibited is partly explained by the incorporation of NH 4 þ into carbon chains to synthesize microbial AA (Ungerfeld et al., 2007;Ungerfeld, 2015). More recent findings have confirmed that inhibiting methanogenesis stimulated the incorporation of NH 4 þ into microbial AA biosynthesis in rumen cultures grown on starch as the energy and carbon source, but not when grown on cellulose (Ungerfeld et al., 2019(Ungerfeld et al., , 2020)). Urea is hydrolyzed in the rumen to NH 4 þ and can be supplemented to ruminant diets as a cheap source of non-protein N (Schwab and Broderick, 2017;Hailemariam et al., 2021). When rumen microbes are instead supplemented true protein as N source, they decrease the synthesis of AA from NH 4 þ and increase the proportion of microbial protein synthesized from direct incorporation of preformed AA (Atasoglu et al., 1999). We hypothesized that inhibiting methanogenesis would increase the synthesis of microbial AA from NH 4 þ with a diet containing urea as non-protein N but not with a plant protein-supplemented diet. 3-Nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP) is a small molecule consistently proven to be effective at inhibiting rumen methanogenesis (Dijkstra et al., 2018) in long term experiments (Hristov et al., 2015), with an established mechanism of action (Duin et al., 2016). The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of supplementing 3-NOP to dairy cows on CH 4 production, rumen fermentation, and N metabolism with a urea-containing diet in comparison to a plant protein-based diet.The experiment was conducted at Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIA), Centro Regional de Investigaci on Remehue (40 31 0 S; 73 03 0 W; 65 m above sea level) in Osorno, Chile, in October-November 2018. Cows were cared for in accordance to the requirements of the Chilean Law 20380 of animal protection, in accordance with the European Union Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments, and with the approval of the INIA ethics committee for animal care and use (Approval 02/2016 from June 2016). All animals remained healthy throughout the study.Eight ruminally-cannulated Holstein Friesian cows with an initial body mass of 456 AE 50.2 kg (mean AE SD) and 64.0 AE 6.1 d (mean AE SD) in milk were used in the study. Two different N sources (Plant protein or Urea) were evaluated under functional rumen methanogenesis conditions, and with rumen methanogenesis inhibited by 3-NOP supplementation.Each cow remained with the same N source for the entire experiment, which lasted 32 d.The study had two experimental periods. In the first period (Control period), all 8 cows received the 3-NOP carrier, composed by SiO 2 and propylene glycol, as a placebo without 3-NOP (Hristov et al., 2015). In the second period (methanogenesis inhibition, or 3-NOP period), all eight cows received 3-NOP with its carrier at 100 mg/kg of total feed DM (Table 1). This design allowed animals to act as their own controls and to rule out carry over effects of 3-NOP (Martinez-Fernandez et al., 2018).A pre-experimental period of 18 d for adaptation to the diets preceded the Control period. Both experimental periods included a 10d subperiod of adaptation to the placebo or 3-NOP, followed by a 6d measurements and sampling subperiod. The relatively short adaptation subperiod to methanogenesis inhibition by 3-NOP intended to decrease the difference in days in milk between the measurement and sampling subperiods of the Control and the 3-NOP periods to reduce confounding the effect of methanogenesis inhibition with differences in days in milk. Adaptation periods of 8 (Mitsumori et al., 2012) or 10 d (Lopes et al., 2016;Martinez-Fernandez et al., 2016) to small molecule inhibitors of methanogenesis have been successfully used in previous studies.Table 1. Ingredient composition of diets formulated for dairy cows fed a plant protein only (Plant protein) or a urea-containing (Urea) diet, supplemented a placebo (Control period) or the methanogenesis inhibitor 3-nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP period). Cows were divided into two blocks of four cows each based on body mass, milk production and days in milk, and two cows of each block were randomly assigned to the Plant protein or the Urea diets. The diets were based on grass silage bales (about 500 kg DM), flaked corn, a mineral and vitamin premix, and rapeseed meal (Plant protein diet) or rapeseed meal and urea (Urea diet; Table 1). Silage was produced from a native grassland chiefly composed of Holcus lanatus, Lolium multiflorum, Poa spp, and Anthoxanthum odoratum. Diets were formulated to meet requirements for maintenance and milk production of cows by using The Spartan Ration Evaluator/Balancer for Dairy Cattle (2010), with a target content of net energy for lactation of 6.67 MJ/kg dry matter (DM), and a target content of 16% DM crude protein (CP), based on the proximate composition of composite samples of silage bales, flaked corn and rapeseed meal obtained previously to the beginning of the study.During the adaptation subperiods, each diet was fed to the corresponding four cows in one pen. During the measurement and sampling subperiod, cows were kept in individual tie stalls fitted with rubber mattresses and fed individually. Cows had continuous access to water throughout the experiment and were milked twice daily (5:30 and 16:00 h).The concentrate fraction of each diet (the mixture of flaked corn, rapeseed meal, urea if applicable, minerals and vitamins premix, and the placebo or the formulated 3-NOP additive; from this point on, the \"concentrate mixture\") was weekly premixed in a cement type mixer. The as-fed proportions of concentrate mixture and silage were calculated based on the DM content of the silage bales analyzed prior to the experiment, and the concentrate mixture and the grass silage were then manually mixed at each individual cow's feeder. The diets were offered to cows once daily in the morning, allowing for 10% feed refusals (as-fed basis) based on their intake from the previous day to ensure ad libitum feed intake.All silage bales were sampled and analyzed for DM and CP before the experiment. In the measurement and sampling subperiods, silage offered and feed refusals of each individual cow were weighed and sampled every day. Daily samples of the concentrate mixture were composited per diet and per period on an equal mass basis. All samples of silage, concentrate mixture and refusals were kept frozen until analyzed.On days 4-6 of the measurement and sampling subperiod, total collection of feces and urine was conducted as by Muñoz et al. (2019). Feces were collected in stainless steel trays (100  120  20 cm) lined with plastic placed behind each cow. Urine was collected in 25-L plastic containers via a flexible hose and funnel which was attached using Velcro to patches glued around the cow's vulva and rump. To minimize losses of N as ammonia, urine was acidified during collection with sulfuric acid (35% v/v) to maintain pH < 3.0 (Stevens et al., 2009). Total daily fecal and urinary outputs were weighed. Samples of 5% of total daily excretion (feces by mass and urine by volume) were obtained after thorough mixing and composited per cow per period. Samples of feces and urine were kept at -20 C until chemical analyses.Individual milk yields were recorded at each milking. Composite daily milk samples, obtained by mixing proportional volumes of the morning and afternoon milking, were collected on days 4-6 of the measurement and sampling subperiods, mixed with bronopol, and stored at 4 C until analysis.Individual measurements of CH 4 emissions were conducted by using the sulfur hexafluoride (SF 6 ) tracer gas technique (Muñoz et al., 2019). Cows were dosed orally with calibrated permeation tubes (supplied by National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research, Wellington, New Zealand) previously incubated at 39 C for 7.5 wk and weighed twice weekly to calculate their rates of SF 6 release (5.74 AE 0.081, 5.49-6.05 mg/d; mean AE SD, range). Boluses were paired by release rate and one bolus of each pair was randomly assigned to one cow per block and diet and placed into the rumen 1 wk before the beginning of the first measurement and sampling subperiod.On the first day of each measurement and sampling subperiod, cows were fitted with a head collar with a sampling line placed above the animal's nostrils, which had a filter and a calibrated (~0.30 mL/min) flow-restriction capillary tube connected to an air-evacuated V-shaped PVC canister (2.5 L) suspended above the metabolism stalls. Canisters had initial and final gas pressures of 1,104 AE 342 and 37,227 AE 2823 (mean AE SD) Pa, respectively. Canisters collected subsamples of exhaled and eructed gases for 24 h and were changed daily. Background concentration of CH 4 and SF 6 in the barn were determined using four sets of sampling equipment of the same design of those used on cows, which were evenly distributed along the stalls at about 1.5 m above the floor and mid-way between adjacent cows. Once removed, canisters had their remaining pressure determined and were then over-pressurized with gaseous nitrogen to 121,423 AE 404 Pa. Gases inside the canisters were allowed to mix for at least 1 h prior to transferring four subsamples to pre-evacuated vials for gas composition determination.Methane measurements were recorded every 24 h for 6 d during the entire sampling and measurement subperiods. Background concentrations were averaged daily to give a single estimate for each period. Ratios of background gas concentrations to gas concentrations in the samples were <10%.On days 5 and 6 of the measurement and sampling subperiods, 200-mL samples of rumen contents were taken approximately 30 min before feeding, and at 1, 3, 6, 12 and 18 h post-feeding. Rumen contents were strained to separate solids and fluid, and rumen pH (ExStik ® pH Meter, Extech Instruments, Boston, U.S.) and reducing potential (Eh, Oakton ® pH 700 m, Singapore, equipped with a Schott Instruments BlueLine 31 Rx Ag/AgCl ORP electrode) were immediately measured in the fluid fraction. Triplicate 1-mL aliquots were preserved with 0.2 mL 20% (m/v) meta-phosphoric acid for determination of volatile fatty acids (VFA) concentration and with 0.2 mL 1% (v/v) sulfuric acid for subsequent analysis of NH 4 þ concentration. Rumen fluid samples were kept frozen at -20 C until analyzed.On day 2 of each measurement and sampling subperiod, and immediately after the morning feeding, seven nylon bags for in situ incubation were placed in the rumen of each animal: three bags, each containing 10 g DM of cotton lint (94.9% DM, and 99.9% organic matter (OM), 0.5% CP and 97% neutral detergent fiber (NDF), on a DM basis), three bags each containing 30 g DM ryegrass hay previously ground through a 2 mm sieve (88.4% DM, and 94.0% OM, 6.3% CP and 68.0% NDF, on a DM basis), and one bag left empty as a blank. The exact weight of each bag and substrate were recorded. The seven bags were attached to the inner side of the cannula stopper by a 60-cm cord. One bag with each substrate remained in the rumen for 12, 24 or 48 h of incubation, whereas the blank was removed at 48 h of incubation. Once removed, bags were gently rinsed with tap water and frozen at -20 C until processed.Samples of silage, concentrate mixture, refusals and feces were thoroughly homogenized, oven-dried at 60 C for 48 h, ground through a 1 mm sieve, and analyzed for DM, total ash and CP (AOAC, 2005). Neutral detergent fiber content was assayed with a heat stable amylase and expressed inclusive of residual ash (Mertens, 2002). Acid detergent fiber (ADF) content was determined and expressed inclusive of residual ash (AOAC, 2005). Gross energy of silage, concentrate mixture, refusals, feces, urine and milk, was determined by oxygen bomb calorimetry (Bateman, 1970).In situ bags were thawed and thoroughly washed under cold tap water until the water running off was clear, after which they were freezedried, weighed, and the content of the bags was homogenized. Residues of incubated hay and cotton balls were analyzed for DM content (AOAC, 2005). Residues of incubated ryegrass hay were also analyzed for NDF content (Mertens, 2002). Cotton balls 48 h incubation residues were analyzed for total N (AOAC, 2005), individual AA (except for Tyr, Trp, Cys, Asn and Gln) (White et al., 1986), and long chain fatty acids (AOAC, 2005).Gas samples were analyzed for CH 4 and SF 6 concentration by using a GC (Perkin Elmer Clarus 600, Perkin Elmer, Waltham, USA). Methane was analyzed with a Carboxen 1010 plot column (15 m  0.32 mm ID, Supelco, Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, U.S.) and a flame ionization detector operating at 250 C. Sulfur hexafluoride was analyzed with an Elite-GC GS Molesieve column (30 m  0.53 mm ID  50-μm film thickness, PerkinElmer, Waltham, U.S.) and an electron capture detector operated at 300 C. Ratio of SF 6 to CH 4 in gas samples was equal to 2.04 AE 1.12 (mean AE SD) ppt/ppm. Volatile fatty acids concentration was determined in a GC (Perkin Elmer Clarus 580, Perkin Elmer, Waltham, US) equipped with an Elite-FFAP (PerkinElmer, Shelton, CT, USA) capillary column and a flame ionization detector (Ungerfeld et al., 2019). Rumen NH 4 þ concentration was determined according to Kaplan (1969). Urine samples were analyzed for purine derivatives (allantoin and uric acid) by HPLC (Vlassa et al., 2009) and total N (AOAC, 2005). Milk samples were analyzed for fat, protein, lactose, urea and somatic cell counts using infrared spectroscopy (IS, MilkoScan 4000, Foss Electric, Hillerød, Denmark).Composition of the diet ingested was calculated by subtracting the amount of each dietary fraction refused from its amount offered. Ingestion of digestible energy (DE) was calculated as ingestion of GE minus GE output in feces. Ingestion of metabolizable energy (ME) was calculated as ingestion of DE minus GE losses in CH 4 and urine (McDonald et al., 2010). Feed content of DE and ME was calculated as ingestion of DE and ME, respectively, divided by DM intake (DMI). Energy-corrected milk production (ECM) was calculated according to Tyrrell and Reid (1965). Calculation of CH 4 production per animal considered background concentrations of CH 4 and SF 6 (Muñoz et al., 2019). Methane production was averaged to obtain one average value per cow and period for the statistical analysis. Methane yield was calculated as the quotient between CH 4 production and DMI. The cotton balls substrate incubated in situ was devoid of N, AA and long chain fatty acids, therefore, N, AA and long chain fatty acids present in the 48 h incubation residues are assumed to be entirely microbial. Microbial N production was calculated from purine derivatives excretion in urine according to IAEA (1997). The Eh values recorded for rumen fluid were corrected to the Standard Hydrogen Electrode (SHE) by adding 197 mV (Sawyer et al., 1995).Nutrient intake and digestibility, milk production and composition, CH 4 emissions, energy and N utilization efficiency, and microbial production of N, AA and long chain fatty acids in cotton balls incubated in situ in the rumen, were analyzed with the following linear mixed model:With N source being Plant protein or Urea, and Period being Control or 3-NOP administration (with the 3-NOP administration effect being confounded with unintended dietary changes; see 3. Results and 4. Discussion).When interactions were significant (P < 0.05), treatment means were compared by using Tukey's honestly significant difference contrasts.In situ digestibility of cotton balls and ryegrass hay was analyzed as a function of:Rumen variables were analyzed with Time after feeding as the repeated measures variable with an asymptotic unbounded variancecovariance structure. Digestible OM intake (DOMI) was included as a covariable to adjust the effects of N source, Period, Time after feeding and their interactions for changes in diet fermentability:When interactions with Time after feeding were significant (P < 0.05), treatment means were compared within each time point.Rumen Eh was regressed as a function of rumen pH and the experimental treatments, as follows:Non-significant (P > 0.05) interactions were removed, and the reduced model was re-fitted.In all statistical analyses, significance was declared at P < 0.05 and tendencies at 0.05 P < 0.10. All statistical analyses were conducted using JMP ® (JMP, 2016).There was high variation among and within silage bales in DM and CP content, especially in the 3-NOP period (Supplementary Figures 1 and 2). Samples from bales which were analyzed prior to the experiment and used to formulate the diets had lower DM content than the actual silage offered in the cowsfeeders in the 3-NOP period. This resulted in greater proportion of silage in the diet DM offered in the 3-NOP period. Lower quality of silages offered in the 3-NOP period resulted in diets offered in the 3-NOP period containing more DM, NDF and ADF than in the Control period (Supplementary Table 1). Crude protein content in the diet ingested was lower in the 3-NOP period with the urea-containing diet. With both N sources and in both periods, CP was considerably lower than the 16% DM basis targeted (Table 2). The same as the diet offered, the diet ingested was also higher in NDF and ADF in the 3-NOP period with both diets, and lower in CP in the 3-NOP period with the Urea diet.There were no effects of N source on nutrients intake (P ! 0.77; Table 3). Dry matter, OM, CP, NDF and GE intake were greater in the Control than in the 3-NOP period (P 0.015). There was an interaction (P ¼ 0.017) between N source and Period on CP intake, with a 38% lower CP intake in the 3-NOP period than in the Control period with the Urea diet (P < 0.05).Apparent digestibility of NDF (P < 0.001; Table 3), ADF (P < 0.001) and GE (P ¼ 0.002) were greater in the 3-NOP period. Apparent digestibility of CP was greater in the 3-NOP period with the Plant protein diet (P < 0.05; interaction N source  Period P ¼ 0.015). Intake of apparently digestible DM, OM, NDF, and GE were greater in the Control period (P 0.024; Supplementary Table 2), and intake of apparently digestible CP was 33% greater in the Control period with the Urea diet (P < 0.05; interaction N source  Period P ¼ 0.004). Intake of digestible ADF was greater in the 3-NOP period (P ¼ 0.003).There were no effects of N source on milk production and composition (P ! 0.16; Table 4). Production of milk (P ¼ 0.034), milk fat (P ¼ 0.025), lactose (P ¼ 0.036) and milk GE (P ¼ 0.002) were lower, and production of milk protein tended (P ¼ 0.095) to be lower, in the 3-NOP period compared to the Control period. There were no effects of Period on milk composition, although milk GE content tended to be higher in the Control period (P ¼ 0.069). There were no effects of N source or Period on milk urea N or somatic cell count (P ! 0.25).Out of 96 (8 cows  6 d  2 periods) CH 4 measurements, two were eliminated because of capillary tube leakage (as evidenced by atmospheric pressure of the canister at the end of the collection period) and another four measurements were eliminated because their SF 6 /CH 4 ratios were greater or lesser than the 97.5 or 2.5 percentiles, respectively, of the SF 6 /CH 4 ratio distribution. Due to this, CH 4 production results from one cow from the Urea diet were removed because of insufficient days of measurement in the Control period. Results of a second cow from the Plant protein diet were also removed because of supra-physiological CH 4 production in the Control period (average CH 4 production of 664 g/ d). Methane yield tended (P ¼ 0.067) to be greater, and Y m was greater (P ¼ 0.002), with the Urea, than with the Plant protein diet. Methane production (À62.1%; P < 0.001; Table 5), CH 4 yield (À53.5%; P < 0.001), CH 4 production per kilogram of digested OM (À53.9%; P < 0.001), CH 4 emissions intensity (À59.1%; P < 0.001), CH 4 emissions intensity on an ECM basis (À48.7%; P < 0.001), and the proportion of ingested GE lost as CH 4 (À50.8%; P < 0.001), all decreased in the 3-NOP period.There were no effects of N source on energy balance variables (P ! 0.32; Supplementary Table 3). Digestible energy intake was lower in the 3-NOP period (P ¼ 0.024), whereas there was no effect of Period on ME intake (P ¼ 0.25). Nitrogen source and Period interacted on dietary content of DE (P ¼ 0.029) and ME (P ¼ 0.040), which was higher in the 3-NOP period with the Urea diet (P < 0.05).Both in the Control and 3-NOP periods, the Plant protein and the Urea diets resulted in negative N balance (Table 6); all individual animals were Table 4. Milk production and composition of dairy cows fed a plant protein only (Plant protein) or a urea-containing (Urea) diet (n ¼ 4), supplemented a placebo (Control period) or the methanogenesis inhibitor 3-nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP period).  , 1997).in negative N balance in both periods as well (result not shown). Nitrogen output in feces (P < 0.001) and manure (P ¼ 0.002) was greater in the Control period, whilst there were no effects of N source (P ¼ 0.50) or Period (P ¼ 0.21) on N output in urine or on retained N (P ! 0.53). More N was eliminated in urine as a proportion of N intake in the 3-NOP period (P ¼ 0.013). There was no effects of N source or Period on microbial N production estimated through purine derivatives excretion (P ! 0.35).The proportion of ingested N secreted in milk was higher in the 3-NOP period (P < 0.05) with the Urea diet (interaction P ¼ 0.047).Apparent in situ DM disappearance from cotton balls at 12, 24 and 48 h incubation was greater in the 3-NOP period with both diets (P < 0.001; Supplementary Figure 3). There was no effect of the N source (P ¼ 0.79) or Period (P ¼ 0.13) on DM disappearance of ryegrass hay (Supplementary Figure 4). There was greater NDF disappearance of ryegrass hay in the 3-NOP period (P ¼ 0.018), with no effect of N source (P ¼ 0.78; Supplementary Figure 5).In situ microbial N and total microbial AA, Ser, Gly, His, Arg, Tre, Ala, Pro, Val and Met in cotton balls were lower in the 3-NOP period (P 0.046; Supplementary Table 4). There were no effects of N source or Period on total microbial long chain fatty acids in cotton balls (P ! 0.13; Supplementary Table 5). Microbial C18:1 and total monounsaturated long chain fatty acids were greater with the Plant protein diet (P 0.016). Microbial C14:0 and total polyunsaturated long chain fatty acids were greater in the Control period (P 0.029).Rumen pH after feeding was higher in the 3-NOP period (interaction Period  Time after feeding P < 0.001; Figure 1). Rumen Eh was higher in the 3-NOP period before feeding and 1 h after feeding (P < 0.05; interaction Period  Time after feeding P ¼ 0.002; Supplementary Figure 6). There was a negative quadratic relationship between rumen Eh and pH (Supplementary Figure 7).Total VFA concentration in the Control period was higher 3 and at 12 h after feeding with the Plant protein diet and Urea diets, respectively, and before feeding with the Urea diet in the 3-NOP period (interaction N source  Period  Time P ¼ 0.010; Figure 2). Acetate molar percentage was lower in the 3-NOP period before feeding and at 1, 6 and 12 h after feeding (interaction Period  Time after feeding P ¼ 0.012; Figure 3). Propionate molar percentage was greater in the 3-NOP period with the Urea diet (P < 0.001) with no differences with the Plant protein diet (P ¼ 0.19; interaction N source  Period P ¼ 0.025; Figure 4). Butyrate molar percentage was greater in the 3-NOP period (P ¼ 0.005; Figure 5). Molar percentages of branched-chain volatile fatty acids were greater in the 3-NOP period at various time points (P < 0.05; interaction Period  Time after feeding P 0.004; Supplementary Figures 8 and 9). There were no effects of Period on valerate molar percentage (Supplementary Figure 10). Caproate molar percentage was greater in the Control period at 1, 3, 6 and 12 h after feeding (P < 0.05; interaction Period  Time after feeding P < 0.001; Supplementary Figure 11). The acetate to propionate molar ratio was lower in the 3-NOP period (P ¼ 0.005; Supplementary Figure 12). Rumen concentration of NH 4 þ was lower in the 3-NOP period 1 h after feeding with the Plant protein diet (P < 0.05), and at 1, 3 and 6 h after feeding with the Urea diet (P < 0.05; interaction N source  Period  Time after feeding P < 0.001; Figure 6).The high variation among silage bales used in the study resulted in the diets offered in the 3-NOP period being of lower quality compared to the Control period. Therefore, the effect of 3-NOP supplementation is confounded with dietary changes. This problem imposes a limitation at interpreting 3-NOP effects, and we thus opted to refer to \"3-NOP period\" rather than \"3-NOP treatment\" in this study. Moreover, diets were Ndeficient with both N sources and in both periods. Low CP content resulted in negative N balance in all animals in both periods, which Figure 1. Daily evolution of rumen pH of dairy cows fed a plant protein only or a urea-containing diet, in the Control period or in the 3-NOP supplementation period. Circles correspond to the Plant protein diet and triangles to the Urea diet. Blue symbols and blue curves correspond to the Control period and red symbols and red curves correspond to the 3-NOP period. Significance of fixed effects: N source (N), P ¼ 0.36; Period (Pd), P ¼ 0.040; Time after feeding (T), P < 0.001; N  Pd, P ¼ 0.088; N  T, P < 0.001; Pd  T, P < 0.001; N  Pd  T, P ¼ 0.31; Day, P ¼ 0.032; digestible organic matter intake, P ¼ 0.71. Asterisks (*) indicate significant differences (P < 0.05) between periods at specific time points.Figure 2. Total VFA concentration in the rumen of dairy cows fed a plant protein only or a urea-containing diet, in the Control period or in the 3-NOP supplementation period. Circles correspond to the Plant protein diet and triangles to the Urea diet. Blue symbols and blue curves correspond to the Control period and red symbols and red curves correspond to the 3-NOP period. Significance of fixed effects: N source (N), P ¼ 0.58; Period (Pd), P ¼ 0.70; Time after feeding (T), P < 0.001; N  Pd, P ¼ 0.44; N  T, P ¼ 0.10; Pd  T, P < 0.001; N  Pd  T, P ¼ 0.010; Day, P ¼ 0.024; digestible organic matter intake, P ¼ 0.72. Asterisks (*) indicate significant differences (P < 0.05) between periods at specific time points. makes difficult evaluating the effects of 3-NOP on N metabolism in this study.A meta-analysis of five experiments in which 3-NOP was supplemented to dairy cattle reported a mean decrease of 29.6% daily CH 4 production with the average dose of 81 mg/kg DM (Dijkstra et al., 2018). The greater effect of 3-NOP on CH 4 production in our study might have been partly related to the somewhat greater dose of 100 mg/kg DM we used, although the higher content of NDF of our diets in the 3-NOP period compared to the average of the diets in the meta-analysis by Dijkstra et al. (2018) would have played in the opposite direction, according to the findings of those authors.Figure 3. Daily evolution of acetate molar percentage in the rumen of dairy cows fed a plant protein only or a urea-containing diet, in the Control period or in the 3-NOP supplementation period. Circles correspond to the Plant protein diet and triangles to the Urea diet. Blue symbols and blue curves correspond to the Control period and red symbols and red curves correspond to the 3-NOP period. Significance of fixed effects: N source (N), P ¼ 0.60; Period (Pd), P ¼ 0.001; Time after feeding (T), P < 0.001; N  Pd, P ¼ 0.009; N  T, P ¼ 0.61; Pd  T, P ¼ 0.012; N  Pd  T, P ¼ 0.85; Day, P ¼ 0.64; digestible organic matter intake, P ¼ 0.32. Asterisks (*) indicate significant differences (P < 0.05) between periods at specific time points.Figure 4. Daily evolution of propionate molar percentage in the rumen of dairy cows fed a plant protein only or a urea-containing diet, in the Control period or in the 3-NOP supplementation period. Circles correspond to the Plant protein diet and triangles to the Urea diet. Blue symbols and blue curves correspond to the Control period and red symbols and red curves correspond to the 3-NOP period. Significance of fixed effects: N source (N), P ¼ 0.071; Period (Pd), P ¼ 0.034; Time after feeding (T), P < 0.001; N  Pd, P ¼ 0.025; N  T, P ¼ 0.080; Pd  T, P ¼ 0.076; N  Pd  T, P ¼ 0.63; Day, P ¼ 0.79; digestible organic matter intake, P ¼ 0.16. Asterisks (*) indicate significant differences (P < 0.05) between periods at specific time points.Figure 5. Daily evolution of butyrate molar percentage in the rumen of dairy cows fed a plant protein only or a urea-containing diet, in the Control period or in the 3-NOP supplementation period. Circles correspond to the Plant protein diet and triangles to the Urea diet. Blue symbols and blue curves correspond to the Control period and red symbols and red curves correspond to the 3-NOP period. Significance of fixed effects: N source (N), P ¼ 0.25; Period (Pd), P ¼ 0.005; Time after feeding (T), P < 0.001; N  Pd, P ¼ 0.083; N  T, P < 0.001; Pd  T, P ¼ 0.080; N  Pd  T, P ¼ 0.22; Day, P ¼ 0.82; digestible organic matter intake, P ¼ 0.009. Figure 6. Daily evolution of ammonium concentration in the rumen of dairy cows fed a plant protein only or a urea-containing diet, in the Control period or in the 3-NOP supplementation period. Circles correspond to the Plant protein diet and triangles to the Urea diet. Blue symbols and blue curves correspond to the Control period and red symbols and red curves correspond to the 3-NOP period. Significance of fixed effects: N source (N), P < 0.001; Period (Pd), P ¼ 0.004; Time after feeding (T), P < 0.001; N  Pd, P ¼ 0.003; N  T, P < 0.001; Pd  T, P < 0.001; N  Pd  T, P < 0.001; Day, P ¼ 0.54; digestible organic matter intake, P ¼ 0.79. Asterisks (*) indicate significant differences (P < 0.05) between periods at specific time points.Interestingly, all diets in the meta-analysis by Dijkstra et al. (2018) were sufficient in N, with a CP content ranging between 16.1 and 19.6% DM basis; it is possible that in our study the inhibition of methanogenesis by 3-NOP was amplified by N deficiency, an aspect that would have to be confirmed by future studies.The SF 6 technique in ruminally-cannulated animals can induce biases in the estimation of CH 4 production due to gas leaking through the rumen cannula (Beauchemin et al., 2012), however, the decrease in CH 4 in the 3-NOP period was considerably greater than the biases in CH 4 production reported by those authors, and cows remained with the same cannula and under the same management scheme throughout the experiment, as their own controls. It is therefore not thought that our conclusions with regards to the effects of 3-NOP on the extent of methanogenesis inhibition were influenced by the use of cannulated animals.Roughages result in greater CH 4 yield and Y m compared to concentrates (Johnson and Johnson, 1995;Beauchemin et al., 2020). Based on the model by Niu et al. (2018), the increase in dietary NDF content that occurred in the 3-NOP period would have been expected to increase CH 4 yield by 12%; instead, CH 4 yield decreased by 54% (Figure 7), demonstrating that the observed effects on methanogenesis were due to 3-NOP supplementation rather than to the unintended changes in diet composition. Also, roughages are fermented in the rumen to higher acetate to propionate molar ratio compared to concentrates (Janssen, 2010). In the present study, however, even though the diet contained higher NDF in the 3-NOP period, the rumen fermentation profile was lower in acetate and higher in propionate in the 3-NOP than in the Control period. A decrease in the rumen acetate to propionate ratio as a consequence of 3-NOP administration has been observed in several studies (Jayanegara et al, 2018). It is of much interest that supplementation with 3-NOP could overcome the greater CH 4 production potential and rumen fermentation characteristics of the lower quality diet offered in the 3-NOP period. It is also of much interest that the decrease of CH 4 emissions exerted by 3-NOP was similar with a plant protein-based and a urea-supplemented diet.We hypothesized that part of the metabolic hydrogen spared from methanogenesis would be redirected towards the incorporation of NH 4 þ into the synthesis of microbial AA. In agreement with our hypothesis, the post-feeding NH 4þ peak was substantially lower in the 3-NOP period irrespectively of the N source. With the Urea diet, considerably greater ingestion of total and digestible CP in the Control period contributes to explain the lower NH 4 þ peak after feeding in the 3-NOP period; however, with the Plant protein diet, ingestion of digestible CP was similar in both periods, and yet the 1 h post-feeding NH 4 þ concentration was 55% lower in the 3-NOP period also with the Plant protein diet. Lower rumen NH 4 þ concentration as a result of 3-NOP supplementation agrees with the meta-analyses by Jayanegara et al. (2018) and Kim et al. (2020). However, the moderation observed in the post-feeding NH 4 þ peak in the 3-NOP period contrasts with the lack of effects of 3-NOP supplementation on microbial N production, the increase in the proportion of ingested N excreted in urine in the 3-NOP period, and the lower total microbial N and AA in cotton balls incubated in situ in the 3-NOP period. Also, increased molar percentage (and also concentration; results not shown) of branched-chain VFA, which are fermentation products of branched chain AA (Allison, 1978), in the 3-NOP period, does not suggest an increase in the amination of branched-chain VFA, or an inhibition in the deamination of branched-chain AA, in the 3-NOP period.Lower fermentability of the diets fed in the 3-NOP period may have limited microbial protein synthesis (Firkins et al., 2007;Hartinger et al., 2018;Firkins and Mackie, 2020), in agreement with the lack of response in AA synthesis to methanogenesis inhibition observed in rumen mixed cultures growing in cellulose, in contrast to those growing on starch (Ungerfeld et al., 2020). Furthermore, all diets were N-limited, as evidenced by the overall negative N balance. Hence, a response in the incorporation of NH 4 þ into AA synthesis and thus microbial protein production, could have also been limited by rumen NH 4 þ concentration, which was below the minimal range of 5 to 11 mM (Schwab and Broderick, 2017) during much of the day in all periods and diets. Unfortunately, the unintended differences between diets in energy and N, and the deficiencies in dietary N and rumen NH 4 þ , do not allow to conclude on whether inhibiting methanogenesis with 3-NOP might have stimulated the incorporation of NH 4 þ into microbial AA synthesis. Whilst the observed effects of 3-NOP on rumen NH 4 þ post-feeding concentration are of much interest, they need to be confirmed with further experiments with balanced diets covering animal and microbial requirements of energy and N. Another aspect to consider when interpreting the lack of response to 3-NOP of microbial protein production, and the lower production of microbial N and AA in cotton balls incubated in situ in the 3-NOP period, is the unknown adaptation time needed to evaluate the hypothesized effects of inhibiting methanogenesis on rumen N metabolism. While the shortened 10-d adaptation period to 3-NOP was sufficient for observing a strong decrease in CH 4 production, it is possible that changes in nonarchaeal microbial populations with noticeable influence on amination and deamination could take longer to occur, and may require a longer adaptation period to be detected.There has been speculation that an increase in microbial long chain fatty acids synthesis can contribute to explain for unaccounted reducing equivalents when methanogenesis is inhibited in rumen fermentation (Ungerfeld, 2015). In the present study, a response in long chain fatty acids in cellulose incubated in situ was not confirmed, although direct incorporation of long chain fatty acids by microbes colonizing cotton balls cannot be discarded. Whether this result may change balancing the diets offered or with different in situ incubated substrates remains to be investigated.The differences between periods in milk production cannot be ascribed to 3-NOP supplementation considering the diet composition differences in energy, and the overall N deficiency in both periods and with both N sources. Higher dietary fiber content in the 3-NOP period resulted in lower feed intake likely because of lower rumen outflow rates (Allen, 2014). Likewise, greater fiber digestibility in the 3-NOP period was likely the result of lower feed intake increasing rumen retention times (Illius and Allen, 1994).All combinations of N sources and periods resulted in milk fat depression. Milk fat depression can be caused by excess dietary fermentable carbohydrates and low physically effective fiber, or by excess dietary supplementation of unsaturated fatty acids (Harvatine   , 2009;Dewanckele et al., 2020). Because diets were not supplemented with fats or oils, and the rapeseed meal supplement used was solvent-extracted, it seems likely that in this study milk fat depression resulted from the relatively high dietary content of concentrates, which constituted about half of the dietary DM. Previous in vitro rumen fermentation studies had reported decreases in Eh as a consequence of the inhibition of methanogenesis, or lack of effects in some studies and treatments (Sauer and Teather, 1987;Soliva et al., 2011;Ungerfeld et al., 2019Ungerfeld et al., , 2020)). Therefore, higher Eh in the 3-NOP period before and right after feeding was unexpected. The present results also contrast with the meta-analysis by Huang et al. (2018), in which diets lower in concentrates and higher in NDF were associated with lower Eh, although they concur with the negative relationship between pH and Eh reported by Huang et al. (2018).Unintended changes in diet composition between the Control and 3-NOP periods, as well as severe limitations in rumen NH 4 þ concentration and negative N balance in all animals in both experimental periods preclude us from unequivocally concluding about the effects of inhibiting methanogenesis with 3-NOP on the incorporation of NH 4 þ into microbial AA and protein synthesis. Observations of the effects of 3-NOP on rumen ammonium are of interest and deserve further study with isoenergetic and isonitrogenous diets matching animal and microorganisms nutrient requirements. Under N limitation, supplementation with 3-NOP was very effective at decreasing CH 4 emissions with both a plant protein diet and a diet containing urea, with diets higher in fiber and presumably more methanogenic than the diets fed in Control period.","tokenCount":"7255"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9075a37ac4f43df65e76f752aaa5cf7a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9ffdeaad-8ef6-452d-bf98-a3cea3d8afd5/retrieve","id":"1962596754"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e6eabb44-304b-4b3f-9992-b620aab628d1","pagecount":"71","content":"Conventional wisdom indicates that the increasingly stricter Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary Standards (SPS) are a barrier to trade, often used to protect domestic production, and, most importantly, discriminating poor countries, and within those countries poor producers and processors. However, little quantitative information is available to support those perceptions. The World Bank, in collaboration with a large number of partners, has therefore launched a study on the cost of compliance with SPS regulations and their distributional effects in developing countries. The study covers case studies on the cost to comply with food safety and agricultural health of perishable foods, such as fish products, fruits and vegetables, nuts and spices and meat in ten low and middle-income countries. The costs to comply with animal health standards and their distributional effects are the subject of this case study in Ethiopia.The picture, which emerges from the overall study, is of a wide range of impacts, with rather modest costs (in particular the recurrent costs) and quite varied distributional impacts. SPS standards are often not the only barriers to trade, more generally quality and supply problems are more important. However, SPS regulations can act as a catalyst for improvement in the entire chain. As also shown in this study, countries manage SPS often in a reactive 'fire-fighting' mode. More pro-active, preventive policies, as assessed also in this study are, therefore, recommended.The ban on livestock exports from the Horn of Africa has had a major impact on the livestock dependent economy of Somali Region in Ethiopia. However, no attempt was made to quantify the actual cost of the ban to the region. To analyse the economy-wide effects of the ban, a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) of the Somali Region economy was built. SAM is a comprehensive data framework representing the economy, where different economic agents, institutions (households, producers, government etc.), and flows of commodities and money between these agents are represented in the format of a square matrix. This SAM, representing the economy in a normal year (with livestock exports to the Middle East) is used to calibrate a CGE model to simulate the impact of the ban. The model is run reducing livestock exports to analyse how original economic relationships represented in the SAM change with the ban.Results of the simulation show that the ban has a devastating effect on Somali Region's economy. GDP is reduced by US$ 91 million in nominal terms, which represents a 25% reduction compared to a normal year. Evaluating the effects of the ban at the micro-economic level, we find that in the short-run, the ban sharply reduced livestock prices directly affecting the activities most dependent on livestock sales, and deteriorating pastoralist's input/output price ratio. The total loss in value added generated in the region is US$ 132 million or almost 42% of total value added produced in a normal year by pastoralists and agro-pastoralists in the region.Analysis of the impacts of the ban on the Somali Region using a CGE analysis was complemented by an analysis of the links between agents in the livestock productionmarketing chain and the distribution of costs of the ban among these agents based on case studies. These agents were interviewed during a survey conducted in the northern part of Somali Region between June and July 2003. Results of the survey show that livelihoods of pastoralists have been severely affected by the ban, deteriorating their income, changing the composition and reducing the number of animals in the herd, changing consumption patterns and decreasing purchases of food and grain. Marketing agents like traders, brokers, transporters and retailers also experienced negative effects in income and in the volume of business.Having evaluated the extent of the negative impact of the ban on exports on Somali Region's economy, certifying exported live animals from a Rift Valley fever (RVF) non-free zone, as is the case of Ethiopia is evaluated as one possibility to handle the problem and matching international and Office Internationale des Épizooties (OIE) sanitary regulations. Costs and benefit measures are provided and an evaluation of the proposed programme of live animal certification using benefit-cost analysis is conducted. The approach chosen here is quite restrictive given that the analysis focuses exclusively on RVF, not considering other List A diseases present in Ethiopia that could also affect trade of livestock products and animals in the future. For policy recommendations, a more comprehensive analysis including other alternatives such as the establishment of disease-free zones, which is the current Ethiopian strategy, would have been desirable. However, expanding the analysis and data collection to include the impact of other diseases and other alternatives to comply with them was beyond the scope of this study.The benefit-cost analysis shows that implementing an animal health programme in the Somali Region is feasible and justifies further analysis focusing in the main factors driving the results. Different alternatives (export tax, sales tax and increased transaction costs) to charge producers for the equivalent amount of the cost of the programme are analysed. Results show that distortions introduced by taxes and increased transaction costs (not normally considered in the benefit/cost analysis) affect the viability of the programme. Increasing taxes on livestock sales offers the best prospect as the way to implement the health certification plan in the Somali Region. This option has the higher benefit for the poor given that it implies a transfer from middle and better-off producers to poor producers while the total amount of the losses experienced by better-off and middle producers is small.By showing the consequences for a poor economy and for poor producers of losing access to markets, this study illustrates how agricultural producers in poor countries benefit from markets, increasing their income, gaining access to cash and consumption goods and increasing their assets by keeping larger number of animals in their herds. The case of the Somali Region of Ethiopia is a clear example of the cost that poor countries pay for lack of investment in animal health programmes. Results of this study also show that there are options to explore that could be adapted to the resources and possibilities of poor countries, allowing increased and more stable trade flows and contributing to a much needed diversification of exports.Until 1998, several million sheep and goats were exported every year to Saudi Arabia from ports in Somalia, during a four-month period correlating with the Haj activities in Mecca. Pastoral populations in Ethiopia's south-eastern lowlands depend heavily on livestock exports to Somalia for their livelihoods, most of which are re-exported to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. The trade has proceeded for many years, until an outbreak of Rift Valley fever (RVF) in the region of the Horn of Africa (Sudan, Kenya, Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Djibouti) prompted two consecutive bans by Saudi Arabian authorities in 1998 and 2000 (Ahrens 1998;Aklilu 2002, 42) with dramatic consequences on the economies of the region.RVF is an infection that causes abortions and mortality in sheep, goats, cattle and camels; fever and acute infection in humans in whom a lower incidence of more serious symptoms occur including blindness and haemorrhaging. As a List A 1 disease among the OIE classification of contagious diseases that bring threats to international economy, RVF has a major stake for the establishment of non-tariff barriers. The ban on livestock imports from the Horn of Africa was apparently imposed for public health reasons because of concerns that slaughtering RVF-virus infected livestock could result in disease transmission to people attending the Haj. Exports resumed after 16 months of imposing the ban. Two years later, in September 2000, a new ban on imports of livestock from the Horn of Africa was imposed by Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the UAE following an unprecedented outbreak of RVF in Saudi Arabia and Yemen that killed over 100 people. Although some of the importers in the Arabian Peninsula partially lifted the ban in 2001, the ban was still in place in 2003.What are the implications of the ban for the Ethiopian economy? Looking at the official trade statistics, the magnitude of trade in livestock products is surprisingly low given the importance of the livestock sector in the economy. Exports of live animals are also insignificant in total value: sheep exports in the peak year of 1997 before the ban amounted to a total of US$ 1.6 million. This suggests that efforts invested in solving this problem would not be justified.However, the official statistics on livestock trade are misleading. The bulk of livestock exports from Ethiopia occur as informal trade and come from the eastern and south-eastern lowlands, mainly from the Somali Region, a vast and underdeveloped region with ethnic and economic links with neighbouring Somalia. With a predominantly nomadic population of nearly 3.5 million, only 15% of the population lives in so called urban centres and an estimated 90% derive their livelihood from pastoralism and animal related activities (Ahrens 1998). The region has the largest stock of sheep and goats in Ethiopia.Most livestock exports from the Somali Region pass through ports in Somaliland and Somalia. FEWS (1998) report divides the Somali Region into a set of livestock market sheds, defined in terms of the destination markets through which exports occur (Figure 1). Berbera is Somali Region's main outlet for livestock exports, which is one day's sail closer to Saudi Arabia than the alternative port, Bosasso. Prices paid for animals in the latter port are also lower than in Berbera due to the greater distance from importing markets. Livestock from southern Somali Region headed historically to Mogadishu but during the civil war they were diverted to Bosasso. Livestock from Moyale are mainly delivered to slaughterhouses in Nairobi (FEWS 1998). The majority of animals sold for export, mainly to Saudi Arabia, are males of the Somali blackhead or fat-tailed sheep, followed by male goats, male cattle and young male camels, which are used mainly for meat (Ahrens 1998).Figure 2 compares official data on formal and informal exports of live animals from the Somaliland ports of Berbera and Bosasso between 1993 and 1997. However, estimates of the number of animals exported vary considerably from about 1.3 million to 3 million (Ahrens 1998). According to Ahrens (1998), of the livestock exported annually through Berbera port, between 60% (according to Somaliland sources) and 80% (Ethiopian sources) are of Ethiopian origin.Source: FEWS (1998). Some of the impacts of the ban reported from the field help to understand the importance of the livestock export activity for the Somali Region. Ahrens (1998) reported that imposing the ban made prices shrink to levels between 55 (sheep) and 65 (cattle) percent of prices in a normal year, while in the short-run, traders and retailers obtained negative returns to capital and labour and in the medium-run the loss in value added represented 35% of its level in the base scenario. Ahrens (1998) reported that ending livestock exports has had a serious impact on the economy of the Somali Region: 'cash income from livestock exports, on which prior to the ban the large majority of the population depended, has stopped. No more goods are coming across the border. Goods available in local shops represent old stocks, and by the time of the mission's visit, had started to become more expensive. Terms of trade are deteriorating with animal prices going down and grain prices increasing. Due to the people's significantly reduced purchasing power, the general trade business in the towns visited has already suffered drastic cuts. According to local informants, in Harshin about 25% of the shops are closed, in Camoboker about 30% and in Rabasso and Daror up to 50%'. Finally, the household food economy analysis conducted by Save the Children Fund (SCF-UK 1998) reported that middle and better-off households are generally more affected because they rely more heavily on livestock sales in a normal year. According to SCF-UK (1998) to counter the initial deficit in the current year, households will employ a variety of strategies, the first of which  will be to reduce spending on non-essentials in order to increase food purchases from available income. The better off the household, the greater the capacity it has to switch expenditure.Measuring the cost of the ban on livestock exports from this region is the first step to verify the negative impacts reported from the field by several missions as presented above. This analysis would also help to find if there is justification to comply with the costs of developing an animal health programme that would allow a regular export flow between the Somali Region and the Gulf countries. If this is the case, there could be opportunities to 'formalise' this informal economy, contributing to its integration with the rest of the country. It could also give an opportunity to the Government of Ethiopia to play a central part in developing and stabilising an insecure region while sharing the benefits of growing exports of live animals and livestock products.The study was originally organised in three modules and the results are presented in sections 2 to 5. Module 1 analysed the costs of the ban for the Somali Region economy as a whole and for producers, consumers and government using quantitative analysis such as Social Accounting Matrix and CGE model. Information used to build a Social Accounting Matrix that determines the main economic relationships within the region is presented in section 2. Structure of the CGE model used and results from simulations are presented in section 3.Module 2 focused on the analysis of the links between agents in the livestock production-marketing chain and the distribution of costs of the ban among agents based on case studies of selected producers, processors, exporters, transporters, households and the government using information of a survey conducted in the region as part of the study. Results of case study surveys are summarised in section 4.Finally, Module 3 used a benefit-cost analysis to compare the incremental costs and benefits associated with a move from the present situation to different scenarios implying different government actions to reduce the damage of future bans. Based on the estimated costs of the ban using the CGE simulation, incremental costs and benefits associated with a proposed health programme to reduce the damage of future bans are analysed and different alternatives for its implementation are evaluated in section 5. For policy recommendations, a more comprehensive analysis including other alternatives such as the establishment of disease-free zones, which is the current Ethiopian strategy, would have been desirable. However, expanding the analysis and data collection to include the impact of other diseases and other alternatives to comply with them was beyond the scope of this study.Measuring the impact of the ban on imports from Ethiopian Somali Region is a difficult task given the informal nature of the region's economy and the absence of official records. On the other hand, the fact that the Somali Region is a very simple agricultural economy allows modelling its core structure and approximate estimates of the cost of the ban on exports. This is done by using information from reports and studies conducted in the region mainly by Save the Children Fund (SCF-UK) 2 and UN missions, information from the Regional Office of Population of the Somali National Regional State (SNRS), the Central Statistical Authority of Ethiopia (CSA) and data from a survey conducted in Somali Region by this study. Figure 3  2. We refer to SCF-UK to refer to several reports undertaken by Save the Children Fund (UK) as part of a household food economy analysis in the Somali region. See reference section for more details.Agricultural activities defined in the model are: pastoralists, agro-pastoralists and sedentary farmers, each of these divided into poor, middle and better-off, making a total of nine agricultural activities (for more details on the key characteristics of these different wealth classes see section 2.2 and Appendix B). Trade and services are non-agricultural activities. Households are the consumption units in this economy. They are the owners of capital and labour and they earn factor incomes from the activities. They also receive transfers from Government and remittances from the rest of the world and use this income to purchase commodities, make transfers to other households or to the rest of the world or to save (not represented in the diagram). The model includes a total of 12 households: pastoralists, agro-pastoralists, sedentary farmers and urban households each divided in three wealth categories.Livestock, livestock products (milk), grain and services (trade and others) are commodities produced by the activities. The destination of these commodities is final consumption by households, intermediate use by activities as inputs, or the rest of the world (ROW) as exports. ROW in our analysis includes the Ethiopian highlands, Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya and the Arab countries. Grain, other food and non-food commodities are main imports while live animals are the main exported commodities by the Somali Region. A total of 223 thousand tonnes of imported grain are needed to complement the 386 thousand tonnes produced in the region in order to satisfy domestic demand. Other food and non-food goods are not produced in the region so total demand for these goods is satisfied with imports from neighbouring countries and the highlands. Total value of imports is US$ 67 and 127 million in the case of other food and non-food products respectively. Central government transfers to pay for local government deficits balance the difference between total imports and total exports that resulted in an inflow of money from outside the region. Domestic transaction costs represent the costs of moving the commodity from the border to the domestic markets in the region in the case of imports; while for exports it is the cost of moving the commodity from the producer to the border (not represented in the diagram). For livestock exports, transaction costs include costs of trekking, feed and water, and vaccination and trucking in the case of animals going to Arab countries. A trade commodity is defined with total value equal to the sum of all transaction costs. Thus, the sum of transaction costs equals total output of the trade and transport sector.The government pays transfers to households, collect taxes and purchase goods. Purchases of services by the government are defined to balance the service sector, which together with the trade sector is the main source of income for the urban households. There is no official information available on tax collection in Somali Region. According to Ahrens (1998), the regional government collects taxes on livestock sales in local municipal markets. There is an export tax collected only by Somaliland. According to information gathered from the Ethiopian Somali livestock traders and brokers, export fees in Berbera are US$ 3.50, 18 and 35 per head of sheep and goat, cattle and camel respectively (Ahrens 1998).Economic relationships in the Somali Region as presented in Figure 3 are modelled in a Social Accounting Matrix. A SAM is a comprehensive economy-wide data framework representing the economy (Reinert and Roland-Holst 1997;Robinson et al. 1998;Lögfren et al. 2001 ). Technically, a SAM is a square matrix in which each account is represented by a row and a column. Incomes of an account appear along its row, its expenditures along its column. Each cell shows the payment from the account of its column to the account of its row. The underlying principle of double-entry accounting requires that, for each account in the SAM, total revenue equals total expenditure (row total equals column total). Information collected from different sources does not comply with the SAM requirement of balanced rows and columns. We balanced the SAM using non-linear programming developed by Zenios et al. (1986).The main characteristics of the Somali Region economy are summarised in a macro-economic SAM (Table 1). This macro SAM has nine accounting categories: activities, commodities, transaction costs, taxes, factors, households, government, rest of the world and savings-investment. 3 Total value of output produced in the Somali Region is US$ 478 million of which US$ 345 million is transacted in the market as commodities, while output that worth US$ 103 million is directly consumed at home. Total commodity value adds to US$ 634 million. This should be equal to the column total which includes the value of commodities produced by activities (at producer price), plus transaction costs of selling those commodities, plus sales and export taxes (US$ 8 million), plus the value of imported commodities (US$ 236 million). The rows for sales and export taxes capture tax payments for commodity sales and the tax columns pay the total amount of taxes collected by the government. Activities pay to the factor's account for the use of capital and labour (value added, US$ 366 million) and factors transferred this amount to households. Government receives payments from the tax account and transfers from ROW, and purchases commodities and pays transfers to households. ROW sells commodities to Somali Region (imports), purchases commodities from Somali Region (exports) and pays transfers to households and government. Finally, the savings-investment account receives payments from households (savings) and pays to commodities (investments).The nature and characteristics of some of the information used to estimate the key components of the SAM are highlighted in this section. Using information of total animal stock from SNRS (2003) and information from SCF-UK on average stock composition, annual sales of different species and quality of different animals sold by each household type in the region helped to allocate animal stock between households. SCF-UK reports allowed determining animal sales by species and consumption of animal products by different households.3. The macro-economic SAM summarises the micro-economic SAM developed for this study (Appendix A).The complete SAM has 40 accounts: 11 activities, 7 commodities, 3 transaction costs accounts, 2 factor accounts (labour and capital), 12 households, 2 tax accounts, government, ROW and savings-investments accounts. This SAM provides the database for the empirical implementation of a general equilibrium model to analyse the impact of the ban on exports from the Somali region of Ethiopia. The procedure for constructing SAM and background information from various sources that needed to be reconciled are detailed in Appendix B. According to SNRS (2003) the total livestock population in the region is 8.467 million livestock units (LU) 4 , which include 3.746 million cattle, 9.053 million sheep, 8.547 million goats, 2.032 million camels and 213 thousand donkeys. Cattle and camel are mainly kept to provide milk for family consumption while small ruminants are mainly kept as a source of cash and capital deposit. A poor pastoralist owns 42 sheep and goats (shoats), 5 cattle and 3 camels, and sells 6 shoats and eventually one cattle every two years and one camel every 10 years. A rich pastoralist, on the other hand, owns on average 168 shoats, 29 cattle and 28 camels and sells more than 20 shoats and 0.8 camels per year, but would also sell one head of cattle every two years. Better-off pastoralists sell a greater proportion of quality animals than poor pastoralists. These are estimated average numbers for Somali Region, with the composition of species varying between zones depending on agro-ecological conditions.According to this study, approximately 2.4 million shoats, 0.17 million cattle and 0.04 million camels are sold each year by local producers in Somali Region. This represents 14% of total stock of shoats, and 4 and 2% of cattle and camel inventory respectively. The total number of export quality shoats estimated in this way is below 1.5 million. Total exports to Arab countries resulting from our estimates account for 1.3 million shoats, 37 thousand cattle and 12 thousand camels, which represent 46% of total animal sales in value terms. The value of total animal sales amounts to US$ 92 million in a normal year. Of this total amount, US$ 22 million are sold domestically and US$ 70 million are exported to other regions and countries. The total value of exports to Arab countries is US$ 42 million, 46% of total value of animal sales or 60% of total value of exports, with exports including sales to Ethiopian highlands. It also represents 10% of total household income in the region.Livestock sales are the most important income source for all wealth rural groups. Sales of livestock products also appear as important sources of income for the 'poor' and 'middle' pastoralists and also for agro-pastoralists and sedentary farmers. In general, the poorer groups need to diversify their sources of income so they engage in more income-generating activities than the 'middle' and 'better-off' groups, such as petty trade (sales of bush products like firewood and charcoal), and labour exchange like assisting caravans transporting contraband goods, leading pack camels to neighbouring countries, self-employment like renting an own pack camel to transfer goods etc. Remittances are also received from relatives working outside the region (SCF-UK). In some areas, better-off households take children from poor households to do herding and other types of work. Gifts in kind from better-off households are another source of income for poor households in the region. Better-off households can obtain rents from property in towns. Finally, households receive transfer from the government and transfers and gifts from other households.Wealth categories among pastoralists are determined by livestock ownership. The main determinants of wealth for sedentary farmers are oxen, labour and area of land cultivated. Information to classify urban households in wealth categories is obtained from the report on the household, income, consumption and expenditure survey of the Central Statistical Authority of Ethiopia, which contains information on expenditure and income sources by expenditure group (CSA 1999).Average income per capita varies for different households from less than US$ 60 per year for the poor rural households to US$ 160 in the case of better-off pastoralists. Urban incomes are higher on average than rural incomes in all categories. Rural households consume their own production: mainly milk and ghee in the case of pastoralists; milk, ghee and grain in the case of agro-pastoralists and sedentary farmers. Milk is the main produced and consumed item by pastoralists while meat consumption usually takes place on special occasions and holidays. All wealth groups purchase food to make up the majority of their food needs but purchase requirements tend to decrease as wealth increases, with the 'better-off' relying the least on the market for food (SCF-UK 2001). All pastoralists and poor agro-pastoralists and sedentary farmers purchase grain as staple food. This is complemented by purchases of other food, mainly sugar, oil and tea. Purchases of grain and sugar take more than 50% of total purchases by poor pastoralists, while better-off households spend from one-quarter to one-third of their income on these staple goods. Non-food items normally include clothes and other essential goods for the family. Urban household's staple food is grain and livestock products as is the case for rural households. The middle and better-off urban households have access to more diversified food and non-food items.3 Model structure and resultsTrade implications of a ban on exports including the implications for different types of producers and households and the wider macro-economic effects suggest the use of a general equilibrium approach (Hertel 1990;McDonald and Roberts 1998;Hubbard and Philippidis 2001;Perry et al. 2003, Chapter 5).Lack of data also makes a CGE approach convenient. Social accounting matrices used by CGE models for their empirical structure can be used as the guideline to organise this information in a way compatible with the basic accounting identities of the economy. The need for all households to be in their budget; the fact that all firms exhaust their revenues on factor payments, taxes and transfers to households and that markets are in equilibrium provide a powerful check on the consistency of the data collected.SAM presented in the previous section is linked to the CGE model developed by Lögfren et al. (2001). The model follows the neoclassical-structuralist modelling tradition (Dervis et al. 1982) and includes household consumption of non-marketed commodities, transaction costs for commodities that enter the market, and separation between producing activities and commodities that permit any activity to produce multiple commodities and any commodity to be produced by multiple activities. The model is fully developed and explained by Lögfren et al. (2001). Some of the features of the model that are relevant to the analysis are described below.In its mathematical form, the model is a system of simultaneous, non-linear equations, with the number of equations equal to the number of variables. Endogenous variables are most prices with the exception of export and import prices, quantities of commodities demanded and supplied including exported and imported commodities. Parameters of the model are defined using information from the specific SAM and are used to benchmark the model to this original information.CGE model assumes that each producer (activity) maximises profits subject to a production function that uses a Leontief function to determine the combination of inputs and value added. The latter is itself a CES function of primary factors whereas the aggregate intermediate inputs are assumed to have a Leontief relationship. The user can choose between alternative mechanisms for equilibrating supplies and demands in factor markets. The default closure assumes fixed factors, but factors can move between activities. Economy-wide factor prices are free to vary to equilibrate factors demand and supply. Alternatively, it is possible to assume fixed factor prices and factor unemployment. With fixed factor prices, factor supply is endogenous and activities are free to hire any desired quantity. A third closure simulates segmented factor markets where factors are assumed to be activity-specific. With this closure, each activity is forced to hire the observed base-year factor quantity.For a marketed output, the first stage in the model is to generate a domestic aggregate output from the output of different activities, assuming that commodities produced by different activities are imperfect substitutes. At the next stage, aggregated domestic output is allocated between exports and domestic sales assuming imperfect transformability between these two categories. In the international markets, export demands are infinitely elastic at given world prices. If the commodity is not exported, total output is passed to the domestic market.Domestic demand is made up of the sum of demands for household consumption, government consumption, investment, intermediate inputs and transaction inputs. When a commodity is imported and produced domestically (grain in our data), all domestic market demands are for a composite commodity made of imports and domestic output (Armington structure). Household consumption of both market and home commodities is allocated across different commodities according to Linear Expenditure System (LES) demand functions.The model allows several rules for clearing the macro-economic balances or how equilibrium is achieved in the balances for the government, the rest of the world and the savings investment account. In this analysis, a closure that combines fixed foreign savings, fixed real investment and fixed real government consumption are used. This closure avoids misleading welfare results that occur in a single-period-model when increases in foreign savings, decreases in investment and changes in government consumption could increase welfare, not capturing welfare losses in later periods (Lögfren et al. 2001). The model determines relative prices and the numeral used is an aggregated consumer price.Two scenarios are developed to capture different types of adjustment to the export ban. The first scenario is a short-run scenario where it is assumed that capital and labour are not mobile between activities, so the quantity of factors employed by each activity is fixed. The second scenario represents the medium-run where labour and capital are mobile but total supply of each factor is fixed. These different scenarios are determined by defining the closure that equilibrates factor markets, as explained in the previous section. In both scenarios, livestock export prices are shocked to cause exports of live animals to fall to the desired level.To define the level of export reduction we refer to Table 2 where livestock sales are allocated between different destinations. The share of animal exports to Arab countries in total exports is 60%, and so, a shock reducing exports of live animals by 60% would be required. However, there is evidence that during the ban, animal exports from Somali Region are not necessarily down to zero. The ban could be partially lifted or lifted by some countries and not others. Sources in the region mention that even during the ban, 30% of the number of animals exported in a normal year was still exported from Somali Region to Arab countries. Applied to animal exports in Table 2 this implies a 42% reduction on total animal exports from Somali Region as a consequence of the ban. To measure the total cost of the ban we assume duration of the ban of 16 months, which is within the range of duration of bans in the past. The shock on exports occurs in two stages. In the first stage total exports of live animals are reduced by 15% (first 4 months of the ban) and producers cannot reallocate factors of production between activities. In the second stage (medium-run), total livestock exports are reduced by 42% (last 12 months of the ban) but at this point producers react to the changes allocating resources according to the new situation. The experiments are conducted independently, so possible interactions between both scenarios are neglected. The total impact of a 16-month ban results from adding up the effects of these two scenarios.Table 3 shows the impact of the ban on different macro-economic variables. As expected, the ban has a devastating effect on Somali Region's economy. GDP is reduced by US$ 22 and US$ 70 million in nominal terms in the short-and medium-run, respectively, representing a reduction of 25% of GDP compared to the value in a normal year. Absorption is also significantly affected, reducing its value by a total of approximately US$ 70 million during the 16-month period, while private consumption falls by almost US$ 40 million. Comparing nominal and real values for the different variables, we verify the extent to which the ban affects prices in the region. Real GDP, or equivalently the difference in total real absorption between the base and the ban cases falls by US$ 0.5 million in the short-run and losses increase to US$ 10.1 million in the medium-run.The importance of the nominal effect is the consequence of a relative price shift, resulting in a significant reduction of livestock prices, which are discussed below in more detail. Given the importance of livestock in this economy, this relative price shift is reflected in the region's GDP as shown by the changes in GDP's nominal values. On the other hand, the real effects are very small in the short-run as a result of the closure used (no factor mobility). In the medium-run, factor mobility is allowed and an adjustment in production occurs with reduction of livestock production, which cannot be too large given the specialisation in livestock production of this economy and the constraints to move to production of other commodities (e.g. lack of water).The use of macro indicators to measure the economic impact of the ban is useful as a general indication of the aggregate effects in the economy of the region, but at the same time, it does not allow to capture the differential effects of the ban on producers and households, a key aspect when defining policies to tackle the problem. We now proceed to analyse the impact of the ban at the micro-economic level, focusing on producers and households in the Somali Region. Source: Authors from model simulation.Figure 4 shows that livestock producer prices plunge to 57% of their level in a normal year in the short-run while production falls by less than 10% as a consequence of the ban (Figure 5).To cope with a shrinking income, households substitute away non-basic imported goods, now more expensive as a result of the deteriorating terms of trade of the region with the rest of the world and increase their demand for staple food (grain and milk) (Figure 6). Poor producers reduce consumption of non-essentials between 8 and 13% in most cases. Consumption of grain reduced by 1% on average in the short-run but stays stable in the medium-run, while milk purchases increase. As a consequence, milk and grain prices increase significantly relative to livestock prices in the short-run.In the medium-run, producers react reallocating resources between activities, reducing supply of livestock and transport services and further increasing supply of milk and grain (Figure 5). This results in partial recovery of livestock and transport prices compared to the effect of the initial shock and pushes grain and milk prices down (Figure 4), negatively impacting sedentary farmers and agro-pastoralists that were less affected by the ban in the short-run.A summary of the impacts of a 16-month ban on exports from the Somali Region producers is presented in Table 4. Pastoralists and traders are as expected, the most affected by the ban. Losses in the short-run amount to 77, 58 and 50% of value added in a normal year for better-off, middle and poor pastoralists respectively. In the medium-run, losses are reduced compared to the short-run as pastoralists reallocate their resources responding to changes in relative prices.The impact of the ban on household income is presented in Table 5. All households are affected by the ban, experiencing a substantial reduction in their income. In the short-run this reduction is in all cases close to 30% of the level of income in a normal year. In the medium-run households are able to reduce their losses but the ban implies a significant reduction of income of more than 20% in most cases, even after households adjust to the shock.    A survey was conducted in the region as part of this study to directly capture some of the impacts of the ban as seen by relevant actors of the livestock marketing chain in the region. A case study approach was taken rather than conducting a probabilistic sample survey. Agents in the livestock production-marketing chain (pastoralists and agro-pastoralists, exporters, transporters, retailers and households) were interviewed during June and July 2003 in the northern part of Somali Region, from where the largest number of Ethiopian animals is exported to the Middle East. The regions and markets covered by the survey are shown in Table 6. Results of the survey show that livelihoods of pastoralists have been severely affected by the ban, deteriorating their terms of trade and forcing them to sell livestock for very low prices and in larger numbers. To compensate for the income losses, pastoralists develop different strategies, like taking the animals to better grazing areas and highlands to gain more weight, and travelling to different local markets in their zone as well as across the regional border in search of alternative prices. Grain and cash crop cultivation is also one of the strategies pastoralists used to cope with stress created by the ban and the drought. The situation also forced them to look for alternative incomes, like sending some of their children to be herdsmen for the rich or working in acacia tree bush clearing for charcoal making and wood sale.Significant changes occurred in livestock herd composition. Mostly goats and camel species increased while cattle and sheep population decreased, although this cannot be fully attributed to the ban given that change in herd structure could also relate to drought. Majority of the pastoralists were obliged to keep fewer animals in their herds in the last three years and they also agreed on the fact that the age groups of the animals they rear has changed, with an increase in the share of young and female stock.Consumption patterns were also affected. The drought problem and strict contraband control, coupled with the RVF ban effects, have forced pastoralists to spend less on food (sugar, oil and salt) and non-food items. Most pastoralists still purchase grains, but it is not adequate to sustain all the household members. Milk consumption also decreased since they use it as an alternative to generate income. They have also decreased meat consumption, partly because they produce grains and partly because they have access to contraband pasta and rice and food aid.With respect to traders, the survey shows that almost all traders suffered and endured the effects of the ban, which resulted in decline in their income due to fewer transactions of animals because of drought and the ban. About 75% of the traders feel they changed the nature of their trade by relying more on local livestock trade, shifting to other non-livestock goods (contraband and chat sale), or still trading livestock but diversifying to more species of animals.Other agents were also affected by the ban. Most brokers experienced reduced livestock market operation and two-thirds of them reported a decline in their income by about 80%, while one-third said there was no change in income due to diversification of business. Almost all transporters were transporting less than half the number of livestock now compared to three years ago. Market administrators report that the ban has decreased government's revenue from tax collection. Butchers in part benefited from the ban because of the low price of livestock, increasing their purchasing power although they report that their income has decreased by 15-60% in the past three years due to lower volume of business. Results for grain retailers were mixed and clothes retailers reported that they experienced a decline in their income due to a 57-95% decline in the quantities of goods exchanged because of the weakening of the purchasing power of their various customers.Certifying exported live animals from a RVF non-free zone, as is the case of the Somali Region in Ethiopia, is evaluated as one possible option to handle the problem by matching international and OIE sanitary regulations. OIE admits two status with regards to RVF for animals exported from non-free countries: vaccinated or non-vaccinated. Given that costs and procedures are similar and assuming that the benefits of both treatments are the same, we focus on evaluating the non-vaccinated animal's treatment.The treatment implies keeping the animals to be exported in collection ground for 30 days. During this period, animals need to be fed and watered in collection ground and a first sampling and testing of 1 to 5% of animals is conducted. After this period, the animals enter quarantine for 30 days, where feeding and watering are also required and a second sampling and testing of animals to be exported is conducted.Costs and investments required to implement the health certification programme for non-vaccinated animals during a 20-year period are presented in Table 7. More detailed cost estimations and assumptions are described in Appendix C. Investments are low compared to the operation costs of the project. The most important cost component of the treatment proposed is the feed cost with a share of 85% of total annual operating costs. Information on feeding costs is from Shank (1997) who estimates the cost of feeding animals at the port of Berbera by trucking maize and sorghum fodder. The estimated cost of water is from SCF-UK, who provides information of better-off pastoralists owning water reservoirs and selling water as part of their income. The expected benefits of the treatments proposed during the 20-year projected period are the avoided costs of future bans imposed on Somali Region exports because of disease outbreaks. We take 16 months as ban duration without treatments. If treatment is applied and there is an outbreak of the disease, the effect of the certification system will be to reduce the ban to the duration of a RVF outbreak event, which we assume to be six months. The incremental benefit resulting from the treatment is to avoid 10 months costs of possible future bans on exports each time that an outbreak of the disease occurs in the next 20 years.To define the probability of different number of outbreaks of the disease in 20 years, it is assumed that the expected occurrence of RVF in one particular year is 1/20, once every 20 years (Davies and Nunn 1998;EMPRES/FAO 1998;Tibbo 2001). Having defined this probability, a Poisson distribution to model the occurrence of outbreaks of the disease, and a Monte Carlo approach to simulate the occurrence of outbreaks over 20 years repeating the simulation 5000 times was used. Each of these 5000 simulations obtained is one possible event in terms of number of RFV outbreaks in the next 20 years. The avoided costs of the ban together with the distribution of outbreaks in the Monte Carlo simulation are used to obtain a distribution of future income resulting from our treatment.The benefit-cost ratio is a discounted measure of project worth calculated by dividing the present value of the benefit stream by the present value of the cost stream. When analysing the convenience of investing in a certain project, the selection criterion is to accept projects with a benefit-cost ratio of 1 or greater when discounted at a suitable discount rate (Gittinger 1982). The mathematical statement of the benefit-cost ratio is given below.The benefit-cost ratio approach has been extensively applied to disease control analysis (for a review of previous studies see Perry et al. 2003). According to Perry et al. (2003) there is a wide variability in how this analysis is conducted particularly with respect to predicting the interaction between control efforts and disease outbreaks over time and the degree to which indirect impacts of the disease are effectively incorporated into the analysis. In this study, the ratio is applied to measure the costs and benefits that producers in Somali Region would face if an animal health programme, as the one proposed in the previous section, were implemented. The benefit-cost ratio in this particular case is an indicator of the benefits that producers in Somali Region could expect from implementing the plan.Alternatively, we also consider the net present value (NPV) as a measure of the results producers would obtain from applying the certification programme to complement the information given by the benefit-cost ratio. This measure can be interpreted as the present (1) value of the income stream generated by the investment and it can be computed by finding the difference between the present value of the benefit stream less the present value of the cost stream.The absolute value of the benefit-cost ratio (and the NPV) will vary with the discount rate i chosen. For financial analysis, the discount or cut-off rate is usually the rate at which the enterprise is able to borrow money. It is not possible to determine this rate for producers in the Somali Region with the available information. We assume a discount rate of 10% presuming a higher interest rate than the official real interest rate in Ethiopia for the past 10 years, which varied around 8% according to information from the World Bank, but we were not able to determine the actual cost of money in the Somali Region.As the benefit-cost ratio is applied to distributing incomes and costs generated using the Poisson distribution and the Monte Carlo procedure as discussed above, a distribution of benefit-cost ratios were obtained with probabilities for different values of the ratio. Results of the benefit-cost analysis are presented in Figure 7. The probability of having a benefitcost ratio greater than 1 is 0.5 and the overall expected value of the benefit-cost ratio is 1.5. The expected NPV for a 20-year period is US$ 14 million resulting from adding expected gains and losses weighted by their respective probabilities. Some considerations about these results must be made. First, the overall expected benefit-cost ratio is greater than 1, but not high and the probability of it being less than 1 is substantial (0.5%), which generates doubts about the usefulness of this investment. Two main factors are driving these results. The first of these factors is the probability of an outbreak of the disease extracted from the literature and assumed to be 1/20. A more detailed technical analysis to determine this probability could be needed to verify our results and the benefits of the investment. The second of these factors is the cost of feeding animals during quarantine and testing. This is an OIE requirement difficult to implement in the Somali Region, given its resources and production system. The possibility of implementing a programme like the one proposed here would depend on the development of an efficient system of producing and delivering fodder to collection grounds. On the other hand, the fact that only static economic gains are considered, assuming that income losses avoided are those of the base year, must be emphasised. By doing so we are underestimating the gains from the programme given that we should expect dynamic benefits coming from increased economic growth in a more stable region, with increased exports and investments (e.g. slaughterhouses).Another factor normally affecting results of the benefit-cost analysis is the value of the discount rate. Given the structure of the stream of benefits and costs in our analysis (low investments relative to high operating costs), the results are not sensitive to changes in the discount rate. Finally, the results above do not bring into consideration the way the programme is implemented and how the costs of the programme are charged to producers. Introducing taxes or increased transaction costs to pay for the programme would create distortions and potentially increase the costs of the proposed investment.Taking these elements into consideration, and given the expected results of the benefit-cost ratio and the NPV, we conclude that the resulting costs and the risks of the programme are manageable and within the range of expected income. The possibility of implementing an animal health programme in the Somali Region is feasible and justifies further analysis focusing in the main factors driving the results as discussed above.In the next section one of the factors affecting these results, i.e. how different policy options to implement the plan and recover its costs could affect the region and the different producers and households is discussed.Simulation using benefit-cost analysis, as presented above, simply assumes that investments and costs of the certification programme do not result in distortions to the economy, not affecting competitiveness, not making other considerations about how this plan is going to be implemented and how producers will pay for the service. In this section we discuss some simple policy alternatives to implement the health certification scheme proposed, evaluating the implications that these different options have for producers and consumers in terms of income and welfare.The present value of all costs and investments needed to comply with OIE's standards as a RVF non-free country (US$ 55 million in 20 years) is converted to an annual constant payment using financial equivalences resulting in an annual cost of US$ 6.5 million. Assuming that producers can pay this annual cost as shown by the benefit-cost analysis in the previous section, different alternatives are discussed to make these payments using instruments already in place in the region:• Scenario 1. The government implements the animal health plan and puts in place an export tax to collect an amount equal to the cost of the plan. • Scenario 2. The government implements the animal health plan and puts in place a tax on livestock sales to collect an amount equal to the cost of the plan. • Scenario 3. There is no government intervention and no tax increase. The plan is implemented by the private sector charging a fee to the user of the service. The costs to move animals from the market to the port (border) are increased by the amount of the cost of the plan.The impact of these different alternatives on the welfare of producers and consumer's is analysed using the SAM of the Somali Region developed for this study linked to the CGE model developed by Lögfren et al. (2001). In each scenario, different instruments are shocked (export taxes, sales taxes or transaction costs) to charge producers for the total cost of the plan. The impact of these shocks on value added and welfare is measured to determine the final cost of the plan, including costs of distortions resulting from increased taxes or costs.Results from the simulations show that the annual cost of the programme of US$ 6.5 million is increased to US$ 8, 11 and 22 million if this amount is collected increasing sales taxes, transaction costs or export taxes, respectively. With expected annual gains from the programme of approximately US$ 7.6 million, the results of the benefit/cost analysis appear to be sensitive to the particular implementation of the certification scheme. Distortions introduced by taxes and increased transaction costs used to fund the programme (not normally considered in the benefit/cost analysis) affect its viability.Table 8 presents the impact of the three policies on value added by production specialisation and wealth category. Pastoralists and non-agricultural activities would be the most affected by an export tax, losing 12 and 6% of value added respectively. In general, pastoralists would pay for the policies targeting exports while implementing a tax on livestock sales results in lower costs for the economy and evenly shared by all groups. The better-off and middle producers are in general more affected than poor producers by the three policy scenarios. Better-off producers would loose 7% of value added if an export tax is imposed, while poor producers will loose 3%. The sales tax scenario results in gains (4% of value added) for poor producers and lower losses for other activities if compared with the scenarios targeting exports.In sum, poor producers are expected to gain with the certification scheme if a sales tax is implemented, while middle and better-off producers might lose in any scenario. However, the expected losses for middle and better-off producers are low. The worse possible case for better-off producers is a 4% decrease in value added in scenario 1.We conclude that increasing taxes on livestock sales offers the best prospect as the way to implement the health certification plan in the Somali Region. This option has lesser negative impact on exports, and welfare; it also has the higher benefit for the poor given that it implies a transfer from middle and better-off producers to poor producers. The sales tax policy would benefit pastoralists and traders and will affect sedentary farmers and agro-pastoralists negatively although the total amount of the losses expected is small. The ban on livestock exports from the Horn of Africa has had a major impact on the livestock dependent economy of Somali Region in Ethiopia; however, no attempt was made to quantify the actual cost of the ban to the region. To analyse the economy-wide effects of the ban, a social accounting matrix of the Somali Region economy is built and used SAM to simulate the impact of the ban using a CGE model. Results of the simulation show that the ban has a devastating effect on Somali Region's economy. GDP is reduced by US$ 91 million in nominal terms, which represents a 25% reduction compared to a normal year. Evaluating the effects of the ban at the microeconomic level, we find that in the short-run, the ban causes a sharp reduction of livestock prices directly affecting the activities most dependent on livestock sales, and deteriorating pastoralist's input/output price ratio. Total loss in value added generated in the region is US$ 132 million or almost 42% of total value added produced in a normal year by pastoralists and agro-pastoralists in the region.Analysis of the impacts of the ban on the Somali Region using a CGE analysis was complemented by analysis of the links between agents in the livestock productionmarketing chain and the distribution of costs of the ban among these agents based on case studies. These agents were interviewed during a survey conducted in the northern part of Somali Region between June and July 2003. Results of the survey show that livelihoods of pastoralists have been severely affected by the ban, deteriorating their income, changing the composition and reducing the number of animals in the herd, changing consumption patterns, and decreasing purchases of food and grain. Marketing agents like traders, brokers, transporters and retailers also experienced negative effects in income and in the volume of business.Having evaluated the extent of the negative impact of the ban on exports on Somali Region's economy, certifying exported live animals from a RVF non-free zone, as is the case of Ethiopia is evaluated as one possibility to handle the problem and matching international and OIE sanitary regulations. Costs and benefit measurements are provided and an evaluation of the proposed programme of live animal certification using benefit-cost analysis is conducted.The benefit-cost analysis shows that implementing an animal health programme in the Somali Region is feasible and justifies further analysis focusing in the main factors driving the results. Different alternatives (export tax, sales tax and increased transaction costs) to charge producers for the equivalent amount of the cost of the programme are analysed. Results show that distortions introduced by taxes and increased transaction costs (not normally considered in the benefit/cost analysis) affect the viability of the programme.Increasing taxes on livestock sales offers the best prospect as the way to implement the health certification plan in the Somali Region. This option has the higher benefit for the poor given that it implies a transfer from middle and better-off producers to poor producers while the total amount of the losses experienced by better-off and middle producers is small. By showing the consequences for a poor economy of losing access to markets, this study illustrates how agricultural producers in poor countries benefit from markets, increasing their income, gaining access to cash and consumption goods and increasing their assets by keeping larger number of animals in their herds. The case of the Somali Region of Ethiopia is a clear example of the cost that poor countries pay for lack of investment in animal health programmes. The results of this study also show that there are options to explore that could be adapted to the resources and possibilities of poor countries, allowing increased and more stable trade flows and contributing to a much needed diversification of exports. livestock holdings, as livestock is still the main source of income and, households with the higher number of livestock, especially cattle, have the potential to cultivate more land. Finally, SCF-UK identifies the main determinants of wealth for sedentary farmers as oxen, labour and area of land cultivated. Information to classify urban households in wealth categories is obtained from the report on the 1999/2000 household, income, consumption and expenditure survey of the Central Statistical Authority of Ethiopia, which contains information on expenditure and income sources by expenditure group (CSA 2001). Table B.4 shows the disposition of income and the structure of expenditure of the different households defined. Average income per capita varies for different households from US$ 40 per year for the poor sedentary households to US$ 160 in the case of better-off pastoralists. Urban incomes are higher on average than rural incomes in all categories. Rural households consume their own production, mainly milk and ghee in the case of pastoralists; milk, ghee and grain in the case of agro-pastoralists and sedentary farmers. The importance of own livestock products (milk, ghee and meat) as a source of food increases with wealth. Milk is the main produced and consumed item by pastoralists while meat consumption usually takes place on special occasions and holidays. All wealth groups purchase food to make up the majority of their food needs but purchase requirements tend to decrease as wealth increases, with the better-off relying least on the market for food (SCF-UK 2001). All pastoralists and poor agro-pastoralists and sedentary farmers purchase grain as staple food. This is complemented by purchases of other food, mainly sugar, oil and tea. According to SCF-UK ( 2001), sugar appears to be as much a staple food as grain in the Jijiga zone. Consumption increases with wealth, with very poor households consuming about 250 g/day and the better-off consuming over a kg/day. Combined with tea, it is seen as an essential part of the diet by all groups. Rice, pasta and vegetable oil are rarely purchased, even by the better-off. Purchases of grain and sugar take more than 50% of total purchases by poor pastoralists, while better-off households spend from one-quarter to a third of their income on these staple goods. Non-food items normally include clothes and other essential goods for the family. Urban households staple food are grain and livestock products as is the case for rural households. The middle and the better-off urban households have access to more diversified food and non-food items.Table B.5 presents the main sources of income for households. Most of the income in all cases comes from own agricultural enterprise in the case of rural households. Income from own enterprise and wages and salaries for urban households are not disaggregated and shown as total income from both sources. Sales originated in the family business for rural households are presented in Table B.6. Livestock sales are the most important income source for all wealth rural groups. Sales of livestock products also appear as important sources of income for the poor and middle pastoralists and also for agro-pastoralists and sedentary farmers.In general, the poorer groups need to diversify their sources of income so they engage in more income-generating activities than the middle and better-off groups. In addition to sales of livestock and livestock products, poor households have other income sources such as petty trade (sales of bush products like firewood and charcoal), and labour exchange like assisting caravans transporting contraband goods, leading pack camels to neighbouring countries, self employment like renting an own pack camel to transfer goods etc. Remittances are also received from relatives working outside the region (SCF-UK). In some regions, better-off households take children from poor households to do herding and other types of work. These children are fed and clothed by the better-off household, which usually also makes a payment (in cash or in kind) to the poor households for the work. Each poor household typically has one child living with a better-off household. Children or other members of poor households can also go to towns for employment (SCF-UK). Gifts in kind from better-off households are another source of income for poor households in the region. Better-off households can obtain rents from property in towns. Finally, households receive transfer from the Government and transfers and gifts from other households.To determine production and sales in agricultural activities two sources of information were used. Total animal stock is obtained from SNRS (2003). Using information from SCF-UK allowed allocating animal stock between households. The same SCF-UK reports allowed determining animal sales by species and consumption of animal products, by different households. Total animal stock by species and region is presented in Table B.7. As indicated by SNRS ( 2003) there is no reliable information or data about the number of livestock in the Somali Region. The figure used by SNRS is based on estimate made by various sources. According to SNRS (2003) the total population of livestock in the region is 8.467 million LU, which includes 3.746 million cattle, 9.053 million sheep, 8.547 million goats, 2.032 million camels and 213 thousand donkeys. Cattle and camel are mainly kept to provide milk for family consumption while small ruminants are mainly kept as a source of cash and capital deposit.To estimate animal holdings per type of activity we use information from SCF-UK on average stock composition, annual sales of different species and quality of different animals sold by each household type. We combine this information with the number of households of each type to allocate total animal stock from Table B.7 and animal sales to each type of household. We then value this sales using producer prices for the different animal categories and check, together with other sources of income, total income of the different households. The results show that total income obtained using sales/inventory coefficients from SCF-UK was too high for many of the household types when compared to estimated expenditure, savings and transfers of each household as showed in Table B.4. In other words, the resulting income was higher than the sum of expenditure, transfers and savings for each household. To correct for this problem we adjusted total livestock sales down so that income for each household would equal expenditure plus savings and transfers. This resulted in reducing the number of animals sold per head of animal and per household compared to the figures in SCF-UK. Animal stock composition and proportion of quality animals sold is the same as in SCF-UK. Tables B.8 and B.9 show our final estimates of animal holdings and sales for each household type. Table B.8 shows that a poor pastoralist owns 42 shoats, 5 cattle and 3 camels. A rich pastoralist, on the other hand, owns on average 168 shoats, 29 cattle and 28 camels. These are estimated average numbers for Somali Region, with the composition of species varying between zones depending on agroecological conditions. Table B.8 also shows number of animals sold per year and the quality of those animals. A poor pastoralist sells 6 shoats and eventually 1 cattle every 2 years and 1 camel every 10 years. A better-off pastoralist sells more than 20 shoats and 0.8 camels per year, but would also sell 1 head of cattle every 2 years. Better-off pastoralists sell a greater proportion of quality animals than poor pastoralists. Using the information in Table B.8 and the information on animal stock for the Somali Region we determine the aggregate animal inventory and animal sales by type of household and value of animal sales (Table B.9). According to our estimates, approximately 2.4 million shoats, 0.17 million cattle and 0.04 million camels are sold each year by local producers in Somali Region. This numbers represent 14% of total stock of shoats, and 4 and 2% of cattle and camel inventory respectively. The total number of export quality shoats estimated in this way is below 1.5 million. Estimates by SCF-UK are much higher with off-take rates for sheep of around 20%. The use of these numbers would imply a much higher animal supply, with more domestic sales and exports, which is not supported by the available data on animal demand.The next step is to determine the final destination of total animals sold between domestic sales, the Ethiopian highlands, Djibouti, Somalia and exports to the Arab countries and Kenya. The number of animals sold domestically within the Somali Region should equal demand, basically, animals bought by producers and animals sold to butchers and retailers for final consumption. We assume that the remaining animals are exported to neighbouring countries, the Ethiopian highlands or the Arab countries via Somalia. Given the market sheds defined in FEWS (1998) we assume that export quality animals in Liben zone are exported to Kenya. The remaining group of animals should be allocated between exports to the highlands and exports to the Arab countries. To do this, we assume that the remaining export quality animals are the ones being exported to Arab countries and the low quality animals are sold to the highlands and other destinations like Djibouti or Somalia. Table B.10 shows the final destination of livestock sales. Total exports to Arab countries resulting from our allocation account for 1.3 million shoats, 37 thousand cattle and 12 thousand camels, which represent 46% of total animal sales value. Kenya is the final destination for 145 thousand shoats and 28 thousand cattle or 10% of animal sales value. The rest are sold in similar proportions domestically in the Somali Region and to the highlands and other destinations. The value of total animal sales amounts to US$ 92 million in a normal year. Of this total amount, US$ 22 million are sold domestically and US$ 70 million are exported to other regions and countries. The total value of exports to Arab countries is US$ 42 million, 46% of total value of animal sales or 60% of total value of exports, with exports including sales to Ethiopian highlands. It also represents 10% of total household income in the region.Milk production and sales are derived from SCF-UK reports, which present information for agro-pastoralists and also milk sales for sedentary farmers (Table B.11). As indicated by SCF-UK, while milk sales are uncommon among pastoralists, sales of ghee are common for poor and middle households, but not in very large quantities. Given the relative small importance of sales of milk and ghee compared with livestock sales, we assume that pastoralists do not sell milk, although they consume their own milk production.Most of the land in the region (75% of total area) is woodland and grazing land. Only 1.5% of the land is used in crop production and the remaining 24% is unproductive land. Of the total area under crops, 94% is under grain production. The yield reported for the years 1997 and 1998 on average is 1188 kg/ha (Table B.12). Information from SFC-UK reports yields lower than the figure reported by SNRS. Table B.13 presents information extracted from SFC-UK on area under cereals, yields, consumption, and sales for agro-pastoral and sedentary farmers in the region. Table B.14 aggregates information per household from SFC-UK to a regional level multiplying household data by the number of households in each category and presents total value of grain production and sales. Total area under crops in the Somali Region estimated in this way amounts to a total of 463 thousand hectares, which is very close to the SNRS number of 450 thousand hectares, so we use the SFC-UK data and coefficients to estimate production and sales of grain.Cost structure of the different rural activities defined for the Somali Region includes livestock inputs, seeds, and animals purchased as replacement and payments to factor of production (Table B.15). All producers spend in livestock inputs including salt, drugs and water. Seed use was determined in Table B.13 when crop production data were presented. The number of animals bought by producers is very small in a normal year. As poor producers cannot afford buying animals we assume that purchases are made by middle and better-off producers occasionally to replace stock, or as investment. Sedentary farmers sell oxen (5-6 years old) each year and with cash income gained purchase a smaller ox (3-4 years old) at a lower price (SCF-UK). Payments to labour were made proportional to the total population in each activity/household and payments to capital were adjusted as a residual. Cost structure of trade and service activities was taken from the cost structure of the same activities in a SAM of Mozambique (Arndt et al. 1998).proportion of the total value of the commodity traded. A trade commodity is defined in our model with total value equal to the sum of all transaction costs. Thus, the sum of transaction costs equals total output of the trade and transport sector.            ","tokenCount":"11700"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"07ff6bb9247da1cc87a03d39df7dffcc","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/6d6057ab-9f18-4be7-ac00-09ba47d55708/content","id":"-1600940932"},"keywords":["ACV, agro-climatic variables","EigenGWAS, eigenvector decomposition GWAS","EnvGWAS, environmental GWAS","FarmCPU, fixed and random model circulating probability unification","Fst, fixation index","GBS, genotyping-by-sequencing","GWAS, genome-wide association study","LD, linkage disequilibrium","LOESS, locally weighted polynomial regression","MAF, minor allele frequency","PCA, principal component analysis","PCR, polymerase chain reaction","PIC, polymorphic information content","Q-Q, quantile-quantile","QTL, quantitative trait loci","SNP, single nucleotide polymorphism","Ts, transition type","Tv, transversion type"],"sieverID":"db2f0f76-34ff-4a2a-8d46-ba9eb03bb2a7","pagecount":"17","content":"Characterization of genomic regions underlying adaptation of landraces can reveal a quantitative genetics framework for local wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) adaptability. A collection of 512 wheat landraces from the eastern edge of the Fertile Crescent in Iran and Pakistan were genotyped using genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism markers generated by genotyping-by-sequencing. The minor allele frequency (MAF) and the heterozygosity (H) of Pakistani wheat landraces (MAF = 0.19, H = 0.008) were slightly higher than the Iranian wheat landraces (MAF = 0.17, H = 0.005), indicating that Pakistani landraces were slightly more genetically diverse. Population structure analysis clearly separated the Pakistani landraces from Iranian landraces, which indicates two separate adaptability trajectories. The large-scale agro-climatic data of seven variables were quite dissimilar between Iran and Pakistanas revealed by the correlation coefficients. Genome-wide association study identified 91 and 58 loci using agroclimatic data, which likely underpin local adaptability of the wheat landraces from Iran and Pakistan, respectively. Selective sweep analysis identified significant hits on chromosomes 4A, 4B, 6B, 7B, 2D, and 6D, which were colocalized with the loci associated with local adaptability and with some known genes related to flowering time and grain size. This study provides insight into the genetic diversity with emphasis on the genetic architecture of loci involved in adaptation to local environments, which has breeding implications.The bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genome is highly diversified with several distinct classes based on vernalization requirements, growth habit, planting times, and grain quality (Salamini et al., 2002). The genetic diversity of cultivated wheat has critically decreased due to the modern breeding activities that focus on a few major developmental traits (Reif et al., 2005). Of the four cultivated species (bread wheat, einkorn [Triticum monococcum Boiss.], emmer [Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccum (Schrank) Schübl.], and spelt [Triticum spelta L.]), 95% of the cultivation and consumption is bread wheat. Modern bread wheat cultivars have reduced genetic variation with only 30% of the genetic variation found in their wild relatives (Reif et al., 2005). The loss of diversity in hexaploid wheat is mainly due to the reproductive isolation between closely related species of different ploidy levels because some of the wild relatives cannot make fertile hybrids upon hybridization (Mujeeb-Kazi et al., 2013). The reduction in genetic diversity is also attributed to the continuous artificial selection during domestication and modern wheat breeding, which positively selected genomic regions that influence productivity traits (Cavanagh et al., 2013;Jordan et al., 2015;Zhou et al., 2018). Landraces are traditional wheat varieties grown in farmers' fields before modern breeding was established and thus have unexplored genetic variations with unused alleles for tolerance to both biotic and abiotic stresses, end-use quality, and high resource use efficiency (Dwivedi et al., 2016;Lopes et al., 2015). Wheat landraces have the advantage over other wheat wild relatives of being more easily crossed with cultivated bread wheat. The large collections of landraces stored in gene banks have been characterized using modern genomic tools to systematically use beneficial traits in wheat breeding (Riaz et al., 2017;Sehgal et al., 2015;Vikram et al., 2016;Winfield et al., 2017). Bread wheat evolved in the \"Fertile Crescent\" and then gradually spread to the rest of the world. N.I. Vavilov placed the origin of bread wheat to a region spanning an area from Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to Transcaucasia (Vavilov, 1926;Vavilov, 1992). The molecular evidence suggested the center of origin to be Transcaucasia and northwestern Iran (Dvorak et al., 1998). Scientific and archeological evidence suggested that Iran and Pakistan are important countries with reference to the center of diversity for cereals (Kihara et al., 1965). The southwestern Iran and Mehrgarh civilization in southwestern Pakistan are considered to be to be one of the main centers of diversity for bread wheat (Dvorak et al., 2011), barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), and einkorn wheat (Fuller, 2006;Morrell & Clegg, 2007). Thus, the in-depth diversity analyses of landraces from these geographic regions may highlight selection patterns in response to local environments and explain the polygenic adaptation.Progress has been made in whole genome sequencing of bread wheat and its immediate progenitors (IWGSC, 2018;Rasheed & Xia, 2019), which has resulted in significant achievements in genomic studies in understanding the genetic diversity and improved adaptation of beneficial traits in bread wheat and aids the discovery of new genes for beneficial traits (Rasheed & Xia, 2019 ). In this study, we resequenced a panel of 512 landraces from Iran and Pakistan using genotypingby-sequencing (GBS) to identify the genetic regions that were selected for adaptation during wheat domestication and early breeding events, and to evaluate the genetic diversity in one of the major wheat diversity centers. In addition, we used geo-referenced agro-climatic attributes from the landrace collection sites as proxy traits and conducted genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to identify the genomic regions associated with bread wheat local adaptability.A panel of 512 wheat landraces was used in this study. This includes 251 landraces, mainly from Pakistan, collected from 1931 to 1968 that were deposited at the Plant Genetic Resource Institute, National Agriculture Research Center, Islamabad, Pakistan (Supplemental Table S1), and 261 Iranian landraces that were collected from different climate zones between 1931 and 1968 and deposited in the USDA-ARS National Plant Germplasm System, Aberdeen, ID (Supplemental Table S2).Genomic DNA was extracted using a modified cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide method (Saghai-Maroof et al., 1984) from five 2-wk-old seedlings of each sample. DNA concentration was quantified using the Quant-iT PicoGreen dsDNA Assay (Life Technologies Inc.) and normalized to 20 ng μl -1 for library construction. The GBS libraries were constructed following Poland et al. (2012). In brief, genomic DNA was digested using the restriction enzymes PstI and MspI (New England BioLabs Inc.), and barcoded adapters were ligated to each DNA sample using T4 ligase (New England Bio-Labs Inc.). All of the ligated products from each plate were pooled and cleaned-up using the QIAquick PCR Purification Kit (Qiagen Inc.). Primers complementary to both adaptors were used for polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The PCR products were then cleaned up again using the QIAquick PCR Purification Kit and quantified using the Bioanalyzer 7500 Agilent DNA Chip (Agilent Technologies, Inc.). After size selection for 250-300 bp fragments in an E-gel system (Life Technologies Inc.), the concentration of each library was estimated by the Qubit 2.0 fluorometer using Qubit dsDNA HS Assay Kit (Life Technologies Inc.). The size-selected library was sequenced on an Ion Proton sequencer (Life Technologies Inc.). First, sequence reads were trimmed to 64 bp, and then identical reads were grouped into sequence tags. The unique tags were aligned internally allowing mismatches of up to 3 bp to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the tags. Single nucleotide polymorphism calling was conducted using the Universal Network Enabled Analysis Kit GBS pipeline (Lu et al., 2013), which is part of the TAS-SEL 4.0 bioinformatics analysis package (Bradbury et al., 2007). Reads with a low quality score (<15) were removed, and SNPs with heterozygosity <10%, a minor allele frequency (MAF) >1%, and missing data <20% were used for further analysis. Sequence reads were aligned to the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC) reference genome sequence (Version 1.0) (IWGSC, 2018) using BLASTn.The basic statistics for the allele frequency, heterozygosity and genetic diversity were performed using TASSEL (Version 5.0). A diversity tree was built using the Neighbor-Joining algorithm (Saitou & Nei, 1987) that relaxes the assumption• Genetic loci underpinning adaptability to the target environment were revealed by GWAS. • Genes relate to flowering time and grain size were found to be associated with adaptability. • The use of historical agro-climatic data was useful in revealing loci that affect wheat adaptability. of equal mutation rates over space and time and produces an unrooted tree. The confidence interval of the genetic relationships among the accessions was determined by performing 1,000 bootstraps with the results expressed as percentages at the main nodes of each branch. For population structure, a model-based Bayesian cluster analysis was performed using STRUCTURE (Version 2.3.4) (Pritchard et al., 2000).The structure analysis was run 10 times for each K value (probability of best fit into each number of assumed clusters) (K = 1-8) using a burn-in period of 10,000 steps and 10,000 Monte Carlo steps and an admixture model. All parameters were set to default values recommended by the manufacturer (Pritchard et al., 2010). K was estimated by an ad hoc statistic ΔK based on the rate of change in the log probability of data between consecutive K values (Evanno et al., 2005).The squared correlation of allele frequency (r 2 ) was calculated using PLINK 1.9 (https://www.cog-genomics.org/ plink2; Chang et al., 2015) to evaluate the linkage disequilibrium (LD) in both sets of landraces independently and combined. The pairwise r 2 values were plotted against genetic distance in a 1-kb window, and a locally weighted polynomial regression (LOESS) curve was fitted using R software. The pattern of LD decay was determined as the genetic distance where LOESS curve intercepts the r 2 threshold of 0.1.The eigenvector decomposition GWAS (EigenGWAS), which uses genome-wide association studies of eigenvectors, was used to identify the loci under selection (Chen et al., 2016). We used SNPs that fulfils the quality control criteria and generated a genetic relationship matrix to calculate the top 10 eigenvalues and their corresponding eigenvectors. The effect of SNP was calculated by regressing each SNP on a selected eigenvector. In principle, the estimated genetic effect for each locus is driven by genetic drift and selection, which are random. To remove genetic drift effects, we adjusted the pvalue with genomic control (GC) factor, and consequently the corrected p-value, P GC , was used to detect loci under selection. The significance threshold for loci under selection was determined by reshuffling the first eigenvector 1,000 times, and the 95th quantile of the most significant p-values from the 1,000 permutations was selected as the significance threshold. In this study, the −log 10 (p-value) of 5.87, which is equivalent to an experiment-wise type I error rate of .05, was used as the significance threshold for the EigenGWAS analyses on the 10 eigenvectors.The georeferenced longitude and latitude positions of landrace collection sites were retrieved from the passport information of landraces from Pakistan and Iran. The landraces from other countries (n = 24) were excluded from the analysis. Climate data were extracted from extrapolated climate grids (Fick & Hijmans 2017) at a 30-s (∼1 km) resolution. Raw data files for monthly long-term (1970-2000) minimum (T min ), maximum (T max ), average (T avg ) temperatures, rainfall (PREC), vapor pressure (VAPR), solar radiation (SRAD), and soil pH (ph5) were downloaded and converted to Environmental System Research Institute (ESRI) grid format for storage and extraction (Hengl et al., 2017). Georeferenced locations for accessions were checked for errors and then used to extract climate values for each location using the spatial analyst toolbox in ESRI ArcMap 10.6 (Environmental System Research Institute, 2018).The GWAS was conducted using a recently developed model selection algorithm, the fixed and random model circulating probability unification (FarmCPU) (Liu et al., 2016) with eight GIS data (T max , T min , T avg , SRAD, VAPR, latitude, longitude, and PREC) as response variables. The FarmCPU takes into account the confounding problem between covariates and test markers using a fixed effect model (FEM) and a random effect model (REM). The first five principal components calculated using TASSEL were used as covariates. The default p-value threshold that FarmCPU used was Bonferronicorrected threshold of .01. The Bonferroni-corrected threshold was overly restrictive when the LD among genotypic markers was large, so the threshold was calculated using the formula p = .05/number of markers using 1,000 permutations. In this function, the phenotypes were permuted to break the relationship with the genotypes. A vector of minimum p-values of each experiment was output and the 95% quantile value of the vector was recommended for p.threshold in the FarmCPU model. The threshold calculated by FarmCPU for the given traits was 4.68, which was used as a threshold to define marker-trait associations (MTAs). The quantilequantile (Q-Q) plot was used for assessing fitness of the model to population structure.A total of 43,868 SNPs with <80% missing data were identified in the panel of 512 Pakistani and Iranian wheat landraces, and 33,961 (∼77.4%) of them were mapped to the IWGSC wheat reference genome (Version 1.0) (IWGSC, 2018). The highest number of SNPs were mapped on the B genome (17,186), followed by the A genome (13,012) and the D genome (3,763) (Figure 1a). The B genome had the most transition-type (Ts) SNPs (1,691), and the D genome had the least (681) (Supplemental Tables S3 and S4). A similar chromosome distribution pattern was observed for transversiontype (Tv) SNPs; however, Tv SNPs were much more abundant (64.3%) than Ts SNPs (35.7%) with a Ts/Tv SNP ratio of 1.80. The Ts/Tv ratios in the A and B genomes were significantly higher than those in the D genome. As expected, more A/G and C/T transitions were observed than G/A and T/C transitions. On the other hand, the frequencies of C/G, A/C, G/T, and A/T transversions were higher than G/C, C/A, T/G, and T/A transversions (Supplemental Tables S3 and S4).More monomorphic SNPs (997) were observed in Pakistani landraces than in Iranian landraces (543), and these monomorphic SNPs were removed for subsequent further SNP analyses except in EigenGWAS for selective sweeps. Average gene diversity and polymorphic information content (PIC) values were slightly higher in Pakistani landraces (0.20 and 0.17) than those in Iranian landraces (0.18 and 0.15), respectively (Table 1). Similarly, the level of heterozygous SNPs was higher (8.41%) in Pakistani landraces than in Iranian landraces (5.88%). In general, the mean values of MAF and heterozygosity (H) were slightly higher for the Pakistani wheat landraces (MAF = 0.19, H = 0.08) than these for Iranian landraces (MAF = 0.17, H = 0.05) (Table 1; Figure 1b-e).Almost all Pakistani landraces were clearly separated from Iranian landraces, with three Pakistani landraces in close proximity to the Iranian subpopulation in the principal component analysis (PCA)-biplot (Figure 2a). Two of these landraces, accession 11186 and 11342, were collected from Balochistan (an area close to Iranian border) and one landrace (accession 12219) was from northern Pakistan. None of Iranian landraces was included in the Pakistani subpopulation. Cluster analysis using weighted pair group method analysis and principal coordinate analysis also classified the panel into two subpopulations in accordance with population structure analysis (Figure 2b and c, respectively). The Pakistani landraces were distributed over two major clusters, and the Iranian landraces were distributed over 10 independent clusters. Population structure of the landrace panel was estimated using STRUCTURE software based on genomewide SNP markers. The highest ΔK value was observed at K = 2, suggesting two subpopulations in the panel (Figure 3a).  The analysis of molecular variance for the landrace panel using 6,229 SNPs showed a much greater variation within a population (77.41%) than between the populations (22.59%, p < .001). The higher value of fixation index (Fst) value (.23) between the Pakistani and Iranian subpopulations suggests high genetic differentiation between the two subpopulations. The highest genetic differentiation between Pakistani and Iranian subpopulations were observed on the B genome (Fst = .28).All the SNPs mapped to the IWGSC wheat reference genome (Version 1.0) (IWGSC, 2018) were used to estimate the extent of LD for all the accessions in the landrace panel (Table 2). The LD decay plots in Figure 3b show distance in kilo-base pair vs. LD (r 2 ). The LD decay between the Iranian and Pakistani subpopulations revealed higher r 2 values in Pakistani landraces (Figure 3c). The number of SNP pairs in the A and B genome (Figure 3d and e  between the two subpopulations while the number of SNP pairs in the D genome was much higher in the Iranian subpopulation than in Pakistani subpopulation (Figure 3f). The average distance between SNP pairs was slightly higher (9.83 Mb) in the Iranian subpopulation than in the Pakistani subpopulation (9.0 Mb), with overall r 2 values of .058 and .086, respectively. The LD decayed to .2 among Iranian landraces at an average of 4.5 Mb distance, compared with 15.2 Mb in Pakistani landrcaes.The climatic data were extracted from extrapolated climate grids at 30 s (∼1 km) resolution for all landraces from Pakistan and Iran. Seven agro-climatic variables (ACVs) were included in this study: longitude, latitude, T max , T min , PREC, VAPR, and SRAD. Pakistani wheat landraces were distributed between 70.62˚E and 33.50˚N with maximum values of 63.014-75.62˚E, 26.15-36.16˚N, whereas the Iranian wheat landraces were distributed 45˚-62˚E, 25.55-38.7˚N. The means of other ACVs such as T max and T min were 26.19 ˚C and 11.16 ˚C for Pakistan compared with 25.55 ˚C and 0 ˚C for Iran (Table 3). Similarly, annual PREC was 427.04 mm, VAPR was 1.12 Pa, and SRAD was 17,651.53 W/m 2 in Pakistan, whereas T max and T min were 26.2 ˚C and 11.16 ˚C, and annual PREC was 326.14 mm, VAPR was 0.74 Pa, and SRAD was 17,419.18 W/m 2 in Iran (Table 3).There was a positive correlation (r = .53) between annual precipitation (PREC) and longitude or latitude in Pakistan  (Figure 4; Supplemental Table S5). Iran had a positive correlation between PREC and latitude (r = .33) but a negative correlation between PREC and longitude (r = −.14). A high positive correlation between PREC and VAPR was observed in Iran (r = .98), but not in Pakistan where r values were from .06 to −.4. The maximum (T max ) and minimum (T min ) temperatures had weak positive associations with PREC and VAPR, respectively, in Pakistan, but a highly positive correlation with VAPR and a negative correlation with PREC in Iran (Supplemental Table S5). The SRAD was negatively correlated with latitude, longitude, and PREC, but positively correlated with T max and T min in Pakistan. In Iran, the SRAD was positively correlated with PREC and VAPR but did not correlated with longitude, latitude, T max , and T min (Figure 4).EigenGWAS was conducted for the top 10 eigenvectors that explained 29.86% of the total genetic variation with each eigenvector explaining 0.83 to 12.36% of the genetic variation. The genomic inflation factor (λ GC ) that is commonly used to adjust population stratification for GWAS (Devlin & Roeder, 1999) was calculated by EigenGWAS (Supplemental Table S7). EigenGWAS was conducted based upon positive or negative coordinates of the landraces from Iran and Pakistan on the corresponding eigenvector, and their selection differentiations were quantified by Fst. After correction by λ GC , the SNPs with −log 10 (P GC ) that exceeded the threshold of 6.01 were declared as the loci under selection at the genomewide level. To facilitate the comparison, scanned results from −log 10 (P GC ) and Fst were compared using a Miami plot (Figure 5a-j for each of the 10 eigenvectors). Generally, the peaks from −log 10 (P GC ) and Fst mirrored each other, indicating reasonable grouping as defined by EigenGWAS. Overall, EigenGWAS identified selective sweeps on all 21 wheat F I G U R E 5 Miami plot from eigenvector decomposition genome-wide association study (EigenGWAS) (upper for P GC and lower for Fst) for eigenvector 1 (Ev1) to eigenvector 10 (Ev10) based on the 512 wheat landraces from Iran and Pakistan (a-j). P GC is the p-values corrected by λ GC in EigenGWAS. Ev1-Ev10 are the first 10 eigenvectors, each of which was used as phenotype for the single-marker association study based on nearly 43,868 single nucleotide polymorphism markers in EigenGWAS chromosomes (Supplemental Table S7; Figure 5), while significant hits were found on 8 of the 10 eigenvectors except for Ev1 and Ev10. The highest number of hits were 760 SNPs over the three loci for Ev8. The distribution of the identified SNPs across different chromosomes varies considerably, with the highest number on chromosome 2B (207 SNPs) and the lowest on chromosome 4D (12 SNPs). The genomic region on chromosome 4A between 103 and 504 Mb consistently had several selective sweeps with more than 98 SNPs. All the selective sweeps identified by EigenGWAS were shared by the Fst scan. Selective sweeps were consistently detected in the three genomic regions of group 1 homeologous chromosomes flanking glutenin genes (Figure 5). Twenty-five loci in selective sweeps were within close proximity (∼10 Mb) of functional genes including chromosome 1B (TOE-B1, TaFT3-B1, and Elf3-B1 at 6.06, 582.8, and 679.4 Mb, respectively, for flowering time [Zikhali et al., 2016[Zikhali et al., , 2017]]), chromosome 1D (Mot3-D1 and Elf3-D1 at 491.5 Mb for flowering time [Zikhali et al., 2017]), chromosome 3B (Tamyb10-B1 at 743.5 Mb for seed color [Himi et al., 2011]), chromosome 3D (Tamyb10-D1 at 556 Mb for seed color), chromosome 4A (PRR73-A1 at 120.1 Mb for flowering time and development [Zhang et al., 2016]), chromosome 4B (PRR73-B1 at 423 Mb [Zhang et al., 2016]), chromosome 4D (Lr67 at 455.8 Mb for leaf rust resistance [Moore et al., 2015]), chromosome 5A (Vrn-A1 at 586.5 Mb for vernalization requirement), chromosome 5B (Vrn-B1 at 562.3 Mb), chromosome 6B (SPL21-6B and GW2-6B at 201 and 237.6 Mb, respectively, for grain size and weight [Yang et al., 2012]), chromosome 7A (ALP-7A at 19.9 Mb for gluten strength [Chen et al., 2016] and SPL20-7A at 692.4 Mb for grain size [Zhang et al., 2017]), chromosome 7B (Pinb2 at 703.9 Mb for grain hardness [Geng et al., 2012]), and chromosome 7D (TaGS3-D1 and SPL20-7D at 5.82 and 515.8 Mb, respectively, for grain size).The GWAS for ACVs identified 90 loci in Iranian landraces and 58 loci in Pakistani landraces (Figure 6a-k for each variable). The Manhattan and Q-Q-plots are shown for each trait like longitude (Figure 6a for Pakistan and Figure 6b for Iran), and vice versa, for each trait. The maximum number of loci associated with ACVs were identified on chromosome 7B ( 16) and minimum on chromosome 4D (2). The maximum number of loci were identified for VAPR (45) and the minimum number of loci were identified for T max (8). Among these, 17 loci were associated with multiple variables (Supplemental Table S7). For example, four loci on chromosome 6B (13.7 Mb), 7B (193.4 and 717. 2 Mb), and 7D (159.7 Mb) were associated with both T min and T max . Similarly, a locus on chromosome 6B (75.9 Mb) was associated with latitude and SRAD in the Pakistani subpopulation. Based on the colocalization of loci within 10 Mb proximity, the common loci in both subpopulations include those for longitude on chromosome 3D, annual precipitation on chromosome 4B (650 Mb), SRAD on chromosome 3D (3.3 Mb), and VAPR on chromosome 3B (∼41 Mb). Similarly, based on colocalization, six loci were within proximity of selective sweeps, which included those for VAPR on chromosome 1D, 5D in the Iranian subpopulation and 5D in the Pakistani subpopulation, and precipitation on 2A and 6B in the Iranian subpopulation.  (c and d) latitude, (e and f) annual precipitation (prec_ann), (g and h) vapors (VAP), (i and j) solar radiations (SRAD), (j and k) minimum temperature (T min ), and (m and n) maximum temperature (T max ) Some functional genes were also identified within close proximity of loci associated with ACVs. These include Elf3-B1 (Wang et al., 2016), a flowering time-related gene, in close proximity to 1B locus associated with longitude at the 678.2 Mb position. Vrn-D1 was also found in proximity of a locus associated with longitude among Iranian landraces. Similarly, a locus associated with longitude among Pakistani landraces was within close proximity to Ppd-D1 locus, a photoperiod responsive gene, on chromosome 2D at position 2.7 Mb. The same locus was also associated with PREC among Iranian landraces. A drought-related gene, TaCwi-4A, was identified in proximity of the locus associated with VAPR on chromosome 4A at position 647.8 Mb among Iranian landraces (Jiang et al., 2015;Webster et al., 2012). The Plant GenomeThe present study investigated a panel of wheat landraces from two important geographical regions for wheat domestication, Pakistan and Iran. That the B genome had the highest number of SNPs in the panel of landraces was consistent with some previous studies (Alipour et al., 2017;Chao et al., 2007). The higher percentage of Ts SNPs (64.29%) than Tv SNPs (35.71%) in the current study is comparable with 64.5% of transition SNPs and 35.5% of transversion SNPs reported by Winfield et al. (2016). The significantly higher number of Ts SNPs than Tv SNPs was due to shifting of methylcytosine to uracil and then mutating to thymine. The hexaploid wheat genome is highly methylated because of its polyploidy, which may explain the higher number of transition SNPs in wheat. The higher Ts/Tv SNP ratio improves the accuracy for SNP prediction with a greater level of confidence.Genetic variability in the wheat landrace panel revealed by PIC and genetic diversity reflected genetic diversity in a genomic level or polymorphism in DNA fragments of a population and may facilitate the evolutionary process by creating the selection pressure on the alternate forms of genes. The mean PIC value (0.162) estimated in wheat landraces in this study was consistent with Chao et al. (2007) and Ren et al. (2013), but lower than that (0.30) estimated by Liu et al. (2017). In the present study, the Pakistani subpopulation had a higher gene diversity than the Iranian subpopulation. The biallelic nature of most of the SNPs may be one of the reasons for overall low genetic diversity compared with that estimated by simple sequence repeats markers (Chao et al., 2007). The differences in diversity between Pakistani and Iranian landraces indicated that the Pakistani subpopulation was relatively more diverse. The genetic variation present among and within groups can be used for wheat improvements in breeding programs.It is important to accurately analyze and define the relationship between the molecular and functional diversities in natural populations based on the structural analyses of a particular population (Buckler & Thornsberry, 2002). The population structure analyses classified the landrace panel into two subpopulations with the highest ΔK value of 2. The structure plot, cluster analysis, and PCA confirmed the classification of the panel into two lineages with some international varieties from the United States, Mexico, and Italy in admixture with Pakistani germplasm. The cluster analyses using the SNPs from each genome separately gave the same results and clearly separated the panel into Pakistan and Iran subpopulations, suggesting that the two landrace subpopulations have different genetic makeups. The genetic diversity found between the two subpopulations could be the results of different selection pressures imposed by native people and cultivating habits (Alipour et al., 2017). The higher Fst value (p < .0001) between the Pakistani and Iranian subpopulations suggests higher genetic differentiations between the two subpopulations, and most of the genetic differences between these landraces occur on the B genome.The LD is the basis for association mapping. Linkage disequilibrium has been extensively studied in bread wheat at both the full genome and individual chromosomal levels (Chao et al., 2009). In this study, we examined LD and LD decay at both levels of the wheat landrace panel. About 26.97% of SNP pairs were in significant LD (p < .001), which was similar to the LD (22%) found in maize (Zea mays L.) inbred lines (Dinesh et al., 2016). The current study also revealed that the B genome (especially chromosomes 2B and 3B) had the highest LD, and the D genome (specifically 4D) had the lowest LD. The number of SNP pairs in the LD in the D genome of the Iranian genotypes was much higher than that for Pakistani genotypes. Also, the D genome had a longer genetic distance of significant LD than A and B genomes for both the Pakistani (17.67 Mb) and Iranian (18.87 Mb) subpopulations. The results of the LD and LD decay in Pakistani and Iranian wheat landrace subpopulations may be used as a foundation to determine the proper marker density for quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping and markers linked to QTLs for marker-assisted wheat breeding. Comparison of the LD decay distances between the Iranian and Pakistani wheat landraces revealed that Pakistani landraces had the higher r 2 values for all the three genomes than those for Iranian landraces. The variation observed at the chromosomal LD decay distances was positively correlated with the variation in recombination rates in previous studies (Dooner & He, 2008).The identification of selected regions is a basic step in understanding adaptability and selection history (Helyar et al., 2011;Narum & Hess, 2011). The genes and SNPs located in these regions should have been under selection and are valuable for breeding and for germplasm selection. In this study, selective regions between landraces in Pakistan and Iran were determined among genomes using EigenGWAS. Chen et al. (2016) proposed a single-marker regression approach based on PCA (or eigenanalysis). The regression coefficient of EigenGWAS was approximately equal to Fst. In recent studies, EigenGWAS has been successfully deployed to identify selection signals in species, such as humans (Parolo et al., 2017) and wild birds (Bosse et al., 2017;Kim et al. 2017). They identified the genes under selection or adaptation and illustrated how genetic signatures of selection can be translated into variation in fitness and phenotypes. In our study, a total of 122 selected regions were found in both landraces sets, out of which 26 were colocalized with important developmental genes. Cavanagh et al. (2013) identified selection regions using the wheat 9K SNP arrays in 2,994 hexaploid wheat accessions and found that most selected regions were associated with yield potential, vernalization, plant height, and biotic and abiotic stress tolerance. Zhou et al. (2018 investigated 717 Chinese wheat landraces with 27,933 diversity arrays technology and 312,831 SNP markers and found 148 selected regions associated with yield and disease tolerance. The selected regions in our study were associated with important agronomic traits, including genes for yield-related traits (TaGS3-D1, TaGW2-6B, SPL20-7D, and SPL20-7A), end-use quality (ALP-7A, Pinb2, and Tamyb10), disease resistance (Lr67), and vernalization (Vrn-A1, Vrn-D4, and Vrn-B1). The allelic variation for most of the genes, such as SPL20-7A, 7D, ALP-7A, Tamyb10, and TaGS3-D1, is unknown in most of the geographic regions of the world. Zhao et al. ( 2019) surveyed allelic variation of 47 functional genes in a global wheat collection of 1,152 accessions from 21 countries. It is the only major germplasm survey study available to compare the frequency of functional genes; however, the germplasm collection was mainly composed of improved cultivars. From their results, it was quite clear that frequency of favorable alleles for yield-related genes like TaGW2 and TaGS-D1 was quite higher in improved cultivars compared with landraces. The GWAS hits near glutenin and Tamyb10 are plausible because the end-use preference in Iran and Pakistan has remained different. In Pakistan, wheat is used most often to prepare flatbread or chapatti (Rasheed et al., 2015), which is different from wheat products in Iran such as lavash, barbari, and sangak. The products from both countries require different glutenin and grain texture quality, which are primarily controlled by Glu-1, Glu-3, and Pin loci. Some evidence from the literature supports our results; for example, Lr67 is a durable rust resistance gene evolved after wheat polyploidization (Moore et al., 2015), and its resistance allele frequency is predominant in landraces from Pakistan and India (Riaz et al., 2016). Similarly, Kippes et al. (2015) identified a Vrn-D4 gene, which was important for the development of spring growth habit in the ancient wheats (T. aestivum L. ssp. sphaerococcum) from South Asia. Although the presence of Vrn-D4 in T. aestivum landraces is not yet surveyed, it is likely that the genomic region spanning Vrn-D4 on chromosome 5DS is under differential selection compared with Iranian landraces.Modern breeding has effectively improved wheat adaptation to human preferences and various environments. Recently, many studies have been done to dissect the mean-ingful association between genotypic polymorphisms and environmental variables in natural populations by using different statistical tools (Ferrero-Serrano & Assmann, 2019;Günther et al., 2016;Russell et al., 2016). The use of genome-environment associations will help us understand crop adaptation to certain environments. However, little research has been reported on this topic because of the lack of reliable germplasm passport data, proper geographical coverage in germplasm collections, and undisputed genetic grouping (Contreras-Moreira et al., 2019). The data for ACVs in the current study was collected from extremely fine grids of weather data to uncover polygenic adaptation and domestication in wheat. The environmental GWAS (EnvGWAS) in this study used precise geographical, climatic, and soil data for each landrace collection site (referred to as GIS data for simplicity) and genomic data for those wheat landraces (Navarro et al., 2017), which provides important information to further decipher the genomic loci and regions affecting wheat adaptation. As GIS data are highly associated with crop selection and adaptation, they are also associated with population structure (Li et al., 2019).In crop improvement, genome-environment associations may be integrated with genome-phenotype associations to select for climate resilience traits (Lasky et al., 2015). Previously, genetic loci were identified for adaptive traits in soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] landraces with 27 SNPs associated with three ACVs, i.e., temperature, precipitation, and day length (Li et al., 2020). Li et al. (2019) uncovered polygenic adaptation traits in 1,143 maize accessions using EnvG-WAS and identified a large number of loci associated with ACVs. In our study, many loci that associated with flowering time-related genes (Vrn-1, Ppd1, and Elf3-B1) were expected. Flowering time is a critical adaptive trait that affects reproductive success in a local environment and is typically studied in relation to environmental factors such as changes in temperature and daylengths (Amasino & Michaels, 2010). In our study, flowering time-related genes were detected within LD blocks surrounding five loci. The early flowering gene TaElf3-B1 was within the LD block of a locus associated with longitude among Iranian landraces on chromosome 1B; Ppd-D1 was close to a locus on chromosome 2D associated with longitude in Pakistani landraces and precipitation in Iranian landraces. Previously, Jones et al. (2013) reported that diversity at Ppd-D1 locus in Aegilops tauschii explained the species distribution along geographic coordinates, and that allelic variation is associated with adaptability pattern. Another developmental-related gene, Rht-8, is linked with Ppd-D1; the former is among the so-called Green Revolution genes inducing short stature in wheat germplasm. Vrn-A1 was close to a locus associated with VAPR on chromosome 5A in Pakistani landraces, and Vrn-D1 was within LD of a locus associated with longitude in Iranian landraces. Previously, maize landraces were used to identify the genomic The Plant Genome region controlling the adaptability to longitude and latitude, and it was further revealed that about 61.1% of SNPs for altitude were associated with flowering time (Navarro et al., 2017). Similarly, SNPs associated with longitude on chromosome 1B were in close proximity of the Elf3-B1 gene, which is an important early flowering inducing gene. Some important mutations in Vrn-A1 and Vrn-B3 genes have been identified in landraces from Pakistan and Iran. Sehgal et al. (2015) identified the Vrn-A1f allele, which is a deletion of 5,997 bp within the Vrn-A1 gene, in landraces from Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, thus pointing to a Middle Eastern and/or near eastern origin of this allele. Derakhshan et al. (2013) reported an 890-bp insertion in the vrn-B3 gene from Iranian landraces, and another allele, Vrn-B3b, was identified in landraces from Pakistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan, indicating a wide distribution of this allele. Similarly, SNPs in close proximity of the Vrn-1 loci have been associated with important ACVs like longitude, latitude, and VAPR in both Iranian and Pakistani landraces.Temperature is another well-known climatic factor affecting plant growth and influencing plant distribution and productivity (Lobréaux & Melodelima, 2015). Because temperature is an influential factor for crop adaptation, it has been associated with some genomic regions. Lobréaux and Melodelim (2015) found that 25 genomic regions on four different chromosomes were associated with T min in Arabidopsis thaliana. It is likely that two loci in Iranian landraces (on chromosomes 5B and 6B) and six loci in Pakistani landraces (on chromosomes 5B, 6D, 7B, and 7D) that were associated with T max could be important for heat tolerance because they explained the adaptability of landraces in the geographic regions with the highest temperatures. Because the temperature gradients are different between the two countries, we could not find any common loci associated with temperature attributes between the two subpopulations.The absence of common loci associated with ACV is expected and reported in literature. He et al. (2019) correlated the genomic regions associated with bioclimatic variables in different wheat populations and identified 43,670 genomic regions covering about 988 Mbs of the wheat genome. Crosspopulation comparisons indicated that most genomic regions in selective sweeps do not overlap, and only three genomic regions were shared among all nine populations used in the comparison. Because both populations in our study were not an admixture, it was difficult to find common genetic basis of wheat adaptability to high temperature in both populations. The reasons for the significant variation among populations could be that (a) selection pressures are likely to vary temporally and spatially, and strongly influenced by environmental conditions, such as climatic regime, biotic and abiotic stress, altitude, annual sunlight, temperature, and precipitation; (b) genotypes underwent different selection pressures to adapt to local agricultural practices; and (c) selection may be acting on multiple functionally equivalent mutations in different populations (Cavanagh et al., 2013;Ralph & Coop, 2010).Several loci with significant effects on adaptation may not be detected due to the strict quality-control procedure of filtering minor alleles, which is a common limitation of GWAS. Such loci can be detected in the biparental populations by QTL mapping in populations derived from the cross of landraces and cultivars. However, Boyle et al. (2017) indicated that species generally adapt by small allele frequency shifts of many causal genes across the genome; hence, the GWAS could be the best approach to identify those variants with moderate-to-minor effects. The reported adaptation loci could have applications in breeding if the favored allele frequency is lower in modern wheat cultivars. Because these loci could explain environmental adaptability, high breeding value landraces can be identified by having a high frequency of favored alleles. These results will help breeders better understand the implication of the genomic footprint on crop adaptation and plant responses to climate changes and better explore exotic germplasm sources in a more targeted manner. We are currently extending this and genomic prediction-based approaches to the whole germplasm bank using genomic and GIS data to identify genomic regions and accessions of highest breeding relevance.We acknowledge Prof. M. E. Sorrells (Cornell University) for technical advice and editing of the manuscript. Mention of trade names or commercial products in this publication is solely for the purpose of providing specific information and does not imply recommendation or endorsement by the USDA. The USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer. We acknowledge funding from the National Science Foundation of China (32022064 and 31950410563), and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFD0100303).The genotypic and phenotypic data is presented as Supplemental Tables S8 and S9, respectively.AR, HL, and AG designed the research; GB provided reagents and facility for genotyping; AG, FM, and RA conducted genotyping; UH, AR, HL, and JL performed data analyses; KI, AG, SUS, HA, MRB, VM, and SAP contributed germplasm; AR, UH, and HA wrote the manuscript; all authors edited and approved the final version of the manuscript. Uzma Hanif: Investigation; Writing-original draft. Hadi Alipour: Data curation; Formal analysis; Resources. Alvina Gul: Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Software; Writing-original draft. Li Jing: Formal analysis; Methodology; Software. Reza Darvishzadeh: Writing-review & editing. Rabia Amir:","tokenCount":"6543"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"621c89ef69ad15860a233e4075a9bd15","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ac16cccb-4a2b-4ac0-86cc-66b22f7d2756/retrieve","id":"-1055158365"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d897291c-7551-42bb-9f6c-9df35fc09bd7","pagecount":"31","content":"• The Mindanao island group is considered the agricultural breadbasket of the Philippines, accounting for 40% of all agricultural production and 60% of agricultural exports. Important commodity value chains include yellow corn and coffee in Bukidnon, and cacao in Davao del Norte.• The Philippines is one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change in the world, with climate impacts disproportionately affecting agricultural and rural communities.• Droughts and heavy rains are the key climaterelated hazards affecting Mindanao's agricultural sector. In recent years, farmers have observed longer periods of drought and heavier rains.In addition, the impacts of typhoons-which traditionally affect island groups further to the north-have been increasingly experienced by farmers in Mindanao.• Agriculture in Mindanao is plagued by a variety of challenges that have prevented the sector from achieving its full potential in terms of economic growth and poverty alleviation. These issues include a non-diversified, export-oriented production model, pervasive poverty that traps smallholders in subsistence production, limited access to road and markets, a heavy reliance on rain-fed agriculture, and overlapping or insecure property rights.• Adaptation practices adopted by farmers in the region include diversified farming systems, intercropping, crop rotation, deep hole planting, contour farming, terracing, water impounding, reforestation, and watershed management. Cacao farmers may also adopt sprinkler systems to combat the impacts of drought along with mulching, organic farming, and crop insurance.• Common barriers to the adoption of these practices include poor information dissemination; resistance to new farming and management practices by more traditional, aging farmers; a lack financial capital, especially for larger-scale infrastructure investments; and uncoordinated or biased government service delivery.• Government agencies like the Department of Agriculture, the Climate Change Commission, the Provincial Agricultural Office, and Local Government Units all support value chain actors in different ways, providing training, subsidized inputs, extension services, and agricultural research.The Philippines is extremely vulnerable to climate change [1], with climate impacts disproportionately affecting agricultural and rural communities.Facing challenges such as low productivity, underinvestment, and extreme weather events, farmers in the Philippines are some of the poorest people in the country; the majority manage small farms of less than 1 hectare (ha). The agricultural sector employs some 32% of the Philippines' working population and occupies almost 41% of the country's land area. Comprised of over 7,600 islands-with 11 providing the bulk of the country's landmass-the Philippines faces severe challenges in meeting domestic food demand and relies heavily on imports, especially for wheat and rice.The Philippines is vulnerable to a range of extreme weather events, particularly tropical cyclones (\"typhoons\") [2]. In this humid, tropical environment, climate change is expected to produce even higher temperatures and increasingly unpredictable rainfall by 2050, negatively affecting yields for most crops. In this same period, it is estimated that climate change impacts of all kinds could cost the Philippines' economy over USD 2.7 billion a year [3]. These climate impacts will be exacerbated by rapid population growth, ongoing conflict, and severe land degradation. Still, the government of the Philippines has taken policy and institutional steps to combat the impacts of climate change and adapt the country's agricultural sector. The Philippines boasts a Climate Change Council (CCC), a National Framework Strategy on Climate Change (NFSCC), and a National Climate Change Action Plan, each of which prioritizes agricultural adaptation to climate change.Given agriculture's importance for poverty reduction and economic growth in the Philippines, it is important to understand the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events across the entire sector. To achieve this, three profiles have been created, one for each major island group in the Philippines, namely Mindanao, Luzon, and Visayas. Each profile examines the relationship between climate hazards, key commodities, and their value chains. In Mindanao, three major value chain commodities (VCC) were selected: coffee, cacao, and yellow corn. For each of these VCCs, a study area was selected through a consultative process supported by relevant literature about climate change impacts and Climate Resilient Agriculture (CRA) in the Philippines. Expert consultations were held with the Central Office and Regional Field Offices of the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to define the scope of the Climate Risk Profiles. Considerations in selecting the representative study sites included prevalent climate risks, the vulnerability of commodity systems and their economic importance to the agricultural sector, and the historical cost of damages and production losses due to extreme climate events. The province of Bukidnon was chosen for both coffee and yellow corn due to high levels of production and recent losses from drought. For cacao, meanwhile, Davao del Norte was selected because it is one of the country's major cacao-growing regions.The profile is organized into six sections, each reflecting an essential analytical step in understanding current and potential adaptation options for key local agricultural value chain commodities. The document first offers an overview of the county's key agricultural commodities for food security and livelihoods and of major challenges to agricultural sector development in the island group. This overview is followed by identification of major climatic hazards for agriculture, including typhoons, droughts, and heat stress, based on analysis of historical climate data and climate projections. The document analyses the vulnerabilities and risks posed by these hazards to key commodities through crop suitability mapping.Based on these vulnerabilities, current and potential on-farm adaptation options and off-farm services are discussed. The profile also provides snapshots of the enabling policy, institutional, and governance context for the adoption of resilience-building strategies. Finally, pathways for strengthening institutional capacity to address climate risks are presented.Mindanao is considered the agricultural breadbasket of the Philippines with a diverse set of cropsincluding high-value commodities and livestockproduced across its regions. In 2017, the agriculture, hunting, forestry, and fishing sector contributed 23% of total Gross Regional Domestic Production on the island [9]. Mindanao contributed 33% of the country's Gross Value Added (GVA) in the agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing sector, with Luzon contributing 51% and Visayas the remaining 16% [9].Mindanao is also a key contributor to the country's total world export volume. Its bananas, pineapples, and coconuts each account for approximately a third of the world's total export volume for these crops [6]. (The Philippines is the world's second largest producer of coconuts.) [6]. Coffee, aquatic products, seaweed, and coconuts have the potential to more effectively serve domestic and international markets. Despite this concentration of commodity crop production, the majority of farmers in Mindanao operate at subsistence or near-subsistence levels, with less than 16% producing a marketable surplus [6].The agriculture sector in Mindanao employs over four million people; 76% are men and 24% women [10]. Children between five and 17 years old are also working in the sector, comprising 7.6% of the total workforce. There are over 1.6 million families currently active in agriculture in Mindanao [11].Based on the 2015 Census of Population and Housing, the Philippines hosts a population of over 100 million people. The Mindanao island group accounts for almost 24% of the country's total population, more than half of whom live in rural areas [14]. These rural populations are concentrated in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which hosts 21% of the rural population; Northern Mindanao at 19%; Zamboanga Peninsula at 17%; and SOCCSKSARGEN at 16%. The more populous Caraga and Davao regions were more urban, with only around 13% and 14%, respectively, of residents living in rural areas [15].Over 8.8 million people in Mindanao are considered to be poor, with 36% of the island group's population living below the poverty threshold [16]. This is the highest rate of poverty among the major island groups. Households from the Mindanao island group have uneven access to basic goods and services. In 2010, over 70% of households had access to electricity for lighting, while less than 3% of households reported using electricity for cooking, most choosing wood as a traditional alternative [17]. Access to a safe water supply varies among households in Mindanao, with between 20% and 30% of homes having access to water from a private or shared faucet [17]. Around 23% of children below five years old and 33% of children between five and 10 years old are underweight, while the prevalence of overweight or obese adults is 28%. Data from Food and Nutrition Research Institute also recorded a prevalence of chronic energy deficiency among adults at approximately 9% [18].Mindanao is located in the southern region of the Philippine archipelago. It is the second largest island group of the Philippines with a land area of 10,202,192 ha [4]. Agricultural land comprises 29% of Mindanao's total land area, and the island group accounts for 40% of all agricultural production and 60% of agricultural exports in the country [5,6]. The island is divided into six administrative regions: Zamboanga Peninsula (Region 9), Northern Mindanao (Region 10), Davao Region (Region 11), SOCCSKSARGEN (Region 12), Caraga (Region 13), and the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. For the most part, Mindanao is located outside of the typhoon belt [7,8].Between a quarter and a third of the agricultural labor force-over a million people-are considered landless agricultural workers [6]. On-farm activities contribute approximately 60% of the income of farming households in Mindanao. The average daily nominal wage rate of an agricultural worker in Mindanao is around PHP 255 (USD 4.80), with the average man earning PHP 257 (USD 4.74) and the average woman earning PHP 246 (USD 4.53) [12]. These rates are lower than the country's nominal wage rate of around PHP 276 (USD 5.09). When compared with the wages of agricultural workers in the other island groups, Mindanao ranks lower than Luzon but higher than Visayas [13].Agriculture is important to Mindanao, and climate variability and hazards may pose a serious threat to the sector. For this analysis, the corn, coffee, and cacao agricultural value chains were selected for detailed analysis. This selection was informed by the large contribution these crops make to total agricultural production and exports from the island group and the country more broadly, as well as by their vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. These three crops were identified as key to food security and livelihoods by the Philippines' Climate-Resilient Agriculture Profile [24]. To examine these VCCs in detail, two provinces were selected where these crops feature centrally in the local economy and where climate change is likely to affect production: Bukidnon (Region 10) for corn and coffee and Davao del Norte (Region 11) for cacao. Bukidnon is a highland province in Northern Mindanao characterized by rugged topography with rolling hills and flatlands. Davao del Norte, meanwhile, is located in the southeastern part of the island of Mindanao, with terrain that is generally low-lying.Agricultural land in Mindanao comprises 41% of the total agricultural area in the Philippines. This vast area of agricultural land is utilized for diverse purposes. Most of the country's high-value crops are produced on the island group [5], with Mindanao responsible for approximately 80% of banana and coffee production and over 60% of coconut production [6]. More than 48% of Mindanao's agricultural area is dedicated to such perennial crops. Major commodity crops produced in Mindanao include rubber, coffee, cacao, coconuts, oil palm, pineapples, and bananas-each at different scales. Commodities like rubber, coffee, cacao, and coconuts, for example, are commonly produced on small farms, oil palm on mid-sized farms, and pineapples on large farms [6].The island group is also a major producer of corn, contributing 50% of the national production of this staple crop [6]. Other important crops for the Mindanao are rice, sugarcane, oil palm, and root crops such as cassava. The livestock sector is dominated by hog production, with an inventory of over 3.3 million hogs on Mindanao, followed by goats, with over 1.1 million head, the majority of which are raised in backyard farms [21]. The World Bank notes that smallholder farmers dominate the island's agricultural sector; about 60% of farms in Mindanao cover less than two hectares [6]. Mid-sized farms. Two to five hectares in size, account for 33% of landholdings. Thirty percent of the households in Mindanao own agricultural lands with 1.8% having acquired agricultural lands through the 1987 Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program [22]. Mindanao (excluding the ARMM) has received over 18% of the public agricultural land patents that have been issued, with almost 46% going to women [23].Of the population aged 15 to 24, fewer than 2% are considered illiterate [19]. According to the Mindanao Jobs Report, over 5.2 million people-or 57% of the population in 2012-were engaged in agricultural value chain activities. Around 47% were engaged in production, 4% each in agricultural manufacturing and agricultural logistics, while only 2% were involved in agricultural trade [6]. Based on the preliminary results of the 2015 Annual Survey of Philippine Business and Industry, Mindanao hosts 434 businesses employing more than 20 people that participate in agriculture, forestry, and fishing activities [20].The province of Bukidnon is one of the top producers of corn and coffee in Mindanao. It has a land area of 1,049,859 has and a population of 1,415,226, representing almost 6% of Mindanao's total population [14]. More than half (58%) of Bukidnon's population lives in rural areas and over 52% are living in absolute poverty (around 700,000 people) [25]. The agricultural sector employs over 7,000 people and is the main contributor to the local economy [26]. Corn is the leading commodity grown by farmers, followed by rice and cassava. Other major agricultural crops include coconuts, pineapples, Cavendish bananas, and coffee [27]. Coffee, in particular, plays an important role in the overall economy of Bukidnon because of its contribution to poverty alleviation and income generation for communities faming on marginal lands. Coffee production is also important for the Indigenous Peoples (IP) community in Bukidnon. Some IP communities such as the Inhandig indigenous group are involved in Arabica production. Aside from these crops, livestock and poultry also thrive in the province, with backyard farms outnumbering commercial farms.Bukidnon is a major producer of corn, with 66,000 ha devoted to the production of yellow corn and a further 13,000 to white corn [28]. The majority of the yellow corn produced in Bukidnon is used in the production of livestock and poultry feeds and, to a lesser extent, starches for manufacturing. White corn, meanwhile, is favored for human consumption, as the secondary staple of the Philippines. Corn production in Bukidnon is focused in the rain-fed upland plains and rolling hills of Malaybalay, Cabanglasan, Kitaotao, Kadingilan, and Lantapan [28,29]. Bukidnon is home to a large livestock and poultry sector. Therefore, much of the corn produced in Bukidnon meets demand within the province, operating with a surplus of only 25% [30].In Bukidnon, yellow corn is grown in three main production systems, namely monocropping, intercropping, and rotational cropping. Monocropping, in which one crop is cultivated in an area across all cropping seasons, is considered traditional. In an intercropping system, yellow corn is planted simultaneously with either coconuts, cassava, or peanuts. For example, farmers might plant yellow corn under coconut trees to maximize land use or intercrop cassava or peanuts with corn during long dry seasons. Farmers also apply Bukidnon has the second largest coffee growing area in Mindanao and has been ranked as the fourth largest coffee-producing province in the Philippines [32]. Although Robusta is the most commonly grown variety, Arabica and Excelsa are also produced in the province. Areas in Bukidnon with over a thousand hectares of planted coffee include Maramag, Malaybalay, and Manolo Fortich. In 2014, the total harvested area for Robusta coffee was 9,000 ha. Coffee is most commonly intercropped with other crops or is grown in agroforestry systems, with relatively few farmers in the lowlands planting coffee rotational cropping, in which two different crops are cultivated in the same area in alternate seasons. Rotational cropping systems are prevalent in areas with insufficient rainfall, such as Rebona, Manolo Fortich, and Baungon.Within the corn value chain in Bukidnon, input suppliers include seed companies and agri-vet stores supplying fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and other chemicals to farmers. In some places, Local Government Units (LGUs) also provide free and subsidized seeds and fertilizers to producers. In addition, traders and input suppliers play a role as informal money lenders, operating on the condition that inputs are bought-or produce is soldexclusively through them, leaving farmers with limited bargaining power and fewer opportunities to explore alternative markets. In such arrangements, farmers are often \"price-takers\". The actors involved in the production of corn include farmers, producer organizations (POs), and cooperatives [31]. Various other service providers such as farm laborers and workers, farm equipment operators, and caretakers have a role to play. Meanwhile, government agencies such as the DA and the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) provide technical support and training to yellow corn farmers. Some of these actors, particularly POs and cooperatives, also perform tasks related to postharvest processing and marketing, engaging in the shelling, drying, milling, and storage of corn. Some farmers sell directly through POs or cooperatives, while others opt to trade with individual traders, grain centers, and processors [31]. These actors are also engaged in primary processing activities of corn. Processors such as feed millers and food manufacturers are involved in both the primary and secondary processing of yellow corn. Corn classified as class A is sold to food manufacturers, while class B is often bought by feed millers. The end products are sold by wholesalers and retailers alike. Relative to Bukidnon, the Davao del Norte province is characterized by generally low-lying terrain. The province's population of 1,016,332 represents 4.2% of the total population of the Mindanao island group [14]. Approximately 36% of the province's population lives in rural areas and almost 30% are living in Davao del Norte CACAO as a monocrop. Commonly intercropped varieties include spring onions, broccoli, carrots, sweet potatoes, peanuts, flowers, abaca, and falcata. Some coffee farmers apply synthetic fertilizers, while others practice organic farming using chicken manure and other naturally grown fertilizers. In general, coffee farmers in Bukidnon utilize limited inputs.Coffee seedlings are supplied by private nurseries, NGOs, and cooperatives, and they may be subsidized by LGUs. For farmers engaging in organic production, chicken farms provide important organic fertilizer, as long as they are located close enough to farms for the manure to be collected and transported costeffectively. Coffee farmers, farmer organizations, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and cooperatives are among the actors involved in on-farm production. Indigenous people are also involved in on-farm production; some are members of cooperatives that produce coffee. Farmers have the option to sell coffee as fresh berries, green coffee beans (GCB), or roasted or ground coffee products to traders, cooperatives, farmers' organizations, and enterprises. Cooperatives, farmer organizations, and SMEs engaged in trading GCB accept fresh berries. There are two major and two minor processors located in Region 10. Nestle Philippines and Monk's Blend can process anywhere from 125-150 kg/ day each, while smaller processors such as Balay Mindanao and LGU Maramag deal with lower quantities of 3-5 kg/day [33]. The big processors or traders may choose to purchase GCB directly from farmers who opt not to perform primary processing. However, the high standards required by big processors and companies prohibit some farmers from directly supplying to these institutions. As a result, many farmers sell to traders who only require acceptable quality, receiving lower prices. Actors involved in final processing include cooperatives, farmers' organizations, SMEs that ground and roast coffee, and coffee manufacturers such as Nestle. Specialty shops, exporters, grocery stores, and retail stores are involved in marketing coffee products. In addition, some traders also sell coffee beans directly to hotels.absolute poverty (about 300,000 people). More than 63% of provincial income is sourced from agriculture [34]. Davao del Norte is becoming a lead player in the cacao industry, producing 81% of the country's total production [35]. Other major crops in the province include paddy rice, corn, bananas for export and local consumption, coconuts, fruits, and other highvalued commercial and industrial crops. Root crops, vegetables, and other temporary and perennial crops are also grown sporadically throughout the province.Cacao production in Davao del Norte is concentrated in the municipalities of San Isidro, Kapalong, and Asuncion [36]. Production is entirely market-oriented, generating an average annual production value of PHP 40 million (USD 700,000) and providing livelihoods to more than 4,000 cacao farmers [36]. Most of these are resource-poor smallholder farmers. Although Davao del Norte is still a small player in the international cacao trade, it has a competitive advantage due to the availability of land resources in the province as well as its favorable agronomic conditions. In upland areas, cacao is intercropped with coconuts, bananas, and other fruit trees such as durian, lanzones, rubber, and other shade trees. In the lowlands, cacao is often grown together with coconut, banana, and vegetables. Cacao is increasingly becoming a priority commodity in the Davao del Norte, although most areas still plant cacao as a secondary crop. Nurseries, NGOs, national and local government agencies, and agri-vet stores supply inputs to some farmers. Most commercial cacao farmers purchase planting materials from nurseries while smallholder farmers commonly produce their own seedlings. On-farm, smallholders tend to be solely dependent on cacao, while commercial farmers plant cacao between shade trees like bananas and coconuts.Ultimately, there are different channels for farmers to sell their produce. Yet individuals and producer organizations differ in their access to certain markets. Since multinational companies and buyers, for example, have high specifications for beans, farmers-mostly individuals and smallholderstend to sell their cacao to traders and consolidators who have less discerning quality requirements. Buying stations are also available for these farmers to sell their cacao. In contrast to individual farmers who tend to hold weak bargaining positions in the market, farmers who join cooperatives or farmer organizations are able to access better markets by collating production. Cooperative or farmer organizations can then sell directly to processors at more favorable rates. Exporters involved in the value chain buy beans from collectors and traders, which they then sell primarily to regional buyers for processing. In terms of processing and postharvest activities, both the public and private sectors have established postharvest facilities in the Davao region. Some facilities are exclusive to members or suppliers of the facilities, while others serve as common service facilities open to all. There are four domestic processors in Davao del Norte and a number of informal enterprises engaged in the production of tablea (fermented cacao beans roasted, ground and molded into blocks with no additives) [37].Agriculture in the Mindanao island group is plagued by a variety of challenges that have prevented the sector from achieving its full potential in terms of economic growth and poverty alleviation. These factors include an inequality-producing, exportoriented production model, pervasive poverty that traps smallholders in subsistence production, limited access to roads and markets, a reliance on rain-fed agriculture, and overlapping or insecure property rights.Heavy reliance on high-value commodity or plantation crops has not only left the region vulnerable to volatile international markets, but this growth model has also led to considerable inequalities produced by preferential access by some groups to multinational organizations that buy and process their crops for international markets. The inequalities produced by this export-oriented model have led to limited investment in local processing and value-addition facilities and minimal local re-investment of profits. These growing inequalities have been linked to the rise of conflict in the Mindanao region [6].Pervasive poverty more generally has trapped many smallholder farmers at subsistence levels of agricultural production in Mindanao. Of the roughly four million farmers in the region, only 700,000 are producing a marketable surplus. Farmers are limited in their growth by poor organization and a lack of access to markets. Given the disproportionate reliance on commodity and export-oriented crops, many farmers in Mindanao lack access to regional Gender roles and relations in the Philippines are strongly influenced by cultural, social, and economic factors, and substantial gaps remain between men and women with respect to access to resources, economic opportunities, and influence in decision making [38,39,40]. In both urban and rural areas, women are solely responsible for home-related tasks like caring for children, meeting household basic needs, and preparing food, whereas men engage primarily in production-related activities like agricultural labor or non-farm income generating activities [41]. Women customarily manage and allocate the household income and finances givenand national markets, which are expanding due to population growth [6].Limited access to markets by many farmers in Mindanao is, in part, the product of a lack of access to market feeder roads and other critical rural infrastructure. Many roads in the region are in poor condition, and almost a quarter of all small villages in Mindanao lack connectivity to a national road. Similarly, many ports in the region for both domestic and international destinations are unavailable to smallholders or lack sufficient bay depth for modern transport ships. Farmers also suffer from limited access to critical inputs like improved seeds and fertilizers, causing the region to experience low agricultural productivity relative to neighboring island groups and international competitors with similar agroecological conditions. Road connectivity also limits the reach and impact of agricultural extension workers. At present, only 10% of corn farmers receive extension support in Mindanao [6].Mindanao's high reliance on rain-fed agriculture places the sector at considerable risk especially from a rise in extreme weather events and the forecast long-term impacts of climate change. Less than half (43%) of Mindanao's irrigable land is currently under irrigation, a proportion well below the other island groups [6]. Land reform in the Philippines through the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program has been ongoing for several decades, yet the country remains plagued by overlapping or unclear property rights and land fragmentation that limits the size of agricultural operations. Mindanao is home to over a million landless farm laborers, a trend that drives rural unemployment due in part to limited year-onyear growth in the agricultural sector. to them by their husbands [42]. Yet women's labor contributions are often overlooked or undervalued in both male-and female-headed households. [42]. Elderly women, women with children, pregnant women, and women with disabilities are the most vulnerable to production and value chain shocks [42,43].In the yellow corn value chain, women are active at all stages, securing inputs for production, applying fertilizer, planting, furrowing, weeding, husking, drying, bagging, and, ultimately, marketing the corn. During periods of drought-across all commodity crops-women are also expected to secure a consistent supply of water. Women in the coffee industry are additionally involved across all stages of the supply chain including nursery operation, crop maintenance, and processing. Women are especially critical to harvesting, sorting, roasting, and marketing activities. While handpicking the beans, women are hired and paid on a per-kilo basis, often chosen over men for this work because of their perceived honesty and attention to detail. Children and youths perform tasks across the chain as well, including ploughing, planting, spraying, general crop maintenance, and harvesting. In the cacao industry, although women take part in activities across the supply chain, they contribute primarily during the harvest period, picking ripe cacao, bagging, washing pods, sorting, and processing cacao products. Children and youths primarily perform tasks such as bagging and pest control, for instance, plastic wrapping to control pod borers. Children as young as two years of age help in family-managed cacao farms.It is estimated that up to 2.1 million Filipino children remain trapped in child labor, with agriculture responsible for a large proportion (62%). Boys and children living in rural areas are disproportionately impacted; they are twice as likely to be involved than their female and urban counterparts. The most prominent form of labor is unpaid family work. Children's engagement in labor activities often hinders their education, causing them to be absent or too tired to actively participate in their schooling [44].Climate change and variability: historic and future trendsThe Philippines, by the nature of its geographical location and archipelagic formation comprised of over 7,000 islands, is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. This vulnerability is the result of its severe exposure to multiple hazards, its sensitivity to these hazards in human and economic terms, and its limited adaptive capacity [2]. Globally, the Philippines is ranked 5th in terms of climate-related losses for the period of 1997-2016, with 289 events killing 85,955 people and costing 0.6% of the gross domestic product [1] droughts damage crops and property. From 2000 to 2010, the total economic damage from typhoons, floods, and droughts was estimated to cost the Philippines USD 2.23 billion, including crop losses for rice (USD 1.2 billion), maize (USD 461.50 million), and high-value crops (USD 244.82 million) [45]. By 2050, this figure is projected to rise to USD 2.7 billion a year [3].Projected changes in Precipitation and Temperature BY 2050 [32]    The Study areas Bukidnon is forecast to experience an increase in the number of hot days (>35 °C) in 2050 relative to the 1972-2000 baseline. Over the same period the number of dry days will fall by almost a third, with the number of days experiencing excessive rains (>150mm) almost doubling from four to nine. The forecast changes in Davao del Norte mirror those of Bukidnon [46]. The sharp increase in the number of hot days, coupled with reduced rainfall, will negatively impact crop yields and further increase the risk of pest and disease outbreaks [47].Climate-induced variability in rainfall is likely to have a major impact on agriculture in the Philippines [46,47]. The increased frequency and intensity of extreme rainfall events damages crops directly by knocking over plants or dislodging grains, pods, or beans. This results in soil erosion and flooding that further reduce yields and increase post-production losses. In Mindanao these issues were exacerbated by widespread mining and deforestation, further increasing the risk of flash floods following periods of excessive rain. These activities were believed to be a factor in the flooding after Tropical Storm Sendong in 2011, which cost the lives of about 1,000 people [48]. A recent study using rainfall data from 2001 to 2010 suggested that a positive deviation of 8mm per month could result in a 35% increase in the frequency of rain-related disasters, leading to one more every three years [49]. This translates into an additional disaster every two years when a 12mm deviation is recorded. Mindanao has historically avoided the impacts of typhoons due to its geographic location south of the typhoon belt. However, a recent analysis of tropical cyclone trends in the Philippines observed a southward shift in the landfall of typhoons, reducing their incidence in Northern and Central Luzon and increasing their incidence in Visayas and Mindanao [50]. While the impacts and associated losses from these typhoons due to high winds and storm surges are less severe in Mindanao than the other island groups, the heavy rains associated with these events nonetheless have a considerable and worsening impact on agriculture in Mindanao.Mindanao and Bukidnon provinces, in particular, have been identified as especially drought-prone areas [47]. This can be seen in figure 3, with large areas in Southern Bukidnon and Central Davao del Norte identified as at high risk of droughts. In 2016, Mindanao experienced a severe drought that directly impacted Bukidnon and Davao del Norte, with many provinces declaring a state of calamity. It is estimated that 181,687 farmers and 224,834 ha of agricultural land in the Philippines were affected, with an estimated USD 81 million of losses in agricultural production [51]. The severity of the droughts was strongly tied to the 2015-2016 El Niño event, one of the most powerful in modern times. The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a naturally-occurring climate phenomenon that has an impact throughout much of the tropics. It has two phases: El Niño, the warm phase, and La Niña, the cold phase. The ENSO has a modulating effect on rainfall patterns in the Philippines. A strong El Niño is associated with droughts and water stress, and a strong La Niña results in excessive rainfall [52]. Climate Type I experiences the largest positive rainfall anomaly in La Niña years, while climate Type III experiences the largest negative rainfall anomaly in El Niño years. The 1982-83 ENSO event impacted both Bukidnon and Davao del Norte [53]. One study of upland farmers in Lantapan, Bukidnon from this period showed farmers reporting crops drying up and delayed planting in El Niño years, and washouts due to heavy rains during a strong La Niña [54]. Similarly, an Oxfam assessment in Mindanao in April 2016 found that the impacts of drought resulting from the 2015 El Niño had devastated yields and forced families to reduce the quality and quantity of their meals [55].Agriculture is also heavily dependent on the timing of rains, with certain stages in the crop cycle being more impacted by heavy or reduced rainfall than others. The 1997-1998 El Niño resulted in production losses of 100% during the dry season and greater than 33% during the wet season. This was repeated with the 2004 El Niño -but to a lesser extentcausing 18% losses during the dry season and 32% in the wet season [47]. Farmers in Bukidnon cited 'early onset of rains' , 'late onset of rains' and 'prolonged rains' as negative consequences of the ENSO. Between 2005 and 2007, the ENSO became increasingly unpredictable, with Luzon experiencing dry conditions during usually wet La Niña events and Mindanao reporting excessive rains during usually dry El Niño events [56]. These conditions resulted in landslides and flooding in Mindanao and water and power shortages in Luzon. Droughts induced by El Niño have already been linked with falling cocoa yields in Brazil and will likely have similar impacts on production in the Philippines [57].Drought hazard map of mindanao [58]   Figure 3: This drought map was acquired from the AMIA 1 dataset. It was produced using the integration of groundwater potential from the National Water Resources Board (NWRB) with topography and climate data from the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA).The climate change impacts and hazards outlined in the previous section-increased frequency and intensity of typhoons, higher temperatures, and an increased likelihood of prolonged droughtsacutely impact agricultural systems in Mindanao. By combining climate projections about temperatures and rainfall with specific parameters regarding a plant's basic physiology, modelling for suitability can provide useful projections as to where favorable growing conditions may exist for certain crops into the future. Suitability mapping for 2050 is provided here for cocoa, coffee, and corn in Mindanao relative to 1997-2000 baselines and ranges from 0 to 100%, with intervals classified as very high (81-100), high (61-80), moderate (41)(42)(43)(44)(45)(46)(47)(48)(49)(50)(51)(52)(53)(54)(55)(56)(57)(58)(59)(60), marginal (21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40), and very marginal (<20). These measures of future suitability will support agricultural planning and investment in the selected regions, enabling long-term planning and transformation in response to climate change.Mindanao is highly suitable for cocoa production currently and under the projected impacts of climate change to the year 2050 (see figure 4). The suitability mapping approach used here does not account for the impact of extreme events on cocoa production in Davao del Norte.Climate suitability of cocoa in mindanao, current and IN 2050 [46, 59]    Based on current suitability, Robusta coffee can be widely planted in Mindanao but with some limitations in high-elevation areas. This is consistent with the coffee production report in the Philippines where four out of the five highest producing coffee regions are in Mindanao: in order of greatest production to least, SOCCSKSARGEN at 31%, Davao at 21%, the ARMM at 12%, and Northern Mindanao at 6%. Based on suitability projections for coffee to the year 2050, a large share of suitable areas are at risk in Mindanao-specifically, low lying areas of SOCCSKSARGEN, Caraga, Davao, and the Zamboanga Region. These areas are important for coffee production, with SOCCSKSARGEN and Davao representing >50% of the coffee production in the Philippines [33]. These projections are also consistent with recent research which found a pattern of altitudinal migration of coffee in the Philippines [60].Corn is typically grown in the rain-fed areas of Mindanao, with sufficient rainfall for two to three crops per year. Farmers adjust their cropping calendars for sufficient rainfall to ensure crop water requirements are met. Corn is commonly grown in temperatures ranging from 18°C to 27°C and in areas with annual rainfall between 350 and 450mm. At present (1997)(1998)(1999)(2000), corn has very high climate suitability in more than 60% of Mindanao. It is considered especially highly suitable in the regions of Zamboanga, the ARMM, SOCCSKSARGEN, and Northern Mindanao. By 2050, the crop's suitability is expected to decrease in the regions of Zamboanga, the ARMM, and SOCCSKSARGEN. In some areas in Davao and Caraga, however, corn suitability is projected to improve. This is also true of Bukidnon, especially in its central and northeastern areas.Climate suitability of coffee in mindanao, current and IN 2050 [46, 59]   Climate suitability of corn in mindanao, current and IN 2050 [46, 59]     The climate from farmers´ perspectivesCoffee and yellow corn farmers in Bukidnon and cacao farmers in Davao del Norte have diverse perceptions regarding the manifestations of climate change and its impacts on their agricultural productivity. In general, farmers believe that longer dry periods, rising temperatures, changing weather patterns, and flooding are likely manifestations of climate change. Many observed that Mindanaolying below the historical tropical cyclone belt-has been uncharacteristically experiencing typhoons in recent years. Heavy rains and flooding degrade soil quality, adversely affecting crop yields. Farmers have further noted that anthropogenic activities such as deforestation, slash and burn agriculture, soil depletion, and the conversion of grasslands to agricultural lands have intensified the impacts of climate change.Bukidnon farmers, in particular, noted that heavy rains cause erosion and deforestation in their province. Over 52,000 has of corn farms and over 53,000 corn farmers in Bukidnon were affected by heavy rains [61]. Further, farmers indicate that the occurrence of droughts and heavy rains alter cropping seasons and may lower the volume of production. Most of these farmers rely on rain-fed agriculture, which makes them more sensitive to these impacts. Farmers reported that droughts during the planting stage may result in total crop loss, while growers affected by fifteen consecutive dry days saw damage to mature corn.Cacao farmers from Davao del Norte asserted that both the long wet and dry seasons can reduce a harvest by up to half of its usual volume. Excessive rains can result in the rotting of cacao pods, while too much heat can wilt cacao pods even before they mature. One farmer explained that mature cacao trees will not die during long dry periods but will bear smaller pods. Seedlings, however, may die due to prolonged drought. Coffee farmers in Bukidnon, meanwhile, observed extreme heat and rainfall, longer dry periods, and sudden shifts in temperature, all of which have altered the production cycle and led to decreased yields. For some coffee farmers, however, warmer temperatures have resulted in larger beans and have assisted in the drying process.The impacts of climate change and natural hazards are felt across the cocoa, corn, and coffee value chains, from the provision of seeds and inputs to product marketing. The consequences of these impacts vary across different VCC stages, variously affecting different actors and each requiring tailored adaptation options. In this section we look at the consequences of the hazards for the VCC, considering underlying vulnerability factors and the proposed options to either adapt to or mitigate the associated risks.All three commodities are affected by droughts and heavy rains across their value chains.. Both droughts and heavy rains increase the mortality rate of coffee and cacao seedlings, impacting nursery owners and farmers looking to replenish old or dead stocks. For the suppliers of inputs for corn farmers, droughts could lead to periods of low demand, while heavy rains may increase demand, pushing up prices because farmers have to replant or reapply fertilizer and pesticides that were washed away. All three crops faced an increased incidence of pests and diseases following periods of heavy rains or drought [62]. Severe droughts can increase the mortality rate of coffee plants, resulting in costly replanting and diminished incomes while plants mature. With high temperatures and dry conditions, the mortality rate of newly planted cacao seedlings can reach as high as 50-70%. Farmers in sloping areas are particularly vulnerable to heavy rains because the resultant soil erosion and landslides destroy crops and cut farms off from markets and processing facilities. When rains arrive late in the cropping season, corn can be knocked over or kernels can rot, while droughts either delay planting or cause a whole croppingDiversified farming systems were identified as the priority adaptation strategy for yellow corn farmers and stakeholders in Bukidnon. This system involves production of various crops or animals-or bothsimultaneously on a single farm in a way that maintains ecosystem services. Farmers intercrop corn with drought-tolerant crops such as cassava, taro, and bananas to mitigate the risks posed by droughts and to diversify their income sources. Some farmers also grow cash crops or organic vegetables, practice agroforestry, integrate poultry and livestock, and participate in on-farm value-addition activities.Diversified farming can therefore provide improved soil fertility, pest and disease control, water use efficiency, and pollination [63]. One study ascertained that increasing the diversity of cropping systems can lower synthetic input usage while maintaining the same crop yield, weed suppression, and economic performance of diverse systems [64].LGUs in Bukidnon, along with the ATI, have been running workshops to promote corn-based diversified farming systems. Still, only 30% of corn farmers in Bukidnon have adopted the practice, with traditional and plantation farmers least likely to do so. One of the practices used in Bukidnon is Sloping Agricultural Land Technology (SALT), which was developed by the Mindanao Baptist Rural Life Centre (MBRLC) in the 1970s. It involves the contour planting of leguminous shrubs or trees in double rows between which both perennial and seasonal crops are planted [65]. Corn can be grown in this system in rotation with other crops. SALT, and other contour farming techniques,delays and redirects water runoff, improves water infiltration, and reduces soil erosion. The reduction in water evaporation makes this practice suitable during both drought and heavy rain conditions. It also conserves soil fertility when leguminous plants are grown together [66]. Contour farming in some form has been adopted by 60% to 100% of farmers who live in hilly areas. There is, however, scope to better integrate diversified farming and identify the combinations best suited to protect farmers from the impacts of droughts and excessive rains.Rainwater harvesting from rain shelters and rainwater impounding is also a viable adaptation option for farmers in both sloping and lowland areas. A study looking at the impacts of climate change on upland farmers in Lantapan, Bukidnon found that farmers were often impacted by the early onset of rains in La Niña years, while in El Niño years the late onset resulted in crop damages due to droughts [54]. In response to these impacts, farmers dug drainage channels to protect against heavy rains and deep wells for the dryer years, and also engaged in other practices such as intercropping and agroforestry.season to be lost. The irregular supply of produce caused by both droughts and heavy rains can disrupt procurement schedules, leading to underutilization of machinery and facilities for processing and to potential layoffs. Processors and traders will receive reduced quality products or may suffer losses due to rot and fermentation (aflatoxin) during periods of excessive rain. This issue is felt more acutely by those who do not have access to proper storage facilities equipped with dryers and moisture meters. Those involved in product marketing can be left unable to fulfill orders on their books due to the low quality and quantity of produce, impacting future trading relations. Trading can also be delayed during heavy rains because transport to remote areas is delayed and becomes costlier.  For coffee farmers in mountainous and sloping areas, contour farming is proposed as an adaptation strategy for both droughts and heavy rains. Contour farming is the practice of growing crops in horizontal strips that follow the natural contours of the land. These strips act as a natural buffer, conserving soil and improving water retention on sloping lands. Contour farming is often used as part of an intercropping or agroforestry system, balancing the strengths of the different crops in terms of improved soil stability, reduced surface water runoff, reduced erosion and improved nutrient capture [67]. There are three main contour farming systems that have been used in Bukidnon since the 1980s [68]. SALT is an example of such a system, where crops are grown in contours with rows of nitrogen-fixing shrubs and trees planted between them. For coffee farmers in Bukidnon, Arachis pintoi, ipil-ipil and Flemingia were common examples of nitrogen-fixing crops that were grown alongside coffee. Another system used is Natural Vegetable Strips, growing assorted vegetables and root crops alongside coffee [67]. This could be taken one step further to become a Vegetable Agroforestry System with the inclusion of banana, abacas, and falcata trees. Of the farmers consulted in this study, 30% to 60% reported planting banana between rows of coffee, while between 60% and 100% intercrop coffee with abaca and falcata trees, vegetables, and root crops. For many of the farmers in Bukidnon who have adopted one of the above contour farming systems, coffee production is no longer their main income-generating crop. Furthermore, the diversity of their crops provides greater resilience to climate shocks.Another adaptation strategy being employed by coffee farmers in Bukidnon is the use of deep hole planting. The practice of planting seedlings in deeper holes has been found to improve their survival rate if their planting is followed by a period of drought. Seedlings planted in this manner have improved access to water through a deeper root network. The practice is not found in the literature. It has, however, been promoted by the organization Coffee for Peace in Bukidnon, which saw improved drought resilience in crops planted using this practice. Another practice that was identified as a measure to combat the impacts of drought was watershed management. Agricultural expansion in Bukidnon has resulted in high levels of deforestation. Deforestation within the catchment exacerbates the impacts of droughts and heavy rains. A study in the Taguibo watershed coffee in the Caraga region of Northern Mindanao found that historic logging and deforestation had resulted in much higher levels of surface water runoff, leading to flash floods during periods of heavy rain and drought due to the reduced water holding capacity of the watershed [69]. Recent government programs have recognized the importance of the watershed in building the resilience of farmers in Mindanao, such as the National Greening Program that aimed to increase forested area in the Philippines.Questions have been raised as to the effectiveness of deforestation programs in the Philippines; some participants have observed that areas that had been involved in tree planting programs were often cleared through slash and burn when the subsidies stopped.To adapt to the impacts of climate hazards such as droughts, cacao farmers in Davao del Norte identified the establishment of sprinkler systems as a priority on-farm adaptation option. These systems, which include micro-sprinklers and drip irrigation, improve both water and nutrient efficiency through the targeted application of water to a plant's roots. There are, however, very few farmers that have adopted this practice, with many unable to meet the high up-front costs, especially farmers without access to credit. Establishment of a water impounding (harvesting and storage) facility is another adaptation strategy currently being planned by the Provincial Agricultural Office (PAGRO) of Davao del Norte. At present, farms are predominantly rain-fed, and this facility will allow 60% to 100% of farmers in the area to access water during times of drought. In addition to these and other water saving interventions, mulching, organic farming, expansion of postharvest facilities, increased capacity to manage diseases, reforestation and watershed development, and crop insurance were also identified as adaptation options.Farmers in drought-prone areas practice mulching using coconut husks that absorb water and retain moisture during periods of drought. The benefit of using coconut mulch is that it is a waste product from coconut production and therefore readily available in the Philippines. Organic farming, or the use organic fertilizers like vermiculture, is practiced by less than 30% of farmers. This adaptation option increases soil moisture retention and allows farmers to obtain higher prices for their produce. One of the obstacles to the adoption of mulching and organic agriculture is that they are labor-and time-intensive, a challenge  Climate change is also captured in the country's overarching framework for the DA, the Agri-Pinoy strategy (2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016). This strategy was built on four central themes: food security and self-sufficiency, sustainable agriculture and fisheries, natural resource management, and local development. It calls for coordinating regionally-based spatial planning, providing infrastructure critical to priority value chains, and building a more resilient production base to accommodate the variations in the global markets and the effects of climate change [37]. The framework itself has various sub-programs, most notably rice and corn programs.The Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) is a six-year national project under the DA that aims to establish a modern, value-chain oriented, and climate-resilient agriculture and fisheries sectors. The PRDP is a scaled-up version of the Mindanao Rural Development Program and is aligned with the Agri-Pinoy strategy. Through this project, value chains-including high-value crops such as coffee and cacao-are prioritized for investment and development. The \"I-PLAN\" component of the PRDP assists LGUs in the development of Provincial Commodity Investment Plans (PCIP) that serve as blueprints for investment in priority commodities. In Davao del Norte, for example, the PCIP aims to improve the market competitiveness of the cocoa bean industry. The \"I-BUILD\" component of PRDP then puts in place strategic and climate-resilient infrastructure along these value chains, including farm-to-market roads, communal irrigation systems, potable water supplies, and postharvest and other rural infrastructure.Government LGUs also play a central role in mainstreaming climate change adaptation in the Philippines, as evidenced by their development and implementation of LCCAPs.LGUs consist of various sub-national administrative units including the region, province, city, municipality, and barangay. According to the Local Government Code of the Philippines, the barangay acts as the primary implementing unit of government policies, plans, programs, projects, and activities. Municipalities also coordinate and deliver primary services within their territorial jurisdictions.The province serves as a dynamic mechanism for developmental processes and effective governance of other LGUs within its territorial jurisdiction. The PAGRO is mandated to promote sustainable agriculture and enhance the growth of fisheries through increased productivity and profitability, coordinating DA projects and programs. The office employs coordinators for every crop grown in the province, reaching specific farmers with specially tailored services.The DA, through the ATI, is the agency charged with the delivery of extension services for the agriculture and fisheries sectors, providing training to agricultural extension workers. Apart from the ATI, DA offices inLGUs also conduct ad-hoc trainings for farmers. The Municipal Agriculture Office, for example, conducts trainings on nursery establishment, crop production, and postharvest practices. NGOs and private entities or companies like CIDAMI often have more resources to provide extension services to farmers and often do so through seminars.Research and development Agriculture in Mindanao faces a considerable threat from the impacts of climate change. Droughts and heavy rains are the most significant hazards experienced by farmers, affecting actors across the yellow corn, coffee, and cacao value chains, three major sources of income and livelihoods for farmers in the Mindanao region. Cacao and coffee nurseries face mortality of seedlings and fertilizer non-absorption during droughts and heavy rains. Pests and diseases also proliferate during drought and rains. These key hazards also have an impact on processing, affecting the quality and prices of the three commodities along their value chains. Higher transportation and postharvest costs are often experienced by farmers during heavy rains due to poor road conditions and the need for additional drying and storage equipment.To address these and other impacts, various adaptation options are available to stakeholders across these priority value chains. For yellow corn farmers, the key on-farm adaptation practices are farming systems, crop rotation, and contour farming. Other adaptation options include water impounding, rain gathering, and seeking alternative livelihoods. Coffee farmers may adopt contouring and terracing as on-farm adaptation strategies, especially in high-elevation areas. These strategies help hold water, prevent or reduce erosion, and preserve soil fertility. Intercropping and diversified farming, deep hole planting, reforestation, and watershed management are additional adaptation options for coffee farmers. Cacao farmers may adopt sprinkler systems to combat the impacts of drought, along with mulching, water impounding, crop insurance, and reforestation.Certain factors, however, hinder farmers and stakeholders from adopting these adaptation strategies, including informational, behavioral, financial, and institutional barriers. Low awareness of climate-smart techniques and a lack of climate information services remain a key challenge in the region. There is also considerable resistance to the adoption of new farming and management practices by more traditional, aging farmers who are sometimes unconvinced about the benefits of climate-smart interventions. A lack of financial capital is also a major challenge given that adaptation for some elements of these commodity value chains-like postharvest storage and processing facilities-will involve large-scale infrastructure investments that are out of reach for actors unable to access sufficient financing. Finally, while government agencies like the DA, the Climate Change Commission, the Provincial Agricultural Office, and Local Government Units all support these value chain actors in different ways, their interventions can be uncoordinated and, at times, biased towards certain communities.With proper planning and implementation of adaptation options. Value chain actors in Mindanao can greatly improve their resilience to the impacts of climate change, especially droughts and heavy rains. Beyond expanding financial support to farmers and other actors in these critical supply chains, improved information dissemination can better inform and sensitize farmers and stakeholders about likely climate impacts, potential adaptation options, and government support options. Coordination among key actors in the value chain, government agencies, NGOs, and the private sector will be necessary for adaption success.","tokenCount":"8927"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/3859989054.json b/data/part_1/3859989054.json
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"58fa80e09e95cd85c9cbdfae93a02b83","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d18a8def-5c5d-418b-b347-ba763d4cee04/retrieve","id":"-962534428"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"69a2df52-51fd-4a42-808a-93e0678ac4c6","pagecount":"20","content":"Transforming Agrifood Systems in South Asia (TAFSSA) district agrifood systems assessment aims to provide a reliable, accessible, and integrated evidence base that links farm production, market access, dietary patterns, climate risk responses, and natural resource management with gender as a cross-cutting issue in rural areas of Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. It is designed to be a multi-year assessment. Using data collected in February-March 2023, this data note describes how different tasks are performed and shared within the household and how female respondents within these households perceive the notion of leisure, work pressure, and support with chores from other household members. This is one of a set of data notes that, together, provide a holistic picture of the agrifood system in the district.How do household members share tasks across the agrifood system in Rangpur, Bangladesh? TAFSSA's district agrifood systems assessment aimed to interview three respondents per household: a female adult (aged 20+ years), a male adult (aged 20+ years), and an adolescent (aged 10-19 years). Information on the household and respondent sampling strategy is provided at the end of this data note.In this data note, you will first find information on background characteristics of the households and their adult and adolescent members. This is followed by information on daily available time for leisure and rest of female respondents and the nature of work pressure they face. Additionally, you will learn about the female respondents' perception about availability of support with chores from other household members when they fall ill.The data note then delves into the various agricultural, food preparation, maintenance, and care-related tasks that households are involved in, to what extent these tasks are performed by a single household member, equally shared between two members, in conjunction with hired help, or by hired help exclusively. In addition, the data note also explores the household gender dynamics of such tasks and how they are performed by different age groups. You will get information on the pattern of adult female, adult male, and adolescent engagement with respect to selected tasks.Finally, you will find comparative insights into the gender dynamics of selected task engagement between households with and without any adult male members. This provides a sense of the impact of adult men's presence or absence on intrahousehold workload sharing, specifically with respect to women's and adolescents'workload. More detail about the measurement methods are found in the following pages.   Note: This figure shows the percentage of households that perform various agricultural tasks. Each bar also shows who performs the task, whether it is performed by one household member, shared equally between two household members, shared between a household member and hired help, or performed entirely by hired help.✓ Agricultural tasks are often shared by household members but, depending on the task, only one member does the task in around 20-50% of households. ✓ Some households hire help for tasks involving crops and fishponds, but not for tasks involving animals. Note: Each bar in this figure represents the rate of involvement of male household members (including both adult and adolescent males), female household members (including both adult and adolescent females) and hired help in an agricultural task for households that performed that task. The figure also presents the degree of equal sharing between male and female household members for each task.✓ Male household members are usually solely responsible for tasks in the field and market, while female household members are more involved in taking care of livestock. ✓ Male and female household members share tasks related to postharvest storage and processing.20% 40% 60% 80% 100%Preparing land (n=775)Sowing/seeding (n=772)Weeding ( n=770)Harvesting food (n=773)Postharvest processing (n=771)Postharvest storage (n=770)Taking the produce to market (n=670)Caring for large livestock (n=734)Grazing small livestock (n=535)Washing/cleaning livestock (n=806)Cleaning livestock shed/space (n=816)Handling livestock dung (n=787)Gathering food for livestock (n=820)Cooking food for livestock (n=813)Caring for poultry (n=774)Taking livestock products to market (n=500)Caring for small fishponds (n=137)Caring for large fishponds (n=100)Equally shared between male and female household members Female household members ✓ Agricultural tasks are primarily performed by the \"36 to 60 years\" age group, followed by the \"20-35 years\" age group. ✓ Overall, the \"10 to 19 years (adolescent)\" age group's participation in agricultural tasks is low, except for involvement in small animal and poultry care tasks. ✓ Young children (<10y) do not participate in agricultural tasks. Note: This figure shows the percentage of households that perform various food preparation related tasks. Each bar also shows who performs the task, whether it is performed by one household member or shared equally between two household members. A very low percentage of households reported hiring help to perform these tasks. Note: Each bar in this figure represents the rate of involvement of male household members (including both adult and adolescent males), female household members (including both adult and adolescent females) and hired help in a food preparation related task for households that perform that task. The figure also shows the degree of equal sharing between male and female household members for each task.✓ Female household members are usually solely responsible for food preparation related tasks. ✓ Male household members are generally in charge of tasks that involve going to the market, but some food preparation tasks are shared equally by male and female members in around 10% of households. ✓ Food preparation related tasks are primarily performed by the \"36-60 years\" age group, followed by the \"20-35 years\" age group. ✓ Overall, the \"10-19 years (adolescent)\" age group's participation in food preparation related tasks is high as compared to their involvement in agriculture tasks. Note: This figure shows the percentage of households that perform various maintenance and care tasks. Each bar also shows who performs the task, whether it is performed by one household member, shared equally between two household members, shared between a household member and hired help, or performed entirely by hired help.✓ Maintenance and care-related tasks are often performed by only one member, but some tasks are shared by household members in around 5-30% of households. ✓ Households do not hire external help very often for maintenance and care-related tasks other than major household repairs (11% of households use only hired help for this task). Note: Each bar in this figure represents the rate of involvement of male household members (including both adult and adolescent males), female household members (including both adult and adolescent females) and hired help in a maintenance or care-related task for households that performed that task. The figure also presents the degree of equal sharing between male and female household members for each task.✓ Female household members are usually solely responsible for maintenance and care-related tasks apart from house repair tasks. ✓ House repair tasks are primarily performed by male members, with around 2-11% of households using only external help for these tasks. ✓ Tasks related to care of children and elderly people are also equally shared among male and female household members in around 4-15% of households. ✓ Household members in the \"20-35 years\" and \"36-60 years\" age groups are primarily responsible for maintenance and care-related tasks; with the exception of playing with children. ✓ Adolescents (the 10-19 years group) participate in childcare tasks in around 17-55% of households. ✓ Even the \"under-10\" age group becomes involved in playing with children in around 13% of households. Note: This figure shows the rate of involvement of adult women, adult men, and adolescents as either the primary or secondary person responsible for doing the task in the household.✓ Adult men are primarily responsible for on-farm tasks, house repair tasks, and tasks that involve going to the market. ✓ Adult women are usually in charge of livestock, food preparation, and care-related tasks. ✓ Postharvest tasks are often shared among adult male and female household members. ✓ While the level of adolescent participation is low across all tasks, their engagement levels vary across tasks: 5-7% on-farm activities, 23% fetching water, and 55% playing with children. This figure provides an overview of how the presence or absence of adult male household members impacts household gender dynamics related to engagement in selected tasks. Each bar figure shows the rate of involvement of male household members, female household members, and hired help in selected tasks for households with and without adult male members. The figure also presents the degree of equal sharing between male and female household members for each task.✓ Women are primarily responsible for all the tasks in the majority of households that have no adult men; in addition, the adolescent participation rate increases in these households. ✓ On-farm and home repair tasks are performed solely by hired help in about 10-30% of households with no adult men. The same is true for only 1-10% of households with adult men.Households without adult male members (N=122) Households with adult male members (N=876) Women do postharvest processing alone in 73% of households without adult men 1 vs. 26% of households with adult men ✓ In households without adult male members, adolescents are more involved in tasks, especially those related to agriculture. ✓ Adolescent boys in particular increase their involvement in agricultural tasks when there are no adult men in the household.Households with adult male members (N=876) We would like to thank all funders who supported this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund: https://www.cgiar.org/funders/ ","tokenCount":"1540"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/3878979873.json b/data/part_1/3878979873.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..be4428488d449e573468d72089febbcfc3f490bb
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ea3e54b307445f96149a8f863d29c35f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/642c89b3-5696-4ce9-b940-79af9cfef47a/retrieve","id":"-738745116"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"59af1b1d-aefa-44e3-8ef3-e04ae2baa7c2","pagecount":"6","content":"Sweet sorghum is one of the most efficient dryland crops for converting atmospheric CO2 into sugar. This makes it a promising feedstock for ethanol production. The sugar rich juice obtained from the stalks of sweet sorghum is used for ethanol production. It can be grown throughout the year with minimum water supply. In addition, it is a seed-propagated short-duration crop with hybrid technology in place that can be grown well in a variety of environments both under rainfed and irrigated situations. Compared to the sugarcane or maize, the two major feedstocks used for ethanol production globally, ethanol production from sweet sorghum is cheaper, quicker and poses little risk to the environment. The biggest advantage with sweet sorghum is that the food/feed value of grain need not be compromised for the sake of ethanol production, unlike when maize is used for this purpose.The cane for juice extraction, the grain for human food and the bagasse and the leaves for livestock feed are three economic products that come from sweet sorghum and therefore the farmers get more income from sweet sorghum cultivation than from grain sorghum (Reddy et al 2005). Each potential distillery would have a capacity of producing 40,000 liters of ethanol per day from about 25 ha of sorghum, i.e. pertaining to a total area of about 3,200 ha for a crop cycle of 120 days. This provides a tremendous market opportunity for smallholder sorghum farmers. The Livestock producers will benefit through increased supply of feed in the forms of bagasse and leaves. Thus, the sweet sorghum cultivation contributes to improving livelihoods of sorghum growers, the mixed crop-livestock farming community, and fuel consumers while sustaining the environment. An analysis of comparison of income from sweet sorghum compared to that from grain sorghum showed that the farmers can generate on average US$ 79 additional income per year per hectare (over two seasons) from sweet sorghum cultivation when compared to that from grain sorghum (Table 1). To produce the target of 35-40 KLPD of ethanol, the unit requires 800-875 tons of sweet sorghum stalks per day. This will require about 2400 ha area in rainy season and 4000 ha area in the postrainy season to supply stalks for over 105 days in each season thereby, engaging about 3200 small-scale farmers (approximately 2 ha holding size) (Table 2). Sweet sorghum is the cheapest and environmentally safe feed stock compared to the sugar cane or maize the major feed stocks globally at present(Table 3). According to the Rusni Distilleries (P) Ltd., the present sale price is about US$ 0.5 to US$ 0.57 which can fetch a profit of about US$ 5000 per day (@ US$ 0.15 liter-1). Considerable progress has been made in breeding for improved sweet sorghum lines with higher millable cane and juice yields in India. A few of these cultivars have been As a first step towards the development of a full fledged research proposal on \"Feed production from sweet sorghum residues after extraction of juice for ethanol\" the sweet sorghum bagasse was compared with normal stover in the commercial blocks for daily intake and weight gain in ruminants. Daily intake and weight gain studies on sweet sorghum: Comparison of commercial feed blocks (normal sorghum stover + concentrates, 50:50 by weight) with bagasse block (normal sorghum replaced by bagasse while the concentrates remained the same) and sorghum stover alone showed no significant differences in intake and body weight gain between bagasse block and commercial feed block (Table 4). The results have clearly indicated that sweet sorghum bagasse after extraction of the juice can be used as animal feed without any reduction in daily intake or weight gain. This will pave way for the machinery) into feed processing will be evaluated together with the feed quality assessments.effective whole plant utilization of sweet sorghum. It is a normal practice that the distilleries purchase sweet sorghum stalks from farmers for ethanol production and bagasse after extraction of the juice is used for cogeneration in the process. The project envisages establishment of decentralized crushing units in the villages/clusters so that the bagasse will be left with the farmers which he can directly use as animal feed or can sell to a feed manufacturer for additional revenue. 4.1 BVS Reddy, A Ashok Kumar, AR Palanisamy, SM KaruppanchettyRecommendations for appropriate processing and conversion of distillery residues into marketable feedstuff available October-07A consistent interest of all distilleries is the possibility of using the leaf and sheath strippings and the residues (bagasse) from the stems after extraction of juice for ethanol for livestock feed, since feed shortages are severe in all three countries. In preliminary work (ICRISAT 2004, Seetharama et al 2006), we investigated 25 fodder sorghum cultivars including sweet sorghum developed by ICRISAT and 37 cultivars (19 varieties and 18 hybrids) of sweet sorghum developed by the National Research Center for Sorghum (NRCS) and ICRISAT through conventional breeding methods, large genotypic variability for grain yields, stover yields, bagasse yields and potentially fodder yield (bagasse plus stripped stover leaves) and fodder nutritional quality were found. For example, bagasse plus leaf residues ranged from 4.5 to 8.1 t/ha (mean 6.6 t/ha) in the varieties and from 3.8 to 7.9 t/ha (mean 5.8 t/ha) in the hybrids. In the varieties in vitro digestibility ranged from 42 to 50.4 % ( mean 46.6%) and in hybrids from 39.3 to 49.1% (mean 44.6%). Sorghum stover, the residue after harvest of grain -is intensively traded in India.The yearly mean stover prices ranges from 3 Indian Rupees per kg of dry residue (Blümmel and Parthasarathy, 2006). The bagasse can also be traded in these lines that help mitigate the fodder shortages and increase the net returns from sweet sorghum cultivation. Recent studies on in vitro digestibility of sorghum varieties /hybrids developed at ICRISAT and NRCS (AICSIP), India indicated significant genetic difference among the genotypes.5 Organized an international workshop on 'Feed production from sweet sorghum bagasse' at ICRISAT, Patancheru from 17 -19 September, 2007. A total of 13 scientists from SVVU, Hyderabad, India (2), MMSU, Batac, the Philippines (1), NIAN and P, Banglore, India (1), Miracle feeds and fodder, Shamshabad, India (2), Rusni industries, Sanga Reddy, India (1), BAIF, Mahaboobnagar, India (1), ICRISAT-Patnacheru, India (4) and ILRI at ICRISAT (1) participated. In consultation with all the participants a concept note was developed and submitted for funding by the Asian Development Bank (Annexure 1).","tokenCount":"1057"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/3883247155.json b/data/part_1/3883247155.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..7c01dcf95d8fe94f5b6698bf178b43f0fc547efe
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6d235ebc6eba607bc0d1ebe899defc9a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f74699c4-d9bf-4c46-a9e5-69a079afebac/retrieve","id":"-195107789"},"keywords":["Agricultural transformation","Small-holder farmers","Sub-Saharan Africa","Southeast Asia"],"sieverID":"78c2ba0a-1854-4465-bb9e-e90a702021f7","pagecount":"39","content":"in 1975, provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition. IFPRI's strategic research aims to foster a climate-resilient and sustainable food supply; promote healthy diets and nutrition for all; build inclusive and efficient markets, trade systems, and food industries; transform agricultural and rural economies; and strengthen institutions and governance. Gender is integrated in all the Institute's work. Partnerships, communications, capacity strengthening, and data and knowledge management are essential components to translate IFPRI's research from action to impact. The Institute's regional and country programs play a critical role in responding to demand for food policy research and in delivering holistic support for country-led development. IFPRI collaborates with partners around the world.Agricultural transformation is inevitable during economic growth in developing economies. This process can be considered as adjustments of economic entities in the agricultural sector in response to various driving forces (Odening and Grethe, 2012;Nguyen et al., 2021), both within and outside the sector. Within the sector, increases in farming ability facilitate the transfer of farmland from less to more efficient land users, and consequently enhance farm income (Gollin et al., 2002;Üngör, 2013). Outside the sector, economic growth induced non-farm employment opportunities allow reallocation of labor from farm to non-farm sectors with higher labor returns (Hansen and Prescott, 2002) and consequently increase household income. These processes also facilitate mechanization in agriculture (Binswanger, 1986;Liu et al., 2020). Moreover, economic growth leads to changes in consumption patterns that demand more livestock products (Byerlee et al., 2009;Sharma et al., 2018), which pave the way for livestock development in the agricultural sector (Do et al., 2022). Agricultural transformation can be observed at both macro and micro levels. However, macroeconomic research has dominated the agricultural transformation literature (e.g., Lewis, 1954;Johnston and Mellor, 1961;Hayami and Ruttan, 1971;Gollin et al., 2002;Diao et al., 2017).These studies focus on the effects of modern agricultural input usage and/or technology adoption on traditional macroeconomic indicators such as a declining labor share or gross domestic product (GDP) share of the agriculture sector (e.g., Bustos et al., 2016;Barrett et al., 2017;McArthur and McCord, 2017;Diao et al., 2018). There is a notable absence of empirical micro-economic research that explains the transformation process underlying these macro-economic changes at the farm level in general, and at the small-holder farm level in the developing world in particular.According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, 2019), among 570 million farms worldwide, 475 million are small-holders. The majority of these small-holder farms are in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, and they provide about 70% of food to the population in these two regions. Raising the income of small-holder farms in these regions is seen as vital to providing a market for domestically produced manufactures and services (Baumol, 1967;Jayne et al., 2016).Even when labor is believed to be in surplus in the rural sector, agricultural productivity growth is considered essential to prevent rising food prices and nominal wage costs from undermining industrial development (Lele and Mellor, 1981). The successful transfer of labor from farm to nonfarm sectors requires investment in rural areas (Byerlee et al., 2009;Adamopoulos and Restuccia, 2014;Chowdhury, 2016). Therefore, an increase in agricultural income is expected to contribute to a higher level of investment in agriculture and to promote agricultural transformation.However, empirical evidence on agricultural transformation at the small-holder farm level is insufficient and incomplete, focusing mainly on farmland market operation (Chamberlin and Ricker-Gilbert, 2016). In addition, there are only a few comparative analyses between regions and countries in the developing world (Nguyen et al., 2017;Liu et al., 2020;Amare et al., 2021).Identifying micro-economic patterns that contribute to agricultural transformation will enable policymakers to enact strategies that accelerate that process; and undertaking comparative analyses between regions and countries offers a functioning instrument to enhance our understanding of agricultural transformation as this permits an examination of trends unfolding at various stages of the transformation process. This examination allows less developed economies to learn from the experience of more developed ones. One of the challenges in this regard is the lack of comprehensive and comparable data at the small-holder farm level in different regions and countries at different stages of the transformation process.In this context, two key questions about agricultural transformation that still require to be examined are: (i) What are the micro-scale changes in agriculture that signal a transformation? And (ii) how are agricultural transformation patterns different between or among regions of the developing world? This article addresses these pivotal questions by examining how endogenous changes in agricultural income affect labor use and farm production at the small-holder farm level in Southeast Asia (SEA) and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) as these two regions are in different stages of economic development. We identify early trends in cultivation and livelihood patterns that accompany the onset of agricultural transformation, comparing those that occur in the low-income countries of Uganda and Malawi in SSA with those in the middle-income economies of Vietnam and Thailand in SEA. We use micro-level household panel data from the Living Standards Measurement Study -Integrated Survey on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) from Uganda (years 2010, 2011, 2012) and Malawi (years 2010Malawi (years , 2013Malawi (years , 2016) ) and from the Thailand Vietnam Socio Economic Panel (TVSEP) from Thailand and Vietnam (years 2007, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2016) to estimate a fixed-effects instrumental variable (IV) regression with changes in precipitation and temperature as instruments for agricultural income. Changes in precipitation and temperature are represented by deviation of log precipitation from long-term average, deviation of log growing degree days from long-term average growing degree days, and deviation of log harmful degree days from longterm average harmful degree days. We then estimate the impact of agricultural income from the previous year on agricultural transformation represented by non-farm income share in household income, livestock income share in agricultural income, and agricultural machinery expenses.Our analysis results in several key findings. First, agricultural income is vulnerable to changes in precipitation and temperature. The effects of these variables are nonlinear and asymmetric, although SSA countries are more vulnerable to these weather changes. Second, an increase in agricultural income in previous years improves non-farm income in Thailand and Vietnam in SEA but reduces non-farm income in Uganda and Malawi in SSA. These indicate a complementarity effect between farm and non-farm development in SEA and a substitution effect between farm and non-farm development in SSA. Third, rural smallholders in these two regions are diversifying into livestock farming, which indicate a sign of agricultural transformation. Last, however, while an increase in agricultural income leads to a higher level of farm mechanization in SEA, this has not been observed in SSA. These findings reveal clear agricultural transformation driven by agricultural income in SEA, but less clear evidence in SSA.Our study contributes to the agricultural transformation literature in several important ways. It is one of the first efforts to identify and compare micro-scale agricultural changes and patterns in several countries in these two regions. Methodologically, we control for non-uniform panel data trends (from different years) econometrically by interacting the instrumented lagged agricultural income variable with agricultural transformation variables to account for differences in the gap between the years of panel data collected for each country. This enables us to identify comparable annualized effects and the consecutive-year effect of agricultural income growth on our agricultural transformation variables of interest. We also consider the possible nonlinear effects of changes in precipitation and temperature. To the best of our knowledge, our work is the first effort to include nonlinear effects of changes in precipitation and temperature in agricultural transformation literature, although it has been described in agricultural sciences (see, for example, Schlenker andRoberts, 2006, 2009;Kawasaki and Uchida, 2016;Lesk et al., 2016;Amare et al., 2018). This approach differs markedly from earlier regression-based approaches that typically use average weather outcomes which might give biased estimates of nonlinear and asymmetric effects of changes in precipitation and temperature.The reminder of this article is organized as follows. Section 2 briefly explains the theoretical background of micro-scale agricultural transformation and identifies the indicators that characterize the beginning of the transformation. Section 3 provides some background information and data sources. Section 4 defines variables and describes the data used for the analysis, including rainfall, temperature, and household survey data. Section 5 presents the empirical estimation strategy, which include a two-step strategy. Section 6 discusses the findings. Section 7 concludes.Suppose a farm household to own a certain farmland area and family labor as the major productive assets. The family labor can be allocated to agriculture (including crop and/or livestock production) and non-farm employment (including non-farm self-employment and/or off-farm wage-employment). Total household income includes agricultural income, non-farm income, and non-labor income (such as remittances). Agricultural income includes crop income and livestock income. Livestock income is equal to livestock revenue minus variable costs of livestock production. Similarly, crop income is the difference between crop revenue minus variable costs of crop production.Agricultural income is dependent on changes in local weather conditions which affects agricultural yield. This implies that agricultural income is endogenous because agricultural production is stochastic, driven partly by weather variables such as precipitation and temperature that affect yields exogenously during the growing reason (Jagnani et al., 2021). Recent evidence shows that effects of changes in precipitation and temperature on agricultural production are nonlinear (Schlenker and Roberts, 2006;Deschenes and Greenstone, 2007). Favourable weather conditions during crop growing season might bring windfall agricultural income to the farm household but extreme weather events might lead to a complete loss.Livestock development can be a sign of agricultural transformation. It can be driven by an increase in consumers' purchasing power which leads to a higher return of livestock than that of crop production. Family labor can then be gradually allocated to livestock production. Depending on scales of production, livestock production can be complementary or competitive with crop production. In a similar vein, family farm labor can also be reallocated to non-farm employment for higher returns (Nguyen et al., 2022). It should be noted that, in reality, it is not easy for the farm household to move from farm to non-farm sectors due to various reasons, including highly imperfect markets for both labor and non-labor factors. In addition, the mix of farm inputs can also change due to changes in farm labor and household income, i.e., less farm labor and a higher level of farm mechanization. Hence, the household faces multiple livelihood choices, defined by the productive assets they own (e.g., land, livestock, machinery) and the activities in which they employ those assets (e.g., crop and livestock production or non-farm employment).A farm household might be able to save some portion of windfall agricultural income in the form of productive assets, which can induce a shift in activity patterns and capital stocks. The question then arises: what does the household do in response to changes in agricultural income? Are they investing in livestock development and farm mechanization or are they spending for non-farm employment? These are empirical questions to which the answers provide important insights into agricultural transformation at the micro level.It is essential to explicitly define what constitutes agricultural transformation. In this subsection, we identify the following three indicators that signal agricultural transformation at the farm level, namely livestock income share in agricultural income, agricultural machinery expense, and nonfarm income share in household income.From a producer's perspective, livestock production is a popular livelihood activity and provides an important source of income for rural households in developing countries (Delgado et al., 2001;Ellis and Freeman, 2004;Carter and Barrett, 2006;Herrero et al., 2013). In addition, in many societies, livestock is considered an indicator of social importance within the community (Do et al., 2019a). It provides draft power for farming and transport (McMichael et al., 2007) and income for meeting an urgent need for cash through the sale of live animals and livestock products, such as eggs or milk. Moreover, livestock waste is used as manure to improve soil fertility, thus contributing to greater crop production for food and cash, or as fuel for cooking and heating.Livestock also offers an alternative source of capital that the poor can accumulate as a \"savings account\" to hedge against income fluctuations (Kazianga and Udry, 2006;Marenya and Barrett, 2007). Keeping livestock is then considered an alternative form of insurance, providing the household with assets that can be sold in times of shocks (Mogues, 2011;Hoddinott, 2006). From a consumer's perspective in a developing country context, an increase in income leads to a higher demand for livestock products (Sharma et al., 2018) and facilitates agricultural transformation from crop to more livestock production. Hence, we include changes in livestock income share in agricultural income as a potential sign of agricultural transformation.Mechanization plays a defining role in transforming agriculture. According to Binswanger (1986), agricultural mechanization meets the growing requirement for power and timelines of operation as agricultural systems become more intensive. As population increases, so do pressures for intensification of agriculture, which is always associated with greater requirements for labor or power or both (Hayami and Ruttan, 1971;Huang and Ding, 2016;Sheahan and Barrett, 2017).Given a relatively higher labor-to-land ratio in developing countries, mechanization can play a significant role in enhancing agricultural intensification (Diao et al., 2017;Elbers et al., 2017;Wang et al., 2016;Amare et al., 2018). Thus, we include the expenses for agricultural machinery as a variable of mechanization in our analysis. This amount includes expenses incurred from usage of owned as well as rented machines. Farm expenditures on mechanization reflect a response to shifting input prices, especially increasing real wages relative to the real cost of capital. Thus, it signals agricultural transformation. Therefore, we consider changes in agricultural machinery expense as another indicator of agricultural transformation.We follow Barrett et al. (2001) to define non-farm income as the income derived from non-farm self-employment and off-farm wage-employment of households' laborers. Despite being labor intensive, initiating non-farm self-employment of rural households requires relatively little capital and provides an important source of income (Reardon et al., 2003), while economic growth is expected to push or pull labor from agriculture to other sectors of the economy, thereby enhancing off-farm wage-employment opportunities for rural laborers, including temporary employment in rural service sectors (Do et al., 2019b). There is also evidence that the importance of non-farm employment has been increasing over the last few decades (de Janvry and Sadoulet, 2001;Do et al., 2022). At a micro-scale, this translates into an increasing number of household members involved in non-farm activities. The increase in non-farm income share is thus central to agricultural transformation (Barrett et al., 2017;Diao et al., 2017).In sum, we therefore examine the effects of an endogenous change in agricultural income on agricultural transformation at the small-holder farm level represented by livestock income share in agricultural income, agricultural machinery expenses, and non-farm income share in total household income. The key point is to take into account that agricultural income is endogenous and stochastic on changes in precipitation and temperature.Uganda and Malawi rely heavily on the agriculture sector. Farming is the major source of income for 69% of Ugandan households, while 80% of the Malawian population are small-holder farmers (Gollin et al., 2017). Labor productivity (expressed as annual output per worker) in agriculture is relatively low compared to other sectors of the economy in SSA (Gollin et al., 2013;McCullough, 2017). As agricultural productivity increases, the labor force in agriculture tends to decline in Africa. Maize is the major food crop cultivated in both countries, supplemented by other crops including banana, cassava, plantain, and sweet potatoes.Agriculture in SEA has witnessed rapid growth. Although the share of agriculture in GDP has consistently declined in both Thailand and Vietnam, the sector still employs 35% and 42% of the total labor force, respectively (ILO, 2017). Thailand and Vietnam are also net agricultural export countries and major rice producers (Pingali, 1997;Nguyen et al., 2017). Rice exports have helped many small-holder farmers out of poverty traps in Thailand (Flaherty et al., 1999) and Vietnam (Nguyen et al., 2021). The other major crops grown include rubber and sugarcane in Thailand, and sugarcane, cassava, maize, and sweet potatoes in Vietnam.We use two data sources for our analysis. The first source is household panel survey data while the second one is rainfall and temperature data, as these two weather variables are critical in agriculture, especially in developing countries. In addition, the availability of household panel survey data with multiple waves is vital to the study of structural change happening at a microscale. In SSA, we use high-quality panel datasets from the LSMS-ISA (see https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/lsms/initiatives/lsms-ISA) from Uganda (for three waves: 2009-10, 2010-11, and 2011-12) and from Malawi (for three waves: 2010-11, 2013, and 2016-17). The LSMS-ISA datasets are publicly available online for a number of African countries.The panel sample was selected through stratified random sampling methods for Uganda and Malawi and there is significant uniformity in the survey instruments used for both countries. The LSMS-ISA datasets are nationally representative and include detailed information on household characteristics, assets, agricultural production, non-farm income and other sources of income, allocation of family labor, hiring of labor, and access to services such as fertilizers and agricultural extension. The agriculture module, among others, contains information on agricultural and livestock production, farm technology, use of modern inputs, and productivity of crops and livestock. We only use data from agricultural households and only those that consistently appear in all the sampled waves (a balanced panel) so as to detect change in cultivation patterns. Hence, we have 1,372 and 1,256 households from each panel wave in Uganda and Malawi, respectively.In SEA, we use data from the TVSEP survey designed to assess vulnerability to poverty in Asia (see www.tvsep.de). The data are from five survey waves (2007, 2008, 2010, 2013, and 2016) of household-and village-level surveys. The data were primarily collected from rural areas of three provinces in northeast Thailand and three provinces in central Vietnam (see Klasen and Waibel, 2015). These datasets have detailed information on demographic characteristics, household shocks, assets, agricultural production, allocation of family labor, hiring of labor, access to services, consumption expenditures, and non-farm activities. They also have extensive information on agricultural and livestock production, farm technology, use of modern inputs, and productivity of crops and livestock. As in SSA, we only use data from households engaged in agriculture and that consistently appear in all the survey waves for this analysis. Hence, we have 1,480 and 1,576 households from each wave from Thailand and Vietnam, respectively.For both LSMS-ISA and TVSEP datasets, data on income generating activities are recorded for the last 12 months (one year) and thus allow to calculate annual household income, including agricultural income (from crop and livestock production), non-farm income (from non-farm selfemployment and off-farm wage-employment), and other income. Crop and livestock income during the last 12-month period is equal to total revenue minus total variable cost. For livestock, total revenue includes the value of products such as eggs or meat that are sold or consumed by the household during the survey year, and the value of livestock at the end of the survey year. Total cost contains expenditures for food, veterinary treatment, and hired labor, the value of livestock at the beginning of the survey year, the value of livestock that the household purchased or received during the survey year, and allowance for depreciation and loan repayments. Since livestock income is calculated for each survey year while livestock can live more than one year, the values of livestock at the beginning of the survey year (which is from the end of the last year) and at the end of the survey year (which is for the next year) should be accounted for by identifying the difference between these two values. Thus, when calculating annual livestock income, the annual revenue of livestock includes the value of livestock at the end of the survey year and the value of products such as eggs or meat that are sold or consumed by the household during the survey year.Meanwhile, the annual cost of livestock also includes the value of livestock at the beginning of the survey year (similar to the cost of seedlings and seeds in crop production). This method of calculating annual income of livestock is used in the literature, for example, Do et al. (2019a). To facilitate the comparisons among countries and over years, income and agricultural machinery expenses are measured in purchasing power parity ($ US PPP).The second data source is for rainfall and temperature data. The LSMS-ISA dataset includes georeferenced information related to households and plots that allow us to merge these panel data with satellite-based spatial data on precipitation and temperature. Long-term precipitation data are from the daily Africa Rainfall Climatology Version 2 (ARC2) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center (NOAA-CPC) (Novella and Thiaw, 2013). It includes monthly rainfall in millimeters from 1980-2016 of spatial resolution of 0.05 0 X 0.05 0 (~ 5km x 5km) (Funk et al., 2015). We extract temperature data from NASA MERRA-2 (Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Application). We develop monthly mean, maximum, and minimum temperatures in degrees Celsius over the 1980-2016 period of spatial resolution of 0.5 ° x 0.625 ° (~55km x 69km) (GMAO, 2015). While the TVSEP datasets include georeferenced information at the village level that allow us to link any number of satellite-based precipitation and temperature datasets to the surveyed villages.We follow the literature to calculate rainfall and temperature variables in a specific year by focusing on the main crop growing seasons (Maccini and Yang, 2009;Björkman-Nyqvist, 2013;Rocha and Soares, 2015;Barrett and Santos, 2014). The monsoon season typically extends from early May to late November for Thailand (crop cycle mainly for rice), from January to September for Vietnam (crop cycle mainly for rice), from early March to late October for Malawi (crop cycle mainly for maize), and from January to July for Uganda (crop cycle mainly for maize). We create a measure of rainfall anomalies during the monsoon season by first calculating the average total rainfall across the monsoon months for each country and georeferenced household for the 1980-2016 period. We construct the change in rainfall variable as a deviation of a given year's rainfall during the growing season from the historical averages (over the 1980-2016 period). The change in monsoon rainfall variable is defined as deviation of log rainfall from long-term average using: �, where \uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 indicates the precipitation during the growing season at the location of household \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 for year \uD835\uDC61\uD835\uDC61; \uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 is the historical average rainfall (over the 1980-2016 period) during the growing season at the location of household i. The rainfall deviation implies a percentage deviation from mean rainfall (e.g., a value of 0.05 means rainfall was approximately 5% higher than normal).Similarly for temperature, we follow agronomic literature, which suggests nonlinear transformations of temperature known as growing degree days (GDD) and harmful degree days (HDD). They find that nonlinear transformations strongly predict crop production when using reduced form functions of temperature (Jagnani et al., 2021;Aragón et al., 2021). We calculate GDD for each month in the 1980-2016 period by subtracting the standard base temperature of 10°C for maize and rice up to an upper threshold of 32°C from the mean temperature for each month of crop calendars (Jagnani et al., 2021). We then subtract the average season GDD for the 1980-2016 period for each crop cycle from the GDD for each of the data waves for all four countries. Thereby, we derive the GDD deviation for each wave during the respective crop cycles for each survey household as \uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 = \uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59 (\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 ) − \uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59 � \uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 �. In addition, as maize and rice decline physiologically due to heat stress above 32°C (Lobell et al., 2011;Schlenker and Roberts, 2009), we define degree days above 32°C (GDD>32) as harmful degree days (HDD) to capture days with heat stress. In essence, HDDs are anomalies relative to mean of harmful degree days (HDD) over the period. We then calculate the HDD deviation for each survey household as \uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 = \uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59 (\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 ) − \uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59 � \uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 �. Finally, we use \uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 , \uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 and \uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 to estimate the impact of weather change on agricultural income (Deryng et al., 2014;Lobell et al., 2013;Lobell et al., 2011).Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics of the main variables used in the analysis. There are wide variations among countries in the key structural change variables, namely share of non-farm income in household income, share of livestock income in agricultural income, and machinery expenses per cultivated land area. These variations reflect economies in different stages of structural transformation.With respect to household characteristics, on average, SEA farmers are older and more educated with a smaller household size. They also have more access to non-farm income sources and own comparatively more livestock than SSA farmers. The share of non-farm income in household income is about 40% in Thailand and Vietnam, whereas it is only 20% in Malawi and around 28% in Uganda. Likewise, agricultural income per capita is highest in Thailand and lowest in Malawi.The possible explanation for higher non-farm income share and agricultural income per capita in Thailand and Vietnam as compared to Uganda and Malawi is that both Thailand and Vietnam are middle-income countries that have managed to achieve uninterrupted growth in per capita GDP over the last 30 years (Diao et al., 2018) whereas Uganda and Malawi are low-income countries with fluctuating income growth during the last several years.  and Vietnam 2007and Vietnam , 2008and Vietnam , 2010and Vietnam , 2013and Vietnam , and 2016. Note: Non-farm includes non-farm self-employment and off-farm wage-employment. Standard deviations are in parentheses. HH stands for household. PPP stands for purchasing power parity.In Vietnam around 34% of agricultural income comes from livestock whereas it is around 22% in Thailand. In fact, the study site includes the poorest provinces in Thailand. In addition, due to limited farmland per household in Vietnam (as indicated in Table 1, the average farm size is smallest in Vietnam), livestock has been developed in Vietnam (Do et al., 2019a). Livestock production seems to be at the early stages of development in the SSA countries; farmers in Malawi earn 14% of income from livestock, and in Uganda, only 5%.The average farm size is well below 5 ha in all these countries, which qualifies surveyed farm households as small-holder farmers. Except for Thailand where the average farm size is about 3 ha, in the other countries the average farm size is only about 1 ha. Because Thailand is an uppermiddle-income country, its average farm size could have witnessed slight growth over the last decade compared to Vietnam, a lower-middle-income country. Also, Thailand and Vietnam incur higher agricultural machinery expenses per hectare. In Uganda and Malawi, as in most African countries, agricultural mechanization (including purchasing or hiring machines and operating, maintenance, and repair costs) is at a nascent stage. Historically, cropland in these countries has been cultivated manually. The low level of agricultural mechanization is explained by both demand and supply constraints. The demand for agricultural mechanization is likely to develop once labor becomes sufficiently costly relative to capital and purchased inputs (Diao et al., 2017).With regard to changes in the weather variables, we find that all sampled regions across all four countries received 2 to 4% less precipitation than normal during the survey years. This is consistent with previous studies (e.g., Hoerling et al., 2006). We also find that GDD and HDD have increased across all the sampled countries; GDD and HDD were approximately 1 to 6% and 1 to 3% above normal over the surveyed period, respectively.Tables 2 and 3 presents the trends in agricultural transformation indicators for Thailand and Vietnam (Table 2), and for Uganda and Malawi (   We follow a two-step empirical approach to examine household-level variations in the agricultural transformation indicators. In the first step, we specify an agricultural income model in which agricultural income is instrumented with variation in weather variables, namely precipitation and temperature. In the second step, we identify the causal effect of agricultural income growth on agricultural transformation indicators. As our data are panel, we undertake econometric regressions for panel data.We follow the previous literature (e.g., Maccini and Yang, 2009;Björkman-Nyqvist, 2013) and use variations in precipitation and temperature as instrumental variables for agricultural income.We advance this strand of literature by considering possible nonlinear and asymmetric effects of these weather variables. Therefore, we specify a fixed-effects household agricultural income regression as:where \uD835\uDC4C\uD835\uDC4C \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 is the agricultural income per capita of small-holder farm household i in year t; \uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 refers to deviation of log precipitation from long-term average of small-holder farm household i in year t; \uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 2 is square of deviation of log precipitation from long-term average of small-holder farm household i in year t, which denotes the nonlinearity of precipitation; \uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 is deviation of log growing degree days from long-term average of small-holder farm household i in year t during the crop growing reason; \uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 denotes deviation of log harmful degree days from long-term average during the crop growing reason of small-holder farm household i in year t; \uD835\uDC4B\uD835\uDC4B \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 is a vector of control variables and includes household and farm characteristics of small-holder farm household i in year t; \uD835\uDC47\uD835\uDC47 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 represents year dummies to indicate the year in which the households were surveyed, which may capture aggregate shifts in agricultural income or correlated shifts in our explanatory variables. The individual fixed effects are captured by \uD835\uDF07\uD835\uDF07 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 and \uD835\uDC63\uD835\uDC63 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 is a random error term for which the strict exogeneity condition is assumed to hold and is independently and identically normally distributed with zero mean and constant variance.In this agricultural income equation, the nonlinear effect of precipitation is captured by square of \uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 whereas the effect of anomalies in temperature for heat stress is captured by \uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 . We expect α, β, and ρ to be negative but γ to be positive. Regarding \uD835\uDC4B\uD835\uDC4B \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 , we include gender, age, and education level of household head, household size, farmland area, whether the household experienced a demographics shock, and whether the household has livestock production and non-farm employment. As households living in the same enumeration area (EA) in SSA and village in SEA are likely to experience similar observable and unobservable shocks and services, we cluster standard errors at EA level for Malawi and Uganda and at village level for Vietnam and Thailand.In addition, since our data of agricultural income are all positive and the distribution of agricultural income is skewed, we use the natural logarithm (ln) of the real value agricultural income per capita (in $US PPP).As demonstrated in Section 2, agricultural income could be endogenous elements of the structural transformation indicator equations. To account for this type of endogeneity, we use a fixed-effects instrumental variable (IV) model that links agricultural income from the previous year (lagged agricultural income) with structural transformation indicators in the current year. We follow the previous literature (e.g., Lobell et al., 2013;Jagnani et al., 2021) and use \uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 , \uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 and \uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5\uD835\uDEE5 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 as IVs for agricultural income.We need two identifying assumptions to validate the instruments and hence conduct causal inferences on the impact of agricultural income growth on structural transformation indicators.First, we need these instruments to be relevant. Weather variability constitutes a good proxy to predict agricultural income in these countries, as much of its agricultural production activities are rainfed. Second, the instruments should be exogenous, and hence uncorrelated with the error terms in the structural transformation indicators. A potential concern about the exogeneity of a weather instrument is that the weather variability of the locality may be correlated with the village's economic activities, such as non-farm employment (e.g., self-employment), local prices, and access to services. Thus, this variable may directly affect the outcome variables. To circumvent this problem, we include a dummy variable to indicate if the household participated in non-farm employment or not (yes=1). This variable is part of the vector of control variables \uD835\uDC4B\uD835\uDC4B \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 in equation 1. In addition, instead of using current year agricultural income change, we use agricultural income change from previous year to help ensure that income growth affects subsequent changes in structural transformation indicators.As we have different time gaps between the panel waves for each country (unequally spaced panel data) (see Millimet and McDonough, 2017), it is not possible to uniformly compare the exogenous effect of the previous year's agricultural income on the consecutive next year without standardizing the interval changes in production patterns. Therefore, we create a survey interval dummy variable (lag_gap) to capture the difference in lags between each panel wave for each country and interact this dummy variable with the instrumented lagged agricultural income. As the panel waves are not from successive time periods for Thailand, Vietnam, and Malawi, the lagged instrumented agricultural income does not necessarily pertain to the immediate previous year. ForThailand and Vietnam, it is interacted with the \uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59_\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC5D\uD835\uDC5D 1 dummy variable to indicate a one-year gap, and with the \uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59_\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC5D\uD835\uDC5D 2 or \uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59_\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC5D\uD835\uDC5D 3 dummy variable to indicate a two-or three-year time gap, respectively. We interact with the \uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59_\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC59\uD835\uDC5D\uD835\uDC5D 3 dummy for Malawi as it has a three-year uniform gap between the panel waves in our sample. However, to decipher the successive year impact, we take the cube root of the estimated coefficient. This also helps to reduce left and right skewness and applied to zero and negative value. For the Uganda panel, waves are consecutive annual surveys, with a uniform gap of one year, so we interact with the lag_gap_1 dummy variable to indicate a one-year gap. Specifically, we estimate a fixed-effects IV (FE-IV) model for structural transformation (Equation 2) using lagged estimated value of agricultural income (\uD835\uDC66\uD835\uDC66 \uD835\uDEA4\uD835\uDEA4\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56−1 ) � and interact it with the respective survey lag gap indicator variable for each country and wave after the first as follows.where \uD835\uDEFC\uD835\uDEFC1 is identified by the instrumented exogenous values of the lagged agricultural income, which was estimated from Equation 1; SC indicates the different micro-scale indicators of agricultural transformation described in Section 2.2, namely share of non-farm income in household income, share of livestock income in agricultural income, and agricultural machinery expenses per hectare. The individual fixed effects are captured by \uD835\uDF16\uD835\uDF16 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 and \uD835\uDF02\uD835\uDF02 \uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56\uD835\uDC56 is a random error term for which the strict exogeneity condition is assumed to hold and is independently and identically normally distributed with zero mean and constant variance.Since some of our SC indicators have zero value, we take the inverse hyperbolic sine (IHS) transformation to keep zero values. Similar to Equation 1, the standard errors in Equation 2 are also clustered at EA level for Malawi and Uganda and at village level for Vietnam and Thailand.Table 4 presents the results of agricultural income regression (Equation 1) in which we consider the natural logarithm as the transformation for the agricultural income per capita as the dependent variable. We first report unconditional regressions of agricultural income on deviations of precipitation, GDD, HDD and a time dummy capturing the wave of the sample for Thailand, Vietnam, Uganda, and Malawi, respectively (columns 1, 3, 5, 7). We then extend this specification by controlling for household-level characteristics (columns 2, 4, 6, 8). Results presented in Table 4 lead to several important findings.  2007, 2008, 2010, 2013, and 2016. Note: Non-farm includes non-farm self-employment and off-farm wage-employment. HH stands for household. PPP stands for purchasing power parity. * , ** and *** denote significance at 10%, 5%, and 1%, respectively. Robust standard errors clustered at EA level for Malawi and Uganda and at village level for Vietnam and Thailand are in parentheses.First, comparing unconditional and conditional estimates in Tables 4 provides insights on the potential mechanisms through which weather variability could affect agricultural income. For instance, the estimates on the effect of weather variables reduce when we control for household characteristics, suggesting, as expected, that part of the link between weather variables and agricultural income mediated through these channels.Second, weather variables are a driving force of agricultural income, and their effects are nonlinear. The nonlinear patterns observed in the data are consistent with an emerging literature (e.g., Lobell et al., 2013;Jagnani et al., 2021) showing that nonlinear transformations have been shown to strongly predict crop production. For example, the coefficients of the weather changes are statically significant in the most of specifications for all countries. Precipitation change decreases agricultural income. A 15% (or one standard deviation) increase in precipitation leads to a reduction of 2.68 and 0.48 percent in agricultural income in Thailand and Vietnam, respectively. Similarly, a 15% (or one standard deviation) increase in precipitation leads to a decrease of 5.12 and 3.74 percent in agricultural income in Uganda and Malawi, respectively. In addition, a 15% increase in HDD leads to a reduction of 3.26, 11.22 and 7.65 percent in agricultural income in Vietnam, Uganda, and Malawi, respectively. This is consistent with literature that has found higher temperatures reduce crop yields through heat stress (Schlenker and Roberts, 2009;Lobell et al., 2011). The insignificant effect of this variable for Thailand is probably due to an improved irrigation system in this country to help farmers overcome the negative effects of heat stresses (Nguyen et al., 2017). Thus, the instruments are relevant (i.e., good predictors of our outcome variables). Overall, these findings underpin the fact that agricultural income in Vietnam, Uganda and Malawi is vulnerable to weather changes when compared to Thailand, which can have implications for patterns of structural change. Interestingly, even though the nonlinear effects of precipitation and temperature are well-known in crop sciences, our finding indicates that the effects are also observed in agricultural transformation literature.With regard to household characteristics, we find that male farmers are likely to earn more income than their female counterparts in Vietnam, Uganda and Malawi. Older farmers earn more agricultural income in Malawi but with decreasing returns. In this country, education level of household head is also positively associated with agricultural income. Having a larger household size significantly reduces agricultural income in all countries in our sample, perhaps due to reduced access to family labor and costs incurred in hiring agricultural labor. Suffering demographic shocks reduces agricultural income of farmers in Thailand and Vietnam. This is consistent with the findings of recent studies in SEA that shocks reduce both farm income and household income (see Nguyen et al., 2020). A larger farm size and livestock ownership significantly and positively impacts agricultural income for all countries in our study sample, indicating possible economies of scale and the complementarity between livestock and crop production.Tables 5, 6, and 7 present the estimation results on our key agricultural transformation indicators (Equation 2). The outcome variables in these tables are inverse hyperbolic sine (IHS)transformations. We note that IHS transformation of small values require further adjustments to be interpreted as elasticities (Bellemare and Wichman, 2020). We examine the effect of exogenous changes in agricultural income in the previous year on these different indicators of agricultural transformation in the next year. We check the validity of instruments using two major misspecification tests: the weak identification test and the overidentification tests (the results are reported in the last five rows of Tables 5 to 7). The Sargan-Hansen test is used for overidentifying and under identification restrictions; it fails to reject the joint null hypothesis that our instruments are valid. We also apply the Hansen specification test for the endogeneity of agricultural income and reject the null hypothesis that agricultural income can be treated as exogenous. In addition, we compute robust standard errors to correct for potential heteroskedasticity. The Kleibergen-Paap Wald F tests on the joint validity of using these weather variables indicate that the instruments are relevant.Table 5 presents the results of non-farm income share in household income regression. Exogenous increases in agricultural income in the previous year have a positive and significant effect on nonfarm income share in subsequent years in Thailand and Vietnam, and a negative effect on nonfarm income share in Uganda and Malawi. The results indicate that intersectoral linkages are pronounced in Thailand and Vietnam, which could be because these two countries managed to achieve uninterrupted growth for more than three decades (Diao et al., 2018). There is a negative relationship between initial agricultural income change and non-farm income, suggesting agricultural income is not driving non-farm income growth in Uganda and Malawi. This could be because agricultural productivity growth hasn't yet become pronounced in these two economies, particularly in the absence of better functioning markets and services to improve access to information, finance, and technologies. The results clearly demonstrate that increases in agricultural income promote labor allocation from farm to non-farm sectors in SEA. However, that is not the case in SSA. This is consistent with previous literature. For example, Barrett et al. (2017) argues that for Africa, accelerating productivity and initiating structural change in the agriculture sector and the rural non-farm economy are required for economic growth. Within agricultural production, the results of livestock income share in agricultural income regression presented in Table 6 show that exogenous increases in agricultural income in the previous year encourage investment in livestock in the next year in all countries. The evidence from this table shows that increases in agricultural income promote livestock development in these two regions. This is in line with previous literature that shows that economic growth leads to higher demand for livestock products (Delgado et al., 2001) because it shifts diets away from staple food crops like rice, wheat, and maize to livestock, fruits, and vegetables (Dercon, 1998;Reardon et al., 2003;Pingali, 2015). To cater to these changing dietary patterns, smallholders start venturing into livestock agriculture to meet growing local demand.  respectively. The coefficients continue to be positive for lag_gaps_3 (three-year time lags), implying that SEA farmers continue to invest in mechanization over the years, especially the Vietnamese farmers, suggesting farm mechanization expansion is likely driven by rising labor costs and farmers' better access to finance as farm productivity rises. For Malawi, it takes three years for the exogenous increase in agricultural income to significantly increase agricultural machinery expenses. Overall, these findings reflect the fact that although labor is shifting from farm to non-farm sectors, changes in production portfolios are not uniform across countries. In this article, we examine how agricultural income leads to agricultural transformation at the small-holder farm level and compare the patterns of agricultural transformation between SEA and SSA. We use multiple waves of farm household panel data from Thailand and Vietnam in SEA and Uganda and Malawi in SSA. We employ a fixed effects instrumental variable regression in which agricultural income is instrumented with changes in precipitation and temperature during crop growing reasons. We then use the lagged estimated agricultural income from previous year as one of the explanatory variables to examine agricultural transformation represented by nonfarm income share in household income, livestock income share in agricultural income, and agricultural machinery expense. Our analysis results in several important findings.First, agricultural income is vulnerable to changes in precipitation and temperature during the crop growing season and the effect is nonlinear and asymmetric in all countries, although SSA countries are more vulnerable to these weather changes. Second, an increase in agricultural income in previous year does lead to a general increase in earnings from non-farm employment in subsequent years in Thailand and Vietnam, suggesting intersectoral linkages are pronounced in these two economies. This perhaps indicates that structural transformation in these countries has been driven not only by rapid expansion of non-farm sectors but also by agricultural productivity growth.However, for Uganda and Malawi, agricultural income in previous years reduces earnings from non-farm employment in subsequent years, indicating a substitution effect between farm and nonfarm sectors. This requires policies that stimulate synergies and reduce trade-offs in support of agricultural transformation in Africa. Third, an increase in agricultural income promotes livestock development in these two regions. This is in line with previous literature that shows that economic growth leads to higher demand for livestock products because it shifts diets away from staple food crops like rice, wheat, and maize to livestock products. To cater to these changing dietary patterns, small-holders start venturing into livestock production to meet growing local demand. Last, an increase in agricultural income led to higher investment in farm mechanization in Thailand and Vietnam. This indicates farm mechanization expansion is likely driven by rising labor costs and farmers' better access to finance as farm productivity grows.In conclusion, we submit that understanding the underlying micro-scale transformation processes in agriculture can help policymakers identify subsectors in agriculture that require more support Some issues remain for further research. First, we didn't address the implication of the change in both temperature and precipitation at the same time. Second, while our study focuses on \"within\" agricultural transformation represented by growth in agricultural income, it is obvious that agricultural transformation, even at the micro level, might be triggered by macro changes.","tokenCount":"7436"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"93b98f8e31bb425b243e4c0dd6b9fd55","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0a007480-c361-414e-9594-40e2ec336e0d/retrieve","id":"-857463677"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8306d47c-8f3a-4935-a422-54a92b82aedb","pagecount":"1","content":"Repatriation material from international collections Identification of promising plant material National collections +/-921 accessions Biochemical characterisation & evaluation (farmers' fields) Product development and testing Promising material +/-50 accessions Marketing guidelines Biochemical characterisation & evaluation (controlled conditions)Focusing on Capsicum (chili pepper), this project will develop a model approach to enhance the use of native underutilized crop genetic diversity in order to achieve more diversified and sustainable production and increase income of poor farmers in developing countries.A key strategy in reaching Millennium Development Goal 1, which aims at eradicating poverty and hunger, is the generation of additional income to support and improve the livelihoods of poor farmers. The Bolivian and Peruvian Andes and the Upper Amazon are contrasting areas as they are among the poverty pockets of Latin America while being the centre of origin and diversity of various important crops. Except for major crops such as wheat, maize or rice, most crop diversity in its centre of origin is still poorly studied, let alone utilized. This is the case for Capsicum or chili peppers.The GTZ-financed project \"Linking Genebanks and Small Farmers to High-value Markets: The example of Capsicum in Bolivia and Peru\" (2010-2013) will combine innovative germplasm-selection methodologies with multidisciplinary market and value-chain assessments in order to demonstrate how chili pepper farmers' income can be increased by exploiting diversity that is currently underutilized. The research is designed to bridge the gap between supply and demand by bringing together different stakeholders across sectors who can provide critical knowledge. Although the project focuses on a specific geographic region and crop, it will demonstrate approaches and technologies capable of effectively harnessing agricultural diversity around the world. Farmers growing mangoes in India or sweet potatoes in Uganda are also struggling with declining commodity prices and are looking for opportunities to increase their incomes through access to high-value, high-quality markets.Upgrading strategy  ","tokenCount":"305"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b94b98be5d9d1af08d748307e49ff2b9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/1126cdc5-84b2-4695-b55a-1b56e6213a2e/content","id":"-1153237778"},"keywords":["QTL mapping","Likelihood ratio test","LOD score","Null hypothesis","Significance level","Number of independent tests"],"sieverID":"0a7950a1-809b-47ca-b688-cedb7ec0d083","pagecount":"11","content":"Selecting an appropriate LOD threshold is of great interest in QTL mapping studies. Many approaches can be considered to calculate the critical value throughout a genome, such as simulation-based method, analytical approximation, and empirical method based on permutation test. Many tests are conducted in QTL mapping, which are not mutually independent because the linkage relationship of adjacent markers on chromosomes. In order to declare a significant QTL at a genome-wide significance level, it is necessary to understand the behavior of test statistic under null hypothesis in QTL mapping and to deal with the dependent multiple-test problem arising in the genome-wide test. Our objectives in this study were (1) to investigate the properties of LRT (likelihood ratio test) statistic of one-point scanning under null hypothesis in QTL mapping, (2) to determine the factors affecting the cumulative distribution of maximum LOD score, and (3) to identify the relationship between the effective number of independent tests and the length of chromosome by simulation method. Results indicated that the LRT test statistic in one-dimensional scanning of additive-dominant QTL and two-dimensional scanning of epistatic QTL followed chi-square distributions, and the degree of freedom (df) was equal to the number of genetic parameters to be estimated. For example, degree of freedom in recombinant inbred lines (RIL) population was equal to 1 in one dimensional or two dimensional scanning. Degree of freedom in F 2 populations was equal to 2 in one-dimensional scanning and 4 in two-dimensional scanning. Number of chromosome, population size and phenotyping error variance did not have any effect on the distribution of LRT under null hypothesis, and therefore will not affect the selection of LOD threshold. On the contrary, population type, genome size and marker density had significant impacts. For BC 1 , RIL, and F 2 populations, the threshold was the smallest in BC 1 population and the highest in F 2 population. Higher marker density and longer chromosome resulted in higher LOD threshold. It was identified that the effective 作 物 学 报 第 39 卷 number of independent tests (M eff ) was proportional to the length of chromosome in one-dimensional scanning of additive-dominant QTL. In two-dimensional scanning of epistatic QTL, it was identified that M eff was in a squared relationship to the length of chromosome. With the help of Bonferroni correction, we could acquire the relationship between point-wise and genome-wide significance levels. Therefore, it is convenient to calculate the threshold LOD in QTL mapping, given the genome-wide significance level, the population type, marker density and genome size.拟法 [1][2] 、公式法 [1,[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] 、排列检验法 [12] 和求有效独立 检 验 次 数 (M eff )法 [13][14][15][16] 4 类 。 当 标 记 密 度 适 中 时 , Lander 和 Botstein [1] 利用模拟法得到全基因组显著 性水平为 0.05 时的 LOD 临界值应为 2~3。 而当标记 密度非常大或非常小时, Lander 和 Botstein [1] 给出 2 个公式计算回交群体在 2 种极端情况下的 LOD 临界 值。 公式法 [1,[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] 的适用条件比较复杂, 如不同群体 类型和标记密度适用不同的计算公式, 故该法很少 被采用。排列检验法 [12] 不受群体类型、表型分布和 检测方法的影响, 多年来被广泛使用, 但该法具有 专一 性, 每组表型数据都需要单独进行排列检验, 特别是随着标记量和作图群体的增大, 需要计算的 时间越来越长。 Cheverud [13] 、 Nyholt [14] 、 Li 和 Ji [15] 、 Gao 等 [16] 提出了通过求有效独立检验次数( M eff )的方 法计算 LOD 临界值, 但这些方法只考虑了加显性效应 QTL 的 LOD 临界值, 随着 QTL 之间的互作效应 [17][18][19] 受到越来越多的重视, 如何选取上位性 QTL 的 LOD 临界值是亟待解决的一个问题。 Churchill 和 Doerge [12] 指出 QTL 作图过程中选 取合适的 LOD 临界值需要解决 2 个比较棘手的问题: ①零假设下检验统计量的分布特征; ②全基因组扫 描过程中的有效独立检验次数 M eff 。Piepho [9] 、Zou 等 [10] 、Chang 等 [11] 认为零假设下, 定位加显性效应 QTL 的一维扫描中单个扫描位点的 LRT 统计量渐 近服从卡方分布, 自由度(df)等于 QTL 作图中遗传 参数的个数。 Cheverud [13] 、Nyholt [14] 、Li 和 Ji [15] 、 Gao 等 [16] 给出了一维扫描中计算有效独立检验次数  [21] 、 玉米 RIL 群体 [22] 和水稻 F 2 群体 [23] ), 比较了模拟 法 [1][2] 、排列检验法 [12] , 以及 Cheverud [13] 、Li 和 Ji [14] 、 Gao 等 [15]  Piepho [9] 、Zou 等 [10] 、Chang 等 [11]       , e correspond to BC 1 , RIL, and F 2 population respectively when  g =0.05 and b, d, f correspond to BC 1 , RIL, and F 2 population respectively when  g =0.01.3 个真实群体小麦 DH 群体、玉米 RIL 群体、水稻 F 2 群体比较了 Cheverud [13] 、Li 和 Ji [15] 、Gao 等 [16]   和本研究提出的估算有效独立检验次数 ( M eff ) 的方 法, 并将它们与模拟法 [2] 和排列检验法 [12] 得到的临 界值比较。由于 Cheverud [13] 、Li 和 Ji [15] 、Gao 等 [16]   法仅能估算加显性效应 QTL 的 LOD 临界值, 因此, 本研究只比较了定位加显性效应 QTL 的一维扫描 中全局显著性水平为 0.05 时的 LOD 临界值。 由表 5 可以看出, Cheverud [13] 、 Li 和 Ji [15] 、 Gao 等 [16] 3 种方法中, Li 和 Ji [15] 法得到的临界值均最小, Gao 等 [16] 法次之, Cheverud [13] 法得到的临界值最大。 与模拟法和排列检验法相比, 除了 Cheverud [13] 估算 Cheverud [13] Li & Ji [15] Gao [16] M ","tokenCount":"741"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4af9ff4b9ad4ad50d55f0333fdfbee8a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/41f74bd2-d80b-4819-bdf4-28111975f71e/retrieve","id":"-368585650"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f6bca223-22f6-49ef-bea4-444871098041","pagecount":"10","content":"Global food, fuel, and fertilizer prices have risen rapidly in recent months, driven in large part by the fallout from the ongoing war in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on Russia. Other factors, such as export bans, have also contributed to rising prices. Palm oil and wheat prices increased by 56 and 100 percent in real terms, respectively, between June 2021 and April 2022, with most of the increase occurring since February (Figure 1).Source: Authors' calculations using data from World Bank Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet, https://www.worldbank.org/en/research/commodity-markets).Note: Nominal prices in US dollars from World Bank Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet) are converted to real prices, which account for the overall increase in world prices over this period deflated by the US consumer price index, which rose by 7.2 percent between June 2021 and April 2022.Wide variation exists across products, with real maize prices increasing by only 11 percent, and rice prices declining by 13 percent. The price of crude oil and natural gas has also risen substantially, and the weighted average price of fertilizer has doubled. With these changes in global prices, many developing countries and their development partners are concerned about the implications for economic stability, food security, and poverty.A comparison of import prices at Kenya's border with prices in the capital city, Nairobi, suggests that world price changes have, to some extent, been transmitted to local markets. For example, nominal maize meal prices in Nairobi rose 35 percent between July 2021 and March 2022 (from 50 to 67 Kenyan shillings per kilogram). Over the same period, the nominal price of imported maize at the border rose by 22 percent, and the import price of wheat rose by 61 percent.Source: Authors' calculations using data from WFP, IGC, and World Bank Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet).Note: Import prices include cost, insurance, and freight (CIF).We use an economywide model of Kenya to estimate the impacts of the global price shocks on all sectors, workers, and households. 2 The model allows us to capture a range of considerations that determine the overall impact of the crisis on the country. For example, the effect of higher world prices on Kenya's economy depends on the importance of the affected products in the total supply of each commodity and whether local producers and consumers can readily substitute away from higher-priced imports. While only 2 percent of Kenya's maize supply comes from imports, 60 percent of wheat grains and almost one-fifth of total supply of grain and flour together are imported (wheat flours are all processed domestically) (Panel A in Figure 3). Since wheat supply is more dependent on imports than maize, we expect changes in world prices to have a larger effect on domestic prices. Import shares are even higher for edible oils (e.g., palm oil), and these imported products are close substitutes for domestically produced and consumed edible oils. Almost all oil products (crude oil and processed petroleum) used in Kenya are imported.The impact of higher oil prices on households cannot be directly assessed by looking at the share of petroleum products in households' consumption baskets. This is because oil products are primarily 2 Information on the Rural Investment and Policy Analysis (RIAPA) data and modeling system can be found here. used as inputs into the production of other goods and services, with input use accounting for 76 percent of total demand for oil products in Kenya (Panel B in Figure 3). Most petroleum products, for example, are used by the transport sector, the cost of which affects the price of all marketed goods and services in the economy. IFPRI's model tracks the flow of domestic and imported inputs between sectors and estimates the net effect on final product prices. Note: Maize and wheat include maize flour and wheat flour, and edible oils include edible oilseeds. About 60 percent of wheat grains processed into flours in Kenya are imported, accounting for 35 percent of total supply of wheat grains and wheat flours together. Thus, imported wheat grains are about 18 percent of wheat grains and flours in total. Input use includes grains as intermediates in flour processing, and grain flours are also used as intermediates in the production of other processed foods (excluding flours) and by some service sectors, such as restaurants and hotels. Final use includes private and public consumption and gross capital formation.Impacts on households also depend on the importance of commodities in their consumption baskets. Cereals and edible oils make up 8 percent of the total value of household consumption in Kenya, which is about one-fifth of total food expenditures (Figure 4). 3 IFPRI's model tracks incomes and expenditures for different population groups and is linked to a survey-based micro-simulation tool that tracks the consumption patterns of individual households. Unpacking populations is crucial because cereals and edible oils are more important for poorer rural households in Kenya than for other groups.Source: Authors' calculations using social accounting matrix (SAM) data from IFPRI's Kenya RIAPA model. Rising fertilizer prices may cause some farmers to reduce their use of this input, leading to lower agricultural production and higher food prices. The magnitude of this decline depends on (1) the responsiveness of fertilizer demand to changes in prices;(2) the amount of fertilizer currently used to grow crops; and (3) the expected productivity losses for farmers who reduce their use of fertilizers.Fertilizer adoption in Kenya varies significantly by crop, with 71 percent of maize land cultivated using fertilizers, compared to only 36 percent for sorghum and millet. There is also variation in the amount of fertilizer used on different crops. For our initial impact analysis, we adopt a conservative set of assumptions regarding farmers' response to rising fertilizer prices. We assume an own-price elasticity of fertilizer demand of −0.15, implying that a 100 percent increase in real fertilizer prices leads to a 15 percent decline in fertilizer use. Drawing on recent survey analysis, we assume that farmers who do not use chemical fertilizers are about 20 percent less productive than farmers who use chemical fertilizers. 4Source: Authors' calculations using International Fertilizer Development Center's (IFDC) Fertilizer Use by Crop (FUCP) estimates and further adjusted based on information from the country's experts.In the eastern and northern regions of Kenya, planting for the main season (long rains) crops begins in mid-March to May, with harvesting during July and August. In western Kenya and the Rift Valley, planting stretches from April through June, and the harvest runs from October through January. The surge in fertilizer prices may therefore have already led to a reduction in fertilizer use in much of Kenya. The link between world fertilizer prices, local fertilizer use, and agricultural productivity is therefore an important impact channel for the current crisis. We simulate the effects of both higher world prices (recall Figure 1) and the potential productivity losses from reduced fertilizer use in the current growing season. Simulation results should be interpreted as \"medium-term\" impacts, that is, after the immediate spillover effects across sectors and households have occurred, but before the government and private sector make significant changes to their investments and policies in response to the crisis (see Section 5 for next steps).The effects of the world price and fertilizer demand shocks on GDP and employment are significant but are not large compared to the size of the overall economy. Real GDP falls by 0.8 percent due to the combined effects of the negative terms-of-trade shock (i.e., the negative effect of higher import prices outweighs the positive effects of higher export prices) and rising import costs that reduce spending on domestically produced goods (Figure 6). Employment declines by 2.6 percent, as falling production leads to job losses. The percentage decline in agricultural GDP is slightly larger than the decline in total GDP and, given the large size of the agriculture sector, it accounts for almost a third of total GDP losses in the country). There are larger drops in employment in the offfarm sectors of the agrifood system, with job losses concentrated in food-related services, including trade and transport. However, because the off-farm agrifood system is small compared to primary agriculture, most of the absolute decline in agrifood system employment occurs on the farm. At the national level, more than half of the decline in total GDP and employment occurs outside of the agrifood system.Source: Simulation results from IFPRI's Kenya RIAPA model.Fertilizer and fuel shocks drive most of the decline in national GDP. Fertilizer shocks, including reduced fertilizer use in response to higher prices, account for 45 percent (or 0.4 percentage points) of the total decline in real GDP, compared to fuel shocks at 37 percent and food price shocks at 18 percent (Figure 7). Within the agrifood system, GDP losses are mostly driven by fertilizer shocks, which directly affect primary agricultural production and cause disruptions in downstream supply chains. GDP losses outside of the agrifood system, however, are primarily driven by higher fuel prices, which not only raise transactions costs and market prices but also reduce consumer demand. Higher food prices have little effect on real agricultural GDP in the near-term, that is before decisions are made about planting and fertilizer adoption for the next planting season (the latter is captured in the fertilizer response scenario). Note: About 15.4 percent of the effect on agriculture GDP under \"fertilizer prices and response\" is directly from rising fertilizer prices, while the remaining 84.6 percent is from the productivity shock caused by reducing the use of fertilizer.Household consumption falls, with larger losses for poorer and rural households. National consumption spending, including the value of home consumption, falls by 2.5 percent (Figure 8). The percentage decline in consumption is larger than that of GDP because households are hit twice, by rising prices and falling incomes. Moreover, food accounts for a much larger share of household consumption than of GDP. Most of the decline in consumption is driven by the fuel price shock, which raises the market price of most consumer goods and services in the economy. Overall, the fuel shocks account for 42 percent of the absolute decline in household consumption, followed by the food shock at 30 percent, and the fertilizer shock at 28 percent. There are, however, important differences in consumption outcomes across population groups. The fall in consumption is larger for poorer and rural households. Rural households earn more of their incomes from farming and are therefore adversely affected by the decline in agricultural production following the increase in fertilizer prices. Poor households, including those in urban areas, are also affected by the indirect effects of the fertilizer shock on food supply. They are also more affected by higher food prices, since food makes up a larger share of poor households' consumption baskets (see Figure 4).- Inequality worsens, although all households are adversely affected. The food, fuel, and fertilizer shocks have different implications for (income) inequality in Kenya. The increase in fuel prices leads to larger consumption losses for households in the top expenditure quintile, compared to poorer households in the lowest quintile (Figure 9). Conversely, the fertilizer shock is most detrimental for poorer households, which rely more heavily on agriculture for their incomes and spend a larger share of their incomes on food. Finally, the largest negative impact of higher world food prices is on middle-income households. This is because middle-income households consume more imported food products than poorer households (e.g., wheat and palm oil), and they also spend more of their incomes on foods than higher income households. Overall, the combined effect of the world price shocks is a decline in consumption for all households, with larger declines for households toward the lower end of the income distribution. The result of the global crises is therefore an increase in inequality within Kenya.Source: Simulation results from IFPRI's Kenya RIAPA model.-  10), which is equivalent to an additional 1.4 million people falling below the poverty line (Panel B). Most of the increase in poverty is caused by the fertilizer shock. This is consistent with the consumption changes for poor households shown in Figure 8 and for the second quintile in Figure 9. Impacts on rural poverty rates are significantly larger and are almost entirely the result of the impacts of the fertilizer shock on rural farmers. The largest absolute increase in the poor population is in rural areas, although this partly reflects Kenya's smaller urban population and lower initial urban poverty rate. The cost of a healthy diet increases for Kenyan households. The model tracks changes in the cost of a \"healthy\" reference diet (CoRD) with six major food groups as defined by the EAT-Lancet Commission. 5 The combined food, fuel, and fertilizer shocks increase the CoRD by 2.2 percent in real terms (the first bar in Panel A in Figure 11). 6 This is mainly driven by the rising costs of edible oils within the \"added fats\" food group and wheat within the \"staples\" food group, the domestic prices of which are influenced by rising import prices of these commodities (the second bar in Panel A in Figure 11). On the other hand, falling household incomes reduce demand for vegetables, fruits, dairy, and protein foods (meats and fish), and thus, lower their costs slightly. The \"staples\" food group includes cereals and root crops, and wheat is only a small component of this group in Kenya.Rising maize and wheat prices are compensated for by the falling cost of other staple foods when households reduce overall food consumption. Staples currently dominate most households' consumption baskets and achieving the diversity of the healthy reference diet requires a relative decline in the share of staples in the average household diet. As such, the increases in maize and wheat prices make a modest contribution to the changing cost structure of a healthy diet. On the other hand, consumption levels of vegetables, fruits, dairy products, and meats and fish are far below the Diet quality worsens for many households. The survey-based micro-simulation tool also measures the increases in number of people with deteriorated diet quality. People are considered deprived in a food group if they obtain fewer calories from that food group than recommended by the healthy reference diet. Prior to the crisis, few households had the consumption levels and diversity needed for a healthy diet in Kenya. Rising food prices become much more important for worsening diet quality than impacts on income and poverty, and it is a leading factor for 3.4 million people to become deprived in at least one additional food group for a healthy diet. The rural population accounts for more of the deterioration in diet quality than the urban population (Panel B in Figure 11).Global food, fuel, and fertilizer prices have risen rapidly in recent months, raising concerns about how this will affect economic stability, food security, and poverty in developing countries. We have used IFPRI's economywide model-known as RIAPA-to simulate the impacts of the global crises on Kenya's economy and population. The model allows us to track the direct and indirect effects of rising world prices, taking account of key considerations that will determine the overall impact. These include, for example, the share of imports in total product supply; the importance of different sectors and products for households' employment, incomes, and consumption levels; and the responses of farmers to rising fertilizer prices and the knock-on effect this could have on next season's agricultural production.Our analysis indicates that the global crises cause contractions in Kenya's GDP and employment, but these declines are not large compared to the total size of the economy. Most of the GDP losses are driven by rising fuel and fertilizer prices, rather than higher food prices. This is because, although the import prices of wheat and edible oils are rising, these products are not typically large items within households' consumption baskets. To some extent, rural farmers also benefit from higher prices for agricultural products, although the net effect on their welfare is negative once we have accounted for the effects of higher fertilizer prices, reduced fertilizer use, and lower agricultural productivity.Overall, national household consumption falls. Though impacts are larger on poorer and rural households, leading to an increase in inequality in Kenya, all households are adversely affected by the crises. Falling household consumption also leads to greater poverty, particularly in rural areas.Finally, the cost of a healthy diet increases for Kenyan households, and there is a widening gap between households' consumption levels and what is required to achieve a healthy diet. While the global crises will cause a modest slowdown in Kenya's economic growth, its adverse impacts on poverty and food insecurity are likely to be more pronounced, especially in rural areas.This study is part of a series of case studies that IFPRI is undertaking using economywide models to capture current world market shocks on developing countries. The analysis presented above is an initial impact assessment designed to gauge the vulnerability of countries and key population groups. Subsequent analyses will simulate the mitigating effects of different policy and investment options, including the potential roles of cash transfers, food aid, and subsidies for food, fuel, and fertilizers. Particular attention will be paid to possible synergies and trade-offs between these policy responses, including their implications for government budgets and longer-term development goals.","tokenCount":"2860"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b49d25ec7f2efe3418d9c7a5eef516c9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/6d1c0c76-1655-4a84-ac6b-ae79032c763f/retrieve","id":"-795098389"},"keywords":["agricultural Innovation platforms","complex systems","smallholder irrigation","market-oriented development","mozambique","tanzania","Zimbabwe"],"sieverID":"87ea1e2c-dece-4552-9b1f-e169185491cf","pagecount":"21","content":"Many small-scale irrigation systems are characterized by low yields and deteriorating infrastructure. Interventions often erroneously focus on increasing yields and rehabilitating infrastructure. Smallscale irrigation systems have many of the characteristics of complex socio-ecological systems, with many different actors and numerous interconnected subsystems. However, the limited interaction between the different subsystems and their agents prevents learning and the emergence of more beneficial outcomes. This article reports on using Agricultural Innovation Platforms to create an environment in which irrigation scheme actors can engage, experiment, learn and build adaptive capacity to increase market-related offtake and move out of poverty.The research and development community, like the farmers in the world's semi-arid areas, often cites low and/or unreliable rainfall as the most important factor contributing to low productivity and food insecurity (Mancosu, Snyder, Kyriakakis, & Spano, 2015;Rockström, 2003;Van Duivenbooden, Pala, Studer, Bielders, & Beukes, 2000). Overcoming water scarcity by irrigation appears self-evident, hence the promotion of irrigation development in the developing world, and specifically in sub-Saharan Africa (Burney & Naylor, 2012;Fischer, Tubiello, van Velthuizen, & Wiberg, 2007;Mancosu et al., 2015). Irrigation, along with improved seeds, fertilizer and agrochemicals, has been a pillar of the Green Revolution in North America, Europe and much of Asia. In sub-Saharan Africa, however, the success of irrigation has been mixed at best, and many schemes are under-utilized or have been abandoned (Inocencio et al. 2007;Hope, Gowing, & Jewitt, 2008;Manzungu, 1995;Smith, 2004;van Averbeke, Denison, & Mnkeni, 2011).Irrigation scheme development requires a huge engineering investment in constructing storage or diversion infrastructure and the associated canals. In addition, irrigation demands the human capacity and institutional arrangements to manage the water, ensure equitable distribution, collect water payments, carry out repairs to maintain the scheme, and manage disputes (Amede, 2015;Mutiro & Lautze, 2015). For these reasons, irrigation cannot be a subsistence activity (Kadigi, Tesfay, Bizoza, & Zinabou, 2013). The linkages to input and output markets and the ability to secure sound technical information, credit and other services are critical. Moreover, irrigation development displaces some farmers and imports new farmers, leading to social and political tensions over land tenure.Development initiatives encouraging the adoption of technology that can improve water productivity must operate within this complex institutional landscape. Hounkonnou et al. (2012) argue that agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa has underestimated the crucial role of this institutional setting, and hence overestimated the value of technological investment. It appears that gaining control over water comes at such great cost, both financial and institutional, that many irrigation schemes are often referred to as socio-economic failures (Hunt, 1988;Mutiro & Lautze, 2015). Considering all of the above, irrigation systems are complex systems with many actors at various levels, scales and subsystems, which need to interact and share knowledge in a coordinated way to be fully functional. We hypothesize that the disconnect between these actors (farmers, water authorities, business community, policy makers and markets), the lack of feedback loops (returns on investments) and the lack of information flow (regarding water and nutrient management, and input and output market intelligence) leads to low productivity and profitability, and eventual system breakdown and/or abandonment. Trying to address system breakdown with new technology and hardware alone is a misdiagnosis of the problem.This article addresses the question of whether the Agricultural Innovation Platform (AIP) process is able to facilitate institutional arrangements (and associated information flows) that will increase the performance of irrigation systems. We use the innovation systems approach to address the institutional context limiting irrigation potential in six schemes in Africa. We define institutions, both formal informal, according to North (2005), as the rules of the game that reduce uncertainty in human interactions. The innovation systems framework was developed to provide insight into the 'rules of the game' and hence the complex relationships between the diverse stakeholders, be they farmers, retailers, processors, policy makers, researchers, donors or entrepreneurs. The innovation systems framework aims to identify and analyze new opportunities and to facilitate the collective action needed to bring about desirable change (Ostrom, 2009;Spielman, Ekboir, Davis, & Ochieng, 2008).Although using the concepts of complex adaptive system and innovation systems to understand and address complex agricultural problems is not new (Hall & Clark, 2010;Spielman et al., 2008), the focus of this article is to report on the practical application of these concepts in the context of small-scale irrigation systems. We develop the argument that small-scale irrigation systems have many of the characteristics of complex socio-ecological systems: they have many different actors (water authorities, irrigators, support services, policy makers and market agents), and they are composed of numerous subsystems (the source of the water, i.e. catchment, with a dam or river system, hardware, soil, water, crops, etc.). However, they often lack interaction between the different subsystems and their agents, preventing learning and the emergence of more beneficial outcomes.In trying to unravel the challenges irrigation systems face, it is necessary to distinguish the research methodologies that have delivered technological advancement from approaches needed to understand the agricultural system as a whole. Reductionist approaches break down larger systems into components in order to infer cause-and-effect relationships without the 'interference' of the rest of the system. Reductionism has produced individual technologies that perform in predictable ways. The larger agricultural context into which these technologies are deployed is a complex socio-ecological system where the dynamics and interaction between its many subsystems often give unpredictable and even highly surprising outcomes (Ostrom, 2009;van Mil, Foegeding, Windhab, Perrot, & van der Linden, 2014).Complex systems comprise large numbers of components, which are often organized into hierarchical structures or subsystems, which in turn have their own sub-subsystems (Gatrell, 2005). The agents interact by sending and receiving signals or information, which results in learning, adaptation and the development of feedback systems. This leads to the adaptive capacity of complex systems, then referred to as complex adaptive systems (Allen & Holling, 2010;Anand, Gonzalez, Guichard, Kolasa, & Parrott, 2010;Folke et al., 2002;Olsson, Folke, & Berkes, 2004). The adaptive capacity of these systems allows them to change in response to new information and to recover from external shocks, leading to higher resilience.Small-scale irrigation schemes often suffer from poor access to markets (Oates, Jobbins, Mosello, & Arnold, 2015;World Bank, 2007). Input suppliers do not communicate effectively with producers, while producers do not, or cannot, communicate with output markets. It is not possible for the small-scale farmer to decide which production system to follow, based on the integration of information about soil, rainfall, local capacity and availability of inputs, distance to markets and, ultimately, potential profit margins. Using the principles of functional complex adaptive systems, AIPs can facilitate communication and coordination of all agents and subsystems to identify better configurations of system components or stakeholders. AIPs can also identify where the wrong configurations have perpetuated low productivity by locking the stakeholders into dysfunctional regimes.The value of the AIP lies in the inclusive nature of the stakeholders, representing traditional entities (agricultural engineers, irrigation management committees and water authorities) as well as stakeholders not normally associated with irrigation schemes (value chain players). The AIP stakeholders therefore represent the larger socio-ecological system within which the irrigation scheme functions. It is multidisciplinary in nature and establishes cognitive diversity (Mitchell & Nicholas, 2006), increasing the capacity to analyze and solve technical problems and address systemic challenges. While these stakeholders may have the same or similar overall goals, their individual objectives (and therefore their requirements and contributions) will differ markedly. For example, the objectives and needs of input suppliers are different from those of producers, whose objectives and needs are in turn different from those of output markets and other value chain stakeholders. Although these objectives are different, they are often complementary and mutually beneficial, fostering trust and respect of the roles of different stakeholders and their contribution to the functioning of the larger system. Essentially, it is the integration of different types of knowledge from diverse stakeholders that becomes the precondition for problem solving (Berkes, 2007). The process of articulating individual challenges and contributions along the value chain provides a basis for mutual understanding and cooperation among the stakeholders. The collective understanding of the systemic challenges they face, and how positive interactions between stakeholders and/or new configurations can contribute to resolving these issues, is critical to the success of the innovation process.Stakeholder identification. The first stage in establishing an AIP is to identify and ensure participation of a diverse and committed range of stakeholders, identified based on local expert knowledge, so that it is the local people and/or their representatives that identify the perceived challenges. They often include government and/or NGO representatives, extension agents, scientists familiar with the area, and private-sector representatives. This means that there is already a common understanding, yet often only in generic terms, of the challenges. In many cases, this stage includes literature and baseline surveys (for this project refer to Mdemu, Mziray, Bjornlund, & Kashaigili, 2017, for Tanzania;de Sousa, Cheveia, Machava, Faducoa, Ducrotb & Bjornlund, 2017, for Mozambique;and Moyo, van Rooyen, Moyo, Chivenge, & Bjornlund, 2017, for Zimbabwe) to obtain as much information on the socioeconomic and technical environment as possible. This is vital in informing and substantiating the initial findings of the AIP. Once a core stakeholder group, those critical to bring about change, has committed to the process, one can initiate the AIP implementation.Identification of system challenges. The second stage is to use the diverse nature of the AIP participants and their collective knowledge of the system to probe the finer nuances, which are often lost when discussing challenges in broad terms. Generic challenges such as poor access to inputs, high production risk and poor market access are explored in the specific context of the local conditions. This process enables the identification of the role and responsibilities of each stakeholder, and how they can contribute to a better outcome. All stakeholders should be able to articulate their incentives and/or reasons for being part of the platform.The AIP must identify the current challenges their irrigation scheme faces, as well as any opportunities that may exist to improve the situation, without the pressure of what donors might be offering. Experiences from this project suggest that many stakeholders are keen to express their challenges and, if they fail to do so initially, will reiterate their problems and not move on. For the initial process, the participants are divided into groups, e.g. farmers (could be gender-specific to identify any gender-related nuances), technical support staff and private-sector representatives. The process has four steps. Each group has to (1) list and prioritize challenges and opportunities; (2) conduct a root-cause analysis by asking the 'why' question to get to the root cause of the challenge; (3) identify potential solutions for each of the root causes; and (4) identify partners critical for the implementation process. The latter is important because some key stakeholders may not be present in this initial meeting. Once this process is completed, participants report to the larger group and discuss, clarify and confirm their findings.Visioning. The third stage, after a shared understanding of the current challenges is developed, is to visualize a desired future state or a shared goal -where the stakeholders want to see the system go (Tenywa et al., 2011). A clear and common vision defines a potential end-state or goal that the participants believe is achievable and have ownership of, even if the pathway to the destination is still unclear. The visioning process puts the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders in context and clarifies individual responsibilities and incentives. Stakeholders work in separate groups (farmers: men and women, private-sector players, support services, etc.) to capture their collective perceptions and aspirations. Rich pictures allow people to (1) articulate the scheme's current state, including the location of households and their immediate surroundings, including markets and other infrastructure;(2) articulate the desired future state -participants express their needs and goals within what is achievable in five years; and (3) develop a strategy for how the transition from the current situation to the visioned future can be achieved. This includes the changes and improvements required both on and off farm, and often includes policies and institutional issues.Innovation process. The fourth stage involves stimulating the innovation process that will be necessary to achieve their vision. Analyzing the pictures and associated strategies developed during the visioning process allows contextualization of isolated lists of challenges and their root causes, and makes the transition from technical interventions to a more holistic and shared development process. Participants explore different pathways from the current situation to the desired future situation by producing an annotated list of potential strategies. To address those strategies, the process can then begin selecting opportunities, identifying incentives and addressing challenges and root causes. The strategies may be within the control of the farmers and/or their organizations, or might also require larger system-related changes that are out of their reach. The latter can be caused by barriers associated with policy, infrastructure, markets (input and output), and knowledge and information. Each strategy may have numerous pathways for implementation, and the diverse AIP stakeholders may develop multiple alternatives to address the same challenge. The value of the innovation process lies in identifying the most effective and practically feasible approach, taking into consideration the capacity of the stakeholders, particularly farmers, and the incentive framework to change their behaviour.Once a plan has been identified, smaller groups of relevant stakeholders focus on individual tasks, resolve challenges and test solutions (innovations). Much of the actual innovation process therefore takes place 'outside' the AIP meetings, which should be the coordination process rather than the engine room of innovation. These task-based groups will then report their progress to the AIP, which will document the changes, and conduct the monitoring and evaluation to track progress and learn from the experience (Figure 1).The AIP process was implemented in six small-scale irrigation schemes in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Tanzania. The schemes and baseline surveys are reported in detail in the three country-specific articles in this issue: for Zimbabwe by Moyo et al. (2017); for Tanzania by Mdemu et al. (2017); and for Mozambique by de Sousa et al. (2017), summarized by Bjornlund, van Rooyen, and Stirzaker (2017).A critical part of the AIP process is the facilitator. The lead author conducted workshops at all six schemes to explain the four stages of the AIP process. Local facilitators were then chosen and trained, and mentored as they ran AIP meetings at each scheme. The process was documented to facilitate learning on the job and ongoing improvement of the methodology. Results from one scheme in Tanzania and one in Zimbabwe are discussed in more detail below.Stakeholders connected to the irrigation schemes were identified and attended the initial AIP meetings, together with those from higher levels of government and interested organizations. In the initial meetings, other relevant stakeholders were identified and invited to subsequent meetings. As the process unfolded, and AIPs started to work on specific identified topics, meetings included only relevant stakeholders, to ensure that those unrelated to the immediate process did not lose interest. Sharing the outcomes of these interactions with the rest of the AIP is, however, crucial to maintain momentum.In most cases, stakeholders showed a strong desire to articulate their challenges, and active listening was crucial in building credibility, trust, a deeper understanding and verification/ falsification of preconceived ideas. The main challenges identified in early meetings tended to be very generic (Table 1), and, while providing some insight into the main challenges of the specific irrigation system, their role in guiding stakeholders towards potential and viable solutions was limited. Participants gained a deeper understanding of the challenges and their perceptions (Table 1) by asking the 'why' question to clarify the root causes. They then brainstormed to identify possible local solutions and to identify and list potential partners who might be able to help implement these solutions (Table 2).The visioning process developed rich pictures of the current situation and the future desired state of the system (Figures 2 and 3). This generated great excitement among stakeholders as it stimulated the belief that they could be active decision makers of their own future. Taken together, the pictures of the current situation and the vision gave a general overview of what needed to be done. The pictures illustrated the interconnected nature of many of these challenges and placed them in context of the larger system. The exercise of depicting the system on paper made it clear that there was no single solution, but several issues that needed to be worked on concurrently.Magozi Scheme (present situation, Figure 2a). Of the 1300 hectares that could be irrigated, only 750 ha are under cultivation and produce low rice yields of 1-2 t/ha. Currently each farmer plants his or her own variety, many of which are of poor quality. Rudimentary farming equipment is available, which is time-and energy-consuming. Farmers also engage in poultry and livestock keeping. Agricultural extension officers from the Iringa District Council provide support services; however, demand for these services is higher than supply, illustrating the desire to learn. The scheme has many water-related issues, including: a water diversion license for only the wet season; only 7.5 km out of 29 km of canals lined with concrete; unlevelled plots; and lack of knowledge of water-use efficiency. The scheme does not have good road infrastructure, and transport to and from the farms is difficult.There are no scales, so farmers are compelled to use middlemen and the common but unfair means commonly known as lumbesa: i.e. filling a container until it overflows. There Table 2. an example of the results of group work within the agricultural Innovation platform focusing on the challenges, their root causes, possible solutions and the partners that may be able to assist in addressing these challenges.   are no rice storage facilities. There is no marketing body coordinating how, to whom and when to sell produce. Farmers act independently, based on their own decisions, often at their peril. Poverty dominates the area; the house types in the area evidence this. Few households own TV sets or bicycles, which are local indicators of wealth.Magozi Scheme (desired state, Figure 2b). By 2019, all 1300 ha are under cultivation, with one marketable and high-producing rice variety. The scheme has higher efficiency and modern labour/time-saving equipment. Farmers engage in more efficient poultry and livestock keeping. Agricultural extension services are more efficient. The scheme has more efficient water management structure and strategies, and more equitable water-use licenses; all the canals are lined with cement, all plots are levelled, and farmers know how to irrigate efficiently. The scheme has better roads and rice storage and milling facilities. Produce scales are available so that farmers are no longer compelled to use lumbesa. A marketing body is in place and functioning, and there is coordination between whom, when and how to sell produce. Poverty is diminishing in the area.Silalatshani Scheme (present situation, Figure 3a). The cropping programme devised in the 1960s, commanding the production of low-value crops such as maize and wheat, is still followed even though farmers cannot make a profit from these crops. Yields are very low, often similar to those obtained under rainfed conditions. Post-harvest infrastructure is nonfunctional, with the sheds and grading infrastructure damaged. There are disputes over very high, unpaid water charges to the local water authority, Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA), and many farmers have opted out of the scheme, thus increasing the burden of water charges and maintenance on the remaining irrigators. There are no agreed structures to transfer unproductive and fallow land to other prospective land users. The extension service providers, mainly the Department of Agricultural Technical and Extension Services (AGRITEX), lack the confidence to promote new techniques and higher-value crops and cannot access training courses to improve or update their knowledge. Water from the long canal between the dam and the scheme is used for brick making, livestock and home gardens, but members of the scheme have to pay all the water costs. The Irrigation Management Committee is largely defunct and does not have a voice in the running of the scheme. Failing infrastructure leads to water losses, and broken fences mean livestock stray onto the scheme. Land degradation is evident, with areas of low pH or high water tables. Illegal gold panning contributes to land degradation and canal damage.Silalatshani Scheme (desired state, Figure 3b). The participants want the unpaid water charges resolved before they are prepared to continue any significant activities. They believe that the scheme can be much more productive, with maize yield rising from the current 1 t/ha to over 4 t/ha. Diversification from staples to high-value crops such as garlic and other vegetables is a central strategy. This will require coordinated marketing, as the scheme is a long way from urban areas. Mobile technology has great potential for market information exchange and technical support services. The participants want to have financial institutions linked to farmers so farmers can access credit for purchasing inputs. Higher-value crops would allow farmers to invest in more inputs and in water-saving techniques such as drip irrigation. They have identified that currently unused land could be profitably used to grow fodder crops for fattening stock, while others want to diversify into broiler production. Participants want to see improved mechanization (more tractors) and infrastructure such as road, fence and canal repair, as well as opportunities for post-harvest storage and processing. They want to improve conservation measures, with silt traps and catchment area management plans in place.The danger of Stage 2, identification of system challenges, is to see technological intervention as the quick-fix solution to the immediate problem. While technology is important, the visioning process allows participants to place these technologies in the larger development context of the system. Furthermore, the visioning process brings to the fore the 'people' side of the problem, which is more difficult to articulate.Each scheme embarked on a process to develop intervention strategies to set the innovation process into motion. The activities identified largely fall into the following groupings: capacity building of both farmers and extension services; governance of associations and tenure issues; demonstration and research; inputs and finance; addressing challenges pertaining to markets and value chains; and scheme and plot management. Table 3 provides examples of the solutions pursued at each scheme.During the AIP meetings, stakeholders identified various challenges and factors that would, if not addressed, prevent progress. In Silalatshani, it was the issue of the very large debt to the water authority ZINWA (Table 3). Farmers indicated that they were not willing to continue with the AIP if this issue was not resolved. As discussed, the AIPs dealt with many innovations outside the main meeting. Various discussions took place between the local and national authorities, the Irrigation Management Committee and ZINWA. The analysis of this situation suggested that once the various parties realized the importance of the issue (no significant production will take place if this is not resolved) and the futility of the expectation to recoup this large sum of money from poor farmers, a resolution would emergeparticularly since the magnitude of the debt was primarily a function of multi-digit inflation and unrealistic exchange rates during the transition from ZAR to USD. ZINWA recalculated the USD 280,000 debt, reducing it by USD 200,000, and offered the farmers the remaining USD 80,000 financed by a loan with an annual interest rate of 1%. The farmers and the committee accepted this offer and started paying back the outstanding amount. They pay USD 14/ha per month × 0.5 ha = USD 84 per year per farmer, and if all 880 pay this amount they will be able to pay off the debt in just over a year. At the time of publication regular payments were being made by most farmers. This created significant goodwill, trust and confidence in the AIP process, the stakeholders and other role-players.In reaction to recurring challenges with regard to plot ownership and rights to land, the Rural District Council agreed to embark on a land audit to verify ownership and resolve absentee plot ownership, to free up land for irrigation.Rainfall is highly variable, and mid-season droughts can have devastating impacts on food production; but it falls at no cost. Irrigation, on the other hand, comes at substantial cost, both financial and institutional. In many instances governments or donors pay for the infrastructure associated with storage and conveyance systems, and only a fraction of the real cost is recovered from irrigators. At first irrigation appears to farmers as a windfall, but soon a set of negative feedback loops begin to manifest. Irrigated fields are prone to leaching, and cropping intensity can lead to soil degradation and disease build-up. Leakage from unmaintained canals, combined with poor irrigation management, makes schemes vulnerable to waterlogging and salinity. Growing low-value food crops on small plots of land with poor market access results in farmers being unable to pay the required fees, and as a result they abandon the land, leaving behind unpaid water bills (Moyo et al., 2017). The delays in these feedbacks mean that little is done until the system is close to collapse, at which point schemes are considered for revitalization. Rehabilitation and revitalization (Denison & Manona, 2007) of a degraded scheme is generally less expensive than developing a new scheme, and more likely to attract funding. The problem is viewed as 'hardware breakdown' , a problem we know how to fix. Although the breakdown of infrastructure is the most visible symptom, it masks the real problem: failure of the institutional arrangement to facilitate a form of agriculture than can pay the real costs.The central thesis of this article is that the solutions to the many challenges faced by small-scale irrigation schemes reside in (1) the transition from subsistence irrigated agriculture towards market-oriented production systems and (2) the institutional changes required to facilitate this transition. Changing the goals of the system and the paradigm on which the system is based are very effective entry points to achieve impact (Meadows, 1997). Success will require new thinking, the active involvement of new and diverse stakeholders, and substantial institutional reform. This is a new and challenging way of working for many of the traditional stakeholders.Our research shows that irrigation schemes display many of the characteristics of complex adaptive systems, but have not developed the capacity to adapt to the external environment in the absence of donor support. We found that the AIP approach effectively promoted the development of more adaptive behaviour in the system by bringing together a wide range of actors and institutions. Central to this is the development of a common vision, articulating the requirements of each actor, as well as the role(s) each actor can play in achieving the vision. The AIP actively identifies and promotes synergies emanating from cooperation. By facilitating and strengthening linkages and interaction between the stakeholders, new institutional arrangements and partnerships develop, increasing the efficiency of the system. The diverse actors bring together different types of knowledge, and when integrated, this results in new knowledge and learning about how to improve the functioning of the system. Through these interactions and partnerships, feedback mechanisms strengthen the linkages and dynamics between the stakeholders, evolving into a more functional constellation of actors and institutions.The visioning step defines a commonly understood and desired state, creating a collective understanding of the direction of change, the challenges and opportunities, as well as the roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders in addressing these. The visioning process replaces the classic linear 'problem identification and technological-intervention-oriented fix' with a process to analyze challenges and their root causes in the context of the system, transitioning towards the desired state. In doing so it makes the future tangible, creating a sense of ownership and revealing how cash requirements for education and human health can be met through increased income from irrigated agriculture. The rich pictures define the desired state and often link irrigated agriculture with the rest of the system, such as the need for input and output markets, the relationship between irrigated and dry-land cropping, and the potential link between livestock and irrigation by using crop residues, or growing fodder crops on irrigated land.Including these diverse stakeholders in the innovation process is, therefore, crucial to being able to identify the opportunities and design strategies to increase returns on investments. Integrating the diverse perspectives and previously unconnected knowledge facilitates the generation of new knowledge and approaches to address systemic challenges (Mitchell & Nicholas, 2006). It is a very powerful process when buyers articulate price in relation to the grades and standards required, while input suppliers explain how these grades and standards can be achieved through investment in good seed, fertilizers, irrigation management and disease control. With relevant agronomic advice provided by extension officers, farmers not only begin to understand relationships between improved production and returns at the market, but also have the incentive to engage.By the time participants come to identify intervention options, the clearest message tends to be to become more market-oriented. Many irrigation schemes start with the objective of growing staples, but history shows that the return from growing staples on small plots is not economically sustainable, except perhaps for the cultivation of rice (World Bank, 2007). Markets, if accessible and functional, provide both the cash to invest and the incentives to improve performance, establishing a positive feedback loop. The positive relationship between inputs (water, seed, fertilizer and labour) and crop production and ultimately food security is clear (Figure 4). Examples of changes in behaviour include:(1) ZINWA reduced the water bill on the realization that their business model depended on full use of the scheme and profitable farmers who were able to pay water charges. (2) Extension officers realized that growing certain crops was not a viable economic option after a gross margin comparison. (3) Farmers were prepared to increase investments in production after they realized that they could reap the benefits in the market.These examples illustrate how improved and integrated knowledge can facilitate the development of feedback systems. Input suppliers were often inspired by the business opportunities, and the role they could play in helping producers grow crops that comply with market requirements. Output market representatives better understood their role in providing clear information on price and quality standards. In particular, the roles played by those beyond the farm gate came into sharper focus. Local authorities were made acutely aware of their roles and responsibilities and how their actions (and local-level policies) could be stifling positive change. For example, the ownership of infrastructure is often contested, as no one wants to claim the responsibility for maintenance. In various schemes, Silalatshani in particular, farmers are now self-organizing and investing their time and money in maintaining the infrastructure, because they can reap the benefits.Centralized control stifles innovation in government-managed irrigation schemes. The implementation of plans without consideration of the markets or farmers' preferences prevents the positive feedback loops between farmers and markets from developing. The critical issue is that it does not allow any form of experimentation (with crops and markets, or watering regimes), and the learning and development of local experience and the incentives to learn and self-organize that come with it (see also Mutiro & Lautze, 2015). Many participants recognize the need to reduce central control over irrigation systems by the public sector in favour of local-level coordination, where stakeholders are able to interact, learn, experiment, self-organize and adapt.The inclusion of new and non-traditional institutions, and therefore the development of new institutional arrangements, is critical in creating an environment in which the irrigation system can function and evolve through the refinement of relationships and interactions and the subsequent development of feedback mechanisms. Institutions such as water and local government authorities, who have great control over systems via previously unidirectional directives, now become part of the multidirectional information-sharing and innovation process. They perceive their impact on the system in a much better light, and are more prepared to act in ways that facilitate development rather than controlling or stifling it. ZINWA reducing their bill and the Regional District Council engaging in a land audit proved to advance progress, and not only generated greater mutual understanding and goodwill, but also facilitated new interest in working irrigated plots.The primary role of the AIP is to facilitate the transition of a system from a poorer to an improved state. However, the development of local capacity to innovate has much longerterm implications. Through the iterative process, participants learn to analyze problems and determine their root causes. More importantly, stakeholders develop the skills required to develop formal and informal linkages, collaborate based on comparative advantages, and develop partnerships to address problems and achieve objectives. The sources of knowledge grow in depth and diversity, and the integration of different types of knowledge, as indicated, results in significant changes in behaviour. In some cases, the incentive for collective action and cooperation is clear, and stakeholders are able to organize this themselves, such as the canal maintenance in Silalatshani. These are strong indicators of a movement towards resilience (Folke, Colding, & Berkes, 2003) and adaptive capacity in the system. This, together with the feedback mechanisms which maintain the system, such as the impact of knowledge systems and their interactions with markets, may also suggest transitions towards more sustainable systems.The recurring question remains: How to create impact at a larger scale? Based on this ongoing work, we propose to scale out the lessons and innovations rather than replicating the AIPs. In the examples listed here, the AIP focussed on single irrigation schemes, while most of the stakeholders and institutions work with or have influence over many more irrigation schemes. Future work will therefore aim to (1) increase the geographical footprint of existing AIPs by including more of the schemes that are within their spheres of influence, and (2) share the outcomes and lessons learnt with an influential audience at higher levels of organization, with the aim to augment the paradigm shift from 'technological interventions' to a focus on better and more inclusive institutional arrangements which facilitate system efficiency and local adaptive capacity.Irrigation schemes often fail because of hardware breakdown, and therefore technological fixes are most often the point of intervention. We argue that hardware failure is a misdiagnosis of the problem. Small-scale irrigation systems have many of the characteristics of complex socio-ecological systems. They have many different actors, and they are composed of numerous subsystems. However, they often lack interaction between the different subsystems and their agents, preventing learning and the emergence of more beneficial outcomes. AIP is therefore effective in bringing a wide range of stakeholders together to forge new ways of doing business around complex agricultural systems (Swaans et al., 2013). The AIP develops greater understanding of the importance of the inclusion of nontraditional stakeholders and the interrelationships between players to work towards mutually agreed goals. It can bring about systemic change, primarily as a result of the diversity of actors, their interactions and their collective knowledge and skills to define and evaluate improved strategies, as well as the associated rearrangement of institutions. This is critical because it goes beyond the single technological approach of traditional irrigation management (Lam & Ostrom, 2010) and takes the first steps towards a situation where institutional reform can facilitate technological development (Clark, 2002).","tokenCount":"5833"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9761737f16565959cdc108b7bceee28a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/89f11a02-38f7-42cb-aa9d-668ca6e228b6/retrieve","id":"989721758"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"49df3f79-061f-43a4-af5c-85d49e9253f0","pagecount":"2","content":"Rift Valley fever is a mosquito-borne viral zoonotic disease that affects sheep, goats, cattle and camels causing devastating losses, especially among pastoral communities that rely on livestock for their livelihoods. The disease occurs in explosive outbreaks following periods of above-normal and persistent rainfall.People can become infected with Rift Valley fever after being bitten by an infected mosquito or through close contact with acutely infected animals or their tissues. In people, the disease manifests itself as a mild influenza-like syndrome in over 80% of cases or a severe disease with haemorrhagic fever, encephalitis or retinitis in a few cases.Because of its episodic occurrence and predilection for remote pastoral areas, the impact of the disease is often exacerbated by delays in the deployment of prevention and control measures, frequently due to a lack of pre-allocated funds for financing emergency measures.Livestock vaccination is regarded as the most reliable method for controlling the disease. However, an assessment of emergency vaccination programs implemented after the 2007-08 Rift Valley fever outbreak in eastern Africa and during the 2015 scare showed that vaccination levels achieved were too low to make a difference.Current vaccination approaches have been proven to be ineffective, partly because the risk of Rift Valley fever in eastern Africa evolves rapidly and usually there is not enough time to plan and execute interventions. In addition, areas where the disease is endemic are usually inaccessible during the highrisk periods due to excessive rainfall and flooding preceding outbreaks.This project, therefore, aims to develop optimal Rift Valley fever vaccination strategies that combine periodic preventive vaccination and reactive vaccination in the high-risk periods to replace the current practice where only reactive vaccination is implemented after warnings of heightened disease risk have been issued. Scientists will seek to use the findings generated from the project to develop Rift Valley fever vaccination strategies which could be used by policymakers throughout the eastern Africa region. identified through modelling, and those found to be sustainable will be developed further for use.• Undertaking of field-and laboratory-based vaccination response studies. It is often assumed that vaccination confers life-long protection to hosts, but little research has been undertaken to verify this assumption. Even if protective antibodies were to persist for a lifetime in a vaccinated host, the high turn-over rates of livestock-particularly in Rift Valley fever-endemic areas-would have a substantial impact on herd immunity.Longitudinal studies involving vaccinated cattle, sheep and goats will be implemented in Rift Valley fever-endemic sites to determine changes in protective antibody titres over time and rates of replacement of vaccinated animals in a herd. Virus neutralization assays will also be used to determine whether the potency of antibodies generated from vaccination can be maintained over a period of one year. Some of the data generated from this trial will be used to validate the transmission model used under activity one above to develop vaccination strategies. • Identification of factors influencing the uptake of Rift Valley fever vaccines. Previous surveys have shown that Rift Valley fever vaccination campaigns in many areas in East Africa often attain very low levels of coverage which may not be enough to prevent an outbreak. This could be attributed to a range of factors, including institutional challenges that limit vaccine delivery and socio-cultural issues that limit uptake at community level. Extensive socio-economic studies will be conducted to identify these factors and ways of addressing them. Special attention will be paid to understanding gender roles in disease management and Photo credit ILRI/Stevie Mann","tokenCount":"574"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f70bb7913867e34617193c6cf0d07363","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/2aae7f1b-9e8a-42ce-92fd-46448f9f23bb/retrieve","id":"1685076730"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"04197546-f33f-40b1-8f80-d0218e53ee4b","pagecount":"15","content":"The identification of Afrotropical hoverflies is very difficult because of limited recent taxonomic revisions and the lack of comprehensive identification keys. In order to assist in their identification, and to improve the taxonomy of this group, we constructed a reference dataset of 513 COI barcodes of 90 of the more common nominal species from Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria (W Africa) and added ten publically available COI barcodes from nine nominal Afrotropical species to this (total: 523 COI barcodes; 98 nominal species; 26 genera). The identification accuracy of this dataset was evaluated with three methods (K2P distance-based, Neighbor-Joining (NJ) / Maximum Likelihood (ML) analysis, and using SpeciesIdentifier). Results of the three methods were highly congruent and showed a high identification success. Nine species pairs showed a low (< 0.03) mean interspecific K2P distance that resulted in several incorrect identifications. A high (> 0.03) maximum intraspecific K2P distance was observed in eight species and barcodes of these species not always formed single clusters in the NJ / ML analayses which may indicate the occurrence of cryptic species. Optimal K2P thresholds to differentiate intra-from interspecific K2P divergence were highly different among the three subfamilies (Eristalinae: 0.037, Syrphinae: 0.06, Microdontinae: 0.007-0.02), and among the different general suggesting that optimal thresholds are better defined at the genus level. In addition to providing an alternative identification tool, our study indicates that DNA barcoding improves the taxonomy of Afrotropical hoverflies by selecting (groups of) taxa that deserve further taxonomic study, and by attributing the unknown sex to species for which only one of the sexes is known.Syrphidae (hoverflies or flower flies) is one of the most diverse, and well-known to the general public, family of Diptera, with more than 6,000 species worldwide [1]. Adult hoverflies are often important for the pollination of flowering plants [2,3]. The larvae, in turn, are often notorious predators of aphids or larvae of other insects [4], and as such are useful for insect pest control e.g. [5]. Finally, some syrphid larvae are also used for weed control e.g. [6].The Afrotropical region (i.e. Africa south of the Sahara) harbors approximately 600 species of hoverflies of three out of the four hoverfly subfamilies (viz. Microdontinae, Eristalinae and Syrphinae) [1,7,8,9]. The subfamily Pipizinae [10] is not represented on the African continent. The identification of Afrotropical hoverflies is difficult and challenging for two major reasons. First, Whittington [8] calculated that, using identification keys, it is only possible to key to species about 60% of the known fauna, and very little progress in improving identification keys has been made ever since. The larger the genus, the less reliable the identification, because there are greater chances that the keys will not work and it becomes more difficult to use the original descriptions for identification (since there are a greater number of choices) [8]. Second, many of the original descriptions are too brief or too vague for species identification, and several keys are of males only (e.g. Hull's [11] key to Eumerus). Very few groups have been the subject of a thorough revision, providing more detailed redescriptions. The currently available identification tools, based solely on morphological information, are therefore inadequate. The development of an accurate and effective molecular identification system would be helpful to assist morphological identification of Afrotropical hoverflies, and ecological studies on them.DNA barcoding has become a popular and practical method for distinguishing species using a short DNA sequence from a specific locus in the genome. In most animal groups, the standard is a 658 base pair (bp) fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene [12,13]. Intraspecific COI barcode divergences are usually much lower than interspecific ones, a pattern often referred to as the \"barcode gap\". This makes it generally straightforward to match unknown specimens to reference sequences e.g. [14,15,16], but see [17,18]. Specifically, DNA barcoding may complement, and stimulate, taxonomic research since it 1) highlights taxa that deserve further taxonomic study, especially those that exhibit high intra-or low interspecific sequence divergence, 2) links sexes in species were only one sex is known, and 3) relates developmental stages of species for which the reproductive ecology is poorly understood [15,19]. So far, only two studies dealt with DNA barcoding of Syrphidae, viz. one on West Palaearctic Pandasyopthalmus [20] and one on the genus Merodon from Lesvos Island (Greece) [21], although COI barcodes have been used in several taxonomic studies of Syrphidae e.g. [22,23,24]. Nevertheless, there are many COI barcodes/sequences in GenBank (a search with the keywords \"Syrphidae and barcode\" or \"Syrphidae and COI\" on 2 September 2015 retrieved 1,328 and 2,841 records, respectively) and in the Barcoding of Life Database System (BOLD; http://www.barcoding-life.org) [25] there are 21,621 Syrphidae specimens with barcodes (6,083 are public records with species names). Yet, there are only ten >550 bp COI barcodes from nine nominal species in GenBank or publicly available in BOLD that are from hoverflies that are identified to the species level and that occur in the Afrotropics (apart from some entries that have genus names only), and another 17 partial (i.e. 307-427 bp) COI barcodes from 12 morphospecies are available in GenBank (S2 Table ; note that the Paragus tibialis barcodes were from European specimens but that this species also occurs in the Afrotropics). This means that species assignments for >98% of the Afrotropical hoverflies cannot be verified with the BOLD Identification System (BOLD-IDS) [25] or GenBank's BLAST [26].In order to address the relative paucity of available DNA barcodes for Afrotropical syrphids, we conducted a study of 98 nominal species, mainly from western Africa (Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria) (Fig 1 ; S1 Table ) and constructed a DNA barcode library to identify hoverflies from this region. Multiple analytic methods were evaluated to get insight into the accuracy and shortcomings of the database. Finally, we illustrate how DNA barcoding can be used to complement and boost taxonomic research on this speciose insect group.  ). Activities reported in the study were conducted neither in national parks nor in any protected areas where a special permit was required. Generally hover fly material was obtained from agricultural land and its adjacent environment. Private grounds were never penetrated without the consent of owners and were visited with national recruited staff and as part of the ongoing projects on pest control and biodiversity of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). IITA is a non-profit making international organisation and a member of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research Consortium deeply implicated in researchfor-development work in collaboration with national partners of 25 countries in the humid and sub-humid zones of sub-Saharan Africa. Research work in Ghana, Benin, and Nigeria, where IITA is headquartered or has regional offices, is based on bilateral agreements in form of memorandums of understanding (MoU) signed by the ministries of agriculture of all respective governments (more information can be found on http://www.iita.org/). In these MoU's research work in the field is an integral part of IITA's contracted mandate. In Togo, IITA maintains a close partnership with the National Plant Protection Service (SPV) and the university of Lomé through which material was obtained. Therefore, no specific permissions were required for the collected hoverfly material. None of the collected hoverfly species figure in any red list, are endangered, threatened or considered to be endangered in the involved countries. Similarly, no species collected in the present study are ranked in any IUCN list or protected by CITES.Specimens collected before 2013 were pinned and stored in the dry collection at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (ITTA) in Calavi, Benin (N = 303); those collected in 2013-2014 were kept in absolute ethanol and are vouchered at the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA, Tervuren, Belgium) (N = 337) (S1 Table ). All specimens were identified based on external morphology by KJ and MDM (a list of the keys used is available in S1 Text), except for the Microdontinae which were identified by Menno Reemer (Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, The Netherlands). Whenever possible, identifications were checked against voucher specimens at the RMCA, the National Museum Bloemfontein (Bloemfontein, South-Africa), and the KwaZulu Natal Museum (Pietermaritzburg, South-Africa). Some specimens could not be unambiguously identified, but were linked to the morphologically most similar species by 'cf.' (confer) or the most similar genus by 'sp.'. In both cases the specimens were treated as separate nominal species. One male Syritta specimen (voucher 422C03; labelled as Syritta brevis/ unicolor, see S1 Table ) keyed out at a position where Lyneborg & Barkemeyer [27], in their identification key on Syritta, noted \"the unknown males of S. unicolor new species and S. breva new species will probably come out here\" (i.e. the males of both species are unknown). As such we identified 101 nominal species from 28 genera. One leg of each specimen was preserved in 98% ethanol at -20°C for DNA sequencing.Genomic DNA was extracted using the NucleoSpin Tissue kit (Macherey-Nagel, Düren, Germany). After adding proteinase K, samples were incubated overnight at 56°C. A fragment of the 5'-end of COI was amplified using primer pair LCO1490 and HCO2198 [28]. Each PCR mixture (25 μl) contained 1x PCR buffer, 0.2 mM dNTPs, 0.4 μM of each primer, 2.0 mM MgCl 2 , 0.5 U of Taq DNA polymerase (Platinum, Invitrogen), 2 μl DNA extract and enough mQ-H 2 O to reach a total volume of 25 μl. The PCR protocol involved an initial denaturation period of 94°C for 4 min, followed by 35 cycles of 30 s at 94°C, 30 s at 45°C and 45 s at 72°C, and a final extension of 7 min at 72°C. Amplicons were cleaned using the NucleoSpin 1 protocol (Macherey-Nagel, Düren, Germany) and bidirectionally sequenced (using the PCR primers) on an ABI 3130xl automated capillary DNA sequencer (Life Technologies) using the BigDye Terminator v.3.1. Cycle Sequencing Kit. Sequences were assembled in SeqScape v.2.5 (Applied Biosystems), and aligned, trimmed and translated into amino acid sequences in MEGA v.5.2 [29] to verify that they were free of stop codons and gaps (none were detected). All sequences were submitted to GenBank (Accession nos. KR830807-KR831281, KR632611-KR632615, and KT624201-KT624233). Additionally, we included the ten >550 bp DNA barcodes of nine nominal Syrphidae species from GenBank and BOLD which also occur in the Afrotropics (S2 Table ).First, we described the success rate of obtaining DNA barcodes of >550 bp. This threshold was arbitrarily chosen to retain a high amount of barcodes without the loss of a long fragment of the barcode region in further analyses. Samples for which the PCR failed, or for which the sequencing yielded shorter fragments, were considered as unsuccessful. The success rate, i.e.  ). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0140264.g001 the percentage of samples with barcodes >550 bp, of the pinned specimens was calculated for periods of five years (i.e., 1993-1997, 1998-2002, 2003-2007, and 2008-2012), and that for the ethanol stored material (2013-2014) was calculated separately. Then, three analytical approaches were employed to analyse the sequences and are briefly described below.Kimura 2-parameter (K2P) [30] pairwise distances were calculated within and between species, genera, and subfamilies, since in DNA barcoding studies this is the most widely used distance measure, but see [31] for a discussion on the (inappropriate) use of this measure. Frequency distribution histograms of conspecific and heterospecific pairwise distances, for each of the three subfamilies and for each of the genera with >5 morphospecies, were constructed using the APE package 2.7-1 of R [32] to look for (the size of) barcode gaps [33]. If there is no overlap in the cumulative distribution curves of intra-and interspecific K2P distances, this was referred to as a 'true barcoding gap'.The proportion of correctly identified specimens was estimated using the Best Match (BM) and Best Close Match (BCM) criteria in the program SpeciesIdentifier [34]. According to BM, each query was assigned the species name of its best-matching sequence regardless of how similar the query and reference sequences were. Identification then was considered correct when both sequences were from the same species (true positive), incorrect if the query species differed from the closest reference species (false positive) or ambiguous if multiple species yielded a BM with the query species. BCM relies on a threshold value of sequence similarity. This threshold was determined as the 'best compromise threshold' based on cumulative distribution curves of intra-and interspecific K2P distances following [35]. The proportion of correct, ambiguous or incorrect identifications was calculated as above. Yet, with the latter method, queries that have no BCM below the threshold are discarded from the identifications (i.e. remained unidentified) (as true negative if identification was incorrect, as false negative if identification was correct). Note that species that are only represented by a single sequence in the dataset will generate incorrect identifications under the BM and BCM criteria, because there are no other conspecific reference sequences in the dataset with which they can match [36]. For this, we have eliminated species with only one barcode sequence (N = 32; S1 Table ) from the BM and BCM analyses. In the presence of a true barcoding gap, identification success using BM and BCM is 100%.A Neighbor-Joining (NJ) tree [37] (using K2P distances) and a maximum likelihood (ML) tree [38] were constructed after removing identical sequences with DAMBE v.5 [39]. We focused on whether individuals of the same species clustered together, rather than on the evolutionary relationships between species (i.e. tree-based identification sensu [13,14], see [34]). Clistoabdominalis ancylus (Pipunculidae, voucher JSS1353, GenBank accession no. DQ337639) was used as outgroup. The NJ-tree was constructed in MEGA v.5.2 [29] using 1,000 bootstrap replicates. In addition, the COI dataset was partitioned according to codon position and the Akaike Information criterion in jModelTest v.2 [38,40] was used to select the most appropriate model of evolution. These were the F81+I+G (first position), GTR+I+G (second position), and GTR+G (third position) model, respectively. Then, Garli v.2.01 [41] was used to perform a maximum likelihood (ML) analysis (two replicates; 200 bootstrap pseudoreplicates) taken into account the most appropriate models of evolution for each of the three codon positions.A total of 513 out of the 640 individuals (80.2%) were successfully sequenced for a COI barcode fragment of >550 bp, representing 90 nominal species of 24 genera (Fig 1 ; S1 Table ). For 11 nominal species no barcode was obtained. Likewise, for four genera (viz. Ceratrichomyia, Meromacroides, Milesia, and Paramixogaster) no barcodes could be sequenced successfully. The success rate of obtaining a >550 bp DNA barcode was higher for the recent, ethanol preserved specimens (321/337 or 95.3%), than for the older, pinned specimens (192/303 or 63.4%) of which the success rate dropped sharply for samples of >10 years old (Fig 2). Together with the ten >550 bp COI barcodes (from nine nominal species) from GenBank (S2 Table ), the total DNA barcode dataset comprised 523 COI barcodes, from 98 nominal species belonging to 26 genera (S2 Text). More than one barcode was available for 66 of these taxa (S1 Table, S3 Table ), while the remaining 32 had no conspecific in the dataset. One specimen of Methadon cf. mythes (voucher 414D05) clustered within a group of three Microdon (subgenus Microdon) specimens and not with two other Methadon cf. mythes individuals (S1 Fig) . Since both genera are very divergent in morphology and DNA sequences it is most likely that this specimen was mislabeled and it was therefore discarded in the identification analyses.We obtained a mean of 5.32 barcode sequences per species (4.13 if we only consider the unique haplotypes (i.e. individuals with similar barcodes are counted once), with 67.3% of the species represented by at least two barcodes (Fig 3A , S3 Table). If we excluded species represented by a single specimen (N = 32), the number of haplotypes per species (N = 66) ranged from 1 to 19 (Fig 3B , S3 Table), with a mean of 5.65 haplotypes per species. This mean number increased with the number of specimens sampled (Fig 3C ). Haplotype numbers increased rapidly with the number of individuals sampled per species (Spearman Rank R s = 0.971, t = 32.56, N = 66, P < 0.0001), but correlations with mean and maximum intraspecific K2P distances were less strong (R s = 0.144, t = 1.17, N = 66, P = 0.12 and R s = 0.51, t = 4.70, N = 66, P < 0.0001, respectively). Thus, greater intraspecific sampling yields more haplotypes, but has no major effect on intraspecific K2P distances.The average K2P distances within species and among species within genus were 0.0073 (range 0-0.0563) and 0.0721 (range: 0-0.163), respectively. Of the 98 putative nominal species, 83 (84.7%) showed K2P distances of >0.03 from their nearest neighbor. Nine species pairs [15 nominal species (15.3%)] had a mean K2P distance <0.03 (Table 1), but no haplotypes were shared between species. The mean intraspecific K2P distance ranged from 0 to 0.0563 (S3 Table ). High maximum intraspecific K2P divergences (>0.03) were observed for eight putative  ).The BM and BCM analyses were performed on 66 nominal species for which more than one barcode was available (Table 2; S3 Table ). The best threshold distance to separate intra-from interspecific K2P distances was 0.057 for the entire dataset but with large differences in thresholds among the three subfamilies, viz. 0.037 (Eristalinae), 0.060 (Syrphinae), and 0.007-0.02 (Microdontinae) (Fig 4). Only for the Microdontinae there was a true barcode gap with no overlap between the frequency histograms of congeneric (minimal K2P distance: 0.02) and intraspecific (maximal K2P distance: 0.007) K2P distances. For all genera with >5 morphospecies, there was a true barcoding gap (subfamily Eristalinae: Eristalinus: 0.040-0.050, Eumerus: 0.011-0.099, Mesembrius: 0.017-0.040, Phytomia: 0.052-0.098, Syritta: 0.043; subfamily Syrphinae: Paragus: 0.013-0.067; subfamily Microdontinae: Metadon: 0.007-0.020), except for the genus Allobaccha (subfamily Syrphinae: optimal threshold: 0.053).Identification success for the three subfamilies is summarized in Table 2. For the Eristalinae, identification success for the BM method was 100%, that for the BCM method 98.2% with six individuals (1.8%) that had a closest match above the threshold, though the closest match was always a conspecific (Table 3). For the Syrphinae, identification success for the BM and BCM method was 97.1%. Four individuals (2.9%) were incorrectly identified, viz. three Asarkina ericetorum individuals were identified as A. gemmata while one A. gemmata individual was identified as A. ericetorum (Table 3). For the Microdontinae, identification success for the BM and BCM method was 100%. Likewise, for those genera with a true barcoding gap, identification success was 100%. Also for Allobaccha, BM and BCM identification success was 100% despite an overlap in the cumulative distribution curves of intra-and interspecific K2P distances. This is because the overlap is caused by morphospecies with single barcodes which are discarded in the calculation of BM and BCM identification success (see Materials and methods).Thirty-two of the 98 nominal species (32.7%) for which we obtained a barcode(s) were represented by a single branch (i.e. single haplotype) in the NJ/ML-tree (S1 Fig) . Of the 66 nominal species with 2 haplotypes, 60 (91%) formed clusters with high (>98%) bootstrap support in the NJ-analysis, while bootstrap support for the clusters was generally lower in the ML-analysis (32 morphospecies (48%) with bootstrap support >98%). Two nominal species (3%) formed clusters with low (<70%) bootstrap support in the NJ/ML-analysis, viz. Allobaccha cf. praeusta and Melanostoma bituberculatum, while in the ML-analysis also the clusters of Eristalodes quinquelineatus and Melanostoma cf. bituberculatum had low (< 70%) bootstrap support. The barcodes of four nominal species (6%) did not form single clusters. The barcodes of Allobaccha picta formed two clusters and one of these included the single barcode of A. euryptera. The barcodes of Asarkina ericetorum formed a cluster with the barcode of Asarkina sp. 1 and those of A. gemmata which neither formed a single cluster. Finally, the single barcode of Eristalodes surcoufi was nested within the cluster of Eristalodes quinquelineatus barcodes.We evaluated the use of DNA barcoding to identify 90 Afrotropical hoverfly species collected in an area that largely corresponds to the Dahomey Gap, a West African region where the Guinean Forest-Savanna Mosaic reaches the coastal area, thereby splitting the coastal forest ecoregions (with the Eastern Guinean Forests ecosystem to the West, and the Nigerian Lowland Forests ecosystem to the East) [42]. It is currently composed of a mosaic of savannahs, plantations, degraded forest and remnants of natural forest. Public DNA sequence libraries (GenBank and BOLD) lack representative reference barcodes for these, and almost all other, Afrotropical Syrphidae even though about 600 species currently have been described [1,7,8,9]. One reason for the lack of DNA barcodes of Afrotropical hoverflies in public databases is that much of the material is pinned and old. Indeed, the success rate of obtaining a barcode sharply dropped for samples of >10 years old (20% success rate), a phenomenon that is common among pinned insects [43,44]. Nested PCR and mini-barcode approaches may overcome the low PCR and DNA sequencing success rate of old, pinned specimens e.g. [45,46], but are more time-consuming and labor intensive, especially if new primers need to be developed. Next-generation DNA barcoding may become a better solution because of its protocol simplicity, reduced cost per barcode read, faster throughout, and added information content [47]. Currently, using Sanger-sequencing our database represents roughly one third of the more common species (estimated from records given by [48]), and does not include any typespecimen. Table 3. Specific results for the Best Match (BM) and Best Close Match (BCM) identification methods (see also Table 2). The last column gives the optimal threshold used for the BCM method (see text and [35]).Voucher BM/BCM Voucher K2P ThresholdCorrect identifications with BCM above optimal threshold within the Eristalinae (false negatives) Obviously, our dataset does not span the entire taxonomic diversity of African hoverflies and two-thirds of the more common species, and representatives from more than 20 genera, are not represented in the dataset (because of the restricted sampling area). Besides the lack of many species in the dataset, we found a highly significant correlation between the number of individuals sampled per species and the number of haplotypes recovered, and between the number of species sampled per genus and the number of known species in Africa, even though the mean, and maximum, K2P distances were not, or less, affected by sample size. Incorrect species assignments in Afrotropical Syrphidae thus may be because of errors in the construction of the barcode database. This problem is inherently associated with barcoding studies of unknown biotas, such as Afrotropical hoverflies for which only approximately 60% of the known species can be identified using the current identification keys [8]. The more speciose genera even pose more of a problem, because keys for these genera cover only 44% of the Afrotropical fauna [8]. For instance, the genus Eumerus is probably the most speciose hoverfly genus in the Afrotropics with more than 70 species [48] but current identification keys have many shortcomings and species descriptions of many species are vague, insufficient, or based on a single sex. Nevertheless, DNA barcode studies such as ours may set a reference, and may improve or boost ongoing taxonomic studies on the Afrotropical Syrphidae. Conducting similar studies for representative collections of other geographical parts or biomes of the continent may rapidly increase our taxon coverage (including generic level), and thereby increasing the value of the DNA barcode database as a useful tool for identification and other research purposes.Despite of the shortcomings listed above, DNA barcoding works well for most of the nominal species we examined, and various analytical methods give highly congruent results. In general, the mean intraspecific divergence of 0.0078 (range 0-0.0563) is at the lower end of the distribution of intraspecific divergences found in other insect groups, while the mean interspecific divergence of 0.093 (range 0-0.163) is relatively high for congeneric insect species [49]. Yet, the interspecific divergence distribution overlaps the intraspecific divergence distribution in the subfamilies Syrphinae and Eristalinae, resulting in the absence of a perfect DNA barcoding gap [50]. This makes it impossible to define a general distance threshold for hoverflies. However, some methods allow to estimate an ad hoc threshold for a specific reference dataset so that assignment errors can be minimized e.g. [36]. Such threshold was lower for the Eristalinae (0.037) than for the Syrphinae (0.06), and were much higher than for the Microdontinae that showed a true barcoding gap (0.007-0.02) (i.e. there is no overlap in the frequency histograms of congeneric and intraspecific K2P-distances; see Fig 4C). Our results further show that optimal thresholds may differ strongly among genera and thus is seems more appropriate to calculate optimal thresholds at the genus level to discriminate between intra-and interspecific K2P distances. In our dataset, incorrect assignments were caused both by high intraspecific, and low interspecific, sequence divergence, and this suggests that the taxonomy of several taxa deserves further study, or, alternatively, that DNA barcoding may not work for some genera or species groups.Meier et al. [34] investigated whether DNA barcodes could be used for species identification in 449 species (1333 barcodes) of Diptera and found a relatively low success rate (< 70%) based on tree-based and other proposed species identification criteria. Yet, DNA barcoding allows the fast detection of shallow interspecific, or deep intraspecific, barcode divergences and may facilitate the selection of taxa for future taxonomic work [15,19]. As such, we can depict problematic taxa, or species groups, within the Afrotropical Syrphidae that warrant further taxonomic study. Low interspecific differentiation was observed in five nominal species pairs, viz. Allobaccha euryptera-A. picta, Allobaccha praeusta-A. cf. praeusta, Asarkina ericetorum -A. gemmata, Eristalinus quinquelineatus-A. surcoufi, Microdon brevicornis-Archmicrodon sp.1, Rhingia caerulescens-R. semicaerulea, and Melanostoma bituberculatum-M. cf. floripeta-M. cf. bituberculatum, whereas high intraspecific differentiation was observed in Allobaccha picta, Asarkina ericetorum, Syritta bulbus, Phytomia natalensis, Eristalodes quinquelineatus, Eristalinus vicarians, Graptomyza triangulifera, and Polybiomyia divisa. Such observations may reflect geographical structuring or evolutionary history. Some of these lineages may represent recently diverged species in which the COI sequences has not yet accumulated many mutations or may represent ancestral polymorphisms that have been retained in the two taxa. This may not be very surprising for a group that has received little taxonomic attention. One obvious genus that illustrates well how DNA barcoding may be an onset for a taxonomic revision is Allobaccha for which we observed both low inter-and high intraspecific sequence divergence, and a number of putative nominal species, which we could not identify using the current literature/keys, and that may represent undescribed taxa. Perhaps this is even better illustrated by the Microdontinae of our dataset where none of the individuals for which we obtained a COI barcode currently could be attributed to a known species (see S1 Table ). Two Metadon taxa, viz. Metadon cf. mythes and M. cf. inermis, morphologically closely resemble known species, and five other clades in the NJ-tree seem to represent undescribed species. Also the Paramixogaster specimen for which we could not obtain a COI barcode, seems to be an undescribed taxon (Menno Reemer, personal communication). Obviously, there is a need for more sequence data and the study of more variable DNA markers to improve resolution but also of a re-evaluation of the morphological characters that currently are used to separate the nominal species (see also [51]). Only such an integrative approach will allow to highlight the effects for the lack of correspondence between sequence variants and current nominal species, in a similar way as integrated taxonomy has improved the taxonomy of the Merodon equestris species complex [52].DNA barcoding allowed to detect an introduced hoverfly species in the Afrotropics, viz. Toxomerus floralis (Fabricius, 1798). Obviously, the specimens could not be identified using the current literature and identification keys on Afrotropical Syrphidae. Using the search engines BOLD Identification System (BOLD-IDS) and GenBank's BLAST the specimens were assigned to T. floralis. A subsequent morphological identification using specific keys for Toxomerus confirmed the species' identification [53]. This New Word species is only the second New World species that has been introduced into the Old World and it seems well-established in Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon. Hence, DNA barcoding may not only facilitate the discovery and identification of (recent) introductions but it may also allow a better bio-monitoring of the species and of the potential impact on endemic plant-pollinator communities and ecosystems [54].The larvae of hoverflies show a variety of feeding modes. Information on the feeding mode, and associated feeding morphology, may yield important information to understand the evolutionary and phylogenetic relationships of hoverflies, since morphological innovation is often associated with feeding modes [55,56]. Unfortunately, such information is lacking for most hoverfly species. For instance, food plants (oviposition sites) are known, and descriptions of immature stages have been provided, for <8% of known phytophagous hoverflies [55,56]. Andrić et al. [57] showed that DNA barcoding is a useful tool to identify the larvae of Merodon species. Similarly, our DNA barcoding reference library of Afrotropical hoverflies may enhance our understanding of the (feeding) ecology and morphology for Afrotropical hoverfly species. In the same view, DNA barcoding will be highly valuable in linking sexes of species, especially since perhaps for even more than 30% of the current Afrotropical hoverfly species only one sex is known. For instance, previously supposed females of Mesembrius ingratus (Loew, 1858) were all attributed to Mesembrius tarsatus (Bigot, 1883) [58] so that the female of M. ingratus remained unknown. We here show that males of both species have a very low intraspecific sequence divergence (M. ingratus: 0.0022, M. tarsatus: 0.0015), yet a high mean K2P-sequence divergence of 0.09. Two females (vouchers 106E08 and 417E08) clustered within the males of M. ingratus while seven other females (vouchers 106E02, 106E04, 107A08, 107C03, 425F06, 418B03, 418C03) clustered within the males of M. tarsatus. We thus have, for the first time, individuals that can be unambiguously identified as females of M. ingratus. This result will further allow to examine the females of both species for morphological diagnostic characters, and to improve the morphological identification key for the genus Mesembrius (Jordaens, Goergen, Backeljau & De Meyer, unpublished data). Another example is the one male Syritta specimen (voucher 426A01) that in the identification key of [27] keyed out at a position where the unknown males of Syritta brevis and S. unicolor are supposed to key out. Unfortunately, the reference database does not contain barcodes of females of both species so that the identification of the male specimen will not be unambiguous.We here provide the first COI barcode reference database for approximately one third of the more common Afrotropical hoverfly species. The reference database will not only assist in identifications, but also provides a basis to pinpoint taxa that need further taxonomic study, helps to identify recent introductions, and can be used to link sexes, and larvae with adults, of a species. However, the database should be expanded since still many Afrotropical species and genera are missing. Ideally, the database should also include specimens from a larger geographic area, and other ecoregions, to account for intraspecific variation in barcodes. Such a large-scale DNA barcoding study of the Afrotropical Syrphidae is currently ongoing (Jordaens, Goergen, Muller, Kirk-Spriggs, Backeljau, De Meyer et al., unpublished data). 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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"764b7d6c720687327cdafd4abc3b8861","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/3d37769d-08d1-44cf-8e64-e10e6acefb39/retrieve","id":"-674425843"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2b738366-3acf-479c-91a9-2bb9f2f2c03b","pagecount":"9","content":"Organizer/co-organizers: National University of Laos (NUoL) and International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) Lecturers/facilitators:• Maurice Karani, ILRI Nairobi, m.karani@cgiar.org • Fred Unger, ILRI Vietnam, f.unger@cgiar.org • Vannaphone Putthana, NUoL Laos, v.phouthana@nuol.edu.laThe carried research builds on established strategic collaboration between NUoL and ILRI. More specifically, it follows the research that was jointly conducted on cysticercosis in pigs and humans in 2017 by the two institutions.Traditionally applied free grazing/roaming of pigs is a known risk factor for selected zoonoses such as cysticercosis which has the potential to cause long lasting health problems in affected humans with sporadic complications such as fatal encephalitis. Recent ILRI/NUoL surveys in communities with pigs of southern Laos indicated the presence of cysticercosis in pigs as well as people at risk. The research also showed considerable diagnostic challenges when using serological techniques such as ELISA for pig serum due to cross-reactions with other Taenia spp.The training course took place from 25-29 November 2019 at Nabong Campus, NUoL and led by Maurice Karani from ILRI in Nairobi and supported by Vannaphone Putthana, NUoL and Fred Unger, ILRI in Hanoi as cotrainers.Participants included 7 males and 6 females from various institutions. Of those, 11 trainees are from Laos, one from Cambodia and one from Vietnam.The training aimed to develop diagnostic capacity of trainees related to cysticercosis in pigs as well as to compare dissection results in pigs with other serological methods.The training session started with various oral presentations summarizing previous research and information on Taenia spp. including cysticercosis life cycle clarification and experience from trainers, both Africa and Asia, was shared with participants. Equipment used was presented and demonstrated on real carcasses. Trainers explained how to do euthanasia and post-mortem. After that, participants had their own practice which included slaughtering, brain opening, handling of organs and in-depth muscle slicing. Every step was monitored and advised by trainers to ensure correct practice of carcass slicing and checking or cysts. Participants were provided with four days of practical training by slaughtering pigs in the afternoon (day before), and then checking and slicing in the following morning.To find and identify (macroscopically) Taenia spp. cyst in the carcass through careful dissection of pigs was one objective of the training. From 18 sliced carcasses four pigs with cysts were found. All cysts were presumable classified as Taenia asiatica because of the cysts location side in the carcass and structure.Trainers showed photos of cysticercosis and guided trainees on how to collect samples, raw data, data recording and data correction. Data recording for the dissection process was explained and practiced during the training.At the end of training, all carcasses were disposed following recommended procedures and the autopsy room was disinfected, and certificates were offered to all participants.","tokenCount":"449"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3d4332daaaceb15d8c67eabc035a0e80","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e801a42c-9211-4bb3-ac3c-0354fe853602/retrieve","id":"635718320"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"4dfae05a-b353-4d53-b7cd-d116f8ec945c","pagecount":"12","content":"The Natural Resources Institute (NRI) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) are collaborating to develop sex pheromone traps as monitoring tools for Maruca vitrata. The principal component of the pheromone is (E,E)-10,12-hexadecadienal. Our trapping experiments in cowpea fi elds in Benin have shown that the optimal synthetic blend also contains small amounts of (E,E)-10,12hexadecadien-1-ol and (E)-10-hexadecenal. Polyethylene vial lures containing 0.1 mg of pheromone attracted more males than other combinations of dose or dispenser. Lures showed no loss of effectiveness for up to four weeks in the fi eld. A water-trap made from a plastic jerry can was superior to commercial funnel-and sticky-trap designs and 120 cm was the optimum height for traps. Females comprised up to 50% of total catches with synthetic lures, though almost none were attracted to traps baited with live females. Preliminary observations indicated a temporal coincidence between catches in traps placed outside cowpea fi elds and the appearance of larvae in fi elds a few days later. Thus pheromone trap catches may predict larval infestations.The legume podborer, Maruca vitrata (F.) (syn. M. testulalis) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), is a pantropical pest of legume crops, particularly cowpea (Jackai 1995), pigeonpea (Shanower et al. 1999), and beans (Abate and Ampofo 1996). In West Africa without control measures, fl ower infestation rates by M. vitrata of up to 80% were reported by Afun et al. (1991) and seed damage rates of 50% by Dreyer et al. (1994).Although the basic biology of M. vitrata has been studied extensively (Taylor 1967;Singh et al. 1990;Jackai et al. 1990;Onyango and Ochieng-Odero 1993), much remains to be understood concerning the behavior of this pest in the fi eld, which has hindered development of IPM strategies in Africa (Jackai 1995) and Asia (Shanower et al. 1999). Pheromone-baited traps for M. vitrata could provide tools for monitoring the activity and movements of adults that would assist researchers in this respect. Bottenberg et al. (1997) provided some data relating to the population dynamics and migration of M. vitrata at three locations in West Africa, based on light trap catches. However, light traps are diffi cult and expensive to maintain, and catches of the target species have to be sorted from among other insects. Pheromone traps could be deployed more easily, cheaply, and in greater numbers than light traps. Moreover, pheromone traps are specifi c for the species of interest. Effective traps could provide simple alternatives to pest scouting by farmers or extension workers to time application of control measures. Adati and Tatsuki (1999) recently reported (E,E)-10,12-hexadecadienal (EE10,12-16: Ald) to be an EAG-active component of the extract from female M. vitrata abdominal tips. Synthetic EE10,12-16:Ald was shown to be attractive to male moths in laboratory bioassays. The corresponding alcohol, EE10,12-16:OH, was also noted as being present at 3-4% of the aldehyde. Although no behavioral data were presented in relation to this compound, it was said to produce no increase in attraction. No fi eld testing of the compounds was carried out. Previous analytical work carried out by the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) has confi rmed the presence of EE10,12-16:Ald and EE10,12-16:OH as major and minor blend components, respectively. Results also suggested the presence of a third pheromone component, and subsequent laboratory and fi eld bioassays indicated this was probably (E)-10-hexadecenal (E10-16:Ald) (Downham and Hall 2000, NRI unpublished data). Cross mating and cross attraction experiments with strains from Benin, India, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, and Taiwan, together with analysis of gland extracts from females of these strains, indicated that there is no geographic variation in the natural pheromone blend of M. vitrata.In this paper we report the fi rst successful fi eld trapping experiments that used a blend of these compounds to catch M. vitrata. Experiments to develop further a practical trapping system are also reported.Trapping experiments were carried out during 1998 and 1999 within cowpea fi elds at the IITA research station near Cotonou, Republic of Benin. Unless otherwise noted, traps were suspended from sticks using wire at a height of approximately 1.0-1.2 m. Synthetic lures were replaced every two weeks and, unless otherwise noted, they were shielded from sunlight to minimize isomerization by aluminum foil wrapped around them to leave only the lowermost surface exposed. The isomeric purity of pheromone components EE10,12-16:Ald, EE10,12-16:OH, and E10-16:Ald used in lures was > 99%. Trap catches were counted daily and trapped moths discarded at that time. Insecticides were not sprayed in the fi elds.In the fi rst experiment, four pheromone blends were evaluated. These were EE10,12-16: Ald alone or in combination with one or both of the two minor components, EE10,12-16: OH and E10-16:Ald, both of which were present at a level of 5% relative to the EE10,12-16:Ald. These synthetic blends were presented in polyethylene vial and rubber septa dispensers as lures in white, sticky, delta traps (Agrisense-BCS, Pontypridd, UK). For each of these, two doses, 0.01 mg or 0.1 mg, were compared, making 16 treatment combinations. These were compared with traps containing two virgin females confi ned to small wire-mesh cages and with unbaited controls. Females were two days old when placed in traps and were replaced every two days. Sticky card inserts in delta traps were replaced on a weekly basis. The experiment consisted of three cowpea fi elds, forming replicate blocks; in each, traps were positioned in a grid formation with 10-m spacing.Four subsequent experiments included a comparison of lure age and shielding, two of different trap designs and one of trap height. The lures used in each of these were 0.1-mg polyethylene vials. Sticky, delta traps (Fig. 1a) were used in the lure age and shielding experiment; green plastic funnel traps (Fig. 1b) (Agrisense-BCS, Pontypridd, UK), with DDVP insecticide strips to kill trapped moths, were used in one trap design experiment and the trap height comparison. Four water-trap designs , each constructed from cheap, locally obtained materials, were also evaluated in the trap design comparisons. A water-pan (Fig. 1c) trap was made from a green plastic bowl (20-cm diameter) and plate held 5 cm apart with steel wire. Others were made from a 1.5-liter clear plastic bottle (Fig. 1d) and 2-l and 5-l white plastic jerry cans (Figs. 1e, 1f) in which four windows had been cut from the sides. Lures were suspended within the center of each trap. A little soap powder was added to the water within each trap to reduce surface tension, and vegetable oil to reduce evaporation. In the lure age and shielding experiment, shielded and unshielded lures were pre-aged for two or four weeks before use by exposing them in sticky, delta traps. Each experiment was carried out to a randomized complete-block design with fi ve replications. Traps within a replicate block were set out in lines or rectangular formations, the exact layout depending on the number of treatments being compared. Individual traps were positioned 20 m apart. Blocks were at least 50 m apart and were usually situated in separate fi elds.During the trapping experiments, it is possible that there were some interactions between traps within replicate blocks. This may have occurred as individual pheromone plumes overlapped and moths, initially attracted by the plume of one trap, passed on to the plumes of other traps. This would have acted to blur treatment differences. However, the random positioning of treatments within blocks and night-to-night variation in wind direction would have meant that no systematic biases occurred.For statistical analysis the total catches by each trap over the respective trapping periods were used. With the blend experiment and the lure age/shielding experiment, analysis involved the raw data, since these met the normality and constant variance assumptions. However, it proved necessary to transform data of the trap height (square root) and trap design (log 10 [× + 1]) experiments. Analysis of variance was carried out using Genstat 5 for Windows  (release 4.1). Where this indicated statistically signifi cant effects, treatment means were separated using the least signifi cant difference (LSD) at the 5% level.IITA operates a light trap (500 W mercury-vapor bulb) at its Cotonou station. During the relevant period this was situated several hundred meters from any experimental cowpea fi elds. Catches of M. vitrata were recorded on a daily basis and compared to those in pheromone traps forming part of the trap and lure optimization experiments. Weekly inspections for larvae were carried out in the fi elds containing traps from the optimization experiments; all individuals on four randomly selected plants per fi eld were counted. On 22 September 1998, before the second cropping season began, a ring of 20 sticky, delta pheromone traps was established around the perimeter of the IITA station. These traps were baited with polyethylene vial lures containing 0.1 mg of the 3-component blend (100:5: 5 ratio). They were placed 150 m apart and at least 80 m from the nearest cowpea fi eld. Data from these traps were also compared to the light trap and other data.   In the pheromone blend experiment, traps baited with lures containing all three of the proposed components, EE10,12-16:Ald, EE10,12-16:OH, and E10-16:Ald, caught signifi cantly more male M. vitrata moths than those baited with one or two component blends or live females (P < 0.05), all of which attracted similar numbers of male moths. No males were captured in unbaited control traps (Table 1). Although the polyethylene vial dispensers loaded with 0.1 mg pheromone attracted slightly more males than other combinations of dose or dispenser (Table 2), there was no signifi cant overall effect of dispenser type or dose (P > 0.05 LSD). About 20% of total catches in traps baited with synthetic lures were female moths although almost no females were attracted to live females or unbaited controls. The trends in respect of different blends, doses, and dispensers were similar to those for males (Tables 1 and 2).When the attractiveness of lures of different ages was compared, separate analyses of variance indicated highly signifi cant effects in respect of captures of both sexes (P < 0.01) (Table 3). Four to six-week-old lures were signifi cantly less attractive to males than 0-2 and 2-4-week-old lures (P < 0.05); in respect of females, 0-2-week-old lures were signifi cantly more attractive than both older sets of lures (P < 0.05). Analyses of variance showed that male captures were not infl uenced by shielding of the lures (P = 0.75), but female captures with shielded lures were signifi cantly greater than with unshielded lures (P < 0.01). Captures of female moths made up 14% of the total in this experiment.   In both trap design experiments, signifi cant treatment effects were observed (P < 0.05). In the fi rst comparison, the sticky, delta trap attracted the fewest moths of both sexes (Table 4). Three to four times more males were captured by the Agrisense-BCS funnel trap than the delta trap, but the locally constructed water-pan trap was most effective in capturing females (three times more than the delta trap). The sticky, delta trap was also less effective than two other locally constructed water traps in the second experiment. In this experiment, for both sexes, the 5-l and 2-l jerry can designs proved superior to both the delta trap and the 1.5-l bottle design (Table 5). Overall percentage captures of females in the two experiments were 46% and 35%.The trap height experiment indicated that 120 cm was optimal in respect of catches of males (Table 6). Mean catches of males at this height were signifi cantly greater than at 20 and 170 cm (P < 0.05), though not at 70 cm. Overall catches of females were around 11% of the total, and there were no signifi cant differences in respect of trap height. Catches in the light trap were always much greater than in individual pheromone traps, and while males predominated in pheromone trap catches, females tended to form the majority in the light traps. Within each type of trap, temporal patterns of catches of each sex were similar, so that catches of one sex accurately refl ected the presence of the other.During two seasons of on-station trials at IITA-Cotonou, a general observation was made that the timing of catches in the light trap and those in pheromone traps within fi elds did not correspond closely. However, there was a better temporal correspondence between the light trap catches and those in perimeter traps (Fig. 2). This was notable at the start of the second season of 1998. Following several weeks of zero catches in the light trap and the perimeter pheromone traps, the latter detected the fi rst small peak of moths at exactly the same time (29 October) as the light trap, although there appeared to be little subsequent quantitative correlation.During this period, the fi rst appearance of moths in traps in cowpea fi elds was at least 12 days after catches were fi rst noted in the light trap and perimeter pheromone traps. These initial within-fi eld catches were 33-50 days after the fi elds were sown. The fi rst crop inspection, eight days after the initial catches in perimeter traps, showed that larvae were already present in each of three fi elds sampled at that time; but this was several days before within-fi eld catches in two of the fi elds and simultaneous with the fi rst catches in a third. Representative data for one fi eld are shown in Figure 3 and can be compared to Figure 2. Trap catches within fi elds in the second season were confi ned to periods of 8-12 days.Results from the on-farm observations in the Ouémé valley are summarized in Figure 4. Although overall catches were relatively low--rarely exceeding an average of 0.5 moths per trap per count--the timing of their onset across all plots was consistent. In eight of the 10 plots, the fi rst catches were noted on 28 January, while fi rst catches occurred in the remaining plots on the subsequent count three days later. Catches were evenly distributed across all 10 plots and three village sites until the end of February, when they began to decline. Males and females were trapped in approximately equal numbers. Larvae were only found on two dates: 9 and 14 February. On the fi rst occasion they were noted in four plots, on the second they were observed in seven plots. Since some of the larvae were late instars it is probable that eggs were laid fi ve to ten days after the fi rst adults were trapped.From the results of the trap and lure optimization experiments an effective and practical trapping system for M. vitrata has now been developed for the fi rst time. The best pheromone blend is a mixture of EE10,12-16:Ald, EE10,12-16:OH, and E10-16:Ald in the ratio 100:5:5. Although no signifi cant differences were evident in respect of dose or dispenser, the 0.1-mg polyethylene vials would be expected to show the greatest longevity of the lures tested on the basis of dose and release rate characteristics. Our results indicate no loss of attractiveness for up to four weeks under fi eld conditions. Therefore, these lures have now been adopted as standard for use in further work. The best trap height is 120 cm and the most effective traps are those produced from locally available plastic jerry cans. Not only are these relatively much cheaper than imported, commercial designs (US$0.30-0.80 as   against approximately US$3.00 for sticky, delta traps and more for plastic funnel traps), they are easy to construct and robust in use. Further work on trap and lure optimization is required. Experiments are planned to determine the effect of trap color and frequency of checking on trap catches. An experiment concerning isomeric purity of the pheromone blend components is currently underway and the results will be of particular relevance. If a lower level of purity can be used without a marked loss of attraction, it will be possible to reduce the cost of lure production to around US$0.50 per lure. This will be important in helping to ensure the economic viability of pheromone trap monitoring of M. vitrata.The consistent capture of signifi cant numbers of female moths with synthetic sex pheromone lures is, to the best of our knowledge, unprecedented. It could suggest an incomplete pheromone blend, but extensive analytical work with the natural pheromone, to be reported elsewhere, has failed to fi nd any evidence for further blend components (M.C.A. Downham and D.R. Hall, unpublished data). Furthermore, incomplete pheromone blends generally produce lower catches of males, rather than co-attraction of both sexes. Thus a better explanation may lie in some unknown aspect of the species' mating behavior or ecology, and further work to explain the phenomenon would be very helpful. Regardless of explanation, catches of females may actually improve the predictive power of traps, since they should more accurately refl ect local population events than males alone.With regard to the practical use of traps for monitoring purposes, results to date indicate real potential. In the on-station trials at Cotonou, catches in pheromone traps outside cowpea fi elds preceded larval infestations in fi elds; in contrast, catches in traps within the fi elds occurred only after larvae appeared. Thus it seemed that traps near but outside fi elds might be better able to predict pest attacks. However, a subsequent trial at a different time of year in farmers' fi elds suggested that within-fi eld traps could give early warning of larval infestations. Resolving the question of the best positioning of traps to detect immigrating moths will be the task of further work currently in progress at several on-farm sites around Benin, and soon to be extended to Ghana. This work is being carried out in association with the West African regional PRONAF (Projet de Niébé pour l'Afrique) project, a partnership between IITA and various NARS that aims to promote the transfer and implementation of research on cowpea to subsistence farmers. It will be necessary to determine the relationship between larval infestations and catches by pheromone traps with confi dence. Whether any good quantitative correlation between catches and damage exists remains to be seen, but it seems likely that pheromone traps could be used as the basis for timing the application of control measures. Afun et al. (1991) found that by using action thresholds based on larval/fl ower infestation rates to time insecticide applications on cowpea, the number of sprays could be reduced, relative to a calendar-based approach, with no loss of control and at reduced cost. Ultimately it is hoped that pheromone trap-based action thresholds could be used in conjunction with other promising sustainable control methods being developed through PRONAF, e.g., neem-based insecticides (W. Hammond, pers. comm.; see also Bottenberg and Singh 1996). Furthermore, Bottenberg (1995) found that many farmers are unable to link the adult stage of M. vitrata with the highly destructive larval stage. Pheromone traps could also serve a training role by assisting in making up this gap in knowledge.","tokenCount":"3138"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"455c1416a5a9730031d2e588e4427691","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c5e63a27-d893-43f1-a3a3-eba91d956ac8/retrieve","id":"875388365"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6f22286a-6028-4289-9d22-aa0d1be8e1ea","pagecount":"14","content":"En frente de los desafíos climáticos, las acciones locales son necesarias. Ya los países se han comprometido vía sus Contribuciones Previstas y Determinadas a Nivel Nacional (iNDC) y políticas nacionales, pero poner en acción estas políticas necesita de la construcción de planes locales a diferente nivel como el municipal, que sean ajustados a las condiciones y realidades específicas del sitio.Este documento ofrece 9 pasos metodológicos con la finalidad de orientar el análisis de la vulnerabilidad climática para proceder con la definición y priorización de medidas de adaptación que serán insumo de los Planes Municipales de Adaptación al Cambio Climático, liderado por las autoridades municipales en coordinación con actores relevantes locales de múltiples sectores. Acción que se establece a nivel de la gestión política para el desarrollo municipal en articulación con convenios internacionales, leyes y políticas nacionales.Para el análisis se parte de la identificación de amenazas climáticas, priorización de sectores sensibles, pasando por la clasificación de amenazas, hasta la identificación y priorización de medidas.Una de las vías para enfrentar los efectos adversos del cambio climático transcurre con la implementación de medias que faciliten la adaptación de los medios de vida y que a su vez contribuyan con la reducción de riesgos climáticos asociados a su entorno de convivencia.La construcción de dichas acciones pasa bajo un proceso de planificación, incluyente y participativo; que permita identificar las principales amenazas climáticas, el grado de sensibilidad relacionado con las capacidades existentes para así definir de manera objetiva medidas o acciones constitutivas de adaptación al clima cambiante.Esta propuesta está basada en la experiencia de formulación de planes municipales realizados por el equipo CIAT en Honduras, actualmente es enriquecido con el trabajo de consultores, otras instituciones como TNC, SAG, Miambiente+, Ayuda en Acción, Alianza Hondureña Ante el Cambio Climático (AHCC) entre otros. Está metodología es ofrecida a instituciones, funcionarios, agentes de ONGs y ejecutores de proyectos.Los pasos aquí presentados pueden desarrollarse en formato de talleres con la participación de la comunidad, y son pensados para generar dialogo de saberes locales y científicos. Los tiempos por cada etapa son propuesta de forma indicativa, corresponde a la realización de un proceso de formulación en marco de un taller participativo de 2 días, pero pueden ser ajustado según las condiciones locales.Es recomendable la conformación de un equipo planificador que lidere el proceso de planificación.Figura 1. Momentos para la planificación de adaptación a nivel municipal.Duración: 20-40 minutos.Consiste en trazar una línea histórica de veinte a treinta años atrás, en donde son identificados los principales eventos climáticos que han tenido una afectación relevante para las comunidades del municipio. Esta herramienta permite generar una discusión inicial sobre cómo el clima ha impactado los medios de vida y objetos focales en un espacio temporal, ligado a un entorno territorial.Paso 2: Identificación de Amenazas Climáticas y Objetos Focales.Duración: 1-2 horas.Se procede con un análisis rápido de la problemática del municipio de intervención, identificando cada una de las amenazas climáticas que afectan el desarrollo de las actividades productivas y recursos. Esta actividad contribuye de forma inicial a diferenciar cada uno de los objetos focales que serán analizados de forma participativa durante la planificación, determinando cómo están siendo afectados por el clima y qué medidas serán efectivas para contribuir a la adaptación climática.Objeto Focal: Un objeto focal se define como los componentes y/o sistemas del bienestar humano relacionados con la conservación, uso y desarrollo de los sistemas productivos y naturales; siendo de interés para promover su adaptación al clima.Para tal efecto, se realiza el llenado del cuadro 1 considerando los siguientes elementos/ aspectos:1. Amenaza: en esta columna se identifican los fenómenos climáticos y no-climáticos que ocasionan daños, impactos negativos a los principales objetos focales. 2. Causantes: Para cada objeto focal, identificar o detallar los factores que contribuyen a que sufran daños (según percepción propia y de los pobladores). Estos factores podrán ser: humanos, ambientales, sociales, culturales, políticos o económicos. 3. Impactos: Aquí se detallan los impactos que ocasionan las amenazas sobre los objetos focales, los cuales pueden ser a nivel de la producción, infraestructura, socioeconómicos y ambientales. 4. Objeto focal: En esta columna se enlistan los objetos focales afectados por amenazas climáticas. 5. Calificación de amenazas: por ende, se califica las amenazas según la percepción de los actores locales (pobladores, agricultores, …) según su nivel, para poder priorizar la discusión sobre los objetos focales a considerar en la fase siguiente.Cuadro 1. Identificación de Amenazas climáticas.Paso 3: Definición de Objetos Focales.Duración: 1-2 horas.Este paso permite asignar tipología a los objetos focales y una descripción de sus atributos respecto a su viabilidad (ver ejemplo Cuadro 2). Control de plagas, buena calidad del producto, buenos rendimiento de producción, regulación de agroquímicos, producción sostenible, área productiva (hectárea) y manejo de tierras aptas para cultivo.Buena calidad del producto, buenos rendimientos, adecuadas condiciones del suelo, fincas integrales, área productiva (hectárea), uso de abonos orgánicos, sombra (permite acciones de mitigación), evitar la contaminación mediante la regulación de los beneficios del café, productores implementando técnicas agroecológicas y ferias del agricultor para el mercadeo.Buena salud del hato, disponibilidad y aptitud de la tierra, adecuada cantidad y calidad de agua y alimentos, sombra, sistemas semi-intensivos, área productiva (hectárea), mercadeo de productos y biodigestores.Especies, densidad, sanidad, control de plagas, extensión forestal (has), pagos por servicios ambientales, monitoreo constante, inventario, control de licencias no comerciales. Adecuada administración del recurso forestal.Red vial Buen estado de las carreteras y puentes durante todo el año. Mantenimiento constante y efectivo. Viviendas seguras Regulación de construcción de viviendas en lugares de riesgo.Reducción de enfermedades respiratorias y vectoriales relacionadas con el cambio climático. Población informada y realizando actividades de prevención. Establecidos los mecanismos de coordinación con unidades técnicas de salud y líderes comunitarios.La población en general es sensible y realiza acciones de adaptación al cambio climático. Los estudiantes del sistema educativo realizan acciones para la adaptación al cambio climático. Establecidos los mecanismos de coordinación con la Secretaría de Educación.Adecuada calidad y cantidad de agua, adecuado caudal de los ríos, infraestructura en buenas condiciones, adecuado mantenimiento del sistema, relatividad entre costos y beneficiarios, microcuenca protegida y alternativas de cosecha de agua lluvia. Se procede con la determinación de factores de sensibilidad presentes en los objetos focales ante las amenazas climáticas que fueron identificadas en el Paso 2. De igual manera, por cada factor identificado, se detallan las acciones que se están llevando a cabo para reducir los daños o impactos generados por amenazas climáticas y no-climáticas. Para tal efecto, se completa el Cuadro 3. Cuadro 3. Identificación de factores de sensibilidad en objetos focales.Ejemplo:Débil gobernanza local en las microcuencas.No se cuenta con planes de manejo.Se han conformado 2 juntas de agua. Se ofreció capacitación sobre recurso agua y bosque a nivel de las juntas de agua.Nota: Es importante identificar sinergias existentes entre actores que realizan intervenciones en las zonas y municipio, así como acciones, medidas o proyectos que se encuentren en gestión o ejecución, para considerar su aporte en la reducción de la vulnerabilidad y/o incrementar capacidades adaptativas en el municipio.Paso 5: Mapa de Percepción del Riesgo Climático.Duración: 20-30 minutos.Para un mejor detalle se utiliza un ortofotomapa o imagen satelital que represente al municipio, zonas y aldeas por abordar en la planificación, en el cual serán ubicadas de forma participativa las amenazas recurrentes dadas en el territorio (ver ejemplo en la figura 2).Figura 2. Ortofoto-mapa para la identificación de amenazas y grado de afectaciones.Nota: permite relacionar los resultados de los pasos anteriores, pero con un enfoque territorial.Paso 6: Calificación de Amenazas.Duración: 1-2 horas.Consiste en asignar valores a cada una de las amenazas para realizar un análisis de ponderación según 3 grados de impacto (Bajo 0-1, Medio 1.-2, Alto 2-3), relacionando este peso o relevancia con cada uno de los valores dados a cada amenaza, para así generar una calificación (ver ejemplo en Cuadro 4). Paso 7: Propuesta de Medidas.Duración: 1-2 horas.Este paso permite consolidar el análisis realizado a través del planteamiento de medidas orientadas a la reducción de la vulnerabilidad climática bajo un proceso de adaptación a la variabilidad climática y cambio climático. Dentro de la facilitación se orienta a que se propongan medidas diferentes a las ejecutadas en la actualidad, como ser las contenidas en el Cuadro 3., columna \"Capacidades existentes y acciones realizadas\"; al menos que sean procesos y/o acciones por desarrollar a mediano plazo.  ","tokenCount":"1371"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"0aa55280c3e2b9d1546071175302dc41","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4760ceaa-5a74-4bd1-ba94-e87a95ae3782/retrieve","id":"-142908435"},"keywords":["NEXUS Gains: Realizing Multiple Benefits Across Water","Energy","Food and Ecosystems"],"sieverID":"85b2bba7-5285-4658-bba8-035621a91fa4","pagecount":"7","content":"Dear colleagues, partners, and friends, We have recently launched the NEXUS Gains 2023 annual technical report which shows how the Initiative has built on previous achievements to contribute to a positive transformation of the water-energy-food-ecosystems (WEFE) nexus. By facilitating knowledge generation and exchange, innovative solutions, and strategic partnerships, the CGIAR Initiative on NEXUS Gains is promoting systems thinking and enhancing efforts to achieve inclusive development whilst simultaneously conserving biodiversity and mitigating climate change impacts.A particular success came from Pakistan's Punjab Province, where, with our support, the government is rolling out a Groundwater Management Information System -a practical, near-real-time tool to help reverse the rapid deterioration of groundwater and safeguard food security. Elsewhere, we remained pioneers in gender equality and social inclusion in the WEFE nexus, with new research from Nepal demonstrating how women can access renewable energy in ways that strengthen their agency and entrepreneurship. We have also worked with policymakers and government stakeholders to show how effective governance can minimize trade-offs and maximize gains across WEFE sectors.We look forward to making further contributions in 2024.Wishing you all the best,Join our webinar on the food-biodiversity-climate nexus Achieving food, biodiversity, and climate goals in tandem requires managing land-use systems for multiple purposes. NEXUS Gains Talk #24, on 'Spatially explicit approaches at the food-biodiversity-climate nexus', focuses on using spatial datasets to guide and prioritize interventions on and off-farm to support food security, biodiversity conservation, and climate mitigation objectives.Time: 12:00-13:00 UTC | 14:00-15:00 CEST | 17:30-18:30 IST Apply for the WEF Nexus Regional SummitThe summit will focus on accelerating progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Southern Africa through broadening and operationalizing the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus, addressing questions around challenges and opportunities, and the need for capacity, collaboration, and knowledge sharing. The event is convened by the Water Research Commission, in collaboration with partners including NEXUS Gains.Register for the webinarNew podcast series: Fostering diverse WEF nexus networks A new podcast series, put together by the Global WEF Nexus Community and entitled 'Unveiling Synergies', aims to bring the critical concepts behind the WEF nexus approach to a broader audience. The podcasts feature interviews with leading WEF nexus researchers to explain nexus concepts through moderated conversations for researchers, government actors, practitioners, and other interested stakeholders.The Nexus Capacity Scorecard for education and research contributes to a toolkit developed to gauge nexus capacities within and across institutions working in WEFE sectors. The Scorecard supports the self-assessment of institutional processes, readiness, and capacities in relation to WEFE approaches. The purpose is to identify opportunities, possible gaps, and inform the planning of tailored WEFE nexus capacity-building efforts, programs, interventions, and monitoring. SDG7 aims to ensure affordable, reliable, sustainable energy for all, but securing universal access remains a challenge worldwide.Nepal is committed to SDG7, yet its energy policy includes only limited provisions for ensuring energy access by marginalized groups and women. This paper studies the cohesion between policies and policy instruments at different levels of governance to identify bottlenecks to gender and social inclusion (GESI), tracing the coherence of GESI policy through time and in relation to overall GESI policy objectives.India's Central Ground Water Board estimates groundwater extraction and compares it with sustainable groundwater resources to assess the severity of groundwater overexploitation. This is the primary information needed by decisionmakers managing water resources. However, detailed information is lacking on the productivity of water resources used in agriculture -the amount of crop produced per cubic meter of water -in different districts in India. This data is needed to focus water saving efforts -and the Water Productivity Atlas helps to fill this gThe all-encompassing nature of the climate crisis means that it is deeply connected to WEFE systems. But how can decision makers use these connections to support climate mitigation and adaptation goals and sustainable development initiatives? This was the urgent question at the heart of our latest webinar, with a particular focus on the Indus Basin. Watch the recording and read a summary here.Nepal does not have much experience with institutional arrangements for governing intensive groundwater extraction. This blog explains how 'groundwater games' can be combined with participatory mapping and monitoring, cropwater budgeting, and multistakeholder processes to improve groundwater governance. This can contribute to more secure access to water for people and ecosystems in a climate crisis.Integrated assessment models are increasingly called upon to assess not only the hydrological but also the economic and economy-wide impacts of water resource management strategies, such as for employment, agricultural GDP, and rural versus urban household incomes. This webinar discusses how modeling efforts, combined with institutional measures such as data exchange, can help policymakers develop more impactful and integrated water solutions in a climate crisis in the Eastern Nile Basin.Although efforts to slow groundwater depletion need urgent acceleration, this IFPRI study finds that ending groundwater depletion, without complementary policy actions, would lead to sharp declines in global food production, especially of rice and wheat. This would push up international food prices, increasing the number of people at risk of hunger by 24 million. Reducing groundwater withdrawals to sustainable levels whilst simultaneously realizing food and water security objectives requires greater investments in research and development and improved water management practices.Papers, reports, and briefs","tokenCount":"859"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"569bc8602c32890778ae0a98805a3137","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c20314d9-3e3c-4d83-a1ef-838cdd239f75/retrieve","id":"646704843"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"66af5ebf-a5f5-4eb0-b32a-166d43c44f9b","pagecount":"4","content":"The dairy component of the Feed the Future Kenya Accelerated Value Chain Development (AVCD) program seeks to help improve diet diversity, food security and rural incomes in the country. Specifically, the project, purposes to improve milk production, productivity and availability at household level across nine counties in Kenya.Kenya has the most developed dairy industry in the eastern and central Africa. The industry, valued at USD 1.9 billion, accounts for 8% of Kenyan GDP, employs more than 700,000 people and is a source of livelihood to approximately 1.2 million households. Dominated by smallholder farmers accounting for 80% of total milk production in Kenya, dairy farming is one of the main pathways out of poverty.The consumption of milk and related dairy products-cheese yoghurt and ghee-is growing rapidly. The Kenya Dairy Board (KDB), estimates per capita milk consumption at 110 litres. Driven by urban population growth and changes in dietary habits, per capita milk consumption is growing at 2.3% per year. This offers huge opportunities to women for whom livestockincluding livestock-are some of the few assets to which they have access and from which they can derive an income.Under a business-as-usual scenario 1 , the current surplus in milk production in Kenya is projected to become a deficit of 61.3 and 382 million litres by 2017 and 2022, respectively. Moreover, demand for milk in East Africa far exceeds supply. Therefore, there is a compelling need to safeguard and accelerate the development of the industry, not only to 1 USAID-KAVES 2014: Daily Value Chain Analysis, Nairobi. meet demand, but also due to the critical role played by the industry in enabling millions of rural women and men escape poverty.In addition, milk and milk products contribute hugely to nutritional security by supplying protein, vitamins and minerals to diets. Indeed, small quantities of milk contribute not only to physical development, but also the social development and learning ability of children. Milk productivity has been increasing on average in the last decade (See Table 1). However, there are variations across agro-ecological zones with the central highlands and high potential maize zones (high rainfall zone 1-HR 1) performing way above the western (high rainfall zone 2-HR 2) and eastern (semi-arid zone 2-SR 2) parts of the country.Overall, productivity is constrained by: low quality of dairy breeds; unavailability of quality feed and water; poor animal husbandry; lack of storage and processing facilities; and poor linkages between smallholder dairy farmers and markets.In recognition of the important role that dairy plays in the Kenyan economy, the US government Feed the Future initiative supports the dairy value chain through the Kenya Agricultural Value Chain Enterprises project (KAVES). Operating in 22 counties in the Feed the Future Zones of Influence (ZOI) HR1 and SA2, KAVES interventions are organized around four strategies: i) increasing milk productivity; ii) encouraging milk bulking and cold chain development; iii) promoting small-scale processing and value addition; and iv) increasing marketing opportunities.While these interventions contribute to further dairy industry development and create out of poverty for smallholder dairy farmers, there remains an urgent need to accelerate development of the industry and provide opportunities for more households to tap into this lucrative market. This is particularly so for the emerging dairy areas, such as HR1 and SA2, which have traditionally received much less attention.A recent study by the Infectious Diseases of East Africa Livestock project identified East Coast fever (ECF), helminthosis and trypanosomosis as the principal diseases affecting Busia and Siaya counties. Foot and mouth disease, lumpy skin disease and anthrax and black quarter are also common. International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), an AVCD implementing partner, has for long been involved in developing effective and affordable technical solutions to some of these disease challenges, but a lack of information on important diseases and reliable access to these technologies by smallholder dairy farmers remains a challenge.Similarly, the productivity potential of smallholder dairy farmers in these pre-commercial dairy areas is limited by poor access to the most suitable dairy cow breeds, as well as a lack of systems for the multiplication of such animals. Essentially, there are no systematic breed improvement programs, largely due to a lack of pedigree and performance recording systems-essential to the success of any genetic improvement program. While many farmers keep crossbred animals, they have no means of ascertaining the type of crossbred animal they keep, nor whether an alternative crossbred type would be more profitable for their system.Finally, farmers in these regions do not have reliable access to: services-e.g. breeding and extension advice and; inputs necessary to support productivity improvements. This is largely due to low density of improved cattle and low milk productivity that can hardly support further investment in the industry by farmers without external support.The AVCD dairy component will seek to: i.Increase the milk productivity and production of 38,000 smallholder dairy households;ii.Enhance market access via linkage of 20,000 smallholder dairy households with diverse milk markets;iii.Improve the enabling environment for dairy production via enhanced capacity to address systemic issues; and iv. Improve access to diverse and quality food for and change nutrition-related behaviour of 30,000 households.Key activities to be implemented include: 1. Supporting innovative models for improved access to inputs and services, as well as proven productivityenhancing technologies to producers 2.Rolling out a private sector-led extension approach based on trained and commerciallyoriented village dairy business advisors providing extension advice, while also acting as agents of input suppliersPromoting efficient collective approaches, such as dairy business hubs, that provide the economies of scale for the efficient bulking and marketing of milk TechnoServe will lead the project implementation in the SA2 counties, as well as provide overall business development backstopping, building on their local expertise and linkages.Farm Input Promotions Africa (FIPS-Africa) will partner with ILRI (and other CGIAR centres) to disseminate appropriate technologies and information on their use to farmers through self-employed village-based advisors (VBAs). VBAs are farmers selected from within target villages in a community-facilitated process. They are trained by ILRI and FIPS in the use of a range of productivity-enhancing technologies, marketing and sales techniques, and in complementary income-generating activities designed to reduce hunger and poverty.Heifer International focuses on regions with low per capita income, high child mortality due to malnutrition and good potential for dairy farming. The regions are mainly Nyanza, Western and Coast Provinces. Working closely with FIPS, Heifer will lead the project activities in the selected HR1 counties.Private sector will be an important partner in the project implementation, eventually leading to its long-term sustainability. For instance, milk buyers, including traders and processors, will be instrumental in enhancing market access by dairy farmers. Input suppliers-through their distribution agencies and agro-vets-will play a key role in ensuring improved access to inputs.ILRI staff and partners-including private business development service providers-will provide training to private sector actors, such as forage/feed seed and veterinary pharmaceutical suppliers, in retail management and help establish a network of village sales agents. The two departments will play a crucial role in delivering nutrition education and the dissemination of behavioural change communication materials to beneficiaries within the respective counties.","tokenCount":"1165"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"068ccc0604c13fa224ec5c13aa819adb","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/6c71ec80-6ccd-4227-ac49-018d92369c1c/retrieve","id":"287639631"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e0d42ece-d545-4c85-8578-2293f7380a35","pagecount":"13","content":"The Sustainable Intensification of Mixed Farming Systems Initiative aims to provide equitable, transformative pathways for improved livelihoods of actors in mixed farming systems through sustainable intensification within target agroecologies and socio-economic settings.Through action research and development partnerships, the Initiative will improve smallholder farmers' resilience to weather-induced shocks, provide a more stable income and significant benefits in welfare, and enhance social justice and inclusion for 13 million people by 2030.Activities will be implemented in six focus countries globally representing diverse mixed farming systems as follows: Ghana (cereal-root crop mixed), Ethiopia (highland mixed), Malawi: (maize mixed), Bangladesh (rice mixed), Nepal (highland mixed), and Lao People's Democratic Republic (upland intensive mixed/ highland extensive mixed).\"One of the core principles underlying the use of a gender transformative approach is that gender transformative change must come from within the communities and societies where this change occurs and cannot be imposed from the outside, including by development or research actors. This requires setting up processes to obtain insider perspectives to ensure that these are used to inform the design of qualitative and quantitative indicators as well as tools and methods. Here, the role of the research or development actor is to help support ongoing gender transformative change processes, or to stimulate and facilitatetogether with local women and men and relevant stakeholders -these processes. This requires a nuanced understanding of people and place and an appreciation that the precise process, and associated indicators, will always differ by location.\" (FAO, IFAD, WFP & CGIAR GENDER Impact Platform. 2023. Guidelines for measuring gender transformative change in the context of food security, nutrition, and sustainable agriculture. Rome, FAO, IFAD, WFP and CGIAR. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc7940en) In sum, gender transformative change involves building agency, challenging unequal power relations that disfavor women and girls, and making formal and informal social institutions more gender equitable (ibid 11)A recent chapter on gender transformative work in the CG (Lopez & Ludwig 'A transdisciplinary perspective on gender mainstreaming in international development: The case of the CGIAR' in the book Politics of Knowledge in Inclusive Development -The Politics of Knowledge in Inclusive Development and Innovation -1s (routledge.com) makes a number of important observations. First, within the CG (the researchers interviewed gender specialists in the CG), there are varying views on how gender is approached. Global North gender specialists often push more strongly for gender transformation, while Global South researchers assert that a more context-specific approach needs to be undertaken. Researchers who stress gender sensitive approaches see themselves as acting together with local communities and organizations. One quote is particularly illuminating on the position of gender researchers in the CG and from the Global South: I don't think we have to transform everything. We need to find the things that work well in the communities without necessarily transforming their culture […] so I think it's both approaches, but I mean, these white people in those senior positions, oh, they are all about 'we have to transform and to use transformative approaches.' I say that if you go to the communities and talk about transforming structures and forget to see what is good and works there you just confuse the community members. So no, I don't think it should be fully transformative but I think we have to be strategic and know which approach to use in different cases […] Honestly, I don't think even gender people [in the CGIAR] really understand what it is that we want to transform for sure and I worry that if we try to push something that we don't know, it would just back-fire. So, is transformation the best way for the CGIAR to go? That's exactly what we should be asking ourselves now (2022: 54).How can the MFS initiative improve the agency of women and men? While there are many dimensions to agency, for practical purposes given the timeline and capacity available, a focus on improving knowledge, skills and capabilities is a reasonable target to aim for. It is unlikely that a project that focuses on technical agronomic interventions is going to be able to make a significant impact on unequal power relations within households and within the sites, however improving individual agency in terms of knowledge and confidence to implement new innovations would be an important contribution.Assessing change in how women and men from different social groups have built their confidence, self-esteem, aspirations, agricultural knowledge, skills, and capabilities through participating in the design and implementation of interventions and measuring outcomes.Assessing how this new knowledge and skills has been put into action and where it has led to individuals taking on new roles.Assess changes in the involvement of household members in making agricultural and other land-use or economic decisions.Formation and improved functioning of women's and men's groups that focus on agriculture, natural resources management and marketing. These groups can improve individual agency but also the representation of women and men's farmers interests within the wider community and with institutions relevant to the sector. Here, it is essential to identify local organizations working on these issues and topics for more effective action and collaboration.Research projects do not have the ability to change formal or informal local institutions that may perpetuate unequal gender relations. However, by ensuring that men and women and less powerful members of the community are included in project design and activities, and thus modeling more transformative approaches, members of these institutions may work for change within them. The most effective way to work for transformation within institutions is for research projects to work with local partners who are working for change already and have the mandate and legitimacy in the community and beyond. Often, this may require CG institutions bringing in organizations that do not normally focus on agriculture or NRM, but may be oriented towards rights-based approaches, governance and gender equity more broadly. In addition, researchers can provide evidence of the importance of gender transformation for meeting the objectives and goals that institutions have -such as improving livelihoods, nutrition, food security, etc. Researchers themselves, or the projects they work on, are not in a position to transform gender relations in the sites we work on. However, we can provide evidence and work in such a way as to make improvements in the lives of women and men community members.As above under agency, this should be an easy objective to achieve in which improvements in individual agency of women and men can be made through training and engagement in the field trials research process. For example, at the farm level women should be included in evaluation of the trials as well as in identifying bottlenecks to adoption and development of complementary innovations.Access to and control over natural productive resources and services, such as land, water, livestock, fisheries, forestry resources, seeds, fertilizers, tools and technology (including information and communication technologies, or infrastructure and advisory/extension services). First, is the assessment of what constrains access and control followed then by co-design of ways in which to overcome limitations of access and control.Access to the means of earning an income; engaging in markets and value chains; financial services; social protection; informal employment; ownership of and control over assets (financial, housing, etc.). For example, at the value chain level, analysis and design of interventions should enable women farmers to have better access to input and output markets to benefit from the proposed agronomic solutions. Including women from the outset in ways to overcome their constraints to more effective participation in value chains is essential.Improved participation for women in decision-making at household level -over issues such as mobility, economic activity, income, production and nutrition. Here, it is important to engage with women and other less powerful community members early to support their decision-making around production and nutrition around proposed interventions. Concerning mobility, income and other economic activity, it is critical to collaborate with other local partners working on these issues as these may be outside the scope of what is possible for the initiative.Capacity to organize; improved capacity of women to negotiate, lead, express opinions and voice demands. Improved capacity for all farmers to engage with decision-makers and officials to shape agricultural development processes. Improving participation and representation can take place in a variety of ways and through various methods. Ensuring equity in the design of training, in implementation but also in possible multistakeholder fora. If these fora do not exist, other methods such as participatory video or digital stories can be carried out to communicate local perspectives to a wider audience of decision-makers.An understanding of social systems and how they relate to agricultural production (division of labor, control over assets like land and livestock, decision-making, and farm composition) is the foundation upon which interventions can be assessed.• Step 1: Understand the local context, issues, barriers and opportunities for change by drawing on knowledge of local stakeholders, women and men farmers, extension personnel, etc.•Step 2: Co-design A -Select farmer/land user participants to include in participatory trials of interventions using an inclusive process to ensure gender and other social criteria representation.•Step 3: Co-design B -Co-identify and decide upon social change impacts and indicators that focus on areas of gender transformative change. Co-design indicators for measurement of impact -preferably using the SIAF pillars.•Step 4: Co-analysis of results with participants.•Step 5: Feedback results to farmers and other stakeholdersStep 1: Diagnostics of farming practices, knowledge and constraintsQualitative methods (depending on context): Interviews, focus groups, and participatory methods such as ELMO/netmap/participatory landscape mapping to get an overview of essential farming practices, value chains and constraints (costs, access, etc).To measure changes in agency, a focus on knowledge can be an indicator of improved agency (a bit more depth than just counting how many women participated). Important step is to design and implement a simple questionnaire to gather information on relevant agricultural knowledge that affects intervention design, implementation and evaluation and then implement it again after interventions have been implemented. This questionnaire can be used to measure change in knowledge of participating farmers and how it may differ according to gender and other social criteria.Quantitative survey for characterization of households/gender and farming system within the sites. The survey can be used to decide upon criteria for farmer selection but also to measure any changes in income or production patterns that came about through project interventions. This data can map the impact on men, women and other community members.Value chain analysis: of the specific crops/commodities targeted in the interventions to identify challenges/opportunities for farmers.Step 2: Co-design A Based on criteria decided upon by the team, selection of farmers and farm types. Important to select across wealth/gender/social inclusion criteria. Survey results can provide the data needed for selection. Ultimately however, building upon this criteria, selection should be done through an inclusive process that allows selfselection of interested farmers but also is also transparent so that some farmers do not feel they are being marginalized.Step 3: Co-design BCo-design between researchers and farmers of design, piloting and measuring trials and the criteria for measuring impact -around the SIAF pillars. Establish a protocol for regularly tracking the progress and responses of participants (capturing gender and other differences) to their experiences in the trials. This should be done periodically, not simply at the beginning and the end as it needs to capture participants' views as the trial progresses in order to capture the most data. Farmer response and reflection is essential and its analysis will also be informed by the qualitative methods in earlier steps.Step 4: Feedback Analysis of results and feedback to farmers and other stakeholders. Decide upon accessible and easily communicated means for feedback. For men and women farmers, engage them to do the feedback to the wider farming community. Additionally, a simple video could be made by farmers to feedback to wider decisionmakers.cgiar.org/initiative/mixed-farming-systems","tokenCount":"1944"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"aa44e8f7388c348eebc0c3d7e831d3ff","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0ed61ba3-3325-43cd-99fb-004cf68a9f14/retrieve","id":"-2120759588"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"17cc36ad-7ad0-4cef-8870-91ba4b270b10","pagecount":"8","content":"Modelos productivos y asistencia técnica hacia una ganadería sostenible en el departamento de Caquetá Alejandro Ruden, Viviana Rivera, Adrián Chindicué, Juan G. Ortiz, Carolina Navarrete-Frias, Natalia Triana-Ángel, José L. Urrea-Benítez, Mauricio Sotelo & Jacobo Arango NOVIEMBRE 2021• El departamento colombiano de Caquetá cuenta con particulares características económicas, sociales y ambientales, que lo hacen elegible para proyectos de sostenibilidad agropecuaria que busquen aumentar la productividad, promuevan la mitigación y la resiliencia al cambio climático y reduzcan la deforestación a través de intensificación sostenible. • En el marco del programa Rutas PDET para la estabilización del Fondo Europeo para la Paz, se obtuvo una financiación por 6.3 millones de euros. Así, el componente ganadero beneficiará a 370 unidades productivas (fincas), 560 hectáreas y 540 productores principalmente pequeños y medianos. • Los modelos productivos y la asistencia técnica tienen como objetivo aumentar el rendimiento por vaca lechera y adicionalmente, generar condiciones habilitadoras para la futura certificación de los predios en buenas prácticas ganaderas. Estos se realizan bajo un enfoque de diseño participativo en el que el productor y su familia son actores decisivos dentro de las estrategias tecnológicas para el sistema y mejora del paisaje. • El reconocimiento de la mujer y de los jóvenes como actores fundamentales de la actividad ganadera, otro de los ejes del proyecto, potencia la capacidad de mejora y la sostenibilidad. • El trabajo de la Alianza Bioversity-CIAT y CCAFS ha permitido identificar y validar medidas de mitigación apropiadas para el sector ganadero, que pueden ser incluidas en un modelo de asistencia técnica en países tropicales.Esta nota informativa resume los objetivos, el alcance y la lógica de intervención del proyecto rutas PDET en su componente de ganadería, el cual tiene como área de implementación a cuatro municipios de Caquetá. Las condiciones que allí confluyen como son la alta y creciente tasa de deforestación, los impactos ambientales, la orientación productiva y los tipos de tenencia de la tierra habilitan la implementación de modelos sostenibles de producción ganadera y el desarrollo de programas de asistencia técnica desde los ámbitos productivo, económico, social y ambiental.Según la información otorgada por el Censo bovino nacional (ICA, 2021), el departamento de Caquetá, con 2,079,194 cabezas de ganado, ocupa el quinto lugar de población bovina en Colombia, superado únicamente por Antioquia, Meta, Córdoba y Casanare. Esta situación cobra particular relevancia si se tiene en cuenta que en estos primeros departamentos la principal orientación es la producción cárnica y solo dos de ellos son mayoritariamente orientados a la lechería y al doble propósito (Antioquia y Caquetá). Adicionalmente, 40% de las fincas ganaderas caqueteñas son consideradas pequeñas por poseer menos de 50 bovinos, aspecto que no es irrelevante desde el punto de vista social y de seguridad alimentaria, debido a que un porcentaje importante de la leche producida diariamente tiene como destino el autoconsumo (CDGC, 2019).Lo que indudablemente resalta a Caquetá como un área de interés para la implementación de modelos sostenibles de producción ganadera y asistencia técnica hacia la sostenibilidad, es su importancia dentro del inventario nacional de gases efecto invernadero (GEI) y por la presión que ejerce su matriz productiva sobre el ecosistema, evidenciada con las tasas de deforestación registradas durante las últimas décadas. Según el inventario nacional y departamental de GEI (IDEAM, 2016), la ganadería bovina en Caquetá, con unas emisiones de 1.84 Mton CO2eq anuales, es responsable de 9% de las emisiones de GEI departamentales, un valor relativamente bajo si se le compara con algunos departamentos de tradición ganadera; no obstante, la particularidad de su inventario radica en que las dos categorías de actividad que lo encabezan son Balance de carbono de bosque natural convertido en otras tierras forestales (deforestación) con 11.23 Mton CO2eq y Bosque natural convertido en pastizales (deforestación) con 5.36 Mton CO2eq. Ambas categorías suman 83.6% del total de emisiones de GEI del departamento. Lo anterior permite entrever que más que un problema intrínseco de la producción ganadera per-se, existe un conflicto en las dinámicas de tenencia y uso de la tierra, de su aprovechamiento y de un ordenamiento productivo que no ha sido efectivo (Clerici et al., 2020).La tasa de deforestación en Caquetá es la más alta del país y corresponde a un alarmante 22% del total nacional (IDEAM, 2016). La deforestación es ejercida por la presión de diversas actividades económicas sobre los ecosistemas del departamento, entre las que se encuentran la presencia de cultivos con fines ilícitos, la minería ilegal, actividades agropecuarias, acaparación ilegal de tierras entre otras. A pesar de que desde algunas décadas atrás se viene evidenciado esta cuantiosa pérdida de la cobertura forestal (Figura 1), los últimos años han sido críticos, por fenómenos como la firma del Acuerdo de Paz en 2016, la apertura de vías legales e ilegales entre los pueblos selváticos (WWF, 2020) y una débil regulación y presencia del Estado en los temas concernientes al uso sostenible de los recursos naturales (Clerici et al., 2020), entre otros.Figura 1. Hectáreas deforestadas anualmente en Caquetá. Fuente: Sistema de monitoreo de bosques y carbono (IDEAM, 2020).Podría inferirse entonces, que la importante cobertura boscosa del departamento (71.7% del territorio hasta el 2018), permitiría que el departamento de Caquetá tenga Según la Unidad de Planificación Rural Agropecuaria (UPRA, 2018) el territorio de Caquetá se encuentra mayoritariamente fuera de la Frontera Agrícola (FA), que es \"el límite del suelo rural que separa las áreas donde las actividades agropecuarias están permitidas, de las áreas protegidas, las de especial importancia ecológica, y las demás áreas en las que las actividades agropecuarias están excluidas por mandato de la ley o el reglamento\" (UPRA, MADS, 2017 1 ). Esta condición hace que Caquetá junto con otros cinco departamentos, represente parte de un enclave agroambiental correspondiente a los territorios transformados con actividades agropecuarias, inmersos en ecosistemas predominantemente naturales, que requieren de un manejo ambiental y agrícola diferenciado para su desarrollo sostenible y estabilización, teniendo en cuenta los criterios de la zonificación agroambiental. No obstante, el uso real del suelo en su territorio dista mucho de respetar dicha frontera; en este aspecto, la deforestación de Caquetá ha tenido un alto impacto por fuera de la FA y sobre todo en la última década (Figura 2).No obstante el panorama anteriormente mencionado, la ganadería y principalmente la que está orientada hacia el doble propósito, innegablemente representa una importante actividad económica para el departamento y una fuente cuantiosa de empleo para sus habitantes (DANE, 2018). La Encuesta Nacional Agropecuaria (ENA, DANE, 2020) reportó 19,055 Unidades Productoras Agropecuarias (UPA), de estas, 19,000 UPA ejercen la ganadería bovina, de allí que sea objeto constante de mejora, como motor social que ha sido en los últimos años y fuente de recursos para las familias que directa e indirectamente dependen de esta cadena de valor.Caquetá se encuentra entre de los departamentos más productores de leche, pese a que su orientación no es principalmente especializada sino doble propósito, la cual se caracteriza por criar a los terneros al lado de su madre o nodriza, obteniendo leche directamente de la ubre o de su remanente del ordeño. Los departamentos con mayor producción de leche según la ENA (2019) fueron Antioquia, Cundinamarca, Boyacá, Caquetá, Nariño y Magdalena con 5.09, 3.78, 1.94, 1.63, 1.14 y 1.12 millones de litros diarios y participaciones de 23.3%, 17.3%, 8.9%, 7.5%, 5.2% y 5.1% respectivamente. Este es un indicador relevante, puesto que Caquetá es, de los listados, el único departamento que figura como totalmente orientado a la producción doble propósito; los demás son lecheros especializados en su mayoría de territorio y adicionalmente poseen orientaciones mixtas (Figura 3). Sin embargo, y pese al importante conglomerado ganadero que representa el departamento de Caquetá, sus índices productivos continúan siendo deficientes: en primera medida, el recurso del suelo está siendo usado de manera ineficiente, a razón aproximada de 0.7 cabezas de ganado por ha. Adicionalmente, la producción de leche diaria en sistemas doble propósito es de 4.5 litros por vaca, y en sistemas de lechería especializada es de 8.6 litros por vaca (CDGC, 2019), traducidos en una producción diaria 1.63 millones de litros al día, que rondan el 7% de producto nacional. Estos indicadores no solo permiten evidenciar la brecha productiva que existe con respecto a departamentos con una mayor producción diaria lechera por vaca en ordeño, sino que también resaltan el potencial de trabajo y las capacidades de mejora en sistemas extensivos a partir de la implementación de tecnologías productivas y cambios de comportamiento en los sistemas.Una razón que puede explicar parcialmente esta baja productividad y la alta ineficiencia por unidad de área puede ser la escasa asistencia técnica y el bajo nivel de inversión en tecnologías sostenibles de producción; una muestra de esto es la nula cobertura arbórea en zonas ganaderas de Caquetá y otros departamentos del país (Figura 4). Este tipo de producción en condiciones de monocultivo ha demostrado ser poco resiliente ante los fenómenos de variabilidad y cambio climático, lo que deriva, con una más alta probabilidad, en pérdidas económicas ante el aumento en frecuencia e intensidad de inundaciones y sequías (Tapasco et al., 2015). Todas estas condiciones productivas y ambientales anteriormente descritas han motivado un alto interés de inversión en proyectos de fomento de la producción ganadera sostenible y de conservación en el departamento. Este es el caso del proyecto Paisajes conectados del Caquetá (2013 -2020) por parte del Fondo Acción y la Agencia de los Estados Unidos para el Desarrollo Internacional (USAID), con el objetivo de detener la degradación y desaparición de los bosques mediante el fortalecimiento de la gobernanza local, el fomento de medios de vida sostenibles y la preparación para recibir pagos por los servicios ambientales ligados a la conservación del bosque (Fondo Acción, 2020). Adicionalmente, iniciativas de agremiaciones como el Queso del Caquetá (2021), tienen como meta promocionar la actividad de los queseros formales mientras se visibiliza este producto a través de sellos de origen y se promueve una producción quesera sostenible y desligada a procesos de deforestación. Esta última iniciativa continúa en marcha a la fecha y representa un modelo de negocio promisorio y replicable en otras regiones, ya que no sólo reivindica a los productores como actores relevantes dentro de la cadena, sino que también brinda un valor diferenciado a los productos provenientes de sistemas con prácticas sostenibles y sin deforestación.En adición, en una iniciativa público-privada, el gremio de productores ganaderos firmó en 2019 el Pacto Caquetá \"por la cero deforestación y reconciliación ganadera\". Este es un acuerdo de voluntades para el mejoramiento ambiental mediante acciones de restauración, recuperación, conservación e implementación de sistemas sostenibles para preservar la biodiversidad en los sistemas ganaderos de Caquetá (CDGC, 2019).Durante los últimos cinco años, la Alianza de Bioversity International y el Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) ha trabajado con The Nature Conservancy (TNC), El Centro para la Investigación en Sistemas Sostenibles de Producción Agropecuaria (CIPAV) y la Federación Colombiana de Ganaderos (Fedegán) en la redacción de las Acciones Nacionalmente Apropiadas de Mitigación (NAMA) ganadería sostenible. Este es un mapa de ruta para la consecución de los objetivos de mitigación del cambio climático en este sector específico, como parte de los compromisos adoptados ante la convención Marco de la Naciones Unidas para el Cambio Climático y dar una base a las Contribuciones Determinadas a Nivel Nacional (NDC) para finalmente, ayudar a cumplir los acuerdos colombianos como parte del Acuerdo de París.El departamento de Caquetá se encuentra en una posición de alta prioridad (Figura 5) para lograr el cumplimiento de estos compromisos por su relevancia dentro del hato bovino nacional, así como el potencial de mitigación de GEI que tiene en todos los escenarios posibles de inversión, a través de la implementación de mejoras en gestión del conocimiento, prácticas de manejo y tecnologías como los sistemas silvopastoriles, los árboles dispersos en potreros y las cercas vivas.Figura 5. Zonas priorizadas por la NAMA de ganadería sostenible en Colombia. En verde las regiones priorizadas. Las barras al interior de cada región representan los escenarios de emisiones de GEI: la barra amarilla ilustra las emisiones actuales, la barra roja, las emisiones en un escenario moderado a 2030 y la barra azul, las emisiones optimistas en 2030. Fuente: NAMA, 2021.El programa Rutas PDET busca contribuir al proceso de estabilización territorial mediante el fortalecimiento inclusivo y sostenible de la cadena láctea y el mejoramiento en el acceso a recursos, servicios, infraestructura y mercados. Su principal objetivo es contribuir al mejoramiento de la productividad, de la competitividad y de la sostenibilidad del departamento de Caquetá, mediante la provisión de bienes públicos y productos identificados por las comunidades, el fortalecimiento empresarial, la innovación aplicada y las alianzas inclusivas dentro de la cadena.Esta es una intervención complementaria del Fondo Europeo para la Paz en Colombia focalizada en los PDET, los cuales hacen parte de la reforma rural integral contemplada dentro del Plan marco para la implementación del acuerdo final, liderado por la Alta Consejería Presidencial para la Estabilización y la Consolidación, y con el acompañamiento de la Agencia de Renovación de Tierras (ART). El proyecto cuenta con una importante contrapartida del Gobierno de Colombia (proveniente de diferentes fuentes, ART, FCP, OCADPaz y otras) para un total financiado de 6.3 millones de euros divididos entre la cadena de cacao y la cadena láctea. El proyecto será ejecutado durante un período de cuatro años bajo 3 contratos de subvención con: Red ADELCO 2 , ICCO 3 y la Alianza de Bioversity International y el CIAT. Estas instituciones se caracterizan por tener presencia en el territorio, experiencia y conocimiento en el desarrollo local e investigación, también poseen competencia e idoneidad técnica y administrativa. Se cuenta con numerosos actores relevantes y aliados institucionales de los órdenes nacional y territorial; este es el caso de los comités de ganaderos, juntas locales, proveedores, entre otros. 1. 370 sistemas ganaderos sostenibles codiseñados e implementados. 2. 560 hectáreas con implementación exitosa de tecnologías forrajeras u otras prácticas sostenibles en sistemas ganaderos. 3. Aumentar la producción diaria de leche por vaca en al menos un 15%. 4. 370 productores recibirán capacitación en buenas prácticas ganaderas (BPG), brindando condiciones habilitadoras para la obtención de la certificación. 5. 540 productores/as capacitados en selección, manejo y establecimiento de forrajes mejorados. 6. Al menos el 20% de los beneficiarios serán mujeres buscando mejorar sus prácticas agrícolas o ganaderas. 7. Al menos 80% de los beneficiarios firmarán acuerdos voluntarios de sostenibilidad y estarán en proceso de implementación. El equipo de la Alianza de Bioversity International y el CIAT han hecho un especial hincapié en superar las barreras técnicas y de comunicación entre los centros de investigación y los usuarios finales de las tecnologías, que son los productores agropecuarios; por ello, se ha trabajado en los últimos años para poner en marcha la metodología de diseño participativo de sistemas productivos sostenibles, mediante la cual se brinda participación equitativa a todos los actores involucrados de la cadena hacia la consecución de objetivos claros y medibles. Con esta metodología se tienen en consideración los objetivos de los productores que, junto con la capacidad técnica de los asistentes en las regiones, se cristalizan en implementaciones realistas y sostenidas en el tiempo. El modelo de asistencia se basa entonces en la generación de capacidades de manera conjunta, en la que el productor asume su papel de actor principal de la cadena y el asistente técnico acompaña desde su experticia, la consecución de estos objetivos. Las tecnologías propuestas incluyen sistemas silvopastoriles de diferente densidad, pero también contempla la incorporación de forrajes mejorados, división de potreros, árboles dispersos en potreros, cercas vivas, entre otras tecnologías. Asimismo, se contempla la generación de capacidades en torno a los puntos críticos de control por parte del Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario (ICA), para que los productores empiecen a abonar el camino hacia una futura certificación en buenas prácticas ganaderas.Figura 9. Implementación de viveros para la propagación de material forrajero. Foto: J. Ortiz. Nov 2021.Un diagrama de seguimiento a la implementación permitirá tener una visión de cada una de las actividades de implementación descritas en los protocolos de establecimiento surgidos del co-diseño. (Figura 10).Figura 10. Diagrama de seguimiento a la implementación de modelos ganaderos sostenibles (elaborado a partir de experiencias adquiridas en el Caquetá por parte de la institución aliada CIPAV).4 \"Informe Especial del Instituto Kroc y el acompañamiento internacional, ONU Mujeres, FDIM y Suecia, al seguimiento del enfoque CIAT es una institución pionera en la investigación en forrajes tropicales y producción ganadera y su relación con el medio ambiente, con extensa experiencia en la provisión de servicios de asistencia técnica y en la creación y fortalecimiento de capacidades agropecuarias, evaluaciones del potencial en finca, desarrollo de planes de manejo, y la medición de impactos ambientales, económicos y sociales de los sistemas de producción propuestos.Históricamente, la contribución de las mujeres en la cadena láctea y en general en los sistemas de producción agropecuaria ha sido invisibilizado e insuficientemente reconocido, lo que afecta su condición activa en los diferentes eslabones y conlleva a desaprovechar su potencial de cara a desarrollar cadenas más sólidas y eficientes (Triana & Burkart, 2019).En su Informe Especial el Instituto Kroc 4 se pronuncia sobre el enfoque de género en la implementación del Acuerdo de Paz, señalando como uno de los retos el mejorar la representación de las organizaciones de mujeres en los procesos PDET, en especial en los espacios donde se concretan y adoptan las decisiones finales.La política de Estabilización \"Paz con Legalidad\", establece acciones concretas en los territorios con una visión a largo plazo y su implementación se realizará respetando y reconociendo las políticas inclusivas, con amplio énfasis en aquellas orientadas a las mujeres rurales. Esta acción comprende un mapeo de género en la cadena, así como las eventuales brechas de género en el acceso a activos productivos, a financiación, a infraestructura vial y productiva y otros medios que se consideren relevantes.Del programa Rutas PDET se resalta su carácter inclusivo, lo que se evidencia por la transversalidad del enfoque de género propuesto, teniendo como finalidad el empoderamiento de las mujeres en la cadena productiva. El adecuado reconocimiento y la puesta en marcha de prácticas incluyentes busca así no solo beneficiar a las mujeres que integran el proyecto el control de los procesos y de los beneficios generados, sino de las familias ganaderas participantes en general. PDET se concibe como una intervención integral, efectiva, sostenible y complementaria del Fondo Europeo para la Paz en Colombia, que busca facilitar la focalización de los recursos y la concentración, coordinación y de género en la implementación del Acuerdo Final\". Informe especial diciembre 2016-junio 2018 agregación de acciones, para fortalecer la productividad y competitividad de la cadena láctea en las regiones, capitalizando y visibilizando en dichos procesos la contribución de las mujeres, como agentes de peso en los distintos eslabones (productoras, procesadoras, comercializadoras, consumidoras) de cara a desarrollar cadenas de valor eficientes y con incidencia en la disminución de la pobreza.Los programas de investigación del CGIAR (CRP) en ganadería (Livestock) y en cambio climático, agricultura y seguridad alimentaria (CCAFS) han permitido la identificación de medidas de mitigación apropiadas para el sector ganadero en países tropicales. Esta experiencia ha generado información crítica y las directrices necesarias para identificar opciones, apoyar la planificación y las políticas para la ampliación de las acciones apropiadas para la mitigación (NAMA) a través de una nota informativa (NINO), y ayudar en el proceso nacional de cumplir las contribuciones nacionalmente determinadas (NDC) del Acuerdo de París.Estas experiencias han permitido fortalecer los criterios técnicos del equipo; hasta la fecha se han generado evidencia científica sobre tecnologías de mitigación costo efectivas, la generación de factores de emisión de GEI desde la ganadería bovina, el uso y la validación de modelos de simulación. Todos estos insumos han generado las condiciones habilitadoras para ser elegibles, bajo una idoneidad técnica, política y financiera para la asignación de estos fondos de la Unión Europea a través del Fondo Europeo para la Paz.El equipo se compone por un núcleo de 8 profesionales con diversos perfiles que permiten desarrollar modelos de ganadería que promueven el aumento de la resiliencia de los sistemas a partir del aumento de la productividad ganadera sostenible, así como la captura de carbono y la mitigación de los efectos del cambio climático. Su oficina central se encuentra en el municipio de Florencia, desde donde se planean las acciones; recibiendo apoyo logístico desde la oficina de CIAT en Palmira. El vivero piloto se halla en el municipio de El Doncello, Caquetá.ONF Andina, Red ADELCO, ICCO, CIPAV, Universidad de la Amazonia, Comité Departamental de Ganaderos del Caquetá, Juntas de acción comunal.","tokenCount":"3397"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4eee369a6d37558b7a073eb17d4fdee6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/dc8eb0e8-7c77-41eb-ad65-53ce9736df44/retrieve","id":"1173953699"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7123003f-2238-44ec-bc20-ce3690dad9ca","pagecount":"11","content":"African Dairy Genetic Gains (ADGG) training course on Mix99 genetic genomic analyses softwareATTRIBUTION. The work must be attributed, but not in any way that suggests endorsement by ILRI or the author(s).For any reuse or distribution, the licence terms of this work must be made clear to others. Any of the above conditions can be waived if permission is obtained from the copyright holder. Nothing in this licence impairs or restricts the author's moral rights. Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above. The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used.Editing, design and layout-ILRI Editorial and Publishing Services, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Currently, the African Dairy Genetic Gain (ADGG) program (https://africadgg.wordpress.com/category/adgg/) operates fully in two countries: Ethiopia and Tanzania, and has commenced preliminary activities in Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya and Nigeria. The aim of this course was to develop and strengthen the capacity of the NARS to effectively undertake and manage their respective national dairy and livestock performance recording and genetic evaluation programs using the MiX99 software with the support of the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), and ADGG.The ADGG program recently acquired the license for the use of MiX99 software for genetic evaluation purposes, therefore the specific aim of the course was to provide participants with a working knowledge on Linux computing environment and the use of the software MiX99 for genetic and genomic evaluations. A hands-on approach was adopted using a data set of milk yields and body weight, pedigree and genotypes generated from the ADGG database, thereby providing participants with the necessary practical skills. In addition, participants were equipped with practical skills on post-processing of breeding value solutions to build indices, and rank top bulls and cows.A total of 8 females and 17 males participated in the course, with 4 participants from Tanzania, 8 from Ethiopia, 3 from Rwanda , 3 from Nigeria and 6 from Kenya. Chinyere Ekine-Dzivenu, a statistical geneticist in the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) Livestock Genetics team also participated in the course on 13-17 December. The participants from each country were either directly associated with current ADGG activities or sources of support to the national Dairy Performance Recording Centres (DPRCs) in each country. Eric Anyona from the ILRI Livestock Genetics Team was in charge of all logistics and smooth running of the course with IT support provided by the ILRI ICT team.• The course commenced at 09:00 hours using Zoom and finished at about 16.30 hrs daily, with a lunch and two coffee breaks. The lecture notes and materials for all practical for each day were stored in Microsoft Teams, which all participants had access to.• The principal investigator (PI) for ADGG, Okeyo Mwai, then welcomed participants in the first day, gave an overview of ADGG and opened the training course.• The course outline was presented by Enyew Negussie.• The course then commenced. The main areas covered included introduction to Linux computing environment, editors, theoretical basis of GBLUP and GBLUP and Single step, the use of MiX99 software for BLUP models: animal, repeatability, multi-trait BLUP models and genomic models such as GBLUP and ssGBLUP. How to set up the instruction file (CLIM file) for MiX99, executing the software and interpretation of various outputs were covered. Also computation of reliabilities using the software was also taught in addition to the use of software Relax2 to compute the relationship matrix and Hginv to compute inverse of G of H matrix for ssGBLUP.• The daily schedule was such that the presentation of lectures was interspersed with practical sessions and then theory sessions. The participants in each country were in one location for most of the countries, allowing them to work in groups in the practical sessions using Linux installed in their laptops.• The practical sessions were based on an example data set on milk yield, body weight, pedigree and genotypes derived from the ADGG database.• On the last day of the course, participants were given a lecture and practical sessions to equip them with practical skills on post-processing of breeding value solutions to build genomic indices, and ranking top bulls and cows for use in practice at their respective institutes.• Finally, in the afternoon of the final course day a closing remark was given by each of the course instructors, and Okeyo Mwai, gave the final remarks and officially closed the training course.• All participants received a certificate of attendance and a link to a repository containing all course materials.Online Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke)-African Dairy Genetic Gains (ADGG) training course on Mix99 genetic genomic analyses software• Electronic lectures notes, software and practical examples on the of linear mixed models and use of MiX99 software for the prediction of breeding values and genomic selection.• Procedure for the use of Linux environment for computing and data analysis.• Lecture notes, steps and programs (R) for post processing GEBV solutions to build indices and rank top bulls and cowsNARS equipped with practical skills in methods for animal quantitative genetics to effectively manage their respective national dairy and livestock performance recording and the use of MiX99 software for genetic evaluation systems.Established network between NARS in Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and Rwanda and Ethiopia in supporting each other in running of the DPRCs in each country.• Participants were brought up-to-date on methods in quantitative genetics and the use of MiX99 software for the practical application of several genetic evaluation models. We feel the expected outputs and outcomes were achieved.• The practical sessions afforded participants to use of MiX99 and other software, to work in the Linux environment and undertake breeding value prediction and their reliabilities. In addition, the training equipped them with skills to build indices and rank top bulls and cows.• Basic skills of programming were also taught and the use of the Unix system.• Participants felt stretched but also felt it was good training for them.• The course afforded an opportunity for networking and future collaboration among participants and lecturers.The feedback from the participants was very positive and indicated they have learned a lot. Extending the course period by few days and especially dedicating the first one or two days of the course for covering exclusively Linux operating systems, editors and computing environment issues were strongly suggested.","tokenCount":"1052"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"dde3c1588d9c337028f8edc59a124f2d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4111ff23-7e3f-431b-98c7-bba8753f6668/retrieve","id":"-1199984005"},"keywords":["papa","Phytophthora infestans","Agrobacterium tumefaciens","gen Rpi-blb2 potato","Phytophthora infestans","Agrobacterium tumefaciens","Rpi-blb2 gene"],"sieverID":"d5f4443a-f1c6-4f3a-b761-518677849729","pagecount":"6","content":"El Oomiceto Phytophthora infestans (Mont.) de Bary, agente causal de la enfermedad denominada tizón tardío, es el principal responsable del déficit en rendimiento y producción en el cultivo de papa a nivel mundial; una de las alternativas a considerar en la lucha contra este patógeno es la integración de secuencias completas de genes R en el genoma de la papa a través de Agrotransformación. El gen Rpi-blb2 (gen R) de la especie silvestre Solanum bulbocastanum Dunal, presenta una amplia resistencia a los aislamientos de P. infestans, haciéndolo un importante candidato en los estudios de mejoramiento genético en plantas. En el presente trabajo se describe la introducción del gen Rpi-blb2 por Agrobacterium tumefaciens en el genoma de la papa variedad Désirée, la caracterización molecular de 29 eventos transformados e infección de plantas completas con el aislamiento POX067 de P. infestans obtenido en el Perú. Los eventos Désirée [Rpi-blb2] 4 y Désirée [Rpi-blb2] 30, presentaron una resistencia considerable frente a la infección de P. infestans, comprobando de esta manera la transferencia del gen Rpi-blb2 de una especie silvestre a una cultivada mediante transformación genética.Desde el inicio del uso de la bacteria Agrobacterium tumefaciens en los años 80, se revolucionó la obtención de plantas resistentes a diversos patógenos de una manera rápida y sencilla, siendo considerado hasta la fecha como un proceso importante en la biotecnología vegetal (Petti et al. 2009). Asimismo, la búsqueda de nuevas fuentes de resistencia ha impulsado el uso de genes de la misma especie o de una familia cercana a la planta que se desee modificar (Storck et al. 2012). Un ejemplo de ello son los genes R (genes de resistencia) de la familia de genes NB-LRR (Nucleotide binding and leucine-rich repeat), provenientes de la especie silvestre Solanum bulbocastanum (Collinge et al. 2008, Jacobs et al. 2010;Pel et al. 2009). Los genes R de S. bulbocastanum más Rev. peru. biol. 20(3): 205 -210 (Marzo 2014) representativos son Rpi-blb1, Rpi-blb2 y Rpi-blb3, y se encuentran localizados en los cromosomas 8, 6 y 4 respectivamente (Naess et al. 2000, Song et al. 2003). El interés que se tiene en estos genes radica en la resistencia que confieren ante el tizón tardío, enfermedad ocasionada por el Oomiceto Phytophthora infestans y descrita como la más devastadora en el cultivo de la papa (Garelik 2002, Fry 2008).La lucha contra P. infestans es continua debido a su elevado potencial evolutivo y debido a que en su genoma posee regiones altamente repetitivas, las cuales presentan características muy dinámicas que les permite secretar proteínas efectoras (AVR) facilitando su colonización y patogénesis en la planta hospedera (Haas 2009). En consecuencia, la obtención de plantas con resistencia a P. infestans es apremiante. Es por este motivo, que el estudio de los genes R a tenido gran atención, como es el caso del gen Rpi-blb2, el cual presenta un amplio espectro de resistencia a P. infestans (van der Vossen et al. 2005). Se ha demostrado que este gen evolucionó más recientemente que el gen RB / Rpi-blb1 y codifica una proteína de 1,267 aminoácidos, cuya secuencia génica presenta 82% de similitud con el gen Mi-1 de tomate, el cual también confiere resistencia a nematodos, áfidos y a la mosca blanca (Nombela et al. 2003, Lokossou et al. 2010).En el 2011, el grupo BASF (Alemania) obtuvo el cultivo de papa Fortuna, a partir de la introducción de genes Rpi-blb2, así como otros genes no reportados de S. bulbocastanum y otras especies silvestres. Sin embargo, de estas investigaciones sólo se conocen notificaciones de avances, y en la actualidad el grupo ha retirado su solicitud de liberación del cultivo en la Unión Europea por temas de mercado (Gillund et al. 2013). Debido a esta situación poco se conoce acerca de la resistencia que puede conferir este gen en cultivos de interés, es por ello que el presente trabajo provee de información actual en la generación de plantas transgénicas de S. tuberosum var. Désirée con el gen Rpi-blb2, así como la evaluación de la resistencia frente la infección con el aislado POX067 de P. infestans.Material vegetal.-Las plántulas de papa var. Désirée fueron obtenidas del banco de germoplasma del Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP) (CIP800048). Se usaron explantes tipo hojapeciolo y entrenudos con cuatro semanas de su propagación invitro. El aislamiento POX067 (Oxapampa, Pasco), se obtuvo de S. tuberosum var. Amarilis, perteneciente al tipo de apareamiento A1 y linaje clonal EC-1 (Pérez et al. 2001).Diseño del plásmido pCIP95.-La secuencia completa del gen Rpi-blb2 fue obtenida del GenBank (número de accesión DQ122125.1), y sintetizado por la empresa Entelechon GmbH (Alemania). Posteriormente este gen fue clonado en el plásmido pCAMBIA1300 obteniéndose el plásmido pCIP95 (Fig. 1). Por transformación de shock térmico se introdujo el plásmido en la Figura 1. Plásmido pCIP95. RB, borde derecho; gen Rpi-blb2; P35S, promotor del virus del mosaico de la coliflor 35S; gen hpt, higromicina fosfotransferasa; t35S, terminador del virus del mosaico de la coliflor 35S; LB, borde izquierdo; gene nptII, neomicina fosfotransferasa II; pBR322, ori pBR322 origen de replicación; pBR322 bom, pBR322 bases de mobilidad; pVS1 rep, pVS1 función de replicacion; pVS1 Sta, función de estabilidad. Posiciones de sitios de amplificación de los cebadores, indicados por flechas en negro. cepa DH5α de E. coli y por electroporación en la cepa EHA105 de A. tumefaciens (Hood et al. 1993, Sambrok & Russell 2001).Evaluación de la sensibilidad de los explantes de S. tuberosum var. Désirée al agente selector higromicina.-Por cada tipo de explante se usó 30 unidades sin transformar, las cuales fueron colocadas en un medio de regeneración semisólido (4.60 g/L de sales Murashigue & Skoog, 2% de glucosa, 0.02 mg/L de ácido giberélico, 0.02 mg/L de ácido naftalen acético, 2 mg/L de ribósido de zeatina, pH 5.6 y 0.23% de gelride) complementado con una gradiente de concentración del antibiótico higromicina: 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 y 30 mg/L. El control negativo fue la var. Désirée (no transformada) colocada en el medio de propagación sin antibiótico. El cambio de placas se realizó cada 15 días. Transformación de papa.-La transformación fue vía organogénesis directa, siguiendo el protocolo establecido por Medina et al. 2003, con modificaciones para la var. Désirée. Las plantas fueron propagadas in-vitro en magentas en un medio líquido de propagación (4.3 g/L de sales Murashige & Skoog, 0.4 mg/L de tiamina, 2 mg/L de glicina, 0.5 mg/L de ácido nicotínico, 0.5 mg/L de piridoxina, 0.1 mg/L de ácido giberélico, 2% de sacarosa y pH 5.6).La bacteria A. tumefaciens conteniendo el plásmido pCIP95 fue sembrada en el medio semisólido Luria-Bertani (LB) (1% de bacto-triptona, 0.5% de extracto de levadura, 1% NaCl, pH 7.5 y 2.5 g/L de agar) con 100 mg/L de kanamicina, a 28 °C por 48 horas.Los explantes fueron cortados de forma transversal con una cuchilla estéril que previamente fue puesta en contacto con una colonia de A. tumefaciens. Los explantes tratados fueron transferidos a un medio que contenía: 4.60 g/L de sales Murashige & Skoog, 2% de sacarosa, 30 mg/L de acetosiringona, pH 5.6 y 0.23% de gelride, sin antibiótico de selección, a 18 -22 °C por 24 horas en oscuridad. Posteriormente, éstos fueron colocados en el medio de regeneración semisólido con el antibiótico higromicina y 200 mg/L de carbenicilina. Cada 15 días el material vegetal fue transferido a placas conteniendo un medio de regeneración nuevo. Una vez obtenidos los regenerantes fueron individualizados para su posterior evaluación. Los cálculos de las eficiencias de regeneración y transformación fueron obtenidos según García et al. (2008) y Luo et al. (2006), respectivamente.Caracterización molecular por PCR.-El proceso de extracción de DNA se realizó siguiendo lo descrito por Doyle y Doyle (1990). Para la reacción en cadena de la polimerasa (PCR) se usaron los siguientes sets de cebadores: gen Rpi-blb2: Blb2-F: 5'-AATACGCAAACCGCCTC-3' y Blb2-R: 5'-AGCTTCA-GATCCTTGGCC-3' (Vector NT 9.1.0), para el gen hpt: hpt-F: 5'-TCCATCACAGTTTGCCAGTGATACA-3' y hpt-R: 5'-ATGAAAAAGCCTGAACTCACCGCGA-3' (Nishizawa et al. 1999). El volumen final de la reacción de PCR fue de 15μL, conteniendo 10ng de DNA, 1X PCR buffer (Promega©), 0.4 μM de cada cebador, 0.5 μM dNTPs y 1 U de la enzima Taq DNA polimerasa (Promega © ). El programa de PCR usado fue: 95 °C por 5 min, la temperatura de hibridación para ambos cebadores fue de 56 °C con 34 ciclos de 95 °C por 1 min, 56 °C por 45 s y 72 °C por 1 min, y una elongación final de 72 °C por 5 min. Una vez terminada la amplificación los productos de PCR se mezclaron con solución de carga (0.25% azul de bromofenol, 40% sacarosa) y separados en geles de agarosa al 1% en amortiguador TBE 1X (20 mM Tris-borato y 0.5 mM EDTA, pH 8.0). Los tamaños del producto de PCR fueron comparados con el peso molecular del marcador Lamdda DNA previamente digerido con PstI. El gel fue teñido con bromuro de etidio para la visualización de los fragmentos de DNA a través de la irradiación del gel con luz UV (Sambrok & Russell 2001). Imágenes del gel donde se observan los fragmentos de DNA obtenidos por PCR fueron capturadas con el equipo EpiChemi3 Darkroom para su posterior análisis.Ensayo de infección con P. infestans.-Se usaron 2 plantas por evento de transformación de la segunda propagación vegetativa, de un mes y medio de siembra. Los ensayos de infección se realizaron en los cubículos de bioseguridad del CIP bajo condiciones controladas de temperatura 16 -18 °C, 12 h /12 h de exposición de luz/oscuridad y 60 -75% de humedad relativa. La infección se realizó por aspersión de la planta completa con una suspensión de 3000 esporangios/mL del aislamiento POX067 de P. infestans. Una vez inoculadas las plantas, estas fueron colocadas en cámaras con humedad relativa alta (> 90%) para promover y aumentar el desarrollo del patógeno. Las plantas de S. tuberosum var. Désirée (susceptible) y el clon CIP 387164.4 (resistente) fueron usadas como control negativo y positivo, respectivamente. Las evaluaciones fueron realizadas por el Laboratorio de Patología del CIP al quinto día post infección (dpi). El daño foliar observado en cada uno de los clones se reportó en porcentaje y los valores promedios fueron analizados usando la siguiente escala: Altamente resistente= ≤10%, resistente= ≥11 -20%, medianamente resistente = ≥21 -50%, medianamente susceptible =50 -65%, susceptible =>65 -80%, altamente susceptible =>80%.Determinación de la dosis letal de higromicina y transformación genética.-A través de los ensayos de sensibilidad al antibiótico higromicina se determinó que la dosis letal para los explantes hoja-peciolo y entrenudos no transformados fue de 5 mg/L y 10 mg/L, respectivamente. Las soluciones del antibiótico en las concentraciones descritas arriba fueron usadas de manera directa sobre los explantes, sin necesidad de adicionar un paso previo de precultivo, el cual incrementa la aparición de eventos considerados \"escapes\" (Chaudhry y Rashid 2010). Durante los ensayos de transformación se obtuvieron 29 regenerantes a partir de 898 explantes transformados (364 entrenudos y 534 hoja-peciolo), reportándose una eficiencia de regeneración de 1.5% para hoja-peciolo y 5.7% para entrenudos. Así también, se registro una eficiencia de transformación de 1.5% en hojapeciolo y 5% para entrenudos.La caracterización molecular de los 29 regenerantes obtenidos, identificó 26 eventos positivos conteniendo el gen de interés. De este análisis se concluye que los explantes tipo entrenudos presentaron una mejor respuesta de eficiencia de transformación (18 eventos positivos) que los explantes hoja-peciolo (8 eventos positivos). Esta observación confirma lo descrito por Beaujean et al. (1998), quienes al trabajar con las variedades Désirée, Bintje y Kaptah Vandel, identificaron que los explantes tipo entrenudos presentan una mejor respuesta a las condiciones in vitro debido a que son menos sensibles al daño durante los pasos de manipulación de transformación y tienen un alto poder regenerativo a diferencia de las hojas (Sarker et al. 2009, Soto et al. 2007). En relación al uso de higromicina durante el proceso Rev. peru. biol. 20(3): 205 -210 (Marzo 2014) de obtención de transformantes, se concluye que la eficiencia en ambos tipos de explantes fueron bajas en el presente trabajo esto se determinó al comparar los resultados obtenidos con ensayos reportados previamente donde se describe el uso del mismo antibiotico (M'Hamdi et al. 2003, Kashani et al. 2012). Estas diferencias pueden deberse a múltiples factores asociados a las condiciones de transformación o al tipo de explante usado (Lagunes 2009). No obstante la principal causa puede deberse a que los ensayos de regeneración y transformación son genotipodependiente del tipo de cultivo que se use en los experimentos a realizar (Cingel et al. 2010).Análisis de eventos transformados por reacción en cadena de la polimerasa (PCR).-De los 29 eventos obtenidos en el primer experimento de transformación, 26 (90%) eventos fueron positivos por PCR para las amplificaciones de los genes Rpi-blb2 y hpt (Fig. 2A y 2B). Los eventos restantes fueron considerados como \"escapes\", esto se puede deber a una proliferación de algunas células no transformadas presentando una resistencia o tolerancia natural ante el agente selector (López y Chaparro 2007). Así también es posible que la superficie de estos explantes no haya tenido un contacto perenne con el medio de cultivo haciendo favorable su desarrollo (Monserrat et al. 2001).Respuesta de resistencia a la infección con P. infestans.-Del total de los 26 eventos transformados, solo 13 presentaron aclimatación total y produjeron tubérculos en invernadero. Los eventos Désirée [Rpi-blb2]: 4 y Désirée [blb2] 30 registraron un 42.5% y 37.5% de severidad, respectivamente (Fig. 3). La respuesta de hipersensibilidad (HR) inducida por la infección en estos dos eventos no estuvo correlacionada con una completa resistencia al patógeno, otorgando sólo una resistencia moderada. Esto pudo deberse a que el aislamiento POX067 presenta una gran variedad de genes Avr (genes de avirulencia de P.infestans) incluyendo a los Avr8 y Avr9 identificados previamente en infecciones en S.demissum (Villamon et al., 2005). Es probable que estos genes Avr incrementen la agresión del aislado POX067durante la infección a la var. Désirée. Por lo general, la respuesta HR es asociada con otro tipo de respuestas que cooperan para restringir el desarrollo del patógeno (Chen & Halterman, 2011). Es por ello que la muerte celular y la resistencia pueden actuar de manera independiente, indicando que múltiples respuestas, así como la presencia de más de un gen R por parte de los hospederos, serían necesarias para lograr obtener resistencia o inmunidad. La detección de los eventos Désirée [Rpi-blb2] 4 y Désirée [Rpi-blb2] 30, muestra el éxito logrado en el presente trabajo debido a que las infecciones se realizaron en una población pequeña (13 plantas transgénicas) y con el aislamiento POX067 el cual es considerado una raza compleja y agresiva.El presente trabajo fue realizado gracias al financiamiento de la Agencia de los Estados Unidos para el Desarrollo Internacional (USAID).   ","tokenCount":"2416"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"62d2af05822d9958e489c3294d4a5de5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://data.mel.cgiar.org/api/access/datafile/:persistentId/?persistentId=hdl:20.500.11766.1/FK2/TEXYQ5/RCDFBG","id":"-339598673"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a998621b-78fc-48f8-b5ed-547883c020b4","pagecount":"2","content":"Pull-Push Project background: The aim of this study is to understand consumer practices and beliefs related to food safety of chicken and vegetables within selected areas of Harar and Dire Dawa in Ethiopia and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.Hello, my name is .................................. I am here on behalf of ILRI and Wageningen University & Research. We are collecting information on consumers' perceptions on food safety in Dire Dawa and Harar at two points in time. We would like to invite you, to participate in this study twice: today and later this year, in December.During the study, I will ask you questions related to diverse topics such as buying food, preparing food at home, as well as some basic information about your household, decisionmaking related to food, and access to information. We will use approximately 20-30 minutes of your time. The second time we may interview you via phone. For this, it is important you provide us with at least two phone numbers and an (email)address (if any) where we can reach you.We would highly appreciate your participation. Your answers will help us to better understand and plan food safety initiatives in your city. There are no wrong answers to the questions we will be asking. There will be no risk as a result of your participation in this study and participation is completely voluntary. You can withdraw from the study at any time and without any reason.We guarantee and respect your privacy and confidentiality at all times. The information and contact details you provide are kept strictly confidential and we will only use this for the study purposes.By participating in this study today and next year, you will receive a voucher. ","tokenCount":"279"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"256c09240646f77802988dffb803d2e7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/251cad11-d528-4c5c-945a-f5fad1a0da01/retrieve","id":"-72692380"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f0f03021-56eb-4068-896d-39503fbf40c7","pagecount":"24","content":"How can digital innovations accelerate the transformation of food, land, and water systems in the global South inclusively and sustainably?transform agri-food systems.▪ \"ICTs are increasing income, reducing poverty, and strengthening rural resilience. However, the impact is highly uneven.\"▪ \"There is a prevailing disconnect between pilots and scaling-ups that merits further evaluations.\"▪ \"Fragmented data governance arrangements weaken farmers' willingness to adopt digital solutions.\"▪ \"There is a need for more systematic assessments of both successes and failures.\"▪ \"The new innovation agenda rests on strong user-centeredness and problem-orientation.\"The Digital Divide In what ways can policymakers and investors effectively address the digital divide in infrastructure, information, and digital capabilities?Inadequate Information How can digital services and information systems improve their services and products to be more timely, accurate, actionable, and inclusive?Limited Capabilities What capacity-building strategies can CGIAR, NARES, and partners use to enhance the digital skills and capabilities of women and youth?WP 1WP 5 We identified an opportunity to develop an A.I.-based audio analytics workflow and address the challenge.In partnership with the University of Nottingham, we piloted an AI-based solution in 2022.Farm Radio Int'l will test the solutions, evaluate, and provide feedback to iterate the development and refine the prototype in an agile way.While we help Farm Radio Int'l develop the next steps, we will monitor share the learnings and engage with others to scale up the solutions.An international non-profit organization focused on using radio to help African farming communities help themselves.▪ Collaborates with CGIAR to disseminate extension contents.▪ Radio shows are effective and inclusive in reaching farmers.▪ Currently, interactive engagement with farmers is resource-demanding and technically challenging.","tokenCount":"263"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8d1048f58058d0d240f95f10533b4c39","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d0e79922-411b-458c-971c-ecba4ad1d512/retrieve","id":"2011396650"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0504baa1-ebab-4455-b8dc-05361ae5cec6","pagecount":"4","content":"to discuss the importance of `Siem Reap POD?. This was followed by the visit of a high-level delegation to South Asia and webinars (in collaboration with PCCAARD) on the seed systems and the regional seed cooperation. The webinars participants expressed strong support for the Philippines joining the regional seed cooperation. CIP circulated a position paper on the benefits of the Philippines joining the regional cooperation in seed sector.The \"Regional Cooperation in Seed Sector\" which includes 7 South and Southeast Asian countries facilitates bilateral exchange of germplasms and information related to field trials to support faster release of new varieties in member countries. The cooperation has resulted in release of number of paddy and potato varieties The farmers have benefited because of the availability of these climate-resilient high-yielding varieties through this cooperation. For example, BINA dhan 11, a Bangladesh variety, which has become a favorite for farmers in eastern India, where flood is a recurrent event. Many farmers now even grow this variety in the dry season because of its high yield and good stem strength that prevents lodging during the dry-season wind flows.In order to convince the Philippine policy makers to join the regional seed cooperation, CIP organized a regional policy forum on \"Opportunities for a Climate Smart Food System in the Philippines\", on the 7th of February 2019 (https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/101138). In addition, a fact-finding mission of high-level Filipino delegation visited Bangladesh and India on 26th of Jan 2020. A post-visit meeting of the delegates was organized and the visiting delegation submitted their recommendation to the Agriculture Secretary of the government of Philippines ( https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/108718). Also, two studies were conducted: Policy Advocacy for a Climate Smart Food System in South East Asia -Seed Systems Research Study ( https://hdl.handle.net/10568/108582) and Climate Risk Mapping in the Philippines for Sub-National Targeting and Prioritization for Crop Diversification to Increase Resilience of the Agricultural Sector (https://hdl.handle.net/10568/108583).Two webinars were organized -involving larger group of stakeholders in the Philippines to discuss the need, scope, benefits, and challenges of the \"Regional Seed Cooperation\" in developing a climate resilient seed system in the Philippines. We also established an active network of diverse stakeholders to advocate the importance of seed in developing a climate smart food system in the country and successful linkages were made in the policy circles to raise awareness of the benefits of \"Regional Cooperation in Seed Sector\" agreement. Finally, a position paper on Smart Seeds for an Efficient and Sustainable Food System in the Philippines ( https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/111391) was submitted to the office of secretary in the Department of Agriculture (DOA). The representatives of DOA has informed CIP that they are positive about this regional cooperation and will support successful signing.• 655 -Philippines agreed to sign regional seed cooperation (seed without border aggrement) (https://tinyurl.com/2njtygj3)Links to the Strategic Results Framework: Sub-IDOs:• Adoption of CGIAR materials with enhanced genetic gains • Conducive agricultural policy environment","tokenCount":"475"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cd7b8c9f5af489912907aab11f90dcaa","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/599507df-69ff-424a-a3e0-3d2864cabb6c/retrieve","id":"1061812267"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"545e739b-60e5-4335-b5c9-4a77a924ebe7","pagecount":"32","content":"Centre technique de coopération agricole et rurale (CTA) a été créé en 1983 dans le cadre de la Convention de Lomé entre les Etats du groupe ACP (Afrique, Caraïbes, Pacifique) et européenne. Le CTA a pour mission de fournir des services qui améliorent l'accès des pays ACP à l'information pour le développement agricole et rural, et de renforcer les capacités de ces pays à produire, acquérir, échanger et exploiter l'information dans ce domaine. Les programmes du CTA sont articulés sur trois axes principaux: le renforcement des centres d'information l'encouragement des contacts et des échanges entre les partenaires du Centre, et la fourniture d'informations sur demande. CTA, Postbus 380, 6700 AJ Wageningen, Pays-Bas L'Institut de recherche agricole Créé en février 1966, a pour unique objectif de promouvoir la production et le transfert des technologies et de l'information visant à la modernisation de l'agriculture en Ethiopie, pour en améliorer la productivité et l'efficacité. L'Institut international pour la lutte biologique de International, Royaume-Uni Les six stations de I'IIBC en Amérique, en Europe, en Afrique et en Asie mènent des recherches, assurent des formations et fournissent des services et de l'information dans le cadre du service de protection des cultures de CAB International. Les communications qui figurent dans cette publication ont été reproduites telles que soumises et n'ont pas été revues par des pairs, ni révisées du point de vue scientifique par le CTA. Les opinions exprimées n'engagent que les auteurs et pas le CTA.Dans les pays en développement caractérisés par des agricoles à faibleapport extérieur, la résistance variétale et la lutte biologique (LB) sont des méthodes de protection des végétaux qui peuvent être très contre les insectes ravageurs. En effet, toutes deux sont généralement peu onéreuses, perfectibles et respectueuses de l'environnement, constituant de la sorte des composantes durables de la lutte intégrée. Toutefois, les possibilités de les combiner et les avantages d'une telle alliance n'ont pas encore été pleinement S'il est vrai qu'une combinaison de la LB et la RV donne en général des résultats positifs, dans certains c a s cependant, l'impact global sur les populations d'insectes ravageurs est moins significatif que la somme des effets de chacune de ces méthodes appliquée isolément. Aussi l'utilisation combinée de la RV et de la LB peut-elle avoir en principe un double objectif: réduire, par effets additionnels ou synergiques, les populations d'insectes ravageurs et garantir une à long terme.En collaboration avec l'Institut éthiopien de recherche agricole IAR (Institute of Agricultural et l'Institut international de lutte biologique, IIBC (International Institute of Biological le CTA a organisé, du 9 au 14 octobre à Addis Abeba en Ethiopie, un séminaire sur \"La lutte contre les insectes ravageurs dans les petites exploitations agricoles: allier la lutte biologique à la résistance variétale\". Ont pris part à ce séminaire des scientifiques de dix-huit pays de l'Afrique subsaharienne et de quatre pays européens, ainsi que des représentants de CAB International, du du de la FAO, de I'ICIPE et de Ce séminaire avait pour objectifs de favoriser les échanges d'expériences en matière de lutte intégrée contre les insectes ravageurs, et de mettre en place des stratégies permettant d'allier la RV à la LB de façon optimale.Les sujets suivants ont été abordés en séances plénières: la lutte intégrée contre les insectes ravageurs dans les systèmes agricoles complexes d'Afrique; la sélection végétale au service de la RV dans le cadre de la lutte intégrée; le rôle des ressources génétiques dans la lutte intégrée; la LB contre les insectes ravageurs dans le cadre de la lutte intégrée; les relations entre plante hôte, insectes ravageurs et ennemis naturels.De brefs exposés ont été présentés dans trois commissions régionales et trois commissions chargées des produits de base, pour préparer les travaux des groupes qui allaient examiner les questions suivantes: la mise au point de protocoles d'association de la RV et de la LB; l'identification des besoins en matière de recherche sur les interactions de la RV et de la LB; la promotion de la RV et de la LB auprès des agriculteurs africains.Ce document de synthèse rend compte des travaux des groupes constitués autour d'un thème, d u n e région ou d u n e culture, et présente un résumé des recommandations formulées par ces groupes de travail. O n peut au contraire aboutir à des résultats antagonistes se traduisant par une baisse d'efficacité de la lutte contre les ravageurs. apparaît donc nécessaire d'examiner les effets exercés par des cultivars spécifiques sur les agents de lutte biologique, de manière à pouvoir effectivement combiner les deux techniques. Le groupe de travail avait pour tâche de définir les travaux de recherche fondamentale à entreprendre afin d'atteindre cet objectif. A cet effet, le groupe a élaboré un schéma directeur susceptible de s'appliquer à divers systèmes culturaux.La première étape consiste à reconnaître que l'agriculture se pratique au sein de systèmes dans lesquels la culture, le ravageur et ses ennemis naturels ainsi que l'environnement s'influencent réciproquement. 2. Pour identifier les travaux de recherche fondamentale qu'il faudra entreprendre pour un système précis, il est nécessaire de classer par catégories le niveau de résistance de la plante et les interactions plante-ravageur-ennemi les types de lutte biologique (Figure 1). selon qu'il provoque lui-même des dégâts ou agit en tant que vecteur; cause lui-même des dégâts, selon qu'il s'agit d'un suceur,d'un broyeur ou d'un foreur. La différence entre ces catégories réside essentiellement dans le type d'interaction avec la culture. lutte naturelle ou traditionnelle, y compris la conservation lutte biologique classique lutte biologique inoculative saisonnière, y compris l'augmentation lutte biologique par submersion. Dans chacune de ces catégories, l'ennemi naturel est à son tour classé selon qu'il est prédateur, parasitoïde ou pathogène.6. Après avoir classé les diverses composantes du système plante-ravageur-prédateur étudié, on fait le point des connaissances actuelles sur les effets de chaque catégorie retenue. Cet examen s'effectue en tenant compte de l'efficacité du mécanisme de lutte contre le ravageur. Si ce mécanisme n'est pas efficace, sait-on pourquoi? Si on l'ignore, existe-t-ildes possibilités d'amélioration (particulièrement au niveau des relations plante-ravageur-ennemi naturel)?7. Cette démarche fera ressortir des lacunes dans les connaissances et permettra de dégager des idées sur les interactions susceptibles d'exercer un effet adverse sur certains facteurs individuels de la lutte biologique. Ainsi pourront être identifiés les aspects des interactions qui demandent à être étudiés en vue d u n e amélioration de l'efficacité de la lutte contre les ennemis de la culture. 8. Les effets de chacune des composantes du système devront être évalués en fonction de la nomenclature relative à la dynamique des populations. Avec de données, il est possible d'élaborer un modèle qui permette d'étudier quels sont les effets les plus importants pour une lutte contre les ravageurs. 9. n'est pas indispensable de connaître les mécanismes qui déterminent les effets observés pour pouvoir sélectionner des cultivars, des lignées ou des espèces locales.Cette connaissance est toutefois nécessaire pour l'élaboration d un programme de sélection, parce qu'elle permet, jusqu'à un certain stade de l'évaluation, de pallier l'absence de ravageur et d'ennemi naturel.La lutte biologique est classée selon qu'il s'agit de:Le groupe de travail a appliqué la démarche ci-dessus au contexte de la lutte contre le foreur des tiges du mais. Cet exercice a révélé que des recherches fondamentales devaient être entreprises pour répondre aux questions suivantes:A quels types de résistance variétale a-t-on affaire et quelle en est l'efficacité? En lutte biologique classique, le parasite a réussi à s'établir mais on ne sait toujours pas s'il est efficace. Sa durée de vie étant très courte (2 à jours) et sa mortalité élevée à l'intérieur des galeries de l'hôte, il est très important qu'il choisisse l'espèce herbivore appropriée. Le \"SOS\" émis par la plante ne semble pas explicite chez le cultivar étudié. S'agit-il de dépendance à l'égard du cultivar? Des agents naturels de lutte contre le foreur des tiges du maïs existent, mais ils ne semblent pas efficaces. Pourquoi? lutte par submersion d'agents pathogènes a donné des résultats variables. Pour quelles raisons? A cause de la date d'application? Parce que la technologie de production a besoin dêtre améliorée?Parce que la plante altère l'efficacité de l'agent pathogène?Ainsi, cet exercice d'une trentaine de minutes a permis d'identifier plusieurs voies de recherche qu'il apparaît opportun d'explorer pour améliorer la lutte contre les ravageurs en fonction des relations plante-ravageur-ennemi naturel.Jusqu'à présent les recherches consacrées à l'étude de l'influence des plantes cultivées sur les agents de lutte biologique sont demeurées limitées. Les quelques études réalisées dans ce domaine ont néanmoins débouché sur des améliorations très intéressantes de l'efficacité de la lutte contre les ravageurs. Les recherches abordant les problèmes sous l'angle des interactions plante-ravageur-enneminaturel sont donc tout à fait justifiées. Ce qui a été mis au point ici est une méthodologie qui permet d'identifier les recherches à entreprendre dans des particuliers. Des études de longue haleine devraient notamment être entreprises sur les mécanismes des interactions plante-ravageur-ennemi naturel, encore qu'elles ne doivent pas se limiter à ce domaine. Notons par ailleurs que les connaissances et les ressources existantes permettent dores et déjà d'améliorer l'utilisation combinée de la résistance variétale et de la lutte biologique en milieu paysan. Une appréciation de la situation actuelle en ce qui concerne les programmes de lutte biologique et de sélection de résistance. Le recensement des lacunes constatées relativement à cette situation. Des propositions de nouveaux protocoles et procédures visant à combler les lacunes observées.discussions du groupe sur les programmes de sélection de résistance variétale ont fait la distinction entre les cultures selon qu'elles relevaient ou non du domaine d'intervention du GCRAI.Céréales  A l'exception du caféier (pour lequel il existe en Afrique un réseau qui a entrepris de rationaliser ses collections de matériel génétique), ces cultures ne font l'objet d'aucun travail en réseaux de la part des phytogénéticiens qui leur consacrent des recherches. L a plupart de ces plantes sont des de rente relevant de centres de recherche nationaux ou régionaux distincts qui reçoivent l'appui des Gouvernements et des industries. Cependant, les programmes de recherche sont le plus souvent conduits dans les SNRA. Aucun système national de recherche agricole ne conduit de programme de sélection sur la résistance des légumes aux ravageurs et aux maladies (sauf pour ce qui est du haricot, qui relève du GCRAI). Tous les travaux dans ce domaine sont menés par des entreprises semencières. En dépit de plusieurs décennies de recherche en Afrique, il n'existe aucun exemple de résistance variétale venant résoudre l'ensemble des problèmes de lutte contre les ravageurs dans un système cultural donné. En dépit de plusieurs décennies de recherche en Afrique, il n'existe aucun exemple de lutte biologique venant répondre à l'ensemble des problèmes de lutte contre les ravageurs dans un système cultural donné. Les paysans appliquent des méthodes de lutte intégrée, mais peuvent ne pas connaître l'explication scientifique qui les corroborent. y a donc lieu d'assurer leur formation et de faciliter la circulation de l'information entre les exploitants agricoles et les chercheurs.Nous constatons que diverses technologies plus ou moins perfectionnées sont disponibles dans le SNRA et les CIRA.Manque de formation des chercheurs, des agents de vulgarisation et des paysans à la pratique de la lutte intégrée. Absence de soutien à la lutte intégrée dans les politiques agricoles nationales. Indifférence du public de la lutte intégrée.Inadéquation de la coordination et de la collaboration entre les organismesengagés dans la mise au point et la diffusion de programmes de lutte intégrée.Recommandations générales pour surmonter ces obstacles 1. Sensibiliser les Gouvernements et les responsables nationaux à la lutte intégrée, afin qu'ils l'inscrivent dans la politique agricole nationale. Pour cela: mobiliser les groupes de pression tels que les ministres de l'agriculture, le secrétaire scientifique de l'OUA et les experts compétents de la FAO, de la Banque mondiale et d'autres institutions similaires, tant au niveau national qu'international; créer des comités nationaux chargés de définir des stratégies pour sensibiliser les responsables nationaux et le grand public à la lutte intégrée.2. Développer les collaborations entre les différents organismes engagés dans des opérations de lutte intégrée, améliorer la coordination des activités en vue de leur harmonisation. Les expériences de lutte biologique classique contre la chenille du cotonnier se sont révélées décevantes. Cependant, l'utilisation de formulations d'agents microbiens (virus à noyau polyèdrique Mamestra mélangées à certains pyrethrinoïdes à faibles doses (1 g ingrédients de deltaméthrine et 4 g ingrédients de cyperméthrine) a donné des résultats très encourageants au Togo. Une stratégie de lutte ciblée et échelonnée (LCE) semble nettement plus adaptée à la situation de certains pays de l'Afrique de l'Ouest. De l'avis unanime des spécialistes, elle permet de préserver un grand nombre de parasites et prédateurs des chenilles, pucerons et autres insectes défoliateursidentifiés jusqu'à présent. Selon Dr M'boob, cette méthode de lutte exige que l'on fixe un seuil de densité des insectes ravageurs en tenant compte des populations d'ennemis naturels, et la croissance de ces prédateurs fait partie intégrante du composant \"repérage\" de la LCE. Un autre participant a demandé des précisions sur les conditions dans lesquelles les essais avaient été effectués sur les parcelles cultivées.L 'agriculture sahélienne: c'est l'agriculture de subsistance qui est la plus pratiquée dans la zone sahélienne, aussi les insectes ravageurs y posent-ils un grave problème. La lutte intégrée est la meilleure option pour les paysans, étant donné leur manque de moyens. L'auteur suggère que les paysans, les conseillers techniqueset les chercheurs des organismes nationaux et internationaux soient tous impliqués dans la mise au point de paquets techniques.ivoirienne:l'agriculture de subsistanceet les plantations sont les principales activités agricoles en Côte d'Ivoire. Le meilleur moyen d'aider les paysans à accroître leur production est de leur fournir des variétés résistantes, et de renforcer la protection de celles-ci par l'utilisation d'ennemis naturels. Au cours du débat, un participant a voulu savoir pourquoi l'option de la lutte biologique devrait être retenue si l'on utilisait déjà la méthode de résistance variétale. L'intervenant lui a répondu que la lutte biologique avait un rôle complémentaire.A la suite des différents exposés, on a fait observer que la lutte biologique n'était pas une nouveauté dans la région, puisqu'on y a recours notamment contre Phenacocm manihoti sur le manioc, sur la mangue et Prostephanus truncatus sur le maïs ensilé.est important de noter que toutes les principales méthodes de protection des cultures ont été appliquées (lutte chimique, résistance variétale et lutte biologique). En ce qui concerne les insectes ravageurs mentionnés plus haut, la lutte biologique a réussi grâce à l'introduction de parasites ou dé prédateurs. La collaboration en matière de lutte biologique reste insuffisante dans certains cas, comme le montre l'exemple du Ghana et du Togo en ce qui concerne le l?truncatus.Etant donné qu'un certain nombre de ravageurs ont été introduits dans la région Afrique de l'Ouest et du Centre, il est indispensable que chaque Etat membre renforce ses services de quarantaine phytosanitaire. Une harmonisation des différentes activités de recherche est nécessaire, c a r elle permettrait de redéfinir le rôle des institutions nationales et internationalesimpliquées. Les travaux de recherche devraient à l'avenir mettre l'accent sur la résistance variétale et une connaissance des conditions prévalant dans les exploitationsagricoles. Le financement est un capital dont il faudrait tenir compte àtout moment.Quatre pays étaient représentés dans ce groupe: le Kenya, l'Ouganda et la Tanzanie. Les cinq exposés ont présenté l'historique et actuel de la lutte biologique et de la résistance variétale en ce qui concerne le grand capucin du grain et la jacinthe d'eau. 7. L'importance du savoir des paysans en matière de ravageurs et de méthodes de lutte a été soulignée. 8. Les chercheurs, les vulgarisateurs, les paysans et les décideurs ont besoin de formation.9. L'approche de la lutte doit se faire par système, pour traiter l'ensemble des problèmes que posent les insectes ravageurs.étroite collaboration est nécessaire entre tous les acteurs et les pays concernés, voire même entre régions, en particulier pour lutter contre les insectes ravageurs les plus fréquents comme le grand capucin du grain, la jacinthe d'eau, le striga, les pucerons et les insectes migrateurs (criquets et noctuelles). 11.Un financement est indispensable pour pouvoir mener à bien les activités visant à améliorer la production des petites exploitations agricoles.Cinq exposés ont été présentés sur l'Afrique du Sud, le Malawi, le Botswana, la Zambie et le Zimbabwe. Les participants ont dressé la liste des principaux ravageurs dans la région, ainsi qu'un récapitulatif des projets en cours touchant à la résistance variétale et à la lutte biologique. Le charançon de la patate douce a été désigné comme un ravageur important dans la région.insectes tels que les ravageurs de denrées entreposées, les termites et les insectes migrateurs sont fréquents dans tous les pays de la région.  Une forte résistance n'est pas toujours durable et peut être incompatible avec certains ennemis naturels. Les programmes axés sur la résistance variétale devraient prendre un plus large éventail d'insectes ravageurs en considération. L'utilisation de pesticides est peut-être inévitable à court terme, mais il faudrait tenir compte de la compatibilité avec la lutte biologique contre les insectes ravageurs.ne faut pas négliger les questions de lutte intégrée dans les grandes exploitations agricoles.est nécessaire d'étudier les problèmes posés par les insectes ravageurs dans d'autres cultures que le groupe de travail n'a pas couvertes, comme l'arachide, le haricot et le pois chiche.Les exposés ont porté sur les activités en matière de lutte biologique, de résistance variétale et d'application d'extraits végétaux contre les insectes ravageurs. Bien que de nombreuses céréales soient cultivées en Afrique de l'Est, le groupe de travail a donné la priorité au maïs, au sorgho et au blé. Le compte rendu ci-dessous fait le point sur les problèmes que posent les insectes ravageurs, sur les actions de lutte biologique, passées et actuelles, sur les études relatives à la résistance variétale, ainsi que sur les perspectives d'avenir et les difficultés rencontrées pour chaque céréale.Le blé est l'une des plus importantes céréales cultivées en Afrique. Cependant, de nombreux problèmes affectent sa productivité, en particulier les insectes ravageurs qui provoquent des dégâts et pertes importants. Parmi les diverses espèces d'aphidiens s'attaquant au blé, les principaux sont le puceron du blé russe, la punaise verte des céréales, le puceron à stries rouges de l'avoine, le puceron du maïs et bien d'autres espèces. Les pucerons sont aussi vecteurs de graves maladies virales telles que la jaunisse nanisante BYDV). Les termites, les criquets migrateurs, les vers de la paille (larves de hanneton), les noctuelles et les sauterelles sont d'autres ravageurs importants dans la région. A défaut de mentionner tous les problèmes, citons les plus sérieux:Dans la plupart des cas, la résistance végétale est de durée limitée en raison de I'émergence de biotypes virulents; c'est par exemple le cas des biotypes du au Soudan.Pour résoudre ce problème, le groupe de travail a suggéré des stratégies de mélange des variétés, d'introduction d'une résistance polygénique et de rotation des gènes. faut cependant tenir compte de l'effet éventuel de ces méthodes sur les plantes hôtes des ennemis naturels.Le programme axé sur le blé devrait se préoccuper non seulement des pucerons, mais aussi, de façon indirecte, de la transmission de maladies infectieuses (BYDV).Les principaux ravageurs du maïs et du sorgho sont les suivants:Foreurs de tiges, punaises piquantes des céréales, pucerons, moucherons, mouche grise des pousses de céréales, termites, chenille des épis du maïs, noctuelle, criquets, sauterelles et autres insectes migrateurs.Parmi les diverses espèces répertoriées, les plus importantes sont le grand capucin des grains, le charançon (ou calandre) et la teigne des grains.  Malgré l'évolution de la recherche vers une intégration des différentes pratiques de la protection des végétaux (façons culturales, sélection variétale, lutte biologique), sous la forme d u n e gestion intégrée du risque phytosanitaire, force est de constater que, dans le domaine de la recherche-développementen protection des végétaux, les sélectionneurs ont cherché à créer des variétés résistantes à un insecte donné, tandis que les entomologistes se concentraient, de leur côté, sur la lutte biologique en recherchant des espèces prédatrices ou parasites (Spore, mai-juin 1996). Partant de ce constat, les organisateurs du séminaire CTA \"La lutte contre les insectes ravageurs dans les petites exploitations agricoles: allier la lutte biologique à la résistance variétale\", du 9 au 14 octobre 1995 à Addis Abeba, se sont proposés de sensibiliser les participants des pays de l'Afrique subsaharienne à cette approche originale. La participation de nombreux représentants de la recherche en protection des végétaux des pays concernés a permis un tour d'horizon pour un état de dans ce domaine (exposés regroupés par zones écologiques -Afrique de et du Centre, Afrique de l'Est, Afrique australeet par plantes cultivéesniébé, céréales et manioc) et de fructueux débats au sein des groupes de travail (Spore, décembre 1995).Ces exposés corroborent le constat fait plus haut d'une séparation toujours plus marquée entre les travaux de sélection variétale et ceux de la lutte biologique. L'examen systématique des problèmes relatifs aux ravageurs et aux plantes de ces régions montre que, selon les cas, la sélection variétale ou la lutte biologique a été privilégiée. Les entomologistes sont particulièrement au fait des progrès de la lutte biologique pour avoir suivi les recherches conduites contre des ravageurs accidentellement introduits d'un autre continent ou d u n e autre région: acarien vert et cochenille du manioc, grand capucin du grain, cochenille des arbres fruitiers, puceron \"russe\" et aleurodes. ","tokenCount":"3493"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"682b9f71b1a6527ccc4804d4ab9c1fa0","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0a8e684e-6d30-426f-b483-646fb7da2609/retrieve","id":"-362775957"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e0b90d0a-2248-4398-97f4-e51c1050be18","pagecount":"174","content":"Potato learning alliance for policy action (supported by PASIC) CIP -providing technical expertise at yield gap analysis and guiding innovations in the area of seed systems, varieties, and cropping systems. IFPRI -providing technical backstopping on drivers of technology adoption through HH surveys and through action research on farmer decision making. Key 'external' partners and their roles MAAIF -the policy leader. NARO -backstopping the field research, EPRC -Value chain study and policy advice, IFDC-CATALIST -Promoting agri-business clusters, Local Government -guide local policy planning and implementation, Private sectorengaged in setting priorities, co-develop zonal investment plans, implementing of and lobby for sector investment.RTB is developing a partnership strategy to guide program participants in selecting, managing, evaluating and enhancing partnerships. The program considers three main objectives in shaping its partnership arrangements: (1) positioning itself in a fast changing landscape of scientific innovation and centers of expertise, especially with respect to genetics and discovery research; (2) building on the promising efforts during RTB phase I to establish more inclusive relationships with an array of research partners including farmers organizations and other end-users for inclusive, collaborative research; and (3) engaging a wider group of development partners and private sector entities as agents of change for scaling. RTB's approach to building partnerships is eclectic and cross-sectoral. Where technologies can be provided through markets then these objectives may be achieved primarily through private sector partners and there is encouraging progress in this regard. For the case of public goods, which are not ordinarily provided by a market mechanism, then other types of development partners come to the fore. These include international NGOs and government agencies, including large-scale public sector development projects supported by international finance agencies, and these require the use of diverse promotional approaches such extension programs, but also novel mechanisms such as plant clinics, innovation fairs and seed exchanges.'Partnership' is central to international agricultural research for development precisely because collaboration mobilizes research results through bringing together diverse actors to produce development results. Frequently this involves multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs) which include, for example, networks, alliances and consortia. It also frequently involves clients, beneficiaries and users of technology including farm households, community groups or market agents, in research or activities designed to foster innovation. Because of the pervasive nature of partnerships they are a key part of most RTB activities and form an intrinsic part of the nested set of theories of change (ToC) which make outcomes possible, with the scale and scope of partnerships changing at each level.RTB defines partnership as \"a sustained, multi-organizational relationship with mutually agreed objectives and an exchange or sharing of resources or knowledge for the purpose of generating research outputs (new knowledge or technology) or fostering innovation (use of new ideas or technology) for practical ends (Horton et al 2009)\". RTB recognizes that strong partnerships are intrinsic to achieving both research products and development outcomes. To achieve strong and enduring partnerships it is necessary to address both the structural aspects of collaboration (partnerships) as well as the interactive, process dimension (partnering). RTB program participants enter into many diverse partnering arrangements with varying levels of formality and for multiple purposes. In most cases the partnerships are entered into by program participants under a general RTB umbrella (and recorded in an inventory) following principles of subsidiarity where the program participants directly manage the partnership relationships. A sub-set of these partnering arrangements involve RTB more directly as a higher level actor. Partnerships in RTB are both formal, often mediated by a contractual agreement such as the Program Partnership Agreement, but also informal where no written contract exists. The inventory of partnerships, which includes both types and specification of roles and expectations, is useful for partnership monitoring and evaluation purposes and analysis potentially linked with scaling supported by Flagship Project 5.Partners play diverse roles along the impact pathway framed by the three general objectives mentioned previously:1. Positioning for discovery research. Partnerships with advanced research institutes play a critical role for centers to access cutting edge research capacity, technology and tools. 2. Ground-truthing technologies through collaborative, inclusive research. National research institutes are often next users of RTB developed technology and tools and stronger institutes often are involved in co-developing and co-disseminating technology. Capacity development plays a critical role in strengthening these partners and expanding their capability to use more advanced tools and methods as well as to strengthen their inclusive and collaborative approach to technology testing. 3. Engaging partners for scaling. RTB centers engage and influence a broad array of development partners including NGOs, extension offices and national agricultural development programs which adapt, disseminate and promote technology, to achieve impact at scale. Another route to achieving impact at scale is by engaging market actors through public private partnerships who provide varieties, seed and other inputs along value chains; here profit and the entry of new business drives scaling. RTB has extensive experience with the Participatory Market Chain Approach which guides partner selection for inclusive value chain development with private sector partners playing a key driving role (Devaux et al 2011). This approach has been further elaborated more recently to strengthen the entrepreneurial capacities of producers (DA-CHARM2 and CIP-FoodSTARTm 2014a and 2014b). Still other types of partners may be involved in the policy area including advocacy agents to create a more enabling environment for scaling to occur.The particular set of partners having the differing roles described above changes over time, creating a dynamic of partner selection, consolidation and growth, as well as sometimes transition and exit. A wide diversity of such partners and roles is described in the flagship project descriptions. Increasingly, however, partners come together in MSPs. A selection of these is presented for RTB in table 1 following the ISPC (in development) typology of distinct Innovation and Partnership Modes:Mode 1: Agricultural research partnerships. Includes research consortia. Priorities are framed by public policy imperatives or by private industry sponsored funding.Mode 2: Agricultural innovation delivery partnerships. Includes partnerships, platforms and alliances with the private sector, NGOs and farmer groups create value for farm households and companies. Priorities are framed by the convergence of three factors: technology push from research, demand pull from farmers and markets, and by public policy imperatives.Mode 3: National Agri-food systems innovation partnerships. Relates to inter-linked farm-to-policy multi-stakeholder processes and partnerships to action changes in food systems that create social and economic value. Priorities framed by negotiation between public and private sectors and articulated in national development plans and policies. AFS-CRPs such as RTB which bring together the centers with a wide array of other partners to create change in food systems belong to mode 3. GI-CRPs which create coherence between global and local agendas belong to mode 4. Hence with the development of the CGIAR portfolio relationships with particular partners may be mediated through their linkages to CRPs.RTB partnership strategy recognizes that successful established partnerships will require the following (Horton et al 2009a): A common vision and purpose (whilst recognizing the existence of distinct goals and purposes of participating organizations).  Realistically defined goals.  Legitimacy and support for the partnership by parent organizations.  Equitable sharing of resources, responsibilities, and benefits.  Transparent governance and decision-making.  The creation and re-creation of trust.  Learning and capacity development.Hence the RTB partnership strategy recognizes a series of steps:1. Partnership scan: a scan of existing MSPs and other types of partners to identify commonalities and gain synergies. This exercise would also characterize the partner context landscape to identify partners with a common vision, potentially shared goals and complementary competencies and scope.2. Articulation of the partnership mechanism: Establish the type of agreement required by partners. This may include contract /grant based or complementary agreements with shared resources, risks and responsibilities. An inventory of these agreements is established and used in M&E.3. Partner-based implementation: monitoring the process in terms of agreed principles of transparency, communication, equity and trust.4. Partner reflection: internal to the specific activity but also external costs and especially benefits in terms of strengthened capacity and increased influence.5. Partnership transition: \"Moving forward\" or \"moving on\" expand the scale and scope of the partnership or looking to transition and exit plan for the partnership.RTB has actively supported partnership research to generate evidence about what works in partnership practice. This includes the use of social network analysis to monitor partnerships among program participants and with other organizations (ILAC 2009). Partners in the four regional banana networks (www.banana-networks.org) facilitated by Bioversity since the 1980s with active participation from IITA, CIRAD and CIAT were surveyed using a framework based on the vibrancy, connectivity and effects of networking in 2013. Results showed that the networks had been effective in raising the awareness of the banana development potential, generating new linkages across country boundaries and building and providing access to new knowledge and tools for the study of banana genetic diversity and pest and pathogen management. Areas for strengthening included the projection of networking content beyond the network representative in each country, diversification of stakeholder types linked by networks and the expansion of electronic networking. Monitoring the composition and evolution of the research networks of the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB) will continue and be documented as case studies.Specialized tools will be developed to support partnership M&E. For example, RTB researchers have developed the \"Partnership Health Check List\" to encourage early and open communication on the partnership processes within the project, o that any concerns can be identified and addressed appropriately. This covers the main factors which contribute to successful partnerships: a common vision, understanding the roles of each partner, information flows, communication practices, and conflict resolution practices (Horton et al 2009). 1 The tool uses a simple Likert Scale for respondents to score their satisfaction with different processes within the partnership. Respondents are encouraged to include written comments as well. So far the tool has been used mainly with the delivery system components where there are multiple partners from different organizational and disciplinary cultures. Repeating the exercise after two years allows an assessment of trends and identification of improvement (or lack thereof) in specified areas. Questions can be adapted to reflect the different stages in the partnership cycle (e.g. scoping/initiation; implementation/consolidation; transition/exit).The RTB partnership strategy will align with the implementation of RTB CapDev interventions which is premised on the following (1) to pursue and foster partnerships with complementary capacities that respond to CapDev needs expressed by stakeholders. This has already been a strength of the program's first phase. RTB will also (2) fully tap into the resources provided by the CGIAR CapDev community of practice, like the CapDev framework and the suggested indicators for M&E of each element. Finally, CapDev professionals will (3) work very closely with issues related to data, information, knowledge and communication to allow a maximum level of availability, accessibility and applicability of CapDev products, processes, and lessons learned which will be shared with wider RTB partnerships. Joint mapping of the constraints and opportunities for intensification of potato production systems in Uganda by the sector stakeholders for improved investment planning and policy action Science agendaUnderstand the interdependency of constraints, opportunities and actors in the potato sector and the use of novel multi-stakeholder approaches to guide sector investments Geographic focus/location Uganda -national level and specific detailed studies in SW Uganda Role of the CRP FP:RTB is providing key technical knowledge on seed systems, pest-and disease threats, intensification options, drivers of technology adoption and investment/policy planning Flagship 2,3,4,and 5 are all involved to map and prioritize innovations at plant, plot, household, value-chain and policy level. Key CGIAR partners and their roles IITA -coordinating the multi-level analysis and with MAAIF coordinate the facilitation of the learning alliance for joint investment planning and policy action Mode 2. Agricultural innovation delivery partnerships (Partnerships, platforms and alliances with the private sector, NGO and farmers groups creating value for farmers and companies) Name BBTD Learning Alliance for Sub-Saharan Africa www.bbtvalliance.org Contribution to impact pathway and theory of change Developing tools and technologies to enhance the returns on banana production by utilizing BBTV-free planting materials by complementary innovation for appropriate cropping system practices and market linkages with a strong gender perspective; building national and local capacity to implement effective BBTD initiatives. The initial pilot sites provide key methods and approaches to expand banana recovery to more communities beyond the initial pilot sites. The initial sites also provide recovered banana production sites for clean seed sites and community to community linkages for local expansion of the banana recovery approach.Sweetpotato for Profit and Health Initiative (SPHI)  Sharing information about emerging sweetpotato technologies with its networks and so contribute to building the network of actors working on sweetpotato in Africa  Appointing a representative to participate actively in annual meetings of the SPHI, covering the representative's attendance costs  Participating in relevant communities of practice groups and contribute to the growth and development of these communities Contribution to impact pathway and theory of change Many partner organizations are interested in taking new varieties of sweetpotato and/or other technologies-to-scale. Having trained, well informed partners in key to success among all steps in the impact pathway. Partners are encouraged to send their own staff members to the relevant community of practice (CoP) meetings and to load information about their organization and its relevant projects to the Sweetpotato Knowledge Portal (www.sweetpotatoknowledge.org).Mode 3. National Agri-food systems innovation partnerships (Inter-linked farm to policy multi-stakeholder processes and partnerships action changes in food systems that create social and economic value) Name Irish Potato Coalition Convener VITA, CIP Specific focus and objectiveThe wider target group initially will be the four million potato farming men and women in six countries of East and Southern Africa. Benefiting from this will be tens of millions of urban and rural consumers of potato as a nutritious food.To deliver on the goals of the Coalition requires these three strands to reinforce each other under a single results framework encapsulating the aims, objectives and specific work packages.Creating viable seed potato systems for four million farmers in 6 countries -present level of 0-2.5% of farmers using improved quality seed to increase to 25%.Supporting potato production for small highland farmers to boost nutrition and incomes -present yields of 8 tonnes per hectare to double to 16 tonnes for one million farmers.  WP3 Value chain and business development -a 'pro poor' approach to create wealth for potato farmers at affordable prices for consumerspresent incomes of US$100 to reach US$300. Geographic focus/location -Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique Role of the CRP FP: 2,3, 5 Mode 3. National Agri-food systems innovation partnerships (Inter-linked farm to policy multi-stakeholder processes and partnerships action changes in food systems that create social and economic value) Name Irish Potato Coalition Contribution to impact pathway and theory of changeThe innovative lynchpin of the Coalition is-the nexus of a collaborative model of science, business, and development. Expertise in these domains will be applied over a long-term horizon and a focus on the whole potato value chain. Access to knowledge and direct field experience from other member's means that program design and implementation will be catalysts for transformational change. This collective, evidence-based knowledge will be key to breaking new ground as the Coalition pilots best practice and is aligned to the principles of FP2 impact pathway and theory of change in achieving development outcomes through functional partnership models along the entire value chain. ISTRC, GSTRI, GCRI, CATAS -Co-Organizing the first World Congress on Root and Tuber Crops in Nanning, China; TTDI -Partner in networking in Thailand; NRI -Partner in networking in cassava processing; partnering with all the NARS in cassava producing countries in Africa and South East Asia; ASARECA and CORAF -Partnering in networking for cassava in Africa; FARA and NEPAD partnering for networking in Africa for policy; EU, WB (EAAPP, WAAP) and AfDB partnering for networking in Africa; GAIN, WISHH -partnering for gari processing improvement; FAO, IFAD partnering for networking in Africa; AATF -partnering for networking in Africa and potential host of GCP21-Africa; and many more organizations in the world.The central role of GCP21 is three fold:1-Advocating for the cassava crop to increase awareness of its key role to feed the world, with the aim to increase funding and R&D, 2-Finding gaps in R&D to increase science and technology for its use to increase efficacy of production, processing and use for food, feed and energy, to increase the translation of science into development through increasing the yield of cassava varieties fit for the use of the final products, 3-Increasing access to information about cassava through websites, meetings, workshops, conferences, publications and more. All of these activities are aiming at impacting the human condition and the wellbeing of billions of people in the developing world by 2050.Building on achievements of phase I: RTB Phase I included a comprehensive approach to CapDev. Some examples of efficient and successful interventions are related to CapDev in gender research: The RTB evaluation in 2015 noted that the \"recent RTB focus on gender capacity strengthening has delivered impressive results over a relatively short period\". On pest and disease management, cross-center CapDev efforts have been focusing on a better understanding among scientists and research partners of seed degeneration, while strengthening capacity of national plant protection organizations to produce and act upon pest risk assessment (PRA). In Africa, learning and training on the banana bunchy top disease (BBTD) has been enabled through experiential learning on pilot sites. CapDev on seed systems in yam and potato focused on knowledge and skills for clean seed production, multiplication, cost-effective propagation techniques and quality certification. A good example in the area of postharvest research relates to developing local capacity among smallholder farmers for postharvest handling and processing of RTB crops in Uganda in order to exploit emerging market opportunities.Between 2013-2014, RTB strengthened the capacity of over 61,000 scientists, NGO staff and farmershalf of which were female-through short training programs. In the same period, degree training programs (MSc and PhD) were offered to 212 researchers in total, including 101 women.Priorities Phase II: Table 1 summarizes the CapDev elements of the CGIAR framework that the FPs intend to address through their clusters. The summary was obtained through a review of the descriptions of each cluster, and the half-page narrative on CapDev in each FP. The three priority interventions relate to gender responsive approaches, as well as institutional and organizational strengthening.  x CapDev in RTB has several challenges still to address:1. The review of the impact pathway reveals obvious needs to develop CapDev interventions in more than the described elements. For example, while all impact pathways refer implicitly to the development of partnering capacity and the capacity to innovate, those elements are not yet explicitly addressed in the narratives. This represents an interesting challenge for future planning, implementation, and M&E.2. Likewise, the development of partnering and innovation capacities is an integral part of organizational and institutional capacities. As such, they play a very big role in RTB even if not explicitly mentioned in most narratives. It is worthwhile to include their analysis into the M&E framework of the program.3. The absence of mention of needs assessments and intervention strategies could mean that they have been largely addressed in the first phase of the program. However, FP5 could play a role to provide support in this area and assure that CapDev interventions are needs-based and that the design is outcome-orientated. RTB's gender objective is to improve food security and reduce poverty while strengthening gender equity. For this to happen, both men and women farmers must be able to benefit from science and technology interventions developed by the RTB research team and its partners. A key goal of the gender strategy is to level the playing field where possible by providing access to knowledge, capacity building, and market opportunities, and by ensuring that the technology developed through the program is made available to both sexes. However, RTB research and evaluations have shown that men and women are not always equally benefiting from RTB technologies. For example, women may adopt technologies more slowly than men due to gender related constraints, such as lack of access to knowledge, information, training, resources and decision making powers within the home (Mudege, et al. 2015)  3 . Thus in order to ensure that RTB research and technology development contributes to meeting gender equitable IDOs and targets RTB aims to 1) mainstream gender across the RTB flagships and clusters with gender integrated research 2) undertake strategic gender research to build a body of knowledge on gender and agri-food system innovation for RTB crops. RTB will develop a set of gender impact indicators to monitor changes and access to resources, in agricultural production, research and entrepreneurship as a result of adoption of RTB technologies and innovations. In order to equip RTB scientists and partners to do gender-responsive research and achieve gender transformational outcomes and empowerment of women and youth, guidelines and briefs on gender research methods and context-specific gender situational analyses will be developed. A gender capacity development program will ensure that 1) expertise on gender research is available within RTB and 2) non-gender experts within RTB know when and how to make use of this expertise.To achieve this, the program is guided by the RTB gender strategy which outlines priority areas for gender research. In preparation for RTB Phase II, the strategy will be revisited, updated and operationalized taking into consideration lessons learned (see 1.4) from RTB Phase I and in alignment with the new RTB structure and flagships. A cross cutting Flagship Project 5 (FP5) contains CC5.3 on gender equitable development and youth employment that will provide learning and support for all FPs to contribute towards achieving gender responsive sub-IDOs -gender equitable control of productive assets and resources, and improved capacity of women and young people to participate in decision-making. RTB will mainstream gender through integrated and strategic gender research.Integrated Gender Research is the systematic integration of gender into research process-priority setting, planning, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation -and into the management of this process (Ashby et al, 2013) 4 . The purpose of gender integration is to consider gender norms and cultural practices when designing and implementing research in order to develop strategies to address gender based inequalities when developing a program or research strategy. In RTB, this means integrating a gender dimension into Flagships 1 to 5. Key to facilitating gender integration in these flagships is to ensure that there are resources set aside for integrated gender research across the flagships.Integrated gender research will involve some or all of the following: methodological aspects of collection and use of relevant sex-disaggregated information, analysis of gender-related constraints and opportunities, studies of the impact of research and development on gender equality outcomes. Integrated gender research will focus on specific key areas within each of the flagships (Table 1). In order to meet flagship objectives RTB will ensure that gender budgets are adequate. For example, in addition to budgeting for personnel and sex disaggregated surveys we would ensure increased budget for gender integrated research as well as outcome support to achieving more equitable access to RTB technologies. Most of the gender work conducted in RTB has been on nutritious foods, value addition through post-harvest processing and trait selection in breeding and varietal selection. One of the key areas on which RTB would like to focus is integrating gendered knowledge and preferences into banana breeding in Tanzania and on cassava trait preference to inform genomics assisted cassava breeding.Research in cassava breeding will be undertaken in a close collaboration with the NEXTGEN cassava project 5 and various national partners in East and West Africa. Likewise, banana breeding will be done with the Breeding Better East African Highland Bananas (BB-EAHB) project and other national partners in Tanzania. Research on gender and potato trait preference will continue in selected SSA countries. While this is important in the next phase we would also like to see more investments in resilient cropping systems and discovery research.To further institutionalize integrated gender research, RTB has adopted an approach towards harmonizing and strengthening gender capacity for RTB in-house staff members and partners by continuing to undertake capacity development activities in close coordination with RTB partnering centers' GFPs and following up with the trained participants to establish a feedback loop for monitoring, evaluation and learning. We expect that this work will continue in Phase II.  What are the gender implications of agro-industrialization and gender dimensions in access to RTB based agro enterprises in different regions and countries? To answer these questions, RTB is collaborating with other CRPs in the CGIAR global study on Enabling Gender Equality in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management (GENNOVATE) and has a total of 15 case-studies in RTB target countries: Uganda (4), Malawi (2), Burundi (1), Nigeria (2), Colombia (4), Bangladesh (2) and Vietnam (2). The first few products of this study are expected to come out as scientific publications, reports, guidelines and methods in early 2017. FP5 on improved livelihoods at scale will make it possible to pilot GENNOVATE lessons with the objective of contributing to gender related sub-IDOs and IDOs.In Phase I it was learned that when interventions do not address underlying social structures and gender norms related to household decision making and control of income agriculture research may not benefit women. For instance, although a seed potato project aimed to ensure that men and women have access to clean seed, women did not have access to quality potato seed because they lacked access to credit and training, and did not control household income to purchase seed (Mudege et al 2015). Research on long shelf life banana and potato ambient storage technology in Uganda also had similar results. Gender norms and ideologies can be barriers to access, therefore projects need to address these in order to contribute to development outcomes including women's empowerment. The strategic gender research will therefore make significant contributions towards meeting IDOs.Strategic gender research creates an enabling environment for integrated gender research and sets the scene for gender transformative outcomes. Gender transformative outcomes are those outcomes where both men and women are helped while gender roles are transformed and more gender-equitable relationships between men and women are promoted. However, it is more challenging to achieve gendertransformative outcomes, given the structural gender inequalities in many sectors that are not easily influenced by an agricultural research program. Research in RTB has shown that addressing gender norms to achieve transformation is not always easy as researchers, and in many cases extension officers and partners, often lack experience or are uncomfortable addressing these issues. As noted below RTB will reevaluate its partnership approach to ensure that non-traditional partners who can help us to achieve transformative outcomes are engaged.Measurement of progress towards gender impact in RTB will be systematic and undertaken at all stages of the research cycle. It will be based on the regular monitoring of a set of identified gender responsive indicators which will contribute towards achieving gender sub-IDOs and IDOs. These indicators will be developed at all levels (products, research and development outcomes) from the impact pathway for both integrated and strategic gender research.RTB envisages two main strands in the impact pathway. The first contributes to the technical research undertaken in integrated gender research across all flagships. Technical research will focus on topics which have greater gender relevance and also contribute towards developing gender specific tools and methods. These areas will be identified in a priority assessment exercise for gender research during the updating exercise of the RTB gender strategy. The second strand will concentrate on catalyzing a change in attitudes and practices of next users and end users in relation to adoption and use of gender and youth responsive outcomes and results of RTB flagships. This change in attitude and practice is achieved through harmonizing and strengthening the capacity of RTB researchers, scientists and partners through investments and interventions on capacity development and an interdisciplinary teamwork approach, which promotes continuous interactions among a team of experts while undertaking empirical integrated gender research. One of the underlying assumptions that emerged from gender work in Phase I is that as knowledge, understanding and skills on gender responsive research improve, the more gender equity concerns are taken into consideration by scientists, researchers and partners while setting research priorities and designing questions.Integrated gender research contributes to gender responsive outcomes while strategic gender research can build on this to contribute to gender transformative outcomes. Through the use of integrated gender and strategic gender research the gender impact pathway will contribute to two IDOs (See Fig. 1):1. Increased and more gender-equitable income for poor participants in RTB value chains (SLO 1, 2) 2. More effective policies supporting development and use of pro-poor and gender inclusive RTB technologies developed and adopted by agricultural organizations, national governments and international bodies (SLO 1, 2)Progress towards these IDOs will be tracked using milestones and indicators that have logical links to the impact pathway. These indicators will be developed based on outcomes delineated in the Performance Indicator Matrix.Figure 1 shows the gender impact pathway depicting outcomes from Integrated and strategic gender research with associated risks and assumptions. Youth unemployment is a major challenge, but can also be an opportunity for youth to become the engine, driving new agriculture and agribusiness enterprises as well as rural transformation (Brooks et al. 2012). Continued population growth in certain regions means that there are large numbers of young people entering the labor market each year, especially in SSA, South and SE Asia. Each year in Africa alone 10-12 million young people seek to enter the workforce, too many without success (AGRA 2015). While agriculture and agribusiness provide opportunities for youth, many face hurdles in trying to earn a livelihood from these areas (FAO, CTA IFAD 2014).Projections by world urbanization prospects and world population prospects estimate that until 2050, rural populations will decrease globally (-150m), but populations in rural SSA will continue to grow by 350m, and rural South Asia will increase until mid-2040 (Losch, 2015). In these two regions rising rural populations pose challenges for the absorption of a growing labor force and for its consequences on demographic densities, farm structures and natural resources. The highest population growth is occurring is in SSA, South and SE Asia (Figure 1). Africa will account for 60% of the world's increased labor force with research showing that, between now and 2030, SSA's economies will have to incorporate 370m youth, 220m in rural areas and 150m in cities. Exclusion of youth from agriculture for research and development may lead to negative social externalities and reinforce existing unequal power relations that exacerbate their conditions in challenging social contexts. Agriculture related youth programs and youth oriented research can provide opportunities to address the feminization of agricultural labor and build a critical mass of youth with skills and capacity to seize opportunities in the agricultural sector. Therefore, specific considerations of the challenges facing youth a must be embedded in the overall program strategy and approach.Moreover, rural educated youth in developing countries are gradually disengaging from agricultural sector activities and migrating to urban areas. Those who remain in rural areas often have fewer education and economic opportunities. For example, young girls in rural areas often marry at an early age according to local and customary social traditions. Such practices have health impacts, i.e. child birth complications, and affect their opportunities to pursue activities outside the household. Gender norms often relegate women and girls to domestic chores and childcare activities.Early analysis of GENNOVATE data from RTB and Humidtropics in Western Kenya revealed that girls face more challenges to continuing education than boys. These stem from parents preferential treatment of boys in the household, and early pregnancies. Boys cited problems of high unemployment and high incidence of drug and alcohol abuse that trap youth in poverty. It is thus important to have a systematic youth analysis of key production constraints, opportunities and value chains vis-à-vis RTB crops to ensure that both young girls and boys benefit.The youth rural to urban migration often leaves a gap in which small family farms with specific labor shortages for physically demanding tasks of ploughing, harvesting, and transporting are not met. This may require families to change to less labor-intensive crops of potential lower economic and nutritional value. Today's youth have higher rates of literacy and experience with IT, social media and technology platforms than previous generations. Engaging them in various innovative and climate resilient production and management systems, partnership building and marketing will help the RTB program not only in to harness their potential and contribute to a modern agricultural system with online record, new technologies and markets.RTB will seek to engage youth as a key stakeholder with an overall objective to develop their capacity, and create more economic opportunities to engage them in RTB linked enterprises. RTB will link practical initiatives to engage youth in pilot sites with youth analysis as a framework to learn, link and leverage resources to increase youth employment, including:1. What are the different roles, responsibilities, assets, and agency of young men and women (compared with older men and women), including their differential access to, control over, and use of natural, financial, social, political, and infrastructure-related resources?2. What are the aspirations of youth considering different contexts and gender differences?3. Which technical breakthroughs in RTB production and processing offer best opportunities for youth advancement and how are they best packaged?4. What incentives are required to best strengthen business skills among youth?5. How do the yields and profits of accelerated youth agricultural ventures based upon RTB technologies compare to other options, and how can they be optimized?Youth analysis and practical action to stimulate youth employment will be integrated in different FPs. In addition, RTB has a dedicated cluster for gender equitable development and youth employment in FP5.This will learn from and build on the IITA youth agriprenneur initiative (see Box 1) which engaged youth in crop production practices, seed multiplication, agribusiness, including commercial processing and sale of Vitamin A rich cassava flour, and is now in a process of reviewing the initiative to scale up. Currently there are established six R4D platforms (Burundi, DDRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda) and 12 innovation platforms in six different countries in East and Central Africa.This initiative is linked to the gender equitable development and youth employment cluster under FP5 and supported by the RTB gender strategy. The gender and youth cluster is allied to the youth strategy to achieve gender and youth responsive IDOs in all flagships and clusters. Technical backstopping, mentoring and coaching within multidisciplinary teams including RTB partners like young men and women farmers and youth organizations representatives, will also lead to adoption and generation of gender and youth responsive cluster and flagships outcomes. This will contribute to sub-IDOs including improved capacity of women and young people to participate in decision -making and youth and gender related IDOs.For partnership and outreach, youth related activities link with the RTB gender partnership approach by focusing on partnership with young farmers and youth organizations, NARES, NGOs, private sector, women's networks and youth groups to support delivery of new technologies developed by research.RTB has established a partnership initiative with universities to increase gender research in RTB project sites and to provide research opportunities, field sites, networks, technical, and project support for graduate students and visiting scholars. This initiative will raise awareness of CGIAR and RTB work on university campuses and encourage young graduate students to pursue research on gender focused research. Building on this partnership initiative, RTB will try to expand the youth program and explore linkages with university faculty to find graduate students who are interested to work on youth research areas that are of prime interest of RTB. Outreach activities will target three geographic regions of RTB-Asia, Latin America and Africa.RTB will develop youth indicators and include in M&E in close collaboration with partners and stakeholders. However, the collection and use of age-and sex-disaggregated data, application of youth and trend analysis in social norms, attitudes, and behaviors that influence young women's and men's Box1: Anecdote from Ma Kahasha \"My training in Ibadan was a great experience in my life as it has helped me to see and appreciate agriculture in various forms. Previously, I had a negative view of agriculture but this training has changed it positively. During this training I got an opportunity to visit Thai farm and Niji farm and these visits motivated me. In fact it helped me to be aware of the many agricultural opportunities that youth can engage with, such as agribusiness. I really appreciate this initiative of IITA that aims to engage more young boys and girls in agribusiness as a means of alleviating national and international youth unemployment, which is one of the major challenges of our decade\" ~Gracia Kahasha Source: IITA Youth Agripreneurs special issue February 2014 aspirations and needs, preferences for and adoption of innovations made by RTB scientists and partners is contemplated in the existing gender and youth cluster as part of M&E system.There is no separate budgetary allocation for youth research on RTB from Windows 1 and 2 in first phase. RTB Phase II has a specific cluster on gender and youth, for which a budget allocation and specific budget line for youth related research will be articulated. Moreover, we will pursue collaborations with strategic partners and generate new bilateral project proposals for this important area, potentially linked with agripreneurs.ANNEX 5: RTB Results-based management strategy (3) support adaptive management, organizational learning and informed decision-making at all levels; and (4) promote greater accountability, transparency and value for money.The RBM strategy is founded on five principles: (1) a clear and logical program design that ties resources and activities to expected results; (2) description of roles and responsibilities for RTB scientists/management as well as for partners involved in implementation;(3) sound judgments on how to improve performance on an ongoing basis; (4) demonstrated accountability and benefits to stakeholders; and (5) reliable and timely information made available to CGIAR and key stakeholders.Given that RBM is a management strategy, it will be part of the overall ongoing CRP life-cycle (see Fig. 1) and will include the following key steps: Defining and revising, based on evidences and lessons learnt, the impact pathways at all program levels;  Strategic budget allocation based on ex-ante assessment of expected results and corroborated by expost IA results;  Planning and budgeting for monitoring and evaluation;  Establishing implementing and monitoring responsibilities and accountabilities internally and with partners;  Monitoring and analyzing performance and risks information;  Using MEIA findings and risks information for adaptive management and organizational learning;  Annual rewarding of good performances through performance-based budgeting (not intended to modify strategic budget allocation);  Reporting performances and results. The CRP and flagship theories of change and impact pathways as presented in the proposal above (see section 1.0.3 and 2.3) were developed using a bottom-up approach. To stress the centrality of strong alliances with stakeholders, RTB started the development of ToCs at the cluster level involving cluster teams and partners. These results were then consolidated at the higher levels.Not all the clusters had the opportunity to fine-tune their impact pathways with stakeholders during the proposal development. RTB will then continue applying the methodology refined with the RBM pilot at the beginning of the new phase. Stakeholders and partners involved with a selected RTB cluster at focus country and sub-regional levels will co-develop impact pathways and agree on the framework for joint activities and M&E mechanisms through participatory workshops. These workshops, jointly planned with other CRPs, will contribute in the second phase to site integration strategies and plans. Stakeholders with experience in gender integration and mobilizing women and other social groups will be included.The set of nested ToCs and impact pathways constitute the backbone of the RTB's RBM framework. They serve as the CRP's hypotheses of the way change is expected to occur from output to outcome and impact. They are meant to be dynamic documents and adapted as evidence is further collected. For all FPs and clusters, research products were identified, discovery pipelines -in the case of FP1 -and impact pathways -for the other FPs -tentatively mapped out, scaling strategies agreed and indicators for (Sub)-IDOs and lower result levels constructed to provide the basis for results-based management (RBM) and are shown in Performance Indicator Matrix, tables B, C and D.RTB is characterized by a broad thematic and geographical area of intervention, a large number of partners contributing to its implementation and a light structure for its management. To address and adapt its management to this complexity, RTB needs to maintain its RBM framework flexible and iterative. This situation requires the establishment of clear flow of information and a good capacity to manage the quantity and diversity of data generated by all the implementing stakeholders. In order to respond to this need, in 2015, RTB started a collaboration with Dryland Systems (DS) to adapt and develop the web-based Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning platform (PMELP) initiated by DS. This platform will be adopted by DCL in the coming phase and as center-wide solution by ICARDA and CIP. The platform (http://mel.cgiar.org/) enables better RBM including planning, reporting, coordination, risk management, performance evaluation, as well as knowledge sharing and learning amongst different groups of stakeholders (donors, partners, and scientists) within and across CRPs and CG centers.The PMEL platform supports and facilitates the collection, storage, analysis and sharing of data on technical implementation of CRPs and links these data with financial information thereby enabling timely and informed decision-making, transparent reporting to donors and reduction in administrative/transaction time and costs. The PMEL platform uses full stack open source environment.a. PurposeIn order to effectively implement the RBM framework, strengthening monitoring, evaluation, learning and impact assessment (MELIA) will be necessary at both project and program levels. A robust and strategic plan is proposed and will support CRP cycle of planning, budget allocation and reporting steps.RTB will use a modular approach for the implementation of the strategy, which will include a suite of tools, guidelines and best practices. Furthermore, plans will be put in place to systematically review the strategy and make necessary adjustments, where required, to better assist staff and management in delivering and improving the performance of RTB. It is expected that the strategy and its modules will improve over time as more information is gathered and experience in gained in implementing such a framework.MELIA will support RBM implementation while playing the following core functions:1. Provide data, information, and evidences on delivering outputs, contributing to outcomes and ensuring value for money; 2. Review the consistency of ToC, document evidences showing causal relationships among outputs and outcomes, identify unintended outcomes; 3. Collect and analyze information on partnership effectiveness in achieving results; 4. Organize knowledge and experience sharing within the program members and among partners.Modules constituting the MELIA strategy are strongly complementary and interconnected as presented in the following sections.Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning modules are mostly under the direct coordination of the Program Management Unit. Implementing responsibilities are declined following the programmatic structures (CRP, FPs, clusters). Coordination and alignment between RBM framework and Project-specific frameworks (Bilateral and W3) is foreseen to limit duplications in management and reporting lines. The Impact assessment modules is embedded into the program structure through the cluster CC5.1 -Foresight and impact assessment -that will be in charge of its implementation. In addition, by developing mechanisms and tools to collecting and storing data for impact assessment studies, CC5.1 strengthens the consistency of information produced across the CRP and adds value to data generated at the cluster level and through the monitoring module.The RTB monitoring module is organized in two main components: outputs and outcomes.The output monitoring component supports the effective and timely delivery of planned research outputs (e.g. knowledge, tools, technologies, etc.). This component is strongly linked with management of annual budgets and measurement of annual CRP performances (most the annual performance indicators will be tracked using information generated by this component). Tracking of CapDev activities (e.g. # trainings by topic and typology) is also performed here. Output monitoring reposes on the contribution of individual scientists; they provide information and data that will be validated and consolidated at the cluster then at the FP level (See Fig. 3).The outcome monitoring component focuses on changes in knowledge, attitude and practices that happen at the next-(research outcomes) and end users levels (development outcomes). Results at (Sub)-IDO levels, corresponding to changes in direct benefits for end users and changes that affect agroecosystems, are partially covered by this component and partially addressed by evaluation and impact assessment. Outcome monitoring integrates two main approaches:1) An indicator-based monitoring that will include gender-sensitive measurements and specific indicators for CapDev.Proposed targets for the (Sub)-IDOs (see Section 1.0.2 and Performance Indicator Matrix) are based on the results of an ex-ante impact assessment exercise (See RTB working papers for more details). Indicators were drafted at the cluster level and along the impact pathway in order to provide elements that will be useful when performing impact assessment, theory-based evaluations and contribution analysis. Data collection on indicators related to research and development outcomes is based on the harmonization and consolidation of data produced by projects mapped in RTB. The definition of indicators to assess (Sub)-IDOs is being conducted using a two-pronged approach. First, the CRP is seeking indicators already in existence that are credible, well-recognized, accessible, and being monitored by other better positioned organizations (e.g., FAO, WB). A set of indicators for intermediate development outcomes to which RTB will be contributing is proposed (table 1). Indicators at other levels will be developed during the operational phase after proposal submission. Second, in cases where there are no suitable indicators, RTB will develop a new indicator with an efficient monitoring system in close collaboration with the flagship teams. Furthermore, RTB will support and seek to use, where possible, standardized indicators established by national partner systems, the MEL CoP and other communities of practice. The methodology used to identify the targets and to measure progress, as well as key assumptions, will be detailed to ensure transparency. To complete the monitoring plan, data collection sources and methodologies, responsibilities and timelines will be identified for each of the indicators. A variety of methodologies are expected to be used dependent on the indicators, including document reviews, surveys, case studies, meta-analyses, meta-syntheses, adoption studies, impact assessments.In cases where data collection will be under RTB responsibility, table 2 presents the expected frequency of reporting per indicator level (first column), country and cluster stage (bottom line). An illustrative set of methods proposed for each indicator level is presented in the last column. 2) A descriptive, participatory monitoring looking at processes and causal relationships among outputs and outcomes.For all the FPs, identification and development of outcome stories will be realized for analyzing both successes and failures (function supported by the IT-platform). In selected clusters, more structured methods (e.g. outcome harvesting, most significant changes) will be tested.Information on partners and partnerships will be considered in both output and outcome components. Output monitoring will focus on: identification and description of partners, documentation and selfassessment of the collaborations. In the outcome component, through annual meetings and online surveys, partners will be regularly asked to assess the quality of the collaboration, their satisfaction with the products and services delivered by RTB, the changes they perceived thanks to the adaptation/adoption of RTB products and services, the foreseen dissemination strategy (to whom and how are they likely to disseminate those products).RTB underwent in 2015 a full external evaluation, commissioned by IEA, including both summative and formative aspects (i.e. assessment of research outputs and outcomes, evolution trend of RTB over a four years period (2012)(2013)(2014)(2015) in terms of program design and governance and management arrangements, CRP performances related to cross-cutting issues: gender, capacity development, partnerships and communication and knowledge management). Findings of the evaluation already influenced the preproposal writing; final conclusions and recommendations have been considered for the development of the full proposal.Comprehensive CRP evaluations should be coordinated with IEA in 2020/2021 in order to assess the results of Phase II, and key contributions to CGIAR goals and targets and to support key decisions on the extension, resizing and adjustment of the program for a new phase.A combination of CRP Commissioned External Evaluations (CCEEs), research reviews and evaluative studies is planned to address relevant themes and to prepare and support the IEA external evaluation. Several topics are being considered for CCEEs including the evaluation of one flagship per year under higher levels of W1&2 funding or in alternate years under a lower funding scenario (table 3). The impact assessment module will play a key role in supporting the definition and regular revision of research priorities, in orienting strategic program planning and resource allocation, in fostering better customization of products and technologies for enhanced adoption, and in demonstrating the impact of RTB research.There is increasing recognition that interventions that contribute to complex, indirect causal chains, with multiple partnerships, and with data limitations require a broad range of methods to evaluate effectively, especially at the impact level. Therefore, the CRP will adopt a mixed methods approach to evaluation its performance, including ex-ante and ex-post impact assessments.For the assessment of research priorities, a comprehensive exercise for all RTB crops and technologies, as the one conducted in 2014, is envisioned for every 5 to 7 years as decision-making support tool. Foresight analysis will also be conducted in collaboration with the Global Futures and Strategic Foresight (GFSF) Project of the Policies, Institutes and Markets (PIM) CRP, using the IMPACT modeling framework.Systematic review of FAO data and available literature will be used in order to identify critical factors, including policies and underlying RTB genetic resource base, influencing trends in RTB production, consumption and trade.A central element of the strategy will be the reinforcement of RTB and key partners' capacities to understand and assess technology adoption an adaptation. A combination of synergistic approaches based on systematic collection and sharing of data is being developed for that. In addition to a strong integration between monitoring and impact assessment and the coordinated definition of variables to be monitored (see monitoring section), RTB will pursue the fruitful collaboration with Standing Panel on Impact Assessment (SPIA)-led projects, in particular with the Strengthening Impact Assessment in CGIAR (SIAC) Project. At the same time, funding sources other than W1&2 will be mobilized (e.g. BMGF for the development of a database of RTB varietal adoption and the use of DNA-fingerprinting techniques in adoption studies for cassava varieties) and collaboration with other partners promoted (e.g. use of World Bank's LSMS survey for collecting adoption data in Ethiopia and Malawi).RTB will promote and share its results-oriented culture within and beyond its organizational borders. In particular, RTB will implement a variety of measures to use MELIA findings and information to support learning processes both internally and including partners and stakeholders. These measures includes: Regular revision and decision-making processes based on evidences and findings provided by monitoring, evaluation and impact assessments during the meetings with the Independent Steering Committee, management committee and in the RTB annual meeting;  Integrated analysis of technical and financial data to inform decision making processes and improve their effectiveness;  Annual reflection sessions organized by flagship project leaders and cluster leaders, each one at his/her level, and including key stakeholders in order to revise the results achieved (both using qualitative and quantitative findings) and agree on the adjustments needed in their ToC and operational plans;  Improvement of knowledge management and sharing through the IT platform (see section above) and with strengthened coordination with centers' communication and knowledge management units;  Documenting lessons learned and best practices and facilitate learning across teams/crops/clusters through cross-cutting clusters;  Improving an internal mechanism for incentivizing good performances in line with the one that would be adopted by the CGIAR System Office to assess the CRP performances.Resources required to implement a robust and credible MELIA strategy have been included accordingly in the CRP's budget.For all the elements of the strategy, a budget of 4% of CRP budget has been allocated across all windows. This allocation would cover: development and implementation of a stronger monitoring and reporting interoperable platform (mostly W1&2);  management of data collection measures in various geographies to implement the monitoring plan effectively (W1&2 + Bilateral and W3 funding);  annual conduct of a CCEE, which is estimated at USD 300,000 of consulting fees per evaluation (mostly W1&2);  MEL specialists to provide MEL expertise to CRP and project leads, build capacity across the lead centers and partners, and coordinate the implementation of the MEL modules (W1&2).The impact assessment module will be funded through CC5.1 in FP5 (all funding windows).     Strong collaboration by RTB with BRAC, an international NGO based in Bangladesh for implementation of potato and sweetpotato projects. They also provide a common NGO platform through which RTB also collaborates with AAS and Worldfish and other organizations operating in Bangladesh.Even before the Consortium-driven integration process, RTB through CIP has been a member of a CGIAR coordination group linked to their common implementation of Feed the Future projects. Outside of meetings convened through USAID, RTB has also participated in multi-lateral coordination meetings led by the biggest CGIAR Centers (Worldfish and IRRI). CIP has worked with Worldfish to expand the area of the OFSP and vegetables to integrated homestead systems involving fish ponds.Currently CIP is the only RTB Center operating in Bangladesh. We are coordinating with CIAT about possibilities of expanding work on potato and SP to cassava, which is a small but potentially growing part of the agri-food systems.Within There is also a Roots and Tubers Working Group that aims to strengthen the coordination and harmonization of roots and tubers-related interventions -both development and emergency related interventions -that will result in the adoption of common standards and approaches that will strengthen the root and tuber sub-sector over time and therefore improve the well-being of poor smallholder farmers. Through this initiative it is proposed that Working Group will contribute to both increased production and productivity and therefore result in increased household income and improved food and nutrition security.Some key activities to date include: Creating a database of our major partners/collaborators The Roadmap for agricultural and economic growth in Ethiopia is spelt out in the Government's vision was launched in during the last quarter of 2015 through the Growth and Transformation Plan II. The CGIAR should continue to align its programs to that. In addition there are already big ongoing programs led by the Government like the Sustainable Land Management (SLM) to which the CGIAR is already a major player. Following the launch of GTP II there have been a lot of national consultation meetings organised by several of CGIAR partners working on the alignment to GTP II. A good example are the meetings organised by the Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) and the Rural Economic Development and Food Security Sector Working Group (RED&FS) to discuss different pillars under GTP II. A number of CGIAR Centers participated in these consultations based on subject matter. The months of October-December were a busy time in Ethiopia.The CGIAR national consultation focused on strengthening mechanisms of engagement and seeking ways to better align to national priorities. One of the key recommendations was the need to establish a joint CGIAR-national agriculture research system collaboration and communication mechanism. This mechanism, it was recommended, would establish a permanent secretariat for joint planning, sharing of findings, and monitoring and evaluation.The other areas of collaboration were: the development of joint research proposals, sharing of equipment and resources, streamlining policy engagement, and improving opportunities and modalities of capacity development. The need to facilitate access to laboratory facilities was also highlighted as key. These goals could be achieved through enhanced joint research implementation and supervision.This meeting was fully supported by ILRI and the Livestock and Fish CRP. When contacted most Centers had no budgets to support this meeting. We risked not holding the meeting if the Lead Center had not taken action. This is a gap that thecommittee has raised in the previous meetings and asked every Center and CRP to seek further clarification from DDGs, CRP Directors and the CO on the way forward. More details on the Ethiopia national consultations can be found on the GCARD3 website.Next steps: In our last meeting on the 16 th of February we reflected on the December meeting and the follow on focused group meetings by individual CRPs. We further tried to clarify amongst ourselves what we understood site integration to mean?We agreed that so far the CRPs' priorities were well aligned with those of the GTP II and ATA's priorities. This is very promising for upcoming collaboration.We plan to purposely use the GTP II language in our engagements with the national processes and/or document through a flyer how CGIAR is contributing to GTP II.Furthermore we are aiming to identify what each CRP is seeing as the current situation and then the future situation in terms of site integration in Ethiopia from the perspective of the 10 elements which were highlighted in the guidelines, and to turn all that information into a narrative that also looks at collaboration initiatives and at ideas for future integration based on pipeline plans and projects.We were planning for a day's meeting for a smaller group to synthesize this material and write the site integration plan. At the time we discussed this we were not sure what is the level of details the CO is expecting for these plans?We also plan to continue the process of refining the mapping of CGIAR work in Ethiopia.No information available Attendance of the first national consultation event, organized by IITA and held in Abuja, Nigeria 16 th /17 th November 2015. At this, represented RTB. This was the first meeting and focusedpredominantly on interactions with national partners including the Ministry of Agriculture.Work between IITA and ILRI on use of cassava peel for livestock feed is an example of interactions between RTB and Livestock CRP.In the future, the most likely avenue of collaboration maybe between RTB and MAIZE and DCL particularly with regard to systems level research. Most likely areas are the forest/savanna transition zone (around Ibadan) where yam and cassava based systems can be found alongside maize.There is likely to be considerable scope for the involvement of a range of other actors within Nigeria including policymakers, NARS (eg NRCRI) and Universities.An implementation plan has been developed which will involve detailed discussions with stakeholders including research donors and development agencies.Regina Kapinga (IITA)The Tanzania CGIAR country collaboration and site integration process is coordinated by a CG-Tanzania Site integration process group composed of representatives from: CG centres and CRPs have to understand the national strategies as elaborated in the Tanzanian Agricultural Sector Development Program (ASDP) Phase II. This implies that both CG centres and/ CRPs, when preparing the proposals that include Tanzania, should ensure to access the ASDPII documents for references so that where possible align the activities with the identified national priorities. IITA therefore as a lead focal centre, in January this year, was invited to participate in a 5-days national ASDPII prioritization workshop whereby we worked closely with the Ministry officials and other key stakeholders to identify key areas of focus by the country. The documents from this exercise, have been shared with all the CG site-integration focal persons to share with their respective directors and teams for consideration when developing the draft proposals. It is expected that before final submissions, some of the NARS reps. will get an opportunity to provide input on the proposals which include Tanzania to ensure alignment.We are also currently striving to jointly develop and implement projects that have multiple commodities and disciplines. An example we plan to emulate is that of AFRICA RISING project which although is led by IITA, it has other implementing centres which include-ICRAF, CIAT, ICRISAT, IITA, ILRI, AVRDC, and CIMMYT respectively. These together with various national R4D partners in the country, are demonstrating a good example of collaboration and integration. AFRICA RISING project, is using a common set of research sites and staff from various centres are participating in the implementation the project. In the pipeline is the new CGIAR-FARA-African Development Bank's Africa-wide initiative on FEEDING AFRICA. This potential project known as Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), will implement the scaling up and out of the proven technologies from the CG-centres to about 20 African countries. Tanzania, is one of the focus countries for TAAT project which again will provide an opportunity for about 13 CG centres to work together and also Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), will involve Tanzania as a focus country. This will bring together 13 CG centers in addressing a diverse set of R4D targets. Work on all of the RTB crops will be incorporated into this initiative. Site integration work will have a major influence on this, since local partners will drive the prioritization process.There are currently no specific geographical sites that have been identified for CRP collaboration through the site integration process. This will happen at a later stage. Most of the discussion at the site integration meeting focused on the link between the government of Tanzania and CG centres. Further partnerships will be identified once more practical planning begins.The site integration process in Tanzania is being led by Regina Kapinga, and James Legg represented RTB during all meetings and will provide feedback to RTB on how the process is progressing. CG centers have previously worked well together in Tanzania.partner with the governments and other agencies from the selected focus countries. On 11-15 April, IITA in collaboration with AfDB, will convene in Nigeria, a TAAT awareness regional consultative workshop which will be attended by several CGIAR centres, development partners, sub-regional organizations and several national stakeholders from various countries.Regarding the sharing of the CGIAR facilities, IITA -Tanzania office, already is hosting three CG centres-CIP, IRRI, and ILRI. AGRA although not a CG centre is hosted by IITA. ICRAF and Africa Rice centres are located in the neighbouring areas which also makes it easy for consultation and effective use of the CG facilities. Our site-integration process group will regularly communicate via emails and where possible organize meetings at least once every six months. Co-funding of these meetings will be explored and explored. Plans are also under way, to discuss the possibility of organizing a CG-NARS national awareness workshop aimed at popularizing to the new government, our best-bet technologies for scaling-up and out using the internally-sourced resources. Therefore, the workshop will strategically target the policy & decision makers, private sector and other key players for resource mobilization. The selected technologies for popularization should have been tested and proven for potential to reach and impact millions of beneficiaries in Tanzania.Dindo Campilan, CIAT Nine CRPS and 10 Centers have participated in the Vietnam planning for CGIAR country coordination. A national stakeholders' consultation workshop was organized in December 2015, with over 70 participants representing: 1) research institutes and government agencies, 2) universities, 3) NGOs-private sector agencies and associations, 4) international organizations and donors, and 5) CGIAR staff.Stakeholders agreed on an eco-regional framework to facilitate incountry collaboration and site integration. The target regions are: 1) Northwest, 2) Northeast, 3) Red river delta, 4) North centralFor the first meeting, there were 8 non-CG stakeholders associated with RTB representing NARI, NGO's and private sector. CRP-RTB was presented by Bioversity, CIP and CIAT scientists. The CG community in Vietnam is already regularly interacting and coordinating. Interactions between CRP-RTB and CCAFS to shares experiences on cassava crop management in Climate Smart Villages (CSV's).  Interactions between CRP-RTB and L&F on the use of sweetpotato and cassava as animal feed.Define plan and schedule through which your CRP will provide relevant elements for development of CGIAR site integration in this country coast, 5) Central highlands-south central coast and southeast, and 6) Mekong river delta. In addition, integrating CRPs with national and local development plans was considered a key dimension of country collaboration. For each region, the stakeholders identified: 1) development priorities as set by government policymakers/decision-makers, 2) key research gaps which are recommended for the CGIAR to address, and 3) potential partners for specific research and development initiatives.Between December 2015 and March 2016, CRPs/Centers also engaged in bilateral discussions on specific collaboration needs and opportunities. Several CRPs also organized their respective country/regional planning and consultation events.A follow-up meeting by the CGIAR Vietnam team was held on 7 March, with 8 CRPs and 7 Centers represented. The 8 participating CRPs re-confirmed that Vietnam is a target country for CRP2 proposals. As next step, it was also agreed that subnational targeting will be undertaken for higher-resolution site integration plans, i.e. within each agro-ecoregion. A draft agenda for the 10element site integration report was prepared. The proposed action items are to be shared with CRPs, for them to indicate their suggested priorities as well as intent for co-financing/cost-sharing.The country collaboration/site integration efforts in Vietnam is coordinated through: 1) core team with representatives from CRPs/Centers having physical (office) presence in Vietnam, and 2) working group with representatives from all CRPs/Centers planning to undertake activities in Vietnam for CRP2. CIAT provides overall leadership, with ICRAF as co-lead Center. In each eco-region, a lead Center and supporting CRP/s have also been identified and agreed upon. Interactions between CRP-RTB and HT on system's research.  Interactions between CIAT and CIP scientists concerning methods for impact assessment.  Planning and collaboration between CIP and CIAT in the FoodStart+ project (IFAD / EU funded), involving sweetpotato and cassava.  Regular science seminars between all Vietnam-based CG centers during so-called \"brown bag seminars\".  Shared office facilities between CG and CRP's in basically two hubs (recently ILRI moved to the UN building). Beyond key coordination and communication mechanisms that were identified during the last internal CGIAR team meeting, several project / possible CRP2 activities between CRPs were identified:  RTB-CCAFS: (i) testing of RTB technologies (erosion control, varieties, etc.) in CSV's, (ii) climate suitability models and forecasting for RTB crops;  RTB-A4HN: (i) food systems research and role of RTBs for income generation / human nutrition;  RTB-Livestock: (i) use of cassava waste and sweet potato for animal feeding;  RTB-PIM: (i) inclusive value chain of RTB crops; The main production zones of RTB crops themselves do generally not overlap within Vietnam. Yet, some geographical sites where cassava research and CRPs overlap have been identified (see below). Opportunities for potato, sweet potato and banana R&D needs to be further identified. The sites where RTB clearly overlaps with other CRPs are:  RTB-CCAFS: Yen Bai province (north-east region of Vietnam).Here CIAT/RTB has a history of cassava work (including cassava management, varietal testing) while CCAFS have established a CSV (Ma Village). Also possible benchmark site for the new \"livelihoods at scale\" FP of RTB.Define plan and schedule through which your CRP will provide relevant elements for development of CGIAR site integration in this country Bioversity, CIP and CIAT have participated in the two meetings indicated Each CRP focal point in Vietnam has made a presentation of the CRP2 content, FPs and likely relevant areas for implementation. The content was consulted with CRP / CG center management. The main contributions from CRP representatives and national stakeholders is reflected in the integration plan. We are foreseeing the establishment of an RTB in-country hub hosted by CIAT Hanoi office. RTB researchers from CIAT and CIP are already co-located in the same office, while discussions are under way for a Bioversity banana scientist to be posted in the same office.No meeting for site integration has been yet held in Cameroon. However I had the opportunity to attend the DRC site integration meeting organized in DRC. In DRC I discussed extensively with Manning-Thomas, Nadia (CGIAR Consortium) who was facilitating this meeting in DRC. In consultation with other CGIAR Centres (IITA, CIFOR, Bioversity) we decided to organize the Cameroon meeting on 16 March 2016. The following institutions are expected to attend this meeting: IITA, CIFOR, Bioversity, ICRAF, IRAD, AVRDC, MINFOF, MINEF, Universities of Yaounde1, IBAYSUP, CRESA.Prior to this meeting, the CGIAR centers based in Cameroon were already working together in projects such as Sentinel Landscapes. ICRAF, CIFOR and Bioversity developed joint teams and worked together on institutional mapping of a landscape, socio-economic characterization and land degradation surveillance.For ICRAF as more most of research activities are covered by FTA, Scientists focussed their activities that are linked to CRP6. 1,CRP6.2,CRP6.3,CRP6.4,and CRP6.5. Data collected from this research work were analysed and used for publications of scientific papers. With IITA, ICRAF and IRAD had also worked together for the implementation of Humid Tropics program.Nothing to report yet.Overall It was indicated at the workshop that the second phase of CRP's (2017-2025) presents three innovations as compared to the first one: well-integrated portfolio, aligned with national priorities, and coordinated and transparent interaction with local stakeholders and partners. Thus, the national consultation workshop constituted the first step of the integration process and aimed to engage partnership, find synergies and learn about national priorities.During They \"represent\" Bioversity in the case of banana plantain and IITA in the cases of yam and cassava. All RTB activities, except cassava, were mapped along with other CRP activities There has probably not much explicit site integration activity. Some of the Jumpstarting project sites are at the Dryland System benchmark sites. We seem to be the only ones there. Additionally, CRP RTB (CIP) has offices in the research institutes, CSIR-CRI and SARI where these crops are mandated with the national program.Our NIRS analytical lab is used occasionally and somewhat informally to analyze samples of most of the RTB commodities.In addition to IWMI, Africa Rice, Bioversity, IFPRI, and IITA were the centers most engaged with the exercise. IITA had a number of CRPs represented. We agreed that we should be thinking about new W3 and bilateral opportunities. Pointed out on several occasions the importance of RTB in the national diet = #1. However, we recognized that most of current CRP engagement is in the north of the country where donors are putting most of their money, but where cassava and bananas tend to be less important.There was general agreement, that one of the most promisingNational Consultation workshop with the Centres/CRPs. Over 60 people from different stakeholder categories participated in the event. The workshop revealed how the integrated efforts of the CGIAR Centres can actually complement national priorities and those of other partners, towards agricultural transformation in Ghana. Following MoFA's presentation on the national priorities for driving Ghana's Shared Growth and Development Objectives, the participants identified and discussed key themes that could be the CGIAR strategic focus in Ghana. The themes identified were consistent with the preliminary findings from the review done by the SC. The workshop participants also suggested ways of working effectively together (internal integration) and with local partners (external integration). The workshop further provided insight on tracking the progress and impact of the integrations as well as the coordination mechanism to sustain the Site Integration Process.Next steps are: (i) finalise the site integration plan with the information gathered during the workshop; (ii) engage in regular consultation and exchange with the national partners through their representation in the steering committee and (iii) sharing information at national platforms. The SC agreed that sharing of information, as well as collaboration in joint activities and resource mobilisation is paramount to strengthen our integration. Collaboration will commence on the identified themes and with a joint visit to the National Development Planning Commission of Ghana.opportunities for CG centers would be the new ADB program and that we should position ourselves very deliberately for that. We also agreed to look for other opportunities as they arise. Key NGOs, universities and donors (SNV, Canada, Netherlands, USAID, UDS, KNUST) were present at the meeting. The national workshop has been held on March 10 th -11 th and RTB has been represented. All CRP's have been asked to provide 1 slide in for a CRP presentation.Pre-existing joint or coordinated work:  With ILRI on dual purpose sweetpotato for food and fodder  National research and development stake  USAID Accelerated Value Chain Development project with ILRI -Dairy, Livestock (semi-arid regions); ICRISAT -dryland cereals and legumes -CIP sweetpotato -potato Future collaboration: Hasn't been explored systematically yet, but potentially Livestock, Maize, CCAFS, WLE, A4HN Specific geographical sites: An activity map will be prepared Each center has a set of long-term public and private sector partners from research, business and development. However, at the national workshop there has been very little turn-out from business (1) and development ( 1) partners as well as from donors (only Australia). Next steps:  Make sure that meetings are not overrepresented by CGIAR staff (70%)  Better target potential partners with a concrete action plan  To implement effective collaboration coordination has to go beyond large workshops only attended by the well-known partners. Activities like trade fairs and proactive communication directly to stakeholders and potential scaling partners. So far very little, but further coordination will follow in the process of developing the site integration plan which will be submitted by the end of April. All RTB flagships have activities in Kenya and will be mapped into the site integration plan and furthermore we will identify potential collaborative actions. The process of coordination has generally been delayed by the CRP proposal writing process with all CGIAR centers.National consultation meetings 22 nd /23 rd March We had our small meeting with CGIARs. We set up a date for the National consultation for the 22nd and 23rd of March. We hired alocal consultant to assist with the preparation. The other consultant the fees/honorarium is still under negotiation. We are now working on all logistics. The information on CRP will be ready before the end of this month.Arun Joshi (CIMMYT) Sugden Fraser (IWMI)The process of site integration in Nepal was initiated on November 9, 2015 by organizing a meeting of all CG centres working in Nepal. The site integration steering committee was formed (with one member from each CG/CRP centre). This included CIMMYT, IWMI, Biodiversity Int, IFPRI, IRRI, CIFOR and ICARDA. CCAFS was included in the subsequent meeting. Two meetings were held on 4 th and 30 th December to share information on work being done by each centre in Nepal and to plan for a stakeholder consultation meeting which was organized at Kathmandu on 11 January 2016.The purpose of the stakeholder meeting was three-pronged: to design the integrated research agenda, to consolidate CGIAR centres, and to coordinate with national actors and strengthen the coordination, collaboration and alignments with partners in line with national priorities and policies. More than 60 participants, representing 34 national institutions participated. The cost of this meeting was shared by all centres.A joint presentation on activities being undertaken by all CG centres on various CRPs in Nepal was presented and two discussion sessions were held. The first one focused on better alignment of current CGIAR research activities, whilst the second one on targeting stakeholders' needs. Opportunities for further alignment of CG programs and CRP integration were identified through shared goals, activities and increased partnerships. The minutes were prepared along with one pager blog and submitted to CGIAR. The next steering committee meeting has been scheduled for 10th March to draft the site integration. This is being done based on the national consultation and experiences of each of the centers in Nepal. In doing all this, the central point will be the Agriculture Development Strategy (ADS 2015(ADS -2035) ) approved by Government of Nepal on 14th August, 2015.summarized in site integration plan to enable transparent interaction with local stakeholders.Kirimi Sindi (CIP)The Rwanda CGIAR country collaboration and site integration process is coordinated by a committee of six individuals representing 4 centres. The Rwanda based CGIAR Centres are CIP, CIAT, IITA, and ICRAF. Each centre has one or two individuals as part of the steering committee. The centres have held 4 site integration meetings so far. One was with three main donors represented in Rwanda (USAID, EU, and DFID). The committee is working on mapping all on-going projects in Rwanda by the different centres and CRPS. This will be put on a map of Rwanda to assist all the centres understand areas where they is there is potential for synergy in working together. The map will assist the CG centres in communicating the contribution they are having to the donors and government policy makers and speak as one voice.The committee under the leadership of CIP will organized a CGIAR site integration workshop in Kigali on 29 th March, 2016. This workshop will bring together an estimated 75 representative of donors, government agencies, other development organizations, civil societies, and financial institutions. There has been an already established forum R4D by Humid and Tropics that brings together all the CGIAR centres, policy makers, and other implementing partners in working together in an integrated manner. The site integration committee has resolved to build on this already on RTB will participate not as a CRP but as centers that work on RTB crops. That is CIP and IITA Under Humid and Tropics CRP a R4D site was identified where all the centers are working together. Currently there are no W1 and W2 funds I know of that are utilized here by any center. However, in the past RTB partly funded PRA work that is coordinated by IITA, CIP and Bioversity, We are mapping where all the projects under CRPs and Centers are working. Since this country is very small, CIP and IITA are working in common districts and there are opportunities to have common sites on the ground. However, the mapping is still ongoing on and I cannot specify a particular site yet.In Rwanda all CGIAR centers and CRPs have to work with the government bodies such as Rwanda Agricultural Board (RAB), Local governments in the districts, University of Rwanda. CIP is working with University of Rwanda, Mount Kenya University, Kepler Institute, Local development organization, international development organization such as World Vision, CRS, One Acre Fund. CIP is collaborating with FAO, One UN, and UNICEF.Next steps: This is yet to be addressed but the Centers are planning to strengthen the collaboration. At the moment we share resources like office space, vehicles, and conference or meetingDefine steps taken so far (March 2016) to establish national level engagement with other CRPs towards site integration Define plan and schedule through which your CRP will provide relevant elements for development of CGIAR site integration in this countrygoing forum and expand it further to achieve the CGIAR site integration goals.Next steps: We will be setting up a full secretariat to assist in organising the workshop and all the invited participant will get invitation letters by 11th March, 2016. Next review meeting will be on 18th March, 2016 to review the plans and progress for the workshop preparations  The main workshop meeting to be held on 29th, March 2016. This meeting will gather stakeholders views and then utilizing the recommendation to work on the site integration plan that will be finalized by end of April, 2016.We will be posting all the minutes to the CG sites in the next two weeks.rooms. We expect that we shall be utilizing same implementing partners when possible to implement our projects on the ground. We are being requested by donors to actively lobby the government as one CGIAR body when we want to influence polices. So far we have had 5 site coordination meetings 4 for planning and one a joint meeting with donors. IITA and CIP staffs are always represented. We are planning to fund the site integration forum through the centers contributions and CIP and IITA will contribute.The current site integration committee has two members from all the centers in Rwanda (CIP, CIAT, IITA, and ICRAF ( 1)). CIP being the lead center chairs all the meetings and is responsible for convening meetings and other activities. We have also welcomed Humid and Tropics site coordinator from Rwanda Agricultural Board to be part of the Forum organizing committee. After the forum we will then plan on the future activities and the role each center will play.Eldad Karamura (Bioversity)The site integration process in Uganda is jointly chaired by Bioversity and CIP on a 2-year rotational basis, with Bioversity starting in 2016. A steering committee involving all the 8 CGIAR centres present in Uganda (Bioversity, CIAT, CIP, ICRAF, IFPRI, IITA, ILRI, and IWMI), was formed and held its first meeting on January 27, 2016. At that meeting the 1st Consultation Stakeholder meeting was fixed for 9 March 2016. All centres agreed to share the costs of the stakeholder consultation workshop. A second Steering Committee meeting was held on 11 February 2016, following which the chair and co-chair visited some key NARS stakeholders such NARO-Uganda DG and Makerere University. CIAT member consulted with the Uganda National Farmers' Federation, while the IWMI member consulted with teams in the Ministry of Finance. These consultation helped to collect secondary data and afforded us opportunities to interact with key stakeholders. The steering committee resolved that the first stakeholder workshop be co-hosted with the National Agricultural RTB participation in the national consultation through Bioversity, CIP and IITA. Initial discussions started with the NARS presenting their national R & D priorities while the CG presented theirs in Uganda. In the issuing discussions, it emerged that the NARS need to consult widely in their constituency while the CG need to develop their vision, mission, and other strategic objectives for Uganda in order to have meaningful discussions.Both the NARS and CG entities agreed that this is going to be a continuous process of engagement. It is also perceived as multilayered with different partners along the value chains in the food agri-business; must include policy and environment advocacy partnerships RTB and Humidtropics strong collaboration. A key number of research outputs and processes jointly produced. There are many examples of successful inter centre/CRP collaboration such as HarvestPlus, CIALCA, Banana Xanthomonas Wilt, etc from whichResearch Organization (NARO) of Uganda in order to enhance ownership by national partners. The third Steering Committee meeting was held on February 29, 2016 and focused on the plans for the implementation of the Stakeholder Consultation workshop; drew up the program, agreed on the discussion issues and the details of workshop outputs.Other staff members from the CRP working in Uganda are emaillooped into all communications regarding the CGIAR site integration process right from the start. We hold internal brief consultations to discuss issues on the structure and content of on meeting agendas and usually arrive at a common consensus.Minutes from these meetings are shared to all members of the steering committee through whom information is shared with respective centre teams. In addition, we are collecting information from partners and stakeholders and we hope to build this information into sharable data about our site. Materials collected so far include: CGIAR major partners/collaborators in Uganda. documents that highlight national development priorities in Uganda. CGIAR research work in Uganda.The CGIAR site integration committee has so far not reached a stage of discussing potential bilateral project or W1/2-funded activities planned in Uganda for joint activities amongst CRPs. However, in our discussions, we noted that for several CRPs operational in Uganda, there are already several clusters of centres collaborating in one or more of the CRPs and sharing sites among themselves and with NARS. The Humidtropics Uganda action sites of Mukono-Wakiso and Kiboga-Kyankwanzi field sites seem to be common sites in which many CGIAR centres are currently working including ILRI, CIP, IITA, Bioversity, ICRAF and lessons can be drawn to build truly CRP programs. Joint publications will require agreements on authorship and copy right issues. The engagement could be extended to our NARS partners. Geographical sites: Central Uganda (Mukono, Luwero and Kiboga districts); RTB overlaps with HT.The Site Integration meeting identified NARO-Uganda, Makerere University, Uganda Christian University, World Vision. A credible set of good examples of shared research sites is documented and available This is already happening informally but can be formalized. The definition of 'site' will need to be agreed; is it based on the political boundaries or on agroecologies (hence cutting across borders)? A number of Centers are already sharing research sites under Humid Tropics and RTB-banana; ICRAF has common sites with ILRI on dairy in central and eastern Uganda; and with CIFOR and CAIT under sentinel landscapes. It makes a lot of sense to converge both at field research and policy engagement levels in order to strengthen interdisciplinary/sectoral approaches on the one hand and policy engagement on the other 6. Next steps:  There is a framework in place to facilitate effective site integration but there is no specific financial support to make it happen.  There is a need to develop CG country-specific strategic objectives, subtended by RBM tools and approaches to provide rallying focus for the CRPs in the country.  Cross-cutting activities such as gender and other systems work should be internally coordinated and information collected and shared to cut costs.  Although many CRPs and W3 projects are already sharing facilities and sites (with NARS), there is room for improvement. Some arrangements should be reached with partner NARS so that similar tools are used to collect data and data sharing made possible.Define steps taken so far (March 2016) to establish national level engagement with other CRPs towards site integration Define plan and schedule through which your CRP will provide relevant elements for development of CGIAR site integration in this countryCIAT. Furthermore, it was noted that centres were already sharing laboratory facilities along with NARO-Uganda institutes.The workshop on March 9, 2016 will lay the foundation for a long term engagement between the CRPs and Ugandan partners and stakeholders. Our intention at this stage is not to come up with a complete work plan/site integration plan during the actual meeting but to really listen to and discuss with partners and stakeholders about the development priorities for Uganda; what the various stakeholders and partners are doing themselves to meet those priorities and goals; and exploring what the opportunities are for partnership, alignment and working together towards these goals. The outputs of the meeting will guide the development of our site integration plans while informing the CRP II process. Sharing CRP and center program plans for Uganda, to identify opportunities for alignment, co-location and sequencing linked to acceleration of data sharing both between CG and with national partner -customizing Open Access to Uganda.  Current research seminars, policy dialogues and other CGIAR wide engagement need to be strengthened to produce knowledge/policy briefs.  Communicating outcomes of these engagements need to make their way to projects/programs (bilateral and CRP) and even to SRF when updated. RTB represented in the Site Integration process:  All RTB centers are fully represented at the Site Integration Committee.  They have all participated in 4 steering Committee meetings so far.  CIAT, IITA and Bioversity were already working together in the framework of CIALCA Coordination internally:  There is Group email where at least two people from the 8 centers subscribe;  Every center representative is expected to be the link pin to the mother center for information flow about our discussions to provide feedback.Peter Setimela (CIMMYT)The first step towards site integration was the establishment of a steering committee composed of representatives from CIMMYT, ILRI, WorldFish, HarvestPlus, CIAT, IITA, Bioversity, ICRAF, ICRISAT and CIP. The steering committee developed the agenda for the site integration consultation workshop which was held from the 9-10 February 2016 in Lusaka. The workshop brought together stakeholders from the CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs), Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, research agencies, academic institutions, donors, NGOs and the private sector. The consultative meeting came against the background of the launch of the Second Phase of the CRPs, focusing on integrated research Participation in the consultation since the beginning. Experience under the USAID-Feed the Future Programme project where IITA was leading the Consortium. We had ICRISAT (groundnuts +aflatoxin), CIP (Orange sweet potato), CIMMITY (maize, Simileza (Maize and Soya Bean/Cowpea farming system), Harvest Plus (Bio-fortification), IITA (cassava, Similesa, and aflatoxin). This project was implemented over 4 years in Eastern Province of the country. We had opportunity to work together. The meeting did not arrive at that point of identifying activities. These deliberations allowed the representatives to appreciate theDefine steps taken so far (March 2016) to establish national level engagement with other CRPs towards site integration Define plan and schedule through which your CRP will provide relevant elements for development of CGIAR site integration in this country agendas to more effectively contribute to the objectives and targets set by the Strategic and Results Framework of CGIAR and also to align the CRPs research agenda with national agricultural priorities in Zambia.From the workshop, the participants identified key elements that would lead to successful site integration, the key elements are summarised under the headings of: core values, administration and management, technical, communication and resource mobilisation in the workshop report. Furthermore, participants identified key activities that would be required to bring about site integration and which areas they would like to proceed in partnership with the CGIAR and CRPs. The Zambian National Agriculture Investment Plan (NAIP) provided a basis for the discussions and is key in ensuring the alignment of the research and development priorities in the Zambia agricultural sector goals.The key issues identified for site integration included the following: whole concept of site integration and the new thinking of CGIAR under the Second Phase of the CRPs. The critical next steps were agreed on and it concludes the following among others  Incorporation of the workshop inputs and agreed actions into the CRP proposal  Implementation of the ideas identified and discussed during the workshop  Feedback on the high level meetings to follow and decisions on Zambia Site Integration.  Developing a plan for site integration and soliciting buy-in No site has been identified yet. Collaboration mostly with private sector, such as investors who are called by the government to diversify the agriculture It is planned a high level meetings to follow and decisions on Zambia Site Integration There has not been pre-existing mechanisms where the CRP has been involved in to coordinate across centers/CRPs in-countryThe workshop also identified critical steps that will lead to the establishment and coordination structures to drive site integration in Zambia.    Mba, C., Guimaraes, E. P., Guei, G. R., Hershey, C., Paganini, M., Pick, B., & Ghosh, K. (2012). Mainstreaming the continuum approach to the management of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture through national strategy. Plant Genetic Resources, 10(01), 24-37.  Montenegro, J. D., Juarez, H., & del Rosario Herrera, M. (2015). Ex-post analysis of landraces sympatric to a commercial variety in the center of origin of the potato failed to detect gene flow. Transgenic research, 24(3), 519-528. 4) Kyndt, T., Quispe, D., Zhai, H., Jarret, R., Ghislain, M., Liu, Q., Gheysen, G., and Kreuze, J.F. (2015).The genome of cultivated sweet potato contains Agrobacterium T-DNAs with expressed genes: An example of a naturally transgenic food crop. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of USA, 112(18), 5844-5849. 5) Orbegozo, J., Roman, M. L., Rivera, C., Gamboa, S., Tovar, J. C., Forbes, G. A., Lindqvist-Kreuze, H., Kreuze, J.F., & Ghislain, M. (2016). Rpi-blb2 gene from Solanum bulbocastanum confers extreme resistance to late blight disease in potato. Plant Cell, Tissue and Organ Culture (PCTOC), 1-13. 6) Schiek, B., Hareau, G., Baguma, Y., Medakker, A., Douches, D., Shotkoski, F., and Ghislain, M. (2016)     FP5: Improved livelihoods at scaleEach program participant will be responsible for the curation, quality control and availability of its information products in OADMP compliant repositories. RTB will receive the support of the lead center Knowledge and Data Management team to coordinate and link access to these information products via the RTB Open Access Portal. As information products become available, program participants will be required to report these within the RTB M&EL platform (PMELP) for monitoring compliance with the time frames established in the OADMP. RTB will benefit from the established CGIAR Knowledge Management and Data Management communities of practice for addressing practical challenges. Legal challenges such as licensing, privacy and confidentiality will be addressed within the program participants and when necessary by the RTB IP Task Force. Budget has been earmarked for OA, and PMU funding will be allocated for the development of the infrastructure and implementation of specific collaborative activities. RTB FP and clusters will budget for data management and OA publication fees. currently budget is earmarked with around 0.5% of total.Intellectual Assets (IA) management will contribute to the delivery of research results to next users. The RTB IP Task Force is composed of the IP Focal Points of the RTB program participants.The RTB Tasks Force will have regular meetings once every quarter and extraordinary meetings whenever requested by an IP Focal Point or RTB flagship and/or RTB cluster leader or RTB Program Director and called by the RTB Compliance and Intellectual Assets Manger, who will assure proper interaction and communication with the RTB PMU.There will be one in-person meeting per year during the CGIAR IP/Legal Network annual meeting as a one day side event (subject to availability of funding)There will be 3 further online meetings a year to complement the in person meeting.The objective of the RTB IP Task Force is four folds: To review various IA developments (pipeline) at cluster level at different program participants and provide feedback on available options for compliance and delivery strategy. To act as a resource group for the RTP program participants, Program Director, flagship and cluster leaders. To create an enabling cross learning environment from the expertise and experiences of the program participants and their IP Focal Points. To provide reasoned opinions on actual or potential disagreements on IP related matters upon request of RTB governance bodies.The proceedings of the meeting will be reported in writing to the RTB Program Director for communication as appropriate to the relevant flagship and cluster leaders.Upon request of one of the participants on a cases by case basis, certain issues or documents may be reviewed by the RTB IP Task Force on a confidential basis.At its first meeting, the RTB IP Task Force may adopt its rules of procedure and modifies these thereafter upon confirmation of the IP Focal Points representing the simple majority (50% +1) of program participants. Communication and knowledge management tools and approaches will be integrated across the program and serve two primary functions: promoting the program externally to raise its visibility and increase accountability among key stakeholders, and supporting the achievement of research and development impact at the Flagship Project (FP) level. This documents describes the program's approach to communication and knowledge management in Phase II, building on channels and products developed in Phase I.At the program level, communications aims to achieve the following objectives: Highlight the program's contributions towards achieving the CGIAR Strategy and Results Framework 2022 targets, and alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals to demonstrate accountability. Promote RTB's scientific progress, process and results -emphasizing the unique potential of root, tuber and banana crops to reduce poverty, improve livelihoods and food and nutrition securityto key audiences. Promote a positive image of root, tuber and banana crops in donor and program countries and position them as key crops for future investment and research based on their nutritional qualities and climate resilience to bring about a higher level of media, public and political support. Position RTB as a thought leader, and leading authority on knowledge and research about root, tuber and banana crops. Disseminate RTB scientific results to key audiences through tailored communication products and channels, including making program publications, documents and knowledge products including databases visible and accessible as per the CGIAR Open Access Policy (see 1.13). Foster a strong program team through effective internal communication, including developing and supporting knowledge sharing platforms, processes and exercises for program partners, FPs and communities of practice.At the FP level, communications tools and approaches will be utilized to help achieve specific objectives across the program's five FPs. Communications will (1) support the delivery, uptake and adoption of knowledge, practices and/or technologies by stakeholders specific to each cluster; (2) support policy influence through generating evidence-based products and facilitating dialogues with decision makers at local, national and regional levels; (3) support knowledge sharing and learning mechanisms to connect partners and/or stakeholders and strengthen RTB research.Primary audiences include (1)  (5) regional and international media; (6) the general public interested in issues of food security. Secondary audiences for the program, who are influenced by primary audiences and thereby contribute to achieving our communication goals include stakeholders in program countries, such as extension workers, farmer's associations and farmers. These audiences of key stakeholders are identified in the program's impact pathway and theory of change (see 1.3), and partnerships and comparative advantage strategy (see 1.8).Key messages that articulate and synthesize the program narrative will be revised in Phase II together with FP leaders, the Management Committee, Independent Steering Committee and the PMU, and embedded throughout internal and external communication products.Key program level communications activities will include: Utilize and/or manage international events and conferences (e.g. WCRTC, GCARD3, ISHS-ProMusa symposia) to raise awareness and strengthen the position of RTB as a thought leader, as well as to support and strengthen RTB's connection with networks of root, tuber and banana research and development professionals, and engage in policy dialogue among other objectives. Produce communication products that demonstrate the program's scientific process, progress and success, such as success stories, case studies, briefs, infographics, blogs and annual reports. Continue to promote and share program information, communication and knowledge products through channels including the website, social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn), SlideShare and the quarterly e-newsletter. Update and maintain the RTB website 6 as the online hub for the program to make RTB documents, information, and Open Access (OA) publications and databases accessible and visible. Support RTB Open Access initiatives through (1) integrating the RTB OA Portal in to the RTB website;(2) drafting and disseminating OA guidelines and processes; (3) conducting an audit of current RTB publications in CGSpace and updating metadata and acknowledgements as required. Media engagement at regional and international levels to support key objectives including positioning RTB as a thought leader, improving the image of RTB crops as key crops for future investment and research, and promoting the program's results.  Knowledge and learning in communications will be shared with other CRPs via participation in the CGIAR KMC4CRPs online group and events, and the CGIAR Communications Community of Practice. Highlight RTB's participation in and contribution to the cross CRP gender initiative, GENNOVATE, via blogs and content for the Gender Network website. Contribute blogs that share learning from RTB's research process, progress and/or results for partner websites including CGIAR.org, and the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems' Thrive Blog -a platform for critical discussion among researchers, academics and development professionals. Update and monitor RTB branding to ensure a consistent and visible program profile.FP level communication activities will include: Communicating evidence of efficacy of research, technologies and/or practices through products including policy briefs to influence policy change at national or district levels. Support and promote existing knowledge sharing portals from Phase I, including the Sweetpotato Knowledge Portal and the ProMusa knowledge sharing platform (including its Musapedia knowledge compendium, Musalit bibliographic database, and Musacontacts contact database), which connect partners and stakeholders to enable sharing of learning, knowledge and resources between users. Support the development of new online community platforms including the RTB-University Gender Integration Partnership platform, the RTB Breeding Community of Practice housed under Flagship Project 1 (FP1), and the Seed Systems Community of Practitioners under Flagship Project 2. Marketing and branding campaigns for quality root, tuber and banana varieties and seed to promote consumer adoption of high quality varieties and seed. Facilitate, promote and document workshops and events. Support the uptake of new technologies and/or practices through generation of tailored knowledge products such as farmer-to-farmer training videos, training manuals and media engagement with local press such as TV and community radio. Produce knowledge products on regulatory requirements for non-conventional breeding to be disseminated to NARS and breeders, under FP1.RTB will implement a harvesting interface which will use metadata to harvest and index RTB knowledge products from RTB Program Participants' open access repositories. Communications, drawing on the resources of the Lead Center Open Access and Data Management team, will create a Publication and Acknowledgement Guidelines document to provide adequate information for Program Participants regarding metadata input for harvesting for Open Access databases (see 1.13). The guidelines will be disseminated to program partners and made visible on the RTB website. Compliance with the guidelines will be a contractual requirement for the Program Participants. The RTB website will host the RTB Open Access Portal making program knowledge products visible and accessible to key audiences, along with the RTB Open Access Toolkit, including policy documents, training videos, donor open access information and regularly updated Open Access publisher information.Adequate financial and human resources will be allocated to achieve the program's communication goals at both the CRP and FP levels. The RTB communications specialist will coordinate the program's communications efforts, working with consultants and interns, and communication focal points in the lead and partner centers, drawing on their capacities and sharing lessons learned to grow RTB communications. Additionally, the lead center will provide information technology, library and graphic design services, and support for RTB program communications and knowledge management will be included in lead center staff work plans to ensure ongoing commitment.Communications activities at the FP and cluster level will be implemented by FP and cluster teams, drawing on human resources in partner organizations, and contracting specialist agro-communications consultants and organizations (AgroInsight, Access Agriculture, Shamba Shape Up) where necessary.Key performance indicators (KPI) for the program level communications will be identified to monitor, evaluate and improve the program's communications activities, in conjunction with surveys for selected key audiences. An annual communications report containing achievements, lessons learned and KPI results for program level communications will be shared with RTB communication focal points to promote accountability, and knowledge sharing and learning for communications.In Phase I surveys were utilized to draw feedback on program level communications from stakeholders including RTB scientists, partners and communication focal points in partner centers. Surveys were also used to conduct a comprehensive, large-scale impact review of the ProMusa knowledge sharing platform in 2013. Surveys will be continued to be used in Phase II to understand how RTB communication products and channels are used and assess the needs of RTB audiences.Updates to the RTB website and in particular integration of the Open Access Portal will enable the monitoring of new data in Phase II, namely for publication downloads.KPIs will include, but are not limited to: The proposal document and delivery flagship projects 2, 3 and 4, presents detailed tables (See Section 2, Table FP2. 2.,Table FP3.2.,and Table FP4.2.) with targets disaggregated by sub-IDO and by cluster.Step 2: Aggregation of cluster level targets at the flagship project level In brief: Within each flagship project, contributions of different clusters to the same sub-IDO were aggregated. Figures were aggregated first at the country level assuming no overlaps in terms of beneficiaries between potato and other RTB crops and assuming an overlap of 90% between banana/ plantain, cassava, sweetpotato and yam. Figures calculated per each country were summed up to obtain an aggregated target per sub-IDO and per Flagship.When defining targets for higher levels (flagships and program), potential estimation biases with multiple crops were considered. RTB deploys its efforts in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. RTB crops are key staple crops in many countries and in some cases are planted together in agri-food systems. In order to reduce any double counting of the expected benefits, the overlap of different crops in the same system was taken into account while aggregating figures. In those countries where more than one cluster was expected to contribute to development outcomes, the number of beneficiaries was calculated by considering the following assumptions 1) the total number of potato-related beneficiaries (this is grown at higher altitudes/cooler latitudes than the other crops with less overlap), 2) the highest number of beneficiaries related to one of the other four crops (ie bananas, cassava, sweetpotato or yam) and 3) 10% of the total number of beneficiaries related to the remaining crops in that country due to the fact that all crops except potato are cultivated in similar agroecologies.A first level of aggregation was obtained with figures presented by sub-IDO and flagship (See Section 2, Table FP2.2., Table FP3.2., Table FP4.2.). Due to its strong learning and support nature, FP5 has a theory of change that combines direct contributions to (sub-)IDOs and indirect contributions through synergies and linkages with other delivery flagships. Since FP5 interventions will be concentrated in countries selected for site integration, these countries were considered for estimating targets. As FP5 will integrate and enhance impacts across crops Based on WHO country profiles on maternal and perinatal health, the percentage and the total number of women aged 15-49 years as a sub-set of the group of beneficiaries was calculated for target 2.3 in 10 targeted countries were estimated. Based on FAOSTAT data on prevalence of food inadequacy (%) (3-year average) (2011-2013) (Suite of Food Security Indicators, FAOSTAT, 2015) and assuming that prevalence of food inadequacy for women aged 15-49 years is comparable with prevalence of food inadequacy for the total population in the same country, the total number of women aged 15-49 years suffering from food inadequacy was calculated.It was assumed that half of the women aged 15-49 years who will benefit of RTB-related interventions will improve their diet quality and will consume daily an adequate number of food groups. Based on these assumptions target values (expressed as %) for each country and at the CRP level were determined.Number of ha under sustainable management practices estimated in FP3 and FP5 were considered. As targets estimated for FP5 are expressed as additional benefits due to adoption of system innovations, contributions at the CRP level coincide with the sum of flagship targets.","tokenCount":"17588"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b96eaa111ca6623eaba83b4d6ae181cd","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/114a7515-def7-46dd-adf5-037450934ec9/retrieve","id":"1814904182"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f405571b-c0a0-4894-b70b-3b2f261dbe95","pagecount":"25","content":"Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above. The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used.Editing, design and layout-ILRI/Ochago Robert Cover photo-Caption (photo credit: ILRI/Ochago Robert).The CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish (CRP 3.7) identified the smallholder pig value chain in Uganda as a high-potential target to translate research into major interventions that stimulate pro-poor transformation and generate benefits at scale. The program began by engaging with research and development partners, analyzing the pig value chain and its policy environment as well as characterizing smallholder pig production and marketing practices in Uganda. These activities were done as part of a project entitled \"Catalyzing the emerging smallholder pig value chains in Uganda to increase rural incomes and assets\", which is funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), jointly with the European Commission (EC).Results from the value chain assessment revealed that feeding is one of the main constraints in smallholder pig production systems, due to seasonal variability in availability and quality of feeds. In instances when commercial feeds are used as the basal diet or as supplements, farmers often do not have information on the nutrient requirements of their animals. More so, feed manufacturers formulate rations based on feed resources they can obtain at a relative low cost. In most pig production systems, the cost of feeds represents 60 to 80% of the total cost of production. Limited access to pig feed is a problem that has a disproportionate effect on specifically women who are involved in the pig value chain in rural areas. It is most often women who must expend large amounts of time and physical effort to source for pig feed in their households in addition to domestic and care work.ILRI in partnership with University of Guelph carried out a 6-month long randomized control trial in Kamuzinda, Masaka on formulated pig diets and determination of water intake from January through July 2014 as part of an IFAD-EC funded project entitled \"Catalyzing the emerging smallholder pig value chains in Uganda to increase rural incomes and assets\". The purpose was to determine the average daily gain, feed efficiency, and daily water intake of 100 female and castrated male local and crossbred pigs fed three different diets. The three diets were:• Control: bagged commercial feed Ugachick sow and weaner diet • Treatment one: \"Local diet\" based on fresh locally available ingredients (forages, fruit) and purchased feeds (fish, cottonseed, maize bran) • Treatment two: \"Silage diet\" based on ensiled sweet potato vine and tuber (ratio 70% vines to 30% tubers) mixed with fresh locally available ingredients (forages, fruit) and purchased feeds (fish, cottonseed, maize bran) Before information on diets can be disseminated to smallholder farmers, gender and cultural appropriateness, likelihood of adoption, and potential impact on farmers' livelihood, labor, and well-being needed to be assessed. It was important to understand the potentials of farmer acceptance of pig diet and water regime interventions; tease out possible constraints, opportunities and risks in role and labor allocation in the new feed diet use, decision making and control over pig production and proceeds from sales, ownership and access to inputs for pig feeding and land; and benefits to new diets use to gain a better understanding of men and women's roles in pig production and the anticipated impact of feeding on pig production. Central to this was gathering feedback from men and women separately and investigating gender differences related to pig feeding, rearing and sales. Basing on the recommendations therefore up scaling with the deliberate effort to include men and women as key stakeholders in feed research would be done.Participants were invited to attend a workshop outlining the new diets the cost of the diets, and local pig water requirements based on the trial results. Twelve participatory research workshops of \"men only, women only and mixed groups\" in four sites of Masaka district. The main outputs of this exercise was to understand the potential impacts on farmers of using the new diets and to better understand pig production related decision making through a strategic gender lens.The workshop was organized in November 11-19, 2014 by ILRI/University of Guelph in partnership with the Masaka District Veterinary Office and supported by Livestock and Fish/ University of Guelph.This report therefore provides information about how the four-day training and feedback workshop was conducted, and highlights the process used for farmer training and conducting strategic gender research. It's hoped that the outcome of the workshop will be to learn from gender tools and adapt to generate research resultsThe training was participatory in nature. A power point presentation and mainly pictorial handouts (both developed in English and then translated into Luganda) on the subject matter were produced and used as a basis for facilitation. The first three days, began with an introductory session (opening ceremony), a power point presentation. Practical sessions on diet mixing and silage making were used while the rest of the day was for focus group discussions (FGD) with men only and women only. Women were divided into groups according to whether the head of their household was a man or a woman. In day four, 24 active participants from the previous workshops (8 men and 16 women) were invited to attend a final discussion. Three groups were formed and each included men, and women either from male headed households or female-headed households, or both male and female-headed households. This final discussion was held to clarify conflicting and ambiguous answers from the previous discussions. A verbal evaluation was undertaken on the third day of the workshop to get a feel of how the workshop went (level of achievement of workshop objectives) 1 IntroductionThe GTA tools were presented to the L&F team during a gender group meeting on October, 2013 at Addis Ababa by Paula(World fish).Natalie produced a draft tool to tease out gendered constraints in acceptability and adoptions of pig feed rations and water intake after linking up with Paula. Natalie produced the tools with the help of her supervisors from the University of Guelph. The draft tool produced was edited by Associate professor M. N. Mangheni, Dr. Emily Ouma and Natalie Carter and adapted for the pig value chain of Uganda. The tools were tested in Masaka district, Uganda to see if they can generate gender disaggregated data. Natalie and Emily organized a pilot test in the above district, made adjustments with selected facilitators before being used to train other farmers in form of a workshop.The event was about training pig farmers on the new pig diets and obtaining feedback and possibilities of acceptance of the feed and water recommendation using a strategic gender lens. These workshops were held at farmer's homes (pre-test only) and schools of Kyanamukaka, Masaka district between the 11-19 November, 2014 by ILRI team. The objective of the training workshop was to train farmers on the new pig diets developed and the results about growth, feed conversion, economics of the diets, and water requirement\". The audience was purposively selected from rural sub-counties and peri-urban municipality. This workshop was a collaborative effort between ILRI and UG with support from L&F CGIAR Research Program. The collaboration sought to support capacity building and institutional strengthening of ILRI to roll out programs to develop appropriate feed rations and undertake strategic gender research as one of the best bets in order to address the gaps identified during the SPVCA.The training needs identified during the VCA and the results from the feed trial served as the basis for designing the training and feedback workshop organized on 11-19, November, 2014 in Kyanamukaaka Sub County, Masaka district in Uganda. This report therefore provides information about how tool was developed; pre-tested and how training materials and questions were refined. The report is structured in six (6) sections. After the introduction, section two looks the processes, while the methodology for the workshop is provided in section three. The fourth section summarizes presentations with the next steps and evaluation being presented in the following sections. A number of appendixes are also attached. Participants were to attend a workshop outlining the new diets developed and the results about growth, feed conversion, economics of the diets, and water requirement, based on the trial results. Facilitators were to have been trained to run the training workshops and the focus group discussions.A total of 10 focus group/ participatory research events were planned following 3 training workshops. The groups would include; \"men only\", \"women only\", and \"mixed gender\", with 6-8 participants in each group. The participant selection criteria would be purposive to include pig farmers(owning one to two pigs) who are members of self-help/ farmer groups and those not member of groups. Women from female-headed households would meet separately from women from male-headed households. The farmers will need to own 1 to 2 growing pigs to be considered. Women will facilitate the women-only groups, men will facilitate the men-only groups, and one man and one woman would co-facilitate the mixedgender group.A short check list would be used to be used to categorize farmers into the different discussion groups as they arrive at the venue. The following details would be established: marital status, details of the household head (male or female), number of pigs owned, if they are members of groups or not, if the participants own or manage the pigs for someone else, how long it takes to walk to the nearest shopping center whether fresh produce and pig feeds are available, size of land they own, size of land they cultivate, what crops they grow, other livestock species kept, number of children they have, and details of other people are in the households.All discussions would be conducted in luganda, recorded electronically, transcribed, and then translated to English. Initial, transcribing and translating would be done by the facilitators following the discussions and finalized later by one or two Ugandan researchers based at ILRI. There will be a note taker to take notes in English during the discussions. Each seat in the circle will be assigned a virtual number (1 through 8) so the note taker can indicate which person made the comment and quickly assess if they belong to a group or not. The note taker would also record a cue for the recording so the notes and recorded discussion can be linked. For instance at 19 minutes into the discussion the person in seat #2 laughed (and perhaps stood up and exclaimed, \"A woman can never pick jackfruit\". The note taker would record \"#2 at 19 minutes, laughing, a woman can never pick jackfruit\".Overarching for the focus group/participatory research events is a comparison of answers provided by men, women (male-headed and femaleheaded households), people who do and do not belong to groups, and three groups at the very end that is mixed men and women to discuss any differing viewpoints between men only and women only discussionsOn the process, everything else went on as planned except the issues to do with assigning a virtual number so the note taker could indicate which person made the comment and quickly assess if they belong to a group or not. Due to time constraint, every participant was a signed a number i.e. one for men, two for female in male headed households and three for female headed households. This numbers were assigned based on the responses one gave at the checklist administration. These numbers were used as basis for FGD group allocations and there was no any record taken of any individual member remarks during the FGD. Also all members present were farmer group members.The training materials and Checklists earlier developed were pre-tested for one day at farmers home in Kyanamukaka. Seven women from male headed and male headed households attended. This being the first exposure to the training materials and tools by facilitators, Natal ie handled the power point presentation while Eve and Charles guided the participants through the practical sessions of feed formulation. In the afternoon, focus group discussions were held as per plan. Emily, Charles, Robert, Natalie and eve took turns in facilitating. The day was stru ctured as follows: 9-10:30 am-completion of brief checklist by each farmer (facilitator lead) and then Eve shared the day's outlook, introduced ILRI tea nans requested participants to introduce themselves as well. Power point presentation on pig nutrient needs, locally available resources, feeds to be cautious bout and pig water requirements and finally the steps in preparing a complete pig diet were made by Natalie and translated to luganda by Eve. Group photo and break was between 10:30-11am while a facilitated practical session on session on preparation of a complete pig diet and silage was held between 11-12noon. Focus group discussions and feedback on the developed feed and water recommendations were held after lunch and closure at 5pmPre-test highlightsOn comparison between the local diet and what farmers were offering to their pigs, farmers acknowledged that most of the ingredients were the same except were feed differently not the level of balanced diet. They would not mix or combine e.g. gave sweet potatoes vines adlibitum during periods of plenty, only chopped feed to be given to cattle. The aspect of measuring feed was not completely practiced. Participants were excited about the aspect and promised to try it out.Participants specifically liked the rationing aspect which to them would save a lot of time/labor and expenditure on feed. This means diverting these resources to other areas of need. They believed that selling a pig in six months compared to the eight and nine months they used to rear before maturity would lead to increase in pig population in the village; suppliers won't have a struggle finding pigs to purchase and consequently higher level of income for the family members thus improved livelihood status.Like the says goes, not everything that glitters is gold, participants did not like the fact that they had to purchase some feed ingredients which worse still are adulterated and requested to be availed with locally available alternatives. The participants were skeptical about adopting the new feed because of running into risks of resistance from their children who would shun the pig enterprise that directly competes with them on fruits such as Avocado and Jackfruit they grew up eating.Respondents also felt that in trying to pick up avocado and jackfruit from the trees, their children would risk falling down, could be hit by the falling jackfruit and also sap from jackfruit would dirten their clothes. They also felt that, chopping sweet potato vines and jackfruit, might lead to injuries from pangas/cutting knives. They however, said using ladders, and being careful while picking the fruits and use of chopping machines would reduce accidents.In terms of water recommendations, participants appreciated and accepted to use the recommendations, they acknowledged to have been wasting water and giving their pigs soapy and often dirty water. They regretted and expressed their willingness to change. They were however concerned that their pig would lose weight if they changed to the new water recommendations. This is because; these pigs have been used to having water adlibitum.Participants were guided to list their daily activities on a flip chart, they were given three sticky card of different colors representing the words \"usually/ emirundi egisinga\" \"occasionally/ oluusi\" \"never/cannot/ takikola\". The facilitator guided respondents to make a list of activities that you do each day on a flip chart. With the participants input, the activities were put into main categories of most important/major activities. The note taker wrote categories on paper in Luganda and put one in each basin. Each participant was given 24 beans to indicate one hour of the day. They were invited to put their beans in the basins to show how many hours they spend each day doing that activity. When the entire group finished the exercise, the number of beans in each bansin were counted and recorded. Based on this, figures participants were asked whether their time allocation to the current activities would change with the introduction of the new diet and if so, from which activities would they draw the time. They agreed that time allocation would change with the time previously allocating to soliciting for feed being allocated to growing more sweet potatoes to obtain vines to feed their pigs. Some time for leisure could also be reduced.From the groups it seemed like women spent their time mainly digging, cooking, doing housework, and taking care of pigs and children. It seems like men also spent time praying and digging, and taking care of pigs but the men also had some time for relaxation and listening to the radio which the women did not seem to mention.A story about a family who kept pigs was used to elicit potential responses. The story painted a picture of the characters sharing responsibilities at production, marketing and use of income from the pig enterprise. However shared responsibilities and decision making were seen at production and not at marketing and use of income from pig sale. Mr. Matovu (husband) was largely responsible for the sale of the pig and decided on the way income should be used.In the story, Mr. Mbidde sold the pig to a woman slaughterer. In some groups, men said \"It's said that those who slaughter pigs are cursed thus it's hard for men to allow their women to do such jobs\". In some groups, women said \"These days there are many women that operate butchers and Kalisizo village was give as an example. To the women, these days, jobs are universal so men or women could perform such tasks.Going back to the story, Mrs. and Mr. Mbidde agreed to spend the money on school fees, a piglet, and a new suit for Mr. Mbidde. Mr. and Mrs.Mbidde spent the money in the same way they agreed to, so there was transparency. We asked the groups if they had seen situations like this in the community. In some groups women said the story was farfetched and men and women don't want to discuss about their incomes because when men learn that women have money, men will not want to provide home needs. In some groups women said \" A woman might initiate keeping a pig in their home but when it comes to selling the pig, men want to take the money claiming it is their land\". In other groups women said\" Men might want to be bought a beer and a shirt with the money from selling the pig. Women focus on developing thier homes and meeting basic needs yet men tend to spend the money on useless things. The men explained that, It's very hard to be transparent about how the money from the pig sales is spent because some of them have more than one family. Thus when one tells their wife that this money is going to the other family she may not like it. One has to lie about it so as to keep the family intact. Despite this however, participants largely, agreed that women did most of the production work but made less decisions as regards marketing and use of income from the pig enterprises. This is because men were more exposed to information sources about markets, knew pig weight estimation and prices and above all willed power as societal privilege.Two Checklists earlier developed by the Ms. Natalie Carter, PhD Candidate and ILRI/ University of Guelph Joint Appointee were used as a template to make all necessary adjustments. The first checklist captured participants' details as basis for group assignment while the second handled specific subject domains. Adjustments were made in three phases: First, at ILRI office before heading to Masaka by PhD candidate and some ILRI staff (Agricultural Economist, Research Technician and a consultant in the Gender sphere).The second adjustment was made after pre-test on seven women from female and male headed households in Kyanamukaka in the form of focus group discussions. These modifications were made in consultation with the Masaka district Local Government staff while the last adjustments were made during training FGD facilitators.This tool was designed to capture participant details on arrival. Though it's purpose was very clear, adapting to the local context was not easy since for example the questions on land was as direct as \"How much land do you own?\", this was did not elicit appropriate responses because participants were scared of revealing secrets about the land ownership to strangers who might steal it at the end of the day. Other questions were well did not seem clear to facilitators especially in translating to the local language and so the following adjustments (questions/statements) were included (italics) while the rest were modified.Facilitator's name 2.Age range of: Question no. 8. At the community level do you see any possible benefits of using the new diets? Be sure to probe about how that answer is a benefit. For instance \"There will be more pigs\". Probe about how does that benefit the community?For same reasons as mentioned in the previous sub section, the sub heading \"Likelihood of adoption of giving water per the training\" was not appropriate since all respondents at the pre-test said they had not yet tried it out. The heading was the changed to \"Appreciation and acceptance of water recommendations\". Other changes made are highlighted in italics. Question no. 6. If you will not give the pigs the recommended amount of water, how much will you try giving them? This will not be asked if everyone says yes they would give the recommended amount.Facilitator signpost: Now we will talk about who does the work involved in feeding pigs.In advance we will prepare a list of chores required to make the diets (e.g. collect cassava leaves, chop sweet potato vines, pick jackfruit, and travel to the feed mill) and then have the participants add any other chores they might think of. These will be written on a flip chart along the y axis. Across the topic will be the headings men, women, girls, and boys. We will have sticky notes prepared with the words \"usually\" \"occasionally\" \"never/cannot\" Men Women Girls Boys Why is it that person who does it?Why is it not the other people who do it? Pick jackfruitGo to feed mill 2.3.2.4 Time spent on daily activities While we had hoped to have women and men do the activity time clocks for themselves, members of the opposite sex, and children we found it took too much time so we had to abandon this idea and guide them. The activity clock was not drawn at all but the beans exercise was used instead. Let's make a list of activities that you do each day. If needed the facilitator will probe and, (eg. sleep, school, fetch water, take livestock to graze, feed pigs, work in garden, rest, cook, do work away from the farm, go to market) and write these on the flip chart.With the participants input, put into main categories of most important/major activites. 4.Note taker will write categories on paper in English and Luganda and put one in each basin.The participants will be given 24 beans each. Each object will indicate 1 hour of the day. Invite them to come up and put their beans in the basins to show how many hours they spend each day doing that activity. Example if they sleep for 6 hours put 6 beans in the basin labeled \"Sleep\". 6.When the group is finished the number of beans in each container will be counted and recorded. 7.Make a list of activities involved in making the new diets just to refresh the participants' minds. Then group those into the main categories we made before. If you need to add a new activity it is okay. Question. If you try the new diets will it change at all how you spend your day?Facilitator will hold up the pieces of paper with the bean values written on them.If you try giving the amount of water we heard about in the training will it change at all? Group can discuss as needed. Only do this if they say water fetching is an activity they do.The gender issues in access to and control/ownership to land did not seem to come out effectively during the participants profiling at pre-test because the questions were direct yet farmers' feared revealing such delicate matters to strangers for fear of their land being grabbed. In addition, land was seen to be a key resource to new feed use and so digging deeper was seen as an important step. The team brainstormed and came up with a series of questions to help the researcher deduce the existing pattern of land access and ownership in the community without raising any suspicion. This is a new section and not part of the original tool2. Are there trees located on family land that you can just go and freely take the fruit from, or would there be someone you would want to consult with before taking that fruit?The need to ask questions about power and decision making that prompt participants into discussion/opening up on the existing situation in the community then slowly delve in with the individual household perspective. For example, have you ever seen this in the community etc. rather than saying \"what happens at your house?\". In addition, there was need to come up with an innovative way of capturing gender norms about pig production and pig feeding in the community. This could not be carried out through direct interviews but using scenarios to tickle participants. This therefore led to formulation of a pig production, marketing story of Mr. and Mrs Mbidde. The short story or case study was developed by Robert and later refined by Emily and Natalie to generate responses from farmer easily.Mr. and Mrs. Mbidde live in Luwero district. They acquired two pigs in 2013 and they are both involved in the management of the animals. Mrs. Mbidde goes to the feed store to purchase maize bran for their pigs after she asks Mr. Mbidde for the money to go. Most days Mrs. Mbidde collects and chops all of the feeds like vines, jackfruit and avocado and then Mr. Mbidde feeds and waters the pigs. Their pig grows very well and they are both happy with their pig enterprise. School fees are due in a week. Mrs. Mbidde goes to Mr. Mbidde and says \"School fees are due next week. Maybe we could sell the bigger pig to pay for the fees and with the leftover we could buy another pig to start saving for the next school fees. How do you see it\"? Mr. Mbidde says \"Yes we need to pay the school fees. So let's sell it. But the balance I want to use to buy a suit and new shoes to wear for functions\". Mrs Mbidde replies to him \"But you just got new shoes a few months ago so do you really need to have the suit and more shoes? If we don't get another pig to pay for school fees then how will be pay for them next term?\" Mr. Mbidde makes some noise for a few minutes looking annoyed but then says \"Okay we can buy another pig and I will be sure to buy the suit anyway\". \"Wonderful\" says Mrs. Mbidde. Then please would you start to move around tomorrow and bring some information about markets?\" That week Mr. Mbidde works very hard and finds a buyer for the pig. It is a women in the next village who slaughters pigs for butchers. Mr. Mbidde sells the pig to her. The family pays for school fees, Mr. Mbidde buys a handsome new suit, and Mrs. Mbidde buys a big piglet from her neighbor. They both feel happy about having sold their pig. 1. In the community have you seen situations like the one we heard about in the story? For the members of female-headed households have them reflect on how this process would happen for them. For instance would they be the ones to move around and find markets or do they have someone do it for them? Is there someone else who might help them with the labour for instance some hired labourers or children at home? For Question 1 probe about these topics brought up in the story. A. Mr  Mrs. and Mr. Mbidde spend the money in the same way they agreed to-transparency 2. Have you ever observed households or families when decision making is not as balanced as in the scenario? Probe to get descriptions of those situations. 3. Who normally buys the pig? How do they decide to buy one? (Probe for decide alone, in consultation with spouse, other family member etc). 4. Who normally feeds the pig? How do they decide what to feed it? 5. Who normally decides when to sell the pig? How is the decision made? 6. Who normally sells the pig? 7. Who normally decides how much to sell the pig for? How is the decision made? (For questions 35 through 28 probe about does this mean women can never be the ones that sell pigs or decide where the money goes?).During the presentation portion of the pre-test (the training) notes were taken about the questions participants raised about the material. The answers to these questions were then incorporated into the presentation to avoid repetition of these questions in the larger training workshops.Some questions after pre-test did not seem to be clear to both facilitators and participants and so refining and clearing focusing slowly become a necessity 3 Methodology for the Implementation of the WorkshopA purposive selection criterion was employed to pick participants from Kyanamukaaka, Kabonera and the Municipality sub-counties of Masaka District. Within each sub-county 2 villages were purposively selected-one within easy walking distance of feed stockists and another that was remote from feed stockists. A total of 6 villages were selected. The participant selection criteria was purposive to include pig farmers raising one to eight growing pigs, members of self-help/ farmer groups and non-group members. Four men and eight women were selected from each village, with half of the women in male-headed households and half of the women in female-headed households.The pig producer training and feedback sessions were conducted in the form of producer workshops through farmer focus group discussions in local schools in the sampled villages. All discussions were conducted in Luganda, recorded electronically and preliminary notes were taken in English concurrently. In order to identify farmers to participate in the trainings and group discussions, lists of all pig farmers in each village were prepared by the village head (Local Council 1) and district veterinary staff working in the sub-county. From the list, a purposive sampling strategy was employed to pick 24 pig farmers per village, based on gender and head of house hold types. Eighty eightpig farmers from 8 villages participated in the the focus group discussions. Although 72 participants were invited additional farmers came who were not invited and were allowed to stay since they met the inclusion criteria A total of 12 focus group/ participatory research events were conducted following the three training workshops with \"men only\", \"women only\", and \"mixed gender\", with 8-10 participants in each group. Women from female-headed households met separately from women from male-headed households. The focus group discussions were conducted by a total of 7 facilitators (3 women and 4 men) per site who were recruited and well trained on PRA tools and gendered value chain assessments. After being trained, the facilitators pre-tested the tools in 1 village in Masaka district for comprehension and timing estimations.. Women facilitated the women-only groups, men handled the men-only groups, and one man and one woman co-facilitated the mixed-gender group. Each group had 2 facilitators whereby the role of one of them was to lead the discussions while the other took notes. Following the pre-test, Natalie, Emily, 4 facilitators and 1 veterinary officer met to discuss and modify the training content and focus group discussion content and questions.A short check list (Appendix 1) was used to capture participants' details as they arrived at the venue as basis to assign them to different discussion groups. The following details were established: marital status, details of the household head (male or female), number of pigs owned, if they are members of groups or not, if the participants own or manage the pigs for someone else, how long it takes to walk to the nearest shopping centre where fresh produce and pig feeds are available, size of land they own, size of land they cultivate, what crops they grow, other livestock species kept, number of children they have, and details of other people are in the households. Establishing pig ownership details would help in finding out if pig ownership versus management impacts likelihood of acceptance of new practices and consequently adoption. Household details on the other hand helped establish if having family members to provide labour impacts the likelihood of adoption of new practices.In each village, training sessions began at 9:30AM (See appendix 3). Before the training session, local government (highest ranking staff member in attendance from the District Veterinary Office) welcomed the participants and the project team and thereafter introduced the project team and described the objectives and aims of the workshop. In some instances participants introduced themselves but this was not possible at pl aces where members came in late. In the morning sessions, a power point presentation was made. This included basic pig nutrient requirements, locally available ingredients p roviding those requirements, local ingredients to avoid or feed with caution due to pig health risk or anti-nutritional factors, pig water requirements, how to prepare two complete diets, and the relative costs of making the two diets depending on if fresh ingredients were grown or pu rchased . After this session, farmers were split according to their respective grouping at arrival for a practical session on how to prepare a complete pig diet using both purchased and locally available feedstuffs. The session also covered the preparation of silage and chopping and mixing processes to ready i ngredients for pig feeding. Each group was guided by the same facilitators assigned for the afternoon/last session-focus group discussions to begin developing a rapport between facilitators and participants.After the practical session the last session comprising different gender groups was organised as per the morning categorization. Three groups were formed, one comprising men and the other two groups were women from male headed and female headed households. Each group sepa rately, discussed the possibilities of accepting the diets and water recommendations; household pig feeding labour allocation; land access and ownership; gender norms and decision making and finally, intervention implementation. All the topics were discussed in relation to the diets and water re commendations. The sessions often ended in the evening at about 5.00PM with a vote of thanks from the local leadership. Mixed methods were used during the worksho p session. These included: Participant observation, brainstorming, free-listing, proportional piling, a hypothetical scenario/story question and answer, use of sticky notes applied to charts, hands-on practical sessions, power point presentations and energizers.In each village, training sessions began at 9:30AM (See appendix 3). Before the training session, local government (highest ranking staff member in attendance from the District Veterinary Office) welcomed the participants and the project team and thereafter introduced the project team and described the objectives and aims of the workshop. In some instances participants introduced themselves but this was not possible at places where members came in late. In the morning sessions, a power point presentation was made. This included basic pig nutrient requirements, locally available ingredients providing those requirements, local ingredients to avoid or feed with caution due to pig health risk or anti-nutritional factors, pig water requirements, how to prepare two complete diets, and the relative costs of making the two diets depending on if fresh ingredients were grown or purchased . After this session, farmers were split according to their respective grouping at arrival for a practical session on how to prepare a complete pig diet using both purchased and locally available feedstuffs. The session also covered the preparation of silage and chopping and mixing processes to ready ingredients for pig feeding. Each group was guided by the same facilitators assigned for the afternoon/last sessionfocus group discussions to begin developing a rapport between facilitators and participants.After the practical session the last session comprising different gender groups was organized as per the morning categorization. Three groups were formed, one comprising men and the other two groups were women from male headed and female headed households. Each group separately, discussed the possibilities of accepting the diets and water recommendations; household pig feeding labor allocation; land access and ownership; gender norms and decision making and finally, intervention implementation. All the topics were discussed in relation to the diets and water recommendations. The sessions often ended in the evening at about 5.00PM with a vote of thanks from the local leadership. Mixed methods were used during the workshop session. These included: Participant observation, brainstorming, free-listing, proportional piling, a hypothetical scenario/story question and answer, use of sticky notes applied to charts, hands-on practical sessions, power point presentations and energizers.In alluding to the fact that there was need to observe strict measurements as far as feed rationing is concerned, one female participant asked whether it was possible for her to prepare a ration for five pigs instead of one. In addition she asked why she can't give feed once because the three times schedule would be tedious. Another general concern was about the source of quality feed especially now that in the training mukene 1 was pounded and not the one already ground. They specifically wanted to know the reason behind pounding whole mukene (sun-dried fish) and buying already ground mukene.In response, Natalie and Eve said it was actually possible to prepare food for all the five at once but fed at least three time day to avoid wastage and contamination. The duo said, already ground mukene contains some unknown substances that are not fish and so pounding real mukene eliminates adulterations issues. Eve requested farmers to purchase their feed from a trustworthy feed store.Another respondent sought clarification as to whether they could feed their pigs on sweet potatoes alone in times of plenty? The response was no because sweet potatoes are also food to humans. Some respondents were concerned about their children starting to compete with pigs over Jackfruit and Avocado. They also were very skeptical about the fact that, some of the ingredients used are seasonal, what would happen during the dry season? They also asked whether there was a way of completely substitute the purchased feed ingredients with those locally available. Farmers also sought to know, how much silage should be feed to pigs? Why pig would be given leaves of papaya and not fruits? All these questions were answered. The answer was that the diets were formulated to be balanced so substitutions are not recommended. On the topic of seasonal availability, participants were told that a later part of Natalie's PhD is to produce more diets based on seasonal availability, and which would minimize human/pig food/feed competition. The diets presented at the workshop were the two that were validated during the feed trial.Sessions two discussed the processes involved in preparation of a local diet. The economics in pig business were shared before the practical session. This involved, comparing piglets fed on three different diets with the local diet included. Results showed that raising a piglet to market weight could be attained in six month(table 1) at an average cost of 280,000/= 2 (103USD)- A step-by-step approach was adopted for practical exercises to offer hands-on experience for p articipants in their respective groups of \"men only\", \"women from male headed households\" and \"female headed households\". The session was conducted informally in that participants were allowed to seek clarification at any time of the session, ask questions to share their own experience. Two facilitators lead each group in chopping; measuring and mixing each of the required pig feed ingredients. Participants were actively involved in doing all of these tasks. Facilitators also drew their attention to appropriate instructions in the trainings hand-out in order to familiarize participants with that material.The complete feed diet preparation (photo credit: ILRI/Ochago Robert) 5Finally, session three dealt with obtaining feedback from participants about the feeds and water requirement. The sessi on employed several methods in a group setting. Participants were told stories, used proportional piles and sticky notes as aids in answering questions, to ke ep participants active and engaged. All sessions were facilitated printed copy of the toolsOn comparison between the local diet and what farmers were offering to their pigs, farmers listed some similarities and some differences as well as challenges and risks they thought may be involved in using the new diets, gave feedback about what they were feeding and how it differed or was the same as the diets. Most participants carried the already prepared diets to give to their pigs. Some days into the workshop feedba ck trickled in revealed that pigs accepted the feed.Participants were guided to list their daily activities on a flip chart, they were given three sticky card of different colors representing the words \"usually/ emirundi egisinga\" \"occasionally/ oluusi\" \"never/cannot/ takikola\". The facilitator guided respondents to list of activities done each day and these were recorded on a flip chart. With the participants input, the activities were put into main categories of most important/major activities.The note taker wrote the categories on paper in Luganda and put one in each basin. Each participant was given 24 beans to represent one hour of the day. They were invited to put their beans in the basins to show how many hours they spend each day doing that activity. When the entire group finished the exercise, the number of beans in each basin were counted and recorded. Based on these figures participants were asked A fictional story about a Ugandan family who kept pigs was used to elicit potential responses. The story painted a picture of the characters sharing responsibilities at production, marketing and use of income from the pig enterprise. However shared responsibilities and decision making were seen at production and not at marketing and use of income from pig sale. Mr. Mbidde (husband) was largely responsible for the sale of the pig and decided on the way income should be used. In the story, Mr. Mbidde sold the pig to a woman slaughterer. Participants had varying responses about the suitability of a woman slaughtering pigs.Going back to the story, Mrs. and Mr. Mbidde negotiated and eventually agreed to spend the money on school fees, a piglet, and a new suit for Mr. Mbidde. Mr. and Mrs. Mbidde spent the money in the same way they agreed to, so there was transparency. We asked the groups if they had seen situations like this in the community. Participants had strong reactions to this part of the scenario and answers provided by men and women varied considerably. Participants also outlined some gender differences in roles and responsibilities related to pig production and sales although answers provided by men and women were at times conflicting. These conflicting answers were further investigated during the mixed gender groups.Under this section farmers were asked about access to land and about ownership of land, as well as decision making ability over land use.Participants revealed some gender differences in access to land and land ownership.Intervention implementation was seen to be possible at both individual and group levels. Individual interventions 1. Growing required crops for local ingredients 2. Making/ preparation of local diet Group interventions1. As a group, joint effort in making silage which can be divided among members to be fed to pigs 2. As a group, members can easily save money and attract a reliable input supplier in their community from who they would transact. These transactions would also be at a check off system.Participants came up with several action points.Need to work in groups/form or join co-operatives.Donor support especially in purchase of feed chopping machines and creating a linkage between pig farmers and reliable input suppliers 3.Startup VSLAs or SACCOS to cater for the financial needs of the community 4.Participants advocated for collective marketing so as to avoid being cheated.More training on improved pig farming techniques. 6.Trainings that deal with family harmony and collective action neededParticipants expressed their heartfelt gratitude to the ILRI for the support in organizing the workshop. They noted that the workshop has strengthened their knowledge on pig feeds. However there were expressions of regret about the duration of the training workshop. It was felt that one day would was not a duration to deepen their knowledge on feed issues further. No suggestions were given for future workshops.They were also very appreciative of the methods used by the facilitators. They said the participatory approaches used at all levels of the training had invigorated them and enhanced their willingness to acquire knowledge. They therefore pledged their commitment to utilize the skills and knowledge acquired in improving their pig enterprises and training others.Representing the local government, Dr. Sserwada thanked ILRI and the facilitators for a well-planned and successful training in Masaka. He also thanked participants for being attentive and appreciated their willingness to learn and give feedback. He counted them lucky for being chosen among many for such a workshop. He encouraged participants to be knowledge ambassadors.Representing ILRI and University of Guelph, Natalie Carter expressed her overwhelming satisfaction with the workshop. She said this was a dream come true. She recalled the start of the feed trials at Kamuzinda farm in Masaka which had culminated into the workshop. She thanked the District","tokenCount":"7616"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"37e6566f6efbb8beb89cfe86642974fb","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c2eb6000-55d0-4626-af56-78cf3b6d9e5b/retrieve","id":"-843971989"},"keywords":["Climate-Smart Agriculture","Livestock Productivity","West Africa"],"sieverID":"07479036-3a6a-4cef-a67b-1cab9b4ab24a","pagecount":"53","content":"The livestock sector is one of the major contributors in agriculture, by some estimates contributing up to 18% of the global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Of this, about one third is reported to be due to land use change associated with livestock production, another one third is nitrous oxide from manure and slurry management, and roughly 25% is attributed to methane emissions from ruminant digestion. Recent analysis suggests that developing world regions contribute about two thirds of the global emissions from ruminants, with sub-Saharan Africa a global hotspot for emissions intensities, largely due to low animal productivity, poor animal health and low quality feeds. These numbers suggest, therefore, that there are opportunities for easy gains to be made in terms of mitigation in the livestock sector, as improving feed resource use efficiencies would improve livestock productivity as well as reduce emissions per unit of product. In this context, climate-smart agricultural practices are necessary in the West Africa region and in sub-Saharan Africa in general. Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) is an approach that provides a conceptual basis for assessing the effectiveness of agricultural practice change to support food security under climate change.This review focuses on livestock-related CSA options in West Africa looking at herd management, feed, grazing management, animal breeding strategies, manure management, and policy options.Dr Tunde Adegoke Amole, Post-doctoral Fellow in livestock feed resources with a PhD in forage production and utilization from University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria. He is currently working with International Livestock Research Institute, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. His current research work focuses on evaluation of feed resources in mixed croplivestock systems in West Africa and assessment of livestock-water productivity in the Volta basin. Email: t.amole@cgiar.org Dr Augustine Ayantunde, Livestock Scientist with a PhD degree in ruminant nutrition from University of Wageningen, The Netherlands. He is currently a Principal Scientist in livestock systems and environment at International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. He has more than 20 years of experience in participatory testing and evaluation of livestock-related strategies for sustainable intensification of crop-livestock systems in West Africa, evaluation of feed resources in West African Sahel, and evaluation and monitoring of natural resource use in (agro)-pastoral systems including conflict management.Email: a.ayantunde@cgiar.orgClimate change is one of the greatest challenges to sustainable development in general and food security in particular in recent history. Climate change is a global phenomenon.However, developing countries are more exposed to the hazards of climate change and are less resilient to them (Morton, 2007). Its negative impacts are more severely felt by poor people in developing countries who rely heavily on the natural resource base for their livelihoods. They will have to bear an estimated 75-80% of the costs associated with the impacts of climate change (Smith et al., 2009;The World Bank, 2010). According to IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) reports, even if we act decisively now, temperatures by 2050 will be at least 2 °C, and perhaps as much as 5 °C, above those of preindustrial times (IPCC, 2007;The World Bank, 2010), threatening sustainable food production worldwide.The livestock sector is one of the major contributors in agriculture, by some estimates contributing up to 18% of the global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Thornton and Herrero, 2010). Of this, about one third is reported to be due to land use change associated with livestock production, another one third is nitrous oxide from manure and slurry management, and roughly 25% is attributed to methane emissions from ruminant digestion (Thornton and Herrero, 2010). Dourmad et al. (2008) in their report classified the contribution of livestock production system to global climate change directly through three main sources of the GHG emissions: the enteric fermentation of the animals, manure (waste products) and production of feed and forage (field use). However, the contribution of livestock to GHG emissions varies tremendously by type of system, and there is scarce data for Africa. Recent analysis by Herrero et al. (2013) suggests that developing world regions contribute about two thirds of the global emissions from ruminants, with sub-Saharan Africa a global hotspot for emissions intensities, largely due to low animal productivity, poor animal health and low quality feeds. These numbers suggest, therefore, that there are opportunities for easy gains to be made in terms of mitigation in the livestock sector, as improving feed resource use efficiencies would improve livestock productivity as well as reduce emissions per unit of product.At present, very few development strategies promoting sustainable agriculture and livestockrelated practices have explicitly included measures to support local communities to adapt to or mitigate the effects of climate change. Activities aimed at increasing rural communities resilience will be necessary to support their capacity to adapt and to respond to new hazards.Identifying changes in agricultural practices especially in livestock production that result in effectively adapting to site specific effects of climate change and their potential barriers to adoption is essential to addressing interlinked challenges of food security and climate change.Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) is an approach that provides a conceptual basis for assessing the effectiveness of agricultural practice change to support food security under climate change. The aim of CSA is to integrate climate change in agriculture and make agriculture adapt to climate change and to reduce emissions (or mitigation) that causes climate change. Livestock production systems are considered to be \"climate-smart\" by contributing to increasing food security, adaptation and mitigation in a sustainable way. Any livestock management practice that improves productivity or the efficient use of scarce resources can be considered climate-smart because of the potential benefits with regard to food security, even if no direct measures are taken to counter detrimental climate effects (Ayantunde et al., 2015).CSA is not a single specific agricultural technology or practice that can be universally applied. It is an approach that requires site-specific assessments to identify suitable agricultural production technologies and practices. According to FAO (2010a) CSA aims at:1.Sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and income 2.Reduce climate change vulnerability (enhance adaptation),Reduce emissions that cause climate change (mitigation), while 4.Protecting the environment against degradation and 5.Enhancing food security and improved livelihood of a given society.While the concept of CSA is new, it draws on concepts that have been around for a while, such as sustainable agriculture and sustainable intensification.Environment-friendly development of livestock production systems demands that the increased production be met by increased efficiency of production and not through increased animal number (Leng, 1993). Feeding strategies that increase the efficiency of producing more from fewer animals and less feed will result in reduced greenhouse gas emissions (Blummel et al., 2010). Livestock production systems should be \"climate-smart\" by contributing to increasing food security, adaptation and mitigation in a sustainable way. In addressing climate change adaptation for livestock-based livelihoods, Ayantunde et al. (2015) listed key questions to consider:1. The possible opportunities for livestock-related mitigation through improved pasture management have been quite widely described (Conant andPaustian, 2002, Peters et al., 2012). In Burkina Faso, many institutions such as l'Institut de l'Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles (INERA) and Ministry of Animal Resources and Fishery have been involved since 1961 in the introduction and testing the adaptability of fodder plants. As a result, technical papers have been elaborated for 22 species that were shown to be promising (Sanon and Kanwe, 2004). Sanfo et al., (2015) also reported that the Ministry of AnimalResources and Fishery encouraged agro-pastoralists who have been settled by the government to plant fodder species.An assessment of the fodder bank technology developed by ILCA and its national research partners involved about 27,000 smallholder farmers covering an area of about 19,000 ha for the whole of West Africa (Elbasha et al., 1999). The main species that were promoted were Vigna unguculata (cowpea), Dolichos lablab, Macroptilum atropurpureum (Siratro), Panicum maximum, Cenchrus ciliaris, Chloris gayana, Cajanus cajan, Leucaena leucocephala, Stylosanthes and Brachiaria riziziensis. However, most of the adoption was concentrated in the sub-humid zone, perhaps due to the adaptability of the species. Cowpea is a species expanding in the Sahelian zone as a multi-purpose crop, the grain being used for human consumption while fodder is used for animal feeding.According to Kassam et al. (2009), an extensive cultivation of the high biomass grass, Brachiaria ruziziensis, was introduced to farmers in Burkina Faso under some projects to promote the use of this grass as livestock feed. Furthermore, farmers were encouraged to collect crop residues of several leguminous plants including Mucuna, cowpea and soybean for incorporation into livestock feed rations during the dry season. Despite these efforts, the dry season availability of feeds for livestock continues to constrain sustainable livestock production in the region.Some projects in Burkina Faso introduced a silage production technology to farmers and further organized training for women farmer groups in silage production using locally available herbage, such as grasses, cereals and salt (Bayala et al., 2011). For silage making, naturally growing wild grasses, mainly Andropogon gayanus, Brachiaria ruziziensis, Digitaria ciliaris Echinocloa and Pennisetum pedicullatun, were harvested at the early flowering stage when the moisture content is about 30 -40%. Green cereals residues of poorly developing maize, rice, sorghum or millet crops are also harvested for use in silage production. The herbage is then left to ferment and cure for about 3 weeks after which it is ready and collected for feeding to livestock. Through FAO/INERA collaboration, extensive studies in Western Burkina Faso showed that the opportunity cost of silage and salt lick production using this technology is low with a cost-benefit ratio of 527%, and therefore highly profitable and beneficial to small holder livestock farmers. Feeding Azawak cows on silage supplements resulted in a dramatic tenfold increase in milk production, while ewes fed on silage supplement maintained milk yields throughout the year (Bayala et al., 2011). Farmers quickly adopted this silage production technology not only to successfully feed livestock during the dry season but also as an income generating opportunity through the sale of silage and saltlick blocks. To widely disseminate this technology, group training courses on silage and saltlick production were organized in several villages not only to build farmer capacities to produce silage and salt licks, but also to facilitate promotion of farmer-to-farmer dissemination of the practice (Bayala et al., 2011). Thus, through the introduction of forage technology for the production of livestock feeds, farmers successfully increased the levels of animal production and enhanced their farm incomes. Furthermore, feeding livestock with processed Mucuna seed rations was reported to be highly successful in Burkina Faso (Kassam et al., 2009). Sheep fed on feed including boiled Mucuna seeds increased their weight by at least 35%, and milk production in goats was significantly increased (Kassam et al., 2009).Through adopting this processing technique, farmers were able to significantly increase their farm revenue from the sale of fattened animals as well as the production and distribution of Mucuna seeds to neighbouring farmers.Like many other feed intervention projects in West Africa, the above interventions were not setup with the initial intention of climate change mitigation. It is therefore become difficult to assess the impact of these feed improvement intervention in the context of climate smart practices. Regular availability of forage seed is often the main challenge to projects promoting planting of fodder species.In general, the cultivation of legumes specifically for forage is minimal in the region. Fodder production in most cases requires relatively secured land tenure to ensure that farmers who invest effort in cultivating the fodder species retain the right to exclude others from harvesting it. As obvious as this may sound, it is a major constraint to forage development in many livestock systems, and one of the most difficult obstacles to overcome due to communal grazing. Many constraints have to be dealt with to overcome the low adoption of planting fodder species such as weak extension services, land tenure, cost of fencing materials, shortage of labour due to overlapping of the farming calendar with the main staple crops, credit and seed availability, uncontrolled bush fire and invasion by grasses and weeds.Improvements in feed digestibility can be achieved through the processing of locally-available crop residues (e.g. treatment of straw with urea) and by supplementation of diets with better quality green fodder such as multipurpose leguminous fodder trees, where available. Better feed digestibility leads to better animal and herd performance. One way is to manipulate the physical structure of feeds (to increase intake), for example, by making feed blocks or by chopping poor-quality crop residues to increase their intake (Blümmel et al., 2009).Combining the feeds produced by the household or acquired from neighbours, from common property resources or from formal market channels is necessary to better match the animal's nutrient requirements thereby increasing the efficiency of conversion of the feeds to liveweight gain or milk. Other method involves urea treatment of crop residues to improve its quality and digestibility and hence reduced enteric methane emission. Many studies have been done on improving their use for ruminant feeding, including physical treatments by chopping and treatment with urea or ammonia (Sanon, 2007).Intercropping forage legumes with cereals offers a potential for increasing forage and, consequently, livestock production in sub-Saharan Africa. This intercropping has been shownto improve both the quantity and quality of fodder and crop residues leading to better system efficiency (Ayarza et al., 2007). In such a system, the yield depression of the cereal grain should minimal, possibly not more than 15%, for it to be acceptable to the farmer (Umunna et al., 1995). The time of sowing of cereal and legume is critical for the yield of each crop. The indication from the few studies on time-of-planting is that sowing a forage legume simultaneously with a fast-growing cereal has no effect on cereal yield (Nandi and Haque, 1986;Amole et al., 2015). Legumes have a potentially significant role to play in enhancing soil carbon sequestration. The role of legumes in supplying nitrogen (N) through fixation is increasingly seen as important as and more beneficial in terms of overall GHG balance than had once been thought. Powers et al. (2011) reported increases in soil carbon stock when forest or savanna was converted to pastures (5-12% and 10-22%, respectively). Legumes are likely to have a role to play in reducing GHG emissions from ruminant systems. An approach to reducing methane emissions of current interest and supported by some initial evidence is the use of tannin containing forages and breeding of forage species with enhanced tannin content. In the context of maintaining N fertility, Nichols et al. (2007) have called for greater efforts to improve annual tropical legumes to complement species such as lablab (Lablab purpureus L.) and cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L.).Despite farmers' recognition of the potential contribution of forage legumes to crop-livestock farming systems in the West Africa, their integration is relatively slow. The use of forage legumes in many parts of the tropics is limited because they do not contribute directly to the human food supply. Growing feeds is a new concept for most farmers as they are used to collect natural forages from roadsides, weeding crops, fallow lands or forests. Some farmers also mention the fear that forages can become weeds. For farmers who are convinced of the value of improved forages, availability of seeds and planting materials often form a bottleneck.Grassland management practices have potential to contribute towards food security and agricultural productivity via increased livestock yield and reducing land degradation. Pasture land can be improved by improving vegetation community through planting high productivity, drought tolerant and deeper rooted fodder grasses and/or legumes (Branca et al., 2011) such as Superior Brachiaria bred cultivars (Mulato and Mulato II) and Canavalia brasiliensis, (CIAT, 2013). Controlled grazing through stocking rate management, rotational grazing, fallowing grazing to allow rejuvenation of grasses have been reported to improve grazing land, ensure surface cover, and reduced erosion while increasing fodder productivity (Branca, 2011).One of the main strategies for increasing the efficiency of grazing management is through rotational grazing, which can be adjusted to the frequency and timing of the livestock's grazing needs and better matches these needs with the availability of pasture resources.Rotational grazing allows for the maintenance of forages at a relatively earlier growth stage.This enhances the quality and digestibility of the forage, improves the productivity of the system and reduces CH4 emissions per unit of LWG (Eagle et al., 2012). Rotational grazing is more suited to manage pasture systems, where investment costs for fencing and watering points, additional labour and more intensive management are more likely to be recouped.Other grazing management intervention includes adjustment of stocking densities to feed availability. Most of the areas with high livestock densities experience land degradation and deforestation as a result of overgrazing the pasture land which encourages poor fodder production and increased GHG emissions. There is thus need to reduce the incidences of overgrazing and deforestation. This can be achieved by increasing livestock productivity so that fewer animals are raised to produce the required milk and meat leading to a reduction in the amount of GHG emissions. The interventions mainly involve keeping fewer but more productive animals in order to reduce the overall methane, nitrous and carbon dioxide gases produced and emitted from the livestock.However, there is need to address cultural barriers to grazing management since the local rural communities in West Africa regard livestock numbers as a measure of wealth and a form of asset to manage risks. Information on stocking capacity of rangelands is needed because of its implications on the sustainability of the resource and the performance of the livestock (Achard and Chanono, 2006). As a consequence of the limited knowledge on the stocking capacity, no appropriate grazing management decision can be made. Despite this general situation, the few available data have revealed that herding or rotational grazing is more efficient than free grazing in reducing resources degradation and improving animal performance as well as reducing conflicts (Ayantunde et al., 2000;Schlecht et al., 2006;Badini et al., 2007). The other major challenge to grazing management is the large scale livestock movements (transhumance) in the region from the dry areas to the wetter zones in search of pasture and water in the dry seasons.Combination of leguminous fodder shrubs and herbaceous legumes can be grown together with food crops with the aim of improving crop productivity and providing fodder for livestock. Trees and shrubs are planted on farms as live fences, boundary markers, windbreaks, soil conservation hedges, fodder banks, and woodlots. Leguminous fodder shrubs have high nutritive value and can help to improve the diets of ruminants while they can also sequester carbon. Forages from the fodder shrubs can effectively replace some of the concentrates and part of the basal diet of dairy livestock leading to increased milk production per cow. Ultimately, this can result in the reduction of the number of cattle on the farm and thus reduce the amount of methane emission from individual farms (Thornton and Herrero, 2010). Wider use of the right fodder trees in substitution for other feed options also provides mitigation opportunities through dietary intensification, tree carbon sequestration and savings through foregone concentrate and annual crop production and use. Trees also provide other functions important for climate adaptation, including shade for animals and, possibly, the provision of ethno-veterinary treatments to counter increased disease threats (such treatments are often relied on in areas with poor state veterinary services, especially in pastoral systems with poor infrastructure (Dharani et al., 2014).Following a series of experiments both on station and in farmers' fields in the four countries covered by the Sahel agroforestry network (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Senegal), a list of promising tree and herbaceous species susceptible to be used as fodder banks has been elaborated, taking into account soil conditions and rainfall (Bonkoungou et al., 2002). Over the last few years, a great amount of research has been particularly devoted to Pterocarpus erinaceus, a highly appreciated fodder tree growing naturally in Mali. The lucrative market that exists around this species in the vicinity of Bamako has inspired ICRAF and its partners to launch a special program on this tree. Preliminary results showed that P. erinaceus can be densely cultivated and yield enough leaf biomass to solve fodder problems during the dry periods in this part of the Sahel. In his study in northern Burkina Faso, Zampaligre (2012) reported that species, such as Piliostigma sp. and Faidherbia albida, were preferred and used by all ruminant species across West Africa Sahelian zone, especially the pods. Some of the leguminous fodder shrubs that have been tested and proven to have a high potential for improving soil fertility and that may be used in conservation agriculture include Gliricidia sepium, calliandra, Leucaena trichandra, Leucaena diversifolia, Chamaecytisus palmensis (tree lucerne), sesbania and Faidherbia albida. The non-fodder leguminous shrubs include Tephrosia vogelli, Tephrosia candida, Crotalaria grahamiana and Cajanus cajan (pigeon pea). Fodder trees have been traditionally used by farmers and pastoralists in extensive systems but fodder shrubs such as calliandra and L. trichandra are now being used in more intensive systems, increasing production and reducing the need for external feeds (Franzel et al., 2003). The most promising multipurpose species used in these systems are Gliricidia sepium and Leucena leucocephala as exotic species, Acacia senegal, Faidherbia albida, Prosopis africana, Pterocarpus erinaceus and Afzelia africana as native adapted species (Dowela et al., 1997).The nutritive value of browse plants has also been widely investigatedwhile leaves with metabolizable energy (ME) content between 3 and 5 MJ ME kg-1 DM can ensure the maintenance of sheep but do not allow for production, maintenance and production of goats may be provided by a pure browse diet (Devendra, 1996). A number of other tree and shrubs that can be found in crop fields across the Sahel region of West Africa have been shown to increase crop yields. For example, Piliostigma reticulatum and Guiera senegalensis have been shown to increase yields of millet and peanut by more than 50 percent (Bayala et al., 2011).In spite of these success stories, adoption has not been widespread in many parts of West Africa, due to a number of reasons related to the performance of agroforestry practices. In most documented cases of successful agroforestry establishment, tree-based systems are more productive, more sustainable and more attuned to people's cultural or material needs than treeless alternatives. In addressing the challenge of adoption of improved agroforestry practices, better insights are needed into the productive and environmental performance of agroforestry systems, socio-cultural and political prerequisites for their establishment, and the trade-offs farmers face in choosing between land use practices. These site factors are likely to vary at fine spatial and possibly temporal scales, making the development of robust targeting tools for agroforestry intervention a key priority in livestock-agroforestry research (Cheikh et al., 2014). An active area of research therefore concerns the preconditions that must be met for successful establishment of agroforestry.Another major limitation to these traditional agroforestry systems is land tenure systems which tends to encourage over grazing beyond their carrying capacity (ICRAF, 2011).Establishing agroforestry systems requires labour to be split between trees and agricultural crops, and managing these two components can be an overwhelming task to many households. But even when labour is available, planting and tendering trees, the benefits of which are not readily seen, may not be that appealing to some farmers who would rather use that extra labour for other activities. In the Fandou Béri area of Niger, the households who enjoyed abundant labour or had better access to land often had the more degraded fields because they tend to expand their cultivation areas or resort to alternative income generating activities rather than investing in soil conservation measures (Warren, 2002). A study on the adoption of live hedges in Burkina Faso also led to a similar conclusion since farming households with a lot of labour can afford to install dead fences, which are much more labour demanding (Ayuk, 1997).Other obstacles to the adoption of agroforestry strategies are the lack of support for such systems through public policies (Bishaw et al., 2013), which often take little notice of treebased farming systems. Consequently, agroforestry is often absent from recommendations for ensuring food security under climate change (Beddington et al., 2012) even though many practices have been shown to deliver benefits for rural development, buffer against climate variability, help rural populations adapt to climate change and contribute to climate change mitigation (Noordwijk et al., 2011;Thorlakson et al., 2011).Not all agroforestry options are viable everywhere, and the current state of knowledge offers very little guidance on what systems work where, for whom and under what circumstances.In most studies, how agroforestry will be of benefit to transhumance pastoralists who move from places to another has not been addressed. An example is the Fulbe in Northern Burkina Faso who were reluctant to give up on transhumance mainly due to existential and cultural 20 reasons, despite the fact that transhumance was associated with difficulties (Nielsen and Reenberg, 2010). In addition, many authors have reported the impact of browse tree in increasing livestock production in terms in meat and milk yield and reducing mortality as ethno-veterinary options. However, most of the studies only assumed reduction on GHG production as a result of improved nutrition. These studies have failed to assess the amount of GHG reduction as to basically identify best-fit species. Sanon (2007) mentioned that the evaluation of browse production is a complex task, especially for indigenous species in natural rangelands, marked by the diversity of species and the great heterogeneity in plant size. The constraints in browse biomass evaluation related to the time cost and tediousness of methods used has led to the development of allometric relations for indirect estimation of the production.Conservation agriculture has the potential to sequester soil carbon, thereby contributing to climate change mitigation (Corbeels et al., 2006). According to CCAP reports (2103), conservation agriculture was listed as one of the CSA best practices and technologies in sub-Saharan Africa. The practice of CA involves minimal soil disturbance, retention of crop residues as mulch on the soil surface and the use of crop rotations and/or associations (FAO, 2014). The beneficial effects of mulching with crop residues on the soil water balance (through reduced water runoff and soil evaporation) may enhance adaptation to future climate change, when rainfall is projected to decrease and become more unreliable (Scopel et al., 2004;Thierfelder and Wall 2010). According to Corbeels et al.,(2014), meta-analysis of CA studies in SSA showed that crop grain yields are significantly higher in no-tillage treatments when mulch was applied and/or rotations were practiced in comparison to only notillage/reduced tillage without mulch and/rotation. These results suggest that for farmers to benefit from CA they should be able to keep their crop residues as mulch on the soil surface.Additionally, rotation should be an integral component of their cropping practice.These two components of CA are, however, for many smallholder farmers in SSA the bottlenecks to adopting CA. Crop residues have several other uses on the farm, in particular as feed for livestock. Crop residues are the major source of livestock feed during the dry season.In many cases, legumes or other non-cereal crops gain limited interest, as ready markets for sale are often not available. In its Research to Action reports (ICARDA Report, 2012), several economic benefits of CA and effective ways to overcome the constraint of its adoption were discussed, yet the question of trade-offs on crop residues as the main livestock feed on the semi-arid region of West Africa remained largely unanswered. Derpsch (2008) suggested that one possible solution to the perceived trade-offs between livestock production and the adoption of CA is to plant unpalatable cover crops that livestock will not consume. However, many farmers have little interest in investing in crops that have no human or livestock consumption value, but do have tangible costs in terms of seeds and labour.Livestock feed resources in West African Sahel is largely dependent on exploitation of natural pastures in the wet season and crop residues in the dry season, therefore improved agricultural water management practices will invariably contribute not only to crop production but also livestock production through increased feed resources. Following this rationale, Rockström et al. (2002) give various strategies for improved crop water productivity to maximize plant water availability (maximize infiltration of rainfall), minimize unproductive water losses (evaporation), increase soil water holding capacity, maximize plant water uptake capacity (timeliness of operations, crop management, soil fertility management), and bridge crop water deficits during dry-spells through supplemental irrigation. Since agricultural systems are mostly rainfed in the dry areas, rain water harvesting (Vohland and Barry, 2009) techniques in rainfed systems such as in-situ micro-catchment strategies, small reservoirs and small-scale irrigation are essential to improve agricultural productivity.In-situ micro-catchment strategies aim at enhancing rainfall infiltration in the soil, improve soil water storage and limit top soil losses through wind and water erosion. They can be based on the construction of a physical barrier against run-off and/or on the improvement of soil water holding capacity through improved soil structure and soil fertility. Some of the in-situ micro-catchment strategies of relevance to climate smart livestock interventions include: Zaï and half-moon: Zaï is an ancestral practice developed in the Yatenga (Northern Burkina) to regenerate degraded and crusted soils by breaking up the surface crust to improve water infiltration. It consists of dug holes excavated in grids, with a diameter of 15-20 cm and a depth of 10-15 cm that store rainwater for plant growth and concentrate crop nutrients (Maatman et al., 1998). The excavated soil is put on the lower side of the hole, and organic matter (manure or compost) is placed in the holes (Barry et al., 2006). The technique combines water harvesting as well as nutrient management practices. It helps to minimize the diversion of water to where it is unproductive, and ensures that its utilization by the crop is as efficient as possible (Fatondji et al., 2005). Decomposition of the organic material releases nutrients required for crop growth. Biological activity, and especially the action of termites favors the development of soil macroporosity that improves water infiltration (Fatondji et al., 2005). Besides the supply of valuable nutrients for crop growth, the Zaï pits promote better infiltration of water locally. Since this water infiltrates deeper than usual, Zaï ensures that a sizable fraction of the water percolates to depths where evaporation losses are reduced. Studies on Zaï have been conducted in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Hassan (1996) reported millet yields of 400 kg ha-1 with Zaï in low rainfall years, compared to zero yields without Zaï treatment. Production increase can go up to 428% in some cases, as reported by Reij et al. (2009). In Mali, it performed very well and average yield for eight farmers was 969 kg ha-1 in the control (farmers' treatment) against 1740 kg ha -1 in the Zaï treatment, which represents a production increase of 80%. Besides the increase in grain yield, there is also increase in crop residues which serve as animal feed. Half-moons are half-circle shape water harvesting structures dug perpendicular to the slope and surrounded by downstream of so-called earth glasses prolonged by wings in stone or earth. Half-moons are used to collect surface water, stabilize soils on steep slopes and recover degraded soils. Half-moons allow for improvement of ground water reserves as well as increase in soil moisture from 20-40 cm depth. They improve agricultural production through addition of mineral or organic matter. In Burkina Faso, the technique is widespread in the Sahel region. Production increase varies from 49% to 112% (Belemviré et al., 2008). However, most of these studies have failed to quantify the increase in biomass production using these water management practices in absolute terms as against the normal cultivation practices. Earthen contour bunds: Earthen contour bunds were one of the first forms of field management, where small soil bunds are placed along the contour lines. It has been almost completely replaced by rock bunds or grass strips (Barry et al., 2006). Rock bunds/stone rows: Constructing rock bunds/stone rows is the most widely practiced technique to combat run-off and erosion by farmers (Barry et al., 2006). The challenge was always to follow the contour lines, especially where the landscape is flat. Sometimes, forage species such as Andropogon gayanus is planted along the stone rows to provide feed for livestock. Small reservoirs: This water harvesting technique refers to concentration, collection, and storage of surface runoff in ponds or cisterns for supplementary irrigation during dry spells (Douxchamps et al., 2012). It provides access to water during dry season for irrigation farming (vegetable production) and serves as source water for livestock in the dry season. However, there is potential for conflict in using the water for livestock and for crop production  Indeed, technologies such as Zaï, half-moons and stone bunds, combined with an application of organic/inorganic sources of nutrients, are promising climate-smart agricultural practices that could be widely used by smallholder farmers to maintain food production and secure farmers' livelihoods, while contributing to ecosystem services.Irrigated fodder for livestock feed is a relatively rare in the region, but has potential in terms of production of dry season feed for livestock. As can be inferred from the agricultural water management practices described above, building climate smart water-crop-livestock farming systems requires integrated approach, as the interaction between livestock production and the other components sometimes create win-win situations but also it creates trade-offs and potential conflict.Climate smartness adds another complexity to the  According to FAO (2013), there are a number of animal and herd management options for pastoralist and agro-pastoralist systems that can enhance animal productivity, improve feed conversion efficiency and thereby reduce enteric emission intensities. The plausible mitigation potential of these options could contribute approximately 4% of global agricultural GHG mitigation. These management options include: Blench (1999) describe how Fulbe herders in Nigeria, faced with a shortage of grass in the semi-arid zone, switched to keeping the Sokoto Gudali cattle breed, which copes well with a diet of browse, instead of the Bunaji breed. In a related study carried out in Burkina Faso, Sanfo et al (2015) reported that the main adaptation strategies among the people remained diversification of their livestock species and transhumance practice.Although, cattle remains their most important species, the small ruminants are becoming more and more important because they are less vulnerable to warming (requiring less water and food). For them, this is a risk-free strategy: the use of the scarce natural resources by reducing the risk of livestock losses during extreme climate events. The small ruminants play an important role in their livestock system by allowing them to meet their immediate social and economic needs (Malonine, 2006). Various species also have different production attributes and uses, with camels providing transport in addition to milk and meat, goats providing rapid rates of post-drought herd recovery, sheep providing seasonal income opportunities related to Islamic festivals, and camels and cattle providing prestige and social status in some communities (Sanfo et al., 2015). Among the Fulani, the principal pastoral ethnic group in West Africa, a shift from cattle to small ruminants will require overcoming a significant cultural barrier since cattle represent such a central part of the group's identity. Agro-pastoralism could be an alternative to shifting from cattle to small ruminants, a shift that represents a significant loss in material and financial wealth. However agro-pastoralism does allow pastoralists to produce their own grain, feed supplements, and/or cash crops, it also allows them to access the benefits of indigenous population such as schools, markets, health clinics, and political resources (Fratkin, 2012). Identifying and strengthening local breeds that have adapted to local climatic stress and feed sources is a breeding strategy that is climate smart option. Improving local genetics through cross-breeding with heat and disease-tolerant breeds has been viewed as one of the climate smart option for livestock production in West Africa. Within species, there are also differences in the capacity of different breeds to utilize particular kinds of feed. For example, Blench (1999) reports that the Sokoto Gudali cattle of West Africa specialize in eating browse and will feed on woody material that other breeds find very unpalatable.Among cattle in general, zebu (Bos indicus) breeds tend to deal better with low-quality forage than do taurine (Bos taurus) breeds, while the latter have better feed conversion ratios when fed on high-quality feed (Albuquerque et al., 2006). A number of breeds have been shown to possess superior resistance or tolerance to specific diseases or parasites. In many cases, such adaptations enable these breeds to graze in areas that are unsuitable for other animals. For example, several studies have shown that the ability of Kuri cattle to tolerate insect bites enables them to remain close to Lake Chad during the rainy season when other cattle have to leave the area (Blench, 1999). On a more local scale, species and breed substitution has already occurred in some production systems that have been badly affected by droughts in recent decades (Blench, 1999). Goats also have the advantages of being able to rear-up on their hind legs, climbing well and having mobile upper lips and prehensile tongues that enable them to pluck leaves from thorny shrubs and select the most nutritious parts of the plant (Barroso et al., 1995). Keeping browsing animals has certain advantages when feed is in short supply as they make use of forage that cannot easily be used by other speciesi.e. there is a degree of complementarity if grazing and browsing animals are kept togetherand because shrubs tend to provide a source of green forage during the dry season. Although many existing technologies in animal genetic resource characterization, conservation and breeding will be crucial for climate change adaptation and mitigation, research gaps exist, especially with regard to the physiology and genetics of adaptation.Breeding intervention as an option within climate smart livestock production has to be disaggregated. A number of studies has focused on breeding for tolerance of climatic extremes (Burns et al., 1997;Prayaga et al., 2006) while other have focused on resistance and tolerance to diseases and parasites (Axford et al., 2000;FAO, 2002;FAO, 2007).There have been some reports on breeding for feeding and nutritional adaptations to reduce emissions from the animals by improving feed conversion efficiency (less emission per unit of meat, milk, etc. produced) and reducing the amount of methane produced during digestion (FAO, 2010b). Overall, the nature of production system could influence the result of breeding intervention (Pilling and Hoffman, 2011). However, all the interventions are affected by the type of animal kept and the nature of the livestock production systems. Care is needed to ensure that production environments and animals remain well-matched to each other. Identifying the factors that make livestock breeds vulnerable to the effects of climate change (or other threats) may be a valuable means of identifying preventive steps that can be taken to reduce the risk of extinction. However, the factors involved would probably differ considerably from those in wildlife and might be location specific. As discussed above, breeds' capacity to survive the effects of climate change in their home zones is not simply a matter of their biological capacity to adapt, but also of how their management can be adapted. Capacity to adapt livestock management practices in response to climate change is, in turn, influenced both by access to inputs (external inputs and local natural resources) and by knowledge (traditional or newly acquired) of the local production environment. Animal manure management is defined as a decision making process aiming to combine profitable agricultural production with minimum nutrient losses from manure, for the present and in the future. Good manure management will minimize the negative and stimulate the positive effects on the environment. Gas emission and leaching of nutrients, organic matter and odour have undesirable effects on the environment. Efficient treatment of manure can reduce the emission of GHGs and raise agricultural productivity (Wambugu et al., 2014). In Niger, to exploit the benefits of urine and to minimize nutrient losses, corralling livestock on fields is preferable to the application of farmyard manure (Schlecht and Buerkert, 2004). About 13% of fields are reportedly corralled (Schlecht and Buerkert, 2004) in Southwestern Niger. The average annual rate of manure deposition on fieldbased corrals was 12.7 t DM ha -1 for cattle and 6.8 t DM ha -1 for small ruminants (Hiernaux and Turner, 2002). Because of these high rates, the aggregated corral area is about only 0.5-1.2% of the village cropped land in Fakara, Niger. However, the effects of such high rates are expected to last 4-5 years. In Mali, litter and household wastes, left-over from animal feed, groundnut shells and sometimes, animal dung are mixed as compost from June to March and are transported to the field in March-April (Harouna, 2002). In Burkina, manure is either collected from households and applied in the fields or applied through direct corralling of the livestock.There was a Presidential Programme for production of compost, and each year a national target is agreed upon during the Farmers' Day (an annual event during which the President meets with farmers to discuss the problems related to their activities) (Bayala et al., 2011). In his review, Harris (2002) reported factors that affect the quality of the manure used in semi-arid areas of West Africa which include methods for keeping livestock and storing manure. The paper reviews the strategies, such as night corralling and crop-livestock integration, which farmers employ to ensure that manure reaches their fields. The paper concluded that within the constraints in which smallholder farmers operate in semi-arid West Africa, manure will remain an important component of soil fertility management strategies for the foreseeable future. Appropriate interventions need to focus on improving manure management to ensure that the material which farmers so laboriously prepare and transport is of the best possible quality. The main constraints to corralling are the low number of animals with an average of 2.5 to 3.4 TLU (1TLU represents 250 kg live weight, equivalent to 1 camel, 1.43 cattle or 10 small ruminants) per farm and the lack of means of transport (Balaya et al., 2011). Yields obtained on manured crop field are always much higher than fields that are not manured.However the areas manured are very small (1% to 12.5 % of the total areas by holding) and this is also why farmers combine this practice with mulching and organic fertilizer.Other constraints to manure management are the inadequacy of forage, stealing of corralled animals and animal diseases. A proposed improvement is to collect and store forage at harvesting period to increase the duration of the stay of the animals on the plots (Harouna, 2002;Hassane, 2002;Kanta, 2002;CRESA, 2006). Trampling by livestock can also increase soil bulk density and decrease water infiltration rates and therefore enhance water run-off and soil erosion. In Madagascar, converting manure to biogas is considered as a better option for manure management as its provides the added benefits of an alternative energy source with fewer negative health impacts from cooking, heating, and lighting (Scherr et al., 2012). This option has not been well documented and practiced in West Africa unlike the other parts of Africa (Kipkoech et al., 2015). More widespread corralling of animals on cropland that returns urine could greatly reduce nutrient losses from mixed farming systems. This may require the provision of feed and water closer to cultivated areas and during longer periods of the year. Setting up mobile corrals and stallfeeding animals on cropland involves, however, considerable labour in harvesting and transporting feeds and water. If the trend in animal management is towards increased stall-feeding, then composting will have to play a greater role in minimizing nutrient losses. Compost pits that capture feed refusals, and manure and urine need to be designed to minimize nutrient losses. Low-cost appropriate implements to spread compost over the typically large cultivated areas of the Sahel are also needed. Another problem is the seasonal differences in the diet of grazing animals which also greatly influence manure output and its nutrient content. Manure output by grazing cattle during the rainy season (2.2 kg/animal/day) is twice as high as manure output during the dry season (Siebert et al., 1978). Likewise, the N and P concentration in cattle manure varies considerably by season (Powell, 1986). Wet season manure is more abundant and of higher quality. But it is largely unavailable to cropping, as animals are largely outside the cultivation zone in the wet season. Most of the farmers have little or no access to credit, micro-financing and/or insurance.\" (Mapfumo et al., 2015). This is because there still exists difficulty in managing trade-offs from the farmers' and policymakers' perspectives. There is often a disconnection between farmers and policy makers in the agricultural sector with respect to priorities for resource management. One of the underlying causes of this problem is the difference in objectives between the two groups. Prioritization of the three objectives of CSA (increased productivity, adaptation and reduction of greenhouse gaseous emissions where possible) is likely to differ among key stakeholders including farmers, government officers and policy makers. This has implications on how CSA practices are ultimately evaluated, and whether or not policy makers and practitioners at various levels will be attracted to the advocated CSA options for financial considerations. In order to make fodder cultivation more productive and adaptive while increasing the mitigation capacity, emphasis should probably be placed on the development and spread of improved dryland forage species. The efforts of new approaches such as marker assisted selection on forages could be exploited to produce grasses and legumes varieties which can sustainably support livestock production in the predicted uncertainties of climatic variability.Forage varieties with multiple attributes to overcome a range of biotic and abiotic constraints induced by climate change are needed. Promoting adapted pasture species will play a major role in reducing vulnerability of feed resources to climate change. This improves preparedness for harsh climate induced conditions on livestock production itself and thus substantially raising survival rates and livestock performance due to availability of feed resources (Assan, 2014).Livestock keepers need to have better access to information regarding the variety of plants that are available to them, and availability of seed needs to be increased through market development or through extension projects. Livestock keepers can also benefit from learning different techniques for forage conservation and identifying solutions that fit with the production system, although the most mobile herders who could benefit most from forage conservation may find the technique the least convenient.The starting point to improved rangeland management can be allocation of land to pastoralists for grazing. Allocation of land to pastoralist will encourage them to manage it and practice control grazing (Tumbo et al., 2011). Improving pasture will indirectly help to improve agricultural land by reducing the demand for crop residue removal to feed livestock. In presence of managed pasture and grazing land, the crop residues removal from farms will be reduced and the soil will be protected by soil cover and build soil organic matter (SOM) in the long run (CCAP, 2013).Long term adaptation strategies for livestock keepers include destocking or animal harvesting followed by migration and diversification (Tumbo et al., 2011). In other semi-arid areas, sale of animals (or destocking) is done due to drought. Other adaptation actions include conservation and storage of forage, and keeping more animals of resilient species (Tumbo et al., 2011). Therefore, animal culling, improved pasture, improved breeds and ownership of land for grazing and pasture can be promoted to wider livestock keepers and contribute to achieve CSA. Grazing lands can also be rehabilitated by planting improved grass and fodder trees but few studies in SSA are available on this aspect. These management practices are likely to result in increased carbon sequestration through the restoration of degraded rangelands and changes in land uses. The impacts from a combination of various interventions can greatly reduce the total amount of GHG produced by livestock.It is generally believed that farmers will be more inclined to adopt agroforestry technologies if these can produce immediate benefits. Therefore, even the agroforestry techniques designed to serve long-term environmental purposes may need to include short-term benefits to stand a chance of being adopted at a large scale. Furthermore, understanding the specificity of the Sahelian socio-economics is crucial in using agroforestry technologies.In addition, tree breeding may offer a unique set of opportunity for adopting tree-croplivestock practices. Breeding, selection and introduction of early maturing, drought-tolerant and high biomass yielding tree varieties may attract adoption. Breeding priorities for future trees need to be identified through close interaction between breeders, farmers and climate and global change scientists, and then the breeding strategies need implementation through appropriate investment.In the report of CORAF/WECARD (2012) deliberate association of ruminants with trees in pre-existing agricultural production known as Agro-silvo-pastoral systems (ASPS) was suggested as a key to strengthening and sustaining land use systems in West Africa. stakeholders. One of the keys to generating policy results and impacts would seem to be policy implementation; this argues for action plans that accompany all policies. Similarly, a regional monitoring and review process for policy implementation is needed. A thematic, multi-disciplinary task force dedicated to CSA could provide the impetus for improved policy implementation and monitoring and review of this implementation. Policy makers should promote financial incentives that encourage livestockrelated CSA. Considerable policy support and capacity enhancement is needed for climate risk management including insurance and safety nets as well as improved access to weather information adapted to farmers' needs. Identify incentives and institutional arrangements that enable and empower farmers, in particular women, to adopt livestock climate-smart practices. Building the institutions and incentives for climate-smart agriculture and pro-poor mitigation (e.g., the role of farmer organizations, reducing transaction costs, policy instruments that work for farmers and that help balance trade-offs amongst food security, adaptation, mitigation, energy needs etc.). Increase research into the specific roles of women in the livestock sector, including their role in processing and value addition (e.g. dairy processing) and product marketing, and target specific participatory research at boosting their capacities and security. The roles and the rights of women livestock keepers are often overlooked and development is frequently skewed towards the interest of men, yet women are responsible for most sedentary care of livestock and play an active role in on-farm livestock duties and in the marketing of products (milk). The same constraints that confront livestock keepers in general-such as low education, low access to financial services and weak resource rights-burden women livestock keepers to a greater extent. Efforts to build resilience in livestock keeping communities therefore requires particular emphasis on building the resilience of women and enabling them to adapt to climate change.","tokenCount":"8366"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"95782c046f5d6d00b0780038b684808f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5e199cc1-d97c-4615-ab81-2b9aa32f8786/retrieve","id":"851456329"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"53549fd3-63da-4b36-9179-47c749decaf9","pagecount":"37","content":"Participatory research allows groups and individuals to reflect and decide on their societal issues together. Such research was employed in Tra Hat Climate-Smart Village (CSV) in Vietnam to see if specific climate-smart agriculture (CSA) techniques could be adopted in the village. In line with the adoptability of CSA techniques, their scaling potential in the nearby areas of Tra Hat CSV was examined as well. Results showed that farmers deemed the CSA techniques related to rice production as priorities, which included laser land levelling, alternate wetting and drying, straw baler and rice root cutter, and Phosphorous fertilizer reduction, among others. Alongside CSA techniques on rice production, multiple crop and livestock practices were prioritized by the farmers due to their economic and environmental benefits. These CSA techniques could then be integrated into the \"1M5R\" or the \"1Must-5Reductions\" package, one of the current agricultural extension supports provided by the government. Gendered differences also emerged from the study, showing the preferred CSA techniques of male and female farmers and the factors that influenced them for their decisions. Regardless, they all believed that the CSA techniques they identified as priorities could increase incomes, ensure food security, and protect their environment. Results of this study exhibit the critical role of participation in empowering communities and the scaling potential of specific CSA techniques.Participatory research consists of a range of approaches and techniques with the primary objective of shifting the power from the researcher or technical 'expert' to those making decisions and to those who will be affected by these decisions. These are often community members or community-based organizations. In participatory research, these individuals and groups analyze and reflect on the information generated in order to manage conflicts, reach consensus, and make decisions (the process and outcomes are documented as part of the research process). Participatory research involves discussion, but the main goal is to move the discussion to making decisions, planning, and action. The researchers facilitate the process that allows participants (often multiple stakeholders with competing interests) to discuss their problems, conceive possible solutions, and propose actions which could be taken. The research conducted by the Participatory Research Group (PRG) aims to guide the decisionmaking processes to fair outcomes through providing balance in power structures, often through techniques that give voice to underserved groups (i.e., women, minorities, youth, and impoverished or landless individuals).The study presented in this paper used a range of participatory research methods, including focus group discussions, multi-stakeholder meetings, participatory inquiry, action research, oral testimonies, and story collection. This multi-method approach provides a foundation for prioritizing and goalsetting which is documented through collective analysis, digital photo stories, drawing and essay writing competitions, participatory video, and immersions.A participatory approach was applied to examine the potential for implementing a range of climatesmart agriculture (CSA) techniques 1 in Tra Hat Climate-Smart Village (CSV) and determining the potential to out-scale CSA technologies to the surrounding regions.The CSA Targeting and Priority Setting Methodological Framework (Ronnie et al. 2015) provides a stepwise procedure of identifying a CSV-specific list of current and anticipated climate changes and risks and possible potential CSA techniques (see Figure 1).Developing a knowledge base of wider CSA options  Scaling out a prioritized CSA practice is more effective if it is included in a package of technologies planned for dissemination by local government. In the Mekong River Delta (MRD), a well-known and effective policy is the dissemination of a rice production package known as '3R3G' (3 Reductions, 3 Gains) implemented in 1990s and then later, '1M5R' (1 Must Do, 5Reductions) out-scaled in the early 2000s. 1M5R is still the current policy promoted by national extension to improve rice production practices in the MRD. In 1M5R, one \"must\" is \"must use qualified certified seed\". The other five \"reductions\" are reducing the amount of seed, fertilizer, pesticide, amount of irrigated water during rice production, and reducing loss in postharvest.Examining how the proposed CSA techniques can fit into the current extension dialogue can strengthen the potential for dissemination. An important component of the participatory prioritization process is to operate with a lens on out-scaling given the multitude of stakeholders involved.2 See Appendix 1 for program and Appendix 2 for posters  2). The map in Figure 2 shows that 80% of Tra Hat is under 2-rice (2R) crop production cycles in summer-autumn (SA)and autumn-winter (AW). Some other areas are 3-rice (3R) crops and a small area is upland crop. 4Cropping calendar per year is presented in Figure 3, where the traditional rice variety \"TaiNguyen\" is popular in Tra Hat CSV with stable yield, high quality, and good price. The   The study presented herein employed Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) including posters and videos to facilitate the discussion. Twenty female and male farmers were invited to participate in  In the ideal condition, farmers would score \"least capacity of support needed\" for all cases of inputs and they would score \"high improvement for livelihood\" for all outcomes. This would result in a maximum subtotal score of 5 for inputs, 6 for outcomes, for a total maximum score of 11.Scores are reported as a percentage which is the subtotal score for input/output per category divided by the total possible score of 11. In this paper, we report only on CSA practices that received over 50% score for the input category \"needs least capacity for input\" and over 50% for the outcome category \"high livelihood improvement\".The list of potential CSA techniques evaluated in the participatory prioritization workshop on 22-23 October 2015 in Tra Hat CSV is presented in Table 7. There were two groups of CSA techniques, one was for rice production and the other group addresses multiple crop and livestock practices. Since rice production is the main income of people in Tra Hat CSV, improved practices in rice and in other crops/livestock applied at the household level are important for food security.  Low scoring CSA practices, such as piggery or growing upland crop in rice based system (soybean/sesame in rice-based system), were left out of the evaluation as they were considered unfeasible practices to improve the livelihood of farmers in Tra Hat CSV. The current rice production improvement package support by government and agricultural extension is 1M5R, which promotes using certified seed, and reducing seed rate, fertilizer, pesticide, water, and post-harvest losses. It is an advantage that this package is already prioritized for out scaling because most of the CSA techniques identified through this project can be integrated into 1M5R. Therefore, out-scaling one of the prioritized CSA techniques will be supported if it can be combined into the existing policy and activities. For example, alternate wetting and drying (AWD) is a water saving technique for paddy which also satisfies a criterion of saving water in 1M5R package. Additionally, it dually satisfies the CSA criteria by saving water and reducing green house gas emissions from rice production by half.The sequence of management recommendations that improve the application of qualified seed, including laser land levelling and machine sowing. Combining the practice of using qualified seed with laser land levelling and a seed sowing machine for large scale application could double or triple performance of rice crop establishment.The recommended sequence for the three CSA practices to be implemented during the growth stages include: alternate wetting and drying, using the leaf color chart, and reducing phosphorous fertilizer. These practices satisfy the criteria of saving water, reducing green house gas emissions, reducing cost of fertilizer (N and P) and pesticide. To effectively out-scale these practices, they can easily be integrated into the 1M5R extension plans and policy.A combine harvester is recommended for harvesting rice on field and is commonly used in the MRD. Combine harvesting is a common practice in Tra Hat CSV and Bac lieu province; however, using a straw baler machine for collection of straw on field has rarely been used in the area. This reluctance of adoption may be due to a lack of available machinery and also farmer uncertainty to the benefit of straw removal. Farmers see straw baling and rice root cutting as an extra cost and do not know what they can do with it once it has been baled. There seems to be an issue with market demand for straw and a comprehensive analysis for the rice straw supply chain is needed. Raising awareness and promoting straw baling and removal will be ineffective at leading to behavior change if there is a market failure that was not considered. Local farmers will likely continue to burn rice straw in the field given its simplicity and ease of disposing of the straw quickly before the next season. Wider social impacts of burning and its contributions to air pollution and respiratory health problems can also be considered in an effort to mainstream policies that can improve straw market infrastructure and encourage straw removal.We recommend a complete package to connect straw residue with product development through improving the value chain. Straw can be used to make straw compost where high-value mushrooms can be cultivated or the straw can be used to make biodegradable products that are alternatives to plastic products (i.e., packing material, flatware, cutlery, flower pots, etc.). For the most efficient removal and transport of straw, a baler is recommended.For household level CSA practices, women preferred to participate in activities such as piggeries, raising fish, chicken, and growing trees. Our study found out that women are more likely to support these CSA practices even if high inputs are required for these practices (Figure 4). Male farmers supported low input for CSA practices in HH and they did not like any high inputs for practices in HH because most of them believe main income was from rice production. So, they preferred to invest more inputs for CSA practices in rice production as their main livelihood (Figure 5). The score difference between men and women on evaluation CSA practices to improve livelihood can be seen in Figure 6. It focuses on how many resources can be managed or conserved while providing reliable income and benefit for women. Women believed most CSA practices in rice production were reliable incomes and good for environmental management. They felt CSA practices in the HH would not bring much reliable income. But male farmers believed CSA practices in HH would be great benefit to women. Both of female and male farmers agreed that CSA practices in HH were important source for daily food and food security. CSA practices in rice production are an important improvement to livelihood, income, and ensuring long-term food security for farmers in Bac Lieu and these practices can be integrated into 1M5R agriculture extension policy as an advantage to out-scaling.In rice production, the following practices can be prioritized: practicing AWD; reducing N and P fertilizers; laser land levelling; baling straw and cutting rice roots (machine operation); and straw composting. These CSA techniques have been prioritized through participatory workshops, HH surveys, and KI interviews.CSA practices at the household production level (including non-rice crop production and livestock/aquaculture) should be considered as a main source of household daily food and food ","tokenCount":"1827"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8537426759fb5c3d520fccb9e1b7bc5b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f0f79a31-29a8-43b4-8b4a-1baa796c8a14/retrieve","id":"2049972886"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8ffd204a-a077-4979-af17-33ebc019a663","pagecount":"4","content":"Every second, an animal dies of a tick-borne disease in Kenya. Ticks and the diseases they spread hinder the profitability of livestock farming in the country, as up to 80% of the animals are affected. Yet, livestock keeping contributes close to 10% of the total value of all goods and services produced every year in Kenya 1 . These diseases cause financial losses of more than KES 30 billion per year in the country 2 . All major types of livestock such as cattle, sheep, goats and camels are affected by diseases such as East Coast fever (ECF), babesiosis, anaplasmosis and heartwater 3. The diseases weaken animal health leading to low yields of milk and meat and decreased incomes. When animals die, farmers suffer losses of milk, meat, manure and income. To reduce animal deaths and improve the quality of life of farmers and provide proteins for mothers and children, ticks and their associated diseases should be controlled. Good quality disease-free animals will sell at premium prices in the market, and produce more greatly increasing farmer incomes. Healthier animals will ultimately reduce poverty, eradicate hunger and improve nutrition and ensure availability of sufficient food for millions of smallholder farmers and pastoralists in Kenya.October 2018 Currently, ticks and tick-borne diseases are controlled by spraying animals with chemicals (acaricides) to kill ticks attached to the animals. However, residues from the chemicals used remain in milk and meat products, making them unsafe and unsuitable for human consumption and for the export market as well.The chemicals also need to be applied often, which is expensive and some types of ticks develop resistance against them over time. The drugs used for treatment are expensive and are only effective if started early, which is often not possible. An integrated disease management program which combines these approaches will stop disease spread, reduce animal deaths, and result in healthier and higher yielding animals. This will ultimately increase household incomes which is used to improve health, education and agriculture. The cost of inaction will continue to rise. Farmers will continue to suffer financial losses, lose their export market base, remain poor and lack vital proteins in form of milk and meat. The country will continue to lose billions of shillings due to high animal deaths, decreased yields and costs incurred from purchase of drugs. The proportion of income contributed to national and county governments by livestock farming will reduce significantly. The economies of counties whose main economic activity is livestock farming will weaken thereby slowing development.All the positive benefits associated with high livestock production will be lost.","tokenCount":"428"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"0db5eb308402522e08284e80b717d87d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H039305.pdf","id":"-1698382374"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"dec8cd39-9ec5-4320-8f62-fbe2840413c5","pagecount":"13","content":"Groundwater is under increasing threat from over-development, over-extraction and pollution, due to increasing population pressure, increasing living standards, industrialization, and a lack of proper management to match the demands and use patterns with the natural resource base. This is a global trend, and though regional differences exist this is no exception in South Asia and South East Asia. This introductory chapter gives a brief summary of the chapters included in this volume. It sets out by highlighting the major issues and challenges related to groundwater research and management followed by specific issues faced by five Asian countries with relatively high rates of groundwater development and associated environmental and socio-economic implications during recent history (India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal). Then more specific cases and approaches to groundwater assessment and management in the region are briefly described, giving broad indications of the situation in particular areas and how challenges are being approached from various sides. Though many trends and circumstances are similar across the countries, some particular problem areas are more pronounced and need special attention in the different parts. It is also clear that the complexities involved are many and diverse and solutions cannot be found without a multi-disciplinary approach, involving the triangle of stakeholders: the groundwater and land users, the scientists and the managers.Groundwater has been developed in the South and South East Asia primarily during the last 40 years (Table 1). The rate and scale at which this has, and still is, occurring is so intense that it is causing concerns, not only within the countries themselves, but also at an international level. This is because unsustainable groundwater use potentially influences livelihoods and food security for huge numbers of people dependent on groundwater for subsistence or commercial farming in these regions (many millions of people) as well as potentially influencing international food trade and associated policies.Groundwater problems emerge slowly and incrementally, as the cumulative effect of many individual impacts of abstractions and contamination sources manifest themselves. The impacts are also delayed as the 'transmission time' of any impacts (lowering of groundwater tables and pollution spreading) to surrounding and downstream areas are long. Conversely, the timescales for remediation are also long, and impacts noticed today will persist for some time, even after the reversal of the original stresses. Hence, emerging problems, which are indeed evident in many parts of these countries today, need to be taken seriously and confronted with a degree of priority (Burke and Moench, 2000). Without going into detail, but referring to the following chapters for details, the impacts manifesting themselves are:• Continuously dropping groundwater tables with ramifications on economic pumping feasibility, inequity in access to the resource by different population segments, and drying out of significant associated groundwater-dependent water bodies and ecosystems. • Saltwater entry into wells, from various courses and sources, like seawater intrusion in coastal areas, geo-genic 1 saltwater from geological formations, and salinization from reentry of saline drainage waters or mismanagement of irrigation systems in arid areas. • Contamination of wells from human activities, like agriculture, waste disposal and wastewater discharge. • Contamination of wells from geo-genic toxic or unwanted elements, like arsenic, fluoride, and iron. As groundwater availability is less dependent on recent rainfall due to its longer-term storage capacity, groundwater plays a key role in drought protection and drought resilience. However, if groundwater is being overexploited leading to drawdown of groundwater levels there is a limit to this drought buffer capacity, and in fact droughts become the periods where problems of groundwater overexploitation become more evident and felt among its users.The International Workshop on \"Creating Synergy between Groundwater Research and Management in South and Southeast Asia\" held during February 8-9, 2005 at the campus of National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee, India conducted its deliberations through paper presentations and plenary discussions to highlight the major issues concerning groundwater assessment, development and augmentation, utilization and contamination and above all the management and governance of the resource in the Asian context. This was followed by state of the art country papers from Bangladesh, China, India, Nepal and Pakistan. An overview of the important issues deliberated during the workshop and a summary of the issues raised under the country papers is given below. Sincere thanks are extended to the authors and session rapporteurs, from whose reports we borrowed heavily in drafting these sections.Global groundwater use is about 1000 km 3 /year, which is around 8.2 per cent of annually renewable groundwater resources (Shah, 2000), but its contribution to human welfare is huge. India, China and Pakistan alone account for one-third of global groundwater use.Globally, growth in groundwater irrigation has had little to do with the occurrence of the resource, as its intensive development has tended to occur in arid and semi-arid regions with relatively poor groundwater endowments. There appears to be a good correlation between high population densities and high tubewell densities in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and China. India alone is adding about 1 million new tubewells every year since the last 15 years and there is no sign of deceleration (Shah et. al., 2003). In poor developing countries, protection and conservation of groundwater resources is often in direct and immediate conflict with livelihood support to rural poor and in meeting domestic needs of towns and cities and thus presents the most complex resource governance challenges facing the world's water professionals.The country reports (Chapter 3-9) describe the current groundwater situation in India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal along with significant trends over the past half century. They also point to important challenges and responses emerging as well as recommendations for further efforts.From looking at the figures of these chapters, of which the most salient ones are summarized in Table 1, it appears that the groundwater dependence, in terms of numbers of people dependent on groundwater, primarily for agriculture, and in terms of amounts of water extracted for irrigation decrease in the order: India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. This order is only meant to give a sense of the relative scales involved, but of course groundwater use and associated problems are more pronounced in some parts of these countries than in others.Even higher numbers of people are dependent on groundwater in these countries than apparent from Table 1, namely for their drinking water and other domestic uses. However, the amounts of water required to satisfy these demands are relatively small compared to water requirements within agriculture and hence the water use within agriculture and how it is being managed is crucial to the overall sustainability of groundwater, which justifies the focus on agriculture. Nevertheless, groundwater use for domestic purposes has overriding importance in public health and well-being and should not be overlooked. And in fact, there is often a disregard of the close links between domestic (ground) water use and the use for agriculture. Groundwater developed for agriculture is often used in the households, and impacts due to mismanagement of water and land use within agriculture often has direct consequences for the availability, reliability and quality of domestic water sources and hence the prosperity of farming communities.The stories of the five countries are to a large extent similar and parallel. Significant groundwater development started in the 1970's, with the introduction of tube well and pumping technology, rural electrification and demand for increasing crop production due to population increases, both for sustaining growing cities but also for a growing rural population. Groundwater development has occupied an important place in poverty alleviation policies because of its role in stabilizing the agriculture and ensuring food supplies and livelihoods for farmers of which many are in the lower brackets of household income. Groundwater scarcity translates directly into lack of secure food supplies and livelihoods for many rural farmers with previous easy access to groundwater. So, on one hand groundwater is (or has) created wealth and poverty reduction in rural areas. On the other hand, and increasingly, groundwater problems hit disproportionably hard on the poor people. This generates an obvious impasse for politicians and managers, creating inertia towards actively addressing the groundwater problems. It is only within the last decades that researchers have analyzed the trends and warned against the lack of commitment to emerging groundwater issues and politicians and managers have become sensitive and started reacting.This development in groundwater exploitation has been termed a 'groundwater boom' or 'groundwater rush', implying that it is not sustainable and that eventually the rates of exploitation will have to level off and/or decrease. The problems are manifesting themselves to various extents in all of the five countries, but it should be kept in mind that the problems are not always directly associated with the groundwater use itself.Groundwater level declines are of course most often associated with the direct over-use of groundwater but contamination of groundwater is often not an effect immediately associated with the use of groundwater. As an example, much groundwater is being contaminated due to the agricultural practices followed in intensive agriculture be it irrigated with groundwater or not. Also, the increasing production of wastewater, especially from large cities in these countries is posing severe problems for the overall ambient water quality, both in surface waters and groundwater due to the limited treatment capacity of many cities. Dumpsites and other types of waste disposal on the land is another source that increasingly has to be attended to in order to alleviate groundwater problems of these areas.In general, there is an increasing concern over the deteriorating quality of groundwater in many parts of these countries, though the trends are not always quite well documented, and it is progressively being realized that without proper attention to the groundwater quality aspects we will not be able to solve long term threats.Before the groundwater boom, groundwater was lifted by simple mechanical or manual methods. However, for modern groundwater irrigation, a source of energy for lifting water is essential, either fossil fuel (diesel or petrol) or electricity. Hence, the linkage between the energy for lifting groundwater and irrigation economics is very important and this link is increasingly being realized as a potential mechanism for controlling the rates of groundwater extraction in agriculture. In parts of the Nepal terai and parts of India (North eastern parts), the lack of rural electrification is an impediment for efficient utilization of groundwater (Chapters 8 and 15) . In other regions, the limit to pumping is given by the number of daily hours of electricity supply, and basically farmers pump continuously if they have the possibility. Subsidies to irrigation through free or cheap energy have been a tool for enhancing groundwater irrigation development. Still only little actual and pro-active efforts have been put into suspending some of these benefits, in favor of saving on groundwater resources though India is playing with various models at the pilot scale (Chapter 18). In China, electricity is controlled better (in terms of supply and revenue collection) and here more concrete attempts of limiting groundwater pumping through supply and economic incentives have been implemented (Chapter 4).In general, it appears that India and China may be addressing their groundwater problems quite differently. India has invested huge sums in watershed development programs in which components of groundwater recharge are very significant. Also, many activities to recharge groundwater at local scales are of private or collective nature and have in places turned into almost spiritual movements trying to 'quench the thirst of mother earth'. In China, the trend has been more towards privatization of irrigation and wells and trying to implement more bureaucratic measures for groundwater control. Large efforts and hope for water saving irrigation have been raised, but whether these technologies are relieving stress on groundwater is far from clear. China is facing increasing groundwater demands from growing cities and the conciliation of water use in agriculture vs. a growing industrial society is a major challenge.Pakistan is mainly struggling with the optimal and conjunctive use of its surface water and groundwater resources, the ever-lurking salinity problems and a number of large cities outgrowing the present supply of water (Chapter 9). Since these cities are far upstream in the Indus river basin wastewater flows that cannot be treated with the present capacity poses major threats on surface and groundwater.Bangladesh also faces the challenge of optimizing surface and groundwater, with huge seasonal differences in surface water availability and limited infrastructure and institutions for storing water and developing and maintaining irrigation (Chapter 3). The one overriding problem of groundwater in most of Bangladesh is the natural presence of high levels of arsenic in shallow groundwater. This is increasingly limiting the sustainable use of shallow aquifers for drinking and even for agriculture.Nepal is the country in which groundwater is least developed, and still presents a huge potential for lifting the rural population, mainly in the terai, out of poverty if properly managed (Chapter 8). Arsenic maybe a black joker in these aquifers, but the picture is still not clear. In the Kathmandu Valley, groundwater development has already reached its potential and signs of over-exploitation are evident.The issues related to development, protection, restoration, and remediation of groundwater resources are very complex. Proper understanding of aquifer behavior in response to imposed or anticipated stresses is required for designing and implementation of management decisions. Groundwater management strategies should be directed towards balancing the demand with the fortune of supply. Groundwater modeling is one of the management tools being used in the hydrogeological sciences for the assessment of the resource potential and prediction of future impact under different stresses/strains. There are numerous codes of groundwater models available worldwide dealing with a variety of problems related to flow and contaminants/pollutants transport, rates and location of pumping, natural and artificial recharge and changes in groundwater quality. Each model has its own merits and limitations and hence no single model may be universally applied. Management of a system means making decisions aiming at accomplishing the system's goal without violating the specified technical and nontechnical constraints imposed on it. A complete groundwater management model thus is the combination of a groundwater simulation model and a resource optimization scheme. It is through simulation models that one can integrate groundwater science into the management options to understand and evaluate the potentiality and the fate of the resource for different options and constrained situations. These models thus help the resource managers and decision makers to transform or mediate a supply driven groundwater development into an integrated groundwater resource management through integration of supply-side management with the demand-side constraints.Application of such simulation models and optimization studies for the aquifers of northwest India has been quite helpful (Kaushal and Khepar,1992). High yielding intensive irrigated agriculture (mainly rice and wheat) based on indiscriminate exploitation of groundwater has led to continuous decline of the water table in freshwater areas, with deterioration of water quality, water logging and soil salinity in the saline groundwater bearing areas. Such a scenario of falling/rising water table is threatening the sustainability of irrigated agriculture in the these areas, the food bowl of the country. Simulation modeling and optimization studies indicated that if the present trend of excessive pumping of groundwater through installation of various structures continue, it will not be possible to pump groundwater by centrifugal pumping system because of a continuous fall in groundwater table. The farmers will have to install submersible pumps at a very high cost. An available management option was to decrease the area under paddy or reduce the pumping in that area and meet the remaining irrigation demand by transfer of canal water from rising water table areas to the declining water table area. In case of rising water table areas, the adoption of conjunctive use practice of surface and poor quality groundwater coupled with efficient irrigation application systems can help in managing the water table conditions and sustaining agricultural production in these regionsFuture reductions in freshwater supplies to agriculture will induce farmers to look for non-conventional water sources, e.g make greater use of saline groundwater resources. Saline groundwater occurs extensively (32-84% of the underlying shallow groundwater resources) in the arid and semi-arid environments of India and Pakistan and other countries (Sharma and Minhas, 2005;Qadir et. al., 2006). Persistent research efforts have demonstrated the possibilities of using such waters through selection of salinity resistant crops, crop varieties and cropping patterns while maintaining low levels of salts in the active rhizosphere through appropriate irrigation schedules, application methods and conjunctive use of groundwater, canal and rainwater and optimal use of chemical amendments and land configurations to mitigate harmful impacts (Minhas, 1996).Decisions regarding conjunctive use of saline and freshwater resources and allocation of water based on economic returns and tolerance to salinity is a complicated process and is best attempted through numerical modeling. Such a model shall maximize net benefits from use of waters of varying salinities through allocations to different crops and determine the optimal groundwater pumping for irrigation and drainage water disposal. The allocation of poor quality water essentially centers on crop-water-salinity production functions, which are nonlinear in nature. For economic optimization of the conjunctive use, salinity resistant cash crops (cotton, mustard, horticultural crops) may find favor over traditional cereal crops. Conjunctive use of saline groundwater with canal water on sustained basis will also require disposal of some part of saline water through evaporation ponds and regional drains.Establishment of water quality monitoring networks, modification in canal water delivery schedules, and suitable water and energy pricing and promotion of micro-irrigation systems are required to better use the saline groundwater resources (Tyagi et. al., 1995). Efforts are needed both at farmers' level as well as at government level to realize potential gains of conjunctive water management.Watershed based development has been accepted as a key strategy for ensuring sustainable management of land, water, vegetation and human resources for improved productivity in rainfed areas. Water harvesting and groundwater recharge are principal components of most of such development interventions. In many parts of hard-rock regions of India, groundwater depletion has invoked widespread community-based mass movement for rainwater harvesting and recharge, e.g. in eastern Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh states of India (Sharma et. al., 2005). Protagonists think that with better planning of recharge structures and extensive coverage, the decentralized recharge movement can be a major response to India's groundwater depletion because it can ensure that water tables in pockets of intensive use rebound close to pre-development levels at the end of monsoon. India's Central Groundwater Board has developed a national blueprint for groundwater recharge in the country which aims at recharging surplus runoff of about 36.4 billion cubic meters in an area of about 450,000 sq km identified in various parts of the country experiencing a sharp decline in groundwater levels (CGWB, 1996). Using this opportunity would require investing in creating scientific capability and infrastructure for groundwater recharge as a top priority for regions with excessive pumpage and significant renewable water resources.In India alone, farmers have installed about 20 million groundwater abstraction structures by government support through institutional credit and subsidies to electricity and diesel to run the pumps. Institutional credit of about USD 5.2 billion/annum is made available for both private (individual) and community owned dugwells, tubewells, irrigation pump sets, energization, river lift irrigation schemes and associated infrastructure such as pipelines, irrigation systems and tanks. This credit is duly supported by subsidy provided by central and state governments to promote and popularize minor irrigation investments amongst farmers. However, there are large regional variations in implementation of the programs as certain areas in the northwest and south overexploited the resource and institutional credit has to be stopped in 'dark' and 'critical' blocks, whereas there were few takers for the credit in the eastern region due to small and scattered holdings and very weak governance and infrastructure systems. Sizeable numbers of small and marginal farmers also do not have access to institutional credit because of fragmented land holdings, cumbersome procedures and documentation and delays in subsidy and loan disbursement. Several evaluation studies have found that institutional credit and private investments become attractive only when farmers opt for diversified agriculture based on high value crops. Inadequate and unreliable energy supplies in rural areas coupled with populist schemes of free/subsidized energy seriously affects the equitable distribution of benefits of groundwater and poor and small farmers get marginalized. Uneconomic pricing of energy has also resulted in unwarranted, exaggerated and sub-optimal use of groundwater leading to adverse environmental impacts and low productivity in agriculture.Energy and water are key inputs to agricultural production and their interlinkages pose significant management challenges. Lack of appropriate energy policy and policy to deal with management of groundwater has not only contributed to over-exploitation of groundwater, it has also resulted into a nexus (Shah et. al.,2003). Perverse incentives provided as part of the energy policies have lead to inefficiency and almost financial bankruptcy of the energy utilities. However, further and deeper analysis of the nexus shows that growth in use of groundwater and energy for pumping coincides with the overall development policy of attaining food security. Agricultural policies, especially those dealing with gaps in market linkages for agricultural products and role of minimum assured support price for certain crops by the government, have great influence on farmers' choice of cropping pattern and hence excessive groundwater use.The Indian Punjab has become one of the most important regions for cultivation of paddy in the country where the state government gives free electricity to the farmers for running their tubewells. Due to large-scale cultivation of paddy, and low recharge of groundwater, the water table has been declining steeply; in certain regions by about 1 m per annum. The water table in large parts of the region has gone down by 30 m during the last four decades (Hira and Khera, 2000) and original shallow tubewells have gradually been replaced with high powered submersible pumps. Efforts to convert a part of the area from paddy to some other crops have met with little success as paddy is more profitable than any other crop and it enjoys a regime of assured procurement at the pre-announced price. The combined effect of these policies has resulted in the hydrological unsustainable over-exploitation of groundwater. Policies governing agriculture and energy (and thus groundwater) are apparently dictated more by political populism rather than sound management strategies for sustainable resource development and utilization. Procurement policy and pricing mechanisms need to be revamped, not just from reducing fiscal burden on the exchequer and from equity perspective, but for long term environmental benefits and livelihood security that can be achieved from efficient utilization of groundwater. Indirect policies of the energy and agriculture sector need to be concurrently approached to bring diversification into agriculture and therefore arresting groundwater depletion, and safeguarding livelihoods and food security.The inherent characteristics of groundwater, its prevalence and reliability in supply and quality, which lead to its widespread use by millions of small farmers also give rise to major challenges faced by groundwater managers. Effective groundwater resource management requires an optimum balancing of the increasing demands of water and land users with the long-term maintenance of the complex natural resource. Groundwater science helps us to have an accurate assessment of the resource, understand specific susceptibilities of the aquifers to abstraction and contamination and the interactions between groundwater and surface water resources. Management of the resource in addition requires the groundwater managers to appreciate the policies which strongly influence water use and food production, regulatory provisions and their limits for conserving the resource, role of stakeholders at different levels in decision making and the need for development of integrated approaches that balance the needs of the poor and the environment with economic development goals. There appears to be a general disconnect between the technical specialists of groundwater resources and the decision makers challenged with its sustainable use and management. Proper groundwater management requires the integration of science into management decisions. Groundwater scientists and mangers need to have a better and common understanding of some of the routinely used terms like 'safe or sustainable yield', 'groundwater over-exploitation', and the actual role and scope of water saving technologies for resource augmentation. As groundwater resources come under increasing pressure, allocation between various users, including the environment, becomes increasingly complex and the need for sound approaches based on natural, economic and social sciences becomes progressively more evident. There is a strong need to close the gap in perceptions and understanding between groundwater managers and scientists to soften up the traditional roles and to improve the appreciation of communication and mutual understanding of diverse roles. The overall goal should be to form a partnership that ensures that decisions, though pragmatic, are made based on the best available multi-disciplinary scientific knowledge.Each country paper gives a list of recommendations for improved development and management of groundwater in their context. Summarizing these, and using the framework suggested by Zahid (Bangladesh), they can be classified into the following groups: i. Monitoring/Data Management • Strengthen appropriate organizations and frameworks for monitoring the quantity and quality of groundwater on a continuous basis. • Prepare databases to compile, store and retrieve vital data on groundwater properties and variables necessary to detect significant trends.ii. Investigation/Implementation• Perform detailed and precise studies using modern tools to generate relevant and accurate data, which shall ultimately result in a more accurate assessment of groundwater resources. • Encourage and implement artificial recharge, conservation, water-saving irrigation, conjunctive use of surface water and groundwater, fresh and brackish water, treatment and reuse of wastewater, and land use planning and land zoning as per the availability of water and taking appropriate measures to avoid pollution.iii. Capacity Building/Awareness Raising• Enhance public awareness and knowledge of groundwater.• Enhance capacity building of groundwater centers/institutes and create work environments for better communication, co-ordination, and collaboration among water managers, planners, decision-makers, scientists, water users, etc. • Present results of investigations and evaluations of groundwater and regional hydro-geological mapping in formats workable enough for examining and approving permits to groundwater abstraction and practical schemes of groundwater exploitation. • Develop a state of knowledge and capability that will enable the countries to design future water resource management plans by themselves addressing economic efficiency, gender equity, social justice and environmental awareness in order to facilitate achievement of the water management objectives through broad public participation.iv. Management/Policies/Economic Instruments• Establish legal and regulatory framework regarding development and use of groundwater. • Revise policies on subsidized power in the agricultural sector. Suitable cost and charging systems of electricity is to be decided to ensure recovery of operation and management and capital cost and avoid misuse/overuse of power. • Encourage and involve community organizations to prescribe irrigation charges and to become responsible for collection and imposition of penalties for nonpayment. • In the case of industrial effluent disposal, follow the principle of \"polluter pays\".Though it is realized that priorities may differ depending on individual pressing problems, the historical perspective of groundwater use and management, cultural values and political realities, it is also clear that awareness raising and capacity building is an overriding requirement at all levels in society to enhance the understanding, sensitivity and commitment towards improving the use of groundwater in Asia and other regions.Furthermore, it is important to make decisions on an informed and qualified basis. To that end, there has to be an increased dialogue and collaboration between managers/decision makers and the researchers. Providing the incentives for both parts to contribute to such a dialogue is crucial and it is humbly hoped that providing forums like this workshop contributes towards this goal. The last, but not least partner in such a triangle (Figure 1) is of course the groundwater users. Informing them and involving them actively in this dialogue is also a key to obtaining sustainable and acceptable solutions to groundwater management challenges.","tokenCount":"4590"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3979439a35ff338451352f63c35ba86a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5f6a7c85-867a-41a7-9caf-2e6aba01c540/retrieve","id":"1224907282"},"keywords":["hermetic technologies","insects","maize landraces","seed germination","storage losses"],"sieverID":"47a69f85-5812-4327-ad5f-4078e81c14ad","pagecount":"15","content":"In Mexico, smallholder farmers produce locally adapted maize varieties, generally called landraces, for food. They participate in the conservation of landraces by selecting and storing their seeds from one production cycle to another, but are facing challenges such as storage losses caused by insects (mainly Sitophilus zeamais and Prostephanus truncatus) and climate change. In the current study, the effectiveness of the conventional storage practices of farmers in the highlands of Mexico (polypropylene woven bags) in minimizing storage losses and maintaining seed germination was compared with hermetic storage technologies. After six and three months of storage, the percentage of insect damage and weight loss was highest in samples stored in polypropylene woven bags, reaching 61.4% and 23.4% after six months of storage. On the contrary, with hermetic technologies, storage losses were minimal, with maximums of 4.1% and 2.2% for insect damage and weight loss, respectively. Overall, the germination rate of samples stored in these airtight containers was greater than 90%. The results of this study demonstrate the potential of hermetic technologies in preserving the biodiversity of maize seed landraces and strengthening smallholders' food security.Mexico is a center of origin, domestication and diversity for maize, a major crop that contributes to the livelihoods of millions of people [1,2]. Maize landraces-heirloom varieties created through farmer selection over hundreds of years-are key to food sovereignty and cultural identity in Mexico and Latin America [3][4][5]. Smallholder farmers in Mexico grow landraces for food, as their grain quality is often preferred for popular dishes and they are sometimes better adapted to local environmental conditions and rainfed agriculture [5][6][7]. Farmers play an important role in preserving maize landrace diversity through their historical and cultural identification of maize as a primary crop, as well as their land use, selection of traits, and seed exchanges through social networks [8]. The in situ conservation of landrace diversity allows landraces to evolve in their original areas of distribution, influenced by farmers' selection and environmental factors [5].At the same time, maize landraces face serious threats, including global warming, low productivity, and high levels of postharvest loss under farmers' conventional storage conditions [9,10]. Losses in the quantity and quality of grain and seed under storage have been estimated to be as high as 60% in lowland conditions under common on-farm storage technologies, which include the use of polypropylene woven bags with or without aluminum phosphide tablets [10]. Postharvest insect pests are the main cause of losses in dry maize, particularly the maize weevil Sitophilus zeamais (Motschulsky) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), the large grain borer Prostephanus truncatus (Horn) (Coleoptera: Bostrichidae), and the Angoumois grain moth Sitotroga cerealella (Olivier) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) [11]. Hermetically sealed grain storage technologies, including hermetic metal silos and hermetic bags, can minimize losses from storage pests [10,12], constraining or killing the insects through oxygen depletion and a subsequent increase in carbon dioxide [13]. However, hermetic containers are generally not available for many smallholders. Odjo et al. [10] demonstrated the effectiveness of other sealed storage alternatives in Mexico, including recycled containers (plastic bottles or plastic barrels) that may be a good fit for smallholder farmers for preserving grain and seed quantity and quality [10,14]. In a following study, Odjo et al. [14] also demonstrated that hermetic technologies including recycled containers can preserve seed quality in Mexico by maintaining a low-equilibrium relative humidity and seed dryness, as well as limiting oxygen availability during storage and minimizing grain quality loss.The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) has been promoting hermetic technologies for storage in smallholders' farming systems in Mexico within the framework of the Integrated Agri-food Systems Initiative (IASI) [15,16]. This approach, implemented through the innovation hub model, goes beyond introducing innovation and has a strong focus on knowledge exchange and co-creation with farmers to achieve sustainable and systemic change [17]. During interactions with farmers, a decrease in the germination of maize landrace seeds stored in hermetic technologies was reported. Some local experts suggest the percussion of seeds before sowing, or allowing the seed to \"breathe\" outside the container for anywhere from three days to two weeks before sowing to increase germination rate [18].A decrease in germination for seeds stored in hermetic containers has been reported for seeds with moisture content over 13% (wet basis). Adhikarinayake et al. [19] reported a decrease in seed viability in paddy rice stored under hermetic conditions at 14.1% moisture content, citing the combined effects of oxygen depletion and increased carbon dioxide and moisture content. Moreno-Martinez et al. [20] also reported lower germination in maize seed stored in hermetic containers at 15% moisture, citing the effect of low oxygen levels on seed embryos. Seed quality includes germination rate, viability, and longevity, and is generally affected by three main factors: seed moisture content, temperature, and the relative humidity of the storage environment. High oxygen levels are also associated with seed viability declines; mainly due to oxidative processes, particularly in seed stored at high moisture contents [21]. Storing low moisture content seed using hermetic technologies allows the preservation of seed quality by maintaining a low-equilibrium relative humidity and seed dryness, as well as limiting oxygen availability during storage [22][23][24][25]. However, there is a lack of evidence on the effect of different storage technologies, as well as the suggested seed treatments, on maize landrace seed germination.This study evaluates the effects of storage technologies (polypropylene woven bags vs. hermetic storage technologies) on maize landraces in the central highlands of Mexico, specifically, on major insect pests (S. zeamais, P. truncatus, and S. cerealella), kernel damage, and seed germination, as well as whether germination rate is affected by seed treatments (percussion and delaying sowing after opening hermetic technologies).On-farm storage experiments were established in 2019 at the experiment station of CIMMYT at El Batán Texcoco, the State of Mexico, Mexico (2282 m above sea level), for three and six months. Seeds of the four Mexican landraces used were sourced locally and grown on the station following identical agronomic practices (date of sowing, fertilization, pest managements, date of harvest). Harvested kernels were dried and stored as follows (Table 1): (1) polypropylene woven bags (PP) (farmers' conventional storage practices) and (2) hermetically sealed containers, either the GrainPro Hermetic SuperGrainbag ® Premium RZ (GrainPro Inc, Washington, USA; bags obtained from the official Mexican representative), a hermetic bag with a zip system, or plastic bottles. GrainPro hermetic bags are made of high-strength polyethylene plastic with barrier layers, while plastic bottles are made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET). These materials have low oxygen permeability in comparison with polypropylene woven bags. Michiels et al. [26] reported the rate of dioxygen permeability measured at a relative humidity of 50% and a temperature of 23 • C for polypropylene materials between 50 and 100 cm 3 .mm.m −2 .day −1 .atm −1 , while polyethylene plastics have values of dioxygen permeability between 0.5 and 5 cm 3 .mm.m −2 .day −1 .atm −1 . As reported by Odjo et al. [14], hermetic bags were used in combination with polypropylene woven bags as recommended by the provider for additional protection. Plastic bottles that were recycled water and soda containers were used for some of the varieties with low productivity, as farmers generally store 2 kg of seed. Both hermetic bags and plastic bottles were checked for any damage/perforation by inflating them. After filling with kernels, the hermetic bags were sealed with a zip system while the plastic bottles were sealed with their original cap wrapped with tape to minimize oxygen entry. The containers were randomly arranged on a wooden pallet platform with three replicates per storage technology for each storage time.The landraces used were of white, yellow, blue, and pink grain and with flotation indices (an indirect parameter of grain hardness determined by counting the number of floating grains after six strokes of mild stirring of 100 grains in a sodium nitrate solution with a specific density of 1.25 g mL −1 ) values varying from 34 to 80% (Table 1). Based on this parameter and the Mexican norm NMX-FF-034/1-SCFI-2002 [27], their endosperm hardness was intermediate (Magdalena and VC Rosado), hard (VC Amarillo) and soft (SJR Azul). Hermetic bags were used in comparison with polypropylene woven bags for Magdalena and VC Amarillo, while plastic bottles were used for VC Rosado and SJR Azul, since they have low productivity and farmers generally store around 2 kg of seed [28].Before storage, moisture content was measured using a hand-held grain moisture tester (John Deere Moisture Check Plus Grain Moisture, IL, USA), calibrated using the manufacturer's recommendations. Average moisture content varied between 10.0 and 12.6% on a wet basis (Table 1). After cleaning and before filling the storage containers, three representative samples of approximately 500 g were obtained to measure insect damage, referring to kernels with perforations or galleries caused by insect feeding. Insect damage before storage varied from 0.6 to 4.0% for the different varieties evaluated. The numbers of live insects that come from natural infestation in the field and were present in the samples were counted. The insect species considered are the most important in Mexico [11]: S. zeamais, P. truncatus, and S. cerealella. Generally, there was fewer than 1 live insect per 500 g of sample, prior to storage (Table 1).Three representative samples free of pests were also collected and stored at −18 • C for further seed analyses. After three and six months, the storage containers were opened, and three representative samples were collected from the top, middle, and bottom of each container using hand scoops. The seed moisture content and percentage of insect damage were measured using the method described above. The \"weight loss\" parameter, which refers to kernel loss during the storage period from insect feeding, was also estimated as per Boxall [29].Germination tests were performed on initial samples defrosted over one night at room temperature and samples without apparent damage collected after three and six months of storage, with or without percussion treatment. Samples without percussion were kept in open plastic jars at room temperature.Intended to create an abrasive effect on the seed pericarp and facilitate water imbibition, the percussion treatment was applied to approximately 100 g for 5 min just before the germination assay, using a device equipped with aluminum US standard testing sieve pans and adapted with a Power Electric motor, CPG1446RB1A (Mexico), at 1725 rpm, resulting in approximately 270 oscillations per minute. Germination assays were performed on the seeds obtained (no percussion, percussion) using the rolled paper towel seed germination test of CIMMYT [30] at 1, 3, 7, and 15 days after opening the storage containers. Fifty seeds without apparent damage were randomly selected and placed on the upper halves of moist filters or blotter paper towels (50 × 25 cm) and incubated in a seed incubator at 90% relative humidity, alternating between 12 h at 30 • C in light and 12 h at 20 • C in the dark, for 7 days, based on the 1985 recommendations of the International Seed Testing Association (ISTA). Germinated seeds were visually checked every day and \"normal\" and \"abnormal seedlings\" were counted by experienced lab technicians, meaning those that showed or did not show potential for continued development into satisfactory plants when grown in good soil under optimum conditions [30]. After 7 days, seeds that did not germinate were dissected longitudinally through the embryo and soaked in a 1% tetrazolium solution at 30 • C for 120 min as described by Warham et al. [30]. Through observation with an optical microscope, a seed is considered viable when at least 1/3 of the scutellum as well as the radicle are red-stained. The percentages of non-germinated viable and non-germinated non-viable seeds were determined with the counting of viable and non-viable seeds. All seed germination parameters (normal seedlings, abnormal seedlings, germination, nongerminated viable seeds, non-germinated non-viable seeds) were expressed as a percentage of all fifty seeds tested.Statistical analyses of data collected were performed using R version 4.0.3. Data were first summarized as means and standard deviations. For the count data (numbers of live S. zeamais, P. truncatus and S. cerealella), a 95% Poisson confidence interval of the mean was estimated using the R package (\"DescTools\").Beta regression was used to evaluate the effect of storage technologies, maize varieties, storage time, and their interactions on moisture content, percentage of insect damage, and weight loss, as well as to gauge the effect of storage technology, maize variety, storage time, seed treatment, number of days before the germination assay, and their interactions on the percentages of normal seedlings and abnormal seedlings [31]. All beta regressions were performed with the R package \"mgcv\" using the logit link as a link function. The parameters \"storage technology\", \"maize variety\", \"storage time\", and \"seed treatment\" were considered as factors. The reference factors considered for each model were the \"polypropylene woven bag\" for storage technology, which is the common farmer practice; \"Magdalena Texcoco\" for maize variety, with white landraces being the area's most popular maize variety; \"three months of storage\" for storage time and parameter, given that farmers store their harvests for at least three months [10]; and \"no percussion\" for the seed treatment parameter. Only two-way interactions have been considered within regression models to facilitate interpretation.Principal component analysis (PCA) was performed using the R package \"FactoMineR\" to evaluate relationships between postharvest parameters, including kernel moisture content and temperature at the end of the storage period, percentages of insect damage and kernels without damage, weight loss, numbers of live S. zeamais, live P. truncatus and live S. cerealella, and seed germination parameters (percentages of germination, normal seedlings, abnormal seedlings, non-germinated viable seeds, non-germinated non-viable seeds). Only final values for these parameters after 3 and 6 months of storage were used for the PCA.The main species of live insect counted was P. truncatus, followed by S. zeamais and S. cerealella. The highest numbers of insects were found in samples from the polypropylene woven bags, particularly after six months of storage. Magdalena and VC Rosado were the most highly infested maize varieties, particularly by P. truncatus, which was the most encountered living insect (Figure 1). The number of live insects of the three pest species in seed stored using hermetic containers varied between 0 and 2 insects per 500 g of seed, as shown by the 95% Poisson confidence intervals (Figure 1). In contrast, confidence intervals for seed stored using polypropylene woven bags were highly variable and depended on the maize variety and storage time. The upper estimates of the confidence intervals were as high as 9.5, 277.9, and 3.4 insects per 500 g of seed for S. zeamais, P. truncatus and S. cerealella, respectively (Figure 1).Kernel moisture content overall varied between 8.4 and 13.4% (Table 2). There were fluctuations between initial and final moisture content regardless of the storage technologies, particularly after six months of storage. Insect damage varied between 0.6 and 61.4%, while weight loss ranged from 0.2 to 20.1%, with heavy damage on kernels stored in polypropylene woven bags. Independently of the variety, insect damage was particularly severe after 6 months of storage and up to 14 times higher than after 3 months (and an average increase from 12.9 to 51.9% for polypropylene woven bags, with that increase in storage time). However, VC Amarillo, the variety with a hard endosperm, had the lowest insect damage and weight loss values after six months of storage using polypropylene woven bags while the most infested landraces were VC Rosado and SJR Azul. Kernel damage was particularly low with samples stored using hermetic technologies, whatever the variety or storage time, with weight losses from 0.2 to 1.2% and the same trend for insect damage. Hermetic storage minimized weight losses, whereas high weight losses occurred with polypropylene woven bags for all landraces, and particularly after 6 months of storage. Kernel moisture content overall varied between 8.4 and 13.4% (Table 2). There were fluctuations between initial and final moisture content regardless of the storage technologies, particularly after six months of storage. Insect damage varied between 0.6 and 61.4%, while weight loss ranged from 0.2 to 20.1%, with heavy damage on kernels stored in polypropylene woven bags. Independently of the variety, insect damage was particularly severe after 6 months of storage and up to 14 times higher than after 3 months (and an average increase from 12.9 to 51.9% for polypropylene woven bags, with that increase in storage time). However, VC Amarillo, the variety with a hard endosperm, had the lowest insect damage and weight loss values after six months of storage using polypropylene woven bags while the most infested landraces were VC Rosado and SJR Azul. Kernel damage was particularly low with samples stored using hermetic technologies, whatever the variety or storage time, with weight losses from 0.2 to 1.2% and the same trend for Percentages of normal seedlings after 3 and 6 months of storage 1 day after opening the containers varied between 6.7 and 87.7%, while percentages of abnormal seedlings varied between 11.3 and 86.0% (Table 3), with these two parameters presenting opposite trends and a significant effect of variety. In some cases, the percentages of normal seedlings after storage were higher in comparison with the initial values. Overall, increasing storage time from 3 to 6 months had a negative impact on the percentage of normal seedlings (and the opposite for the percentage of abnormal seedlings). However, storing seed in hermetic containers positively impacted the percentage of normal seedlings after 6 months of storage, compared to storage using polypropylene woven bags (Table 3). Overall, applying percussion as a seed treatment did not have a significant effect (Table 3), but applying it after 6 months of storage seemed to have a negative impact on the percentage of normal seedlings. Delaying germination and aerating seed for 3, 7 or 15 days did not significantly affect the percentage of normal and abnormal seedlings (Supplementary Table S1). The percentages of non-germinated viable seeds and non-germinated non-viable seeds were very low, except in two cases when percussion was applied for grain stored using polypropylene woven bags (Supplementary Table S1). In general, post-storage seed germination rates were high (average > 90%) for all the storage technologies and maize landraces, regardless of seed treatment (Supplementary Table S1). The PCA identified three components with eigenvalues > 1. The first two principal components accounted for 66% of the total variability in results (Supplementary Table S2). The first component, which explained 48% of the total variability, was highly and positively correlated with insect damage, weight loss, and final numbers of live S. zeamais, P. truncatus, and S. cerealella. The first component was negatively correlated with percentage of germination. The second component, which represented 18% of the total variability, was positively correlated with percentage of normal seedlings and kernel temperature, and negatively correlated with percentage of abnormal seedlings (Supplementary Table S2). The number of live S. zeamais, weight loss, and the number of live P. truncatus are the parameters that contributed most to the first component, while percentages of normal and abnormal seedlings are the ones that contributed mainly to the second component (Supplementary Table S2). Overall, the loading plot of variables used for the PCA, using the first two components (Figure 2), showed that postharvest loss parameters contributed the most to component 1, while germination parameters contributed mainly to component 2. The loading plot also highlighted a close association between postharvest loss parameters and the percentage of non-germinated viable seeds. Smallholder farmers in Mexico actively participate in the preservation of maize seed biodiversity through community seed banks [5,8,32]. Hermetic technologies can contribute to seed preservation by protecting the seed during the storage period. This study evaluated the effect of hermetic technologies on postharvest loss parameters and seed germination.There was little variation in kernel moisture content across storage technologies or storage periods, though some significant increases and decreases were observed, particularly after six months of storage. Overall, kernels stored in either hermetic bags or sealed plastic containers had lower moisture content variation than those stored in polypropylene woven bags. These results are similar to those from other experiments in the State of Mexico published by García-Lara et al. [33], who reported an increase in grain moisture content stored using polypropylene sacks. The same results have also been reported for experiments elsewhere [34,35]. These changes are associated with environmental humidity and the failure of polypropylene woven bags to protect grain from external conditions, potentially increasing moisture content or drying stored grain, depending on the environment [36]. The fluctuations in moisture content noticed in hermetic bags, particularly after six months of storage were reported by other authors [24,37] and could be explained by ambient air leaking into the system. Hermetic bags are not perfectly \"impermeable\" and the sealing system (a zip system) of the storage containers could also have an impact on oxygen and moisture fluctuations within the technologies [38]. Fluctuations of moisture content could also be explained by the perforation of bags by insects, particularly P. truncatus, and/or biological activity inside the containers that may lead to condensation due to temperature variation outside the containers [13]. The perforation of hermetic bags by bruchids has been reported in experiments carried out elsewhere [39][40][41] even though the impact on insect damage was not significant. Overall, hermetic technologies with low-permeability barriers help to limit insect damage in comparison with non-hermetic technologies.Samples stored in polypropylene woven bags were highly infested during storage, resulting in high levels of insect damage and weight loss, confirming previous findings for this region of Mexico [10,33]. Storage losses were due to the activities of the main pests, particularly P. truncatus, and favored by the availability of oxygen. However, VC Amarillo, the landrace with the hardest endosperm, seemed less infested by insects. The incidence of these pests in grain inside polypropylene woven bags depends on the landraces and their characteristics, including composition, kernel hardness and vitreousness, and pericarp thickness [42]. The endosperm characteristics are not the only mechanism involved in the resistance to storage insect pests. Previous studies have reported that maize resistance to postharvest insect pests is related to phenolic contents [43,44]. Maize kernel resistance to postharvest pests is based on complex interactions between anatomical, biochemical and genetic factors, and includes antibiosis and antixenosis (physical barriers and phytochemical repellents) effects [42]. Some Mexican landraces, particularly the ones of yellow, blue and pink colors, are known for their high polyphenol and anthocyanins contents [45]. These landraces with high resistance to the main postharvest pests have been identified and could be used to develop improved varieties [46]. However, since farmers' selection of maize varieties also depends on their home consumption strategies [6], it is important to find other strategies to avoid losses during storage. Hermetic technologies, including low-cost alternatives such as recycled containers, e.g., plastic bottles and barrels, minimize insect infestations and weight loss regardless of maize variety in smallholders' farming systems [10].As highlighted by the PCA, there was a negative relationship between increased postharvest loss (high percentage of insect damage, weight loss, and high numbers of live insects) and seed germination. However, post-storage germination data of the pest-free samples stored in polypropylene woven bags were very high, and there was no significant effect of maize variety, storage technology, or storage time. Similar results were found by Odjo et al. [14], who reported high percentages of germination of seed stored using non-hermetic technologies in temperate conditions (>2000 masl). These results could be ascribed to environment, including low relative humidity and ambient temperature [10]. As per Harrington [21], storage conditions including low temperatures and low relative humidity strongly favor increased seed longevity. However, storage in polypropylene woven bags resulted in a loss of seed quantity, as demonstrated by the percentage of insect damage and weight loss recorded, so polypropylene woven bags are not a viable storage strategy for seed biodiversity preservation. Hermetic storage had no detrimental effects on the percentage of germination and applying percussion or delaying the germination assay did not significantly improve it. These results corroborate the findings of García-Lara et al. [33] and Odjo et al. [14] in the central highlands of Mexico and experiments elsewhere [34,[47][48][49]. Hermetic technologies preserve the percentage of seed germination by limiting oxygen availability and maintaining low-equilibrium relative humidity for stored seed, which in turn slows oxidative reactions associated with decreased seed viability [50]. These results are valid over an extended storage time (up to 7 months), as demonstrated by Kuyu et al. [25]. Regarding special treatments, percussion treatments in this study tended to reduce the percentage of normal seedlings. No special treatments were required for a satisfactory germination rate in the case of the maize varieties studied.A decreased germination rate for seed stored using hermetic technologies has been reported and may be associated with the conditions of germination assays, particularly seed moisture content [19,20,51]. Singano et al. [51] reported a low percentage of seed germination (less than 15%) for samples stored using hermetic technologies and associated with high temperatures and moisture content and the airtight conditions. Water availability in hermetic storage can provoke fermentation in the seed, decreasing viability [52]. Seed moisture content at storage in the current study was below 13%, explaining the high germination recorded, and the data presented here confirm that storing dry seed in hermetically sealed containers will not adversely affect seed germination.The percentages of normal seedlings reported in the current study were low. Landraces are generally selected by farmers in Mexico based on ear corn and kernel characteristics for culinary qualities and cultural purposes [1,6]. Participatory breeding programs considering farmers' preferences could help in improving landraces' seed quality and overall productivity, and enhance their in situ conservation [5]. The percentage of normal seedlings for initial samples frozen at −18 • C were sometimes lower than normal seedling values obtained after storage, suggesting freezing injury. This phenomenon has already been described during the storage of high-moisture-content seeds (>15%) [50]. The results presented in the current study suggest that freezing injury could still happen at moisture contents between 10.0 and 12.6% (the moisture contents of the initial materials). Data on the effect of freezing on Mexican seed landraces quality is, however, scarce, and this warrants further investigation. A decrease in the percentage of normal seedlings of seed stored in hermetic containers was sometimes observed and, overall, storage time also had a negative effect on the percentage of normal seedlings. These results are unexpected and contrast with hybrid seeds' germination results from the same area presented by Odjo et al. [14]. This could be associated with seed moisture content, and the results presented in the current study suggest that an additional decrease in moisture content for the landraces studied is required. Seed preservation standards generally recommend drying seed to a critical moisture content below which desiccation injury could occur [53]. According to the results of Bakhtavar et al. [54], only seed with 8% moisture content stored in hermetic containers maintained a satisfactory germination level. Adsorption isotherm studies of these landraces could help to establish the best conditions for their storage. Overall, seed drying, a key preparation prior to storage in hermetic conditions, is important but could be challenging for smallholders, particularly in the highlands or during rainy seasons [55]. Sun drying, particularly at hot times of day, can also reduce seed germination. Low-cost seed dryers or shade drying can be used without detrimental effects on germination [56]. Solutions such as zeolite drying are also safer alternatives that can maintain maize seeds' high viability during storage. These drying solutions combined with the dry chain strategy have been promoted for Guatemala's community seed reserves to preserve seed viability [57].In the case of maize stored for use as seed by smallholder farmers, hermetic technologies can limit damage by postharvest insect pests and minimize storage loss. Quantitative damage was much higher with polypropylene woven bags with high infestation levels of S. zeamais and P. truncatus. Using hermetic technologies, including recycled storage containers such as plastic bottles, did not significantly affect germination rate, and there was no need for additional seed treatments to increase the percentage of germination. These technologies could be promoted for smallholder farmers in Mexico with the appropriate technical support, including properly drying seeds before storage. Facilitating the physical and economical access of smallholders to these technologies and practices so that they can dry and store seed in safe conditions is critical to preserve their seed biodiversity and strength their food security.The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https: //www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/insects13100878/s1, Table S1: Effect of storage technologies on the percentage of abnormal seedlings, non germinated viable seeds and non germinated non-viable seeds, determined by germination tests after three and six months of storage; Table S2: Eigenvalues, proportions and cumulative proportions obtained with the principal component analysis; variable correlation and contribution to the principal component. Funding: CIMMYT implemented this study as part of the Project \"MasAgro Productor/Cultivos para México\" funded by Secretaría de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural (SADER). This work is also part of the One-CGIAR initiative AgriLAC with support from W1&W2 donors, including national governments, foundations, development banks, and other public and private agencies. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the donors mentioned previously.Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable.","tokenCount":"4842"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cef6678e3c79d79ef5d08610a766e4c0","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0e88109f-bbe2-4d47-8bb5-eb4932a74e37/retrieve","id":"552817897"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"14792443-7996-4306-99aa-ae997a5e3f40","pagecount":"27","content":"CGIAR is a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for a food-secure future. The CGIAR Research Program on Livestock provides research-based solutions to help smallholder farmers, pastoralists and agropastoralists transition to sustainable, resilient livelihoods and to productive enterprises that will help feed future generations. It aims to increase the productivity and profitability of livestock agri-food systems in sustainable ways, making meat, milk and eggs more available and affordable across the developing world.The Program thanks all donors and organizations who globally supported its work through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund.solutions to support the transition of smallholder farmers, pastoralists and agro-pastoralists into sustainable, resilient livelihoods and towards productive enterprises that will help feed future generations. An important component of the CRP Livestock research agenda is to demonstrate how livestock research can translate into impact through livestock value chain transformation in four selected priority countries, namely Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Vietnam. In these priority country projects, the ambition was to integrate a range of research outputs (referred to as a package, bundle or basket of interventions) and pilot these bundled interventions in each site with the intention to eventually take them to scale.To promote integration, achieve development impacts, and work towards the eventual scaling up and out of these interventions, a Theory of Change-based approach was promoted. This approach uses the project Theory of Change in multiple ways, i.e. for planning, monitoring, reflection and checking the intervention logic, adaptive management, and evaluation. This report provides reflections on this process, which was supported by KIT Royal Tropical Institute (KIT). Section 2 provides the theoretical underpinnings of this approach, and Section 3 explains how this was implemented in practice. In Section 4, four case studies are presented of the priority country projects of the CRP Livestock. Finally, in Section 5 we present a discussion of the approach and how this could be implemented in other agricultural research for development (AR4D) and Livestock Research for Development (LR4D) programs. The Theory of Change (ToC) finds its origins in the 1980s in theory-based evaluation approaches, which focussed on explaining how and why an intervention achieved or contributed to impact, rather than only on measuring whether or not an intervention had achieved stated outputs and outcomes (Vogel, 2012). In the 1990s, ToCs also started to be used to reflect on and evaluate community initiatives (Connell & Kubisch, 1998), and nowadays, ToCs have become widely used in international development programs. The approach is being used to map out how activities lead to outputs, outcomes and ultimate impacts, and to articulate assumptions of how these changes happen and the ToC is used as a basis for evaluation (Vogel, 2012). Some ToCs also include the context in which the program is embedded and which hinders or supports the ability of the program to generate the desired outcomes (Mayne, 2012). It is often referred to as both a product, i.e. a diagram detailing the impact pathways and their assumptions, and a process, i.e. the reflective process leading to detailing assumptions behind how change happens (Vogel, 2012).AR4D and LR4D, such as CGIAR is involved in, typically take place in complex environments with multiple influencing factors and partners and non-linear processes (Tomich et al. 2019). In such complex systems, ToCs are a particularly important tool to enhance effectiveness, as they should make explicit what needs to be done to achieve the desired impact and what could prevent this from happening (Maru et al., 2018). While the use of ToCs has become a common requirement in AR4D and LR4D, the way they have been applied may still have limited value (Maru et al., 2018). Challenges that have been identified in fully mainstreaming the approach relate to 1) the different interpretations of the ToC, namely as a tool for theory-based evaluation, or as an instrument for the design of effective interventions and to promote reflection and adaptation, 2) limited grounding of ToCs in social, behavioural, economic, institutional and/or biophysical theories, 3) conflation of ToCs and project \"logframes\", and 4) limited skills, incentives and commitment for stakeholder engagement and the design of and reflection on interventions, and inter-and trans-disciplinary ways of working (Maru et al., 2018).The above challenges mean that ToCs are often formulated in a 'top-down' manner, meaning that they are formulated by 'experts' rather than through a participatory and reflective process (Maru et al., 2018). This results in them being vague and overly generic (Freer & Lemire, 2019) and make it difficult to striking a balance between the perceived need for simplicity and the complexity of implementing programs, and the challenge of identifying all the assumptions underlying such complex programs and the risks that threaten their success (Freer & Lemire, 2019).ToCs are a useful tool for program planning in LR4D because of their explicit focus on involving all the key stakeholders (Thornton et al., 2017). It can, therefore, also become an important tool to generate buy-in, ensure that different stakeholders' perspectives and incentives are considered and that the program is realistic for the local context.A ToC-based approach can also support adaptive management in programs because ToCs can be used for learning, and the original assumptions and hypotheses that underpin a ToC can be modified along the way. This, therefore, assists in dealing with uncertainty and emergent priorities and opportunities (Thornton et al., 2017). Regular reflections with stakeholders on the logic in the ToC and the underlying assumptions are needed to facilitate adaptive management, and the visual diagram of a ToC is a useful tool with which to do this.As described, ToCs have their origin in theory-based evaluation approaches. Theory-based evaluations have become more popular in recent years in response to the inability of impact evaluation methods (e.g. Randomised Controlled Trials) to determine the mechanisms by which interventions and research for development can achieve impact and generate institutional lessons on research and innovation processes (Hall et al., 2003). While (semi-) experimental evaluation methods can determine whether an intervention works, they do not explain why and how. However, this knowledge is crucial to scale innovations beyond test locations (Maru et al., 2018). Impact assessments, therefore, need to be complemented with analytical frameworks that allow for institutional learning (Hall et al., 2003).Realist evaluation is a sub-stream of theory-based evaluation approaches which seeks to improve understanding of how and why interventions work or do not work in particular contexts and why different contexts yield different outcomes. This approach is specifically based on the assumption that there is no onesize-fits-all solution, as the context strongly influences program outcomes. This implies that understanding context is an important part of understanding how and why programs work or not so that informed decisions can be made about which programs or policies to use and how to adapt them to local contexts  (Westhorp, 2014). It is, therefore, particularly appropriate for evaluating pilot programs that are being scaled out.A realist evaluation tries to explain causation through observable and non-observable processes. In essence, the program activities (observable) influences the reasoning, norms, capacity, and collective beliefs of the participants or stakeholders (non-observable), which determine decisions and choices of the same actors that result in program outcomes (observable). This underlying causal process is called a 'mechanism', which may function differently in one context compared to another (Westhorp, 2014;Pawson and Tilley, 1997).A realist evaluation thus tests how mechanisms initiated by a programme should cause desired outcomes (White and Phillips, 2012). A well-developed ToC that unpacks the complexity of a program is, therefore, an essential basis of a realist evaluation.In a realist evaluation, to evaluate whether a program has achieved its objectives, its ToC is compared against the evidence through a process called contribution analysis (Koleros and Mayne, 2019). A contribution analysis is constructed by building up evidence that demonstrates the contribution of an intervention while also establishing the relative importance of other influences on observed outcomes (White and Phillips, 2012).In contribution analysis, two concepts are important to build evidence of attribution: 1) necessity: the intervention actually caused the change, i.e. nothing would have changed in the absence of the intervention -the intervention was necessary, and 2) sufficiency: the intervention was the only cause of the change, i.e. nothing else was needed to bring about the change -the intervention was sufficient. If evidence can be found that the intervention was both necessary and sufficient, the achieved change can be attributed to the intervention (Mayne, 2012). The evidence base can be built using quantitative methods, but also by eliminating plausible alternative explanations for the change at the outcome level (e.g., other donor interventions, new policies, market forces). Causation is often directly experienced or observed by project staff, participants, and stakeholders. Views from different key informants is, therefore, essential qualitative data to be used in contribution analysis. They can be asked (i) whether, (ii) to what extent, and (iii) why they attribute a particular change (outcome) to the intervention (Mayne, 2012). Four different levels of contribution can be identified (i.e. none, weak, fair, strong) and can be characterised through four key questions (Table 1). In the priority country projects, a ToC-based approach consisting of four main steps was implemented: 1) Validation of the project's ToC, 2) Reflections on this ToC with project staff and partners (two rounds); 3) Assessment of knowledge, attitudes and practices among next users; 4) Contribution analysis (Figure 1).The country teams and stakeholders identified the change pathways and underlying assumptions during the inception phase of the projects. These ToCs were used as the basis for the project proposals. These original ToCs were reviewed, populated with assumptions, and validated by the country teams. This step had as an output a new ToC diagram for each country, depicting the change pathways and underlying assumptions at the start of the priority country projects. In addition, the process reflected on specific groups of 'next users' (following Douthwaite et al., 2008), i.e. those who are using the research outputs, looking at the changes in the knowledge and attitudes required to achieve a change in a certain practice and a mapping of assumptions against the scaling ingredients (based on Dror and Wu (2020)).Virtual reflection workshops were held for each country to reflect on the ToC, using the revised versions developed in Step 1. The focus was on validating the change pathways and the underlying assumptions and assessing the progress towards achieving outcomes. At the start of the projects, it was anticipated that there would be in-country workshops, however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, these were moved online using the web-based platform MURAL. The first reflection sessions took place in each of the four countries in the first or second quarter of 2021 (depending on the country), and the second and final reflections were held during the country stakeholder meetings in the third or fourth quarter of 2021. The latter also focused on an assessment of the extent to which the ToCs held true, and the contributions of the priority country projects to the achievement of (or working towards) impact at scale. The sessions in Ethiopia and Uganda were hybrid meetings combining online and in-person discussions.Outcome harvesting was implemented through a KAP survey (Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices Survey) to assess perceived changes among next users, at the (early) outcome level in the ToCs, including their perceptions on the contribution of the projects to those changes. Table 2 provides an overview of the sample of respondents included in each country.While the approach was uniform, the questionnaires were customised for each country based on the project'sPlanning workshops ToC and the knowledge attitudes and practices that were expected to change among the next user groups as a result of the project (see Step 1). Questions on knowledge aimed to assess what respondents identified as the most important learnings related to crop-livestock systems and whether they perceived these learnings as applicable to their situation. These questions were either open-ended or were Likert-type questions with five levels of (dis)agreement. Questions on attitudes were about the agreement with statements about key areas of relevance to the ToC and the assumptions part of the ToC. They also used the agreement scale and had open-ended follow-up questions to understand the motivations behind respondents' answers. Finally, questions on practices, were aimed at assessing which practices respondents have implemented, which were open-ended and Likert-scale questions with a frequency scale.A virtual validation workshop was held with the CRP Livestock program staff, including the Program Management Unit (PMU) at the ILRI headquarters and representatives from the project teams in the four priority country programmes. The focus of the meeting was sharing a) the lessons learned on LR4D and the integrated intervention packages with respect to the benefits and challenges in project design, planning, managing, implementing, and forging partnerships (see also Kruijssen et al., 2021); and b) the findings of the contribution analysis per priority country projects in order to validate them. The anticipated outcomes in the ToC were assessed with regard to (i) whether they occurred, (ii) to what extent, and (iii) why they can be attributed to the country projects. Using the process described above, the KIT team constructed the contribution analysis in consultation with the project teams in the four priority country projects, each piloted an integrated livestock development approach for a different species of livestock. The following sections include a brief introduction to the priority country projects, their objectives and activities, and a comparison of their interventions' ToC against the evidence gathered through the ToC reflection workshops and KAP surveys carried out in each country. For a complete analysis, these findings need to be triangulated with the results of endline surveys (not yet carried out when this publication was developed).The CRP Livestock project \"Small Ruminant value chain Transformation (SmaRT) in Ethiopia\" was implemented in four areas consisting of three sheep value chain sites (Doyogena, Bonga and Menz) and one goat value chain site (Abergelle) sites where target and control villages were identified (ToC in Annex). The core package i.e. SmaRT pack was consolidated in the current target villages and implemented as an integrated package in the new target villages. The SmaRT Pack is a set of best-bet interventions delivered as a package. The core interventions in the SmaRT pack include packaging of improved genetics and integrated interventions in animal health, and disease prevention and management, improved feeding and business oriented sheep fattening, and sustainable use of communal grasslands. The SmaRT Pack primarily targets smallscale sheep and goat producers in Ethiopia, focusing on local markets for sheep and the international market for goats. It was delivered through community associations like marketing cooperatives and farmer producer participants. The project team and external partners piloted the package and tested it for sustainable productivity improvement. Specifically, the project aimed to improve the livelihoods of women and men small ruminant producers through the consolidation,testing and promotion of the SmaRT Pack at the producer level while facilitating equitable access to input supplies and services through community action and policy support.Based on the ToC reflections, the KAP survey carried out in Ethiopia, and the validation workshop with the project team, the following results were observed regarding changes in four major groups of 'next users' namely a) Small Ruminant Producers, b) Development Agents, and c) Policymakers (Table 3). The next user group, 'input suppliers and service providers' and 'youth groups'(added later) were not considered in the contribution analysis.  In the ToC strategy, the project envisaged that the government development agents (basically extension workers) would have and use the knowledge, skills and tools to promote and support the implementation of the SmaRT Pack. They were trained by the project but were not seen as contact points by farmers on information and advice on sheep production and management (KAP survey). In most locations, the DAs could not be involved in promoting SmaRT pack as they were busy with other government duties. Nonetheless, the project was able to develop new and private service providers and/or extension agents in the form of research enumerators and champion farmers to take up identified opportunities for market-oriented services and inputs.The priority country project \"Agri-entrepreneurship, technology uptake and inclusive dairy development in Tanzania\" was implemented in two pilot sites in Tanga and Kilimanjaro regions with the goal of catalysing the uptake of dairy technology packages through institutional approaches that involve inclusive agribusiness models for improved livelihoods of smallholders and environmental sustainability (ToC in Annex). Following a market systems approach, the project interventions were built on the earlier experience of facilitating multistakeholder processes through a platform called Maziwa Zaidi, involving pre-commercial dairy market hubs and innovation platforms as mechanisms to steer the smallholder dairy value chain towards more commercial dairying. The interventions focused on capacitating agribusinesses in the dairy value chain (including feed and fodder value chains) to bundle and promote proven dairy technologies and innovations using a market systems approach. A total of 94 agripreneurs were selected, of which 50 were treated as the intervention group, whereas 44 agripreneurs formed the control group. The intervention group underwent a visioning and boot camp as part of their incubation process and thereafter continued to receive coaching and mentoring support from the project. They were introduced to a basket of best-bet technologies and innovations related to animal genetics, feeds and forages, herd health and testing contextually relevant business models. The two groups were monitored to capture the impact of the capacity building processes on their individual business performance and corresponding uptake of innovative dairy packages and their use among farmers leading to increase dairy productivity and income.Based on the ToC reflections and the KAP survey carried out in Vietnam and the validation workshop with the project team, the following results were observed with regard to changes in two major groups of 'next users', namely a) Agripreneurs and b) Policymakers (Table 4).Photo ILRI/Ben Lukuyu While it was difficult to assess if the project support was the only causal factor leading to the change, it was evident that the changes were a result of the contribution of several initiatives of different stakeholders directly and indirectly supported by the project. For example, the national banks in Tanzania are dedicated to supporting the growth of the private sector and schemes like the Private Agricultural Sector Support (PASS) to which the agripreneurs were linked to foster their growth. The project sites were also deliberately selected in order to synergise research activities with the development actions (especially BDS activities) of SNV and Solidaridad who were also project partners.It was evident that following an integrated development research approach motivated the agripreneurs as well as the researchers to address complex challenges in livestock value chains by bundling technologies and/ or innovations. The latter required CG researchers to exchange findings and ideas with other disciplinary areas resulting in close collaboration with several other partners from government, NGOs, universities, and the private sector with complementary strengths and experience. Together they operated as Maziwa Zaidi, a multi-stakeholder process/platform for strengthening relationships, coordination, co-learning and co-innovation to strengthen the dairy value chain. On the other hand, the agripreneurs realised that while some interventions might take longer to achieve results, for their business models to sustain and be profitable in the longer term, it was important for them to create demand for a diversity of inputs and services together. For example, while analysing their business models, the agripreneurs understood that even if offering A.I. services bundled along with other services (such as pregnancy diagnosis, sale of mineral mixture, deworming, mobilising farmers for ECF vaccination) increased operation costs -the gross margin they earned from bundling was also higher. Therefore, it increased the likelihood of such business models being profitable. Likewise, there are indications that the project has made significant contributions towards institutionalising evidence-based decisionmaking by policymakers in terms of prioritising the dairy sector in their development plans and recognising the effectiveness of bundled technologies and servicesthe latter being confirmed by increased collaboration among government extension agents, dairy farmers and other service providers.The objective of the project 'Improving pig productivity and incomes through an environmentally sustainable and gender-inclusive integrated intervention package in Uganda' was to improve pig productivity and strengthen marketing arrangements with a view to increasing the market linkage between aggregators and pig farmers, and by linking farmers to input and service providers (ToC in Annex). The focus was on the following areas:The project was implemented with 800 households in six sites, each site with 200 sows. Farmers and input suppliers were linked to the digital 'PigSmart' platform, where they had access to information on best practices pig husbandry, disease monitoring and reporting, a feed calculator, a gross margin calculator, and possible market outlets. The pig aggregators, input suppliers, and service providers were trained to strengthen their entrepreneurial capacities and market system development. About 59 aggregators and 24 feed and drug stockists from the project sites were trained as part of market development.The project strengthened advisory services to the value chain actors (farmers, traders, butchers) on herd health and best practices in biosecurity with value chain actors.The health package was delivered by input suppliers (veterinarians). To improve pig quality, awareness of artificial insemination was improved and subsidised artificial insemination was offered.To overcome the constraint of poor quality pig feeds, the project used a business development services (BDS) approach to develop the capacity of feed compounders to provide better quality feeds. To access good quality forages, farmers were linked with forage seed distributors' network in Uganda.The project worked with pig aggregator and pork joint owners to stimulate market pull via market arrangements, and where possible also provided linkages to input suppliers as well as other necessary business development services. National and regional pig multistakeholder platform meetings were organised to share learnings on productivity enhancement, marketing and environmental interventions. The results are presented in In addition, community interest groups were formed, which were intended to form the basis for enhanced collective action among community members. Vets and extension-workers were also trained on artificial insemination and animal health. Finally, the project used PhotoVoice (a qualitative method used in community-based participatory research to document and reflect reality which uses photography and storytelling) for community engagement, organised an art exhibit, and reached out to the general public through newspapers and other media coverage.Based on the ToC reflections and the KAP survey carried out in Vietnam and the validation workshop with the project team, the following results were observed (Table 6). Because of the relatively short time-frame of the project in Vietnam (two years from the final proposal), ToC reflections and KAP survey only assessed early and medium-term outcomes. Despite COVID-19 and associated delays and travel restrictions, all the priority country projects were able to achieve early outcomes related to increase in knowledge and skills of livestock keepers, extension workers and service providers, improved collective action, and raising awareness among policymakers. While there were some early signs of the acquired skills being translated into improved practices, more time will be needed for them to qualify as intermediate outcomes. Projects where commercialisation was planned as an early outcome depended on linkages with financial institutions to design and create financial products suitable for smallholder producers -this was largely not achieved. This could be because this was beyond the project scope or the technical ability of the team involved, in which case additional external support needed to be sought to address the bottleneck. This led to inadequate time, resources, and priority to identify and forge partnerships with appropriate agencies to achieve this goal. In case of changes envisaged within policymakers as a next user group, across the projects there were small indications that policymakers were using the evidence generated by the projects. However, in hindsight, expecting 'institutionalising evidence-based policymaking' to be an early outcome or 'improving enabling business environment' as an intermediate outcome may have been too ambitious in the given project timeframe (3 years).In all country projects, it was evident that the changes observed and outcomes visible resulted from processes supported by projects -it is, however, difficult to determine if and to what extent the same changes would have taken place if the project interventions were absent.For instance, fostering collective action or cooperatives to create sustainable market linkages has been mentioned as an intermediate outcome in almost all country projects -however, there are no early outcomes and activities leading up to this -and, therefore, it is difficult to ascertain the role of the projects in making this happen. On the other hand, inducting women as members and role holders, thereby increasing women's participation in the value chains, appears to be a direct outcome of the project interventions. In the subsequent section, we reflect on the implications of this for applying a ToC-based approach.Photo ILRI/K. Dhanji. The process of applying a ToC-based approach was evaluated by CGIAR scientists during the validation workshop and the KIT team during a separate session. Overall, CGIAR scientists found the ToCbased approach useful to help achieve development outcomes, but slightly less useful when it came to support the targeting of research, i.e. using the approach to decide on which type of research to conduct (Figure 1).In the future, the ToC-based-approach for project implementation, adaptation, monitoring and evaluation is likely to be used by One CGIAR 1 in its next phase. Effective use of this approach hinges on good facilitation of this process. The experience with the CRP Livestock priority country projects provides a useful opportunity to learn about how to facilitate this. The remainder of this section provides some of the KIT team's reflections and suggestions of how to improve on this going forward.In three of the four priority country projects, ToCs were already developed, KIT helped to validate these ToCs and add assumptions to them. In the fourth country project, KIT participated in a planning workshop and supported the process of developing the ToC.Output: ToC diagram (in Visio) and narrative, with assumptions, and table with KAP changes among user groups.At first, there was insufficient clarity on how to go about the ToC-based process and its goals. The buy-in from the country teams was an important prerequisite to facilitate this stage. KIT did not take sufficient leadership over the process. Getting the different flagships (disciplinary groups) to understand each other and work together was challenging. In particular, there were challenges around identifying and achieving changes in social behaviours. Defining early outcomes in terms of changes in knowledge, attitudes and practices in 'next user' groups was helpful to achieve the behavioural changes expected.The ToCs developed were not granular enough and the goals were unrealistic to achieve within the timeframe of the projects. Being complete in formulating assumptions in between the different stages of the ToC was also challenging.To ensure that the ToC is an integral part of the project from the start, including a detailed ToC could be a requirement of proposals. This ToC can (and should) be further refined during the process of implementation and reflection. There is a need to budget sufficient time for the initial planning stage to ensure appropriate contextualisation, and partners and key stakeholders are engaged in this process. ...was facilitated in a way that was helpful to the project....is a process I will apply going forward into the initiatives next year. 1. From 2022, the new One CGIAR is a reformulation of CGIAR in which its capabilities, knowledge, assets, people, and global presence are integrated, and a portfolio of new initiatives will be implemented. See: https://www.cgiar.org/how-we-work/strategy/ A reality check is needed to ensure the ToC is reasonable for the timeframe and granular enough to be used for monitoring. This means including more gradual changes in the ToC (in smaller steps) and more specific outcomes, rather than lumping outcomes together, making them harder to monitor. A rule of thumb to follow could be not to include two different target groups or different types of results into a single outcome. Another helpful tip to ensure that outcomes are granular enough to be monitored is to develop specific indicators. If an outcome requires several indicators for monitoring progress, then it may not be granular enough. Formulating early outcomes in terms of knowledge, attitudes and practices can be helpful to ensure the social and behavioural changes required are taken into account.The people facilitating the ToC-based process need to have the mandate, trust and rapport with project teams and partners to make it work effectively. They also need to be somewhat independent of the actual project, and at the same time, there is a need for some embedding of the process in the project teams (i.e. identifying an 'owner' or champion of the ToC-based process within the project team). Training the MEL staff on the process could also be useful.Two virtual reflection workshops were held per country in which project teams participated using MURAL to facilitate the reflections. The online platform was populated with the outcomes and assumptions as listed in the ToCs. Workshop participants were divided in sub-groups each of which discussed a specific nextuser group (impact pathway) in the ToC and reflected on the outcomes and assumptions in each pathway in detail.Output: Adjusted ToCs and action plans.The frequency and number of formal ToC reflections in the priority country projects was insufficient. There were other regular project meetings where updates were being presented, and these could have been used in a better way for more regular, shorter reflections. There was also a disconnect between the ToC process and other monitoring and evaluation mechanisms/efforts. Better integration could have made the ToC reflections more efficient and less of an extra burden.Making the ToC reflections useful requires an openness to changes in the ToC and the project work-plan, as well as the M&E framework. However, existing reporting systems (i.e. MARLO, the reporting system used by CRP Livestock) blocked such adaptive management. In addition, the results of the reflections should have been shared in a more structured way by the KIT team through short meeting reports, to enable concrete adaptations to the project plans and ToCs to be made. Reflections and monitoring would also have benefited from more regular visits to the countries, which was planned but made impossible by the COVID-19 pandemic. The reflections should also have focused more on the unintended outcomes and assumptions. If assumptions are seen as conditions for outcomes to emerge, they ought to be monitored as well. In other words, in the TOC reflection, it was important to check whether the assumptions held good during implementation and/or if any assumptions were missing and make adaptations to project plans and ToC based on these reflections. While scaling research was an important driver for these projects to be implemented, there was insufficient capacity for scaling to achieve this. Some assumptions, e.g. creating access to finance , would have required new activities and partners that might have been outside the scope of the teams implementing them. While it is recognized that an LR4D or AR4D project is unable to tackle every single aspect required to make a value chain function, critical bottlenecks that limit wide adoption and use of research outputs will need to be addressed, for impact to be achieved.Including regular reflections as part of the project plan (milestones) and anchoring this in the implementation and reporting processes, the monitoring and evaluation and learning systems, as well as in incentive structures for project teams, could help to ensure that the ToCbased approach is embedded in ways of working. Reflection sessions, formal and informal, virtual and on-site, should take place on a more frequently for example, every quarter. This allows for projects to be more responsive to (changes in) reality and to new insights. These reflections should be documented with clearly defined implications for implementation. More regular (field)visits would allow for collection of more evidence to understand whether and how outcomes are emerging. For example, the KAP survey tool could have been implemented at more regular intervals with a small sample of project participants to have evidence to feed into the reflections, and consequently revise the ToC.For these reflections to result in better outcomes, an adaptive management system, i.e. flexibility to change project activities and outcomes based on ground realities and periodic reflection, is required. This should also include space to accommodate emergent and/or unintended outcomes that are conducive or unfavourable to project goals. Such an adaptive management system also requires some flexibility in the allocation of resources to allow for changes to be Photo ILRI/Ben Lukuyu.made. This also means that achieving the outcomes, as defined in the ToC, needs to be leading over particular research interests. The above-mentioned documentation of regular reflections will also allow for a case to be made to donors for more flexibility.A set of standardised tools to facilitate the reflection process could help to make them more user friendly: e.g., scaling scan, partnership scan, ToC reflections, KAP survey, etc. ensuring that outputs of such tools are available to be used by all involved. In addition, to ensure that all involved have the capacities needed for systems research, enhancing adoption, and scaling, requires more capacity strengthening.The two reflection workshops of Stage 2 were also meant to collect information on the degree to which outcomes were being achieved, from the perspective of project implementers. The KAP survey was developed to assess KAP changes among the next users. A validation workshop was held to validate findings from these two methods and to carry out the contribution analysis.Output: Contribution analysis.The contribution analysis methodology was promising but could not be used to its full potential. This would only have been possible if it had been better integrated with the other monitoring and evaluation methods used in the project. The KAP survey tool was a useful tool to assess behavioural changes but could have been consulted on more widely in the research teams to ensure that other data could have been collected, useful to the scientists. At the same time, there is a fine balance between ensuring the interviews were short and collecting sufficient data. The KAP survey should also have been applied at regular intervals to enable monitoring of changes and unintended consequences and using this as evidence for the reflection workshops.In the inception stage of the project, more thought should go into how different methods for monitoring, evaluation and learning methods are applied, for what purpose and with which frequency. This allows for better linkages to be made between those different sources of information for this purpose. This should then also include wider consultation on the types of KAP outcomes to monitor. The KAP survey (and other tools to measure behavioural outcomes) should be applied more regularly (e.g. at 6-month intervals) with a small sample of next users to be used for tracking of changes and as input into the reflections of Stage 2. For a complete contribution analysis, the evidence from reflections and KAP changes should ideally be combined with quantitative data on (long-term) outcome indicators.","tokenCount":"5769"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2315f9f57bf7c63b7e9877b87c4467bf","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ef262ca8-e9d7-42a5-88ed-87bfd65e1677/retrieve","id":"658944828"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"add9b169-48c2-4169-86d2-e8937f3858d2","pagecount":"107","content":"The complete report, Appraisal of the Sri Lanka Dairy Sector, consists of 2 volumes as follows:Volume 1: Synthesis Report Presents an Executive Summary, and synthesis of the study findings and recommendations, organised in three main sections: 1) Dairy Production Systems, 2) Economics and Markets, and 3) Policy and Institutions. Volume 2: Main Report (this volume)Presents more detailed findings, as well as supplementary appendices, organised in the same manner as Volume 1.Appraisal of the Sri Lanka Dairy Sector:Main Report v       The initiative for this Dairy Sector Appraisal arose from a shared interest by the Ministry of Livestock Development and Estate Infrastructure and the National Dairy Development Board of India, to review progress in the Sri Lanka dairy sector with a view to identifying strategies for continued development.Due to its experience in this type of research, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) was asked to assist in facilitating this review.A stakeholder' meeting was held in Peradeniya on December 17, 1997 to further the implementation of this idea. At that meeting, which was attended by a wide variety of participants from the public sector, research and development agencies and the private sector, a number of priority issues to be addressed through the Sector Appraisal were identified. The general objective of the Appraisal would be to review dairy development in Sri Lanka, and identify priority development and research interventions. The approach agreed upon generally followed the ILRI Conceptual Framework for Dairy Research (Rey et al., 1993), which addresses the entire consumption-to-production spectrum within dairy systems. It was decided to assign researchers to examine each of the primary set of issues: a) production systems, b) economic and structural issues, and c) policy and institutional issues. The Terms of Reference (TOR) for each topic are presented in Appendix 1. The team leader chosen to co-ordinate the Appraisal was Dr MNM Ibrahim, from the Department of Animal Science of the University of Peradeniya.As agreed at the initial stakeholder meeting, the overall objective was to bridge information gaps to assist and accelerate dairy development in Sri Lanka.The specific objectives were to:1. Highlight the nature and distribution of dairy production, processing, marketing and consumption; 2. Identify the potential for further development of the dairy sector and the primary constraints which impede the potential; and 3. Suggest areas that should be targeted for investment, policy and technological interventions and research in support of the development of the dairy sector.The main areas targeted for the study were the zones typically used in differentiating agricultural systems in Sri Lanka: Up-country, Mid-country, Coconut Triangle, Northern Dry Zone and Southern Dry Zone.The methodology used in this study was based on ILRI's Conceptual Framework for Dairy Research (Rey et al., 1993), further refined through Dairy Rapid Appraisals carried out by ILRI with its collaborators in Uganda and Tanzania. The approach centres on the principle that viable dairy systems are necessarily demand-driven (Figure 1). Thus the focus is on market-orientation, and the analysis begins by considering current and potential market demand, as any significant expansion or development of the dairy sector will depend on effective demand. Further, given that dairy systems are shaped by the interaction of technology, economics, and policy, an interdisciplinary approach is needed, so that is reflected in the make-up of the research teams.Critical to generating new insights and information that are not simply a repetition of previous assessments, is a willingness to challenge prevailing notions among the development and research stakeholders in the dairy sector. This approach was taken in the Appraisal, with a view towards testing current presumptions against the available facts, as their validity may be undermined by contrary evidence, or because the dynamics of the sector have rendered them outdated.The Appraisal was subsequently carried out during April to July 1998. It was composed of the following parts:Background to the study Appraisal of the Sri Lanka Dairy Sector:Main Report ix a) a review of previous studies and secondary information on the dairy sector b) a structured producer/consumer survey of some 3525 households in both rural and urban areas of Sri Lanka to quantify production parameters, market linkages and dairy consumption habits, c) a rural rapid appraisal (RRA or \"sondeo\") or interdisciplinary rapid qualitative survey -a tour by the team leaders and ILRI and NDDB scientists of the main production and consumption areas to carry out interviews with farmers, market agents, and other expert informants, in order to gather qualitative information.A final Stakeholder Meeting was held in Peradeniya on October 5, 1998, at which preliminary results and recommendations were presented and discussed. This report reflects the inputs from the structured survey, the RRA survey, and the stakeholder meetings.The very large structured survey was not a feature of the previous Rapid Appraisals, and necessitated considerable time and effort to conduct and analyse. For that reason, this study was not considered a Rapid Appraisal (RA) of the sort previously facilitated by ILRI, although it retains the components of the RAs with the addition of the structured survey. References in this report to RRA refer only to the sondeo rapid survey. A primary investigation was conducted as a part of the Appraisal, to generate estimates on dairy production and consumption parameters and fill in some major data gaps in production and consumption in Sri Lanka. This structured survey covered 3525 households in 20 districts. The sample design was as:(1) Given the distribution of GN Divisions in the study districts, the number of GN Divisions to be surveyed was arrived at and allocated to each district, proportionate to its estimated population (which happens to be same as the number of GN Divisions, except for Colombo district)Background to the study Appraisal of the Sri Lanka Dairy Sector:Main Report x(2) Sampling of GN Divisions in a given district was based on a random selection (3) Given a sample GN Division, the households (one in every ten) were randomly selected from the GN household list, thus both household with and without livestock were interviewed. Those with livestock were interviewed for both dairy production and consumption information, and those without were interviewed for consumption information only. The interviews were carried out by students from Peradeniya University.Introduction Sri Lanka's dairy production systems and their market linkages have developed in response to domestic demand for milk and dairy products, particularly the demand from Colombo's large relatively rich, urban population. The systems found in specific areas strongly reflect the variation in climate and agro-ecology and the resultant land-use patterns, with adaptations according to the level of participation in the dairy market, both local and distant. The national population, which has an annual rate of growth of approximately 1%, is almost 18 million. Urban growth is faster, and currently about 25% of the population lives in urban centres. Colombo, with some 750,000 inhabitants, and Dehiwala-Mt. Lavinia, Jaffna, Moratuwa, Kottee, Kandy and Galle, with 100,000 to 225,000, are the principal concentrations of consumers of marketed milk and dairy products.For administration purposes, Sri Lanka has ten provinces and 25 administrative districts. Population densities range from over 1,300 people per sq. km in Western Province to 115 in North-Central Province (Central Bank Annual Report, 1996), reflecting variation in urbanisation, agricultural potential and landuse systems. Aside from the densely populated periurban Colombo region and the adjacent coconut triangle, the rural population is concentrated in the mid-and up-country regions in the south central mountainous zone. This zone, which rises to a height of 7,000 -8,000 feet a.m.s.l., is surrounded on all sides by flat lowland (Figure 2). The lowlands, between the highlands and the coast, occupy a relatively narrow strip in the south-east, south and west, but to the north they spread out into a large plain.Since the country is located on the border of the equatorial belt, it's climate is characterised by low variations in temperature and rainfall. Rainfall is concentrated in two monsoons: the north-east monsoon in November -January, locally referred to as the maha season, and the south-west monsoon during May -August, locally known as yala season. These are supplemented during the inter-monsoonal period by convectional storms, and in October by cyclonic depressions coming from the east. The south-west monsoons are mostly confined to the south-central mountainous region and to the lowland between it and the coast to the west and south. The north east monsoon rains are island-wide. These rainfall distributions result in three distinct zones: the Dry (which receives only from one monsoon and an annual rainfall of 875-1875 mm); the Wet, which receives both monsoons and an annual rainfall of about 2500 to 5000 mm; and, the Intermediate zone, the narrow strip of land which lies between them, which has an annual rainfall of 1875 to 2500 mm. The Dry, Intermediate and Wet zones cover approximately 4.1, 0.9 and 1.5 million ha, respectively.Within these zones, agricultural (cultivated) land is estimated at approximately 2 million ha (about 30% of the total) of which 75% are smallholdings, and of these 90% are less than 2 ha. The MLD&EI (1995) estimated that 33% of these smallholdings have livestock. The total agricultural population is estimated at around 10 -11 million, with an estimated 3.5 million involved with livestock of whom 70% are rural farmers. Consequently smallholders dominate agricultural production, including dairy. The national livestock population contributing to, or with potential to contribute to, dairy production, includes 1.64 m. cattle, 0.76 m. buffaloes and 0.54 m. goats, with an estimated 697,300 milch cows and 234,800 milch buffaloes in 1996 (Dept. Census and Statistics, 1997). Because large ruminant production is largely based on natural grazing, approximately 70% of cattle and 75% of buffalo are found in the Dry and Intermediate zones. Goats do not currently, nor are expected to, contribute significantly to dairy production.Figure 3 shows the distribution of the cattle and buffalo by district in 1997, based on official statistics. It should be borne in mind that the quality of the statistical data on the livestock sector is relatively poor, hence the efforts of the current study to gather reliable estimates to serve as a sounder basis for the planning of Sri Lanka's dairy development.The cattle and buffalo populations are managed in production systems that are characteristic of the five major agro-climatic/land-use zones: Up-country; Mid-country; the Coconut triangle; the Wet low country (the south-west lowlands); and, the Dry (lowland) zone. The latter has both rainfed and irrigated (Mahaweli) farming systems, and, in addition, the rainfed systems of the southern, eastern and northern regions of the Dry lowlands have some distinguishing characteristics.  DDF Desk Study Report (1986).As is shown in Table 1, these seven agro-climatic/land-use zones contribute to milk production and collection in, and milk flows to, the five milk sheds identified in the DDF Desk Study Report (1986). The vast majority of the milk comes from smallholder herds. Insufficient data < 3 % 3 -5 % 6 -9% >10%Insufficient data < 3 % 3 -5 % 6 -9% >10% The cattle and buffalo production systems can be classified by the breeds utilised and the husbandry practised, which in turn are closely related to the agro-ecology and climate. These can be summarised for four major agro-climatic/land-use zones: up-and mid-country; the coconut triangle; the wet lowland; and, the dry lowland.The common topographic and climatic features, types of animals and husbandry practices in the major systems are given in Table 2. The classification does not include the intensive dairying system in Jaffna, to which access is limited currently because of the military conflict.The approximate numbers of cattle and buffaloes in each zone are shown in Table 3. Amongst the up-and mid-country cattle, it is estimated that nearly 50% are dairy cows. In the coconut triangle and the wet lowlands, the proportion of dairy cows is around 40%, whereas in the dry lowlands it is around 30%. In general the percentage of buffaloes used for milk production is lower than for cattle. In the rice production areas of the dry and wet lowland zones and the coconut triangle, a considerable proportion of buffaloes and cattle are used for draught power. The Up-country or hill country zone lies above 1200 meters a.m.s.l. and is characterised by tea plantations and dairy production from cattle kept in two systems, the estate-and village-based systems. In the estate-based system many of the employees in the tea estates rear dairy cattle, generally the European breeds, Ayrshire, Friesian and Jersey, and their crosses, although the popularity of the Friesian is said to be increasing at the expense of the Ayrshire. Average milk yields are reported as up to 8 litres/cow/day or about 2,500 litres/cow/lactation. In this estate-based system, the dairy farmers own no land and are dependent upon weeds from the estate land and fodder gathered from near waterways and other communal and public areas. Manure is often sold. In the village-based system, the majority of smallholders are crop-livestock farmers, growing vegetables and paddy. Manure is a major product from their cattle, with milk often a secondary source of income.In the Mid-country, the European dairy breed crosses, are an increasing proportion of the smallholder cattle herd, but there are many crosses with Indian breeds and milk yields are correspondingly lower. They are reported to be about 6 litres/cow/day or around 1,500 litres/cow/lactation. Farms combine a homestead tree garden system (McConnel, 1992) with rice production in the low lying land, generally cultivated by buffalo. Land sizes are small (Westernbrink, 1986), encouraging the adoption of zerograzing, with generally two cows and their progeny. There is an increasing dependence on fodder from off-farm and on concentrate purchases, which are influenced by the level of household income (EEC Project Report, 1996).In the Coconut triangle and the Wet lowlands cattle and buffalo form an integral part of the farming systems, helping in weed control and providing manure in the coconut lands. Buffaloes are used principally for draft purposes in paddy cultivation and are kept in almost all the rice growing areas. Some farmers rear dairy buffaloes, pure Indian breeds or their crosses managed under a intensive or semiintensive system. The buffalo milk is generally converted to curd for which there is high demand locally. In both zones cattle and buffalo graze on the fallow paddy fields, as well as on the natural pastures under the coconut plantations and in non-cultivated areas, including common properties.In the Dry lowland zone cattle are predominantly indigenous Zebu, although Sahiwal crossbred cattle, and improved buffalo in the eastern dry zone, are becoming more common, especially in the Mahaweli irrigated areas. These cattle and buffalo form an important capital asset (an inflation-proof insurance fund) for the peasant farmers, and where there is the possibility to sell milk, it is becoming an important source of income. Many herds are grazed on common lands and in the farmer's or neighbours' fallow paddy fields, and brought to the homestead at night to avoid theft and damage to crops. The feeding of rice straw is common; generally concentrates are not fed. Herd sizes average 10 -25 with some of more than 100 animals. The average production of milk extracted for human consumption from the indigenous breeds is about 1 litre per cow per day, with 2-3 times more from Sahiwal.Livestock and particularly dairying, are traditional economic activities for which women commonly provide a major part of the labour input. According to de Moor (1989), in most households in the coconut triangle and mid country areas where dairy cattle were kept, more than one person was involved in dairy, with the work load divided among family members. On the average, respondents spent three hours per day on dairy related activities. According to Mendis, (1989), the main responsibility in attending to the dairy enterprise fell on the women, with other members helping wherever possible. The women were involved in almost all dairy activities, including feeding.The government has been active in its support for domestic dairy production and marketing through, for example, it's policies to promote the breeding and distribution of dairy stock. Yet it is said that the anticipated growth in the dairy sector, principally through development of smallholder dairy in the production systems (see previous section), has been hindered by inadequate extension and veterinary services (including AI) to increase milk production, and by insufficient cooling and marketing facilities to capture the milk produced in the 25 districts.Government estimates indicate that Nuwara Eliya district has the highest milk production, with Batticaloa, Hambanthota, Anuradhapura, Amparai, Badulla, Kandy, Kurunegala and Polonnaruwa districts being significant producers, many of them serving the Colombo market (Figure 4). On the other hand, the civil conflict in the north and east, which began in the early 1980's, has adversely affected milk production and collection in the Jaffna milk shed (Table 1). In the remaining districts, milk collection in 1996 by the processing companies was around 100 million litres, which was an increase of about 13 percent over 1995 (Milk Industries of Lanka Company Limited), and is said to represent around 30 percent of the estimated annual production. The government's aim is to substantially increase this level of milk production and collection in the medium and long term. One initiative has been to encourage the upgrading of the indigenous herds by matings with temperate and Indian dairy breeds through an artificial insemination programme, which was projected to serve 90,000 cows in 1994 increasing to 580,000 by the year 2000 (MLD&EI, 1995). Through this and other initiatives, it is considered that in the long term the country has the potential to be self sufficient in milk. This move to self sufficiency will provide additional nutrition to the population, and generate important income and employment, while saving the foreign exchange currently spent on the dairy imports required to fill the gap between domestic production and consumption.In 1996 the amount of milk collection all island was 100 million litres, 13% more than in 1995. The total estimated milk production for 1996 was 331,306,000 litres, indicating that only about 30% of the total milk production is handled by the formal milk sector. Of the formal collection of 100 million litres of milk in 1996, 54 million litres of milk (or 54%) is collected by the Milco and the Nestles Lanka Limited (NLL) accounted for 36 million litres (or 36%), with the balance being shared by Nestles group (IDPL) and a number of small processors. Until the current study there have been no estimates of the informally (directly ) marketed milk production.High human and bovine densities in the areas of intensive agriculture and those close to major urban markets, result in high milk production and collection per sq. km, varying in 1996 between Nuwara Eliya with 66 l/day/sq km, and, for example, Colombo 36, Gampaha 24 and Jaffna 20 (Figure 4). Conversely the large bovine herds in the dry lowland districts have relatively low stocking rates and therefore milk production densities are low. Despite this, the dry and intermediate zones, with 70 -75% of the national cattle and buffalo population, provides about 60% of the national milk collection.  Another important influence on milk production and the surpluses potentially available for collection and marketing is the seasonality of milk supply. Some of this variation is captured by the monthly variation in milk procurement averaged over the last four years (1994 -1997; Figure 5). The seasonal pattern is similar for both all island and MILCO collection, with more milk supplied to the processing market in May, June and July, implying that production of milk is higher during this period.Major influences on the quantities of milk produced and available for supplying the domestic market, are the feed resource base and how the feeds are utilised. This feed supply and its interaction with the genetic composition of the cattle and buffalo populations, are the primary determinants of dairy productivity in Sri Lanka where, compared to many tropical production environments, disease challenge is relatively low (Appendix: Health). Therefore if Sri Lankan farmers are to exploit the improved genetic potential of the national bovine population resulting from the upgrading programme, particular attention must be given to improving the feeding systems for smallholder dairy production.As indicated in Table 2, the predominant feed resources from which the domestic milk supply is produced, are natural pasture and browse. This natural vegetation, especially the grasses, are low in digestibility and crude protein, and dry matter production is low in the dry months. While the areas of natural pasture available nationally are large and their sources varied (Table 3), the low nutritive value of the grasses, compensated somewhat by the availability of browses of higher protein content, limits daily intake of digestible OM. Consequently the resultant productivity of cattle and buffalo is low, especially amongst the improved (crosses and purebred) dairy cattle.Similar limitations of poor quality (low nutrient density) reduce the utility, especially for lactating cows, of the large quantities of crop residues available for feeding of cattle and buffalo. Rice straw (1.82 million tons), maize stover (0.09 million tons), and other straws such as cowpea, millet, black gram and soy bean are the principal crop residues available to smallholder dairy farmers as substitutes for the natural pasture and browse or to complement their seasonality (Ranawana 1994). In addition there are an estimated 0.24 million tons of sugar cane tops and the same quantity of Banana pseudo-stems. These crop residues and natural pastures, fed alone or with minimal concentrate feeds (e.g. coconut poonac and rice bran), can only sustain low daily milk yields (4-6 litres) from crossbred dairy cows, and less in the dry months. Yet in combination with good quality fodder and higher levels of concentrates, natural pasture and crop residues can be efficiently utilised as the basal feeds for sustaining and increasing Sri Lanka's smallholder dairy production (Ranawana 1994).Rice bran, coconut poonac and molasses are the main sources of concentrates used in dairy production to supplement the generally poor quality (low nutrient density) fodder basal diets. It has been estimated that there are 70-90,000 tone of rice bran produced annually. However much of this is wasted mainly due to inefficient methods of milling, that do not separate the rice hulls, which have virtually no nutritional value (digestibility of 12%), from the valuable bran. As a result, only 25,000 tons of rice bran are suitable for dairy feed. Coconut poonac is the only medium protein source; on average some 40,000 tons are available annually. The price varies regionally, ranging from Rs. 7.00 to 16.50/kg. Imported oil seed meals such as cotton seed meal, spent liquor from alcohol distillers, soya bean hulls from soya bean industry are also available as concentrate feeds. A neglected concentrate source is poultry manure, although its usefulness to smallholders will depend on the cost of transport from the large-scale intensive poultry units, generally located in periurban areas, which are its principal sources.The expansion of the sugar industry has resulted in relatively inexpensive molasses, but the establishment of distilling industries and the opening up of potential markets in Europe has diverted the molasses from animal feeding. Because of this, it is unlikely that molasses will be available in Sri Lanka for cattle feed or for molasses urea block manufacture in the foreseeable future.A number of improved grasses have been studied as forages for ruminants. If managed well and cut at the right stage of maturation, they produce good forage for dairy cows and buffaloes. It has been reported that some 50,000 ha of improved pasture are in production and there is considerable scope for farmers to increase this area, particularly in the coconut triangle, if market incentives stimulate this investment.Research by the Coconut Research Institute shows clearly that grazing livestock under pasture does not compromise coconut yields.The health status of cattle and buffaloes in Sri Lanka is largely dependent on the breeds and husbandry practices, which in turn are closely related to the different climatic and topographical features, and agricultural practices. From the standpoint of the prevalence and distribution of animal diseases, four agro-climatic zones can be recognised. As described in the Introduction, these are: the hill and mid country; coconut triangle; low country wet zone; and, the lowland dry zone. Their topographic and climatic features, types of animals and husbandry practices were given in Table 2, and their approximate populations of cattle and buffalo in Table 3. The diseases of economic importance in these zones are discussed in detail in the Appendix (Health).In summary, while many bovine diseases are prevalent, and some endemic, in the areas of current and potential dairy production, there are well-documented health management practises, both curative and prophylactic, for minimising the risk of infection from these diseases and the productivity losses associated with infection. Disease constraints to dairy productivity are therefore associated with the need to improve the delivery of veterinary services to dairy farmers and to improve the quality of those services, especially for preventive medicine. Clearly these are policy and institutional rather than technical issues. A recommended approach to the strengthening of veterinary services is to associate their delivery more directly with organisations (farmers' groups; co-operatives; private milk processors; etc) collecting and marketing milk as a transitional stage to private sector delivery.The Department of Animal Production and Health is responsible for breeding policy nationally and manages three artificial insemination centres. National breeding policy guidelines for cattle, buffaloes, and goats, sheep and pigs have been formulated to contribute to uniformity of livestock breeding in the various agro-climatic zones in Sri Lanka.Two Semen Production Units (SPU) at Kundasale in Central and Polonnaruwa in North Central provinces produce most of the semen for Sri Lanka. Both are equipped to produce deep frozen semen (DFS) and chilling semen (CS). Semen output from Polonnaruwa is limited to small amounts of fresh semen. With the exception of imported semen used in government breeding farms, all DFS in the national artificial insemination programme is produced at Kundasale.  5. Over 108,000 inseminations were carried out in 1996, twice as many as in 1986, although the increases were not uniform and were somewhat concentrated in the mid and up-country zones. As will be shown later, the AI programme has partially contributed to a major change to the genetic composition of the national cattle and buffalo populations, resulting in a large increase in the proportion of these populations having improved dairy production potential. Some of this can be seen as an achievement of the Government's breeding policy, the objective of which for cattle is to produce a dairy type or a dairy dominated dual purpose (dairy/draft) type, depending on the agro-climatic zone. The temperate breeds recommended for cross breeding are Holstein Friesian and Jersey for the higher potential zones, and the zebu breeds Sahiwal and Khillari are recommended for the lower potential zones. It should be recognised, nevertheless, that much of the observed upgrading is likely to be a result of farmers' own practices, including use of cross-bred bulls, and marketing of surplus replacement animals to deficit areas, often from mid or up-country to other zones.For buffalo, the Government's breeding objective is to produce a dual (dairy/draft) type for the midcountry, the lowlands (wet and dry) and the coconut triangle. The exotic breeds recommended for cross breeding are Murrah and Nili Ravi. The breeding strategy is to up grade the indigenous buffalo to 87% exotic level to rear under intensive management and to 50% exotic level to rear under extensive management. If draft power is required, the Government's policy is to maintain the indigenous buffalo or to up grade to a maximum of 50% exotic. Given the difficulty of using AI in herds of buffaloes, due to heat detection and control of mating, emphasis may need to be given instead to producing high-quality buffalo studs.An adjucant to these Government policies are the government-owned NLDB farms, the major objectives of which are to provide good quality bulls and surplus females to farmers throughout the country and to provide replacement bulls to the three artificial insemination centres. The NLDB semen station at Polunaruwa has not operated since January, 1997. The RRA suggested quite clearly that supply of NLDB animals is uncertain. While the NLDB farms are meant to be an important source of the four most important breeds, Friesian, Jersey, Sahiwal cattle and Nili-Ravi buffalo and their crosses, it is apparent that the level of output is low due to poor management and animal pricing policies, and some animals go to butchers rather than to livestock producers. It may be that that the NLDB has overly-diversified from its central objectives, and NLDB objectives and functions should be reviewed Besides an emphasis on buffalo studs, upgrading of the herd could be further promoted by trained persons working at milk collection centres and co-operatives. Additional training in veterinary first-aid would increase their value to producers and raise the likelihood of their economic viability.The Veterinary Research Institute of the Department of Animal Production and Health is responsible for research in animal production, animal and poultry disease and the production and quality control of some animal and poultry vaccines against diseases of economic importance. These functions are carried out at the central veterinary investigation centre (CVIC), the poultry services unit at Gannoruwa, the veterinary vaccine production laboratory, the animal virus laboratory at Polgolla and a poultry breeding unit at Kundasala.Research, vaccine production and animal disease diagnostic service laboratories are operated from the Veterinary Institute of Agriculture compound at Gannoruwa. Diagnosis animal health support is conducted from the VIC and coupled with vaccination program which plans and supports the provincial vaccination campaigns and determines the serological responses to vaccination in the national herd. Vaccinations are a provincial responsibility. Animal Health Division determines the vaccine requirements of the provinces, based on the disease incidence and livestock numbers in each locality, vaccination performance during the previous year, and the vaccination target proposed by each Veterinary Surgeon.Given the important role of women in livestock production, women veterinarians may be one key to improved services. Data show that the proportion of women graduates in Veterinary Science increased from 1.7% to 53% over past four decades, and that recently, 43% of the veterinarians in the field services were women (HSMP Herath, 1998).It should be noted that many veterinarians rely on small animal practices to maintain economic viability, as these services tend to be more remunerative. The impact that this has on provision of clinical services to livestock is unclear, but it may be critical in allowing private veterinarians to survive, and so offer services to all types of animals.The Department of Animal Production and Health (DAPH) has a strong provincial representation and is organised through Provincial Departments. Currently the DAPH's veterinary surgeons (VS), Livestock Officers and the Livestock Development Instructors are the main public-funded livestock extension service.Prior to 1988, the former Department of Agriculture (DOA) had a cadre of about 4,000 Village Extension Workers (VEW). Livestock extension services were organised through Assistant Directors at provincial level and provided by VS assisted by Livestock Development Instructors (LDI) and Livestock Development Technicians (LDT) from the veterinary ranges. Extension services were rationalised with devolution in 1988 and LDI and LDT were combined as LDI, many VEW were reassigned to other duties and the extension system for Sri Lanka largely broke down.In addition to publicly funded extension services, some extension is provided by private sector companies. Large corporate processors and producers in the livestock sector disseminate their own information to their staff, outgrowers and suppliers. The private sector provides most of the new information to livestock raisers in the pig and poultry sectors and this also occurs to some extent in the dairy industry. At present some private sector companies and producer organisations such as Nestles, MILCO, MIDCOMUL, individual co-operatives, etc., are involved in extension. In addition, institutions such as the Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, are also engaged in providing extension services, yet there appear to be weak linkages amongst the various research and extension institutions and organisations. As a result, much valuable information does not reach the intended clients, the smallholder farmers and their market agents.Therefore, an essential step required in support of increasing dairy production and improving its productivity, particularly amongst smallholders, is to encourage a more effective extension service (supported by strong and interactive research institutions), one that links producers, processors and market agents with information relevant to the needs of these clients. Emphasis should be given to developing these research-extension-client linkages through targeted projects, which should involve all stakeholders and key players through participatory approaches. Increased participation by producer organisations, linking milk collection and service provision, may be key to providing adequate extension services in the future. As with disease control, these are primarily policy and institutional issues, yet they are constraints with a profound and widespread impact on dairy productivity.The Mahaweli (irrigation) Authority of Sri Lanka, under the Ministry of Mahaweli Development, undertakes activities to promote livestock amongst settlers in project areas within the dry lowlands. The Mahaweli Development Program was started in 1970. A livestock development programme was first started with draft animals (particularly in system H), aimed primarily at salvaging male cattle and buffalo with draft potential, but also for breeding draft cattle and buffaloes suitable for use by the settlers.In the mid-1980's, it was realised that the incomes of the settler farmers could be increased through diversification into dairying. Therefore the scope of the program was widened to the draft animal and dairy development program.The objectives related to dairy are:-Maintaining livestock farms to breed and multiply a milch animal suitable for the Mahaweli areas. -Issuing upgraded animals for farmers in the Mahaweli areas -Providing extension, veterinary health care, immunisation against endemic diseases, distribution of pasture and fodder cuttings for developing the feed resources in the area -Organising farmers for collective milk marketing and in producing simple dairy products Mahaweli plays a major role in dairy production and marketing. According to the Mahaweli Authority it's settler schemes increased milk collection from 700,000 litres in 1989 to over 1,200,000 in 1994. In the schemes the farmers own buffaloes and/or neat cattle, although 70 -80 percent use them for cultivation.The basic livestock unit being promoted by the draft animal and dairy development programme was two cows and followers, and the philosophy was to develop a dual purpose draft and milk animal, \"the Mahaweli cow\", based on Sahiwal X Jersey. These irrigated smallholder schemes therefore have considerable potential for further expansion of the dairy herd, both buffalo and cattle, and to increase its marketed surplus of milk and dairy products. They represent an important client group for research and extension support, particularly because of the scope for intensive integrated crop-dairy systems and the experiences in the Indian sub-continent with these systems.Between 1987 and 1996 (the latest year with complete statistics), there is some evidence that Sri Lanka experienced a considerable expansion of domestically produced milk, due to changes in the number, breed and herd composition of cows and buffaloes and their productivity. Attempts to estimate these measures, however, are hampered by lack of reliable data, mainly due to civil strife in parts of the country since the early 1980s. Based on official data, cattle and buffalo numbers (estimated at 249 MM and 82 MM, respectively, in 1996) have been generally declining, but overall milk production figures show an increase, from some 250 M Ls (1987) to 331 M Ls (1996). These are shown in Table 6. The figures show an estimated annual milk production increased by a total of 50%; there was a rapid increase, 27%, from 1987 to 1991, followed by an increase of 18% to 1996. The increase was greater for cattle (58%), than for buffalo (30%). While the herds of both species markedly increased production from 1987 to 1992, Table 6 shows that milk production from the buffalo herd, unlike that from cattle, did not grow between 1993 and 1996. This 50% rise in milk production over 10 years has been achieved despite an apparent significant decrease in the milch buffalo cow herd (16%) and a small increase (9%) in the dairy cattle herd (Table 7). These trends suggest an annual decrease in cattle and buffalo number of 1% and 2.7% respectively over the period and annual milk productivity increases per herd-animal 1 of 4.5% and 4.1% respectively. These figures, however, include data which includes estimates of livestock numbers and production in Northern and Eastern districts which may not be accurate.Estimates were thus also made based on the 18 districts for which apparently more reliable data are available for 1982, and 1992 through 1996. 2 These suggest that, in those districts, there may have been herd growth rather than decline, and decreases in productivity per animal, although the period 1992-1996 indicates growth in cattle milk productivity of 2.5% annually. There are thus conflicting trends observed depending on which period is covered and which data are used (the entire country or just the more reliable districts).Due to uncertainty as to which of these figures may be reliable, no firm projections on change in domestic production can reliably be made. It may be considered likely, nevertheless, that if current trends were extrapolated, domestic production would grow either slowly or not at all by 2010. Based on the 1992-96 trends in the 18 districts with apparently reliable data, production might grow by 18% over that period.In order to verify the results of the review of secondary information presented in the previous sections, and to gather reliable estimates of the current status of dairy production from cattle and buffalo, a survey was carried out in 20 districts spanning the dry lowlands, wet lowlands, the coconut triangle, and the midand up-country zones. The survey approach and methodology was described in the Background to the Study. Results from the survey are summarised here by the agro-climatic/land-use zones. Detailed tabular results are presented in the Appendices.As shown in Table 8, whereas over 90% of households keeping bovines in all zones had cattle, only 18% kept buffalo, and only 10% kept both cattle and buffalo. The north and east dry lowlands had the highest proportion of buffalo owning producer households. In the 1982 Census the proportion of farms keeping cattle only, buffalo only and cattle and buffalo was 70, 15 and 15%, respectively. The underlying difference between 1982 and the present survey appears to be the decline in the buffalo population. One of the factors contributing to this may be farmers switching to tractor powered cultivation of paddy instead of the traditional use of buffalo. As was expected from Govt. statistics and field observations, the survey confirmed the major shift from indigenous cattle breeds to dairy types, such that in the sampled households with cattle, 39% had crossbred or pure dairy types (Table 9). The proportion of dairy cattle was lowest in the dry lowland zones (26-30%), where there were few purebreds, and highest in mid-country (73%), which also had the highest proportion of purebreds (25%). Indigenous breeds such as Lanka predominated particularly in the drier zones. As aridity decreased, so the importance of crossbreds rose. All crosses of local breeds with Jersey, Friesian, Sahiwal, Gir, Sindhi and Tharpakar were observed, as well as some taurine/Indian zebu crosses. Purebred dairy cattle, particularly Friesian and Jersey breeds, were concentrated in the wetter zones, particularly in the up-country areas. The distribution of cattle breeds largely matches the recommendations given in the Department of Animal Production and Health National breeding policy for cattle (DAPH National Breeding Policy for Cattle, Departmental Circular No. 93, May 1983).Just as for cattle, the buffalo population has been undergoing extensive replacement of the indigenous breed type, such that 30% of the sampled buffalo population were dairy types (Table 10). In the World Bank Dairy Sector Review for Sri Lanka (1983) it was recommended that all of Sri Lanka's indigenous buffalo be upgraded using Murrah or Surthi buffalo breeds from India. As Table 10 shows, this process has been most extensive in the eastern dry lowlands, where more than 50% of herds are improved types, and in the coconut triangle with nearly 40% of herds. Upgrading has occurred with the Surthi being preferred, presumably because it is a dual purpose animal (dairy and draft). Murrah purebreds appear to be concentrated in the coconut triangle. As expected, the survey confirmed that cattle herds were largest and most variable in the dry lowlands (mean sizes 7.2-12.8), and smallest and least variable in mid-and up-country (3.1 & 3.4) (Table 11). This variation in size was consistent with the shifting balance of indigenous and dairy breed types and the relative emphases on grazing, tethering and stall-feeding systems. It should be noted that relatively high variation simply means that herd sizes are heterogeneous, and is not reflective of the quality of the data, given the large sample size.Cows (both lactating and dry) were the most important category of cattle in all zones, comprising at least 40% of the total herd. In the wetter zones, where improved cattle occur in larger numbers, lactating cows outnumbered dry cows by between 2 or 3 to 1. Farms appeared to be raising their own replacement stock with heifers forming approximately 25% of the herds in all zones apart from the dry zone where the proportion rose to 30%. On the other hand, many herds had no bull, as would be expected with small herds in the higher potential areas, and because of the communal grazing practised in the dry lowlands.Buffalo herds are largest (mean 3.5 to 9.4) in the dry zone, where paddy is the principal crop and buffalo are used for work purposes (Table 12). Cows form the largest component of the herd with lactating animals dominating in the dry zone. In other zones the cows are equally divided between lactating and dry animals. Replacement stock are present in herds in all zones. Calf numbers reflect those of cows in all zones except in the Dry Zone where lactating cows exceed the number of calves by more than 2 to 1.As would be expected, indigenous breed cattle had later ages at first calving and lower mean daily milk yields than dairy crosses, which in turn calved later and gave less milk than dairy purebreds (Table 13).The better performance of the purebred dairy cattle reflected in part the better management afforded to these breeds in cut-and-carry feeding systems. These performances compare favourably with those reported for cattle on government livestock farms where age at first calving for pure-bred temperate cattle was 3 years and for crossbreds 3.2 -3.5 years (Dairy Development Foundation, 1986). The results in Table 13 suggest that on smallholdings dairy cross-breeding (and any associated management changes) has resulted in a doubling of daily milk off-take over local breeds in, for example, the wet lowlands and the coconut triangle. Where management conditions permit, upgrading to purebred dairy leads to a three-fold increase in daily milk off-take.Figure 6 shows estimated lactation curves for the 3 main types of cattle found in the survey, showing only the first 10 months of lactation. These estimates were made from the data using a semi log-linear lactation curve 3 . This was calculated using a combination of reported yields for individual animals, including milk at calving, and milk at day of survey. The data, amounting to 619 observations, were pooled for each breed and the specified functional form was estimated. The parameter estimates for β1 were in each case significant at the 5% level. The absence of a lactation peak and the rapid decline in daily milk yield over the early months of lactation strongly suggest that feeding levels to lactating cows, particularly during the first months of lactation, are low.Cattle performances differed within zones for the three breed types. The mean age at first calving of indigenous cattle varied little amongst zones, but mean daily milk yield was lower (2.1 litres) in the south dry zone than in the other zones where it ranged between 2.6 and 3.2 litres. For dairy crossbreds, performance was particularly good in the upcountry zone, where daily milk yield was twice (8.4 litres) that reported for crosses in the coconut triangle (4.0 litres), presumably reflecting variation in feeding practises.These crossbred performances were equal to those of the dairy purebreds in those zones, whereas purebreds were reported to have higher yields than crosses in the mid-country and in the wet low country, differences reflected in the lactation curves .Buffalo performance reported by the survey respondents show the expected advantage in milk production from upgrading with Murrah stock (Table 14). Dairy cross-and pure-bred buffaloes had shorter age at first calving and higher milk off-take (pure-breds only). These improved performance indices may be the expression of inherent production potential or the result of better nutrition or both.Research station reared native buffaloes first calved at 3.7 years, whereas purebreds calved at between 3.7 and 4.1 years (Dairy Development Foundation, 1986). Milk yields for dairy buffalo from the coconut triangle were well above average for purebreds (5.6 litres) and for crosses (4.8), but not for indigenous types, suggesting that in that zone dairy types were given some preferential feeding.  The majority of producer households depended upon grazing as their main source of animal feed.Grazing occurs mainly on paddy land (bunds and harvest aftermath), public spaces and under coconuts. Animals are usually tethered during grazing, except in the dry zones. In the higher production potential zones, stall feeding, often combined with some grazing, was common. Whereas in the north and south dry zones, less than 1 in 10 households used concentrate feeds (coconut poonac, rice bran or compounded concentrate), between a third to over a half of households in the other zones fed concentrates (Table 15).The zones with most households using concentrates correlate approximately with those with dairy herds.It should be noted that the wet zone includes the periurban dairy system of Colombo where concentrated feed use may be higher per head of lactating animal than elsewhere in the wet zone. Households owning cattle are more likely to use concentrated feeds than those solely keeping buffaloes. This reflects the fact that buffalo are more often kept for draught purposes than cattle which primarily supply milk. The survey did not ascertain whether the cattle and/or the buffalo are fed concentrated feeds in the mixed herds.  17 shows the mean concentrate offer rates to cattle and buffaloes. For those households who report offering concentrates to milking cows (45%), over 2 kgs per day is reported. Overall, for those households who have milking cows, however, the mean falls to just over 1 kg/day. A small proportion of those households with dry cows reported offering concentrates (14%), at a rate of 1.68 kg/day. A small proportion of households with buffaloes reported concentrate use, and those who did offered nearly 3 kg/day.Coconut poonac and rice bran were the most popular forms of concentrated feeds amongst cattle keepers, whereas compounded feeds such as dairy mix were rarely purchased (Table 18). Few households reported feeding concentrates to their buffalo, but amongst those that did, poonac and bran were the most frequently used. Rice bran is used in slightly larger quantities that poonac. The data did not show whether poonac and bran were fed in combination.In the drier zones, where padi is the major crop grown, larger quantities of rice bran were fed to both dry and lactating cattle. In the wetter zones, such as the Coconut Triangle, the quantities of poonac and bran were approximately equal. The data did not reveal whether poonac and bran were being offered in combination. In the few households where dairy mix was being offered it was fed in lower quantities. Data collected for buffalo, when dis-aggregated by zone, gave too few data points to draw reliable conclusions on feed use. The survey confirmed that coconut poonac and rice bran were the most frequently purchased concentrated feeds for dairy in Sri Lanka (Table 19). Poonac was purchased mainly from private retailers whereas rice bran was bought directly from the rice mill. It has to be ascertained whether farmers had access to the rice bran produced after the milling of their own paddy, or whether they bought back the bran in addition to paying for milling. Very few households purchased compounded feeds or minerals. The survey showed that the milk co-operatives supplied very few households with dairy feed inputs. Coconut poonac and dairy mix sell for the same price, twice that of rice bran (Table 20). This reflects the higher nutritional value quality of poonac for dairy production compared to that of bran. Surprisingly the survey results showed that coconut poonac was cheaper in the north and south dry zones than in the coconut triangle itself (Table 20). Rice bran prices varied from Rs5 to 6.9 with the lowest price in the east dry zone, where padi is the predominant crop. Dairy mix was a relatively unimportant feed source and its use was restricted to a few dairy farmers using animals of high genetic merit. Its mean zonal price was based on a small sample, and the results may not have been representative of zonal variation. In addition to grazing, tethered grazing and concentrate feeding, dairy animals may also receive fodder cut-and-carried from padi land, coconut land, roadsides and forests (inter alia). Table 21 shows that while 55% of households practising grazing reported no use of fodder, 42% of producer households cut-andcarry fodder. Few households relied solely on cut-and-carry fodder (7%) and concentrates, with most households combining feeding fodder with grazing their animals. The cut fodder may be used for night-time feeding or may be used seasonally when grazing is restricted because of cropping. The households apparently relying solely upon stall feeding may be periurban producers or those rearing cattle in confinement in the uplands where manure is a major product of the system. The 3% of households reporting not feeding or only feeding concentrates may be a recording error. Table 21 showed that 90% of producer households used grazing to a greater or lesser extent. Table 22 shows that there was a greater dependency on grazing as the only source of feed in the dry zones, with dependency decreasing with increasing rainfall. Conversely the use of concentrates increased as rainfall increased. Presumably this occurs with the increasing incidence of improved dairy genotypes in the zones with higher production potential. In each of the zones, the majority of the respondents were not using cut fodder although the proportion not cut-and-carrying fodder decreases with increasing rainfall.Indigenous grasses are by far the largest cut-and-carry fodder input into dairy production in Sri Lanka (Zemmelink et al, 1998). Table 23 shows that most of this type of fodder was cut from the bovine keeper's own farm, along roadsides and on others' farms. These areas were also important sources for the supply of improved grasses, e.g., Panicum sp., legume forages, e.g., Centrosema sp., and tree leaves, e.g, Gliricidia sepium, which grows wild in Sri Lanka. The source (own land; others' land; purchased) of padi straw was not identified in the survey. That most fodder was cut-and-carried by household labour was indicated by the few reports of fodder purchases. The greatest number of transactions for dairy inputs occurred at private retailers and at the VS Office ( Table 24). Private retailers were the most important suppliers of concentrates (notably coconut poonac cake), while the VS office supplied most of the vaccines but was on a par with private retailers for the supply of anthelmintics. AI was provided by the VS Office both officially and on a private basis. By comparison the dairy co-operatives were relatively infrequent sources of dairy inputs, with feed inputs and anthelmintics being the most common inputs supplied. A significant proportion (26%) of transactions with private retailers were for \"other\" goods and services, the nature of which was not specified in the replies to the survey.It is striking to note that from the sample population of around 10,000 cattle, only 4% were reported to be affected by the conditions listed in Table 25. Of the diseases or ill-health conditions reported by the respondent producer households as having occurred during the year preceding the survey, locomotory (foot and leg) problems formed the largest category, followed by gastrointestinal (helminth) infestations and diarrhoea. This may explain the high frequency of anthelmintic purchases reported in Table 24, and is consistent with grazing of animals in moist areas such as padis, likely to be infected with gastrointestinal helminths. Clinical cases of diseases such as mastitis, FMD and tick fever were less prevalent. There was no marked zonal variation in the occurrence of the diseases or ill-health conditions.These producer reports indicating low incidences of disease in cattle are consistent with the conclusions of the extensive review of literature reported in Appendix: Health. The results confirm the relatively healthy environment for cattle in Sri Lanka (compared to many other tropical countries), and its advantage in terms of the lower disease risks faced by exotic dairy breeds, whether cattle or buffalo. This may result in lower veterinary costs for Sri Lankan dairy producers compared to many of their overseas competitors. Consistent with the low incidence of disease reported in the survey, was the extremely low rate of bovine mortality (only 265; < 2%) reported for the year preceding the survey in a sample bovine population of around 14,000 animals ( Table 26). Mortalities of cattle cows were the most frequently reported, but generally with no specific cause of death. Calf mortality was lower than might be expected in a population dominated by the smallholder sector (compared with similar situations elsewhere in the tropics), and perhaps again because of lower disease challenge, but also possibly resulting from under-reporting, and merits further investigation. Table 7 shows the average land owned by the 1703 producer households in the survey was 3.0 acres (1.2 ha). Almost 25% of this land was occupied by the homestead and the garden for vegetables and fruit grown mainly for home consumption. Another 25% was \"natural pasture\" or uncultivated land currently not cultivated or not cultivable but suitable for grazing or cut-and-carry fodder collection. Seventeen percent of land was planted to padi and an equivalent area of land to perennial crops such as coconut and tea. In most cases padi land produced rice for home consumption, whereas coconuts were produced both for home consumption and for sale. Coconut plantations also provided grazing and cutand-carry forage for dairy production. Land rental markets are dominated by exchanges of access to padi and natural pasture. In the latter case this could involve the exchange of grazing or fodder collection rights for manure.Obviously there was considerable variation amongst the zones in terms of average land size and its use. Table 28 presents the zonal results. Household land size was highest in the north (5.5 acres) and lowest in the east (0.4 acres) dry zones. The relatively large land size in the north was mainly explained by the large areas of natural pasture and padi. There were no reports of any significant areas of planted pastures, but frequent use of neighbours' land and roadsides for grazing and fodder collection. The average total time spent on dairy activities is 5.3 hours daily, of which a significant proportion is taken up with feeding the animals; either collecting fodder or taking animals to and from tethered grazing Table 29). The household head (generally the husband) is the major actor in dairy activities spending up to 4.4 hours on average daily in the east dry zone. By contrast the household heads in the south dry zone reported spending only 2.1 hours on those activities. Generally household heads contributed an equal or greater amount of time to dairy activities than the total time contributed by all other family members and hired labour. In none of the zones except the east dry zone, did hired labour play a prominent role in the dairy enterprise. Overall the two major constraints to dairying reported by farmers were lack of fodder (Table30: \"fodder unavailability\"; \"land shortage for fodder cultivation\") and low milk prices. Related issues were \"High feed cost\" and \"Insufficient labour\". Perhaps surprisingly, reports of fodder shortages occurred more frequently in the moister zones where biomass production is high. The underlying cause for the perceived constraint may lie in lack of labour for fodder collection (although not specifically highlighted as a major problem) and the lack, due to intense cropping, of available grazing land. The \"Low milk price\" was of particular concern in the wet lowland zone (including Colombo) and the coconut triangle, perhaps reflecting higher costs of production and more profitable, lower risk or less demanding opportunities for household labour and land.Appraisal of the Sri Lanka Dairy Sector:Main Report 32 Several important issues emerge from the review of dairy production and the results of the country-wide survey, each with the potential to make a major contribution to the continued development of Sri Lanka's dairy sector, and to support the role played by smallholder producers in supplying milk and dairy products to rural and urban consumers.• Breed improvement: Clearly the up-grading of the indigenous cattle and buffalo populations to dairy breed types has been a major success, contributing substantially to increased milk production and marketing over the last decade. To sustain this impetus, support is required to meet the demand for dairy breeding stock. Particular attention is needed to improve the supply of dairy buffalo, for which use AI is often problematic. Buffalo stud schemes in priority areas should be developed and private/co-operative cattle AI schemes should be encouraged.• Feed resources: Lack of good quality feed year round is a major constraint to profitable smallholder dairy production. This is primarily a result of pressure on land and competing opportunities for labour, which restrict the supply of fodder to many dairy herds. In turn, limited access to good quality fodder reduces the cost-effectiveness of feeding concentrates. Potentially beneficial feed technologies have been researched by Sri Lankan institutions and others in the region. Emphasis must now be given to developing targeted projects in regions where fodder shortages are well documented, to test these promising feed technologies. Participatory approaches, thereby strengthening researchextension-farmer linkages, are required to ensure that the testing and validation of the technologies is demand/farmer driven.• Management of common properties: A related issue is the management of communal grazing areas and public land, including roadsides. Community-based schemes need to be developed to improve the management of these resources, which frequently are key to efficient dairy production by smallholders, particularly during the cropping seasons.• Dry and Intermediate zones: These account for some 70% of the cattle and 75% of the buffalo population of the country and, with considerable land resource, may offer greatest scope for milk production increases. Greater intervention in these areas however, have to cope with seasonality of production and feed resources, low milk density, and the difficulty of upgrading the buffalo herd under extensive herding practices.• Improving the nutritional value of milling by-products: Milling residues are a vital resource for increased dairy production, yet current milling practises reduce the value of, e.g., rice bran. A targeted project should be implemented to demonstrate the benefits to grain producers, millers and dairy producers of milling methods that improve the availability of good quality milling by-products.• Technical information -public/private goods: These initiatives emphasise the urgent need to improve the provision of technical information to current and potential dairy producers, particularly to the vast majority who are smallholders. This can be best achieved in a sustainable way through linking these research and extension services to the providers of dairy input and output markets, e.g., dairy co-operatives, farmers' groups, private dairy processors, etc. Targeting the provision of technical information as a private, rather than as a public, good has the potential to overcome the current poor delivery of improved production technologies, especially to resource-poor farmers.The dairy sector plays a relatively minor role in the Sri Lanka economy. Subject to well-known data limitations, it is estimated that the livestock sector contributes about 5.5% of the agricultural GDP and to about 1.2% of the national GDP. However, as income increases and urbanisation expands, demand for milk and milk products is likely to rise, leading to increased modernisation of the dairy production and marketing systems and proliferation of dairy activities.The per capita consumption of milk and milk products in Sri Lanka (about 36 kg) is quite low, as compared to some other countries in South Asia like Pakistan (122.8 kg) and India (69.2 kg).Nevertheless, the level is marginally higher than the average for developing countries (32.9 kg) and close to the Medical Research Institute recommended level of 41.6 Kg. The average monthly expenditure on milk and milk products is relatively low and is lower in rural household as compared to the urban and estate sectors though the rural population's demand for milk is more sensitive to income than in other sectors. They indicate that since 1981, per capita milk consumption has grown by nearly 200% percent, from 13 kgs/year to about 36 kgs/year currently. Milk production has apparently grown significantly since then (although the accuracy of some of that reporting is in doubt -see below). Milk collection, however, has not grown as quickly, and so is now a smaller proportion of productionaccording to these figures, it has fallen from 54% to 32% of production. This implies that most of the growth in dairy production has gone to supply the informal or unregulated market. This may reflect inadequacies in the formal milk marketing system, including price policies, as well as limited marketing of fluid milk.  1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 Domestic production (000 MT's)Imports (000 MT's)Figure 8: Domestic Sri Lanka milk production and dairy imports (LME's), 1987 to 1997. 4   As a result of these trends, imports of mainly milk powder continue to be a significant feature of the Sri Lanka formal dairy industry. Figure 8 shows recent trends in milk production and dairy imports.Although production has trended up, it is not clear during this period that there is any trend towards increasing imports.In terms of LME's, imports in 1997 were estimated to represent 43% of all milk available (including home consumption by milk producers), and an addition to the milk available of 83% of domestic milk production. Imports represent 68% of the formal, processed milk market. Although there is much concern about increased imports, it should be noted that in 1981 imports formed a similar proportion of total dairy product availability at 45% (although in 1995 imports rose to some 58% of availability). Thus although imports have risen in absolute terms (from an estimated 88,000 MTs in 1981 to 290,000 MTs in 1997), as a proportion of dairy product availability, they have remained generally stable.Changes in human population and income are the major determinants of demand. Although urbanisation (about 20% of the population in Sri Lanka) plays an important role, there is little apparent change in the proportion of the urban population over last several decades. As seen in Table31, overall population growth has slowed from an annual rate of 2.8% in the early 1950's to around 1.2% recently. Population growth in itself, as it is currently quite low, will not likely provide a major impetus for growth in dairy demand. Strong per capita income growth can, however, provide that increase in demand. In the past, income growth per capita was relatively low, averaging 2% per annum or less. However, economic growth has risen in recent years, averaging 4-5% annually since 1990. Further, Household Expenditure data suggests a positive expenditure elasticity (1.17) of demand for Milk and Milk Products.Based on the data available from the Household Income & Expenditure Survey (1990-91) conducted by the Dept of Census & Statistics, following expenditure elasticities for milk and dairy products were derived.  Survey (1990Survey ( -1991)), Dept. of Census and Statistics.The overall expenditure elasticity for dairy products (Milk and Milk Products) is 1.17, which is relatively elastic since it is greater than 1. This suggests that a 1% increase in household income would lead to a greater than 1% increase in expenditure on dairy products, which simply indicates that relatively more is spent on dairy products as household income goes up. Comparing rural and urban areas, rural expenditure elasticities are seen to be higher for dairy products in general (1.31 compared to 0.83). This may be a result of lower income levels in rural areas, and thus more dairy expenditure response to increases in income, or due to overall lower rural dairy consumption. These rural/urban differences are consistent with those found in studies in India (Abdulai et al., 1998).Thus given reasonably high rates of economic growth on the order of 4% per year or more, demand can be expected to grow substantially. During the period 1990-95, real GDP was reported to have grown by 5.4% annually. Based on the above demand parameters and others related to population growth, projections were made for the period 1998-2010. Table 33 shows the underlying parameters used for the projections. At a 4% rate of real GDP growth, the elasticities suggest that income and population growth alone will generate an increase in aggregate demand for milk and dairy products of slightly over 100% by 2010, from about 698,000 MT in 1997 to over 1,400,000 MT in 2010. This represents important opportunities for domestic producers to increase production. On the supply side, the future determinants of milk production are the number and composition of cows and buffaloes and their average productivity. Attempts to estimate these measures, however, are hampered by lack of reliable data, mainly due to civil strife in parts of the country since the early 1980s.Based on official data, cattle and buffalo numbers (estimated at 249 MM and 82 MM, respectively, in 1996) have been generally declining, but overall milk production figures show an increase, from some 250 mill litres (1987) to 331 mill litres (1996). These trends suggest an annual decrease in cattle and buffalo number of 1% and 2.7% respectively over the period and annual milk productivity increases per herdanimal 5 of 4.5% and 4.1% respectively. These figures, however, include estimates of livestock numbers and production in Northern and Eastern districts that may not be accurate. The figures for 1990-92, in fact exclude some of those districts. Estimates were thus also made based on the 18 districts for which apparently more reliable data are available for 1982, and 1992 through 1996. 6 These suggest that, in those districts, there may have been herd growth rather than decline, and decreases in productivity per animal, although the period 1992-1996 indicates growth in cattle milk productivity of 2.5% annually.Due to uncertainty as to which of these figures may be reliable, no projections on change in domestic production are presented. It may be considered likely, nevertheless, that if current trends were extrapolated, domestic production would grow either slowly or not at all by 2010. Based on the 1992-96 trends in the 18 districts with apparently reliable data, production might grow by 18% over that period.Such supply projections, however, do not take into account price changes that may be driven by the large expected increases in domestic demand, by policy changes, or by changes in world dairy product prices. Some of these will be discussed under the assessment of consumption patterns. Regardless of factors affecting the supply side, the projecting large increases in demand will present new opportunities for domestic dairy production, particularly to meet liquid milk demand, as liquid milk is essentially a nontraded commodity globally. 7 The household dairy consumption trends, presented in a later section, show a potential shift towards liquid milk and away from milk powder as household incomes rise. This trend, combined with strong projected increases in demand, will create good opportunities for smallholder Sri Lanka dairy producers to market their production.Although imports form an important share of the dairy market, they remain susceptible to macroeconomic factors. Based on estimates of the cost of importing, repackaging and distributing milk powder, changes in world powder prices and local exchange rates can significantly alter import competitiveness.  34, a 10% rise in world WMP prices is estimated to raise the cost of packaged powder at the wholesale level by 8.9 %. Similarly, a 10% devaluation in the Rupee/$ exchange rate, which has indeed approximately occurred between January and Sept of 1998, would raise wholesale costs by 9.1%.As shown previously, the projected increases in domestic demand will require higher levels of per capita dairy product availability, which must come through either domestic production or through imports. The most important factor determining the competitiveness of domestic dairy production over time will be the opportunity cost of labour. This is determined by alternative employment opportunities, by the prices of farm outputs and inputs, and by the farm technologies available. With the current trend in strong GDP growth, it is possible that incomes will rise to the point where, under current labour-intensive technologies, domestic production may become un-competitive.The revenues and costs of cattle keeping and production, including dairy production, were estimated from the results of the household survey. Farmers were asked to recall costs and revenues per item. These estimates are shown in Table 35. Revenues include sales of milk and culled animals, mainly male calves and bulls, and the value of milk consumed by the household, which is considered to be part of the household income. Costs include fixed equipment (straight line depreciated) and variables costs such as feed and input services. The costs of family labour and land were not available from the survey and so are not included. This should be kept in mind when evaluating returns, which are thus considered returns to land and labour. Not all zones are shown, as the results were not judged to be reliable in some areas due to lack of producer response to questions. The results show that overall, cattle-keeping households earn returns to land and labour per household of nearly SR 28,000 per year, or more than SR 2,000 per month. Per metric ton of milk overall returns to land and labour are over SR 10,000, or over SR 10 per litre of milk (a litre of milk is approximately 1 kg).Comparing zones, the highest returns were reported in the Low (Wet) Country, which includes Colombo. The high returns there were due to high prices of milk available through local sales to individuals and institutions, underlining the importance of informal dairy markets in maintaining producer profitability. The lowest returns per household were reported in the mid-country and coconut triangle, where feed costs were reportedly high and revenues relatively low.The largest cost components are for cattle, fixed equipment, and feeds. Reported expenditures on veterinary drugs and services are generally quite low. The region of highest apparent cost is the coconut triangle, which may be associated with proximity to Colombo and consequent high labour and feed costs.In general, the reported returns may not be viewed as very high when considered per household. It should be kept in mind, however, that in the large majority of household cases, dairy and cattle production are only one component of the household farm and employment strategy. This is made clearer when returns to land and labour are viewed from the point of view of returns per litre of milk. At over SR 10 per litre of milk, the returns can be considered as relatively good, considering that milk prices in most collection centres are in the range of SR 11-12. The reason that returns are nearly as high as those prices is the much higher value of the milk sold to local/informal markets, and the value of sale of animals. Again, it should be kept in mind that these returns must also cover the cost of land and family labour. Nevertheless, these results suggest that in most cases dairying is an economically viable enterprise, and that the informal market is critical to profitability. The role of the informal market will be discussed further in the next section. These results also point to the strong comparative advantage of domestic producers for the liquid milk market (the target of most of the informal milk market).Relatively high opportunity costs of labour relative to milk prices hinder more the intensive use of planted and cut and carry fodder. They also greatly restrict incentives for fodder markets, which are limited to larger urban areas. This constraint is apparent across regions by virtue of farmers reporting of low milk prices as a primary constraint. A rough estimate of milk price/wage ratios in Sri Lanka, where rural manual unskilled labour earns some 150 Rs/day and milk prices in the formal market average some 11.5 Rs/litre, is thus approximate 1 to 13 (about 0.08). Thus the value of one litre of milk sold at farm gate is only one thirteenth of a days wage. In India, on the other hand, where farm-gate (co-operative) milk prices are higher at about 9 rupees (equivalent to about 14 Sri Lankan Rs at current rates), a rural manual wage rate, in Gujarat for example, is approximately 35 Rs/day (some 54 SL Rs) 8 . In that case, the ratio is about 1 to 4. The relative value of milk is thus much higher, as a litre of milk pays for nearly a quarter of a day's wage. 9 Similar results are found when Sri Lankan wage/milk prices ratios are compared to other developing countries, which is linked to the relatively high per capita GDP in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is categorised by the World Bank as a Lower Middle-Income nation, with per capita GNP of some $800, more than double that of India with $370 (World Development Indicators 1999, World Bank). These realities are reflected clearly in rural casual wage rates in Sri Lanka, which are much higher than in lower income countries.The result of this on farmer behaviour are significant differences in willingness to spend time gathering crop residues such as rice straw, cutting rice straw, and engaging in the marketing of fodder. These structural differences in opportunity costs of labour lead to the observed low use of rice straw, the low level of adoption of planted fodder, and the very small role of fodder markets. It is mainly in situations where practical opportunities for alternative employment are low (e.g. up-country tea estate workers) or where local, informal milk prices are high (urban and periurban areas), that significant intensification of fodder use and marketing can be found. Everywhere else, farmers choose to optimise returns to labour by operating at relatively low levels of both fodder use and milk output, but which require low labour input. In contrast, in India where opportunity costs are low, there is in many areas intensive use of crop residues and fodder market or exchange, particularly among landless dairy producers. The effect of labour values on dairy cattle feeding has been recently confirmed in another more detailed study in Sri Lanka led by Wageningen University that shows clearly that poorer households employ more labour-intensive feeding practices. Further, they show that a significant number of households engage in off-farm casual employment, and that off-farm employment contributes to 47% of all household income on average, which confirms the validity of using rural casual wage rates as indicators of labour opportunity costs (Leegwater et al., 1999) Altering this structural reality is unlikely to be possible through milk price policies or subsidies on pasture, fodder seeds, etc. Opportunities may exist, however, through raising the productivity of labour in dairy production, either though a) focusing on fodder technologies that are not labour-demanding or b) continued upgrading of the national herd to raise the productivity of dairy animals.The formal milk collection system in Sri Lanka revolves around collecting small quantities of milk from large number of small holdings scattered over relatively long distances. The formal milk sector consists of public or private enterprises such as MILCO (now Kiriya), Nestles group (IDPL), Nestles Lanka and small processors. The \"informal\" or raw milk market consists of sales directly to individual consumers and private milk collectors who then sell milk either to collection centre or to customers and institutions. 10The present practice observed in most of the formal dairy industry is that the producer price of milk is set based on the fat and SNF content of milk. Procurement of small quantities of milk from large number of small farmers may be a constraint in adoption of quality standards, although in most parts of the industry the testing of milk for fat and SNF is widespread. The average nominal price for farm milk (4.3% fat, 8.4% SNF) was set at Rs 10.54/litre in 1994, but now appears to vary by milk collector and is instead set by the market.The RRA survey results indicate that the average producer price varies from Rs 10.9 to Rs 15.2, depending on the agency to which it is sold. The best price is received from \"other households\" (Rs 15.2) and \"hotels\" (Rs 14.7), with substantially lower prices from \"collection centres\" (Rs 11.6-12.7), \"private traders\" (Rs 10.8) and \"others\" (Rs 10.9) (Table 6). Those parts of the informal market where the producer can sell directly to consumers or institutions offer the highest prices, and contribute importantly to farmer profitability. These market outlets are discussed in more detail below. One also observes high inter-district variation in the prices offered by the informal market, with a coefficient of variation of up to 33%. These differences are generally explained by distance and nearness of the market and production density, and suggest that the informal market more efficiently incorporates transport costs than the formal collection centres, which tend to subsidise producers further removed from processing plants.Consumer and producer milk prices were obtained from various secondary sources, and adjusted for inflation to yield real prices (base=1990). In real terms, while the producer price has moved in a narrow band in recent years, the real consumer price has in fact declined during 1994-97, a period which saw continued increases in powder imports as demand rises with income growth (Figure 8, with details in Appendix 2). This suggests that producer prices are less affected than consumer prices by levels of powder imports. One reason for this might be that domestic milk production goes partially into the liquid milk market, for which reconstituted powder is not a good substitute. Regardless, the results suggest that even under increasing powder imports, producer prices are robust. The household survey asked each producing household to report the amount of milk sold to each market outlet, and the price received. Of an average of 7.2 litres of milk produced per day by each cattle-and or buffalo-keeping household, only about 15% (about 1 litre per day), was reported consumed by the producing household (Table 36). Most of the rest (78% of that produced) is sold in liquid form, with 6% being produced into curd. A small amount, less than 1%, is reported made into yoghurt by the producing household. Some 85% of the household production is thus apparently sold, mostly in liquid form, reflecting a high degree of commercialisation of dairying and its role in offering regular income to the producing household.  39 shows the relative importance of the different collection centre types and the loyalty of farmer to MCC's. The majority of the households reported selling of milk through the collection centres use Milco, comprising some 66% of the total milk volume reported by the surveyed farmers to be sold to MCC's. Second in importance were co-operative collection centres, which in turn sell to either Milco, Nestle or some other outlet, including direct marketing of raw milk informally. There are few households using more than one collection centre: only 24 reported doing so, less than 2% of the sample.Households were asked how frequently their milk was tested. Of those households who responded to this question (over 400), 59% said they were tested regularly, 24% said periodically, and 17% said their milk was never tested. It is not clear, however, whether those who didn't respond experienced testing. Overall, 23% of farmers reported being members of milk co-operatives (co-operative membership by zone is shown in Appendix 3) Testing of milk for fat and SNF at some market level was observed to be occurring in nearly all market systems. The four most common testing systems observed during the RRA were: 1) daily testing of individual farmer milk, 2) 15 day average testing of individual farmer milk, 3) daily bulk testing of a group of farmer's milk (through collection centre or private collector) and 4) 7 or 15 day average bulk testing of a group of farmer's milk. Individual daily testing was most commonly seen in the new Kiriya primary societies. Even where daily or individual testing is not practised, however, farm-gate prices clearly reflect general fat and SNF levels in all systems visited, so that prices in the dry zones were significantly higher than those in the other areas, in spite of the higher transportation costs. These provide excellent incentive to increase offtake particularly in extensive production areas where high-fat genotype animals predominate.The milk collection system substantially revolves round collecting small quantities of milk from large number of smallholder farmers scattered over long distances. Because of this, collection costs are relatively high. Producers who are not able to sell directly to consumers or retail outlets must rely on either private (informal) milk collectors, co-operative milk collection, or formal milk collection centres linked to processors such as Milco and Nestle. Distance from major urban markets may or may not affect market access. While distance reduces the opportunity to sell directly and informally to consumers, in some areas, such as the mid-country and highlands, where milk production density is high, numerous collection agencies and milk drying plants create easy access for producers to milk markets. In other areas, such as in some of the dry zones where production densities are low, distance to markets can adversely affect market access. This can be exacerbated by inefficient functioning of some dairy cooperative societies or other collection agencies.Private (small-scale) Milk Collectors: They are an important group of private sector entrepreneurs (also called middlemen) who collect milk from small producers and deliver it to milk markets (boutiques, hotels, home delivery to consumers, major processors, chilling centres or milk collecting centres). They range in size from 7-8 litres/day (bicycle operators) to 2000 litres/day (vehicle operators). They operate on a margin between the price they pay the farmer and the price they obtain from their market outlet. They often provide other services to farmers besides milk collection, including small loans, transport of feeds, etc, the costs of which are presumed to be reflected in the milk price offered. In spite of that, the prices they offer are often competitive. RRA investigation indicated that these private collectors can operate with limited capital. A case study (see box) indicated an estimated 13% gross return to labour per litre of milk in this type of small-scale milk collection.Milco chilling centre The organisation of milk procurement routes usually follows the milk production density, and this is apparent in Sri Lanka as well. Nuwara-Eliya has the highest production per sq. km (66 litres), followed by Colombo (36 litres) and Batticaloa (34 litres). North Western province (Coconut triangle) has the highest reported share of milk collection as well as highest share cattle and buffalo population (Appendix 4). Though the share in number of cattle and buffalo is comparatively low in Central province, it contributes significantly to the total milk collection, due to higher density as well as higher yields as a result of more favourable climatic conditions and higher grades of dairy animals.  (around 17% and 16%, respectively), accounted for some 25% of the total collection (Table 40). Thus, though Dry and Dry-intermediate zones consist of 70-75% of the national cattle and buffalo population, only about 60% of the total milk collection comes from these two zones. Wet-intermediate zone (Matara, Matale, Badulla and Ratnapura) has the lowest share of milk collection (11.97%) but cattle and buffalo population is also low in this zone (12% and 9%, respectively).A considerable amount of seasonality is observed in milk collection, due to seasonality in rainfall and temperature. Over the year, the collection index varies from 86 (Nov) to 118 (July) -an increase of about 37%. October-March are the lean months while the flush occurs in May-August. Thus, to maintain a steady level of liquid milk supply, certain amount of re-constitution seems to be unavoidable. Dairy Collection Centres (DCCs): These are the primary formal collection points, often established with a collection radius of 3-5 Km with a sufficient number of milk producers to ensure a minimum milk collection of about 100 litres/day. These are operated by farmers themselves, directly by processors or by larger dairy co-operatives. Currently there are 265 registered dairy co-operatives, as shown in Table 4141.The main function of a DCC is receiving milk from producers/collectors and forwarding the milk to the chilling centre or processor. Farmers deliver milk at collecting centre in aluminium cans of 5-10 litres or in plastic cans. Most DCCs test for fat and SNF in milk, as reported above. Some adulteration occurs at some DCCs due to poor implementation of quality testing of milk from the collectors (see box below).Milk is then taken from the DCC by truck, pickup, tractor or motorcycle to the nearest chilling or processing centre. Most milk is usually collected on \"morning only\" basis, although in areas where the production density levels are higher, milk is collected in the evening as well. Otherwise, evening milk is often sold by farmers to the informal markets or simply consumed. In some areas, hydrogen peroxide is added to evening milk to preserve it for morning collection. This practice has led to some controversy, and the additive is not generally considered as acceptable in milk, unlike the lacto-peroxidase system of milk preservation. Although all formal processors insist that they now discourage the practice, hydrogen peroxide was observed in use on occasion during the RRA. The practice is likely to continue unless replaced with lacto-peroxidase or until milk collection systems are able to better meet the needs of the farms.Some collectors, either private informal traders or agents of the formal dairy industry, use several methods to try to capture a larger margin from the milk price. During the RRA investigation, while the incidence of soured milk was reported to be within reasonable limits at the level of the chilling centre, some producers supplying milk to contractors complained that, once in about a fortnight, the collector paid them less price because \"milk got soured\". As milk is usually measured by collectors in litre and half litre measures, the \"extra\" milk above these measures is not paid for but goes to the collector. Rough estimates suggest that in many systems such \"extra\" milk, for which the farmer is not paid but the collector is, may amount to 5 to 10% of the total.In systems where individual farmer milk is not tested but instead testing is done of bulked milk at the chilling centre, there may also be some avenue for abuse by collectors. These systems, however, exist mainly because the additional costs of testing for fat and SNF at the collection point may outweigh the benefits. Regardless, the farmer has less ability in these cases to monitor whether s/he is being paid fairly.The benefits of quality-based pricing (mainly based on fat content) on the quality of milk supplied is best illustrated by an analysis of average Fat/SNF data obtained from 12 Farmer Managed Societies (FMS) organised by Kiriya in the milk collection areas of the chilling centres at Ampitiya, Pundalu, Kaotagala and Norwood. It was observed that over a period of some months, average fat increased from 3.8% to 4.4%,SNF from 8.1% to 8.5% and Total Solids from 11.88% to 12.90,which resulted in an improvement in the average price paid to farmers from Rs 9.60 to Rs 12.02. These changes occur because the fat-based price creates an incentive for farmers to not adulterate milk with water before delivery. Kiriya officials reported privately that since these observations, fat and SNF levels have again declined in these co-operatives, suggesting that farmers may have judged their returns to be higher with some level of adulteration. Regardless, such a system provides a good opportunity to raise the quality of milk delivered, and presumably the value consumers are willing to pay for the final products. Unless this system raises the retail value of products sold, then it is not clear that farmers overall benefit, since price increases to farmers whose milk is tested may simply be countered by price decreases to those farmers whose milk is not individually tested. Farmers who are able to market their milk in this way, however, clearly benefit.During the RRA investigation, some estimates were made of margins available to dairy co-operative.Two case examples are shown below. In one case, an important component of economic viability was direct local raw milk sales that obtained considerably higher prices. Unlike most milk collection agents, it provides extension to its farmers through the employment of 3 field officers (@ 3200/month). They provide training in animal husbandry, feeding, etc, in order to help raise farmer milk production.The estimates below show that the co-operative is able to generate a margin of about 2% from its activities and pay a dividend to farmers of Rs.05/lt, even bearing the costs of extension agents. Again, local sales help economic viability by raising the average sale price to 12.73 from the price of 12.5 available from Nestle. Of the registered 265 dairy collection co-operatives, 4 are large district-level primary co-operatives, 30 are at levels of AGA divisions or electorates, 231 are smaller primary dairy collection co-operatives at the village level. Some of these primary dairy collection co-operatives have formed secondary milk producer co-operatives societies/unions, presently 5 in number, together collecting about 38.1 mill litres annually or about 30-35% of total milk collection. These unions currently include: Coconut Triangle Milk Union (CTMU), Mid Country Milk Union Limited (MIDCOMUL), Moneragala Milk Union, Binthenna Milk Union, and the Badulla Milk Union. Some of these do not operate in reality, since most co-operatives sell directly to processors, and co-operatives report their unwillingness to pay union fees.Kiriya, a joint venture between the Government of Sri Lanka and the National Dairy Development Board of India, is currently organising small primary dairy collection co-operatives for sale of milk to Milco.Although not yet apparent, larger unions of these small co-operatives are expected to be developed in the future.Milk Chilling Centres (MCCs): These are secondary collection points. At present about 80 chilling centres are owned and operated by Milco, while the other large processors Nestles, IDPL and NLL, also have a substantial network of 38 chilling centres, with 376 collecting points. Additionally, some 331 large-scale farms supply milk directly to the chilling centres. The capacity of the chilling centres varies from 1,500-15,000 litres. The small ones are often troubled by power breakdowns, and many have old equipment. Bulk transport of chilled milk to the processing units is carried out by milk tankers (bowsers).Milk collection costs are apparently high in areas with low production density. Average collection cost for efficient large-scale operators is around Rs 2.50-2.70/litre. Historical costs associated with different stages of milk collection are indicated below (Table 42). Other services besides milk collection are widely reported available from milk collection centres. These include loans for purchases of cattle, feed on credit, and AI, also usually on credit. Table 43 shows the proportion of farmers reporting receiving these services. Nearly half (41%) of farmers supplying Milco centres reported receiving either cattle loans or feed on credit. Similarly, some 27% of co-operative members reported receiving these services. Co-operatives even supplied some of these services to nonmembers, as indicated by the survey results. through the collection centre Source: Household survey Further, as indicated above, informal market agents such as private milk collectors also often offer cash loans and feed on credit. During the RRA, these services were reported by farmers as important components of the services they expected to receive along with milk collection. This combination of services is typical of dairy co-operatives in other countries as well, although not among Anand-model cooperatives in India, and is generally considered one of the bases of the comparative advantage that cooperatives hold over some other market agents. The newly developed Kiriya co-operatives currently do not offer credit, and some farmers indicated that this made them less attractive.In Sri Lanka, the milk processing industry is comprised of (a) liquid milk processing of locally produced milk and (b) repackaging plants using imported milk powder while some processors use a combination of local milk and imported milk powder to produce yoghurt and ice-cream. Milco (prior to 1986 the National Milk Board and presently being amalgamated into Kiriya) has 3 milk processing plants (Colombo, Digana and Ambewela) and 85 chilling centres (69 currently in use), with a throughput of some 160,000 litres/day in 1995. Nestle Lanka, commissioned in 1983, produces annually 5000-6000 MT WMP with local milk and recombines imported SMP and butter oil. The Ceylon Cold Stores produces and sells pasteurised milk and ice cream with a collection of milk around 5000 litres/day. Swiss Cheese Company produces a wide range of milk and milk products and currently handles 10,000 litres/day. The other notable milk processing plants include those run by Nel Farms, Mini Dairies, the Coconut Triangle Milk Union, Mahaweli, and the National Livestock Development Board.In addition to milk powder production, many are also import bulk WMP and repackage it in retail packs. Lanka Milk Foods handles around 35% of the WMP market. Currently it is also involved in the liquid milk market (UHT milk in tetra packs) with an initial capacity of 10,000 litres/day. New Zealand Milk Products handles around 40% of WMP market. Dairy Lanka is also entering the liquid milk market (UHT milk) with a capacity of 20,000 litres/day. Most of these firms include ice cream manufacture in their operations. Further there are several small to medium scale ice cream producers such as Alerics Dairies, Bonns Frozen Foods, Woodlands Ice Cream and Carnival Ice-cream.Because of relatively low tariff on imported dairy products (10-15%), and low packaging/distribution costs and retail margins, consumers enjoy relatively low cost milk. The cost of locally produced WMP (like Highland, and Nespray) in 1995 was equivalent to US$ 35-41 cents/litre. In spite of apparently low retail prices, local entrepreneurs can engage in small-scale dairy processing successfully. One case study made during the RRA permits some examination of the margins available to a small-scale processor of simple dairy products such as yoghurt.This entrepreneur makes yoghurt, curd and popsicle tubes, which he distributes locally by motorcycle to retail outlets. Some of the product is retailed directly from his premises. The milk used, some 260 L/week, is bought from the local dairy co-operative at a price of Rs 14/L. About 150 litres are used for yoghurt, the rest split about evenly between the two other products. The materials used for packaging, such as curd pots and yoghurt packages, are bought locally. The simple processing equipment cost an estimated Rs 25,000. The main other capital cost is the motorcycle used to transport the product. The costs reported below do not include own wages or cost of house he rents (in which he and his family also reside), so that returns are viewed as returns to labour and that portion of the premises used for the enterprise.Rs/Litre % of sale price Market channels in the Sri Lankan market for dairy productsBased on a number of information sources, including those reported above, a dairy market channel flow diagram was constructed for the Sri Lankan dairy sector (Figure 10). The RRA survey indicates that milk producers retain about 15% of their production for family consumption, the remaining is sold locally (mainly to neighbours and traders, in almost equal proportions) or to the collection centres, mainly of Milco/Kiriya and Nestle. Thus, 52% of the marketed milk is eventually formally processed, before reaching the consumer in liquid or other product form. Significantly, however, approximately 34% of the marketed milk is not formally processed, and is marketed either raw or as indigenous products such as locally-produced curd. While this informal or unregulated market is small in comparison to most developing nations, such as in India where it is estimated to comprise 85% of milk production (Dairy India, 1997). Table 44 shows the market shares in terms of different denominators. Total dairy imports in 1997, on liquid milk equivalent basis, were estimated to represent 43% of all milk available (including producerAppraisal of the Sri Lanka Dairy Sector:Main Report 55 home consumption), and were an addition to the milk available of 85% of domestic milk production. Imports represent 69% of the formal, processed milk market.  One notable result is that, while, expenditure on milk powder as a percentage of income declines at higher quartiles, expenditure on liquid milk more than doubles, from 0.5% to 1.1% of income. In economic terms, this suggests that consumers perceive milk powder as an inferior good, in that it's consumption declines with income. On the other hand, liquid milk is shown to be a superior good. This result indicates that as per capita income rise in Sri Lanka, demand is likely to shift increasingly to liquid milk (assuming preferences remain the same).Across the districts, some 12% of the households buy liquid milk (in Hambantota, none of the sample households bought any liquid milk, although many produced milk) though the frequency is much higher in districts like Colombo (52%) and Badulla (41%). An average buyer household buys some 0.5 litres of milk a day at an average price of Rs 29.3 a litre (all types of milk and all forms of packaging included).• Given an estimated number of 3.8 million households (172 million persons) and the consumption parameters obtained through the present survey, the total quantity of liquid milk marketed (both formally and informally) in these 20 sample districts is estimated at 209,410 litres a day, valued at Rs 6.1 million.• In absolute terms, Colombo market ranks first with a market size of nearly 140,000 litres a day, followed by Badulla (22,000 litres) and Puttalam (14,300 litres).Over 50% of the purchased liquid milk is used for making tea/coffee, 43% is converted into milk products or used as cooking ingredient 11 , 5% is directly consumed by adults, leaving some 2% for the children below 7 years of age. Only 4% of the sample households reported buying liquid milk daily, another 7% bought occasionally. As for the reasons of never buying liquid milk, 41% stated that they were milk producer themselves, 35% preferred milk powders while 15% stated non-availability as a major reason (more so in districts like Batticaloa, Hambantota, Kandy, Gampaha, Kurunegala and Puttalam).As for other reasons, over 15% of the respondents in Kandy and Polonnaruwa rated the presently available quality of liquid milk as \"poor\", while over 15% in Colombo, Kandy and Hambantota stated that they could not afford to buy liquid milk for considerations of income. The relatively high ranking of non-availability of liquid milk and reported poor quality may be indicators that markets for liquid milk are not currently meeting demand, and could be significantly expanded.For the buying households, the per capita consumption of liquid milk works out to be 106 gms/day or 39 kgs/year (0.5 litre/day/household). An analysis of the primary data in terms of income quartiles reveal that households in the 4th Quartile presently form the bulk of the consumer market. One-third of the households in this category buy liquid milk and they account for 69% of the market in quantity and 70% in value. As noted, with increases in income, the frequency of households buying liquid milk increases, as does quantity bought and expenditure. Thus, a potential target group for liquid milk marketers is the 4th Quartile households though a proper price-product mix (whereby high-margin milk products subsidises liquid milk processing). Along with such marketing strategies such as smaller retail units (e.g. 250 ml's), marketing may induce more lower quartile households to the liquid milk market.An estimated 69% of the households in the sample districts reported buying milk powders, with the highest percentage levels in Colombo (95%), Puttalam, Gampaha, Kaluthara, Matara and Polonnaruwa (over 70% of households). An average buyer family buys about 1.12 kg of milk powder a month (a high 30% variation is observed in the average quantity bought) at an average price of Rs 211/kg.In terms of milk powder brands, Anchor accounts for 48% of the market volume (44% of buyers), followed by Lakspray's 14% (14% of the buyers) and Highland's 9% (11% of the buyers). Unlike liquid milk, little inter-district variations are observed in the milk powder price. This observation is consistent with price data published in official reports and reflects greater price uniformity in the formal market.• The milk powder market is estimated at 2.9 million kg a month, valued at Rs 611 million.• Colombo (694,000 kg), Kaluthara (285,000 kg), Kandy (220,000 kg), Galle (173,000 kg), Gampaha (189,000 kg), Kurunegale (198,000 kg), Matara (188,000 kg) and Ratnapura (161,000 kg) are major consumption centres, accounting for over 72% of the total quantity bought a month.Respondents did not report significant complaints about the quality of milk powders they buy -90% rated the available products as either \"very good\" or \"good\" (rather exceptionally, in Puttalam, 12% of the buyers regarded the quality as \"poor\"). However, 22% of the respondents were willing to shift to other brands (probably on grounds such as availability and price).In terms of income quartiles, frequency of households buying milk powders increases as one moves from the 1 st to the 4 th Quartile and so does the average quantity bought and amount spent. Unlike liquid milk, the proportion of income spent declines, however, as incomes increase.Only 2% of the sample households reported buying infant milk foods (IMF) (30% of who were in Colombo alone), an average of .75 kg a month at an average price of Rs 242/kg. The households in the 4 th Quartile accounts for 43% of the total buyers and 45% of the quantity bought.Similarly, there is a very limited market for condensed milk, which only 0.2% of the households reported purchasing, mainly in Colombo and Galle. An average CM buyer, who is solely among the 4 th quartile households, buys some 1.1 kg a month (Rs 115/kg).Every third sample household reported buying some other milk product. Curd, yoghurt and flavoured milk powders were most common products, followed by butter and, to lesser extent, cheese. However, districts like Moneragala, Mathale, Ratnapura and Ampara presently offer very little market opportunity for most of these products. Flavoured milk powder (FMP) was purchased by 9% of the households, the average quantity bought being a little over 0.5 kg a month at an average price of 242/kg. Some 12% of the sample families were buying Curd (usually in earthen pots), reporting an average quantity of 1.7 kg a month at an average price of Rs 82/kg. The frequency of buyers is much higher in Matara, Hambantota, Trincomalee and Polonnaruwa (30-40%). The total market for curd is estimated at 728,000 kg a month. Hambantota (127,000 kg), Matara (125,000 kg) and Kaluthara (119,000 kg) are the major consumption centres (Hambantota is also a major production centre). Similarly, 12% of the households reported buying yoghurt, an average quantity of 1 kg per month at an average price of Rs 88/kg. Frequency of buyers is much higher in Colombo (59%), Puttalam (22%), Gampaha and Polonnaruwa (17-18%). Only 3% of the sample households reported buying cheese.• Due to data unreliability, the trends in milk production and numbers of cattle and buffalo in Sri Lanka are unclear. There is some indication, however, that per animal productivity has recently been growing significantly. • A large role for imports in the dairy sector which, although they have grown in volume, have maintained approximately same the market share since early 1980's (about 45% of available dairy products). • Smaller proportion of milk production is now collected (32% compared to 54% in 1981), suggesting growth in informal sector. • Increased availability of dairy products, from 13 kgs/capita/yr in 1981 to about 36 kgs/capita/yr now, due to proportional growth in both domestic production and imports. • Projections of strong increases in demand due to continued GDP growth. Under assumption of 4% GDP growth (compared to 5.4% 1990-1996), demand could grow by over 100% by 2010. This will present good opportunities for smallholder domestic dairy producers, especially if demand for liquid milk grows particularly fast, as consumption data suggests could happen. • Lack of reliable data limits projections in domestic production, but apparent current trends suggest that by 2010 it may only rise only slowly if at all. • Relatively little milk is retained by producers for home consumption (15%) -most is sold (78%) or made into curd/yoghurt (7%), indicating a high degree of market orientation. • The informal or local market supplies some 28% of the total market, and provides many viable income-generating opportunities for small entrepreneurs. Public health risks in some of these market channels, however, are uncertain. • Low farm-gate milk prices relative to other countries, which is cited as major constraint by producers.Formal collection centre price averages 11.6 Rs/l, while the informal market price average is 15.2 Rs/l. • Varying approaches to dairy co-operative development co-exist, as well as different scales of cooperative operation. Over time, as government withdraws from provision of livestock services such as AI and livestock extension, the ability of co-operatives to offer such services may be critical for continued development. Provision of limited short-term credit by co-operatives may also be a needed service, expressed by a large majority of small producers. • In areas where milk collection occurs only once a day, use of hydrogen peroxide by farmers was observed. The appropriate use of the more acceptable alternative, lacto-peroxidase, may need to be investigated.• Only approximately 30% of households report consumption of liquid milk, and most of those are dairy producers. Most households report preference for powdered milk. However, 15% of household says liquid milk is not available. • Consumption of liquid milk appears to increase with income (unlike that of milk powder), suggesting that over time, as incomes grow, demand could shift towards liquid milk, which would benefit domestic producers.The institutional support for the dairy industry is provided both by state institutions as well as by the private sector. The state sector is mainly engaged in providing the public goods, and the private sector institutions provide the input supplies, and marketing facilities. -Promotion of dairying and other livestock species and livestock sector activities for additional employment and incomes, and as instruments for rural development.-Increase the self reliance on domestic milk production.The objectives of the Ministry towards these goals are stated as; i.Provide funds for the livestock development (approximately Rs.200 Mn. Per annum and with an annual increase of around 10 %). ii.Review and revise policies and programmes in respect of the livestock sector annually. iii.Ensure the programmes and projects implemented by the agencies concerned as planned. iv.Management of manpower, material and finances for the successful implementation of the programme. v.Ensure the policies related to the livestock sector are adhered by all concerned. vi.Promote a satisfactory annual growth in the ventures related to the livestock sector. vii.Ensure animal health status in the country in line with the international standards. viii.Facilitate the adherence of all concerned with the country obligations towards international agreements.The key concepts of the livestock development are to promote the private sector play a greater role in the activities of livestock production, processing, marketing and supply of inputs including veterinary services and extension advice to the farmers, and, for the state to engage in activities of livestock and dairy development which are at present not attractive for the involvement of the private sector.In pursuing it's development goals in the livestock sector, MLD&EI has following medium term objectives to improve the dairy sector. The provincial departments of APH comes under the administration of the different provincial councils of the country, and are directly under the Provincial Ministries of Agriculture. They are headed by a provincial director, who is a Class I officer of the Sri Lanka Animal Production &Health Service.The provincial DAPHs are responsible for carrying out the devolved functions of livestock development in the country, and these include animal breeding, animal health control, animal husbandry extension, pasture and fodder production, and farmer training. The provincial DAPH have a net work of veterinary ranges in their provinces to carry out the above functions. And the veterinary ranges are headed by a veterinary graduate and 3 or 4 diploma trained livestock development instructors. The technical backstopping for the provincial DAPH is provided by the Central DAPH at Peradeniya, including the supply of semen for animal breeding, and vaccines and other biologicals for animal disease control.The National Livestock Development Board was established as a state agricultural corporation on 4th May 1973 with original purpose of promoting and improving the efficiency of the meat trade through animal purchase, slaughtering of animals, processing of slaughtered animals, transportation of meat to retail outlets and utilisation of by-products of slaughter for animal feeds. However, the NLDB could not venture into any of these functions, and in 1975 a different set of functions were assigned to NLDB. Since then the NLDB has been focusing on the maintenance of livestock farms as nucleus farms for the production and multiplication of livestock and poultry to be issued to the farmers, and to carryout them as commercial operations.At the time the NLDB was established, several coconut estates which were acquired by the government under the land reform law of 1972 were handed over to NLDB for purposes of holding animals it procures for meat. When the functions of the NLDB were changed in 1975 these coconut estates were converted as dairy cattle farms. In 1991 the government took a decision to hand over the livestock farms belonging to the DAPH to NLDB, and as a result of these changes the number of farms of the NLDB increased and it now maintains a total to 30 livestock farms incorporating nearly 17,000 hectares of land, thus making the agency with the largest land resource for livestock farming.Kiriya Milk Industries of Lanka Ltd. is a joint venture between the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) of India, which promotes dairy co-operative development, and the government of Sri Lanka on a 51% to 49% share basis, for the purpose of milk processing and marketing in Sri Lanka. It is the successor to the formerly state owned milk factory the Milk Industries of Lanka Ltd.. (MILCO). In keeping with the government policy of divesting state owned commercial entities to the private sector, the MILCO was made into a joint company in September 1997 in partnership with the National Dairy Development Board of India. A factor that influenced the government of Sri Lanka to enter into a joint venture project with NDDB is the latter's perceived contribution to helping make India the largest milk producer in the world, also based on smallholder production. In spite of this perception, the co-operative share of the Indian dairy market is less than 10% (Dairy India, 1997).The main function of Kiriya is to provide a market for the liquid milk produced by the dairy farmers of Sri Lanka. Kiriya at present manages 3 milk plants and some 90 milk chilling centres spread throughout the country. The 3 plants are the Colombo liquid milk plant, the Digana dairy and Ambewela spray drying milk plant. Kiriya at present processes fresh milk into products such as pasteurised milk, sterilised milk, full cream milk powder which are the major products and to other products such as yoghurt, ice cream, cheese etc. which are minor products comparing the volume but are important contributors to the MILCO revenues. Kiriya has plans to set up a 300,000 a litres a day new milk factory, and also a 30 ton a day capacity cattle feed plant. At present the total milk handling capacity of Kiriya is 220,000 l/day, of which some 50% is used, and the present cattle feed plant of Kiriya makes around 5 tons of cattle feed a day.The key concept of the Kiriya operation is to mobilise farmers into small groups as dairy co-operatives at village level, and to collect the milk from these farmer managed dairy co-operatives with testing of milk of every farmer member every time he supplies and pay for the milk according to it's quality. Few other services are provided.The Mahaweli Development Program which was an agricultural development programme was started in 1970 with the diversion of waters of the Mahaweli river to the dry zone parts of the country. The project was mainly an irrigation and a farmer settlement project. The project is handled by the Mahaweli Authority of Sri Lanka, under the Ministry of Mahaweli development.In order to provide the draught cattle requirements of the Mahaweli settlers another development component was added to the original project and was given the responsibility of maintaining large farms for cattle breeding. This activity is handled by the livestock development division of the Mahaweli Authority. At the beginning when it was first started in the late 1970s its activities were restricted to the production of draught cattle and buffaloes. However in the mid 1980s it expanded its livestock programme to cover dairy cattle breeding, as well as milk collection and processing. As a result of these changes the livestock programme was renamed as the draught animal and dairy development programme.The basic livestock unit being promoted by draft animal and dairy development program was two cows and followers, and the philosophy was to develop a dual purpose draft and milk animal, \"the Mahaweli cow\", based on crossing Sahiwal and Jersey. In Mahaweli areas farmers own buffaloes and/or neat cattle, although about 70 -80 percent would use cattle/buffalo for cultivation. Mahaweli owns some 10 farms, 2 of which each being in the system H, system C and Uda Walawe. 3 farms are in system A and 1 farm is located in system B.At present livestock in Mahaweli plays a major role in the dairy industry. It involves in production of milk as well as milk products. According to the Mahaweli Authority it's collection of milk from Mahaweli area is around 1.2 million litres of milk annually. The main functions of the livestock development division of Mahaweli Authority of Sri Lanka can be summarised as follows:-Maintaining livestock farms to breed and multiply a milch animal suitable for the Mahaweli areas. Private sector institutions for dairy development.Among the private sector agencies supporting the dairy development in Sri Lanka, the milk processors are an important group. There are two multinationals in the milk processing industry in Sri Lanka and a few local companies also engaged in milk procurement and processing. The two multinational companies are the Nestle Lanka Limited and the New Dale Dairies which is a subsidiary company of the New Zealand Dairy Board.Nestle' is one of the oldest companies in Sri Lanka engaged in food processing and marketing of food products. It ventured into the manufacture of dairy products in 1980 when it first joined with the then National Milk Board to produce condensed milk at Polonnaruwa. Later in 1982 the Company decided to go into full cream powder manufacture also and set up a factory at Kurunegala, which is the most modern powdered milk processing plant in Sri Lanka. The plant which was commissioned in 1983 is producing some 5,000 -6,000 MTs of whole milk powder annually, about 50% of it's total capacity. In addition to this Nestles produces and markets a wide range of other food products too. In 1983 with government agreement with Nestle' was to give 3 districts, viz. Anuradhapura, Kurunegala and Puttalam for the collection of milk. Milk was collected through chilling centres of Milk Industries of Lanka Company Limited. A huge development program was carried out by the Nestles spending over 30 million rupees to increase milk production in these 3 districts. Some of the work undertaken by the Nestles included, pasture establishment, issuing of stud bulls, bull calves, supplying interest free loans for the farmers for various development work etc.Collecting points were established on village basis, and the collected milk were transported to the chilling centres by trucks. Payments were given directly to the farmers through a tally sheet system and the payments were done once in 2 weeks.In 1989 Nestle' entered into another agreement, with the Ministry of Livestock, for the collection of milk in the Kandy district also. As a result of this by the year 1992, the formal segregation of areas for milk collection by MILCO and Nestle' was deregulated and the Nestles and MILCO were allowed to collect milk in all districts in Sri Lanka. The Ministry has viewed this as a good policy to increase the competition of milk procurement in the country and thereby to guarantee a good farm-gate price for milk. Nestle' started farmers associations in many parts of the country for milk collection, and some of these were breakaway groups of the former dairy co-operatives organised by the DAPH and the NLDB. Nestle' was the first company to start computerisation of milk procurement system at village level, and farmer associations were given computer printout of individual farmer details of milk receipts, quality, value, deductions etc. on a fortnightly basis.The Kurunegal milk plant produces a wide range of dairy products such as Nespray, Nestomalt, Milo etc. and according to Company sources, the full cream milk powder production is not a very attractive activity because of the imported milk powders in the local market. Presently CTMU is collecting about 13,000 to 15,000 litres of milk and process only 3,000 litres daily. The rest of the milk is being sold to the Nestles Lanka Limited.In addition, there are three milk processing companies that have secured the BOI approval to purchase local milk and produce Ultra Heat Treated (UHT) milk and pasteurised milk. Those are the Lanka Dairies (Pvt) Limited which markets the popular \" Daily \" Milk which is a subsidiary of Lanka Milk Foods and Stassens group, Daily Lanka (Pvt) Limited, subsidiary of New Zealand Milk Products; which is a member of the Anchor group and the Tropifruit which produces UHT milk under the brand name \" Rich Life \".The total processing capacity owned by private sector is about 450,000 l/p/day, but utilise only about 30-40% of it. Kiriya/MILCO has a total capacity of 220,000 l/p/day and uses some 50% of it.Also there are several large scale operations in importation and packaging of milk powder. The bulk of this milk powder is imported and repacked by Lanka Milk Foods Limited and the New Zealand Milk Products TMOL (Pvt) Limited. In addition, Maliban Milk Products Private Limited, Danish Dairy Products Lanka Private Limited, Millers Limited, Delmage Forthy and Company Limited, Dutch Dairy Products Private Limited is also actively engaged in importation and packaging of dried milk powder.Theoretically, concentrate cattle feed also forms an important input for milk production, but in the present context the use of concentrates in milk production in Sri Lanka is very negligible. Although there are several large scale feed mills manufacturing livestock feed in Sri Lanka, the percentage of cattle feed produce by them is less than 1% of their total feed out put.The policy framework for dairy development is designed and implemented in accordance with the declared macro-economic policies of the government. Accordingly the major trust of the policy initiatives for dairy development are directed towards expanding the domestic dairy production for increased employment and incomes and towards increasing the self reliance in domestic milk sources.Facilitating the private sector activities in the production processing and provision of inputs for dairying and creating a competitive industry structure for all related activities for dairying are key concepts in the government planning process of dairy development. The promotion of the liquid milk consumption as against the heavy use of milk powders as at present among the local consumers is also a major concern in the present policy framework. The provision of public goods by the state and allowing the private sector to cater to the provision of private goods are also stated policy objectives of the present government. However, in the case of dairying there still exists many services which are strictly of the nature of private goods, but because of the current economics of dairying in Sri Lanka, the state is obliged to continue to provide such services to the dairy farmers.Encouraging farmer participation in the milk assembly and marketing; provision of inputs for dairying; providing effective extension delivery; educating the farmers on methods of reducing the cost of production of milk; reducing the age at calving and calving intervals; are regarded some of the important strategies among the many different development strategies adopted for dairy improvement in Sri Lanka.The present policies of the government on the various components of the dairy industry and suggestions for improvement of same based on the findings of the Rapid Appraisal of the Dairy Sector are produced below:The government policy on animal feed is to promote a competitive animal feed industry in the country. Towards this end the government has allowed free trading of animal feed ingredients except maize and by-products of animal origin for the manufacturer of livestock feed. Both the latter ingredients require an import permit from the Controller of Imports and Exports before any one places an order for such imports into the country.Imported feed ingredients comprise nearly 70 % of the raw materials for feed manufacture, since only a very few raw materials are available locally. Before 1991 only foreign investors registered with the Foreign Investment Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Finance were permitted to import their feed ingredients free of custom duties for the manufacture of livestock feed. However since October 1991 this anomaly in the feed industry structure is rectified, and all feed ingredients are exempted from custom duties. This action by the government therefore has brought a uniformity in taxation of the feed industry, and has made the policy on the importation of feed ingredients transparent to every importer. This latter move by the government has encouraged the competitiveness of the animal feed industry, and since then many new firms have started to manufacturer animal feed in the country. However in spite of the expansion of the animal feed milling industry in Sri Lanka, the use of concentrate feeds for dairy cattle production in the country has remained at a very negligible level. The principal reason attributed for this by the farmers in the study is the low profitability of dairying when concentrates are fed to their cattle.Although there is no duty on the import of animal feed ingredients to the country, there exists a 10% duty on the import of finished animal feeds. The intention of this policy is to develop a local feed industry with the possible advantage of providing a market for local feed ingredients such as coconut poonac, rice polish, shell powder etc. Furthermore, the manufacturer also will have to get a certificate to confirm that the finished feed has not used any animal sources from areas where BSE disease is reported.The government in April 1998 introduced a new taxation called the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which is charged at 12.5% on the value addition on a manufacturing process or in providing some kind of a service. This new taxation appears to have serious implications on the use of concentrate feeds for dairying, because the cattle feed prices are now effectively increased by 12.5% .Before the GST was introduced the tax on cattle feed was only the business turn over tax (BTT) which was charged at 1% of the feed cost. The GST has now replaced the BTT, and although in many cases it has resulted in a reduction in sale prices of commodities, as the average rate of BTT for many consumer items was 18 or 20 %, the situation is different in the case of animal feeds. The new GST therefore is an added cost on the milk production amounting to nearly 12.5% of the feed costs.Normally in the value added taxation regimes, there is the possibility of obtaining a credit on the GST payable on the finished product, equivalent to the amount of GST paid on the inputs used by the manufacturing process. But unfortunately in the case of dairy farming the final product of the production process, that is milk is GST exempted and therefore the farmers do not have a mechanism to get relief of the GST they have already paid on the concentrates and other inputs used for milk production. One may argue that the small dairy farmers operate at very low production levels and hence their total turnover do not qualify them to register for GST calculations, and any benefit of input credit on final GST is only a theoretical concept. But the reality of the present policy of GST on feeds however is that it has resulted in raising the animal feed prices, and therefore the cost of production of domestic milk.The higher cost of production of milk also has another implication. The liquid milk and milk powder being both GST exempted, is applicable both for domestic milk as well as for imports. It is not difficult therefore to understand that the present cost advantage of imported milk and milk powders to local milk or milk powders have been increased as a result of the policy of GST on animal feed. Furthermore it should be noted that coconut poonac is GST exempted where as many other feed ingredients and cattle feed are subjected to GST. Poonac is only one of the many feed ingredients, and not a balanced cattle feed. The GST exemption on poonac therefore is not an incentive for promoting dairy development. However if the intention of the government in exempting poonac from GST is promotion of dairy development in the country, then the most desirable action would be to remove GST from animal feed. The governments concern to expand the tax base through the introduction of GST is understandable. However by the present policy of adding GST to cattle feed and exempting the final product milk from GST to benefit the consumer only shows the insensitivity of government policy on dairy production.It is therefore suggested that the government reviews its policy on GST on animal feeds so that the dairy farmers are given the advantage of such a policy, while at the same time without burdening the consumers of dairy products. Rectifying the GST on feed is likely to increase the use of concentrate feed for dairying, and hence will have a positive effect on the local milk production. This would also mean that there will be a surplus of milk which can be converted to products such as curd, yoghurt, ice cream, fresh cream etc. which are GST chargeable.At present dairying in Sri Lanka is primarily dependent on pasture and fodder found on road sides tank bunds, ravines, and other common areas. Hardly any farmer practices the cultivation of pastures and fodder for purposes of dairying. There are many reasons for this farmer behaviour, and the lack of knowledge and skills about the possibilities of growing and using pastures and fodder is a major factor to reckon.The pasture development and extension is a function of the provincial DAPHs. However there is no strong institutional arrangement either at the provincial level or at the national level to spearhead a useful programme for promotion of pasture and fodder for dairy production.It is however interesting to note that the recently started livestock breeding project by the Ministry of Livestock Development and Estate Infrastructure with technical assistance from the National Dairy Development Board of India, has a major component of the project on the promotion of pasture and pasture utilisation. The present weakness of the institutional arrangement for pasture development may become a hindrance for the above project objectives, and it is therefore recommended that the necessary institutional changes at the central DAPH, and the provincial DAPH and the Livestock Breeding Project are put in place early, so that a meaningful remedy can be made to the present problems on the expansion of the pasture base for dairy production.The government of Sri Lanka has adopted the open market policy on the trading of dairy products. As such all dairy products are under open general license system, and the only requirement the importers of dairy products have to comply with are the standards set by the Sri Lanka Standards Institution. Full cream milk powder and the skim milk powder are the 2 important dairy products imported from out side sources, and which have an implication on the domestic dairy industry. Full cream milk powder is the main dairy product in the formal milk market of Sri Lanka, and skim milk powder is an important raw material for the production of items such as ice cream, yoghurt, reconstituted milk etc. Both these commodities therefore have a direct bearing on the market prices of domestic fresh milk which is a substitute for milk powder or as a raw material for the production of above mentioned other dairy products.Milk powder has a 10% duty rate, and a 4.5% national security levy. In addition the importers also incur a cost when opening letters of credit for such imports. This is the stamp duty on the letters of credit, and at present it is equivalent to 2.5% of the CIF value of the consignment for import. Although there some pressure to raise the custom duty on full cream milk powder and skim milk powder, the findings of the study do not tend to support a change of the present duty structure for these two commodities. Also the deteriorating rupee-dollar parity rates also has forced the milk powder packers to raise their prices accordingly. After the implementation of WTO agreements by the milk powder exporting countries on reduction commitments on dairy production, it is likely that the international prices of dairy commodities will increase in the international markets. The present effective rate of taxation of nearly 19% may therefore be sufficient to give the required protection level for the domestic dairy industry.It is understood that the government is planning to make it compulsory for the sellers of milk powders to print on the packaging of such products the date of manufacture of the powder, so that the import of very old stocks of milk powder at give-away prices from international markets are discouraged from entering the domestic market and influencing the domestic milk prices .In line with the government policy of promoting free market for dairy processing and marketing, the government in the past has offered several concessions and fiscal incentives to the private sector to enter into dairy processing.The terms of reference (TOR) for each research team are as follows:TOR for Production Systems Analysis Team 1) Identify the current principal milk sheds and their major consumption centres, and the areas with potential as milk sheds to serve milk deficit areas now and in the next 20 years.2) For each milk shed, document in as quantitative terms as possible, the current production systems (livestock species and breeds; herd/flock sizes and structures; milking and calf management; breeding practises; feeding resources and systems; disease risks and health management practises); and, their output and input market linkages (including quantities of milk consumed by progeny and by the producer household, and how much is marketed in what form), and cultural/historical determinants of dairy practices, including past development projects. Put these descriptions into the context of the farm and land use systems of the milk shed.3) For each major production system in each milk shed, identify the current major constraints and opportunities, and those expected in short, mid and long term, with focus on market-oriented production.4) Recommend specific actions/interventions to address the identified constraints, recognising existing resources, and aimed at meeting the shortfall in domestic dairy production.TOR for Economic and Market Analysis TeamIdentify the physical and geographical distribution of dairy production, processing, markets and consumption. This includes quantification of flows through alternative market channels and illustrated by diagrams of quantities and percentages for the national market and major milk shed areas.Assess the historical trends in output supply and demand, and project the changes in demand over short, mid, and long term.Assess issues related to input supply and demand patterns, including for heifers and feeds.Measure the economic viability of all output market components of the sector, and quantify market margins at all levels. Estimate costs of production in the main production systems.Quantify the effects of macro-economic and regional/world market factors on competitiveness of domestic dairy production and processing. 6. Identify the major economic and market constraints to substituting domestic dairy products for imports. 7. Recommend specific actions/interventions to address the identified constraints in the short, mid, and long term, with focus on improving the competitiveness of domestic production.1. Describe the socio-economic and cultural significance of livestock, with particular reference to cattle, buffalo and any other milk-producing species.2. Describe the evolution of dairy development nationally, including: changes in stated and effective public policy towards dairy production and marketing, and consumption, central and local government, donor and NGO activities in the dairy sector, and the evolution of institutions in the dairy sector dealing with policy-making and investment, extension, training/education, disease control and animal health, reproductive services, input supply and feed, processing and marketing, safety and quality control legislation, and credit.3. Describe the current and planned policy interventions, institutional re-organisation and donor activities.4. Assess the impact that dairy policies at the central and provincial levels have had on smallholder dairy development, especially on greater involvement by poorer households.5. Evaluate and review the effectiveness of dairy policy implementation. Identify constraints to implementation, with attention to inter-ministerial and inter-institutional co-ordination of responsibilities.6. Recommend specific actions/interventions to address the identified constraints in the short, mid, and long term, with a focus on improving implementation of policies to meet recognised goals.out in the late 1980's covering six mid and hill country veterinary ranges indicated that mastitis ranked second only to gastrointestinal parasitism in the number of cases reported to veterinary dispensaries and it accounted for 11-20% of all bovine cases presented.Metabolic Disorders The common metabolic disorders presented in the region are milk fever and ketosis. They occur more commonly in high yielding animals. It is reported that the number of reports of metabolic disorders is in the range of 5% of all bovine cases. Occasionally reports of conditions such as hypomagnesaemic tetany have also been made.Other Diseases These are other diseases, which are presented in the country but their occurrence in this region is exceptional. Contagious diseases such as foot and mouth disease and haemorrhagic septicaemia may break out occasionally. This may occur mainly in the bordering areas, and is usually associated with movements of animals from endemic areas into the region, particularly draught animals during the cultivation season, or to abattoirs for slaughter. Sporadic outbreaks of blackquarter may also occur in the border areas of Uva and central provinces.Brucellosis occurs only in a very small percentage of cattle in this region, and in a few infected pockets only. By and large this zone may be considered free of brucellosis. A disease to be considered in future animal health programs is leptospirosis, which has been found to occur in this region, but for which no systematic survey has been done in cattle. A study that serves as a significant indicator of the magnitude of the problem, is an islandwide survey of buffaloes. Nearly 60% of buffaloes in the Kandy district and over 70% in the Baddula district were serologically positive for leptospirosis on a random sampling and testing program. Nuwara Eliya was not covered in this survey.Disease of young calves In the hill and mid country where cattle farming is intensive, mortality in young calves is high. A number of studies have been made from time to time and depending on the particular situation mortality rates from 5% to 20% in the first year of life has been recorded. Some conditions that have been recognised as causes of mortality are navel ill and joint ill in very young calves, parasitic gastroenteritis (caused by helminthes as well as coccidia), bacterial (and probably viral) diarrhoea and respiratory infections. The most vulnerable age appears to be the post-weaning period, i.e. around 3-6 months of age.The Coconut Triangle and the Low Country Wet zone From a disease point of view, the status of these two regions is similar. Some important diseases that merit the attention of the animal health authorities are discussed below 1.The Contagious Diseases Haemorrhagic septicaemia (HS) In most parts of these two regions sporadic outbreaks of HS have to be expected particularly in the areas with a high buffalo population and bordering the dry zone where the disease is endemic. Losses in these outbreaks can be high, particularly in herds which are not vaccinated on a routine prophylactic basis. The outbreaks are only sporadic, but a recent study in the Western province indicated the mortality may go up to even 50% in affected herds. Only the Asian stereotype B:2 is present in Sri Lanka.Foot and mouth disease As in the case of HS, sporadic outbreaks may occur, which are usually associated with the movement of animals into the region from endemic areas. Most outbreaks appear to originate from the Eastern province and spread to this region through the North Central province. In an early study it was revealed that during the period of 10 years ending 1972, its incidence was 199 cases per 1000 head for the Eastern province with Sabaragamuwa ranking second with a low figure of 14, but this above information reveals the focus of infection in the island. Sri Lanka is fortunate to have only one serotype of FMD virus, type 0. Although type C was introduced in 1969 through cattle imported from India, it was last isolated in 1975, and has disappeared thereafter. Losses due to FMD are not obvious as with HS, since case fatality is low in FMD. Losses are lowly in young animals and improved crossbred animals where a more severe syndrome is observed. Indigenous and zebu types only develop a mild syndrome. Loses are of an insidious nature and will be in the form of reduction in milk production and loss of draught power. With the development of the superior crossbreeds into these two regions, looses due to FMD will be expected.Black Quarter Black quarter is an infectious disease caused by a bacterium Clostridium chauveoi. It occurs sporadically in certain pockets of infection particularly in the North Western Province. In terms of losses per 1000 head, its incidence is very low but when it does occur, case fatality is nearly 100%. In a recent study carried out in the early 1990's, in affected herds, mortality of 13.7% has been recorded for cattle and 13.3% for buffaloes. Thus no species susceptibility is evident. Significant breed differences, however, do occur, the mortality in temperate breeds being 19% as against 10.5% and 8.2% for indigenous and zebu animals, i.e. nearly double in temperate breeds. On an age basis, among local and zebu types the most vulnerable age group are the 6-month to 2 years older with a mortality of 29% among temperate breeds whilst 36% mortality has been recorded in this age group, it is highest (48%), in the 2-4 year group.Gastrointestinal Parasites The same intestinal nematode parasites that are present in the hill and mid country are present in this region too. The magnitude of the worm burden, and the losses therefrom depend on a variety of factors. In the drier areas of the coconut triangle -intermediate zone, the worm burdens will be less severe than in the wetter parts of this region. Secondly the stocking rate/ intensity of management will also influence the level of infection. In highly intensive management systems, the burden is more severe compared with the open free-range system of management.Among buffaloes, of which around 30% of the total population are scattered in this region, special mention must be made of Toxocara vitulorum infestation, which is one of the main causes of death among very young calves. With this parasite encysted larve are mobilized during the latter part of pregnancy, and prenatal infection occurs in calves. The infection becomes patent when the calves are 3-6 weeks of age, and worm egg counts reach a peak at 4-6 weeks, and high mortality results.Intestinal Coccidiosis is also not uncommon in intensively managed buffalo farms. Nine species of Eimeria has been identified in Sri Lanka. It is another cause of mortality in young calves.Other Helminth Parasites The liver fluke Explanatum (Gigantocotyle) explanatum is also more common in buffaloes than in cattle. An islandwide survey covering over 8000 animals, 34.2% buffaloes and 0.21% cattle were found to be affected. The infection rate use slightly higher in the drier areas. The degree of improvement of liver functions and other pathophysiological affects and the economic losses resulting therefore has not been estimated. Schistosoma nasale that causes nasal schistosomicasis is also a parasite which deserves mention. Abattoir studies have shown that on an average around 6% of cattle and 24% of buffaloes are infected. In certain location, the infection rate may be as high as 90%. The intermediate host has been identified as Indoplaanobis exutus, a snail commonly found in paddy fields. No estimates of economic losses are available. Two important blood parasites prevalent among cattle and buffaloes in this region, is theileria and trypanosoma. They are transmitted by ticks and biting flies, respectively, belonging to species which are widely present. Except in special circumstances, in indigenous and zebu animals they do not cause clinical disease. Related growth leading to delayed maturity, lowered milk production etc, will result in economic losses, which have not been quantitatively estimated. Losses could be heavier in improved breeds introduced into this region.Mastitis In intensive dairy farming system in this region too, mastitis is a problem to be taken notice of. The pathogens present are the same as mentioned under hill and mid country, and indicate island wide has been observed that the infection rate is lower among buffaloes than cattle, indicating the relative resistance of buffaloes to udder infection. Buffaloes are particularly resistant to staphylococcal mastitis. With the development of the dairy industry and the introduction of improved, high yielding animals much as the temperate crosses, the problem of mastitis is expected to be aggravated.Calf Mortality The causes are the same as in the hill and mid country. The magnitude of the problem will be greater in more intensive rearing and in the wetter regions as compared with the drier parts of this region and a more extension systems of calf rearing. Brucellosis Surveys carried out from time to time in this region has shown that 1% to 4% of herds are infected with Brucellosis. The prevalence appears to be somewhat higher in parts of the North Western and Southern provinces, and lower in the Western and Sabaragamuwa provinces. On an individual animal basis, the reactor rate is less than 1% of the animals. Higher infection rates have been found in state sector farms, where management practices are highly intensive. Two biotypes of Brucella abortus, biotypes 1 and 3 have been identified.Leptospirosis has been reported in both cattle and buffalo have been reported in the country. A zero epidemiological buffaloes carried out in the early 1990's have indicated that in this region, the number of seropositive ranged from approx. 12% in Kegalle, 25% in Kaluthara, 26% in Galle, 37% in Kurunegala, 45% in Rathnapura and 59% in Colombo. The disease, therefore, appears to be widespread. The actual losses caused by this disease and its economic losses have not been estimated.The special features of the dry zone are its relatively low (yet significant) rainfall of 1000-1750 mm/year, which is concentrated during a few months of the year, with relatively long day periods. It has around 65% of the island cattle population and 70% of buffalo population. All animals are of indigenous types and pure Indian breeds or their crosses. Most animals graze freely in grassland, fallow paddy fields and scrub jungle. Some are paddocked at night, other large numbers are herded together for the night. A few dairy farmers maintain temperate breeds or crosses, under intensive, stall-fed conditions, but this is exceptional. The disease patterns are related to the above conditions.Haemorrhagic septicaemia, foot and mouth disease and black quarter are endemic diseases. Rinderpest, which was re-introduced into the island in 1987 through goats imported from India, spread to the dry zone, mainly the North Central province, from the Northern and Eastern provinces where it lingered for a while for the rest few years, no outbreaks have been reported.Haemorrhagic Septicaemia This is a disease for which prevalence is highest in the dry zone. It occurs during most of the year, but outbreaks tend to spread more during the wet season thereby resulting in an apparent seasonal incidence. Morbidity is variable depending on a variety of factors. Case fatality is 100%, unless treatment is carried out in the very early stages. The most susceptible age group is the 6m to 2 yr range. Buffaloes are more susceptible than cattle. In the late 1970's a survey in six locations in the dry zone indicated that around 48% buffalo herds and 38% cattle herds experience outbreaks of the diseases. It was also shown that the average mortality in buffalo herds where outbreak occurred was 24.2%, whenever for cattle herds it was 17.8%. During the 1980's a strategically formulated vaccination program was carried out using an improved vaccine. A similar survey in the early 1990's indicated that the herd infection rate has dropped to 48% to 14.7% for buffaloes and from 38% to 17.5% for cattle. Similarly the mean mortality in outbreaks had dropped from 24.2% to 3.4% in buffaloes and from 17.8% to 4.0% in cattle.Black Quarter This disease occurs only in certain pockets of infection. Sites of outbreaks have been identified in the Anuradhapura and Moneragala and in the dry zone areas of the Puttlam and Matala districts. The total losses in terms of death per 1000 head may appear insignificant, but the mean mortality is around 13-14% in affected herds. Mortality however may be higher and reach even 50% in vulnerable age groups in herds of temperate breeds. Vulnerable, high producing animals introduced to this region are exposed to a potential risk.Gastro-intestinal Parasitism The gastrointestinal parasites in this region are very much the same as in the coconut triangle. The more extensive systems of management presently practised reduce the magnitude of the problem. If intensification of management results from the development of the dairy industry in this region in the background of diminishing land resources, and if improved breeds are introduced, the problem will escalate.Other helminth parasites much as the liver fluke Explcuatum (Gigantocotyle) explauatum and Schistosoma nasale, which are more common in buffaloes than cattle, enjoy a higher prevalence in the dry zone.The blood parasite theileria sp. and trypanosoma sp. are also more common in the dry zone. High incidence may be observed in specific foci.The economic losses due to any of these parasites diseases have not been estimated, but losses may be significant and will undoubtedly increase with increasing numbers of superior quality animals being introduced into the region. Mastitis In indigenous and zebu animals that dominate this region presently, mastitis is not a major problem, although if yet causes losses and therefore cannot be overlooked. Improved breeds and intensification of management will no doubt increase its economic losses.Brucellosis The highest prevalence of Brucellosis is in the dry zone. In the intensively managed state farms, as high as 25-30% seropositive has been recovered. Surveys carried out at abattoirs receiving animals mainly from the dry zone and random resting of private owned animals have shown an overall reactor rate of around 6%. These surveys were carried out in the 1970's. If more sensitive testes, presently available, are applied the rate of detection may be higher. Brucellosis causes economic losses through loss of milk, loss of calves and infertility. From available information, it has been estimated recently that the islandwide loss due to brucellosis is Rs 141 million, which is equivalent to 2.4% of the contribution of the livestock sector to the GDP in 1994.Leptospirosis This disease too occurs in this region also. The sero-epidemiological survey in buffalo indicated 59% positive at Pollonnaruwa and 41% at Anuradhapura. In this seroepidemilogical survey carried out in buffaloes using a panel of 10 contiguous against serovars commonly present in humans in Sri Lanka, the Serovars detected in order user serovar weerasingha (Serogroup Autmnalis) 30.2%, serovar pomona (Serogroup Pomona) 26.5%, serovar harjo (serogroup Sejroe) 24% and serovar ceylonica (serogroup Javanica) 0.79%.It must be noted that both brucellosis and leptospirosis are transmissible to humans. The transmission of brucellosis, however, is rear since few persons in Sri Lanka consume unboiled/unprocessed milk and the risk group is mainly the abattoir workers and veterinarians. On account of its high prevalence in buffaloes and presumably to the same degree in cattle, from animals used for draught purposes, transmissibility to paddy field workers is a risk of much greater potential.Calf Mortality Under extensive systems of management, presently seen in the dry zone, diseases much as navel ill and joint ill that result from poor hygiene in calving pens, diarrhea and respiratory infections are of lesser significance. Any changes to the present management system should be done with a full knowledge of the consequences of increasing the risk of deaths from these conditions. The same is true of parasitic gastroenteritis in calves, including the specific cases of T. vitulorum in buffalo calves.The Jaffna Peninsula The special case of Jaffna is worthy of mention on account of its peculiar features. Jaffna has a typical dry zone climate. Yet, it harbours a sizeable proportion of temperate animals and their crosses under intensive management conditions. Thus, the incidence of diseases such as the tick-borne haemoparasites, metabolic disorders, mastitis etc., which are of significance in the hill and mid-country, should also be given consideration in addition to the diseases characteristic of the dry zone.Management and Nutrition A good management and nutrition regime is an absolute pre-requisite to any animal health program. Its cannot be compensated by any other means. Proper hygiene at calving, adequate colostrum feeding, appropriate suckling management including weaning, the use of good quality calf starter, suitable housing etc. are all practices of utmost importance, that give a good start to an animal for a healthy, productive life Imports of Milk and Milk Products (LME), Sri Lanka: 1981-94  ","tokenCount":"25017"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2951c00b7697850e45c1b0924fc92e1c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4948856d-53a3-4b7d-83c1-50f0284a6583/retrieve","id":"-524861641"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0e6c0ba3-856a-49ff-8c5f-18c4d2de4690","pagecount":"5","content":"Ethiopia is increasingly highly vulnerable to climate change, and farmers across the country are dealing with climate variability and weather risks more and more. Adapting small-scale livestock and fodder production to climate change, through small-scale irrigation, is an option to increase the climate resilience of livestock keepers and, in some cases, transform their livelihoods.In this regard, the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Small-scale Irrigation (ILSSI) Project has been working on irrigated fodder development in the mixed farming system of the Ethiopian highlands since 2018. The ILSSI project seeks to validate and promote sustainable smallscale irrigation technologies such as labour saving water lifting technologies and forage genotypes, that fit well in the smallholder farming systems. The aim is to enhance production of irrigated fodder in the smallholder farmer systems and help to alleviate the seasonal feed shortages often experienced. Opportunities and mechanisms to improve access to small-scale irrigation technologies as well as markets by women and men farmers are ongoing.A key study question is 'Which segment of the irrigated fodder value chain benefits and empowers women most and the least'?To contribute to answering this question, the study team decided to start by understanding the livestock value chains business environment in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' (SNNP) and Amhara region. Key informant interviews were implemented with selected business owners in both regions. The study focuses on the performance of the businesses, their relationships with livestock/ Farmer Mognenet Fente feeding her cows with green fodder (photo credit: ILRI/Fikadu Tessema).Habebo Dairy Cooperative employees on milk collection and processing duty (photo credit: ILRI/ Tigist German).Result 1: There is a range of traders at different scales that are moving livestock products from the small-scale Irrigation/other livestock farmers.The study identified 6 traders, 2 from the Amhara region and 4 from the SNNP region. There were 4 males and 2 female value chain actors. They ranged from sole proprietors trading in small volumes of butter that is sourced directly from individual women farmers, where prices are negotiated at the point of sale, to a largescale farmers' union whose membership is 61 livestock farmers cooperatives across about eight woredas, with relational structures for input and output selling and set prices. The businesses trade in livestock inputs (forages, feeds, livestock medicines, live animals) and also different types of livestock outputs (milk, milk products, live animals). Table 1 outlines the summary of the characteristics of the key informant traders interviewed for this study.small-scale irrigation farmers, the perceptions of men and women value chain actors on climate change, and the role of irrigated fodder in climate change adaptation and resilience. This will aid the identification of areas for development investments and policy interventions that empower women and men through small-scale fodder irrigation and enhance their resilience in the face of climate change. In addition, the results will inform the successful scaling of irrigated fodder technologies under the prevailing climatic, socio-economic, and environmental conditions.The ILSSI project seeks to validate and promote sustainable small-scale irrigation technologies such as labour saving water lifting technologies and forage genotypes, that fit well in the smallholder farming systems.Key informant interviews with six traders A qualitative study was conducted using key informant interviews among respondents from Amhara and SNNP regions of Ethiopia. Data collection was done in July 2021 led by a female researcher with the assistance of a research associate who took notes. The respondents were male and female value chain actors engaged in livestock inputs and output trading at different nodes of the value chain. Specifically, six key informants were interviewed, four from SNNP and two from Amhara. There were two female and two male respondents from SNNP and two male respondents from Amhara. These were identified and mobilized through the help of a site coordinator who also facilitated the obtaining of the necessary permits from the local leaders and offered logistical support to the team.The interviews were along 13 thematic areas as outlined on a key informant guide as follows: i) background information, ii) capital, iii) location of sales and physical access to markets, iv) seasonality and price considerations, v) gender barriers, vi) payment methods, vii) price determination, viii) credit access, ix) sales and value addition, x) market structure, xi) associations and groups, xii) climate change, and xiii) coping, adaptation and mitigation. The interviews were recorded using both field notes and audio recorders in the local languages. After the data collection, transcription was done into English and the transcripts then loaded into NVIVO 1.5.2 (946) (1999-2021) for analysis. Coding was done by qualitative research analysts at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) along the aforementioned thematic lines. Coding queries were then ran on the software and the queries synthesized to answer the overall research question. Result 2: There are gender differences in ability of men and women to participate in different types/ scales of livestock businesses.Although livestock inputs and output business are lucrative and have the potential to economically empower both women and men, women seem to tap on and benefit less from these business opportunities. Women are more in the small-scale businesses. There are about 5% of all suppliers/traders dealing with the farmers union, one of the largest businesses interviewed in this study. Women participate on the lower nodes of the value chains (supplying milk and milk processed products and in much smaller scales) compared to the men traders. Gender barriers and an individual's prowess emerged as key barriers limiting women. These include: Reproductive roles of women: Women are limited by their socially constructed gender roles especially the unpaid care and reproductive roles, which are highly valued by the community, but which keep them engaged and limits their mobility, affecting how they would respond to business/entrepreneurial opportunities.Women have limited access to finance and credit facilities: Women face hurdles in accessing startup capital. One of the women traders in the interviews obtained her startup capital from her brothers. This stems from intrahousehold power relations where women do not usually control family finances, which remain a domain for men and so have to negotiate for the resources they can access. In addition, women were said to be risk averse compared to men who have the privilege of making risky choices, because of their power in decisionmaking. Men explore and pursue varied financial options including seeking credit from financial institutions while women hold back and shy away from institutional credit. This gives the men an edge to engage in and prosper in entrepreneurial activities. The study found that most businesses pay women in cash for their supplies (maybe because they do not have bank accounts, especially the older women) while the men farmers are paid by cheque through a bank account. While this may be a noble approach to dealing with the current challenge, it has the unintended consequence of enabling only men to have a credit history while the women lack it and hence cannot negotiate for an institutional credit facility.Paradox of 'milk as a women's product': The norms of milk ownership in the SNNP region indicate that milk belongs to women. For a long time, fresh milk was not traded but rather used at home for the sick, the lactating mothers and the young children. While milk is emerging as a tradable good, the role that women play in its | Value chain actors providing inputs and services to fodder producers in SNNPR and Amhara regions of Ethiopia: potential avenues to support women's empowerment trade is mostly confined to the production/homebased processing of milk and milk products, respectively. When the milk value chain advances to the higher nodes of aggregating, packing and redistributing milk and milk products, then the norm seems to relax and the big business shifts into the domain of men.Women's non aggressive negotiation of milk/product prices: Even when men and women engage in the same business, such as milk supply to a processor, men are considered to have better/higher negotiation skills and abilities than women, which enables them to fetch better commodity prices compared to women. This limits the potential benefits a woman can reap from a business venture, which lessens their potential to get economically empowered through engagement in the value chains. This was clarified by one man from SNNP region as follows, 'men are tough, and they exert maximum effort to get the best price they can, but women are open minded and are reasonable and easy to negotiate with.'Women are trusted for quality deliveries: On quality attributes, the study shows that traders trusted women to deliver superior products in terms of quality compared to men. Women often trade in smaller quantities, but men handle larger quantities. This means that women have an opportunity to prosper in feed and milk businesses since they are likely to be trusted by customers who are keen on products quality. This was clarified by one key informant from SNNP who said 'women supply more quality products than men…. My company rewards women who supply good quality and quantity milk.'Result 3: Business owners/traders have a general appreciation for the uniqueness of the challenges that women livestock producers face.There was a report that when women have to deliver milk to the dairy cooperatives, some of them walk very long distances and coupled with a high demand for time to take care of other roles, most women opt to not take their milk to the collection centres. To support consistent engagement of the women livestock farmers with the cooperatives, the latter open milk collection satellite outlets in the remote areas. One trader explained that they appreciate that women are constrained for time due to domestic chores and are sometimes unable to deliver milk early in the morning when it is very fresh. When they arrive late to the cooperatives, they are not turned away (avoiding wastage, income loss and disappointment of the women farmers) but their milk is used for processing other products such as cheese. The milk cooperatives provide loans to their suppliers (men and women) to enable them purchase feeds. This is recovered from their income at the end of the month. This enables the farmers to keep being productive and maintain their supply.To maintain quality the of milk, some traders provide the male and female farmers with aluminum containers free of charge. The cooperatives are also acting as a hub for knowledge and technologies access for the male and female farmers. Being organized into farmer cooperatives has enabled the communities to access government services and support in new technologies that enhance milk productivity, and the cooperatives are an avenue for improving quality for goods supplied to consumers and a platform for negotiating for output and input prices.Result 4: Small-scale irrigation for fodders holds promise for mitigating the impacts of climate change at production and business scales.The traders' appreciation of climate change was linked to prolonged periods of drought that are more common in recent times, and how this affects the input and output prices, and the spillover effects of these on living costs. During drought, there is a general shortage of pastures and forages for livestock. When there is food shortage due to droughts; because the women are primarily responsible for food preparation, they bear a bigger burden in engaging in menial labour sales and petty trading to be able to buy food for their families and household diets are compromised in terms of quality and volume.When farmers have to depend on commercial feeds or forages for feeding their livestock, the costs of obtaining them usually is very high. Farmers will most likely sell off big portions of their herds and the productivity of milk is usually much lower. This causes the milk supply to the business to be low and the costs of aggregating adequate amounts of milk from many more farmers much more expensive. Prices go up at every node of the supply chain, and the consumers are affected the most as they ultimately bear these costs. Consumption of milk and milk products may reduce as the prices go up. This was well summarized by one of the key informants: 'Volumes of butter traded are reduced (because of low supplies) and the profit margins for the traders are reduced (as the buying prices are higher but the products are fewer) and the secondary buyers can't afford to buy much…primary traders may be pushed out of business.' A respondent from one of the cooperatives indicated that they receive 500-600 litres per day during the normal seasons, but during drought periods, they often get only 300 litres of fresh milk daily.One of the avenues offering hope for mitigating these impacts and enhancing resilience is through the milk cooperative hubs where men and women farmers are encouraged to develop small-scale irrigation schemes and grow fodder under irrigation, among other crops.As one informant from a cooperative explained, 'during drought, we respond by increasing the price to our suppliers, training members on caring for sick animals and producing forage using small-scale irrigation schemes.'If scaled out, the impacts of small-scale irrigation that enhance fodder production during the drought periods will not only be at the individual farmers herd level, but will also be felt by the livestock products businesses at all scales, leading to stabilization of prices and impacting consumers abilities to maintain reasonably healthy diets.This study has provided the traders perspective on how they engage with the men and women livestock farmers as they sell livestock products and supply livestock production inputs. The next steps are to get the perspectives of the individual men and women farmers, in a household survey, on their engagement with the livestock value chains.There is a shift in the norms of milk ownership in the Amhara region from the hands of women to men as the value chain grows in value and scale. We would want to assess this to understand the views of the individual women farmers on this issue. We would also like to compare our findings with those from the SNNP region where milk/milk products are socially protected as a 'women's product'.This study provided anecdotal evidence that the traders are responding in an accommodative way to the challenges women face in engaging with the market for milk and milk products deliveries in the two regions of Ethiopia. We are, however, not able to tell if indeed this leads to empowerment. In the next round of data collection, insights into empowerment will be a key consideration. The traders interviewed did not give insights into selling irrigation inputs, for example.In the next iteration of the study, we will focus on understanding where individual farmers source irrigation inputs from.","tokenCount":"2418"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"dfa09407eb23c69c6dbdef6460ac009c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/be5b96f1-f43a-4201-a0f2-55cba3ec1191/retrieve","id":"1166425272"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0c3fc206-915f-40b8-a5e3-62377b8fb465","pagecount":"9","content":"• Bamboos grow more rapidly than trees and start to yield within three or four years of planting.• Plantation establishment requires minimal capital investment and builds upon the inherent plant-cultivation skills of local farmers and foresters.• Bamboos can be harvested annually and non-destructively.• Bamboos are excellent for rejuvenating degraded lands and protecting against soil erosion.• Bamboos may easily be intercropped with shallow-rooted crops.• As well as the culms, all other parts of the bamboo plant can be used in rural livelihoods -shoots for food, leaves for fodder, and branches for items such as brooms and for firewood.• Corrugated bamboo roofing sheets are plywoodlike roofing materials made from layers of woven bamboo mats that have been coated with glue and then pressed firmly together. The corrugations are formed by pressing the mats between corrugated pressing plates.• Corrugated bamboo roofing sheets are an excellent alternative to asbestos, iron, zinc or plastic roofing sheets. They are attractive, durable and highly resistant to adverse weather conditions and pest attacks.• Corrugated bamboo roofing sheets can be produced in a variety of sizes and used to roof a wide range of buildings. • A unit capable of producing half a million square metres of roofing sheet per year will create employment for 200 people, mostly female weavers.• The environmentally-friendly nature of bamboo roofing sheets increases greatly their potential export markets in well-developed countries.• Corrugated roofing sheets can be produced at a standard matboard factory simply by using a hot press with changeable pressing plates. This increases the range of products produced at the factory and improves the sustainability of the business.• Sustained availability of bamboos suitable for mat-making.• Availability of skilled bamboo weavers, or people willing to be trained. • Start up capital for purchase of equipment $17, 000• Cost of producing one corrugated bamboo roofing sheet, 0.8 x 0.2 m, in a factory with a capacity of 500, 000m 2 per annum $ 1.95• Selling price in Vietnam $ 2.17• Pre-tax profit per sheet $ 0.22 (11% of production costs)","tokenCount":"335"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/4206701807.json b/data/part_1/4206701807.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..503560732ce4507b3f7df2ed2bb12c6764b9cd92
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c27fcb7415d1778b370cfb9db7c76809","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/54791102-6bff-49b6-b9fd-1449c584232e/retrieve","id":"-617411366"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"298c955d-9034-45bf-b5b9-4baf09dc0103","pagecount":"1","content":"Beans are a low-cost and high-protein crop grown by small farmers, generally women, and are consumed by more than 100 million people in Central, Eastern and Southern Africa. Many farmers have already adopted new seed varieties and pest management practices from this project that are boosting their production, thus strengthening household food security and creating surplus produce for sale to the region's local and urban markets. New varieties now under development will also benefit the health of women and children through their higher levels of iron and zinc.A key challenge now is to build on better diets and income, achieved through development of varieties which respond to existing and new market opportunities. To exploit these opportunities farmers need to acquire information on markets, potential products, technologies and apply the knowledge through local participatory research. Increased income will enhance the well-being of farm families and give them new incentives to improve their management of the soil and other natural resources. At least 40% of bean production in sub-Saharan Africa is estimated to be marketed with a retail market value of US $ 452 million. Yielding three times the traditional bush types, climbing beans now account for a third of all beans grown in Rwanda and have been spread to Burundi, DR Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Sudan. ","tokenCount":"217"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/4213591897.json b/data/part_1/4213591897.json
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"40e977a09b6fdfb16561af8d620b4dd2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H026501.pdf","id":"946921658"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7be9e5af-af73-40cc-8fef-17c2ba8d7556","pagecount":"104","content":"a 10s sefiores Enrique Valdivia y Agustin Robles por la facilidad con la que nos proporcionaron la infomacicin y la apertnra con que 10s recibieron. A ellos se debe principalmente la riqueza de la investigacih realizada. Por otro lado, se agradece a 10s funcionarios de la Secretaria de Desarrollo Agropecuario y Rural (SDAyR), 10s Distrito de Desarrollo Rural (DDR) 005 de Cortazar y 003 de Lecin, la Cornision Nacional del Agua (CNA) y la Comisi6n Estatal de Agua y Saneamiento de Guanajuato (CEASG) por haber cornpartido sus experiencias e informacicin respccto a1 pequefio riego. Se hace menci6n especial a1 tkcnico agricola Juan Pablo Flores, de la Secretaria de Agricultura, Ganaderia y Desarrollo Rural (SAGAR) y al Ing. Roberto Martinez Jasso de SDAyR por la invaluable informacicin que recuperaron sobre las Unidades de Riego para el Desmollo Rural (URDERAL) yue le dio mayor solida al presente estudio. Agradecen tamhien 10s aportes y el apoyo a este trabajo por parte del Dr.La capacidad del campcsinado para producir. organizarse e innovar ha sido motivo de escepticismo en MLxico; no obstante a1 mismo tiempo han existido importantes politicas en el pafs en favor de 10s pequefios agricultores. Una de estas politicas ha sido la inversidn del Estado en la construccidn de obra de pequefio riego.La evaluacidn de la efectividad de esta politica nos remitc nuevainente a la polemica sobre la capacidad campesina. Los criterios a evaluar abarcan desde la capacidad de urgunizarse para administrar la obru de riego -contrastando administraci6n por pequefios agricultores minifundistas con administraci6n por agricultores empresariales: contrastando administracidn por 10s mismos usuarios ocupando ellos mismos 10s cargos o empleando tecnicos capacitados y administracih por el Estado: la evaluacidn de la produccion resultante de agriculturade riego: autoabasto, comercial, valor por litro dc agud por unidad de tierra, empleo de mano de obra: y otras. A las mediciones mis o menos clLicas se aiiaden otras en 10s liltimos tiempos, como la sustentabilidad y la participacidn de mujeres.Los resultados de 10s indicadores muestran que la facilidad del manejo debido a1 tamaiio de sus sistemas de riego se ve favorecida unicamente en la eficiencia de conducci6n; la eficiencia de aplicacicin del riego depende del sistema de riego utilizado. La productividad de las Unidades de Kiego esti directamentc rclacionada con factores externos que determinan principalmente sus indices dc productividad. El caso de las Unidades Productoras de granos es el mis critico, representan cl 88% de la superficie de Unidades cultivada en Guanajuato y SLIS productividadcs oscilan entre 5,400 y 10,000 1999 Mex$/ha (570 y 1,050 US$/ha). En contraste las productoras de hortalizas tiene valores de productividad hasta 6 veces m8s altos.La necesidad de subsidios directos o indirectos junto con el crecientc inter& gubcrnamental en la asignacicin de mis agua para prop6sitos industrialcs y urbanos, tendran un efecto importante en la sostenihilidad de las UR. Actualmcntc ya no es una 6poca de expansi6n de la superficie de riego; es una lucba por la eficiencia y productividad del sector agricola, es una batalla por la sostenibilidad de laproducci6n de alimentos. Una reducci6n de superficie total junto con unareorientacih dc las formas de explotar la tierra, puede implicar una alternativa viable para alcanzar la sostenibilidad dcl sector agricola. En la implementacih de kstas medidas, las UR por sus caracten'sticas tienen mayores posibilidades de kxito.Field surveys were applied, and performance and productivity indicators were calculatcd for the sample of unidades selected for this study. The gender relations and organizational analyses of minor irrigation indicate that increased gender equity is a result of women's participation that is sought out and recognized at various levels in the unidades, given that these are local organizations with a high degree of community involvcmcnt. It was observed that the less formally organized ctnidudes are unable to access government support programs resulting in significant differences among the sample bascd on their degree of organization.The results of the indicators show that more flexible management which results from the smallcr size of the irrigation systems only generatcs improved conveyance efficiencies. while application efficicncy depends on the specific technology used. The unidades' productivity levels are directly relarcd to external ractors including commodity prices. Unidades which grow grains (representing 88% of the area cultivated by unidades in Gnanajuato) are in crisis with gross productivity valucs between 5,400 and 10.000 1999 Mex$/ha (570 and 1,050 US$/ha). By contrast, vegetable production has productivity levels upto six times higher.The need for direct or indirect subsidies, combined with growing governmental concern over the allocation of scarce water to industrial and urban uses, will have important implications for thc sustainability of the unidades. The expansion of irrigated area has given way to the struggle for efficiency and productivity ofthe agricultural sector and for sustainable food production. Reduction in total irrigated area and changing land uses may providc a viable alternativc to achieve sustainability in the agricultural sector. The unique characteriSlicS of the unidades will provide them the flexibility to succcssfully overcome these challenges.Paula Silva-Ochoa y Mu, Guudalupe Quijada-Uribe Las Unidades de Ricgo (UR) son una modalidad poco explorada dc manejo del agua y se conoce poco de ellas a pesar de conformar ~1 4 6 % de la superficie de riego en Mkxico. En la presente investigacion se le ha llamado UR al espacio ffsico que abarcan las obras de peque-Aa irrigacidn y a la organizacicin (formal o informal) de 10s usuarios para su manejo.Los estudios sobre el pequeiio riego hasta ahora realizados, tienen un enfoque principalmente en un contexlo social (CJUZ, 1994;Palerm, 1997Palerm, , 2000;;Enge y Whiteford, 1989;Dayton-Johnson, 1999) y otros son una aproximaci6n estadfstica de su productividad y desempefio (Palacios, 1996;CNAKP, 1998). Desde finales de la dicada de 10s setentaq, se ha mostrado cierto inter6 por diagnosticar 10s principales prohlemas existcntes en las UR (Zierold, 1977; CP, 1996a; CP, 1996b; Palacios, 1997) y 10s resukados aparentemente contradicen 10s valores de productividad reporlados por las estadisticas. Se seiiala que la productividad a nivel nacional de las UR es 37% mas aka que en 10s Distritos de Riego' (DR) si la medimos en tdrminos de valor por unidad de tierra y 78% mayor por unidad de agua aplicada (FAO,I994). Sin embargo, no existen suficientes estudios que suslenten y permita interpretar adecuadamente estos indicadores porcentuales.En un intento modesto por llenar este hueco, el presente trabajo de investigacicin realizado por el International Water Management Institute (IWMl) pretende ser una exploracih hacia la otra mitad del sector agricola bajo riego que aporte un visi6n realista sobrc la situacicin actual dc las UR. El trahajo realizado se conccntr6 en las UR del estado de Guanajuato que pertenecen a la Cuenca Lerma-Chapala. El pequeiio riego cubre aproximadamente 400,000 ha de las 750,000 ha de tierras dc riego que se estiman en esta cuenca, sin embargo es desconocido dentro de la estructura del uso del agua. Innumerables invesligaciones de campo sobre 10s DR (Kloezen y Garces-Restreo, 1998a;1998b) se han rCdhddo pero s61o muy pocas han sido relativas al peqiieAo riego (Dayton-Johnson, 1996;1997;1999;Cruz, 1995).En este primer capitulo se hace una aproximaci6n al mundo de las UR; sc presentan las generalidades que resultan indispensables para comprender 10s anilisis de 10s capitulos consecutivos. A continuacicin se presentan 10s objetivos de la publicaci6n, se describe tanto la agricultura bajo riego coma la pequeiia irrigaci6n en Mdxico y se hace un brcve recorrido ' Los Distrilos de Riego abarcaii el 54% rcstante de la superficie de riego en Mexico, son la obra dc gran irrigacion y tienen caractensticas distintas de organizacih. En las proximas piginas se definen ampliamente. I I -.-Unidades de Riego: I s Otra Mitad dcl Sector Agricola Bajo Ricgo en Mexico historic0 de la evoluci6n de ksta ultima. Para finalizar este capitulo, se explica con detalle el irea de estudio comprendida en la investigation y se argumenta c6mo se seleccion6 la muestrade UR utilirada en 10s analisis presentados en el Capitulo 2 (analisis sobre relaciones de gknero y organiracion) y e n el Capitulo 3 (anilisis del desempeiio tkcnico y productividad).En kpocas recientes, el sector hidrico ha sufrido reformas radicales; la creaci6n de la Comi-si6n Nacional del Agua (CNA) en 1989, la transferencia de 10s DR del estado alas asociaciones de usuarios (AUA) a parlir de 1990 y la promulgaci6n de una nueva ley de aguas en 1992, son un ejemplo de &as. Ademas, se ha introducido un amplio y trascendente conjunto de politicas neo-liberales que incluyen la firma del Tratado de Libre Cornercio con Norteamkrica, el fin del control de 10s precios de 10s productos agricolas basicos, y el retiro paulatino de subsidios, particulannente de la energia elkctrica y de 10s precios medios rnrales de cultivos bisicos (granos).Respecto alas relaciones de ctnero en UR 10s objetivos fueron conocer las diversas formas de acceso al agua, superficial y subterranea, por hombres y mujeres, usuarios y usuarias en estos sistemas de riego. Asi como, conocer 10s usos alternos al agua de riego en la esfera domtstica, la inclusion y exclusi6n en 10s procesos de toma de decisiones, y 10s mecanisrnos que impulsan o inhiben la participacih y organization en las UR. La hipirtesis que se busc6 comprobar es:1 Las UR por ser un cspacio mucho miis local que 10s DR y con mayor incidencia de la participacih social, incentivan y reconocen la participaci6n de las mujeres usuarias del riego en distintos niveles, eucaminlindose asi a una mayor equidad de ghero.Desemperio Tkcnico y Productividad. El objetivo que comprende la parte tkcnica consistid en evaluar el desempeiio tkcnico y la productividad a travks del ciilculo de indicadores de desempeiio asi como entender la dinamica del manejo de sus sistemas de riego. Se pretendi6 dar un panorama cuantitativo y cnalitativo de las UR con sirnilares condiciones, asi como identificar sus restricciones en el manejo del agua y sus elernentos mas evolucionados para ubicarlas dentro del subsector riego con referencia a 10s DR.Se tuvo como punto de partida el supuesto de que el desempeiio de las UR es satisfactorio. Por lo tanto las hip6tesis de este estudio que se pretendieron comprobar son:Las UR son eficientes en el uso del agua. La facilidad del manejo se ve favorecida por el tamaiio: a menor superficie, mayor es la flexibilidad en el manejo y mejor es la eficiencia de conducci6n y aplicacion del riego.Las UR son productivas. La productividad del riego esta dircctamente relacionada con la responsabilidad de 10s usuarios por el mantenimiento de la infracstructura y la produccion agricola.El agua es un factor esencial y restrictivo cn la producci6n agricola de muchas zonas del pais; las tierras iridas y semiaridas ocupan el 75% del territorio nacioual. En mas del40% de la superficie del pais la precipitacion anual es inferior a 500 rnilfmctros y el promedio es de 780 milimetros mensuales (Caqtelan, 2000). Esto se explica por las grandes diferencias que existen entre la zona de menor precipitacih, ubicada en la parle central de la peninsula de Baja California con 50 mm, y lade mayor precipitacion, que se registra en las montaiias del sudeste con 5,000 mrn (ibid).Se estima que la superficie cultivada total en Mkxico es de 20 millones de ha, de las cuales solo el 30% es agricultura bajo riego. A pesar de representar menos de la tercera de esta superficie, el subsector de riego aporta el 50% del valor total de la produccion agricola y contribuye aproximadamente con el 3.25% del PIB nacional (INEGI, 1998). El 70% de las exportaciones agricolas es producido en la agricultura bajo riego y concentra al 80% de la mano de obra agricola. Finalmente, otro aspecto relevante del subsector es el consumo de agua, aproximadarnente el 83% del volumen consumido a nivel nacional correspondc al uso agricola (El Nacional, 2000). En el subsector riego se distinguen dos tipos de sistemas de acuerdo al tamafio de las obras y la organizacidn de su operation: 10s distritos de riego y las unidades de riego. Distnlos de Riego. Los distritos de riego (DR) se definen como sistemas de irrigacidn de gran escala que fueron desarrollados como parte de la politica p6blica para promover el desmollo agricola del pais, particularmente para promover la autosuficiencia en granos alimentarios (Dayton-Johnson, 1997%). En total se conformaron en el pais 84 DR y abarcan una stiperficie de 3.36 millones de ha regables (CNNCP, 1998).El gobierno federal t w o a su cargo la administracibn, conservacih y mantenimiento de la obra hidrhulica y de 10s fondos de 10s DR desde su formation. Las crisis recurrentes y 10s problemas del subsector de riego llevaron a la descentralizacidn o transferencia de 10s DR a AUA que habian sido previamente conformadas por 10s beneficiarios de dicbos sistemas (Dayton-Johnson, 1997:9). Las AUA son conocidos como Modulos de Riego (MR) que por su ubicacion y irea de riego qtie dominan, en conjunto, dan forma y limites a un DR. Este proceso de transferencia se inici6 desde 1990 y a h se encuentra en su etapa concluyente, actualmente todavia la CNA maneja las presas y las obras de cabecera, sin embargo algunos DR se perfilan como asociaciones sostenibles y semi-aut6nomas (Monsalvo, 1999) Unidades de Riego.lLa Unidad de Riego (UR) se diferencia de 10s DR, tanto par el tamafio y escala de la obra, como por las caracteristicas de sti organizacidn para el riego y el nivel de intervencidn de las instituciones p6blicas en el manejo y distribucidn del agua (Cruz, 1994: 20). Estos pequeiios sistemas de riego pueden abastecerse de aguas superficiales' (almacenamientos, derivaciones de rios o plantas de bombeo) y/o aguas subterraneas (pozos profundos, manantiales o norias). El tipo de usuarios que manejan las UR puede ser ejidaiurias, pequefios propierarias o un grupo mixto de ellos'. El numero de usuarios puede variar de 1 hasta mas de 600.Las aguas negras tambikn son una altemativa de fuente de abastecimiento para algunas UR, sobre todo aquellas que se encuentran en las inmediaciones de alguna conccntracion urbana (Buechler y Scott, 2000).de la reforma agraria, creadas despuks de la RevoluciCln Mexicana de 1910-1917. Hasta la revisi6n del Artfculo 27 de la Constituci6n en 1992, la tiem de 10s ejidos pertenccia a1 estddo y ellos s610 tenia su usufructo.Las UR son entonces un grupo muy heterogheo de peqiieiios sistemas de riego controlados por 10s usuaios; aunque esencialmente son independientes pueden ser supervisados por el gobierno que ha invertido total o parcialmente en las obras (Garcks, 19975).Seghn el Directorio Oficial de la Secretaria de Agricultura, Ganaderia y Desarrollo Rural (SAGAR), existen 39,492 UR en el pais (CNNCP, 1998). Dentro de istas, las instancias gubemamentales hacen la distinci6n de dos grupos: las UR organizadas o incorporadas y las UR no organizadas\" Se dice yue una UR es organizada si ha cumplido plcnamente con su registro lo cud requiere prcsentar a autoridades competentes 10s siguientes siete documentos: acta constitutiva de la asociacion de usuarios, reglamento internode operacih, padr6n de usuarios, clasificacion de la propiedad, croquis de locdlizaci6n, croquis parcelario y el plano cdtastral. En el presente docnmento, se les llama UR registradas alas primeras y UR no registradas a las segundas para evitar darle alguna connotacih descriptiva a su sistema con el t6rmino \"organizada\" ya que existen UR organizadas pero no registradas. Esta diferenciacion entre las UR (registradas y no registradas) tiene sentido solo para la estadistica agricola yue se genera y para el seguimiento que se le dio a algunos de estos sistemas de riego. En el camp0 es dificil distinguir un gmpo de otro ya que ambos utilizan sus aprovechamientos y se organizan en tom0 a el de forma similar, es decir, no se observdn importantes diferencias tkcnicas Con el reparto agrario se limita la exlension de la propiedad pnvdda, pasando a llamarsepequeriu propiedad, es decir, la gran propiedad se prohibe en Mkxico. Sin embargo, 10s pequrriospmpiefurios pueden tener desde extensiones similares a 10s ejidos hasta grandes extcnsiones de tierra.Como veremos en la siguiente seccibn, con la creaci6n de la Direccih General de Unidades de Riego para el Desmollo Rural (URDERAL) en 1969, se inicio el proceso de registro de las UR y por lo tanto se generaron estos dos gmpos.Unidades de Riega: La Ona Mitad del Sector Agdcola Bajo Riego en Mixico u organizacionales como consecuencia de tener o no una personalidad jurfdica. Podemos observar en la Figura 1.1 que las UR registradas y no registradas comprenden una superficie de 2.95 millones de ha de las cuales 2.06 millones de ha corresponden a las primeras y el resto a las segundas. Los DR en su conjunto abarcan una cifra similar, 3.36 millones de ha, lo que significa que en superficie las UR tienen nna relevancia comparable.Para comprender y analizar la situacion actual de 10s pequefios sistemas de riego, es necesario tener como referencia un marco hist6rico de las politicas e instituciones que han estado presentes a lo largo de su evoluci6n. Las pequefias obras de riego desde su creaci6n fueron manejadas por 10s productores agricolas quienes asumieron la responsabilidad de operar, conservar, mantener y administrar su infraestructura. Por otro lado, las obras de gran inigacion o DR, desde su inicio de operaci6n en 1930, pasaron por la dependencia de diversas secretarias gubemamentales (Comisi6n Nacional de Irrigacidn, 1930de Irrigacidn, -1934de Irrigacidn, y 1945de Irrigacidn, -1946;;Banco Nacional de Crddito Agricola, 1934-1944;Secretaria de Agricultura y Ganaderia, 1947-1951;Secretaria de Recursos Hidriulicos, 1952-1976;Secretaria de Agricultura y Recursos Hidraulicos, 1977.1988) hasta que en 1989 quedaron a cargo de la CNA dindose el inicio de transferencia a 10s usuarios en 1990.Ed: Paula Silva-OchoaCuadro 1.1. E v o l u c i h hist6rica de las instancias gubernamentales relacionadas con las UR.Aiio lnstancias Gubernamentales de aDovo e imDulso de las Unidades 1921 1937-1946 1947-1 976 1977 1982-1988 1989 1991 Direccion de Irrigacion apoya a proyectos particulares de riego Despues de 11 aiios de su creacion, la Cornision Nacional de Irrigacion da inicio a una politica de ejecucion de obras de pequeria irrigacion. La Secretaria de Recursos Hidraulicos (SRH) es la responsable del impulso de la pequeiia irrigacion. En 1969 se creo la Direccion de Operacion de Pequeiia Irriga-ci6n que mas tarde se convirti6 en la Direccion General de Riego para el Desarrollo Rural. En 1972 con la creacion de la Ley federal de Aguas se establece de rnanera solida la organization de Unidades de Riego para el Desarrollo Rural y de sus productores (URDERAL). En 10s aiios setentas con el Plan Nacional de Pequeiia Irrigacion las obras de pequeiia irrigacion fueron impulsadas de manera importante, este plan se establecio con fondos del gobierno federal y del Banco lnteramericano de Desarrollo.Se crea la Secretaria de Agricultura y Recursos Hidraulicos (SARH), su Direction General de Distritos y Unidades de riego continua con la labor de organizar nuevas Unidades de Riego. Las entidades operativas fueron las Jefaturas de Distritos y Unidades de Riego Se crea la Direction General de Normatividad Agricola que aglutino a 10s DR, las UR y a 10s Distritos de Temporal (DT). Operaba con personal tecnico y recursos econ6micos restringidos. Superficie de riego de UR: 1'600,000 (1982).Se crea la Cornision Nacional de Agua (CNA). Los DR pasaron a depender de ella y las UR junto con 10s DT se ubicaron bajo la jurisdlccion de la Direccion General de la Politica Agricola y, por consecuencia, de 10s Distritos de Desarrollo Rural (DDR). Superficie de riego de UR: 1'715,000 (1988). Estrategias de apoyo para la reactivacion productiva de las URDERAL a traves de la CNA (programas Us0 Pleno de la lnfraestructura para aprovecharnientos superficiales y Us0 eficiente del Agua y de la Energia Electrica para aprovechamientos subterraneas) y la SARH (subcomites tecnicos en cada Comite directivo de 10s DDR, eventos de capacitacion, actualizacion del inventario de UR). Superficie de riego de UR: 1'900,0000 (1993).Fuente: SARH, 1994Posteriormente, l a construccihn y apoyo de l a pequeiia irrigacihn fue impulsada por diversas instancias gubernamentales y bajo diversos objetivos (Cuadro 1 .I). D e l a historia de las UR destaca sin duda e l periodo de 10s aiios setenta porque fue cuando mayor apoyo iecibieron; hubo una direccihn gubemamental y planes nacionales especificos para el impulw de l a pequeiiu irrigucidn, logrindose un increment0 sustantivo de la superficie de riego con este tipo de obras. Fue en este periodo cuando se cre6 dentro de l a Secretaria de Recursos Hidriulicos (SRH) la Direcci6n de Operacidn de Pequeiia Irrigaci6n (1 969) que mis tarde se convirti6 en l a Direccidn General de Unidades de Riego para el Desarrollo Rural. Se reforr6 las Jefaturas de Unidades de Ricgo en cada entidad, dividas en regiones y zonas que permitieron aaignar a un tkcnico de nivel medio par cada 1,500 ha. En esta 6poca se inici6 e l registro de cada las UR en el Directorio Oficial de Unidades de Riego.Unidades de Riego: La Otra Mitad del Sector Agricola Bajo Riego en Mgxico En 1972 con la promulgacidn de la Ley federal de Aguas, se establece de manera sdlida la organizaci6n de Unidades de Riego para el Desarrollo Rural (las llamadas URDERAL) y de sus productores.Durante el gobierno del Lic. Luis Echeverria (1970Echeverria ( -1976) ) se impuls6 el desarrollo agricola de la pequefia irrigacidn, brindindoles asesoria, asistencia ticnica y apoyos institucionales. En 1977 10s principales problemas detectados en las UR estaban principalmente relacionados con conflictos en la tenencias de tierra, el arraigo a la tradicidn de cultivos comunes, marginaei6n a1 cridito, planificacion diferenciada de cultivos inexistente y la dispersi6n fuera del circulo convencional de operaciones (Zierold, 1977).Con la creaci6n de la SARH (fusidn de la Secretaria de Agricultura y Ganaderia y de la SRH) se inicia un periodo de confusi6n (durante 10s sexenios presidenciales de 1976-1982 y 1982-1986) donde no se asume claramente el control de las UR. Desde I987 practicamente han desaparecido todos 10s apoyos alas UR. Actualmente no existe una dependencia oficial que proporcione apoyo ticnico en riego en organizacidn para el manejo del agua o para el mejoramiento de la infraestructura (Palacios, 1994). En I989 con la creaci6n de la Comisi6nEn 10s dltimos aAos y a la luz de la Ley de Aguas Nacionales (1992) han habido acciones gubernamentales con la intencihn de reactivar productivamentc a estos pequerios sistemas de riego. Una de &as es la promoci6n de la formacion de Asociaciones de Productores con personalidad juridica tales como: Sociedades de Produccidn Rural de Responsabilidad Limitada (R.L), o Ilimitada (R.]), y Asociaciones Civiles, entre otras. La Ley federal de Aguas (1972) hnicamente habia considerado la organizaci6n de 10s usuarios para el uso y manejo del agua y de la infraestructura, no para la producci6n en general.Otras acciones tienen que ver con la implementaci6n de diversos programas orientados a1 mcjor us0 y manejo de 10s recursos tiein, agua c infraestructura hidroagricola. Entre 10s principales programas encontramos a el Us0 Eficiente del Agua y de la Energia Electrica orientado a 10s usuarios de agua por bombco. Este no ha tenido el alcance espcrado ya que de las 35,000 UR por bombeo en el pais solamente 7,000 recibiran este beneficio (Cruz, 1994:32). Otros de estos programa gubemamentales son el Us0 Pleno de la Infraestructura, orientad a aprovechamientos superficiales, Fertimgacibn, dirigido a usuarios con sistemas de agua subterriinea, y el Programa de Mecanizacih (financiamiento parcial para la compra de tractores, sembradoras, niveladoras o desbaradoras) dirigido a grupos de usuarios. En todos estos programas, 10s usuarios siempre tend& que poner un porcentaje de la inversi6n requerida y monto total tiene un limite miximo.Como podemos ver, las UR han evolucionado en funcidn de factores externos e internos que pueden explicar la situaci6n actual cn la que se encuentra. Tampoco sc han escapado de ser influenciadas por 10s tratados de libre comercio y en general por las politicas de globalizaci6n queen las hltimas ddcadas el gobierno federal ha ido adoptando. En este sentido, en las UR se puede observar dos fases: una primera fase de apoyo e inversion fuerte del estado, extensionismo e intervencion (estatismo) y otra fase, en la que nos encontramos, donde se establece un marco juridic0 en funci6n de delegar responsabilidades del estado a 10s usuario y un ambiente de libre compelencia (neoliberalismo).En Cste proyecto de investigacion, la selection del irea de estudio represent6 una parte muy importante del anilisis. Como se mencion6 anteriormcnte, el objetivo principal de estc trabajo fuc obtener argumentos para comprobar nuestras hipotesis basados en information primaria y de esta manera aportar datos reales sobre la situaci6n de las UR. Para alcanzar esta meta en una muestra estadfsticamente representativa, el trabajo de campo requcrido es intenso y 10s recnrsos, tanto humanos como econ6micos necesarios, son considerables. Es por esto que nos hemos concentrado en un conjunto de UR que representan a la amalgama de tipos de sistemas de prqueiio riego. La Cuenca Lerma-Chapala fue nuestro punto de partida para la selection del area de estudio (ver Figura 1.2). Esta cuenca cubre 55,5 11 kni' (incluyendo dos cuencas cerradas adyacentes), abarca cinco estados (Estado de Mdxico, Queritaro, Guanajuato, Michoacan y Jalisco) y es la fuenle de agua para 15 millones de personas.El ria Lcrma forma la sub-cuenca mas importante de esta cuenca; nace en las faldas del volcan de Toluca y fluye por mas de 500 km atravesando bosques, ricas tierras de cultivo, ireas urbanas, y tierras semiirida erosionadas antes de descargar sus aguas en el lago de Chapala, el lago de agua duke mas grande de Mkxico. Cuando 10s volhmenes almacenados en el lago lo permiten, un flujo controlado sc pasa al rio Santiago que se vacia en el ockano Pacifico.El analisis se concentr6 en la sub-cuenca del Medio Lcrma que realmente corrcsponde a una regi6n que abarca varias sub-cuencas hidrol6gicas como la del Rio Turbio y la del Rio Guanajuato (ver Figura 1.2). Debe enlatizarse que el Medio Lcrma cornprende la mayoria del uso del agua, tanto superficial como subterrdnea. Esta parte de la cuenca, esencialmente corresponde a1 estado de Guanajuato (con partcs en Michoacin y QuerCtaro), cubre mis de la mitad del Area y representa la mayor parte (56.2%) del uso de agua en la cuenca. El estado de Guanajuato representa el 44% de su extension, se estima que cl consurno de agua por sectores en la cntidad es de 89.5% para el sector agricola, 2.9% la industria y 7.6 cl us0 municipal (Centro de Infortnacih, 1997). Las UR seleccinnadas para csta investigacihn se localizan principalmente en las sub-cuenca del rio Turbio (ver Figura 1.2).NOTA: Los nurneros se refieren a las UR visitadas y las letras a las UR estudiadas, ver Figura 1.2 La Cuenca Lerma-Chapala.Cuadro 1.6 y 1.7.La subcuenca de R i i Turbio estd conforrnada por 10s municipios de Abasolo, Cueramaro. Irapuato, Leon, Manuel Doblado, Pknjamo, Purisima del Rincbn, Romita, San Francisco del Rincon y Silao.Estos inunicipios se ven favorecidos para la produccihn agricola tanto par factores naturales (lipos de tierra, predominio de vastas llanuras, clima semicilido o scmitemplado, predominio de vertisoles) como por la infracstmctura de riego existente tanto riego con aguas superficiales como por homheo profundo (Aguilar, 1993:30). La subcuenca reline el 41 % de las UR registradas en la entidad, el 4 I c/o de la superficie regable y el 40% de 10s usuarios rcgistrados en estos sistemas de riego.Dentro de esta sub-cucnca, la principal labor de campo se realiz6 en el Valle de Pknjamo. h e ValIe es una zona eminentcmcnte volcinica y pricticamente no se encuentran corrientes superficiales, con excepci6n del Rio Turbio que va surcando al valley en direccih norte-sur descmboca al Rio Lerma. Uno de 10s afluentes del rio Turbio es el rio Pknjamo orientado de noroeste a surestc, cl cauce principal de este subafluente recorre aproximadamcnte 25 ki16metros desde su origen hasta la confluencia del Rio Turbio. Prhxima a1 centro de la subcuenca se ubica la ciudad de Penjarno que sc localiza a unos 12 kilhmetros aguas arriba de la confluencia (CEASG,1998:16, 18).El estado dc Guanajuato, aunque solamente cubre el 1.6% del tetdorio mexicano (INEGI, 1998), rcprcsenta el 13% de las UR a nivel nacional y alredcdor del 10% de la superficie correspondicnte (Ver Cuadro 1.2). Casi la totalidad de sus UR sc trata de explotaciones de aguas subterrineas (el 94% de la superficie es regada con pozos profundos), cubren ~170.2% de la superficie total de riego del estado y contribuyen con el 74% de su volumen de produc-ci6n agricola (Dayton, 199956). Poiotro lado, su gran irrigaci6n la conforman 10s DR 01 I y DR 085, en el primer caso la superficie que alcanza a irrigar es de 112,772 ha y de 10,822 en el segundo (Caracteristicas de 10s Distritos de Riego Aiio Agrkola 1990, SARH y CNA).Cuadro 1.2. UR totales en M6xico y en el Estado de Guanajuato, 1998.Superficie (ha) La investigacih inicia con la exploracion tanto hibliogrifica como dc campo orientada a identificar la zona geogrifica. caracteristicas socio-econ6micas, asi como el nlimero de UR en ella. La primera fase de selecci6n del Area de estudio inicia con la evaluacion rural ripida de 24 UR. El objctivo de esta evaluacibn fue por un lado conocer las principales caracteristicas del aprovechamiento hidrico, formas de asignacih y distribucion dcl agua, y por otro lado conocer, a travks de 10s actores sociales, las formas de organization, problemas y necesidades cn torno al recurso agua. En esta primera etapa se idcntificaron las UR presentadas en el Cuadro I .6. Resulta importante mencionar que desdc el inicio del acercamiento a las zonas hasta el proceso final de 6stc documento, siempre el trabajo se hizo de manera interdisciplinaria, lo que en cada Pase permiti6 la interaceion y enriquecirniento desde el punto de vista tanto social como tecnico. Los aspectos identificados en esta etapa fueron entre otros el numero de usuarios por tenencia de tiema, la superficie de riego, el patron 13 -.Unidades de Riego: La Ova Mitad dcl Sector Agricola Bajo Riego en Mexico de cultivos, la forma de dislribuir el agua entre 10s usuarios, las estrategias de captaci6n de recursos, c l nivel de organizaci6n alcanzado y la prescncia que el gobierno ha tenido a lo largo de la historia dc la UR.En este gmpo predoininaron las UR de ejidafurios productores de granos basicos. Generalmente la presencia de peyurrios propieturios estuvo ligada con el cultivo dc hortalizas o huertos; se observi, la presencia de pozos particulares de pequerios propierurios, considerados tambih como UR en cl Diario Oficial de la SAGAR6. Las formas de distribuci6n de agua dependen principalmenle del tipo de aprovecbamiento, mientras que en todos 10s pozos profundos (aguas subterraneas) 10s usuarios pagan una cuota proporcional a la supeificie que regaron en funci6n del costo de electricidad, las UR que se abastccen de aguas superficiales presentan mayor variedad. El manejo del agua mis comlin en &as hltimas es estableciendo un numero determinado de riegos y, dependiendo del volumen almacenado, puede o no restringirse la superficie de riego: 10s cases de asiguaci6n del agua en funci6n de la superficie se presenta en aquellas UR donde 10s usuarios tiene similar extensi6n de tierra.Cuando se hace la distribuci6n por superficie o numero de riegos, no importa el tiempo que tarden en regar, s61o en el caso de volumen limitado de agua disponible, la distribucih del recurso sc hace por turnos; la superficie que se riega dcpcnde del manejo del agua de cada usuario.Se logr6 identificar como un problema comun en las UR de aguas superficiales la dcbilidad de las estrategias captaci6n de recursos monetarios a travks de cuotas por el servicio; s61o cuatro de ellas tenian establecida und cuota. En el caso de las UR de aguas subterraneas es mas palpable el costo que implica el riego puesto que siempre tienen que pagar una ciiota proporcional en funci6n de la superficie regada para cubrir el costo de electricidad generado.Otras fuentes altcmas de captacihn de recursos como multas o cuotas de mantenimiento son muy escasas y debido a &a circunstancia 10s sistemas no tienen recursos para c l mantenimiento requerido. Cuando cvcntualmente el sistema sufre algun d a o , 10s costos de repara-ci6n son cubiertos a manera de cooperaci6n proporcional a la superficie. La prcscncia del gobierno en estas UR ha sido fundamentalmente en la inversi6n inicial de la infraestructura, a excepci6n de las UR de aguas subterineas de algunospequeriospropieturios. La inversi6n gubernamental en las obras de mejora o reparacibn, aunque sea de manera co-participativa con 10s usuarios, fue significativamente menor.Un aspecto muy significativo en Ids UR dc ejidufarios fue la participaci6n con mano dc obra por parte de 10s usuarios, ya sea en la construcci6n de la obra inicial como en las obras de reparaci6n o mejoramicnto.La Ley de Aguas Nacionales (capftulo 11, secci6n tercera artfculos del 58 al 63) s6lo manifiesta que personas ffsicas y morales podran conformar nna UR, no habla de tipo de tenencia dc tierra, ni el numero de miembros, y menos aun, dc l a superficie necesarios p a a constituirla. Aguilar, Srinchez G. 1993. Las regiones agrfcolas de Guanajuato. Universidad Autonoma de Chapingo. Chapingo, Estado de MCxico. Buechler, Stcphanie J. y Christopher A. Scott. 2000. For us, this  Las Unidades de Riego (UR) juegan un papcl importante en la vida ccon6mica y social del sector agricola nacional (ver Capitulo l), molivo por el cud este estudio busca brindar herrainientas para el analisis desdc una vision integral, sostenible y hacia la equidad de ghero. Los estudios desde un enfoque de ginero representan un valioso instrumento de analisis para conocer y explicar las diniimicas socioculturales en el manejo del agua de riego, explicita la division del trabajo, 10s proccsos de reproduccih social y las formas dc participacih social y politica de varones y mujeres (Velkqnez, 1994). Para el caso de 10s estudios sobre g i %em y munejo dr uguu, no solo se busca conocer q u i h accede al agua y corn0 la aplica en 10s distintos contextos sociales y culturales, sino va rnris alli en la bkqueda de la operaciOn de 10s sistemas, actividades, reglas y problemas en la ubicacion, adquisicion y distribucih del agua, asi como en las diversas estralegias para acceder, usar, controlar y administrar el agua (Zwarteveen, 1993).El objetivo de esta investigacih es analirar las formas de organizacion y 10s mecanismos sociales y de gknero presentes en el manejo del agua en las Unidades de Riego (UR). Este anilisis tiene la finalidad de contribuir a la identifiCaCi6n y promoci6n de inecanisrnos internos y externos de la UR encaminados a promover sostenibilidad social, financiera y productiva. Para 6ste analisis se recurre a una base teorica (Ver Anexo) que brinda elementos conceptuales encaminados a una mejor comprensicin sobre la sostenibilidad y equidad de gknero en las UR. Aqui se presentan 10s resukados mas sobresalicntes en el proceso dc investigac i h , 10s cuales se remontaron desde la historia oral de presas, bordos e infraestmctura hidriiulica en general, hasta las relaciones de g6nero (se refiere a las relaciones que sostienen hombres y inujeres) e intragenkricas (son aquellas que se &an entre hombres o bien entre mujeres) prescntes en el uso, acceso y control del agua, asi como en 10s cargos de autoridad, 6rganos de representation y distintos nivcles de gesti6n y participacih.En la literatura y estudios de caso se ha hecho infasis en el vinculo de la organiracih social con el sistema hidriiulico (Palerm, 1997). Este trabajo parte de esta misma preocupaci6n y trata de avanzar en ista articulacicin planteindose cuatro ejes de anithis:. 1 Organizacicin y participaci6n. 1 1 Acceso a1 agua de riego (formal e informal). Proceso de toma de decisiones (mecanismos de inclusion y cxclusi6n. Cargos de autoridad y represcntacih.Unidades de Ricgo: La Otra Mitad del Sector Agricola Ba.jo Riego cn Mexico Finalmente este estudio sobre elpequerio riego, rescata, aprovecha y compara la experiencia e informaci6n sobrc cstos temas, explorados ya en 10s M6dulos de Riego (MR) para el cam del Distrito de Riego(DR) 01 1 \"Alto Rio Lerma\" en Guanajuato.Estudios sobre ge'nero y manejo de agua A la luz de las experiencias cn el mundo sobre genero y nzunejo de ugua (Zwarteveen y Neupane, 1996;Zwarteveen, 1997;Van der Grift, 1991;Adams, ef all997;Arroyo y Rutgerd, 1997;Deuss, 1994;Carney, 1994;Van Koppcn, 2000;Tortajada, 2000) se identifican cxpcriencias, contrastes y retos en la investigacih. Experiencias en Suddfrica, Tanzania, Kenia, Gambia, Scncgal. Burkina Faso, Bangladesh y el sur dc Asia, hablan de la creciente necesidad de un andlisis integral, que desde un cnroque de ginero, permita una mejor comprcnsi6n de las dindinicas sociales en el mancjo del agua de riego, hasta 10s creadores dc politicas publicas en materia hidrica.Ed: Paula Silva-OchuaExiste una amplia gama de cams en las UR y la presencia de factores como el tipo de aprovechamiento, la tenencia, numcro de usuarios, cercania a ciudades, acceso a agua de pozos dentro o cerca de la zona de riego, van a hacer especifica su problemitica. A pesar dc esta heterogeneidad, algunas de las caracteristicas que se enlistan a continuacicin estan presentes de manera parcial o total en las UR: Reglas formales pero sobre todo consuetudinarias en la organizacidn y participacion. Sistemas con fuertc presencia de ejirluturios' ( i n i s del 50% y a veces es el 100%). Poca presencia de mujeres2, la mayoria de ellas son ejidufuritrs.Poca o nula intervencidn del gohieriio en la organizacih. Constituidos como URDERALES pueden establecer la figura jui-i'dica que mas les convenga, como: Sociedad de Produccicin Rural, Socicdad Civil, Sociedad Cooperativa, Asociacion en Participacicin, entre otras. Us0 de semillas criollas (sobre todo en UR prccarias y sin organizacicin). Los cultivos principales son granos (sorgo, trigo, maiz, frijol) y hortalizas en el caso de 10s pozos privados.La Secretaria dc Agricultura y Recursos Hidriulicos (SARH) tenia encomendado la tareea de registrar en el directorio de UR a todos 10s pequeiios sistemas del pais (Capt'tulo I), desafortunadamente yuedo inconclusa esta misi6n por ajustes en la institucicin, dejando imprecisa la importancia real de 10s pequefios sistemas de riego. Desde ese mornento las UR ticnen un proccdimiento para registrarse oficialmenle. En 10s ultimos afios y bajo criterios de la Comisidn Nacional de] Agua (CNA) es indispensable que todas las UR se rcgistren para definir 10s titulos de concesicin y asignacidn de 10s volumenes dc agua en cada una dc ellas.La organizacihn de la UR es una de las preocupaciones centrales en estc trabajo, y debemos iniciar reconociendo la presencia de aspectos formales e informales. En el primer caso se Unidades de Riego: La Ova Milud del Sector Agricola Baju Riego en Mexico identifica la asamblea y la mesa directiva que representa a 10s usuarios, ante dependencias de gobicrno. En el segundo, no es visible ya que son costumbres y practicas locales que sin estar escritas se respetan y llevan a cabo. Es decir, a pesar dc que existe una normatividad que regula a las UR en su registro y funcionamiento, el papel de las normas consuetudinarias locales es importante para establecer la convivencia, negociadn, resoluci6n de conflictos y clccci6n de sus representantes en cada lugar.En la parte formal la UR dehe rcgistrarse ante la Secretaria de Agricultura, Ganaderia y Dcsarrollo Rural (SACAR) presentando 10s siguicntcs documentos: acta constitutiva de la asociaci6n de usuarios, reglamento interno de operaci6n, padr6n de usuarios, clasificaci6n de la propiedad, croquis de localizacion, croquis parcelario y el plano catastral (Monsalvo y Morales, 2000) (vcr Capitulo I). De estos documentos el reglamento internode operaci6n (es el mismo para todas las UR) se ajusta dependiendo dcl volumen del aprovechamiento, la superficie de riego, numero de usuarios y por acucrdo de asamblea se define la existencia o no dc cuotas, multas y sanciones. Cada uno de estos documentos tienen importancia en la UR, sin embargo el reglamento interno de operaci6n va a jugar un papel central a1 estahlecer las normas escritas que deberan acatar 10s usuarios y usuarias de la UR. Mediante este reglainento se establece la generaci6n de recursos monctarios, forma de distribudn del agua, funciones dc 10s directivos, multas, sanciones (que casi siempre estan ausentes) entre otros.Formalmente una UR debe estar representada por un comiti directivo y un comiti de vigilancia (Figura 2. l). La mesa directiva esti autorizada para movilizar dinero y mano de obra principalmente para la conservaci6n y mantenimiento del sistema. Por lo general las mesas directivds de las UR tienen la misina estructura, aunque hay casos donde la comisaria ejidal maneja la irrigacih a trav6s de un juez de aguas encargado de distribuir, su us0 y aprovcchamiento (tal es el caso de la UR de NBpoles). Este caso lo representa la UR Napoles. Los cargos dc autoridad deben ser representados por usuarios y usuarias registradas en el padr6n de usuarios de la UR, sin embargo en este proceso influyen las relaciones, el poder politico y econ6mico, la preparaci6n y facilidad de palabra que cada usuario tenga. Solamente pueden ingresar a la asociacidn de usuarios 10s que han heredado o adquirido por compra tierras dentro dc la superficie dc riego. Esto impidc la ampliacion de la superficie y m i s bien se atomiza la tierra por la herencia del padre a 10s hijos varones, o por la venta parcial o total. Los pequeiios sistcmas de riego en general realizan por lo menos dos reuniones a1 aiio que coinciden con 10s subciclos agricolas.De las UR estudiadas solamente La Golondrina define con precision 10s ingresos monetarios, 10s cuales le han permitido ser autosostenibles financieramente ya quc cuentan con dos locales, equipo de oficina y personal administrativo. Es la asarnblea quien precisa la aplica-ci6n formal o informal de Ids sanciones y multas. En 10s C ~S O S donde no estin reglamentadas formalmcnte son 10s mismos usuarios quienes se encargan de aplicarlas de acuerdo a las reglas que noman la convivencia social en cada sitio.En virtud de las diferencias que presentan las UR de agua superficial y las dc agua subtennca, se van a presentar 10s resultados de acuerdo al tipo de aprovechamiento considcrando 10s cuatro ejes de anilisis: acce.so a1 q u a de &go (formal e informal), organizacidn y purticipacidn, acceso ul proceso de roma de decisiones (mecanismos de inclusidn y exclusio'nj, acceso a cargos de autoridad y represeizracidn. El anilisis dc cste trabajo partc de la experiencia e informaci6n de campo, dondc se recurre a la voz de 10s usuarios (as) que muestran la percepcih sobre el manejo, acceso y us0 del agua de riego y cargos de autoridad e historias orates de las obras hidraulicas.Acceso formal e informal al agua de riego. Las mujeres estin en condiciones de desigualdad frenle a un espacio y una labor tradicionalmente masculina por ser un numero minoritario, tanto en las parcelas y en 10s canalcs mino en las asociaciones de usuarios, por cllo son espccialmente vulncrahles a ser excluidas en el acceso al agua de riego. Los turnos de riego, el tiempo y la cantidad de agua dcjan en franca dcsventaja a las mujeres, y en nienor grado a algunos varoncs. En la medida en que la asignacion del agua esti regida por diferencias sexuales aunadas a una tradici6n de rolcs masculinos y femeninos, se subordina e invisibiliza a las tnujeres quc si acceden y tienen una participacion dinarnica en el inanejo del agua. Aunque tAcitamente no sc reconoce la distincidn en el valor y trato hacia las mujercs, en la prictica estos hechos se dan y son enmendados por 10s propios usuarios corno descuidos, malos entendidos o simplemente como incidentes sin importancia.Unidades de Riego: La Otra Milad drl Sector Agricola Bajo Riego cii Mixico Antes de iniciar con el analisis es importante aclarar dos conceptos relcvantcs: acceso formal al agua de riego y acceso informal. Accesoformal al agua de riego se define en base a la legalidad de 10s titulos de propiedad establecidos en el padrrin de usuarios. Por razones de incapacidad, irresponsabilidad o abandon0 del titular, el comitC administrativo. o bien el @do, puede aceptar un representante legal que ejerza 10s derechos y obligaciones correspondientes. Acceso inJornzal al agira de riego se refiere a todos 10s actos que pueden ocurrir fuera del marco legal-formal. Un caso es cuando productores cercanos de la zona de riego tienen acceso al agua de la presa gracias a la negociacirin con personal operativo, esto puede ser mediante venta o robo del agua. Otro caso es cuando el usuario (a) formal, por rnedio de negociaciones con el personal operativo (canalero ojuez de aguas) tiene mis agua de la que se acordo en la asamblea de usuarios.Para que un usuario pueda tener acceso formal al servicio de riego dehe cumplir con obligaciones entre las que destacan por su importancia la constancia de limpia de regaderas y la orden de pago. En las trcs UR (Cuadro 2.1) sc obscrva quc la constancia de limpia es uno de 10s priucipales compromisos de 10s usuarios (as) y existe consenso en la aplicacicin de multa y/o sanci6n por su incumplimiento, este tarea puede hacerla el mismo usuario o bien contratar un pe6n para que lo realice, el caso extremo del incumplimiento es la suspensiirn del derecbo de riego.Los datos que se tnuestran en el Cuadro 2.1 son muy distintos en cada UR, debido a las diferentes formas de organizacicin y concepcirin del manejo del recurso agua, las ultimas dos columnas son casos extremos, porque para La Golondrina la orden de pago es importante en la captaci6n de recursos fiuancieros (actualmenle el coslo es de 100 1999 Mex$/ha). Para Las Trqjes de Pad y Nipoles este concepto no es relevante porque el agua de la presa tiene un cost0 inuy bajo o no cuesta; hasta el ciclo 01 99-00 se empez6 a cobrar 30 1999 Mex$/ha para la conservaci6n y manlenimienlo de la presa de la UR Trojes de Paul y en NBpoles alin no existe ninguna intention de cobro de cuotas por conceptos similares.Cuadro 2.1. Principales formas de acceso a1 agua dc riego.Constancia de limpia(%) Orden de pago (%) Arreglo con el canalero (%) La Golondrina En Napolcs cl arrcglo con cl jucz dc aguas fue una respuesta frecuente debido a la importancia que este tiene en la asignacion y supervision dc 10s turnos dc ricgo, ya quc no cxislc una Asociacih de Usuarios y la autoridad maxima es el comisariado ejidal y el jucz dc aguas. Asimisnio todos 10s arreglos son informales y existen mayores posibilidades queen las otras UR de la venta de turnos de agua. A diferencia de ello en Trojes de Pad y Golondrina el riego es de acuerdo a la superficie sembrada y no por turnos.Si bien el ~C C C S O al riego se hace de manera formal cuando han cumplido con la limpieza de canales y el pago. tdcitumente se reconoce la informalidad en el acceso principalmcnte por 10s arreglos con el personal operativo (canalcro y juez de aguas) en 10s volumenes de agua y la superficie de ticrra a regar como se muestra en 10s siguientes cxtractos de entrevistas:\"Aqui se toma en cucnta nadn m i s el padrhn de usuarios. Claro que hay personas quc ticncn una hecvirca y hay personas que tiencn vcintc hcctdreas. aunque son contadas s i las hay, pcro el dcrccho cs el rniarno para todos ... Aliorita por la cbcasc~ dc ilgua se estableci6 dar riego nada niis para trcs hcckircils, enlonces el que time veinte hectdreas ticnc quc limilarse a estas treq hedreas, el que tienc una a rcgar una heckirea, asi es verdad.....\" (Uruorjo de lo U R lir Golondrina)\"El derechu cs personal noes para negociar. se pucdc ncgociar cuando hay cantidad de agud y dices yo no vuy a reinbrar y quiero pasarle mi derecho a fiilano quc lime Ires hectjreas h e r d de m i a de riego, pcro no. .. pucs yo no he sabido de cams asi' (U.~uoria de la (inidad dc Riego Lu Golondrinrr).Los arreglos informales y las negociaciones a las que recurren 10s varones para acceder a1 agua se dan en espacios inadecuados para las mujeres (cantinas locales) y estin acompafiadas de acciones y pactos quc las mujeres no aceptan como pago extra, favores de distinta indole. Par estas formas de acceso informal, las mujeres tienen menos oportunidad dc ncgociar. Existen cvidencias de mujeres que si intentan ncgociar pero lo hacen de manera defensiva ante estos arreglos que han establecido 10s canalcros o jueces de agua.\"Sabernos quc existen cornpromisos de dinero o de amistad o dc sobornus. iy . . . por que no decirlo! que ya me invith una ccrvcz2~ ,..no pues ahom se ve obligado el canalcro a darle el agua, esto s i sucede aqui y es muy comrin en tvdos 10s canaleros! (IJruarin rle lf, UR La Golr~~drino).\"Si \\e han dado enfrentamientos con las seiioras, \\ohre todn con una senora a la quc Ic dierun el agua despuCs, ella habia pagado primcro pcru luc linica y exclusivameiite responsabilidad dcl canalerv que por andar lomando csrvzza se le olvido ccharlc el agua, y se l a diri al que no le tocaba, pcro csto no es cxclusivo de las mujeres. inas bien cs para tudus\" (Uwurio de lo 1IR La Golortdrino).Orguniurcih y purticipacio'n: La organization y participacih es vista de manera integral con la finalidad de ver el papcl que tiene la mujer y la forma en quc se percibe familiar y socialmente. Se busca comprender el desempefio que llevan a cabo mujeres y hombres en trabajos agricolas, de riego, en la unidad domestics y en 10s organos dc rcpresentaci6n.Partimos dc que existe una divisih del trabajo dentro y fuera de la unidad domistica que invisibiliza el trabajo femcnino 110 remunerado en la produccion social, siendo inis vastas y arduas en sociedades agrarias que en las urbanas. El caso mis \"optimista\" del rcconocimiento del trabajo de la mujer es cuando se le considera como marginal, de menor importancia o complementario al que realizan 10s hombres.Unidades de Riego: La OtraMitad dcl Scctor Agncold Bdjo Ricgo cn MexicoSi bien las mujeres siempre han estado presentes en labores agrkolas, pecuarias y un poco menos en el riego, su presencia actual en las parcelas tiene que ver con la agudizaci6n de la pobreza familiar, la fuerte migracidn de campesinos del estado de Guanajuato a 10s E.U, escasos recursos economicos para poder pagar peones: y 10s magros ingresos que deja la production de granos. Los datos de campo documentan desde muy temprana edad la incor-poraci6n de las mujeres a las labores agricolas, las razones son de distinta naturaleza y son: ansencia de hijos, las mujeres fueron las mayores, les gust6 trabajar en el c a m p desde pequeiias, mujcrcs viudas, y las mujeres que desafiaron 10s roles de genera al desernpeiiar tareas agricolas. Los hombres que han visto trabajar a las mujeres cn las parcelas y saben de la rutina que aun falta por continua en el hogar, consideran su trabajo como algo valioso ya quc sc han dado casos donde alguna (s) mujeres les han demostrado c6mo trdbajar la parcela. Por otro lado la participacinn de las mjeres en la organization de la UR representd la posibilidad de mantcncr orden, disciplina y eficiencia en el manejo del agua.\"La participaci6n de la mujer me gustd por quc cs muy valiusa y sobre lodo no ests tan expuesw a 10s compadrazgos ni mucho menos, resuelve 10s asuntos mas rcctamcnte que nvsvlros, si a nosotros !nos invitan una copa y drale! ...... \"(Usirario de UR La GolondrinnJ.Como hemos visto, la presencia de las mujeres en labores agricola y poco menos en las de riego son vistas de inanera optimista por 10s hombres, sin embargo sigue existiendo la idea de que su trabajo no es tan importante porque hacen las labores m8s sencillas y menos pesadas, esta concepci6n esti asociada con el papel que le conficrc la sociedad a la mujer principalrnente en la reproduccih y crianza de 10s hijos, preparacih de alimcntos, lidpiem del hogar, cria de ganado y cuidado de viejos y enfermos. Aunque la mujer esta ~p d f 1 4 d 0 al esposo en la parcela y el ricgo, este esfuerzo no se ha visto compensado con una menor carga del trabajo domkstico.\"Pocas snn las mujcrcs qiic e s t h en 18s parcelas. Mire Doila Esperanza time parcela pero la trahajan ?us hijns y clla en su cam se dedica a harrerla, prepara la comida, coida y ordena sus viicils, le ccha a (us puercm y gallinas. tira 18 cam, h t m qurac,. Ems m n sus Irabajos de ella, y en las parcelas se les vc cuando Ic l l c v ~n de cornera su rspusa y hay Y C e S Ed: Paula Silva-Ochoa veces tiran sal. Otras mujeres andan tdmbien con su esposo, ayudindolc a cuidar chivas, coma aqul hay ejidatarias que son dueRds de esa tierra y Id ve uno ayudando a su esposo a l i r a sal, a dcsquelitar, pero tampoco yo nunca la he visto con una maquinita,. . . elid no le suelta la pnrcela al marido.. es de ella, Que caray!\".(Usuuria de la Unidudde Kiego Trojes de Palill.Si bien, usuarias y usuarios identifican y conocen las labores agricolas que cada uno realiza, es claro que la pobreza y la fuerte migration en la region obliga a las mujeres a realizar m8s trabajos (sean o no culturalmente asignados a ellas), y tomar decisiones relacionadas a la parcela y la unidad familiar. La incorporation de maquinaria y tecnologia en las parcelas ha llevado a una menor presencia de mujeres. No obstante hay labores que tienen mejores resultados si se hacen manualmente como el desquelitc, aplicar abono liquid0 y. cn el caso de superhies con hortalizas (usualmente con aguas subtemaneas) con riego por goteo y aspersion, son las mujeres las mis cotizadas para estas labores.\"Le ayudo a mi csposo a sembrar, a arrimar abono, a batirlo, a echarlo a la miqquina. A lo mucho le ayudo a batir en una lona el fertilizantc, pero mi esposo es el que sabe como debe de quedar. Cuando riega, como ahofita, me dice %hale una piednta, que pdnmele un palito\". . . Veo s i no sc ha d i d o una raya y cuando se viene la tirddd de Ins liquidus cada quien se carga su mdquinita, nos fletamos a sacdr el rastrojo, lo molemos, lo encosfalamos y nos lo llevdmos a la casa, asf es como le ayudo\"(Usuaria de la OK Las TroJes de Palill.En las UR con aprovechamiento superficial, son 10s usuarios quienes se encargan de regar las parcelas. Las razones par las cuales las mujeres no lo hacen, o lo hacen muy poco tiene que ver con 10s horarios inadecuados para regar y, como ellas lo mencionan se presta a muchos riesgos. Los horarios inadecuados se debe a1 manejo que se le da a1 riego en cstas UR, una vez que se abre la compuerta de la presa no se deja de regar (ver Capitulo 3). El manejo y el peso de las palas para hacer represas, no cs ficil y resulta pesado para las mujeres especialmente para las que son de edad avanzada y viudas.Del conjnnto de mujeres solamente el 23% cxpres6 habcr regado alguna vez, lo que les hace creer que tienen muy pocos conocimientos y experiencia, ya que tradicionalmente son 10s hombres quienes lo vienen haciendo. Par otro lado, para 10s hombres es molesto y humillante que las mujeres rieguen, porque consideran una tarea dificil e inadecuada para ellas y socialmente pone en evidencia la ausencia de un hombre en la casa.\"Las mujeres casi no ricgan porque cs un trahajo que requiere pucs casi las 24 horas y, la mujer no puede andar vigilando el agua a las 2 o 3 de la mafiana!!!\". (U,wnrio de 1 ~1 UR Napoles) \"iHombre caray.. . seria hasta inhumano qiie tndjera una mujcr ahi soportando las hajas temperaturds y quesedesvele y aldiasiguieiitciraatenderalos hijos! ;Verdad?Pero yocreoquealgundsquetienensus parcelas pegadas B su casa, si cl cspaso necesita con urgencia salir, ellas desernpeiian la labor per0 yue no estC muy rctirada del hogdr\". \"(U.suariu de lu UR La Golondrina).Unidades de Riego: La Otra Mitad dcl Scctor Agricula Bajo Riego en Mixicv \"Nadie puede escoger el horario de riego porque si yo soy de las primeras que voy a regar o de las de en mcdio andu con todo mundo porque todos andan regando. Me dan poquita agua y se va rnojando poco a poco la tierra, pero cuando ya lodos terminaron de regar y el canalero junto toda el agua y somos cuatro 10s quc varnos a rcgar, nos da el agua de todus 10s que andaban regando. Nos da una agua correleada, no nos gusta porque no queda bien mojada la tierra\"(Usuuriu de Iu UR Lu Gulondrimj. Proceso de toma de decisiones. En las UR con aprovechamiento superficial el ndmero de usuarios es considerablemente elevado, lo que justificaria la necesidad de una instancia que se responsabilizara del agua almacenada en las presas. Sin embargo, como ya se ha mencionado, existen UR donde el Comisariado Ejidal tiene entre otras funciones el manejo del agua para riego a trav6s del Comit6 de Vigilancia. De las tres UR estudiadas con aprovechamiento superficial, solamente La Golondrina y Las Trojes de Pad se han constituido bajo la figura legal de Asociaci6n de Usuarios. La presencia y participaci6n de las usuarias en las asambleas tiene que ver mas con cargas culturales que con su perfil demogrifico, no obstante serialamos estas caracteristicas porque para ellas si tienen importancia y significado. Poco mis del cincuenta por ciento de las mujeres en las UR son viudas y tienen una edad promedio de 60 afios. En la UR Nipoles muchas de estas mujeres han cedido legalmente larepresentacion a un hijo, hermano o familiar cercano que se encargue de 10s asuntos relacionados a la parcela y por ende del riego, sin embargo en las asambleas relacionadas con el agua asiste aproximadamente el 80% de ellas.Contrariamente en la UR Trojes de Paul la mayoria de las usuarias son casadas y menos del 10% asisten alas reuniones, porque en el rancho se acostumbra que 10s hombres son quienes deben estar en estas reuniones. Las pocas mujeres que han asistido a una reuni6n de usuarios terminaron mandando a un hijo o pagindole a alguien p&a que vaya.En La Golondrina poco mas del90% de las usuarias asisten a las asambleas, de no hacerlo se sujetan a pagar una multa establecida en el reglamento interno. La mayoria de mujeres son casadas y tienen en promedio 55 afios. El ser usuaria o usuario de la aociacion o bien estar reconocido legalmente coma usuario en el ejido brinda 10s mismos derechos para opinar; votary represenfar algun cargo de autoridad, sin embargo, las practicas y las costumbres han limitado alas mujeres a ser usuarias dindmicamehte silenciosas. Coma resultado de este andisis podemos decir que existe un reconocimiento par parte de varones hacia aquellas mujeres que han logrado desempefiar su trabajo dombtico, paralelamente a otros en la comunidad (por ejemplo, mesas directivas de la sociedad de padres de familia en las escuelas, patronatos y mayordomias en las iglesias, entre otros). Sin embargo, 6ste reconocimiento no pasa la frontera entre sensibilizarse respecto a las normas y condiciones que desde la esfera masculina se les impone y sus propias actitudes frente a ellas.Acceso a 10s cargos de autoridady representacidn. Los cargos de autoridad son espacios eminentemente masculinos en las UR; existen mecanismos simbdicos y practices que apuntan hacia la inequidad de g6nero. Se niega entonces el espacio, la voz, la diversidad de problematicas desde lo particular y local hasta el espacio grupal y regional. En el estudio de estos espacios de autoridad, control y poder en el manejo del agua de riego, sobresalen 10s elementos que conforman la identidad masculina y c6mo &a se refleja en las asambleas formales e informales' y las formas de negociar y conciliar intereses. Debido a la trayectoria de trabajo en estos espacios, sc ha logrado un acercamiento que permite un enriquecedor anhlisis, asi como la aportacion de elementos alas formas de acercamiento y negociacion en este escenario.La participacion de las mujeres en cargos de autoridad y representacion es inexistente, debido a que en el espacio privado (individual, unidad domkstica, relaciones cercanas y comunitarias), las mujeres en general no han cuestionado su posicion y condition de subordinacihn.Los acuerdos que se toman en una asamblea formal generalmente se han discutido y negociado previamente en las parcelas, comunidades, bares y ficstas religiosas o familiares.Unidades dc Riego: La Otra Mitad del Sector Agricola Bajo Riego en MkxicoUnicamente se enfrentan a un espacio pitblico cuando su estado civil cambia a viudez ylo cuando no existe en la unidad dombstica un varon que asuma responsabilidades y obligaciones en el espacio pliblico. La autovaloracion sobre si mismas y su rol en diversos imbitos les h a permitido convencerse de la importancia de su trabajo, presencia y participacidn en asambleas de usuarios. Sin embargo es un proceso complejo y lento que requiere de redes de apoyo intercomunitario para valorar a l a mujer y su trabajo.\"Cuando nos dejo mi marido, tuvc que empezar a aprender a trabajar el rancho y a dame cuenta de que mis hijosy yopodiamos saliradelante ... idesdeentoncesdonde yomeparos6quetengolaseguridadque me da mi parcela! sin decirme eres floja, eres fea, eres viejita. . . ella me da mi seguridad de mi pesito que yo tengo y donde yo me pare bendito Dios ya sk que yo traigo mi pesito en mi bolsa que tengo mi parcela de donde sacar\"jUsuarin de la UR La Golondrina).Esta autovalordci6n que les ha dado su trdhajo y el reconocimiento de la comunidad, no ha sido suficiente para que las usuarias aceptan cargos de autoridad y representaci6n. Son espacios cerrddos para ellas' .caracterizados por pricticas masculinas en todas las acciones y formas de asumir el poder.La falta de inter& que tienen las mujeres usuarias para asumir un cargo de autoridad tiene dos razones principales: la autopercepcidn de ellas mismas y la actirud de 10s usuurios. En la pnmera resalta el miedo a hablar en espacios publicos dominados por varones (el 90% de 10s usuarios son hombres), se consideran incapaces para asumir una responsabilidad y su escasa instrucci6n escolar (las mujeres usuarias tienen en promedio 2 afios de escolaridad primaia) no estimula la confianza en ellas mismas. La segunda raz6n, refleja 10s elementos constitutivos de la identidad masculina (algunas le llamaron machismo), 10s limita para entenderlas y apoyarlas. Los siguientes testimonios muestran lo antes expuesto.\"El machismo es como m a imposici6u. como una dictadura familiar de aquf nomis m i s chicharrones menan y nomis se hace lo que yo digo., ..y las mujeres no tenemos derccho a reclamar per0 afortunadamente ya se esti superando esa etapa, ya empezamos a luchar por nuestros derechos pnrque queremos ser independientes, no una independcncia absoluta pero si tomar Ins compromisos de nuestros derechos. I' (Usuaria de la UR La Golondrina).Las razones anteriores y la excesiva carga de trabajo en la unidad domkstica impiden el desarrollo integral de las mujeres. A1 mismo tiempo 10s roles de gCnero define 10s cargos que puede asumir la usudria generalmente es el de secretaria, nunca el de la presidencia.\"Yo siempre lcs digo que si uno va decir algo, hay que pensarlo dos veccs porque si no cs motivo de risa y cdtica. Me han propuesto para tomar el cargo dr-secretaria en el Comiti Administrativo, pero tengo que hacerme cago de la casa. el campo y dc pilon hasta los puercos. Ademis como quc no me gusta eso de estar bendita entre 10s hombres, no, pues como que no mc gusta la cosa. Me gustaria, peru no puedo.. . A que hora voy para alM?!!? (U.woriu de la UR La Golondrina)Los varones que ocupan cargos de autoridad en las UR son en su mayoria varones cuya edad promedio es de 48 aiios. En este espacio tambiin se recrean 10s simholos de disciplina, organizacion, competencia, eficacia, solidaridad entre varones y altruismo publico, asi como se veu de cerca 10s elementos constitutivos de su identidad: prestigio, familia, virilidad, poder, autonomia personal, entre otros. Dichos elementos explican la permanencia en cargos de autoridad y la rotaci6n de 10s mismos a h en distintas organizaciones (Mousalvo, 1999;Kloezen, 2000).Los usuarios de agua subterranea pueden ser ejiduturios o pequeriospropieturios, se estima que en Guanajuato hay un promedio de 13 usuarios por pozo ejidal, iiiientras que en 10s almacenamientos hay un promedio de 72 usuarios (Dayton 19967). A primera vista se puede pcnsar que la importancia de la organizacion en 10s pozos es menor con respecto a1 de las presas, por el reducido numero de socios que lo integran, la presencia de fuertes vinculos familiares, 10s compromisos econdmicos para el mantenimiento del equipo de riego (bomba, transformador y canales de riego) y 10s pagos de energia elictrica. Per0 justamente estas razones han permitido una fuerte cohesih social, que garantiza la resoluci6n de necesidades y un sentido de equidad en el acceso y distribucidn del agua y cargos de autoridad entre socios y socias. Los factores que inciden y promucven son 10s lazos familiares que trascienden en otros espacios de importancia como la escuela y la iglesia, sitios donde las mujeres han tenido un papel notable y reconocido por la comunidad.Se concentra el analisis en 10s pozos de ejiduturios porquc es donde es posihle hacer exploraciones sobre 10s ejes de estudio planteados. Para el caso de 10s pozos depequefios propietnrios, su mancjo es unilateral y no puede ser comparado, sin embargo, se observa que existen muy pocas mujeres pequeiias propietarias que tengan la comesicin de un pozo. Generalmente en 10s pozos depequefiospropietnri'os es una persona el dueiio y la organization es de tipo empresarial porquc existe una jerarquia y divisi6n de lahores; existen supervisores en las parcelas, cuidando el desempeiio de 10s trabajadores o jornaleros, verificando la apli-caci6n correcta y oportuna del riego, y t'inalmente la comercializacih. La d i n h i c a empresarial de estos pozos se da lugar gracias a que existe una intensa rotaci6n de cultivos que generalmente son de alto valor econ6mico (en algunos c a m es para exportaci6n), y complementan sus cultivos con sorgo y trigo (Rancho R.).Unidades de Riego: La Otra Mitad del Sector Agrfcola Bajo Riego en Mixico Dcbido a la mayor liquidez propiciada por la productividad de estos pozos, tienen la ventaja sobre 10s pozos de ejidutarius de apoyarse de 10s programas gubemamentales que implican coinversion (ver Capitulo 1). Gracias a esto ha podido mejorar su infraestructura de riego, es muy comhn que hagan us0 del riego presurizado. El tipo de cultivos que producen requieren de un alto indice de mano de obra (riego, cultivo, cosecha) y se han visto en la necesidad de contratan a personal femenino para esta tarea. Se les ha presentado el problema de cscasez de mano de obra por el alto indice de emigration a 10s Estados Unidos y la fuerte llegada de maquilas, prefieren personal femenino porque ven en 61 atributos como responsabilidad, eficiencia y calidad en su trabajo.Por otro lado, 10s pozos ejidales que se investigaron en estc trabajo nos ha permitido conocer casos donde hubo fuerte presencia del gobierno (mediante el Banco Nacional de Crkdito Ejidal) en la perforacidn y construction del pozo. El pozo de El Llanito se perforo en 1977 con la iniciativa y 10s recursos de un ejidatario influyente y gran comerciante de Irapuato y beneficia a 2 1 hay 13 usuarios. Formalmente es pozo ejidal pero en la practica funciona como pozo privado. Este caso reprcsenta el de muchos pozos que se han apoyado en 10s nombres y firmas de ejidutarius para ser aprobados por las autoridades. Los \"socios\" se han visto beneficiados de este agua porque no tienen que preocuparse por 10s gastos de mantenimiento y reparacih de la obra hidrhulica, el acuerdo que se him desde el inicio hasta la fecha ha sido el pago en especie que significa ofrecer un tercio6 de la cosecha al duefio del pozo.El tercio es una prictica comun en la Cpoca de la hacienda, ]as entrevistas a fundadores de 10s ciidos mnestran arraigo de esta prictica y consiste en ofrecer el 30% de la cosecha a1 patrh.-.Actualmente el trato lo hacen con 10s hijos, quienes administran, controlan y distribuyen el agua. Existe un lider del pozo que gracias a 10s vinculos con MR y programas de apoyo ha gestionado la adquisicihn de semillas mejoradas y fertilizantes. Los cultivos principales son hortalizas y en menor medida granos lo que le ha llevado a intensificar el uso de 10s recursos tierra y agua (Ver Capitulo 3).Estos pozos tienen significados distintos para las comunidades, el pozo Casahuatal tiene gran importancia para la comunidad no solo porque carecen de otra fuente de aprovechamiento sino por la memoria colectiva desde la gestidn, construcci6n y administracidn en cada uno de 10s socios.Acceso a1 agua depozo (formal e informal). Partimos de la idea de que cuando 10s beneficiarios de un pozo han estado presentes desde la gestidn hasta la administracidn de la obra media entre ellos un compromiso y responsabilidad colectiva el uso, acceso y manejo del recurso. En ocasiones esto tiene incidencia en la eficiencia de la aplicaci6n y en la eficiencia con la que trabaja el equipo (ver Capitulo 3).Para 10s pozos ejidules, el acceso al agua del pozo queda restringida a 10s usuarios que tienen parcelas denvo de la zona de riego y que han estado presentes en la gestion y/o construccidn de la obra. Cuando 10s pozos fueron perforados y construidos por el gobierno a travCs del Banco Nacional de CrCdito Ejidal, 10s usuarios no tuvieron que pagar nada pero qued6 en sus manos la responsabilidad de la operacidn y el mantenimiento.La conciencia en el manejo del pozo, no proviene de mecanismos formales, porque al igual que en muchas UR de agua superficial las multas y/o sanciones son inexistentes, sin embargo tienen mecanismos de control y sanci6n. Uno de ellos son 10s monitoreos donde se sabe quien esta desperdiciando agua, otra es la comunicacidn con autoridades de la sociedad para frenar anomalias.\"Cuandu alguien esta tirando el agua, se tienen que juntar cum0 unos 5 o 6 del grupo, porque a veces hasta se les tiene que parar el pow, uno ya sahe mas o menos cu5nto tiempo se puede llevar el pozo en una hectirea y hay gente que agma mas. En una hectbca de terreno seco son Unds 16 horas y cuando no esti tan seca lleva cuando mtximo mas 10 horas\"( Socio del Po70 Casahuatal).\"Algunos socios toman conciencia de no despcrdiciar el agua per0 otros n u . . . iy esto ha llegado a enfrentarnientos se matan y ahi queda la tierra y 10s problemas!. El que la gan6 se tiene que salir del rancho porque ya nu va a poder vivir aquiy cl que la perdib esta con la tentacion de vengarse\"( Socio del Pozo Casahuatal)Al elaborar el plan de riegos y cultivos se programan 10s turnos de riego, cada usuario opera el pozo cuando va a regar de acuerdo a la planeacidn, cualquier cambia en 10s turnos debe avisarse con tiempo. Esta forma de organizacion y distribucidn del agua ha hecho posible Unidades de Ricgo: La Otra Milad del Sector Agricola Bajo Riego en Mexico producir hortalizas con Axito productivo y fracaso en la comercializaci6n. En 10s pozos de sociedad ejidal es poco posible el acceso informal del agua, 10s mecanismos de vigilancia y monitoreo son mis eficientes porque la superficie de riego es mas compactadd y menor. Por ser una sociedad con pocos socios la comunicaci6n y efectividad en la resoluci6n de necesidades y conflictos es mis oportuna si se compara con las UR superficiales. Sin embargo, existen limitaciones econ6micds que en ocasiones impiden la reparaci6n oportuna del equipo (ver Capitulo 3) El acceso informal mediante venta de agua ocurre tambi6n en 10s pozos ejidales por acuerdo unanime de 10s socios, pero estA condicionada a que est6 disponiblc el pozo y en buenas condiciones de operaci6n. Sin embargo, el incremento de 10s niveles dinamicos' de 10s pozos e s t h llevando a reflexionar en la pertinencia de seguir vendiindola, si bien a corto plazo representa ingresos monetarios para la sociedad, a largo plazo por sobre-explotar el manto acuifero 10s costos de extracci6n serin mayores (ver Capitulo 3).\"Se les vende cuando no ha llovido mucho y la siembra ya este hecha, el riego es de emergencia. Cuando el terreno est.4 muy scco de una hectirea se les cobra rnis parque necesitan mis agua, se Ics cobra cum0 unos mil pesos, per0 no nos conviene vender porque 10s pozos ya se e s t h sccando\" (Socio del pozo Casahuatal).Organtzaei~nyparticiucjon. A1 igual queen las UR de agua superficial, 10s pozos ejidales cuentan con una asociaci6n de usuarios representada por el presidenten, secretario, tesorero y vocal. Estos cargos 10s ocupan ejidafurios que se encuentra en la misma zona de riego y por lo regular tienen lams familiares.El promedio de reuniones para tratar asuntos de riego es de 5 a 6 veces a1 aiio, sin embargo se consultan mensualmente para ponerse de acuerdo en la cuota correspondiente a1 consumo de energia eMctrica, la cud1 se paga proporcionalmente a1 h e a de cdda parcela. En algunos pozos existe una persona encargada para yue lo pague, o bien se va rotando esta responsabilidad entre 10s socios. Los tema que mis se tratan tienen que ver con el manejo responsable del agua (no tirar ni desperdiciar agua), multas, sanciones y gastos. Los usuarios tienen la obligaci6n de asistir a las reuniones, y las opiniones de las mujeres tienen la misma importancia que la de cualquier ejidatario, pero ahora reconoce la comunidad que \"Pas mujeres tienen mas palabra y empuje\". Esto se ve cuando se pide una cooperaci6n en el ejido y las yue cumplen y lo hacen mas ripido son las mujeres, por esa raz6n el actual comiti directivo de La Gavilana tiene una mujer como tesorera., ' El nivel d i n h i c o es la profundidad de la superficie hasta donde se encuentra el acuifero durante la extraccidn de agua a un cierto gasto (Ips). En la medida qne esta profundidad aumenta, mayor potencia del motor es requerida para la extraccih del liquido. El presidente o representante del pozo es el que tiene la tarea de estar a1 pendiente dc 10s asuntos legales, concesi6n. trimites y requenmientos monetarios asociddos a1 pozo.Proceso de toma de decisiones: La asamblea es la instancia maxima que define 10s lineamientos a seguir por parte de 10s usuarios, reconocen que no importan si el socio es hombre o mujer, lo que interesa es que cumpla con sus obligaciones y estCn definidos sus derechos de tierra. Este argument0 tambi6n se dice mucho en el agua superficial, per0 la organization del pozo es menos compleja administrativamente hablando y el numero de 10s socios facilita la comunicaci6n y resoluci6n de prohlemas y necesidades.Las relaciones de g6nero siguen poniendo en condiciones de desigualdad a la mujer en la toma de decisiones, la excesiva carga de trabajo en la unidad familiar dificulta su presencia en juntas. Aunque en espacios informales como la escuela de sus hijos, tiendas y parcelas las socias discuten y toman decisiones relacionadas al pozo, su participaci6n se limita a estos espacio. De manera adversa para unas y favorable para otras esta participacion les ha dado prestigio en la comunidad y ha hecho posihle la incipiente presencia de mujeres en cargos de autoridad.\"En Und junta ya me dijeron pue que yo iba a ser la tesorera, y no pues mejor pongan a un seiior Its digo porque a lo mejor no lo puedo descmpetiar, hasta ahorita pos hemos salido bicn en las cuentas.. .es lo imponante y cuando necesitamos hacer una cooperacihn me responden\" (Socia del Casahuatal) Cargos de autoridad: Los cargos de autoridad por lo general e s t h representados por hombres porque muchos de 10s trMites del pozo implica grandes desplazamientos y mucho tiempo, lo que se convierte en desventaja natural para las mujeres por la inseguridad y prejuicios presentes en 10s ranchos. Por esta r a z h , 10s cargos de autoridad que pueden desempeiiar las mujeres se limitan a1 de secretaria, tesorera o vocal. La trayectoria de participacih de las mujeres en las escuelas o en la iglesia ha sido reconocido porla comunidad, algunos hombres creen las mujeres hacen mejor las cosas que 10s hombres porque tienen mas palabra pero por sus ocupaciones y obligaciones (de acuerdo a su ciclo de vida) les quita tiempo para participar.'Tener un cargo de autoridad es trilbajoso ipero a mi me gusta ayudar a la gente de la comunidad! ... y como ya la gente me conoce y se siente a gusto pos ya casi no me critican\"(Socia del Casahuatal)Anidisis comparativo entre Unidades de Riego y M6dulos de Riegn El anilisis de 10s cuatro temas anteriores sienta las bases para el anilisis comparativo enue las UR y 10s MR. Aqui se destacan 10s temas de mayor inteds, de manera puntual las sinlilitudes y las diferencias entre ambos sistemas (ver Cuadro 2.4). El objetivo de esta sesih es culminar con un acercamiento entre las UR selecciouadas para el estudio de profundidad y 10s MR con estudios desde hace mas de cinco afios. Haciendo referencia a1 primer tema: nccem al ugua de riego, las unicas vias formales de acceso a1 agua en UR y MR son: viudei (casos rn& comunes), separacidn, drvorcio, herencia y la compra. La via de la separaci6n puede ser por esposo migrante y mediante el de CuencaO y proceso de representacion reconocimiento en asamblea de autoridades ejidales, donde consta que la mujer es quiCn se hace cargo de la parcela(sj. Acceder a1 agua mediante el divorcio es el cdso mas diffcil aun con esposo en el extranjero y 6ste con otra esposa e hijos. Por medio de herencia de la tierra por: padre/madre, o por herencia de sangre (padrinos o madrinas a sus ahijados) automaticamente se accede a1 derecho del agua. Ultimameute, y para el caso de 10s MR, una via de acceso a1 agua es la \"cumpru ''lo de derechos de agua, esta situaci6n es para el caso de pequeiias propiedades cercanas a ejidos y dentro de la superficie regable en un MR.Respecto a las relaciones intra-gen6ricas en la esfera masculina, en 10s MR se rigen por elementos constitutivos de la masculinidad como el prestigio, el poder econ6mico y social, la autoridad y la imagen frente a la comunidad, localidad o regibn. Destacan diferencias en la forma de acceder a1 agua superficial y a1 agua subterrinea. Para el caso del acceso a1 agua superficial, 10s hombres (a1 igual que las mujeres) necesitan cubrir el requisito de ser usuario ante el MR y aparecer en el Padr6n de Usuarios (aqui se reporta: nombre, direccibn, n6mero de superficie 6 lote, cultivo establecido y cuotas cubiertas (o pendientesj por concept0 de riego para cada ciclo agricola). Para el caso del agua subterrinea el procedimiento es similar, surnando la posesion del titulo de concesih en el caso de 10s pozos privados.Para el caso de las UR, las relaciones intra-genCricas entre varones se presentan de manera muy similar a 10s MR. El acceso a agua superficial y subterrinea no tiene diferencia formal como en 10s MR. Los tramites que permiten el acceso formal se circunscriben a 10s titulos de propiedad en ambas tenencias de tierra, con lo cud estA garantizado su derecho al agua, siempre y cuando la tierra se encuentre dentro de la superficie de riego y haya dispouibilidad de agua.\"Cuando hay excesos de agua se estahlecen convenios precarios que les Ilamamos, y se encuennan fuera de la zona de riego, per0 con la condici6n que si hace falta agua en la zond dc riego se les corta y no tienen por que andar haciendo dcmandas ni mucho menos\" (Usuaria de la Unidad de Riego Ln Golondrina).El acceso informal a1 agua de riego con aguas superficiales s2 da tanto en UR como en MR, las negociaciones y pactos son similares en UR y MR. Mientras que en 10s MR existen tambikn 10s llamados precarius\" , para las UR la primer condici6n es que cuenten con agua primero para la superficie de sus usuarios y usuarias, despuCs la negociaci6n se dd casi informalmente.Iu Compra que no necesariamente incluye un pago en efectivo, &te arreglo puede hacerse mediante varias vids como: el intercambio de trdbajo y cosecha y responsahilidad del compromiso (medias), pdgo en especie (al final de la cosecha), pago con trahajo (con la infraestructura y maquinmia de la dueiia del Rancho 6 Cranja) y finalmente si la mujer( P.P. o Ejidapequeiia) cuenta con mis tierra en otras zonas, sedan arreglos de agua p r tierra. Usuarios que su tierra estA fuera del Area de riego de un Mbdulo, tras solicitar por escrito y discutir en asamblea general, se determina si se vende agua al usuarios precario, en caso de contar con agua disponible.\" t/ A raiz de la creciente compra-venta de tierra para la obtenci6n de capital para atender sus necesidades hisicas (para el caso de comunidades en extrema pobreza), mis personas de comunidades enteras se encuentran sin acceso a.tierra y agua, por t/ MAS agricultores y agricultoras inician el retiro paulatino de las actividades agdcolas, por actividades que aseguren una entrada constante de capital, o bien, en las zonas de aka migraci6n, s61o esperan las remesas de divisas para suhsistirRespecto a la organizaci6n y participaci6n en ambos casos es el detonador del acercamiento y heneficio de 10s programas gubemamentales. Las UR son en ndmero de nsuarios mncho menores que 10s MR, esto les permite tener una agilidad de informaci6n y comunicaci6n en caws de contingencias o situaciones prohiemiticas, mientras que en 10s MR es mis lenta por el tamaiio y la dinimica a seguir para convocar y solucionar problemas.Los MR son asociaciones legalmente constituidas y con personalidad juridica, cuentan con un grado de madurez institucional que les permite organizarse y buscar solnciones a situaciones dificiles de cualquier indole. Actualmente 10s MR son asociaciones en proceso de consolidarse y lograr autonomia y capacidad de respuesta oportuna a problemas operativos, de mantenimiento y conservaci6n, administrativos y financieros (Monsalvo, 1999).Unidades de Riego: La Ova Mitad del Sector Agricola Bajo Riego en Mexico En 10s MR al inicio de la transferencia no existia este sentido de responsabilidad y pertenencia, puesto que el sistema en general les fue transferido. A diferencia de las UR, 10s MR contaron con la tutela y acompakamienlo de la CNA desde el inicio de la TMR hasta ahora.Las UR se han manejado de manera mas aut6noma que 10s MR frente a la supervisi6n gubemamental. Es ahora que 10s MR en su proceso de madurez inician este sentido de pertenencia desde sus flotas de maquinaria e infraestrucluras, hasta su imagen, negociaciones y posicion dentro del DR.En el caso de organizacidn, participacidn y gestidn ante el Consejo de Cuenca en la Cuenca Lerma-Chapala, es una asignaci6n pendiente aunque avanzando para amhos sistemas. Tanto UR como MR deheran encaminar esfuerzos por plasma su identificacion con intereses comunes al us0 agricola del agua, frente a presiones y compelencia con 10s otros usos, particularmente el industrial. Ante tal contexto, cobra mayor importancia la organizacih y representacidn que de fuerza y legitimidad a quienes les representen en 10s distintos espacios de autoridad y representacidn.Finalmente sobre 10s cargos de autoridad y representacidn hacia la sostenibilidad de 10s sistemas y la equidad de ghcro, queda mucho camino por recorrer. Considerando que la sostenibilidad del recurso agua y el impact0 de mejoras econdmicas esti en manos del des-empeRo social, kste debe encaminme a ser integral e incluyente de todas las personas que en el participan. En la medida en que se avance por reflejar la igualdad de oportunidades desde la diferencia, en ese sentido seri que las relaciones de ginero se encaminen hacia la equidad.Las pricticas con equidad de ginero en el manejo del agua encontraran un retlejo material, cuando la misma proporci6n de mujeres que manejan el agua en campo, ocupen cargos de autoridad y representacidn en 10s mejores terminos y sin cuestionamientos a su identidad. Cuando las usuarias y usuarios logren superar conflictos en las relaciones sociales, cuando la subordinacidnpor su condici6n y posici6n de mujeres en espacios tradicional y culturalmente masculinos logren conciliar puntos de acercamiento ante un contexto d i n h i c o y cambiante. En esa medida, se estari encaminando esfuerzos por construir nuevas sociedades, que hagan del manejo del agua de riego una actividad con rostro humano y no con asignaciones de roles, cornpromisos, deberes y atribuciones por razones de genero: masculino -femenino.En la b6squeda de reactivar a las UR que tienen trayectorias hist6ricas distintas a la de 10s DR, es importante partir de la diversidad de contextos en 10s que las costumbres y pricticas comunitarias van a dar cuerpo a las reglas y nonnas que median el manejo del agua y su propia organizacion.-El analisis descrito muestra la complejidad de la organizacidn en la medida en que estan presentes aspectos formales e informales. Aunque 10s formales son claramente identificables las prhcticas tienen un fuerte componente de informalidad que hasta ahora han hecho posible la convivencia, las resoluciones de conflictos y el manejo del recurso y la obra hidrhlica.En el campo las UR registradas y no registradas operan sin distincidn, la desventaja para estas ultimas es que se excluyen de beneficios gubernamentales orientados a \"potenciar el mejoramiento productivo\". Aunque son valiosos 10s programas de apoyo son de beneficio selectivo porque solamente las UR registradas y para algunos apoyos deben estar configuradas como personas m o d e s para hacer efectivos 10s beneficios. De nueva cuenta se polariza la agricultura dinitmica y moderna con la agricultura tradicional y de autosubsistencia.Las implicaciones de esta politica de exclusidn en el campo se ve reflejada en el acceso a1 agua y en el estado de conservaci6n y mantenimiento de la sobras. Las malas o pksimas condiciones de las obras pequefias de riego, llimese presa, bordo, pozo, noria siempre van a ser sefialadas. Los usuarios han logrado un nivel de conciencia de la necesidad de 10s almacenamientos per0 no cuentan con 10s recursos ni 10s apoyos para desasolvar y darles mantenimiento preventivo.La sostenibilidad financiera debe ser uno de 10s objetivos a perseguir, para ello es necesario que las UR generen mecanismos de captacidn monetaria, uno de ellos puede ser la implantacidn de cuotas (modestas) por servicio de riego, cobro de multas por incumplimiento en la limpia de canales y el ma1 us0 del agua, multas de mayor monto para castigar 10s ilicitos de robo o venta de agua sin autorizacion. Otro canal de ingresos puede ser la proporcion de asesoria no solamente en aspectos administracibn y de organizacidn por parte de UR avanzadas, sino agrkola c hidrica. La falta de asesoria y experiencia ha llevado a errores en Pas UR que bien se pueden evitar si existe una asociaci6n de un grupo de UR, que avancen hasta ser gestoras de recursos, producto, insumos y candles de comercializacih. Las UR generalmente por lo general son pequeiias superficies de riego con pocos usuarios, esta caracterktica se ha venido resaltando en todo el documento porque creemos que es propicia para estimular la productividad, eficiencia del us0 de la agua y relaciones con mayor sentido de equidad (ver Capitulo 3).Se apuesta mucho a1 papel que juega la organizacidn de las UR per0 este estudio ha demostrado que el papel autogestivo de 10s regantes y el peso de las normas consuetudinarias son insuficientes para mejorar y conservar el estado de la obra hidriulica y en el manejo del agua, la equidad social y de gknero. Se necesita de asesoria y trabajo social que sensihilicen a hombres y mujeres en importancia de construir relaciones de equidad de ginero. Es decir reconocer las diferencias de percepcih, habilidades destrezas y formas de ser de 10s hombres y las mujeres para mejorar la condici6n social de las comunidades.Unidades de Riego: La Oua Mitad del Sector Agricola Bajo Riego en Mkxico A diario se miran relaciones de poder, opresion e injusticia hacia las mujeres, niiias, nifios y ancianos. El papel de las mujeres, usuarias y/o socias han puesto en evidencia la capacidad que tienen para desempeiiar cargos de autoridad el cual es invisibilizado por roles y conductas de genero. La division del trabajo por sex0 en la parcela muestra la presencia de roles masculinos y femeninos que restringen a la mujer a labores que aparentemente no son dificiles ni pesadas, pero son las que por lo regular hacen 10s peones.Si bien la presencia de mujeres realizando trabajo agricola o relacionado a este (empacadoras, invernaderos) ha sido notable en el trabajo asalariado o remunerado, es importante comentar que las mujeres que e s t h trabajando las parcelas en un context0 familiar. El grado de tecnificaci6n ha desplazado mano e obra y ha limitado a ciertos trabajos a las mujeres como desquelite, tirar abono o abrir represas.Finalmente, mucbas de las razones por 1% cuales el panorama se muestra incierto en la propuesta de generar relaciones de ghero mis equitativas y sostenibles en el manejo de agua, son las que apuntan a cuestionar 10s roles e identidades de ghero que marcan una tradition diferenciada en la asignacion de roles, deberes y obligaciones para hombres y mujeres.Van der Grift, Evcline Znstituciones: son 10s acuerdos y reglas colectivas que establecen 10s estandares aceptables del comportamiento individual y de grupo. Lo marca una distincidn entre las instituciones como 1 s nonnas y principios que definen la organizacidn y la organizacidn misma, y consituye el manejo de las instituciones. (Bromley, 1992).Gt!nnero: se define como \"las relaciones sociales basadas en las difercncias que distinguen 10s sexos donde gknero es una forma primaria de las relaciones significantes de poder\" Scott (1986), sefiala cuatro elementos para el anilkis: a) simbolos, b) conceptos normativos que manifiestan las interpretaciones de 10s significados de 10s simbolos c) las organizaciones e instituciones, y d) la identidad subjetiva, mismos que penniten el estudio de la asignacidn de cargos de autoridad en 10s distintos niveles de representacidn en el manejo del agua, cuyo espacio es tradicionalmente masculino.Equidad: que busca el acceso de las personas a la igualdad de oportunidades y al desarrollo de la capacidad basica (Serie Hacia la Equidad, 1999), lo que significa eliminar bas barreras que obstaculizan las oportunidades econdmicas y politicas, asi como el acceso a la educacidn y 10s servicios basicos de tal manera que hombres y mujeres de cualquier edad. condicidn y posicion puedan disfrutar de dichas oportunidades y beneficiarse con cllas; es decir, dar a cada c u d lo que le pertenece, reconociendo las condiciones o caracteristicas especificas de cada persona o grupo de personas.Poder:\" Concept0 que cruza las relaciones de g6nero en ambas esferas, masculina y femenina, asi como el espacio publico y privado es el Este es conccbido de manera tradicional como la capacidado habilidad p e tiene unapersonapara subordinar la voluntad y accirin de arro(u) hacia unfin. Esta categoria vista como un concept0 a de-constmir en funci6n de un poder visto de manera equitativa, justa, incluyente y desde una vision de gdnero. A la luz de 10s cuatro elementos propuestos por Scott (1986) y desarrollados m8s adelante, 6stos elementos permiten un accrcamiento al entendimiento de. la equidad de genera. Existen estudios previos realizados por el IWMI donde se han aplicado un conjunto de indicadores para evaluar el funcionamiento de 10s sistemas de riego de 10s Distritos de Riego (DR) en Me'xico (Kloezen y Gads-Restreo, 1998a;1998b). Sin embargo, ]as pocas evaluaciones que se han hecho del desempeiio del pequerios riego, han sido realizadas par otras instituciones y se basan principalmente en estimaciones estadisticas (Palacios-Ve'lcz, 1997; CNNCP, 1998).De 10s estudios m& recientes que se hm hecho en relaci6n con el desempeiio y la productividad de las Unidades de Riego (UR) en Mexico se sabe que el volumen bmto requerido a nivel nacional por sistemas de pequefia irrigacion en Mexico, es de 34.086 millones de m' para una superficie de 2'956,032 ha, lo cual da una Iimina bmta total' media ponderada de 115 cm para las UR totales (registradas y no registradas) (CNNCP, 1998). Estas estimaciones consideran eficiencias totales de 49% (incluyendo la eficiencia de conducci6n y la de aplicacih) en aguas superficiales (almacenamientos, derivaciones y manantiales) y de 64% en aguas subterrineas (pozos profnndos) (ibid). POI otro lado, sobre la productividad se dice quc para el ciclo agrfcola 1993 fue 2,445 1994 US$/ha (SARH-DGEIAFKNA-GDUR, 1994), 34% miis productivas qne 10s DR y en 1996 fue de 2,267 1994 US$/ha (CEN GDUR, 1997), en esta ocasicin s610 22Y~ mas productivas que 10s DR ya que sc redujo en 7% su productividad.Con el objetivo de comprobar dicha informacion, en este capitulo del documento se evalua el desempeiio y la productividad de las UR seleccionadas (ver Capitulo 1). La evaluaci6n se hizo con base en algunos de 10s indicadores que ya han sido utilizados en 10s DR par cl IWMI. A continuaci6n se presenta la metodologia seguida asi como 10s resultados obtenidos y el anilisis correspondiente. I El t6rmino de lriminn CY utilizado para indicar el volumen de riego aplicado en una superficie y rerulta dc dividir el volurnen en m ' entre el &+ea regada en rn2, por lo que sus unidades pucdcn expresarse en mm. cm om. Se dice que es bruta cuando incluye las pCrdidds en conducci6n y aplicaciirn.Cinco indicadores fueron calculados para cada una de las entidades de riego seleccionadas, y tres de ellos se calcularon tambikn en 10s mddulos del DR 01 1 \"Alto Rio Lerma\"para hacer el estudio compamtivo. Esencidlmente estos indicadores son \"externos\" y miden lo que \"entra\" a1 sistema y lo que \"sale\" de 61. A continuaci6n se describe brevemente cada uno de kstos agrupados en dos categorias, mismas que miis adelante se utilizan para realizar el analisis de 10s resultados:1. Relativos a1 agua Dimonibilidad Relativa de Arua DRA = Suministm totul de uguu lriepo + precipitucidn total1Este indicador es adimensional. Es notorio que la variable DRA es el inverso del tkrmino tradicional de la \"eficiencia tkcnica\" usado en irrigaci6n. Un DRA igual a I .0 a nivel parcelario significa que al cultivo se le ha suministrado unicamente lo necesario y cuando el valor esti por debajo de 1.0 indica que existen condiciones de estrks para la planta. Esta claro que cuando se hace el cAlculo del DRA a nivel sistema su valor debera incluir ademas las pkrdidas en conducci6n.Disponibilidad Relativa de Rieeo DRR = Suministro de riego Demandu de riego del cultivo' Tambikn kste indicador es adimensional. Para calcular tanto la demdnda de agua del cultivo como lade riego, se utiliz6 el programa cornputacional CROPWAT version 5.7 (FAO, 1975).En la definici6u original de este indicador hecha por el IWMI, la demanda de riego es igual a la dcmanda de agua menos el total de la precipitacidn efectiva (80% de la precipitacidn) pero con esta definici6n resultan valores demasiado elevados. Esto ocurre debido a que la lluvia generalmente se concentra en pocos dias del ciclo dc cultivo y realmente 1as demandas de agua no quedan satisfechas aunque te6ricamente en forma global indique que si. CROPWAT considera este factor y de acuerdo a las demandds de agua registradas en periodos de 10 &as y la prccipitaci6n efectiva ocumda en ese mismo periodo, estima una demanda de riego que es la que se utiliza en el denominador del indicador DRR.Ed: Paula Silva-Ochud En el anexo 1 se presentan las consideraciones y resultados de 10s cAlculos para 10s principales cultivos de las UR seleccionadas.Como variables explicativas para evaluar el manejo del agua, 10s indicadores de DRA y DRR, independientemente del tipo de cultivo que sea, ticnen una visidn neutral de la relacidn entre la cantidad de agua disponible o suministrada y la cantidad utilizada para la producci6n de cultivos. Esta visi6n tiene una gran ventaja ya que no hay ninguna implicacidn de que un determinado valor de DRA o DRR sea mejor que cnalquier otro. Por diversas razones una aka eficiencia del agua no es necesariamente mejor que una m8s baja, y en ciertas situaciones puede incluso ser peor (Levine, 1999). Por ejemplo, puede ser que si no hay posibilidad de aumentar la superficie de riego no tiene sentido que se persiga una mejora en la eficiencia para ahorrar agua 2. Relativos a la produccibn Producci6n uor Unidad de Superficie VBPha = Valor Bruto de Produccidn Superficie RegadaDonde las unidades del indicador son $ha. El valor bruto de produccidn (VBP) tiene unidades de monetarias y es obtenido apartir del rendimiento del cultivo y su precio medio rural, representa el valor econdmico de la superficie que realmente se sembr6 y se regs.VBP= Rendimiento(ton/ha) *Precio Medio Rural($/ton) *Supe$iicie regada (ha)En el caso de tener un sdlo cultivo, lo que realmente esta indicando es el product0 de su rendimiento medio par su precio medio rural. Cuando se tiene mAs de un cultivo se calcula para cada uno de ellos y se hace la sumatoria.Producci6n Produccih por Unidad de Aeua Consumida.VBPIm' Wdumen de riego consumidn Donde el indicador tamhiCn es dado cn $/m' . El denominador se refiere a1 consumo total de agua de la planta (en mi), es decir, la demanda de agua estiniada por un cultivo.Los indicadores de desempefio que se calcularon para las UR seleccionadas corresponden a 10s ciclos agricolas OtoRo-lnvierno (01) 1998-1999 y Primavera-Verano o Segundos Culti-vos3 (PV/SC) 1999. Para realizar el cjlculo de este conjunto de indicadores fue necesario recolectar information secundaria sohre las UR seleccionadas e informacion primaria que se obtuvo durante el trabajo de campo llevado a cab0 durante seis meses, de septiemhre 1999 a fehrero 2000. Es importante sefialar que hubo un importante trabajo de campo que consisti6 en la medicion de riego aplicado y entrevistas con 10s usuarios durantc el ciclo agricola 01 1999-2000. Esta labor tuvo la finalidad de tener un punto de referencia real del volumen de riego aplicado en el afio agricola anterior y de 10s datos agricolas bisicos (patron de cultivo, rendimiento por hectrirea y precio medio rural) para el ciclo 01 1998-1999 y PV/SC 1999. Para el caso de UR que se ahastecen de aguas subterraneas, tambikn se recuperaron 10s recibos de electricidad emitidos por la Comisidn Federal de Electricidad (CFE) y asi, una vez calibrados 10s pozos para encontrar la r a z h mVKWH, se pudo determinar el riego aplicado.Las variables de 10s indicadores de desempeiio se aplicaron a nivel sistema donde se midieron o estimaron las laminas aplicadas a 10s cultivos. Cuando el usuario no liene limites de tiempo para regar, se considera que son muy pocas la variaciones que pueden existir en la forma de regar dentro dc una misma UR, ya que como esta garantizado una determinada superficie de riego del usuario (puede ser la totalidad o parte de la misma) no existen un motivo para hacerlo mas eficientementd .Por sus diferentes caracteristicas, se separo el analisis de 10s indicadores de acuerdo a1 tipo de aprovechamiento: aguas subterrheas y aguas superficiales. Todos 10s valores de 10s indicadores son prescntados en 1999 Mex$ y en 1994 US$ para quc puedan ser comparados con otros paises (1994 WS$l= 1994 Mex$3.5; 1999 US$ 1= 1994 Mex$9.5).El ciclo agricola 1998-1999 comprende para todas las UR 01 y SC n PV, pero comunmente se les considera el rnismo ciclo a istos dos ultimos. Portal motivo en nuestros resultadas distinguircmos sdlo 01 y PV/SC. Se identific6 s61o una Unidad de Riego en el municipio de Silao, llamada Nipoles, dondc el agua de su presa se distribuia pnr (urnos de 4 horas y se observaron grandes difcrencias en lds supficies rcgadas por diferentes usuarios en un tumo de la misma duraci6n.Para el caso de las UR de La Golondrina, Trojes de Paul y La Gavilana, se hizo ademils un anilisis de la series historicas de 10s afios de 1979-1985 de 10s valores de la DRA y de 1979-1991 de 10s valores de VBP/ha. Ambos indicadores fueron calculados a partir de in-formaci6n secundaria proporcionada por la actual Secretaria de Agricultura, Ganaderia y Desmollo Rural (SAGAR) per0 que fue recolectada bajo la direccion de la Secretaria de Agricultura y Recursos Hidriulicos (ver Capitulo 1). La informaci6n consistid en datos de producci6n y aplicacion de riego de cada una de las UR mencionadas para 10s ciclos agricolas 1979 a 1985 y, para completar la sene histonca del VBPha se utlilizaron 10s datos de produccionde de su DDR correspondiente, el 005 de Cortazar para 10s ciclos agricolas de 1985 a 1991. Las diferentes categorias de 10s datos utilizados se debe a que a partir de 1985 se hizo la incorporaci6n de las estadfsticas a nivel general de modalidad de riego5.En las series historicas, 10s indicadores fueron calculados para todos 10s ciclos agrfcolas presentes de cada afio: 01, SC y PV. De acuerdo a las definiciones descritas por el personal de la SAGAR, el ciclo 01 comprende a 10s cultivos presentes durante 10s meses de diciembre a mayo, el ciclo SC incluye 10s cultivos que se siembran en las mismas tierras que se sembrarou durante 01; por lo tanto comprende 10s mese de junio a noviembre. Por el contrario, el ciclo PV se refiere a 10s cultivos que se siembra en tierra donde no ha habido ningun cultivo previo por lo que puede comprender 10s meses de mayo a octubre. Los valores obtenidos de la VBP/ha para las series historicas, fueron convertidos a I994 US$ para poder observar las variaciones reales. Finalmente, despu6 de la evaluacidn de las UR seleccionadas, se hizo un ejercicio de comparaci6n con 10s MR de riego del Distrito de Riego 011 \"Alto Rfo Lerma\". Para este an5lisis comparativo, como se mencion6 anteriormente, se utilizaron solo 10s siguientes indicadores: DRA, VBP/ha y VBP/m3sUmin~srca,,o.Desempeiio de las UR en el manejn del agua Los tipos de fuentes de abastecimiento, ya sea de aguas superficiales o subterrineas, propician significativas diferencias en el manejo de 10s pequeiios sistemas de riego debido precisamente a sus caractcristicas inm'nsecas (Ver Capitulo 2).Estd informaci6n secundaria estnvo a punto de perderse y s6lo algunos micmbros de la antiguas Jefaturas de lm Unidades de Riego tienen conocimiento de su existencia. Es relevante considerar que 10s supervisores de zona de 10s DDR fueron 10s encargados de recabar esta infonnaci6n. La Jefatura de Unidades de Riego nombraba a un representante que se encargaba de pasar la informaci6n estadisticd. El volumen neto de riego se estimaba a parlir de la lamina que consideraban aplicar y de la eficiencia que tambikn cra estimada. Se considera p r lo tanto que 10s valores mas confiables son 10s referentes a la producciirn en toneladas y a 10s precios medios rurales.Unidades de Riego: La Oua Mitad del Sector Agdcnla Bajjo Riego en MdxicoMientras que la disponibilidad para regar en 10s pozos existe tebricamente todo el tiempo, en las presas o bordos, tluctua en funcion de la capacidad de captacidn del sistema, escurrimientos y de las precipitaciones registradas en la temporada de lluvias anterior. Sin embargo, en 10s dos tipos de fuentes de abastecimiento, se debe tomar en cuenta que la precipitacidn pluvial es una importante variable que influye en gran medida en 10s valores de 10s indicadores de DRA y DRR durante 10s ciclos PVISC. Esto explica la raz6n por la cual las variaciones en 10s valores de DRA y DRR, dentro de una misma UR, son mayores en el ciclo PV/SC que las que se presentan en ciclo 0 1 donde priclicamente no hay precipitaciones pluviales. Para el ciclo 0-1, 10s valores de DRA y DRR son muy similares puesto que priicticamente no hay agua de Iluvia.Por otro lado, hemos observado que otros factores, de indole economico y organizativo, explican 1% razones de la disponibilidad de agua y riego presentes en ambos tipos de UR. Es por esto, que dentro del ankhis de 10s resultados obtenidos para 10s indicadores relativos al agua (DRA y DRR), presentamos reflexiones sobre algunos factores que consideramos influyentes en 10s valores arrojados para cdda tipo de UR. Es imporlante mencionar que en general, 10s sistemas de riego de las UR conformadas por grupos de usuarios se operan de manera desordenadd, no siguen un orden estricto de riego en funcion de la uhicacion de la tierra a regar respecto a la fuente de abastecimiento. De esta forma, si no esta el usuario preparado para regar la parcela vecina puede pasar a1 siguiente y despub volver a recuperarsu tumo aunque el agua se encuentre regando la ultima parcela.El manejo de agua en las UR que cuentan con pozos profundos es bastante flexible pero tiene requiere. Dentro de 10s sistemas ahastecidos por agua subterranea pueden observarse diferencias considerables debido a1 poder adquisitivo, la organiacion de 10s usnarios y a1 patr6n de cultivos. Como se puede observar en el Cuadro 3.1, las UK productoras de hortalizas, qne generalmente son las que presentan mayor grado de organizaci6n y poder adquisitivo, tienen mayor disponibilidad relativa de agua y riego.En el c a w de 10s productores de granos para el ciclo 01, sabemos que La Loma vio severamente dafiado su sistema por insuficiencia de capacidad del motor debido a1 increment0 del El nivel dinirnico es la profundidad de la superficie hasta donde se encuentra el acuifero durante la extraccidn de agua a un cierto gasto (Ips). En la medidd que esta profundiddd aumenta, mayor potencia del motor es requerida para la extracci6n del liquido.Ed: Paula Silva-OchoaPor otro lado, el pozo de 10s Hermanos V no tuvo ninghn problema tCcnico ni tampoco alguna restricci6n econcimica que limitara el suministro de agua a su cultivo y realiz6 cinco ricgos.Cuadro 3.1. Indicadores de Desempefio de las UR seleccionadas de aguas subterrhneas, ciclo agricola 1YY8-1999.Productoras de granos La Loma 0.9 0.9 1.52.9 2.9 -El Llanito 1.9 1.9 1.9 1.6Productoras de hortalizas NOTA: En todas las UR productoras de granos se sembro trigo en 0 1 (a excepcion del Rancho R que sembro cebada y El Llanito que sembro ademas del trigo el 19% de su superficie de maiz) y sorgo en SCIPV. Las UR productoras de hortalizas sembraron hortalizas para exportacion.En tCrminos generales 10s pequeiios propietarios tienen mayor capacidad economica para dar mantenimiento y reparar oportunamente su sistema de riego, ademls no tienen la necesidad de llegar a consensos o asambleas para tomar decisiones (debido a que generalmente es un propietario o unos cuantos para un solo pozo) lo cual facilita la operacicin.Cabe mencionar queen el Municipio de PCnjamo, donde se encuentran la mayoria de las UR seleccionadas productoras de granos, el 67% de la superficie de las unidades registradas es de tenencia ejidal, porcentajc mayor a1 quc se reporta a nivel nacional que es 56% y a1 registrado a nivel estalal que es de 50% (SARH-DGPN CNA, 1994). Suponiendo que casi la totalidad de las UR en el estado son de aguas subterraneas (94%), este porcentaje indica que la capacidad econcimica suficiente para sostener un buen funcionamiento del sistema de riego y que el pozo trabaje bajo eficiencias aceptables (65%-75%), se encuentra concentrada, para el caso de PCnjamo, en menos de la mitad de la superficie de riego de las UR. En 10s sistemas que utilizan aguas suhtemlneas es justificahle el empleo de sistemas de riego mas tecnificados (riego por gotero, aspersicin) para reducir 10s volhmenes aplicados ya que sus costos de extraccicin, dependiendo del nivel a1 que se extrae el agua (el pozo de 10s Hermanos V tiene un nivel d i n h i c o del agua de 95 m mientras que el del pozo de la Gavilana tiene 55 m), llegan a alcanzar hasta un 24% del total de 10s costos de produccicin' .' Se considera que estos costos de produccidn no incluyen la mano de obra ni el cost0 financiero.Unidades de Riego: La Otra Milad del Sector Agrfcola Bajo Ricgo cn MCxico A su vez, dadas las condiciones externas de mercado, s61o un cultivo rentable podria justificar el empleo de tecnologia debido a su costo de inversi6n.POI tal motivo, en las UR que se producen granos, cultivos poco rentables como se veri en el pr6ximo apartado, 10s sistemas de riego sonrudimentarios. Generalmente su infraestmctura varian en el sistema de conducci6n (canal revestido o sin reveslir, o bien, tuberia con hidrantes en cada parcela combinada en algunos casos con tuberias de compuertas) y en el sistema de aplicacion es en todo 10s casos de \"agua rodada\" (agua suministrada a 10s cultivos corriendo libremente a travCs de surcos utilizando la pendiente del terreno). Sin embargo, incluso en algunas UR productoras de hortalizas tambiCn utilizan el sistema de \"agua rodada\" como lo es el caso de El Llanito y para algunos cultivos en el Rancho R. S610 para el cultivo de cebolla, el Rancho R emplea riego por gotco. Como puede observarse en el Cuadro 3.2 se presenta muy poca diferencia en las liminas promedio suministradas dentro de las UR con sistema de aplicaci6n de \"agua rodada\" (la Gavilana es la unica que no tiene tuberias que conduzcan el agua a las parcelas, per0 por su tamafio, las pdrdidas en conducci6n son muy pocas). Los beneficios inmedialos de la tecnologia para estas UR son entonces hnicamente el increment0 en la eficiencia de conducci6n que no es palpable y cn la facilidad para realizar las labores de riego. Los ahorros de agua debido a un sistema mis sofisticado como lo es el riego por goteo, sc hace mAs$ignificativos en la medida que el numero de riegos que se requiere para ciertos cultivos horticolas se incrementa, disminuyendo a la vez la Iimina aplicada por riego. Como puede observarse en el mismo Cuadro 3.2, la lamina promcdio por riego aplicada por goteo en las hortalizas es casi el 50% de la que se aplica par riego rodado. MBs adelante, en el anhlisis de la productividad de las UR, veremos la rentahilidad de estos sistemas en funcion de su VBP.Las UR de aguas superficiales aunque representan s61o alrededor del 6% del total de UR registradas en Guanajuato (ver Capitulo I), su superficie regable alcanza casi el 20% (SARH, 1991). Entre sus principales ventajas e s t h el hajo costo del riego y el poco mantenimiento que requiere el sistema de conducci6n. Sin embargo, con el paso del tiempo, 10s almacenamientos se enfrentan con el prohlema de asolvamiento que reduce significativamente la capacidad de captacidn de agua. El hecho de tener mayor nhmero de usuarios y de superficie de riego respecto a las UR de aguas subterrfineas, as< coma contar con un volumen de agua definido, representa diferencias sustantivas en el manejo del agua. Siempre existira un mayor numero de usuarios regando simultaneamente lo que ocasiona que el flujo dentro de una misma parcela sea muy variable. Contrario a lo que sucede en las UR de aguas subterrAneas que en ocasiones paran 10s pozos par algunas horas o dias, en las UR de aguas superficiales una vez abierta l a compuerta generalmente no se cierra hasta que todos 10s usuarios hayan terminado de regar.La tenencia de l a tierra es sobre todo relevante en las UR de aguas superficiales donde es mfis complejo asignar volhmenes distintos de agua. Par el contrario, en las UR de aguas suhterraneas existe l a posibilidad de consumir volhmenes de agua dependiendo de las necesidades de cada usuario ya que se puede pagarindependientemenie el cosio de elechicidad por el uso extra o desfasado que se haga del pozo.En el caso de las UR ejidales, la equidad es un aspecto muy arraigado a la estructura del ejido' y prevalece en toda la mechica del manejo de 10s sistemas de riego de las UR. Parece ser el elemento que sustenta las decisiones que se toman sobre el aprovechamiento del agua y la resoluci6n de problemas (ver Capitulo 2). Para lograr asignar a todos 10s usuarios el mismo volumen de agua se recurre a1 estahlecimiento de una superficie determinada de riego, un nhmero especifico de riegos o bien, turnos de riego. En aras de la equidad no se concentra la explotacidn del recurso agua en la ohtencidn de mayores garantias de rendimiento aceptable (Scott y Silva-Ochoa, en prensa). Al sembrar todos el mismo cultivo sin suficiente agua, 10s rendimientos no son buenos. Sena interesante estudiar con detenimiento el costo financier0 que se le puede atrihuir al manejo equitativo del agua. Sobre el manejo de aguas superficiales de pequeiios propierarim no se tiene ningun caso estudiado en este trabajo. Sdlo podemos mencionar que en el estddo de Guanajuato un poco m h del 30% de la superficie regable ahastecida por almacenamientos es pequeiia propiedad (SARH, 1991).Unidades de Riego: La Olra Mitad del Scctor Agricola Bajo Ricgo en MBxicoSe observa en el Cuadro 3.3 una sjtuacion distinta de manejo de agua dependiendo de la magnitud de la superficie regada y de la capacidad ticnica para realizar la planificaci6n de 10s riegos. En el ciclo 01, donde se refleja realmente la planificacih en el riego ya quc no hay Iluvias, La Golondrina time una DRA (1.13) que indica un buen aprovechamiento de su sistema de riego y par otro lado, Trojes de Paul con un DRA de 1.6 manifiesta todavia tener posibilidades dc mejorar la explotaci6n dcl recurso hidrico con el que cuenta. La planifica-ci6n es pricticamente nula en este tipo de UR como Trojes de Paul que son relativamente pequefias. Esto se dehe principalmente a dos factores: la falta debases ticnicas y la presencia del mismo patr6n de cultivo durante varios afios. Con la experiencia de 10s afios, han llegado a sentirse lo suficientemcnte seguros como para tomar decisiones sin fundamcntos tecnicos avanzados y, con el tipo de relacidn estrecha que se generaentre 10s usuarios es relativamente sencillo llegar a1 consenso.Cuadro 3.3. Indicadores de Desentpeiio de las UR seleccionadas de aguas superficiales,ciclo agrfcola 1998-1999.Trojes de Paul A menudo para lograr niveles bajos de DRA hay nu aumento de 10s costos vinculados con el sistema y el manejo por 10s usuarios, puede ocurrir que 10s beneficios aportados por el agua ahorrada tal vez no Sean tan grandes como estos costos. En 10s sistemas que utiliran agua superficial, 10s costos de riego son pricticamente nulos porque no se aplican cuotas a 10s usuario (ver Capitulo Z), representan un porccntaje muy bajo de 10s costos totales de produc-ci6n (menos del6%). Una mejora en la eficiencia de aplicaci6n podria no significar ahorro en 10s costos del agua pero si un aumento de superficie regada a bajo costa.La inversion en tecnologia o en mejoras en el manejo del sistema que tiene bajos costos de utilizaci6n de agua, puede no resultar rentable dependiendo del tipo de cultivo. La produc-ci6n de hortalizas en las UR abastecidas por aguas superficiales, que podria garantizar la rentabilidad, parece no haberse desarrollado. Representa un reto de logfstica y organizacih que ahn no han resuelto 10s usuarios' y ademis no se muestran muy motivados dehido a la dificultad para entrar en su mercado tan competido y por las complicaciones dc su manejo post-cosecha.Como se menciond anteriormente, para las UR que se ahastecen de aguas suhtemaneas, las laminas promedio aplicadas en cada riego son muy similares. El caso de las UR de aguas superficiales presenta diferentes condiciones (el gaslo dcl sistema y la superficie regada cs mayor) y las pkrdidas en el sistcma de conduccidn son un poco m5s significativas (La Golondrina cuenta con canales rcvestidos y Trojes de Paul s610 parcialmente). Por este motivo, las laminas promedio aplicadas por riego, como se puede apreciar en el cuadro 3.4, presentan mayores diferencias queen el caso anterior.Cuadro 3.4. Ndmero de riegns, l h i n a s brutas tntales y laminas por riegn promedio medidas en las Unidades de Riego seleccinnadas, ciclo 01 1999-2000. NOTA: Los valores de las laminas para ambos casos fueron estimados a nivel sistema (lamina bruta) de tal forma que se consideran las perdidas por conduccion y por aplicacion a nivel parcelario.Con el afan de entender la labor de riego como un proceso cultural, es necesario observar el comportamiento de 10s valores de estos indicadores de desempefio a lo largo del tiempo. En el siguiente apartado presentamos un breve andisis histdrico del comportamiento de la disponihilidad relativa del agua de tres de las UR antes estudiadas: La Gavilana, La Golondrina y Trojes de Paul.Es importante seiialar que 10s registros de laminas aplicadas en las series histdricas son de menor conkabilidad que las medidas en campo puesto que se trata de meras estimaciones que hicieron 10s encargados de recahar dicha informaci6n basados en su propia experiencia. Sin embargo, la tendencia que se registra merece la pena ser comentada y comparada con 10s valores que fueron medidos durante el presente ciclo agricola 01 1999-2000.En la Figura 3.2 es en la que se observan mayores discrepancias con 10s valores medidos en campo. De acuerdo alas precipitaciones pluviales observadas en la figura 3.1 y a la produccidn agricola ohtenida registrada en esos aiios (ver figura 3.7), no existe razdn por la cual Trojes de Pa61 haya regado aparentemente la mitad de lo que se reg6 en el ciclo agricola 1998-1999. En 10s otros casos, 10s valores obtenidos con las mediciones en campo, se encuentran dentro del rango registrado Mst6ricamente.suministrar azua cuando v donde lo necesitan 10s usuarios que producen una gran variedad de cultivos. (Levine, 2000) _ _59 Unidadcs de Kiego: 1. a Otra Mitad del Sector Agricula Bdjo Riego en MkxicoEs importante mencionar que 10s sistemas de riego de las UR que se presentan no han sufrido mejoras sustanciales a lo largo de estos aiios, se trata pdcticamente de 10s rnisrnos sistemas con ligeras mejoras. Las gestiones en La Golondrina para la compra e instalaci6n de tuberia de conduccion son recientes.Como se puede apreciar en las Figuras 3.2,3.3 y 3.4, para el ciclo 0-1, 10s valores de DRA varian dentro de un rango relativamente estrecho puesto que practicamente no hay agua de Iluvia. Los cambios mas significativos en 10s valores de DRA de un ciclo agricola a otro y entre 10s ciclos PV y SC de un mismo aiio se debe a las variaciones en la volumen de lluvia registrado y 10s dfas en quc este sucede.L P-VISC FUENTE: Registros de la estaci6n Tacubaya, CNA. NOTA: Se consideraron precipitaciones de 0 1 las registradas en 10s meses de diciembre a mayo, de PV las registradas de mayo a octubre y las de SC en 10s rneses de junio a noviembre. La tendencia m6s homogknea de 10s valores de DRA se observan en la UR La Gavilana para 10s ciclos agricolas de 01. A diferencia de las UR de Trojes de Paul y La Golondrina que se abastecen de aguas superficiales y su disponibilidad de agua depende de las precipitaciones del ciclo que le antecede, La Gavilana se abastece de pozo y tiene disponibilidad dcl recurso hidrico independientemente de ello. Esto no significa que las UR que tienen volcmenes variables de agua disponible no podrfan lograr una tendencia homogknea de DRA.Si la referencia para la planificaci6n de riego (formal o informal) (ver Capitulo 2) fuese realmente el suministro de agua para lograr un determinado grado de cumplimiento de la demanda de agua del cultivo (para ohtener el rendimiento necesario), se observaria un comportamiento similar de 10s valores de DRA a lo largo de 10s aiios. Sin embargo, como se ha mencionado anteriormente, el ohjetivo principal en la asignaci6n de agua en estos sistemas es la equidad.Con estas series hist6ricas podemos observar que para un sistema que aplica \"agua rodada\" es muy dificil llegar a eficienciaq altas sin el us0 de tecnologia. Los valores de 10s indicadores de DRA no presentan una tendencia de ascenso permanente que indique que las tecnicas de riego tradicionales mejoren significativamente con el paso del tiempo. El manejo de agua, el empleo de tecnologfa y la inversi6n agricola, dehen estarjustificados por una buena productividad agricola. Se ha observado que existe una tendencia a invertir en mejoras a favor de la eficiencia y del buen dcsempeRo en el manejo dcl agua de 10s sistemas de riego en funcion de su productividad.Por otro lado, a nivcl cuenca es muy importante el anilisis de la productividad de las UR y coma consecuencia, la productividad del agua en el us0 agricola. Dehido a la sobre-explota-ci6n de 10s acuiferos y a la competencia inter-sectorial por el agua, es indispensable dar un uso productivo del recurso hidrico para garantizar o proporcionar mejores expectativas de sostentabilidad de la producci6n agncola. El Valle de Pknjamo, donde se encuentran la mayoria de las UR productoras de grano que se analizan en el presente estudio, se presenta una extracci6n dc mas de 3W millones de m3 y es la zona con mayor ddficit (mas de 100 millones de m y ) segun datos reportados por la SAGAR en 1995. Junto con el Valle del Ria Turbio y el Valle de Le6n, forman parte de la cuenca del Ria Turhio en donde casi el 90% del agua es aprovechado por el sector agropecuario.Existen diferencias en la productividad de las UR de aguas subterraneas y las de aguas superficiales principalmente debido a1 tipo de cultivo que se presentan en cada caso. La gran mayoria de las hortalizas, par no decir que la totalidad de ellas, se cultivan en UR que cuentan con pozos. De acuerdo a 10s datos reportados en el cuadro 3.5, la VBPha en 10s productores de hortalizas puede ser hasta mas de 6 veces de la ohlenida por 10s productores de granos. Sin embargo, las UR productoras de hortalizas representan s61o alrededor del 12% de la superficie cultivada por pequefios sistemas de riego (SAGAR, 1995(SAGAR, -1996)). Esto hace pensar que incluso muchas de las UR abastecidas por aguas subtenheas utilizan su sistema para la producci6n de granos.Se observ6 que dentro de las UR productoras de granos, el numero de riegos es lo que mas impact0 tiene en su productividad ya que existe una relaci6n dirccta de Cste con el rendimiento del cultivo. L,as UR que aplicaron el mismo numero de riegos o lamina total de riego, presentan niveles semejantes de productividad independientemente de las otras caracteristicas. Coma puede obscrvarse en el Cuadro 3.5, la productividad por unidad de superficie (VBP/ha ) de las UR productoras de granos se encuentra dentro del rango de 5,400 -8,900 1999 Mex$ para el ciclo 01 1998-1999 y 7,000 -10,000 1999 Mex$. En las UR productoras de granos, se sembrb trigo en 0 1 y sorgo en SC En las UR productoras de hortalizas se sembr6 cebolla, zanahoria entre otros y el Rancho R en especial hortalizas de exportacion. La UR de El Llanito no suministro el agua demandada por la planta (DRA= 0.9) par lo que el agua consumida por la planta estara en funci6n de ia eficiencia del sistema. Ei valor de este indicador necesariamente tendra que ser menor que 1999 1.30 Mex$/m3. * En el Rancho R se tienen dos sisternas de riego: agua rodada y riego par goteo. en el primer0 se aplicaron 9 riegos y en el segundo 14.L a posibilidad de dar mayor numero de riegos, en el caso de aguas subterrineas, esta dada principalmente por la ausencia de restricciones ticnicas o econ6micas que no le permitan exaaer agua. En el caso de L a Loma, corn0 yd se ha rnencionado, se conjuntaron ambas restricciones, tuvo que interrumpir el riego por fallas ticnicas del motor que no pudieron ser resuelras por falta de liquidez de 10s usuarios. L a Gavilana ernpez6 tarde a regar debido a una falla del transformador l o que ocasion6 que no pudieran dar a sus usuarios cinco riegos.Se observa que las UR de aguas subterriineas con menor numero de usuarios resuelven con menor dificultad las tareas de mantenimiento, es posible que esto se deba a que asumen con responsabilidad individual 10s cuidados del equipo.Cuando la responsahilidad es colectiva es dificil que se asuman concretamente las lahores de mantenimieuto y s610 responden a la reparaci6n del equipo cuando la falla ya esti presente.En la mayoria de 10s pozos comunitarios no existe una cuota de mantenimiento que genere un fondo snficiente para darle a1 equipo servicio continuo.Una situaciou con la que se estin enfrentando la mayoria de 10s pozos de la cuenca es el ahatimieuto de 10s niveles estatico y dinhico'\" de 10s pozos. Los requerimientos de potencia con las nuevas profundidades de e x t r a c c h superan eventualmente las caractensticas tQnicas del equipo o hacen que la eficiencia mechica baje, entonces es necesario camhiar parcial o totalmente las instalaciones, perforar a profundidades mayores o hien hacer una nueva perforation.La carrera por la extracci6n de agua, ademis del lfmite de la disponibilidad del recurso, tiene un limite econ6mico de rentahilidad y deheria tener tambikn un limite ecol6gico para la cuenca. En las UR estudiadas, 10s costos promedio de extracci6n12 para el ciclo 01 1998-1999 fluctuan entre 0.06 y 0.22 1999 Mex$/m', por otro lado, como se mencion6 anteriormente, representan entre el 8% y el 25% de 10s costos totales de producci6n. El costo de extraccih obviamente se incrementa a medida que la potencia requerida para la extracci6n se incrementa, por lo tanto, dependiendo del valor hruto de la produccidn del cultivo, 10s usuarios se podran permitir un aumento en estos costos. En la mayoria de las UR estudiadas, la capacidad del equipo de hombeo se encuentra funcionando en sus lfmites miximos. Segun estudios realizados existe un abatimiento promedio de 10s mantos acufferos de la cuenca de 2 metros anuales (Scott y Gar&-Restrepo, en prensa). En estas condiciones las UR se enfrentarh antes que con 10s limites econ6micos de rentabilidad, con la falta de disponihilidad del recurso.En el ciclo 01, cuando la DRR y la DRA son mayores que 1, la VBP/m'consumid~ siempre seri mayor respecto a la VBP/m3sUmini9,,ad,, y, en el ciclo de SC o PV ocumri lo contrario porque la demanda de riego es much0 menor que la demanda de agna dehido a las precipitaciones. La diferencia entre estos dos valores se acentua a medida que se 10s valores de DRA y DRR se alejan de 1.Cuando todo el agua suministrado es de riego como es el caso del ciclo agricola 01, la diferencia de 10s valores de VBP/m~~onsumido y \"BP/m3s\"mi\"ism.a\" se podria considerar como el costo econdmico que representa la fdta de eficiencia en el riego.(0El nivel estatico es la profundidad de la superficie hasta donde se encuentra el acuifero cuando no se extrae nada del pozo. costa de mantenimiento, costa de mano de obra y la depreciacih del equipo. El costa elictrico fue cdlculado coma la razdn entre el pago total que 10s usuarios hicieron a la CFE por concept0 de electricidad y el volurnen total de agua consumido. Por otro lado, cuando la mayor parte del agua suministrada es de las precipilaciones pluviales como es el caso de PV y SC, la diferencia entrc estos dos valores se podn'a considerar como el valor econ6mico que representa el agua de lluvia en relaci6n con el volumen aplicado a1 riego.A diferencia de bas UR de aguas subterrheas, las UR de agua superficial tienen la desventaja durante el ciclo 01 de no tener la alternativa de dar mi, riegos para elevar 10s rendimientos y como consecuencia la productividad. Como se puede ohservar en el Cuadro 3.6, en 10s dos ciclos agricolas, La Golondrina presenta valores mis altos de productividad respecto a Tro-. jes de Paul sohre todo en el ciclo SC. Durante este ciclo, La Golondrina ticne la ventaja de tener una mayor capacidad de captaci6n y almacenamiento y por lo tanto tiene la posibilidad de dar un riego de auxilio, ademk del riego de punteo\" .Cuadro 3.6. NOTA: Para el cicio 0 1 el cultivo base fue trigo, en ia UR Trojes de Paul, se sembr6 cebada per0 se hizo la equivalencia con el trigo. Pam ei ciclo SC el cultivo que se sembro fue sorgo.Como hemos visto, 10s valores de la prodnctividad se mejoran con la siemhra dc un cullivo mis rentable o hien, con un nlimero de riego suficiente para alcanzar un buen rendimiento. Desafortunadamente, como se habia mencionado anteriormente, dadas las condiciones actuales de las UR yue se ahastecen de aguas superficiales, ninguna de estas dos altemativas puede ser alcanzada con facilidad.Se conoce como riego depunteo al que se aplica en cam de que no haya llovido antes de sembrar durante el ciclo PV o SC y a1 riego de uuxilio al que se aplica a1 thnino del mismo ciclo en caso de que no haya llovido lo suficiente y pueda perderse la cosecha o bdjar el rendimiento.Mas importante a ~n es resaltar que dentro de estas dos alternativas hay factores externos que no garantizan el 4xito de una mejora en la productividad. La infraestructura de comercializaci6n y el control del mercado de las hortalizas ocasionan que aunque se obtenga buena cosecha no se logre vender, y por lo mismo no existan ganancias o incluso se generen perdidas. AdemBs, aunque se obtenga un buen rendimiento en granos el precio que se paga por ellos es tan bajo que 10s aumentos en productividad son pequefios.Una vez hecho el analisis dentro de las UR seleccionadas, podemos concluir que la situacidn mris critica de productividad se encnentra en las productoras de granos. Merece la pena entonces que se haga un anrilisis rnis a detalle en este gmpo. En el siguiente apartado, se realiza un anaisis histdrico en este sector que representa aproximadamente el 88% de la superficie cultivada por UR en el ertado. Las UR analizadas son nuevamente La Golondrina, Trojes de Paul y La Gavilana.Las variables que intervienen en la productividad son la superficie cosechada, el rendimiento y el precio medio rural (PMR). Tanto la superficie cosechada como el rendimiento dentm de las UR productoras de granos se mantienen dentro de un rango restringido por factores internos: condiciones fisicas de la UR y la misma naturaleza del cultivo. Sin embargo, el PMR como se observa en la Figuras 3.5 presenta un amplio rango de variaciones en funci6nde factores extemos que no dependen del agricultor.Es realmente alarmante la caida tan estrepitosa que ban sufrido 10s PMR en 10s liltimos af~os: 10s precios del ciclo agricola 1998-1999 para sorgo, maiz y trigo, representan respectivamente el 69%, 53% y 64% del promedio de PMR de la serie hist6rica 1979-1991. El maiz es el cultivo mis rentable de 10s cultivos principales, sin embargo, su PMR es el menos estable y el que mhs se ha visto disminuido en relaci6n con el precio promedio durante 1979-1990.El ciclo agricola que parece m b prodnctivo para las UR productoras de granos es el de P-V, principalmente porque el precio medio rural mAs alto es el de el maiz, cultivo principal durante ese ciclo. En las series histdricas de la productividad par unidad de superficie cosechada (Figuras 3.6-3.8) puede apreciarse la misma tendencia que la registrada en la serie histbrica de 10s PMR (Figura 3.5). Esta situacidn nos hace pensar que el PMR es el factor extemo que principalmente determina la productividad de un sistema.La VBP/ha que se registra durante el ciclo PV 1983-1984 en La Golondrina, como se puede ver en la figura 3.6 se trata de un valor que corresponde a la productividad de jitomate. Aunque la superficie que se sernbrd (5 has) es despreciable en relaci6n con la superficie total de la UR, se muestra con el propdsito de ilustrar la gran diferencia entre la productividad de granos y hortalizas. La Gavilana presenta cn la figura 3.8 valores de productividad ligeramente mis hajos de 10s valores correspondientes alas otras dos UR, pero se mantienen mas estahles a lo largo de 10s atios y cntre 10s ciclos agricolas de 01 y PV ISC. La GaViland podria tener la ventaja de aventurarse a producir cultivos mas rentables, pero aqui ohservamos las restricciones no ticnicas, factores extemos, que les impiden hacerlo: la comercializaci6n y la organizacidn para producir en sociedad como tendria que hacerse para evitar problemas de manejo del agua.Mientras que 10s PMR van a la baja, 10s rendimientos se mantienen estables, la superficies de riego estan limitadas fisicamente o debido alas disponihilidad de agua. Esta situaci6n ha ocasionado que la productividad de las UR tenga una inclinacih decadente. Las alternativas que tiene el pequeiio agricultor, con superficie media de 2 hdusnario, son pocas puesto que las variables que parcialmente puede controlar, el rendimiento y la superficie cosechada ya las ha explotado.La posibilidad de producir otros cultivos mas rentables yue podrian mejorar su situaci6n, es muy dificil de ser implementada bajo el sistema tradicional de manejo del agua presente en la mayorfa de las UR. Sobre todo en aquellas que se ahastecen de aguas superficiales, se requiere de transfomciones en sus sistemas de riego y en su organizaci6n para poder llevarlas a cabo. Por otro lado, 10s valores de productividad se ven severamente mermados con 10s costos de producci6n. En el Cuadro 3.7, se aprecia la disminucidn que ha sufrido utilidad del agricultor tomando como referencia 10s costos para el ciclo 1998-1999. En la medida que el increment0 en 10s costos de producci6n por superficie aumenten desproporcionadamente en relaci6n con 10s aumentos en la VBP/ha , el heneficio real obtenido por el agricultor sera minimo.Cuadro 3.7. Valores promedio ponderados por hecthea relativos a 10s cnstos e ingresos de la producci6n agricola en el estado de Guanajuato. NOTAS: Los costos de produccion presentados no incluyen los costos financieros ni de seguro. Tanto 10s costos como las productividades de 1998-1999 presentadas en el cuadro se basaron en datos secundarios recolectados en diversos departarnentos de la SAGAR, per0 principalrnente se refieren a inforrnacion de entrevistas directas con 10s usuarios. La productividad de 1998-1999, es el promedio ponderado de 10s valores que se han presentando en el documento.La pequeiia agricultura tiene el riesgo de convertirse definitivamente en un estilo de vida mb que en nivel cuenca y el costo social tarnbit% es considerable. Se estima que la utilidad del dltimo ciclo un rnedio de sustento econ6mico y en este sentido, el agua utilizada tiene un costo altfsimo a agricola PV (Cuadro 3.7), que es el ciclo mas productivo en granos, equivale aproximadamente a que el agricultor percibiera un ingreso mensual por hectarea de 50.20 1994 US$ durante 10s cinco meses que dura el ciclo.Las UR de ejidatarius productores de granos son 10s casos ma's criticos. La ganancia estimada para 10s usuarios de &as UR (la superficie media por usuario en estos sistemas es de 0.5 a 2 ha), cs inferior a1 salario m'nimo. Sc puede afirmar que el cost0 de oportunidad, la remuneracidn econdmica del trabajo que podria desempefiar el pequefio agricultor como empleado, es mayor que el beneficio econ6mico obtenido por su actividad agricola. Aproximadamente la utilidad de 3 has por ciclo equivaldria a1 ingreso de un salario minim0 mensual durante cinco meses.Comparacih de las Unidades de Riego con 10s M6dulos de Riego Se dicc que las UR son mas productivas que 10s DR en tirminos de superficie cultivada y agua suministrada en un 37% y 78% respectivamente (FAO, 1994). Para comprobar estos indicadores porcentuales, despu6s del ana'lisis sobre el manejo del agua y la productividad de las UR que se ha realizado en 10s apartados anteriores, se realiz6 la comparacidn de 6stos con 10s obtenidos en 10s M6dulos de Riego (MR)\" del DR 001 \"Alto Ria Lerma\". Los indicadores que se comparan son: disponibilidad relativa de agua (DRA), produccidn por unidad de superficie cultivada (VBP/ha) y produccidn por unidad de agua suministrada (VBP/m' s.\"a\"isldO ). Estos indicadores fueron calculados para 10s MR con la misma metodologia, previamente descrita, que fue aplicada a las UR. Utilizando para ello el informe de distribuci6n de agua y el informe de producci6n agricola, tomando 10s valores de rendimiento a nivel de DR. A continuaci6n se presentan 10s resultados obtenidos.Primeramente se. muestran en el Cuadro 3.8 10s valores de DRA para 10s MR para aguas superficiales en cuatro ciclos de 01, para ubicar c6mo se ha manifestado el DRA durante estos ultimos cuatro afios. Los valores del ciclo agricola 98-99 serin utilizados para la comparacidn con 10s valores obtenidos en las unidades de riego, previamente expresados. De 10s datos se observa que el MR que mayor DRA promedio registra durante estos cuatro ciclos es Salvatierra con 4.0 y el MR que menor DRA promedio presenta es Valle con 1.6. Esto puede ser explicado debido a que en el primer0 su infraestructura hidroagricola se encuentra en muy malas condiciones (a la fecha opera el canal mas antiguo de Latinoadrica), mientras que elLos M6dulos de Riego corresponden a las asociaciones de usuarios de agua (AUA)formadas para llevar a cabo la transferencia de 10s DR. Por su ubicacion y irea de riego que dominan en conjunto, 10s MR dan forma y Ifmites a un DR.Unidades de Riego: La Otrd Mitdd del Sector Agricola Bajo Ricgo en Mixico segundo su infraestructura es mucho mejor gran p a t e del canal principal tiene revestimiento de piedra, reduciendo las perdidas por conducci6n.El volumen de agua se ha reducido en todo el DR 001 \"Alto Rfo Lenna\" debido a una disminucidn en la caplacidn de aguas y por consecuencia, la asignaci6n volumktrica a 10s usuarios tambiin ha sido reducida. Los MR han optado por mantener la misma superficie de cultivo a pesar de esta situacidn y atraido como consecuencia 10s usnarios han realizddo un mejor manejo del agua; se observa und disminucidn en la lamina aplicada. Estos cambios se reflejan en 10s valores decrecientes de DRA desde 3.0 en el ciclo 94-95 hasta 1.6 en el ciclo 98-99.  1994-1995 -~ 1995-1996  1996-1997  1998 NOTA: Los valozs de la DRA de las UR de El Llanito y el Rancho R. son a nivel sistema a diferencia de 10s valores antes presentados que separaban 10s valores por tipo de cultivo (hortalizas y granos).Es importante considerar que esta discrepancia puede estar favorecida por una subestimacidn del6rea regada en 10s MR; las superficies utilizadas para el chlculo de estos indicadores son las reportadas en 10s informes. El robo de agua es frecuente y el control en su distribucidn no es muy efectivo (ver Capitulo 2). Otro aspecto favorable para las UR es que la supervisidn de su riego es realizada por 10s mismos usuarios. AdemBs, por el reducido numero de socios, dificilmente encontramos lotes que superen a 10s 200 m de longitud y la superficie por usuano es mas pequeria, al igual que la red de distribucidn por lo tanto se reducen l% pirdidas por conducci6n. Mientras tanto, en lo MR es frecuente encontrar lotes que superen estas longitudes y la eficiencia de conduccidn es mucho menor. El MR de Huanimaro no tuvo producci6n durante el ciclo PVISC.Coma puede observarse en el Cuadro 3.10, en el ciclo PVlSC las UR presentan un promedio ponderado de DRA de 1.8, tanto en aguas subterrineas coma en aguas superficiales. En 10s MR la DRA en aguas subterrineas fne mayor que en aguas superficiales, 10s valorcs fueron 2.4 y 2.0 respectivamente. En este ciclo la mayor parte de la demanda de agua del cultivo es satisfecha por las precipitaciones pluviales, entonces el volumen que sera suministrado no es posible pronosticarlo. En estas circunstancias, las UR tienen mayor flexibilidad en sus sistemas de tal forma quc les permitan adecuarse de forma mis ripida a las extemalidades climatol6gicas suministrado oportunamente solo 10s riegos requeridos.Los resultados indican que para ambos casos existe un mayor VBP/ha a1 utilizar aguas subterrheas que al utilkar aguas superficiales; para aguas subterrineas el promedio general dc es (Cuadro 3.11). Como se habfa discutido anteriormente, 10s cultivos mis rentables son regados en el mayor de 10s casos con aguas subterrineas, se espera entonces que la productividad tanto de MR como en UR abastecidas con istas aguas, presenten mayores indices de productividad.Dentro de 10s sistemas que se abastecen de pozos profundos, 10s MR fueron supeiiores que las UR en un 44 76. Debemos tomar con cautela este valor ya que existen UR de pozo con sistemas altamente prodnctivas como es el caso del Rancho R. que su productividad por hectirea es de US$1,837/ha, ademis, nuestra muestra no incluye UR con 10s cultivos mis productivos de El Bajio (ver Cdpitulo 1). El impacto que tienen estos cultivos en 10s indicadores de productividad se ilustra en 10s MR de Jaral Cortazar, y Salamanca; 6stos cultivan br6coli (que tiene un VBP/ha de 5,684 1999 US$/ha) en el 32%, 13% y 19% de su superficic respectivamente y otras hortalizas como ccbolla y ajo yue tambikn son muy rentables. Generalmente en 10s MR existe al menos un porcentaje minimo de cultivo de hortalizas lo que hace que en la mayoria de 10s casos Sean mas productivos que las UR seleccionadas. El m6dulo la Purisima fue el quc registro el VBP/ha mis bajo, h e de tan solo 1,398 I9Y4 US$/ ha; este mcidulo eslablece el 92% del cultivo de trigo. Por otro lado, 10s MR de aguas superficiales tambiin presentan en un 11.2% mayor productividad por hectarea que las UR. La presencia de hortalizas regadas con aguas superficiales en 10s MR les da esta ventaja, en contraste, como lo se ha discutido, las UR de aguas superficiales cultivan en la mayoria de 10s casos s61o granos.El comportamiento para el ciclo PV/SC present6 una situaci6n similar que en el ciclo de 01, es decir, la producci6n por hectirea en 10s MR es mayor que en las UR, tanto en aguas subterrineas como superficiales; en aguas subterrineas 10s MR fueron superiores en un 28% y en el tip0 de fuente superficial en un 17% (Cuadro 3.12). En este ciclo la produccicin de hortalizas en 10s MR es menor que el ciclo 01 por lo que el porcentaje de mayor productividad respecto alas UR tambiin se redujo (en 01 es 44.1%). Sin embargo, vemos que el porcentaje de mayor productividad aument6 ligeramente respecto a 01 (que es de 11%) en el caso de aguas superficiales. Las tendencias registradas en este indicddor estiin completamente relacionadas con las observadas e n la productividad en tkrminos de superficie y en la disponibilidad del recurso hidrico. En 01 nuevamente e l riego con pozos profundos es e l que produce un mayor valor de la cosecha por cada metro clibico d c agua que se aplica (Cuadro 3.11). La mayor discrepancia entre MR y UR en la productividad por unidad de agua suministrada se presenta e n aguas subterrineas; mientras que la diferencia porcentudl en aguas en las superficiales es de 9%, en las subterrineas es de 35%. Estos porcentajes corresponde a la relaci6n con la VBP/ha aunque se ve reducido e l efecto porque la DRA es menor en las UR en ambos casos.Cuadro 3.12. Indicadores de productividad agricola en las Unidades y M6dulos de Riego, PVJSC 1999-1999. 1999 1994 1999 1994 1999 1994 1999 1994 ~ UR RanchoR. La hipotesis planteada inicialmente es parcialmente verdadera. La facilidad del manejo debido al tamafio de 10s sistemas de riego de las Unidades de Riego se ve favorecida unicamente en la eficiencia de conduccion. Sin embargo, la eficiencia de aplicacion del riego no se ve influenciada por las magnitudes del sistema, esta depende del sistema de riego utilizado. En la produccion de granos e incluso de algunas hortalizas se utiliza el sistema mas rudimentario de aplicacion riego (agua rodada o por inundaci6n) y s61o sistemas mis sofisticados, como lo es el riego por goteo o aspersion, e s t h presentes en el cultivo de hortalizas. Mientras se utilice el mismo sistema de aplicacion, las laminas brutas promedio aplicadas son muy similares dentro del mismo tamafio de Uniddd de Riego.En nuestra muestra de estudio, las Unidades de Riego productoras de granos de aguas subterrineas, aplicaron laminas promedio por riego de 17 a 20 cm y las de aguas superficiales, que siempre sonde mayor superficie, de 22 a 24 cm. En el caso de las laminas aplicadas para las UR con produccion de hortalizas la variation por riego es muy amplia; como por ejemplo tenemos el Rancho R. donde tiene un sistema de goteo aplican una lamina promedio por riego de 8 cm con una frecuencia de cada diez dias y donde utiliza el riego rodado una lamina de 17 cm por riego una frecuencia de cada veinte dias.De acuerdo a 10s datos de campo obtenidos, la lirnina bruta total media ponderada es de 100 cm y las eficiencias totales flucthan entre 60% y 70%En muchas ocasiones lo que conduce a un manejo m6s eficiente del agua en las Unidades de Riego son las restricciones tkcnicas de sus sistema y la carencia economics. En las Unidades de Riego m8s desfavorecidas, se manifiestan manejos m6s eficientes del agua ya que aplican menores l h i n a s totales de riego aunque la l6mina promedio por riego es muy similar. Se puede sefialar que a medida que la Disponibilidad Relativa de Agua incrementa, la tendencia de 10s valores de Productividad por Unidad de Superfcie cosechada es tambikn aumenten. Un buen manejo del agua tendria valores de productividad altos y valores de disponibilidad relativa de agua cercanos a 1.De acuerdo a 10s resultados obtenidos en la disponibilidad relativa de agua (fluctuan entre 0.9 y 2.0 para el caso de las productoras de granos y para el caso de las productoras de entre 1.8 a 3.4), casi ninguno de 10s sistemas operan en dptimas condiciones aunque exista un volumen restringido de agua y quede superficie sin cultivarse o se den menos riegos de 10s que comlinmente aplican. Por lo tanto, aunque se comprob6 que tienen una eficiencia aceptable para la tCcnica de riego que aplican, sus problemas de agua no estin resueltos y parece que s61o con cambios drasticos en las tkcnicas de riego (como lo es el riego presurizado: aspersih o goteo) podrfa modificarse sustancialmente las eficiencias de aplicaci6n.Sin embargo, estos cambios s610 resultarfan redituables si se producen hortalizas y se logran introducir al mercado satisfactoriamente.La productividad de las Unidades de Riego no esti directamente relacionada con la responsabilidad de 10s usuarios por el mantenimiento de la infraestructura y la produccihn agricola como se habia planteado en la hip6tesis inicial. Otros factores externos son 10s que determinan principalmente sus indices de productividad, entre &tos encontramos 10s precios medios rurales y la estructura comercial que no permite la diversificacih a cultivos mas rentables como lo son las hortalizas. Las Unidades de Riego que han logrado superar estas barreras lo han hecho gracias a una organization s6lida y por contar con asesona oportuna, estos aspectos estrin presentes generdmente en funcion de la solvencia econ6mica. El caso de las Unidades Productoras de granos es el mas critico, representan el 88% de la superficie cultivada en Guanajuato y sus productividades oscilan entre 5,400 y 10,000 1999 Mex$/ha (568 y 1,053 1999 US$/ha). En contraste las productoras de hortalizas tiene valores de productividad hasta 6 veces m& altos.En ultimas fechas es cuestionable lo que se dice respecto a la mayor productividad de las Unidades de Riego en contraste con lade 10s M6dulos. Es necesario tener una muestra de estudio mas amplia para llegar a conclusiones definitivas y es imprescindible hacer un an& h i s de fondo sobre 10s patrones de cultivo registrados en ambas modalidades de riego (Unidades de Riego y Distritos de Riego). Finalmente es el indicador principal, dadas l a condiciones del sector agricola, de la productividad por nnidad de superficie sembrada. En igualdad de valor bmto de produccion por hectirea y mismo sistema de aplicaci6n de riego (agua rodada, riego localizado, o riego por aspersibn), las Unidades de Riego siempre tendrh mayor productividad por unidad de agua sumistrada gracias a su eficiencia de conducci6n y a la flexibilidad de manejo de su sistema.Para estimar la demanda de agua y de riego del cultivo, se us6 el programa CROPWAT elaborado por la FA0 y 10s datos climatol6gicos de la estaci6n meteorol6gica mas cercana a la entidad de riego correspondiente. Para la estimaci6n de 10s indicadores en las series histbricas, las temperaturas miximas y minimas que se utilizaron son valores promedios mensuales de 10s valores registrados en el period0 1979-1999 en la estaci6n meteorol6gica de Tacubaya. Un anilisis estadistico de este conjunto de datos arroj6 valores de coeficientes de variaci6n dentro de un rango de 0.03 a 0.07 para las temperaturas miximas mensuales, valores dentro de un rango de 0.1 a 0.8 para las temperaturas m'nimas mensuales de marzo a noviembre y valores de coeficientes de variaci6n mayores de 2.0 para 10s meses de diciembre. De esta manera, se utilizan valores promedio en las temperaturas para todos 10s arios de las series hist6ricas sin temor a caer en errores importantes de 6rdenes de magnitud en la estimaci6n de las demandas con el programa CROPWAT. Los valores de humedad relativa, velocidad de viento, horas luz y radiacidn, son producto de una extrapolacidn de valores promedios de series histbricas registradas en las estaciones de Guanajuato y Morelia, estaciones m& completas de la zona que tienen disponible esta infor-maci6nI5 , En el cuadro A 3. I se muestran 10s valores obtenidos de ETo que fueron utilizados en laestimacidn de la evapotranspiracidn de cultivo (ETJ Debido a que se utilizaon valores promedio en el chlculo de ETo se obtuvieron demandas de agua para cada uno de 10s cultivos iguales para todos 10s ciclos agrfcolas. Sin embargo, como se muestra en el Cuadro A 3.2, la demanda de riego sufri6 variaciones en funcidn de la precipitacidn pluvial como era de esperarse.Cabe mencionar que dicho programa aplica el mitodo Penman Monteith en el c6lculo de la evapotranspiracih de referencia (ETo) y ademh explicar las consideraciones que se tomaron a1 utilizar 10s datos requeridos. En el Cuadro A 3.2 se presentan 10s valores obtenidos para la demanda de agua y de riego de 10s principales cultivos. ---___--- Ademas de cumplir con el objetivo de analizar la veracidad de 10s \"mitos\" que se han generado en relaci6n alas Unidades de Riego (UR) en Mkxico, nos interesa aportar reflexiones sobre la sostenibilidad de 10s sistemas de pequeAa irrigacidn y aventuranios a hacer un anilisis de sus perspectivas. Aunque la muestra de nuestro estudio no tiene la representatividad estadfstica necesariapara comprobar &to en forma definitiva, 10s resultados de 10s indicadores proporcionan un panorama qne se podrfa extender a las UR en el estado de Guanajuato con caracteristicas similares, mismas que se detallan en el capftulo 1 de la presente publicaci6n.De esta manera pretendemos realizar una reflexion global con la finalidad de contextualiaar la importancia de las UR en Mexico, la otra mitad del subsector riego, en funci6n de la aportaci6n presente y de la futura que se podria esperar de ellas.A grandes rasgos se puede definir sostenibilidad coma una condici6n en que 10s sistemas naturales y sistemas sociales sobreviven y crecen juntos; de manera arm6nica para generaciones presentes sin comprometer la seguridad de generaciones futuras. Esto implica que existe la capacidad de superar las crisis intemas y externas que se presenten. Para ser sostenible, el proceso de desarrollo debe proteger y restaurar 10s sistemas naturales, fortalecer el bienestar de la poblaci6n y mejorar la economia. Desgraciadamente, estos tres objetivos muchas veces son incompatibles. Por lo tanto, el desarrollo sostenible es, fundamentalmente un asunto de manejo; de considerar cuidadosamente 1% opciones basadas en informaci6n oportuna sobre 10s temas econ6micos, sociales y ambientales, y con una compresi6n profunda de las interacciones entre estos temas (Scott et al, 1998).En este sentido, para hablar sobre la sostenibilidad de las UR y evaluar si estos sistemas tienen la capacidad de superar las crisis intemas y extemas, se tiene que hacer una Clara distinci6n entre 10s factores intemos y 10s externos que determinan esta capacidad. Una vez hecha esta distinci6n se puede entonces asignar responsabilidades y establecer planes de acci6n. Es necesario hacer esta evaluaci6n desde cada uno de 10s tres objetivos que anteriorrnente han sido mencionados: prote8er y restaurar el sistema natural, fortalecer el bienestar de la poblaci6n y mejorar la economia.Unidades de Riego: La Otra Mitad del Seclor Agncola Bajo Ricgo en MixicoPara el caso de las UR, el sistema natural se trata de la fuente de abastecimiento (aguas subterrfineas y superficiales) y del sistema de riego (infraestructura para la conducci6n y aplicaci6n del riego); per0 en un sentido mfis amplio abarca la Cuenca Lerma-Chapala a la cual pertenece las UR estudiadas. En este anilisis, el significado de protecci6u corresponde a las medidas preventivas de mantenimiento y de manejo para un us0 racional del recurso hidrico, y la restauraci6n se refiere a las acciones de mejora y reparaci6n del sistema.En primera instancia, con respecto a la protecci6n y restauraci6n de las fuentes de abastecimiento y de 10s sistemas de riego, se observa en la mayoria de 10s casos poca capacidad para afrontar satisfactoriamente las crisis de escasez de agua (sobre todo subterrhea) y para mejorar o mantener el sistema de riego en buenas condiciones de operaci6n. Es decir, no se encuentra en una condici6n sostenible. La inversi6n econ6mica requerida para ello estfi condicionada por la productividad de la UR. Especialmente las productoras de granos que son las menos productivas (ver Capitulo 3), el tomar medidas de prevenci6n y dar mantenimiento adecuado a sus sistemas de riego implica que sacrifiquen o inviertan parte de su lacerado beneficio econ6mico. Sin embargo, alguuas medidas de orden organizativo (ver Capitulo 2) podrian ayudar sustancialmente en la mejora del manejo del agua y del sistema sin implicar necesariamente un costo econ6mico fuera de su alcance.La ausencia de cuotas por el servicio de agua a 10s usuarios (ver capitulo 2) es un importante factor intemo que debe ser atendido por 10s usuarios de las UR. De la misma forma, debe procurarse una mayor solidez organizacional que le proporcione representatividad en formas como Sociedades de Produccih Rural de R.I.(Responsabilidad Ilimitada) o R.L. (Responsabilidad Limitada). Bajo esta personalidad jurfdica, tienen la posibilidad de captar fondos y programas de apoyo gubemamental para el mejoramiento de la infraestmctura de su sistema de riego, siempre y cuando tengan liquidez econ6mica para aportar la parte que les corresponde de la colnversicin (ver Capitulo I).El manejo inadecuado de la cuenca no puede ser resuelto directamente por 10s usuarios del pequeiio riego, pero la asignaci6n adecuada del recurso hidrico dentro de su sistema es su responsabilidad. Cabe sefialar que uno de 10s retos, tauto para las UR como para 10s MR, es su participaci6n dinimica en la organizaci6n a nivel estatal en el us0 agricola del agua. En las aguas subterrhmeas es importante por el costo que implica la extracci6n y en las superficiales porque es un factor determinante en el rendimiento de 10s cultivos'\" l6En el capitulo 3 se discute que las UR de aguas superticiales a1 tener un cierto volumen disponible de agua, recurren a mecanismos de asignaci6n en funci6n de la superficie y numeros de riego. De esta manera su manejo puede llegar a ser m8s racional aunque en ocasiones es a costa de su productividadEd: Paula Silva-OchodDe acuerdo a 10s resultados obtenidos sobre la disponibilidad relativa de agua en las UR estudiadas (ver Capitulo 3) casi ninguna UR opera bajo riego deficitario (aplicaci6n de volumen de agua par debajo de la demanda estimada del cultivo que intenta optimizar la relaci6n beneficio-costo). Se hablade volumenes insuficientes de aguapara riego, en algunas ocasiones queda superficie sin cultivarse o se dan menos riegos de 10s que comunmente aplican. Esto indica que aun queda un margen para mejorar el manejo del agua y por lo tanto, la planificaci6n en la asignaci6n de voldmenes de riego en funci6n de datos reales de demandas de agua del cultivo (ver Capitulo 3) es otro factor que debe ser atendido dentro de la UR. Es evidente que la asistencia tecnica para aquellas UR que no tienen acceso a 10s canales de informaci6n o a la consultoria privada, deber ser proporcionada por instancias gubernamentales.La Cuenca Lerma-Chapala en Mkxico, tiene una demanda total de agua consumida que significativamente excede la disponibilidad de agua (de Anda et al., 1998;Consejo Consultivo, 1991). Las fuentes superficiales y, subterrineas de la cuenca son objeto de una competencia desenfrenada y ripido agotamiento, mientras que la calidad del agua es und gran preocupaci6n (Mestre, 1997). La Comisidn Nacional del Agua (CNA), autoridad de la cuenca, no calcula anualrnente 10s balances de agua, y es dificil cuantificar la dimensi6n del agotamiento del recurso hfdrico a nivel de cuenca por falta de datos precisos del irea cultivada, particularmente relativa a la pequeriu irrigucidn.Los abatimientos de 10s mantos freiticos y la disminuci6n de 10s volumenes de escunimiento que afectan a las IJR en Guanajuato son consecuencias de la sobre-explotaci6n existente en la cuenca; Flores y Scott (2000) mencionan para el caso especifico de la microcuenca del Rio del Cuba, en el estado de Guanajuato, que existe una relaci6n directa entre 10s escurrimientos y las recarga a 10s acuiferos, de tal forma que a medida que se abatan 10s niveles freiticos disminuyen 10s escurrimientos.Una de las razones de la sobre-explotaci6n de 10s acuiferos es el aumento de las superficies de regadas en UR. La superficie cosechada en la agricultura bajo riego prtkticamente ha permanecido constante, a pesar de que ha disminuido la superficie regada por DR, gracias a que la superfkie cosechada en la pequefia irrigaci6n ha aumentado, principalmente a partir de 1980 (CNNCP, 1998). La mayor parte de la superficie nueva es regada con agua de pozos profundos, las UR de aguas superficiales se han deteriorado y han dejado de producir (se les puede atribuir a &as las 856,000 ha de las UR, incluyendo SC, que ya no son cultivadas en el pafs). Por un lado, las estadisticas sefialan la existencia en el estado de Guanajuato de 4,842 UR de pozos profundos y 1,7 18 pozos particulares y ofciules\" dentro del Distrito de Riego (DR) principal del estado, No.011 \"Alto Rio Lerma\" (ver Capftulo l), y por otro la Comisi6n Federal de Electricidad (CFE) repoaa 15,711 usuarios de Tarifa 09 y 9M (que es la tarifa que le corresponde a1 riego agn'cola) (1999).Los pozos que son manejados dentro de 10s Distritos de Riego se les llama ofciales.La garantia de la sostentabilidad del sistema natural que abastece a las UR, quedari determinada por la combinacion de acciones tanto a nivel local, como a nivel cuenca y nacional. Es evidente la necesidad de acciones inmediatas en todos 10s niveles, las implicaciones de postergarlas trasciende a todos 10s sectores productivos. La combinacion de factores hidrol6gicos, econ6micos e institucionales, puede ser capaz de estabilizar el us0 del agua subterrinea. Las consecuencias y alternativas de solucih se exponen con mayor detenimiento en el aniilisis de perspectivas.La pequefia irrigacidn aporta bienestar a la poblaci6n tanto por ser partc del sector rural como por su concepcion en si misma. No se sabe exactamente el numero de usuarios involucrados en la production agricola de UR. Dentro de 1as registradas, que son alrededor de la mitad que hay en Mexico, existen 574,338 usuarios (ver Capitulo 1).La estructura organizacional de las UR de tenencia ejidal propicia un esquema de participa-ci6n que fomenta valores sociales como la equidad, sentido de pertenencia, solidaridad. Entre mis pequefia es la UR se favorecen las relaciones de equidad y aparece la participacion directa de las mujeres (ver Capftulo 2). Por otro lado, aquellas UR depequeriospropietano~ que han logrado desarrollarse como agroindustrias y posicionarse en el mercado intemacional o local de manera importante, representa una importante fuente de trabajo. En Guanajuato, el 20.8% de la poblaci6n econ6micamente activa se ocupa en actividades agropecuarias (INEGl, 1997a). En este sentido, la pequeria irrigacicin tiene mecanismos efectivos para el fortalecimiento de bienestar a la sociedad.Otros factores que determinan la productividad de las UR, ponen en riesgo la sostenibilidad del bienestar social que propicia el acceso autonorno a1 agua. La poca rentahilidad de la produccidn agricola esta convirtiendo a la agricultura en una actividad econdmica residual fomentando la blisqueda de otras fuentes de ingreso; la migraci6n del campo a la ciuddd o a Norteamkrica, empleo en las ciudades o en la industrias. Ademis, esta circunstancia ha Ilevado al escenario a mujeres que no solamente se responsabilizan de sus hogares sino que tienen que asumir las responsabilidades de la parcela (ver Capitulo 2). La poblacih rural continiia desc.endiendo: mientras en 1950 representaba el 64.2% de la poblacih nacional, en 1995 agmpa solo a1 26.5% de la pohlaci6n total (INEGI, 1997b).Una vital labor que cumplen las UR en Mexico a favor del bienestar de la poblacion es la producdn de alimentos; producen 26% del valor de la producci6n agricola (incluyendo superficie de temporal y riego) con s6l0 el 10.6 % de la superficie total sembrada (temporal y riego) (CENGDUR, 1997). Dadas las condiciones actuales de mercado y economicas, la pequeria irrigacidn no ha logrado satisfacer la demanda nacional de alimentos.El crecimiento de la poblacihn ha rebasado a1 producto del sector primario, lo cual ha obli-gad0 a1 gobierno federal a importar ingentcs cantidades de productos agropecuarios, principalmente granos bisicos y oleaginosas. El sector primario ha tenido una tasa de crecimiento negativo del6% en el primer semestre de 1998 (CNAKP, 1998). A continuaci6n se ahordaran las posibles causas de 6ste retroceso relacionado con la productividad de las UR.Existe una clara distincihn entre la productividad de Iapequeria irrigacidn por tipo de cultivo y tenencia de tierra (ver Capitulo 2 y 3). Las UR realmente productivas son las productoras de cultivos hortofruticolas y generalmente son manejadas por pequeftospropietarios; pueden ser hasta 6 veces mris productivas por hectarea que aquellas que producen granos. De esta forma s610 el 12% del pequeriu riego que se dedica a la producci6n de hortalizas (ajo, br6coli, calabacita, ceholla, chile, papa,,fresa y esprirrago) en Guanajuato (Cruz, 1995) cumple con el objetivo de mejorar la cconomia de 10s usuarios y de las familias que dependen de 61. Sin embargo, no debemos olvidar que detras de las UR, asicomo de 10s productores agrkolas en general, existe toda una serie de empresas que prestan sus servicios suministrando 10s insumos agricolas requeridos y que, jndependientemente del beneficio econhmico que el agricultor genere, 6stas han seguido necibiendo la remuneracihn correspondiente. En este sentido, se observa una agricultura subsidiada por el mismo agricultor (ver capitulo 2).Ante las politicas macroeconcimicas neoliberales que intentan evitar la intervencicin del estado, no parecen claros 10s limites de responsabilidad para cumplir con una sostenibilidad econcimica. Mientras kstos se definen, las diferencias en productividad entre las UR continiian acentubdose. Es evidente que las condiciones externas no han propiciado la rentabilidad econ6mica de la mayoria de las UR. Los programas de apoyo gnbernamentales (ver Capitulo 1) han favorecido principalmente a las UR que reunen condiciones de liquidez econ6mica y 10s subsidios en 10s precios de 10s productos agricolas asi como en la tarifa elkctrica (09 y 9M) han ido disminuyendo.No obstante las condiciones externas, existen algunos factores internos que tambi6n entorpecen la re-activacihn econdmica delpequefto riego. Entre kstos factores encontramos principalmente el arraigo a 10s cultivos tradicionales (granos), la equidad en la distribucicin del agua a costa de una disminucicin en la productividad y la ausencia de una estructura organizacional que sirva de vinculo en la comercializacicin y logre reducir 10s costos de produccihn. Ante este panorama de la sostenibilidad de las UR que se ha presentado, podemos realizar algunos proncisticos y presentar alternativas para lograr 10s ohjetivoa que en tCrminos generales la sostenibilidad se propone.Unidades de Riego: La Otra Mitad del Sector Agncula Bajo Riego en MixicoLa sostenibilidad del sistema natural que abastece de agua a las UR presenta retos muy grandes para el manejo de cuencas. Para 10s usuarios significa un cambio substancial en su concepci6n de manejo del agua. Por otro lado, el bienestar social que hasta ahora haproporcionado el pequerio riego, se ve amenazado por la baja productividad agricola. Se puede decir eutonces que la sostenibilidad de las UR esti determinada principalmente por la productividad que se ohtenga a partir de su explotaci6n agricola, en comhinaci6n con las circunstancias de asignacih inter-sectorial de agua que se generen. El control direct0 que ejercen Ins productores sobre su sistema no les proporciona por si solo un incentivo para mejorar su desempefio operativo ya no ven en su labor remuneration economica suficiente.Mientras su produccidn agrfcola no represente un heneficio economico no tiene sentido ni tampoco existe la posibilidad de hacer mejoras en su sistetna de riego.Para asegurar la continuation de la productividad, sostenibilidad y equidad de los recursos de agua de la cuenca, 10s rnecanismos de asignacion deben adelantarse a Ins ripidos camhios en Ins patrones de la demanda hidrica. El crecimiento urbano junto con la creciente industrializacion en la cuenca, ha generado una significativa demanda que tiene que ser satisfecha a traves de la re-asignaci6n de agua que actualmente es utilizada en el riego agricola. Los arreglos correspondientes deherh ajustarse a Ins patrones presentes y futuros de demanda, a 10s derechos existentes de agua y a 10s sistemas de distribucidn; ademis dehe pagarse una compensaci6n a 10s grupos que ceden agua. Estimaciones del valor marginal'n de 10s diferentes sectores demuestran claramente que el valor acumulado en el uso de agua urbano podria permitir la compensaci6n de 10s beneficios perdidos en la agricultura (Scott et al, en prensa)., La magnitud financiera de estas transferencias, junto con implicaciones econ6micas mayores de demanda de enelrgia y pmduccion agricola resultado de estas transferencia, requiere mejor escmtinio de 10s mecanismos de asignaci6n de agua en la cuenca. Dentro del naciente mercado de aguas aun no se time claridad sobre el futuro del pequeiio n'ego. Seguramente estari ligado a su productividad; en la medida en que la agricultura no sea rentable las UR pueden dejar de producir y sus derechos de agua seran una opcion de compra para otros sectores o incluso dentro del mismo sector para aquellas UR que se mantengan en la competencia. Puede ser tambih que por su baja productividad por m3 junto con la creciente competencia inter-sectorial por el recurso hidrico, se re-asigne su agua a otros sectores mis productivos o bien, se decida no permitir la transferencia de El valor marginal se refiere al beneficio monetario que se recibina si existiera una unidad adicional del recurso. El valor marginal miis alto en la Cuenca Lerma-Chapala se encuentra en el us0 industrial (1999 US$O.86-1.34/m3) seguidoporelusocomercial (1999US$0.26-0.94/m3) y us0 domkstico (US$0.24 -0.46/m3); 10s precios m b bajos estimados corresponden al us0 agricola diferenciados por fuente de aguas supefiiciales ( 1 999 US$0.06 -0.24/m3) y fuente de aguas subtenheas (US$0.07 -0.72/m3). (Scott et al, en prensa).productivos o bien, se decida no permitir la transferencia de derechos con el objetivo de frena la sobre-explotaci6n. Es importanoe considerar las implicaciones sociales que la transferencia de aguas conlleva; al reducirse la superficie regada por este motivo, se reducen las necesidades de mano de obra y la actividad rural propiciando una reconversi6n de actividades (del agricola al industrial o d e servicios).Por otro lado, en la asignacih masiva a nivel cueuca de voldmenes de agua hacia otros sectores, las UR tiene la ventaja de ser autonomas e independientes. Debido a su dispersih noes factible la distribuci6n de sus aguas superficiales en otros niveles que no Sean locales. POI este motivo, las UR podrian ser la parte del subsector riego menos vulnerable a las consecuencias de las tendencias de re-aiignaci6n de agua hacia otros sectores. Encontramos que en 14 estados de MCxico (Campeche, Colima, Distrito Federal, Estado de MCxico, Nuevo Le6n, Oaxaca, Puebla, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosi, Tabasco, Tlaxcala, YucatAn y Zacatecas) de 10s 32 existentes, la superficie en UR supera a la de 10s DR. Esto nos hace pensar que el mercado de aguas puede darse principalmente en ciertas zonas del pais.En las acciones afavor de la sostenibilidad del sistema natural, las UR representan un campo de acci6n potencial que por sus caracten'sticas (tamafio y nhmero de usuarios) es mas factible tener kxito en las mejoras de 10s sisteaas de riego y a un menor cost0 cornparado con 10s DR. Un ahorro del 10% de agua, que podria obtenerse con mejoras en eficiencia o en su manejo, representa un volumen' de 3,491 millones de m3 que equivale al consumo anual de alrededor de 48 millones de personas o el ahorro para el sector agricola de 209'460,000 1999 Mex $ o la posibilidad de regar m a s 303,565 ha.La baja productividad presente en la mayorfa de las UR es un problema general del sector agricola nacional; se debe principalmente a la alarmante baja de 10s precios medios males de 10s cultivos basicos (ver Capftulo 3) y a la incapacidad de la estructura comercial para hacer viable la produccion de cultivos pedecederos que generalmente son lo m8s rentables. El marco de libre mercado que ha d o gestado por el gobiemo federal no garantiza en sf mismo la igualdad de circunstancias para que Cste se de en forma genuina. El estado debe aportar una visi6n global para darle un rumbo concreto a la producci6n agricola, es decir, debe implementar ciertos mecanismos de plauificacih de siembra en funci6u de 10s nichos de mercado existentes. La intervencion gubemarnental es imprescindible para impulsar las UR que han quedado rezagadas y fomentar una comercializaci6n con igualdad de oportunidades para diversos prodnctores. Se requiere de programas de apoyo diseilados para las necesidades de 10s pequeiios agricultores mas necesitados, enfocados no s610 en la implementaci6n sinoen la capacitaci6n y asesoria (jurfdica, tkcnica, operativa, administrativa y de cornercializaci6n). De esta manera, se podria atacar de fondo la actitud receptiva propiciada par el paternalism0 de gobiernos auteriores.La necesidad de subsidios directos o indirectos junto con el creciente interks gubemamental en la asignacih de mas agua para propdsitos industriales y urbanos, tendran un efecto negativo en la sostenibilidad de las UR. Ahora ya no es una kpoca de expansi6n de la superficie de riego; es una lucha por la eficiencia y productividad del sector agricola, es una batalla por la sostenibilidad de la produccih de alimentos. Uua reducci6n de superficie total junto con una reorientaci6n de las formas de explotar la tierra, puede implicar una alternativa viable para alcanzar la sostenibilidad del sector agricola. En la implementaci6n de &as medidas, las UR por sus caracteristicas tienen mayores posibilidades de kxito. 90","tokenCount":"28121"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"74f183e02e8415821d542a427d995f16","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/1e75f023-ba35-4ba6-ade7-f7e7a90b85a7/retrieve","id":"-1270985195"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"929c8aac-5330-4f16-9014-c2ef1e828a76","pagecount":"2","content":"The rapid integrated assessment (RIA) looks explicitly at both food safety and nutritional risks to get an understanding of trade-offs in the informal value chains with a focus on major constraints to increasing production of a specific animal source food, along with characterising the production and consumption patterns and identifying factors influencing its availability and safety, and describing linkages between nutritional and food safety outcomes. New Innovation: No Innovation type: Research and Communication Methodologies and Tools Stage of innovation: Stage 3: available/ ready for uptake (AV) Geographic Scope: Global Number of individual improved lines/varieties: <Not Applicable> Description of Stage reached: This has been successfully applied in a research context but not yet institutionalised by national food systems. A tool kit has been developed and several papers published but methods are not being used more widely. A special issue of Global Food Security featured several applications of the framework.","tokenCount":"148"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"bf5bd29b3362604d087eceeace3468b6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/brief/8382-Brief.pdf","id":"-1475809972"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"fab7b310-ddc7-463a-9d78-f00cf69cc6be","pagecount":"8","content":"D'ici 2030, le gouvernement de Madagascar envisage de mettre en oeuvre la restauration de paysages forestiers (RPF) sur une superficie d'au moins 4 millions d'hectares (République de Madagascar 2017). Mais vu que plus que 60 % de la superficie du pays est classée comme pâturage permanent (FAO 2019), boisée ou non, pour que l'objectif RPF puisse être atteint, les espaces pastoraux, dont la plupart sont gérés comme des biens communs selon les systèmes fonciers coutumiers, doivent être pris en compte. Pourtant, les terres communautaires, telles que les pâturages, se trouvent actuellement dans un vide juridique : en tant que pâturage communautaire, ils ne font pas partie des terres de propriétés non titrées (PPNT), ni des terres à statuts spécifiques (TSS). Les réformes législatives visant la sécurisation des terres communautaires sont en cours. Cependant, une conception plus approfondie des systèmes fonciers coutumiers régissant les pâturages collectifs s'avère nécessaire pour que les réformes donnent les effets attendus.La présente étude de cas vient enrichir les descriptions empiriques de tenures foncières coutumières. Elle s'attache à décrire la tenure foncière des pâturages extensifs collectifs d'Andrevorevo, dans la région Sofia à Madagascar. Pour ce faire, une étude qualitative de terrain a été combinée à une étude cartographique. Les travaux de terrain se sont déroulés entre le 10 et le 24 décembre 2020. L'objectif de l'étude était de comprendre la tenure communautaire des pâturages tout en essayant de comprendre l'articulation du système foncier coutumier avec le système légal formel. Pour y parvenir, les sous-objectifs identifiés étaient de :• Comprendre le système socioécologique relatif à l'élevage bovin extensif et aux pâturages ; Pour les adeptes de l'élevage extensif en mode de gestion lignagère, le transfert de gestion est une occasion pour tenter de conserver cette pratique, avec les droits pastoraux collectifs qui s'y rattachent. La politique et les lois sur le transfert de gestion, bien que ne protégeant ni ne renforçant pas les droits coutumiers des éleveurs, permettent cependant une tolérance, voire une reconnaissance des pratiques et droits coutumiers collectifs. C'est un acquis important, car aucune loi ni aucun processus concernant la gestion des ressources naturelles à Madagascar n'a autant donné l'opportunité aux droits fonciers communautaires locaux de s'exprimer.Un premier point important ici est alors que, pour perdurer, les pratiques foncières communautaires ont besoin du support de la loi. Car, l'évolution des pratiques communautaires vers les pratiques individuelles n'est pas inéluctable, mais laisse encore une certaine marge de choix qui pourrait être exprimé en termes de coût d'opportunité. Ainsi, la loi peut proposer une option en faveur de la continuité de la gestion collective coutumière. Mais une loi mal faite ou mal conçue peut avoir l'effet contraire.Ainsi, il faut remarquer que la Loi GÉLOSE sur le transfert de gestion ne procure pas de sécurité satisfaisante pour les droits des fianakaviana sur les pâturages. En fait, elle prévoit trois modalités de sécurisation foncière, respectivement la sécurisation foncière relative ou SFR, la sécurisation foncière intermédiaire ou SFI et la sécurisation foncière optimale ou SFO. Ces trois modalités procurent un niveau de sécurisation variant d'un minimum pour la SFR, matérialisé simplement par un plan des parcelles détenu et géré par la Commune, qui peut être renforcé à l'extrême par un titre foncier pour la SFO. Normalement, SFR, SFI et SFO s'appliquent   ","tokenCount":"540"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"26f0acb4a444303c46bedc91e3ab3985","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/7e70ba74-4321-430e-90e5-a96bbbddf304/retrieve","id":"-1839169416"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"9e5e7499-808f-469b-a073-3b3f0a7d4b5f","pagecount":"8","content":"Through action research and development partnerships, Africa RISING will create opportunities for smallholder farm households to move out of hunger and poverty through sustainably intensified farming systems that improve food, nutrition, and income security, particularly for women and children, and conserve or enhance the natural resource base.The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR) have jointly worked over three decades to generate suitable technologies in food legumes through support of SAREC, the Netherlands government and IFAD and released over 20 varieties of faba bean, 26 varieties of field pea, 12 varieties of lentil and 4 varieties of Kabuli chickpea selected from both introduction and Ethiopian local germplasm or crosses of ICARDA and local. Only some of these varieties reached in the hands of farmers that could access to research centers. The remaining varieties were shelved and hence the investment and efforts made by research to develop varieties remained non-productive. This is mainly due to lack of demonstration, popularization and limited capacity of the national seed system to multiply and disseminate the varieties to the target environments. Another general constraint affecting pulses production in Ethiopia is the lack of effective links between research, extension, education and farmers. As whole the existing national breeding and seed multiplication capacity is not sufficient to address the critical seed shortages for new varieties at the national level. The fastest and cheapest is the farmers' participatory seed production that can adequately supply the needs of small holder farmers at affordable price at their own communities.Therefore, this project targets to train development agents (DAs),extension workers and farmers in technologies that are available to enhance production of food legumes in the Bale highland and demonstrate the impact of technologies and effectiveness of farmers participatory seed multiplication in technology dissemination. The project focuses mainly on technology demonstration, popularization and provision of seeds of improved varieties and simultaneously multiplies and disseminate to the farmers in both Genna (April-July) and Bonna (July-December) seasons. Interestingly, Bale highland is a unique that has two crop seasons in a year with almost equal rainfall distribution. Hence, the use of these two seasons in a year provides an opportunity to use double cropping of food legumes and cereals or cereals and food legumes to improve the overall productivity of the farming systems.The major partners in this project were the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR), Oromia Regional Agricultural Research Institute (Sinana Agricultural Research Center),Bale Zonal Administration and Agricultural Office, administration and agricultural offices of five districts, Development Agents and Farm Africa and farmers. EIAR provided the required seeds of nationally released varieties of faba bean, field pea, chickpea and lentil and enabled the project to be implemented as planned. Researchers from Holeta, Debre Zeit and Kulumsa provided technical support during planning and also training of extension workers, development agents and others. OARI management facilitated and coordinated between ICARDA and Sinana Research center and other partners. The role of OARI's Crop Research Directorate was key for the success of this project. The implementation of the project at ground level was done by Pulses and Socio-economic teams of Sinana Agricultural Research Center, Farm Africa, Development Agents and farmers. ICARDA's overall project coordinator was fully involved in planning, organizing meetings, coordinating all partners and stake holders including zonal administration and others that have relevance with this project at different levels. ICARDA's Director General approved and pre-financed the project to catch the season.This project made significant impact in revolutionizing pulses industry in the Bale highlands by making known the technologies to the administration ,agricultural officers ,extension workers, development agents and farmers through inception workshop, demonstration, popularization,, multiplication(with farmers) and dissemination of improved technologies at the time when pulses' prices went high and farmers 'demand for improved seeds was very critical. This project has been implemented in two seasons and achievements have been reported as follow:Three hundred seventy (370) farmers participated during April-July season of 2012. The challenge was that the project approved late and it was difficult to reach and organize farmers to implement the project in April-July. However, Sinana Agricultural Research Center's team was organized and aggressively worked with the help of DAs and able to provide seeds to 370 farmers in a very short time to catch the season. Field days were organized at different villages and districts and these have created high demand for seeds of improved varieties for the following season.The two chickpea varieties were planted late and not yet threshed. However, the mean yields of faba bean, filed pea and lentil in the Gena season (April-July) were 3.75 ton, 3.3 ton and 2.5 ton as shown in fig1. The yields were higher by 147%, 161% and 139% in faba bean, field pea and lentil respectively as compared to the national average seed yields 1.52, 1.26 and 1.05 tons of these crops in 2010/11(fig1). These are tremendous increase at zonal and regional level if the whole area of land planted to these crops were covered by these improved varieties. For instance, when the whole area of land planted to faba bean ,field pea and lentil in Bale zone was estimated more than half million quintals could have been harvested as compared to less than three hundred quintals actually harvested (Table1) Because of the excellent performance of these varieties during April-July season, the demand for seeds of these varieties in particular of that faba bean was extremely high for July-December planting which could not be fulfilled by EIAR and Sinana Agricultural Research Center. In the following 2013 seasons, most of the woredas will be expected to meet part of their demands.  Due to increased request for the seeds of improved varieties, we planned to involve about 2500 farmers in the July-December crop season using an area of 32m x 32m/farmer which is commonly used as standard in Bale. However, because we only focused to work with two peasant associations in each woreda (district) and crop rotation plan of some farmers did not match with our plan, the number of farmers was reduced to 1167. However, the amount of seeds for distribution and area of land were not reduced since some farmers provided with more seeds to plant as high as one hectare. Reaching over one thousand farmers in one season is a great achievement for the project and this will be considered as one of the models that ICARDA leads in farmers' participatory seed multiplication. From our experience in the \"Rapid Deployment of High Yielding and Rust Resistant Wheat Varieties For Achieving Food Security in Ethiopia\" the fastest seed distribution is through farmer-to-farmer seed distribution system. We will include adoption and impact study in the following 4-years project proposal to assess its impact food legume production and livelihoods of the poor farmers. Total number of farmers participated in the project implementation in the July-December, 2012 is given in table2. Since Africa RISING focuses on the integration of crop -livestock, we are interested to run the quality analysis of the straws of different varieties of the major four food legume crops. However, since quick win is for a short period and crops are in the fields, this did not allow us to do as we desire to include in to our data to have complete picture of integration. Probably, we will accrue the budget to cover cost of this analysis.The project targeted to reach 500 farmers but reached a total of 1537 farmers which accounts for 207% more achievement. Moreover, this project made administration, agricultural experts of zonal and woreda (district) and development agents aware of the availability of improved technologies. The impact of this project could be considered as breakthrough for Africa Rising in Ethiopia to promote and demonstrate to policy makers and donors. Administrators', agricultural officers, development agents and farmers are the major beneficiaries from the project.Locations/sites where activities took placeThe activities were implemented in five woredas (districts) in the Bale highland involving two peasant associations /woreda.Support Required from AFRICA RISINGThe basic foundation has been well established and the project has already taken off at faster rate to make Africa Rising contribution to be realized by the communities and administration at different levels. We believe that the recognition given to this project is the reflection of its success in making impact on the livelihoods of the poor resource farmers. Continued support to strengthening the development agents and training of farmers accompanied by provision of improved seeds will bring great change in the production of food legumes and improve human and livestock nutrition. If Africa Rising wishes to report an impact at the end of its five years project life, this should be scaled up in other regions.","tokenCount":"1443"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fa6b1c72e5e5fce10d8c67347d92c7a5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e694405b-ffa0-4a05-9b2a-9f169e3b4a6b/retrieve","id":"-1726632455"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8169d5a8-a8bf-4511-8257-5342fb325ada","pagecount":"10","content":"Systematic assessment of adaptation efforts and results within and across sectors, populations, countries Relevance:• Taking stock of adaptation efforts• Evaluation of adaptation adequacy and effectiveness To what effect?Is adaptation occurring?What kind of adaptation?www.cgiar.orgPlanning (Chapter 2)• Gradual progress in enacting policies and legal instruments relevant to adaptation• Little progress in tracking adaptation Implementation (Chapter 3)• (see next slides) Finance (Chapter 4)• Widening finance gap • Opportunities for gender and social inclusion in estimates of needs and flows Losses and damages (L&D) (Chapter 5)• Recognition of economic and noneconomic L&D• Innovative financial mechanisms for L&D• New reporting mechanism established by the Paris Agreement• Stand-alone document or designated NDC or NAP ","tokenCount":"108"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"816959b31c1ceb09237ee8555c9a65a8","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/bbc4b9db-445b-4ef7-8517-fd80d03adb8a/retrieve","id":"-128094096"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"230b4e11-8dcb-4277-bc46-de3c66d20f2b","pagecount":"5","content":"In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Indian government imposed a stringent national lockdown from March 24 to May 31, 2020, which caused severe disruptions across agrifood supply chains from \"farm to fork.\" The government was consistently one step behind in terms of preventing these problems (Narayanan and Saha 2020b).The lack of labor and machinery disrupted harvests and brought warehouse operations to a virtual standstill. Regulated markets where farmers sell produce were intermittently closed and village traders and merchants did not show up to make purchases. Our survey of around 370 farmers across nine Indian states found that among those who had harvested some produce this season, 29 percent were still holding on to it; 13 percent had sold the harvests at throwaway prices and about 7 percent reported that they had to let the produce go to waste.Lockdown-related problems also made it extremely difficult for many retailers to secure fresh and processed foods and to conduct business (Narayanan and Saha 2020a).Food markets in India, both in urban and rural areas, constitute a mosaic of diverse actors and tend to be highly fragmented. How did this complex system cope in the wake of lockdown? Despite the early confusion, anxiety, and disruptions, there is now widespread consensus in India that the agrifood system has been surprisingly resilient. Nevertheless, the lockdown's impacts continue, and their dynamics deserve attention from policymakers and organizations working on ways to protect food security. This post outlines five key features of the lockdown's consequences for the Indian agrifood system, noting that these are broad patterns that mask large variations.Two broad impacts on prices are evident from existing data. It appears that the overall decline in demand, especially in cities -driven in part by the fall in hotel, restaurant, and catering demand and in part by the large exodus of migrants -has flowed upstream, leading to a substantial fall in producer prices. One producer price index suggests that after a brief rise, prices crashed to almost a third of the pre-lockdown prices by the end of May 2020 (Figure 1). This is consistent with findings from farmer telephone surveys as well, where many reported a dramatic collapse in prices, especially for perishables.At the same time, consumer food prices in most urban areas have risen, driven by increased frictions in the supply chain in the form of limited availability of labor, higher transport costs (in some cases, double pre-lockdown costs), and uncertainties around logistics (Figure 2). This gap between wholesale and retail prices increased sharply during the first phase of the lockdown (March 24 to April 14) and remains wide (Narayanan and Saha 2020a).These disruptions fragmented markets across rural and urban areas. In some large cities, average retail prices did fall, with increases for just a few commodities; but in smaller cities and towns for which data are available, retail prices rose an average of more than 20 percent in the two months following the lockdown. In addition, the range of prices across urban centers increased significantly during the lockdown, signifying a lack of spatial integration; wide variations persist even after two months, suggesting continuing challenges.The price trends of different commodities have varied as well. Producer prices for perishables collapsed, and retail prices for fruits and vegetables have fluctuated widely over time and spaceincreasing substantially in some areas, declining in others; and rising since the lockdown in some cities. In contrast, producer prices have stayed high for major cereals, likely because of active government procurement, and retail prices in urban markets did not rise -due to the Public Distribution System (PDS) that supplies grains to consumers and also likely because of large-scale grain distributions to vulnerable populations by civil society organizations. Retail prices for pulses and edible oils, and for processed goods such as biscuits and flour, however, rose sharply.Up to 90 percent of the Indian market is served by small-scale mom-and-pop/corner stores (called kirana) and other informal players such as pushcart and street vendors; about 8 percent by supermarkets and other modern outlets; and 2 percent by online merchants.It is kirana stores and informal street retailers that have most successfully negotiated the challenges of the lockdown. Informal retailers, commentators note, have \"embraced technology,\" receiving assistance at the back end from B2B (business-to-business) retailing supply chain management firms.While these retailers also rely on hired workers, most depend heavily on family labor and were therefore less affected by labor shortages than modern retailers. Street vendors of fresh produce have also kept supply chains functioning. Findings from a survey of over 50 retailers in 14 locations across India suggest that some people who lost jobs in cities and could not return to their home villages, or had shops closed due to lockdown restrictions, switched to vending fresh produce and groceries. In Porvorim, Goa, for example, one fruit vendor said that around 30 people in his neighborhood, including a car mechanic, opened up fruit and vegetable shops because they were out of work and could not return home. The low entry barriers to informal retail led to an expansion in the number of informal retailers of food during the lockdown.Some thought modern organized retailers, with their strong back-end investments, would be best placed to operate during the crisis -however, limited labor availability and movement restrictions severely hampered their operations. While online prepared/restaurant food delivery orders (referred to as \"foodtech\") dropped by 75 percent in April compared to January (and overall e-commerce fell by 83 percent over this period), e-grocery demand in contrast rose by 27 percent. Yet despite sophisticated procurement and stocking systems, only a fraction of online orders were fulfilled due to distribution challenges, including labor availability. Most online food retailers halted operations; several continue to struggle to meet the surge in consumer demand. Modern format retail stores, meanwhile, many located in shopping malls, remained shut for most of the lockdown.Producer prices held up for crops that have seen large-scale government procurement. For example, as of June 20, 2020, the government had procured 38.83 million tons of wheat from 10 wheat-producing states. Many state governments had also arranged to facilitate local procurement of milk and horticultural products for direct distribution.The lockdown also prompted a number of important private sector innovations. For example, during this period many farmers began delivering produce directly using WhatsApp to secure aggregated orders in housing cooperatives in nearby cities. As many farmers' markets shut down, meanwhile, some farmers traveled to cities to set up shop at roadsides. Consumer-led groups on Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp organized with farmer producer organizations to find ways of bringing food to markets (Narayanan and Saha 2020a). In general, as Reardon et al. (2020) anticipated, large-scale processing firms were able to continue functioning, most at lower capacity. Even these larger firms had to cope with distributional challenges by leveraging online delivery platforms that were previously servicing restaurants. Many restaurants in large cities too pivoted to selling groceries and produce via online delivery platforms.Under the national lockdown, people in urban areas were likely more vulnerable to food insecurity than those in rural areas, especially those dependent on wage employment. In one survey of 11,159 workers conducted during the lockdown, an estimated 96 percent said they were not receiving rations from the government due to eligibility or implementation problems, 72 percent said that their rations would run out in two days, and 90 percent were not receiving wages. In rural areas, meanwhile, the collapse in producer prices and farmers' difficulty selling their produce imply lower prices and greater availability of a variety of foods. Yet, in many regions, food insecurity remains high, mainly because of a large loss in incomes, according to several telephone surveys of rural workers and farmers (Singh et al. 2020;Seth and Vishwanathan 2020).The COVID-19 lockdown offers a teachable moment for Indian policymakers -that while their country's people are largely vulnerable, the food system is resilient. When and where need exists, in other words, intervening at key points in food systems and providing direct assistance can prevent widespread economic and food insecurity. While the Indian government has turned its attention to agricultural policy reform, the immediate focus should be on relief. The government has already implemented modest cash transfers to farmers and other vulnerable populations, revised loan repayment schedules, expanded the grain entitlements under the PDS, and added allocations for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Yet recent reports suggest that despite these actions, many people continue to be excluded from benefits due to eligibility restrictions or implementation issues. Universalizing the PDS and employment guarantee, along with other food-based schemes such as maternity and child entitlements, and providing more effective implementation, should be top priorities.In rural areas, especially those underserved by markets, providing decentralized public procurement and distribution of fresh produce, in addition to cereals, pulses, and oilseeds, is crucial to moderating producer prices and ensuring availability and affordability of foods locally. In cities, urban governments need to facilitate the free functioning of supply chain actors. Many states have introduced urban employment guarantee schemes to protect people from job and income losses. Other state governments have organized door delivery of groceries, along with canteens that provide cooked meals at affordable rates. Such measures are especially crucial until supply chains are fully restored.Originally published July 20, 2020.","tokenCount":"1537"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6f3f71e6eef513506e978b1c9174e385","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8b63745d-35a1-467d-a895-672f77d4a5b8/retrieve","id":"621348051"},"keywords":["PARV DHOTHER","GARRADUNGA","QLD PARV DHOTHER","GARRADUNGA","QLD"],"sieverID":"34fe579b-c762-45ee-873c-f2a21b9d2a33","pagecount":"21","content":"all mail to PO Box 309 BRISBANE MARKET QLD 4106 Australian Bananas is published three times a year by the Australian Banana Growers' Council Inc. Articles appearing in Australian Bananas do not necessarily represent the policies, opinions or views of ABGC. ABGC is funded by a voluntary grower fee of 3c per 13kg carton. Disclaimer HAL and ABGC make no representations and expressly disclaim all warranties (to the extent permitted by law) about the accuracy, completeness, or currency of information in this magazine. Users of this magazine should take independent action to confirm any information in this magazine before relying on that information in any way. Reliance on any information provided by HAL is entirely at your own risk. HAL is not responsible for, and will not be liable for, any loss, damage, claim, expense, cost (including legal costs) or other liability arising in any way (including from HAL's or any other person's negligence or otherwise) from your use or non-use of the magazine, or from reliance on information contained in the magazine or that HAL provides to you by any other means.Events over the past few months have shown the breadth of issues affecting growers and our industry, says ABGC CEO Jim Pekin.A disease incursion, a proactive approach to farm practices in the wet tropics and some important initiatives taking place in the broader horticulture sector have been among them.These events are worth noting here and are just some examples of how the ABGC has been hard at work for the benefit of banana growers.The exotic strain of Freckle, Phyllosticta cavendishii, was found in Howard Springs, south of Darwin, in July. This set off the pre-determined processes under the Emergency Plant Pest Response (EPPR) Deed, signed some years ago by the ABGC, other industries and all government jurisdictions.Since then, ABGC has worked with the Northern Territory's Department of Primary Industry & Fisheries (DPI&F), Plant Health Australia, the Nursery & Garden Industry Association, and all the jurisdictions through the Consultative Committee on Emergency Plant Pests which determined the pest was technically feasible to eradicate.I would like to take this opportunity to thank the many hundreds of NT residents for their support of the eradication program. These are the rural residents in the areas where Banana Freckle has been found -Howard Springs, Batchelor, Rum Jungle, Humpty Doo and Acacia Hills. It was difficult for residents to lose their banana plants but most understood it had to be done to protect the national and NT banana industries. The national industry is worth $500 million at farm gate and many million more if you think about the associated industries involved in transport, farm supplies and produce wholesale and retail.I also thank the NT DPI&F for their leadership and implementation of the eradication program, especially their Chief Plant Health Manager, Stephen West. At time of writing, the incursion response, including surveillance and eradication, is going very well.The benefits of eradication are far greater than the costs. Nonetheless, the final cost (when it is known) will not be cheap. The banana industry alone will need to repay more than $500,000, assuming no more infected properties are found. As of November 20, 14 such properties have been detected. One of these was a small farm and 13 were residential properties. It has not yet been determined when or what level of EPPR Levy is required to repay our share of the costs.This year the ABGC Board decided to be proactive in regard to the Great Barrier Reef. Our industry is well aware of the need for good environmental farm practices and the need to minimise waste of nitrogen and other farm inputs; therefore the use of Reef Water Quality Grants is a great way to assist growers improve practices, save money and ensure less nitrogen and sediment goes to the Reef. The ABGC successfully negotiated a contract with Terrain NRM for ABGC to appoint a new employee as a Reef Water Quality Grants Officer. Bartle Frere grower Robert Mayers has been appointed and will help banana growers in the wet tropics apply for and implement the grants and adopt associated farm practices required for improved profitability and water quality outcomes (see report, Page 39).On 1 November, ABGC Chairman Doug Phillips and I met with the new Federal Minister for Agriculture, the Hon. Barnaby Joyce. The Minister understands the banana industry and we aim to continue to brief him on our challenges and opportunities.Horticulture Australia Limited (HAL) has commissioned consultants ACIL Allen to undertake a major performance review of HAL, with the final report due in May 2014.All horticultural farmers' compulsory levies get collected by the Federal Department of Agriculture and provided to HAL to manage. From our end, the Banana Industry Strategic Investment Plan is implemented through banana R&D and marketing levies, managed by HAL. HAL comprises a Board, management and staff, and (thirdly) Industry Advisory Committees (IACs). The Banana IAC is a HAL committee and recommends investments for banana R&D and marketing to HAL management.HAL's media release on this noted: \"This performance review will include an examination of the HAL service delivery model against the benchmark of good governance practice. The review will include the membership structure of HAL, the nature and transparency of funding arrangements and its ability to deliver services in an efficient and effective manner while meeting the future and strategic demands of a fast growing industry sector. The review will also closely examine the efficiency of the existing levy structures and the process by which levies are conceived, implemented, collected and expensed. \"I jointly led a committee guiding a consultancy to develop HAL members' input to this review. The ABGC has also been in talks with various people on this and will make a submission to this review.Many issues but growers are always our focusThe ABGC worked with government and industry groups to respond to the NT's Banana Freckle outbreak.Phillips looks at the year's major events.With Christmas and the New Year approaching, it's an opportune time to reflect on some of the challenges and successes of the past 12 months.Once again it's a year when the banana industry has been subjected to the whims of Mother Nature. In January, ex-tropical cyclone Oswald affected many of the production regions on the east coast, most notably in south east Queensland and in New South Wales where damage was severe and losses significant.At around the same time, in Western Australia our counterparts also bore the brunt of nature -not through cyclone but an extreme heat wave that significantly damaged fruit and plantations. Just recently, in mid-November, some growers in New South Wales were completing the year the same way it began -more damaging weather, this time hail storms.Of course banana farmers, like all farmers, are unfortunately accustomed to dealing with the vagaries of the weather. My thoughts during the year have been with all affected growers as they work through these challenges -hopefully bouncing back.The biennial Banana Industry Congress was held this year and, as with previous events, was a positive experience. Held at the Palmer Coolum Resort on the Sunshine Coast, it gave growers and supply-chain partners the opportunity to hear about the latest developments in marketing and research being undertaken by industry.Of course it was also a great opportunity to catch up with old friends during the extensive social program. Congress culminated with our industry Ball at which I had the great pleasure in presenting the Awards of Honour. Recipients were Senator Ron Boswell -a long-term ally of the banana industry; Tony Heidrich, a former CEO of ABGC who led our industry through some of its toughest challenges; and Mark Nucifora, a north Queensland grower who has provided outstanding service to the industry at the grass-roots level. They are recipients who represent both the diversity of those involved with our industry and the singular focus we have on improving our future.While at Congress, I reported to members that ABGC had, after consultation with our growers, written to the Federal Agriculture Minister seeking his approval for an Emergency Plant Pest Response (EPPR) Levy. I was pleased to later announce the request has been granted.Given our industry's constant engagement with pest management, including the current response to the Banana Freckle outbreak, it's worthwhile summarising the details here:An EPPR Levy to be set at zero, until or unless required in the event of an incursion If an incursion occurs, the debt to the Federal Government to be repaid by implementing a positive EPPR Levy, via a thorough advisory and communications process with banana industry levy payers.The importance of this levy cannot be understated as it provides industry with the ability to discharge its financial obligations associated with an exotic pest incursion as defined by the EPPR Deed.The eventual approval of the levy was opportune as it was only a few months later that Banana Freckle was detected on Cavendish bananas within the Northern Territory. Since this detection, ABGC has been working with State and Federal biosecurity agencies and Plant Health Australia to initiate an eradication program. This program has started and is progressing well. Under the response program the costs will be shared between the various State and Federal governments as well as industry. Industry's commitments will be funded by a positive EPPR Levy. We will have more information on this in 2014.The EPPR Levy is just one item already on the agenda for the New Year. It will be joined by others -probably some others already mentioned here. That's because many of our industry's issues revisit us so frequently -the challenges dealt out by Mother Nature are ever present; so are the challenges of producing bananas in a very competitive marketplace.My roles of ABGC chairman and grower have made me keenly aware of the difficult times being experienced across our growing regions, particularly with regards to the returns we receive for our product. Please be aware that your industry body continues to work to do everything possible to improve our outlook. One positive for our industry will be the finalisation of a new Strategic Investment Plan that will guide us through the next five years (see report, Page 8).Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all growers and supply chain partners a Merry Christmas spent in the company of family and friends, and a happy, safe and prosperous New Year.Challenges and achievements set 2014 agenda Grower members of the banana industry's peak body, the Australian Banana Growers' Council (ABGC), have discussed banana production levels, wholesale pricing and the financial difficulties currently being experienced by many growers.At the ABGC's Annual General Meeting, held in South Johnstone on November 26, growers spoke about industry sustainability at the current high production levels. Also discussed were options for increasing the market for bananas.ABGC Chairman Doug Phillips commented on production levels, telling the meeting national banana production during the financial year's first quarter had trended above the previous first quarter, raising the possibility that higher production could continue during the rest of the financial year.\"As a grower myself, I am keenly aware of the pressures being felt across our growing regions, particularly with regards to the record levels of supply and corresponding returns we receive for our product, \" Mr Phillips said.\"Please be aware that our industry body continues to work to do everything possible to improve our outlook. In particular we look forward to the development of the industry's new Strategic Investment Plan.\"As the peak industry body, we also continue to offer assistance and expertise with the projects that are aiming to improve our industry. A focus of our activities is encouraging investment in supply chain communications, collation of data and the flow of that information. We believe this will assist all growers with their business planning and decision making. \"Mr Phillips told the meeting that despite the record levels of production experienced in recent months and low prices, there were some positives.\"I think the things going for us in the past six months are that quality has been really good, demand generally has been pretty good, competing product lines have been relatively scarce and relatively poor in quality. \"He said some of the higher production levels were due to regional diversification initiatives taken by some growerssomething that was desirable to safeguard overall industry production capacity in the event of natural disasters striking individual growing regions.Mr Phillips said ABGC was ready to assist with any initiatives growers may propose to address production levels but that these needed to be driven by banana-growing businesses.The meeting also discussed the Banana Freckle incursion response and the Emergency Plant Pest Response (EPPR) Levy ,which will need to be put in place after all the information is available on the freckle eradication and growers consulted. Growers spoke about initiatives to encourage additional ABGC membership and changes to the release of banana transport figures to grower members.Two ABGC directors, NSW-based grower Stephen Spear and north Queensland grower Steve Lizzio, were re-elected unopposed to their Board positions with the meeting congratulating both on their reappointments.The meeting also heard that a director from either the WA or NT growing regions was still being sought to join the Board following the resignation of WA director Michael Nixon earlier this year.Former grower Bob Brighton told the meeting he would be completing his retirement from the industry with this year's AGM being the last he would attend.Mr Phillips extended thanks to Mr Brighton for his years of involvement with the industry.\"Your contributions have been certainly significant and very much appreciated and I say that on behalf of the ABGC Board and all past and present directors, \" Mr Phillips said.Following the meeting, a social barbecue was held at the Currajah Hotel, Wangan, (pictured above) with sponsorship for the barbecue provided by NAB Agribusiness.The AGM was held at South Johnstone after being held last year for the first time in Tully. Consideration will be given to holding the next AGM in Tully.The Australian Banana Growers' Council (ABGC) has announced the Board's executive appointments made at its quarterly Board meeting in November.South Johnstone grower Doug Phillips has been reappointed as ABGC chairman, commencing his third year in the role. Tully grower Paul Johnston has also been reappointed as treasurer following his initial appointment to the role last year.In a change to the role of vice chairman, Tully grower Adrian Crema has been appointed to the role following the retirement from the Board's executive team of Mullumbimby grower Peter Molenaar who continues as an ABGC director.Mr Phillips thanked Peter Molenaar for his valued contributions as a member of the executive and said all Board members looked forward to continuing their work together to advance the interests of banana growers.The ABGC held a two-day Board meeting following the November 26 AGM and discussed matters including the development of new banana varieties, biosecurity legislation, management of the Banana Freckle incursion in the Northern Territory and issues affecting the broader horticulture sector, including the current review of Horticulture Australia Limited (HAL).Dry weather conditions across all growing regions were broken by some November rain on the east coast.Unfortunately the rain bought damaging storms to some areas, particularly New South Wales, including reports of substantial damage to farms on the mid north coast, just south of Coffs Harbour.In Western Australia, the Carnarvon growing region had no rain in November and only several millimetres of rain recorded in October. Rainfall records show no significant rain in recent months with the biggest reported fall being 20 millimetres in June.North Queensland has produced record levels of fruit in recent months with November rain and temperatures continuing favourable growing conditions for the start of Summer.In north Queensland, there have been dry conditions but generally mild temperatures during Spring. Growers have been irrigating to keep water up to the bananas.Good growing conditions in recent months led to heavy production levels in late September, October and November.The wet season officially began on November 1 and storms began bringing widespread rain soon after.There were some reports of storm damage to a few farms.No major pest issues have been reported although there has been some red spider mite. Leaf spot levels were low in the lead in to the wet season.Fruit quality has been good. According to reports, there has been less nurse suckering this year.Dry and windy conditions were experienced in recent months. In November, storms brought rain and some hail to the far north and mid north coast regions.On the mid north coast, Boambee and Bonville, south of Coffs Harbour, suffered significant hail damage to banana crops and some infrastructure. There were reports of major destruction with some plantations completely destroyed. The area was reported to have experienced two severe storms during November -the first causing severe damage and the second following to complete the destruction.Damage to plants on the worst affected properties was estimated at between 80 to 100 per cent. Little or no damage was reported elsewhere in the Coffs District. Some hail storms were reported in the Nambucca region but there were no damage reports.Plantations affected by ex-tropical cyclone Oswald in January have returned to production but heavy supply from north Queensland has restricted market demand for NSW fruit.Lack of water has hampered banana production. Coming off the back of the lowest Winter volumes experienced, Spring volumes improved, but not to the levels of previous years.Emergency irrigation water was released by the State Government with the Water Department releasing 1.5 gigalitres in the Carnarvon region. In November, temperatures topped 40 degrees over two days.Growers have made Spring plantings and await Summer rains to bring a renewed supply of fresh irrigation water.The Sweeter Banana Co-Operative attended the Perth Royal Show which ran in early October, and launched their Sweeter Banana Bread, giving away 6,500 samples to showgoers. The Bread is made with marked bananas unfit for sale at the market.In the north of Western Australia, bananas are being planted and harvested in Kununurra in the Ord River irrigation area. The HAL members' meeting of November 22 considered and agreed on a proposal for the formation of a new across-horticulture advocacy body. The ABGC is part of the committee that developed this initiative. It will build on the work of the Horticultural Task Force, be formed into a public company, ensure most (if not all) horticulture peak grower bodies are members, and ensure there is a strong and united horticulture body to advance the interests of all horticultural growers on national issues.Those issues currently include the outcome of the HAL review, biosecurity legislation, Agvet chemicals regulation, employment conditions and innovation, and trade and market access.Members are encouraged to contact me on any of these matters.As Doug Phillips has noted in his Chairman's Comment, many banana growers are facing tough economic times due to production issues and prices, particularly over the past six months. The ABGC welcomes your views on these issues as we work towards a more prosperous 2014 for growers.Jim Pekin, CEO Cameron, Doug and Stephen are members of the Banana Industry Advisory Committee (IAC) to HAL while Robert is a member of the IAC's R&D subcommittee.The BPPP has four sub-programs covering the industry's major areas of research and development: resistant varieties and consumer choice, safeguarding production and markets, sustainable production systems and building science and communication.Cameron chairs the program reference committee and says growers' interest in managing pest and disease issues was one of the major drivers behind establishing the BPPP. \"It was clear from the banana industry's strategic plan that pests and disease issues were high on growers' agendas, \" Cameron said.\"We wanted to bring together a group of people to build a strong science base to serve the industry for years to come.\"A program approach was used to gain a critical mass and provide a co-ordinated approach to research.\"It has been a long, slow process but I believe we are now close to what we were aiming for at the start. \"It is the job of the reference committee to provide feedback to the program leadership to ensure that the program stays on track and maintains a national focus. The committee helps to prioritise new projects and provides information on emerging issues within the industry.In the area of pest and disease management, there are many issues important to growers. While it can be difficult to prioritise them all, there are some standouts. For instance, the program reference committee has heard the industry's views on the importance of research into the soil-borne fungal disease Panama Disease Tropical Race 4 (TR4) is and has ensured it is a priority within the BPPP (see TR4 story this page).Access to tolerant varieties and screening of those varieties has been given a high priority.Working with the reference committee is a three-member program leadership team -University of Queensland scientist Andre Drenth, tropical-region consultant Richard Piper and subtropical-region consultant David Peasley.The BPPP communicates with growers through project extension work, such as field days, and through industry publications. An information sheet on the BPPP has been included with editions of Australian Bananas distributed by mail.For further information on the program, contact the program reference committee members or the program leadership team.Dr Andre Drenth in the Northern Territory where a trial block is planned as part of research into TR4.TR4 trial to enter new TerritoryThe first detections of Panama Tropical Race 4 in Africa and the Middle East have been reported. They are the firs reports of TR4 outside of the south east Asian region.In December it was reported TR4 had been found on a commercial farm in northern Mozambique earlier in the year. A consortium of agriculture and government groups have been mobilised to address the outbreak and raise awareness throughout Africa.The report followed the release in November of a the journal Plant Disease said TR4 had been identified in Jordan and could affect up to 80 per cent of bananas in the Jordan Valley region where there is up to 1500 hectares of production.The Northern Territory is the only Australian location where TR4 is known to be present.The disease has devastated the banana industry there and also affects banana production in parts of south east Asia. There are also reports the disease has reached Africa and the Middle East (see report, this page).The TR4 research in the NT is planned as part of the Banana Plant Protection Program (BPPP) to gain valuable information allowing a better understanding of the disease and varieties to be screened for resistance to the disease.BPPP Sub Program Leader Dr Mike Smith said it was planned to plant Williams bananas at the Coastal Plains Research Farm, located south east of Darwin, to act as \"sentinels\" on the site.\"The plants will be used to Growers and others in the industry will be able to provide further input to the draft before it is finalised.The draft is being reviewed by the Banana Industry Advisory Committee (IAC) before being made available for comment.The SIP sets out how levy investment will be directed into research and development (R&D) and marketing projects starting from the 2014-15 financial year and continuing through to 2018-19.It is expected that about $6 million annually will be invested over this period with those funds including levies and matched funding from the Federal Government for R&D projects. No matched funding is provided for marketing which is solely levy funded.The Plan focuses on three key areas: After all input is received on the draft, a final plan will be considered by the IAC in February and will then be presented to the Horticulture Australia Limited (HAL) Board.Further details will be provided in the December Banana Growers' e-Bulletin and the draft plan will be available on the ABGC website www.abgc.org.au from mid-December. Comment can be provided to the consultant, Jenny Margetts from Plant & Food Research, using contact details which will be provided on the website.Have your say on draft industry plan BGA teams line up Banana growers' associations in Queensland and New South Wales have elected officers at annual general meetings held in November.Bartle Frere banana grower Rob Mayers was re-elected president of the Cassowary Coast Banana Growers' Association. Newly elected to BGA roles are Mission Beach grower Naomi Brownrigg as vice president, Tully grower Jane Rowe as treasurer and QDAFF Development Horticulturist Naomi King as secretary.In Coffs Harbour, Wally Gately and Ron Gray have effectively exchanged their executive roles within the Coffs Harbour and District Banana Growers' Association.At the Annual General Meeting, Mr Gately, the former vice president, was elected unopposed to the role of president. Former president Ron Gray nominated for the position of first vice president and was elected unopposed to that role.Woolgoolga grower Jeff Eggins was elected as second vice president. David Pike continues as treasurer and Phil Bicknell as secretary.us to enter their property, but most accept that we have an important job to do. My last caller was rather chatty, telling me about the fabulous holiday he' d just had in the Philippines. He was happy for us to check out his property when he is away. \"The Planning Manager is wearing a yellow vest and is a Victorian biosecurity professional who is assisting our team.\"This work is highly structured, \" she says. \"Part of my job is to ensure that there's no loss of accountability, all roles are clear, and nothing is overlooked. We also keep tight reins on where the money is being spent, and what it's being spent on. Having a good outcome is our focus. \"I peer out the window of the air conditioned control centre. It's hot and sticky out there today, 33 degrees with 64 per cent humidity.I think about the rest of our teamdozens of surveillance and eradication staff, and contractors. They're fanned out across Darwin and the rural area, talking to residents, checking properties, swinging machetes, hauling heavy banana trees in the heat. It's hard yakka.I'm grateful they're on the front lines, helping us to control this pest that threatens the livelihoods of so many people. It's been said before, and it's worth repeating, \"If you're going to do a thing, do it properly\". Thankfully that's exactly what has been happening here.Next steps are being considered in the plan to eradicate the serious fungal disease Banana Freckle (Phyllosticta cavendishii) from the Northern Territory.At time of writing, eradication work on freckle, which is carried in wet spores, had continued through the start of the wet season in November and the rains brought by tropical cyclone Alessia towards the end of that month.The work is included in the first phase of a Banana Freckle Response Plan drawn up by the Northern Territory Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries (DPIF) and endorsed by a National Management Group (NMG) comprising government and industry representatives.The NMG and a Consultative Committee on Emergency Plant Pests (CCEPP), which also has government and industry representatives as members, are considering the next actions required.The outbreak, first announced in August, is the first major find in Australia of freckle on Cavendish bananas. The disease rates as among the worst affecting bananas, along with others such as black Sigatoka. It poses a serious threat to Australia's $500 million banana industry.By the start of December, freckle finds had been announced for 14 infected properties in four areas of the NT and surveillance was continuing.The disease was initially located on two properties in the Howard Springs area, about 30 kilometres south east of Darwin. It was later found in the Batchelor and nearby Rum Jungle areas, about 60 kilometres further south. The November finds were at Humpty Doo and Acacia Hills, located between Howard Springs and the Batchelor and Rum Jungle areas.Most finds have been in backyard bananas of rural residential properties but eradications of infected and surrounding properties have included a small commercial plantation at Rum Jungle. The disease has not been reported in major Northern Territory commercial production.The cost of the eradication, funded jointly by governments and industry, was initially estimated at $2.8million, including a contribution of about $500,000 from the banana industry.Further announcements are expected on cost estimates and the banana industry's funding of its contribution. It is the first banana industry response under the Emergency Plant Pest Response Deed (EPPRD).The Australian Banana Growers' Council (ABGC) began working with government as part of the CCEPP response which began when an incursion was first suspected in July.After a decision to eradicate was announced on October 4, ABGC Chief Executive Officer Jim Pekin travelled to the Northern Territory to attend public meetings in communities where freckle-affected banana plants and fruit had been found.Freckle is a fungal disease that covers banana plant leaves and fruit with raised black blemishes that have the texture of sandpaper. The fruit is safe to eat but the disease reduces plant yield and the fruit is unsaleable due to its appearance.Eradication activities have included quarantining infected properties, cutting down and removing banana plants and fruit from designated zones and continuing surveillance work.More on Banana Freckle -Secrets in the sequences, Page 12. Several people work at desks and tables in a large room, its white walls covered in maps, charts, and schedules. To one side, a man wears a vest similar to mine, though it's red and reads \"Investigations Manager\".Smaller rooms throughout the building are labelled \"Controller\", \"Biosirt\", and \"Teleconference in Progress\". Notes are jotted on whiteboards. Landlines and mobiles ring. Photocopiers whirr.A woman wearing a bright blue vest that reads \"Logistics Manager\" is focussed on a computer screen, her fingers flying across the keyboard as she works to secure and track the resources and services making this effort possible.There is a lot to do. Welcome to the National Banana Freckle Eradication Program local control centre at the NT Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries (DPIF) campus at Berrimah Farm on Darwin's southern outskirts.Since the attractively-named Phyllosticta cavendishii was confirmed on Cavendish bananas in the NT in August, DPIF staff from across the NT, biosecurity experts from interstate, and contractors have worked on the Banana Freckle response. It is a full-time effort, including evenings and weekends, seven days a week. It involves the eradication of all bananas within a one kilometre radius of infected properties. So far, up until late November, they've identified 14 infected properties and conducted surveillance on more than 3000 properties.P. cavendishii is a major concern because this is the first time it's been confirmed in the Northern Territory on Cavendish, Australia's main commercial variety. If Banana Freckle spreads beyond the Territory, it could have a significant negative impact on Australia's $500 million banana industry.Over in the control centre's DD&D area (destruction, disposal, and decontamination) a DPIF staff member seconded from the business development area has brought her communication and organisation skills to the team. On the wall beside her computer is an impressively-detailed, colour-coded flow chart which clearly identifies the many steps in the eradication processes.In another wing of the building, the Banana Freckle Hotline is ringing. \"We received over 275 calls in November, \" says an operator who enters details into a computer. \"I open a new file for each new caller, 40 per cent of whom don't have bananas, but they're ringing us because we've left a surveillance note on their gate. I let them know we need to check anyway.\"A small number of people don't want  While the first major incidence of Banana Freckle on Cavendish in Australia was found in the Northern Territory in July, the work that has been helping to fight the incursion began in 2005. And it was only last year that a four-year PhD project made the breakthrough discovery of a previously unknown freckle-causing fungi.Freckle is a unique and mysterious banana plant disease. It is the only fungal disease found to infect both banana leaves and fruit. While infected fruit remains perfectly edible, its unsightly appearance can drastically reduce its marketability.On the list of damaging banana diseases, Banana Freckle ranks as one of the world's worst. It is now a major constraint to production in south and south east Asia. In Taiwan, it is considered more serious than black Sigatoka. Studies from the Philippines have shown that without adequate fungicide control, almost 60 per cent of fruit can be rejected.The disease's symptomatic sandpapery spots may be discrete, or aggregate to form circular or streaking lesions along leaf veins where water has carried the spores. On the fruit, the spots are surrounded by dark green, water-soaked halos and, in severe infections, these spots may entirely cover the fruit at harvest.The effect on the cosmetic value of the crop is significant. Bunch yields can also suffer due to loss of leaf area through defoliation from severe infection or from control by de-leafing.While Banana Freckle is easily identifiable in the field, it is the host range of the pathogen which has long been a source of mystery to banana pathologists.Disease records and field observations spanning decades had led to the hypothesis that two types of Banana Freckle existed.One type of freckle was thought to occur throughout south and south east Asia infecting both Cavendish and non-Cavendish varieties. A second type, seen throughout Australasia and the South Pacific, appeared to only infect AAB/ABB varieties. This second type was often found on AAB/ABB varieties growing nearby to, but not infecting Cavendish plants. From this anecdotal evidence, grew the theory of two fungal strains or species.However, until very recently, it was difficult to test this hypothesis. The pathogen, originally known as Guignardia musae, was not keen to give up its secrets. Isolation of the pathogen from infected bananas is incredibly difficult and, when successful, takes up to three months to grow in the laboratory. Even more challenging is coaxing the pathogen to produce the spores in culture which are needed for study, even though the pathogen readily does this in the field.Despite these challenges, solving the mystery had significant consequences for the Australian banana industry. Only the non-Cavendish infecting type is present in parts of Australia and, even then, incidence is extremely low.Incursion by the exotic, Cavendishinfecting variety of Banana Freckle has the potential to devastate the industry. Overseas, weekly applications of mancozeb or other fungicides are necessary to produce marketable fruit. With the Cavendish-infecting variety known to also infect AAB and ABB varieties, a method to differentiate the exotic and endemic Banana Freckle types is needed.   One of my favourite breakthrough moments happened during the 2001 Tully black Sigatoka incursion. The published DNA test to distinguish yellow and black Sigatoka wasn't working, so we were left with only one choice -to develop a new test on the run. After a long and frustrating day in the lab, Julie Pattemore and I sat down on the veranda of the Mareeba Motor Inn to do the new design. We were armed with Sigatoka DNA sequences, a calculator and a midstrength stubbie each. The assay worked and the DNA primers were affectionately known from then on as the 'Carlton Mid-Strength Primers' .The banana industry takes a very proactive approach to disease prevention and preparedness. It's nice to feel our work is valued and that we are truly a part of the industry. They confuse essential with preferred pursuits. I enjoy being support crew and photographer for my kids' outdoor pursuits but when I get the chance I like to duck off for a bike ride by myself. I am currently building a new bike so they soon might find me missing more often. I'm also a keen 'glamper' (tents, tarp, onsite ensuite and coffee machine!) and I love to fish. We have just spent two weeks in Wooli, NSW giving dozens of undersized fish sore mouths.Juliane's work helped eradicate a black Sigatoka outbreak and her current research includes Banana Freckle. In our continuing series on banana scientists, meet Juliane, a Research Fellow (Banana Diagnostics) for the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI). In work assisted by funding from the Australian industry's Mort Johnston Development Scholarship, MeeHua developed a diagnostic tool now being used in the NT.She found there were actually three types of fungi, not two, causing the disease:Phyllosticta maculata -commonly found in Australia and the South Pacific on AAB and ABB varieties Phyllosticta cavendishii -identified as being capable of infecting Cavendish as well as non-Cavendish varieties. Currently being eradicated on Cavendish in the Northern Territory.Phyllosticta musarum -not in Australia. Causes Freckle disease on AAB and ABB varieties and has so far been found only in Thailand and India.At the conclusion of her four year PhD study, MeeHua delivered invaluable tools and knowledge for Banana Freckle. By studying the morphology of spores and the DNA sequences from isolates collected around the world, we now know that three species of fungi cause Banana Freckle.Phyllosticta maculata is the name given to the species commonly found in Australia and the South Pacific on AAB and ABB varieties. Phyllosticta cavendishii has been identified as the species capable of infecting Cavendish as well as non-Cavendish varieties. It is this species which is currently being eradicated on Cavendish in the Northern Territory. A third species, Phyllosticta musarum, which does not occur in Australia, causes Freckle disease on AAB and ABB varieties and has so far been found only in Thailand and India.Outcomes from MeeHua's study have been published in three internationally recognised journals and are already proving valuable in the Northern Territory disease eradication. DNA sequences as well as a DNA diagnostic tool which differentiates the species are being used to identify the pathogen on samples collected in the field. Our new knowledge of pathogen isolation, culture and infection behaviour is also finding practical applications during the incursion response.The opportunity for overseas study, made possible by the Mort Johnston Professional Development Scholarship, was integral to unlocking some of Banana Freckle disease's greatest secrets.However, there are still many unknowns about the disease. It is possible that within each species, races exist, not unlike those in Fusarium wilt. A better understanding of how the disease spreads in the field is also needed to assist in future eradication strategies.Hopefully, future work can unlock more secrets of this devastating disease. The Banana Freckle investigations carried out so far as part of the industry's Banana Plant Protection Program (BPPP) are an excellent example of how research is fundamental to preparedness for pathogen incursions through collaboration, determination and industry support.\"Working 12 hours a day, six to seven days a week, MeeHua's determination and dedication became our secret weapon against Banana Freckle.\" The participants also used the workshop as an opportunity to discuss how to collaborate on future research to benefit all banana growers.Dr Pattison said the workshop highlighted that Fusarium wilt is a global problem for bananas because it can spread so easily.\"Once established it is very difficult to stop, \" Dr Pattison said.\"There are many lessons that the Australian banana industry can learn from the situation in the Philippines. \" At the top of the list was \"don't believe it cannot happen here\" along with the need to ensure strategies are in place which involve all levels of the banana industry. \"A regional Asian approach to managing the disease allows us to draw together experiences and strategies from the different countries to limit the spread and reduce the damage caused by Fusarium wilt, \" Dr Pattison said.For Dr Pattison and Stewart Lindsay, the Philippines workshop follows other international research conducted when they attended the International Banana Symposium in Taiwan last year.The The four-member contingent of three scientists and a north Queensland grower visited the Philippines in mid-November for the three-day workshop to discuss TR4, also known as Fusarium wilt.Tully grower Patrick Leahy was among the group and said visits to field trials on the workshop's final day left him \"shocked\" when he witnessed the impact of the soil-borne fungal disease.Another member of the group, Queensland Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (QDAFF) Principal Nematologist Tony Pattison, said the Philippines' experience held many lessons for the Australian banana industry. TR4 is widespread in banana-growing regions in the Philippines but in Australia has been located only in the Northern Territory.\"At the top of the list is -don't believe it cannot happen here, \" Dr Pattison said.Other members of the group attending the workshop were Australian Banana Growers' Council (ABGC) Research and Development Manager Jay Anderson and QDAFF Senior Development Horticulturist Stewart Lindsay.The workshop was held only days after Typhoon Haiyan devastated parts of the Philippines. Despite the typhoon being one of the largest ever recorded, the workshop was able to go ahead as scheduled in Davao City, located about 400 kilometres south of the areas worst affected by Haiyan.The consultation workshop examined the socio-economic impacts of Fusarium wilt disease of Cavendish banana in the Asia-Pacific region. It was also attended by researchers, growers, government agencies and private-sector representatives from the Philippines, Taiwan, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam.Dr Anderson said the workshop held two days of presentations on the Fusarium situation in each country, the economic impact of the disease and current research into management of the disease. After the presentations, the whole group developed actions to progress in the areas of R&D, policy and institutional arrangements.On the final day there was a visit to a box factory, tissue culture laboratory and to the field trials being conducted to assess tolerant varieties.At the trials, there was the opportunity to see the severity of the effects of the disease.For Patrick Leahy this was a significant part of the tour.\"The severity of the disease at this farm and the one next door shocked me badly, \" he said.\"I termed it as the killing fields with all susceptible varieties plants going down and the only healthy plants being among the 219 trial plants, although some of these trial plants had also died. This And just to make sure we were covering the full range of retailers, we sent merchandising teams to Australia's top 300 Green Grocers to kit them out with point of sale posters and educational brochures to further reinforce the benefits of eating Australian Bananas, especially Lady Fingers.Meanwhile, our \"longer lasting energy\" campaign shows no sign of running out of legs.A major advertising burst in October and November was planned to coincide with our retailer activity. This two-pronged approach timed perfectly to support higher than expected production during this time.The main media campaign will return in February and March 2014. Media will continue to extend from television and radio through to bus-side billboards, inlift screens plus a significant focus on online advertising and social media, in line with the changing media habits of both the Australian and global consumer.It's a similar story at Aldi, where we secured exclusive binwrapping point of sale posters across all 317 stores during October and November. This enabled us to leverage key advertising messages from our TV and radio campaign which was airing at the same time. Using point of sale posters in this way was a first for Aldi in Australia!Since its launch in 2012, the Australian Bananas \"longlasting energy snack\" marketing campaign has proven to be a major hit with consumers. But how effective has it been in winning over our leading retailers?It's been an exciting year for Australian Bananas. Not only has our marketing campaign and its key message of \"long-lasting energy\" continued to resonate with Australian consumers, we've also been busy working with Australia's leading retailers to ensure Australian Bananas are always top of mind at shopping time.And now that investment in our retail presence is beginning to show some strong returns.By working closely with all our retail partners, we've been able to drive awareness, provide consumer education, and ultimately lift sales and consumption of Australian Bananas.Central to our activity has been the consistent use of our highly successful and recognizable \"No-No Na-Na\" theme plus other key advertising messages.This has meant consumers have had no difficulty in linking our mainstream advertising to any retail messaging, either in-store, online, on TV or in catalogue.Working in partnership with IGA, we created an eightweek integrated marketing campaign designed to put Australian Bananas front and centre in their top 1300 stores. Highly visible bin card point of sale posters were supported with advertisements in the IGA Today magazine along with recipe panels and banners in print and online catalogues. This activity allowed IGA to highlight bananas without the sole reliance on price, whilst simultaneously incentivizing stores by running a national 'display' and sales competition.  AustralianBananasDemonstrated to Australian that we can't take our good disease status for granted Seeing the use of organic fertilisers and automated fertigation systems in China A whole-of-chain look at banana growing in the Philippines, from growing to transport to the wharf for export, and the focus on quality.Paul Inderbitzin, grower, Lakeland \"Since the trip through China I have gained a great appreciation for quarantine. Inductions now include a few basic rules framed around quarantine and biosecurity to highlight its importance to the new team members.\"When we recruit new staff we ask where they have been and if necessary supply new footwear. Foot baths and vehicle wash bays are being considered in our business plan to be implemented in critical control points. \"Craig Althaus, nurseryman, Tully \"I'm planning upgraded quarantine measures at the nursery, including restricted access to production areas, vehicle and foot-sterilising baths and signage.\"Other measures include resurfacing the nursery surrounds, changing two greenhouse floor surfaces and trialing certified potting mixes from southern suppliers to eliminate the need to have potting mix stored in bays and exposed to contamination.\"The racks we use to transport plants to other farms have been stripped and repainted to allow improved sterilisation prior to them being reused. The tour also reinforced the importance and the effectiveness of the existing QBAN (Quality Banana Approved Nursery) system and I am now better able to promote the scheme with the growers I supply. \"\"Fertiliser is the big thing we are looking at. We are setting up tanks in the irrigation shed so it can auto feed with the water irrigation pump. \"Stephen MacKay, grower, Tully \"The study tour reinforced my thoughts on why the industry needs a stronghold on all quarantine issues, especially the fact of our island status. We should also be very aware of not introducing anything accidentally and it is just important that your own farm quarantine is part of the solution of not getting these incursions. \"Weiwei Cui, shed supervisor, Mareeba Participants have been speaking with other growers about the trip. Here's a snapshot of some of the thoughts and ideas from study tour members: continued next page study tourThe 10-day September tour gave the group of growers and nurserymen a firsthand look at major biosecurity issues for global banana production. They saw the effects of Panama Disease Tropical Race 4 (TR4), Moko disease and black Sigatoka and the extra efforts required to manage these diseases.Seeing a plantation in Hainan Island which has been abandoned due to TR4 had a big effect on tour participants. They have returned with a resolve to work on their own on-farm biosecurity but have also requested ongoing commitment by all involved in the banana industry -growers, industry leadership, ABGC, industry partners, researchers and State and Federal governments.In China, study tour participants were fascinated with the development of various organic fertilisers and the hightech fertigation delivery systems. Organic fertiliser made from the by-products of tapioca and ethanol manufacture mixed with mill ash is made by the Jin Sui Agricultural company and used by the many smaller growers who grow for the company.The attention to quality in the Philippines was impressive. Quality control was high in the manufacture of cartons and plastics for use in the industry. Fruit was handled with care from the early stages when plastic sheets were used between hands to prevent rub, right through to the refrigerated storage used for fruit prior to loading at the wharves.The visit to Asia Fruit Logistica in Hong Kong demonstrated to the group that other Australian horticultural commodities have achieved a high level of representation on the world stage. Study tour participants saw the latest innovations in transport, handling and marketing fruit and vegetables. The visit generated discussion amongst tour participants -in Australia we are in a prime position to supply produce to all of Asia but we cannot compete with other countries where there are significantly lower cost of production; we need to differentiate ourselves based on quality or look for savings through mechanisation.The study tour was a valuable experience not only for the participants but for others in the industry who will share in the knowledge gained.The tour group acknowledges the work of Marc Jackson in organising a fantastic itinerary. Simon Zhang is thanked for an excellent tour of the Chinese banana growing areas. John Perine, Unifruitti is thanked for the excellent Philippines itinerary and the group is also most appreciative of the time taken by Rey Valle, Unifruitti, to host the group. I do see a future, but it is in supplying direct to retailers. We have just extended our packing shed and have built two ripening rooms which started operations in late November. Having the ripening rooms means we will have more options for selling directly into the retail market. We are already selling direct into farmers' markets at Palm Beach and Currumbin and I am also selling to a retailer with four fruit shops who can take all the bananas I can supply.A great thing about the area where we are growing is there's strong consumer interest in locally-produced food. This November I participated in the Tweed Foodie Fest -a great event for promoting the range of quality produce in the region.The risk of imports is still around, but for subtropical growers, we need to market direct if we are to survive.We need to keep up the research to help growers and there is always room for new ideas.We have built our two new ripening rooms -one for Cavs and one for Lady Fingers -and that has been a really important achievement for us as it will open up a lot more options for selling our product.I will progressively be adding another five acres to Cav production -I'm planning to plant out an additional acre each year for the next five years. I am also currently looking at new ideas for props.Where do you see yourself in 10 years' time? I've been working the farm with my dad for the past ten years and in the New Year I'll be taking over the running of the farm on a full-time basis, although dad will still be there to help out when I need some support. In ten years' time I still will be growing bananas, probably with less Lady Fingers, more Cavendish and diversifying into other fruits like Dragon Fruit to sell direct. We have a half a million people living near our farm (on the Gold Coast) so we have our market right there.We continue our series on the new generation of banana growers with a profile on subtropical grower Duane Pierce who answered our 10 questions. study tour continued from previous page other banana farms around the world. If they have, then we request that they thoroughly clean their vehicles before entering the farm then we inspect them for any visible dirt. We will also sterilize their boots before they commence work.\"As a business we are also looking at closing off losing off all vehicle access points to our farm and placing a vehicle wheel wash at the main entrance and having a designated visitor parking area with a boot wash facility that they must pass through before entering the farm. \"Aiden MacKay, grower, Tully \"My knowledge and awareness of the quarantine and hygiene measures needed to keep diseases away from the industry has greatly increased. I have also learned a lot on the study tour about how to control these diseases if they were ever to arise.\"We started to implement different practices throughout our business and will try to share this information with the rest of the industry. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to attend the study tour and believe that I have benefited greatly from it. \"Ben Franklin, General Manager -Banana Category, Costa Exchange, Tully \"Whilst I believe our business has a good working knowledge of disease (and control measures), to be able to see the challenges other countries face with devastating disease outbreaks brings home the importance of this message.\"Having taken several photos and videos of the trip it has been great to be able to share these internally within our business and to other growers to assist with the creation of more robust policies and procedures and promote adherence to these in order to minimise the impact of disease outbreaks.\"It was also invaluable to see the amount of work being carried out on new varietal development with an emphasis on disease tolerance/resistance. It is critical that the ABGC continues to work on these matters with growers and other stakeholders in an open and transparent manner for the good of the whole industry. \"Dr Puthiyaparambil Josekutty, Tissue Culture Lab Manager, Clonal Solutions, Walkamin \"I have been encouraging banana farmers to use disease-free tissue culture plants to improve their farming prospects but from now on I will advise them to use only disease-free tissue cultured banana for replanting and extending planting to new areas. \" Shannon Paton, grower, Palmerston \"We have been doing some study into the beneficial fungi and bacteria created from animal manure -certain animals have only beneficial bacteria and fungi (pathogens) and others have nasties that could turn the underground food chain in their favour. We are in the process of trying to multiply them to improve the health in the soil.\"We are going back to the basics in farm practices -less visits to the bunch to utilise time more efficiently, including our team and involving them in each process, allowing them to have a better understanding of why each practice we do is important to achieving a good product. \"James Howe, grower, Mareeba \"I gained a greater appreciation for how much of a precious asset our farms are in FNQ and I certainly see a more significant benefit in preserving our disease free land.\"Seeing the Asian farmers battle with Panama Disease, Moko, black Sigatoka etcetera. and some of the actions they've resorted to in managing it, has made me aware of how much is at stake with regards to our industry and livelihood.\"I am grateful to have attended the China-Philippines Study Tour and am more knowledgeable for having done so. \" and Pisang Ceylan.Whilst these seven are showing resistance to race 1, the real test will be how they perform under commercial conditions.These race 1-resistant varieties will now be planted-out in a separate subtropical block to test for their agronomic characteristics.Mr Peasley said it was necessary to take the varieties into the next phase of trials.\"We've isolated out varieties resistant to race 1 and showing good bunches and eating qualities. Next we need to test them under proper commercial conditions because the first trial just looked at disease tolerance, \" he said.The commercial site is currently being prepared for planting-out out in early January with tissue cultured plantlets having recently established in a nursery at Duranbah for growing-on in pots.In addition to the disease ratings, the commercial trials will provide lots of agronomic data for each variety including the number of hands, length of fingers, weight of bunches, plant height, bunch cycling time, wind and cold tolerance and more.At the field day, growers heard that both the disease screening and forthcoming commercial trials are a direct response to growers' concerns.\"These trials show your levy is hard at work developing new varieties for the future, \" Mr Peasley said. \"We're putting significant resources into reinvigorating the subtropical industry. \"During the field day, growers conducted a preliminary taste test with the new varieties. This will be followed by more formal consumer taste panels.The seven varieties\"These field days needs to happen more often so there's a greater understanding and people know where we're at with disease. We haven't got Panama around Coffs Harbour so it was good to be able to see it first hand and to actually taste the bananas grown. \" -Josh Tate, grower, Coffs Harbour \"I think it's a good trial. There's some promising varieties there for sure but it's a little bit early to tell whether they're going to be successful, we've just got to wait and see. \" -Tweed Brunswick Banana Growers' Association President Robert Pierce \"There was a lot of grower interest in the trials and the day was put together very well. Seeing what Panama does to certain crops was a real eye opener. The real test is to see if we can get a variety that is both disease resistant and with the potential for subtropical growers to command a good price for their product. \" -Coffs Harbour and District Banana Growers' Association President Wally Gately \"I was impressed with the trial. I honestly thought there would have been more Panama disease showing up. There was some nice fruit. There's good potential for the growers who want to try some of these varieties that have a different taste. \" -Ron Gray, Coffs Harbour and District Banana Growers' Association Vice PresidentFor growers looking for diseaseresistant and niche varieties, the Duranbah field trial holds exciting possibilities.Growers attending the field day had the opportunity to see plants growing in Panama-infected conditions and to taste test bananas grown on the block.Those attending came from the local Tweed and Brunswick districts as well as from the mid north coast districts of Coffs Harbour and Woolgoolga. About 35 subtropical growers attended an October field day at Duranbah to see the 13 new varieties and taste test the fruit.The block is a race 1-infected site where bananas were grown more than 20 years ago. It is now colloquially known as the \"killing fields\".The trial screened new varieties, as well as local selections of established varieties, against race 1 with an ambition to find new resistant banana varieties with potential for the Australian banana industry.Developing new disease resistant varieties down the track will ultimately mean Australian consumers will have more choice.Included in the trial were imported varieties from international breeding programs from as far afield as Taiwan, Honduras and Cuba.The resistance trials were conducted under the auspices of the Banana Plant Protection Program's (BPPP) Resistant Varieties and Consumer Choice sub program led by Mike Smith, Senior Principal Scientist of Queensland's Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (QDAFF). The trial manager is David Peasley who is part of the program's leadership team (subtropical).Dr Smith said it was important to identify disease-resistant varieties.\"Whilst the industry recognises the threats that exist from Panama Disease, you need to tackle the problem from a number of fronts. One approach is through resistant varieties that show good performance under a range of Australian environmental conditions, \" Dr Smith said.\"We need resistant varieties which show good performance under a range of conditions so that the geographic area for banana production improves our resilience against the impact of cyclones.\"We also want to give consumers a greater choice of banana varieties which will increase the demand for bananas. \"Although it is still early days, seven of the 13 varieties tested were chosen to go forward to commercial trials that will run for the next two to three years. They are: FLF-1, SC-1 and FC-1 (three local selections), as well as varieties from overseas breeding programs and collections -High Noon, Hom Thong Mokha, Fa'i Palagi,Their survival on a trial block known as the \"killing fields\" has earmarked seven banana varieties for a new commercial trial. Luke Roberts reports. He said the tour's visits to plantations affected by TR4 and to tissue culture facilities showed the direction south east Asian countries had taken to combat the disease by using disease-free, tissue culture plants to replant affected farms and plant out new, uninfected sites.While there are many benefits in using tissue culture for large-scale propagation, issues the industry continues to address are grower concerns about \"offtypes\"cloned varieties that do not stay true to the original type -and plants that for other reasons don't grow on as expected.The timeframe needed to gather, propagate and prepare plants to get the best results can also be a cause of frustration -both for growers and lab operators.Growers often want plants quickly when they anticipate upcoming opportunities for better prices in the market and, alternatively, may want to delay plantings ahead of an anticipated fruit glut. Labs need around 12 months to gather, propagate and prepare high quality plants with little flexibility possible in their timeframes.\"We want to get orders 12 months in advance because then we can produce the best plants, \" Mr Radke said. \"It's when you speed things up, or when you slow things up too much, or when you do too many propagating cyclesthose are three things that are critical for poor results and getting offtypes. \"Mr Radke believes a collaborative approach between tissue culture labs and growers gives the best results.\"We're not plant breeders, we're propagators, but we do encourage growers to involve us in the breeding selection process, \" he said.\"The worst thing is if they conduct years and years of plant breeding and then present us with only three to six clones to propagate with.\"Not all clones propagate equally well. So what will usually happen is that about one third of those clones will be easy to produce, one third will prove to be impossible to produce and one third will be in the middle. That means that if you only started with three to six plants you're in trouble. \"Mr Radke said plant breeders now tend to provide the lab with 40 to 60 of their best clones knowing that these will be reduced down to about a dozen or so individual clones that are amenable to tissue culture production.For banana propagation, Dr Josekutty works with farmers to select suitable plants.\"We ask the farmers if they have any special selections on their farms -any plants that have special features, \" he said.\"We will advise that we go to the best paddock, along with a plant inspector, and choose the best tree. The inspector is there to check for any plant disease, the farmers are looking at the quality of the fruit and the trees and I am looking for the quality of the sucker for propagation. \"Growers are sometimes unsure of the best sized suckers to use.Mr Radke said: \"Sometimes farmers will want to use a monster, maybe something two metres high and a bit old. Young, sword suckers not more than a meter tall are the best suckers to initiate tissue cultures. \"Once selected, disease checks need to be done. The suckers are dug out and placed in groups of ten with leaf samples taken for virus indexing carried out at the Queensland DAFF laboratory in Brisbane. Permits are also needed to move the suckers from farms to the lab.At the lab, the suckers are taken to a processing shed and each one cut back to a growing tip. Unsuitable suckersthose damaged or suspected of diseases -are discarded leaving the best suckers for propagation. There will be 200 to 300 plants produced from each growing tip as the tips are progressively divided and multiplied up to a maximum of eight multiplication cycles.Plants are screened at least three times during the process to see if they will be suitable for potting out.At the end of the process, the aim is to have 15 per cent more plants than ordered to allow screening for possible offtypes and poor performers in the nursery.Mr Radke believes that, in addition to QBAN, the tissue culture and nursery industry in Australia benefits from the NIASA best-practice system of accreditation which sets high standards for facility set up, hygiene practices, recording processes, staff qualifications and ongoing training.\"The Nursery Industry Accreditation Scheme of Australia (NIASA) has been the best thing since sliced bread, \" Mr Radke said.\"NIASA accreditation makes nurseries more profitable, the figures suggest about 50 per cent more profitable because of better standards and better quality plants produced.\"Our throw out rate is about five per cent of what it would be if we weren't NIASA accredited. Our disease level for the 1000-plus species of plants we are working with is less than one per cent of what it would be without NIASA. \"While labour costs for qualified staff are high compared with those of some south east Asian and South American countries and even parts of the United States, Mr Radke sees a positive side.\"We think it's to our advantage here in Australia that our labour is dear. Because our labour is expensive we have to do things right and the smartest and cheapest way to do that is having highly qualified staff doing things perfectly, once only, and having a proper set up so you're not having losses and throw outs and disease and other issues. \"With the start of the wet season in November, most banana farmers have decreased banana plantings and will be expected to start again in April or May. Within the light, temperature and humidity-controlled environment of the tissue culture lab, production continues year round.Some tips for selecting suckers for tissue culture:Look for the best mother plants from the best blocks Select enough suckers -not all will be suitable for cloning Suckers will need to be the right size Plants are subject to biosecurity requirements including disease checks, virus indexing and movement permits Be aware of the timeframes required to get the number of cloned plants required.Multiplying and growing-on millions of tree and crop plants each year is not unusual for one of the north Queensland labs producing tissue culture plants.But an emerging trend seen by Atherton Tablelands-based Clonal Solutions Australia is the increasing interest from crop farmers inquiring about using tissue culture to source new plantings.Leading the way are banana growers. Horticulturist Peter Radke, who co-owns Clonal Solutions with wife Ann, also a horticulturist, says while there is a big variety of crops being multiplied out, bananas now make up the majority of the tissue culture business.\"In the lab now we' d have 20 crops including bananas, \" Mr Radke said. \"That also includes at least a dozen different plants from a range of crop varieties that are for research and aren't being done anywhere else. \"In 2014, the lab will bring up seven years of operation. It expanded from the Radke's nursery business, Yuruga, a native plant nursery which operates on the same Walkamin property and was established in 1985.\"When we started off doing tissue culture we were propagating Teak, Tea Tree, and Eucalypts for the timber industry. We grew millions and millions of superior clones, \" Mr Radke said.\"Now we're also doing agricultural crops. We're doing bananas by tissue culture, we're doing pineapples, papaya, avocados, coffee, cocoa and more. \"Clonal Solutions' Tissue Culture Lab Manager Dr Puthiyaparambil Josekutty said banana plants are now the crop in highest demand for multiplying up so growers can make new plantings and replant existing farms with disease-free bananas.He said there was increasing interest in using tissue culture to clone suckers from the best producing mother plants in existing blocks to help to improve the productivity of the farm.There is also increasing interest in sourcing disease-tolerant plants from the Queensland Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (QDAFF) -particularly plants that have showed promise in planting trials testing resistance to Fusarium wilt disease Panama Tropical Race 4 (TR4).While plant nurseries cannot provide these plants directly, growers who order the plants from QDAFF can have them sent to a QBAN-registered nursery (QBAN stands for Quality Banana Approved Nursery). At the nurseries the plants can be grown on and hardened off prior to being taken to farms for planting. There is a lengthy waiting list for the QDAFF plants.Dr Josekutty participated in the banana Bananas tip timber from lab's top spot Growers looking at options for new plantings and the industry's new varieties are considering tissue culture. ABGC Communications Manager Rhyll Cronin reports.times. Bunching and production times obtained South Johnstone are shown in Table 1. In summary, nurse suckering at South Johnstone tended to give the cropping patterns shown in Table 2.These timings are based on our set of conditions at South Johnstone. Just exactly when bunching and harvest occurs following nurse suckering on your property will depend upon the particular set of conditions including crop management and climatic conditions (largely temperature).Any historical information you have for nurse suckering on your farm will be valuable for adjusting timing strategies appropriately. As always, good farm records improve future decision making.Cyclones are most likely to occur in north Queensland from December to April. The three very severe cyclones which flattened banana crops in the Innisfail-Tully region during the past 30 years all occurred during February-March.Two strategies can be utilised in the lead up to the cyclone season. Firstly, it is advisable to have what you consider to be an appropriate amount of your crop as small unbunched plants (<1.5 m tall) should a cyclone strike. These plants are less prone to wind damage without any manipulation required as the cyclone approaches. Secondly, keep another portion of your crop as slightly larger unbunched plants (< 1.7 m if plant crop or <2.0 m if nurse suckered). These plants should be deleafed prior to the cyclone's landfall -to better resist wind damage.These strategies can be put in place by establishing plant crops at the appropriate time but can also be scheduled by nurse suckering.However, crops ready for a December cyclone event are not so ready come March-April. Therefore, additional blocks would need to come into play as the cyclone season progresses.If you require suitable small unbunched plants over this period from ratoons, nurse suckering should be undertaken in the period October to December. This change has been largely due to the rising price of the product as well as the belief biopest oil-based programs are ineffective against the pathogen.A field study has been conducted at the South Johnstone Research Station to evaluate the efficacy of chlorothalonil and paraffinic oil alone and in tank mixes with triazoles (difenoconazole, epoxiconazole, propiconazole, tebuconazole), pyrimethanil and fluopyram, as well as mancozeb mixed with paraffinic oil.However, the last growing season was characterised by low disease pressure and therefore the experiment will be repeated during 2014 to confirm the outcomes of the 2013 trial. When nurse suckering was first developed in the 1950s it was widely used in north Queensland to help confine fruit production to the Winter-Spring period when prices were highest on the southern markets. This remained the norm during the 1950s and 1960s.Since then, nurse suckering has experienced revivals following cyclones because it can delay production of fruit and so avoid production gluts and associated low market prices. Nurse suckering has also been used to arrange farm production to provide more constant fruit supplies through the year, to make the time of harvest more uniform within a block and to rejuvenate older ratoons.These days, because north Queensland supplies nearly 90 per cent of the Australian market, fruit is required year round in relatively even quantities. Nurse suckering is very effective for adjusting the time of production to achieve this continuous supply across the farm.If you want bunching and harvest in particular months of the year when should you be nurse suckering?Our studies at DAFF South Johnstone prior to a few years ago were limited to using nurse suckering to schedule bunching and harvest to particular times of the year better suited for rating for leaf spot disease and for the maturity bronzing fruit disorder.More recently in our cyclone recovery work we investigated some additionaltaken into plant-crop blocks was forming ruts at an Innisfail property. Farm manager Gavin Eilers talks about how switching to preformed and permanent beds helped.Gavin Eilers is the manager of LMB Farming's Stockton Road farm where he grows both Cavendish and Lady Finger bananas. Gavin has integrated pre-formed beds and permanent beds into his farming system making them standard practices that he has been using for the past five years.Ruts (wet areas in the block) were becoming a problem he believed was mainly starting in the plant crop. Gavin has gone to great lengths to avoid the creation of ruts in his blocks.\"When we were working up the whole block, we found once we started going into the plant block every week with machinery we were starting rut problems, \" Gavin said.\"This was because the soil was soft and we didn't have enough grass yet. By leaving the rows in the same spot, we have a hard surface from the start for the machinery to drive on, and the grass is already covering the whole inter-row. \"Gavin said that permanent beds have now rectified this problem. He also finds other benefits from using permanent beds, such as reducing his total inputs by targeting their placement.\"Now we only have to put products such as lime, magnesium or mill mud on the top of the row. \"Gavin finds there is a lot less work involved by maintaining the rows in the same place. He injects glyphosate (Roundup®) into the previous banana crop and believes this is a crucial practice as there is nothing left of the crop by the time he needs to prepare for planting. If there are ruts in the block, he will fix these spots with cultivation confined to the problem areas.When getting the rows ready he uses GPS guided equipment and prepares the row only and leaves the inter-row space vegetated. First he will spray the row with glufosinate (Basta®), rip once and then do a single pass with the rotary hoe.Pre-formed beds helped Tully's Leahy family get their plant bananas in earlier.The Leahy family began pre-forming their plant blocks nearly 10 years ago. They have continued using this practice and Patrick Leahy said that this year all of their plant bananas went into preformed beds.\"Everything that we planted this year was pre-formed. The main benefit we find is knowing we are able to start planting in August.\"When we finish with a block, if there are major ruts or we need to change the row direction, we will flatten the rows and laser level the block.\"However, if no work is required, we will chain the bananas down, spray the bananas out twice with Roundup® and tidy-up the shape of the rows. \"Patrick said their ground preparation and planting is now all performed with the aid of GPS-guided machinery.\"With the guidance of the GPS, we set the discs up so the inside of the discs sit just on the bottom of the V and the outside of the discs above the row. This helps knock the edge off the row.\"We then come back past with the V blade. This is all we will do to re-shape the rows. We then leave the block to sit until we are ready to plant.\"When we are ready to plant, we will spray the top of the row and let the grass die. Then we will rip the top of the row twice, by travelling up and back, and do a single pass with the rotavator. We find the rotavator is really effective at picking up any remaining pieces of string and it doesn't get choked up by the string like a rotary hoe does. \"Tully's Barry and Stephen Lowe have tried permanent beds for the first time at their farm on Davidson Road, Tully. Stephen talks about how they got started.\"We trialled it (permanent beds) for the first time and we will just see how it goes before we do any more plant like this, \" said Stephen.\"There were a few benefits from leaving the rows in the same place and not working up the entire block. It was cheaper, faster to prepare and we didn't end up with any of the compacted soil on the row. \"Leaving the rows in the same place meant the Lowes did not cultivate the block anywhere near as much as usual to get the ground ready for planting.\"Normally we would have to disc across the block in both directions a number of times to flatten the block out because we grow on mounds. Then we would reform the rows.\"By leaving the rows in the same place we avoided a lot of this work.\"This time we disced along the row twice to knock the bananas down and then as required to control volunteers. When we were ready to plant we ran the discs up each side of the row to put the dirt up on the row.\"We then ripped the row once, rotary hoed each side and the top of the row in three separate passes and then planted. A few weeks after we planted the bananas we ran the 'V' blade up the inter row. \"When asked whether this is a practice they will continue to use on the farm, Stephen said it would come down to the individual block.\"If we didn't need to move the irrigation, or the block didn't have any ruts that required work, we would definitely do it (permanent beds) again.\"I think one of the main benefits is not mixing the compacted soil into the row where the bananas are growing. I have seen plant, both in cane and bananas, where you can pick where the old rows were by the way plants are growing. It can't be good growing in that (compacted soil). If you asked Barry, he would probably think the fact that it was faster and cheaper is the main reason he would do it again. \" The concepts of pre-formed and permanent beds are not new to the banana industry. However, despite the many benefits they provide, they continue to be a rarely used practice.The two types of beds can be used together to support each other or individually, depending on a farm's management practices.Here is an explanation of the terms \"pre-formed\" and \"permanent\" and some of their advantages.Pre-forming beds refers to the practice of getting a banana plant block ready well in advance of the planting date.This means all of the ground preparation and the forming of banana-row beds is carried out and the block is then left to sit fallow, generally over the wet season.When the block is ready to plant, the row is simply sprayed out and any cultivation is restricted to the row. This leaves the inter-row space intact, maintaining ground cover and also providing a hard, trafficable inter-row surface for the plant crop.Advantages include: opportunity to take advantage of short windows of fine weather for planting quicker planting after rain as the raised beds dry out faster than flat ground allows wet season planting and generally more flexibility in the planting schedule improved inter-row access and trafficablility.The term 'permanent beds' refers to the practice of leaving the row in the same place crop after crop -often with no, or very limited, ground preparation to the inter-row space. Growers find there are advantages in only cultivating the banana-row bed, including: reduced cultivation as only half of the block is cultivated, therefore it is cheaper, faster and means less of the block is susceptible to erosion plants do not come into contact with the compacted inter-row soil which may restrict root growth subsoil and topsoil are less likely to be mixed, especially in blocks with mounded rows that require the whole block to be flattened before reforming rows Plant block inter-row spaces are already compacted and trafficable as they have not been disturbed, therefore machinery and vehicles are less likely to cause ruts Ground cover can be maintained in the inter-row spaces of fallow and plant crops Lime, magnesium and mill by-products can be applied just to the row, reducing costs.\"We see a number of benefits from preforming our plant blocks,\" Gavin said. \"The main one is the planting window. By having the block ready, it gives us the opportunity to plant in the wet season if we choose to.\"Also we find we can get our plant in earlier after rain as the formed rows dry out faster than flat ground. \"Gavin said other benefits were the prevention of soil movement during the wet season and the improved trafficability of the plant block's inter-row space.\"Currently we prepare the block as per usual and leave it with a grass fallow. If we have a nematode problem we would look at using a non-host fallow crop but most of the time it's just a grass fallow. Down the track we may also look at using a wick wiper in the inter-row before planting to get a good ground cover established early.\"We also find we get a chance to get rid of some of the problem weeds as they are easier to control before the bananas are planted. \"Gavin didn't believe there were any problems associated with this practice as they prepared the block exactly as they normally would. The MacKay family have been pre-forming their plant blocks for a number of years and each year they try to prepare some of their plant blocks this way. All of the MacKays' ground preparation activities are performed with the aid of GPS-guided machinery. First they survey the farm by driving over it with a GPS-guided tractor that allows them to produce a map showing the gradient across the block.Then they prepare the block as usual and, with the aid of GPS guidance, ensure the row and even inter-row spaces are positioned correctly. Where possible, the row spaces will be kept in the same location over successive banana crop cycles.\"If, at the end of the crop cycle, the block doesn't require any major renovations, we will leave the rows in the same place and just reshape the inter-row space, \" Gavin said.\"This is much quicker as we don't have to work up the whole block. We also aren't mixing up topsoil and subsoil and mixing compacted inter-row soil into the row when we get the block ready. \"Stephen Lowe has tried permanent beds at the family's Tully farm.Gavin MacKay of Mackay Estates' Bolinda farm has found there are a number of advantages using pre-formed beds.A pre-formed bed at LMB where both preformed and permanent beds have helped prevent ruts.They're a quicker, cheaper and more flexible way to plant, so why don't more growers use pre-formed and permanent beds? Queensland Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry (QDAFF) Horticulturist Naomi King reports. Mr Riedy, from Wongaling Beach, works with consultancy group Total Grower Services (TGS).He is researching biological fungicides that could be used as an alternative to current chemical treatments for banana diseases such as yellow Sigatoka.\"I and the TGS team have begun research on many biological control methods that could be used to control disease in the soil as well as applied to the leaf, \" Mr Riedy said.In the US, Mr Riedy will visit compost developers and see a range of integrated pest management systems and crops.Mr Riedy said the use of biological fungicides -products based on micro-organisms used to control fungal diseases, bacteria and nematodes -had potential as a solution.\"Chemical resistance to fungicides is actually one of the biggest issues for the banana industry, \" Mr Riedy said. \"Even though we're the largest horticulture industry in Australia we're considered by chemical companies to be very minor in terms of our use of chemical treatments.\"That means that our access to new chemical treatments that could greatly assist the industry with issues such as fungal disease is extremely limited and it's difficult to get registrations for older chemicals as well.\"Biologicals will be a big thing if they can be shown to work in bananas, \" Mr Riedy said.The Mort Johnston Professional Development Scholarship is awarded annually by the Australian Banana Growers' Council (ABGC) to honour the memory of Tully grower Mort Johnston by offering assistance for projects that advance the banana industry. Despite being flattened by tropical cyclone Yasi midway through the Phase 1 work, the trial was a great success. Fruit of the best lines of genetically-engineered bananas contained up to a twenty-fold increase in pVA levels.In 2012, Phase 2 field trials commenced at South Johnstone Research Station to further investigate strategies to enhance pVA levels as well as conduct more detailed and extensive analyses of the elite banana selections identified in Phase 1.Recently, fruit of some of these latter selections was sent to the United States for a trial to determine how effective the enhanced provitamin A of the banana fruit was in boosting vitamin A levels in the body.The Phase 2 work also includes a planting of bananas engineered for higher levels of iron in fruit, the results of which will be progressively available over the next 18 months.The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been the major funding source for the transgenic banana work. The QUT team's research has been backed with more than $10 million over the past nine years through this foundation's Grand Challenges in Global Health program. In December 2011, Bill and Melinda Gates met with the QUT team in Cairns to discuss progress with the transgenic banana trials. Witnessing the Gates' commitment and enthusiasm was a highlight of the meeting.In separate work being funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage grant, QUT has been genetically engineering bananas to obtain Fusarium wilt resistance.In small plant glasshouse trials, several genetically modified (GM) Lady Finger lines with resistance to race 1 of the disease were identified. The research has now been extended to field trials where GM Lady Finger and Cavendish are being tested for resistance against TR4 Fusarium wilt on a grower's property in the Northern Territory. Results are so far very encouraging.and Bluggoe. It is in high demand for social functions and in rural communities where currency is often limited, locally brewed beer acts as liquid currency. Banana wine making has also been introduced in some banana conservation sites to add value to the current genetic diversity so strengthening conservation strategies for the crop.East Africa is recognised as a secondary centre of global genetic diversity for bananas with a considerable amount of this diversity located in Uganda.This diversity in East Africa is primarily in the East African Highland bananas but it has only in recent times been more widely appreciated that there are important popular unique AA diploid subgroups including Mshale-Nshonowa contained within this broader East African Highland Banana group. They are not confined to triploid AAA like Cavendish is.There is also a unique AAB subgroup Sukali Ndizi which is related but distinct from Silk (the equivalent of Old Sugar in Australia, not Ducasse). There is a very small export market for this banana type in Europe with an estimated 2,500 tonnes imported from East Africa annually.A notable and popular cultivar of the Sukali Ndizi subgroup is Kamaramasenge. Gros Michel is a relatively popular dessert banana widely distributed in East Africa.Despite the tranquil scene of endless rolling hills of bananas, the threat of major diseases is very real. Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW) is a bacterial wilt disease currently confined to East Africa.The plant wilting/death it causes is very similar to Moko disease which is present in the Philippines. During Jeff Daniells' visit, he had the opportunity to see many thousands of hectares of bananas as he travelled from Kampala to Mbarara to Fort Portal and back to Kampala. But surprisingly no one was able to show any BXW and the bananas we travelled past also looked quite healthy.The story is that BXW is mainly a problem in regions where certain types of ABB banana, such as Ducasse, are common. Ducasse and other ABB bananas are highly susceptible to insect vector transmission of the wilt pathogen and are mostly grown in central Uganda where Jeff did not have the opportunity to visit.BXW is also a problem for East African Highland Bananas that are not well managed, as in parts of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.Very good management (production is for markets) and few ABB bananas in south-western Uganda have prevented the disease from getting established. It is unclear exactly just how much of a threat BXW would be to well-managed Cavendish plantations in Australia.Appropriate management should be able to adequately contain the disease, but in our higher rainfall environment in north Queensland and with many plantations subject to inundation of floodwaters any outbreaks that might occur could have flow-on effects down the catchment.Banana bunchy top is widespread in neighbouring Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and looms large on the horizon as a major threat to the world's greatest banana consumers. international feature Uganda is located on the equator in East Africa, inland from Kenya on the coast. Its land area is 236,000 square kilometres, about the size of Victoria, with a population estimated at 37 million.Despite being on the equator, the climate is considerably moderate because of its elevation ranging between 600 and 5,100 metres above sea level. More than two thirds of the country is a plateau lying between 1,000 and 2,500 metres above sea level. Average annual rainfall varies between 750 mm to 1,500 mm, depending upon location, and is fairly reliable and relatively well distributed (usually in the range of 50-175 mm/month) throughout the year.The capital city, Kampala, is situated in the central district. At an altitude of 1,200 metres and near to the equator it also borders the world's second largest freshwater lake, the 69,000 km 2 Lake Victoria. Temperatures seldom vary much from the average max and mins of 26°C and 17°C. Thus the climate is relatively idyllic for bananas and people alike.With climate so favourable, combined with suitable soils, it is probably not surprising bananas have become so important for Uganda. And despite the modest size of the nation, it is actually ranked as the second largest producer of bananas in the world with 10 million tonnes annually, representing 8 per cent of world production. This compares with the largest producer, India, at 20 per cent and Australia's 0.25 per cent.Most of the production is consumed domestically and average per capita consumption is a whopping 280 kg annually, the highest in the world. Banana production is dominated by the East African Highland Banana (EAHB) at about 80 per cent and includes both cooking 'matooke' and brewing 'mbidde' types. They are most extensively grown at elevations between 1,000 to 2,000 metres.The main production areas are located in the western/south western and central regions of the country. These cover vast areas of the total area under bananas in Uganda, estimated at 1.9 million hectares. Annual yields are between 10 to 20 tonnes per hectare. Production is mainly by smallholders, each farming around one hectare, and mostly for domestic consumption with fewer than 10,000 tonnes exported to neighbouring countries including Kenya.Fruit of the matooke cooking bananas are harvested green, steam-cooked, mashed or pounded into a meal to provide a starchy staple nutritionally similar to the potato. This preparation is also referred to as matooke and is one of the national dishes of the country. It is typically eaten with a sauce made of vegetables, ground peanut, or some meat such as goat or beef. Matooke is so important a part of the diet that the word 'matooke' is synonymous with the word for 'food' in Uganda.Banana beer is an important alcoholic beverage produced in Uganda as well as in other East African countries. It is traditionally brewed using mbidde bananas which contain more tannin in their fruits than the matooke cooking bananas so making them unsuitable for cooking because of the bitter taste. The beer banana fruit is harvested when mature, ripened and squeezed to produce juice that is fermented (with sorghum) to make beer. Some other types of banana are also used to make beer including DucasseLycra is out and bunches are in for Ugandan cyclists. Bicycles are often used to transport bunches to market Ugandans eat more bananas than anyone else, drink banana beer and have a word for a banana variety which also means \"food\". Jeff Daniells of Queensland's Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (QDAFF) attended an international banana workshop in Uganda. He provided this report with Deborah Karamura of Bioversity International, Uganda.We have grower and affiliate members. Our grower members are banana producers from Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.Under ABGC's Rules, the legal owner or owners of a banana plantation in Australia with at least half a hectare of bananas under production (Commercial Banana Plantation Owner) may apply to become a member of ABGC.We also have affiliate membersnon-growers who have joined the ABGC as a way of showing their support for, and involvement with, the banana industry.Our Board of Directors currently comprises seven Directors -five from Queensland and two from New South Wales.We are seeking a Director from Western Australia/Northern Territory.Our Directors are: Doug Phillips, Chairman (Qld), Adrian Crema, Vice-Chairman (Qld), Paul Johnston, Treasurer (Qld), Peter Molenaar (NSW), Marc Darveniza (Qld), Steve Lizzio (Qld) and Stephen Spear (NSW).For more information, please see the ABGC website, www.abgc.org.au or contact ABGC Chief Executive Officer: Jim Pekin by phoning 07 3278 4786.For a long time, well-intentioned people have tried to come up with ways to \"rate\" or \"grade\" food in such a way that, with one look, anyone can determine its healthiness.We have been trying to concoct a grading system for years, never with a perfect solution. For example, how would you grade cheese? It is a great source of protein and calcium, the mineral needed for healthy bones, yet it is also high in sodium (salt) and fat. Does that mean it is good or bad?The government is doing its best to create a front-of-pack labelling algorithm to create a star rating system based on half-star increments to a maximum of five stars. It is hoped this will help the public make healthier choices at the supermarket.Fruit is good for you. You would struggle to find anyone who would seriously think otherwise. So, bananas are good for you. No argument there.How many stars do you think an avocado, sultana, garlic, pineapple and banana should receive? I hope you agree with me that they all get five stars.With the new algorithm only raw garlic gets five stars. The sultana gets two-anda-half stars; the avocado, four stars; and the pineapple and banana both get fourand-a-half-stars. That may suggest that garlic is healthier than the banana which, in turn, is healthier than the avocado.That is not how nutrition works. Good nutrition is about eating a range of healthy foods, especially minimally processed foods like fresh, dried and frozen fruits and vegetables.The government wants us to eat more fruit for health, so why not automatically give them five stars? Thankfully the horticultural industry is arguing on your behalf to make all fresh produce five-star foods. When the star system is approved it will be voluntary for two years. If too few foods and companies take part then it is likely to become mandatory.You may recall that in 2005 the government proposed that no health claim could be made for a food that had more than 16 grams of sugar in a serve. That effectively meant a small banana could have a health claim, but a large banana couldn't. An unripe banana could also have a health claim, but as it ripened and the starches turned to sugar, you would have to remove the health claim. Naturally we wrote back to the government explaining the problem.Eight years later, they have been more sensible and agreed that fruit should be able to make a health claim for any of its abundant nutrients. The key nutrients in the banana for which a general health claim can be made are fibre, potassium, folate, vitamin B6 and carbohydrate.As the banana is a good source of potassium, it can claim that it \"contributes to normal muscle function\". For folate it can be said the banana \"contributes to the reduction of tiredness and fatigue\". The carbohydrate \"contributes energy for normal metabolism\". There are many other general claims under Food Standards Code 1.2.7 that can be made for the banana and other fruits, but no food can claim to prevent or cure disease.In truth, food is neither good nor bad; it is the amount you eat and how it is prepared that determines whether it is doing you good or not. Put another way, while everyone agrees that fruit and vegetables are good for you, fewer than seven of every 100 Australians actually eat enough fruit and vegetables to be good for them.Although it seems to be convenient to grade food on a short list of components such as the salt, saturated fat and sugar content, the nutritional value of a whole food can be easily misinterpreted.If I were in charge I would really simplify things. All fresh fruit gets five stars. All fresh fruit can claim \"absolutely sensational for the health of your body and mind. Eat them\". Does it really need to be more complicated than that? Oh, and bananas \"make your body sing\" too.\"If I were in charge I would really simplify things\"Food regulators are designing a five-star scale to help consumers assess the nutritional value of fresh food. Dietitian Glenn Cardwell rates the concept.","tokenCount":"16147"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"12b4cb9bee546a1546f9e299a3757bfc","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/098e7eaa-a3e3-4624-98ac-9c0bb934edbb/retrieve","id":"-2130156187"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"500ffbed-e8b1-4d6b-9f86-89cb24bbcaf8","pagecount":"8","content":"In Madagascar, 2 prototype motorized weeders were imported by AfricaRice in 2020. These machines were piloted in the region of Menabe (western of Madagascar) and some adaptations were made together with local fabricator to match the spacing of rice used by farmers in the region. Demonstration and testing were completed with rice farmers from Ankilizato in 2021 during the two rice growing seasons.The next step of the activities aims to promote and diffuse the motorized weeders. Thus, farm surveys were conducted in two locations in order to study rice farmers' weeding practices.During the survey, farmers were asked about questions related to all farming practices in general. However, the present report reports only the households' weeding practices.-Date: from 6 th to 11 th September 2022 -Location: Ankilizato and Malaimbandy, in the Menabe Region of Madagascar -Enumerators: the survey was conducted by two research assistants from AfricaRice and by the support of five local enumerators (originated from the study areas).In 2021, similar study was already conducted by researchers working with AfricaRice with rice farmers from the Doho Irrigation Scheme in Uganda. So, the survey questionnaires that we used in Madagascar were adapted from the questionnaires used in previous survey in Uganda.The questionnaires were translated in local language to facilitate communication with farmers.Data were collected with tablets using ODK Collect application. The different types of data collected during the survey are presented in the table 1.After data collection, descriptive analysis was preformed to describe the farmers' weeding practices followed by multiple correspondence analysis in order to understand the determinants of the rice farmers' weeding practices. Different variables such as the plot size, use of improved varieties, methods of crop establishment (planting in line, loosely in line or random transplantation), the status of farmer on the rice plots (owner, tenant or borrowed) and the existence of revenue-generating off-farm activities were taken into account while analyzing the determinants of the rice farmers' weeding practices.  In total, 187 rice farmers from 142 households took part in the study (cf Table 2). Four parameters were considered to describe the rice farmers' weeding practices: the weeding frequencies, the types of weeding operation, the composition of laborer and the average cost of hired labor for weeding.The frequencies of weeding are presented in the table 3. The table 3 shows that about 20% of the interviewed farmers weed their rice plots only one time. In general, farmers weed their rice plots two times. Just few farmers (lower than 10%)weed their fields three times and none of the interviewed farmers practiced weeding more than three times.In general, 30% of respondents practiced hand weeding only while 11% of the farmers practiced only mechanical weeding using push rotary weeder. More than 50% of respondent combined mechanical weeding followed by hand weeding. None of the interviewed farmers used motorized weeder yet (cf table 4).   Average cost of hired labor for weedingBecause hired labor represents half of the required labor for weeding, the average weeded area per unit of time and the average costs of hired labor per unit area following the types of weeding operation are presents in the table below.  The table 6 and figure 2 summarized the results of the multiple correspondence analysis.The analysis of Indicator Matrix in table 6 summarizes the decomposition of the variables and shows the inertia accounted for by each component. Note that, the inertia for a component describes the amount of variation the component  Points on opposite sides of the plot indicate that a component contrasts these variables. For example, the variables \"Use of improved varieties-Yes\" and \"Use of improved varieties-No\" are on opposite sides of the origin for both axis F1 and F2 means that F1 and F2 contrast these variables.Analysis of each variable's coordinates and the contribution of each variable (table not shown) on each components help to determine in which of the two components each variable have higher contribution and help to identify different groups of variables. Here, we found that most variables have higher contribution on the components F1 and identified 2 groups of variables (green and orange circles). Variables included in a same group have positive correlation with each other. However, groups of variables in opposite side of a components are contrasting.the green circle is in opposite side of the orange circle along the component F1 means that these two groups are contrasting to each other. The figure 2 shows that there is a strong relationship between the farming system and the weeding practices. Farmers who have bigger plots tend to weed their plots with mechanical weeder as this practice allows to save time. Farmers who already followed some of the GAP components (e.g. improved varieties, planting in line) practiced good weeding practices in their fields (two or three weeding, use of mechanical followed by hand weeding).The status of the farmer over the rice plot and the existence of revenue-generating off-farm activities play as well a great role in determining the farmers' weeding practices. Farmers who are tenant are not really interested in investing much in purchasing in-puts such as seeds, fertilizer or in works (weeding more than one time). As they have to share the products with the owner of the field, they won't get any profit. Same with farmers who don't have revenuegenerating off-farm activities because they don't have financial means to weed their fields more frequently.","tokenCount":"889"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"83bdaeb3b036c2f82fbc2853ec2fc0af","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H005407.pdf","id":"1937057694"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"4a541bd9-4609-4056-a539-ee18c5e98359","pagecount":"77","content":"and t h e informed o p i n i o n s of lLP.11 staft' sienbers and c o l l a b o r a t o r s , as e a r l y as possible.Flow parameters at time = 1.5 hours . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    This two-part Working Paper presents the interim results of IMI's first attempt to use mathematical modeling as a methodology to investigate main canal operations and to conduct reseamh on the interactions between design and management at that level of an irrigation system. This study was initiated in September 1987, thanks to the assistance of the Societe Crenobloise d'Etudes et d'Applications Hydrauliques (SOGREAH), the French firm of consulting engineers, which made available to IIMI a software package --MIST'R&-SIMUTRA -for simulation of steady and unstedy flow in open channels. MISTRAL is actually a simplified microcomputer version of CARIMA, a sophisticated and powerful simulation software that runs on a mainframe computer. The program was developed by the firm in the 1970s t,o study the impact of natural or artificial modifications introduced in rivers and their associated flood plains, with a view to evaluating the impct of flood routing and for the management of regulating reservoirs in particular.The application of mathematical modeling conducted by IIIVII on the alankuttiya Branch Canal, being IIMI's first case study of that nature, is relatively modest in its objectives: F i r s t , the study aims to demonstrate, through the model, the impact of the particular regulating structures present here -fixed duck-bill weirs -on the control of water levels along the various reaches of the branch canal' arid thereby on the control of the discharge diverted at the offtakes nearby.Second, it is expected that, with proper calibration, the model will contribute to the identification of timely operations of the system (main sluice and offtakes) to manage the rotational pattern of water releases in the branch canal followed by its closure, which constitutes the current operational practice of the irrigation agency, more efficiently, (e.g., ensuring equitable distribution of water while minimizing operational losses or shortage at the tail).The first objective has already been achieved. Even though the model has not yet been calibrated beyond the first reach, the computation of water surface profiles in the branch canal for a range of inflows under steady flow conditions brings to light the differences that exist between offtakes in terms of level control in the parent canal, depending on their location with respect to the regulating structure.The calibration of the entire canal is d r w a y and the water level and flow data required for this purpose have been collected during yala (dry season) 1988.. Flow simulations under unsteady conditions similar to those that are creatd when the main sluice of the canal is opened or closed can then be performed, thus permitting the achievement of the second objective.Perhaps the greatest benefit of the application so far has been the opportunity provided to IIMI staff to familiarize themselves with the modeling approach and with the numerical hydraulic techniques involved. It V is however planned to develop the application further to the point of being able to propose, to the irrigation agency, effective strategies for managing the Kalankuttiya branch.cana1. Conducting this application has also helped IIMI to formulate the term of reference for a mathematical model tailor-made to cater to the needs of IIMI's multidisciplinary.staff in carrying out research on exploring the prospects for more efgective and responsive canal' operations. Right Bank Main Canal in southern Sri Lanka. Such a model is currently under developoent for the Kirindi Oya PArt I of this Working Paper deals with the description of the MISTRruI-SIMUTRA software package, its data requirements and output, and its potential use as a research, operational and training tool.Part I1 reports the preliminary results obtained in applying the XISTRAt-SIMUTRA software to modeling the behavior of the Kalankuttiya branch canal in north-central Sri M a . observations and the impact of the particular design features of the system on canal operations is highlighted.These results are compared with field vi PAKr IThe management of water delivery constitutes one of the major themes around which IIMI articulates its research programs.Current operational practices in the large open canal networks of many irrigation systems of Asia suggest that there is considerable potential for the development of efsective and responsive main system management (Chambers, 1988).design features for water level control in the main conveyance system and discharge control at their offtakes. Efficient management of water conveyance over long distances in main canals and into distributary canals suffers due to the lack of, or ineffective, control facilities provided for in the design of the system. Hence IIMI's research agenda under the above theme also includes analyzing the interactions between the design and the management of main irrigation canals.Operational practices are however also conditioned by the particular Research into the developnent of innovative main system design and management practices through field experimentation on live irrigation systems is seldom a feasible option -too many people would be inconvenienced and crops adversely affected. conditions the dimensions of the canal concerned and the dynamics of the system would make the exercise laborious and generally not replicable. In fact some experiments would be dangerous to perform, such as operating the w i n canal at maximum conveyance capacity, since this could lead to considerable losses of water, not to speak of the potential threat to the structural integrity of the canal itself.Even if it were possible to overcOme these Off-the-field techniques of assessing system behavior such as mathematical modeling thus become a viable alternative to direct experimentation on the physical system. Hawever, the validity of any model depends on the degree of accuracy with which it represents the real system. In. the case of a canal all hydraulically significant features should be identified and adequately represented in the model. ensured via appropriate data gathering and adequate calibration of the model to actual field conditions. constituted entirely independent of field work. This can only be A mathematical model cannot thus be properlyThe implementation of mathematical modeling techniques is often synonymous with computer use. modeling closely follow advances in computer technology. powerful and relatively inexpensive computers has brought them within the reach of irrigation agendies in developing countries.In fact, developnents in the field of mathematicalThe advent of more IIMI's choice of mathematical models for flow simulation as &search tools for addressing the issue of design and management interactions i n identifying effective and responsive main system operations is thus not inappropriate. Defining a suitable algorithm. This is a step by step analysis of the problem and its solution. understanding of the problem at hand, a careful examination of the inputs required, and the expected outpt.This phase requires a thorough Translating the algorithm to a high-level computer language such as BASIC, FOR\", PASCAL etc. resulting in a 'canputer program'.Compiling/Interpreting the above program to a low-level machine language which cam then be understood by the processor. may be machinedependent unlike the previous one.Test-running the program on a model for which input and output data sets are available; to ensure that the model is working properly, the model outputs are compared with the output d a t a set already available.Representing the physical system to be studied in the model and calibrating it for specified field conditions. IIMI does not seek to develop these models itself since it recognizes that a number of such models (usually based on algorithms for the resolution of the equations governing the hydraulics of open channels) have already been developed and are being used by universities, research organizations and consulting firms. body of knowledge to the fmlfillment of its own goals in research, information dissemination and.training. IIMI may, from time to time, call upon the services of external resource persons to help it in this respect.Im's aim is therefore to adapt and apply this available It was in this spirit that IIMI sought the assistance of the French consulting firm, SOGREAN, to procure their microcomplter software package \"MISTRAL-SIMWI'RA\" for flow simulation in canals. The first application of mathematical modeling using this software was conducted on the Kalankuttiya branch canal within the Mahaweli System H in the North-Central Province of Sri Lanka (Figures 1 and 2).The purpose of this paper is to describe the software, its data requirements, output, and potential use in identifying effective and responsive main system operations.The simulation software consists of two distinct modules: the program analyzes the data pertaining to the d topography and the hydraulic characteristics of the structures, contained in the model configuration file, and transforms these data into a set of coded instructions that can be easily accessed during the calculation phase.the second phase, the user is required to create a calculation file describing the precise type of scenario to be simulated. phase involves the numerical resolution af the B e r r e de St Venant's equation@ by means of an implicit .finite difference technique. &ssentially consists of the water level, discharge, velocity and flow volune at each computational point.Fach phase requires a specific input file, a model configurationThe calculationSIMUl'RA produces graphical outputs of the computational results generated by MISTRAL.The general procedure for use of the MISTRAGSpmgrams is described schematically in Figure 3 .-The version of MIS= used by IIMI has a capacity equivalent to 100 computational points. model depends on the number of structures and singularities that have to be represented. For example, a canal with frequently varying topography would require a large number of oomputAAonal points. number of structures such as regulators, offtakes, etc., the higher the number of cmputational points required.The number of compkltational points for any given Similarly the higher the canal TapologY that its physical features are represented to the required degree of \\ The first step is to describe the canal to be modeled in such a manner Structures, for example, regulating weirs, drop structures, and lateral branches (inflow or outflow). of hydraulic head is likely to occur, such as bridges, sudden constrictions or expansions can also be modeled. however, cannot represent movements of gates.The MISTRAGSIMUTRA programs are capable of modeling fixedThe presence of other singularities where lossThe present version of the model,The following features characterize the Kalankuttiya branch canal which be used as an example to illustrate the use of the software:Upstream head sluice; a boundary condition in term of a headdischarge relationship, or variations of either head or discharge with time could be imposed at this pointLateral offtakes (gated pipe outlets with their corresponding rating curves); these are treated as upstream points by the program and should therefore be indicated as tributaries with negative discharge values Regulating structures, i.e., static regulators (duckbill weirs) and drop structures, characterized by appropriate head-discharge relations Bridges, constrictions, and expansions where hydraulic head losses occur Domstream boundary condition; the program allows only one such condition; a head-discharge relationship, or variations of either head or 4i.scharge with time could be imposed at this point.In the following discussion we shall suppose that the problem under consideration is the modeling. of the first reach of the Kalankutti.ya branch canal, i.e., up to the first duckbill weir. The modeling of subsequent reaches can be performed in identical fashion. t h i s reach is given below (not to scale).The corresponding topological (branch and node) representation of this reach of canal is indicated in Figure 4 . The symbol represents the computational points, appropriately labeled.  The following convention was h p t e d for the nomenclature:  Note that each offtake is represented by four computational points at the same chainsge and the saxne elevation. the distributary canal 305D2 is represented by the points PA17, 5 D U , -PA18, and PA19 in that order.For example, the offtake toDuckbill weirs; e.g.., DKB1 refers to the first duckbill weir, etc.EWRl, EWR2, EWR3 (standing for Equivalent WeiR) are three computational points employed to account for the hydraulic head loss that occurs over a rocky constriction present over a distance of about 30 meters in the Kalankuttiya branch canal. A weir headdischarge relationship is imposi?d at the point bearing the code number 400 (see below). It is assumed that head lOS8 occurs due to the abrupt expansion at the downstream end of the constriction.Computational points (or nodes) are chosen in such a manner that the sections (or branches) bounded by pairs of nodes are reasonably homogeneous representations of the canal topography and rugosity. constrained by the presence of a) tributaries or offtakes since discharges into and out of the modeled canal can only occur at nodes, or b) any of the other topological features listed abve.The numbers against each computational point (e.g., 0.500 against PA10 and 1.390 against aRA2) represent the distance in kilometers to that point from the head of the canal.The numbers within parentheses refer to the codes associated with some of the coaqrutational points that w i l l be interpreted by the program as follows : code 103: Defines the upstream boundary condition i n terms of a headdischarge relationship. This is the code usually used in association with the offtakes though they are in fact hydraulically downstream points with respect to the points on the 'main canal. positive. canal offtake discharges should be given a negative sign.All discharges entering the main canal are considered In accordance with this sign convention all distributary code 300: Endicates that the point bearing this code together with an dssociated upstream point (to be specified) form part of the same confluence. For example, in the case of distributary canal 305D2, the code 300 is used to indicate that the computational point PA19 should be associated with the upstream point PA17.Code 400: Indicates that the point in question is a control section of the overflow type (e.g., sill, weir). Such a control is generally represented by three computational points at the same chainage.Code 903: Defines the downstream b0uhdix-y condition in terms of a headdischarge relationship. this purpose. condition. Since we are confining our discussion to the first reach of Kalankuttiya, a code 903 is used at the first duckbill weir, which marks the end of this reach. If the whole length of canal is being modeled, the weir would be considered as an intermediate control section characterized by the n o d head discharge relationship (Code 400).Two,computational points are employed for The program allows for only one downstream boundary Complete explanations of the significance of the codes are contained in the MISTRAL Users' Manual.Model confimtion file. The model configuration file describes the state under which the system is to be studied and is created in conformity w i t h the canal topology defined above. Among the data that define a given state are descriptions of the canal topography (distances, elevations, canal roughness coefficients at each computational point), turnout gate openinSs and corresponding rating curves, and characteristics of the resulating structures and other special points ( e . g . , bridges, sudden contractkions or expansions in canal cross-section).. The model configuration file would usually remain unchanged for a given series of simulations. It could however be modified if one wishes to study the canal behavior under a different state of the system (e.g., a different set of gate openings or different values of canal roughness coefficients). The user could therefore create as many of these input data files as the number of states that he is interested in studying.In naming the input files that he creates the user should adopt the extension .DON (from donnee or d a t a in French). For example, the model configuration files created for modeling different states of the Kalankuttiya canal could be named kWODOOl.DON, KAMoDo02.DON, KAMoDo03.DoN, etc.When MISTRAL, is run with a given &el configuration the program will read the corresponding input data files, (e.g., KAMODOOl.DON), and generate a table containing a coded description of the computational points and their conveyance factors that will be held in the computer memory for later use in the calculation phase. If the parameter IFMDD in the .DON input data file is set to 0 the coded information will not be conserved on file. If, on the other hand, the save option of MISTRAL is exercised (parameter IFMOD = 2 ) the coded data Gill be conserved in a binary file under the corresponding name but with the extension .MOD (e.g., KAMODOO1.MOD). The contents of this binary file can neither be edited nor printed. A corresponding ASCII file (named KAPDDOOl.RE1) is also automatically created. This latter file could be edited, visualized, or printed via DOS utilities.Any binary coded file (extension = .mD) can be accessed by MISTRAL at any future time to perform simulations under different hydraulic conditions that will be defined in an appropriate calculation file with IlPDD = 4 (see next section).-The flow chart (Figure 5 ) gives an overview of the functioning of the -MISTRAL software.Calculation file. It is recomnended that a system of nomenclature analogous to that used for the model configuration files be adopted for naming the calculation d a t a files. Files KACALOOl.DON, KAcALOOZ.DoN, KACALO03.DoN, etc., could thus be created.The calculation data file contains information on the hydraulic flow regime (steady or unsteady) to be simulated, the time step and duration of the simulation, the frequency of edition and storage of the results, and the mode of initial stabilization to be adopted.In respect of initial stabilization the user has three options, defined by the value attributed to the parameter IFSTA:1. IFSTA = 0 , impose as initial conditions the depths and discharges in computer memory, resulting from the computation imnediately preceding the present one;  The parameter IFMOD being set to 4 in a given calculation data file, (e.g., in KACALOOl.DON), will indicate to the MISTRAL program that the coded data pertaining to the particular model configuration on which the simdation is to be performed is contained in the file with the corresponding narne KACALOO1.MOD. KACALOO1. DON, the h e r should therefore ensure that the relevant coded data file (KAMODOO1.MOD or any other), automatically created as a result of running MISTRAL with a model configuration file (KAMODOO1.DoN in this case), is renamed as KACALOO1.MOD. We would like to reiterate that if the desired model configuration w a s originally described in KAEIOM)Ol.wN the corresponding coded d a t a would have been autolnatically stored as KAPDDOO1.PDD (and not KACALOO1.MoD) after the first run of MISTRAL.The value of the parameter W A L in the calculation data file, (e.g., KACALOOl'.DON), will indicate the number of hydraulic flow regimes to be simdat& on a given model configuration.For each combination of model configuration and simulation, MISTRAL caLculates the temporal variations-of water depths, discharges, velocities and flow volumes at the different computational points and presents the results in tabular form. These results will be contained in an ASCII file with the extension .RE2. Dos utilities. This file can be edited and printed using standard If the computation terminates without any errors, another file (extension .REP) which contains a description of the system status (water depths and discharges) at the end of the simulation is generated. could, if necessary, serve to define the initial conditions of a future simulation (parameter IFSTA = -1, as described in the preceding section).In addition MISTRAL, also generates two binary files that can be accessed by the SIMUI'RA graphio>output program. The first of these (extension .TR1) is a reference file while the second (extension .TR2) contains the water depths, discharges and velocities at each computational point and each specified computational time step.SIMUTRA is capable of making use of the information contained in the .TR1 and .TR2 output files and producing four types of graphic wtputs, either on a plotter or on a monitor: The choice of output type and device is I I l E L d e in an interactive mode. The user also has the freedom to decide on the most appropriate parameters (axes, scale, labeling, etc.) for each graphic output. These parameters will be included in a d a t a file associated with each type of graphic output, that the user will have to create. obligatorily be named Z(T).DON, Q(T).DON, Z(X).DON, and ZMAX.DoN, as the case may be, before running SIMU.RA.If the plotter is chosen as the output device, SRdJl?RA will autornatically genekate HRiL plotting code. The user will again have two options:the default option, where the plotting is performed on-line, on a plotter connected to the serial port of the computer; or the file option, for which an ASCII file (the user is free to specify any name for this file) is created which can be accessed for plotting on a HPGL compatible plotter at a future time. The \"TYPE\" or \"PRINT\" coIRnands of DOS via the CCMl serial p o r t can be used for this purpose as follows: TYPE > a 1 'filename', or PRINT 'filename' /d:COMl:A t the end of every graphic output a file named FORT97 is automatically generated by SIMWI' RA. remembering to rename it suitably since the next run of SIMvrrzA will replace the contents of FORT97 with'fresh data;This file can.be later processed for plotter output byCnce the model is properly coded, it will have to be calibrated by comparing model-generated output (water depths and discharges) w i t h actually observed values under the same operational conditions. then permit the user to simulate the canal response to a range of different operational scenarios as may be appropriate to the problem under consideration. The calibration carried out in respect of the first reach of the Kalankuttiya branch canal is described in Part I1 of this Working Paper. A set of equations relating branch canal water depths and offtake gate openings to distributary canal discharges are also derived for each size of gate present in the system. observations of these three variables and found to be adequate.In the sample application, all the branch canal gates are assumed to be half-opened. (sudden opening followed by a sudden partial closure) of the sluice gate at the head of the branch canal of the following form (the rationale for the choice of these discharge values is described in Past I1 of this Working Paper):The outputs obtained correspond to an imaginary manipulation 5.92 m 3 / s 1 hr 2.9 m3/s 2.9 m3/s 0 hr 14 hrThe four types of graphic outputs possible are given in Figures 6, 7, 8, and 9. Sample numerical output (at.tine 1.50 hours) is indicated in Table 1 . The response to the above maneuver at the head sluice and 308D1 is nearly instantaneous. The points further downstream take longer (almost one hour) to respond fully. Furthermore, the rise in branch canal water level close to the duckbill weir (points PA27 and PA30) is much less than further upstream. This is a clear demonstration of the regulating effect of the duckbill weir.The impact of varying branch canal water levels on discharge into the distributary canals is illustrated in Figure 7. The discharge values carry a negative sign since, for computational reasons, all offtakes are considered as tributaries with negative inflows. Their absolute values however represent the actual flow through the distributaries. As might be expected, the\\greatest variation in discharge occurs in the two uppermost canals, 305D1 and 308D1. But althbugh the 308D1 offta,ke is subject to the identical change in head as    3 0 5 ~1 (see Figure 61, the resulting change in its discharge is much less (nearly half) than that occurring .in 305D1. 3 0 5 ~1 consists of two pipes of 60 cm diameter each, and is capable of accommodating a major portion of the increased discharge in the branch canal, whereas the 308D1 offtake consists of only a single 60 cm diameter pipe. The smallest change in discharge is recorded by distributary canal 308D2 (closest t o the duckbill weir), followed by 305D3 and 305D2. The absolute discharge in 305D3 is greater than that in 308D2, though both offtakes are subject to the same head, (see Figure 6) because 305D3 has a 60 cm diameter offtake while the 308D2 offtake is of 45 cm diameter. This is because the offtake of These observations bring to light a danger that one should guard against when operating the Eialankuttiya branch canal. C X X B ~S have the capacity to extract a relatively large proportion of the branch canal flow, and if their gate openings are not properly monitored the water available to the lower reaches of the system could be adversely affected, both in terms of adequacy and timeliness of deliveries.That is, the two uppermost The effect of enlargingThe water level envelopes of Figure 9 show the maximum and minimum levels attained in the branch canal in the course of the simulated manipulation. Comparison of the maximum envelope with the level of the canal embankment will indicate whether the canal banks are liable to overtopping as a result of this intervention. gates in the first reach being half open, could be assessed. See also Cases 3 and 4 of Figure 8.We shall conclude with a chapter highlighting some of the potential uses to which the MISTRAL-SIMLPJIZA software could be put.It should be clearly understood that the MISTRAGSIMUTRA software is not intended to perform optimization or feedback control. That is, the 'optimum' decision (e.g., offtake gate settings) under a given scenario of water supply and demand will not be automatically furnished. But rather, the consequences of different operational decisions could be evaluated via simulation.The software therefore constitutes a simulation tool. Once it has been properly calibrated to the physical conditions of a particular canal, the software could be used to simulate its behavior under various operational scenarios. It could also be employed to study the impact of n a t h l or artificial modifications to the canal topography (including maintenance, or lack of it) on flow propagation, effect of different designs of regulating .structures, and impact of interventions (authorized or unauthorized) on water conveyance and distribution.We have restricted the use of the software in the first instance to the main conveyance system, the branch canal in the case of Kalankuttiya. It is however entirely within the capacity of the software to incorporate the lowerorder canals too. the Kalankuttiya branch canal are: Some specific applications that the software could have in 1.Evaluating the maximum possible flow that the branch canal can carry without overtopping its bunds under different operational scenarios.The consequences of modification in canal roughness coefficients as a result of lack of maintenance or other topographical changes can also be studied;Demonstrating the variations in water depths and discharges (especially under transient conditions) at different points in the branch canal and the distributary canal offtakes in response to different scenarios of gate settings and water releases at the head sluice;3 .Demonstrating the effect of existing regulating structures. In Kalankuttiya, for example, the capacity of the duckbill weirs to attenuate fluctuations in hydraulic head at distributary offtakes arising from fluctuations in branch canal discharges can be easily demonstrated; discharges into distributary canals close to the weirs are less affected than those further away;4.Evaluating the impact of alternative design options for regulating structures; for example, the effect of replacing the conventional gated pipe outlet at the head of a distributary canal with a calibrated distributor ( o r \"module\") ;Developing a set of operational scenarios that would ensure equity and adequacy of water supply by studying propagation times (especially to the unregulated tail-end reach of the branch c a n a l ) , time taken to attain full supply depths (FSD) at the different offtakes etc.; and 6. Using the software as a training tool. On the one hand, irrigati agency staff could familiarize themselves with the system much faster, get a broader perspective of the system behavior and e ment with a far wider range of operational scenarios than woul possible on the field. On the other hand IIMI could develop tra material based on a real-life project for the purpose of profess developrent in the field of system modernization, and initiation canal regulation technologies and practices.\\ PART I1It has been shown ( in Part I of this Working Paper) that mathematical modeling represents a viable alternative to direct field experimentation for wrying out research to identify innovative design and management options of main irrigation canals. increased power, investigkting canal operations via mathematical simulation becomes affordable for moderately sized irrigation canals even though computer programs to do it are still to be disseminated more widely.The use of a mathematical model does not however entirely absolve the researcher from carrying out field investigations. In particular, there is the need for; I , a detailed field study to characterize both the topography and the hydraulics of the canal and its structures. In itself, the ' collection of these data is an important step towards understanding the system behavior; and a calibration of the model to ensure that the model predictions match field observations of the real system with a reasonable degree of accuracy. for operational purposes. data used and permit the evaluation of aggregated model parameters such as canal roughness coefficients. highly productive in terms of generating knowledge on the system. practice, calibration difficulties often permit to pinpoint features that are significant for the hydraulics of the canal but which might have been missed, hence calling for additiional field investigation localized in that particular area. This is especially important if the model is to be used This step will ensure consistency of the This process can also be InThis study forms part of IIMI's efforts to demonstrate the use of, mathematical modeling as a 'research tool to investigate the interactions between design and mmagement of main irrigation canals w i t h a view to identifying effective and responsive strategies for canal operation. The primary objective of the present sttdy is to examine the behavior of the Kalankuttiya branch canal with a view to evaluating, through the model, the impact of the particular design of the branch canal and its regulating structures on the control of water levels along the various reaches of the canal, and hence on the primary distribution of water.It is also expected that, with proper calibration, the d e l can contribute to identifying timely interventions on the system (main sluice and offtakes) to manage efficiently the weekly rotation of water issues and closures of the b m c h canal that is the current operational practice of the irrigation agency. (For example, ensuring equitable distribution of water during the c h ~e s while minimizing excess or shortage of water at the tail end.)This paper presents some preliminary results achieved in respect of the first objective stated above. The Kalankuttiya subsystem forms part of System H of the main Mahawelisystem, in the North Central Province (NCP) of Sri Lanka. The 1.86 x 106 m3 Kalankuttiya Tank at the head of this subsystem corrmands an irrigable area of 2023 hectares (ha). The tank's own catchment area is only 26 kmz but its water resources are being supplemented since 1977 by releases from the larger Kalawewa Reservoir which itself benefits from Mahaweli water diverted through the Polgolla Tunnel (Figures 10 and 11).The conveyance and distribution system is made up of a 10.9 km long branch canal having a maximum design capacity of 5.66 m3/s (200 cusecs) conveying water from the Kalankuttiya Tank to 20 distributary canals, which in turn feed a network of field canals (Figure 12). In this paper the distribut a r y canals are identified by the number of the irrigation block (e.g.,305, 3 0 6 ) followed by the number of the distributary itself. Thus 30905 refers to distributary canal D5 of block 309.Each distributary canal (DC) is fed by a gated pipe outlet of 30-75 cm (12-30 inches) diameter, depending on the c d area irrigated by that canal. Each field canal (FC) irrigates 6-25 farm allotments of 1 ha through a 15-cm (6-inch) pipe outlet. to the undulating nature of the land and the wide range in sizes of t h e microcatc-nt land units in this topography.The number of farms served by a field canal varies dueThe soil types in the corrmaTbd area The data collected included the following:1.Topographical survey of the canal. Cross-sections of the canal at approximately every 50 meters. to a datum located at the head of the canal.Locations and descriptions of all hydraulic structures and offtakes. This includes the levels of the crest of the duckbill weirs, pipe invert levels and pipe diameters of the offtakes and spindle length of each of the offtakes at full closure. Most of this information was obtained by commissioning a surveyor for the purpose during the period of closure of the canal between yala 1987 and maha 87/88.Head-discharge relationships at the lateral offtakes for different gate settings. Since these were not directly available (e.g., in the form of rating curves), theoretical equations w e r e used instead, taking into account the area of opening of the gate corresponding to different settings.Head-discharge relationships of the duckbill weirs. Here too theoretical equations were used, taking into account the total length of the weirs.A head-discharge relationship at the tail of the branch canal has k e n derived from observations available at this location relating discharge passing through distributary 307D3, that also serves as a drainage channel, and levels recorded in the branch canal.Once the basic data used to describe the topography of the canal and the hydraulics of its structures have been entered, the model has to be calibrated so that it accurately reflects actual field conditions. This is primarily a field exercise in which water surface elevation in the canal has to be measured together with the corresponding flows so that it can be matched tentatively with the water surface profile computed by the model for the same 'flow conditions.At Kalankuttiya, two campaigns of observations for calibrating the model Discharges in the various reaches of have been carried out (on 3 and 11 August 1988) at a time when the flow in the branch canal was supposed to be steady. the branch canal were estimated through current metering and water levels in the canal 'were determined by means of staff gauges placed at a number of locations of interest for the model calibration. Simultaneously, at each open offtake, the spindle length, staff gauge reading in the main canal, and the hump gauge reading in the weir box at the head of each distributary canal were noted to assess the flow diverted into each of these canals. Doing this efficiently requires keeping track of a number of gauge readings that have been systematically converted to reduced levels to permit hydraulic computations and estimates of lateral flows. Flows can be estimated by using either the hump gauge rating curves, if any exist, or the differential head over the ofztake gates coupled with the orifice flow equation which has so far proved to be effective and allows double checking.The parameter related to the roughness of the canal (Manning or Strickler roughness coefficient) cannot be directly measured on the field. Furthermore, it could vary from section to section of the canal depending on the type of surface of the canal bed and embankments, presence of weeds, etc.Identifying an appropriate aggregated roughness coefficient for each of the different sections of the canal is one of the main results of the calibration of the model. Hence keeping all factors affecting flow at the same value as that observed on the field (inflow, lateral flows, etc.,) the prameters are varied until the water surface elevations computed by the model match the levels observed on the field. This is usually performed under a steady flow regime since unsteady flow measurements would require not only spatial observations but also their values in time for each observation point.Although the above process seems straightforward it requires Oareful attention as there may be difficulties brought about by special features in the d l or uncertainty of some key parameters affecting flow. For instance the presence of a rocky cmmtriction within the first reach of the Kalankuttiya Branch canal (a relatively narrow, rocky section where the flow could pass into the svrcriti-1 zone) has required specific consideration since the model cannot handle supercritical flow, Therefore an 'equiwilent structure' that would exhibit similar hydraulic behavior had to be iminedand introduced at this point. This took fie form of rn equivalent weir whose dimensions were suitably adjusted until fie model was able to reproduce the same l o s s of hydraulic head observed in the field.. S o far, the calibration of the model has been performed for the first t w o reaches of the branch canal and for one particular steady regime only.The calibration process has still to be finalized for the rest of the canal using the data that have already been collected for steady s t a t e conditions and also, if possible, data that will be collected f o r unsteady flow Conditions. water at the main sluice while maintaining the rest of the system untouched till the end of the experiment. The propagation along the canal and diffusion of the wave generated by such a release will be.monitored.A Strickler coefficient of 30 (Manning's n = 0.033) has been found adequate 'for the calibration of the first reach together with the equivalent weir structure that substitutes for the rocky section. the second reach is still perfectible. and model predicted water levels immediately upstream of 305D4 cannot be reduced unless the value of the roughness coefficient is taken out of an acceptable range. investigation on the field to determine the likely cause of this difference (perhaps a minor constriction) and to take appropriate measures to a u s t themodel.first two reaches of the canal; the water surface computed by the model is compared with the levels actually observed at some points. value adopted for the second reach in this computation is 23, subject to t h e verification mentioned above.It would thus be necessary to conduct further localized Current Operational Practices of the canal Allocation of water to each distributary canal depends on the extent irrigated in t h e c o d area of each DC. implement rotational water issues among the distributaries. in the branch canal is also regulated accordingly by adjusting the main sluice at its head. However, the rotational pattern is not unique. ItThe water flow For example during yala 1988, the water issues to the distributary canals have followed a 7-d.a~ rotation; water was issued simultaneously to all 20 distributary canals for the first 3 days and they remained closed for the next 4 days. shut during this latter period.The main sluice at the head of the branch canal also remained On the other hand the previous season (maha 1987/88) also cormtenced with a 7-day rotation although the pattern of water issues was different. upper 12 DCs were issued with water for the first 4 days of a rotation, whilst only the lower 8 D C s received water for the next 3 days. Midway through the season the rotational pattern was altered whereby all D C s except the first two (i.e., 305D1 and 308D1) were supplied during the first 3 days, all 20 DCs received water on the fourth day, and only the first 2 DCs remained open over the last 3 days (this is similar to the rotational pattern practiced in yala 1987). even 12 days during the latter part of the season due to inadequacy of water.The rotational period was extended to 9, 10 4In maha 1986/87, 8-day rotations were practiced throughout the season; the first 9,DCs were supplied during 4 days followed by the remaining 11 DCs over the next 4 days.It is thus seen that the agency is experimenting with different operational modes every season. dictated by the availability of water resources at Kalawewa and the reliability and predictability of releases from Kalawewa to replenish the Kalankuttiya Tank.The operation of the branch canal has been simulated under water supply/demand assumptions that could correspond to maha with a total irrigated area of 2,021 ha but for two different modes of delivery: either simultaneous delivery to all DCs, or supplying DCs in the upper and lower sections of the branch canal alternately in order to reduce the maximum flow to be issued in the canal.For the simulation, the DC water issues have been computed on the basis of a uniform water requirement of 2.5 inches (63.5 mm) per week plus 10 percent conveyance losses in each DC. The weekly water requirement is supposed to be delivered over a period of 3 days. Actually, MEA would issue water over a period of 4 days, especially because a l l 20 DCs are to be supplied simultaneously with their maha season requirements. Therefore, the 3-day water issue assumed for the simulation is a very severe constraint put on the system. the canal under an extreme maximum flow of 5.92 m 3 / s (209 cusecs) at the headworks, something hich might not be practicable in reality.This simulation in effect permits to assess the behavior of Table 2 indicates the discharge requirements of each distributary canal resulting from the above computations and assuming seepege losses in the branch canal at the rate of 43 liters/s/km length of canal. a Seepage loss 43 l / s / k a and is accounted for i n every DC.b A water requirement of 2.5 inches to be supplied during a period of 3 days w i t h 108 losses i n the DCs is assumed. To assess the magnitude of the range of the level variations in the branch canal between minirmm and m a x h flaw, a simulation for a minimun flow of 0.47 m3/s (17 cusecs) at the main sluice was also perfand using the same seepege rate. water flowing all along the branch canal asS\\aning that all offtakes are closed.This flow is the minimm that would pennit to keep the Thus a total of four scenarios have been simulated as follows: In each case, the water 8urface.pmfile corresponding t0 the stermdystate regimes that would be established in the various reaches of the Kalankuttiya branch cans1 have been ccmputed, Appendix A (Figures A2-A8).Table B1 (Appendix B) indicates the ample& set of results generated by the model in terms of the flow parameters (water level, discharge and velocity) at each compuCational point for each of the scenarios simulated. In this table, negative discharge indicates flow out of the branch canal (e.g., into DCs), or aggregated seepage losses (Case 1 ) .The analysis of the-outputs of the simulations performxi shows that the range between minimum and maximum water levels as predicted by the model ( W e 1 and Case 2, respectively) varies substantially along the branch canal (Figures A2-A8). The magnitude of this range fluctuates from about 10 centimeters to more than 1 met&, depending upon the distance to the downstream weir, if any (Figure 1 4 ) . This illustrates the obvious regulating effect of the duckbill weirs (DBW) on the control of water levels upstream of themselves irrespective of the variations of flow in the branch canal. But it also indicates the limits of the regulating effect that c8n be achieved by this means. terrhs of level control is obtained in the inmediate vicinity of the Elaxiwan impact in  For instance, at the offtake to distributary 305D4 which is located 700 meters upstream of DBW no.2, the expected range of water level fluctuation is about 50 cm between maximum flow ( 4 m 3 / s ) and minimum flow (0.3 m 3 / s ) at this location. On the other hand, at the offtake to distributary 308D3, which is located immediately upstream of DBW no.2, the expected range is only 16 cm.The regulating effect soon disappears with distance.2. The offtakes located at both extremes of the branch canal do not benefit from any form of regulation. Water levels at both locations would fluctuate in a range of 50 cm to 1 meter when the branch canal flow varies between the maximum and minimum values considered for the simulations.3 .The first three DCs at the h d of the branch canal are located too far upstream of the first duckbill weir to benefit from its regulating effect. Moreover, the rocky constriction existing in that reach seems to contribute to further increasing the range of level variations. Also, since the canal is very narrow in this section a relatively large head variation is observed even for a small variation in discharge. This characteristic effectively defeats the purpose of the duckbill weir located 400 meters downstream.To assess better,the impact of the rocky constriction on the regulation and potential improvement that would result from its widening, simulations corresponding to Case 1 and Case 2 were repeated after removal of this bottleneck. Appendix A. The impact of the removal is greatest at the offtake to distributary 305D2; the range of water level variation at this point could be expected to be reduced by nearly 50 percent by enlarging the branch canal and smoothing the canal bed level in that area. Although discharge control into this distributary would thereby be considerably enhanced, the economic competitiveness of this physical intervention on the branch canal against other flow control options will have to be examined.The results are shown in Figures A9 and A 1 0 in 4.In the tail-end reach, the range of predicted water level variations is influenced by the downstream boundary condition imposed in the model. The condition adopted in all our simulations was a head-discharge relationship defined with the support of field observations. result, it appears that for a discharge of about 1 m3/s at the tail, which corresponds tosthe simulation at maximum flow, the last duckbill weir (DBW no.9) would be submerged, in which case the weir would no longer control effectively the level at the offtake to 309D5. should be noted that at the tail, 307D3, which also serves as the drainage outlet of the branch canal, is frequently obstructed by debris.The consequence of this is that water levels in that reach are temporarily raised with eventual flooding of the area until the obstruction is removed. Thus the actual range of level variation at the last three offtakes at the tail is likely to be greater than that predicted by the model.Also, it 5.bother result which is apparent from Figure 14 is that the water level variations in the branch canal represent different operating heads with respect to the pipe inverts at.the offtakes.the rang e of variation itself, another parameter to be considered is the hydraulic head over the pipe invert level of each offtake. ratio between these two parameters is significant when comparing the conditions under which the different offtakes operate. Figure 14 suggests that these conditions are very different from one offtake to another, even amongst those that benefit from level control by means of the duckbill weirs. This has implications for canal operations and the management of the system since a high operating head abve the pipe invert with a limited range of variation of water level would require less gate operations for control of the discharge diverted into the corresponding distributary. In general, the outlets on the Iialankuttiya branch canal appear to be placed in such a way that the water depth above the pipe invert levels is maintained at around 60 cm for the lowest flow. But this does not seem to be the case for 309D1, 309D4, and the three tail-end distributaries (307D1, 307D2, 307D3). This would render diversions at these offtakes more sensitive to the variations of level (and hence discharge) in the branch canal than other similarly located offtakes. It is worthwhile to highlight the fact that although 309D1 and 309D4 are located relatively close to duckbill weirs, hence well-regulated in terms of level control, they would still be subject to variations in discharge unless frequent offtake gate adjustments are made.Besides the magn itude of The Table 3 (t;hich is extracted from Table 81) regroups the model results in respect of computational points corresponding to the offtakes and structures on the branch canal. Table 3 also indicates the values of the ratio mentioned above, computed at each distributary canal offtake as follows: In yala 1987, IIMI staff4 began to gather information with the express intention of investigating the operations of the Kalankuttiya branch canal and its performance from the point of view of the water distribution from the branch canal and its manageability. canal made such a case study particularly interesting.During that season a series of observations of the branch canal water levels at various stations along the canal w a s recorded from July 198i to September 1987 and statistical analysis of these observations was performed. In particular, the frequency histograms of water levels in class intervals of 5 cm, and'the corresponding cumulative distribution functions were determined at a number of offtakes (305D1, 305D2, 305D3, 305D4, 308D2, 308D3, 306D1, 307D1 and 307D2).For comparison purposes with the results obtained with the model, the interquartile range (i.e., H o . 7 5 -H o . 2 5 ) of the distribution of the observed.water levels, and the median ( H o . 5 0 1 were computed with respect to the pipe . invert level of the corresponding offtake. computed:The following ratio w a s also Interquartile range of levels --------------( 2 )The results in respect of the above offtakes are shown in Table 4.Several conclusions emerge from the comparison of the field observations against the model predictions.1 .The magnitude of the dispersion in water levels observed in the branch canal is matched by the magnitude of the range of level variations predicted by the model between minimum and maximum flows. This is illustrated in Figures 15, 16, and 17, which represent the distribution of brmch canal water depths at 305D1, 305D2 and 305D3, respectively, along with the range of water levels predicted by the model for the different flow regimes. This gives clear evidence of the effective level control performed by the duckbill weir (DBW no.1) in the case of 305D3 as opposed to the relatively unregulated situations of 305D2 and 305D1.The water depths predicted by the model generally tally rather well with the levels observed in the canal. Most of the observations correspond to the lower portion of the predicted range, but this is because the flows in the canal during the period of observation were rather low compared to the maximum flow for which the simulation w a s performed (Case 2). During the period of observations, the issues at the main sluice vere in the range of 0.5 m3/s to 2.7 d / s with an interquartile range between 1 m 3 / s and 2.2 m 3 / s . However, it must be borne in mind that m o d e l predictions match the field observations best in the first reach, which is actually the only reach that has been calibrated so far. As far as 305D1 is concerned, the processing of observed water levels has been performed separately -a) f o r the total period of observations, and b) only for the periods of water issue to this canal -because this distributary w a s supplied individually during yala 1987 with limited flow in the branch canal. The distribution of branch canal levels observed during the periods of issue to this particular canal reflects this situation; most of the observed levels are below the m i n k level predicted by the model (Figure 15). This is because the observation station in the branch canal is located downstream of the 305D1 offtake and the flow in the branch canal at this point, after supplying the requirements of 305D1, would have been less than the minimum value (0.47 m3/s) adopted in the simulations.shows that similar conclusions can be reached, either through direct field observations or by simulations through the model, regarding the comparative assessment of the design-related conditions affecting the delivery of discharge at each individual offtake in terms of level control in the parent canal.The insight gained by IIMI on the Kalankuttiya branch canal through its first application of mathematical modeling in Sri Lanka is promising. With limited resources, and though the model is still not completely calibrated, the application has already highlighted peculiarities in the design of this canal that have consequences for its operations and are likely contributory factors to its performances. research tool towards getting a holistic view about the operations of the branch canal. specifically on aspects revealed by the model and which might have otherwise been overlooked. By no means could the model substitute for fieldwork, but on the contrary modeling would contribute to make the fieldwork more insightful ahd more efficient. the pdint of performing unsteady flow simulations that will provide further information of particular interest to the Mahaweli Economic Agency and ultimately lead to identifying the most effective way to operate the Kalankuttiya branch canal under particular sets of constraints.      0.000             97.25 .37  97.25 .38  97.25 .38  95.34  .18  95.32 .63  95.08 .55  94.85 .61  94.15 .53  94.75 .53  94.57 .29  94.54  .29  94.48 .39  94.37 .47  94.37 .29  '34.29 .45  33.95  -69  93.92  .31 03.92 ","tokenCount":"8870"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"875dbe13a2e12d2ff0d6fb06e8cb3106","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a08aca67-5021-486d-aa31-8bcf629f7868/retrieve","id":"-919600619"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"384d0530-660b-472f-8a7e-324177a4af37","pagecount":"15","content":"Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above. The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used.Editing, design and layout-Gendered Feed Assessment Tool (G-FEAST) is a farmer-centred diagnostic approach, which employs the use of forms and spreadsheets, to collect and analyse the data. The assessment methodology provides a systematic and rapid assessment of feed resources at site level to develop a strategy for improving feed supply and use through technical and organizational interventions. The main objective is to identify gender aspects in households that affect livestock feeding practices and feed intervention uptake.Sontala is located in Matobo District of Matabeleland South province of Zimbabwe. It is 125 km south of Bulawayo. The ward's main livelihood sources are livestock production (goat breeding), vegetable sales and remittances. The main livestock species kept in the area are goats, cattle and poultry. Farmers practice extensive livestock production and small-scale cropping under irrigation. The village has two seasonal dams and one perennial dam.There were two groups of male and female gendered focus group discussions that were held at Sontala shopping centre on 05 May 2021. The study was conducted in partnership with agricultural extension service and Gwanda State University.The farm sizes range from 0.5 to 6 ha. The smallest land holding ranges from 0.5 to 2 ha, medium land holding ranges from 2.1 to 4 ha while large land holding ranges from 4.1 to 6 ha. Thirty per cent of the households are in the small holder, 40% in the medium and 20% in the large land holding category (Figure 1).Figure 1. Household land holding category in Sontala.The farming system in Sontala is generally communal mixed farming with cropping and extensive livestock production interactions. Average farm sizes of 2 ha are under crop production. Fodder production is practised by 10% of the farmers.Table 1 depicts farm sizes by gender of the household heads. It can be observed that across the three land holding categories, both men and women own land. The largest proportion of female headed households fall in the mediumscale farms category. In Sontala both male and female headed households have equal access to land.  The land tenure system is communal and the land is governed by Matobo Rural District Council. A large proportion of the farms are jointly owned by husband and wife, followed by female headed farms and the least are owned by single men. Women and men can equally own land. Most farmers belong to the medium-scale farming sector which have an average of 2 ha, which are used for crop production. The small-scale farmers own less than a hectare, which is used mainly for crop production. Grazing land is communally managed, with no or limited adherence to principles of rangeland management. Communal land ownership has constraints in that grazing is quickly depleted due to overstocking. There is no control of the number of livestock each farmer can keep at a time.Hired labour is readily available but it is not affordable to some households especially to the female headed. Most female headed households cannot afford to hire labour, as they have limited financial resources.Rainfall received in Sontala is mostly not adequate during the cropping season and this result in crop failure. Farmers reported that over the years, unpredictable weather patterns have negatively affected rainfed agriculture and livestock production. Normally, there is no rainfall during the dry season (May to September), as shown in Figure 2. Sontala receives high rainfall between November and March. Water for livestock is readily available during the wet season. During the dry season livestock travel long distances (more than three km) in search of drinking water.The area has a perennial dam that supports irrigation and livestock throughout the year. During the dry season livestock and human are watered from seasonal boreholes and dams. The seasonal dams usually dry out in August.The ward has 12 boreholes, of which 6 are perennial. However, when these perennial boreholes are not functional during the dry season, the livestock and people travel long distances to access water as the remaining functional boreholes are overwhelmed. The rangeland yield follows the rainfall patterns, when the rainfall is high, rangeland productivity is high.Figure 2. Sontala annual rainfall pattern and feed availability.Seventy-five per cent of the households have access to irrigation facilities. Farmers irrigate vegetables in their gardens during the dry season. The crops grown in irrigation schemes include maize, tomatoes, cabbages, butternut and sugar beans. The constraints among some farmers accessing irrigation facilities are distance from the water sources, limited resources for the water conveyance system. Most of the youth are not members of the irrigation schemes because they (youth) migrate to towns and neighbouring countries like Botswana and South Africa in search of employment opportunities. Therefore, women are said to be the ones who are more active in irrigation schemes. Some farmers travel longer distances of more than 5 km to irrigable gardens, which deters other to partake in irrigation activities. During the dry season when the dam levels are low, there are restrictions on the use of water, resulting in reduction in irrigated land and reserving water for livestock.The irrigation system used is less efficient and labour intensive. Farmers use bucket system for watering and this causes a constraint on the elderly. Overall, the area under irrigation is reduced due to high labour requirements of the bucket system. They also practice flood irrigation which is wasteful as most of the irrigation water is lost through surface evaporation. Most of the irrigated gardens are fenced with brush wood that can be easily broken by livestock. The village has four cropping seasons that is winter, summer, autumn and spring (Table 2). Goat, cattle, donkeys, poultry and sheep are the livestock species kept by farmers in Sontala ward (Figure 3). The most common livestock owned by 95% of the Sontala farmers is goats. Goats are kept for meat, milk, cash and for traditional use like paying fine for wrong doing while donkeys are kept for draught power. Cattle are kept for meat, milk production, cash and paying bride price. Poultry is kept for egg, meat and income. The farmers practice extensive production system in all the livestock enterprises. The livestock rely on natural rangeland for grazing with minimum supplementation. The Sontala community practice random mating as the bull/ buck runs with herd/flock hence the breeding system is not well defined. The rangeland is communally managed and is characterized by low biomass yields mostly from non-palatable grass species and bush encroachment which are signs of poor rangeland management. The local leadership who are the custodian of the natural resources shows limited knowledge on the roles they have on rangeland management. Decision-making on livestock sales varies from species to species, for cattle it is mostly jointly decided, for goats and sheep it is mostly men who decide, however for poultry the decision is made by women.For agricultural activities credit is not available both from formal and informal sector. The available credit is for household use, such as buying food, paying school fees and medical expenses. The credit for non-agricultural use is from village savings and lendings or from burial societies. All of the farmers are willing to access loans for agricultural activities but they lack collateral for them to access credit from formal sector.Crops inputs are sometime seasonally available at the local business centre. Livestock inputs are not available at the local market. The available inputs are expensive which makes them inaccessible to most of the farmers. Farmers' travel about 25 km to Maphisa to get the unavailable inputs, the distance costs 350 Zimbabwean dollar (ZWD) (USD 1 = ZWD 361.9000 at 07 July 2022). There are a resident extension officer and veterinary officer who resides 4 km away from the village and provide free of charge service to farmers.Most of the farmers (85%) belong to cooperatives that are for irrigation gardens and development partners cooperatives like Sizimele. Women are the majority members of associations.In Sontala ward livestock sales have the highest average household income of 51%, followed by cropping with 20% while labour is the least with 12% (Figure 4). The major income source is small livestock sales followed by vegetable sales. The men are decision-makers for high income earner enterprises like cattle sales while women are decisionmakers for low livestock earners like poultry and small stock. The major feed source is grazing (72%) and the least is purchased feed (3%) (Figure 5). Grazing is seasonally available. The highest rangeland yield is realized in autumn when the rain is highest. During the winter and summer seasons, feed is scarce both qualitatively and quantitatively. During the leaner season the livestock is supplemented with crop residues, cultivated fodder and purchased feed. Commercial feed is inaccessible to farmers because of unavailability at the local market and also it's expensive. During the dry season there is a decrease in nutritive value of rangeland species in terms of metabolizable energy, crude protein and minerals. Hence there is need to provide supplementary feed.Figure 5. Metabolizable energy by source.• Drilling more boreholes in the villages to improve water availability• Training farmers on water harvesting• Linking farmers to the livestock markets• Training farmers on livestock value addition like pen fattening.This publication was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.  ","tokenCount":"1580"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c2f1e50af2fdd31b978072ac7736fe8c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/2679ca7b-9ac0-4ca8-8a63-1158dc5f8679/retrieve","id":"1596576786"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e1c570e4-f116-4a72-8267-18eefb6267c0","pagecount":"44","content":"Globally there has been enormous effort made by thousands of organizations to promote Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) technologies for the sake of building resilience in agriculture and farmers' livelihood. However, the progress so far is not satisfactory. Based on the past learnings CCAFS has conceptualized the idea of Climate Smart Village (CSV) which has CSA as the major component, along with other political and socio-economic dimensions. Looking at the successful piloting of CSV, the Government of Nepal has endorsed this approach in its program. However, a mechanism to share the idea of CSV to the development bodies is lacking. Similarly, the extension workers and other staffs of local governments do not have enough procedural understanding. Therefore, to scale-up CSV approach in Nepal, capacity building of government staffs and local leaders, especially at local and provincial level, is an absolute necessity. A guide book could be the means to facilitate the process of such capacity building. Hence this manual is developed as a guide book for organizing capacity building trainings to the government and non-government development professionals. It will also serve as a resource book to help development workers from local and provincial governments, local leaders, policy makers, researchers, and academicians to understand more about the idea and approach of CSV. Ultimately, this publication is expected to contribute to the mission of scaling-up the CSV approach for the enhanced resilience of farming communities in Nepal and around the world.It is important for the facilitators to know the background and level of knowledge/experience of participants before starting the sessions. This is because the level of information and the style of facilitation should match the participants' learning need. By sharing individual experiences among the group, participants also start figuring out the chances of cross-learning.Experience mapping can be more effective if we run a simple group exercise. For example, ask participants to arrange themselves in a line according to number of years they have worked in a particular sector. Then each participant will briefly share their previous work experiences.Concepts of Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) and Climate Smart Village (CSV) 1 hr 30 min Objective: To assist participants to understand CSA, its relevance and the idea of CSV as a CSA scaling-up approach Session PlanBasics of climate change and its impact on agriculture 30 min Participants understand the phenomenon of climate change, its cause and effect.Idea of CSA and its connection with CC resilience 30 min Participants learn the idea of CSA.PPT presentation and interactive discussion Concept of CSV as a model for scalingup CSAParticipants learn about the concept of CSV and its components.Basics of climate change and its impact on agricultureWeather: Weather is the condition of the atmosphere at a particular place over a short period of time. Weather can change within a very short time. For instance, it may rain for an hour in Pokhara and then become sunny and clear. Weather includes daily changes in precipitation, temperature, humidity, cloud cover, wind, sunlight, and atmospheric pressure. For example, a very hot day, or a very cloudy day.Climate: Climate is the behavior of the atmosphere in a relatively longer period of time. Generally it is considered to take 30 years to see changes in climatic conditions. The changes are reported such as, 'now we are experiencing relatively lesser winter rain compared to 30 years ago'. In other words, climate is the average of weather over time and space.Global warming: Over the past years, the average global temperature has increased at the fastest recorded rate. This increment in global temperature is referred to as global warming.The Earth is heating up as shown by recording the Earth's global surface temperature (yearly average since1880) from four pioneer organizations, namely, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), HadCRUT (Hadley Centre/ Climate Research Unit in the U.K.), and Berkeley Earth. The average temperature of land has risen by two and half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. According to the IPCC report, the earth could warm by 3°C by 2100. Even if countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, the earth will continue to warm. Predictions range from a minimum of 1.8°C to as much as 4°C rise in global average temperatures by 2100. Simple understanding of climate change is that it's an increase/decrease in the earth temperature. The Earth's temperature is increasing day by day because of human emissions of greenhouse gases. Rising burning of fossil fuel due to increased industrialization and vehicles has increased quantities of greenhouse gases emissions. These greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrogen dioxide (N2O), etc. A rise in these gases in the atmosphere prevents the heat from radiating from earth into space. Such increases in heat has led to the greenhouse gas effect, resulting in climate change.The main characteristics of climate change are an increase in the average global temperature; changes in cloud cover, precipitation, melting of ice caps, and glaciers; a reduced snow cover, and increase in ocean temperature.A change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g. using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. It refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity (IPCC).Climate change and agriculture are highly interrelated. Climate change affects agriculture in a number of ways, including through changes in average temperatures, rainfall and climate extremes (e.g. heat waves), changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide, ground-level ozone concentrations, and changes in sea levels. The effects of climate change are unevenly distributed across the world depending on geological, climatic and human settings. Agriculture is heavily influenced by local climates.For example an increase in temperature, prolonged drought, more variable rainfall and extreme climate events such as heatwave, flood and drought have caused detrimental effects in agriculture resulting in low production. This has contributed to amplified food insecurity and vulnerability of poor communities, especially farmers.In Nepal, climate change is a growing issue in the present context. Increased unpredictability of weather patterns has caused serious distress in agriculture systems. Nepalese households whose livelihood are primarily based on agriculture are hardhit by such distress in agriculture caused by climate change. There is an urgent need to identify and promote agriculture technologies and practices that provides options for smallholder farmers to adapt to climatic variability. Major impacts experienced by Nepalese farmers are erratic rainfall resulting in droughts, flood and inundation. The major impacts are reduced crop yield and loss of agriculture land.Pattern showing change in average yearly temperature over years Source: Global Warming Art via www.newscientist.comClimate-smart agriculture (CSA) is generally defined as an approach for transforming and reorienting agricultural development under the new realities of climate change. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has defined CSA as 'agriculture that sustainably increases productivity, enhances resilience (adaptation), reduces/removes GHGs (mitigation) where possible, and enhances achievement of national food security and development goals'.Adopting CSA technologies is a strategy to cope with negative impacts of climate change in agriculture. CSA basically has three components or objectives: i)sustainably increasing agricultural productivity to support equitable increases in income and food security, ii) adapting and building resilience to climate change from the farm to national levels, and iii) reducing or removing greenhouse gases emission where possible.Food security was defined in the World Food Summit (1996) as: 'Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life'. The literal meaning of adaptation is to make or become suitable for a new use or purpose. Climate change adaptation is adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities. In agriculture, adaptation could be changing practices to minimize losses. For example using diversity in crops, protecting agriculture land from floods, growing stress tolerant crops etc. Not limited to practices, adaptation also includes other arrangements like insurance mechanisms, institutional development, income diversification, or networking.Mitigation refers the action of reducing the severity, seriousness or painfulness of something. Climate change mitigation consists of actions that limit the magnitude or rate of long-term climate change. Climate change mitigation generally involves reductions in human (anthropogenic) emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs).Examples of mitigation include reducing energy demand by increasing energy efficiency, phasing out fossil fuels by switching to low-carbon energy sources, and removing carbon dioxide from the Earth's atmosphere such as through improved building insulation or trapping carbon in soil by modifying agricultural practices.Effects of climate change on the components of food security | Source : FAO (2012)Food production and storage is highly impacted by climate conditions, e.g. with no or limited irrigation.Climate variablity causes food instability in poor resource system.Climate change impacts all types of livelihood and transportation and affects on access to food, e.g. flood.Weather conditions may cause problems for human to use food properly.Climate resilience is basically the capacity for a system (social or ecological) to absorb stresses and maintain function in the face of external stresses imposed upon it by climate change and to adapt, reorganize, and evolve into more desirable configurations that improve the sustainability of the system, leaving it better prepared for future climate change impacts.Currently climate resilience is trying to be achieved through social, economic and political efforts so that the vulnerability of climate-affected communities, states, and countries can be minimized.Hence CSA and resilience have overlapping adaptation component. Also the rebuilding and preparedness part of resilience is connected with food security and mitigation components of the CSA concept. Therefore the objectives of CSA fully contributes to the idea of community resilience on climate change.The and also learn about their adaptation and mitigation potentials. Also, for participants' information share the list of champion CSAs and the idea of bundling.Listing of appropriate CSAs relevant to the participants context, and discussions about their smartness 1 hr Encourage participants to think and bring up relevant CSAs to be implemented in their locations.What is different in CSA?As discussed in the earlier chapter, CSA focuses on food security, adaptation and mitigation. To elaborate more, unlike other technologies, CSA gives special attention to climatic risks that are happening more rapidly and intensely than in the past. Increasingly it is felt that new agricultural management requires changes in technologies and approaches to improve the lives of vulnerable communities. Therefore the CSA approach asks for greater investment in: 1. Managing climate risks; 2. Planning for adaptive transitions needed for new farming systems and livelihoods, and 3. Exploiting opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.As suggested by CCAFS, a technology can be considered as climate smart technology if it contributes to one or more of five criteria: i) water smart: saving water use/requiring less water, ii) weather smart: helping farmers to minimize loss due to extreme weather, iii) carbon/nutrient smart: reducing carbon emissions and increasing soil nutrient use, iv) Seed/breed smart: helping farmers to use adapted crop varieties and animal breeds, v) Institutional and market smart: helping farmers in accessing resources, information, market, and also addressing gender issues.Objective: In recent years weather patterns have shown inconsistencies indicating the seasonal drift for agricultural practices and urgency for operational adjustments. To make such adjustments for loss minimization, timely availability of weather information is important. Any means to help farmers in making weather information available in advance to help them minimize loss or get compensation is termed as weather-smart technology. For example weather forecast systems, agroadvisories, weather insurance, or climate analogue tools, etc.In Nepal, 72 hours weather forecasting is possible. The Government as well as the private sector is providing such services. Private companies are also available which can provide customized services for a targeted population on a paid basis. For instance, in 2016-17, a private company named ICT for Agriculture (IFA). provided mobile phone-based weekly weather forecast for farmers in Nawalparasi.All these options ultimately contribute to the three pillars of CSA as illustrated in the figure below:Technologies that improve water use efficiency are water smart. Erratic rainfall and long dry spells are causing agricultural practice problems. To adapt to these climatic conditions, technologies such as rainwater harvesting, drip irrigation, solar pumps, cover (short duration) crops, mulching, flood/drought tolerant varieties, direct seeded rice, alternated wetting and drying etc. are helpful. Reduces energy required for irrigation.Increases in yield due to appropriate water management.Drainage management Removal of excess water (flood) through water control structures.Reduces evaporation loss of soil water (also adds nutrients into the soil).Adds organic matter in soil.Varieties that are tolerant to cold, heat, flood and drought stress.The maintained productivity contributes to food security. SRI 50% reduction in water utilization.Less methane emission compared to continuous water logging farming.More than 40% increment in productivity compared to conventional practice. Direct seeded rice Timely rice establishment, and no delay in transplanting because of a delayed monsoon.Less methane emission compared to transplanting in water logging cultivation.Promoting carbon sequestration in soil.It avoids crop failure and low productivity from delayed transplanting.Photo: Aastha Bhusal Community pondThe burning of various fossil fuels and many conventional/traditional agricultural practices such as residue burning, tillage, free grazing etc., contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases especially carbon. So, it is important to increase carbon sequestration and make the agriculture environment smart. Certain modification in agricultural practices can hold more carbon into the soil system. For example less tillage to expose less soil results in less carbon emitted to the atmosphere. Similar technologies like conservation tillage, residue management, agro-forestry, solar based irrigation etc. are referred as carbon smart technologies.Indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizer has increased the emission of greenhouse gases and raised the cost of crop production. Optimum use of chemical fertilizers, especially nitrogenous fertilizers (urea and ammonium sulfate), helps increase crop production and productivity. There are also some practices and technologies identified as nutrient smart such as integration of legume with cereal crops, site specific nutrient management, use of leaf colour chart (LCC) and Green Seeker. These technologies save the excess use of chemical fertilizers and promotes nutrient smart practices. Helps ensure diversified options of food from various sources.Allows seed sowing even under water scarcity conditions. Allows early sowing, helping to escape terminal heat.Protects soil structure and organic carbon reserves. Promotes fuel and energy saving due to reduced tillage.Promotes higher yield due to escaping from terminal heat. Reduces production costs, increasing profit.This ensures moisture retention in soil and is linked with optimum utilization of water during dry periods.Reduces exposure of soil thereby reducing the carbon emission from the soil.This enhances moisture retention in the soil linked with increased crop production.This helps farmers to protect animals from adverse weather situations and reduces disease risks.Helps avoid carbon emission due to free animal defecation.Crop production increases with the use of quality farm yard manure.Helps strengthen the farming system with the addition of crop diversity and maintains soil health. Economic benefit also supports farmers' livelihoods.Helps minimizing emissions of GHG which resulted due to the use of chemical fertilizers.Increases crop production with better use of fertilizers (type of fertilizer, timing, amount etc.)Helps farmers to face the dry seasons.Reduces fossil fuel burning required by diesel motors to pump underground water.Increases crop production and income with the ensured and increased irrigation water.The use of different crops or varieties that can produce more or tolerate adverse weather situations are termed as seed smart options. Similarly using better performing or resilient types of animal breeds are also in the same category. In addition, approaches like community seed banks or participatory varietal selection/crop improvement are also the examples of seed smart technology. These are highly associated with farmers' knowledge or their capacity to take decisions. Therefore, while implementing such ideas, information exchange among farmers themselves and also between farmers and researchers should be promoted simultaneously.Use of productive varieties/ breeds helps not only to increase production and income of farmers but also enhances their adaptive capacity. For example 'Sukkha 3' is a rice variety which is preferred by farmers in Nepal both for its yield potential and drought tolerance qualities. Similarly a community seed bank can help farmers to safeguard their seeds during any emergency and also help generate income for farmers who can earn money through this seed business.To facilitate the whole process of technology adoption, certain mechanisms need to be in place. Some examples are:coordination among different sectors; engagement of local government and other institutions; gender equity/equality; resource generation and leverage; market structure and information, etc. Such instruments help farmer to have better access to financial, technical or marketing facilities which ultimately contribute to their adaptive capacity and resilience. In Nawalpur District of Nepal, there are four solar based irrigation system installed in different communities in coordination with local governments (Municipalities). In the process the cost was shared among the project, the Municipality, and the local community. Implementation was carried out by all the three parties. The local government has tried to ensure social inclusion and governance. As a result, the whole community has benefited from the increased availability of irrigation water. This has helped farmers to produce different crops, such as vegetables instead of rice/maize, with higher income potentials. Once there are marketable products available, the local government and the private sector will engage to establish a market system.For more examples of CSA technologies relevant to Nepalese context please see Annex 1.Introduction of the idea of insurance along with examples/cases and its significance in CC resilience.Help participants to understand insurance and learn about its potential to contribute to resilience and livelihood.Group exercise 10 min Make participants think about the uses of climate information and insurance.Brainstorming exerciseConsidering climate information in decision making related to agriculture is one of the main differences between conventional agricultural and climate smart agriculture. Therefore, the CSV approach considers the idea of 'climate information services' as a component.In CSV farmers are provided with updated weather information using real-time weather forecasts and value-added ICT based agro-advisories. It helps them in making the right decision in regards to field operations as well as accessing good quality inputs and technologies for attaining water/nutrient/energy use efficiencies.For facilitating the availability of the climate information at local level, researchers should first conduct a participatory climate-risk and impact analysis in each potential CSV. Based on the risks identified through the analysis it is then decided what type of information is required by the community thatUse of climate information services through mobile phone can help them to minimize the potential loses. Various interventions can be implemented to avail climate information at the farmers' level. CSV piloting in Nepal uses mobile SMS based weather forecasts and agro-advisory services provided to lead farmers. Farmers' groups are encouraged to disseminate the agro-advisory received through mobile SMS to other farmers through a farmer-to-farmer dissemination process. CSV researchers also look at the opportunities to link farmers to climate information services provided by other institutions. For example the 'Green SIM Card' initiatives started by the Government of Nepal also provides similar information to farmers. Farmers in CSVs are encouraged to utilize that support. Similarly, farmers in CSVs are also encouraged to use the mobile-based online applications of various institutions like 'Krishighar', 'Krishi Guru', and 'Smart Krishi' to get weather, market related, and other agriculture related information.In CSV, insurance is one of the important activities, packaged under the same group of 'Climate Information' because this helps to reduce/transfer climate risks. With the help of insurance farmers can avoid financial risk due to of economic loss, which can happen any time due to adverse weather or other causes.Agricultural insurance is at a very primitive stage in Nepal. The current insurance schemes are not widely adopted by farmers. One of the reasons for the low adoption of insurance is lack of information about the insurance schemes available for different crops/animals. Therefore, orienting farmers about insurance packages is considered as an integral part of CSV in Nepal. In addition, facilitation of the process by helping farmers to meet and interact with insurance service providers, local government and other stakeholders is also an important intervention required at local level.» Ask participants to discuss in groups the benefits of climate information and insurance in real life.Examples of public and private institutions and their role in climate smart agriculture promotion.Guide participants to learn about the linkage of public and private institutions with climate change adaptation/mitigation.Process of engaging public and private sector in a resilience building process.Help participants to think about and suggest ideas to include public and private sectors in the process of developing CSV.Why it is important to work with different sectors?Working with multiple stakeholders is crucial for developing synergy and combining efforts. Multi-stakeholder partnerships and collaborations are also helpful to bring cost-effectiveness and efficiency while scaling-up CSA technologies.The entry point for working with public and private institutions is identification of the existing public and private institutions at various levels and assessing the capacity of the institutions for integrating climate actions at different levels. For Nepal, it is important to identify and work with local institutions like cooperatives, farmers' groups, agro-vet dealers, output buyers (traders), agro-machinery suppliers, insurance service providers, agro-advisory service providers, and other relevant stakeholders as per need.Based on the analysis of scaling-up strategies developed on the basis of national policies, and plans and strategies for various CSA technologies and practices in Nepal, there are clear indications that certain types of CSA technologies have potential to be scaled-up through commercial/private sectors through strong business models. Particularly, input-intensive CSAs can be scaled-up through private sector engagement. Many CSA practices like drip irrigation, poly house (polythene green house), solar-based irrigation, zero/minimum tillage, farm tools and small equipment, ICT based agro-advisory, and agriculture insurance schemes can be scaled-up through the private sector, as a tangible product which can be sold to farmers by the private sector. The role of government institutions should be facilitation, market regulation, quality control, and providing subsidies through market mechanisms (wherever needed).Role of Public and Private Institutions in Scaling-Up CSA Technologies and PracticesObjective: To assist participants to learn about the idea of a climate information system and insurance and their linkage with climate resilience and livelihoodThe private sector might be unwilling to invest in knowledge-intensive CSA technologies like legume intercropping, intensification of terraces, organic/ecological farming, animal shed/ farm yard manure improvement, community pond and water harvesting, climate-field schools, mulching, residue retention, community seed banks, etc. Because such technologies are basically knowledge, not products, the private sector may not see a way to make a financial profit from these technologies. Therefore, public institutions should have a greater role in promoting these technologies in CSV.Greater collaboration with public extension agencies is warranted to access opportunities for trainings, exposure visits, demonstrations, and access to financial support for farmers and farmers' groups to adopt these technologies.Certain types of CSA practices also need greater policy awareness and policy support. For example, index-based crop insurance is an important risk-transfer mechanisms in CSV but it is not possible without supportive government policy.Similarly, weather forecasting also requires a strong national database where greater investment from the government is necessary. Otherwise, no local actions can be planned in CSVs. Similar is the case of developing climate resilient crop varieties and livestock breeds. In piloting new technologies and helping with demonstrations, the role of research institutions, academic institutions and NGOs is equally important. Dirp irrigation, ICT-based agro-advisory, solar irrigation, leaf color chart, zero tillage machine, diversity kit, farm tools and machines, plastic for water harvesting pond, hailstone nets, organic fertilizers, insurance, plantation and perennialsWeather-forecast, insurance, variety/breed research, technology transterClimate field schools, community seed banks, organic farming, ecological farming, legume intercropping, animal shed and FYM improvement, community pond and MUS, mulching, residue retaintion Multi-stakeholder approach for scaling-up CSAsImportance of joint financing.Assist participants to understand the benefits of collective financing in CSA/CSV.PPT presentation, interactive discussion Identifying institutions and potential areas of financing CSV.Guide participants to explore agencies and the areas where different financers can contribute.The CSV approach is fully guided by the principle of joint financing. Engagement of more than one institution as investors not only divides the budget load but also creates strong ownership among the stakeholders.The CSV approach in Nepal has strong focus on local financing for local climate-actions, because the opportunity to tap national and international finance is limited for the CSV communities. In this regard, firstly, communities are empowered for developing a financial plan for local level climate change actions and provided with a small 'match-fund'. Then at the second stage they take action on their own to generate a significant amount of the local resources to top up the seed fund and continue implementing climate change actions at the local level.Multi-stakeholder support and multiple sources of finance is important for developing CSVs. The figure below shows the potential financing institutions at grassroots level along with the areas that they can finance while developing CSVs in Nepal. Often direct monitory support may be not possible but there might be potential for leveraging resources in-kind. For example, support from DHM for weather information, social mobilization support from CSOs, subsidies for clean energy from AEPC, subsidies for agriculture technologies from agriculture extension agencies, engagement of the universities and research institutions in related research, and private sector investments on various business opportunities could be equally as important as cash contribution.Financing Help participants to understand the value of farmers' knowledge and its connection with CSV.Farmers' capacity building 20 min Help participants to understand the methods (examples) of capacity building activities.A baseline study of a CSV project conducted by LI-BIRD in 2015 indicates that there is a strong presence of farmers' institutions (e.g. groups, cooperatives) in Nepal. They are rich in local knowledge and practices. However, they have very limited capacity in terms of understanding climate change issues and adaptation needs. Therefore in CSV approach, farmers' traditional knowledge and practices that are helpful in adaptation or mitigation are also considered as CSA practice. Such practices are included in the list of recommended solutions/technologies which complement the existing system leading to high chances of adoption and sustainability.For example, zero-tillage garlic is an indigenous technology for farmers in the Western-Terai Region of Nepal. This practice helps utilize soil moisture and also avoiding the cost of tillage operations, resulting in increased economic returns as well as reduced emission. Similarly, maize-legume intercropping, cultivating yams on sacks on terraces are other examples.In the process, documentation and validation of the farmers' local knowledge, technologies and practices are firstly conducted. Among the explored local knowledge based practices those which can meet the criteria of CSA are included in the list of potential CSA technologies and considered for testing and scaling-up.When we talk about sustainable development, it is important for farmers to become capable of evaluating technologies on their own. Therefore participatory testing of CSAs adds significant value to the process of increasing farmers' experiences with the new technologies and helps them become capable of analyzing both the negative and positive aspects associated with it. In this way farmers also know how to evaluate a technology and take decisions whether to adopt or discard the same.Blending Indigenous Knowledge and Climate Science to Maximize BenefitsObjective: To assist participants to understand the value of farmers' knowledge in climate resilienceSuch skills not only help farmers decide about a technology, they can continue the process of testing new technologies in the longer run. In the process, researchers and scientists might need to guide farmers and the level of effort might depend on the specific technology. In addition to participatory testing of CSA, other capacity building events like hands-on trainings, exposure visits, and knowledge exchange forums are also organized to help farmers learn about new technologies. All such activities provide farmers an opportunity to gain knowledge and skills which contribute to their capacity to adapt and become more resilient.Why CSV integration into government's plan/policy is important.Enhance the learning of participants on the idea of 'integration' and its significance for the establishment/functioning of CSV.How to integrate CSV in local development plan and policy.Help participants to learn about the steps of integrating CSV in local development policy and annual development plan.Why it is important to integrate CSV into government plans and policies?Once the testing phase is over, there is a list of successful technologies identified. The next step is to disseminate such smart technologies on a wider scale to achieve the intended goal of community resilience at the national level. In the process, the government is the only agency that can lead to take it to the desired scale. For that different plans and programs within agriculture could consider CSA/CSV interventions. Such integration is truly possible because the overall intention of agricultural development is highly aligned with the intention of CSV itself.After the recent revision in the planning process of Nepal, the CSV approach is more relevant to be integrated into the Municipality level development plans and policies. To include CSA in the municipals' budgeted annual plan of action, it should pass through a seven-step process for development planning that occurs in March-July of each year. First of all farmers should put their demand for CSA to a village level meeting. Then to Ward level and to Municipality level meetings, who need to endorse the proposal of CSA integrated with agricultural development.As a policy support, the Municipality also can include CSA/CSV in its agricultural development strategy/plan. On the basis of such policy, the Municipality can annually allot a budget for a change envisioned by the leaders/public. With regular and sizable funding, the Municipality can take systematic actions to reach a certain goal in terms of improved community resilience.Integrating Climate Smart Village Approach in Local, Provincial and Federal Government Policies, Programs and PlansObjective: To assist participants to understand the importance and the process of integrating CSV approach in the local, provincial and national level plans and policiesWith the technical support of LI-BIRD, BannigadhiJayagadh Rural Municipality of Achham has developed a 5-year agriculture and livestock development strategy which includes CSV as a component intended to contribute to the overall target of agricultural development in the Rural Municipality. A broad level action plan for implementing CSV is also included in the strategy. Hence with their own leadership, BannigadhiJayagadh will be implementing CSV in Achham for the next four years.In the current development structure of Nepal, Provinces are at the middle of three tiers that bridge municipal and federal (central) level governments. In Nepal, Provincial Governments are also important players for climate change actions as they are responsible to formulate state/province level policies and also special programs. Since Municipalities are supposed to follow the guidelines provided by the Province/Federal Governments, it is important to keep all the tiers aligned in terms of prioritizing CSA/CSV.Gandaki Province (Province 4) has developed an implementation guideline for a 'Chief Minister Environment Friendly Model Agriculture Village' with the technical support of LI-BIRD. The guideline deals in detail with the process of how to establish a CSV. The project is directly implemented by the Provincial Government but could also be referred by all the Municipal Governments in Gandaki Province.At federal level, the Ministry of Forest and Environment (MoPE) is the focal ministry for climate change. The Department of Environment under this ministry has been leading a pilot project on CSV since 2016, targeting to establish 170 CSVs across the country. Also a guideline for developing a CSV has been developed and circulated by the Department to guide all the implementing units for CSV implementation. In addition, there are opportunities to integrate CSVs at the federal level planning. Having a clear plan about CSV at federal level could pave the way to integrate CSV and provincial and local levels. Group exercise on risk based planning 2 hr Help participants to refine and upgrade their knowledge on at least one tool of risk based planning.The six general steps of implementing a Climate Smart Village at local levelThe village to be developed as the CSV pilot site (agriculture research for development sites) needs to be strategic in terms of access, working environment, and change potentials. This is in order that the learning expected to evolve from the site will then be passed on to other locations. Nationally, the sites for designing CSVs can be selected though advanced modeling tools such as climate-analogue tools. The tools help to identify priority areas based on agro-climatic relevance and also the scope to replicate the learnings. At the same time, looking at socio-economic conditions by analyzing available secondary literature and local experience is important. In this way, a site for pilot CSV is selected where high climatic vulnerability exists along with the opportunities to improve agriculture.The first action for designing a CSV is a baseline analysis. The baseline analysis includes the analysis of: agricultural systems, local resources and vulnerability context, historical and current level of climatic variability, and future climate projections, ongoing adaptation strategies, local and traditional knowledge and practices, local institutions, and capacity gaps and review and analysis of the existing policies/plans. Similarly, other dimensions of agriculture like input-output and resource efficiency, measuring emissions, crop productivity, agriculture insurance and agro-advisory situation are analyzed at the beginning of CSV implementation.Steps to Implement CSVThe 'agricultural vulnerability analysis' has been an effective tool for baseline evaluation of climate change exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity at CSV level. This tool can be used as a participatory method for historical climate-risk analysis.Vulnerability of farming communities is measured in terms of their exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity which can either be quantitatively measured or qualitatively characterized.Exposure: It is a measure of the magnitude and extent of exposure to climate change impacts. Sensitivity: It is a measure how a system is likely to respond when exposed to a climate-induced stress.Adaptive capacity: It is a measure of the potential, ability or opportunities available to decrease exposure or sensitivity of a system to a climate induced stress.There are various tools to study the three components of vulnerability. A few widely adopted tools are i) historical timeline, ii) hazard ranking, and iii) seasonal calendar. Under the historical timeline, patterns of climate change from past to present, and climatic hazards and effects are studied. This method helps to gain insight into past and present climatic hazards and identify trends in their nature, intensity and impacts over the last 20 or 30 years. However, farmers may not recall the exact year or month in which events happened. Therefore, recalling climatic hazards can be linked with major events that happened in the community at that time, such as changes in administration and organizations, or changes in major political parties. It can be done on the format of a table or a graphical line as per convenience.Procedure of creating a historical timeline » Bear in mind that this is meant for collecting ideas about climate change induced negative impact in the last 30 years. Linking climate change with the timeline must be over a 30 year period.» Call elderly citizens as FGD participants because they have knowledge about what actually happened in the last 30 years.» For the purpose of easing the process, the timeline can be broken down in to five year periods.Information regarding different climatic hazards can be included in the historical time line over the past 30 years as follows: » In the preparatory phase, list out the major hazards that occurred in the area by KII or secondary information.» When did any major drought occur? For example, when did a large flash flood or land slide happen?» Did any other event happen around the same time? Go backwards.» Finish one type of hazard and move to the others. » The facilitator can write the stories down on a blackboard or large sheets of paper -in chronological order.» Periodically run back through the events already reported to prompt recall and help the informants fill in gaps. Concentrate on key events. Sharing the learnings from the pilots and informing the local and national policy making process is another important component of CSVs as the good practices are meant to be scaled-up. The piloting of CSVs at various locations generates results and evidences that should be communicated to the policy makers for making the necessary changes in policies. The findings can be shared through meetings, conferences and workshops at national, district and local levels. The most effective tool identified so far is joint field visits of the policy makers and political leaders from national, provincial and local level to the resource CSV sites for creating/changing policies.Before selecting sites for scaling-up CSV, different CSV models should be developed which are suitable for different locations that may have specific agro-climatic and socioeconomic settings. The sites for scaling-up of CSVs can be determined through the analysis of the background context (climate risks, community capacities, resources available etc.) using climate and socio-economic analogue tools. ","tokenCount":"6121"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ee7a95f9b2653d0b94bd405c874094f9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/68b1a094-96c6-4bd7-8c1a-33b1d26d4907/retrieve","id":"146246071"},"keywords":["Food system","agriculture","climate change","climate-smart agriculture","climate-smart villages"],"sieverID":"98ef9874-9825-4b98-9d8c-ff12f636709b","pagecount":"64","content":"Titles in this series aim to disseminate interim climate change, agriculture and food security research and practices and stimulate feedback from the scientific community.Participants in the qualitative interviews for the local food system assessment ..... Table 2. The classification of food systems based on the Food System Dashboard ............... Table 3. Characteristics of food system typology of Cambodia, Myanmar and Philippines ...  Myanmar, Cambodia, and the Philippines are low-income countries in Southeast Asia dealing with a high number of challenges, including globalization, urbanization, conflict and political instability, and demographic changes. Furthermore, COVID-19 continues to be a significant public health threat in these countries, together with migration, economic decline, and health system collapse. Meanwhile, income disparities and gender inequality persist as significant issues, turning these countries into climatically hostile territories. Increasing incidence of drought, rainfall variability, stronger typhoons, land degradation, and biodiversity loss are among the climate-related threats that are becoming more evident over the past years. These challenges, if unaddressed, would drive the population further into poverty, undernourishment, and malnutrition.Agriculture is an essential sector in Cambodia, Myanmar, and the Philippines and contributes Given the many challenges confronting these countries, the food systems must transform to respond to various shocks and stressors while delivering on economic and environmental objectives and food and nutrition security.Food systems are multidimensional and comprise all the actors, activities and processes involved in feeding the population. They encompass growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, distributing, selling, buying, preparing, consuming, and disposing of food and food-related items. Multiple actors in the food systems interact and manage these linked activities within the food environment and are influenced by food system drivers to influence the population's diets and determine outcomes. This work uses the definition of the food system, as it \"gathers all the elements (environment, people, inputs, processes, infrastructures, and institutions, among others)and activities that relate to the production, processing, distribution, preparation and consumption of food, and the output of these activities, including socio-economic and environmental outcomes.\" (HLPE, 2014).Figure 1 shows the food systems' components, drivers, and elements that interact with one another. The food systems have seven main drivers: climate and the environment, globalization and trade, income growth and distribution, urbanization, population growth and migration, politics and leadership, and sociocultural context. The food system consists of four core constituent elements: food supply chains, food environment, individual factors, and consumer behavior. How the components interact amongst each other and how they respond to food system drivers shape the population's diets and determine the food system outcomes: nutrition and health, economic, social, and environment (HLPE, 2017).The food system study employed secondary data analysis and qualitative interviews. Desk review was performed at national and sub-national levels involving the CSVs, and was guided by two primary references for the national and sub-national level indicators: 1) the Food Systems Dashboard, which is available online and collates more than 170 indicators that describe country-level food system drivers, components and outcomes (Food Systems Dashboard, 2020); and 2) Compendium of Indicators for Food System Assessment, which provides additional indicators that the authors found helpful for the food system study (Kennedy et al., 2020). The same set of indicators guided the profiling of the food system at the village level.Key informant interviews (KII) and focus group discussions (FGD) were conducted to capture  specific typology indicators were collated and analyzed using data-driven methods to reflect the different components of the food system. The four typology indicators were agriculture value added per worker, the share of dietary energy from staples, the number of supermarkets per 100,000 population and per cent urban population of the total population. Based on the above indicators, Cambodia has a rural and traditional food system, whileMyanmar and the Philippines are operating in informal and expanding food system typology.Table 3 further illustrates the components of each food system. Informal and expanding food systemAgricultural productivity is low, with production typically focused on staple crops.Farming is mainly done by smallholders.Agricultural productivity is higher than in rural and traditional food systems, with greater use of inputs such as seeds and fertilizer. Mediumand some large-scale farms are beginning to emerge.Supply chains are short due to smaller urban populations, resulting in many local, fragmented markets.Higher losses due to inadequate storage and distribution infrastructure.Establishment of modern food supply chains and centralized distribution centers.Distribution infrastructure remains weak with absence or limited cold chains and poor market access.Food is mainly sold in informal market outlets, including independently-owned small shops, street vendors, and local public markets.Supermarkets and fast food are beginning to grow in number Informal market outlets remain to be the major sources of food especially for fresh produce such as fruits, vegetables, and animal source foods.Supermarkets and fast food are rapidly expanding and becoming more accessible.1.1 Food system drivers Based on the 25-year data (1991 to 2016) on rainfall, the three countries recorded high precipitation variability. The coefficient of variation, a measure of the precipitation variability, was highest in Myanmar (0.97) and Cambodia (0.84), then lower in the Philippines (0.47) (World Bank 2019a). The amount and frequency of rainfall have a gripping impact on agriculture as this affects the amount of available water for household use, irrigation, and industry.The average surface temperature has risen rapidly over the decades in the three countries.In 2019, Cambodia and the Philippines had an annual average change in surface temperature thrice the rate recorded in 1990 while in Myanmar, it was eight times the rate (FAO 2019a). Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture (rice cultivation, enteric fermentation, manure and synthetic fertilizers), land-use change, and forestry contribute primarily to climate change. Notably, GHG emissions from agriculture in the three countries are lower than in other territories of similar income and food system typology.   Rice is an important staple crop in these countries. While rice methane emission is significantly lower than the average for countries of the same income and food system typology, Figure 3 suggests that it is the primary source of emissions by sector in the three rice-producing economies. Based on the average emissions by sector (1990-2018), rice cultivation is the primary contributor to emissions in Cambodia (46.1%), Myanmar (38.6%), and the Philippines (61.3%) (FAO 2019b).Cambodia, Myanmar, and the Philippines are climatically hostile territories and highly vulnerable to climate risks because of stronger typhoons and more pronounced incidences of drought over the past years. On the other hand, GHG emissions from the agri-food production systems of these countries are lower than the average of countries of similar income and food system typology, and their combined contribution to the global emissions is relatively small. The unique biophysical environment and prevailing climate-related issues GNI reflects the country's income from domestic and overseas sources and tracks the country's wealth on a year to year basis. However, for countries like Cambodia, Myanmar and the Philippines that depend mainly on informal sectors and subsistence activities, the value may be underestimated and does not account income distribution inequalities.The population living in poverty or with income of less than $1.90 (2011 PPP) a day has declined from 6.2% (2015) to 2.0% (2017) in Myanmar and from 13.9% (2000) to 6.1% (2015) in the Philippines (World Bank 2019b). The reduction suggests fewer households experiencing food insecurity and malnutrition, given that poverty significantly influences accessibility, affordability and consumption of food.Meanwhile, income inequality measured in the Gini index remains high in Myanmar (38.1, 2015) and the Philippines (44.4, 2015) (World Bank 2019c). Income gap among individuals or households can influence access to food, services and opportunities, and activities in the food system.Globalization and trade as food system drivers demonstrate the country's economy, domestic production, and resilience to an economic shock. The continuous growth of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) since 2000 indicates economic progress. GDP measures the total market value of all domestic finished goods and services within a country in a set period. In 2019, the Philippines showed a more robust economic condition and growth rate than Cambodia and Myanmar (Table 6).Trade, which influences the volume of domestic production, the proportion of imports and exports, and the other food system sectors, is most important in Cambodia, as indicated by its high trade-to-GDP ratio (124.9%) in 2018. Small countries need international trade of goods and services to satisfy domestic demand. The negative cereal imports dependency ratio of Cambodia and Myanmar show restrictive trade policies and can be correlated with the food system's vulnerability to variations in domestic supply and to economic shocks that could potentially put them at higher risk of widespread shortages of staple grains during climate disasters such as floods or droughts.The Philippines, on the other hand, have a relatively high cereal import dependency which suggests the low capacity for domestic supply and high vulnerability to international prices, especially in rural areas.The cereal import dependency ratio expresses the ratio of cereal imports to total cereal supply (cereal production, import and export) and measures the cereal self-sufficiency of a country and the reliance on cereal imports. These are important considerations for the national policy decisions on imports and food prices.Source: FAO 2020The adult literacy rate in the three countries is high, which suggests that most individuals aged 15 and above can both read and write and can understand a short, simple statement about their everyday life. Meanwhile, the low gender inequality index (Scale 0 -100, 0 represents perfect equality, an index of 100 implies perfect inequality) suggests that strong disparity between females and males exists in terms of access to reproductive health, empowerment, and the labour market.Both lack and uneven access to education and gender inequality undermine economic development and, consequently, affect doing businesses that create job opportunities and using human potential in the food system. The countries' development is challenged by apparent political volatility and general threat to freedom of expression and free media, which negatively impact policy formulation and program implementation to sustain equitable and robust national food systems.Overall, the three countries scored weak in political stability and absence of violence/terrorism index (Table 9). The indicator, political stability and absence of violence, measures \"perceptions of the likelihood that the government will be destabilized or overthrown by unconstitutional or violent means, including politically-motivated violence and terrorism\" (World Bank 2019f).Similarly, the perceived ability to vote, freedom of expression, and free media are weak in these three countries (Table 9). Another indicator, voice and accountability, measures \"perceptions of the extent to which a country's citizens can participate in selecting their government, as well as freedom of expression, freedom of association, and a free media\" (World Bank 2019f).These two indicators influence how policies and programs are enacted and implemented in the countries, especially those related to agricultural production, trade and importation, provisions of essential services, and other related programs related to the food systems. The annual population growth rate is 1.5% in Cambodia and the Philippines and 0.6% in Myanmar. (World Bank 2019g). Over the past years, these countries have experienced gradual yet continuous population growth, which in the longer term could pressure the national food system to increase food supply to meet the increasing demand.The increase in the population living in urban settings is also becoming a concern for these agricultural economies. The transition would result in longer food supply chains, a fewer workforce in the rural agricultural areas, and more workforce required in the agriculture sector to meet the needs in rural and urban areas. Also, urbanization drives dietary shifts as food high in salt, sugar, and sodium becomes available and accessible. The Philippines has the highest urban population at 47%, followed by Myanmar (30%) and Cambodia (23%) (World Bank 2019h).Agri-food production systems and input supply represent the primary production of foods and related inputs such as crops, livestock and fisheries.The three countries encounter an increase in agricultural productivity over the years, which could translate to improvement in farmers' livelihood and greater access to agricultural inputs, including but not limited to quality seeds, fertilizer, and irrigation system. The Philippines' 3-year agriculture value added per worker, a measure of agricultural productivity value added per unit of input for agriculture sectors, is higher than Cambodia and Myanmar (Table 10).Political stability and absence of violence/terrorism index 0.11 -1.31 -1.12 Voice and accountability index -1.22 -0.89 0.04Small farm holdings continue to contribute mainly to the national food supply, with 2.0 hectares as the average agricultural holding size. However, while irrigation is an essential agricultural input, the percentage of cultivated land equipped with irrigation remains lower for Cambodia, Myanmar and the Philippines than the weighted average for low-middle income countries (31%). Between the three countries, fertilizer consumption in the Philippines is significantly higher than the average of countries with the same informal and expanding typology (178 kg per ha of arable land) and the same income classification (124 kg per ha of arable land). Fertilizer utilization in Cambodia and Myanmar is relatively low.Except for the Philippines, agriculture employs near the same proportion of male and females. Moreover, available data for Myanmar and the Philippines suggest a decline in the proportion of people employed in agriculture, indicating lesser opportunities in the agriculture sector or shifting of the workforce to non-agricultural jobs. On the other hand, Myanmar has the most significant share of employment dedicated to agriculture. Philippines. An increase in cereal yields indicates improvement and greater access to agricultural inputs and service. As agricultural countries, this also suggests economic development.The agricultural infrastructure index is a \"composite indicator that measures the distribution, transport and storage capacity based on an assessment of a country's road, port, air transport, rail, and irrigation infrastructure, as well as investment in crop storage facilities\" (Food Systems Dashboard 2020).Using this index, the three countries scored poorly and even scored lower than the weighted average score for low-middle income countries (41,2018). Infrastructure provision extends the agricultural development potential for countries. Investments in rural infrastructure would reduce transportation costs and improve the farmers' access to markets, resulting in substantial agricultural growth and expansion.In terms of road connectivity, Myanmar has higher coverage in national road density per square kilometer of land area, including highways, primary roads, secondary roads, tertiary roads, and local roads, between Cambodia and the Philippines (Table 11), and that of rural and traditional (0.9 km/sq km) and informal and expanding (0.8 km/sq km) (Food Systems Dashboard 2020). A substantial amount of agricultural produce is lost between the farm and consumers due to poor road network and inappropriate storage facilities, which adversely reduce the income of farmers and the available supply in the national food environment. Meanwhile, access to electricity is important in the food system as proper processing, preservation, and storage of food commodities are dependent on the use of electricity. The Philippines has high coverage of the rural population with access to electricity, at 90% in 2017 (Table 11). This indicates that most of the population may have access to means for cold storage to avoid or reduce food losses and improve food quality, from production to consumption. On the production side, farmers may be encouraged to produce more and diversify production to other perishable food commodities. Conversely, the inadequate storage and distribution facilities and fragmented food supply chains are reflected in significant domestic supply losses for key food commodities (Table 12). The 3-year average (2015-2017) of cereal losses in Cambodia is at 14.1%, which is significantly higher than the weighted average for low-middle income countries (5.5%) and countries with rural and traditional food system (6.0%) (Food Systems Dashboard 2020).Losses are the \"quantity of crops that are lost during storage, distribution, and processing but not including retail and quantities lost at the household as part of consumption\" (FAO 2021e). Low-middle-income countries 5.5 4.9 13.0 13.0Rural and traditional food system 6.0 4.2 14.0 14.0Informal and expanding food system 5.2 6.7 12.0 9.1Agricultural industries generate income and employment and contribute to the overall economic development of countries by processing and converting raw agricultural materials into value-added products. These industries are crucial, with about 32.3% value share of food, beverage, and tobacco sub-sectors being added to the manufacturing sector's total value. Its share is low for Myanmar (5.3%) and Cambodia (6.6%) and even lower compared to the weighted average of lower-middle-income countries (15%) and countries with the same food system typology (11%). The agricultural industries in these countries are vital in the broader manufacturing sector, which is still in the early stages of growth. Activities like food processing and trading provide alternative livelihood and off-farm employment opportunities (World Bank 2018b; Food Systems Dashboard 2020).Moreover, the Philippines has a mandatory legislation to fortify common food commodities such as rice, salt, wheat flour, and oil. Conversely, Cambodia and Myanmar have mandatory and voluntary legislation to fortify salt, respectively (Food Systems Dashboard 2020).The Shannon Diversity Index, a measure of how varied food items (crops and livestock) are in a country and how evenly they are distributed, determines the diversity of crops in a country regardless of their nutrient content (Food Systems Dashboard 2020). In terms of the diversity of agricultural production, Cambodia (0.72), Myanmar (0.78), and the Philippines (0.86) are providing relatively diverse food commodities in the national food environments. to cover the recommended protein intake for healthy adults of (50 to 60 grams/person/day).About 18% (Cambodia), 43% (Myanmar), and 41% (Philippines) of this protein supply come from animal origin (FAO 2020).Table 13 presents the food supply quantity and adequacy for key commodities. The food supply quantity includes production and imports, and less of the exports and changes in stocks; this considers the food commodity and processed foods derived from it. For the food supply adequacy, the recommended intake values used for fruits (250 g/day), vegetables (360 g/day), legumes/ pulses (60 g/day), and milk (435 g/ day) were derived from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2016 Risk Factors Collaborators, 2017.The Philippines' supply of fruit meets 118% of the recommended intake, but Cambodia and Myanmar only meets 25% and 51% respectively. The three countries' food supply for milk, pulses, and vegetables falls below the recommended intake per person. Myanmar, and 40% in the Philippines. The ability of low-income households to avail adequate diet is strongly challenged by its high cost.Table 14 shows the relative caloric price (RCP) of some food commodities, which refers to the ratio of the price of one calorie of food commodity to the price of one calorie of a representative basket of starchy staple food in a country. The relative caloric price of nutrient-dense food (Vitamin A-rich fruits and vegetables and green leafy vegetables) is costly for low-income households in the three countries. Pulses are generally cheap while fish is expensive in Cambodia and Myanmar. Salty snacks and fats and oils, which could lead to poor nutrition and health outcomes when taken in excessed amounts, are also cheap in these countries. Both packaged food and ultra-processed food have become popular in low-middle income countries. Packaged food is defined as any food sold in protective barrier such as plastic, canned, or paper. Ultra-processed foods are defined as foods made of mostly industrial ingredients and additives with minimal amounts of unprocessed foods, are typically energydense, are often high in added salt, sugars, and fat. Unless they are fortified, they typically have limited nutritional value beyond calories (Food Systems Dashboard 2020).The sales per capita of the retail value of sales of packaged food is high, specifically in the Philippines ($110.48), compared with Cambodia ($48.0) and Myanmar ($34.0), and the weighted average for all low-middle income countries ($71.0). The case is similar for sales per capita of the retail value of ultra-processed food, with the Philippines ($104.6) recording higher than Myanmar ($24.0) and Cambodia ($41.0), and the average for low-middle income countries ($39.0) (Food Systems Dashboard 2020).While packaged and ultra-processed foods have longer shelf-life, are convenient, pose less food safety concerns, and enhance availability and access of specific food items that are relatively unavailable or seasonal in a particular area, many of them are also energy-dense and high in added sugar, salt, and fats, which are detrimental to the health.Informal market outlets are the primary food sources in low-middle income countries.However, between 2013 and 2018, Cambodia (114%) and Myanmar (248%) have experienced a significant increase in supermarkets; the Philippines is lower with only 34% change. Consequently, the Philippines have more supermarkets per 100 000 population in 2018 at 2,054, which is four times the number in Cambodia (508) and Myanmar (404) (Food Systems Dashboard 2020). Supermarkets are \"retail outlets selling groceries with a selling space of between 400 and 2,500 square meters; excludes discounters, convenience stores and independent grocery stores\" (Food Systems Dashboard 2020). The emergence of supermarkets increases the consumers' physical access to diverse food commodities, including processed goods and creates new opportunities and competition for local farmers and traditional retailers.Cambodia and the Philippines have food-based dietary guidelines for the general healthy population. Meanwhile, Myanmar has policies aiming to protect children from the marketing of junk foods. Both dietary guidelines and food messaging platforms or initiatives serve as general guides for the population in making food choices and as part of the government's public health nutrition programs.Household income influences economic access to food and the quality of diets. As income grows, households either diversify their diets or shift expenditure to non-food purchases. For low-income households, purchases and consumption are limited to staples and cheaper food alternatives such as processed food.Based on the available data for the Philippines, the median income per person per day is at $3.9, 2011 PPP, which is lower than the weighted average for low-middle-income countries Food Systems Dashboard 2020). Although there has been an increase in household final consumption expenditure in these countries, the consumer spending power remains low, which may influence the household's perceived affordability of foods and consumer behaviour.About 46.2% of household expenditure in Cambodia and 47.0% in the Philippines is spent on food and beverages. Among the poorer households or those living under $2.97 per capita per day or the lowest consumption segment, the value is even higher at 56.8% (Cambodia) and 60.3% (Philippines) (World Bank 2019k; Food Systems Dashboard 2020). These lowincome households with higher food expenditure are the most vulnerable to price or income shocks. Also, they are most likely to have poor quality diets and may shift to cheaper sources of calories when experienced shocks. In both countries, only small proportions of the households devote their food budgets to meat and fish and even lesser on fruits and vegetables. These nutrient-dense food commodities are higher priced relative to starchy staples for low-income households. The food system's failure to make nutrient-dense non-staple foods available and affordable in the national food environment shows the general population's diet. The adequacy of adult estimated intake of key food groups was compared to the recommended amount for whole grains (125.0 g/day); vegetable (360.0 g/day); fruit (250.0 g/day); milk (435.0 g/day); legumes (60.0 g/day); nuts and seeds (20.5 g/day); sugar-sweetened beverages (2.5 g/day); sodium (2.0 g/day); processed meat (2.0 g/day); and red meat (22.5 g/day) (GBD 2016 Risk Factors Collaborators 2017).Most adults do not consume enough whole grains, vegetables, fruits, milk, nuts, and seeds.In Myanmar, adults has consumed a higher amount of legumes (141.6%) while Filipino adults eat an adequate amount of processed meat (100%) and red meat (96%), lower in two other countries. Simultaneously, the population exceeds the allowable amount for sugarsweetened beverages, sodium, and processed meat. Nutrition and health outcomes determine the efficiency of the food system to deliver physically and economically accessible, healthy and sustainable diets for all. However, Cambodia, Myanmar and the Philippines have been continuously challenged by the double burden of malnutrition.Stunting in children under five remains a significant public health problem in Cambodia (32.4%), Myanmar (29.4%), and the Philippines (32.4%). Iron-deficiency anaemia affects a significant number of young children and women of reproductive age in these countries.While there has been an observed decline in thinness among children and adolescents, 5 to 19 years old, and underweight among adults, overweight and obesity have been on the rise in all age groups (children under-5, children and adolescents 5-19 years old and adults).Moreover, the prevalence of diet-related diseases among adults has been rising. Chhouk, Htee Pu and Himbubulo Weste have rural and traditional food systems and unique biophysical features that command the farming system employed and the primary food commodities produced. There is no distinct role in the local food system. For instance, farmers could also transport, distribute, and sell their produce in the market. An intermediary or middle-person for a crop commodity could be a livestock grower selling meat when needs arise. The local food system provides informal employment opportunities along the food value chain. This work category includes seasonal agriculture and a wide range of low wage, daily-basis, or output-based jobs, including farm labourers, retailers, and drivers. The rural and traditional food system typology of agriculture-based villages appears resilient due to the relatively short and stable food supply chain. However, it offers less diverse food choices. Figure 5 shows the components that describe the food system operations and hotspots or concerns identified by the food system actors. Among the food system drivers, the environment and climate and climate change have the most negative perceived impact. In the food supply chain, increasing landlessness and limited economic access to input supply directly influence the production system and interlinked with overall productivityRural and traditional food system Food production Smallholders mainly do farming.In the food supply chains, limited economic access to input supply and landlessness influence the production system. The village's local food production is insufficient to meet all populations' needs. Importation is needed to cover 60 to 70% of the demand for commodities other than those produced in the area. The three villages are climate-smart villages where most farmers have adopted climate-smart agriculture practices to increase agricultural productivity sustainably and reduce farmers' exposure to shocks and risks while building their resilience and capacity to adapt to short-or long-term stresses.By adapting CSA strategies, farmers have a more diverse production through the local farming systems and homesteads. The increased productivity through the combination of crops and livestock results in better household income.The role of mediators or middle persons in the local food system is vital to bring the farmer's produce to the contact markets and provide credit when needed. Other products that the middle persons left made their way to informal points of sale. The distance of the village to the market, and the poor road network, which becomes impassable during heavy rains, are among the commonly cited characteristics of the distribution transport infrastructure. Cold storage is generally absent in the villages.The population is dependent on informal and fragmented markets and small retail stores for food supply.Food is mainly sold in informal market outlets, including independentlyowned small shops, street vendors, and local public markets.There are reported lean seasons in these villages.   The inefficiency caused by the general lack of road infrastructure hampers import and export of food commodities and creates bottlenecks in the food supply. The role of middle persons in the food supply chain is essential. The population depends on various food sources, primarily informal markets that offer cheaper products in retail. Distance to these markets, however, is an issue. The perceived availability and cost of food commodities differ from each community and among food system actors. The informal exchange of food, foraging of wild food and own production, or homestead gardens is vital, especially in rural and traditional food systems. Economic access to food is considered an issue among the actors of the food system. Limited access to electricity, drinking water, and cooking fuels negatively influences cooking time and consumption. The population's diets are inadequate in quantity and less diverse. The perceived food insecurity and nutritional status are food system outcomes that have not improved compared to a decade ago.  The chance of wet days in Srae Ambel varies very significantly throughout the year. The wetter season lasts for about 6 months (April to November), with a greater than 43% chance of a given day being a wet day. The drier season lasts for about 6 months (November to April).Rain falls throughout the year in Srae Ambel, with extreme seasonal variation in monthly rainfall.The most rain falls during a 31-day period centred around August, with an average total accumulation of 19.1 inches. The least rain falls around January with an average total accumulation of 0.7 inches. also important crops. Others are involved in raising chicken in the backyard as a sole income source or in combination with crop production. Some households are involved in agroforestry. Livestock is considered important household assets and usually sold during high vulnerability periods such as crop failure. The majority of the households, especially the more impoverished farmers, owns goats while others have cattle as farm help.  Based on the municipal-level data, the mean annual temperature in Guinayangan is at 26.8°C, ranging from 21.9ºC (January and February) to 32.8°C (May and June). The mean annual relative humidity is 83%, with a minimum of 81% in April and May and 85% in November to February.Rainfall depths range from 114.1 mm (month of May) to 636.6 mm (month of December), withOctober to December having a heavy rainfall of greater than 250 mm.Himbubulo Weste and most municipality areas are under the Type IV climate category, whereby rainfall is more or less. Overall, the village is at its warmest from March to May and coolest from December to January. The dry months are from February to August. During this period, the village experiences very little or no rainfall at all, and the sources of water for domestic use are affected by drought. Conversely, the wet months are from September to January.Land ownership and economic access to input supply are critical issues in the local food systems of three villages. Smallholder farmers are the primary food producers in the local food system. In terms of landholding, farmers in the three CSVs have different means of acquiring the land.At the village level, there is an uneven distribution and access to production. Moreover, Farmers purchase quality seeds and fertilizers out of pocket, although government and nonprofit organizations provide some assistance. Market access is competitive, and transportation and input cost are high.Furthermore, irrigation is a major challenge that farmers face amidst the worsening impacts of drought. The production system in the three CSVs is rain-dependent for irrigation. WhenFarming households have smaller farmland for food production and not enough to gain higher profit (FGD).In Chhouk Village, 54.3% of total rice farming households (184 households) own rice land less than 1 ha, and 37.6% of total farming families (85 households) owns less than 1 ha Chamkar land. These farmers may cultivate more than 1 ha of crop field on rental land. (Royal Government of Cambodia 2010)The average landholding in the village is 2 acres. Landlessness in the village has been increasing over the past years, and households turn into farm labour.\"Land for food production is accessed as ancestral land or borrowed land\" (FGD)The land tenure systems are in transition from communal and ancestral ownership to privately owned land and the increased recognition of user rights. Farmers run a risk of land dispossession since shifting cultivation areas are not entitled to formal tenurial security. Under the 2012 Vacant Fallow and Virgin Lands (VFVL) Management Law, only permanent farmland can be issued land-use certificates. Based on the Farmland Act (2012), land can be legally bought and sold with land titles (Barbon et al. 2017)In Himbubulo Weste, those involved in farming are primarily tenants. Households occupying the multiple-use zone of the MSPL (multi-purpose agroforestry in support of food production and livelihoods) have been awarded a 25-year tenurial instrument for utilizing the land while maintaining and protecting the watershed. This approach is giving importance to community involvement in managing the forest called Protected Areas Community Based Management Agreement (GLGU 2017).available, other methods are irrigation from a canal or dam, natural source (river, stream, lake, and natural pond), drilled well, and dug pond.In the commune that covers Chhouk CSV, 100% (910 ha) are wet-season rain-fed rice land or irrigated area compare to the total actual rice cultivation area. Other irrigation methods are irrigation from canals or dams, natural sources (river, stream, lake, and natural pond), drilled wells, and dug pond (Royal Government of Cambodia 2010).In Htee Pu village, the number of embarkment (a raised structure used primarily to hold back water) covers 12 ha in total. Five river pumps cover 6,671 ha of total land area (TGAD 2019).Out of the total production area of the municipality that covers Himbubulo Weste CSV, 80% is rainfed, 16% irrigated, and the remaining 4% is located in the upland. There are eight barangays with irrigation facilities having a combined service area of 110 hectares benefitting around 200 farmers. The types of irrigation system are pump and gravity (GLGU 2017).CSA practices can address limited access to fertilizer, drought issues, and lower agricultural productivity, among other challenges. They can increase agricultural productivity sustainably and reduce the farmers' exposure to shocks and risks while building their resilience and capacity to adapt to short-or long-term stresses. Diversification and intensification are critical elements in implementing CSA.The farmers have been utilizing these practices already in the CSVs. The International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) has been working with farmers in Chhouk CSV, HteePu CSV, and Himbubulo Weste CSV in promoting CSA strategies for climate adaptation and mitigation. As each community has a unique agro-ecological landscape, the engagements have been centred on indigenous knowledge and community-driven approaches.In Chhouk CSV, households are engaged in two food production subsystems: homesteads and traditional farming system. Homestead areas range from half to one hectare, where a combination of crops and other food commodities for domestic consumption and market utilization are grown. These could include fruit trees, spices and vegetables, and small livestock (native chicken production). Homesteads also cater to small livestock production.Due to the availability of inputs, mostly local chicks, from IIRR projects, native chicken production has increased in the village.Small native chicken production is a high-value commodity for smallholders that make broilers, eggs, and chick more available to meet household needs for animal-sourced protein and alternative income sources. Aside from providing economic benefits and a diverse food source, homestead spaces are also an avenue of climate-smart strategies. The use of crop residues and organic waste as compost or as mulch helps maintain soil moisture and reduce soil temperature, which is significant during dry seasons. Minimizing the use of chemicals lead to better soil quality and higher yields. In response to irrigation issues, farmers adapted drip irrigation, where water is placed directly into the root zone to minimize evaporation.The practice of drip irrigation means lesser water usage and less human labour.In Htee Pu CSV, farmers have also capitalized on diversification and intensification. IIRR is engaged with the local community through the existing CSA practices such as the production of legumes, intercropping and crop rotation, utilization of organic matter, and raising of small livestock. Livestock is recognized as an important economic asset in the community, especially among low income and landless households. Large animals such as bulls are an emergency asset used as transportation and can be rented as alternative income stream.The raising of native chicken has become popular in the village due to the provision of local chicks from the IIRR. Aside from economic benefits, livestock also bring the nutritional needs of the households for animal-sourced protein.Himbubulo Weste is among the upland areas near the watershed that practice monocrop coconut-based system. The dependence on coconut production put farmers at risk as coconuts are vulnerable to calamities and need long periods to recover. However, coconut and its extensive coverage in the area serve as effective carbon sinks. Commercially relevant fruit trees and cash crops such as cacao, coffee, rambutan, soursop, and banana were introduced to farmers and are intercropped with a coconut-based system.Fruit trees have several benefits. The mother fruit trees ensure the future sources of good quality seedlings and vegetative propagation materials. They also provide sources of nutritious commodity and income when sold in the local market. The technique of the deep pit planting of fruit trees ensures the development of a deep root structure that can cope with drought and typhoons when their roots become uprooted. However, since fruits trees take about five years to bear fruits, farmers have to wait to reap the harvest.Small native pig production was also introduced in Himbubulo Weste. The farmers practise small-scale, backyard systems that use CSA interventions such as building native housing for animals (bamboo poles) and relying on locally grown feed sources (roots and tubers, leafy crops), and using alternatives (copra and rice bran). Economically, small livestock provides farmers with additional income or emergency funds. This can also be a source of animalbased protein for the households and community on special occasions. Local feeds reduce expenses from commercial and expensive feeds and transport cost to buy them. Likewise, the use of lightweight and natural animal housing materials decreases their expenses.Roots and tubers are drought-resistant crops, are less susceptible to extreme winds as they grow below the ground and in diverse environments. A cassava-based CSA practice provides farmers with an alternative income source when coconut harvests are low and potentially higher income from processed and value-added products from cassava. The harvests are mainly for household consumption, feed for livestock, and local market retail. IIRR supports and promotes local production of yellow, orange, red and violet sweet potato for its nutrition profile and cassava for its value addition through processing.Overall, by adapting CSA strategies including their local farming systems and homesteads, farmers have a more diverse diet from having varied production. The increased productivity through the combination of crops and livestock results in better household income. When combined with diverse cropping, homesteads are more resilient to climate variability and extreme weather events. Also, the short food systems supplying to local markets have a low carbon footprint in general. Source: IIRR Philippines.Poor and underdeveloped distribution infrastructure affects the livelihood and general activities in the local food system while delaying potential improvements in the food value chain. Without a cold chain and processing facilities to store and transport food commodities and with a poor road network impassable on heavy rainfall, the local food system cannot produce for the high-end market. For the farmers and in the middle of the food supply chain, the warmer temperature would lead to more food losses due to spoilage in the absence of cold storage facilities.As the food supply chain is short, processing and packaging do not generally provide livelihoods in the local food system. The smallholder farmers and the informal traders are challenged by the absence of a stable contact market, inadequate storage, distribution and transport infrastructure, and poor economic status. The role of middle persons is critical in the local food system as they connect the farmers to the market and bring the products to sales point for the consumers. In general, buyers have high market power over the farmers to demand cheaper products given the distribution challenge.In the case of Chhouk Village, in 2009, the Chi Kha Leu Commune had a total road length of 20.97 kilometres, 74% of which is concrete and laterite road; 11% constructed earth road;and 14% as unconstructed earth road (Royal Government of Cambodia 2010).   The middle persons in the food supply chain act as market linkage. Food losses and waste are generated throughout the area's value chain, mainly in farms or production areas. The waste from the death of livestock such as goat and chicken due to disease problem is difficult to handle. Retailers buy wholesale from the nearby market and sell to the village using a motorbike. Middle persons play a crucial role in supply and distribution. Improved and more connected roads are essential for supply and distribution; however, these are lacking in the village. The warm temperature has an impact and lack of knowledge in storage and distribution  Food loss and waste translate to a loss in income, thus are minimized; in the case of food waste, these are used as animal feeds.Box 6. Challenges or barriers in distribution and transport, Himbubulo WesteHouseholds in the three villages share similarities in the varied sources of food. Homestead gardens, whether owned or communal, supply the local vegetables. A few have fruit trees that provide seasonal supply. The small retail stores in the neighbourhood, which often are within 100 to 500 meters from the households, are the primary source for dry goods such as grains, cooking oil, canned goods, and condiments. Other retail stores offer a limited option of perishable goods. Whether by foot or motorcycle, food hawkers sell perishable goods such as meat, fish and vegetables around the community and increases the households' physical access to food. For the livestock growers, intermediaries facilitate the selling. Some have contracts with modern grocery retailers or supermarkets and some private establishments. Vegetable farmers sell in small amounts or retail-often through middle persons. As the road is not concrete, transportation and movement of any supply are hampered, especially during typhoon season, as some areas are impassable. The most convenient form of transport is the makeshift motor vehicle capable of carrying heavy loads and several people, yet small enough to pass the underdeveloped road. Storage and processing facilities are generally lacking in the village. Some farmers rent a bigger vehicle to deliver the harvest for selling to the public market. Those in the distribution and transportation industries mediate between the farmers and the consumers. They do direct wholesale marketing and bring the product to the market or any points of sale. Others offer credit, especially for frozen products. Hawkers by foot or by food cart are common. Due to damage during transport, unacceptable items are sold at lower prices or used for fertilizer; other items are utilized as feeds for pigs. The road is not concrete. There is a need to use an alternative makeshift motor vehicle that affects the product's quality during travel. Also, the fare is expensive.In the event of power interruption, perishables get spoiled easily, so other consumers pay for lower prices.Informal markets or local government-managed public markets are sales point with large quantity and diverse food supply. Public markets consist of stalls strategically zoned into sections for grains, meat and fish, fruits and vegetables, dry goods, and groceries. Retailers of the same products, often vegetables and fish, are present around the market either with smaller stalls, on pushcarts, the roadside or selling by foot. The distance of the market from the village, mobility of the households, and transportation means are essential determinants of consumption.Chhouk Village is about 13 kilometres to the nearest public market with a perceived distance of 12 to 20 kilometres. Motorbike is the primary mode of transport around the village.Others ride bicycle and bicycle with trailer, ox-carts and horse-carts, motorbike and motorbike with trailer, and motor tricycle.Htee Pu Village is about 5 to 13 miles far from two major public markets. Motorcycle/moped is the primary means of mobility; secondary modes of transport are cart, bullock, bicycle, and van.Himbubulo Weste is about 5 km from the town centre, and the public market is approximately less than two kilometres away from the significant number of households and can be accessed by foot. The makeshift motorbike is the common form of transportation although the fare is expensive. Other modes of transport for people and supplies include private cars, vans, public utility jeepneys, and motorcycles. In recent years, the residents have seen an increase in the availability of imported packaged foods that are more appealing, convenient, and cheaper than fresh produce. This is mainly observed in Himbubulo Weste, whereby imported products, which are commonly canned and processed, are more affordable than the local products.The majority of the households in the three villages are engaged in several CSA strategies that enabled them to produce diverse food commodities within the local food system. IIRR has been working with local communities to complement production systems such as small native chicken production in homesteads in Chhouk village, intercropping of legumes, and raising native chicken in Htee Pu village, and traditional pig production in agroforestry in Himbubulo Weste. The traditional production system has increased access to local food supplies of vegetables, legumes, root crops, eggs and chicken meat, which are crucial in meeting both the economic and nutrition objectives for vulnerable households.The local food system provides several livelihoods other than farming. Notably, the economic status of the population has remained poor. In the three villages, the daily wage earners or those involved in works not related to farming reported no improvement in their economic status and income in the past decade. Meanwhile, those involved in the middle of the supply chain experienced minor improvement, and the farming households have the most significant improvement (Table 22). Another important consideration in the food system is those related to consumer behaviour.Whether the households have access to electricity, safely managed water source and clean cooking fuel influence their consumption decisions and their ability and time required to prepare food.It is a challenge for consumers to store perishable food items, whether for daily consumption or in preparation for calamity. The warmer temperature and increasing incidence of drought result in a decline in domestic water resources for household and irrigation use. As the population already has a limited clean water source, the frequent drought would exacerbate their way of life and livelihood.In Chhouk Village, most households depend on battery-sourced for electricity, as most do not have access to electric power and few use candles and kerosene. Clean domestic water remains a challenge as the majority depend on unimproved sources. Wood-related materials are used as cooking fuels.The majority of the households in Htee Pu Village do not have access to clean drinking water. It is customary to collect rainwater in jars for general household usage. Similarly, most do not have electricity or power supply and rely on kerosene or watermill except for those who own solar panels. Meanwhile, the population is dependent on wood-related materials for cooking fuels.Similarly, households in Himbubulo Weste do not have access to clean drinking water. A few depend on unsafe domestic water sources such as artesian wells and pump. Electric power is available in some households, but a few remains without electricity and the population also experiences frequent power interruptions. Firewood or charcoal is the everyday cooking fuel in the village.The population is highly dependent on the crops that the local food system produces. Rice, local vegetables, and cooking oil are the primary parts of the households' diet in the three agriculture-based communities. Chicken eggs are the predominant protein-sourced food in Chhouk Village while legumes are common in Htee Pu Village. Fish and meat are common in Himbubulo Weste. The dietary pattern could be attributed to more farmers adopting native chicken production, increasing access to broilers and eggs. In Himbubulo Weste, aside from the proximity to the coastal community supplying fish, more households are raising native pigs than before, which means access to pig meat becomes more common.In general, household diets are inadequate in quantity as perceived by the food system actors and lack of diversity from food groups such as meat, dairy products, fruits, nuts, and seeds.As subsistence farmers and unskilled labourers with low economic status, the population experienced a general lack or absence of food for household consumption at one point in their lives. The kind of work provides inadequate and often unpredictable income, making the population more vulnerable to food insecurity and related outcomes. All actors in the local food system in the three villages reported having experienced food insecurity, which has become worse than 10 years ago.Similarly, when asked about the perceived changes or improvement in the households' nutritional status, all actors in the local food system in the three villages expressed no significant changes compared with 10 years ago.The three villages are home to the poorest and most food-insecure households facing significant challenges in the local food system. Similarly, these agricultural villages are at the frontlines of climate impacts, which would put livelihood at risk, leading to poverty, undernourishment, and malnutrition.Cambodia, Myanmar and the Philippines are highly vulnerable to climate risks. Over the past years, these countries have experienced stronger typhoons and more pronounced incidences of drought. In fact, among the various food system drivers, climate change has the most perceived impact at the local level, whether among food producers, retailers, distributors, middle-persons, and consuming households in Chhouk, Htee Pu, and HimbubuloWeste. The unique biophysical environment, socio-economic structure and climate-related issues would drive the country's climate adaptation and mitigation strategies. Between mitigation and adaptation, the latter would benefit the low-middle income agriculture-based countries. For agriculture-based communities, modalities through policy, programs, and capacity building must be provided to help farmers and other food system actors adapt to climatic events. Climate adaptation must be embedded in the local management planning while finding means to integrate mitigation in the longer term. While doing so, mitigation strategies should also be part of the national reform to respond to climate change as evidence shows a rise in GHG emissions from agriculture. This is despite the low level of GHG emissions contributed by agriculture from these countries.The rural and traditional food systems of the three villages must respond to climate change while addressing poverty, undernourishment, and malnutrition in its already poor and foodinsecure populations. On the other hand, national policies are needed in both the informal and expanding food system of Myanmar and the Philippines, and the rural and traditional food system of Cambodia, to support the delivery of healthy and sustainable diets.The three CSVs have long been practising CSA strategies, whether from indigenous knowledge or as supported through the local government and organizations such as IIRR.CSA practices that aim at drought management should be reinforced such as water resources management and rainwater harvesting for irrigation and household use. Farmers in the three villages would benefit from using drought-resistant crops and the diversification of crops that can tolerate the spectrum of conditions, whether warmer and drier or wetter conditions. Actions can also include establishing infrastructure that can withstand extreme weather condition and reduce risk from frequent flooding and heavy rainfall. The distribution and transportation in the local food system are where the different actors share similar challenges. Transportation cost is high and an economic burden for farmers, distributors and consumers. Typically, the consumers carry the cost with higher prices of food items when it reached the informal markets or retail stores. Poor road networks, the relative distance of villages to the main road, and the impassability of main roads during heavy rainfall create bottlenecks in the food supply chains. Food losses during transportation account for a considerable percentage of overall losses in the supply chain. Increased investments on infrastructure, transportation and rural economic development are critical to reduce food loss and waste, ensure safety and nutritional quality of perishable goods, and maximize economic gain for all food system actors.","tokenCount":"8434"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e6c421e5508fa48a93d63cede25b3d16","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/47ca085e-37dd-4274-a743-e85b5dc7c85d/retrieve","id":"-1887886467"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0a087cda-4847-425f-a8a6-c5dbd89fe8a9","pagecount":"70","content":"By-Laws AGREEMENTS 2. Preliminary draft oí proposed Memorandum oí Understanding betwean the Government of Colombia and the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations with respect to the establishment of an International Canter of Tropical Agriculture in Colomhia Agreement between the Government of Colombia and The R:>ckefeller Foundation Contraet No. 105, 1970, between the Natíonal University of Colombia and CIAT Agreement between the Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario (!CA) and the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical ( CIAT ) LEGAL RESOLUTIONS 3. Resolution No. 4717 -Protocol of the Act of Foundation and By-Laws of CIAT Resolution No. 4939 -Ministry of Justice -\"Personería Jurídica\" (incorporation) oí CIAT Certificate oí the Mi.nistry of Justice authorizing Dr. U. J. Grant as legal representative oí CIAT Decree No. 301 -Ministry oí Agriculture -Privileges, prerogatives, and rights oí CIAT technical and scientific personnel 4. BUILDINGS Criteria for building location, layout, and design General description of construction 5. BUDGET CIAT BUdget for Capital Investment Based on Funda now Available from the Rockefeller foundation and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation e lA T * * * 11 Plant Produetion Progr3rns A. General Objectives l. To deternine and deoonstrate production potentials of najor hunan and animal food crops in the lowland tropics. using alrendy available technology¡ corn, rice, plant proteina, plunt stnrches, snd forages.-5 -2. lo identify nnd provid~ solatiens fer speeiite teehnleal b~rriers ta nchi8ving even grcnter production potentials.3. lo identify ~nd cc;::on~trate cropping \"nd erop-unimnl systC::lS \"hich rezCllt i\" graatest annual productivlty snd profit in speeifie lowland tropic cnvironments.4. To e~tablish ehannels for inforcation end germplasm exchange.5. To incrcase substant!ally the numbers of commodity, diaciplinary and eropping systeo specialists for leadership in national re3careh one erop produetion programa.B. Forages l. lo develop ye~r around pasture and forage produetion systeos te support effieient cattle production in apeeifie lowland tropic environnents.2. lo identify ond cvaluate, undar a wide range of enviranments, forage grasses ~nd legurnes of potential value.3. To provide tr~incd ¡e~d~rship for forege research programa snd informstion nnd ~ateri31s for production training progr=s.C.Coro 1. To increase the nutritional v~lue of corn by toprov1ng the biologie~l val~e ~f the protein and oOG~fying the oil contento 2. To increase the totel protein level in coro from the prescnt 10 tD 13-15 per~ent with p~rticular attention to weys to i~cre~se ovarn11 yield.CIAT hes defined and definable goals and seeks maximum results in mínimum pericds of time. lts ~.erations are characterized by \",,,lti-disciplinary approaches, concentrated t:,:UStS, coo;>cratíve efforts with narional and private entities, and numero\"s efforts to demonstrate and multil'ly results. lVáile CIAT attc;;:¡,s the problems of crop and animal production necensary t0 i~zre~ce the q~nl~ty and quantity of food availablo, it also ls concerned with economic development leading to iml'roved cc:yíng po\"e~ so th.at urban rosidents may pureh-se a~~ thes bGn~fit [ro~ che increased production of food.In ~u\"\",sry, CIAT's baeic phUcsophy 18 (a) To be catalytic in the eco7:omie cud agricultural developrnent of the tropics; (b) to establish and cemonstrnte a p~ce-setting level of program ex-cellcn~e; (e) to cc:laborate ~nd ~ooperate with national institutions throug!1o'lt ~he lcwland tropicc oa research, educational J and extension p::-cgra!!ls; ,~nd (d) to maintain mutually complemen-tary programs aud reletioushlps With other international aud regional organizations. particularly the International Rice Research Institute (IRaI), the Centro Internacional ~ara Mejoramiento de Ma!z y Trigo (ClMMYT). and the International Institute of Tropical Agricultura (lITA).CIAT concentrates tts programe on the agricultural probleaa of the tropical lowland nraall below 3,000 feet elevatlon and with particular emphasis, st leaet initlally, On the lowland tropic.of Latin America. The general activlties of CIAT are designed: l. To develop and demonstrate production aystoms for speciflc crops and animnls in specific enviroaments.2. To develop information and practices for use ln brlnging into economical production specific lowland areas not presently developed or fully utilized.3. To develop and demonstrate affectiva techniquea and strategies for the raptd spresd and adoption of improved varieties and agriculturnl practicas. 4. To help national institutions to develap ataffs, pragrams, and facilities so that thesc mey ba.~dle more effectively present and futura resaarch and educational tasks. 5. To provide sn information cantar ta procese and exchange data and references relevsnt to the agricultural and economic development of the lowland tropics. 6. To provide a facility to collect, preserve, supply, and exchange pIant and animal germ p¡\"'sm. 7. To provida opportunitias for the further training aud development of professionals and non-~rofessiona18 in agriculture at CIAT and eisewllera with specific emphasb upon raising the level of expertise of tbe indlgenous human resourceo witbin the context of existing institutions.Animal Seianee Produetion Programa A.l Beef Cattle Produetion Program -General Objectives l. To determine snd demonstrate beof cattle production potentiaIs of tbe lowland troplcs tbrougb the appIication of already aval1able teehnology.2. To idontify snd provide solutions to otber cechnieal barriera to achieving even greater production potentials.3. To develop improved systoms snd establlsh and demonstrate now standards of beef production in spocific lovlsnd tropical environments.4. To incraase substantially the numbers of beef cattle research snd production specialists tralned for nationa! leadership posttions.A.2 Beaf Catrle Nutrition 1. To deternine the most affieient utilizatlon of tropical pastures and forages.2. To identify vays to provide adequate life cycle nutrltion ln speciflc lowlnnd tropic envlronments.3. To determine foed potentials of and practicas for feedir.B l~d coct or by-product matariaIs snd nonproteln nitrcgcn.4. To provide trained leadersbip for national beef nutritic~ prcgrams snd practices and materials for beef production treining programs.A.3 Animal Genetics l. To identify snd stimulsce rapid and effective means of herd ioprovornent spplicable to major breeds and croases in spe~ific lowland tropic environments.2. To dovelo? su?erlor bovine stocks fer tropical environments through selection, cross breeding and the development of inbred lines in cooperatian witb interest~d national agencies.3. Ta preserve for subs,\",,!uent <tis tribution seed atock useful in tropical areas.4. To incraasa substantially th\" nucbers of animal br6é1er~ trained ta l\"ad national beef i~provement programa, and to pravide infarmation and oat~riols for beef production training prograos.A.4 Aninal Health l. To identify effeetive controla for tha important dise8ses of beef cottle, particularly vesicular stooatitis, foot and nouth dise~se, hemoparasite diseases, snd bovine rabiea-2. To establish an cffective s~r~ bank for use in epidemiologiesl studies.3. To asstst national agencies to develop quality control prccedures for biological products.4. To provide trained leadership for other lustitutions.B.l International Swine Inprovement Prograc -General ObJectives 1. To identify far eaeh icportant or potentially ~portant urea of the lowland tropies swlne production syatecs which result in ~axinuo productivity and proftt.2. Ta identify r~~ining technlc~l barriera to high productivity in inportant production regions and to seek collaborat1on with national agencies for their rapid solution.3. To devalop sn awareness of the eeonanic considerattons which are basie ta the developnent oi sound swine production progr~~ in the tropics. as well as of the production potentials of specifie areas.4. To pravide trained lend\",rship in swine research and production for natianal swine programa. aud inforcatlon and material s for swine production traintag programs.3. lo provide .'l c~r.tir.uous pactern oi ill';>roveoent of eorn populatians br direct use! end futura breeding prajects.4. To gnin mo;:-\" unc:cnt,,,ndir.g :Jf the fnctors influencing CO~~:: procie':. t~~~~ i::nJ y:i.eld such ns heisht of ?lant te rnte. of drying, i.>1:':a :)f d4.\"1~ :::H:!-tter ~CCtn:'1Ula.ti;:mt area of adaptatíon a~d vegetative effieiency. 5. To .'lssist in P;:-:lcuction aystern studies of ways to inerea.se corn pr:JGUctioD clo~e and in c~pcrisen with ather erops, such as sorghun.6. lo provide traineJ leader\"~ip for national nai~e iQprovement progrc::ls crd inbr::mtion and \",atc:rials for co=n production tral.r:i\"g p,,~;;rc::1s.D. !lli.!!.l. To provido genetic materials. practices and information whlch, if applied, would double rice yields of the irrigated and rai'''tflooded rice zoncs of Latin Alncrica wUllf •• 10-,.81' pe~tod. using material to the fullest extcnt fram IBRI.2. To identify and pravide solutions to specific technicsl b.nrriers (such as blast and virus diseases).3. To assist in production system etudies of waya to increase rice production alone and in specific ratations in speclfic arens •4. TO provide trained leadership for Qational rice improvement programa and information and materials for rice production trainlng progr~.E. Plant Prateins.1. To determine the productive cap.nclty of avallable major legume species (particularly soybeans and cowpeas), and of varieties within speóies, in specific lowland enviranments.2. To develop, as necessary, new varieties having characterlstics, under Iowland tropical conditione, of hlgh yieId per unit area per untt of time, insensitivity to Iength of day, needed maturities, and resistance to diaeascs and insect pests present in specific lowland environments.3. To deveIop and demonst~ate producticn practices and cropplng systeros which will rnaxireize yields and profita under specific lowland tropic conditions. 4. To participate in a program to assemble, rnaintain. and dictribute important pIant protein germ plasmo 5. Te prOVida trllined leadership for m tional plant pratein prograrns and information and materials for protein production prograos.F. Plant Starches.1. To determine the productive capacity of major root crop specias ( initially, yuca), and of variaties wlthln epectes, in specific lowland tropie envlronw~nts.2. Te develop, as necessary. new varieties having characteristics, under lowiand tropical conditions. of high yield par unit area per unit of time, insensitivity to langth of day. needed maturities, and with resistance to diseases and insect pesta prevalent in specific lowlan4 tropic enviranmenta.3. To develop and demonstrate production pract1ces and cropping systems which w111 cax1mize yields and profits under specitic 10w1and tropic conditions. l. To provide information tor efficient fertilizer and liming practiees tor forage and cultivated craps on infertile, aeid soUs.2. To provide information on nutricnt cycling and leaching losses in lo\",land trol'ic noils.Where fixation i8 rajor problem.4. To identify micro-nutrient deficiencies which 11m!t croP production in lowland tropic areas, espeeially in the sandy 80nS.5. To provide information use fui for management, ineluding cropplng systems invalving minimum tillage, residues, hurning of pastura lands. conservatian. etc. 6. To gain additional inforrr.ation on the importance of nitrogen in pasture management. including syrnbiotic and non-symbiotic nitro~cn fixation in the 10wland trapics.-3-7. To provide trnined leadership for expanding s011s programs in various countries ,3nd information nnd materillls for use in erap productíon tr~ining programa.1, Plant Protection.l. To identify and establísh effcctive systems of control of the mnjor diseoDc, ir.scct, ~nd weed problema nssocillted with the productioo of craps of primary interest to eIAT.2. To providc traincd l\"adership fer plant protection pro gr rur.II in various cQuntries ¿¡nd infoI'lliotion and materials for use in ero? production traini~g progrnms.3. Te collaboratc with notionalinstitutions on plant quarantine Dnd rel~ted pr;)ccdures.l. To dovelop strntegies and techniques for the rapid spread nnd ndoption of impr~ved naterials and practices.2. To provide specialized instruction and experieDOc in specific resellrch field~ for young ,ocientists, and to provide opportunities for such persons to engage in supervised resenrch on proble~s of significance te their countríes.3. To develop ~nd demonstr3te ~Qre productive npproaches for pre-~nd in-service prepnréltion of professionals 2nd nonprofcssionals in agricultura, including var10us intern progrllns.4'TO 8B,ist other institutions to establish and conduct educational and trrríning progra~s appropriate to tho needs and institutional capabilities.5. To help n~tional lenders and policy-~akers understand the <:g,-icultur,l1 potentials of their countries, and how these can be ~ealízed.To provide informatíon ene instructional materials tor use in reference libr~ries and trnining progtams of other institutions.7. To provide nrientation Dnd eommunication p~~grams and servi\",,,\" for the staff of CIAT.-'-A. Agricultural Economícs l. To previde info~ation throu~h dircct and cooperative rescarch on suoh catters of public policy, prices and markets, preduction and farm nonagement, ond related institutional factorz important to the making of decisions relating to agricultural and economic developnent of the lm.land tropics.2. To assist CIAT managemcnt in evaluating the likely retu~ns from alternative lines oí research and education.3. Te assist animal and erop scientists in the economía evaluatíon of experimental results, as well as the dcvelopment of experime:ltlll designa whtch pemit economic anclysis.4. To help increase the quality and quantity of persons in Latin Americe concerned with research and education on agricultural and economíc development.5. To previde information and instructional material s for use in t=aining prograns for animal and crop !lp0\";;:~alists. both research and production.Engineering 1. To identify and provide inforr.ation leading to the solution of a wide range of ag=icultural engineering problecs assoc~ated with the efficient production of erope and animal a in the lowland tropics, e. g.   Artiele 4.The purpose oi this International Center of Tropical Agri culture ls to accelerate agricultural and economie development and incraaae agricultural production and produetivity of the tropics to lmprove the diete and welfare of the people of che world.Artlc!e 5.!he Center will have che rights and obligations to carry out che following activicies: l. ro develop and demonstrate production aystems for apecific cropa and anlmals in specific environments.To develop information and practices for use in bringing into economical production specific lowland areas not presently developed or fully utilizad.To develop and demonstrate effective technlques and 9trategies for the rupid spread and adoption of tmproved varieties and agricultural practices.ro help national institutions to develop staffs, programs. and facilities so that these may handle more effectively present and future research and educational tasks.To provida an information center to procese and exchange data and references relevant to the agricul tural snd eco•• nomic development of the lowland tropics.To provide a facílity to collect, preserve, supply, snd exchange plant and animal germ plasmo 7.ro provide opportunities for the further training and development oi professionals and non-professionals in agriculture at CIAT and elsewhere.To participate in such other relatad acttvtties as directed by the Board of Trustoes.~tl.!...!.The Centor i8 empo_red to carry out its objectives: i t can hold property, directly or in trust, hold sny kind of aasets, fixed or movable, own livestock (derechos y créditos); receive donations, cessions, and legacies eíther with or without obligations, sign sny class oi contracta whi.ch do or do not imply ownership, enjoy the use of nny kind of property, owned or leased, or by right of passage, mortgages, limitatlons such as pledges, or of any other formo ~icl~.The Ce~ter is autonomous and philanthropic, and, ss lndi cated in the agreement signed by the Colombian Government and The Rockefeller Foundation, dated November 7, 1967, is exempt from all taxes.CHAPTER III. THE DIRECTION AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE CENTER. ~Lcle 8.;he Canter sball be under che direccion of a Board of Trustees and oi sn Executive Committee af thst Board. These bodies shall be elected ln conformity with Artic1es 9 snd 14 of tbese statutes.The Board of Trustees ahall elect the Director of the Center Whose duties snd responsibilities sre described under Arclc1e 15 of these statuces.Article 9.The Board of Trustees ahal1 consist of no more than 17 members, name1y che individual a Who from time to time hold the offices of Colombian Minister of Agriculture, Rector of the National Un1versity, and Director General of Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario; sn individual designated froro time to time by Tbe Rockefeller Foundacion; an individual designatad from time to time by !be Ford Foundatlon: the Director of the Canter, and individuals of whom at least nine shall be elactad by the actual memhera oi the board, and of whom at least one shall be a citizen of Colombia.Those members oi tbe Board who are elected to the Board as distinguishad from thoee who serve by virtue of their position (exofficio) or organizationsl designation ahal1 serve for three years, snd may be re-elected ior an additional three-year termo After servíng twa terms a member may again be elected to the Board after an absence of two years.'fa insure cont1D.uity in Board poI icies and operatíons, these initialIy elected members ahal1 serve stasgered terma according to a system establtshed by the Board. This provlsion shall not prohibit the re-election to a accond terro oi any memher of the original Board.The system of staggered terros ahall be established by a8signing by random choice, three of the initial members to a two-year terro, three to a three year term, and two to a four year termo For purposes oi counting, the first year oi service ahall begin July 1, 1968, and continue through two, three, and four consecutive aonual meetings respectively.The election of a new member to the Board to replace a retiring or resigning member or the re-election of a member. tf eligible, ahall take place at the next annual ~eeting. When a new member ia elacead or sn incumbent re-elected. che new term ahall conslst of three consecutive annual meetings following his election.Arttcle 10. !he Board of Trustees ahall have a Chairman and a Vice-Chairman, each oi whom shsll be elected by the members of the Board for a two year term, snd each may be re-eIected for ad ditional terms of two years.The 'lice •Chairman ahall aucomatically act as Chairmaa of the Board when the person elected as Chairman cenSes to be a member of the Board, or cannot continua to serve for other ressons. In Bueh circums tances , the Vice Chairman ahall continue ta serve as Chairman until the next meeting of the Board, at which tIme a new Chairman ahall be electad by the members to serve the unexpired portion oi the terro of the former Chairman. The Bame procedure ahall be followed when necessary to fiI1 the post of Vice-Chairman.Each l1emb\"r of the Board sha11 have one vote, and a11 decisions shall be decided by a nnjority of votes of members present :15 speciHed in Artic1es 11 a,.,d 17.Arttel!! 11. The Board sh\"U meet D.t le;'lst once eaeh calendar year at the 'dI ,e ilnd place diOsil¡nated by the Board as ¡>err.dtted by Colombian law. A majority (one-half plus one) of che 13et:lbers shall constitute a quorur\" for de1iheration nnd deeision exce¡>t as provided in Artiele 17. Special meeting s may be c~lle¿ by the Chairman oí the Board, the Director, or at the requezt of five oiO\"iliers, and the a~endD. for special meetings shall be limited to the subjects far Which the ~eeting was cnlled.Ihirty (30) days written notiee ahall be given to the members of the Board prior to each rep:ulnr naeting. Ten (10) dnys special notice, preferably by cable, shall be given for special meetings. The proceedínr,s oí the Bo:,rd muetings ahall be recorded and maintained in a b00k of minutes in Spanish and shall be signed by the Chairnan anó the Secretary of the Board. Offic1a1 copies of the minutes shall be registered \",ith the competent Colonbian D.uthorities in a11 C.'1ses required by Colo\",bi~n lnw.Ihe secretary shl'lU circulac., \" clr,~ft copy of the minutes to the nembers who atccnded th~ meeting within 30 days of the neeting, nnd the nembcrs aha1l rcspond in wricin3 wichin 30 days. Aftar the secratary has reconciled sug,Gestions by uembers who nttended the rneet ing, the 'ünutes sh,,,ll be reproduc\"d D.nd circulnted to .'111 nenbers.Arttel\" 12. The Board of Truotees .,ill gen¡;rally revie\", \"na Buide the affairs of che Center. Ihe Board «i11 review and npprove \" ;:ovi8ional bud\"et, sllbject to the D.bUity to obtl1in neeess.'1ry financing. The Bo,~rd wi11 r0view \"nnu\"lly th\" fín,~ncial conditiono, and review ane ev,oluate ?ro,:r~ss r<:porcs ,~nd the regular D.nnual report to be .ubr\"itted by the Direc tor. The Bo\"rd \"i11 nane ao Executive COr.l• :!ttce fr,)f.l í,ts own members \"nd delef\\at\" such powers (él ít ,1S desired by the Board.'i'he Board may rfovise the By-laws at nn ,1nnu\"l meeting or at ,~ny special \",,\"'bnS called for th.'1t purpose in accord with Article 11. Any ,\"ember of the BO:lrd mny propase ch:mr;es in the By •lD.ws, and the Director shall, \"fter referring the matt\"r to the Ch.'1irman of the Board, circulate drafts of pr.>pased eh,Clnees to the members at least thirty (30) days prior ta rhe neetin¡;. Article 13. ihe B3ard shnl1 nOMe che Director. It will crente the necess1ll::y professional stnfí ¡>0sitians and authorize such specIal personn\"l ,~s dce1'led necessnry tú carry out the activities of the Cent€!r. The Executive Crn\"u-:Iitcee will h::¡ve seven Fiembers, íncludíng the Chairmnn oí the Board, :lt lense one Colombinn citizen to the Chnimlln if he i.s n Col cmbilln, nnc1 the Director of Four (4) menbers constituell quoru\", for delib\"ration and !2.:lch C1entbt:!r will hnvc on.:: V'1tc.ihe Exccui:ive C011f<lir:tec nhnll oeet frec, tit.l€. lo tino as necessllry nt locatíona to be decided upon by tts merabers, but in !le• cordnnce with Col~nbilln 11lw.Th\" functiono of the Executivú Committ\"e sh,~ll be det.,rrnl.ned by r,\"!eans of resolutious ;\")f the Board of Trua cees. ~'1inut.es of meerings oi ~he Exúcutive Cammittee will be recarded, signed by its Chal[1\\1[!n ,~nd Secretnry, .'lnd ffillinudned by the. Secretllry, t.rticle 15. The Diractor is the 1 e:.;::: 1 representnti.ve of The Centc:r.He sh::\\ll sign 311 de;cds, contr ,'1C i:s, \"'órcer'lents, and othe.r legal instru-flcnlS for The Center within 1 i:li ts determinúd. by th~ Board of Trustees and/or the EXEGutive Conrnl.ttee. The Direct'!r sh\"ll directly '\"!ln,,~;e Ilnd ndl'linister the nftnir5 of The Center. ';:\"12 Director wil1 n.~e ano remove stnff other th~n thase specificnlly listed in Article 13, nnd wil1 report to the Bonrd on st~ff ~dditiGns nnd chanBes.~'hc Director shall submit to che Bo\"rd\"f Trustees andl or che EXécutive Con®itteB. plans f~r ~nrl reports on the developwent of pro~rnns und sh.'J.ll be responsib18 t,') che B'1Grd af Trustees and/or che Executive Cor:h---:;.ttee for ::11 .'1.cti.vities of ¡'he Cl2nte-r.CHAP ¡ER IV. FISCALlZATlON ANO LIQUIDA';XON, ~S!..cl!.~. 1\\n 1illlUA.l fisc'1.1 review sh:ül be c:,\")~ducted by competent ttudi tors desi$~n;1.te.,:,l by the Boar f l :>f Irus tec.s\" !he auditors wiJ.l review thB fin-Tí1ci,n,l records with thc Tre-:.r:;ur'2r ,'1nd ::1ther officers of rhe Center .1.8 oftün ::'8 deenec1 necess,:1:ry by t.hü Board, in ndJition to performing eh\" nnnu\"l ::ludie. The ?erG~n occupying the p\"siti::m of auditor should mecl the requirements l\"id GOwn by Colambian l~w for It is becoming increasingly evident tbat accelerated progress must be made to increase tbe production of bastc foods on a world-wide scale in order to avert critical nutritional deficiencies in tbe rapidly expanding buman population. Too two principal ways to increase foad production are ro obtain bigber yields from land already in use, and to bring new landa lnto use.The greatest remaining potential for adding new lands ls in the hot lowland trapícs of Latin America, Afrtca and Asia. However, muoh of tba knowledge wbich would permit rational utillzation of those areas for food production remains to be developed. The hot tropical regious. except for export erop technology developed by colonial powers. have been largely hypassed by modern agricultural soienee and teelmology. As population pressures increase, people are moving lnto lowland tropical areas tbat are now sparsely populated. There is therefore an obvious and urgent need ro strengthen present research and training programa in these areas in order to learn as quickly as poasible now to produee foad craps and anlmals efficiently.To help acbieve tbis aim in Latin America, the Ford and Rockefeller    It Is proposed tbat:The Center be lncorporated in Colombia as an autonomous, philanthropic, nOD;>rofit, tax-exempt,. or¡:ranization:The term for which 'Ibe Center is tú exist extend over an indefinlte perlod.The Center be under the general direction of up to 15 trustees; 4 of the board members to be representatives of Colombta, one oí The Ford Foundatio;) , one of The Rockefeller Foundation, and the others to be from countrles and also with other Latin American and N orth American centers.In furtherance of its general obJective. it is proposed that Too Center be given tbe followlng pr!vileges and powers:(1)To obtatn from any governmental II1lthortty, national, municipal, or local, foreign or domestic, or otherwise from any corporation, as-5.sociation or persan, sucb cbarters, Hcense s, rtghts, privileges, assistance, and concesslons as are conducive to and necessary for tbe atiainment al too purpose of The Center.( Housing sites for those Center staff andworkers;3)Landa to be used for experimental and related purpoees.Upon too basis of the fOTIlgoing undertak1ngs oí the Government of Colombia.. too Ford and Rockefeller Foundattons wOIlld constder granta both for tbe capital costa of establishtng The Center and for tte operating expenses from year 10 year.Tbe problems associated wtth the development of tropical agriculture are 7.of suoh importanee and dimensions tbat it would be impractieal to consider too establishment of sueh an organization as tbe proposed Center unless it were eontemplated that it would operate over an extended perlod of yeare. And experienee emphasizes that basle researeh lnstt1utions dedicated to work on important human problems usuaUy beeome more valuable as they aoquire the experlenoe and the exeellenee wh1ch come with sustalned and systematle effort. It is therefore expeeted tbat Tbe Center would oarry on ita proposed aetivities for may years. The Foundations bave learned. in their assistanee to comparable instttutions elsewbere, tbat, as the years pass, support may inereasingly be found from other sOIlrces, both government and pr1vate. Subject to the1r hope that tbis would prova to be the case with The Center, and that their sbare of the total eost might diminieh, tooFoundations wauld expect thelr undertaking, set forth In too foregolng seotion, to extend for a perlod of at least ten years.If oircumstanees should alter sharply, and if at Bome future date, 1t sbould be mutual1y agread that lt has beeome desirable to terminate tbe existenoe ofThe Center as an autonomous entity, its land, bulldings. equlpment. and otber assete would be transferred to sueh otber research institut10n or institution of higber learnlng In Colombia as migbt at that time soom most approprlate. inerense in tbe production of selected basie food eraps and products of animal origin in tbe tropicallowlands.2) To train young scientists, especlsIly from 80utb and Central Amerle&., under too direction of bigb-Ievel scientists.3) To assist tbe develapment of eduoational and researob lnstitutions in tbe region tbrougb oollaboration witb national programs where tbis asslstanoe ls desirable and mutual1y agreed upon.4) To distribute improved planta to national and international researob projects where they can be utilized in tbeir breeding and plant improvement programa.5) To publisb and disseminate tbe resulta of the Center's researeb.6) To establish and operate an informatton oenter and a library whioh w1ll previde a oolleotion of reports and data on tropical agrioulture for tbe use of interested scientists from sIl over tbe world .To organlze periodio oonferenoes, foruma and seminars desIing witb important problems and with too development of trapicsI agriculture.To engage in suoh other activities as may be oonsonant wlth the foregoing.THlRD CLAUSE.1) The Center sball be established in Colombia as an autonomous nonprofit, tax exempt, pbilantbropio organization.2) The Center shs11 be of a permanent nature.3) The Center sball be under the direclion of a Board oi Directors oomposad of no more tban fifteen members, in aooord with the following distribution: 5) The physlcal facilities of the Center sha!l consist of buildings for laboratories, librar¡¡. field work and admlnistration, as well as housing for its persOImel; adequate pleces of land for Its research needs; and equlpment, machinery and elements necessary to carry out high-quality research and tralning programs.The Center's scientiftc staff sball be a distinguished body, sball be drawn from various countries princlpa!ly In the Americas, and aball be selected for special competence in tropical agriculture and animal improvement.7) Young scienttsts shall be associated witb the permanent scientlfic personnel so tbat they may receive advanced tralnlng and may paríicipate in fue Center's research programa, and later may return to their respective countries 10 orient national and regional 3!\\'ricultural and livestock improvement programs.The  The present contract sbaIl be in effect for an indefinite period, although the UNIVERSITY as well as CIAT may at any time ask for its termination, in wlich case the termination of the contract wiIl take place one 1. To e.tablish cooperative projecta •• mey be de.irable and appropriJte, based on mul:ually alreable no~., taking into account the netional prioritie, and obltg'tione of lCA and the international prioritie. and obligattona of CIAT¡ 2. The .for .... tioned ha,e. mey include l.nd use .y'tema and avatlable f.ctlitie, to mul:Ually create and develop re.earch and tralning opporl:Ul1itiea¡ 3. Propo •• l. for cooperative projecta may origina te by either party; 4. When mul:Ually aareed upon, peraonnel of elther in.titution .. y be a\"1ped or detailed to work tn • cooper.tive project in the facilities and land area of either 1nstitution, or et mutually agreed upon facilities and l.nd belonging to • tbird entity¡ S. When eny lCA per.onnel .re detaUed to CIAT or to a cooper.tiva project. the sal.ry of that portion of tille .pent workin& for CIAT or 011 international researcb or tr.ining will be paid by eIAT. Such p.yment could be made to lCA or dlrectly to the individual as .Ireed upon in eaeb caae¡ Grant said that the had asked thost' present to come together because of their 6.eommon interest in tbe development of agriculture, researeh, and in tbe university to consider a draft of too sta tutes necessary to ereate too aboye mentioned Center as an antonomous oorporation. The Center is designed 10 carry out tbe aspirations of tbe Rockefeller Foundation as well as tbe Government of Colombia in tbe aboye mentioned 1opies. As representative of too Rockefeller Foundation in Colombia, Sr. Grant wished 10 inform too group tbat the memorandum of understanding will be elevated soon 10 tbe category of an agreement \"acuerdo\" between tbe Government of Colombia and tbe Foundatlon. Tberefore, it was also necessary to obtain an ineorporated status for tbis eutity in the shortest possible perlod of time. Sr.Gram wished to submit 10 tbose present a draft of too statutes, wbicb, after being read and dl.scussed by tbose present, was approved unanimously.Tbis project of statutes was du1y considered and ordered on fUe as anuex 10 the minutes of too meeting.  2.Tlurt a atudy has been made of the doeumentation related to the eorporation and it is concluded that the entity ia in accord with good moral and legal preeepts in-so-far as its orpnization and the objectives are concemed, whieh are ro carry out research on practical and theoretical problema related ro the increase of production of selected basle plant and animal food crops in too low tropical landa; to trsin young scientiftc people, especially from South and Central Amenca, and to give assistance to the deve10pment of educational and reaearch institutiona in the reglon, etc.;  The central location on the SOO-hectare site was selected: a, To minimize the distance for maving livestock, equipment, and peraaunel fro. the headquarters site to the experimental fields. b. To maximize the area ava1iable for pO.6tbl. tater expansiono c. To establish clear separetion from faciltties al ether enUties.Layo~t lor off ices and laboratories prevides maxtmum centrality al director, asslstant directors, and sentar staff members so a8 to factittate and sttmulate significant multl-discipl1nary team efforts on research, trainlng aud praduction programs.Similarly, to the extent possible, the laboratorles and other working facilities af .pecific disciplines are to be placed in close proximity in relation to the degree of involvement of eaeh ln specific program objectives. Far 1n. tanc e , the beef cattle specialiats wl11 be clase ta these concerned wtth pasturas aud lesumes. Disciplines common to all programa, such as economics, engineering, biometric8. aud commun1catlon, will be centrally placed.Within departmenta and disciplines, che fa~111tie8 are te previde for maximum esae 01 1nteract{on between itaff members snd traineea. These illcludl!l desk snd laboratory bench s~' .. ce fer trainees in the laboratories S8 well ss mnall conference and read1ng room. readily avaiIable far informal conference snd departmental seminars.The modular units propased zor the wlae rauge of actlvlties involved in Srarion Operaríons are to be designed to permit separarion aud integratien 01 funct1ens. to reduce crosa-trafflc and confusion, and to provlde maxtmum secur1ty with mínimum effort. Further, the deslgn will permit maximum flexibillty in the use of untts.Barns and other facilities for live.tock are ta be located at a reasonable distanoe from the laboratorles and Contlnulng Education Center sud s~ thst the prevsiling winds are away from the central slte, Wlthin the Livestock Area, sdequate provislon 18 to be made t~ iso late un1ts work1ng with dheases.7.Walls and partitions withln the baste modular deslgn are to be handled 80 as to provide maxlmum flexibility in use of offtee and laboratory spaee. Similarly. the servíee l1nes fOI eleetrieity, gas, compressed air, steam, dlstilled water, etc., are ta be placed so a8 ta provide for ready access and qulek lnstallattan oí new equipment, or transfer of equipment.8. The red elay tUe roofa topping white-washed briek walle carry through the Spanish theme frequently fOlUld in areas withln the Cali -Palmira z<me. For permanence and ease of maintenance, steel window and 2.door frames wiIl be utilized through<mt. The window frames themselves will be aluminum in a majority of the cases.Generally, both these categories will have interior walls of plastered brick or hollow tlle. A variation of tbis will be in the public areas subjected tn hard usage, the kitnhen, aOO certain Laboratory areas, in whlch will be used ceramic tlle or one oí the epoxy sy8tems. minimiz1ngupkeep.Floora wiIl be a combinati<m of precast terruzo tile, quarry tile, and briok pavera. These materiala are readlly available on the local market at reasonable prioos.The use of plastered ceilings wlll be general throughOllt, except in areas where noille reductlon beoomes a factor. In these areas, the Cafeteria, the Auditorium, and the Library, wnI be employed acoustical tile or some spr~ed aooustical treatment.Bailding Type No. 3, 8tatlon OperaUous, wlll have a cono rete fioor slab on grade, with offices using precast terruzo tile. Brick walls, plastered 1nslde and out, wlll divide the various individual areas. The struoture will be precast concrete and w1ll directly support a lightweight corrugated cement asbestos roof deck.The other farm units, or Building Type No. 4, wlll cons1st of a concrete 1I1ab on grade, a locally p ~ ~fabricated, ligl:tweigbt, steel struotural frame, and a oorrugated cement asbestos roof. Where dividing walls occur, these will be plastered brick or tUe. In areas where cleanliness and san1taUon become a prime factor, the walls recelve an epoxy protective coating.AH utilities, where practical, will be aceessible for future modificatlan and flexibility. This ia especially true in the Loboratoríes, wbere a raised floor system will pennit accessibllity at all times, to a11 utillty systems, thus providing 100% flexibility for future planning.Construction procedures in this project involve methods and materíals proven and found to be acceptable and avallable for use within the local area.Blgh on the Hst of importanee In the final selection of materíaIs will be their permanence and ease oí maintenance.Description ofWork to be done in various CIAT Facilities b) Three wiIl be used for erop processing, threshing, seed storsge, small equipl;l1ent storsge, bsgs, tsgs, etc.e) One unit will he used for trainees and equipment and paraphernalia used in eonnection witll too training programa .4. Speaial Facilities:a) Green and screenhouses:1 -Greenbouse unit 10xaOM for micro nutríent fertility studies, plant pathology and entomology researeh with floral breeze eooling.2 -Head house 12x50 M for soíl sterllization, storage, potting benehes, fertilizer preparation, temporary labs .3 -Two sereenhouses 25x30 M for soils, rice, grain legumes, starches, corn, forsgea and pastures.b) Beef Field Unit:1 -Metabolism building: nutríent balance and invidual animal feeding studies: lOx55 M with enclosed field office and storsge at one end, and rest open eonstruetion with 12 metabolism erates in center of bullc:Ung, and individual feec:Ung stalls for 24 animals at the otller end.6.2 -Storage buildlng: storage; lOx50 M, 25 M enclosed with center drive through alley from side to side, and 25 M open storage.3 -Four bunker silos: storage of s11age; silos adjacent to each other, each s110 5x30x2-1/2 M, total capacity 500 tons. Slaughter, refrigeration and breaking oí reef and swine carcasses, and certaln processing of meats, as related to obtalning carcas s research data, providing meato tecbnology tra1n1ng and meat cuta and proceBsed meats for tbe ClAT kitchen unít; 350 M2 including killing fioor, carcasa coolers, freezer, meat cutting and processing room, offtce, storage and service room.i) Incinera1or:Incineration of animal carcasses and/ or tissues.Tbis unít consists of a number of conference rooms of variaua sizes auitable for ahort courses or longer term tralning. Too larger conference rooms will be fItted with ro 'm dividen so tbat smsller conferenoos may be accommodated wben necessary. This air cond1tloned space ls conveniently lacated near the library, the audi1orium, and the amphitheater. Space for offtce ol tbe training peraannel is also included. The housing for long-term tratnees snd other housing which can be used as apartIDent 8.space for v1aiting scientists when necessary has been removed to the west aide across the road. This will eliminate congestion and will separate the sporta area and other housing fram too work area.6) Library and Information:The library la a two story building with too information space inc1uding photography, printing, etc. on the first floor. Too library will occupy the second floor. Sufflclent space ls planned for too stacks, offices and study area for staff and trainees.","tokenCount":"6063"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cce59cba9cfdd5e66e964c4831b0440e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/Flyer/REDD-safeguards-4.pdf","id":"1922951360"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"37170a4f-3f99-455f-945c-46c78aae2265","pagecount":"6","content":"Safeguards interpretation processes depend on country-specific understandings and implementation of relevant laws and recognized rights, including adherence to international agreements on the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPs and LCs) and different political and economic priorities.• This flyer presents the results of a review of legal documents and interviews with specialists in the Democratic Republic of Congo to understand the level of support for the rights of IPs and LCs in law and policy in the context of REDD+.• Government and international actors see more inclusive participation in the REDD+ process as a key achievement, yet Indigenous and civil society actors remain skeptical about inclusion in decision making; legislative efforts should strengthen the inclusion of all stakeholders.• Significant progress on land rights is expected with the recent adoption of the law on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of the Indigenous Pygmy Peoples and the ongoing land reform process.• The implementation and monitoring of safeguards for REDD+ and other forest-based initiatives must involve IPs and LCs, respecting their rights, knowledge and participation, as outlined in the DRC's Nationally Determined Contribution. 1 UNIKIS-LSDD 2 CIFOR-ICRAF Examining support for the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the context of REDD+ in the Democratic Republic of Congo Series on social safeguards standards #4As the framework for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and enhancing forest carbon stocks (REDD+) moves to results-based payments, there is a need to re-examine safeguards. At the 2010 Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Cancun, seven safeguard principles for the implementation of REDD+ were adopted, including two that address Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPs and LCs). The Cancun safeguards mandate that countries interpret these principles, deferring to national law in deciding what counts as 'respect' or 'participation' for IPs and LCs.Scholars and practitioners have been concerned about REDD+'s potential impact on the rights of IPs and LCs from early on (Sarmiento Barletti and Larson 2017). Without proper guidelines, the application and operationalization of REDD+ safeguards varies between countries, with different impacts on IP and LC rights (Jodoin 2017). Indeed, the national interpretation and rollout of safeguards is framed by country-specific legal interpretations of relevant rights, adherence to international agreements on the rights of IPs and LCs, different political and economic priorities, and actor-specific interests. Concerns over safeguards focus on the need to expand rights recognition and to bridge gaps in access to recognized rights, including land tenure, resources and participation (Savaresi 2013;Wallbott 2014).The introduction of voluntary standards provided an opportunity for guidelines that are more supportive of IP and LC rights than national interpretations of the Cancun principles. This transition is important in countries where IPs and LCs experience discrimination. However, there is considerable variation in standards (Sarmiento Barletti et al. 2021). While some standards motivate countries to increase their support for the rights of IPs and LCs by tying resultbased payments to evidence of 'doing good' or, in few cases, of 'doing better', others set lower bars of 'doing no harm' (Lofts et al. 2021).Given the specificity of national safeguards interpretation processes, this flyer presents the results of a review of legal documents and interviews with legal specialists in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to understand the level of support for IP and LC rights in law and policy in the context of REDD+ (Table 1). Further analysis will set out the voluntary standards that the DRC's legal system already abides by, as well as the reforms that would be needed to comply with more stringent options. We aim to clarify the interplay between different standards that may not align yet are deployed for the same activities within the same countries. Outputs will support REDD+ actors in navigating the range of criteria, indicators and rules, and integrating them into their national implementation frameworks and reporting processes for a coherent operationalization of safeguards.Although the DRC is signatory to international agreements that uphold the rights of IPs and LCs, such rights are just beginning to be addressed in national legal instruments. Indeed, the country has ratified several international agreements that enshrine the right to self-determination and the promotion and protection of minorities including IPs and LCs.Nevertheless, some laws only refer to IPs and LCs in a superficial manner, failing to guarantee that their recognized rights are respected. For example, collective ownership of land acquired in accordance with law or custom is guaranteed by the provisions of Article 34 of the Constitution. But land ownership in the DRC is exclusively vested in the state and, in practice, communities and individuals can only hold rights of enjoyment, use, usufruct, passage and concessions on state land. Respect for the constitutionally-recognized collective ownership rights poses serious problems in practice because, in accordance with articles 387, 388 and 389 of the Land Law, they must be detailed by a presidential ordinance, which has not been issued to date.Currently, however, the DRC is revising its Land Law. This brings hope regarding the consideration of the rights of IPs and LCs and the securing of these rights through the establishment of customary land registries and other mechanisms. In addition, the Law on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of the Indigenous Pygmy Peoples passed the Senate in June 2022 and was signed by President Tshisekedi in November. Although various conflicts over customary land and its uses remain, they may diminish as new laws begin to be implemented.Regarding resource rights, progress in granting community rights has been made since the 2002 Forestry Code, This flyer is part of a series on REDD+ safeguards, focusing on the rights and social inclusion concerns of the women and men of the Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPs and LCs) that steward the forests where climate solutions are implemented. Flyers provide lessons for application in different national contexts, present evidence for decision makers and practitioners to consider the implications and benefits of supporting the rights of IPs and LCs, and contribute to the participation of IP and LC representatives in discussions on and monitoring of safeguards.The table lists ten criteria regarding the DRC's legal support for the rights of IPs and LCs. The criteria are: (1) recognizes historically under-represented groups; (2) aligns with the Cancun safeguards;(3) recognizes gender inequalities and/or women's exclusion; (4) recognizes the rights of IPs and LCs under international law; (5) recognizes land and resource rights for IPs and LCs; (6) recognizes community carbon rights; (7) recognizes the right of IPs and LCs to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC); ( 8) requires formal benefit sharing mechanisms; (9) requires formal grievance mechanisms; and (10) includes provisions for monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) for rights and social inclusion concerns. We rated each criterion based on whether it aligned with the DRC's laws fully (yes), partially (partial -for those that only met some aspects of the criterion), or not at all (no).including Decree No. 14/018 (August 2, 2014) allowing local communities to obtain forest concessions (Concessions forestières des communautés locales, CFCL) with perpetual and imprescriptible titles. Local communities can also obtain conservation concessions whereby the government entrusts them (totally or partially) with the use and management of forest and wildlife resources for the conservation of biological diversity. However, implementing community forestry and biodiversity conservation concessions is challenging due to the procedural costs involved and the technical skills required. Finally, a 2018 Ministerial Order on REDD+ affirms that forest carbon stocks are the property of the state but recognizes that units of emissions reduction are owned by those who invest in REDD+, including local communities who invest in this sector. These rights can be interpreted in the context of texts such as the Forestry Code, the Land Law and many others. (2) Cancun safeguards/SISThe DRC validated its safeguards information system in April 2022 to strengthen its eligibility for results-based payments. It still needs to be disseminated to stakeholders at the national level and then submitted to the UNFCCC. There are conflict and dispute resolution mechanisms in the DRC's National REDD+ Framework Strategy, but no law formally enshrines them in the REDD+ Framework. Only Ministerial Order n°047/CAB/MIN/ EDD/AAN/MML/05/2018 of 2018, which sets the approval procedure for REDD+ investments in the DRC, specifies a feedback and appeal mechanism, with definitions in the manual annexed to the order. However, the Official Gazette of the Democratic Republic of Congo has yet to publish Annex I with the decree. Notably, some initiatives to resolve disputes can be observed in some early REDD+ initiatives.National REDD+ Framework Strategy of the Democratic Republic of Congo, available at http://www.forestcarbonpartnership.org.The DRC finalized its SIS on 5 April 2022 but it remains untested, which does not allow an assessment to be made at this stage.Examining support for the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the context of REDD+ in the Republic of CongoSeries on social safeguards standards #4The legal recognition and protection of IPs requires an adequate and effective normative framework. Despite progress in the DRC since 2002, certain vulnerable peoples -such as the Indigenous Pygmy Peoples -have not been sufficiently protected by laws for nature conservation and the environment, including the Forestry Code.Although the DRC is a signatory to international conventions recognizing Indigenous Peoples, there was previously no national law providing the relevant legal content and protection mechanisms. Indigenous Peoples have been equated with local communities, defined as \"a population traditionally organized on the basis of custom and united by the bonds of clan or parental solidarity that underpin its internal cohesion. It is also characterized by its attachment to a territory\". This definition does not allow for proper recognition of Indigenous Peoples, who are also marginalized by certain neighbouring peoples, exacerbating their already vulnerable state and experiences of extreme poverty.The Law on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Indigenous Pygmy Peoples in the DRC intends to address this. In addition to providing a definition of Indigenous Peoples (\"Hunter-gatherer peoples generally living in the forest,\" distinguished \"by their cultural identify, their way of life, their attachment and closeness to nature and their endogenous knowledge\"), it proposes a normative framework for the protection of Indigenous Peoples in the DRC.This law is in line with the implementation of international commitments made by the DRC in various treaties and agreements (e.g., UNDRIP). Although general in nature, the law guarantees certain rights of Indigenous Peoples in the context of REDD+. Indeed, rights to land and resources are guaranteed in Chapter VI, in its articles 46 to 51 on property, which guarantee IP's collective and individual ownership of the land they occupy and other resources. The rights to benefits resulting from the use and commercial exploitation of lands and resources are also guaranteed by this law in Article 5, as well as access to information in the chapter on the right to education and health.Despite the merits of this law, it still has some shortcomings. This is the case for the issue of women's rights, which is only mentioned in a general way in the area of combating sexual violence and in procedures for consultations, failing to recognize that women are often marginalized with regard to land and resource access; and for the issue of FPIC, as it only requires the prior consent of IPs in the case of the creation of protected areas on their land whenever this may directly or indirectly affect their way of life; it does not apply to other areas.Regarding gender equality and women's rights, the DRC has ratified relevant treaties and conventions, leading to the adoption of general standards for the promotion and protection of women's rights. Additionally, the Constitution establishes the principle of equality between men and women and condemns all forms of discrimination against women in various spheres. In the context of natural resources however, to date, only the national REDD+ framework strategy requires the cross-cutting integration of gender concerns in the policies, planning and implementation of REDD+ projects in the DRC.The DRC validated its new safeguards information system in April 2022 to fulfill requirements for results-based payments. This system still needs to be disseminated among stakeholders at all levels before it is submitted to the UNFCCC. Conflict and dispute resolution mechanisms are currently included in the national REDD+ framework strategy, as well as in the Ministerial Order of 2018 on the homologation of REDD+ investment projects but cannot yet be easily assessed as they are not enshrined in laws that would formally include them in REDD+. The recent Law on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Indigenous Pygmy Peoples reinforces the reference to the right to free, prior and informed consent.Progress is expected regarding the existing REDD+ benefitsharing plans, as these will need to be standardized. These are currently established by a ministerial decree that is not in effect, because the Annex specifying the benefit-sharing mechanism was not published in the official gazette.The regulatory framework should include some of the 10 measures approved by the Ministerial Council to strengthen the forest sector in the DRC. Sectoral reforms in the areas of land tenure, land use planning, among other areas, will provide clarification regarding benefit-sharing arrangements.Although the DRC's legal framework on climate change (including REDD+) is among the most advanced in Africa, there is more work to be done. Several reforms need to be undertaken for alignment with international REDD+ principles. Ongoing reforms also need to be completed and the gains made need to be crystallized in laws rather than being left as regulations that can be vulnerable to different interests and policy shifts. There is an opportunity to support these processes in the second letter of intent signed between the DRC and the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI) which supports political engagements, including several reforms. It is important to remember that the law is only one factor: other contextual challenges (socioeconomic, cultural, political) also need to be addressed. ","tokenCount":"2304"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3487e753fbcd97b351bb2a21bcb02454","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/561ffa38-8ebe-4178-a5f2-39d6c1e93d33/retrieve","id":"1082537200"},"keywords":["Food and nutrition security","Socialecological systems","Vulnerability","Resilience","Dynamic systems","Metrics"],"sieverID":"d605532e-f2ac-43b4-8cd7-ea8e9ebf7b9d","pagecount":"20","content":"The processes underlying environmental, economic, and social unsustainability derive in part from the food system. Building sustainable food systems has become a predominating endeavor aiming to redirect our food systems and policies towards better-adjusted goals and improved societal welfare. Food systems are complex social-ecological systems involving multiple interactions between human and natural components. Policy needs to encourage public perception of humanity and nature as interdependent and interacting. The systemic nature of these interdependencies and interactions calls for systems approaches and integrated assessment tools. Identifying and modeling the intrinsic properties of the food system that will ensure its essential outcomes are maintained or enhanced over time and across generations, will help organizations and governmental institutions to track progress towards sustainability, and set policies that encourage positive transformations. This paper proposes a conceptual model that articulates crucial vulnerability and resilience factors to global environmental and socio-economic changes, postulating specific food and nutrition security issues as priority outcomes of food systems. By acknowledging the systemic nature of sustainability, this approach allows consideration of causal factor dynamics. In a stepwise approach, a logical application is schematized for three Mediterranean countries, namely Spain, France, and Italy.Sustainability has become a guiding principle and a main goal for human development. Environmental degradation, social distress, and economic fluctuation are worldwide concerns challenging conventional views on development and forcing reconsideration of our everyday behaviors. Rapid climate change has been occurring for several decades now and is predicted to continue and possibly accelerate (IPCC 2012). Global biodiversity is declining, with substantial ongoing losses of populations, species, and habitats (UNEP 2012). Increasing land clearance for crop cultivation has been leading to habitat loss and may ultimately result in the loss of plant varieties. Policy needs to strengthen the public perception of humanity and nature as interdependent and interacting. This requires revisiting our policies and behaviors, and developing adaptive management approaches that acknowledge the systemic and dynamic nature of current global changes.Agriculture and food systems are at the center of debates over sustainability. The processes underlying environmental, economic, and social unsustainability derive in part from the global food system. Significant trade-offs have accompanied the increase in food supply. Processes along the food chain from agricultural production to food consumption produce outputs other than consumable food that are returned to the natural environment such as pollution or T. Allen and P. Prosperi are joint first authors.& Thomas Allen t.allen@cgiar.org; thomas.er.allen@gmail.com waste. Food waste alone represents around 3-5 % of global warming impacts, more than 20 % of biodiversity pressure, and 30 % of all of the world's agricultural land (EU 2014). Meanwhile, 842 million people still suffer from undernourishment (FAO 2013), while obesity has become a significant public health issue with 500 million obese adults (Finucane et al. 2011). Building sustainable food systems has become a popular motto and a major endeavor to redirect our food systems and policies towards betteradjusted goals and improved societal welfare. A sustainable food system can be defined as one that ''provides healthy food to meet current food needs while maintaining healthy ecosystems that can also provide food for generations to come, with minimal negative impact to the environment; encourages local production and distribution infrastructures; makes nutritious food available, accessible, and affordable to all; is humane and just, protecting farmers and other workers, consumers, and communities'' (Story et al. 2009). The food system has a high level of complexity driven by many economic, socio-cultural, and environmental factors, which are both internal and external to its boundaries. The systemic nature of these interactions calls for systems approaches and integrated assessment tools to guide change.Many intricately related factors are involved in getting food from farm to consumer, including the inputs, processes, and outcomes of food systems. Food systems act as complex social-ecological systems, involving multiple interactions between human and natural components. Better understanding of these drivers and how they interact to influence activities and outcomes of the food system can help improve public policies. Efforts to define, measure, and model progress towards sustainability have led to the development of a variety of indicators and models that monitor and simulate (some) aspects of sustainability. In this paper, we present an additional approach that considers vulnerability and resilience as the operating concepts to model the systemic factors that lead to final food system outcomes such as food and nutrition security.Food and nutrition security remains a crucial policy issue in every country, and the current global crisis of malnutrition is an urgent concern for both developed and developing countries. The proponents of the ''Sustainable Diet'' agenda, a closely related concept highlighting the role of consumers in defining sustainable options, provide in particular a food and nutrition security-orientated perspective on the question of the sustainability of food systems (FAO/Bioversity 2012; Johnson et al. 2014). Transforming the abstract concept of sustainability into descriptive objectives, the authors propose in this paper a conceptual model that articulates crucial vulnerability and resilience factors to global environmental and socio-economic changes in the Mediterranean region, postulating specific food and nutrition security issues as priority food system outcomes. Identifying and modeling the intrinsic properties of the food system that will ensure that its essential outcomes are maintained or enhanced over time and across generations can help organizations and governmental institutions track progress towards sustainability and set policies that will encourage positive transformations. The Latin Arc countries-Spain, France, and Italy 1 -have been selected as the study area due to the biophysical and socio-economic common features of this transnational area.The first section of the paper reviews the background and theory of sustainability, recalling that assessment exercises aim at identifying fundamental systemic properties. We discuss, in particular, the concepts of vulnerability and resilience proposed in social-ecological system frameworks as key concepts for sustainability assessment. Building on dynamic system theory, we then suggest a formal representation of the overall food system to structure its different elements; clarify the distinctions between input, state, and output variables; and formalize the scale at which system dynamics are operating. In the third section, we present a stepwise application of the model, identifying specific drivers and issues for the Latin Arc and formulating explicit interactions. We finally motivate this approach in the Discussion section.The multidimensional nature of sustainable developmentwhich has to satisfy several economic development, social equity, and environmental protection goals-is generally emphasized. Proponents of sustainable agriculture have for instance proposed alternative farming practices, which are less environmentally impacting but also embedded in new sets of values and carrying other visions of organization in society. These renewed approaches to agriculture-such as organic farming, low-input agriculture, biodynamic agriculture, regenerative agriculture, permaculture, and agroecology-are interesting crucial initiatives rooted in the ground. Yet, sustainability in agriculture cannot be defined per se by the simple adherence to one of these approaches; these are propositions of solutions towards sustainability.The most frequently quoted definition of sustainability comes from Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland Report (UN 1987). Human development must meet ''the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.'' This forward-looking imperative highlights the inter-generational and inter-temporal dimensions of sustainability, which thus infer that stewardship of both natural and human resources is of prime importance to ensure longterm development. When applied to the agricultural and food sector, Conway's frequently quoted definition of agroecosystem sustainability refers to ''the ability of a system to maintain productivity in spite of a major disturbance, such as caused by intensive stress or a large perturbation'' (Conway 1985). Hansen (1996) further interprets sustainability as a system's ability to continue over time. The concept of agricultural and food sustainability refers to a property of a system, rather than an approach to agriculture. Only such an understanding can offer a way out of the logical flaw of judging the sustainability of approaches that have been defined in the first place as sustainable, and allow the assessment of the contribution and suitability of these approaches towards sustainability.Sustainability is a property of a system that is open to interactions with the external. It is the dynamic preservation, over time, of the intrinsic identity of the system among perpetual changes (Gallopı ´n 2003). Multiple factors influence the course of human-environment interactions, which are further complicated by the presence of coevolving causal forces. Research in both the natural and social sciences uses the idea of a system to explain complex dynamics. A system is a network of multiple variables that are interconnected through causal relationships. Modern societies depend on complex systems to provide food (Fraser et al. 2005). Food systems encompass an array of activities from sowing through to waste disposal management, including production, processing, packaging and distributing, and retail and consumption (Ericksen et al. 2009). Furthermore, global environmental and socio-economic changes are occurring concurrently, affecting food activities. Food systems, in turn, have an impact on the environment as activities and outcomes are also drivers of global environmental change, engendering feedback loops and cross-scale interactions. If assessing sustainability is about understanding these dynamics to gauge the ability of a system to maintain or enhance its essential outcomes, viewing the system as a whole is essential. Systems thinking can be a useful approach to capture causal loops, where the effects of the last element influence the input of the first element. The coupled Human-Environment System or the Socio-Ecological System (SES) (Holling 1996;Turner et al. 2003;Ericksen 2008;Ostrom 2009) approaches allow us to move away from focusing solely on isolated events and their causes, and to look at systems made up of interacting parts. The analysis and assessment of the sustainability of the food system are here conducted through the application of an SES framework.A Social-Ecological Framework SES frameworks originate from ecosystem management and ecology. SESs can be defined as complex human-nature adaptive systems linked by dynamic processes and reciprocal feedback mechanisms, with a substantial exchange of energy and materials across boundaries (Berkes et al. 2001;Folke 2006). A crucial challenge towards sustainability of food systems is the management of dynamics originating from both global and internal changes, and their different synergistic impacts on systems' outcomes. Only a better understanding of these processes will help us estimate and forecast trade-offs between human wellbeing and ecosystem services, economic performances, and environmental impacts. Vulnerability and resilience have emerged in recent years as key SES framing concepts for research on global change (Downing 2000;O'Brien and Leichenko 2000;McCarthy et al. 2001;Turner et al. 2003;Schro ¨ter et al. 2005;Polsky et al. 2007). Vulnerability/resilience assessment and modeling are today acknowledged methods to explore sustainability of SES. There are several illustrations of approaches analyzing food systems for their vulnerability and resilience to global socio-economic and biophysical changes in order to explore sustainability, and highlighting key system processes and characteristics (Ericksen 2008;Darnhofer et al. 2010;Allouche 2011).Vulnerability and resilience constitute differing yet overlapping research themes (Turner 2010). Both address the consequences and the responses of a system to social and/or environmental changes. The differences in their respective approaches to social-ecological dimensions of change remain in discussion (Miller et al. 2010). For a comprehensive review, see Alwang et al. (2001). Ericksen (2008) argues that the vulnerability approach ''frames the consequences of environmental change for food systems in the context of socioeconomic and political change so as to understand the synergistic effects of the multiple stresses that interact with food systems, sometimes making these systems vulnerable.'' A common thread of (almost) all approaches to vulnerability is the consideration that it is an ''intrinsic characteristic of a system'' that is at risk. The conditions and properties of the exposed system-or element of the system-are the crucial features to be identified and assessed (Birkmann 2006). In the meantime, vulnerability deals also with features linked to capacities of the system to anticipate and cope with the impact of a change or hazard (Bohle 2001). This allows flexibility in applying vulnerability for largely different elements, such as structures and physical characteristics of buildings, ecosystems, and environmental functions and services, but also communities and social groups.The concept of resilience, originating in ecology, is central to visualizing the dynamics of the coupled system. Resilience is interpreted differently by SES scholars but commonly recognized as a multi-attribute concept composed of (i) an ability to cope with disturbance or change and retain control of function and structure; (ii) a capacity to self-organize; and (iii) a capacity to learn and adapt (Walker et al. 2002;Berkes et al. 2003;Walker et al. 2004). Both vulnerability and resilience assessment highlight the need for methods and metrics that do not simply express final results or outcomes, but provide a system of information that can be interpreted in a causal framework, modeling interactions between different variables.Building on Turner et al. (2003), the conceptualization of sustainability as the dynamic ability of a given system to maintain or enhance its essential outcomes over time allows vulnerability and resilience theories to provide the elements to understand the mechanisms likely to affect activities within the system. The challenge for SES framework analysis here is to identify the pathways leading to vulnerability, and the characteristics and opportunities ensuring resilience of the food system in a context of change. Since contemporary food systems are characterized by cross-scale interactions and feedbacks across time and space as well as between social and ecological components (Cash and Adger 2006), efforts to rate how changes affect the performance of social, ecological, and economic systems over time are crucial for progress to be made towards sustainable development (Gallopı ´n 2003). At the same time, desired systemic properties can be expanded by investing in specific components of systems (Marschke and Berkes 2006). In particular, the vulnerability framework can be disaggregated in several dimensions according to different drivers of change: vulnerability to climate change, vulnerability to price volatility, vulnerability to demographic transformations, etc.Vulnerability in SES depends on the stress to which a system is exposed, its sensitivity, and its adaptive capacity and resilience opportunities. In line with the internationally recognized IPCC definition, De Lange et al. (2010) state that ''Vulnerability is generally considered as a function of exposure to a stressor, effect (also termed sensitivity or potential impact) and recovery potential (also termed resilience or adaptive capacity).'' This definition proposes a clear and synthetic definition of vulnerability in terms of its components that are fundamental for the modeling exercise. Exposure refers to the existence or presence of elements 2 in the system that are susceptible to be adversely affected by the occurrence of environmental or socio-political stresses (IPCC 2012). It is a necessary but not sufficient first condition for a given system to experience stress or perturbations. Sensitivity is the degree to which a system is potentially affected by its exposure to a stress or perturbation (Adger 2006). It can be understood as the potential magnitudes of consequences of being exposed (Downing 1991). Indicators of sensitivity measure generally impacts. See Prosperi et al. (2014) for further clarification.Recovery potential is composed of adaptive capacities and resilience opportunities. These are related to the potential of a system to respond to changes, including adaptation and transformation (IPCC 2001;Burton et al. 2002;Adger et al. 2003). Adaptation captures the capacity of a system to learn and adjust to changing processes, and ''continue developing within the current stability domain or basin of attraction'' (Berkes et al. 2004, cited in Folke et al. 2010). Systems with high recovery potential will absorb disturbances and retain their original structure and processes. Transformation has been defined as ''the capacity to create a fundamentally new system when ecological, economic, or social structures make the existing system untenable'' (Walker et al. 2004). Transformation is then necessary for the system to maintain its functionalities. Resilience is more specifically concerned with the ability of a system to ''absorb shocks, to avoid crossing a threshold into an alternate and possibly irreversible new state, and to regenerate after disturbance'' (Resilience Alliance 2010). Resilience is the ability of a system and its component parts to anticipate, absorb, accommodate, or recover from the effects of a hazardous event in a timely and efficient manner by ensuring the preservation, restoration, or improvement of its essential basic structures and functions.Exposure refers to relational variables, i.e., elements that characterize the relationship between the system and its environment (Gallopı ´n 2006). It is the first point of contact between the stress or perturbation, and the system. Although commonly included in vulnerability (Chambers 1989;Adger and Kelly 1999;IPCC 2001;Turner et al. 2003;Polsky and Eakin 2011), exposure has recently been excluded from vulnerability in the last IPCC definition to actually align the understanding of vulnerability as a pure attribute of a system existing prior to and apart from the disturbance. In the earlier IPCC definitions, 3 reference was indeed made as well to information on the change itself (e.g., its magnitude, rate of variation, duration, etc.), as well as on the presence of elements that are exposed. The question of whether vulnerability is determined purely by the internal characteristics of a system, or whether it also depends on the likelihood that a system will encounter a particular hazard, is the subject of a long-standing dispute (Brooks 2003). We will consider here the conventional framework for vulnerability. The understanding of exposure as the first interface with a specific driver of change helps differentiating it from the sensitivity or resilience components, which might be influenced by other drivers of change (Fig. 1) (Fussel and Klein 2006).When a food system fails to deliver food security or has the potential to do so in the face of a perturbation, the system can be considered as vulnerable (Ericksen 2008). Foran et al. (2014) state that ''The social-ecological system considers the human-environment interface as a coupled 'system' where socio-economic and biophysical drivers of change interact to influence activities and outcomes, of the food system, that subsequently influence drivers of changes in a feedback loops dynamic.'' Such systems can exhibit coherent behaviors. Constituting elements interact in a complex but reasonably lawful way. How can we account for the confluence of so many factors simultaneously? Resolving these issues is beyond the scope of traditional, linear, closed-system methods. Viewing food system sustainability from a dynamic systems perspective makes it possible to examine non-linear, complex, and reciprocally causal processes more explicitly. In the following section, we build on system thinking to identify the main variables to formalize and operationalize the abstract and multidimensional concept of sustainable food systems.The term ''dynamic system''-or ''dynamical system''refers to a set of interacting elements that change over time. The first assumption of the dynamic approach is that evolving systems are complex, i.e., composed of many individual elements embedded within, and open to, a complex environment. These elements function together as a collective unit, producing outputs in relation to inputs through processes endogenous to the system. Changes in one variable will impact all other variables of the system, with possible lagged and multi-scale effects. Outcomes thus emerge from the complex interactions among system elements, potentially including natural as well as human components, and are not just the product of external causes.The field of dynamic systems is vast. From initial work in cybernetics (Wiener 1948;Ashby 1956) and system theory (Kalman et al. 1962;Bertalanffy 1968), system thinking grows directly from advances in physics and mathematics. Psychology also uses system-based approaches to explore human behavioral patterns. The more technical term ''dynamic system modeling'' refers to a class of mathematical equations that describe time-based systems with particular properties. Systems can be classified in different ways. System models can be either continuous or discrete. They can be linear or non-linear, and time invariant or time variant. A system can be static if its output depends only on its present input. On the contrary, a dynamic system requires past input to determine the system output.A dynamic systems approach begins with defining problems dynamically, proceeds through modeling stages, then builds confidence in the model and its policy implications. As highlighted in the previous section, change is key to sustainability. Sustainability is about maintaining and/or enhancing essential functions or outcomes over time, taking into account environmental, social, and economic constraints and assets. Food system sustainability can be viewed as the ex ante assessment of potential change in its functioning, given external conditions and internal dialectic. More precisely, it aims at capturing (and protecting) the properties of the system crucial to supporting life, including food security that is the first reason for being of food systems (Haddad 2013). This requires examining how the multicausality of dynamic processes within complex systems such as the food system could help understand changes over time towards food security.Modeling dynamic systems is about representing mathematically the dynamics between the inputs and outputs of the system of interest. Figure 2 shows a simplified graphical representation of a dynamic system. Specifically, it depicts a closed-loop dynamic system with feedback from outputs to inputs. A ''controller'' can monitor the output y of the system by adjusting control variables u to achieve a specified response. When modeling input-output systems, in addition to an observed set of variables internal to the system that can be levers of action, external drivers e can enter the model as inputs (Ionescu et al. 2009). If considered as exposed to external influences, the system is said to be non-autonomous (Stankovski 2014). Dynamic systems can also be perturbed by unobserved forces or noise. For the sake of simplicity, the presentation below is made under deterministic assumptions. For approaches motivated by stochastic models, see Astro ¨m (2012) and references therein.Not all variables that appear in a model are of interest. The behaviors are usually captured by defining appropriate outputs. We choose outputs in order to describe those quantities that get focus. In this paper, food and nutrition security is considered as the principal outcome of food systems, as it should be its main reason for being (Burlingame and Dernini 2011; Haddad 2013; Allen et al. 2014). These outcomes are also determined by decisions and actions taken along the activities of the food system, but also by global socio-economic, political, and environmental drivers through their impacts on the food system (Ingram et al. 2010). Such drivers might also impact food security directly.The state of the system at a given time is the extra piece of information needed, so that given the input trajectory, it is possible to determine the behavior of the system over time. We call x the state variables of the system. They provide the minimum amount of information that describes the system at any given time t. A mathematical description of the system in terms of a minimum set of variables x, together with knowledge of those variables at an initial time t 0 and the system inputs for time t, is deemed sufficient to predict the future system states and outputs for all time t.A set of equations can be used to describe the behavior of the system. Output functions are commonly used to characterize the input-output relationships. The dynamics of the system are usually represented using differential or difference equations (with time as the independent variable). These equations, known as the transition functions, are formulated in state-space form that has a certain matrix structure.The output equations are commonly written as 4where h is a vector function with n components for the n outputs y of interest. All variables typically vary with time t.Transition functions map the state of the model today into the state tomorrow. In vector notation, the set of differential equations may be written aswhere f is any vector function. The system state at any instant t may be interpreted as a point in an m-dimensional state-space, 5 and the dynamic state response x t can be interpreted as a trajectory traced out in the state-space (Rowell 2002). Further two Eqs. (3 and 4) can be added to the usual differential equation to map the feedback to inputs (Ionescu et al. 2009). The problem of parameter estimation pertains to the identification of data and determination of numerical values of the elements of these matrices.Categorizing Variables, Constructing a Composite IndicatorAs explained in ''Identifying the Fundamental Sustainability Properties of the Food System'' section, we are looking for the essential variables describing a system and the variables we can act upon to redirect food systems toward regarded objectives. In the language of dynamic systems, we are looking for x and u, the state and control variables, respectively. These are the essential features of the system that determine the trajectory of the system and characterize its sustainability. A system can be understood by the response pattern following a perturbation; perturbation reveals the nature of the system. To capture something of the internal dialectic of a system, we suggest fixing some crucial external variables, or drivers of changes e, and observing how these affect our system outcome of interest: food and nutrition security.The concepts from the already existing vulnerability/ resilience framework can then allow us to clarify what we would like to proxy; literally, vulnerability is the propensity or predisposition of a social-ecological system to be adversely affected by a change. Some global processes are significant drivers of change. There is high confidence that these include population growth, rapid and inappropriate urban development, international financial pressures, increases in socio-economic inequalities, and trends and failures in governance.As presented above, vulnerability/resilience is made up of three essential components: exposure, sensitivity, and resilience. Thus, vulnerability V can be regarded as a function of the components' recovery potential (RP) and potential impacts (PI), which in turn are expressed by exposure (E) and sensitivity (S).The vulnerability/resilience framework can help articulate the different elements of the system of interest, i.e., categorize variables with regard to others, and construct a composite indicator. This causal modeling approach is critical in the absence of statistical application able to reveal the structure of the data through procedures such as Principal Component Analysis (PCA). See Prosperi et al. (2014) for a proposition of composite indicator. Second, the vulnerability/resilience framework allows articulation of the different scales at which food systems are operating or embedded in.Building on the GECAFS food systems approach (Ericksen 2008; Ingram 2011), coupled with Turner et al.'s (2003) conceptualization of vulnerability, we suggest the framework represented in Fig. 3 to model food systems' dynamics. Dynamic systems contain mainly two types of variables: endogenous and exogenous variables. Endogenous variables are the elements that are interactive within the boundaries of the system of interest. In the case at hand, these variables are defined at the national or sub-national level. On the contrary, exogenous variables are factors that are not enclosed by the system boundary but influence the system. Exogenous variables are, conversely, not directly influenced by variables enclosed within the system. Outcomes from the food system activities may however contribute to these external drivers, but geographically specified food systems are assumed driver-takers. 6 In our specific case, these external drivers of change are at the broader regional level or global scale. The three components of vulnerability-exposure, sensitivity, and resilience-are the intrinsic features of the system that mediate the impact of the drivers of change on the food system's outcomes. These can be either state or control variables.In this section, we specifically consider the large body of research on dynamic systems, and aim at applying this modeling approach to the assessment of food system sustainability. To assess the sustainability of the food system, we need to understand what might affect its processes, to what extent the drivers of change impact the food system's outcomes, and how actors respond to these pressures.  2005) developed an eight-step methodological process to conduct vulnerability assessments. Following Schroeter et al., we propose a similarly structured and systematic method to apply the conceptual elements described in the above sections. These steps are preliminary to the identification of appropriate statistical variables, data application, and scenario analysis. They involve proceeding in four stages: 1. defining a study area and scale of analysis; 2. identifying essential drivers of change; 3. identifying essential food systems' outcomes; and 4. developing a causal model by selecting essential interactions, drivers, and outcomes, and examining respective systems' exposure, sensitivity, and recovery potential.Sustainability is usually conceived in place-specific terms. In the proposed framework, exposure to risks is Fig. 3 A Sustainable food system framework (adapted from Turner et al. 2003;Ericksen 2008;Ingram 2011) dependent on the geographical context, and sensitivity and adaptive capacity are shaped by social and institutional factors (Eakin 2010). The first step includes choosing a scale of analysis and drawing artificial boundaries around the coupled human-environment system of interest. Every system incorporates some sub-systems, which are themselves based on components, which are in fact sub-systems, etc. Two points are crucial to consider when defining the system level and spatial scale of analysis: (i) who are the intended users of the measurement set and (ii) what is the degree of granularity of the food system's outcomes to be addressed.This work is part of the project ''Advancing through sustainable diets'' that focuses on France and Spain. Given that the assessment is targeting policy-makers as main users, we opted for analysis at the population scale rather than the individual scale. It has thus been decided that the final level of analysis will be national or sub-national (''Comunidad auto ´noma'' in Spain, ''Re ´gion'' in France and ''Regione'' in Italy). To draw the geographical boundaries, it has then been argued that the entities had to be subjected to similar types of food system concerns and exposed to similar types of drivers of change or factors of risk. Italy has thus been added to France and Spain as a possible study zone, on the grounds that the three countries share similar food and nutrition security issues.The northern coastal area of the western Mediterranean basin is commonly referred to as the ''Latin Arc.'' It includes the coastal regions from Andalusia to Sicily. It is considered a homogeneous geographical entity closely related to certain summary representations of the European territory, at the regional level, proposed by geographers and urban scholars (Voiron-Caniccio 1994;Daviet 1994;Barrio 2004;Vanolo 2007;Camagni and Capello 2011). It is also recognized as a consistent territory by institutions and local stakeholders for transregional policy and cooperation programs (e.g., Western Mediterranean and Latin Alps, INTERREG II C Programme, EU) (Benoit and Comeau 2005), sharing common cultural, institutional, socio-economic, and biogeographical determinants.As mentioned previously, the spatial scale at which the system is defined drives the identification of the external variables likely to affect the system. Sub-global/regional level is a natural level to specify these external drivers of change in SES studies. The Mediterranean basin has been identified as one of the most prominent ''hotspots'' in future climate change projections (Giorgi 2006), but also in terms of environmental unsustainability due to intense human activity and agricultural exploitation (Salvati 2014). It has also been recognized as one of the first 25 Global Biodiversity hotspots in the world (Myers et al. 2000).The second and third steps are crucial in applying the conceptual framework. It involves answering the question ''vulnerability/resilience of what to what.'' It also requires simultaneously identifying the main drivers of change as the food system-specific issues of concern that the drivers are likely to affect (Schro ¨ter et al. 2005). Several global and regional drivers of change affect the structure and processes of food systems, putting context-specific food and nutrition security outcomes at risk. Based on an extensive literature review and discussions conducted throughout two focus group sessions made up of seven experts, four critical food and nutrition security issues and four drivers of change were identified at a sub-regional level. An exhaustive and rigorous literature review specific to the Mediterranean region highlighted existing urgent issues and crucial drivers of change (CIHEAM 2012;SCAR 2008;PARME 2011). The selected four main drivers of change are the following:Water depletion is ''a use or removal of water from a water basin that renders it unavailable for further use'' (Molden 1997). The Mediterranean region is greatly concerned by water stress and scarcity (PARME 2011;FAO 2011). The Western and Central Mediterranean areas are particularly subject to increasing water needs for domestic use and tourist and agricultural activities (Sousa et al. 2011). Water demand has doubled over 50 years in Mediterranean countries (UNEP/Blue Plan 2006). The food system production and consumption patterns are increasingly water demanding. Irrigated agriculture only accounts for 70 % of the consumption of freshwater resources globally (OECD 2013). In EU-27, the majority of irrigated areas are concentrated in the Mediterranean region; 75 % of the total area equipped for irrigation in EU-27 is located in France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Greece (Wriedt et al. 2008).Water availability is closely related to climate change trends altering precipitation patterns and rainwater (Freibauer et al. 2011). Increase in the concentration of agrochemicals and soil nutrients, and a number of water pollutions have also been observed, impacting the quality of water and further contributing to water scarcity (Bates et al. 2008).Biodiversity 7 loss is defined as ''the long-term or permanent qualitative or quantitative reduction in components of biodiversity and their potential to provide goods and services, to be measured at global, regional and national levels'' (CBD 2004). Biodiversity is globally at risk, with 20930 species and ecological communities known to be threatened (IUCN 2013). The Mediterranean region has been, in particular, cataloged as one of the 25 biodiversity hotspots of the planet with an exceptional diversity of endemic species within ecosystems that are at great risk, with 19 % of the species threatened by extinction (IUCN 2008).Biodiversity loss is simultaneously generated by climate change, environment depletion, and water stress. It is strongly related to modern food production and consumption patterns (Altieri 2000) that have become more intensive and homogenizing. The loss of agrobiodiversity is interlinked also with a number of causal factors including habitat depletion, change in land use and management, and GHG emissions among others (Tilman et al. 2002;Frison et al. 2011).Food price volatility refers to large and atypical 8 ''variations in agricultural prices over time'' (FAO 2011). Food prices increased sharply in 2008, with the FAO food price index breaking the threshold of 200 9 for the first time (SCAR 2008). The Mediterranean region is a particularly vulnerable region with regard to price volatility due, in particular, to several factors including its cereal dependence, nutrition transition, population growth, urbanization, and climate change (Padilla et al. 2005).Climate change impacts, changing trade patterns, new dietary trends, and growing demand for biofuels are often quoted as being among the causes of food price volatility. The rising demand for food and fuel originating from consumption and industrial purposes is engendered by both population growth and changes in food consumption patterns (Brown 2008). Furthermore, speculation on commodity markets and reduction of food stocks are also crucial determinants of price variations (Robles et al. 2009).Changing food consumption 10 patterns refers to the changing structure of global food consumption, related to changing dominant values, attitudes, and behaviors (Kearney 2010a, b). Globally, food consumption patterns are changing both in terms of total amount and composition. Worldwide consumers have switched from considering animal protein a luxury food item to considering it a regular part of the diet (Meade et al. 2014).Food choices are deeply embedded in social norms. Individual food consumption patterns-i.e., diets-are the result of changes in culture, social values, and representations attached to food consumption. The global changes in food consumption patterns-some talk about a ''westernization'' of food consumption patterns (Drewnowski and Popkin 1997)-are largely driven by demographic factors and income growth and are related to changes in dominant values and lifestyle influenced by globalization, urbanization, changes in occupational status and employment distribution, and more effective dissemination of information (Meade 2012).It is important at this point to formalize the hypotheses to be explored. The ''what is vulnerable'' is identified by the functions performed by the ecological and social service delivering entity composed of a number of actors, activities, and processes. The system will be considered vulnerable if negative food system outcomes emerge. Food, or more precisely, feeding population, is agriculture and food systems' main reason for being (Haddad 2013). Human nutrition should be considered one of the most fundamental ecosystem services, or alternatively as dependent on several ecosystem services, including provisioning, regulating, and supporting, and cultural services (Deckelbaum et al. 2006).Food security, defined as the situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (FAO 1996), is a policy issue of importance in just about every country. It can be considered the principal outcome of food systems. It is also important to remember that food security is not just about the amount of food but also depends on the nutritional quality, safety, and cultural appropriateness of foods (Liverman and Kapadia 2010). Investigating the influence of socio-economic and environmental drivers on food and nutrition security, with regard to some essential food system characteristics, provides an approach to think the causal mechanisms that can lead to unsustainability. As mentioned above, four food 8 See FAO report Price Volatility in Food and Agricultural Markets: Policy Responses (Appendix, 2011) for a more technical definitions of price volatility. 9 Base 100: 1998-2000.  10 This social driver is proposed as one regime driver by the SCAR 2nd Foresight exercise report (2009), closely linked to the other social global driver ''changing dominant values,'' and is exactly phrased Footnote 10 continued ''Consumption quantities and patterns,'' referring literally to ''food consumption patterns'' and ''nutritional transition.'' Environmental Management and nutrition security issues have been identified as crucial for the Latin Arc countries.The Nutritional quality of food supply refers to the nutritional composition of the food products on the market (Oquali, INRA/ANES). The improvement of the nutritional quality of the food supply is one of the eight specific actions defined by the WHO European Action Plan for Food and Nutrition Policy 2007-2012. 11 A balanced diet is achieved through personal habits but also requires that the foods on offer to consumers have a satisfactory nutritional composition. In France, a food quality observatory (Oqali) was set up to monitor the quality of the food supply. Increasing availability and consumption of nutrient-poor and energy-dense foods and beverages leads to enhancement of human health problems, including obesity and noncommunicable chronic disease.According to Ingram (2011), affordability of food is ''the purchasing power of households or communities relative to the price of food.'' It refers to the ''economic access'' to food (Foran et al. 2014). Affordability is about food being available at prices that people can afford to pay and, in particular, whether low-income consumers can afford to buy enough nutritious food to meet basic needs (Barling et al. 2010). The determinants of food affordability include pricing policies and mechanisms, seasonal and geographical variations in price, local prices relative to prices, the form in which households are paid, and income and wealth levels (Ericksen et al. 2009). Food affordability and food prices are important determinants of food choices (Lee et al. 2013).Dietary energy balance refers to the balance between caloric intake and energy expenditure (Patel et al. 2004). Excessive fat accumulation is acknowledged to be a risk factor for various health problems, including cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes, cancers, and osteoarthritis (WHO 2014). Obesity has become a significant public health issue in high-and medium income countries, with 500 million adults obese worldwide and more than 1 billion projected by 2030 if no major effort is made (Kelly et al. 2008;Finucane et al. 2011). Body weight results from the integrated effects of food consumption, physical activity, and genetics. Environmental, social, and behavioral factors interact to determine energy intake and expenditure. Sedentary lifestyles, heavy marketing of both energy-dense foods and fast food outlets, adverse social and economic conditions, and the consumption of high-sugar drinks, among others are driving a dietary energy imbalance, with higher calorific intake and lower energy expenditure (WHO 2000;Swinburn et al. 2004).Cultural food preferences are environmental factors related to social background that contribute to food choices and intake. It is now acknowledged that honoring ethnic and cultural food preferences, compatible with nutritional requirements, is essential for food acceptance and general wellbeing. Social and cultural norms have a crucial role in diet (Sobal et al. 1998). Food preferences, socially or culturally determined, are now recognized as a key consideration in food security, as highlighted already in the 1996 definition of food security. Assessing cultural issues surrounding food preferences may also help improve dietary adherence to recommendations.In the fourth step, a causal model is developed, formalizing the dynamics of exposure, sensitivity, and resilience. The four drivers of change and four food security issues presented above are matched to explore their possible causal relationships. The proposed framework aims at identifying the food system characteristics that make the food system capable of sustaining food and nutrition security outcomes. This can serve to identify warning signals, although the drivers and outcomes of interest will have to be evaluated as well. Results are presented in Table 1.These sets of characteristics are indicating how changes in water, biodiversity, food prices, and food consumption patterns are transmitted through the food system, including the sequencing of events and the scale of interactions; how 11 The WHO European Action Plan for Food and Nutrition Policy 2007-2012 defines eight specific actions for ''ensuring a safe, healthy and sustainable food supply: improve the availability and affordability of fruit and vegetables; promote the reformulation of mainstream food products; promote appropriate micronutrient fortification of staple food items and develop complementary foods with adequate micronutrient content; improve the nutritional quality of the food supply and food safety in public institutions; ensure that the commercial provision of food products is aligned with food-based dietary guidelines; explore the use of economic tools (taxes, subsidies); establish targeted programs for the protection of vulnerable and low socioeconomic groups; establish intersectoral food safety systems with a farm-to-fork approach and in accordance with the Codex Alimentarius risk analysis framework.'' the food system is sensitive to these changes; and the adaptive capacity of the food system. This could lead to subsequent work to identify thresholds of change and to quantitatively model the interactions among stressors, attributes, and outcomes, to improve the general understanding of food system sustainability. It more importantly presents the elements that need to be assessed, i.e., the attributes for which indicators can be used to measure and monitor.Why Vulnerability and Resilience to Assess Sustainability?In this paper, we propose the analysis and assessment of the sustainability of food systems using the concepts of vulnerability and resilience. First, vulnerability is not the simple flip side of resilience. Following Turner et al. (2003), we argue that articulating the two-overlappingconcepts provides a more comprehensive framework to capture the features of complex systems, such as food systems, that perpetually evolve and re-organize into unexpected new configurations. The identification of the elements within the system, and assessment of their sensitivity to change, in addition to the capacity of the system to cope, adapt, and transform to these changes, is considered key to understanding dynamic systems. Resilience and vulnerability are relatively new, yet are now fundamental concepts in the contemporary language of sustainability sciences. The links between vulnerability and sustainability have been discussed against the backdrop of a long-standing dispute about the relationship between sustainability and resilience. Resilience is commonly accepted as at least a crucial dimension of sustainability. Some argue that resilience of a system constitutes a necessary but not sufficient condition for sustainability (Derissen et al. 2011). The question remains, however, of how the concepts of vulnerability and resilience square with the definition of sustainability.Sustainability is a normative concept that provides a broad framework to guide actions. It requires defining specific goals-and their monitoring measures-that need to be agreed upon and acknowledged by all stakeholders (Anderies et al. 2013). On the contrary, resilience and vulnerability, as descriptive concepts, characterize the dynamic properties of a system and can thus help define these societal goals. Sustainability and vulnerability/resilience can thus be understood as distinct concepts operating at different levels, the latter concepts providing the elements to inform the decision process intrinsic to the former concept.Although the concepts of ''vulnerability'' and ''resilience'' have entered the food policy discourse, the influence of SES thinking on policy-maker agendas has otherwise been rather limited (Foran et al. 2014). SES frameworks emphasize complexity and systemic interactions. Applications of these frameworks tend thus to focus on problem identification and improving system understanding (Nadasdy 2007). As mentioned earlier, food systems are systems of variables connected to each other through causal pathways, which are further complicated by operating on different geographical or time scales. These connections need to be grasped and theorized. Vulnerability and resilience can be useful approaches to capture these relationships. One key conceptual element of vulnerability/resilience models is a clear distinction between causal events and outcomes (Dilley and Boudreau 2001). It frames a ''causal factor approach'' that describes the interactions leading to the final outcomes. Exposure, sensitivity, and resilience provide the concepts to identify the system's properties that shape causal pathways towards food system outcomes.Systems behave in a circular organization forming feedback loops. The proposed fragmentation in specific vulnerabilities and resilience factors-through the intersections of different drivers and issues-can induce a certain degree of linearity in causality. Vulnerability and resilience answer questions about mechanisms that operate to produce outcomes under certain specific conditions. As such, these two properties provide policy-makers with a model of highly formalized predictions of the effects of a limited set of variables (Epstein et al. 2013) that can be tested recursively and provide insights into possible feedback. Modelers are generally faced with the dilemma of how comprehensive a model to build: ''one with many variables that ends up as a qualitative description, or one with a few key variables that acts quantitatively but lacks comprehensiveness'' (Fraser et al. 2005). It must also be borne in mind that sustainability as a forward-looking concept requires apprehending the conditions and determinants needed to maintain systems' functions over time. Focusing on a number of external forces and highlighting systemic internal dialectic, the vulnerability/resilience model allows a dynamic analysis of some specific issues of the food systems and provides direction for policy-makers.Building on Schroeter et al. (2005), two of the four substeps proposed to resolve the complexity that arises when integrating social and ecological approaches imply specifying food systems' outcomes and external drivers. It requires first clarifying the principal outcomes or functions of a food system, in particular the issues at risk. Food Environmental Management systems serve several purposes and have several outcomes. Outcomes are susceptible to being evaluated and ranked differently by different stakeholders, and at different levels. The proponents of the ''Sustainable Diet'' agenda highlight the food and nutrition security objectives of the food systems selected here as the end-point of the analysis (FAO/Bioversity 2012). As mentioned above, following a review and after discussion in two focus groups, four food and nutrition security concerns have been retained, judged crucial to the context at hand. Other issues, however, have been debated such as ''food safety'' or ''dietary quality.'' Other food systems' outcomes than food and nutrition security issues could also have been considered, such as environmental and socioeconomic outcomes related to employment or equity. Food systems are responsible for diverse environmental, economic, and social outcomes, and introducing these may have been more in line with the generally accepted understanding of sustainability. The articulation between food systems' defining elements and their resulting outcomes, the former contributing to predict the latter, could be expanded to other dimensions to further the modeling approach. Sustainability can hardly be modeled parsimoniously, raising then questions in terms of feasibility of the modeling.The second step is to understand what and how global or regional changes, either socio-economic or environmental, might be transmitted through the activities to impact the outcomes, because food systems' complexity means that impacts may not always be felt directly. Experts invited to the focus groups mentioned other important drivers of change, such as ''climate change'' or ''technological innovation.'' They also considered whether or not the model completely captures the internal drivers that are intrinsic to the system. Drivers are interacting with each other. Climate change and biodiversity loss for example are closely related and highly susceptible to reciprocal influence. This interdependence raises some technical modeling concerns such as named variables acting as possible proxy for other variables associated with them. A distinct effort was thus made to select priority drivers and to exclude those drivers exhibiting direct reciprocal influence.The analysis of the connections linking global and regional drivers of change with context-specific food system outcomes could be also carried out through polycentric governance approaches. Considering a polycentric order as ''one where many elements are capable of making mutual adjustments for ordering their relationships with one another within a general system of rules where each element acts with independence of other elements'' (Ostrom 1999, p. 57), actors can use local knowledge and participate in iterative and reflexive learning processes where other stakeholders are involved. Since polycentric systems imply mutual monitoring and learning, knowledge, innovation, adaptation, credibility, and cooperation between stakeholders can improve over time and enhance the sustainability of the system at multiple scales (Toonen 2010). In particular, single context-specific governance units could be deemed as key components able to respond-to the impacts from global and regional changes-with diverse and multiple scale interventions and solving strategies for collective-action problems (Ostrom 2010). From this polycentric governance perspective, then, it might be possible to define alternative scales of analysis and draw different artificial boundaries within the food system, in its collective units and sub-systems, and the degree of granularity of the food system's outcomes. Thus, a polycentricity-based framework of sustainability might imply to consider alternative social and institutional factors in order to describe exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity.Finally, some analytical clarity and direction are essential to convince policy-makers and thus guarantee impact of policy. It is more highly desired to develop interventions that treat the underlying causes, rather than the symptoms of unsustainability of food systems. The concepts of vulnerability and resilience bring food security into consideration in a new and alternative way. Change is occurring and investigation of the sources of adaptive capacity of the system is crucial.Developing policy to ensure sustainable food security is a tremendous challenge that requires a comprehensive and integrated analytical approach. Multiple factors influence the course of human-environment interactions, which are further complicated by the presence of co-evolving causal forces. Understanding these dynamics requires viewing the food system as a whole. Social-ecological system approaches allow us to move away from looking at isolated events and their causes, and to begin looking at systems made up of interacting parts. A vulnerability and resilience approach is suggested here as a possible framework to capture the food system as a whole, think prospectively and identify the system elements that policy can leverage. The distinction in three components, namely exposure, sensitivity, and resilience, provides the elements of a model that specify which attributes need to be measured and how to structure the different indicators in a coherent framework for improved decision making and policies.The concepts of vulnerability and resilience impose a system thinking approach based on the interdependencies between drivers, system activities and properties, outcomes, and feedback loops. Vulnerability and resilience of food systems can have multiple sources, and these sources may interact to generate unexpected responses (SCAR 2008). As sustainability and food security become increasingly central, vulnerability/resilience will be among the principles that will drive the reformulation of research, as well as policies (Brunori and Guarino 2010). As powerful tools capable of monitoring global change, vulnerability/resilience assessments represent a new research frontier; however, more theoretical and empirical research is needed to measure and assess the interplay between human and environment systems, between causal factors and consequences. Furthermore, the development of appropriate tools is required for monitoring, forecasting, and integration in policy support measures. ","tokenCount":"8586"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a75e0ee4941d50177a216b6d88224528","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ebb4674b-cbd5-4b8b-95fc-e79a1f831da0/retrieve","id":"850607654"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"24b25c67-d720-4cfb-8c98-cef277964d26","pagecount":"9","content":"tools such as PRA, on-fann trials, and fanner groups in a superficiallevel. Not much attention has been given to empowering fanners and increasing their livelihood. Therefore, a substantial reform in existing PPB-through the development of new professionalism and ideas, frameworks, and methodologíes, particularly by engaging in collaborative action-is essential ifPPB is to address the globalIy emergíng challenges in plant breeding. Experiences over the last decade suggest that plant breeding approaches are donor driven, operating under the broad conceptual framework and financial condítíons imposed by donors, which are, therefore, more rhetoríc than \"real participatíon\" to empower a weaker sectíon of society. The lack of cornmunication and facilitation skills, conducive policy measures, and supportive institutional and regulatory frameworks in national agricultura! research systems, combined with the egocentricity ofbreeders and social scientists and a sectoral approach, are sorne of the major bottlenecks to prornoting a PPB tbat airns to use participation both as an end and a means. The scaling-up, institutionalizing, simplifying (dernystífication of prevailing jargon and rhelorie), ernpowering of fanners, rnanaging ehange, reorienting training, eoping with globalization and TRIPs/patenting, and developing a new professionalisrn are sorne of the major areas to be improved in order to reform the existing PPB.The on!y way to cope with the threat of genetic engineering and biolechnology at the globallevel is lo work in line with the Convention on Bio-Diversity, an intemational treaty Ihat has been sígned by more than 160 member states ofthe United Natíons. This convention provídes an international legal framework for the conservatíon ofbiologícal diversíty, including access to and exchange of genetic materials and biodíversity prospecting.  The goal of in situ conservation is to encourage farmers to continue to select and manage local erop populations (Brush 1999). In situ conservation aims to conserve not onIy genes themselves but also the farming systems and agroecosystems that produce and maintain genetic diversity (Eyzaguirre and Iwanaga 1996). Effective management and conservation of genetic resources on-farrn takes place where the genetic resources are valued and used to meet the needs oflocal communities. The in situ conservation project supported by the Intemational Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) in Nepal recognizes that farmers maintain local crop genetic resources ifthey remain eompetitive with other options or ifthey have value for special uses. Jarvis andHodgkin (1997, 1999), Sthapit andJarvis (1999), andBrush (1999) suggest that one method to encourage farrners to continue to select and manage local crop populations is to increase the value oflocal and diverse crop populations to farrners who might otherwise stop growing them. In this paper, we concentrate on the contribution of vanous options lO add benefits that help maintain and maximize the genetic diversity wíthin the total erop gene pooLThe Nepal projeet has developed a variety of innovative and participalOry methods to increase the value and benefits of landraces for farmers and society. Benefits may be sociocultural, eeonomic, ecological, or genetic and may apply to farmers, communities, or society as a whole. This requires an in-depth understanding of the value of local crop diversity and potential ways of adding value and market networks. Brush (1999) ídentified three types of value in local erop diversity: direct, indirect, and optionaL This paper documents sorne case studies on optíons for adding benefit, carried out in three study. sites: Jumla (220Om), Kaski (J200m), and Bara (85m) in Nepal.Direct values refer to the harvest 'and uses of crop vaneties as a part of a subsistence, commercial, andlor industrial process. Direct values have been considered as the basis of ín situ conservation. Farmers value local crop diversity in terms oflocal adaptatíon to ecological diversity , pests, and pathogens; risk management (socioeconomic); and culture, rítuals and food culture. A baselinc SUfvey, diversity fair, and focus-group discussion across three eeo-sites in Nepal have documented typical examples ofthe direet value oflocal erop diversity (appendix 1).These values may vary among farmers and are influenced by such factors as wealth, land, and laJ:¡or resources; proximity to market and technological informatíon, and government policies. No single varíety ean satisf'y the concems of aH the farmers in a víllage, resulting in a complex range of erop diversity being maintaÍlled.Evidenee c1early shows a varyíng degree oflocal erop díversity in NepaL These resources have been used and categorized broadly ínto ecological, socioeconomic, and cultural or religious, linked with tradítional food redpes. The in situ project has the challenge of developing appropriate methods that enhanee their conservation on-farm.Jarvis and Hodgkin (1999) suggested that value may be added to erop genetic resources in two main ways: (1) the materials themselves may be improved or (2) the demand for the material or sorne product may be created or íncreased. In addition, nonbreeding and non-marke! methods are equally important as they are linked with access to ínfonnatíon and genetic resources and creating awareness at different levels.How can local crop diversity be improved? It is important to understand why and where local crop populations are maíntained, as well as understandíng what the value of parricular landraces is and what the limiting factors are and what traits are no! preferred. We can appreciate the farmers, contribution to biodíversity conservatíon, but we need to understand why sorne crops and varietíes are grov.'I1 on a larger scale by many farmers, while at the same time, a few farmers grow a few selected vaneties by themselves-often in niches. Understanding the rationale behind this will assist plant breeders in seeking technical opportunitíes to improve tbe materials. In Kaski, Nepal, Bayerni and Biramphul rice is grown by a few, richer, households for its high quality. In terms ofyieId, these varieties are not competitive with other landraces, such as Jetho budho and Pahele. It is assumed Ihat many households may start planting Bayerni and Biramphul if these varieties are improved in terms of yield withoul losing their quality traits. Table 1 shows the number of landraces selected in the study siles for adding benefits to see whether landraces, per se, can be conserved by adding value. Participatory plant breeding (PPB) can improve the materials, but !he material s can also be im• proved by eliminating diseases and pathogens from planting materials or clones, e.g., taro, diseases in potato and cítrus. Sthapit et al. (1996) have demonstrated !hat Chhomrog rice has been enhanced because its red rice grain was.replaced by a white color, while cold tolerance was improved. The project is also assessing the value of landrace enhancement for those landraces that are widely grown and preferred by farming cornmunities. Strengthening the skill of selection and exchange of enhanced materials will also assist in the process of on-farm conservatíon. Jetho budho in Kaski, Basmati in Bara, and JjumIi marshi in JumIa have already been identified and prelinúnary work has been initiated.The most important strategy for increasing the value of local crops is to use them for a crop-improvement programo PPB covers the full range of erop improvement activities: assessing local diversity and uses, setting breeding goals, creatíng variability, selecting varietÍes from variable populations, evaluating varieties, and scaling up through farmer-to-farmer seed networks. Joshi et al. (1999) documented the detailed process ofPPB to study whether PPB can be considered a strategy to enhance on-farm conservation as well as to meet the productive needs offarmers. The roles offormal plant-breeding institutions (e.g\" NARC) and NGOs (e.g., LI-BIRD) have beenmutually agreed upon for each key step of the PPB process. The multidisciplinary team categorized rice landraces by their distribution and frequency, as described by Joshi et al. (1999). Breeding goals for tbe Bara and Kaski eco-si tes were developed in a participalory malIDer, ínvolving breeders, socioeconomists, and farmers, lO analyze Ihe slrengths and weaknesses ofthe landraces. In Ihe process of seleclíng parents, farmers strongly felt that the preferred traits should be maintaíned even if inferior traits were the targets for improvement through PPB. Thus, the breeding strategy has a role lo play in improvíng and conserving traits and characteristics tbal are 1101 linked specifically wilh social, religious, or medicinal norms and beliefs or used in local recipes.A number of participatory approaches have been used lO date to increase local awareness about tbe importance of agro-biodiversity and 10 improve the flow of seed within and between communities (Rijal el al. 1999). Diversity fairs, diversity tbeaters, diversity songs, poetry joumeys, community biodiversity registers (CBRs), and diversity blocks are sorne oftbe popular aclivities carried oul lO increase awareness and sensitize tbe community.In tbe context of strengthening access lO germplasm and information in tbe furmíng community, diversity fairs, diversity blocks, and community biodiversity registers have been identífied as powerfui options, which also enhance the farmers' capacity in managing their own crop genetic resources.The diversity fair. Here, tbe lerm diversity fair refers to a tool used lo demonstrate or dísplay local crops along with the associated knowledge resources of an ecology, as defined by community-based orgaruzations (CBOs). Traditionally, local seed markets and fairs constitute an importan! par! of the informal seed exch¡¡nge system in the víllages. Local markets, haat bazaar, and \"agricultural fairs\" provide a good oppor!lU1ity for the exchange of seeds and knowJedge. In recent years, tbese informal systems have been threatened by outside interventíon, particularly in tbe seed sector. As a rosult, indigenous knowledge associated witb local genetic resources has begun to erode.The communíty-organized diversity fair focuses on indigenous landraces. In Nepal, diversity fairs have been used as an entry point to raise tbe level of awareness about in situ crop conservation programs before more technical aspects of the project are implemented. By organizing competitions between groups offarmers, the project promote access to farmers and encourages farmers to maintain tbe maximum genetic diversity. The in situ project uses diversity fairs as a participatory research and development tool in Nepal. It aírns at creatíng competitions between farmer groups on a regular basís in order to accomplish tbe following:• to recognize farmers who maintain large amounts of genetíc díversity and who possess a good deal of assocíated knowledge, to act as a source of ínformation for others• lo locate areas ofhigh díversity• to identify and locate endangered landraces• to prepare an inventory of crop genetics, along witb a knowledge resource base• to identify the main sources of tbe informal seed supply within the community• to IIDderstand tbe value of díverse genetic resources in terms ofuse, economics, culture, religion, ecology, etc.• lo empower local communities to have control over their genetíc resources• to help develop a sense of ownership in the communityThere are differen! ways of conducting diversity fairs. The in silu project aims at strengthening CBOs tha! conduct on-farm conservation actívities with little input from outside. Initially, when CBOs were unfamiliar with the project's activities, project staff managed the fairs in partnership with them. Over time, as they have become better oriented, they organize the fair as an annual event. Sthapit and Jarvis (1999) have documented the concept and methods used, and the steps of the fair have been described by Rijal et al. (1999). There have already been five such fairs organized in Nepal, and as a result, the process has been refined over time. The fairs organized in Nepal have been successful in terms of the following:• documenting locallandraces and associated knowledge, well as strengthening the farmerto-farmer seed supply system• linking outputs with research and development work• locating the status of diversity and the custodians• sensitizing farmers, along with the research and policy eornmunities, on the importance of agrobiodiversity• strengthening CBOs in on-farm conservation processesThe fairs organized through CBOs have documented equalIy good information, as well as increasing sample size and the number of crops. The information includes the special characteristics associated with the landraees, Le., huliya, sociocultural values, ecology, and status at the cornmunity leve!. These sets of information can be very useful for a number of stakeholders, including breeders, eeologists, socioeconomists, arid locál promoters for their varied interests. The informatíon may be shared among the farm cornmunities and other interested partíes. A very important aspeet of the fair, observed in a recent fair ín Begnas, Nepal, is the development of the sense of ownership in the cornmunity for the resourees they have eonserved for generations. Every CBO took back sampies with the knowledge that they had to maintain them for future use.The diversity block. A diversíty block is a participatory research technique designed to characterize locallandraees under farmers' management conditíons. Landraces to be grown ín the diversity block may be selected Hom materials from either the diversity faír or farmers' seed stoeks. The crops are monitored by both farmers and scientist-promoters, and agromorphologícal characteristies are recorded. The diversíty block has the value of enhancing public awareness at the grassroots level and máking germplasm more accessible o the local cornmunity. In Nepal, the diversity block has been used to acquire farmers' indigenous knowledge about local varieties, to identify parents for breeding, and to study the population structure.The cornmunity biodiversity register. A cornmuníty biodiversíty register ís a record, kept on paper or in eleetronic form by cornmunity members. It is a register ofloeal crop biodiversity and assocíated knowledge. The information maintaíned in the register inc1udes landrace names, the fimners who store the seed, associated local knowledge and uses, and traditional and nontraditíonal passport data like agromorphological and agroecological characteristies and cultural signíficanee. The register functions as a decentralized cornmunity gene bank (Sthapit and Jarvis 2000). CBRs have no implications for local seed exchange and storage systerns; rather, it helps lo improve aceess to information and seeds.Updated over time, the CBR allows cornmunitÍes to monitor Ihe level of genetíc díversíty and prevent the extínction of rare varieties, whieh may then be preserved ex siro. eBRs can be a practical tool to monitor genetic diversity at the village level, and ifthe capacity oflhe farming eommunity is strengthened with institutional support, it could be a good way of developing various options lo add benefits on a local or regional scale.Strengthening seed and information networks was one of the eoncerns in Ihis project, for which different strategic lools were explored. The cornmunity gene bank adopled by a few institutions, such as UBINIG in 8angladesh, was reviewed for its strengths and límitations. It was found lo re-quiTe additional structures to serve communities under situations of stress and risk, and may replace the local farmer-to-farmer seed-supply systems. C8R strenglhens local systems was developed through review of functions complementary 10 in situ conservation.Since eBR has only recentIy been developed, it still requires further refinement. However, it has multiple funclions and is worth the effort because of ils effectiveness al the grassroots leve!. This was discussed wilh farmers and e80 representatives, and Iheif responses are summarized below:o e8R provides an invenlory ofboth valuable and worst crop resourees.o It strengthens sharing of information and crop seeds by improving access.• It is useful for strengthening market and seed networks.• It lists Ihe slatus of a11 known crop resourees, with reasons for decrease, ¡nerease, or loss.o It is useful to R&D workers .. o lt enhances the process of developing a sense of ownership for Ihe resources held by eBOs.• 11 provides deseriptions of ecology and diversity with area-speeific identities.The reeords maintained in Ihe eBR assists in understanding the farmer' s decision-making processes as well. Thus, Ihe C8R implemenled in Nepal has guided eornmunities in developing a sense of ownership for their resources. Whatever significance it has depends on Ihe way it is developed and executed locally. Therefore, tbe potential benefils from eBR can onIy be reaJized when it is adopted with full consideration of the importance of (1) partnership witb farmers, (2) periodic up-dating, (3) local control, (4) sharing information among Ihe users/slakeholders, and (5) caution aboul providing access lo tbe informatíon to oulsiders.80th the eBR and diversity fajr can be llSed for a number of purposes, from developing R&D bases to strengtheníng at Ihe grassroots level in terms of improving access lo seeds, using informatíon in an effective manner, and assessing diversity. eBR records could provide a very useful basis for developing conservation strategies. Endangered species or Iandraces, for example, may be conserved ex situ. However, we are also equally concerned with the possible misuse of informatíon, such as intellectual and farmers' rights. The community must be made aware ofthis kind of danger as wel!.The demand for materials or processed products may be inereased by market melhods (box 1). There are many examples oflocal crops (e.g., Basmati andJetho budho rice) lbal have direct market value. There are many options to which farmers are not exposed. This applies lo researchers, development workers, markel networks, and consumers as well. Benefits can also be added to crop diversity by better processing, packaging, storage, and marketing.","tokenCount":"2740"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"226cc5eac364562cfa29329d00314192","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/2af2e389-a81b-458a-a404-43902379cdf0/retrieve","id":"1806612518"},"keywords":["Location of CaSCA-Study Villages Where Fanners COte d'ivoire","Tanzania","and Nigeria' .....","..",". ..... ' ..","..",".",". . 147 11.1 Percentage Change in Per Capita Consumption of Cassava in 7.2 Nigeria: Financial Budgets for Gari Preparation by Alternative The Cassava Transformation: Country Challenges •••••••••••••••201"],"sieverID":"28b26b22-b718-4763-a94a-98a85736f3a4","pagecount":"293","content":"Nutrient Composition of Fresh Cassava Roots and Cassava Leaves ..The people of Africa are bearing the brunt of food insecurity, malnutrition, and poverty. Cassava (manioc or tapioca) was introduced into Africa from South America in the sixteenth century and quickly spread throughout the continent. Today, cassava is the second most important food in the African diet. In the late 1950s, when African nations started to regain their independence, they were self-sufficient in food. Yet, in the early 1970s Africa became a net food importer. Because of poverty and a lack of foreign exchange, the countries of Africa are unable to import enough food to feed their growing populations. Therefore, the urgent challenge is to increase their food production.Cassava can be a powerful poverty fighter if research-driven productivity gains increase production and drive down prices to rural and urban consumers. Cassava's adaptability to marginal soils and erratic rainfall conditions, as well as its high-yield per unit of land, make it an ideal crop in many farming systems in Africa. However, because of several longstanding myths and half-truths, cassava has been neglected and marginalized by many policymakers and by most donor and internationalSub-Saharan Africa (hereafter Africa) is a continent in crisis; it is racked with hunger, poverty, and the HIV I AIDS pandemic. Africa is also the region with the fastest population growth, the most fragile natural resource base, and the weakest set of agricultural research and extension institutions. However, when African nations started to regain their independence in the late 1950s and early 1960s, they were self-sufficient in food production and leading exporters of ~ocoa, coffee, rubber, sisal, groundnuts (peanuts), and palm oil, respectively. By contrast, Asia was the epicenter of the world's food crisis in the 1960s and 1970s.Africa became a net food importer in the early 1970s, and food production grew at half of the population growth rate from 1970 to 1985. Today, the people of Africa are bearing the brunt of world food insecurity, malnutrition, and poverty. For example, a recent International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRi) study points out that child malnutrition is expected to decline in all major developing regions except Africa, where the number of malnourished children is forecast to increase by about 30 percent by 2020 (Pinstrup-Anderson et al. 1999,6).The average GNP per capita in Africa in the year 2000 was US$480 (World Bank 2000). Many countries have been destabilized by civil strife and authoritarian regimes. Approximately 75 percent of the poor in Africa are rural people who secure their livelihood from farming and livestock or from nonfarm activities that depend mostly on agriculture.Africa's population is expected to double to 1.2 billion by 2020, and its urban population will likely grow at an even faster-rate. With urbanization and higher incomes, the composition and characteristics of food demand will be significantly altered. More of the food supply will have to be processed, transported, and stored (McCalla 1999).Without question, domestic food production and food imports will have to be increased to meet Africa's growing food demand. Yet because of poverty and a lack of foreign exchange, Africa's net cereal imports are expected to remain low (Pinstrup-Anderson et al. 1999). Therefore, the urgent challenge before African nations is to increase domestic food production.Because of the success of the Green Revolution in Asia, many \"instant experts\" on Africa have raised expectations about replicating the Asian Green Revolution model in Africa. However, Asia's Green Revolution was based on high-yielding rice and wheat varieties grown under irrigation. Yet irrigation presently involves only about 5 percent of the land under cultivation in Africa, and wheat cannot be grown in the rainforest and semi-arid areas of Africa. Because of the sharp differences in the agroecologies between Asia and Africa and the larger number of food staples in Africa, attempts to promote the Asian Green Revolution in Africa in the. 1970s and1980s have turned out to be emharrassing failures. The failure of Asian Green Revolution models to take root in Africa has spurred donors to increase their support for strengthening Africa's national agricultural research systems (NARs) (Byerlee and Alex 1998) and to intensify research on Africa's major food staples: maize, cassava, sorghum, rice, wheat, millet, yam, and banana.'Maize is Africa's most important food crop, and it has been studied extensively and is held up as a model food crop to meet Africa's growing urban demand for convenient food products (Mellor, Delgado, and Blackie Cassava and Alliea's Food Crisis 1987 ;Blackie 1990;Byerlee and Eicher 1997). Yet maize production is risky because of undependable rainfall, and development of irrigation for maize production is not technically and financially feasible for most African countries. With this background, we pose the q';estion: why cassava?WIly C._va? .The dramatic cassava transformation that is under way in Nigeria and Ghana is Africa's best-kept secret. This transformation describes how the new Tropical Manioc Selection (TMS) varieties have changed cassava from a low-yielding famine-reserve crop to a high-yielding cash crop that is prepared and consumed as a dry cereal (gari). 2 This book focuses on the cassava transformation for two important reasons. First, cassava is Africa's second-most important food staple in terms of per capita calories consumed. Cassava is a major source of calories for roughly two out of every five Africans. In some countries, cassava is consumed daily, and sometimes more than once per day. In the Congo, cassava contributes more than one thousand calories per person per day to the average diet, and many families eat cassava for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Cassava is consumed with a sauce made with ingredients rich in protein, vitamins, and minerals. In the Congo and Tanzania, cassava leaves are consumed as a vegetable. Cassava leaves are rich in protein, vitamins, and minerals.Second, the literature on cassava, however, is out of date and laden with long-standing myths and half-truths. For ex~mple, only two books have been published on cassava in Africa in the past forty years: Manioc in Africa by W. O. Jones (1959) and Cassava in Shifting Cultivation by L O. Fresco (1986).' Today, cassaVa is a marginalized crop in food policy debates because it is burdened with the stigma of being an inferior, lowprotein food that is uncompetitive with such glamour crops as imported rice and wheat. Many food policy analysts consider cassava an inferior food because it is assumed that its per capita consumption will decline with increasing per capita incomes.This book describes how the new TMS cassava varieties have transformed cassava from a low-yielding famine-reserve crop to a high-yieldingThe Cassava Transformation cash crop. With the aid of mechanical graters to prepare gari, cassava is increasingly being produced and processed as a cash crop for urban consumption in Nigeria and Ghana. This book unveils the secret of the cassava transformation and points out the potential of cassava for feeding Africa, helping the poor, and generating f';reign exchange from the sale of cassava as an industrial raw material and as livestock feed.This book addresses three audiences. First, it presents comprehensive information on the cassava industry in six African countries to help enlighten African policy makers on the importance of investing in increasing the productivity of the cassava industry and driving down the real (inflation-adjusted) cost of cassava to rural and urban consumers. Second, the book is aimed at researchers working on cassava, including specialists in biochemistry, plant breeding, agronomy, farm mechanization, processing, and nutrition. Third, the book is designed to inform members of international and donor agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that cassava has the potential to increase farm incomes, reduce rural and urban poverty, and help close the food gap. Without question, cassava holds great promise for feeding Africa's growing population. With the aid of the new TMS varieties, smallholders (small-scale family farms) are getting 40 percent higher yields without fertilizer. We shall show in subsequent chapters that cassava can be produced with family labor, land, and a hoe and machete, making it an attractive and low-risk crop for poor farmers. Also, cassava is available to lowincome rural households in the form of simple food products (for example, dried roots and fresh leaves), which are significandy cheaper than grains such as rice, maize, and wheat. In addition, urban households in many parts of West Africa consume cassava in the form of gari (granulated cassava), a convenient food product.Cassava has several other advantages over rice, maize, and other grains as a food staple in areas where there is a degraded resource base, uncertain rainfall, and weak market infrastructure. Whereas cassava can be grO\\\\'ll under a wide range of ecological conditions, rice has a narrow ecological adaptation in Africa. Although upland rice varieties are currendy being developed, the best available varieties, in terms of yield and Cassava and Africa's Food C,isis grain quality, are wetland varieties. Yet wetland (irrigated or flooded) areas are limited in Africa, and most such lands are expensive to develop (Federal Agricultural Coordinating Unit 1986).Cassava is drought tolerant, and this attribute makes it the most suitable food crop during periods of drought and famine_ Cassava has historically played an important famine-reserve role in Eastern and Southern Africa, where maize is the preferred food staple and drought is a recurrent problem. In the 1920s and 1930s, the British colonial authorities were concerned about the frequent famines in the grain-consuming areas of Eastern and Southern Africa, which were caused by drought and locusts. The colonial governments encouraged local fanners to plant cassava as a famine-reserve crop and established cassava research programs in Tanzania (formally Tanganyika) and in other colonies to find a solution to the cassava mosaic virus disease. Cassava has now come to playa leading role in African agriculture, not only as a famine-reserve crop, but also as a cash crop for urban consumption.Cassava (Manihot esculenta Cranz), variously designated as manioc, mandioc, tapioca, or yucca is a perennial woody shrub of the Euphorbiacae family.4 It is grown principally for its swollen roots but its leaves are also eaten in some parts of Africa. The roots are from 25 to 35 percent starch; the leaves, though unimportant as a source of calories, contain a significant amount of protein and other nutrients. Cassava is adapted to the zone within latitudes 30° north and south of the equator, at elevations of not more than two thousand meters above sea level, in temperatures ranging from 18°C to 25°C; to rainfall of fifty to five thousand millimeters annually; and to poor soils with a pH from 4 to 9 (fig. 1.1).Cassava was introduced into Africa by Portuguese traders from Brazil in the sixteenth century. A native of South America and Southern, and Western Mexico, cassava was one of the first crops to be domesticated.There is archeological evidence that it wi's growtl,in Peru four thousand years ago and in Mexico some two ihousand years ago (Okigbo 1980).The Cassava Transformat ion Figu\", 1.1. ,,\",as of Cassava Production in Alliea. s.un:.: O/dgbo /9/IIlFrom Mid-and South America, cassava spread to the West Coast of Africa and the Congo in the late sixteenth century, probably in slave ships. The technique of making gari from cassava roots was introduced in Sao Tome about 1780, a djscovery that aided in the ctiffusion of cassava in West Africa. Cassava was introduced into Ea t Africa (Madagascar and Zanzibar) via Reuruon by the end of the eighteenth century. It was widely grown in Africa and Southeast Asia by the 1850s (Okigbo 1980) .The diffusion of cassava can be described as a self-spreading innovation in African agriculture. It was initially adopted about four hundred years ago as a famine-reserve crop. In the Congo, where the crop was first introduced, millet, banana, and yam were the traditional staples but fanners adopted cassava because it provided a more reliable source' of food during drought, locust attack, and the \"hungry season.'\" Although there was some local trade in cassava, production was mostly for home consumption and cassava was prepared in the simplest fashion, that is, by slicing and boiling (Jones 1959).Currently, about half of the world production of cassava comes from o It has a relatively high yield and is a low-cost source of calories. It can produce more carbohydrates per hectare than any other food staple and can be harvested as needed.o It can be planted at any time of the year, provided there is enough moisture for stem cuttings to take root. Cassava roots can be left in the ground and harvested from six to forty-eight month; from planting (OkigbQ 1980).The Cassava Transformalion The Cassava TransformationThe Cassava TransformationTraditionally, cassava is produced on small-scale family farms. The roots are processed and prepared as a subsistence crop for home consumption and for sale in village markets and shipment to urban centers.Over the past thirty to fifty years, smallholders in Nigeria and Ghana have increased the production of cassava as a cash crop, primarily for urban markets. This shift from production for home consumption to commercial production for urban consumers, livestock feed, and industrial uses can be described as the cassava transformation. During this transformation, high-yielding cassava varieties have been developed to increase yields while labor-saving and improved-processing technologies have reduced the cost of producing and processing cassava food products to the point where they are competitive with food grains such as wheat, sorghum, and rice for urban consumers. Looking ahead, as threatened by drought. Yet, after the drought is over, most governments curtail these special extension programs. As a result, there is little continuity in research and extension, and cassava farmers are typically forced to rely on a farmer-to-farmer exchange of varieties, especially those that extend the storage life of cassava in the ground .• Stage II: Rural Food StapleIn the rural food staple stage, cassava is the main source of calories in the diets of rural consumers, and farmers plant local varieties with low genetic potential and achieve low yields. Production, harvesting, and processing tasks are carried out manually, and farm households consume most of the output. The Congo is currently in the rural food staple stage because poor roads, grinding poverty, and political chaos have kept the rural people locked into a virtual subsistence agriculture. Cassava is consumed mostly as dried roots, and cassava leaves are the main vegetable in rural diets. In most of the Cote d'Ivoire and Uganda, where tree crops such as cocoa and coffee are grown, farmers grow cassava as their main food staple because tree crop production requires peak labor inputs, mainly at planting and harvesting while cassava production does not require seasonal labor. Cassava roots are boiled and eaten because sundrying of cassava roots is an inefficient method in the forest zone .An African nation is in the urban food staple stage of the cassava transformation when cassava is produced primarily as a cash crop and processed mostly for sale in urban markets. Both Nigeria and Ghana are in the urban food staple stage of the transformation. In these countries commercial production and processing of cassava products for urban markets is driven by high-yielding cassava varieties, increasing urban demand for food, availability of improved rural roads for the transport of cassava to urban market centers, and government policies that encourage the substitution of cassava products for imported rice and wheat. In Nigeria, for example, high-yielding TMS cassava varieties have increased onfarm yields by 40 percent without fertilizer. These varieties are resistantThe Cassava Transformation to common cassava pests and diseases and they have helped increase farm incomes and reduce rural and urban poverty.During the urban food staple stage, cassava is produced and processed into a variety of low-cost, convenient food products for sale in urban centers and foreign markets. The technological requirements for a nation to move to the urban food staple stage include high-yielding and early-bulking cassava varieties that can be harvested at fewer than twelve months; mechanization of harvesting and some processing tasks to improve labor productivity; and the development of an array of convenient cassava food products, such as cassava chips and food snacks.• During this stage, private firms assume a greater role in supplying to farmers planting materials; mechanized services for processing tasks; and marketing services. Private food processing firms also undertake research and development activities leading to new cassava food products .The cassava industry advances to the livestock feed and industrial raw material stage in countries where the production, processing, and marketing costs are reduced enough to enable African cassava to compete in global industrial starch and livestock feed markets. However, cassava has not advanced to the livestock feed and industrial raw material stage in any African country. The preconditions for a country to advance to the livestock feed and industrial raw material stage call for labor-saving production and processing technologies, early-bulking varieties that are suitable for mechanized harvesting and peeling, and improved drying. facilities. An efficient and well-integrated production and marketing system is also necessary, to assure a steady supply of cassava products to domestic industries and European markets. Public and private investments in research and development are also required to develop cassava products for industrial uses. Private sector initiative is required to supply planting materials and processing and marketing services.This discussion has traced the evolution of the cassava industry in Africa through the first three stages-famine reserve, rural food staple, and urban food staple--of the cassava transformation. Presently, Tanzania is at the first stage of the cassava transformation; the Congo, the Cote dlvoire, and Uganda are at the second stage; and Nigeria and Ghana are in the third stage of the transformation. As previously mentioned, there are currendy no African nations in the fourth stage of the transformation.African policy makers and members of the international donor agencies• and NGas are searching for a solution to the continent's food production crisis. Yet basic information is lacking on cassava's growing conditions and the economics of production, processing, and marketing. There is also a dearth of information on market opportunities for expanding the use of cassava in industrial markets and for livestock feed in Africa and in Europe.Many of the available production statistics are, at best, educated guesses. Thus, policy makers and donor agencies are left in doubt about the crucial importance of cassava in the African food econonties, while plant-breeding research on the crop is being carried out with litde knowledge of the agronomic, processing, and marketing problems faced by the small-scale farmers and traders.A major study of cassava, the Collaborative Study of Cassava in Africa (hereafter the caSCA study) was carried out from 1989 to 1997 under the aegis of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (UTA) in Ibadan, Nigeria. The study was financed by the Rockefeller Foundation and the IITA.Over the period from 1989 to 1995, caSCA researchers collected primary data in six African countries where roughly 70 percent of the total cassava production in Africa takes place: the Congo, the Cilte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda. These countries will hereafter be referred to as the six caSCA study countries. The data collected included information on cassava production systems, processing and food preparation methods, market prospects, and consumption patterns. This information will be used to help develop improved food policies and research and extension programs in order to accelerateThe Cassava Transforma1ion the cassava transformation and ultimately increase food security and incomes of the people of Africa.The COSCA research team collected information in the six study countries at the village, household, and field levels as follows:• Level E. Characterization of cassava-producing areas at the village level:-Environment (physical, social, economic)-Production -Processing -Marketing• Level II. Cassava production at the field level:-Land area -Production practices -Input/output -Yield -Utilization (sale/home use, processing/fresh use)• Level III. Detailed studies on post-harvest issues at the household and market levels:-ProcessingComprehensive data covering Levels I, II, and III were collected from 281, villages in the six countries under study. The locations of these villages are shown in figure 1.2. The methods of the study are presented in appendix 1.The information provided in this book is taken from the six COSCA study countries, supplemented with secondary data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and information collected from African farmers, researchers, traders, and processors throughout Africa from the beginning of the COSCA study in 1989 to Chapter 2 is devoted to a discussion of five common myths and half-truths that have contributed to the low priority that cassava has been given in African research and food production programs. These mYlhs and balftrulhs help explain why cassava has received only token and periodic suppon from donors. Evidence is marshaled to show that lhese myths and half-tnllhs are based on misconceptions and out-of-date information.Chapter 3 pulls together data from Africa. Asia. aDd Latin America to show the five imponant roles lhat cassava can play in African development: famine-reserve crop. rural food s taple. cash crop for urbanThe Cassa ... a Transformalion consumption, industrial raw material (e.g., cassava starch), and earner of foreign exchange through the export of cassava pellets for livestock feed in Africa and Europe. Chapter 4 describes cassava production, highlighting the factors that have influenced its historical development in Africa. Chapter 5 deals with the historical evolution of genetic research on cassava in Africa through the joint efforts of farmers, the private sector, national agricultural research systems (NARs), and the International Agricultural Research Centers (lARCs). Special attention is devoted to tracing the fascinating history of cassava breeding in Africa, including the story of how IITA cassava breeders drew on varieties resistant to mosaic virus that had been developed in the 1930s by British colonial researchers at the famous East African Agricultural and Forestry Research Station at Amani (hereafter the Amani research station) in Tanzania (formally Tanganyika). Under the distinguished leadership of Dr. Sang Ki Hahn at UTA in Ibadan, Nigeria, high-yielding TMS varieties were developed by crossing the Amani varieties with West African cassava varieties. Without doubt, the high-yielding TMS varieties have fueled the cassava transformation, especially in Nigeria and Ghana. The TMS varieties developed by Dr. S. K. Hahn and his colleagues have boosted on-farm yields by 40 percent without the addition of fertilizer.Without question, the new TMS varieties can help Africa solve the continent's chronic food deficit, especially in countries where cassava is a food staple. But there is still a need for a great deal of public and private research and investment in developing improved harvesting and food preparation technologies. Research is also needed in new cassava food products as well as improved types of cassava starch to compete with maize, rice, and other types of starch for industrial uses such as paint and plastic.Chapter 6 is devoted to a discussion of COSCA findings on agronomic field practices such as weeding, spacing, fallow management, and the like, and how they are modified over time by the farmers in response to changes in population pressure, market demand, and pests and diseases problems. Chapter 7 discusses the diffusion and profitability of the IITXs new TMS varieties and shows that the spread of these varieties has been accelerated v.-jth the introduction of labor-saving processing technology.Cassava and Africa's Food Crisis Chapters 8 and 9 discuss the traditional processing and food preparation practices and show how improved cassava processing technology has induced an expansion in cassava production. The two chapters call for the diffusion of improved gari preparation methods throughout cassava-producing countries in Africa. Chapter 10 challenges the half-truth that cassava is a women's crop by presenting evidence that as cassava is transformed into a commercial crop, both men and women play significant roles in production and processing. However, women play the dominant role in food preparation during each of the four stages of the cassava transformation.Chapter 11 challenges the myth that cassava is an \"inferior food\" by presenting empirical evidence from rural household consumer surveys by the COSCA researchers in Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda and urban household consumer surveys by other researchers in Nigeria and Ghana. The results of these surveys reveal high-income elasticities of demand for cassava in rural and urban areas, and show that cassava is a food staple of low-, middle-, and high-income households. The results of the surveys also show that the type of cassava product consumed varies by income level. Low-income rural households, for example, consume cassava in its cheapest forms, such as dried roots, while middle-and high-income rural households and all t}pes of urban households consume the crop in convenient food forms, such as gari.Using Nigeria as a case study, chapter 12 examines what needs to be done to increase the use of cassava in livestock feed and as industrial raw material. Special attention is given to use of cassava starch in the textile, pharmaceutical, and petroleum drilling industries; use of cassava syrup concentrate in the soft drink industry; and use of dried cassava roots in the beer malt, alcohol, and ethanol industries.Chapter 13 synthesizes the results of the eight-year COSCA study and shows that the cassava transformation that is under way in Nigeria and Ghana has turned cassava into a cash crop that has a large potential for meeting the food security needs of the rising urban population in Africa. Forty years ago W. O. Jones (1959) reported that cassava was a controversial crop in Africa and the subject of heated disagreement among academic specialists. The advocates of cassava praised it because it produced the largest number of calories per hectare of any crop and could be grown on poor soils and withstand severe attacks of drought, pests, and diseases. These attributes explain why many colonial governments encouraged and, in some cases, forced smallholders to, grow the crop.At the same time, however, many critics pointed out that cassava often contains lethal quantities of cyanogens (prussic acid), which can kill humans and animals. The critics also noted that cassava is deficient in protein and that its high yields impoverish the soil. Finally. the critics contended that cassava was a \"women's crop,\" which was produced and consumed by impoverished rural households. These criticisms explain why many African policy specialists since independence have been preoccupied with increasing the production of wheat and rice to feed Africa's urban population. In fact, the historical bias in favor of rice and wheat in food policy circles is palpable and disconcerting. In 1958, for example, The Cassava Transformation Johnston described rice as the \"glamour crop\" of West Africa (1958, 226). Later, Jones reported that African consumers described wheat flour as a \"delicacy\" (1972,28).Today, four decades after Jones's seminal book on cassava in Africa, the debate over cassava is still heated, and marked by many myths, halftruths, and misunderstandings. In this chapter, we critically discuss these debates and draw on COSc.~s rich empirical database to \"update\" the cassava story to the present year.Historically, with 90 to 95 percent of the people in Africa engaged in fanning, cassava has been a subsistence crop. Today, although only one-half to two-thirds of the people of Africa live in rural areas, there is still a myth that cassava is primarily a subsistence crop, grown for home consumption by farmers and rural net food buyers.The COSCA studies, however, challenge this myth and show that cassava is increasingly becoming a cash crop which smallholders sell to rural and urban consumers. The percentages of cassava fields planted for sale in the six COSCA countries were as follows: the Congo,59; the Cote d 'Ivoire,51;Ghana,57;Nigeria,45;Tanzania,32;and Uganda,25. In the Congo, the proportion of cassava planted for sale was higher than for any other crop (Tollens 1992). In Nigeria, the Congo, and elsewhere, there are small-scale farms that produce five to ten hectares of cassava entirely for sale (Berry 1993).An average of 40 percent of the sample villages in the six COSCA countries sold cassava in the fields before harvesting; 15 percent sold the crop at home after harvesting; and 45 percent sold it in village markets after harvesting. Thirty-five percent of the same villages sold fresh cassava roots to traders, 20 percent sold to processors, and 45 percent sold directly to consumers as their most frequent buyers. The traders and the processors resold cassava in urban markets.In Nigeria, farmer access to production credit has led to an increase in cassava planting for the market. For example, in 1991 the COSCA fanners in Nigeria who secured credit for cassava production sold 56 percent of their total cassava production, while those who did not use credit sold only 40 percent. About 30 percent of the COSCA study fanners in Nigeria secured credit in 1991, all of it from informal credit sources such as the traditional moneylenders and the cassava traders. The traditional moneylenders charged excessively high interest rates. The cassava traders required, as a condition for their credit, that the cassava be sold to them (Ay 1991).The COSCA data from 281 villages throughout Africa dismiss the myth that cassava is a subsistence crop produced by and for rural households, because cassava is increasingly being transformed into a cash crop that is produced and marketed as an urban food staple in many countries in Amca.Historically, many scholars have asserted that cassava depletes the soil.For example, Hendershott et al. report that \"cassava is well known not only for producing large quantities of carbohydrate, but also for exhausting the soil\" (1972,60). Similar assertions have been made by Davesne (1950), Irvine (1953), and Grace (1977). Soil fertility is a subject of major importance in a discussion of expanding food production in Amca (International Institute of Tropical Agriculture 1998). Human-induced land degradation is severe in Africa, with soil scientists reporting that 30 percent of the agricultural land, pastures, forests, and woodlands are degraded. Numerous researchers have claimed that a lack of replenishment of nutrients is leading to rapid deterioration in soil fertility. Fertilizer use is low because of high transport costs, late delivery, and the risks associated with food production in marginal areas (Pinstrup-Anderson et aI. 1999).To test the hypothesis that cassava depletes the soil, COSCA researchers collected soil samples from 1.501 fields planted to staple crops in 281 villages in the cassava-growing areas of the Congo, the Cote dTvoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda. The soil samples collected over the The Cassava Transformation 1991 to 1992 period revealed that the amount of clay, silt, and sand in the soil did not differ between cassava fields and those of other crops.l In fact, soils of cassava fields were higher in total Nitrogen, organic matter, Calcium, Sodium, total exchangeable bases, effective cation exchange capacity, and pH. ' The myth of cassava being a soil nutrient-depleting crop may be attributed to the fact that cassava is widely grown in the forest zone, where high rainfall and sandy soil cause organic matter decomposition, leaching, and soil erosion to occur at a faster rate than in the transition and the savanna zones. 3 For example, an eight-year experiment in the forest zone of Ghana revealed that cassava yields declined under a continuous rotation of cassava and maize with fertilizer. In the transition zone, a similar experiment was carned out without the application of fertilizer, and cassava yields declined at a slower rate than in the forest zone (Nye andGreenland 1960, cited in Odurukwe andOji 1981).A twenty-year cassava yield experiment conducted by S. K. Hahn at the IITXs high rainfall station at ibadan in the transition zone from the early 1970s until the early 1990s found that the yield dropped significantly from an average of 40 tons per hectare during the first four years and then stabilized at around 20 tons per hectare from the fifth to the twentieth year. 4 In this experiment the cassava was grown every other year in a twoyear rotation without chemical fertilizer. Hahn concluded that cassava produces a large amount of foliage which is recycled as manure to the soil. Hahn's landmark twenty-year study shows that cassava yields are sustainable under continuation cultivation. s The COSCA soil sUIVey and..Hahn's twenty-year yield experiment provide evidence that the assertion that cassava depletes the soil is a half-truth.The myth of cassava as a soil nutrient-depleting crop has been used to downgrade cassava's role as an environmentally friendly crop. Cassava cultivation entails minimal soil disturbance, especially in light soils, which are susceptible to wind or water erosion. 6 The plant provides soil cover so long as it grows; as a semiperennial it does not shed all its leaves with senescence. As a semiperennial, cassava plants serve as a planted fallow; although there are places, especially in high population density and market center areas, where cassava is harvested from six to twelve months after planting, the normal time of harvest is twelve months or more after planting. The cassava plant protects the soil by providing cover and recycles nutrients by shedding old leaves as it grows.To summarize, the evidence on cassava and soil nutrient depletion is mixed. The COSCA soil studies in the six study countries reveal that soil nutrients are as high in cassava fields as in fields of other crops. Hahn's twenty-year cassava yield experiment shows that cassava yields decline for the first four years and then stabilize for the next sixteen years.Yet the evidence on cassava and soil fertility in the forest zone shows that cassava yields declined (even with the application of fertilizer) over the eight-year period of the experiment. This decline in cassava yield is similar to decline in other food crop yields in the forest zone. In light of these findings, we can state that it is half-truth to assert that cassava ruins the soil.In 1970, Esther Boserup published an influential book that dramatized the role of women in development. Boserup  Recently, the World Bank reported that African women perform 90 percent of the work of hoeing and weeding (World Bank 2000). Furthermore, cassava has been described as a \"women's crop\" by some scholars (Ikpi 1989a(Ikpi , 1989b;;OkOlji 1983). Okorji (1983), for example, found that in the Abakaliki area of southeast Nigeria women owned more cassava fields than men l and thus concluded that cassava is a \"women's crop.\"COSCA researchers collected data from six countries and found that the categorization of cassava as a \"women's crop\" is a misleading halftruth that is based on anecdotal evidence and isolated village studies. The COSCA studies show that the proportion of the household cassava field area (hereafter field) owned by women ranged from 4 percent in the Congo to 24 percent in the Cote d'Ivoire. 7 By contrast, the proportion of cassava fields owned by men ranged from 15 percent in the COte d'Ivoire to 72 percent in Uganda and 81 percent in Nigeria. Joint ownership by both men and women accounted for the balance of the percentages in each country Table 2.1 points up the larger proportion of cassava field. owned by men in five of the six COSCA study countries.There is an important exception. however, in tree crop-dominated rural 'economies. Among the six COSCA countries, only in the Cote d'Ivoire did women own a higher proportion of the cassava fields than did men. In the Cote d'Ivoire and in most other tree crop-dominant farming systems, the men concentrate on producing tree crops such as cocoa and coffee. The COSCA study showed that women owned significantly more cassava fields in tree crop-producing households in most of the six COSCA countries (table 2.2). Hence, although there are specific locations  • the tree crop is all pam to the tree crops are cocoa, coffee, or oil palm. EvelY COSCA study village in COte d'lv(:lIre produced at least one tree crop c the tree crops are cocoa or coffee.in certain countries where women 0\\\\'11 more cassava fields than do men (Okorji 1983;Ezumah and Domenico 1995), these locations are exceptions and not the norm.The COSCA study also found that cassava yields were lower (11.0 tons per hectare) in women's fields as compared to an average of 13.2 tons per hectare among men's fields for the six COSCA countries. The lower ca,ssava yield in the women's fields is due to lower soil fertility and to earlier harvesting of cassava in these fields relative to men's fields. 8 Previous studies have shown that women are often allocated land of inferior soil f~rtil ity (Palmer- Jones 1991). The COSCA study found that, on average for the six countries, the mean age of cassava fields at harvest was lower among women's fields (12.9 months after planting) than among men's fields (15.7 months after planting). Women often grow cassava near the farm households because of easy access to cassava roots for food preparation and convenience in weeding in combination with housekeeping and childcare.The COSCA studies show that the assertion that casSava is a \"women's crop\" in Africa is not valid, because men are more important in terms of the ownership of cassava fields. The myth is also rejected because in terms of work in cassava fields, men produce more cassava than women in most of the COSCA-studied households. We shall show in figure 10.2 that as a country moves through the cassava transformation stages, men devote more time to cassava production, processing, and marketing.To summarize, the common assertion that cassava is a women's crop is a half-truth. The whole truth is that cassava is also a men's crop. As the cassava transformation proceeds, the division of labor between women and men changes and men play increasingly significant roles in cassava production, processing, and marketing. That cassava is a men's crop is an important half-truth. The same holds true for women. Together, the two half-truths point up the need to understand the dynamics of the changing division of labor between men and women as the cassava transformation proceeds.Cassava contains cyanogenic glucosides in the form of linamarin and, to a lesser extent, lotaustralin. The amount of cyanogenic glucosides varies with the part of the plant, its age, variety, and such environmental conditions as soil moisture, temperature, and the like (Nartey 1977). Some varieties have been long designated as sweet or.bitter,\" purportedly in relation to their cyanogenic glucoside content. The sweet varieties are believed to be lower in cyanogenic glucosides than are the bitter varieties. However, chemical analysis of various parts of the cassava plant at different stages of development indicates that, at times, no significant differences exist between comparable parts of sweet and bitter varieties. The phellodam of sweet varieties may contain cyanogenic glUCOSide, while the fleshy cotex may contain none (Nartey 1977). However, the traditional methods of cassava processing and preparation as food usually remove most of the free cyanide, thus eliminating the danger of toxicity. Cases of cyanide exposure (Osuntokun 1981) and acute intoxication have been reported, butThe Cassava Transformation such cases are extremely rare. Potentially more serious is the possibility of chronic toxicity associated with the habitual consumption of large quantities of cassava products or with consumption of insufficiently processed cassava when the diet is deficient in protein. Osuntokun (1973) provjded evjdence that indicated chronic cyanide intoxication of dietary origin as the major etiological factor in tropical ataxic neuropathy (TAN) in Nigerians. 10 Yet most Nigerians who consume cassava do not develop the disease, because of the way the cassava is prepared,ll because of variation in biological susceptibility among indivjduals, and because of variations in consumption of other food items and supplements, especially animal protein.Cyanide 'exposure from insufficiently processed cassava has been implicated as a factor in paralysis of both legs (epidemic spastic paraphrasis) reported in drought-stricken areas of Mozambique where the population consumed high levels of insufficiently dried cassava roots and a low level of protein supplements (Rosling 1986). Here, however, the toxicity of the cassava can be seen to be the lesser of two evjls. Cassava was the only crop to survive drought in the early 1980s. Owing to a lack of other food, the roots, which had a high cyanide content, were eaten without the normal soaking and sun-drying to reduce toxicity. As the drought progressed, a shortage of cassava also occurred and hunger-edema and deaths from starvation were observed in the area but no more cases of paralysis. The extensive cultivation of toxic cassava varieties in the area thus proved to be a safeguard against famine, savjng thousands from dying of starvation. Although cyanide exposure from insufficiently. processed cassava may have been implicated in the deaths of some in the drought-stricken area, the bottom line is that without cassava, the entire population could have been decimated by famine.Since cassava constitutes a staple crop with a high yield and known resistance to drought and pests, a reduction of its cultivation due to fear of toxic effects may deprive families of badly needed calories. If, on the other hand, cassava productivjty and farm incomes can be raised, more families will be in a position to purchase the protein-rich foods they sobadly need (Omawale and Rodrigues 1980). Since caloric intake is still a limiting factor in the diet of many people in Africa, cassava can play a very important role in meeting family food security needs.Only under very special circumstances are toxic effects to be feared. It is important to publicize these effects in order to minimize their occurrence, yet the fact of their existence should not discourage low-income smallholders from taking full advantage of the agricultural potential that cassava offers to them (Rosling 1986).To summarize, some cassava varieties contain cyanogens_ Yet it is scientifically unjustified to condemn cassava as a lethal food, unfit for human consumption. With proper processing, the cyanogen level can be reduced to a tolerable range and cassava can become a \"normal\" part of a family's consumption pattern.There is a long-standing debate on the nutritional value of cassava because it contains only 1 or 2 percent protein and is low in minerals and some essential vitamins. Some nutritionists have argued that since the diets of most Africans are low in protein, the consumption of cassava should be discouraged (Brock 1955;Nicol 1954). Latham (1979) argues that cassava's increasing popularity and spread should be a cause for concern because it contains primarily carbohydrates. Of these carbohydrates, 64 to 72 percent are made up of starch (table 2.3). About 17 percent sucrose is found in sweet varieties, and small quantities of fructose and dextrose have been reported (Hendershott et aI. 1972).Peeling results in the loss of part of the valuable protein content of the root because the peel contains more protein than is found in the root flesh. Fermentation of the roots results in protein enrichment to 6 percent (S. K Hahn 1989). Cassava root is reasonably rich in calcium and vitamin C, but large pr0portions of thiamin, riboflavin, and niacin are lost during processing.Cassava leaves are much richer in protein than the roots. Although the leaves contain-far less methionine than the roots, the levels of all otherThe Cassava Transformation  essential amino acids exceed the FAD's recommended reference protein intake (Okigbo 1980).However, the low level of protein in cassava need not be a cause for concern if cassava is eaten v.ith supplementary foods. The protein problem is dramatized when consumers are so poor that they are unable to afford to purchase other foods in order to achieve a balanced diet. For example, in the Congo, cassava root consumption contributed an average of 1,043 calories per day per person or about 55 percent of total daily calorie intake in 1992-96 (FAOSTAT). Cassava is the food security crop for most people in the Congo, and many people probably would not survive without it.Which is more important: calories or protein? Platt, a nutritionist, has argued that \"the first stage in the arithmetic is not in fact protein arithmetic but calorie arithmetic. A first step is to secure more food for the people so they can do more work\" (Platt 1954, 136). A COSCA case study in the Congo illustrates this point.In 1991, the lack of a balanced diet and cassava toxicity were on The quality of life was pathetically low in the village, yet the villagers surrendered the best huts to COSCA researchers for the night. The COSCA researchers chose not to sleep, however, because of swarms of mosquitoes. In spite of the tropical heat and humidity, the researchers made a big fire in the open and sat up all night to ward off the mosquitoes. The children played in the moonlight late into the night, as if they were immune to the pain of their chigger-swollen toes. In the morning, the village people sent one of the farmers across the river by canoe to buy chicken and plantain, which they cooked for the COSCA researchers.One could praise cassava for providing a cheap source of calories to people living in a Stone Age environment or one could criticize it because it is deficient in protein. After interviewing rural families in 281 villages across Africa, COSCA researchers pragmatically praise cassava for its contribution as the cheapest source of calories of any food grown in Africa. Yet farmers and traders in this Congolese village need improved year-round roads so that they can earn cash by selling cassava to urban consumers and use some of the increased income to purchase proteinrich foods.The conclusion that follows from these observations is that it is a mistake to classify cassava as a nutritionally deficient food. Instead of being criticized, cassava should be praised because it is the cheapest source of calories for the poor. Moreover, cassava can be supplemented with other foods rich in protein. We agree with nutritionists that cassava is deficientThe Cassava Transformation in protein and vitamins, but instead of discouraging cassava production and consumption because the plant is low in protein, policy makers should focus on increasing the incomes of the poor so that they can purchase protein-rich foods to supplement their diets.We have examined five strongly held cassava myths and half-truths. The myth that cassava is primarily a subsistence crop was valid in the past, when 90 to 95 percent of the people of Africa were occupied in farming. Currently, however, 40 percent of the African people live in urban areas, while only 60 percent live in rural areas. Africa is changing and cassava is becoming an important cash crop. Today, cassava plays five important roles in African development: famine-reserve crop, rural food staple, cash crop for both rural and urban households, and, to a minor extent, raw material for feed and chemical industries. The COSCA data show that one-third to two-thirds of cassava planted in Africa is destined for urban markets. In Ghana, for example, roughly 60 percent of the cassava planted is being sold as a cash crop. The COSCA study shows that cassava is a food staple in low-, middle-, and upper-income households in both rural and urban areas.We have marshaled farm-level and experimental evidence to discredit the myth that cassava is a soil degrader. The COSCA soil studies show that soils in cassava fields, some of which have been under continuous cultivation for at least ten year.s, are as fertile as soils of fields under cultiva-' tion with other crops.The strongly held view by many donor agencies and NGO representativesthat cassava is a \"women's crop' is an important half-truth. Equally important is the half-truth that cassava is also a \"men's crop.\" The COSCA studies have shown that both men and women produce cassava. Furthermore, in most countries women do not produce more cassava than do men, in terms of cassava field ownership or work in cassava fields. Men are increasingly involved in cassava production, processing, and marketing as the cassava transformation process unfolds in Africa.The concern that some cassava varieties contain cyanogens, which are lethal, is also a half-truth. The cyanogens can be eliminated during processing by using well-known traditional processing methods such as peeling, grating, and toasting or soaking in water for four or five days and drying in the sun. Several other crops, including yam, taro, banana (or plantain), beans, and peas are also lethal if eaten without proper preparation. Today, the cases of cyanide poisoning are rare, and the fear of it should not discourage public or private investment in the cassava food economy.Many critics claim that cassava is a nutritionally deficient food because of its low protein and vitamin content. However, one does not declare beef to be a nutritionally deficient food because it has a low carbohydrate content. The level of carbohydrate in cassava is an advantage in Africa because it makes cassava the cheapest source of food calories.Without question, the challenge ahead is to increase the efficiency of cassava production, harvesting, and processing in order to drive down the cost of cassava to consumers, especially the poor. This is an important but neglected issue in food policy debates in Africa. We reject the myth that cassava is a nutritionally inferior food.These five myths and half-truths constitute a great deal of misinformation which discourages African governments and donors from investing in speeding up the cassava transformation. It is hoped that the COSCA findings will help African policy makers and scientists to recognize the important role cassava can play in anti-poverty and food security programs.Cassava plays a number of different but equally important roles in African development, depending on tbe stage of tbe cassava transformation in a particular country. Among tbese roles are: famine reseIVe, ruraI food staple, cash crop, urban food staple, industrial raw material, and livestock feed. However, tbe bulk of cassava production in Africa is consumed as food. After accounting for waste, 93 percent of Africa's cassava production in tbe mid-1990s was consumed as food, 6, percent was used as livestock feed, and only 1 percent was used as industrial raw material. By contrast, 48 percent of tbe cassava production in Asia during tbe same period was consumed as food, 40 percent used for export, 8 percent used as livestock feed, and 4 percent used as industrial raw material (International Fund for Agricultural Development and Food and Agriculture Organization of tbe United Nations 2000). In this chapter. we shall discuss tbe three major roles tbat cassava is currently playing in African development: famine-reseIVe crop, ruraI food staple, and cash crop for urban consumers. We shall show tbat because of inefficient production and Cassava's role as a famine-reserve crop is one of the main reasons why the crop is so popular in Africa. Cassava is ideally suited to this role. It can be planted at any time of the year, and its harvesting can be delayed, if necessary, without a major change in the composition and quality of roots. Since cassava roots can be left in the ground for up to four years before harvesting, cassava is used by families as a reserve in case of drought and famine. This wide flexibility in planting and harvesting enables farmers to allocate their spare time to cassava after attending to more season-bound crops. In some countries, such as the Congo and Tanzania, women often remove a few roots from a plant in the home garden for a meal and allow the plant to continue growing.Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia, where maize is the primary food staple and cassava is grown as a cushion against the instability in maize production created by erratic rainfall. ' .. . thereafter, leading to what is widely known as the \"hungry season,\" a period of a few weeks or months before the harvest begins. Also, the price of crops such as maize are generally low immediately following the harvesting season and high during the hungry season, further restricting' their availability to the more impoverished. In Ghana, the average monthly retail price of maize from 1991 to 1995 was significandy higher from April to July (the hungry season) than in the balance of the year. By contrast, the retail price of gari was stable throughout the year (fig. 3.Without question, civil war and repressive governance both con• tribute to food insecurity. During periods of civil war, cassava has several advantages over most staple crops. The establishment cost of cassava pro- ground for several months and even up to four years without deterioration, there is a possibility that refugees can find their cassava fields unharvested upon their return home. Angola and Mozambique, for example, increased per capita cassava production from 1961 to 1997 while both were engaged in civil wars. These examples illustrate why cassava is \"3.food reserve crop par excellence! Nevertheless, despite cassava's proven role in increasing family food security and reducing poverty, most African governments are giving priority to research and extension programs on glamour crops such as maize, rice, and wheat rather than cassava. 1 Several examples illustrate this point. First, in Nigeria, government funding for research on root crops (cassava is the most important of the root crops) was three to four times more unstable than funding for research on grain from 1983 to 1995 (Idachaba 1998, 55). Second, when there is a threat of drought in countries where maize is the main food staple, such as Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi, or Zambia, the Ministry of Agriculture, often with donor support, quickly mobilizes its extension service and the NGO community to mount crash cassava production programs, which are usually abandoned soon after the drought is over. This is precisely the strategy pursued by the governments of Burundi, Ethiopia, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zambia, and other Southern and Central African countries during the drought of the mid-1980s and the EI Nino of the 1990s (Doku 1989;International Institute of Tropical Agriculture 1995 and1996;Mkumbira 1998;and Southern African Development Coordination Conference 1984).Without question, cassava is the dominant food staple in the Congo. Cassava accounted for roughly one-half (1,043 calories) of the calories consumed per person per day over the period from 1992 to 1996 (FAOSTAT).By contrast, the second most important food crop, maize, provided only 193 calories per person per day. Furthermore, the total number of calories from cassava in local diets is likely even higher than that listed above because the FAO consumption data do not include the contribution from cassava leaves, the most important vegetable in the country. Although a high cassava-root diet is often criticized because of its low protein content (1 to 2 percent), one should keep in mind that rural poverty constrains the ability of poor consumers to purchase the protein-rich foods that are needed to achieve a balanced diet. As a result, with roughly half their daily calorie intake coming from cassava, rural people in the Congo are exposed to cassava toxicity problems.because it is the cheapest source of calories and it helps the rural poor to Yet cassava's role as a rural food staple in tree crop and commercial yam production areas can be expanded to include a cash crop role as urban demand for cassava products increases. For example, from 1940 to 1950, the growth of oil-palm production in the Ngwa area of southeast Nigeria absorbed male labor, leaving food production increasingly to women, who planted cassava because of its high yield. The growth of towns and rural incomes throughout the region created a growing urban demand for food, which, in turn, attracted young men into cassava processing (Martin 1984). In the course of the COSCA field studies in Nigeria, the study team encountered a commercial yam-producing village in the Abakaliki area in the southeastern part of the country where the farmers had all agreed to intercrop cassava and yam because the income they earned from intercropping was higher than the income they had previously earned from monocropping of yam.The increasing urbanization and consumer demand for convenient food  Nota: US$1 ,00 = :266CFA; 430Cedi; 17Naira; :285Tsh.; 1118Ush.•Other crops means industrial crops such as cotton and tree crops sucn as cocoa, coHee, and oil palm.has emerged in many countries as an important cash crop for farmers and as an urban food staple. The COSCA team found that in Nigeria and Ghana, cassava selVes three roles: famine-reselVe crop; rural food staple;and cash crop, produced for sale to urban consumers. Table 3.1 shows that cassava is an important source of farm income in the COSCA study countries. In both Nigeria and Ghana, cassava cash incomes were highest among fanns with access to mechanized cassava processing equipment for the preparation of gari (table 3.2). The contribution of cassava to farm incomes was found to be low in Tanzania and U.ganda because the majority of farmers in these countries lacked access to mechanized cassava processing equipment. While the majority of farmers in Tanzania prepare cassava as dried roots, most farmers in Uganda consume the roots in fresh form. Since cassava roots are bulky (70 percent water content) and perishable. they are costly to transport by truck to urban markets. Therefore, in the Congo, cassava isThe Cassava Transformation usually processed and marketed as a dried root, which is loaded in boats along the Congo River and transported to the capital city of Kinshasa.Dried cassava roots have a limited market, however, because they require elaborate cooking-pounding, boiling, and stirring. As a result, dried cassava roots are not as attractive as gari to urban consumers.This discussion illustrates the need for measures to increase the productivity of the cassava food system in order to raise the income of farmers and those involved in processing and marketing and reduce the real cost of cassava for consumers over time.Cassava starch is a raw material used in numerous industries, but it faces stiff competition from starch that is derived from numerous other plant sources, including maize, potato, sago, wheat, sorghum, rice, and arrowroot. Starch from many different sources can in most cases be combined, and' it can be chemically modified to meet specific needs (Phillips 1973).Asia and Latin America (International Fund for Agricultural Development and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2000).However, it does not playa significant role as a source of industrial raw material in Africa because industries that use starch as raw material are few, and those that do exist are small. Hence, the demand for starch as a raw material is low in most African countries. Added to that is the problem of the high cost of cassava, which results from inefficient cassava production and processing methods.In Nigeria, industries using starch include petroleum drilling, iron mining, textile, adhesives, packaging, food manufacture, pharmaceuticals, and batteries. These industries had a combined annual demand in 1989 for 60,000 tons of starch, which was equivalent to 300,000 tons of fresh cassava roots and represented only 1.5 percent of Nigeria's annual cassava production (Nweke 1992). In Ghana, 0.2 percent of the total cassava production in 1988 would have met the entire demand for starch by all the textile mills in the country, even if the mills had utilized only local cassava starch (AI-Hassan 1992).In 1989, the five major cassava starch plants in Nigeria had a combined capacity to utilize 375,000 tons of fresh cassava roots and produce 75,000 tons of starch per year.3 Yet the largest plant was operated at only 20 percent of its installed capacity because of an inadequate and irregular supply of cassava roots. A number of cassava starch factories have been set up as government factories in countries such as Madagascar, Tanzania, and Uganda over the last two decades, yet these, too, are no longer operational because of an inadequate supply of cassava roots (International Fund for Agricultural Development and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2000). The bottom line is that locally produced cassava starch is not competitive with imported starch made from other plant sources because of high cassava production, processing, and transportation costs within Africa.Cassava is an ideal crop for the manufacture of biologically degradable polymers (bioplastics) made from renewable primary materials (Stoeckli 1998). Yet the use of cassava for this purpose will require new cassava varieties and new processing technologies. livestock FeedThe Cassava Transformation imported maize for this purpose. In Africa, only 6 percent of total cassava production was used as livestock feed in the mid-1990s. By contrast, in Latin America about half of the total cassava production during the same period was utilized as livestock feed (International Fund for Agricultural Development and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2000).Nigeria provides an interesting case study of how government policies can influence the use of cassava as a livestock feed. In 1985, the Nigerian government banned the importation of maize and compelled livestock feed mills to look for local crop sources such as cassava. As a result, the proportion of total cassava production used as livestock feed increased to 10 percent from 1991 to 1995, up from 3 percent in the period from 1986 to 1990 (FAOSTAT). Although the ban on maize importation was later lifted, it lasted long enough for the feed mills to make adjustments in their mills to utilize cassava pellets. Other COSCA study countries that use cassava in livestock feed are Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Uganda.The share of African cassava production used as livestock feed is probably underestimated because cassava roots and leaves are fed to pigs on small-scale farms in the cassava-producing areas, either fresh or in cut-and-dried form (International Fund for Agricultural Development and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2000). COSCA researchers found that there is a complementary relationship between cassava production and sheep and goat rearing because cassava processing is carried out around homes, and sheep, goats, and chickens are fe\" by-products of cassava processing. 4   Africa's cassava pellets are presendy uncompetitive in European livestock' feed markets because of the high cost of production and transportation in Africa and from Africa to Europe and because Africa has been an unreliable supplier of pellets (Phillips 1973) In the early 1960s, Brazil was the world's leading cassava producer, while Africa accounted for 40 percent of world production. However, by the early 1990s, Africa produced half of the total world cassava output and Nigeria had replaced Brazil as the leader in cassava production (FAO-STAT). 1Wo forces explain this dramatic growth in cassava. First, demand for cassava has expanded because of rapid population growth, while poverty has deepened, encouraging consumers to search for cheaper sources of calories in Africa. Second, the supply of cassava has expanded because genetic research and better agronomic practices have boosted cassava yields, especially in Nigeria and Ghana. In this chapter we shall present an overview of cassava prodUction, covering varieties grown, area cultivated, pests and diseases, yield, and production trends.The vegetative characteristics that are used in identification of cassava varieties include the following: type of branching, pubescence status, leafThe Cassava Transformation shape, and the color of young shoot, petiole, and root flesh.' In the six COSCA study countries, the most prevalent varieties grown were branching, nonpubescent, purple young shoot, and creamy inner root skin (table 4.1). Varieties with broad leaves and red petioles are the most common, irrespective of agro-ecological zone.The COSCA researchers identified a total of  2 Fiftythree groups of varieties were found to be sweet while thirty-six were bitter. 3 Genetic diversity was higher for the sweet than for the bitter varieties.The COSCA team also found that farmers in the Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Uganda planted more area to the sweet varieties, while bitter varieties were more popular in the Congo, Nigeria, and Tanzania. However, within each country the distribution of the area planted to the bitter and the sweet cassava varieties was found to vary by agro-ecological zone. For example, the COSCA study found that in the Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Tanzania, and Uganda, sweet cassava varieties were dominant in the forest zone (70 percent sweet and 30 percent bitter), whereas bitter varieties were more popular in the savanna zone (30 percent sweet and 70 percent bitter). In the transition zones of the same countries, the areas planted were equally divided between sweet and bitter cassava varieties. The farm-COSCA countries was found to be correlated with the ease of preparing dried roots in the different agro-ecological zones. Fanners in the savanna zone processed bitter cassava as dried roots by peeling and soaking the roots and drying them in the sun. Because sun-drying is inefficient in the forest zone, however, farmers there plant sweet varieties, which they can eat without soaking, drying, or fear of cyanide poisoning.In Nigeria, however, the agro-ecological breakdown of the sweet and  require sun-drying.The percentage of area planted to sweet varieties is higher around market centers than in remote areas. Fanners in peri-urban centers plant sweet cassava varieties and sell fresh roots as snack food in urban centers. The COSCA study found that boiled fresh roots of sweet cassava varieties are commonly sold to urban workers as a snack or a midday meal in major cities such as Kinshasa in the Congo, Kano in Nigeria, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, and Kampala in Uganda.The area planted to the sweet varieties is also higher in countries where cassava is a secondary food staple. Cassava is a secondary staple in the banana (or plantain) areas of Ghana, Tanzania, and Uganda, as well as in the Nigerian yam belt, and in the maize, rice, and milletJsorghum areas in the COSCA countries. In areas where cassava is of secondary importance, fresh roots of the sweet cassava varieties are often boiled and used as a supplement to pounded plantain, banana, or yam. Cassava flour is used as supplement in maize, millet, and sorghum flour (Msabaha and Rwenyagira 1989;Otim-Nape and Opio-Odongo 1989).Cassava is frequendy a family food staple in tree crop-producing areas of Africa, such as the cocoa-producing areas of West Africa and coffee-producing areas of East and Central Africa. Because there is shortage of sunlight in the forest zone for efficient drying of cassava roots, most of the tree crop farmers plant sweet cassava varieties, which can be eaten fresh.Sweet cassava varieties are more popular than bitter varieties in drought-prone areas. Under drought conditions, processing of the sweet varieties can be carned out in a rush, shortcutting some steps, such as ..sun-drying or soaking in water; which are essential for the elimination of cyanogens.Farmers interviewed by COSCA researchers reported that there are more high-yielding, pest-resistant, and in-ground storable varieties among the bitter than among the sweet cassava types. However, there are more early bulking varieties among the sweet than among the bitter types. As the cassava transformation proceeds, an increasing percentage of the total cassava production will be processed as gari for urban consumption.When this occurs, the debate over bitter versus sweet cassava varieties will become irrelevant. Yet in areas where there is a precarious food situation, such as periodic famine owing to wars or drought, the sweet varieties will continue to be demanded by farmers because the roots can be consumed without soaking and drying and without fear of cyanide poisoning. Therefore, the breeding of high-yielding sweet cassava varieties will need to be continued, to serve farmers in famine-and drought-prone areas.The cassava mosaic virus was first identified in 1891, and in 1959, on the eve of Africa's independence, Jones reported that the cassava mosaic virus was the only major disease affecting cassava (1959). However, in the early 1970s, another disease, the cassava bacterial blight, and two pests, the cassava mealybug and the cassava green mite, emerged as major problems threatening the cassava industry in Africa (Hahn, Leuschner, and Singh 1981;Yaninek 1994).Tennites are also important pests affecting cassava. In the savanna, termites make it difficult for farmers to take advantage of the cassava plant's flexible planting schedule. Cassava fields planted early or late in the rainy season in the savanna have a poor establishment record because termites feed on the planted cassava sticks. A wide range of rodent types feed on cassava roots in the forest and the transition zones and thereby cause reduction in yield.African farmers usually do not attempt to control the cassava pests, diseases, and termites with pesticides, because of limited access to chemicals and because it is not profitable to apply pesticides on cassava. We shall show in chapter 6 that farmers use the following agronomic practices to achieve partial control of the cassava pests and diseases: fallow rotation, crop rotation, and selection of the pests and diseases-resistant local varieties. We shall now present a brief overview of the two major pests, namely the cassava mealybug and the cassava green mite, followed by a brief discussion of the two main diseases, namely the African cassava mosaic virus disease and the cassava bacterial blight.The Cassava Mealybug. The mealybug is an exotic pest that was introduced into Africa from South America in the early 1970s. The mealybug was first reported in 1973 in the Congo (formally Zaire), and it rapidly spread throughout the cassava-growing areas of Africa. In some areas it destroyed so many cassava fields and local sources of the planting materials that production practically came to a halt (International Institute of Tropical Agriculture 1992). It is spread by wind and the exchange of infested planting materials. The mealybug feeds on the cassava stem, petiole, and leaf near the growing point of the cassava plant. During feeding, the mealybug injects a toxin that causes leaf curling, slowing of shoot growth, and eventual leaf withering. Yield loss in infested plants is estimated to be up to 60 percent of root and 100 percent of the leaves (Herren 1981).' Starting in 1979, the mealybug was attacked through a large-scale biological control campaign by the UTA in collaboration with numerous national and international organizations. A wasp that feeds on the mealybug was identified in South America, transferred to the UTA, and reared at an UTA research station. In order to decentralize and speed up the multiplication of the wasp, UTA scientists developed a new and simpler system that was employed by most national programs in Africa (International Institute of Tropical Agriculture 1992). The wasp was first released by airplanes over cassava-growing areas in Nigeria in 1981, and later in other countries. By 1990, the wasp had been spread by airplane and by hand sprayers in twenty-four countries in the African cassava belt (Herren et al. 1987).Without question, the biological control of the mealybug with the aid of the wasp is one of the most important scientific success stories of the past two decades in Africa. The mealybug is now held in check across most of the cassava-producing areas of Africa. The annual gain in cassava yield from the control of the mealybug is estimated at 10.2 million tons.The benefits of this biological control program will accrue for many years.For example, the wasp-use benefits were estimated to exceed three billion U.S. dollars over a twenty-five-year period beginning in 1988 (Schaab et al. 1998).   In the Congo, the repeated harvesting of cassava leaves for consumption as a vegetable interferes with the survival of the predator mites and increases the damage to cassava plant. Since cassava leaves are widely consumed in the Congo, the biological control of the green mite using the predator mites will depend on how farmers manage the frequency of harvesting of the cassava leaves. A recent study has shown that a harvesting Production Overview interval of sixty days is the optimum to maintain the population of the predator mites (Tata-Hangy 2000) .The African cassava mosaic virus disease. In 1991, COSCA researchers tested the incidence of the mosaic disease in a large percentage of villages in each of the COSCA countries. The results were as follows: Ghana, 100 percent of villages affected; Cote dlvoire, 95 percent; Nigeria, 89 percent; Tanzania, 72 percent; the Congo, 68 percent; and Uganda, 64 percent. The numbers of infected cassava plants per field were also high in each country, and in most of the countries the severity of the disease was high as well.'The Cassava TransformationAnother method of controlling the mosaic disease is the sanitation approach recommended by the virologists and vector entomologists in various countries in Africa since the 1970s (Thresh et al. 1997). This approach involves the use of mosaic disease-free planting materials and the uprooting of infected plants in the field. This method has not been effective in Africa because the farmers do not have the technology to select mosaic disease-free planting materials. Furthennore, African fanners are averse to uprooting a food plant in their fields even if the plant is unhealthy. As the cassava transformation proceeds, the private sector will hopefully develop enough to provide healthy planting materials to the farmers.The latest effort to control the mosaic disease was through the Cassava Biotechnology Network (CBN), which was established jointly by Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) and the UTA in 1988 and sponsored by the Dutch government beginning in 1992. The network involved scientists from national and international organizations in several developed and developing countries. The research activities of the CBN covered all aspects of cassava work, including processing, agronomy, breeding, and pest and disease control (Thro 1998). Unfortunately, the CBN in Africa was terminated in 1998 when the Dutch government funding was withdrawn. The plan was to have the African CBN coordinated by the IITA, but donor financing was not available (Bokanga 2000;Mba 2000). The South American CBN, however, continues to be funded by the Dutch, and it is coordinated by the CIAT.The COSCA study found that in the Congo, where cassava leaves arc,. In the early 1950s, cassava occupied 50 to 80 percent of all the land planted to the starchy staples in the Congo (Jones 1959). In 1991, cassava was found to be the most important crop in the staple production system in all of the seventy-one COSCA study villages in the Congo. 6 In Ghana,The Cassava Transformation From 1961 to 1965, 5.6 million hectares were planted each year to cas• sava in Africa. Thirty•five years later, from 1995 to 1999, 10 million hectares were planted each year to cassava. The six countries that currently account for most of the cassava area are the Congo, the Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda (table 4.3). The area planted to cassava increased almost threefold in Nigeria andGhana from 1961 to 1999 (fig. 4.1). Farm• ers in most of the villages in Ghana and Nigeria cited market access as the reason for expansion of area planted to cassava, while farmers in most of the COSCA villages in the Congo cited lack of access to market centers as the reason for reducing the area planted to cassava.One critical variable in the expansion of the cassava area in Nigeria and Ghana is the availability of improved processing equipment to remove water from the roots (the roots are 70 percent water) and thereby reduce the cost of transporting them to market. Improved processing and food preparation methods reduce bulk and make it possible for cassava products to be transported at reduced costs over poor roads to distant urban market centers. One example is the steady shipment of dried roots  The Cassava Transformation In 1954, the average cassava yield in Africa was between 5 and 10 tons per hectare (Jones 1959). The COSCA study showed that the average yield was between 10 and 15 tons per hectare in the six COSCA countries in early 1990s. Therefore, one can safely say that the cassava yield is increas-' ing in Africa in the early 1990s because of the planting of high-yielding varieties and the adoption of better agronomic practices. In the early 1990s,the COSCA yield measurements show that the average on-farm cassava fresh-root yield (hereafter yield) for the six COSCA study countries was 11.9 tons per hectare (table 4.4). 8 The average farm-level yield was highest in Nigeria, where the mean was 14.7 tons per hectare, followed by Ghana, where the mean was 13.1 tons per hectare (fig.  Soun;e: COSCA Slvdy.Some expens on African farming systems have reported that the average cassava yield is stagnating or declining in Africa (Lagemann 1977;Fresco 1986). They attribute the negative trend to the increasing population pressure on land, which leads to a breakdown of the shifting cultivation system and a decline in soil fertility. The COSCA study has used two-point-in-time cassava yield data collected from three villages of low, meruunn, and high population densities in southeast Nigeria to challenge the assertion of declining yield owing to increasing population density.In 1973, Lagemann sturued cassava yields in three villages in southeastern Nigeria with rufferent population densities and concluded that cassava yield declined as population pressure increased (Lagemann 1977). Lagemann found the mean yields for the three villages to be: 2.0 tons per hectare in the high population density village; 3.8 tons per hectare in the meruum population density village; and 10.8 tons per hectare in the low population density village. Table 4.5. Cassava Yield Trend (1973-93)  In 1993, the COSCA study team revisited the three villages 10 assess the trends in the cassava yield twenty years after the Lagemano's original study. The COSCA team found that the mean yields for the villages were: 4.04 IOns per hectare in the high population density village; 4.77 Ions per hectare in the medium population density village; and 9.27 tons per hectare in the low population density village (table 4.5). Tbe 1993 crosssectional yield trend is consistent with Lagemann's J 973 observation that the yield was substantially higher in the low-population-density village than in the high-density village. However, between 1973 and 1993, the cassava yield doubled in the high-density village, increased by 26 percent in the medium-density village, and declined by 14 percent in the low-density village (fig. 4.4). This is a surprising result that deserves to be carefully examined. The doubling of cassava yield in the high population density village occurred because farmers planted the llT~s high-yielding cassava varieties at high stand densities, employed hired labor, and enjoyed ready access to a nearby market. 9 By contrast, yields declined in the low population density village because farmers planted local varieties at low stand densities (Enete, Nweke, and OkOIji 1995). The evidence from the COSCA study demonstrates that farmers have adopted new technology such as improved varieties and improved agronomic practices as a response to increased population pressure on land. This finding adds evidence to the Boserup hypothesis that increased population pressure can induce intensification of agricultural production (Boserup 1981).Between 1961 and 1999, total cassava production in Africa nearly tripled, from 33 million tons per year from 1961 to 1965 to 87 million tons per year from 1995 to 1999, in contrast to the more moderate increases in Asia and South America (fig. 4.5). Most of the dramatic increase in cassava production in Africa was achieved in Nigeria and Ghana. In each of these countries the production growth rat'! was greater than the rate of population growth. In the other COSCA study countries, the increase in cassava production kept pace with population growth.From 1961 to 1965, Nigeria produced only 7.8 million tons of cassava per year and was the fourth-largest producer in the world after Brazil, Indonesia, and the Congo (FAOSTAT). From 1995 to 1999, Nigeria produced 31.8 million tons per year and became the largest producer worldwide, displacing Brazil, Indonesia, and the Congo. Ghana was only the seventh-largest producer in Africa from 1961 to 1965, with an annual production of only 1.2 million tons. From 1995 to 1999, however, Ghana produced 7.2 million tons annually and advanced to the position of the third-largest producer in Africa after Nigeria and the Congo. The dramatic increase in cassava production in Nigeria and Ghana was achieved through an increase in both area and yield. The availability of cassava graters to fanners in both countries released labor, especially female labor, from cassava processing, thus allowing them to plant more cassava. We shall show in the next two chapters Lhat the common use of hired labor in these two countries and the wide adoption of the lITA:s higbyielding varieties were responsible for higher cassava yields in Nigeria and Ghana than in the other COSCA countries.Cassava's low input requirements, a trait that is compatible with Africa's resource endowments (relatively abundant land and seasonal labor scarcity) and the cassava's resistance to pests and diseases explain the expansion in cassava production since the 1960s. Since cassava can be grown without inputs and irrigalion waler, it is a low-risk crop for African farmers . Moreover, as the average farm size shrinks under population pressure, farmers are searching for crops with a higher output of energy per hectare as a strategy for overcoming hunger. Food shortages precipitated by a combination of political and civil unrest. economic stagnation, erratic rainfall patterns, and rapid population growth have had a much greater influence on cassava production in Africa than anywhere else in the world (Scott, Rosegrant, and rungler 2000).Both the sweet and the bitter cassava varieties are grown in Africa. The sweet varieties are more popular in the Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Uganda, while the bitter varieties are more common in the Congo. Nigeria, and Tanzania. The caSCA farmers reported that the bitter varieties are more resistant to pests, are higher yielding, and store better in the ground than the sweet varieties. Farmers in the forest zone, however, plant more sweet varieties than those in the transition and the savanna zones, because limited sunshine in the forest zone makes it difficult to sun-dry the roots after they have been soaked in order to eliminate cyanogens. Tree crop farmers also plant sweet varieties, which they eat without the soaking and sun-drying. As the productivity of the cassava system increases and more cassava is processed as gari, the issue of the sweet versus the bitter cassava varieties will become irrelevant.Cassava has been under attack by pests and diseases, such as the mealybug, the green mite, the mosaic disease, and the bacterial blight.The biological control method has been used to bring the mealybug under control, while the biological control of the green mite is still in progress.The most promising method of controlling the mosaic disease and the bacterial blight is breeding resistant varieties, but this involves a long and painstaking process of breeding and diffusion. Meanwhile, the green mite, the mosaic disease, and the bacterial blight continue to cause yield losses in various parts of Africa.Most of the major cassava pests and diseases are new in Africa, as they were introduced only within the last thirty years. Improved quarantine inspection is needed to prevent, as much as possible. introduction of The Cassava Transformation new pests and diseases. There is need for better preparedness to control new problems before they spread and take root in Africa.Between 1961 and 1999, the area planted to cassava increased manyfold in Nigeria and Ghana because of the planting of high-yielding varieties. processing technologies. and improved roads to reduce transport costs to market centers in these countries. The evidence provided by the COSCA study shows that the average cassava yield was increasing in the early 1990s in Africa because of the planting of high-yielding varieties and the adoption of improved agronomic practices in some of the COSCA countries. Therefore, although Africa's population pressure on land is increasing, the cassava yield is also increasing, particularly where cassava is planted as a cash crop for urban consumption.The COSCA study provides new evidence on the relationship between technological change and population densities in three villages in southeast Nigeria. Over the 1973 to 1993 period, cassava yields doubled in the high population density village due to planting of improved UTA cassava varieties, which can increase yield by 40 percent without additional inputs. Most of the cassava varieties planted in Africa today have been developed from self-sown high-yielding seedlings that are retained and planted by farmers (Doku 1966). The COSCA researchers found that farmers are quick to replace lesser varieties with those displaying superior attributes. The COSCA researchers studied the attributes desired by farmers in the sixstudy countries and found that farmers selected varieties for the following attributes: high yield, earliness of buJkjng (early maturing), weed suppression ability, desirable branching habits, in-ground storability, pest and disease tolerance, low cyanogen level, ease of peeling, mealiness after cooking, drought tolerance, high leaf yield, and ease of harvesting (table 5.1).COSCA researchers also found that the four most important attributes selected by farmers who produce cassava as a cash crop for urban markets in Nigeria and Ghana are: high yield, earliness of bulking, ease of harvesting, and ease of peeling. Farmers producing cassava as a cash crop want varieties that are easy to harvest because it is difficult to recIUit and manage a large itinerant labor force for manual harvesting. As a result, there is an urgent need to develop mechanized cassava harvesters.Farmers in Nigeria and Ghana who plant cassava and convert it to gari for sale in urban centers select cassava varieties that are easy to peel.In these two countries, manual peeling is the most labor-intensive of the processing tasks. The roots of most of the present varieties in Africa can be peeled only by slashing the root with a sharp knife, because the skin of the root is thin. Farmers told COSCA researchers that they want varieties with a thick skin so that the peels can be easily rolled off the roots. Yet the development of mechanized cassava peeling is hampered by a lack of unifonnity in the shape and size of cassava roots.In Tanzania, farmers reported to COSCA researchers that good inground starability of cassava was a highly desired attribute because maize is the preferred staple and cassava is a famine-reserve crop. Farmers often leave cassava in the ground for several years, harvesting and consuming it only when they have a poor maize harvest.In the Cote dlvoire, cassava is an important food staple among cocoa In 1891, Warburg reported that the mosaic (cassava mosaic virus) disease was prevalent in East Africa and adjacent islands. Soon after, the mosaic disease was reported in most countries in Central and West Africa (Storey and Nichols 1938). The widespread occurrence of the mosaic disease Leone, and at the Moor Plantation research station in Ibadan, Nigeria (Jones 1959).The French colonial research on cassava was carried out by scientists at Institut De Recherches Agronomiques Tropicales (IRAT) (Fresco 1986).In 1913, the French established a research station at Bambey in Senegal for peanuts primarily for export. In 1950, the scope of research at the station was expanded to include food crops, and the research designed cassava variety selection programs with the goal of finding varieties that were high yielding and suitable for processing as gari (Jones 1959) short and fat roots regularly spaced around the plant; and high protein content in the root (Fresco 1986). In 1951, one of the INEAC's research stations in the Congo--Kiyaka in the Kwango-Kwilu-<:>btained a yield of about 45 tons per hectare with improved varieties and of 37 tons per hectare with local varieties on experimental plots without fertilizer (Fresco 1986;Drachoussoff, Focan, and Hecq 1993).' Without question, the Amani research station program was the most successful colonial cassava-breeding program in Africa. In 1935, H. H.a limited degree of resistance. Then Storey and his assistant, R. F. W.wild, non-sugar-producing relative. Hence, Storey and Nichols crossed cassava with tree species that are related to cassava genetically, namely Ceara rubber, Manicoba rubber, and \"tree\" cassava (Nichols 1947).3 These species conferred resistance to the mosaic disease to their hybrids, namelyThe Cassava Transformaj'on Ceara rubber x cassava, Manicoba rubber x cassava, and \"tree\" cassava x cassava hybrids (Jennings 1976). Yet although the various rubber speciesx cassava hybrids were resistant to the mosaic disease, they were not real cassava because they produced a low root yield, of poor food quality, and they had poor agronomic characteristics such as lodging.However, during World War II (from 1939 to 1945), the breeding work at the Amani research station was scaled back (Nichols 1947). In 1951, Nichols died in an automobile accident and was replaced by D. L.Jennings conducted on-farm testing of the various Storey/Nichols rubber species x cassava hybrids and found that the Ceara rubber x cassava hybrids (e.g., 46106/27) provided the best combinations of yield, root quality, and resistance to both the mosaic and the brown streak diseases.Jennings also discovered that although the resistance to the mosaic disease was satisfactory for inland areas, it was frequently inadequate for coastal regions. He also found that the Manicoba rubber x cassava hybrids did not have a good yield potential (Jennings 1976).Jennings intercrossed the Storey/Nichols mosaic-and brown streakresistant rubber species x cassava hybrids to release recessive genes for resistance and to combine genes that had been dispersed during the process of backcrossing by Storey and Nichols. This led to segregates (e.g., 5318/34) that showed much higher and more stable resistance over a wide area than had the hybrids created by Storey and Nichols. Jennings The mA:s cassava-breeding program was carried out by a multidisciplinary team, including a plant pathologist, an entomologist, a nematologist, a virologist, an agronomist, a tissue culture specialist, a biochemist, and a food technologist (Dixon, Asiedu, and Hahn 1992). Over a two-year period (from 1971 to 1973), Hahn drew on the genes from the Ceara rubber x cassava hybrid (58308) and developed real cassava varieties that were resistant to the mosaic virus. 8 Hahn then set about developing mosaic-resistant, high-yielding varieties by crossingWest Africa and Brazil and selecting and testing clones at the farm level in different agro-ecologies (Hahn, Howland, and Terry 1980;Otoo et al. 1994;Mba and Dixon 1998). The COSCA researchers discovered that the farm-level yield of the TMS varieties in Nigeria was 40 percent higher than that of the local Table 5.2. Nigeria: Yield and Yield Components of local and IITA Improved Varieties, 1991 to 1992. S\"\"\" caSCA Study.'\" '\" varieties when grown without fertilizer (table 5.2).10 COSCA researchers also found that TMS 30572 was the most popular variety grown in Nigeria in the early 1990s.Hahn and his colleagues have been described as \"the quiet revolutionaries\" (Wigg 1993). The yield performance of the TMS varieties is comparable to that of the green revolution wheat and rice varieties in Asia in the 1960s and 1970s (Ruttan 2001).The COSCA researchers found that the TMS varieties were more resistant than local varieties to the mosaic virus, bacterial blight, the mealybug, and the green mite (table 5.3). The TMS varieties attain their peak yield around thirteen to fifteen months after planting, as compared with twenty-two to twenty-four months for local varieties (fig. 5.1). Nevertheless, COSCA researchers found that Nigerian farmers who planted the TMS varieties and sold gari to urban consumers desired varieties that could be harvested less than twelve months after planting without yield loss in order to be able to plant cassava on the same field every year.Since the TMS varieties are mostly branching types with large canopies, they are good for weed control and have a high leaf yield. The COSCA study found that 50 percent of the area planted to TMS varieties and 55 percent of the area planted to local varieties in Nigeria were intercropped with yam, maize, and the like.\"The Cassava Transformation The Nigerian farmers complained that harvesting the high-yielding TMS varieties by hand was laborious. Southwestern Nigerian farmers who planted the TMS 30572 to produce gari for sale in Lagos reported that they had to cut back drastically on the area planted to cassava because they lacked enough seasonal labor to harvest and process the crop in a timely fashion.The COSCA study farmers in Nigeria who produced cassava as a cash crop and made gari for sale to urban consumers praised the TMS varieties as being ideal for gari production. However, they complained that peeling the TMS varieties was laborious and resulted in substantial waste because the roots could be peeled only by slashing the skin and part of the root-flesh with a sharp knife. Sometimes the peelers were injured while peeling. Mechanized machines have not been developed for cassava peeling because cassava roots vary in size and shape. For example, the COSCA farm-level yield measurements show that the roots of the TMS varieties varied in shape and ranged in size from 0.10 kilogram to 1.14 kilogram per root. There is a need for breeders and engineers to work together to develop varieties that produce roots with uniform shape and size, and to develop mechanized peeling machines. In Nigeria, the COSCA study found that the roots of the TMS varieties were lower in cyanogen content (an average of 2.20 on a scale of 1 to 3) than those oflocal varieties (an average of 2.35).12 Sweet cassava occupied roughly 30 percent and bitter cassava about 70 percent of the area planted with the TMS varieties, the same proportion as for the local varieties.The rapid rate of diffusion of the TMS varieties in Nigeria meant that the new vaneties were displacing local varieties. To protect the genetic diversity in cassava in Africa, Hahn proceeded to explore and conserve the African cassava genetic materials. For example. by 1989 a collection of around fifteen hundred cassava clones was maintained at the IITA headquarters in Ibadan, Nigeria (Ng 1992). Subsequent genetic resources Plalll cut/il/gs of the IITA 's TMS varieties beil/g prepared for dis tributiO/1 to fa n ners.There IVas ofte\" a scramble fo r the pla/1t c/.llti/1gs of the TMS varieties \\Vhen the /ITA 's dis tribwio/1 team stopped in vii/ages.Resenrchers or COSCA il1leroiewillg cassava ranllers ill the COIlgO. John Otoo, the leader of Ghana's cassava p!,ogram, recently reported that the salaries of his staff were \"too low to quote\" (Otoo 2000).15 Ghana's Crop Research Institute had only four computers, with sporadic connections to the internet. Today, it takes an average of two weeks to get an email response from John Otoo. By contrast, in 1999 every scientist at the Embarapa Cassava and Fruit Crop Research Institute in Brazil had a computer connected to the Internet on his or her desk.In Nigeria, salaries for all government workers were raised in the year 2000. The salaries and allowances of scientists in research institutes and universities were increased from an average of US$100 equivalent per month to US$1 000 equivalent per month. Yet the scientists still were not provided with an adequate operating budget. For example, the operating budget of the postharvest unit of the National Root Crops Research Institute in Nigeria was equivalent to US$38 for the month of January 2001 (Oti and Asumugha 2001).The lack of incentives and income to meet basic needs has forced national scientists to engage in a variety of other activities to make ends meet. COSCA researchers discovered that livestock (poultry, sheep, and goat) keeping was a common secondary occupation of African scientists and academicians. For example, in 1989, one professor at Makerere University in Uganda kept sixty sheep and goats in his university housing compound. To encourage the national researchers in the six countries to carry out the COSCA study, they were paid a monthly stipend of US$200 from COSCA in addition to their university or government salaries.The long time period required to develop scientific capacity within Africa is one of the major lessons that emerges from the COSCA study. Unfortunately, many policy makers expect breeders to develop high- Storey andRubber tree species x cassava hybridization.Developed Rubber tree x cassava hybrids resistant to  .for high yield from West African varieties.Hahn Combine the mosaic-resistant genes of the CearaThe famous TMS varieties were developed from 1971 to rubber x cassava hybrid, 58308, with genes from local 1977 and released 10 farmers in Nigeria in 1977. and exotic varieties with high Yield, good root quality, low cyanogen content, and resistance to lodging.Enhance earliness of bulking and rool carotene, Developed varieties that are resistant to more pests and develop appropriate canopy sizes for leaf harvest diseases and have different canopy sizes and distributed and intercropping, and improve pest and disease Commercial cassava producers in Nigeria and Ghana desire varieties that will attain a maximum yield in fewer than twelve months so that they can grow cassava on the same field for a number of years in succession.Dixon's goal of developing varieties that can be harvested at fewer than twelve months after planting without a loss in yield is designed to help these commercial fanners. Nigerian farmers also complain that high-yielding TMS varieties are laborious to harvest and peel by hand. There is an urgent need for breeders to develop varieties that attain a maximum yield in fewer than twelve months and have roots that are uniform in shape and size in order to facilitate the development of mechanical harvesters and peelers. The COSCA study found that Nigerian farmers who plant the TMS varieties and produce gari for urban markets are often unable to grow as much cassava as they want because of shortage of labor for harvesting and processing the crop.To summarize, although major progress has been achieved in developing mosaic-resistant and high-yielding cassava varieties, farmers are demanding mechanized techniques for harvesting and processing these varieties. We shall discuss these complex issues in more detail in chapters CHAPTER SWe have shown in chapter 5 that the development of high-yielding cassava varieties represents a powerful but incomplete engine of growth of the cassava industry. illtimately. the adoption and spread of high-yielding varieties will be influenced by the development of improved agronomic practices and labor-saving harvesting technology. This chapter draws on the COSCA findings to discuss the evolution of the following agronomic practices: length of fallow period; quality of p~anting material. plant density (plant spacing) and planting date; cropping pattern (intercropping or mono-cropping); labor use; and cassava harvesting. The analyses in this chapter will show that farmers adopt profitable agronomic practices that save labor. The chapter also shows that progressive farmers who are adopting improved agronomic practices need labor-saving harvesting technology because production and harvesting labor bottlenecks are limiting the amount of cassava farmers are able to produce.There are three main types of fallow systems in Africa. The first is long fallow and it refers to fewer than ten years of continuous cultivation followed by ten or more years of fallow. The second type, short fallow, is fewer than ten years of continuous cultivation followed by fewer than ten years of fallow between crops. The third type, continuous cultivation, refers to at least ten years of continuous cropping. An average of 4 percent of the cassava fields surveyed in the six COSCA study countries were under the long fallow system, 79 percent were under short fallow, and 17 percent were under continuous cultivation (table 6.1),When population density was low, long fallow was common and there was no guarantee that farmers would return to the original farmed area after a definite period of time (Okigbo 1984). The COSCA study found that cassava cultivation under the long fallow system has declined in all six study countries because of population growth. In each COSCA study country, farmers reported that they believed that most of their fields would recover soil fertility in ten years or fewer of fallow .Data from the six COSCA study countries show that farmers produce cassava under short-fallow system for a variety of reasons, among them are cassava's long growth period, pest and disease problems; and compatibil-• ity with crops grown in ass-ociation with cassava. Pest and disease infestations increase with repeated cultivation of cassava in the same field in most environments. The COSCA study found that under high population pressure on land, fanners produce cassava under short fallow in order to break the pest and disease cycles when the problems are serious.  a market center that is visited regularly by cassava middlemen (traders and processors); and mHd attacks of cassava pests and diseases.In Nimbo, yam, maize, and melon are planted in April and cassava is planted in the same field in June. The cassava is planted two months after the other crops in order to maintain a cassava stand density in the intercrop while at the same time reducing competition for insolation and soil fertility between cassava and the yam. Yam, which has a seven-month growth period, begins senescence before cassava develops a canopy.Cassava is harvested at twelve months after planting and immediately replanted because of high population density.' After harvesting the second crop, farmers leave the field to fallow for three years.Although cassava may be harvested as few as six months after planting, most of the varieties cultivated in Africa do not attain a maximum yield until twenty-two to twenty-four months after planting. Therefore, farmers in high population density areas who harvest cassava under the short fallow system at twelve months or fewer after planting do not get a maximum yield .Cassava production under continuous cultivation is a response to increas- COSCA study villages reported that they were replacing banana with cassava in their cropping system because of declining soil fertility.We shall now turn to a discussion of cassava planting material, stand density, planting date, and intercropping. The COSCA study found that cassava is planted more frequently on flat seed-bed than any other major food crop except rice.' In well-drained soils, cassava is normally grown on flat seed-bed, but in poorly drained soils, cassava is grown on mounds or ridges to enhance soil aeration (Hahn 1984). The size of the mound or the ridge varies depending on soil drainage conditions. Cassava is planted in a staggered form, almost at random, when it is on flat seed-bed. Mounds, too, are often made in staggered formation. When planting is on ridges, however, cassava is usually planted in rows .Cassava is vegetatively propagated from stem cuttings. The COSCA study found that the main sources of planting materials were the farmers' fields, neighbors, and sometimes cassava marketing middlemen. Some COSCA farmers who produce cassava as a cash crop plant healthy-looking cuttings from plants not older than twelve months. Yet, not all farmers discard stems affected by pests or diseases, even though replanting these stems is a common way of spreading those pests and diseases (Rossel, Changa, and Atiri 1994).In the forest zone, where biomass production is higher than in the savanna zone, there is an abundance of cassava stem cuttings for planting. In the savanna zone, however, cuttings for planting are often in short supply. The COSCA study found that farmers in the savanna zone discontinue the use of varieties that produce low yields of the planting material. The multiplication rate of cassava planting material is low in comparison with that of crops, such as grains, which are propagated by seed. Cassava stem cuttings are bulky, highly perishable, and dry up within a few days after they have been harvested .Cassava plant density is an important agronomic consideration because, as we have shown in chapter 4, it is positively and strongly correlated with the cassava yield. The most commonly recommended spacing for cassava is 1 m x 1 m, which is equivalent to a plant density of ten thousand stands per hectare (Onwueme 1978). Yet the average farm-level plant density for the six COSCA study countries was eight thousand plants per 'hectare,The Cassava Transformation with a range of from five hundred plants per hectare to forty thousand plants per hectare. The COSCA study found that the cassava stand density in the farmers' fields varies widely depending on climatic zone, cassava morphological characteristics such as branching type and leaf shape, soil fertility status, seed-bed type, cropping pattern, and so on. Farmers who plant cassava as a cash crop plant at higher plant densities than do fanners who plant the crop as a famine-reserve crop or as a rural food staple,The average cassava plant density varies by country (fig, 6.1). The low plant density in Uganda is due to forest and midaltitude environments; the high plant density in the Congo is due to low soil fertility; and the relatively high plant densities in Nigeria and Ghana are due to production of cassava as a cash crop. In Nigeria and Ghana, the cassava stand density is higher in fields in which cassava is planted for sale (8,200 plants per hectare) than in fields in which cassava is planted for home consumption (7,600 plants per hectare). The mean cassava plant density is also higher in high population density zones (8,800 plants per hectare) than in low population density zones (7,000 plants per hectare) because of population pressure on land.The factors affecting cassava plant density are so numerous that the optimal plant density for high cassava yield is location specific. Local  The cassava plaming date is also significantly Influenced by the intercropping needs of farmers. The COSCA study found that the farmers delay the planting of cassava in intercropped fields , depending upon the growth cycle of the associated crop. If the associated crop is a short-cycle crop such as maize, cassava is often planted one month later than the first • crop. This means thal in some cases maize and cassava are relay-cropped (planting cassava as maize is about to be harvested) because maize wiU then be harvested before cassava establishes a canopy. In these cases, competition for insolation and soil fertility between the two crops is minimized, if not eliminated, thu allowing the monocrop stand density to be maintained for cassava. H the associated crop, such as yam , has a long growing period , cassava is often planted as much as three months later than the first crop.In the six COSCA study countries, the cassava yield is higher when the crop is grown in mono-culture (14 tons per hectare) than when it is intercropped (11 tons per hectare). Yet cassava is frequently intercropped (Fresco 1986). In the six COSCA study countries, 60 percent of the cas-  1974) identified high total output as the main reason for intercropping, followed by a shortage of land and a shortage of labor. Cassava's flexible planting schedule, its wide interspacing, and its slow rate of growth relative to maize, for example, make it suitable for intercropping,Labor is the main component of the cost of cassava production. Yet the conventional wisdom is that cassava requires relatively low labor inputs for production (Hendershott et aI. 1972;Jones 1959). However, COSCA research confinns that this conventional \"-i.sdom is valid only where cassava is produced as a famine-reserve crop or as a rural food'staple.The COSCA study reveals that the average cassava production and harvesting labor varies from 173 person-days per hectare'in the Clite d'Ivoire to 201 person-days per hectare in the Congo and 222 person-days per hectare in Nigeria (table 6.2). Labor is used for bush clearing, tillage, planting, weeding, and harvesting. 4 The use of a total of 201 days of labor per hectare in the Congo is due to the large amount of labor required for clearing forests. The labor inputs are high in Nigeria and Ghana because cassava is produced as a cash crop by progressive farmers who are early adopters of better tillage and timely weeding practices.  cassava is grown mostly as a cash crop for urban consumption (fig. 6.2).However. as \\\\rage rates increase, it will become difficult for fanners in these countries to continue to produce and harvest cassava at prices competitive with grain. Therefore, improvement of the productivity of the cassava system requires the development of labor-saving methods for cassava production and harvesting tasks. or mounding, as an alternative to tillage (plowing, ridging, or mounding) in order to reduce plowing labor, prevent soil erosion, and maintain soil structure. The studies show that although the minimum-tillage method controlled soil erosion and maintained soil structure, it required a chemical herbicide for weed control (International Institute of Tropical Agri-• culture 1992b). Experiments at the !ITA station in Ibadan to determine the effect of the minimum-tillage practice on cassava yield revealed that the yield was significantly higher when cassava was planted on ridges, because of better weed control (Akobundu 1984;Ezumah, Ohuyon, and Kalabari 1984). Yet the minimum-tillage practice has not been adopted by farmers, because it reduces yield and farmers generally do not have accessto chemical herbicides.Cassava planting labor is defined here to include labor used to coUect the planting material from the farmer's previous fields and to plant. If the cassava farm size per household increases, labor for the cassava planting operation will become a bottleneck because the cassava planting sets are bulky and perishable and they need to be planted as soon as they are harvested. In parts of Nigeria where cassava is produced as a cash crop, a market is developing for cassava planting material.In all six COSCA study countries, weeding was found to account for a large proportion of total labor input. Although some agricultural scientists report that cassava requires little weeding when planted in optimal plant populations (Okigbo 1980;Onwueme and Sinha 1991), the COSCA study found that weeds constitute a serious problem in cassava production because generally it takes about two to four montQs before cassava leaves close the canopy and suppress weed growth (Dahniya and Jalloh 1998).Mechanized weeding can be adapted for cassava fields but the adaptation will require significant modification in cassava agronomic practices. For example, the mound seed-bed ,vill have to be replaced with a ridge seed-bed and cassava will have to be planted in rows. Smallholders will make these changes only if they are profitable.Most cassava varieties form edible roots within the first six months of planting and may be harvested at that age. If not harvested, the plant keeps growing and the roots continue to bulk (increase in size), in most cases, for up to twenty-four months after planting. Yet even after cassava reaches maximum bulking, harvesting can be deferred until the need arises or to a time convenient for the farmer.In Africa, harvesting of a field of cassava is generally spread over a period of several months or even up to three to four years. Fanners do not harvest a cassava field systematically from one comer to the other. Rather, a farmer harvests particular cassava stands, depending on variety, size, and location in the field. Farmers also frequently milk their cassava plants;that is, they harvest some but not all of the roots of a plant at one time, only to come back later, sometimes after several weeks or even months, toThe Cassava Transformatio.:.:o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ harvest the remaining roots. This practice is more common in countries such as Tanzania, where fanners produce cassava as a famine-reserve crop. Such farmers store their crops in the field and take only as many roots as are needed for a few meals (Kapinga 1995). IJ1e cassava-harvesting schedule is influenced by the general food supply outlook. market conditions, and labor availability for harvesting and processing. During drought and periods of attractive market prices farmers will harvest their cassava early, sometimes before roots attain their maximum bulking.For the six COSCA study countries, the average age of cassava fields at harvest was 11.9 months, with a range of from 6 to 49 months. Among countries that planted mostly sweet cassava varieties (the Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Uganda), the age of cassava fields at harvest was lowest in Ghana (fig. 6.3). Among countries that planted mostly bitter cassava varieties (the Congo, Nigeria, and Tanzania), the age of cassava fields at harvest was lowest in Nigeria. In Nigeria and Ghana cassava is produced mostly as a cash crop.Usually, if cassava is harvested after twelve months of planting, the field is no longer weeded. The field is, in effect, under bush fallo~. and cassava is harvested by wading into the bush fallow. clearing the bush around each cassava plant with a cutlass, chopping off the plant. pulling (or digging up) its roots, and then cutting the roots .off the stump_ The farmer then moves on to another plant, later gathering the roc;ts for transportation to the home or to a processing center Cassava is planted as a cash crop in Nigeria and Ghana. The amount of cassava harvesting labor per hectare was thus higher in Ghan~ and• Nigeria than in the other COSCA study countrie .. (fig_ 6.4). In fact. table Nil\"\"\"T.,,.,..\"\"\",. have been unable 10 hire su fficien I labor 10 h31Vesl previously planted cassava fields.To dale, moSI public sector research on cassava has focused on genelic research. Very lillie research has focused on developing machines to harvest cassava. [n igeria. the harvesting constraint ror cassava is now al a similar stage to thaI for grain harvesting in the Uniled States al the beginning of the nineteenth century, when grain was stiJl h31Vested by the same method Ihal had been used in the founeenth century (Johnson 2000. 6). The invention of the reaper in America in the second quaner of the nineteenth century sharply reduced labor inpulS in grain harvesting. The combine then replaced the reaper, and the direct labor inpulS required to produce a ton of grain declined by 70 percent in the nineleenth century (Johnson 2000). Without question. a mechanical revolution is now needed 10 break the labor bollieneck in cassava harvesting among fa lmel's in Nigeria and Ghana who are planting the TMS va. Cl>t. Mechanization of the harvesting operation is more urgent than mechanization of any of the preharvesling tasks because it will fadUlate the adoption of agronomic measures that can raise cassava yields. Given the complexity of smallholder production systems, researchers s hould focus on mechanizing one harvesting task at a time. In th~ United States, for example. the combine harvester for grain was developed in our slages: tJ,e reaper, the binder. the iliresher. and finally the combine. in that order (lohnson 2000). The same multistep process should be followed in Africa.From the mid 1970s to the early 19805, attempts were made at IITA to adapt mechanized potato harvesters for cassava harvesting. The research was thwarted, however, by different types of cassava seed-beds, irregular cassava plant spacing, variable -canopy-size. and by the premature termination of the rnA's research on mechanization in the early 19805 (Garman and Navasero 1982).The high labor requirements of harvesting and transportation are not obvious under the present ad hoc harvesting strategies. When a few stands of cassava are harvested, it is easy for a woman to cany one head-load to her home at the end of the day's work. Yet mechanized harvesting and transportation will be needed when an entire cassava field has to be harvested and transported in one day. In some areas where cassava is planted as a cash crop and where farm roads are accessible to motorized vehicles, such as in parts of Nigeria, entire cassava fields are harvested manually but transported by motor vehicles to processing centers. In most of the cassava-growing areas of Africa, however, farm roads are so poor that cassava can be transported only by head-load. Therefore, the mechanization of cassava harvesting \\\\Iill require improvement in fann roads to facilitate the movement of the mechanization equipment to the cassava fields and the evacuation of cassava.There are three main fallow systems in Africa: long fallow, short fallow, and continuous cultivation. Because of population growth~ cassava cultivation under the long fallow system has declined in all six COSCA study countries. The distribution of cassava fields surveyed by COSCA researchers were as follows: long fallow, 4 percent; short fallow, 79 percent; and continuous cultivation, 17 percent. Most farmers now produce cassava under the short fallow system because of cassava's long growth period, pest and disease problems, and compatibility with crops grown in association with cassava. Yet cassava production under continuous cultivation is an increasing practice in many African countries in response to the increasing population pressure on land.Cassava plant density is an important consideration for farmers because it is strongly correlated with cassava yields. Farmers who plant cassava as a cash crop plant at higher plant densities than do farmers who plant it as a famine-reserve crop or a rural food staple. The factors affecting cassava plant density are so numerous that the optimal plant density for high cassava yield is location specific.Cassava is reputed to be a crop that requires relatively low labor inputs for production. However, COSCA research confirms that this conventional wisdom is valid only where cassava is produced as a faminereserve crop or as a rural food staple. When cassava is produced as a cash crop, farmers use significantly more labor. In most of the COSCA study villages, all the field tasks for cassava production are done manually, using simple implements such as hand hoes and a cutlasses. In Nigeria, where the TMS varieties and improved agronomic practices have boosted yields by 40 percent, the labor constraint has shifted from cassava weeding to cassava harvesting. Harvesting is now proving to be a serious constraint on the spread of TMS varieties, because labor for cassava har-  In chapter 5, we concluded that TMS varieties are superior to local varieties in terms of yield, earliness of bulking, and resistance to pests and diseases. The TMS varieties are also at least as good as the local varieties in terms of cyanogen content, ease of processing, cooking quality of fresh roots, and the quality of processed products such as gari. This chapter examines the factors responsible for the rapid diffusion of the TMS varieties in Nigeria and the delayed diffusion of the varieties in Ghana and Uganda. We shall address the puzzle as to why there was a sixteen-year delay between the time that the TMS varieties were released in Nigeria in 1977 and the government of Ghana's official release of the TMS varieties in 1993. especially women, to take the cuttings and test-plant them in their fields.Hahn also visited numerous schools and encouraged children to take the materials to their parents to plant alongside local varieties.Hahn often accompanied an IITA driver with a truckload of the cuttings of the TMS varieties, stopping at intervals along the highways and donating small bundles to farmers to test-plant. Hahn reports that there was often a scramble for the cuttings when the truck stopped in villages along the highways. In locations where Hahn did not find farmers, he stopped anyway to plant a few cuttings in cassava fields along the highway,7 Hahn encouraged cassava farmers to launch the Nigerian Cassava Growers' Association, with membership drawn from all the cassava-producing states of Nigeria. The association helped distribute the TMS varieties throughout Nigeria. Hahn also prepared news releases about the TMS varieties and distributed them to Nigerian newspapers and radio and television stations.In 1984, Natalie D. Hahn, an IITA social scientist, conducted a farmlevel survey in Southwestern Nigeria to find ways to encourage women farmers to adopt the TMS varieties. The women reported that they purchased fields of cassava, harvested the roots, and spent a large percentage of their time preparing gari for sale in Ibadan. With support from UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund), a mechanized gari-processing center was established in one of the survey villages near Ibadan. The aim was to reduce women's labor inputs in cassava processing so that they could expand production of the TMS varieties in order to \"increase food consumption, reduce malnutrition and hunger\" (N. D. Hahn 1985, 199).We now tUIn to a discussion of other factors in Nigeria that facilitated the diffusion of the TMS varieties: vigorous government research and extension' services; a dense network of rural roads; available technology for gari preparation; and the mechanized grater .The rapid diffusion of the TMS varieties in Nigeria was facilitated by the collaboration of the National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI), the World Bank, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development  Naira (about US$20.00) per ton of gari by farmers using TMS varieties and manual grating. Cassava farmers benefit more from using labor-saving grating technology than from planting TMS varieties. TMS varieties are significantly more profitable, however, when grating is mechanized. For example, farmers planting the TMS varieties and using mechanized grating earned a net profit of 776 Naira (about US$46.00) per ton of gari.The financial analysis shows that the use of labor-saving grating technology is essential for the rapid adoption of TMS varieties. Yet the growing availability of the mechanized grater has shifted the cassava labor bottleneck to harvesting, peeling, and toasting. The COSCA study found that farmers in Nigeria who were grov.1ng the TMS varieties frequently reduced the area planted because, owing to labor shortage, they were not able to harvest and process the crop from the previous season's plantings.   In Uganda, an unusually high incidence and severity of a rare form of the There are five common groups of cassava products: fresh roots, dried roots, pasty products, granulated products, and cassava leaves.' This chapter examines the evolution of the five cassava products and shows that the traditional methods have been influenced by the availability of water and sunlight, by wage rates, and by market demand in cases where cassava is produced as a cash crop for urban consumption. This chapter also shows that there is regional variation in cassava preparation methods in Africa and that a major challenge is to diffuse the best practices from one region to another within Africa.The roots of sweet cassava varieties are eaten raw, roasted in an open fire, or boiled in water or oil. 2 The cyanogens in the roots are destroyed by slowly cooking the roots. Starting with cold water, the roots are gradually heated, promoting the hydrolysis of the cyanogens (Grace 1977).Boiled cassava roots may be pounded alone or in combination with other starchy staples such as banana (or plantain), yam, cocoyam, or sweet potato. Fresh cassava roots, boiled in water or in oil, are commonly sold by food vendors in major cities and consumed by workers as snacks or for lunch. 3  Pounded cassava is made from roots boiled in water. The preparation of pounded cassava is elaborate and cumbersome because the boiled cassava roots get sticky during pounding. In Ghana, it takes two women to pound a mortar of boiled cassava roots; one person in a standing position, pounding with a pestle, and the second in a sitting position, removing the sticky dough from the pesde by hand.Dried cassava roots are stored or marketed as chips, balls, or flour. Chips and balls are milled into flour at home by pounding with a mortar and pesde in preparation for a meal. There are two broad types of dried cassava roots: fermented and unfermented. Sun-or smoke-drying of unfermented dried cassava roots is the simplest method of cassava preparation (fig. 8.1). Smoke-drying requires a large amount of fuel wood. Since this method is inefficient in the elimination of cyanogens, it is used mostly for preparing sweet cassava varieties, which have a low cyanogen content.In the case of fermented dried cassava roots, the fermentation is accomplished in one of two ways: stacking in heaps or soaking in water. To prepare roots fermented by stacking in heaps, the cassava is cut into pieces, peeled, washed, and left in the sun for a day. The roots are then stacked in a heap, covered with leaves, and left to ferment for about one week. Fermentation in heaps has the advantage of improving the nutritional value of The recent introduction of the grater has eliminated staciGng and fermentation and therefore has saved time. The roots are now simply peeled, washed, and grated. 4 The pulp is placed in a perforated container and covered, and a weight is put on it for about three hours. The cyanogens are squeezed out along with the effluent. The half-dried pulp is then dried in the sun (Alyanak 1997).A common fennentation technique is to soak the fresh roots in a puddle or in a pot of water for three to five days. The roots are then peeled (if not peeled prior to soaking) and sun-or smoke-dried directly as whole roots. Alternatively, they can be crushed and pressed to remove the water and molded into balls.the taste of the final product. The longer the fermentation period, the stronger the sour taste. Taste is an important attribute, especially for consumers who eat fermented cassava products and who desire a strong sour taste.The cassava product needs to be visually attractive to a buyer. Bright color is a desired attribute. 5 The brightness of the color of dried roots depends on the method and duration of the fermentation, on the method of dI)~ng, on the efficiency of the ~ng energy, and on the cleanliness of • the drying envirorunent.as a large flat rock in the field, the shoulders of a paved road, flat rooftops, a flat basket, or even bare ground. Although roots dried in a basket may be moved in case of a bad weather, roots being dried on a rock, on the roadside, or on a rooftop often are not easily moved. If it rains, the cassava is soaked, and drying starts all over again. The wide range of drying surfaces used is such that the product can gather significant amounts of mold, dust, and other dirt, which influence the color of the product. In Cassava is eaten in the form of dried roots more often in rural than in urban areas (Idowu 1998). The traditional method of converting dried roots into cassava flour is to pound them in a mortar with a pestle and then sieve the flour through a fine basket or a perforated metal bowl. Consumers can purchase dried cassava roots already milled into flour. Yet cooking the dried root flour is painstaking because it involves stirring the flour in boiling water until it turns into a thick paste.The level of each resource-i.e., sunlight, fuel wood, water, or laborneeded to prepare dried cassava roots varies with the preparation method used. Sun-drying of cassava roots is sunlight-intensive, while smokedrying requires fuel wood. Because of the abundance of sunlight, farmers in the savanna usually adopt sun-drying methods, while farmers in the forest zone adopt the smoke-drying method because of limited sunshine. Farmers in the savanna ferment cassava roots by stacking, while farmers in the forest zone ferment by soaking because of the availability of water.Peeling is more labor intensive when it is done prior to rather than after soaking. Milling by pounding with mortar and pestle is always labor intensive.In most places, women provide the labor used to prepare dried roots.COSCA researchers interviewed a woman in the Congo who was pounding dried cassava roots to make flour for the family dinner. Her husband was sitting under the shed of palm leaves with muddy feet and muddy digging hoe beside him, signs that he was resting after plowing in the field. The COSCA researchers asked the woman why she did not take the dried cassava roots to the nearby mission station to be milled by a machine. Before the woman could respond the man said, \"I would not eat cassava flour milled by machine.\"6'IWo forms of pasty cassava products are common in Africa. The most popular is called \"uncooked paste\" because it is stored or marketed with-• out cooking. To prepare the uncooked paste, the roots are soaked in water for three to five days, during which time the roots soften and ferment. The soaked'roots are then manually crushed in a fine basket or in a perforated metal bowl in a sack submerged in water. As the soft root is crushed, it is sieved by shaking, thereby separating the pulp into the sack while keeping the fiber in the basket. The sack of pulp is squeezed, often manually or sometimes under a heavy weight, to express the effluent. The end product is a dense pulp, which is stored or marketed.Preparing uncooked paste is water-use intensive, as additional water is needed, after the soaking, for sieving. Therefore, the preparation of cassava as uncooked paste is concentrated in areas with an abundant water supply, The sieving in water is labor-intensive, In most places women provide the labor to prepare the uncooked paste. This is an unpleasant chore. Women stand in a puddle of water for hours, shaking baskets of the fermented cassava.Preparing cassava as an uncooked paste extends the shelf life of the cassava product and reduces its volume in comparison with fresh roots.Yet the l!ncooked paste is not a convenient food product because it needs to be cooked and pounded, sometimes twice, before it is ready for a meal. However, it is commonly used to feed hired labor employed in cassava production. The uncooked paste is less expensive than other cassava products while at the same time it gives a feeling of satiety because it is heavy.In a COSCA study village in southwestern Nigeria, the uncooked paste was nicknamed \"six-to-six\" by the farmers, meaning 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. because hired farm labor eat it twice each day, once in the morning and once in the evening, with nothing in between. In some parts of Nigeria, the uncooked cassava paste is transported over long distances in truckloads and retailed in urban markets in small plastic or polypropylene bags.Nigerian urban markets. Every evening in major cities in the cassavagrowing areas of Nigeria, it is common to find women selling cooked cassava paste wrapped in plastic bags. As women go home from work or from market, they stop and buy some for the evening meal. The paste is best eaten when it is hot. A housev.ife may buy it in bulk and warm it when it is 'time to eat. When it is warmed, however, the product fOnTIS a jelly on the surface and pounding is required to restore a uniform texture.Although more research is needed on preparation methods, cooked cassava paste is a promising food for busy urban consumers.Cassava paste can also be stored or marketed in a steamed form.To prepare the paste, fiber is removed by hand from roots fermented byThe Cassava Transformation soaking them in water. The roots are then stacked in a heap to further ferment while covered with leaves and pressed with heavy objects to express water. The pulp is ground with a stone or pounded in a mortar. The resulting fine pulp is firmly wrapped in leaves and steamed. There are several variations of this method. For example, in some places the roots are peeled before soaking to improve the attractiveness of the end product. However, peeling before soaking makes the product more expensive because fresh cassava roots require more peeling labor than do roots softened by soaking. In some places, steaming is done twice. After the first steaming the product is kneaded, rewrapped, and then steamed a second time.Steamed paste is stored or marketed in a ready-to-eat form. Preparing steamed paste is expensive because many steps are involved and each one requires additional inputs. For example, grinding and sieving are labor-intensive. The soaking step is water-use intensive. and steaming is fuel wood-use intensive. In the Congo, steamed paste, chickwangue, is prepared entirely by women. It is also common throughout Central Africa, from Cameroon to Burundi (Jones 1959).7 Steamed paste is not as bulky as fresh cassava roots and therefore it is less expensive to transport. The double fermentation as well as the steaming impart a long shelf life to steamed paste. The sour flavor achieved through extended fermentation is a characteristic that is cherished by regular customers. Yet it is also a turnoff to potential new consumers.The color of the pasty products (uncooked or steamed) depends upon the quality of the water in which the cassava is soaked. Cassava may be soaked in running water, such as a stream or a river, or in stagnant watet', such as a ground puddle or water in a container, depending on what is available. If cassava is soaked in clean running water, the pasty product will have a bright white color. If the soaking is done in dirty water or over an extended period, the product acquires a dull color. In the Congo, the regions of Bandundu and Bas-Congo are suppliers of steamed paste to the urban population of Kinshasa, where consumers prefer Bas-Congo products that are brighter in color. The brownish tint in cassava paste in the Bandundu region has been traced to the color of the water in the streams in which the cassava is soaked (Osiname et al. 1988).There are three common types of granulated cassava products: gari, attieke, and tapioca. The methods for making granulated cassava products originated in Brazil. As we pointed out in chapter 1, the diffusion of cassava from South America to West Africa was delayed until the methods of preparing cassava as granulated products were also introduced from South America.Cari is a toasted food product that is much more common in Nigeria and Ghana than in the other four COSCA study countries. To prepare gari, fresh cassava roots are peeled, washed, and grated. The resulting pulp is put in a porous sack and weighted down with a heavy object for three to four days to express effluent from the pulp while it is fermenting. The dewatered and fermented lump of pulp is pulverized and sieved and the resulting semi-dry fine pulp is toasted in a pan. Palm oil is sometimes added during toasting in order to prevent the pulp from burning. However, the addition of palm oil changes the color of the gari from white to yellow.The grating, effluent expression, pulverization, toasting, and addition of palm oil are adequate to reduce cyanogens to a safe level (Hahn 1989).Fetmentation imparts a sour taste to gari. The duration of fermentation varies depending on consumer preference for sour taste. The COSCA study found that commercial gari processors in Nigeria ferment cassava for different lengths of time, depending on the market. For example, in Edo State, a major commercial cassava-producing state, gari preparers ferment for a maximum of three days for gari prepared for markets in Eastern Nigeria and for five ~ays or more for markets in Western Nigeria. The strong sour taste in gari acquired from extended fennentation is appreciated by the Yoruba people of Western Nigeria. The Ibo people of Eastern Nigeria prefer gari that is bland in taste. Toasting extends the shelf life so that gari easily can be transported to urban markets. If kept in a dry environment, gari will store better than grain because gari is not known to be attacked by weevils (Okigbo 1980).Cari preparation tasks are labor-intensive, and women provide the manual labor for these tasks. However, in the next chapter we shall The Cassava Transformation discuss a mechanized method of cassava grating that is widely used in Nigeria and Ghana. A large amount of fuel wood is needed for the toasting. Many huy fuel wood and hire female lahar to prepare gari for sale to urban consumers.To summarize, gari is a convenient product because it is stored and marketed in a ready-to-eat form. It can he soaked in hot or cold water, depending upon the type of meal being prepared. Cari has a long shelf life, and it is therefore attractive to urban consumers. It is the most common form in which cassava is sold in Ghana (Doku 1969) and in Nigeria (Ngoddy 1977).The second type of granulated cassava product is attieke, a type of steamed cassava that is found only in the COte d'Ivoire. Attieke is made in much the same way as gari, with more or less the same inputs. Instead of toasting, however, attieke is steamed. Attieke is available in a wet form, and it has a shorter shelf life than does gari.The third type of granulated cassava product is tapioca, which is primarily consumed in Togo and Benin. 8 To prepare tapioca, cassava is grated and then put in water, pressed, and kneaded to release the starch.The starch is permitted to settle at the bottom of the container, and the water is drained off. The operation is repeated several times to prepare high-quality product. The damp starch is spread in a pan and toasted in the same way that gari is, to form a coarse granular product. It may later he sifted to sort the granules by size.Cassava leaves are edible and a more convenient food product than are fresh roots. Cassava leaves have a nutritive value similar to that of other dark green leaves and are an extremely valuable source of vitamins A (carotene) and C, iron, calcium, and protein (Latham 1979). The consumption of cassava leaves helps many Africans compensate for the lack  (Okigbo 1980). Most of these vegetables are, however, available only during the rainy season. Therefore, there is a seasonal gap in the availability of vegetables in West Africa which cassava leaves could fill. For example, an assessment of the nutritional status of children in parts of the forest zone of southwest Nigeria shows that between February and May, many children are malnourished, and kwashiorkor cases are common and infant mortality is high (Nnanyelugo et al. 1992). The period from February to May is a dry period, and green vegetables are scarce, but cassava leaves are available because cassava grows leaves all year round. Women in the cassava-growing areas of West Africa are generally not aware that cassava leaves are edible and rich in protein, vitamins, and minerals. The women do not know that their children can be saved from malnutrition and even death by feeding them cassava leaves in the dry months when other vegetables are in short supply. The consumption of cassava leaves as a vegetable will make cassava production more profitable and increase the food security and nutritional status of African families.water content, they are less expensive to dry than the roots. If leaf The Cassava Transformation harvesting is properly scheduled, it does not have an adverse effect on cassava root yield. For example, when leaves were harvested monthly, the reduction in root yield ranged from 22 to 42 percent (Dahniya 1983). Root yields were not affected, however, when the leaves were harvested every two months (Lutaladio and Ezumah n.d.).A lesson that emerges from this chapter is that the traditional methods used to make five cassava products have been influenced by the availability of sunlight, water, and fuel wood and by wage rates. For example, in areas where water is scarce, the sun-drying method is popular. In areas where sun-drying is not efficient, smoke-drying is practiced. Likewise, fanners who produce cassava as a cash crop process it as gari by purchasing fuel wood and hiring female labor. This diversity of natural resources and differentiation in wage rates has contributed to an array of cassava products in Africa.Another important lesson that emerges from the COSCA study is the localized nature of cassava preparation methods. For example, gari preparation is common throughout West Africa but not in Central and EastTanzania but not in the Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, or Uganda. The challenge is to promote the diffusion of the best practices, such as the preparation of gari and cassava leaves, throughout the cassava-growing areas of Africa.Nigeria and Tanzania provide an example of the mutual benefits of exchanging information on best practices. The Nigerian method of gari preparation could be introduced in Tanzania. Likewise, the Tanzanian best practices in the preparation of cassava leaves could be introduced in Nigeria, where cassava leaves are not now consumed. In 1994, under the aegis of the COSCA study, two Tanzanian homemakers were brought to Nigeria and paired with gari preparation host families to understudy how to make gari. The activity was interrupted by the civil strife that followed the annulment of the 1993 presidential election in Nigeria. However, weThe Preparation of Five Cassava Products learned subsequently that people in the villages of the two Tanzanian homemakers were mixing gan with maize to make uga/i, the most common traditional maize meal in Eastern and Southern Africa (Kapinga 1995).In summary, diversity of natural resources and differentiation in usage rates have contributed to an array of cassava products in Africa. The challenge is to promote the best practices, such as the preparation of gan and cassava leaves, throughout the cassava-growing areas of Africa.A field of Ihe TMS cassava varielies. The leaf dellsily redllces lVeed grolVlh.{or sale in a markel, Nigerian {aroters ha\",esting cassava.A Ghallaian woman prepan'ng gari by toastillg grated cassava rOOl. In Africa, women often combine cassava processing with childcare.Carl {or sale alol'lg IVilh yam (backgrollnd) ill Nigeria.We pointed out in chapters 5 and 6 that farmers in Nigeria who planted the TMS varieties had difficulties in recruiting labor for harvesting and manual processing. In order to eliminate hand pounding and reduce processing costs, research has been carried out in Nigeria and several other countries to develop mechanized processing machines. In this chapter we shall trace the evolution of public and private attempts to develop improved cassava processing machines. We shall show that private sector smiths, welders, and mechanics have been more successful in developing cost-effective machines than have researchers in government research institutes.Africa: graters, pressers, and mills. The graters are mechanized grating machines that convert fresh cassava roots into mash for preparing dried cassava roots and granulated products. The pressers are used to pressThe Cassava Transformation effluent from cassava mash. The mill is used for converting any food crop in dry fOnD, including dried cassava roots, into flour .Traditionally, cassava was pounded in a mortar with a pestle. Later, artisans developed a manual grater in the form of a sheet of perforated metal mounted on a flat piece of wood. The cost of the manual grater was modest because it was made from a piece of wood, scrap metal, and a few nails. The hand grater was easy to wash and dry. However, the efficiency of the hand grater was low and women who used it sometimes sustained hand injuries. Jones (1959, 209) reports that the French introduced mechanical graters in Benin (formally Dahomey) in the 1930s to teach farmers how to prepare gari and tapioca for export markets. Adegboye and Akinwumi (1990) report that a hand-operated mechanical grater was developed in 1931 by an artisan in Oyo, a town in southwestern Nigeria. The artisan placed one of the machines on the roadside in Oyo, where some expatriate staff of the United Africa Company (UAC) noticed it and helped the artisan develop the first engine-driven cassava grater in Nigeria (Adegboye and Akinwumi 1990).1The COSCA study found that mechanized graters in villages in Nigeria and Ghana have been developed and refined over time by village smiths, welders, and mechanics. The mechanized graters are made with old engines and scrap metals. The cost of a grater ranges from US$200 to US$500. Most of the graters are owned by village entrepreneurs and oper~ ated by young men or teenage boys who provide grating services to smallholders for a fee based on the quantity grated. The quantity processed for a customer can be as small as one kilogram or as large as several tons.The processors are at the beck and call of farmers at any hour of the day.In some villages, the graters are located in a marketplace. In other villages, a grater is mounted on wheels and wheeled to the fields or homes of farmers who request its services.set of services, including mechanized grating, pressing, and sieving of the cassava. The components of the mechanized grater can be changed so that the same engine can be used both to pulverize and to sieve the cassava mash. In more comprehensive village processing centers, farmers also toast gari at the processing center. Maintenance services for the graters are provided by roadside mechanics and welders at any hour of the day.In Nigeria and Ghana, the mechanized grater is now being used by some commercial gari processors (table 9.1). The replacement of hand graters with the mechanized grater has reduced the cost of producing gari. The COSCA study found that in Nigeria, fifty-one days of labor were needed to prepare a ton of gari by hand, while only twenty-four days were required to prepare the same amount by mechanized grater. Table 9.2 compares the cost of production per ton of gari with TMS varieties and Note: 85 Naira = US$1.00The Cassava Transformation manual versus mechanized grater: For example, when the average cassava yield is 18 tons per hectare, the total cost of making a ton of gari with manual grating is 18,493 Naira, as compared with 13,647 Naira per ton with mechanized grating.To summarize, the mechanized grater has reduced processing labor by 50 percent and dramatically increased the profitability of gari production in Nigeria and Ghana. Since the grating task has been mechanized, peeling is now the most labor-intensive task in gari processing, followed by the toasting stage.COSCA researchers discovered that the mechanized grater was infrequently used byattieke processors in the Cilte d'Ivoire because the texture of attwke made with the mechanized grater was not as good as that of hand-made attieke. The planting of the TMS varieties is thus not profitable to farmers who process cassava as attieke because manual grating is laborintensive .Since cassava has a high (70 percent) water content, various methods have been developed to extract the water during processing. Traditionally, effluent was drained from grated cassava pulp through a process by which it was put in a basket, covered with leaves, and pressed with a heavy object such as a stone for three to five days. Fermentation took place at the same time. However, pressing has evolved through three stages. First, instead of a basket, the mash was placed in a sack. Second, the stone was replaced '''ith wooden plates. The sack of cassava pulp was tightened between two wooden plates with a rope to squeeze out the effluent. The time period taken to express the effluent was thus reduced from around four days to two and the period of fermentation was also cut from four to two days.The most recent development was the replacement of the rope with a screw press.' Using this method, a sack of cassava mash is placed between two wooden plates and pressed with an automobile jack to remove the effluent (Adegboye and Akinwumi 1990). The COSCA study found that the mechanized presser was introduced as early as 1940 in the Cilte d'Ivoire but it was only in the 1960s that it was widely adopted (fig. press is cU ITenlly lIsed by many commercial gari processors in Nigeria and most allieke processors in the Cote d'lvoirc. The screw press eliminates the fennentation step and reduces the processing time from several days to a few hours. The mechanized presser is a simple hand-operaled machine constructed from local wooden plates and a used automobile jack. Mechanized pressers are operated and maintained b village entrepreneurs. In Nigeria, mechanized graters and pressers are often operated and mainta. ined b the same village entrepreneurs in the major areas of commercial cassava production. This enables fanners to have access to grating, pressing. pulverizing, and sieving services in one convenient location.The advantage of the presser is that it removes the effluent in a few hours, but the inherent disadvantage is that it eliminates the fermentation to make flour for dinner. This use of labor can be described as an onerous waste of effort.In 1931, a private Ghanaian (formerly Gold Coast) entrepreneur designed and patented an automated grater and screw press.' He applied to the government for a loan to finance the construction of a large-scale plant to process cassava. The plant was closed in 1958 because it was unprofitable (Doku 1969).In the 1970s. the fast-growing urban population and increasing demand for food spurred the development of several industrial schemes for processing and preparation of traditional cassava foods. These In Nigeria and Ghana, the mechanized grater is used by commercial gari processors. The use of a mechanized grater has reduced gari processing costs by 50 percent and has dramatically increased the profitability of gari production with the TMS varieties in these countries. Since the grating task has been mechanized, peeling is now the most labor-intensive task in gari preparation, followed by toasting. In the Cote d'Ivoire, the mechanized grater is not used by many attieke processors because the texture of attieke made with the mechanized grater is not as good as that of hand-made attieke. The planting of the TMS varieties is thus not profitable to farmers who process cassava as attieke. because hand-grating is laborintensive.A variety of methods have been developed to extract the water from cassava during processing. In the traditional method, effluent is drained from grated cassava mash by putting it in a basket, covering it with leaves, and placing a heavy object such as stone on top of it for three to five days. The traditional method of preparing cassava flour from dried cassava roots is to pound the roots in a mortar with a pestle. Today, mechanized mills are commonplace in the urban centers in the six COSCA study countries. Mills were also observed in several COSCA villages in Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda, though in only a small percentage of the COSCA villages in the Cllte d'Ivoire, Tanzania, and the Congo. The components of the mechanized mill are also fabricated locally from scrap materials.The following new challenges in mechanized cassava processing flow from the COSCA study: • Engineers and breeders should join forces to mechanize the peeling task by developing cassava roots that are uniform in shape and size and have skins that meet certain specifications.• New technology is needed to reduce the amount of labor required for the toasting stage of gari preparation.• A mechanized grater should be developed that will make attieke with a texture as good as that of hand-made attieke.In the past, attempts have been made in the various COSCA countries by private entrepreneurs to process cassava on a large scale using integrated grating. pressing, pulverizing, sieving, and toasting machines in a factory style of operation. However, these firms failed because of an array of problems, including shortage of cassava roots, fragmented market for cassava products, unacceptable consumer taste, and high cost of labor for hand-peeling.Numerous public-sector agencies were established in Nigeria in the 1970s and1980s to develop and diffuse mechanized cassava-processing machines, yet the machines developed by these government agencies have not been adopted by farmers because the machines are not as convenient or reliable as those developed by the small-scale private artisans.emerge from this analysis of the evolution of mechanized cassavaprocessing methods. Mechanization of food processing must be done only for products that have a market demand, such as gari. Mechanized machines should be small and easy to fabricate and repair by village artisans using local materials, such as old engines and scrap metals. Since most villages in Africa do not have electricity, and petroleum fuel is scarce and expensive, machines that are manually driven are more suitable for remote villages, provided they can be fabricated and maintained by village artisans using local materials.The gender debate mushroomed in Africa in the 1970s following the publication of Esther Boserup's influential Women. Role in Economic Development (1970). Boserup, a Danish social scientist, provided an array of evidence to show that women in developing countries play significant roles in agricultural and rural development and that Africa was the region of female farming par excellence. She reported that in many African tribes, nearly all the tasks connected with food production are carried out by women.! Boserup drew on eighteen anthropological village studies and concluded that women in Africa often \"do more than half of the agricultural work; in some cases ... around 70 percent, and in one case nearly 80 percent of the total\" ( 22).Based on the evidence from anthropological case studies and surveys, Boserup urged researchers, policy makers, and donor agencies to give more attention to the role of women in research and in development projects. She argued that \"women usually lose in the development process,\" because men monopolize the use of new equipment and agricultural methods, and this tendency is frequently reinforced by a bias in extensionThe CassaIJa Transformation programs in favor of men. As a result, there will be a relative decline in the productivity of women, and \"the corollary of the relative decline in women's labor productivity is a decline in their relative status\" (Boserup 1970, 53). Inspired but puzzled by Boserup's sweeping claim that \"women lose in the development process,\" Dunstan Spencer (1976) carried out a study of a new rice production project in the Sierra Leone and collected biweekly data on the workload of men, women, and children engaged in rice production. Spencer and members of his research team interviewed twenty-three rice-producing families in the Sierra Leone once every two weeks from May 1974 to June 1975. A total of fourteen of the twenty-three households were participating in a World Bank-financed project to increase rice production in the eastern province of Sierra Leone, while the other nine households were nonparticipants selected at random from the same province. Spencer's meticulous study of the numbers of hours worked by each member of the twenty-three households revealed that the workload of the women in the households participating in the rice project increased only slightly, while the workload of the men and male children was substantially increased during the first three years of the rice development project.Based on these findings, Spencer rejected Boserup's hypothesis that women's workload increases relative to men's as commercialization of agriculture proceeds. However, Spencer acknowledged that his sample was small and that more research was needed on the impact of technical change on labor inputs and the returns to the labor of men, women, and children in different ethnic groups and in different rice production systems. In the final analysis, the critical policy question is the returns to an hour of labor worked rather than number of hours worked. Unfortunately, there are very few rigorous empirical studies in the literature of the workload and returns per hour of labor by gender over time.Without question, women have played and will continue to play significant roles in food production in Africa. Yet the literature inspired by Boserup's book has generated some sweeping generalizations, such as that women produce up to 80 percent of the food in Africa. Virtually every major donor agency and many gender and agriculture experts have reported that women account for 70 to 80 percent of African food production (Snyder 1990;Brown et aI. 1995;Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 1997;USAID 1997;World Bank 2000). Also, a number of scholars have reported that women were denied access to resources needed to produce the food, such as land, credit, and extension ad'ice (Udry et al. 1995;Quisumbing 1996;Lahai, Goldey, and Jones 2000).Gladwin recently reported that the Boserup thesis is by now \"the accepted wisdom\" that women are losers in the development process (1996,127).COSCA studies of the cassava food system in six countries in Africa have generated several gender \"surprises.\" We shall synthesize COSCA evidence and show that both men and women allocate significant amounts of their labor to cassava production in countries where cassava is a major food crop. We shall also show that men and women typically perform different and changing roles during the cassava transformation. Yet it is unwise to generalize for all of Africa.fu each of the six study countries, COSCA researchers collected information on male and female labor inputs by cassava fields and by tasks such as land clearing, plowing, planting, weeding, harvesting, transporting, and processing. Figure 10.1 reveals that the number of cassava fields in which women provided the bulk of the labor for each task increased from a low level during land clearing to a higher level at weeding, harvesting, transporting, and processing. 2 By contrast, the number of fields in which men provided the bulk of the labor was highest during land clearing, plowing, and planting. These findings show that both men and women are heavily engaged in different cassava production tasks in the six most important cassava-producing countries in Africa (table 10.1). To summarize, men typically work on land clearing, plowing, and planting while women perform weeding, harvesting, transporting, and processing tasks. . For example, manual land cleruing and plowing for cassava planting are power-intensive tasks that ru'e usually performed by men. In some isolaled cases, however, women also perform some of lhese power-inlensive tasks. A COSCA researcher in the Congo asked a male farmer who provided the bulk of the labor for transporting cassava from his field . The farmer retoned that the COSCA investigator should know that only women could perform this task because transporting cassava by heador back-load is a very heavy task. The Congo is a textbook example of a country at the rural food staple stage of the cassava transformation. Ln areas of the Congo where there is little or no tree crop production, women do virtually all the cassava work because young men have outmigrated in large numbers to try to find employment in urban centers (Drachousso(f. Focan, and Hecq 1993). In tl,e COSCA study villages. women in households with low ratios of men to women carried out a substantial proportion of land clearing and a significantly larger proportion of plowing for cassava production than did men.' Yet the reverse pattern was found in the tree crop-dominated rural economies in the Congo where men have remained in the villages because they can earn a higher wage in tree crop production than in the urbanThe Cassava Transformation centers. The COSCA study found that the proportion of cassava work done by men was higher in tree crop-than in non-tree crop-producing households.In the Congo, women are left to produce food for their families under conditions of extreme poverty. The difficult policy issue in these circumstances is the following: What can be done to improve the economic conditions of women? The solution to rural poverty and food insecurity among women is to introduce technologies that will improve the economic returns of cassava production and processing. These measures include:• the development and diffusion of labor-saving technologies for cassava field tasks, especially for harvesting; • the development and diffusion of labor-saving methods for cassava processing, particularly the peeling task; and• the diffusion of available labor-saving processing technologies to areas where such technologies are not available.The COSCA study provides consistent evidence that when cassava is primarily a subsistence crop produced for home consumption, women are the dominant participants in production, haIVesting, and processing.that is produced for urban centers, however, the workload of men increased for all tasks, from production to harvesting to processing. This important finding emerges from a comparison of the proportion of ~as sava work done on each task by men in four countries at different stages of the cassava transformation: the Congo, which is at the rural/urban food staple stage; Tanzania, which is at the famine-reserve stage; the Cote d'Ivoire, which is at the rural food staple stage; and Nigeria, which is at the cash crop for urban consumption stage (fig. 10.2). For each task, the proportion of work done by men was found to increase as the four countries progressed through the different stages of the cassava transformation. For example, the proportion of the cassava weeding done by men in Nigeria was higher than in the Cote d1voire, while the proportion of the In counuies such as Nigeria and Ghana, where the cassava transformation has advanced to the stage of a cash crop for urban consumption, men are staying at home to produce cassava side by side with women. As the cassava lransfonnalion progresses. men contribute more labor 10 each cassava production task. In most places, women assume increasing responsibilities in cassava production and processing as the tasks advance from field-based to home-based activities, such as processing, because women are able to combine these activities with homemaking activities. To summarize, men provided more than half of the labor on cassava fields in five of the SL. COSCA counuies: the COle d'lvoire, Ghana. Nigeria, Tan• zania, and Uganda.Access to Improved Tech.olaglas by Man and Women Chapter 6 reported that the main inputs in cassava production in Africa are land, labor, planting materials, and, in some places, mechanized land clearing and plowing. The lack of access to farmland by women was not found to be a constraint on how much cassava women planted. Both women's and men's cassava fields were found on inherited, purchased, or rented farmland. Women are able to inherit, purchase, or rent farmland in most of the COSCA villages in the Congo, Ghana, and Tanzania, and in a large percentage of the study villages in the COte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, and Uganda. In most of the villages in the Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria. Tanzania, and Uganda, men worked more, in proportionate tenns, on women's cassava fields than women worked on men's cassava fields, either as family labor or as hired labor outside the household.Hence, women did not lack access to men's labor for their own cassava production.Cassava planting materials-that is, the stem cuttings-were readily available to both men and women because they collected the cuttings from their own fields. The COSCA study found that although the agency responsible for the multiplication and distribution of the TMS varieties in Nigeria was 95 percent male, the TMS varieties were planted almost as frequently in women's fields (55 percent of women's cassava fields) as in men's fields (around 60 percent of men's cassava fields). During this same time period, the entire extension staff of the Ministries of Agriculture in the eastern states of Nigeria (82 percent male and 18 percent female) was engaged in the diffusion of TMS varieties.The COSCA study found that the average cassava yield in the six countries was 11.0 tons per hectare on women's fields and 13.2 tons per hectare on men's fields. The lower yield in the women's fields was due to the harvesting of cassava in the women's fields in their compound garden at an earlier age of maturity than in men's fields. The average age of cassava fields at harvest in the six study countries was lS.7 months in men's fields and 12.9 months in women's fields. In addition, previous studies have shown that women are often allocated farmland of inferior soil fertility for their fields, further explaining the difference in the average yields between men's and women's cassava fields (Palmer-Iones 1991).To summarize, in Nigeria, the TMS varieties were adopted as frequently in women's cassava fields as in men's cassava fields. But in Uganda, mechanized bush clearing and tillage were practiced more frequently in men's cassava fields than in women's fields because women's cassava fields are small and often located in compound gardens near their homes. The lack of access to farmland, labor, or extension advice was not found to be a constraint on cassava production by womeD.In the six COSCA study countries, cassava processing was carried out mostly by women in 76 percent of the COSCA villages; equally by both women and the men in 20 percent of the villages; and mostly by men in only 4 percent of the villages (table 10.2).' Men carried out mostly the grating and pressing tasks in Nigeria and Ghana, where cassava grating and pressing tasks had been mechanized and cassava was a cash crop for milan consumption. In Nigeria, men were involved in cassava processing in more than 50 percent of the COSCA villages with mechanized graters that prepared gari for sale to urban consumers. In gari preparation, women manually peel and wash the cassava, men grate and press the cassava, then women toast the mash to make granulated products. This finding implies that men increase their labor inputs in cassava processing in areas where the crop is mainly produced for urban consumers.In villages in five COSCA countries excluding the Cote d'Ivoire, men owned twice as many food-processing machines as women. In the Cilte d'Ivoire, the number of women owning processing machines was almost ten times larger than the number of male owners. However, in all of these countries the services of the machines were available to both men and women on request. Therefore, although women generally owned fewer cassava-processing machines than men, they had easy access to these machines. We have shown that a large percentage of cassava fields in the COSCA study villages were planted for sale, especially in countries such as Nigeria and Ghana where cassava is produced mainly as a cash crop for urban consumption. In all the COSCA countries, the proportion of men's cassava fields planted for sale was higher than the proportion of those of women.In the COSCA countries, an average of 40 percent of the study villages sold their cassava mosdy in the fields; 15 percent at home; and 45 percent in the marketplace. The sales were carried out mosdy by women in 60 percent of the villages, mosdy by men in 20 percent of the villages, and by women and men equally in 20 percent of the villages.The COSCA studies have generated five findings that challenge the conventional wisdom that If cassava is a woman's crop\" and that more female extension agents should be hired to assist women in increasing the productivity of the cassava food system. The first is that both men and women make significant contributions of their labor to the cassava industry in most of the COSCA countries. Women and men were found to specialize in different tasks, however. Men worked predominandy on land clearing, plowing, and planting, while women specialized in weeding, harvesting, transporting, and processing.The second gender surprise is that women were found to contribute less than half of the total labor inputs in the cassava system in five of the six COSCA study countries. The exception was the Congo. Therefore, it is a vast overstatement to categorize cassava as \" a woman's crop.\" In fact, both men and women play strategic but changing roles during the cassava transfonnation process.The third gender surprise is that as the cassava transformation proceeds and cassava becomes a cash crop produced primarily for urban centers, men increase their labor contribution to each of the production and processing tasks. For example, the proportion of the cassava weeding done by men was higher in Nigeria than in Tanzania because Nigeria is at the cash crop stage of the cassava transformation while Tanzania is still at the famine-reserve stage.The fourth gender surprise is the COSCA finding that the introduction of labor-saving technologies in cassava production and processing has led to a redefinition of gender roles in the cassava food system. Inincreased their labor inputs in planting, weeding, and harvesting. As the processing tasks become mechanized in Nigeria, the contribution of male labor to cassava processing increases, because men operated all of the processing machines. When processing became mechanized, women shifted their labor to production tasks, such as weeding, while men managed the mechanized processing tasks. Both the third and the fourth findings challenge the validity of the claim that women's workload increases relative to men's as commercialization of agriculture proceeds.The fifth gender surprise is that women who wanted to plant cassava were not constrained by the lack of access to new cassava production technologies or to essential production inputs such as farmland, cuttings of the TMS varieties, and hired labor. Both women and men were able to plant cassava on land that they had inherited, purchased, or rented.Finally, although most of the cassava-processing machines were owned by men in most of the COSCA countries, both men and women had access to the machines by paying a fee to the machine owners.What policy implications flow from these gender surprises? Although there are persistent calls by donor agencies and gender experts on African policy makers to hire more women agricultural extension workers in cassava-growing areas, COSCA research shows that both men and women play significant and changing roles in the cassava food system in Africa.Country-specific studies are needed to determine appropriate policy measures based on the stage of the cassava transformation and the market oudook for cassava for consumers and livestock feed and industrial uses. For example, in Nigeria and Ghana, where cassava is produced as a cash crop, more men are staying in the villages and working in cassava production and gari processing. Similarly, in the Congo, men are sta)~ng in tree crop-producing villages and working on cassava for home consumption because they earn higher cash income from tree crops than from employment in urban areas. Yet outside the tree crop areas, young men migrate out of the Congolese villages to escape rural poverty. Women are therefore left to produce food for their families under conditions of extreme rural poverty.The solution to poverty and low returns to both men and women engaged in cassava production and processing is to take a holistic approach and introduce improved varieties and processing technologies to improve the economic returns of cassava production and processing and drive down the real (inflation adjusted) price of cassava in rural and urban markets. The specific measures to be taken include:• development and diffusion of labor-saving technologies for cassava field tasks, especially for harvesting;• development and diffusion of labor-saving methods for cassava processing, particularly the peeling task;• diffusion of labor-saving processing technologies to regions and countries where such technologies do not exist; and• increasing \"market pull\" by improving roads and increasing the access of cassava farmers and gari producers to both rural and urban markets.Cassava is a major source of calories for roughly two out of every five Africans.' However, many international agencies and bilateral donors are hesitant to extend loans and grants to African nations to help them increase the production of root crops such as cassava because of the long held wrong belief that cassava is an \"inferior good,\" that is, that the per capita consumption of cassava declines as per capita income increases. countries\" (International Food Policy Research Institute 1976, 35). Today, the low status accorded cassava by the international organizations and donor agencies flows from two misleading myths: that cassava is an inferior food that is produced by and for rural households and that because of its low protein content cassava is a nutritionally inferior food crop.However, the IFPRI recently concluded that root crops such as cassava are important for smallholders in the marginal areas of Africa, Asia, andThe Cassava TransformationSouth America and that special steps should be taken to boost cassava production, especially in Africa (Pinstrup-Anderson, Pandya-Lorch, and Rosegrant 1999). Yet much of the future growth of the cassava industry will depend on whether investments are going to be forthcoming to make cassava competitive with rice and wheat in urban centers.This chapter examines cassava consumption patterns over time and marshals evidence to show: (1) that cassava is a major source of calories for a large proportion of the population in Africa; ( 2) that from 1961 to 1998 total cassava consumption more than doubled in Africa, compared with only about a 20 percent increase in South America (FAOSTAT); ( 3) that cassava waste is high, especially because of inefficient processing methods, and ( 4) that the income elasticities of demand for cassava and cassava products such as gari are high among rural and urban households in Ghana and Nigeria and among rural households in Tanzania and Uganda. The chapter concludes that cassava and cassava products, such as gari, are an important food staple with favorable market prospects for low-, medium-, and high-income households in Africa.Cassava production in Africa is used almost exclusively for consumption as food. In fact, 95 percent of the total cassava production, after accounting for waste, was used as food in Africa in the late 1990s.' By contrast, during the same period, 55 percent of total cassava production in Asia and 40 percent of that in South America were used as food.In Africa, total cassava consumption has more than doubled in the ). The availahility of cassava in a convenient food form, such as gari, played a major role in the increase in per capita cassava consumption in Nigeria and Ghana. Future increases in cassava consumption in other African countries will depend on how well cassava is prepared into food forms which make it an alternative to wheat, rice, maize, and sorghum for urban consumers.The FAO data also show that on an average basis, cassava roots are In these countries, cassava provided an average of 311 calories per person per day from 1994 to 1998.However, these averages underestimate the importance of cassava in specific countries. In the Congo, for example, many families eat cassava for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. From 1994 to 1998, cassava contributed over 1,000 calories per person per day or about 55 percent of the average daily calorie intake in the Congo (FAOSTAT). Furthermore, the FAO data do not account for the consumption of cassava leaves. Yet the COSCA study reveals that cassava leaves are widely consumed as a vegetable in several places where cassava is grown, including the Congo and Tanzania.Since cassava leaves are rich in protein, vitamins A and C, and some minerals (iron and calcium), they partially compensate for the shortage of these nutrients in the roots (Latham 1979, 172).Fresh roots of sweet cassava varieties are eaten raw, boiled, or fried in oil. Often the boiled fresh cassava roots are pounded into a paste with a mortar and pestle and eaten as pasty dough balls with protein-rich sauce. The consumption of boiled and pounded fresh cassava roots with a sauce of oil-palm fruit and goat meat is a popular lunch among urban workers in Ghanaian cities such as Accra.Processed cassava food products are eaten as pasty porridge or dough balls with a seasoned sauce. Bits of the porridge or dough balls are dipped into the sauce and eaten. Ingredients of the sauce vary greatly, depending upon the availability of vegetables, meat, fish, melon seeds, peas, peppers, and other spices. Palm oil is a standard ingredient of the sauce in the forest zone, while in the transition zone palm oil is replaced by shea butter or peanut cake (Johnston 1958;Jones 1959;Grace 1977). In places where cassava is consumed every day, variation in the diet is achieved by varying the ingredients of the sauce.A loss in quality is associated with a delayed harvest. The production of roots suitable for consumption is usually greatest between twelve and eighteen months after planting. Yet many varieties will continue to grow for up to forty-eight months, and starch production continues to increase.As the roots grow older, however, they become tougher and woodier and are therefore harder to prepare for human consumption (Jones 1959).In countries such as Nigeria and Ghana where a large percentage of cassava is produced as a cash crop for urban consumption, cassava is usually harvested early, that is, between nine and twelve months after planting. When prices are high, farmers will harvest many roots that would ordinarily be considered immature. By contrast, in countries where cassava is produced as a famine-reserve crop, such as in Tanzania, or where it is produced as a rural food staple, such as in the Congo, the Cote d'Ivoire, and Uganda, cassava is harvested late most of the time. As an example, to reduce losses that result from cassava root rot, farmers in the Congo were advised by the national extension agency to shorten the period that cassava was in the ground to between twelve and twenty-four months. However, this advice was not widely accepted. Farmers who attempted to harvest at between twelve and twenty-four months encountered problems in transporting the harvested cassava to the urban centers because of poor road conditions. Most of the roads in the Congo are impassable at certain times of the year (Makambila 1981).Waste can be reduced by improving cassava-processing methods, which will result in products that have less bulk and a longer shelf life. A cassava product that is not bulky and has a long shelf life can be tra>tsported at a reduced cost over poor roads to distant urban markets and stored until sold.The COSCA study shows that in the main cassava-producing areas, 85 percent of the rural households in the Cote d'Ivoire, 87 percent in Ghana, 80 percent in Nigeria, 62 percent in Tanzania, and 88 percent in Uganda prepared and ate a cassava meal at least once in the week before the households were interviewed. The cassava-based meal was the most frequently eaten meal in rural households in the cassava-producing areas in the COSCA countries (table 11. I). In some countries, cassava was consumed daily, sometimes more than once a day. Meals based on maize, millet, sorghum, rice, banana, yam, and pulses were also consumed at varying frequencies, depending on country, village, and household.The COSCA researchers found that the share of convenient fonns of cassava, such as gari and allielce, increase in the household food budget as the household's income increases. 6 For example, in Nigeria, the COSCA study found that the share of gari in the household's food budget was 0.6 percent among the low-income households, as compared v..rith 3.2 percent among the high-income households. The COSCA study further shows that the trend is similar in the CMe dlvoire, where a cassava granule, attielce, is an important food staple (table 11.2). In Ghana, a household economic survey found that the share of gari in the household's food, beverages, and tobacco budget was higher in the urban centers (1.11 percent) than in the rural areas (0.79 percent) (Central Bureau of Stastistics 1979). In Nigeria and the C6te d'Ivoire, the high-income households prefer gari more than do households in the low-income group. In Ghana, urban dwellers prefer gari more than do rural households. Gari consumption is low among lowincome households because it is more expensive than fresh and dried roots.By contrast, the share of dried cassava roots in the household food budget decreases as household income increases. For example, in Nigeria, the COSCA study found that the share of dried cassava roots in theThe Cassava Transformation  household's food budget was 12.8 percent among low-income households, as compared with 5.4 percent among the high-income households.The study also found that the trend was similar in the COte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Tanzania, and Uganda. In Ghana, the household economic survey showed that the share of dried cassava roots in the households' food, beverages, and tobacco budgets was higher in the rural areas (0.75 percent) than in urban centers (0.61 percent) (Central Bureau of Stastics 1979). In the Cote d1voire, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda, the low-income households are more dependent on the cheaper dried roots than are households in the high-income group. In Ghana, rural households are more dependent on the dried roots than are the urban dwellers.Cassava• is appealing to low-income households because it is the cheapest source of food calories. Compared with grains, fresh and dried cassava roots are very cheap sources of calories. Calories are significantly cheaper from fresh roots of sweet cassava varieties than from maize in various rural village market centers in Nigeria (table 11.3). Similarly, calories derived from dried cassava roots are significantly cheaper than those derived from maize in various rural market centers in Ghana.The consumption of cassava in form of gari increases as household income increases. This underscores the need to promote and diffuse the to make cassava attractive to medium-and high-income rural and urban consumers. The future of cassava as a rural and urban food staple \"ill depend on the cassava's ability to compete v.ith grain in terms of cost, convenience, and availability in urban markets. This can be achieved by the diffusion of labor-saving technologies for cassava production, harvesting, and processing, particularly peeling.Many commentators on food policy assume that cassava is an inferior good, that is, that cassava consumption declines with rising incomes. Yet until the COSCA study was carried out in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was litde empirical data to measure the income elasticity of demand for cassava.The income elasticity of demand provides insight into the level of market demand for a commodity. This function measures the percentage of change in the quantity of a commodity purchased (consumed) by con-The Cassava Transformation income elasticity of demand means that the quantity of the commodity purchased by consumers will decline with rising incomes. A zero income elasticity of demand means that the amount of the commodity demanded will be unchanged with rising incomes. An income elasticity of demand between zero and one implies that a 1 percent increase in incomes will cause consumers to increase the amount of the commodity they are willing to purchase, although by less than 1 percent. Finally, an income elasticity of demand of more than one implies that market demand is very high for the commodity. This is because a 1 percent increase in income will cause consumers to increase the amount of the commodity they are \",oiling to purchase by more than 1 percent. Scholars and policy makers who dismiss cassava as an inferior good assume that the income elasticity of demand for cassava is negative or zero.However, the COSCA consumption data reveal that the income elasticity of demand estimates for cassava products among rural households in Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda were all greater than zero, and in some cases they were greater than one (table 11.4).7 Surprisingly, the estimates for cassava were about the same as the estimates for maize among the same households in the same countries. Among individual cassava food products, fresh cassava roots had a higher income elasticity of demand than gari and dried cassava roots, except in Uganda. In Uganda. dried roots had a higher income elasticity of demand estimate than fresh cassava roots, because dried cassava food products are less bulky and have a longer shelf life, and therefore are less expensive to transport, than fresh cassava roots. In countries such as Nigeria and Tanzania, where bitter cassava varieties are more widely produced than the sweet varieties, the sweet types are more commonly grown and eaten as raw or boiled vegetables around market centers, where household incomes are generally higher than in remote villages. In Uganda, sweet cassava is more common, irrespective of distance to market centers.In Nigeria, the income elasticity of demand estimate for gari was significantly higher than that for dried roots. The income elasticity estimate for gari was also higher than that for maize, even among 16' '\" \" ,The Cassava Transformation high-income rural households. The COSCA estimates show that cassava has as much market demand potential as maize.In southeastern Nigeria, among the high-income rural and urban households, the income elasticity of demand estimate for gari (0.78) was higher than the estimate for rice (0.62) (Nweke et al. 1994). In Ghana, the income elasticity of demand estimates based on Living Standards Surveys data are equally surprising: the estimate for cassava was significantly greater than one among urban households (1.46) but less than one among rural households (0.73). Among the urban households, the estimate for cassava was about the same as the estimate fonice (1.50) but significantly greater than the estimate for maize (0.83) (Alderman 1990).The income elasticity of demand estimates show that cassava is not an inferior food. These new findings provide convincing evidence that demand for cassava will continue to rise as income increases in the cassava-producing countries studied by COSCA. In fact, some cassava food products, such as gari, have a higher income elasticity of demand than some grains. Yet these surprising findings are not a call for complacency.In order for cassava to remain competitive with grain in urban diets, critical investments must be made to drive down processing costs and to carry out research by food scientists on new cassava products. The future market for cassava will depend on whether the quality and variety of cassava food products can be improved to make them attractive to low-, medium-, and high-income consumers in rural and urban centers.In Africa, over 90 percent of cassava production is consumed as food.Between 1'961 and 1998, total cassava consumption tripled in AfricaGhana, where cassava is produced as a cash crop for urban consumption.The availability of cassava in a convenient food form, such as gari, played a major role in the increase in per capita cassava consumption in Nigeria and Ghana. The increase in per capita cassava consumption in other African countries will depend on how well cassava is prepared into food forms that make it as acceptable as grains in terms of quality and cost to urban consumers.In some countries, such as the Congo, cassava accounts for more than 50 percent of daily calorie consumption. In several countries, including the Congo and Tanzania, cassava leaves are consumed as a vegetable. Cassava leaves are rich in protein, vitamins, and minerals. Evety\\vhere in Africa where cassava is consumed, it is invariably consumed with a sauce that is made with ingredients rich in protein, vitamins, and minerals.Cassava was found to be the cheapest source of calories among all food crops in each of the six study countries. As family incomes increased, the consumption of cassava as dried root flour declined while consumption in convenient food forms such as gari increased. Dried cassava root flour is cheaper than gari because of the high cost of processing gari.Medium-and high-income families were found to consume gari because it is cheaper and more convenient to cook than grains. The future of cassava as a rural and urban food staple will depend on the cassava's ability to compete \\\\rith wheat, rice, maize, sorghum, and other grains in terms of cost, convenience, and availability in urban markets. Cassava can retain its competitive edge only through investments in labor-saving production. harvesting, and processing technologies.The income elasticity of demand estimates for cassava products was found to be positive at all income levels. For some cassava products, the income elasticity of demand was above one. For example, in Nigeria the income elasticity of demand for gari was significantly higher than that for maize at all income levels. Among high-income urban households, the income elasticity of demand for gari was also higher than that for rice. In Ghana, the income elasticity of demand for cassava (all products combined) was higher among urban than among rural households. These estimates provide convincing evidence that cassava has a strong market demand in the COSCA study countries.The conclusion that emerges from the data presented in this chapter is that cassava is not an inferior food. Rather, in certain forms, cassava is superior to some grains. Gari has substantial market demand among low-, medium-, and high-income rural and urban households. Yet the degree toThe Cassava Transformation which the future market demand for cassava for food consumption can be expanded will depend largely on the extent to which the quality and variety of cassava food products can be improved to make them attractive to a range of consumers in rural and urban centers.The steps needed to reduce the cost of making cassava available to consumers in convenient food forms include:• development and diffusion of labor-saving technologies for cassava field tasks. especially harvesting; • development and diffusion of labor-saving methods for cassava processing tasks for which such methods have not been developed. particularly the peeling task; andwhere such technologies are not available. The Cassava Transformation to be done to increase the use of cassava in livestock feed and food manufacture; as starch in the textile, petroleum drilling, pharmaceutical, and soft drink industries; and as dried roots in the beer and alcohol/ethanol industries. This chapter is based on preliminary information collected in an exploratory survey in Nigeria in early 2001.In Nigeria, the proportion of cassava used in the livestock industry increased after the government banned the importation of maize in 1985-86 and feed mills were forced to use local raw materials such as cassava. After the import restrictions on maize and other crops were removed in 1995, there was no incentive for feed millers to reduce the quantity of cassava they were using, because cassava is cheaper than maize, the feed mills had modified their plants to mill dried cassava roots, and farmers were getting higher yields from TMS varieties. In Nigeria, the 5 percent of total cassava production that is used as feed is significantly lower than in Brazil (50 percent) because in Nigeria, cattle, sheep, and goats are free grazed and pigs rummage on household waste. Also, the poultry industry has only 125 million birds in Nigeria, as compared with 867 million in Brazil in 1998 (FAOSTAT).' Because of the pessimistic outlook for a major increase in the amount of cassava fed to livestock in Nigeria, the logical next step is to examine the global outlook for Nigerian cassava exports for livestock feed. The key country to examine is Thailand, because it has dominated the export of cassava pellets for livestock feed for more than three decades. In Thailand, only a small percentage of national cassava production is consumed as food. The most iinportant uses for cassava are for livestock feed and starch.The production process for cassava pellets in Thailand is shown in figure 12.1. After sand and impurities are removed, the dried cassava roots are ground with a hammer mill. Cassava particles together with steam are forced through holes in a die. The compressed material emerges hot from the other side of the die. After cooling, the strands are cut to length to produce pellets (Ratanawaraha, Senanarong, and Suriyapan 1999, 16). Begi nning in the 1960s, the government of Thailand encouraged private fums to et up pellet factories and produce cassava pelielS for expon to the European Unio n (EU). The private sector responded, and pellel expons literally \"took off.\" In facI, ex ports increased from 100,000 tons in 1966 to a peak of 9 million Ions in 1989. Yel becallse of competilion wi th U.S. gra in exports 10 the EU market, the pri ce of cassava pellets has declined, making it unaltra live for Thaila nd 10 pl\"Oduce cassava for expon. Also the EU has sel an annual quota for Thai ca sava imports of 5.25 million IOns. However, because of low prices, Thailand did not meet it expon quota from 1994 to 1998. In fact , Thai pe llet expons have declined from 9 million tons in 1989 to 3 million Ions in 199 (Ralana-I\\oaraha, Senanarong, and unyapan 1999, 18). There are currently two hundred peUetizing factori es in Thailand, with a lota l capacity of 10 million Ions per year. Yet because of depressed price , the ' are operating at only 50 percent of capacit .Whal is the outlook for igenan peUel exports? Faced with overca- Technologies exist for the use of cassava as a partial substitute for wheat in bread-making, and biscuits, pastries, and snack foods manufacture (Satin 1988;Eggleston and Omoaka 1994;Defloor 1995;and Onabolu et al. 1998). But in Nigeria in the late 1990s, an insignificant 3 tons of cassava was used per year for food manufacture compared with maize, 133,000 tons (FAOSTAT). Use of cassava as a partial substitute for wheat in food manufacture will increase if the practice can result in a reduction in the prices of the manufactured composite cassava and wheat flour food products compared with the prices of the same products made with 100 percent wheat flour.and wheat flour food products are not cheaper than the 100 percent wheat flour food products. For example, a partial substitution of cassava for wheat in bread flour requires expensive supplementary viscosity enhancers such as eggs, milk, and gums to compensate for the lack of gluten in cassava (Eggleston and Omoaka 1994;Defloor 1995;and Onabolu et al. 1998).Using cassava flour for bread-making and for the manufacture of biscuits, pastries, and snack foods requires a reliable supply of cassava flour with constant quality (DeUoor 1995). But in Nigeria, cassava flour available in the market varies widely in quality because of the wide range of traditional methods of preparation used. A cassava flour of standard high quality will be more expensive and will increase the cost of the food products.Other important factors such as the cassava variety, age of the cassava root, and the cassava growing environment also influence the quality of the food products in which cassava flour substitutes partially for wheat flour (Eggleston and Omoaka 1994;Defloor 1995). Measures to standardize cassava varieties, age of cassava roots, and the cassava growing environments will further increase the costs of the food products in which the cassava flour is used to substitute partially for wheat flour.In Nigeria, the technologies for the use of cassava as a partial substitute for wheat flour in food manufacture that were developed at the IITA and other research centers were adopted by food industries when wheat flour was made scarce by the wheat import ban in the mid-1980s. But when the wheat import ban was removed in the mid-1990s, the food industries readily reverted to the use of 100 percent wheat flour in food manufacture (Bokanga and Tewe 1998).In Nigeria, increase in the use of cassava in food manufacturing industries does not depend on technologies for partial substitution of cassava flour for wheat flour in bread, cookies, pastries, etc. But increase in the use of cassava in food manufacturing industries requires the development of technologies for industrial manufacture and packaging of traditional African cassava food products which have a snack value such as gari, attieke, and chickwangue.We explained earlier that in Africa, past attempts to manufacture gari and chickwangue industrially failed because they were unprofitable. But in Brazil, recent development in the use of cassava in food industries shows that sustained investment in research and development can make industrial manufacture of a 100-percent-cassava-starch traditional food product profitable. For example, the main cassava-based fast food in Brazil is pao de queijo, a type of bread made with sour cassava starch, which has been fermented and dried (Vilpoux and Ospina 1999).In Brazil, the preparation of paa de queija by traditional methods has similar problems as the preparation of gari, attieke, and chickwangue in Africa. For example, in Minas Gerais, one of the traditional paa de queija production states in Brazil, almost every family has its own recipe. Sour starch gives paa de queija a very acid taste, which is appreciated in Minas Gerais state. In other states however, where consumption is more recent, people prefer paa de queija with a mild taste. Industrial manufacture of paa de queija needs a standard product with consistent quality. These criteria are difficult to maintain in paa de queija because of the low and unstable quality of sour starch. Making sour starch is labor-intensive. The sour starch industry is competitive with a large number of small producers. The small capacity limits the possibility to access modern technologies and market information (Vilpoux and Ospina 1999).But through sustained investment in research and development in Brazil, paa de queija was transformed from a small-scale homemade product to a large-scale factory-manufactured product by first replacing fermentation and sun-drying with a chemical process in making the sour starch. Later, the sour starch was replaced with other types of cassava starch that are acceptable to consumers. Since the early 1990s, the preparation of paa de queija by small-scale manufacturers in the traditional production states such as Minas Gerais has been declining while larger more modern companies are expanding in other states. The entrance of large companies changed most of the industry. The operators of the large companies have better education, better access to new technologies, and market information (Vilpoux and Ospina 1999). In Brazil, the research and development in the improvement of paa de queijo were canied out mostly by the private sector. But the expansion in the consumption of the paa de queija was facilitated by political support. For example, the consumption was endorsed by the former Brazilian president, Itamar Franco. He required that paa de queija be present at all official meetings. Since the mid-1990s, Brazilian consumption of paa de queija has increased greatly, changing from a regional to a nation-wide fast food. It is also possible to find paa de queija in other South American countries such as Argentina and Peru (Vilpoux and Ospina 1999).To summarize, there are technologies for use of cassava as a partial substitute for wheat in food manufacture. But in Nigeria, cassava is not used for food manufacture because food products made with 100 percent wheat flour are cheaper and preferred by consumers. Brazilian examples show that sustained investment in research and development on industrial manufacture of African cassava food products such as gari, allieke, and chickwangue, which have snack value, can lead to increased use of cassava in food manufacturing industries.Plant starches such as wheat, rice, com, potato, and cassava are used as an industrial raw material in direct fOmI or in a number of derivative forms. 4 We shall discuss using cassava starch in direct form, as hydrolysates, and as dextrins .In Nigeria in the early 1990s, only about 700 tons of cassava starch was produced per year because Nigerian cassava starch is considered to be of low quality by Nigerian industries and none is exported. By contrast, in the early 1990s, more than 1 million tons of cassava starch was produced in Thailand, 40 percent of which was exported because the quality was high (Ratanawaraha, Senanarong, and Suriyapan 1999, 14). In Nigeria, the bulk of the starch used as industrial raw material during the late 1990s, 17,000 tons, was com starch, which represented 82 percent of the total. In the late 1990s, cassava starch accounted for only 600 tons. or 3 percent, of the 17,000 tons of starch used each year as industrial\" raw material in Nigeria. The remaining 15 percent was an unspecified type of starch. The quantity of industrial starch used in Nigeria in the late 1990s was low. Even if most of it were made from cassava, the impact on the total demand for cassava would be small. One of the reasons is that industrial production in Nigeria declined in the 1990s. For  13). Currently, 80 percent of the raw material used by the pharmaceutical industry is imported, because the basic chemicals and petrochemical industries are not developed in Nigeria (Raw Materials Research and Development Council2000b, 12). The Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC) observed that \"any reasons that can be advanced for the slow pace of industrialization in Nigeria can be reduced to one single fact: for now it is easier, less risky, and much less complicated to import than to manufacture locally\" (RMRDC 1997, 41). • Starch Derivative.: Dextrin. Dextrins are produced by heating starch in a dry fonn with acid or alkali as a catalyst (Colonna, Buleon, and Mercier 1987, 110). Dextrins are sold as powders, granules, and pastes. Adhesives are made by cooking a dextrin in water. Adhesives are used in making conugated boxes, sealing cartons, grocery bags, and multi wall bags in the packaging industry; for lamination in the plywood, paperboard, footwear, and cables industries; in the production of paper tubes, cans, and cones; as printing, publishing, and library paste; and as label adhesive for envelopes, postage stamps, gummed tapes, safety matches, and many other items.In the late 1990s, an average of 58,000 tons of adhesives were used per year in the following industries in Nigeria: wood,44 percent;cable,26 percent;paper,printing,and publishing,15 percent;packaging,14 percent; and matches and footwear, 1 percent.\" All the adhesives used in Nigeria in the late 1990s were imported either as adhesives or as dextrins. If all of the adhesives used in Nigeria had been derived from cassava, about 60,000 tons of cassava, representing 0.2 percent of Nigeria's current production, would have been utilized.Beer has been brewed in Nigeria with imported barley malt for many decades. However, in 1985-86 Nigeria banned grain imports and the brewery industry began to produce beer malt with sorghum produced in northern Nigeria. The initial concern that sorghum beer would not be acceptable to consumers proved to be without basis, as beer consumption did not decline after sorghum malt was used to replace barley malt.In the late 1990s, about 11 million hectoliters of beer were being produced per year in Nigeria (Raw Materials Research and Development Council 2000c, 23).Although cassava is produced in southern Nigeria, where all of the beer breweries are located, no attempt has been made to produce beer malt with dried cassava roots, even though dried roots are cheaper (US$79 per ton) than sorghum (US$139 per ton) (Ogazi, Hassan, and The Cassava Transformation Ogunwusi 1997, 31 and 77)Y A biochemist of the National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI) at Umudike reported in early 2001 that beer malt could be made with any starch, provided the right type of enzymes are available. l4 Research is now needed to determine the type and quantity of enzymes needed for making beer malt from dried cassava roots.However, the NRCRI is unable to carry out the needed research because the operational budget for its research unit is only a few hundred dollars per year.The manager of the Golden Guinea Brewery, Umuahia believes that consumers would accept cassava malt beer, judging from their ready acceptance of sorghum beer in the mid 1980s.1 5 However, the manager reported that Golden Guinea would be reluctant to invest in research on making beer malt from cassava roots because patent law is not enforced in Nigeria. In early 2001, the manager of the Life Beer Brewery in Onitsha reported that Life Beer is made directly from sorghum without malting at the rate of 9 tons of sorghum per 500 hectoliters of beer.16 Using this ratio, the beer industry in Nigeria consumed about 200,000 tons of sorghum per year in the late 19905. If dried cassava roots had replaced sorghum, the beer industry would have consumed 220,000 tons of dried cassava roots, which is more than 2 percent of annual cassava production in the 19905.Research is needed on how to make beer malt from dried cassava roots, because even a partial substitution of dried cassava roots for sorghum in the beer malt will reduce the cost of beer production, increase employment in the beer industry, and raise the income of cassava farmers ...In the late 1990s, 78 million liters of alcohol were used each year in Nigeria by the liquor industry and 10 million liters by the pharmaceutical industryY Virtually the whole of the alcohol used in Nigeria in the late 19905 was imported, because domestic production was insignificant. For example, in 1998, the total production from Nigeria's sole ethanol plant was only 200,000 liters (Bamikole and Bokanga 2000). The new agencies explored the sources of various raw material and found that of the sources available, \"the most important by a wide margin was cassava root .... It was evident that cassava was a very viable alternate source for ethanol\" (Lindeman and Rocchiccioli 1979, 1108and 1109). The yield of alcohol per ton is higher from cassava (150 liters per ton of fresh root) than from sugar cane (48 liters per ton) (Balagopalan et al. 1988, 182). A much lower quality soil is required to produce cassava than sugar cane, and a distillery using cassava to produce alcohol can operate year-round because cassava is available year-round. By contrast, a distillery based on sugar cane as a raw material must stand idle for several months a year when sugar cane is not available (Lindeman and Rocchiccioli 1979).Brazil's research and development agencies compared sugar cane and cassava and selected sugar cane to produce ethanol because sugar caile was an old and traditional crop that was cultivated on a large scale throughout the country. Sugar cane varieties in Brazil were nearly all hybrids that had been developed by the national experimental stations, except for a few obtained from India and Argentina (Pimentel 1980(Pimentel , 2002)). Turning from production to processing sugar cane, research in Brazilshowed that there was a great potential for small-scale alcohol processing units for developing countries (Balagopalan et al. 1988). However,  With the aid of mechanical graters to prepare gari, cassava is increasingly being produced and processed as a cash crop for urban consumption in Nigeria and Ghana. This book points out the potential of cassava in helping to close Africa's food production gap and helping the rural and urban poor by reducing the price of cassava. Yet the underlying data base on cassava in Africa is woefully inadequate. Only two books have been published on cassava in Africa in the past forty years: Manioc in Africa by W. O. Jones (1959) and Cassava in Shifting Cultivation by L. O. Fresco (1986).To address the lack of infonnation on Africa's second-most important Without question, cassava is a much-maligned crop. Many critics of cassava have pointed out that:• cassava is consumed by poor rural households and by animals;• cassava impoverishes the soil;• cassava is a \"women's crop\" that requires female extension agents and special cassava projects for women;• cassava often kills people because it contains lethal quantities of cyanogens (prussic acid); and• cassava is deficient in protein.These myths and half-truths constitute a great deal of misinformation which has discouraged African governments and donors from investing in speeding up the cassava transformation. The COSCA findings presented in this book can help African policy makers and scientists update their overall knowledge about cassava and its role as an important component of anti-poverty and food security programs.Cassava is a food staple in low-, middle-, and upper-income households in both rural and urban areas. The COSCA data show that one-third to two-thirds of the cassava planted in Africa is destined for urban markets. The COSCA soil fertility studies show that cassava fields, some of which have been under continuous cultivation for at least ten years, are as fertile as fields planted to other crops. The contention that cassava is a •women's crop\" should be viewed as an important half-truth because the COSCA studies reveal that cassava is both a \"women's crop\" and a \"men's crop.\" In most COSCA study countries, men own a higher percentage of cassava fields than women.The assertion that some cassava varieties contain cyanogens (prussic acid), which are sometimes lethal. is also a half-truth because the cyanogens can be eliminated by using well-known traditional processing methods. The fear of cyanogens should not discourage public or private investment in the cassava food economy. We agree with nutritionists that cassava is deficient in protein and vitamins. However, instead of discouraging cassava production and consumption because the plant is low in protein, policy makers should focus on helping smallholders diversify their crops and increase rural incomes so that families can purchase protein-rich foods to supplement their diets. • famine reserve,• rural food staple,• cash crop for urban consumers,• industrial raw material, or• livestock feed.The first three roles currently account for about 95 percent of Africa's cas- The evolution of cassava breeding in Africa can be described as a human ladder (see table 5.4). Two British colonial researchers, H. H. The diffusion of the TMS varieties was delayed in other COSCA study countries, however, because their governments did not put in place the institutions and financial resources for on-farm testing, multiplication and distribution that Nigeria's government had .The biggest question about the cassava transformation in Africa is why the high-yielding TMS varieties were not released in Ghana until 1993, some sixteen years after they were released in Nigeria in 1977. This is a puzzle because the TMS varieties increased farm-level yields by 40 percent, which is roughly the same as the increases in rice and wheat yields during Asia's Green Revolution in the 1960s. Yet while high-yielding rice and wheat varieties were quickly diffused throughout Asia in the 1960s, there was a long delay before farmers in Ghana had access to the new cassava varieties.The answer to the TMS diffusion puzzle in Ghana has now been pieced together. Ghana's official release of the TMS varieties in 1993, sixteen years after they were released in Nigeria, is attributed to a variety of and multiply the stem cuttings.To summarize, Ghana's TMS diffusion experience can be described as a delayed success story. Unfortunately, however, the TMS diffusion in Ghana since 1993 has not been documented in terms of the area planted.In It is important to point out, however, that gari preparation technology (converting cassava into dry cereal) and the mechanized grater were in use in Nigeria before the TMS varieties were released to farmers in the late 1970s. The ready availability of mechanized processing equipment and gari preparation technology increased the diffusion of the TMS varieties, because mechanized grating is cheaper than hand grating, and it reduces the need to recruit and manage a large labor force. The Niger-ianiGhanaian mechanized grater that is made with local materials should be introduced in other cassava~producing countries because it is reliable and cost-effective. Since the grating task has been mechanized, peeling is now the most labor-intensive task in gari preparation, followed by the toasting stage. There is a need for engineers and breeders to join forces to develop cassava roots that are uniform in shape and size in order that they can be peeled with a machine. There is also a need to develop methods that will reduce the amount of toasting labor in gari preparation.Private entrepreneurs have made many attempts to process cassava on a large scale using integrated grating, pressing, pulverizing, sieving, and toasting machines in a factory~style operation. However, the cassava-processing factories in the Congo, the Cote d1voire, Ghana, and Nigeria have all failed because of a shortage of cassava roots; a fragmented market for cassava products; a high cost of peeling by hand, and quality control problems. An array of government agencies were established in Nigeria in the 1970s and1980s to develop mechanized cassava-processing machines.Yet the machines developed by these agencies have not been adopted byThe Cassava Transformation farmers because they are not as convenient and reliable as those developed by the small-scale private artisans.One of the myths of cassava is that it is a \"women's crop\" that requires special assistance from female extension agents, We tested this widely held belief by collecting data from 1,686 rural households in 281 villages in the six COSCA study countries. Five gender surprises emerged from the COSCA surveys:• Although men and women specialize in different tasks in the cassava food system, both contribute a significant amount of their labor to the cassava sector.• Women contribute less than half of the total labor involved in the production and processing of cassava in all of the COSCA countries except the Congo.• As the cassava transformation proceeds and cassava becomes a cash crop produced primarily for urban centers, men increase their labor contribution to each of the production and processing tasks.• The introduction of labor-saving technologies in cassava production and processing has led to a change in gender roles. For example, in Nigeria, when gari was processed by manual grating, it was done by women. Yet when the grating process was mechanized, it was taken over by men, who own and operate the mechanized graters.• Women have been able to secure access to improved cassava production technologies and essential inputs such as land and male labor in all six COSCA study countries.One must look beneath the surface of these macro findings, however, and examine country-specific situations. With the introduction of the TMS varieties, cassava has been transformed into a profitable cash crop in Cassava in Africa is used almost exclusively for food. In fact, 95 percent of the total cassava production, after accounting for waste, is used as food. By contrast, 55 percent of total production in Asia and 40 percent in South America are used as food. In Africa, total cassava consumption has more than doubled, from 24 million tons per year in the early 1960sto 58 million tons per year in the late 1990s. The large increase in the total cassava consumption in Africa is due to a significant increase in per capita consumption in countries such as Nigeria and Ghana, where cassava is produced mainly as a cash crop for urban consumption.Many international agencies and bilateral donors are hesitant to extend loans and grants to African nations to help them increase the production of root crops such as cassava because of the long-held belief that cassava is an \"inferior good\" -that is, cassava is consumed only by the poor and by animals. Yet the COSCA study found that the income elasticities of demand for cassava products among rural households were positive at all income levels. Also, in Nigeria and Tanzania, the income elasticity of demand for cassava roots consumed as vegetable in ruralThe Cassava Transformation households was above one. In Nigeria, the income elasticity of demand for gari was significandy higher than that of maize at all income levels among rural households. In Nigeria and Ghana, the income elasticity of demand for cassava was higher among urban than among rural households. These robust income elasticities of demand show that there is a strong market demand for cassava products, and that the view of cassava as an inferior food is invalid.Cassava was found to be the cheapest source of calories among all food crops in each of the six COSCA study countries. As family incomes increased, the consumption of cassava dried root flour declined, while the consumption of cassava in convenient food forms such as gari increasedDried cassava root flour is cheaper than gari because of the high cost of processing gari. Many medium-and high-income families consume gari because it is cheaper and requires less cooking time than grain. The future of cassava as a rural and urban food staple will depend upon the cassava's ability to compete \\\\rith wheat, rice, and maize in terms of cost. convenience, and availability in urban markets.However, promoting cassava merely as food is selling cassava short! The cassava transformation critically depends upon finding additional markets for the increased production resulting from the success of the TMS varieties. In Nigeria, only 5 percent of cassava production is used as livestock feed because the livestock industry is small and underdeveloped. Cassava roots are used in poultry feed, but a poultry feed trial has shown that cassava roots and leaves combined in a ratio of four to one could replace maize in poultry feed and reduce feed cost without a loss in weight gain or egg production. This research finding should be diffused to farmers and livestock feed producers.There are technologies for use of cassava as a partial substitute for wheat in food manufacture. But in Africa, cassava is not used for food manufacture because food products made with 100 percent wheat flour In Nigeria, the soft drink industry imports about 170,000 tons of syrup concentrate per year. IITA scientists have successfully made syrup concentrate from cassava starch. A pilot project needs to be carried out to determine the feasibility of making syrup concentrate with cassava starch for the Nigerian soft drink industry.Industry experts believe that dried cassava roots can be used to make malt for the brewing of beer. They also believe that consumers would accept beer made frcm cassava malt, just as they did when barley imports were banned in 1985 and beer was made from sorghum malt. Research and development are needed to develop technology for making beer malt with dried cassava roots.Turning to using cassava to produce alcohol or ethanol, Brazil has been a pioneer in producing ethanol from sugar cane and blending ethanol with gasoline to reduce petroleum imports. Because of a long legacy as a sugar cane producer, Brazil opted to produce ethanol from sugar cane rather than from cassava. Brazil currently requires all gasoline to contain 20 percent ethanol. Brazilian scientists have also carried out numerous studies of small-scale ethanol plants. These plants should be studied by cassava-producing African countries that import petroleum. If cassava-based ethanol production turns out to be feasible in Africa, smallholders will have opened up a new market for cassava. Yet an economic study is needed to determine the profitability of a cassava-based ethanol industry and the feasibility of blending ethanol with gasoline in petroleum-importing countries such as Ghana and the profitability of cassava-based alcohol industry in petroleum-exporting countries such as Nigeria.• Cassava Can Be a Powerful Poverty Fighter Increasing the productivity of the cassava food system can help both the There is a need to remove subsidies on imported rice and wheat in order to provide a level playing field for cassava in the food system . • development and diffusion of labor-saving methods for peeling cassava;• development of the \"market pull\" for cassava by improving roads;• diffusion of labor-saving cassava grating technologies to regions and countries where such technologies do not exist; and• diffusion of knowledge of gari preparation methods to regions and countries where such methods do not exist;• diffusion of knowledge of methods for preparing cassava leaves in regions and countries where such knowledge does not exist;The exploratory survey of industrial uses for cassava in  The Cassava Transformation pilot project on using cassava as a raw material in beer malt, syrup concentrate for soft drinks, and the ethanol industry, as well as development of cassava starch as a raw material for other industries.In the Cote d'Ivoire, the \"market pull\" of cassava can be increased by eliminating the subsidies on imported rice and wheat. A grater for making attieke needs to be developed to reduce the cost of a product that has a strong urban demand. In Tanzania, maize is the preferred staple and cassava is a famine-reserve crop. The diffusion of the gari preparation technology and the mechanized grater can help cassava compete in the urban market. International donor agencies should support pilot activities to find nonfood uses for cassava. In the Congo, increasing \"market pull\" by improving roads and removing subsidies on imported rice and wheat will help cassava farmers tap new rural and urban markets.In summary, in Africa cassava is being transformed from a faminereserve crop to a cash crop for urban consumption. The fuel that drives the cassava transformation is the new TMS varieties that have changed cassava from a low-yielding famine-reserve crop to a high-yielding food staple that is increasingly being converted into gari (a dry cereal-like product) and consumed by rural and urban people in West Africa. For the cassava transformation to advance to the next stage-livestock feed and industrial raw material-labor-saving production, harvesting, and processing technologies are needed to reduce costs and improve productivity, and thus reduce the price of cassava products. zones was divided into twelve-foot grids. Grids equal in number to the allocated number of villages were selected by a random method in each zone. The grid map was transposed to a detailed regional map using coordinates. One village was selected in each of the selected grids by a random method.The Phase II (plot-level) production survey sample consisted of three households in each village and all the plots of cassava and other crops cultivated by each of the three households. In each selected village, key informants assisted the COSCA researchers in drawing up a comprehensive list of farm households which cultivated fewer than 10 hectares of all food crops and grouped them into 'large: 'medium: and 'small' smallholder units. One household was selected from each group by a random method for the Phase II (plot level) survey. All the fields of a selected household under cultivation with food crops (not only cassava) in the current year were surveyed. The Phase III (post-production) surveys consisted of six households and three market agents per marketplace in e~ch village. The six households were the three Phase II households plus three other ones selected by a random method from the village household sample frame.The plot-level surveys in phase II and post-production surveys in Phase III were separated for two reasons. First, if both phases were combined into one survey it would have been too long and would have tired both the enUmerators and respondents. Second, the study was under immense pressure to provide the plot-level information for breeders at IITA to help them define cassava breeding objectives.Phases II and III surveys were carried out in the Phase I villages. Each of the three phases was implemented simultaneously in each of the six COSCA study countries in the same villages and households between 1989 and 1992. Hence, the surveys in the six COSCA study countries constitute independent studies that were carried out on the same samples and with a common survey design.A maximum of three marketplaces where fanners in a selected village sold cassava products were selected by a random method. A general market characterization preceded a survey of market agents in each market.The market characterization involved identification of available marketing facilities, organizations, and services and a listing of market agents who traded each cassava product. Three agents for each market were selected by a random method from the list of the agents.The ease of administration of the survey instruments by the enumerators and the patience of the respondents were of utmost concern in the design of the survey instruments. The questions were written as simply as possible to reduce multiple interpretations. The questions were mostly precoded. The list of codes for each question was placed as close to each question as possible.The Phase I (village-level) survey instrument was divided into three volumes because it was lengthy. The instrument for the household part of the Phase III (post-production) suroeys was similarly divided into three volumes. One was for household roster, another was for household processing, and the third was for household expenditure, food consumption, entist was with the team. The team members dressed modestly. When ever possible, the team members spoke in the local language and dialect.Local protocols were respected. The team paid a courtesy call to the village head, and if he insisted, he was interviewed even when he was not in the sample. The team patiently extended greetings, prayers, and hospitalities. Gifts which included prepared food, drinks, and, in some cases, livestock, were accepted. If the food or the drink did not appear wholesome, each team member still tested it and expressed appreciation with explanation that the team members were not hungry or thirsty. When the gift was too elaborate, the team accepted the gift with protest.The only gifts the team was permitted to present to the respondents were planting materials or literature which had been requested by the farmers and promised by the team in a previous visit. However, the farmers' gifts to the teams were sometimes expensive. For example, in many villages, the farmers provided free board and lodging for all team members for the entire period the team was in the village. The team was encouraged to return such a favor at the end of the visit with cash from their per diem with clear explanation that the cash was not a payment for the information the farmers had already provided but a reciprocation of the farmers' hospitality.For the Phase I (village-level) survey, three different farmer groups were interviewed simultaneously in a village with the three volumes of the survey instrument to reduce the length of time an individual farmer being interviewed was engaged. Each farmer group consisted of a minimum of five men and five women of different ages. Visual aids such as plant specimens and drawings were used to conceptualize issues and facilitate the farmers' understanding of the questions. The farmers were encouraged to discuss the question among themselves before responding to a question.For the Phase II (plot-level) survey, the investigating team camped in a village for three days and completed the surveys of a farmer's fields before moving on to another farmer. The Phase II (plot-level) survey was labor-intensive for both the team of enumerators and the farmers and In the case of the market survey, the potential was high for distraction because sellers were advertising their wares to potential buyers. Buyers were constantly haggling with the sellers for lower prices. Everyone was constantly exchanging greetings with acquaintances. The team of investigators was very patient with the respondents, allowing them to engage in the advertising, haggling, and exchange of greetings while being interviewed.At the end of each interview, the respondents were given ample OPPOitunity to ask the researchers questions. Honest answers were provided to the questions by the team of investigators. The researchers avoided making promises that could not be kept. The most common questions of the respondents were what the advantages of the study were to them individually or to their respective villages and whether the visiting team could help attract government supplies of seeds, fertilizers, credit, or access roads. The researchers responded in all cases that the benefit of the study would accrue to all farmers of Africa and not to individual sample farmers or villages, and that if and when a benefit of the study reached the Methods of the COSCA Study village it might not be easily associated with the visit. In this respect, the time the farmers spent with the researchers and the infonnation the fanners provided were sacrifices on the farmers' part for the benefit of aU farmers of Africa. The farmers were told in very clear terms that the COSCA researchers could not influence government pro\\~sion of seeds, fertilizers, credit, or access roads. The researchers, however, provided, where applicable, planting materials of improved varieties of not only cassava but also of other crops, if available, in subsequent visits.Each of the surveys was preceded by a two-week planning meeting of all the collaborating team members at the IITA in Ibadan. For the Phase II (plot-level) and Phase III (post-production) surveys, the first week of the planning meeting was devoted to data cleaning and to preliminary analyses of data and experiences gained from the previous survey that might influence the next survey. The second week was devoted to the planning of the next survey. The planning focused on identification of the problems, data needs, and sources, and the best way to obtain the data needed, logistics of travel and supervision. Plans for supervision were prepared and presented with emphasis. A four-wheel-drive vehicle was provided for each country team.The Phase I (village-level) and Phase II (plot-level) surveys were intensively and painstakingly supervised in the six COSCA study countries by the Project Leader. Intensive supervision helped reduce undue delays in the survey. In some of the countries, the national team members were often apathetic or had other priorities. In such countries, the national teams were often coerced into going out to the field for the survey only by a planned supervision visit. The tendency for the national team members to be dishonest with respect to work or money was reduced by their awareness that the Project Leader, having been to the survey fields, could not be easily deceived. National salaries were very low and irregular at the time of the COSCA study because the economies of most African countries had started to deteriorate. In most countries, public servants moonlighted to earn additional incomes. To discourage the national COSCA team members from engaging in other moneymaking activities while the COSCA study was in progress, they were given a monthly stipend of US$200, which was often several times larger than their monthly government wages, and the stipend was paid on schedule. In addition, per diem was fixed at the national government rate, which was, in all cases, significantly higher than the United Nations' rate that the IITA uses to pay to its international scientists for the same rural locations in Africa. The national governments rarely paid the high per diem because the staff traveled infrequently, and even when they traveled they were not sure to be paid.The national team members conducted the field surveys and shipped the completed questionnaires to Nigeria for transcription. The plan was for the national team members to analyze the data and prepare the country reports, but because of numerous problems, the country reports were prepared in Ibadan.The Project Leader knew from an earlier study that the COSCA study required an elaborate arrangement to effectively cope with the handling of the large amount of data which the study entailed. Therefore, a data processing-group was set up at the UTA to transcribe and analyze the data in Ibadan. The group included two programmers and four data analysts, all of whom were university graduates of computer science, and four data entry clerks. The unit was headed by Mr. Sunday Folayan, an electrical engineering M.S. degree holder.The data-processing personnel participated in the various COSCA planning meetings and in the design of the survey instruments and in precoding of the questionnaires. The programmers transformed the precoded questionnaires into a computer format to enable the data to be transcribed direcdy into the questionnaire format in the computer.The COSCA researchers were conscious of data quality control at every stage of the study, but quality of data control was a critical issue at the data transcription stage. The four data clerks transcribed all the data for all the surveys. The data transcription was labor intensive but the proficiency, in terms of speed and accuracy, of the clerks improved with time. The four clerks first transcribed data independendy, taking frequent breaks to reduce fatigue. Then they paired up to check for errors. One person would read from the questionnaire and the other from the computer, and the pair agreed that the two tallied for every figure. They were not left alone, and the Project Leader was on hand to clarify any doubts for the clerks. Issues that the Project Leader could not clarify were flagged and referred to the national team members who had collected the data.The data transcription for each survey was completed before the a planning meeting for the next survey which the national team members attended.Data cleaning was not completed until reports were prepared from the data set. When doubtful analytical results were identified at the report preparation stage (appendix 3), they were checked by going back to the questionnaire and in some cases going back to the farmers.The analytical team set up in 1990 stayed together until 1996, and its proficiency improved significandy with time. In 1996, the head of the analytical team, Mr. Sunday Folayan, decided to leave for more challenging work. By then, the COSCA data handling had been reduced to routine 21. The formula for the expenditure elasticity of demand is: (2) where subscript I refers to the linear specification of per capita expenditure.Even though the above specification is flexible, it still restricts the sign of the marginal propensity to consume such that it is increasing for luxuries (n! > I), and decreasing for goods with n, < 1 (Thomas, Strauss, and Barbosa 1991). In order to relax this restriction, we also specify a quadratic demand function: w, = a, + flu 10gM + fl\" (IogM)2 + Yi logn + Lrid (nd) + ei (3) d nThe resulting expenditure elasticity is: (4) The above specification also allows one to estimate the effect of household composition on per capita expenditure. Generally, since the items examined here are food staples, one would expect that an increase of one more household member of category j would lead to an increase in food staple expenditure. Deaton et. al. (1989) and Deaton (1997) derive an elasticity measure which allows one to examine this effect. They call this measure outlay equivalents. It is the fraction by which per capita expenditure would have to increase (decrease), in order to induce the same increase (decrease) in expenditure on good i as would an additional household member of category j. The equation is as follows for the linear specification, respectively: where \"i, is the outlay-equivalent ratio for good i and demographic category j.Table 4 summarizes the variables used in estimating equations (I) and (3). Expenditure shares were estimated as a share of total household expenditure, and household expenditure was estimated as the sum of food, nonfood, and rent. Estimation of food and nonfood expenditures were straightforward. However, in the case of the rent variable, preliminary examination revealed that only a small percentage of households were actually renting. As a result, this variable could not be used in estimating rental expenditure. Instead, an alternative variable was estimated.This variable was based on the household's estimate of the resale value of their dwelling. Thus, using data on resale value of the dwelling and also data on the number of years till the next major repairs on the dwelling, an annual depreciation rate was estimated. This variable was then regressed on: number of rooms in the dwelling, material of outer wall, access to portable water, electricity, toilet facilities, and \\~llage dummies.Various functional forms were specified. The functional form which provided the best result for each country was then used to predict an estimate of rent or mortgage payment for each household.  Chapter I 1. Based on average per capita calorie consumption per year.2. Cari is a granulated and toasted cereal-like cassava food product that is convenient for consumption in urban environments because it is in a readyto-eat form and has an extended shelf life.3. Cassava is called manioc in Portuguese.4. This section draws heavily on Jones (1959) and Okigbo (1980).5. The period before seasonal food crops are ready for harvest.6. Cassava does not have a period of maturity. As the plant grows the root CODtinues to bulk (swell), until after a period of three or four years, when deterioration begins. 7. Ownership of the main crop in the field was determined from responses to the question \"Who in the household owns this field?\" The question was addressed to the head of the household and the spouse, where applicable.Possible responses were husband, son, other male member, v • .ife, daughter, other female member, and all members jointly.8. The soil fertility status of the women's and the men's cassava fields was not assessed in the COSCA study.9. The customary \"sweet\" and \"bitter\" cassava varieties depend upon the amount of cyanogens (prussic acid) in the edible parts of the roots (Jones 1959, 12). The roots of sweet cassava are low in cyanogens, mealy after Chapter 31. Johnston (1958,226) described rice as \"the glamour crop\" of West Africa.2. The term \"lifeHne\" is borrowed from the title Cassava: Lifeline for the Rural Household, edited by Anthony E. Ikpi and Natalie D. Hahn (1989). 4. The by-products of cassava processing that are fed to livestock in Africa are most likely to be included as waste in official statistics.Chapter 41. The shape of cassava leaves is either broad or narrow. Pubescence refers to the presence of hairiness in the growing tip of the plan t; its presence is detennined with the aid of a magnifying lens. All color characteristics are assessed with the aid of a color chart: the young shoot is either green or purple; the petiole is red or green; the inner skin is white, cream, or red;and the root flesh is white, cream, or yellow. The petiole connects the leaf to the stem; it is considered red if it has any red spot. Otherwise, it is considered green.2. The procedure used was the method of principal component analysis (Pearson 1901;Rotelling 1933). The 1,200 local varieties are not unique cassava varieties because they are distinguished by locally given names. A cluster does not represent a unique cassava variety because there are some important morphological characteristics that are not included in the analysis.3. Taste is a subjective concept; it will be unsound to base the system of cassava classification on it. Besides, no definite line can be drawn betv,,reen bitter and sweet cassava varieties because several intennediate-tasting varieties exist, one variety grading into the other. The environment also has an effect on the level of cyanogens in cassava; drought and low soil fertility are known to increase the cyanogen level in cassava. Varietal differences in vegetative characteristics are more useful in identifying cassava varieties (Doku 1966).4. The yield losses presented here for the pests and diseases are guesstimates.The interactions among the various pests and diseases, the influences of soil fertility, seasonal factors, the cassava varietal factors, and cropping practices complicate the assessment of yield loss due to specific pests and diseases (Thresh et 31. 1997).5. In the early 1990s, an epidemic of an extremely severe form of the mosaic disease spread through most of Uganda. Researchers discovered that the virus epidemic was caused by a new form of cassava gemini virus. The Uganda variant of the gemini virus is now widely distributed in Uganda (Harrison et aI. 1997).6. In the COSCA study, the assessment of the importance of cassava relative to other staples is in terms of area planted to cassava as a percentage of the area planted to all staples (Jones 1959).7. The Lake Tanganyika zone is a cassava-growing area of Tanzania not covered in the COSCA study.8. This figure is for root yield as distinct from leaf yield; in the Congo and Tanzania cassava leaves are harvested and eaten as a vegetable.9. There is a positive relationship between stand density and yield. Farmers in high population density villages plant at high stand densities because of shortage of land.Chapter 51. This section has benefited significant1y from Beck 1980;Hahn, Howland, and Terry 1980;andJennings 1976. 2. Fresco (1986) reports that the yields at the Kiyaka station in the Congo were high because the experimental plots were on freshly cleared forest land.3. Tree cassava is believed to be a natural hybrid of Ceara rubber and cassava (Jennings 1976). 8. The Ceara rubber x cassava hybrids were not real cassava because they did not stand erect and they produced low root yields that \\\\ . . . ere of poor food quality. S. K. Hahn crossed the Ceara rubber x cassava hybrid (58308) v.ithWest African and South American cassava varieties that were susceptible to mosaic but stood erect and gave high root yields that were of good food quality. The result was the mosaic-resistant apd high-yielding TMS varieties.9. The diffusion of the TMS varieties is discussed in detail in chapter 7. 11. We shall show in chapter 6 that fanners wishing to take advantage of the high yield of the TMS varieties adjust the stand density and planting date of the branching cassava in intercropping.12. The estimation of the cyanogen content in the cassava roots was based on the picric acid test method (Almazan 1987). This method is semiquantitative; it was adopted because an alternative quantitative method suitable for quick assessment in the field was not available. 16. Further breeding based on Jennings's 5318134 was reported in Ghana (Doku 1969). The most important work, however, occurred at Moor Plantation, Ibadan, Nigeria (Jennings 1976).C~lpt.r 81. Yam is grown after fallow because it needs high soil fertility.2. Fanners harvest a cassava plant, break off the stem to a planting size. and stick it right back into the soil.3. Cassava planting on the flat seed-beds in well-drained soils is a traditional practice and not an adoption of the IITA's minimum tillage technology.4. Land clearing and tillage were found to be mechanized in only a small proportion of cassava fields in the five COSCA study countries. Mechanized land clearing for cassava production was common only in Uganda, where it was used in 60 percent of the cassava fields. Mechanization of smallholder agriculture was a main objective of the government policy of trying to create a \"modem agriculture\" in Uganda (Pingali, Bigot, and Binswanger 1987). Most field tasks for cassava production are done manually, using simple implements such as a hand hoe and a cutlass. Bicycles, human-pushed carts, animal-pulled carts, and motorcycles were often O\\vned by smallholders. Tractors were often available from pubHc (and sometimes private) tractor hire services. Four-wheeled motor vehicles such as buses and taxis ,,\"'ere available for hire commercially. Farmers with a large supply of produce for market could generally rent taxis or tractors for transporting produce to market (Pingali, Bigot, and Binswanger 1987).Chapter 71. During the foreign exchange bidding in September 1986, the value of the Naira dropped from US$1.12 to about US$O.30.2. The Naira has continued to slide. In February 2001, the value was 124 Naira per US$1.00.  16. Fitaa means white or pale ann; Gblemo Duade means cassava for milling or processing; and Afisiafi means cassava for everywhere, ubiquitous cas• sava, or widely adapted cassava (Dixon 2000).Chap'er 81. It is difficult to separate cassava processing from cassava food preparation because some combinations of the cassava processing and food preparation activities lead to final cassava food products which are in ready•to•eat fOnTIs. Other combinations of the cassava processing and food preparation activities lead to intermediate products which are stored until the need arises for conversion into ready-to-eat fonns.2. The customary \"'sweet\" and \"bitter\" cassava varieties depend upon the amount of cyanogens (prussic acid) in the edible parts of the roots (Jones 1959, 12). The roots of sweet cassava are low in cyanogens, mealy after 4. This method was recently developed at the UTA and it is now widely used by farmers in the major cassava-producing countries in Africa.5. Fifty percent of the farmer groups interviewed in the six COSCA study countries considered bright color as the most important quality in the cassava food products, namely the dried cassava roots, the granulated cassava food products, and the pasty cassava food products. 1\\.venty-five percent considered texture, 15 percent considered taste, and 10 percent considered other qualities as the most important in the cassava food products.6. Social scientists in the COSCA team interpreted this to mean that the \"\",ife's love was expressed in the pounding of cassava.7. Cameroon is often considered to be in West or Central Africa.8. It is also a common ingredient in pudding for desert in the United States.Chapter 91. The United Africa (trading) Company (UAC) was a colonia] retail outlet.2. Mechanized pressers are also used in oil-palm processing in some places.3. Sam Duncan, alias Cassava Duncan, of Cape Coast (Doku 1969).4. This section borrowed heavily from Idowu (1998) Chapter 101. Boserup (1970) pointed out that tree felling is nearly always done by men, but women are responsible for the removal and burning of the felled trees,' planting, weeding, haIVcsting, processing, and food preparation.2. The owner (either woman or man) of each cassava field was asked which gender provided the bulk of the labor for bush clearing, tillage, planting, weeding, harvesting, and transporting.3. The ratio of men to women is low in female-headed households. A female is declared a household head if there is no adult male in the household.State University, East Lansing, Michigan. 28 January.---. 2000. Personal communication, 17 October.  5,12,28,31. 51,[55][56][57]and fallow. 86;hybridization to counter,Kwashiorkor,125;resistance,83: and yield,54. 57,[60][61][62][63]64,65,[71][72][73]. See also countries, diseases, and insects by specific name Dixon,A. G. 0.,68,80,81,82. 190 drought,5,7,28. 36,39. 50;and   Brazil,78,79 ethanol from cassava,183,197,200,238n. 19 Ethiopia,39 European Union (ED).  88,99,187,199;long,86,87,99;85;and pests,86;and population,86,[87][88]short,86. 87,[87][88]99;and yield,87,88 famine,5,28,36 famine-reserve crop, 3. 10,32; cassava as a,   35,36--39,45,67,96,119,188; colonial, 83; density, 90; yields. 10  , 88-92, 85; and production, 93-95; styles, 85, 87, 88, 91, 92. See also fallow; mechanization Platt,B. 5.,30 polymer production,43 pondu,125 population: African,2,185;and fallow systems. 86,[87][88]growth,102,188;and land area loss,[61][62]Nigeria,87,102: and production growth,63,66;Tanzania,86: Uganda,88 potato,42. 98;starch,173 processing. See cassava; mechanization PRODA. See Products Development Agency production, cassava, 10, 11, 13-14, 36, 270 47-66; commercial, 84; prices, 82; problems, 74.   19, 124, 156, 186, 187; cassava, 28, 29-30,31  [68][69][70]83;government,[70][71][72]linkages,81;Nigerian,38,40,70. 72,73,80. See also cassava;COSCA;TMS rice,2,3,[4][5]89,92,154;banned,102;bias for,[19][20]   roads: and harvesting,99;improvements,113,199;poor rural,40,45,58. 105,106,119,158 Rockefeller Foundation,13.186 rodents. 51 root: crop research,78,82,84;food,235n. 5;problems,76,95  of Nigeria Limited,57,74,103 Siae,135 Sierra Leone,55,70. 125,126,142 Small-Holder Rehabilitation and Development Program (SRDP) Snyder,Margaret,23 Socamrico,135 Sodepalm,135 soil depletion,61,86,88;cassava and,[21][22][23]26,32,2,37,50;and beer,177,184,197;extension program 105;and soft drinks,176;as starch,42 Spencer,Dunstan,35,[39][40]90,144,146: urban food,35,[39][40][41][42]46,50,68,71,93,146;weekly meals of,159. See also crops mId staples by specific name starch: Congo, 57; hydrolysates, 173,   175-76,183; sour, 172; sources, 42, 46,   172, 174; tapioca, 5,123,124. See also   arrowroot; cassava; maize; potato;   rice; sago; sorghum; taro; wheat; yam   stem cuttings, 89, 102, 233n. 7   stillage, 181, 238n. 19   Storey, H. H., 67, 68, 71-72, 73, 80, 81, 83,   189    Tanganyika. See Tanzania Tanzania, 3, 5, 8,10,12-13,15, 16; bitter cassava in, 96, 97; cash crop in, 20, 69; cassava as food in, 119,119, 125,126, 155, 186; cassava use in, 192, 195; cassava varieties in, 48, 49, 49, 65; crop income in, 41, 41; cultivation areas, 58,58; density in, 91: fallow in, 86; famine-reserve crops in, 36, 39, 45, 96, 119, 146, 147, 158. 188; hruvest, 96; labor in, 145: maize as a staple in,39,45,69;mechanization in,131,134;mosaic virus in,55,82;and Nigerian research,81;pest control in,53,[53][54]population,86;production,92,93;research in,70;roads,106;soil in,21;starch in. 43;TMS used in,107;women farmers in,25,26,36;yields,60,60,61. See also Amani research station tapioca, S,123,124,130 taro,33 Technological Alcohol Program,180 technology,[8][9]12,199. See also mecha- ","tokenCount":"40320"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c319468d1a8fdb5854d93a38552a37db","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f1ad23e7-4761-49b8-afe3-42e527585967/retrieve","id":"-716084839"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"94e988ce-11df-4307-97fc-4a87007ea8c3","pagecount":"23","content":"This study examined the influence of organic residue quality and N fertilizer on aggregate-associated SOM in maize cropping systems of southern Ghana. Six residue treatments of differing quality (Crotalaria juncea, Leucaena leucocephala, maize stover, sawdust, cattle manure and a control with no residues added) were applied at 4 Mg C ha -1 yr -1 both with and without fertilizer N additions (120 kg N ha -1 season -1 ). Soils (0-15cm) were sampled three years after study implementation and wet sieved into four aggregate size classes (8000-2000, 2000-250, 250-53, and <53 μm). Small macroaggregates (2000-250 μm) were further separated into coarse particulate organic matter (>250 μm), microaggregates within macroaggregates (53-250 μm), and macroaggregate occluded silt and clay (<53 μm). N fertilizer additions reduced aggregate stability as was evident from a 40% increase in the weight of the silt and clay fraction (P= 0.014) as well as a decrease in microaggregates across all residue types (P = 0.019).Fertilizer similarly affected C and N storage within these aggregate fractions, while effects of residue quality were largely insignificant. Our results suggest that fertilizer effects on soil aggregation may have important implications for long-term SOM dynamics.Davis, CA 95616 *Corresponding Author Email: sjfonte@ucdavis.edu Phone: 1 (530) 752-7724 Fax: 1 (530) 752-4361Food insecurity and declining soil fertility across much of sub-Saharan Africa in recent decades have lead to the pursuit of alternative nutrient management strategies for both improving crop yields and the restoration of degraded soils (Sanchez, 2002). These new strategies seek to address the limited availability of inorganic N (fertilizer) inputs and rely more upon the management of organic resources that are available to farmers (Palm et al., 2001). The combined use of inorganic and organic nutrient sources in particular has been put forth as means to improve crop yields (Vanlauwe et al., 2001;Kramer et al., 2002), via improved synchronization of nutrient availability (controlled by fertilizer input and residue nutrient release) and plant uptake, and to reduce soil organic matter (SOM) depletion (Vanlauwe et al., 2001;Bationo et al., 2007). As a key component of agricultural sustainability, SOM contributes greatly to improving soil structure, fertility and water relations (Tiessen et al., 1994;Craswell and Lefroy, 2001), and plays a central role in greenhouse gas mitigation efforts (Paustian, 2002;Lal, 2004). The maintenance of SOM may be of particular importance for tropical agroecosystems, where the predominance of 1:1 clays (and the associated low cation exchange capacity) increases the reliance on SOM for both the retention and supply of plant available nutrients by the soil (Craswell and Lefroy, 2001;Oorts et al., 2003). Although abundant research has focused on how plant litter quality affects decomposition and nutrient mineralization (Palm and Sanchez, 1991;Constantinides and Fownes, 1994;Vanlauwe et al., 2005), little is known about how the quality of residue inputs influences the formation of stable SOM pools or how residues might interact with inorganic fertilizer to affect long-term SOM dynamics.Along with biochemical recalcitrance and the formation of organo-mineral complexes, the physical protection of SOM within soil aggregates is considered a fundamental process governing SOM turnover (Tisdall and Oades, 1982;Six et al., 2002a). Although the linkages between SOM and soil structure may be stronger in temperate soils, aggregation remains an important mechanism for SOM stabilization in tropical soils as well (Feller and Beare, 1997;Six et al., 2002b). A number of studies have identified organic matter incorporation into microaggregates and more specifically the formation of microaggregates (53-250 μm) within macroaggregates (>250 μm) as a key pathway for the long-term stabilization of SOM (Angers et al., 1997;Six et al., 2000). A model put forth by Six et al. (2000) suggests that by accelerating the turnover of macroaggregates, tillage disrupts microaggregate formation and SOM stabilization associated with this soil fraction. In accordance with these concepts, the microaggregate within macroaggregate fraction has been offered as a sensitive, early indicator of management effects on SOM dynamics (Kong et al., 2005;Denef et al., 2007). Similar to the role of tillage, several studies have indicated that residue quality and nutrient additions may influence aggregate dynamics as well (Harris et al., 1963;Bossuyt et al., 2001;Six et al., 2001).For example Six et al. (2001) attributed the faster turnover of macroaggregates under the Nfixing Tifolium repens (versus Lolium perenne with higher C:N ratio) to differences in plant residue quality. Similarly, both Harris et al. (1963) and Bossuyt et al. (2001) found inorganic N additions to decrease aggregate stability in incubation experiments. Based on these preliminary findings it seems that aggregate turnover (and associated SOM dynamics) may be governed to some extent by soil N availability. We therefore hypothesized that labile N sources (i.e., fertilizer and high quality residues) would accelerate aggregate turnover by increasing the decay rate of organic aggregate binding agents, potentially leading to a decrease in aggregate associated SOM stabilization.The objective of this study was to investigate how both residue quality and N fertilizer inputs affect aggregate dynamics and C stabilization in low-input agricultural systems (i.e., systems with low chemical inputs and minimal tillage). Furthermore, we aimed to examine interactions between residue and fertilizer for providing best management options to resourcepoor farmers in the region.The experiment was established in 2002 on a cleared semi-deciduous forest site at the Soil Research Institute at Kwadaso, Ghana, (6 0 40 / N, 1 0 40 / W). The soil is developed on phyllite parent material and is classified as a Ferri-Plinthic Acrisol according to the World Reference Base (FAO, 1998) or a Lithic Hapludult under the U.S. taxonomic system (Soil Survey Staff, 2006). This soil is considered a loam (sand = 46%, silt = 40%, clay = 14%) with an organic C content of 1.2% and pH of 5.4. The experimental site has a bimodal rainfall pattern (1200 mm yr -1 ) with the major season occurring between April and July and the minor season between September and December. The trial follows a split-plot design with six residue treatments at two levels of synthetic N fertilization each present in one of three replicate blocks. The residues encompass a wide range of litter quality (Table 1) and represent potential organic amendments available in the region. The treatments consist of one of five residues (Crotalaria juncea L., Leucaena leucocephala Lam., maize stover -Zea mays L., sawdust of Afzelia africana Sm. and manure derived from maize-fed cattle) added at a rate of 4 Mg C ha -1 yr -1 , plus a control with no residues applied. Each of these plots is then divided into two fertilizer sub-plots receiving 0 or 120 kg N ha -1 season -1 as urea. All plots receive an annual application of 30 kg P ha -1 yr -1 in the form of triple super phosphate and 60 kg K ha -1 yr -1 as muriate of potash, based on local recommendations for maize. Two crops of maize are grown each year (major and minor seasons) within each 6.4 m x 3.2 m subplot. Organic inputs are surface applied and incorporated minimally with a hoe to a depth of roughly 10 cm, while above ground crop biomass is removed at the end of each growing season.Soils from each plot were sampled in late March of 2006 prior to the fourth residue application from a depth of 0-15 cm in order to include the entire zone of influence associated with residue incorporation. Five soil cores (5-cm diameter) were collected from each plot and combined.Field moist samples were passed through an 8 mm sieve by gently breaking soil clods along natural planes of fracture, and then air dried for subsequent analyses.A subsample (80g) of air dried soil from each plot was then fractionated by wet-sieving according to Elliot (1986). These subsamples were spread evenly onto a 2000 µm sieve and slaked for 5 minutes in distilled water. The soil was then sieved for 2 minutes by oscillating the sieve 50 times up and down (approximately 3 cm amplitude). Large macroaggregates retained on the 2000 µm sieve-mesh were backwashed into pre-weighed pans for drying. Large (>2000 µm) floating litter was removed, while soil passing through the 2000 µm sieve was transferred to a 250 µm sieve and the process repeated to obtain the small macroaggregate fraction (250-2000 µm). The sieving process was repeated once more using a 53 µm sieve to separate microaggregates (53-250 µm) from the silt and clay fraction (< 53 µm). All pans and soil solutions were placed in an oven at 60 ºC until dry.Small macroaggregates were fractionated into three components based on Six et al. (2000). In short, subsamples (10 g) of oven-dried macroaggregates were submerged in distilled water for 20 minutes to induce slaking. Fifty glass beads (4mm dia.) were placed on a 250 µm sieve-mesh affixed to a reciprocal shaker and a slow continuous flow of water was introduced in order to submerge the mesh and beads in roughly 1cm of water. The slaked soil sample was then added to the glass beads on the 250 µm mesh and shaken at low speed. The beads function to break up the macroaggregates, while the flowing water flushes the released macroaggregate components through the 250 µm mesh, thus avoiding further disruption of freed microaggregates. Water and soil (<250 µm) passed to a 53 µm sieve below the reciprocal shaker in order to capture the released microaggregates. Shaking continued until water flowing onto the 53 µm sieve was clear and no aggregates remained on top of the 250 µm mesh. Material left on the 250 µm sieve was rinsed into a pan for drying, while soil transferred to the 53 µm sieve was sieved for 2 minutes as described above for the free aggregate fractions. Material remaining above the 250 µm mesh is classified as coarse particulate organic matter (cPOM), while soil passing through the 250 um mesh was separated into microaggregates-within-macroaggregates (> 53 µm; mM) and macroaggregate associated silt and clay (< 53 µm; s+cM).Subsamples of all oven-dried soil fractions were weighed, ground and then analyzed for total C and N concentrations using a PDZ Europa Integra C-N isotope ratio mass spectrometer (Integra, Germany). Total C in all fractions was considered to be organic C, since no carbonates are present in this soil. Similarly, total N effectively represents to organic N, since the relative quantity of mineral N in soils is generally considered to be minimal. Plant residues were collected prior to application, dried at 60 ºC and analyzed for total C, N, lignin and soluble polyphenols (Anderson and Ingram, 1993).Differences in aggregation and C content within each fraction were compared across the six residue treatments and two N application rates using a mixed model ANOVA approach to a randomized split-plot design. Residue, fertilizer and the residue x fertilizer interaction were considered fixed effects, while block and block x residue were treated as random. Natural log transformations were applied as necessary in order to meet the assumptions of ANOVA.Individual comparisons between residue treatments were carried out using Tukey's honest significant difference. All analyses were conducted using JMP 7.0 statistical software (SAS Institute Inc, 2007).N fertilizer (inorganic N) yielded the most notable effects in this study. Although no significant influence of fertilizer or residue class was observed for total soil C (Fig. 1) or N, there were clear effects of fertilizer on both soil aggregation (Fig. 2) and aggregate associated C (Fig. 3) and N pools. Fertilizer increased the percentage of total soil accounted for by the silt and clay fraction across all residue treatments (P = 0.014), from 14.3 % in the 0 kg N ha -1 plots to 20.0% of total soil when fertilizer was applied (Fig. 2). This trend corresponded with a decrease in the contribution of microaggregates (from 40.3% to 37% of total soil; P = 0.019) and a consistent, yet non-significant (P > 0.1) tendency of small macroaggregates to decrease with fertilizer application as well (Fig. 2). The large macroaggregate contribution to the overall soil mass was relatively small (5.7% on average) and exhibited high variability.Fertilizer induced changes in aggregation also resulted in altered distributions of C and N within soil fractions. The quantity of C found in the free silt and clay fraction increased by over 40% on average with fertilizer addition (P = 0.006), from 1.82 to 2.73 mg g -1 total soil (Fig. 3), while N increased by over 70% (P < 0.001) in this fraction (data not shown). At the same time, fertilizer additions reduced N in the microaggregate fraction from 0.44 to 0.39 mg g -1 soil (P = 0.036; data not shown). Synthetic fertilizer also increased C and N contained within the cPOM fraction (P = 0.006 & P = 0.002, respectively) through enrichment of the C and N concentrations of this fraction (Fig. 4; N data not shown).Residue quality effects on aggregation and SOM dynamics were generally absent compared to those observed for fertilizer additions. Residue quality affected the contribution of free microaggregates to total soil N, with this fraction containing 0.53 mg N g -1 soil under C. juncea vs. 0.36 mg N g -1 with sawdust (significant at the P = 0.058 level). However, no significant influence of residue quality was observed for any of the other soil fractions. Furthermore, no interactive effects between fertilizer and residue quality were apparent for any aggregate fraction.The addition of mineral fertilizers and/or plant residue is vital for sustaining long-term productivity in most agricultural systems; however, further evaluation regarding the influence of these inputs on SOM dynamics is needed to better assess the overall sustainability of such practices. In this study the addition of N fertilizer yielded the most consistent effects on aggregate-associated SOM pools. Although the effects were not drastic, an apparent reduction in aggregate stability associated with fertilizer addition causes some concern for long-term soil C dynamics in this system. Reduced aggregation (most evident from the significant increase in the silt and clay fraction) indicates a decrease in aggregate stability, thus suggesting an increase in aggregate turnover rates and a potential decrease in SOM stabilization. These results essentially support our hypothesis and suggest that synthetic N fertilizer plays a less pronounced, yet similar role to that of tillage as outlined by Six et al. (2000). However, alterations to aggregate turnover would, here, be attributed to the accelerated breakdown of organic binding agents within aggregates, rather than the mechanical forces of tillage.The apparent decrease in aggregate stability observed with N fertilization in this experiment contrasts with other studies where aggregation was found to increase following fertilizer additions (Hati et al., 2006). These studies, however, suggest that an increase in organic matter inputs (due to increased crop growth with fertilizer application) fostered an increase in aggregation, while in the present study aboveground crop residues were removed, thus eliminating a large part of the potential differences in biomass inputs between fertilized and unfertilized plots. Sarakar et al. (2003), on the other hand, found fertilizer additions to decrease aggregate stability in a field trial, despite increases in aboveground production and subsequent residue inputs. Findings of Bossuyt et al. (2001) from an incubation experiment also agree with results from this study, in that they found aggregation to decrease where wheat straw was added to soil along with inorganic N versus soil and wheat straw alone. In another incubation study, Harris et al. (1963) found inorganic N additions to induce aggregate breakdown in a soil with low initial N content (0.06% N), but not in a high N soil (0.24% N). In addition to differences in soil N availability, they suggest factors such as mineralogy, soil texture and organic substrate quality may govern the effect of fertilizer N additions on soil aggregate dynamics (Harris et al., 1963).Although not significant (P > 0.1), a general decrease in total soil C across all residue treatments, with the exception of the control (Fig. 1), may indicate that the influence of fertilizer on aggregate stability observed in this study could eventually lead to reductions in SOM stores and thus have long-term consequences for agroecosystem sustainability. Many studies suggest that fertilizer additions may increase SOM stores due to an increase in organic matter inputs (crop residues) associated with improved crop growth (Paustian et al., 1997;Follett, 2001).Thus, the mineral N induced destabilization and loss of SOM indicated in this study may simply result from the removal of aboveground crop residues at the field site and a subsequent lack of large differences in residue inputs between fertilizer treatments. Such a situation would be relevant since removal of aboveground biomass is a common practice in this region as well as in other parts of sub-Saharan Africa where this material is used to feed livestock. However, a recent study by Khan et al. (2007) reports fertilizer induced losses of SOM across a large number of field trials, regardless of alterations to residue inputs. Management induced changes to total soil C often take many years to become apparent, while the treatments compared in this study represent only three years of differing nutrient inputs. Thus, we might expect losses of soil C associated with fertilizer application to become significant in the years to come at this site.Effects of residue quality on aggregation and aggregate-associated C and N pools in this study were small and largely insignificant despite large associated differences in N inputs. The absence of differences along with the lack of an interaction between fertilizer and residue quality treatments suggests that residue quality is not a major determinant of aggregate dynamics at this site. Although a few studies indicate that organic resource quality might be important for aggregation (Harris et al., 1963;Six et al., 2001), the evidence is far from conclusive. The findings presented here generally agree with those of Gentile et al. (2008) from two experiments of similar design in Kenya, in that they found little effect of residue quality. Likewise, residue quality effects on SOM fractions reported by Mapfumo et al. (2007) were largely attributed to difference in the size of the organic material added to the soil, but not an effect of residue 'quality', or chemical recalcitrance, as discussed by many authors (Palm et al., 2001;Vanlauwe et al., 2005). Furthermore, Bossuyt et al. (2001) found no difference in aggregate stability for soils incubated with either low or high quality plant residues. Thus, it seems that although residue quality may hold some significance for aggregation processes, other management factors (i.e., tillage, fertilizer application, and irrigation) are probably of greater importance.This study provides useful information towards the development of responsible nutrient management strategies in low input cropping systems. Although the influence of residue quality demonstrated here seems to be relatively weak, conclusive results are still lacking. Of greater consequence, N fertilizer appears to decrease aggregate stability and the capacity of this soil to stabilize SOM in soil aggregates, thus highlighting the potential for fertilizer applications to impact long term SOM storage.  Palm et al. (2001). ","tokenCount":"3120"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4ccd57e975f04be4dffdfa6be61f6593","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e2379579-b358-483c-bc43-214dfa0dc2e1/retrieve","id":"-1422405577"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"941040b2-67e3-4bf6-8752-ce8bd7a1ffb6","pagecount":"13","content":"Ca Mau Peninsula, which lies at the extreme southern tip of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, has experienced rapid environmental and socio-economic change, particularly since the 1990s when the doi moi (renovation) policy introduced an agenda of agriculture-led growth. The peninsula lies entirely within the zone of saline intrusion, which previously extended up to 50 km inland during the dry season, thus limiting traditional rice production to only one rainy-season crop. To promote the intensification of rice production, a plan was devised to build a series of coastal embankments and tidal sluices to control salinity intrusion. The protected area lying within Bac Lieu Province, which covers approximately 160,000 hectares, is the focus for this discussion.Data collected on environmental and socio-economic conditions within the protected area during the study period reflect a complex spatial and temporal pattern of impacts. However, the pattern can be seen as a transition between a freshwater environment supporting rice production and a brackish environment supporting shrimp production. The impacts of these changes in environmental management strategies are discussed. A strategy favouring rice production depends on the operation of sluices in such a way that a freshwater environment is maintained. Intensification of the rice production system involves relatively low risk for farmers, but results in relatively low income. On the other hand, shrimp production requires that a brackish environment be maintained and is seen to offer the potential for increased wealth, but at high levels of risk and indebtedness. Currently available evidence of impact cannot easily be extrapolated to assess long-term sustainability.Ca Mau Peninsula, which lies at the extreme southern tip of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam (Fig. 4.1), has experienced rapid environmental and socio-economic change, particularly since the 1990s when the doi moi 1 policy introduced an agenda of agriculture-led growth. The peninsula lies entirely within the zone of saline intrusion, which previously extended up to 50 km inland during the dry season, thus limiting traditional rice production to only one rainy-season crop (June-November). To promote the intensification of rice production, a plan was devised to build a series of coastal embankments and tidal sluices to control salinity intrusion (Tuong et al., 2003). The first sluice in this area became operational in 1994 and the zone protected from saltwater intrusion gradually expanded westward as successive sluices were completed (Fig. 4.1). Within the protected area, the duration of freshwater conditions was extended in line with the policy to promote double or triple cropping of rice.However, as the freshwater zone spread gradually westward, the local economy was undergoing rapid change. Profitability of the rice crop was falling and at the same time aquaculture was experiencing a dramatic boom, fuelled by technical innovations and the high local and export prices of tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon). Traditional extensive systems of shrimp production based on natural recruitment of shrimp larvae were being replaced by semi-intensive monoculture production systems (Hoanh et al., 2003). By 1998, tiger shrimp culture was widespread in the western part of the project area (Fig. 4.2).The expansion of tiger shrimp culture was consistent with the official policy 2 of the central government adopted in 1998, which explicitly encouraged production for export. But shrimp farming in the protected area contradicted the land-use policy of rice intensification in the area. Despite the apparent success and popularity of shrimp farming, tidal sluices continued to be built and the freshwater zone continued to spread westward up to 2000 (Fig. 4.1). When the supply of brackish water required for shrimp production was cut off, many farmers were forced to abandon aquaculture and to convert to less profitable rice farming. Some shrimp farmers resisted and attempted to maintain favourable conditions by blocking secondary canals and pumping brackish water into their fields, but this created conflict with rice farmers, who depended on fresh water to irrigate their fields. Eventually, in 2001, the original policy emphasizing rice production was revised to accommodate extensive shrimp cultivation in the west while maintaining areas of intensive rice production in the east. Land use adjusted rapidly to this new policy and by 2002 areas of intensive rice production had shrunk back to the freshwater zone in the non-acid soils to the east (Fig. 4.2).The background to this policy shift within the highly dynamic environmental and socio-economic circumstances of the project area is discussed by Hoanh et al. (2003). This shift is significant because it represents a relaxation of centralized planning in order to allow more freedom for private-sector decisions on land use. The pressure that brought about this change can be seen as the rational response by farmers to economic incentives. However, several emerging issues point to the need for continuing scrutiny and regulation of land use (and in particular shrimp farming) to ensure that short-term gain does not result in failure to achieve long-term sustainable development.The essential requirements for sustainable development can be defined as poverty eradication, changing unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, and protecting and managing the natural resource base (UN, 2002). These objectives need to be understood as mutually supportive and the importance of poverty-environment linkages should be seen as the core of sustainable development strategies. Poor people are predominantly rural and predominantly dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods. They are therefore particularly vulnerable to environmental problems. They need economic growth to escape poverty, but this must be based on the sustainable use of environmental resources. Concern for environmental protection is therefore not seen as being in conflict with concern for human development. The enhancement and maintenance of environmental capital allow for the prudent use of natural resources in the short term while providing for effective protection of the environment in the long term.The notion of vulnerability is critical to understanding the impacts of change.Vulnerability occurs because livelihoods are exposed to stress and are unable to cope with that stress (Adger and Kelly, 2001). Shocks (such as floods and storms) may produce stress when people lose their assets or are forced to dispose of them as a short-term survival strategy. Longer-term adverse trends (such as soil erosion, siltation or acidification) may gradually degrade assets and also create stress. The inherent fragility of poor people's livelihoods limits their adaptive options and makes them generally more vulnerable. Vulnerability therefore relates to both (i) exposure to risk likely to affect livelihood and (ii) weakness of the existing state that limits capacity to cope with the resulting stress.The rapid expansion of brackish-water shrimp farming in the study area indicated farmers' preference for this production over rice. However, brackish-water shrimp farming elsewhere has been characterized by recurrent boom-and-bust cycles that cast doubts on its sustainability (Primavera, 1998). Adverse environmental and socio-economic impacts have been widely reported over the past decade (Phillips et al., 1993;Beveridge et al., 1997;Primavera, 1998;Lebel et al., 2002;Shanahan et al., 2003). It is important to examine the sustainability of shrimp farming in the study area.One of the characteristics of the study area is the presence of extensive deposits of acid sulphate soils (ASS), particularly in the western part. These soils develop as a result of the drainage of parent materials that are rich in pyrite (FeS 2 ), as occurs with the reclamation of brackish-water intertidal swamps. ASS are characterized by low pH (< 4), which results from the oxidation of reduced S-and Fe-bearing compounds producing acid via a number of possible chemical and biochemical pathways (Dent, 1986). The acid released in this way reacts with clay minerals to produce soil-water solutions containing high concentrations of aluminium and iron. Reclamation of ASS for agricultural use depends on leaching these toxic substances out of the root zone and has been reported to create severe acidification of the aquatic environment in Indonesia (Klepper et al., 1990) and Australia (Wilson et al., 1999) as well as in Vietnam (Minh et al., 1997b). The acid pollution and associated changes in water chemistry can have severe impacts on fish populations (Callinan et al., 1993), which are not confined to the reclaimed area. The impact on estuarine ecosystems has been reported by Sammut et al. (1996) and Wilson et al. (1999) for Australia, where mass mortalities of fish have been recorded as a result of episodic acidification, and there is also evidence of chronic long-term effects on estuarine and coastal ecosystems.The conflict between agricultural production and environmental protection poses a question of the sustainability of development of ASS within the study area. Leachate from reclaimed ASS in the Mekong Delta shows marked peak acidity and Al concentration at the start of the rainy season (Minh et al., 1997a, Tuong et al., 1998), which may create shocks for the aquatic resources and vulnerability for the landless poor who depend a great deal on fisheries for their livelihood.Given the nature of the deltaic environment, strategies for both land use and water management have been equally influential in determining the nature and extent of recent environmental changes in Ca Mau Peninsula. The pre-2000 strategies, favouring rice monoculture, can be criticized (with the benefit of hindsight) for suffering from the same faults identified by Hori (2000) in a review of development planning throughout the lower Mekong basin. They failed to recognize the diversity of livelihoods of the population and did not give adequate consideration to environmental impact. The study reported here was therefore conducted between 1999 and 2003 to investigate the likely sustainability of development as it affects that part of the newly protected area lying within Bac Lieu Province (approximately 160,000 ha).Sustainability is a multidimensional concept that is measured by reference to multiple indicators selected to represent environmental, social and economic aspects. However, it is clear that two critical issues against which recent change in Bac Lieu Province should be judged are:• environmental sustainability, which is achieved when the productivity of the natural resource base (i.e. environmental capital) is conserved or enhanced; and • livelihood sustainability, which is achieved when households respond and adapt to change without becoming more vulnerable.The objective of this paper is therefore to present an assessment of the sustainability of the development, with a particular focus on:• the state of the environment and natural resources within the project area; and• socio-economic conditions and the relationship between livelihoods and natural resources within the project area.Social impact: method of assessmentIn recognition of the importance of livelihood sustainability, one of the work packages within the study focused on social impact assessment, that is, assessing changes in farmers' livelihoods and farmers' resource-use strategies in coping with changes brought about by salinity intrusion protection.The initial activity under this work package was to establish a framework for social differentiation so that the poor could be identified as a distinct stakeholder group in order to permit an appraisal of environment-poverty linkages and any differential impact of environmental change on them. The framework adopted was based on participatory wealth-ranking exercises.At an early stage in the project (in 2000), a quantitative survey was conducted in 14 hamlets representing different hydrological, soil and land-use regimes (Tuong et al., 2003). This survey provided data required to characterize the baseline condition in terms of asset and production profiles for 350 representative households across four wealth categories. This was followed by an in-depth qualitative survey that used standard participatory rural appraisal (PRA) tools in interviews with key informants to improve understanding livelihood strategies and to help identify the key issues affecting poor people (Chambers, 1997).Follow-up surveys were conducted toward the end of the project (in 2003) to provide data for an assessment of short-term livelihood impacts. A combination of quantitative and qualitative surveys was again adopted within seven of the original 14 hamlets, where all households previously included in the baseline study were resurveyed. The key indicators used to measure changes in livelihoods are summarized in Table 4.1. These indicators provide some insight into the short-term impact of environmental change within the project area based on quantitative data for 1999 to 2003, which can be extended back to 1994 on the basis of insights derived from the PRA. However, the prediction of future livelihood trajectories of different stakeholders is more problematic.In recognition of the importance of environmental sustainability, another of the work packages within the study focused on environmental impact analysis, that is, characterizing the changes in soil and water quality and resource use brought about by salinity protection interventions.The initial activity under this work package was the collection and compilation of data from existing soil and land-use maps and the water quality monitoring network in the area. Subsequently, the activities involved the actual soil and water quality monitoring carried out by the study team. By bringing these data into a GIS for spatial data management, integration visualization, it was possible to establish an idea of the baseline condition (Kam et al.,Chapter 15,this volume). It also provided a means of linking the monitoring activity to modelling work based on the VRSAP 3 hydraulic model (Hoanh et al., 2001(Hoanh et al., , 2003)).The soil map published by IRMC 4 in 1999 at a scale of 1:50,000 provided a baseline for monitoring soil changes. Initial fieldwork was undertaken (in 2000) to verify the predictive value of the soil map at selected locations based on the previously defined sampling zones. It was found to be satisfactory, but some areas mapped in 1998 as potential acid sulphate soils had already developed into actual acid sulphate soils. A soil monitoring programme was established as part of this work package, which included intensive surveys of acidity release.Data on water quality are subject to much more temporal variability than are soil data, and therefore presented a greater sampling problem. Data on salinity, pH and Al3+ from 26 locations throughout the study area were collected from 1993 to 2000, but the frequency of observations was inconsistent. A follow-up water monitoring programme was established in 2001, which included more intensive roving surveys. The aim of these activities was to provide data on short-term changes and a basis for predicting longerterm impact on soil and water quality. Particular concerns were:• the presence of extensive deposits of acid sulphate soils (ASS) that provide a source of acidity likely to affect water quality; and • the impact of water quality change (acidity and/or salinity) on the productivity of fisheries.  Use of the VRSAP model allowed for spatial analysis across the whole of the protected area for the period 1993-2003, but downstream impacts in the surrounding coastal zone may also be significant and these were not monitored. To analyse environmental sustainability, it is necessary to consider both wider and longer-term impacts.Data collected on environmental and socioeconomic conditions within the protected area during the study period should be seen in the context of rapid change occurring at that time, which resulted in a complex spatial and temporal pattern of impacts. However, the key characteristic is the transition between a freshwater environment supporting rice production and a brackish environment supporting shrimp production as summarized in Figure 4.3.A strategy favouring rice production depends on the operation of sluices in such a way that a freshwater environment is maintained. Intensification of the rice production system involves relatively low risk for farmers, but results in relatively low income. On the other hand, shrimp production requires that a brackish environment be maintained and is seen to offer the potential for increased wealth, but at high levels of risk and indebtedness.Within the extensive areas of ASS, rice production is seriously constrained by soil conditions, but low profitability precludes the adoption of measures to ameliorate the problem. However, there is evidence that more land is brought into use after conversion to shrimp production. Inputs of lime are widely used to ameliorate acidity within the shrimp ponds, although release of acidity into the wider environment still occurs.Other impacts on natural resources and consequently on livelihoods can also be identified. The freshwater environment favours higher production of fruits and vegetables from home gardens, and of livestock for sale and consumption, than is possible in the brackish environment. On the other hand, by sustaining freshwater conditions, the catch of wild fish from open-access canals is seen to decline.These impacts on productivity of the natural resource base result in knock-on effects on livelihoods, but the nature of these secondary impacts varies depending on the livelihood strategy adopted by a particular Probably the most frequently voiced concern over shrimp farming is the degradation of coastal wetland ecosystems and in particular the loss of mangrove forests. Over the last 50 years, Vietnam has lost a large proportion of its original mangrove cover through various pressures, but during the last decade the principal threat was reported as shrimp aquaculture (Shanahan et al., 2003). Critics have pointed to the adverse consequences of conversion of mangroves to shrimp ponds on aquatic resources and habitat and forest product, and the increased vulnerability to storms and typhoons in Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Bangladesh, as well as in Vietnam. However, this criticism does not apply to the particular circum-stances of the study area, where the expansion of shrimp aquaculture has occurred on land previously cleared for agriculture. Salinization of soil and water is another major concern associated with shrimp aquaculture, particularly where shrimp ponds have expanded into rice land (Flaherty et al., 1999). Shrimp production requires brackish water and its import into non-saline areas affects neighbouring rice fields and degrades water used for both agricultural and domestic needs. Again, when applied to the particular circumstances of the study area, this criticism is not valid. Salinity intrusion is a natural seasonal phenomenon within the area, which can now be managed using the recently constructed tidal sluices, and soil salinity cannot be attributed to shrimp production. There is evidence (Tran et al., 1999) that salt leaching from shrimp ponds into adjacent rice fields can be significant, but no long-term buildup of salts is apparent in sequential shrimp-rice production systems (Brennan et al., 2002;Phong et al., 2003). This problem can be managed by appropriate zoning and the adoption of appropriate production systems.Other environmental impacts are closely linked to the level of intensity of the shrimp production system. In this respect, there is a marked contrast between Vietnam and other major producer countries, such as Thailand, where the 'industrialization' of shrimp aquaculture has resulted in much higher intensities (Lebel et al., 2002), as reflected in Table 4.3. As production becomes more intensive, economic viability becomes dependent on high levels of feed, pesticides and antibiotics in order to achieve high postlarval survival rates and high growth rates. Water exchange then releases contaminated pond effluents into the wider environment. The same receiving waters generally serve as intake water for neighbouring shrimp farms and water-borne disease agents spread rapidly from farm to farm, thus encouraging the greater use of antibiotics.Within the study area, production systems are at relatively low intensity (as also reported by Lebel et al., 2002), with lime and seed (postlarvae) as the main purchased inputs. The low quality of hatchery-reared seed is a major constraint contributing to the spread of disease, high risk of failure and pressure to increase the use of antibiotics. Under present circumstances, pollution is not a major concern and the release of acidity is a more significant impact; however, there is clear evidence from elsewhere that highly intensive systems are not sustainable.Shrimp aquaculture has been encouraged by the government of Vietnam to help raise the standard of living of rural communities. Perceived benefits include job creation during pond construction, income generation for shrimp farmers, increased trading opportunities and employment in aquaculture services (seed supply, other inputs, processing, marketing) and increased foreign exchange earnings. The potential to generate wealth undoubtedly exists, yet shrimp aquaculture has been responsible for the deterioration of livelihoods and promotion of poverty in many countries. Drawing on a series of case studies undertaken in Vietnam, Adger and Kelly (2001) concluded that poorer households are most vulnerable because (i) they are likely to depend on a narrower range of resources and income sources and (ii) the loss of common property management rights represents a serious erosion of their ability to cope. They found evidence of benefits from an increase in overall wealth, but increased inequality.The high risk associated with the enterprise exposes poor people to financial ruin and landlessness. The vast majority of shrimp farmers must borrow money to pay for pond construction and purchase inputs. When the enterprise is successful, profits can be high, allowing them to pay off their debts quickly. However, the risk of failure is also high; Lebel et al. (2002) report a 70% rate, Shanahan et al. (2003) report a 70-80% rate and a survey in the study area indicates a similar risk of failure. Failure leads to spiralling indebtedness and eventually to landlessness (as reported also by Luttrell, Chapter 2, this volume), although there is as yet no direct evidence that this has occurred within the study area. Relatively poor farmers are more likely to fail, but, if their neighbours have converted from rice to shrimp farming, they have no alternative.Landless households depend on selling labour, but evidence from elsewhere (Lebel et al., 2002;Shanahan et al., 2003) supports findings within the study area that shrimp farming creates fewer employment opportunities than rice farming. Environmental degradation combined with enclosure of open-access areas affects the livelihoods of poor people (particularly landless households) and adversely affects food security.Where shrimp ponds are developed on land reclaimed from open-access mangrove forest there is a particular concern, but within the study area this is not the case. However, an indirect impact on common property resources still exists because of the change in water quality and its effect on the productivity of the fishery in the canals.The conflict between agricultural production and environmental protection is the core problem and assessment of the sustainability of development of ASS within the study area leads to the question: Can the land be managed to maintain agricultural productivity while minimizing downstream impacts, or should it be returned to wetlands (Tuong et al., 1998)? This requires considering processes that generate acidity (i.e. pollution source) and processes that spread acidity (i.e. pollution transport). Figure 4.4 presents a schematic comparison of acid pollution processes in rice fields and shrimp ponds. During the dry season, the availability of brackish water allows for the filling of shrimp ponds that are limed to ameliorate the effects of acidity, but rice fields on ASS are likely to remain fallow. Shrimp ponds may lose some water to the surrounding canals via seepage (Fig. 4.4a). During the wet season, rice cropping depends on collecting direct rainfall, but can continue after the end of the monsoon by irrigating. In addition to leaching and flushing of rice fields, leaching of acidity from embankments also occurred (Fig. 4.4b).Data collected from the study showed that the pH of the canal water in the ASS area of the study site was as low as 3 at the end of May and beginning of June, depending on the rainfall (Tuong et al., 2003), but was approximately 7 in the dry season. High pH in the dry season suggests that shrimp ponds do not generate high acid pollution loads. This could also be attributed to the salinity of the brackish water in the dry season, which has high buffering capacity.Very low pH at the beginning of the rainy season indicates that leaching and flushing of rice fields and leaching of embankments represent an environmental hazard. Evidence collected during the study indicates that the embankments of the shrimp ponds were a major source of acidity, which flushes directly into the wider environment at the start of the monsoon. This was supported by Minh et al. (1997a, b), who reported that acidic loading from raised beds in ASS (for growing upland crops such as sugarcane and yam) was eight times higher than that from rice fields. The formation of embankments was similar to that of raised beds and involves the excavation of acidic materials and putting them on the embankments/raised beds. The materials oxidized during the dry season. The acidity is mobilized by rainfall. The pollution is most problematic at the beginning of the rainy season because the high loading coincides with low river discharge for dilution. Though the study did not quantify the impact of acidic pollution on fishery resources, farmers in our surveys confirmed that the diversity of fishery resources declined during the period of high acidity. Those poor farmers who relied on capture fishery also reported low catches during this period.Acid generation from rice fields is more controllable in that it depends largely on managed flushing prior to planting and therefore depends on the timing of the cropping season. An integrated rice-shrimp system -rice cropping in the rainy season and shrimp raising in the dry season -would allow good prospects for control over acid pollution from rice fields. However, acidity release from the embankments and consequential impact on water chemistry are likely to remain a problem for many years and it is important that the operation of tidal sluices does not exacerbate the problem. These sluices may reduce neutralization by tidal inflows of estuarine water, which would otherwise occur naturally. Estimated rates of acid production and export from ASS in Australia have been reported as 100-300 kg H 2 SO 4 /ha/year (Sammut et al., 1996;Wilson et al., 1999). Accumulation behind sluices during sluice closure, followed by sudden release as slug flow into the downstream receiving water, can be catastrophic.It is clear that conditions are highly dynamic and livelihood strategies have adapted to economic, technological and policy change. But are they sustainable? The concept of sustainability requires a long-term perspective, but currently available evidence is shortterm and inconclusive. The concept is also multidimensional and demands consideration of trade-offs among environmental, social and economic impacts, but information is incomplete. The analysis presented here is therefore a tentative attempt to extrapolate from what has been learned during the study by drawing upon experience elsewhere. The analysis has focused on environmental sustainability and livelihood sustainability. In making this assessment, particular consideration has been given to two critical issues that are likely to have a dominant impact on sustainability: shrimp aquaculture and the reclamation of acid sulphate soils.Within the study area, systems of shrimp production are currently at relatively low intensity. Consequently, the environmental impact from shrimp production is not a major concern and the release of acidity from the reclamation of ASS is more significant. However, social impact is still an issue because of concern for the high risk of mass mortality from diseases and increased inequality. Effective dissemination of good practice, together with improved quality control of hatchery-reared postlarvae, can be expected to reduce the high risk associated with shrimp production. However, longterm sustainability will depend on limiting intensification and concerted action among all stakeholders to adopt integrated management of the environment.The original development strategy, which promoted intensive rice production throughout the protected area, was rejected by many local stakeholders. Intensification of the rice production system involves relatively low risk for farmers, but results in relatively low income. Within the extensive areas of ASS, rice production is seriously constrained by soil conditions, and low profitability precludes the adoption of measures to ameliorate the problem. Consequently, there is a clear preference among many landholders to produce shrimp in this environment. Inputs of lime are widely used to ameliorate acidity within shrimp ponds and the acid pollution problem consequently decreases, but some release of acidity into the wider environment still occurs. Within the designated freshwater zone on non-acid soils, the current strategy of double-cropped rice appears to be favoured by local stakeholders and no major sustainability concerns have been identified. Elsewhere, an integrated rice-shrimp system offers the best prospects for balanced and sustainable development.Fish have always been abundant and are considered as a commodity, like water and air, that will always be there, but there is evidence that changes within the protected area have had an impact on fishery resources. The tidal sluices have a direct impact by acting as a barrier to fish migration and an important indirect impact by controlling upstream tidal influence and salinity levels. Their impact on water quality is exacerbated by the accumulation of acid water leached from reclaimed ASS. The acid pollution and associated changes in water chemistry (e.g. high concentration of dissolved aluminium) can be expected to affect the aquatic ecosystem both within the protected area and in the downstream estuarine receiving waters. Evidence from Australia of chronic long-term effects of acid pollution on estuarine and coastal ecosystems provoked White et al. (1996) to raise concerns about likely adverse impacts of constructing tidal sluices. This study confirms their analysis and highlights the important connection between environmental and social impacts.","tokenCount":"4747"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a51b173bc4931a72572e71cc56b7e885","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/410c82c6-7d30-4f34-840d-0969fb7cce63/retrieve","id":"1597497206"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e306dd81-3ab7-4d8e-919d-e64c0afb4dcf","pagecount":"11","content":"Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above. The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used.As part of Work Package 6 (capacity building) of the Global Burden of Animal Diseases (GBADs) Ethiopia case study, a training course on animal health economics was held on 28-30 June 2021 at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) Addis Ababa campus to build the capacity of government stakeholders. The aim was to convey the basics of economics and its use in animal health decision-making to veterinarians, animal production experts, animal health decision-makers and epidemiologists. Stakeholder input was also sought on the direction of the project and to guide future trainings and project outputs.Livestock are extremely important in Ethiopia for economic development and poverty reduction. Ethiopia has one of the largest livestock inventories in Africa, providing support for the livelihoods of an estimated 80% of rural poor. However, the economic benefit derived from the livestock sector is not commensurate with the economic potential and the sub-sector remains untapped. One of the major constraints is the wide range of livestock diseases prevalent in the country. Ethiopia is endemic to a number of livestock diseases causing a high degree of mortality and morbidity and posing significant economic, food security, livelihood and public health impacts.During the project inception workshop held on 18 March 2021, key stakeholders noted that the country lacks a system to determine the economic burden of these diseases in the various sectors and farming systems (pastoral, agro-pastoral, mixed systems, smallholder farming and commercial farms). As a result, policymakers lack the required information to make informed decisions for investment in the livestock sector. Moreover, animal health practitioners often have difficulty in communicating the importance of their work in safeguarding livelihoods, food security, economic growth and public health.The key to successful resource mobilization would be the incorporation of substantive economic evidence and the rationale for such investment. Government or private sector managers in the financial and planning realm need these to better understand the threats, and to provide the case for further and adequate investment in protecting animal health. Therefore, it has become increasingly important to provide sound economic justification for any proposed action to improve or safeguard animal health, to inform those expected to finance interventions. Such economic evaluations are used to assist in setting priorities and making resource allocation decisions when there are competing interventions and limited resources. Estimation of disease burden/loss ▪ Losses estimated as a function of the value of the animals ▪ Limitations of data needs and uncertainties related to the calculation of animal disease impact (livestock population size and structure, disease incidence and impact on production parameters, profitability of livestock production and trade, consumption of livestock products etc.)▪ What is GBADs? ▪ GBADs approach of economic burden estimation: the animal health loss envelope ▪ Animal health ontology ▪ Population and productivity estimation ▪ Disease burden attribution ▪ Familiarizing with GBADs knowledge engine ▪ Disease prioritization approaches in GBADsThere was a discussion on the economic outputs/tools needed for Ethiopian veterinary services. None of the participants were involved in actual disease burden estimation or economic analysis of animal health. Animal health professionals from the Ministry of Agriculture mentioned that economic analyses or evaluations are done by hired consultants without much involvement of the professionals. According to the discussants, the practice of hiring external economists for economic evaluation made it difficult to understand the economic principles or to apply these approaches for decision-making on a regular basis.After the overall concept of GBADs was presented, the attendees were very keen to contribute to GBADs in terms of involvement in data sharing and use the outputs in future for decision-making in animal health.Overall, the participants found the GBADs idea useful and were ready to collaborate. The participants also gave feedback on the prioritization theme presented in more detail. It was indicated that the Ministry of Agriculture of Ethiopia is using two disease prioritization schemes (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] for zoonotic diseases and the World Organisation for Animal Health [OIE] for animal diseases). It was mentioned that the CDC method identified top zoonotic diseases for control and prevention. Though conclusive information was not clarified by the participants, it was mentioned that the OIE method of disease prioritization was developed and is being used. [Note: Given that published information regarding the use of OIE prioritization in Ethiopia is not available, a follow-up discussion is planned as part of the disease prioritization study of GBADs].The participants reiterated the need to integrate economic principles in animal health management through educational capacity building of professionals and collaborative works especially involving actual research projects.Suggestions from trainees for future courses1. The trainees noted that the animal health economic training course was very timely. However, only three days were allotted for the training, which some thought was too short. The GBADs team emphasized that keeping government employees away from their jobs for more than three days on the training is difficult. In addition, it is more beneficial for the GBADs collaboration with the government to have several short training sessions over a year, for example, than one long one. However, training materials can be provided to trainees earlier so that they can prepare themselves. 2. Real data should be included so that trainees practise on actual information from the country.[Response: This will be incorporated into future trainings.] 3. Trainees requested that software be provided to assist in data analysis.  ▪ Include breeding in the future (it is the base for livestock production) ▪ Detailed use and application of disease prioritization tools and data analysis ▪ Framework for estimating indirect cost in animal health ▪ The application of economics in animal health programs ▪ Economic analysis of animal diseases and their control ▪ Using real data and doing some practical exercises ▪ How to do economic analysis using software ▪ In addition to theoretical class lecture good to include field visit ▪ Introduction of risk and its model parameters ▪ Economic analysis and risk estimation associated with export-import of livestock and livestock products ▪ To provide the desired knowledge to trainees, good to include practical exercises on how to calculate real economic data 13. Would you recommend this course to colleagues? Yes/No and why ▪ Yes, I recommend ▪ Yes, they share experience, and they also gain more knowledge for their work ▪ It would be very important to capacitate veterinarians working both at federal and regional level, focusing on those working on data management and analysis. e.g. regional disease outbreak and vaccination reporting, peste des petits ruminants control focal persons ▪ Yes, very useful for decision-making and in their resource allocation in veterinary services and research ▪ Yes, especially for those with vet background so that they understand the economics of animal health ▪ Yes, to strengthen capacity on economic analysis along the livestock value chains and exportimport ","tokenCount":"1163"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1b0f5e4a47590a79ec46924850d20450","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ac718443-a603-453d-98b4-98e754af9a37/retrieve","id":"-687059330"},"keywords":["adoption","OFSP","nutrition","school","field experiment","Tanzania","Uganda JEL codes: C93","O12","O13","Q12","Q16"],"sieverID":"c9b85422-4c79-43c7-b7bf-4c5ca86dbd98","pagecount":"37","content":"Increasing agricultural productivity by promoting high-yielding and micronutrient-rich crop varieties has the potential to reduce poverty and malnutrition. However, getting these technologies into the hands of smallholders remains a challenge. This paper presents results from a randomised field experiment that uses rural primary schools as dissemination hubs for improved orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) vines and nutrition information in rural Tanzania and Uganda. Two years after the initial vine distribution, we find that households in treatment villages are 21 percentage points more likely to report growing OFSP and 27 percentage points more likely to correctly state the nutritional benefits of OFSP compared to those in control villages. We also find up to 16 percentage point increase in the likelihood of OFSP consumption by children under 5 years of age in treatment villages compared to that in control villages. Furthermore, we find suggestive evidence that increased knowledge on the nutritional benefits of OFSP mediated up to a third of the total treatment effect on OFSP adoption and consumption. Our findings suggest that rural primary schools can be effective channels for promoting and accelerating the diffusion of micronutrient-rich crop varieties in rural areas.Improving agricultural productivity by promoting high-yielding and nutritious and improved crop varieties is key to reduce poverty and malnutrition (Conley and Udry, 2010;Dercon and Gollin, 2014;Diao, Hazell and Thurlow, 2010;Foster and Rosenzweig, 2010;Irz et al., 2001;Ligon and Sadoulet, 2018). Yet, the adoption rate of existing nutritious and improved varieties is strikingly low in most sub-Saharan African countries (Bulte et al., 2014;Conley and Udry, 2010;Duflo, Kremer and Robinson, 2008;Karlan et al., 2014;Suri, 2011). A commonly cited explanation for the low adoption rates of improved agricultural technologies is information asymmetry, particularly ineffective dissemination approaches (Aker, 2011;Conley and Udry, 2010;Davis et al., 2012;Di Falco et al., 2018, 2019;Jack, 2011;Larsen and Lilleør, 2014;Spielman and Ma, 2016). Existing evidence (e.g. Aker, 2011;Spielman and Ma, 2016) also documented limited success from traditional extensionbased technology dissemination approaches in boosting adoption. In addition, even when improved and nutritious varieties are readily available, getting them into the hands of smallholder farmers remains a challenge due to seed and input market imperfections (Bulte et al., 2014;Di Falco et al., 2018;Jack, 2011;Spielman and Ma, 2016;Wossen et al., 2019). This is particularly the case for micronutrient-rich crop varieties such as orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) for which adoption relies more on convincing farmers about its nutritional value instead of profitability (de Brauw et al., 2018;Hotz et al., 2012).OFSP varieties are particularly high in vitamin A, a nutrient that supports the immune system and the development of human eyesight (World Health Organization, 2009). Steady consumption of OFSP has been shown to be an effective strategy to reduce vitamin A deficiency (VAD), especially among children in rural areas (Hotz et al., 2012). However, the adoption of OFSP varieties remains low in most developing countries despite the crop being a source of vitamin A. This paper provides empirical evidence on the impact of a fast-track (FT) project, a pilot project that uses rural primary schools as dissemination channels of OFSP varieties and nutrition messages to smallholder farmers in rural Tanzania and Uganda. In these countries, most villages have access to public schools as primary school education is free. Due to their continuous and intensive contact with children and their parents, primary schools can thus be attractive hubs for diffusing nutrition information and nutritious and improved crop varieties such as OFSP (Schreinemachers et al., 2017(Schreinemachers et al., , 2019;;Sharma et al., 2021). As such, the FT project randomly assigned 60 primary schools in five districts of Tanzania and Uganda to treatment and control schools to test whether distributing starter packs of OFSP vines would boost the adoption and consumption of OFSP.The core intervention package of the FT project consists of a one-time distribution of starter packs of OFSP vines to students at treatment schools. The students were then asked to take the vines back home to their parents for planting. Furthermore, to accelerate the diffusion of OFSP varieties, parents receiving vines from schools were encouraged to multiply vines and Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/erae/advance-article/doi/10.1093/erae/jbab028/6311321 by guest on 30 June 2021 give equivalent-sized starter packs to at least two co-villagers, a process called give-double. The FT project also trained farmers and schoolchildren in relevant OFSP agronomy and nutrition topics. The nutrition training intervention was designed to create awareness about the benefits of OFSP, given the high rate of VAD among schoolchildren in Tanzania and Uganda. For example, about 24 per cent of pre-school aged children in Tanzania are vitamin A deficient (World Health Organization, 2009). Similarly, about 28 per cent of pre-schoolchildren in Uganda are vitamin A deficient (de Brauw et al., 2018;Wirth et al., 2017). Therefore, targeting children in rural primary schools is likely to be effective in improving the consumption of OFSP, an effective approach to reduce VAD among children in rural areas (de Brauw et al., 2018).In this paper, we evaluate the impact of the FT project interventions on two primary outcomes: OFSP adoption and consumption. Since our evaluation design was blind to the specific households that received the FT interventions, we estimate the intention-to-treat (ITT) effect by comparing outcomes in treatment and control villages (Burke, Bergquist and Miguel, 2019;Omotilewa et al., 2018). In addition, we attempt to unpack heterogeneity impacts by comparing adoption and consumption outcomes between primary and secondary beneficiaries in treatment villages. Two years after the initial vine distribution, we find that households in treatment villages are 21 percentage points more likely to report growing OFSP and 27 percentage points more likely to correctly state the nutritional benefits of OFSP compared to those in control villages. We also find up to 16 percentage point increase in the likelihood of OFSP consumption by children under 5 years of age in treatment villages compared to those in control villages. Furthermore, our causal mediation analysis suggests that increased knowledge on the nutritional benefits of OFSP mediated up to a third of the total treatment effect on OFSP adoption and consumption. Finally, we also find significant adoption and consumption impacts for secondary beneficiaries in treatment villages, suggesting that the vines introduced through the school system were further disseminated within treatment villages. Overall, our results suggest that rural primary schools can play a critical role in bolstering extension service capacities in rural areas around certain types of agricultural technologies. By relying on an already established mode of engaging rural households, schools can potentially be a cost-effective channel for pushing technologies out and reaching farmers in remote rural areas. Furthermore, the evidence from this paper suggests that interventions that promote food-based solutions to addressing micronutrient deficiencies can rely on pupils for messaging to boost cultivation and consumption of micronutrient-rich food crops. Beyond the narrow objective of addressing VAD, schools can also be a viable alternative for improving seed systems, especially for vegetatively propagated crops.The remainder of the paper is organised as follows: Section 2 presents an overview of extension-based approaches for promoting agricultural technologies to smallholders. Section 3 presents the context of our study, the experimental design, data and summary statistics. Section 4 presents our estimation results and Section 5 provides concluding remarks.Much of the literature that attempts to address the question of how to get new technologies to the farms of smallholder farmers tackle it from the agriculture extension services point of view (Abebaw and Haile, 2013;Anderson andFeder, 2004, 2007;Davis et al., 2012;Wossen et al., 2017). Public extension systems are charged with linking research and development (R&D) outputs to the farms of farmers in much of Africa, south of the Sahara. This may include providing information about new technologies, exposing farmers to trial plots and sharing new technologies with farmers for them to try out and evaluate performance. Where public extension systems exist, they have worked with varying degrees of success at boosting adoption rates of new technologies across the developing world (Anderson and Feder, 2007;Bernard and Spielman, 2009;Verhofstadt and Maertens, 2015). Unfortunately, in most parts of Africa, south of the Sahara, public extension systems are either nonexistent or grossly under-supplied. For instance, the 2018 Africa Agriculture Status Report (AGRA, 2018) states that the ratio of extension agents per farmers across the continent ranges from three to twenty-one agents per 10,000 farmers.Furthermore, underdeveloped transport links, low literacy rates and limited connections to electronic mass media make reaching farmers in remote locations challenging. The scale, complexity and the associated cost of reaching farmers are insurmountable for most public extension systems. In Uganda, for instance, several reform efforts of the extension system have left it crippled and non-functional (Barungi, Guloba and Adong, 2015). In Tanzania, there is about one public extension worker per village, but the average village in the project areas has several thousand farmers, this makes it difficult to introduce new technologies through this channel. Consequently, the public extension systems across the continent have not been able to adequately deliver new technologies to smallholders (Anderson and Feder, 2007).Alternative models of providing extension services exist with various advantages and drawbacks. Group-centred models such as producers or farmer groups, credit groups or other social groups rely on informal network connections to spread new agricultural technologies (Bernard and Spielman, 2009;Di Falco et al., 2018;Shiferaw, Hellin and Muricho, 2011). Several studies (e.g. Abebaw and Haile, 2013;Bernard and Spielman, 2009;Shiferaw, Hellin and Muricho, 2011) highlighted the limitations of group-based approaches in disseminating improved technologies to the most disadvantaged and marginal farmers. Private sector models such as agro-dealers and input sellers also lack the required incentive structures to promote some beneficial technologies such as OFSP due to the unique biological characteristics of such technologies (Shiferaw, Obare and Muricho, 2008;Spielman and Ma, 2016). For example, farmers can capture the economic benefits of improved genetic quality without having to remunerate the inventors due to the possibility of recycling planting materials (Wossen et al., 2019(Wossen et al., , 2020)).The goal of the FT project was to evaluate the impact of an innovative model of diffusing nutritious and improved varieties of vegetatively propagated crops, with a focus on sweet potato. The FT project took place in 10 districts in Tanzania and three districts in Uganda. The impact evaluation took place in Wakiso and Mukono districts in Uganda and Bukoba, Missenyi and Mkuranga districts in Tanzania. The FT project was piloted in two phases. The first phase is a start-small approach focusing on a few specific locations in the nonimpact evaluation areas in early 2015 to allow both implementers and the evaluation team to learn and standardise project activities. The second phase was a complete rollout of the standardised package of interventions in all project districts. The monitoring and evaluation team used the 'start-small' phase to conduct baseline data collection in the impact evaluation districts from November 2015 to February 2016. We found that although adoption rates of improved varieties were relatively higher (ranging from an average of 35 per cent in Tanzania to about 60 per cent in Uganda), OFSP varieties were much less adopted. A strong focus was then given to the distribution of OFSP vines.The core intervention packages of the FT project include the distribution of starter packs of approximately 120 sweet potato vines cuttings, of which at least half are OFSP, to students in public primary schools in Tanzania and Uganda. 1 In all project locations, at least two different varieties of OFSP and in some cases four different varieties were distributed. The number of vine cuttings given to students was deliberately small, with the idea being that if farmers try the varieties and like them, they can invest time and resources to conserve them or buy them in the market for future planting. At the end of one planting season, the parents of students that received vines from the project were asked to give-double by preserving the vines generated by their starter packs and providing starter packs of equivalent size and quality to two other co-villagers. 2 The give-double vine exchange is expected to reduce vine dissemination costs and accelerate OFSP uptake by facilitating within village diffusion to secondary beneficiaries (Di Falco et al., 2019). Vine diffusion could also take place outside of the formal give-double exchanges, which may further increase the number of households reached by the initial school-based distribution. Vine distribution was accompanied by the following additional activities aimed at generating demand and improving cultivation practices: (i) training sessions on OFSP nutritional benefits: the FT held dedicated nutrition information sessions by a sweet potato nutrition expert with pupils at schools about the nutritional benefits and potential uses of OFSP. In some cases, farmers were invited to nutrition training sessions at schools; (ii) demonstration plots: small plots of improved sweet potato were established at project schools and, in some cases, village centres. School plots provided food for pupils, which allowed them to taste OFSP. Pupils also got to eat OFSP they cultivated in their school gardens and (iii) farmer field days: events organised by the project implementation team promoted sweet potato cultivation and marketing for farmers in project villages. In some cases, these events were also used to encourage secondary vine distribution through give-double.The goal of the evaluation was to test whether distributing starter packs of OFSP varieties and associated agronomic and nutrition information through primary schools would boost adoption and consumption levels of OFSP. Hence, we designed a two-arm clustered randomised controlled trial (RCT) focused on measuring village level OFSP adoption and consumption outcomes. To this end, 60 schools in the evaluation areas were randomly assigned to either treatment or control groups. 3 In total, the evaluation consisted of 40 treatment schools that received all the components of the FT intervention and 20 control schools that served as a counterfactual. 4 We linked each school to the village where it is located to create a list of treatment and control villages. Hence, although the unit of randomisation was the school, the unit of analysis was the village primarily associated with the school and only one school was selected per administrative Ward (in Tanzania) or Parish (in Uganda), which also helped minimise spillover between treatment and control villages. 5  Once schools were selected, a total of 20 households from each village in which the school is located were randomly selected from two sampling frames to participate in the survey. 6 First, eight students were randomly selected from a school register of students enrolled at the primary school. Once a student is selected, they are linked to their parent or guardian households in the village. Two students from the same household could not be selected from the school list, and any student whose household was located in a different village was replaced. Second, 12 households were randomly selected from a list of farming households who were likely targets for the programme. This list of village households was obtained through local extension agents and contained households who currently grow sweet potato or might be interested in growing sweet potato in the future. If the same household was selected via village sampling and student sampling, no replacements were made. However, replacements were made if the initially selected farmers were unable to respond or were not sweet potato farmers.This sampling procedure would allow us to distinguish programme effects on primary recipients (who received vines through schools) as well as secondary beneficiary households in the treatment villages (who primarily received vines through give-double activities and to a lesser extent directly from schools). That is, households in the treatment school sample are more likely to be direct beneficiaries of the intervention. Their children are expected to bring vines home and share nutrition information at home. Hence, in addition to comparing outcomes between treatment and control villages, we also compare outcomes across the three comparison groups: treatment school sample, treatment village sample and control sample. This comparison allows us to understand whether the project impact spread beyond households associated with schools. However, since our evaluation design did not vary the intensity of project interventions across treatment schools (i.e. the treatment schools received the full intervention package, while the control villages received none), it will be almost impossible to conclusively determine which elements of the FT intervention packages are the most important in driving impact.The evaluation consisted of a baseline data collection in November 2015-February 2016 and an endline data collection from the same households in June and July 2018. Initial vine distribution took place in March and April 2016 in the treatment schools with give-double activities continuing into 2017. This period covered three to four complete planting seasons. The endline survey was conducted following the same structure as the baseline survey. The survey dedicated detailed modules to collect data on our two main outcomes: adoption and consumption of OFSP. To measure OFSP adoption, we relied primarily on farmers' recall of growing OFSP varieties. In particular, we measured OFSP adoption both at the intensive and extensive margins. At the extensive margin, we used an indicator variable that takes a value of 1 if the household reports growing an OFSP variety or 0 otherwise. As a robustness check, we also measured OFSP adoption based on the names of sweet potato varieties farmers provided to enumerators. At the intensive margin, OFSP adoption was measured using the fraction of OFSP vines from total sweet potato cuttings and the proportion of OFSP area from the total sweet potato area. 7  Next, since both households and pupils were trained about the nutritional benefits and potential uses of sweet potato, the survey also collected detailed information to measure households' knowledge about the nutritional benefits of OFSP. In particular, we asked respondents to name the nutritional benefits of OFSP and some recipes of OFSP. In our analysis, we measured nutrition knowledge both at the extensive (i.e. by an indicator variable that takes a value of 1 if the household knows at least one benefit/recipe promoted by the FT project or 0 otherwise) and intensive (i.e. based on the number of benefits/recipes the household knows) margins. 8 To measure OFSP consumption, we collected detailed information about diets consumed in the households using a 24-hour and 7-day recall period. In our main analysis, OFSP consumption is measured by an indicator variable that takes a value of 1 if a household member reports consuming OFSP based on the 24-hour or 7-day recall period or 0 otherwise. We also evaluated impacts on consumption of OFSP by children under 5 years of age. In this case, OFSP consumption was measured by an indicator variable that takes a value of 1 if a household had a child that consumed OFSP or 0 otherwise. 9The baseline study sample consisted of 1,196 households in 60 villages. Table 1 presents the summary statistics for pre-treatment characteristics of survey participants at baseline. Table 1 shows that at baseline, treatment and control groups were similar in almost all key characteristics that may determine OFSP adoption and consumption outcomes.However, randomisation did not achieve balance for the adoption of non-OFSP improved sweet potato varieties, with a higher adoption rate among households in control villages compared to those in treatment villages. Randomisation also did not achieve balance with respect to plot size and the total number of vine cuttings cultivated. 10 Furthermore, Table A15 (Appendix in supplementary data at ERAE online) reported in the Appendix shows that at baseline, the treatment school, treatment village and control groups were similar in most characteristics, except in age, plot size and adoption of non-OFSP improved sweet potato varieties.In the endline survey, we attempted to interview exactly the same number of households interviewed at baseline. However, we were able to visit 1,064 out of the 1,196 households interviewed at baseline, resulting in an attrition rate of 11 per cent. There were a variety of reasons for attrition. In some areas, there were high rates of out-migration to nearby urban centres such as Dar es Salaam, Bukoba and Kampala. The survey was relatively long, and a substantial number of respondents did not consent to the survey (2 per cent). Additionally, some respondents could not be traced despite using local leaders to locate them. This may have been due to respondents at baseline providing nick names that are not known by local leaders in the village. While the relatively large attrition rate was balanced across arms (p = 0.88), we checked whether attrition was random to rule out selective attrition. To do so, we ran a probit model where baseline characteristics along with their interactions with treatment status were included as predictors of attrition (i.e. attrition takes a value of 0 if the household was interviewed in both baseline and endline surveys or 1 otherwise). The correlates of attrition reported in Table A14 (Appendix in supplementary data at ERAE online) in the Appendix shows the absence of attrition bias in our sample. 11 Hence, our evaluation is based on the 1,064 households that were interviewed both at baseline and endline.In this section, we present the empirical strategy employed to estimate the impact of FT interventions on OFSP adoption and consumption outcomes.While the same households were interviewed during each survey round, the treatment effects are estimated by comparing outcomes between households in treatment and control villages rather than analysing the change in outcomes of households over time. 12 In addition, due to its policy relevance and given that our sampling design for evaluation was blind to the specific households that received FT interventions, we estimate the ITT effect instead of the local average treatment effect (LATE) (Omotilewa et al., 2018). 13 Let Y ij be the outcome variable of interest for household i in village j (OFSP adoption, OFSP nutrition knowledge and OFSP consumption). Let T ij be an indicator for whether household i in village j was assigned to treatment/control group. Following our pre-analysis plan, we employ analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) as our preferred empirical specification. By controlling for baseline values of outcome variables, the ANCOVA specification utilises the baseline data better than a simple comparison of post-intervention means (McKenzie, 2012). Thus, we employ the following specification to estimate the ITT effect:where X i0 is a vector of baseline household characteristics included for precision, Y i0 is a vector of baseline outcomes and v s stands for strata dummies. β itt is our parameter of interest and is an estimate of the impact of the FT project interventions (i.e. vine distribution and exposure to FT nutrition and agronomic trainings) on OFSP adoption/consumption outcomes. Next, since our sampling design for evaluation was blind to the specific households that received FT interventions, we also estimated impacts on primary and secondary beneficiary households. That is, because schools were the main focus of project activities, a possible concern would be that households not associated with schools (i.e. because they don't have children in school) would not experience the benefits of the project. As such, we examine the presence of possible heterogeneity impacts by comparing outcomes between primary and secondary vine recipient households in treatment villages. As discussed before, a primary recipient refers to a household that received vines directly from the school-based distribution events. The households sampled from school enrolment lists were supposed to receive vines directly. On the other hand, secondary recipients refer to households that are less likely to directly receive vines from the school, perhaps because they are less likely to have a child attending school. However, these households are more likely to obtain vines from primary recipients through give-double exchanges and to a lesser extent from schools directly through their children (i.e. these are households sampled from the village list in treatment villages). Hence, the presence of heterogeneous impact is examined using the following regression specification:where S ij is an indicator variable that takes a value of 1 for households in treatment villages selected from the school list and 0 for control villages. Similarly, V ij is an indicator variable that takes a value of 1 for households in treatment villages selected from the village list and 0 for control villages. Hence, a test of the significance of φ − ψ > 0 is a test of the presence of heterogeneous treatment effect in the sense that the impact of FT project on primary and secondary beneficiary households is not the same. 14In this section, we first report the ITT estimates on OFSP adoption, nutrition knowledge and consumption outcomes. We then introduce a causal mediation analysis framework to quantify the contribution of nutrition knowledge to OFSP adoption and consumption. In what follows, we undertake several robustness checks to verify the sensitivity of our main impact estimates. Finally, we also report cost-effectiveness estimates to put our impact estimates into perspective.Table 2 reports the estimated treatment effects focusing on OFSP adoption at the extensive margin. 15 The outcome variable in Table 2 is an indicator variable that takes a value of 1 if the household is growing OFSP at the endline or 0 otherwise. As discussed before, we measured OFSP adoption using two approaches: farmers' recall of growing OFSP varieties that takes a value of 1 if the farmer reports growing OFSP varieties at the endline or 0 otherwise and based on the names of sweet potato varieties reported by farmers at the endline. In this case, OFSP adoption takes a value of 1 if the name of the variety that the farmer reported is an OFSP variety or 0 otherwise. In column (1), the regression includes an indicator variable for the treatment assignment, which takes a value of 1 if the household is in the treatment village and 0 if the household is in the control village. We then include baseline outcomes as additional controls in our ANCOVA regression in column (2). In column (3), we include additional baseline covariates in addition to baseline outcome measures. In column (4), we report impact estimates for the school and village samples separately.Based on farmers' recall of growing OFSP varieties, we find that the average household in treatment villages is about 21 percentage points more likely to report growing OFSP varieties compared to those in control villages. When additional baseline outcome indicators and covariates are included as additional controls in columns (2-3), the estimated impacts remain almost the same. Column (4) shows about 28 and 17 percentage point increase in the likelihood of growing OFSP for the school and village samples in treatment villages, respectively, compared to those in control villages. Based on variety names by which OFSP is known, we also find about 20 percentage point increase in the likelihood of growing OFSP in treatment villages compared to control villages. 16 At the bottom of Table 2, we report parameter equality test (φ − ψ). It tests whether impacts on primary and secondary recipients in treatment villages (i.e. those selected from the school and village lists, respectively) are different. Our parameter equality test detects statistically significant differences, suggesting the presence of heterogeneous treatment effect in the sense that the impact of FT project interventions on primary and secondary recipients is not the same. Overall, our results suggest that the vines introduced through the school system were further disseminated, reaching households in treatment villages that the FT project had not initially targeted.In this section, we report impacts on OFSP adoption at the intensive margin focusing on the proportion of sweet potato area allocated to OFSP production and the fraction of OFSP vine cuttings from the total sweet potato vine cuttings. Results are reported in Table 3. Estimates reported in the first three columns show about 8 percentage point increase in the fraction of OFSP vines from the total sweet potato vine cuttings in treatment villages compared to that in control villages. 17 We also find comparable impacts based on the sweet potato area under OFSP cultivation. In particular, our estimates suggest about 7 percentage point increase in the share of sweet potato area allocated to OFSP cultivation in treatment villages compared to control villages.As before, we also report impacts on both direct and indirect beneficiaries by decomposing the treatment sample into school and village samples. For both outcomes, we again find positive and significant treatment effects, particularly in the treatment school sample relative to control villages. For instance, we find about 11 and 6 percentage point increase in the fraction of OFSP vines in the treatment school and village samples, respectively, compared to that in the control group. The parameter equality test (φ − ψ) reported at the bottom of Table 3 also confirms the presence of statistically significant difference in the fraction of OFSP vines between the school and village samples in treatment villages. Similarly, we find about 12 percentage point increase in the portion of sweet potato area allocated to OFSP production in the treatment school sample relative to the control group but the difference between the treatment village sample and control villages is insignificant. This might be due to primary recipients' preference to use a large proportion of their vines to intensify their own OFSP production instead of sharing it with other co-villagers as part of the give-double vine exchanges. Similar findings were reported for Tanzania by Di Falco et al. (2018). In particular, Di Falco et al. (2018) documented that individuals that received improved seed reduced interaction with their social networks by sharing information on the type of seed they received with fewer people in the village.In Table 4, we report impacts focusing on the adoption of non-OFSP improved sweet potato varieties. The dependent variable in our regression is an indicator variable that takes a value of 1 if the household reports growing non-OFSP improved sweet potato varieties at endline or 0 otherwise. Results reported in Table 4 suggest insignificant impacts across all specifications between treatment and control villages. As noted above, the baseline data show that a significant proportion of households were already exposed to non-OFSP improved sweet potato varieties as adoption rate was quite high both in the treatment and control villages. The null effect of our interventions might also be due to farmers' preference for OFSP varieties relative to non-OFSP varieties. From the decomposition analysis no significant difference was found between the school and village samples.In this section, we report impacts on our second key outcome indicator: consumption of OFSP. Before presenting impacts on OFSP consumption, we first household, half of which being of an OFSP variety type (60 vine cuttings), implying that households in treatment villages have multiplied the initial vines they received about four times in 2 years. examine whether the nutrition training intervention was successful in increasing farmers' knowledge about the nutritional benefits of OFSP. We measured households' knowledge on the nutritional benefits of OFSP both at the extensive margin (i.e. by an indicator variable that takes a value of 1 if the household mentions at least one benefit of OFSP or 0, otherwise) and intensive margins (based on the number of nutritional benefits the household knows). Results are reported in Table 5. Across all specifications, we consistently find that households in treatment villages have a much better knowledge on the nutritional benefits of OFSP, both at the intensive and extensive margins, compared to those in control villages. For instance, we find that farmers in treatment villages are 27 percentage points more likely than control village farmers to correctly state the nutritional benefits of OFSP and 14 percentage points more likely to know an OFSP recipe promoted by the FT project. These results are consistent with the findings of several other studies that leveraged school-based interventions to improve children's nutrition knowledge, attitude and practice (Benkowitz, (2)(2)(3) (2)(2)(3)  As discussed in Section 3, our evaluation design did not vary the intensity of project interventions across treatment schools/villages. The treatment villages received the full intervention package, while the control villages received none. This makes it harder to conclusively determine which elements of the intervention package were driving the observed treatment effect on OFSP adoption and consumption. As mentioned before, while the main component of the FT intervention is direct vine distribution to pupils at treatment schools, dedicated information sessions on the nutritional benefits of OFSP and improved agronomic practices constitute the complementary component of the FT intervention. However, our main estimation strategy explicated in Section (3.4) does not allow us to unpack the relative contribution of the different components that compose the full FT interventions  how much of the treatment effect on OFSP adoption and consumption operated through additional nutrition knowledge is difficult since the FT project did not vary the intensity of nutrition training sessions among households in treatment villages. Hence, we conduct a causal mediation analysis to identify the indirect effect (IE), which operates through improved nutrition knowledge. That is, we attempt to decompose the impacts reported in Table 2 for adoption and in Table 6 for consumption into: the direct effect (DE) and the IE that operates through mediators (i.e. improved OFSP nutrition knowledge in our case). Following Hicks and Tingley (2011); Imai et al. (2011) and Dippel, Ferrara and Heblich (2020), let M(t) denote the potential value of the mediator under treatment status T = t. Similarly, let Y (t, m) be the potential outcome (i.e. OFSP adoption and consumption in our case) if the treatment and mediating indicators assume t and m, respectively. The total effect (TE) (i.e. E[Y(t 1 ) − Y(t 0 )]) can then be decomposed into DE and IE in the following manner:(3) where t = 0;1 indicating treatment status. Equation (3) shows that fixing T = t, the IE measures the expected change in Y when the value of the mediator changes from M(t 0 ) to M(t 1 ), while the DE is simply the share of the TE that does not operate through M. That is, fixing T = t, IE(t) measures the change in Y corresponding to a change in the mediator from the value that would be realised under the counterfactual condition, M(t 0 ), to the value that would be observed under the treatment condition, M(t 1 ) (Dippel, Ferrara and Heblich, 2020;Hicks and Tingley, 2011;Imai et al., 2011). Thus, the IE will be zero when the treatment has no effect on the mediator so that E[M(t 1 ) − M(t 0 )] = 0. However, identification and estimation of IE require two sequential ignorability (SI) assumptions (Imai et al., 2011). The first SI assumption is treatment exogeneity, which is expected to hold in our setting since treatment status is randomised. The second SI assumption is related to mediator exogeneity and is explicated by Assumption (4.1) below. Assumption 4.1 (Mediator exogeneity). (Y (t,m)⊥M(t)|T = t;X = x) Assumption (4.1) implies that conditional on the actual treatment status and pre-treatment confounders, the observed mediator is statistically independent of potential outcomes. In our setting, this assumption implies that given treatment status and pre-treatment confounders, knowledge of nutritional benefits would be statistically independent of OFSP adoption and consumption outcomes. Even though we demonstrate that baseline OFSP nutrition knowledge was balanced through randomisation between treatment and control groups (see, Table 1), Assumption (4.1) is clearly a strong assumption since OFSP nutrition knowledge is a post-treatment intermediate outcome. If Assumption (4.1) holds, the effect of T on M and the effect of M on Y are estimated as follows:while the IE is the product of β T M and β M Y , the DE is given by β T Y . 18 As discussed above, the IE recovered via equation ( 5) can be biased in unknown ways if Assumption (4.1) fails to hold in our data. To overcome potential bias in IE estimates due to violation of Assumption (4.1), we have conducted the following two robustness checks. First, following Hicks and Tingley (2011), we undertook a sensitivity analysis to assess the degree of violation of Assumption (4.1). This is done by checking the correlation (ρ) between the errors terms of equations ( 4) and ( 5). Assumption (4.1) holds when ρ = 0. Hence, large values of|ρ| implies the presence of large bias in IE estimates due to violation of Assumption (4.1).Second, following the approach of Dippel, Ferrara and Heblich (2020), we have attempted to identify the IE of nutrition knowledge without imposing Assumption (4.1) using an instrumental variable (IV) estimation strategy. As explicated in Dippel, Ferrara and Heblich (2020), the IV estimation strategy identifies IE consistently so long as the source of endogeneity is confounders that jointly influence T and M but not T and Y. As such, we use treatment assignment as an instrument (Z) to identify: (i) the IE of nutrition knowledge on OFSP adoption using access to OFSP vines from school as a measure of treatment status (which is an indicator variable that takes a value of 1 if the household reports receiving OFSP vines from school at the endline or 0 otherwise). Similarly, we also identify the IE of nutrition knowledge on OFSP consumption using OFSP adoption as a measure of treatment status. Finally, we also identify the IE of OFSP adoption on consumption using nutrition knowledge as a measure of treatment status. With this in hand, the first stage for the treatment and mediator equations is estimated as follows:where T is the predicted value of T in equation ( 6). The second stage outcome equation (i.e. the effect of M on Y conditional on T) is then estimated as follows:where M is the predicted value of M in equation ( 6). In the above regression specifications, the IE is the product of β T M in equation ( 6) and β M Y in equation ( 7), while the DE is given by β T Y in equation ( 7). We present our IE estimates with and without imposing Assumption (4.1) in Table 7. Under Assumption (4.1), considering nutrition knowledge as a mediator and OFSP adoption and consumption as outcomes, the IE estimates reported in Table 7  Second stage: equation ( 7)   1: age, education, dummy variable for having received vines at baseline, dummy variable for growing sweet potato at baseline and dummy variable for having received training about sweet potato cultivation at baseline. In the first four columns, we assumed that both the treatment and mediator variables are exogenous. In the next three columns, we consider both treatment and mediator variables endogenous and hence used treatment assignment as an instrument (Z) to identify IE. suggest that indeed additional nutrition knowledge is an important mediator of both adoption and consumption outcomes. Our IE estimates suggest that nutrition knowledge mediated about 28.4 and 36.5 per cent of the treatment effect on OFSP adoption and consumption by children under 5 years of age, respectively. In column (3), we report IE estimates considering OFSP adoption status in the current production season as a mediator and consumption as an outcome. We find that adoption mediated about 48.6 per cent of the treatment effect on OFSP consumption by children under 5 years of age. However, due to the non-separability of adoption, production and consumption outcomes, OFSP consumption at time t could reflect OFSP production in the previous season. In particular, since OFSP has a short production cycle, some farmers may have grown OFSP in the previous season but not in the current season. Hence, in column (4), we report IE estimates using OFSP adoption status in the previous production season (i.e. OFSP adoption at time t − 1) as a mediator for OFSP consumption at time t. In this case, we find that, adoption mediated about 65 per cent of the treatment effect on OFSP consumption by children under 5 years of age. 19  In Figure 1, we also report how sensitive our IE estimates are to potential violation of Assumption (4.1) by estimating IE at different values of ρ. In all cases, we find that the correlation between the error terms of equations ( 4) and ( 5) would have to be highly positive for our IE estimates to vanish.In columns 5-7, we report IE for nutrition knowledge and adoption without imposing Assumption (4.1). We again find that improved nutrition knowledge is an important driver of both adoption and consumption outcomes. For instance, we find that about 63.1 per cent of the school vine distribution effect on adoption is mediated via improved nutrition knowledge. Similarly, about 60 per cent of the adoption effect on OFSP consumption by children is mediated via improved nutrition knowledge, while almost the entire effect of nutrition knowledge on OFSP consumption is mediated through adoption (i.e. nutrition knowledge affects consumption only through adoption and almost no OFSP consumption by children occurred without adoption). Our results are consistent with the findings by studies that leveraged school-age children and young adults for nutrition education. For Schreinemachers et al. ( 2020), (2019) find that exposing children and caregivers to nutrition information simultaneously improves both nutrition knowledge-and consumption-related outcomes, whereas nudging only children improves intermediate nutrition knowledge-related outcomes but not consumption outcomes. However, our results contradict the findings by de Brauw et al. (2018) that show that nutrition knowledge did not matter in explaining adoption in Uganda and Mozambique. We attribute this divergence to difference in the type of channels and messengers used for delivering nutrition messages to households. Whereas de Brauw et al. (2018) used farmer groups as information hubs, the FT approach used  7), while the bottom panel shows the sensitivity of the IE for adoption (i.e. columns 3 and 4 in Table 7). The shaded region shows the 95 per cent confidence interval.primary schools as information hubs, and pupils, both as targets of messages and messengers. Thus, the importance of improved OFSP nutrition knowledge as a key channel for driving adoption and consumption of OFSP might be explained by the FT's approach of exposing (training) both schoolchildren and their parents to relevant OFSP agronomy and nutrition topics.In this section, we conduct a number of robustness checks to ensure the of our results. First, we re-estimate our treatment effects for the main outcome variables with wild bootstrap standard errors. In our main analysis, we report standard errors clustered at the village/school level. However, these standard errors might be inconsistent when the number of clusters are few (Cameron, Gelbach and Miller, 2008). Following the approach of Cameron, Gelbach and Miller (2008), we report our main results with wild bootstrap standard errors in Table 8, which is consistent with the main results reported in Table 2.Second, we probe how sensitive our results are to possible contamination due to the give-double exchanges. This robustness check is a key as some households in the control village may have received vines from households in the treatment villages due to the give-double exchanges or directly from   schools. If such type of contamination is high, our estimates would be attenuated. In our endline survey, we find that about 24 households, close to 3 per cent of the households in control villages, reported receiving vines directly from schools. As such, we drop these households and re-estimate impacts on our main outcome of interest: adoption of OFSP. Estimation results in Table 9 suggest that our impact estimates are robust to possible contamination. However, as expected, the treatment effect is slightly higher compared to those reported in Table 2. Third, we also report country-specific treatment effects in Table 10. In our main analysis, we use the pooled data with country fixed effects to account for country level differences. In Table 10, we report treatment effects on OFSP adoption separately for Uganda and Tanzania. Our country-specific estimates on OFSP adoption are consistent with the main estimates reported in Table 2.Finally, we probe the robustness of our results to the seasonality of OFSP production. In our main analysis, we only considered adoption in the current production season. However, it is difficult to get consistent responses for questions referencing seasons given that some farmers grow sweet potato  continuously, while others grow them in a semi-continuous manner. In particular, since OFSP has a short production cycle, some farmers may have grown OFSP in the previous season but not in the current season, the season that corresponds to the endline survey. For instance, at the endline, we find that the median recipient on the school list had grown OFSP for four seasons, and the median village list recipient had grown OFSP for three seasons at endline. We, therefore, consider a longer production period and measure adoption by considering adoption since 2016 (i.e. since the vines were distributed by the FT project), last production season or either in the last or current production season. As shown in Table 11, our adoption impact estimates are robust to alternative measures of the OFSP adoption indicator.In this section, we report cost-effectiveness estimates for the FT interventions to provide some context to the impacts associated with the FT interventions.That is, since information on the costs incurred to achieve the reported impacts of the FT interventions is critical to replicate or scale up the FT project, we weigh the costs against the benefits of the project in cost-effectiveness analysis and compare our estimates to similar projects with published results. To this end, we compare our estimates with that of the Reaching End Users (REU) project since this is the only other project for which we were able to gather information on rigorous impact measurement on OFSP uptake and cost-effectiveness after 2 years of implementation. In our setting, we report cost-effectiveness estimates in terms of cost per farmer adopting OFSP. This cost-effectiveness metric is computed by dividing the cost per vine recipient by the percentage point increase in OFSP adoption. To estimate the actual costs of FT interventions, we used the COSTAB approach that structures costs around activities. This approach is used by the World Bank to assess project costs (World Bank, 2001). Activity level costs were computed using a combination of direct analysis of financial reports and cost receipts by implementing partners. Note that our cost-effectiveness analysis is also based on the marginal cost of the FT interventions (instead of average costs as in de Brauw et al. ( 2018)), which we define as the costs that only exist because of the project. These are the cost that must be incurred if the project is to be implemented in another context. For instances, it is reasonable to assume that other areas will have school facilities that can be leveraged to deliver the FT project interventions (so schools are not included in marginal cost), but vines must be purchased and delivered to schools, so vine and transportation costs are included. 20  Table 12 summarises the estimated benefits and costs of the FT interventions. While the number of primary beneficiary households per school was estimated based on the number of students that received vines through school distribution, the number of secondary beneficiary households was estimated based on year three data from project monitoring information system (MIS). With the FT interventions increasing OFSP adoption by 21 percentage points, the number of total adopters per school is estimated at 135 households. Based on average benefit and cost figures, the estimated cost of the FT project per OFSP adopting household is about US $59, with estimates varying between 43 and 77 USD depending on local prices and other factors such as distance  (de Brauw et al., 2018). An important caveat to this comparison is that the REU project used the average cost of project implementation, while the FT project used marginal cost of project implementation. The higher cost-effectiveness of the FT compared to REU stems from two sources. First, the cost of FT per primary vine recipient is much lower, at around US $39.89 vs $132 for REU in Uganda. Second, FT achieved increased dissemination of vines from primary recipients to other members of the community. Unlike FT, there was no emphasis on formal vine sharing, and schools did not play a role in the REU project. FT recipients distributed vines to an average of 2.2 other households compared to 1 in the REU project in Uganda. By only distributing to schools, FT limited the logistical burden associated with transporting vines to many drop-off points. Furthermore, FT did not need to identify and support farmer groups prior to vine distribution, limiting pre-distribution costs. The project did not have to maintain a complicated voucher or sales system and only had to arrange one-off bulk purchases. Despite its relatively lower cost-effectiveness, it is important to keep in mind that the REU outperformed the FT approach when it comes to coverage. While FT interventions achieved a 21 percentage point increase in the likelihood of farmers growing OFSP among primary recipients, the REU project in Uganda achieved a 62 percentage point increase in likelihood of OFSP adoption. 21 21 Also, note that the REU project distributed approximately about 1,000 vine cuttings per household, while the FT distributed only 120 starter packs of sweet potato vine cuttings per household. Hence, given the vegetatively propagated nature of the crop, such differences in the scale (quantity) of vine distribution makes comparison, in terms of both adoption impacts and costeffectiveness, difficult. In addition, there were also important measurement-related issues due to the seasonality of sweet potato cultivation. In fact, as reported in Given that our sampling design for evaluation was blind to the specific households that received FT interventions and due to its policy relevance, we reported ITT estimates in Tables 2 and 6 for OFSP adoption and consumption outcomes, respectively. However, the ITT average impacts across treated households who actually received the FT interventions and those who did not.In this section, we report the LATE focusing on OFSP adoption and consumption outcomes. This is particularly important in our case since not all eligible households received the FT interventions. For instance, from the endline survey, we find that 66 per cent of the households in the treatment villages (i.e. about 80 per cent of the households on the school list and 56 per cent on the village list) reported receiving OFSP vines. 22 Less than 100 per cent rate in the school list could be due to recall issues or distribution issues or issues with vines making it from the school to the household. For instance, some of the children who received vines may have failed to take the vines back to their parents or some of the students may not have been present during vine distribution day at the school. FT also organised dedicated OFSP nutrition education for children in schools and households in treatment villages, with 44 per cent of the households reporting that children have delivered nutrition messages to them at the endline. Hence, even if the treatment assignment was randomised, access to the specific interventions offered by the FT project among households in treatment villages may not be random. That is, even though we demonstrate that baseline OFSP vine and nutrition training access was balanced between treatment and control groups (see, Table 1), we cannot rule out selection bias in individual's access to OFSP vines and/or nutrition training in treatment villages (i.e. while treatment status is random, access/receiving vines is not as it is based on endogenous household decisions). As such, we report LATE estimates using treatment assignment as an instrument for access to the specific FT interventions. In particular, we measure access to FT interventions using the following indicators: (i) access to OFSP vines, which is an indicator variable that takes a value of 1 if the household reports receiving OFSP vines since March 2016 at the endline or 0 otherwise; (ii) access to both OFSP vines and nutrition training, which is again an indicator variable that takes a value of 1 if the household reports receiving both OFSP vine and nutrition information at the endline or 0 otherwise.LATE estimates reported in Table 13 consistently show positive and significant impacts on OFSP adoption and consumption outcomes among individuals that received the FT interventions. For instance, depending on the way treatment status is defined, we find about 47-59 percentage point increase in the since the vines were distributed by the FT project), the estimated treatment effect on adoption becomes 0.343, up from the 0.21 treatment effect reported based on OFSP cultivation in the current production season. probability of growing OFSP among compliers at the endline. Similarly, the LATE on OFSP fraction shows about 19-23 percentage point increase, which again is about threefold times larger than the ITT estimates reported in Table 3. Finally, the LATE on OFSP consumption by children under 5 years of age, which shows between 35 and 45 percentage point increase in consumption, is also much higher compared to the ITT reported in Table 6.In this paper, we present evidence from a RCT experiment that tested the efficacy of an innovative approach to getting new agricultural technologies to rural households across Tanzania and Uganda. The approach relies on primary schools in rural areas as hubs for distributing starter packs of sweet potato vines to pupils to take home to their parents. Vine distribution was accompanied by sweet potato cultivation and nutrition training of farmers and schoolchildren. Our results show that 2 years after the initial vine distribution, households in treatment villages are 21 percentage points more likely to report growing OFSP and 27 percentage points more likely to correctly state the nutritional benefits of OFSP compared to those in control villages. We also find up to 16 percentage point increase in the likelihood of OFSP consumption by children under 5 years of age in treatment villages compared to those in control villages. Using causal mediation analysis, we show that up to a third of the observed treatment effect on OFSP adoption and consumption outcomes is mediated by improved knowledge about the nutritional benefits of OFSP.The findings from this study suggest that schools can play a critical role in accelerating the diffusion of certain types of agricultural technologies Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/erae/advance-article/doi/10.1093/erae/jbab028/6311321 by guest on 30 June 2021 in rural areas. This is an important finding since schools in rural communities are central to community life. In Tanzania and Uganda, primary school education is free and mandatory, which makes it possible to reach a diversity of community members. Furthermore, in both countries, there is a fair amount of nutrition teaching in the curriculums, which creates an opportunity to channel and share information about agricultural innovations. By relying on this established mode of engagement between rural households and schools, the evidence reported in this paper suggests that interventions that promote food-based solutions to addressing micronutrient deficiencies can rely on pupils for messaging to boost the cultivation and consumption of micronutrient-rich food crops. Therefore, future projects working with sweet potato or other similar vegetatively propagated crops such as cassava may consider adopting the FT's school-based distribution system.Nonetheless, there are important limitations, primarily from the perspective of the external validity of the adoption and cost-effectiveness estimates reported in this study. First, generalising our findings to other crops may not be possible due to the unique biological and economic characteristics of vegetatively propagated crops: they are difficult to distribute, easy to share and seldom part of a commercial seed system. In this regard, further research will be necessary to confirm the generalizability of the FT distribution model for other crops and in different contexts. Second, we identified increased nutrition knowledge as an important mediating channel to drive OFSP adoption and consumption outcomes, which is apparently not so for the traditional extension-based approach (de Brauw et al., 2018). While this divergence may be attributed to the difference in the type of channels and messengers used for delivering nutrition messages, it may also point towards a different 'quality' of such effects, which may turn out to be more resilient. In this regard, it would be interesting to evaluate the persistence and sustainability (long-term impacts) of the FT and REU distribution models. Third, although we compare the cost-effectiveness of the FT approach with the REU approach, we are aware that such comparison could be misleading because of external validity concerns. Convincing cost-effectiveness analysis can only be done by evaluating the efficacy of alternative distribution options within the same experiment. Future research that aims to assess the effectiveness of schools as hubs for agriculture technology and information diffusion should thus consider juxtaposing this approach with other channels such as farmer groups or established public extension systems within the same experiment. Finally, future studies could consider an extended range of outcomes related to the school-based distribution approach. For example, research can look at the impact of the FT approach on education outcomes such as school attendance or performance in exam scores.","tokenCount":"9363"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"eb8da7d9dec896d0af4ace6c0ea3450b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/72386010-f8d4-4111-8d5f-3a7ac7e89457/retrieve","id":"1151168844"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"07bc1247-0816-4399-92fb-67a7ec62f99c","pagecount":"12","content":"As another year of hard work and team e ort passes for WorldFish, it is an opportune time to pay tribute to the many partnerships that help us to achieve impact.Partnerships are a cornerstone of the work that WorldFish does, and as a research organization, WorldFish has forged many long-standing and fruitful partnerships over the years with others in the research and development communities. The breadth and variety of challenges facing developing countries around the World are vast, and engaging with partners at the local, national and global levels greatly enhances the potential for our work to change lives for the better. In a period of signi cant reform for the CGIAR, where partnership with others is being re-imagined, it feels like the right time to focus on this topic.It is also timely because partnership was identi ed as a key vehicle for achieving our goals in our 2012 Strategy Update. Quite simply, without a comprehensive engagement with others, our work at WorldFish to address the problems of poverty and hunger will have limited impact. Identifying the importance of partnership in our Strategy Update rightly recognizes the great bene t of establishing partnerships that bring together complimentary skills and resources to alleviate poverty and malnutrition.In this report, you will nd stories of our partners' work, told in their own words. I am immensely proud of the partnerships that these storiesEquality requires mutual respect between partners irrespective of size and power. Partners must respect each other's obligations, independence, constraints and commitments. Mutual respect must not preclude organizations from constructive dissent.Transparency is achieved through dialogue (on equal footing), with an emphasis on early consultations and early sharing of information. Communications and transparency, including nancial transparency, increase the level of trust among organizations.Results Orientation E ective action must be reality-based and action-oriented. This requires result-oriented coordination based on e ective capabilities and concrete operational capacities.Partner organizations have an ethical obligation to each other to accomplish their tasks responsibly, with integrity and in a relevant and appropriate way. They must make sure they commit to activities only when they have the means, competencies, skills, and capacity to deliver on their commitments.Partnerships are central to the work that we do, and ensuring they work well is crucial. For this reason, we have adopted four principles that we believe are key to success:describe, and I hope that in reading them you will get a clearer picture of how important our partners are to WorldFish. I also hope that you will gain an appreciation of the e orts that we are making to adopt the key partnership principles of equality, transparency, results orientation and responsibility.These principles lie at the heart of our approach to partnership and we believe they capture the key ingredients that foster trust between organizations and ensure successful development outcomes.Of course, the list of partnerships that we have chosen to highlight is not random. Recognizing that achieving development outcomes and impacts is long-term business, we have focussed in particular on long-term partnerships. All of the partners celebrated in this report have, or are, working with us on major, long-term projects or programs across the globe. I believe it is especially important that we acknowledge the enormous contributions that these partnerships make to WorldFish, because it is long-term, enduring relationships that will sustain the e ort needed to make a real di erence, both now and as they continue into the future.  As Board Chair I had the opportunity to visit one of the AAS Program 'hubs' in Zambia this year. In doing so I re ected back to the Board's visit to Zambia in 2010. At that time, in speaking with sta and partners it was evident that sh were critically important for health and nutrition in Zambia as well as the rest of Africa. My visit to the Barotse Floodplain hub in Zambia reinforced to me the importance of aquatic agricultural systems to communities there and how important the Center's work with partners is in working with these communities to e ect change in their lives.Re ecting on the Center's nancial performance, the Board has been very cognizant this year of the need for prudent nancial and risk management. The Board is pleased to note the continued nancial stability and the sound nancial management of the Center which resulted in a US$ 0.28 million surplus for 2011. Recovery of indirect costsincreased over 2010 but the full recovery of the Center's costs from some donors remains a challenge, as does the Center's ability to maintain su cient working capital to nance growth in operations. The funding outlook for 2012 and 2013 looks strong as the Center moves into the full implementation of the CGIAR Research Programs.The Board commended the Center this year in its commitment to its operations in Egypt. It is in countries such as this, which are experiencing con ict and crisis, where we need to take a long term view and sustain our engagement. The Board was especially heartened by the commitment of the WorldFish sta in Egypt who, during the unrest in 2011, worked tirelessly to maintain the security of the 20-year investment in sh breeding and aquaculture training at the Abbassa facility.Looking forward, with the CGIAR Research Programs now underway, WorldFish and its partners must ensure that the outcomes of our research bene t farmers, shers and those who depend on sh for sound nutrition, while at the same time producing the knowledge and innovation that will change framework conditions at the regional and global scale. Achieving this will, of course, require adequate and sustained funding. Fortunately, despite a still fragile global economy, there are indications that agricultural research will receive the necessary investment -an essential pre-requisite for achieving the ambitious goals set out in the CGIAR reform.A participatory approach: working with locals in the Mekong wetlands Wetlands are among the most biologically diverse ecosystems in the world. For millennia, boggy swamps, coastal saltmarshes, and seasonally inundated oodplains have supplied local communities with an abundance of natural resources. Increasingly, wetlands are being threatened by urban and industrial development that disrupts the delicate native habitats that millions rely on for their food and livelihoods. In the Mekong River region that spans the nations of Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, establishing sustainable wetland management practices is the goal of the Wetlands Alliance. The Alliance has been operating since 2006 through a network of almost 50 partner organizations with a shared goal of building local community capacity to alleviate poverty.In 2009, when the Wetlands Alliance Implementation Phase commenced, WorldFish came on board as one of four regional partners, to help support Alliance activities at the local level.Ola Möller, from the Swedish Embassy in Bangkok (section for development cooperation/Sida), who funds the Wetlands Alliance, believes that WorldFish contributes a great deal to the Alliance. \"WorldFish is very experienced and professional, \" he says. \"But that's not the most important from our perspective. We believe the partnership is equally strong from a methodological and philosophical perspective. Sida nds the WorldFish vision -especially the concept of research meeting local knowledge -relevant and something that Sida is willing to be engaged with. After all, it is at the local level that development Salaphoum research approach rst-hand. \"The collaboration makes people's life easier, \" she says. The partnership with WorldFish has seen villagers trained in pond construction and sh raising techniques. With small-scale aquaculture ponds, villagers no longer rely upon the dwindling sh supply of the Mekong and its tributaries for food, and often have excess sh they can sell at the markets. The villagers have also been enlisted to conduct research of their own, monitoring sh health and yields, as well as the time and e ort required for their new aquaculture ventures. \"We have already seen signs of poverty being alleviated in the village, \" says Sithon, who is excited by the potential for the partnership to lead to lasting community bene ts. \"With the training provided by WorldFish, we have now better access to sh. Our children can learn from our sh raising practice and follow our path. \"The Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), based in Klong Luang, Thailand, is another of the Wetlands Alliance's regional Implementation partners. For Theo Ebbers, Wetlands Alliance Outreach Coordinator at AIT, WorldFish's engagement with local knowledge is a crucial element of the partnership. \"Community-led research, as developed by WorldFish, exposes AIT and its researchers to more qualitative research and the design of research studies that directly addresses community needs, \" says Ebbers. \"WorldFish's focus on linking research with impacts on livelihoods through community engagement o ers AIT insights into a di erent perspective on outreach. \" Möller adds that WorldFish's \"analytic mindset\" bene ts the Alliance greatly, bringing an ability to evaluate and re-assess the approach taken at each step. \"The earlier this thinking comes into the project, the better, \" he says, \"and we can have more e ective development with this sort of critical analysis. \"For the Cambodian government Fisheries Administration (FiA), also Wetlands Alliance partners, the partnership with WorldFish enhances the agency's clout with local communities such as Sithon's. As Kaing Khim, Deputy Director General of the FiA, notes, \"Not many people trust the work of government o cials, but WorldFish's trust in us adds credibility to our project and hard work. \"Khim welcomes WorldFish's open dialogue with the government agency. \"I appreciate WorldFish's willingness to sit at the table and talk with us rst before we set actions, \" says Khim. In her experience, this is not always the case for development organizations working in Cambodia. \"WorldFish is di erent, \" she says. \"We want to work even closer with WorldFish in our future projects. \"In Zambia, the Zambezi River forms part of a landscape in which freshwater rivers, lakes and wetlands cover almost 20% of the country during the wet season. The river is a spectacular tourist destination for anglers and wildlife bu s alike, but for Zambians, these waterways are the country's food basket, supporting extensive agriculture, sheries and livestock production. Around 3 million people -a quarter of the landlocked southern African country's population -directly rely on these aquatic agriculture systems for their livelihoods. In a country where three quarters of the population live in poverty, bolstering the production capacity of the natural environment represents a tantalizing opportunity for economic growth and poverty alleviation.The Barotse Floodplain in the Western Province of Zambia is one of the three hubs for the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS). The Program, led by WorldFish, has seen the recent establishment of a number of successful partnerships with global, national and local organizations and cultural establishments. In the Barotse Floodplain, the AAS Program is working with a number of organizations. Three of these based in the hub are the People's Participation Service (PPS), Caritas Mongu (a partner to Catholic Relief Services), and the Barotse Royal Establishment (BRE). The AAS Program is working to increase agricultural and sh production, and expand the markets for sh, rice and livestock in the area. Recognizing the strong cultural heritage of the region the leadership of the Barotse Royal Establishment is a crucial component of the program. All three partners bring an essential local perspective to the program, and feel that the partnership with the AAS Program provides a number of bene ts.Mr. Fines Nasilele, Program Coordinator at PPS, a coalition of farmers' groups in the Western Province, is especially pleased with the collaborative nature of the partnership. As he explains, \"WorldFish has showcased the AAS Program clearly and has managed to bring us on board from stage to stage. \" Mr. Nasilele sees a natural synergy between the PPS the AAS approach to addressing the complex problems facing the region. \"Our partnership with the AAS Program is overwhelming, because we have come to realize that we agree in almost all our key areas of operation, these being the livelihood of people in the Barotse, and our common goal of realizing the potential of the Barotse Flood Plain. \" Caritas, a faith-based organization with a base in the Catholic Diocese of Mongu in the Western Province, has been working hard to alleviate poverty in Zambia through agriculture, food security and livelihoods. For Mr. Albert Mulanda, Program Coordinator at Caritas Mongu, being a partner with a research organization like WorldFish is a signi cant asset in translating experience into sustained action. \"Caritas Mongu considers its partnership with the AAS Program and WorldFish very seriously, because we realize that our challenges will be dealt with and that most of them will be researched, so that solutions will be found and later implemented, \" he says.The Lozi people have inhabited the Barotse plains for centuries, and still recognize their monarchy, the Barotse Royal Establishment (BRE), as a cornerstone of their culture. Mr. Mwangelwa Akapelwa Silumbu, referred to by his position as a senior BRE leader, Induna Mayunyi, was born into the BRE, and now manages water development in the Floodplain. Induna Mayunyi believes the partnership with the AAS Program is helping his people to maintain their traditions. \"We already have the indigenous way of preserving our natural resources, hence we believe that the partnership with WorldFish and AAS will help us to revive and improve the lost value of our traditional know-how of natural resource preservation. \" By blending traditional knowledge with modern agricultural innovations, Induna Mayunyi is excited by the potential of the partnership to improve his peoples' ability to diversify their crops, sustainably manage their waterways for irrigation and sh farming, and improve their livestock breeds.All three of these partners in the Barotse Floodplain foresee a continuing productive relationship with the AAS Program, based on \"mutual respect and understanding for each other, \" as Mr. Nasilele puts it.Mr. Mulanda agrees. \"Our partnership has a bright future, \" he says. \"We are working as a team and we seem to have prioritized team work from the onset of the partnership. \"Induna Mayunyi also hopes for a long and prosperous partnership beyond the AAS Program. \"We want to appeal to WorldFish and the Program not to vanish in thin air after the life span of this project, because we will need them to also teach us how to manage our natural resources sustainably, \" he says.Since the 1940s, the humanitarian organization, CARE, has been a key player on the world development stage. CARE's work ranges from the delivery of humanitarian assistance amid times of crisis, to more on-going support to build community resilience and development capacity. CARE began working with WorldFish in a number of projects to improve livelihoods in developing countries. CARE and WorldFish both share a determination to alleviate poverty in vulnerable communities, and this mutual goal has fostered a productive partnership in countries including Bangladesh and Egypt and now with the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS).CARE and WorldFish have joined together to plan and implement the AAS Program. The communities in aquatic agricultural systems that both organizations work with are unique and varied, as are the multitude of vulnerabilities and challenges they face. Andrea Rodericks, Executive Director for Program Quality and Learning in CARE India notes that \"the problems we are trying to address are complex change processes and no one organization can tackle them alone. \"The empowerment of women in low income communities is fundamental to CARE's work around the world. Rodericks, who has worked for many years to improve the status of women in developing countries, sees a natural partner in WorldFish on this issue. \"I nd our ideas of thinking around gender transformative change align quite well, \" she says. \"It's still a long journey to get that right, but I'm impressed by the way WorldFish is approaching this and their clarity of intent in this area. \"Partnerships provide opportunities to bring together complementary expertise and experiences to tackle development challenges. As Jamie Terzi from CARE Bangladesh explains, \"The relationship with WorldFish is strengthened by having mutual objectives and understanding how we can complement each other's work. \"For Ms Terzi, the partnership is growing. \"We've been building the relationship -we've now done a joint assessment mission in south west Bangladesh -that was a valuable experience for us, as rather than one organization going it alone we were learning as a team. The results were a much deeper analysis. We don't want to con ne ourselves to the south west so we are looking for wider partnership in Bangladesh and with WorldFish taking the approach it is in AAS, this ts well with the approach CARE is taking in relation to the total ecosystem approach. The partnership is changing from a more project-based to an institutional relationship. \"In Egypt, where much e ort is needed to address persistent high unemployment and limited economic opportunity for the poor, CARE is working with WorldFish on a signi cant project to improve employment and income through the development of Egypt's aquaculture sector (a project connected with the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish). In both instances, the collaboration between organizations has benefited from a shared vision. Susan Nour, Initiatives Manager at CARE Egypt, describes WorldFish as a \"natural partner\" for this reason. \"In this project we de nitely have aligned around the objectives and our understanding of the approach and methodology that WorldFish is using -bottom up, poor-focused and the interest WorldFish has in listening to CARE's point of view and the commitment to development. We also seem aligned on building capacity and empowering marginalized communities. \" CARE Egypt Country Director, Kevin Fitzcharles, and Assistant Country Director, Hazem Fahmy, agree, adding that the research element that the WorldFish brings to the partnership is of great value. \"There is a rigor in the evidence-based approach used by WorldFish that makes CARE work better grounded, \" they note. Whether it's in the Bangladeshi lowlands, the banks of the Nile or in aquatic agricultural systems across Asia and Africa, the partnership between CARE and WorldFish could be transformative for many. \"I think CARE and WorldFish could be a good partnership that will work together to in uence the agenda on what donors fund and in negotiating for longer term projects, \" says Rodericks. \"If we identify issues together we can use our evidence to in uence funding and programming strategies that could enable real social change. \"The private sector: partnering for poverty relief and pro t Addressing the problems of poverty and malnutrition in low-income communities is usually the preserve of government agencies and development organizations. However, with demand for sh products soaring worldwide, the small-scale sheries sector in developing nations represents a potentially lucrative -as well as ethical -opportunity for private sector investors. WorldFish has formed partnerships with a number of private sector partners to create a win-win scenario for business and local communities alike.When Mohammed Gouda, an engineer and businessman, started a sh farming business in 1984, he was the rst in the Fayoum Province south of Cairo, Egypt. By 1993, there were enough sh farmers in the region for Gouda to establish a sh farming collective, and since 1998, Gouda has developed a partnership with WorldFish on a number of endeavors, beginning with WorldFish training for his collective.\"Training is very important, \" explains Gouda, \"we did training, and then together we made a trial farm here on how to increase production and to improve species of Tilapia. \" The genetic improvement program is now in its 10th breeding generation, and Gouda expects the program to continue with WorldFish's input. The focus will be on developing fast-growing and disease-resistant varieties for improved yield, and cold-tolerant varieties to withstand the winter months.As a non-pro t research organization, WorldFish is perhaps not the usual partner for a commercial operator like Gouda. However, Gouda does not see this as a problem. \"WorldFish doesn't at all care of making money, \" he explains, \"but WorldFish cares about sustainability of their business, which is all about the private farmers keep on making money. \" \"We still face many problems that needs research, needs solution, \" adds Gouda. \"One of the problems faced is the water quality. \" As in many sh farms, low oxygen levels and high ammonia from sh waste can threaten farm productivity. Algae are also a problem for Gouda and his fellow sh farmers. \"We need to make more research on how to control these algae, \" he says. \"Perhaps WorldFish could assist us on these. \"Thanks to Gouda's constant striving to bring sheries knowledge and innovation to his community, there are now more than 100 aquaculture businesses in the region, and the farming collective that Gouda chairs has grown from 26 to over 400 members.A more recent private sector partnership that has developed is between WorldFish and A-Spark Good Ventures, an ethical venture capital company based in the Netherlands. The entrepreneur behind A-Spark Good Ventures is Mike Velings, who has been committed to social and ethical investment since 1989. A-Spark Good Ventures and WorldFish became partners in 2011 after Velings heard WorldFish Director General Steve Hall speak about the role that aquaculture can play in developing communities. \"My idea was that if we already have companies that want to invest in a good cause, why not in the sort of aquaculture development that WorldFish was working with?\" Velings explains. \"Private investment into sustainable aquaculture enterprises in developing countries is a business opportunity with potential to contribute signi cantly to reducing hunger and poverty. \"Together, the partnership has established A-Spark -Fish for Good, an ethical investment fund that identi es promising small-scale aquaculture producers for nancial support to develop their business. \"So far it has been a real joy working together, \" says Velings, who sees the partnership as very complementary. \"A-Spark Good Ventures has business and nancing expertise, \" he explains, \"however aquaculture is not an easy business and you need a lot of knowledge. WorldFish has that knowledge. So while A-Spark will look after the business and nance, WorldFish brings knowledge and opportunities. \"For Velings, sustainability and longevity are cornerstones of successful development programs. \"For us, our passion is building something that can stand on its own two feet. And the only way of doing that is to have money, which means you have to make a pro t. It's not so much about making the pro t but the principle of having a pro t. Otherwise you have to shut down as soon as funding stops. We want something that goes on even if WorldFish and A-Spark wouldn't be there. \"\"To keep it going for a long time, we'll need to make successful investments -that are successful socially, environmentally and nancially. \"In Ghana, the Volta River basin reaches across over half of Ghana's countryside. Lake Volta, the world's largest (by surface) man-made lake, is the centerpiece of both the Volta River and the Ghanaian economy, as it provides a source of hydroelectric power as well as vast populations of sh for the locals. With demand for sh booming to support a growing population, meeting supply is often a challenge. Since 1999, the Water Research Institute (WRI) in Ghana has been working with WorldFish to make the Volta basin as productive as it can be through a Nile Tilapia breeding program. where they experimented with salmon and also in the UK there has been a lot of improvement of farmed sh; that is sh from the wild being bred in closed environments. They improve the growth and that is bene cial to the farmers and goes to improve the economy as well. However in Africa and Ghana this was non-existent and farmers were breeding all types of tilapia and were unable to achieve the growth rate necessary for them to make much money. \"Following on from their successes in tilapia breeding in the Philippines, WorldFish began working with Ghanaian scientists at the WRI in 1999 to replicate the tilapia breeding program using the African tilapia species, Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). By selecting the fastest growing sh over eight successive generations, WRI have developed the improved Akosombo strain. Normally, tilapia takes eight months to reach maturity from the ngerling stage when they are purchased from hatcheries. The Akosombo strain matures in as little as ve months, which means that sh farmers can produce more sh each year.Not only does the Akosombo strain bring financial reward to the local shers, but it provides the necessary dietary protein for some 170,000 Ghanaians who rely on fresh sh from the Volta basin.\"The response is phenomenal, \" says Dr. Attipoe. \"The tilapia industry in Ghana is booming with the new Akosombo strain. Most of the hatcheries have adopted the new strain as their brood stock, and are producing ngerlings for the whole industry. In addition to increasing a much-needed supply of sh to the Ghanaian population, and improving the economic situation for many small-scale shers in the country, the collaboration with WorldFish has established the WRI as a trusted shery resource for the entire region. Surplus sh is exported to La Côte d'Ivoire and other neighboring countries, and Ghana has become a hub for tilapia breeding in the area.Dr. Attipoe is justi ably proud of the results of the partnership. \"Ghana now is the nucleus of the breeding program for the subcontinent. What is more we have a National Breeding Programme ongoing; providing the best growing materials for the farmers. Burkina Faso and Nigeria have all been here to take improved strains to culture in their home countries. We are impacting the sub-region\" he adds.WRI is continuing to develop improved strains of tilapia with the support of WorldFish. As the breeding program goes from strength to strength, the scientists at WRI will be conducting careful assessments of the potential risks involved with broad dissemination of the Akosombo strain to sheries. They are also comparing the Akosombo strain with the GIFT strain in bio-secure facilities developed through the partnership with WorldFish and FAO.\"We have established a very strong relationship and the results are showing, \" says Dr. Attipoe. As the collaboration continues, Dr. Attipoe would like to see the next generation of Ghanaian aquaculture researchers bene t from the in-depth training that the program provides. This will ensure that the WRI can continue to support the development of the sheries sector in Ghana, a vital step towards alleviating poverty and malnutrition in the region. ","tokenCount":"4380"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"63ba403ebd47499b9182183b16e842f7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d76fb980-bbac-45cb-849b-4da95752bd32/retrieve","id":"2033854284"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"4fa2da47-9fa7-4d6d-a7ba-df559428f8f5","pagecount":"5","content":"GSI research on gender transformation in the context of climate change influenced 6 IDRC projects on climate change.The workshop, planned and facilitated by Gender at Work, stimulated important reflections. The GSI transformation framework was used to encourage participants to assess the transformative potential of their research. For example, in the Niger Delta, activity is aimed at strengthenenging the ability of women and girls to make informed decisions and manage climate change-driven pressures on their livelihoods. This allows for transformative potential by scaling-out community-based initiatives for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, and promoting active collaboration between researchers, policymakers, and women leaders.Based on project analysis informed by the GSI framework, participants revisited their plans and envisioned a reorientation of their projects for more transformative outcomes. They envisioned their research enhancing women's adaptive capacity by improving access to resources and building capacity to strengthen women's self-confidence, solidarity, and leadership. New strategies include improving collaboration with women's rights organizations, supporting women's participation in policy spaces, and engaging both women and men to reconsider women's priorities and barriers to adaptation.Later in 2020, workshop participants will regroup to compare experiences, successes, and challenges in advancing gender transformative agendas in very different geographic and sociocultural settings. Participants likened gender transformative climate change adaptation research to a seed, which requires the right circumstances and nourishment to mature. Opportunities for reflection and peer learning and partnerships, like those between CCAFS and IDRC, help provide the environment for that seed to grow!• https://tinyurl.com/y93ub6w2Part II: CGIAR system level reporting At a workshop of these 6 programs receiving funding from IDRC, researchers assessed their project objectives and goals in view of the framework on gender transformation in climate change presented by GSI. Each project made significant changes in objectives, activities and indicators based on the framework presentation.From the workshop report: \"IDRC shared the results of an assessment of the transformative potential of the six research projects by an independent expert (Dr Sophia Huyer). While all the projects were found to have some gender-transformative elements, the assessment suggested ways to further strengthen the gender transformative potential. Suggestions included moving from gender analysis to action for empowerment of women and girls; supporting women's leadership for climate actions; engaging with and influencing policy-makers; and mainstreaming gender perspectives into policy-making. Participants revisited their proposals in the light of the expert analysis and articulated their own visions of transformation.\"This activity has influenced $3.5 million (CAD) (total funding for these 6 projects) to increase the level of expected gender results. This activity has: -Informed and increased the awareness of IDRC climate change program staff in gender equality and gender transformation dimensions of programming, as well as what steps can be taken to move forward towards these oals -Through the learning workshop, researchers in all 6 projects were trained in a gender transfornation in climate change approach that they then implemented in their projects.The projects are one year into a 3-year cycle, ongoing monitoring of gender results will occur for the rest of the project cycles.","tokenCount":"499"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f7c4944f462e25d83e2b1c64676db6cc","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4eb35929-222a-4a98-a7c5-5e202de89e02/retrieve","id":"1449341436"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7d2d9dfb-b808-498c-ba1f-6211e07d4538","pagecount":"26","content":"The economies of many Latin American countries have opened up to the global markets in recent years. These changes have had drastic effects on the agriculture of those countries. For instance, whereas Colombia did not import maize in 1990, ten years later it was importing more that 2 million tonnes per year. The same situation is true for many other tropical countries. As a result, agribusiness attention has recently focused on cassava as a source of raw material. In response to these changes in the markets, the CIAT cassava breeding project has directed its efforts to develop competitive cassava production for several different industries. The main goal is to increase yields and reduce costs. Dry matter yields as high as 15 t/ha have been obtained by combining outstanding germplasm with adequate agronomic practices. Dry matter productivity is the main goal for the development of these \"industrial clones\". Other strategies for increasing yields and/or reducing production costs are mechanization of planting and harvesting, development of herbicide-resistance in cassava, improved fertilization techniques with animal manure, etc. The inclusion of cassava foliage in animal feed is also under analysis. Genetic transformation protocols are currently being fine-tuned so different desirable traits can be readily incorporated into elite cassava clones. The availability of molecular markers and a saturated genetic map will also contribute to an efficient selection of key traits in the breeding process.Sexual seeds from three large diallel crosses are currently being produced for genetic studies. The trials will be planted in the field early in 2001. In addition to producing a large segregating population, the study will allow us to better understand the genetics of the inheritance of several traits of agronomic value. The breeding scheme has been modified to speed up the selection process and to reach as soon as possible the stage of replicated trials. Collaborative research with IITA has been outlined to determine heterotic patterns between Latin American and African cassava gene pools. The germplasm bank collection is currently under evaluation for several traits of agronomic importance, including starch quality traits and vitamin content. There is an ongoing collaborative research project with the University of Bath (England) for elucidating the biochemical pathway leading to post-harvest physiological deterioration (PPD) of the roots. Parallel studies are underway to determine the genetic basis for reduced PPD, and sources of resistance have been identified (MDom 5 and MPer 183) and crossed with susceptible clones.In the area of integrated pest management an excellent source of resistance to whiteflies has been identified (MEcu 72) and antibiosis, as its mechanism of resistance, was determined. This genotype has been crossed with a susceptible clone and the segregating progeny is currently being analyzed for their reaction to the insect in the field; their molecular fingerprinting is also underway. ACMD (African Cassava Mosaic Disease) resistance will be incorporated into Latin American germplasm, using a recently identified molecular marker.Until a few decades ago, cassava was a little known crop outside the tropical environment where it had been grown for centuries. Because cassava products were not exported, and the crop was relatively unknown in temperate countries, very little attention was paid to this remarkable plant. However, upon the creation of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), in Colombia and Nigeria, respectively, coordinated efforts were begun in the late 1960's for a scientifically based improvement of the crop (Cock, 1982;1985). In addition, several countries have developed successful cassava programs. In tropical countries, cassava is the fourth most important crop as a source of calories for human consumption. In many cases it is one of the most reliable sources of food and feed energy that can be obtained from the low-fertility soils and drought-prone areas frequenty found in the tropics.In spite of the rusticity of the crop, high yield potential and reliability, and diversity of uses, cassava has failed to realize its full potential. Several factors have influenced this situation:The evolution of agriculture and agriculture-based industries in tropical countries frequently benefited from the developments achieved in temperate regions. Maize was, and still is, one of the main sources of energy and starch for temperate environments. For human consumption wheat and rice are also very important. Most of the technology, machinery, industrial processes, formulations for animal feed, etc. introduced to tropical countries were, therefore, adjusted to, and based on those crops that are prevalent in temperate regions. This was a disincentive to the development of industries based on cassava.In many countries dual-purpose cassava varieties (materials that could equally be used for human table consumption or the industry) prevented the development of cassavabased industries. If prices for fresh consumption were high, then the farmer would sell their roots to this market; otherwise, roots would be sold to the industry. In fact, this strategy prevented the industrial uses of cassava because there was no reliable supply of raw material. In addition, dual-purpose genotypes frequently produce materials that are neither: they are not outstanding for table consumption, nor do they fit the needs of the industry. The case of maize, on the other hand, offers a contrasting situation with two totally independent activities: sweet corn (basically a horticultural crop) and field corn, with very little interaction between them.Breeding cassava is a lengthy process. Whereas a typical full-sib recurrent selection cycle for any cereal can be completed in a year, cassava requires five years. Two factors influence this: cassava is usually harvested at about ten months after planting, and the reproductive rate is low. Whereas one ha of maize can produce enough seed to plant more that 100 ha, in the case of cassava it produces only for about 7-10 ha. Therefore, the speed of varietal development and adoption is considerably slower in cassava, compared with other traditional staple food crops, particularly cereals.Because of a conjunction of factors, governments, in general, have not paid adequate attention to cassava. Data on research investment by commodity are extremely difficult to obtain. However, Judd et al. (1987) in a very detailed study, found that \"several commodities---specifically cassava, sweetpotato and coconut ---receive little research attention anywhere in the world\". In a different study, research expenditures in developing countries for maize and cassava were estimated to be 29 and 4 million dollars, respectively, in 1975. According to CIMMYT (1994) a total of 372 maize breeders were counted in Latin America (224 and 148 in the public and private sectors, respectively) in the year 1992. On the other had, no more than three full-time cassava breeders were working in the same region at that time (C. Iglesias, personal communication). That is less that one percent of human resources allocated to cassava vis-a-vis maize.Cassava roots have two limiting constraints for extensive commercialization: their bulkiness (about 65% of the weight is water) and the short shelf life after harvest (less than three days, although there is considerable variation in this regard) due to a process called post-harvest physiological deterioration.There has always been a problem for the industrial uses of cassava, similar to the chicken-egg paradox: there was no industry because there was no availability of raw material (i.e. cassava roots), and there were no roots because there was no industry to buy them.The problems related to marketing are more pronounced in cassava than in other crops because: cassava is mostly grown by smallholders, requiring greater marketing coordination for industrial uses, and they are often located in areas with poor infrastructure. In addition, the low-input practices tend to increase environmental variability, and hence variability in root quality. There is also the difficulty of gearing up quickly for large-scale production due to the low multiplication rate. Lack of credit is another constraint.A mayor and generalized economic trend across the world during the last decade has been the globalization of the economies. Agricultural markets were not an exception. As a result, trade barriers for agricultural products have been reduced, gradually and consistently. For instance, whereas in 1990 Colombia did not import any significant amount of maize (32 thousand tonnes), by 2000 the country consumed more than 2 million tonness of imported maize, with an annual growth of 79.5% between 1988 and 1998. The situation is similar in many tropical countries, where local maize production is not competitive against maize from temperate regions: the annual growth of maize importation in developing African and Asian countries were, respectively, 5.53 and 4.58% (FAOSTAT, 2000) during the same time period. Because of its generalized use in animal feed and starch industries, maize usually has an important effect on cassava production and processing.There are several reasons for the lack of competitiveness of tropical vis-à-vis temperate maize. As stated by Pandey and Gardner (1992): \"Maize yields are primarily limited in the tropics by the intercepted radiation to heat unit ratio. The ratio is much lower in the lowlands compared to high altitudes, and is lower in the tropics compared to temperate latitudes. Relatively less light is intercepted during the rainy season in the tropics, which coincides with the grain-filling period of the crop. Light interception is further reduced by lower plant densities. Extreme weather variations, erratic rainfalls, high temperatures, particularly during nights, and low temperatures at high altitudes also reduce yields\". Other limiting factors for maize productivity in the tropics are: 1) low fertility of most tropical soils; 2) lower grain yield potential of tropical maize cultivars; 3) high pest pressures and suboptimum moisture supply; 4) diseases that frequently reduce production by 30-40%; 5) weeds that can account for up to 50% of yield losses under low-input conditions; and 6) poor crop management practices, limited resources, application of inadequate and improper inputs, and a lag in technology transfer.It is clear that many of the limiting factors for maize competitiveness in the tropical environments are very difficult or impossible to overcome. Therefore, if the trend for opening the markets continues, there will be fewer opportunities in the future for competitive local production of maize in the tropics. That has been the case in Colombia, and as a result, for the first time, both the government and private sector are turning their attention to cassava as a reliable, competitive, local source of raw materials for the starch, animal feed and processed human food industries.World cassava production has been growing at an annual rate of 2% during the last decade (1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997), slightly faster than during the previous decade (1977)(1978)(1979)(1980)(1981)(1982)(1983)(1984)(1985)(1986)(1987), when it grew at an annual rate of 1.7%. Area expansion has generally driven the growth in cassava production during the last decade (1.7% annual growth rate in area and only 0.3% in yield). Projections for the 1993-2020 period expect a growth rate between 1.93-2.15% per year, of which more than 1% is expected to come from yield increases, while the rest (0.74-0.95) from area expansion. Therefore, cassava production will continue to grow at almost the same rate, but more due to increases in yield than before (CGIAR, 1999).The use of cassava roots as a rural/urban starchy staple, and the leaves as a protein source, are of great importance, particularly for Sub-saharan Africa, and its demand will continue to grow mainly due to population growth. In this case the main beneficiaries of research will be the poor farmers and consumers, and this will contribute to the CGIAR mission in terms of food security and income generation. Stability in marginal areas, increased yields, improved processing techniques and adequate policy decisions are required to fulfill the needs of this particular market. The use of cassava as an urban vegetable will continue to be important in metropolitan areas close to production zones. The driving force for this growth in demand will be the urbanization process, but this market will require a high quality and more convenient product as well as a good marketing strategy. The main beneficiaries of research will be farmers from income generation and consumers from lower prices.Cassava use as a substitute of grains for the starch, flour and animal feed industries will be a major market, and demand will increase as a consequence of income growth, particularly in Asia and Latin America. Specific research needs to take advantage of this market are yield efficiency, soil management, processing, marketing, and appropriate policies. The main beneficiaries will be farmers, industry and non-farm labor, fulfilling the CGIAR mission of contributing to increasing incomes. However, the possibility to benefit poor farmers and contribute to poverty alleviation (equity aspect of impact) will depend on the organizational model adopted and the possibility of linking small farmers to these growing markets.Cassava research has benefited greatly from IITA, CIAT and National Programs' scientific contributions. These institutions working independently, or through many successful joint projects, have provided valuable information, technologies, and germplasm, to support a renewed competitive agricultural system based on cassava. As a result, many of the constraints listed in the introduction of the paper have been or are currently being resolved. Many of the developments listed below will benefit both the more traditional production, processing and uses of cassava as well as the industrial markets. In general, there is a clear trend for increased use of cassava in the starch industry, particularly in the area of modified starches.The effect of globalization has stimulated a renewed (or in most cases a truly new unprecedented) interest in cassava from the policy makers, donors and investors in cassava for the tropical environments. There are some stimulating efforts to increase the importance of cassava in the agriculture of tropical countries: Ø The Colombian Government, jointly with the Colombian Poultry and Swine Growers Associations, have been actively supporting research and development of cassava for industrial uses, particularly for the feed industry. Ø CLAYUCA (Latin American Consortium for Cassava Research and Development) was created in April 1999. The consortium made up of both the government and private sectors of several Latin American countries is supporting research and development of cassava through a research agenda determined by the members of the consortium: mechanization, artificial drying, mechanical harvest of roots and foliage, herbicide resistance in cassava, integrated pest management issues (mainly biological control of insects and pests), and cassava fertilization with chemical and organic products.During the next fifty years the world population will increase by three billion people according to conservative estimates. Most of this growth will concentrate in developing tropical countries, where cassava is particularly relevant in food security. Furthermore, since cassava is well adapted to marginal environments, which are the only prevalent ones remaining to be incorporated into production, this crop will play a fundamental role in providing food for these additional people.It is also strategic for mankind to widen the number of crops on which it feeds. There has been a growing concern by scientists and policy makers regarding the continuous reduction in crops (and genotypes representing each crop) during the 1900's (Witt, 1985).It is advisable, therefore, to widen the crops on which we depend for food and other human needs. Cassava is a reliable crop on the one hand, and can be used in several industrial pathways on the other.With the active support of both the government and private sector, several studies are underway for developing technologies, specifically adapted for cassava, that will facilitate cultivation and processing of cassava roots and leaves. New planting and harvesting machinery have been developed, evaluated and perfected recently. Mechanical planting, for instance, requires significantly less labor (reduced costs of production), allows for large areas to be planted under optimal environmental conditions (stable production); and means a better physiological status for the stakes (increased yields). Also, there is already a diversity of equipment for the mechanical harvest of roots, and different alternative machines are currently evaluated for the harvest of fresh foliage.Breeding cassava varieties is now particularly oriented to produce varieties for either industrial use or human consumption. New varieties will better fit the needs of their target market. An industrial variety must have high dry matter yield potential (t/ha), combined with high dry matter content (%). Other traits, such as color of the root or pulp, are secondary, depending on their specific industrial use. On the other hand, fresh consumption generally requires very specific root quality traits, which may be more important than yield potential: color of the root, low cyanogenic potential, intermediate dry matter content (depending on the region), and most of all, good cooking quality. In general, good progress has been made in developing fresh market varieties around the world and a new generation of industrial clones is now also available for most of the cassava growing areas. At CIAT, varieties specifically adapted for the acid-soil savannas, the sub-humid tropics, and mid-altitude environments have been developed; they have already demonstrated their potential, and have also helped the consolidation of industrial processes. In each of these three environments, commercial yields above 40 t/ha of fresh roots can be achieved with the use of adequate technology (not necessarily with high inputs). Higher commercial yields can be achieved (and will be available in the near future) with the advent of new germplasm and the introduction of new technologies (Velez, 2000). Different research programs in South and Southeast Asia should be credited for their pioneering work in the development and promotion of industrial clones, which have been fundamental in the successful use of this crop in these parts of the world.Cassava development has been severely hampered by the lack of established markets. Several reasons prevented the development of those industrial cassava markets, as already pointed out in this document. However, because of a diversity of reasons different independent strategies have been implemented for different industries. To illustrate this point the case of Ingenio Yuquero del Cauca (Cassava Mill of Cauca, Colombia) will be described. This enterprise was legally created in 1999 and should become fully operational by the year 2001.The mill is a drying facility (based on artificial or mixed drying processes) supplied with cassava produced in about 6000 ha around it. Production is concentrated in a region no farther than 30 km from the drying facility. Mechanized planting and harvest, bulk transportation coordinated by the mill, implies a great reduction of production costs. Integrated disease and pest management, possible for this size of operation, is also coordinated and managed by the mill. Further reduction of production costs, as well as the implementation of sound, environmentally friendly, cultural practices are possible within this context. Of the 6000 ha of cassava, approximately 1/6th belongs to the mill, the remaining 5/6th are contracts with individual farmers, thus guaranteeing a minimum supply of raw material. Associated with the drying facility, are poultry and/or swine industries that will consume the dried cassava products. The harvest of foliage is an integral part of the strategy, but demands careful soil fertility practices to guarantee the sustainability of the system. Poultry and swine manure, in this context, becomes also an integral part of the strategy, particularly when commercial exploitation of the foliage (when the roots are harvested), becomes a common practice. The system, therefore, minimizes transport costs both ways (fresh products from the field to the drying facility, and of dried cassava from the mill to the poultry or swine industries); bulk transportation will further reduce the costs. The marketing of the product is greatly facilitated by this arrangement. Technology transfer to the farmers associated with the system is carried out by personnel paid by the mill. It includes the provision of seed of new industrial clones, information on the implementation of new cultural practices aimed at reducing production costs and protecting the environment, and the provision of credit. Biotechnological tools will contribute to increase cassava's competitiveness by different means. Breeding cassava will be faster through the use of molecular markers, and the technology already exists for the transfer of genes between cassava's clones and/or wild relatives. Tissue culture is becoming an economic alternative for the rapid multiplication of elite clones, particularly at the early stages of diffusion.Cassava is known for its rusticity, with excellent tolerance to different biotic and abiotic stresses. Cassava is particularly tolerant to drought and acid or low-P soils. It also grows well in the humid tropics where the rainfall can exceed three meters per year. Cassava yields are quite stable compared with those of other crops. The El Niño phenomenon at the end of the 1990's induced drastic climatic changes around the Pacific Ocean. Cassava yields, however, remained relatively unchanged, both in Asia and America (FAOSTAT, 2000).Integrated pest management has greatly contributed to the stability of cassava production. Genetic resistance or tolerance to major diseases and arthropod pests has been incorporated in the breeding programs of the world.A landrace from Ecuador (MEcu 72) has been found to possess excellent levels of resistance (antibiosis, in fact) against the whitefly, Aleurothrachelus socialis. This is one of the first reports of resistance against whiteflies found in cultivated crops. In some cases where resistance or tolerance has not been found, environmentally-friendly biological control methods have been successfully deployed. Yet in other cases, cultural practices can reduce both biotic and abiotic stresses.Molecular marker techniques are currently used to better understand the dynamics of pathogen populations. Cassava bacterial blight (CBB) disease (induced by Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. Manihotis), has been characterized and different strains have been identified. The knowledge of virulence patterns in the pathogen's populations facilitates and improves the efficiency of host genetic resistance. Thermotherapy has been successfully implemented to clean stakes from bacterial and fungal pathogens. Serological and PCR-based diagnostic methods have been developed for a range of pathogens, including bacterial blight, geminiviruses, and other viruses affecting cassava. These methods assure the safe movement of cassava germplasm. A PCR method is currently under development for the detection of frog skin disease.The development of new varieties also includes the incorporation of particular quality characteristics needed in particular markets:Ø For instance, the development of high-carotene cassava germplasm (yelloworange roots) for the poultry industry is currently in the pipeline. High carotene cassava roots also have a huge potential as a source of vitamins for those areas in Africa where chronic deficiencies result in severe human health problems. Ø Novel starch types are sought in the germplasm bank collection (made up of more than 6000 accessions). This also includes visiting wild related species in search for new starch types (i.e. high amylopectin). Ø The introduction of the \"waxy\" gene into cassava is now technically possible (Munyikwa, 1997).Taking advantage of the fact that cassava chips absorb less fat than potato chips a new product for the snack market (flavored or unflavored fried cassava chips) is being developed. These processes require particular types of cassava. One important factor for the development of these new varieties is the demand of the processing sector; a demand that had seldom expressed itself before. The interaction between the research, farmer and processor sectors are proving to be extremely successful in promoting the use of cassava for competitive industrial uses.The bulkiness of cassava roots can not easily be avoided. One strategy has already been mentioned: increasing the dry matter content of the roots. However, there is a limit to the increase in dry matter content that can be achieved. The most relevant strategies for reducing the inconveniences derived from the high water content of the roots, are locating drying plants close to the production sites, and the development of efficient artificial drying plants.Cassava leaves have excellent nutritive characteristics. They are sometimes used (after processing) in Africa and Asia for human consumption and in Asia for animal feed. The protein content of dried foliage exceeds 20% and the mean concentration of carotene from a sample of 544 accessions was 48.3 mg/100 g of fresh weight (ranging from 23.3 to 86.2). Furthermore, carotene seems to be relatively stable since from 40 to 60% of original levels were recovered after three different processing methods: boiling, sun-drying, and ovendrying (Chávez et al., 2000) With respect to more basic research, CIAT has a joint project with the University of Bath (England) to study the biochemical and molecular basis of the post-harvest physiological deterioration process. The project benefits from the valuable support of DFID (Department for International Development, England). Though the outcome of this research is not likely to result in practical applications in the immediate future, eventually this research may offer solutions with significant positive effects on cassava handling and marketing.There have been interesting developments in the area of cassava processing. Dry cassava chips have been extensively produced through natural drying. While this is a very cost-effective procedure, it requires relatively long dry periods, which are not necessarily found throughout the tropics. Novel, cost-effective artificial drying procedures are currently under development, so dried cassava roots can be produced in large volumes and without the need of long dry spells. The first pilot plant at CIAT-Colombia will become operational in mid-2000. Artificial drying of cassava, should also allow for the production of a mycotoxin-free product, a trait that would be very attractive for the feed industry.The private sector is currently developing a series of new value-added products for human consumption. The snacks markets benefit with a series of increasingly popular products. Precooked, frozen cassava croquettes are a commercial success in Colombia and Venezuela. Furthermore, several different brands have come on to the market and their products are currently being exported to the USA and Europe. Here, again, there is a fundamental integration between research, production (farmer) and processor that is consolidating the initial progress. CLAYUCA is playing a fundamental role in this integration.Improved designs for small-scale native and/or fermented starch factories have been developed (Alarcón and Dufour, 1998). The design increases efficiency of extraction and reduces cost of production. More than 200 such processing facilities have been created in Colombia, providing employment to many rural families.Biotechnology has proven to offer a set of very useful tools for cassava improvement and development. Tissue culture can greatly accelerate the multiplication rate of cassava, so massive volumes of relatively inexpensive propagules can be produced in a short period of time. Shall a new disease appear, or the need for seed of a new industrial variety be critical, the system can now provide what was not available a few years ago. If the industrial uses of cassava become more and more common, there will be a need for the continuous production of pathogen-free propagules, and tissue culture will play an important role in this process. High through-put technologies for tissue culture-based mass propagation are necessary for cassava, as well as for other vegetatively propagated crops. Recent promising developments include techniques using automatic temporary immersion systems, like the RITA system (Récipient á immersion temporaire automatisé) developed at CIRAD, France.The molecular map developed recently allows the cassava breeding programs in the world to carry out their tasks in a much more efficient, fast, and (for some traits) costeffective way. For instance, it is now possible to select for resistance to the African Cassava Mosaic Virus (ACMV) disease in the absence of the pathogen. Using this technique a joint CIAT-IITA project, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, will introduce and identify resistance in segregating progenies from elite Latin American clones. The disease is not found in Latin America but it was considered strategic to introduce the resistance in case it eventually appeared. The feasibility of genetic manipulation allows for the transfer of native cassava (or wild relatives) genes from one variety to another.Cassava is probably the most efficient producer of carbohydrate per unit land area under tropical and small farmer conditions. The high productivity of cassava makes it an attractive source of renewable industrial raw material. But cassava suffers from several production constraints, which can reduce yield considerably, and make the crop less profitable in the highly competitive carbohydrate market. Salient amongst the constraints are the long growth cycle, anywhere from 8 to 24 months, which means it is visited by many pests that may also transmit diseases. The long period to harvest also hinders the flexibility of availability, a trait required by an industrial crop, while it also lengthens considerably the gestation period for new improved varieties. Cassava is vegetatively propagated, and securing clean and healthy planting material can be a problem for poor farmers. Biotechnology can contribute to the solution of some of these constraints, and to realize great benefits for small farmers. Since the 1980s, CIAT has worked to realize the potential of biotechnology for cassava, especially to solve the problems that can not be dealt with effectively through conventional approaches. Cassava biotechnology at CIAT falls into three broad areas, namely: molecular markers for cassava breeding, genetic transformation for pest resistance and starch quality, and tissue culture for rapid multiplication of healthy planting material. This presentation is a brief overview of each area, going into more details with one example; the paper finally concludes on how these biotechnology tools can be applied to cassava research and development in Asia.Molecular markers have been employed in crop improvement primarily to make breeding more efficient, and thus reduce the cost and time required for the production of new varieties. Markers, on a genome wide basis, have also been used to characterize germplasm collections, to identify new sources of genetic variation for faster progress in breeding. Markers associated with traits of agronomic interest, have also been used to provide an accurate picture of the breeding value of genotypes, by eliminating the confounding influences on the phenotype of other deleterious loci and the environment. At CIAT genetic markers have been used to characterize genetic diversity of both the cultivated and wild relatives, and to identify new sources of genetic variation. Markers have also been used to map resistance genes, for use in negative marker-assisted selection of disease resistance in the absence of the pathogen (elimination of susceptible genotypes); markers are also the start-off point for the cloning of these resistance genes.Finally, associations between molecular markers and traits of agronomic interests, which are mostly quantitatively inherited, are being employed to elucidate the genetics of these traits.With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, a molecular genetic map of cassava was constructed from an intra-specific cross between TMS30572, an improved line from IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria, and CM2177-2, an elite line from CIAT, Cali, Colombia. The F 1 mapping progeny consists of 150 individuals. Traits of agronomic interest present in the parents and expected to segregate in the cross include: resistance to African cassava mosaic disease (ACMD), resistance to cassava bacterial blight (CBB), and early harvestability in the female parent, TMS30572. In the male parent, traits include: good cooking quality, resistance to CBB, and a high photosynthetic rate. The map which was published in 1997 (Fregene et al.,1997) has a total of 300 RFLP, RAPD, SSR, and isozyme markers; more than 70% are RFLP markers. The 1997 map is estimated to cover 80% of the cassava genome and requires saturation. Efforts are currently geared to placing another 300-400 molecular markers on the map. To make the genetic map of cassava widely available, especially to cassava breeders and researchers in national agricultural research and extension systems (NARES), it was decided that the new markers to be added should be easy to use, while maintaining the same level of information as RFLP markers.With support from the Swiss International Center for Agriculture, and the participation of a NARES cassava breeder from Nigeria, a project was initiated to generate 300-400 simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers for the genetic map of cassava. SSR markers are simple motifs of di-, tri-, or tetra-nucleotides repeated several times. The regions flanking the repeat sequences are usually conserved, and suitable for the design of PCR primers. They are, therefore, PCR-based, meaning they are easy to use, and codominant markers, having the same level of information as RFLP markers. SSR markers also have the unique advantage of ease of automation. In cassava, SSR markers were developed using several genomic libraries enriched for SSR sequences, followed by the sequencing of more than 500 positive clones. About 450 primer pairs have been designed and 200 tested so far, while 90 SSR markers have been mapped. At the moment, the search for SSR markers has turned to looking in non-enriched cDNA, and small fragment genomic libraries, to reduce the high level of duplication found with enriched libraries, and to convert the RFLP markers to SSR ones using BAC (Bacterial Artificial Library) library clones.Progress in crop improvement depends upon the skillful exploitation of crop genetic diversity. The success story of maize hybrid production, and the green revolution wheat and rice varieties are probably the best illustrations of this fact. Cassava breeding has existed at CIAT for the past 27 years, and a group of parents with excellent general combining ability has been identified from a large germplasm collection that represents land races from the crop's center of diversity. Sixty four SSR markers, with a broad coverage of the cassava genome, were employed in an automated fashion, to analyze the parental genotypes, including others from IITA, a collection from Tanzania, and a randomly selected set of land races from the world cassava collection at CIAT. A total of 315 genotypes were analyzed, resulting in a large data matrix of more than 20,000 data points. Principal component analysis (PCA) based on genetic distances was performed on the SSR allele data. Analysis reveal clustering in the cassava genotypes according to region but the high GCA formed did not form any clear cluster in relation to other genotypes. Like maize, cassava appears to have highly differentiated gene pools, and has a large percentage of dominant/recessive gene action loci, two key characteristics required for heterosis. Existing yield data, from crosses between individuals from certain clusters, suggests that this may be so, and molecular markers can be used to predict heterosis, but evidence for this is at the moment being confirmed.Several studies have revealed that cassava was domesticated from populations of the wild Manihot species, M. esculenta, sub spp flabellifolia. Other studies have also shown that the amount of genetic variation present in the natural population of this wild species are significantly more than that found in cassava. These findings suggests a founder's effect, or a genetic bottle neck, at the domestication of cassava. If this is the case, useful alleles for yield, and yield components may yet exists in the cultivar primary gene pool. We have initiated an advanced back cross quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping scheme to mine favorable alleles for root quality, canopy strength, harvest index, and pest and disease resistance, aimed at broadening the genetic base with exotic alleles. The advanced back cross scheme has been used successfully in tomato, rice and maize to transfer favorable alleles to cultivated germplasm. In cassava, an allogamous crop, the scheme has been modified to reflect this. Basically, it involves making F 1 crosses of about 100 individuals each between four genotypes of sub spp flabellifolia, that best represent genetic diversity, and eight elite lines representative of the CIAT cassava gene pools. All F 1 individuals that flower are back-crossed to the respective parents to produce BC 1 families. Negative selection is performed at the seedling stage on the BC 1 families, and remaining progenies are back crossed to produce the BC 2 families, which are clonally evaluated in replicated single row (6 plants) experiments. The best four BC 2 , with the highest phenotypic variation for the traits in question will be evaluated in replicated trials and also genotyped with markers. QTL analysis should identify new alleles from the wild donor and provide a tool for further breeding. The best BC 2 lines are then tested in a marker-assisted scheme as parental genotypes for improving the selected traits. For a closely related species such as M. esculenta, sub spp flabellifolia, QTL mapping is performed at the F 1 stage and identified QTLs are used directly in breeding. This second scheme is being used to identify QTLs for high dry root yield and starch content for introgression into good Asian varieties such as KU50.CIAT has several gene tagging projects for resistance to pests and diseases; they include African cassava mosaic disease (ACMD), cassava white fly (A. socialis), cassava bacterial blight (CBB), and cassava root rot (Phytophtora spp) with an aim of improving the efficiency of breeding for pest and disease resistance. Only gene tagging for ACMD resistance is discussed here. ACMD is the number one production constraint in sub-Saharan Africa, and a potential risk to Latin America and Asia, given the recent accidental introduction of the vector, the B biotype of the white fly. ACMD also complicates the exchange of germplasm between endemic areas and other parts of the world.Breeding for ACMD resistance at CIAT is limited by an absence of the pathogen in Latin America, and also by the need to breed for resistance to at least three different strains of the virus. With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, a project to tag all known sources of resistance to ACMD was initiated by CIAT and IITA. The female parent of the cassava map population (TMS30572) has resistance to ACMD, and also represents the currently deployed source of resistance from the M.glaziovii source. A BC 1 mapping population was developed by back crossing five F 1 progeny to TMS30572; these progenies were established in vitro from embryo axes and shipped to IITA.A second mapping population was developed at IITA involving the new source of resistance from TME 3, a Nigerian land race. The new source of resistance shows near immunity to the West and the East African strains of the virus. Classical genetic studies show that the currently deployed source is recessive and the new source is a single dominant gene in the heterozygous state. Both ACMD resistance mapping populations were evaluated over two seasons for disease resistance in replicated trails in two high disease incidence sites in the field; they were also genotyped with molecular markers from the genetic map. A simple regression of disease response on marker genotypic classes revealed that a region of chromosome D explained about 50% of phenotypic variance for resistance from the M.glaziovii source, while a region on chromosome R explained more than 70% of phenotypic resistance of the new source of ACMD resistance.A scheme has been initiated to use the marker in a marker-assisted scheme to breed for resistance to CMD in Latin America. At the same time a map-based cloning effort has also been initiated to clone the resistance gene for faster deployment via genetic transformation. The scheme involves fine mapping the gene, creating a contig of large DNA fragments around the gene, genetic transformation with candidate DNA fragments that carry the gene, and sequencing. Fine mapping of the region is ongoing, and a bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) library of large DNA fragments has been constructed for contig mapping. The cassava BAC library which was constructed by CIAT scientists through a visit to the Clemson University Genome Institute (CUGI) in Clemson, South Carolina, has a total of 55,000 clones, of average size 80kb, and a 5X coverage of the cassava genome.The map of cassava has also been employed to elucidate the genetics of agronomic traits that are quantitative in nature, with low broad sense heritability, such as dry matter yield, starch content, and early bulking (early harvestability). Only early bulking is discussed here; it is an important breeding objective in all cassava producing regions, and a key requirement for the transition of cassava from a traditional to an industrial crop. Combining a high starch yield, high dry root yield and early bulking is not an easy breeding objective. Identification of markers associated with the trait can be employed to eliminate inferior genotypes in a large number of breeding populations and thus increase selection efficiency for earliness.One of the parents of the cassava map population, TMS30572, is an early bulking genotype: 80-90% of maximum yield is attained at eight months, making the cassava map population an excellent one for gene tagging for early bulking. Sixty plants of the 40 best and 40 worst genotypes (from two years of multi-locational replicated trials and harvest) for early bulking were planted in 6x10 m plots, with two replications at CIAT, Cali, Colombia; four internal plants were harvested every three weeks, beginning at six weeks after planting (WAP), until 30WAP. The dry root yield, dry foliage yield, harvest index, number of roots, and size of roots (diameter) where measured. A very early bulking clone from Brazil was included as control. A multiple regression analysis showed that dry foliage weight, and harvest index (HI), were the most important yield components in this experiment. A simple regression of dry foliage weight, and HI across the period of the experiment, on marker genotype class revealed QTLs that explained between 18-35% of phenotypic variance. Marker fidelity studies to confirm the use of these markers in breeding continues.CIAT has developed robust protocols for the regeneration and genetic transformation of cassava. The method is based on the Agrobacterium tumefaciens Markers can be used to:1. Increase selection efficiency by a marker-assisted negative selection for root dry matter content, disease and pest resistance, and harvest index, at the seedling trial stage to accurately eliminate inferior genotypes and increase the selection efficiency at the single row trial (SRT) stage. Potential for increasing the selection efficiency is greatest at that stage. 2. Choice of parental genotypes: Molecular markers can provide a quantitative estimate of genetic variability, and help in choosing parents that maximize genetic variation. Markers associated with traits of interest can also be employed to identify parents with highest breeding value.Application of marker technology to plant breeding has become economically feasible, thanks to high through-put technologies, but marker development and application requires considerable investment of resources to begin. Marker development and application for Asian cassava breeding is best achieved through a regional network of labs with funding from a regional donor. An Asian cassava biotechnology network, modeled on the successful Asian rice and maize networks should be considered. A project to test the application of markers in Asian cassava breeding is a worthy venture, given the potential of such technologies, and should be pursued.CLAYUCA will be self-financed. Each participating institution will pay an annual membership fee. Resources contributed by each member country will be administered and spent only on activities defined collectively by members of the Consortium. The Consortium's operational budget will be defined in agreement with the workplan established for each year. Moreover, the Consortium will seek additional funding to execute specific projects.Cassava originated in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), where it has been cultivated since prehistoric times. Its adaptation to diverse ecosystems, its high production potential and the versatility of its markets and end uses have transformed the crop into a basic food for rural populations and a commercialization alternative for urban markets.Today, the crop has extended to nearly 90 tropical and subtropical countries, with estimations that its starch-rich roots and protein-rich leaves are feeding about 500 million people. LAC is responsible for about one fifth (34 million) of the 170 million tonnes of fresh cassava roots that are harvested in the world every year.During the last 25 years, cassava research in the region has been the responsibility of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), with the collaboration of diverse entities and national programs, and has been financed mainly with public-sector funds. At the end of the 1980s and all throughout the 1990s, this model was not longer viable, mainly because many public sector institutions have been undergoing change and reform as part of the region´s structural adjustments, including decentralization and privatization. Countries and institutions interested in cassava in the region felt the need to organize and establish strategic alliances that could lead to the establishment of new models for financing and supporting cassava research and development activities. These new alliances were meant to involve different groups of end users of the technology, from both the public and the private sector.It was proposed to form a Consortium to finance and support research and development of cassava, strengthen the transfer of improved technologies, and enhance the exchange of experiences, information and technologies among LAC countries. That this type of regional mechanisms could function is shown by the Consortium in LAC for irrigated rice: the Latin-American and Caribbean Fund for Irrigated Rice (FLAR), which was formed in 1995 and of which CIAT and CIRAD are also founding and active members. After five years of work, FLAR has a membership of 12 countries and expect to invest annually nearly half a million dollars in rice-based research and development activities.Based on these considerations, it was proposed to create the Latin American and Caribbean Consortium to Support Cassava Research and Development, CLAYUCA.The establishment of a mechanism through which the public and the private sector could jointly support research and development activities is justified on the grounds that it will allow countries to have more control over the research agenda and the benefits obtained. The investors control and assume responsibilities for parts of the agenda, which becomes a regional agenda. Each sector contributes with its own capacities and strengths, and the work is planned and conducted based on common interests and prioritized problems. For the International Centers the benefits accrue from the help that Consortium activities can give in filling the vacuum left by de Centers in regional research. This vacuum has increased considerably in the last decade due to the Center's financial constraints.The work of the Consortium goes beyond the traditional research domain and becomes a regional forum. This is an additional benefit for the International Centers that allows them an active presence, at a relatively low cost, in a regional research and development agenda. Finally, private and public sector institutions obtain improved access to technologies generated by International and Advanced Research Centers.The newly born Consortium appears a viable mechanism for the LAC region considering the following opportunities and challenges that have arisen during recent years:1) The dynamic growth of the cassava starch market, both for foodstuff and for industrial use.2) Increased growth in cereal imports as raw material for balanced animal feed rations, in tandem with recent technological developments in the use of dried cassava chips as a partial substitute for cereals in animal feed.3) Important advances in the development of improved technologies for manipulating the genetic potential of cassava germplasm (e.g. biotechnology and molecular biology). 4) Important advances in the development of improved technologies for sustainable, integrated management of the cassava crop. 5) A need to increase the crop's competitiveness through higher productivity, reduced processing costs and improved efficiency in the use of cassava, its products, and byproducts. 6) Predominance of cassava as an associated crop in small-farmer production systems found in marginal zones, thus representing an alternative agricultural policy to stimulate the socio-economic development of this sector. 7) Interest of the public and private sector in supporting cassava research and development activities aimed at generating improved technologies for production, processing, utilization and commercialization.Founding members of the Consortium are Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador and Venezuela, the International Center for Cooperation in Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD) and CIAT.In each country, the group of participants in activities promoted by the Consortium are composed of institutions from the public and private sector, universities, nongovernmental organizations, farmer groups and other sectors involved in cassava production, processing, commercialization and utilization, training, research and technology transfer. Potential members are all cassava producing countries in LAC, which have the capacity to contribute financially and execute the activities of the Consortium.To contribute to the improvement of living standards and sustainable natural resource management in regions of LAC where cassava plays an important role in agricultural production systems, through the generation, transfer and exchange of technologies, information and scientific knowledge among public and private sector institutions and farmers in the region.To establish a self-financing, sustainable regional mechanism to facilitate: 1. Organized participation of public and private sector institutions, including universities, non-governmental organizations, and farmer groups, in the discussion and identification of priority issues, and the definition of a regional research and development agenda for cassava. 2. Execution of collaborative cassava-based research and development activities, with participation of diverse institutions in each member country. 3. Seeking additional financial support to implement research and development activities that could benefit all member countries. 4. Strengthening the national capacity in each member country to execute research and development activities at the national level and to participate in activities at the international level.CLAYUCA´s FINANCING CLAYUCA will be self-financed. Each participating institution will pay an annual membership fee. This annual fee is calculated based on each country's annual production (see Annex 1). Resources contributed by each member country will be administered and can only be spent on activities defined collectively by members of the Consortium. The Consortium's operational budget will be defined in agreement with the workplan established for each year. Additionally, the Consortium could seek additional funding to execute specific projects.The four founding member countries of CLAYUCA have already committed an annual budget of nearly US $ 100,000. Currently, CIAT´s contribution is about US $ 100,000 and CIRAD is offering scientific expertise upon request. The goal, when the Consortium is fully operating, is to reach US $ 340,000 per year.The organizational and operational structure of the Consortium is to be maintained as flexible and light as possible. The main decision-making structure is the Executive Committee composed of one representative from each country and one representative from each International Center. Each one of these members will have voting power. This Committee is responsible for defining the procedures, norms and orientation that the Consortium will follow to conduct its activities.The second decision-making structure is the Technical Committee composed of up to three members from each country. These representatives are to be selected with participation of all the members of the Consortium in each country. Each International Center will have one representative in this Committee. The main responsibility of the Technical Committee is to define the working agenda, making sure that the interests and needs of each country are included and accounted for.The organizational structure of CLAYUCA also includes the Executive Director, appointed by the Executive Committee. His/her principal responsibility is to act as the representative and coordinator of all technical and administrative activities implemented by the Consortium.An initial workplan has been defined and approved for the year 2000. It includes topics and issues that were prioritized by the members. Activities will include:This activity will be conducted with all interested countries and institutions. Shipment of cassava germplasm will include different forms: in-vitro, stakes (Colombia) and poly-crossed sexual seed. Initial shipments of sexual seed have been sent to Ecuador and Venezuela.Processing technology for cassava flour for animal feeding is a request that has appeared as top priority in all countries. Options that are being evaluated and adapted to each country's specific characteristics include natural, artificial and mixed (natural + artificial) drying systems.Cuba and Venezuela are interested in small-scale cassava starch processing technologies. CIRAD and the Rural Agroenterprises Project at CIAT have a wealth of knowledge and accumulated experience in this type of technology, and CLAYUCA will try to negotiate their support and collaboration to implement technology transfer activities.These activities will be conducted in the five member countries, coordinated by the CLAYUCA group of each country. Based upon each specific request, CLAYUCA will try to coordinate support from researchers at CIAT, CIRAD, and the member institutions in each country.CLAYUCA's initial agenda for cassava-based research and development activities is aimed at supporting member institutions in each country in the process of transforming cassava into a competitive, efficient and profitable agricultural commodity. The areas defined are (in priority order):There are available, in various countries of Asia, Europe and Latin America, some prototypes for mechanized planting and harvesting of cassava, with potential to reduce production costs considerably. CLAYUCA has initiated activities aimed to a) identify more viable options (technical and economic), b) purchase and validate the prototypes, and c) make recommendations on the more suitable options according to each country's specific characteristics. This work area will also include mechanized fertilization of cassava.The potential of cassava flour to be used in the animal feed industry has grown considerably in Latin America during the last decade. These opportunities are based on the dependency that most of the countries in the region have established on the importation of cereals (maize, soybean) for their balanced animal feed rations. To consolidate this potential, besides the basic condition of producing cassava roots at competitive prices (high productivity, low costs), it is necessary also to develop drying systems (artificial or mixed), that allow the final cost of the raw material (cassava flour) to be competitive with that of imported cereals. CLAYUCA will be implementing activities to achieve this goal.Fertilization practices, and especially the issue of soil fertility management, is closely related to the Consortium's general objective of supporting member countries in their search for more efficient, profitable and sustainable cassava production, processing and utilization systems. Based on information and accumulated experiences at CIAT and at some of the institutions affiliated to CLAYUCA (INIVIT-Cuba and Almidones Nacionales de Colombia), the Consortium will develop practices and recommendations based on the use of conventional and non-conventional fertilizers, such as poultry and pig manures, mycorrhizas, azotobacter, phosphorin and others.An analysis of strengths existing at CIAT, and in some of the member countries, has shown the importance of implementing research and development activities that could facilitate the validation of technologies based on the use of bio-pesticides, for controlling most of the pest and diseases that affect the cassava crop. In Cuba, for example, during the last five years, the use of chemical pesticides in cassava production has been avoided and the use of biological products such us Verticillium, Metarrizium, Bauveria bassiana, Bacillus thuringiensis and Thrichrograma has been intensified. CLAYUCA will be implementing activities based on these technological alternatives that could be important in reducing costs and diminishing the use of chemical products.Although this activity will not be executed directly by CLAYUCA, there have been some discussions about the strategic importance of maintaining the Consortium linked with research projects that are being formulated at CIAT to produce transgenic cassava plants. Some of the possibilities being analyzed include working with genes that will confer Round-up and pests resistance, or that will modify the amylose/amylopectin ratio. The possibility of developing elite, genetically-modified clones of cassava with some of these characteristics could be an important breakthrough in large-scale cassava plantations and could also be important in small-scale systems in which farmers could grow premium varieties and obtain better prices.This activity is also related with the potential of cassava leaves to be used in animal feeding. The cassava top part (leaves and stem), represents an important protein source, that, with very few exceptions, is unused in Latin America and the Caribbean. CLAYUCA will implement activities to validate and adapt existing technologies for the production and utilization of cassava foliage. The aim is to generate reliable technical information on the nutritional value and potential of cassava leaves to be used in animal feeding.The promotion of joint ventures between public and private sector institutions and enterprises, with the aim of supporting research and development activities for a specific crop is not a process that develops overnight. A good solid initial thrust has to be developed based on clearly specified objectives, methods, and operational procedures. Thus, private sector investors recognize the importance of sharing risks and responsibilities in supporting and financing research activities, but at the same time, are able to clearly recognize the benefits they will get.The presence and participation of the public sector is essential in this type of arrangements. Although they usually lack the necessary funds, their importance is based on the wealth of knowledge and information they have about the appropriateness of specific technologies at the local level. They also have a strong capability to facilitate the implementation of activities.International and Advanced Research Centers are key players in these Consortiums. Over the years they have accumulated knowledge, information and experiences related to technology generation and dissemination. In most cases, problems prioritized by member countries already have technological alternatives tested or in the process of generation. The close participation and joint efforts of the private and public sector helps to speed up the final process of fine tuning these promising technologies.Experiences developed throughout the last five years by the irrigated rice sector in Latin America, represented by FLAR, and promising results that the cassava sector is starting to obtain, represented by CLAYUCA, indicate the potential of promoting joint ventures of private and public sector institutions, with scientific backstopping from the International and Advanced Research Centers, with the common objective of increasing competitiveness, efficiency and profitability of specific agricultural sectors.Two examples help to illustrate the potential of this Consortium and the type of activities that could be implemented:1. Institutions conducting research on cassava in Cuba have made important progress in the use of biological control methods for some of the principal pests and diseases that affect the crop. These technologies are relatively unknown in other LAC countries.One important activity of the Consortium could be the realization of training events through which Cuban researchers could transfer this knowledge to other cassava researchers in LAC. Training activities, as an instrument to strengthen collaboration among research and technology transfer institutions in LAC countries, could be one of the most important work areas for CLAYUCA.2. In South Brazil (States of Sao Paulo, Paraná, Santa Catarina), there are many cassava starch processing factories, both small-and large-scale. These factories face strong competition from corn-based waxy starches, mostly imported, that were developed with scientific support from universities in the USA. These regional factories have complained about the lack of research on improved cassava varieties that could yield starch of competitive quantity and quality. According to researchers at the Biotechnology Unit of CIAT, there are currently some advances in the manipulation of the genetic characteristics of cassava varieties that could enable the obtention of genetically-modified varieties with higher amylopectin content, which could make them very attractive for industrial purposes. The immediate benefits of this technological advance could be very important: cassava farmers could harvest cassava varieties with improved industrial quality, thus receiving better prices; conversely, cassava processors could elaborate more competitive products and establish more profitable market opportunities.The Consortium could help turn these technological possibilities into reality. To finance CLAYUCA's activities, a mechanism has been established based on quotas paid by each member country. The criterion used to determine this quota is the annual cassava production for each country. The mechanism is as follows:♦ Countries with an annual production of fresh cassava roots of less than 350,000 tonnes will pay US $ 15,000 per year ♦ Countries with an annual production between 350,000 and 700,000 tonnes will pay US $ 20,000 per year.♦ Countries with an annual production between 700,000 and 1 million tonnes will pay US $ 25,000 per year","tokenCount":"9741"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3311b0cbc6bf1c21f74418dbea222ebc","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/b05f5bc6-f03d-4ac9-8cd2-6421439183aa/content","id":"-423118882"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"9c9ead13-0197-4d68-ad11-53a4f1cbd2ff","pagecount":"15","content":"The current pace of crop improvement is inadequate to feed the burgeoning human population by 2050. Higher, more stable, and sustainable crop production is required against a backdrop of drought stress, which causes significant losses in crop yields. Tailoring crops for drought adaptation may hold the key to address these challenges and provide resilient production systems for future harvests. Understanding the genetic and molecular landscape of the functionality of alleles associated with adaptive traits will make designer crop breeding the prospective approach for crop improvement. Here, we highlight the potential of genomics technologies combined with crop physiology for high-throughput identification of the genetic architecture of key drought-adaptive traits and explore innovative genomic breeding strategies for designing future crops. K E Y W O R D S context-dependent optimization, drought physiology, genome editing, genomic breeding, root system architecture, speed breeding 1 | INTRODUCTION Crop production must increase to meet the dietary needs of the global human population; however, this task is challenged by the fluctuating environmental conditions. The changing climate, referred to as \"climate crisis,\" is heading us toward a warmer and drier Earth. 1 In the last decade, global economic losses in agriculture stemming from drought totaled approximately US $29 billion. 2 It is anticipated that water demand for agriculture could increase two fold by 2050, with freshwater availability decreasing by up to 50% due to increasingclimatic variations. Food security necessitates urgent investments in this domain, particularly for the development of high-yielding crops that are climate-resilient and more effective and/or efficient in using water than their prevailing counterparts. 3 Conventional breeding programs have made impressive progress in the development of crop varieties adapted to drought conditions. [4][5][6] However, this labor-intensive process often takes many years to advance from the preliminary stages of assessing phenotypes and genotypes to initial crosses into commercial varieties. Conventional breeding ignores the genetic variability of adaptive traits that underlie yield, at the risk of (indirectly) selecting only those alleles that are beneficial in all tested environments. 7 The alleles thus selected are infrequent compared with those alleles whose effects are contextdependent. 8 By contrast, context-dependent optimization of traits has the potential to maximize positive effects on yield under specific environmental conditions. Therefore, to improve the production of adapted varieties, future breeding programs must combine desirable plant traits that complement climate, soil, and management practices (eg, sowing dates, fertilization, plant density, etc.) in target production systems.Plant genomics plays a key role in improving crops, advancing environmental resilience and productivity. 9 Technical innovations in applied genomics coupled with the availability of large-scale sequencing data provide us with the capabilities for identifying genetic variation that underlies increasing crop performance and improving the efficiency of breeding. [10][11][12] Furthermore, biotechnological approaches, including targeted genome editing using CRISPR-Cas technologies, have expedited advances in the temporal and spatial regulation of genes and major pathways for drought adaptation. 13,14 A comprehensive understanding of the adaptive mechanisms under distinct drought scenarios is crucial for securing future harvests and fuelling the necessary genetic gain in crop improvement. Such gains can be driven by genetic variability and deployed by genomic breeding, more precise genetic modifications, and tailored management practices.In this review, we start by discussing the major advances in crop leaf and root research associated with drought adaptation, and then describe how the context-dependent optimization of above-and below-ground traits offers opportunities to improve future crops. We discuss recent innovations in genomic breeding approaches that empower design-based crop improvement, including haplotype-based breeding, genome editing, systems biology, and genomic selection.Finally, we explore how speed breeding could interact with new-age genomic breeding technologies to speed-up crop development. Our goal is to provide a comprehensive overview of the processes related to drought and highlight possible ways to develop future crops in the face of increasing climatic fluctuations.In times of drought, crops dynamically manage their water balance by: (a) limiting water loss by reducing leaf area and stomatal conductance 15,16 ; (b) enhancing soil water uptake by altering root growth and architecture 17,18 ; and (c) osmotic adjustment (OA), via accumulation of solutes in the cells. 19 Here, we discuss some of the key adaptive traits in further detail.Crops exposed to soil water deficit need to preserve available water by limiting transpiration while, in parallel, fixing adequate carbon to meet energy demands. Reduction in leaf area and stomatal conductance display a rapid response against dehydration by limiting the transpiration rate, thus budgeting soil moisture and maintaining increased leaf water potential levels. For instance, drought adaptation of stay-green (Stg) sorghum is linked to reduced green leaf area at anthesis, lower tillering, and smaller upper leaves. 15 These mechanisms facilitate remarkable plasticity to the crop for modulating canopy development in response to the intensity of drought stress. Furthermore, reduced stomatal conductance and transpiration rate, leading to better water-use efficiency, enable increased drought adaptation in wheat. 20 Low stomatal density also improves drought tolerance and water conservation properties in rice 16 and barley. 21 Leaf growth is mainly determined by vapor pressure deficit and available soil moisture, with a large genetic variability in the sensitivity to both conditions. As a result, leaf area evaluated at any particular time point is a consequence of the prevailing environmental conditions and genotype-dependent sensitivity. Canopy development traits are mainly driven by leaf area, 15 which is affected by other factors such as tillering or phyllochron, all of which depend on drought severity with genotype-dependent sensitivities. Therefore, if the phenotypes associated with leaf area are to be included in broader research and breeding programs, precise and dynamic measurement of leaf area becomes essential. Phenotyping systems are being developed that strategically target leaf traits which are crucial and relatively easy to measure at the single-leaf or whole-canopy levels, and in some cases by remote sensing with drones. 22,23 The root system is the interface for soil water and nutrient acquisition, and physically anchors the plant to the soil substrate. In a plant root system, the coarse (or tap) roots play a role in plant anchorage and usually establish root system architecture, regulate rooting depth, and the capability of the plant to grow in dense soil layers. In contrast, fine (or lateral) roots are actively involved in water uptake, and mostly comprise of the length and surface area of the root system. 24 Root architecture and its capability to acclimate in response to environmental fluctuations are key factors determining overall plant robustness. 18,25,26 During soil water deficit, root systems change structurally to improve water and nutrient uptake from the soil profile. For instance, in soil environments with heterogeneous moisture distribution, roots can demonstrate hydro-patterning, with a preference for lateral root emergence toward soil zones with higher water content, a process facilitated by auxin signaling. 27 Using maize roots, it is experimentally demonstrated that growth is essential for perception of water availability to pattern lateral roots in plants. 17 Hydrotropism represents another adaptive root response, where root tips propagate toward soil patches containing higher moisture content to optimize water procurement. 28 Furthermore, root respiration provides the energy for root growth and maintenance, absorption of water molecules and ions followed by their transport into the xylem, highlighting the root physiological metabolic capability. A decline in root respiration and root biomass under severe water deficit is associated with improved grain yields and high drought adaptation in wheat cultivars. 29 Root system architecture is becoming a key target for crop improvement; however, progress in this domain has been fairly slow, partly owing to challenges with efficient phenotyping of roots. 30,31 From a breeding viewpoint, more effective phenotyping approaches, which can evaluate large mapping populations or germplasm lines for proxies in the field and genetic variability of root characteristics on phenotyping platforms, are required to incorporate root traits in crop improvement programs.OA is a metabolic process that plays a key role in drought adaptation through turgor maintenance and the protection of defined cellular functions by intercellular solutes. 19 OA has been implicated in supporting crop yield under drought conditions. For instance, high OA wheat cultivars maintained better growth and yield, both of which were linked to enhanced leaf water potential relative to low OA cultivars. 32 Mahmood et al. 33 measured OA in 30 wheat genotypes subjected to well-watered and drought stress conditions in the field.Here, OA was positively associated with kernel weight that directly contributed to yield, suggesting that wheat achieves OA to uptake more soil water during low water potential. A significant and positive correlation was observed between yield and OA capacity under terminal drought stress conditions in barley. 34 Further, Moinuddin and Imas 35 evaluated eight chickpea varieties for OA and specific osmolytes such as sugars, proline, nitrogen, and potassium. The contribution of the osmolytes to OA became more crucial with an increase in water deficit toward the reproductive stage. Here, grain yield showed a linear and positive correlation with high OA and relative water content under water deficit. The importance of OA as a preferable selection target from a breeding viewpoint has been a continuing trickle of skepticism. This is mainly due to the belief that drought-adaptive genotypes with a better ability to adjust osmotically are typically characterized by slow growth and limited biomass production, because of metabolic needs for osmolyte biosynthesis. Under severe drought stress, increased accumulation of osmolytes may help crops withstand a prolonged drought episode and go through a more prompt and complete recovery after rehydration. 32 OA by maintaining turgor in wheat exposed to slow drying soil, helps to partially sustain stomatal conductance, photosynthesis, and dry biomass accumulation at low levels of leaf water potentials. 36 Importantly, the trade-off between metabolic costs associated with OA and the potential advantages to the crop differs on a case-to-case basis as a function of the genotype, and the dynamics and intensity of drought scenarios.Seed yield is usually the selection criterion when breeding crops for drought adaptation. However, yield is a complex and final-stage trait, which is influenced by the environmental interaction with growth and development processes that occur throughout the crop cycle. A conventional breeding strategy aimed at improving performance under drought by selecting genotypes merely based on higher absolute yields is predicted to fall short of meeting future crop production demands. 37 Limited genetic variation in yield among improved cultivars, high genotype  environment  management (G  E  M) interactions, and low heritability are some critical factors that could restrict future crop improvement efforts through direct selection for yield. 38 By contrast, the genetic improvement of adaptive traits (such as biomass, harvest index, canopy temperature, etc.) through changes in leaf and/or root ideotypes hold enormous potential to increase productivity and genetic gain under drought conditions, as demonstrated in wheat. 39 This is because such traits are genetically more variable among present-day cultivars and have not been the target of conventional breeding efforts. 40 Designing a crop with better adaptation to drought conditions demands a major effort in improving such adaptive traits. Therefore, a trait-based strategy that evaluates genotypes on the basis of physiological responses to water deficit at the initial stages of plant growth could be more targeted to drought and time efficient.Many drought-adaptive traits often possess a twofold effect: positive in severe terminal stress conditions and negative in favorable (or milder drought stress) conditions, or vice versa. 7 Remarkable results obtained in one drought scenario might confer only limited productivity gains in other geographical areas experiencing water deficit. Moreover, genetic trade-off among adaptive traits may also occur.For example, in wheat sister lines, investment in deeper root systems tended to be offset by reduced storage of water soluble carbohydrates in stems, the latter being important if sub-soil water is unavailable. 41 We highlight the context-dependent effects of major drought-adaptive traits on yield under water deficit.For environments that experience long and severe drought episodes, genotypes possessing a small leaf area or reduced transpiration have an advantage, as they retain soil water for later phases of the crop cycle for grain filling (Figure 1). 42,43 For example, a reduced transpirational leaf area in sorghum Stg near-isogenic lines relative to their recurrent parent under severe water deficit enabled increased water extraction during grain filling, leading to better biomass production, grain number, and grain yield. 44 Simulation modeling across a range of climatic scenarios and management practices suggests that reduced leaf area confers a yield reward under severe drought stress but negatively impacts crop yield and biomass accumulation under less severe circumstances in crops such as maize 45 and sorghum. 46 By contrast, under rainfed field conditions that usually experience sporadic drought patterns, the ability to maintain leaf area during soil water deficit is mainly responsible for determining crop yields (Figure 1). For instance, simulation modeling revealed that early vigor traits in wheat resulted in up to 16% yield advantage via genotypes possessing doubled early leaf size, at wetter sites or years. 47 Importantly, the maintenance of leaf growth characteristics could confer four major benefits to the crop: (a) a higher photosynthesis at canopy scale, in particular during the pre-flowering stage that affects grain number 48 ; (b) a reduction in soil water evaporation, while facilitating efficient use of water via transpiration 47 ; (c) a drop in leaf temperature due to higher transpiration rate 49 ; and (d) a decrease in seed abortion rate caused by source-sink relationships. 50 A deep, wide-spreading, and branched root system is beneficial for most crops grown in deep soils under moisture deficit conditions. 18,51 This notwithstanding, breeding programs focused on improving grain yield under drought have often resulted in the development of crop varieties with reduced root biomass. 52,53 This is mainly because, the spatial distribution of roots in the deep soil profile, but not root biomass or root length, governs the capability of root systems to efficiently uptake soil water. For instance, increased root distribution in deep soil layers (>30 cm soil depth) facilitated better water uptake and adaptation in drought tolerant chickpea genotypes. 54 Therefore, longer and deeper roots with compact branching angles could be accompanied by high root length density in the deep soil profile to precisely capture water from the soil, which is dry at the surface but holds moisture in deeper layers (Figure 1). Soil nutrients such as phosphorous, potassium, iron, and manganese, are immobile and usually present in the upper soil layers. Hence, it should be considered that a substantial increase in root length density in the deep soil layers at the expense of upper layers would limit nutrient acquisition from the top soil and may be associated with crop yield penalties. 55 By contrast, in shallow soils that receive intermittent rainfall during the crop growing season or under optimal soil moisture conditions, an extensive, broad and shallow root system is preferable for enhancing crop productivity (Figure 1).Drought escape is an adaptive mechanism that involves the rapid development of a plant to complete its entire life cycle prior to the onset of drought stress. Following the concept of drought escape, the duration F I G U R E 1 Yield benefits and drawbacks linked to leaf area and root system architecture under different drought scenarios. The most advantageous leaf and root phenotype is highly context-dependent and impacted by several components, including climate, soil, or management. Reduced leaf area retains soil moisture and decreases hydraulic gradients, and is associated with yield reward under terminal severe stress; whereas, it lowers cumulative photosynthesis during the crop cycle and displays a yield penalty under favorable conditions/mild drought stress. Deeper roots increase water uptake from very deep soil layers and possess yield reward under terminal severe drought stress conditions where deep water is available; whereas, it leads to a lower nutrient uptake and is suboptimal under favorable conditions for nutrient foraging in upper soil layers of the crop cycle, which is mostly determined by genes affecting flowering time, also plays a critical role in enhancing productivity under water deficit. A long crop cycle is advantageous under favorable conditions, since it increases the interception of incident solar radiation, but is associated with a yield penalty under severe terminal drought, because it depletes soil water reserves before the end of the crop cycle. 7 This was found to be true for wheat genotypes selected in Mediterraneantype climates with frequent occurrences of terminal drought stress, where modern varieties with a drought escape strategy showed substantially higher production due to reduced risk of water stress during reproductive or grain filling stages. 56,57 The concurrent confounding effects of phenology-related components, such as the duration of vegetative period, flowering time, and crop cycle as the major factors affecting water uptake, suggest that interactions of these traits with specific leaf or root ideotypes can be explored through a combination of experiments and modeling (Boxes 1 and 2).Taken together, the substantial context-dependency accompanied with above-and below-ground plant traits, highlights the need for more targeted studies considering G  E  M interactions in crops to stabilize yields in fluctuating environments. 58 A major constraint for tailoring crop varieties is the limited genetic diversity for key traits available in modern crop gene pools, mainly due to domestication and breeding bottlenecks. 59 National and international gene banks contain a great source of diverse alleles and may hold the key to addressing this limitation. Three major categories of genetic resources can be explored, namely crop wild relatives, secluded gene pools (eg, landraces), and modern breeding lines.Evaluating large germplasm collections for identifying variation in drought-adaptive traits may not always be feasible. In such cases, selecting an economically feasible set of accessions with a higher probability of capturing beneficial allelic variation is much more preferable. 60 The Focused Identification of Germplasm Strategy (FIGS) was used to enhance the efficiency of detecting specific drought-adaptive traits from faba bean germplasm collections. 61 FIGS utilizes agro-ecological data to generate a priori information, which is then used to identify a group of accessions possessing the desired adaptive traits. An impressive illustration of this strategy came from a recent field evaluation of FIGS wheat panels prioritized based on tolerance to drought stress, which revealed over 45% of lines having greater plant biomass under drought than the adapted check varieties. 62 With better access to the genetic variability found in natural populations of wild relatives and landraces, the door is open for retrieving drought-adaptive traits; several of which are encoded by alleles that disappeared in domesticated crops, or which evolved individually in diverse crop lineages. 60 Next-generation sequencing and high-throughput genotyping platforms can be used to characterize allelic diversity in genetic resources, 63 and suitable lines carrying desired combinations of alleles can be used to develop specific leaf and/or root ideotypes for target environments. 64 Recent sequencing efforts, including The 3000 Rice Genome 65 and The 3000 Chickpea Genome 66 hold promise to provide novel insights into intra-species genetic variation and evolutionary crop history. The integration of gene bank passport data and weather data from the target population of environments (TPE) can be utilized to identify superior haplotypes for specific adaptive traits, which could be used in haplotype-based breeding (discussed below). 11 Additionally, deleterious alleles (genetic load) associated with the trait(s) of interest could be identified by utilizing genomic evolution parameters and amino acid conservation modeling, as demonstrated in cassava 67 and chickpea, 66 and eliminated using molecular breeding or genome editing strategies. 68 As a result, superior parental linesA deeper understanding of the dual effects of most drought-adaptive traits is crucial for tailoring future crops with a phenotype matching the target climatic scenarios. In theory, custom-designed crops should carry a genetic predisposition for a particular leaf or root architecture together with mechanisms allowing growth plasticity in response to water deficit, as observed in wheat. 26 This could significantly increase a crop's ability to maximize resource capture from the surrounding environment while reducing the impact associated with climatic fluctuations. The contextdependency of nearly every trait on yield needs a two-step approach: (a) identify the combination of alleles that influence the response of studied traits to environmental conditions, and (b) detect the response of yield to traits or allelic combinations in most frequent scenarios sensed by plants in a given region. 7 To this end, Millet et al. 48 suggested a simplified approach using a regressive model of responses to environmental conditions in maize, with genotypedependent sensitivities that were modeled by genomic prediction. This consisted of three major phases: (a) to establish response curves of yield components to soil water deficit, evaporative demand, and light in a multi-site field experiment; (b) to simulate the sensitivity of each genotype based on genomic prediction; and (c) to predict yield of hundreds of genotypes in hundreds of fields in which drought stress differed between years. Because farmers do not know at the time of sowing the actual environmental scenario that will be sensed by plants, the choice of genotype will ultimately depend on the probability of environmental scenarios in each farmers' field, 45 and the farmers' own choice between maximum gain versus risk avoidance. Such a probabilistic approach, which is based largely on the genetic variability of adaptive traits and on their context-dependent effects, may eventually assist breeders to improve drought adaptation of major field-grown crops.A phenotypic trait that differs with existing environmental scenarios for a particular genotype, and which can maximize fitness or production in specific environmental conditions.The period during which a flower is completely open and functional.The ability to sustain biomass production or crop yield, despite the occurrence of drought episodes during the crop cycle.A clustered pattern of time courses for soil moisture status, evaporative demand, light, and temperature in diverse fields (a particular field can experience different scenarios in different years).A system that incorporates gene editing directly in the speed breeding system, and has the potential to bypass the bottlenecks of in vitro manipulation of plant materials.A group of molecular factors (genes, RNA, and proteins) that interact directly or indirectly with each other and together influence a biological process of interest.Improvement in the average genetic value in a population or in the average phenotypic value due to selection within a population over multiple cycles of breeding.A breeding approach that uses \"-omics\" data, knowledge resources, genes, and technologies, developed from genomics and genome editing research for crop improvement.A group of alleles within an organism that are inherited together from a single parent.A promising breeding approach for developing custom-made crop varieties by introgressing superior haplotypes in elite breeding lines.Harvest index is defined as the ratio of harvested grain to total shoot dry matter, and it can be used as a measure of reproductive efficiency.A root developmental response where lateral roots preferentially initiate to the side in contact with water.The directed growth of roots toward water or moisture gradients.Refers to the images in which one continuous spectrum is measured for each pixel.A biological model that is anticipated to perform in a predictable manner within a specific Environment.Indicates the whole plant water status and contributes to plant-level physiological drought adaptation.The undesirable effects of deleterious alleles genetically associated with the desired trait.A reduction in osmotic potential attained by the accumulation of solutes in response to osmotic stress.The synthesis and accumulation of diverse osmolytes in plants for combatting osmotic and oxidative stress.containing preferred alleles at each locus and with minimum undesirable genetic load could be identified and integrated into breeding programs to tailor crops with desired allelic combinations.Given the enormous genetic diversity available in germplasm repositories, extracting meaningful information from these resources require new-age breeding strategies. Genomic breeding plays a significant role in crop improvement, 69 as highlighted by the development of a large number of improved field-grown crops with better adaptation to drought conditions (Table 1). Some genomic breeding approaches are being successfully used in major crops such as rice, wheat, maize, etc. in the highly industrialized world. However, crops grown in marginal environments such as pearl millet, sorghum, chickpea, pigeonpea, and cassava remain largely eluded from this success. Drought and desertification in the dryland regions result in an estimated loss of 12 million hectares of land every year, which accounts further in a loss of 20 million tons of food grain production. 84 This demands an urgent investment in improving the drought adaptation of dryland crops using modern technologies, for ensuring future food security. Here, we describe how genomic innovations coupled with modern breeding efforts offer opportunities for designing drought-adaptive crops across the world, particularly in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.Plant breeding depends on recombination to combine preferred combinations of traits for developing improved crop varieties. Traditional breeding uses the heritability of phenotypes as a key criterion to evaluate genetic combinations. The genomic regions defined by quantitative trait loci (QTLs) typically contain multiple candidate genes and genetic variations, which either do not confer desired traits or possess harmful effects. Combinations of genomic loci that contribute to the preferred phenotype can be considered as groups of haplotypes that are determined by underlying genetic variation. Use of such genomic information enables the breeder to select superior haplotypes for designing ideal crop varieties in silico and deploy them in breeding programs. We refer to this concept as haplotype-based breeding, representing the evolution and a much more accurate version of \"breeding by design\". 85 The retrospective and prospective approaches suggested by Bevan et al. 11 hold great potential for deploying a haplotype-based breeding strategy to develop drought-adaptive crops. In the retrospective approach, the genomic regions and the underlying haplotypes preferred by breeders over time can be identified by sequencing the genomes of important breeding lines, which have been widely evaluated across multiple environments and years in past decades. This will provide an overview of the breeders' selection decisions over time and help determine superior haplotypes related to previous breeding success. This approach was demonstrated recently by identification of candidate genes and signatures of artificial selection associated with seed size and weight using sequencing data for 200 accessions of cultivated flax (Linum usitatissimum L.). 86 Furthermore, the information acquired by employing a retrospective approach can be used to identify the function of genomic regions containing the haplotypes, referred to as haplotigs, 87 and determine the underlying desired and deleterious alleles associated with adaptive traits. By contrast, a prospective approach can be utilized by sequencing large ancestral populations and undomesticated crop varieties, to determine conserved inherited haplotigs with huge genetic variation and to identifyThe time interval between the appearances of successive leaves on the main stem of the plant.The DNA motif flanking the target sequence that is indispensable for target recognition and cleavage by CRISPR-Cas systems.A breeding strategy that greatly shortens generation time in plants, by using supplemental lighting under glasshouse conditions and by extending the photoperiod to a day-length of 22 hours.A measure of the rate of carbon dioxide uptake and water loss (viz. transpiration) through the stomata of a leaf, as evaluated by the degree of stomatal aperture.A holistic approach for deciphering the complexity of biological systems that starts from the understanding that networks that form the whole of living organisms are more than the sum of their parts.The set of fields and future climate scenarios in which the crop varieties produced by a breeding program will be grown.The production of lateral shoots by a plant, mostly a grass or cereal, from the base of the stem.T A B L E 1 Key success stories of genomic breeding strategies to improve drought adaptation and grain yield in field-grown crops combinations of superior haplotypes. This approach was used in a recent study to detect superior haplotypes for key genes related to drought tolerance component traits, which can be deployed in haplotype-based breeding of pigeonpea. 88 Haplotype-based breeding represents a promising strategy for crops in which large germplasm collections are characterized both at the sequencing and phenotyping level. Assembling desired haplotype combinations in elite crop varieties will enable informed decisionmaking in breeding programs. 69 For instance, a combination of superior haplotypes of previously validated genes that confer small leaf area, deeper root system, early flowering, and higher yield can be used to design crop ideotypes for improved adaptation to terminal drought stress (Figure 2). Taken together, haplotype-based breeding is expected to design future crops with desired adaptive traits, while demanding less monetary investment and in the absence of challenging public acceptance.Introgression of desired traits into an elite variety is often impaired by the random nature of recombination and linkage drag, making conventional breeding a time-consuming and laborious process. Heavy dependence on natural or random genetic diversity is a major constraint delaying the breeding process and leading to an unpredictable outcome. 89 In contrast, genome editing holds enormous potential to generate precise, efficient, and targeted alterations in crop plants. It can be performed with any crop, including those that possess complex genome architecture and are not readily bred using conventional approaches. 90 The recent development of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-CRISPR-associated nuclease protein (Cas) systems have brought genome editing into the limelight. 13,91 Several gene knockout, insertion or replacement mutants are developed by CRISPR-Cas9-mediated editing in fieldgrown crops to improve their drought adaptation characteristics (Table 1).Technical breakthroughs in the genome editing toolkit provide opportunities to exploit mutations giving rise to optimal shoot and/or root architecture for designing crops for the future. CRISPR-Cas9-mediated base editing is one such example, which can precisely change one DNA base into another in the absence of a DNA repair template. 92,93 Recent development of a PAM-less CRISPR-SpRY toolbox, which disrupts a PAM restriction barrier of targeting only GC-rich DNA regions, has greatly expanded base editing scope in crops. 94 Traditional transgene-mediated CRISPR-Cas delivery techniques (Figure 3) may be linked with undesirable genetic changes, 95 with extended breeding cycles and regulatory constraints. Therefore, ribonucleoprotein (RNP)-based DNA-free genome editing 96 is considered a major leap toward developing genome-edited crops with a lower risk of undesired off-target modifications, and satisfying present and future agricultural needs from a regulatory perspective. This technology has been accomplished in grapevine and apple through protoplast transformation, 97 in bread wheat via in planta particle bombardment, 98 and in tobacco by virus infection 99 (Figure 3). The Drought adaptation processes in crops are often regulated by complex genetic mechanisms with the combined expression of numerous genes. Based on Golden Gate and Gateway assemblies, multiplex CRISPR-Cas expression systems have been developed for different applications in plants. 102 For example, multiplex CRISPR-Cas systems have been used for generating quantitative trait variation in tomato by editing cis-regulatory elements in the promoter 103 and for de novo crop domestication by simultaneous editing of multiple trait genes in wild tomato. 104 Furthermore, a fusion of diverse effector domains to catalytically inactivated Cas (dCas) proteins has repurposed CRISPR systems for transcriptional regulation and epigenome editing in plants. 105 Such innovative genome editing strategies could be harnessed to tailor shoot and root architectural traits in customdesigned crops. Moreover, the integration of speed breeding (see later) with genome editing technology, referred to as \"Express Edit,\" 106 will enable genome editing to bypass the restrictions imposed by in vitro manipulation of plant tissues. This, in turn, will facilitate the inclusion of genome editing into large-scale breeding programs for crop improvement.Drought adaptation is a complex trait comprising an intricate regulatory network of phytohormones, transcription factors, and kinases. It is essential to further unfold the direct interactions between these key players and their downstream targets to shortlist most potential candidates for breeding purposes. This demands a systems biology approach to unravel the temporal dynamics and spatial configurations specifying the biological phenomenon of interest.In plants, cellular processes are typically governed by gene regulatory networks (GRNs) that can influence a trait of agronomic interest. 107 To design specific crop ideotypes, GRNs can identify the most promising candidate genes, predict the network behavior arising from the altered genes and the resulting phenotypes of the traits modulated by the network. For instance, a limited number of QTLs and candidate genes regulating leaf senescence, an important determinant of drought adaptation, have been identified till date in crops such as wheat. [108][109][110][111] A comprehensive understanding of the network of genes modulating this process may facilitate the development of wheat varieties having a senescence profile tailored to augment nutrient remobilization, while enabling improved yield and adaptation to drought conditions. In a recent study, analyses of gene expression data and GRN modeling led to the identification of key transcriptional regulators (such as NAM-A2)that coordinate flag leaf senescence in wheat. 112 Such approaches will help to understand network performance and identify breeding targets that are usually not detected by traditional forward-and reversegenetics strategies, and utilize them to manipulate an entire network to build the desired phenotype. Novel insights into the complex associations existing between different adaptive traits and their corresponding genes at the systems level will help to identify preferable haplotypes and to design haplotype-based breeding scheme. In rice, metaexpression analysis together with co-expression network offered insights into the function of multiple genes and their interactions at a systems level, which in turn helped in the selection of desired haplotypes for haplotype-based breeding. 12 Furthermore, dynamic modeling and virtual mutations have shown promise in determining GRN engineering targets in order to tailor the desired phenotype. 113  A systems biology approach will provide hints to detect genetic regulators exercising the largest effect on GRNs, even where gene redundancies, mild-effect genes, or feedback loops hinder traditional gene investigation capabilities. 112 This approach will be particularly relevant for designing ideotypes for crops with complex genomes and multigenic traits, where systems-scale strategies are predicted to outperform the restrictions of conventional breeding approaches in the context of efficacy and speed.Innovations in genomic technologies are of particular relevance for improving future crops. However, it takes multiple years for an improved crop variety to be advanced and released for commercial cultivation due to prolonged breeding cycles, which in turn hampers the gain in productivity. Genomic selection and speed breeding approaches are crucial to address the long breeding cycle issue in crops. Genomic selection, which estimates the genetic merit of breeding lines for complex traits such as drought adaptation and increases the efficiency of selection process, is being successfully deployed in many crop breeding programs (Table 1). A good illustration of its impact came from a recent field evaluation of drought tolerant maize hybrids (called as \"AQUAmax\" hybrids), which possessed substantially higher yields under both optimal and drought stress conditions. 80,115 On the other hand, speed breeding by achieving up to six generations per year for wheat, barley, chickpea, and pea using specific and highly controlled environmental conditions such as 22 hour-long photoperiods, has emerged as a popular approach for accelerated crop development. 116 For custom-designed crops, genomic selection can save time and resources typically for traits that are phenotyped during the final stages of the variety development process and those that are costly to measure, for example, yield. While speed breeding can decrease generation times drastically, the genetic gain associated with this technique can be further improved by applying genomic selection at every generation to choose parents for the next generation (Figure 4). The strategy of combining speed breeding with genomic selection, referred to as \"speed GS,\" holds potential for fastforwarding the rate of genetic gain in crop improvement.A particular haplotype with the highest genomic estimated breeding value can be determined for each genomic region and demarcated by linkage disequilibrium blocks. Desired haplotypes can then be stacked in a cropping line by using an optimum array of crosses. This approach of combining genomic selection with superior haplotypes, called \"haplo-GS,\" can be integrated with speed breeding to rapidly tailor crop varieties with high performance across multiple adaptive traits. The haplo-GS approach could more precisely illustrate the complex relationships between genotype and phenotype, relative to individual SNPs, ultimately enhancing selection gain per unit of time. Combining genetic resources and transformative capabilities, ranging from genomic breeding to synthetic biology, will be essential for tailoring crops that improve food security and decrease the impact of agriculture on the environment. Notably, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms into the processing of hyperspectral images and weather data will enable early-stage prediction of drought scenarios. In turn, the AI system will allow farmers to make more informed decisions at every step of the crop production cycle. Finally, the context-dependent effect of each trait, multiplicity of combined traits, and genotype  environment interactions for each trait necessitates the use of modeling, to predict the effect of thousands of allele combinations in thousands of fields. This will help to derive a probabilistic approach for identifying the most desirable allelic combinations in a given field/region depending on the scale of the target environment.A custom-designed crop will be a valuable asset in our attempts to quench agriculture's growing thirst, and maximize productivity while enhancing yield stability in the face of enhancing environmental fluctuations. This ambitious aim needs the collaborative will and efforts of breeders, geneticists, physiologists, systems modelers, and bioinformaticians alike.","tokenCount":"6109"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"56f933afa137e6ca55c40316d1f3ac79","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/bb398913-ee4c-4cd2-8d26-ee3cb2bdd79f/retrieve","id":"-1705905546"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"9b564699-c0e9-4118-aa28-12baef78ad24","pagecount":"36","content":"is the bi-monthly magazine of the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA). CTA operates under the Cotonou Agreement between the countries of the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group and the European Union and is financed by the EU.After decades of underinvestment there is now global consensus on improving agricultural productivity and increasing farmers' incomes. Today, agricultural growth is seen as essential to achieve food and nutritional security and increase prosperity. But increasing productivity is only part of the solution. Farmers, herders and fisherfolk must have a market for what they produce. Moreover, producing and then looking for a market is not the best path to growth. Producers must adjust their production to supply what consumers need. Value chains, which link consumer demand back to the farmer, are arguably the best way for smallholder farmers to become integrated in modern markets. With this in mind CTA has identified improving agricultural value chains as a top priority in its new strategy for 2011-2015. This Special Issue of Spore introduces 'value chains' to our wide readership in ACP countries. 'Value chain' is often used in different ways, even by experts on the subject. The Special Issue tries to clear some of the confusion but, more importantly, aims to provide a broad picture of interesting value chain innovations in ACP countries. A major activity in 2012 is our international conference, 'Making the connection: value chains for transforming smallholder agriculture', to be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 6-9 November. We hope the conference will provide an excellent opportunity for those involved in value chains to meet and share experiences. Topics that will be discussed include world market trends, ways of including small farmers in value chains, contract farming, agro-industries, value chain finance, sustainable chains, ICTs, farmer organisations and many more.Director -CTA • An unbroken CHAin 3• Field Report from Rwanda: coffee the way customers like it 6• Expert view: \"Communication and coordination\"• by Andrew Shepherd 8• Field Report from Senegal: from gourds to cartons 9• Interview: \"Local strength\" by Aïssatou Diagne 10• A BUSINESS MATCH 11• Field Report from Trinidad and Tobago: a cut above the rest 13• Concentrated organisation 14• Expert view: \"The customer is always right\" by Stephen Mbithi 16• Field Report from Burkina Faso: Agribusiness clusters,• joining together 17• Interview: \"Giving a market value to local products\" 18 • by Bruno Gnidehoué• GRASPING OPPORTUNITIES, WEIGHING UP RISKS 19• More muscle for nutmeg 20• Field Report from Guyana: more value for traditional products 21• Field Report from Fiji: floods fail to beat florist 22• Expert view: \"From bean to cup\" by Peter Batt 24• Field Report from Uganda: quality pays dividends 25• Interview: \"Weighing the odds\" by Don Seville 26• POLITICAL WILL 27• A helping hand 28• Field Report from DR Congo: training, a crucial link 30• Expert view: \"Jobs for the future\" by Josué Dioné 32• Field Report from Fiji: private sector meets public sector 33• Interview: \"Standards, the key to new markets\"• by Patrick Ravoaraharison 34I n agricultural circles, the value chain concept is increasingly used to describe approaches aimed at improving market prospects for producers and scaling up profit margins. But what exactly is a value chain? Defining a term originally coined for the manufacturing sector is no easy task and, to some extent, it is simpler to start by saying what a value chain is not. A value chain is not merely a case of a farmer selling his produce to a buyer, however solid that market linkage may be. Nor is it the production and marketing sequence of one particular commodity such as coffee or cocoa. For many observers the distinguishing feature of a value chain is that all the links are coordinated, with value added at each stage and the final market fixed firmly in the sights. So if a buyer works with a farmer, agreeing in advance on what kind of product is needed to supply a certain type of consumer or processor, that is a value chain. In the Caribbean, a number of initiatives have linked farmers directly with resort owners, defining in advance what kind of fresh fruit and vegetables are required for tourists and, in some cases supplying help to growers. For the purposes of this issue, a definition might go something like this: a value chain is a sequence marked by value growth and coordination at each stage of production, processing and distribution, driven by consumer demand. It carries with it a range of support functions, such as input supply, financial services, transport, packaging, market research and advertising. The nodes in an agricultural value chain may consist of input providers, farmers, processors, packagers, distributors and retailersall the links in the sequence glossaryThe meaning of many of the terms used in this issue, particularly value chains, is the subject of much discussion. This glossary is to help readers understand the issues raised, but please note that there are often alternative definitions.Producing and delivering a final product or service from the supplier's supplier to the customer's customer. Emphasis is on the flow of produce from source to destination.Actors connected along a chain to produce and deliver goods and services to consumers through a sequenced and coordinated set of activities that adds value at all stages (production, processing, distribution). The concept places emphasis on product innovation and on meeting consumer needs.Taking on additional activities in the chain other than the core operation of the company. For example, a vegetable processor may start farming or buy a fleet of trucks.Analysing a value chain to identify who the key players are, how the sequence works and factors influencing the chain's performance. This can be helpful to pinpoint constraints at all stages of the chain and identify possible solutions.Financial services and products flowing to and/or through value chain participants.between the genesis of a product and its journey to the consumer.Value chain development is being actively pushed as the answer to problems of low producer incomes, poor market access and even food security. But it is important to remember that whatever the benefits, the guiding principle of a value chain is to make a profit. Coordinated value chains still cover only a fraction of total agricultural output in ACP countries. The bulk of produce is still produced speculatively by farmers who cannot be sure that they will be able to sell it at harvest time for a rewarding price. Agricultural value chains are not restricted to crops. A fodder value chain developed in Ethiopia has not just led to better quality livestock for farmers; it has also produced an extra source of income, with producers selling surplus feedstock to other herders.Value chains come in all shapes and sizes. At its most basic level, a chain might involve a lead farmer coordinating supplies for a buyer such as a supermarket and acting as the focal point with the other links in the production and marketing process. Large chains may also have good potential for smallholder producers. Kenya's Brookside Dairies sources 750,000 litres of milk per day from a network of 100,000 dairy farmers. The way the chain is organised, with each link solidly welded to the next, means it offers interesting opportunities to small-scale producers at the very far end of the chain.Although often talked about in the context of European supermarket chains, value chain development is not just export-oriented. Regional and domestic markets are crucial, fuelled by rapid urbanisation and a growing middle class. The African Development Bank forecasts that there will be one billion middle-class Africans by 2060. In Uganda, urbanisation has had a massive impact on the dairy sector, trebling the market for small-scale farmers. Middle classes in developing countries want more meat and dairy products, as well as ready-toeat foods, prepared salads and fresh fruit juices. Sophisticated export value chains often have more barriers to entry than domestic markets, not least in terms of standards.Successful value chains are driven by information about consumer requirements, often through market research. In South Africa's Kwazulu Natal region, this strategy paid off when it emerged there was strong demand in Durban's Indian community for plum tomatoes. A plan was drawn up and once the chain was established, producers saw an average rise in revenues of 400%.Value may be conferred or increased by improving the quality of a product, through better seed, inputs and post-harvest management in the case of crops, or higher quality forage for livestock. Higher The three main features of a value chain are: ▪ coordination of all links in the chain, ▪ added value at each stage, and ▪ a market-led approach, responding to local, national and international consumer demand. quality fetches higher prices. Value addition may also be achieved through greater efficiency, with better logistics, especially transport. It may simply be a question of moving a product from one location to another, perhaps to a place where that product is not easily available, for example moving traditional leafy vegetables to an urban setting or tropical fruit to consumers in Europe. Other ways of adding value include improving presentation and preparation and introducing grading.Value chains offer a strategy for income generation which has important repercussions for extending the reach of agriculture, but also for attracting young people to the rural sector -or dissuading them from leaving it. This approach may have a role to play in improving working and social conditions, addressing unemployment, low salaries and food security. Regional value chains may have a special contribution to make in combating the need for massive imports.The fact that value chains are market-driven\"Adding value can benefit all the links in the chain\"Rwanda is staking everything on improving the quality of its coffee. The idea is to satisfy demanding companies such as Starbucks, along with their customers, and sell for higher prices. The gamble is paying off.A coffee grower in northern Rwanda spends his days lavishing care on his 8,000 plants. The sums that they earn him in return are, he believes, little short of a miracle: \"For the past 5 years, with the help of Starbucks, I have managed to expand and improve the maintenance of my plantation, and today I earn between 600,000 and 800,000 FRW (between €800 and €1,000) a season,\" he says. Not so long ago, he was so discouraged by the low market price that he was ready to pull up his coffee plants! Since 2004, the US-based Starbucks Coffee Company, which now has nearly 20,000 coffee bars worldwide, has had agreements with the Rwandan government and producers at the Dukunde Kawa cooperative. It undertakes to buy high quality coffee at a 'fair trade price' and helps farmers to improve and increase their output. It offers loans to the cooperative, which supplies fertiliser and pesticides to the coffee farmers, which they repay when they sell their harvests. Using the proceeds of a collection among company staff, producers have even purchased cows which supply manure for their coffee plants. The farmers have also learned techniques for hand-picking cherry when they are perfectly ripe. The Rwandan government has encouraged almost all the country's coffee producers to make significant improvements to the quality of their produce. Nowadays, almost the entire output of the country's 500,000 coffee farmers is handled at washing stations built by public-private partnerships. Pulping, sorting, fermentation, drying and packaging are now all carried out at these stations, rather than at producers' plantations. \"These coffee washing stations have not only helped to improve the quality of coffee and increase selling prices on the global market. They have also created about 4,000 jobs,\" calculates an agronomist at the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Resources. Each year, national and international tasters test the coffee and give awards to the best of them. The prizes help to promote the quality of Rwandan coffee at international level. In 2011, the five leading producers received awards in kind -such as hoes -as well as advice on how to better market their coffee. For its part, every 3 months, Starbucks stages a special promotion in its stores, based on the best Rwandan coffee. To its British customers, the company recently extolled the virtues of 'a nectar waiting to be discovered'.albert-baudouin twizeyimanameans that the end use dictates all the other phases. If fruit is being grown for export it is important that it is a variety popular with consumers in the country where it will be sold. That might affect the taste, the colour and the juiciness of the variety planted. The fruit will have to be harvested earlier than for domestic markets since travel times are longer. Processing techniques may also be different. The packaging will need to be tailored to the final destination, and so too will the quality standards that the product has to satisfy.Planning is the key, with careful attention to detail. Communication with other links in the chain is essential, since the whole chain will be affected if one link fails. Project managers for International Labour Organization value chain initiatives in Madagascar realised that some players had never met each other before, so brought them together to discuss common problems and find solutions.Although some value chains are launched with external help, it is important that they are ultimately able to move ahead on their own. Lead firms can be a driving force as Malawi's Maldeco Fisheries showed when it developed a business plan for producing whole and filleted chambo fish, involving small fishermen. As well as setting up aquaculture facilities and creating new value through product differentiation, Maldeco invested in foreign technical training to promote sustainable fish farming.© Intactile Design from ICRA (www.icra-edu.org)The major stages in a value chainValue chains are commercial ventures and the poorest farmers may find it hard to take part without outside help. Trust and coordination are key for all links in the chain, but building solid business relationships takes time and hard work.That really depends on your definition of 'poor'. It is clear that modern value chains are not an answer for the poorest. People who are not already actively involved in producing for sale are unlikely to meet the requirements of commercial chains. They may be too far away from major roads, have too little land, have insufficient education to be able to appreciate the requirements of buyers and have limited or no financial resources to upgrade production.Value chains are not charities. If they are to be sustainable they must be profitable: their decision about which farmers to work with must be based on commercial criteria. So including the very poor in value chains requires government support. This should not involve subsidising farmers, but upgrading their commercial viability. Improving education, providing greater access to extension services and better infrastructure, particularly roads, can, over time, make poorer farmers more attractive to commercial companies. Guaranteeing an environment in which rural businesses can succeed is also essential. Companies such as input suppliers will not want to work in rural areas if there is corruption or too much bureaucracy. Some of the weaknesses of poor farmers can often be addressed by organising contract farming arrangements On that subject, you co-authored a book on contract farming 1 .By entering into agreements with companies, farmers can avoid some of the problems I mentioned. Companies may provide inputs and extension advice, and even carry out land preparation. They often provide transport for produce. The advantage for companies is that they can get a more reliable supply and specify the varieties they require. But contract farming is not for everyone. It requires willingness to honour agreements, deliver products at the right time, and resist the temptation to sell to other buyers. It is important that trust is built up between farmers and businesses, and this can take time and hard work. Contract farming is sometimes criticised on the grounds that farmers can become labourers on their own land. But the evidence points to the fact that those involved do better than most other farmers.Frequently! But the private sector is very resilient. If something doesn't work, it learns from its failures and seeks alternatives. For example, a cotton company I visited in Uganda changed the way it linked up with farmers three times before it found an approach that succeeded.What are some of the causes of failure?A major cause is change in market conditions. Value chains supplying export markets are particularly vulnerable. The competition to supply European supermarkets is intense. Supermarkets are continually trying to reduce the prices they pay, and if they can find cheaper suppliers they will use them. To stay competitive, existing value chains will have to reduce their costs, which is likely to include paying farmers less. As real incomes decline in the West, the pressure to reduce prices will become even greater. Fortunately for many ACP farmers, new chains are developing to supply the growing middle classes in domestic and regional markets.It can be extremely expensive to become certified to meet Western standards. To a certain extent, these costs have been masked by donor support to help farmers become accredited, but certification is not a one-off activity. Recertification is necessary every few years. There is evidence that the number of small farmers supplying markets governed by certification is declining. But not all international markets require certification and nor do domestic markets.What are some of the key prerequisites for success?Successful value chains involve collaboration between all stages of the chain. Farmers and produce buyers need to work together to ensure the right products are produced in the right quantities at the right time. Similarly, those buying from farmers need to collaborate with their customers to ensure that they are meeting consumer needs and minimise costs. The more everyone in the chain talks to each other, the more likely this collaboration is. It is early April and the air is filled with dust at Richard Toll (375 km north of Dakar, Senegal), a sugar growing and agro-pastoral area of the Rivera Valley. It was here, in the Thiabakh neighbourhood, that the factory of the Laiterie du Berger (LDB) (Shepherd's Dairy) opened in 2005. In order to produce its 'Dolima' ('give me more' in Wolof) milk, the company signs purchasing agreements with herders who supply fresh milk from their cows. In return, LDB guarantees livestock feed through another partner, Richard Toll's giant sugar company the Compagnie Sucrière Sénégalaise (CSS). In this relationship, everyone wins and the herders are well satisfied. One of them is Silèye Mbaye Bâ. He lives in the village of Yéeyri, (25 km from Richard Toll), and owns 45 cows, which are monitored by LDB: \"I've come to fetch my three tonnes of feed [groundnut cake, sugar cane straw, rice bran and alfalfa]. That's the share put aside by the factory in the contract signed after negotiations.\" Throughout the year and up until the dry season -when feed prices are at their peak -the herder pays neither fodder costs nor fees for preventive monitoring of his cows. In exchange, he sells fresh milk to LDB for 200 FCFA/l throughout the year, compared with an average price of 700 FCFA on the local informal market. \"Every day, I supply the factory with five pails of milk [editor's note: each containing 18 litres] from my cows,\" he says. Like Silèye, 200 other herders are under contract to LDB, which undertakes to buy their milk. While most are satisfied, a few of the herders meeting at the factory complain about the price. \"I am happy with the factory which feeds our cows, since these represent our wealth, but the purchasing price is low and we would like it to rise to 500 FCFA a litre year-round,\" says a young herder. An LDB official acknowledges that prices are low, but explains to herders that the company contributes to the cost of transport, travelling to remote villages to fetch the white gold. In Senegal, milk production is about 120 million litres/year, from 3.1 million head of cattle, according to Senegalese agricultural research institute ISRA. But the great majority of people consume powdered milk imported from Europe (the equivalent of 240,000 t of milk) and processed on a small-scale into curd, which is sold loose. \"These herders supply us with fresh milk produced in Senegal, which we then process in order to meet consumer demand,\" explains industrial manager Bruno Lobry in his sparsely furnished office. He adds: \"We organise field days with them so that we can discuss value chain problems such as animal health, milk prices, training in stall management and literacy, etc.\" Each day, refrigerated pick-ups from the small factory -which employs 40 people -travel to villages in a 100 km radius to collect milk. \"The milk that we collect undergoes rigorous checks for hygiene and sanitary standards. Then it is fermented and pasteurised. We put it into cartons of 90, 225 and 400 g, which sell, respectively, for 100, 250 and 400 FCFA,\" says Lobry. As well as cartons of milk, particularly popular with children, the company markets other products, including thiackry, a blend of curd and couscous -which is proving a hit with consumers -and plain or vanilla yoghurt. It is LDB's aim to develop a streamlined supply line to rapidly growing urban areas. Production manager Malick Cissé believes that the company is becoming increasingly well placed on the markets of Dakar and Saint-Louis, where its products are bought by urban consumers who are receptive to the idea of consuming local products: 'Good for me, good for my country'. The slogan is widely relayed through an effective marketing strategy developed with the support of 'Social Business' specialist Danone Communities. The campaign uses advertising commercials featuring a well known female television personality, the music of Ismael Lo and packaging in the national colours of Senegal. There is also a 'school milk' project developed with a number of schools in Dakar and aimed at helping to combat infant malnutrition. At the entrance to LDB, in the green painted factory shop decorated with a jovial shepherd, a new young sales assistant, Pap' Diao, is delighted with his contract for a monthly salary of about 90,000 FCFA (nearly €150). \"I hope to keep my job so that I can support my family,\" he says. The company recently hired two new staff members: a Senegalese vet and an expatriate engineer.Madieng SeckA partnership with Laiterie du Berger (Shepherd's Dairy) is giving hope to herders in Richard Toll by guaranteeing them a market for their milk. In Saint-Louis and Dakar, consumers are enjoying dairy products that carry the label: 'Good for me, good for my country'.The association of local cereal processors in Senegal (ATCL) supplies most of the local cereals processed in the country, with a volume of more than 100,000 t per year. After years of difficulties, it is now a booming value chain. Having learnt to adapt to new consumer demands, the association is tapping international markets.ATCL's aim is to solve processing and marketing problems for local cereals in order to improve food security and combat poverty through job creation, especially for women, who dominate this sector. ATCL responds to calls for tender and combines the forces of its members to access markets. It now accounts for the major share of processing for local cereals sold in Senegal, and has chalked up some impressive results: from 10,000 t processed at the outset (in 1998), it now handles more than 100,000 t.The association has 24 members, who are professionals when it comes to processing local cereals (millet, maize, sorghum, local rice and fonio) into flour, semolina and granules that are packaged in boxes or sachets and sold at market. Each member has his own processing unit and works for him-or herself. Our main partners are cereal producers, with whom ATCL signs contracts to purchase millet or maize harvests, and distributors, including Europeans doing business in Africa. Contracts with producers are drawn up as part of the IFAD-funded Millet and Sorghum Project, with bonuses paid for the quality of cereals and the regularity with which they are delivered to ATCL headquarters in Dakar. Other partners include NGOs and development agencies such as USAID.ATCL has made a significant contribution to the increase in consumption of local cereals by giving Senegalese consumers access to flour made from local cereals, in the right quantities and with sufficient quality to make local dishes that are increasingly popular, such as couscous, pap and fritters. It has also helped to promote the introduction of local cereals in bread-making, in an effort to lower the cost of making bread using imported wheat (450,000 t/year). We have won contracts with bakers looking for quality millet or maize. 'Doolée' bread ('strength' in Wolof) has helped place millet and maize in second and third position in the table of most frequently consumed cereals in Senegal (according to a USAID/PCE study in 2011). With the value chain approach, we are building on the synergies between our members to help them develop quality and competitivity in their enterprises. The results are clear: in February 2012, the association sold a container of 30 t of processed local cereals to an Italian distributor for export, for a price of 10 million FCFA (more than €15,000). A similar transaction was organised in 2011, involving a Senegalese trader who had set up in France. That was worth 17.5 million FCFA (about €26,000). In both cases, ATCL members worked together as a team. This sense of solidarity has enabled us to achieve good results, even though it must be admitted that there have been difficulties. Indeed, in spite of our determination to remain within the value chain, it can happen that the sequence is broken if it emerges that millet is not good quality or that producers are not respecting the terms of their contract.Unassuming and hardworking, Aïssatou Diagne -better known as Madame Dèmehas, since 1998, headed the association of local cereal processors in Senegal. Understanding consumer tastes and showing their output to its best advantage -this is what producers must do if they want to persuade customers to choose their products. Farmers must be willing to take some steps to make the relationship work, but they should take care not to bow to consumers' every whim.T he avocadoes look so succulent. Big and shiny, they are perfectly ripe. And yet, no European buyer would ever take them. For an African country used to selling its fruit at the nearby market, where it is highly prized, this comes as something of a shock. That is because they are not familiar with the requirements and tastes of European consumers, who like small avocadoes that can be eaten by just one person. Ideally, the flesh should not be too oily and they should keep well for several days. These are the prerequisites that have to be satisfied if producers want to tap into export markets. And this is just one example of how farmers cannot afford to simply offer what they grow. They must also adapt to the tastes of those who, at the far end of the chain, will consume their products, whether fresh or processed, at home or abroad.When it comes to developing a value chain, it is important to have sound market knowledge so as to offer the right product -one for which there will be sufficient demand. For example, small-scale producers aiming at export markets need to understand that, because of their size, they would do better to target specific niche markets, where their products will stand out and generally command higher prices: fair trade, organic fruit and vegetables, products of origin. European buyers are also highly demanding on issues of standards, such as size, quality, taste, treatments, traceability and reliability of supply. Not to mention the importance of presentation, which is key to attracting the attention of a consumer who is shopping in a store or a supermarket. Items that are attractively packaged and well labelled will always sell better. Mango producers in Tanzania, who have made considerable efforts to improve the quality of their fruit, have been frustrated by the disappointing results. The reason is the poor packaging. They have now asked the government to set up a packaging factory.Grenada, a small-scale cocoa producer, was no match for the giants present in the market. But one entrepreneur decided to use the product's origin and quality as a selling point. By adding attractive packaging, the company has been able to sell its chocolate for a premium price in some of the best stores in Europe.The same logic can be applied to local, national or regional markets, especially in towns where supermarkets are emerging and where consumers have less time for cooking. In Rwanda, potato farmers in Koabiki had the bright idea of selling their harvests to supermarkets and restaurants in Kigali, meticulously sorted, washed and packaged in attractive baskets made out of banana leaves. Their strategy proved a winning one, and in 2010 they managed to sell their potatoes at a price one-third higher than that of other producers.Farmers working on their own, or even in groups, can find it hard to understand market requirements and come up with innovative solutions. Often, they are at the far end of the chain, with big or small distribution companies analysing the market and explaining it to the farmers and processors. In Uganda, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Coca-Cola is training and organising 50,000 mango and passion fruit producers, who will sell their fruit.Information is essential in bringing actors in the chain closer together and matching up the expectations of some links with the output of others. Market information systems (MISs) have emerged, supplying data on prices and demand in certain towns or regions. But other more qualitative information on regional opportunities can prove elusive, unless costly market research is carried out. In Kenya, SMS Sokini provides information via SMS at a charge, supplying prices of agricultural products to farmers, buyers and exporters through a partnership between the Kenyan Agricultural Commodities Exchange and mobile phone operator Safaricom. But not everyone can access the service and the initiative remains an isolated one.There are a number of solutions for producers wanting to profit from value chains. They may try to increase the value of their output by reducing the number of intermediaries and taking on the tasks of other links such as processing, packaging and even sales -producing cassava flour or chips, andIn Trinidad and Tobago, a sheep farmers' association is breaking the cycle of insecure markets and erratic prices. Its winning strategy lies in helping livestock farmers to market better cuts of meat.The Trinidad and Tobago Goat and Sheep Society (TTGSS) has good reason to be proud. After a few false starts, the livestock producers' association has succeeded in setting up a highly efficient value chain, linking sheep farmers to suppliers of products and services, and a profitable market for meat. The path to success has not always been smooth. The association's first attempt to build a value chain involved dairy goat farmers. That was in 2009 and the idea was to pasteurise, bottle and brand milk. \"But each farmer was producing only a small amount so, although the project received critical acclaim, it required too much support to run around collecting milk and was halted until later,\" said TTGSS President John Borely.The focus switched to supporting lamb and mutton producers. A member of the association, a master butcher, had the idea of turning lamb carcasses into higher-grade cuts of meat. \"Now, the problem was too much success,\" said Borely. \"We couldn't supply all the buyers who came on board.\" The problem was solved when the Super Quality Supermarket in Endeavour agreed to take all the meat, contracting the master butcher to do the processing. The next link needed was an abattoir. The Sugar Feeds Centre owned the only modern abattoir that was regularly inspected by the public health authorities. But here too, there were hitches. Farmers who took their animals for slaughter paid an up-front fee and were responsible for getting the product to the outlet. Payment would follow some time later, causing cash-flow difficulties for many. TTGSS's response was to set up a float fund, facilitated by the Trinidad and Tobago Agribusiness Association, to ensure prompt payment to farmers.Help in meeting quality standards has proved key. TTGSS representatives visit producers to inspect flocks and advise on feeding. Working at both ends of the chain, the association has donated carcases to top hotels in an attempt to get customer feedback. \"The response, that the meat tended to be too lean, was taken back to farmers and used to help them upgrade feeding programmes to match the quality of imported meats,\" said Borely. TTGSS has helped to ensure that farmers get higher prices year-round. Now it is planning to rebuild the value chain for goat's milk and launch a separate one for breed-stock certification.Andy Taittwashing and pre-cooking fonio. Such approaches are known as vertical integration. Although this strategy may be tempting, it requires the right technologies for marketing agrifood products that make the grade, as well as financial resources and rigorous organisation. The longer the chain, the higher the risks for those moving into areas where they have little experience. When the chains are short, and it is just a question of grinding maize and putting it in a sack, this option can prove effective. It also enables producers to keep in contact with consumers and to adapt their products to user tastes as far as possible. These chains are generally organised and managed by commodity association cooperatives or producer groups. They bring together the products, package them and perhaps carry out preliminary processing before selling them. In the Dominican Republic, the son of a large-scale farmer who returned from the USA, launched a delivery service for perfectly ripeas opposed to green -bananas for restaurants, supermarkets and the many cruise ships that stop in the country. Why didn't someone think of it before?Farmers can also stay in their role as producers, forming part of a chain made up of different actorsproducers, processors, traders and distributors.\"Farmers are increasingly working together with firms who market their harvests\"Opportunités et risquesSenegalese tomato concentrate, a popular consumer product made from local tomatoes, is the result of a well organised value chain that benefits from an effective institutional arrangement linking producers, processors and lenders. But the arrival of a new company raised fears for farmers.Nearly 12,000 producers make a living from tomatoes in the Senegal River Valley, with an annual output of around However, recent seasons have been marred by various incidents. Since SOCAS's output only covers two-thirds of the country's requirements, Senegal has to import triple concentrated tomato paste. In 2005, the agrifood company Agroline went into business launching a tomato puree based on imported triple concentrated tomato paste under the label 'La Linguere'. In 2011, SOCAS felt that the competition was making it difficult to sell its output, raising fears that it would not be able to draw up contracts with farmers for the 2011-2012 season. The governmentwhich gave authorisation to Agroline go into business -was approached by the CNCFTI, which questioned the coherence of its agricultural policies and its commitment to a local sector. A ministerial committee was set up to regulate the tomato processing industry. At the end of 2011, Agroline -which plans to open a processing factory -and SOCAS finally agreed to buy, respectively, 30,000 and 20,000 t of tomatoes from producers. The farmers may benefit from the situation. So too should consumers, since competition is keeping prices low.The farmers are the first link, but most often the chain is organised by the last link, the one selling the final product. To benefit from this model, producers or their associations need to have good organisation and management skills: they must know how to calculate production costs, be able to guarantee quality and a regular supply -two key points -as well as traceability. They must also be familiar with the markets and market prices. Only then will they be in a suitably strong position to negotiate good selling prices with buyers and make sure that the fruits of their labour are well rewarded. If not, they risk ending up selling their goods for unprofitable prices. Producers also need to improve their production processes so as to lower costs and increase their competitive edge. A number of NGOs are working to do just that in Africa, so as to avoid farmers being unfairly exploited by international companies.Increasingly, and especially for export products, farmers or their organisations work under contract with companies that process or market their output. Such firms guarantee to buy their harvests so long as the products meet certain specifications. They may also supply or facilitate inputs and other production resources.If value chains are to work well, they must involve other actors who are not directly involved in the sequence. These include financial services and transport, packaging and distribution companies. Mali's mango exports grew twelvefold between 2005 and 2010 after it developed a refrigerated transport chain using road, rail and boat links so that large quantities of ripe fruit reached Europe. The system is less expensive than air transport. Previously, difficulties with air freight meant that the flavoursome mangoes of Mali had only arrived in Europe in small quantities, even though market demand was increasing rapidly.Having access to credit is often the most serious obstacle for small agricultural organisations, who need good cash flow to be able to operate, and loans so as to be able to invest in materials for crop cultivation or processing. Yet credit is rarely available from the traditional banking sector. In the Oromia region of Ethiopia, producers' organisations, input suppliers, financers, processors and buyers have joined to form a soya milk value chain, a new crop developed with support from two Belgian and Ethiopian NGOs to supply urban consumers in Jimma and Addis Ababa. The initiative benefits from an innovative finance scheme offered by local microfinance institution Harbu, which provides a range of services to different actors in the chain.When finance requirements are present in a well structured value chain, some banks such as the Commercial Bank of Africa or Equity Bank in Kenya may be willing to make the investment.A large degree of the success of any value chain comes down to the farmers who supply the raw material. But producers depend on the downstream members of the chain to make the most of their output. All the links rely on each other, making it essential that they work hand in hand so that everyone receives a fair share.The links are interdependent, the balance can be fragile.The customer is always rightAdapting production, harvesting and packaging methods to consumer tastes is the key to earning higher prices for Kenya's thriving horticulture sector.To what extent do smallscale farmers in Kenya understand the worth of adding value to their produce?Small-scale farmers do understand the meaning of value addition. On the other hand, value addition is often equated with processing. But in many sectors, like fresh produce, it is not necessarily true that you add value during processing. In some instances, you may actually lose value. For example, green beans will fetch the highest price per kilo when they are fresh. The price per kilo may drop by more than 50% when they are canned because consumers do not consider canned beans to be fresh.How else can a small-scale fresh produce farmer add value?We train small-scale farmers to be very quality conscious, to harvest at the right stage and by so doing, they get a higher price. Therefore, harvesting and delivering the produce in good time is obviously key. However, value addition will also happen when the farmer does what we call mixing. A farmer can mix green beans with baby carrots and baby corn and put them in ready-to-eat packs, thereby increasing the price per kilo. We train farmers to handle produce the right way and preserve it for transportation, so that we can meet the market requirement of delivering the produce within 24 hours of harvesting from Kenya to European supermarkets.The FPEAK secretariat is tasked with the responsibility of coordinating farm activities and capacity building at smallholder level, so that farmers can produce to the required international standards. We organise them in such a way that they can participate in the global value chain. We do this by training farmers in the required quality standards, both on official control systems and government standards, whether products are for Kenya or the European Union.This capacity to meet international market standards is the biggest selling ticket for Kenyan fresh produce. Fresh produce can be grown anywhere across the world, even in many African countries. However, here there is the capacity of farmers to prove to the market or to consumers in Europe that they can meticulously stick to the rules and regulations required -that is why Kenyan horticulture succeeds. Another thing that FPEAK has done is to cluster farmers together in what we call viable units: units that are economically viable. We do not have a single farmer owning two hectares of land some 200 km from the next one. This will never work because the logistics of transporting produce from just two hectares does not make economic sense. So we like to cluster farmers together, who operate as individuals but within a group. Farming activities are therefore conducted uniformly even though farmers have independent farms.In the last 2 years, we have established the Practical Training Centre (PTC) in Thika town, about 50 km from Nairobi, whose purpose is to centralise capacity building activities for value addition, standards and business skills, especially for smallscale farmers. Farmers are introduced to technologies important in farming, such as drip irrigation systems, and good pest control practices, as well as processing techniques for value addition.We work with a network of exporters, who are very familiar with international markets in Europe, where we sell 82% of our produce. The US and the Middle East buys 5% each of our produce. We organise small-scale farmers to export as groups to these markets directly.Are small-scale farmers receiving sufficient support? I can say with confidence that a lot is being done for fruits and vegetables by the private sector. The horticulture sector is strongly private-driven. I am not so sure that the government needs to do much besides creating an enabling environment, which to some extent is happening. I don't think that the government should be involved in value addition. Value addition changes so rapidly everyday that even the government will be playing catch-up. But Kenya has some of the poorest logistics compared to other countries. For example, the cost of packaging material in Kenya is 25-20% more than in Asian countries or mainland Europe, where similar value addition is taking place. Energy is a big issue. Energy in Kenya is at least five times the price in most efficient countries and at least three times the price of the average BRIC countries.interview by geoffrey Kamadi  There are now about thirty of them, involving more than a dozen products.\"Agribusiness clusters are not formal institutions like farmers organisations,\" says Kouka Kaboré, who is in charge of agribusiness clusters at IFDC. \"On the other hand, it is important to have a leader who brings in the business. The other actors gravitate towards this figure.\" In Koubri, this leader is Soumaïla Ouédraogo. He has managed to bring together 12 groups from four villages in the municipality to create the maize producers' union.The organisation encourages traders to group together as an association. The producers commit to supplying them with the quantity of cereals that they have available. The union also signs contracts with fertiliser suppliers who advance them inputs, and most importantly, with the credit union of Koubri, which provides loans for the purchase of phytosanitary products. The money and the inputs are shared between the different group members, according to the needs outlined in the plan of action. Each group must keep to its commitment to supplying the quantity of maize promised. After the crop is sold, the union pays off the debts and distributes the earnings between the groups according to their contribution.With this organisation, every actor benefits. \"With the agribusiness cluster, I no longer have problems of access to inputs and credit. The union takes care of it for me,\" says farmer Lassané Zagré. Madi Sini, who heads the group of cereal buyers, is equally enthusiastic. Gone are the days when one had to go round all the small villages to buy maize. \"We no longer have to hire a truck to collect the cereal because the union does it for us. That lowers our costs. And what's more, we are sure of getting the amount of cereals that we want,\" he says. But this strong dynamic is not without its faults. The loans granted are not enough to cover all the needs. Without adequate security, the union has to make do with small loans. \"The previous farming season, we were only allowed to borrow 500,000 FCFA (€763). That forced us to lower our targets,\" says union treasurer Abdoul Karim Sawadogo. But the greatest risk in an agribusiness cluster is failure to respect commitments. It damages the organisation's credibility and tempts clients to go elsewhere. \"A big maize processing company terminated its contract with us due to a delay in delivery. Our collectors took too long to carry out their task. We ended up losing an important client,\" recalls the treasurer, with obvious regret. Soumaïla Ouédraogo believes that the weak cooperative spirit should be kept in proportion. \"The agribusiness cluster has not been running for long. It will take a bit of time for all the actors to fully understand their role,\" he says. \"I am sure that in the future, we will be more efficient.\" nourou-dhine salouka BURKINA FASOThe maize producers' union in Koubri, Burkina Faso, has joined an agribusiness cluster that groups together different actors in the value chain. This leads to better organised production and guaranteed markets -so long as everyone respects their commitments.As well as finding outlets for local products, the Benin Label Centre trains producers to improve manufacturing processes and ensure product quality and effective marketing.The aim is to improve sales of productsprecooked vegetables, instant flour, fruit juice, etc. -to an increasingly demanding urban clientele.What is the idea behind the Benin Label Centre?The aim is to give value to traditional knowledge, time-honoured processing methods for local products, just as we had started to do with the Benin Label Week. We have provided training in good practices to modernise products whose market value seems very evident to us, and to adapt them to the taste of urban consumers who have purchasing power. The Benin Label Centre now works with more than 150 partners, including individual processors, associations, cooperatives and even companies.In what respect is the Centre innovative?The Centre is a concentration of innovations, for it is not a classic minimarket. It does not stop at simply selling products processed in Benin, but assists guardians of local knowledge in the manufacturing process and quality measures: hygiene, compliance with standards and marketing of productspackaging, promotion and sales. The first step towards adding value at the Centre is to rid a product of its anonymity and give it a market value. The three criteria that guide product choice are: originality, valuing local resources and quality. Failure to comply with the third criterion, which requires our expertise, does not mean disqualification. It is we who decide which products to add value to for the marketplace. Our choices do not always receive the wholehearted support of consumers. Our job consists of stimulating their interest in a product that we believe will be good for them. We are reassured by the fact that successful products maintain high sales volumes in the long term. One product has currently beaten all sales records. It is puréed baobab. It is served like yoghurt in a pot. Unlike yoghurt made from cow's milk, it can be eaten by people of any age. Our main targets are urban consumers in Benin and people from this country living abroad. When they come back to Benin, they stock up with us. The Centre has no shortage of customers.We have ourselves defined certain quality standards that we impose on our partners. But as a country, we would have liked to have had a laboratory as a point of reference to certify our products. The second difficulty lies in getting supplies of raw materials. Our partners do not always have the resources to obtain supplies and respond effectively to demand. And their poor standard of equipment does not allow them to respond promptly to pressing demand. The Centre also suffers from a lack of packaging facilities. To solve these problems, we, together with our partners, are currently launching the Mutual Benin Label. It involves setting up a guarantee fund with a local bank to facilitate access to credit at a relatively low interest rate. These loans will pay for equipment and serve as working capital for members, so that they can increase their capacity to respond to demand.interview by Joachim saizonou In today's highly competitive agrifood market, there is growing pressure to raise quality and lower costs. This can open new doors, but also present challenges for producers and processors in ACP countries.W hen it runs smoothly, the value chain system can work to the advantage of all parties, providing buyers with a reliable supply and farmers with a secure market. From a farmer's perspective, being part of a value chain may mean more money. But even if prices are sometimes lower than at local markets, the arrangement generally means a more stable income. Participation in value chains can lead to new skills and improved practices. Even cleaning and grading produce can make a difference. Instead of piling vegetables in a crate and trucking them to a trader or market, producers can make more of a profit by doing basic processing onfarm. Supplying lettuce or tomatoes that are washed and packaged for a local store or supermarket may earn a higher price. Peeling and cutting fruit can be an effective way of tapping the growing market for ready-to-eat food products. In Kenya, rural dwellers organised into producers' groups are grading and packaging fruit and vegetables at dedicated centres. In East New Britain province, Papua New Guinea, growers are upgrading to become processors, with training to meet market demands and quarantine requirements.Women, with their aptitudes for organisation and intrinsic market knowledge, are particularly well suited to running services likely to prove useful in value chains, so new production systems may provide openings for them, though value chain involvement may also involve extra work. Some initiatives are turning female participation into a marketing tool. In South America, the Café Femenino label showcases specialist coffee produced by women. Including women in product and market development can pay dividends. The market queens of Ghana, who run many of the country's markets for fresh vegetables, liaise with farmers and commercial organisations to ensure that products meet the price, quantities and standards required.gRENADAEfforts are moving ahead to restore Grenada's nutmeg sector and develop the value chain to make it more competitive. Nutmeg, once a key export crop for Grenada, suffered a major setback after hurricanes Ivan and Emily devastated the island in 2004 and 2005. From being the world's second largest exporter of nutmeg in 2001, Grenada has since slipped to 9 th place. Now the sector is being overhauled, with special focus on improving value chain finance. The strategy is led by the International Trade Centre and involves the main players in the nutmeg value chain, including farmers, agro-processors, the Grenada Co-operative Nutmeg Association, financial institutions and retailers. The aim is to kick-start innovation in marketing and product development and improve access to finance throughout the value chain. Adding value is a cornerstone of the plan, including producing essential oils, nutmeg powder for culinary uses, using the shell for skin and beauty products and developing nutmeg's medicinal properties. A recent visit to India, where the nutmeg value chain is well developed, enabled Grenadian value chain players to witness the making of nutmeg oils and oleoresins, view equipment for processing and study techniques for quality testing and assurance. Increasing consumer demand to know how food has been produced and by whom has brought new opportunities for small-scale farmer participation in value chains through organic, fair trade and other certification schemes. But producers need to weigh the extra expense of complying with requirements against the premiums they are likely to pocket. Some of the best schemes involve company support. Blue Skies Company in Ghana, which processes fresh chilled tropical fruit for European supermarkets, has taken on the technical and financial responsibility of GLOBALGAP, organic and Fairtrade certification for its suppliers.Value chains are not for everyone and the smallest producers are likely to be excluded due to physical location, poor access to technology such as irrigation or mechanisation and lack of organisation. Inadequate access to land, water and quality inputs are other limiting factors.Some multinational companies, such as Unilever and Walmart, are making it an active part of their policy to include small-scale producers as suppliers, moving away from straightforward Corporate Social Responsibility to an approach based on sustainable partnerships that secure reliable supplies for the companies and more stable revenues for producers. In South Africa's Limpopo Province, two rural gUyANATwo ventures in rural Guyana are enabling indigenous people to add value to local products. But though the enterprises are profitable, they now face stiff competition from cheaper suppliers. Some 600 rural dwellers, mainly women in remote settlements of Guyana, are working for the private Guyanese company Amazon Caribbean Ltd. (AMCAR), which harvests, processes and exports canned organic pineapples and heart-of-palm (Euterpe oleracea). The products, increasingly popular with European consumers, are shipped to supermarket giants Carrefour and Auchan in France and other EU countries. Entirely self-sufficient, the venture has introduced communities to the idea of adding value to traditional products. Local farmers supply the fresh produce and women are trained to process and package them for export. Others transport and label the products, integrating a chain of players from communities across Guyana.Pineapple farmer yvonne Pearson has been involved since 2003. Her village of Mainstay has more than 40 pineapple farmers, while 30 more local people, mainly women, do processing and packaging. Joel Fredericks manages the processing plant. \"I see a bright future with this pineapple project for the people in Mainstay,\" he said. As he talks, the factory is buzzing with women who wash the fresh produce, peel and slice it into chunks and extract juices from the peel to preserve the canned fruit. The heart-of-palm venture started back in 1987, with one factory at Drum Hill, way up river in Guyana's far-flung North West region. \"We built the factory there because that's where the forests are and that's where the manicole palms come from,\" explains AMCAR's Chief Executive Officer Jean-François Gerin. This opened opportunities for 300 indigenous harvesters, who supply the factory daily, and an additional 30 processing workers, mostly women, who peel, wash, cut and preserve the produce before putting it in cans and glass jars.More than 30 communities are involved in the heart-of-palm chain.The two businesses are not without challenges. Logistics and market competition are both major constraints. Since the factories are located in remote areas, transporting the produce to the city for labelling and export is expensive. At export level, both products now face stiff competition from Costa Rica and Sri Lanka. Last year, the main buyer demanded that the company lower its price for pineapples or face losing the market. \"We couldn't come to an agreement for a long time. We were back and forth with discussions until finally we came to a settlement,\" Gerin recalls. \"We are big in one sense but small in terms of business operation, and it's hard for us to compete with cheaper supplies.\" ravena gildhariesupermarkets make a point of sourcing vegetables from local growers. The stores, franchises of the SPAR group, also benefit since they are geographically distant from wholesale markets.Contract farming has emerged as one of the most common models of integrating smallholder farmers into value chains. Though the system has its critics, the approach can be effective, offering support to farmers with inputs, standards and even risk management. Success relies to a large extent on companies developing contracts in full consultation with farmers and discussing difficulties faced by suppliers.Contracts should clearly stipulate responsibilities and timeframes for land preparation, farming practices, delivery and quality of inputs, credit and extension advice, as well as the key issues of product quality, prices and payment. Lecofruit in Madagascar has rigorous requirements for its suppliers, but it also offers an attractive array of benefits, all clearly laid out in micro-contracts drawn up with its 9,000 small-scale producers.If contract farming is to prove sustainable and grow, it is crucial that all players in the sequence obtain profits, though smaller producers are likely to have less bargaining power within a chain. If farmers suspect they are not getting a fair price, the chainRunning a highly successful cut flower outgrower scheme is not without its challenges. But a Fijian enterprise is determined not to let catastrophic weather get in the way of its expansion plans.The biggest risk facing cut flower company South Seas Orchards (SSO) is one that no one can control. This year, the Fijian enterprise has been hit particularly hard, with massive flooding wiping out much of its stock and planting material. Unbowed by the colossal damage, owner Aileen Burness is fighting back, determined to save the highly successful floriculture outgrower programme that she launched in 1996. Aside from her own income, she feels a duty towards the many small florists and flower arranging businesses who are part of the value chain that she has built up. The system has created an opportunity for rural and peri-urban women to become involved in the SSO outgrower scheme that provides quality planting material, extension advice and an assured market. The chain now includes a total of 40 women across Fiji.SSO has been able to secure loans so that rural women suppliers can fund their own nurseries. Such has been the success of this outgrower programme that SSO now supplies orchids and anthuriums to all the florists on Viti Levu, Fiji's main island.The chain is highly organised. SSO supplies outgrowers with quality planting materials and other support. Extension advice is part of the SSO package and in 2004 CTA funded a training manual for outgrowers and has since helped organise various training workshops. Grower members of SSO bring their cut flowers to SOS premises on a designated day and, at the end of the month, the women are paid for the previous month at predetermined prices. \"Grading and packaging of all cut flowers are done by us and then supplied to the florists,\" said Burness.As with every business, there are challenges.\"The main risk is of course the weather and natural disasters,\" said Burness, mopping up after the dramatic floods in April. \"But a major problem is the practice of side-selling.\" This involves outgrowers breaking their exclusive contract with SSO to sell to other clients for higher prices. Not at all daunted, Burness is looking ahead to the future. She is planning to expand to the markets of other Pacific Island countries and has yet tap the high-potential tourism sector. The company conducts its own marketing research. \"Fortunately, we have such a huge demand in Fiji that everything is easily sold,\" she said.vinesh prasad© V Prasadis likely to break down. Farmers not accompanying their produce to the buyer need to be promptly informed of the quantities they have supplied and reasons for any deductions. Prompt payment is another important issue.Participation in formal value chains may increase risk and vulnerability. Higher standards of production often mean more waste and added-value niche products tend to pose greater risks, since consumer demand can change rapidly, leaving producers trapped. Since every node in the chain is inter-dependent, repercussions further down the line can spark a domino effect. So each link needs to be ready if things go wrong. Insurance is one possibility, to hedge against the risk of crops failing due to weather conditions or livestock dying from drought or disease, although it may not always be applicable for small farmers. It is important that the risks, as well as the profits, are shared throughout the chain and some of the best systems build insurance into the chain for all players.Other strategies have also been developed, including risk management funds designed specifically for value chains and extended to all links in the sequence.It is not just the farmers who face difficulties. Running a successful processing operation requires a steady supply of raw material, and processing time needs to be maximised so that expensive equipment is used to maximum effect. Farmers may be tempted to sell produce to other higher-priced markets, causing supply problems. A tomato processing factory in Côte d'Ivoire solved the problem of irregular supplies by providing training, technical support, hybrid seeds and credit to 12 farmers. Crop harvests almost doubled, with the farmers free to sell the surplus where they chose.Trust is a key component on all sides. Guinness in Nigeria ran an outgrower scheme for 4 years, but the arrangement foundered partly as a result of farmers diverting fertiliser supplied for sorghum to other crops. By contrast, in Guinea, the Macenta Banana Producers Union set up a partnership with the association of banana merchants to promote trust and transparency. Both parties meet to agree on prices and a weekly meeting is held to discuss quantities. Once the advance is paid and the bananas are ready, the producers weigh them in front of the merchants and collect the remaining balance from the buyers.Low prices, poor quality and rudimentary on-farm processing techniques are some of the hurdles facing PNG coffee growers. Efforts to organise them into a value chain are helping producers to access more profitable markets.How is the PNG coffee value chain experience producing benefits?In the first instance, where smallholder producers are close enough to a wet mill, rather than producing parchment (editor's note: wetprocessed coffee shipped with the dried parchment skin still adhering to the bean), they can sell cherry (editor's note: the raw fruit of the coffee tree) direct to a wet mill. Providing that only red ripe cherry is harvested, the mills process the smallholder cherry to produce high quality plantation coffee for which premium prices are paid. For smallholder producers, selling cherry results in a 35-38% increase in the net return on a parchment equivalent price. By teaching smallholder producers how to correctly harvest and process the coffee, it is possible to reduce much of the variance in quality. The third and final mechanism for extracting a price premium is to pursue accreditation under either or both organic and Fairtrade certification.Yes. Consumers benefit from a superior experience -a better taste in the cup. Traders benefit because they get to sell superior quality coffee at a higher price, thereby making a better margin. Farmers benefit from the higher prices they receive which have not only improved their standard of living but now ensure that more children are going to school.In addition, direct linkages with traders and processors have improved access to inputs, technology and market information. At the community level, working together as a collaborative marketing group has greatly facilitated access to government grants and essential infrastructures such as running water and electricity.How important is it that all links in the chain see a positive impact?If the value chain concept is to be applied successfully, everyone in the chain must benefit. More importantly, everyone in the chain must perceive that they are being treated fairly and equitably. This requires traders to reveal price information and to be open in terms of their costs.Overcoming decades of distrust between smallholder farmers and market intermediaries. As smallholder farmers do not understand the dynamics of the international coffee market, they have struggled to understand why prices are so volatile. Cultural differences have also been a factor, since the majority of traders are expatriates.Education and training -capacity building -has had the greatest impact in overcoming most of the impediments. Traders have willingly invited producer groups to visit the factory and to see for themselves the processes that are involved in preparing coffee for export. Perhaps the most influential of these has been the introductory marketing course, exposing smallholder farmers to the international coffee market and the dynamics of the New York Coffee Exchange and international currency markets. As few farmers actually drink coffee, they do not understand how the way in which they have handled the coffee impacts on the taste. Traders have organised structured tastings, demonstrating how the most prevalent faults impact directly on taste, aroma and texture.How important is trust and communication in a business relationship?Both communication and trust are paramount in building enduring long-term relationships. When information is exchanged between partners in the chain, farmers come to realise the tasks that the processors, traders and exporters perform. Only where there is trust are farmers willing to make the changes to their production practices and only where there is trust are the traders and exporters willing to invest in transferring technologies and facilitating the adoption of quality assurance systems.Traditionally, extending finance to the coffee industry has been fraught with difficulty. As world coffee prices are so volatile, there is no guarantee that banks will get their money back and especially for smallholder farmers, with little or no collateral, there is nothing to borrow against. The situation in PNG is made all the more difficult by tribal conflicts and disputes over land ownership. In the informal market, most traders and exporters are reluctant to extend credit to farmers. Exporters often shipped a product that differed from the sample supplied. \"The sample was premium compared to what they loaded as the final product. This created problems between the traders and the roasters in Europe,\" said Kizito. \"I saw a gap in the market due to lack of communication between the buyers and the producers. The buyers always thought that since they had the money, that was enough.\"A consumer-led approach The bonus is an incentive to dissuade farmers from selling their coffee to other buyers. Kizito keeps a careful watch on the entire value chain, paying the collectors a commission and demanding meticulous record keeping. \"I insist on good documentation to make sure that collectors pay the farmers,\" he said.Farmer Daniel Wogogo has seen the unit price of his coffee beans more than double since he became part of the value chain. \"In the past, I would sell my coffee beans to anyone who appeared and the price was really low,\" he said. \"I have now increased my coffee trees to 25,000, covering 35 acres (14 ha) of land.\"Anderson Investments provides free advisory services on crop management techniques to smallholder suppliers, to help them increase their yields. Farmers also receive support in postharvest handling to ensure that they meet quality standards. Interest-free credit is available to help producers pay for essential inputs such as fertiliser and spray pumps. A flexible repayment system deducts the loans from producers' earnings, at a rate that they can afford. Farmers are also supplied with free tarpaulins to dry their coffee beans.Since coffee is a seasonal crop, the company supports its smallholder suppliers in diversifying and tapping into other income generating activities.Most producers have now taken up beekeeping and dairy farming to earn extra income. This supplementary revenue helps prevent farmers from being tempted to sell off their coffee to other buyers. angella nabwoweWith support from a local private enterprise, Ugandan coffee farmers are improving quality. As a result, they are reaping the rewards of being part of a streamlined value chain linked to export markets.Value chains have great potential for small scale producers to access high value markets. Formal market value chains are often more technically difficult than informal markets, but when producers do succeed, they offer a chance to accelerate their professionalisation and competitiveness.Of course, we all want to avoid the risks inherent in linking the weakest producers to the most demanding markets. Our work centres on supporting companies to reach down to smaller-scale farmers and developing appropriate investment and trading structures, and on working with farmers to upgrade so as to access more challenging but more beneficial markets. This is not to say that formal markets are for all farmers.Are some markets better than others for value chains?Markets are different -some offer higher barriers to entry. Fresh vegetables and fruits are among the most technically demanding, but they can generate high value on small parcels of land. On the flipside, staple commodities are the often the most technically accessible markets, with high local demand, but it is difficult to realise sufficient value on small parcels of land. There is more opportunity these days to form value chain relationships with the growing tendency for more formal local and regional markets -beer production, poultry, etc.What type of person is most likely to benefit from a value chain?The processors and producers most likely to succeed are those with an entrepreneurial spirit, a willingness to communicate, and the farm, financial and knowledge assets to invest in accessing these new markets.Who is most likely to be excluded?Those with smaller land bases, who are more remote, have fewer assets, suffer from language barriers, no irrigation and ineffective farmer organisations. Public co-investment is often needed to build the assets of the producers, address infrastructure barriers and build the capacity of the intermediary organisation that can link small producers to markets.What are the most probable risks in value chain participation and what is the best strategy for managing them?Risks include entering a market with few buyers, technical difficulties relating to some crops -leading to higher wastage rates -changes in markets causing buyers to withdraw, price pressures reducing profitability, farmers not realising the productivity required to be profitable and weather variability. Risk management includes formal contracts that ensure clear knowledge and terms of trade, longer-term pricing and contracting, insurance funds, irrigation to reduce weather risk, climate adaptation investments and market diversification.  A number of elements have contributed to the development and viability of value chains. A favourable environment will bring together policies, training suitable for all actors, targeted research and dynamic regional economic communities.o consumer is going to buy agricultural products at the farm gate in ACP countries. This shows the extent to which state intervention is crucial for the development of value chains. Roads, electricity, etc. as well as infrastructures -all of which are the government's responsibility -are absolutely essential. And these are not the only important factors. Adequate policies are also a prerequisite of value chain development. Agricultural, land tenure, trade, industrial, fiscal and monetary policies are all affected by government choices and actions, whatever the sector. The more the government extends protection -to land tenure, access to financing, etc. -and the greater its efforts to ensure transparency (of market prices) and set in place favourable economic and trade policies (stable and balanced interest and exchange rates, fiscal policies, favourable banking regulations for business and trading tax, employment legislation, implementation of contracts, etc.), the more it encourages value chain development. Government choices and options often have far-reaching consequences for the competitiveness of value chains. A recent study on cereals in Zimbabwe recommends that the government find a fair balance between protection for local industry and promotion of regional trade, for the sake of food security. Dasheen that previously sold for as little as €0.18 per kg can now earn up to €1 per kg. Success has drawn other farmers to the group, which now numbers 400 producers. Plans are in hand to expand into a similar approach with sweet potatoes and ginger.Zimbabwean producers and millers are in competition with South Africa, where access to GMOs is free. For them, it is a form of unfair competition, since access to GMOs is strictly controlled in Zimbabwe. South African millers would therefore have access to cereals that are 47% cheaper than those available to their Zimbabwean counterparts.In some countries, governments have taken the initiative in giving a boost to a number of value chains. A case in point is Cameroon, where, with the help of the International Trade Centre, the government has linked up with producers to give fresh impetus to the coffee sector. Once one of the country's most dynamic export sectors, coffee was experiencing serious difficulties due to unregulated liberalisation. The goal was to create a professional and durable commodity chain that would be financially profitable for all actors, and to reposition Cameroon in the expanding global marketplace.Public-private cooperation can be highly beneficial to value chains. In Tanzania and Uganda, for example, public, private and industrial sectors have worked together to develop Nile perch breeding. Increasingly demanding sanitary standards required by the European Union, a major importer, have posed a threat to this activity. The authorities in both countries have established quality standards and criteria, set up control systems and brought in legislation. Several ministries have worked together on the issue: Agriculture, Fisheries, Industry, Trade and the Environment. The value chain now provides a livelihood for a number of fishing communities.Services such as extension, training and research are also important for the setting up and strengthening of effective value chains. Service hubs offering loans, inputs, information and market opportunities can play a significant role in creating a favourable environment, whether they are organised by the State, by cooperatives or by private enterprises, and they are likely to help improve value chain access to small-scale producers and other actors.The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), together with a number of partner institutions from the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), have launched two projects which will explore, amongst other things, how value chains can be set up to benefit poor communities, not just in terms of revenue, but also concerning health and food. Within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) is working on the value chain model -coordination between actors, added value at each stage, a market-led approach -to develop regional industry. Several food stores and supermarkets in Kinshasa (DRC) and the province of Bas Congo (in the south-west), sell agrifood products stamped with 'Kimpese Agrifood Information and Extension Centre (CIVAK)'. Among them is chickwangue (cassava bread), jam and pots of chilli pepper. These well packaged products are the work of students from the Higher Institute of Applied Techniques for Agrifood Chemistry (ISTACHA), DR Congo's leading agrifood university institution, launched in 2005. In this country, where agrifood industries are in acute short supply, a large share of common consumer products are imported at sky-high prices. But there is no shortage of raw materials. On the contrary, kilos of fruit and vegetables are left to rot, due to lack of conservation facilities. At ISTACHA, students process products in modern workshops. \"Building a collective future for food in DR Congo is possible if you create your own jobs,\" says Father Charles Kusita, the school's founder and director general. In this establishment, the programme puts more emphasis on practice than on theory. After 3 years of studies, the students only get their diplomas when they have set up a prosperous agrifood processing unit. They can choose between processing flour and substitutes, fruit, milk, vegetables, meat products, poultry or fish. Training involves some practice with management so that the students can learn to work on their own. The presence of ISTACHA in Kimpese -a market town -is a valuable boost for farmers. \"With this institution here, I am safe in the knowledge that I can sell my peppers,\" says Alain Lukebana. Like him, many farmers have found an outlet for their produce. Increasingly, consumers of products from ISTACHA are urban dwellers. \"Some people only trust these products, especially the chickwangue, because they are natural and well packaged,\" explains a salesman for Didier Chic at Matadi, 365 km from Kinshasa. One such customer is Héritier Lusadisu. \"I have more faith in the quality of these products and I buy them to support the farmers,\" he says. Not content with merely developing links between producers and consumers, Charles Kusita is encouraging cooperation at national level. At the beginning of April, he received a visit from the Industry Minister who said he was impressed by the agrifood products The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) has launched an initiative to create and promote regional value chains for strategic agricultural food products in Africa. Two regional economic communities, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), have been running a pilot project based on three products -livestock, maize and rice -since 2006. The initiative is carried out in partnership with the African Union Commission (AUC) and FAO. The involvement of other development partners and national and international research centres is facilitating the process. The aim is to find solutions for the fragmentation of the regional agricultural market in Africa, create a dynamic agrifood and agro-industrial sector so as to link farmers to both production methods and markets for agricultural products, strengthen African capacities so that the continent becomes a major player in the global agricultural economy, limit the new trend for grabbing Africa's land and water resources, and help manage climate change.In the Caribbean, where food security relies on imports, governments are focusing on strengthening regional agriculture through the CARICOM Regional Transformation Programme for Agriculture. Sweet potatoes, chillies and coconuts are the value chains being targeted for special attention at regional level.A conference speaker explains how the shea value chain works. States have to set and lead the vision. In an increasingly globalised and competitive economic environment driven by markets, there is a need to embrace a comprehensive approach to agricultural development and transformation and to focus on the entire food and agriculture system rather than agriculture narrowly limited to farming. There must be a shift from strategies and programmes (farming, agro-industry, marketing, etc.) focusing on different stages of the value chain separately and in a piecemeal way, to an integrated approach to developing all stages of the full value chains. States have the responsibility to create a conducive institutional and regulatory environment for investment and provide for the necessary public goods and services (especially R&D, infrastructure, trade facilitation, etc.) to stimulate private-sector investment and ensure its profitability. Policies should aim at removing all barriers to investment and to trade. Policies should also create incentives for investment in increasing efficiency at all stages of the value chain. Of particular importance in this regard are investment codes, fiscal policies, land policies, etc. that provide for the security and profitability of private investment.What is the importance of regional integration for value chain development?One of the main constraints to the development of agribusiness and industry on the continent is the extreme level of fragmentation of the markets. Regional integration should address market fragmentation (among 54 countries and more than a dozen sub-regional groupings) with a view to realising intra-African trade potential in food. First, regional integration should allow the realisation of economies of complementarity among the different sub-regions, especially through regional cooperation to develop strategic food and agricultural commodity belts (e.g. maize, rice, dairy, livestock/meat, etc.) based on agro-ecological comparative advantages. Second, regional integration should help realise economies of scale at all stages of the value chains, especially the agro-industry and agribusiness stages which often require a minimum scale to be viable and profitable. Third, regional integration would also result in economies of vertical coordination, by reducing transaction costs among key actors of the productive and services sectors involved in value chains. Fourth, linking up the farm to the market at both national and regional levels can also be a source of significant job creation and income generation.What is the role of public authorities to promote inclusiveness, and the participation of small producers in agricultural value chains?It is obvious that all the actors of the VC do not have the same negotiation and operative power. Helping small farmers get involved in VCs implies facilitating and supporting farmers' organisation and cooperatives to enhance their capacity to participate. It also calls for ensuring that smallholders have secured access to productive assets (especially land) and for facilitating smallholders' access to a reliable and affordable supply of inputs. Africa has experienced over the last few years increasing foreign direct investment (FDI) in agricultural land which, in itself, is good provided it brings significant and effective investment in African agriculture. However, many cases of large-scale acquisitions of land through these FDI deals have led the concerned local communities and small farmers who have not been involved or consulted being deprived of rights and assets. It is also important to promote and enforce innovative contractual arrangements (such as contract farming, outgrower schemes and commodity exchanges) to help integrate smallholder farmers in VC development by linking them to agribusiness enterprises.What is the role of UNECA for VC development?Since 2003, UNECA has successfully supported the African Union Commission in advocating for and helping operationalise regionally-coordinated VC development for strategic food and agricultural commodities within the framework of the NEPAD Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). We are now working in a broadening multi-institutional partnership with COMESA and ECOWAS (including FAO, CTA and strong interest from UNCTAD and UNIDO) to operationalise this shift in paradigm through an integrated approach from farming to market for developing the value chains of maize, rice and livestock products. Learning from the experience of these pilot efforts, we plan to extend this work to other strategic food and agricultural commodities and sub-regions of Africa. A major challenge over the past 3 years has been rising costs. Exporters have had to deal with increasing freight charges, soaring electricity prices, an almost 30% increase in quarantine treatment and packing rates, and a 25% increase in biosecurity charges.The project is working to alleviate the economic pressure by using sea freight for transport and newspaper as a packing material instead of foam, for potential savings of 80%.For years papaya growers in Fiji relied on the aeroplanes that brought tourists to the islands to freight produce to buyers, but costs were exorbitant. In 2011, a decision to trial a sea freight option to New Zealand found that transportation costs could be reduced by nearly 60%. For the shipping trial, the project accessed international expertise through partnerships with research organisations and industry. Prime issues were how best to stall ripening during the longer sea route and the need for cartons that protect the fruit while promoting cooling. Partners included the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, the Queensland Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation, NWC and Fiji-based agribusiness firm Koko Siga Fiji.Fiji papaya producing and exporting company Produce Specialities Ltd. was selected as the exporter for the sea freight trial and contributed fruit, cartons and packing material for the 6.5-tonne trial shipment. The Fiji Papaya Project covered freight costs and provided technical support and monitoring equipment. \"Aside from the technical treatments, the trial also let us test market uptake of Fijian papaya,\" said Kyle Stice, a tropical horticulturist and value chain specialist who coordinated the project. \"Up to this stage, Fiji had air-freighted about 700 cartons per week to New Zealand. But with sea-freight it was 1,300 cartons in a single week.\"The trial proved a commercial success.In New Zealand, the project worked closely with the importer, Fresh Direct, which ran in-store promotions for Fijian papayas and sold the entire trial container in one week. The Fiji Papaya Project is now working with local carton manufacturers on the design of a more appropriate sea freight carton that allows for cooling in transit and ripening once the fruit is at its destination. \"This successful private-public partnership could serve as a model for other fruits and vegetables and help to raise standards and expectations across the board,\" said Dr Richard Markham of ACIAR. Dionisia TabureguciSituated thousands of kilometres from target markets, transport costs and logistics have proved a significant hurdle for Fiji's burgeoning papaya industry. But a public-private partnership has found a way of almost halving freight costs -and doubling exports.","tokenCount":"14009"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6e690f5e442a31b55473654ffccc4a29","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8f888ff0-5fcd-4196-8e5a-04d3ca68cb59/retrieve","id":"-1804966444"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b38581da-b5a6-4bce-8ee8-b6d6f2760574","pagecount":"10","content":"T-Hub is India's largest incubator for startups. T-Hub is also set to collaborate with Facebook, Intel, Boeing, Microsoft and more to run programs supporting startups to link up with large corporations. Though promoted by the Telangana State government, day-to-day operations are completely left to a professional team, which reports to a Board of Directors drawn from the ecosystem.The basic objective of T-Hub is to encourage young entrepreneurs' start-ups and scale up their operations. They can come up with a business idea for T-Hub, which will help them translate it into a product or service.In six years, T-Hub has helped about 2,000 startups build teams and help them with products and finding markets. There are few than 100 Agtech startups at T-Hub. T-Hub soon caught the imagination of young entrepreneurs in Hyderabad and across India. As it evolved, T-Hub began to focus on deep tech areas such as Blockchain, AI, Big Data, ML, IoT, and Mobility and brought in several industry partners to offer accelerators. As a result, the Telangana Government decided on a much larger campus to provide space for all the ecosystem players. The Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad (RICH), a Government of Telangana initiative and the Hyderabad Science and Technology Cluster Lead for the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, serves as a strategic convenor, fostering collaboration among academic and research institutions, industry, entrepreneurs, and start-ups to enable the transformation of scientific research into impactful solutions that generate jobs, wealth and social good. RICH works in three verticals -Food and Agriculture, Lifesciences, and Sustainability. To date, they have collaborated with over 250 start-ups, 41 of which are agri-startups, and established a network of more than 30 R&D organizations to support start-ups. It is also part of a thriving ecosystem that includes over 76 incubators and accelerators in Telangana.MANAGE also provides pre-incubation training programs to assist anyone with an agricultural business idea in areas such as idea development, understanding the agristartup ecosystem and business development. With the boom in the agri-tech sector and more and more agricultural professionals getting into entrepreneurship, foundation programs like pre-incubation programs will help to set them on the right path. The program is a 22-day capacity building program for aspiring agripreneurs & startups, consisting of 30 hours spread across 15 days followed by a week of one-on-one sessions.• To guide interested people in idea generation.• To assist people with business ideas in the agri-startup ecosystem.• To provide them with foundational support in their entrepreneurial journey.Intended benefits for participants.• Gain information about the agri-startup ecosystem.• An understanding of the opportunities for agripreneurs and agri-startups in the upcoming future.• Support to develop products and services.• Exposure to possible investors and information from MANAGE-CIA.• Develop a technical understanding of the business.• Assistance in preparing a business model.• Learn modern marketing strategies.• Familiarity with fundraising strategies and government strategies for startups.• Learn effective ways of presenting to investors.• One-on-one experience sharing sessions with existing startups.• Use of the facilities provided by MANAGE-CIA.• Mentor-Mentee Support Programme from MANAGE-CIA.AgHub is an agri-food innovation and entrepreneurship incubator built to a hub and spoke The Indian Institute of Millets Research (IIMR) is a premier agricultural research institute engaged in basic and strategic research on sorghum and other millets under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). IIMR coordinates and facilitates millets research at the national level through and provides linkages with various national and international agencies.The Institute has scaled-up value addition protocols through pilot studies for the use of kharif grain in the non-food sector, particularly feed, starch production and potable or industrial alcohol; and sweet-stalked sorghum in the production of syrup and ethanol.Nutrihub, ICAR-IIMR startup programs are designed to foster innovation through access to cutting-edge technology and a network of leading industry leaders, mentors, and investors.Nutrihub supports the growth of over 500 millet startups, connecting entrepreneurs with and other stakeholders (corporations, governments, academia, and investors) to bring transformative change. Unmiti developed a seed forecasting system for the International Crops Research Center for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). The system makes projections of demand for seeds by examining past and present performance levels, combined with an assessment of available seeds and markets.Innomick Technologies is a startup whose strength is in early warning systems and weather information.The ICRISAT Innovation Hub (iHub) is a creative space where agricultural tech entrepreneurs, scientists, and technology experts can collaborate to innovate cutting-edge ideas across the whole agriculture value chain for smallholder farmers. The iHub promotes such intense collaborations between entrepreneurs and ICRISAT scientists.The study tour highlighted the many opportunities to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and innovations between Indian AgriTech startups and their counterparts in Africa with potential for significant impact on food security. We identified a thriving innovation ecosystem in India working to address many shared challenges. The South-South Platform is a co-created effort to enable the exchange of knowledge and solutions. In this model, selected participants will receive support to enable their international expansion through direct industry linkages, target market and sector understanding, investor connects, insights to scale up across borders and the opportunity to receive financial grants to facilitate their solution adoption to benefit smallholder farmers in Asia and Africa.","tokenCount":"861"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"bedf11e6b1f21112dd4e242ada7794ed","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/7caae191-620d-404c-8944-a792c72a843d/content","id":"1966517642"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8b6268b7-aa7b-4265-8e77-13eab7d022f5","pagecount":"19","content":"At first, we saw this as a challenge, nevertheless it was very much of an interest to us, given the fact on what our industries and rural areas in our three countries are currently facing: the aging of the rural population, the migration of young people, either to urban areas or to other countries, and the challenge to produce more for a rising population amid a never-seen climatic adverse environment .We realized that Agricultural Extension Services and Technology Transfer and their role within agricultural production, food supply chain and rural development, are different and therefore in our perspective it was fundamental to understand the various elements involved in the North American regional ecosystems . This will facilitate, not only our understanding, but the exchange of experiences and a common adoption of best practices, technology transfer, and a better promotion and advocacy of agricultural advisory services in the region .Extensionists must be at the core of the agrifood system and its constant transformation; and be also maintained as a solid and strong link in the food supply chain, so that innovations generated at the research level can be brought to farmers, ranchers, and fishermen, making food production more efficient, safe, reliable, sustainable, profitable and friendlier with the environment, while having the ability to respond to constant challenges and build resilience for future generations .We are convinced that science and innovation are key elements to face the challenges on producing efficiently, sufficient, nutritious, safe and affordable food while facing a challenging climatic environment, and significant components to preserve our natural resources, manage our soil and water and protect our biodiversity for future generations . Feeding North America Through Agricultural Extension-a Report from the North American Agricultural Advisory Network (NAAAN) Building synergies between research institutions, scientists and extensionists and advocating and promoting international cooperation is fundamental to achieve these goals .Similarly, we must foster leadership building and strengthen the entrepreneurial spirit of young boys and girls, so they can, not only be active participants, but vocal in orienting the much-needed changes to transform them into sustainable agricultural and food systems .We are very excited of the progress done at the North American Agricultural Advisory Network, and we believe that having the advice and experience of experts, such as Dr . Cathie Woteki, David Nielson, Doug Steele, Matthew McMahon, and Francisco Escobar Vega, among other will be instrumental in encouraging a dialogue to design efficient public policies for a sustainable agriculture, and be able to attract new generations to an active participation within this industry, as well as in productive activities in rural areas, bringing economic, environmental and social development in their respective communities .We must allow and evoke the young to dream, to be inquisitive, and to foster and nurture their thriving spirit .The country chapter studies on extension networks and agricultural advisory services in Canada, the United States and Mexico prepared by their respective country teams will also provide important elements and insights for discussion and proposal-building, and we certainly look forward to the next steps under this scope of cooperation .We are convinced that this collaboration will be game changer to our research institutions, to many smallscale farmers, to indigenous communities, and to our youth from remote communities, by bringing a positive effect in the access to knowledge and science . NAAAN will help to make a difference, so they can definitely change their world .Thank you very much . \"-Secretary VillalobosBecause of its location, Mexico provides an entry point for agricultural trade for all of North America, in addition to its strong business ties with Central and South America and features tremendous culinary and cultural diversity . The country's stretched geography, rugged topology, and long coastlines along two oceans results in multitudinous microclimates, agroecologies, and crop production systems, most of which are found at tropical and subtropical latitudes . Accordingly, Mexican agriculture is rich but complex to systematize and improve, generating the need for in-depth multidisciplinary research and experts with an ample range of specialties, along with solid, flexible and interlinked exchange and knowledge transfer programs .Mexico also struggles with severe socioeconomic challenges, starting with a highly-urbanized (80%) population concentrated in a few cities and dependent on food supplies from rural areas whose residents are ageing and rapidly diminishing (FAOSTAT, 2018) . Mexico is the 11th ranked country in the world in terms of agricultural production, representing 3 . 7 % of its GDP (CEDRSSA, 2019), and with 21 million hectares of arable land it provides employment for nearly 7 million of its 130 million inhabitants (SIAP, 2019) . Furthermore, although Mexico has improved its Human Development Index (currently with an HDI of 0 . 774), in 2018 42% of its population was impoverished and 1 in 5 Mexicans suffered from hunger (FAO, 2021), and in 2016 70% of the population was found to be overweight or obese (INSP, 2018) . These data confirm Mexico's paradoxical situation (FAO, 2021) and explains the government's agri-food policy, which focuses on increasing overall well-being while attending to the needs of small-and intermediate-scale farmers (owning on average land less than 5 and 15 hectares, respectively), who represent 85% of the nation's farmers . Most of the latter are only informally organized and many pursue subsistence agriculture, in contrast to the market orientation of Mexico's larger-scale and more politically influential farmers .Although Mexico invests more public money in agriculture than any other Latin American country, in relation to its GDP, the lion's share of this budget consists of direct transfers to farmers as income support or farm input subsidies (Govaerts et al ., 2019) . The last decade the budget for agricultural extension has not exceeded 1 . 7% of the primary sector budget, with the highest amount during 2016-18, and representing an average annual value of USD 63 . 5 million . With such limited resources applied over such a large territory and facing significant socioeconomic adversity -including outmigration and organized crime in rural areas (Läderach et al ., 2021), it is easy to understand the difficulties of establishing consolidated extension programs that produce sustainable and scalable long-term impacts . More so, according to the National Agricultural Census, only 1 .3% of all rural productive units have access to farm assistance and training services, which is 15% fewer than in countries with a more developed agricultural sector .To establish a systematized approach to agricultural extension in Mexico that pursues modernization within a reality of great disparity is a complex challenge . This document aims to provide an overview and history of Mexico's multi-faceted agricultural extension effort, as managed by the country's public sector and partners over the last century, with a graphical timeline given in Figure 1 .  Additionally, given the vast natural biodiversity of maize, Mexico was destined to become a global center of excellence for this important staple crop (Damania, Valkoun, Willcox, & Qualset, 1998) . In the case of wheat, the country's agro-ecological diversity led to the creation of breeding schemes involving multiple cycles per year phenotyped at contrasting locations, known as \"shuttle breeding\" (Ortiz et al ., 2007), which accelerated improvement and broadened wheat's adaptation . Breeding research in Mexico for tropical maize, including the first widespread collection and cataloguing of related genetic resources, and to develop highyielding and rust-resistant wheat, gained tremendous impetus under the joint Mexico-Rockefeller Foundation \"Office of Special Studies\" established in 1943 (Byerlee, 2016) . The successes of that program led among other things to the launch in Mexico in 1966 of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), a 1970 Nobel Prize for wheat scientist Norman E . Borlaug, and the establishment of CGIAR, the leading, global agricultural research-for-development partnership . The Mexico-Rockefeller Foundation program also influenced the format and approaches of INIFAP's predecessors, which included seeking international partnerships, particularly with US experts and organizations . Benefiting from Mexico's genetic and ecological diversity and development experience, CIMMYT has generated and shared improved varieties of maize and wheat, as well as related genetic resources, knowledge, and improved cropping system practices to benefit farmers and consumers worldwide (Krishna et al ., 2021;Lantican et al ., 2016) . Its presence in Mexico has helped offer responses to the changing local demands of agri-food systems and actors, as well as consolidating a strong relationship with Mexican farmers in co-development and co-learning for rural development (Camacho-Villa et al ., 2016) .In line with Mexico's Agricultural and Rural Development Sector Program (ARDSP) 2020-2024 (Secretaría de Agricultura y Desarollo Rural, 2020), INIFAP contributes to the three, primary ARDSP objectives: 1) Achieve food self-sufficiency by increasing agricultural, livestock and aquaculture production and productivity; 2) Contribute to the well-being of the rural population by including historically excluded farmers in rural and coastal productive activities, taking advantage of the potential of the territories and local markets; and 3) Increase the use of sustainable productions practices in the agricultural and aquaculture/fishing sector in the face of agro-climatic risk . The third objective favors innovation management and transfer using fourteen technology transfer models, of which seven are participatory models in a context of direct agricultural extension . At that time, the USA had been operating agricultural extension services through land-grant universities for several decades . Lacking a similar system, Mexico started an \"extension experiment\" by contracting regionally based agronomists through the Secretary of Agriculture (Terán y Terán, 2008) . So, rather than being provided by universities, extension services are offered by the government . In Mexico, \"extension\" is understood as instruction, technical guidance and practice made available to farmers, while \"technical advisory service\" refers to an intervention at individual farmer level . Because the challenges faced by rural inhabitants in Mexico are not only agri-technological but also socio-economic, a new concept of \"rural extension\" emerged (Vázquez Alvarado, Solé Salgado, Gutiérrez, & Trinidad Ruiz, 2015), aiming at the informal education of rural populations and requiring multidisciplinary knowledge and practices that strengthen an integrating and motivational vision regarding tradition and where communication has much to contribute .The present-day situation reflects administrative changes begun in 1982, with a new economic paradigm based on competitiveness, opening to external markets, and a new vision for development that included a heightened role for the private sector and, even, the privatization of parastatal enterprises and public services for agricultural . With this came a reorientation of extension toward productivity, in accordance with the demands of international markets and the elimination of longstanding trade barriers that had been fashioned to protect Mexican agriculture (Salcedo, 1999), as well as the removal of the official extension system . In 1988, government policies promoted the creation of enterprises and independent consultant groups under a subsidized payment scheme, where in some cases the accredited farmer was obliged to gradually absorb the cost of technical assistance (Salcedo, 1999) . In other words, agricultural extension became a practice where sector professionals guided the knowledge transfer and productive processes for rural development . These institutional changes have generated a broad panorama of structures and elements to catalyze innovation under particular conditions and in specific settings, but lack the ability to generate feedback loops or systemic evaluations of quality and learnings to foster institutional interaction (Govaerts et al ., 2019) . Moreover, except for INIFAP's Specialized Technical Units 2 (STU) for livestock services during 2008-12 and the STU for agricultural services during 2011-13, there has been no formal linkage between research and extension in Mexico . However, responding to this need and in view of its commitment to increase the productivity of maize and wheat crops, CIMMYT has developed a methodology that promotes collaboration among local actors through participatory schemes, with farmers as the main agents of change . The MasAgro initiative started in 2009 as a model based on design thinking, through which CIMMYT, as an independent broker, coordinates public-private partnerships involving INIFAP, state universities, and companies, among others, as well as integrating service providers by agroecology . The aim is to consolidate efforts attending to farmers' needs, according to their scale of operation, production systems, technology level, and socioeconomic circumstances (Liedtka, Salzman, & Azer, 2017) .The model interprets agricultural extension as a technical mentoring in support of experimentation and adoption of good farming practices by leading farmers, researchers, and change agents . This operates through innovation nodes or hubs located in agroecological zones defined by crop (maize, wheat and associated crops) and farming system . Each hub features an infrastructure of learning spaces including research platforms, modules, and extension and impact areas that facilitate networking, knowledge exchange and co-creation (IICA, 2016) . In research platforms, local scientific partners evaluate technologies and local knowledge to develop recommendations for farmers . In the modules, farmers are connected to peers, farm advisors and other value chain actors . Together they implement and adapt best practices from research platforms and compare them with conventional practices . Extension areas are fields where farmers test solutions in connection with modules or research platforms . Impact areas are where farmers have adapted and adopted similar innovations on their own . This network of stakeholders seeks to innovate and improve the sustainability of agri-food systems, through increased awareness, knowledge sharing, and the alignment of value chain actors (Gardeazabal et al ., 2021) . Each component of this infrastructure is built upon an agreement of collaboration and shared commitment in response to farmers' needs . Feeding North America Through Agricultural Extension-a Report from the North American Agricultural Advisory Network (NAAAN)Thus, through the hubs agricultural extension becomes a dynamic social process involving farmers, farm advisors (or professional service providers) and extensionists, researchers and their institutes, and companies, to exchange information and knowledge and increase innovation and productivity, without losing a local focus and ensuring feedback for quality control (Liedtka et al ., 2017) . CIMMYT operates 12 hubs covering 29 of 32 states, with 38 active experimental platforms connected to 308 modules and 790 extension areas in 2020 alone (Figure 2) . From 2010 to 2020, farmers on more than 1 .3 million hectares have adopted innovations transferred through the innovation nodes . As part of its distinct vision, CIBNOR promotes its staff's strategic agroindustry research as the basis of its extension-related activities and services . These have operated as of 2019 by way of its \"Coordination of Linkages, Innovation and Knowledge Transfer to Society\" programs (Spanish acronym, COVITECS) to generate and disseminate scientific knowledge and innovations and develop technology and human resources, addressing the needs of farmers, organizations, institutes, and companies at regional, national and international levels . CIBNOR's broad coverage owes partly to extensive partnerships with universities, public research institutes and government agencies, NGOs, and international organizations .The more traditional agricultural extension strategy of COLPOS balances scientific research and the preparation of academically trained specialists with the field-based services of training and technology transfer towards farmers . The implementation of \"Plan Puebla\" 3 in 1967 proved the effectiveness of combining scientific research with extension services and working directly with farmers and their families to promote innovations with demonstrated potential to increase productivity . Building on this nationally and internationally recognized experience, COLPOS has updated its strategy to extend capacity building and technology transfer to social groups in areas near its campuses and, especially, those considered highly marginalized, designated \"Priority Care Microregions . \" Although COLPOS's activities on training and technology transfer are mainly for higher education and research, they also provide a feedback pathway regarding the relevance of academic work, helping to ensure that professors or research reflect reality in the field and remain updated on context-specific social and economic techniques . The institution's applied research takes place through seven campuses, but locallyimparted farmer courses can be highly relevant for a region and important for Mexican agriculture . Topics of interest have included small-scale agriculture and climate change, soil conservation and integrated water management, high-yielding crop varieties, postharvest storage practices, biotechnological innovations for disease control, livestock genetics and nutrition, organization of the farmer-production-marketing chain, and the need for sustainable, environmentally-friendly production (Tables 1 and 2) . The objectives of the different advisory, training and extension activities that are carried out for farmers by CIBNOR respond directly to its mission, vision and strategic objectives mentioned above and are reflected in its Academic Programs for Scientific Research (Table 3) . All extension activities and services are aligned with the National Development Plan, as well as state-and municipality-level plans for food production . Most CIBNOR extension is an integral part of specific scientific research and transfer programs, so it is the investigators and technicians who conduct it and these people have become experts in their specialty . The academic profiles of most CIBNOR researchers includes postgraduate degrees (MSc and PhD), while farm technician profiles are more diverse . Researchers and technicians play complementary roles . The core vocation of CIBNOR is scientific research; extension is seen as complementary and a voluntary pursuit of researchers .CIMMYT implements agricultural extension through a community-based approach and mentoring for innovation, seeking the long-term transfer of knowledge and fostering adoption of efficient practices for field-level innovation . This differs from traditional extension, in that it aims to consolidate and accelerate technical farm assistance supported by an enabling, knowledge management environment in which the farmer is co-proprietor and co-developer of innovative solutions . Key features include the following:• Hub infrastructure is functional, dynamic and adaptable to different public policy programs for technical assistance and in accordance with the diverse needs of small-, intermediate-, and large-scale farmers .• The direct, continuous and timely mentoring of farmers to co-develop and adapt innovations and encouraging farmer-to-farmer adoption for greater impact .• Networks of collaborators-trainers constantly update their knowledge and skills for tutoring, monitoring, and evaluating farm advisors or technicians .The development of human capital and the positive impact on rural social cohesion fulfills a strategic role in this framework and ensures that extensionists meet quality expectations, connecting science and technical expertise through farmer interactions . In this way, the innovation hub and network of collaborators-trainers offers pluralistic trainings as described in various studies (FAO, 2010;Missika, 2006;Otoo, Agapitova, & Behrens, 2009), able to focus simultaneously on the individual, organizations and the social setting, while giving equal priority to all three . The formation of individual leaders and change agents helps to develop stronger institutions; these institutions provide alternative norms and develop conducive environments for staff to develop those skills and, subsequently, individuals and institutions with a greater capacity to effect change (Gill, Jones, & Hammett, 2016) .As part of capacity building, CIMMYT pursues joint research with the National Agricultural Research Systems (SNIA) and involving national and international students from undergraduate and graduate degrees, to promote knowledge and a sense of vocation in present and future generations of scientists, while also offering training for agri-food system professionals and value chain actors, aiming to develop management and agronomic skillsets .As part of the above, the Center conducts the \"training-of-trainers\" (ToT) and a \"certified technician\" program in sustainable agriculture . The ToT scheme connects theory with farmers' traditional knowledge through in-person interactions and learning spaces in innovation hubs, constituting continuous learning for farm advisors and technical service providers and allowing them to make informed, creative relevant, and flexible decisions in diverse contexts and use their knowledge, ability and attitude responsibly . The certified technician course offers prospective or experienced farm advisors high-level, specialized training in sustainable agriculture, developing the technical and methodological knowhow to speed the spread of profitable, climate-smart farming tailored to local conditions . The course enables graduates to prioritize innovation, results, and accountability, following international guidelines such as those of the OECD (McMahon & Valdés, 2011) and standards of specialized research centers for technology transfer and agricultural innovation (Aguilar Ávila, Altamirano Cárdenas, & Rendón Medel, 2010) . Regular interaction among trainers and Feeding North America Through Agricultural Extension-a Report from the North American Agricultural Advisory Network (NAAAN)the expert assistance of certified technicians enriched through farmer feedback foster continual monitoring how improved practices and innovative technologies are applied throughout the crop cycle . Since 2009, CIMMYT has trained 449 certified technicians in 7 hubs and built a network of 24 trainers, all contributing to an average 400 field demonstrations and farmer training events annually, with a cumulative reach of over 300,000 participants .In addition, through the federally funded support program \"Technical Assistance to Beneficiaries of the PROAGRO Productivo Component,\" MasAgro has provided technical mentorship to nearly 35,000 farmers working on more than 68,000 hectares, including personalized assistance with agronomic planning, in 16 Mexican states (Campeche, Chiapas, Estado de México, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Michoacán, Oaxaca, Puebla, Querétaro, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Tlaxcala, Veracruz, and Yucatán) during 2017-2018 .4.0 Attention to Farmers in a Changing, Multidisciplinary and Globalized EnvironmentWorking with marginalized farmers in south-southeast Mexico, INIFAP aims to create innovation empowerment or appropriation among farmers by matching technology offerings with available natural and farmer resources, as well as providing training for agribusinesses, working through iterative improvement and building on the institute's technology portfolio, as well as that of partners and farmers themselves .Technicians play a pivotal role to bridge farmers and research and therefore must be able to further the requisite interactions . Agribusiness training is critical to add value to produce and increase farm household income, particularly regarding the choice of products to grow/market and how to launch and run a business .The work of COLPOS operating 14 PCM across agroecological zones has received special attention in recent years, with the UN and FAO emphasis on uplifting family farms and smallholder production systems to foster food security in developing nations . PCM activities in part aim to address decades of rural outmigration by working-age males in Mexico, with training and technology transfer targeted to women and older men who increasingly lead households and agriculture . Updates on this work are submitted regularly to a special government commission on the issue and feature in presidential reports .To attend to stakeholders' extension needs, CIBNOR works to deliver on-demand services requested by farmers, public organizations or companies . COVITECS coordinate such requests based on perceived needs for innovation as articulated by their scientists and technicians, as well as students, entrepreneurs, and social and production sector actors . Such services may or may not be charged and can include courses and workshops, technical or scientific assistance, diagnostic services, lab and other analyses, transfer of biological materials, or knowledge or technology transfers . Services are usually provided through personal interaction or group events and digital and written materials, including technical manuals, educational brochures, and outreach materials . Feeding North America Through Agricultural Extension-a Report from the North American Agricultural Advisory Network (NAAAN)4.4 Innovation Networks and Knowledge Management for Agri-Food System InnovationMasAgro and its innovation mentoring model have established a network for effective communication regarding maize and wheat agri-food system innovation among farmers, independent practitioners and academics from national and international research communities (Figure 3), featuring diverse channels for social interaction and catalyzing cross-border knowledge flows and digital access (Gardeazabal et al ., 2021;Govaerts et al ., 2019) . The network is complex, with intensive, interrelated processes that require adaptive and integrative knowledge management and a high awareness of actors' priorities and relationships and of the linkages among technologies, practices and proposed solutions (Camacho-Villa et al ., 2016;Schut et al ., 2016) . Its operation also requires an open attitude to support knowledge creators and disseminators, including local and regional intermediaries (Hellin & Camacho-Villa, 2017), as well as to facilitate feedback and overcome barriers to an holistic application of science, policy, and practice . The preceding is supported by a data capture system, as well as other digital science and communications technologies, to monitor progress, analyze outcomes and Feeding North America Through Agricultural Extension-a Report from the North American Agricultural Advisory Network (NAAAN)generate recommendations at the field, landscape, country, and regional levels and within technical, commercial and political spheres (Gardeazabal et al ., 2021) .For Mexico, CIMMYT has setup a monitoring and evaluation dashboard to capture learning and support accountability from field level data for up to 500 variables loaded by farmers, technicians and partners (CIMMYT, 2020) . Data for activities from more than 200,000 fields have been registered, helping to hone agronomic recommendations and this is considered a frontier technology for agricultural extension (Analytics, 2020;SDNS & TRENDS, 2019) . With such technologies, CIMMT strives to strengthen knowledge management for innovation, improve the understanding of the complexity of agricultural extension in Mexico, and face the challenges of the country's diverse environment .Government support of MasAgro helped to drive a paradigm shift in agricultural extension toward increased innovation based on an inclusive model of shared knowledge . A renewed commitment under the umbrella program \"Crops for Mexico,\" led by CIMMYT and Mexico government through the Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Development, will replicate this model in multiple production systems and their value chains in order to broaden efforts to attract and leverage public-private co-investment to scale it Mexico-wide (Govaerts et al ., 2019;IICA, 2016) .From the federal government, the Program for Rural Development has started work in 420 PRODETERs with 100 extension workers specialized in strategic planning, to unite farmer groups of farmers and conduct participatory planning, identifying local problems and investment priorities for increased household productivity and income . In parallel, research and technology transfer activities are being led by competent institutions with local presence, experience, and technologies, including INIFAP, the National Fisheries Institute, COLPOS, UACH and several state universities .Diagnostic and the planning exercises by locally-bound extensionists and farmers groups have defined relevant projects to strengthen primary production and economic integration, for implementation by 400 investment project development specialists . Best-fit extension profiles and technicians will be chosen for each project and value chain, the latter corresponding mainly to those that can ensure local food supplies in each PRODETER (e .g ., maize, beans, milk, honey, coffee, fruit trees, meat and aquaculture-fish) .In the 420 PRODETERs, 2,600 extension workers from diverse agricultural, livestock, fishery and socioeconomic disciplines have taken part in strategic planning, investment project development, and project operation, as requested and endorsed by farmers . These efforts have afforded support to more than 123,000 farmers in over 550 priority care and highly marginalized municipalities in 32 states .The national extension strategy reflects the aims of improving livelihoods and increasing food security in rural communities, by stabilizing basic food production and access to healthy diets (Swanson, 2008) . Institutions such as INIFAP and CIMMYT reflect the national vision, helping to coordinate and integrate of multiple interventions and targets programs . The need to remain flexible to enable context-specific implementation and delivery is nonetheless clear, and this is where institutes like COLPOS and CIBNOR fit in .Public-led extension for resource-poor farmers differs great from that targeting commercial scale farm enterprises (Swanson, 2008)  6.0 Public Policies and Extension in the Agri-Food Sector 6.1 Areas of Opportunity and \"Disruptive\" ImprovementThe ARDSP 2020-2024 mentions extension as a strategic policy instrument toward sustainable agriculture, aquaculture, and fisheries, encouraging in farming the efficient water and soil use and their long-term availability, as well as integrated disease and pest management, the conservation and recuperation of ecosystems services and the effective coaching of diverse farmers . Aims for the latter include changing farmers' mindset and improving their skills, while acknowledging their culture and incorporating traditional know-how to preserve natural resources and stabilize or increase productivity .In addition, to shake up the paradigm that extension should focus solely on production activities directly related to field operations and limited to the field itself, the idea of extension with a localized vision is proposed, recognizing the reciprocal connections of land use with the natural environment and landscapes .In fact, the natural resources and ecosystem services of landscapes are an integral part of agricultural, aquaculture and fisheries, so considering their availability and limits is one of extension's great challenges .From this perspective, agricultural extension must promote sustainable practices that maintain or increase productivity while conserving and integrating the biodiversity of its production systems . This approach will contribute to climate change adaptation strategies and farmers' resilience by taking advantage of all available Feeding North America Through Agricultural Extension-a Report from the North American Agricultural Advisory Network (NAAAN)practices, knowledge and technologies and shaping production according to farmers' local environmental and socioeconomic conditions . The main challenges for extension are to understand which tools and practices can be used for each production system and to ensure that each practice in the proposed menu of solutions has a sound scientific and evidence base and fits the socioeconomic context .For this holistic vision to become reality, universities and the National Centers of Higher Education centers for agriculture must shape professionals able to address multidisciplinary challenges related to agroecologies, climate smart ecosystem management, and establishing competitive value chains in local and regional agrifood systems . Research centers should support the demand-based development of landscape-level alternatives through dialogue with farmers, considering traditional knowledge and share sustainable innovation with farmers and their communities .Finally, agricultural extension \"delivery\" must be supported through effective communication and in a permanent dialogue with famers, extension workers, technicians, researchers and governmental authorities .The channels established for this should enable continual (rather than occasional), open communication and motivate farmers to learn about innovations and incorporate new practices but holistically facilitate the integration of effective traditional know-how and techniques . Extension should also include youth and women in the extension work force and as part of the target population, considering the shifting demographics of rural communities and to stimulate generational renewal and the inclusion of women in the dialogue for productivity, if the way of life linked to primary production is to survive for those that choose to remain in the Mexican countryside .The Mexican countryside requires a continuous redesign of extension in line with arising challenges in the agricultural sector . Extension services can offer a solid avenue for improved smallholder productivity and incomes in poverty prone areas, but only when integrated and implemented in a coordinated manner, as described in the Program for Rural Development, avoiding unarticulated participation in the value chain participation that perpetuates the current, unequal distribution of income and wealth .The new vision for national agriculture is one of food self-sufficiency, while safeguarding natural resources and growing food with a sustainable and inclusive focus, building on knowledge-based agriculture and capacity development through extension . Accomplishing this transition will require specialized extension service agents able to catalyze greater productivity in agriculture, aquaculture and fisheries, incorporating science and sharing know-how for innovative research, technical coaching, advisory services and capacity development . National markets and participants need to be strengthened through organization and association, the development of entrepreneurial skills, access to finance, functional local markets, and the promotion of common goods for rural distribution, supply, and consumption . Localized interventions based on strategic participatory planning will contribute to the well-being of rural populations through the inclusion of historically excluded farmers . Finally, the promotion of sustainable production practices through new knowledgemanagement, technology, and methodological models will help reduce farmers' agroclimatic risk .","tokenCount":"5150"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"5824877b81430c1b1ce8ee024cd42399","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/65f9f5d0-404d-4c77-81e1-73259370e390/retrieve","id":"-1290804291"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c3306244-fdec-4ce1-b2b7-d372a0f30a4d","pagecount":"18","content":"Note: Ranking is inmeated on a scale from 1 lo 5, where ••••• indic.tes highly accept.ble and • inmeates I()w acceptabílity .which had the híghest yield was gíven low acceptance overall because it did not have acceptable skin color, unifonnity, or skin smoothness.Smooth skin color refers to skin that has not been damaged by weevils or nematodes and thal exhíbíts no cracking. Skin should be thick enough to withsland peelíng during transportatíon and to be resistant to weevils or nematodes. The smoothness of the skin has a considerable effect on the príce of sweet potaloes.Farmers always refer lo good-tasting sweet potatoes as ubi ketan (stícky sweet potatoes) ifthey see a sweet potato with purple flesh. According to them, these sweet potatoes get a good price.Toweko (W0139) was given eight flags because it meets the criteria ofbigh yield, good skin color, unifonnity in shape and size, good flesh color (dark yellow), and is suitable for fresh consumption and for snack food (keremes). According to fanners, the mínimum príce for Toweko should not be less !han Rp 500. After tastíng the raw Toweko, the fanners predicted that tbis cultivar would be well received in the market. The particípatíng farmer wanted to plant Toweko 30% in the first season and increase it to 50% for the next season. They said they would plant 100% ifthe market could absorb that mucho Two participating farmers, Haji Sumama and Amin, will be responsible for multiplyíng this sweet potato as asource ofplanting material.Umakmbi (WOlll) was chosen with four flags because the skin is very smooth and thick, meaning it could resist weevil attacks. The flesh color is dark pUIple, meaning it will taste good (ubi ketan-sticky sweet potato), and the roots are very uniform in shape and size. With these critería, the farmers predicted that this sweet potato would command a good price in the market. According to the farmers, they can increase the production oftbis variety. Farmer Unang will be responsible for multíplying this sweet potato as a source of planting material. Kinta (W033 1 ) was given six flags because of its high yield and purple flesh, meaning it will laste good (ubi ketan-sticky sweet potato). The skin is very smooth, with no evidence ofnematode attack. Farmer Agus will be responsible for muItiplying this sweet potato as a source of plantíng material.Lemekuwara (WOI13) was chosen with two flags because of ¡ts rounded shape and smooth, red skin, whích mean it will be easier to seU in the market. Farmers chose this from replication III, whích indicated high productíon. Farmer Eman will be responsible for multíplying this sweet potato as a source of planting material.Pipombi (WO 1 098) was chosen with eight flags because the size is uniform, il has smooth skin color, and it can be sold fresh. Farmer Eneek will be responsible for multiplying Ihis sweet pOlato as a souree of planting material.Based on our experienees with this trial, we have formed the following conc1usions:• Using farmers' knowledge about sweet potatoes from Irían Jaya will help researchers lo do preliminary se1ections for the trial.• The partícípation offarmers in the arca where the trial was set up will help in seleeting sweet potatoes based on farmers' enteria, such as marketability and table consumption.• Farmers selected sweet potaloes based on their marketabílíty and farmers' own eritena.  The importance of agroecological dornams can be found in earlier work on defining and delineating . recornrnendation dornains (RDs), whích is c10sely associated with the farrning systerns research of the late 1970s (Wotowiec, Poats, and Hildebrand 1986). Initial work on RDs concentrated on a few relatively easily identifiable factors (bíological variables), such as land and soil types, agro ecological zones, and erop types and rnanagernent (Harrington and Tripp 1985). The exercise on RD was híghly complex sinee the process was to identify farrning households, based on the sirnilarity in their practiees, rather than farrns. But the delineation of agroecological domains was rnueh less eumbersorne with rice because rice is very sensitive to changes in agroecological conditions and its adaptation is Iirnited, as compared lo sorne other crops such as maíze. Moreover, rice is the rnost important cereal crop in the regíon, so farrners have an in-depth knowledge ofrice-growing environrnents and varieties suitable to different agroecological dornains.The current endeavor on refining the definition of agroecological dornaíns for rice in parts ofNepal is the case of\"sharpening the focus\" fur better targeting of participatory plant breeding (PPB) work, including diversity deployrnent, eonservation of landraees in different dornains, and planning strategic erop rnanagement research. The methodology adopted is quite simple and can be replícated in other areas for wider use by the researchers and deve10pment workers. Field exercises for delineating agroecological domains have largely been influenced by the methodologies on RDs advocated by Collinson (1980), Franzel (1985), and Vaidya and Floyd (1997).Ihey emphasized the use of secondary sources of information, followed by preliminary surveys supplemented later by a formal survey lo refine the domains. However, later views on the subject hold lha! the refining process should take place only after researchers have a clear understanding of the variabílity inherent in the local farming systems (Cornick and Alberti 1985). The current study embodies the thoughts from both the methodologies for delineating domains and associated rice landraces/varieties.In the process of delineating agroecological domains, two group meetings were organized in the Kachorwa and Begnas eco-sítes. The first meeting was held with field-based staff; the second, with farmers from the project area. Ihis was followed by a transect walk by researchers and farmer representatives lo jointly validate farmers' statements. Ihe exercise took about two days, including field visits in each site.Sínce field-based staff are stationed in villages, it was expected !hat they would have a fairly good understanding of the agroecological domains and the farming systems of their respective eco-siles.Hence, the first level of group discussions was organized in field offices, with the field officer, technical assistants, and motivators part.icipating.Afier discussions, the participants were able to come up with four major agroecological domains, mainly defined on the basís of water regímes. They also broadly classified the soíl type and fertility status of soils from each domaín, based on scientific knowledge of soil classification and characterization. Participanls were also asked to estímate the size of each domain and place different landraces/varieties in their right domains. Estimating tbe relative size of each domain was straíghtforward because tbe pok:harilman occupied only a limited area within the eco-site. But placing each landrace/variety in its right domain proved more difficult. The team could place tbe majority of landraces/varieties in their domains, but the number of landraces/varielies per eco-síte was too large for them to rernember aH the names and tbeir right enviromnents. The process was also complicated by the fact lhal sorne of the landraces/varieties are grown in more than one domain.The whole process was reviewed by the participants, and once they were satisfied with the sleps and outputs, the field officer was asked lo facilitate tbe same process for tbe farmers' group discussion.A group discussion was held with farmers witb the specific objective of delineating agroecological domains. Fíeld officers/sile coordinators facilitated the discussion and tbe whole exercise was repeated witb farmers' groups. Both female and male farmers participated in the discussion and put forward tbeir opinions.Farmers identified four agroecological domains within the eco-site (ucha, samta/, nichaJkhalar, and pokharllman), based on the major criteria of moisture regime and fertility status/gradient (tables 1 and 2). They could easily identifY the relative size of each domain, but there were disagreements among about soil c1assification. Perhaps this reflected the variability of the soíl types and soil fertility slatus in each domain. Placing landraces/variety in the domains initiated a lively  debate among the members. However, they were able lO agree upon the major domains for each landrace/variety. They also reported that sorne oflhe landraceslvarieties were grown in more than one domain but Ihe cases were limited.In Kachorwa, of Ihe four domains identified by the farmers, two--ucha and pokharí/man-were extreme cases (dry land and rainfed; wet-Iand conditions, respectively). No modem varieties were grown in Ihese areas. Only landraces were found growing under such conditions, and the number of landraces (cultivars) was relatively small compared to other domains. Samtal and nícha represented better growing environments, wilh a grea!er number of landraces and modem varieties growing Ihere. Samtal represented Ihe major domain in terms of area. There was considerable area under uccha bu! no! much area was under nicha and pokahri. Severallandraces and modem varieties (MVs) were common lo both samtal and nicha. These two domains were more productive in terms of crop production as well.Similar results were found when Ihe exercise was repeated in Ihe Begnas eco-site under mid-hill conditions. However, Ihe domain delineation was less c1ear-cut Ihan ít was in Kachorwa because several of Ihe landraces and MV s were found in more than one dornain. Here again, landraceslvarieties were no! repeated in more than two dornains, and lha! in adjacent domains only. Jumping of domains by certain landraces/varieties was not observed in eilher of Ihe exercises. Allhough several ofthe landraces and MV s were found in two domains, Iheir performance was judged as best only in one domain. Based on Ihe information generated from Ihe discussion wilh farmers, it could be deduced that a landrace/variety fits best only in one domain. It exists in olher domains because Ihere ls no competitive variety to replace it.Having achieved a high degree of agreement between farmers and researchers in Ihe defmition of agroecological domains, it was decided to field-verif)' the definitions through a transect walk and to look for consistency in Ihe field implementation. A representative group offarmers made a transect walk of Ihe eco-site along wilh researchers. They identified domains and located landraces/varieties on different farms. The exercise helped in relating different agroecological domains and Iheir characteristics with Ihé landraceslvarieties being grown Ihere. Thus, Ihis exercise needs to be conducted when the rice crop ls mature or when Ihe crop is standing in Ihe field.Based on the analysis oflhe characteristics of different agroecological domains and Ihe distribution oflandraces/varieties within domains, an attempt lo develop a conceptual model of agroecological domains for rice was made (figure 1). In Ihe following subsections, Ihe characteristíc features of the domains have been explained. Nevertheless, Ihe model needs verification in a larger context and further refinement for wider applicability.Local farmers can provide very reliable inforrnation on Ihe agroecological domains for rice. Similarly, farmers can provide detailed features of each domain in terms of soíl type, drainage, fertility status, production potential, cropping patterns, and so on.The size of agroecological domains varies, with more extreme environments (domains) being relatively smaller as compared to more favorable ones. This follows normal distribution curve. How- Doma!n 4 ever, depending upon fue geographic location (high-potential production systems or marginal growing envíronrnents), the size of each domain will vary. For instance, in marginal environrnents for rice, fue extreme domain will be relatively larger as compared to ofuer domains; whereas, in favorable environrnents, the míddle domains will be relatively larger.Until fue distribution oflandráces/varieties across domains, the features of domains, and fue traits of cultivars are analyzed, one cannot appreciate fue complexity of farroers' strategies to manage plant genetic resourees to meet fueir multiple needs. From the analysis, it is apparent that one landrace/variety is best suited or most competitive in only one domain, though farroers might grow the same cultivar in more fuan one domain. This implies that fue cultivar competes wifu ofuer cultivars trom within the domain, and that there is less competition between cultivars across domains, except when fuere is an overlap of cultivars. Overlap signifies the presence of transitional zones between dornains, which explains fue presence of landraceslvarieties in two different but adjacent dornains. Within dornajns, fue area and number of households growing different landraceslvarieties is explained by rnarket forces, farrocrs' socioeconomic status, cultural factors, preferences for specific traits, and ofuer abiotic and biotjc factors.Alfuough landrsces/varieties rnay overlap in adjacent dornains, no case was registered where a landrsce/variety was found in more fuan two dornajns. This suggests fuat landraces/varietíes have very specific adaptatíons. In ofuer words, it reinforces fue idea that a cultivar is most cornpetítive in only one dornaín.Landraceslvanetíes falling wíthin the sarue domaín are more likely to be similar in their genetic cornposition as cornpared to landraces/varietíes frorn dissimilar dornains. The logic behind is that they have been put under similar managernent condítions have been selected over time fo! adaptation. However, this hypolhesis needs lo be proved from laboratory analysis of sorne of the saruples frorn each domaín. If it proves tme, then there ís a strong case, from a conservation point ofview, for disaggregating genetic materials across agroecologícal domains. Nevertheless, this process still holds true where diversity deployrnent is the prime objective of the project.The distribution oflandraces/vaneties in different domains is the result of farmers' experimentation with those landraces/vaneties over years. In other words, they are the \"best fit\" under farmers' rnanagement conditions. Therefore, researchers definítely need to know the characteristics of each dornain, as well as the specific traits of the landraces/vaneties in each domain and their distribution across dornains in order to make any intervention in the present system. The anaIysis of agroecological domains is worth the money and time invested in collecting and analyzing the information.Planning conservation strategies for landraces ldentifYing landraees that are grown in small areas by a limited number of farrners and devising ways and rneans of conserving them might seem to be a straightforward task for conserving endangered landraces. Sornetirnes, weighted diversity, as well, might be computed for facilitating Ihe decision-makíng process in choosing which landraces to focus on for conservation when there are numerous landraces falling in the endangered category. However, all these processes and steps consider the diversity oflandraces at the aggregatedllandscape (cornmuníty) level and thus ignore the influence of agroecological domains in deterrniníng the position oflandraees in different dornains.The need for micro-Ievel analysis emerges from the faet that landraces are conditioned over years by their continued growth and selection over time in specific dornains. As a result, Ihey have developed adaptive traits, wruch are uníque 10 landraces falling in that domain. Therefore, analysis of landrace diversity at the aggregated level fails 10 appreciate the position oflandraces in specifie dornains, which in faet might be harboring genes of irnportanl traits. Selecting landraces frorn an aggregated list rnight exclude, certaÍn strategically important landraces from conservation.PPB has been used as one rneans 10 conserve useful genes in landraces through crossing with modem vaneties. However, there could be number of landraces withín a domain that might require sorne forrn of conservation (through breeding and nonbreeding means). Understanding Ihe features of domains and the distribution oflandraces in them will facilitate decision rnakíng about selecting landraces for conservation. Failing to do this could result in selecting landraces with similar genetic traits for conservation (vía PPB) from jusI one or two domaÍns. This would lead lo the neglect of sorne and overrepresentation of olhers.Diversity deployrnenl in simple terrn means \"províding farmers wilh options of genetie materials 10 choose frorn.\" The introduction ofnew genetic material results in temporal disequilibrium because of competition between existing and new genetic material. The competition is for space in farmers' fields, for farm labor, for capital inputs, and so on. As time elapses, Ihe new entrant finds its rightful place in Ihe given environment. This is Ihe outcome of farmers constantly tryíng to rnaintain an equilibrium (meeting farmers' objectives) in terms ofstabilizing yield and production over time.The strategy for diversity deployment must begin by analyzing the distribution oflandraces/varieties across agroecological dornains. Once this is done, researchers would have a clear picture of each domain, aIong with the dístríbutíon of landraces/varíeties, and the dominance of certain cultivars against others would becorne evident Researchers would also come to know the reasons for this dominance. Only then could Ihey develop their strategy for diversíty deployrnent. In the absence of this ínformation, new genetic materials míght fit into domains where there is not much cornpetitíon.It could also happen that new genetic rnateríals compete with each other landraceslvarieties in similar domains, resulting in limited impact of diversity deployrnent.The conflict between breeding varíeties for wide adaptability or for ruche environments will perhaps go on. (Wide adaptability rneans Ihe dornain for which the suítability ofthe landrace/variety is large. Niche environment means the domain for the given landrace/varíety is limited.) In Ihe truest sense, wide adaptabilíty should encompass Ihe ability of a cultivar to be grown in several different domains and vice versa for the ruche environment. However, such is not the case.Whatever Ihe case, the proponents of PPB rnust bear in mind that the approach has to prove its worth in terms of chuming out farmer-acceptable varieties efficiently on such a scale that Ihe economic return on investrnent is positive. But this is possible only when researchers have a clear knowledge of the size and characteristics•ofthe dornains the new varíety will fit into. In addition, Ihey also need to know Ihe likely existing cultivar to be replaced Without this inforrnation, it would be rather difficult to estirnate the potential adoption ceiling ofPPB varietíes, which irnplíes that the estimation of economic returns at the household leve! ig difficult. This will becorne an increasingly important issue in the future, when enough time has elapsed between Ihe developrnent and adoptionldissemination of PPB varíeties and Ihe evaluation of their irnpact.Another important issue that can be addressed by analyzing agroecological domains is oríenting PPB programs towards \"poverty aIleviation\" and food securíty at the household leve!. Since resource-poor farmers rnainly own marginalland, Ihere is limited varietal choice. By conducting PPB programs using landraces from marginal environments, the chances of providing greater options in such environments is' increased, which would contríbute to food security, particularly in resource-poor households. Targeting PPB for equity ofbenefits for the resource-poor can also be justified aIong similar lines.Agroecological delineation using key informants/farmers from fue given cornmunity can be reliably done. The identified dornains and the associated varieties in each domain have 10 be verífied through a transect walk with the key informants. This exercise helps príorítize landraceslvaríeties in each domain based on Ihe number ofhouseholds growing them and Ihe area covered. Using lhis information, a selection oflandraces/varieties for PPB work could be made. Diversity deployment and conservatíon of certain landraces/varieties could also be planned using this information. The argurnents presented here clearly índicate the need to focus PPB irutíatives on marginal environments for which Ihere are no MVs, and where, al the same time, the majoríty oflhe resource-poor dwell. This exercise has to be conducted prior to initiating PPB work in a given area. Information required to delineate agroecological domains and associated landraces/varieties can easily be gathered using key informants at the vilIage leve!. It has been suggested that this exercise be incorporated as a component of PPB work.Decisions about the adoption oftechnology are conditional to farmers' perceptions ofthe performance of a new technology relative to that of the technology currently being practiced. Farmers may assess a new technology, such as an improved variety, in terms of a range of attributes, such as grain quality, straw yield, and inpu! requirements, in addition to grain yield (Traxler and Byerlee 1993). In Orissa, eastern India, farmers indicated preference not only for the visual appearance of rice grain, but also for attributes such as cooking quality, taste, keeping quality, and straw quality (Kshirsagar, Pandey, and Bellon 1997). If fimners perceive an improved variety to be inferior to traditional varieties in terms of one or more attributes, they are unlikely to adopt such a variety (Adesina and Zinnah 1993, as cited by Kshirsagar, Pandey, and Bellon 1997). Crop improvement could potentially benefit from farmers' assessments of the relative performance of different varieties under farmer management. Information on the traits desired by farmers and their knowledge of the production system could be invaluable in setting the goals of a breeding program, delineating the target environment, identifying the parents for breeding and defining the management treatment for breeding work (Sperling ･ ｾ ＠ al. 1996; Eyzaguirre and Iwanaga 1996).Varietal preferences may differ, not only between socioeconomic groups bu! also by gender.In a farmer-participª1ory breeding (FPB) project on pearl millet in the Jodhpur district, Rajasthan, India, grain yield, early availability of grain, and the case ofharvesting by hand (lower paniele number and lower plant height) were the main considerations for making selections by women. For the men, yield and quality appeared 10 be a stronger eoneern (W' eltzien, Whitaker, and Anders 1996). WhiJe women have traditionally been seed selectors and managers of germplasm in low-input farrning systems, scientists have no! given enough attention to their local knowledge, eriteria for selection, and perceptions regarding new seeds untiJ recently, F or instance, the criteria for selecting seeds, practices of animal care and food processing, and the consequent preferences for different kinds of blending various food materials are useful starting points for building on women'g perspectives in particípatory research (Gupta et al. 1996). Another example is when high labor demands for manual tbreshing may create incentives for women to adopt vaneties that are easier to thresh (Adcsina and Forson 1995). Including women in the early evaluation of varieties ensures that new seeds can be adopted rapidly, Thus, men's and women's entena and preferences for rice vaneties should be well understood and considered in plant-breeding strategies, In March 1997, a farmer-participatory planl-breeding program for raínfed nce was developed at the Intemational Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in collaboration with the Indían Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), This project inc\\udes síx research siles representing different nce ecosystems in eastem India, The project is under the umbrella ofthe CGIAR's Systemwíde Initiative on Participatory Research and Gender Analysis. The goal of this iniliative is to develop, test, and refine methodologies of participatory research and gender analysis as they apply to Ihe development ofnew technologies in germplasm and natural resource management. This FPB projecl aims lo test the hypothesis that farmer particípation in rainfed nce breeding can help develop suilable vaneties more efficiently, It is also designed to identifY the stages in a breeding program where farmer ínterfacing is optimaL The project has two components: the first is a plant-breeding component, whích aíms to develop and evaluate a methodology for participatory improvement of rice for heterogeneous environments, and to produce and improve adoption of matenal suíting farmers' needs. The second is a socÍal-science component (including gender analysis) that aims (1) to characterize cropping systems, diversíty ofvanetíes grown, and the crop-management practices ofrice farmers, (2) to analyze male and female farmers' selection criteria and their reactions to a range of cultivars and breeding lines, and (3). to enhance the capacities of national agricultural research systems (NARS) in participatory research and gender analysis in plant breeding andrice vanetal selection (Courtoís et al. 2000), Thís paper focuses on farmers' selectíon cnteria and their reactions to a range of cultivars and breeding lines UIlder particÍpatory vanetal selection conducted on farmers' fields,The results of the socioeconomic and gender analysÍs in the FPB project includes only two villages (table 1): Mungeshpur in the Faizabad district and Basalatpur in the Siddathnagar district, eastem Vttar Pradesh. These sites are among the research sites UIlder the FPB project. A similar study was conducted in the other FPB research sites in Onssa and Madhya Pradesh, Basalatpur represents favorable (but submergence prone) lowland, rainfed arcas, Mungeshpur represents shallow, submergence-prone areas that are favorably rainfed during years of low rainfalL Basalatpur and Mungeshpur have a rugher proportion of lowland fields (70% and 60%, respectively) with heavier soil and good water-holding capacity, The flow of natural resources like rainwater (field hydrological conditions) tbroughout the season has also had a major impact on vanetal selection in these villages, F armers in Mungeshpur have more access to supplementary irrigation, wruch enables them to diversífY into other crops, partÍCularly vegetables and fodder crops, Only one diesel pump exists ín Basalatpur and trus limits crop diversífication. The importance of livestock between the two villages also differs, Livestock in Mungeshpur is more importan! than in Basalatpur, In Mungeshpur, bullocks continue to be used for Jand preparation, and tbreshing is done manually, In contrast, land preparation and threshing in Basalatpur is mechanized with the use of tractors, The degree of market onentatíon is higher in Basalatpur (nearer the cíty) where more rice is sold, The socioeconomic characteristics of the sample households are shown in table 2, Households are classified by official social categoties of caste. Muslims dominate in Basalatpur (55%), followed by scheduled and back:ward castes. In Mungeshpur, the backward and scheduled castes dominate (89%). The Yadavs, a subcaste ofthe backward caste in Mungeshpur, take care ofmilch animals. The majority ofthe farming households are owner-cultivators, and share cropping is oflimited importance. F emale labor participation in rice production is four times hígher than that of males in Basalatpur and three-fourths in Mungesphur. There is wide disparity in terms of access 10 education between men and women. In general, females have lower literacy rates than meno The differences in resource endowments, socioeconomic status, importance aflivestock, degree ofmarket orientation, gender roles and responsibilities in rice production, and family size may determine the choice of rice varieties/cultivars and agronomic management practices.Rice followed by wheat + mustard is the predominant cropping pattem in al! villages. In BasaIatpur, wheat and oilseed are grown mainly for domestic use, but rice is grown for consumption as welI as marketing. On the other hand, in Mungeshpur, rice 18 mainIy grown for consumption because oflow yields and low marketabIe surplus. Rice is followed by wheat + mustard, which are grown for both domestic consumption and sale. Land preparation for rice is started in June after the arrival afthe monsoon.  The majority of the respondents belong to the lower social class, with small-sized landholdings.Females are younger and have lower literacy rates, compared to males, and have over 20 years of farming experience. The extent of female participation in rice production is high in both villages. Sorne tasks in rice production and postharvest operations are gender specific. Land preparation and the application of chemicals are men's responsibilities in both villages (10% of fertilizer application is done by women in Basalatpur). In Mungeshpur, women from the lower social status dominate in the work of pulling seedlings (100%), transplanting (70%), weeding (80%), applying farrnyard manure (60%), harvesting (82%), and threshing (82%). In Basalatpur, more men than women participate in pulling seedlings and harvesting. Women do the transplanting of seedlings (100%) and most ofthe weeding (75%), with men doing most ofthe spraying (90%). Women are also mainly responsible for postharvest activities such as cleaning and selecting the seeds for the next season, storage, and processing rice into other food products for home consumption and for sale. They are the primary end-users of rice byproducts and biomass for livestock and other farm use. A village study in eastem India revealed that women from the lower castes provided 60% to 80% ofthe total labor input in rice production (Paris et al. 1996). Aside from their significant contributions in rice production, women also provide labor in non-rice crops, collect green animal fodder, and feed and tend Iivestock. Thus, men's and women'g preferences for specifíc traits in rice varieties may differ, based on gender-specific roles and responsibilities. With inereasing male migration lo cities, women are laking on more responsibilities as farm managers, aside from theír normal household and childcare responsibilities (Paris el aL 1996).The rice varieties eurrently grown by farrners are shown in table 3. Traditional varieties are more cornrnon in Basalatpur than in Mungeshpur. Although modern varieties (MVs) show higher adoption rates in Mungeshpur, these varieties ofien suffer from submergenee, drought, and stress al reproduetive and ripening phases when the erop is planted late. Most farrners felt that traditional varieties are more tolerant to drought, submergenee, pests, and diseases, while MV s performed well under irrigated conditions. The majority of the farrners indieated that they felt that MVs needed better management lhan traditionaI varieties. Modero varieties need more labor, higher levels of fertilízer, and more irrigation, but more farmers prefer to grow MV s because of their higher yields. Farrners generally match varieties wíth their environment. For rainfed rice, this means an adaptation to the hydrological conditions of their fields, Each field position in the topo-sequence corresponds to a risk of drought or submergence. The drought risk inercases frorn the bottom to the top of the topo-sequence, while submergence risk decreases along the same path, assocíated with progressively lower water depths and earlier recession of the water. This translates into different ideotypes for the different situations. Medium-duration fields are grown mostly in medium land. Varieties such as Sarju-52. Ashwani.  andIndrasan are grownon the fields thatare located in between upper and lower levels oí land type. Fanners of Mungeshpur prefer to grow these varieties on the these land types on the belief that they need optimum moisture during the growth period. Fields difter in agrohydrological ｣ ｨ ｡ ｲ ｾ ｣ ｴ ･ ｲ ｩ ｳ ｴ ｩ ｣ ｳ ＠ in Basalatpur; therefore, sorne farrners prefer to grow medium varieties on upland fields also.To determine whether there are gender differences in perceptions of useful traits in varietal adoption, we used graphic illustrations of traits. We first showed cards that illustrate useful traits in selecting rice varieties. We then asked each farmer what traits he or she consider in selecting rice varieties for specific land types-upland and lowland fields. To assess how farmers valued each trait, we asked the question, \"If you had 100 paisa, how much would you pay for each trait? The value in paisa allocated to a particular trait corresponded to the importance given by the fanner. Because many traÍts are interrelated, we rec1assified them in consultation with a plant breeder. For example, we grouped traits such as ease in hullíng and mílling recovery under postharvest quality. Table 2 shows the seleetion eriteria of male and female fanners for different land types and villages.","tokenCount":"4966"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"04867c91884c0e54694c48d399f28d01","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9225aeff-d1d1-4664-b8d4-313cb5593136/retrieve","id":"643781049"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"637d0c8a-d858-4345-a5ef-9b144dba5584","pagecount":"4","content":"The interface of market access and SPS requirements: Lessons from recent ILRI research in AfricaDerek Baker, Karl Rich, Ayele Gelan, Acho Okike, Delia Grace and Mohammad Jabbar for many livestock sector stakeholders (Rich and Perry 2011a). However, access to export markets for African livestock and livestock product has been limited, nationally and regionally (Rich, Perry, and Kaitibie 2009;Williams et al., 2006). ILRI's work on constraints to export market access addresses low productivity, underdeveloped marketing systems, limited competitiveness, and the prevalence of highly contagious transboundary diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) (Perry and Rich 2007;Rich 2009;Rich and Perry 2011b).ILRI research shows that African countries' export trade in live and processed animals is mainly constrained by costs of production and (scale-dependent) transactions between producer and foreign consumer. The impact of animal disease is felt more in terms of low productivity and high mortality than through costs of SPS compliance.ILRI's in-depth whole-chain studies identified cost items and market actor behaviors that contribute to poor export performance. Costly and ineffective drug delivery systems in Somalia, high feed costs in Ethiopia, high transport costs in East Africa, and high marketing costs and lack of information in West Africa, were common culprits.Some authors argue that the benefits of controlling endemic diseases like FMD in developing country settings are limited (Scoones and Woolmer 2006). However by taking the whole farming system into account, and considering reductions of risk and vulnerability for the poorest groups, ILRI research has identified benefits far beyond market access (Perry and Rich 2007). In Southeast Asia, for example, ILRI highlighted the potential impact of FMD on commodity harvest cycles that depend on buffalo for draught power (Perry et al. 2002). ILRI work in Zimbabwe (Randolph et al., 2005;Perry et al., 2003) also demonstrated inequitable benefits: While improved FMD control contributes to national economic growth and benefits lower-income groups, higher-income groups tend to capture greater benefits. Perry et al. (2005) show how out-grower schemes for export businesses, in Kenya for example, allow participation of smallholders and are an avenue for pro-poor growth. More generally, the control and eradication of disease can provide huge gains -Rinderpest eradication in South Asia significantly helped producers in Pakistan and India to access lucrative (and growing) Middle Eastern markets (Roeder and Rich 2009;Rich et al. 2011).The feasibility of Ethiopia's proposed SPS system was analyzed through an import risk assessment and a dynamic cost-benefit model.  2000) to assess the evolution of profits and costs and visually identify and analyze potential bottlenecks in the system, thus better facilitating scenario analysis of intervention options necessary to improve the system.The impact of tariff (TBs) and non-tariff barriers (NTBs) on market access for dairy products among EAC members used a spatial equilibrium modeling approach, highlighting the effects of eliminating barriers on the welfare of producers and consumers.Our research examined the interface between market access and Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) barriers to trade.In Ethiopia, this involved an ex ante assessment of the epidemiological and economic feasibility of a credible SPS certification system for disease-free meat, and compliance with export standards of Middle Eastern markets in the short-term, and developed markets in the longer term.Further ILRI work identified risks and the critical control points for them, in a feedlot-based system. In the dairy sector, ILRI looked at the potential direct and indirect impacts of removing costs associated with intra-regional trade in dairy products among East African Community (EAC) member countries. In both cases, particular attention was paid to distributional consequences associated with improved market access.Other ILRI studies took an ex post approach, characterizing livestock production and marketing systems for export markets based on traditional trading patterns.One was Sudan (El Dirani et al., 2008), where declining export sales to the Middle East led to a study of the entire value chain. A second was Somalia (Negassa et al., 2008)  Pox in another. The resulting low animal productivity and high mortality, off-take rates of just 16-22% for domestic and export markets, and the high rejection rates, all contribute to high unit costs that erode export competitiveness.In Somalia, animal quality was found to be governed by a ubiquitous eye-assessment scoring/grading system that closely met the needs of exporters and traders, but much less the needs of producers (Negassa et al., 2011).With Terra Nuova, ILRI characterized the actors at each stage of a multilayered value chain functioning over very large distances and using highlydeveloped traditional governance systems (Mugunieri et al., 2008). ILRI also characterized commercial practices in the export value chain, profiling the use of livestock brokers and agency arrangements between exporters and their agents that buy from remote areas. Examination of limited data on costs and revenues revealed loss-making elements in these value chains, explained as necessary to maintain access to exporters or importing agents in the export markets.In the EAC dairy sector, ILRI's ex ante analysis indicated that eliminating existing tariffs would raise aggregate Dressed chilled small ruminant carcasses in Somalia (photo: Terra Nuova)EAC welfare by 0.5%. Also eliminating non-tariff barriers would boost that effect to 2.1%. A projected 20% reduction in transport costs, in addition to removing tariff and non-tariff barriers, would double the gain in overall EAC welfare by 4.2%.Rather  ILRI's work on West African trade policy helped shape the regional policy initiative under the Club du Sahel's Livestock and Regional Market Potentials and Challenges in the Sahel and West Africa to 2020 and subsequent livestock compacts. Efforts at regional trade liberalization in East and West Africa included recent African Union initiatives, with ILRI expecting to play a knowledge management role in both regions.A policy choice for many countries is the extent of commitment to disease control needed to achieve and maintain export market access. ILRI analyses show that high costs of control may be justified by benefits not directly associated with the gains from international trade. These benefits may not, however, accrue to the poor as much as to the non-poor. Current work with IFAD in Swaziland and Mozambique is examining ways to offset such imbalances by supplying capital to beef trading systems linking smallholder and poorly-resourced producers with fattening and slaughter operations for export.","tokenCount":"1010"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"31a4e6a33de2c0140671c0b1be612f48","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/bf1390da-5795-4f36-b4d3-95b699e0394a/retrieve","id":"2144617153"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"869b01c1-ae24-4212-bc63-dd42f52fe962","pagecount":"20","content":"Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above. The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used.Smallholder poultry production is integral to rural and agricultural households' livelihood in developing countries, including Africa and Asia. Various studies show that smallholder poultry production significantly contributes to household income, food and nutritional security ( Wong et al. 2017;Birhanu et al. 2023b). It also has a sizable contribution to women's empowerment and job creation. However, despite various research and development efforts in the previous decades, the production and productivity of the sector have remained quite low due to multiple production, marketing, policy and institutional constraints (Birhanu et al. 2021;Birhanu et al., 2023a;Anyona et al. 2023). Most farmers keep small flock sizes, mainly using low-input, low-output production practices for subsistence and income generation. Producers have limited access to better inputs and output markets, with weak horizontal and vertical coordination and linkages. Moreover, poultry product demand is highly seasonal, and there is significant price fluctuation associated with socioeconomic and cultural factors (Birhanu et al. 2022). Higher transaction costs, limited access to roads and other infrastructure, limited bargaining power and limited access to information restrict household access to better markets. Transforming the sector from subsistence-based to market-oriented commercial production requires integrated interventions, including improved genetics, health, feed, management practices, access to extension and advisory services, access to finance, capacity building, market linkages, collective actions and coordination ( Birhanu et al. 2021;Birhanu et al. 2022;Yakubu et al. 2023).An increasing trend in poultry product consumption-associated with increasing population, urbanization, increasing income of the middle-class population, and preference for white meat over red meat-has created opportunities and challenges for smallholder producers. The opportunities could be associated with a broader market for eggs and meat. At the same time, the challenges would be strong competition with the emerging commercial sector in peri-urban and urban areas. An increasing demand in urban areas requires standardized products and better production and management practices from smallholders. However, given their large number and dispersed in remote locations, where there are significant infrastructural, institutional, technical, and policy-related challenges, individually, smallholder farmers cannot cope with existing and emerging challenges and exploit opportunities. Organizing farmers enhances collective actions, peer-to-peer learning, and access to inputs and output markets such as improved breeds, feeds, health services, finance, training, and advisory services (Fischer and Qaim 2014;Mutonyi 2019;Missiame et al. 2023). Moreover, sustained access to better inputs and value-added output markets requires strategies to link producers to different market opportunities.Based on the above backgrounds, as part of the CGIAR initiative on Sustainable Animal Productivity for Livelihoods, Nutrition, and Gender Inclusion (SAPLING), the Tropical Poultry Genetics Solution (TPGS) is implementing different interventions that enhance the production and productivity of the sector including developing a business model for scaling improved tropically adapted breeds. The scaling business model involves organizing farmers in groups and linking them with inputs, suppliers, and marketing actors for sustained adoption and use of farmer-preferred and locally adapted breeds. Considering the vital role of organizing farmers in groups and creating market linkage, this document is developed as a reference material when establishing farmer groups/organizations and linking them with various input suppliers, service providers, and marketing actors. The document is generic and can be applied to smallholder-based agricultural production and marketing activities. However, the proposed approaches can be amended and adjusted based on the country's local contexts, policies, and strategies.Most smallholder farmers live in rural areas in highly dispersed locations and far from input and output markets. These areas have poor rural infrastructure, weak institutions, limited access to markets and services, limited information and low access to innovative technologies. They experience multiple production, marketing and consumption challenges that individual actions cannot easily address but require collective actions (Abdul-Rahaman and Abdulai 2020; Ruzzante et al. 2021). Empirical evidence suggests that organizing farmers in groups is a good strategy for addressing most of the production and marketing challenges (Birhanu et al. 2017; Abdul-Rahaman and Abdulai 2018; Bachke 2019; Abdul-Rahaman and Abdulai 2020; Bizikova et al. 2020;Bairagi and Mottaleb 2021;Ma et al. 2023;Tran et al. 2023).Farmer organizations can be defined as groups formed to address the different interests of farmers. These organizations can be formal or informal and have different forms, including cooperatives, associations, self-help groups and commodity-based producer organizations (CRS and MEAS 2015;Bizikova et al. 2020;Fernando et al. 2021). Farmer organizations can also be classified into three board categories: general interest groups, cooperatives and commodity-based organizations. Interest groups represent farmers' interests in policy and program development, mobilize resources and information for farmers, organize capacity building and address other issues that attract farmers' interest. Cooperatives are business organizations owned and managed by farmers and other actors in the value chain to fulfill members' needs for agricultural inputs and services and create demand for their produce. Usually, cooperatives facilitate the distribution of agricultural inputs, collect, store and add value to products, deliver large quantities to markets, and provide other services such as credit, savings and insurance. Commodity-based organizations are specialized groups of farmers organized based on a specific crop or livestock commodity that comprises various actors in the value chain, including producers, marketing actors, and input and service providers. Farmers' organizations can function at different levels, such as village, kebele, district or region. Usually, the groups are independent, non-governmental and voluntary.The essential role of organizing farmers in groups is documented in various empirical studies (Markelova and Mwangi 2010;Shiferaw et al. 2011;CRS and MEAS 2015;Agarwal, 2018;Gugerty et al. 2019;Bizikova et al. 2020;Kassie et al. 2020;Ma et al. 2023). Farmer groups enhance collective actions that reduce transaction costs and help to obtain better market prices (Abdul-Rahaman and Abdulai 2020). Organized farmers can take advantage of economies of scale, express their needs, have better lobbying ability, and be in a good position for buying inputs and bulking and selling outputs. When farmers are organized, their voices can be easily heard, and their contribution to the research and development agenda can be significant. Although there is no single best approach to organize framers in groups, based on various empirical evidence suggested by researchers and development experts working in the area (CRS and MEAS 2015;Kassie et al. 2020), the following approaches can be adopted for smallholder poultry producers in developing countries. The approaches can be broadly classified into three stages and nine steps (Figure 1). The institutions that facilitate 1 the group formation or organizing of farmers should have a good understanding of the sector and part of the value chain actors. The formation of farmers' groups should be based on clear and achievable objectives with predefined scopes, without unrealistic assumptions. Objectives of group formation may include enhancing access to technologies and better management practices, improving technical efficiency, access to better markets and credit; empowering women through different strategies; enhancing members' economic, social and innovative performances; and increasing participation in the value chain through value addition (Francesconi and Wouterse 2015;Di Marcantonio et al. 2022). The groups should be manageable and organized by homogeneous people with similar interests and economic conditions.1 The facilitator in this document context is the main national research partner in each country who is leading the implementations of chicken SAPLING research initiatives q Monitoring and evalua/onq Define goals and scope q Characterize target farmers q Iden/fy poten/al leaders q Consult local administra/on q Establish the group q Develop organiza/onal structure q Capacity building q Planning and implementa/onPartnership and stakeholders engagementSmallholder farmers in developing countries are very heterogeneous. However, farmers in different geographies have specific characteristics and interests in production and marketing activities that differentiate them from others. Hence, understanding the target farmers' characteristics is critical to establishing a successful farmer organization. This could be done through formal and informal approaches, including quick assessments regarding their interest in group work and vision for improved technologies-based production and marketing activities. Farmer characteristics may include age and gender composition, social and cultural settings that affect group formation, practices in farm and non-farm activities, average income, assets holding, land sizes, distance to main roads, and other socioeconomic activities associated with poultry production practices. At this stage, it is also important to know if the target farmers are part of existing farmers' groups, have experience participating in similar groups and are interested in joining the proposed poultry-based groups.The success and failure of farmers' organizations depend partly on leadership style and management skills. Partners who facilitate the formation of the proposed farmer groups must ensure the presence of potential leaders among the target groups. Potential leaders can be identified using predefined criteria, including experience in group/community leadership, interest in leading the group, communication skills, education, technical skills and interest in poultry-based business. The potential leaders should include a mix of people from different age and gender groups.Engaging local administrators and partners on the ground is vital to the sustainability of the proposed group formation. From the inception stage, local administrators should be involved through formal and informal meetings and discussion forums. The facilitating team can arrange a brief meeting and discuss the need to organize farmers, their alignment with the country's policy, and their contribution to the development of the poultry sector. Facilitators should clarify the goal and scope of the proposed group formation, create awareness, and receive the necessary feedback and support from the community leaders and other stakeholders on the ground. Community leaders and farmer-organizing units should be part of the implementing partners.Once the goal and scope of the proposed group are defined, farmers are characterized, potential leaders are identified, and community leaders and partners are engaged, a community awareness meeting can be held to promote the idea and encourage targeted farmers to join the group. At this stage, interested farmers can be registered using appropriate formats. This meeting can clarify the needs and goals of group formation, nominate the identified leaders, obtain approvals and formally establish the groups. In this meeting, the need to develop a farmers' group should be explained to participants, and farmers could ask questions to get clarification on important issues and share their expectations of participating in the group. The members can also elect potential member farmers who can work in different roles for the next few years.Step 6: Develop the organizational structureFacilitators and elected leaders can develop the organizational structure of the group. However, facilitators and group leaders may not start from scratch and can tailor and adopt similar organizational structures used in different farmer groups in their local or other areas. The organizational structure in the proposed farmer groups should reflect various relationships between the members of the groups, and facilitators and group leaders can choose from various options that maximize individual contributions while minimizing challenges (Bolman and Deal 2017). The organizational structure should show the types of committee members, the roles and responsibilities of different committee members, directions of information flow, and decision-making processes. As a starting point, the structure should be simple and easily amendable at any time and able to be developed with technical help from other local partners. However, according to Bolman and Deal ( 2017), the following questions can be considered while organizing the group's structure (Box 1).Building the capacity of group leaders and other members is important for establishing successful groups (Ashby et al. 2009). As indicated above, leadership plays a critical role in the success and sustainability of group formation. Among other things, facilitating teams and partners on the ground should focus on raising good leaders through capacity building. The capacity-building efforts should focus on multiple dimensions of group formation, such as productive, organizational, entrepreneurial and sociopolitical dimensions (Valleur 2017). This can be achieved through formal and informal training, experience sharing, coaching and advisory services, and financial and material support. Various trainings can be provided on identified issues that help fulfill the groups' missions and goals. Nevertheless, capacitybuilding efforts should be planned and properly implemented with partners and stakeholders. For instance, capacity building in time management, such as long meetings, record keeping, leadership style, fairness and communication, will significantly contribute to the success of group formation (CRS and MEAS 2015). The role of capacity building at the initial stage of group formation is documented in some empirical studies (Ahado et al. 2021).After establishing the farmers' group and capacity building, based on the goals of the group formation, potential interventions that improve the production and marketing activities of the group members should be identified, planned and implemented. This may involve identifying and analyzing problems, identifying possible solutions, prioritizing issues and solutions, checking the feasibility of solutions, and developing detailed action plans (CRS and MEAS 2015). Activities should be prioritized and ranked based on importance and available resources, considering the farmers' existing situation and local conditions. For smallholder poultry producers, this may include linking the groups with input suppliers, service providers and marketing actors; identifying and promoting additional value chain activities such as establishing product aggregation and marketing centres; adding more people to the group; expanding production and marketing activities; and building the technical skills of farmers. The group leaders should adopt dynamic approaches in implementing the proposed activities.Monitoring and evaluation should be integral to the group formation process and the entire management system. The monitoring component refers to keeping regular records of group activities, verifying that planned actions are taken according to the plan and adjusting ongoing activities to align with the group's goals. On the other hand, evaluation may refer to looking back to confirm whether the proposed objectives have been met and identifying strategies to improve future activities to meet the group's mission (CRS and MEAS 2015).Monitoring and evaluation activities can follow a participatory approach and are conducted jointly by group leaders, facilitators, local partners and other stakeholders. This would be led by the facilitating institution supported by other stockholders supporting this activity. One of the main responsibilities of facilitators would be establishing the monitoring evaluation system as part of supporting the proposed group and documenting lessons learned for scaling in different areas.In most developing countries, the smallholder poultry value chain is characterized by low production and productivity with limited competitive advantage with emerging commercial sectors in urban and peri-urban areas. Access to inputs and output markets is the main constraint identified by almost all empirical studies on technology adoption and productivity (Adesina et al. 2014). Findings from such studies suggest linking smallholder farmers with input suppliers and central markets as essential interventions to enhance production and productivity and transform the sector from subsistence-based production to commercial production (Ebata and Hernandez 2017;Birhanu et al. 2022). Farmers' participation in market-oriented production enhances household income, nutrition, job opportunities and other livelihood activities. Therefore, linking farmers with value chain actors using various strategies is one of the best approaches to enhance smallholders' access to input and output markets. Linking farmers with inputs and output markets is not establishing an ad-hoc sale but developing long-term and formal business relationships among various value chain actors (Shepherd 2007). However, as indicated above, farmers must first be organized to establish effective linkages, as organized groups can be easily linked with various value chain actors.Farmers' linkage arrangements may consist of service provision (such as the delivery of improved breeds, vaccines, drugs, feeds, other assets such as feeders and drinkers, and providing training and advisory services); investing in value chain activities; formal and informal contractual agreements; purchasing arrangements for outputs; full vertical cooperation with other value chain actors; asset sharing; contract farming; and other informal linkages and ad hoc arrangements (Dannson et al. 2004;Ferris et al. 2014b). For sustained adoption of technologies and improved livelihood outcomes, farmers can be primarily linked with input suppliers, such as improved breeds, feed and vaccine and treatment drug suppliers, and output markets with traders and institutional buyers, such as school feeding programs, universities and hospitals. To begin with, facilitators may focus on linking organized farmer groups with local input suppliers using various approaches. This process should involve local partners and stakeholders in government offices and nongovernment organizations working on input and output market linkages.Strategies for creating market linkages can be broadly categorized into input and output market linkages (Figure 2). Although both adopt similar approaches, examining them separately helps to understand some of the specific issues among input and output marketing actors. Inputs market linkages involve exploring farmers' needs and requirements; identifying potential inputs and service suppliers and initiating linkages; enhancing farmers' awareness and understanding; organizing a joint discussion forum and determining the linkage type; developing an action plan; and facilitating implementation and evaluation. Linking with output markets involves establishing product collection/aggregation centers; identifying potential buyers/markets; organizing a discussion forum between producers and buyers; specifying contracts and developing risk management strategies; developing an action plan; and facilitating implementation and evaluation.Figure 2: Approaches for linking organized groups with inputs and output marketsEstablishing successful and long-term inputs market linkage requires well-thought-out and carefully planned activities based on the context of each location. The linkage created should be based on win-win principles, where smallholder producers, input and service providers, and marketing actors benefit mutually. Establishing sustained inputs market linkages involves the following activities. Partnership and engagementWorking with individual farmers involves higher transaction costs for companies or firms, and organizing them in groups should be an important step, as indicated above. To establish successful linkage, it is important to understand farmers' production objectives, gender and age compositions, production and marketing practices, available resources for scaling existing production activity, production environment, and their current and potential capacity for market-originated production.The smallholder farmers' demand for inputs and the service requirement usually depend on their production objectives, the adopted technologies, the technical and financial capacity, and other socioeconomic factors. The production practice they adopt (intensive vs extensive production) also determines their input type. Moreover, farmers in each area may not always need all the recommended commercial inputs, as they can also use locally available sources or a mix of locally available and commercial inputs.Despite the dynamic nature, it is essential to understand the type, quality and volume of inputs and services required by farmers in each period. Although this needs continuous assessment, it can generally be achieved using a mix of approaches, including formal assessments such as checklists of inputs and services required by farmers and their willingness and ability to pay for the inputs.Due to asymmetric information and inadequate capacity and skills, smallholder farmers have limited ability to identify appropriate input suppliers and service providers. Since most of them live in rural areas with minimal access to roads, information and other infrastructures, they have limited capacity to access most value chain actors. Therefore, facilitators must first identify potential input suppliers (i.e., individuals, companies, etc.) relevant to smallholder farmers and begin a discussion with them to initiate the linkages. This may primarily involve identifying the inputs farmers require for production and marketing activities and the capacity and willingness of suppliers to work with smallholder farmers in each target location. This could be done through a rapid assessment, including reviewing the company's expertise and activities, collecting customer information, key informant interviews, and reviewing documents. Working with existing commercial companies would be the best strategy for the poultry sector. Facilitators can approach commercial poultry companies or agents that can supply key inputs such as improved breeds in the area and major feed, vaccine and drug suppliers.Using the information generated from Steps 1 and 2, facilitators can quickly match farmers' demand for products and services and the capacity and readiness of companies/individuals to supply the smallholder farmers. This may help to confirm whether the identified potential actors are appropriate for creating successful linkages. Once potential companies/individuals are identified, and farmers' capacity and needs are determined, a discussion forum can be organized with farmers to share linkage ideas and improve farmers' awareness and understanding of the needs for creating linkages, the benefit they will get, and the expected duties and responsibilities based on the proposed type of link created (inputs access vs output marketing). Their group or community leaders can represent farmers at this stage.After understanding the farmers' needs for input and output markets and support services and enhancing their awareness, organizing a discussion forum between farmers and potential input or service suppliers is vital. The discussion may allow the identified input/service suppliers to promote their products and associated delivery systems. Farmers can also indicate their expectations of the quality and quantity of inputs, the services needed, and any concerns about products and services. They can also inquire about additional technical support or training. This forum helps determine the possible linkages, start the linkages, and build trust between input/service suppliers and farmers. As indicated above, the type of linkages may consist of service provision, investment in value chain activities, formal and informal contractual agreements, full vertical cooperation, asset sharing, contract farming, and other informal linkages and ad hoc arrangements.The discussion in Step 4 generates evidence of the readiness of farmers and marketing actors for the proposed links. Based on the evidence generated, facilitators and representatives of farmers' groups can develop an action plan to facilitate the delivery of inputs and services. Both farmers and marketing actors need assistance on different issues, including developing business skills and relationships and access to finance. Action plans depend on the type of link created (i.e. service provision versus purchase of outputs). The support from the facilitators may include technical backstopping, capacity building and resolving pertinent problems, including conflicts between linkage partners. The facilitator should not take the role of the linkage partner as it would have a strong negative effect on the sustainability of the linkage.Evidence from various empirical studies shows that most smallholder poultry producers participate in marketing eggs and live chickens (Birhanu et al. 2022;Birhanu et al. 2023a). However, access to reliable and better output markets is one of the key challenges smallholder farmers report. Most of them sell products in villages or rural markets where there is less demand and lower prices, mainly to aggregators and retailers. Asymmetric information on prices and high transaction costs due to the longer distance to the central market reduces the rewards farmers get from their produce and their competitiveness with the emerging commercial production system.Establishing better market linkages with potential buyers has multiple advantages for buyers and smallholder producers (Ferris et al. 2014a;Ebata and Hernandez 2017). For smallholder producers, it facilitates access to a reliable market, credits and input support from buyers. For buyers, it creates a reliable product supply with the desired quality and quantity and reduces transaction costs associated with product collection. The linkage should focus on establishing long-term business relationships (commercial linkages) between these two actors, which should also be based on win-win principles that make both producers and buyers profitable. Establishing sustained market linkages may involve the following steps.Products from smallholder farmers can be supplied to informal, formal and formal public/institutional markets (Ferris et al. 2014a). The informal markets mainly refer to smallholders selling in smaller volumes, with prices primarily determined by traders and other actors in the markets. Selling at farm gates, roadsides, village and city markets, and urban wholesale and retail markets can be considered informal markets. There are no product grading and standardizing in these markets with limited regulation and taxation systems.Unlike informal markets, formal markets refer to markets where products are sold based on grades and standards with good regulations and legal frameworks. Buyers in the formal markets have specific standards and need products in higher volume and better quality than in the informal markets, which may require organizing smallholder farmers and establishing product collection and grading points. In developing regions like Africa, the formal public or institutional markets may include school feeding programs, universities, hospitals, prisons, military institutions and other government purchases. Buyers from the formal market may include domestic traders, retailers (supermarkets), hotels, and agro-processors (Shepherd 2007). Identifying specific markets or buyers requires a detailed marketing system analysis, including a detailed supply chain analysis, which agricultural product marketing research and development experts should support.Given the smaller volume of produce from smallholder farmers, establishing collection points has multiple advantages, such as improving value chain governance and ensuring the consistency of product supply. Collection/aggregation centers create fair and transparent governance along the value chain and have the following multiple advantages (Abdul-Rahaman and Abdulai 2020; Abraham et al. 2022):i. They help to aggregate, grade and standardize products, which is the most important aspect in enhancing farmers' access to markets that focus on consumers' preferences and available variations in product quality and quantity; ii.Collection centre improves marketing efficiency and avoids unfair price-setting; iii.Collection centre facilitates linkages between producers and buyers; and iv.Collection centre enhances pricing efficiency and creates new market opportunities.Collection/aggregation centers should be selected systematically by involving buyers/traders, and the centers should be easily accessible to both farmers and buyers. The collection centers can be supported by finance, storage and transportation facilities and training, and they can serve as a place for information exchange.There is a need to arrange a meeting between producers and buyers about the buyers' requirements regarding the quantity and quality of products, delivery time and system (packaging, transportation), establishing contracts (oral or written), financial arrangements including payment systems, additional support provided to producers and other related issues. Devising a risk minimization strategy can also be another important discussion aspect. The meeting may help to understand if farmers meet the buyers' expectations or need additional support/training to meet the expectations.Success in market linkages may require specifying contracts and reaching mutual agreements on product quality and quantity and a delivery system. The contract can be written or oral and should be determined by agreement. Moreover, as risks are inherent in agricultural production and marketing activities, developing risk management strategies significantly contributes to the business relationship's sustainability. The risks in agricultural production can be expected or unexpected. For example, production loss due to disease/mortality and price fluctuation are expected risks requiring pre-planned interventions to minimize or avoid losses. However, for unexpected risks, it is crucial to set a space for renegotiation (Shepherd 2007). The contract also needs to consider the market dynamics, especially the price fluctuation due to product demand and supply seasonality.Action plans should be developed to support the production, collection and delivery of outputs to the buyers and to ensure the producers get the value of produce on time. The action plan may include the type and volume of products that will be supplied, the type of delivery system, and the payment schedule. Other support services may include training and advisory services on production and product collection, product storage and transportation, grading of products, and creating digital platforms to exchange information between producers and buyers. The facilitators and group leaders should meet frequently to discuss progress and resolve any challenges observed. Given the dynamic nature of the agricultural sector and household production and consumption decisions, regular recordkeeping practices should be adopted to document lessons and improve future activities.Transforming the traditional subsistence-based smallholder agricultural production to market-oriented commercial production is a complex task that cannot be done simply by a single organization but demands the engagement of key stakeholders and partners in the sector. The important role of partnership in enhancing smallholder farmers' livelihood and commercialization of agriculture is documented in various studies (Ferris et al. 2006;Rankin et al. 2017;Manyise and Dentoni 2021;Aseete et al. 2023). In our context, partnership is key, and organizing farmers and creating market linkages requires skills, knowledge, resources and other support from various organizations working on the ground.Partner organizations from the government and non-government organizations, with specific skills and capacity, should be engaged from the initiation stage to planning and implementation of activities. The lead facilitating organization should select partners with clear criteria from the onset. Partner selection may consider if a prospective partner has the resources and interest in smallholder farmers in collective action and market linkages, if they are interested in the poultry value chain, if they have a long-term commitment to poultry value chain development and if they can mobilize resources. The partnership may require a memorandum of understanding to strengthen the relationship with information on shared roles and responsibilities and any financial arrangements. Potential partners may include non-government development organizations, universities, national and international research institutes, private companies and farmer associations.The CGIAR Research Initiative on Sustainable Animal Productivity for Livelihoods, Nutrition and Gender inclusion (SAPLING) is working in seven countries focusing on livestock value chains to package and scale out tried-and-tested, as well as new, innovations in livestock health, genetics, feed and market systems. SAPLING aims to demonstrate that improvements in livestock productivity can offer a triple win: generating improved livelihoods and nutritional outcomes; contributing to women's empowerment; and, reducing impacts on climate and the environment. Its seven focus countries are Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Nepal, Tanzania, Uganda and Vietnam.It forms part of CGIAR's new Research Portfolio, delivering science and innovation to transform food, land, and water systems in a climate crisis.","tokenCount":"4797"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ab161a9a3cf4589c3c9e9b483b531a44","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0ddca181-4ace-42a7-aec8-5be5d8cee3af/retrieve","id":"-1640334479"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"3e446f7c-59e4-445c-9b32-fa2c9418bb65","pagecount":"4","content":"Livestock production is a substantial driver of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, estimated at 14.5% of total global emissions. As populations continue to grow, so will the demand for livestock products. In the absence of transformative shifts in production methods, this growth will result in a significant increase in emissions, posing potential risks to the environment, including biodiversity and water quality. Such ramifications could imperil the achievement of the world's environmental and climate goals. This article highlights five key insights from the Intergovernmental Panel (IPCC) on Climate Change AR6 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2023, focusing on mitigation strategies within livestock production. It provides constructive feedback and recommendations aligned with the CGIAR Research Initiative on Livestock and Climate's action research, which encompasses reducing emissions through improved land grazing and livestock management, advocating for agroforestry and silvo-pastoral systems and raising livestock productivity sustainably alongside carbon sequestration practices.Livestock production contributes significantly to global emissions. Transformative shifts in production methods are therefore essential to reduce emissions amid rising demand for livestock products.Enhancing livestock production efficiency is vital for climate mitigation. Improving practices can cut emissions by up to 60%, balancing the need to meet growing demands for livestock-derived foods, while minimizing greenhouse gas emissions, building system resilience and optimizing existing agricultural land usage.Restoring degraded lands and implementing enhanced pasture management can benefit both farmers' resilience and the environment's health, as well as increase carbon sequestration.Efficient livestock management practices, including agroforestry and silvopastoral systems, can build system resilience, enhance net primary production, increase soil carbon storage and improve feed quality.Banner photo: Traders in Ethiopia head to market with their cattle in the winter rain. Photo ILRI CGIAR response: Intensive pastures are characterized as areas with a livestock density greater than one animal per hectare. Meanwhile, the total agricultural land and herd size necessary for beef cattle ranching could be significantly reduced with the dissemination of improved systems, whereby only a fraction of the total area of agricultural land would be required by extensive systems while also raising the productivity of herds. By widely adopting these improved systems, we could potentially reduce a country's agricultural land area for beef production and cattle herd size by more than 100 million hectares and 70 million animal units (equivalent to around 100 million heads) by 2030, while still meeting projected beef production needs. These findings highlight the urgent need to scale up sustainable intensification of beef production systems to reduce emissions, meet food demands and spare land for other uses.TAKEAWAY 1: Improving the efficiency of livestock production is a crucial step in mitigating the climate crisis.CGIAR response: Livestock accounts for most emissions from the agricultural sector. Developing countries are particularly affected, with 57% of these emissions coming from livestock production. The industry is projected to grow globally, with beef production expected to increase by 40% by 2050 (FAO, 2018). If production practices do not change, this growth will result in a significant increase in emissions that could have negative effects on the environment, including biodiversity and water quality. This could threaten the world's goals for the environment and climate (IPCC, 2022;CBD, 2022).Drylands are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and desertification. These changes are expected to reduce crop and livestock productivity, modify plant species mix, reduce biodiversity and increase the risk of water stress, drought and habitat degradation for approximately 200 million people by 2050 if warming reaches 1.5°C.By adopting best practices in livestock production, livestock emissions could be reduced by up to 60%equivalent to a reduction of around 12% of global emissions.Studies suggest that improved grazing land management could reduce emissions by between 1.4 and 11.8 billion tons of CO2 equivalent per year, (GtCO2-eq yr-1) while improved livestock management could achieve a reduction of 0.2 to 2.4 GtCO2-eq yr-1 (Conant et al. 2017;Herrero et al. 2016;Smith et al. 2008Smith et al. , 2014;;FAO 2007). That's equal to emissions of 300 million cars per year! These approaches include pasture management -such as the use of participatory rangeland management approaches, cultivation of improved forage varieties, rotational grazing and recovery of degraded land (Wang et al., 2019;Kell, 2011;Rao et al., 2001;Fisher et al., 2007) -as well as better animal management practices, including supplementary feeding and improved breeding and genetics (Li et al., 2022).The introduction of agroforestry, silvopastoral and integration of crop and livestock systems can also enhance net primary production, increase soil carbon storage and improve feed quality and quantity (Costa Jr et al., 2022;Feliciano et al., 2018;;Fisher et al., 1996Fisher et al., , 2007;;Maia et al., 2009;Carvalho et al., 2009;Paulino et al., 2016).These practices can also increase system resilience and feed conversion efficiency, playing a significant role in mitigating GHG emissions, especially CH4 (methane) emissions, which are a major contributor to livestock emissions (Costa Jr et al., 2021). A sustained annual decline of approximately 0.35% in CH4 emissions would be sufficient to prevent additional warming from CH4 emissions, equivalent to the impact of net-zero CO2 emissions.Livestock-related options can also enhance the adaptive capacity of rural communities, particularly smallholders and pastoralists. There are significant synergies between adaptation and mitigation through sustainable land management approaches. CGIAR response: Solutions must be developed to address the increasing demand for livestock-based foods while minimizing greenhouse gas emissions and optimizing agricultural land use. While the idea of balancing meat consumption across various income countries and substituting animal-based proteins with plant-or lab-based alternatives holds promise for reducing emissions from livestock (Costa Jr et al., 2022), this approach overlooks the disparities in food and nutrition security among these countries. Essential foods like meat, milk and eggs TAKEAWAY 3: While improved agricultural and livestock management can reduce emissions, reduced consumption of livestock products could promote further mitigation.are especially crucial for the growth and development of undernourished populations. They provide vital nutrients necessary for overall health, such as protein, iron, zinc, vitamin B12 and other micronutrients.Additionally, this approach fails to account for the increasing demand for livestock-derived foods lowand middle-income countries. Addressing this rising demand requires a two-pronged strategy: implementing low-emission practices to boost productivity while also reducing consumption of livestock-based protein by 10%-25% in high-income countries. This dual approach has the potential to result in a substantial emission decrease of 0.5-2.5 billion tons of CO2 equivalent per year by 2050 (Costa Jr et al., 2022a).CGIAR response: By improving livestock production systems, we have the capacity to alleviate land demand while creating multiple societal benefits. Numerous avenues exist to improve livestock production that do not entail additional land usage or raising livestock numbers, TAKEAWAY 4: Sustainable livestock production systems stand to benefit over 100 million people globally by improving food security and reducing desertification and land degradation across more than 300 million hectares of land.thereby creating a positive impact on sustainable development. In fact, many effective ways to counter desertification and land degradation -such as better rangeland management practices that include rotational grazing, agroforestry, manure management, as well as rehabilitation of degraded lands -are intricately linked with improved livestock production practices. Moreover, greater focus on reducing food waste and embracing more sustainable dietary choices can amplify the potential contribution of livestock systems to mitigating climate change impacts. (refer to table on page 4) CGIAR response: Simply reducing emissions is no longer enough. Restoring degraded pastures and other agricultural lands is one promising way to meet the Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. By planting improved forages in pastureland, for example, carbon can be sequestered in the soil at a rate of about 2 tons per hectare per year -equivalent to the emissions of about 2 cars per year. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification estimates that there are more TAKEAWAY 5: In the fight against climate change, it is important to identify strategies that remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it within soils and trees.than 2 billion hectares of degraded land in the world (twice the size of the United States), with 14% of that in Latin America. By restoring these lands, we can help increase the resilience of livestock farmers, combat climate change and improve the health of our planet. In a recent review, Bai and Cotrufo (2022 estimated that the achievable annual SOC sequestration potential in global grasslands is 2.3 to 7.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year for biodiversity restoration, 148 to 699 million metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) per year for improved grazing management and 147 MtCO2e for sown legumes in pasturelands. This potential corresponds to about 20% of the mitigation needed to achieve the 1.5 C target temperature. ","tokenCount":"1414"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1f4657282a044a0932577a26c5cd6990","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/416ac6bb-99b2-4e56-b9bf-b48f75d71ba5/retrieve","id":"815880999"},"keywords":["African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative Agriculture Transformation Agency Africa Union CAADP","Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme CBD","Convention on Biodiversity (of UN) CBO","Community-based organization CIFOR","Centre for International Forestry Research Carbon Dioxide"],"sieverID":"9864b967-28d3-45a4-9d71-478724668cf6","pagecount":"24","content":"In addition to the focus countries, regional engagement and a series of virtual events and stakeholder interviews have been synthesised into the knowledge series. We would like to thank the time and expertise from stakeholders for interviews, workshops, regional events and sharing their insights towards this important project. In addition, thank you to the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) for providing results of research undertaken in 2021/22 in Sudan and Ethiopia in phase 1 of the project. In addition, thanks to the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) for providing results of research undertaken in 2021/22 in Sudan and Ethiopia in phase 1 of the project.Climate change is posing serious challenges to poverty eradication and economic development in Ethiopia. Ethiopia's pastoral and agro-pastoral communities, as well as its smallholder farmers in the highlands, are particularly vulnerable to climate change. This exposure requires a concerted focus on adaptation and resilience building, as well as measures to reduce poverty.Over the past three decades, various public policies and new institutional structures were launched by the government to tackle these challenges. Since 2000, Ethiopia has adopted several development programmes and institutionalized climate change in the form of its Climate-resilient Green Growth Economy (CRGE) Strategy, which seeks to increase agricultural productivity, end poverty and help the country achieve middle income status. Climate change is mainstreamed into these programmes, with specific projects designed to manage climate risks, both to agriculture and natural resources. Ethiopia has also subscribed to several international conventions on desertification and climate change, including the Vienna Convention, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and other related initiatives.Land degradation, deforestation, recurrent droughts and the loss of livelihoods aggravated by, inter alia, climate change, pose a significant threat to food security, economic growth and environmental sustainability in Ethiopia. Over the years, forests and vegetated areas have been subject to intense deforestation and degradation, with an estimated annual deforestation rate of approximately 91 000 hectares (ha) per year. Ethiopia has launched various policies and ratified several international conventions to strengthen its national capacity, build resilience and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Ethiopia formally adopted the Great Green Wall (GGW) initiative in 2011 to help in the fight against desertification through ensuring ecosystem restoration and the development of arid and semi-arid zones for the sustainable management of resources. Subsequently, Ethiopia has developed various steering and technical committees and a coordination office to interface with funding agencies and align with the country's development programmes. With funding mobilised from international partners, as well as domestic sources, and integrated into the country's longstanding development strategythe CRGE, the GGW initiative is being implemented in a stretch of land mainly in the northern and eastern regions that are heavily exposed to degradation and deforestation.As of 2020, the GGW initiative is well into its second decade of implementation and is receiving growing international attention as a flagship programme to combat land degradation, desertification, drought, climate change, biodiversity loss, poverty and food insecurity.The GGW Ethiopia short-and medium-term strategy focusses on 1) conserving, restoring and enhancing biodiversity and soils, 2) diversifying production systems; 3) meeting domestic demand, and promoting income generating activities; and 4) improving and installing basic social infrastructure.The long-term strategy aims to i. improve the capacity of carbon sequestration in vegetation cover and soils;ii. reverse migration flows to the restored areas; andiii. improve the living conditions of local communities. This commitment aligns well with the country's aim of transitioning towards a CRGE, with zero net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and corresponding plans for large scale afforestation and reforestation. It is also a demonstration of Ethiopia's global commitment to implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) and the Bonn Challenge on the restoration of degraded lands (UNCCD 2022; FDRE/ FAO 2012).The GGW design and implementation is guided by certain core principles, namely to redefine the ecological range to encompass not just the isohyets of 100-400mm rainfall, but also drylands in general; adopt an integrated and multisectoral approach; enhance local community participation; support capacity building and awareness creation among local people; promote sustainable development through integrated natural resource management; strengthen social development and gender sensitivity; support poverty reduction and livelihood improvement; improve soil, water and biodiversity conservation and restoration dryland areas; build on local knowledge and existing integrated natural resource management programmes and initiatives; make best use of resources, traditional institutions and past experiences; adopt flexibility and learning by doing; develop alternative energy projects; and provide more focused support to research and education (FDRE/FAO 2012).Data summarised in Table 1 indicates large areas of the country, many of these in the lowland and arid regions, that fall under the GGW sphere of influence. The total area under GGW is estimated at 13.2 Mha covering 58 woredas (local districts). The GGW is implemented as an integrated and crosssectoral programme with several stakeholders drawn from local, regional and national levels, and also representatives from the States' technical services, from local communities and civil society organisations (CSOs). A coordination committee and a monitoring and evaluation system was also established to track progress and improve synergies.Initially, two layers of institutional infrastructure were constituted, as described below (Ibid; FDRE, 2012):The NSC is the institutional body for decision-making and policy formulation, strategy development and management. Its mandate includes guiding the implementation of the national strategy and action plan of the GGW in Ethiopia; promoting coordination among key decision makers; and overseeing implementation of GGW activities by the National Agency.Implementing the strategy also required putting in place new institutions and organizational structures. The second layer is a Scientific and Technical Committee, comprising 15 experts from various disciplines to provide oversight and ensure consistency in the proposed interventions, most notably from the ministries responsible for agriculture and water resources, and from various agencies related to the GGW, meteorology, forest research, environment forum, diversity, sustainable development, NGOs and the private sector. The STC plays an advisory role in evaluating and validating the programme and in the formulation of technical and strategic documents.Project-specific committees are constituted at the national and woreda level to provide oversight and support implementation. For example, the GEF and UNDP projects are funded through the EFCCC but designed and implemented with several layers of committees providing oversight and technical support.Note that the above description outlines the original design of the institutional infrastructure for the GGW in Ethiopia. Key stakeholders consulted in the development of this report noted that the current institutional infrastructure departs from the initial design. It was noted that, subsequent to the launching of the GGW and the national workshop to constitute the STC, no follow-on meetings were convened. It was noted that the STC is currently overwhelmingly dominated by line departments drawn from the regions, with representatives from key government offices.The GGW country initiative is coordinated by a single individual -there is a lack of skilled human resources to coordinate and track implementation. Interviews conducted in the development of this report suggest that the GGW has not been effective in coordinating and harmoniously driving forward the GGW agenda, as set out in the initiative's goal statement and action plan. The country office is inadequately resourced, with all funds pledged by international agencies and countries channelled through the Ministry of Finance and disbursed by the Development Bank of Ethiopia to partners and implementing ministries and agencies. This is understandable, especially when the flow of funds is unpredictable. It is also a cost-effective option. The government opted to use its existing governance structure rather than establish a new structure for attracting and managing resources. However, this does mean that the national agency itself may be side-lined in terms of funding and institutional strengthening. International funding agencies like the Global Environment Facility (GEF) often channel their funds through UN agencies, while donor programmes use international NGOs to implement certain activities aligned to GGW. This may be conceived as parallel funding and can undermine coherent programming.As noted above, the current GGW institutional infrastructure departs from the original arrangement. Initially, the GGW fell under Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) with the national focal point located at the Land Rehabilitation Branch of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. It has since been relocated to at least three different ministries and departments.This has undermined the policy implementation process.Institutional memory is often lost with these changes. Currently, the GGW agenda is driven by the Ministry of Agriculture with no or little input from the GGW country office. This restructuring of key government institutions means the GGW agenda is not well understood by the public. Nationally, the GGW is managed as a forestry programme under the Ministry of Agriculture.Stakeholders consulted in the development of this report observed that the STC has not been very effective. As noted above, subsequent to the launching of the GGW and the national workshop to constitute the STC, no followon meetings were convened and the STC has become overwhelmingly dominated by line departments drawn from the regions, with representatives from the EPA, NGOs and the Ministry of Finance. Ethiopia has launched several initiatives for land regeneration and improved natural resource management, some predating the GGW. However, achieving some of the targets on climate change has proven a challenge. Key among these is the challenge of managing restoration in such a way that it produces both environmental and livelihood benefits (livelihood benefits are important in themselves, but also crucial for community support for restoration efforts that could fail in the absence of local stakeholder buy-in). These two dimensions have to be reconciled for a more successful outcome.The UNCCD (2020)  Considering the total area thus far restored against the target, Ethiopia will have to increase the pace of land restoration. What concerns many specialists and researchers working on climate change in the country is the sustainability of the current drive to address climate change and support restoration. If Ethiopia is to successfully restore degraded lands and avert recurrent droughts and loss of livelihoods, the country is in urgent need of a land use policy and clear governance structures that, amongst other things, provides clarity around the ownership and usage rights of trees established through restoration initiatives.It is also clear that public finance alone will not be enough to complete the remaining work and achieve the targets set for 2030. The UN GGW report (United Nations 2020) estimates restoration costs in the region to average US$440/ha. This means that the country will have to continue mobilising funds and grants more aggressively from international partners and donors to restore degraded lands while averting further degradation in other areas. Domestically, the Ethiopian government has to engage farmers and their unions with awareness raising and capacity building training to further strengthen community mobilisation in support of restoration efforts.Compared with other investments, returns from land restoration activities take much longer to materialise and this can discourage communities from investing resources and effort in restoration activities, yet local ownership is fundamental to achieving the objectives of the GGW initiative.Achieving the 2030 restoration targets and mobilizing the required funding over the coming decade will require a stable institutional infrastructure with a clear mandate to drive forward the initiative. Over the past two decades climate change was placed under no less than three ministries and several agencies. There have also been times when climate change has been side-lined in the public agenda. This seems to have changed lately. Climate change has come under the Ministry of Agriculture, with projects feeding into GGW being implemented by various agencies and the Ministry itself. Going forward, the GGW agenda, its plans and credible programmes such as SLMP need to be mainstreamed into the relevant ministries dealing with environmental matters. This will require high level political leadership and the revamping of GGW Ethiopia so that it has a more functional structure.Our research suggests that the GGW has yet to evolve into a flagship programme at the national level like the CRGE to combat land degradation, desertification, drought, climate change, biodiversity loss, poverty and food insecurity in Ethiopia. Some meaningful progress has been made, particularly in the initial implementation stage, but progress is limited, particularly when measured against the ambitions articulated in the early stages of the initiative. Key challenges include:• Land is public property in Ethiopia. Out of the total area of 113 million hectares, 69% is classified as agriculturally suitable land for crop and livestock production. To date only 14 million hectares (17%) have been put into cultivation.• Smallholder subsistence farming systems predominate in Ethiopia and the average plot of land worked per family is one hectare. Smallholder farmers form the backbone of the agricultural sector, cultivating 95% of the cropped area, and producing 90-95% of the country's cereals, pulses and oilseeds. In the arid zone, nomadic and semi-nomadic pastoral livestock production dominates.• The farming system is rain-fed; only 1% of arable land is currently irrigated. Thus, Ethiopia's agriculture is liable to climate change impacts such as droughts and dry spells.• Many of the GGW target woredas are in the highland regions. The arid and semi-arid areas of the GGW sphere are largely inhabited by pastoral communities, stretching all the way from the border with Djibouti and through the Afar and Somali regions down to the border with Kenya. This is the stretch of the country where the GGW intervention is supposed to take place, but it is an arid area with difficult conditions for afforestation. Millions of people eke out a living in this harsh environment where drought combined with unsustainable management of grazing and water resources is causing environmental degradation, leading to long-term desertification and livelihood loss. Some international NGOs like Helvetas, Mercy Corps, Catholic Relief Services and donor programmes like PRIME strive to build the resilience of these communities, working with local partners, by improving natural resource management practices, market linkages and diversifying income sources.• But these efforts are not integrated into the GGW strategy. Thus, this large tract of arid and semi-arid area has yet to be brought into the GGW-Ethiopia geographic influence.• A related question is how the Green Legacy Initiative can be integrated into the GGW initiative. Currently the Green Legacy Initiative is treated as part of the CRGE, distinct from the GGW. There are no platforms to bring these two initiatives together and coordinate activities. Fikreyesus, D. et. al. (2022) observed that EFCCC has initiated discussions to link the Green Legacy Initiative with REDD+ activities. As it stands, however, the GLC is not integrated into the GGW agenda.• The GGW initiative currently has very limited outreach to civil society organisations and the private sector to mobilise resources and enhance the resilience of communities. The emphasis seems to be to designate responsibility for implementation to certain government institutions (e.g. Ministry of Agriculture) that may lack the drive for integration with other ministries and agencies for a synergistic outcome. The various task forces constituted under the Ministry of Agriculture and other lead institutions should bring on board key stakeholders, including the private sector, for the more sustainable management of natural resources. This model should be implemented down to woreda level to maximise impact.• The political will for developing a green economy has not yet effectively translated into efforts by the private sector to encourage investment and mobilise resources (World Bank 2020; UNDP/GEF 2022).• Significant unemployment remains a major hurdle to the green growth. This is particularly true of youth and women, who lack resources and entrepreneurship skills. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor reports that Ethiopia has one of the lowest rates of entrepreneurial activity in sub-Saharan Africa.• There is a lack of official data measuring the progress of and challenges to implementation of GGW projects and associated plans and programmes. It would appear that there is limited collaborating, learning and adapting (CLA) built into the GGW initiative. Data gathering, analysis and dissemination to partners, government entities, NGOs and other parties is neglected. This needs to be addressed urgently. The GGW national office needs to be revamped with the appropriate M&E personnel, tools and capacity building to conduct research, monitor and evaluate performance, and share the outcomes of these processes with stakeholders to scale up successful practices. Lack of coordination, fragmented approach, loose coordination with national level institutions, duplication of effort and limited information sharing.Strengthen coordination among key stakeholders from federal to region to local woreda and kebele level. Both horizontal and vertical cooperation and coordination need to be strengthened.Institutional instability Strengthening national institutions in terms of resources, key skills and services (e.g. data collection and management) and improve human resourcesCertain laws that support climate change and GGW are not consistent to each other, while some intervention lacks policies (e.g. land use policy, watershed policy and forest policy)Revisiting policies in the face of growing population, climate change and other environmental stressors.Donors lack commitment for releasing funding after pledging for timely execution of projects. The GGW initiative does not have resources to initiate projects Donors pledging the fund should channel the fund using appropriate and accountable national institutions and live up to expectationAccountability is lacking in certain institution; there are weaknesses in monitoring and evaluation systems Good governance and monitoring, evaluation and learning mechanisms should be in place. Particularly those departments and directorates working under the Ministry of Agriculture need to strengthen their monitoring, evaluation and learning systems.  (Bekele, et. al. 2015). With support from the World Bank and GEF, a five-year SLMP I programme was implemented in 35 woredas in six regional states (Amhara, Oromia, Tigray, SNNPR, Beneshangul Gumuz, and Gambella) (Ibid). Implemented across critical watersheds, the programme identified and designed appropriate interventions for degradation factors. An important achievement also included the work done on land registration and certification, with millions of people receiving title deeds/holding certificates, potentially leading to improved tenure security on farmlands (Bekele, et. al. 2015). It should be noted that SLMP projects were all implemented in high agricultural-potential areas. They have very little relevance to the arid and semi-arid pastoral areas of the Afar and Somali regions that are the primary focus of the GGW initiative in Ethiopia. 4 10 More than 85% of GHG emissions in Ethiopia come from forestry and agriculture. According to CRGE estimates, in 2010, agriculture and forestry accounted for 50% and 37% of Ethiopia's total emissions, respectively. The strategy thus envisages agriculture and forestry to contribute significantly to GHG emission reductions, up to 80% of the abatement potential (FDRE, 2011). In total, the Government in 2014 pledged to restore 15 million hectares of degraded land by 2025 -one-sixth of the country's total land area (Minnick, A. et. al. 2014). This commitment was part of the pledge made to the Bonn Challenge and the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100). The programme is also designed to facilitate concessional loans and IFAD is expected to raise additional funds for this purpose. This co-financing scheme will be implemented through the Ministry of Agriculture. Information from the Ministry of Agriculture suggests that the initiative will be led by the various Directorates and Departments working down to regional level. Key directorates include forest development, irrigation, soil, land use and land administration having various specialists. IFAD will assign its own specialists to work together with government actors in various departments.Youth and women groups and communities will be able to apply for climate smart agriculture activities. Communities are expected to contribute to the costs of projects. This may include mobilisation of local resources and labour contribution. For example, for a seedling nursery establishment, 30% of the cost is expected to be covered by beneficiaries while 70% will be covered by IFAD. The government of Ethiopia in its part is expected to facilitate tax exemption. The Development Bank of Ethiopia will not only disburse grants but also lead the capacity building of MFIs, cooperatives, unions, etc to ensure that funds are appropriately used for the intended purpose, while the Ministry of Agriculture will mobilise its extension teams, development agents and experts to support implementation of approved projects. It will promote the programme through awareness raising campaigns. Its specialists will also support beneficiary groups in identifying climate agriculture projects that would qualify for grants.An M&E system is developed by IFAD to track and measure progress. Mid-term reviews, field visits and missions will also be initiated to support implementation. IFAD has already seconded 15 M&E specialists to the Ministry of Agriculture.The RLLP is the major Green Climate Fund (GCF) project implemented in Ethiopia. It seeks to improve climate resilience, land productivity and carbon storage, as well improve access to diversified sources of income in selected watersheds in Amhara, Beneshangul Gumuz, Gambella, Oromia, SNNP and Tigray regions. The project will be implemented through four integrated components (World Bank 2020):• A green infrastructure and resilient livelihoods component to support the restoration of degraded landscapes in selected watersheds and help build resilient livelihoods.• Investing in institutions and information for the promotion and management of sustainable land and water management practices and improving information in support of resilient landscapes and diversified rural livelihoods.• A rural land administration and use component to strengthen the system that secures tenure rights, optimizes land use, and empowers land-users to sustainably invest in productive landscapes.• A project management and reporting component to ensure effective implementation and reporting on project activities with due diligence and integrity.The  (2020) reported that Ethiopia has benefited from these projects through the improvement of landscape resilience and livelihoods and thus poverty reduction, food security and water resource security. The main transboundary projects are:• Scientific Assessment of Land Degradation (2019-2024): With the main budget drawn from GEF and co-funding from NASA and USAID, this UNEP-led project aims to enhance methodologies and tools for scientific measurement of the ecological impacts of land degradation and SLM practices in support of future investment decisions.• Integrated Approach Pilot on Food Security (2017-2022): This 5-year programme aimed at fostering sustainability and resilience to improve food security by targeting communities affected by environmental degradation and the loss of ecosystem services and resultant loss in crop production and livestock productivity.• Linking Sectors and Stakeholders for Increased Synergy and Scaling-up (2016-2019): A GEF-funded project developed by UNEP aimed at supporting the involvement of civil society organizations and vulnerable groups for improving inter-sectoral coordination and synergy in the GGW initiative.• Tree Aid: An international NGO helped 6 000 people to grow 190 752 trees in 2019-2020. Another 560 people were supported to produce fuel-efficient stoves. In 2021-2022, Tree Aid mobilised communities to grow 379 145 trees, including 7 110 mango and papaya trees. Several thousands of vulnerable rural people, including women and children, have earned up to US$117 in income directly from Tree Aid activities.• Partnering for Green Growth (P4G): This initiative focuses on helping Ethiopia meet its climate commitments under the Paris Agreement in five key areas: food and agriculture, water, energy, cities and circular economy. The Ethiopian P4G National Platform is hosted by the EFCCC. Currently the P4G National Platform secretariat is hosted by the EPA and the Platform is co-chaired together with the Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce and Sectoral Associations.• Reach for Change (Sweden): This organisation is currently implementing a pilot project funded by the IKEA Foundation to catalyse green businesses in Ethiopia that will create green jobs and inspire young people to start sustainable, green businesses. The intention is to scale this pilot nationally, working with technical schools and universities in order to build a broad pipeline of sustainable green businesses, thereby generating more green jobs.• Regreening Africa: This is an ambitious five and a half-year programme (2017-2023) that seeks to directly reverse land degradation across eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa by integrating trees into agricultural systems while improving the livelihoods, food security, and climate change resilience of smallholder farmers. The programme's vision is to spur regreening among 500 000 households across one million hectares in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, and Somalia, thereby catalysing a much larger scaling effort to regreen tens of millions of hectares of degraded land across the continent using locally appropriate practices such as farmer-managed natural regeneration, nurseries, tree planting, water harvesting and other forms of agroforestry and sustainable land management interventions. The programme operates as a consortium of research partners (ICRAF) and implementing NGOs (World Vision, Catholic Relief Services, Care, Sahel Eco, Oxfam) in partnership with local governments and communities. Through the use of monitoring tools like the Regreening Africa App developed by ICRAF, scientists are empowered to monitor the programme's progress for a more holistic picture of local realities. Operating in 25 woredas in four regional states, the scheme has registered significant success in Ethiopia. In the past five years, Catholic Relief Services and World Vision-Ethiopia alone have planted nearly 20 million tree seedlings and restored 217 056 ha of degraded land to benefit 156 206 households. Another 125 000 ha has been brought under area enclosures for restoration, with 1 146 government and private nurseries provided with technical support.• The Green Legacy Initiative: The Government of Ethiopia made global headlines in July 2019 when it claimed to have broken a world record by planting more than 350 million trees in one day. Since then, the Green Legacy Initiative has become an annual treeplanting drive. The Green Legacy Initiative is rooted in a vision of building a green and climate resilient Ethiopia -aligned with the ambitions of the country's green economy strategy (CRGE). By far the most popular initiative has been the seasonal campaign to plant billions of seedlings every year and restore the landscape. The initiative has been going on in earnest over the past three years, with 25 billion tree seedlings already planted, some outside of the GGW areas. The Green Legacy Initiative report estimates that up to 20 million volunteers from villages, government, the private sector and NGOs have taken part in the annual drive. Budgetary demands are quite substantial, with the government claiming to have spent US$22 million in the 2021 campaign alone.The Ministry of Agriculture is spearheading the campaign, with the EFCCC (co-chair) and the Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy playing important roles in coordination and implementation. The Ministry of Innovation and Technology supports data management for the initiative. Other government ministries contribute to supporting mobilisation and planting trees.The Ministry of Education, for example, works with universities, while the Ministry of Women, Children and Youth promotes involvement of youth.Ethiopia has also supported other countries in the region as part of expanding its green legacy. Ethiopia raised quality seedlings and shared them with Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somalia. The UN Environment Programme has also recognised the Ethiopian Green Legacy Initiative, hoping that other countries will be inspired to carry out similar reforestation initiatives and contribute to the objectives of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030.The Ethiopian government has claimed that, since the launch of the Green Legacy Initiative in 2019, the initiative has increased the number of nurseries in the country from 40 000 to 121 000 and that 767 000 jobs have been created for youth and women alone. A remarkably high survival rate of 84% for saplings has also been claimed. Some have questioned the veracity of these statistics, particularly the high survival rate of saplings, given the challenges related to land use planning and tenure. It is important to set up a robust system to determine the impact of the campaign on the environment and carbon sequestration to draw lessons for GGW. A pre-requisite then is to plant the right trees in the place and ensure that local populations and key local entities have the incentive to look after them for at least 10 years to maximise their survival rate.Project finances were mobilized from domestic and external resources by the Ministry of Finance and then channelled to implementors through the Development Bank of Ethiopia. Implementation of projects is spearheaded by the Ministry of Agriculture. This funding and implementation structure, which developed in the early years of the CRGE, has become the main modality for the implementation of GGW projects.Data released by the Ministry of Planning and Development indicates the amount of funds received and the corresponding co-financing leveraged from various funding sources (Table 3). The bulk of these funds come from GEF, which financed 85 projects at national, regional and global levels. GEF has also made substantial funds available directly to civil society organisations through its Small Grants Programme. • To facilitate CO 2 trading in the country, the REDD+ National Secretariat was established with a US$13.5 million grant from the Government of Norway.• The Government of Norway also provided about US$50 million for the Oromia Pilot Forest Development and Protection Project, with a further US$9 million for capacity building in other regions.• Ethiopia has also benefited from GCF -a global platform to respond to climate change by investing in lowemission and climate-resilient development.• Funds were also mobilised from some of the world's multilateral climate adaptation finance instruments, including the Special Climate Change Fund, the Global Mechanism, and the LDC Climate Change initiative.In total, domestic and international finance mobilised between 2011 and 2019 stood at US$482,975 and US$1,666,667 respectively (United Nations 2020). The GGW has limited capacity to monitor these funding flows. Given its current structure, the GGW office faces serious challenges in developing funding proposals, preparing co-financing or blended financing instruments and managing systems of results-based payment. Significant improvements should be made in terms of staffing and capacity development to address these constraints. Green Legacy Initiative has supported the establishment of billions of saplings and positioned the country as a leader in large scale restoration, yet improvements must be made to the country's land tenure system and a greater emphasis placed on establishing incentives and mobilizing communities and other stakeholders to protect and care for the saplings to ensure long term results.Since 2011, Ethiopia has mobilized US$1.7 billion from external funding agencies and a corresponding US$0.5 million from domestic sources for climate-related projects. However, neither the GGW Ethiopia office nor the Ministry of Agriculture have adequately monitored how this money was raised or disbursed. This is partly due to the lack of a lead institution to conduct a comprehensive mapping of available funding opportunities and direct these to specific projects that are aligned with the GGW initiative.The private sector and civil society feature prominently in the GGW agenda, but this has not been effectively translated into action to draw on resources and encourage investment for developing Ethiopia's climate-resilient green economy.Ethiopia lacks a stable lead institution to drive forward the GGW agenda, with the mandate for managing the country's climate change response being shuffled between several ministries and agencies over the past number of years. An outcome of this instability is that many of the country's climate and restoration projects were implemented without any reference to the GGW agenda. This has also resulted in a lack of coherence, continuity, coordination and alignment between these projects. This institutional instability and lack of policy coherence has also created challenges in assessing the outcome of these project and integrating emerging lessons and good practice. The GGW has lacked a functioning platform to bring actors together; instead, each climate and restoration project implementers have worked independently.The GGW needs a coordination mechanism and system of monitoring and evaluation for the various climate and restoration initiatives in the country. Initially, a national agency for Great Green Wall was constituted with the mandate to handle all issues related to the implementation, coordination, and monitoring of the Initiative.Concurrently, a national steering committee and a scientific and technical committee were proposed to provide oversight and help guide implementation. This original structure has, however, not been operationalised.Currently, there is limited awareness of the GGW initiative even by government institutions and research centres. Moreover, key institutions lack the platform for a systematic, coordinated assessment of and response to climate change risks and opportunities. This much is also true of international NGOs implementing natural resource management activities. In the absence of a lead institution, successful practices are not scaled up to mitigate the effects of climate risk and help improve the country's climate resilience.Climate, land management and restoration research is not coordinated and results are not shared across the spectrum of stakeholders to draw key actors around a common agenda. The generation and dissemination of knowledge should be improved so that future activities can be informed by past experience. The GGW country office should reach out to universities, donor projects and UN organisations to identify priority research themes and to support the documentation and dissemination of lessons and best practices to communities, civil society actors and policy makers in support of adaptive learning.The GGW should cultivate collaborative relationships with projects, agencies, and organisations working on climate change, including community-based organisations. It should work on aligning and harmonizing strategies, while also coordinating implementation to address the disconnect between projects and institutional mandates.The GGW country initiative should play a more active role in supporting the integration of climate change into development plans and programmes at the national and subnational levels. It should cooperate with relevant government institutions to develop a cadre of knowledgeable government and civil society actors to push for the development and implementation of improved natural resource management policies.Integrating economic activities like beekeeping, honey production, fodder trees, nurseries for seedlings, etc with land restoration and water harvesting initiatives would not only create job opportunities, reduce poverty and generate a stable flow of income but also assure the sustainability of restoration projects over time and ultimately help to achieve the GGW objectives.Projects like Regreening Africa have demonstrated that community-based adaptation initiatives can be strengthened through the provision of training to local extension staff and local communities, including youth and women groups, for improved land, water and forest management. The GGW country office should encourage development finance institutions and the Ministry of Agriculture to require projects to adopt such practices.Climate change-induced resource scarcity often leads to conflict and impedes efforts to tackle environmental degradation and achieve economic growth. The GGW will have to work on pre-empting such conflicts through a concerted campaign and in collaboration with projects on the ground.The GGW should promote tailored adaptation strategies built on local practices and customary institutions; it should encourage community-based planning and ownership for sustainable management of forest resources, trees, watersheds, and other natural resources and ecosystems.The GGW needs to play a more proactive role in reaching out to external funding agencies and driving the mobilisation of resources. There remains a significant gap between the amount of international support pledged by donors and the amount reported by the Ministry of Finance in support of the country's 2030 restoration and climate targets.The GGW Ethiopia country office needs to be revamped and provided with more resources and personnel so that it can play a more active role in supporting climate change and restoration initiatives. This will allow the country office to take the lead in coordinating and monitoring the various initiatives in the country, as well as raise public awareness of the GGW initiative and mobilize support for its objectives, agenda and operational modalities.","tokenCount":"5805"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"48bee5d17a06a7b5e03cedcc1dec6a43","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20140610181115/http://www.unicauca.edu.co/biotecnologia/ediciones/vol1/Art14.pdf","id":"286465457"},"keywords":["Diversidad","patógenos","mancha","marcadores RAPD","los microsa-télites RAMS Diversity","pathogen","spot","RAPD markers","the microsatellites RAMS"],"sieverID":"14cd722f-401d-4942-a0c7-19e4c54cf584","pagecount":"8","content":"La mancha angular de la hoja del fríjol común (Phaseolus Vulgaris L.) es causada por el hongo Phaeoisariopsis griseola (PG). En cultivos susceptibles, ALS causa una defoliación severa y prematura, Vainas arrugadas, semillas hundidas y perdidas en la producción, alcanzando el 80%. En esta investigación se usaron marcadores moleculares para clarificar la relación entre aislamientos Andinos, Mesoamericanos y aislamientos Afro-Andinos de P. Griseola. Los marcadores moleculares comprendieron cinco primers RAPD-(random Amplified polymorphic DNA), siete primers RAMS (Random Amplified Microsatellite), y la digestión de producto amplificado IGS-RFLP -(Restriction fragment length polymorphisms of the intergenic spacer regions of DNA ribosomal), para 131 aislamientos de P Griseola recolectados de África y Latinoamérica. En contraste con los marcadores de virulencia, los marcadores moleculares mostraron un alto nivel de diferenciación geográfica dentro de cada grupo de P Griseola definido. Los aislamientos andinos de África fueron claramente separados de los aislamientos andinos de Latinoamérica, así como los aislamientos Mesoamericanos (figure 3).interesantes hallazgos concernientes a la población de P. griseola: 1) el acervo genético del hospedero es el factor mas importante en la formación de la estructura poblacional de P. griseola. 2) en P. Griseola se mantienen altos niveles de diversidad. Dado que la reproducción sexual, no ha sido reportada en este patógeno el alto novel de diversidad genética observado posiblemente es causado por flujo genes o migración y nuevos tipos de patógenos en semillas contaminadas. 3) \"Afro-Andinos\" no es un grupo separado son un aislamientos típicos andinos que han co-evolucionado para colonizar el fríjol desde el acervo genético Mesoamericano. Esta información es muy útil para desarrollar estrategias de mejoramiento genético para obtener variedades de fríjol común con una resistencia duradera a patógenos. Es inadecuado usar variedades de fríjol teniendo un simple gen de resistencia a la mancha angular y la piramidación de los genes de resistencia, es la estrategia con potencial pata mantener una resistencia duradera por largo tiempo (Nelson, 1978;Lueng et al, 1993;Kelly, 1995). 4) por primera vez los aislamientos Andinos de Latinoamérica fueron genéticamente diferenciados de los aislamientos Andinos de África, lo mismo que los aislamientos mesoamericanos de Latinoamérica son geneticamente diferenciados de los Mesoamericanos de Africa.The angular leaf spot (ALS) of common bean (Phaseolus Vulgaris L.) is caused by the Phaeoisariopsis griseola (PG) fungus. In susceptible cultivations, ALS causes a premature and severe defoliation, wrinkled pods, sunken seeds and yield losing, reaching the 80%. In this investigation, molecular markers were used in order to clarify the relationships between the Andean, Meso-American and \"Afro-Andean\" isolations of P. Griseola. The molecular markers comprised five primers RAPD-(random Amplified polymorphic DNA), seven primers RAMS (Random Amplified Microsatellite), and the digestion of the amplified product IGS-RFLP -(Restriction fragment length polymorphisms of the intergenic spacer regions of DNA ribosomal), for 131 isolations of P Griseola collected from Africa and Latino America. In Contrast to the markers of virulence, the molecular markers showed high geographic differentiation level inside each group of P Griseola defined. The Andean isolations of Africa were clearly separated from the Andean isolations of Latino America, as well as Mesoamericans isolations (figure 3). These results show that the major force forming the population structure P Griseol, is the specialization of the innkeeper, with the seeming geographic differentiation playing a secondary role. The results presented in this study, showed that the \"Afro-Andean\" isolations are not a separate group, but they are typical Andean isolations that have co-evolved for colonizing bean from the Mesoamerican genetic wealth. In general, the results of this investigation have revealed new and interesting findings with regards to genetic of P. griseola population: 1) the genetic wealth of the innkeeper is the most important factor in the formation of the P. griseola population structure. 2) In P. Griseola are maintained high levels of diversity. Since the sexual reproduction, has not been reported in this pathogen, the high level of genetic diversity observed is caused possibly by the genes flow or migration, and new types of pathogens in contaminated seeds. 3) \"Afro-Andean\" is not a separated group; they are typical Andean isolations that have co-evolved to colonizing bean from the Mesoamerican genetic wealth. This information is very useful in order to develop genetic improvement strategies to obtain common bean varieties with a lasting resistance to pathogen. It is inadequate to use bean varieties having a simple gene of resistance to the angular spot and the genes of resistance pyramidation, is the strategy with potential to maintain a lasting resistance for a long time (Nelson, 1978;Lueng et al, 1993;Kelly, 1995). 4) For the first time the Andean isolations of Latino America were genetically differentiated from the Andean of Africa ones, the same that the Mesoamerican isolations of Latino America are genetically different from the Mesoamerican of Africa ones.Definir la estructura genética de poblaciones, es un lógico primer paso en estudios de poblaciones genéticas fungosas, porque refleja su historia evolutiva y su po-tencial para evolucionar, entendiéndose como estructura genética a la cantidad y distribución de la variación genética dentro y entre poblaciones (15).Por lo anterior, cuando se trabaja con un hongo, deben responderse preguntas de la estructura genética, en relación a la cantidad de diversidad genética que existe en la población y su distribución dentro y entre poblaciones.En relación al papel de los procesos específicos de evolución, preguntas tales como:De qué forma la reproducción sexual, la asexual, la migración y la deriva genética, afectan la estructura poblacional. En relación con la patología de plantas deben responder-se preguntas tales como cuales limites geográficos y especies, pueden ser definidos por flujo de genes y por sistemas de apareamiento. Además, cómo las diferentes estrategias de control, afectan la estructura genética de la población y cual es el potencial evolutivo del patógeno.Por ejemplo, si es posible que evolucione rápidamente o lentamente con el cambio del ambiente (15). La información de la diversidad genética es impor tante para la comprensión de las fuentes de variación genética, para la determinación de la forma en que se mantiene la variación genética, cual es la tasa de cambio etc. Información necesaria para predecir cuanto tiempo puede durar una fuente de resistencia y formular estrategias de manejo.Marcadores RAPD El análisis RAPD (ADN polimórfico Amplificado al Azar o Random Amplifield Polymorphic DNA ) fue descrito por primera vez en 1990 por dos grupos independien-tes de investigadores (25,26). Es una versión de la metodología PCR con capacidad para el reconocimiento de muchos loci diferentes (27).El análisis RAPD, utiliza un solo \"primer\", el cual se usa para amplificar secuencias al azar de un patrón complejo de ADN.Los polimor fismos producidos con la técnica RAPD, pueden resultar de cualquier cambio en la secuencia o sitio de unión del primer (mutación puntual), lo cual impide que el primer se una a la cadena, e impida la exitosa amplificación del ADN molde como resultado de translocaciones, inversiones, deleciones o muta-ciones. En los estudios de herencia, los productos de amplificación se compor tan como marcadores dominantes (27).Al igual que los RFLP, la técnica genera un número inmenso de marcadores, pero no requiere del desarrollo de sondas específicas para cada especie, ni tampoco del uso de sustancias radioactivas. Por esta razón puede ser realizada en forma mucho más rápida y con menos restricciones de laboratorio. Además las cantidades requeridas de ADN son 100 veces inferiores a las usadas en los RFLPs (20).Al igual que para el PCR, durante el análisis RAPD se producen una serie de reacciones químicas en forma cíclica, cuya contribución relativa al proceso global varía entre los ciclos iniciales, medios y finales (23). Cada ciclo está compuesto por tres fases que son definidas por cambios en la temperatura: a) La desnaturalización del ADN o de los productos previamente sintetizados mediante la incubación a altas temperaturas. Se rompen los puentes de hidrogeno, y las dos cadenas separadas permanecen libres en solución hasta que la temperatura se reduce. b) La unión del \"primer\" a sitios complementarios de la cadena disociada, lo cual se produce cuando la temperatura se disminuye.c) La síntesis de la doble cadena en una dirección específica (de 5'a 3') y a par tir del sitio de unión del \"primer\" mediante la acción de la polimerasa y la presencia en la solución de desoxinucleótidos libres y algunos elementos minerales esenciales como el magnesio y el potasio. Esta fase se produce a temperaturas óptimas para la Taq DNA polimerasa, o sea 72°C (temperatura optima de Termus aquaticus).El análisis RAPD se basa en la probabilidad de que una secuencia dada de ADN (complementaria al primer) se encuentre en el genoma en cadenas opuestas del ADN y en orientación opuesta dentro de una distancia tal que sea posible su amplificación. Cuando los tres pasos se repiten varias veces (usualmente de 30 a 40 veces), en solo unas pocas horas se pueden obtener fragmentos amplificados del orden de microgramos, luego de haber iniciado el proceso con cantidades tan reducidas como 5 ng de ADN.Los RAPD son de gran impor tancia para la patología de plantas y pueden ser usados con muy poca cantidad de biomasa fungal, como una herramienta ideal para estudios de parásitos obligados como roya y mildeos. Además se puede monitorear un amplio número de unidades de amplificación en cor to tiempo, usándose especialmente en diferenciación de líneas clonales para hongos que se reproducen asexualmente. Además, los datos son fáciles de interpretar porque están basados en secuencias de ADN amplificadas y no amplificados (amplicons), produciendo datos binarios que son fácil de manejar para su análisis (15).La técnica RAPD ha sido usada para el mapeo genómico de algunos hongos como Colletotrichum graminicola (7), para determinar relaciones entre razas de la especie Puccinia striiiformis (1), la identificación de patotipos y detección de variación en Leptosphaeria maculans (5), la caracterización de razas de Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. pisi (6) y para el análisis de variación dentro de Microdochium nivale (11).Los microsatélites son regiones de secuencias de ADN pequeñas y repetidas, generalmente de dos a tres nucleótidos, los cuales pueden o no estar asociadas con genes. Dado que la repetición por si misma no codifica para formar ninguna proteína, y debido a que las secuencias de ADN repetitivo pueden recombinarse y expandirse más frecuentemente que otros tipos de secuencia. Estas regiones son a menudo altamente variables y muy útiles para medir similitudes entre especies o variedades relacionadas.Este método es muy eficiente y proporciona tantos datos para estudios entre especies, como microsatélites resulten del alto grado de mutaciones. Sin embargo, la necesidad de clonación, secuenciación y sintesis de los primers específicos de la especie, reduce su universalidad.Recientemente, (28) demostraron un nuevo método para medir la diversidad genética en plantas y animales usando primers basados en microsatélites.La técnica combina los beneficios de los análisis microsatélites con el universalmente análisis RAPD, siendo también aplicable para hongos.Investigadores (8)(1996) propusieron el nombre de 33 RAMS a la técnica de Zietkiewicz et al (1994). Seleccionaron cuatro primers (GT, ACA, CCA, CGA) que fueron diseñados teniendo una longitud de 18 bases incluyendo un extremo 5' degenerado, el cual sirve de ancla-je para asegurar la unión del primer al inicio del microsatélite.La técnica se ha aplicado para generar marcadores de ADN de los hongos Armillaria cepistipes, Gremmeniella abietina, Heterobasidion annosum, Phytophthora cactorum, Phlebiopsis gigantea, y Stereum sanguinolentum, la técnica es reproducible, y aplicable a todos los hongos, incluyendo miembros de los Phycomycetes, Ascomycetes y Basidiomycetes; lo que permite detectar polimorfismos de ADN interespecíficos e intraespecíficos.El método molecular RAMS se ha utilizado recientemente para el estudio de cuatro especies de Myrothecium y cuatro de Myrothecium verrucaria en donde se muestra su fácil implementación (2).También ha sido utilizado para el estudio de la variación genética y especificidad del hospedero de Phytophthora cactorum (8), la diversidad de Tiarosporella parca en Finlandia, Norway y Switzerland (19). Al igual que con aislamientos de Phaeoisariopsis griseola y Colletotrichum (16, 17, 18) (Figura1).Los ribosomas son par tículas ribonucleicas compactas formadas por dos subunidades, que se diferencian por su velocidad de sedimentación y catalizan la síntesis de proteínas (14).Proporcionan el ambiente que controla el reconocimiento entre un codon de ARNm y el anticodon del ARNt y traduce el ARNm por grupos de tres nucleotidos adyacentes, en una secuencia de aminoácidos que dará origen a una nueva proteína o enzima.Las subregiones del ribosoma contienen proteínas y partículas de RNA ribosomal de diferentes tamaños. En procariotes la unidad principal del ribosoma 70S se divide en dos sub-regiones: 30S y 50S, mientras que en eucariotes la unidad es de 80S y se divide en 40S y 60S.En los eucariotes la subunidad grande tiene tres rRNAs (28S, 5.8S, 5S) y 49 polipéptidos.  Mostrando los primers CLN12 y CLNTS1 utilizados para la amplificación de la región espaciadora intergenica IGS.La subunidad pequeña tiene un sólo rRNA de 18S y 33 polipéptidos.En la síntesis de rRNAs, solamente los genes 28S, 18S y 5.8S son transcritos juntos.La sintesis del gen 5S ocurre en otra par te de los cromosomas de eucariotes y es transcrito independientemente de la unidad principal.Las unidades de transcripción alternan con regiones espaciadoras, unas referidas como espaciadores transcritos dentro de regiones no conservadas del pre-RNA conocidos como; espaciadores transcritos que se dividen en internos (ITS) y externos (ETS), y otros como espaciadores no transcritos (NTS), también llamados genes espaciadores ribosomales, espaciadores externos, y simplemente espaciadores.Pero el término más apropiado es espaciador intergénico (IGS) (Rogers y Bendich, 1987) (Figura 2).Para el proceso de extracción se utilizará el siguiente método. (ver Tabla 1)1. En un tubo apar te se colocan 25 ml de buffer de extracción y se le añaden 25 ul de Proteinasa K (el final concentración de Proteinasa K es 10 ug/ml) 2. De esta solución se le adicionan 600 ul a cada tubo ependorf que contiene aproximadamente 0,3 g de micelio , se agitan con la mano y se llevan a Baño María (65°C) por una hora, pero a los 30 minutos se retiran y se agitan nuevamente.3. Terminada la hora se agitan nuevamente y se agrega la mitad volume (300 ul) de Acetato de Amonio 7,5 M, mezclar bien con la mano y se dejan a temperatura ambiente por 10 minutos. 4. Centrifugar a 12000 RPM durante 10 minutos y transferir el sobrenadante a otro tubo y agregarle igual volumen (600 ul) de Isopropanol (frío). 5. Luego se incuba a -20°C por un mínimo de 2 horas o toda la noche. 6. Posteriormente se sacan las muestras y se centrifugan 12000 RPM durante 15 minutos. Se elimina el líquido y se deja el pellet. (El pellet podría estar suelto en este momento. Debe tenerse cuidado al eliminar el líquido para que no se pierda el pellet) 7. Añadir 800 ul de etanol 70% (frío), y se centrifuga por 5 minutos a 12000 RPM, y nuevamente botar el líquido y dejar el pellet. 8. Secarse el pellet por inversion del tubo a temperatura ambiente o en una campana de vacio, por 5 minutos y luego se agrega 100 ul de Buffer IX TE (10 mM de Tris-HCl pH 8,0 y 1 mM de EDTA pH 8,0) con RNASA (en un tubo apar te previamente se mezcla 1000ul de Buffer IX TE con 25 ul de RNASA), y se guarda el la nevera (4°C) toda la noche. (Si no tiene Rnase A, no impor ta, solamente agregar el Buffer 1X TE). 9. Cuando se utiliza RNASE A se ponen las muestras a Baño María (37°C) durante 1 hora y correr el gel para ver su calidad. El DNA esta listo para uso despues de la determinacion de su concentracion. 10. Cuando se desea una mayor purificion del ADN, agregar 400 ul del Buffer IX TE, luego Agregar 450 ul de cloroformo : alcohol isoamílico (24:1), mezclar con la mano y centrifugar a 12000 RPM durante 10 minutos. Transferir 400 ul de la suspensión a nuevos tubos y agregar 1/10 de su volúmen de Acetato de Sodio (40 ul), con un volúmen igual de Isopropanol (400 ul). Guardar mínimo 2 horas o toda la noche (-20°C). 12. Centrifugar a 12000 RPM durante 10 minutos, eliminar el líquido y dejar el pellet. 13. Lavar el pellet con 800 ul de etanol 70% (frio) y se centrifuga por 5 minutos a 12000 RPM, y nuevamente botar el líquido y dejar el pellet. 14. Secarse el pellet por inversion del tubo a temperatura ambiente o en una campana de vacio, por 5 minutos y luego se agrega 100 ul de Buffer IX TE (10 mM de Tris-HCl pH 8,0 y 1 mM de EDTA pH 8,0) con RNASA (en un tubo apar te previamente se mezcla 1000ul de Buffer IX TE con 25 ul de RNASA), y se guarda el la nevera (4°C) toda la noche. (Si no tiene Rnase A, no impor ta, solamente agregar el Buffer 1X TE).Nota: El Isopropanol, la Proteinasa K., el Etanol 70% y la RNASA se encuentran almacenados a -20°C.Después de extraído el DNA se procede, a realizar una electroforesis para determinar su calidad.Similaridad en término de marcadores moleculares. Coeficiente de Similaridad de Nei-Li. Para estudiar el conjunto de individuos se par te de la definición de similaridad de Nei-Li (12,13) también conocida como similaridad de DICE ( 24) o de Sorensen, cuya fórmula es Donde : Sij = Similaridad entre el individuo i y el j. a = Número de bandas presentes simultáneamente en los individuos i y j. b = Número de bandas presentes en i y ausentes en j. c = Número de bandas presentes en j y ausentes en i. El coeficiente de DICE omite la consideración de pares negativos (0-0) y da doble peso a los pares positivos (1-1) (24,21), lo que lo hace muy útil en términos de similaridad a nivel del DNA, en la que la ausencia compar tida de una banda no es necesariamente una indicación de similaridad entre dos aislamientos. Método de clasificación. La matriz de similaridad se construye con el programa SIMQUAL del paquete \"Numerical Taxonomy System for Personal Computer\" (NTSYS-pc versión 1.8). A partir de la matriz de similaridad se construye una de agrupamiento con el programa SAHN de NTSYS-pc. El método utilizado fue el de unión media UPGMA (del inglés Unweighted pair-grupp arithmetic mean) que es el más usado y el que produce menor distorsión al compararse con la matriz original de similaridad. A par tir de esta matriz se construyó un dendograma con el programa TREE de NTSYS-pc (NTSYS-pc versión 1.80) (22,29).Coeficiente de Correlación Cofenética. Es una medida de ajuste entre los valores de similitud del dendograma y los de la matriz original de similaridad. Se calculó mediante el programa COPH y MXCOMP del paquete \"Numerical Taxonomy System for Personal Computer\" (NTSYS-pc versión 1.8).Análisis de Correspondencia Múltiple. Es un tipo de análisis multivariado (SAS) que permite visualizar de forma más detallada los datos obtenidos. Facilita la representación multidimensional de un grupo de objetos o individuos con características descriptivas de ellos en un espacio determinado como el plano. La representación se obtiene con base en la dependencia que existe entre categorías que corresponden a las filas y las columnas de un atabla de datos, de este modo, la asociación se basa en variables específicas. De forma operacional, el análisis asocia todos los individuos con todas las características con que fueron calificados, es decir, asocia todas las filas con todas las columnas determinando el nivel de proximidad (asociación) (9). Diversidad Genética. Diversidad por patotipos. Para calcular la diversidad por patotipos (caracterización por virulencia) se identifican y agrupan individuos por patrones. En este caso es el conjunto de reacciones (resistencia, susceptibilidad) que puede ejercer un aislamiento sobre las 12 variedades diferenciales evaluadas. De esta manera los patrones o patotipos incluyen aislamientos con igual tipo de reacciones. El cálculo de diversidad de acuerdo con los patotipos encontrados en cada grupo y en toda la población se efectúa de la siguiente manera: La diversidad para subgrupos de cualquier naturaleza se calcula mediante la fórmula ; + Cuando el valor de Gst es : > 0.5 : se concluye que los individuos son más diversos entre cada grupo que dentro de un mismo grupo. < 0.5 : se concluye que los individuos son más diversos dentro de un mismo grupo que entre grupos.Diversidad por haplotipos. El cálculo de la diversidad por haplotipos se realiza de forma similar al de la diversidad por patotipos. Para esta etapa del análisis se definieron como haplotipos diferentes, dos patrones que en su estructura molecular difieran al menos en una banda.Análisis Bootstrap. Los dendogramas son construidos con base en los grados de similaridad entre individuos. La confianza de los agrupamientos producidos, no es generalmente sensible a los procedimientos estadísticos usuales de computación. (4) Investigadores propucieron usar \"bootstrapping\" (3) como camino para obtener una apreciación no paramétrica de los limites de confianza. El único requisito es que los datos sean binarios, donde 1 es para \"carácter de banda presente\" y 0 para \"carácter de banda ausente\".Análisis de Varianza Molecular (ANOVA): Se utiliza el programa ANOVA-PREP para generar matrices de distancia con base en el coeficiente de DICE y para crear archivos de distancia, grupos y población. Este programa fue diseñado para automatizar los procesos de preparación de archivos de salida que van a ser usados por ANOVA (Análisis de Varianza Molecular) (M.P. Miller, Depar tament of Biological Sciences, Nor thern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA :HTTTP:herb.bio.nau.edu/ (1) Chen, X.; Line, R.F ; Leung, H. 1993 ","tokenCount":"3528"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f6fcbd04d99ab54fdbb5123e7bd038b0","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f8b443d9-bee9-4b02-80d1-a0421adc4a00/retrieve","id":"-493567510"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"61e6376d-8da9-400d-a65c-bf3d0f646cd2","pagecount":"1","content":"The purpose of the meeting was to establish the extent of information on the most commercially important Umbellifer genera such as the size and content of existing European collections (wild types, landraces, cultivars), the extent of passport and other information (ecogeographic, characterisation evaluation, taxonomic, breeding, main crop types, cultivars and commercial use) and characters already defined. Nine genera were targeted: Chervil, Caraway, Carrot, Coriander, Celery/Celeriac, Dill, Fennel, Parsley and Parsnip, though the information on Carrot was considerably greater than other crops due to the work undertaken for the current EU GenRes project.Participants indicated the number of wild types, landraces and cultivars in their collections, what breeding was known, where it was currently undertaken and how material was commercially used. Known characterisation and evaluation information was noted along with ecogeographic and taxonomic information. Information on characters which have already been defined, is already published in UPOV and IPGRI guidelines. Lists of currently commercialised cultivars for some crops in the target Umbellifer genera are published in the European Community Common Catalogue of Vegetable Varieties. Passport information on the accessions stored in current European collections was partly available and could be collated.","tokenCount":"189"}
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+{"metadata":null,"keywords":null,"sieverID":"9199322f-c5b4-478d-b397-a87fa6275b6c","pagecount":"0","content":"apce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\nAPCE apce12035 Dispatch: February 21, 2014 CE: N / A\nJournal MSP No. No. of pages: 30 PE: Wendy\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics 85:2 2014 pp. 1–30\nIMPACT OF AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES ON\nSMALLHOLDERS’ TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY: EMPIRICAL\nEVIDENCE FROM ETHIOPIA\nby\nGashaw Tadesse ABATE∗\nUniversity of Trento, Graduate School of Social Sciences and European Research\nInstitute on Cooperatives and Social Enterprises (EURICSE), Italy\nGian Nicola FRANCESCONI\nInternational Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and International Center for\nTropical Agriculture (CIAT), Dakar, Senegal\nand\nKindie GETNET\nInternational Water Management Institute (IWMI), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia\nABSTRACT: Using household survey data from Ethiopia, this paper evaluates\nthe impact of agricultural cooperatives on smallholders’ technical efficiency. We used\npropensity score matching to compare the average difference in technical efficiency\nbetween cooperative member farmers and similar independent farmers. The results\nshow that agricultural cooperatives are effective in providing support services that\nsignificantly contribute to members’ technical efficiency. These results are found to be\ninsensitive to hidden bias and consistent with the idea that agricultural cooperatives\nenhance members’ efficiency by easing access to productive inputs and facilitating ex-\ntension linkages. According to the findings, increased participation in agricultural\ncooperatives should further enhance efficiency gains among smallholder farmers.\nKeywords: Agricultural cooperatives, smallholder farmers, technical efficiency, Ethiopia.\nJEL classification: Q12, Q13, Q16\n∗ We thank Shahidur Rashid for his suggestions and providing us access to the data and\nNigussie Tefera, Mark Beittel and Illana Bodini for their helpful comments. We are also grateful\nto an anonymous reviewer for comments and suggestions received during the review process of\nthis paper. E-mail: gashawtadesse.abate@unitn.it\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford\nOX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\n2 GASHAW TADESSE ABATE, GIAN NICOLA FRANCESCONI AND KINDIE GETNET\nBedeutung von Agrargenossenschaften für die technische Effizienz von\nKleinbauern: Empirischer Befund aus Äthiopien\nvon Gashaw Tadesse Abate, Gian Nicola Francesconi und Kindie Getnet\nUnter Verwendung von Haushaltserhebungsdaten aus Äthiopien wird in diesem Beitrag die\nWirkung von Agrargenossenschaften auf die technische Effizienz von Kleinbauern evaluiert. Wir\nwenden das Propensity-Score-Matching-Verfahren an, um die durchschnittliche Differenz der tech-\nnischen Effizienz zwischen Bauern, die Mitglied in einer Genossenschaft sind, und unabhängigen\nKleinbauern zu vergleichen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Agrargenossenschaften effektiv sind\nbezüglich der Bereitstellung von Unterstützungsdiensten, die signifikant zur technischen Effizienz\nder Mitglieder beitragen. Es lässt sich feststellen, dass diese Ergebnisse resistent gegenüber ver-\nsteckten Verzerrungen sind und konform gehen mit der Vorstellung, dass Agrargenossenschaften\ndie Effizienz der Mitglieder steigern, indem sie den Zugang zu produktiven Inputs erleichtern und\nder Geschäftserweiterung dienliche Verbindungen ermöglichen. Diesen Ergebnissen zufolge sollte\neine stärkere Beteiligung an Agrargenossenschaften die Effizienzgewinne von Kleinbauern weiter\nsteigern.\nImpacto de las cooperativas agrı́colas sobre la eficacia técnica de las\npequeñas explotaciones: análisis empı́rico en Etiopı́a\nA partir de los datos obtenidos de encuestas a los hogares en Etiopı́a, este artı́culo evalúa el impacto\nde las cooperativas agrı́colas sobre la eficacia técnica de las pequeñas explotaciones. Los autores\nutilizan el método denominado propensity score matching para comparar la diferencia media de\neficacia técnica entre los miembros de las cooperativas agrı́colas y los agricultores independientes.\nLos resultados muestran que las cooperativas agrı́colas son eficaces para proveer servicios de apoyo\nque contribuyen significativamente a la eficacia técnica de sus miembros. Estos resultados son in-\nsensibles a los sesgos existentes y confirman la idea de que las cooperativas agrı́colas incrementan\nla eficacia de sus miembros facilitándoles el acceso a los inputs productivos y a contactos com-\nerciales. Los resultados ponen de manifiesto que intensificar la participación en las cooperativas\nagrı́colas acrecientan las ganancias de eficacia en los pequeños agricultores.\nImpact des coopératives agricoles sur l’efficacité technique des petits\nexploitants: Analyse empirique en Ethiopie\nA partir de données d’enquêtes de ménages en Ethiopie, cet article évalue l’impact des coopératives\nagricoles sur l’efficacité technique des petits exploitants. Les auteurs utilisent la méthod dite propen-\nsity score matching pour comparer la différence moyenne d’efficacité technique entre membres\nde coopératives agricoles et fermiers indépendants. Les résultats montrent que les coopératives\nagricoles sont efficaces pour fournir des services de support qui contribuent significativement à\nl’efficacité technique de leurs membres. Ces résultats sont insensibles à des biais cachés et confir-\nment l’idée que les coopératives agricoles augmentent l’efficacité des membres en facilitant l’accès à\ndes inputs productifs et les liaisons à distance. Les résultats indiquent qu’intensifier la participation\ndans les coopératives agricoles accroitrait les gains d’efficacité des petits agriculteurs.\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\nIMPACT OF AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES ON SMALLHOLDERS’ TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY 3\n1 Introduction\nEnhancing productivity and commercialization among smallholder farmers is widely\nperceived as a key strategy for rural development, poverty reduction, and food security\nin Sub-Saharan Africa (World Bank 2008). For productivity gains to be achieved, small-\nholder farmers need to have better access to technology and improve their technical\nefficiency. It is important for smallholders to have easy access to extension services in\norder to optimize on-farm technical efficiency and productivity, given the limited re-\nsources available. While the private sector is gradually emerging as a contender, the\npublic sector remains the major provider of extension services in most of these countries\n(Venkatesan and Kampen 1998). A third option for providing services to smallholder\nfarmers is agricultural cooperatives, which serve the dual purpose of aggregating small-\nholder farmers and linking them to input and output markets (Coulter et al. 1999, Davis\n2008).\nGiven that agricultural systems in Sub-Saharan Africa are typically fragmented\ninto a myriad of small or micro farms over vast and remote rural areas, the role of agri-\ncultural cooperatives has become increasingly important (Wanyama et al. 2009). Despite\nthe turbulent history sometimes associated with post-independence and highly central-\nized governance regimes, agricultural cooperatives are nowadays omnipresent through-\nout the sub-continent. In recent days considerable public development programs or\nprivate initiatives are channelled through cooperatives in order to overcome prohibitive\ntransaction and coordination costs (Pingali et al. 2005). However, it is still empirically\nunclear and highly contested whether these collective organizations can deliver and\nlive up to their promises. Given the prominence of agricultural cooperatives, this is an\nimportant policy question for many African countries.\nSince the downfall of the Derg regime in 1991, agricultural cooperatives in Ethiopia\nhave become an integral part of the national strategy for agricultural transformation\n(Ministry of Finance and Economic Development 2006). With varying degrees of suc-\ncess, agricultural cooperatives are longstanding and widespread throughout the coun-\ntry (Bernard et al. 2008, Bernard and Spielman 2009, Francesconi and Heerink 2010,\nFrancesconi and Ruben 2007, Getnet and Tsegaye 2012, Tigist 2008). The recently es- Q1\ntablished Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) has also strongly asserted agricul-\ntural cooperatives as preferential institutions for moving smallholders out of subsistence\nagriculture and linking them to emerging input and output markets. In conjunction with\npromotional activities by the National Cooperative Agency, this effort has resulted in\nconsiderable growth both in number of agricultural cooperatives and the services they\nprovide to their members. In June 2012, the majority of both the 40,000 primary coop-\neratives and the 200 cooperative unions in the country were agricultural cooperatives\nengaged in input and output marketing.\nBy 2005, agricultural cooperatives had commercialized more than 10 per cent of the\nmarketable surplus in Ethiopia (Bernard et al. 2008). In recent years they are the major\nsuppliers of improved seeds and chemical fertilizer for all farm households (Ministry of\nAgriculture and Rural Development 2010: unpublished). While their role in agricultural\ninputs adoption for productivity growth is widely recognized (Abebaw and Haile 2013,\nSpielman et al. 2011), the impact of technical efficiency gains among their members\nremain unproven. Whether cooperative members are technically more efficient than\nnon-members is an open question. Agricultural cooperatives, as producer organizations,\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\n4 GASHAW TADESSE ABATE, GIAN NICOLA FRANCESCONI AND KINDIE GETNET\nare mandated to supply inputs together with providing embedded support services and\nfor facilitating farmer linkage with extension service providers; hence, members are\nexpected to be technically more efficient.\nThis paper aims to answer this question by comparing cooperative members and\nsimilar independent farmers within the same kebeles1 (in order to reduce potential\ndifferences in technology and agro-ecology in which this procedure tempers possible\ndiffusion effects). This approach, which compares members and non-members within\nthe same kebeles in which the agricultural cooperatives operate, enables us to precisely\ncapture the efficiency gains from membership, since members receive benefits from\ndividends, information, and extension services that are embedded in new technologies\nand have prior access to inputs, which are directly linked with technical efficiency gains.\nWe used the Stochastic Production Frontier (SPF) function model to measure the\ntechnical efficiency of sampled farm households, as it is effective in estimating the effi-\nciency score of households that account for factors beyond the control of each individual\nproducer (Coelli et al. 2005, Kumbhakar and Lovell 2000). After estimating the technical\nefficiency score, we applied Propensity Score Matching (PSM) techniques to estimate the\nimpact of membership in agricultural cooperatives on technical efficiency, drawing on\nthe approaches of Bernard et al. (2008), Francesconi and Heerink (2010) and Godtland\net al. (2004). Rosenbaum bounds sensitivity analysis is conducted to understand the\nsensitivity of the results obtained from the matching estimates to possible unobservable\ncovariates. Moreover, we checked the robustness of the results following alternative es-\ntimation strategy that aimed at accounting potential bias that might arise in estimating\ntechnical efficiency scores.\nOur results consistently show a positive and statistically significant impact of\nmembership in agricultural cooperatives on technical efficiency at the farm level. On av-\nerage, we found about a 5 per cent difference in technical efficiency between cooperative\nmembers and non-members. The results suggest that member households are in a better\nposition to obtain maximum possible outputs from a given set of inputs. The results are\ninsensitive for a hidden bias that would double the odds of participation in cooperatives\nand they are consistent with the idea that agricultural cooperatives enhance mem-\nbers’ efficiency by providing easy access to inputs, information, and embedded support\nservices.\nThe rest of paper is organized as follows: section 2 highlights the history and recent\ndevelopment of agricultural cooperatives in Ethiopia. Section 3 presents the data source\nand descriptive statistics of the variables used in the analysis. Section 4 presents the\nresearch methodology, including discussion of the empirical strategy, estimation pro-\ncedure of the propensity scores and estimation of household technical efficiency scores.\nSection 5 reports the results and section 6 concludes by discussing the main findings.\n2 Agricultural cooperatives in Ethiopia\nHistorically, agricultural cooperatives have played an important role all over the\nworld in providing market access, credit and information to producers. In particular,\nagricultural cooperatives in the USA and Western Europe have played an important\n1 Kebele is the smallest rural administrative unit in Ethiopia.\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\nIMPACT OF AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES ON SMALLHOLDERS’ TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY 5\neconomic role in providing competitive returns for independent farmers (Chaddad et al.\n2005). Agricultural cooperatives in those countries were established as service providers\nand were primarily aimed at countervailing the market power of producers’ trading\npartners, preservation of market options and reduction of risk through pooling. They\nhave also been accorded with a range of public policy supports that has encouraged their\nmarket coordination role in agri-business (Staatz 1987, 1989).\nIn Ethiopia, however, the tradition of agricultural cooperatives was completely\ndifferent from the western type of agricultural cooperatives from the initial days of\nestablishment to the socialist regime. During the imperial regime (1960s-1974), a period\nduring which cooperatives were started, agricultural cooperatives were setup in the form\nof cooperative production or agricultural collectives to jointly produce commercial and\nindustrial crops (i.e., coffee, tea and spices). They were not in a position to operate\nefficiently due to unenforceability of efforts, inequitable incentives, higher agency costs,\nand slow and centralized decision-making, which are inherent problems of collective\nproduction2 (Deininger 1995).\nDuring the socialist regime (1974–1990) as well agricultural cooperatives contin-\nued to be extended arms of the state and were used primarily as instruments of the\ngovernment in order to control the agricultural sector and prevent the rise of capitalistic\nforms of organization (Rahmato 1990). There were two types of agricultural cooperatives\nduring this period: production cooperatives engaged in collective production and service\ncooperatives handling modern inputs, credit, milling services, selling of consumer goods,\nand purchasing of farmers produce. Production cooperatives were expected to operate\nover 50 per cent of the nation’s cultivable land in the same fashion of joint production and\nwere believed to be more cost-effective (Rahmato 1994). However, ill-conceived policies\ncoupled with shirking by coerced farmers resulted in lower output and underutiliza-\ntion of scale and deployed labours by cooperatives as compared to individual farmers.\nBesides, forced formation and routine intervention from the state agents are critical\nfactors, which contributed to the poor record of agricultural cooperatives during this\nregime (Rahmato 1993).\nSubsequently, when the new mixed economic system was introduced in 1991 farm-\ners were given the choice to work on commonly or individually owned land; the past\nnegative experience led most of the farmers to reallocate common lands to individual\nholdings, which eventually led to the collapse of most production cooperatives (Abegaz\n1994). During the transition period, despite the efforts made to create an enabling envi-\nronment for agricultural cooperatives through the issuing of new regulations,3 most of\nthem continued to be burgled by individuals and others downsized due to competition\nfrom the private traders following trade liberalization (Kodama 2007, Rahmato 1994).\nIn general, prior to 1990 agricultural cooperatives in Ethiopia were ‘pseudo’ cooperatives\nboth in their undertakings and membership.\nDuring the late 1990s, the government of Ethiopia revived its interest in coopera-\ntives and they become part and parcel of the country’s agriculture and rural development\n2 See Deininger (1995) for complete historical accounts on the inefficiencies of cooperative\nproduction systems as compared to agricultural cooperatives providing services (marketing, credit\nand information) to independent farmers in Cuba, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Peru and Ethiopia in\nterms of utilization of economies of scale, innovation, equity and provision of public goods.\n3 Agricultural Cooperative Societies Proclamation No. 185/1994.\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\n6 GASHAW TADESSE ABATE, GIAN NICOLA FRANCESCONI AND KINDIE GETNET\nstrategy (Getnet and Tsegaye 2012, Ministry of Finance and Economic Development\n2006). In particular, the government strongly promoted agricultural cooperatives to en-\ncourage smallholders’ participation in the market (Bernard et al. 2008). As proclaimed\nin the new legal framework, this new wave of cooperative organizations was thought to\nbe different from previous cooperative movements. Although externally induced forma-\ntion is still prevalent,4 in relative terms the new policy allows cooperatives to be diverse\nand independent participants in the free market economy.\nAs part of the government support for cooperative promotion, cooperative gover-\nnance was also reinforced through the establishment of the Federal Cooperative Com-\nmission in 2002, a public body to promote cooperatives at the national level (Bernard\net al. 2010, Francesconi and Heerink 2010, Kodama 2007). The commission was estab-\nlished with a plan of providing cooperative services to two-thirds of the rural populations\nand to increase the share of agricultural cooperatives in input and output marketing\nthrough the establishment of at least one primary cooperative in each kebeles. While\nthere is evidence that suggests a consequent growth in the cooperative movement in\nEthiopia, its coverage remains 35 per cent of kebeles, and only 17 per cent of the house-\nholds living in those kebeles are members (Bernard et al. 2008).\nWith regards to performance, the impacts of agricultural cooperatives are less\nstudied. There have been only a few attempts made to understand their commercial-\nization role in collecting and selling members’ produces and the results are mixed.\nFrancesconi and Heerink (2010) found a higher commercialization rate for the farm-\ners that belong to agricultural marketing cooperatives, which suggest the importance\nof organizational form in cooperative inquiries. Bernard et al. (2008) conversely found\na similar commercialization rate for the farmers that belong to cooperatives (i.e., co-\noperative members tend to sell an equivalent proportion of their output to market as\ncompared to non-members), notwithstanding the higher price obtained by the cooper-\natives for members per unit of output. Their role in providing a better price through\nstabilizing and correcting local market in favour of the producer is also corroborated by\nTigist (2008).\nOther recent studies on impact of agricultural cooperatives by Abebaw and Haile\n(2013) and Getnet and Tsegaye (2012) respectively indicated better adoption of agricul-\ntural inputs and livelihood improvement among users of cooperatives as compared to\nnon-users. What is scarce in the literature is the impact of agricultural cooperatives on\nproductivity and technical efficiency of members, despite the fact that they are mainly\nused as a preferential channel to access agricultural inputs (i.e., fertilizer and improved\nseeds) and services (i.e., financial, training and extension). In the technical efficiency\nliterature there are empirical works that suggest the positive role of membership in pro-\nducer organizations or cooperatives in reducing inefficiency (Binam et al. 2005, Chirwa\n2003, Idiong 2007, Jaime and Salazar 2011). However, those results are merely based\non the analysis of inefficiency models without accounting for original differences among\nfarm households and in countries other than Ethiopia. In an effort to address this\ngap, this paper made an attempt to go one step further and compare the difference in\n4 In Ethiopia member initiated cooperatives account only for the 26 per cent of the total.\nThe remaining 74 per cent of the cooperatives are externally initiated, mostly by government and\ndonor agencies (Bernard et al. 2008).\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\nIMPACT OF AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES ON SMALLHOLDERS’ TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY 7\ntechnical efficiency between members and non-members that are similar in their ob-\nservable covariates or pre-membership characteristics in the context of rural Ethiopia.\n3 Data and descriptive analysis\nThe key variables used in this study include household characteristics; inputs\nused for production; production value and village level characteristics (such as popu-\nlation density and availability of farmer training centres). The data used are from the\n‘Ethiopia Agricultural Marketing Household Survey’, jointly carried out by the Ethiopian\nDevelopment Research Institute (EDRI), Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research\n(EIAR) and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) between June and Au-\ngust 2008. This survey provided data on all the variables of interest except village level\nvariables, which were then obtained separately from the Central Statistical Authority\n(CSA).\nThe ‘Ethiopia Agricultural Marketing Household Survey’ is focused on smallhold-\ners’ production and marketing patterns and covers the four most populated regions of\nEthiopia (Amhara, Oromia, SNNP5 and Tigray). The sampling procedure employed was\na three-stage stratified random sampling.6 The original sample includes 1,707 house-\nholds randomly drawn from 73 Peasant Associations (PAs). From the original sample\nwe dropped households with missing observation on variables of interest.7 The result-\ning sample used in this study includes 1,638 farm households, from which we drew a\nsub-sample (i.e., member and non-member farm households within cooperative kebeles)\nmainly used to address our research question.\nTable 1 presents a summary of demographic and geographic characteristics of\nsample households used in the analysis. From the total sample households considered,\n34 per cent are members of agricultural cooperatives (i.e., treatment group) and the\nremaining (66 per cent) is found to be independent farm households (i.e., comparison\ngroup). Farm households belonging to agricultural cooperatives are relatively more lit-\nerate, older, more likely to have a male head and have higher household size both in\nnumbers and adult equivalents. In addition, members are also more likely to own radios,\ntelevisions and mobile phones, as compared to the non-members.\nAs expected, members are using more productive inputs (i.e., fertilizer and im-\nproved seeds). This can be explained by ease of access, as agricultural cooperatives are\nthe major last-mile distributors of fertilizers and seeds, and also by the fact that mem-\nbers need to compensate for relatively lower fertile land. Although not reported in the\ntable to conserve space, the data indicates a mean difference within non-member farm\n5 Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Regional State.\n6 In the first stage, the Woreda’s from each region were selected randomly from a list arranged\nby degree of commercialization as measured by the Woreda-level quantity of cereals marketed\n(i.e., the major focus of the survey). This ensured that that Woreda’s were uniformly distributed\nacross the range of level of marketed cereal outputs. In the second stage, farmers’ or peasants’\nassociations (FAs or PAs) were randomly selected from each Woreda. For the third stage of\nselection, households were randomly selected from the list provided by the PA office.\n7 For example, we dropped households that report production volume without amount of seed\nused or land cultivated.\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\n8 GASHAW TADESSE ABATE, GIAN NICOLA FRANCESCONI AND KINDIE GETNET\nTa\nb\nle\n1\n–\nD\nem\no\ng\nra\np\nh\nic\nch\nar\nac\nte\nri\nst\nic\ns\no\nf\nsa\nm\np\nle\nh\no\nu\nse\nh\no\nld\ns\nM\nem\nb\ner\ns\n(n\n=\n56\n4)\nN\non\n-m\nem\nb\ner\ns\n(n\n=\n10\n74\n)\nP\noo\nle\nd\nS\nam\np\nle\n(N\n=\n16\n38\n)\nIn\nd\nic\nat\nor\ns\nM\nea\nn\n(S\ntd\n.D\nev\n.)\nM\nin\n/M\nax\nM\nea\nn\n(S\ntd\n.D\nev\n.)\nM\nin\n/M\nax\nM\nea\nn\n(S\ntd\n.D\nev\n.)\nM\nin\n/M\nax\nH\nou\nse\nho\nld\nsi\nze\n6.\n50\n(2\n.0\n4)\n1/\n14\n6.\n18\n(2\n.6\n6)\n1/\n26\n6.\n29\n(2\n.4\n7)\n1/\n26\nS\nex\nof\nH\nH\nhe\nad\n1.\n04\n(0\n.2\n0)\n1/\n2\n1.\n10\n(0\n.3\n0)\n1/\n2\n1.\n08\n(0\n.2\n7)\n1/\n2\nA\ng\ne\nof\nH\nH\nhe\nad\n45\n.7\n6\n(1\n2.\n28\n)\n20\n/8\n6\n44\n.0\n9(\n13\n.3\n5)\n15\n/8\n9\n44\n.6\n7(\n12\n.9\n9)\n15\n/8\n9\nH\nH\nhe\nad\ned\nuc\nat\nio\nn\nle\nve\nl\n0.\n45\n(0\n.4\n9)\n0/\n1\n0.\n25\n(0\n.4\n3)\n0/\n1\n0.\n32\n(0\n.4\n6)\n0/\n1\nN\num\nb\ner\nof\np\nlo\nts\n6.\n37\n(2\n.8\n1)\n1/\n22\n5.\n14\n(2\n.7\n2)\n1/\n21\n5.\n56\n(2\n.8\n1)\n1/\n22\nN\num\nb\ner\nof\ncr\nop\ns\n2.\n75\n(1\n.0\n4)\n1/\n6\n2.\n34\n(1\n.0\n4)\n1/\n7\n2.\n48\n(1\n.0\n6)\n1/\n7\nO\nff-\nfa\nrm\nin\nco\nm\ne\n0.\n55\n(0\n.4\n9)\n0/\n1\n0.\n61\n(0\n.4\n8)\n0/\n1\n0.\n59\n(0\n.4\n9)\n0/\n1\nR\nad\nio\nan\nd\n/o\nr\nTV\now\nne\nrs\nhi\np\n0.\n60\n(0\n.4\n9)\n0/\n1\n0.\n39\n(0\n.4\n8)\n0/\n1\n0.\n46\n(0\n.4\n9)\n0/\n1\nP\nho\nne\now\nne\nrs\nhi\np\n0.\n01\n(0\n.1\n3)\n0/\n1\n0.\n00\n6(\n0.\n08\n)\n0/\n1\n0.\n01\n(0\n.1\n0)\n0/\n1\nVa\nlu\ne\nof\ncr\nop\np\nro\nd\nuc\ned\n34\n23\n.4\n(3\n14\n9.\n9)\n13\n3/\n22\n75\n0\n22\n66\n.4\n(2\n43\n7.\n8)\n38\n/1\n93\n80\n26\n66\n5.\n5(\n27\n58\n.8\n)\n37\n.5\n/2\n27\n50\nFe\nrt\nili\nze\nr\nus\ned\nb\ny\nH\nH\ns\n96\n.3\n9(\n13\n6.\n32\n)\n0/\n90\n0\n22\n.4\n1(\n49\n.6\n1)\n0/\n65\n0\n47\n.8\n8(\n96\n.1\n3)\n0/\n90\n0\nIm\np\nro\nve\nd\nse\ned\nus\ned\nb\ny\nH\nH\ns\n7.\n46\n(2\n3.\n86\n)\n0/\n30\n0\n1.\n70\n(7\n.5\n3)\n0/\n10\n0\n3.\n68\n(1\n5.\n51\n)\n0/\n30\n0\nC\nul\ntiv\nat\ned\nla\nnd\nsi\nze\n1.\n37\n(0\n.9\n4)\n0.\n08\n/7\n.0\n6\n1.\n14\n(0\n.9\n0)\n0.\n15\n/6\n.7\n5\n1.\n22\n(0\n.9\n2)\n0.\n01\n5/\n7.\n06\nLa\nb\nor\n(a\nd\nul\nte\nq\nui\nva\nle\nnt\n)\n5.\n43\n(1\n.7\n7)\n1/\n11\n.6\n9\n5.\n08\n(2\n.2\n0)\n0.\n74\n/2\n2.\n12\n5.\n20\n(2\n.0\n7)\n0.\n74\n/2\n2.\n12\nO\nxe\nn\now\nne\nd\nb\ny\nH\nH\ns\n1.\n71\n(1\n.1\n1)\n0/\n8\n1.\n19\n(1\n.0\n7)\n0/\n8\n1.\n37\n(1\n.1\n1)\n0/\n8\nTL\nU\na\n(e\nxc\nlu\nd\nin\ng\nox\n)\n3.\n34\n(3\n.3\n3)\n0/\n31\n.0\n4\n3.\n22\n(5\n.2\n9)\n0/\n69\n.2\n3.\n26\n(4\n.7\n1)\n0/\n69\n.2\na\nTr\nop\nic\nal\nLi\nve\nst\noc\nk\nU\nni\nt.\nS\nou\nrc\ne:\nA\nut\nho\nrs\n’c\nal\ncu\nla\ntio\nns\n,b\nas\ned\non\nd\nat\na\nfro\nm\nE\nth\nio\np\nia\nA\ng\nric\nul\ntu\nra\nlM\nar\nke\ntin\ng\nH\nou\nse\nho\nld\nS\nur\nve\ny,\n20\n08\n.\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\nIMPACT OF AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES ON SMALLHOLDERS’ TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY 9\nTable 2 – Geographic characteristics of sample households\nMembers (n = 564) Non-members (n = 1074) Pooled Sample (N = 1638)\nIndicators Mean (Std. Dev.) Min/Max Mean (Std. Dev.) Min/Max Mean (Std. Dev.) Min/Max\nDistance to whether road 55.10(73.98) 0/810 76.63(89.57) 0/720 69.22(85.12) 0/810\nDistance to nearest market 67.21(69.5) 5/1080 75.63 (72.71) 5/1080 72.73(71.71) 5/080\nDistance to Woreda capital 141.60(111.86) 1/810 154.74(111.48) 2/810 150.22(11.75) 1/810\nPopulation density 183.2(114.6) 27/652 187.4(144.4) 27/652 185.9(134.8) 27/652\nAccess to irrigation 0.10(0.30) 0/1 0.09(0.28) 0/1 0.09(0.29) 0/1\nSoil quality\nFertile 0.19(0.39) 0/1 0.34(0.47) 0/1 0.29(0.45) 0/1\nMediuma 0.65(0.47) 0/1 0.49(0.50) 0/1 0.55(0.49) 0/1\nTeuf 0.14(0.35) 0/1 0.15(0.36) 0/1 0.15(0.35) 0/1\nFarmer training center 0.09(0.29) 0/1 0.12(0.33) 0/1 0.11(0.32) 0/1\naMedium signifies that the land owned by the household in question is a combination of both fertile and infertile\nsoil qualities.\nSource: Authors’ calculations, based on data from Ethiopia Agricultural Marketing Household Survey, 2008.\nhouseholds in input use by locations. Non-member farm households residing in coop-\neratives’ kebeles use a higher amount of fertilizer and improved seeds as compared to\nnon-members living in a kebele without agricultural cooperatives. This suggests the po-\ntential presence of a spill-over effect in input use and the presence of similar technology\namong members and non-members to study efficiency gains in kebeles with agricultural\ncooperatives.\nAs shown in Table 2, farm households that belong to agricultural cooperatives are\nthose located at comparatively accessible locations (closer to the nearest local markets,\ncloser to the nearest whether roads and Woreda amenities). This can also suggest that\nmost of the agricultural cooperatives in Ethiopia are found in locations that are relatively\naccessible. In terms of other village level characteristics, on average, members and non-\nmembers are located in Peasant Associations (PAs) with similar population density and\nhave comparable access to irrigation and Farmer Training Centres (FTC).\n4 Analytical approach\nThis paper aims at measuring the average impact of membership in agricultural\ncooperatives on farm households’ technical efficiency. In other words, we estimate the\nAverage Treatment Effect on the Treated (ATT),8 where the treatment is membership\nin agricultural cooperatives and the treated are member farmers. In such types of ca-\nsual inference, the estimation of treatment effects in the absence of information on the\ncounter-factual poses an important empirical problem. In impact evaluation literature\nthis is known as the problem of filling in missing data on the counter-factual (Becker\n8 See Becker and Ichino (2002), Dehejia and Wahba (2002), Heckman et al. (1997), Rosenbaum\nand Rubin (1983), Smith and Todd (2005), and Todd (2006) for detailed methodological discussion\non estimation of Average Treatment Effect on the Treated through matching procedures. We\ndidn’t include equations of ATT to conserve space.\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\n10 GASHAW TADESSE ABATE, GIAN NICOLA FRANCESCONI AND KINDIE GETNET\nand Ichino 2002, Dehejia and Wahba 2002, Heckman et al. 1997, Rosenbaum and Rubin\n1985). The challenge is to find a suitable comparison group with similar covariates and\nwhose outcomes provide a comparable estimate of outcomes in the absence of treatment.\nThe empirical approach in this study is twined to reduce three potential sources of\nbiases in the selection of a comparison group of non-member or non-cooperative farmers.\nThese potential biases are common in evaluations aimed at measuring ex-post impact\nof projects that involve some degree of self-selection among participants. A point in case\nis given by this study, which aims to evaluate the impact of membership in agricultural\ncooperatives, given that participation is voluntary and based on the intrinsic preferences,\nability and motivation of the farmers, as well as considering that no baseline (i.e., ex-\nante) observations are available to assess the performance of member-farmers before\nthey joined a cooperative.\nThe first potential source of bias is given by ‘selection on observables’, which may\narise due to sampling bias, meaning that the selection of cooperative location was not-\nrandom but determined by spatial fixed effects (i.e., village level characteristics) and\nfarm households characteristics. To control for selection bias associated with the fact\nthat participation in cooperatives was not random, we draw from similar approaches by\nBernard et al. (2008), Francesconi and Heerink (2010) and Godtland et al. (2004), and\napply Propensity Score Matching (PSM) techniques to account for differences in observed\ncovariates between members and non-members. Using PSM has a great importance\nin providing unbiased estimate through controlling for observable confounding factors\nand in reducing the dimensionality9 of the matching problem (Becker and Ichino 2002,\nRosenbaum and Rubin 1983).\nWith regards to placement bias, however, we argue that Ethiopia’s past and cur-\nrent governance of cooperative organizations minimizes the importance of farmers’ free\nwill and locations resource endowments, since every kebele is expected to have at least\none cooperative and participation in cooperatives means access to publicly subsidized\ninputs. Hence, in most cases the establishment of agricultural cooperatives is driven\nby neither location nor farm household characteristics residing in that location, but by\ncentrally planned governance strategies. Further supporting our argument, Bernard\net al. (2008) assume, as we do, that cooperatives are externally formed in its PSM\nanalysis, and found that government and development agencies initiate 74 per cent of\ncooperatives in Ethiopia. Thus, in Ethiopia cooperative placement based on kebele and/or\nhouseholds’ characteristics is rather negligible.\nThe second source of bias in selecting a comparison group is spill-over effects.\nIn the presence of externalities, comparing users of cooperatives with non-users in the\nsame kebele can increase the possibility of having spill-over effects that underestimate\nthe cooperative impact. On the other hand, considering a comparison group from kebele\nwithout cooperatives can increase differences at the kebele level (i.e., difference in agro-\necological conditions, infrastructure and institutions) by increasing the likelihood of\nselection bias. In our empirical analysis we tried to take care of both concerns. We\nfirst consider a sample that includes members and non-members from the ‘kebeles with\n9 Propensity score methods solve the dimensionality or separateness problem through cre-\nating a single composite score from all observed covariates X, which will be used for matching\n(Becker and Ichino 2002, Rosenbaum and Rubin 1983, Steiner and Cook 2012).\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\nIMPACT OF AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES ON SMALLHOLDERS’ TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY 11\ncooperatives’ and then we use the whole sample to match cooperative members with\nnon-members from ‘kebeles without cooperatives’ as well.\nThe third source of bias is ‘selection on unobservable’, which arises due to dif-\nferences between members and non-members in the distribution of their unobserved\ncharacteristics (e.g., in their ability, desire, risk preference, aspiration etc.). Given the\ndata available we cannot control for selection on unobservable referring to farmers’ pref-\nerences, motivation or ability. Controlling for such biases requires a suitable instrument\nthat explains the probability of participation in agricultural cooperatives but does not\nexplain their outcome. In this case, however, since we employ matching and compared\nmembers and non-members whose propensity scores are sufficiently close or have the\nsame distribution, we can assume that the distribution of unobservable characteristics\nis the same or at least not so different for both groups independent of membership to\ninduce a bias (see Becker and Ichino 2002, for a discussion). Rosenbaum bounds sensi-\ntivity analysis is used to test the sensitivity of the results to possible hidden biases due\nto unobservable household characteristics when this assumption is relaxed. Further-\nmore, the robustness of the results is checked using alternative estimation strategy that\naccounts for similar potential bias that might arise in technology selection. In this strat-\negy the technical efficiency scores are estimated after obtaining a comparable treatment\nand control groups.\n4.1 Estimation of the propensity score (P-score) and matching\nAs indicated in the previous section we deployed propensity scoring to match mem-\nbers of agricultural cooperatives with similar independent farm households. Hence, we\nfirst estimated the conditional probability of becoming a member in agricultural cooper-\natives (i.e., propensity score) given observed household characteristics using a flexible\nProbit model, where membership status in cooperatives is the dependent variable and\ncovariates and their quadratic terms are introduced as independent variables.10\nAlthough the probability of participation needs to be estimated only for house-\nholds living in a kebele with cooperatives for better identification of the variables that\ndetermine participation, we also estimated the likelihood of participation for the whole\nsample to understand the existence of sufficient overlap of the covariates. At large, the\ncoefficients and statistical significance of the covariates are similar, except for livestock\nownership, telephone ownership and households that produce barley. We mainly used\nthe propensity scores based on the reduced sample to estimate the average treatment\neffect on the treated for two reasons. One, the opportunity to participate exists in the\nrestricted sample; and two, the restricted sample is the primary focus of the analysis as\nit better controls local level differences that can potentially bias the impact, tempering\npossible spill-over effects that are found to be negligible.\nThe results from the Probit estimation are summarized in Table 3. From the\nresults we understand that the propensity to become a member of agricultural coopera-\ntives is high for households with large family size, experience in farming, number of farm\nplots, mobile ownership, wealth (i.e., number of ox and land), and crop types produced\n10 Quadratic terms are introduced in order to account for possible non-linear relationships and\nto maximize the predicting power of the model (see Godtland et al. 2004, for detailed discussion).\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\n12 GASHAW TADESSE ABATE, GIAN NICOLA FRANCESCONI AND KINDIE GETNET\nTable 3 – Determinates of participation in agricultural cooperatives\nMembers and non-members from\ncooperatives’ Kebeles (reduced\nsample)\nMembers and non-members from\nKebeles with and without\ncooperatives (whole sample)\nIndicators Coefficient (Std. Err) Coefficient (Std. Err)\nHousehold size 0.201 (0.067)∗∗∗ 0.206 (0.064)∗∗∗\nHousehold size2 −0.013 (0.004)∗∗∗ −0.014 (0.004)∗∗∗\nGender of household head −0.182 (0.153) −0.161 (0.151)\nAge of household head 0.034 (0.019)∗ 0.040 (0.018)∗∗\nHousehold head age2 −0.001 (0.000)∗ −0.001 (0.000)∗∗\nHousehold head literacy 0.408 (0.078)∗∗∗ 0.404 (0.077)∗∗∗\nDistance to the nearest road −0.001 (0.000)∗∗∗ −0.001 (0.000)∗∗∗\nDistance to the nearest local market 0.001 (0.000) 0.001 (0.000)\nDistance to Woreda capital −0.001 (0.000) −0.001 (0.000)\nNumber of farm plots 0.027 (0.016)∗ 0.038 (0.016)∗∗∗\nNumber of crops −0.165 (0.109) −0.197 (0.105)∗\nHousehold access to irrigation −0.060 (0.126) −0.085 (0.123)\nHousehold receives off-farm income −0.157 (0.075)∗∗ −0.139 (0.073)∗∗\nHousehold owns telephone 0.987 (0.441)∗∗ 0.521 (0.342)\nNumber of ox owned 0.259 (0.073)∗∗∗ 0.252 (0.071)∗∗∗\nNumber of ox owned2 0.033 (0.015)∗∗ −0.029 (0.015)∗\nLivestock owned other than ox (TLU) −0.008 (0.011) −0.017 (0.010)∗\nHectare of land held 0.127 (0.041)∗∗∗ 0.162 (0.040)∗∗∗\nHectare of land held2 −0.004 (0.002)∗∗ −0.006 (0.002)∗∗∗\nHousehold produces Teff 0.381 (0.136)∗∗∗ 0.444 (0.131)∗∗∗\nHousehold produces wheat 0.572 (0.140)∗∗∗ 0.662 (0.136)∗∗∗\nHousehold produces sorghum −0.177 (0.147) −0.180 (0.141)\nHousehold produces barley 0.170 (0.135) 0.240 (0.131)∗\nHousehold produces maize 0.155 (0.138) 0.137 (0.135)\nHousehold produces finger melt 0.643 (0.149)∗∗∗ 0.762 (0.145)∗∗∗\nConstant −2.369 (0.488)∗∗∗ −2.665 (0.477)∗∗∗\nNumber of observations 1455 1638\nPseudo R2 0.1464 0.1861\nSensitivity (in%) 50.00 48.58\nSpecificity (in%) 83.73 87.52\nTotal correctly classified (in%) 70.65 74.11\nNote: g∗∗∗ Significant at 1% level, ∗∗ significant at 5% level and ∗ significant at 10% level.\nSource: Authors’ calculations, based on data from Ethiopia Agricultural Marketing Household Survey, 2008.\nby household (i.e., teff, wheat and finger-melt). However, after certain threshold wealth,\nhousehold size and age adversely affect probability of participation. On the other hand,\nfarm households that have off-farm incomes, live closer to roads, and grow diverse crops\nare less likely to participate in cooperatives.\nThe results are more or less consistent with what has been found by Bernared\net al., (2008) as predictors of participation in cooperatives. They suggest that poorer\nhouseholds without any resources (i.e., land, labour, oxen etc.) and households producing\ndifferent crops than the common cereals marketed through agricultural cooperatives are\nless likely to become members. They also show that wealthy households with sufficient\nexperience in farming and excess owned labour will not tend to be involved in collective\naction, which is consistent with theoretical predications.\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\nIMPACT OF AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES ON SMALLHOLDERS’ TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY 13\n0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1\nPropensity Score\nNon-members: Off support Non-members: On support\nMembers\nFigure 1 – Distributions of the propensity scores for members (treated group) and\nnon-members (comparison group).\nThe reported density distribution is for the reduced sample that includes only members and\nnon-members in a kebele with agricultural cooperatives\nSource: Authors’ calculations, based on data from Ethiopia Agricultural Marketing Household\nSurvey, 2008.\nThe density distribution of propensity scores for members and non-members are\npresented in Figure 1. In order to improve the robustness of the estimate, the matches\nare restricted to members and non-members who have a common support11 in the dis-\ntribution of the propensity score. As it can be seen in the figure, the distributions appear\nwith sufficient common support region that allows for matching. Besides, the difference\nbetween members and non-members in their propensity score distribution validates\nthe use of matching techniques to ensure comparability. From several matching tech-\nniques applicable in impact evaluation, we use two extensively applied methods (i.e.,\nnon-parametric kernel based matching and five nearest neighbours matching).\nThe non-parametric kernel regression method is used to allow matching of mem-\nbers with the whole sample of non-members, since the technique uses the whole sample\nof the comparison with common support to construct a weighted average match for each\ntreated (Heckman et al. 1997, 1998). That is, the entire sample of non-members in the\ncomparison group is used to construct a weighted average match to each member in\nthe treatment group. On the other hand, the five nearest neighbours matching is used\nto match each member with the mean of the five non-members who have the closest\npropensity score. The imperative of nearest neighbours matching is that it compares\nnon-members with scores that are closer to the scores of the members.\nWhat is more, the validity of the matching procedure relies on the extent to which\nthese techniques sample or construct a comparison group that resembles the treatment\ngroup. Besides, the balancing test within blocks that are satisfied in our estimation of\nthe propensity score in case of both samples (see propensity score blocks in Table A1\n11 Common support refers to the values of the propensity scores where both treatment (i.e.,\nmembers) and comparison groups (i.e., non-members) are found. 8 to 13 observations that are\noff-support are dropped (Tables A3 and A4).\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\n14 GASHAW TADESSE ABATE, GIAN NICOLA FRANCESCONI AND KINDIE GETNET\nand Table A2), we undertake a ‘balancing test’ that compares a simple mean (i.e., mean\nequality test) of household characteristics within the treatment group to the correspond-\ning comparison groups created by the matching techniques before and after matching\nas a complement.\nAs reported in Table 4, the unmatched sample fails to satisfy the balancing prop-\nerty. Although the groups are found to be comparable in terms of access to irrigation, age\nof household head and distance to market and district administration, it shows a sys-\ntematic difference between members and non-members in the majority of their observed\ncharacteristics before matching. The balancing test results after matching that com-\npares cooperative members to the sub-set of comparison non-members selected through\nfive nearest neighbours matching and kernel-based matching shows no systematic or\nstatistical difference in observed characteristics between the two groups. Hence, the\nresults suggest that our comparison is valid from statistical point of view.\n4.2 Measuring technical efficiency\nThe technical efficiency measure is intended to capture whether agricultural coop-\neratives enable their members in getting better access to productive inputs and services\nincluding training on better farming practices that enhance their productive efficiency.\nThe stochastic frontier production model12 is used to estimate the technical efficiency\nof sample households. It measures the ability of households to obtain maximum pos-\nsible outputs from a given set of inputs (Coelli et al. 2005, Farrell 1957, Kumbhakar\nand Lovell 2000). Such a measure is of great importance in estimating the household\nefficiency score by accounting for factors beyond the control of each producer. Besides, it\nhelps to understand the factors that determine technical inefficiency of farm households,\nsince some of the factors can be influenced by policies.\nFollowing this approach we first detected the presence of inefficiency in the\nproduction for sample households. Estimating the stochastic production frontier and\nconducting a likelihood-ratio test assuming the null hypothesis of no technical ineffi-\nciency on input-output data carried out the test. The result shows that the inefficiency\n12 Unlike the deterministic approach, it is a model that incorporates household-specific ran-\ndom shocks that represents statistical noises due to factors beyond the control of households,\nmeasurement errors and omission of relevant variables (Coelli et al. 2005, Kumbhakar and Lovell\n2000). In other words, in stochastic production frontier the error term is composed of the symmet-\nric error component and the technical inefficiency component that measures shortfall of output\nfrom its maximum frontier or possible output. Hence, in this approach technical efficiency is mea-\nsured as the ratio of observed output to maximum attainable output in a context characterized by\nhousehold specific random shocks (i.e., exp{V j}):\nTEj = Yj\nf (Xj, β).exp{V j}\nWhere, refers to the technical efficiency of the jth producer, Yj is the observed output, indicates\nthe deterministic part that is common to all producers or households, exp{V j}is a producers spe-\ncific part that captures the effect of random noises or shocks on each producer. See Aigner et al.\n(1977), Coelli et al. (2005), Jondrow et al. (1982), Kumbhakar and Lovell (2000), and Meeusen and\nVen den Broeck (1977) for detailed methodological discussions.\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\nIMPACT OF AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES ON SMALLHOLDERS’ TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY 15\nTa\nb\nle\n4\n–\nB\nal\nan\nci\nn\ng\nte\nst\no\nf\nm\nat\nch\ned\nsa\nm\np\nle\na\nU\nnm\nat\nch\ned\nsa\nm\np\nle\ns\nFi\nve\nne\nar\nes\ntn\nei\ng\nhb\nou\nrs\nm\nat\nch\nin\ng\nK\ner\nne\nl-b\nas\ned\nm\nat\nch\nin\ng\nM\nem\nb\ner\ns\nN\non\n-m\nem\nb\ner\ns\nD\niff\n:P\n-v\nal\nue\nM\nem\nb\ner\ns\nN\non\n-m\nem\nb\ner\ns\nD\niff\n:P\n-v\nal\nue\nM\nem\nb\ner\ns\nN\non\n-m\nem\nb\ner\ns\nD\niff\n:P\n-v\nal\nue\nH\nou\nse\nho\nld\nsi\nze\n6.\n50\n6.\n03\n0.\n00\n0\n6.\n50\n6.\n45\n0.\n67\n6\n6.\n50\n6.\n46\n0.\n77\n5\nG\nen\nd\ner\nof\nH\nH\nhe\nad\n(1\n=\nM\nal\ne,\n2\n=\nFe\nm\nal\ne)\n1.\n04\n1.\n10\n0.\n00\n0\n1.\n04\n1.\n04\n0.\n83\n4\n1.\n04\n1.\n03\n0.\n79\n9\nH\nou\nse\nho\nld\nhe\nad\nlit\ner\nac\ny\n(1\n=\nYe\ns,\n0\n=\nN\no)\n0.\n45\n0.\n25\n0.\n00\n0\n0.\n45\n0.\n48\n0.\n32\n0\n0.\n45\n0.\n46\n0.\n76\n8\nA\ng\ne\nof\nho\nus\neh\nol\nd\nhe\nad\n45\n.7\n6\n44\n.8\n0\n0.\n16\n9\n45\n.8\n1\n44\n.9\n5\n0.\n23\n9\n45\n.8\n1\n45\n.4\n1\n0.\n58\n5\nD\nis\nta\nnc\ne\n(m\nin\nut\nes\n)\nTo\nth\ne\nne\nar\nes\ntr\noa\nd\n55\n.1\n0\n72\n.1\n1\n0.\n00\n0\n55\n.2\n0\n57\n.5\n1\n0.\n59\n0\n55\n.2\n0\n57\n.7\n0.\n56\n2\nTo\nth\ne\nne\nar\nes\ntm\nar\nke\nt\n67\n.2\n1\n68\n.2\n6\n0.\n78\n3\n67\n.1\n6\n71\n.4\n3\n0.\n35\n7\n67\n.1\n6\n69\n.9\n5\n0.\n52\n3\nTo\nW\nor\ned\na\nca\np\nita\nl\n14\n1.\n6\n14\n8.\n58\n0.\n24\n9\n14\n2.\n2\n14\n0.\n75\n0.\n82\n8\n14\n2.\n2\n14\n3.\n56\n0.\n83\n7\nN\num\nb\ner\nof\np\nlo\nts\nhe\nld\n6.\n37\n5.\n38\n0.\n00\n0\n6.\n35\n6.\n33\n0.\n94\n2\n6.\n35\n6.\n21\n0.\n43\n2\nN\no.\nof\ncr\nop\ns\np\nla\nnt\ned\n2.\n75\n2.\n42\n0.\n00\n0\n2.\n74\n2.\n76\n0.\n76\n4\n2.\n74\n2.\n72\n0.\n74\n1\nA\ncc\nes\ns\nto\nirr\nig\nat\nio\nn\n(1\n=\nYe\ns,\n0\n=\nN\no)\n0.\n10\n0.\n08\n0.\n36\n7\n0.\n10\n0.\n08\n0.\n32\n8\n0.\n10\n0.\n09\n0.\n48\n1\nO\nff-\nfa\nrm\nin\nco\nm\ne\n(1\n=\nYe\ns,\n0\n=\nN\no)\n0.\n55\n0.\n61\n0.\n01\n4\n0.\n55\n0.\n57\n0.\n49\n2\n0.\n55\n0.\n56\n0.\n74\n4\nO\nw\nn\nte\nle\np\nho\nne\n(1\n=\nYe\ns,\n0\n=\nN\no)\n0.\n01\n9\n0.\n00\n2\n0.\n00\n1\n0.\n01\n4\n0.\n01\n1\n0.\n67\n2\n0.\n01\n4\n.0\n17\n0.\n62\n7\nN\num\nb\ner\nof\nox\now\nne\nd\n1.\n71\n1.\n22\n0.\n00\n0\n1.\n70\n1.\n68\n0.\n71\n1\n1.\n70\n1.\n68\n0.\n69\n3\nLi\nve\nst\noc\nk\now\nne\nd\n(T\nLU\n)b\n3.\n34\n2.\n80\n0.\n00\n8\n3.\n32\n3.\n14\n0.\n97\n2\n3.\n32\n3.\n43\n0.\n63\n1\nS\niz\ne\nof\nfa\nrm\nla\nnd\n(h\na)\n2.\n06\n1.\n51\n0.\n00\n0\n2.\n05\n2.\n06\n0.\n92\n9\n2.\n05\n1.\n30\n0.\n86\n9\na\nTh\ne\nre\np\nor\nte\nd\nb\nal\nan\nci\nng\nte\nst\nis\nfo\nr\nth\ne\nre\nd\nuc\ned\nsa\nm\np\nle\n(i.\ne.\n,s\nam\np\nle\n1)\nth\nat\nin\ncl\nud\nes\non\nly\nm\nem\nb\ner\ns\nan\nd\nno\nn-\nm\nem\nb\ner\ns\nin\na\nke\nb\nel\ne\nw\nith\nag\nric\nul\ntu\nra\nlc\noo\np\ner\nat\niv\nes\n.\nW\ne\nd\nid\nsi\nm\nila\nr\nte\nst\ns\nfo\nr\nth\ne\nfu\nll\nsa\nm\np\nle\nan\nd\nth\ne\nb\nal\nan\nci\nng\np\nro\np\ner\ntie\ns\nar\ne\nsa\ntis\nfie\nd\n.\nb\nLi\nve\nst\noc\nk\now\nne\nd\n(T\nLU\n)\nre\nfe\nrs\nto\nliv\nes\nto\nck\not\nhe\nr\nth\nan\nox\now\nne\nd\nb\ny\nth\ne\nho\nus\neh\nol\nd\n.\nS\nou\nrc\ne:\nA\nut\nho\nrs\n’c\nal\ncu\nla\ntio\nns\n,b\nas\ned\non\nd\nat\na\nfro\nm\nE\nth\nio\np\nia\nA\ng\nric\nul\ntu\nra\nlM\nar\nke\ntin\ng\nH\nou\nse\nho\nld\nS\nur\nve\ny,\n20\n08\n.\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\n16 GASHAW TADESSE ABATE, GIAN NICOLA FRANCESCONI AND KINDIE GETNET\ncomponent of the error term is significantly different from zero, which indicates the\npresence of a statistically significant inefficiency component (i.e., Ho: Sigma_u = 0 is\nrejected). The lambda (λ) value is also greater than one, indicating the significance of\ninefficiency. Moreover, the value of gamma indicates that there is a 70 per cent variation\nin output due to technical inefficiency. In other words, the technical inefficiency compo-\nnent is likely to have an important effect in explaining output among farm households\nin the sample.\nOnce we detected the presence of technical inefficiency, we estimate a one-stage\nsimultaneous maximum likelihood estimate for the parameters of the Cobb-Douglas13\nstochastic frontier production function to predict households’ technical efficiency scores\nand to understand determinants of inefficiency. As expected, all conventional inputs\n(land, labour, fertilizer, seed and number of oxen owned) are found to be significant\ndeterminates of household production (Table 5). In particular, landholding size and\nnumber of oxen owned are found to be the major input variables that affect output\nconsiderably. Overall, the return to scale shows that farmers in our sample are operating\nunder increasing return to scale, suggesting that size may matter in the efficiency of\nsmallholder farmers. This result is expected in smallholder farms context and consistent\nwith prior studies in Ethiopia by Asefa (2012) and Haji and Andersson (2008), among\nothers.\nThe inefficiency model suggests that inefficiency of farm households is signif-\nicantly linked with number of plots, diversification of crops, gender of household\nhead and membership in agricultural cooperatives.14 Overall, the above results are\nin line with the findings of Alemu et al. (2009), Idiong (2007), and Jaime and Salazar\n(2011) and comparable to the results obtained from the alternative strategy that esti-\nmate the technical efficiency scores using matched group of member and non-member\nfarmers.\nWith regard to membership in agricultural cooperatives, the result indicates that\nmembership reduces technical inefficiency by about 5 per cent (Table 5). Concurrently,\nfrom the descriptive statistics we understood that the mean technical efficiency of mem-\nbers is significantly higher than that of non-members (i.e., 71 and 62 per cent, respec-\ntively) and the majority of the members are above the mean efficiency (i.e., 65 per cent)\nof the pooled sample (Figure. 2). Besides, as is clear from Figure 2, the density of non-\nmembers is above that of the members on the distribution below the mean efficiency of\nthe whole sample. However, we cannot draw any conclusion at this stage as this dif-\nference can be partially or totally due to original differences among households. Thus,\nwe use matching that computes the average difference in technical efficiency scores be-\ntween members and non-members in the common support region using the techniques\ndescribed above.\n13 Cobb–Douglas stochastic frontiers are found to be adequate representations of our data as\ncompared to the specifications of the translog stochastic frontiers.\n14 The coefficient of membership in agricultural cooperatives obtained from the inefficiency\nmodel is comparable to the average impacts of cooperative membership on technical efficiency\nresulted from matching estimators.\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\nIMPACT OF AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES ON SMALLHOLDERS’ TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY 17\nTable 5 – Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimates of the parameters for Stochastic\nProduction Frontier (SPF) function and technical inefficiency determinants\nDependent variable: production value in Birr (logged)\nCoefficient (Std. Err.)\nProduction function\nln (Land size held by household (ha)) 1.174 (0.063)∗∗∗\nln (Seed used (Kg)) 0.071 (0.017)∗∗∗\nln (Fertilizer used (Kg)) 0.036 (0.009)∗∗∗\nln (Labor (hired in number of days)) 0.051 (0.014)∗∗∗\nln (Number of oxen owned) 0.472 (0.042)∗∗∗\nConstant 6.327 (0.101)∗∗∗\nReturn to scale (sum of elasticises) 1.804\nTechnical inefficiency component\nHousehold size 0.023 (0.026)\nGender of household head 0.726 (0.204)∗∗∗\nAge of household head −0.004 (0.004)\nHousehold head read and write −0.231 (0.148)\nDistance to local market 0.001 (0.001)∗\nNumber of plots held 0.106 (0.028)∗∗∗\nNumber of crops planted −0.620 (0.135)∗∗∗\nHousehold access to irrigation −2.800 (1.219)∗∗\nHousehold receives off-farm income 0.152 (0.141)\nMembership in cooperatives −0.512 (0.176)∗∗∗\nHousehold access to institutional credit 0.053 (0.162)\nConstant −0.567 (0.439)\nDiagnostic statistics\nSigma_v 0.600 (0.032)∗∗∗\nLambda 1.556 (0.091)∗∗∗\nGamma (γ = λ2/(1+ λ2) 0.707\nNumber of observation 1638\nWald chi2 (5) 1567.38\nProb > chi2 0.0000\nLog likelihood function −1871.810\nLikelihood-ratio test of Sigma_u = 0: chibar2(01) 24.80\nNote: ∗∗∗ Significant at 1% level, ∗∗ significant at 5% level and ∗ significant at 10% level.\nSource: Authors’ calculations, based on data from Ethiopia Agricultural Marketing Household Survey, 2008.\n5 Results and discussion\n5.1 Average impact of agricultural cooperatives on technical efficiency\nAs described in the above sections, the average impact of cooperative membership\non the technical efficiency of small farmers is analysed using the reduced sample (i.e.,\nsub-sample 1) that includes members and non-members from kebeles with agricultural\ncooperatives and the whole sample that aimed at accounting for possible spill-over effects\n(i.e., sample 2). The resulting non-parametric estimate of the Average Treatment Effect\non the Treated (ATT), average impact of membership in agricultural cooperatives on\nthe technical efficiency of smallholder farmers, based on the Propensity Score Matching\n(PSM) methods, is reported in Table 6.\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\n18 GASHAW TADESSE ABATE, GIAN NICOLA FRANCESCONI AND KINDIE GETNET\nFigure 2 – Frequency distribution of technical efficiency scores by cooperative\nmembership.\nThe reported frequency distribution is for the reduced sample (i.e., sample 1) that includes only\nmembers and non-members in a kebele with agricultural cooperatives.\nNote: TE refers to Technical Efficiency score of households.\nSource: Authors’ calculations, based on data from Ethiopia Agricultural Marketing Household\nSurvey, 2008.\nThe paper mainly used the analysis based on the reduced sample as it accounts\nfor differences in technology and agro-ecology that can affect efficiency estimation. On\nthe other hand, the impact estimate based on the whole sample aimed at examining the\nextent of spill-over effects. As is clear from Table 6, the diffusion effect is found to be\nnegligible. Meaning, the impact estimate based on the whole sample is lower15 than the\nimpact estimate based on the reduced sample where the possibility of diffusion effects\nexists.\nConsistent with the results from the descriptive statistics and the inefficiency\nmodel of the stochastic frontier function, we found that, on average, farmers belonging\nto agricultural cooperatives are more efficient than independent farmers. The results\nsuggest that member households are in a better position to obtain maximum possible\noutputs from a given set of inputs used, by about 5 percentage points, in line with the ex-\npectation that agricultural cooperatives likely make productive technologies accessible\nand provide embedded support services (i.e., training, information and extension link-\nages). The impact estimates are robust across different estimation methods and samples\nconsidered. We further checked the robustness of the estimates for a specific region (i.e.,\nAmhara Region), where the size of the sample allows for using matching techniques. The\nresults are comparable to the results from the reduced and the whole sample (i.e., about\na 5.5 per cent and 4.5 percentage points difference for kernel based and five neighbours\nmatching, respectively).\n15 Lower average impact from the whole sample that include non-cooperative kebeles can also\nindicate the presence of technology difference between cooperative and non-cooperative kebeles,\nstrengthening our decision to focus on cooperative kebeles in order to reduce potential differences\nin technology, as it should be accounted to compare differences in technical efficiency due to\ncooperative membership.\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\nIMPACT OF AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES ON SMALLHOLDERS’ TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY 19\nTable 6 – Effect of cooperative membership on technical efficiency of smallholders\nKernel-based matching Five nearest neighbors matching\nATT Std. Err. ATT Std. Err. Number of Obs.\nReduced sample: (%\nDifference in TE)\n5.64 (0.008)∗∗∗ 5.70 (0.010)∗∗∗ 1455\nWhole sample: (% Difference\nin TE)\n5.42 (0.009)∗∗∗ 4.55 (0.010)∗∗∗ 1638\nCheck for robustness: observations limited to Amhara region only\nReduced sample 4.82 (0.012)∗∗∗ 4.11 (0.011)∗∗∗ 385\nWhole sample 5.30 (0.010)∗∗∗ 4.02 (0.012)∗∗∗ 431\nNote: Reduced sample includes members and non-members only from kebeles with agricultural cooperatives;\nWhole sample includes the whole sample (i.e., members and non-members from kebeles with and without agri-\ncultural cooperatives). TE refers to households’ Technical Efficiency score. Bootstrap with 100 replications is used\nto estimate the standard errors.\n∗∗∗Significant at 1% level.\nSource: Authors’ calculations, based on data from Ethiopia Agricultural Marketing Household Survey, 2008.\nNonetheless, the above results rely heavily on the assumption of unconfoundeness\nor conditional independence16 (i.e., once the factors affecting participation are taken into\naccount, the condition of randomization restored) and are not robust against ‘hidden\nbias’. If there are unobserved variables which affect participation in cooperatives and\ntechnical efficiency simultaneously, unobserved heterogeneity affecting the robustness\nof the estimates might arise (Becker and Caliendo 2007, Keele 2010, Rosenbaum 2002,\nRosenbaum and Rubin 1983).\nWe assess the presence of this problem using Rosenbaum bounds sensitivity anal-\nysis when the key assumption is relaxed by a quantifiable increase in uncertainty. As\nreported in Table 7, the results are found to be insensitive to a bias that would double\nthe odds of participation (self-selection) in agricultural cooperatives but sensitive to bias\nthat would triple the odds. The magnitude of hidden bias, which would make our finding\nof a positive and significant effect of membership in agricultural cooperatives on tech-\nnical efficiency questionable or spurious, should be higher than \u0005 = 2.5 and \u0005 = 2.6 for\nthe reduced sub-sample and whole sub-sample, respectively. Hence, we deduce that the\nstrength of the hidden bias should be sufficiently high to undermine our conclusion of\npositive and significant impact of membership in agricultural cooperatives on technical\nefficiency based on the matching analysis.\n5.2 Robustness check\nBesides the Rosenbaum bounds sensitivity analysis for hidden bias presented in\nTable 7, we check the robustness of the results following alternative estimation strategy\n16 Unconfoundedness in our case means that participation in agricultural cooperatives does\nnot depend on households’ technical efficiency, after controlling for the variations in technical effi-\nciency induced by differences in observable covariates. It is a strong assumption that implies that\nparticipation is based on observable characteristics and that variables simultaneously influencing\nparticipation and technical efficiency are observable.\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\n20 GASHAW TADESSE ABATE, GIAN NICOLA FRANCESCONI AND KINDIE GETNET\nTable 7 – Rosenbaum Bounds sensitivity analysis for hidden bias\nCritical value of hidden bias (\u0005) TE (Sample 1) Sig+ (max) TE (Sample 2) Sig+ (max)\n1 <0.0000001 <0.0000001\n1.10 <0.0000001 <0.000001\n1.20 <0.000001 <0.000001\n1.30 <0.000001 <0.000001\n1.40 <0.000001 <0.000001\n1.50 <0.000001 <0.000001\n1.60 <0.000001 <0.000001\n1.70 <0.000001 <0.000001\n1.80 0.000011 <0.000001\n1.90 0.000085 0.000012\n2 0.000489 0.000084\n2.10 0.002134 0.000443\n2.20 0.007333 0.001824\n2.30 0.020519 0.006039\n2.40 0.048091 0.016554\n2.50 0.09674 0.038524\n2.60 0.170595 0.077759\n2.70 0.268689 0.1387\n2.80 0.384324 0.222264\n2.90 0.506814 0.32474\n3 0.624664 0.43839\nNote: Reduced sample includes members and non-members only from kebeles with agricultural cooperatives;\nWhole sample includes the whole sample (i.e., members and non-members from kebeles with and without agri-\ncultural cooperatives). TE refers to households’ technical efficiency score.\nThe sensitivity analysis is for one-sided significance levels. \u0005 measures the degree of departure from random\nassignment of treatment or a study free of bias (i.e., \u0005 = 1).\nSource: Authors’ calculations, based on data from Ethiopia Agricultural Marketing Household Survey, 2008.\nused by Mayen et al. (2010) and Crespo-Cebada et al. (2013) to address the same problem\nof correcting potential selection bias in measuring technical efficiency difference between\ntwo groups using PSM. In this approach the stochastic frontier model is estimated on\nsub-samples of cooperative non-members and members that are obtained from PSM. The\nstrategy is aimed at addressing potential bias that may arise in estimating technical\nefficiency scores using unmatched samples, as the technology use can be affected by the\nsame selection bias like that of membership in cooperatives.\nThus, before estimating the technical efficiency scores, we constructed statistically\ncomparable non-members using PSM. Single-nearest-neighbour matching technique is\nused to pair each cooperative member with a non-member that has the closest propensity\nscore.17 Figure 3 shows the distribution of the propensity score for sub-sample members\nand non-members obtained from the matching. As expected, the propensity score dis-\ntribution of the PSM sub-sample of non-members closely resembles that of members\nin terms of their propensity to membership, compared to the distribution in Figure 1.\nFurthermore, as it is a matched sub-sample, there are no farm households that are\noff-support in either of the groups (Figure 3).\n17 Similar probability model and specification presented in section 4.1 and Table 3 is used to\nestimate the propensity scores.\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\nIMPACT OF AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES ON SMALLHOLDERS’ TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY 21\nTable 8 – Means and standard deviations of technical efficiency: PSM sub-sample\nMembers Non-members\nMean Std. Err. Mean Std. Err. Difference in Means\nReduced sample 68.37 0.58 61.08 0.74 7.29∗∗\nWhole sample 67.17 0.60 62.03 0.73 5.13∗∗\nNote: Reduced sample includes members and non-members only from kebeles with agricultural cooperatives;\nWhole sample includes the whole sample (i.e., members and non-members from kebeles with and without agri-\ncultural cooperatives).\n∗∗Significant at 1% level.\nSource: Authors’ calculations, based on data from Ethiopia Agricultural Marketing Household Survey, 2008.\nNext we estimated the technical efficiency scores of the farm households using\nstochastic frontier model on the two different sub-samples obtained from PSM (i.e.,\nPSM sub-sample that include members and non-members in cooperative kebeles and\nPSM sub-sample that also include non-members in non-cooperative kebeles). The results\nfrom the stochastic frontier analysis are presented in Table 8.18 For the whole sample\nwe found the technical efficiency of cooperative members to be 67.17, which is 5.13 per-\ncentage points higher than for non-members. When we account for potential technology\ndifferences across locations by restricting the sample to farm households only living in\ncooperative kebeles, we found that cooperative members 7.29 per cent more efficient\ncompared to non-members. Overall, the 5 to 7 percentage points efficiency gap found\nfrom alternative estimation strategy is comparable with the results obtained from ATT\nreported in Table 6.\nIn all, although the magnitude or economic significance is not as high as expected,\nthe results obtained from the two alternative estimation strategies suggested that par-\nticipation in agricultural cooperatives resulted in technical efficiency gains among small-\nholder farmers. We consider that this efficiency difference can be due to greater benefit\nof agricultural cooperatives in farm technology/inputs adoption by lowering costs and\nimproving members’ access to productive inputs and services (Abebaw and Haile 2013,\nGetnet and Tsegaye 2012). As presented in Table A3, we also found considerable impact\nof cooperatives membership in use of farm inputs (i.e., fertilizer and improved seeds).\nMoreover, benefits of cooperatives in linking smallholders to extension services can be\nalso the sources of this efficiency gaps between members and non-members, as recent\nstudy by Rodrigo (2012) found a positive effect of agricultural cooperatives in increas-\ning farmers involvement in agricultural extension programs in Ethiopia that results in\nproductivity growth among members.\n5.3 Impact heterogeneity\nThe above results obtained from the alternative estimation strategies assume\na homogenous treatment effects among cooperative member households. However,\n18 As indicated in section 4.2 the coefficients of the production parameters, inefficiency cor-\nrelates and diagnostic statistics obtained from the SPF estimation using the matched sample\nare more or less similar to the one resulted from the estimation based on the whole unmatched\nsample.\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\n22 GASHAW TADESSE ABATE, GIAN NICOLA FRANCESCONI AND KINDIE GETNET\n0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1\nPropensity Score\nNon-member: On support Member: On support\nReduced sample \n0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1\nPropensity Score\nNon-member: On support Member: On support\nWhole sample\nFigure 3 – Distributions of the propensity scores for members and non-members: PSM\nsub-sample.\nNote: Reduced sample includes members and non-members only from kebeles with\nagricultural cooperatives; Whole sample includes members and non-members from kebeles\nwith and without agricultural cooperatives.\nSource: Authors’ calculations, based on data from Ethiopia Agricultural Marketing Household\nSurvey, 2008.\ntreatment impacts can vary within cooperative members, as households are distinct\nin their socio-economic realities. In order to understand potential impact heterogeneity\nwithin members, we graph the distribution of cooperatives’ impact on members level\nof technical efficiency using the results obtained from Kernel matching estimates (i.e.,\nthe difference between actual observed technical efficiency and corresponding matched\nvalues obtained from the estimation of ATT).\nWhile the impacts are normally distributed, we observe some variations of\nmembership impact on technical efficiency within members across the two samples\n(Figure A1). For large proportion of members, involvement in cooperatives results in\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\nIMPACT OF AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES ON SMALLHOLDERS’ TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY 23\nabout 5–15 per cent efficiency gains as compared to non-members. For the remaining\nfew member households we notice both efficiency gains and losses ranging from 20–40\nper cent as compared to their counterparts. We further regress technical efficiency gains\ndue to membership in cooperatives obtained from Kernel matching estimates by house-\nhold characteristics, with the purpose of understanding the determinates or correlates\nof observed impact variations within members.\nThe results from the regression suggests that the impact of membership in cooper-\natives on technical efficiency significantly increases with cultivated land size, application\nof improved seeds and access to irrigation and farmer training centre and decreases with\ndistance to market, off-farm income and sex of household head (Table A4). It implies that\ntechnical efficiency gains from cooperative membership is better responsive for member\nhouseholds with large and irrigated land holding and resides in villages with farmer\ntraining centres. The lower impact of cooperatives membership for members away from\nlocal market on the other hand can be due to higher costs of accessing the services\nprovided by the cooperatives, as most of the cooperatives in Ethiopia are located closer\nto nearest markets (Bernard et al 2013). Conversely the results indicate that house-\nhold head literacy, access to media, as measured by radio ownership and application of\nfertilizer does not explain variations in efficiency gains within members.\n6 Conclusions\nOver the past decade and a half, agricultural cooperatives in Ethiopia have\nstrongly promoted as instrument to transform subsistence agriculture by preserving\nmarket options and increasing farmers’ income, as they are believed to be efficient\nin internalizing transaction costs, reducing the variability of farmers’ income through\nrisk pooling and countervailing opportunistic behaviours (Hogeland 2006, Staatz 1987).\nThough many variations in the agricultural cooperatives model can be distinguished,\ntypical agricultural cooperatives in Ethiopia combine both agricultural supply and mar-\nketing activities. Currently, agricultural cooperatives market more than 10 per cent of\nfarmers’ produce and supply farm inputs for all farm households irrespective of mem-\nbership. Although their share in input and output marketing shows how vibrant the\ncooperatives are in supporting agricultural transformation, empirical studies on their\nefficiency and productivity impacts are very limited.\nUsing household data drawn from the Ethiopia Agricultural Marketing Household\nSurvey in 2008, this paper aims to understand the impact of membership in agricultural\ncooperatives on technical efficiency in a context where membership incentives can result\nin efficiency gains. We assume that the establishment of cooperatives in Ethiopia has\nbeen independent of community and household level characteristics due to negative ex-\nperiences in the past and current policies on cooperative formation (i.e., one cooperative\nfor each kebele). Moreover, we assume that difference in technology between members\nand non-members is insignificant, as agricultural cooperatives in Ethiopia are required\nto supply basic farm inputs for all farm households. In addition, the role of spill-over\neffects cannot be underestimated. With these assumptions, we used Propensity Score\nMatching techniques to compare the average technical efficiency difference between co-\noperative member households and independent farm households living within the same\nkebele in which agricultural cooperatives operate.\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\n24 GASHAW TADESSE ABATE, GIAN NICOLA FRANCESCONI AND KINDIE GETNET\nOur results consistently indicate a positive and significant impact of agricultural\ncooperatives on members’ levels of technical efficiency. On average members are better\nsituated to get maximum possible output from a given set of inputs used, by at least 5\nper cent. These results are in line with the predicted role of agricultural cooperatives\nin improving efficiency by providing easy access to productive inputs and embedded\nsupport services such as training, information, and extension on input application. The\nrobustness of the findings is demonstrated by similar results obtained from different\napproaches and techniques. However, as compared to the results of the descriptive\nstatistics, the impact based on the average treatment effect is lower, which indicates the\nexistence of variation or heterogeneity across households within members.\nIn general, the efficiency gains from membership in agricultural cooperatives\nemerged from the analysis has important policy implications. It suggests that be-\nsides their progressive role in input and output marketing, agricultural cooperatives\nin Ethiopia are effective in providing embedded supportive services, significantly con-\ntributing to members’ technical efficiency. 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M., 1987, Farmers’ incentives to take collective action via cooperatives:\ntransaction costs approach, in J. Royer (ed.) Cooperative Theory: New Approaches,\nUSDA-ACS Service Report 18, pp. 87–107.\nSTEINER P.M. and COOK D.L., 2012, Matching and propensity scores, chap-\nter forthcoming, in: Little, T. D., ed., The Oxford Handbook of Quan-\ntitative Methods 1. Accessed June 2012, available at http://itp.wceruw.org/\nSpring%2011%20seminar/Steiner%201.pdf.\nTIEGIST L., 2008, Growth without structures: the cooperative movement in Ethiopia,\nin P. Develtere, I. Pollet and F. Wanyama (eds) Cooperating out of Poverty: the Re-\nnaissance of the African Cooperative Movement, International Labor Office and World\nBank Institute pp. 128–152.\nTODD P.E., 2006, Matching estimators’, Accessed June 2012, available at\nhttp://athena.sas.upenn.edu/˜petra/papers/mpalgrave2.pdf.\nVENKATESAN V. and KAMPEN J., 1998, Evolution of agricultural services in Sub-\nSaharan Africa: trends and prospects, discussion paper 390, Washington DC: The\nWorld Bank.\nWANYAMA F.O., DEVELTERE P. and POLLET I., 2009, ‘Reinventing the wheel?\nAfrican cooperatives in a liberalized economic environment’, Annals of Public and\nCooperative Economics, 80 (3), 361–392.\nWORLD BANK, 2008, World Development Report: Agriculture for development, World\nBank, Washington, DC: World Bank.\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\n28 GASHAW TADESSE ABATE, GIAN NICOLA FRANCESCONI AND KINDIE GETNET\nAppendix\n(a) Reduced sample:  members and non-members only from Kebeles with agricultural \ncooperatives\n0\n01\n02\n03\n04\n-40 -20 0 20 40\nPercentage difference in technical efficiency between observed and estimated\n(b) Whole sample: members and non-members from Kebeles with and without\nagricultural cooperatives\n0\n01\n02\n03\n04\n-40 -20 0 20 40\nPercentage difference in technical efficiency between observed and estimated\nFigure A1 – Distribution of cooperative membership impacts based on the results from\nKernel matching estimates.\nSource: Authors’ calculations, based on data from Ethiopia Agricultural Marketing Household\nSurvey, 2008.\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\nIMPACT OF AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES ON SMALLHOLDERS’ TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY 29\nTable A1 – Propensity scores blocks for members and non-members in Kebeles with\nagricultural cooperatives (only observations within common support) –reduced sample\nBlock of Pscore Members Non-members Total\n0.026 43 248 291\n0.2 60 196 256\n0.3 96 174 270\n0.4 37 73 110\n0.45 46 47 93\n0.5 92 76 168\n0.6 82 46 128\n0.7 67 19 86\n0.8 41 4 45\nTotal 564 883 1447\nSource: Authors’ calculations, based on data from Ethiopia Agricultural Marketing Household Survey, 2008.\nTable A2 – Propensity scores blocks for members and non-members in Kebeles with and\nwithout agricultural cooperatives (only observations within common support) –whole\nsample\nBlock of Pscore Members Non-members Total\n0.015 54 448 502\n0.2 65 206 271\n0.3 97 153 250\n0.4 76 120 196\n0.5 76 68 144\n0.6 149 58 207\n0.8 47 8 55\nTotal 564 1061 1625\nSource: Authors’ calculations, based on data from Ethiopia Agricultural Marketing Household Survey, 2008.\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\n1\n2\n3\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\n13\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\n19\n20\n21\n22\n23\n24\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\n44\n45\n46\n47\n48\n49\n50\n51\n30 GASHAW TADESSE ABATE, GIAN NICOLA FRANCESCONI AND KINDIE GETNET\nTable A3 – Average impact of cooperative membership on agricultural input adoptions\nKernel-based\nmatching\nFive nearest neighbors\nmatching\nIndicator ATT Std.\nErr.\nATT Std. Err. Number of Obs.\nReduced\nsample\nFertilizer (total\namount in kg)\n48.66 (6.74)∗∗∗ 49.55 (7.73)∗∗∗ 1455\nFertilizer (kg/ha) 31.32 (4.88)∗∗∗ 32.78 (5.49)∗∗∗ 1455\nImproved seed\n(total amount\nin kg)\n4.45 (1.22)∗∗∗ 4.40 (1.39)∗∗∗ 1455\nWhole sample\nFertilizer (total\namount in kg)\n46.13 (6.81)∗∗∗ 44.06 (7.46)∗∗∗ 1638\nFertilizer (kg/ha) 30.42 (4.66)∗∗∗ 29.67 (6.26)∗∗∗ 1638\nImproved seed\n(total amount\nin kg)\n4.52 (1.18)∗∗∗ 4.48 (1.29)∗∗∗ 1638\nNote: Reduced sample includes members and non-members only from Kebeles with agricultural cooperatives;\nWhole sample includes the whole sample (i.e., members and non-members from Kebeles with and without agri-\ncultural cooperatives). Bootstrap with 100 replications is used to estimate the standard errors.\n∗∗∗Significant at 1% level.\nSource: Authors’ calculations, based on data from Ethiopia Agricultural Marketing Household Survey, 2008.\nTable A4 – Correlates of variations in impact of cooperative membership on technical\nefficiency within members\nDependent variable: Technical efficiency gain from\nmembership\nIndicator Reduced sample Whole sample\nHH head age 0.000 (0.76) 0.000 (0.46)\nHH head gender −0.047 (2.19)∗∗ −0.055 (2.58)∗∗\nHH head literacy (1 = Yes, 0 = No) −0.002 (0.27) 0.004 (0.42)\nDistance to market (Minutes) −0.000 (1.68)∗ −0.000 (1.51)\nAccess to irrigation (1 = Yes, 0 = No) 0.231 (25.18)∗∗∗ 0.238 (27.47)∗∗∗\nReceives off-farm income(1 = Yes, 0 = No) −0.033 (4.01)∗∗∗ −0.035 (4.21)∗∗∗\nRadio ownership 0.012 (1.26) 0.012 (1.25)\nLand cultivated (ha) 0.015 (2.86)∗∗∗ 0.015 (2.92)∗∗∗\nNumber of plots −0.003 (1.56) −0.003 (1.42)\nNumber of Oxen −0.006 (1.24) −0.004 (0.90)\nReside in village with FTC(1 = Yes, 0 = No) 0.037 (2.66)∗∗∗ 0.042 (2.86)∗∗∗\nImproved seed(Amount used in Kg) 0.000 (1.95)∗ 0.000 (1.88)∗\nFertilizer (Amount used in Kg) −0.000 (0.14) −0.000 (0.26)\nConstant 0.095 (2.77)∗∗∗ 0.099 (2.86)∗∗∗\nNumber of Obs. 559 549\nR-Squared 0.37 0.39\nNote: ∗∗∗ Significant at 1% level, ∗∗ significant at 5% level and ∗ significant at 10% level.\nt-statistics in parenthesis.\nSource: Authors’ calculations, based on data from Ethiopia Agricultural Marketing Household Survey, 2008.\n© 2014 The Authors\nAnnals of Public and Cooperative Economics © 2014 CIRIEC\napce12035 W3G-apce February 21, 2014 5:22\nJournal: APCE\nPaper: apce12035\nDear Author\nDuring the copy-editing of your paper, the following queries arose. 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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"55f463b681fe02963e5a0184b49fc9a7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/ca7bc2ba-4a19-4336-86b8-cd81fc66bf5f/content","id":"-1252653667"},"keywords":["BL, Bayes Lasso","GS, genomic selection","INIA, Instituto Nacional de Investigación Agropecuaria","RIL, recombinant inbred line","RR-BLUP, ridge regression best linear unbiased predictor","QTL, quantitative trait loci","SNP, single nucleotide polymorphism","V LD , variance accounting for linkage disequilibrium","V LE , variance assuming linkage equilibrium"],"sieverID":"82976423-45ff-4559-9a91-c254c620f2f9","pagecount":"12","content":"The single most important decision in plant breeding programs is the selection of appropriate crosses. The ideal cross would provide superior predicted progeny performance and enough diversity to maintain genetic gain. The aim of this study was to compare the best crosses predicted using combinations of midparent value and variance prediction accounting for linkage disequilibrium (V LD ) or assuming linkage equilibrium (V LE ). After predicting the mean and the variance of each cross, we selected crosses based on mid-parent value, the top 10% of the progeny, and weighted mean and variance within progenies for grain yield, grain protein content, mixing time, and loaf volume in two applied wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) breeding programs: Instituto Nacional de Investigación Agropecuaria (INIA) Uruguay and CIMMYT Mexico. Although the variance of the progeny is important to increase the chances of finding superior individuals from transgressive segregation, we observed that the mid-parent values of the crosses drove the genetic gain but the variance of the progeny had a small impact on genetic gain for grain yield. However, the relative importance of the variance of the progeny was larger for quality traits. Overall, the genomic resources and the statistical models are now available to plant breeders to predict both the performance of breeding lines per se as well as the value of progeny from any potential crosses.T he main objective of plant breeding is to increase the yield, productivity, adaptation, and quality of crops while optimizing resource use (Allard 1960). Genetic gain in plant breeding is accomplished through the selection of best genetic combinations betweengenotypes (Fehr, 1987). The most important traits selected in breeding are generally complex quantitative traits that are influenced by many genes and the environment (Falconer and Mackay, 1996;Bernardo, 2010). Historically, strategies for selecting superior individuals have relied on phenotypic evaluation of individuals and pedigree information. However, at the end of the twentieth century, marker-assisted selection strategies were sought. To this end, quantitative trait loci (QTL) were detected to identify genes involved in the expression of complex traits through biparental QTL mapping (Lander and Botstein, 1989;Lande and Thompson, 1990), or genome-wide association studies (Jannink et al., 2001). These genetic markers were then used in marker-assisted selection strategies (Dekkers and Hospital, 2002). However, not all of the segregating QTL are identified in a given study and the ones that are identified are largely overestimated (Beavis, 1994). Therefore, methodologies for QTL identification have been insufficient to capture the effects of the many genes involved in common complex traits (Manolio et al., 2009) and the actual use of marker-assisted selection for identified QTL has been very limited in breeding programs (Bernardo, 2008).Genomic prediction (Meuwissen et al., 2001) provides an alternative method of using genetic information in breeding decisions. Rather than using individual QTL information, genomic prediction involves the prediction of genotypic performance accounting for all genomewide marker effects simultaneously (Meuwissen et al., 2001). When these predictions are used as a selection strategy, it is called genomic selection (GS). Genomic selection has been extensively researched in plants (reviewed in Heslot et al., 2015) while the implementation in plant breeding programs has been evaluated through optimization of the training population (Asoro et al., 2011;Zhao et al., 2013;Liu et al., 2015;Isidro et al., 2015) and genotype × environment interaction (Burgueño et al., 2012;Heslot et al., 2014;Jarquín et al., 2014;Lado et al., 2016). Additionally, strategies of GS to select the best crosses by modeling the variance of a cross have been proposed but no study has assessed the consequences in cross selection (Bernardo, 2014;Mohammadi et al., 2015;Tiede et al., 2015).Crossing is one of the main decisions of a breeding program. The number of possible crosses is orders of magnitude larger than the number of feasible crosses (Witcombe et al., 2013). Although breeders attempt to take into consideration all available information on the potential parents to determine which crosses to make, many crosses are discarded in subsequent years, as they do not deliver superior progeny (Koebner and Summers, 2003;Heslot et al., 2015). Methods to select optimum crosses accounting for the performance per se of each line (e.g., yield, adaptability, quality) were initially proposed on the basis of the progeny's mean and variance. The variance was predicted using morphological data, pedigree information, a few molecular markers, or a combination of these (Souza and Sorrells, 1991;Melchinger et al., 1998;Utz et al., 2001;Bertan et al., 2007;Casassola and Brammer, 2013). These methods were then extended to genome-wide marker coverage (Endelman, 2011;Bernardo, 2014;Mohammadi et al., 2015;Tiede et al., 2015). The progeny mean was well-predicted from the midparent value (Bernardo, 2014). However, genetic variances were difficult to predict using either phenotypic, pedigree, or genetic distances (Souza and Sorrells, 1991;Melchinger et al., 1998;Utz et al., 2001;Hung et al., 2012) but could be adequately modeled by simulating progeny by using genomic prediction (Bernardo, 2014;Mohammadi et al., 2015;Tiede et al., 2015). Endelman (2011) proposed a strategy of estimating the mean and variance for the progeny of a cross using genomic data, where the progeny mean was estimated as the mid-parent value of the estimated parental performance. In this method, the variance was estimated from the marker effects, assuming linkage equilibrium (V LE ) between markers. Another strategy used to estimate progeny variance with large genomic data is to simulate the progeny, accounting for the true linkage structure and recombination, and then to predict the performance of the progeny (Bernardo, 2014;Mohammadi et al., 2015;Tiede et al., 2015).The aim of this research was to evaluate the selection of crosses based on progeny variance, predicted either by assuming linkage equilibrium (V LE ) or by accounting for linkage disequilibrium (V LD ) between the parents. Specifically, we evaluated the impact of cross selection based only on mid-parent performance or mid-parent performance in a combination with progeny variance, where the variance was estimated either by assuming V LE or V LD . We analyzed data for grain yield in the INIA spring bread wheat breeding program in Uruguay, and grain protein content, mixograph optimal mixing time, and loaf volume quality traits from the CIMMYT spring bread wheat breeding program in Mexico. We evaluated multiple traits and breeding programs to limit possible trait or program bias in the prediction methodology results. Grain yield evaluations were conducted in 35 environments in Uruguay including five locations evaluated in 4 yr and one location with four sowing dates. Locations used to evaluate the genotypes were Dolores (33°50¢S, 58°14¢W; 15 m asl), Durazno (33°33¢S, 56°31¢W; 91 m asl), La Estanzuela (34°20¢S, 57°42¢W; 81 m asl), Young (32°76¢S, 57°57¢W; 85 m asl), and Ruta2 (33°45¢S, 57°90¢W; 95 m asl). Four sowing dates were evaluated in La Estanzuela (LE1, LE2, LE3, and LE4). The evaluation years were 2010 to 2014. The trials from 2012 and most of the locations of 2014 were not included in this study because of a strong genotype by environment interaction (see experimental details in Lado et al., 2016).In total, 6095 spring bread wheat lines from the CIM-MYT Global Bread Wheat Breeding Program were evaluated for quality traits (Battenfield et al., 2016). The CIMMYT lines were materials in the preliminary yield trials between 2009 and 2015. All lines were grown in Ciudad Obregon, Sonora, Mexico (27°29¢N, 109°56¢W; 40 m asl). Three phenotypes were chosen to represent different stages of testing wheat as grain, dough, and final product. Grain protein content was determined by nearinfrared spectroscopy, using NIR Systems 6500 (Foss, Denmark) using AACC International (2000a) Method 39-10, and reported at 12.5% moisture basis. Grain samples were tempered and milled using Brabender Quadrumat Senior (C. W. Brabender OHG, Germany). Mixograph optimal mixing time was assessed using the Swanson and Working Mixograph (National MFG Co., National Manufacturing Company, Lincoln, NE) according to AACC International Method 54-40A (AACC International, 2000b). Loaf volume was assessed on pup loaves baked according to AACC International (2000c) Method 10-09. Loaf volume and mixing time tests used the adjustment for optimal water absorption described in Guzmán et al. (2015).Tissue was collected and the CTAB method (Saghai-Maroof et al., 1984) was used to isolate DNA for the genotyping-by-sequencing protocol as described in Poland et al. (2012a). The TASSEL-GBS pipeline (Glaubitz et al., 2014) was run with modifications for nonreference genomes in the INIA material (Poland et al., 2012b). The TASSEL Version 5.2 with alignment to the T. aestivum International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium genome assembly version 2.25 (Mayer et al., 2014) using Bowtie2 version 2.24 (Langmead and Salzberg, 2012) was used in the CIMMYT lines. Genotyping-bysequencing tags with single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were mapped against the POPSEQ Synthetic W7984 by Opata M85 reference to determine the map position (Chapman et al., 2015). Single nucleotide polymorphisms were filtered by setting maximum missing values of 20% for the INIA and 50% for the CIMMYT populations. Different thresholds for missing data were used to keep the balance between coverage and good SNP quality at each population. Low tolerance for missing values was used to increase the reliability of the imputed SNPs. Individuals with more than 50% missing information were discarded. The final number of individuals were 1465 and 5984 in the INIA and CIMMYT populations, respectively. SNP imputation was conducted using multivariate normal expectation maximization imputation (Endelman, 2011;Poland et al., 2012a). This method assumes that marker genotypes follow a multivariate normal distribution. The imputation was done through multiple regression starting with the mean of the marker and was then updated using maximum likelihood to estimate the mean and covariance between lines with nonmissing data.Phenotypic best linear unbiased estimations were obtained for the grain yield of all genotypes present in each trial. Field analysis was conducted according to an experimental design that consisted of a series of smaller α-design trials connected through common checks. The following model was used to estimate INIA grain yield genotypic means:where µ is the overall mean, g i is the fixed effect of the i th genotype; e j is the fixed effect of j th year-location combination; t k(j) is the random effect of the k th trial nested within the j th year-location; r l(jk) is the random effect of the l th replicate nested within the k th trial and j th year-location; b m(ljk) is the random effect of the m th incomplete block nested within the l th replicate, k th trial, and the j th year-location; and ε ijkl is the residual error for the i th genotype in the m th block within the l th replicate in the l th trial located in the j th year-location; and t k(j), r l(jk), b m(ljk) , and ε ijklm are random variables:), and ε ijklm ~ N(0, σ e 2 ). The best linear unbiased estimations were estimated with the nlme package (Pinheiro et al., 2013) in R statistical software (R Development Core Team, 2016). Heritability was estimated via the model shown in Eq. [1] but with genotypes as the random effect, being g i ~ N(0, Gσ g 2 ). G is the genotypic variance-covariance matrix between lines estimated by using markers, as was proposed by VanRaden ( 2008), and those estimated by using the A.mat function in the rrBLUP package (Endelman, 2011). Genotypic variance (σ g 2 ) and the average pairwise variance error of the best linear unbiased predictor ( ) BLUP n were estimated using the sommer R package (Covarrubias-Pazaran, 2016). Heritability for grain yield was estimated following Cullis et al. (2006):For the CIMMYT population, quality data were not replicated within or across years and no statistical design was used within years, since only high-yielding selections from the yield trial were advanced to quality testing. The heritability of the quality traits was estimated as in Battenfield et al. (2016)  Two genomic prediction models were compared in order to estimate marker effects and the performance of each parent. The ridge regression model was evaluated via the rrBLUP package (Endelman, 2011) and the Bayesian Lasso (BL) model was calculated via the BGLR package (Pérez and de los Campos, 2010), both in R software (R Development Core Team, 2016). Genomic prediction models incorporated the genotypic matrix X codified as (-1, 0, 1), where +1 indicates that loci were homozygous to the most frequent allele at a given locus, -1 indicates that loci were homozygous to the least frequent allele at given locus, and 0 indicates heterozygous loci. The missing SNPs were imputed as fractions between -1 and 1, and then were rounded to the nearest whole number (to 1 if the SNP value was ³0.5, -1 if the SNP value was less than or below -0.5, and 0 if the SNP value was between -0.5 and 0.5). For BL, initial arbitrary values of trait heritability and error variance were used, then values were optimized via prediction accuracy to calculate the hyperparameter rate and shape from the double exponential distribution. Next, the marker effects and parent performance values were estimated from the posterior distribution. For the ridge regression model, marker effects were estimated by using mixed models with markers considered as random with N(0, Iσ mrk 2 ). After that, to predict the performance of the parents, mixed models with lines (g i ) as random effects were used with N(0, Gσ g 2 ), where G is the variance-covariance matrix estimated as in Van-Raden (2008) via the A.mat function in the rrBLUP package (Endelman, 2011). The models were selected because of their use of different statistical approaches (mixed models and Bayesian, respectively) and their different assumptions about marker effects on predictions.Random cross-validation was conducted by using 60% of the lines to train the model, predicting the remaining 40% of entries for both the INIA and CIM-MYT datasets separately. Each model was iterated 100 times and then, the model with the best predictive ability was used for subsequent analysis. All genotyped parents were included in the training population to estimate the marker effects and the parents' performance for grain yield (n = 1465), grain protein content, mixing time, and loaf volume (n = 5984), via the model with the best predictive ability. However, as there were no differences in the accuracy of predictions between the models, the RR-BLUP model was used to estimate marker effects for all traits for the remaining analyses.Progeny of all possible pairwise cross combinations were simulated and their performance was predicted for grain yield in the INIA population. However, in the CIMMYT population, only the lines evaluated in 2015 (n = 1425) were used as parents for progeny simulation and prediction. Reciprocal crosses were not predicted, as negligible maternal effects were assumed to be present (McNeal et al., 1968;Jumbo and Carena, 2008).The V LE of the progeny within each cross ( ( ) V LE i ) was predicted, taking into account allelic differences between the parents and markers effects for each trait, following Endelman (2011):)where p k+ is the frequency of the k th SNP of biallele +1 for parents of progeny in i th cross and p k-is the same for the biallele -1, and u is the vector of marker effects with a length M (the number of SNPs). Marker effects were estimated via RR-BLUP. For example, if both parents had the allele +1, the frequencies were p k+ = 1 and p k-= 0; if one parent had the allele +1 and the other had -1, the frequencies were p k+ = 0.5 and p k-= 0.5; if both parents had the alleles 0, p k+ = 0 and p k-= 0, and so on. Next, the distribution of predicted performance values for the population of progeny in each cross was simulated, assuming a normal distribution for the progeny. The parameters used in the normal distribution were the mean (equal to the mid-parent value) and the variance (equal to the progeny variance estimated as in Eq.[4]). The mean of the top 10% of the progeny was estimated for each cross.To predict V LD , we used the PopVar package described in Mohammadi et al. (2015) and implemented in R software (R Development Core Team, 2016). Within PopVar, recombinant inbred lines (RILs) were simulated via the Rqtl package (Broman et al., 2003), which requires ordered markers with genetic distances to account for recombination. The function simulates recombination points along the chromosome by using independent crossovers, following the Stahl model (Stahl, 1979). Using this package, we simulated 1000 RILs for each cross and then estimated the predicted performance of each individual simulated RIL. The mean performance of the 1000 RILs was used to estimate the progeny mean performance of each cross. The variance of the predicted performance of the 1000 RILs was used to estimate the progeny variance performance of each cross. The mean of the top 10% of the progeny was estimated for each cross.Finally, the best 1000 crosses were selected for grain yield, grain protein, and loaf volume on the basis of either their mid-parent performance value or the predicted performance of the top 10% of their progeny, assuming V LD or V LE . For mixing time, where an intermediate optimal time is desired, the best crosses were selected on the basis of having the lowest variance within a window of targeted predicted progeny performance values (i.e., 2.5-4.0 min.).Five values of performance were established as thresholds to illustrate the trade-offs of selection on the basis of maximizing the expected mean or accounting for the variance. Therefore, five groups with different weights on the relative importance of the variance were established. The maximum parental predicted performance minus 20, 40, 60, 80 or 100% of the difference between the maximum and the mean predicted performance was used to define the groups G1 (20%), G2 (40%), G3 (60%), G4 (80%), and G5 (100%). One hundred crosses were selected within each group, taking into account the mean predicted progeny performance above the threshold and the maximum variance for three traits (mixing time was excluded from this analysis because the selection criteria for this trait are different). Finally, the mean of all progenies and the mean of the top 10% of the progeny for the 100 selected progenies were calculated.For INIA data, a total of 81,044 SNPs were identified after the TASSEL pipeline was run and duplicate markers were removed. Of these, 23,771 were mapped using the POPSEQ genetic framework. Finally, we kept 3884 SNPs with less than 20% missing data and 1465 individuals with less than 50% missing data. For CIMMYT data, a total of 31,166 SNPs were identified after the TASSEL pipeline was run and duplicate markers were removed. Of these, 8443 SNPs were mapped using POPSEQ. Finally, we kept 1164 SNPs with less than 50% missing data and 5984 individuals with less than 50% missing data. The SNPs were distributed in all chromosomes with a median of 0 and 0 cM and maximum gap of 61 cM and 94 cM, for the INIA and CIMMYT genetic maps, respectively (Supplemental Fig. S1).Mean grain yield for the INIA dataset was 5160 kg ha -1 (SE = 853) and the heritability was 0.67. The means of the three end-use quality traits from CIMMYT were 11.97% (SE = 0.77) for grain protein content, 3.13 min (SE = 0.80) for mixing time, and 802 cm 3 (SE = 59) for loaf volume. The heritability of the CIMMYT quality traits were 0.67, 0.71, and 0.68 for grain protein content, mixing time, and loaf volume, respectively. = 0.59) in the CIMMYT dataset. The predictive ability using both models, BL and RR-BLUP, were similar. As expected, the correlation of marker effects between models decreased at the extreme values for each trait (Supplemental Fig. S2). The BL method induces less shrinkage than RR-BLUP in marker effects estimation as it sets some of the marker effects to zero and thus BL estimates fewer but larger effects than RR-BLUP (Park and Casella, 2008). Mixing time shows the largest shrinkage effect for RR-BLUP (Supplemental Fig. S2). This was expected, because mixing time is influenced by a few genes with a large effect (Payne et al., 1987). However, when the marker effect values were combined to predict performance of the parents, there was no difference between GS models (Supplemental Fig. S2). It has been documented elsewhere that different GS models had similar prediction ability in plants (Heslot et al., 2012). Thus because of the similarity in accuracies between RR-BLUP and BL predictions, all further analyses were conducted using RR-BLUP model.The predicted mean performance of the progeny was perfectly correlated between the mid-parent value and mean of the simulated progenies for all traits (data not shown). This result was expected because in an additive model, the expected value of the mean of the progeny calculated as the mid-parent value is the same as the mean of the RILs' performance. The same results were found in maize (Zea mays L.) for silking date and protein (Bernardo, 2014) and in barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) for yield and deoxynivalenol content (Mohammadi et al., 2015).The correlation between V LD and V LE was different for each trait and was probably associated with trait complexity (Fig. 1). The order of the variance correlation between estimations was grain yield < grain protein content < loaf volume < mixing time. Variance predictions of more complex traits are more inconsistent (Bernardo, 2008) and thus modeling variances for these traits has less impact in progeny predictions. This is probably because the error in the estimates of marker effects has a stronger influence on the variance than on the mean predictions of a cross (Zhong and Jannink, 2007). The higher variances correlation for mixing time found in our study can be explained by the fact that mixing time is a trait that is influenced by a few major genes (Payne et al., 1987;Simons et al., 2012).The variance of predicted performance from 1000 progeny was larger for V LD than for V LE (Fig. 2 and Fig. 3). A potential explanation for this is as follows. The genetic variance for each pair of markers is the sum of the variance of each marker, plus twice the covariance between the two markers (Falconer and Mackay, 1996). When we assume linkage equilibrium, the markers were independent and therefore, the covariance between the markers was zero. If markers are in the coupling phase, the covariance is positive and therefore V LE is smaller than V LD (Lynch and Walsh, 1998;Bernardo, 2010). However, if the markers are in the repulsion phase, the covariance between markers becomes negative and therefore, V LE is larger than V LD (Lynch and Walsh, 1998;Bernardo, 2010). Hence, the relative magnitude of the variances (i.e., V LE and V LD ) will depend on the marker phasing. In our case, we believe we have coupling phases in several situations. For example, one of the crosses that exhibits the largest differences in variance estimated by V LD and V LE showed a predominance of coupling phases for most chromosomes (Fig. 4).We found a triangular relationship between variance and the mean of predicted progeny performance for the crosses in all traits when modeling V LD , but not when modeling V LE (Fig. 2 and Fig. 3). This relationship was stronger for grain yield than for the other traits (Fig. 2 and Fig. 3). This triangular relationship is generated when lines with similar trait values at the end of their distribution (i.e., low × low or high × high) are crossed, resulting in progeny with extreme values for mean and low variance (Bernardo, 2014). On the other hand, when lines from opposite extremes are crossed (i.e., low × high), the progeny have intermediate means with higher variance. This is supported by previous findings by Bernardo (2014) and Mohammadi et al. (2015). Furthermore, as in Bernardo (2014), we found a linear relationship between the mean and variance of crosses from the same parent prediction when using V LD (Fig. 4), which caused the triangular shape. Recombination between extreme parents would account for differences arising from coupling and repulsion linkage. These differences may not have an immediate impact but could become relevant for longer-term selection (Bernardo, 2014).When selecting crosses based on mid-parent values or on the basis of the mean of the top 10% of the progeny via two variance estimates (V LD and V LE ), we observed that many of the selected crosses and parents were the same for all three selection methods (Fig. 2 and Fig. 3). Of the 1000 best crosses based on the two variance methods, there were 879 crosses in common for grain yield, 757 for grain protein content, 769 for mixing time, and 738 for loaf volume (Fig. 2B,E and Fig. 3B,E). In addition, 837 of the common crosses selected for grain yield were the same ones with the highest mid-parent values. This was also confirmed by the high correlation (r = 0.94, p < 0.001) between total progeny mean and the mean of the top 10% of the predicted progeny performance for the 1000 best crosses (selected by top 10%). These results indicate that the predicted mean progeny performance is the strongest driver for selecting superior crosses for grain yield. Thus regardless of the approach for predicting progeny variance, the crosses with the highest mid-parent values also provided the best top 10% of the progeny. This was largely independent of the genetic distance between parents. Mid-parent strategies are superior for selecting crosses than a combination of mid-parent and progeny variance when there is more variation in the progeny means than in the progeny variance (Zhong and Jannink, 2007). For quality traits, the percentage of crosses in common between the three cross prediction strategies were 56.7% for grain protein content and 59.8% loaf volume (Fig. 2 and Fig. 3). In addition, the correlations between the total progeny mean and the mean of the top 10% of the predicted progeny performance for the best 1000 crosses (selected by top 10%) were, 0.67 (p < 0.001) for grain protein content and 0.80 (p < 0.001) for loaf volume. These results indicate that for quality traits, the influence of variance was a more relevant factor in determining cross selection. The results found by Bernardo (2014) for silking date and protein concentration in maize are more similar to those found for wheat quality traits in which crosses with an undesirable mean value but high variance could reach the same mean as the top 10% of the progeny.Accounting for more variance (i.e., by having lower thresholds) decreased the number of shared crosses between V LD and V LE (Fig. 5, left and right plots). Additionally, the mean of the top 10% of the progeny increased as the threshold value increased, regardless of cross variance (Fig. 5, middle plots). This effect was more pronounced for grain yield, which had the highest ratio between the variance of mean predicted progeny performance values and the variance of progeny SD among crosses (Table 1).Although the differences between the variance predicted by the strategies considering V LD or V LE are high for some traits, the parents and the crosses selected on the basis of the top 10% performance of the progeny are similar. Therefore, the use of V LE as a substitute for V LD is a reasonable compromise if computation time or the lack of a linkage map are important considerations. The use of V LE could be favored when one considers only one generation of improvement. For grain yield, where all three Fig. 2. Cross performance characterization. Expected mid-parent performance (MP) versus the predicted progeny variance accounting for linkage disequilibrium (V LD ) for yield (A) and grain protein content (D). Expected MP versus the predicted progeny variance assuming linkage equilibrium (V LE ) for yield (C) and grain protein content (F). The top 1000 crosses selected by MP (green), V LD (blue), V LE (red), and crosses in common among the two groups (black) are highlighted in each plot (A, C, D, F). Venn diagrams represent the 1000 crosses; the parents of those crosses selected by using the MP (green), V LD (blue), V LE (red); or common crosses among the three groups (black) for grain yield (B) and grain protein content (E). methods gave similar results, the use of the mid-parent value would be the simplest method of cross prediction.On the basis of our results, the best strategy of maintaining diversity is not clear. Fu (2015) discussed the difficulty of measuring and accounting for the impacts of plant breeding on crop genetic diversity. Jacobson et al. (2015) and Rutkoski et al. (2015) found that the losses of genetic diversity incurred when using genome-wide selection is higher than that for phenotypic selection, although there are situations in which some losses of diversity are necessary to obtain increased genetic gains. However, to sustain genetic gain in wheat breeding programs, genetic diversity is essential because it allows effective recombination, which, in turn, creates more diversity (Fehr, 1987). This diversity is fundamental when new challenges are encountered, such as changing races in biotic stressors, or changing environmental factors and abiotic stressors (Dreisigacker et al., 2005;Borlaug, 2007;Babiker et al., 2015). Thus, Fu (2015) emphasized the importance of maintaining allele variability to have the possibility to improve under unfavorable conditions.Mid-parent value has historically been used for cross selection in plant breeding. Here, progeny mean was estimated using genomic predicted mid-parent value, which was identical to the mean of the simulated progeny. Modeling the variance to predict the best crosses had a small impact for complex traits like grain yield. However, for quality traits, the influence of variance was a large factor in determining cross selection. Differences in selection assuming either V LD or V LE were small for all traits and the assumption of V LE was less computationally intensive. Although selection of parental combinations based on the expected progeny variance for yield Fig. 3. Cross performance characterization. Expected mid-parent performance (MP) versus the predicted progeny variance accounting for linkage disequilibrium (V LD ) for mixing time (A) and loaf volume (D). Expected MP versus the predicted progeny variance assuming linkage equilibrium (V LE ) for mixing time (C) and loaf volume (F). The top 1000 crosses selected by using MP (green),V LD (blue), V LE (red), and crosses in common among the two groups (black) are highlighted in each plot (A, C, D, F). Venn diagrams represent the 1000 crosses or the parents of those crosses selected only by using V LD (blue), V LE (red) for mixing time (B), and MP (green), alongside common crosses among the three groups (black) for loaf volume (E).  ","tokenCount":"5064"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"5286ebd8ee1bba6f5a44643bc5e81d2b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0d0f39d5-3dab-4d4a-9562-6af90bd48081/retrieve","id":"210967642"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"ce9bb6b2-5fdc-48f2-af71-0bfeb5b31284","pagecount":"3","content":"Aval GANSO: estándar para ganadería de leche El Aval GANSO es un estándar para ganadería que toma como referencia los principiosEs un instrumento de evaluación voluntaria, diseñado para empresas ganaderas que deseen evaluar de manera independiente su gestión sostenible. Asimismo, está dirigido a aquellas empresas interesadas en evaluar la gestión de sus proveedores. Este aval no solo actúa como un mecanismo de garantía frente al mercado, considerando el nivel de esfuerzo y los resultados obtenidos en términos de sostenibilidad, sino que también busca fomentar una cadena de valor que reconozca y promueva una mejora continua en la gestión de la ganadería. El Aval GANSO aspira a establecer una ruta clara hacia la sostenibilidad, incentivando prácticas responsables y contribuyendo al desarrollo de un sector ganadero más sostenible.Innovaciones que ya existen y experimentan un progreso constante, estable y mejoras continuas.Innovaciones que crean condiciones propicias, incluidos marcos políticos, jurídicos y normativos; modelos empresariales; mecanismos de financiación; modelos de asociación; estrategias de prestación públicas/privadas. Centro de investigación (1).Compañía consultura internacional (1). Nos gustaría agradecer a la iniciativa Ganadería y Clima del CGIAR.Se valida la capacidad de la innovación para lograr un impacto específico en condiciones semicontroladas.Se valida la capacidad de la innovación para lograr un impacto específico en condiciones semicontroladas.Se valida la capacidad de la innovación para lograr un impacto específico en condiciones totalmente controladas.Para más información sobre esta innovación por favor contacte a: Jhon F. Gutiérrez (jf.gutierrez@ganso.com.co) Jacobo Arango (j.arango@cgiar.org) ","tokenCount":"237"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d56c32621053eead900878e58d2b1622","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/24354c56-a76e-42b4-80ae-f51e56128e91/content","id":"1881254030"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"5675872a-42f0-424d-8e78-24649a948bee","pagecount":"24","content":"The research note discusses the Small Farmers Large Field (SFLF) collective action piloted in the states of Odisha and Assam aimed at addressing the challenges faced by small and marginal potato farmers. The model focuses on aggregating farmers to achieve bargaining power, synchronize operations, and improve quality by adopting a single variety of potato. The study uses a mixed method research design to assess the benefits of the SFLF model, including improved quality of inputs, increased mechanization, emerging social networks, and market linkages. The results indicate a significant increase in net profit for participating farmers in both states due to higher gross revenue and lower cost of production. Our preliminary assessment suggests that this model has led to improved yields, enhanced production practices, and the development of social networks among farmers. Additionally, the SFLF model has facilitated better market linkages, resulting in lower prices for seeds and premium prices for produce. However, the study also identifies challenges and areas for improvement, such as the need for increased awareness, timely provision of inputs, and overcoming obstacles related to market prices and storage options. The SFLF model could potentially emerge as a sustainable solution for agricultural development in the region and there is a need for subsequent research to increase the scale and impact of the model.In India, 86% of the farmers are small and marginal, often working on landholdings that are less than one hectare or between one and two hectares. Of them, over 68 percent possess or work on marginal landholdings, and 17 percent, on small landholdings. The average size of holdings for marginal and small farmers across all states is about 0.38 ha and 1.40 respectively, as compared to 17.07 ha for large farmers, which cannot generate adequate employment and income from crop cultivation (GOI, 2019).Odisha and Assam are Indian states located in Eastern and Northeastern India, respectively. Odisha is the eighth-largest state by area and the eleventh largest by population where economy is largely dominated by agriculture, with about 49 percent of the workforce employed in the sector but contributing to only 19 percent of the state's value add in 2019-20 (Odisha, 2020)). Like Odisha, the workforce of Assam is highly dependent on agriculture with nearly half the working population employed in the sector (Assam, 2023). Odisha and Assam, both, display a declining growth rate of the agricultural sector. This trend could be associated with several issues such as small and fragmented land holdings, quality of seed, lack of crop diversification, lack of irrigation, lack of mechanization, lack of storage etc. (Upadhyaya, 2022).Most farmers in both the states are marginal and small. Nearly 93 percent of the farmers in Odisha and 86 percent of the farmers in Assam have minor land holdings which makes mechanization economically nonviable (MoA, 2019)  Other constraints include a dearth of capacity-building programs aimed at training farmers in contemporary farming equipment and practices, as well as limited or non-existent access to essential resources such as water, fertilizers, pesticides, seeds, and other inputs. Furthermore, there is a lack of viable markets for selling agricultural produce and difficulties in accessing formal credit and insurance services. Simultaneously, small farmers confront various social disadvantages, including illiteracy, geographical isolation, and entrenched cultural hindrances like caste. Sharma (2010) points out that small farmers are characterized by their relative inability to adapt to changes due to their limited access to resources. He also highlights that the rationale behind a market-based approach is to foster competition, enabling the most efficient producers to excel in their respective markets. In this context, a free trade market policy facilitates the removal of less efficient producers from the production landscape. Therefore, it is crucial to focus on enhancing the efficiency of small and marginal farmers (Kloeppinger-Todd and Sharma, 2010). Chand (2017) mentioned the need for collective action to minimize the disadvantages of scale effects on small and marginal farmers. This allows them to garner bargaining power in the input and output markets and provide a pathway to strengthen backward and forward linkages along the value chain (Chand, 2017). A similar argument has also been made by Agarwal (2010Agarwal ( , 2018Agarwal ( , 2019aAgarwal ( , 2019b) ) Collective action may be defined as voluntary action by a group of individuals, who invest energy and time to pursue shared objectives (Markelova, et al., 2009). Collective action can play an important role in the context of family farms and agricultural production. In developing countries, the disadvantages of family farms are further aggravated by various forms of market failure, which are severe in areas with poor communication networks and infrastructure. As a result, smallholders face high transaction costs that significantly lessen their incentives for market participation (Poulton, et al., 2010). Through achieving economies of scale, farmer groups can offset some of the disadvantages, particularly those related to high external transaction costs and market power.Small Farmers Large Field (SFLF) is a participatory collective action model that addresses the key challenges faced by the small and marginal potato farmers in India (Baruah, et al., 2022). This model is founded upon the principle of aggregating farmers to achieve bargaining power by strengthening backward and forward integration along the supply chain.Thus, under this model, the participating farmers organize themselves into groups to purchase inputs, contract a machine service provider for planting and harvesting, and synchronize their operations by adopting a single variety, planting, and harvesting around the same time, thus essentially converting their small landholdings into a large field or patch.This approach enables small farmers to cut costs by making bulk purchases, improve efficiency by synchronizing operations, and improve quality by having a single variety of quality seed and improved production practices. Each participating farmer collectively commits as a group to follow the same cropping calendar, production practices, and product selling plan. Timelines need to be managed as a group so that, during mechanized steps such as planting and harvesting, a single machine could be operated in the entire patch. Within a patch, which is formed by individually owned contiguous plots, every farmer is responsible for cultivating his/her own plot.The SFLF concept was adapted from the Large Field Model (LFM) of Vietnam. The term \"Large Field Model\" was first introduced by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) in a workshop organized in the Mekong River Delta on March 26, 2011, (Thang, et al., 2017). The LFM program gained immense popularity, with area increasing from just eight hectares in 2011 to 196,000 hectares in 2015 (Mohanty, et al., 2018). The LFM development programs also attracted the participation of large rice production companies and farmer cooperatives. The major companies included Loc Troi group and Vinafood 2. The Loc Troi group in 2014 facilitated the establishment of 471 farmers' cooperation groups, with a total production area of 40,000 hectares. According to Dang (Dang, 2016), technical support was also provided to farmers by these companies, and this helped to increase their profits by VND 2.5-4.0 million per hectare (USD 110-180 per hectare). The major companies included Loc Troi group and Vinafood 2.The Loc Troi group in 2014 facilitated the establishment of 471 farmers' cooperation groups, with a total production area of 40,000 hectares. According to Dang (Dang, 2016), technical support was also provided to farmers by these companies, and this helped to increase their profits by VND 2.5-4.0 million per hectare (USD 110-180 per hectare). In Vietnam, the LFM has also contributed to improving the quality of rice production for export. As farmers followed standardized crop schedules, these companies could maintain harvesting dates in their production zones in sequence, thereby optimizing capital investment, labor supply, and storage (Thang, et al., 2017). Over the years, different forms of the LFM have been operational in Vietnam (Ba, et al., 2019). Some of them are very formal, with actual land pooling from farmers to set up a company, operating like a private business with farmers as shareholders, and others operating as an informal entity with synchronization and harmonization of only selected operations for improving efficiency and lowering cost (Mohanty, et al., 2018). This research details the piloting of the Small Farmer Large Field (SFLF) model of organizing potato farmers in the states Odisha and Assam. Building on these efforts TAFSSA has been working with around 250 farmers from Gingia village, Assam and 7,000 farmers in eight districts of Odisha. Under best management practices researchers have provided linkage to quality seed, training on mechanization with access to machines, fertilizer scheduling, need based pesticide scheduling, post-harvest management and effective disease management.The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of organizing potato farmers in the regions of Odisha and Assam, employing the SFLF model. The structure of the remaining sections in this article is as follows: firstly, we will delve into the methodology and the data collection process, followed by the presentation of results and ensuing discussion. This work integrates elements from both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. This integration encompasses the utilization of qualitative and quantitative perspectives, data collection techniques, analytical methods, and inference procedures. This approach is employed to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of research issues and to bolster the confirmation of research findings (Schoonenboom and Johnson, 2017). This study uses a convergent parallel mixed method research design (Figure 2).Convergent parallel mixed-method research is a research approach where the researcher simultaneously implements both quantitative and qualitative strands during the same phase of the research process. In this approach, equal importance is given to both methods, and they are kept independent during analysis. The results are then combined during the overall interpretation of the study (Creswell and Clark, 2011).This study adopts a QUAN+qual design, wherein the quantitative dataset plays a primary role, while the qualitative dataset serves a secondary or supportive role. The integration of these two strands can be either emergent or fixed, and in this study, a fixed approach has been chosen. Fixed approaches are predetermined and planned at the outset of the research process, and the procedures are executed as initially intended. The convergent parallel mixed-method research (MMR) design for this study is represented in Figure 2.The study involves quantitative analysis of survey data and qualitative analysis of key informant interviews. The two sets of results are then merged to assess the impact of organizing potato farmers in Odisha and Assam using the SFLF model. In Assam, the SFLF model for organizing potato production was piloted and implemented in Gingia village, Sonitpur district. For quantitative data collection, respondents were randomly selected from the complete list of farmers who engaged in this model. A sample size of 105 farmers was drawn from those who participated in the SFLF model between 2019 and 2021. Of this sample, 86 percent were male. Additionally, 67 percent of the selected sample belonged to the OBC category, 29 percent to the general category, 3 percent to the scheduled caste, and 1 percent to the ST category. In Odisha, the SFLF model of organizing potato production was piloted and implemented in four coastal districts and one hill district between 2019 to 2021-namely, Cuttack, Jagatsinghpura, Khordha, Puri (these coastal districts) and Khordha (a hill district).A sample size of 400 farmers was randomly selected through cluster sampling from the farmers in the five districts where SFLF model was implemented between 2019 to 2021.The entire population was divided into clusters and then the clusters were randomly selected to apply single stage cluster sampling. Samples were drawn randomly from the selected clusters. In this case, we created three clusters depending on the farm sizelarge (>10 hectares), medium (2-10 hectares) and small (<2 hectares). From each cluster, we randomly selected 33 percent of the sample size. A distribution of the district-wise number of farmer groups can be fond in Table 2.  In this study, quantitative data primarily serves the purpose of calculating the costs and net profit associated with the model. Baseline or comparative data was gathered using a recall approach, referring to data from the previous season. Qualitative data, on the other hand, was collected using a maximum variant purposive sampling technique from the participating farmer population in both study sites and the selected districts. The method chosen for qualitative data collection involved conducting indepth key informant interviews.The use of good-quality seeds is one of the most important factors in increasing agricultural production in any farming system.Farmers from all five districts reported that they experienced significant benefits from being connected to reputable potato seed dealers. These seed dealers facilitated the delivery of seeds directly to the farmers' villages, treating it as a bulk order. This bulk order resembled an order placed by a single entity, but in reality, it was a collective order made by the entire group of SFLF farmers from each village.As potato seed dealers require a minimum of one truck order -which is equivalent to twenty-five metric tons (MT) of seeds and a 0.4 hectare plot requires only one metric ton (MT)small and marginal farmers operating on smaller parcels equivalent or lesser than 0.4 hectare found it difficult to access and order good quality seed. Farmers reported receiving high quality seeds across all the four coastal districts. They perceived this as having a positive effect on increasing production.  In certain instances, farmers reported that their crop yields had essentially doubled as a direct result of gaining access to higher-quality seed potatoes.Recognizing that cultivating a single variety would lead to economies of scale, farmers from one particular village predominantly opted for a single variety and organized their planting in larger patches.To support these efforts, TAFSSA connected SFLF farmers with seed companies based in Punjab for the procurement of their seed potatoes. The farmers' primary preference was for two table varieties of potatoes: Kufri Jyoti and Kufri Pukhraj.Above: An SFLF farmer in Puri district, Odisha tending to his field. Photo credit: Odisha TAFSSA team membersThe utilization of high-quality seeds stands out as one of the most pivotal factors in augmenting agricultural production across various farming systems. Farmers from all five districts have consistently reported that their connection with reputable potato seed dealers has greatly benefited them.The seed dealer facilitated the delivery of seeds directly to their village, treating it as a bulk order. Although it may have seemed like a single-entity order, it was, in fact, a collective order placed by the entire group of SFLF farmers from each village. Due to the minimum requirement set by potato seed dealers, which typically amounts to one truckload equivalent to twentyfive MT of seeds, and considering that 0.4 hectare of land requires only one MT, small and marginal farmers operating on parcels equivalent to or less than 0.4 hectares encountered significant difficulties in accessing and ordering high-quality seeds.Farmers in all four coastal districts consistently reported receiving highquality seeds, which subsequently led to increased production. In certain instances, farmers noted that their yields had doubled due to the availability of superior-quality seed potatoes. Recognizing that cultivating a single variety would offer economies of scale, most farmers from one particular village opted for a single variety and organized their planting in larger patches.Researchers assisted in connecting the SFLF farmers with seed companies from Punjab for the procurement of their seed potatoes. The farmers' primary preferences were for two table varieties of potatoes: Kufri Jyoti and Kufri Pukhraj.Above: Comparison of tubers from local seeds (left) and Kufri Jyoti seeds sourced from Punjab. Photo credit: Odisha TAFSSA team membersIn addition to procuring seeds, the SFLF farmers in Odisha established direct connections with the companyoperated wholesale outlet of IFFCO in Bhubaneshwar, the state capital of Odisha, and Bayer for the acquisition of various agricultural inputs such as insecticides and pesticides. Since the farmers were able to place collective bulk orders, these input companies extended discounted prices to them. Farmers expressed their appreciation for these discounts, as they had never previously received such favorable pricing for chemical inputs. In the past, they sometimes had to pay more than the Maximum Retail Price (MRP) during shortages of chemicals or products. In addition to the provision of these inputs, the farmers were also provided with valuable information regarding the application methods and timing for these inputs. This information not only contributed to improving their harvest but also helped safeguard their crops from potential damage.Farmers reported the adoption of machinery for land preparation, planting, and harvesting, which brought about notable advantages. The utilization of machines not only saved time but also reduced the reliance on manual labor, enabling farmers to cultivate larger areas with fewer workers. Some farmers even reported a reduction in labor costs of up to 40 percent. It was mentioned that prior to their engagement with the SFLF model of potato production, they were unaware that potato planting could be mechanized using a potato planter. Participating farmers also established connections with service providers to access essential machinery, including power tillers and rotavators. Additionally, researchers introduced and made available a potato planter. Thanks to the collective approach adopted by SFLF farmers, who organized their operations in larger consolidated patches rather than fragmented individual plots, machine service providers were able to secure group contracts. This approach facilitated the service providers' willingness to visit village locations and offer their services at discounted rates.Above: SFLF farmer using machine weeder for maintenance. Photo credit: Odisha TAFSSA team membersFarmers shared that the second synchronized and collective activity they engaged in after placing a bulk order for seeds was land preparation, primarily managed through tube well irrigation during the dry season. They mentioned using tractors equipped with tillers (often hired), rotavators, and occasionally power tillers to complete the land preparation process. Organizing themselves as a group made it considerably easier to hire these machines. Furthermore, they indicated that the package of practices introduced within the SFLF model necessitated modifications in land preparation and water management practices. These modifications involved changes in the sequence of bund making and potato seed planting, as well as direct irrigation through pre-made channels. Adjustments were also made to the height of bunds, depth of irrigation channels, and spacing between plants and bunds. Under the SFLF model, a method was implemented where irrigation was directly conducted through pre-made channels, as opposed to the previous practice of sprinkled irrigation. This new approach led to a reduction in the frequency and quantity of water needed for irrigation, contributing significantly to water conservation.Farmers also shared that engaging in the SFLF model trained them on improved production practices like seed treatment, appropriate dosage of herbicide application, and the use of uniform-sized seeds.Our emerging data suggest that the SFLF model proved instrumental in facilitating the formation of social networks among farmers, enabling them to harness the advantages of peer learning through shared experiences and knowledge. Farmers conveyed that they learned from one another through exposure visits and discussions with fellow farmers from other villages who had already embraced the SFLF model. While each farmer cultivated their own plot, they needed to coordinate every farming activity with their counterparts from the same patch. This necessitated careful management of a timeline to ensure that during mechanized phases such as planting and harvesting, a single machine could efficiently serve the entire patch. In this process, farmers within the same patch supported each other by providing exchange labor for one another's plots. Before participating in the SFLF model, farmers relied on both hired labor and family labor to complete various labor-intensive stages of production. However, not all farmers could afford to hire labor, resulting in extended durations for these labor-intensive tasks. After engaging with the SFLF model, farmers developed a sense of camaraderie within their group, leading to mutual assistance through exchange labor. Moreover, inputs like seeds and fertilizers had to be purchased concurrently, and farmers assisted each other with the required finances if any member of the group or patch fell short. Additionally, they offered support for each other's farm responsibilities during emergencies, such as illness or accidents.The novel agricultural practices introduced by the SFLF program have demonstrated their effectiveness in enhancing market linkages for farmers by elevating their production yields and enabling them to amass surplus quantities suitable for sale within local markets or to local traders. Farmers have communicated that their previous means of selling limited produce left them with little bargaining power, primarily involving interactions with village middlemen. In their individual transactions with village traders, achieving effective price negotiations for their modest harvests was notably challenging. However, through the collective framework established by the SFLF program, farmers have successfully established connections with nearby traders and proprietors of cold storage facilities. This heightened interest among cold storage owners in procuring potato produce materialized upon their recognition that substantial quantities could be sourced from a single, varietally consistent location. Furthermore, local village traders have displayed increased willingness to offer higher prices once informed of the enhanced market connections with cold storage facility proprietors and other proximate traders.The subsequent sections provide a concise overview of the cost and return analysis for farmers in Odisha, accounting for both those engaged in the SFLF model and those operating outside of it, with all values adjusted to 2022 prices.Table 3 provides a summary of the average costs and returns observed among participating farmers in Cuttack district, Odisha, both before and after the adoption of the SFLF model. The data clearly illustrates that, following the implementation of the SFLF model, farmers in Cuttack experienced a significant increase in their gross income, more than doubling their earnings compared to the pre-SFLF period. This improvement can be attributed to the yield resulting from the use of superior-quality seeds, coupled with market rates due to enhanced quality of agricultural outputs.Above: SFLF farmers in Jagatsinghpura, Odisha. Photo credit. Odisha TAFSSA team members A look at the cost components indicates an overall increase of eleven per cent in the total cost of cultivation during SFLF, largely owing to the use of crop protection products and improved production practices through mechanization (inclusive of increase diesel prices). However, this increase is more than compensated by the large increase in income, more than tripling the net returns of the farmers due to the model.  Table 6 provides a summary of the average costs and returns observed among participating farmers in Puri district, Odisha, both before and after adopting the SFLF model. Despite a 23 percent increase in the total cost of cultivation, attributed to elevated seed costs, additional inputs, and mechanization, farmers witnessed their gross income more than doubling. This income growth can be attributed to increased yields and improved market prices, driven by the enhanced quality of produce. The notable income increase overcompensated for the higher costs, resulting in an impressive 249 percent surge in net returns for participating farmers.  Koraput District in Odisha holds significant potential for monsoon (Kharif) potato cultivation due to its landscape, soil characteristics, and climate conditions. It is crucial to differentiate the results of this district from others due to the distinct demographics and production timeline of the participating farmers. This district is primarily inhabited by tribal communities who adhere to traditional agricultural practices and have not adopted farm mechanization. As evident from the data presented in the subsequent sections, this region predominantly incurred losses in potato production. This can be attributed to its complete isolation from the seed market, leading to the use of small-sized ware potatoes as seed, which adversely impacted the outcomes.Upon their decision to collectively engage in the SFLF model, farmers in Koraput district gained the capacity to place bulk orders for seed potatoes, thereby opening up the possibility of connecting with seed dealers from Punjab. They were supplied with improved potato seed varieties, specifically Kufri Jyoti, at favorable negotiated rates. Live demonstrations of potato cultivation were conducted with technical guidance provided by scientists from the International Potato Center (CIP) and officials from the Horticulture Department. This included the first-time introduction of mechanized planting in the field. Field-level training sessions were organized for farmers, focusing on enhanced potato cultivation techniques, plant protection, and pest and disease management. Crop cutting assessments revealed a yield of 23 tons per hectare, although the average yield for all sampled farmers stood at 16 tons per hectare (as indicated in Table 7). On average, farmers achieved profits ranging from Rs 150,000 to Rs 200,000 per hectare.  Respondents reported a reduction in labor intensive activities under SFLF. This was due to introduction of mechanization in land preparation, potato planting and harvesting. But the repeated increase in diesel prices in 2021 and 2022 affected the negotiation of machine hiring price and cost of production could not be brought down.Above: A panoramic view of collective potato farms by SFLF farmers in Gingia, Assam. Photo credit: Sampriti Baruahparticipating in Assam experienced a substantial 38 percent increase in their gross income. This increase was primarily attributed to a 37 percent rise in yield and a significant 69 percent increase in selling prices. A closer examination of the cost components reveals a 15 percent increase in the cost of cultivation, attributable to factors such as improved seed quality, increased inputs, and mechanization. However, the higher yield and selling prices, stemming from the cultivation of better-quality potatoes, more than offset the increased costs. This resulted in a notable 51 percent increase in net returns for the participating farmers. The model also facilitated the development of social networks among farmers, fostering peer learning and knowledge sharing. The improved bargaining power of the SFLF farmers in the input and output markets led to lower prices for seeds and premium price for produce. The net returns for farmers in Cuttack, Jagatsinghpura, Khordha, and Puri districts demonstrated a remarkable increase, ranging from 249% to 493%.The off-season potato piloted in Koraput, Odisha through the SFLF model addressed the challenges faced by tribal farmers, including high cultivation costs and traditional farming practices. The introduction of better-quality inputs, mechanization, and market linkages resulted in a 160% increase in gross income and 632% increase in net return. Similar results were found in Assam where participating farmers saw a 38% increase in gross income. Improved seed quality, reduced labor-intensive activities, and streamlined production practices contributed to enhanced productivity.Market linkages improved, and farmers reported higher prices for SFLF potatoes. The net returns for Assam increased by 51%, indicating the model's positive impact on the economic well-being of farmers.These findings highlight the potential of the SFLF model in addressing the challenges faced by small and marginal farmers, such as fragmented land holdings, lack of mechanization, and limited market access. The model's success lies in its ability to aggregate farmers, providing them with collective bargaining power, access to quality inputs, and improved production practices. The emergence of social networks among farmers further enhances knowledge sharing and learning.However, a number of key challenges and improvement opportunities must be addressed. The model's success is contingent on factors such as adequate awareness, timely provision of inputs, and increased market linkages. It is facilitation-heavy. Further efforts are needed to overcome obstacles such as low market prices, limited storage options, and the need for government support for commercial cultivation. Future iterations of the SFLF model should focus on refining implementation strategies, increasing awareness, and addressing specific challenges identified in each region.The SFLF collective action model holds promise as a transformative approach to enhance the livelihoods of small and marginal potato farmers in South Asia. The positive outcomes observed in terms of increased income, improved productivity, and the development of social networks underscore the model's potential as a sustainable solution for agricultural development in the region. As the agricultural landscape continues to evolve, the SFLF model provides a valuable framework for collective action and empowerment of smallscale farmers, contributing to the overall growth and sustainability of the agricultural sector in Odisha and Assam.ABOUT TAFSSA TAFSSA (Transforming Agrif ood Systems in South Asia) i s a CGIAR Regional Integrate d Initiative that supports acti ons improving equitable acc ess to sustainable healthy di ets, that boosts farmers' liveli hoods and resilience, and that conserves land, air, and water resources in a climate crisis.CGIAR is a global research partnership for a food secure future. Visit https://www.cgiar.org/research/ cgiar-portfolio to learn more about the initiatives in the CGIAR research portfolio ABOUT CGIAR","tokenCount":"4664"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d9528587a6a7be5dd1184440c00cc3f3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/a1f007d5-243f-46e2-ad5a-e09110af59a5/content","id":"-256611171"},"keywords":["ASI, anthesis-silking interval","CIMMYT, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center","DH, doubled haploid","ESA, eastern and southern Africa","GCA, general combining ability","MSV, maize streak virus","OPV, open-pollinated variety","QTLs, quantitative trait loci","SNP, single-nucleotide polymorphism","SSA, sub-Saharan Africa"],"sieverID":"17450360-a2ad-453e-8bcb-057df9900dfe","pagecount":"12","content":"\"M aize (Zea mays L.) is life\" to many of sub-Saharan Africa's (SSA) most vulnerable people, occupying over 50% of land devoted to cereal production in over 50% of countries in this region (FAO, 2016). In eastern and southern Africa (ESA), maize accounts for 45% of the total calories and 43% of the total protein from cereals (Shiferaw et al., 2011). In contrast to most other regions of the world, where the private sector has driven maize yield gains, maize breeding in SSA is dominated by public research expenditure (Duvick and Cassman, 1999;Pardey and Beintema, 2001). The budgets of public sector research are low, while the share of agricultural gross domestic product invested in public sector research continues to decrease (Kremer and Zwane, 2005). Furthermore the seed sector is largely dominated by small and medium seed companies that often do not have adequatebreeding capacity and rely on national and international research institutes for new stress-tolerant and high-yielding maize hybrids (Langyintuo et al., 2010;Cairns et al., 2013a). Breaking the cycle of low maize yields and food insecurity will require considerable investments in agricultural research in SSA. Increasing maize yield in farmers' fields in SSA is unlikely to be achieved with a single intervention; however, improved high-yielding varieties, developed for rainfed areas in SSA, will be an important component of strategies to increase yield and mitigate the potential effects of climate variability and change on maize yield (Cairns et al., 2013a).Breeding is essentially a numbers game; the larger the populations generated and screened and the more site-year combinations used for selection, the greater the probability of identifying superior variants (Araus and Cairns, 2014). The development of coordinated phenotyping networks was crucial for the success of the Green Revolution (Reynolds and Borlaug, 2006). Cooper et al. (2014) attributed the success of US maize breeding to large, interconnected breeding networks. In 1991, the Eastern India Rainfed Lowland Shuttle Breeding Network for rice (Oryza sativa L.) was formed (Collard et al., 2013) and is responsible for the release and development of many improved cultivars, including submergence-tolerant varieties (Ismail et al., 2013). Given the low investment in agricultural research in ESA, a coordinated phenotyping network enables maximum benefit of limited resources for maize improvement over a large geographical area by allowing breeders to extrapolate within similar agroclimatic zones (Hartkamp et al., 2000). The CIMMYT maize breeding program for ESA started in Zimbabwe in 1985, and by the late 1990s, a breeding network across 11 countries had been established (Bänziger and Diallo, 2004). By 2006, this network had expanded to 59 locations within these 11 countries, and the phenotyping capacity for managed drought screening increased from 6 to 35 ha (Magorokosho et al., 2010;Makumbi, 2011;Cairns et al., 2013a). This increase has enabled greater emphasis on increasing drought tolerance. The breeding strategy has been described by Bänziger et al. (2006). Briefly, parent lines were crossed and progenies advanced to F 3 . Families are testcrossed to a single cross or broad base population tester and evaluated under managed drought stress, low N stress, and optimal conditions. The top 20% are advanced and evaluated in test-cross combinations with three testers from the opposite heterotic group under a minimum of two drought stress, two low-N stress, and five optimal environments. In addition, stage-three trials are evaluated in disease hotspots for maize streak virus (MSV), northern corn leaf blight [NCLB, caused by Exserohilum turcicum (Pass) K.J. Leonard and E.G. Suggs], and grey leaf spot [caused by Cercospora zeae-maydis (Tehon and E.Y. Daniels)]. A maximum of 75 hybrids are advanced to regional testing in ESA. Although hybrids are the main focus of the CIMMYT ESA maize breeding programs, open-pollenated varieties (OPVs) are developed as a byproduct. New hybrids are simultaneously selected for performance under optimal, low nitrogen, random, and managed drought stress conditions.Genetic gains are usually estimated in era experiments (e.g., Tollenaar, 1989;Duvick, 2005), wherein varieties released in different years are evaluated in common field trials. Measured traits are then regressed on year of variety release. Genetic gain evaluation enables plant breeding organizations to measure and adjust breeding programs on the basis of their performance. To date, genetic gains in maize hybrid breeding in SSA has not been quantified. Badu- Apraku et al. (2013Apraku et al. ( , 2015) ) estimated genetic gain in OPVs in West and Central Africa. Using 50 OPVs separated into three eras (1988-2000, 2001-2006, and 2007-2010), Badu-Apraku et al. ( 2013) estimated a genetic gain in grain yield of 1.3% yr −1 under optimal conditions and 1.1% yr −1 under managed drought stress. A second study estimated that grain yield under natural stress increased by 1.2% yr −1 (Badu-Apraku et al., 2015). The aim of this study was to estimate genetic gain in CIMMYT's maize breeding program in ESA during 2000 to 2010, with particular emphasis on gains in grain yield under drought stress. In many countries within ESA, OPVs still account for a large proportion of the market (with the exception of Zambia and Zimbabwe) (Langyintuo et al., 2010). A companion paper looks at genetic gain in OPVs in ESA over the same period (Masuka et al., 2016).An era panel was assembled from hybrids selected by national programs and seed companies in consecutive years from 2000 to 2010. Hybrids and their parental lines originated from the CIMMYT breeding programs in ESA. A total of 67 hybrids were selected from the CIMMYT ESA maize breeding pipeline. Hybrids were selected based on superior performance in regional trials within ESA between 2000 and 2010 (Vivek et al., 2001(Vivek et al., , 2002(Vivek et al., , 2003(Vivek et al., , 2004(Vivek et al., , 2005;;Magorokosho et al., 2006Magorokosho et al., , 2007Magorokosho et al., , 2008Magorokosho et al., , 2009Magorokosho et al., , 2010;;Makumbi, 2011). Hybrids are organized by the year they were first present in regional trials. The number of hybrids per year ranged from two in 2002 and 2003 to 10 in 2004 (Supplemental Table S1). Seed availability and multiplication challenges contributed to the imbalance of entries from each year. Several hybrids have the same female, independent of year of release. Information on the pedigree and first year of entry in the regional trials of all hybrids is presented in Supplemental Table S1. Three popular commercial hybrids, SC513 (released in 1997), SC635 (released in 2003), and SC727 (released in 2010), were used as checks. Thus, in all trials, a total of 70 hybrids were used.A total of 32 trials were planted from 2011 to 2013 in eight locations across six countries in ESA. A summary of locations is presented in Table 1.was calculated as days to silking − days to anthesis. At maturity, plant height was measured on five representative plants per plot using a ruler. All plants were hand harvested and shelled grain weight was measured. Grain weights were adjusted to 12.5% moisture content and 80% shelling percentage to calculate grain yield.Analyses of variance within and across locations were determined by the restricted maximum likelihood method using SAS 9.2 (SAS Institute, 2009). Variance components were determined by following linear mixed model:where Y ijrs was the phenotypic performance of the ith genotype at the jth environment in the rth replication of the sth incomplete block, m was an intercept term, G i was the genetic effect of the ith genotype, E j was the effect of the jth environment, GE ij is the interaction effect of ith genotype and the jth environment, r kj was the effect of the kth replication at the jth environment, b sjk was the effect of the sth incomplete block in the kth replication at the jth environment, and e ijks was the residual. Environments and replications were treated as fixed effects and the other effects as random. In addition, BLUEs (Best Linear Unbiased Estimates) were estimated by assuming genotypes as fixed effects.Repeatability was estimated as is the genotype ´ environment, 2 e s is the residual variance, e is the number of environments, and r is the number of replicates per environment. One trial with repeatability of less than 0.10 was removed from all analyses and is not presented.To estimate genetic gain, grain yield was regressed against year of release using the linear mixed effects model: where Y klmno was grain yield in the kth location in the lth year of release for the mth genotype in the nth replication in the oth incomplete block, m is the general mean, location k is the fixed effects of the locations (k = 1, 2, …., K), year of release l is the fixed effects of the year of release (l = 1,2, …., L), (location ´ year of release) kl is the fixed effects of the kth location ´ lth year of release interaction, genotype m (year of release l ) is the effects of the genotype nested in the year of release, location ´ genotype km (year of release l ) is the interaction effect of the kth location by the mth genotype nested in the year of release, rep n (location k ) is the random effects of the replicates within locations (r = 1, 2, …., P) with a mean zero and variance s 2 rep n (location k ), block o (rep ´ location nk ) is the random effects of the blocks within replicates within locations (o = 1, 2, …., F) with a mean and variance s 2 block o (rep ´ location nk ), and e klmno is the random residual assumed to be independently and identically normally distributed with a mean zero and variance 2 e s .Grain Yield, Phenology, and Plant Height Mean grain yield under well-watered conditions ranged from 4.35 to 10.80 Mg ha −1 (t ha −1 ) (Table 2). The range of trial means for grain yield was high under managed Experiments were planted in an a-lattice design (with 14 blocks of five), replicated twice in Harare under low-N stress and three times in all other locations. Experiments were planted in two-row plots (with the exception of Kiboko in 2012, with only one-row plots) in 5-m long rows with 25-cm interplant distance and 75 cm between rows, with a final plant density of 66,667 plants ha −1 . With the exception of low-N stress sites, all sites were optimally fertilized based on local recommendations and received recommended weed and insect control measures. Optimal trials were planted during the main maize growing seasons, irrigated twice at planting and emergence, and supplemental irrigation was applied as needed to avoid drought stress. For random drought stress, trials were planted in drought-prone locations, with irrigation supplied only at planting and emergence. For managed drought stress, irrigation was withheld approximately 2 wk prior to midtrial anthesis. Rescue irrigation was only applied to avoid total crop loss when required. Low-N trials were planted on sites that had been depleted for 10 and 4 seasons in Harare and Kiboko, respectively. Depletion was achieved by applying no N fertilizer to plots and removing stover from the field after grain was harvested. Trials under MSV were inoculated with MSV 10 to 14 d after planting using the Cicadulina spp. Vector, following the procedure described by Tang and Bjarnason (1993). Maize streak virus was scored twice, at least 4 to 5 wk after inoculation, when symptoms were well developed and the crop was at the early reproductive stage.Maize streak virus disease scores were visually rated on a plot basis as the severity of disease symptoms using a 1 to 5 scale where 1 = no symptoms on leaves; 1.5 = very few streaks on leaves; 2 = light streaking on old leaves, gradually decreasing on young leaves; 2.5 = light streaking on old and young leaves; 3 = moderate streaks on old and young leaves; 3.5 moderate streaks on old and young leaves and slight stunting; 4 = severe streaking on 60% of leaf area, plants stunted; 4.5 = severe streaking on 75% of leaf area, plants severely stunted; 5 = severe streaking on 75% or more of the leaf area, plants severely stunted, dying or dead. Days to anthesis and silking were recorded when 50% of the plants were shedding pollen and 50% of the plants had silks emerged. The anthesis-silking interval (ASI) drought stress, ranging from 0.89 to 5.23 Mg ha −1 (Table 3). Under random drought stress the range of trial means for grain yield ranged from 1.88 to 3.98 Mg ha −1 . Mean grain yield under low-N stress ranged from 2.36 to 5.92 Mg ha −1 (Table 4). Mean grain yield under MSV ranged from 5.21 to 7.21 Mg ha −1 (Table 5). The range in ASI was large under managed drought stress, reflecting the range in levels of drought stress. The anthesis-silking interval was less than four in all managed and random drought stress trials, with the exception of the managed drought stress trial in Chiredzi 2012.The range of mean days to anthesis date among well-watered trials was 30 d. Within trials, the range of mean anthesis date ranged from 9.5 (Golden Valley) to 16 d (Kakamega). Under managed drought stress, the range of mean days to anthesis within trials was significantly shorter in Chiredzi in 2012 (planted in August) and Kiboko, reflecting the higher temperatures during the growing season compared with the trials in Chiredzi in 2013 (planted in May and July).For optimal trials, the repeatability of grain yield in individual trials ranged from 0.33 (Chiredzi 2012) to 0.80 (Harare 2013). Repeatability was high (>0.60) in two-thirds of trials. In the combined analysis, repeatability for grain yield was 0.95. Under drought stress, repeatability of grain yield in individual trials ranged from 0.18 (Chiredzi 2012) to 0.64 (Kiboko 2012) under managed drought stress and from 0.21 (Chiredzi 2013a) to 0.47 (Kadoma 2013) under random drought stress. In the combined analysis, repeatability was 0.55 and 0.53 under managed and random drought stress,    under optimal, managed drought, random drought, low-N, and MSV-infested research conditions, respectively. Yield gain under managed drought stress was lower than under random drought stress. While random drought stress more accurately simulates drought experienced by smallholder farmers, managed drought stress trials are less expensive to carry out and easier to maintain at higher repeatability (Bänziger et al., 2000). These results suggest that genetic gain is not being made in both managed and random drought treatments at an equivalent rate. Genetic gain in grain yield per year in this study was higher than reported in West and Central Africa by Badu-Apraku et al. (2013, 2015); 109.4 compared with 40 kg ha −1 yr −1 under optimal conditions and 32.5 kg ha −1 yr −1 for managed drought and 22.7 kg ha −1 yr −1 for random drought stress compared with 13.5 kg ha −1 yr −1 , reflecting the higher yields levels of this study.At the end of the study period (2010), yield under optimal conditions in West and Central Africa was 3.96 compared with the 7.54 Mg ha −1 observed in this study. Similarly under drought stress, Badu-Apraku et al. ( 2015) reported average grain yield was 1.61 Mg ha −1 (representing a 60% reduction in grain yield) compared with the 3.95 Mg ha −1 under managed drought stress (representing a 48% reduction in grain yield) or 2.80 Mg ha −1 under random drought stress (representing a 63% reduction in grain yield) reported here. These results are also comparable with genetic gain estimates in other regions of the world. Under high input conditions, gain for maize grain yield has been estimated at 94.7 kg ha −1 yr −1 in China (Ci et al., 2011), 132 kg ha −1 yr −1 in Argentina (Luque et al., 2006), 80 kg ha −1 yr −1 in Canada (Bruulsema et al., 2000), and 65 to 75 kg ha −1 yr −1 in the United States (Duvick, 2005). Under drought stress, the rate of genetic gain in the United States was estimated respectively. For low-N stress trials, repeatability of grain yield ranged from 0.11 (Harare 2012) to 0.62 (Kiboko 2012).Under MSV, repeatability of grain yield in individual trials ranged from 0.72 (Harare 2013a) to 0.92 (Harare 2013b). For abiotic stress trials, repeatability of grain yield was higher than that of ASI for both managed and random drought stress and low-N stress. Similarly, under MSV, repeatability of grain yield was higher than that of ASI.Genetic Gain for Grain Yield under optimal, drought, low-Nitrogen, and Biotic (MSV) StressesUnder optimal conditions, the rate of yield progress measured was 109.4 kg ha −1 yr −1 (Fig. 1a). Under managed and random drought stress, a rate of yield progress of 32.5 and 22.7 kg ha −1 yr −1 was reported, respectively (Fig. 1b and 1c). For low-N environments, a rate of yield progress of 20.9 kg ha −1 yr −1 was observed. Finally, for MSV environments, a rate of 141.3 kg ha −1 yr −1 was observed (Fig. 1e). No significant change in anthesis date was observed under any treatments (Table 6).The anthesis-silking interval was significantly reduced under optimal, managed drought, low-nitrogen, and MSV stresses, although the change was less than 1 d under all treatments.There was a small-yet-significant increase in the number of ears per plant under managed drought stress and MSV. The score for MSV decreased by 0.03 over the 10-yr period.    at 73 kg ha −1 yr −1 for mild drought stress (Duvick, 1997), 146 kg ha −1 yr −1 when drought stress was imposed at the flowering stage, and 76 kg ha −1 yr −1 when drought stress was imposed during mid-grain-filling stage (Campos et al., 2004). In tropical maize, Edmeades et al. (1999) previously estimated a genetic gain of 144 kg ha −1 yr −1 under flowering stage drought stress in a recurrent selection program. Masuka et al. (2016) estimated genetic gain within the CIMMYT OPV breeding pipeline in ESA. In general, OPV yield gain under abiotic stress in the CIMMYT ESA breeding program was higher than that for hybrids. This study evaluated 67 hybrids used to represent different years; however, only 33 females were unique to these hybrids, with 13 females used more than once in the composition of hybrids. One female was in the background of 10 hybrids selected to represent 2007 to 2010, while another female was in the background of six hybrids selected to represent 2001, 2004, and 2005. The replacement of females in the CIMMYT breeding program is considerably slower than the replacement of males (for example, widely used females include CML395/CML444 and CML442/CML312, which are approximately 17 yr old; CML539/CML442, which is approximately 10 yr old; and CML536/CML312, which is approximately 4 yr old). New hybrids (generally three-way crosses reflecting the preference of seed companies) contain one or two parents, usually on the female side, that are older inbreds. Thus, this study is not a true breeding program assessment, as conducted by Edmeades et al. (1999) and Beyene et al. (2015), where genetic gains within populations  were established. In this study, although all varieties were selected based on yield, they were also selected for a wider range of reasons (e.g., yield potential, performance under abiotic stress, hybrid producibility, and disease resistance). Selection gains may have been higher if breeders did not have to make trade-off decisions associated with traits valued by seed companies (such as hybrid producibility) and farmers (such as cooking characteristics). Gain for grain yield under both stress and optimal conditions was not associated with a change in maturity (estimated through days to anthesis), suggesting that yield gain was not a function of an increase in the length of the photosynthetic period associated with increased maturity, but rather a direct increase in tolerance to stress and/or an increase in overall yield potential. Increased flowering synchrony is one of the major changes associated with yield gain under flowering stage drought stress (Edmeades et al., 1999). In this study, reduced ASI was associated with yield gain under managed drought stress, low-N stress, and optimal conditions. Increased flowering synchrony has previously been associated with increased grain yield under optimal, drought, and low-N stress (Bolaños and Edmeades, 1993a;Bänziger et al., 2002;Cairns et al., 2012b). During eight cycles of full-sib recurrent selection in a Tuxpeno-Sequia population, grain yield increased by 94 to 125 kg ha −1 cycle −1 under flowering stage drought stress (Bolaños and Edmeades, 1993a). This increase in grain yield under stress was associated with a reduction of ASI, an increase in harvest index, and an increase in the number of ears and kernels per plant (Bolaños andEdmeades, 1993a, 1993b). Physiological changes associated with increased grain yield were not estimated in this study. Further work is required to identify key drivers of yield gain.Maize streak virus is one of the most important disease threats to maize production in SSA (Martin and Shepherd, 2009;Nair et al., 2015). Many CIMMYT ESA breeding lines are derived from materials developed in Mexico, where MSV does not exist. Genetic gain for grain yield was highest under MSV inoculation. Since the visual disease scores have not changed appreciably over the 10-yr period, it is hypothesized that yield gain under optimal conditions is a significant influence on this observed trend. However, it is also plausible that not all yield-impacting effects of MSV infection may be captured by the visual rating scale, and it is likely that continued selection for grain yield within a wide area testing network, predominantly within endemic MSV areas, has also led to selection for favorable alleles that do not necessarily contribute to an improved visual score. The analogous condition exists for grain yield itself. Barrenness might be a useful visual indicator to predict grain yield until the entire germplasm pool has improved to the point where barrenness becomes uninformative. At this point, yield gain continues, even though the visible indicator has become irrelevant. Since all hybrids from 2000 onward have relatively low MSV visual scores, it is plausible that the large-effect genes for MSV were accumulated rapidly during the 1990s, while ongoing selection pressure for yield in MSV endemic areas has enabled continued improvement in the germplasm pool for MSV resistance, even after the visual score rating has become less useful. Increased seed movement and/or climate change may produce new combinations of pathogen and vector species and the potential for new hybrid pathogens (Garrett et al., 2011). An example of this is maize lethal necrosis (MLN), a devastating viral disease caused by a combination of maize chlorotic mottle virus (MCMV) and sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV) or any other cereal virus of the Potyviridae family. In 2011, the first outbreak of MLN in Africa was reported in Kenya and spread to Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Ethiopia (Wangai et al., 2012). In 2013, losses to Kenyan maize production as a result of MLN were estimated at 0.5 million Mg, or 22% of the average production before the outbreak of the disease (2.3 million Mg), with a value estimated at US$187 million (De Groote et al., 2016). Screening of commercial hybrids in ESA revealed high levels of susceptibility to MLN (Semagn et al., 2015). As the disease continues to spread, it is crucial that breeding for increased tolerance to MLN is incorporated into maize breeding programs within SSA. Demonstrated yield gain under MSV infection provides a benchmark for response to emerging biotic stresses.Although yield gain was comparable with gain in other regions of the world, absolute yield in experimental conditions is still lower than in many regions, reflecting, in part, the yield potential of tropical maize, the severity of stresses experienced in the target environment, and the young age of the breeding program. Maize yields in SSA are currently the lowest in the world (Cairns et al., 2012a). Nearly 30% of maize-growing countries in SSA have national maize yield averages <1 Mg ha −1 , and over 50% of countries are below 1.5 Mg ha −1 . Assuming a constant linear increase at current yield gain trends, maize yield will reach 3 Mg ha −1 in 17 yr under random drought stress in experimental conditions. Accelerated gain in both favorable and unfavorable environments is required to further drive maize yield higher in SSA. Genetic gain within a breeding program can be increased in a number of ways, including (i) increasing the size of the breeding program to enable higher selection intensity, (ii) ensuring adequate genetic variation, (iii) increasing accuracy of selection (higher repeatability), and (iv) acceleration of breeding cycles.A key component of the success of plant breeding in the past century has been the increased scale of field testing (Cooper et al., 2014). The recent AquaMax hybrids of Pioneer Dupont were tested on almost 11,000 on-farm trials before their release in 2014 (Gaffney et al., 2015). The maize seed sector in SSA is dominated by small-and medium-sized companies with limited breeding capacity and geographic scope (Langyintuo et al., 2010). National breeding programs face financial constraints and often operate on a small scale within a relatively small geographic region, but adaptation zones for maize hybrids in Africa are large and usually include many countries (Windhausen et al., 2012). As a result, information generated from variety trials in one country is relevant to others in the region. The large-scale, regional testing network coordinated by CIMMYT, in collaboration with African national programs and seed companies, allows for more robust estimates of phenotypic performance, faster development of broadly adapted varieties, and maximized benefits of limited resources for crop genetic improvement in SSA over a large geographical area by allowing breeders to extrapolate within similar agroclimatic zones (Hartkamp et al., 2000). Furthermore under climate change projections, target environments for breeding products may change and new traits may increase in importance (Sonder et al., 2016). Genetic gains under abiotic stress in this study reflect the impact of phenotyping capacity, with the lowest gains made under low-N stress, which had the smallest area available for screening. Prior to 2009, the lowest phenotyping capacity in the CIMMYT ESA breeding pipeline was for low-N stress, with less than 10 ha of N-depleted land available for screening in ESA (Magorokosho et al., 2010). The low-N phenotyping capacity has recently been expanded, with sites in 10 countries on 48 ha of N-depleted land (Das et al., 2016). Drought phenotyping capacity has increased since 2006, with managed drought screening capacity increasing from 6 to 35 ha (Magorokosho et al., 2010;Makumbi, 2011;Cairns et al., 2013a). Although the newest hybrids in this study entered into regional trials in 2010, they were developed in 2006, and thus this study does not reflect the impact of recent expansion of maize breeding effort.The ability to expand phenotyping capacity will, ultimately, always be limited. Molecular technologies offer the ability to expand the size of a breeding program and selection intensity without increasing phenotyping requirements. Genotypic information can be used to preselect germplasm prior to the phenotyping stages, and the capability to increase this untested layer will allow the total number of lines within a breeding program to be expanded (Cooper et al., 2014). Validated trait-linked markers for abiotic stress remain largely elusive in maize. Extensive mapping studies using both biparental and association mapping panels have identified many small-effect quantitative trait loci (QTLs) (e.g., Almeida et al., 2012Almeida et al., , 2014)). Meta-analysis of QTLs reduced the number of QTLs for grain yield to 59 (Semagn et al., 2013). However, only a few meta QTL were detected across well-watered and drought stress conditions and/or multiple genetic backgrounds, with each explaining a very small proportion of the phenotypic variance. Similarly for low N, many small-effect genomic regions, which are unlikely to be suitable for marker-assisted backcrossing, have been identified (Coque and Gallais, 2006;Semagn et al., 2015). By contrast, trait-linked markers are now either at the validation stage or are being deployed for key diseases in SSA. A major QTL (msv1) for MSV resistance on chromosome 1 has been identified in several populations (Welz et al., 1998;Pernet et al., 1999;Nair et al., 2015). Subsequent fine mapping of msv1 identified three single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within a haplotype block with an accuracy of 0.94 in predicting the disease reaction in a collection of breeding lines with known responses to MSV infection. High-throughput KASP (Kompetitive Allele Specific Polymerase Chain Reaction) assays have been developed for these three SNPs to enable routine marker screening in the breeding pipeline for MSV resistance. In the last year, 30,000 double haploid lines from the CIMMYT ESA breeding program were screened for the favorable haplotypes at msv1 prior to advancing to field screening (Nair et al., 2015). Breeder-ready markers for northern corn leaf blight, grey leaf spot, and MLN are currently in the validation stage. Four promising haplotypes for northern corn leaf blight, accounting for 22% of the phenotypic variation, are currently being tested (S. Nair, unpublished data, 2016). For grey leaf spot, 16 promising genomic regions have been identified, representing 32 SNPs. For MLN, 24 SNPs of medium effect have been identified and validated using a combination of genomewide association analysis (GWAS), genomic selection, and association mapping (Gowda et al., 2015). Application of these markers to screen for tolerant material before expensive multilocation field testing is initiated will allow resources for yield testing to be focused on materials with acceptable levels of disease resistance, effectively increasing selection intensity for yield and, we hope, increasing the rate of genetic gains.The multilocation testcross characterization of large sets of inbreds from tropical maize programs worldwide allowed the systematic identification of the best drought and low-N donors (Cairns et al., 2013b;Das et al., 2016). The top 10 testcrosses yielded at least 0.65 Mg ha −1 more under drought stress than the current key line used in drought breeding (CML444) crossed to the broadly adapted tester CML539 (Cairns et al., 2013b). Under low N stress, the top 10 testcrosses (crossed to the broadly adapted tester CML539) yielded at least 1 Mg ha −1 more than lines previously considered to be low-N tolerant (including CML504 and CZL02012) under severe low-N stress (Das et al., 2016). Donors for both drought and low-N stress have been incorporated into the CIMMYT ESA maize stress breeding pipeline. A number of important MLNtolerant lines from Latin America and Asia are also being incorporated into the CIMMYT breeding effort to accelerate genetic gain for maize yield under MLN pressure (B. Das, unpublished data, 2016). The CIMMYT ESA breeding program is also actively seeking to diversify the germplasm base through the use of temperate lines. The CIMMYT is utilizing temperate maize lines with expired intellectual proprietary protection (off-PVP) as sources of yield potential and stress resilience. Since these lines have unfavorable haplotypes at the msv1 locus (Semagn et al., 2015) and do not carry resistance loci for important MLN QTL, there are opportunities to enrich breeding populations involving off-PVP materials through the deployment of markers for disease tolerance in ESA.More accurate selection through increased repeatability increases selection response for the trait of interest. Recent combined analysis of the southern Africa regional trials of CIMMYT and partners and managed drought and low-N stress trials in ESA showed that the repeatability (H) of the managed stress trials in this study was lower than that of nonstress trials and that plot residual variance under abiotic stress was high (Weber et al., 2012;Cairns et al., 2013b;Das et al., 2016). In this study, the combined H was above 0.5 for all stress treatments; however, several trials had to be removed due to low H. These results highlight the need for measures to reduce the effects of field variability to increase the genetic signal-to-noise ratio and enable detection of real differences between lines. Reducing the size of the residual relative to the genetic component of variance and/or increasing replication would have a positive impact on repeatability levels and expected genetic gains (Cairns et al., 2012a;2013b). Doubled haploid (DH) technology provides another avenue to increase genetic variance (the variance among DH lines is higher than among the S 1 or S 2 lines usually used in early-generation testing schemes) and reduce breeding cycle times. Although early-generation testing schemes can be optimized to have shorter breeding cycle time, genetic drift during inbreeding and advancement results in lower realized heritability compared with DH. Doubled haploid allows completely homozygous lines to be rapidly developed from heterozygous parents in two seasons, enabling greater selection efficiency, since DH lines do not change from one testing season to the next. This, combined with higher between-entry variation compared with early-generation testing methods, improves overall realized heritability, resulting in higher genetic gain. Tropically adapted maize inducer lines with a haploid induction rate of up to 10% and a new marker system were recently developed (Prigge et al., 2011;Chaikam et al., 2015). A DH facility was established in Kenya to allow the routine incorporation of DH into breeding programs in ESA (CIMMYT, 2014). The current haploid induction rate is 5.5%, with a production capacity of over 50,000 haploid lines per year (S. Bumagat, unpublished data, 2016). However, current costs (~US$30 line −1 ) limit further utilization of this technology. Work is now underway to reduce DH production costs through (i) more efficient haploid induction, (ii) more efficient chromosome doubling, (iii) optimization of protocols to more closely reach production targets, and (iv) more efficient haploid discrimination systems.Maize hybrid breeding begins by crossing two inbreds. Progeny are then advanced by either selfing or DH technology and evaluated in testcross trials to determine general combining ability (GCA). Testcross selection within a biparental cross is based on phenotypic information and requires one season of field trials (Hallauer, 1990). Genomic selection offers a faster way to predict GCA without phenotyping. Jacobson et al. (2014) successfully developed a GCA model for genomic selection within A ´ B crosses. The GCA model relies on information from previously phenotyped and genotyped crosses with inbreds A and B as one of the parents and can be used in advanced breeding programs that use elite inbreds as the parents of new breeding crosses. The ability to predict GCA has the potential to significantly reduce time and costs in inbred development and thus speed up breeding cycles.The importance of data management and decision support tools has been undervalued in public breeding. With advancing technology, the volume and diversity of data increases, hence, improved data management and decision support tools are necessary to facilitate the meta-analysis of big data. Meta-analysis of over 20,000 CIMMYT regional trials in southern Africa showed a nonlinear relationship between warming and maize yields (Lobell et al., 2011). For each degree day above 30°C, maize yields were reduced by 1% under optimal rainfed conditions and by 1.7% under drought conditions. Breeding for heat stress was subsequently incorporated into the CIMMYT ESA breeding program (Cairns et al., 2013a). Over the course of this study, the CIMMYT maize breeding program has rolled out Fieldbook to partners as a data management system to improve data capture and subsequent analysis (Vivek et al., 2007).This is the first study to quantify genetic gain from maize breeding in ESA. Yield gain is comparable with other maize stress breeding programs. Yield shows no indication of reaching a plateau under any of the treatments evaluated, suggesting that further gain can be made under both optimal and stress environments. The lowest realized genetic gain was observed under low-N stress. Fertilizer use in SSA is very low compared with the rest of the world (less than 10 kg ha −1 compared with over 200 and 96 kg ha −1 in Asia and Europe, respectively), and fertilizer use in the region decreased between 1997 and 2007 (Kostandini et al., 2015). Many current commercial varieties have very low yields under low-N stress, and because farm-gate fertilizer prices are high in most of Africa relative to prices in other regions, N fertilizer application rates are likely to remain low for some years to come. Thus, there is an urgent need to increase genetic gain for yield under low fertility conditions. Yield gains under drought stress were moderately higher. Increased yield testing under low-N and drought conditions and the incorporation of new technologies and germplasm into the CIMMYT ESA breeding pipeline are likely to accelerate genetic gain for maize yield.These results suggest that, although maize yields in some countries in ESA have declined or stagnated during this period (Ray et al., 2012), this was not due to a lack of genetic progress, but rather to the slow rate of dissemination of new hybrids in the region. Hybrid turnover is very slow in ESA; for example, despite the development of many new drought and low-N tolerant hybrids from CIMMYT's maize program in Kenya, the age of hybrids in farmers' fields averaged over 14 yr (Smale and Olawande, 2014); by contrast, the average commercial life of a maize hybrid in the US Corn Belt is approximately 4 yr (S. Eathington, personal communication, 2014). The rapid development, dissemination, and adoption of drought-tolerant maize has the potential to generate between US$362 million to US$590 million over a 7-yr period, through both yield gains and an increase in yield stability (Kostandini et al., 2013). A similar ex ante study showed that low-N-tolerant maize has the potential to deliver a total of US$586 million in gross benefits, with US$136 million and US$100 million of benefits to producers in Kenya and South Africa (Kostandini et al., 2015). However the impact of stress-tolerant maize on both total production and production variability within ESA is dependent on increased varietal turnover by the seed sector and adoption of new varieties by farmers (Cairns et al., 2013a).","tokenCount":"6222"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"88f913d83266fb647bd564ed6fd21035","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/3212d7d0-b947-49f7-9bce-6c9e910e57fc/retrieve","id":"1848964938"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f4c63840-d69a-4fec-b84d-08262ddaae77","pagecount":"5","content":"The Feed Assessment Tool (FEAST) is a systematic method to assess local feed resource availability and use. It helps in the design of intervention strategies aiming to optimize feed utilization and animal production. More information and the manual can be obtained at www.ilri.org/feast FEAST is a tool in constant development and improvement. Feedback is welcome and should be directed feast@cgiar.org. The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is not responsible for the quality and validity of results obtained using the FEAST methodology.The Feed Assessment Tool (FEAST) was used to characterize the feed-related aspects of the livestock production system in Mukono district of Uganda. The assessment was carried out through focused group discussions and completion of short questionnaires by three key farmer representatives owning small, medium and large scale farms. The following are the findings of the assessment and conclusions for further action.The farming system is primarily a subsistence based, mixed crop/livestock system. Farm sizes in the area are around 3 acres (1.2 ha) on average with most of the land being used for cropping. A typical household size is 8 people who live permanently on farm on average per year. Households in the area commonly grow a variety of food crops including; Common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), maize (Zea mays), cassava (Manihot esculenta), coffee (Coffea Arabica), bananas and sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatus). Most farmers grow Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum), as the major forage crops. A few farmers grow fodder legumes such as Mucuna pruriens and lablab as well as fodder trees and shrubs mainly Calliandra calothyrsus.Each household also raises a variety of livestock species including cattle, goats, sheep and chicken for various purposes. On average most households have two or three milking cows. In addition, many households have 3-4 sheep and/or goats. Indigenous chickens are kept by households to meet household meat, egg and cash needs. Nganda type cattle are kept by more than 50% of households. Improved cross bred cattle are kept by about 60%% of the households. Cross breeds comprise mainly of Friesian, breeds and the local Nganda cattle. Goats are also raised by 20-50% of the households for quick sale when funds are required. Labour is an Acre of land. Rainfall levels are generally adequate to support cropping activities; however, rainfall unreliability is increasingly becoming common (Table 1). Crop sales are the primary contributor to household income. An average of 67% of all household income comes from the sale of crops. Livestock sales make an important contribution of approximately 12% to household income. The contribution from off farm activities is considered relatively minor at 10% collectively for some households (Figure 3). The contribution of these income sources varies substantially throughout the year based on climatic conditions. Contribution of livelihood activities to household income (as a percentage)The livestock production system is focused on milk production. Improved dairy breeds, namely Friesian crosses dominate livestock holdings as shown in Figure 3. Milk produced on the farm is sold to Kasawo Dindo Creameries and to neighbouring restaurants and some is retailed in shops at an average price of 700 Ugandan shilling (UGX), (0.29 USD; ranging from 600-800; 0.25-0.33 USD) per litre. At Kasawo, part of the excess milk is processed into yoghurt. The average milk production per cow per day in the area is 9 litres.  The most common fodder/feeds include green forages, crop residues, legumes, concentrates and grazing /tethering as shown in Figure 5. The contribution made by these feed sources to the diet varies throughout the year. Grazing, purchased feeds, naturally occurring and collected feeds, cultivated fodder and crop residues contribute 48, 32, 8, 6, and 6% of the total diet on farms. According to farmers, the main constraint to production in this area is poor feeding. Thee limited use of concenterates and conserved feeds. A.I is expensive and water is scarce during the dry season. Other problems include fluctuation of milk prices in the dry and wet season another problem to sustainable incomes. Although not listed as a major problem pasture diseases and lack of pasture seed is considered to be limiting milk production. A summary of problems and farmer proposed solutions are shown the (Table 2). -More Service providers should be trained to specialise in technical roles such as A.I., clinical and animal husbandry services rather than mixing them. For sustainable production of adequate biomass for feeding, there's need to control Napier Stunt Disease using clean materials. Communal feed conservation for silage and hay will reduce on input and labour costs. The use of polythene bags or small scale silage pits may be viable options. Promote labour saving equipment like pulveriser and feed choppers to process crop residues and forage. This will help alleviate dry season feed shortages and enable farmers produce more milk during the dry season. Simple methods of water harvesting will have to be considered in improving water availability especially during the dry seasonIn addition to yoghurt making, there is potential to add value to the raw milk through interventions like ice cream and ghee making. Additionally, to stabilize prices farmers have to be trained on dry season feeding to help alleviate dry season feed shortages and enable farmers produce more milk during the dry season when milk prices are high hence to earn more money.A more vibrant and cost effective strategy to promote A.I will be needed to improve the cattle breeds. Milk is not the main contributor to household income in this subsistence based mixed/crop livestock system. Farm sizes in the area are an average size of 3 acres (1.2 ha) most of which is used for cropping. Every household has at least 2-3 milking cows and 3-4 goats. The primary crops of importance are coffee, bananas, maize and beans. The main constraint to the further intensification and development of dairying in the area is poor feeding as a result of inadequate DM intake leading to productivity of the dairy animals. Napier grass is the main type of fodder. Most farmers keep both improved cattle and indigenous cattle.","tokenCount":"994"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c487d7fb62da084a534c7193855ab1e9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/381bc132-8130-4ef0-8b95-b23faf0e16db/retrieve","id":"-1760564259"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2efd497c-1c45-44be-b538-b3db77efaa89","pagecount":"46","content":"CIP publications contribute important development information to the public arena. Readers are encouraged to quote or reproduce material from them in their own publications. As copyright holder CIP requests acknowledgement and a copy of the publication where the citation or material appears. Please send a copy to the Communications Department at the address below.institutional innovations along with the capacity building to increase productivity from potato farming, with special emphasis on creating jobs for women and youth in agriculture.To help ProCISA achieve its objectives, GIZ has partnered with the International Potato Center (CIP) for its technical expertise and experience with potato agri-food systems in a project entitled, \"Potato Value Chain Development.\" The objectives of the project are to promote sustainable intensification of potato production and provide business opportunities for small to medium-sized seed enterprises through innovative production practices, capacity-building, and appropriate business model development. The project is structured in five components: 1) policy engagement and advocacy; 2) training at scale; 3) seed production and variety promotion; 4) promotion of good agricultural practices; and 5) monitoring and evaluation and knowledge sharing.CIP and its partners have developed and validated technologies and delivery systems that address bottlenecks to strengthen potato value chains (VCs), such as appropriate decentralized seed systems, climate-smart agricultural practices, and crop and disease management tailored for smallholder farmers. With long-term experience in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), CIP brings expertise in breeding, pest and disease management, agronomy, nutrition, value development, food technology, gender and youth inclusive growth, capacity development, and management of multi-partner initiatives. CIP's experience with farmer field schools (FFS) is particularly applicable to this project as they seek to equip farmers and extension works with a set of skills to grow value chains and develop business opportunities.Potato production is an important agricultural activity in Cameroon: an estimated 205,000 hectares of land are used for its production. 1 The first potato planting generally takes place at the beginning of the rainy season (in March) with harvest in June (Fontem et al., 2004). The second season generally takes place in August. Over 200,000 farmers grow potatoes in Cameroon, mostly smallholders and predominately women in this group (Fontem et al., 2004). Most farmers grow only one round of potato due to limited precipitation outside the rainy season. However, some farmers grow potato from November to January along the riverbanks and valleys.Potato is cultivated in small-scale localities in six of the 10 regions of the country. The West and the North West regions account for 80% of national production. Seventeen percent of the national production is exported to neighboring countries like Gabon, Central African Republic, Congo, and Equatorial Guinea (Mengui et al., 2019).These two regions are located in the western highlands of the country, which are characterized by cool temperatures and rainfall of at least 800 mm per year at altitudes ranging from 900 to 3000 meters above sea level.Potato production is still constrained by poor access to quality seed, poor farming practices, pests and diseases, poor soil fertility, high cost of inputs like pesticides and fertilizers, lack of access to credit, and a lot more, despite Government subsidization (Achancho, 2013, KIT, 2019).The aim of this survey was to obtain baseline data from farmers who will be supported by the project and some farmers that will not be supported by the project to serve as test farmers. The results of this baseline survey will establish a reference to selected indicators for farmers who will be supported by the project. In the future, this baseline data will serve as the basis of comparison whether the project has reached or not its main objective of reducing food insecurity and generating income.The specific objectives of this study:1. To provide insights into current agronomic practices by potato farmers to identify entry points for innovation;2. To construct a farmer typology of potato farmers that relates to adoption potential for improved agronomic practices; and 3. To serve as a basis for Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) for the actual and upcoming projects.An appropriate mix of qualitative and quantitative methods was used to gather and analyze data/information of diverse perspectives from the baseline and to promote the participation of different stakeholders.This baseline study targeted potato farmers the project is planning to engage with, especially households that have been into potato production for the past two years.A structured questionnaire was developed for the small and medium holder potato growers based on the literature review and knowledge of the study areas. The questionnaire was pretested through ten in-depth interviews with some farmers in the Adamawa and West regions and later presented to the ProCISA team for inputs and amendments.To achieve the above-mentioned purpose, the questionnaire (Appendix 1) was developed to collect the following data:• Identification of respondents or households (hh) and zones;• Farm history and activities;• Potato production (January 2019-September 2020);• Training, access to information and technologies, adoption; and• Production constraints.This baseline survey was meant to be conducted in all three project intervention regions, i.e., the Adamawa, North-West, and West regions. But due to the current crisis in the North-West region, the survey was conducted only in the Adamawa and West regions. Data was collected in 133 villages (35 in the Adamawa region and 98 in the West region). These villages were selected with the assistance of the Regional Delegates of MINADER and CIP regional coordinators, based on the following criteria:• Recognizable and reasonable potato production;• Availability of farmers;• Accessibility at the period that was previewed for the questionnaire administration; and• Level of security.Appendices 2 and 3 present the lists of villages in the Adamawa and West regions, respectively, where questionnaires were administered.Modified systematic random sampling technique was used for sample selection which is widely used as a probability sampling method. The rationale for choosing this technique is due to its simplicity and it also ensures even coverage of the entire region for all units. The results obtained after using this technique are usually representative of the given region or population unless certain characteristics of the population are repeated for every individual, which is highly unlikely to occur.The total sample size was 341 questionnaires administered: 141 questionnaires in the Adamawa region and 200 questionnaires in the West region.The field plan was prepared and finalized after consultation and brainstorming with the CIP project and ProCISA teams.A call for application was launched for the hiring of enumerators to administer the questionnaire-based survey through individual interviews in each region.After receiving 116 applications (62 from the West and 54 from the Adamawa region) and screening, thirty-four (34) locally-based enumerators (20 in the West region and 14 in the Adamawa region) were recruited to collect data (Appendices 2 and 3). These enumerators were recruited based on the following criteria:• Availability at the time of the survey;• Flexibility to move to any village in the region of the survey as assigned or instructed by the supervisor;• Mastery of the villages selected for questionnaire administration;• Being a holder of at least an advanced level with some basic knowledge in agriculture and/or a diploma in agriculture;• Basic knowledge of the local languages (Fulfulde and Gbaya in the Adamawa region and Bamileke in the West region); and• Physically fit for field work.The recruited enumerators received a one-day training on 17 November 2020 in the West region and 25November 2020 in the Adamawa region (Fig. 2). In this training, enumerators were introduced to various techniques for administering the questionnaire, and to the study localities. As part of the training, the enumerators carried out some practical tests amongst themselves, i.e., some played the role of the respondent while others played the role of the enumerators (Fig. 3). The objective of this activity was to make them have a good mastery of the questionnaire and the sequencing of the questions. The administrative authorities (Regional, Divisional, and Sub-Divisional Delegates of MINADER and the Civil authorities) and some of the traditional leaders were officially informed about this activity through letters and courtesy visits (Fig. 4). The objective for informing them was to facilitate access to the households and fields and most especially to assure support in case of any insecurity. While the enumerators were busy in the field gathering data, supervisors improvised unannounced monitoring visits to ascertain the proper execution of the exercise and provide support.After the field work, filled questionnaires were carefully checked page by page by enumerators before submission. This was to ensure that the questionnaire was properly administered.The completed forms were scrutinized, and data coding was done through the proper code plan for both qualitative and quantitative responses. The data entry mask was generated using the Census and SurveyProcessing System (CSPro) software, where the collected data was entered, edited, and tabulated for disseminating. The entered data was then exported to the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) (Version 21.0. 14 Aug 2013) database and analyzed for descriptive statistics. The report was prepared according to the study guidelines, and the sections were organized accordingly. Not all the enumerators were having an android phone that could permit them collect GPS coordinates of the enumerated households. The sample distribution among the divisions is shown in table 1. In Adamawa, it resulted that 89% of the respondents were male while only 11% were female. Also, amongst these respondents, 34% were youths, while 66% were adults.In this region, this gender imbalance could be explained by the fact that cultural barriers hinder most women from attending to strangers. Also, this was due to the fact that 89% of the questionnaires were responded to by the head of the family, who are generally men.Around 41% of these respondents were members of a producer's organization that grow potato. In total, 39 potato-related associations were identified.We found that most farmers possess at least two different plots for potato cultivation. The total surface area of farm holding for 45% of respondents is less than or equal to 0.5 ha (Table 2). It was also reported that the majority of the farmers (70%) only plant potato during the rainy season against 30% who plant in rainy and dry seasons. Those planting in the rainy season can carry out two potato cycles.Only about 62% of the interviewed households cultivate potato on all their total farm holding allocated to potato cultivation. Thus, 38% of farmers do not exploit all their potato farm holdings due to the lack of seed potato in both quality and quantity as declared by 68% of the respondents (Fig. 6).  The cultivation period for farmers that carry out only one rainy cycle per year runs from mostly April to July, while for those who carry out two rainy cycles per year, planting occurs in April for the first cycle and from August for the second.As concerns farming techniques, 95% of the farmers cultivate manually, although some of them (37%) are assisted at times by animal traction. Very few of the farmers (17%) own machines for mechanized cultivation or industrialized farming (Table 4). Most farmers (70%) depend only on rainfall for crop development, while 30% practice irrigation, amongst which 13% only rely on irrigation (Table 5). It is always important to know the source of seed to give some orientations for the way forward and for traceability. Most farmers (84%) get their seed from the local market (Table 8) at an average price of 535 FCFA per kg. Not really knowing from where these vendors get the seed makes traceability difficult. Even though the market remains the main source of seed for most farmers, it is not always available at the desired time as 74% of producers do have difficulties accessing good quality seed potato.There is the need to improve on seed quality because 43% of the farmers replace their seed every year due to a decrease in yields (46% of farmers) and due to pests and diseases (32% of farmers).Pests and diseases are very important factors having a great negative impact on potato production. The most common diseases and pests reported by respondents were late blight (51%), bacterial wilt (25%), and nematodes (8%), as shown in Figure 8. Most farmers (79%) use pesticides for the management of pests and diseases, while 21% of them do not take any measures for pest and disease management (Table 9).  For the management and control of pests and diseases, potato farmers mostly use Maneb, Ridomil, and Penncozeb.The main source of pesticides for 93% of respondents is the local market (Table 10). Their choice of pesticides is based on their effectiveness previously experienced, advice from local agricultural technicians, and availability on the market. Most farmers in Adamawa treat their potato farms, on average, eight times per cycle. Most of these farmers (72%) hardly change the pesticides they use, whereas a minority of farmers change them every season.Data collected in Adamawa showed that some farmers (14%) do not use fertilizers when growing potatoes. Most of them (44%) use both organic and chemical fertilizers (Table 11). This means that over 56% of farmers interviewed in the Adamawa region don't fertilize properly potato. For those who use mineral fertilizers in their production, it was noticed that an average quantity of 423 kg is used per ha, while for those who use organic manure, an average quantity of 191 kg of those fertilizers is used per ha.Amongst the farmers that use mineral fertilizers, 74% of them usually buy it from the market, as shown in table 12. Other (gift, support from individuals, etc.) 28 20The majority (53%) of the hhs changes their fertilizers due to the poor effectiveness of the fertilizer, while 37% of them changes theirs every year depending on the availability in the market.Fifty-one percent of respondents have never received training on potato production (Fig. 9). For those who had received training, 67% of them had been trained just once. All the farmers expressed willingness to receive more training if given the opportunity.  The five major constraints to potato farmers are (in descending order): limited access to quality seed (84%), poor management of pests and diseases (57%), limited access to recommended fertilizers (29%), and limited access to pesticides (26%) and lack of access to credit (24%). A full list is available in Figure 11. The baseline survey covered seven divisions in the West region (i.e., Bamboutos, Hauts plateaux, Haut-Nkam, Menoua, Mifi, Nde, and Noun) (Fig. 12). Not all the enumerators were having an android phone that could permit them collect GPS coordinates of the enumerated households The sample distribution per division is shown in table 13 below. Fifty-seven percent of the respondents were male, while 43% were female. Also, amongst these respondents, 28% were youths while 72% were adults.In this region, there are no cultural barriers for women to attend to strangers, as we also noticed that 57% of the questionnaires were responded to by the head of the family, who are generally men, and 37% by their spouses.Some of these respondents were members of producers' organizations (PO) growing potato (47%). In total, 13 POs were identified in the region.We found that most farmers possess at least two plots for potato cultivation. The total surface area of farm holding for the majority (52%) is less than or equal to 0.5 ha (Table 14. About 62% of farmers cultivate potato on their farms. In the West region, most farmers (61%) carry out two cycles per year, while 35% of the farmers carry out only one. Some of the farmers (4%) even go to the extent of carrying out three cycles per year.The act of farmers cultivating potatoes in one cycle per year is mainly due to the lack of seed in both quality and quantity, as declared by 48% of the respondents (Fig. 13). Other factors such as lack of equipment, high seed cost, lack of access to finance, lack of pesticides, lack or insufficient knowledge of good farming methods, and unstable rainfall patterns also cause the farmers not to exploit all their plots.Apart from potato, farmers cultivate some other crops like maize, beans, yams, sweetpotato, vegetables, etc., both as cash crops and for food security. In addition to potato, the most cultivated crops in the region are maize and beans, where 89% and 86% of farmers respectively are involved in the cultivation (Table 15). Farmers who carry out only one cycle per year carry out their cultivation from March to June, whereas those who carry out two cycles per year have their first cultivation from March to June and from June to September for the second cycle, and for those who carry out three cycles (i.e. they practice irrigation) cultivates from October to January for their third cycle.As concerns farming techniques, 99% of the farmers cultivate manually. Very few of them (8%) own machines for the mechanized cultivation. Others (2%) are assisted at times by animal traction (Table 16).  Most farmers (78%) exclusively depend on rainfall for crop development, while only 7% practice irrigation, and 15% of them practice both rainfed farming and irrigation (Table 17). We noticed that the most used variety in the West region is Dosa where 58% of the farmers acknowledged using it on a regular basis, while 19% use local varieties that some of them are not even known (Table 18). Nineteen percent of the farmers use other varieties (e.g., Jacob 2005, Bambui wonder, Mafo, etc.).Amongst the 200 hh interviewed, only 15% are vested with the varieties introduced by ProCISA. The most commonly cultivated of these varieties is Marabel (Table 19). Given that farmers cultivate in this area primarily for commercialization and use the leftovers for consumption, 59% of the farmers interviewed in the West region look for high-yielding varieties when acquiring seed. Other farmers (28%) go in for varieties that are resistant to pests and diseases (Fig. 14).  Even though the market remains the main source of seed to most farmers, it is not always available at the desired time as 27% of producers do have difficulties accessing seed potato.There is a need to improve seed quality because about 41% of the farmers replace their seed every year due to a decrease in yield (55%) and diseases (21%).Pests and diseases (Fig. 15) are factors having a great impact on potato production. In this study, the most common diseases reported in the West region are late blight (45%), bacterial wilt (28%), and soft rot (9%). Almost all farmers (95%) use pesticides for the management of pests and diseases, while 5% of them cannot afford them (Table 21). For the management and control of pests and diseases, the most used pesticides are Maneb, Bonsoin, and Balear, as declared by the farmers. The main source of pesticides for farmers (97%) is the local market (Table 22).Farmers usually rely on their knowledge of the pesticide's effectiveness to choose a specific product. Also, they consult agricultural technicians on the same. Others indicated that their choices are based on the availability of the pesticides on the market. Farmers reported that they treat their potato fields on average eight times per cycle. The majority of these farmers (53%) hardly change the pesticides. Of those who do change their pesticides often, 80% change their pesticides after every season.Unlike in the Adamawa region, where there are some farmers (14%) that do not use fertilizers in their potato production, all the interviewed farmers in the West region confirmed using fertilizers, be it organic or mineral.Most of them (86%) use both organic and chemical fertilizers (Table 23).  Amongst the farmers that use mineral fertilizers, 97% of them usually buy it from the market, as shown in Table 24. It was noticed that 29% of farmers change their fertilizers every year depending on the availability on the market, while 71% do not. Amongst those that change their fertilizers, the majority (71%) change them to get a better yield (effectiveness), and about 64% of the farmers consider these fertilizers to be of good quality.In the West region, 43% of the investigated farmers have never received any training on potato production (Fig. 16). All the farmers indicated that they are still willing and ready to receive more training if they are given an opportunity.  Given that farmers usually have many constraints in potato production, survey results showed that the three major constraints to the farmers in the West region (Fig 18) in descending order are: limited access to quality seed (59%), management of pests, and diseases (45%) and limited access to credit (32%). This study provided us with useful insights into current agronomic practices in the Adamawa and West regions of Cameroon. We found that the farmers have limited knowledge in and access to good agricultural practices.The main constraints reported are as follows: limited access to quality seed potato, management of pests and diseases, and limited access to quality fertilizers and pesticides. These limitations will now serve as project entry points for capacity building and the introduction of innovations.Most farmers who participated in this survey are passionate about the crop and full of plans that can contribute to a strong and valuable potato chain: from seed to ware, to storage and market expansion to processing.It was noticed that the identification of varieties with greater yield and productivity is a major problem in the Adamawa region. This could be explained by the fact that most of them are illiterate and could rarely retain the names of the varieties, especially the imported ones. Thus, there is a need to train and sensitize farmers there on the identification and selection of the best varieties to boost their production. Meanwhile, in the West region, we noticed that majority of the farmers have good knowledge in identifying the varieties, and they know which varieties to cultivate for getting a good yield. But the main issue at hand is the availability of quality seed of preferred varieties. However, the training remains relevant in all regions on various aspects of the potato crop with much emphasis in the Adamawa region, where little has been done.The database generated and its accessibility to collaborators will serve as a basis for the monitoring, evaluation, and learning team to carry out midterm and endline surveys of the actual project and a foundation for upcoming projects.Overall, the recommendations proposed by the farmers are similar in both regions. Therefore, four categories can be outlined, i.e., inputs and materials, technologies and practices, finance, and governance.The unavailability of some agricultural inputs negatively affects potato production. Farmers recommended the constant availability of:• Improved and certified seed potato both in quality and in quantity;• Good pesticides and other products for the management of pests and diseases;• Appropriate fertilizers for potato production in both quantity and quality; and• Adequate materials and equipment needed for potato cultivation.Farmers recommended capacity building on the following topics:• Production techniques;• Effective management of bacterial wilt;• Varieties and specific packages for cultivation; and• Mechanization and maintenance.In rural areas, lack of access to finance to acquire some facilities is a frequent problem in the studied regions.Some recommendations that came up from farmers are:• Facilitate the obtention of agricultural credits; and• Subsidize the cost of seed, fertilizers, pesticides, materials, and equipment.In some localities, land ownership with a land title has always been a point of concern. Some farmers recommended that the government intervene to:• Reduce the rental price for the benefit of producers that rent land;• Facilitate the obtention of land title to become permanent owners; and• Facilitate the release of land that was seized or claimed by authorities.Finally, due to lack of information, the farmers also recommended sensitization and improvement of communication channels and keeping to the promises made to them.","tokenCount":"3897"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"81edb8a6a33c3993b4758c771be9a68c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b3da62bc-70f0-42c9-b6dd-f83cdc32cd45/retrieve","id":"1969362581"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e131497e-c043-4177-912e-e9cc347c7153","pagecount":"14","content":"• Same format as standard economywide datasets (e.g., national accounts)• Allows us to measure AFS structure and performance using actual dataTotal value added generated by all agricultural value chains (in constant dollars)Agrifood System Employment (AgEMP+) GDP and employment in DRC's agrifood system (2019)• Part 1 focuses on the current size and structure of the national agrifood system    • AgGDP+ defines the AFS on the supply side• Household demand and trade (imports) capture AFS structure on the demand side• Agrifood processing is more important on the demand side than the supply side in the AFS AgGDP+ Household demandPrimary and processed product shares (%)Exports ($0.11 bil.) Imports ($2.37 bil.)  • The values of each outcome indicator are scaled so that the most effective value chain is given a score of one and the least effective is given a score of zero. A value chain with adverse impact is also given a score of zero.• An average score with equal weights is used to measure the total impacts across all value chainsFuture Drivers 2019+ | Prioritizing Agricultural Growth(change in %-point)(change in %-point)(change in 1,000)(change in %)(averaged normalized scores, reordered)(change in bil. $)(per unit change in agricultural GDP, ordered by poverty) ","tokenCount":"197"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/4604290352.json b/data/part_1/4604290352.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..820f4864397d8832a6c4fd59b640302227636be7
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"edb84c42e124bf1b408edda039bf8590","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/16b8b0d1-8ce7-46e1-883c-10059b4ad320/retrieve","id":"-1226744639"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2e1dc80f-809e-4507-8d13-f07fd3d8d19e","pagecount":"6","content":"Building on the success of the first two phases of our collaboration with ILRI, Shujaaz Inc will launch an expanded campaign from February to December 2023 to shift norms related to young women working in the poultry and dairy businesses, in line with ILRI's new SAPLING programme. The proposed additional support from ILRI will enable Shujaaz Inc to reach 1.8 million young people with meaningful messages about agri-preneurship ensuring the digital campaign effectively engages not just young women but also a range of influencers and gatekeepers capable of both reinforcing and shifting the gender norms surrounding young women in agribusiness. A key aspect of Phase 3 will be regular knowledge-sharing with ILRI and key stakeholders to review and process findings from Shujaaz's continuous data analysis and insight generation. Throughout the campaign we will also develop a relationship with Kuza Biashara and other ILRI partners to amplify their work and direct young Shujaaz fans to their programmes.We are Shujaaz Inc, a network of social ventures based in Nairobi, Kenya. We believe this generation can transform our global society for the better -that's why we work to break down barriers so that young people can take control of the future. Our network connects young people with the information, skills and resources they need to give them the agency to succeed, in their context and on their terms.Our 2x International Emmy-award winning team run our flagship venture, Shujaaz, a multimedia youth platform and one of East-Africa's biggest youth brands. Shujaaz inspires, entertains and mobilises 9.5 million 15-24-year-olds across East Africa, reaching young women and men equally with topics from financial fitness to sexual health, governance and community engagement to climate change. Online and on-the-ground, and in print in Kenya, Shujaaz has the unique ability to engage hard-to-reach young people with norm-changing media.With everything we do grounded in world-leading research, we've proven that when young people take control of their lives, they create transformational change. Regularly engaging 66% of young Kenyans and 15% of young Tanzanians, our network creates internationally recognised impact. Fans that regularly engage with Shujaaz digital platforms:• Earn 44% more per month than non-fans • Are 26% more likely to use contraception than non-fans • Create $24 of value for every $1 we spendShujaaz brings young people from across Tanzania together online at scale to talk about their experiences -the changes they want to make and the barriers in their way -through spotlighting the stories of young 'shujaaz' (heroes) who are creating change in their lives.Some statistics about Shujaaz social media in Tanzania:• 1.84M -total number of followers on all social media platforms • 826,623 -total number of female followers on Shujaaz social media • Average weekly reach is 5M (i.e., impressions on all social media platforms, including repeat visits) • 150,000 -average number online engagements with Shujaaz content on Facebook every month (engagements = likes, comments, shares and video views).• Shujaaz lead male character, DJ Tee has the fastest growing Facebook page in Tanzania • Shujaaz lead female character, Pendo, has the 2nd fastest growing Facebook page in Tanzania • Rural reach -We have active followers in all regions, both rural and urban across Tanzania However, Shujaaz does not only reach and engage youth online. Through our digital platforms we are able to connect, support and activate volunteer 'SuperFans' in both countries to convene youth on the ground to discuss Shujaaz content, further increasing the reach and impact of our campaigns.Across East Africa, agribusiness has been proven to be a high-potential income-generating activity for young men and women. In Tanzania, livelihoods linked to poultry, for instance, have particularly low barriers to entry, which makes them potentially attractive to young people working within the informal economy, especially for women. The dairy industry too offers the possibility of stable livelihoods to young Tanzanians through multiple pathways.However, there are strong structural challenges and negative social and gender norms that disincentivise many women from earning a living through agribusiness. For instance, in Tanzania, it is not seen to be appropriate for young women to earn an independent income in the informal sector, let alone through agribusiness -and these norms are particularly strong in rural areas. Young people are also more likely to face land and finance constraints which make the dairy sector is not as accessible as poultry owing to the need for pasture and the upkeep of large animals.In October 2021, Shujaaz Inc partnered with ILRI to design and implement a three-month social media campaign to spotlight agri-business opportunities and positive deviants and spark conversation on the role of women in agribusiness in Tanzania, with a focus on poultry farming. By the end of December 2021, this campaign had successfully reached over 1.9m young people and engaged nearly 170k young Tanzanians in norm-shifting conversations.However, as social norms, let alone behaviours, are hard to change in three months, the partnership continued in a second phase running from May to July 2022. We designed a digital campaign to create new, positive norms regarding women in poultry and agribusiness through focusing on two of the three main influential groups: farmers and clients, and boyfriends and husbands (due to time constraints we could not also target the third group: siblings and peers). Phase 2 of our collaboration quickly surpassed our ambitious targets, engaging 507k young Tanzanians on Shujaaz social media channels.In preparation for Phase 3 (November -December 2022), we mobilised our Knowledge & Learning team to conduct a desk review to understand the economic, social and normative context, which define the participation of young women in Tanzania in the dairy business. Of a particular interest for the team are the differences between the perceptions and realities of participation in the poultry vs dairy businesses, including the key barriers to entry, motivators and enablers of girls' engagement.The proposed additional support from ILRI would be instrumental in further advancing the success of our latest campaign that already started to shift norms among a generation of young Tanzanians about the role of women in agribusiness -this time expanding the campaign to include the opportunities for women in dairy business in addition to poultry business, in line with ILRI's new SAPLING programme.Critically, in Phase 3 we will learn how the negative social and gender norms vary between dairy and poultry farming. More so, we will gain further nuances on (1) how girls' and boys' perceptions differ concerning diary vs poultry business as relevant/accessible for young Tanzanians, (2) how the barriers to entry differ between poultry vs diary businesses, and (3) what different persuasion approaches are needed to motivate young Tanzanians -girls in particular -to explore opportunities in diary vs poultry businesses. We will also be exploring ( 1) what motivated positive deviants to start a diary business vs poultry business, (2) how have they addressed the key challenges associated with the business, and ( 3) what are the immediate and long-term benefits of being in the diary business.The new campaign will also include the third identified target group that was not covered in Phase 2: older and younger siblings and peers of the girls, to make sure that we engage all members of the youth networks/communities around girls, who have influence over the norms related to young women in agribusiness.The new campaign will address social and gender norms that lead to defining businesses/ occupations as 'occupations for men' and 'occupations for women'. In the previous campaign, we specifically talked to the Shujaaz audience about the fact that it is not just appropriate but essential for women to earn income; and the success of female entrepreneurs should be encouraged and celebrated. But this is not enough as we see the gendered perceptions of the types of business/occupations as \"appropriate for girls\" being a key barrier to young women entering the poultry or diary business, which are traditionally perceived as businesses for men. In this campaign, we are going to address this stereotype and showcase successful female entrepreneurs in the diary business and position them as role models for their siblings and peers.In line with the above, we are also going to address social norms supporting or even encouraging gender-based discrimination, violence, and harassment. During the GroundTruth in 2022, we heard from all of the female participants that sexual harassment from clients is one of the major barriers to their success. We would like to we would like to bring the gender equality and gender equity lens to communicating on this norm and tackling it through our Shujaaz media campaign.Emerging insights from our research will be routinely shared at quarterly knowledge sharing meetings with ILRI to (1) contribute to the SAPLING learning agenda, and (2) help iterate and evolve the Shujaaz campaign to amplify impact. As part of this knowledge sharing, the Shujaaz team would greatly benefit from the opportunity to learn more about and gain more experience in applying SAPLING's Gender Transformative Approach from ILRI experts.To maximise the impact of the programme, Shujaaz will build a relationship with Kuza Biashara and other key ILRI partners. By raising awareness about the work of Kuza Biashara and encouraging young Shujaaz fans to take up their services, we will help create a more interconnected ecosystem of actors that support young women in agribusiness.Running from February to December 2023, the proposed Shujaaz programme will include the following activities: Formative researchBuilding on the desk review described above and the findings from ILRI's empowerment baseline, our Knowledge & Learning team will take our innovative GroundTruth methodologies to communities in Tanzania to meet with positive deviants in the dairy businesses and identify effective strategies they use to overcome the barriers and find success, which will help inform our media campaign. While on the ground in Tanzania, our team will also check if the findings from the earlier GroundTruth on young women in poultry business are still valid.We will use the desk review and GroundTruth research insights to inform the design of a campaign strategy for young women working in dairy industry in consultation with ILRI and update our Phase 2 campaign strategy for young women in poultry business.The media strategy will then guide the creation of sticky new content for young women working in dairy, and in the refresh of content for young women in working in poultry with a new, additional focus on targeting siblings and peers.While we conduct the GroundTruth on women in dairy, we will pick up our previous campaign on poultry, refreshing and posting existing content on all Shujaaz social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter).CAMPAIGN LIVE:Full social media campaign + online eventsOnce the GroundTruth is completed, and the new media strategy and content is developed for women working in dairy, we will start placing this content on all Shujaaz social media channels in Tanzania to spark and sustain norm-shifting conversations on young women earning income in poultry and dairy businesses.During the 4-month live campaign, we will host at least two SuperFan-led online events streamed on social media with a panel of young people addressing key questions relevant to the campaign. We would welcome the participation of representatives from ILRI as experts in the Live conversation in one of the sessions, and for ILRI's support in promoting the event to their youth networks.Based on the findings of the desk review and GroundTruth as well as on the design of the social media campaign, our in-house research team will design an M&E framework and conduct relevant, routine M&E activities for the duration of the Shujaaz media campaign. The additional insights and learnings resulting from the M&E activities will be shared with ILRI and key stakeholders on a regular basis and will be worked into the Shujaaz media campaign cycle. We will also use these check-ins to share any relevant campaign materials such as photos, graphics and videos.Together over the campaign period, Shujaaz Inc and ILRI will aim to achieve the following outcomes: We will explore the opportunities to use innovative impact evaluation techniques and approaches provided by Meta on its digital platforms. Of special interest will be the possibility of setting up an experimental design study to see if the exposure to Shujaaz is a critical pathway to shifts in restrictive norms preventing girls from entering and succeeding in the diary business. We will continue aligning with ILRI on the possibilities of such evaluation and will arrive at a mutually acceptable solution in the first phase after the contract signing.We will develop a relationship with Kuza Biashara and other key ILRI partners to support young women in agribusiness beyond the limits of the Shujaaz media campaign.DECEMBER 2023After the campaign and evaluation has ended, the findings and impact of the campaign will be presented in a final report. This will include examples of the posts and graphics used in the campaign, as well as three subtitled videos. ","tokenCount":"2119"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/4609354582.json b/data/part_1/4609354582.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..af53402894a80fa985bc3cfdc113c450b2a8d23a
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e0c4e36d96125330fb9515cfc9d0c650","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b3747aba-58d5-425a-9c5c-d73c3bcdc198/retrieve","id":"1691266986"},"keywords":["association mapping","NUE","SNP","marker-assisted selection","LD","genomic prediction"],"sieverID":"63aaeb0a-a892-443f-88b4-286aa502c8f7","pagecount":"16","content":"In sub-Saharan Africa, one of the major challenges to smallholder farmers is soil with low fertility and inability to apply nitrogen fertilizer externally due to the cost. Development of maize hybrids, which perform better in nitrogen depleted soils, is one of the promising solutions. However, breeding maize for nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) is hindered by expensive phenotypic evaluations and trait complexity under low N stress. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) and genomic prediction (GP) are promising tools to circumvent this interference. Here, we evaluated a mapping panel in diverse environments both under optimum and low N management. The objective of this study was to identify SNPs significantly associated with grain yield (GY) and other traits through GWAS and assess the potential of GP under low N and optimum conditions. Testcross progenies of 411 inbred lines were planted under optimum and low N conditions in several locations in Africa and Latin America. In all locations, low N fields were previously depleted over several seasons, and no N fertilizer was applied throughout the growing season. All inbred lines were genotyped with genotyping by sequencing. Genotypic and GxE interaction variances were significant, and heritability estimates were moderate to high for all traits under both optimum and low N conditions. Genome-wide LD decay at r 2 = 0.2 and r 2 = 0.34 were 0.24 and 0.19 Mbp, respectively. Chromosome-specific LD decays ranged from 0.13 to 0.34 Mbps with an average of 0.22 Mbp at r 2 = 0.2. GWAS analyses revealed 38 and 45 significant SNPs under optimum and low N conditions, respectively. Out of these 83 significant SNPs, 3 SNPs on chromosomes 1, 2, and 6 were associated either with different traits or the same trait under different management conditions, suggesting pleiotropic effects of genes. A total of 136 putative candidate genes were associated with the significant SNPs, of which seven SNPs were linked with four known genes. Prediction accuracies were moderate to high for all traits under both optimum and low N conditions. These results can be used as useful resources for further applications to develop hybrids or lines with better performance under low N conditions.Low N stress is a widespread problem for maize production in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) particularly in smallholder farmers. The average fertilizer use in SSA was around 8 kg ha −1 , which is far below compared to other regions in the developing world (Morris et al., 2007;Das et al., 2019). Even though in 2006, all members of the African Union pledged to increase the level of fertilizer use substantially by 2015(African Development Bank, 2006), till now, the fertilizer use in SSA remains less than 10 kg ha −1 (FAOSTAT, 2017). Fertilizers in SSA are very expensive, and smallholder farmers can hardly afford the application of right amount and kind of fertilizer required for the normal growth and development of maize (Lafitte and Edmeades, 1994;Das et al., 2019). In SSA, smallholder farmers grow maize with less or no fertilizer on already severely N depleted soils; as a result, yield decreases drastically to <2 tons per hectare (t/ha). Nevertheless, developing maize varieties that can perform better under low N conditions can offer better intervention to increase yields in the field of smallholder farmers' (Cairns et al., 2012). Currently very few breeding programs are targeting on developing low-N tolerance varieties (Das et al., 2019). Classical breeding based correlation studies point to distinct genetic mechanisms for grain yield (GY) under optimum and under low N stressed conditions (Bänziger et al., 1997;Worku et al., 2007Worku et al., , 2008)). Further, most of economically important traits are controlled by multiple quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and are difficult to investigate only with conventional approaches per se.Molecular markers brought most significant developments in the field of genetics and plant breeding (Soto-Cerda and Cloutier, 2010). Specifically genetic mapping and linking markers to candidate genes or functional loci facilitated genome-aided breeding for crop improvements including nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and drought tolerance (Yu and Buckler, 2006). Linkage analysis has been widely used in dissecting the genetic basis of economically important complex traits in plants. Several such studies have been conducted to understand the genetic architecture of GY and other agronomic traits under different environmental conditions (Ribaut et al., 2007). Despite many studies on linkage analysis conducted in various crop plants to dissect the quantitative traits, only a few QTLs were cloned or tagged at the gene level (Moose and Mumm, 2008) as cloning of QTLs is time consuming and laborious (Yan et al., 2011). Since only two alleles per locus and a few recombination events are considered to identify the QTL, this leads to limited mapping resolution (Soto-Cerda and Cloutier, 2010).Genome-wide association mapping can be able to capture complex trait variation down to the sequence level by exploiting both historical as well as evolutionary recombination events (Nordborg and Tavare, 2002). This approach was initially started in human disease studies and then was extended to plants, substantially increasing the mapping resolution over the traditional linkage mapping (Flint-Garcia et al., 2003). Association mapping detects the correlation between genotype and phenotype in unrelated individuals based on linkage disequilibrium (LD). It identifies QTL by probing the marker-trait associations, which is attributed to the strength of LD between markers and functional polymorphisms in diverse germplasm (Zhu et al., 2008). With association studies, mapping resolution increased, and reduced in time to develop population/s, and accounts for a greater allele number (Flint-Garcia et al., 2003;Yu and Buckler, 2006) compared to the traditional linkage analysis.A number of association mapping studies have been conducted to investigate the causal variants linked with many important traits in maize, including flowering time (Wallace et al., 2016), forage quality (Anderson et al., 2007), carotenoid content (Harjes et al., 2008), provitamin A (Azmach et al., 2013), and kernel size (Li et al., 2010). Despite the widespread use of association mapping for the dissection of complex traits, little was done for the dissection of the genetic architecture of NUE in maize. NUE is a complex trait that is a product of N uptake and N utilization efficiency. In addition to limited work on NUE, genome-wide association studies (GWASs) are constrained by the power of statistical tools to identity true associations, calling for better computer software packages for data analysis.The application of GWAS has been limited by the presence of false positives and false negatives. Significant results from different association studies have hardly been reproducible due to false positives resulting from population structure, which is a major problem for association mapping (Zhu et al., 2008). In general, association panel has a set of lines with different geographical origins, local adaptation, and breeding history; as a result, these lines usually contain both population structure and familial relatedness (Yu and Buckler, 2006). In order to avoid spurious results, LD generated by the population structure within the panel has to be considered in the analysis. In a mixed linear model (MLM), both the population structure and kinship among individuals are incorporated as covariates to control the false positives. However, the confounding effect between the covariates and the test marker weakens the signals of QTNs (quantitative trait nucleotides); as a result, false negatives increase (Liu et al., 2016). Recently, a user-friendly R GWAS package known as FarmCPU (Fixed and random model Circulating Probability Unification) implemented a method to address the \"confounding effect\" and increase the speed and save memory by using several programming strategies, which makes FarmCPU to be adapted for big data sets (Liu et al., 2016). In this study \"the state-ofthe-art\" analytical package was used to identify the marker-trait association in testcrosses of 411 tropical inbred lines evaluated under optimum and low N conditions.Genomic selection (GS) is another potential tool that uses uniformly distributed dense molecular markers across the genome to predict the performance of individuals of known genotype but unknown phenotype (Zhang et al., 2015). GS has been widely used in maize breeding, on GY, and other traits (Zhang et al., 2015(Zhang et al., , 2017;;Beyene et al., 2019;Yuan et al., 2019), which clearly demonstrated its potential in improving quantitative traits. GWAS empowers the detection of QTNs for the target trait by using a diverse set of breeding lines, whereas GS enables the selection of superior individuals by considering the effects of multiple genes controlling a target trait (Crossa et al., 2017;Yuan et al., 2019). Combining GWAS and GS with marker assisted selection (MAS) accelerates the breeding efficiency to develop the lines or hybrids with better performance for GY and other complex traits under diverse management conditions. Therefore, the full potential of these two tools needs to be assessed using a set of elite lines and/or practical breeding populations for NUE.The objectives of the study were to (1) evaluate the diverse set of tropical and subtropical maize lines for their responses to GY and other yield-related traits under optimum and low N stress conditions; (2) identify the genomic regions, QTNs, and putative candidate genes associated with these traits under both management conditions; and (3) assess the potential of GS within and across management conditions. This study will provide useful information for uncovering the genetic basis of NUE and design the MAS scheme for breeding high NUE maize.Four hundred and eleven inbred lines used for this study were derived from a panel of 424 diverse tropical maize inbred lines established by the Improved Maize for African Soils (IMAS) project to dissect the genetic basis of NUE and for marker discovery. All the inbred lines were CIMMYT maize lines developed by CIMMYT through conventional breeding methods. The list of the inbred lines, the source germplasm, and the method employed for the development of the lines can be found at http://www.data.cimmyt.org.Single cross hybrids were generated for the evaluation of the inbred lines by crossing with CML539, a broadly adapted CIMMYT maize inbred line tester from heterotic group A.Testcross progenies were evaluated across 9 optimum and 13 managed low N stressed sites in Africa and Latin America. The list of the trials, testing sites, and the management practices employed for each trial are presented in Table 1. For managed low N sites, the soil was depleted up to 6 years by planting sorghum in high density. An alpha-lattice design was used, with two replications. Experiments were planted in one-row plots, with a final planting density of 6.67 plants/m 2 (Mexico) and 5.33 plants/m 2 (Kenya, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe). At all locations, two seeds per hill were sown, and then thinned to one after emergence. For optimal trials, the recommended amount of fertilizer was applied at planting as basal application, and a second application was applied 3-4 weeks after sowing. For low N trials, all plots received recommended P (100 kg/ha) and/or K (50 kg/ha), followed by the suggested weed and insect control measures.Data were collected for GY, anthesis date (AD), anthesis silking interval (ASI), plant height (PH), ear height (EH), ear position (EPO), ears per plant (EPP), and senescence (SEN). GY was calculated from field weight by adjusting the grain moisture to 12.5% and a shelling percentage of 80%. AD was recorded as the number of days from planting to when 50% of the plants in the plot started shedding pollen on the main axis of the tassel.ASI was calculated as the difference between the number of days when in 50% of the plants in a plot with 2-3 cm silk emerged and pollen shedding occurred. PH and EH were measured in centimeters as a distance from the base of a plant to the first branch of the tassel and the upper most ear from 10 representative plants, respectively. EPO was calculated as the ratio between PH and EH. SEN was recorded by visual assessment using a 1 to 10 scale, where 1 indicates that all leaves of all plants in a plot were green and 10 indicates that all leaves were dead. At harvest, edge plants were removed from all rows from trials planted under low N to avoid border effects.Analyses of variance for each and across environments under each management condition were determined by the restricted maximum likelihood (REML) method using the R program embedded in META-R software (Alvarado et al., 2015). Experiments in the same location at different years were treated as different environments. All variance components were determined by the following linear mixed model:where Y ijko is the phenotypic performance of the i th genotype at the j th environment in the k th replication of the o th incomplete block, µ was an intercept term, G i was the genetic effect of the i th genotype, L j was the effect of the j th environment, GL ij was the interaction effect between genotype × environment, R k (L j ) was the effect of the k th replication within the j th environment, B 0 [R k (L j )] is the random effect of incomplete block o within replicate k and location j and is assumed to be independently and identically normally distributed with mean zero and variance σ 2 B (RL), and ε ijko is the random residual error assumed independent and identically normally distributed with mean zero and variance σ ε 2 . All effects are treated as random except for the effects of replications, which were treated as fixed. Heritability on an entry-mean basis was estimated from the calculated variance components as the ratio of genotypic to phenotypic variance. Further, best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) and best linear unbiased estimation (BLUE) of each entry across environments within each management were calculated for all the traits. BLUEs were used for GWAS and GS analyses.With all the inbred lines in the IMAS association panel, genomic DNA was extracted from young leaves collected in a bulk of 10 plants per entry using a modified version of the CIMMYT high-throughput mini-prep Cetyl Trimethyl Ammonium Bromide (CTAB) method (Semagn, 2014). DNA samples were genotyped at the Institute of Biotechnology at Cornell University 1 , United States using ApeKI as the restriction enzyme and 96-plex multiplexing (Elshire et al., 2011). Raw GBS data for a total of 955,120 SNP loci distributed across the 10 maize chromosomes were received from the Institute of Genomic Diversity (IGD), Cornell University, United States. Different filtering criteria were applied to the raw data to get input data for LD analyses and GWAS. For LD, the raw data were filtered based on no missing data and >10% minor allele frequency (MAF). For GWAS, the genotype data were filtered with MAF of >5% and a minimum count of SNPs on 90% of the sample size using the Trait Analysis by Association, Evolution, and Linkage (TASSEL v.5.2.24) software (Bradbury et al., 2007).Population structure in the current association panel was investigated using classical multidimensional scaling (principal coordinate analysis) embedded in TASSEL v.5.2.24 software (Bradbury et al., 2007). TASSEL was also used for the analysis of kinship, genetic distances (Identity by state-IBS), and principle component analyses (PCAs). Genome-wide and chromosome-specific LDs were estimated as a squared allele frequency correlation coefficient (r 2 ) between all possible pairs of SNPs using TASSEL v5.2.31 (Bradbury et al., 2007). For genome-wide LD, 4,479 SNPs distributed across the 10 chromosomes, filtered based on no missing data per marker and >10% of MAF, were used. For chromosome-specific LD estimation, the SNPs were filtered with no missing data per marker and >1% of MAF. Full matrix LD analysis was performed with no imputation for missing data and setting heterozygous calls to missing. After analysis, all LD estimates with a missing value for distance were removed, and only LD estimates having P < 0.001 were considered significant (Pasam et al., 2012) and used for further analysis. LD decay rates were estimated by plotting localized regression curves (LOESS) of the r 2 values versus the corresponding physical distances between the SNP pairs, followed by observation of the intersection point between the fitted LOESS curve and critical r 2 values (Breseghello and Sorrells, 2006). For estimating LD decays within and across chromosomes, two background critical r 2 values were considered for comparison. For the first baseline, critical r 2 was determined by taking the parametric 95th percentile of the distribution of r 2 values for unlinked SNPs. SNPs on different chromosomes and SNPs beyond 50 Mbp apart on the same chromosome are treated as unlinked (Pasam et al., 2012). The second baseline r 2 value was 0.2, an arbitrary value often used to describe LD decay (Flint-Garcia et al., 2003;Zhu et al., 2008). Estimated LD decays were plotted in scatter plots and fitted with smooth curves by using LOESS function in R (R Core Team, 2016).Genome-wide association study analysis was done with the R package \"FarmCPU-Fixed and random model Circulating Probability Unification\" (Liu et al., 2016). The minimum input data required to run FarmCPU are genotypic data (GD), phenotypic data (Y), and genotypic map (GM) data. It takes genotypic data in numerical format; the \"hmp\" format was converted to numeric (0, 1, 2) using the \"GAPIT\" package (Lipka et al., 2012). The first three PCs obtained from TASSEL (Bradbury et al., 2007) were used as an input for GWAS in FarmCPU. The kinship was calculated with the default kinship algorithm in FarmCPU. The analysis was performed with maxLoop of five, a p threshold of 0.01, a QTN threshold of 0.01, and a MAF threshold of 0.05. The maxLoop refers to the total number of iterations used. The p threshold, QTN threshold, and MAF threshold refer to the p values selected into the model for the first iteration, the p-value selected into the model from the second iteration, and the minimum MAF of SNPs used in the analysis, respectively. For the p-values threshold, 0.01 refers to the Bonferroni threshold (0.01/number of the total markers used). In addition, the Bonferroni test threshold (0.01/number of markers) was used to set a significant level in Manhattan plots. \"FarmCPU\" also uses the \"GAPIT\" function to produce results, such as the Manhattan plot, the quantilequantile (QQ) plot, GWAS results, and a marker effects table of user-provided covariates. Further, identifying putative genes in LD with significant SNPs and studying the function of those genes are useful for selecting significant SNPs to integrate into breeding programs. Putative genes were searched on the ensemble 2 and maize gdb 3 websites.For the GP analysis, BLUEs across locations were used. Ridgeregression BLUP (RR-BLUP) with fivefold cross-validation was applied. From the GBS data, a subset of 5,929 SNPs with no missing values, distributed uniformly across the genome, and minor allele frequency > 0.04 were used for GP in an association panel. Details of the RR-BLUP model and its implementation are described by Zhao et al. (2012). With respect to the prediction accuracy for lines in the testing set, two GP approaches were evaluated: (1) \"within-population and withinmanagement\" prediction, where lines within the association mapping panel were sampled to form both a training set and a testing set, and prediction was carried out within optimum and low N stress management; (2) \"within-population and across-management\" prediction, where trait data for the training set are sampled from optimum management condition and a testing population is sampled from low N stress conditions. The second approach is mimicking the indirect selection for GY for low N stress conditions. The prediction accuracy was calculated as the correlation between the observed phenotypes and genomic estimated breeding values (GEBVs) divided by the square root of the specific trait heritability (Dekkers, 2007). Sampling of the training and testing sets was repeated 100 times for each approach.The frequency distribution and descriptive statistics for GY and other traits revealed a wide variation for both optimum and low N stress conditions (Figure 1). The variation for GY ranged from 5.7 to 9.5 t/ha (mean = 7.74 t/ha) under optimum and from 2.2 to 3.6 t/ha (mean = 3.1 t/ha) under low N stress (Table 2). The mean performance for AD showed 2 days earliness in low N stress compared to optimum conditions. The range is higher for ASI under low N stress compared to optimum conditions. The means of PH and EH were reduced significantly under low N stress compared to optimum conditions. Further, the range of distribution reduced drastically for SEN under low N stress compared to optimum conditions.The analysis of variance indicated that the effects of genotype, environment, and their interaction are significant (P ≤ 0.05) for GY and other seven traits both under optimum and low N stress conditions (Table 2). The extent of variation was higher for GY, PH, EH, and SEN under optimum conditions, whereas for AD and ASI, the magnitude of variation was higher under low N stress conditions. The heritability estimates were moderate to high both under optimum and low N conditions.The correlation coefficients illustrated significant positive correspondence of GY with AD, PH, EH, EPO, and EPPThe summary of 182,252 SNPs used in this study is presented in Table 3. From 955,120 GBS SNPs used to genotype 411 inbred lines, only 19% were retained after filtering with the twin criteria of >5% MAF and <10% missing per marker. The number of markers retained ranged from 12,338 on chromosome 10 to 29,248 on chromosome 1. For all the retained markers, alleles with a frequency below 50% were considered minor. The percentage of missing markers per individual inbred line varied from 0 to 10%, and the overall average was 4.2%.The proportion of heterozygosity of SNPs (the number of taxa that are heterozygous for a given SNP divided by the total number of individuals) ranged from 0 to 0.77, with an overall average of 0.10. The minimum proportion of heterozygous SNPs was found on chromosome 2 and the maximum on chromosome 1. The heterozygosity of inbred lines (the number of heterozygous markers per inbred line divided by the total number of markers) ranged from 0.002 to 0.354 with an overall average of 0.103. About half of the inbred lines showed heterozygosity of less than 0.05, and 67% of the inbred lines had heterozygosity of less than 0.125.The 411 individuals in the current association panel showed moderate structure (Supplementary Figure S1), which is one of the possible causes for false-positive results during marker trait association analysis. In FarmCPU, the first three PCs are recommended to be added in the GWAS model to minimize the risk of false positives (Liu et al., 2016) arising from the population structure. Even though 79 PCs were required to explain 50% of the variance in the inbred lines, only 3 PCs (explaining > 10% of the variance) were included in the FarmCPU GWAS analysis. The FarmCPU method output includes the effects of user-provided PCs, which turned out to be small for all the traits analyzed.Another important parameter that affects the GWAS is kinship among the tested inbred lines. About 99% of the pairwise kinship comparisons among 411 inbred lines had a value of <0.5, indicating the low relatedness among the inbred lines used for GWAS. The kinship heatmap (Supplementary Figure S2) generated using the vanRanden algorithm in the \"GAPIT\" basic scenario also indicated low levels of relatedness among most pairs of inbred lines. In the heatmap, the count of the kinship values reached a maximum at the value of zero, further confirming low levels of relatedness among the tested inbred lines. In addition, genetic distance among 84,255 pairwise comparisons ranged from 0.004 to 0.339 with an average of 0.311. The proportion of pairwise comparisons with values higher than  0.3 was 14.95% and with values higher than 0.2 was more than 99%, indicating the amount of genetic diversity in this association panel.The distance over which LD persists will control the marker number and density, as well as the appropriate experimental design to perform an association analysis (Flint-Garcia et al., 2003). The genome-wide and chromosome-specific LDs in this study were estimated at two critical r 2 levels (r 2 = 2.0 and r 2 = 0.34; Table 4). In the genome-wide LD analysis, the r 2 values for only 6% of the total pairwise comparisons were significant (P < 0.001). The proportion of significant r 2 values for the 10 chromosomes were in the similar range (3-4%). Among the  significant r 2 values, the proportion with r 2 > 0.2 was the lowest for genome-wide LD (3%) compared to individual chromosomes (ranging from 5 to 8% with an average of 6%). Genome-wide LD decays at r 2 = 0.20 and r 2 = 0.34 were 0.24 and 0.19 Mbp, respectively (Supplementary Figure S3). Chromosome-specific LD decays ranged from 0.13 to 0.34 Mbps with an average of 0.22 Mbp at the critical r 2 = 0.20 and ranged from 0.04 to 0.18 Mbps with an average of 0.10 Mbp. At r 2 = 0.34, LD decay was fastest for chromosome 10 (0.13 Mbp) and extended for chromosome 9 (0.34 Mbp). At r 2 = 0.34, the LD decayed fast for chromosome 6 (0.04 Mbp) and again delayed for chromosome 9 (0.18). The LD decay at the arbitrary r 2 = 0.2 was less variable than the LD decay at the calculated r 2 = 0.34.The Q-Q plot of the FarmCPU model resulted in a sharp deviation from the expected P-value distribution in the tail area, demonstrating that false positives and negatives were adequately controlled (Supplementary Figure S4). GWAS analyses revealed 38 and 45 significant SNPs under optimum and low N conditions, respectively, at 5% Bonferroni significance level (P < 2.7 × 10 −7 , Tables 5-7 and Supplementary Figure S4). For all eight traits, the number of significant SNPs dropped to 33 under optimum and 27 under low N conditions when a stringent Bonferroni 1% significance level (P < 5.4 × 10 −8 ) was used. The distribution of significant SNPs across chromosomes varied between 2 in chromosome 9 and 15 in chromosome 1 at a Bonferroni threshold of 5% and ranged from 2 (chromosome 9) to 12 (chromosome 1) at a Bonferroni threshold of 1%. The MAF for significant SNPs ranged between 8 and 35% at a Bonferroni threshold of P < 1% and between 13 and 35% at a Bonferroni threshold of P < 5%. Association analyses for GY identified five significant SNPs under optimum condition and six significant SNPs under low N condition at a Bonferroni 5% threshold. The allelic effect (difference in mean performance for GY between testcross hybrids with major allele and minor allele) for these significant SNPs ranged from −0.16 to 0.39 under optimum conditions and −0.10 to 0.11 under low N conditions. A positive value indicates that the minor allele was the favorable allele associated with the increase in GY, and a negative value indicates that the major allele was the favorable allele associated with GY. The significant SNPs for GY were found on chromosomes 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 10 with the most significant one being located on chromosome 10 (P = 1.78 × 10 −12 ). Chromosomes 4, 8, and 10 had SNPs identified only under optimum conditions, while chromosomes 1 and 7 housed SNPs detected only under low N conditions. Chromosomes 2 and 5 hosted SNPs identified under both optimum and low N conditions. Information on all the significant SNPs, their corresponding MAF, and the allelic effect are listed in Table 6.For AD, a total of 13 significant SNPs, 6 under optimum and 8 under low N, were detected across all chromosomes except chromosomes 5 and 9 (Table 6). One SNP on chromosome 2 (S2_210662089; P = 1.77E-08 under low N; P = 4.87E-08 under optimum) was common between optimum and low N conditions. SNPs on chromosomes 2, 6, and 7 were detected under both optimum and low N conditions, whereas all the other SNPs were specific to either low N or optimum conditions. The allelic effect for these significant SNPs ranged from −0.40 to 0.46 under optimum conditions and −0.76 to 0.76 under low N conditions. The largest numbers of significant SNPs were identified for ASI followed by AD. For ASI, 18 significant SNPs were distributed across all 10 chromosomes (Table 7). Chromosome 6 had an SNP detected under low N, whereas chromosomes 5, 7, 8, and 9 had SNPs associated with ASI only for optimum conditions. All other chromosomes carried SNPs for both optimum and low N conditions. The SNP on chromosome 5 was the most significant in the current study (P = 4.59E-14). Two SNPs on chromosome 3 (S3_147401613 for ASI under low N and S3_149683417 for AD under optimum) and another two SNPs on chromosome 7 (S7_155590511 for ASI and S7_156476052 for AD; both under optimum) were located a few Mbps away from each other. The allelic effect for these significant SNPs ranged from −0.21 to 0.37 under optimum conditions and −0.16 to 0.17 under low N conditions (Table 7).PH, EH, and EPO are interrelated agronomic traits in maize. At the 5% Bonferroni level, 9, 12, and 10 significant SNPs Where MAF is the Minor Allele Frequency, effect is the Allele Effect, and P-value is for the mixed linear model, GY grain yield, and AD days to anthesis under optimum (Opt) and low N stress (Low N) conditions.were detected for PH, EH, and EPO, respectively. Among these SNPs, 4, 10, and 6 were associated with PH, EH, and EPO, respectively, specifically under low N conditions. An SNP on chromosome 6 (S6_97945994; P = 4.75E-11 under low N and P = 1.47E-08 under optimum) was common between optimum and low N conditions for EPO. SNPs significantly associated with the target trait under both optimum and low N managements were found on chromosomes 3 and 4 for PH; chromosome 2 for EH; and chromosomes 1, 6, and 10 for EPO. Other chromosomes harbored SNPs detected only under one management condition. Under optimum conditions, the allelic effect of significant SNPs for PH ranged from −2.77 to 3.46; for EH, the range varied from −1.71 to 1.75; whereas for EPO, the allele effect was small. On the contrary, under low N conditions, the allelic effect of significant SNPs for PH ranged from −3.54 to 2.50; for EH, the range varied from −2.55 to 2.60; whereas for EPO, the allele effects range was small. EPP had four significant SNPs, all under low N conditions. These SNPs were distributed across chromosomes 1, 4, 5, and 10. The SNPs for EPP on chromosomes 4, 5, and 10 were situated close to the SNPs identified for GY under optimum conditions. The allelic effect for these significant SNPs was very small and ranged between −0.02 and 0.01 under low N conditions (Table 7). Unlike all other traits investigated in this study, significant SNPs for SEN were detected only under optimum N conditions with allele effects ranging from −0.08 to 0.10.The availability of common markers for multiple traits is crucial for simultaneous improvement of two or more traits. In this study, a common SNP was identified for EPO and EH under low N conditions on chromosome 1 (S1_274946693; P = 3.01E-09). In addition, there were a few closely linked SNPs on chromosome 1 that are associated with EPO and EH under low N conditions; and PH and EPO under optimum and EH under low N conditions.Based on the physical positions of the significantly associated SNPs, a total of 56 and 80 genes 4 assumed to be the potential candidate genes for GY and other traits were found for optimum and low N conditions, respectively. The list of these 136 genes and their corresponding functional annotations is provided in Supplementary Table S1. Seven SNPs were linked with four known genes. Fertilization Independent Endosperm 1 (FIE1) and Teosinte Glume Architecture (TGA1) genes were in LD with S4_37297564 and S4_46166070, respectively on chromosome 4. FIE1 was associated with ASI under low N and TGA1 was associated with PH under optimum conditions.Prediction accuracies were moderate to high for all eight traits under both optimum and low N conditions (Figure 3). The  Where MAF is the Minor Allele Frequency, effect is the Allele Effect, and P-value is for the mixed linear model' ASI, anthesis-silking interval; PH, plant height; EH, ear height; EPO, ear position; EPP, ears per plant; and SEN, senescence under optimum (Opt), and low N stress (Low N) conditions.observed prediction accuracy for GY, AD, ASI, PH, EH, EPO, EPP, and SEN were 0.42, 0.62, 0.59, 0.48, 0.60, 0.54, 0.29, and 0.52, respectively, under optimum conditions and 0.45, 0.67, 0.64, 0.53, 0.64, 0.63, 0.42, and 0.24, respectively, under low N conditions. Prediction accuracies were slightly decreased when the training populations were derived from optimum conditions and used to predict the performance of the same trait/s under low N conditions. The observed prediction accuracy for GY was decreased drastically to 0.20, whereas for other traits like AD, ASI, PH, EH, EPO, EPP, and SEN, the accuracies were 0.65, 0.71, 0.46, 0.61, 0.64, 0.20, and 0.06, respectively.In SSA, smallholder farmers face difficulty in following the recommended dose of fertilizer application to harvest the real yield potential. Understanding GY and its related traits performance under low N soil will be beneficial for the development of low N stress resilient maize varieties. However, accurate and consistent phenotyping under low N condition is challenging and highly prejudiced by genotype, environment, soil, management, and their interactions. Therefore, integration of modern breeding tools with conventional breeding not only improves the understanding on the genetic basis of traits performance under low N but also helps in developing the improved cultivars with high yielding and stable performance. Adequate variation at the phenotypic level and a high level of polymorphisms at the DNA sequence level are vital factors for high-quality genetic mapping (Yan et al., 2009). Phenotypic data under low N conditions usually have low heritability due to the inherent variability in low N stressed fields. In this study, extensive genetic variance with moderate to high heritability estimates and high genetic variance were observed under both optimum and low N conditions. We found significant genotypic and environmental variation for GY and other agronomic traits. Several researchers also reported similar significant variations in response to abiotic stresses (Betrán et al., 2003;Worku et al., 2007;Derera et al., 2008;Badu-Apraku et al., 2015;Ribeiro et al., 2018). The high significant GXE observed under low N conditions for all traits agrees with the findings of Makumbi et al. (2011), Ertiro (2018), and Ribeiro et al. (2018). The high heritability estimates recorded for most measured traits under optimum and low N conditions indicated that the expression of these traits was consistent. Most of the traits had substantially high heritability estimates indicating their stability in the expression, and further, they also are highly correlated with GY, which can be used in indirect selection for increasing GY under each environment. These results are consistent with the findings of Ertiro (2018) and Ribeiro et al. (2018). Relatively small experimental errors in this study were attributed to the use of many locations (9 optimum and 13 low N) with appropriate experimental designs, which effectively estimated main quantitative genetic factors associated with the traits. As a result, the mean phenotypic data of most traits were normally distributed presenting an ideal dataset for genome-wide marker-trait association study (Table 2 and Figure 1).The correlations between GY and other agronomic traits were changed with management conditions (Figure 2). Under the optimum condition, GY was significant and positively correlated with AD, PH, EH, EPO, and EPP, but stayed independent with ASI. Whereas under low N conditions, these correlations decreased drastically, like significant but negatively correlated with ASI and no significant correlation with PH, EH, and EPO. This must be considered while breeding for GY under low N, as other yield-related traits may not have similar correlations as we expected under optimum conditions. EPP was significant and negatively correlated with AD, ASI, PH, EH, and EPO. SEN was significant and negatively correlated with GY and other traits except EPP.A marker-trait association study was performed for the eight traits, which were evaluated under optimum and managed low N stressed conditions. Several factors influence the GWAS results including, but not limited to, the quality of phenotypic data, the complexity of the trait genetic architecture, the extent of genetic diversity in the germplasm, and LD relationships between causal variants and genotyped SNPs (Flint-Garcia et al., 2003;Zhu et al., 2008;Soto-Cerda and Cloutier, 2010;Scherer and Christensen, 2016). However, factors affecting the accuracy of GWAS could be improved through appropriate experimental designs and statistical packages.The set of lines used in this study was assembled from different tropical breeding programs within the CIMMYT global maize program and national agricultural research systems (NARS) in Africa, and these lines were bred for tolerance to various biotic and abiotic stresses (Gowda et al., 2015). It is not unexpected to get high genetic distance and lower kinship among the inbred lines; hence, stratification of the inbred lines into different groups based on the breeding goals and adaptation is expected. Standard GWAS test statistics assume that all materials included for the analysis are unrelated and selected from uniform, random-mating population. Any departure from these assumptions can cause unanticipated results (Scherer and Christensen, 2016) leading to spurious associations due to false positives. Use of appropriate statistical analysis that accounts for family relatedness and population structure is crucial in order to avoid the occurrence of these false positives.The extent of LD in a set of germplasm affects the mapping resolution and the number of markers required for association mapping studies (Yu and Buckler, 2006). LD is further affected by the extent of genetic diversity captured by the population under study (Soto-Cerda and Cloutier, 2010). Genome-wide and chromosome-specific LD decays in this study were extended over a few hundred kilobases. Genome-wide LD decay was 230 kb at r 2 = 0.2 and was 190 kb at r 2 = 0.34. For individual chromosomes, this value was in the range of 130-340 kb at r 2 = 0.2 and 40-180 kb at r 2 = 0.34. Gowda et al. (2015) also found similar results for a subset of this association panel used in their study. Previous studies on maize showed rapid LD decay (1 kb) in landraces, approximately 2 kb in diverse inbred lines, and up to several hundred kilobases in commercial elite inbred lines (Jung et al., 2004). The relatively high LD in the current study is due to the inclusion of elite inbred lines assembled from tropical breeding programs within CIMMYT and NARS (Gowda et al., 2015). Based on the observed LD, significant marker-trait associations can be identified using a moderate to high number of markers (Yan et al., 2011).Taking family relatedness and population structure into consideration, FarmCPU identified several SNPs associated with the causative variant for each trait under optimum and low N conditions. Out of 83 SNP-trait associations declared significant at a Bonferroni 5% threshold, three SNPs on chromosomes 1, 2, and 6 were associated either with different traits or different management conditions for the same trait, suggesting pleiotropic effects of genes associated with these significant markers. Common SNPs under optimum and low N conditions would be useful for simultaneous improvement of trait/s for both optimum and low N stress conditions.In addition to discovering SNPs significantly associated with traits, identifying putative genes in LD with significant SNPs and studying the function of the genes and the biological pathways in which the putative genes participate (Scherer and Christensen, 2016) are crucial for using these SNPs in breeding programs. Putative genes were searched on the maize gdb 5 and ensemble 6 websites. The FIE1 gene, likely to have acquired important novel functions for endosperm development and its maternal alleles, gets activated 2 days after pollination (Hermon et al., 2007) indicating its role in ASI. Narrow ASI is one of the desirable secondary traits that is significantly correlated with high GY under stress conditions. The marker linked to the gene could be used for selecting genotypes having favorable alleles for narrow ASI.Teosinte glume architecture1 (TGA1) is another key gene in the evolution of teosinte that exposed the kernel on the surface of the ear on modern maize (Wang et al., 2005), which showed strong association with SNPs identified for PH. Assaying the border effects of TGA1 reduced or eliminated the TGA1 gene expression using the RNAi (ribonucleic acid interference) construct. On several branching and kernel traits, maize lines expressing an RNAi construct targeting TGA1 displayed pleiotropic morphological effects (Wang et al., 2015). With regards to branching, these RNAi lines probably remove the repressive function of TGA1/neighbor of tag1 (NOT1), allowing the outgrowth of axillary branches. Both TGA1 and NOT1 belong to the SQUAMOSA promoter binding proteins (SBP) family of transcription factors. Members of this family have been shown to regulate development of meristem and also play a role in producing both plant architecture and ear phenotypes (Chuck et al., 2010(Chuck et al., , 2014)). The presence of TGA1/NOT1 in duplication may have facilitated its subfunctionalization. For example, TGA1 alone controls the fruit case/cob, whereas TGA1 functions in a redundant manner with NOT1 to regulate plant architecture traits. So, the SNP marker associated with TGA1 is useful for MAS.Another SNP (S4_237693358) on chromosome 4 associated with PH under low N conditions was linked with three gene models, namely, Zm00001d053632, Zm00001d053633, and Zm00001d053635. These genes models were in LD with a known gene \"RPS8, \" ribosomal protein S8. RPS8 belongs to the 40S ribosomal protein S8 family. This gene was associated with PH under low N conditions, which indicates that rps8 genes might have a role in the control of PH under stress conditions. Another SNP \"S7_123828656\" on chromosome 7 was associated with AD under low N conditions and was in LD with seven gene models, of which two (Zm00001d020584 and Zm00001d020585) were associated with a known histone H4 gene (H4C7). The gene belongs to the histone H4 protein family.Successful integration of modern tools helped to achieve high genetic gain for complex traits in maize breeding (Beyene et al., 2019;Yuan et al., 2019). With rapid progress in genotyping technology and statistical models, genomic prediction of breeding value has been successfully applied in maize for quantitative traits (Zhang et al., 2015(Zhang et al., , 2017;;Beyene et al., 2019;Yuan et al., 2019). In the present study, we compared the prediction accuracies under optimum and low N conditions (Figure 3). Interestingly, the prediction accuracies were slightly higher for GY, AD, ASI, EPO, and EPP under low N conditions compared to optimum conditions, whereas for PH, EH, and SEN, the accuracy was higher under optimum conditions. The accuracy observed for all traits under both optimum and low N conditions reveals the effect of heritability as the traits with higher heritability generally had higher prediction accuracy. The observed prediction accuracies for GY and other traits are comparable to earlier studies reported under different stresses in maize (Zhang et al., 2015;  Beyene et al., 2019;Yuan et al., 2019). In GS, the less complex trait AD and ASI had higher accuracy compared to GY, which is consistent with the nature of trait complexity (Zhang et al., 2017;Yuan et al., 2019).Breeding for low N stress tolerance is complex and very expensive. Several studies were reported on the efficiency of indirect selection to improve GY for low N by using secondary traits and/or GY under optimum conditions (Ertiro, 2018). With similar assumption, here we tried to use a training population based on traits data under optimum conditions and predict the same trait performance under low N conditions. The observed prediction accuracy for GY is 0.20 (Figure 3), far below than the phenotypic selection efficiency, which is 0.41 (the square root of heritability of GY) under low N stress. However, with three cycles per year and the requirement of lesser resources for implementing GS compared to phenotypic selection, GS is endorsed to integrate to improve the selection efficiency for low N stress as an attractive option in a long-run objective of the breeding program. For other traits, accuracies are relatively high, which clearly supports the usefulness of GS in their improvement under either optimum or stress condition.GWAS results revealed that NUE in maize is controlled by numerous genes with minor effects, which are seriously influenced by environmental factors and thus are difficult to track effectively by conventional breeding alone. High throughput and large-scale routine phenotypic evaluation are still far from implementation for several NARS breeding programs. GS in combination with mapping approaches like GWAS and QTL mapping can enhance the efficiency to improve the trait of interest. Integration of GS with GWAS results leads not only to the increase in the prediction accuracy but also helps in validating the function of the identified candidate genes as well as the increase in the accumulation of favorable alleles with minor and major effects. Further, GS can remarkably reduce the resources required for selection and can improve breeding efficiency, especially when genotyping is very cheap, and several commercial service providers are available. With this kind of progress, one can expect that GS can integrate the powerful GWAS results from previous studies and projects and used them in breeding maize with high NUE.Through GWAS, marker-trait associations were detected for GY and other traits measured under low N and optimum conditions. Eighty-three significant marker-trait associations were identified for all the traits under both optimum and low N conditions. No common markers were identified for GY between optimum and low N conditions, confirming that a different genetic mechanism for GY under optimum and low N conditions is a possibility. The result further confirms higher efficiency of direct selection in target environments for the improvement of GY. For some secondary traits, common markers were obtained under both management conditions, suggesting the likelihood of simultaneous improvement for two or more secondary traits using the same set of markers. The physical position of significant markers coincided with 136 putative protein coding genes. Four known genes were associated with traits under optimum and low N conditions. Markers associated with these known genes could be used in breeding for the improvement of the associated traits. Prediction accuracy for all traits under both optimum and low N conditions is promising. Further, incorporating the traitassociated markers detected through GWAS into the prediction model has a potential to improve the prediction accuracy for the quantitative traits like GY under stress conditions, which leads to significant improvement for NUE in maize.","tokenCount":"7664"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8bbdb659e5a44ef02f80b6d16af616aa","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/061f4598-95fc-4439-8f7c-3dfd00da8bb3/retrieve","id":"-1511501622"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b056a0ca-1d25-4706-9fdd-5ca91eb87934","pagecount":"14","content":"Economize the use of scarce resources Under-sowing: Under-sowing involves the planting of forages (forage legumes) into the main crop or after the main crop is established.Intercropping is a modification of under-sowing, which is useful in areas where row planting is common. The legumes intercropped in two or three rows at the same time as or after planting the main crop.• Lablab, forage soyabean, cowpea and vetch under sown in maize, sorghum and millet fields • Clovers and vetch under-sown in wheat and barley • Desmodium under-sown in coffee and other plantations • Oat intercropped in faba bean fields in southern Ethiopia Vetch under-sown in maize Faba bean/oat intercroppingRelay cropping is a sort of sequential cropping but usually the following crop is planted before the preceding crop is harvested or immediately after harvest.Sequential or rotational cropping is planting different crops in sequence or in rotation one after the other, usually legume crops/forage plants following cereals.It is an agroforestry practice in which browse trees or shrubs are planted as hedgerows in crop fields or other parts of the cropping areas.Hedge-row practice is integrated in the farming system to:• Control soil erosion and improve soil physico-chemical properties • Use forage biomass for animal feed/mulching-soil management • Improve crop productivity that grow in between the alleys • Enhance sustainable use of the land resourcesBackyard forage production is the growing of forages around the residential areas, compounds and along the fence lines.• Soils in the backyard are usually fertile and this supports forage species to be productive. • The practice engage women and youth meaningfully. • It enhances application of a cut and carry system. • Free grazing and browsing are main challenges for poor performance of forages in backyards.• Forage strips are narrow lines of forage established between arable cropsIt has a number of uses -They provide forage for cut and carry -They prevent soil erosion -They provide wood for fuel and shelter belts if tree legumes are used -They improve soil fertility• Over -sowing is the rehabilitation of degraded natural or cultivated grazing lands by sowing suitable forage crops to produce forages. • Forage crops could also be over-sown on closure areas, usually for rehabilitation of degraded lands. The forage will be used as cut and carry or hay. • Different grass and legume forage species could be used for over-sowing:  In the highlands Vetches showed better performance.  In the low and warmer areas Desmodium and Stylo are doing well.Stem-borers are major pests of maize. The parasitic weed Striga hermonthica is also an important maize pest. Losses due to stem-borers can reach 15-40%.Crops used for this strategy:• Maize • Napier grass -emits attractive chemicals for stemborers. • Desmodium (emit chemicals that repels stem borers).• Maize -as main crop • Napier grass -on field borders Adult moths (stem-borers) attracted by the chemicals emitted from grasses -therefore the napier grass provide the pull The Napier grass once attacked, it defends by secreting a sticky substance which physically traps the pest• Desmodium -intercropped Desmodium emits chemicals that push the stem-borers Desmodium also helps to reduce the growth of striga Thank you for listening!!","tokenCount":"519"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"bf8aeae19dd079a9fddf0af025c931d1","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/0a972a9c-a082-4b81-a8ea-7b3cfe4a4fd0/content","id":"-1653154439"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c920e028-35be-4fa3-aae4-d251bfbd3e6f","pagecount":"27","content":"The linear phenotypic selection index (LPSI), the null restricted LPSI (RLPSI), and the predetermined proportional gains LPSI (PPG-LPSI) are the main phenotypic selection indices used to predict the net genetic merit and select parents for the next selection cycle. The LPSI is an unrestricted index, whereas the RLPSI and the PPG-LPSI allow restrictions equal to zero and predetermined proportional gain restrictions respectively to be imposed on the expected genetic gain values of the trait to make some traits change their mean values based on a predetermined level while the rest of the trait means remain without restrictions. One additional restricted index is the desired gains LPSI (DG-LPSI), which does not require economic weights and, in a similar manner to the PPG-LPSI, allows restrictions to be imposed on the expected genetic gain values of the trait to make some traits change their mean values based on a predetermined level. The aims of RLPSI and PPG-LPSI are to maximize the selection response, the expected genetic gains per trait, and provide the breeder with an objective rule for evaluating and selecting parents for the next selection cycle based on several traits. This chapter describes the theory and practice of the RLPSI, PPG-LPSI, and DG-LPSI. We show that the PPG-LPSI is the most general index and includes the LPSI and the RLPSI as particular cases. Finally, we describe the DG-LPSI as a modification of the PPG-LPSI. We illustrate the theoretical results of all the indices using real and simulated data.Conditions to construct a valid null restricted linear phenotypic selection index (RLPSI) are the same as those described in Sect. 2.1 of Chap. 2. The main objective of the RLPSI is to optimize, under some null restrictions, the selection response, to predict the net genetic merit H ¼ w 0 g and select the individuals with the highest net genetic merit values as parents of the next generation. The RLPSI allows restrictions equal to zero to be imposed on the expected genetic gains of some traits, whereas other traits increase (or decrease) their expected genetic gains without imposing any restrictions. The RLPSI solves the LPSI equations subject to the condition that the covariance between the index and some linear functions of the genotypes involved be zero, thus preventing selection on the RLPSI from causing any genetic change in some expected genetic gains of the traits (Cunningham et al. 1970).Vector b ¼ P À1 Gw maximizes the LPSI selection response, expected genetic gains per trait, and the correlation between the LPSI and H ¼ w 0 g. In this section, we show that the vector of the RLPSI coefficients, b R ¼ Kb:1. Maximizes the RLPSI selection response. 2. Impose null restrictions on the RLPSI expected genetic gains per trait (or multitrait selection response). 3. Maximizes the correlation with the true net genetic merit. 4. Minimizes the mean prediction error.Vector b R ¼ Kb is a linear transformation of the LPSI vector of coefficients (b) made by the projector matrix K. Matrix K is idempotent (K ¼ K 2 ) and projects b into a space smaller than the original space of b because the restrictions imposed on the expected genetic gains per trait are equal to zero. The reduction of the space into which matrix K projects b is equal to the number of null restrictions imposed by the breeder on the expected genetic gain per trait, or multi-trait selection response (Cerón-Rojas et al. 2016).The covariance between the breeding value vector (g) and the LPSI (I ¼ b 0 y) is Cov(I, g) ¼ Gb. Suppose that the breeder is interested in improving only (t À r) of t (r < t) traits, leaving r of them fixed, that is, r expected genetic gains of the trait are equal to zero for a specific selection cycle. Thus, we want r covariances between the linear combinations of g (U 0 g) and the I ¼ b 0 y to be zero, i.e., Cov(I, U 0 g) ¼ U 0 Gb ¼ 0, where U 0 is a matrix with r 1's and (t À r) 0's; 1 indicates that the trait is restricted and 0 that the trait is not restricted. That is, in the linear combinations of g (U 0 g), 1 is the coefficient of the genotypes that have covariance equal to zero with the LPSI, whereas the genotypes with coefficient 0 have no restriction on the expected genetic gains. We can solve this problem by maximizing the correlation between I and H (ρ HI ) or minimizing the mean squared difference between I and H(E [(H À I ) 2 ]) under the restriction U 0 Gb ¼ 0.In the LPSI context, vector b ¼ P À1 Gw minimizes the mean squared difference between I and H, E[(H À I ) 2 ] ¼ w Thus, assuming that P, G, U 0 and w are known, we need to minimize the functionwith respect to vectors b and v, where v is a vector of Lagrange multipliers. The derivative results from b and vor, in matrix notation,In the latter case of Eq. (3.2), the solution is . It can be shown that where K ¼0 and b ¼ P À1 Gw; P À1 is the inverse of matrix P and I is an identity matrix t  t. When there are no restrictions on any traits, U 0 is a null matrix and b R ¼ b ¼ P À1 Gw, the LPSI vector of coefficients. Thus, the RLPSI includes the LPSI as a particular case.According to Eq. (3.5), the RLPSI can be written aswhereas the maximized correlation between the RLPSI and the net genetic merit isAccording to conditions for constructing a valid RLPSI, the index I R ¼ b 0 R y should have normal distributions. Using 1 and 2 null restrictions, this assumption is illustrated in Fig. 3.1 for a real maize (Zea mays) F 2 population with 247 lines and four traits-grain yield (ton ha À1 ); plant height (cm), ear height (cm), and anthesis day (days)-evaluated in one environment. Figure 3.1 indicates that, in effect, the RLPSI values approach normal distribution.Under the null restrictions made by the breeder, I R ¼ b 0 R y should have maximum correlation with H ¼ w 0 g and should be useful for ranking and selecting among individuals with different net genetic merit; however, ρ HI R is lower than the correlation between LPSI and H ¼ w 0 g (ρ HI ) in each selection cycle because when the restriction C 0 b ¼ 0 is imposed on the RLPSI vector of coefficients, the restricted traits do not affect the correlation ρ HI R . Using simulated data described in Sect. 2.8.1 of Chap. 2, we estimated ρ HI R and ρ HI for seven selection cycles and compared the results in Fig. 3.2. Correlation ρ HI R values were estimated for one, two, and three null restrictions and in effect, they were lower than the estimated values of ρ HI in all selection cycles (Fig. 3.2). Additional results can be seen in Chap. 10, where the RLPSI was simulated for many selection cycles. Chapter 11 describes RIndSel: a program that uses R (in this case R denotes a platform for data analysis, see Kabakoff 2011 for details) and the selection index theory to select individual candidates for selection. The maximized RLPSI selection response and the restricted expected genetic gain per trait can be written as   In point 6 of this subsection we showed that σ HI R ¼ σ 2 I R ; then8. The variance of the predicted error,Points 1-4 show that in effect, the RLPSI projects the LPSI vector of coefficients into a space smaller than the original LPSI vector of coefficients. In addition, the RLPSI statistical properties denoted by points 5-9 are the same as the LPSI statistical properties. Thus, the RLPSI is a variant of the LPSI.The main difference between the RLPSI and the LPSI is the restriction U 0 Gb ¼ 0 used to obtain the RLPSI vector of coefficients. This restriction is introduced through matrix U 0 (t À 1)  t, which is called matrix of null restrictions and is very important in an RLPSI context. The form and size of matrix U 0 depends on the number of restricted traits. For example, suppose that we restrict only one of t traits; then we can restrict the first of them as U 0 ¼ 1 0 0 Á Á Á 0 ½ , the second asWhen we restrict two of t traits, matrix U 0 could be constructed as follows. We can restrict the first and second traits as, the first and third traits as! , the second and third traits asIf we restrict three of t traits, matrix U 0 will have the following form when the first, second, and third traits are restricted,5 ; if the first, second, and fourth traits are restricted, There are). Note, however, that when r ¼ 0, U 0 is a null matrix, and when r ¼ t, all traits are restricted and then the RLPSI values are null. Thus, the breeder should be interested only in 2 t À 2 possible ways of constructing matrix U 0 .To illustrate the RLPSI theoretical results, we use the data set described in Sect. 2.8.1 of Chap. 2. We used that data set for seven phenotypic selection cycles (C1 to C7), each with four traits (T 1 , T 2 , T 3 and T 4 ), 500 genotypes and four replicates for each genotype. The economic weights for T 1 , T 2 , T 3 , and T 4 were 1, À1, 1, and 1 respectively. The estimated phenotypic ( b P) and genetic ( b G) covariance matrices for traits T 1 , T 2 , T 3 , and T 4 obtained for the first selection cycle (C1) of the simulated data were respectively. We can restrict T 1 with matrix U 0 1 ¼ 1 0 0 0 ½ ; T 1 and T 2 with matrix U 0 2 ¼ 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 ! , and T 1 , T 2 and T 3 with matrix U 0 3 ¼  The estimated matrices b72 À0:26 0:17 0:05 À0:51 0:18 À0:12 À0:04 0:39 À0:14 0:09 0:03 0:14 À0:05 0:03 0:01  The average values of T 1 , T 2 , T 3 , and T 4 were 164.46,39.63,34.66,and 23.11 (Table 3.1)  In Table 3.1 we present ten genotypes, the mean values of four traits, and the unranked and ranked values of the RLPSI from 500 genotypes in one environment simulated for one selection cycle. The first part of Table 3.1 presents the ten unranked genotypes, whereas the second part presents the ten genotypes ranked by the estimated RLPSI values.Assuming a selection intensity of 10% (k I ¼ 1.755), the estimated selection response and the estimated expected genetic gain per trait for 1 null restriction2:03 2:66, respectively, and the estimated correlation between the RLPSI and theIn a similar manner to that for 1 null restriction, it is possible to obtain the estimated matrices b, and the estimated RLPSI vector of coefficients for 2 and 3 null restrictions. Thus, for 2 and 3 null restrictions, the estimated selection responses wererespectively, whereas the estimated expected genetic gains per trait were bNote that the estimated RLPS selection response decreased when the number of restrictions increased. Also, the number of zeros in the expected genetic gain per trait increased from 1 to 3 depending on the number of null restrictions. The same is true for the estimated correlation between the RLPSI and the net genetic merit (Fig. 3.2).Table 3.2 presents the estimated LPSI selection response and its heritabilities, and the estimated RLPSI selection response and its heritabilities for 1, 2, and 3 null restrictions for seven simulated selection cycles using a selection intensity of 10% (k I ¼ 1.755). Note that the averages of the estimated RLPSI selection response for the seven selection cycles were 6.76, 5.30, and 3.70 for 1, 2, and 3 null restrictions respectively, and that 3.70, the average value for 3 null restrictions, is only 54.73% of the average value for 1 null restriction (6.76). However, the estimated RLPSI heritabilities for 1, 2, and 3 null restrictions tend to increase. This is because the simulated true heritabilities of traits T 1 , T 2 , T 3 , and T 4 were 0.4, 0.6, 0.6, and 0.8 respectively, whereas the averages of the estimated heritabilities of traits T 1 , T 2 , T 3 , and T 4 were 0.70, 0.78, and 0.87 for 1, 2, and 3 null restrictions respectively.Table 3.3 presents the estimated LPSI expected genetic gain per trait and the estimated RLPSI expected genetic gain per trait for 1, 2, and 3 null restrictions for seven simulated selection cycles using a selection intensity of 10% (k I ¼ 1.755). In effect, due to the restriction C 0 b ¼ 0, matrix K projects b into a space smaller than the original space of b and the space reduction into which matrix K projects b is equal to the number of zeros that appear in the RLPSI expected genetic gain per trait.It can be shown that in the three restrictions case (Table 3.3) the estimated RLPSI expected genetic gain pert traits (or multi-trait selection response) is equal to the one trait selection response (Eqs. 2.4 and 2.5) when only trait T4 is selected. This means that in effect, when we imposed three restriction over the RLPSI expected genetic gains pert trait, we reduced one space of four dimensions to one space of only one dimension.This index is called the predetermined proportional gains phenotypic selection index (PPG-LPSI) because the breeder pre-sets optimal levels for certain traits before the selection is carried out. The conditions for constructing a valid PPG-LPSI are the same as those described for the LPSI in Sect. 2.1 of Chap. 2. Some of the main g, and select the individuals with the highest net genetic merit values as parents of the next generation. The PPG-LPSI allows restrictions different from zero to be imposed on the expected genetic gains of some traits, whereas other traits increase (or decrease) their expected genetic gains without imposing any restrictions. The PPG-LPSI solves the LPSI equations subject to the condition that the covariance between the LPSI and some linear functions of the genotypes involved be equal to a vector of predetermined constants or genetic gains defined by the breeder (Cunningham et al. 1970).Letbe a vector r  1 of the predetermined proportional gains and assume that μ q is the population mean of the qth trait before selection. One objective could be to change μ q to μ q + d q , where d q is a predetermined change in μ q (in the RLPSI, d q ¼ 0, q ¼ 1, 2, Á Á Á, r, where r is the number of predetermined proportional gains). We can solve this problem in a similar manner to that used with the RLPSI. That is, minimizing the mean squared difference between I and H(Eis the RLPSI matrix of restrictions of 1's and 0's described earlier in this chapter, G is the covariance matrix of genotypic values, and b is the LPSI vector of coefficients. Also, it is possible to minimize E[(H À I ) 2 ] under the restriction U 0 Gb ¼ θd (Tallis 1985), where θ is a proportionality constant, which is a scalar to be determined a posteriori (Lin 2005), that is, θ is indeterminate a priori (Itoh and Yamada 1987). Both approaches are very similar but the equations obtained when introducing the D   , and I t is an identity matrix of size t  t. When D ¼ U, b M ¼ b R (the RLPSI vector of coefficients), and when D ¼ U and U 0 is a null matrix, b M ¼ b (the LPSI vector of coefficients). Thus, the Mallard (1972) index is more general than the RLPSI and is an optimal PPG-LPSI. In addition, it includes the LPSI and the RLPSI as particular cases.Instead of using restriction where 0 t  1 is a null vector t  1, 0 r  t is a null matrix r  t, and 0 is a null column vector (r À 1)  1; 0 is the standard zero value. The inverse matrix of coefficientsin Eq. (3.13) is not easy to obtain; for this reason, Tallis (1985) obtained his results in two steps. That is, Tallis (1985) first derived Eq. (3.12) with respect to b and v 0 , whence he obtainedonly with respect to θ, and his result was ð3:16ÞThe latter equation was the original result obtained by Tallis (1962). Tallis (1962) derived Eq. (3.12) with respect to vectors b and v under the restriction U 0 Gb ¼ d, i.e., without θ or θ ¼ 1. Later, James (1968) maximized the correlation between I and H(ρ HI ) under the Tallis (1962) restriction and once more obtained Eq. (3.16). Mallard (1972) showed that Eq. (3.16) is not optimal, i.e., it does not minimize E [(I À H ) 2 ] and does not maximize ρ HI , and gave the optimal solution, which we have presented here in Eq. (3.11). Later, using restriction U 0 Gb ¼ θd, Tallis (1985) obtained Eq. (3.14), which also is optimal.Figure 3.3 presents the estimated correlation values between PPG-LPSI and the net genetic merit (H ¼ w 0 g) for the optimal PPG-LPSI (Eq. 3.14) and non-optimal PPG-LPSI (Eq. 3.16) using one (d 1 ¼ 7), two ( d 0 ¼ 7 À3 ½ ), and three ( d 0 ¼ 7 À3 5 ½) predetermined restrictions, four traits and 500 simulated genotypes in g) for the optimal and non-optimal PPG-LPSI using 1 (d 1 ¼ 7), 2 (d 0 ¼ 7 À3 ½ ) and 3 (d 0 ¼ 7 À3 5 ½ ) predetermined restrictions, 4 traits and 500 simulated genotypes in 1 environment for 7 selection cycles one environment for seven selection cycles (see Sect. 2.8.1 of Chap. 2). Note that in the non-optimal PPG-LPSI has lower correlations than the optimal PPG-LPSI for the seven simulated selection cycles.Let b P ¼ b M ¼ b T be the PPG-LPSI vector of coefficients. Then, the optimal PPG-LPSI can be written aswhereas the maximized correlation between the PPG-LPSI and the net genetic merit is ) and three ( d 0 ¼ 7 À3 5 ½ ) predetermined restrictions respectively, obtained from one selection cycle for 500 genotypes and four traits simulated in one environment (see Chap. 2, Sect. 2.8.1 for details). Figure 3.4 indicates that, in effect, the PPG-LPSI values approach normal distribution.Under the predetermined restrictions imposed by the breeder, I P b 0 P y should have maximal correlation with H ¼ w 0 g and it should be useful for ranking and selecting among individuals with different net genetic merits. However, for more than two restrictions the proportionality constant (θ) could be lower than 1; in that case, ρ HI P is lower than the correlation between LPSI and H ¼ w 0 g (ρ HI ). In addition, when the restriction M 0 b ¼ 0 or U 0 Gb ¼ θd is imposed on the PPG-LPSI vector of coefficients, the restricted traits decrease their effect on the correlation between PPG-LPSI and H ¼ w 0 g. Using the simulated data set described in Sect. 2.8.1 of Chap. 2, we estimated ρ HI P and ρ HI for seven selection cycles and compared the results in Fig. 3.5. Correlation ρ HI P values were estimated using one (d 1 ¼ 7), two ( d 0 ¼ 7 À3 ½ ), and three ( d 0 ¼ 7 À3 5 ½ ) predetermined restrictions. Figure 3.5 indicates that when the number of predetermined restrictions is equal to or higher than two, the estimated values of ρ HI P decrease more than when only one predetermined restriction is imposed on the PPG-LPSI.The maximized PPG-LPSI selection response and expected genetic gains per trait can be written as   (Eq. 3.20). The main difference between the RLPSI and the PPG-LPSI is the vector of predetermined proportional gains.Assuming that H ¼ w 0 g and I P ¼ b 0 P y have a bivariate joint normal distribution, b P ¼ K M b, b ¼ P À1 Gw, and P, G and w are known, the PPG-LPSI has the same properties as the RLPSI. Some of the main PPG-LPSI properties are:a space generated by the columns of matrix M due to the restriction M 0 b ¼ 0 that is introduced when Φ(b, v) is maximized with respect to b, whereas matrix K M projects b into a space that is perpendicular to the space generated by the columns of matrix M (Rao 2002). Thus, the function of matrix K M is to transform vector b ¼ P À1 Gw into vector b P ¼ K M b. 4. The variance of I P ¼ b 0 P y (σ 2 I P ¼ b 0 P Pb P ) is equal to the covariance between 7. The heritability of the PPG-LPSI is equal to h 2 I P ¼ b 0 P Gb P b 0 P Pb P .Points 1-3 show that in effect, the PPG-LPSI projects the LPSI vector of coefficients into a different space than the original LPSI vector of coefficients. In addition, the PPG-LPSI properties denoted by points 4-7 are the same as the LPSI statistical properties. Thus, the PPG-LPSI is a variant of the LPSI. Itoh and Yamada (1987) showed that Eq. (3.11) can be written as Eq. (3.14), i.e., b M ¼ b T . Therefore, the Mallard (1972) and Tallis (1985) vectors of coefficients are the same. In addition, Itoh and Yamada (1987) showed that the Harville (1975) vector of coefficients can written as b T σ I T (Eq. 2.21d), where σ I T is the standard deviation of the variance of the Tallis (1985) PPG-LPSI. Thus, in reality, there is only one optimal PPG-LPSI.Itoh and Yamada (1987) also pointed out that matrix According to Itoh and Yamada (1987), matricesare also Mallard (1972) matrices of predetermined proportional gains because they\"easier\" to construct. Harville (1975) maximized the correlation between I and H (ρ IH ) under the restriction C 0 b ¼ θd and was the first to point out the importance of the proportionality constant (θ) in the PPG-LPSI. Mallard (1972) showed that the restriction U 0 Gb ¼ d does not maximize the correlation with the net genetic (H ¼ w 0 g) and Harville (1975) indicated that the restriction U 0 Gb ¼ d only changes the sign of the genetic expected gain (or multi-trait selection response) but does not maximize the correlation between I ¼ b 0 y and H ¼ w 0 g. According to Mallard (1972), Harville (1975), andTallis (1985), the PPG-LPSI is optimal only under the restriction U 0 Gb ¼ θd. Itoh and Yamada (1987) pointed out several problems associated with the Tallis (1985) PPG-PSI:1. When the number of restrictions imposed on the PPG-PSI expected genetic gains increases, θ tends to zero and then the accuracy of the PPG-PSI decreases. 2. The θ values could be negative, in which case PPG-PSI results have no meaning in practice. 3. The PPG-PSI may cause the population means to shift in the opposite direction to the predetermined desired direction; this may happen because of the opposite directions between the economic values and the predetermined desired direction. Itoh and Yamada (1987) thought that one possible solution to those problems could be to use the linear phenotypic selection index with desired gains.The estimated phenotypic ( b P) and genetic ( b G) covariance matrices described in Sect. 3.1.4 of this chapter for RLPSI are used as the first example. First, Eq. (3.11) is described to obtain the PPG-LPSI vector of coefficients. Let d 0 2 ¼ 7 À3 ½ be the vector for 2 predetermined restrictions, then, the Mallard (1972) matrix is  Suppose that the selection intensity was 10% (k I ¼ 1.755); then, the estimated PPG-LPSI expected genetic gain per trait and the estimated selection response areÞ¼16:717 respectively. Now, let d 0 3 ¼ 7 À3 5 ½ be the vector for three predetermined restrictions, then there are three possible predetermined Mallard matrices, i.e.,  . Note that matrix M 0 1 is different from matrices M 0 2 and M 0 3 , and that the two latter are the same; however, both matrices should lead to the same estimated PPG-LPSI vector of coefficients and to the same estimated PPG-LPSI expected genetic gain per trait and selection response. It can be shown that for matrices M 0 1 , M 0 2 , and According to Eq. (3.14), the estimated Tallis (1985) vector of coefficients can be obtained as bGw is the estimated LPSI vector of coefficients, andis the vector of predetermined restrictions. In Sect.  T 3 ¼ 0:342 À0:035 1:960 0:914 ½ respectively. These latter two vectors of coefficients are the same as the vectors of coefficients obtained using the Mallard (1972) method for two and three predetermined restrictions. These results corroborate that, in effect, the Mallard (1972) and Tallis (1985) PPG-LPSIs are the same.With the data set described in Sect. 2.8.1 of Chap. 2 we constructed Table 3.4, which presents the estimated LPSI selection response and heritability, and the PPG-LPSI selection response and heritability for one, two, and three predetermined restrictions for seven simulated selection cycles using a selection intensity of 10% (k I ¼ 1.755). The averages of the estimated PPG-LPSI selection responses were 14.19, 14.00, and 12.58 for one, two, and three restrictions respectively. Note that 14.19 is also the average value for the estimated LPSI selection response. This means that the PPG-LPSI and the LPSI selection responses are the same for only one predetermined restriction. However, the estimated PPG-LPSI selection responses for two and three restrictions tend to decrease (Table 3.4). The same is true for the estimated PPG-LPSI heritability. That is, the estimated PPG-LPSI heritability for one predetermined restriction is equal to the estimated LPSI heritability. The estimated PPG-LPSI heritability for two predetermined restrictions decreased, but increased for three predetermined restrictions (Table 3.4). This is because the simulated true heritabilities of traits T 1 , T 2 , T 3 , and T 4 were 0.4, 0.6, 0.6, and 0.8 respectively.Table 3.5 presents the estimated LPSI expected genetic gain per trait without restrictions, and the estimated PPG-LPSI expected genetic gain per trait for one, two, and three predetermined restrictions for seven simulated selection cycles using a selection intensity of 10% (k I ¼ 1.755). Once again, note that for one predetermined restriction, the estimated PPG-LPSI expected genetic gains were equal to the estimated LPSI expected genetic gains, and for two predetermined restrictions, the estimated PPG-LPSI expected genetic gains were similar to the estimated LPSI expected genetic gains; however, for three predetermined restrictions, the estimated PPG-LPSI expected genetic gains tended to decrease. The selection intensity was 10% (k I ¼ 1.755) and the vectors of predetermined proportional gains for one, two, and three predetermined restrictions were d 0The first part of Table 3.6 presents the estimated correlation of the net genetic merit (H ¼ w 0 g) with the estimated LPSI and RLPSI values for one, and three null restrictions. In addition, this first part presents the estimated LPSI versus RLPSI efficiency p ¼ 100(λ R À 1) (Eq. 2.21, Chap. 2). The second part of Table 3.6 presents the estimated correlation of H ¼ w 0 g with the estimated LPSI and PPG-LPSI values for one, two, and three predetermined restrictions, and the estimated LPSI versus RLPSI efficiency p ¼ 100(λ P À 1). Finally, the third part of Table 3.6 presents the estimated variance of the predicted error (VPE) of the LPSI ( 1 À ρ 2H ), and the PPG-LPSI ( 1 À ρ 2 HI P σ 2 H ) for one, two, and three restrictions for seven simulated selection cycles.The estimated VPE of the RLPSI is higher than that of the LPSI and PPG-LPSI for one, two, and three restrictions for the seven simulated selection cycles; however, the estimated VPE of PPG-LPSI is only greater than that of the LPSI for two and three predetermined restrictions. Thus, according to the results obtained for the LPSI, the RLPSI, and the PPG-LPSI, the best predictor of the net genetic merit was the followed by the PPG-LPSI and the RLPSI. The most important aspect of the desired gains linear phenotypic selection index (DG-LPSI) is that it does not require economic weights. Note that the LPSI expected genetic gain per trait E ¼ k I Gb σ I is maximized when b ¼ P À1 Gw and is proportional to k I and σ I . Now let Gb be written aswhere d is the vector of desired gains. From Eq. (3.21), E can be written as Equation (3.22) indicates that E is inversely proportional to σ I ; then we can minimize σ I with respect to b subject to the constraints Gb ¼ d and then E is maximized (Brascamp 1984;Itoh and Yamada 1986). That is, we need to take the derivative of the function  3.24) we are assuming that the traits in the index are the same as those in the net genetic merit. However, this may not be the case, that is, the number of traits could be different from the number of genotypes. In the latter case, Eq. (3.21) should be written as G  1986).According to Itoh andYamada (1986, 1988), Eq. (3.24) does not maximize the correlation between I and H (ρ IH ) nor the selection response because the covariance between I and H is not defined, given that Cov(H, I) ¼ w In practice, d is chosen arbitrarily and then we are in the same situation as when economic weights need to be selected. Pesek and Baker (1969), Yamada et al. (1975), and Itoh andYamada (1986, 1988) argued that this should not be a problem for experienced breeders because they must know the relative merits and demerits of their strains. However, this may be true only for some breeders and the selection of d is always subjective. Another problem with this index is that, as it is not associated with H ¼ w 0 g, it is not a predictor of H ¼ w 0 g.In the context of animal breeding, Hazel (1943) pointed out that because any index is constructed from data on a herd in one locality, it may not be widely applicable. The reasons for this are:1. Relative economic values for a trait may vary according to the particular locality or nature of the enterprise. 2. The genetic constitution of herds may differ, especially when they are under distinctly nonrandom mating systems such as intense inbreeding. 3. Different managerial practices may cause standard deviations for the traits to vary in different herds. The standard deviations for subjective traits such as market conformation measured by judging or by scores may vary because different judges vary the range over which they spread their scores. 4. Few herds are large enough to provide enough data to make the sampling errors of the genetic constants small. These limitations are applicable to the LPSI, RLPSI, and PPG-LPSI, and to all selection indices described in this book.","tokenCount":"5262"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e50e84009a4c572f51ef673f30702ee4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f2770550-90d7-49b8-95b4-5949e71200c7/retrieve","id":"-1046813952"},"keywords":["Benthic Macro-invertebrate Community","Cyanide","Pollution","Stream Ecosystem","Water Quality"],"sieverID":"cd719ced-a6ca-4553-973c-fa0a269f2955","pagecount":"266","content":"CNCI =cloruro de cianógeno. CND =Cianuro por día. CNT =Cianuro Total. CNC =Cianuro en C. CNCD =Cianuro en C por Día. CNP =Cianuro que queda presente y va a las quebradas CNTD =Cianuro Total en la yuca procesada por día. CON -=ión cianato. CORPOTUNIA =Corporación para el Desarrollo de Tunia. CRC =Corporación Autónoma Regional del Cauca. CVC = Corporación Autónoma Regional del Valle del Cauca. D =Densidad. DB =Diámetro basal. DANE = Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística. DAP =Diámetro a la altura del pecho. DBO 5 =Demanda Bioquímica de Oxígeno. DBO 5 D =Demanda Bioquímica de Oxígeno por día. DC =Dimensiones de copa. DO =Dominancia. DOR =Dominancia Relativa. DQO =Demanda Química de Oxígeno. DQOD =Demanda Química de Oxígeno por día. DR =Densidad Relativa. EPA =Environmetal Protection Agency. F =Frecuencia. FAO = Food and Agriculture Organization. FNC= Federación Nacional de Cafeteros. FQF =Fisicoquímica del agua fluvial. FR =Frecuencia Relativa. GC =glucósidos cianogénicos. GPS =Global Position System. H' =diversidad de Shannon-Weaver. HCN =ácido cianhídrico. HF =Altura del fuste. HT =Altura total.Especial agradecimientos a mi director de tesis doctor José Vicente Rovira S. porque gracias a sus correcciones, su agudeza crítica, consejos, su dominio y perseverancia con la informática que unidos a la comprensión y solidaridad de su familia (su esposa Teresa y sus hijos Carolina y Martín) por las muchísimas horas que tanto en su casa como en la universidad dedicó para hacer posible la terminación de esta tesis; tengo una deuda muy grande con ellos y espero que en un futuro no lejano pueda devolver tanta generosidad y sacrificio.A la Universidad Complutense por permitirme matricularme en los cursos de doctorado, en la Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas a su personal de la Biblioteca por facilitarme y enviarme toda la bibliografía que les pedí, en la Secretaría por la comprensión y colaboración en todos los trámites (Antonio, Rosa y al vicedecano Alfredo) y en especial al Departamento de Ecología por darme un espacio, las ideas para el diseño de la tesis, los conocimientos recibidos por todos sus profesores (Esperanza Martínez-Conde, Bermúdez de Castro, Pineda, Serrano, Rovira, Avilés, Acosta, Barandica) y en la parte administrativa por facilitarme insumos, equipos, trámites y asesoría de documentación, etc. (Francisco, Tomás, Eduardo, Sara y Epifanio). En el equipo de trabajo de investigación del doctor Rovira a mi compañero y doctor Luis Lassaletta por la amistad, comprensión, orientación estadística y al compañero y futuro doctor Héctor García por su ayuda en la bibliografía. En el Departamento de Zoología a la doctora Ana García Moreno por ayudarme en la determinación de dos anélidos A la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid y en especial a su Departamento de Ecología por permitirme matricular asignaturas de doctorado que ayudaron a complementar mis conocimientos en especial a la doctora Carmen Casado y Salvador Molla.Debo agradecer de manera especial a mí primo Elías Ramos Giraldo por su valiosa colaboración y orientación con los ordenadores porque me permitió recuperar archivos, insertar programas, antivirus y corregir detalles del documento (labor que también complementó mucho mi director).La colaboración, comprensión y solidaridad por parte de mis hijos (Camilo Ernesto y Álvaro José) y parientes en España (Alicia Muñoz Vergara Vda. de Giraldo, sus hijos y nietos) ha sido fundamental porque me animaron, me dieron ayuda económica y cabida en sus hogares (igualmente las familias Sarria Giraldo, Figueroa Sarria, Cifuentes Vergara, Urzuga Dominguez y Muñoz Chávez). A mi amigo, compañero y odontólogo Álvaro Rincón Velandia y a la compañera Gloria Zapa por ser solidarios, buenos samaritanos, cuidar de mi dentadura y de la de mis parientes y amigos.En Colombia debo agradecer a la Universidad del Cauca en la facultad de Biología a los profesores Hilder Zamora, Guillermo Vásquez y Leónidas Zambrano en la identificación de los macroinvertebrados y vegetación de la zona de estudio y a los ingenieros Ambientales Uriel Ernesto y Juan David Vergara por la bibliografía e información enviada. En la Universidad del Valle en la facultad de Ingeniería al doctor Alejandro Fernández Quintero por ser mi codirector, asesorarme y ayudarme en el CINARA para los análisis de las aguas que no se pudieron realizar en los laboratorios de la CRC. En el CIAT en el departamento de Utilización de Yuca (hoy Agroempresas) al doctor Rupert Best, Verónica Gottrel, Teresa Sánchez y Carlos Chilito en el formulario y realización de la encuesta, en la determinación del cianuro y materia seca en las raíces de yuca. En CRC a su director por aprobar la ayuda económica para la realización de la tesis y permitir que en el Departamento de Información Geográfica se realizara la ubicación de las rallanderías y en sus laboratorios de aguas se realizaran los análisis de aguas residuales de las rallanderías y de las quebradas con la colaboración del biólogo Huberto Ortiz Ordoñez. Al municipio de Santander de Quilichao por la ayuda económica para los insumos, transporte de equipos y de las muestras a los laboratorios del CIAT, CRC y CINARA. A todo el gremio de rallanderos por permitirme entrar en sus instalaciones, recoger información para la encuesta y muy especialmente en las 12 rallanderías donde se hicieron las mediciones y evaluaciones de los equipos y del proceso. Un agradecimiento muy especial a mi prima Gladys Vergara, su esposo Ángel y su hija Sandra Paola (Q:E.P:D) en Popayán, por darme todas las comodidades en su casa durante la realización de los análisis de aguas en los laboratorios de CRC y a los compañeros mondomeños William Cifuentes (con la venia de Corpotunia), Enóc Cerón, Oscar Castillo y Jesús Fernández por la valiosa ayuda en la realización de la encuesta, mediciones en las rallanderías y en las quebradas, en las capturas y depósito en los frascos de los macroinvertebrados y en las mediciones de las pendientes de la zona.Finalmente quiero agradecer muy sinceramente a mi madre María Teresa, a mis hermanos: Dorian, Milton, Sandra, Mauricio, Leonardo y Galo; a mi sobrina Lina y a su padre mi cuñado Fredy porque me ayudaron al lavado, etiquetado de los frascos, depositar los macroinvertebrados en los frascos, a trasladar las muestras de raíces de yuca de las rallanderías a los laboratorios del CIAT y por darme toda la colaboración y su apoyo incondicional I IV 8. 1.10 TIEMPO DE TRABAJO ............................................................................................................... 8.1.11 COMO VIERTEN SUS AGUAS RESIDUALES ............................................................................... 8.1.12 FAUNA REPORTADA ................................................................................................................ 8.1.13 OTRAS AGUAS RESIDUALES ..................................................................................................... 8.1.14 APORTES A LA SOLUCIÓN DEL PROBLEMA .............................................................................. 8.1.15 FORMULARIO DE LA ENCUESTA .............................................................................................. 8.1.16 TABLAS DE RESULTADOS DE LA ENCUESTA ........................................................................... Figura 1. Diagrama de flujo del proceso de obtención de almidón agrio y dulce (Chuzel, 1994)  Figura 6. Fotografía de la rallandería 16 donde podemos apreciar la yuca que ha pasado por una lavadora semicontinua y está a la espera de pasar por la máquina ralladora (la capacidad de lavado es mucho mayor que la de rallado y colado). Acoplada a la lavadora está la ralladora y a un lado se encuentra la coladora (con el número 1). . Tabla 1. Características fisicoquímicas de las aguas residuales del proceso de extracción de almidón agrio de yuca en 2 rallanderías del Norte del Cauca (Rojas, 1999). ............................................. Tabla 2. Resultado de la adición de linamarasa en el contenido de ácido cianhídrico (HCN en mg/kg de materia seca) en yuca amarga fresca o seca (Tewe, 1975) Tabla 4. Contenido de materia seca (MS), expresado como %, y concentración de cianuro total y cianuro libre, expresados en mg/kg, en corteza y parénquima de raíces frescas, de diez variedades de yuca cultivadas en Colombia (Gómez et al., 1980) Of the 62 existing and operative RALL at the moment of the poll in Municipality of Santander de Quilichao, only 43 RALL worked regularly (The TL1 RALL work 10 months approximately; the TL2 work 8) because of different factors such as: economic resources, lack of base materials and water on summer, cloudiness of the water in the process, or because of the heavy rains in winter the base materials can't be taken to the RALL; lack of sun to dry things up, so the starch fermentation tanks fill up (the sunlight hours are directly proportional to the capacity of the fermentation tanks); malfunctions on the machinery (strainer, washing machine and the grater) and blackouts due to the heavy thunderstorms that are common in the area.In India, the starch agroindustry is also seasonal and operates 4-5 months per year.The 43 RALL use around 4708hm 3 /year of water that are then spilled in the rivers (spilling 3542 hm 3 / year of AR) polluting and destroying ecosystems present in the area. They process 39290 t/year of cassava that contain 5306 kg/year of CN and spill 246 kg/year of CN in their AR for a production of 8800 t/year of starch; this shows us that we are at a very low level of starch production because the quantity of agroindustries is less when compared to other countries and the production of the RALL is much lower than the likes of India, Southern Vietnam, Thailand (although it is bigger than northern Vietnam's).The TL1 RALL process more fresh cassava per day than the average TL2, as they use more efficient washing machines with a bigger capacity, using up more water per hour but have a shorter washing cycle; two strainers so they can keep up with a higher production; they generate a bigger amount of AR per day but spill small quantities for 9 hours. The NH 4 , COD y CC are also bigger than in a TL1 because they're small quantities that go directly into the rivers and not allowing some solids to sediment, not allowing some chemical and enzymatic processes to be done; this shows us that the upgrades and advances in this industry have only helped to make the quality and quantity of the starch to go up, but to this day nobody has researched in a more efficient, rational and sustainable use of the water; this has a very big cost in ecological terms, because the water that the RALL use is unpolluted water from upriver, to spill it back with a high polluting factor, as they're now acidic (high contents of lactic acid, acetic acid and in smaller proportions, formic, propionic and butyric acid), with a high quantity of organic materials (soluble carbohydrates and proteins), suspended solids (lipids and non-soluble carbohydrates or cellulose fiber), and they also contain CN -. Knowing all this, it is very important to retain these AR to get the solid (\"mancha\") because, apart from being a by-product that can be sold as pig feed, it is an important emitter of pollution in the rivers where it is spilled; pH correction must be done for possible biological treatments.The quantity of water in the receiving rivers is significantly reduced by the residual waters of the RALL, especially in the driest months. The B sites present a specially lower saturation of dissolved oxygen, more electrical conductivity, more quantity of dissolved solids and in suspension, more oxygen demand (biochemical -BOD 5 -and chemical -COD -), and higher nitrate and inorganic N dissolved, than in the A sites. The macroinvertebrates taxocenosis in the B sites shows a XIV significant loss of structure, with less richness (S) and diversity (H'), but not showing any differences in density (N). The biotic quality indexes, the adaptations for Colombia of BMWP and ASPT, also show loss of quality in the B sites. It is known that even in small doses, cyanide can be toxic. The concentrations shown on the spills and the ones found occasionally on the ecosystems must be responsible for most part of the damage detected in the local biocenosis (ecological community), because as the toxicological data shows, they are incompatible with the adequate development of many organisms.In general a turn for the worse in the ecological quality of the rivers as they go to their estuaries is clearly noticeable, as they pick a lot of spills, not allowing their natural autocleaning process to work. This makes sites A and B similar in a way in the lower parts of the mouths, more polluted by the land around them, than their headwaters, where the spills by the RALL produce a much clearer negative effect.The technological advancements show us that a good option for possible treatments for these residual waters may be found in the usage of integrated treatment process, like the anaerobic in series with the aerobic. Rojas (1999) thinks that this sequence has shown us that it can remove with great efficiency a lot of organic matter, much more than those of the conventional process and at a lower cost; because of the high cost of the machinery involved in the equipment necessary for the treatment and disposal of the aerobic mud. The stabilization ponds are considered a good option because of their low operating and maintenance costs (the RALL 56 has one besides Mondomo river), but are not universally applicable because of the terrain topography needed for them, as most RALL are in a slope; in other cases it's because of the high cost of the land needed.Other option is the filtering of these waters that some RALL have built, but must be evaluated to determine the adequate filter, the efficiency levels and the ecological cost/benefits ratio.As most RALL are in a slope-zone, the use of Pannicetum Violaceum and Saccharum Officinarum only controlling the pH and the AR would be economical, as they would serve as living barriers against the erosion of the terrain, and they would be extra benefits for the owner, and one less polluting factor for the rivers.Another complementary use would be the usage of biological digesters to degrade the organic matter, producing gas for kitchen use and the drying of by-products of cassava and sweet starch.It is very important to recycle the by-product of the washing of the cassava roots, along with the farm's waste (animals and plants alike), along with the households one; they can be used to produce organic fertilizers that can be used to upgrade the soil and raise the efficiency of the crops.Until now the problems have not been very big because of the high volume of water used in the production of starch, but in the future, if no research is done to drastically reduce the water usage and the spillage and pollution, the sustainability of the agroindustry and its surroundings may get complicated.It is even more worrying that the rallanders are far apart, as they are not organized; the only cooperative that grouped up a few of them is gone. Without the ample social base that is united to XV fight for their guild, they won't be able to ask for help to solve their pollution, quality and water quantity problems.The CRC, by the decree 901 for 1997, establishes goals in the reduction of water pollution. This law must be upheld, not only by this agroindustry, but by everyone that's spilling their waste directly or indirectly on the rivers; also, it must be supported by studies, designs, ecological education and infrastructure that allow the revitalization of the damaged rivers of the zone.In the dry season and the start of the rainy one there are low water levels and critical levels of pollution even on the highest parts of the river, getting worse in the middle and a lot more on the lowest parts; it is very important to establish a control for these minimal levels and enforce the laws about the use of water upriver, and a vigilance plan along with a control of all the spills on the zone.These low levels are the product of the loss of the superficial protection of the soil, because of deforestation; it alters the ground and rises the temperature because of the loss of protection and higher sunlight, accelerating the volatility of the nutrients. This is noticeable because of the alteration of the chemical and physical characteristics of the soil; changes on the plant-soil ratio and a lower production capacity. The indiscriminate cutting makes the possibilities of erosion rise.This anthropization process related to aquatic ecosystems is causing the loss of ecotonal areas or zones that give allochthonous materials that contribute to the primary production and the rise of the cloudiness of water. The antropic activities on the sub-basin of the Cauca River has affected it because of the intervention of the fluvial dynamics to the detriment of the quality of water and altering the longitudinal and across zoning of the vegetation and fluvial landscape.Some parts of the road that encircles the upriver zone of the micro-basin of Chapa and Tiembla are presenting erosion; some \"trinchos\" (to carve) are to be put there for the control of the \"carcava\"(gully erosion-badlands), to do terraces, living barriers, plant grass also, drainage canals must be done to avoid erosion on places where it's needed (draining channels, dissipating boxes to evacuate in a controlled manner the rain water intercepted by a system of physical drainage when no natural ones exist). For the case of erosion caused by too much grazing, the alternative of handling of prairies with lives barriers of cutting grass and construction of terraces.The recovery by an intensive process of reforestation with native species will allow the recovery of the biological diversity upgrading the quality of the soil, as its fertility will rise and its retention of humidity will grow also, as its structure and nutrient content (reducing the lixiviation (leaching), aporting green fertilizers and adding nitrogen, in the case that the cultivated species are of this type) and incrementing the productivity of the different crops. The planting of trees stabilizes the ground, reducing the hydraulic and eolic tension on the slopes, the near agricultural fields and the non-consolidated grounds. The tree's covering also helps to reduce the quick flux of rain water, regulating the water levels on the rivers, incrementing the quality of the waters and reducing the entry of sediments. The magnitude of the water levels determines the size of the rivers and its hydraulic conditions; its daily, monthly and yearly sequence determines the physical and biological conditions of each river. The speed of the current is intimately linked to the magnitude of the water levels and is one of the factors by which several communities of organisms on the river depend XVI upon, using the water movement for their feeding or breathing, or using it indirectly by the strata it creates (Hynes, 1970). Under the trees, the fresh temperatures and the moderate humid and dry cycles are a good micro-climate for the micro-organisms and the fauna; it helps against the laterization of the soil. The plantations help to settle the dust and other air particles too.Another strategy is to introduce in the project the planting of fruit trees, as a part of the reforestation process, as it will be an important addendum to the diet of the family and to the generation of jobs and income of the families; in this strategy the female part of the townspeople will have a crucial part upgrading the nutritional levels of their families and generation their own income with the selling of the surplus of fruit. In this sense the project will have an immediate effect on the protection of the water and a permanent effect on the bettering of the production conditions, and also a better awareness of the conservation of the natural resources for the local population.La yuca, Manihot esculenta Crantz, es un arbusto conocido por los nativos de la América tropical como el \"árbol de la vida\" por las cualidades nutritivas de sus raíces, muy ricas en hidratos de carbono en forma de almidón (25,3 %). Los pueblos amazónicos desarrollaron técnicas artesanales para el consumo de estos tubérculos, sin los riesgos inherentes a la presencia de glucósidos cianogénicos. Su consumo, cultivo y procesamiento se ha extendido a todas las zonas tropicales. Según la FAO, desde 1998 el Fondo Internacional de Desarrollo Agrícola (FIDA) ha promovido un esfuerzo de colaboración para desarrollar una estrategia global de promoción de la yuca como alimento básico y fuente de ingresos para sus productores. Un objetivo importante de este esfuerzo es estimular el desarrollo industrial rural, para aumentar las oportunidades de trabajo y elevar los ingresos de los productores, procesadores y comerciantes.El almidón agrio se obtiene en agroindustrias con una pequeña o mediana capacidad de procesamiento de los tubérculos, que son comúnmente conocidas en Colombia como \"rallanderías\" (RALL) y que son cuasi artesanales. Se generan aguas residuales que aunque no bien caracterizadas hasta el momento, se sabía que presentan un elevado contenido orgánico y que arrastran cianuro (CN -) de los tubérculos. Cianuro que es tóxico para humanos, y flora y fauna acuáticas, interrumpiendo los procesos respiratorios a exposiciones muy bajas, desde el aire, el agua o los alimentos.Pretendemos conocer el impacto de los vertidos de las RALL sobre los ecosistemas acuáticos evaluando su calidad ecológica, analizando la fisicoquímica del agua y la estructura de la comunidad de macroinvertebrados bentónicos (MIB). Este caso de estudio pretende servir de ejemplo para advertir a la gente de los países tropicales de la grave pérdida de recursos renovables asociada a un descontrolado desarrollo rural, además de aportar soluciones.El área de estudio se encuentra en la cordillera andina, Municipio de Santander de Quilichao, N del Departamento del Cauca, SO de la República de Colombia. Es un territorio extensamente dedicado al cultivo de la yuca, que se procesa para producir almidón agrio. El Departamento es un importante productor de yuca y el principal de almidón en Colombia (7000-10000 t/año de almidón), con el 70-80 % de toda la producción.Tras realizar una encuesta entre los productores locales, para el \"Experimento A\", seleccionamos 12 de las 43 RALL de la población total, en las que se caracterizaron diferentes subprocesos de interés y especialmente la cantidad de agua y de yuca empleadas, el contenido en cianuro de la yuca y la fisicoquímica de los vertidos. En los 12 tramos fluviales receptores de los vertidos respectivos, comparamos la estructura de las taxocenosis de MIB y la fisicoquímica del agua de los subtramos aguas abajo y por lo tanto influenciados por los vertidos (Sitios B, n = 12), con los subtramos adyacentes aguas arriba y no afectados (Sitios A, n = 12). En el \"Experimento B\" repetimos la misma estrategia sólo para 4 de las 12 RALL, las situadas sobre los dos cauces más afectados. En este caso la toma de muestras de agua y de MIB se repitió en 5 momentos, una vez al mes durante los 5 meses de actividad de las RALL.Los datos indican que para procesar la yuca, las 12 RALL consumen diariamente 657 m 3 de agua dulce y limpia, tomada de cabeceras de arroyos y quebradas, lo que equivale a la dotación mínima diaria requerida por una comunidad humana de 5475 hab. La población total de 43 RALL operativas en la región procesa unas 39290 t/año de yuca, lo que representa unos 5306 kg/año de CN -, vertiendo a los ecosistemas acuáticos 246 kg/año de CN -, aprox. Las RALL presentan dos claros niveles tecnológicos (NT1 y NT2), teniendo las NT1, al trabajar en flujo continuo, una significativamente (p ≤ 0,05) mayor capacidad diaria de procesamiento de yuca (5596 kg/día), de consumo de agua (66 m 3 /día), de producción de almidón (1,3 t/día) y de generación de aguas residuales (50 m 3 /día). Independientemente del nivel tecnológico, todos los vertidos presentaron una elevada carga contaminante (CC) y concentraciones preocupantes de CN -(0,71 mg/l, media).Apreciamos un pH significativamente menor en las RALL NT2 (pH = 4,24) que en las NT1 (pH = 5,28), siendo en NT1 significativamente mayores la concentración de amonio (1,1 mg/l, NH 4 + ) y la DQO (5714 mg/l, DQO).La calidad del agua de los riachuelos receptores se ve significativamente disminuida por estas aguas residuales, acrecentándose los efectos en los meses más secos. Los Sitios B presentan especialmente (n = 20, datos medios) una menor saturación de oxígeno disuelto (69 %), mayor conductividad eléctrica (78 µS/cm), mayor cantidad de sólidos disueltos (49 mg/l) y en suspensión (93 mg/l), mayores demandas de oxígeno, tanto la bioquímica (52 mg/l, DBO 5 )) como la química (119 mg/l, DQO), y mayores concentraciones de nitratos (1,5 mg/l) y de N inorgánico disuelto (0,5 mg/l), que los respectivos sitios A. La taxocenosis de MIB muestra en general una significativa pérdida de estructura, con menores riqueza (S) y diversidad (H') y mostrando mayores densidades (N) en los sitios B. Los índices bióticos empleados, las adaptaciones para Colombia de BMWP y ASPT, también indican pérdida de calidad en los sitios B. Dada su conocida toxicidad a exposiciones muy bajas, las concentraciones de CNde los vertidos (hasta 3,1 mg/l) y las encontradas en los ecosistemas (media 41 µg/l en sitios B) deben de ser las responsables de gran parte de los daños detectados en las biocenosis locales, pues según datos ecotoxicológicos, son incompatibles con el desarrollo adecuado de muchos organismos.En general se aprecia un evidente empeoramiento de la calidad ecológica de los ríos y arroyos según discurren sus aguas hacia las desembocaduras, recogiendo muchos otros tipos de vertidos, sin darles casi la oportunidad de trabajar a los procesos ecológicos de autodepuración. Esto hace que, en términos generales, los Sitios A y B sean más similares entre sí en las zonas bajas de las cuencas, ya más contaminadas por todos los usos del territorio, que en las cabeceras, donde los vertidos de las rallanderías producen un efecto negativo más claro.Finalmente se discuten los datos en el marco de la agroindustria en los trópicos y se proponen soluciones para hacerla compatible con un desarrollo local sostenible y con la recuperación de los ecosistemas acuáticos afectados.La yuca, Manihot esculenta Crantz, también llamada mandioca, tapioca, guacamote o cassava en inglés, es un arbusto conocido por los indígenas de la América tropical como el \"árbol de la vida\" por las cualidades alimentarias de su raíz. El tubérculo es una excelente fuente de energía, dado que es muy rico en hidratos de carbono en forma de almidón (25,3%), por lo que su aporte calórico es considerable. Su contenido en nutrientes es modesto, destacando la presencia de las vitaminas C, B2 y B6, junto con Mg y K. Las hojas son ricas en las vitaminas A y C, en Fe y Ca, y fuente de proteínas (Buitrago, 1990). Es un alimento tradicional de los pueblos amazónicos amerindios que desarrollaron técnicas artesanales para consumirla libre de los riesgos inherentes a la presencia de los compuestos cianogénicos que contiene.Actualmente su consumo, procesamiento y cultivo se ha extendido a todas las zonas tropicales del planeta. Desde 1998 la International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), dirige un proyecto, en colaboración con la FAO, para promocionar la yuca como alimento básico importante y como fuente de ingresos para sus productores. Uno de sus objetivos es estimular el desarrollo industrial rural para aumentar las posibilidades de empleo y elevar los ingresos de los productores, procesadores y comerciantes.Para los países en desarrollo de clima tropical la aportación energética alimentaria de la yuca es la cuarta en importancia después de la del arroz, el maíz y el azúcar (FAO, 1984(FAO, -1986)). África es el mayor consumidor a nivel mundial, siendo por ejemplo en Zaire, el consumo per cápita de 1151 cal/día; en Paraguay, el mayor consumidor latinoamericano, 364 cal/día, y en Brasil, el segundo, 163 cal/día.La producción total mundial para el año 2004 (FAO) fue de 202,6 Mt y la superficie cultivada 18,5 Mha. África también es el principal productor y el que más superficie dedica a su cultivo (108,1Mt y 12,3 Mha, respectivamente); le siguen la Región Pacífica Asiática (58,9 Mt y 3,5 Mha) y América Latina y el Caribe (35,4 Mt y 2,7 Mha). Nigeria es el mayor productor mundial con 38,2 Mt y con 4,1Mha cultivadas. En Colombia la producción fue de 2,2 Mt en una superficie de 191719 ha.La yuca no solo es consumida directamente, sino que también se emplea como materia prima para la obtención de almidones. El proceso es llevado a cabo por pequeñas o medianas unidades de procesamiento que en Colombia son conocidas comúnmente como \"rallanderías\". En el departamento del Cauca, que se ubica en la región sur occidental del país, un tamaño significativo de la población rural, además de transportadores, comerciantes e intermediarios, deriva sus ingresos, directos o indirectos, de esta actividad agroindustrial. La extracción de almidón de yuca comenzó hace unos 60 años como una actividad doméstica de toda la familia. Con el transcurso de los años la demanda de almidón fue aumentando y su extracción se convirtió en una actividad industrial artesanal. En la década de los setenta se introdujeron innovaciones mecánicas en algunas etapas del proceso que lograron aumentar la capacidad productiva.Durante los años ochenta esta agroindustria empieza a recibir apoyo nacional e internacional a través de instituciones nacionales y ONGs. Así, en 1983 la Cooperativa de Procesadores recibe el apoyo de la Central de Cooperativas de la Reforma Agraria (CECORA). En 1987 una investigación realizada por los Servicios de Desarrollo y Consultoría para el Sector Cooperativo y Microempresas (SEDECOM) y de la Corporación para Estudios Interdisciplinarios y Asesoría Técnica (CETEC) pone de manifiesto la existencia de deficiencias en el proceso de extracción del almidón de yuca.En 1989 el Centro de Cooperación Internacional para la Investigación Agronómica para el Desarrollo (CIRAD-SAR) y el Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) deciden colaborar entre sí en un proyecto, con ayuda financiera del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Francia (MAE), para apoyar a los procesadores del almidón de yuca. Su objetivo fue desarrollar el sector de producción de almidón de yuca en Colombia, enfocando el esfuerzo hacia los pequeños y medianos procesadores y hacia los productores de la yuca (Chuzel y Muchnick, 1993). El proyecto se centró en mejorar la calidad del producto final y la eficiencia del proceso. También se consideró, aunque en menor grado, la cuestión del manejo de las aguas residuales generadas (estudios realizados por la Universidad del Valle desde 1995).El proyecto consiguió generar investigación y transferir tecnología mejorada para el procesamiento del almidón; según Gottret (1996) sus resultados más significativos fueron los siguientes:1) Mejoramiento tecnológico de la maquinaría y de los equipos tradicionales de extracción del almidón;2) Introducción de un sistema de sedimentación por canales para reducir las pérdidas de almidón, mejorar su calidad final y aumentar la eficiencia del proceso al permitir un procesamiento continuo;3) Cambios en la distribución de la maquinaría y de los equipos para aprovechar el sistema de gravedad aportado por la pendiente natural del terreno; 4) Resultados de la investigación para la mejora de la calidad del almidón; 5) Prueba e introducción de nuevas variedades mejoradas de yuca adaptadas a la zona y con características deseables para la transformación del almidón; y 6) Sistemas de manejo y tratamiento de las aguas residuales para proteger el medio natural y las fuentes de agua.La contaminación ambiental está estrechamente ligada al estado de desarrollo de los países; los altamente desarrollados tienen desde hace muchos años legislaciones ambientales de estricto cumplimiento, que van acordes con el crecimiento y desarrollo industrial y con altos estándares en la calidad de vida. Por el contrario en los países del tercer mundo o en vías de desarrollo, apenas si existen leyes sobre la protección ambiental o estas son muy recientes. Dado que la contaminación es función de la población humana y de la disponibilidad energética per cápita y de la interrelación con los avances tecnológicos disponibles por las sociedades humanas (Ramade, 1995), el desarrollo industrial de estos países tiene también unas consecuencias indeseables como son el creciente deterioro de los recursos naturales y unos índices de calidad de vida muy bajos por la degradación aproximación fisicoquímica de la calidad del agua y otra biocenótica de la taxocenosis de macroinvertebrados acuáticos.El segundo bloque de la tesis corresponde a un Anexo en el que aportamos una información complementaria que consideramos necesaria para la futura segunda fase, la de actuación en la zona de estudio, junto con los resultados pormenorizados de la encuesta que tuvimos que realizar entre los rallanderos. En concreto consta de la siguiente información:1) Resultados de la encuesta;2) Descripción de algunas características estructurales de las quebradas Chapa y Tiembla y de su vegetación riparia;3) Fichas con los resultados del cálculo de caudales en las quebradas;4) Figuras y Tablas de Macroinvertebrados;5) Tabla de Materia Seca y Cianuro Total;6) Tablas con datos diversos de otros estudios;7) Norma colombiana de usos del agua.La industria de la yuca seca, que se viene desarrollado desde hace varios años en Colombia, Brasil yEcuador, está centrada principalmente en la fabricación de alimentos concentrados (piensos) para animales, especialmente pollos, cerdos, vacunos y peces. En Colombia la producción anual máxima de yuca seca se alcanzó en 1990 con 25000 t, producidas en 160 agroindustrias de la Costa Atlántica que a pesar de generar un valor adicional a los yuqueros de la región, representaron solo un porcentaje bajo (2,5 %) de la producción total anual colombiana. La otra zona yuquera del país está ubicada en el departamento del Cauca y se dedica a la producción de almidón, del que se producen entre 7 000 y 10 000 t/año, lo que representa aproximadamente entre el 70 y el 80 % de la producción total colombiana (CIAT, 1995b).En la Figura 1 se muestra un diagrama del procedimiento empleado para obtener almidón a partir de la raíz de la yuca, junto los flujos de agua limpia y residual asociados. Se trata de un proceso que se puede explicar en 8 fases: el suministro de la yuca, la \"lavada y pelada\", el rallado, el tamizado, el recolado, la sedimentación, la fermentación, y el secado. A continuación realizamos una breve descripción de dichas fases.Fase 1.Suministro de yuca.Una encuesta realizada por el CIAT en 1990 indica que las plantas procesadoras de almidón a pequeña escala llevan asociada un área promedio de cultivo de 106 ha, de las cuales el 46% correspondían a propietarios y 54 % eran rentadas. Sin embargo en 1991, el porcentaje de tierras rentadas para el cultivo disminuyó en 57 %; este mismo año, el total de área cultivada por 99 procesadoras de almidón fue en promedio de 80 ha, lo cual significa que 26 ha fueron destinadas para otros propósitos (Mosquera et al., 1994). Figura 1. Diagrama de flujo del proceso de obtención de almidón agrio y dulce (Chuzel, 1994).Fase 2. Lavada y pelada.Esta labor se hace manual o mecánicamente en tambores rotatorios. Es la primera etapa del proceso y en ella se eliminan las partículas de suelo adheridas y la cascarilla (Figs. 2 y 3).Fase 3.Rallado.El rallado se realiza en rotores fabricados en madera, recubiertos por una lámina de hierro galvanizada con salientes agudos sobre su superficie y provistos de un marco de madera que permite la graduación del rallado. Se dispone de una tolva para la alimentación de la yuca y de un tanque de cemento recubierto con baldosín blanco para recoger la pulpa (CIAT, 1995a(CIAT, y 1995b)).Fase 4.Tamizado.El almidón disuelto en la lechada se separa del afrecho. Para tamizar la lechada se emplea un tambor giratorio, llamado por los rallanderos \"coladora\", que está recubierto por una lámina galvanizada con perforaciones circulares, recubierto a su vez con diferentes tipos de materiales; actualmente el más usado es el nylon (58%), seguido del lienzo (28%) y la seda (3%). El \"afrecho\", subproducto de esta operación, es usado como complemento de concentrados (piensos) para animales o se ofrece directamente en la alimentación animal (Buitrago, 1990).Figura 2. Raíces de yuca donde apreciamos el periderma o cascarilla parcialmente desprendido (Alarcón, 1998).Figura 3. Corte transversal de la raíz de yuca (Alarcón, 1998).Fase 5.Recolado.En algunas rallanderías después de que la lechada salga de la coladora se hace pasar por pequeños tamices que tienen movimientos de vaivén con el propósito de retener las fibras finas o impurezas antes de llegar a los canales o tanques de sedimentación.Fase 6.Sedimentación.La lechada procedente del tamizado se deja sedimentar 8-20 h y después se procede a extraer el sobrenadante. Finalmente las partículas de fibra y otros materiales finos, que no fueron extraídos durante el tamizado, se separan en forma de mancha, otro subproducto usado en la región para alimentación animal. La sedimentación en casi la mitad de las rallanderías se lleva a cabo en tanques de hormigón, revestidos o enchapados en cerámica; el resto posee canales de sedimentación que consisten en 7 canales de 25-30 m de largo por 0,40 m de ancho y de alto. En esta etapa se obtiene el almidón húmedo, que si se seca inmediatamente (al sol o artificialmente) hasta alcanzar el 12 % de humedad, se denomina almidón dulce. Este almidón dulce es el utilizado por muchas industrias que son muy exigentes sobre su calidad, sobre todo en lo referente a su blancura y carencia de impurezas.Fase 7: Fermentación.Para obtener el almidón agrio, el almidón húmedo se pasa a una serie de tanques, donde permanece entre 15 y 30 días hasta alcanzar la acidez deseada. Este almidón es utilizado solamente por panaderías y pequeñas industrias alimentarias, que solo exigen de él que posea una alta capacidad de expansión.Fase 8: Secado.El almidón agrio solo se debe secar al sol, colocándolo sobre polietileno grueso de color negro, extendiéndolo en capas de 2 kg/m 2 , siendo por consiguiente la disponibilidad de área de secado una limitante de su producción. El secado puede hacerse en bandejas corredizas instaladas en los techos de las rallanderías o sobre el piso de éstas. El almidón se voltea con un rastrillo de caucho dos a tres veces diarias y se recoge con un contenido de humedad de entre el 12 % y el 14 %.A continuación pasamos a describir las máquinas e infraestructuras utilizadas en el proceso de extracción del almidón agrio de yuca, así como su forma de operar.Las máquinas utilizadas para el lavado de las raíces son de tres tipos: lavadoras cilíndricas de semieje, de eje central y semicontinuas. La de semieje es un cilindro que mide 80 cm de largo por 80 a 85 cm de diámetro y tiene una capacidad de 65 kg de raíces de yuca. El tambor está capacitado y accionado por un semieje de 3 a 4 cm de diámetro, montado sobre rodamientos y acoplado a una de las caras del cilindro. El tambor gira de 40 a 45 rpm. El conjunto va sobre una pileta de cemento que recibe el agua y las impurezas. Las paredes del cilindro están formadas por una lámina de hierro galvanizado con orificios ovalados de aproximadamente 3 cm y distanciados entre sí de 7 a 10 cm (Fig. 4).El lavador se carga y descarga a través de una abertura circular de 35 a 40 cm de diámetro situada sobre una de las bases del cilindro, donde hay un aditamento que ayuda a realizar la labor.Por la misma abertura entra un tubo para el suministro de agua. Contiguo a la lavadora se encuentra un tanque que sirve para recibir la yuca lavada.Figura 4. Máquina lavadora de cuerpo cilíndrico y semieje, de carga lateral (Alarcón, 1998).El lavador cilíndrico de eje central es similar al anterior pero difiere de este en los siguientes aspectos:sus dimensiones son de 90 a 100 cm de largo por 70 a 90 cm de diámetro, con una capacidad de 90 a 180 kg de raíces de yuca. Posee un eje central de 4 a 5 cm de diámetro, montado sobre rodamientos y gira entre 35 y 45 rpm. Las paredes del cilindro están formadas por láminas de hierro galvanizado, con perforaciones ovaladas. Posee una compuerta para el cargue y descargue que va a lo largo del cilindro, la cual tiene de 69 a 65 cm de ancho. Paralelo al cilindro a unos 15 cm va un tubo con perforaciones, el cual suministra agua a presión; el conjunto va montado sobre una pileta de cemento dividida en dos secciones. Una situada debajo del cilindro, la cual recibe el agua y las impurezas; la siguiente está destinada para recibir la yuca lavada. Esta máquina, al contrario de la anterior, requiere ser detenida para efectuar el cargue y descargue (Fig. 5).Figura 5. Lavadora de cuerpo cilíndrico y eje central para carga frontal (Alarcón, 1998).En ambos sistemas, el movimiento es transmitido a través de un juego de poleas y correas planas, las cuales son movidas por un motor de 0,5 a 1 HP (en caso de ser un lavador de semieje) o por un motor de 5 HP, que a su vez se utiliza para mover toda la maquinaría del proceso.La lavadora cilíndrica semicontinua, por ser de reciente desarrollo, es aún poco utilizada; su manejo es muy fácil y práctico. Tiene un cilindro con un eje central que gira sobre unos rodamientos; las paredes del cilindro son de lámina galvanizada con perforaciones ovaladas o rectangulares por donde sale el agua y las impurezas. El cilindro va acoplado a una tolva en uno de los extremos, en el otro se encuentra la compuerta de salida (Figs. 6 y 7). El agua se suministra por un tubo bifurcado con orificios que va de un extremo a otro del cilindro, sin impedir la libre rotación de este. En algunas lavadoras se suministra el agua a través del eje central que se encuentra perforado. El consumo de agua es de 1,3 L/kg de yuca y tiene una capacidad de 1500 kg/h. En algunas rallanderías estas lavadoras se acoplan a la operación de rallado dando un mayor rendimiento en el proceso (CIAT, 1995b).Forma de operación.En forma general, las tareas que conforman la operación de lavado son: cargue de la máquina lavadora, lavado de las raíces y descargue de las raíces. El cargue de la máquina toma entre 2,2 y 7,3 min dependiendo del tipo de máquina y de la capacidad de carga de la misma. El lavado puede durar ente 3 y 4 min en lavadoras de semieje y entre 10 y 20 min en lavadoras de eje central;dependiendo básicamente de la capacidad de la máquina y del tiempo transcurrido entre la cosecha y el inicio del proceso, pues cuanto mayor sea este, más difícil es extraer la piel o cascarilla. El tiempo de descargue dura entre 1,3 y 2,8 min siendo ligeramente menor para lavadoras de tipo semieje.Tomando como promedio los tiempos de cargue, lavado y descargue más frecuentes, la capacidad para la operación de lavado sería de 680 kg/h para la lavadora cilíndrica de semieje y 370 kg/h para la lavadora cilíndrica de eje central. En ambos sistemas, las tareas son realizadas por un mismo operario, el cual realiza también las operaciones de rallado y colado.Para la limpieza de las raíces sin pelar, tal como llegan del cultivo, las rallanderías utilizan agua limpia a razón de 2,8 y 3,2 l/kg de yuca lavada, dependiendo básicamente del agua disponible en la zona.Durante el lavado se produce un residuo compuesto de impurezas, peridermo (piel exterior de la cáscara), y partes de corteza y parénquima, el cual corresponde a un 2 o 3% del peso total de la yuca. Aunque no en forma generalizada este residuo se seca y se utiliza como abono orgánico o se mezcla con el afrecho. Figura 6. Fotografía de la rallandería 16 donde podemos apreciar la yuca que ha pasado por una lavadora semicontinua y está a la espera de pasar por la máquina ralladora (la capacidad de lavado es mucho mayor que la de rallado y colado). Acoplada a la lavadora está la ralladora y a un lado se encuentra la coladora (con el número 1).Figura 7. Lavadora de cuerpo cilíndrico y eje central, de acción semicontinua. Velocidad de rotación: 30 rpm (Alarcón, 1998).En las rallanderías de la zona, el rallador más conocido es el que resulta de hacer perforaciones con puntilla a una lámina de hierro galvanizado. Esta lámina es colocada en la periferia de un cilindro o tambor giratorio construida en madera dura o armazón metálico. El sistema consta de una tolva de alimentación, el rallo propiamente dicho y un tanque recibidor. La tolva es en madera y está puesta en forma vertical (Figs. 8 y 9). El rallo, dispone de un marco de madera colocado delante de la superficie rallante, con el cual se regula el rallado. El tanque recibidor está construido en ladrillo y cemento, y generalmente revestido con azulejo; mide 180 cm de largo, 60 cm de ancho y 60 cm de altura. El cilindro en término medio tiene 35 cm de diámetro y 50 cm, de largo y va montado sobre un eje de hierro que gira entre 1200 y 1800 rpm. La operación de rallado suele hacerse en seco, pero en algunas rallanderías lo hacen con agua para facilitar el transporte de la pulpa por medio de una motobomba o aprovechando el gradiente de gravedad hasta la coladora. El rallado no puede ser demasiado fino porque los gránulos muy pequeños de almidón sufrirían un daño físico y un subsiguiente deterioro enzimático. En estas condiciones la sedimentación sería más lenta y se formaría mayor cantidad del subproducto denominado como \"mancha\".La capacidad de este tipo de rallos trabajando con un suministro continuo del material fluctúa entre los 600 y 800 kg/h de yuca dependiendo del tiempo de uso del rallo y del contenido de almidón de las raíces (a mayor contenido, mayor dureza de la raíz). La capacidad de alimentación por parte del operario depende de la distancia y la disposición entre el lavado y el rallado; esta puede variar entre 10 y 17 kg/min El equipo puede ser accionado por un motor individual de 1,5 HP o por uno de 5HP que también puede ser empleado para las demás máquinas.El tamiz utilizado es el cilíndrico (Fig. 10), el cual mide entre 80 y 100 cm de diámetro y entre 80 y 100 cm de largo. En el contorno lleva una lámina de hierro galvanizado con perforaciones circulares de 1 cm de diámetro, distanciados 8 o 10 cm. La parte interna de la lámina va cubierta por una tela de lienzo o nylon, cuya trama es de 80 mesh, en la que se tamiza la mezcla de pulpa rallada y agua que permite el paso de la lechada de almidón y retiene la fibra o afrecho. Internamente el cilindro dispone de unas cucharas metálicas que se encuentran soldadas al armazón y cuya finalidad es ayudar a voltear la yuca rallada durante la operación. El sistema de cargue y descargue es similar al de la lavadora de raíces de semieje. El tambor va puesto sobre dos ejes paralelos soportado por chumaceras y conectados por una transmisión de cadena; los ejes tienen cada uno dos ruedas pequeñas que soportan el cilindro y los ejes por medio de una transmisión de correa plana. Por debajo del cilindro a 15 cm, de separación se encuentra un tanque de 10 cm de profundidad, el cual es revestido de azulejo y sirve para recibir la lechada, que luego será conducida mediante una tubería a los tanques o canales de sedimentación.En algunas rallanderías antes la lechada es llevada a un recolado. Actualmente también se emplean en la zona las coladoras de semieje (Fig. 11). El cilindro en las dos coladoras gira a 15-20 rpm.Figura 10. Coladora soportada sobre cuatro rodamientos o chumaceras (Alarcón, 1998).Figura 11. Máquina coladora de semieje típica de una rallandería del Municipio de Santander de Quilichao (Alarcón, 1998).Forma de operación.Las tareas que conforman la operación de tamizado son: el cargue, el colado y el descargue. El cargue de la yuca rallada se realiza mediante baldes que permite el control de la cantidad de pulpa a colar. La capacidad de carga varía entre 64 y 85 kg y tiene una duración de 2,2-4 min dependiendo de la distancia y disposición entre el rallo y la coladora. Algunas rallanderías cargan las coladoras por medio de motobombas o aprovechando el gradiente de gravedad. El tiempo de colado (entre 12 y 17 min) depende básicamente del contenido de almidón de las raíces. El final del proceso viene determinado por el grado de transparencia de la lechada. El descargue del afrecho ripio se realiza mediante la tolva de descarga directamente al tanque de almacenamiento de este. El tiempo de descarga (entre 1 y 4 min) depende de la eficiencia de la tolva. Tomando un promedio de los tiempos más frecuentes utilizados en la operación tenemos, que la capacidad de tamizado estaría entre 295 y 340 kg/h. Consumo de Agua.El consumo real durante el tamizado varía entre 7,5 l/kg y 13,3 l/kg de pulpa. El consumo de agua depende al igual que en el lavado de la disponibilidad de agua en la zona.Las rallanderías de reciente construcción realizan la sedimentación por el sistema de canales (Fig. 12). Su longitud varía entre 100 m y 200 m, y no deben estar inclinadas. Al sedimentarse gradualmente, el almidón crea una ligera pendiente que facilita el flujo. Consta de siete canales de 25 a 30 m de largo cada uno. A la entrada de los canales hay una pequeña caja desarenadora donde la arena y otros sólidos que vienen en la lechada pueden sedimentarse. Los canales son de ladrillo y se recubren con azulejo, lo cual permite que la lechada se deslice de manera uniforme e ininterrumpida, evitando así la sedimentación de la \"mancha\", de la arena y de otras impurezas del almidón (Alarcón, 1998).Figura 12. Fotografía de la rallandería 3 donde podemos ver los canales de sedimentación y al fondo la máquina coladora.Este proceso también se realiza en tanques en los cuales se deja en reposo la lechada hasta que se halla separado el almidón de las impurezas más livianas (fibra fina, material proteínico y pequeños trozos de pulpa) y del agua. Están construidos en ladrillo y cemento y revestidos internamente con azulejo. Poseen en el fondo un orifico mediante el cual se realiza el desagüe del agua sobrenadante y la recolección de la mancha.El número y dimensión de los tanques de sedimentación utilizados es muy variado y depende del espacio y capital disponible. En general la capacidad de sedimentación varía entre 12 m 3 y 52 m 3 , correspondiente a 1300 y 5500 kg de yuca fresca. En promedio las rallanderías tienen 5 tanques de sedimentación con una capacidad promedio para recibir 551 kg/día; lo cual limita la capacidad de producción de la rallandería y permite que se mezcle el almidón con la mancha y que se pierda hasta un 2% del almidón sedimentado cuando éste se \"desmancha\". Por otra parte, el volumen de lechada producido por unidad de yuca procesada oscila entre 7,1 y 14,8 l/kg de yuca fresca. La altura de sedimentación oscila entre 80 y 105 cm.Este proceso requiere de las siguientes operaciones: llenado, desagüe y desmanche. Para el llenado se coloca una tubería entre la coladora y el tanque de llenado. El desagüe y desmanche consiste en retirar el agua sobrenadante a través del orificio de desagüe y transportarla mediante tubos fuera de la planta. Una vez retirada el agua se procede al desmanche el cual consiste en retirar la capa cremosa de color amarillo que queda sobre el almidón. Esta mancha se recoge en canecas plásticas y se deposita en un tanque especial de almacenamiento. Por último se lava la capa superior de almidón para retirar los residuos de mancha, utilizando agua a presión. Esta operación requiere entre 10 y 20 min y se realiza generalmente al día siguiente del llenado del tanque. Finalmente se procede a llevar el almidón hasta los sitios de secado al sol (almidón dulce) o hasta los tanques de fermentación (almidón agrio). La operación es realizada generalmente por dos operarios que utilizan palas metálicas, carretas y sacos plásticos.La fermentación es un proceso natural realizado por bacterias lácticas amilolíticas en condiciones anaerobias en tanques de ladrillo-cemento, generalmente cuadrados y de 1 a 1,5 m de lado por 1 a 1,2 m de profundidad. La mayoría de los rallanderos forran los tanques en madera y otros en azulejo (Fig. 13). En promedio las rallanderías poseen 5 tanques de fermentación, cada uno con una capacidad de 1030 kg/día.Figura 13 Tanque de fermentación de almidón agrio de yuca (Alarcón, 1998).Durante el proceso se recoge el almidón de los canales o tanques de sedimentación y se lleva a los tanques de fermentación por capas de 15 a 20 cm de grueso; entre capa y capa se le agrega agua fermentada y en la parte superior del tanque se deja entre 3 y 5 cm de agua sobrenadante por encima del almidón; algunas rallanderías utilizan afrecho húmedo que se extiende en la parte superior del tanque o con sacos de polipropileno húmedos que sirven para protegerlos del sol y evitar la evaporación del agua. El tiempo de fermentación que es variable (20-30 días), depende de la temperatura ambiente y finaliza cuando el pH del almidón alcanza 3,5-4.En Colombia la agroindustria de almidón de yuca (natural y modificado) se encuentra en expansión.La producción de almidón dulce en plantas de mediana escala, completamente mecanizadas, ha aumentado para producir almidones modificados. Estos cambios en la industria se deben a un fuerte crecimiento de la demanda de almidones de yuca por la industria papelera, del cartón, de la madera enchapada, textil y petrolera y para las comidas rápidas y pasabocas.La agroindustria del almidón agrio está localizada principalmente en el Departamento del Cauca, que aporta aproximadamente el 80% de la producción nacional. El principal insumo para la elaboración de esta clase de almidón es la yuca y la mayor parte de la producción caucana, si no toda, está orientada hacia la producción de almidón agrio y de sus subproductos, afrecho y mancha.El coeficiente técnico predominante (kg de yuca/kg de almidón) en la elaboración de este producto es 4,4. Según datos del CIAT (1995) unas 208 rallanderías procesan yuca en el Cauca, concentradas en los municipios del norte. La capacidad instalada de producción de almidón es 42,5 t/año de promedio por rallandería. Dada esta capacidad, la producción máxima de los pequeños productores de la región sería del orden de las 8500 t/año (Alarcón, 1998).Otro número adicional de agroindustrias con mayor capacidad de producción presenta producciones que oscilan entre las 90 y 180 t/año. Se estima que un uso pleno de la capacidad instalada permitiría rallar 163350 t/año de yuca fresca, tres veces la producción total del Cauca.Lentamente se han introducido mejoras tecnológicas en la producción de almidón agrio, promovidas por la dinámica de la demanda. En la década de los 70 se introdujo el sistema de colado mecánico y en los 80 el de lavado mecánico. En los últimos 15 años el proceso de mejoramiento para ganar productividad está mucho más activo con el cambio del sistema de sedimentación de tanques por el de canales, con la introducción de la distribución por gravedad y con la mayor eficacia de las máquinas existentes. El almidón agrio se usa principalmente como ingrediente en panadería para elaborar pandebono, pandeyuca, buñuelos, empanadas, arepas de almidón y pasabocas como rosquillas, besitos, chitos y chicharrones (Fig. 14). Los subproductos de rallandería, la mancha y el afrecho, se emplean en la elaboración de piensos para animales. La demanda viene de dos fuentes: la industria moderna, representada por grandes y medianas empresas que utilizan el almidón dulce; y la pequeña industria, incluida la microempresa, que utiliza tanto el agrio como el dulce. En 17 rallanderías del Cauca también se producen muy pequeñas cantidades de almidón dulce (135 t en 1995), que en términos generales no puede ser producido por los métodos artesanales (CIAT et al., 1995).La mayor parte de los almidones dulces que se extraen industrialmente se utilizan en la obtención de almidones modificados. Los almidones transformados son adaptados a los usuarios o utilizadores específicos, siendo los más comunes los pregelatinizados, oxigenados, degradados (por vía ácida o enzimática), catiónicos, reticulados (cross linked), éteres, halogenados, dextrinizados, jarabes o dextrosa, dextrosa (glucosa) cristalizada, productos varios y subproductos como los adhesivos (colas), caramelo, alimentos compuestos para animales y proteínas vegetales hidrolizadas.En la industria alimentaria el almidón dulce se emplea solo o mezclado en elaboración de macarrones y variedades de harinas para preparar pudines, pasteles, galletas, bizcochuelos, obleas, cremas, helados. También se usa como espesante de sopas vegetales, alimentos para niños, confitería en general, ensaladas, almojábanas y embutidos. Tiene que ser de alta calidad, medida por la uniformidad del gránulo, limpieza, olor, viscosidad y ausencia de microorganismos. Utilizan el almidón en forma semigelatinizada o pregelatinizada. Los almidones modificados por medios físicos producen almidones pregelatinizados que tienen la propiedad de dispersarse en el agua sin necesidad de someterlos a cocción. En la industria farmacéutica este tipo de almidones se emplea en la manufactura de formas sólidas como diluyente, aglutinante, deslizante, lubricante, desintegrante y antiadherente. En la industria alimentaría se usa como aditivo de espesamiento, estabilizadores y como agente de recubrimiento.Figura 14. Diferentes productos elaborados con almidón agrio. En la bandeja señalada (izquierda de la foto) se puede apreciar cuatro productos típicos de las panaderías: pandeyuca (los dos de la parte superior), buñuelos, pandebono y almojábanas (Alarcón, 1998). En muchos países del mundo las leyes que regulan los vertidos de aguas residuales procedentes de los procesos agroindustriales han estado tradicionalmente orientadas hacia el control de parámetros tales como la DBO 5 , la DQO, los sólidos en suspensión o el pH; sin embargo no ha existido una clara determinación para controlar la presencia de elementos y compuestos tóxicos particularmente nocivos para la biocenosis de las corrientes receptoras y para la salud pública. Las aguas residuales del proceso de extracción de almidón de yuca son un claro ejemplo del tipo de agroindustrias generadoras de desechos que contienen alguna sustancia tóxica: además de aportar una alta carga orgánica, expresada como DBO 5 y DQO, contienen cianuros, moléculas de comprobada y alta toxicidad (Tabla 1).En los últimos años se vienen desarrollado investigaciones encaminadas a la optimización del proceso de extracción de almidón de yuca y hacia la disminución del cianuro presente en forma natural en los tubérculos. Sin embargo se ha hecho poco para disminuir el impacto negativo de estos vertidos. Es uno de los procesos agroindustriales que en Colombia vierte sin control sus desechos líquidos a quebradas y ríos, la mayoría de ellos con bajo caudal, lo cual agudiza el problema de la contaminación de estos ecosistemas.Como se pudo observar en la Figura 1, las aguas residuales provienen de dos etapas del proceso: del lavado de la yuca pelada, que contiene gran cantidad de material inerte y baja DQO y del drenaje del tanque o canales de sedimentación del almidón, con altas cargas orgánicas de DBO 5 y DQO (Rojas, 1999).Los resultados de los estudios ya mencionados realizados por la Universidad del Valle para caracterizar los vertidos de las rallanderías del norte del Departamento del Cauca son los mostrados en la Tabla 1. Hay que indicar que los datos corresponden únicamente a dos rallanderías y además son el promedio de ambos vertidos, lo que no nos permite conocer su variabilidad fisicoquímica. Es previsible encontrar cierta heterogeneidad en algunas características de los vertidos dado que se emplean muchas variedades de yuca con muy diferente contenido en cianogénicos y dado que la extracción del almidón se realiza por diferentes procedimientos.Los datos obtenidos por Rojas (1999) en las dos rallanderías corresponden a un flujo de descarga de 312,3 kg/día de DQO y 256,7 kg/día de DBO 5 , dando como resultado una alta carga contaminante. En estudios realizados por la Universidad del Valle y el Instituto ORSTOM (Institut Français de Recherche Scientifique pour le Développement en Coopération) para determinar la influencia del cianuro sobre la digestión anaerobia, se muestra que la concentración que inhibe el 50% de la actividad de las bacterias metanogénicas es 1 mg/l de CN, en condiciones de flujo discontinuo y de 96 mg/l de CN para los ensayos con flujo continuo. Ambos sistemas de depuración mostraron sin embargo una alta capacidad de recuperación después de retirado el compuesto tóxico (Aponte, 1996;Idrobo, 1996y Rojas, 1999).Tabla 1. Características fisicoquímicas de las aguas residuales del proceso de extracción de almidón agrio de yuca en 2 rallanderías del Norte del Cauca (Rojas, 1999). El potencial contaminante de estas aguas tiene dos orígenes: uno es la alta carga orgánica debida a los hidratos de carbono y el otro la presencia natural de compuestos glicosídicos con cianuro (Fig. 15). Desde hace mucho se conoce que en todas las variedades de yuca existen cianoglucósidos en los que por hidrólisis ácida o enzimática, se libera ácido cianhídrico, un poderoso inhibidor de la respiración mitocondrial y compuesto de toxicidad comprobada (Rao y Hahn, 1984;O´Brien et al., 1991;Mlingi et al., 1998;Saka et al., 1998).Los cianoglucósidos son dos, linamarina y lotaustralina. La linamarina es el 2 (-Dglucopiranosil)-oxi-isobutilnitrilo, con una estructura igual a (CH  (Nartey, 1968(Nartey, y 1978)). Otros estudios han encontrado que un 85 % -90 % del cianuro total de los tejidos en la yuca se encuentra como cianuro ligado o linamarina y solo entre el 10 y el 15 por ciento como cianuro libre o lotaustralina (Gómez, 1982). Los cianógenos liberan el ácido cianhídrico (HCN) por la acción de la linamarasa (Wood, 1965(Wood, y 1966)). Esta enzima (linamarinaglucósido glucohidrolasa) también está presente en la planta, y se pone en contacto con los cianoglucósidos al destruirse la estructura celular de cualquier órgano de yuca (Conn, 1969). Esto puede ocurrir durante el almacenamiento, el procesamiento o la manipulación (Serres y Tillon, 1973).Figura 15. Estructura molecular de los glucósidos cianogénicos, linamarina y lotoaustralina e hidrólisis de la linamarina (Yeoh et al., 1998).El HCN es uno de los productos finales de la degradación enzimática de la linamarina y la lotaustralina (Fig. 15). En un primer momento el glucósido cianogénico se separa en el residuo de carbohidrato (-D-glucopiranósido) y una cianhidrina (x-hidroxinitrilo). En un segundo momento, la cianhidrina (C 4 H 7 NO) se desdobla en una acetona (C 3 H 6 O) y ácido cianhídrico libre gaseoso (HCN); este último es el que puede ocasionar toxicidad en el organismo cuando superan los niveles de seguridad. Estos compuestos también son considerados responsables de la repelencia que las plantas ejercen sobre algunos insectos fitófagos o herbívoros en general; lo mismo sucede en variedades con altos contenidos de estos glucósidos en lo que respecta a la tolerancia a ciertas enfermedades (Nartey, 1978;Aristizabal et al., 2007). La cianhidrina producida por la linamarasa solo es estable en condiciones medianamente ácidas (pH 4.0); en cambio, en condiciones neutras o alcalinas, este compuesto se hidroliza espontáneamente para originar HCN (Cooke et al., 1985). La linamarina en la yuca no es tóxica en sí, pero se vuelve tóxica si la enzima que la descompone, la linamarasa, entra en contacto con esta. La linamarasa es almacenada en una parte separada de las células de la yuca que la mantiene apartada de la linamarina. Cuando un animal aplasta las células al comer la yuca, la enzima y la linamarina entran en contacto y el animal puede morir. Esta es una forma de protección para la planta. El proceso de rallar, cortar, raspar o algún otro procesamiento de la yuca sin duda libera la enzima pero esta se activa solamente cuando es disuelta en agua (Bradbury, 2006;Aristizabal et al., 2007). Por lo tanto, cuanto mayor sea la trituración o destrucción de la estructura celular de la planta o tejidos más fácil es la liberación del HCN en la yuca; además la temperatura y la humedad aceleran mucho más este proceso. Con solo trocear o picar las raíces, la proporción de cianuro libre aumenta rápidamente a rangos entre 30 y 40% del cianuro total comparado con los niveles de entre 10 y 15% de cianuro libre observados en la corteza (cáscara) o en la pulpa (parénquima), cuando se analizan por separado (Aristizabal et al., 2007).En la Tabla 2 se presenta un estudio en el que se añadió linamarasa a distintos productos obtenidos de la planta. Se encontró que la adición de la enzima permitió una mayor hidrólisis de los compuestos cianogénicos, y por consiguiente, una mayor producción de HCN. Por otra parte, se puede entender que en este estudio también se observó que la corteza de la raíz es la zona de mayor contenido de cianógenos.Tabla 2. Resultado de la adición de linamarasa en el contenido de ácido cianhídrico (HCN en mg/kg de materia seca) en yuca amarga fresca o seca (Tewe, 1975 Los cianoglucósidos se hallan presentes en todos los órganos de la planta, pero su distribución no es homogénea. La linamarina y la lotaustralina se localizan fundamentalmente en la corteza de la raíz y en los tallos (De Bruijn 1971). Estos cianógenos también se encuentran en las hojas. En estas últimas la concentración en cianógenos disminuye con la edad (De Saint Amand, 1960;De Bruijn, 1971y 1973). Por otra parte, el contenido en estos cianoglucósidos puede aumentar con la fertilización nitrogenada o con el déficit hídrico en el suelo, y puede disminuir con la fertilización orgánica o con potasio. Igualmente, el contenido de cianoglucósidos aumenta en las hojas de las plantas jóvenes con la sombra, pero no en las raíces (De Bruijn, 1973). El HCN se halla en mayor concentración en la corteza que en la pulpa o parénquima y es mayor en la periferia de esta que en el centro de la misma.La concentración de cianuro en las hojas varía, siendo mayor en las hojas tiernas o jóvenes que en las hojas adultas y las concentraciones son similares a las encontradas en la corteza. En las variedades dulces la mayor proporción de HCN se encuentra en la corteza, mientras que en las variedades amargas este se distribuye más uniformemente en la corteza y la pulpa. No existen estudios que demuestren una relación entre la morfología de la yuca y su contenido de glucósido cianogénico (Aristizabal et al., 2007).El contenido normal de cianógenos está en el rango de 75 a 350 mg/kg (Oke, 1978), pero se han hallado muestras de 10 hasta 2000 mg/kg (Rogers, 1963). En la Tabla 3 se muestra la concentración de cianuro en distintas partes de la planta de yuca. En lo que concierne a las raíces, los datos evidencian que el CN se concentra en la corteza. A este respecto, encontramos que raíces analizadas en Sri Lanka, la proporción de cianuro entre la corteza y el parénquima fue de 10:1 (Rajaguru, 1975).Esta proporción se movió en un rango muy amplio (1,6:1 a 32,8:1) en variedades cultivadas en Colombia (Gómez et al., 1980). Evidentemente, la proporción de cianuro entre la corteza y el parénquima de hecho varía, pero siempre se encuentra una concentración de CN considerablemente más alta en la corteza que en el parénquima (Pereira et al., 1981;Cooke y de la Cruz 1982).En otro estudio ilustrativo de la existencia de una distribución topográfica del CN dentro del parénquima de las raíces se halló que en muestras de ocho variedades cultivadas existía un gradiente de concentración de cianuro, tanto radial como longitudinal, en el parénquima de las yucas (mayor en parte proximal y central). En mayor o menor grado, siempre la corteza contuvo más CN que el parénquima (Cooke, 1978).En las raíces frescas de ciertas variedades, el contenido de cianuro puede ser menor que 10 mg/kg, mientras que en otras, esta concentración puede caer en el rango de 20-30 mg/kg (Müller et al., 1975). Se denominan dulces o amargas las raíces de las variedades de yuca con bajos o altos valores de cianuro (Gómez et al., 1976). Las variedades dulces contienen menos de 100 mg/kg de cianuro en la pulpa o parénquima fresco, y las amargas, son todas aquellas que tienen un valor de cianuro por encima de la cifra antes mencionada (Buitrago, 1990). En realidad no se cuenta con una escala establecida que clasifique las raíces de yuca de forma tal que se tenga en cuenta su contenido en cianuro o cianoglucósidos. Este tipo de clasificación ha sido criticada, porque se ha considerado que la concentración de cianoglucósidos depende del estado de desarrollo de la planta (Ayres, 1972).Tabla 3. Concentraciones de cianuro en la yuca. Los valores corresponden al cianuro total, expresado mg/kg de peso fresco (Tomado de Eisler, 1991). Una clasificación tentativa, que representa otro punto de vista es clasificar las raíces frescas en inocuas, con menos de 50 mg /kg de CN -, moderadamente tóxicas, con una concentración entre 50-100 mg/kg, y tóxicas, que serán las que contengan más de 100 mg /kg de CN - (Coursey, 1973).También se han clasificado las raíces en cuatro categorías, de acuerdo con el contenido de cianuro en el parénquima fresco: no tóxicas, con menos de 50 mg /kg de CN -, poco tóxicas, no entre 50-80 mg /kg de CN -, tóxicas entre 80-100 mg /kg de CN -, y muy tóxicas, para un parénquima con más de 100 mg /kg de CN - (Bolhuis, 1954).La clasificación de Coursey es solamente para la concentración de cianuro en el parénquima, que es la parte dedicada al consumo humano. Sin embargo, en alimentación animal y en la producción de almidón se suele usar la raíz con la corteza, que puede representar del 10 al 15% de la raíz (Gómez et al., 1980). El nivel de glucósidos cianogénicos o ácido cianhídrico total presente en la raíz o follaje de yuca, determina la diferencia entre variedades amargas (de mayor toxicidad) y variedades dulces. Según las experiencias del CIAT en manejo de variedades de yuca (Sánchez, 2004), las variedades con menos de 180 mg/ kg de peso seco de HCN se clasifican como variedades dulces, las que están entre 180 y 300 mg/kg de peso seco en variedades semiamargas y las que son mayores a 300 mg/kg de peso seco son variedades amargas. El contenido cianogénico de las variedades amargas, tiende a ser consistentemente mayor, hasta 1000 mg/kg de HCN en raíces frescas, que el de las variedades dulces, 20 mg/kg de HCN en raíces frescas. No se conocen variedades de yuca que carezcan de cianógenos (Ceballos y de la Cruz, 2002).En la Tabla 4 se muestra un catálogo de variedades cultivadas en Colombia en cuyas raíces frescas se determinó el contenido de cianuro total y libre, tanto en la corteza como en el parénquima.En la mayoría de las variedades el contenido de cianuro total fue de 400-700 mg/kg en la corteza, y 20-60 mg/kg en el parénquima.Tabla 4. Contenido de materia seca (MS), expresado como %, y concentración de cianuro total y cianuro libre, expresados en mg/kg, en corteza y parénquima de raíces frescas, de diez variedades de yuca cultivadas en Colombia (Gómez et al., 1980). Por otra parte, el contenido de cianuro libre fue de 7-17 % y de 10-15 % del cianuro total en la corteza y el parénquima respectivamente (Gómez et al., 1980). Estos bajos valores pudieran reflejar el inicio de la descomposición de los cianógenos presentes en las raíces a partir del momento de su cosecha y toma de muestras para la determinación de cianuro. En otro estudio hallaron que el contenido de cianuro en las raíces frescas de yuca osciló entre 140 y 890 mg/kg MS. Sin embargo, la mayor parte de las variedades cultivadas contenían menos de 300 mg/kg (Gómez et al., 1984b).El cianuro además de ser tóxico para los humanos, lo es para la flora y la fauna acuáticas dado que actúa sobre los procesos respiratorios. Se trata de una toxina celular que se une de forma irreversible con el hierro férrico (Fe 3+ ) contenido en la citocromo oxidasa e inhibe el último paso de la fosforilación oxidativa mitocondrial (Cai, 2005). Hay que hacer notar su incidencia sobre los microorganismos descomponedores de la materia orgánica en los procesos biotecnológicos de depuración (Eisler, 1991).Una excelente revisión sobre el cianuro y sus efectos es la de Eisler (1991) y un resumen muy sintético desde el punto de vista toxicológico, aunque muy general pero más reciente, es el realizado por Cai (2005). El término \"cianuro\" incluye a todos los grupos CN en compuestos de cianuro que se puedan determinar cómo ión cianuro (CN -). Los compuestos de cianuro se pueden clasificar en simples y complejos. Los cianuros simples se representan con la formula: A (CN) n . Siendo \"A\" el catión, CN el anión y \"n\" el número de grupos CN necesarios para neutralizar la carga positiva de A.En las soluciones acuosas de cianuros alcalinos simples, el grupo CN está presente como CN y HCN molecular, en una relación que depende del pH y de la constante de disociación para el HCN molecular. El resto son los cianuros complejos, cuya toxicidad está generalmente relacionada con su capacidad de liberar iones cianuro a la solución, los cuáles entran en equilibrio con el HCN. Sus propiedades biocidas se ven significativamente afectadas por fluctuaciones relativamente pequeñas del pH.El término cianuro total, se refiere a todos los compuestos con cianuro, incluyendo a los cianuros simples y complejos, cianoglucósidos y al cianuro libre, y es una medida química del cianuro libre presente en una solución, liberado por acidificación o digestión. Sólo el cianuro libre es considerado como una expresión con significación biológica de la toxicidad por cianuros. En la mayoría de las circunstancias la concentración de cianuros totales puede exceder la del HCN. En aguas naturales la relación entre el cianuro total y el libre varía con las condiciones de recepción de la luz solar y por la presencia de otros compuestos químicos.En la Tabla 5 mostramos una relación de las concentraciones habituales de cianuro en aguas superficiales basándonos en la recapitulación realizada por Eisler (1991) según diferentes autores.Las fuentes de cianuro de origen antrópico son muy diversas e incluyen procesos industriales, laboratorios, fumigaciones, productos farmacéuticos, el humo de los cigarrillos, fuegos y la guerra química. Están presentes en muchas aguas residuales industriales, especialmente en las de tratamiento y acabado de metales, en las de manufactura de pinturas, aluminio y plásticos, en la gasificación del carbón, minería y refinerías de petróleo, entre otras (Eisler, 1991).Muchas formas del cianuro están presentes en el ambiente de forma natural: el cianuro libre, complejos cianurometálicos y los cianuros orgánicos sintéticos conocidos también como nitrilos. El cianuro libre (HCN y CN -) es el principal agente tóxico, sin reparar en su origen. Los cianuros están presentes en muchos vegetales en forma de glucósidos cianogénicos (GC). En la Figura 15 se muestra la estructura química de la linamarina y la lotoaustralina, dos de los GC presentes en la yuca.Sus nombres derivan de su presencia en Linus spp. o en Lotus spp., aunque también aparece en Trifolium spp. Otros GC son la aciapetalina (Acacia spp.), trigloquinina (Triglochin spp.), tetrafilina A y B (Tetrapathaea spp.), ginocardina (Gynochardia spp.), prunasina y amigdalina (Prunus spp.), taxifilina (Taxus spp.), etc. Según Vetter (2000) son por lo menos 2500 los taxones de reino vegetal conocidos por contener GC, muchos de ellos pertenecen a las familias Fabaceae, Rosaceae, Linaceae y Compositae, entre otras (Vetter, 2000). Algunos de importancia agrícola y que acumulan importantes cantidades de éstos GC, son el sorgo, el maíz, las semillas de la lima, el lino, los huesos de ciertas frutas (cerezas, albaricoque, melocotón), las arvejas, la linaza, las batatas, los tallos de bambú, el mijo, las almendras y la yuca. Muchas especies vegetales además de hongos, bacterias, algas y plantas superiores producen cianuro como producto metabólico (Eisler, 1991;Vetter, 2000).Tabla 5. Concentraciones de cianuro en aguas superficiales (Eisler, 1991). Una extensa variedad de bacterias y de hongos puede degradar los compuestos cianurados por lo que pueden ser usados en el tratamiento de desechos con cianuro (Towill et al., 1978). Por ejemplo, varias especies de hongos patógenos de plantas cianogénicas, pueden degradar el cianuro por hidratación a formamida; micelios secos de éstas especies son ahora comercializados para la detoxificación de cianuros en desechos industriales (Knowles, 1988). Bacterias y protozoos pueden degradar el cianuro para convertirlo en CO 2 y NH 3 . La cloración para potabilizar el agua puede convertirlos en cianatos (EPA, 1980); a pH alcalino se ve favorecida la oxidación por el cloro y a pH ácido, la volatilización del HCN hacia la atmósfera (EPA, 1980). En las aguas superficiales su persistencia es relativamente baja en condiciones normales, pero puede persistir por extensos periodos en las subterráneas. Los complejos fuertes solubles en agua, como los ferrocianuros, no liberan cianuro libre, salvo bajo la exposición a la luz ultravioleta. Así, la luz solar puede llevar a la formación de cianuro libre en vertidos que contengan complejos de Fe-CN (Way, 1981(Way, y 1984)).La cloración alcalina de aguas residuales es uno de los métodos de tratamiento de residuos cianurados más extensamente usado. En este proceso se forma cloruro de cianógeno (CNCI), el cuál a pH alcalino es hidrolizado a ión cianato (CON -); si el cloro libre está presente, el CONpuede además ser oxidado (Leduc et al. ,1982;Marrs y Ballantyne, 1985;Simovic y Snodgrass, 1985;Way, 1981). Otros métodos utilizados para el tratamiento de los residuos con cianuro incluyen la construcción de balsas para una degradación natural, la evapotranspiración, exposición a la radiación ultravioleta, tratamiento con aldehídos, ozonización, acidificación (volatilización), re neutralización, intercambio iónico, absorción con carbono activado, descomposición electrolítica, oxidación catalítica y tratamiento biológico con bacterias (Towill et al. ,1978;EPA, 1980;Way, 1981;Marrs y Ballantyne, 1987).En los suelos los cianuros raramente están en formas biodisponibles porque forman complejos con metales traza, son metabolizados por microorganismos o se pierden por volatilización. Al no ser fuertemente absorbidos o retenidos en los suelos es probable que se produzca su lixiviación hacia las aguas subterráneas. Bajo condiciones aeróbicas las sales de cianuro presentes en los suelos son degradadas microbiológicamente a nitritos o forman complejos con metales traza. En condiciones anaerobias se desnitrifican a compuestos nitrogenados gaseosos, los cuáles entran a la atmósfera. El cianuro rara vez persiste en las aguas superficiales y suelos, debido a la formación de complejos, sedimentación, metabolismo bacteriano y pérdida por volatilización. Las bacterias del suelo, no aclimatadas, son adversamente afectadas a concentraciones de HCN de 0,3 mg/kg; no obstante, las poblaciones aclimatadas pueden degradar desechos con un contenido de cianuro total superior a los 60 mg/kg. Las plantas superiores también pueden verse afectadas por el cianuro debido a la inhibición de la citocromo oxidasa. La razón de la producción y liberación de cianuro por las plantas hacia el medio luego de su muerte y descomposición es desconocida (Eisler, 1991).Tabla 6. Criterios propuestos para la protección de la biocenosis de ecosistemas acuáticos continentales (aguas dulces) frente al cianuro libre (HCN y CN-). Selección realizada a partir de la síntesis recopilatoria realizada por Eisler (1991). Los cianuros son absorbidos fácilmente por inhalación, ingestión o por contacto con la piel, siendo rápidamente distribuidos por todo el organismo vía sanguínea. El cianuro es un asfixiante potente y de acción rápida, induciendo anoxia tisular a través de la inactivación de la citocromo oxidasa, causando hipoxia citotóxica en presencia de oxigenación hemoglobínica normal. Los peces son los organismos más sensibles en pruebas realizadas bajo condiciones controladas. Se observan efectos adversos no letales significativos que incluyen limitaciones en la natación e inhibición de la reproducción a concentraciones de CN-de 5-7,2 μg/l; los efectos letales ocurren entre 20 μg/l y 76 μg/l. Existe información documental sobre efectos adversos no letales en invertebrados a concentraciones de 18-43 μg/l, mientras que los efectos letales se produjeron a 30-100 μg/l.Concentraciones de 3-7 μg/l ocasionaron muertes en el anf ípodo Gammarus pulex (Eisler, 1991).Sus efectos biocidas dependen de la dosis y de la exposición previa y son modificados por factores fisicoquímicos y bióticos.Entre los más significativos podemos nombrar los siguientes: pH, temperatura, OD en el agua, presencia de otras sustancias, el estadio de vital, la especie en cuestión y su estado de salud. Eisler (1991) también aporta una revisión acerca de los efectos toxicológicos del cianuro. Eisler (1991) apoyándose en diferentes fuentes, aporta recomendaciones y criterios para la protección de los recursos naturales y la salud pública, referidas a las concentraciones de cianuro libre (Tabla 6).La limnología referente a los ecosistemas tropicales es una ciencia relativamente nueva. En términos muy amplios la limnología es el estudio de la ecología de los ecosistemas acuáticos epicontinentales.El excelente y prolífico limnólogo R. G.   quien estructura la limnología como ciencia y a él se debe la fundación de la SIL, la creación de la revista especializada en publicaciones limnológicas (Archiv für Hydrobiologie), el desarrollo del microscopio invertido en colaboración con su discípulo Hans Uthermöhl y el perfeccionamiento de numerosas técnicas de análisis químico del agua con su discípulo Waldemar Ohle (Margalef, 1974(Margalef, y 1983;;Roldán, 1992).Los primeros antecedentes de los estudios sobre la contaminación de los sistemas acuáticos se remontan a principios del siglo pasado. Debido al incremento y concentración de la población en Europa y Estados Unidos comenzaron a notarse las consecuencias de la contaminación orgánica en ríos y lagos. Poco a poco se fue abandonando la idea de valorar la contaminación por medios exclusivamente químicos y se introdujeron parámetros bióticos para integrar mejor la complejidad de las perturbaciones. Ya en la primera década se publicaron trabajos sobre la ecología de los saprobios (Kolkwitz y Marsson, 1908y 1909).En los años 50 comenzó a difundirse la idea de la estructura de la comunidad como medida biocenótica mucho más integradora que las simples listas de especies y los índices derivados de la Teoría de la Información (Teoría Matemática de la Comunicación) se empiezan a emplear también en ecología (Fisher, 1943;Wiener, 1948;Shannon, 1949;Simpson, 1949y Brillouin, 1951;Margalef, 1968; entre otros).La mayoría de los autores tiende a recomendar la necesidad de intensificar los estudios que integren los factores fisicoquímicos, ambientales y bióticos. Lo ideal es considerar entre estos últimos a la mayor parte de los componentes de la comunidad elegida y las consiguientes respuestas a todos los niveles de organización: individual, poblacional, biocenótico y ecosistémico (Karr, 1991). Según Elorrieta (1981) solo así seremos capaces de comprender y predecir la fabulosa capacidad de auto organización de las biocenosis sometidas a una perturbación que siempre responden de la forma más eficaz posible para aprovechar la materia y la energía que entran en el río. Margalef (1983) dice que: \"toda ecología es incompleta, a veces irremediablemente incompleta, si no se toma en consideración a las regiones tropicales. En el caso de la limnología, cualquier tipología desarrollada con referencia a la región templada no puede pretender ser universal. Los organismos de las selvas tropicales son muchos más variados con representación de numerosos grupos que faltan en la zona templada.\"Para efectos de una localización geográfica, se entiende por neotrópico, la región americana comprendida entre el trópico de Cáncer en el norte y el trópico de Capricornio en el sur. En otros términos, es la región comprendida aproximadamente entre los 20 ° N y los 20 ° S. Se está hablando entonces de los países de Centro América hasta el norte de México y de Sur América hasta el norte de Argentina y Chile y un poco antes del extremo sur del Brasil (Roldán, 1992).Hasta hace cinco décadas los estudios limnológicos en Colombia eran casi inexistentes. El primer reporte limnológico para Colombia se debe a los trabajos realizados por el profesor Joaquín Molano Campuzano, quien por contrato con el Ministerio de Agricultura realizó una serie de observaciones y estudios de varias lagunas y ríos de Colombia. Sus estudios se centraron en mediciones fisicoquímicas del agua y en la observación del plancton (Molano, 1954).Luego Roberto Galán Ponce, profesor de la Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá) y quien fuera colaborador del profesor Joaquín Molano Campuzano, inició una serie de estudios centrados en el tratamiento biológico del agua y el conocimiento del fitoplancton en lagunas y ríos en los alrededores de Bogotá.En la Universidad de Antioquia (Medellín) se produce un fuerte impulso al estudio limnológico de los ríos y quebradas del Departamento de Antioquia con un énfasis especial en la fauna de los macroinvertebrados acuáticos. Cabe mencionar los trabajos de Roldán et al. (1973), Pérez y Roldán (1978), Roldán (1980), Ramírez (1981), Machado y Roldán (1981), Hernández y Moreno (1982), Álvarez y Roldán (1983), Bedoya y Roldán (1984) y Álzate (1985). En 1988 Roldán publica una guía taxonómica y ecológica sobre los macroinvertebrados acuáticos de Antioquia (Roldán, 1988).En el Departamento del Cauca han sido realizados algunos estudios centrados en algunos aspectos de la contaminación del agua:1) Niveles de contaminación producidos por las aguas residuales domésticas y sanitarias en el sector urbano del río Molino en la ciudad de Popayán (Zamora et al., 1981);2) Contaminación del río Ejido (Zamora et al., 1982);3) Microbiología del río Cauca entre el embalse de la Salvajina y el puente del Hormiguero en el Municipio de Suárez (Vásquez et al., 1990); 4) Estudio limnológico de la subcuenca del río Las Piedras en el Municipio de Popayán (Navarrete et al., 1993);5) Macroinvertebrados dulceacuícolas en los diferentes pisos altitudinales del Cauca (Zamora H., 1991(Zamora H., y 1993)); 6) Relaciones de similitud entre comunidades de macroinvertebrados dulceacuícolas de ecosistemas lóticos ubicados entre la Costa Pacífica Caucana y el Piedemonte Amazónico (Zamora H., 1995); 7) Descripción morfológica y taxonómica de una nueva especie de Anacroneuria (Zamora H. y Roessler, 1995); 8) Aspectos ecológicos de las comunidades de macroinvertebrados del Cauca (Zamora H., 1996); 9) Caracterización fisicoquímica y macroinvertebrados de ecosistemas dulceacuícolas del Parque Natural Nacional Isla de Gorgona (Vásquez et al., 1996); 10) Ciclo biológico y patrón de crecimiento de Anacroneuria caucana (Zamora H. y Roessler, 1997);11) Relaciones de similitud entre las comunidades de macroinvertebrados de ecosistemas lóticos de la Isla Gorgona, la vertiente pacífica caucana y el centro oriente del depto. del Cauca (Zamora H., 1997).12) Evaluación rápida de la calidad ambiental en ecosistemas lóticos mediante macroinvertebrados (Zamora H., 1998);13) Evaluación del efecto generado por la extracción de arena sobre la comunidad de MIB y la calidad fisicoquímica del agua en el río Los Robles (Castillo y Zamora, 1999);14) Evaluación de pesticidas organofosforados y macroinvertebrados bentónicos en el río Palacé (Rada et al., 1999).15) Efecto de las variaciones de caudales sobre las comunidades bentónicas de ríos y determinación del caudal ecológico (Vásquez et al., 2000);16) Adaptación para Colombia del índice BMWP para la evaluación biológica de la calidad de las aguas epicontinentales (Zamora H., 2000); 17) Calidad biológica de dos ecosistemas lóticos afectados por aguas residuales de rallanderías de yuca mediante la utilización de macroinvertebrados como bioindicadores (Zamora y Sarria, 2001).18) Análisis biogeográfico de los macroinvertebrados acuáticos epicontinentales (MAE) en el Departamento del Cauca (Zamora H., 2002).19) Biogeografía y relaciones de similitud entre las comunidades de macroinvertebrados acuáticos epicontinentales en un transecto Cauca-Meta (Serna y Zamora, 2003).20) Diversidad, similitud y carácter bioindicador de los macroinvertebrados acuáticos epicontinentales de tres ecosistemas lóticos en el Piedemonte Llanero (Longo et al., 2004).El índice BMWP y la evaluación biológica de la calidad del agua en los ecosistemas acuáticos epicontinentales naturales de Colombia (Zamora H., 2005).Como consecuencia de la degradación progresiva sufrida por los ecosistemas acuáticos epicontinentales desde la Revolución Industrial -al ser empleados como receptores de los vertidos de las actividades humanas-surge ya a finales del siglo XIX la necesidad de valorar la calidad de las aguas de ríos y lagos. Los primeros trabajos se centraron en las características fisicoquímicas del agua y ya a principios de siglo XX se propusieron metodologías biológicas. Debido al desarrollo científico de la Ecología a lo largo del siglo pasado y de su creciente influencia sobre la sociedad y entre las demás ciencias, hemos ido pasando de considerar la calidad del agua, a hablar de calidad biológica y finalmente de calidad o estado ecológico de los ecosistemas acuáticos sometidos a perturbaciones. Las últimas incorporaciones conceptuales y metodológicas se deben a la necesidad de incluir las características del hábitat fluvial y de la cuenca hidrográfica para obtener un diagnóstico completo y generar la información oportuna para identificar las causas de su degradación y proponer soluciones para la restauración ecológica (Mason, 1981;Margalef, 1983;Sheehan and Winner, 1984;Sheehan et al., 1984;Plafkin et al., 1989;NRC (U.S.), 1992;Ramade, 1995;Barbour et al., 1999).La caracterización de la estructura biocenótica de un ecosistema puede realizarse empíricamente utilizando listados de especies, identificando la presencia o ausencia de especies indicadoras cuyas características de tolerancia hayan sido establecidas mediante ensayos ecotoxicológicos, calculando índices bióticos de utilidad contrastada en casos de contaminación orgánica-y empleando los índices de diversidad derivados de la Teoría de la Información.Para la evaluación de la calidad de los ríos desde el punto de vista biológico se puede analizar en principio la estructura de cualquier asociación biótica supraindividual, calcular índices de diversidad homologables a índices de calidad, aplicar el concepto de bioindicación, o sometiendo a los organismos a ensayos de laboratorio (bioensayos), entre otras metodologías. Los grupos bióticos utilizados pueden ser bacterias, algas, macrófitos, protozoos, macroinvertebrados o peces; sin embargo lo más frecuente es la utilización de las comunidades de macroinvertebrados.Un excelente compendio metodológico sobre la evaluación biológica de los ríos es la segunda edición de los protocolos recogidos por Barbour et al. (1999) para la USEPA. En ellos se recomienda el empleo de tres tipos de taxocenosis -perifiton, macroinvertebrados y peces-además de aportar metodología para la evaluación del hábitat fluvial Si bien una evaluación completa requeriría el empleo de las tres taxocenosis y la evaluación del hábitat, los macroinvertebrados acuáticos por sí solos ya aportan un diagnóstico aceptable para muchas situaciones. Su máxima ventaja frente al resto es la manifiesta facilidad para obtener una información fiable a bajo costo y con rapidez acerca de las condiciones locales imperantes en la historia reciente del ecosistema, desde unas pocas semanas a varios meses (Marqués et al., 2003).El término macroinvertebrados es un concepto práctico en función del tamaño de los organismos, siendo considerado como tal la taxocenosis constituida por organismos visibles al ojo humano.Aunque no existe un rango fijo de tamaño suelen considerarse como tales los que no sean muy inferiores a 0,5 mm (hasta unos 0,25 mm) y que superen en la fase adulto o último estadio larvario los 2,5-3 mm. Comprenden fundamentalmente taxones como moluscos, turbelarios, oligoquetos, hirudíneos y crustáceos (anfípodos, isópodos y decápodos) y mayoritariamente insectos, entre los que se encuentran coleopteros, hemipteros, efemeropteros, plecopteros, odonatos, dipteros, megalopteros, lepidopteros, neuropteros y tricopteros.El origen evolutivo de la mayoría de los insectos acuáticos (especialmente Trichoptera, Plecoptera y Ephemeroptera) tuvo lugar en las cabeceras de ríos fríos con fondos pedregosos. Allí es donde se encuentra ahora la mayor diversidad de taxones y donde viven confinadas las familias más antiguas. Por el contrario los moluscos y crustáceos dulceacuícolas provienen de antepasados marinos que han colonizado los ríos y evolucionado en los mismos. Existen por tanto dos grandes tendencias opuestas de colonización evolutiva, una hacia aguas abajo protagonizada por los insectos acuáticos y otra hacia aguas arriba debida a moluscos y crustáceos (García de Jalón y González del Tánago, 1995).El término bentos o fauna bentónica se refiere a todos aquellos organismos que viven en el fondo de los ecosistemas acuáticos, sobre los sustratos sumergidos de lagos y ríos tales como rocas, troncos, piedras, plantas acuáticas, residuos de materia orgánica (fundamentalmente vegetal) o enterrados en fangos y limos. Algunos están adheridos al sustrato a través de ventosas como las sanguijuelas; otros mediante ganchos y uñas, como es el caso de la mayoría de los insectos y otros están pegados a las rocas mediante sustancias de secreción como muchos tricópteros constructores de casas. Algunas ninfas de efemerópteros hacen túneles en el fondo de sustratos blandos; ciertas larvas de odonatos, especialmente zigópteros se adhieren mediante sus uñas a la vegetación sumergida. Los turbelarios simplemente se pegan a la superficie del sustrato, ofreciendo de esta manera poca resistencia al paso del agua (Roldán, 1992).Según García de Jalón y González del Tánago (1995) el interés por los macroinvertebrados está justificado por tres razones:1) son un eslabón fundamental en las redes tróficas de los ecosistemas acuáticos ya que por su tamaño son alimento de peces, aves y anfibios;2) son componentes del ecosistema acuático, aportando diversidad y riqueza;3) son indicadores biológicos de la calidad del agua.El uso de los MIB para detectar perturbaciones en los ecosistemas acuáticos y controlar su evolución en el tiempo no es nuevo; hay numerosos trabajos al respecto que comienzan con el método de los saprobios de Kolkwitz y Marsson (Kolkwitz y Marsson, 1902, 1908y 1909;Richardson, 1928). Según Marqués et al. (2003) su efectividad ha sido suficientemente demostrada en artículos ya clásicos como los de Woodiwis (1964), Chandler (1970) o Hilsenhoff (1977).Una muestra de los diferentes usos y utilidades del empleo de esta taxocenosis en la evaluación de ecosistemas fluviales, así como de las diferentes metodologías empleadas y de las variadas aproximaciones existentes, son las publicaciones relacionadas a continuación: Krieger (1984), González et al. (1985), Bazzanti y Seminara (1987), Clements et al. (1988), Hilsenhoff (1988), Plafkin et al. (1989), Rovira (1991), Resh y Jackson (1993), Rovira (1993), Lenat y Barbour (1994), Hannaford y Resh (1995), Harris et al. (1995), Resh et al. (1995), van Hattum et al. (1996), Marqués (1998), Marqués et al. (2001Marqués et al. ( y 2003)). Especialmente en los últimos años vienen empleándose como una herramienta económica y eficaz en el seguimiento de la recuperación de ecosistemas fluviales sometidos a perturbaciones de muy diversa índole (Marqués et al., 2003).Su uso como indicadores se basa en que el hábitat bentónico que ocupan ya es de por sí un indicador ambiental al ser los sedimentos un compartimento ambiental sumidero de materia. Además la mayoría posee cortos ciclos vitales (1 o 2 años a lo sumo), pero lo suficientemente largos para permitirles integrar las alteraciones ecológicas ocurridas en la cuenca en la historia reciente. La información complementaria que aporta su estudio permite complementar la obtenida mediante la caracterización de la fisicoquímica del agua y superar así la limitación aportada por unas muestras de aguas tan concretas, puntuales e instantáneas. Los cambios ambientales se reflejarán en la estructura de la taxocenosis de MIB.Esta característica que indudablemente es una gran ventaja, se ha convertido en una aparente discordia al tratar de establecer comparaciones entre los resultados de los análisis fisicoquímicos y los índices de calidad biológica o los descriptores biocenóticos obtenidos de un mismo lugar y tiempo.Las discrepancias se presentan especialmente por el carácter instantáneo de una muestra de agua y su caracterización fisicoquímica y desaparecen cuando las perturbaciones son permanentes. De hecho se obtiene una información complementaria y relativa a un periodo de tiempo mayor, de ahí su utilidad.Los métodos biológicos basados en la presencia o ausencia de organismos en muchos casos con ciclos vitales anuales, como el BMWP' (Alba-Tercedor y Sánchez -Ortega, 1988), también han sido criticados. Si no se toman precauciones y se comparan resultados de diferentes momentos estacionales, es evidente que sobre todo en las regiones de más marcada estacionalidad, éstos pueden llegar a depender más de la etapa de desarrollo de la comunidad estudiada que de la calidad del agua. Zamora-Muñoz et al. (1995) demostraron que los resultados obtenidos mediante el correcto uso del índice biológico para España (BMWP') son independientes de la estacionalidad en las regiones templadas.En el neotrópico los ciclos de las diferentes poblaciones no están sincronizados, sino que por el contrario presentan períodos de emergencias continuos a lo largo del año (Roldán, 1980;Zamora, 1996). La alta diversidad en las aguas del neotrópico recoge también una amplia gama de grados de tolerancia frente a las perturbaciones.  (Armitage et al., 1983), consiste en la ordenación de los MIB al nivel taxonómico de familia, en diez grupos en una escala de mayor a menor tolerancia a las alteraciones de las condiciones naturales normales de los cuerpos de agua, asignándoles valores entre 1 a 10 puntos respectivamente. Posteriormente se realizó una primera adaptación de este sistema para la Península Ibérica (Alba-Tercedor y Jiménez-Millán, 1987).Debido a que el índice BMWP solo permitía obtener unas puntuaciones para comparar situaciones de calidad, pero no para emitir juicio respecto de la misma, se correlacionaron los valores del BMWP con cinco grados de contaminación, asignándoles una significación de la misma en cada caso (Alba-Tercedor y Sánchez -Ortega, 1988), posteriormente se presentó una actualización del sistema (Alba-Tercedor, 1996). Con motivo de los trabajos relativos a la aplicación de la Directiva Marco del Agua de la Unión Europea (DMA, Directiva 60/2000/CE) en España, se realiza el Proyecto GUADALMED, cuyos resultados se publican en el volumen 21 de la revista Limnetica (Armengol et al., 2002), dónde se indica que el índice pasa a denominarse IBMWP (Iberian Biomonitoring Working Party) y se presenta una amplia revisión acerca de su uso.Zamora (1999 y 2005) presenta una adecuación para Colombia del sistema BMWP teniendo como base estos trabajos y los realizados en Colombia sobre los MIB como bioindicadores de la calidad de las aguas epicontinentales (Roldán et al., 1973;Roldán, 1980;Bohórquez y Acuña, 1984;Zúñiga de Cardozo, 1985;Roldán, 1988;Zamora, 1991;Bohórquez et al., 1993;Zamora, 1993;Zúñiga de Cardozo, 1994;Zamora, 1995;Zamora-Muñoz et al., 1995;Roldán, 1996;Zamora, 1996;Zamora y Alba-Tercedor, 1996;Ortega, 1998;Reinoso, 1998;Zamora, 1998Zamora, y 1999;;Rada, 1999;Zamora y Sarria, 2001;Zamora, 2002y Roldán, 2003). En la Tabla 7 se muestran las seis clases de aguas con sus correspondientes rangos de puntuación obtenidos sumando las puntuaciones correspondientes a la presencia de cada familia de la Tabla 8. En esta, encontramos las agrupaciones de órdenes, familias y su respectiva puntuación que va de acuerdo con el carácter bioindicador, reportado en los estudios efectuados en Colombia ya citados.Tabla 7. Clases, rango de valores de puntuaciones, asignación de calidad y características para las aguas naturales clasificadas mediante el índice BMWP adaptado para Colombia por Zamora (1999y 2005).Los principales grupos que componen el macrobentos de los ecosistemas acuáticos estudiados en esta tesis corresponden a los de la fauna de los ríos y quebradas de la región caucana y en concreto a la de los pisos altitudinales del Municipio de Santander de Quilichao. Fundamentalmente se trata de artrópodos, anélidos, moluscos, nematodos y platelmintos. A continuación se hace una breve descripción de los grandes grupos que esperamos encontrar a priori, teniendo en cuenta su taxonomía, ecología y distribución en el neotrópico. Mientras no se indique una cita específica, la información subsiguiente está extraída de las referencias comentadas en el apartado 1,3 \"Antecedentes de la Limnología neotropical\" y de los textos generales de Limnología.Los turbelarios constituyen la clase de los Platelmintos cuyas formas son predominantemente de vida libre, son un grupo poco conocido en el neotrópico y por lo tanto no existen claves o guías para estos organismos en Suramérica. Al orden Tricladida, pertenecen las planarias, organismos ampliamente distribuidos en nuestro entorno. Las planarias presentan colores grises, pardos, amarillentos, blancos o negros y también presentan manchas de variados colores. La cavidad del cuerpo es típicamente gastrovascular y presenta una sola apertura que funciona como boca y ano a la vez; son carnívoros, pero también se alimentan de animales muertos y de algas, en menor proporción; su cuerpo está cubierto de una mucosidad secretada por glándulas subepidérmicas.Los tricládidos son fuente de alimento para las ninfas de odonatos y otros insectos acuáticos, nemátodos, anélidos y algunos crustáceos; viven debajo de piedras, troncos, ramas, hojas y sustratos similares, en aguas poco profundas, tanto corrientes como estancadas; la mayoría vive en aguas bien oxigenadas. , pero algunas especies pueden resistir en zonas de alta contaminación de origen orgánico como Dugesia en el río Rionegro (Pérez y Roldán, 1978). Para el neotrópico se han reportado cerca de 17 especies de planarias, la mayoría del género Dugesia (Familia Planariidae), considerándose ésta la de mayor distribución en nuestro entorno (Ball, 1980).  (Rovira, com. pers.;Rovira, 1993;Marqués et al., 2003). Los tubifícidos viven enterrados en el sustrato fangoso del que obtienen su alimento, mientras que sacan la parte distal de su cuerpo y la baten para respirar; los Haplotixidae son en parte terrestres y en parte limícolas y son los oligoquetos más primitivos; los Glossoscolecidae, ampliamente distribuidos en América Tropical, viven sobre todo en ríos, quebradas, lagos y en otros cuerpos de agua dulce e incluso en suelos húmedos.• Clase Hirudinea. Son las sanguijuelas; tienen tamaños que varían entre 5 mm y 45 cm de longitud (Pennak, 1978) Phylum Mollusca.Se divide en gasterópodos y bivalvos.• Clase Gastropoda. La mayoría son herbívoros, se alimentan de algas y residuos vegetales; sirven de alimento principalmente a peces, patos, anfibios y aves; pueden ser atacados por sanguijuelas y larvas de hemípteros, coleópteros y odonatos. Su sangre es bombeada por un corazón y poseen un compuesto a base de cobre que transporta el oxígeno (Roldán, 1996). Existen individuos hermafroditas, pero en otros los sexos están separados; los huevos son depositados en masas gelatinosas sobre rocas, palos y hojas; su número varía con la especie, lo mismo que su tamaño que puede ser entre 2 y 70 mm; su período de vida varía entre 9 y 15 meses (Pennak, 1978). Viven por lo regular en aguas duras y alcalinas, con abundante materia orgánica en descomposición; abundan en lagos, ríos y en plantas de tratamiento de aguas residuales, como sucede con el género Physa que puede sobrevivir en lugares con vegetación acuática y restos orgánicos. En Suramérica se ha reportado una amplia distribución para las familias Neritidae, Melaniidae, Chilinidae, Lymnacidae, Physidae, Ancylidae y Planorbidae (Paraense, 1981).  (Roldán, 1992).Es el grupo más extenso y abundante de macroinvertebrados acuáticos con tres clases: Crustacea, Insecta y Arachnoidea.  (Roldán, 1992).o Orden Odonata. Ponen sus huevos sobre la vegetación flotante o emergente y eclosionan entre 5 y 40 días después; la mayoría de las especies neotropicales completan su desarrollo larval entre 100 y 200 días (Corbet, 1980). Viven en corrientes lentas y poco profundas, pero también pueden encontrarse en pozos, pantanos y en márgenes de lagos de aguas limpias o ligeramente eutróficas. Son en general grandes depredadores y resistentes a la contaminación orgánica (Arango y Roldán, 1983). Solo 4 familias son exclusivamente neotropicales:Heliochoritidae, Perilestidae, Polythoridae y Pseudostigmatidae. Libellulidae presenta una amplia distribución, con sus géneros: Brechmorhoga, Dythemis, Erythemis, Erythrodiplax, Micrathyria, Myathyria, Orthemis, Pantala y Perithemis. Otras familias comunes son: Aeshidae, Calopterygidae, Coenagrionidae, Gomphidae y Lestidae (Roldán, 1992).o Orden Plecoptera. Su tamaño varía entre 10 y 30 mm; Son de color negro, café oscuro, pardo o amarillo pálido; poseen largas antenas, branquias torácicas ventrales y a veces anales. Ponen los huevos sobre el agua, durante el vuelo; la eclosión y la emergencia de las ninfas no es bien conocida en los trópicos. Viven en aguas de corrientes fuertes y bien oxigenadas, bajo las piedras, troncos, ramas y hojas. En el neotrópico, la familia predominante es Perlidae con su género Anacroneuria (Zamora y Roessler, 1995. Roldan,1992).o Orden Neuroptera (Megaloptera). Comprende solo dos familias Sialidae y Corydalidae; esta última es la de más amplia distribución en el neotrópico y su tamaño varía de 10 a 70 mm; el género Corydalus representa una de las larvas más grandes que se encuentran en el agua; de coloración oscura, poseen un par de mandíbulas fuertes y grandes y un par de propatas anales que las diferencian de la otra familia. Viven en aguas corrientes limpias, debajo de troncos, vegetación sumergida y de piedras; son grandes depredadores y los pescadores lo usan como carnada para la pesca. Se pueden considerar indicadores de aguas oligotróficas o levemente mesotróficas (Roldán, 1992).o Orden Hemiptera (Heteroptera). Poseen un pico chupador insertado cerca del extremo anterior de la cabeza, lo que les permite ser grandes depredadores de otros insectos acuáticos.Las alas posteriores son totalmente membranosas, en cambio las anteriores son de consistencia dura en su posición basal; existe polimorfismo alar en la mayoría de las familias y es frecuente encontrar dentro de una misma especie individuos macrópteros, braquípteros y ápteros. Realizan la puesta sobre el sustrato, plantas, suelo o sobre el dorso de los machos (Belostoma). Viven en remansos de ríos y quebradas y en ecosistemas leníticos con abundante vegetación; pocos resisten las corrientes fuertes. Algunas especies resisten cierto grado de salinidad y las elevadas temperaturas de aguas termales. Las especies más grandes pueden incluso alimentarse de pequeños peces y crustáceos. estableció un Plan de Acción para trabajar con los municipios e industrias que producen mayor contaminación en las fuentes de aguas, seleccionando 17 municipios de la Cuenca del río Cauca. Se desarrolló la siguiente metodología para llegar a la concertación de metas de reducción de aguas residuales:1) Divulgación del Decreto 901;2) Inventario de usuarios y cargas contaminantes;3) Diagnóstico de cargas contaminantes;4) Definición de subcuencas y tramos;5) Organización de las mesas de concertación;6) Proceso de concertación en mesas.Es en este marco de acción que esta Tesis Doctoral juega un papel muy importante para la caracterización de la agroindustria del almidón de yuca y de sus aguas residuales en el municipio de Santander de Quilichao.El interés que suscitó este estudio determinó que varias instituciones académicas y regionales se comprometieran apoyarlo. La Alcaldía Municipal de Santander de Quilichao y la Corporación Autónoma Regional del Cauca (CRC) destinaron recursos de su presupuesto para su realización. En los laboratorios de aguas de esta última institución además se realizaron los análisis fisicoquímicos y en su departamento SIG (Sistema de Información Geográfica) la localización de las rallanderías en el mapa del municipio. En la Universidad del Valle se hicieron algunos análisis químicos y en la Universidad del Cauca se clasificaron y determinaron los macroinvertebrados y la vegetación. En los laboratorios del Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) se determinaron los contenidos de CN total en las raíces de yuca y con sus recursos fue posible la filmación de la zona de estudio.También colaboraron en la encuesta y la localización de las rallanderías, como también lo hizo CORPOTUNIA (Corporación para el Desarrollo de Tunia).Los objetivos que nos propusimos al realizar esta Tesis Doctoral son los siguientes: caracterizar los vertidos líquidos de las rallanderías de yuca existentes en el municipio de Santander de Quilichao (Cauca, Colombia) que estén dedicadas a la producción de almidón agrio de yuca, prestando especial atención a su contenido en cianuro, para así poder:1) valorar el impacto que dichos vertidos pudieran tener sobre los ecosistemas acuáticos receptores (las quebradas);2) proponer mejoras en las prácticas de gestión de la agroindustria del almidón de yuca para integrarlas en un programa para el desarrollo sostenible del municipio; y3) conseguir la información ambiental necesaria para sentar las bases para una rehabilitación ecológica de los ecosistemas acuáticos del Municipio de Santander de Quilichao.La zona de estudio se encuentra localizada en el Municipio de Santander de Quilichao, Departamento del Cauca, Colombia. Este Departamento está en la zona sur occidental del país en plena cordillera Andina y el municipio al norte del mismo (Fig. 16).    La cordillera oriental es la más extensa de las tres cordilleras con 1200 km de curso, la más joven geológicamente y la más ancha. Se inicia en el Macizo Colombiano y termina en La Guajira.Destacan en esta cordillera también llamada de Sumapaz, el altiplano cundiboyacense, así como el nudo de Santurbán (3709 m), donde se bifurca para dar origen a la sierra de Los Motilones o de Perijá, a la serranía de Valledupar y a los montes de Oca, al occidente; la rama oriental penetra luego en Venezuela, donde se denomina cordillera de Mérida. Sus accidentes principales, fuera de los ya nombrados, son los picos de la Fragua, el cerro Miraflores, el nevado de Sumapaz (3820 m) y los páramos de Pisba (3900 m), Boquerón de Chipaque (3223 m) y Sierra Nevada del Cocuy (5493 m), su máxima altura. En los departamentos de Cundinamarca, Boyacá y Santander adquiere su mayor anchura (300 km).El relieve hace que los ríos de Colombia corran en distintas direcciones: unos hacia el Pacífico, otros hacia el Caribe y algunos pocos hacia el golfo de Maracaibo, en Venezuela (Fig. 18). Esta distribución permite distinguir en Colombia cuatro vertientes: océano Pacífico, mar Caribe, río Orinoco y río Amazonas (García, 2003).La vertiente del mar Caribe es la más importante de Colombia en el aspecto económico. Esto se debe a lo dilatado del curso de los ríos que la integran, lo cual ha facilitado las comunicaciones entre la costa y buena parte del interior y a la generación de energía eléctrica en su parte alta. Está El río Quinamayó afluente directo del Cauca, nace a 2600 msnm, en el cerro Munchique (cordillera Central) entre las veredas Páez y Cóndor del municipio de Santander de Quilichao (Fig. 19). En este mismo cerro nacen sus afluentes el río Quilichao y el Páez (como también el río Sondoco que lo es del río Mondomo). Otros afluentes importantes son el río Japio, y el Mandivá; a este le vierte la quebrada La Chapa (una de las cuencas objeto de nuestro estudio) a la cual le aportan aguas las quebradas La Agustina, La Cascada, Quimbas, Chontaduro y Abejonales. La cuenca hidrográfica tiene una extensión de 27300 ha y se encuentra dentro del municipio de Santander de Quilichao.El río Mondomo que se une con el río Ovejas antes de caer en el río Cauca nace en las estribaciones de la cordillera Central, a 3000 msnm (Fig. 20). La cuenca que presenta pendientes entre el 50% y el 100% tiene forma triangular, un eje longitudinal de dirección oriente a occidente y un drenaje de tipo dendrítico. Tiene una extensión de 25416 ha repartidas entre los municipios de Santander de Quilichao y Caldono. Recibe las aguas de la quebrada Tiembla (otra de las cuencas objeto de nuestro estudio) que a su vez recoge las de Mestizal, Loma gorda, Santa Bárbara, Las Moradas y San Pablo.La vegetación de las dos subcuencas está constituida por bosques de galería y frecuentes y pequeñas manchas de bosque natural, que está degradado en la parte alta y presenta un gran índice de degradación en la baja. La producción agropecuaria está distribuida en forma regular.Encontramos en la parte alta ganado vacuno de leche, cultivos de fique (Furcrae macrophyla) y frutales como mora (Chlorophora tinctoria, L. Gaudi; Moraceae), mora silvestre (Rubus urticaefolius, En la subcuenca del río Mondomo y Quinamayó se presentan dos unidades climáticas, la \"Tierra templada y la moderadamente fría\". La \"Tierra templada\" se sitúa entre los 1300 m y los 2000 m de altitud y recibe una precipitación de 1931 mm/año (Tabla 7 y Fig. 21). Presenta una estación seca entre los meses de Junio y Septiembre y una estación lluviosa de Septiembre a Diciembre, que a veces se extiende a Enero, mermando un poco en Febrero e iniciando un nuevo periodo de lluvias que va de Marzo hasta Mayo con temperaturas medias de 18 ° C Esta zona de vida corresponde a un bosque húmedo premontano (bmh-PM), según el sistema de Holdridge (1978). La \"Tierra moderadamente fría\" que se ubica en la parte media de la cordillera central, es húmeda y presenta altitudes entre los 2000 y 3000 msnm, una precipitación alrededor de 1979 mm/año, con una época seca de Junio a Agosto y estación lluviosa el resto del año; las temperaturas medias oscilan entre 12 ° C y 16 ° C. Se corresponde con un bosque húmedo montano (bh-MB).  Tmax-min=Temperatura máxima y mínima (°C), Ts07, Ts13 y Ts19=Temperatura de bulbo seco a las 7,13 y 19 h (°C), Th07,Th13 y Th19=Temperatura de bulbo húmedo a las 7, 13 y 19 h (°C), Hr07, Hr13 y Hr19 =Humedad relativa a las 7, 13 y 19 h (%),Hrmi=Humedad relativa mínima (%),Pv07=Presión de vapor a las 7 h; Pv-prom=Presión de vapor promedio; Rad=Radiación solar (MJ/m2-día), Bsef12=Brillo solar efectivo de las 6 a las 12 h, Bsef18=Brillo solar efectivo de las 12 a las 18 h Bseftot=Brillo solar efectivo total, Bsrel12=Brillo solar relativo de las 6 a las 12 h (%),Bsrel18=Brillo solar relativo de las 12 a las 18Bsreltot=Brillo solar relativo total (%); Pre13= Precipitación entre las 7 y las 13 h (mm), Pre19=precipitación de las 13 a las 19 h (mm), Pre07=Precipitación de las 19 a las 7h (mm), Pretot=Precipitación total (mm), Evpo=Evaporación potencial (mm), Vvie=Velocidad del viento a 2 metros de altura (km/día).En la zona encontramos seis unidades geomorfológicas distintas: Unidad Mondomo, Unidad Quinamayó, Unidad Mandivá, Unidad San Isidro, Unidad Catalina y Unidad Buenos Aires. La principal es la unidad Mondomo que ocupa una extensa zona del Municipio de Santander de Quilichao, especialmente en los alrededores del corregimiento de Mondomo y, en menor proporción, en los municipios de Caldono y Caloto. Son suelos constituidos por arcilla provenientes de basaltos que en principio fueron cubiertos por capas de ceniza volcánica de poco espesor, presentando en la actualidad un avanzado estado de erosión, cuyas causas han sido las siguientes:1) Sometimiento indiscriminado y prolongado al cultivo de la yuca;2) Presencia de vientos calientes que ascienden desde el río Cauca por los cañones de los ríos Quinamayó y Mondomo;3) Precipitación con alta intensidad; y 4) Exposición de las arcillas a los agentes temperantes.En el extremo norte, correspondiente a las zonas más bajas, se encuentran algunos materiales finos de origen lacustre, sobre los cuales se originan los suelos. En las partes altas y estables predominan los suelos derivados de la ceniza volcánica. Su geomorfología corresponde a la del altiplano de Popayán, caracterizado por un sistema de colinas moldeadas en su mayoría por la acumulación de cenizas volcánicas. Este sistema ha sido intensamente disectado por la escorrentía concentrada con formación de cauces naturales y, en ocasiones, por pequeños valles aluviales. En las áreas cercanas a los taludes y escarpes de las disecciones se presenta un proceso erosivo más dinámico. En estos sitios son frecuentes las cárcavas y se hace más notoria la erosión remontante (IGAC, 1979;IGAC, 1995). En términos generales, son suelos superficiales o poco profundos, arcillosos y moderadamente drenados, pobres en materia orgánica, con baja saturación de bases, bajo nivel de fertilidad y alta saturación de aluminio, que puede llegar a ser tóxico (Tabla 8). Igualmente se puede identificar concreciones de hierro y magnesio.Se trata de suelos susceptibles a la erosión hídrica, principalmente por escorrentía superficial.Predominan las arcillas de tipo caoliníticas, que son fijadoras de fósforo, lo cual impide que este sea utilizado por las plantas. La fertilidad se ve igualmente afectada por el bajo contenido de materia orgánica y su inestabilidad lo que no garantiza el suministro normal de nitrógeno. Estos suelos también presentan deficiencias en oligoelementos, principalmente hierro, boro, cobre, zinc. Todo ello y en las condiciones climáticas adversas los convierte en muy poco productivos. Por sus características físicas, químicas y climáticas, así como por su alta susceptibilidad a la erosión, son suelos muy limitados para el uso agrícola. Un uso racional debería orientarse hacia la reforestación proteccionista o al establecimiento de praderas con pastos tolerantes a las condiciones del suelo, como los del género Brachiaria, asociados con especies arbóreas forrajeras (FNC, 1994).Como puede observarse en la Tabla 9, los pastos naturales son el uso dominante, pero también es importante la cobertura de cultivos limpios y semilimpios. En la actualidad en terrenos con mucha pendiente (más del 30%), se ubican 2500 ha de yuca cultivo que constituye el renglón principal de producción de estas regiones. La ganadería que es otra actividad productiva importante y carece de tecnología de manejo es otro factor de degradación del suelo para las dos subcuencas.Hay que tener en cuenta que el sobre pastoreo agota los pastos y compacta los suelos, acentuando la escorrentía y produciendo erosión.Tabla 10. Características de los suelos de la Asociación Quinamayó y Mondomo (CIAT, 1999).Unidad El 45 % de las 3400 ha de bosque natural (las mejor conservadas) se encuentran en la región indígena; el resto son pequeñas manchas dispersas y sometidas a una presión permanente como fuente de leña. La deforestación junto con la roza y la quema, son otros factores de degradación.Como consecuencia de todas estas situaciones se produce un constante y alto aporte de sedimentos a los ríos Mondomo y Ovejas, que produce frecuentes daños a los acueductos de la subcuenca. Los procesos erosivos originados por el sobre uso del suelo ocasionan daños en las conducciones de agua y sobre todo, incrementan la cantidad de sedimentos disueltos en el agua, disminuyendo la calidad y la productividad biológica, así como la pérdida de calidad de las aguas para uso doméstico e industrial. La capa fértil del suelo se pierde y en general se producen todo tipo de alteraciones del régimen hidrológico de la cuenca.Desde el punto de vista agropecuario es preocupante la cantidad de suelo que se pierde en ambas subcuencas por la escorrentía debida a las altas precipitaciones (Tabla 10). También son significativos los daños causados por los sedimentos que al contaminar las aguas, colmatar los cauces y los ríos, dañar o simplemente sepultar terrenos productivos. Las zonas no erosionadas corresponden a las llanuras aluviales de los ríos y quebradas donde predomina el proceso de acumulación.La subcuenca del río Quinamayó tiene pendientes que van desde 0 a 12 % en la parte baja a 1000 msnm; de 12-25 % y de 25-50 % en las colinas de poca elevación; de 50-75 % y mayor de 75 % en las partes altas donde nacen ríos y quebradas. Los suelos de esta subcuenca son de origen ígneo sedimentario con aportes de ceniza volcánica. Son suelos aptos para los cultivos de frutal y café. En la parte alta alrededor del cerro Munchique encontramos la Unidad Mandivá (arcillolitas) con pendientes desde 50% hasta de más del 75 %, esta misma unidad aparece en la parte baja, plana y de colinas que rodea el área urbana de la cabecera municipal de Santander de Quilichao, con pendientes que van desde 0-12 % (parte plana) y de 25-50 % en las colinas.Tabla 12. Datos de precipitación diaria mensual en 1999 de la Estación Mondomo, ubicada a un lado del puente de la carretera Panamericana, kilómetro 55,7 de la vía Popayán-Cali. Elevación: 1360 msnm, Latitud: 02° 54' N, Longitud: 76° 36'. Fuente: Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales (IDEAM). Los trabajos realizados van a ser expuestos agrupados en dos grandes bloques: el primero consiste en el estudio centrado en la caracterización de las rallanderías de yuca (RALL) de Santander de Quilichao y sus vertidos (Experimento A) y el segundo trata de la valoración del impacto de dichos vertidos sobre los ecosistemas acuáticos receptores (Experimento B). Primero presentaremos aquellos aspectos metodológicos comunes a ambos experimentos: los métodos analíticos relativos a los parámetros fisicoquímicos y de contaminación de las aguas y posteriormente los materiales y métodos específicos de cada experimento. Influye en la solubilidad de las sales y sobre todo de los gases y en la disociación de las sales disueltas y por lo tanto en la conductividad eléctrica y pH del agua. Existe una estrecha relación entre la densidad del agua y su temperatura, por lo que cualquier alteración de ésta modifica los movimientos de mezcla de diferentes masas de agua. La temperatura del agua se midió con termómetro centígrado con base en un sensor de Pt, con equipos WTW y HORIBA U-10.A una temperatura determinada la intensidad del carácter ácido o básico de una muestra viene dada por la actividad del ión hidrógeno o pH. El uso del término pH supone que se está considerando la actividad del ión hidrógeno. El valor del pH de una solución muy diluida es aproximadamente el mismo que el logaritmo común negativo de la concentración del ión hidrógeno. El principio básico de la determinación electrométrica del pH es la medida de la actividad de los iones hidrógeno por mediciones potenciométricas, utilizando un electrodo patrón de hidrógeno y otro de referencia. El pH se midió in situ por método potenciométrico con electrodo de vidrio, mediante equipos WTW y HORIBA U-10.Es una expresión numérica de la capacidad de una muestra para transportar una corriente eléctrica.Esta capacidad depende de la presencia de iones, de su concentración total, de su movilidad, valencia y concentraciones relativas, así como de la temperatura. Las sales minerales son buenas conductoras, mientras que la materia orgánica y la coloidal tienen escasa conductividad. La conductividad fue medida con método potenciométrico, mediante conductímetro WTW-320 y Horiba U-10, con celda de electrodos no platinizados y expresada en µS/cm.Este análisis es una prueba clave en la contaminación y control del proceso de tratamiento de aguas residuales (AR). Existen dos métodos para análisis de OD: el de Winkler o yodométrico y sus modificaciones, y el electrométrico que utiliza electrodos de membrana. El primero, que fue realizado en el laboratorio para chequear los resultados tomados in situ, es un procedimiento titulo métrico basado en la propiedad oxidante del OD, mientras que el del electrodo de membranas se basa en la tasa de difusión del oxígeno molecular a través de una membrana. Como la solubilidad del oxígeno en agua aumenta a medida que disminuye la temperatura, el porcentaje de saturación óptimo de una corriente de agua requiere más oxígeno a mayor temperatura y menos a temperaturas más bajas.Una bajada de la temperatura desde 25 o C hasta 0 o C puede aumentar la solubilidad del OD cerca de un 40%. Esta característica es muy importante porque valores iguales de OD tienen un significado distinto dependiendo de la altitud (presión barométrica) y de la temperatura.El valor de %SAT ideal para cada altitud y temperatura es el del 100%; por debajo se dice que el agua está subsaturada y por encima sobresaturada de OD. El OD fue medido in situ por el método de electrodo de membrana con equipos Horiba U-10 y HACH y expresado en mg/l.Es la expresión que se aplica a los residuos de material que quedan en un recipiente después de la evaporación de una muestra y su consecutivo secado en estufa a temperatura definida. Los sólidos totales incluyen los sólidos totales suspendidos, o porción de sólidos totales retenida por un filtro, y los sólidos disueltos totales o porción que atraviesa el filtro. Los residuos secados a 103-105 o C pueden conservar agua de cristalización y algo de agua ocluida, y como resultado de la conversión del bicarbonato en carbonato habrá una pérdida de CO 2 . También habrá una pérdida de materia orgánica por volatilización, pero que será por lo general muy ligera.Se procede como sigue:1) Se utiliza un vaso de precipitado de cuello alto que se calcina por 1 h, se seca y se enfría en un desecador y luego se pesa;2) Se agita la muestra y se ajusta a pH > 4.3;3) Se toma una alícuota de 100 ml, se deposita en el vaso de precipitado ya calcinado y se pone en placa de evaporación a 93 o C por 5 h; 4) Finalmente se seca en estufa a 103-105 o C por 2 h, se enfría en desecador por 3 h y luego se pesa hasta obtener peso constante;5) Los ST fueron expresados en mg/l.Muchos procesos industriales y agroindustriales vierten grandes cantidades de partículas sólidas que según la velocidad del agua y su régimen turbulento pueden sedimentar o permanecer en suspensión dependiendo de su densidad y tamaño. Su presencia puede influir adversamente en las quebradas receptoras ya que estas partículas obstruyen el paso de la luz solar y por lo tanto disminuyen la actividad fotosintética de las plantas acuáticas, favoreciendo la disminución de la concentración de OD. Cantidades excesivas pueden llegar a inducir la creación de un estado anaerobio indeseable. El tipo de soporte del filtro, el tamaño del poro, la porosidad, el área y el espesor del filtro, así como la naturaleza física y el tamaño de las partículas y la cantidad de material depositado en el filtro son los factores principales que afectan a la separación de los sólidos suspendidos y los disueltos.Se procede como sigue:1) Preparación del filtro. Se inserta filtro de fibra de vidrio en un crisol Gooch, se le aplica vacío para filtrar hasta sequedad, agua destilada en 3 porciones de 20 ml c/u y se deja secar a 103-105 oC por 1h; finalmente se deja enfriar en desecador y se pesa hasta peso constante;2) Análisis de muestra. Mientras se agita la muestra con agitador magnético, se inserta el filtro ya preparado en el crisol Gooch, se humedece el filtro con agua destilada y se aplica el vacío; entonces se toma una alícuota de la muestra en pipeta de punta ancha (14 ml/cm de superficie filtrante) y se filtra, junto con 3 porciones de 10 ml de agua destilada, resultado de limpiar la pipeta;3) Determinación de SST. El filtro con residuo húmedo se seca 1 h a 103-105 oC, se deja enfriar en desecador y se pesa a peso constante;4) Los SST fueron expresados en mg/l.La DBO 5 se ha realizado por el método respirométrico según métodos estándar de APHA-AWWA-WEF (1995) con el equipo WTW-MERCK-OXITOP, R-12. En este método la manipulación de la muestra es mínima y el oxígeno consumido por los microorganismos proviene del intercambio de la muestra líquida con el aire en contacto con ella. La muestra se ubica dentro de la botella y por medio de una agitación el oxígeno presente en la cámara de aire se disuelve en el líquido. Los microorganismos consumen este oxígeno durante el proceso de degradación de la materia orgánica produciendo CO 2 y agua. El CO 2 es absorbido en el beaker de caucho que contiene hidróxido de sodio o litio, produciendo un vacío en la botella que es medido directamente por el sensor OXITOP, el cual registra electrónicamente la presión negativa dentro de la botella mostrando un resultado en forma digital.Se utiliza como una medida del equivalente de oxígeno del contenido de materia orgánica de una muestra susceptible de oxidación por un oxidante químico fuerte. La oxidación de la mayoría de los compuestos orgánicos es del 95 % al 100 % del valor teórico. La piridina y los compuestos relacionados con ella resisten la oxidación y los compuestos orgánicos volátiles sólo son oxidados en la medida en que permanecen en contacto con el oxidante. El amoníaco presente en la materia orgánica que contiene nitrógeno, o liberado desde ella, no es oxidado en ausencia de una concentración significativa de iones cloruro libres. Para la determinación de este parámetro se empleó el método de reflujo cerrado y colorimetría, donde el consumo de oxígeno se mide con un espectrofotómetro SQ-118-MERCK (Darmstadt, Germany) frente a estándares control y a una longitud de onda determinada:1) λ = 445 nm, para DQO = 10-500 mg/l; y2) λ = 585 nm para DQO = 500-10000 mg/l.Como la mayoría de los cianuros son muy reactivos e inestables se procuró analizar las muestras lo antes posible y por precaución, para conservarlas se añadió una solución concentrada de NaOH para subir el pH hasta 12-12,5. Las muestras se guardaron inmediatamente en nevera a 4º C. La concentración de cianuro se determinó siguiendo el método colorimétrico normalizado 4500-CN de la APHA-AWWA-WPCF (1992). El cianuro de hidrógeno (HCN) es liberado a partir de una muestra acidificada, por destilación y purga con aire. El gas HCN se recoge pasándolo a través de una solución depuradora de NaOH. En el destilado alcalino obtenido en el tratamiento previo, el CN se convierte en CNCl por reacción con cloramina-T a pH< 8 sin hidrolizarse a CON. Cuando ha terminado la reacción, el CNCl forma un tinte rojo-azul al añadir reactivo de piridina-ácido barbitúrico.Si el colorante se mantiene en solución acuosa, se lee la absorbancia a 578 nm. Para obtener colores de intensidad comparable, la muestra y los patrones deben tener el mismo contenido en sal.La determinación de nitrato (NO 3 -) es difícil debido a los procedimientos relativamente complejos que se precisan, la elevada probabilidad de que se hallen sustancias interferentes y los rangos limitados de concentración de las diferentes técnicas. La presencia de NO 3 en aguas proviene de la disolución de rocas y minerales, de la descomposición de materias vegetales y animales y de vertidos industriales y agroindustriales. No debe descartarse la contribución proveniente del lavado de tierras de labor en donde se utiliza profusamente como componente de fertilizantes. En aguas naturales de superficie los niveles no suelen exceder de 10 mg/l y con frecuencia no pasan de 1 mg/l. Es un nutriente limitante para muchos autótrofos fotosintéticos. Las muestras se filtraron previamente por filtro de membrana de 0,45 µm de diámetro de poro. La determinación de nitrato se realizó según los métodos fotométricos normalizados Spectroquant® de Merck con un espectrofotómetro SQ-118-MERCK. La absorbancia se midió a λ = 515 nm. (Merck, 2003).El nitrito (NO 2 -) es un estado intermedio y tóxico del proceso de oxidación del N, tanto en la oxidación del amoníaco a nitrato como en la reducción del nitrato. Esa oxidación puede ocurrir en las plantas de tratamiento de AR, los sistemas de distribución del agua y en las aguas naturales. En aguas superficiales bien oxigenadas, el nivel de nitrito no supera 0.1 mg/L; en ríos con urbanas, industriales o agroindustriales se pueden llegar a alcanzar niveles mucho más altos. Las muestras se filtraron previamente por filtro de membrana de 0,45 µm de diámetro de poro. La determinación de nitrito se realizó según los métodos fotométricos normalizados para Spectroquant® de Merck con un espectrofotómetro SQ-118-MERCK (Darmstadt, Germany).El amoníaco que se encuentra de forma natural en las aguas superficiales y residuales se produce en gran parte por desanimación de los compuestos orgánicos nitrogenados y por hidrólisis de la urea. El amonio es el producto final de la reducción de sustancias orgánicas e inorgánicas ricas en nitrógeno por putrefacción de proteínas y aminoácidos, por la reducción bacteriana del nitrito, también puede originarse por hidrogenación del N 2 atmosférico fijado por microorganismos. En medio oxidante el amonio se oxida a NO 2 por acción de bacterias nitrificantes del género Nitrosomonas. El agua de lluvia, debido a la disolución del nitrógeno de la atmósfera, puede presentar algunas trazas de amonio. Las aguas superficiales bien aireadas generalmente contienen poco (NH 3 ); aguas poco contaminadas de cauces naturales no suelen presentar más de 0.1 mg/l. Las aguas con vertidos residuales domésticos tienen concentraciones mayores (> 4 mg/l). El amonio se determinó según los métodos fotométricos normalizados Spectroquant® de Merck con un espectrofotómetro SQ-118-MERCK (Darmstadt, Germany). Se empleó una adaptación al método de la sal de fenol, donde su principio consiste en la reacción del amoníaco, hipoclorito y fenol, catalizada por una sal manganosa hasta formar un compuesto azul intenso, el indofenol. La absorbancia se midió a λ = 540 nm.La CC o Carga Combinada es una medida cuantitativa del poder contaminante de un vertido. Este parámetro se ha utilizado principalmente como referencia para establecer límites de descarga en las diferentes legislaciones a nivel mundial y relaciona la DBO 5 y la DQO y los SST (Rojas, 1999). Una vez expresadas la DQO, la DBO 5 y los SST en kg/día, la CC se calcula empleando la siguiente ecuación:( La primera fase del estudio consiste en la caracterización de las RALL y en la de sus AR, así como en conocer las relaciones entre el contenido en cianuro de la materia prima, los procesos realizados para la obtención del almidón y el efecto del NT sobre las características finales de los vertidos. Casi todas están por debajo de los 1450 msnm, apareciendo concentradas en cuatro veredas (organización territorial colombiana): La Agustina (27,4 %), Mandivá (11,3 %), El Llanito (8,1 %) y Santa Bárbara (6,45 %). El corregimiento (organización territorial colombiana) de Mondomo es el centro urbano más importante de la zona. La mayoría de las corrientes de agua (38,7 %) presenta caudales comprendidos entre 0,002 y 0,107 m 3 /s, el 29 % entre 0,107 y 0,604 m 3 /s y el 32,3% entre 0,604 y 9,505 m 3 /s. El 80,7 % de las RALL presenta un recorrido de los canales de vertido entre 5 y 150 m y el resto entre 150 y 450 m. En el 35,5 % de los casos el canal de vertido de las RALL presenta pendientes del 10-20 %; y en el 32,2 % pendiente del 45-65 %. En el 56,3 % de los casos los caudales de los vertidos son del orden de 30-60 m 3 /día; y 60-90 m 3 /día en el 32,2 %; el resto 13-30 m 3 /día.El 90,3 % de las agroindustrias trabaja entre 8 y 10 h diarias. Si hay suficiente materia prima y agua para el proceso trabajan de enero a diciembre, pero muchas se ven forzadas a parar en época seca (junio-septiembre). Algunos días en la época de lluvias tampoco pueden trabajar debido a la excesiva turbidez del agua o al alcanzar la capacidad máxima de los tanques de fermentación (no hay suficientes h de sol para secar el almidón, lo que limita el proceso). El 90,3 % de las RALL recoge y decanta el vertido de las máquinas lavadoras y utiliza posteriormente los sólidos como abono para sus huertas, descartando el agua sobrenadante.El 72,6 % de los encuestados afirma que unos 20-25 años atrás había mucha ictiofauna en las quebradas, nombrando a Bocachico (Prochilodus reticulatus), Sabaleta (Brycon henni), Bagre sapo (Pseudopimelodus bufonius), Picuda (Salminus affinis), Guabino-1 (Pygidium caliense), Guabino-2Sardina-2 (Bryconamericus caucanus). Hoy en día toda esta fauna ha desaparecido sobre todo en los tramos medios y bajos de los ríos de la zona. Todos los rallanderos son conscientes de la evidente degradación de las quebradas y de la pérdida del patrimonio natural que ello supone. Se sienten preocupados por el problema de contaminación que podrían estar generando y sobre los posibles efectos aguas abajo, tanto sobre la salud pública, como sobre la calidad ambiental de las quebradas y sus valores recreativos. Piensan que todas estas pérdidas patrimoniales podrían afectar al futuro de sus hijos. Por ello todos estarían dispuestos a colaborar en una hipotética rehabilitación de las quebradas. Aportarían mano de obra, medios de transporte, materiales e incluso terrenos para infraestructuras (Anexo 1: Resultados de la encuesta).La población inicial de 62 RALL quedó finalmente reducida a 43, que son las que funcionaron con regularidad. Entre las instalaciones disponibles para realizar nuestro estudio seleccionamos al azar RALL y en las fechas indicadas en la Tabla 11 se tomaron muestras de la yuca que iba a ser rallada ese día y muestras de las AR generadas (Sitio C).Posteriormente se hacía la caracterización de la RALL. Se controlaba y medía la cantidad de raíces de yuca procesadas diariamente por la RALL correspondiente, la capacidad (volumen) y los tiempos de operación diarios de la máquina lavadora, del rallo y de la coladora. En las RALL NT2 se medía el caudal de evacuación de los tanques de sedimentación y su capacidad y en las NT1 el caudal en los canales de sedimentación y el del agua de las lavadoras. Debido a que la mayoría las RALL recoge y decanta el vertido de las máquinas lavadoras y utiliza posteriormente los sólidos como abono (contiene partículas de suelo, cascarilla y en algunos casos pequeños trozos de yuca) y a que en estudios realizados por investigadores de la Universidad del Valle encontraron que el agua sobrenadante que era arrojada a las quebradas, éstas tenían menores índices de contaminación que las de los canales y tanques de sedimentación (Rojas, 1999). Por lo tanto éstas no fueron analizadas.La yuca para rallar siempre se cosecha durante las primeras h de la mañana y esa misma tarde o noche es empacada y transportada a las RALL. Al día siguiente de la cosecha, ya en las RALL y por la mañana antes de que comenzaran a rallar, tomábamos una muestra representativa de todo el lote de raíces que iban a ser procesadas. De forma sistemática sacábamos 3 raíces de cada uno de los sacos que constituían el lote completo: un tubérculo de la parte central, otro de la inferior y otro de la superior de cada saco. Entre las raíces así extraídas y tras mezclarlas todas, se tomaba la muestra al azar, hasta obtener un mínimo de 30 kg. Todas las muestras fueron almacenadas en empaques de polipropileno y transportadas inmediatamente al laboratorio del CIAT (Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical) para proceder a la determinación de su contenido en cianuro total (CNT).Siempre se tomó un cuidado especial para proteger las muestras del calor y la luz.La toma de muestras de agua se realizó siempre con la ayuda y asesoramiento de los técnicos de la Corporación Autónoma Regional del Cauca (CRC), institución encargada de la vigilancia ambiental en el Departamento del Cauca. En el caso de las RALL NT1 el mismo día que se tomaba la muestra de la yuca a rallar, se recogía también el agua residual vertida al final de los canales de sedimentación (sitio C). Las muestras de las AR de las RALL NT2 se tomaban en cambio al día siguiente, que es cuando se realiza el vertido hacia las quebradas, tras estar sedimentando el almidón en los tanques desde el día anterior.La muestra del vertido tipo NT2 se recogía en la RALL a la salida de los tanques (sitio C), donde tomábamos 30 l de cada uno de los 4-5 tanques de sedimentación, a 3 tiempos diferentes: 10 l al principio del vaciado, 10 l casi al final y finalmente otros 10 l con las aguas del desmanche (proceso de lavado que se realiza al almidón sedimentado antes de recogerlo de los tanques). De estos 30 l homogeneizados se reservaba una alícuota de 10 l representativa de cada uno de los 4-5 tanques.Ya mezclados los 10 l de cada tanque (40-50 l en total) se procedía a homogeneizarlos y de ahí se tomaban las muestras finales que eran llevadas al laboratorio: 3 alícuotas de 1 l para cada parámetro fisicoquímico y de contaminación. Mediante una sonda multiparamétrica se realizaban medidas in situ de TEMP, pH, CE y OD.Figura 22. Localización aproximada sobre los ríos y quebradas de las subcuencas del río Quinamayó y del Mondomo-Ovejas (cuenca del río Cauca, Santander de Quilichao) del lugar de afluencia del agua residual (sitios de muestreo C) de las 12 RALL consideradas en nuestro estudio. La determinación del contenido de cianuro total (CNT) en las raíces de yuca se realizó en el Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), siguiendo el protocolo de O'Brien et al. (1991). En el laboratorio se procedía a tomar al azar de cada muestra de yuca recibida (saco de 30 kg) por lo menos 3 submuestras de 4 raíces cada una. Las raíces eran lavadas hasta retirar las partículas de suelo adheridas y el periderma. Procediendo por submuestra (4 raíces), se cortaban de cada raíz 3 discos transversales de 1 cm de espesor: una rodaja de la zona proximal del tubérculo, otra de la zona central y la tercera de la zona distal. A continuación se procedía a quitar el parénquima cortical, juntando el obtenido de las 12 rodajas y reservándolo. Posteriormente, de cada rodaja ya sin corteza, se tomaban 3 trozos de 1 cm 3 procediendo de forma radial: un trozo del exterior de la rodaja, un segundo trozo del medio y el tercero del interior. Se juntaban los 36 trozos de pulpa obtenidos de cada submuestra, tomando 50 g de forma aleatoria. Finalmente se troceaba el parénquima cortical reservado, tomando 10 g que se añadían a los 50 g de pulpa, obteniendo de cada submuestra 60 g para cada análisis.Las metodologías analíticas para la determinación del cianuro en muestras vegetales incluyen la quimioluminiscencia (Wu et al., 1989), las técnicas de desproteinización (Krinitski et al., 1986), la disociación acoplada en capa delgada con irradiación ultravioleta preferencial (Kelada, 1989), la polarografía diferencial de pulso (Westley, 1988), la espectrofotometría modificada (Blago, 1989;Ohno, 1989), la colorimetría (Lundquist y Sorbo, 1989), y la determinación iónica cromatográfica (Nonomura y Hobo, 1989). Otro método que fue el seleccionado para este trabajo es el enzimático desarrollado por Cooke (1978) 1) Los 60 g de yuca obtenidos en el submuestreo explicado anteriormente, se homogeneízan durante 1 min a temperatura ambiente con 150 ml de medio de extracción (ácido ortofosfórico 0,1 M con 25 % v/v de etanol al 96 %); se espera 1 min y se homogeneíza 1 min.2) El homogeneizado se filtra a través de papel GF/A, utilizando un embudo Buchner. El vaso homogeneizador se lava con 50 ml de medio de extracción y se vuelve a filtrar. Se mide el volumen final del filtrado y se trasvasa una alícuota de 20 ml a una botella con tapa de rosca. Los extractos así obtenidos se conservan a 4 ºC.3) Para realizar la neutralización se toman 0,1 ml, que se agregan a 0,4 ml de solución tampón fosfato 0,1 M (pH 7).4) La incubación se lleva a cabo con 0,1 ml de linamarasa a 30 ºC durante 15 min, 5) se alcaliniza con 0,6 ml de NaOH 0,2 M, se espera 5 min a temperatura ambiente y se agrega 2,8 ml de solución tampón fosfato 0,1 M (pH 6).6) Para realizar la lectura espectrofotométrica se agregan 0,1 ml de cloramina T, se espera 5 min y se adiciona 0,6 ml del reactivo Isonicotinato/1,3 dimetilbarbiturato; después de 10 min se lee la absorbancia a una λ = 605 nm.En cada lote de análisis siempre se incorporaban blancos y patrones, realizando los análisis siempre por duplicado. Para la calibración se realiza una curva patrón de KCN con una solución patrón final de 1 µg/, cuya solución madre se prepara a partir de KCN secado durante 12 h en desecador con H 2 SO 4 concentrado. Se prepara una disolución de 1 mg/ml, disolviendo 100 mg de KCN seco en 100 ml de NaOH 0,2 M.quebradas con caballete (Fig. 24) y las pendientes longitudinales del cauce con manguera de 20 m y diámetro de 6 mm (Fig. 25). Para medir los caudales (Q) se utilizó el mini Molinete OTT-C2-10, aplicando el método de la ecuación del valor medio. Se debe elegir un sitio sin demasiadas irregularidades en el que se mide la anchura total del cauce y se van tomando medidas de profundidad a intervalos regulares (l i ), cuyo número y anchura dependen de la anchura total del cauce y de la irregularidad del lecho (Stednick, 1991). Se forman así subsectores de la sección transversal del canal (Fig. 26) en los que se estima la velocidad del agua (v i ) contando el número de revoluciones de la hélice del molinete (r i ) durante un tiempo determinado (t i =30-40 seg). La profundidad a la que se debe realizar la medida depende de la profundidad media de la subsección (p m i = [p i +p i+1 ]/2): para p m i ≤0,50 m, la medida se realiza a 2/3 de p m i (60%); para p m i ≥0,5 m es conveniente hacer dos medidas para evitar las diferencias debidas a los flujos laminares del agua, una superficial, al 80% de p m i y otra profunda, al 20% p m i . La estima de Q es la resultante de sumar todos los caudales parciales de cada uno de los subsectores (q i = a i v i ).Las ecuaciones para el cálculo de la velocidad del agua empleando el molinete OTT-C2-10, dependen del tamaño de la hélice utilizada y de la velocidad del agua y son las siguientes, siendo n i =r i /t i :Las tablas de cálculo de los caudales (Datos para Aforo de Corrientes Superficiales) están disponibles en el Anexo.• Para la hélice nº 3: Ecuación para la velocidad: n i ≤ 0,72 v i = 0,2282 n i + 0,024 0,72 < n i ≤ 0,90 v i = 0,2517 n i + 0,007 • Para la hélice nº 4: n i ≤ 0,29 v i = 0,4049 n i + 0,039 0,29 < n i ≤ 0,85 v i = 0,4931 n i + 0,013 0,85 < n i ≤ 4,93 v i = 0,5073 n i + 0,001 Figura 25. Esquema del método empleado para la medición de la pendiente longitudinal del río (S) a partir de la altura del agua (H) en una manguera apoyada sobre el lecho del cauce entre dos puntos situados a una distancia conocida (L).Figura 26. . Sección transversal del canal de un río, indicando las medidas que se deben tomar para medir el caudal (Q): el área de cada subsección (ai), la profundidad inicial y final de cada subsección (pi) y la situación aproximada de colocación del moliente para medir la velocidad del agua en cada subsección (vi).El procedimiento de toma de muestras de agua de los tramos afectados de las quebradas difería ligeramente entre los sitios A y los B. En el sitio A se recogían 3 alícuotas de 1 L (por parámetro) de una muestra de 30 L de agua que estaba integrada por 3 puntuales de 10 L (izquierda, centro y derecha en los cauces mayores). Se registraban in situ mediante sonda multiparamétrica, la temperatura del agua (T), su pH, conductividad eléctrica (CE) y oxígeno disuelto (OD), tomando un mínimo de 3 lecturas. En los sitios B, se replicaba lo hecho en A, pero se tenía que esperar hasta que el agua residual de los tanques y canales de sedimentación se homogeneizara con el agua fluvial.Las muestras se tomaban 5-10 m aguas abajo de la confluencia, dependiendo de los caudales relativos de ambos flujos de agua. Se recogían 4-5 muestras de 10 l para así poder abracar el proceso completo de vaciado de los 4 o 5 tanques de sedimentación (o lechadas en el caso de los canales); tras su homogeneización tomábamos las alícuotas definitivas. La toma de muestras se realizó siempre con la ayuda y asesoramiento de los técnicos de la Corporación Autónoma Regional del Cauca (CRC), institución encargada de la vigilancia ambiental en el Departamento del Cauca. En una bandeja poco honda con agua, las muestras completas eran examinadas con una lupa estereoscópica, separando y contando los organismos por categorías taxonómicas. Una vez realizado todo el trabajo las muestras se guardaron ya clasificadas en frasco con etanol al 70 % y formalina al 5 %. Para la determinación taxonómica se emplearon las siguientes claves: Jewetts (1959 y 1960), Froehlich (1969Froehlich ( , 1981Froehlich ( , 1984aFroehlich ( , 1984bFroehlich ( , 1984c)), Faus y Botero (1960), Illies (1963), Zwick (1972Zwick ( y 1973)), Benedetto (1974), Pennak (1978), Corbet (1980), Ball (1980), Roldán (1980Roldán ( , 1985Roldán ( , 1988Roldán ( y 1992)), Munroe (1981), Paraense (1981) Los parámetros seleccionados para describir la estructura de la taxocenosis de MIB fueron los siguientes: densidad, riqueza, diversidad y equitatividad.La densidad (N) es el número de organismos presentes en la muestra de 1 m 2 . Esta variable presenta una gran dependencia entre la media y la varianza de los datos obtenidos por lo cual una vez calculada utilizando número de individuos o ejemplares por metro cuadrado por cada familia es objeto de posterior transformación.La Riqueza (S) es el número de taxones diferentes que encontramos por unidad de muestreo de 1 m 2 ; puede ser considerado como un indicador que sintetiza el estado de salud de un sistema.Los valores hallados deben relacionarse con un punto de control no afectado.La diversidad de Shannon (H') está basada en la Teoría de la Información (Shannon & Weaver, 1949) y es una expresión cuantitativa dada por un valor numérico que equivale a una condición ecológica determinada. Este índice de diversidad define la diversidad como una función monótona, cuyo mínimo se produce cuando todos los elementos pertenecen a la misma clase y cuyo máximo tiene lugar cuando todos los elementos pertenecen a una clase diferente (Margalef, 1969):Se trata de una expresión probabilística y general donde p i = n i /N, y representa la probabilidad de aparición del taxón i en un determinado hábitat. Es igual a la frecuencia de aparición de ese taxón en la muestra, es decir el número de individuos de ese taxón en relación al total de organismos (N), siendo n i el valor de importancia para cada taxón que para los cálculos corresponde al número de individuos del taxón i en la muestra.La Equitatividad (J) de Pielou (Pielou, 1975(Pielou, y 1977) ) es otro parámetro descriptivo de las relaciones de abundancia. Esta es una de las expresiones más frecuentes de la equitatividad y se calcula como:H max es el valor de diversidad que se alcanzaría si todas las especies mostraran idénticas abundancias en la muestra. La equitatividad expresa la regularidad con que los individuos están distribuidos entre las especies, pues valora la distribución de los individuos por especie. El máximo valor posible de J para un número dado de especies ocurriría si todas las especies presentaran el mismo número de individuos. Los valores van de 0 a 1. El valor de J se acerca a 0 cuando una especie domina sobre todas las demás en la comunidad y se acerca a 1 cuando todas las especies comparten abundancias similares.También hemos calculado el índice BMWP para Colombia y su correspondiente ASTP, que están basados en la presencia o ausencia de familias de MIB indicadoras de calidad del agua por su diferente tolerancia a la contaminación, especialmente la de origen orgánico. El BMWP se basa en la identificación de la muestra al nivel de familia, lo que facilita el trabajo, pues en corto tiempo se puede realizar un inventario de la fauna de cada lugar (Zamora, 2005). La presencia de una familia determina la asignación del valor (puntos) que cada una tiene asignado en la Tabla 8, tal como se explicó en el capítulo introductorio. El valor del índice BMWP se obtiene mediante la sumatoria de todos los puntos obtenidos por las diferentes familias presentes en cada muestra. El valor del índice BMWP obtenido de la Tabla 8, se ubica en su respectivo rango de la Tabla 7, de esta forma podremos obtener los niveles de calidad para un determinado lugar. Como los límites entre las categorías no pueden ser estrictos, necesariamente se presentan situaciones de transición; para ellas se han considerado puntuaciones con cinco unidades por exceso o por defecto de los límites establecidos en la Tabla 7.El  , 1998;StatSoft, 2001).suspensión aunque un pequeño porcentaje de almidón se pierda en el proceso de separación denominado desmanche. En el norte de Vietnam existen alrededor de 1000 procesadores de yuca en escala pequeña (0,25-0,50 t/día) que producen almidón; en la India entre 850-1000 procesadores de yuca a escala media (10-50 t/día), en el sur de Vietnam y Tailandia entre 11-51 procesadores de yuca respectivamente a escala mayor (100-800 t/día) y (400-1200 t/día) respectivamente (FAO and IFAD, 2001); lo cual nos muestra que estamos muy por encima del norte de Vietnam pero por debajo de la India y muchísimo más lejos del sur de Vietnam y Tailandia.Tabla 15A. Variables, siglas y unidades de las características de las RALL. La máquina que más ha evolucionado en eficiencia y capacidad es la lavadora y existen una gran variedad tanto en las RALL de NT1 (1535 kg/h) como en las de NT2 (565 kg/h), con un máximo de 2625 kg/h y un mínimo de 335 kg/h; razón por la cual las RALL gastan de media menos tiempo en lavar la yuca las de NT1 (4,1 h) que las de NT2 (5,8 h).La capacidad de la máquina lavadora depende mucho del flujo de agua, de la cantidad de partículas de suelo adheridas a las raíces de yuca (aumenta en los períodos de lluvia) y de la variedad de yuca procesada. El agua que utilizan las lavadoras por h (ALH) es mayor en las de NT1(4,47 m 3 /h) que las de NT2 (1,97 m 3 /h); este último promedio es similar (1,90 m 3 /h) al estudio realizado en la RALL 45 (ver en Anexo Resultado de la Encuesta) de NT1 (Chaux y Vergara, 2005) pero es un valor muy alto si se compara con los caudales promedio (1,12 -0,79 m 3 /h) en dos investigaciones realizadas por la Corporación Autónoma Regional del Cauca (CRC, 2004).Utilizan una sola coladora y con menor capacidad todas las RALL de NT2 mientras que todas las de NT1 utilizan dos para poder aumentar su capacidad de producción. La capacidad de la máquina coladora depende también del flujo de agua, de la variedad de yuca y del tipo de máquina utilizada es mucho mayor en las RALL de NT1 (587 kg/h) que en las de NT2 (357 kg/h). Cuando se detiene la coladora se termina el proceso de producción del almidón porque ya no hay más lechada que vaya a los tanques o canales de sedimentación por lo tanto el tiempo de operación o de trabajo por día de una RALL está dado por esta. En las de NT1 el tiempo que dura el vertido contaminando a la quebrada equivale al tiempo de operación de la coladora.En el procesamiento del almidón cerca del 85 % del promedio de 30 m 3 que se necesitan para producir una tonelada de almidón es descargada como AR, el remanente se pierde por evaporación.El promedio de estas descargas está entre 20-40 m 3 /t de almidón para una moderna factoría y de 20-100 m 3 /t de almidón para una factoría de escala media (FAO and IFAD, 2001), encontramos en nuestro estudio que los valores están entre 73-45 m 3 /t de almidón y con una media por NT de 52-62 m 3 /t de almidón. Las AR media de los tanques de sedimentación por h (ARCTH) de las RALL de NT2 son mayores (33,15 m 3 /h) que las que fluyen por los canales de las de NT1 (5,5 m 3 /h), debido a la forma de verter las RALL según el NT; para estos flujos se reportan en la zona de estudio valores de 2,7 a 3,3 m 3 /h (CRC, 2004), 3,6 m 3 /h (Chaux y Vergara, 2005) y 5,0 m 3 /h (Torres y Rodríguez, 2003).Casi todas las RALL trabajan de media 9 h diarias y producen de media AR, las de NT1 (49,5 m 3 /día) y las de NT2 (33,2 m 3 /día), valores que están dentro del rango de 18 a 48 m 3 /día en un estudio donde tuvieron en cuenta el nivel tecnológico bajo (Rojas et al., 1996). Al calcular el AR por tonelada de yuca procesada vemos que estas generan aproximadamente de media en los dos NT 9,8 m 3 /día; valores muy similares (30 y 9,5 m 3 /día) y ( 49 La dimensión del problema es más crítico aún si calculamos el CATD promedio por año con las 43 RALL que funcionan regularmente 5 días/semana por NT (29 de NT1, 13 de NT2 y la RALL 21) teniendo en cuenta que las RALL de NT1 funcionan aproximadamente 10 meses y 8 las de NT2 (ver en Anexo las Tablas de Resultado de la Encuesta), debido a diferentes factores tales como: escasez de materia prima, turbiedad en el agua para el proceso, falta de sol para secar lo cual hace que los tanques de fermentación de almidón se llenen (las h de sol son directamente proporcionales a la capacidad de los tanques de fermentación), daños en la maquinaria (coladora, lavadora y rallo) y corte de energía debido a fuertes tempestades que se presentan muy a menudo en la zona. En la India la agroindustria del almidón también es estacional y operan por un periodo de 4-5 meses por año (FAO and IFAD, 2001).Como mínimo estas RALL gastan en promedio 4708 hm 3 /año de agua que posteriormente son vertidas a las quebradas (arrojando 3542 hm 3 /año de AR) contaminándolas y destruyendo los ecosistemas allí presentes. Este total de caudal que consumen las 43 RALL podría abastecer durante un año la dotación mínima requerida por una población de aproximadamente100000 habitantes.Las RALL de NT1 producen mayor cantidad de ALM (1,27     (Aristizabal et al., 2007). En la región donde se realizó este estudio se procesa yuca de diferentes cultivares y cada variedad de yuca tiene un contenido de ácido cianhídrico distinto y se dan muchos casos de que una misma variedad de yuca pueda tener diferentes contenidos de ácido cianhídrico, dependiendo de las condiciones ambientales de la zona del cultivo (Alarcón y Dufour, 1998).En la zona se procesan alrededor de 28 variedades distintas de yuca y las RALL utilizan en cada proceso como mínimo 3 variedades distintas de yuca, por lo tanto cada una de ellas aporta cantidades diferentes de cianuro y produce distintas cantidades de materia seca (almidón y subproductos); además en algunos estudios se ha encontrado que el contenido de cianuro varia considerablemente entre las raíces de una misma planta, que por lo general hay un gradiente tanto longitudinal como radial (en el extremo proximal el contenido es alto, disminuye hacia la parte distal y de las partes más externas al centro de la raíz) y entre las plantas de un mismo cultivar bajo las mismas condiciones de crecimiento (de Bruijng, 1973y Cooke, 1978 y). Es importante señalar que las RALL utilizan para la extracción del almidón de yuca tanto la pulpa o parénquima como la corteza o cáscara y que es en esta última donde se concentra el mayor contenido de cianuro total y libre, en cambio en la pulpa es mayor el contenido de materia seca (Gómez et al., 1980).En los comienzos de esta agroindustria debido a manejar bajos volúmenes de producción en las décadas de 1950 a 1970, las raíces de yuca eran lavadas y \"peladas\" (retirada la cáscara y cascarilla de la pulpa) manualmente y estas eran utilizadas para alimentar animales presentándose muchas veces intoxicaciones por los altos contenidos de CN en las yucas utilizadas. Al crecer la demanda de almidón y por consiguiente aumentar los niveles de producción vino la necesidad de reducción de los costos de mano de obra, del tiempo utilizado, del lavado mecánico, la utilización de la corteza (que puede representar un10-15 % de la raíz) en el proceso, y por lo tanto elevación de los niveles de CN en el proceso.Se analizaron muestras de raíces de yuca, para poder determinar en el arranque del procesamiento de la yuca el contenido de cianuros totales (CNT) y materia seca (MS) presentes (Tabla de Anexo 5 Cuando se procesa lotes de raíces de yuca amarga para extraer almidón, este no contiene residuo alguno de HCN porque este se libera en el lavado, rallado, colado y el remanente se disuelve totalmente en el agua que requiere el proceso y por lo tanto queda presente en las AR; por lo cual los rallanderos solo tiene problemas al procesar yucas amargas en el manejo posterior de estas AR. En cambio los agricultores si tienen problemas al sembrar lotes de yucas amargas porque su mercado solo es para la agroindustria; ellos prefieren que las yucas sean de doble propósito pues en el mercado en fresco obtienen mejores precios y las que este rechaza siempre las RALL las pueden procesar.En algunos años se puede y se ha presentado escasez de materia prima en la zona con lo cual solo unos pocos rallanderos de gran capacidad económica y de gestión (de manera individual o por intermedio de su cooperativa) han podido tener acceso a otros mercados de otras regiones y han tenido la fortuna de poder producir y obtener muy buenos precios, cuando la gran mayoría han tenido que parar. Es en este periodo de crisis cuando muchos rallanderos deciden cambiar de actividad modificando sus instalaciones o vendiendo sus equipos e instalaciones.Desde el momento de la cosecha de las raíces de yuca se inicia la descomposición de los cianógenos presentes por acción de la enzima linamarasa que continuará con el transporte, almacenamiento y procesamiento (Gómez et al., 1980). Durante la etapa de lavado las raíces de yuca esta pierde gran parte de su contenido de CN y este aparece en mayor proporción en el agua (40-70 %) debido a su solubilidad en forma combinada o simple. En la etapa de sedimentación, el almidón contiene un 8-14 % de CNcon 1-3 días de sedimentación la concentración se disminuye a menos de 4 % y en la etapa de secado se reduce a menos del 1 % (Pérez y Solarte, 2002); es importante anotar que el ácido cianhídrico como tal, se evapora a 28 °C (Tewe, 1992).En la Tabla 17 podemos ver por RALL y por NT la yuca fresca procesada por día (YFD), la media del porcentaje de materia seca en yuca (MSY), yuca seca por día (YSD), la media de cianuro total (CNT), el flujo de cianuro en la yuca procesada por día (CNTD), la concentración y flujo de cianuro en las AR (CNC y CNCD) y el porcentaje de cianuro que queda presente y va a las quebradas (CNP). De esta Tabla podemos decir que 7 RALL procesan lotes de yucas amargas, 4RALL lotes semiamargas y solo una de lotes dulces.Al utilizar los datos para el análisis estadístico (Tabla 18) encontramos que solo el CNP (transformado por su respectivo log 10 para ajustarlo a la normal) le podemos aplicar el test de la t de Student y encontramos que hay diferencia significativa por NT para YSD y CNTD (0,0052 y 0,0141 respectivamente). Las RALL de NT1 procesan más raíces de yuca y al utilizar lotes de yucas semiamargas y amargas obtienen mayor cantidad de YSD y CNTD que las de NT2 (Figs. 29 y 30).Tabla 17. Características de la materia prima utilizada en las RALL, concentración y flujo de cianuro en las AR y el que queda presente y va a las quebradas. Nota: YFD = yuca fresca rallada por día; MSY = media de materia seca en yuca; YSD = yuca seca por día; CNT = Cianuro total en yuca en peso seco; CNTD = cianuro total en yuca por día; CNC = cianuro en C; CNCD = Cianuro en C por día; CNP = % de cianuro presente en AR y que va a las quebradas.Los datos de las variables CNC y CNCD son normales pero sus varianzas no son homocedásticas, por lo cual se aplicó test no paramétrico de Mann-Whitney y no encontramos diferencias significativas debido al NT.En un reciente estudio hecho en la RALL 45 de NT1, encontraron que la concentración de CNT en las yucas procesadas ese día era de 409 mg/kg ps (Gallego y Garcés, 2006) y en otro realizado en Brasil este fue de 444 mg/kg ps (Cereda and Takahashi, 1966), valor muy semejante al de las RALL 3 y 16 de NT1 (436 y 416 mg/kg, ps) y RALL 46 de NT2 (478 mg/kg, ps) lo cual nos muestra que utilizan por igual el mismo tipo de materia prima, por tal motivo no hay diferencia significativa por NT.Las variedades de alto rendimiento usadas generalmente en todo Asia contienen altas cantidades de HCN porque en Tailandia para la producción de 200 t/día de ALM se necesitan 800 t de raíces de yuca que contienen cerca de (30 mg/l) en CNC equivalente a 13 mg/l de HCN en AR; en Vietnam procesadores en escala pequeña vierten en sus AR 28 mg/l de HCN (FAO and IFAD, 2001), valor muy semejante a la media de las RALL de NT2.Figura 29. Histograma de lotes de raíces de yuca (semiamarga=S, amarga=A y dulce=D) por nivel tecnológico (NT1 y NT2) de las RALL.Tabla 18. Resultados del test de la t de Student (10 grados de libertad) para la comparación de medias por NT (n de NT1=6 y n de NT2=6) de la concentración y flujo de cianuro de la yuca a las AR de las RALL y test de homocestacidad de Levene (10 grados de libertad  Los ST tienen una media de 2227,8 mg/l con un máximo de 5844 mg/l y un mínimo de 760 mg/l, que están por debajo de la media de 3454 mg/l (Molina, 2001); 3101,4 mg/l con valores entre 4325-1682 mg/l (Chaux y Vergara, 2005). En la India reportan datos de 4000-6600 mg/l; en Q (m 3 /s) 0,002 0,002 0,001 0,001 0,001 0,002 0,002 0,009 0,008 0,017 0,005 0,007 0,009 0,009 0,0054 CND (kg/día) 0,053 0,006 0,004 0,086 0,141 0,015 0,051 0,026 0,004 0,009 0,004 0,002 0,011 0,009 0,0301 NNO 3 D (kg/día) 0,454 0,215 0,168 0,598 0,286 0,096 0,303 0,65 0,088 0,155 0,066 0,161 0,103 0,204 0,25 NNO 2 D (kg/día) 0,016 0,015 0,008 0,013 0,021 0,022 0,016 0,013 0,007 0,015 0,006 0,008 0,008 0,009 0,01 NNH 4 D (kg/día) 0,036 0,033 0,013 0,038 0,072 0,075 0,045 0,003 0,012 0,019 0,003 0,01 0,015 0,01 0,03 NTOTAL (kg/día) 0,51 0,26 0,19 0,65 0,38 0,19 0,363 0,67 0,11 0,19 0,07 0,18 0,13 0,224 0,29 CC (kg/día) 236,8 173,3 151,5 246,6 346,8 317,3 245,4 157 74,67 100,6 38,54 75,79 163,7 101,7 173,55 Tailandia para factorías medianas y grandes entre 234-2592 mg/l y 7604 mg/l, respectivamente;en Brasil los valores son muy altos para las factorías grandes y pequeñas 5800-56460 mg/l y 5000 mg/l respectivamente; en cambio en Vietnam los valores están por debajo de la media de los nuestros de 1500 mg/l (FAO and IFAD, 2001).Tabla 20 . Resultados del test de la t de Student (10 grados de libertad) para la comparación de las medias por NT (n de NT1=6 y n de NT2=6) y test de homocestacidad de Levene (10 grados de libertad) de los vertidos de las rallanderías.     Los resultados se presentan en la Tabla 21 con los parámetros fisicoquímicos: Temperatura En un estudio realizado en la India con índices bióticos (Subramanian and Sivaramakrishnan, 2007) en el río Sharavathy, encontraron valores muy similares a los nuestros en el sitio Nellibedu (altitud=550 m.): S=12, BMWP=92 y ASPT=8 y afirman que un valor alto de ASPT usualmente caracteriza a sitios limpios. En nuestra tabla solo encontramos valores altos en los sitios de control 12A y 57A y sobre el río Mondomo en 56A. En otro estudio hecho en este país (Kasthuri et al., 2007) nos manifiestan que la presencia de nitratos (valores entre 0,95 y 14,28 mg/l son mayores que los nuestros que están entre 0,15 y 10,40 mg/l) en el agua son debidos a la oxidación biológica de las aguas residuales y representa el sabor salado del agua, alta dureza, una mayor proporción de materias sólidas y cuando la concentración de nitratos es superior a 40 mg/l, produce metahemoglobinemia (la hemoglobina es incapaz de transportar el oxígeno de manera efectiva a los tejidos corporales). Para nitritos entre 0,09 y 0,30 mg/l, nosotros entre 0,047 (12A) y 0,416 mg/l (12B) y la OMS aconseja que los valores sean menores de 0,1 mg/l, que en nuestro caso solo cumplen en A (12, 21, 38, 56 y 57) y en B (38, 56 y 57).La EPA (http://www.epa.gov/safewater/wot/pdfs/book_waterontap_en espanol_full.pdf En España en un estudio realizado en la cuenca del río Ebro (Lassaletta, et al., 2009) nos informan que las concentraciones deben estar en 0,44 mg/l de NO 3 para río no contaminado, solo 21A (0,15 mg/l), 21B (0,40 mg/l) y 56A (0,20 mg/l) lo cumplen. También nos dicen que 8,8 mg/l es el umbral propuesto para la protección de las especies de agua dulce más sensibles, solo en 12B) aconseja para agua potable que el nitrito sea menor de 1 mg/l y que el agua no sea hervida porque aumenta la concentración y previene que los bebés menores de seis meses que tomen agua que contenga una concentración de nitratos mayor a la permitida por el NMC (nivel máximo de contaminante), podrían enfermarse gravemente que, de no ser atendidos, podrían fallecer (los nitratos se convierten en nitritos en los intestinos. Una vez que hayan sido absorbidos en el torrente sanguíneo, los nitritos impiden que la hemoglobina transporte el oxígeno). Los síntomas incluyen: dificultad respiratoria y síndrome de bebé azul, además nos dice que las fuentes de contaminación comunes del agua potable son las aguas contaminadas por el uso de fertilizantes; erosión de depósitos naturales; lixiviación de tanque sépticos y de redes de alcantarillado.(10,4 mg/l) no se cumple y que la concentración máxima permisible establecida por la Directiva (1991/696/EC) sobre nitratos es de 50 mg/l que en nuestro caso ningún sitio de muestreo llega a ese valor.En el sureste de Brasil en el Estado de Minas Gerais en Serra do Cipó (localizada en la parte central del Estado) se realizó un estudio sobre cinco ríos (Galdean, et al.2000) y encontraron valores más altos que los nuestros en SATOD (53-136% contra 64-83% encontrados de media en B y A), NNH 4 (0,031-0,588 mg/l; durante el periodo de lluvias, contra 0,08-0,20 mg/l encontrados de media en A y B), NNO 3 (0,237-0,972 mg/l; durante el periodo seco, contra 0,20-0,49 encontrados en A y B) y valores muy bajos durante el periodo seco de pH de 3,83 y altos en el periodo de lluvias de 8,81; contra 6,68-6,30 encontrados en A y B. También encontraron valores altos de S (65-6) contra 6-4 encontrados de media en A y B y de H' (3,66-1,17) contra 1,53-0,88 encontrados de media en A y B; los valores bajos encontrados en Brasil en el río Cipó son debidos a las descargas de AR de las poblaciones y de las actividades agropecuarias de la zona y por esta razón son semejantes a los valores por nosotros encontrados en B.En el sur de Nigeria (mayor productor mundial de yuca con alrededor de 30 millones de toneladas) sobre el río Orogodo se realizó un estudio sobre tres lugares para valorar el efecto de las AR del procesamiento de la yuca y de otras fuentes de contaminación sobre los macro invertebrados (Arimoro, et al., 2008). Encontraron en el sitio impactado por las AR (estación II)valores muy bajos de OD (1,30  Es muy importante anotar que todas las aguas residuales de las rallanderías, de los alcantarillados de las poblaciones y casas de la región, de otras agroindustrias (café, fique, caña panelera, acuacultura, cría y ceba de cerdo) y de otras industrias son vertidas a la subcuenca de los ríos Ovejas-Mondomo (92.100 ha) y Quinamayó (29.000 ha).En la quebrada Tiembla se realizó un estudio (Gallego y Garcés, 2006) en tres sitios (nacimiento, RALL 45 y desembocadura) en el que se determinaron: el pH (6,94; 6,62 y 6,65, respectivamente), presentando valores similares a las medias nuestras en A y B; el OD (3,6; 1,8 y 2,56 mg/l, respectivamente); la SATOD (48 %, 24 % y 34 %, respectivamente). Todos son valores muy críticos de contaminación que están muy por debajo de nuestras medias, tanto las de A, como las de B; en cambio la DBO 5 (0,64 mg/l, 23,83 mg/l y 4,39 mg/l, respectivamente) y el NO 2 -(0,011 mg/l, 0,011 mg/l y 0,011 mg/l, respectivamente) presentan valores muy bajos comparados con nuestras medias, debido quizás a que las muestras fueron tomadas en domingo, cuando las rallanderías están paradas; el NH 4 + (0,32 mg/l, 0,69 mg/l y 0,31 mg/l, respectivamente) muestra valores muy altos comparados con las medias de nuestras quebradas (quizás debido a la incidencia de las AR de los barrios del corregimiento de Mondomo).También encontraron en este estudio de la quebrada CN (mg/l) 0,051 0,002 0,023 0,020 0,012 0,026 0,003 0,020 0,048 0,090 0,023 0,005 0,027 0,077 0,710 0,095 0,125 0,053 0,040 0,003 0,110 0,082 0,137 0,041 0,005 0,12 NO 3 (mg/l) 0,113 0,047 0,151 0,185 0,098 0,300 0,078 0,144 0,192 0,103 0,059 0,066 0,128 0,113 0,416 0,151 0,188 0,101 0,300 0,084 0,289 0,192 0,155 0,059 0,089 0,18 NH 4 (mg/l) 0,072 0,009 0,061 0,070 0,110 0,025 0,035 0,360 0,215 0,174 0,036 0,042 0,101 0,820 0,033 0,069 0,111 0,128 0,025 0,058 0,705 0,233 0,753 0,055 0,049 0,25 NNO 3 (mg/l) 0,39 0,20 0,28 0,15 0,03 0,22 0,14 0,27 0,15 0,41 0,05 0,13 0,20 0,52 2,36 0,33 0,32 0,22 0,24 0,16 0,48 0,27 0,52 0,18 0,30 0,49 NNO 2 (mg/l) 0,03 0,01 0,05 0,06 0,03 0,09 0,02 0,04 0,06 0,03 0,02 0,02 0,04 0,05 0,13 0,09 0,06 0,03 0,09 0,03 0,09 0,06 0,05 0,02 0,03 0,06 NNH 4 (mg/l) 0,06 0,01 0,05 0,05 0,08 0,02 0,03 0,28 0,17 0,13 0,03 0,03 0,08 0,63 0,02 0,05 0,09 0,10 0,13 0,04 0,54 0,18 0,58 0,04 0,04 0,20 NTOT (mg/l) 0,48 0,23 0,38 0,26 0,15 0,33 0,19 0,59 0,37 0,57 0,09 0,18 0,32 1,20 2,51 0,47 0,46 0,35 0,46 0,23 1,11 0,52 1,15 0,24 0,36 0,75 Q (m 3 /s) 0,032 0,055 1,037 0,082 0,685 1,516 0,037 0,033 0,200 0,330 3,930 0,019 0,663 0,048 0,052 1,057 0,092 0,844 1,532 0,049 0,042 0,238 0,369 3,940 0,028 0,69 0,053 0,0004 0,773 0,006 0,030 1,277 0,0004 0,021 0,035 0,962 2,928 0,0003 0,507 0,119 0,132 3,253 0,041 0,161 1,961 0,0004 0,151 0,070 Tabla 20. Test de la t de Student de muestras dependientes para la comparación de medias de los parámetros fisicoquímicos y de los índices bióticos de los macroinvertebrados en las quebradas en los 24 sitios de muestreo A y B (n de A=12 y n de B=12). Figura 34. Distribución expresada como porcentaje de géneros encontrados por metro cuadrado en la quebrada La Cascada en el sitio de muestreo 12A.Tabla 21. Géneros encontrados en la quebrada La Cascada (subcuenca del río Quinamayó) en el sitio de muestreo 12A y descriptores de la estructura de la taxocenosis. N = número de individuos por m 2 (densidad), S = número de géneros diferentes (Riqueza), H' = índice de diversidad de Shannon (en log con base e y con base 2), J = Equitatividad, BMWP y ASPT.    CN (mg/l) 0 0,05 0,01 0 0 0,01 0,04 0,04 0,01 0,01 0 0,013 0,014 0,007 0 0,09 0,09 0,09 0,036 0,04 0,028 0,06 0,08 0,03 0,03 0,01 0,01 0,045 0,077 0,053 0,012 0,03 0,044 0,019 0,007 0 0,09 0,11 0,137 0,037 0,043 0,046 NO 3 (mg/l) NO 2 (mg/l) 0,11 0,17 0,04 0,04 0,09 0,06 0,1 0,16 0,091 0,17 0,1 0,08 0,07 0,1 0,115 0,13 0,102 0,11 0,22 0,1 0,09 0,122 0,094 0,101 0,189 0,091 0,249 0,1 0,08 0,074 0,155 0,115 0,133 0,13 NH 4 (mg/l) 0,07 0,01 0,07 0,06 0,11 0,04 0,11 0,01 0,087 0,091 0,05 0,04 0,2 0,17 0,028 0,25 0,087 0,82 0,17 0,91 0,22 0,168 0,067 0,128 0,039 0,132 0,134 0,05 0,06 1,97 0,753 0,043 0,245 0,37 NNO 3 (mg/l) 0,39 0,23 0,15 0,20 0,39 0,48 0,03 0,05 0,55 0,25 0,05 0,14 0,02 0,32 0,41 0,07 0,27 0,234 0,52 0,39 0,11 0,27 0,43 0,55 0,09 0,09 0,77 0,34 0,09 0,16 0,48 0,52 0,11 0,34 0,33 NTOT (mg/l) 0,48 0,29 0,22 0,26 0,50 0,52 0,15 0,10 0,64 0,37 0,11 0,19 0,02 0,49 0,57 0,12 0,50 0,326 1,19 0,58 0,84 0,47 0,60 0,63 0,22 0,18 0,90 0,52 0,16 0,23 2,02 1,15 0,18 0,57 0,65 Q (m 3 /s) 0,030 0,032 0,060 0,118 0,175 0,157 0,290 0,250 0,685 0,619 0,011 0,028 0,031 0,090 0,037 0,155 0,239 0,330 0,474 0,365 0,209 0,032 0,048 0,076 0,162 0,185 0,174 0,382 0,354 0,844 0,643 0,017 0,033 0,060 0,121 0,049 0,159 0,263 0,369 0,612 0,371 0,248 CND (kg/día) 0,001 0,053 0,014 0,013 0,000 0,003 0,044 0,038 0,030 0,027 0,000 0,001 0,002 0,002 0,000 0,458 0,719 0,962 0,552 0,414 0,167 0,064 0,119 0,074 0,145 0,060 0,004 0,062 0,098 0,161 0,028 0,002 0,005 0,004 0,003 0,000 0,475 0,932 1,633 0,73 0,517 0,256 NO 3 D (kg/día) NO 2 D (kg/día) 0,117 0,323 0,168 0,249 0,097 0,051 0,242 0,345 0,009 0,019 0,032 0,010 0,549 1,101 1,765 1,550 0,414 0,175 0,542 0,550 0,545 0,168 0,120 0,307 0,436 0,011 0,054 0,044 0,015 0,630 1,854 2,28 1,592 0,58 NH 4 D (kg/día) 0,074 0,019 0,272 0,317 0,116 0,034 0,271 0,022 0,009 0,010 0,016 0,005 NNO 2 D (kg/día) 0,035 0,098 0,051 0,076 0,029 0,016 0,073 0,105 0,003 0,006 0,010 0,003 0,000 0,166 0,334 0,535 0,470 0,118 0,053 0,164 0,167 0,165 0,051 0,036 0,093 0,132 0,003 0,016 0,013 0,004 0,191 0,562 0,69 0,482 0,18 NNH 4 D (kg/día) 0,057 0,015 0,209 0,244 0,089 0,026 0,209 0,017 0,007 0,008 0,012 0,004 0,000 1,177 1,431 0,331 2,229 0,357 0,979 0,320 3,664 1,000 0,178 0,066 0,299 0,069 0,012 0,022 0,017 0,008 12,90 6,928 0,66 2,264 En el estudio realizado en la India (Subramanian and Sivaramakrishnan, 2007) en el río Sharavathy, encontraron valores similares a los nuestros en el sitio Nellibedu: S=12, BMWP=92 y ASPT=8; en el sitio de control de la quebrada La Chapa 3A (27 jul.) y cerca de su desembocadura 21A (10 dic.). En el otro estudio hecho en este país (Kasthuri et al., 2007) nos muestran valores de nitratos entre 0,95 y 14,28 mg/l que son mayores que los nuestros que están entre 0,1 mg/l (51A, 27 jul.) y 3,4 mg/l (38B, 10 sep.). Para nitritos entre 0,09 mg/l y 0,30 mg/l, nosotros entre 0,04 mg/l (3A, 12 nov. y 10 dic.) y 0,249 mg/l (38B, 1 oct.). La OMS aconseja que los valores sean menores de 0,1 mg/l, que en nuestro caso solo cumplen en A, 3 (nov. y dic.), 21(10 sep., 1 oct. y 12 nov.), 38 (10 sep. 12 nov. y 10 dic.) y 51 (10 sep.) y en B 3 (10 dic.), 21 (1 oct.), 38 (10 sep. 12 nov. y 10 dic.) y 51 (10 sep.).En España en el estudio realizado en la cuenca del río Ebro (Lassaletta, et al.,2009)  En el sureste de Brasil en el Estado de Minas Gerais en Serra do Cipó (Galdean, et al.2000) encontraron valores más altos que los nuestros para SATOD (53-136 % frente a 25-112 % encontrados en 51A el 27 jul. y 12 nov., respectivamente; y de 12-107 % encontrados en 51B el 27 jul. y 3B el 12 nov.), NNH 4 (0,031-0,588 mg/l; durante el periodo de lluvias, contra valores mínimos de 0,08 mg/l encontrados en 3A el 1 oct. y en 21A el 10 dic. y 0,030 mg/l encontrado en 21B el 10 dic.; contra valores máximos de 0,188 mg/l, encontrados en 51A el 10 dic. y de 1,52 mg/l en 51B el 10 sep.), en NNO 3 (0,237-0,972 mg/l; durante el periodo seco, contra valores mínimos de 0,02 mg/l encontrados en 51A el 27 jul. y 0,09 mg/l en 21B el 12 nov. y 10 dic. y en 38B el 12 nov.; contra valores máximos de 0,55 mg/l en 38A el 10 sep. y de 0,77 mg/l en 38B el 10 sep.) y valores muy bajos durante el periodo seco de pH de 3,83 y altos en el periodo de lluvias de 8,81; contra valores mínimos de 6,20 en 51A el 1 oct. y de 5,81 en 51B el 1 oct.; valores máximos de 7,72 en 3A el 1 oct. y de 7,54 en 3B el 1 oct., cuando han caído las primeras lluvias. También encontraron valores muy altos de S (65-6) contra valores máximos de 13 en 3A, el 27 jul., de 6 en 38B el 10 sep. y 1 oct.; valores mínimos de 1 en 51A 12 nov., en 3B el 27 jul.; de H' (3,66-1,17) contra valores máximos de 2,62 en 38A el 10 sep. , de 2,10 en 38B el 1 oct.; valores mínimos de 0,00 en 51A el 12 nov. y en 3A el 27 jul.En el sur de Nigeria (Arimoro, et al., 2008) En la Tabla 24 también encontramos valores críticos de contaminación tanto en A como en B muy similares a los encontrados en este estudio, en la parte alta en los muestreos de septiembre y octubre de las quebradas La Chapa (3A) y Tiembla (38A); en la parte baja cerca de la desembocadura en los muestreos de julio, septiembre y octubre de la quebrada La Chapa (21A) y Tiembla (51A); en los muestreos hechos después de los vertimientos en la parte alta de las quebradas La Chapa (3B) y Tiembla (38B) en los meses de julio, septiembre y octubre; en los muestreos de la parte baja cerca de desembocadura de las quebradas La Chapa (21B) y Tiembla (51B) en los meses de julio, septiembre, octubre y noviembre.  En la parte alta de todas las microcuencas de las dos subcuencas todas las RALL, industrias agropecuarias (cría y ceba de cerdos, pollos, ganado vacuno y peces), agroindustrias (café, fique y caña panelera) y las casas de la región toman el agua de ellas generando en los meses de junio, julio, agosto y parte de septiembre (periodo seco de poca precipitación) un grave problema de abastecimiento y de contaminación por los bajos caudales que se registran en la parte baja de todas las microcuencas, que luego se recuperan en el periodo lluvioso que va desde octubre hasta mayo. De noviembre a enero son los meses que presentan niveles menos elevados de contaminación debido al aumento en los caudales y que la gran mayoría de las RALL paran sus procesos de producción para hacer reparaciones y reformas en los equipos e instalaciones (Figura 38). a las pocas h de sol que hay en este tiempo para secar el almidón ) o porque por la intensidad de las lluvias la materia prima no puede llevarse a las RALL   2 1,4 1,6 1,8 2,0 2,2 2,4 2,6 2,8 3,0 3,2 3,4 3,6 3,8   J 0,700 AB 0,466 BC 0,422 BC 0,332 C 0,824 A 0,372 BC 0,262 C 0,300 C 0,0148 BMWP* 1,302 AB 0,905 B 1,271 AB 1,037 B 1,589 A 1,194 AB 0,903 B 0,792 B 0,0239 ASPT Figura 42. Line plots de la Equitatividad J y del índice ASPT obtenidos para los sitios de muestroe A y B de julio a diciembre.• Clase Oligochaeta. En el municipio de Santander de Quilichao, departamento del Cauca, en las quebradas La Chapa y Tiembla, encontramos: o Orden Haplotaxida, G. Tubifex (Fam. Tubificidae), Pontoscolex (Fam.Glossoscolecidae) y Drilocrius breymanni (Fam Almidae).• Clase Hirudinea. En las quebradas La Chapa y Tiembla encontramos: o Orden Glossiphoniiformes, G. Oligobdella (Glossiphoniidae).• Clase Gastropoda. En las quebradas La Chapa y Tiembla encontramos, o Orden Basommatophora. Los géneros Ferrissia (Ancylidae) y Physa (Physidae).• Clase Bivalvia. En las quebradas Tiembla y Quimbas se encontró, o Orden Unionoida, del género Anodontites (Unionidae).• Clase Crustacea. En la quebrada Vergara encontramos el o Orden Decapoda, de la familia Pseudothelphusidae, un ejemplar del género Hipolobocera beieri. Los resultados de la encuesta nos indicaron que de las 62 rallanderías existentes y operativas en 1999 en el Municipio de Santander, 29 eran de nivel alto, 32 de nivel medio y solo una de nivel bajo, que en aquel momento no estaba operando (46,8 % NT1 y 51,6 % NT2). Solo 43 RALL funcionaron regularmente de julio a diciembre de 1999 debido a escasez de materia prima, agua y recursos económicos.El funcionamiento estacional de 8-10 meses/año que hemos detectado en nuestras RALL es también apreciado en La India, donde operan por un periodo de 4-5 meses/año; debe tratarse de una situación generalizada en el mundo. Las RALL NT1 procesan 2328 kg/día (ps) de yuca, lo que supone un 65 % más de yuca fresca diaria que las 1300 kg/día (ps) de las NT2; las NT1 consiguen 1,3 t/día de almidón frente a 0,7 t/día las NT2. La explicación está en el hecho de funcionar las NT1 a flujo continuo y utilizar máquinas lavadoras más eficientes y con una capacidad un 73 % mayor.Como consecuencia las NT1 gastan un 69 % más de agua por hora, empleando un 41 % menos de tiempo en el lavado; sin embargo generan más AR (50 m 3 /día) que vierten en continuo durante 9 h, en pequeños caudales de unos 5,5 m 3 /h, arrojando la mancha directamente a las quebradas ya que solo unas pocas RALL recuperan este subproducto. Las RALL NT2 al tener limitada su producción por la capacidad de los tanques de sedimentación deben parar su producción y esperar de 8 a 22 h para la sedimentación del almidón, pero esto les permite recuperar una gran parte de los sólidos, lo que hemos comprobado en los análisis de sus aguas residuales (AR). Vacían sus tanques aproximadamente en 1 h, produciendo grandes caudales de vertido de AR de 33 m 3 /h de media y superando en algunos casos los caudales naturales circulantes, con los evidentes impactos que esto supone para las quebradas receptoras. Para conseguir las 8800 t/año de producción de almidón de las 43 RALL ha sido necesario procesar 39290 t/año de yuca, produciendo un flujo de unos 5306 kg/año de cianuro, vertiendo a los ecosistemas acuáticos unos 246 kg/año de cianuro en sus AR. Tal como se ha comentado en el capítulo de resultados, tanto el tamaño de nuestras RALL y sus producciones consiguientes son menores que las referidas para otros países; están en concreto muy por debajo de los de la India (10-50 t/día) y los de Vietnam del Sur y Tailandia (100-800 t/día), pero por encima de los de Vietnam del Norte (0,25-0,50 t/día).Hemos comprobado que las mejoras y los desarrollos tecnológicos de esta agroindustria solo han ido dirigidos a aumentar la producción y calidad del almidón, siendo que hasta hoy día no se ha investigado para mejorar en el uso eficiente, racional y sostenible del agua. El uso del agua por las RALL representa un costo ambiental muy alto, por emplear aguas limpias y dulces, tomadas de las cabeceras y posteriormente devueltas muy contaminadas. La sostenibilidad del agua como recurso de la región está seriamente comprometida por el elevadísimo consumo de agua de las RALL -sin olvidarnos de los efectos de la intensa deforestación existente-, así comprobamos que las 12 RALL caracterizadas consumen unos 657 m 3 /día, lo que equivale a la dotación mínima de agua necesaria para una población humana de 5475 hab. Extrapolando para las 43 RALL que funcionan regularmente en el municipio, se trata de un consumo promedio de agua limpia de 4708 hm 3 /añodotación mínima de una población de 100000 hab-, arrojando 3542 hm 3 /año de AR contaminada.En relación a los contenidos de cianuro en la materia prima empleada en las RALL, consideramos que la disminución del contenido promedio de CNT encontrado en la yuca (329 mg/kg, ps) frente al de la década de 1980-90, es consecuencia de los avances logrados en los últimos años por el CIAT en el mejoramiento de las variedades de yuca, habiendo aumentado también hasta el 42 % el contenido de MS de la yuca. Estas concentraciones suponen unos flujos diarios de cianuro aportados por la yuca (CNTD) de 0,77 kg/día en las NT1, que son significativamente mayores que los 0,39 kg/día de las NT2. Aunque en ningún caso queda residuo alguno de HCN en el almidón, ya que éste se libera a la atmósfera durante el lavado, rallado, colado, sí que es arrastrado en las AR, al disolverse totalmente en el agua del proceso.La clara diferencia en la forma de realizarse los vertidos entre los dos niveles tecnológicos de las RALL, tiene como consecuencia la producción de AR más ácidas en las NT2, con un pH de 4,24, frente a un pH de 5,28 en NT1. Esto nos muestra la tendencia ácida de estas AR que hace indispensable la corrección de pH para posibles tratamientos biológicos. El amonio es un 65,5 % mayor en las RALL de NT1 que en las de NT2, siendo igualmente superiores en NT1, un 59 % la DQO y un 71 % la CC. En lo que respecta a los flujos, también los encontramos mayores en NT1: un 75 % los sólidos totales (STD) y un 76% los suspendidos (SSTD) y un 69 % el flujo de los disueltos (SDTD), un 63 % los flujos de nitritos (NNO 2 D), un 81 % los de amonio (NNH 4 D) y un 68 % el flujo de Demanda Química (DQOD). En general todas las AR de las RALL son ácidas debido a los altos contenidos de ácido láctico y acético y en menor proporción de ácido fórmico, propiónico y butírico.Algunos rallanderos utilizan esta agua para quitar el óxido de sus herramientas de trabajo, otros las usan para regar pasto de corte (Pannicetun violaceum) y caña panelera (Saccharum officinarum), que algunos agricultores los siembran en las laderas como barreras vivas para evitar la erosión.Hemos comparado los valores de la fisicoquímica de las aguas fluviales con las \"Normas de Calidad para la destinación del recurso en usos del agua\" en Colombia para agua cruda destinada al consumo humano y para los parámetros no recogidos en la misma hemos empleado una norma para Camboya, donde también procesan yuca para obtener almidón. Estas normas no se cumplen ya en algunos casos en los sitios de control de la parte alta de las quebradas; dándose la paradoja de que en cambio algunos sitios B sí las cumplen. Es evidente el impacto de las AR sobre los ecosistemas acuáticos estudiados. El único parámetro de los estudiados para el que no hemos encontrado diferencias significativas entre los sitios A y B es la temperatura del agua. Todas las demás variables, fisicoquímicas y de contaminación de las aguas, así como las variables biocenóticas y los indicadores bióticos indican cambios significativos de empeoramiento de la calidad ecológica de los ecosistemas acuáticos, independientemente de su situación en la cuenca. Incluso los sitios A muestran ya aguas muy ligeramente ácidas con un pH medio de 6,98 y concentraciones bastante débiles de oxígeno disuelto (OD = 6 mg/l de media), pasando de un 77 % SATOD en los sitios A a un bajísimo 69 % de SATOD y a un pH = 6,64 en los sitios B.Los nitratos encontrados (0,10-10,40 mg/l) son similares a los encontrados en la India (0,95-14,28 mg/l) en general, con valores bajos en época húmeda y altos en la seca. También encontramos valores parecidos de nitritos en la India (0,09-0,30 mg/l) y en nuestros casos (0,04-0,42 mg/l), dándose una estacionalidad similar a los nitratos. Ningún sitio nuestro está cerca de la concentración máxima permisible establecida por la Directiva (1991/696/EC) sobre nitratos (50 mg/l). Los 0,44 mg/l de nitratos citados por Lassaletta et al. (2009) para ríos no contaminados, solo se cumplen cuando los caudales son máximos y el umbral de 8,8 mg/l allí recogido para la protección de las especies de agua dulce más sensible solo es superado en una ocasión (12B: 10,4 mg/l, nitratos).Los otros estudios que refieren impactos de las agroindustrias de yuca en el mundo han sido realizados en general con aproximaciones menos completas o considerando aspectos más parciales de la cuestión que nuestro estudio. Los estudios encontrados son referentes a La India, Camboya, Vietnam, Nigeria, Brasil y a la propia Colombia. Allí se han encontrado unos efectos similares en general, aunque de muy difícil comparación entre sí y con nuestro estudio, debido a las grandes diferencias de magnitud de los caudales de los ríos considerados y de la población humana asentada en las cuencas afectadas.(40-50 % de la varianza explicada) entre CN-, ST, SST, SDT, CE, NTOT, NO3, NO2 y DQO, con el oxígeno del agua (OD y SATOD). También nos han permitido apreciar que los sitios de control de las cabeceras son los que muestran una mejor calidad del agua; que algunos sitios A presentan una contaminación similar a la de los sitios B, cuando están cerca de las desembocaduras o incluso en las cabeceras en época seca. Caso contrario sucede con algunos sitios en B en la parte alta y desembocadura de estas quebradas en la época de lluvias que presentan menor contaminación debido al aumento de caudal en estos meses y que la mayoría de las RALL paran totalmente sus procesos de producción.Las comparaciones múltiples de medias (Test de Duncan) nos han agrupado las variables de flujo en dos grupos: 1) SSTD, SDTD, NNO2D y DBO5D, y 2) STD, DQOD, NNO3D, CND, NTOTD y CC. Aparecen dos subconjuntos de medias en cada grupo que son significativamente diferentes; el primer subconjunto reúne los sitios con peor calidad del agua, cercanos a las desembocaduras y el segundo el de las mejores calidades en las partes altas de las quebradas (3A y 38A). Llama la atención el caso del sitio 3B que se sitúa ordenado por el test al final o al principio de los subconjuntos (es un valor intermedio entre las mejores calidades de la parte baja de las subcuencas y las peores de la parte alta). En cuanto a las concentraciones, las de CN -, DBO 5 y DQO de los sitios 38A y 3A son las que indican las mejores calidades; los demás sitios presentan calidades malas e intermedias; de nuevo el sitio 3B muestra un comportamiento inesperado por su situación en la parte alta de la cuenca, mostrando elevados valores de CN -, DBO 5 y DQO, similares a los de las zonas bajas.Para evitar daños mínimos a la mayoría de las especies las concentraciones de cianuro libre deben ser muy bajas, del orden de 3-5 μg/l. Estas condiciones ni siquiera se cumplen en muchas ocasiones en los sitios de control de cabeceras, donde hemos llegado a encontrar hasta 51 μg/l.Como vemos la actividad de las RALL deja su huella en los ecosistemas acuáticos ya desde las cabeceras, incluso en tramos donde las RALL sólo operan esporádicamente. La exposición aguda a CN -, que es letal a 300-1000 μg/l se ha llegado a observar en una ocasión en época seca en 12B, llegando a los 710 μg/l.En los sitios de control de la parte alta de las quebradas se aprecian los mayores valores de riqueza (S), alcanzando los 13 y 14 géneros de MIB, con una S acumulada máxima durante todo el periodo de estudio de 27 (sitio 3A). La diversidad H' ha llegado esporádicamente a alcanzar valores importantes de 2,7 bits y 3,4 bits en algunos momentos también en controles de cabeceras, mostrando una diversidad acumulada máxima de 3 bits (sitio 38A). En general la riqueza media (3-5) y la diversidad media (0,5-1,2 bits) han sido bajas y siempre significativamente superiores en los sitios A, lo que da una clara idea de la magnitud del impacto. En cambio las densidades (N) de MIB han sido significativamente mayores en los sitios B (N = 348) que en los sitios A (N = 123), lo que no es raro que ocurra en los ríos en los casos de enriquecimiento orgánico, al aportar mayor alimento para la comunidad. Los índices bióticos (BMWP y ASPT) también indican valores críticos y muy críticos de contaminación indicadores de aguas fuertemente contaminadas ya en los sitios A de la parte alta de las quebradas.Mediante las comparaciones múltiples de medias para los datos biocenóticos, observamos que para la diversidad (H') y la equitatividad (J) se presentan 3 subconjuntos de casos que podemos agrupar en dos subconjuntos de medias significativamente diferentes para H'. El primer subconjunto reúne los sitios con los mayores valores de H' de la parte alta de las quebradas y menos contaminados, como ya hemos comentado y el segundo subconjunto, el de los menores valores de H' que agrupa los sitios de la parte baja de estas quebradas (con la excepción de 3B y 38B), y que son los sitios más contaminados. Pasa lo mismo para la Equitatividad (J), el BMWP y el ASPT. Para estos cuatro parámetros bióticos al igual que en los fisicoquímicos 3B representa sitio de mayor contaminación.6.1 CONCLUSIONES 1) Hemos apreciado una gran fluctuación interanual en el número de RALL existentes y operativas en el N del Cauca dedicadas a la obtención de almidón agrio de yuca, lo que es esperable tratándose de una agroindustria artesanal en reconversión.2) Las RALL procesan la yuca empleando diferentes tecnologías, que han ido reuniéndose con el paso del tiempo en 2 niveles tecnológicos: las RALL de NT1, de funcionamiento en flujo continuo por sedimentación en canales y las NT2, que sedimentan el almidón en tanques, procesando las NT1 más yuca fresca/día que las NT2.3) Múltiples factores determinan que operen en régimen estacional, 8 meses/año las NT2 y 10 meses/año las NT1, funcionando sólo esporádicamente algunas. En otros países tropicales también se trata de una actividad estacional, operando en la India unos 4-5 meses/año.Las 43 RALL operativas procesaban 39290 t/año de yuca para una producción de 8800 t/año de almidón; siendo unos niveles de producción muy bajos comparándolos con los de otros países, debido al menor número de RALL y a la menor producción/RALL, estando muy por debajo de la India, Vietnam del Sur y Tailandia, aunque por encima de Vietnam del Norte. y Ecuador.El gasto promedio de agua limpia de las RALL tomada de las caberas es del orden de 43-66 m 3 /día, lo que supone un coste ambiental demasiado alto. El consumo de agua entre las 43 RALL operativas equivaldría al de una población humana de 100000 hab, posteriormente vertiendo unos 3542 hm 3 /año de AR con 246 kg/año de CN, afectando gravemente los ecosistemas acuáticos.Las RALL NT1 generan 50 m 3 /día de AR vertidas en continuo durante 9 h, en pequeños caudales de 5,5 m 3 /h. Las NT2 deben esperar 8-22 h, recuperando una gran parte de los sólidos, vaciando sus tanques en 1 h aproximadamente, produciendo caudales de vertido de 33 m 3 /h, superando en ocasiones los caudales naturales circulantes, con los evidentes impactos que esto supone para las quebradas receptoras.El contenido medio de CNen la yuca empleada en las 12 RALL ha sido de 329 mg/kg (ps), lo que parece indicar una disminución desde la década de 1980-90, cuando se referían concentraciones de 110-1129 mg/kg (ps), lo que podría ser consecuencia de los avances logrados por el CIAT en el mejoramiento de las variedades de yuca.8) Independientemente del NT, las AR presentaron una elevada carga contaminante (CC) con concentraciones preocupantes de CNde 710 µg/l de media, con un pH = 4,24 en las NT2, significativamente menor que el pH = 5,28 de NT1, siendo en NT1 un 65 % mayores, el NH4 + con 1,1 mg/l y un 59 % mayor la DQO, con 5714 mg/l. 9) Los flujos diarios de CN en las AR son de 0,77 kg/día en las NT1, significativamente mayores que los 0,39 kg/día de CN de las NT2.10) También en NT1 el flujo diario es un 75 % mayor en sólidos totales (STD), un 76% en el de suspendidos (SSTD), un 69 % en el de los disueltos (SDTD), un 63 % en el de nitritos (NNO 2 D), un 81 % en el de amonio (NNH 4 D) y un 68 % en el flujo de DQOD.11) La calidad del agua de los riachuelos receptores se ve significativamente disminuida por estas AR, acrecentándose los efectos en los meses más secos.12) Es de destacar la disminución en los sitios B del OD y los incrementos de sólidos disueltos y en suspensión, de la DBO 5 , DQO, NO 3 y NTOT; sólo la temperatura del agua no ha mostrado diferencias significativas entre sitios A y B.13) Se han encontrado valores de nitratos comprendidos entre 0,1-10,4 mg/l, siendo 0,04-0,42 mg/l los de nitritos, ambos con valores bajos en época húmeda y altos en la seca; en la India se refieren concentraciones similares, dándose también esta estacionalidad.14) Solo con los caudales máximos no se superan los 0,44 mg/l de nitratos recomendados para ríos no contaminados, mientras que el umbral de 8,8 mg/l para proteger a las especies de agua dulce más sensibles, solo es superado en una ocasión (12B: 10,4 mg/l, nitratos).15) La taxocenosis de MIB muestra en general una significativa pérdida de estructura, con menores riqueza (S) y diversidad (H') y mostrando mayores densidades (N) en los sitios B.16) Los índices bióticos empleados, las adaptaciones para Colombia de BMWP y ASPT, también indican pérdida de calidad en los sitios B. 17) Las concentraciones de CN de las AR que llegan a alcanzar los 3,1 mg/l y las encontradas en las quebradas, con una media de 41 µg/l en los sitios B, deben de ser las responsables de gran parte de los daños detectados en las biocenosis, ya que son incompatibles con el desarrollo adecuado de muchos organismos.18) En general se aprecia un evidente empeoramiento de la calidad ecológica de los ríos y arroyos según discurren sus aguas hacia las desembocaduras, recogiendo muchos otros tipos de vertidos, sin dar casi oportunidad a los procesos ecológicos de autodepuración.19) Como consecuencia los sitios A y B son más similares entre sí en las zonas bajas de las cuencas, ya más contaminadas por todos los usos del territorio, que en las cabeceras, donde los vertidos de las rallanderías producen un efecto negativo más claro.En la época seca y comienzo de la lluviosa se presentan niveles bajos de caudal y valores críticos de contaminación aún en las cabeceras de las cuencas que se agudizan en la parte media y mucho más en la desembocadura.Los rallanderos manifestaron en la encuesta su preocupación por el aspecto de las quebradas, que opinaban, estaban muy degradas. Así mismo indicaron su voluntad de contribuir a la mejora de las condiciones ambientales de su territorio y a la realización de nuestro estudio. Sin embargo, es necesario que los rallanderos se organicen, ya que la única cooperativa que agrupaba a unos pocos ha desaparecido. Sin una amplia base social que esté unida para luchar solidariamente por su gremio, difícilmente podrán exigir y conseguir ayuda para resolver sus problemas de contaminación, calidad y cantidad de agua para el proceso.A continuación paso a exponer algunas recomendaciones en busca de mejorar la calidad ambiental y el desarrollo local sostenible.1) Los avances tecnológicos muestran que una buena opción para posibles tratamientos de estas aguas residuales puede encontrarse en la utilización de procesos de tratamiento integrados, como el anaerobio en serie con aerobio. Según Rojas (1999) esta secuencia ha demostrado alcanzar altas eficiencias de remoción de materia orgánica, mayores que las derivadas de los procesos convencionales y a menor costo; debido al elevado precio de los equipos necesarios para la aireación, tratamiento y disposición de los lodos aerobios. Las lagunas de estabilización son consideradas una buena opción por sus bajos costos en operación y mantenimiento (la RALL 56 tiene una al pie del río Mondomo), pero no son aplicables en unos casos por la topografía del terreno, pues gran parte de las rallanderías están ubicadas en zonas de ladera y en otros por el alto costo de la tierra. Otra opción es el filtrado de estas aguas que algunas RALL han construido pero se deben evaluar para poder determinar el filtro adecuado, los niveles de eficiencia y la relación costos/beneficios ambientales para determinar la mejor opción.2) Al estar la mayoría de las RALL ubicadas en zonas de ladera, permitiría utilizar de una manera fácil, económica. controlando solo pH y caudales de sus AR, en riego de pasto de corte (Pannicetun violaceum) y caña panelera (Saccharum officinarum), que además de servir como barreras vivas para evitar la erosión que se presenta en la zona, representaría un ingreso extra para el productor y una carga contaminante menos para las quebradas.3) Otra utilización complementaria sería el uso de biodigestores para degradar la materia orgánica, producir gas para la cocina y para secado de los subproductos de la yuca y del almidón dulce.4) Es muy importante reciclar el subproducto del lavado de las raíces de yuca, junto con los desechos de la finca (animales y plantas) y de las casas, para la producción de abonos orgánicos que pueden servir para mejorar la estructura del suelo y elevar los niveles de eficiencia en los cultivos.Es muy importante establecer un control para estos caudales mínimos y hacer cumplir la normatividad que regula la toma de aguas en la parte alta de las microcuencas y un plan de vigilancia y control de todos los vertidos y desperdicios que son arrojados a sus cauces.6) La CRC, mediante el decreto 901 de 1997, establece metas de reducción de carga contaminante en las fuentes de agua y por lo tanto debe hacerlas cumplir, no solo a esta agroindustria, sino a todos los que están arrojando sus desperdicios directa o indirectamente a las quebradas, pero apoyándolos con estudios, diseños, educación ambiental e infraestructuras que permitan devolver y dar una nueva vida a las maltratadas y castigadas quebradas y ríos de la zona.Estos caudales mínimos son producto de la pérdida de la protección superficial del suelo, debido a la deforestación, la cual produce la alteración de los horizontes del suelo y el incremento de su temperatura por la pérdida de protección y el aumento de la insolación, acelerando la volatilización de los nutrientes; esto se refleja en la alteración de las características físicas y químicas del suelo, en cambios de la relación planta-suelo y en la disminución de la capacidad productiva. La tala indiscriminada aumenta las posibilidades de erosión, por lo cual este proceso de antropización relacionado con los ecosistemas acuáticos está ocasionando la pérdida de áreas o zonas ecotonales que aportan material alóctono que contribuye a la producción primaria y al aumento de la turbiedad del agua. Las actividades antrópicas en las subcuencas del Cauca han afectado su funcionamiento al intervenir la dinámica fluvial del río en detrimento de la calidad del agua y alterando la zonación transversal y longitudinal de la vegetación y el paisaje fluvial.8) Para algunos tramos de la carretera que circunda por la parte alta de la microcuenca de la Chapa y Tiembla y que están presentando problemas de erosión, se deben colocar trinchos para control de cárcavas, hacer terrazas, barreras vivas, sembrar pastos, lo mismo que hacer y adecuar drenajes para evitar la erosión en los lugares que amerite (canales de desagüe y cajas disipadoras para evacuar en forma controlada la escorrentía interceptada por un sistema de obras físicas, cuando no existe un desagüe natural que cumpla satisfactoriamente esta función). Para el caso de la erosión causada por el sobrepastoreo se debe dar la alternativa de manejo de praderas con barreras vivas de pasto de corte y construcción de terrazas. 9) La recuperación mediante un proceso intensivo de reforestación con especies nativas, permitirá la recuperación de la diversidad biológica mejorando la calidad de los suelos, porque se aumenta la fertilidad del suelo y se mejora su retención de humedad, estructura y contenido de nutrientes (reduciendo la lixiviación, proporcionando abono verde y agregando nitrógeno, en el caso de que las especies utilizadas sean de este tipo) e incrementando la productividad de los cultivos. La siembra de árboles estabiliza los suelos, reduciendo la erosión hidráulica y eólica de las laderas, los campos agrícolas cercanos y los suelos no consolidados, La cobertura arbórea también ayuda a reducir el flujo rápido de las aguas lluvias, regulando, de esta manera, el caudal de los ríos, mejorando la calidad del agua y reduciendo la entrada de sedimento a las aguas superficiales. La magnitud de los caudales determina el tamaño del río y sus condiciones hidráulicas. La secuencia diaria, mensual y anual de los mismos condiciona muchas de las propiedades físicas y biológicas de cada río. La velocidad de la corriente está íntimamente ligada a la magnitud de los caudales y es uno de los factores de los cuales dependen en gran medida las comunidades de organismos de los ríos, utilizando directamente el movimiento del agua para su alimentación o respiración, o indirectamente a través del sustrato que este genera (Hynes, 1970). Debajo de los árboles, las temperaturas más frescas y los ciclos húmedos y secos moderados constituyen un microclima favorable para los microorganismos y la fauna; ayuda a prevenir la laterización del suelo. Las plantaciones tienen un efecto moderador sobre los vientos y ayudan a asentar el polvo y otras partículas del aire.10) Otra estrategia es la de introducir un proyecto de cultivo de frutales, como parte del proceso de reforestación porque será un importante aporte a la dieta de la familia y a la generación de empleo e ingreso para las familias; en esta estrategia desempeñará un papel fundamental la mujer campesina, mejorando el nivel nutricional de su familia y generando sus propios ingresos por la venta de excedentes de la producción de frutas. En este sentido el proyecto tendrá un efecto inmediato en la protección de las fuentes de agua y un efecto permanente en el mejoramiento de las condiciones de producción, además de la concientización y capacitación de las comunidades campesinas en la conservación de los recursos naturales.La encuesta estaba diseñada en 3 partes en un cuestionario de 50 preguntas. La primera parte:Características y localización de las rallanderías compuesta de 13 preguntas donde 4 son sobre la localización. La segunda parte: Adopción de tecnologías y cambios en infraestructura compuesta de 7preguntas donde 4 son sobre el agua utilizada para el proceso. La tercera parte: Manejo o tratamiento de las aguas residuales, compuesta de 30 preguntas donde 8 son sobre la fuente natural que recibe las descargas de aguas residuales y 3 sobre su contribución a la solución de la contaminación (ver formato de la encuesta al final).El resultado se presenta en 4 Tablas, la primera: Identificación de las rallanderías donde aparecen numeradas desde la 1 hasta 63, teniendo en cuenta primero las rallanderías que vierten sus aguas residuales a la subcuenca del río Quinamayó (hasta la 34) y siguiendo el orden en que contaminan desde la cabecera hasta su desembocadura (de la 35 a la 63 pertenecen a la subcuenca Mondomo-Ovejas). Después se presenta el Nombre de: la rallandería, el propietario y la vereda; localización y distancias a: Panamericana (vía principal en m.) y centros urbanos importantes (Mondomo y Santander en km.). Por último se presenta clasificación por nivel tecnológico y cantidad de Aguas residuales de lavado de raíces y de los canales o tanques de sedimentación.La segunda: Características del recorrido de las Aguas Residuales donde aparece el número de la rallandería, cantidad de Agua Residual (l/día), Pendiente(%), Recorrido (m.), fuente receptora de Agua Residual, subcuenca o microcuenca y cantidad o caudal que lleva la fuente natural que recibe las aguas residuales (l/s).La Tercera: Meses de trabajo y fuentes de agua donde aparece en número de la rallandería, meses que no trabaja y en los si lo hace, el agua para el proceso de donde la obtiene y los meses en que hay escasez.La cuarta: Fauna, clase de aguas residuales y aportes a solución donde aparece el número de la rallandería, fauna que se encontraba cuando no había contaminación en la fuente de agua que recibe aguas residuales, las diferentes clases de estas que son vertidas y cuáles serían sus aportes para dar solución al problema de la contaminación.El resultado de la encuesta se presenta sintetizado en 13 subtítulos: Niveles Tecnológicos, Situación actual y localización, Microcuencas contaminadas y recorrido de las aguas residuales, Cantidad de aguas residuales, Tiempo de operación y de descanso, Cambios en el sistema de procesamiento, Agua para el procesamiento, Flujo de aguas residuales, H de trabajo, Como vierten sus aguas residuales, Fauna reportada, Otras aguas residuales y Aportes para la solución. Muchas de las rallanderías cambiaron de propietario por venta o muerte de los dueños, otras están arrendadas, otras fueron demolidas y algunas están paradas desde hace más de 3 años, solo unas pocas llevan menos de 6 meses paradas. En total se realizaron 65 encuestas de las cuales se descartaron 2 por llevar mucho tiempo cerradas y la 63 por pertenecer al municipio de Buenos Aires (Luis Adelmo Moran). La mayor concentración se presenta en la Agustina con (27 %), Mandivá con (11,3 %), El Llanito con (8 %), Santa Bárbara y el Pedregal con (6,5 %) cada una (Tabla:Identificación de las rallanderías).En cuanto a la altitud, la rallandería que se encuentra más baja está a 995 msnm en Mandivá y la más alta a 1873 msnm. en Alto Paraíso y la gran mayoría están por debajo de los 1450 msnm.Mondomo es el centro urbano al que más rallanderías están cerca pues a menos de 10 km hay localizadas 85,5 % y 77,4 % están a menos de 3000 m de la carretera Panamericana. La mayoría para en diciembre pues 91,9% lo hacen para darle vacaciones al personal, reparar máquinas y hacer adecuaciones importantes en la infraestructura.Otra época programada es la semana santa en la cual solo uno trabaja hasta el miércoles.Para 27,4 % estas épocas que no operan son secas y para 32,3 % que son lluviosas, para el resto que ambas se presentan.Regularmente trabajan de enero a diciembre 56,4 % rallanderías, de febrero a diciembre o a octubre 8 % y para 21,9 % los meses son: enero a marzo, mayo a septiembre, julio a septiembre, diciembre a marzo. Solo uno manifestó trabajar regularmente todo el año.En cuanto si han realizado algún cambio en su sistema de procesamiento en los últimos 4 años, 53,2 % respondieron sí y 46,8 % que no. Es importante resaltar que 16,1 % rallanderías construyeron canales de sedimentación, una actualmente lo está haciendo, 3 colocaron sus máquinas en posición continua y por gravedad, adecuaron su sistema de recolado y de secado, algunas cambiaron sus máquinas y construyeron más tanques de sedimentación o tanques para la mancha.Obtienen el agua para su rallandería de sobrante del acueducto de Mondomo 2 y del de La Chapa solo uno, de nacedero y quebrada 4, de solo nacedero 6, de río 2 y de quebradas 75,8 %. Los ríos son el San Francisco y el Gallinazo, las quebradas son: La Agustina ( 5), La Chapa (4), La Cascada (9), Abejonales (3), Quebrada Grande (2), Tres Quebradas (2), Mestizal (5), Canelos (4), San Pablo (4). Las primeras 5 quebradas vierten sus aguas a la cuenca del río Quinamayó y 37,1 % rallanderías toman sus aguas de ellas para su agroindustria; las otras 4 pertenecen a la cuenca del río Ovejas y 24,2 % rallanderías toman de aquí sus aguas.Consideran 17 de los entrevistados que el agua para su agroindustria es abundante (27,4 %), 35 que es regular (56,4 %) y 10 que es escasa (16,2 %). Es escasa el agua para la agroindustria en la época de verano, que para algunos rallanderos es de 2 y para otros es hasta de 4 meses. Están de acuerdo 19 que Julio y agosto son estos meses; 18 que son julio, agosto y septiembre; 9 junio, julio y agosto; 6 agosto y septiembre y 3 Junio, julio, agosto y septiembre. De los que se abastecen de la quebrada La Cascada tienen que recurrir a trabajar por turnos porque el agua no alcanza para todos y por el cauce de esta quebrada, cuando pasa por la panamericana no corre nada de agua. Respecto a la calidad del agua, 11 la consideran excelente, 35 buena y 16 regular (25,8%).El flujo de aguas residuales que salen de las rallanderías es de dos clases: uno es el que vierten las máquinas lavadoras de las raíces de yuca y otro es el que vierten los tanques y canales de sedimentación del almidón. En la primera clase podemos distinguir 3 categorías:1) Alta, cuando los flujos son mayores de 1 l/s pero menores o iguales a 1,4 l/s, en el que se encuentran 11,3 % rallanderías;2) Media, cuando el flujo es mayor de 0,5 l/s pero menor o igual a 1, en el que hay 50 % rallanderías, y3) Baja, para flujos menores o iguales a 0,5 l/s pero mayor igual a 0,27 l/s donde se encuentran 37,1 % rallanderías.Para el flujo que sale de los canales de sedimentación podemos distinguir dos categorías:1) Flujos > 1,0 l/s pero ≤ 1,7 l/s, en el que están 22,6 % rallanderías, y2) Flujos ≤ 1,0 l/s pero ≥ 0,68 l/s, donde hay 24,2 % rallanderías.Las restantes rallanderías tienen tanques de sedimentación y vierten sus aguas residuales 10 h después de haberlos llenado o en la mayoría de los casos al otro día y puede demorar su evacuación entre 10 o 60 min según el número de tanques a vaciar, en algunos casos estas aguas residuales se pueden juntar con las resultantes del lavado de las raíces de yuca.Podemos clasificar las rallanderías por el flujo de aguas residuales que salen por día de ellas, en 3 categorías:1) Bajo, si el flujo es menor o igual a 30 m 3 pero mayor o igual a 13,3 m 3 en la que están 11,3 % rallanderías;2) Medio, si es mayor de 30 pero menor o igual a 60 m 3 en las que hay 56,4 % rallanderías;3) Alto, cuando el flujo es mayor de 60 pero menor o igual a 89,9 m 3 /día a la que pertenecen 32,3 %.Hay que anotar que 46 rallanderías no mezclan las aguas residuales de su proceso de extracción de almidón de yuca pero las otras 16 si lo hacen con otras aguas residuales como: de porquerizas, casas y otras rallanderías. En algunos casos se mezclan apenas salen del área construida y en otros unos metros antes de caer a la fuente receptora. Para 43 de los entrevistados manifestaron que los caudales de las fuentes receptoras de las aguas residuales se reducían a más de la mitad en la época de verano pero difieren en los meses pues 16 dicen que son julio y agosto, para 14 son julio, agosto y septiembre; para 4 son junio, julio agosto y septiembre; para 5 son junio, julio, agosto y para 4 que son agosto y septiembre. Otros consideran que las aguas en verano se reducen solo hasta la mitad y están todos de acuerdo que los niveles de caudal de estas fuentes receptoras son más o menos estables en las épocas lluviosas.El tiempo de trabajo va desde 4 a 12 h; se encontraron que 3 rallanderías trabajan 6 h e igual número trabajan 7 h; 8 trabajan 8 h diarias; 32 trabajan 10 h diarias y 14 lo hacen por 9 h.La conducción de esta agua residual se hace de 4 formas:1) por acequia lo hacen 25 RALL;2) por tubería lo están haciendo 26 RALL;3) por tubería y luego por acequia hasta la fuente receptora lo hacen 7 RALL; y 4) por manguera 4 RALL con diámetros de 2,5, 3 y 4 pulgadas.Los diámetros de tuberías en PVC más usados fueron de: 3, 4, 6 y 8 pulgadas; también se utilizan tuberías de gres y de cemento de 6, 8 y 12 pulgadas.8. Manifestaron 37 entrevistados que si sabían que en la parte alta de su río o quebrada todavía había peces o animales que habitaban en la zona y el resto que no, o no conocían. A la pregunta de que si conoce otro río o quebrada donde todavía hay peces y otros animales de los que había en la zona respondieron que si 34 y fueron nombrados: Mondomo, Mandivá y La Cascada (por 3 personas cada uno); Ovejas y Tiembla (por 2 personas cada uno); además de: San Pablo, El Alazán, Ayalde, Las Lajas, San Francisco, Salinas, La Chapa, Tres quebradas, Gallinazo, Abejonales, Quebradagrande, San Jerónimo, Cascabel y La Agustina.Cuando se preguntó si otras aguas residuales son arrojadas al río o quebrada receptora, 58 respondieron que si y estas son: de lavado de bauxita (2), de rallandería y casas (21), de rallandería, casas y porquerizas (20), de lavado de fique (2), de casas ( 7), casas, cocheras, lavado y cambio de aceite de carros ( 1), rallandería, restaurantes y casas ( 1), casas y Molino del Cauca (1). Los vertimientos se hacen antes de ellos ( 11), antes y después de ellos (40) y después de que ellos han vertido (11). Afortunadamente 56 rallanderos recogen la cascarilla de yuca y la están utilizando para abonar plátano, café, frijol y huertas; los otros 6 la vierten a las quebradas.La mayoría de los rallanderos son conscientes de la contaminación que producen y por eso 25 respondieron que aportarían para solucionar el problema de contaminación mano de obra y transporte, 22 que aportarían mano de obra, 6 mano de obra, materiales y transporte, 6 mano de obra y materiales y 2 mano de obra y terreno. 59 rallanderos están dispuestos a aportar un 10-30 %, mientras que 3 aportarían un 31-50 %.A la pregunta de que si está dispuesto a colaborar en buscar una solución al problema de la contaminación de su quebrada, río o fuente natural; todos respondieron que si y al preguntarles el porqué las respuestas fueron muy diversas pero en todas estaba presente de que son conscientes de los perjuicios que produce la contaminación para su salud, para las personas que viven aguas abajo, para el futuro de sus hijos, para la recreación y para la vida del río.8. Las colinas delimitan la extensión de una cuenca y separan una cuenca de otra. Los movimientos del agua y de los elementos por la cuenca unen varios componentes del sistema orgánicos e inorgánicos, terrestres y acuáticos, plantas y suelos, atmósfera, vegetación y agua (Hornung y Reynols, 1995) Las particularidades del entorno también tienden a gobernar los movimientos del agua en la cuenca. Muchos tipos de arroyos o quebradas derivan un porcentaje considerable de su energía de la materia orgánica producida en otros ecosistemas (material alóctono), ya sea río arriba o en forma de detritus (materia orgánica muerta como hojas, ramas, etc.).La zona riparia (incluye las orillas y la vegetación adyacente), es una frontera muy importante entre los sistemas acuáticos y terrestres; no solamente abastece de materia orgánica sino que también influye, mediante la sombra en los niveles de temperatura y luz, afectando la producción de plantas que crecen dentro del río (autóctonas). Esta zona también controla la erosión de las orillas y la entrada de sedimentos. Mientras una quebrada crece hasta convertirse en un río, la influencia de la zona riparia se va reduciendo gradualmente, por eso la relativa importancia de los recursos energéticos (alóctonos contra autóctonos), cambia río abajo.La geología de la cuenca tiene una gran importancia en la química del agua; las quebradas que fluyen en cuencas de suelos que se han originado de rocas ígneas (granito), usualmente tienen niveles bajos de sales disueltas y pueden ser ácidas; mientras que las que fluyen sobre rocas sedimentarias tienen niveles relativamente altos de sales disueltas y pueden ser neutros o alcalinas.Los niveles de Calcio y el pH en particular tienen una importancia directa en las comunidades tanto animal como de las plantas. (Giller y Malmqvist, 1998).La geomorfología determina el suelo (y la cantidad de iones) y la pendiente del terreno; el suelo y el clima determinan la vegetación, esta determina el aporte de materia orgánica y junto con el suelo influyen en la química del agua y en la entrada de esta a la quebrada. El movimiento del agua en la quebrada está afectado por la pendiente del terreno, profundidad y permeabilidad de los suelos y el régimen de lluvias locales.La vegetación en la cuenca tiene influencia en la concentración de iones (de calcio o de magnesio), en los suelos y en el porcentaje en que varios tipos de iones son liberados en las quebradas y ríos. La vegetación en general y específicamente los árboles, atrapan iones del aire (incluyendo sales marinas y contaminantes atmosféricas). Este proceso es particularmente importante en regiones altas cerca del nacimiento de la mayoría de las quebradas. Las coníferas en particular son conocidas por tener una gran capacidad para atrapar iones comparados con otros tipos de árboles (Gee y Stoner, 1989).En la cuenca la vegetación también tiene como función incrementar el porcentaje de movimiento del agua del suelo a la atmósfera mediante la evapotranspiración, creando más espacio de almacenamiento en la cuenca, así que eventualmente menos agua de lluvia llega hasta el cauce o cambio brusco de pendiente en una o ambas márgenes (en nuestro estudio lo hemos denominado Avenida máxima anual, C1) y el nivel de la llanura de inundación, alcanzado por las avenidas extraordinarias o menos frecuentes (en nuestro estudio avenida máxima cada 50 años, C2), conectado ya con las terrazas fluviales o laderas vertientes donde se desarrolla una vegetación típicamente terrestre (Fig. 1).Figura 1. Zona de ribera de los ríos (orilla y ribera propiamente dicha) y zonas inundadas periódicamente por las avenidas ordinarias y las máximas.La magnitud del cauce y su llanura de inundación, dependen de la geomorfología del valle y la presencia de la vegetación conectada con un nivel freático elevado (García-Jalón y González del Tánago, 1995). El caudal ejerce una influencia fundamental en todos los ríos y quebradas, es un elemento clave en el hábitat fluvial, una prescripción de los requerimientos de la flora y fauna presentes en el río a lo largo de sus ciclos biológicos, que influyen en la variedad de respuestas que ocurren después de las perturbaciones (Thoms y Walker, 1992).Un río se puede analizar como un continuo longitudinal (Vannote et al., 1980), cambiando de forma más o menos predecible desde el nacimiento hasta la desembocadura; los márgenes fluviales también varían siguiendo un continuo aguas abajo. El gradiente longitudinal de los tipos de márgenes fluviales refleja un gradiente climático, relacionado con la altitud y el grado de continentalidad; un gradiente hidrológico, puesto de manifiesto por los cambios en los regímenes fluviales y especialmente su variabilidad; y un gradiente geomorfológico reflejado por las pautas del cauce y su desplazamiento lateral.Un río puede dividirse en tres zonas; la primera comprende los cauces de cabecera, de primer a tercer orden, y puede ser vista como una zona de producción de agua, sólidos disueltos y sedimentos procedentes de las laderas; la segunda ocupa el tramo medio y se considera como zona de transporte, caracterizada por una elevada heterogeneidad ambiental y alta riqueza específica y en tercer lugar aparecen los tramos bajos del río con su llanura de inundación representando una zona de depósito. Los ríos de orden superior al cuarto están con frecuencia aislados de las laderas adyacentes por los sistemas riparios de la llanura de inundación, siendo éstos los tramos que han sido más severamente impactados por las actividades humanas (Large y Petts, 1994).Casi todas las rallanderías del municipio de Santander de Quilichao vierten directamente sin ningún tratamiento, sus aguas residuales a las quebradas que pasan por muy cerca de ellas, contribuyendo a elevar la carga contaminante que estas llevan. Un poco más de la mitad del total de todas las rallanderías de esta región, arrojan sus vertidos a solo dos quebradas y sus afluentes: La Chapa (37,2 %) y Tiembla (24,2 %). Por esta razón y porque no se había hecho un estudio con las características geomorfológicas, entradas y salidas de aguas, usos del suelo en sus laderas y vegetación en sus riberas de estas dos quebradas; se decidió hacer este estudio desde el nacimiento hasta su desembocadura haciendo mediciones de longitud, caudal (ancho, profundidad y velocidad de la corriente de agua), altitud, pendiente longitudinal y pendientes de las dos márgenes.Este estudio está dividido en tres partes: primera, estudio de quebrada La Chapa (se hace mediciones y descripción desde el nacimiento hasta la desembocadura de las principales características encontradas tales como: entradas y salidas de aguas, derrumbes, empalizadas, caminos, puentes, acumulación de sedimentos, caídas de aguas, cultivos y vegetación encontrada en ambas márgenes, etc.), segunda parte, estudio de quebrada Tiembla (igual que en La Chapa) y la tercera parte es el resultado del estudio hecho en estas dos microcuencas sobre las comunidades vegetales encontrada en la parte alta y baja de estas.El estudio de la vegetación es importante no solo para conocer el estado de la misma, sino también, el de otros componentes relacionados con el ecosistema. A partir del análisis ecológico de la flora de un lugar, se pueden hacer inferencia sobre la diversidad, estructura y complejidad de las formaciones boscosas.En el caso de la vegetación Subandina, es importante conocer no solo su inventario, diversidad y complejidad, sino también, su dinámica sucesional y estado de conservación, debido a la presión que ejerce el aprovechamiento de estos recursos. En particular, en la zona de estudio se desarrollan diversas prácticas culturales relacionadas con la ganadería y agricultura de laderas, que producen efectos significativos al entorno.Este estudio, enfatiza en el conocimiento de las comunidades desde el punto de vista de su composición florística, estructura y variables fitosociológicas. Para cumplir con este objetivo se realizaron muestreos de vegetación en las riberas de las quebradas Tiembla y La Chapa. En cada micro cuenca se realizó levantamientos, tomando ejemplares y registrando la información pertinente para su procesamiento y análisis posterior en el laboratorio. Se reportan descripciones y cuadros donde se sintetizan los aspectos más relevantes de la vegetación estudiada en las diferentes localidades.Se realizaron levantamientos de vegetación para valorar un área de 400 m 2 , utilizando como unidad muestral el transecto en banda (Gentry, 1986). Hecho un muestreo por el método del transecto, se delimitó así: 25 m x 2m para un área mínima 50 m 2 . De acuerdo con las características ecológicas y estado antrópico de la zona de trabajo, tanto el área muestreada como el número y ubicación de los transectos se proyectaron y localizaron con el propósito de lograr una buena representación de la composición florística de la zona de vida estudiada alrededor de las microcuencas. Otro criterio fue localizar las unidades muestrales cerca de los sitios donde se recogieron muestras de aguas para análisis fisicoquímico y de macroinvertebrados, en los sitios conocidos como: 3A, 21A y 21B de la quebrada la Chapa; 38A, 38B y 51A de la quebrada Tiembla.Para la ubicación de las unidades muestrales y la toma de muestras se realizó estratificación, definiendo en cada quebrada o microcuenca dos sitios representativos de acuerdo con las características fisonómicas o apariencia externa de la vegetación, fisiografía y altura sobre el nivel del mar (msnm), desarrollando el muestreo a través de un patrón o método preferencial (Matteucci y Colma, 1982).Se definieron como elementos de evaluación los árboles con un DAP ≥ 10 cm. (Diámetro a la Altura del Pecho mayor o igual a 135 cm, desde la base del árbol), de los cuales se tomaron muestras para su procesamiento y determinación posterior en el Herbario-CAUP de la Universidad del Cauca.En el campo se registraron datos morfológicos y ecológicos para su descripción específica.Igualmente, se colectaron selectivamente algunos vegetales con hábitos arbustivos y herbáceos asociadas con las fitocenosis trabajadas. El material vegetal se colectó sólo cuando se encontró en estado reproductivo (floración o fructificación). En laboratorio, se hicieron observaciones y se completó la descripción de las características morfológicas indispensable para el proceso de clasificación. Las muestras procesadas fueron analizadas y ubicadas en sus respectivas categorías taxonómicas.Una vez definido el método que se aplicará, la muestra y tipo de muestreo a considerar (DAP ≥ 10 cm) en los estudios de la vegetación, las características que generalmente se cuantifican son: el número de individuos por área de muestreo (densidad), el número de veces que una especie aparece en la muestra total (frecuencia) y el área basal o la cobertura (dominancia).Se tomaron algunos datos para los cálculos biométricos como: diámetro basal (DB), altura del fuste (HF), altura total (HT), dimensiones de copa (DC). Igualmente, se consideraron parámetros fitosociológicos como: frecuencia (F), densidad (D), dominancia (DO) y se calcularon los respectivos valores relativos (%) de: FR, DR, DOR y los índices de valor de importancia (IVI), de diversidad (H') de Shannon-Weaver. La similitud entre las muestras de las comunidades, se calculó mediante el índice de Sorensen (Margalef, 1980), (Franco López, 1985).Con los datos sistematizados y analizados se elaboró: listado de composición florística (Tabla 1) y una síntesis con las variables fisonómico-estructurales e índices calculados (Tablas 2, 3, 4, 5 6 y 7). Finalmente, en el proceso de análisis, la información obtenida tanto en campo como en el laboratorio, se confrontó con literatura especializada (Cuatrecasa, 1958;IGAC, 1977;Braun-Blanquet, 1979;Espinal, 1981;Lamprecht, 1990;Gentry, 1993a;Gentry, 1993b;Cortes, 1994y Zambrano, 1998).La quebrada la Chapa nace a 1800 msnm muy cerca del cerro La Chapa y la vereda La Concepción donde hay Cabildo Indígena del mismo nombre (Figura 1), una primera línea de agua que viene por la derecha nace muy cerca de donde nace la quebrada Santa Bárbara (afluente de la quebrada Tiembla), a 400 m se midió caudal y encontramos: A=0,42 m, P=0,05 m, V=0,142 m/s y Q=0,003 m 3 /s (A=ancho, P=profundidad, V=velocidad, Q=caudal). Aguas abajo, por el lado izquierdo, dos líneas de agua que nacen en la finca La Estefana se unen y metros más adelante desemboca a la línea que viene por la derecha, es en este sitio donde podemos decir que la quebrada La Chapa toma forma y se desarrolla coma tal (a partir de aquí comenzamos a tomar mediciones de longitud, pendiente, En ambas márgenes, las pendientes están entre 75% y 80%, el pequeño bosque de ribera no llega a los veinte metros de ancho por la margen derecha, en los primeros cien metros están aserrando árboles grandes; en los siguientes cien metros las pendientes de la margen izquierda son un poco menores (55%); entre los doscientos y trescientos metros aguas abajo encontramos que también están aserrando árboles grandes, que se presentan deslizamientos y que hay una estructura de concreto para captación de agua con diámetro de dos pulgadas, las pendientes de la margen izquierda son hasta del 89% y las de la derecha del 81%. A cuatrocientos metros encontramos Hasta los cuatrocientos cuarenta metros encontramos por la margen izquierda pendientes del 55% con pastos y unos pocos arbustos. Del lado derecho las pendientes son del 58% y 43% y hay un cafetal desde 440 hasta 570 m, donde encontramos un camino.Por la margen izquierda después del camino encontramos rastrojos con pendientes del 80% y a 600 m, encontramos sitio de producción de carbón vegetal, luego encontramos cafetal (Coffea arabiga) y a continuación platanal (Musa paradisiaca) hasta los 700 m. Desde aquí hasta 890 m, hay un pequeño bosque de ribera con un ancho de 10 m (paralelo hay pasto y café).Después del camino por la margen izquierda hay pastos y rastrojo con muy pocos árboles hasta 665 (altitud igual a 1570 msnm), donde encontramos pequeña caída de agua y bosque de ribera con pendiente del 75% y 85% (este angosto bosque de ribera va bordeando el cauce y paralelo hay rastrojos). De 700 a 740 m, el lecho es rocoso, se presentan pequeñas caídas de agua y rápidos y raudales; paralelo al bosque de ribera hay cafetal y platanal hasta los 800 m, para luego continuar hasta 1140 m. A 740 m encontramos bocatoma del acueducto (Figura 4) de la vereda El Llanito (diámetro de tubería de 4 pulgadas), medimos caudal (febrero 2 de 2000 h 10:40) y hallamos A=0,886 m, P=0,097 m, V=0,692 m/s, Q=0,04758 m Figura 2. Nacimiento de la quebrada La Chapa entre las veredas la Concepción, La Chapa y el cerro del mismo nombre.Por la margen izquierda a 890 m, encontramos pendiente del 63% con pastos que van hasta el borde del cauce y la desembocadura de la quebrada Chamé (Chapa media), que la forman dos líneas de agua que vienen por el lado derecho (Chapa alta) y otra que nace cerca de la finca de propiedad del señor Miguel Peña; por medio de estas dos líneas de agua se ha construido una vía que comunica el sitio conocido como Chapa alta (conformada por 13 casas), con la vereda La Chapa. En Por la margen derecha después de la vía encontramos agua abajo cafetal hasta los 1300 m, con muy pocos árboles al borde del cauce y con pendientes hasta del 70%; desde este sitio hasta los 1600 m, aguas abajo encontramos pequeño bosque de ribera bordeando el cauce con guadual en ambas márgenes (La guadua es un bambú leñoso que pertenece a la familia de las gramíneas, taxonómicamente a las Poaceae y del cual existen realmente en el mundo cerca de 1.000 especies, 500 de ella en América; de éstas aproximadamente 20 conforman las especies prioritarias de bambú y dentro de ellas Colombia tiene una que posee las mejores propiedades físico-mecánicas del mundo y extraordinaria durabilidad: La Guadua angustifolia.) con pendientes hasta del 85%, paralelo a este bosque hay potreros (terrenos dedicados a la ganadería),, rastrojo y un cafetal, después de la quebrada Juanambú (1340 m); hay un camino a los 1480 m.Por la margen izquierda después de la vía hay pequeño bosque de ribera con pocos árboles hasta los 1300 m, con pendientes del 75% (en 1220 m, hay deslizamientos), paralelo a este bosque hay potreros que llegan hasta el borde mismos del cauce (entre 1300-1340 m); en este sitio las pendientes son menores (45%) y el terreno es cenagoso. En 1340, desemboca la quebrada Juanambú, después de ésta encontramos aguas abajo bordeando el cauce pequeño bosque de Por la margen izquierda a 2060 m, hay entrada de una línea de agua pequeña y a partir de este punto hasta los 2600 m es igual a la margen derecha donde encontramos bosque de ribera muy angosto y paralelo a él rastrojos con sitios al pie del cauce con caña brava (Gynerium sagittatum, gramínea silvestre muy dura; sus tallos se usan como materia prima en muchos trabajos artesanales.Se le llama también caña amarga) y pendientes hasta del 80%. También se presentan derrumbes y taponamiento de la quebrada en 2320 y 2420 m, en este último punto se ha formado un islote de  Aguas abajo de la peña, por la margen derecha hay entre 3320 a 3340 m rocas grandes y sedimento; de 3360 a 3400 m hay un rápido o raudal sobre lecho rocoso con una caída de 7 m de altura que vuelve a aparecer de 3420 a 3460 m, con caída de 15 m. Las pendientes en este sitio son del 90%; en 3500 m la altitud fue de 1280 msnm, volvemos a encontrar peña (pared rocosa en el cauce) de 3580 a 3620 m, lo mismo que rápidos o raudales y caídas de agua en: 3600 m (altura 4,20 m), 3620 m (altura 1,16 m) y 3630 m (altura 1.43 m). De 3640 a 3660 m se ha formado un islote de piedras, sedimentos, pastos y un árbol.Por la margen izquierda las pendientes están entre 80 y 60%; en 3280 m, hay guadual y de este sitio hasta 3500 m hay pasto al borde del cauce, luego aparece un cafetal y de 3560 hasta 3680 m vuelven a haber pastos. Por la margen derecha de 3660 a 3680 m, hay caída de agua de 2,87 m en 5 m de longitud (S=57,4%) y también se presentan deslizamientos (las pendientes son del 90%). Este tramo se caracteriza porque hay bastantes caídas de agua: en 5380 m (altura de 1,35 m en 7 m de longitud), entre 5410 a 5445 m hay una caída de 1,7 m en un lecho rocoso de color verde, de 5540 a 5580 m hay peña, lecho rocoso de color rosado y 3 pequeñas caídas de agua en 5590 m, hay otra caída de 0,80 m en 5600 a 5620 m hay peña. En 5640 a 5680 m hay caídas de agua de 0,95 y 0,80 m, hay caída de 1,40 m en 13 m de longitud en 5692 m; de 5700 a 5760 m, encontramos otra peña ( pared del cauce y del lecho son rocosos), en 15 m se forman 3 canales en la roca por donde pasa el agua de la quebrada raudamente (S=9,3%), en 5800 m el lecho también es rocoso y hay caída de agua de 1,80 m en 10 m de longitud (S=18%). Además de las caídas y peñas encontramos 2 piedras grandes en 5360, lo mismo que entre 5600 a 5620 m, otra en 5710 m. Hallamos también 2 islotes uno entre 5400 a 5440 m compuesto por piedras, sedimentos y árboles y otro de 5830 a 5870 m compuesto también por rocas, sedimentos y árboles, hay un derrumbe a 5840 m de 35 m de altura y 90% de pendiente.Por la margen izquierda después del camino hay un cafetal con algunos árboles de cacao (Theobroma Cacao L.) en la loma, a continuación encontramos un yucal. Al borde del cauce en la parte plana (20%) hay un guadual y luego pocos árboles, en pequeños tramos encontramos caña brava (5620 a 5660 y 5580 a 5600 m); hallamos guadual entre 5520 a 5540 m. En la loma hay pastos y rastrojos paralelos a los anteriores. Encontramos derrumbe en 5300 y en 5330 m una línea de agua que entra a la quebrada, en 5360 m hay 3 piedras grandes, dos del lado derecho y otra de la margen izquierda, en 5480 m entra una línea de agua residual que viene de la vereda Cachimbal (rallanderías No. 19 y 20 y aguas negras de las casas), de 5600 a 5870 m la quebrada corre casi toda por esta margen izquierda del islote formado por un lecho rocoso de color vino tinto.Por la margen derecha después del puente de guadua que está a 5888 m, encontramos un camino que comunica casa de este lado con casa del lado izquierdo, después del camino hay sembrado al pie del cauce primero plátano y después maíz hasta 6020 m, en este sitio también entra una línea de agua limpia (Q=0,005m 3 /s). Después encontramos un angosto bosque de ribera que se va haciendo cada vez más estrecho hasta desaparecer en 6200 m y entonces el pasto que hay en las lomas (pendientes de 75% al 80%) invaden el borde mismo del cauce, en este tramo el terreno llano llega a tener hasta 100 m de ancho, aguas abajo hallamos un pequeño bosque (6280-6320 m) y a continuación un yucal que llega hasta el camino que atraviesa la quebrada en 6440 m. En este tramo hallamos 3 rocas grandes (6050 m) donde hay bastante acumulación de sedimentos y pasto dentro del cauce, en 6130 m entra una línea de agua y en 6260 a 6350 m vuelven aparecer 3 rocas grandes dentro del cauce. Entre 6300 a 6320 m hay un islote compuesto por piedras, sedimentos, pastos y un carbonero (Pitchecolobium saman).Por la margen izquierda aguas abajo y después del camino (5880 m), hay un pequeño bosque con guadua hasta 5940 m, en 5950 m hallamos caída de agua de 3,18 m en 7 m de longitud y el lecho del cauce es rocoso de color vino tinto, en este sitio se presentan derrumbes de 15 m de altura y 85% de pendiente. Posteriormente aparece un angosto bosque que se hace bastante estrecho y desaparece (5060-5080 m) para dar paso al pasto que hay en todas las lomas que bordean el cauce, de 5060 hasta 6220 encontramos un terreno llano (15% de pendiente) con un ancho máximo de 60 m 8.2.4 QUEBRADA TIEMBLA La quebrada Tiembla nace en la vereda Mondomito entre las carreteras que del Turco va a Mondomo y la de Mondomito a la vereda Cascabel (Fig. 7). Cerca al casco urbano de la vereda Mondomito nacen 3 líneas de agua que drenan a la parte baja de la loma, por la margen derecha y paralela a la carretera que va a Cascabel hay otras líneas de agua que se une con la primera que viene del casco urbano de Mondomito, luego aguas abajo 2 líneas de agua se unen a otras 2 líneas de aguas por la margen izquierda. En enero 26 se midió caudal (Q 1 ) antes que otras 3 líneas de agua de la margen izquierda se unieran (Q 2 ).Es en este sitio a 1420 msnm donde podemos decir que nace la quebrada Tiembla (en las escrituras antiguas figura como Tiemblaculo). Es un lugar con poca pendiente (1,12 %) el terreno es cenagoso y tiene una pequeña laguna. Las 7 líneas de agua de la margen izquierda y 1 de la derecha conforman el Q 1 = 0,01706 m 3 /s, las siguientes tres líneas conforman el Q 2 = 0,00057 m 3 /s y los dos juntos conforman el caudal inicial de la quebrada que es de Q = 0,01898 m 3 /s, A = 0,77 m, P = 0,083 m, V = 0,297 m/s, S = 1,12% y AL = 1420 msnm (Q = caudal, A = ancho, P = profundidad, V = velocidad, S = pendiente, AL = altitud).Figura 7. Nacimiento de la quebrada Tiembla, en la vereda Mondomito. Podemos observar en rojo las carreteras a Mondomo y Cascabel y en los cuadrados y rectángulos, las casas que están a lado y lado de las carreteras. Las líneas curvas en negro son las fuentes de agua; Q 1 , Q 2 y Q 3 son los sitios donde se midieron caudales.En el nacimiento de la quebrada predominan pequeños bosques alrededor de las 3 últimas líneas de agua y la 1 de la derecha en las otras 7 líneas (de la izquierda) son muy pocos los árboles que quedan y hay más potreros (Terrenos dedicados al ganado vacuno) y rastrojos. Hay 4 manchas deguaduales (Hallada en estado natural en Colombia, Ecuador y Venezuela e introducida con éxito en algunos países de Centroamérica, el Caribe y Asia, esta especie es el tercer bambú más grande del mundo superado únicamente por dos especies asiáticas; alcanza los 30 metros de altura y los 22 centímetros de diámetro y en nuestro país se han identificado dos variedades que también son únicas: La Guadua angustifolia bicolor y Guadua angustifolia Nigra), 1 yucal y 2 cañaduzales (Saccharum officinarum). Las pendientes de estas lomas (alturas pequeñas y prolongadas), oscilan entre 45 % y 75 % para la parte medía y alta y de 25 % a 35 % para la parte baja por dónde va el cauce de la quebrada. Hay alrededor de 20 casas en la parte alta donde comienzan a formarse las 11 líneas que conforman la quebrada (Figura 6). Hay aproximadamente 9 propietarios radicados en esta zona con 200 ha (4 de la familia Chávez, 2 de la familia Fernández).En los primeros 200 m de recorrido de la quebrada encontramos pendientes del terreno próximo al cauce por la margen derecha entre 60 % y 84 %, por el izquierdo entre 65 % y 70 %; pero alrededor del cauce una parte plana inundable (33 m aproximadamente) cubierta por pasto y rastrojo y unos pocos árboles. Hay un puente de guadua de 23 m y al lado derecho en la loma hay café (Coffea arabiga) y en el izquierdo maíz (Zea mays); el resto de potreros y rastrojos.De los 200 m a 400 m por el lado izquierdo, sigue un cultivo de maíz con pendientes que van desde 80-85 % con un pequeño bosque alrededor del cauce (aprox. 10 m), que desaparece a los 380 m del nacimiento, para dar paso a un rastrojo. Por la margen derecha continua el pasto, la llanura inundable y el terreno cenagoso. Después de la zona cenagosa hay pocos árboles, rastrojos y potreros. A 300 m cae a la llanura una línea de agua de Q = 0,0015m 3 /s que forma una pequeña laguna, esta línea de agua atraviesa un potrero y tiene árboles alrededor de su cauce. La pendiente del terreno en este lado oscila en 86 % y 85 %. De los 460 m en adelante el cauce se profundiza, desaparece la llanura de inundación y aparecen árboles al pie del cauce. Continua en la margen izquierda los cultivos de maíz con árboles y caña brava (Gynerium sagittatum) al borde del cauce, se presentan deslizamientos de tierra que van a la quebrada con árboles. En la margen derecha hay árboles al pie del cauce hasta un poco antes donde están los deslizamientos y de allí hasta los 600 m aguas abajo hay rastrojo.De los 600 m a los 800 m aguas abajo, continua por la margen derecha los rastrojos (50 m aprox.), para luego continuar con un pequeño bosque por toda la ribera del cauce con pendientes que oscilan entre 54 % y 60 % donde hay establecidos potreros. En la margen izquierda termina el cultivo de maíz aparece un lote de pasto de corte. Hay también rastrojos y una pequeña mancha de bosque que viene desde la carretera (que va de Mondomo al Turco) hasta el cauce de la quebrada, a lado y lado de esta pequeña mancha hay potreros pero ya al pie del cauce hay rastrojo y algunos árboles hasta llegar a los 800 m. De aquí hasta los 880 hay maíz, plátano en un lote que tiene 15 % de pendiente y luego un cafetal que sube por la loma (55 % de pendiente). En la margen izquierda hay al pie del cauce un pequeño bosque de ribera (13 % pendiente) y en la loma potreros. A 820 m hay empalizada y acumulación de sedimentos (de este último hay también a 800 m y 845 m). En febrero 10 a las 9:00 h se midió caudal a 800 m del nacimiento y se encontró: A = 1,158 m, P = 0,067m, V = 0,315 m/s, S = 0,7 %, L. En la margen derecha desde 2520 hasta 3380 m hay al borde del cauce aguas abajo un pequeño bosque de ribera con pocos árboles (ancho promedio 14 m), a continuación esta la loma con pendientes de hasta 75 % y están en potreros, algunos lotes en rastrojos. De 3380 hasta 3580 m hay un guadual en ambas márgenes y a continuación hay potreros que llegan hasta el borde mismo del cauce, hasta los 4060 m, en 2680 m hay empalizada lo mismo que en 3680 m (residuo de guadua), en 3790 y 3580 m hay empalizada grande con bastantes sedimentos. Entre 3360 m y 3680 m lo mismo que en 3440 m y 3350 m hay depósitos de sedimentos, en esta margen derecha hay pendientes de hasta 75 % (entre 2560 y 3500 m) pero a partir de aquí los bordes que rodean el cauce son planos y los potreros llegan hasta el borde mismo de la quebrada (en la loma en la parte alta esta la casa de la Familia Velasco). En 3370 m hay bebedero para ganado.En la margen izquierda a partir de los 2580 y hasta los 3000 m hay al borde del cauce pequeño bosque de ribera con pocos árboles grandes, café y piñuela (Bromelia pinguin, es una hierba con tallo rastrero; estolonífera, con numerosas hojas amontonadas, de porte rígido de 1-2 m de longitud y con ancho de 3-6 cm, de color verde claro y con los márgenes armados con robustos aguijones ganchudos. Su inflorescencia es un racimo compuesto con el tallo de color blanco. Su fruto consiste en una baya de forma ovoide, amarilla terminada en un pico. Son una de las plantas más fáciles de reconocer porque son las que contienen una mayor cantidad espinas y muy característica de los hábitats caducifolios). Por la margen izquierda de 6720-7020 m hay sembrado maíz y yuca al pie del cauce con pendientes de 30-12 %, en la loma hay pendientes de hasta 70 % y también están sembradas de maíz y yuca. De 7020 m hasta 7320 m hay un guadual con un lote de plátano que está después del puente de concreto por donde pasa la vía que viene de la vereda La Alita y va hasta Mondomo; en este tramo encontramos: línea de agua (Q = 0,0006 m 3 /s) que entra al cauce en 7120 m, en 7180 m aguas residuales de las casas de Mondomo, en 7320 m puente de guadua y camino.Figura 10. Pendiente longitudinal dentro del cauce de la quebrada Tiembla desde su nacimiento hasta su desembocadura.Pendiente Longitudinal en sitios de la quebrada Tiembla 0,00 0,50 La vegetación estudiada en el corredor de las dos microcuencas se encuentra bastante fragmentada, debido a la permanente influencia antrópica, como consecuencia del uso agropecuario intensivo que se da al suelo en toda la zona. En esta fragmentación ecosistémica, también juega un rol muy importante la red vial y demás ambientes construidos.Foto 1. Vegetación típica de una sucesión secundaria en la localidad de Mondomito, donde se observa una gran diversidad especies.En la zona se observa como consecuencia de la degradación del bosque primario, mosaicos de paisaje de colinas, donde coexiste una vegetación variada, destacándose los manchones de bosque secundario en las zonas de mayor pendiente y hacia las cañadas, los arbustales, los matorrales, los pastizales y los sistemas agrosilviculturales, distribuidos en forma heterogénea. En algunos sitios se observan pequeñas manchas de bosque inmersos en una matriz de gramíneas y arbustos, resultado del proceso de la fragmentación que ha sufrido el ecosistema (Foto 3).Por las características climáticas (Eslava y Olaya, 1986) y fisiográficas de la región, la vegetación existente en esta zona se puede clasificar de acuerdo con Cuatrecasas (1958), como selva Subandina y como bosque húmedo premontano (bh-PM), según el sistema de Holdridge (1978).Foto 2. Vegetación asociada a los sistemas agroforestales, como sombrío del cafeto. Al lado derecho fustes de cachimbo o cámbulo (Erythrina poeppigiana) y al lado izquierdo guadua (Guadua angustifolia).Los suelos presentan el material parental compuesto por sedimentos heterogéneos cubiertos con una mezcla de cenizas volcánicas y arcillas residuales, poco evolucionados, moderadamente profundos, escasos en materia orgánica y con alto contenido de aluminio. El relieve oscila desde ligeramente ondulado a ligeramente quebrado, predomina el paisaje de lomerío. Por sus características se ubican en la Asociación Dominguillo, la cual desde el punto de vista fisiográfico tiene límites claros con las Asociaciones Quinamayó y Suárez (IGAC, 1979;IGAC, 1995).Tanto en los bosques, como en las áreas de rastrojo contiguas, se observaron especies de importancia ambiental para las microcuencas de la región, debido a que crecen en laderas con suelos rojizos y erosionados, constituyendo con su arquitectura, una cobertura protectora de rápida formación. En este grupo de especies se destacan: aguacatillo (Persea sp), balso blanco (Heliocarpus Se observa que la selva natural prácticamente ha desaparecido, quedando algunas áreas importantes en los sitios de mayor pendiente, protegiendo los sistemas de drenaje superficial. La composición y la estructura reflejan la presión antrópica que se ha ejercido sobre estos bosques. Las formaciones boscosas estudiadas en la región de Mondomo, entre 1170 msnm y 1430 msnm, se encuentran en estado de recuperación natural.Altura de los árboles.La altura promedio de los árboles estimada en 12 m y el diámetro entre 10 y 136 cm., con un promedio general de 22,30 cm., indica que la vegetación se encuentra en un estado de crecimiento dinámico, el sotobosque es bastante tupido, como consecuencia de los estímulos que produce la luz que se filtra a través del dosel. En el sotobosque son frecuentes: balso blanco (Heliocarpus americanus), mora (Rubus sp), mortiño (Clidemia sp), pomorroso (Zizygium jambos), uvos (Clusia sp), cordoncillo (Piper sp), gramíneas, ciperáceas, helechos, bromelias, orquídeas y musgos.Foto 4. Fitocenosis creciendo en suelos rojizos y erosionados. En el centro se observa un ejemplar común en la zona, el tumbamaco (Schefflera morototoni), rodeado de un arbustal donde se destacan los mortiños (Miconia sp).Con relación a la estructura general, se encontró que las copas de los árboles forman un dosel discontinuo, presentándose algunos claros que son aprovechados por brinzales y algunas plantas pioneras para crecer en forma activa y conformar un estrato arbustivo bastante variado. De acuerdo con los registros biométricos y los perfiles elaborados, se observa en la estructura de los bosques la presencia de dos estratos arbóreos (superior e inferior) definidos, además del arbustivo y del herbáceo, que no se incluyeron en los muestreos.A pesar del estado de intervención de los bosques en las dos microcuencas, se observó una importante diversidad en las formaciones secundarias estudiadas (Tablas 2 y 3). La mayor diversidad promedio se encontró en la vegetación ribereña de la quebrada Tiembla con 3,88; en la quebrada La Al comparar las comunidades muestreadas en \"Mondomito\" (1430 msnm) con las de \"San Pablo\" (1335 msnm), el índice de Sorensen se calculó en 38,70 %, lo que da a entender que la similaridad entre ellas no es muy grande, aunque se localizan a alturas cercanas y en la misma microcuenca. Por la presencia de sistemas agroforestales en las dos localidades, se puede inferir que esta heterogeneidad es potenciada por la intervención humana. El índice llegó a 59,26 % cuando se compararon las muestras de vegetación de \"La Agustina\" (1417 msnm) y \"Cachimbal\" (1155 msnm) pertenecientes a la quebrada \"La Chapa\", en este caso, se observa mayor afinidad entre estas comunidades vegetales ribereñas. Mayor similitud (58,82 %) se encontró cuando se comparó la vegetación de los dos levantamientos de la misma vertiente, correspondiente a las veredas de \"Mondomito\" (1430 msnm) y \"Cachimbal\" (1155 msnm), aunque se encuentran en diferente gradiente altitudinal, están situadas dentro de la misma región Subandina. Cuando se comparó la vegetación de los dos sitios: \"San Pablo\" (1335 msnm) y \"La Agustina\" (1417 msnm), el índice de similitud fue el más alto con 66,66%, por presentar las dos comunidades la mayor cantidad de especies comunes.Tabla 1. Vegetación identificada en la parte alta y baja de las quebradas: \"Tiembla\" y \"La Chapa\", corregimiento de Mondomo, municipio de Santander de Quilichao, departamento del Cauca, Colombia.Tabla 2. Síntesis de las variables cuantitativas para las especies arbóreas de mayor importancia ecológica en bosques de ribera de la quebrada La Chapa del corregimiento de Mondomo, municipio de Santander de Quilichao, Departamento del Cauca, Colombia.Tabla 3. Síntesis de las variables cuantitativas para las especies arbóreas de mayor importancia ecológica en bosques de ribera de la quebrada Tiembla del corregimiento de Mondomo, municipio de Santander de Quilichao, departamento del Cauca, Colombia. 0,00 0,00 0,00 0 0,00 0,039 0,039 0,42584 0,11 0,20 0,022 0,00936848 0,20 0,22 0,13 48,00 1,60 0,81268 0,81268 0,753495 0,185 0,20 0,037 0,027879315 0,40 0,15 0,09 41,00 1,37 0,69431 0,69431 0,601305 0,15 0,20 0,030 0,01803915 0,60 0,15 0,09 30,00 1,00 0,5083 0,5083 0,584395 0,13 0,20 0,026 0,01519427 0,80 0,11 0,07 39,00 1,30 0,66049 0,66049 0,349745 0,055 0,14 0,008 0,002693037 0,94 0 0 0 0,00 0,039 0,039 0,0195 0 0,00 0,000 0 CAUDAL TOTAL 0,073174252 0,00 0,12 0,07 10 0,33 0,177367 0,177367 0,25955 0,155 0,15 0,023 0,006034538 0,15 0,19 0,11 20,00 0,67 0,341733 0,341733 0,399652 0,21 0,15 0,032 0,012589028 0,30 0,23 0,14 27,00 0,90 0,45757 0,45757 0,416088 0,24 0,15 0,036 0,01497918 0,45 0,25 0,15 22,00 0,73 0,374607 0,374607 0,247293 0,23 0,15 0,035 0,00853162 0,60 0,21 0,13 6,00 0,20 0,11998 0,11998 0,07949 0,105 0,10 0,011 0,000834645 0,7 0 0 0 0,00 0,039 0,039 0,0195 0 0,00 0,000 0 CAUDAL TOTAL 0,04296901 0,00 0,00 0,00 0 0,00 0,039 0,039 0,039 0,055 0,25 0,014 0,00053625 0,25 0,11 0,07 0,00 0,00 0,039 0,039 0,072742 0,155 0,25 0,039 0,00281874 0,50 0,20 0,12 5,00 0,17 0,106483 0,106483 0,150143 0,195 0,25 0,049 0,007319488 0,75 0,19 0,11 11,00 0,37 0,193803 0,193803 0,234895 0,215 0,25 0,054 0,012625606 1,00 0,24 0,14 16,00 0,53 0,275987 0,275987 0,157493 0,24 0,30 0,072 0,01133952 1,30 0,24 0,14 0,00 0,00 0,039 0,039 0,039 0,12 0,05 0,006 0,000234 1,35 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,039 0,039 0,0195 0 0,00 0,000 0 CAUDAL TOTAL 0,034873603 0,00 0,00 0,00 0 0,00 0,039 0,039 0,039 0,045 0,30 0,014 0,0005265 0,30 0,09 0,05 0,00 0,00 0,039 0,039 0,198585 0,115 0,30 0,035 0,006851183 0,60 0,14 0,08 21,00 0,70 0,35817 0,35817 0,366388 0,145 0,30 0,044 0,015937893 0,90 0,15 0,09 22,00 0,73 0,374607 0,374607 0,254042 0,165 0,30 0,050 0,012575063 1,20 0,18 0,11 7,00 0,23 0,133477 0,133477 0,086238 0,2 0,30 0,060 0,0051743 1,50 0,22 0,13 0,00 0,00 0,039 0,039 0,039 0,11 0,30 0,033 0,001287 1,80 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,039 0,039 0,0195 0 0,00 0,000 0 CAUDAL TOTAL 0,042351938 0,00 0,00 0,00 0 0,00 0,03900 0,03900 0,03900 0,03 0,40 0,012 0,000468 0,40 0,06 0,04 0,00 0,00 0,03900 0,03900 0,24145 0,075 0,20 0,015 0,00362175 0,60 0,09 0,05 6,00 0,15 0,44390 0,44390 0,44390 0,095 0,20 0,019 0,0084341 0,80 0,10 0,06 6,00 0,15 0,44390 0,44390 0,35173 0,12 0,20 0,024 0,0084414 0,00 0,00 0,00 0 0,00 0,03900 0,039 0,161603 0,065 0,20 0,013 0,002100833 0,20 0,13 0,08 22,00 0,55 0,28421 0,284205 0,370888 0,125 0,20 0,025 0,009272188 0,40 0,12 0,07 36,00 0,90 0,45757 0,45757 0,482935 0,085 0,20 0,017 0,008209895 0,60 0,05 0,03 40,00 1,00 0,50830 0,5083 0,383925 0,04 0,20 0,008 0,0030714 0,80 0,03 0,02 20,00 0,50 0,25955 0,25955 0,149275 0,015 0,20 0,003 0,000447825 1,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,03900 0,039 0,0195 0 0,00 0,000 0 CAUDAL TOTAL 0,02310214 0,00 0,12 0,07 0 0,00 0,03900 0,039 0,074429 0,25 0,50 0,125 0,009303594 0,50 0,38 0,23 7,00 0,18 0,10986 0,109858 0,209359 0,44 0,50 0,220 0,046058925 1,00 0,50 0,30 24,00 0,60 0,30886 0,30886 0,364334 0,5 0,50 0,250 0,091083438 1,50 0,50 0,30 33,00 0,83 0,41981 0,419808 0,35817 0,495 0,50 0,248 0,088647075 2,00 0,49 0,29 23,00 0,58 0,29653 0,296533 0,302696 0,42 0,50 0,210 0,063566213 2,50 0,35 0,21 24,00 0,60 0,30886 0,30886 0,333515 0,305 0,50 0,153 0,050861038 3,00 0,26 0,16 28,00 0,70 0,35817 0,35817 0,345843 0,24 0,50 0,120 0,0415011 3,50 0,22 0,13 26,00 0,65 0,33352 0,333515 0,290369 0,19 0,50 0,095 0,027585031 4,00 0,16 0,10 19,00 0,48 0,24722 0,247223 0,168418 0,14 0,50 0,070 0,011789225 4,50 0,12 0,07 5,00 0,13 0,08961 0,089613 0,064306 0,085 0,50 0,043 0,002733016 5,00 0,05 0,03 0,00 0,00 0,03900 0,039 0,039 0,025 0,20 0,005 0,000195 5,20 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,03900 0,039 0,0195 0 0,00 0,000 0 CAUDAL TOTAL 0,433323653 0,00 0,15 0,09 9 0,23 0,13010 0,130103 0,15168 0,145 0,20 0,029 0,00440 0,20 0,14 0,08 13,00 0,33 0,17326 0,173258 0,167094 0,145 0,20 0,029 0,00485 0,40 0,15 0,09 12,00 0,30 0,16093 0,16093 0,155639 0,130 0,20 0,026 0,00405 0,60 0,11 0,07 11,00 0,28 0,15035 0,150348 0,11998 0,100 0,20 0,020 0,00240 0,80 0,09 0,05 5,00 0,13 0,08961 0,089613 0,089613 0,075 0,20 0,015 0,00134 1,00 0,06 0,04 5,00 0,13 0,08961 0,089613 0,064306 0,035 0,20 0,007 0,00045 1,20 0,01 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,03900 0,039 0,0195 0,005 0,00 0,000 0,00000 CAUDAL TOTAL 0,017484978 0,00 0,00 0,00 0 0,00 0,03900 0,039 0,044061 0,065 0,70 0,046 0,00200 0,70 0,13 0,08 1,00 0,03 0,04912 0,049123 0,166664 0,115 0,70 0,081 0,01342 1,40 0,10 0,06 22,00 0,55 0,28421 0,284205 0,25955 0,090 0,70 0,063 0,01635 2,10 0,08 0,05 18,00 0,45 0,23490 0,234895 0,265714 0,090 0,70 0,063 0,01674 2,80 0,10 0,06 23,00 0,58 0,29653 0,296533 0,241059 0,100 0,70 0,070 0,01687 3,50 0,10 0,06 14,00 0,35 0,18559 0,185585 0,167966 0,140 0,70 0,098 0,01646 4,20 0,18 0,11 11,00 0,28 0,15035 0,150348 0,094674 0,090 0,70 0,063 0,00596 4,90 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,03900 0,039 0,0195 0,000 0,00 0,000 0,00000 CAUDAL TOTAL 0,087812086 0,00 0,09 0,05 0 0,00 0,03900 0,039 0,094674 0,085 0,20 0,017 0,00161 0,20 0,08 0,05 11,00 0,28 0,15035 0,150348 0,241931 0,080 -0,16 -0,013 -0,00310 0,04 0,08 0,05 26,00 0,65 0,33352 0,333515 0,452614 0,100 0,56 0,056 0,02535 0,60 0,12 0,07 45,00 1,13 0,57171 0,571713 0,546348 0,115 0,20 0,023 0,01257 0,80 0,11 0,07 41,00 1,03 0,52098 0,520983 0,377939 0,095 0,20 0,019 0,00718 1,00 0,08 0,05 18,00 0,45 0,23490 0,234895 0,177438 0,080 0,20 0,016 0,00284 1,20 0,08 0,05 8,00 0,20 0,11998 0,11998 0,07949 0,040 0,10 0,004 0,00032 1,30 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,03900 0,039 0,0195 0,000 0,00 0,000 0,00000 CAUDAL TOTAL 0,04676 0,00 0,00 0,00 0 0,00 0,03900 0,03900 0,204749 0,025 0,40 0,010 0,00205 0,40 0,05 0,03 29 0,73 0,37050 0,37050 0,426716 0,075 0,40 0,030 0,01280 0,80 0,10 0,06 38 0,95 0,48294 0,48294 0,654149 0,155 0,40 0,062 0,04056 1,20 0,21 0,13 65 1,63 0,82536 0,82536 0,66049 0,180 0,40 0,072 0,04756 1,60 0,15 0,09 39 0,98 0,49562 0,49562 0,287554 0,135 0,40 0,054 0,01553 2,00 0,12 0,07 4 0,10 0,07949 0,07949 0,059245 0,060 0,10 0,006 0,00036 2,10 0,00 0,00 0 0,00 0,03900 0,03900 0,0195 0,000 0,00 0,000 0,00000 CAUDAL TOTAL 0,11884 0,80 0,20 0,12 29 0,73 0,37050 0,37050 0,401316 0,225 0,40 0,090 0,03612 (m3/s) 0,00 0,00 0,00 0 0,00 0,03900 0,03900 0,04912 0,120 0,40 0,048 0,00236 0,40 0,24 0,14 2 0,05 0,05925 0,05925 0,05418 0,285 0,40 0,114 0,00618 0,80 0,33 0,20 1 0,03 0,04912 0,04912 0,11119 0,325 0,40 0,130 0,01445 1,20 0,32 0,19 13 0,33 0,17326 0,17326 0,36614 0,295 0,40 0,118 0,04320 1,60 0,27 0,16 44 1,10 0,55903 0,55903 0,57171 0,250 0,40 0,100 0,05717 2,00 0,23 0,14 46 1,15 0,58440 0,58440 0,52732 0,210 0,40 0,084 0,04430 2,40 0,19 0,11 37 0,93 0,47025 0,47025 0,30018 0,160 0,40 0,064 0,01921 2,80 0,13 0,08 9 0,23 0,13010 0,13010 0,08455 0,105 0,40 0,042 0,00355 3,20 0,08 0,05 0 0,00 0,03900 0,03900 0,03900 0,040 0,25 0,010 0,00039 3,45 0,00 0,00 0 0,00 0,03900 0,03900 0,01950 0,000 0,00 0,000 0,00000 Figuras y Tablas de abundancia de géneros encontrados en el río Mondomo y en la quebrada Quimbas en los sitios de muestreo 56A, 56B, 18A y 18B, y descriptores de la estructura de la taxocenosis.Géneros encontrados en el río Mondomo en el sitio de muestreo 56A el 22 de octubre de 1999 y descriptores de la estructura de la taxocenosis. N=número de individuos por metro cuadrado (Densidad), S = número de géneros diferentes (Riqueza), H'= Indice de diversidad de Shannon (en base e y base 2), J=Equitatividad, Bioindicación BMWP y ASPT Mondomo oct-99 n i n i /N ln n i /N productos log 2 n i /N productos Chironomus 4 0,0909 -2,3979 -0,2180 -3,4594 -0,3145 Eutrófico 2 Leptonema 8 0,1818 -1,7047 -0,3100 -2,4594 -0,4472 Oligomesotrófico 8 Lachlania 1 0,0227 -3,7842 -0,0860 -5,4594 -0,1241 Oligotrófico 10 Anchitarsus 3 0,0682 -2,6856 -0,1831 -3,8745 -0,2642 Oligotrófico 10 Anacroneuria 1 0,0227 -3,7842 -0,0860 - Figuras y Tablas de abundancia de géneros encontrados en la quebrada Vergara y La Chapa en los sitios de muestreo 57A, 57B, 3A y 3B, y descriptores de la estructura de la taxocenosis.Géneros encontrados en la quebrada Vergara (subcuenca del río Mondomo) en el sitio de muestreo 57A el 3 de diciembre de 1999 y descriptores de la estructura de la taxocenosis. N=número de individuos por metro cuadrado (Densidad), S = número de géneros diferentes (Riqueza), H'= Indice de diversidad de Shannon (en base e y base 2), J=Equitatividad, Bioindicación BMWP y ASPT. Géneros encontrados en la quebrada La Chapa (subcuenca del río Quinamayó) en el sitio de muestreo 3B el 10 de septiembre de 1999 y descriptores de la estructura de la taxocenosis. N=número de individuos por metro cuadrado (Densidad), S = número de géneros diferentes (Riqueza), H'= Indice de diversidad de Shannon (en base e y base 2), J=Equitatividad, Bioindicación BMWP y ASPT. Figuras y Tablas de abundancia de géneros encontrados en la quebrada Tiembla y La Cascada en los sitios de muestreo 38A, 38B, 12A, 12B, y descriptores de la estructura de la taxocenosis.Géneros encontrados en la quebrada Tiembla (subcuenca del río Mondomo) en el sitio de muestreo 38A el 10 de diciembre de 1999 y descriptores de la estructura de la taxocenosis. N=número de individuos por metro cuadrado (Densidad), S = número de géneros diferentes (Riqueza), H'= Indice de diversidad de Shannon (en base e y base 2), J=Equitatividad, Bioindicación BMWP y ASPT. Géneros encontrados en la quebrada Tiembla (subcuenca del río Mondomo) en el sitio de muestreo 38B el 10 de diciembre de 1999 y descriptores de la estructura de la taxocenosis. N=número de individuos por metro cuadrado (Densidad), S = número de géneros diferentes (Riqueza), H'= Indice de diversidad de Shannon (en base e y base 2), J=Equitatividad, Bioindicación BMWP y ASPT. Géneros encontrados en la quebrada La Cascada (subcuenca del río Quinamayó) en el sitio de muestreo 12A el 8 de julio de 1999 y descriptores de la estructura de la taxocenosis. N=número de individuos por metro cuadrado (Densidad), S = número de géneros diferentes (Riqueza), H'= Indice de diversidad de Shannon (en base e y base 2), J=Equitatividad, Bioindicación BMWP y ASPT. Géneros encontrados en la quebrada La Cascada (subcuenca del río Quinamayó) en el sitio de muestreo 12B el 8 de julio de 1999 y descriptores de la estructura de la taxocenosis. N=número de individuos por metro cuadrado (Densidad), S = número de géneros diferentes (Riqueza), H'= Indice de diversidad de Shannon (en base e y base 2), J=Equitatividad, Bioindicación BMWP y ASPT.jul-99 n i n i /N ln n i /N productos log 2 n i /N productos Chironomus 188 0,7344 -0,3087 -0,2267 -0,4454 -0,3271 Eutrófico 2 Simulium 39 0,1523 -1,8816 -0,2867 -2,7146 -0,4136 Oligotrófico 9 Limnophora sp1 1 0,0039 -5,5452 -0,0217 -8,0000 -0,0313 Mesoeutrófico 3 Leptonema 6 0,0234 -3,7534 -0,0880 -5,4150 -0,1269 Oligomesotrófico 8 Atopsyche 1 0,0039 -5,5452 -0,0217 -8,0000 -0,0313 Oligotrófico 9 Anchytarsus 4 0,0156 -4,1589 -0,0650 -6,0000 -0,0938 Oligotrófico 10 Elodes 1 0,0039 -5,5452 -0,0217 -8,0000 -0,0313 Oligotrófico 9 Corydalus 1 0,0039 -5,5452 -0,0217 -8,0000 -0,0313 Mesotrófico 6 Hetaerina 9 0,0352 -3,3480 -0,1177 -4,8301 -0,1698 Oligomesotrófico 8 Macrothemis 1 0,0039 -5,5452 -0,0217 -8,0000 -0,0313 Mesotrófico 6 Physa 1 0,0039 -5,5452 -0,0217 -8,0000 -0,0313 Mesoeutrófico 3 Ferrissia 1 0,0039 -5,5452 -0,0217 -8,0000 -0,0313 Mesotrófico 7 Pontoscolex 1 0,0039 -5,5452 -0,0217 -8,0000 -0,0313 Eutrófico 2 Tubifex 2 0,0078 -4,8520 -0,0379 - Tabla 3. Número de individuos por m 2 , clasificación taxonómica y bioindicación en los sitios de muestreo 3A, 3B, 21A y 21B de la quebrada La Chapa y 38A, 38B, 51A y 51B de la quebrada Tiembla; muestreo del 1 de octubre de 1999. 2 ) 0,77 0,04 0,35 0,16 1,27 1,21 0,59 0,45 3,40 1,44 1,15 0,91 2,30 0,96 1,39 1,06 2,72 1,19 1,25 1,12 0,36 0,28 2,52 1,12 EQUITATIVIDAD: J 0,24 0,04 0,22 0,10 0,64 0,60 0,37 0,28 0,89 0,38 0,38 0,91 0,82 0,96 0,46 0,67 0,97 0,59 0,63 0,56 0,18 0,28 0,98  (0,4% del peso total de la materia prima)Diagrama de Flujo del proceso de las raíces de yuca para la producción de almidón (Sarria, 2011, en base al de Chuzel, 1994).  (Zamora, 2005) Basados en la presencia o ausencia de familias de MIB indicadoras de calidad del agua por su diferente tolerancia a la contaminación, especialmente la de origen orgánico. El valor del índice BMWP se obtiene mediante la sumatoria de todos los puntos obtenidos por las diferentes familias presentes en cada muestra.Average Score Per Taxon (ASPT) Corresponde al valor del índice BMWP dividido por el número de taxones presentes (S).Cuanto mayor sea el valor de este índice, mayor es el porcentaje de taxones sensibles a la contaminación de tipo orgánico. ","tokenCount":"44459"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/4683819586.json b/data/part_1/4683819586.json
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@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f8bdf65850ce0c5eeb11a26cb9e9c541","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4bb3b116-92de-4bdc-a263-8b43afb0564e/retrieve","id":"-871232935"},"keywords":["OICR: Outcome Impact Case Report Contributing CRPs/Platforms:","CCAFS -Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security Contributing Flagships:","FP2: Climate-Smart Technologies and Practices Contributing Regional programs: <Not Defined> Contributing external partners:","LSHTM -London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine","WFP -World Food Programme"],"sieverID":"c47b7df4-0e6b-4b7d-b036-bef69d57db8f","pagecount":"4","content":"ICRAF, with WFP, validated using voice-calls over mobile phones to collect nutrition information from women and mothers. The immediate user of this innovation is the WFP's Vulnerability, Assessment and Mapping Unit who provide technical support across WFP and help monitor and trigger responses. Based on the research and engagement, WFP is piloting the use this innovation in three countries, where they serve 2.6 million beneficiaries, and created a training module based on the innovation for further dissemination and scaling.Since 2016, ICRAF has been working with the World Food Programme (WFP)'s mobile Vulnerability, Assessment and Mapping (mVAM) team to develop remote data collection techniques using mobile phones. Remote data collection with mobile phones aims to allow WFP (and other development partners) to collect more data, from more people, more frequently, for less money including in areas difficult to reach because security or other logistical concerns. Timely and relatively cheap information created would increase the value for money for monitoring progress and improve programming. Indeed, WFP triggers responses based on VAM-collected data.The ICRAF-WFP team specifically evaluated using voice calls for collecting data (Innovation #32) on women and children's nutrition (ref #1). However, the innovation is broadly applicable across indicators of climate change perceptions, agricultural production and outcomes such as poverty or gender (ref #2) and can be used for activity data for GHG accounting or food security monitoring, etc.. Following the co-design and -implemented research, ICRAF worked with WFP-Rome to get the word out to the country offices about the results and the utility of this mode of data collection. First, ICRAF participated in a webinar, streamed from WFP-Rome headquarters, where results were presented (ref #3). The Webinar was attended in-person by about 15 persons across two WFP Divisions (including the two directors) and about 30 country officers as well (on-line participant numbers provided by WFP directly after seminar). Second, ICRAF and WFP released a WFP-branded communications brochure describing the preliminary results (ref #4). Third, WFP held a second seminar where ICRAF participated remotely, with a response that it 'went really well and there was a gigantic audience of the right people' (Jean-Martin Bauer, previous head of mVAM) (ref #5). Fourth, ICRAF and WFP presented the results in Kenya to the UN Food and Nutrition Working Group.Since the finalization of the results, WFP has continued to promote and upscale the use of this innovation and it is being used in countries already, including Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Niger (ref #6). WFP assists 2.6 million persons in these three countries alone (ref #7). With continued outreach by WFP including the development of a training module for implementers based on the research (ref #6 as well), there is high probability of late adopters as well.","tokenCount":"453"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/4695038054.json b/data/part_1/4695038054.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..500005eb26f67fe1aac940ab618beb9de29ccbd8
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c56166b49dfaa0213b843fe1ac5b0e16","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f0a0391a-682f-445a-b2fa-f85aac7741c4/retrieve","id":"523851063"},"keywords":["Midline","Ghana","village study","participatory mapping","natural resources and food security","organisational Landscape","information network"],"sieverID":"a74cfc56-b7da-48f6-81ee-e66ceb4f51bb","pagecount":"34","content":"Titles in this series aim to disseminate interim climate change, agriculture and food security research and practices and stimulate feedback from the scientific community.food security related activities included CCAFS, SADA, MoFA, ProNet North and Forestry Commission while the women prioritized GHS, Pogfaabargone, CCAFS, ACDEP and Motherto-mother support group. The analysis showed that, the prioritized organizations were active in interventions on natural resource management, infrastructure, agriculture and food security. Organizations that operate within the community and from outside were differentiated. On information networks, friends, mobile phones, radio and neighbours are amongst the sources identified for information related to rainfall, time of planting and/or fertilizer applications as well as market information for farm inputs and agricultural produce.Stone gathering for sale to the construction industry was identified as a new resource that has a potential to generate income for many households.A new vision was developed during the community forum around how they want to see the natural resource, infrastructure, climate change and food security situation by 2030. This was based on an update of earlier vision developed during the VBS in 2011.The drivers, enablers and constrains were assessed to inform new approaches for achieving the vision.Based on the assessment information, its recommended that CCAFS interventions in CSA, agro-forestry and soil improvements be sustained since their impact is already evident on the ground. Other dimensions of livelihood diversification, livestock farming and increased utilization of community resources such as the stones in the landscape will enhance the drive towards achieving food security in the area.The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) is a strategic ten-year partnership between CGIAR and Future Earth to help the developing world overcome the threats posed by a changing climate, to achieving food security, enhancing livelihoods and improving environmental management. Starting in 2010, CCAFS carried out a major baseline study at household, village and organisation levels across its five target regions, namely East Africa, West Africa, South Asia, Latin America and Southeast Asia (more information about CCAFS sites is available on our website http://ccafs.cgiar.org/where-we-work). In 2018, CCAFS carried out a midline study at one of these sites (Lawra-Jirapa in Ghana) to determine if there is scope for conducting more midlines in other sites. CCAFS trained survey teams from partner organisations in the site to conduct the midline.The midline effort consisted of three components -a household survey, village study and organisational survey. The household midline survey, a quantitative questionnaire on basic indicators of welfare, information sources, livelihood/agriculture/natural resource management strategies, needs and uses of climate and agricultural-related information and current risk management, mitigation and adaptation practices, was implemented by CCAFS partners in 1 site (7 villages) with 140 households to date as a test. CCAFS partners implemented a village midline study (VMS) and an organisational survey in one out of the seven villages within the Lawra-Jirapa site where the household survey was implemented. Data from the current midline study, as well as an end line study that will take place in roughly 5 years, will be used to monitor what changes have occurred since the baseline study was carried out. The goal is not to attribute these changes to the program, but to be able to assess what kinds of changes have occurred and whether these changes are helping villages adapt to, and mitigate, climate change.The focus of this site analysis report is the village midline study (VMS). The VMS aims to provide information about changes since the village baseline study (VBS) at the village level about some basic indicators of natural resource utilisation, organisational landscapes, information networks for weather and agricultural information, as well as mitigation midline information, which can be compared across sites and as well as with the situation at baseline. The objectives of the village midline study are to: 1) Provide an initial comparison of the situation found during the VBS to allow us to monitor changes in these villages over time. In particular, changes that allow people to: 2) Understand the enabling environment and changes on it, that mediates certain practices and behaviours and creates constraints and opportunities (policies, institutions, infrastructure, information and services) for communities to respond to change.3) Explore social differentiation: a) Perceptions of women and men will be gathered separately to be able to present different gender perspectives.b) Focus group participants will be selected to present perceptions of groups differentiated by age.The detailed tools and guidelines used for the implementation of the village midline study across all CCAFS sites, as well as the manuals, data and analysis reports can be accessed on our website (http://ccafs.cgiar.org ). This report presents the results of the Village Midline Study (VMS) conducted on from the 2 nd to 12 th July, 2018 in the village of Doggoh, Ghana (Lawra-Jirapa site) (Map 1). The village's geo-coordinates are -10.567; -2.750. Doggoh was chosen for the baseline survey because of its relative central location in the block, among other criteria. There is reasonable accessibility to the village although the roads can be difficult to navigate in the event of heavy rain.The survey team arranged a visit to the village to prepare for the fieldwork. The team was composed of two facilitators, two note takers and one site coordinator. Each pair was male and female. The team consulted with the village authorities concerning the time and place of meeting. It selected shade under a big tree centrally located in the village where most meetings of the village are always held at.The site coordinator sent out invitations by word of mouth through the village Chief and his elders who convened a community meeting to invite all the members to the survey sessions on the agreed dates. On the first day of the survey the whole community was invited to participate in an introductory session where the team explained the survey to them and shared with them the results of the village baseline survey, sampling for the VMS workshop participants was then carried out. Men were separated from women and each participant in the men and women groups balloted for position one, two or three. Those with the number one, stayed back to participate in Day 1 workshop. Those who picked the number two, went home and returned on second day to participate in day 2 workshop while those who picked the number three, were slated for day 3 workshop. The separate sampled group for each day composed of 15 men and 15 women participants. Each group had men or women of varying age categories (Young, Adults and Elderly).The whole community was again invited at the end of the third day to attend a debriefing session where a summary of the findings was shared.The survey used participatory methods of data collection. Throughout the data collection process groups of male and female members of the community worked separately. The team used a satellite image of the block with sketches of resources that were identified by the baseline participants as being important to the community. The midline participants identified any additional important resources and added them to the map. Changes in the state of the previously identified resources were also analysed by the group. The outputs were maps and sketches. The process of working with the community to identify the resources that are important to them depended entirely on how well they are able to understand and interpret the image and the sketches made by the group.The task on day 2 was to work with each group to understand the organisational landscape and the links that exists in relation to food security in a normal year, and in relation to natural resource management. After putting together their organisational landscape, the groups also compared it to the one that was created during the baseline. The outputs were diagrams showing the organisational landscape. Information on each organisation was also captured in cards.There were two main tasks on day 3. The first task was to work with each group to understand how information networks in relation to weather issues and farming activities have changed since the baseline study. The outputs were diagrams. The second task was to bring the male and female groups together to discuss a vision of what the community would like their village to be in the future. The group was later split up into two mixed groups, one assessing the progress that was made towards the vision that was created during the baseline, the other group creating a new vision. The output was a map/sketch showing \"the vision of the community.\"Information generated from the survey was captured on sketches, maps, flip charts, information cards and notes. All these needed to be brought together in one debriefing report from which this final report is written. The debriefing report was prepared in the field so that it could benefit from the presence of the site team. The photographed sketches and maps were inserted in the debriefing report. In this site analysis report proper maps and diagrams derived from the field outputs replaced them.Map 1. Location of the Doggoh village in the CCAFS site, Lawra-Jirapa, Ghana.Topic 1: Community resources -participatory satellite imagery interpretation and visioningCommunity infrastructure and resources as well as gender-differentiated access and utilisation of those resources have been analysed, based on a process of participatory visual interpretation of high-resolution satellite imagery (Airbus SPOT 6/7 imagery). The aim was to analyse how community resources and community dynamics in relation to the environment have changed since the baseline study. The participants were presented with the maps created by the baseline participants and discussed any changes in the state of those resources in terms of quality, access, management and potential drivers of change. Later on, two mixed groups respectively 1) developed an image of village resources and human well-being into 2030 and 2) assessed the progress made towards the future vision that was created by the baseline participants. The detailed approach to this exercise is outlined in the CCAFS Village Midline Study Implementation Manual. Follow the link: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/ZXBP6W.Male and female participants provided the following information on changes in their community's resources, including infrastructure (building on Table 1 and 2 and Maps 2 and 3). Participants in both male and female groups compared the current satellite image of the area and compared it to the image taken in 2011. The analysis was on features such as Rivers, Wetlands, Farmlands, Woodlots, Grasslands. Boreholes, Degraded lands, School buildings, Market, Church, Mosque and Hospital building amongst others. The community determined use for the resources, their location, current state, management and environmental benefits were discussed. Changes observed for each of the inventoried resources was also discussed and reasons assigned for the said changes. Additions to the features/ resources were also discussed and noted. Wetlands were found to be reducing in size due to the fact that, rainfall pattern has been changing, increased crop cultivation around the wetland catchment area amongst others. Degraded land was said to be spreading with the advent of smallscale mining in the area as well as more eroded areas found in the community compared to the time the baseline study was conducted. Tree cover in the settlements portions of the community landscape were said to be increasing as more tree planting took place since 2011. Other new features since the last baseline survey included the Royal Cosy Lodge (Dubai), a new Clinic building, new housing and school infrastructure amongst others.There are a number of seasonal river systems within Doggoh village. They serve as open water ways that offload water through the village and out to connect to other tributaries. The Black Volta River flows through parts of the CCAFS block. It is a very big river and also serve as a national boundary between Ghana and Burkina Faso. The waters of the Black Volta are of good quality and provide a habitat for fish, hippopotamus and also provides hydro power at the Bui Dam site. Some men from Doggoh village carry out fishing in the Black Volta River to supply to household consumers and other commercial food sellers in the district and regional capitals. It takes one hour of cycling to travel from Doggoh village to the Black Volta River. The community does not use river water for domestic purposes because they have boreholes and because it is relatively far. There does not appear to be an established mechanism for managing the rivers as a valuable resource. The seasonal rivers carry rich alluvial silts that are good for cultivation. The region is prone to a long dry season and the rivers dry up then. The Black Volta does not dry up and its nearby lands could be explored for all yearround irrigation agriculture. The male participants were of the view that some more innovative engineering by building a wall embankment at the valley close to the metal bridge to allow for temporal holding of the water before it slowly flows under the bridge.The wetland in Doggoh village is a section of a seasonal river system that collects as a water pan and is called 'Kulbog'. The water pan (called \"dam\" locally) has good quality water that is collected by the community at specific collection points. The wetland has limited vegetation along its banks. The time required to walk from the village to the wetland is about 15 minutes. The wetland is utilised and managed by landowners whose lands are adjacent to it. The wetland and the catchment facilitate rice farming, fishing and crop irrigation. Both men and women indicated that the wetland was reducing in size and frequently dries up more quickly since the last VBS.The community uses the woodlands as a source of wood fuel for both domestic and commercial purposes. Timber from the trees is used as construction material and provide several other ecosystem services including regulatory, supporting and cultural services. There is an untapped potential for beekeeping and a generally low level of commercial exploitation of the forest/tree resources in the community. There is now a mix of indigenous trees as well as others such as grafted mangoes, Moringa and teak trees in the landscape. There is a young Teak tree plantation while the mangoes and Moringa trees are found in the settlements area.The trees are managed through traditional systems that do not allow members to cut down fruit bearing trees particularly the Shea tree (Vitellaria paradoxa). Agricultural productivity is low due to poor soils and unreliable rainfall during the months of drought and the years of crop failure are many. Hence, the fruits from the trees supplement the food requirements of the community. There is a difference in the management of trees that fall on community owned land (open access) and those that fall on individually owned land (controlled access). There is ready market for wood fuel in the towns such as Jirapa, which is putting pressure on the tree population. The absence of alternative sources of income increases the risks of the trees to being cut for sale. The community, however, has not yet come up with mechanisms to regulate cutting down of trees to sell as wood fuel. The reported environmental benefits of the trees include improvement of soil fertility and the provision of shade and fresh air. The region is subject to very strong winds called the \"Harmattan.\"Trees provide a windbreak, especially during the Harmattan. According to farmers, trees are also associated with \"attracting\" rain.The farming system practiced by the community involves cultivation of land between trees. They maintain the natural trees and introduce other trees of economic value such as mangoes. Some of the natural trees like the shea nut trees and the dawa-dawa are retained for their fruits while others like Acacia albida are retained to improve soil fertility.Farmland/cultivated fields are in the form of compound farms around the scattered settlements and outskirts of the village. The community grows a variety of crops such as Maize, Groundnuts, Cowpeas and Rice, Bambara nuts, Sorghum, Yam, and also keep livestock. All land is owned and managed by the community, which allocates plots to community members for use. Farmland is therefore given in usufruct and not purchased. All members of the community have land that they cultivate. In spite of everyone having land to cultivate, and cultivating many crops in their plots, community members did not grow enough food to meet their needs. The situation is changing with interventions such as application of climate-smart agricultural techniques. They can only produce enough food to feed themselves for 3 months a year and must seek food from other sources for the remaining nine months of the year. The average land productivity is low due to poor soil fertility and the little, unreliable rainfall received in the region. Members rely on remittances from their children who go south to seek employment.The community in Doggoh village graze livestock between the cultivated fields and the woodland.During the rainy season, livestock are tethered during the day to graze on nearby grasses. The livestock in Doggoh are mainly short-legged goats and pigs. There is a noted absence of cattle. The community feel that they do not have adequate pasture for their livestock and this is a constraint to keeping larger stock such as cattle. The grazing fields are both private and publicly managed but access to the grazing areas is relatively open in the privately owned lands because individual land ownership is governed by traditional systems that encourage resource sharing. There is evidence of degraded land. In several parts of the village the free ranging of livestock has contributed to removal of vegetation that exposes soils to agents of erosion. There are also parts of the village with rocky outcrops and no vegetation. This area cannot be used for farming. The government has initiated a programme to rehabilitate this degraded environment.Jirapa, Babile and Lawra are the closest big towns where farm produce are sold. The closest market to Doggoh is Jirapa, which is a 30 minutes' bicycle ride away. Babile and Lawra are further away at, respectively, 1.5 and 4 hours of cycling. Lawra is on the border of Ghana and Burkina Faso and serves a wider area than the rest of the markets. There are other smaller markets such as Karisagra, Duori, Tizza, Downi and Eremon that offer lower levels of service and draw traders from smaller hinterlands. There is also a small market in the village square. People gather under a big tree with a few surrounding sheds where trading transactions take place. The markets are also centres of traditional or cultural significance where the community meets to socialize usually over a local alcoholic drink called Pito.There are two schools in the vicinity: Kunzokola primary school and Wulley primary school. The children from Doggoh village and other villages attend Kunzokola primary school, which is 30 minutes' walk from the Doggoh village. The community owns the schools but the government manages them. The Kunzokola school is big and in good condition, and provides the children in the village the chances of getting a good education and eventually a better job.The main roads close to Doggoh are: 1) Jirapa-Babile-Lawra, 2) Jirapa-Doggoh-Lawra. They are both gravel surfaced roads and not in very good motor able condition. Roads facilitate movement of people, goods and services to and from one place to another. Government maintains the roads and derives revenues from them when the users are taxed. The road network has improved access/communication within the region, but the roads' poor conditions have compromised the quality of the services provided and increased the cost of transport, which in turn affects the cost of goods.There are six boreholes in the village and these provide enough water for the community. The water from the boreholes is of good quality. The boreholes were drilled by the government but are owned and managed by the community through a committee comprised of men and women. Since people have adequate water there is no effort to harvest rain water.There is a Community Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compound recently built government in collaboration with JICA to provide primary and essential healthcare to the community. There is a big referral hospital in Jirapa and another in Lawra.A summary of the discussion outputs is presented below. The participants also compared the current resources identified by male and female participants to what existed in the past. The women were familiar with resources that were closer to the village and could describe them in detail. This shows that they interact less with resources that were further away.The women identified the seasonal rivers as a community resource while the men only identified the Black Volta, which is a very big river and situated much further away. The men, however, said they hardly go to the river in recent times for fishing.Both men and women were able to identify the wetland land which they use for early maize cultivation. They both noted that the size of the wetland was reducing in size.Both men and women appreciated the fact that the trees/forests/woodlots were the sole source of domestic energy (wood fuel) for the community, and also noted the importance of wild fruits trees (shea fruits and dawa-dawa) in supplementing the diet. The women identified limited potential for the commercial exploitation of tree/forests resources but raised the issue of beekeeping potential especially that they were now planting tree such as mango, Moringa in the landscape. The women spoke highly of Moringa in particular as they use the leaves for soup and also as mixture for Koose (fried bean cake).Women pointed out the degradation of community resources, which is probably an indication that they interacted more intimately with the natural resources and could therefore detect its gradual degradation. They particularly referred to sites that have been left degraded by activities of smallscale miners and increased erosion that have taken place on many sections of their farm plots.The women also mentioned that they now have compost pits in which they prepare compost manure to support the poor soils on their fields. They now have easier access to tricycle motor transport to cart their farm produce.The many stones occurring in the settlements area was seen particularly by the women as a key resource from which they could derive a lot more income. Some of the women had started gathering and selling them to the construction industry. They however face a challenge of poor road connectivity to Doggoh village which makes it difficult for tipper trucks to access the stone gathering sites in the village.The participants compared the new satellite image with the old one used during the baseline exercises. It easy for them to notice that forested areas had increased in size including more greenery in the settlement areas. Participants were also able to see the new Royal Cosy Hotel (Dubai). Both men and women were also able to locate Jirapa township, Babile and Lawra clearly on the new map.Other smaller features within the community such settlements, rivers, wetlands, roads, and school buildings were however difficult to clearly locate on the new map. During the baseline survey, a mixed group of men and women develop an image of village resources and human wellbeing into 2030 to understand the opportunities and constraints, as well as aspirations for the future. This exercise built upon all the work completed in the previous sessions. In addition, the exercise took into account the photographs of the landscape, including things they are proud of and things that need to be improved upon in the future, that a group of young people had produced. Each of the resources and features were singled out and discussed to arrive at the preferred state envisioned by 2030. Not much progress has been made on the infrastructure side of the vision. Participants indicated that they still have not realized the vision of getting a bridge across the river towards the Babile road and that a secondary school building as well as a university in the village show little progress or no progress at all. Weak government commitment has been cited as the main reason. Small scale mining has now been banned in the community and so, it is anticipated that the degraded land at the mining sites will begin to regenerate and eventually restore itself. In the settlements area, a number of trees particularly Moringa and Mango have now been planted which are thriving well. Soil conditions have been improving in recent years with the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices such tying of ridges, compost manure application amongst others. A summary is presented in Table 5.The community members were brought together to discuss a new vision for their community by 2030. The issues/areas around which the vision was couched included the dam, woodlots, climatesmart agricultural (CSA) techniques and roads amongst others. They envision that the broken dam wall will be reconstructed and re-enforced to last longer and withstand the water pressure. They also looked at a situation where the stone bounding and tie ridging and other CSA techniques can be widespread and adopted by all community members and even extend to surrounding communities. Another area is the increased utility of abundant stone resources for the construction industry. The limiting factor is the poor access road for tipper trucks to easily drive into the village to load the stones already gathered. They wish to see this road reconstructed to target easy carting of the stones and also their farm produce to market centres. The community also had a vision of increased establishment of Woodlots, Moringa trees and other fruit trees for a greener landscape. A summary of the new vision is presented in Table 6. There have been a number of organizations that were present during the VBS and currently no longer operating in the area. At the same time, there are a number of new organizations that were not present at the time the VBS took place. CCAFS was mentioned on the new organisations by both men and women and that its activities are directly responding to some of the community needs. CCAFS trains farmers on good agricultural practices including planning in lines, mixed cropping, composting and tie ridging amongst others. CCAFS is also planting trees such as Moringa and Mango and other fruit trees to improve the landscape. FIC is another organisation that currently operates in Doggoh but was not present during the baseline surveys. Meanwhile, some organizations that were present during the VBS but currently do not operate in the community includes ProNet North, SADA, Sung taa Nuntaa, School for Life and Agamal. The participants indicated that most of the organisations have now folded up and left the community. The activities of these organizations were connected with project which have now elapsed the project time frame. The goal of this exercise was to get an improved understanding of how the organisational landscape contributes to the food security of the group. Food security is mostly measured at the household level. Nonetheless, community-level organisations and interactions influence the food security of different groups within the community differently. Male and female participants were asked to discuss the concepts of food availability, access and utilization, and then review each organisation they had previously identified by asking which of them had activities that fell under these categories.The CCAFS project was part of the key intervention efforts at food security that the participants kept making reference to throughout the discussions. CCAFS started after the VBS and have been implementing improved seed supply, farmer training on agronomic practices, soil improvement techniques including composting, tree planting and other climate-smart agricultural (CSA) techniques. Another organization that came up is the ACDEP which implemented the feed the future project in which improved seed and fertilizer was supplied to selected farmers as well as supply of grains to households to make up for shortfalls in harvest.Farm Plus also provided support to households to carry out crop production including input supply.MoFA continues to provide extension and technical backstopping support within the community for interventions aimed at achieving food security in the community.  Women engaged in this discussion could not remember this group and also attributed this to the fact that perhaps none of them were part of baseline exercise.Enye group This group transformed into Kameienye group which now involve a few men.Only women were managing the affairs but eventually encountered difficulties and had to dissolve.Women said this group has been dissolved for which reason they could not explain. Most members involved in this discussion were not members and therefore could not explain why the group failed to function.This organisation seems to have folded up. Women said they have not seen or engaged with them for a number of years now.This organisation used to provide English class for us but has not turned up for some time now. This immerged after the baseline was collected. Women were not able to say exactly when it started in the community. they estimated its inceptions to be four years agoThis did not appear in the baseline because CCAFS started work with them seven years ago. This also means that baseline was collected before CCAFS intervention started.According to women the Health facility provided through Ghana Health Services existed for the past three years. It means that this was not present at the time of baseline data collection. Further discussions show that GHS was not physically (in terms of infrastructure) operating in the community until now.Mother-to mother support groupThe CHPS compound did not exist Agamal and Azumah Resources Limited engaged prospecting for mineral resources in the area during the VBS. The attracting some people to the area to engage in small scale illegal mining. This contributed to a lot of destruction of the landscape by tree cutting and digging of soil as well as use of chemicals such mercury which ended up polluting the rivers in the area. SADA planted a teak plantation that is now established a teak forest in the area. SADA has since left the community. CCAFS through the Forestry Commission (FC) trained farmers on grafting of mangoes and nursery production of tree seedlings. Trees such as Mangoes and Moringa have now been planted in the landscape. This immerged after the baseline was collected. Women were not able to say exactly when it started in the community. they estimated its inceptions to be four years ago CCAFS This did not appear in the baseline because CCAFS started work with them seven years ago. This also means that baseline was collected before CCAFS intervention started.According to women the Health facility provided through Ghana Health Services existed for the past three years. It means that this was not present at the time of baseline data collection. Further discussions show that GHS was not physically (in terms of infrastructure) operating in the community until now.  The aim of this exercise was to understand the diversity of options people use for accessing information on agriculture and weather; how people take advantage of sources of information available, and if some sources are not used and why. The baseline site analysis report described networks of how people access and share information within the community. The current midline study investigated if these networks have changed. Currently, the type of information community members require includes time for land preparation, weather information, storage protocols, market information and guidelines to seed selection. The people continue to source these pieces of information from family and friends, neighbours, organizations, radio and observation. Recently, farmers are able to call through the mobile phones to the Esoko call centre where information such as time of planting fertilizer application, weather forecast in different local Ghanaian languages as well as text alerts. Some community members also report that they are also able to source important information members of the CCAFS project who come to work in the community. Doggoh village is located within a vegetation type known as Sudan Savannah, which is characterized by a considerable tree population. Many trees shed off their leaves during the dry season and regenerate when the rains come. Bush fires are rampant in the area and can be devastating to crop fields. Economic trees such as shea and dawa-dawa abound in the area. Everyone has some land to cultivate, Doggoh villagers can only feed themselves for 3 months a year. They rely on remittances from their children who go south to seek employment in order to support the families in the village. High poverty levels increase the pressure to over exploit tree resources to which the community has open access. Income derived from the sale of wood fuel has created incentives for increasing the rate at which tress are cut down. Not surprisingly, two-thirds of the organizations identified by men and women in the study provided food security assistance. Recently, it's easy to see younger trees of moringa and mango trees in the settlements area. There are a lot of stones in the landscape that can be gathered and sold to the construction industry for increased household income and also to free up some more arable land for crop cultivation. It is easy to see compound farms in the settlement area. Most households keep livestock to support household incomes. The people engage in subsistence farming of rice, maize, cowpea, yam, beans, sorghum and other vegetables like okra, pepper and pumpkin. There are small plantations of teak and moringa near the wetland. The dawa-dawa and the shea nut trees are not domesticated due to social issues and not scientific ones. Women interact with resources that are close to the village. The men interact with resources further away from the village and control resources, although it is women who provide the labour. Wood fuel is the sole source of domestic energy in the village therefore there is constant harvesting to meet both domestic and commercial demand. Trees produce fruits that are very significant in the local diet and supplements agricultural production. It is therefore important to sustain efforts at retaining trees and planting short maturing fruit bearing tree species on the landscape which can also contribute to nutritional security.The natural resource stock appears not to have significantly changed since the VBS in 2011.Small rivers and streams, forest and wetlands. Teak forest is now established while the wetland is decreasing due to encroachment and siltation around the catchment area. Not much has been done on improving access roads and laying a bridge over the stream towards the school area. Efforts will need to be made to work on the access road in particular as that has the potential of facilitating transportation to the community for easy sale of the stone resources to the construction industry and also facilitate easy carting of farm inputs and produce.Information networks for agricultural and weather information in the community are made up of media, organizations and individuals. The radio is the most used form of media. The radio offers several programmes in the Dagaare language, which provides the community with information. The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA), Farm Plus, RAAP, ADRA and recently Esoko are organizations that provide the community with information on agriculture. Access to mobile phone ownership is the limiting factor for many farmers to access the Esoko call centres or text alert on weather, timing of fertilizer application, market price information etc.There is satisfactory progress towards building a natural resource management regime to contribute to food security in the face of climate and ecosystem changes. More attention ought to be paid particularly to the interventions of the CCAFS project for sustained outputs.Synergies with other organizations would need to be pursued to avoid duplication of interventions.Findings from the VMS show that community members are aware of their community level vulnerability to climate and ecosystem changes as well as their food security risk profile. ","tokenCount":"5927"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"5b451e39cfe073d6652096a89f9c063c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/93b6694f-61f1-4d29-9575-09059640c728/retrieve","id":"1060241988"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1b7f8181-680f-4993-9844-1d0602df59cc","pagecount":"6","content":"Global ly, the livestock sector represents 14.5% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from cattle production (4.6 Gt CO 2 -eq), mainly through enteric fermentation (2.1 Gt CO 2 -eq), which corresponds to the largest source (IPCC, 2007;Gerber et al. 2013). Enteric methane (CH4) emissions are highly variable, depending on the quality of feed, but also on climate conditions, dry matter intake and energy use. In order to contribute to the mitigation of climate change there is the current need to standardize accurate, affordable, and logistically simple methods to determine in vivo emissions of enteric CH4 accurately and at the more specifi c scales as possible. However, for the cattle sector, most of the default values given by the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) (Tier 1 emission factors) (Gavrilova et al. 2019) use to estimate emissions were developed in laboratories with mostly breeds and feeds in non-tropical countries, which lead to uncertainties in estimations when used in the tropics. Therefore, it remains unclear whether IPCC emission factors are reflective of CH4 emissions from cattle in tropical locations.The polytunnel method is a promising, simple and accessible approach for quantifying enteric CH4 emissions in which individual or groups of cattle can be confined for selected periods of time during which the amount of CH4 they produce is collected and then measured (Storm et al. 2012;Goopy et al. 2016). Currently, CH4 concentrations in samples collected from polytunnels are collected and transferred to lab prior to being analyzed using gas chromatography (Murray et al. 1999), a resource demanding process. On the other hand, Gasmet DX4040TM (Gasmet) uses Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) to measure up to 25 gases simultaneously, including CH4. The real-time measurements and portability of Gasmet raises the possibility of rapidly and cost effectively quantifying gas concentrations. This technology has been used to quantify enteric CH4 emissions from the feeding pen automatic milking systems (Lassen et al. 2012;Haque & Madsen, 2014). Gasmet has not previously been used for field measurements of methane in tropical countries, where humidity and temperature may affect performance. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to directly compare the FITR technology with gas NDIR system with gas chromatograph to measure methane emissions in cattle. We hypothesize that Gasmet (FTIR technology) gives comparable CH4 concentrations to those obtained by gas chromatograph (GC) technology.Two field experiments (ExpA and ExpB) were conducted at the Palmira campus of the Alliance of Biodiversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, ABC; average annual temperature and rainfall of 27°C and 1008mm respectively, altitude 1050m a.s.l. The same four zebu steers (234±11kg) were used in both experiments, consuming Urochloa hybrid cv. Cayman-CIAT BR02/1752 (Cayman) forage of different chemical composition due to different growth stages (45 days for ExpA and 65 days for ExpB). Measurements of CH4 emissions were made using the polytunnel technique (Murray et al. 2007) with two polytunnels, volume 134m 3 , with an entry for animals and staff and on the opposite side a 12\" fume hood set at an extraction rate of 0.9m3s-1 to allow the sampling of gases. The evaluated steers had been consuming the same Urochola hybrid over a six-month period prior to measurements. The steers were acclimatized to confinement in the polytunnel for four days prior to conducting gas measurements (Murray et al. 1999). The fifth day, gas samples were collected every 80 minutes over 24-hours for a total of 18 sampling times. A total of 144 gas samples were analyzed for each measurement technique (18 times × 4 animals × 2 experiments). For GC analysis, at each sampling time, samples were collected using a 50mL plastic syringe, stored in 10mL Exetainer® vials and sent for analysis within 48h to the laboratory of greenhouse gases of ABC. On the other hand, in the case of Gasmet analysis, each sampling time consisted in measurements every 20 seconds for three minutes. The final Gasmet value to be compared with the GC result was the average of the nine measurements taken during the three minutes. The gas samples were taken inside and outside each polytunnel to correct values with the gas concentration in the environment. Gasmet used ultrapure N2 gas grade 5.0 for zero calibration; and it was purged flushing the N zero-gas for five minutes at a rate of 2L min -1 . After every calibration the device was tested measuring the CH4 concentration in the zero gas and results were close to 0ppm CH4. The GC Shimadzu GC-2014 was equipped with a flame ionization detector. The temperatures of the gas chromatograph's furnace, injector and detector were 250°C, 100°C and 325°C, respectively. To verify the accuracy of the measurements made with GC, SCOTTY® Specialty Gas Calibration Standards of different concentrations were used (10ppm CH4, 2000ppm CO2, 1ppm N2O and 2000ppm CH4, 5000ppm CO2, 5ppm N2O).Significance of correlation between Gasmet and GC values was determined using the PROC CORR, in SAS version 9.1 (SAS, 2003). To evaluate Gasmet performance: Logarithmic Gasmet efficiency (LGE) (Equ. 1), the coefficient of determination (R2), normalized root mean square prediction error (RMSPEn) (Equ.2) and the mean bias (MB) (Equ. 3) (Tedeschi, 2006) were used.LGE is a measure of accuracy. High Gasmet efficiency, is represented by a LGE value of 1. In contrast, an LGE value that is <0 indicates that the mean of the chromatograph values is a better estimator than Gasmet values (Tedeschi, 2006).The RMSPEn is inversely related to R2.MB is used to assess Gasmet accuracy, reflects systematic deviations between chromatograph and Gasmet values. If MB is negative, it means that, for the specific variable, the Gasmet overestimates and, if it is positive, it means that the Gasmet underestimates (Smith et al. 1997). In this equation n: is sample size; CGi: represents the ith chromatograph value and Gasmeti: corresponds to the ithGasmet value.A significant correlation was observed when comparing the results obtained with the Gasmet and the GC techniques (R 2 =0.96, P<0.005). (Figure 1). The regression equation obtained was: Gasmet= 1.42 (GC). This result suggest that values recorded using Gasmet were lower than those obtained using GC (Table 1, Figure 1). This trend was confirmed with the positive MB value. The emissions observed in ExpB were higher than those in Exp A, which was associated to differences in the nutritional quality of the diets as the harvesting times of the grass varied between experiments. In ExpA the Cayman offered to the animals had the lowest nutritional quality and therefore had lower methane emissions in g/day, but the highest emission in g of CH 4 per kg of digested DM. This agrees with reports that animals fed with forages of high nutritional quality had greater efficiency in the utilization of feed and therefore, had lower energy loss in the form of methane (Blaxter & Clapperton, 1965;Chuntrakort et al. 2014). In both experiments (ExpA and ExpB) we can observe that measurements with Gasmet and with CG have the same tendency in most sampling times (figure 1b) and this can be proven with the values of LGE (0.95) and RMSPEn (0.72) that provide further evidence that though precise, Gasmet values were systematically lower than those obtained through GC in this study (Table 1).In previous studies (Lassen et al. 2012;Haque & Madsen, 2014), Gasmet technology was used to quantify CH4 concentrations over very short time periods (5-6 minutes) and at low frequencies (2.6 times per day). The low frequency of these studies was certainly insufficient to capture the diurnal variation in enteric CH4 emissions. Our results, for measurements conducted over longer periods (24h), suggest that Gasmet technology and GC are comparable for the quantification of CH4 emissions. Sypniewski et al. (2019) also used FITR analyzer to measure methane emissions in cattle and suggested that FITR analyzers provide reliable results for large scale CH4 and CO2 measurements. However, if results obtained through Gasmet technology are to be compared with those measured through GC, a correction factor (1.42) is necessary. We suppose that the observed difference in values obtained using Gasmet and GC may be partially due to differences in measurement approaches. and is constantly being reported (Goopy et al. 2016;Molina et al. 2016) furthermore, it is a technology that is calibrated by releasing pure gases in order to know its recovery rate, which is normally over 95% (Lockyer & Jarvis, 1995;Murray et al. 1999) and it is pertinent to note, that values presented in this study are gas concentrations and not absolute emissions.Individual differences between production of CH4 are measurable using a portable FTIR measuring unit in an automatic Milking system and may be useful to generate largescale data for genetic evaluation of CH4 production in dairy cattle (Haque & Madsen, 2014). Shetty et al. (2017) evaluated the feasibility of FTIR spectroscopy of milk in predicting CH4 emission. Data collected from commercial farms had CH4 measurements and corresponding FTIR spectral profile. Low prediction accuracies were obtained for CH4: CO2 ratio and CH4 production when models were obtained using FTIR spectra. When models were integrated with other factors such as Milk Yield herd, and lactation stage, results showed improvement in the prediction accuracy.The comparability of outputs and lower operational time-input requirements associated with Gasmet, compared to GC, makes it an attractive option when resources are limited. In this research, the predicted and reported values are variable, but it should be considered that these values do not include variations due to the animals and diet consumed by the animals, which is a factor that greatly influences the methane emissions. This is in line with Rey-Sanchez et al. (2019) who concluded that CH4 emissions differ between and within subjects and these differences must be identified and corrected to increase the reliability of measurements made with non-invasive methane measurement methods. The exact concentrations of CH4 shown by GC were not exactly reproduced by Gasmet. However, the correlation between both datasets and supported by complementary metrics suggest that although not with 100% accuracy, the emissions can be precisely estimated and are comparable to GC after applying a correction factor of 1.42.We can conclude that methods such as Gasmet represent a viable, rapid and easy to implement approach for quantifying enteric CH4 emissions in contrasting conditions of emission levels. Many instruments and or techniques have been developed to measure enteric CH4 emissions from ruminants, each with their own scope of applications, advantages and disadvantages (Hill et al. 2016). No single method is perfect in all aspects and thus it is necessary to highlight its advantages and disadvantages. In methods such as Gasmet, there is a need for more repeated measures on multiple animals and further comparisons between techniques which estimate CH4 emissions in ruminants. ","tokenCount":"1764"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"31ee1ba01be619bf1eb51c2e63c599a8","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0e4df887-c059-431f-b411-379c4bd168c3/retrieve","id":"-75220195"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d370e932-dca8-4796-ac6b-f5bdc2f62ee0","pagecount":"14","content":"• High interpretability and explainability.• Lower performance in some applications• Require less data for training Approaches to interpret a model: • the local level, the aim is to explain why a specific instance of the model has had a particular prediction. • the global level, the goal is to understand the drivers of predictions across all instances.https://blog.ovhcloud.com/interpretability-engine-an-open-source-tool-to-interpret-your-models-in-ml-serving/ • R-squared as evaluation metric.• Bayesian hyperparameters search• Explicit use of methods to reduce overfittingWe \"search\" for the 'fittest' model based on performance (R-squared) and explainability.•The cumulative precipitation (acc_prec) is the most influential feature, contributing on average approximately ±400 kg/ha to the predicted yield These are the input variables, ranked from top to bottom by their mean absolute SHAP values for the entire dataset. i.e. the average magnitude of each variable's impact on the predicted crop yield across all instances Bar plot quantifies, on average, the magnitude() positive or negative of each feature's contribution towards the predicted crop yield.The variable representing the number of times weed management was carried out (num_manejo_malezas), it is observed that the most significant volume has an impact on the model below a SHAP value of 1000. Instances with a positive impact (located to the right) have higher values, suggesting that the more practices are performed, the greater the benefit for the crop. The color bar corresponds to the raw values of the variables for each instance on the graph. If the value of a variable for an instance is high, it appears as a red dot. Low variable values appear as blue dots.Examining the color distribution horizontally along the x-axis for each variable provides insights into the general relationship between the raw values of a variable and its SHAP valueTo understand the actual (real) relationship between a feature and the predicted outputThe inset histograms just above the x-axis display the distributions of raw variable values. We should be cautious not to overinterpret regions of the dependence plot where the underlying data is sparseShap values above the y=0 line lead to predictions of higher yield crops, whereas those below it are associated with lower yield crops predictions.The ALE values that are above the y=0 line indicate that the effect of the variable at that value contributes positively to higher corn yield. For example, in the graph, a threshold is observed to determine positive and negative impacts, which is when the heat units (Udh is 2000)The partial dependence plot shows that as the amount of heat increases, there may be an adverse impact on corn yield. This could be due to extreme weather conditions or changes in the environment that are not favorable for corn cultivationInfluence of the variable heat units (udh) on crop yield using Shap, PDP, and ALEThe strength of the interaction between cumulative precipitation(acc_prec) and the number of applied technologies(num_trcnologi as) is significant exceeding 20%The \"barbecho\" practice does not exhibit a significant interaction strength with cumulative precipitation Interaction between the number of technologies and cumulative precipitation in the impact on performance PDP (10-90%) ALEThe interpretation of the 2D partial dependence plot varies depending on the orientation of its analysis. When examined horizontally, for example, with acc_prec <= 600 mm, it is revealed that as more technologies are employed, the impact on corn yield may experience an increase of approximately 12%. Conversely, when reading the plot vertically, specifically when num_technologies = 3, it is observed that as water availability increases, the impact on yield can reach up to an 18% higher productionThe 2D partial dependence plots assess the strength of the interaction between variables. In the graph, it is observed that the variables acc_prec and num_tecnologia interact positively in two specific scenarios: first, when there is an adequate amount of water (more than 800 mm) and less than 2 technologies are employed; and second, when the water supply does not reach the required threshold, but there is the possibility of applying more technologies.… a method (still) in the making Jaimes et al. (in prep.) ","tokenCount":"656"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fae629d90576d5fe61879866e7749ddf","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/de6ab28c-6dc8-4f71-813a-acbe39d3636e/retrieve","id":"293041648"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0bf8e32c-dee5-4252-846f-fb28a3d1db1b","pagecount":"25","content":"A. Context A. l. Description of subsector Over 70.000 ha of cassava are cultivated in Cuba: however yields are relative!y low (5.2 ton/ha) because of losses caused by pests, diseases and weeds. These factors not only reduce yields but often lower the quality of roots, which reduces market prices. Almost all current cassava production is sold as fresh roots and is consumed by humans. Pork is the preferred mear and lack of fodder is increasing demand for the production of dried cassava chips (which are a good supplement to soybean). of which there is currently only anisanal production for on-farm usage.Cuba currently cultivares 70.000 ha and the govemment would like to increase this to 100,000. They also consider yields to be very low (5.2 ton/ha) and want to raise the yields by about 50%, which is close to the average for other Latín American countries. The country has put a high priority on the use of integrated pest management (IPM), biological control and sustainable crop management. The country has well-developed extension system which permits rapid adoption of new methods of crop protection and management. However. the country has been fairly isolated and needs access to advanced methods. exotic biological control agents and cassava germplasm. They hope that this project will provide these missing elements.There is no other ongoing assistance to Cuba in this subsector. In the past 20 years CIA T has trained many Cuban investigators who are still working with cassava. The most recent training was in 1996. CIA T has _also periodically supplied Cuba with cassava germplasm, most recently in 1997.Cuba maintains a center for agricultura! research on root and tuber crops and plantain (INNIT, in Santo Domingo) which employs 14 \"investigators\" (scientists with undergraduate, MSc or PhD degrees) working on pests. diseases. weeds, crop production and postharvest utilization of cassava. The country also maintains a national agricultura} extension system (Dirección General de Sanidad Vegetal) which deploys about 50 extension agents. National program agents (Estaciones Territoriales de Protección de las Plantas) also make monthly surveys of crop production problems and inforrn cooperative managers what to look out for. This program also maintains small fac ilities (CREE. Centro de Reproducción de Entomofagos y Entomopatógenos) in each township to produce biological control agents for local use.Agricultura! production is conducted by three types of crop managers and farmers: 1) independent farmers who own 1-20 ha (campesinos; however, they form cooperatives [CCS, Cooperativos de credito y servicio] that perrnit them to have access to Govemment credit). 2) voluntarily-forrned cooperatives forrned by forrnerly independent farrners (CP A. Cooperativo de Producción Agropecuaria). Cassava plays an important role in Cuba's strategy to develop the production of roots and ruber crops because of its capacity to produce yields under poor growing conditions, despite the Jack of agricultura! inputs, which is the situation for 80% of the region where it is currently cultivated. Furtherrnore, the crop can be left in the field to be harvested later when other crops are not available, thus providing a food source throughout most of the year. Cassava has also proven to be useful. in combination with soy beans, as pig feed, producing weight gains of 600 g/animal/day. There is a growing demand for por k in the country , which is an important so urce of protein and fat. The area being planted to cassava is expanding, particular! y in regions where soil quality is too poor for other root and tuber crops. Current yields are relatively low (5.2 ton/ha) because of Josses caused by pests. diseases and weeds and because of poor soil management. Previous experiments conducted in Cuba show that yields can be raised to at Jeast 1 O tlha and to 20-25 tlha with sufficient inputs, such as fertilizer.Principal pests of cassava in Cuba include the cassava hornworrn (Erinnyis ello), a migratory moth whose larvae can completely defoliate a field, causing losses in root yields of up to 15% and losses of starch content of up to 50%. The shoot fly (Silba pendula) damages up to 15% of growing tips, causing up to 20% loss of root yield. The stem borer (Lagochirus dezayasi) has sporadic, localized attacks that cause up to 15% yield loss and damage to the plant stem :-educes the amount of planting material available. Scale insects (Saissetia miranda, Aonidomytilus albus) have many natural enemies; however, care must be tak.en to eliminate them from planting material to avoid spreading the pests. Mites (M ononychellus ranajoa. Tetranychus urticae) have increased in recent years. panicularly in warrner, drier regions, increasing the need to find new natural enemies and more resistant cassava varieties. The root bug (Tominotus communis) has become a regional problem in western Cuba causing losses up to 50% in the clone CMC-40. because the roots become completely unsuitable for human consumption. The citrus root weevil (Pachnaeus lilus') , which feeds on both Jeaves and roots, has recently been reponed to atta,.::k 75% of sorne cassava clones in Matanzas Province. Damaged roots are completely unsuitable for human consumption . Pathogens attacking cassava include bacteriosis (Xanthomona s campestris) which causes up to 10% yield loss. Superelongation disease (Sphaceloma manihoricola) causes up to 100% losses in the clone CMC-40. and anthracnosis (Colletotrichum gloeosporioides) which causes up to 5-10% loss. An unknown pathogen causing symptoms similar to frogskin disease occurs in the central region of the country. directly destroying roots.Weeds can also seriously reduce production, especially when the plants are young, and this requires substantial labor. which is sometimes scarce .Traditionally Cubans, especially poor small land-holders, have used cassava residues to feed their animals. Based on studies conducted by INIVIT. interest in the utilization of cassava to feed animals. especially pigs and birds. is growing. The introduction of improved cassava varieties with greater dry matter content, the use of both foliage and roots, as well as the construction of processing plants and machinery to dry cassava will increase the utilization of cassava as animal feed.The utilization of cassava as a basis for animal diets depends on it being supplemented.Although at first this appears to be a disadvantage, practica] experience shows that the majority of the dietary protein is supplied from sources available in Cuba, such as soy mea!, fish meal. leaves of forage trees, etc .. which provide a balanced nutrition. INIVIT has obtained weight gains of 624 g/ da y in Yorkshire pigs with a food conversion rate of 3.5 (gaining 1 kg of pig for every 3.5 kg dry feed). reducing by 25o/c the amount of protein required as recommended by NRC (National Research Council, 1988). This has greatly assisted in raising the utility of this crop as a high quality energy source.Recent results of the utilization of cassava flour as feed for semi-rustic chickens show promising potential for the production of eggs and meat. In the case of the pig production, the utilization of the cassava in fonn of pellets has considerably reduced the cost of production. lt avoids the need for milling and packaging since it is easy stored as dry granules until used. There is a strong demand for protein of origin animal in Cuba, and the utilization of the cassava in integral form is profitable for small and medium scale producers which have access to free markets.Cassava permits the development of a variety of products and uses, and in particular it could be used as a starch substitute, r'!placing maize, which is currently being imported for a variety of uses. Traditionally cassava is consumed as fresh cooked roots in all provinces throughout the year, and the marketing studies that we have carried out so far indicare that this root has extraordinary potential.l. Quantification of the major pest and disease constraints to cassava productivity in each of six agroecological zones in Cuba.2. Increase cassava production by at least 45% percent on 24 cooperatives and 300 small farms. where the farmers have been trained to use improved crop production technologies.3. Train 14 scientists (including 3 MSc degrees), 50 extension workers. lOO crop managers. 350 cooperative farmers. and 300 small-holding farmers in the principies and practices of economic sustainable crop protection, production. processing and fanner participatory research methods.4. Dissemination of the pest management and crop production technologies that were successful in pilot farmer participatory experiments to 1000 fanners.5. Fresh cassava will become available in markets throughout the year rather than for only four months, stabilizing supply and prices and increasing farmer income.6. Construction of six Pilot cassava processing plams which will produce dry chips, flour and starch, diversifying cassava markets to absorb increases in productivity, shifting the consumption of cassava from fresh roots (down from 80% of market to 40% ) to include more value-added products (increasing from 20% of market to 60%).• Small-scale cassava crop managers, farmers and processors. Increased production and productivity will increase rural employment opportunities and incomes. Improved access to existing and new markets will stimulate farmer demand for and adoption of new technological options. Increased participation of fanners in decision-making processes for development and transfer of improved technologies will help to create demand for technology and information from research and extension agencies and will facilitare the establishment of locally adapted technology testing activities and sen'ices. Increased processing and added-value activities through increased volumes. improved traditional markets and new products and end uses will increase employment opportunities and incomes for cassava crop managers and fanners and processors. • National Research and Extension agencies. Adoption of a farmer participatory approach by agricultura! sector agencies will led to more client-responsive organizations with facilitated links and penetration to rural areas. improving the focus of their research agendas according to the real needs and priorities of fanners groups in target regions. New training opportunities on the use of fanner participatory based methods for policy-makers, researchers and extensionists will help to deve lop the human resources of the agencies involved and will facilitare the institutionalization of these approaches into their working agendas. Overall efficiency of the technology development and transfer process will be improved through a demand-pull effect of enhanced fanner participation in technology testing activities.Infonnation obtained through monitoring-and-evaluation and adoption-and-impact studies will help implementing agencies refine their objectives and undertake appropriate actions.• National Researchers and extensionists. Increased opportunities for training on , and implememation of, technical research. fanner participatory research and extension activities will facilitare the establishment in the region of a team of technically-capable, clientresponsive researchers and extensionists. Feedback from fanners regarding the adaptation and appropriateness of new technologies will help scientists to improve their knowledge of local fanning systems and sharpen the focus of their strategic and adaptive research activities. lmproved linkages with an international research center will open access to vital technical information.• Urban consumers. lmproved productivity and stabil ized prices of cassava-based products will help to lower prices and stabilize food supply in urban areas. Lower prices and increased availability of cassava chips for animal feed will increase meat supplies.This project was originally developed by Cuban scientists at INIVIT and has been refined after interaction with CIA T scientists. Project strategy is based on a demand-driven integrated approach to crop commodity research and development. which CIA T has found to be highly effective. First, surveys of farmers and local markets will be conducted to identify and characterize market opportunities, especially for cassava products with high elasticity of demand (i.e., stable prices). This provides the basis for choosing appropriate products and designing processing technologies (e.g. cooperative plants to produce cassava chips, fl our or starch). These technologies are subsequently tested and adapted with farmer participation under market conditions at representative sites. Monitoring and evaluation help to fine-tune the technologies for subsequem diffusion over a wide area and provide feedback to target new research objectives. Similarl y. farmer surveys identify and prioritize the constraints to increasing cassava production.Research to increase the productivity and sustainability of cassava cultivation focuses on soil fertility, water management. eros ion control. crop management. integrated pest and disease management. and improved crop varieties. All of these technologies are low-capital. environmental-friendly, and sustainable (e.g .. biological control, intercropping. crop rotation, production of high quality planting materi al). The simultaneous development of market opportunities with technologies to increase fanner producti vity. both conducted using farmer participatory research methods. is essential to attaining long-term adoption of both. The stable and increasing price generated by the demand for value-added products stimulates farmers to adopt new production technologies. that further increase their incomes.Neither Cuba nor CIA T ha ve the financia! resources to bridge the gap in communication which prevents the development and implementation of ecologically-sound imegrated development of cassava's potentials. This project links the national program to an intemational agricultura! research institution that Ras advanced research capabilities and extensive experience using farrner participatory research to sol ve problems related to cassava production, integrated pest and disease management, postharvest processing aPd market development. It also provides access to natural enemies and improved varieties and information resources that are otherwise out of reach to the national program.This project was inspired by the success of the UNDP-funded project, \"Ecologically Sustainable Cassava Plant Protection in South America and Africa: An Environmentally Sound Approach\" (ESCaPP/ PROFISMA, 1993PROFISMA, -1996)). which involved CIAT. liTA and EMBRAPA (Brazil). The presently proposed project will be closely affiliated with the global project. \"Ecologically Sustainable Cassava Plam Protection: A Global Strategy\". which has been submitted to UNDP and IFAD. and with the other bilateral satellite proposals submitted by Brazil and Paraguay. Both Cuba and Paraguay share a subrropical climate. and they experience many of the same constraints ro increased productivity. Thus. this project will benefit directly from research activities supported by the other projects.CIAT and INIVIT will be responsible for coordination of their respective activities and management of their respective budgets. A project Jeader appointed by CIA T will be the institutional contact person responsible for coordinating project activities. The project coordinator reports to the Director of Research, who is responsible to the Director General and Board of Trustees. A national project coordinator will be responsible for the rnanagernent and adrninistration of project activities in Cuba and will liaison with CIA T .CIAT will have prirn~' responsibility for all fi nancia] rnatters. National prograrn funds will be disbursed by CIAT following institutional accounting procedures. The national program (INIVIT) will be responsible for the rnanagernent and adrninistration of these funds and will pro vide financia! status reports to CIA T's chief financia! officer on a serni-annual basis. CIA T will provide financia! progress reports to the donor as required.The project will be coordinated aná rnanaged through a rnultidisciplinary national tearn to reach the various stakeholders. The national tearn will periodically rneet with CIA T scienrists to identify and develop rnanagernent tools guiding project irnplernentation, prepare technical protocols and set R&D priorities based on prior diagnoses. The national prograrn participated in developrnent of this proposal, and they will conduct annual reviews of their activities to revise their workplans and budgets. This will include: revised plans of operation and budgets; set performance indicators for a rnonitoring and evaluation: relate objectives to available inputsl personnel , fundsl equiprnent. rnaterial s. etc.; set deadlines by when activities should begin and end; and assign responsibilities to team rnernbers and./or collaborating institutions. These kinds of consultative planning tools will rernove arnbiguities about responsibilities during project irnplernentation. Exchange visits will be organized between project partners to enhance technical interactions, supervi sion and rnonitoring of project activities.Both CIA T and INIVIT will contri bu te to an annual report of research and developrnent activities for the donor.Cuba can supply the scientific personnel needed to work on all the proposed within country acti vities, including specialists in plant pathology. entornology. agronorny , biotechnology 1 plant breeding, genetics and postharvest processing, who have the equi valent of M .Sc. or Ph.D. ' degrees, as well as others with Agricultura! Engi neering degrees. These Cuban scientists are well trained and dedicated workers; howeverl they have been fairly isolated frorn the intemational scientific cornrnunity. INIVIT al so has sorne infrastructure available, including laboratories suitably equipped for the proposed activities, and trained technical assistants. However, sorne additional equiprnent, supplies and training will be necessary 1 as requested in this proposal.Increase food security. increase and stahilize incornes of poor farrners (rnany of whorn are wornen) and reduce use of pesticides in Cuba by irnproving efficiency and sustainability of cassava production through developrnent and adoption of improved integrated pest managernent. crop production and postharvest processin g technologies using farmer participatory rnethods.Determine majar constraints to cassava productivity, processing and use in each of six agroecological zones by means of diagnostic surveys.Extensive surveys will collect data on socioeconomics and on farmer perceptions of their problems. Represer.tative sites will then be selected for subsequent intensive diagnosric surveys and field experiments that evaluare the impact of each constraint on the production and quality of cassava roors. These results will be used to determine which pests have the widest distribution and cause the highest impact on cassava productiviry and which regions have the mosr problems. This informarían will prioritize the problems to be addressed and where to conduct on-farm training and experimentarían.Formation of multidisciplinary teams and development of appropriate work plans, methods and protocols for activities in each region. Activities 1.1.1 activity 1 Select and train the scientists and extensionists in the procedures and specific disciplines required to conduct the diagnostic surveys.1.1.2 activitv Prepare a general work plan, define the protocols and procedures that will be used by the participants and prepare ~specific work plans for each region.Diagnosis of the fundamental constraints to cassava productivity, processing and use in each of the principal agroecological zones of Cuba. Activities 1.2.1 activity 1 Conduct extensive surveys in the six principal agroecological zones to determine the most common pests, the currently used pest management practices, and the interests and understanding of the farmers and crop managers.Conduct intensive field studies to monitor various pests and pathogens, measure their influence on cassava yield and quality, and validate the previously collected socioeconomic data.Selection of sites to conduct subsequent field trials to test proposed intervention technologies. Activities 1.3.1 activity 1 Review all the data collected from the different regions to se1ect sites to conduct fanner participatory field experiments to adapt and evaluare prospective interventions for the corresponding production constraints that were 1ocally identified as being imponant, and sites to establish pilot processing plants.Identification of areas of research that are needed to develop intervention technologies for constraints where current technologies are inadequate or unknown. Activities 1.4.1 activity 1 Hold workshop to review results of survey and on-farrn experiments to identify research needs.Test and adapt se1ected crop protection. production and postharvest processing techno1ogy components in trials conducted by crop managers and fanners. Field trials will be conducted to test various proposed crop protection, production and postharvest processing technologies under different eco1ogical, agronomic and socioeconornic conditions. These trials will be executed by crop managers. fanners and national program extensionists and scientists who have been trained in fanner participatory research methods.Reduction of losses to pests and diseases by at least 25% through the development and dissemination of integrated pest management technologies. Activities 2.1.1 acti vity 1 Prepare promising plant protection technologies to manage each of the principal constraints identified. These technologies could include introduction of resistant plant varieties, sanitation and selection of quality of planting material , introduction of exotic natural enemies. mass-rearing and application of biological control agents (parasitoids, predators or pathogens). and cultural control methods.Conduct on-fann fanner panicipatory field experiments to evaluare the impact of crop protection technologies and their acceptability to fanners.Conduct community-wide surveys to evaluare the adoption and impact of intervention technologies that were tested in local farmer panicipatory experiments.Increase production by 20% and extend the harvest period from 4 months to 12 months to stabilize the supply of fresh cassava roots throughout the year. Activities 2.2.1 activity 1 Conduct on-farm farmer participatory field experiments to evaluate the impact of cassava varieties and crop production technologies and their acceptability to fanners.Diversification of the uses of cassava to include production of dry chips for animal feed, and production of flour and starch, to increase and stabilize market demand (prices).Conduct market survey to determine potential demand for various cassava products (fresh consumption, flour, starch. dried chips).Review results of extensive diagnostic survey, market survey, and possible designs of processing plants with fanners, crop managers, extensionists and scientists to select the types of pilot plants to test and the construction sites.Construct and operate pilot plants to produce dried cassava chips, flour and starch in collaboration with crop managers and fanners.Evaluate the operation and impact of the pilot plants on markets for cassava products and on crop mmager and farmer incomes.Train scientists, crop managers, smallholding fanners and extension workers in the principies and practices of economic sustainable crop protection for cassava-based agroecosystems.Development of training modules incorporating the principals and practices of economical, ecologically sustainable cassava plant protection for national program leaders. scientists, extensionists. crop managers and smallholding fanners. Activities 3.1. 1 activity 1 Develop a training program for scientists. extensionists, crop managers and smallholding farmers in the principals and practices of economical. ecologicall y sustainable cassava plant protection.Prepare didactic materials that emphasize the importance of the integration of biological control, cultural control practices and host plant resistance as the basis for economical, ecologically sustainable cassava plant protection.Training of national program leaders , scientists and extensionists. and crop managers and smallholding farmers in the principals and practices of economical, ecologically sustainable cassava plant protection. The training will be multidisciplinary incorporating information on plant protection ( entomology, biological control, plant pathology, acarology, nematology, integrated pest management. etc.), agronomy and socioeconomics. Activities 3.2.1 activity 1 Select candidates from the national program for postgraduate training in a variety of disciplines re1ated to sustainable plant protection. INIVIT should receive at least three scholarships for MSc degrees at Cuban Universities financed by Cuba. Students will conduct research re1ated to project objectives and be supervised by international scientists with part of their training occurring in CIA T laboratories.Train national program scientists in their specific disciplines giving them the background and experience necessary to successfully make technical diagnoses, implement intervention technologies, and monitor field experiments.Train extension workers. crop managers and smallholding farmers in the practices of sustainable cassava p1ant protection:. This will be done annually in each agroecozone.Wide dissemination of the technologies that were successful in pilot farmer participatory experiments to other crop managers and farmers.Dissemination of the technologies that were successful in pilot farmer participatory experiments to other regions of Cuba. Activities 4.1.1 activity 1 Extension agents educare crop managers and farmers in other regions of Cuba that ha ve similar constraints and eco1ogies about the intervention technologies that were successful in pilot farmer participatory experiments through fie1d days, workshops, farm visits and printed information.Exchange of information related to ecologically sustainable cassava plant protection activities. The testing and adaptive research proposed in this project involve technologies which are well known. widely accepted as safe, and already practiced in various forms around the world. In addition, all natural enemies imponed from abroad for use in Africa or Northeast Brazil are passed through authorized and recognized quarantines before•being certified as free of plant and animal contaminants before being released. Therefore, no major constraints are foreseen that could impede the proposed activiti es or threaten the livelihood of either the project team members or participating farmers and the environment. --1.2 0.7 1.9 ---------..... --------------","tokenCount":"3875"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1092e3057c2bafce81da148f62eff7fd","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s40899-024-01068-5.pdf","id":"-1871583864"},"keywords":["Cumulative Pollution Index","Multiple water values","Pollution","Urban-rural linkage","Water security","Water value perception"],"sieverID":"4b0d9106-4607-47f1-9855-e5c03e2520c6","pagecount":"18","content":"The objectives of the study were to investigate community perception and articulation of diverse and priority water values and examine water value trade-offs in the context of urban-rural interaction. The study applies the socio-ecological system framework and integrates bio-physical and socioeconomic methods into it. These methods include Household Surveys (HHs); Focused Group Discussions (FGD); Key Informant Interviews (KII); Cumulative Pollution Index (CPI); GIS for spatial analysis and literature review. Through HHs, 23 water values were identified in Akaki. Most respondents of the HHs prioritized three water values (water for agriculture, livestock, and domestic use). The stakeholder consultation substantiated the priority for domestic water value but also acknowledged waste assimilation services of rivers that absorb and strew pollutants from industries and households. The result of KII suggests that water system structures (e.g., reservoirs) are the mnemonic value for past events and sustain scenic values of local, national, and global importance. The Cumulative Pollution Index (CPI) based pollution assessment indicates that the Akaki water system lost a significant number of its water value (compared to the actual uses) due to river pollution across its reach and more critically at its outlet. The differences between the CPI valuebased recommended water uses and actual water uses reflect a lack of options, awareness gaps, and a low level of policy enforcement. It is concluded that policy directions and decision-making need to acknowledge the multiple water values and competing uses of water, as points of departure, to reconcile water value trade-offs, conserve water and create awareness.Interactions between aquatic ecosystems and people have inspired a growing interest in understanding the connection between people, water uses, water values, and water security (Haileslassie et al. 2020). Direct involvement of diverse social groups with stakes in the ecosystem led to the wise utilization of \"community Capital\" which embraces human, social, natural, cultural, and financial capital. The proposition in this regard involves different types and intensities of interactions, uses, and values attached to water. The situations in the urban and urban-rural interface can give different perspectives (Tacoli 1998). This example of the urban-rural interface illustrates the importance of recognition of the water system (the supply, sewerage) to protect water value (HLPW 2018) and how rural areas are losing water to cities and this become a common phenomenon in many large settlement centers. The exploding urban population growth creates unprecedented challenges, among which gaps in the provision of clean water and sanitation and thus loss of social and environmental values of water downstream have been the most pressing (Melaku et al. 2007).The values expressed by diverse stakeholders are differing and understanding the different views of water value implies sustainable water management (Haileslassie et al. 2020;Felipe-Lucia et al. 2015). Values and valuation can be defined in a context-specific manner. For example, Jackson (2006) defined value as something that has merit or importance, is of worth or is cared about, whereas valuation refers to the process of estimating the value of an object, often in monetary terms.According to Savenije and van der Zaag (2020) valuing water is critical in decision-making in the sense of value determination; as values are typically disputed, partial, incommensurable, and imperfect (Haddout et al. 2021). More importantly, valuing water offers a structured and transparent mechanism that supports inclusive multi-stakeholder management processes to tackle water insecurity. The authors emphasize that valuing water can play a key role in making trade-offs instrumental to decision-making and priority setting, especially when it is related to societal needs such as physical and social well-being and emotional stability, which have little space among policy circles. They concluded that valuing water may be a key tool in water diplomacy. According to Bauer and Smith (2007), a better water policy can be formulated with a better understanding of the non-conventional water value (e.g., cultural, spiritual). Haddout et al. (2021) also suggest that water value lies less on its numerical assessment since the process offers multiple stakeholders' engagement with differing demands in water use and in its sustainable management options.Against these backdrops, there are information gaps in Sub Sahara Africa (SSA) and specifically in Ethiopia on community water value perception, and plurality of water values (Geleta et al. 2023). The present study focuses on the Akaki water system in Central Ethiopia where highly dynamic community and nature interactions are observed. In the Akaki River System, there are numerous research questions to be raised to fill knowledge gaps on multiple water values. For example: What are the existing multiple water values and threats affecting the system; what needs to be done to reconcile conflicts over multiple water values and diverse interests of public, private, rural, peri-urban, urban, upstream, midstream, and downstream subsystems to ensure inclusive water security; what are the mechanisms for recognizing multiple water values, user rights and the possible trade-offs while embracing differing interests of users with diverse social, economic orientation and ethnogeographic locations; how sources of a river system like Akaki get protected in the absence of collaborative multiinstitutional system governance structure to sustain multiple water values and regulate competing interests across periurban; upstream, urbanized midstream and rural downstream subsystems. In light of these questions, the current research applies integrated bio-physical and social methods, and its overarching objectives are to: (i) investigate community perception and articulation of diverse and priority water values in the Akaki catchment which drains the capital of Ethiopia (Addis Ababa), (ii) describe water value tradeoffs, threats to water value, and perceptual variations among multiple stakeholders across the Akaki River system.The proposed framework is conceived as an integrated socioecological system composed of water system organization and the socio-cultural system characteristics which together respond to and drive community perception of water values (Polaine et al. 2022b;Haileslassie et al. 2020;Geleta et al. 2023). The different attributes of the conceptual framework are described in the subsequent sections.The study of socio-ecological systems (SES) is now regarded as a mainstream area of research based on 'interdependent linkages between social and environmental change and those interdependencies influencing different sustainability goals across different systems, levels, and scales' (Partelow 2018;Taghilou 2022). There is considerable interest by researchers in the Socio-Ecological Systems Framework (SESF) and several useful observations are available in the literature related to the proposed water value framework, which gives an insight into the social-ecological settings as a critical element in sustainable ecosystem management (Arias-Arevalo et al. 2017) and helps to ensure water security across scale. Taghilou (2022) defined SES as (i) Social, economic, and political arrangements, (ii) Exploiters, (iii) Resource systems, and (iv) Governance systems as the main elements of SES. As key attributes of the proposed framework (Fig. 1) we are elaborating these elements of SES.In the context of water, the key questions are first, how can an application of the SESF help in the understanding of the nature of linkages and interactions between water systems (bio-physical) and socio-cultural systems? Second, how can the understanding of the characteristics and interactions between water systems and socio-cultural systems help to identify the character and development of multiple water values and threats affecting the system and actions needed to reconcile conflicts? Figure 1 depicts the water system (Fig. 1A) and sociocultural systems (Fig. 1B) as integral components of the overall socio-ecological system that interacts with and creates water values (Taghilou 2022). Water Ecosystem Services (WESS) provision is the result of three processes: Ecosystem (ES) supply (the potential of ecosystems to produce ESS), WESS demand (the level of WESS provision desired or required by people and its environment), and WESS flow (the connection between WESS supply and WESS demand). The link between the water and socio-cultural sub-systems could be explained through the Water Ecosystem Services (WESS) provisions flowing from the water systems to the socio-cultural system and the feedback loops (negative or positive). The section below explains the different components of the framework and how they interact with each other and influence the multiple values attached to water.Figure 1 depicts a simplified water system organization and its interactions with a socio-cultural system in the context of SES. According to Felipe-Lucia et al. (2015) and Haileslassie et al. (2020), the delivery of WESS should go beyond a single component in the system. In the figure, three components of the water system are identified. Both the detail of each component and the interaction between components are important (Savenije and van der Zaag 2020).The water system definition and three key system components are based on what was suggested by Haileslassie et al. (2020) and presented in the literature review part in the earlier section, where water system structure, water system function, and governance are suggested as the key constituents of a water system organization. Accordingly, the water system structures are the organisms and physical features of the system (biotic and abiotic). More generally, the structure of the water system refers to the explanation of living beings and the physical features of the environment in which the organisms sustain. In the context of this study, the structure includes natural and man-made systems such as different land use land covers, water infrastructure (e.g., rivers, lakes; wetlands), livestock, people, etc.The components and their interactions will affect and be affected by water values. The processes of ecosystem function (productivity, energy flow, decomposition, bio-geochemical cycle, hydrological cycle), in various integrated ways in conjunction with the structure and the governance/ power relations, provide WESS. A water system's processes and structure are continuously disrupted by anthropogenic interventions (e.g., through system governance). This implies that to understand and identify multiple water values and their interactions it is important to have a clear picture of the structure, processes, governance, and the interaction of their components which function to provide WESS (note \"Review of Akaki Water systems structure and function\" section).In the ecosystem services approach, the efficiency of the water system processes determines the quality and quantity of WESS delivery which also influences the access to and use of these services by the socio-cultural system. In an efficient system, the human role in governance is about improving efficiencies of the processes to achieve a higher level of WESS delivery and flow to meet human needs.Against this backdrop, water system governance refers to the norms, institutions, and processes that determine how power and responsibilities over natural resources in the water system are exercised (Rogers and Hall 2003; note \"Review of Akaki water systems structure and function\" section). It also indicates how decisions are made, and how all citizens participate in and benefit from WESS services provision. The effectiveness and equity of governance processes critically determine the strength of the bond between socio-cultural and water systems and the type and extent of the feedback within each system and between the two major systems (Vialatte et al. 2019;Fig. 1).The feedback loops (negative or positive) could be from the socio-cultural system (Bouchet et al. 2019) and from within the water system. A key question is how these linkages between social and water systems influence the water valuing methods and values we attach to water today and in the future under different spatial contexts and social settings. In the context of a water system, loops are a series or a chain of cause-and-effect relations that influence each other. One cause leads to an effect, and that effect becomes the cause to lead to another effect, leading to another effect, and so forth. Usually, there are different cause and effect' loops at play at the same time, and influence each other in WESS provision, demand, and flow. The interaction between different loops drives system behavior (NewForesight 2019). Different loops can reinforce each other or balance each other out. For example, positive feedback is a circular link of effects that are self-reinforcing. When part of the system increases, another part of the system also changes in a way that makes the first part increase even more.The critical point, however, is that the water governance system and the boundary of water structure and function, as defined by hydrological boundaries, do not match and this is the case in the Akaki water system. Polaine et al (2022a, b) argue that addressing this boundary difference is critical to achieving water security. But it should be underlined that defining boundaries for culture, religion, etc. which influence water values and priority is very complex. Perhaps considering the shared value domain would help to understand water values and water valuation (Geleta et al. 2023).The diagram of the socio-cultural system (Fig. 1B) is shown in continuous interaction with the water system (Fig. 1A). Socio-cultural systems can be understood as the building blocks of SES and society where humans share experiences and knowledge and where the learning that emerges can be used to better society (Heinrichs and Rojas 2022). The framework assumes that the values of all parts of society are important. In particular, a better understanding of indigenous cultural and spiritual values as they relate to water is essential to have a comprehensive understanding of whose (water value bearers) water values might be at risk, and what the priorities of different socio-cultural groups might be about WESS provision (Bauer and Smith 2007).The critical component as illustrated here is recognizing the diversity of socio-cultural elements as subcomponents of a socio-ecological system (Heinrichs and Rojas 2022) and how it influences the water WESS demand, supply, and flow. Diverse communities and their socio-ecological organizations (individual, interpersonal, community, policy) are each influenced by culture, religion, norms, policies, and standards. It is essential to understand the different perspectives of water value bearers on the WESS as well as differences in demand, use, as well as any gender-specific issues (men's and women's roles).In addition to a formal governance system, each social category has norms as part of its socio-cultural system. Social norms are unwritten rules that are acceptable in society. Norms can be cultural products that include values, customs, and traditions (e.g., Heinrichs and Rojas 2022;Klain et al. 2017). Socio-cultural norms influence people's perceptions, knowledge, and commitment, therefore, affecting how they use and value water and how communities provide access to water (Heinrichs and Rojas 2022). Norms change according to the environment or situation (social organization) and continue to change over time.Both formal and informal water governance systems concurrently influence how people use local water resources, sometimes working in a complementary way enhancing compliance established by the relevant governance institutions, and undermining it (Osei-Tutu et al. 2015). While formal state institutions may be weak or deemed illegitimate in fragile and conflict-affected contexts, there are often functioning informal water governance systems/institutions (Ibid). Where there is alignment between water governance systems these can potentially be an additional link between the water system and the socio-cultural system (in addition to the WESS and FL). Lack of alignment or competing institutional interactions and values may result in conflicts and trade-offs (positive or negative). This underlines that water valuing exercises need to consider not just relevant formal governance systems but also informal ones.Akaki River System is geographically bounded between 8°46´-9°14´N and 38°34´-39°04´E, covering an area of about 1500 km 2 (Negash et al. 2023). The entire catchment is encircled by a range of mountains where several streams emanate (Fig. 1). The river system is bounded to the North by Mount Entoto, to the West by Mount Menagesha and Wechecha, to the Southwest by Mount Furi, to the South by Mount Bilbilo and Guji, to the Southeast by the Gara Bushu hills and to the East by Mount Yerer.Akaki River System is one of the 21 sub-basins of Awash River (WRI 2019). It stretches from Mount Entoto in the North to the Southwest direction towards Aba Samuel reservoir which is the final stopover of the river (Fig. 2). The Akaki River System drains 11 Sub-Cities and about 116 Woredas 1 (Alehegne 2018). The western branch of the river (Tinishu Akaki) rises northwest of Addis Ababa on the flanks of Wechacha Mountain and flows for 40 km before it reaches the Aba-Samuel Reservoir (Talu et al. 2022). The eastern branch of the river (Tilku Akaki) rises North of Addis Ababa (Mount Entoto) flows 53 km and tumbles into the Aba-Samuel Reservoir (Fig. 2). Before the first confluence point of the Tinishu and Tilku Akaki, the rivers provide myriads of economic, socio-cultural, and environmental services (e.g., Yitayew et al. 2022;Opperman et al. 2018)) and water values.The Akaki River System embraces Addis Ababa and the surrounding woredas of Oromia Regional States. The watershed is surrounded by notable volcanic buildups including Mounts Entoto (3200masl), Bereh (3228masl), Wechecha (3,385masl), Yerer (3100masl), and Furi (2839masl). Tributaries of Tiliku Akaki crossing Addis Ababa from Entoto, Kersa, and Dire Ridges flow to the middle part of the city where they meet around Saris village before entering Aba-Samuel. These tributaries are polluted by small towns, rainfed agricultural lands, livestock in and outside Addis Ababa, and hospitals, industries, and residential areas of Addis Ababa.The lower course of Tiliku Akaki River also crosses sites allocated to future industrial expansion within Akaki Kality Sub City (Addis Ababa City Administration, Bureau of Trade, and Industry Development 2013). In the downstream course of the river, intensive horticultural production by urban farmers before the river leaves Akaki Sub City and several businesses including garages, car washing services, grass and tree growers, livestock markets, and riverside establishments characterized the midstream subsystem. Until Tiliku Akaki joins Aba Samuel Reservoir, the river provides multiple ecosystem services including watering the rural mixed crop-livestock system, and socio-cultural and spiritual services. As it crosses the city, it serves as a means for waste assimilation which is an important relational water value within ecosystem service provisions.Little Akaki emanates from the western edge of Addis Ababa and passes across farming villages and towns including Sebeta-Hawas Woreda under the foot of Mount Wechecha watering vegetable and livestock-crop mixed systems (Fig. 2). While these WESS at the upstream, midstream, and low stream of the river system are apparent, the question remains as to how these values co-exist what the tradeoffs in water value, and what governance efforts are in place to reconcile these tradeoffs (Woldesenbet 2020;Geleta et al. 2023).As Polaine et al (2022a) argue the water governance and the boundary of water structure and function (water system, as defined by hydrological boundaries), do not match and this is the case in the Akaki water system which is shared between Addis Ababa City Administration and Oromia Regional States. Safeguarding such multiple water utilization and associated values requires a well-coordinated governance regime (Woldesenbet 2020) to maintain equity, availability, and a fair share of the water resources along the basin including users in urban, peri-urban, and rural parts and minority water value bearers across the Akaki River System.Naturally, the Akaki River System remains the sole source of water for Addis Ababa City. A conventional piped water supply system was introduced in 1901 (WRI 2019). Modern water supply started in 1924 and the water department was organized under the municipality of Addis Ababa in the 1940s. Gafersa Reservoir (Fig. 1) and the centralized water distribution network were established in 1944. As the city's water demand increased, an additional centralized reservoir was made operational at Lagadadi in the 1970s (WRI 2019). Addis Ababa Water Supply Authority was established in 1971 to govern these water infrastructures though physically located outside the city administration's jurisdiction in the eastern and western Akaki River catchments, respectively.Over the last half a century with the growing population of the city, the water supply system expanded adding groundwater and surface water sources to meet increased demands and as a result, the coverage reached 76.6% of the demands of the city in 2017 (WRI 2019). Around 30,000 m 3 of water per day is produced from Gafersa Dam and 195,000 m 3 from Lagadadi and Dire Dams and the rest from groundwater sources including 70,000 m 3 per day from Akaki aquifer.According to the 2018 Revision of World Urbanization Prospects, Addis Ababa's 2023 population is estimated at 5,460,591 and Addis Ababa has grown by 4.45% annually. Addis Ababa Water and Sewerage Authority (AAWSA) target is to provide about 110 L per person per day, while the current supply stands at only 40 L. There are a number of pocket areas that receive water two or three days a week through the piped system. The coverage of liquid waste collection systems is around 25-30% of the city. These liquid waste collection gaps and the waste from urban dairy are some of the major sources of pollution.According to KII respondents, the increase in the number of users in the Akaki water system is partly due to the expanding irrigation schemes in the rural parts which include Gelan Sidama Awash, Sebeta-Hawas, Lebu Ertu, Gaferessa catchment near Burayu town, etc. Most of the farmers currently run urban agriculture; including cooperatives established in the 1970s and dairy farms. Minten et al. (2020) suggest about 1.4 million heads of cattle in Addis Ababa. Chandrasekharan et al. (2021) estimated the total agricultural land of Akaki (Addis Ababa) at 25, 207 ha of which 507 ha is irrigated and the difference is the rainfed system. In recent years, urban farming where about 10,000 farmers recently added from Yeka Abado, Koye Fetch, Lemi Kura, Nifas Silk Lafto, Bole Bulbula and Lebu Ertu upon existing urban agriculture pressurized the water resource share. In addition, there are also construction projects and material producers, small and micro enterprises, and individuals competing to establish their business along the riverbanks to cater baths with hot springs, open park cafeterias, sand mining processing, brick production, and car washing services. These all put pressure on the demand side and also a stark feedback loop to the water system (for example pollution, and depletion). Then the question is as to how this impacts community perception of water value and water security.Aba-Samuel Reservoir was built in 1939 to light Addis Ababa though ceased to provide the intended service in 1970. Afterwards partially dilapidated in the absence of energy investment. In addition, pollution, encroachment by Eichhornia crassipes (WRI 2019), flood (Bekele et al. 2022) and sedimentation threaten its multiple values though the locals still see it as a relic and seem to recognize its scenic value (Sanna and Eja 2017). In this regard Savenije and van der Zaag (2020) suggest that sources and threats to multiple water values (WESS) emerge from the different spatial contexts of catchments thus a system approach is critical. However, little is known by the locals and others that Aba Samuel is one of the wetlands registered as a Key Biodiversity Area with threatened biodiversity species (mainly birds) due to little conservation efforts to avert confrontation between farmers and the birds who feed on farmers' crops (Key Biodiversity Area Partnership 2023).Presently, Aba Samuel provides fishing and the value of scenic views (Sanna and Eja 2017). This invokes the spirit of a bygone era that left a heritage value to the locals (Haileslassie et al 2020; Kenter 2018;Geleta et al. 2023), and over time; water infrastructures could become a mnemonic value for past events and sustain scenic values of local, national, and global importance. In principle, infrastructural edifices can be considered an aspect of a community's history (Wateau 2023) and remain an ecological history and the collective identity marker for the custodians of ecosystem values. Ecosystem-related investment in the form of infrastructure maintenance to enhance WESS is one of the five multiple water value principles suggested by HLPW (2018). According to Birdlife International (2023) to a lesser extent (compared to Aba Samuel) other water infrastructures (Gafersa and Legedadi reservoirs) also provide additional ESS including fishing grounds, dinking for livestock, and bird landing sites.Generally, the Akaki River System provides multiple benefits both from its infrastructure and water and this implies the plurality of water value. It also evokes competition among users and uses and thus potential water value tradeoffs. The key question is how the community sees this and how they balance and preserve these various ecosystem values.Recently changes in the demography of Addis Ababa due to natural growth and migration (Alehegne 2018; WRI 2019; Woldesenbet 2020), and the changing urban lifestyle in the rural and urban parts of Addis Ababa city contributed to increasing water demands beyond which existing hydrological infrastructure can accommodate. The KII and HHs indicated how opportunities and threats that emerged over the last three decades are shaping the current multiple water values. About 70% of the respondents emphasize risks related to pollution while the remaining emphasize flooding. This evokes the need to put in place an innovative inclusive governance system to manage such a complex water system.Land use land cover is an important water system structure. It influences water flow and, therefore, the demand-supply of water and associated water value (Negash et al. 2023). LULC change affects the amount and distribution of surface runoff, groundwater recharge, evapotranspiration, and river flow. This can alter the availability and quality of water resources for human and ecological needs. For example, urbanization can increase impervious surfaces, which reduces infiltration and increases runoff and flooding (Negash et al. 2023). The general Land Use Land Cover (LULC) pattern of the Akaki River System embraces four features i.e., forest, urban area, agricultural or open areas, and water bodies (e.g., Negash et al. 2023;Bekele et al. 2022). In the last three decades (1990-2020), LULC has changed dramatically in the Akaki River System (Alehegne 2018; Negash et al. 2023;Deribew and Dalacho 2019). These studies have indicated that agriculture was the dominant LULC in the catchment in 1990 with 76.26% (1109 km 2 ) of the total catchment area though it reduced to 52.98% (771.12 km 2 ) in 2020. Similarly, open land declined from 7.57% (110.18 km 2 ) in 1990 to 3.23% (47.01 km 2 ) in 2020. Contrary to these, the urban space increased from 8.05% (117.16) km 2 ) in 1990 to 29.21% (425.15 km 2 ) in 2020. The studies further suggested that though the water body and the grassland showed no significant change, the tree planting campaign seems contributed to the increase of the land covered with trees from 4.65% (67.68 km 2 ) in 1990 to 10.09% (146.85 km 2 ) in 2020. These LULC changes, according to KII, have significant implications for water resources availability, use, and associated multiple values in the catchment.The city has a conventional sewerage system that serves an extremely limited area (one-third of the city population) with water-borne systems and only limited households and institutions have access to proper sewerage systems (Deribew and Dalacho 2019). These systems are often poorly constructed, maintained, and emptied, resulting in environmental pollution and health risks. Given the expanding construction (LULC) and poorly developed sewerage systems, several sub-cities remain flood-prone (Deribew and Dalacho 2019;Bekele et al. 2022). The upstream remains low flood risk due to its high altitude and forest coverage (Bekele et al. 2022). The interaction between flood risk, water use practices, and associated water values are critical questions to explore from the context of community perception. Flooding also exacerbates the water quality problem since 20% of the city's population defecates openly (WRI 2021). As informed by the KII, while the gatherers and sand miners value flooding, irrigation and other water users complain about the threat of flooding to multiple water values (e.g., Bekele et al. 2022).The Akaki River System faces complex water governance challenges due to the mismatch between the political economic dynamics of the ecosystem and natural resources management regime and the promise of ensuring fair and inclusive water use rights for all stakeholders of the water system (Woldesenbet 2020). The Federal Constitution of Ethiopia (FDRE Constitution 1995) guarantees the right of citizens to a clean and healthy environment in Article 44. Prevailing gaps in the water allocation and watershed management strategy of the Akakai water system affect the sustainability of the multiple water values that meet the diverse needs and interests of stakeholders: these involved in irrigated and commercial agriculture, industrial, livestock, and domestic and environmental water use. Overall basin management strategies have also failed to consider spiritual, cultural, and relational water values in general for decades and also failed to coordinate between key governance systems of the Akaki water system (Addis Ababa City Administration and Oromia Regional states; Polaine et al. 2022a, b). The plural nature of water use at rural, peri-urban, and urban subsystems of the river and developing threats to the related water value need to be reflected in the water policy and basin management strategy (Woldesenbet 2020; Geleta et al. 2023;Ministry of Water and Energy 2017) At the micro level, informal water governance institutions such as religious, and local rural development committees with law enforcement support from formal local entities such as Woreda Administrative Offices, and Peasant Associations try to protect the river basin ecosystem. Informal institutions take a precarious position to sustain the integrity of the water values for ritual, spiritual, and customary festivities due to the lack of policybased recognition and protections of their preferred water value entitlements. For example, KII confirms that Erecha Malka, Maskal Ritual, and holy water (Tsebel) sites are endangered by multiple threats including pollution, land grabs, government development ventures, and private investments. There are no legally binding ritual water sites' tenure and formal institutions to govern them. In the case of Orthodox Epiphany and Tesebel sites, it is the responsibility of every parish with the involvement of religious fathers, youth volunteers, and the laity to protect the sites by fencing, cleaning, tree planting, and building the water sources. According to a KII respondent, the Epiphany celebration site at Lafto Michael area has a permanent youth association that makes monthly meetings, and financial and labor contributions to keep the fenced Epiphany celebration site called Tabot Maderia. The Holy Tabot (Covenant) has a night of celebration once every year during the Ethiopian orthodox church Epiphany celebration.In recent years, recurring conflicts have occurred among different encroaching groups on such open ritual sites and water points. The water policy focuses on instrumental values, which creates gaps that discourage formal institutions to protect the interests of competing relational water values and this is another proof of policy gaps.In the context of urban, peri-urban and rural irrigated water user cooperatives, small and micro-enterprise women and youth-led nurseries, car washers and sand mining groups need local administrative permits to use the water resources. All industrial water users and investors in the manufacturing sector and in other sectors present environmental feasibility and impact assessment results for Addis Ababa City Administration Environmental Protection Authority (EPA 2002) for approval before the investment venture is endorsed by the Federal Investment Commission (Woldesenbet 2020). If the investment venture is located outside Addis Ababa City Administration similar procedures need to be fulfilled with the approval of Oromia Environmental Protection Authority and the region's investment bureau. The key challenge here, as demonstrated by KII, is weak monitoring and law enforcement (Woldesenbet 2020). Among the factors mentioned, the absence of corporate environmental responsibility, lack of strict penalties from law enforcing and implementing public institutions, and lack of financial and human resources both in the private and public institutions are critical (Amare 2019;Woldesenbet 2020).Both UN General Assembly Resolution 45/94 (1990) to strengthen the Stockholm Protocol and Article 3 (7) and 3 (8) Federal Environmental Policy reiterate urban environmental health and control of Hazardous materials and pollution from Industrial waste (FDRE 1995). The fault line of lack of technical expertise, corruption, and absence of information on corporate environmental responsibility are additional critical gaps that shape the Akaki River System water uses and associated value to its current delicate state (e.g., Assegide et al. 2022;Woldesenbet 2020).Despite the existence of multicultural and multi-religious and faith-based water uses, the diverse water uses right bearers remain marginal and invisible mainly because the policy and strategy follow conventional norms with little participation of \"informal\" institutions (Woldesenbet 2020; Bantider et al.2023) and micro-level water users including women and girls, potters and indigenous embroiders, craftsmen, Orthodox Christian and indigenous Erecha Malka ritual leaders, holy water users and hot spring water service providers across the water system. This non-inclusive policy and strategy directives keep water governance institutions sticking to singular water values and thus affect systematic water value tradeoffs (Woldesenbet 2020).Household surveys, community exposure surveys, and field observation were key data-capturing mechanisms followed in the current study. We used stratified random sampling and clustered the Akaki River System as upstream and downstream areas. Arbitrarily upstream areas are all geographical regions above the city and downstream areas are around the lower reach of the Akaki River including all the surroundings. Households in the middle part of the city were represented by stakeholder consultation as detailed below. From May 5 to June 2021, 96 households (53 upstream and 43 downstream mainly constituting: farmers, laborers, spiritual leaders, community leaders, and tenants) were randomly selected and HHs were conducted using structured and pretested questionnaires. The data collected includes, among others, water sources, water uses, and prioritized multiple water values and threats to multiple water values. For field observation, a multidisciplinary research team carried out basin-wide reconnaissance surveys to mark water sub-systems with multiple water value potentials mainly wetlands, aquifers, hot springs, holy water points, wetlands, and ritual sites including for indigenous thanksgiving (Erecha Malka), and celebration by Orthodox Christians including the finding of The True Cross (Masqal) and Epiphany (Timiket).The team also conducted transect walks: first along all sides of the Akaki River sub-systems including major water reservoirs in the water head of Tinishu Akaki where Gafersa Reservoir, reservoir protection buffer zone, and community water supply springs are located. The second observation route was Tiliku Akaki which includes Dire Reservoir, Lagadadi Reservoir, Bilbila and Legadadi Rivers with multiple water values, users and custodians of the resources who are local farmers, and church and community leaders. Irrigated farms, ritual water points, car washing stalls, village apiary, Erecha Malka and Masqal and Epiphany celebration sites, and holy water (Tsebel) sanctuary along the riverbanks were covered by the transect walks. The third observation route was within the city (midstream) mainly Bulbula hot spring, sand mining, bricks manufacturing, a cattle market near Akaki River Bridge, Mekenisa confluence for streams from Kera and Merkato near National Alcohol Factory and Sebeta Fishery Research and BGI Brewery near to Little Akaki River in Sebeta Sub City.The team took pictures of key ecosystem elements throughout the transect walk, documented notable community water uses (exposure) and associated water value in sub-systems, and interacted with people from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds. These pictures and pictures collected from the city tour were used for the photo exhibition organized for the stakeholder's consultation workshop held in Addis Ababa.Stakeholders of the Akaki River System have participated in multiple water values prioritization and score ranking sessions in a workshop held in Addis Ababa in April 2023. The workshop was attended by about 30 participants representing academia, and city dwellers, from public and private sectors. The purpose was to triangulate the field data collected through the HHS and to understand water values prioritized by stakeholders of different backgrounds, particularly those living in the middle of the Akaki water System (Addis Ababa).The scoring was done by the stakeholders using pictures taken during the transect walk with identified water values in the upstream, middle, and downstream of the Akaki water system. Picture of multiple water values was categorized and posted for the stakeholders on the wall using markers and sticky notes for each water value. As a precursor, preliminary findings from HHs, KII, and field observation on water value priorities and governance were presented and discussed.The participants assigned a score to each of the twentythree water values identified through previous exercises. The scores ranged from 1 to 5; 5 being the highest priority while 1 represents the lowest priority. Following the water value scoring, participants also ranked their priorities among the five water valuing principles 2 suggested by the UN High-Level Water Panel (HLWP 2018). Using markers and colored papers respondents posted their preferred scores of the water values along upstream, midstream, and downstream Akaki River sub-systems.In February 2023, 30 KII were conducted involving 30 respondents from public, private, and knowledge-based institutions. The information captured includes multiple water value identification, perceptions, prioritization, water security (access to quality and sufficient quantity of water), tenure rights, threats to multiple water values, change and adaptation of new water values, and the shrinkage of some of the ecosystem services, water system governance, and stakeholders' collaborations (Bekele et al. 2022;Woldesenbet 2020).During the process, respondents were asked to articulate the value of Akaki water for different stakeholders, and then value perception was categorized in a matrix that indicates instrumental, 3 relational, and intrinsic water values and value bearers (Davidson 2013) that help to articulate the value perception of respondents and who presumably owns each articulated water value.A cross-section of multiple water users including car washing service providers, male and female urban agriculture operators in upstream Gafersa, Bilibila catchment, Lagadadi Reservoir, horticulture farmers, daily laborers, tsebel (holy water) users, sub-city green development project employees and leaders in Addis Ababa city were involved in giving feedback on the plural nature of water values enjoyed by diverse socio-cultural systems and water value bearers.In this study, the tributaries of Akaki were first divided into upper, middle, and lower parts based on their respective catchment characteristics, exposure, and possible pollution sources. Then, the water value map was prepared for two conditions, which are referred as: (i) actual water use-based water value, and (ii) Cumulative Pollution Index (CPI) based water use recommendation. The river's actual water value was determined based on a field survey conducted from May 24 -29, 2022. During the field survey, we observed the actual water uses and associated values by the local community. Residents who provided the information were engaged in animal fattening, dairy, poultry, car washing, sand mining, irrigation, etc. The coordinates for the locations of the visited and sampled sites were recorded by the authors using a Hand-Held Global Positioning System (GPS) device with a horizontal accuracy of 3 m.The study used the Cumulative Pollution Index (CPI) to assign different potential water use types [based on water quality level (pollution level)]. CPI was first used to identify pollution levels of the rivers as suggested by Syeed et al. (2023). The CPI can be estimated using Eq. ( 1):where: C denotes the measured concentration of each parameter (i), the subscripts a and s indicate actual concentrations of the parameter and the corresponding maximum allowable concentration, respectively, and n is the number of water quality parameters considered. The river was considered to have a specific water use and associated value when the CPI value does not exceed 1 for the respective water quality standard [e.g. drinking, irrigation, environment, etc. (Syeed et al. 2023)].The water quality parameters considered to estimate CPI in this study are pH, electrical conductivity, nitrate, phosphate, and ammonia. Ayers and Westcot (1985), World Health Organization (WHO 2014) regulations and standards were used for computing the CPI. FAO standard was used to evaluate the water value for irrigation. Classifications of the water quality and assigning potential uses were carried out following CPI values and categories and descriptions provided in Table 1  (Syeed et al. 2023).Table 2 depicts (frequency and percentage) HHs respondents' perceptions and prioritized water values. It demonstrates that water for agriculture and domestic uses and associated values are critical for community well-being. As the water value perception from the household survey3 Intrinsic values include earth life dependency on water and concerns toward plants and animals. Relational values involve health and quality of life), and Instrumental values are economic dependency on water and associated landscape (Geleta et al. 2023).confirms, the economic values exceed the rest in a similar fashion to many agrarian countries in Africa (Geleta et al. 2023), Asia, and Latin America (HLWP 2018). Naturally, Akaki River system provides immense economic and environmental services to the rural parts of the river system where agricultural and domestic water value dominate and more than 70% of the respondents in upstream and downstream areas were farmers. Yet due to the higher level of dependency on agriculture and benefit from wastewater irrigation, respondents' assertion for agricultural water value as their priority for overall human wellbeing, was stronger than the upstream areas. Resemblance of the frequency and percentage of respondents for livestock, domestic water use and associated water values in upstream and downstream confirms the certainty of shared water values among communities regardless of their geographic position.The other recognized water values, but with a smaller number of HHs participants, were cultural identity and sense of place, spiritual link, worship, and sacredness followed by life support and maintenance. From the HHs it is evident that water value for energy remains lower, regardless of the spatial location, as the source of energy in the river system such as Aba Samuel Reservoir in 1940 circumvents the rural and peri-urban communities.The absence of sharing the resources fairly affects the behaviors, perception and practices including apathy towards the water reservoir. As water value is naturally dynamic the Aba Samuel Reservoir was falling apart but in the eyes of the locals it was even valued as a historical heritage after its dilapidation similar to Wateau's (2023) observation in the villages of Nepal where water infrastructures hold the value of \"social symbolism\" and stand as a marker of social change. As Jackson (2006) suggested in the context of the Daly River system in Australia, environmental valuation in a heritage paradigm entails \"relationships, processes, connections between social groups, people and place, and people and non-human entities\". This creates a strong rational to include investment as part of the valuing water principles (HLPW 2018).In addition, Aba Samuel in the eyes of the locals is valued for its service as regulator (Bekele et al. 2022) for downstream farms and considered as fish provider though in danger of sedimentation, and upstream pollution. This is also clearly reflected on downstream household survey respondents (e.g., value of catching fish).Tradeoffs between investments in physical and social structures and processes (Tickner et al. 2017) has a sustaining impact. Without finding a solution for river management, tradeoffs among urban ecosystem service needs, industrial and agricultural demands with the current pressure from climate change on top (Tickner et al. 2017) brought about the decline of river ecosystem services. Water infrastructurerelated investment is one of the five universally endorsed water value principles (HLPW 2018).We recall the native Daly River communities in Australia and their contribution in defining and compartmentalizing (Jackson 2006) the value of the river ecosystem as part of the cultural landscape set a clear example of negotiating and shaping the multiple values of water ecosystem services by primary stakeholders. Ecosystem scholars focused on river water's multiple benefits propose that for sustainable management creating functioning feedback loops to enhance trade-off management is critical and these needs disentangling priority values into water values bearer.As indicated in Fig. 3, the result of the KII on the plural valuation of water along the Akaki River System. It shows the relational water valuation takes the lead with a little less number of value bearers related to instrumental water value.The instrumental water value follows the relational water values but with a significant percentage of value bearers as it is the source of monetized value and livelihood maintenance across the river system. A significantly lower percentage of value bearers were related to the intrinsic value. In this context, the term value bearers can be defined as those water ecosystem users with a presumed inalienable entitlement with or without formally defined water use tenure rights. Substantial proportion of the value bearers in the case of relational water value composed of hitherto marginalized categories which include ritual and religious water users, women and girls using water-based resources and traditional informal institutions that stand as custodians of WESS. Crafts workers in the informal sector who craft useful paraphernalia from the waste drift by the river are the other marginalized relational water value bearers across the river system.Although the debate among scholars with a tendency of imposing Nature's Contribution to People (NCP) by undermining the long-established all-encompassing WESS conceptualization creates a misnomer that nature shape values unto people's mind rather than people interact with nature and social realities and reshape their own value for nature such as water (Kenter 2018). Kenter (2018)   Akaki River System stakeholders from mainly urban and peri urban used a 1-5 range Likert Scale (Kho 2018) in a workshop organized in Addis Ababa in April 2023 to assign scores to water values as per their preference and rank values based on the sum of the score. According to Didiac et al. (2021) these value perceptions depend on attitudes directly tied to their socio-cultural, geographic, economic, and ecological backgrounds. As documented in UNESCO (2021) a shift to broaden and strengthen multi-stakeholder processes that recognize and reconcile a comprehensive mix of values benefit society at large. As depicted in Fig. 4 a priority value for this group of stakeholders is domestic use and associated values. This is a shared priority water value with the HHs respondents (Table 2). It also confirms that water value perception in Sub-Saharan Africa would dominantly focus on domestic water use and agriculture (UNESCO 2021;Geleta et al. 2023). In the SSA context, agriculture utilizes a major share of freshwater though the impact of the misuse threatens other ecosystem values (UNESCO 2021). The impact of traditional hillside tilling threatens the Akaki River due to the siltation into water reservoirs enhancing gully erosion and chemical pollution (Mekuria et al. 2020).The second important priority water value for these community segments was water as a means of waste assimilation and water symbol of life and power (Fig. 4). This can be explained by the fact that value reflects people's knowledge (Haileslassie et al. 2020;Jackson 2006).While waste assimilation of water is an important value in its own dimension it has a vital implication of water value trade-off. For example, in much of the urbanized midstream, the river system in both east-west flanks crammed with a number of industrial establishments since the 1960s which presently hosts about 60% of the manufacturing industry of the country and 90% of them discharge their waste in nearby rivers with little treatment efforts (Yohannes and Elias 2017; Amare 2019). As a result, for many decades now, the water system endures anthropogenic-driven chemical pollution from tanneries, alcohol and breweries, battery, paint, soap factories, abattoirs, referral hospitals and public health research laboratories (Yohannes and Elias 2017)) that discharge partially untreated effluent directly into the river system.As suggested by Yohannes and Elias (2017) about 430 tons of contagious waste is generated from 29 hospitals in Addis Ababa. In addition, in the last three decades, waste from condominiums, garages, car washing stalls, and public and private service-providing establishments threaten the water value mainly at downstream sub-system (Mekuria et al. 2020). The majority of the city's population has not been connected to the sewer system. 63% of the households use shared pit latrines, while 20% do not have access to any sanitation facility and openly defecate (WRI 2019(WRI , 2021)). Downstream communities are obliged to use the polluted water resources for various purposes including laundry, bathing, swimming, irrigation, and drinking (WRI 2019). What scientific evidence and global water quality standards support the way people and water interact in urban-rural settings is a question that requires further exploration.Apart from the complex river governance system, haphazardly planned urban growth, unregulated industrial complex, less innovative traditional agriculture, degradation of aquifers (Polaine et al 2022b) and increase in population in urban and peri-urban localities are a few of the identified In summary from the results demonstrated here and field visits undertaken, it can be seen that water-value means different things for different members of the community relying on the river in one way or another. For the periphery of the city, water security ranges from domestic water supply to water supply for livestock and agriculture. For the inner city, water security can be regarded as safety from flooding, provision for sand mining and also relying on it as a 'natural sewerage' system, by moving wastewater upstream to downstream (which then becomes someone else's waste).Despite its strong connectivity, the five multiple water value principles (Savenije and van der Zaag 2020) have context-specific priorities as ascertained by stakeholder's priority scoring exercises depicted in Fig. 5 (HLPW 2018). Accordingly, educating, and empowering people are the first priority for midstream and downstream of the Akaki River. For the upstream, protecting the water sources was at the top of the rank scoring. Reconciling values and building trust between different users (e.g., urban-rural) stand as the second priority for downstream and third for midstream. Recognizing and embracing water's multiple values becomes the fourth-ranked principle for up and downstream and equally ranked with reconciling values and building trust between different users for the midstream Akaki river system. Investment and innovation were the third priority for all three sub-systems. Further, the result shows that Bbulbula River has the most diverse water values (including values for drinking, irrigation, and car washing) in the upstream part, but according to CPI standard it loses its value for domestic purposes in the middle part due to pollution (Fig. 6a). The downstream part of Bulbula River has lost a number of value and shrank only to sand mining, industry, and car washing.  Kebena is mostly used for irrigation in the upstream part, but is highly polluted in the downstream part and not used at all (note also CPI standard). Little Akaki is not used for drinking but for washing, spiritual, irrigation, livestock, car washing, and sand mining purposes. The water quality of all the tributaries does not meet the drinking water standard, and some of them pose health risks for people and animals as suggested by CPI results and demonstrated in Fig. 6b. The water quality is better in the upstream parts than in the downstream parts of the rivers (Fig. 6b). This suggests that water value does not flow downstream as water does (Savenije and van der Zaag 2020).Table 3 provides a detailed description of the legend in Fig. 2.This study explores how different water values and tradeoffs are perceived and expressed by the communities in the upper Awash basin in central Ethiopia, where Addis Ababa city is located. The study integrates hydrological and socioecological knowledge from various stakeholders using a collaborative and systemic approach. In the context of the results this research contributed four key issues. First, it provides a unique water value research approach that combines biophysical and socio-cultural methods, which supports the global call for plural and inclusive water valuation methods (Savenije and van der Zaag 2020). Second, it reveals the multiple and pluralistic water values in the study water system, which reflect the main livelihood activities of the communities, and which can serve as a basis for water value dialogue in decision-making. Thirdly, it shows the divergency in water value preference between community segments dependent on the same river system, which may imply potential water value trade-offs. Fourth it compares the actual use-based water value and the CPI-based water use recommendation and associated water value and finds that the Akaki water system lost more than 32% of its values under CPI at its outlet. The gap between the actual and recommended water uses indicates a lack of alternatives, awareness, and policy enforcement. In view of these contributions and associated evidence, the study concludes that policy directions and decision-making need to acknowledge the multiple water values and competing uses of water, as points of departure, to reconcile water value trade-offs, conserve water and create awareness.","tokenCount":"8530"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d37825bcf5b60240cb4d2d614cab9475","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0fe767a8-99a0-494a-8a0b-f3355c7b7a8c/retrieve","id":"436568986"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8b562822-eb94-4802-b262-10c25335cf0b","pagecount":"79","content":"RTB Working Paper 2014-2 RTB Working Paper Published by the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB)RTB is a broad alliance of research-for-development stakeholders and partners. Our shared purpose is to exploit the potential of root, tuber, and banana crops for improving nutrition and food security, increasing income generation and fostering greater gender equity-especially amongst the world's poorest and most vulnerable populations.The RTB Working Paper Series is intended to disseminate research and practices about production and utilization of roots, tubers and bananas and to encourage debate and exchange of ideas. The views expressed in the papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position of RTB.Table 10: Sources of information used in assessment, major challenge and alternatives ......................... An economic surplus model was used for the assessment, extended to include estimations of the potential number of beneficiaries and poverty reduction effects. Cost-benefit analysis estimated the economic returns to potential investments in each of the six banana research options. We found that all assessed research options yield sizeable positive internal rates of returns (IRR). Even under the (50%) lower adoption scenario, IRRs are positive and far above a standard 10% interest rate. There is, however, considerable variation in the return on investment among research options, with the highest IRR realized by \"BXW management: cultural practices\" yielding an estimated 72% and the lowest IRR for \"Breeding of resistant EAHB (NEW)\" with an estimated 23%. Estimated NPVs are positive throughout, confirming profitable investments.The results also cover a regional breakdown of the benefits and potential adoption area for each technology assessed. While some research options, namely the breeding of resistant EAHB varieties and the management of BXW focus only on sub-Saharan Africa, all other research options will have positive impact in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia and/or Latin America and the Caribbean.Sensitivity analysis showed that the assessment results are robust to variation in some of the key parameters. We modified the adoption ceiling, the start of adoption as well as the magnitude of the yield increase and/or the reduction in post-harvest losses. NPVs remained positive for most research options even under rather extreme scenarios. Not surprisingly, those research options with increases in production costs were most susceptible to a reduction of the yield effect and when a 50% reduction was assumed (in addition to a 50% reduced adoption ceiling), two research options returned negative NPVs.The results of the poverty reduction model show a different \"ranking\" of the research options compared to the NPV and IRR results. The expected number of poor persons lifted out of poverty is partly determined by the magnitude of the NPV, which is an input used for the calculation. In addition, the model adjusts for the specific region where benefits will occur by including national poverty indicators and region-specific elasticities. As a consequence, research options that have a high share of adoption predicted within SSA (e.g., breeding for resistant EAHB) rank higher using this performance indicator and those with larger share of adoption in LAC (e.g., breeding for resistant plantain varieties) rank lower. Poverty effect results indicate that some 1.6 million persons could be lifted out of poverty through investing into developing and disseminating improved cultural BXW management practices even under the low adoption scenario.The study produced the anticipated ex ante impact estimates which have already been used to support priority setting within RTB. The report closes with a summary of lessons learnt as well as outlining suggested next steps. study would not have been possible without the dedicated input from the resource persons who accepted the challenge to provide estimates for the key parameters of the research options. For this we especially would like to thank Guy Blomme, Lava Kumar, Leena Tripathi, Eldad Karamura, Piet van Asten, Thierry Lescot, Rony Swennen, Frédéric Bakry, Celestin Niyongere and Edson Perito Amorim. Over the course of the study we benefitted from many discussions with and suggestions from fellow taskforce members Guy Hareau, Ulrich Kleinwechter, Tahirou Abdoulaye, Joseph Rusike, Alene Arega, and Bernardo Creamer. Thank you. We would also like to thank Hildegard Garming for her role in initiating and launching this study as well as providing useful comments on an earlier version of this report. We are very thankful for valuable comments provided by Abdou Tenkouano and Richard Markham.Financial support for the RTB priority assessment which included the expert surveys was provided by RTB PMU.Finally, we much appreciate the support of Graham Thiele, the RTB director, who has taken a keen interest in this study and has help to shape and improve the methodology and procedures through his participation in (internal) workshops and crucial comments during many discussions.All errors and omissions remain the authors' responsibility. Following its official launch in 2012, the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB) 1 embarked on a strategic assessment of research priorities for five of its major crops (banana, cassava, potato, sweet potato, and yams). The objective of this exercise was to determine the expected impact each research options would generate in terms of economic benefits, poverty reduction, food security, nutrition and health, gender equity, and environmental sustainability. The priority assessment was a collaborative study conducted by RTB members and partners using a common methodology across all five crops. This report documents the procedure and results of the priority assessment for key banana research options (steps 3-5 of the RTB priority assessment). Similar reports summarizing the process and results of the strategic assessment are available for the other four crops included in the RTB priority assessment.More specifically, the following research questions were addressed: What is the expected impact of research options considering standard economic indicators? (How) does expected impact of assessed research options differ? Which research options are likely to reach the largest number of beneficiaries? What are the poverty reduction impacts of the selected research options?The results of the priority assessment exercise are directly feeding into RTB strategic priority setting. Collated information and estimates obtained have been used to quantify intermediate development indicators (IDOs) supporting the RTB flagship cases and the results can guide budget allocation decision across RTB research areas, crops and regions.The report in hand is structured as follows: the next section (2) gives an overview of the assessment methodology including the process of selecting research options to be included. The report continues with a detailed description of the research options assessed (3), the parameter elicitation process (4), and an overview of parameters and assumptions used in the assessment (5). Finally, the results of the banana priority assessment are presented in section 6 together with a brief sensitivity analysis. The document concludes with a discussion of results (7), lessons learnt, and a list of suggested follow-up activities to complete the exercise. 1 The CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB) is a broad alliance of research-for-development stakeholders and partners. Their shared purpose is to tap the underutilized potential of root, tuber, and banana crops for improving nutrition and food security, increasing incomes and fostering greater gender equity -especially amongst the world's poorest and most vulnerable populations (www.rtb.cgiar.org). CGIAR is a global agriculture research partnership for a food-secure future. Its science is carried out by the 15 research centers who are members of the CGIAR Consortium in collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations. www.cgiar.org illustrates the methodological framework which is organized as a six step process 2 .The first step involved defining agro-ecological zones and mapping of crop production for different geographic regions aimed at identifying target areas for RTB research interventions. Best suited for research interventions are \"hot spots\", which are defined as geographic regions and/or production systems characterized by a large number of small-scale producers and/or high dependency of poor consumers on the respective RTB crop, the presence of major constraints or opportunities (suitable to be addressed by research) as well as high incidence of poverty and food insecurity. Overlays of different maps (e.g. crop production, biotic or abiotic constraints, and poverty and food security indicators) point to areas where targeted RTB research can lead to high impact 3 .The second step, a constraints analysis, aimed at identifying major production and marketing constraints of the RTB mandate crops and assessing the relative importance of these constraints to select high priority research interventions. As part of the constraint analysis and identification of priority research options (see step 2 and step 3 in Figure 1), expert surveys were carried out in mid-2012 to early 2013 for each of the five crops included in the RTB priority assessment.One major purpose of the expert surveys was to engage the global scientific/stakeholder community in identifying research options to be included in a participatory way. The process and results of the global expert surveys are presented in separate reports, one for each crop 4 .The selection of the research options in step 3 was largely based on the expert survey results and complemented with focus group discussions with selected experts for each of the crops. The data and parameter estimates for the quantitative assessment (step 4) were derived from (inter)national statistics or elicited from experts knowledgeable on specific research fields, regions, and crop agro-ecologies.Potential research impacts were assessed in step 5 using the economic surplus model, which has been used extensively to quantify expected economic impacts of technical change in agriculture (Alston et al. 1995). The model was extended to estimate the potential number of beneficiaries and poverty reduction effects. Cost-benefit analyses were undertaken to estimate the economic returns to potential investments on the development of each of the research options analyzed. The results also provide a regional breakdown of the benefits and potential adoption area. The effects of different assumptions regarding the pace and ceiling of adoption were tested through a sensitivity analysis using two different adoption scenarios.A novel method was proposed to establish weights for technology options according to impact on gender equity. This was tested out in an expert workshop but proved problematic to operationalize as genderrelevance is context specific. Gender specialists on the team subsequently opted to use a case study approach as a follow up to the main study to determine gender relevance and outcomes of technological choices.The results of the analysis are being shared with the wider scientific and stakeholder community (step 6) and the feedback will be incorporated and, where necessary, parameter estimates and assumptions will be modified.This report documents the procedure and results of the priority assessment for key banana research options (steps 3-5 of the RTB priority assessment). Similar reports summarizing the process and results of the strategic assessment are available for the other four crops included in the RTB priority assessment 5 .More specifically, the following research questions were addressed: What is the expected impact of research options considering standard economic indicators? (How) does expected impact of assessed research options differ? Which research options are likely to reach the largest number of beneficiaries? What are the poverty reduction impacts of the selected research options?The results of the priority assessment exercise are directly feeding into RTB strategic priority setting. Collated information and estimates obtained have been used to quantify intermediate development indicators (IDOs) supporting the RTB flagship cases and the results can guide budget allocation decision across RTB research areas, crops and regions.The report in hand is structured as follows: the next section (2) gives an overview of the assessment methodology including the process of selecting research options to be included. The report continues with a detailed description of the research options assessed (3), the parameter elicitation process (4), and an overview of parameters and assumptions used in the assessment (5). Finally, the results of the banana priority assessment are presented in section 6 together with a brief sensitivity analysis. The document concludes with a discussion of results (7), lessons learnt, and a list of suggested follow-up activities to complete the exercise.The main research activity for the constraints analysis and the identification of research options were expert surveys carried out for each of the included RTB crop 6 . For these surveys a broad range of crop specific expertise ranging from breeding, crop production and extension to policy and sector development is essential. The surveys served several purposes: firstly, the banana expert community was involved in the selection of research options assessed in the priority assessment exercise through survey participation. Secondly, consulting a broad range of experts with different fields of expertise increases the chance to capture key constraints irrespective of institutional priorities and capacity. Lastly, the surveys lead to empirically founded and ranked lists of constraints and associated research options, although different methods provided somewhat different priorities.The selection of the banana research options started with the analysis of a global online expert survey in which a large sample of banana experts (N = 523) from more than 50 countries identified major constraints to banana production and marketing. The methodology and results of the expert survey are described in more detail in Pemsl et al. (2013a).Bananas, as a crop, cover a wide diversity of cultivar types grown for different purposes by different types of farm households, affected by different pests and diseases and entering into different local, urban and export value chains. They are grown in mixed cropping as a secondary crop with perennial crops, in mixed food cropping and in diverse systems in which banana is the primary or only crop in the field. To reflect this diversity, respondents were given the option to choose from eight categories of cultivars and six different crop associations (Table 1). Moreover, respondents were given the option to complete the prioritization section of the survey for more than one production system (combination of cultivar group and crop association). The categorization of small-scale banana production into key production systems is an important step to disaggregate crop priorities. The categories used were developed based on consultations with banana specialists in Asia, Africa and Latin America from Bioversity, CIRAD and IITA.The eight cultivar groups represent a combination of factors: banana taxonomy, use or type of market and disease susceptibility. Four groups are from AAA type of bananas: (1) Cavendish bananas are the major export banana covering over 40% of world banana production (FruiTrop 2012), (2) Gros Michel is the original export banana which lost favor due to the spread of Fusarium wilt (FW) Race 1, (3) other AAA dessert bananas are produced for local and national markets primarily in Asia, while (4) East Africa Highland AAA is grown as a major food staple throughout the highlands of East and Central Africa.  Two groups are AAB: the plantain group of importance as a food staple grown primarily in West and Central Africa and Latin America and other AAB which have diverse uses, but all show susceptibility to Fusarium wilt. The final two groups are separated based on differences in taxonomy.Across the eight cultivar groups, one group, East African Highland banana (EAHB) AAA, is a major food staple only in Africa, another group, ABB plantain, is a major food staple in Africa and Latin America, one group, Cavendish AAA, is the major export banana found globally, although with greater concentration in Asia and Latin America, while the other five groups are found globally with specific countries often having quite varied cultivar preferences (FruiTrop 2012).The six cropping systems represent a gradient of density of banana planting from 100-300 mats/hectare for banana associated with perennial crops to over 2,000 plants/hectare for frequently replanted Musa monocrop. Certain of these cropping systems are linked primarily to one or two cultivar groups such as perennial banana gardens underplanted with annual crops found throughout the East and Central Africa highlands and annual food crops mixed with Musa and Musa field (2-5 years) intercropped with short term annual crops found primarily in plantain production. While one cultivar group is usually predominant in a cropping system, smallholders often mix cultivars from up to 5-6 groups in a single field.This production system categorization is also the basis for the banana mapping web site (see footnote 3 on page 1) designed not only to facilitate targeting within the priority assessment exercise described here, but also to serve for national and international planning and discussion for homologue zones, impacts of climate change and the role of Musa in poverty reduction and the conservation of natural resources.In the survey, experts were first asked to indicate the major factors that limit yield and determine income for a specific banana production system (combination of cultivar group and crop association) in a particular geographic region by allocating a fixed number of points among different factors from a list. As major categories of yield-limiting factors, the experts identified diseases (32% of allocated points); pests (19% of allocated points), and climatic constraints and soil condition constraints (each with 18% of points).While there were regional and cultivar group specific differences in the results, we only report the global averages here for brevity and refer the interested reader to the separate expert survey report (Pemsl et al. 2013a) mentioned earlier for details.The experts indicated production-related factors (43% of allocated points), postharvest, processing and marketing factors (26% of points), and information and knowledge factors (21% of points) as the key categories of income-determining factors.In a subsequent scoring exercise, experts could then rate the importance of 71 different research options on a five point scale (ranging from 1 = not important to 5 = extremely important). The five highest ranked research areas in the survey were: (1) research on disease and pest management (excl. resistant varieties);(2) breeding for higher yield; (3) breeding for biotic stress resistance; (4) crop management and production systems research; and (5) genetic resources management research.In April 2013, 34 banana scientists were convened in an expert workshop in Kampala, Uganda. Scientists originated from Bioversity and International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development CIRAD and national banana programs in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. During the four-day workshop, participants reviewed the priority assessment methodology and results of the expert survey, selected research options to be included in the assessment, and worked in groups on the parameters for the calculation of returns to research investment; see Pemsl et al. (2013b) for details.In the workshop, working groups were formed to start the elicitation of parameters required for the assessment. The following nine priority banana research options were identified: Subsequent to the workshop, small teams of resource persons (names are listed in the next section under the respective research options) worked on the further refinement of parameters. During this process, some of the research options were divided into sub-options that were assessed separately (e.g., due to differences in timeframe, success probabilities, and/or because they were substitutes rather than complements). At the same time, not all of the nine identified research options were assessed under this  Several impact studies of agricultural technologies have estimated aggregate economic benefits through extrapolation of farm-level yield or income gains using partial equilibrium simulation models such as the economic surplus model (Alston et al., 1995).The economic surplus method is the most widely used procedure for economic evaluation of expected benefits and costs of a new technology. Agricultural research can lead to technological change mainly through increased yield, reduced yield losses, or reduced cost of production. If the new technology is yield increasing, adoption leads to lower per-unit costs of production as well as a higher quantity of goods sold on the markets. This will shift the supply function of the commodity and lead to an increase in the quantity sold and a fall in the price for that good assuming the demand function is downward-sloping and the market for the commodity is perfectly competitive. As a result, consumers benefit from a price reduction and producers benefit from selling larger quantities of the product.A closed economy 8 economic surplus model was used to derive summary measures of the potential impacts of different banana research options for a period of 25 years . The benefits were measured based on a parallel downward shift in the (linear) supply curve. We estimated the change in economic surplus (defined as the combined benefit consumers and producers receive when a good or service is exchanged) 9 using formulas presented in the standard book written by Alston et al. (1995). Annex 1 lists the key formulas used in the RTB priority assessment.For the cost-benefit analysis, the estimated annual flows of gross economic benefits from each banana technology for each target country were aggregated, and each year's aggregate benefits and estimated R&D costs were discounted to derive the present value (in 2014) of total net benefits from the research interventions. The key parameters that determine the magnitude of the economic benefits are the following: (1) the expected technology adoption in terms of area under improved technologies, (2) expected yield gains (or avoided losses) following adoption, and (3) pre-research levels of production and prices. To ensure comparability across the five crop studies, the same set of assumptions and data sources were used for all crop studies conducted under the RTB priority assessment (see Table 3 for an overview).8 Despite the presence of global and regional integration arrangements that aim to facilitate trade on global markets, commodities such as those included in RTB are mostly produced and consumed domestically and not easily traded on the global markets especially in less developed countries due to low production, lack of processing technologies, high perishability of the roots and tubers, and trade rules and regulations that hinder free trade. We assumed that a closed economy model best represents the market for all those crops. 9 The consumer surplus is the difference between the maximum price consumers are willing to pay and the actual price they do pay. If a consumer would be willing to pay more than the current asking price, then she is getting more benefit from the purchased product than she spent to buy it. The producer surplus is the benefit a producer receives from providing a good/service at a market price higher than what he would have been willing to sell for. Through economic modeling of supply and demand equations, the related quantities of consumer and producer surplus are determined. The consumer surplus (individual or aggregated) is the area under the (individual or aggregated) demand curve and above a horizontal line at the actual price (in the aggregated case: the equilibrium price). The producer surplus (individual or aggregated) is the area above the (individual or aggregated) supply curve and below a horizontal line at the actual price (in the aggregated case: the equilibrium price). Most recent total population data from World Bank Development IndicatorsCountry-specific estimates prepared for RTB proposal: crop area per HH for specific crop and number of persons per HH; (justify and support any deviations in estimates)Extending the results of the conventional economic surplus and cost-benefit analysis, the impact of each of the banana research options on rural poverty reduction was estimated following the approach in Alene et al. (2009). It weighs the economic surplus results according to the poverty levels in each of the countries, the share of agriculture in total GDP, and the agricultural growth elasticity of poverty. The impact of each research option on rural poverty reduction was estimated by first estimating the marginal impact on poverty reduction of an increase in the value of agricultural production using poverty reduction elasticities of agricultural productivity growth. The reduction in the total number of poor was then calculated by considering the estimated economic benefits as the additional increase in agricultural production value. Thirtle et al. (2003) found that a 1% growth in agricultural productivity reduces the total number of rural poor by 0.72% in Africa, 0.48% in Asia, and 0.15% in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Under the assumption of constant returns to scale, a 1% growth in total factor productivity leads to a 1% growth in agricultural production. For each country, the number of poor lifted above the $1-a-day poverty line was thus derived as follows:Poverty elasticity Gains from R&E as % of agricultural production Poverty reduction as % of the poor ln ES 100% Agriculture value added ln( )where ΔNp is the number of poor lifted above the poverty line, Np is the total number of poor, N is the total population, Y is agricultural productivity, and ΔES is the change in economic surplus. The poverty elasticity is interpreted as the marginal impact of a 1% increase in agricultural productivity in terms of the number of poor reduced as a percentage of the total poor (Np), and not of the total population.Data on average crop area per household and average household size were used to estimate the numbers of beneficiaries, following a procedure and dataset developed to estimate total number of RTB poor beneficiaries (CGIAR 2011). Data for individual countries were obtained mostly from FAO database, published sources of information, or expert opinion when needed. Estimated area under two adoption scenarios (high and low adoption) was divided by the average area per household to estimate the number of adopting households, and then multiplied by household size to estimate total number of beneficiaries. Constraint: Banana bunchy top disease (BBTD) is one of the most devastating diseases of banana and plantain particularly for smallholders (Dale 1987). BBTD, caused by the banana bunchy top virus (BBTV), produces erect, narrow, short brittle leaves with yellow borders and typical dark green streaks on leaves and pseudostems and stunted suckers. It results in very small or no bunches (i.e., complete yield loss). Infected mats eventually die, but often remain as a source of inoculum. The disease spreads through infected suckers and via the banana aphid (vector). BBTD is widespread in Asia. The first cases of BBTD in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) were reported in 1958, with an increase in the rate of spread in the last decades. The disease is now found from southern Malawi and Burundi/Rwanda/eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) all the way to Nigeria, Central African Republic (CAR), and Benin (Kumar et al. 2011). While laboratory techniques for virus detection and development of BBTV-free planting materials are well established, neither of these services nor commercial sources of BBTV-free planting material are available in rural areas of Asia and Africa.(Potential) RTB research: generation of alternative practices, models, decision tools, and technologies for use in different land-use systems: Clean seed supply through tissue culture and/or macro-propagation  Community strategies for a banana-free period to eliminate banana aphids on-site and a buffer area free of bananas to reduce aphid re-invasion into a newly-planted field  Approaches for eliminating or reducing re-infection of virus-free banana gardens.The research will build on extensive knowledge and field experience generated in Asia and the incipient experience in SSA. The focus of new research will be to build a more robust understanding of BBTV, its vector, and the interaction both with host diversity and with farmer practice and the surrounding agricultural system. Pilot sites will also be set up to generate tools for building community capacity to recover from BBTD destruction and to mobilize containment when BBTD is first identified. This represents a major research initiative, since most BBTD recovery to date has focused on commercial monocrop plantations. The estimated completion time for the research is nine years with a research success rate of 90%. Diagnostic tools  Strategies for supplying clean planting materials  Integrated approaches to the recovery of BBTD-affected areas involving the creation of a bananafree period and adequate buffer, replanting strategies, and the management of reinfection Increase/recovery of crop yield  Increase in production costs (seed, labor for harvest) Target region/system: Focus is on AAA-Cavendish and other AAAs in Asia (Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Sri Lanka) and on diverse smallholder perennial systems of AAA EAHB and plantain (AAB) in West and Central Africa (DRC, Republic of Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, CAR, Gabon, Benin, Nigeria); East Africa (Burundi, Rwanda); and Southern Africa (Malawi, Angola), although other minor cultivar groups in the same areas would also be affected.Constraint: The rapid spread of banana Xanthomonas wilt (BXW), caused by Xanthomonas campestris pv. musacearum, endangers the livelihoods of millions of farmers in East and Central Africa who rely on banana as a source of food and cash (Tushemereirwe et al. 2004;Tripathi et al. 2009). It is mainly transmitted via contaminated farming tools, insects acting as vectors, and infected planting material. Unchecked, the disease can destroy entire banana plantations. The pathogen infects all cultivated banana varieties in Eastern and Central Africa (ECA), including East African Highland bananas (AAA-EAHB), plantains, Pisang Awak and exotic types. Overall economic losses in ECA have been estimated at over US $2 billion over the past decade in ECA, due to price increases, significantly reduced production, and revenue losses (Abele and Pillay 2007). In Central Uganda alone, yields declined by 80-100% between 2003 and 2008 due to infections of BXW in Pisang Awak, with corresponding income loss and higher prices of banana beer. In affected areas, banana production has declined by more than 50%. Effects on AAA-EAHB highland production in the Kivu provinces of eastern DRC have been catastrophic due to lack of institutional infrastructure and knowledge dissemination networks. The disease has reportedly spread farther toward the southern parts of South Kivu (Uvira and Fizi) and the Oriental province in DRC. BXW has spread across 15 of the 17 provinces in Burundi over a two-year period. Many farmers are still unfamiliar with disease symptoms and control options. In addition, the current control options are highly labor intensive, expensive, and time consuming, limiting adoption.Evaluation and dissemination of genotypes escaping insect vector transmission; better understanding of host-pathogen interaction for more easily adoptable control packages; develop stakeholders' platforms for delivery of clean planting materials; raising public awareness to enhance adoption.The research option was divided into two sub-options and the involved resource persons, the status of research, adoptable innovations, and expected impact are listed for each sub-option separately.Resource person(s): Guy Blomme, Eldad Karamura, Charles StaverResearch on improved cultural practices for management of BXW is ongoing, and the current effort started in the year 2003. Past experiences have shown that is it very important to develop cultural practices in a participatory manner to ensure the technology package is attractive for adoption (Blomme et al. 2014) and does not conflict with resource (time, tools, knowledge, capital) limitations common for smallholder farmers (see, e.g., Jogo et al. 2011Jogo et al. , 2013)). A technology package will be developed, tested, and ready for adoption in seven years, with an estimated research success of 90%. Low-cost diagnostic kit  Improved cultural practices: eradication, timely bud removal, tool disinfection, short banana-free fallow, diseased stem removal. Increase/recovery of crop yield  Increase in production costs  Avoidance/lower pace of BXW spread (local and regional). All cultivar groups; smallholder banana production systems in ECA in countries where the disease is currently present: Burundi, DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda  All cultivar groups; smallholder banana production systems in ECA in countries under direct BXW threat: Angola, Cameroon, CAR, DRC, Gabon, Malawi, Mozambique, South Sudan, and Zambia.Status of research: Development of GM resistant banana is ongoing at several institutions. In 2005, a consortium led by IITA started a project to develop EAHB AAA and AAA banana varieties resistant to BXW. The work is now in its second phase, and resistant varieties will be ready for adoption in eight years (plan to release the resistant variety in 2020), with estimated research success of 90%. GM-resistant varieties of dessert cultivars and East African Highland bananas Increase/recovery of crop yield  Increase in production costs  Avoidance/lower pace of BXW spread (local and regional). Dessert cultivars and East African Highland bananas in ECA in countries where the disease is currently present: Burundi, DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda  Dessert cultivars and East African Highland bananas in ECA in countries that are under direct threat of the disease: Angola, Cameroon, CAR, Malawi, Mozambique, South Sudan, and Zambia.  East African Highland banana varieties (AAA) resistant to nematodes, weevils, and BLS  Plantain-like varieties (AAB) resistant to BLS, nematodes, and weevils, and with improved quality traits  Sweet acid banana varieties (other AAB and ABB) resistant to FW (Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. Cubense), BLS, and nematodes, and with improved quality traits. Assessment still ongoing (has not been completed). Yield recovery where disease has already reduced yields (yield increase)  Reduction of postharvest losses due to reduced stress of the plant  Increase in production costs due to higher seed costs. This section provides a brief account of the parameter elicitation process and the information sources used. The first step after having identified the research options (see section 2 and 3) was to identify target countries for each research intervention. The original plan for the targeting was the application of the online banana mapper (http://www.crop-mapper.org/banana) to identify areas/countries that meet the following criteria: (1) high and severe incidence of the constraint, (2) substantial importance of banana as food or source of income for poor producers and/or high dependence on banana as staple of (poor) consumers; and (3) high incidence of poverty and food insecurity and thus the prospect to achieve a large positive impact through banana research. Unfortunately, the development of the banana mapper and especially populating the tool with (sub-) national data were delayed. The population of the tool with subcountry information has been continued since, but the mapper could not be used for a formal targeting exercise.Instead, the lists of countries to be targeted by each of the research interventions were put together by the resource person(s) working on the parameterization of the respective research option (see names in the description of research options). The criteria for the inclusion of countries were that (1) the constraint was currently present or would be present over the next 25 years (the assessment period); (2) a large area in absolute terms is affected by the constraint (i.e., larger banana production area and/or large-scale spread of the constraint); and (3) RTB will likely be working in (collaboration with) the respective country to make adoptable innovations addressing the constraint available to farmers. Thus the list of countries included in the assessment varies for the different research options, though there naturally is some overlap (see Annexes 4-9 for country lists for each research option).For each selected country we used the production data provided by FruiTrop (2010), which uses the FAO crop production statistics but includes other additional references, surveys, and professional sources and was thus considered a more reliable source for banana production information, especially since in the FruiTrop tables production information is already disaggregated by major cultivar groups within each country. Some adjustment was needed, though, since the cultivar groups used by FruiTroP and those decided on for the RTB banana priority assessment do not match perfectly. While two of the cultivar group categories are identical (plantains AAB and Cavendish AAA), expert assessment was used to allocate the production from the other two cultivar categories used by FruiTrop (cooking bananas other than plantain AAB; and dessert bananas other than Cavendish AAA) to the remaining four cultivar groups of the priority assessment (see Annex 2). As a next step, these production data and the average banana yield (FAOSTAT, banana yield, average of the last three years available by country, separately for banana and plantain where available) were used to calculate banana production area. Since FAO data do not separate production from large scale, commercial plantations from (semi-) subsistence production under smallholder conditions, yield figures especially for countries with sizable banana export industry seemed too high for the RTB target group of poor (small-scale) producers. Thus, expert judgment was used to cap some of the yield figures to adequately reflect smallholder conditions by adjusting within the ranges provided by FAO data for the different types. Annex 2 shows the production and yield information by cultivar group for all countries included in the assessment.Yield gap reviews were also conducted for plantain, Cavendish, and other minor cultivars, including an online expert survey. Experts in the Kampala workshop also provided input on yield levels. This offered background to estimate yield levels, but a proposed strategy for more complete review by production system did not prove workable. The most knowledgeable and best suited national experts could not free their time for such work. With the country lists and production and yield information available by cultivar group, a template was designed for each research option to be assessed in which the technology and adoption parameter estimates derived from the group work during the Kampala workshop were entered as a starting point. The template was sent to the respective resource persons (names listed in Section 3) and they adjusted the parameters to reflect country and/or cultivar group specific conditions. Table 4 gives an overview of the different sources of information used for parameter estimation.There are still two missing steps of the parameter elicitations process that would ideally be addressed in a follow-up activity: (1) cross-checking the expert estimates with information available in the literature (compiled in an annotated bibliography as well as overview tables for extracted indicators, see Jacobsen 2013); and (2) inviting and incorporating feedback from a larger group of banana experts on the parameters across research options. (Only a relatively small number of resource persons have been involved in the exercise so far, and most of them have only worked on one or few of the research options.) 5 Parameter estimatesThe socioeconomic parameters for the individual countries used in the analysis are presented in Table 5.Following the general methodology agreed by the taskforce for the RTB priority assessment, for crop prices, three-year averages of the period 2010-2012 were taken from FAO (2013). Where indicated, adjustments were made in cases where FAO data were either not available (we used a default price of $300/MT) or significantly departed from information available from other sources. While Table 5 displays aggregated production figures for banana/plantain at the country level, the data were disaggregated by major cultivar group as explained in the previous chapter for the definition of the target domain and to derive at adoption estimates (see tables in Annex 2). Indicators used for the assessment for the povertyreducing effect of the technologies was taken from the World Development Indicators database (World Bank 2013) and listed in Annex 3.The data on banana area per household (HH) and household size that were used for the estimation of the numbers of beneficiaries were taken from a dataset put together for the preliminary estimation of the potential number of beneficiaries of the RTB program (CGIAR 2011). Data for individual countries in this dataset were based on specific sources of published information or expert opinion.  The economic surplus model used for this analysis represents a closed economy model with no demand shift (see section 2.2 for details). Accordingly, the technology effects that are directly captured by the model and for which explicit parameter values have been estimated are changes in yields (and/or postharvest losses) and costs of production resulting from the adoption of the innovation.These effects were estimated by the resource person(s) for target countries and, if applicable, also by cultivar group for each technology to be assessed. The parameter values used in the assessment are listed by research option and country in Annexes 4-9.In addition to the technological parameters described above, the economic surplus model uses a number of parameters that relate to the research and dissemination process. These parameters comprise the duration of the research phase until an adoptable innovation will be available to farmers (i.e., the research lag), the costs required to conduct the research (annual research and development (R&D) costs), the number of countries and regions that will be targeted and where adoption is expected over the 25-year assessment period, and the dissemination costs for each technology (either $80 or $50 for every new ha of adoption depending on the type of technology; see Table 3). In further fine-tuning the model or conducting sensitivity analysis, higher dissemination costs could be used for countries with less welldeveloped infrastructure. We suspect that there may be an inverse relationship between poverty levels and costs for adoption posing an additional challenge when trying to overcome acute poverty through the proposed research options.The R&D costs were derived from detailed budgets (see Annex 10 for the example of BBTV) extracted from either existing proposal or specifically compiled for this exercise (not actual past research expenditures as in the other crop assessments). The agreement to match those costs 1:1 with similar costs expected at the level of national agricultural research systems (NARS) in the process of developing and adapting the technologies (see taskforce agreements in Table 3) leads to conservative results since costs will very likely be overestimated. The proposed research budgets developed already contained (some) NARS expenditures (e.g., for staff time and operational costs).We also included the year when the respective research has started as an indicator of how much of the research has been completed. In this assessment we treat all past research costs as sunk costs 10 (i.e., disregard them for the computation of research costs). Thus the information of how much of the research has already been completed puts the result of the assessment in perspective, as one would expect higher net present values (NPVs) and internal rates of returns (IRRs) with higher shares of disregarded costs. Also, technologies for which research has been going on for some time will likely perform more favorable in the assessment for two other reasons: (1) the research lag will be shorter as adoptable innovations will be available soon compared to similar research options just starting; and (2) chances are that the probability of research success will be higher-effectively a factor with which benefits are multiplied-as some of the research has already been completed and thus the outcome is better known/success closer within reach.Table 6 shows an overview of the aggregated information (see Annexes 4-9 for country information).For our assessment, we have used a broader success probability. It not only accounts for the likelihood that the planned research outputs will be achieved, but also captures (some of) the uncertainty related to the acceptance and up-take of research products at the national level and thus the likelihood that the innovation will actually be available and can be adopted by farmers in a specific country. This compound probability of success was estimated by informally assessing the capacity of the respective NARS sector, past experiences of collaboration, and the overall conditions/situation in each target countries. A good example is the development of genetically modified (GM) banana varieties resistant to, for example, bacterial wilt for which (official/legal) release and adoption depends on the enactment of biosafety laws and regulations. The probability of success is thus defined as probability that a certain technology will be successfully developed and released (i.e., is available). It is conceptually different from the rate of adoption (assumed to be a technology choice at the producer level).To improve the accuracy of our adoption ceiling estimates, we included three additional steps:1. Resource person(s) estimated the share of production area in each country (and cultivar group if applicable) that is susceptible to the target constraint/suitable for the respective innovation (= target domain for the respective research option). This, for example, excluded large-scale commercial plantations or area planted with cultivar groups that are not susceptible to the constraint or production area outside the agro-ecological zones affected (e.g., higher altitudes where disease vectors are absent). For the breeding research options, the target domain is only the share of total production area currently planted with the respective cultivar group. 2. For research options addressing a particular constraint, resource person(s) estimated the share of the target domain that is currently affected by the constraint and will likely be affected by the constraint in 25 years without major intervention (segment of the target domain relevant for our assessment; refined target domain). 3. We then asked the resource person(s) to estimate the likely maximum adoption of the new innovation in the refined target domain (% of area) over the next 25 years.Finally, to derive the adoption ceiling parameter that is used in the economic surplus model, we computed the percentage share of the total national banana production area that corresponds with the likely adoption in the refined target domain as described above. The three other parameters defining the shape of the adoption curve are the first year of adoption (expert estimate), the time until maximum adoption is reached (in years from first year of adoption, expert estimate), and the pace of adoption determined by the adoption reached in the first year after adoption starts (taskforce agreement to use 1% of estimated adoption ceiling, see Table 3).Twenty-two countries (4 from Asia, 18 from Africa) where BBTV is either already present or will very likely spread in the near future if no major intervention occurs have been considered for the ex-ante impact assessment. For the assessment all six cultivar groups were considered threatened/susceptible, though for most countries a slower spread and thus lower future affected area was assumed for the ABB cultivar group. For countries with commercial plantations (Cameroon, Ghana, Mozambique, Philippines) some share of the AAA Cavendish production area (see Annex 4) was excluded from the target domain since clean seed and good management practices are used and thus infection with BBTV is less likely. The estimation of the current and likely future spread of the disease was made separately for each cultivar group and country. Annex 4 shows the average current and future spread as share of the entire national production area (explaining the uneven national numbers that result from calculating weighted averages of the cultivar group estimates). In the assessment, benefits occur as increases in yield (increase of 80%). Production area lost due to the disease (area where production had to be discontinued due to high disease pressure and large yield losses; e.g., in the Philippines, Malawi, DRC) has been disregarded. The new technology package when adopted is assumed to have no effect on postharvest losses but result in a 40% increase in production costs (mainly due to higher costs associated with purchase of clean seed). Given the high yield losses caused by the disease, it was assumed that the adoption ceiling will be around 50% of the (future) area affected by BBTV, which translates into adoption ceilings of 8-45% of the total national production area (see Annex 4 for details). The technology release will be staggered, and first adoption is expected in 3, 5, or 7 years depending on the country. Owing to lack of information, the time from first adoption until the estimated adoption ceiling will be reached was set at 8 years for all countries. Given that the recovery from BBTV will focus on making clean seed available and improving production practices to avoid the spread of the disease, the probability of success is rather high (80% for countries with stronger NARS and extension systems and 50% for countries where challenges to make the innovation available to farmers will likely be larger). The R&D costs are estimated at $34.4 million and roughly evenly spread over the 9-year research period. In the assessment these costs are matched 1:1 with additional country-level costs as per the general assumptions made for the priority assessment exercise (see Table 3).Fourteen African countries where BXW is either already present or will very likely spread in the near future if no major intervention occurs have been considered for the ex-ante impact assessment. For the assessment, all six cultivar groups were considered threatened/susceptible. But a faster spread and thus higher percentage values for future affected area was assumed for the ABB cultivar group. The estimation of the current and likely future spread of the disease was made separately for each cultivar group and country. Annex 6 shows the average current and future spread as share of the entire national production area (explaining the uneven national numbers that result from calculating weighted averages of the cultivar group estimates). In the assessment, benefits occur as increases in yield (increase of 90%). The new technology package when adopted is assumed to have no effect on postharvest losses but result in a 20% increase in production costs (mainly due to higher costs associated with purchase of clean seed but simultaneous lower costs for labor). Given the high yield losses caused by the disease, it was assumed that the adoption ceiling will be 30-70% of the (future) area affected by BXW. This translates into adoption ceilings of 7-60% of the total national production area (see Annex 6 for details). The technology release will start in 3 years in all included countries. The time from first adoption until the estimated adoption ceiling will be reached is 7 years for all countries but Burundi and DRC, where adoption will be a bit slower (8 years from first to maximum adoption). Given the high level of damage resulting from the disease and the low level of complexity of the new technology, the probability of success is high (80% for all countries, with the exception of CAR and South Sudan, where additional challenges at the national level are expected). The R&D costs are estimated at $35.4 million and roughly evenly spread over the 7-year research period. In the assessment these costs are matched 1:1 with additional country-level costs as per the general assumptions made for the priority assessment exercise (see Table 3).Fourteen African countries where BXW is either already present or will very likely spread in the near future if no major intervention occurs have been considered for the ex-ante impact assessment. Since the efforts to develop GM varieties resistant to BXW currently focus on the AAA genome, only the three cultivar groups \"AAA Cavendish,\" \"other AAA,\" and \"EAH AAA\" were considered as target domain for this research option (see Annex 5 for the share of AAA genome cultivar groups). The estimated current and future affected areas match the ones used in the assessment of \"BXW management: cultural practices.\" Given the high yield losses caused by the disease, it was assumed that the adoption ceiling will be 30-75% of the (future) area affected by BXW in the target domain. This translates into adoption ceilings of 3-40% of the total national production area (see Annex 5 for details). It is assumed that the GM varieties will be available to farmers in all included countries in 8 years (year of first adoption). The time from first adoption until the estimated adoption ceiling will be reached is 10 years for all countries. In the assessment, benefits occur as increases in yield (increase of 50%). We assumed that switching to GM-resistant varieties will increase the production costs by 40% (more expensive seed) while having no effect on postharvest losses. Given the high level of damage resulting from the disease and the low level of complexity of the new technology, the probability of success should be high. However, since at this point the legal status of GM crops is unclear in most countries included in the assessment, we assumed lower success probabilities compared to, for example, the \"BXW management with cultural practices.\" For Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Ethiopia, where changes in the national law are in place or are underway, and thus release of GM varieties seems much more likely, probability of success estimates range 60-80%. For all other included countries, we assumed a probability of success of 40% to account for uncertainty in the legal framework. However, regulatory issues or delays may not necessarily stop farmers from adopting the technology, and farm-level benefits can occur without having a legal framework in place. The effort to develop GM BXWresistant banana varieties has been ongoing for the past 8 years. As per the general agreement, all past expenses are considered sunk costs and disregarded in the assessment. The R&D costs for the remaining 7 years of research are estimated at $2.8 million and roughly evenly spread over the 7-year research period. In the assessment these costs are matched 1:1 with additional country-level costs as per the general assumptions made for the priority assessment exercise (see Table 3). Costs incurred at the country level for developing and enacting biosafety regulations or additional costs for licensing in excess of what is covered by the 1:1 matching funds of $2.8 million for all countries are not included in this assessment. We also assumed that consumer preferences are the same for the new GM varieties and there will be no price differentials.Twenty-three countries (7 from Asia, 6 from LAC, and 10 from Africa) have been considered for the exante impact assessment of the cropping system intensification research option. Countries were selected when the major cultivar group grown by small-scale farmers was substantial. For the East African countries (Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda), the target domain is all area planted with \"EAHB AAA\"; for all other African countries (Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, DRC, Ghana, Guinea, and Nigeria), the target domain is \"AAB Plantain\" area. For most countries in Asia (Bangladesh, Myanmar, PNG, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam) the technology focuses on \"AAA Cavendish\" and \"other AAA\" production area. For Asian countries with considerable share of commercial Cavendish production (Indonesia and Philippines), only \"other AAA\" area was considered as target domain. Finally, in the LAC countries (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Peru), the target domain is area planted with \"AAB Plantain.\" Since the technology will be a package of specific agronomic practices, it seemed more realistic to focus on only one cultivar group (production system) first, though much of the generated knowledge will be applicable to other cultivar groups as well. Since this research option is not targeting a specific constraint, 100% of the target domain was considered for the assessment and no \"affected area\" estimates were necessary. In the assessment, benefits occur as increases in yield (increase of 60%). The new technology package when adopted is assumed to have no effect on postharvest losses but result in a 50% increase in production costs (mainly due to higher costs associated with increased use of fertilizer, higher quality planting material and irrigation). For this assessment, we did not quantify and include the benefits from cropping system intensification realized through reduced yield variability and an improvement of the status of (onfarm) natural resources (e.g., increased soil fertility). Including these effects can be done, but would require models other than the economic surplus model and was thus not done in this first round of assessment. We note that this omission results in an underestimation of the benefits from this research option. It was assumed that the adoption ceiling will be 30% of the target domain in each of the countries, which translates into adoption ceilings of 6-27% of the total national production area (see Annex 7 for details). The technology release will be staggered, and first adoption is expected in 3 or 7 years depending on the country. Owing to lack of information, the time from first adoption until the estimated adoption ceiling will be reached was set at 15 years for all countries. This is longer than for most other research options. The rationale is that the technology is more knowledge intensive and thus likely to spread slower than, for example, an improved variety. The probability of success is rather high (80% for countries with stronger NARS and extension systems and 50% for countries where challenges to make the innovation available to farmers will likely be larger). The R&D costs are estimated at $22.72 million and roughly evenly spread over the 10-year research period. In the assessment, these costs are matched 1:1 with additional country-level costs as per the general assumptions made for the priority assessment exercise (Table 3).Six African countries (Burundi, Cameroon, DRC, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda) where EAHB are grown are included in the ex-ante impact assessment of this research option. Since efforts to develop highyielding varieties resistant to major pests and diseases (specifically nematodes, weevils, and BLS) focus on the AAA EAHB genome, only production area currently grown with this cultivar group is considered as target domain (see Annex 8 for EAHB share in each of the countries). The biotic constraints addressed through the resistant varieties are very widespread in the target domain, so it was assumed that 100% of the EAHB area in the included countries is currently affected by these constraints and will continue to be affected over the next 25 years without major intervention. For this research option we considered two different scenarios: (1) the release of available first-or second-generation hybrids with improved disease resistance and ( 2) a new breeding program starting at year 1 of the assessment period. Some of the subsequent impact and adoption parameter estimates are different for the two scenarios, thus they are discussed separately in the next two paragraphs. The scenarios are substitutes because yield increases from adopting improved varieties are estimated as difference to the yield of varieties currently used by farmers. If the available hybrids were to be released, the yield effect of a new breeding program would very likely be lower.The first sub-option assesses the expected benefits of releasing existing second-generation improved EAHB varieties. All costs incurred for past breeding work until now are treated as sunk costs and disregarded in the assessment. The existing improved material would be subjected to 4 years of multi-locational testing and 3 subsequent years of on-farm testing. Adoptable varieties will be available to farmers in 7 years. The R&D costs are estimated at $5 million. In the assessment, these costs are matched 1:1 with additional country-level costs as per the general assumptions made for the priority assessment exercise (see Table 3). The adoption ceiling was estimated at 40% of the target domain in all countries translating into adoption ceilings of 2-31% of the total national production area (see Annex 8,. The time from first adoption until the estimated adoption ceiling will be reached varies between 8 and 12 years depending on the country. In the assessment, benefits occur as increases in yield (increase of 40%) as well as a reduction in the postharvest losses (25%). It is assumed that adopting the improved EAHB varieties will increase the production costs by 40% (more expensive seed). The probability of success is high (50-80%) since the improved material is already available and is mainly driven by the extension capacity and infrastructure in the respective country.New breeding program to develop improved EAHB varieties. This second sub-option assesses the expected benefits of a new breeding effort to develop resistant and high-yielding EAHB varieties. This would require a 9-year research phase to develop improved material that would then be subjected to 4 years of multi-locational testing and 3 subsequent years of on-farm testing. Adoptable varieties would be available to farmers in 17 years. The R&D costs are estimated at $13.65 million. In the assessment these costs are matched 1:1 with additional country-level costs as per the general assumptions made for the priority assessment exercise (see Table 3). The adoption ceiling was estimated at 60% of the target domain in all included countries, translating into adoption ceilings of 3-46% of the total national production area (see Annex 8,. Since the material available from a new breeding effort would perform better than the currently available improved planting material (see previous research option), it was considered reasonable to assume a higher adoption ceiling. The time from first adoption until the estimated adoption ceiling will be reached varies between 8 and 12 years depending on the country. In the assessment, benefits occur as increases in yield (increase of 60%) as well as a reduction in the postharvest losses (25%). We assumed that adopting the improved EAHB varieties will increase production costs by 30% (more expensive seed, but scale effects due to increased availability and thus lower costs per unit seed, assuming that more labs will be operating at the time the improved material will be available for introduction). The probability of success is high (50-80%) and is mainly driven by the extension capacity and infrastructure in the respective country.Eighteen countries (8 African countries: Cameroon, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, DRC, Gabon, Ghana, Liberia, and Nigeria; 1 Asian country: India; and 9 LAC countries: Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Venezuela) where plantains are widely grown have been included in the assessment of this research option. Since the efforts to develop high-yielding varieties resistant to major pests and diseases (specifically nematodes, weevils, and BLS) focus on the AAB plantain genome, only production area currently grown with this cultivar group was considered as target domain (see Annex 9 for the share of AAB plantain in each of the countries). The biotic constraints addressed through the resistant varieties are very widespread in the target domain, so it was assumed that 100% of the plantain area in the included countries is currently affected by the constraints and will continue to be affected over the next 25 years without major intervention. For this research option we considered two different scenarios: (1) the release of available first-or second-generation hybrids with improved disease resistant and ( 2) a new breeding program starting at year 1 of the assessment period. Some of the subsequent impact and adoption parameter estimates are different for the two scenarios, thus they are discussed separately in the next two paragraphs. The scenarios are substitutes because yield increases from adopting improved varieties are estimated as difference to the yield of varieties currently used by farmers.If the available hybrids were to be released, the yield effect of a new breeding program would very likely be lower.Release of available improved first-or second-generation AAB plantain hybrids. This sub-option assesses the expected benefits of releasing existing second-generation improved plantain varieties. All costs incurred for past breeding work are sunk costs and disregarded in the assessment. Existing improved material will be subjected to 4 years of multi-locational testing and 3 subsequent years of on-farm testing. Adoptable varieties would be available to farmers in 7 years. The R&D costs are estimated at $11 million.In the assessment these costs are matched 1:1 with additional country-level costs as per the general assumptions made (see Table 3). The adoption ceiling was estimated at 10-70% of the target domain in the included countries, translating into adoption ceilings of 2-46% of the total national production area (see Annex 9, RELEASE sub-option). The time from first adoption until the adoption ceiling will be reached varies between 8 and 15 years depending on the country. In the assessment, benefits occur as increases in yield (increase of 70% compared to varieties currently used by farmers) as well as a reduction in the postharvest losses (25%). We assumed that adopting improved plantain varieties will increase the production costs by 40% (more expensive seed). The probability of success is moderate (30-80%) since the available plantain hybrids have integrated banana streak virus (BSV) which will limit the adoption in some countries. Differences in the probability of success are further driven by the extension capacity and infrastructure in the respective country.New breeding program to develop improved AAB plantain varieties. This second sub-option assesses the expected benefits of a new breeding effort to develop resistant and high-yielding AAB plantain varieties. This would require a 9-year research phase to develop improved material which would then be subjected to 4 years of multi-locational testing and three subsequent years of on-farm testing. Adoptable varieties would be available to farmers in 17 years' time. The R&D costs are estimated at US$19.65 million. In the assessment these costs are matched 1:1 with additional country level costs as per the general assumptions made for the priority assessment exercise (see Table 3). The adoption ceiling was estimated at 20% to 80% of the target domain in all included countries translating into adoption ceilings of 3% to 55% of the total national production area (see Annex 9, NEW sub-option). Since material available from a new breeding effort would perform better than the currently existing planting material (see \"RELEASE\" research option) and would not contain the banana streak virus (BSV), it was considered reasonable to assume a higher adoption ceiling. The time from first adoption until the estimated adoption ceiling will be reached varies between 8 and 15 years depending on the country. In the assessment, benefits occur as increases in yield (increase of 90%) as well as a reduction in the postharvest losses (25%). We assumed that adopting improved plantain varieties will increase production costs by 20-30% (e.g., more expensive seed, but scale effects due to increased availability and thus lower costs per unit seed assuming that more labs will be operating at the time the improved material will be available; in-vitro propagated seedlings currently much cheaper in LAC and Asia at $0.2-0.4 per piece compared to $1-2 per piece in Africa). The probability of success is moderate to high (40-80%) and mainly driven by the research and extension capacity and infrastructure in the respective country.6 Results of the ex-ante assessment of banana research optionsFor the estimation of benefits resulting from technology adoption we used a 25-year horizon. We did not model any technology disadoption given that the assessed technologies have a research phase of some 7-16 years from now and estimated time to reaching maximum adoption ranged from 7 to 15 years (see . For the computation of the NPV of cost and benefit streams a standard discount rate of 10% was used (taskforce agreement, Table 3). To correct for potential overestimation of benefits, we ran the model for a second, more conservative adoption scenario for which the adoption ceiling estimated by the resource persons was reduced by 50% while all other parameters were held constant. This procedure was agreed by the taskforce and will be followed by all crop teams (see Table 3). The scenario with the original adoption ceiling estimates is referred to as \"higher adoption\" and the more conservative (50% adoption) scenario as \"lower adoption.\"The results of the economic surplus modeling and cost-benefit analysis are displayed in Table 7. In a nutshell, all assessed research options yield sizeable positive IRRs (i.e., returns on the investment well above a standard 10% interest rate). IRRs are positive and way above 10%, even under the (50%) lower adoption scenario. There is, however, considerable variation in the return on investment between research options, with \"BXW management: cultural practices\" yielding an estimated 76% and the \"Breeding of resistant EAHB (NEW)\" an estimated 23%. Note: Lower adoption scenario: analysis with 50% lower adoption ceiling. NPV calculated using a real interest rate of 10%. * Benefits from reduced yield variability and improved status of (on-farm) natural resources (e.g., soil fertility) have not been included in this assessment, which thus likely shows an underestimation or lower boundary of the effect.Estimated NPVs are positive throughout, confirming profitable investments. Since R&D costs (i.e., the level of investment) vary substantially across research options ($2.8 million-$35.4 million, Table 6), the two indicators IRR and NPV produce somewhat different rankings of the research options in terms of their profitability (see Table 7).Table 7 also displays the estimated area on which the new technology will be adopted under both the lower and higher adoption scenarios. As per definition of the scenarios, the adoption ceiling reached under the lower adoption scenario is half of the higher adoption scenario area. The estimated adoption area is an additional indicator to be considered when making funding decisions as it translates into the likely number of beneficiaries of the new technology.To explore this aspect more, Table 8 shows the estimated number of households and persons who will benefit from each of the research options. These figures are determined by the adoption ceiling in each of the countries, the number of countries included, and the production area within those countries. Similar to the NPV results, this information should be interpreted with respect to the different magnitude of the investments required/assumed across research options.The last two columns in Table 8 show the results of the calculation of the estimated poverty reduction effects of the different research options. We followed the methodology applied by Arega et al. ( 2009), which is described in the methods section (2.3). The results of the poverty reduction model show a different \"ranking\" of research options. The expected number of poor persons lifted out of poverty is partly determined by the magnitude of the NPV, which is an input used for the calculation. But the model adjusts for the specific region where benefits will occur by including national poverty indicators and region-specific elasticities. As a consequence, research options that have a high share of adoption predicted within SSA (e.g., breeding for resistant EAHB) rank higher using this performance indicator and those with larger share of adoption in LAC (e.g., breeding for resistant plantain varieties) rank lower.Table 9 displays information about the regional distribution of the adoption area for the different research options. We note that these numbers are determined by the choice of countries to be included and, although resource persons have compiled the lists of countries to be included based on the severity/presence of the constraint or the suitability of the new technology, there may be scope to broaden the target region(s) and/or adapt the innovations in question to other areas. Also, the regional distribution of benefits is not only driven by the adoption area, but also by other parameters used in the model, such as productivity and cost effects, crop prices, and likely success rate. Ex ante impact assessments in general are often criticized on two fronts: i) assumptions are usually overly optimistic and thus in most cases subsequent ex post assessments find much lower actual returns on investments; and ii) that the considerable uncertainty in key parameters make the reliability of results questionable. One common way to address these two issues is to include a sensitivity analysis which considers variation in uncertain key variables thus testing the robustness of the results. Alston et al. (1995) caution, that parameters used in the assessment may be mutually dependent (e.g. adoption rate probably depends on the expected yield/cost effect) and thus building scenarios requires careful consideration. We have only skimmed the surface of conducting sensitivity analysis, but want to include some of the results to give the reader a sense of how variation in some of the key parameters will affect the results.For the sensitivity analysis we have focused on those parameters which we have elicited from the resource persons (i.e. experts) rather than model inherent parameters (such as elasticities or discount rates) or those parameters populated based on (inter)national statistics (e.g. banana production area, yield or farm-gate prices). In order to keep this section (and the number of scenarios) manageable, we focused on the most crucial parameters which at the same time seem most prone to overly optimistic assumptions.The key parameter driving the assessment is the area on which the new technology is adopted. In section 6.1, we have presented results for two different adoption ceilings (lower and higher adoption). To further test robustness of the results, we included a third scenario (Table 10), in which the adoption ceiling is only 25% of the original estimate provided by resource persons for each research option and country. Note: NPV calculated using a real interest rate of 10%. * Benefits from reduced yield variability and improved status of (on-farm) natural resources (e.g., soil fertility) have not been included in this assessment, which thus likely shows an underestimation or lower boundary of the effect.The estimated impact for all research options under the three different adoption ceiling scenarios are presented in Table 10 for easy comparison. Even under the extremely conservative scenario where adoption is reduced to only 25% of the expert estimate, all assessed research options reach positive NPVs and the IRRs are well above the 10% benchmark level. Since a reduced adoption ceiling affects all research options in the same way, the ranking of the research options is not changed compared to the results reported in section 6.1 and 6.2.For the remaining sensitivity analysis scenarios, we selected the 50% lower adoption scenario as the starting point that seemed most likely to us and then modified two additional key parameters: i) the time when adoption starts and ii) the magnitude of the farm-level benefit realized when adopting the technology.In our own experience, everything always takes more time than initially anticipated (including completing this report), thus we considered a delayed start of. Delays in starting adoption are common due to several factors: delays in start of the research that produces the outputs, in the total duration of the research project, and in subsequent out-scaling and dissemination efforts in making available the research output to farmers due to, for example, regulatory and administrative approvals in host countries. For scenario I we assumed that adoption would start 2 years later than originally planned, while keeping the adoption ceiling and pace at the same level. While this reduces NPVs and IRRs for all research options (and considerably so for some), all research options would still be ranked as economically viable investments (Table 11). The reason why some research option assessments are more affected than others under this delayed adoption scenario lies in the specific nature of associated cost and benefit streams. For the two new breeding options (EAHB and plantain), the number of beneficiaries is reduced under this scenario as the adoption ceiling is no longer reached within the 25-year time period considered for the assessment.As next step in the sensitivity analysis we assume a lower yield increase and/or smaller reduction in postharvest losses (which together account for the total output increase) for example because the average effect is smaller under actual farm conditions than anticipated based on experiment or trial outcomes. We re-ran the assessment with a 25% and 50% reduced effect (i.e. 25% or 50% lower total output increase) for scenario II and scenario III, respectively. While all research options are still performing well according to economic indicators under the 25% reduced effect scenario (see scenario II column in Table 11), we found negative NPVs for two research options under scenario III. The research options which perform poorly under this scenario are those in which technology adoption leads to increased production costs (e.g. due to higher seed costs or increased input levels of other production factors). In the case of GM resistant varieties for BXW management for example, the original expert estimates are a 50% yield increase and a 40% increase in production costs (see Annex 5). Similar increases in production costs have been assumed for the resistant EAHB and resistant plantain (Annex 8 and 9) as well as the cropping system intensification (Annex 7) research options If the yield effect is substantially lower than anticipated (as modeled under scenario III), the increased production costs outweigh the value of the yield benefit. Notes: NPV calculated using a real interest rate of 10%. All scenarios based on 50% lower adoption estimate.1 Adoption delay modeled by pushing year of first adoption back by 2 years, adoption ceiling and pace remain unchanged.2 Reduced effect scenarios assume a 25% or 50% reduction in the yield (and postharvest) effect. Production costs remain as in the original assessment. * Benefits from reduced yield variability and improved status of (on-farm) natural resources (e.g., soil fertility) have not been included in this assessment, which thus likely shows an underestimation or lower boundary of the effect.Finally, scenario IV captures a delay in adoption (scenario I) combined with a reduced total output effect (scenario III). Even under this rather extreme scenario (which assumes a 50% reduction in adoption area, a two year delay in adoption start, and a 50% reduced effect all at the same time) four of the assessed research options still perform well judged on positive NPVs and IRRs above the 10% threshold.The scenarios I -IV presented above show that the results of the assessment seem robust even under rather extreme conditions, and findings presented in Table 10 and 11 indicate that the assessed research options will even perform well under less favorable conditions. Still, there is definitely scope for more indepth sensitivity analysis considering variability in other parameter estimates and preferably building scenarios on stakeholder feedback on the original assumptions and estimates (see section 7.2). Such areas where stakeholder feedback might be incorporated included the price of banana, especially for different cultivars, the cost of planting material and the cost of extension.Conducting this priority assessment not only produced estimated benefits and other performance indicators useful to help guide research investment decisions, it was a great learning opportunity. Developing and implementing the methodology for this priority assessment as a team for the five major RTB crops resulted in a very rich set of information and a community of practice of economists and crop scientists familiar with the approach in participating CGIAR Centers and among national partner institutions.Based on this experience and the results of this exercise, there are a number of lessons learned that will be useful for subsequent similar priority assessment studies. In the second part of this section, we suggest and discuss a number of follow-up activities for the current study that would help to close the loop described at the outset in the six-step methodology.The priority assessment exercise at hand went through large efforts to elicit stakeholder feedback on the most pressing constraints and most promising opportunities to be addressed by future RTB research. An impressive number of 523 banana experts with different disciplinary backgrounds, occupations (extension officers, researchers, private sector, and government employees), and with fairly even shares from SSA, Asia/Pacific, and LAC contributed through an online survey conducted in three languages. Survey responses were analyzed for each (sub-) region and cultivar group and yielded the most important constraints in producing and marketing bananas as well as a ranking of different research areas.The next step of reformulating constraints and research areas ranked in the survey into the research options to be assessed ex ante in the priority assessment was not in all cases straightforward. The process of identifying research options with a group of experts in a workshop setting was productive in terms of selecting key research areas. However, the process was lengthy and not always easy; including a larger group of stakeholders through e-Forum proved challenging. Moreover, the nature of the priority assessment evolved from the initial task of producing numbers to guide investment decisions (i.e., comparing alternative research endeavors) more toward supporting the RTB research portfolio as manifested in the RTB flagships. In retrospect, this made a good match of research options with existing RTB flagships more desirable.For the assessment, we include research options with a wide range of R&D costs (with magnitude of investment ranging from $2.8 million to $35.4 million) limiting the use of the NPV, adoption area, and number of beneficiaries, as well as poverty effect as success indicators. Alternatively, the research question could have been phrased as \"in which area of research would a given investment of US$ x million yield the largest benefits?\" That is, use the same level of R&D costs for all research options.Another challenge faced in the priority assessment is the inclusion of research options at very different points in the \"research life cycle\" (i.e., some are almost completed research endeavors-release of existing hybrids for example) that only need some fine-tuning and/or local adaptation. Some are ongoing activities with part of the research agenda completed (e.g., development of GM varieties resistant to BXW), still others are completely new or future research programs (e.g., breeding of new varieties).This poses several methodological challenges: All past research costs have been treated as sunk costs (i.e., are disregarded in the assessment).  New/future research options by definition have longer research lags, so it will take longer until adoption starts. This penalizes those options as benefits are discounted based on the year when they materialize and are thus smaller the further in the future they occur. There will inevitably be differences in the level of certainty of parameters such as yield or cost effects as well as the probability of research success between research options that are further advanced (e.g., in trials already) compared to future research with totally unknown outcome. This will further limit the scope to compare assessment results of different options.It is important to consider the status of the respective research options (see Table 6 and description of research options) when comparing and discussing results of the ex-ante assessment. Direct comparisons of the performance indicators of research options at different stages will lead to misleading conclusions with regard to the profitability of research options. When revisiting the data sources used in the priority assessment, there are a number of challenges and concerns regarding the quality and suitability of the information used (see Table 10). For some of the parameters, data quality could be improved by investing more time and/or resources (e.g., information on production area, crop yields, production costs, and prices). For others there is inherent uncertainty that will remain (e.g., adoption ceiling and pace, future spread of constraints) but could potentially be reduced by modifying the parameter elicitation process (e.g., consulting more and/or local stakeholders).A key problem inherent to the ex-ante assessment of technologies is that the most knowledgeable experts are those who are personally involved in the development of the technologies. Past studies have shown that researchers tend to be overoptimistic with regard to the likely research success, but especially when estimating future adoption rates and pace as well as the impact of their own work. This issue could be addressed by conducting a more systematic sensitivity analysis as part of the assessment. At this stage we have included a modified (much more conservative) adoption ceiling assumption through the \"lower adoption\" scenario in the assessment.Another methodological simplification chosen for the current assessment is the assumption that one single market exists for all \"bananas,\" disregarding differences in price and elasticities for different types of banana (e.g., dessert vs. cooking) and assuming that all production will be traded fresh within the country and not processed or exported. Ideally, the model would of course be more disaggregated to better match reality in each of the countries included. Along the same lines, there is definitely scope to refine the results by including the spatial dimensions of production area (ideally distinguishing different cultivar groups, agro-ecological zones, and production systems), current and future spread and severity of constraints, yields, production costs, and crop prices. When the six-step methodology for this ex-ante assessment was developed, the plan was to use digital maps created with GIS tools for targeting (as one example). It turned out that the development and population of both RTB maps and the banana mapper took much longer than originally planned and this spatial component never materialized.Finally, while stressed in the original methodology description, the inclusion of stakeholder feedback loops proved more challenging than anticipated. The (online) expert surveys were very successful in reaching a large number of stakeholders from different countries, disciplinary backgrounds, ages, and gender. However, there is still some concern that the sample includes mainly researchers and much fewer (if any) producers, extension staff, and private sector players. Also, though the banana team made a large effort to include stakeholders in the selection and parameterization of research options through a webpage, diverse communication channels, and the e-Forum, the actual participation and degree of feedback received and included in the assessment were minimal. We suggest stakeholder consultation as one important follow-up activity to close the loop of this first assessment circle.Given the complexity and scope of the exercise, there are a number of follow-up activities that could not be completed within the timeframe and resources available but would complete or enrich the current exercise and/or help refine its results.The assessment at this stage only includes a brief sensitivity analysis, capturing the effects of a 50% reduced adoption ceiling estimate on the total adoption area, IRR, NPV, number of beneficiaries reached, and poverty effect. We also ran additional scenarios to further reduce the adoption ceiling (75% reduction), delay the start of adoption by 2 years and reduce the effect on yield increases and/or postharvest losses. Ideally, an extended sensitivity analysis would be conducted for additional key parameters to demonstrate the effect of \"variability\" in the estimates and help channel funds and efforts into the direction that would most improve the quality of the results of subsequent assessments.In the previous section, we highlighted challenges related to the data that have been used for the priority assessment. In Table 10 we list some alternative sources for the information required in the ex-ante analysis. For some of the parameters, such as the production area, average yields, and production costs, as well as the spread of and damage from different major constraints (preferably all disaggregated by cultivar group and production system), this would require improved routine data collection and management and thus constitutes a longer term effort to, say, compile and maintain data in a georeferenced database such as the banana mapper. The information to be included could come from a combination of data sources, such as data routinely collected by national statistic services; information provided by regional-or local-level actors, projects, or research stations; and independent data collection efforts aimed at establishing a baseline for future impact assessment and targeting. For other parameters such as the estimated adoption ceiling, yield and cost effects of new technologies, and some of the model assumptions such as elasticities, a shorter term concentrated effort would make parameter estimates used in the assessment more accurate. The current set of parameter values is based on the expert opinion of a small number of knowledgeable resource persons. Widening the pool of experts and have them review all parameters (or at least all for a specific country or region) across all research options (e.g., in a workshop setting) would likely improve the quality and consistency of the estimates. In addition, a more thorough literature review and cross-checking of reported indicators (e.g., adoption levels realized for similar technologies in the same region in the past, yield efforts in farmers' fields, farm-gate prices, yield loss from a certain pest or disease) could support the expert estimates used.At this stage only 6 of the selected 12 research options have been assessed. Given the high importance and devastating effect of Fusarium as a constraint to banana production, a new push to complete the calculations for four research options addressing FW has been organized. These include: 1) research linked to avoided losses -more effective quarantine, surveillance and containment, 2) integrated crop and disease management, 3) conventional breeding for FW resistance, and 4) GMO bananas for FW resistance.The FW assessment could serve as a preamble to a wider \"surveillance and quarantine of banana pests and diseases\" research option that assesses the impact of research to prevent the introduction of major pests and diseases to continents or regions where they are currently not present. The other two very appealing candidates to be included are research on \"(improved) postharvest management and processing\" as well as \"use of existing diversity.\" Assessing these additional research options would require some more time and resources, as well as the availability of knowledgeable experts to help with the parameterization at the country level.When embarking on this priority assessment for banana research options, it was clear that treating \"banana\" as one homogeneous crop would not yield very useful results. Thus efforts were made from the beginning to elicit major constraints and production area as well as average yields and yield losses for each of the identified six main cultivar groups. This information was used to determine the target area for each research option. However, when running the economic surplus modeling, all banana production was used as the basis for the assumptions due to lack of more detailed information of separate products and markets. Also, expert estimates were used to exclude large-scale commercial plantations from the target area when applicable. But export-oriented production was not excluded from the model runs. In refining the assessment it would be preferable to exclude all (large-scale) export orientated production, both in terms of area and production, from the assessment. Further, if it was possible to disaggregate production by cultivar group, agro-ecological zone, and production system, the definition of the target domain of specific technologies would be much more accurate. By including spatial considerations such as the area affected by a constraint, the adoption and yield effect estimates could likely be refined substantially and the results could be used to target interventions. Finally, disaggregating markets for different types of bananas (e.g., those used for cooking, beer, and dessert) among which there is little or no substitution effect, and using respective prices and elasticity estimates, would be an additional step toward a more realistic quantification of research option impacts.The six-step methodology framework developed for the priority assessment placed a strong focus on the participation of and feedback from stakeholders. We feel that, despite our best efforts, this has only been partially achieved and thus see the need for some follow-up in this area. There are several distinct areas for capacity building and strengthening of banana networks: Given the success of the large-scale online survey and the availability of a global database of banana experts obtained through the regional network country representatives, there is scope to develop and test online tools to include feedback from a broader group of stakeholders to estimate and/or refine parameter estimates 11 . The generated pool of banana researchers and practitioners could be used for other studies as well as for testing new models of communication and participation.11 Despite the success of the online survey, there is a concern whether relying on only electronic communication strategies is inclusive enough to ensure participation of a broad range of stakeholders. We will thus explore how stakeholder groups with no or limited access to computers and the internet can be encouraged to participate and be kept informed and consulted to ensure they are not excluded from participation and thus not heard. This is of particular interest if exclusion would lead to a systematic bias in the results. One possible approach is to additionally use printed media and face-to-face meetings. Also, a wide group of stakeholders has been exposed to and to a large share has contributed to the priority assessment exercise (at a minimum by filling the survey). They could be contacted for the elicitation of feedback on the process and, in particular, how they have been involved in the assessment. Many of the stakeholders have never been involved in a full exercise as this, although many have participated in priority setting based on expert opinion. This is an opportunity to incorporate not only the results, but also a user-friendly explanation of the results, the limitations, and the actions in order to improve the quality and applicability of the results. Combined with a rating of how interesting they found this study and whether and what they have learned as well as their suggestions on how to improve the process for subsequent exercises, such feedback would be a valuable addition to the results of the priority assessment and useful to improve subsequent similar studies. It might also be interesting to make the developed tools together with an \"instructions manual\" and a write-up of lessons learned available to national or regional RTB partners and/or help them to conduct similar priority assessments for their own research strategy. This would help to strengthen expertise in assessing and setting priorities that could be built upon in subsequent rounds of assessment for the RTB. It may also contribute to an increased awareness of where data are missing and needs and possibly even national efforts to collect additional information and/or contribute to global databases such as the banana mapper. Finally, some of the more advanced research options (e.g., \"BXW management through improved cultural practices\") or other past banana research efforts will be jointly selected by IITA, CIRAD, and Bioversity as candidates for ex-post impact assessment studies to close the loop.Though listed as the final follow-up activity, the sharing of the developed methodology, lessons learned, and the results of this priority assessment exercise are a \"must-have\" next step in determining the success of the entire endeavor. Since there are different types of information and a variety of different groups of recipients, this will require a diverse set of communication channels and materials. The most immediate next step will be the publication of the individual crop reports and a synthesis final report of the priority assessment study on the RTB webpage and among RTB members and partners. These will be announced through newsletters, blogs, twitter, and other e-communication. A short summary with the results and next steps could be placed on RTB and individual Center (incl. ProMusa) webpages. The priorityassessment taskforce has started to develop a publication plan to share methodology and results with the scientific community and to advance the tools and methods available for future similar priority assessments. Finally-and this links back to the previous point-a concentrated effort will be made to share the process and findings with the global banana community (e.g., by presenting the final results at the meetings of the four regional banana networks which have already reviewed and discussed methods and partial results and posting a summary and links to the full reports on the regional network webpages).To reach a broad group of stakeholders, it will be essential to translate key communications and documents to French and Spanish.In a closed economy, economic surplus measures can be derived using the following formulas (Alston et al. 1995):(1) change in economic surplus (∆ES) = P0Q0Kt(1+0.5Ztη);(2) consumer surplus (∆CS) = P0Q0Zt(1+0.5Ztη); and(3) producer surplus (∆PS) = (Kt−Zt)P0Q0(1+0.5Zη),where Kt is the supply shift representing the product of cost reduction per ton of output as a proportion of product price (K) and technology adoption at time t (At); P0 represents pre-adoption price; Q0 is pre-adoption level of production; η is the price elasticity of demand; and Zt is the relative reduction in price at time t, which is calculated as Zt = Ktε/(ε+η), where ε is the price elasticity of supply.The research-induced supply shift parameter, K, is the single most important parameter influencing total economic surplus results from unit-cost reductions and is derived aswhere ΔY/Y is the average proportional yield increase per hectare; ε is the elasticity of supply that is used to convert the gross production effect of research-induced yield changes to a gross unit production cost effect; ΔC/C is the average proportional change in the variable costs per hectare required to achieve the yield increase; and At is the rate of adoption of the improved technology at time t-the proportion of total cropped area under the improved varieties and practices. In the RTB priority assessment, annual supply shifts were then projected based on projected adoption profile for improved technologies (At) for the period 2014-2039 (25 years). Adoption (At) is assumed to follow a logistic diffusion curve.For each country i (i=1, …, N), the changes in economic surplus (∆ES) and the research and extension costs (Ct) are discounted at a real discount rate, r, of 10% per annum to derive the net present values (NPV) as follows:    200 511,200 511,200 511,200 511,200 511,200 477,600 477,600 465,600 TOTAL 3,919,200 3,919,200 3,919,200 3,919,200 3,919,200 3,919,200 3,661,600 3,661,600 3,569,600 ","tokenCount":"15799"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e975f4b1ac1133b6c06215146f359518","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/4c1bd6b9-5f1b-4578-b4b0-8a3223ca913c/content","id":"-182600167"},"keywords":["Barley yellow dwarf virus","Plant diseases","Disease resistance","Pathogens","Feed cereals","Viruses","Transgenic plants","Hybridization","Genomes","Genetic resistance","Yields AGRIS Category Codes: H20 Plant Diseases F30 Plant Genetics and Breeding Dewey Decimal Classification: 632.3 PAV Isolate Modify Its Biological Properties F. Chain, G. Riault, O. Valles, G. Mauvais, S. Tanguy, C. Kervarrec, C.-A. Dedryver, M. Trottet, and E. Jacquot 22 A Single Copy of Virus-Derived, Transgene-Encoding Hairpin RNA Confers BYDV Immunity"],"sieverID":"f9c693a1-3023-4a8a-8619-01f942f3f0d6","pagecount":"147","content":"CIMMYT® (www.cimmyt.org) is an internationally funded, nonprofit, scientific research and training organization. Headquartered in Mexico, CIMMYT works with agricultural research institutions worldwide to improve the productivity, profitability, and sustainability of maize and wheat systems for poor farmers in developing countries. It is one of 16 food and environmental organizations known as the Future Harvest Centers. Located around the world, the Future Harvest Centers conduct research in partnership with farmers, scientists, and policymakers to help alleviate poverty and increase food security while protecting natural resources. The centers are supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) (www.cgiar.org), whose members include nearly 60 countries, private foundations, and regional and international organizations. Financial support for CIMMYT's research agenda also comes from many other sources, including foundations, development banks, and public and private agencies.Future Harvest® builds awareness and support for food and environmental research for a world with less poverty, a healthier human family, well-nourished children, and a better environment. It supports research, promotes partnerships, and sponsors projects that bring the results of research to rural communities, farmers, and families in Africa, Asia, and Latin America (www.futureharvest.org).In 1988, the nucleotide sequence of the entire barley yellow dwarf virus, PAV serotype (BYDV-PAV), genome was completed (Miller et al., 1988). This first sequence of a luteovirus was the starting point for years of discovery on the fascinating workings of this small, 5,677 nucleotide stretch of RNA, one-millionth the size of the genomes of its hosts, in which it causes widespread disease and yield loss. As a subject of research, BYDV has provided new insight about the inner workings of the cellular protein synthesis machinery and virus replication strategies. Here we describe some ways in which the sequence information has been put to use, including engineered resistance, the discovery of elaborate translation mechanisms, and an awar eness of the remarkable diversity of BYDV isolates.BYDV is the sole member of genus Luteovirus and the type member of the Luteoviridae family (formerly luteovirus group) (D'Arcy et al., 2000). BYDV serotypes were divided into two subgroups, which were subsequently reclassified as separate species. Currently, only BYDV-MAV (transmitted primarily by Sitobion avenae) and BYDV-PAV (transmitted efficiently by S. avenae and Rhopalosiphum padi) are barley yellow dwarf viruses. Former BYDV serotype RPV (transmitted primarily by R. padi) was given a new name, Cereal yellow dwarf virus-RPV (CYDV-RPV) and placed in genus Polerovirus along with four non-BYDV viruses in the Luteoviridae. A third genus, Enamovirus, consists only of RNA-1 of the bipartite Pea enation mosaic virus (PEMV). Its organization resembles poleroviruses, but lacks open reading frame (ORF) 4. For comprehensive reports on all aspects of the Luteoviridae, see the book The Luteoviridae (Smith et al., 1999).After publication of the BYDV sequence, the sequences of several other luteoviruses were determined in rapid succession. These revealed a taxonomic dilemma that has continued to this day. Essentially the replication machinery of the Luteoviridae has two different evolutionary histories, whereas the proteins that form the virus particles and interact with the aphid vectors clearly have a common origin. Functional and comparative genomic analyses of BYDV and related viruses indicate that, from a molecular virological point of view, BYDV belongs in the Tombusviridae family (Miller et al., 2002). The replication proteins and the RNA sequences that control replication and translation most closely resemble those of viruses in the Tombusviridae family (Figure 1). Yet the coat protein, movement and aphid transmission proteins clearly Structure, Function, and Variation of the Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus and Cereal Yellow Dwarf Virus Genomes Open reading frames are numbered and functions indicated where known. POL, RNA-dependent RNA polymerase; CP, major coat protein; RTD, readthrough domain required for aphid transmission (AT); 3'TE, 3' cap-independent translation element; fs, frameshift signal; rt, readthrough site; VPg, viral genome-linked protein. Stemloops and terminal bases are shown at 3' ends of genomes. Light gray shading, features in common with at least one genus of the Tombusviridae and not with genus Polerovirus. Dark gray shading, shared among Polerovirus and Enamovirus genera and not genus Luteovirus. Black boxes, ORFs common to all Luteoviridae and absent in other families. White boxes, ORFs unique to the genus.resemble those of the other Luteoviridae, including genus Polerovirus. Like the Tombusviridae, BYDV RNA lacks a 5' cap or any other modification (Allen et al., 1999), and terminates at the 3' end with the sequence CCC, preceded by a conserved stem-loop (Koev et al., 2002). In contrast, the poleroviruses, including CYDV-RPV have a protein (VPg) linked to the 5' end and terminate in GU. In poleroviruses ORF 0 codes for a suppressor of the post-transcriptional gene silencing defense response (Pfeffer et al., 2002). This ORF is absent in BYDV. ORF 1 of poleroviruses encodes a proteinase and the VPg which also are lacking in BYDV. All of the luteovirus-like genes of BYDV can be deleted and the remaining RNA can still replicate in protoplasts (discussed below). Thus, the core of the virus, i.e. the gene expression and replication framework is more closely related to the Tombusviridae family than to other members of the Luteoviridae (Miller et al., 2002).Yet with regard to symptomatology and practical plant pathology, BYDV is clearly a member of the Luteoviridae, defined as those viruses that: 1) are transmitted only by aphids in a persistent manner and not mechanically; 2) circulate but do not replicate in the aphid; 3) are confined to the phloem in the plant; and 4) have 25 nm icosahedral particles consisting of a major ~22 kDa coat protein and a minor component. None of these properties apply to the Tombusviridae.BYDV has a positive sense, 5.7 kb genomic RNA that encodes six open reading frames (ORFs) and produces three subgenomic RNAs (Kelly et al., 1994) that serve as mRNAs for downstream genes (Figures 1 and 2). Only ORFs 1 and 2 are translated from genomic RNA. ORF 2 is translated only as a fusion with ORF 1 via -1 ribosomal frameshifting (Di et al., 1993). ORF 2 encodes the active site of the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp); the role of the ORF 1 product alone is unknown. These are the only two ORFs that are essential for RNA replication in plant cells (protoplasts) (Mohan et al., 1995). ORF 3 codes for the major coat protein (CP). ORF 4, which is imbedded in the sequence that codes for ORF 3, but in a different reading frame, codes for a protein required for systemic infection of plants (Chay et al., 1996a). ORF 5 codes for an extension to the CP and is required for aphid transmission (Chay et al., 1996a).ORFs 3, 4, and 5 all are translated only from subgenomic RNA1 (sgRNA1). ORF 5 is translated as a fusion with CP via in-frame readthrough of the CP stop codon (Brown et al., 1996). ORF 4 is translated via leaky ribosomal scanning (Dinesh-Kumar et al., 1993). ORF 6 is translatable only from sgRNA2 in vitro (Wang et al., 1999), via the TE in its 5' UTR. Its role, if any, is unknown. sgRNA3, consists of the 3'-terminal 300 nucleotides of the BYDV genome. It is scarce in protoplast infections after 48 h, but accumulates to very high levels in plants, weeks after inoculation (Kelly et al., 1994;Koev et al., 1998). sgRNA3 has no ORFs and no known function.As indicated above, BYDV RNA undergoes a host of unusual events during translation (protein synthesis) (Figure 2). It lacks the 5' cap and poly(A) tail that are necessary for translation of normal host mRNAs. Normally eukaryotic mRNAs must circularize via proteins that bind the 5' cap, the poly(A) tail, and each other, prior to binding of the ribosome (Sachs et al., 1997). Instead, BYDV RNA harbors a sequence in the 3' untranslated region (UTR) called the 3' TE that brings about efficient translation initiation at the first AUG at the 5' end of the genome and subgenomic RNA1 (Wang et al., 1997). The 3' TE base pairs with a sequence in the 5' UTR to circularize the mRNA and facilitate translation initiation (Guo et al., 2001). This is the first known case of a functional mRNA formed by base pairing between the UTRs rather than by proteinmediated circularization. This provides an example of how BYDV research has revealed fundamental new insight on the workings of the eukaryotic translation machinery. A similar structure and interaction exists in genus Necrovirus of the Tombusviridae, but not in genus Polerovirus of the Luteoviridae. The translation signals of poleroviruses, which also lack a cap and a poly(A) tail, have not been well-characterized, but they bear no resemblance to those of BYDV.The BYDV polymerase is expressed via -1 ribosomal frameshifting, i.e. in the region of overlap between ORF 1 and ORF 2, a small number of ribosomes translating ORF 1 shift back one nucleotide relative to the mRNA and resume translation in the new ORF (ORF 2). This event, which is common among retroviruses such as HIV (Dinman et al., 2002) and various other RNA viruses, is controlled by the mRNA sequence in and around the frameshift site. The exact mechanism of frameshifting is unknown. Because host genes are not known to use frameshifting, disruption of frameshifting is a promising target for antiviral research (Dinman et al., 2002). BYDV provides new insight into the mechanisms of ribosomal reading frame maintenance because its RNA has a novel structure for bringing about the frameshift (Figure 2). Unlike any other known RNA, base pairing between a region four kilobases downstream in the 3' UTR, and the frameshift site is necessary for frameshifting (Barry and Miller, 2002). In contrast, for the poleroviruses, a small pseudoknotted RNA structure is sufficient to bring about frameshifting (Kim et al., 1999). Viruses in genus Dianthovirus (Tombusviridae) have a frameshift structure very similar to BYDV (Kim and Lommel, 1998), although it is not known if longdistance base pairing to a downstream sequence modulates dianthoviral frameshifting. However, it emphasizes yet again how BYDV in many ways is more like the Tombusviridae than other Luteoviridae.The control of the above translational events in the 5' end of the genome by sequences in the 3' UTR, led us to propose a new model for regulating the switch from translation to replication. This is a key step in the virus life cycle because viral replicase cannot copy RNA that is being translated (Gamarnik and Andino, 1998). We proposed a \"molecular traffic signal\" model as follows. (See Barry and Miller, 2002, for details.) When BYDV RNA is released from the virion upon cell entry, long-distance base-pairing allows cap-independent translation initiation at the 5'-proximal AUG, and ribosomal frameshifting (Figure 2). This allows translation of the replicase which accumulates and then initiates negative strand synthesis at the 3' end of the BYDV genome (Koev et al., 2002). As it proceeds upstream on the template, the replicase would disrupt the short base-paired regions in the 3' UTR necessary for frameshifting and for cap-independent translation. This would clear the upstream portion of the RNA (ORFs 1 and 2) of ribosomes and allow the replicase to proceed all the way to the 5' end, unimpeded by ribosomes. After several rounds of replication, enough (+) strand would accumulate to outnumber the replicase molecules and thus be capable of forming the long-distance base pairing necessary for translation and the cycle would start over. Similar control could be envisioned for viruses that lack base-pairing but use protein-mediated ways of interacting with the 5' UTR. Thus, as a model for RNA virus replication, BYDV has contributed to understanding of regulation of replication that could apply to many viruses.The most cost-effective and environmentally desirable form of disease control is genetic resistance. However, natural resistance genes to BYDV are few (Burnett et al., 1995;Jin et al., 1998). Yet, because of the threat of BYDV, breeders are limited to lines that have significant natural BYDV resistance or tolerance. To allow breeders to expand beyond these limitations, we, with collaborator David Somers at the University of Minnesota, developed transgenic oats tolerant to Notes: Genomic (gRNA) and subgenomic (sgRNA) RNAs are bold black lines. ORFs are shown above RNAs. White ORFs are translatable from the indicated RNA, black ORFs are not. Boxes on the bold lines (RNAs) control cap-independent translation [white (in vitro and in vivo), and light gray (in vivo only)], ribosomal frameshifting (dark gray), in-frame readthrough of CP stop codon (black). Secondary structures of translational control regions, 3'-terminus (replication origin), and subgenomic promoters (minus strand) are indicated; thick, gray loops base-pair to distant regions as shown by dotted lines with double arrowheads. Source : Miller et al., 2002. BYDV (Koev et al., 1998). Oats were transformed with a gene designed to express the 5' half of the BYDV genome driven by a CaMV 35S promoter. The most resistant line of transgenic oats initially showed mild symptoms but then recovered and grew to maturity. In laboratory growth conditions, yield was slightly reduced compared to uninoculated controls and virus was sometimes detectable, but the yield was infinitely greater than in the inoculated non-transgenic controls which were actually killed by virus infection long before flowering. The transgene was stable inherited in a Mendelian fashion.Field trials were less promising, mainly because the only line of oats that could be transformed (genetically engineered) at the time was not agronomically useful (Somers et al., 1992). It was derived by artificial hybridization of Avena fatua with the Park cultivar of oat (A. sativa), followed by back crosses to oat. These plants (with or without a transgene) were smaller and less robust than agronomic cultivars, in the presence or absence of virus infection. Fortunately, recent improvements in technology now permit transformation of such agronomic lines as Bell.Peter Waterhouse and colleagues greatly improved design of transgenes to engineer resistant plants with high efficiency. Barley plants transformed with inverted sequences of BYDV genes, causing the transcripts to form long, double-stranded hairpin RNAs were immune to BYDV infection (Wang et al. 2000). Presumably the double-stranded RNA induces the host's post-transcriptional gene silencing system (Waterhouse et al., 2001).To the best of our knowledge, no plants engineered for BYDV resistance have been released for use by growers. Unfortunately, due to the low value of oats as a profit-making enterprise, and perhaps due to concern about consumer acceptance of food derived from GMO crops, corporate interest in funding transgenic oat research has waned. Perceived risks imposed by transgenic BYDV-resistant oats drew attention in a Science magazine article about an unpublished poster presentation at a scientific conference (Kaiser, 2001). The experiments alleging that pollen escape from transgenic BYDV-resistant oats could lead to \"superweeds\" were confined to the greenhouse and used no transgenic plants. Yet the benefits of new resistance genes, such as reduced pesticide inputs and increased yields, are clear (Miller et al., 1997). Application of insecticides on wheat in the United Kingdom and Australia to control the aphid vectors of BYDV often results in substantial yield increases (Plumb and Johnstone, 1995) that are attributable to the absence of BYDV infection. For more details on the economic costs and worldwide occurrence of BYDV diseases, and the economic and environmental costs of controlling them, we refer the reader to other reports in these proceedings, and to the book BYDV: Forty Years of Progress (D'Arcy and Burnett, 1995).One legitimate concern with regard to the applicability (but not safety) of virus-derived transgenes for resistance to BYDV is the wide range of sequence variation among isolates. BYDV isolates that lack high homology to the transgene would not be hindered by transgene-induced post-transcriptional gene silencing (Miller et al., 1997;Wang et al., 2000;Waterhouse et al., 2001). Thus, virus-derived transgenes may confer resistance to only a subset of BYDV isolates in the field. The diversity of BYDV isolates is discussed below.Sequences of coat proteins of many isolates of BYDV have been determined, revealing much variation within serotypes. Based on these sequences, the most common serotype, PAV, has been unofficially subdivided into two subgroups, A and B, which have about 90% amino acid sequence homology in the CP gene (Mastari et al., 1998). Coat proteins of PAV isolates within subgroup A have at least 96% amino acid sequence identity to each other (Table 1). The complete genomes of few isolates have been determined. We sequenced the completed genome of a severe isolate called PAV-129 by its discoverer Stewart Gray and colleagues (Chay et al., 1996b). This isolate is quite divergent from other completely sequenced PAV isolates (Table 1). In the replicase ORFs 1 and 2, PAV-129 has only 80 and 88% sequence homology, respectively, to ORFs 1 and 2 of all other PAV isolates and MAV, which are all around 97% identical to each other. The 3' terminus also differs significantly in sequence, but retains a similar secondary structure to the other PAV isolates (Koev et al., 2002). The coat protein sequence of PAV-129, with 86% identity to subgroup A PAV isolates, falls into subgroup B (Miller et al., 2002), and PAV-129 is the first subgroup B isolate for which the complete genome has been determined.If other members of subgroup B prove to be as different from subgroup A members throughout their genomes as PAV-129, then there is more taxonomic confusion. For example, BYDV-MAV has the most divergent coat and readthrough proteins (76% and 60% homology, respectively, to all PAVs), but the remainder of its genome is more closely related to PAV subgroup A than subgroup A is to PAV-129 (Table 1).We discovered even greater intraserotype divergence among CYDV-RPV isolates. We sequenced a severe isolate from wheat, which was identified serologically as an RPV serotype by researchers at CIMMYT. This isolate, RPV-Mex1, causes corkscrewing and leaf notching in wheat, symptoms that are not commonly caused by milder isolates such as the New York isolate (RPV-NY). RPV-Mex1 has proved to be so different from RPV-NY that it may be reclassified as a different virus.ORFs 0 and 1 of RPV-Mex1 and RPV-NY have only 41% and 55% identity, respectively (Table 2). In contrast, the coat protein genes (ORF 3) are 92% identical, which explains why both isolates are serologically detected as RPV. Partial sequence of a severe RPV-like isolate from California (from Bryce Falk, University of California, Davis) revealed high homology to RPV-Mex1 (data not shown), indicating that the RPV-Mex1 virus is also present in the United States.Table 2. Amino acid (shaded upper right set) and nucleotide identity (lower left set) of Polerovirus ORFs.This sequence information is important for designing resistance transgenes. A single coat protein gene construct might confer resistance to both viruses, whereas sequence from the 5' end of the genome clearly would not. This tendency in both BYDV and CYDV for greatest divergence toward the 5' end of the genome has been observed in Beet mild yellowing and Beet western yellows poleroviruses as well (Guilley et al., 1995) (Table 2). It is interesting that the most variable gene is ORF 0, which encodes the suppressor of gene silencing. This ORF is a strong candidate for symptom determination, as this class of gene determines the ability of viruses to evade host defenses (Kasschau and Carrington, 1998). Indeed, the Potato leaf roll polerovirus ORF 0 induced characteristic leaf rolling symptoms when expressed alone as a transgene (van der Wilk et al., 1997).With the growing number of sequenced or partially sequenced isolates of BYDV and CYDV around the world, we are in a better position 1) to develop rapid means of nucleic acid-based detection (e.g., PCR), 2) to understand the epidemiology of BYDV/CYDV, and 3) to develop transgenic and other means of disease control. The better understanding of BYDV molecular mechanisms that we have gained may ultimately lead to new means of controlling or mitigating the effects of the disease, and it sheds light on processes relevant to medically important viruses. However, the number of fully sequenced BYDV and CYDV isolates is far too low, given the immense variation of which we have only caught a glimpse. Although recent work on translation in particular has provided insight into viral mechanisms, the study of BYDV and CYDV lags behind other viruses in our understanding of hostvirus interactions and host resistance mechanisms. If funding sources can be made aware of these gaping holes in knowledge about this important disease agent, clearly an exciting future of discovery lies ahead in diverse areas of BYDV and CYDV biology that ultimately will benefit the farmer.Barley yellow dwarf is an important viral disease. The virus (BYDV) has a wide host range including all major cereal crops and many annual and perennial weeds, pasture and range grasses (Lister and Ranieri, 1995). BYDVs are vectored by several aphid species in a persistent circulative manner and mainly limited to the phloem tissue of an infected plant (Gray, 1996). The virus occurs as a diverse complex of at least five species that vary greatly in aphid transmissibility and severity in cereal hosts (Rochow, 1969). The species CYDV-RPV, BYDV-RMV, BYDV-MAV and BYDV-SGV are readily transmitted by Rhopalosiphum padi (L.), R. maïdis (Fitch), Sitobion avenae (Fab.), Schizaphis graminum (Rond.), respectively, while BYDV-PAV by both R. padi and S. avenae (Rochow, 1969;Power et al., 1991).The genome of BYDV, like that of all Luteoviridae consists of a single-stranded messenger-sense RNA molecule (Waterhouse et al., 1986;Miller et al., 1988).The genome of BYDV-PAV consists of 5677 nucleotides and contains six open reading frames (ORFs) (Miller et al., 1988). BYDV isolates vary in capsid protein (CP) properties, including CP molecular weight (Vincent et al., 1990), and the presence or absence of epitopes recognized by monoclonal antibodies (Chay et al., 1996).The BYDV-PAV coat protein (22 kDa) is encoded by ORF3 (Kelly et al., 1994). Contained within ORF3, but in a different reading frame, is ORF4, which encodes a 17 kDa protein. Using reverse genetics approach, Chay et al. (1996) were able to show that BYDV 17 kDa protein is required for the systemic infection of plants.In Morocco, BYDV occurs epiphytotically in cereal and graminaceous plants, but the molecular variation with respect to the location as well as to the host plants is not known for the different isolates. Barley and oat were previously found as species for which the relationships between symptoms and virus level determined by ELISA were significant (Jedlinski, 1977). New technologies such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) facilitate detection and analysis of sequence polymorphism among virus isolates. In this study, we sought to determine the extent of the capsid protein-coding sequence variability within PAV-type isolates and the evolution of virus content in plant.The BYDV-PAV isolate population was found to differ depending on geographical region and index symptom severity.Twelve Moroccan BYDV-PAV isolates were examined: MA9415, MA9501, MA9502, MA9504, MA9505, MA9508, MA9511, MA9512, MA9513, MA9514, MA9516, and MA9517 (Bencharki et al., 1999). The BYDV-PAV isolates showing varying symptom severity against eight genotypes of barley and an oat cultivar and representing different locations within the cereal growing areas of the country, were maintained and propagated in Clintland 64 oat by serial transfers with R. padi, which was the most efficient vector at intervals of 5-6 weeks.Three genotypes of barley: Atlas 57, Atlas 68 (California, sister lines), and line 80-81-BQCB-10 were used to study the evolution of the virus content of isolate MA9501 (moderate) and MA9514 (severe). These genotypes were selected from previous germplasm screening studies in Morocco (El Yamani et al., 1994). The barley genotypes were obtained from ICARDA (International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas)/CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center) collections.The Atlas 68 variety carried the Yd 2 gene for resistance to BYDV-PAV (Schaller, 1984). Line 80-81-BQCB-10 was identified as tolerant, whereas Atlas 57 was used because of their high sensitivity to virus. Virus infection was performed using R. padi in the growth chamber maintained at 18 ± 2˚C with a photoperiod of 16 h of light. Ten viruliferous adult R. padi were placed on seven-days-old seedlings for a 5-day inoculation access period (IAP). After the IAP, all plants were sprayed with insecticide. The virus content of plant extract during six weeks after IAP, and the test was repeated three times.Total RNAs were extracted from infected fresh leaves of Clintland 64 oat essentially as described by Reutenauer et al. (1993). First strand cDNA synthesis was performed using the primer 5'-TAGGATCC-3466 GTCTACCTATTTGG 3453 . The cDNA region corresponding to the coat protein sequence was then amplified by the Taq DNA polymerase using the former primer and the oligonucleotide 5'-GCACCATGG-2862 ATTCAGTAGGTCGTAGAGG 2880 .The PCR product was digested by NcoI and BamHI, and then cloned into a modified pBluescript II SK (-) (Stratagene). For each isolate, four clones were submitted to automated sequence analysis using Amplitaq FS polymerase with rhodamine dye terminators. The sequencing reactions were analyzed using an Applied Biosystems 373 sequencer.Figure 1 present dendrograms derived from the multiple alignment of the CP and 17 kDa amino acid sequences of the twelve PAV-type isolates sequenced in this study, and the sequences of an additional five PAV isolates for which the sequences are available from Genbank. The analysis shows that the CP's of all the isolates were identical in size: 603 nucleotides and 200 amino acid residues (data not shown). Sequence homology grouping also yielded two clusters CPI and CPII which correlated with the clusters formed by  (Bencharki et al., 1999). Cluster CPI grouped the isolates MA9512, MA9504, MA9502, and MA9501, and cluster CPII the MA9508, MA9511, MA9415, MA9517, and MA9514 isolates. The comparisons of the CP's between the two clusters revealed 87.4% to 90.5% nucleotide sequence identity and 82.6% to 87.6% amino acid sequence identity. Comparison between the CP of the Moroccan isolates of cluster I to cluster II showed 28 and 83 amino acid and nucleotide changes respectively (data not shown). The CP's of cluster I were closely related to the Australian (Vic-PAV), the North American (NY-PAV, P-PAV), and Japanese (JPN-PAV) PAV-type isolates, while the CP's of cluster II were closely related to the North American PAV-129 isolate. Results presented here for the Moroccan isolates confirm the observations made by Chay et al. (1996) and Mastari et al. (1998) on the absence of geographical restriction of the New York and French BYDV-PAV isolates.Dendrogram derived from the multiple alignment of the 17 kDa protein of the Moroccan BYDV-PAV (Figure 1) showed dif ferent clustering than the one based on symptom phenotypes and deduced amino acid sequences of CP's. The main cluster, which comprises isolates MA9516, MA 9517, MA9415, MA9508, MA9511, MA9505 and MA9514 corresponds to the former cluster II, and is now called subset 3. The former cluster I, however, is now split into two distantly related subsets, named subsets 1 and 2, the former containing isolates MA9501 and MA9502 and the latter MA9504, MA9513 and MA9512.The evolution of the virus content of isolate CPI MA9501 (moderate) and CPII MA9514 (severe) was investigated in barley (Figure 2). The resistant genotypes Atlas 68 and 80-81-BQCB-10 significantly reduced virus accumulation in aerial part of the plant. However, the level of resistance varied according to the genotype and isolate of the BYDV-PAV. When comparing resistant and sensitive genotypes, we noted that the titer of the virus in the resistant plant leaves is lower than sensitive genotype. Moreover, the isolate MA9501 is less concentrated than MA9514. The isolates of the BYDV-PAV reached their maximal titer in the plants two weeks after inoculation. Four weeks after inoculation, reduction of the virus content in the resistant genotypes compared to the sensitive ones for the MA9501 was 48% and 46%, in 80-81-BQCB-10 and Atlas 68, respectively. For the isolate MA9514,  Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) is known to possess many serologically different strains (Mayo and Ziegler-Graff, 1996;Miller and Rasochova, 1997). More recently, based on differences in genome structure as well as variations in nucleic acid and protein sequences, some of the BYDV strains are considered to be distinct, but related, viruses of the Luteoviridae (Barker and Smith, 1999). BYDV-MAV and BYDV-PAV are members of the genus Luteovirus, whereas CYDV-RPV (formerly BYDV-RPV) belongs to the genus Polerovirus. Owing to the lack of sufficient information, the taxonomic status of several BYDV strains (such as BYDV-GPV, BYDV-RMV and BYDV-SGV) in the Luteoviridae remains unassigned (Barker and Smith, 1999).In China, researchers have identified several BYDV species that are prevalent in small grain crops, two of which, BYDV-GAV and BYDV-GPV, possess dual vector specificity (Wang et al., 1998;Wang et al., 2001). While BYDV-GAV is transmitted by both Schizaphis graminum and Sitobion avenae, BYDV-GPV is transmitted by both Schizaphis graminum and Rhopalosiphum padi (Wang et al., 1998;Wang et al., 2001). Comparisons of nucleotide sequences of CP, MP, and/ or RTP genes show that BYDV-GAV is similar to BYDV-MAV (Wang et al., 2001). In contrast, BYDV-GPV is more closely related to BYDV-RPV (Wang et al., 1998). In general, our understanding of BYDV-GAV and BYDV-GPV is not as advanced as that for BYDV-PAV or BYDV-MAV.To provide more information on BYDV-GAV and BYDV-GPV, we initiated studies on the molecular and cell biological aspects of the infection caused by the two viruses. At present, the focus of our investigations is on the function of MP in the interaction between virus and host cell.The MP of luteoviruses and poleroviruses is commonly encoded by the open reading frame 4 (ORF 4) of the virus genome (Barker and Smith, 1999;Mayo and Ziegler-Graff, 1996;Miller and Rasochova, 1997). This gene is entirely nested within the coat protein (CP) gene (ORF 3). The MP of BYDV-PAV has been shown to be required for viral systemic movement (Chay et al., 1996) and to be associated with viral RNA in infected cells (Nass et al., 1998). The MP of Potato leaf roll virus (PLRV) has been found to accumulate in plasmodesmata and to bind single stranded RNA or DNA molecules in a sequence nonspecific manner in in vitro assays (Schmitz et al., 1997;Tacke et al., 1991). In Beet western yellows virus (BWYV, a polerovirus), two modes of virus movement have been proposed: one involves the function of CP, and the other requires the participation of MP (Ziegler-Graff et al., 1996).From the available data, it would appear that the function of luteovirus and polerovirus MP might be similar to that of the MPs of other better-studied RNA viruses (such as Tobacco mosaic virus, TMV) (Lartey and Citovsky, 1997;Wolf and Lucas, 1994). However, more studies are needed to reveal details of the action of We expressed the cDNAs of the genes encoding the movement proteins (MPs) of BYDV-GAV and BYDV-GPV in bacterial cells. The over-expressed MPs were purified using gel fractionation and electro-elution.In in vitro RNA binding assays, the bacterially expressed MPs of BYDV-GAV and BYDV-GPV were found to bind single stranded RNA (ssRNA) molecules in a sequence independent manner. luteovirus and polerovirus MPs. In this paper, we report the expression of the genes encoding BYDV-GAV and BYDV-GPV MPs in bacterial cells and the demonstration of RNA binding activities of the purified MPs in in vitro assays.Wheat leaf materials infected with BYDV-GAV were collected from the field, and those infected with BYDV-GPV were obtained from the Institute of Plant Protection of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. For amplifying and cloning the cDNAs of the ORF 4 genes from BYDV-GAV and BYDV-GPV, specific PCR primers (Table 1) were designed based on published BYDV sequences (Wang et al., 1998;Wang et al., 2001). Total RNA from infected leaf materials was prepared using the Trizol reagent (Life Technologies) and reverse-transcribed using the M-MLV reverse transcriptase (Life Technologies).For PCR reactions using the reverse transcription mixture, the high fidelity ExTaq polymerase (TaKaRa) was employed. The resulting DNA fragments were cloned into plasmid vector (pGEM-T, Promega) and completely sequenced (Sambrook et al., 1989). Two clones, pGAV-MP6 and pGPV-MP2, were found to harbor full-length cDNAs for the ORF 4 genes of BYDV-GAV and BYDV-GPV, respectively. To prepare the bacterial expression constructs pET-Gavmp and pET-Gpvmp, the inserts in pGAV-MP6 and pGPV-MP2 were re-amplified using either the primer combination GavmpF1 and GavmpR1 (Table 1, for ORF 4 cDNA of GAV) or the combination GpvmpF1 and GpvmpR1 (Table 1, for ORF 4 cDNA of GPV). The resulting PCR fragments were cleaved with BamHI followed by cloning into the polylinker region of the bacterial expression vector pET-30a (In Vitrogen). After induction with IPTG, the over-expressed MPs were purified by gel fractionation and electro-elution using an Electro-Eluter (Bio-Rad) (Zhang et al., 1999).For RNA binding assays, the non-radioactive Northwestern blot method described by Rodriguez and Carrasco (1994) was followed with some modifications. The ssRNA probes were prepared by in vitro transcription reactions in the presence of digoxigenin-11-UTP (Roche). The template for the transcription reactions was either cDNA clone pGAV-MP6 (for the synthesis of a sequence specific ssRNA probe, probe S) or the cDNA clone of the RNA1 of Pea early browning virus (PEBV, for the production of a sequence nonspecific ssRNA probe, probe NS) (MacFarlane et al., 1989). After MP-ssRNA probe reaction, the binding was visualized using the antidigoxigenin Fab-alkaline phosphatase conjugate (1: 3000 dilution, Roche) and the substrate solution containing BCIP and NBT (Sigma). The results of the RNA binding assays were recorded using a digital camera (Coolpix 990, Nikon).DNA sequencing showed that the inserts in pGAV-MP6 and pGPV-MP2 represented full-length cDNA copies of the ORF 4 genes of BYDV-GAV and BYDV-GPV, respectively. In bacterial expression experiments, the two cDNAs directed the synthesis of MPs of expected molecular mass after IPTG induction (Figure 1). After gel purification of the over-expressed MPs (Figure 2a), RNA binding assays were conducted using ssRNA probes S and NS. We found that the MPs of BYDV-GAV and BYDV-GPV bound ssRNA probes S and NS with equal efficiencies (Figure 2b), indicating that the RNA binding activities of the two MPs were sequence nonspecific. In a previous investigation, the MP of PLRV, which is related to various BYDV species, has been found to bind ssRNA in a sequence independent manner (Tacke et al., 1991). This suggests that RNA binding activity may be a common property of the MPs encoded by luteoviruses and poleroviruses.Although at present it is not known how important RNA binding property is to the function of BYDV MPs, molecular and cell biological studies with other RNA viruses have suggested that RNA binding activities are essential to the formation of the GavmpF 5' GAGCCGCGGCCCAAGGAGAGCAA 3' Amplification of cDNA of BYDV-GAV ORF 4 GavmpR 5' TGTAGGATCCGTTCACCGTACTCTCC 3' GpvmpF 5' TTAGCCGCGGCAATGGTCCGC 3' Amplification of cDNA of BYDV-GPV ORF 4 GpvmpR 5' ACCGGATCCTCATCTTCGCTGGGAAG 3' GavmpF1 5' TGACATATGGCCCAAGGAGAGCAAGG 3' Introducing Nde I and BamHI sites to GAV ORF 4 cDNA GavmpR1 5' TGTAGGATCCGTTCACCGTACTCTCC 3' GpvmpF1 5' GCGCATATGGTCCGCGTAGACGAC 3' Introducing Nde I and BamHI sites to GPV ORF 4 cDNA GpvmpR1 5' ACCGGATCCTCATCTTCCTGGGAAG 3' ribonucleoprotein complex between MP and viral genomic RNA, which is the entity that moves from cell to cell (Lartey and Citovsky, 1997;Wolf and Lucas, 1994). Structurally, it will also be important to investigate the motif(s) within BYDV MPs that determines RNA binding activities. In this respect, it is interesting to note that the C-terminal regions of the MPs of both BYDV-GAV and BYDV-GPV are rich in basic amino acid residues. Therefore, further studies will be directed towards understanding the potential involvement of the C-terminal regions of BYDV MPs in RNA binding activities.  Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV), a member of the Luteovirus genus, can cause significant economic losses in cereal grain yields. The luteoviruses are phloemlimited and obligatory transmitted by cereal aphids in a circulative/persistent manner. Rochow (1969) and Rochow & Muller (1971) characterized and differentiated five distinct BYDV isolates based on the efficiency of transmission by four aphid species and serological assays (Rochow, 1982). In China, BYDV is currently divided into four isolates according to Rochow's system. One isolate (GAV) is transmitted nonspecifically by the aphids Sitobion avenae and Schizaphis graminum, and has a strong serological reaction with BYDV-MAV-NY-specific antiserum, but the MAV-NY isolate is transmitted specifically by S. avenae. The nucleotide sequences of some BYDV isolates have been determined, and the genome structure has become clear (Ueng et al., 1992). There are six open reading frames (ORF) in the BYDV genome. There is also some evidence suggesting that the read-through protein (RTP) is related to the specificity of vector transmission (Wang et al., 1995). In recent years, the BYDV-GAV isolate has become a dominant isolate in China (Zhou et al., 1984); therefore, it is very important to study its characterization.The nucleotide sequences of the GAV isolate's CP and RTP genes were determined from four recombinant clones (Acc. No. AF338909). The CP and RTP genes consisted of 600 and 1374 nucleotides (nts), respectively, identical to MAV-PS1. The nucleotide sequences of the GAV isolate showed a low similarity to those of other BYDVs (52.2-76.6% for CP and 41.7-60.8% for RTP). The very high (97.2%) similarity of the CP genes of isolates GAV and MAV-PS1 suggested that the CP gene might not be the reason for the difference in transmission phenotypes between isolates GAV and MAV-PS1. Since the RTP gene showed a lower similarity between GAV and MAV-PS1 isolates (87.8%), and each gene performs its function through its protein product, a multiple sequence alignment was conducted with the deduced amino acid sequences of RTP of GAV and MAV-PS1. A similarity of 87.09% was obtained, and 59 of a total of 457 amino acids were substituted in the GAV isolate. These substitutions were located mainly in the C terminus region (amino acid positions 238-457). There were 40 deduced amino acids expressed substituted from a total of 215 amino acids in this region. Continuous substitution occurred at amino acid positions 282-294; in MAV-PS1, the amino acid sequence was EMDAGSPIDTASL, while in the GAV isolate it was GMDSRSPVEPPSP. These amino acid substitutions might be the reason for the differences in GAV and MAV-PS1 transmission phenotypes.The region immediately downstream of the ORF3 stop codon is very rich in proline residues and shows considerable homology in the readthrough domain sequences of all luteoviruses. This proline hinge may serve as a loose tether joining CP (presumably anchored in the virion capsid) and the rest of the readthrough domain. However, the C-terminal region of RTP is more diverse; some researchers have proposed that this region is involved in the specificity of vector transmission. The results presented here support this hypothesis.To detect whether BYDV showed affinity to protein components from its aphid vectors, we separated whole-body extracts of the aphids by SDSpolyacrylamide gel electrophorese (SDS-PAGE), and transferred the proteins to nitrocellulose. The proteins were reacted with purified GAV virus and probed with IgG labeled with alkaline phosphatase. In this way, two proteins of 31Kda (p31) and 50 Kda (p50) displayed high virus-binding capacities, and were identified in the whole-body extracts of S. graminum (Sg) and S. avenae (Sa). GAV-binding proteins were not found in the whole-body extracts of R. padi, which do not transmit the GAV isolate. We also did not find any affinity between these proteins and Beet black scorch virus (BBSV) transmitted by a soil fungus. Furthermore, upon dissecting the accessory salivary glands (ASG) and gut of Sg, and analyzing the protein contents, p31 and p50 were found in the ASG and not in the gut.Isolation of p31 and p50 from Sg was carried out by electro-elution from gel slices after SDS-PAGE of whole extracts. Samples of purified p31 and p50, emulsified in Freund's incomplete adjuvant, were injected into rabbits for antiserum production respectively. Using these antisera as the first antibodies to probe the proteins of the aphids (Western blotting), p31 and p50 were found in Sg and Sa, but not in R. padi.Through membrane feeding technique, Sg and Sa were first fed on 500x antiserum to p50KDa protein through Parafilm, and then transferred on to GAV-infected leaves in dishes for acquisition feeding, before being placed on healthy seedlings of Coast Black Oats for inoculation. The results showed that the transmission efficiencies of Sg and Sa were reduced from 73.44% to 26.92% and from 72.55% to 46.88%, respectively, when fed first on the p50 antiserum, confirming that the p50Kda protein is a transmission-associated protein in both aphid vectors.Using the two-dimensional gel electrophoresis technique, we obtained pure p50Kda protein of Sg.The 15 amino acids sequences of the N terminal of the pure protein was analyzed using Applied Biosystems 491 protein sequencing equipment.The GAV isolate was transmitted continuously for five generations by Sg (GAV-Sg) and Sa (GAV-Sa), respectively. The results showed that transmission efficiencies and serological reactions to MAV antibody were similar regardless of which aphid species were used for GAV transmission. Comparison of the nucleotide sequences of the CP and RTP genes between GAV-Sg and GAV-Sa reached 100% and 99.4% similarity, respectively, with only seven nucleotides differences in the RTP gene. The comparison of the nucleotide sequences of the CP of GAV-Sg and GAV-Sa and MAV CP showed 97.5% homology, while the nucleotide sequences of the RTP of GAV-Sg and GAV-Sa and MAV-RTP had 87.8% and 87.7% homology, respectively. Fourteen and eight nucleotides have changed in the RTP gene sequence at 856-886 nt. It is suggested that these changes may be the reason for the difference in transmission between GAV and MAV isolates.  , 1995). The main symptoms of this world-distributed viral disease (i.e., dwarfing and yellowing of infected plants; Bruehl, 1961) cause important yield losses (Lister and Ranieri, 1995). Rochow (1970) distinguished five distinct BYDV serotypes based on their transmission by different aphid species. One of them, BYDV-PAV, is widespread in Western Europe and causes the most severe symptoms (Signoret and Maroquin, 1990).Breeding for BYDV tolerance/resistance is the best means of controlling barley yellow dwarf disease, given that it is cost-reducing and least damaging to the environment. However, little resistance/tolerance is available in wheat. Some Thinopyrum species (Th. intermedium and Th. ponticum) are known to express resistance against BYDV-PAV. Breeding programs have therefore started to introduce such resistance into different wheat germplasms.New BYDV-resistant wheat cultivars should be developed within the next ten years. Breeders have already produced new wheat lines carrying alien resistance genes such as TC14 (translocated line; Banks et al., 1995), P29 (addition line; Sharma et al., 1997), Zhong ZH, a ditelosomic addition line derived from Zhong 6 x Mission (Larkin et al., 1995;Barloy et al., 2002), and OK7211542 (partial amphiploid line, Comeau et al., 1994). However, very few data are available on the efficiency and durability of these resistances/tolerances when confronted by the variability of BYDV-PAV isolates.Our objectives were: 1) to assess the different behaviors of two wheat lines showing resistance when inoculated with BYDV, and 2) to study the effect of serial passages on the biological properties of a BYDV-PAV isolate inoculated into various wheat hosts.BYDV-PAV4 was used in the experiments. Originally collected on barley in 1989 in western France, it has been maintained on barley cv. Express. This variety is known to be a susceptible host for BYDV (Sadeghi et al., 2000). Infected barley plants were used as the original virus source in inoculation experiments.Four BYDV hosts, a barley line (cv. Express), a wheat line (cv. Sunstar, a susceptible Australian cultivar), and the two resistant lines, Zhong ZH and TC14, were used in the experiments. Healthy and infected plants were grown in a temperature-controlled chamber at 20˚C, L: 16/D: 8.Third or fourth instar larvae of a Rhopalosiphum padi clone were used for all BYDV-PAV transmission experiments. Virus-free and viruliferous aphids were obtained by parthenogenic reproduction of aphid females on healthy and infected barley plants, respectively.Three sets of ten to fourteen 10-day-old plants (1-or 2leaf stage) of each test host were inoculated separately with the BYDV-PAV4 isolate. Three viruliferous aphids were reared at the base of each test plant. The latter were then covered with perforated cellophane bags for a 5-day inoculation access period (IAP). At the end of IAP, aphids were killed by spraying plants with an insecticide (deltamethrin). Each plant was sampled at 7, 11, 14, 18, and 21 days after inoculation (DAI).Samples were kept at -20˚C until analyzed.Leaves were ground in PBS-T-PVP using Fastprep [Bio101] at maximum speed for 45 sec. Virus coat proteins present in sampled plants were detected by DAS-ELISA using a polyclonal serum raised against BYDV-PAV (IgG PAV52, H. Lapierre, INRA, France). One hundred ml of each sample was used to perform the ELISA assay. Standard samples corresponding to serial dilutions of an infected control plant or purified BYDV made possible the semi-quantitative detection of BYDV-PAV coat proteins in all tested samples. Plants were considered infected when the optical density at 405 nm (OD 405 ) obtained by DAS-ELISA was above 0.12.At DAI 21, the four plants from each plant/isolate combination showing the greatest DAS-ELISA OD 405 values were used to initiate a second passage of the isolate to the same host line. Ten virus-free third or fourth instar larvae of R. padi clones were reared on each of the four selected infected plants for a 3-day acquisition access period (AAP). At the end of the AAP, viruliferous aphids were transferred to healthy plants (3 aphids/plant) for a 5-day IAP before being killed. BYDV accumulation in plants was monitored as previously described. Six passages were made following this protocol. After the sixth passage, the BYDV-PAV4 isolate had been separately maintained on different host plants for an 18-month period.Isolates maintained on Express, Sunstar, Zhong, and TC14 were renamed BYDV-PAV4E, -PAV4S, -PAV4Z, and -PAV4T, respectively. Biological properties of these host-dependent isolates were checked by inoculating the four host plants used in this study with each isolate.Semi-quantitative DAS-ELISA tests, performed from DAI 7 to DAI 21, gave the percentage of infected plants for all the isolate/host/passage combinations tested. This allowed us to estimate the virus load in plants. The resistance of the TC14 and Zhong lines was characterized based on the collected data, which were also used to study the effect of isolate passage on the virus' ability to infect susceptible and resistant hosts.Serial passage of BYDV-PAV4 on wheat lines resulted in a strong increase of the percentage of infected plants, as well as earlier detection of the virus, particularly for Sunstar and Zhong lines (Figure 1 a and b). It seems that replication of the barley-derived BYDV isolate on wheat lines leads to select \"adapted\" isolate after serial passage. TC14 follows a similar behavior pattern in response to inoculation passagebased process. However, this line exhibits a high percentage of plants escaping infection (Figure 1 c). Lastly, the maximum percentage of TC14-infected plants only reached 67% (Figure 1 a, passage 5), and virus particles were detected at DAI 7 only after 6 passages of BYDV-PAV4 on TC14 plants.Zhong plants inoculated with isolates from the 55 th passage reveal percentages of infected plants similar to those of the first passages. The return to a \"wild type\" (barley-derived) state for PAV4S and PAV4Z could be related to the change in protocol used to maintain isolates on wheat after the sixth passage. Such observation, in favor of a cost for selection in the viral population of a modified isolate \"adapted\" to Sunstar or Zhong will be discussed. In contrast, selection performed by the 56 passages of BYDV-PAV4 on TC14 plants was able to select and maintain a variant adapted to this resistant host.Virus loads, corresponding to infected wheat plants from the six first passages, were compared for each test line. No significant effect was observed (not illustrated). However, a strong between-line effect was determined by statistical analysis of the OD 405nm data corresponding to passage 56 (i.e.,F=437.77,p<0.0001 at DAI 21). This analysis confirmed the resistant behavior of Zhong and TC14 lines against BYDV-PAV infection.These experiments highlighted differences between Zhong and TC14. BYDV-PAV4 serially passaged on Zhong and TC14 led to two distinct infection patterns, which could be interpreted as a difference in resistance mechanisms against barley yellow dwarf disease. The impact of such results on further breeding programs will be discussed.The four host plants were individually inoculated with BYDV-PAV4E, -PAV4S, -PAV4Z, and -PAV4T. These isolates did not show the same pattern of infection over time (Figure 2), although they have a common origin (barley-derived BYDV-PAV4).    (Lister and Ranieri, 1995). Barley yellow dwarf disease can also affect plant height, grain size, and grain quality, such that grain is suitable only for animal feed rather than malting.Sources of natural resistance to BYDV and CYDV are rare (for reviews see Barker andWaterhouse, 1999, andBurnett et al., 1995). In barley, the Yd2 gene (Paltridge et al., 1998), originally identified in Ethiopian concessions (Schaller et al., 1964), can confer resistance against BYDV-PAV, but its effectiveness varies depending on the genetic background of the plant and growth conditions (Larkin et al., 1991). BYDV still replicates in plants containing the Yd2 gene.Recently, we discovered that virus immunity and posttranscriptional gene silencing (PTGS) can be induced in plants using transgenes that encode doubleThe PAV serotype of Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV-PAV) is the most damaging virus of cereals worldwide. Natural resistance genes against the virus give inadequate control, and previous attempts to introduce synthetic resistance genes have been disappointing. The transformation of cereals with BYDV coat protein or polymerase genes has produced a few virus-resistant plants, but the resistance has been weak, unstable, or has failed to segregate as expected. In an attempt to generate barley with protection against BYDV, Golden Promise barley was transformed with a transgene that was designed to produce hairpin (hp)RNA from BYDV-PAV sequences. The majority of the resulting lines contained a single copy transgene insert and were rated as immune because the virus could not be detected in the challenged plants by ELISA nor recovered by aphid feeding experiments. In the field, BYDV-PAV is sometimes associated with the related luteovirus Cereal yellow dwarf virus (CYDV-RPV). When the transgenic plants were challenged with BYDV-PAV and CYDV together, the plants were susceptible to CYDV but immune to BYDV-PAV. This shows that the immunity is sequence-specific and not broken down by the presence of CYDV. It also suggests that the immunity will be robust in the field and very useful in minimizing losses in barley production due to BYDV-PAV.stranded (ds) or self-complementary \"hairpin\" (hp) RNA (Waterhouse et al., 1998;Wang and Waterhouse, 2000;Smith et al., 2000). This protection/silencing appears to operate through sequence-specific RNA degradation similar to that of RNA interference (RNAi) in Drosophila (Zamore et al., 2000). Here we describe the transformation of barley plants with a construct that encodes hpRNA containing the polymerase gene sequences from the major BYDV serotype, PAV. Our results indicate that this transgene confers immunity to BYDV-PAV on the plants and, where it occurs as a single locus, it is inherited in a simple Mendelian manner.A gene construct (hpBYDVpol) was made in which hairpin RNA containing BYDV-PAV polymerase gene sequences is transcribed under the control of the maize ubiquitin promoter (Figure 1). Further details for the construction of hpBYDVpol and the transformation of Hordeum vulgare L. cv. 'Golden Promise' with this gene are provided by Wang et al. (2000). Aphids (Rhopalosiphum padi) were used to infect barley plants with an Australian isolate of BYDV-PAV, an Australian isolate of CYDV-RPV, and an Australian B/CYDV-MIX isolate which contained both BYDV-PAV and CYDV-RPV (Waterhouse et al., 1986). Virion accumulation was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) (Xin et al., 1988).Southern analysis (Lagudah et al., 1991) used a radiolabeled probe from a 1.1 kb hpt (hygromycin resistance gene) fragment. PCR analysis was performed using oligonucleotide primers amplifying a 626 nt fragment from the spacer loop between sense and antisense sequences of the transgene.Using this construct and an Agrobacterium-mediated transformation system, an overall transformation efficiency of 13% was achieved resulting in 38 independent transgenic barley plants. Southern analysis indicated that 19 plants carried a single transgene copy, 12 contained two copies, and 7 had 3 or more copies (data not shown). When 25 of the T 0 plants were inoculated with BYDV-PAV, 9 of them appeared highly resistant as they supported little or no virus replication when measured by ELISA (data not shown). Two single-copy lines (2 and 4) were selected to investigate the inheritance of the hpBYDVpol transgene and of BYDV-PAV resistance.Fourteen T 1 plants of lines 2 and 4 were challenged with BYDV-PAV and monitored for virus symptoms and virion accumulation 21, 28, and 42 days after inoculation. The progeny of lines 2 and 4 conformed to a segregation ratio of 3 : 1 (highly resistant : susceptible), suggesting the presence of a single dominant transgene locus in each line. Southern analysis (Figure 2) revealed that each locus appears to contain a single transgene. The inheritance of the hpBYDVpol transgene in these plants was examined by PCR amplification of a 626 bp fragment of DNA from the transgene. In both lines (Figure 3a  inheritance of hpBYDVpol correlated perfectly with lack of virus symptoms and resistance to BYDV infection. Plants that were symptomless and contained undetectable virus levels 21days after inoculation remained this way throughout the six weeks of analysis (Figure 3a), whereas those plants without the hpBYDVpol transgene showed virus symptoms and virion accumulation at all three time-points.The co-segregation of virus accumulation with the absence of the transgene was also evident in the grain yield from the individual progeny plants. In line 2, the average grain yield from the nine hpBYDVpolcontaining T1 progeny was 29.7±1.8 g, compared to a yield of 20.9±1.5 g from the six transgene-free progeny.Twenty-eight days after inoculation, the ELISA level in plant 12 of line 4 (Figure 3b) suggested that some virus accumulation had occurred. However, the plant had undetectable levels of BYDV-PAV both one week before and two weeks after this time-point, and never  developed virus symptoms. This suggests that 1) there might have been a low level of virus replication, peaking at 28 days, which was then overcome by the transgene-induced resistance, or 2) there was some contamination of the sample during analysis.Although BYDV-PAV is the major virus pathogen of cereals in the field, CYDV-RPV can also be present. Indeed the two viruses can occur as a complex and appear to have a synergystic effect on symptom severity. The viruses share common hosts, a common insect vector, and many aspects of their biology. However, they are at opposite ends of the luteovirus spectrum in terms of sequence homology and genome organization. To test whether the hpBYDVpol transgene also conferred protection against CYDV-RPV, approximately 15 T 1 progeny from each of hpBYDVpol lines 2 and 4 were challenged with BYDV-PAV and another 15 of each line with CYDV-RPV.Measuring the virus accumulation in these plants by ELISA revealed that, as before, both lines segregated 3:1 for BYDV-PAV resistance. However, all of the plants inoculated with CYDV-RPV were fully susceptible to the virus. These results indicate that the resistance conferred by the hpBYDVpol transgene is specific to BYDV-PAV. This might have been expected, as there is only 34% homology between the nucleotide sequence in hpBYDVpol and the corresponding region in CYDV-RPV.It has recently been shown that some viruses have the capacity to inactivate PTGS (Voinnet et al. 1999). Therefore, it was important to determine whether infection by CYDV-RPV could inactivate the hpBYDVpol-mediated BYDV-PAV resistance. To test this, 15 T 1 progeny from hpBYDVpol line 2 were inoculated with the B/CYDV-MIX isolate, a virus complex containing BYDV-PAV and CYDV-RPV. The plants were subsequently tested using species-specific ELISA for accumulation of BYDV-PAV and CYDV-RPV and by PCR for inheritance of the transgene. The results showed that CYDV-RPV replicated to high levels in all 15 plants but that the 12 plants inheriting the hpBYDVpol transgene were resistant to BYDV-PAV (data not shown). This indicates that the resistance to PAV is not compromised by replication of CYDV-RPV and further confirms the 3:1 (BYDV-PAV resistance: susceptible) segregation ratio.Although BYDV-PAV-challenged hpBYDVpol-plants contain extremely low levels of BYDV-PAV antigen, they might contain sufficient virus to be acquired by aphids and thus be of ecological significance. To examine this, we attempted to recover infectious virus from T1 progeny plants from lines 2 and 4 that had been previously challenged with either BYDV-PAV or B/CYDV-MIX. Virus-free aphids were fed (for three days) on the plants 10 weeks after the initial challenge and then transferred to healthy test plants. Whereas the test plants became infected with BYDV-PAV from aphids fed on BYDV-PAV or B/CYDV-MIX challenged wildtype or non-transgene segregant plants, none of them was infected with BYDV-PAV from aphids fed on similarly challenged plants containing the hpBYDV-PAVpol transgene. However, aphids did recover CYDV-RPV from hpBYDVpol plants challenged with the B/CYDV-MIX mixture. Taken altogether, the data show that BYDV-PAV-challenged hpBYDVpol plants contain no biologically active virus and should be regarded as immune to BYDV-PAV (Figure 4).We have generated barley plants containing transgenes encoding hpRNA derived from BYDV-PAV polymerase sequences. Over one-third of these independently transformed plants have extreme resistance to BYDV-PAV. Furthermore, some of the plants have a single transgene that is inherited, along with virus immunity, in a simple Mendelian manner. This is a significant advance over previous attempts to produce transgenic cereals with protection against BYDV. While some attempts (McGrath et al., 1997;Koev et al., 1998;Wang et al., 2001) have produced oat or barley plants with resistance (reduced virus replication) or tolerance (reduced virus symptoms but unimpeded virus replication) to BYDV, the inheritance of the resistance/tolerance has been variable. This has been further complicated by the complex transgene insertion patterns in such plants, especially those obtained using biolistic transformation.Our BYDV-immune barley plants may have great potential for deployment in the field. However, a feature that must be considered before contemplating their widespread use is their interaction with other viruses. Some viruses have the capacity to enhance the replication and/or spread of co-infecting viruses and to inactivate PTGS (for example Vance 1991;Voinnet et al, 1999). Therefore, it was possible that infection by CYDV-RPV, which can co-infect with BYDV-PAV in the field, could enhance the replication and spread of BYDV-PAV or inactivate the hpBYDVpol-mediated BYDV-PAV immunity, thus disarming the plant's newly conferred protection. However, in our experiments, the protection against BYDV-PAV was not compromised by co-inoculation of the plants with CYDV-RPV and BYDV-PAV.While it is reassuring that our plants should maintain their protection against BYDV-PAV in the field, it is our future goal to provide cereals with simultaneous protection against both BYDV and CYDV using hpRNA technology. Consequently, we have made several new hairpin constructs that we are presently using to transform barley. These constructs possess a number of features to increase their effectiveness and environmental safety. For example, they incorporate small segments of sequence from both BYDV-PAV and CYDV-RPV, selected on the basis of homology to provide protection across a range of isolates. In the unlikely event that one of these segments recombines with another invading virus, this would provide no advantage because the segments do not encode a whole protein, or even a protein domain. In fact, not only should our new genes for transformation be highly effective against both BYDV and CYDV, they will not encode any additional protein in the plant.The new constructs also incorporate a recently developed technique to remove the selectable marker gene (usually either antibiotic or herbicide resistance) from transformed plants.Barley yellow dwarf virus-PAV (BYDV-PAV) causes substantial losses (Lister and Ranieri, 1995) throughout the world in wheat (17%), barley (15%), and oats (25%). Similar to conventional breeding methods, genetic engineering is a potentially important tool to develop virus resistance. In this case, pathogenderived resistance is the strategy commonly used (Lomonossoff, 1995). This strategy involves using as a gene, a part of the virus genome in order to disrupt infection by the invading virus, according to the process observed in cross-protection.BYDV resistance has been reported in oats and barley transformed with the polymerase (Koev et al., 1998) and coat protein (McGrath et al., 1997) sequences and recently, immunity of barley plants to BYDV-PAV has been obtained by using a transgene that encodes a self complementary \"hairpin\" RNA containing the polymerase-gene sequence of BYDV-PAV (Wang et al., 2000). In wheat, transgenic resistant lines obtained by the use of the CP gene were reported once (McCarthy et al., 1996).In this study we evaluated the pathogen-derived resistance strategy in the case of the couple BYDV/ wheat by using 7 constructs harboring the BYDV-PAV ORF encoding for replicase, coat-protein, movement protein and a non-coding sequence corresponding to the promoter of sub-genomic 2 RNA.The ORFs encoding for the replicase (Pol), coat protein (CP), movement protein (MP), or a non-coding sequence (NCS) corresponding to the promoter of sub-  (Christensen and Quail, 1996), in sense and antisense orientation, between the UBI promoter and Nos terminator.Three bread wheats (Bobwhite SH-98-26, Kambara, Pastor) were transformed by microprojectile bombardment according to CIMMYT protocol (Pellegrineschi et al., 2001). The pAHC25 plasmid harboring the bar gene encoding for PPT resistance was used for selection.Specific BYDV primers were used in PCR to identify T0 and T1 generations containing the BYDV genes. Southern blot analyses were also performed on T0 and T1 transgenic plants (10 to 20 mg DNA) according to CIMMYT protocol. The restriction enzymes used were HindIII (cut once in the plasmid) and BstEII (not cut in the plasmid).T1 progeny seeds were sowed in a completely randomized experimental design. Fifteen-day old seedlings were inoculated with the Mexican BYDV-PAV isolate (8 aphids/plant). Twelve and 26 days after inoculation, tips of all the leaves of the plant were harvested and virus titer was measured by DAS-ELISA. Optical densities (OD) were compared to OD obtained with a standard dilution of a BYDVinfected oat extract. Virus titers are expressed as dilution equivalents of this standard.Transformation efficiencies (by PCR amplification of the BYDV fragment) are variables, depending on the construct used. High efficiency was obtained with Bobwhite SH-98-26 (up to 12%), the variety commonly transformed at CIMMYT because of its high regeneration efficiency, and with Pastor (up to 15%), a high-yielding wheat, which is not normally used in transformation (Table 1).Southern blots performed with 2 restriction enzymes (HindIII and BstEII) on T0 generation show complex integration patterns (data not shown), with a copy number varying from 4 to15 and number of insertion sites varying from 1 to 14.Inheritance of the BYDV transgene was examined (Table 2) on 4 T1 progenies (1 with the CP in sense, 1 with the CP in anti-sense, 2 with the NCS in sense) by PCR amplification of BYDV fragment. Only one progeny (with the CP in sense orientation) show a Mendelian T1 segregation, and we can assume that in this case the 2 transgene insertions are very closed.Virus levels in the transgenics (Table 2) are represented as variables ranging from 0.15 to 1.66 suggesting either a modification of the transgene integration pattern in the segregating progenies or a somaclonal variation.Molecular analyses (Southern-blot and RT-PCR semiquantitative) are in process on these plants in view to determine the respective influences of the integration pattern and the gene expression level in the virus titers obtained.  The BYDV GPV isolate was maintained in the greenhouse in oats (Hua Bei No.2) and infected oats tissue was stored at -70 ˚C. Common wheat variety Beijing 837, which is susceptible to BYDV, was used for generation of transgenic plants.A cDNA library representing the GPV genome was constructed in pUC8 and pUC18. A restriction map representing the viral genome was generated by single and double enzyme restriction digests of the cloned cDNA and by Southern hybridization between different restriction fragments.Plasmid DNA isolated by an alkaline lyses technique was sequenced by the dideoxy-chain termination method with a modified T7 DNA polymerase or Taq DNA polymerase. RT-PCR was used for gap sequencing.Based on the BYDV-GPV ORF3, ORF1, and ORF2 sequences, several primers were designed (Cheng et al., 1996). The cDNAs of CP or replicase gene were produced by RT-PCR. The full length cDNAs were inserted into expression plasmids pJ3x35SN or pEmu-mcs-n. The recombinant plasmids were checked by using an a-32 P-dATP labeled CP probe or replicase probe and a r-32 P-ATP labeled GPV RNA probe, and were sequenced to confirm the presence of the unmodified GPV CP or replicase gene cDNA in the plasmids.Pollen tube pathway transformation was used in the research. The nptII was used as selectable markers to screen transgenic seedlings. Molecular analysis such as PCR, Southern blots, and Western blots were used to detect foreign genes in transgenic wheat plants.For resistance assay, the T1 transgenic wheat seedlings derived from all T0 lines as well as untransformed wheat seedlings were inoculated with aphids, which had been given a 2-day acquisition feeding on sap of GPV-infected plants at 15˚C through stretched Parafilm membranes. Each seedling (at the 3-leaf stage) was inoculated with more than 10 aphids for an inoculation access period of 5 days in the greenhouse. The aphids were then killed with insecticide and the seedlings were transferred into an aphid-proof room at 18˚C under artificial light (12 hours per day, 20000 lux).In the field test, 100 split-plots consisting of three rows of transgenic plants, one row of untransformed controls and one blank row. In each row, 20 seeds were sown in the winter. All plants were inoculated at the tillering stage with aphids given a 5-day acquisition feeding period on leaf-pieces infected with GPV (more than 20 aphids/seedling). For the T2, T3, T4 generations, plant used for resistance assay was selected from resistant T1, T2 and T3 generation transgenic wheat respectively.The sequence of the GPV isolate of BYDV was identified and its amino acid sequence was deduced (Cheng et al., 1996). Genome organization has six (+ sense) open r eading frames (ORFs), similar to those of CYDV-RPV (Vincent et al., 1991;Miller et al., 1988Miller et al., , 1995)). In the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase coding region, the length of ORF1 is 1953nt and encodes a 71.4KD protein and ORF2 is 1872nt and encodes a 70.1KD protein. There is a 601nt overlap between ORF1 and ORF2. The coat protein of GPV (molecular weight 22.2 KD) is encoded by ORF3, with a length of 603 nt. As MAV, PAV and RPV, GPV contained a second ORF within the coat protein coding region. This protein of 17.0KD is thought to correspond to the VPg. The length of ORF4 is 453nt long. ORF5, 1326nt of length, is immediately after the coat protein termination codon, and in the same reading frame as the coat protein gene. This protein is associated within the intact virus as a 72.2KD protein.The nucleotide and amino acid sequence homology of GPV has a greater identity to the sequence of RPV than those of PAV and MAV (Ueng et al., 1992). The GPV ORF1 sequence shared 69% of nucleotide similarity and 57% of deduced amino acid similarity with RPV-ORF1 whereas ORF2 shared 81% and 81%, ORF3 84% and 77%, ORF4 87% and 86%, ORF5 69% and 69% respectively.The cDNAs of the coat protein or replicase genes of BYDV GPV were obtained by RT-PCR and were inserted into different plasmids to construct expression plasmids named pPPI1 to pPPI20 based on different promoter. The recombinant plasmids were identified by molecular analysis to confirm the presence of the GPV coat protein gene or replicase gene cDNAs in plasmids.An efficient pollen tube pathway-mediated transformation protocol was developed for the generation of transgenic wheat plants that express coat protein (CP) of BYDV GPV. Molecular analysis of the CP gene in transgenic plants confirmed the stable integration of the CP gene into the wheat genome and inheritance of the gene to T 1 , T 2 , T 3 and T 4 generations. The CP gene segregated as a dominant Mendelian trait in T1 selfed plants. Upon inoculation with GPV in greenhouse tests, transgenic plants that expressed the CP gene exhibited a significant delay in symptom development and reduced virus accumulation (as measured by ELISA) compared with control plants. In the field, our results showed an increased in level of resistance to virus infection in T2, T3 and T4 plants indicating that the resistance trait was stably transmitted to transgenic T1, T2, T3 and T4 plants.Resistance evaluation of the T1 generation of transgenic wheat plants carrying GPV replicase gene, were carried out in both field and greenhouse conditions. Compared with non-transgenic plants, two transgenic lines of Shan 160 showed high level of resistance with no or very weak symptoms on the leaf apex after virus infection. The transgenic line of Longjian 127 also showed delayed symptom development; when the leaves of the non transgenic seedlings were all yellow, the flag leaves of the transgenic line were still green, or with a yellowing area less than 1/3. Two transgenic lines of Jianmai 47 transformed with pPPI8 showed delay in disease development with mild symptoms.We have developed an improved protocol for the rapid and efficient production of transgenic wheat with resistance to BYDV by using no selectable markers and the pollen tube pathway to transfer the BYDV replicase gene into the common wheat varieties, then sowing transgenic seeds into the field for resistance screening and molecular assay. Transgenic wheat plants resistant to BYDV GPV were obtained.Two transformation methods were tested to transfer the CP gene to wheat. PCR was used to examine the integration of the foreign DNA in the transformed plants. The first successful PCR amplification of the CP bands came by using the pollen tube pathway transformation procedure. The frequency of transformation with the CP gene resulting from application of pPPI1 (35S Promoter) and pPPI5 (Emu Promoter) was about 1% and 5% respectively. Resistance experiments showed that expression of the CP gene in transgenic wheat plants significantly reduced infection and delayed symptom development by 1 to 3 weeks compared to the control plants. Four situations were observed: 1) some lines were resistant to BYDV GPV at all growth stages, but some leaves still showed weak symptoms; 2) some lines expressed resistance to BYDV in an earlier stage (before heading) but were very susceptible in the heading period when the flag leaf and lower leaves showed symptoms; 3) some lines were susceptible at young stages but resistance appeared at heading; and 4) seedlings were very susceptible at all stages of growth, and the plants were stunted. It is possible that the position of insertion of the CP gene into the chromosomes and possibly the number of copies of the CP gene affected the expression of resistance. Microprojectile bombardment was also successfully used to transform another variety of wheat, but all transgenic wheat plants were susceptible.Yellow dwarf virus (YDV)* is one of the principal diseases of wheat causing considerable losses in world food grain production (Lister and Ranieri, 1995). This problem is exacerbated by the fact that wheat does not contain very effective YDV resistance or tolerance genes. High levels of YDV resistance have been introgressed into wheat by the introduction of a wheatgrass (Thinopyrum intermedium) chromosome into wheat (Sharma et al., 1995). A YDV resistant wheat substitution line, P29, was previously developed as a result of this effort in which the 7D chromosome has been substituted with a 7E wheatgrass chromosome from wheat grass (Sharma et al., 1997). When inoculated with the Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV), P-PAV, the titer of the virus in leaf and stem tissue of P29 was significantly reduced (42 to 52%) and the plant showed complete resistance to the Cereal yellow dwarf virus (CYDV) NY-RPV (Anderson et al., 1998).YDV infection is typically quantified by preparing a sap extract from the harvested tissues and using either a double Antibody Sandwich (DAS) or triple Antibody Sandwich (TAS) enzyme linked immunosorbent assay technique (Rochow, 1979;Rochow and Carmichael, 1979). Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR), however, is more sensitive than ELISA and can detect even a low viral titer in infected plants. This increased sensitivity was demonstrated by the improved detection of YDV in individual aphids by RT-PCR (Canning et al., 1996). Recently, real-time RT-PCR was introduced to study the quantification of gene products precisely and reproducibly and has the potential for analysis of gene expression studies (Heid et al., 1996)  (Bustin, 2000). By using SYBR Green I as a double stranded DNA binding dye and BYDV and CYDV specific PCR primers we followed the progression of yellow dwarf virus accumulation in a YDV resistant wheatgrass (Th. intermedium), YDV susceptible oat (Clintland 64), YDV resistant wheat (P29), and a susceptible wheat line, 8138.Total RNA from each harvest and random hexamers were used to generate first strand cDNA, which was used as the template for quantitative Real-time PCR. Primers for PCR were designed from the coat protein gene of P-PAV and NY-RPV and also from 18S rRNA. Relative quantification was used to measure the viral titer during the progression of YDV disease in all the plants. When data from real time PCR reactions were analyzed, the kinetics of PAV accumulation was significantly different from that of RPV in susceptible oat, Clintland 64, after a 2-hour infestation period with viruliferous aphids containing both PAV and RPV. These data showed that PAV replicated faster and to a higher level than RPV in susceptible oat. There was a 15-fold increase in PAV titer by 2 hours post infestation (hpi) and the level of PAV increased significantly until reaching a plateau at 8 days post infestation (dpi) and then decreased till 12 dpi, the final sampling date. However, RPV increased more slowly through 24 hpi and then increased significantly for 12 dpi. In the resistant wheatgrass (Th. intermedium) PAV and RPV titers were significantly lower or absent when compared to susceptible oat. Our results with wheat using the susceptible line 8138 (Figure 1) and resistant line P29 validated our findings with oat and wheatgrass. There was an appreciable increase in PAV titer in 8138 at 2 days post infestation and the maximum amount of PAV accumulation was approximately 100 fold higher then RPV. The progression of PAV accumulation in P29 was similar to that observed in 8138 but as expected, the level of PAV in P29 was ten-fold less. Furthermore, there was a little or no RPV replication in P29 compared to 8138.Using this information about the progression of virus replication, our second objective was to understand the molecular mechanism underlying the wheatgrassderived YDV resistance in P29. Although progress has been made in the resistance mechanism of other viruses, not much focus has been placed on YDV and their elicitation of host defense genes. Plants have developed a plethora of defensive systems to evade the infecting pathogens including the production of chemicals and proteins. Also, treating wheat plants with certain chemicals, like the salicylic homologue BTH (Benzo (1,2,3) thiadiazole-7-carbothioic acid Smethyl ester) induces systemic acquired resistance (SAR) against powdery mildew infections (Gorlach et al., 1996). This induced resistance was correlated with the induction of a number of wheat chemically induced (WCI) genes (Gorlach et al., 1996). To determine if there was a correlation between YDV resistance and WCI gene expression we profiled the expression of these genes in P29 and its parent 8138 during the course of disease development following YDV inoculation.Degenerate primers were designed from wheat chemically induced genes (WCI-1 to WCI-5, Gorlach et al., 1996). Primers from wheat 18S rRNA were used as an endogenous control. The resistant line, P29 and the susceptible line, 8138 were infested with PAV and RPV viruliferous aphids and as a control with nonviruliferous aphids for 24 hours. Plants were collected at regular intervals for 14 days post infestation. The results show that WCI genes were induced in both the resistant, P29 and susceptible, 8138 plants infected with YDV. These data indicate that YDV infection of plants results in marked upregulation of systemic acquired resistance genes with YDV inoculation and replication. Further characterization of these and other candidate defense response genes is in progress.  Burnett, 1995). Thus, we are approaching half a century of progress. While an enormous amount of science of the most excellent quality has answered many fundamental questions relating to all aspects of the virus and the disease it causes, Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) (including Cereal yellow dwarf virus, or CYDV, throughout this text) is probably as big a problem now as it has ever been. Thus, the heat is on to do something practical about it. Epidemiologists, perhaps with breeders, probably come in for as hot a grilling as anyone in this respect. Their research is \"nearer the market\" than that of many others, and often depends on industry funding. Fundamental scientific understanding has to be combined with clever technologies in order to produce practical solutions.The heat is also on in another sense. The world is getting warmer (I.P.C.C., 2001) and this is sure to affect arable agriculture. Whether the effect is positive or negative will depend on location and crops grown. It will depend as well on how changes not only in temperature, but also in other factors (perhaps especially rainfall) affect: 1) crops and their competitors, 2) the pests and diseases of those crops and their competitors, and 3) the natural enemies of those pests. Indeed, even this is a gross oversimplification. The interactions are hugely and horribly complex. This presentation is in four parts. First I will summarize some of the complications alluded to above, with the purpose of drawing attention to their likely impact on attempts of applied epidemiologists to model disease spread and deliver decision support systems (DSSs). Then I will make things worse by introducing the potential impacts of climate change. Next I will describe the development of a UK DSS. Finally I will discuss whether, in the light of all the complexity, this and other DSSs have any prospect of being applicable over a wide area or of standing the test of time.Several authors have drawn attention specifically to the complexities of BYDV epidemiology (e.g., Irwin and Thresh, 1990;Burgess et al., 1999). Here I will present just a brief summary. The so-called disease triangle, made into a pyramid by adding interactions with the environment to those between viruses, vectors, and host plants, is a bit hackneyed. However, it still serves a useful purpose in drawing attention to some of the issues that need to be addressed when devising DSSs.There are at least two species and a whole range of strains and isolates involved in barley yellow dwarf, each of which may interact differently with vectors, host plants, and the environment.Being a persistent, phloem-limited virus, aphids have to feed to acquire BYDV, rather than just probe for host BYDV: The Heat Is On R. Harrington plant identification cues. However, at least 28 species can do this, although only a handful is probably important. Nonetheless, this brings more than a handful of complications. Aphids have different life cycles, fly at different times and in different places, and have different behavior patterns. Different clones within species vary in some or all of these characteristics.There is, of course, a whole range of crops and other Poaceae that are hosts to BYDV. All are potential reservoirs of infection.Some species of aphid can transmit more than one virus strain efficiently, and some virus strains can be transmitted efficiently by more than one aphid species. Different clones of aphids differ in their vectoring efficiency (Guo et al., 1996) and behavior. Therefore, finding two known vectors does not necessarily mean that they are contributing equally to the development of disease. Furthermore, if an aphid is found to be carrying a virus, this does not necessarily mean that it will be capable of transmitting it. Therefore, testing a population of aphids by ELISA, for example, for the presence of virus does not necessarily provide a figure that can be used in a simulation model to describe the proportion of that population that will transmit the virus.To add to the difficulties of the applied epidemiologist, a given virus isolate can be transmitted with different efficiency by different clones of a given aphid species, and a given aphid clone can transmit different isolates with different efficiencies. Yet another complication is that the species of aphid which inoculated the virus may have a significant effect on the efficiency with which different aphid species can subsequently transmit virus (Gray pers. comm.). It is possible that such effects are even seen at aphid clonal level.Symptoms in host plants differ with virus strain or isolate, making it difficult to assign resistance ratings to cultivars. Also, within this interaction, the latent period in the plant must be considered, i.e., the time between the plant becoming infected and itself acting as a source. This is affected by growth stage and virus strain.Different aphids have different host plant preferences, and this will clearly affect disease epidemiology. Also, crop growth stage will affect aphid feeding behavior.Considering just the virus, the host range of each BYDV strain is similar. However, in the field there are differences in which virus strains are prevalent in different hosts. For example, Rhopalopsiphum maidis tends not to feed on oats, and so RMV is not usually a problem in oats.Clearly, environmental factors interact strongly at every point discussed above but, having suggested that all of the complications tied up in the disease pyramid make modelling and decision support highly complex tasks, even if a system was put into place that works now, would it work in the future with new crop cultivars, new aphid clones, new virus isolates, and a changed climate?In the UK, general experience and some empirical evidence suggest that BYDV problems are greatest following two consecutive mild winters with a wet summer in between. The first mild winter leads to a high proportion of anholocyclic clones of R. padi in the following year (Figure 1). The anholocyclic clones are those which over-winter in the active stage on grasses, including cereals, rather than as an egg on their Proportion cereal colonizers from 1st Oct primary host, Prunus padus. Therefore, only the anholocyclic clones are important in transmission of BYDV in fall-sown crops. The active forms are far less tolerant of low temperature than are the eggs, and a tendency can be seen for the proportion of anholocyclic forms in autumn to be related to temperature in the previous winter, with a higher proportion following a mild winter. If, in the meantime, the summer is wet, there is a plentiful supply of good quality grasses to tide the aphids over between the drying out of one crop and emergence of the next.In the UK, there is a weak but significant relationship between numbers of R. padi in fall and summer rainfall. A second mild winter allows all these aphids of the right morph to move around the crop in question, spreading virus. Thus, two mild winters with a wet summer in between sets the scene for trouble. Figure 2 shows how the probability of getting two consecutive mild winters (defined as December to February mean temperature exceeding 4.5 0 C), with a wet summer in between (defined as precipitation from June to August exceeding 190 mm), is likely to change in different parts of the UK according to climate predictions to the end of this century. The BYDV risk is hence predicted to rise, particularly in northwest and southwest England. In other parts, although the criterion of warm winters may be met more often in the future, the summers are expected to be particularly dry.Drought stress during the growing season can increase risk of spread. In laboratory experiments in which trays of plants were subjected to different levels of drought stress, aphids visited more plants at higher temperatures and at higher drought stress levels, and this was reflected in the number of plants infected with BYDV (Smyrnioudis et al., 2000). There was temperature x drought stress interaction: high levels of drought stress had a particularly strong effect at higher temperatures.Climatic change may influence the prevalence of particular virus isolates in a region and the efficiency of their transmission by particular aphid species. For example, the RMV strain of BYDV is currently unimportant in small grain cereals in the UK. It is transmitted by R. maidis, which is uncommon compared to other vectors. With climate warming, maize may become more widespread, as may the maize-preferring strain of the aphid, which does not produce an egg and hence is not tolerant of cold winters. At higher temperatures, the more common vectors in the UK may become capable of transmitting the RMV strain to cereals such as wheat and barley (Lucio-Zavaleta et al., 2001). Therefore, warmer conditions, through their effect on interactions between host plants, aphids, and viruses, may render the maize strain of BYDV important in wheat and barley for the first time in the UK.These examples serve to remind us that changes in climatic variables may have unexpected effects on BYDV epidemiology. Thus, the extrapolation based on mild winters and wet summers (above) could turn out to be grossly over simplistic, while modelling could turn out to grossly complex.What can the distribution of BYDV incidence around the world today tell us about expected impacts of climate change in a given region? Can we find areas where the climate today is similar to that expected in our particular area of interest 50 years hence and infer that BYDV problems will be similar? Again, this is too simplistic. There are numerous reasons why such a socalled climate-matching methodology is fraught with dangers. For example, even though climate may be matched, photoperiod may not, and that influences plant growth, insect life cycles, and hence epidemiology in a range of ways. However, the review by Lister and Ranieri (1995) shows clearly that where there are cereals there is BYDV and, although the prevalent strains and isolates may change in a given area, the disease is likely to be sufficiently adaptable to continue to be ubiquitous no matter how the climate changes. In the light of what has been said above about the complexities and dynamic nature of barley yellow dwarf epidemiology and the potential impacts of climate change, the longevity of DSSs may be limited unless they receive continual review and upkeep. Nonetheless, I will play the optimist, outline a decision support system being developed in the UK (http://bydv.csl.gov.uk/) (Harrington et al., 1999;Northing et al., in press), and hope that support for its validation and upkeep is forthcoming.The system was built with two practical assumptions in mind. First, farmers are keen to rationalize insecticide usage. Second, farmers are not keen to count aphids in the field. Indeed, having spent much time doing this myself, I feel it is totally unreasonable to expect them to do so, especially in winter. The system is based on a weather-driven stochastic simulation model of secondary spread, initialized on the basis of aphid captures in suction traps. This provides a regional risk estimate, which is made field specific on the basis of relationships between virus incidence and field characteristics.Suction traps are in place, and aphids, including BYDV vectors, are identified routinely for a range of purposes at 15 sites throughout the UK (Woiwod and Harrington, 1994). Based on known relationships between numbers of aphids caught in the traps and numbers caught on sticky wire traps placed over the crop (Figure 3), the number of aphids landing per unit area of crop is estimated from routine suction trap data on a regional basis. Estimates of the proportion of aphids that are from anholocyclic clones and will hence stay in the crop, the proportion likely to be infective, and the number of flights made by winged aphids within the crop are taken into account, so that values for the density of foci of infection and of aphids capable of spreading virus from those foci are obtained. These values are then used in a simulation model (Harrington et al., 1999) which spreads the virus on the basis of algorithms describing the effects of temperature on aphid development, reproduction, mortality, and movement. This gives a continually updated estimate of incidence in an average field in a given suction trap r egion.On the basis of a survey of more than 600 unsprayed plots throughout the UK over a three-year period, field characteristics were determined which influence whether an individual field has more or less virus than would be expected from the regional model (Harrington et al., 1999;Foster et al., in press). Sowing date is taken into account on the basis of the time that the model run begins, but field specific conversions are made on the basis of, at present, distance from the sea and whether or not arable land dominates the area.Regional risk assessments are generated by running the model for each sowing date/crop type combination in each region, and the results are stored in the system database. They are then accessed by inputting data defining the region, sowing date category (of which there are five), and crop type of interest. Two crop types sown in five time periods in fifteen regions produce a total of 150 combinations provided by 75 different model runs. (Runs for wheat and barley are the same, with a different multiplication factor based on virus/ yield loss relationships.) Twenty runs are done for each region/sowing date combination and the mean result taken. These models are run on a weekly basis and the results summarized on a map of Great Britain using a colored grading system for five different risk categories.The risk categories are based on the levels of virus incidence in crops, related to break-even points if controls are applied. The break-even virus incidence is the treatment cost divided by: the yield multiplied by the grain price multiplied by the virus/yield loss relationship.The virus/yield loss relationship was calculated as the mean of various trial results available and is y = 0.62 x for barley and y = 0.17 x for wheat, where y is yield loss Log 10 (n+1) R.padi females per sticky wire trap 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 Log 10 (n+1) R.padi females in Rothamsted 12.2m suction trap 1996 1998 y=0.122x-0.02 (%) and x is virus incidence (%). The regional risk assessment map is presented on the web site, allowing users to assimilate quickly the distribution of BYDV across the whole country. This map is provided alongside a second map containing the regional risk assessment for the equivalent period of the previous year or, on request, the ten year mean. By clicking on the relevant spot, users can then pinpoint their locality, which will automatically provide an indication of \"distance from the sea,\" one of the relevant field characteristics. They will be asked whether or not the area is dominated by arable land. On finally submitting the query, a risk category will be presented. The system has performed well in small plot validation trials in England, but not in Scotland, where aphid mortality, and hence virus incidence, were underestimated, probably due to the current omission of the influence of rainfall from the model. The system remains to be validated in commercial fields.Other web-based DSSs are being developed, for example in Western Australia (http:// www.agric.wa.gov.au/bydv/) and New Zealand (http://www.aphidwatch.com). In Western Australia, the epidemiology is somewhat simpler than in the UK. Rhopalosiphum padi and R. maidis are the only significant vectors and are exclusively anholocyclic, removing the need to distinguish between aphids that may and may not colonize cereals. Also, there is a much stronger relationship between late summer rainfall and vector arrival in crops in the fall than in the UK, probably because there is a much greater range of rainfall volume than in the UK. The mediterranean climate means that in some years there is no rain, and very little green vegetation survives over the four months between growing seasons. The WA system is based on these statistical relationships coupled with a simulation model, which is similar in concept to that used in the UK. Inputs required from users are location, crop variety, sowing date, and planting density. The models reliably predicted the time of arrival of aphids in the crops in all regions tested over a four year period. Predictions of BYDV incidence were accurate in high and medium rainfall zones but, in low rainfall zones, incidence tended to be lower than predicted. The model has been adapted to provide an internet-based DSS with maps of BYDV risk throughout high and medium rainfall areas of the grain belt.A major concern with any DSS, computer-based or otherwise, is its upkeep following development and launch. This is particularly important in the case of computer-based systems which, if left alone, can become scientifically outdated surprisingly quickly while continuing to present a beguiling façade to users. We have seen that a BYDV DSS has to account for a huge number of biotic and abiotic components of the disease system and for primary and lower level interactions between them. If any of these change, the model parameters may become inappropriate. New cereal varieties may interact in different ways than current varieties with the aphids and the viruses. In the longer term, environmental changes may have important effects. If a new DSS is found to be successful, growers should be prepared to reinvest some of the money saved through its use in its continued scientific development.Full-scale evaluation of any system is clearly a prerequisite of its commercial release. Even if successful, developers should not hide any lingering doubts they may have. One notable failure can quickly bring the whole concept of computer-aided decision support into disrepute. Even the best systems are unlikely to better a local expert with intimate experience of the wrinkles of his patch. The challenge for DSS developers is to provide systems that take account of the huge amount of variation that goes with any pest and disease problem and hence produce a system with wide and enduring applicability.Thackray (CLIMA and Agriculture Western Australia) and Dave Teulon (Lincoln University, New Zealand) for collaboration or discussions resulting in data or visuals. Rothamsted Research receives grant-aided support from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council of the United Kingdom.In France barley yellow dwarf (BYD) epidemiology is characterized mainly by an alternation of vectors and viruses between summer hosts (mostly maize) and winter hosts (mostly barley and wheat). At the beginning of autumn, winged aphids leave maize and infest young winter cereals, potentially transmitting viruses. When winter frost is moderate, they overwinter parthenogenetically in cereal fields and multiply again when temperature rises. During spring, aphids leave maturing barley and wheat and infest young maize crops, potentially transmitting viruses. At the end of summer, aphid multiplication on maize leads to large populations of vectors, especially Rhopalosiphum padi L. The stability of the pathosystem depends therefore mainly on the conditions of infestation of both crops by aphids, of viral multiplication in the crops, and of vector production by maturing crops.Once introduced into cereal fields by winged aphids (primary infection), viruses can be propagated from primary foci by wingless aphids multiplying in the fields and moving from plant to plant. The intensity and pattern of this dissemination, or secondary spread, depends on interactions between host-plants, vectors, and climate. It is a major component of yield losses, but also of inoculum production for further infection. In this paper, we compare: 1) the shapes of BYD disease progress curves on winter barley and on maize, and 2) for both crops, the consequences for vector infestation and virus infection levels of an insecticide seed treatment (imidacloprid) to prevent aphid multiplication. All field experiments were conducted at the INRA Research Centre of Le Rheu (western France). Barley trials (cv. Express) were carried out over three cropping seasons, from September 1989 to July 1992, in a Fisher block experiment (4 rep.) including control plots and plots treated with imidacloprid in seed dressing (70 g/100 kg of seed).Maize trials (cv. Dea) were carried out in 1987 in an untreated field, and from 1997 to 1998 in a Fisher block experiment (4 rep.) comparing control plots and plots treated with imidacloprid in seed dressing (70 g/ 50,000 seeds).Viruses and aphids were monitored at different intervals from crop emergence to maturity (weekly or fortnightly for maize, fortnightly or monthly for barley). For barley in 1989-1992 and maize in 1987, plants were randomly selected in the plots on each sampling date; for maize in 1997-1998, the same plants were regularly sampled on a grid throughout the cropping season. A total of 720 barley plants and 448 maize plants were sampled on each date, except in 1987 (50 plants only). The number of plants infested by each aphid species (R. padi, Sitobion avenae, and Metopolophium dirhodum) was assessed in the field. For each sampled plant, the upper well-developed leaf (for barley) or a piece of the flag leaf (for maize) were subsequently cut and placed individually in plastic bags for virus detection with TAS-ELISA, as described by Leclercq-Le Quillec et al. (2000). PAV-type and MAV-type viral capsids were respectively recognized by the monoclonal antibodies Mac 91 and MAFF2 (ADGEN diagnostic systems, Ayr, Scotland, UK). Statistical analyses of the data were done in ANOVA, using GLM procedures of SAS (SAS, 1988).In any one year, PAV predominates in the pathosystem. The dynamics of PAV serotypes was bimodal in 1989-90 and 1990-91 (Figure 1). Infection levels increased during autumn and reached a plateau in November, then decreased during winter due to the death of infected plants. They increased again from March to May, suggesting a two-step infection process related to the seasonal activity of aphid vectors (Table 1a). The first peak corresponds to the overlap of: 1) primary infections by alate aphids, and 2) the beginning of secondary spread by wingless aphids. The second peak is due to infection by aphids disseminating in spring. In 1991-92, the PAV infection curve was monomodal and due mainly to primary infections by very large populations of R. padi (Table 1b).Seed treatment with imidacloprid dramatically limited aphid populations in 1989-1990(Table 1a), 1990-1991(not illustrated), and 1991-1992 (Table 1b). No colonies were established in the treated plots, and the low percentage of infested plants in those plots in October-November corresponds to temporary infestations by the flow of migrating alates. Consequently, the percentage of viral infection remained very low in the treated plots compared to the controls (Table 1), and corresponded to the primary infection phase by some alates that succeeded in transmitting viruses before dying. Differences between control and treated plots are significant for infestation and infection (p = 0.01) during the whole sampling period, with the exception of 16/05/1990 for infestation (Table 1).On maize, the dynamics of PAV and MAV serotypes was quite similar in 1997 and 1998, and very different from the situation in barley: maximum infection was reached very early in the growing period of maize, at the 6-leaf growth stage (GS 6). After this period, there was no further increase in the * For each variable and date, numbers not followed by the same letter are significantly different.percentage of infected plants, i.e. no more primary infections and no secondary spread (Figure 2, Table 2). In 1987, infected plants were detected later than in 1997 and 1998 (GS 7), and the levels of infection were much lower; however, the shape of the curve was roughly the same. Virus dynamics do not seem to be related to temporal changes either in aphid populations or in percentage of infested plants (Table 2).In both 1997 and 1998, imidacloprid strongly reduced the mean numbers of aphids per plant (Table 2), but not the percentage of infested plants, which remained high until August in both treated and control plots. In treated plots, however, most aphids collected during this period were transient alates, as observed in barley, and no aphid colony developed.Conversely to the situation in barley, there were no significant differences in infection percentages in control and treated maize plots.On barley, the course of BYDV infection follows a typically bimodal process with an autumn and a spring mode, excepted when the totality of the plants are infected during autumn, but this case seems uncommon (Dedryver, unpublished). Barley can be infected by BYDV at least until the end of stem extension (Jenkins, 1966). However, only autumn infections cause important losses, because autumn-infected plants have poor tillering and become more susceptible to winter frost. Although spring infections are certainly less damaging, they are nonetheless important from an epidemiological point of view, because they greatly increase the amount and availability of virus inoculum for winged aphids migrating from cereals to maize or other summer crops.  The first infection mode is due to the addition of primary virus contamination and secondary spread, which overlap widely (Leclercq-Le Quillec, 1992). The imidacloprid seed treatment is clearly effective for avoiding autumn secondary spread and delaying post-winter re-infestations, which results in lower secondary spread in spring. Consequently, yields of treated plots were significantly higher than those of the controls, except in 1990-1991, when levels of infestation and infection were very low (data not shown), and the infectivity of winged aphids flying in May from treated plots was probably lower too.On maize, the situation appears very different: a high proportion of plants (> 90%) is infested at an early stage (6 leaves) by winged aphids, and some plants are subsequently infected by viruses. However, neither the continuous re-infestation of maize plants by new alates until the end of July (Haack et al., 2000), nor the possible dispersion of wingless individuals leads to a further increase in infection. The reasons could be: 1) that maize very soon becomes resistant to virus inoculation (between GS 8 and 10, from Haack et al., 1999), and 2) that plant-to-plant dispersion of wingless aphids is difficult before summer due to the low density and small size of maize plants. From an epidemiological point of view, the infectivity of huge alate aphid populations leaving maize in autumn (Gillet et al., 1990) is probably completely dependent on a very short period in May or June during which aphid flight coincides with maize receptivity to infection.As expected, the imidacloprid treatments prevented the development of aphid colonies on maize, and reduced the number of winged aphids infesting the crop (data not shown). Nevertheless, there were no differences between controls and treatments in percentage of infested plants, probably due to the high and long-time aerial flow of aphids in the spring of both 1997 and 1998. This could explain why, during periods when maize was susceptible to infection (roughly June), the number of infective alates was not limiting, even in the treated plots, resulting in no differences between infection rates in the control and treated plots. However, in conditions of lower contamination, imidacloprid has been reported to significantly reduce maize plant infection (Epperlein et al ., 1997).Predict BYD Yield Losses The current tendency towards reducing the systematic use of insecticides has led to a strong need for reliable risk assessment tools. As emphasized by Hughes et al. (1999), algorithms based on logistic regression can be used to evaluate the risk of pest outbreaks or disease epidemics, and recent studies have demonstrated the relevance of this approach (Yuen et al., 1996;Lindblad, 2001). Reliable forecasting systems are of special interest when crop damages are sporadic, varying from field to field and year to year. This is the case of barley yellow dwarf disease (BYD), one of the most severe cereal virus diseases in the world. BYD is caused by viruses belonging to the Luteoviridae family and transmitted persistently by various aphid species living on Poaceae. The most important of these aphids on autumn-sown cereals in France is Rhopalosiphum padi (L.). One method of BYD control relies on the use of insecticide sprays applied between mid-October and mid-November to kill aphid vectors established in the crop. Crops damage depends on many factors (cereal species and variety, virus species and isolate, environmental conditions) but, above all, on the time of infection (the younger the crop when infection occurs, the greater the loss will be) (Watson and Mulligan, 1960;Jenkins, 1966) and the proportion of infected plants (Kurppa, 1989;Banks et al., 1995;Perry et al., 2000). Though the spread of BYD viruses (BYDV) is strongly determined by vector population dynamics (Leclercq-Le Quillec et al., 2000), it is generally considered that BYD epidemics cannot be predicted based on aphid density alone. This must be supplemented by the level of aphid infectivity, i.e., the aphids' ability to infect a host with BYDV (Plumb, 1983). However, aphid infectivity is difficult to assess in the field, in contrast to aphid population density, which can easily be assessed by visual count. This study examined to what degree a simple risk algorithm based only on autumnal population dynamics of R. padi can be useful for predicting BYDV yield losses and the need for insecticide treatment. The analysis was conducted using logistic regression on a large data set of 65 field experiments established in 18 sites of northern France. The experiments were sown with winter barley from mid-September to mid-October over a 10-year period. Results show a highly significant relationship between the explanatory variable chosen (the area under the curve of the percentage of plants infested by R. padi in autumn) and BYD yield losses. The proposed model gives a total of 80% of correct decisions. The results of this study suggest that a decision making system aimed at improving R. padi control in autumn-sown cereals could be based on the prediction of the area under the curve of the proportion of plants infested by aphids. Further work is needed to develop such a decision-making system.Barley yellow dwarf viruses (BYDV-MAV, -PAV, -RMV, -SGV) and Cereal yellow dwarf virus (CYDV-RPV) are the most economically important and widespread virus pathogens of cereal crops in the world. As members of the luteoviruses they are not mechanically transmissible, and are phloem-limited in host plants, but are transmitted in a persistent manner by numerous aphid species.These viruses were first identified in The Netherlands by Oswald and Houston (1951) and were confirmed in the United Kingdom (Watson and Mulligan, 1957). Before the European identification of the disease, however, cereal diseases characterized by yellowing, dwarfing, and decreased yields had been observed in North America, sometimes in epidemic proportions. Widespread outbreaks with significant yield losses were probably caused by BYDVs in 1907 and 1949 (Hewings and Eastman, 1995). The first reports of barley yellow dwarf viruses in Australia and New Zealand were made more than 47 years ago by Smith (1955Smith ( , 1957)).In Hungary, BYDV was first identified and described in winter barley by Szirmai (1967). Five years later, it was observed in winter wheat during the spring of 1972 by Szunics and Szunics (1980). This virus was later recorded in maize by Milinkó et al. (1984) and in rice by Pocsai et al. (1985). In 1982 a very severe epidemic occurred in barley. Yield losses caused by BYDV ranged from 27% to 100% in the different barley varieties (Pocsai and Kobza, 1983). Systematic work on the frequency of BYDV strains in cereals in Hungary has been in progress since 1994. Pocsai et al. (1995)  Several strains or serotypes of BYDV have been differentiated on the basis of vector specificity, the efficiency of transmission by aphids, and serological and molecular biological properties. Rochow (1969) differentiated four strains of BYDV by their relative vector specificity in transmission to the oat variety Coast Black and in virulence on the host plant. These strains were named according to their predominant aphid vectors: RPV was specifically transmitted by Rhopalosiphum padi; MAV specifically by Sitobion (Macrosiphum) avenae; RMV specifically by Rhopalosiphum maidis; and PAV non-specifically by both R. padi and S. avenae. Gill (1969) described a fifth strain in Manitoba (SGV), which was specifically transmitted by Schizaphis graminum. The taxonomy of BYDV strains has been modified several times since the first classification based on vector specificity (Rochow, 1969). Pringle (1998) summarized the new taxonomic proposals approved by the Executive Committee of the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses, which included proposals for the family of the Luteoviridae. Fauquet and Mayo (1999) gave a list of virus names and their abbreviations and assigned the family and genus to which a given virus belonged. According to this list, BYDVs consist of five viruses (BYDV-RPV, BYDV-MAV, BYDV-PAV, BYDV-RMV and BYDV-SGV) belonging to the family Luteoviridae. Among these, BYDV-MAV and BYDV-PAV belong to the genus Luteovirus. The remaining three viruses were classified as unassigned within the family Luteoviridae. The name of the BYDV-RPV strain was changed to Cereal yellow dwarf virus (CYDV-RPV) and placed in the genus Polerovirus within the family Luteoviridae.In many countries where BYDV has been studied, efforts have focused on reducing yield losses, and very little is known about the incidence and dominance of BYDV strains or the role of particular aphid vector species. The aim of the present study was to determine the presence and dominance of BYDV-CYDVs in different cereal species in Hungarian cereal growing ar eas.During 1994-2001 the incidence of barley yellow dwarf viruses (BYDV-MAV, BYDV-PAV, BYDV-RMV, BYDV-SGV) and cereal yellow dwarf virus (CYDV-RPV) was studied in cereal species for the determination of strain dominance. Surveys were carried out in four different regions of Hungary (Kompolt, Martonvásár, Szeged, and Táplánszentkereszt) in cereal species showing leaf yellowing and stunting symptoms. Samples were collected in the following cereal crops: winter wheat, durum wheat, winter and spring barley, triticale, and oat.Virus diagnosis based on leaf samples exhibiting symptoms was carried out through DAS-ELISA using antibodies against BYDV-MAV, BYDV-PAV, BYDV-RMV, BYDV-SGV and CYDV-RPV from AGDIA, and antibodies against Wheat dwarf virus (WDV) from Sanofi. Serological reactions were evaluated by measuring optical densities at 405 nm using a Labsystems Multiskan Plus photometer.Incidence rates of BYDV-MAV, -PAV, -RMV, -SGV, CYDV-RPV, and WDV in winter wheat samples exhibiting symptoms collected during 1994-2001 are illustrated in Figure 1. In 1994, BYDVs were present in 9.7% and CYDV-RPV in 1.0% of winter wheat samples. The distribution of BYDVs and CYDV-RPV in infected samples of winter wheat during 1994-2001 is presented in Table 1.As the data show, WDV occurred at the highest ratio in winter wheat with the exception of 1999. Between 1996 and 1998, the incidence of WDV increased from 24.5% to 87.9% in winter wheat samples showing symptoms. At the same time the incidence of BYDV decreased from 18.7% to 8.2%. During the study period CYDV-RPV occurred only in 1996, with an incidence of 3.3%. In 1999, the proportions of BYDV and CYDV-RPV significantly increased compared with the data of previous years.     1996, 1999, 2000, and 2001. The incidence of WDV, BYDV-MAV, -PAV, -RMV, -SGV and CYDV-RPV in symptom-showing samples of spring oats is shown in Figure 6. In 1996, only BYDV was present in the samples of spring oats tested, and the following two years only WDV occurred. In 1996, BYDV-PAV alone was present in infected samples. In 2001, the incidence of BYDVs increased to 50%. BYDV-MAV, BYDV-RMV and BYDV-SGV were present, and BYDV-MAV was the dominant virus. WDV BYDV CYDV Among the cereal species the incidence of BYDVs was the highest in spring oats, followed by spring barley and winter barley. The incidence of CYDV-RPV in cereal species was variable, the degree of infection being the highest in 1999.In the last six years the incidence rate of WDV in winter cereal species exceeded that of BYDV. In winter wheat, durum wheat, and winter barley, the incidence of BYDV was generally higher in 1999 than that of WDV. It is possible that ecological conditions in 1999 differed from those of the previous years.From the data of the eight-year survey, it can be concluded that the importance of WDV is increasing in cereal-producing regions of Hungary. The incidence of WDV was higher in winter cereal species than in spring ones. The highest degree of infection was detected in triticale. The results obtained for cereal species showing symptoms in the four regions demonstrate that virus incidence varied in each region and for each cereal species over the eight years. The attack by Wheat dwarf mastrevirus (WDV) was analyzed using ELISA. This virus causes symptoms quite similar to those of BYDV/CYDV.The incidence of BYDV predominated over that of WDV in 1995WDV in , 1997WDV in , 1998WDV in , 2001WDV in , and 2002WDV in , whereas most samples collected in 1994WDV in , 1999WDV in , and 2000 were infected with WDV. In all test years, BYDV-PAV was the predominant BYDV-strain. We found BYDV-MAV in only one sample of 1992. BYDV-RMV and CYDV-RPV were not observed in the geographical region around Magdeburg/Aschersleben. In about 15% of the samples a mixture of PAV/MAV was analyzed.A. Habekuß and E. Schliephake The majority of this autumnal flight is the migration of the gynoparae to the primary host. These individuals are thus not important for barley yellow dwarf epidemiology; however, the remaining number of virgins are of importance for virus transmission.Incidence of R. maidis was very rare in the suction trap. It seems that this species possesses only a low importance for the virus epidemiology in our region.There was good correspondence between virus infestation in winter/spring time over the last ten years and the number of days with temperatures lower than -5 ˚C during the November to April period.Incidence in Latvia M. Bisnieks, 1,2 A. Kvarnheden, 3 and R. Sigvald 21 Department of Plant Biology and Plant Protection, Latvia University of Agriculture, Jelgava, Latvia 2 Department of Ecology and Crop Production Science, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden 3 Department of Plant Biology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, SwedenThe epidemiology of world-distributed barley yellow dwarf (BYD) disease has previously not been studied in Latvia, Baltic region. Thus a qualitative and quantitative approach was undertaken to investigate the status of BYD disease in this area. Field surveys were started to determine BYD incidence in spring cereals in 1999. Symptomatic leaves of spring barley and oats were sampled and assayed with triple antibody sandwich-enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (TAS-ELISA) to confirm the presence of the virus. Isolates of PAV, MAV, and RPV were detected from collected samples. In 2001 BYD disease was observed and detected by TAS-ELISA in samples from all 111 spring cereal fields surveyed. Preliminary results revealed BYDV-MAV was the most prevalent strain found in spring cereals in 2000 and 2001. The coat protein gene was sequenced for five isolates of both BYDV-PAV and BYDV-MAV. Sequence comparisons show that there is a low level of genetic diversity for BYDV-MAV, but that distinct BYDV-PAV variants are occurring. This study is part of a project aimed at providing knowledge for assessing the risk of BYD disease spread and the need to control aphid vectors. Preliminary data obtained suggest that BYD disease is sporadic, but potentially an important virus disease in cereal production in Latvia.Direct measurements of barley yellow dwarf (BYD) disease incidence are not easy to obtain, as the newly infected plants are usually symptomless (Kendall and Chinn, 1990), and expression of disease symptoms in plant tissue occurs several weeks after infection (Burgess et al. 1999). Considering forecasting and control measures for viruses causing BYD disease, it is important to identify the initial sources of infection from which the virus spreads into or within a crop. The known host range includes more than 150 species of the Poaceae family (D'Arcy, 1995) that provide a reservoir for virus infection. However, most grasses are tolerant and do not show obvious definitive symptoms of BYD disease; thus laboratory methods for detecting the virus and appropriate sampling techniques for estimating field infection levels are required. This report is based on preliminary data on BYD, a potentially severe disease for cereal production in Latvia. Large, widespread patches with BYD symptoms were visually observed and serologically identified as BYD disease in spring cereals in 1999. Field surveys of BYD disease incidence in spring cereals and pastures were initiated in summer of 2000. The objective is to measure the incidence of BYD disease in spring cereals and pastures, identify the prevalent virus strains, and relate that with other factors such as vector occurrence, plant development stage, and distance to grasslands.Field surveys of BYD disease incidence and prevalent virus strains were carried out in spring barley (Hordeum vulgare) and oat (Avena sativa) fields in regions of Cesis and Saldus in 2000. A few spring cereal fields were surveyed in 1999, and also a few pastures in 2000. In 2001, 50 spring cereal fields were assessed for BYD, number of vectors, plant growth stage, and distance to grasslands in each of the Cesis and Saldus regions and 11 fields in the Jelgava region. Symptomatic leaf samples of barley and oats were collected from commercial plantings, inserted into plastic bags, and kept on ice during transport to the laboratory of Department of Plant Protection, Latvia University of Agriculture in Jelgava, where they were put into a freezer at -20˚C until tested by ELISA.Leaf samples of six of the most common grass species (Phleum vulgare, Lolium perenne, Poa pratensis, Dactylis glomerata, Festuca pratense and Bromus inermis) in pastures and meadows were sampled from the experimental sites of breeding stations near stationary suction traps. Sampling strategy for estimating virus incidence in pastures involved collecting six plants of each 5 to 6 grass species at 10 positions along a diagonal in each field.Leaf samples were assayed for the presence of BYDV-PAV, -MAV and -RPV using triple-antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (TAS-ELISA) (D'Arcy et al., 1992), with the modification that alkaline phosphatase conjugates were incubated at 37˚C for 2 h. The tertiary antibody used in TAS-ELISA was rabbit anti-rat IgG conjugated to alkaline phosphatase (Sigma). Leaf samples were tested after storage at -20˚C for one day to several months. For the test, approximately 0.1 g of leaf tissue was extracted in a leaf extraction press with 0.5 ml of phosphate-buffered saline.Samples were assayed by using polyclonal antibodies for trapping and monoclonal antibodies for detection of the PAV, MAV and RPV serotypes in Nunc Microtitre plates (Nunc Immunoplate Maxisorp TM ). Samples with absorbance at 405 nm, greater than twice the mean absorbance of 8 control wells, were considered positive.To analyze the nucleotide sequence similarity of the BYDV-PAV and BYDV-MAV isolates, portions of the coat protein gene were amplified by immunocapturereverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (IC-RT-PCR). The primers Lu1 and Lu4 (Robertson et al., 1991) were used for amplifying BYDV-PAV isolates, and four new primers were designed for amplifying BYDV-MAV isolates. The coat protein regions were sequenced after cloning from PCR products of five isolates of each serotype.Isolates of BYDV-PAV, -MAV and CYDV-RPV have been identified as causal agents of BYD disease in Latvia. Preliminary data show that the BYDV-MAV serotype was most often detected in samples collected in spring cereals and grasses in 2000 and 2001. Primary spread of BYD disease was found by visual observation in all 111 spring cereal fields surveyed in 2001; virus presence in symptomatic leaf samples were confirmed serologically by TAS-ELISA tests. Investigations on the frequency of these viruses in experimental sites of breeding stations and incidence in fodder grass species in different regions revealed a range between 0 and 7% for PAV, and 0 to 45% for MAV serotypes. CYDV-RPV has been found in barley, but was rarely detected.Among isolates of each serotype collected in 2000 and 2001, a high level of nucleotide sequence similarity was observed for the coat protein region. The sequenced regions of the viruses were in general more than 98% identical. However, two variants of one BYDV-PAV isolate showed only 90% identity to the other BYDV-PAV isolates.Sequence comparisons showed that there is a low level of genetic diversity for BYDV-MAV, but that different distinct BYDV-PAV variants are occurring.Further field surveys are planned to study the importance of common grass species at pastures as virus reservoirs. To obtain data for virus spread risk assessment and model building such variables as region, field size, crop, crop development stage, number of aphid-vectors, and distance to grasslands were identified and will be analyzed by logistic regression.Argentina produces 15.5 million tons of wheat on 6.3 million hectares distributed over five different ecological as well as marginal regions. Among the virus diseases that attack wheat, BYDV (Barley yellow dwarf virus), BSMV (Barley stripe mosaic virus) and MRCV (Mal de Rio Cuarto virus) are the most important economically. BYDV was first identified in the country in 1964 mainly on wheat, oat, and barley. In 1995, MRCV was detected in Manfredi (Province of Cordoba) on maize crops in mixed infections with BYDV that caused symptoms such as reddening and enations on leaves. A severe attack of BYDV on triticale in Jesus Maria (Province of Cordoba) was recorded in 1997, and its presence on rice was also suspected. Barley is often affected by BYDV and BSMV, mostly when vector population is high.The exploration of weeds as possible reservoirs of BYDV determined that Digitaria sanguinalis (annual species) presents the highest percentage of plants with the virus, followed in decreasing order of importance by Paspalum notatum and P. dilatatum (both perennial). The predominant strains of the virus in the weeds were PAV, RPV, and RMV, which could be related to the abundance of the aphid Rhopalosiphum padi, found to be an efficient vector of those strains in our transmission studies.The incidence of the disease was 6-37%. The maximum value was detected in Roque Sáenz Peña, a marginal area in the Province of Chaco. This situation is probably related to climatic conditions that favor the aphid vector's activity. Serological tests (DAS and TAS ELISA) done on samples collected during surveys demonstrated the existence of five BYDV strains (PAV, MAV, SGV, RPV, and RMV) in all areas sampled in different years. The PAV strain was the most frequent in the study areas. In the marginal region, high frequency of mixed infections by different combinations of strains was detected. It was possible to isolate and to maintain in culture several PAV-Instituto de Fitopatología y Fisiología Vegetal (INTA IFFIVE), Córdoba, Argentina like isolates, including several from Marcos Juárez (Province of Cordoba) and Roque Sáenz Peña (Province of Chaco), plus one RPV-like isolate from the Province of Cordoba and a mixed PAV+RPV infection (MIX), also from Cordoba.In artificial infections, the damage caused by BYDV (local strain MIX = PAV+RPV) on cultivar Prointa Isla Verde was severe (a 66% yield reduction).Characterization studies showed that local isolates with successful multiplication are in general quite similar to those described by other authors, though there are small differences probably due to local traits related to the epidemiology of the disease. The more notable difference was observed in the symptoms produced by the PAV-like strain, which among all the studied strains (RPV-like and MIX) turned out to be the least severe, although its virus concentrations were higher. Also, it was corroborated that symptom severity can vary according to the isolates; this was evident with the Roque Sáenz Peña isolate of the PAV-like strain that turned out to be the most severe.Serology studies carried out via DAS ELISA and TAS ELISA with foreign antisera to determine the serological characteristics of the test isolates revealed that the local strains that were multiplied reacted only with their homologous antibodies, which was consistent with the results obtained using monoclonal antibodies in TAS ELISA. The MIX isolate reacted to PAV and RPV with both polyclonal and monoclonal antisera, and proved to be a mixture of strains of groups 1 and 2.After the PAV-like isolate Marcos Juárez was purified, it was determined that to achieve higher virus concentrations in the purification process, plant materials should have been harvested 15 days after inoculation.Also, an enzymatic treatment should be included in the processing of the material (SOLVAI, mix of pectinolithic and celulolithic enzymes, 1/1 v/v) to liberate a greater number of virus particles into the phloem, thereby improving final performance in mg/ml (virus concentration). A local antiserum of the PAV-like strain was obtained, with title 1:32.000 for NCM ELISA (with adsorption of normal plant proteins), 0.1ug/m IgG for DAS ELISA, and 1/1600 of the conjugated antibody (with adsorption of normal proteins).The migration pattern of the replicative forms of the BYDV PAV-like strain was determined, and the molecular weight of the dsRNA's genomic fragments estimated. They proved to be similar to those of group 1 strains (foreign) in regards to the first and second band. The fifth band was not observed. Likewise, a small difference in the migration distance of the second band, and thus in its molecular weight, was detected, but it is not sufficiently significant to categorize this strain within another group.Using electronic microscopy, three phases were observed in the evolution of the disease: premature, intermediate, and late. Cytopathological alterations of local isolates were similar to those described by other authors for groups I and II of BYDV. Nonetheless, infections with the PAV isolate Roque Sáenz Peña showed vesicles with double membrane, a cytopathology similar to what is common in specific isolates.Virus concentration of the above mentioned isolates does not seem to be related to symptom severity. The local isolates turned out to be different among themselves, in terms of virus concentration and the moment they manifest peaks. The strain with the highest concentration was PAV-like, followed in order of importance by RPV and MIX. In relation to this last, the interaction between PAV + RPV had a synergistic effect that caused greater symptom severity in both wheat and oat.Studies on variation of the relative density of main vector species (Rhopalosiphum padi, R. maidis, Schizaphis graminum, Metopolophium dirhodum, and Sitobion avenae, among others) determined that density increases when the weekly mean temperature is higher than 11˚C and relative humidity is high. This allowed us to recommend modifying the sowing date as a measure to escape the disease.Infected with Barley Yellow Dwarf VirusVirology Laboratory, Germplasm Program, International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), Aleppo, Syria To assess yield losses in cereal crops infected with barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV), researchers used a few criteria such as symptomatology, grain yield, spikes weight, biomass, harvest index, and plant height, or a combination of more than one factor (Comeau et al., 1989;Cheour et al., 1989). The more precise measure to estimate yield loss is by comparing BYDV-infected plots with appropriate healthy controls. However, such assessment is costly in terms of space and labor. Thus it would be useful to develop a reliable assessment model that does not require healthy control plots. Haber et al. (1997) developed a yield prediction model for spring bread wheat following BYDV infection. In this study we evaluated the usefulness of this model for predicting yield losses in response to BYDV infection in barley, bread and durum wheat under growing conditions in northern Syria.Luteoviridae) infection, thus avoiding the need for a healthy control, could facilitate germplasm screening and reduce evaluation costs. In the 1999/2000 growing season, 69 barley, 58 spring and winter/facultative bread wheat, and 39 durum wheat lines derived from the ICARDA (barley) and CIMMYT/ICARDA (wheat) improvement programs were evaluated for their resistance/tolerance to BYDV in artificially inoculated plots. Similarly, in the 2000/2001 growing season, 24 barley, 45 spring and winter/facultative bread wheat, and 31 durum wheat lines were evaluated. Many of these lines yielded well in response to infection when compared with control plots (non-inoculated and protected by insecticide treatment). A model developed earlier for spring bread wheat in Canada to predict yield losses due to BYDV infection based on symptom score (0-9) and plant height (cm) [predicted yield index (PYI) = 600 (0.2 -symptom score/height)] was evaluated. Experiments conducted during 1999/2000 indicated that correlation between PYI and percent yield loss was r= -0.665, -0.080 and -0.304 for barley, bread wheat, and durum wheat, respectively. In the 2000/2001 trials, correlation between PYI and percent yield loss was -0.88, -0.31 and -0.41, for the three crops respectively. It can be concluded that this prediction model is reliable for BYDV screening in barley but less so in bread or durum wheat, under growing conditions in northern Syria.During the 1999/2000 and 2000/2001 growing seasons, selected barley, bread wheat and durum wheat lines derived from ICARDA (barley) and CIMMYT/ ICARDA (wheat) materials were planted in small plots with 4x1 m rows. For each entry, one plot was BYDVinoculated and another one was kept as healthy control.BYDV-inoculation was done through viruliferous Rhopalosiphum padi, using 10-15 aphids per plant. The virus species used was BYDV-PAV (BYDV-PAV, genus Luteovirus, family Luteoviridae). The control plots were separated from the inoculated plot by a 5-m buffer zone, and cereal seeds were treated with imidacloprid (Gaucho®) before planting. In addition, control plots were sprayed three times with a selective aphicide (Pirimicarb), starting two months after seed germination. Control plots remained symptomless until May, and all plots were harvested in June.Several barley and wheat lines derived from the breeding projects were found to be tolerant to BYDV infection and yielded well in comparison to healthy (insecticide-protected) controls (Table 1). Yield loss data for entries evaluated in the two seasons were more-or-less comparable. Correlation between the predicted yield index and yield loss in barley was highly significant (P=0.01) in both years (Table 2), more significant than that between disease score and yield loss. In durum and bread wheat, the correlation between the PYI and yield loss was not significant in the first year (r=-0.30 and -0.08, respectively), but significant (P=0.05) in the second year (r=-0.41 and -0.31, respectively). It can be concluded that the prediction model was reliable for screening barley lines for BYDV resistance, and less so for durum or bread wheat. It is interesting to note that the adopted prediction model found earlier to be a reliable predictor of spring wheat yield in Canada (Haber et al., 1997) was not reliable for predicting spring wheat yield in northern Syria under artificial BYDV-PAV inoculation conditions.Growing conditions during the two growing seasons varied, and that may have influenced measurement of the different factors evaluated. For example, annual rainfall during 1999/2000 was 260.7 mm, whereas during 2000/2001 it reached 428.6 mm. This increase in rainfall resulted in a significant increase in biomass, height, and grain weight, but had less impact on disease score. However, the effect on yield loss values was small, since these values were derived after comparison with a healthy control, which was also affected by rainfall. Nevertheless, the differences in conditions between the two growing seasons could explain why the correlation between PYI and yield loss was not significant for durum and bread wheat in the first season and significant in the second season. BYDV symptom scores in oat cultivars INO9201, Classic, Jay, and susceptible check Clintland 64 are typically 5, 3, 4, and 9, respectively (0-9 scale; 0 = no symptoms to 9 = severe plant stunting and leaf discoloration) in tests involving inoculation in early seedling growth stages. We have advanced oat lines that typically develop symptom scores of 2 to 2.5 in similar tests. We think it will be difficult to develop oat lines with BYDV resistance from within A. sativa resulting in BYDV scores less than 2, which can lead to production loss under severe BYDV epidemic conditions. Thus, it would be useful to transfer BYDV resistance from other species, like A. strigosa, or other more unrelated donor species.We have transferred BYDV resistance from a vegetative clone of Th. intermedium, cv. Oahe, into soft winter wheat. We have released a wheat substitution germplasm line, P29, in which chromosome 7D was replaced by chromosome 7E (Sharma et al., 1997;Crasta et al., 2000), and are releasing a wheat translocation line, P98134, selected from progeny of  et al., 2002). The BYDV resistance of P98134 is subterminal on the long arm of 7E (Crasta et al., 2000).BYDV resistance of the TC wheat lines developed in Australia (Banks et al., 1995;Hohmann et al., 1996) is derived from the addition line L1 (Cauderon et al., 1973), and the gene conditioning this BYDV resistance was designated Bdv2 (McIntosh et al., 1998). Of the several TC lines, TC14 was reported to have the smallest segment of 7X (Banks et al., 1995). Zhang et al. (1999) reported the development of a BYDV resistant wheat translocation line derived from TC14 that has an even smaller segment of 7X than TC14. It has been reported that L1 has chromosome 7St from Th. intermedium and P29 has chromosome 7E (Crasta et al., 2000). We have developed a number of soft winter wheat lines derived from the translocation lines, that have BYDV resistance from 7E, as determined by DNA markers, ELISA, and field tests. They also have quite good agronomic characteristics and are in performance trials for the first time in 2002. Grain from these trials will also be milled for pastry quality testing.Chromosomes 1 and 2 of certain Thinopyrum spp. also carry resistance to certain strains of BYDV (Larkin et al., 1995a(Larkin et al., , 1995b;;Zhang et al., 2001) and it is likely necessary that resistance QTL of two or more chromosomes be pyramided to achieve resistance to multiple strains of the virus (Francki et al., 2001). Our results show that BYDV resistance of chromosomes 1 of Th. pulcherimum and 2 of Th. intermedium are additive. However, our preliminary results show that resistance of chromosomes 1 or 2, in hemizygous condition, do not result in lower ELISA values when in combination with 7E compared with 7E alone.Barley yellow dwarf (BYD) is of considerable economic significance worldwide, particularly in higher rainfall regions where the aphid vector itself is problematic. Yield losses in wheat have been reported to be as high as 40-50% (El Yamani, 1990;Banks et al., 1995a;McKirdy and Jones 1997;Herbert et al., 1999;Riedell et al., 1999). We have sought to find sources of resistance that can be made available for wheat improvement. Thinopyrum intermedium (host) Barkworth and Dewey, also known as Agropyron intermedium, Elytrigia intermedia, or intermediate wheatgrass, carries BYDV resistance genes on a group 7 chromosome (7Ai1, Brettell et al., 1988;Friebe et al., 1992) and a group 2 chromosome (Larkin et al., 1995;Tang et al., 2000). The group 7 chromosome carrying BYDV resistance was first identified in a 2n=44 disomic addition line called L1; the resistance is located on the long arm (Brettell et al., 1988).Genomic in situ hybridization (GISH) analysis suggests that Th. intermedium consists of three distinguishable groups of chromosomes given genomic names J, J s , and S (Chen et al., 1998). However, it remains disputed whether the L1 additional chromosome (7Ai1) should be designated 7J (Chen et al., 1999) or 7S (Wang and Zhang, 1996).We utilized cell culture of the monosomic addition tissues to induce recombination or translocation between the alien and wheat chromosomes (Banks et al., 1995). A series of 7D-7Ai1 recombinants (TC5, TC6, TC8, TC9, TC10, and TC14) and one 1BS.7Ai1L translocation (TC7) were identified (Banks et al., 1995;Hohmann et al., 1996). Also identified was another recombinant called 5395, derived from crosses involving homoeologous pairing suppression (Banks et al., 1995b). The TC translocations have been analyzed by GISH in a number of laboratories and found to comprise Thinopyrum chromatin distally on the long arm of 7D; TC14 appears to be the smallest translocation (Banks et al., 1995b;Hohmann et al., 1996). Wang and Zhang (1996) found TC14 did not involve a centromeric break and had a short distal segment of 7Ai1 terminally attached to 56% of the proximal 7DL. Perhaps surprisingly it has been possible to utilize the TC sources of Bdv2 in the breeding of new cultivars of wheat, both spring and winter.In breeding Bdv2-carrying wheats, we have developed and utilized a molecular marker for the translocations.The BYDV bioassay in the laboratory can be reliable but is very laborious requiring the maintenance of a clean population of aphids, a pure source of virus of known serotype, antisera against that virus, and prepared ELISA plates. It takes about eight weeks and considerable labor to raise viruliferous aphids, infest individual plants with aphids, grow the plants after inoculation in appropriate controlled environments, extract leaf saps, and conduct ELISA determinations of virus titres. We have developed a sequencecharacterized, PCR-based molecular marker (SCAR) for the Bdv2-associated translocations (Stoutjesdijk et al., 2001) that was used to facilitate our breeding programs.The sequence characterized PCR marker described by Stoutjesdijk et al. (2001) is a dominant marker. The PCR reaction with all susceptible control wheats yielded no product. However, with wheat lines Utilizing Bdv2, the Thinopyrum intermedium Source of BYDV Resistance, to Develop Wheat Cultivars P.J. Larkin, 1 S. Kleven, 1 and P.M. Banks 2 carrying any of the Bdv2 translocations (TC5, TC6, TC8, TC9, TC10 or TC14), a single product was amplified of the size predicted by the RAPD product sequence, namely 566 bp. Segregating families could be scored readily for the Bdv2 segment. In addition a high throughput PCR methodology (Zhang et al., 2001) has been developed which allows reactions to be developed in multiwell plate format and determined using an ELISA plate reader, without the need to electrophorese the DNA on agarose gels. This solid-phase, anchored or capture PCR technology may further facilitate future incorporation of Bdv2 into breeding programs.CIMMYT has developed a microsatellite marker for TC14, gwm137 (Ayala et al., 2001) which is codominant. It has the important advantage that homozygotes can be distinguished from hemizygotes for the translocation. However, the codominant marker is unsuitable for the high throughput PCR technology described above.Mackellar (LH64C), an Australian dual-purpose grazing winter wheat incorporates the TC14 translocation. TC14 has the pedigree Vulcan.cms // L1 / Millewa /3/ Restorer R35733. A cycle of cell culture and regeneration was imposed on the monosomic addition line hybrid L1 x Millewa and the translocation first identified following the testcross to Sunstar. Mackellar has the pedigree Tatiara / TC14 // Beaver /3/ Soisson /4/ B1073.Glover spring wheat incorporates the TC6 translocation following backcrossing into Hartog. The pedigree of TC6 is Sunstar // L1 / Millewa. A cycle of cell culture and regeneration was imposed on the monosomic addition line hybrid L1 x Millewa and the translocation first identified following the testcross to Sunstar. The pedigree of Glover is TC6 / 5* Hartog. Hartog is a selection from CIMMYT's Pavon. The backcrosses to Hartog were made in 1990-2, and the BC 4 F 2-4 were grown with selection for low BYDV titre in each generation. F3 families were tested by virus bioassay, and families were identified as homozygous for BYDV resistance. One of these, QT8733, was selected in the field in Queensland for its high yield and is to be released as Glover. It has agronomic attributes and grain yield very similar to its recurrent parent, Hartog, suggesting that the TC6 translocation does not convey a yield nor agronomic penalty.Milling quality (flour yield and Minolta color), dough rheology (farinograph, extensogram and mixograph), and end product evaluation (yellow alkaline noodles and pan bread) of Glover and several other BYDV resistant lines were evaluated in comparison to recurrent parent lines. The only consistent trend in milling quality of BYDV resistant lines compared to recurrent parents was an increase of approximately 1 Minolta unit of flour b* value (yellowness) (Martin and Banks, unpublished). The increase in flour color was evident in TC14-derived lines, as well as the longer translocation-derived lines. No trends were observed in dough rheological properties. In BYDV resistant lines the Minolta b* value of yellow alkaline noodles was slightly higher compared to recurrent parents, and a small increase in pan breadcrumb color was also observed. The marginal increase in yellowness of end products is consistent with the increased flour color. We understand that the small increase in flour color is acceptable for all but highly discriminating international wheat markets. Glover has been classified as suitable for inclusion in the 2 nd highest class of Australian hard white export wheat, Australian Hard.Mackellar and Glover show substantial virus resistance, though not immunity. The resistance is evident as: reduced % infection in the field; reduced average ELISA readings in the field; and reduced ELISA readings in the laboratory with controlled infections (Figure 1). 50a (Thompson et al., 2000, Thompson et al., 2001). It remains to be confirmed if this enhanced RLN resistance is associated with translocation TC6.The 5395 translocation originally appeared to be a translocation because a red coleoptile marker on the short arm of 7Ai1 was missing (Banks et al., 1995). Despite this, Hohmann et al. (1996) presented some evidence suggesting it was a whole chromosome substitution. Xin et al. (2001)    Mackellar was on average 20% higher yielding across eight sites than the best of a number of current winter wheats including Declic, Currawong, Brennan, Tennant, Dennis, and Whistler (Figure 2). That experiment did not determine the extent to which the yield difference was due to the presence of BYDV. Furthermore a total of 130 winter wheat breeding lines were characterized for the segregation of Bdv2 by PCR and their yields determined in 2000 after a season with evident widespread natural BYDV infection. Substantial yield protection was evident when Bdv2 was present (64 lines) compared to sister lines without Bdv2 (66 lines). This was evident when all lines were grouped (Figure 3) and also when segregants of individual families were compared. Averaged across all the lines, there was a 1.04 mt increase in yield (23%) with Bdv2. Results at CIMMYT have also demonstrated substantial yield protection with the TC14 translocation in a number of backgrounds using two serotypes of the virus (Ayala et al., 2001). On average one dose of the translocation gave a 13% increase and two doses of the translocation gave a 26% yield increase.Trials in Queensland have established, in the apparent absence of BYDV infection, no difference in yield between Glover and its recurrent parent, Hartog [56 years*sites; 8 years*regions]. Glover has also been classified as tolerant in the field to root lesion nematode (RLN) Pratylenchus thornei. In addition it was classified as moderately resistant to RLN in replicated glasshouse trials conducted over two years; it had a similar level of resistance to Gatcher Selection Barley yellow dwarf is a disease caused by a complex of viruses recently reclassified as Barley yellow dwarf luteovirus (serotypes BYDV-PAV and BYDV-MAV) and Cereal yellow dwarf polerovirus (CYDV-RPV) (D' Arcy et al., 1999). This disease has a wide host range and a worldwide distribution, and is regarded as the most significant viral pathogen affecting small grain cereals in the world, including wheat, barley, oat and triticale.Management of the disease is mainly achieved through control of the vectors, the cereal aphids, by insecticide application, even though cultural practices, if properly applied can also reduce to a certain degree the yield losses due to this disease. However, the most effective and sustainable control method is the use of genetic resistance/tolerance to the virus complex.Tolerance has been identified in several wheat lines, including CIMMYT wheat lines, while true resistance (reduction in virus concentration) has not been found in the wheat primary gene pool. However, it has been found in wheat relatives such as Thinopyrum intermedium and has been introgressed into breadwheat by several groups (Anderson et al., 1998;Banks et al., 1995;Chen et al., 1998;Francki et al., 2001;Larkin et al., 1995).At CIMMYT, we undertook to incorporate resistance from Th. intermedium from the recombinant lines TC14 (Banks et al., 1995)  The resistant TC14/2*Spear (accession 289B), carrying the Th. intermedium translocation (Bdv2) on chromosome 7D (Hohmann et al., 1996) was kindly provided by P. Larkin, CSIRO, Australia and crossed with the tolerant breadwheat Anza to develop segregating populations (Ayala et al., 2001a). The studies of resistance were carried on 90 F4 lines of the cross Anza/\"TC14\" obtained through single-seed descent. The presence of the Th. intermedium fragment (Bdv2) was detected using PCR with the microsatellite marker gwm37, as described in Ayala et al. (2001aAyala et al. ( , 2001b)). Families were classified as homozygous for the introgression (Bdv2Bdv2), heterozygous (Bdv2bdv2) or not having the introgression (bdv2bdv2).The Mexican virus isolates used in these experiments were BYDV-PAV, BYDV-MAV, and CYDV-RPS. These isolates have been maintained in CIMMYT's greenhouses since their collection in 1993. Artificial inoculation was performed by depositing 10 aphids per single one-week old seedlings for a 48-h transmission period. Aphids had acquired the virus on BYDV/CYDV infected oat for a 48-h acquisition period. The bird cherry oat aphid Rhopalosiphum padi was used to transmit BYDV-PAV and CYDV-RPS and the rose grain aphid, Metopolophium dirhodum was used to transmit BYDV-MAV. At the end of the transmission period, aphids were killed by application of a contact insecticide (Pirimor).Resistance to BYDV was assessed as a reduction in virus titers (Optical Density, OD) measured by ELISA, in both roots and leaves of the tested plants. ELISA was performed on the flag-1 leaf, 10, 20 and 31 days after inoculation and on roots, 5, 10 and 20 days after inoculation. Plants for which the OD was lower than the positive threshold were considered as not being infected. Two repetitions, each consisted of 4 infected plants + one non-infected control per family were done. The average OD (aver. OD) of the inoculated plants and the average OD of the plants for which the ELISA was higher than the positive threshold (IOD) were calculated. The resistant parent TC14 and the tolerant parent Anza were used as controls, together with the susceptible breadwheat Bagula.The positive threshold was calculated for each repetition and each BYDV serotype, and was equal to the average ODs obtained with the non-infected control + twice standard variation.Double antibody-sandwich ELISA (DAS-ELISA) with polyclonal antibodies against PAV, MAV and RPV from the United States (provided by K. Perry, Purdue University) was carried out according to Ayala et al. (2001a). Optical densities were measured at 405nm after 1 and 2 hours incubation at room temperature using a microplate reader (MR 700; Dynatech Laboratories).In the conditions used for the inoculation, there is no difference between the numbers of plants inoculated (as evaluated 10 days after inoculation) with BYDV-PAV in the different genotypic groups (with or without Bdv2) (Figure 1). However, with BYDV-MAV and CYDV-RPV, the success of inoculation is less in the heterozygous group or the group homozygous for the translocation than in the group not carrying the translocation. In the case of RPV, a very limited percentage of plants got infected in the homozygous resistant group (17.5%) compared to 97.5% in the wheat type. Heterozygous were intermediate in their response. The same tendency was observed with BYDV-MAV with slightly higher infection rates (30%).For the three viruses tested, virus titers in the leaves were lower in the homozygous plants carrying the Bdv2 translocation than in the one that did not have the translocation (Figure 2). In all cases, the titer in the heterozygous was intermediate.In the roots, the difference still existed but was far less important, especially in plants infected with BYDV-PAV. Virus titers reached high levels 5 days after inoculation with BYDV-PAV (OD>1.0). Very few plants homozygous for Bdv2 got infected with CYDV-RPV and only in a few of these cases virus titers reached moderate level (OD>0.5).In field experiments under natural or artificial inoculation with BYDV-PAV, we have observed a lower rate of infection in material carrying the Th. intermedium translocation (Bdv2) (Ayala et al., 2001b, Henry unpublished). However, in the glasshouse experiment described here, there were no real differences in inoculation rate between the different genetic groups. This could be related to the optimum conditions used for this experiment (very young seedlings, high number of aphids). The number of plants homozygous for Bdv2 that got infected with CYDV-RPV was closed to nil. In a few cases, infection was detected specially in the roots where levels were still lower than in the other genotypic groups. This suggest higher level of resistance for CYDV-RPV than BYDV-PAV, a situation opposite to what has been observed with resistance conferred in barley with the Yd2 gene, where resistance is superior for BYDV-PAV than CYDV-RPV (Herrera, 1989).Virus titers did not differ greatly in the roots of plants carrying or not the Bdv2 gene and infected with BYDV-PAV, suggesting that resistance to BYDV could be expressed in the leaves only. Screening results from the field tests and ELISA showed that Th. intermedium, partial amphiploid TAF46, and one disomic addition line L1, both developed by Cauderon et al. (1973), had good BYDV resistance.We developed wheat-Th. intermedium translocation lines Yw642, Yw443, Yw243, and Yw1029 showing good BYDV resistance from L1 by induced homoeologous pairing using CSph mutant (Xin et al., 2001;Zhang et al., 1998) In order to effectively use these wheat germplasms for wheat breeding, the wheat lines derived from L1 were characterized by GISH and RFLP analysis. GISH results showed that the wheat lines Yw642, Yw243 and Yw443 are wheat-Th. intermedium translocation lines with 40 wheat chromosomes and 2 wheat-Th. intermedium translocated chromosomes (Zhang et al.,1998;Xin et al., 2001). The Th. intermedium chromosome segment, carrying the BYDV resistance gene, was located on the terminal of wheat chromosome. They are wheat-Th. intermedium translocation lines (Zhang et al.,1998;Xin et al., 2001).It was reported that the BYDV resistance gene in the addition line L1 was located on the chromosome 7X of Th. intermedium. Nine probes on the wheat homoeologous group 7 were selected for Southern hybridization. The results indicated that the probe psr680 with HindIII and the probe psr687 with EcoRI could show 7XL specific bands in all BYDV resistant materials but absent in all susceptible materials, while 7DL marker bands were absent in the translocation lines and individual resistant plants except L1 but present in susceptible wheat varieties. The resultsBarkworth and Dewey (syn. Agropyron intermedium (Host) P.B.), a hexaploid perennial Triticeae species (2n=6x=42.E 1 E 2 X=JJ s St), contains at least two genes for BYDV resistance located on the chromosome of group 7 or group 2, respectively. The wheat-Th. intermedium addition line L1 carries the BYDV resistance gene (Bdv2) located on the alien chromosome 7X, showing good resistance to PAV serotype of BYDV. Meanwhile, the wheat-Th. intermedium partial amphiploid Zhong4 Awnless carries another BYDV resistance gene, different from that of L1, located on the chromosome of group 2. It shows better resistance to GAV and GPV serotypes of BYDV. Amphidiploid CPI 113500 derived from Ag. pulcherrimum also shows good BYDV resistance. Some derivative lines from these resistance sources were developed and they can be used for wheat breeding program for BYDV resistance. Molecular markers for the resistance were developed and applied.indicated that the markers of psr680/HindIII and psr687/EcoRI were closely linked with the BYDV resistance gene Bdv2 that was mapped near the locus of Xpsr680 and Xpsr687 on the chromosome 7XL of Th. intermedium, and the 7XL segments including Xpsr680 and Xpsr687 replace the chromosome 7DL segments of wheat in the lines Yw642 and Yw443. They were T7DS.7DL-7XL translocation lines (Zhang et al.,1999;Xin et al., 2001).As probe psr965 on the long arm of the homoelogous group 7 chromosome could not detect the 7XL specific band, the breakpoint of the translocation should be located on the distal end of 7DL between Xpsr965 and Xpsr680 about 90~99cM from the centromere.In order to better use molecular markers for breeding, we also screened 2 RAPD markers of OPR19 940 and OPD04 1300 , and developed 2 SCAR markers of SC-D04 and SC-W37. OPR19 could amplify a specific band of about 940bp that was present in all the resistant materials carrying the BYDV resistance gene of Bdv2 but absent in all wheat parents and BYDV resistance materials of Z1 and Zhong4 Awnless. OPR19 940 band could be used as a marker to detect the 7XL segment carrying the Bdv2 gene (Zhang et al., 2002).OPD04 could amplify a specific band of about 1300bp that was present in all the resistant materials carrying the Bdv2 gene but absent in all wheat parents, susceptible lines and BYDV resistance materials of Z1, Z2, and Zhong4 awnless. OPD04 1300 band could be used as a marker to detect the 7XL segment carrying the Bdv2 gene (Zhang et al., 2002a).Two SCAR markers of SC-D04 and SC-W37 were developed. Both specific PCR markers could amplify a single band present in all resistant materials carrying the Bdv2 gene but absent in all materials without Bdv2. The linkage between these PCR markers and the resistance gene Bdv2 was analyzed by using F 2 population plants of Yw642/Zhong 8601.The results indicated that SC-D04 and SC-W37 were co-segregated with Bdv2 gene. The SCAR markers of SC-D04 and SC-W37 have been used for MAS of BYDV resistance for wheat breeding program (Zhang et al., 2002a, b).Zhong4 Awnless is an octoploid amphiploid (2n=56) between wheat and Th. intermedium, developed by Sun et al., Heilongjian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China. By backcrossing Zhong4 Awnless to wheat, 3 wheat-Th. intermedium disomic addition lines with BYDV resistance, Z1, Z2 and Z6, were developed (Larkin et al., 1995). The substitution lines ZD28, N431, N432, and N439 were further developed from the young embryo culture of Z6/Shan7859 or Z6/Zhong 8601.GISH analysis showed that Zhong4 Awnless contains 42 wheat chromosomes and 14 Th. intermedium chromosomes. The 14 Th. intermedium chromosomes composed of 2 pairs of St chromosomes, 2 pairs of St-E intercalary translocated chromosomes, 1 pair of St-E Robertson translocated chromosomes, and 2 pairs of E st chromosomes. The addition lines of Z1, Z2 and Z6 derived from Zhong4 Awnless were composed of 42 wheat chromosomes and 2 Th. intermedium chromosomes (2Ai-2). The substitution line ZD28 derived from Z6 carries 40 wheat chromosomes and 2 Th. intermedium chomosomes (2Ai-2). The 2Ai-2 chromosome mostly belongs to St genome but about one third of the long arm in the middle belonging to the E genome. The GISH pattern of 2Ai-2 may be used as a molecular cytogenetic marker (Zhang et al., 2000).By using 12 probes on the long arm and short arm of wheat group 2 chromosome, the RFLP analysis indicated that the 2Ai-2 chromosome extensively homoeologous to the wheat group 2 chromosome with some different internal structure. Twenty RFLP markers specific to the 2Ai-2 chromosome, twenty combinations of 11 probes with some restriction enzymes were identified and could detect the 2Ai-2 chromatin in the wheat background (Zhang et al., 2001).Out of 600 10-mer RAPD primers, 5 RAPD molecular markers of ORR16 340 , OPH09 1580 , OPC01 500 , OPO05 650 , OPM04 1400 , were identified specific to the 2Ai-2 chromatin. The RAPD markers of OPR16 340 , OPO04 650 and OPM04 1400 were cloned, sequenced. 3 SCAR markers converted from the above RAPD markers (Zhang et al., 2001(Zhang et al., , 2002b)).Amphidiploid CPI 113500(2n=70), Triticum turgidum (2n=28) x Agropyron pulcherrimum (2n=42) produced by A. Mujeeb-Kazi, CIMMYT, showed good BYDV resistance. Some derivative lines were obtained by backcrossing CPI 113500 to common wheat as well as selfing. Two of them, the wheat-7 Ag. pulcherrimum disomic addition line 96S16-11, and the disomic substitution line 96W14-9 were resistant to BYDV. This BYDV resistance was linked with the presence of hairy glume (Hg) present in Ag. pulcherrimum but absent in the susceptible wheat parents. Since the Hg gene is located on group 1 chromosome, the BYDV resistance gene carried by Ag. pulcherrimum is most likely located on the group 1 chromosome.The leaf peroxidase isozyme analysis showed that a specific band at pH5.0 was observed in CPI 113500, 96S16-11 and 96W14-9 but absent in their susceptible wheat parents. PER-1 is located on the short arm of the homoeologous group 1 chromosomes. Therefore the resistance gene carried by Ag. pulcherrimum is on the short arm of the group 1 chromosome (Wu et al., 1999).Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) is a group of luteoviruses, vectored by several aphids. BYDV is the most significant virus pathogen of wheat, other important cereal crops, and grass species (Brettell et al., 1988;Conti et al., 1990).The most economical and practical means of controlling BYDV is to breed and make use of cultivars carrying genetic resistance to the virus or the aphid vector (Ayala et al., 2001). So far, no BYDV resistance genes have been found in all wheat collections tested. However, Thinopyrum intermedium ((Host) Barkworth and Dewey), a wild relative of wheat, is highly resistant to BYDV due to resistance genes located on homoeologous group 7 and group 2 chromosomes (Sharma et al., 1984;Brettell et al., 1988;Xin et al., 1988Xin et al., , 1991;;Banks et al., 1993;Larkin et al., 1995). A wheat-Th. intermedium disomic addition line L1, derived from a partial amphiploid TAF46, was developed by Cauderon et al., (1973) and showed good resistance to BYDV (Xin et al., 1988). The Th.  (Friebe et al., 1992) resistance gene, known as Bdv2 and carries a BYDV ( Zhang et al., 1999;McIntosh et al., 1998;Stoutjesdijk et al., 2001) on the long arm (Brettell et al., 1988).Several T7DS.7DL-7Ai1L translocation resistance lines with Bdv2, including Yw642, Yw443, and Yw243, etc., were developed using L1 as the resistance donor through CSph mutant-inducing homoeologous pairing and characterized by GISH, RFLP, and isozyme analysis (Xin et al., 1991;Zhang et al., 1999;Xin et al., 2001). These translocation lines with small segment of Th. intermedium chromosome 7Ai1 were used as BYDV resistance parents to improve wheat.In the prospect of transferring BYDV resistance gene Bdv2 into elite wheat varieties, the resistance must be evaluated. Results of a traditional field test are often influenced by aphids inoculating BYDV, environment and evaluator experience, and are only carried outSeveral wheat-Thinopyrum intermedium translocation lines with BYDV resistance gene Bdv2, including HW642, YW443, YW243, and Y991029, were developed by using the addition line L1 as the resistance parent. Out of 600 RAPD primers screened, the primers of OPD04 and OPR19 can amplify a specific band for Bdv2 present in resistant materials with Bdv2, but absent in susceptible wheat parents and other addition lines Z1, Z2, and Z6 without Bdv2. The specific band of OPD04-1300 for Bdv2 was cloned, analyzed, and sequenced. Based on the sequence, a pair of primers were designed, synthesized and can amplify only one band present in the resistant materials with Bdv2 but nothing in materials without Bdv2. Results indicated that RAPD marker OPD04-1300 was converted a sequence characterized amplified region (SCAR) marker SC-D04 to facilitate detecting materials with Bdv2 in wheat breeding populations. Another SCAR marker SC-W37 converted from gwm37 -450 was developed for Bdv2. After linkage analysis between these PCR markers and Bdv2 among F 2 population plants of HW642/ Zhong8601, results indicated that SC-D04 and SC-W37 co-segregated with Bdv2 and were more reliable and easily scored. Four generations of plants of the crosses and backcrosses among HW642 and synthetic wheat M53 with resistance to powdery mildew, wheat varieties Zhongmai 16 and Wan7107 were identified by SCAR markers. Results indicated that SCAR markers could be used in assisted selection of wheat, and 300 individual plants with resistance to BYDV and powdery mildew were selected from the backcross populations.once per year. The ELISA bioassay is so complicated, labor-intensive, and time-consuming that plant breeders are generally reluctant to do it (Stoutjedijk et al., 2001). Molecular markers could solve these problems.Although some RFLP and RAPD markers for Bdv2 were reported (Banks et al., 1995;Hohmann et al., 1996;Wang et al., 1996;Zhang et al., 1999), they are hardly suitable for large-scale selection in breeding program. Ayala et al. (2001) identified an SSR marker gwm37 for Bdv2, however, it is more difficult and expensive to selection for high-output by SSR marker than by SCAR marker (Paran and Michelmore, 1993).In addition, developing more molecular markers in the 7AiL region containing Bdv2 would be beneficial for genomic study and gene isolation.In the paper, we identified two new RAPD markers OPD04-1300 and OPR19-940 for the resistance Bdv2, and converted one RAPD marker OPD04-1300 and one SSR marker gwm37-450 into SCAR markers. After the linkage relationship among the SCAR markers and Bdv2 was analyzed, the SCAR markers were used to detect resistance and select BYDV-resistance genotypes in a large-scale wheat breeding program.Wheat-Th. intermedium translocation lines Yw642 (3xZhong8601/PP9-1), Yw443 (PP9-1/Shan7859// Fengkang8), Yw243 {(PP9-1/Shan7859//Fengkang8) // (3xFengKang13/ Khapli)} and Yw1029 (PP9-1/ Shan7859x2//(M.Hustman/Yangmai3)/3/Shan7859) were developed by the Institute of Crop Breeding and Cultivation, CAAS (Xin et al., 1991(Xin et al., , 2001;;Zhang et al., 1999). The combination of PP9-1 is Zhong8601/4/ Zhong7902/3/CS phx2 /L1//CSN5BT5D. A wheat-Th. intermedium partial amphiploid TAF46 and an addition line L1 were kindly supplied by Dr. Resistance to BYDV was tested in field. At the threeleaf stage, the F1, F2 and F3 plants of as well as their parents were infested with approximately 10 aphids carrying BYDV-GAV serotype. After one week the aphids were killed by insecticide application. When the susceptible wheat plants show typical BYDV symptoms (about 30 days later), the resistance was evaluated.DNA was extracted by the modified SDS-Phenol method of Sharp et al. (1988). A half of a newly grown leaf was frozen and ground in liquid nitrogen and extracted by SDS-Phenol. RAPD-PCR reaction was performed by the method of Zhang et al. (2001). The amplified products were fractionated on 1.0 % agarose gels and detected by ethidium-bromide staining.The SSR primer pair of gwm37 was selected to be synthesized based on Ayala et al. (2001) and Röder et al. (1998). SSR reaction was carried out by the modified method described by Ayala et al. (2001) with the annealing temperature modified to 50˚C.Cloning, analyzing, and sequencing RAPDs and SSRs Diagnostic RAPD bands and the diagnostic SSR fragment of gwm37 were purified, cloned, analyzed, and sequenced following the method described by Zhang et al. (2001). The amplified products were fractionated on 0.8% agarose gels and detected by ethidium-bromide staining.Two pair of SCAR primers were designed and synthesized based on the sequence of the cloned RAPD diagnostic fragment. The SCAR fragment from the RAPD marker was amplified in a 25µl containing 10 m M/l Tris-HCl (pH 9.0), 50 mΜ/l KCl, 2.0 mΜ/l MgCl 2 , 200 µM/l each dNTP, 1 U Taq polymerase, 40 ~100 ng genomic DNA, 0.2µM each SCAR primer. Amplification reactions were carried out in a DNA thermal cycler (Perkin Elmer Cetus 480), programmed at 96˚C 1 min, followed by 35 cycles of 94˚C 1 min, 64˚C 1 min, 2˚C 1 min and final extension of 72˚C 10 min. The amplified products were fractionated on 0.9% agarose gels and detected by ethidium-bromide staining.The SCAR-PCR from SSR marker wmg37, SC-W37 was amplified in the same program and similar condition as that of the SCAR-PCR from RAPD. But the concentration of MgCl 2 increased to 2.5 mM/l. The amplified products were fractionated on 3.5% agarose gels and detected by ethidium-bromide staining.A preliminary screening for genetic polymorphism among wheat parent Zhong 8601, Th. intermedium, and Yw642 as well as R pool and S pool was carried out by using 600 arbitrary 10-mers primers that were included in 30 groups of A-Z, AA, AB, AG, and AK group, 20 primers per group. Although four primers of OPD04, OPR19, OPF01, and OPAB01 could respectively amplified a polymorphic band between the resistant and susceptible materials, only the primers of OPD04 and OPR19 showed the same amplification diagnostic band in several independent repeats using different batchs of Taq polymerase.The primer of OPD04 could amplify a specific band of about 1300 bp present in all the resistance materials containing Bdv2 gene, including translocation lines Yw642, Yw443, Yw243, and Yw1029, L1 and Th. intermedium, but absent in the susceptible line Yw641, wheat parents as well as Z1 resistant to BYDV without Bdv2 gene (Figure 1). Results showed that the DNA fragment of OPD04-1300 could be used as a marker for Bdv2 gene.Similarly, the primer OPR19 amplified a specific DNA fragment of about 940 bp present in all the resistance materials containing Bdv2 gene but absent in the materials without Bdv2 (Figure 2). The band of OPR19-940 is a RAPD marker for Bdv2 gene.The cloning of OPD04-1300 fragment from Th. intermedium and the translocation line Yw642 resulted in 28 clones. After EcoRI restriction and PCR analysis, M 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 11 clones of the 28 clones had the expected fragment with size of 1300 bp corresponding to the original amplification products. These clone insertions were used as probes to Southern hybridize with the RAPD-PCR products amplified by primer OPD04. Results showed that the insertions in two clones of Tidz4 and Tidz8 only hybridized with the OPD04-1300 specific band in resistant materials and were homologous with the OPD4-1300 specific band (Figure 3).The insert DNA fragments of the two clones Tidz4 and Tidz8 were sequenced from two ends. The sequencing results indicated that the insertion sequences were identical and bordered by 10-mers sequences that corresponded exactly to the primer OPD04. Based on the sequences, two pairs of primers were designed, synthesized, and used to amplify genomic DNA of the resistant materials with and without Bdv2. Results showed that only one pair of primers, SC-D04U and SC-D04L containing the original 10 bases of OPD04, could generate a single robust band of about 1300 bp present in the resistant materials but absent in the materials without Bdv2 (Figure 4). Results indicated that the SCAR primers were available for Bdv2, and the SCAR marker, SC-D04, is dominant.The F 2 population of 256 plants from a cross between the Yw642 and Zhong8601 was used to investigate the linkage between SC-D04 and Bdv2. Results showed that 183 resistant plants completely amplified the SC-D04 marker, while none of 73 susceptible plants generate the band.The SSR primer gwm37 could amplify a specific band of about 450 bp present in all the resistant materials containing Bdv2 gene, including translocation lines L1 and Th. intermedium, but absent in the susceptible line Yw641, the wheat parents, as well as Z1 resistant to BYDV without Bdv2 gene (Figure 5). But the SSR-PCR products must be fractionated by at least 3% agarose gels, while the specific band of gwm37 -450 was not always stable.To facilitate detection of Bdv2 gene by PCR markers in breeding, it is necessary to convert the SSR marker into a reliable SCAR marker. After the marker band was cloned and sequenced, one pair primer of SC-W37U and SC-W37L was designed and used to detect Bdv2. Results indicated that SCAR primers could amplify a single robust band of about 450 bp in the  resistant materials with Bdv2, but nothing in the materials without Bdv2. The detection results of F 2 plants indicated that the SCAR marker of SC-W37 was co-segregated with Bdv2.The SCAR markers of SC-D04 and SC-W37 were used to detect the resistance and select BYDV-resistant genotypes in five generations of plants of the crosses and backcrosses. From 636 plants, the specific bands of SC-D04 and SC-W37 were detected in 300 individuals but absent in other 336 individuals. The results of SC-W37 were in agreement with that of SC-D04.The results of SCAR detection were in agreement with that of field test for resistance in F 2 , F 3 and BC 3 plants.A major research program aimed at elucidating plantpathogen interaction occurring upon virus infection was initiated in our laboratory in 1991. The experimental system chosen was the interaction between the Yd2 resistance gene and Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV). Unlike many other resistance genes, the interaction between host and pathogen cannot be described as a hypersensitive response. Yd2 does not prevent the virus from spreading systemically from the point of infection, rather it appears to act by reducing the rate of replication of the virus in the phloem (Skaria et al., 1985;Ranieri et al., 1993). The Yd2 resistance gene has provided durable resistance over the last 40 years to a large range of BYDV isolates (Lister and Ranieri, 1995). The cloning and characterization of the Yd2 gene may identify a new class of genes with novel modes of action. Such a discovery may give us insight into targeting specific plant genes involved in hostpathogen interactions for the creation of novel and durable resistances to other pathogens.The major focus of our project has been to attempt to clone Yd2 by a map-based approach. For this approach, a genetic map is constructed of sufficient resolution to enable the identification of one or more DNA markers at a physical distance from the target gene, which is less than the average size of the genomic library being used. Thus, the markers are used to \"land\" on a clone containing the gene (Tanksley et al., 1995).The first step towards the isolation of Yd2 was the generation of a linkage map of the Yd2 region in barley. A number of DNA probes were mapped as restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) to a population of 106 F2 segregants derived from a cross between the barley varieties Proctor (Yd2-minus) and Shannon (Yd2plus). By the end of 1996 a detailed linkage map of the Yd2 region of barley chromosome 3 had been constructed and published (Collins et al., 1996). This completed the first stage of the map-based approach.The second stage of the project involved the saturation of the Yd2 region with markers closely linked to Yd2 and the resolution of co-segregating markers from Yd2. Therefore, a larger mapping population of 572 F2 progeny in a new cross, between Atlas (Yd2-minus) and Atlas68 (Yd2-plus) was constructed, allowing us to accurately place Yd2 on our map with our closest flanking markers spanning a genetic distance of 1.6cM. Importantly, recombination rates for this cross were five times greater than in the Proctor/Shannon cross, allowing us to resolve molecular makers previouslyIn an attempt to identify and characterize the Yd2 gene, a map-based cloning strategy has been undertaken in our laboratory. Linkage maps in two barley populations have been constructed placing 29 molecular markers, the Yd2 gene, and the centromere on these maps. Twelve of these markers are within 1cM of Yd2. Physical mapping of the Yd2 region revealed a physical linkage between the two loci Xbcd134 and Ylp. Because these loci are separated by 0.5cM on the Proctor/Shannon map, a relationship between physical to genetic distance around this immediate area could be calculated as 1cM being less than 360kb. Screening of barley bacterial artificial chromosome filters identified a number of Yd2 linked BACs forming a partial contig over the Yd2 region. Further chromosome walks will continue until a complete contig over the Yd2 gene is constructed.unresolvable from Yd2. Amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs) also helped with the saturation of the region and the placement of a new marker YLM, 0.7cM from Yd2 and distal to the centromere (Figure 1).In the analysis of 572 F2 individuals, 18 F2 individuals were identified that showed a recombination event within a 1.6cM interval between the markers YLM and MWG952. These recombinants were selfed and individuals homozygous for the recombination event identified. These individuals were then available for the creation of bulks of resistant and susceptible individuals for further marker development and high resolution mapping of the Yd2 region.The revised maps presented in Figure 1 consist of 29 Yd2 linked markers spanning a genetic distance of 27.6cM. Two markers, YLM and YLP, were developed into PCR markers and have since been used in breeding programs to introgress the Yd2 gene into suitable agronomic backgrounds (Ford et al., 1998;Paltridge et al., 1998).The third stage of the map-based cloning strategy involved the generation of data about the relationship between physical and genetic distance from the Yd2 region. This information is crucial to the success of our map-based strategy as the relationship can vary over 100-fold in different regions of the genome (Ganal et al., 1989). Such information would tell us of the probability of finding a large genomic clone with our closest marker which may also contain the Yd2 gene, or whether there would be a need for another round of marker saturation. Therefore, pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), in combination with restriction enzyme digestion of high molecular weight DNA, was used to establish a relationship between our closest molecular markers.Using the rare cutter PvuI, it was shown that one of our co-segregating markers YLP was physically linked to a flanking marker BCD134 by a maximum physical distance of 180kb (Figure 2). BCD134 is 0.5cm north of Yd2. Therefore, the relationship between physical and genetic distance around the Yd2 region could be calculated as being approximately 1cM = 360Kb. This information suggested that the identification of a large genomic clone(s) spanning the Ylp locus would have a high probability of spanning the Yd2 gene.Filters from a barley bacterial artificial chromosome library (BAC) were imported from Clemson University, USA, and screened with our closest molecular markers.A number of BACs were identified. These clones were confirmed to be from the Yd2 region by specific PCR and Southern hybridization. Based on PFGE analysis, genomic inserts ranged in size from 98kb to 150kb. Southern fingerprint analysis identified an overlap between a number of these BACs, which contain genetically distinct molecular markers. Two clones spanned the Ylp locus and co-segregated with Yd2. The Notes: Linkage maps of the Yd2 region of barley chromosome 3 developed in our two mapping populations. RFLP markers have the \"X\" prefix. Loci that perfectly co-segregated are separated by commas, and the PCR marker YLM was generated in this laboratory. The Proctor x Shannon population was constructed using 106 F2 individuals (Collins et al., 1996), while the Atlas x Atlas68 cross was constructed using 572 F2 individuals. The maps comprise 29 molecular markers and the Yd 2 gene. Distances are in centiMorgans. Importantly recombination rates for the Atlas x Atlas68 cross were five fold greater than in Proctor x Shannon cross allowing us to resolve molecular makers previously unresolvable from Yd2. was performed and the membrane exposed to highly sensitive film at -80 0 C for 48 hours. The genetic loci Xbcd134 identified by the probe BCD134 is separated from Yd2 by 0.5cM in genetic distance. Radiolabelled lambda DNA was used to visualize the concatemer ladder. BCD134 hybridized to a restriction fragment of approximately 180Kb in size, which was not present in the undigested control. BCD134 did not hybridize to the rice YAC. The membrane was washed for 10 minutes in 0.4M NaOH and then stripped 3 times with boiling stripping solution (2mMEDTA, 0.1% SDS) and re-exposed to highly sensitive film for 72 hours to check the probe had been successfully removed. The membrane was then used for rehybridization. (c) A subsequent hybridization to the same pulsed field membrane was made with the DNA probe YLP, which maps to the Ylp loci that co-segregates with Yd2. The probe hybridized to the rice YAC as well as to a restriction fragment of approximately 180Kb. The autoradiographs were overlaid using the concatemer ladders and autorad background to correctly align them. Both restriction fragments were found to hybridize to the same point therefore, suggesting physical linkage of both genetically distinct markers Xbcd134 and Ylp to the single PvuI restriction fragment.other 4 clones span the Xbcd134 locus, a molecular marker shown to be 0.5cM proximal of Yd2. Therefore, the first of a series of genomic walks with the aim of constructing a series of overlapping genomic clones (contig) across the Yd2 region has been initiated. Response to BYDV infection was studied in field tests using artificial inoculation, in which cultivars/ lines were grown on two row 1 m-plots (usually with three replications). Earlier, field trials consisted of two blocks (infected and control) separated by a protective belt. More recently, the control and infected blocks have been adjacent (without aThe resistance to Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) of barley cultivars, breeding lines, and resistance sources from world collections has been tested in RICP Prague-Ruzyne over the past 10 years. Most barley materials were found to be susceptible or moderately susceptible to BYDV. High resistance levels were associated with the presence of the Yd2 gene, but other genes non-allelic to Yd2 were also detected in moderately resistant spring and winter barley cultivars. Significant levels of resistance to BYDV were obtained in spring barley by combining Yd2 with genes detected in moderately resistant cultivars. The effect of Yd2 on barley quality traits was examined using different sets of double haploid (DH) lines and recombinant inbred lines (RILs). Analysis showed that the presence of the Yd2 gene did not affect malting quality traits or other important agronomic characters tested. The effect of the genetic background on Yd2 efficiency was investigated and found to be rather high, especially in spring cultivars. Valuable spring genotypes were developed using Yd2 lines, moderately resistant Czech lines, and traditional breeding approaches. Winter barley materials with good agronomic type and acceptable levels of BYDV resistance were obtained from crosses of non-Yd2 but moderately resistant genotypes.protective belt), which helps to improve symptom classification (direct comparison of control and infected strains). During inoculation, control blocks are covered with sheets to protect them against infection.At the beginning of tillering and, in the case of winter barley, in the autumn, artificial inoculation with the PAV strain of BYDV is carried out by placing greenhouse-reared aphids (Rhopalosiphum padi) on the plants. Reactions to the virus infection are recorded using the 0-9 scale developed by Schaller and Qualset (1980). Data on grain weight per spike and tiller number after infection are combined with visual symptom scores using the \"susceptibility\" index proposed for barley by Sip et al. (1997b).Most spring and winter barley cultivars grown in Central Europe have been found susceptible or very susceptible to infection with the PAV strain prevalent in this region (Vacke et al., 1997(Vacke et al., , 1998)). Among spring barleys, only the cultivars Malvaz, Atribut, and Madras were found to be moderately resistant to BYDV. Moderate resistance was also detected in the winter cultivar Perry from the USA and Sigra from Germany (Table 1). Test cultivar sets included breeders' lines, resistance sources originated mainly from CIMMYT/ ICARDA collections, and cultivars registered in the Czech Republic. High resistance levels were associated with the presence of the Yd2 gene (Ovesna et al., 2000a). Based on genetic analysis, new resistance gene(s) were detected in Perry, Sigra, and several local cultivars (Sip et al., 1997a;Ovesna et al., 2000b), which were nonallelic with Yd2. Analyses of segregation in the F3 showed that this resistance is likely to be polygenic in cultivars Malvas and Atribut (with Czech malting quality) and Madras. Genetic analyses in crosses with winter barley cultivars Perry and Sigra, however, showed that one gene with larger effect is likely to be responsible for resistance in Perry and two genes for resistance in Sigra. Some lines resulting from crosses between Yd2 cultivar and Sigra or Perry were highly resistant (Fig. 1).The absence of Yd2 gene in the above mentioned moderately resistant cultivars was also confirmed with the use of the PCR diagnostic marker Ylp (Table 1).The characteristics of spring and winter barley lines selected for use in hybridization programs are given in Table 1. It is apparent that highly resistant Yd2 gene carriers are predominantly 6-row barleys with compact ears (not suitable for Czech spring barley breeding). These Yd2 materials differed in their resistance levels, which indicates the effect of genetic background on Yd2 efficiency. Other important traits were also examined. It was shown that these materials are mostly not suitable for direct use in Czech breeding.The most convenient material appeared to be two row CIMMYT barley line Brea 'S'/Ben.In winter barley the available Yd2 genotypes were found to be very distant from current genotypes. In addition to Wysor, we examined highly resistant lines from ICARDA W BON 96-116, W BON 123, and W BON 96-118. These materials have in our conditions a type similar to that of Wysor, i.e., highly unsuitable short, compact ears. To obtain more rapid progress in breeding, our efforts concentrated on winter barley, especially moderately resistant cultivars Perry and Sigra, which are likely to carry major genes different from Yd2.A set of doubled haploid (DH) lines was developed from a Igri/Atlas 68 cross to study the effect of genetic background on Yd2 efficiency. Results obtained with groups of Yd2 and non-Yd2 lines of the Igri/Atlas 68 cross showed high agreement between DNA analysis (using Ylp marker) and field trials. The presence of Yd2 did not significantly influence heading date, grain yield, thousand-grain weight (TGW), and % extract (malting quality). Only the winter DH lines carrying the Yd2 gene were taller by about 5 cm than the respective non-Yd2 lines. The variability of symptom scores in spring Yd2 DH lines was much higher (2.22) than in winter lines (1.14) (Chrpova et al., 2001).A high proportion of lines with acceptable resistance levels (VSS < 4) was obtained by crossing the Yd2 gene carriers with moderately resistant malting barley cultivars (Atribut, Madras, or Malvaz) (Sip et al., 2001).The highest percentage of lines with high breeding value occurred in the cross Akcent/Brea'S' Ben, which is very important from a breeding standpoint.In winter barley, three moderately resistant (VSS = 4.5 -5.O) lines coming fr om the cross Sigra/Borwina/ /SG-L 74 are being yield tested this year in official breeding station trials. Resistance derived from Perry was also successfully exploited especially after crossing this cultivar with high yielding modern cultivar Luxor.Primary Yd2 genotypes may be suitable for transferring resistance genes into adopted germplasm when broadening of genetic diversity is required. However, simple introgression of Yd2 into elite genotypes requires multiple backcrossing and careful characterization of the resulting progeny. Evaluation of progenies with the Ylp marker and monitoring of saturation of genetic background by SSR or AFLP analyses may speed up the breeding process. We tested the reliability of YLM (Paltridge et al., 1998) and Ylp (Ford et al., 1998)   There are major theoretical and practical differences related to tolerance vs. resistance breeding. The correlation between disease resistance sensu stricto and protection against crop losses is not what the layman would expect. It seems entirely logical that a resistance gene reducing virus levels should also protect against losses. Yet tolerance genes simply reduce economic loss factors, regardless of virus titers. Resistance sensu stricto (reflected in reduced ELISA titers) always leads to reduced virus spread in the field, but not necessarily to smaller losses in individually infected plants. In studies of the Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV), visual symptom data, somewhat based on loss of chlorophyll, were much less reliable in wheat than in other species. Moreover, in wheat, susceptibility sensu stricto (reflected in high ELISA titers) is not related to a higher probability of serious losses. Species certainly differ in the manner in which virus titers correlate with symptoms and damage. Correlation between ELISA titers, symptomatology and losses may be found in bulk plant population samples, in cases where infection occurred at an early stage and under growing conditions that increased damage. Yet in species like bread wheat, durum wheat, oats and triticale, the correlation between symptoms and damage might become significant only under the most severe epidemic conditions; in average conditions, up to 25% economic loss can occur in the presence of minimal or near invisible symptoms. In fact, durum wheat and bread wheat often give counterintuitive research results which appear at face value like a violation of the Koch postulate. In these species, reliable tolerance data necessitate a study for many years and at many contrasting sites, using quantitative data on many parameters. This is because growing conditions represent an important variable that can modify the losses caused by barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) infection, and this interaction is serious in the genus Triticum. In ideal growing conditions, some amount of phloem damage may have very little real effect on crop yield. In the presence of secondary stresses, the deleterious effects induced by BYDV may be increased a lot.In cases where secondary stresses are mild, BYDV-induced losses may also be minor, and this reduces the difference between tolerant and sensitive lines. Our current understanding of tolerance mechanisms is that diverse aspects of biotic and abiotic stress resistance can also improve virus tolerance, and that the tolerance mechanisms of one line or cultivar can be quite different from the mechanisms present in another. This has theoretical and practical consequences. Due to the complex nature of tolerance and to its interaction with environmental stress, tolerance data obtained at one site may correlate poorly with data from another site. The practical caveat is that BYDV information on bread wheat and durum wheat must be seen as much more sitespecific and year-specific that the data on rusts for example, and that many test sites and/or years of data are needed for a valid evaluation of tolerance. A practical application of the current understanding of tolerance is that within breeding programs, BYDV can be used to increase the overall effects of secondary stresses in wheat and oats. Since yield stability and yield potential are both related to the capacity of plants to mitigate stress-induced losses, BYDV is used to make the response to secondary stress easier to evaluate. Instead of being simply a disease, BYDV is now one of the most essential tools in germplasm enhancement and cereal breeding, in order to identify stability of yield and quality, and also water and nutrient use efficiency.A. Comeau 1 and S. Haber 2In the past, it has been commonly assumed that improving disease resistance sensu stricto also reduced crop losses, i.e. made plants also more tolerant. Yet this view may not apply to all diseases, and, as we shall discuss, especially not to BYDV. Tolerance and resistance are not one and the same. This paper will focus more attention on the merits of virus tolerance sensu stricto, in relationship with the efforts of our research groups to develop elite BYDV-tolerant germplasm and cultivars. We will also discuss current understanding of how the underlying mechanisms are involved at the cellular and physiological levels.It is essential to apply rigorously the terminology of Cooper and Jones (1983), so as to develop a realistic understanding of the complex genetic nature of socalled \"field resistance\" phenomena. Field resistance at the individual plant level should be properly called tolerance; it is the desirable plant response to disease pressure, i.e. reduction or absence of pathogen-induced damage. Whether or not the pathogen is present in large or small amount is not relevant to the notion of tolerance. Lack of tolerance must be called \"sensitivity\", and distinguished from \"susceptibility\".The use of the term \"resistance\" must be restricted to cases where pathogen amounts in individual plants were measured or assayed indirectly, as it means a reduced level of pathogen multiplication and/or translocation in individual plants, and represents the effect of the plant itself on the pathogen. Virus evaluation from bulked samples of many plants may lead to misinterpretation of what happens inside individual plants. The most common test for virus titer is also not direct; ELISA quantifies extractable viral protein, and correlation with viable virions is not necessarily demonstrated. The presence of high amounts of virus is \"susceptibility\" sensu stricto as defined by Cooper and Jones. The extreme case of resistance is immunity, in which case the pathogen cannot be found in the host plant. In BYDV research, resistance has been evaluated much less thoroughly than tolerance (Burnett et al., 1995). One might think that cultivars endowed with high resistance or immunity would be automatically very tolerant; but this idea, while seemingly logical and appealing, must be abandoned when using the Cooper and Jones terminology, and when confronting numerous cases where plants restrict pathogen multiplication but yet suffer important damage. One must learn to observe and discuss the two phenomena of resistance and tolerance as non-correlated traits, generally (but not always) controlled by totally different genes in wheat. The meaning of the term \"symptoms\" also needs discussion, as well as the use of symptom data vs. quantitative data on many traits in the decision-making.In practice, true resistance may limit virus spread. It may or may not reduce damage to individual plants. Tolerance, on the other hand, does reduce damage, but this may or may not be correlated to a reduction of virus content or ELISA values.For the sake of discussion, symptoms will be separated into categories: those visible only under microscopy or through physiological measurements, and those visible by the naked eye; causal relationships will also be discussed.Before considering the meaning of the visible symptoms, one should review what is known about the microscopic and physiological consequences of virus infection. Virus content reaches only a few parts per million. This tiny biomass of pathogen is known to cause heavy damage in certain cereal cultivars, and not in others. Viral biomass proportion is thus unrelated to damage. In the first electron microscopy studies of the internal symptoms (Esau, 1957a(Esau, , 1957b)), phloem degeneration and callose deposition inside the phloem were the first internal visible symptoms. James Chong (pers. comm.) later observed that callose deposition actually plugged plasmodesmata that connect phloem sieve elements. This might account for a series of observed consequences. If the plugging of plasmodesmata is the way by which translocation of photosynthate is rapidly impeded, then, the abundance of callose deposition and the way it plugs plasmodesmata might be called the primary symptom, the very first cause of all further damage. The difference in damage between two cultivars might have little relationship with the way the cultivar represses virus multiplication and spread, but relate more to differences in callose formation and deposition patterns. Thus, the overall efficiency of plants in reaching an optimal control of the callose formation mechanism might be an important aspect of tolerance mechanisms. Callose plays many roles in plants, and one of its roles is to reduce virus spread through plasmodesmata (Epel, 1994). Yet this resistance mechanism is due to have many deleterious effects on the plant.It was hypothesized that cereal plants could perhaps become gradually divided into compartments, during plant growth, so that mid-season infection of one tiller might not lead to infection of other tillers. The validity of this hypothesis is supported by some data (Makkouk et al., 1994c), at least for oats and bread wheat, since the tiller-to-tiller virus movement is less likely to occur when plants are infected at later growth stages. This was shown using the tissue-blot immunoassay method (TBIA-ELISA). Yet, the tolerant bread wheat check Maringa was not different from the sensitive check Katepwa in that respect. Therefore, in bread wheat, mechanisms that prevent virus spread in other tillers remains another form of resistance without a proven benefit for tolerance.The study of various interspecific hybrids of wheat with Agrotricum yielded a lot of the data that are the basis for the present discussion. For a series of Chinese-Australian interspecific-derived wheat lines, identified with the prefix \"Zhong\", the BYDV resistance was confirmed by many research teams, through the use of ELISA and TBIA-ELISA (Chen et al., 1997(Chen et al., , 1998). Yet in field trials in Canada, in Quebec and in Winnipeg as well, the expected tolerance did not express (Comeau et al., 2001) (Figure 1), regardless of the fact that in some other countries, in which the growing season was longer, tolerance did express rather well. Another wheat interspecific hybrid derived from crosses to OK7211542 had the generally expected behavior: its resistance was correlated to tolerance, in Canada as well as in other countries (Comeau et al., 1994). However, this was a winter wheat. To our knowledge, transfer of this resistance from winter wheat background to spring wheat background is not yet demonstrated. One should never assume that the genes that protect winter wheat would automatically protect spring wheat. In winter wheat, a lag time between infection and the triggering of the resistance and tolerance responses is permitted. In spring wheat, this lag time must be extremely short, at least in Canada; a long lag time leads to losses as those shown in Figure 1.The reverse counterintuitive case was also common.Wheat lines with high ELISA values together with low losses were easy to find. Very useful genes of tolerance were found in lines that were totally devoid of resistance. For example, the interspecific Chinese Triticum aestivum line Long Miai 10 tolerates BYDV quite well, but 26 d after infection, Long Miai 10 had the highest ELISA titre of all wheat lines evaluated (Comeau et al., 1992). This proved that tolerance within individual plants had very little to do with resistance.The physiological effects of BYDV were recently summarized (Jensen and D'Arcy, 1995). Damage to the phloem and plasmodesmata leads to physiological effects of the virus which in turn lead to macro effects in terms of plant morphology, phenology, color, and quality. In brief, most of these effects result from reduced translocation. This causes carbohydrate accumulation which in turn increases leaf dry weight per unit area, inhibits photosynthesis by feedback, reduces chlorophyll, and increases respiration (Jensen, 1968).What the virus does to root tips is a critical question. Root tips are far from the source of photosynthate, and thus suffer a lot from impaired translocation. The root tips of sensitive barley lines can be killed by BYDV after as little as 4 days (Comeau et al., 1990). Root tips are important in stress signaling.The first stress signals emitted by the root apex may be mediated by ABA; under severe stress, ethylene may also be involved. Such signals spread rapidly to the whole plant, potentially affecting all traits. In oats, root apex growth is reduced, and root morphology is altered by the virus (Al Faiz, 1994).Wheat behaves in a similar way (Comeau and Al Faiz, unpublished).The mechanisms that control the phenology, morphology and tiller rate are also distorted in rather unpredictable ways by the virus-induced hormonal disturbances. A biodiversity of patterns of plant response to virus-induced stresses can be identified within a group of lines that have poor tolerance. Some lines react to infection by developing a larger number of weak tillers; others grow fewer tillers.Because of this genetic variability in plant response, a more general approach to the description of symptoms is needed.Isolates of BYDV differ in severity, and the environment modulates the effects of the virus. A rather weak strain in a difficult growing environment may cause severe losses, while a severe strain in a mild environment may cause only mild losses. Even the moderately severe isolates of BYDV (often PAV serotypes) may fail to produce typical visual symptoms in wheat grown in good soil under good conditions. Yet, even in absence of visual symptoms, a quantitative study may reveal significant economic damage. A total absence of symptoms would necessarily entail that no micro, macro or physiological effect reached the detectable level. But in practice, in most of the Gramineae, BYDV symptoms are expressed through changes in many parameters, which must also be considered in evaluations of tolerance:A. Organ size and shape, B. Organ number, C. Phenology, D. Quality parameters of plant tissues (color, texture, composition), E. Reaction to other diseases and to other stresses.Tolerance relates to the effects virus infection exerts on the plant, and has little to do with ELISA titers or quantities of infectious virus. These effects are complex, and when the plant deals with a restricted amount of available photosynthate, a strong effect on one parameter can be counterbalanced by a smaller effect on another parameter. Thus, if quantitative measurements could be made for each factor, and if the data were normalized and adjusted, then equations that quantify global plant tolerance could look like the following:) in which the v suffix identifies transformed virus inoculated data of each parameter and ck identifies transformed data for non-inoculated checks. Using indexes always involves arbitrary choices. Some choices emerge as better practices, when the correlation of indexes with real losses of yield and quality is verified. The equation would be improved further by taking into account many organs of the plant (tillers, roots, florets, seeds), and also the number of days to boot, flowering or ripeness stage. This academic approach takes into account the fact that one line or cultivar could allocate more of its scarce resources to roots when infected, thus reducing the photosynthate available to tillers, florets or seeds. It also takes into account that another line could simply slow down its phenology, taking more time in an attempt to produce the same number of tillers, spikes, and florets for example. A first step is to calculate standardized values: (A v -(mean of A))/(standard deviation of A), and so on for other parameters. The mean and standard deviation of the parameter may be taken from all pooled data (virus-infected and noninfected). Signs must be adjusted to give positive values to all desirable traits. An arbitrary constant must be added so that all values stand well above zero; a value of 10 can be suggested for a start. Tolerance equations could include weighing factors on each parameter, for practical reasons.In practice, measurements of yield, biomass, harvest index, and seed quality (caliber and specific weight) can replace the very detailed approach suggested above. Selection indexes can be developed from data on many traits, and experimental validation of those indexes is possible using comparisons between inoculated and virus-free plots or plants. As an ultimate cost-cutting strategy, selection work is possible using solely an index based on data from virus-inoculated plants. Once validated with enough virus-free checks, such an index is efficient for the early screening of genotypes.To complete these general guidelines, one must realize that height and lodging data must also be used in decision-making, and present a serious problem. Lodging is not normally distributed. Height has an optimum value (80-95 cm); very tall and very short values are undesirable, because the tallest suffers lodging, and the ultra short always presents complex, severe defects. Height genes also interact strongly with virus tolerance. Therefore, it is essential to consider height in decision-making. Because of the problems related to height, one alternate approach is to make a 2-D graph of height versus a tolerance index based on other parameters. Another approach is to forget about using indexes, and take all decisions based on rotating 3-D plots with the shape and color of points added as fourth and fifth dimensions; this rapid and elegant approach can be implemented using Data Desk® software (Data Description Inc., Ithaca, NY).Tolerance measurements based on one single criterion have the virtue of simplicity, but the major defect of low heritability, because over a few generations, it is unavoidable that improving one single organ's reaction to BYDV will lead to reduction of size and number of other organs, and to a longer life cycle. This understanding led to the development of selection indexes based on many parameters, routinely used by Comeau in field trials, and to the \"QI-assay\" used for trials under controlled conditions (Haber and Comeau, 1998). These methods have brought the art of screening and breeding for tolerance to a level of reproducibility and precision that increases the heritability of tolerance and thus allows for more rapid progress.The complexity of breeding for tolerance might be viewed at first as a disadvantage. However, tolerance confers many additional benefits, which relate to how tolerance is intermingled with the overall physiological efficiency of the plant. Current knowledge of the physiology of plant response to stress supports the postulate of the existence of a central, common core of stress response mechanisms, explained in detail by Geiger and Servaites (1991). The concept of the common core is shown in a simplified manner in Figure 2. This common core is strongly related to genes and biochemical pathways related to signaling and stress response. However, signals and responses are dependent on constitutive traits that can modify physiological efficiency and must also be seen as part of the core mechanisms. There is evidence that genes can impart multiple resistance (Kasuga et al., 1999), but more research is needed on these central mechanisms. Examples might relate to sucrose transport and to abscisic acid and other elements of the signaling pathways. Central mechanisms modifying the reallocation of carbohydrate or photosynthate in response to a stress deserve attention. One example would be the mechanisms that lead to rapid allocation of most of the energy to roots when maize seedlings suffer from water deficit (Comeau and Nodichao unpubl.); nutrient deficiencies create a similar response.The plant response to any stress signal can be described as a modification the redistribution of photosynthate between organs and biochemical pathways (Geiger and Servaites, 1991). This redistribution should allow the plant to make a better use of its environment, yet the intertwined signal and response mechanisms are genetically complex, and vary in their level of efficiency of use of the environment. Most of these mechanisms can be classified as tolerance rather than resistance.Tolerance mechanisms, due to their complexity, are buffered in a way that makes them most unlikely to lose effectiveness due to a point mutation in the pathogen. Indeed, the effectiveness of tolerance to BYDV in the oat cultivar Ogle for example has lasted for over 35 years. Tolerance, being associated to a number of traits that make the plants more efficient under complex natural stress, tends to be related with high yield and yield stability (Haber et al., 1997), as well as with horizontal resistance to biotic stresses. Some resistance genes had an unavoidable yieldreducing side effect (Smedegaard-Petersen and Tolstrup, 1985). A resistance gene may have an energy cost or a pleiotropic effect making plant physiology somewhat less efficient. Plant pathologists should verify how common is the phenomenon with fungal and viral diseases. Yet in discussing this issue, it is important to remember that tolerance is not resistance, and that side effects related to resistance may not apply to tolerance. Tolerance might have many positive consequences related to various traits.In a plant breeding perspective, BYDV is a very desirable stress component, whenever one intends to select plants that maintain physiological efficiency in the presence of complex natural stresses. Being itself a moderate, chronic stress, BYDV amplifies the effects of a number of other stresses. The first damage may be on roots; but through reduced absorption of minerals, it also reduces floret initiation, tiller number, floral peduncle elongation, and can increase plant sensitivity to root rots and other diseases (Comeau, 1992). Thus mechanisms affecting water and nutrient use efficiency become more critical after viral infection. In fact, through this complex damage, BYDV helps eliminate the lines that possess various physiological weaknesses in the segregating populations. It should not come as a surprise that BYDV data can be used as a reasonably good predictor of yield and yield stability in natural conditions, even in areas where BYDV is not a very frequent problem (Haber et al., 1997).Roots are important in being one of the first targets of the virus, and in being a source of signals within the plant. Viral effects on roots cannot be neglected if one is attempting to breed for tolerance. The root apex can be compared to a nerve center involved in the control of plant growth and plant response to stress (Davies andZhang, 1991, Tardieu et al., 1992). A reduction of the ability of the root apex to capture minerals may trigger one of the earliest signals of drought stress (Schmidhalter, 1995). Root damage from BYDV comes from reduced photosynthate translocation. However, by reducing apex growth, the virus indirectly reduces the plant's ability to capture minerals, which may lead to the same signal-inducing situation as drought. Some apparent drawbacks of the tolerance approach are acknowledged. Tolerance will not reduce the pool of virus inoculum in the environment; in fact, it may do the reverse. Breeding for tolerance to BYDV is moderately labor-intensive, but necessitates special training about how to control stress severity. Data analysis is more complex. Natural inoculum is seldom uniform enough to be useful, except in the rare areas where BYDV is very severe every year. Even when using artificial inoculation, special care is needed to obtain uniform plantlet emergence and uniform vigor at the early stages, otherwise the effect of the virus will be to favor the plantlets that had an early advantage. In certain environments, tolerance correlates with excess plant height, which must be understood before taking decisions about parental selections for further crosses.Research focused on gene pyramiding for BYDV tolerance was pursued from 1980 to 1993. This focused research was mostly a failure in the sense that high tolerance was obtained, but it was in a background that made it poorly heritable and almost useless. All of the best sources of tolerance had very low gluten viscosity and other deleterious traits like excess height and mediocre grain quality. For unknown reasons, all the early attempt to transfer tolerance to medium height plants failed, despite major efforts. Height genes do modify the expression of tolerance to BYDV; in fact, selection on the basis of visual symptoms alone tends to lead to favor plants like QW 624.13, which is much too tall for practical use. Dwarfing genes tend to reduce BYDV tolerance in all cereal species. However, this interaction between height and tolerance is not expressed in the same manner in all ecological and climatic conditions. The interaction is very clear-cut in Quebec every year, but in other areas where soils are deep or the growing season much longer, the interaction is less obvious. This interaction might relate in part to effects of the dwarfing genes on root systems. In virus-free conditions, roots of a series of tall virus-tolerant lines grew about 10% longer than those of the best semidwarf lines, in an aerated hydroponic systems with intermittent pumping of nutrient solutions (St-Pierre and Comeau, unpublished). We concluded that dwarfing genes probably had some effect on root length.Profound interactions between virus stress, soils and climate had been observed. Excellent growing conditions delayed the expression of symptoms and reduced their intensity; damage was also reduced in such conditions. In some replicated trials, symptomless or near symptomless damage exceeded 25% (Collin, pers. comm.). The integrity of plasmodesmata and phloem is likely more critical when plants are under environmental stress. Therefore genotypes that possess a more efficient phloem, genotypes that develop lesser amounts of virusinduced damage to plasmodesmata , and genotypes that adjust in a more successful way to the resulting overall stress complex may become the only ones able to tolerate BYDV in a complex stress situation. The nature of the damage observed differs according to the species and stage of infection of plants. In bread wheat, midseason inoculation caused more damage than early inoculation, while producing less obvious symptoms (Comeau, 1987). Early infection affects all parameters but may have less effect on grain fill; late infection may have little effect on tillering and floret fertility, but can have profound effect on grain fill. Part of the damage may also take the form of phenology shift. The infected plants may ripen earlier, with disastrous effects on yield, or later than normal, in which case risks of frost may be increased.Thus in some environments, instead of basing selection on symptoms, it is necessary to ponder data on many traits when taking decisions. The heritable and usable part of the tolerance components may be those that are not tightly linked or pleiotropic with excess height. Care must be taken not to keep resistance or tolerance genes that respond too slowly to virus infection, leading to a period of sluggish growth that modifies the phenology. The \"QI-assay\" method developed by Haber recognized those problems and based its selection criteria on notes about heading and flowering date (more often delayed by the virus), spike size, and flag leaf size. Provided a strict protocol is followed in growth cabinet trials, delay of heading can predict a major proportion of the viral effect on yield, and promising lines can be identified early enough to use them as crossing parents in the same plant growth cycle (Haber and Comeau, 1998). The field selections done by Comeau are based on height, symptoms, yield, biomass, harvest index, and specific weight of infected plots. Rotating 3-D plots (using Data Desk software) and indexes weighing the different traits are viewed as good ways to implement a multiple-trait tolerance selection system. These recommended methods are a bit complex, but not very costly, and seem to lead to major gains in efficiency of selection for tolerance genes.Selection methods used after 1993 emphasized the study of correlation between traits in order to identify the heritable components of tolerance. As an example, in the examples in Table 1, the recent Ste-Foy line QG 2.1, which has perhaps the highest BYDV tolerance of all lines observed in 24 years, would have been discarded if judged on symptoms alone. For symptoms it would have been rated average, not exceptional. The cultivar Maringa, which has the best symptom rating, does confer tolerance when used as a parent in crosses, but it also contains a large number of alleles that give tall weak straw and others that are deleterious to hectoliter weight and bread-making quality. Thus, it has not led until now to easy progress in breeding for BYDV tolerance. The line QW 624.13 might be easier to use than Maringa, but suffers from a few similar defects. Crosses to QG 2.1 show that the good tolerance of this line is very heritable. Parents such as QG 2.1, which have tolerance without excess height, generally seem to provide a better heritability of BYDV tolerance.Selection of tolerant or resistant cereal lines in plant breeding programs can be done on the basis of symptoms only if a number of conditions are met (Burnett et al., 1995). Virus infection with a severe strain must be done early with a heavy inoculum; this is best done through artificial inoculation. The use of ELISA for breeding purposes may work for barley (Makkouk et al., 1994a) but is not practical for oats, durum wheat, triticale or bread wheat, unless the material selected contained specific resistance genes of interspecific origin. All resistance genes must be assessed as to whether or not they confer tolerance in field situations; indoor tests are really not reliable for this goal, unless extreme precautions are taken. ELISA or preferably active virus titer assays are essential to distinguish resistance from tolerance. The textbook symptoms of barley yellow dwarf virus mostly relate to losses of chlorophyll, which are obtained only under specific conditions, i.e. with certain lines of some species inoculated early with severe isolates (Comeau et al., 1992). Some cereal genotypes may not lose chlorophyll even when suffering from severe stress (Thomas and Howarth, 2000;Silva et al., 2000). Thus, the best possible symptom evaluation must include many traits besides plant color, and the visual notation may still lead to inconclusive evidence. Symptoms are not acceptable for diagnosis and loss estimation purposes except in severe epidemics.An adequate supply of micronutrients is necessary for lignin formation and also for disease resistance and tolerance (Graham and Webb, 1991). Mid-season BYDV infection was observed to increase lodging (Comeau unpubl.), perhaps as a secondary effect of root damage which reduces all nutrients and may impede lignin formation. The predisposition of cereals to other diseases after BYDV infection has also been discussed (Comeau, 1992). Screening for BYDV tolerance might theoretically favor plants that are more efficient for micronutrient uptake. Some of the recent BYDV tolerant parental selections have improved straw (Table 2), and some showed better than average manganese efficiency in muck soils (ex. AC Superb, QW 628.5 and BRS 120) (Comeau and Voldeng, unpublished). It seems plausible that the use of BYDV as a selection factor in segregating populations may help identify alleles for better straw and improved nutrient use efficiency, provided the tallest plants are eliminated.A special note is needed about the use of specific weight and harvest index in the BYDV selection process. The use of specific weight was originally a The most tolerant would be rated 0, and the least tolerant 9. b Data is summarized by a least squares analysis, with n data sets (sites or years). Note that virus damage tends to be more severe for shorter lines, and yet heritable components of tolerance are easier to obtain from shorter parents. It was confirmed over the years that this trait is one of the most useful ones to consider, because its use integrates the late effects of BYDV on grain fill and grain quality with the increased root rot damage that often accompanies BYDV infection (Comeau, 1992). However, in many environments, specific weight is generally lower for the shortest lines.Harvest index is a trait that tends to be higher for shorter germplasm. Harvest index, yield and biomass under infection are not as easy to evaluate as specific weight, and give less significant F values in ANOVAs. Thus, the final judgement about lines and parents must take into account the autocorrelation between traits and the statistical value of the observations.A better understanding of the mechanisms that confer tolerance would be helpful. Circumstantial evidence originally led us to believe that root health and vigor traits were those that were the most correlated with BYDV tolerance. Reduced absorption of minerals by BYDV-infected oats was observed (Comeau and Barnett, 1979), and BYDV tolerant lines had, on average, slightly longer roots than sensitive lines in virus-free situations (Comeau and St-Pierre, unpubl.). Our present hypothesis is that tolerance might be the net result of the interaction of a group of traits that relate to the global theory of stress response proposed by Geiger and Servaites (1991): the most tolerant genotype is the one that has the plasticity needed to make best use of photosynthate in a given complex stress situation. In this case, indeed, what confers tolerance in one environment could differ from what confers tolerance in another environment.Over years of using them as parental material, some of the outstanding traits of the preferred BYDV-tolerant parental lines have become known. Traits other than the virus tolerance of those lines can be quite noteworthy on their own (Table 2). It has been difficult in the past to keep the highest bread-making quality while breeding for BYDV tolerance, because much of the germplasm used came from Brazil and from other sources that had not selected for the gluten type judged essential in Canada and USA. In countries where gluten quality is judged on less stringent standards, this would be a lesser problem.Conventional breeding in Western Canada has recently come up with one wheat cultivar that has improved BYDV tolerance (medium-good level) together with good bread-making value (AC Superb). Breeding using BYDV selected parents has led to the feed wheat line QW 628.5, soon to be released as a cultivar by Agriculture Agri-Food Canada, Ottawa (Voldeng, pers. comm.). This line embodies high yield and yield stability with other valuable traits. Part of the BYDV tolerance genes come from a Flicker's' line (CIMMYT source).The best use of BYDV inoculum is to apply the stress during the segregating generations. In the Quebec oat breeding program (1971)(1972)(1973)(1974)(1975)(1976)(1977)(1978)(1979)(1980)(1981)(1982)(1983)(1984)(1985)(1986)(1987), this approach has yielded many BYDV tolerant oats with improved yield, stability of yield and quality, and other good attributes. These cultivars were highly successful and occupied almost all of the oat area in Quebec for over a decade, replacing the sensitive ones that were also available. Recent research at Agriculture Agri-Food Canada, Winnipeg recently confirmed that the use of BYDV in the segregating generations can indeed help obtain germplasm with improved yield and yield stability as the end product (Haber, unpubl.). The new working hypothesis is that the use of BYDV could be combined with the use of a few other stresses in order to allow synergistic interactions leading to the best results in terms of rapid elimination of lines that have higher G x E (yield instability over environments) (Comeau et al., 2001). Research is under way to verify the hypothesis.Combining stresses in very early generations led to a high discard rate of F 2 or F 3 ; in most populations, less than 2% of the plants were kept. Thus a complex crossing system became essential to create the higher genetic variability that is needed under complex stress. For example one may use F 1 / F 1 crosses including 3 or 4 different sources of resistance and tolerance genes, and the resulting F 1 plants can be submitted immediately to complex stress. The very high rate of rejection may upset traditions. However, severe natural selection can also happen in standard breeding. For example, in the early days of triticale breeding, a major epidemic of barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) destroyed a lot of the CIMMYT germplasm. This was viewed as a beneficial event, eliminating many genotypes with unstable yield, while the more stable ones survived (Comeau et al., 2001).Within the genus Aegilops, some resistance sensu stricto was found (Makkouk et al., 1994b), and attempts to use this are still under way. Some promising tolerant lines were obtained but reconfirmation of resistance sensu stricto in any wheat/Aegilops derivatives is still lacking. Over the last 20 years, ELISA was used in Quebec on approx. 200 genotypes representing very broad biodiversity and containing many of the wheat/Aegilops mentioned above. No true resistance was found except in the Chinese-Australian interspecific derivatives (which in Canada lacked tolerance) and in derivatives of Agrotricum line OK 7211542. True resistance thus seems very uncommon in cultivated wheat. Current data indicates that whatever was transferred from resistant Aegilops to wheat through selection pressures with BYDV in segregating generations was tolerance genes; the resistance genes sensu stricto may have been lost. In oats, some true resistance was found, mostly in alien species (Al Faiz, 1994); whatever was found in cultivated oats was poorly correlated with tolerance, confirming a similar conclusion by Lapierre and Gavrilovic (pers. comm.) about cultivated oats.Virus tolerance must be measured using data about many traits, and decision-making must take the correlation between traits into account, otherwise the effects of selection may be quite different from the intended goal. Tolerance may relate to the efficiency of plant response to complex stresses, and to the ability to maintain photosynthate translocation after viral infection. The way BYDV interacts with other biotic and abiotic stresses is a promising research topic with practical applications for breeding and germplasm development purposes. Data from diverse sites have more meaning once extra care is given to data interpretation in relationship to local secondary stresses. Root tips suffer heavily from BYDV-induced phloem damage. Since root tips are part of a signaling system which can rapidly modify photosynthate allocation, a fine-tuned, robust stress response system is essential for tolerance to BYDV in the presence of secondary stresses. There is real interest in investigating drought, excess rain, insufficient or excessive light intensity, mineral deficiencies, root rot, and other viral diseases such as WSMV, in mixed stress situations where a moderately severe or severe BYDV inoculum is an added component at a given stage. It seems that this approach imitates the natural complex stresses and also makes selection of better plants easier. So far, this approach has led to germplasm with higher yield, more stable yield, and reduced G x E interactions in wheat and oats.The concepts of resistance and tolerance may well be too complex for the layman. However, scientists should deal with those concepts, do the science accordingly, and use the correct terminology in scientific publication. Useful data on tolerance is obtainable in one year for oats and barley, and correlation between sites tends to be rather good. For bread wheat and durum wheat, good tolerance data implies a study for many years and at many contrasting sites. Tolerance also is more site-specific for wheat than for other cereals. As an example of potential problems, the BYDV data in the USDA-ARS germplasm bank does not clearly spell out the difference between BYDV resistance and tolerance (USDA-ARS, 2002). Evaluation may have focused strongly on visual symptoms. Some of the lines mentioned in the USDA-ARS collection have been tested in Quebec, and at least 6 lines listed as rather \"resistant\" would be viewed as rather inferior choices in breeding against BYDV in Canada, based on our tolerance tests. Table 1 provides vivid examples that justify a distrust of visual symptoms when used alone. Thus, we could not use the USDA-ARS data within a Canadian project.Tolerance and resistance both have merits. There is less genetic complexity in resistance. Some of the mechanisms are partly understood. For example the virus transport rate is affected by Yd2 in barley, and plant defense mechanisms that reduce virus spread within a plant belong ipso facto to the resistance category. Using transgenic approaches, some resistance mechanisms can be improved upon or invented. However, most of the additional benefits associated with natural tolerance genes are not obtained by resistance breeding approaches, and those extra benefits, discussed below, seem important enough to make tolerance an excellent strategic choice in its own right.Resistance sensu stricto must be evaluated as to its effects on other traits and as to its correlation (or lack of) with tolerance. One should never assume resistance leads to tolerance. Resistance may be a good choice in areas that have frequent severe epidemics; it also reduces the spread of inoculum to nearby plants.Tolerance seems correlated to a number of valuable traits and may deserve a much more prominent place in the toolbox of the breeders. QTLs associated with yield and yield stability are accepted as having value in plant breeding; one would be hard pressed ignoring a simple tool such as BYDV which provides similar benefits, using a rather simple technology. Tolerance to this virus has shown consistent and repeatable correlation with good and stable yield (Haber et al ., 1997, Comeau et al., 2001) and seems associated with many other tolerance traits.BYDV remains the most important viral disease of cereals. Yet, only a small percentage of cereal breeding programs have included BYDV tolerance as a major goal. The benefits of breeding for BYDV tolerance are obvious for regions where BYDV epidemics are frequent (Burnett et al., 1995). Yet, it should be recognized that important benefits are also possible for other areas where BYDV is only a negligible problem. In those areas, controlled BYDV inoculation may help to increase in a synergistic manner the overall efficiency of the selection processes for tolerance to other biotic and abiotic stresses (Comeau et al., 2001). This is why we now label BYDV as a broad-purpose breeding tool, and not only as a disease (Haber et al., 1997).The occurrence of Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) in certain developing countries is well documented (Lister and Ranieri, 1995). Mostly areas growing rainfed wheat are subject to losses associated with this disease that thrives under moderate temperatures and where precipitation is intermittent.Typical areas include the highland regions of Kenya and similar climatic settings in neighboring countries in the Eastern African Highlands, such as Burundi, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Uganda. Also the wetter regions in Mediterranean North Africa may encounter occasional epidemics, such as in Algeria, Tunisia, and the cooler Atlas Mountain region of Morocco (El Yamani and Hill, 1990). In Latin America BYDV is common in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Chile (Ramirez, 1990), and in the cooler highlands of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico (Burnett and Mezzalama, 1990), and Guatemala.Unlike most common wheat pathogens, the classic disease triangle of host, pathogen, and favorable climate in this case is expanded with a fourth very active player, the vector of the virus particles. This additional complexity, and its large sensitivity to environmental factors, has made the disease rather capricious in a number of ways. Its occurrence in any year is very unpredictable. Once observed in a young crop, it is still unclear whether it will spread during a particular cycle. Even if it spreads, yield losses range from barely noticeable to dramatic with stunting of the tillers and removal of synthesizing tissue due to extreme chlorosis.This whimsical behavior has made it difficult for researchers especially in most developing countries toBreeding for BYDV Tolerance/Resistance in CIMMYT Bread Wheats Targeted to Developing CountriesCIMMYT, Mexico, D.F., Mexico justify even moderate funding for studying this disease. In general in many affected countries, steady progress in developing germplasm with durable resistance in a background that is also agronomically desirable to the farmer has been slow or absent. Most cultivars for such environments express adaptation to the majority of local requirements but lack an appreciable level of tolerance or resistance to BYDV. Large advances remain to be made in controlling this disease.Control measures such as the application of insecticides to limit aphid populations are costly, and if used are not always effective in combating the pathogen. Chemical control is only recommended if both vector and virus are annually endemic with a high level of certainty. Otherwise it is almost never an economically effective option. One of the main reasons for the lack of great effectiveness lies in the specific dynamics of the build-up of a vectored disease. Often alarming levels of the vector (mostly aphids) are not duly noticed until its passenger, the virus, has multiplied in infected plants, and symptoms obvious to the farmers have started to appear. By then control of the vector would clearly come too late. On the other hand, control of the virus itself is an impossibility, with no known compounds available that will slow its multiplication or spread in wheat tissue once it is infected.As is clear from this introduction, the slogan \"an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure\" is very appropriate for this disease. Vectors can be controlled very early in the cycle (which undoubtedly would reduce any epidemic threat), but this may not be cost effective due to the uncertainty that the disease will ever really spread, given its complex response to environmental factors. The main approach is to instill the crop itself up front with an inbuilt ability to avoid losses due to the disease.Tolerance to this disease has been known since the 1950s (Burnett et al., 1995) and is defined as losses being low in the presence of an otherwise relatively large virus concentration in the plant. It is still one of the most promising methods to limit losses due to this disease in developing countries.A partially effective gene, Bdv1, was identified in the variety Anza as conferring tolerance to BYDV-MAV (Singh et al., 1993) and is so far the only reported gene for BYD tolerance. It has been incorporated into CIMMYT germplasm, in particular through the association of the tolerance gene Bdv1 with the widely present durable leaf rust gene Lr34. However, other germplasm from various geographical origins has also shown some tolerance to BYDV-PAV and MAV in our trials (Table 1). Recently, it was suggested that, as in oat, tolerance in wheat is multigenic (Ayala et al., 2002).Since the early 1990s, testing for tolerance is done using artificial inoculation of mainly BYDV-PAV at an early growth stage, and then comparing symptoms and growth under disease and in protected plots. These conditions are quite drastic, mimicking a very severe infection.Over the years at CIMMYT, several of these tolerant sources have been introgressed into better agronomic types and made available to the wider public through the international BYDV and other CIMMYT nurseries (Table 1). They combine reduced losses with acceptable to quite high yield, and resistance to other diseases prevalent in central Mexico, including stripe rust and Septoria tritici. The main deficits of these materials are often stable yield, wide adaptation, and acceptable bread-making quality.It is particularly encouraging that synthetic hexaploids are involved in some of these crosses (e.g. ALTAR 84/ AE.SQUARROSA (221)//3*BORL95). Synthetic hexaploids are a rich new source of diversity in bread wheat breeding that have become more widely available and applied only in the past 10 years. While frequency of occurrence varies, synthetic hexaploid entries have been found that transmit resistance to one or more of the three major wheat rusts, Septoria tritici, Fusarium head blight, Karnal bunt, Helminthosporium leaf blotch, and root rots, and also tolerance to drought, heat, cold, and waterlogging. In addition their grain size is often large with thousand kernel weights of up to 55-60 g.Further top-and limited back-crossing is in progress to combine these different tolerance sources not just into acceptable agronomic backgrounds but also into ones with high, stable yields and possessing better industrial quality. The latter trait is increasing in importance with many wheat research programs around the world, rightfully or wrongfully so. The schematic representation of such crosses is that of a tolerant source (T), though not the original sources but rather somewhat improved ones (Table 1), being crossed to one or more lines with good agronomic type and industrial quality (A): R/A or R/A 1 //A 2 , or R/2*A (limited backcross to A). The BYDV tolerant line is mostly used as the female, just in case some of the tolerance is maternally inherited. Table 2 lists some examples of such crosses, with the male parent(s) contributing yield and quality to the BYDV tolerant female parent. * Data based on a 3-digit scale as described by Bertschinger (1994). ** Index 1-9 adapted from Qualset (1984), 1 being tolerant and 9 being sensitive.available for crossing in the mid 1990s, studies were undertaken to incorporate the resistance gene (Bdv2) into CIMMYT germplasm. TC lines from Australia (Banks et al., 1995), and in particular TC14, have been the most studied at CIMMYT. While the virus titer in these wild relatives and their derived lines was shown to be reduced (Ayala et al., 2001b), once infected, these lines still expressed considerable sensitivity with obvious dwarfing and biomass reduction. One of the most interesting features of the TC14-derived material is that under artificial or natural infection, levels of infection remain low (Ayala et al., 2001a).A codominant microsatellite marker (gwm 37) was identified and used in the breeding program (Ayala et al., 2001a;Henry et al., 2001) (Table 3).It was fortunate that this resistance did not have a strong negative effect on desired agronomic type (Ayala et al., 2001b). In some cases, some flecking of leaves was noted, but could effectively be selected against.Thinopyrum-derived resistance was also introgressed into common wheats with better agronomic type (such as New Long Mai 15 and New Long Mai 19) by researchers in Harbin, China. This material has been used in crosses at CIMMYT for the past five years.As for tolerance, attempts are underway to improve yield and yield stability, plus industrial quality in these resistant lines. The schematic representation of such crosses is that of a somewhat agronomically improved resistant source (R) (Table 3) being crossed to lines with high yield and outstanding industrial quality (A): R/A, or R/A 1 //A 2 , or R/2*A, or R 1 /R 2 //A (see Table 4). In the last example listed, two sources of resistance (TC14 and New Long Mai 15) are first combined, prior to a common wheat being used to correct both agronomic type and quality. When the true genetic constitution of these various resistance sources is known, better targeted crosses can be made with the aim of pyramiding resistance mechanisms and genes. Again, the resistant parent is used as a female to include any cytoplasmic contribution to resistance, should there be any.Segregating populations were alternated between a fully irrigated site in NW Mexico, Cd. Obregon (where BYDV is mostly absent, but selection is carried out for rust resistance and agronomic type) and a high rainfall site in the central Mexican highlands, Toluca or El Batan, where BYDV is naturally prevalent or artificially inoculated. Molecular analyses are being conducted to confirm the presence of the Thinopyrum segment (carrying Bdv2) in selected plants.It has become clear from experience that without careful selection for the presence of this gene in early generations (F3/F4), it is easily lost as selection is practiced for other traits. This means that relatively large populations will need to be screened for the gene at these earlier generations. We aim to use the wheat breeding simulation software program QU-CIM to better determine where and when markers are most effectively and efficiently employed.To get the full benefit of the alien resistance, it has to be combined with tolerance, since resistance alone does not give complete protection against losses under very severe infection.  and 4. Those crosses are presently in progress and are schematically represented as: T/A1//R/A2, or T/A 1 / /A 2 /3/R/A 3 //A 4 .Earlier on crosses were made between tolerant and resistant sources that did not yet have the full complement of agronomic type and industrial quality.The objective is first to confirm performance under BYDV pressure and the presence of resistance genes (e.g. Bdv2) of the resulting lines. Only then will a final cross be made with parents expressing the desired agronomic type, high yield, and quality. The schematic representation of the first cross type is: R/T or T/R; with the final cross represented as: R/T//A or T/R// A (see Table 5). The last example listed is R 1 /R 2 //T. Applying this scheme, the tolerance by resistance crosses illustrated in Table 5 will later be top-crossed with lines providing better agronomic type and industrial quality.Resistance brought about by Th. intermedium derived material is not easily monitored because in addition to a reduction in virus titer, it has also been shown to be associated with a reduced infection rate. While the latter is good news, a lot of research remains to be done in this area. The bad news is that the resistance often appears to go in tandem with increased sensitivity, at least against BYDV-PAV. It is obvious that any selection strategy has to be modified to ensure the accumulation of desired traits such as resistance and reduced infection rate, while reducing sensitivity to BYDV.Furthermore, it is not yet clear whether segregating and advanced genotypes are best evaluated under natural infection, or moderate or even severe artificial inoculation.  (Irwin and Thresh, 1990). In Egypt BYDV is common. Five strains of BYDV were identified. Most of the work focused on the disease distribution and identification methods.Virus was isolated from wheat plants at Agriculture Research Center, Giza, Egypt. The strain identified as BYDV-PAV was maintained on oat plants.Viruliferous Rhopalosiphum padi aphids reared on the infected oats were transferred at intervals of 5-10 days to healthy seedlings at two-leaf stage. The plants were covered with glass cylindrical cages and cheesecloth fixed with rubber. Plants were harvested, and the tissue was ground to a fine powder under liquid nitrogen and kept at -80°C until use for subsequent studies.Two primers were synthesized based on published data sequence of BYDV-PAV (Miller et al., 1988): the upstream primer Lu1 (5'CCAGTGGTTRTGGTC'3) bases 2938 to 2952, and the downstream primer Lu4(5'GTCGTACCTATTTGG'3) bases 3455 to 3468 of the PAV strain. The PCR predicted to be 530 bp (Robertson et al., 1991).One hundred of BYDV-PAV polyclonal antibody diluted 1:1000 in coating buffer (Na 2 CO 3 , NaHCO 3 , NaN 3, pH 9.6) was added to 0.5 ml thin wall eppendorf tubes and incubated at 37 °C for 2 h. The tubes were washed first time with washing buffer (PBS T ween phosphate buffer saline with 0.05% Tween 20), and three times with PBS tween containing 2.0% egg albumin.Healthy and infected tissues were extracted in extraction buffer (PBS, polyvinyl pyrolodin [PVP], Tween 20, pH 7.4). The samples were centrifuged at 10.000 for 5 min, and clarified extract was collected. One hundred µl of the clarified extract was added to each antibody-coated tube, and incubated overnight at 4 °C.The tubes were washed three times with PBS Tween, then washed with deionized autoclaved DEPC (diethyl pyrocarbonate treated water). To each tube was addedBYDV-PAV is the most common strain in Egypt. Immunocapture IC/RT-PCR procedure was used to amplify fragments specific for BYDV-PAV. The system was further validated by sequencing fragments amplified. The cDNA of CP was inserted into plasmid to construct expression plasmid. The recombinant plasmid was identified by using restriction enzymes and sequenced to confirm PAV-CP gene in plasmid.The sequence of the coat protein of the PAV strain was identified and its amino acid sequence was deduced. Sequence comparison of the CP coding region between the PAV strains of BYDV have been done, and revealed the highest identity with the Moroccan strain (99%).25 µl of DEPC water and 1.5 µl (10 pmol) of reverse primer Lu4. The tubes were heated at 75-80 °C for 5 min, then cooled in ice. RT-PCR reaction was carried out in 50 µl total reaction volume, using the Titan. One tube RT-PCR system kit (Boehringer). RT mix was 1.5 µl Lu1 primer (10 pmol) 1.0 µl dNTPs (10 mM), 2. PCR reaction products (5 µl of PCR amplified cDNA) were analyzed by electrophoresis through 1% agarose gel in TAE buffer at 100 volts for 2 h. Gels were stained in ethidium bromide (0.5 µg/ml) for 10 min, rinsed in water, and photographed on a UV transiluminator; 1 kb DNA ladder (GIBCO-BRL life technologies) was used as marker to estimate sizes of PCR products.Amplified cDNA fragments were cloned to the pTAdv vector using the AdvanTAgeä PCR cloning kit (CLONTECH) following the manufacturer's instructions, and used to transform Escherichia coli cells.Ampicillin screening and blue/white selection were used to select transformed E. coli containing recombinant plasmid. DNA minipreparations from recombinant plasmids were screened for the insert by restriction enzymes digestion using Hae III (GIBCO-BRL life technologies). Sequencing of the cDNA clones was carried out using M13 primers at Bioresource Center, Cornell University, New York State, USA. Nucleotide sequence data were compiled and analyzed using the DNASIS version 2.5 program, and database searches of National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI, National Institute of Health).In the infected samples, an amplified DNA product of 526 bp long was observed while not present in amplification of healthy controls (Figure 1).Restriction digestion of presumptive recombinant DNA plasmids with Hae III restriction endonucleases identified several colonies containing inserts with the expected size of BYDV-PAV fragment.DNA sequencing for the coat protein of the PAV strain shown in Figure 2 indicate the presence of 526 bp for the coat protein of BYDV-PAV Egyptian strain. This is not the full sequence for the coat protein. Computer analysis of the predicted amino acids sequence showed an amino acid residue of 175. Nucleotide sequence and amino acid sequence alignment between the other BYDV-PAV strains were performed and revealed the highest identity with the Moroccan strain 99%.The primers Lu1 (15 mer) and Lu4 (14 mer) were derived from sequences conserved among sequenced strains of BYDV-PAV, BWYV and PLRV (Robertson et  nucleotide sequence and amino acid alignment indicate 99% similarity with another African BYDV strain, the Moroccan BYDV-PAV strain. These sequence data could be used to design virus specific PCR primers for this strain. Barley yellow dwarf virus needs more study in Egypt, complete sequence for the coat protein and other genes, search for source of resistance. New methods to obtain host resistance to this virus are very important. The epidemiology of this virus in Egypt and neighboring countries must be studied.A After a severe epidemic of barley yellow dwarf disease (BYD) on small grain crops that took place in European Russia in 1988-1991, the need for a BYDV identification method became evident. As we did not have diagnostic kits for BYDV detection, we could only identify the disease based on visual symptoms or by electronic microscopy of purified virus preparations and their UV spectra. To solve this problem, we prepared monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) against the viral preparations purified from naturally infected plants. This task had special features and difficulties: 1) viral yields were usually low, and 2) generally, the viral preparations consisted of a mixture of different BYDVs, sometimes polluted with other cereal viruses. In any case, we were able to separate BYDV through zonal centrifugation in sucrose gradient.Well-purified virus preparations from naturally infected barley plants of unknown BYDV strain composition were used to immunize mice. Later, using commercial polyclonal antibodies, the virus preparations were shown to contain mainly BYDV PAV and MAV, and smaller amounts of BYDV SGV and CYDV RPV. As a result, one panel containing five monoclonal antibodies were raised in 1993, but only two (Mabs 4B5 and 3C2) were chosen for further work. These Mabs were compared to polyclonal antibodies specific to BYDV PAV, BYDV SGV, and CYDV RPV (from Agdia Inc.). A purified virus preparation containing both BYDV PAV and CYDV RPV was used as antigen.MAbs 4B5 bound to BYDV PAV, but not to CYDV RPV, when used as coating antibodies in DAS ELISA (Figures 1 and 2). MAbs 3C2 adsorbed CYDV RPV to the same degree as anti-RPV polyclonal antibodies (Figure 2). Mabs 3C2 reacted weakly to BYDV PAV, binding to this virus approximately 2-3 times less than Mabs 4B5 (Figure 1).We conjugated MAbs 4B5 and 3C2 with horseradish peroxidase (HRP) (Tussen and Kurstak, 1984) and constructed a monoclonal test system for BYDV detection (Erokhina, 1995;Erokhina and Kastalieva, 1995). Specificity of MAb 4B5 to BYDV PAV was verified in experiments using lyophilized strainspecific plant extracts from Agdia (Figures 3 and 4 and several combinations of coating and conjugate antibodies. The 4B5-HRP conjugate detected BYDV PAV as well as the polyclonal anti-PAV conjugated with alkaline phosphatase (AP) (Figures 1, 3a, and 4), but failed to detect CYDV RPV (Figure 3b). 3C2-HRP detected CYDV RPV better than the anti-RPV polyclonal antibodies (Figure 2,3b). 3C2-HRP detected BYDV PAV with a slightly lower sensitivity than 4B5-HRP (Figure 4).It was shown that MAb 4B5 could also detect BYDV SGV in plant extracts (Table 1). 3C2 also reacted with BYDV-SGV but to a lesser degree than Mabs 4B5.The combination 4B5/4B5-HRP allowed good detection of BYDV-PAV in plants extracts (Table 1). Mabs 3C2 trapped BYDV-PAV in plant extract when used as coating in the 3C2/4B5 system. However, in the system 3C2/3C2, PAV was not detected in plants extracts (Table 1). MAbs 3C2 was not as specific as MAbs 4B5, for it weakly detected PAV in purified virus preparation, but not in plant extracts. To determine strain composition of plant samples collected in different regions of European Russia, we used both DAS-ELISA with polyclonal antibodies as capture antibodies, and the monoclonal test-system using conjugates with HRP. Analysis of composition of the samples showed that BYDV PAV and CYDV RPV are most abundant in European Russia. We were fortunate to detect BYDV concentrations as low as 8-10 ng with monoclonal DAS-ELISA in purified viral preparations. BYDV was also detected in 10% plants extracts diluted up to 1/16. At present, we are using the MAbs test-system for BYD monitoring in Russia.  Burnett, 1995), was observed for the first time in the early 50' based on physiological disturbances of barley plants (Oswald and Houston, 1951). Characterization of the viral agent, Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV), involved in this disease was performed using biological, biochemical and biophysical techniques (Rochow and Brakke, 1964; see Smith and Barker, 1999), aphid transmission experiments (Rochow, 1970), serological assays (for a review, see French, 1995) and molecular analysis of the BYDV genome (Miller et al., 1988;Bencharki et al., 1999;Chaloub et al., 1994). Taken together, collected data allow among other to identify six distinct species of BYDV including BYDV-PAV, the most widespread in Western Europe (Lister et al., 1990). BYDV epidemiology studies had identified the level of aphids infectivity, i.e., the proportion of the migrant winged aphids that carry and are able to transmit the virus, as one of the major components determining the incidence of BYD on cereals (Plumb, 1990). At first, assessment of aphid infectivity data required infectivity assays. From the end of 70', Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbant Assays (ELISA), a less costly and time-consuming technique, was used routinely for BYDV detection in single aphid (Lister and Rochow, 1979). However, the end-point of ELISA assays for virus detection is 1-10 ng or equivalently one billion of BYDV particles per sample (Canning et al., 1996). This threshold induces problem of false negative for viruliferous aphids containing less virus than the end-point of this technique. Generalization, in the last decade, molecular techniques for virus detection such as dot-bot hybridization, reverse  (Canning et al., 1996). However, due to its simplicity, ELISA remains widely used for large scale testing. The more recently developed gelfree quantitative \"realtime\" PCR technology has proved to be able to detect as few as 10 copies of a target sequence (Rasmussen et al., 1998). Therefore, it appears interesting to investigate if \"real-time\" PCR can improve previously described BYDV detection techniques. A one-step \"real-time\" reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction assay using TaqMan chemistry was developed for the detection and quantification of the BYDV-PAV isolates. BYDV-PAV specific primers and TaqMan probe were designed from published sequences of PAV and tested over a worldwide isolate collection. The sensitivity, reproducibility and specificity of this new detection technique were tested and compared to previously published ELISA and RT-PCR techniques. Our results suggest that quantitative \"real-time\" RT-PCR reaction developed for BYDV-PAV is respectively 10 and 10 4 -fold more sensitive than standard RT-PCR and TAS-ELISA performed simultaneously and pocesses an end-point below 100 copies of BYDV-PAV genome. From a technical point of view, \"real-time\" RT-PCR is less time consuming than classical RT-PCR or even than ELISA for small number of samples. An other interesting advantage of the technique described, is that the detection of BYDV-PAV is performed using a small fraction of the total acid nucleic extracted from a single aphid allowing other studies on the same sample. Finally, BYDV quantification using \"real time\" RT-PCR opens a way toward studies of plant infection kinetic or aphid transmission process.In the state of Alabama, USA, soft red winter wheat production is valued at as much as US$15 million. Wheat production throughout the state is limited, however, by the diseases of wheat caused by Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV, strain PAV, genus Luteovirus) and Cereal yellow dwarf virus (CYDV, strain RPV, genus Polerovirus). These viruses are vectored by several aphids commonly found in Alabama, notably greenbug (Schizaphis graminum), English grain aphid (Sitobion avenae), bird cherry-oat aphid (Rhopalosiphum padi), rice root aphid (R. rufiabdominalis), and corn leaf aphid (R. maidis) (Halbert and Voegtlin, 1995;van Riessen et al., 1998). Use of the insecticide imidacloprid, applied as a seed treatment, has been shown to reduce the incidence of these viruses and substantially increase wheat yields (van Riessen et al., 1998). In addition, this insecticide was shown to be effective for up to 90 days after planting, thus protecting against early infection by BYDV and CYDV. The expense of treatment with imidacloprid, however, keeps this product from being applied as a preventative for yellow dwarf (YD) problems. Given that the severity of YD varies from year to year, it would be desirable to have a means of forecasting seasons in which YD might become problematic. Such a forecast would allow growers to make better choices about the use of insecticide treatments on winter wheat. Thus, we have been attempting to develop a \"risk index\" for predicting conditions that might be favorable for outbreaks of YD viral disease problems of wheat in Alabama.Several factors contribute to the severity of yellow dwarf disease problems. For example, earlier planting leads to greater YD severity (Sforza and Herbert, Risk Index for Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus and Cereal Yellow Dwarf Virus of Wheat in Alabama K.L. Bowen, 1 K.L. Flanders, 1 P. Mask, 2 and J.F. Murphy 1 1 Dept. of Entomology and Plant Pathology, Auburn University, Alabama, USA 2 Dept. of Agronomy and Soils, Auburn University, Alabama, USA Virginia, personal communication). There is, however, contradictory evidence about the effects of rainfall prior to planting and subsequent YD severity on wheat. In Australia and the northwest USA, irrigation of cereal fields seems to have favored increases in YD (Briggle, 1984;Jones et al., 1990). Conversely, analysis of historical data from Alabama indicates that warmer weather with reduced rainfall prior to planting leads to greater disease severity (Bowen and Burch, 2001). Rainfall is usually not lacking in Alabama, and there are abundant perennial grass hosts along roadsides and in the 10 million ha of grass forage areas through the year. Thus, clarification of the effects of weather is needed relative to YD occurrence in Alabama.We have been working with county agents and wheat producers throughout the state. Growers are being asked to characterize their wheat production sites relative to certain factors such as planting date, field history (previous crop, tillage), variety, aphid abundance, and weather patterns. The authors have been assessing YD intensity (disease incidence and severity) in fields during the soft dough stage (April-May), and leaf samples have been collected for ELISA assays to confirm diagnosis.BYDV-PAV and CYDV-RPV were found throughout the state, occurring alone or in combination in 14.6% and 12.2% of samples in 2000 and 2001, respectively (Table 1). Further, the 1999-2000 winter wheat growing season was slightly warmer with substantially less rainfall than the second growing season (2000)(2001) (Table 1). These observations provide some support of the results derived from historical data in which more YD was observed in seasons preceded by warmer temperatures with less rainfall (Bowen and Burch, 2001). In addition, in 2000, BYDV-PAV was found at lower incidence than CYDV-RPV (4.3% and 9.9%, respectively). This is the first observation in the southeast USA in which CYDV-RPV occurred at greater incidence than BYDV-PAV, and these results may also be related to the abnormal weather during the 1999-2000 winter wheat growing season.  (Juraeva et al., 1999). During the field survey in spring, 2001, wheat and barley plants showed symptoms of yellowing leaf, streak mosaic, yellowing of flag leaf, and dwarfing. The identification of these viruses was undertaken and the results presented here.A preliminary survey to identify virus disease affecting wheat in Uzbekistan was conducted during April-May, 2001. The survey covered wheat fields on the road Tashkent-Sirdarya-Jizzakh-Kashkadarya, as well as experimental wheat plots in the Institute of Plant, Tashkent region, and the Institute of Grain, Jizzakh district, Gallaorol region, representing different climatic regions in Uzbekistan. The survey was carried out on released and promising wheat varieties such as: Ulugbek-600, Umanka and others irrigated conditions and rainfed varieties at the heading and flowering stages.The percentage of infecting plants was calculated according to Vlasov and Lantas (1962). The field was Investigations showed that several types of viruses were identified from infected leaves of wheat and barley. Symptoms include weak stripe mosaic on leaves, yellow and green streaks, yellowing (reddening in some varieties) of infected leaves and yellowing of flag leaf. Serological tests showed that BYDV infected plants were characterized on some varieties by weak stripe mosaic of the infected leaves and on others by more severe yellowing and stunting.The green and yellow parallel mosaics caused by BMV or other viruses were also observed (Table 1). The stunted wheat plants with streak and yellow mosaic noticed in the experimental station of the Plant Institute, in the Tashkent region, were infected with more than one virus. Serological analyses showed that infections were caused by BYDV.Attempts of mechanical transfer from virus infected wheat to healthy plants or other test plants were unsuccessful. However, yellowing of flag leaves was observed in places, where the aphid S. avenae was abundant in the field. The yellowing of flag leaves was observed on plants where the aphids S. avenae collected in the field were fed.Weak stripe mosaic of infected leaves were more common on farms in the Kashkadarya region (Table 2), where percentage of infected plants varied ranged from 5 to 80%. The variety Ulugbek -600 was sensitive to the virus but did present such symptoms as stunting or dwarfing. Streaking of leaves was less common in this region. Wheat plants presenting streak mosaic were also stunted. Such symptoms were more common in the second year of sampling.Serological tests with the use of double diffusion method showed that winter wheat in Kashkadarya region were infected with BMV and BYDV. The results obtained indicated that BYDV -PAV was the most common on the farm fields and experimental stations, followed by BYSMV, BMV, MDMV and WSMV. and Barley mild mosaic virus (BaMMV) that showed higher incidence and caused the most severe damage. Woo (2000) reported that in Korea, BYDV is widely distributed and its incidence and damages may increase in wheat fields in future. There is a need for more investigation of its distribution and methods for its control. BYDV has five main strains named PAV, MAV, and SGV in subgroup I and RPV and RMV in subgroup II. In an earlier report, Vic-PAV strain was found to be dominant in this country with 52.6% infection against 3.4% for MAV (Woo, 2000) using RT-PCR detection method in cereal fields including barley and wheat.(Figure 1). RT-PCR has been an effective method for diagnosis or detection of specific virus quickly and precisely, and this method could be use to identify the BYDV strain present in the infected samples. BYDV is a complex of several strains at the difference of other cereal viruses and their accurate identification requires precisely designated primers for RT-PCR.Vic-PAV strain was identified in 25 regions among the 41 examined local areas and the distribution was even in national barley and wheat fields (Table 2). The 61.0% incidence identified in this study was higher than the 52.6% for PAV and 3.4% for MAV reported by Woo (2000). The PAV strain was identified in all of the tested provinces. These results were supported by earlier reports that Vic-PAV strain was dominant in this country and that the vectors of BYDV-PAV, Rhopalosiphum padi and Sitobion avenae, were frequent in cereal fields in Korea. Continuous investigations is needed to accumulate basic information about other strains distribution and developed a breeding approach for resistance to control BYDV. The Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) pathosystem is a good model for the study of the evolution of interactions in a system with three biological components, a host, a pathogen and its vector. It allows in particular to assess the consequences of host specialization of the vector on the evolution of plantvirus interactions. The results presented here are part of this project. Host-specialization has been shown in various aphids such as the peach-potato aphid Myzus persicae (Zitoudi et al., 2001) or the English grain aphid, Sitobion avenae (Haack et al., 2000) and extensively studied in the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum (Via 1991a(Via , 1991b(Via , 1999)). Similarly, a variability of different clones in their ability to transmit some viruses has been shown in M. persicae for the PLRV (Potato leafroll virus) by Bourdin et al. (1998) and Terradot et al. (1999) or in S. avenae for the BYDV-PAV (Papura et al., 2002). However, host specialization and ability to carry a virus have never been studied simultaneously.In the present study, aphid specialization regarding their host plant and their propensity to carry virus were assessed in the same time through the analysis of genetic differentiation between populations of the bird cherry-oat aphid, Rhopalosiphum padi, sampled from various host plants and according to whether they are viruliferous or not.The analyses were performed in two steps TAS-ELISA confirmed that barley volunteers are an important reservoir of BYDV in autumn (Henry et al., 1991;Comas et al., 1996) with about 24% of individuals from this host carrying BYDV. On the other host plants, the frequency of viruliferous aphids ranged from 0% (brome) to 10% (ryegrass) (Figure 1).Despite a high genotypic diversity across populations of R. padi, genetic analysis showed neither significant differentiation between populations originating from different host plants (Fst = 0.00819; P = 0.14) nor significant differentiation between viruliferous and non-viruliferous aphids (Fst = -0.0007; P = 0.1).Our results contrast with those obtained on another vector of BYDV, S. avenae. In that species, both a genetic differentiation according to the host plant (Haack et al., 2000) and a variability in the ability to transmit BYDV-PAV (Papura et al., 2002) were observed. Though sexual phase populations according to the host plant species that is favourable to the evolution of genetically differentiated and reproductively isolated host races, as demonstrated for another aphid, A. pisum by Via (1991a and b;1999). Variability in the ability to transmit the virus could then be a consequence of host specialization of aphids allowing a close adaptation of the virus to some particular clones living preferentially on the most suitable plant for the virus. This could finally result in a partial isolation of some virus strains and their specialization on a particular host species as it has been observed by Mastari et al. (1998). Obviously, host specialization in aphids and its consequences on BYDV could have a strong influence on the epidemics of the BYD disease through the risk of transmission from a reservoir to a target crop that has been until now largely neglected, justifying further studies.   This screening methodology has proven useful for identifying genotypes with enhanced reactions to BYDV. The most common and effective source of resistance to BYDV in barley has been identified in Ethiopian barleys and found to be associated to the major semi-dominant geneYd2 (Rasmusson and Schaller, 1959). This gene has been reported to be associated with reduction in virus concentration with BYDV-PAV and BYDV-MAV but not with CYDV-RPV (Herrera, 1989). An assay based on a protein showing allelic variation that correlates with Yd2 (Paltridge et al., 1998) and a PCR marker for the Yd2 associated allele Ylp (Ford et al., 1998) has been used in the program to screen genotypes, finding that the Yd2 gene was present in the genotypes showing field tolerance (Henry and Vivar, 2001). Several lines tested showed field tolerance to PAV and MAV, as well as to RPV, indicating that additional gene(s) conferring resistance to CYDV-RPV should also be present in the germplasm (Henry and Vivar, 2001). Future work will determine which additional genes also confer resistance to RPV.Research carried out with ICARDA/CIMMYT germplasm was able to produce a large germplasm pool with high field tolerance to BYDV isolates PAV, MAV, and RPV in a high-yielding, agronomically improved germplasm resistant to several important diseases that is available to breeding programs worldwide.In bread wheat and durum wheat, good tolerance data implies a study for many years and at many contrasting sites. This is due to the fact that tolerance tends to be more site-specific for wheat than for other cereals. Tolerance data also shows contrast between years at a given site. Data on loss of chlorophyll is less reliable in wheat than in other species. Considering these constraints, collaborative research was initiated on wheat tolerance at contrasting test sites, Winnipeg and Quebec City. Lines were evaluated based on complex criteria. This was done recognizing the fact that one line or cultivar could attribute more of its scarce resources to roots when infected, thus reducing the photosynthate available to tillers, florets or seeds. It also acknowledged that another line could simply slow down its phenology, taking more time in an  (Erokhina and Kastalieva, 1995). The data we present here were obtained since those years.Oat and barley fields were sight inspected. Leaf samples were simultaneously collected from plants having typical symptoms of BYD damage. Some samples were also received from the Regional Stations of Plant Protection. All samples were analyzed for BYDV presence in double antibody sandwich enzymelinked immunosorbent assay (DAS-ELISA) with monoclonal antibodies specific against PAV (monoclone 4B5) and against RPV (monoclone 3C2).Russian Research Institute of Phytopathology, Bolshie Vyaziomy, Moscow Region, RussiaIn some years BYDV MAV, SGV, and RMV were analyzed by means of polyclonal antibodies produced by Agdia Inc. Hammond's method of purification (Hammond et al., 1983) was used to isolate BYDV (Kastal'yeva et al., 1994).More than 1000 samples from 20 provinces of eight European Russia Regions and from six provinces of four Asiatic Russia Regions were analyzed for BYDV presence between 1996 and 2002. BYDV was found in all of them (Fig. 1).  (Dzhama, 2000). As a result of the availability of several aphid species, 60-80% of diseased plants are usually infected with 2-3 BYDVs.Analyses of BYDV PAV and CYDV RPV, conducted in Moscow Province in 1996-2001, showed that BYDV PAV was predominant. On average 44% of the samples tested over six years contained BYDV PAV. CYDV RPV was found in 28.6% of the samples (Mozhaeva and Kastalyeva, 2001).In 1999-2001, the presence of BYDV PAV, MAV and SGV as well as CYDV RPV was measured in samples of grain crops of Moscow Province. On average, BYDV PAV, MAV and SGV were found in 50% of the analyzed samples, and CYDV RPV in 30% of the samples. In 2001, the frequency of BYDV PAV and CYDV RPV in Moscow Province was the same as in the other seven regions of European Russia. In the last years, higher incidence of BYDV MAV has been observed (Fig. 2).The ratio between different BYDVs and CYDV changed not only from year to year, but also during the same year. It should be noted that oat and barley plants grown for green fodder have higher virus incidence than those grown for grain (Table 1).In the Ural Region of Asiatic Russia, BYDV PAV, MAV and SGV were found. In 2001, BYD was first revealed in East and West Siberia (BYDV PAV, MAV and SGV as well as CYDV RPV). BYDV MAV and SGV were found in the Far East and so was RMV.It is known that BYD severity depends upon the interaction between different factors within the \"virusvector-plant\" system influenced by the weather conditions of the preceding year (Plumb, 1995). Figure1. Russian regions where BYDV and CYDV were identified.-province where the viruses were found   spring grain crops depends upon the number of aphid vectors and species composition, as well as their ability to acquire the virus from the reservoirs. In spring, the main sources of BYDV are winter crops, perennial cereal grasses, and weeds. In summer, the main sources are cereal crops and grasses, small grain crops growing in mixture with leguminous plants, or maize.Winter crops and their volunteer plants being infected in the fields in autumn, where there is no winter tillage, as well as perennial cereal grasses and weeds on the sides of the fields and fallow lands can act as sources of BYDV infectivity for the following year.In Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV, family Luteoviridae) is considered one of the most economically important viruses affecting cereals worldwide, and genetic resistance is in general the most practical approach to reduce the losses it causes (Jones and Catheral, 1970). By screening barley genetic resources, it was possible to identify many barley lines resistant/tolerant to BYDV infection, which breeders can use in their crossing programs (Delogu et al., 1995;Qualset, 1990). Barley parents with the Yd2 gene located on chromosome 3H have been used extensively to produce barley breeding lines resistant to BYDV (Rasmusson and Schaller, 1959;Chalhoub et al., 1995).Resistant was not possible 14 days after virus inoculation. Using this approach, it was possible to eliminate susceptible plants five days after inoculation and transplant the resistant ones to the field for observation until harvest. When a similar study was conducted on the parents and the F 2 populations of 26 crosses planted directly in the field, it was possible to differentiate resistant plants three weeks after virus inoculation. Planting directly in the field avoids the need for transplanting, which promotes better plant development. However, preliminary screening in the plastic house requires much less space compared to direct planting in the field. Within the same crosses and populations, the usefulness of the Yd2 specific PCR primers was tested. The availability of allele-specific or cleaved amplified polymorphic sequence PCR markers makes it possible to quickly identify the presence of the Yd2 gene in the barley material and compare its presence with the expression of resistance in the field. In most cases analyzed, the Yd2 gene was found to be present in BYDV resistant plants. The use of virus movement and PCR markers proved to be useful in selecting barley genotypes resistant to BYDV at the seedling stage.inoculation at the seedling stage under plastic house conditions (Gourmet and Kolb, 1992). In barley, BYDV resistant genotypes were differentiated from susceptible ones 4-6 days after inoculation (Makkouk et al., 1994). The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of tissue blot immunoassay to differentiate between barley BYDV-resistant and susceptible genotypes following virus inoculation at the seedling stage in the plastic house and in the field, and compare it with the use of cleaved amplified polymorphic sequence (CAPS) PCR markers (Ford et al., 1998) to quickly identify the presence of the Yd2 gene in barley plants.One objective of the Barley Improvement Project at ICARDA is to produce breeding lines resistant to abiotic and biotic stresses, including BYDV-PAV. F 2 segregating populations of 20 crosses of a BYDVresistant parent (QB813.3, released in Canada in 1995 as Acca; provided by A. Comeau, Agriculture Canada, St. Foy, Quebec, Canada) with 20 parents having resistance to different stresses and adapted to growing conditions in North Africa were evaluated. Seeds were planted in Jiffy pots (180/cross) and placed in 20x30 cm trays in a plastic house at 20-25 0 C and under natural light in February 2000 at Tel Hadya, Syria. For comparison, 60 seeds of the different parents were also planted as a control. All plants were artificially inoculated with BYDV-PAV by viruliferous Rhopalosiphum padi, using 10-15 aphids/plant. Plants were tested for the presence of the virus at 3, 5, 9, and 14 days after inoculation by tissue-blot immunoassay (TBIA, Makkouk and Comeau, 1994). Plants in which BYDV-PAV was not detected five days after virus inoculation were transplanted to the field and monitored until harvest.Similarly, in the 1999/2000 growing season, seeds of the parents and the F 2 segregating populations of 26 crosses obtained from 18 parents adapted to North Africa growing conditions and three parents resistant to BYDV-PAV (Sutter//Sutter*2/Numar, Gustoe/NK 1272 and QB 813.2) were sown directly in the field. For each cross, 10 rows, each 2 m long, were sown with the F 2 seeds at a rate of 20 seeds/row, in addition to one row for each parent. Plants at the 2-3 leaf stage were inoculated with the virus, and plants were tested for the presence of the virus by TBIA three weeks after inoculation. BYDV symptoms were recorded two months after virus inoculation.DNA extraction was performed according to the rapid NaOH DNA extraction method of Wang et al. (1993). A tissue homogenate was prepared by grinding 5 mg of leaf tissue in 50 µl of 0.5 M NaOH. One µl of the homogenate was diluted tenfold in 0.1 M TRIS-HCl pH 8.0. One µl was then used for PCR amplification (without quantification). DNA prepared in this way can be stored and used for up to four weeks.The PCR-CAPS primers (Ford et al., 1998) used for the amplification of the Yd2 gene were: Ylp-MF (AATACAGGAATCTGTTGAAAGAA) and Ylp-MR (TCATCATGGCTCGGAGAAGGTGG).Each PCR reaction included (besides the genomic DNA template) 25 ng of primer, 200 µM of each dNTPs, 5mM MgCl 2 , and 1.0 U of Taq DNA polymerase (Roche). The PCR cycling profile used was 94 C for 2 min, 94 C for 30s, 60 C for 1 min, 72 C for 2 min, 72 C for 5 min, carried out for 35 cycles in a Perkin Elmer 9600 thermocycler. PCR products were electrophoresed in 6% denaturing polyacrylamid gels and silver stained according to Bassam et al. (1991).When plants of the F 2 population of the different crosses grown in the plastic house were tested by TBIA for the presence of BYDV-PAV at 3, 5, 9 and 14 days after virus inoculation, it was possible to detect the virus in susceptible plants 3 days after inoculation.The optimal time to differentiate resistant from susceptible plants in the F 2 populations was five days after virus inoculation in most crosses (Table 1). In only one cross (P1 x P10), however, the differentiation was better at 3 days after virus inoculation. When one of the parents in the crosses had the Yd2 gene, the proportion of plants with no detectable virus by TBIA in the population of the majority of the crosses ranged from 27% to 45% five days after virus inoculation, and then started to drop nine days after inoculation, to become negligible 14 days after inoculation. The correlation between the presence of Yd2 gene in barley and virus movement has been reported (Makkouk and Ghulam, 1992;Makkouk et al., 1994). Accordingly, BYDV-susceptible plants were discarded in the plastic house and only resistant plants were transferred to the field and observed until harvest. This preliminary screening in the plastic house at the seedling stage required little space to identify resistant plants to be evaluated further in the field.In the F 2 populations evaluated directly in the field, it was possible to differentiate between BYDV-resistant and susceptible plants three weeks after inoculation (Table 2). This was expected, as temperatures in the field in February at Tel Hadya were much lower than temperatures in the plastic house, which had a negative effect on virus movement in the plant. There was a significant correlation (P=0.01) between the proportion of plants with no symptoms two months after virus inoculation, and the proportion of plants in the F 2 populations with no detectable virus by TBIA three weeks after virus inoculation (r=0.657). The results suggest that we can test the plants three weeks after virus inoculation and eliminate the susceptible ones, without waiting 8-10 weeks until BYDV symptoms become visible.When resistant (symptomless) and susceptible (with typical BYDV symptoms) plants in the F 2 populations, as well as selected resistant plants in the F 3-5 families were tested for the presence of the Yd2 gene with the CAPS primers, it was possible in most cases to amplify the Yd2 gene in the resistant plants but not in the susceptible plants (Figure 1). There was a strong association between resistant symptomless plants and the amplified Yd2 fragment (88%); this association was stronger in the advanced lines (F 3-5 ) (93%) than in the F 2 segregating population (83%). The few symptomless plants that were identified by PCR as being susceptible (i.e. Yd2 gene not amplified) need to be studied in detail in order to verify whether their resistance might be due to something other than the Yd2 resistance genes. Susceptible plants that amplified the Yd2 gene could be studied in order to verify the functionality of the gene. Nevertheless, the PCR screening method with CAPS markers provides a quick, efficient method that if optimized could be used to screen thousands of barley lines for BYDV resistance based on Yd2 and possibly to identify resistances based on genes other than Yd2.  Barley yellow dwarf is a disease caused by a complex of viruses recently reclassified as Barley yellow dwarf virus (serotypes BYDV-PAV and BYDV-MAV) and Cereal yellow dwarf virus (CYDV-RPV) (D'Arcy et al., 1999). The disease has a wide host range and worldwide distribution, and is regarded as the most significant viral pathogen affecting small grain cereals (wheat, barley, oat, and triticale) in the world today.True resistance (reduction in virus concentration) has not been found in wheat's primary gene pool. However, it has been found in wheat relatives such as Thinopyrum intermedium and introgressed into bread wheat by several groups of researchers (Anderson et al., 1998;Banks et al., 1995;Chen et al., 1998;Francki et al., 2001;Larkin et al., 1995).The Agrotricum line OK7211542 (amphiploid 2n = 56) was reported to be immune to a Canadian BYDV-PAV isolate (Comeau et al., 1994). To diversify the source of resistance used in CIMMYT's BYDV breeding program, we attempted to produce addition lines of OK7211542 x bread wheat (Henry et al., 2000) and studied the resistance to BYDV-PAV and CYDV-RPV in the resistant OK7211542 and the addition lines.Presented here are preliminary data on resistance to BYDV-PAV and CYDV-RPV in OK7211542.The Agrotricum OK7211542 (2n=8x=56) line reported to be immune to BYDV-PAV by Comeau et al. (1994) was used in this study. It was compared to the Th. intermedium-derived line TC14/2* Spear and to susceptible bread wheats Sunstar, Bagula, and Prinia. The Mexican virus isolates used in these experiments were BYDV-PAV and CYDV-RPS. These isolates have been maintained in CIMMYT's greenhouses since they were collected in 1993. Artificial inoculation was performed by depositing 10 aphids in each one-weekold seedling for a 72-hour transmission period.Aphids had acquired the virus on BYDV/CYDVinfected oat during a 72-hour acquisition period. The bird cherry oat aphid, Rhopalosiphum padi, was used to transmit BYDV-PAV and CYDV-RPS. At the end of the transmission period, aphids were killed by application of a contact insecticide (Pirimor).Resistance to BYDV was assessed as a reduction in virus titers measured by ELISA in both roots and leaves of the tested plants. ELISA was performed at 7, 14, 21, and 28 days after inoculation in leaves and roots of different sets of plants on each date. Leaf samples consisted of the 2.5 cm tip of each leaf bigger than 5 cm. Ten plants were inoculated for each isolate and sampling date; two were kept virus-free to serve as non-infected controls. Plants for which the optical density (OD) was lower than the positive threshold were considered as not infected. The positive threshold was calculated for each repetition and each BYDV serotype, and was equal to the average ODs obtained with the non-infected control + 3 standard variation.A standard dilution curve was prepared by diluting the concentrated sap (1/5, 1/10, 1/25, 1/50, 1/100, 1/ 200, 1/400, 1/800, and 1/1600) of oat plants inoculated with BYDV-PAV or CYDV-RPV and harvested 14 days after inoculation. Virus titers were thus expressed as equivalent to a dilution of our concentrated sap and not as optical densities.Double antibody-sandwich ELISA (DAS-ELISA) with polyclonal antibodies against PAV, MAV, and RPV from the United States (provided by K. Perry, Purdue University) was carried out according to Ayala et al. (2001). Optical densities were measured at 410 nm after 30 minutes and 1 hour incubation at room temperature using a microplate reader (MR 700; Dynatech Laboratories).While inoculation rates in the susceptible lines were 90-100%, ODs obtained by ELISA for OK7211542 and TC14/2*Spear did not reach a level higher than the threshold for at least half the plants at 7, 14, and 28 days after inoculation. The virus could be detected in the roots of the same plants (Table 1).With CYDV-RPV, levels of infection were lower (data not shown) at 7 days; however, they reached 100% in all susceptible lines at 14 days and later. At the same time, only a few plants of OK7211542 and TC14/ 2*Spear had ODs higher than the positive threshold in leaves (30-40%) and roots (0-20%).Virus concentrations were lower in resistant lines OK7211542 and TC14/2*Spear than in the susceptible wheats Sunstar, Bagula, and Prinia at 7, 14, and 21 days after inoculation (Figure 1). At 28 days, virus concentration decreased, and differences between lines were attenuated.Virus concentration in the roots did not differ from one line to the other and were similar in resistant and susceptible lines (Figure 1). Data for roots at 7 days are not presented because ODs were higher than the standard dilution curve, which did not allow us to calculate the concentration. However, the tendency was the same.As there were very few cases of infection with CYDV-RPV in OK7211542 and TC14/2*Spear, virus concentration data are not presented.Contrary to what has been reported by Comeau et al. (1994), OK7211542 was not immune to BYDV-PAV-Mex in our experimental conditions. However, when only the leaves were tested, the resistance was apparent. The roots accumulated virus levels equivalent to the leaves of susceptible wheat.Resistance to CYDV-RPV was superior to resistance to BYDV-PAV in both OK7211542 and TC14/2*Spear, as reported by Henry et al. (these proceedings). It seems that resistances in OK7211542 and TC14/2*Spear are of similar types, with reduction in the success of infection, reduction in virus titers in leaves, and very strong resistance to CYDV-RPV.  Barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) is the most widespread and economically important viral disease of cereals worldwide (Plumb, 1983). Sources of resistance to the disease (expressed as reduction of virus multiplication) has been reported in Thinopyrum species and used in crossing programs to introgress resistance genes in wheat background (as reviewed by Ayala et al., 2001). Tolerance to BYDV, defined by Cooper and Jones (1983) as attenuation of symptoms and lower yield losses without reduction in virus multiplication, has been identified in bread wheat (Singh et al., 1993) and is present in several CIMMYT lines.Search for new sources of resistance and/or tolerance to BYDV among wheat wild relatives is essential and represents the preliminary step in their further utilization in wide hybridization programs. Some promising sources of resistance to BYDV have already been reported in Aegilops geniculata Roth (Zaharieva et al., 2001). Moreover, this annual, allo-tetraploid species (2n=4x=28, MMUU), is a valuable reservoir of genes for improving wheat resistance to other important diseases. The aim of this study was to estimate Ae. geniculata potential for both resistance and tolerance to BYDV and to identify promising accessions to be used in wide hybridization programs.Aegilops geniculata accessions from different ecogeographic regions were tested in this study. They originated from Algeria (10), Bulgaria (18), Croatia (6), Cyprus (4), France (13), Greece (4), Italy (12), Jordan (8), Lebanon (6), Libya (8), Morocco (17), Portugal (8), Spain (14), Syria (10), Tunisia (4) and Turkey (15). Four high yielding bread wheat (Prinia and Baviacora) and BYDV resistance test was performed in greenhouse conditions. Six plants per accessions were inoculated one week after sowing with 10 aphids (Rhopalosiphum padi) per plant, previously fed during 48 h on plants infected by a PAV-Mex isolate of BYDV. For each accession, one or two plants were kept free of aphids to serve as the non-inoculated controls. After 48 h, the aphids were eliminated by application of Metasystox, and 14 and 26 days after inoculation the penultimate leaf of each plant was harvested for the ELISA test, according to Clark and Adams (1977). The plants were considered as moderately resistant when the average optical density was less than 2.5 times the OD obtained with the line TC14/2*Spear.Evaluation for BYDV tolerance was carried out in field conditions at Toluca CIMMYT experimental station during the winter cycle 2001/2002. Each accession was sown in plots of two 1m long rows in two replicates. Plants of one replicated plot were artificially infected with BYDV-PAV at three-leaf stage, with approximately 10 viruliferous aphids, while the adjacent two rows were kept free of BYDV and served as healthy check. Symptoms (tillering, dwarfing, biomass production) were evaluated during anthesis by using visual scoring system rated from 1 (no visible symptoms) to 9 (very susceptible). Tolerance was also evaluated by measuring the reduction of plant height, tillers numbers and biomass production in the inoculated plants compared to the control, in a set of 26 accessions, randomly selected within the different scores. The data were assessed on three plants by accession. An accession was considered as tolerant when this reduction for all traits was in average no more than 25% (or 1-4 visual score).Two ELISA tests were performed after 14 and 26 days of inoculation. Five lines out of the 157 tested were moderately resistant. In order to confirm these results a third test including bread and durum wheat high yielding cultivars was realized. The average OD was much lower in the tested five Ae. geniculata accessions than in the bread and durum wheat cultivars (Table 1). These accessions could consequently represent new sources of moderate BYDV resistance for wheat improvement. Two of them, originated from South of France (MZ 20 and MZ 21) were previously reported (Zaharieva et al., 2001). The remaining three accessions originated from Cyprus, Italy, and Greece. Introgression of the resistance traits coming from these accessions could contribute to reduce virus concentration in the plant and limit the dissemination of the virus.Field trial revealed differences in BYDV response between Ae. geniculata accessions. The proportion of the plants with slight visual symptoms (1-4) was 10% and the proportion of plants showing the most severe symptoms (7-9) was 77%. Average percent reduction due to BYDV infection (Table 2) was high for biomass production (59.4%). Less marked was the reduction of tiller number (48.4%). The lower reduction rates were recorded in plant height (29%). Among the 26 accessions evaluated for these traits (Figure 1), MZ 57, MZ 7 and MZ 91, were the least affected. There was no relationship between the origin of the accessions and 100.00 Plant height the tolerance level. Some non-resistant Ae. geniculata accessions had quite good tolerance while the most resistant were severely damaged (Table 2), suggesting a lack of association between resistance and tolerance in this species. Moreover, negative correlation was found between virus titers and tolerance level measured as reduction of biomass, tillering and plant height (r=-0.52**, -0.53** and -0.64***, respectively).Knowing the strong environmental effect on the expression of tolerance to BYDV, it would be important to confirm these results for at least another cycle.Ae. geniculata accessions moderate possessing resistance or tolerance traits to BYDV in addition to other abiotic/biotic stresses are presently used in CIMMYT wide hybridization program. They were crossed with susceptible high-yielding bread (Prinia and Baviacora) and durum wheat (Kucuk and Sooty9/Rascon37) cultivars in order to improve BYDV resistance/tolerance into cultivated wheat.  Sharma and Knott (1966) transferred a chromosome segment from Thinopyrum elongatum to chromosome 7DL of wheat (Figure 1a). This segment carries leaf rust resistance gene Lr19, which has had limited use in wheat improvement due to its linkage with a gene that causes yellowness of wheat flour. In a recent study Singh et al. (1998) found that the presence of this alien segment increases wheat grain yield by about 10%.Using tissue culture, Banks et al. (1995) transferred a chromosome segment carrying BYDV resistance from Th. intermedium to wheat and obtained eight lines, commonly referred to as TC lines. The Th. intermedium fragment carried the only known BYDV resistance gene named Bdv2. Among TC lines, TC14 carries the smallest translocation that replaces the terminal part of wheat chromosome 7DL (Figure 1b).The objective of our work was to recombine the two alien chromosome segments in a wheat background to identify recombinants that combine genes Lr19 and Bdv2, and lack the gene for yellowness of flour. Status of the gene that enhances grain yield potential was also studied.Development of 'Thelin' Wheat Lines with Genes Lr19 and Bdv2 from Thinopyrum elongatum and Th. intermedium Two wheat varieties, 'Oasis 86' and 'Super Seri #2', carrying gene Lr19, were crossed with two other varieties, 'TC14/2*Spear' and 'TC14/2*Hartog' carrying Bdv2. Chromosome pairing was studied in meiosis of the F 1 plants. By testing with an Lr19avirulent race of P. triticina, 118 individual F 2 plants derived F 3 lines from each of the four crosses were evaluated for homozygosity for Lr19.The Lr19 homozygous lines were evaluated for endosperm or flour yellowness by two methods: 1) visual evaluation of endosperm yellowness by cutting the seed in half, and 2) flour color determination using Minolta Color Meter, where \"b\" values were recorded.Acceptable \"b\" values are 8-12, while unacceptable (yellow) \"b\" values are 15-20. Lines showing nonyellow endosperm and flour were advanced to the F 5 generation by harvesting individual plants in the F 4 generation that showed good agronomic features.The F 1 plants from the two crosses involving Oasis 86 described above were top-crossed with 'Yecora+Lr34', whereas the remaining two F 1 s were top-crossed with 'Seri.1B'. Yecora+Lr34 and Seri.1B are very similar to Oasis 86 and Super Seri#2 but do not carry any alien chromosome translocation. The top-crossed seedlings were first tested for resistance to PAV-Mex isolate of BYDV; plants with low virus titers in ELISA were retained, and then tested for the presence of Lr19based resistance to leaf rust. Only those plants considered resistant to both diseases were grown and harvested. The leaf rust resistant F 2 progenies of these plants were advanced to F 3 and lines homozygous for gene Lr19 were identified for further work as described above for the F 3 lines from simple crosses.Cytological procedures for meiosis and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) were similar to those of Mujeeb-Kazi et al. (1994) and Islam-Faridi and Mujeeb-Kazi (1995), respectively.From 21 F 4 lines (representing at least 21 recombination events), 235 individual F 5 plants were selected that were homozygous for Lr19 and had white endosperm. An SSR marker, gwm37, mapping to 7DL and identified to be diagnostic for the Th. intermedium translocation (Ayala et al., 2001), was used to assess the presence or absence of the translocation. Because of its co-dominant nature, the marker allowed us to differentiate if the alien fragment was present in homozygous (1) or heterozygous (10) state, or whether it was absent (0) (Figure 2). DNA extraction, PCR amplification, and separation of the amplified products on agarose gels were done as described by Ayala et al. (2001).Five 7-day-old seedlings of a total of 41 selected F 5 lines were inoculated with 10 BYDV-PAV viruliferous aphids (Rhopalosiphum padi) for a 48-h inoculation period. After spraying with the insecticide Pirimor, plants were grown in the greenhouse for 30 days. Virus titers were assessed by double antibody sandwich ELISA (DAS ELISA) on the flag-1 leaf, 10, 20, and 30 days after inoculation. The test was repeated once. For each repetition a non-infected seedling was tested for each line as a control for ELISA.Yield performance of a group of selected lines was determined at CIMMYT's research station in Ciudad Obregon in the northwestern Mexico in replicated yield trials. One year yield data for two lines and the parents are presented.The presence of 21 chromosome ring bivalents in at least some cells (Table 1) in the F1 plants from the cross Oasis 86//TC14/2*Spear indicated that the two chromosomes with alien translocations paired at metaphase I, suggesting that recombinants could be in the F 1 heterozygote (Figure 1c), and appeared to be of similar length as in the TC14 lines in the advanced progeny with white flour.• The Th. elongatum and Th. intermedium chromosome segments were recombined successfully. • Recombined alien segments possessing genes Lr19, Bdv2, and white flour with or without the molecular marker gwm37 were identified. • The recombined translocations could be useful for transferring the Bdv2 gene using leaf rust resistance as a marker, or vice-versa by using the gwm37 molecular marker. • One year of yield results indicate that the gene that enhances yield potential may be present in some white-floured recombinant lines (e.g., Thelin#1 and Thelin#2) together with Lr19 and Bdv2.","tokenCount":"47237"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6496ab1688f58e342d2e4b61145cb9f9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/799b7d6a-c227-4b34-bb2b-4ff4217ab799/retrieve","id":"-928810605"},"keywords":["Soil quality","Soil fertility gradients","Agronomic use efficiency","Physical soil quality indicators"],"sieverID":"d294aa00-2b2c-467d-941d-3ea2e99fd4e3","pagecount":"17","content":"Conservation Agriculture (CA) and Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) have been promoted in Sub Saharan Africa as a means to improve soil quality. A four season research (March, 2017 to  March, 2019)  was conducted to evaluate CA-based treatment, no tillage with residue retention (NTR), ISFM-based treatment, conventional tillage with use of manure (CTM), a combination of CA ? ISFM, no tillage with residue retention and use of manure (NTRM) and a control, (C) on soil quality attributes. In the two locations (sub-humid and semi-arid) the effect of soil fertility gradients (high and low) were considered. Trials were set out using a one farm one replicate randomized design. In either high or low fertility fields, soil chemical and physical properties were significantly different between the control and NTR, CTM and NTRM with no significant differences between NTR, CTM and NTRM. SOC was higher under NTR and NTRM practices, which consequently had higher hydraulic conductivity, air permeability, mean weight diameter and available phosphorus. For all the treatments and in both locations, the low fertility fields had significantly lower agronomic use efficiency (AUE) compared to the high fertility fields. In both soil types, plant available water capacity and relative water capacity values were below the recommended thresholds indicating low soil water uptake, suboptimal microbial activity and consequently low nutrient uptake which explains the observed low AUE.Sustainable intensification of agriculture is needed for areas where fallow periods are no longer possible. The said intensification is necessitated by the projected increase in world population to 9.1 billion by 2050 (FAO 2009). The increase is expected to come mostly from the developing world with Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) highlighted on top of the list (Gerland et al. 2014). This creates a need for increased food production putting pressure on the natural resource base. As such, agricultural intensification has recently gained support, in part because of the growing recognition that it enhances farm productivity as well as conserve the natural resource base, a major entry point to breaking the vicious cycle underlying rural poverty (Vanlauwe et al. 2011). Over the past years, food production increase in SSA has been achieved mainly through shifting cultivation with 92% of forest loss in this area related to this practice (Curtis et al. 2018). This practice is however not sustainable due to its related biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions which will further worsen climate change effects (Van Ittersum et al. 2016). Insufficient use of mineral and organic fertilizer has led to nutrient mining thereby making plant nutrition a major limitation to crop production (Tittonell and Giller 2013;Wall et al. 2013). In Kenya, the situation is not different, where continuous cropping without addition of adequate organic and inorganic resources has caused soil fertility decline and reduced productivity (Mugendi et al. 1999). While these negative effects could be reversed by fallow periods, van Vliet et al. (2012) reported a decrease in fallow length related to population growth. As a consequence, smallholder farmers in Kenya are said ''to have little choice but to better manage their soils'' as a means to increase crop productivity (Kapkiyai et al. 1999).Several land management practices to help intensify crop production in SSA have been developed, among them Conservation Agriculture (CA) and Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) (Sommer et al. 2018). CA is defined by three linked principles: continuous minimum mechanical soil disturbance, permanent organic soil cover using crops and/or crop residues, and diversification of crop species grown in sequence and/or association (FAO 2002). ISFM, on the other hand, is defined as a set of soil fertility management practices that necessarily include the use of fertilizers, organic inputs, and improved germplasm combined with the knowledge on how to adapt these practices to local conditions (Vanlauwe et al. 2014). The effects of these practices on soil quality have not been studied sumptuously in Kenya, raising a need for that (Mutuku et al. 2020).Soil quality is defined by Schjønning et al. (2004) as a measure of a soil's capacity to deliver ecosystem services and functions. To evaluate the effects of management practices on soil quality, measured parameters are used, for example, bulk density (BD), aggregate stability, and hydraulic conductivity as soil physical attributes. In addition to the measured soil physical properties, the importance of indirect soil physical quality indicators has been documented (Reynolds et al. 2002(Reynolds et al. , 2008(Reynolds et al. , 2009)). A summary of such indicators that are directly influenced by land management is presented in Reynolds et al. (2007). These parameters are obtained from the soil water retention curve and for their usability, critical threshold values for optimal soil functioning have been determined (Reynolds et al. 2007(Reynolds et al. , 2009)). Calculated values falling outside the thresholds are an indication that the soils are physically limited.While smallholder farmers generally believe that soil tillage is needed to maximise crop yield (Johansen et al. 2012), whether to till the land or not is a question that has gained a lot of research interests. Worldwide, most farmers till their land in preparation for sowing crops (Huggins and Reganold 2008). Soil tillage before sowing buries crop residues and troublesome weeds, aerates the soil and makes it easier for crop germination. But disturbing the soil in this way can also leave it vulnerable to erosion by wind and water, increased soil water loss via evaporation as well as cause soil organic carbon (SOC) losses through oxidation (Sithole et al. 2016). No tillage (NT) improves the physical and chemical characteristics of the soil by eliminating the negative effects of unsustainable intensive tillage (Derpsch et al. 2010). Nevertheless, ISFM-based practices, which involves soil tillage, have been promoted for their ability to relieve chemical and physical soil fertility constrains in the short run, thereby increasing crop productivity (Vanlauwe et al. 2014). The combined use of organic and inorganic nutrient sources under ISFM has been suggested as one of the effective ways of addressing soil fertility decline by resource constrained smallholder farmers who are unable to apply sufficient quantities of inorganic soil nutrients (Chivenge et al. 2011).The shortages in the supplies of organic inputs and fertilizers have created soil fertility gradients within farms in SSA (Chianu et al. 2012) while resource endowments have contributed to between farm soil fertility gradients (Tittonell et al. 2005). With the majority of farmers in sub-humid and semi-arid regions being smallholders and resource strained, low availability of organic and inorganic resources has resulted in between and within farm soil fertility gradients (Vanlauwe et al. 2006). While information on the existence of soil fertility gradients between and within farms is present, there is scanty information on the influence of such gradients on the effectiveness of different soil fertility management practices.In this study, we evaluated soil quality, nutrient agronomic use efficiency (AUE) and gross income analysis under CA-based, ISFM-based and a combination of the two practices and on smallholder farm fields on two contrasting sites (sub-humid and semiarid) after four growing seasons. Gradients in soil fertility at farm scale were distinguished by the productivity of control trials. Specifically, the objectives of this study were to evaluate the short-term effects of CA-based practice (NTR), ISFM-based practice (CTM) and their combination (NTRM) on (i) top soil chemical properties on fields with high and low fertility status, (ii) top and sub soil physical properties and physical soil quality indicators, (iii) within and between planting row physical and chemical properties, (iv) agronomic efficiency in the high and low fertility fields and (v) to assess the economic viability of the practices.This study was conducted in Embu county of Kenya which has contrasting agro-ecologies. Trials were set up in Kibugu (0°26 0 S and 37°26 0 E), classified as subhumid and Machang'a (0°46 0 S and 37°39 0 E), classified as semi-arid. The locations lie at an altitude of 1543 m and 1106 m for Kibugu and Machang'a, respectively. The soils are classified as Nitisol with clay texture and Cambisol with sandy loam texture, in Kibugu and Machang'a, respectively (WRB 2006). Soil sampling was done in February, 2018 from rainfed trials with maize (Zea mays L.) as the test crop. The trials had been established on 10 farms in each of the locations in 2017 and were running for four consecutive seasons, i.e. long rains 2017 (LR17), short rains 2017 (SR17), long rains 2018 (LR18) and short rains 2018 (SR18). However, two farmers in Machang'a dropped out of the trials due to land subdivision reasons, leaving 18 farms at the end of the study. In each location, fields were selected representing a high and a low fertility status. Farms were selected firstly based on the willingness of the farmer to provide plots for the trials and secondly on whether farmers could identify fields of high and low fertility within their farms. The identification of high and low fertility fields was done based on past management and maize production history. After this classification, farms were later reclassified based on first season maize yield data from the control treatment which showed a clear distinction. After season four, farms were dropped to remain with two farms in each location where the trials were continued for another two seasons, LR and SR of 2018.In addition to the fact that farmers in Africa start CA adoption with two principles, majority of farmers in the study area practiced maize-monocropping. Pittelkow et al. (2015) has also highlighted the need to investigate the effects of no tillage in the tropical environments. The trials were then designed in support of these, i.e., test no tillage and residues retention management systems on maize-monocropping. Therefore, in each field, the following treatments were laid down following a one-farm-one-replicate randomized design: (1) a conventional control with no inputs which depicts farmers practice in the study locations (C), (2) a CA-based treatment involving no tillage and residue retention (NTR), (3) an ISFM-based treatment involving conventional tillage and use of manure (CTM), and (4) a combination of the CA-and ISFMbased treatments involving no tillage, residue retention and use of manure (NTRM). It is important to note that rather than evaluating the individual components that constitute the tested treatments, such as tillage, residue retention, use of fertilizer and manure, the setup was designed to compare the alternative cropping systems.Plots under tillage (C and CTM) were weeded by hand, hoeing up to 0.15 m, while plots under no tillage (NTR and NTRM) were sprayed with a selective herbicide (Tingatinga, Geneva agrochemical limited). Plots under NTR, CTM and NTRM were fertilized with 80 kg nitrogen (N) ha -1 (urea) using split application of 40 kg N ha -1 at planting and topdressed at the same rate 6 weeks after planting, 30 kg phosphorus (P) ha -1 (triple superphosphate) and 40 kg potassium (K) ha -1 (muriate of potash) every growing season. Fully decomposed cow manure containing 2.1% N was applied at 2 t ha -1 on plots under CTM and NTRM. Maize stover mulch was applied on the plots under NTR and NTRM at an application rate of 3 t stover ha -1 to achieve ca. 30% soil cover. Plots under the farmer practice, C, received 0 kg N ha -1 , 0 kg P ha -1 , 0 kg K ha -1 , 0 t manure ha -1 and 0% soil cover.Soils were sampled (0 to 0.15 m) in each farmer field before planting in season one. A composite sample was made from five points along an X shape covering the area where trials were to be established. At the end of season four, sampling was done using a similar sampling procedure. Composite soil samples were collected at 0-0.15 m since this is the depth where most of the maize roots were concentrated. Undisturbed soil samples were collected from 0 to 0.15 m and 0.15-0.30 m using Kopecky rings of 0.05 m inner diameter and 0.051 m height with a volume of 0.0001 m 3 for soil water retention curve analysis. In addition, disturbed soil samples for aggregate stability were collected from the same two depths. After season six, sampling was done to represent points within planting line and points between planting lines. During this sampling, two composite and three undisturbed samples per sampling point (within or between planting rows) were taken under each treatment. The soil samples were air-dried, 2 mm sieved and analysed for selected physico-chemical soil properties.Hydraulic conductivity was determined in the field, in within and between planting points, using a tension disk infiltrometer (minidisk infiltrometer by Decagon, USA) at matric potentials of -0.5 which eliminates water flow through macropores. The tension disk's bubble and reservoir chambers were filled with water and the matric potential adjusted to -0.5 kPa. The disk was placed into contact with the soil after clearing the soil surface. The volume of the water in the tube was recorded at a time interval of 20 s for clay loam soils and 10 s for the sandy soils. After obtaining a constant volume at least five times in the selected time intervals, the run was stopped.The hydraulic conductivity was calculated using the method proposed by Zhang (1997), Eqs. 1 and 2.where I is the cumulative infiltration, C1 and C2 are adjustable parameters related to hydraulic conductivity and soil sorptivity respectively. The hydraulic conductivity (k) of the soil is computed from:where C1 is the slope of the curve of the cumulative infiltration versus the square root of time and A is a value relating to the matric potentials, soil type and radius of the tension disk infiltrometer. Tillage practices induce soil structure degradation. Shear stress which is related to soil's ability to resist soil aggregate detachment can be used as an indicator to such structure degradation (Richard and Le 2004). As such, top soil with high SOC has low shear stress for soil particles are well cemented and can thus resist disintegration. Top soil and sub soil shear stress was measured in the field using a pocket vane tester with CL100 vane (Eijkelkamp Soil & Water, the Netherlands) with a measuring range of 0 to 250 kPa. To take measurements, the vane was placed on a pit wall. The meter was then turned by hand at a constant speed from zero in the direction of one until the head slipped back, leaving the arrow at the highest shear stress. To ensure constant meter turning speed, the measurements were done by one person.Each intact 0.0001 m 3 core was used for several soil physical parameters analyses. First, the core was gradually saturated in a tray. It was then transferred to a permeameter (Eijkelkamp Soil & Water, type 09.02.01.05) for measuring hydraulic conductivity (K s ) using the constant head method. The water discharge was measured until a constant flux enabling calculation of K s (m d -1 ) using Darcy's equation, Eq. 3.where Q w is the outflow of water through the soil core (m d -1 ), L is the length of the soil core (m), A is the surface area of the soil core (m 2 ) and DH is hydraulic head difference (m H 2 0). The core was then equilibrated at -100 hPa using the sand box apparatus (Eijkelkamp Soil & Water) after which the core was used for measuring air permeability (K a ) using a steady-state in-house made air permeameter proposed by Grover (1955) (Eq. 4).where Q a is the outflow of air through the soil core (m s -1 ), g a is the air viscosity (Pa s or kg m -1 s -1 ), L is the length of the soil core (m), and DP is the pressure head difference across the sample (m).After measuring K a , the samples were subdivided into three sub samples for soil water content measurements at lower potentials of -330 hPa, -1000 hPa and -15,000 hPa using pressure chambers (Soilmoisture Equipment, Santa Barbara CA, USA). As stipulated by Reynolds et al. (2007), water content at field capacity (FC) was taken at -100 hPa, matric porosity (MatPor) at -10 hPa and permanent wilting point (PWP) at -15,000 hPa, while soil dry BD was determined at -100 hPa during retention curve analysis.Indirect soil physical quality indicators were calculated by Eqs. 5-8;where AC is air capacity, h s , h FC , and h PWP is the volumetric water content at saturation, field capacity and permanent wilting point, respectively, MacPor is macro porosity, plant available water capacity (PAWC) is plant available water content and relative water capacity (RWC) is relative water capacity.MacPor is dependent on pore diameter and according to Jarvis (2007), it can be defined as pores having an equivalent cylindrical diameter larger than 0.3-0.5 mm, which is equivalent to a water entry pressure head of -0.06 to -0.1 m, according to the Young-Laplace equation (Eq. 9).where h is the pressure head, c is the surface tension, h is the contact angle between the two fluids, q is the fluid density, g is the gravitational acceleration, and R is the radius of the capillary. Aggregate stability was measured by the fast wetting procedure outlined by Le Bissonnais (1996). Fast wetting was chosen based on its ability to evaluate a large range of soils as affected by rapid wetting, appropriate for tropical areas that experience heavy rainstorms (Le Bissonnais 1996). To this effect, the soil materials were sieved through a column of sieves: 2000, 1000, 500, 200, 100 and 50 lm to determine fragment size distribution. The aggregate stability was expressed by mean weight diameter (MWD), which is the sum of the mass fraction of soil remaining on each sieve after sieving multiplied by the mean aperture of the adjacent mesh.Total N and SOC were determined using an elemental analyzer (ANCA-SL, PDZ Europa, UK) coupled to an IRMS (20-22, SerCon, UK). Available P and exchangeable K were extracted using the resin and ammonium acetate method, respectively, and measured using the Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) method (Thermo scientific, iCAP 6000 SERIES, ICP spectrometer). pH-H 2 O (1:5) was measured using a HANNA PH ? ISE Meter HI 5222. Texture analysis was done following the standard sieving and sedimentation techniques (Smith and Mullins 1991).Agronomic use efficiencies of N, P or K were calculated using a formula given by Vanlauwe et al. (2011), Eq. 10.where AUE (kg grain kg -1 N, P or K) is defined as the increase in maize grain yield per unit of fertilizer N, P or K applied, Y F and Y C refer to grain yields (kg ha -1 ) in the treatment where fertilizer N, P or K has been applied and in the control plot, respectively, and F appl is the amount of fertilizer N, P or K applied (kg ha -1 ).The purpose of this analysis was to evaluate and compare the short-term economic returns of producing maize using under CA and ISFM-based practices.Maize productivity data has been presented earlier by Mutuku et al. (2020). Since the improved treatments did not show significant difference in soil quality, this analysis was important to help give an informed recommendation to smallholder farmers. In this analysis, fixed costs like land and tools were excluded hence results are presented as gross profit (Eqs. 11 and 12) (Kifuko et al. 2007). Maize yield was calculated as an average per treatment for the four seasons in Kibugu and three seasons in Machang'a (see Mutuku et al. 2020). Revenue from maize was calculated using farm gate prices. Parameters used for the calculation are presented in Table 1. The unit cost was based on prevailing retail prices during the study period. Labour costs include planting cost, fertilizer application, weeding, pesticide and herbicide application, manure application, mulching cost, harvesting and shelling costs. The information used for labour cost analysis was collected at the specific time of each activity in the course of the seasons. Labour calculations were based on the prevailing labour cost for casual workers and the number of days needed to accomplish any given activity.All statistical computing and graphic designs were carried out in the R environment, version 3.4.2. (R Development Core Team 2016). The treatment effects on soil properties in each location and fertility level were evaluated through a linear mixed model using the packages 'lme4 0 (Bates et al. 2015) and 'lmerTest' (Kuznetsova et al. 2017). The residual normal distribution and homoscedasticity of all models were ascertained by plotting residuals against quantiles and fitted values. Location, fertility level, treatment as well as interactions between these three factors were designated as fixed effects. The random intercepts of all mixed models were based on individual farm fields.The significance testing of main effects and their interactions for mixed models was performed through Type III analysis of variance with Satterthwaite approximation for degrees of freedom. In each location, seasons were taken as replicates for AUE data. Pairwise comparisons of means was made by least squares with confidence intervals and standard errors of difference using the 'lsmeans' package at a probability level of p B 0.05.For maize crop, in our study locations, most roots were concentrated in the top 0.3 m. Visual evaluation of the soils showed a distinction between the top (0-0.15 m) and sub (0.15-0.3 m) soil layers. The top layer had a dark colour, an indication of higher soil organic matter thereby confirming its role in the supply of crop nutrients. For this reason, the top soil was considered in testing chemical soil quality while both top and sub soil were considered for physical soil quality. Soils from Kibugu on average had significantly lower pH, higher SOC, higher total nitrogen (TN), higher total phosphorus (TP) and lower BD (bulk density) compared to soils from Machang'a (Table 2). In Kibugu, soils from high fertility fields had significantly higher pH, higher SOC, higher Resin-P and higher TP compared to low fertility fields. There were no significant differences in TN and exchangeable K between high and low fertility fields. On the other hand, soils from Machang'a high and low fertility fields showed no significant differences in the measured soil properties, though the high fertility fields had higher SOC, TN, resin-P and exchangeable K compared to the low fertility fields. Soils from Kibugu have significantly higher percentage of clay while those from Machang'a have a higher sand fraction. Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.At the end of season four, measured soil chemical properties were not significantly different between the improved management practices in either the low or high fertility fields of both locations (Table 3). They became, however, significantly higher compared to the farmer practice, i.e. control. In Machang'a, N, SOC, available P and exchangeable K were, as at the start of the study, not significantly different between the high and low fertility fields (Table 2). Similarly, after four seasons, these properties were not significantly different between the high and low fertility fields (Table 3). In the high fertility fields of Kibugu, total N was higher under NTRM with a value of 2.5 g kg -1 compared to NTR and CTM both with 2.3 g kg -1 . In the low fertility fields, the values were again higher in NTRM, 3.2 g kg -1 compared to 3.0 and 2.8 g kg -1 for CTM and NTR, respectively. In Machang'a, N trend was similar to Kibugu. In the high fertility fields, values of 0.8 g kg -1 for NTRM and 0.7 g kg -1 for both NTR and CTM while in the low fertility, values of 0.6 g kg -1 for NTRM and 0.5 g kg -1 for both NTR and CTM.In Kibugu, SOC under NTR and NTRM was with values of 22.9 and 23.6 g kg -1 , respectively, higher compared to CTM with 21.7 g kg -1 in the high fertility fields. In the low fertility fields, NTRM showed higher SOC than CTM, with values of 32.2 g kg -1 and 29.0 g kg -1 , respectively, while NTR had the lowest with 27.7 g kg -1 . In Machang'a, SOC was as well higher under NTR and NTRM, with values of 7.4 g kg -1 and 8.5 g kg -1 , respectively, compared to 6.7 g kg -1 SOC in the high fertility fields under CTM. Also the low fertility fields exhibited higher SOC under NTR and NTRM with both showing values of 5.3 g kg -1 , compared to CTM with 4.6 g kg -1 SOC. The general trend in SOC was NTRM [ NTR [ CTM.In the low fertility fields of Kibugu and all the fields in Machang'a, no till resulted in higher resin-P as compared to conventional tillage (Table 3). Resin-P was 26.9 mg kg -1 and 20.9 mg kg -1 under NTR and NTRM, and 20.8 mg kg -1 under CTM in the low fertility fields of Kibugu. In Machang'a, it was 45.1 mg kg -1 under NTR and 54.5 mg kg -1 under NTRM, and 36.2 mg kg -1 under CTM in the high fertility fields. In the low fertility fields, values of 48.2 mg kg -1 and 57.6 mg kg -1 were observed under NTR and NTRM, respectively, and 31.7 mg kg -1 under CTM. In the higher fertility fields of Kibugu, values of 31.5 mg kg -1 for CTM and 21.0 and 25.2 mg kg -1 , for NTR and NTRM, respectively, were observed. Even though resin-P was mainly higher under NT practices compared to conventional tillage, very high variability between fields masked any significance difference. Exchangeable K was higher under CTM with 0.7 mg kg -1 and NTRM with 0.8 mg kg -1 compared to NTR with 0.5 mg kg -1 in the high fertility fields of Kibugu. In the low fertility fields, it was again higher under CTM with 0.5 mg kg -1 and NTRM with 0.7 mg kg -1 compared to NTR with 0.4 mg kg -1 . In Machang'a, the same trend was observed in the high fertility fields under CTM with 0.4 mg kg -1 and NTRM with 0.5 mg kg -1 having higher exchangeable K compared to NTR with 0.3 mg kg -1 . In the low fertility fields, exchangeable K was slightly higher under CTM and NTRM with both 0.4 mg kg -1 compared to NTR with 0.3 mg kg -1 . Generally, the trend in exchangeable K was NTRM [ CTM [ NTR, an indication of a positive effect of manure application on exchangeable K.The improved management practices had no significant effect on measured soil physical properties in either the top or the sub soil in both the sub-humid Kibugu and the semi-arid Machang'a after four seasons since their introduction (Fig. 1). Unlike BD which did not show significant differences between top and sub soil, K s , K a , MWD and shear stress in Kibugu were significantly different, with the top soil showing better values. In the semi-arid Machang'a, only shear stress showed significant differences between top and sub soil. Nevertheless, the other parameters were better in the top soil as compared to the sub soil. That lack of significant differences in physical properties could be attributed to their high spatial variability. This spatial variability is said to be inherent in nature because of geological and pedological factors (Wang and Shao 2013). In this study, it was reported that soil physical properties have strong spatial dependence. Though differences were not significant, some trends in treatment effect on K s , K a , MWD and shear strength can be perceived in Kibugu, but not always in Machang'a. In Kibugu, higher mean values for K s , K a , MWD and shear stress were obtained under NTR and NTRM as compared to CTM over the top soil with no clear trend in the sub soil.BD values in Kibugu ranged between 0.89 and 1.02 Mg m -3 while in Machang'a they ranged from 1.34 to 1.72 Mg m -3 . Overall, in the top soil, the order for K s , K a and MWD was NTRM in Machang'a. In Kibugu, between and within planting rows soil properties were not significantly different in most of the treatments (Fig. 2). In all treatments, BD was lower in the within row position compared to between row position. Consequently, hydraulic conductivity was lower within rows compared to between rows with the values being significantly different under NTR. In Machang'a on the other side, all the soil properties with an exception of BD under NTRM, were not significantly different between row positions. Under NTRM, BD was significantly lower within rows compared to between rows.The improved management practices had no significant effect on physical soil quality indicators in either the top or the sub soil in both the sub-humid Kibugu and the semi-arid Machang'a after four seasons since their introduction (Figs. 3, 4). In Kibugu, macroporosity, matrix-porosity and air capacity showed significant differences between the top and sub soil under CTM and NTRM. Values were higher in the top, sub and top soil for macro-porosity, matrix-porosity and air capacity, respectively. In Machang'a, field capacity, permanent wilting point, air capacity and relative water capacity were significantly different under CTM and NTRM. Their values were higher in the sub, sub, top and sub for field capacity, permanent wilting point, air capacity and relative water capacity, respectively. Macro-porosity and matrix-porosity showed significant differences between the top and sub soil only under CTM. Higher values were recorded in the top and sub soil for Macro-porosity and matrixporosity, respectively.While there was no significant treatment effect on physical soil quality indicators, comparing the obtained values to set critical thresholds is important in order to establish any limitations to optimal soil functioning. MacPOR values were in the range of 0.15 to 0.24 m m -3 and 0.10 to 0.18 m m -3 for Kibugu and Machang'a, respectively (Fig. 4). PAWC values in Kibugu ranged between 0.05 to 0.09 m 3 m -3 while in Machang'a, they ranged between 0.05 to 0.06 m 3 m -3 . AC values ranged between 0.20 to 0.30 and 0.16 to 0.27 m 3 m -3 for Kibugu and Machang'a, respectively. In Kibugu, RWC values ranged between 0.51 and 0.64 while in Machang'a, the values were between 0.35 and 0.57.Nutrient agronomic use efficiency and economic analysis N, P and K-AUE were not significantly different between treatments in the high or low fertility levels in Kibugu (Fig. 5). Under NTR and NTRM for both locations, the low fertility fields had significantly lower AUE's compared to the high fertility fields between the treatments in the same row position, while bars indicated with the same small letters are not significantly different between row positions (within and between row) under each treatment. BD is bulk density, TN is total Nitrogen, SOC is soil organic carbon, RP is resin phosphorus and K is hydraulic conductivity while AUE values under CTM were not significantly different between the high and low fertility fields. In the high fertility fields of Kibugu nitrogen AUE (N-AUE) values ranged between 28 and 21 kg grain (kg N) -1 while in the low fertility fields, they ranged from 14 to 7 kg grain (kg N) -1 . Phosphorus AUE (P-AUE) ranged between 76and 57 kg grain (kg P) -1 in the high fertility fields while values in the low fertility fields were in the range of 38-18 kg grain (kg P) -1 . In the high fertility fields, potassium AUE (K-AUE) values were 58-43 kg grain (kg K) -1 while in the low fertility fields, the values ranged between 29 and 13 kg grain (kg K) -1 .There were no significant difference in nutrient AUE between treatments in the high or low fertility fields in Machang'a (Fig. 5). In this location, N-AUE values ranged between 18 and 15 kg grain (kg N) -1 in the higher fertility fields while they ranged from 13 to 5 kg grain (kg N) -1 in the low fertility fields. P-AUE values in the high fertility fields were in the range of 47 to 41 kg grain (kg P) -1 while in the low fertility fields, the values ranged between 34 and 15 kg grain (kg P) -1 . Lastly, K-AUE values in the range of 35 to 30 kg grain (kg K) -1 were observed for the high fertility fields with low fertility field they ranged between 26 and 11 kg grain (kg K) -1 . In general, the order of N, P and K-AUE for the high fertility fields was NTRM   No tillage improves SOC Even though there were no significant differences in measured soil chemical properties between the improved treatments and given the duration of the study, trends can be perceived when considering the mean values, which are anyway an important outcome of experiments (Webster 2007). In addition, the use of a 'one-farm-one-replicate' design resulted to high standard deviations thereby masking significant differences between treatments at p \\ 0.05. The observed higher levels of SOC under both NT practices compared to CT could be explained by the combined effects of no tillage and residue retention. No tillage is known to protect SOC from rapid oxidation and thus enhance build-up of SOC over time (Cooper et al. 2016). Gwenzi et al. (2009) also found higher SOC in the 0-0.15 m soil layer under minimum and no tillage compared to conventional tillage in Zimbabwe, with differences being significant. In South Africa, no tillage resulted in insignificantly higher SOC (27.1 g kg -1 compared to conventional tillage (26.6 g kg -1 ) after 13 years since its introduction (Sithole et al. 2019). CA-based  C is control, NTR is no tillage with residue retention, CTM is conventional tillage with use of manure, NTRM is no tillage with residue retention and use of manure. US$ is united states dollar and ha is hectare practices have been shown to enhance SOC (Derpsch et al. 2010). Under the farmer practice, C, the semiarid Machang'a had a relative higher SOC loss compared to the sub-humid Kibugu on the high fertility fields. This is mainly an effect of its lower clay content in the soil. According to Feller and Beare (1997), the amount of soil organic matter loss is higher on coarse textured than fine textured soils mostly due to lack of physical protection of organic matter in sandy soils. Higher SOC gain under NTRM treatment is explained, by the effects of no tillage and manure. SOC carbon is enhanced by addition of manure while no tillage ensures less loss of SOC by oxidation. In Kibugu, soils under the control and top layer under CTM had SOC values below the lower critical value of 23% proposed by Greenland (1981) below which tillage-induced loss of structure may occur in finetextured soils. In Machang'a, all soils were below the lower critical value. However, care should be taken while interpreting SOC limits in Machang'a for the used SOC limits refer to fine textured soils. In Kibugu, the below the critical level SOC could be related to SOC loss through oxidation occurring under soil tillage while in Machang'a the low levels are related to inherent low SOC nature of Cambisols.MacPor values for our soil were all within the critical values (MacPor C 0.05-0.10 m 3 m -3 ) indicating that soils are in good physical condition and their potential to quickly drain excess water and allow good root development (Drewry et al., 2001). This could be confirmed by the fact that within the four seasons of our study, there was no water logging related problems observed. All the soils were also above the upper critical threshold of 0.10 m 3 m -3 which could indicate excess water drainage and could be a possible cause of meteorological drought. For all the treatments in both locations, PAWC values were below 0.10 m 3 m -3 indicating poor water availability for crop uptake (Reynolds et al. 2009). While PAWC could be improved through an increase in SOC we did not find a significant correlation between SOC and PAWC. An increase in organic carbon in soil has been reported to have a small effect on soil water content (Minasny & Mcbratney, 2018). In this meta-analysis, a 1% mass increase in soil SOC on average increased available water capacity by 1.16%, volumetrically. These could mean that an increase in PAWC cannot be related to one single parameter due to other processes that affect it. In Machang'a, all soils had RWC values below the given optimal range of 0.6 B RWC B 0.7 (Reynolds et al. 2007). The below optimal values are an indicator that these soils cannot achieve maximum microbial activity due to soil water limitation and consequently low nutrient uptake which explains the observed low AUE.Where to invest Given that fertilizer was applied at the same rate in the high and low fertility fields, the low N-AUE in the low fertility fields could suggest that these soils are either biologically, physically or chemically (in respect to micro-nutrients) limited, which restrains responses to the applied fertilizer. These soils have been referred to as 'poor, less-responsive soils' by Vanlauwe et al. (2010). It is important to eliminate the existing restriction in these low fertility fields before farmers can successfully apply nutrients. Soils in Kibugu had higher nutrient agronomic efficiency compared to soils from Machang'a which could be attributed to inherent soil fertility conditions in the two regions. The observed average N-AUE are in line with values reported elsewhere. For example, N-AUE values of 30.6 kg grain (kg N) -1 for fertilizer application rate of 90 kg ha -1 were reported in USA under irrigated maize (Johnson and Raun 2003). In Pakistan, maize N-AUE of 28, 23 and 19 kg grain (kg N) -1 were reported for fertilizer application rates of 60, 120 and 180 kg ha -1 (Amanullah and Alkas 2009). From our observations, CTM enhances nutrient use efficiency in low fertility fields of both locations which is related to the combined use of organic and inorganic inputs as it has been reported earlier that ISFM principles can substantially improve AUE (Vanlauwe et al. 2011).Based on the cost benefit analysis of four seasons in 2017 and 2018, higher economic returns were obtained under NTRM and NTR for the high fertility fields of Kibugu and Machang'a, respectively. The low nutrient AUE in the low fertility fields of both locations was reflected by economic losses in the same fields. Therefore, investing on the low fertility fields at our input rates is not advisable for farmers in both locations.123Nutr Cycl AgroecosystContent courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.Improved SOC under no tillage indicates the possibility of CA to help solving one of the pressing soil fertility issues in SSA: build SOC which improves soil physical and chemical properties crucial for water management and nutrient availability. With the obtained lower nutrient AUE and economic losses from the low fertility fields, further investigation could therefore be needed to ascertain which other soil physico-chemical parameters need to be enhanced to increase AUE. In addition, an in-depth study is required to determine at which input rates could the low fertility fields result to economic gain.1.3.5.6.Springer Nature journal content, brought to you courtesy of Springer Nature Customer Service Center GmbH (\"Springer Nature\"). 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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"23b9692ca3d82746a293003680e1314b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/abd26126-bc95-4eb6-82ba-adff4b76920d/content","id":"1272990683"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c2318884-69cc-40ca-a9d9-d177bba9b360","pagecount":"17","content":"Joint soil and crop sampling was undertaken across Amhara Region, Ethiopia.• Statistical modelling of the resulting data incorporated extensive covariates. • Spatial predictions were made of grain selenium concentration. • These predictions, and their uncertainties, are presented as maps. • The maps show the probability that grain provides adequate dietary Se.Mineral micronutrient deficiencies (MNDs) are widespread in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), especially among women and children (Joy et al., 2014;Kumssa et al., 2015;Schmidhuber et al., 2018;Smith et al., 2016). These deficiencies, sometimes called 'hidden hunger', are a critical obstacle to the United Nations' second Sustainable Development Goal (SDG2, 'Zero Hunger'), to 'achieve food security and improved nutrition' by 2030 (Gödecke et al., 2018).There are multiple and complex causes of MNDs, including poor dietary intake and bioavailability as well as nutrient losses due to factors such as infection (Caulfield et al., 2006). In SSA many mineral MNDs arise from restricted soil-to-crop transfer of micronutrients, due to soil conditions, exacerbated by poor dietary diversity including a paucity of animal-source foods (Hurst et al., 2013;Joy et al., 2014Joy et al., , 2015;;Manzeke et al., 2019;Phiri et al., 2019).There are various interventions available to address MNDs, including biofortification through crop breeding. There have been notable successes by HarvestPlus and the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) to develop staple crops with increased grain concentration of iron (Fe) in SSA, and zinc (Zn) in South Asia (Gregory et al., 2017;Khokhar et al., 2018;Velu et al., 2012). However, the alleviation of multiple mineral MNDs in SSA is likely to require combined approaches including dietary diversification, food fortification, and the use of micronutrient-enriched fertilisers (agronomic biofortification). There are precedents for using Se containing fertilisers at national scale in Finland, where Se agronomic biofortification has been continually used in crop production since 1984 (Chilimba et al., 2012).Effective intervention to address MNDs requires reliable information to support decision making at national and subnational scales. Such information is relatively scarce in SSA. Little is known about how soil-tocrop transfers of minerals and intake of minerals into food systems vary spatially, and there is a lack of reliable biomarkers of micronutrient status to identify where particular micronutrients are in deficit and where they are adequate. It has been shown that considerable efficiencies could be achieved if particular interventions were targeted and tailored to local conditions (Vosti et al., 2015), and so this lack of information limits the ability of policy makers to design effective responses.Some of the richest disaggregated data for Se in SSA are found in Ethiopia and Malawi although even these data are relatively sparse. In both countries the variation of population nutrient status can be attributed in part to local soil conditions, and to other landscape and socioeconomic factors (Gashu et al., 2016a(Gashu et al., , 2016b;;Hurst et al., 2013;Phiri et al., 2019Phiri et al., , 2020)). In Malawi, Phiri et al. (2019Phiri et al. ( , 2020) ) showed marked spatial national-scale variation in the Se status of women of reproductive age, and the spatial patterns were consistent with previous surveys of the Se concentration in soil and maize grain (Chilimba et al., 2011), and with smaller cross-sectional studies of Se intake and status (Hurst et al., 2013).Comparable information on the spatial variation of Se status among the Ethiopian population, and contributing factors, have not yet been reported at national scale. The overall prevalence of Se deficiency is likely to be large. For example, Gashu et al. (2016a) identified widespread Se deficiency, based on a large-scale survey of the serum Se status of children in the Amhara Region (east Gojjam and west Gojjam, south and north Wollo, north Gonder and Waghera Districts). Approximately 55% of these were deficient. They hypothesized that Se deficiency risks were linked to soil and/or landscape features (Gashu et al., 2016a). Reliable data on the Se status of soils and crops in Ethiopia, and elsewhere in SSA, are lacking (Ligowe et al., 2020). Sillanpää and Jansson (1992) reported the Se status of 126 soils and co-located plants (wheat or maize) in Ethiopia. However, their sampling was not designed to provide spatial coverage, and did not include the important staple crop teff. Sillanpää and Jansson (1992) concluded that the Se status of crops in Ethiopia was generally satisfactory but that localized deficiency may exist. Ligowe et al. (2020) re-analysed these data. Topsoil Se concentration, following acid ammonium acetate-EDTA universal extraction, ranged from b5-32 μg L −1 , and there was no evidence for relationships between concentrations of Se in soil and concentrations in maize or wheat. In summary, there is evidence for Se deficiency in parts of Amhara Region, and preliminary evidence of variation in Se concentration in soil, but further focussed sampling is necessary to understand this variation, and its possible relationship to Se concentration in crops. On the basis of the results of Gashu et al. (2016a), who show that there are substantial rates of Se deficiency among children in Amhara Region, this is an appropriate area in which to undertake such a study.The objective of the study reported here was to examine evidence for the spatial variation of Se concentration in cereal staple crops across part of the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. In particular we wished to examine how field surveys of crop and soil, along with additional spatial information, could be used to make reliable spatial predictions of Se concentration in grain, with attached measures of uncertainty. Our hypothesis was that at least some of the observed variation in Se status of grain can be accounted for by the effects of variation in soil properties, and so that soil information can be used, along with direct measurements of Se in grain, to make better spatial predictions of grain Se concentration than could otherwise be produced. Such maps could provide a basis for understanding patterns of Se deficiency in the population, and for identifying areas where such deficiencies might be expected, and where particular interventions might be most appropriate because of the poor local Se status of staple crops. From previous dietary data analyses (Gashu et al., 2016b), teff (Eragrostis tef) and wheat (Triticum aestivum) are the two dominant cereal crops in this region. Teff was the most widely-consumed cereal, eaten by 76% of children in the previous 24 h. We therefore focus in this study on mapping the concentration of Se in teff and in wheat grain.This mapping task is a substantial challenge for several reasons. First, data on grain Se status, even in a focussed survey, are inevitably sparse, and there is likely to be considerable variation in these data at multiple scales. Second, while soil properties can be measured at any sample site, grain Se can only be measured from sites where that particular grain was growing. We therefore have a mixture of collocated observations of soil properties and the target grain, and non-collocated observations of soil properties and the non-target grain. Covariates, including remotely sensed data, may help the process of spatial prediction, but we require robust methods to select appropriate covariates for any prediction task. Finally, the predictions that are made have inevitable uncertainty. If they are to be useful then we must be able to quantify this uncertainty and to communicate it appropriately to the relevant stakeholders. Given these considerations we decided to use the spatial linear mixed model (LMM) for the analysis and prediction of data on grain Se, soil properties and associated covariates (Cressie, 1993). Specifically we considered a multivariate version of the model (Marchant and Lark, 2007) which allows us to combine collocated and non-collocated data. The empirical best linear unbiased prediction (E-BLUP), based on the fitted model, has an associated prediction error distribution, and on the basis of this we were able to quantify uncertainties in the prediction relative to threshold concentrations of interest, and to use strategies to communicate this uncertainty which have been used elsewhere (Lark et al., 2014(Lark et al., , 2019;;Mastrandrea et al., 2010).The objective of field sampling was to support spatial prediction of grain Se concentration. To this end it was neither necessary nor desirable to sample independently and at random. The objective was to obtain samples that gave reasonable spatial coverage over the target sample frame, with a proportion of sample points at a short distance from the basic sample set to support the estimation of a spatial LMM (Lark and Marchant, 2018). The sample frame was defined in terms of the objectives and constraints of the task. First, the sample frame was constrained to sites within Amhara Region where the probability that the land was in agricultural use equalled or exceeded 0.9. This was based on predictions produced on a 500-m grid by the AfSIS project (Walsh et al., 2019) using a combination of interpretation of highresolution satellite imagery by trained observers and machine learning methods applied to multiple covariates derived from remote sensor data and digital elevation models (AfSIS, 2015). The mapped probabilities of cropping used here are shown in Fig. S1 of the supplementary material. Second, the frame was constrained to include only those sites from a 500-m grid, that fell within 2.5 km of a known road. A map indicating nodes on a 500-m grid (with the same origin as the agricultural land use grid) which met this requirement was prepared. Information on the distribution of roads was taken from OpenStreetMap (OpenStreetMap contributors, 2017    constraint introduces a possible bias into predictions made at sites outside the defined sample frame, and the predictions must be interpreted with it in mind. However, without such a constraint it would not have been possible to visit all sample sites across the region of interest in the time available.Having defined the sampling frame, a total of 475 sample locations were selected with every 500-m grid node within the sampling frame allocated an equal prior inclusion probability. This was done using the lcube package from the BalancedSampling library for the R platform (R Core Team, 2017;Grafström and Lisic, 2016). This implements the cube method of Deville and Tillé (2004), which allows one to sample honouring specified inclusion probabilities while aiming for balance and spread with respect to specified covariates. In this case sample sites were selected for spatial balance, which entails that the mean coordinates of sample sites are close to the mean coordinates of all points in the sample frame) and spatial spread (which ensures that the observations are spread out rather than clustered with respect to spatial coordinates), see Grafström and Schelin (2014). Once these sites were chosen a subset of 25 was selected, again to achieve spatial spread. Each of these 25 sites were earmarked for a second field sample site at a nearby location (see next section). As stated above, the inclusion of these extra close-paired sites was done to support estimation of parameters of the spatial LMM, following Lark and Marchant (2018).Sampling was done by teams who undertook initial training to standardize procedures. Each team aimed to visit around 5 sample sites per day. The day's sample sites were uploaded onto a tablet PC and a GPS device as a waypoint list. They were also printed on a paper map. The team would navigate to the target sampling point using the paper map, and then using the GPS over the last few kilometres. At the sample site the team would find the nearest field with a mature cereal crop within a 1-km radius, and would request permission to sample from the farmer. If a field with a standing mature cereal crop was not present then the team would talk with local farmers to identify a field where the crop had recently been harvested. If permission could be obtained to sample both this field and the stored grain which had been harvested from it, then the field would be selected. If this procedure failed then the team would look further than 1 km from the target site for an alternative. If one could not be found then the target site was abandoned. In practice it was possible in all cases to sample a standing crop, grain from field stacks or, in a few cases, grain which had been moved from the field to a store.Samples were taken from a 100-m 2 (0.01-ha) circular plot in the selected field. This was centred as close as possible to the middle of the field unless this appeared unrepresentative with respect to disease or crop damage. Five sub-sample sites were located, the first at the centre of the plot. Two sub-sample points were selected at locations on a line through the plot centre along the crop rows, and two on a line orthogonal to the first through the plot centre (see Fig. S2 in the supplementary material). Note that these four sub-sample points lie on the circumferences of 25-m 2 , 50-m 2 , 75-m 2 and 100-m 2 subplots with a common centre where the first sub-sample was collected. The central sampling location was fixed between crop rows, and the 'long' axis of the sample array (with sample locations at 5.64 and 4.89 m) was oriented in the direction of crop rows with the 'short axis' perpendicular to the crop rows (see Fig. S2 in the Supplementary Material).A single soil subsample was collected at each of the five sub-sample points with a Dutch auger with a flight of length 150 mm and diameter 50 mm. The teams were trained to take care to insert the auger vertically and to the precise depth of one flight. Any plant material adhering to the auger was carefully removed, and the five sub-samples stored in a single bag.Crop samples were taken close to each augering position. A grain sub-sample was collected at each site, taking care to avoid any Table 3 Fitted models for soil properties and grain Se concentration in teff and wheat. The symbols used for soil variables are as in Tables 1 and 2.Predictor and coefficient  contamination of the grain with soil. If the crop was in field stacks then a sub-sample, comprising five heads of grain, was taken from each available stack, taking material from the centre of the stack to minimize contamination by dust and soil. At sample sites earmarked for a second 'close-pair' sample a duplicate field was identified where possible. Ideally this was within 500 m of the primary sample site, but a close-pair site could lie within 100-1000 m of the primary site. If such a site could not be found, then an attempt was made to find a close-pair site at the next sample location not already earmarked for a close-pair.Photographs of sample bags and the sample site were recorded for quality assurance along with site GPS locations.The distribution of sample points is shown on a map of Ethiopia in Fig. S3 in the supplementary material.The soil samples were oven-dried in their sample bags at 40 ∘ C for 24 or 48 h depending on the moisture content of the soil. Preparation took place in a soil laboratory to avoid cross-contamination with grain samples in which concentrations are smaller. Any fresh plant material was removed from each sample which was then disaggregated and sieved to pass 2 mm. This material was then coned and quartered to produce sub sample splits. One such 150-g subsample was poured into a selfseal bag, labelled and shipped to the UK for analysis in the laboratories at Rothamsted Research and University of Nottingham as described below.Grain samples were air-dried in their sample bags. All preparation was done away from sources of contamination by soil or by dust. Each sample was then ground in a coffee grinder which was wiped clean before use and after each sample with a non-abrasive cloth. A 20-g subsample of the ground material was then bagged and labelled for shipping to the University of Nottingham.Crop samples were analysed for elemental composition by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) following microwave-assisted acid digestion in Primar Plus TM grade HNO 3 as described by Kumssa et al. (2017).A soil sequential fractionation procedure was adapted from Mathers et al. ( 2017) and Shetaya et al. (2012) to provide three fractions of Si, S, Se and I nominally identified as 'Soluble' (0.01 M KNO 3 ), 'Adsorbed' (0.016 M KH 2 PO 4 ) and 'Organic' (10% TMAH). Analysis was by ICP-MS (Thermo Fisher iCAP Q) in H 2 cell mode (Si and Se) or He cell mode with kinetic energy discrimination (I and S).Soil pH was measured with a Jenway 3540 m, with a temperaturecompensated combination pH electrode, where the soil:water suspension ratio was 1:2.5, with 60 min equilibrating time.Acid oxalate extractable Fe, Al, Mn and P were extracted with a mixed solution of ammonium oxalate and oxalic acid at a soil: solution ratio of 1:100 (Schwertman, 1964). Samples were shaken in the dark (4 h, 20 ∘ C) using a reciprocal shaker, filtered then acidified and analysed by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES; Perkin Elmer Life and Analytical, Shelton, USA).Total carbon was determined by dry combustion (Tiessen et al., 1981)  Measured Se in grain /mg kg −1 (b) Fig. 3. Plot of grain Se concentration predicted with a model for (a) teff and (b) wheat for all observations at all sites, against the measured grain Se concentration at the site. In each plot a solid symbol represents a site where the observed grain concentration is for the same crop species for which the model was fittede.g. an observed teff grain Se concentration and predicted teff grain Se concentration at the site in (a); and an open symbol represents a site where the observed grain Se concentration is for the species other than the one for which the mode was fittede.g. an observed wheat grain Sec concentration and the predicted teff grain concentration for that site in (a).Available phosphorus (P Olsen ) was extracted by the sodium bicarbonate method as described by Olsen et al. (1954). Phosphorus in the bicarbonate solution was determined by the phospho-molybdenum blue method on the Skalar SAN PLUS System (continuous colorimetric flow analysis).The phosphorus buffer index, a measure of the soil's ability to fix phosphorus, (PBI) was measured with the method of Rayment and Lyons (2011). A single addition of phosphorus (KH 2 PO 4 in 0.1 M CaCl 2 ) at 1000 mg P kg −1 was added to the soil at a 1:10 soil to solution ratio. The soil solution was shaken, filtered and then analysed with a Skalar San++ Colorimetric, Continuous Flow Analyser. The PBI index calculation was performed following Rayment and Lyons (2011) using the equationwhere P s is the P sorbed (mg P kg −1 soil) and P c is the final solution P concentration (mg P L −1 ).In addition to the measurements of Se concentration in grain and soil, and associated soil properties, at each sample site, we made use of several environmental covariates, for which values could be extracted at sample sites and which were known at all points on a grid across the study area for spatial mapping. These were the CHELSA downscaled mean annual temperature and precipitation (Karger et al., 2017a(Karger et al., , 2017b)), the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) derived from the MODIS remote sensor platform (Justice et al., 1997), the original reflectance data from the MODIS satellite in Bands 1, 2, 3 and 7, slope derived from the 30-s resolution MERIT Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of Yamazaki et al. (2017) and topographic index derived from the same DEM, a measure of the tendency for water to accumulate at a site due to surface flow. The values for these covariates were extracted from the grid cells including all the soil-crop sampling sites described in sections 2.1 and 2.2 above.The objective of this analysis is to obtain spatial predictions of the Se concentration in grain in the dominant crops (wheat and teff) across the study region. To do this we use a spatial multivariate linear mixed model (LMM). In this presentation we assume that the target grain for mapping is teff, but the same approach was used to map Se concentration in wheat grain. In the LMM measured Se concentration in teff grain, the concentration in wheat grain and a site-specific prediction of Se concentration in the target grain from measured soil properties are treated as jointly spatially correlated random variables, they are the vectors of variables y 1 (Se concentration in teff grain), y 2 (Se concentration in wheat grain) and y 3 (predicted concentration) in the following expression:  On the right-side of this equation, the matrix X contains covariates (the variables referred to in section 2.4), the terms τ 1 , τ 2 , τ 3 are sets of regression coefficients which can be used to predict the expected values of the variables from the covariates. The two remaining sets of terms are random variables, which model the variation in the measured variables unexplained by the covariates. The first set, η 1 , η 2 , η 3 are spatially correlated random effects, which show spatial dependence and are also mutually correlated (representing, for example, correlation between concentrations of Se in grain of teff and wheat). The second set, ε 1 , ε 2 , ε 3 , are spatially uncorrelated random effects, but may be mutually correlated, representing that variation which occurs at finer spatial scales than is resolved by sampling.A fuller account of this spatial multivariate LMM is given by Marchant et al. (2009) and by Orton et al. (2014) and more details are in section S.1 of the Supplementary Materials to this paper. Parameters of the model, specifically the variances of the random effects, and parameters which describe the spatial dependence of the spatially correlated random effects, are estimated by maximum likelihood (ML) or residual maximum likelihood (REML) as described in S.1. The fixed effects coefficients can then be estimated by a generalized least-squares procedure. Predictions of the primary variable (e.g. Se concentration at teff grain) can then be computed at unsampled sites where only the values of the covariates are known. These predictions are known as the empirical best linear unbiased predictor (E-BLUP), and have an associated prediction error variance (PEV) which quantifies their uncertainty. What makes this approach powerful for our task is that wheat grain Se concentration (when teff grain Se concentration is the target variable for prediction), and the soil observations at sites where no teff was sampled can contribute to the prediction of Se concentration in teff grain by a cokriging process, in so far as the variables are found to be mutually spatially correlated.The implementation of the spatial LMM is summarized in Fig. 1. It entails a combination of the LMM with a variable selection procedure. This is summarized below.To make the assumption that the random terms in the LMM were normally distributed, the grain Se concentrations were transformed to natural logarithms. Summary statistics were also computed for the soil properties measured at sample sites (Table 1), and those showing pronounced skewness were also transformed to natural logarithms.The first modelling step was to generate the third variable, y 3 , in the multivariate set, which is predicted Se concentration in the grain of interest (teff in this example), derived from soil data. This can be computed for every sample site including those where teff was not observed. This prediction was obtained from a linear mixed model in which soil properties were included as fixed effects. To select soil properties for prediction of grain Se concentration we fitted by maximum likelihood (ML) an initial 'null' model to sample data in which the only fixed effect for the target grain concentration was a constant mean. We then added soil properties as fixed effects to the model one-by-one, (based on a pre-determined sequence, discussed below) at each step using a log-likelihood ratio test (Section S.2 in the Supplementary Material). If the null hypothesis was rejected then the soil property was retained in the model and the process was repeated, considering the next-listed predictor. This sequential procedure comprises multiple hypothesis testing which we addressed by controlling the False Discovery Rate (FDR) at 0.05 (Benjamini and Hochberg, 1995). To maintain statistical power, we used the α-investment method of Foster and Stine (2008), as implemented by Lark (2017). This requires that the tests are conducted in an a priori order under which the least plausible null hypotheses (i.e. effects thought most likely to be significant) are tested first. This initial process of ordering must be done without reference to the data on grain Se concentration. However, we did examine correlations among the soil properties themselves, because one reason to rank a predictor low in the order is if it is substantially correlated with a predictor already included, and so is unlikely to add much additional information. The ordering was decided through discussion with soil chemists and crop nutritionists on the project team. At this stage we also considered the uncertainty in the determination of soil properties, as judged from detection limits. It should be noted that the validity of the resulting model, and the success of false discovery rate control do not depend on the ordering, which serves simply to improve the probability of detection of a valid predictor given the use of FDR control to avoid over-fitting.The same variable selection procedure was then used to select the covariates used for prediction, which appear in the matrix X in Eq. [2] and Fig. 1. This resulted in a set of candidate environmental covariates for the final LMM. However, it was recognized that such covariates may show spatial variation at nested spatial scales, and it is not necessarily the case that the variation at all scales is predictive of the soil property of interest. For this reason the selected covariates were all subject to factorial kriging analysis (Matheron, 1982) which decomposes a spatial variable into additive components at different spatial scale, see section S.3 in the Supplementary Material. The selected covariates were substituted with their factorial kriging components in the LMM, and those components were retained only if their standardized coefficients fell outside the interval [−2, 2].We used a cross-validation procedure to evaluate the PEVs of the E-BLUP. To do this, the E-BLUP of grain Se concentration at each location, and its PEV, were computed in turn after first deleting the measurement of grain and the predicted grain Se concentration at that site. The crossvalidation prediction therefore depended only on the grain Se concentration (both crops) observed at neighbouring sites, and the values of the selected environmental covariates (and factorial kriging components of these) at the sample site. The cross validation procedure was also done using ordinary kriging for prediction from the observations on the Se concentration in grain in the target crop only. The median standardized squared prediction errors were then examined and compared with the 95% confidence interval for the statistic assuming valid PEVs (see supplementary material section S.4; Lark, 2009).  The cross-validated models were then used, along with the observed grain Se concentrations, predictions at all sample sites and the environmental covariates to compute the E-BLUP of Se grain concentration for teff and for wheat, separately, on the regular grid of locations at which the environmental covariates were recorded. In addition to the prediction at each location we used the E-BLUP PEV to compute the probability, assuming normal prediction errors, that the grain Se concentration fell below 0.183 mg kg −1 , the concentration such that a 300-g daily intake of the grain would provide the recommended daily allowance (RDA) for adults of 55 μg day −1 Se (Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, 2002).      The basic summary statistics of soil properties (Table 1) showed that several were markedly positively skewed. Those for which the skewness coefficient exceeded 1 were transformed to natural logarithms.The selected order for testing soil properties for prediction of grain Se concentration at a site is shown in Table 2. The rationale for the ordering is summarized in Section S.5 of the Supplementary Material. The process of variable selection for prediction of teff grain Se concentration from soil properties, based upon this ordering, is shown in Fig. 2. The solid symbols in Fig. 2(b) show the threshold p-value for the sequential testing procedure for FDR control, and the open symbols show the p-values obtained. On this basis we can see that Soluble Se (nitrate extraction), Exchangeable Se (phosphate extraction), soil pH and Exchangeable I (phosphate extraction) were selected as predictors in the case of teff. The comparable plot for wheat grain teff is shown in Fig. S4 in the supplementary material, where Organic Se (TMAH extraction) and soil pH were selected because their p-values in the sequential fitting fell below the threshold for FDR control. The parameters for these fitted models, along with the null model in each case (fixed effect a constant mean only) are presented in Table 3.The predicted concentrations of Se in teff grain were then computed for each site from the soil information. They are plotted in Fig. 3 (a) against the measured Se concentration in grain at each site. The solid symbols correspond to sites where the observed grain was teff, and so these points give a visual impression of the goodness of fit of the model fitted with FDR control. The open symbols correspond to the sites where the observed grain was wheat. Conversely Fig. 3 (b) shows a plot of the predicted Se concentrations in wheat grain at each site against the observed Se concentration in grain at each site, with solid symbols at sites where the observed grain was wheat, and open symbols where it was teff.For those sites where wheat was grown, the predicted Se concentration for teff grain with the same model is plotted against the observed wheat Se concentration. The comparable plot for predicted Se concentration in wheat grain is shown in Fig. 3 (b), where the solid symbols are used for the observed concentrations in wheat grain and the open symbols.The selected order of environmental covariates for spatial prediction of Se concentration in grain is shown in Table 2. The rationale for this ordering is summarized in section S.6 of the Supplementary Material.Fig. 4 shows the output of the sequential testing of predictors for teff grain Se concentration from among the environmental covariates. Downscaled mean annual precipitation and temperature and slope, the first three covariates in the sequence, were selected because their p-values were below the threshold for FDR control with α-investment. The comparable results for wheat grain are shown in Fig. S5 in the supplementary material. The plot shows that the p-values for none of the covariates was smaller than the corresponding threshold, so none were selected. The model parameters for both grains are presented in Table 4.For the LMM to predict teff Se concentration, the smoothness parameter, κ, of the spatially correlated random effects was set at a value of 2.0 based on the profile likelihood for a model with all predictors included (Fig. S6 in the supplementary material). The environmental covariates, slope and mean annual temperature were decomposed into shortrange and long-range components by factorial kriging. In the initial fitting of the model the standardized coefficient for the short-range components of these variables were small, and they were dropped, indicating that the evidence for a relationship between these variables and teff grain Se concentration at the variable selection stage arose from the long-range variability of these variables. The fitted model parameters for the final LMM for each variable, including the correlation matrices for the random components, are shown in Table 5 (a,b). These tables include the correlations between the random components in the respective models, both the spatially correlated random effects (η 1 ,η 2 ,η 3 ) and the uncorrelated or 'nugget' components,(ε 1 , ε 2 , ε 3 ). Note that, for the spatially correlated components, there are moderate correlations between the random effects for wheat and teff Se, and between the observed grain Se concentration and that predicted from soil properties. Fig. 5 shows the empirical variograms for the marginal residuals of Se concentration in teff and wheat grain and the predicted concentration in teff grain from soil data (all on a log-scale) in the fitted LMM, with the corresponding variogram models from the parameters of the LMM. Note that the models are not fitted to the empirical variograms as such, and that differences are expected due to both the bias in the empirical variogram in the presence of a non-constant fixed effect (Cressie, 1993) and the constraints of the multivariate LMM (Webster and Oliver, 2007). In the case of the LMM for prediction of wheat grain Se concentration a smaller value of κ, 0.5, was selected (Fig. S7 in the supplementary material), the empirical variogram and fitted LMCR for the random component of the model are shown in Fig. S8 in the supplementary material.The distributions of cross-validation errors for prediction of grain Se by ordinary kriging are shown in Figs. S9 and S10 of the supplementary material. The cross-validation errors for the E-BLUP from the multivariate LMM results are shown in Figs. 6 and 7. The assumption of normal prediction errors appears to be plausible, and the summaries of the standardized squared prediction errors in Table 6, support the validity of the models. The plots of the prediction error variances for the two predictions (Fig. 6(d) and 7(d)) show the advantages of incorporating the covariates and the coregionalized variables into the model through the reduction of the kriging variance.Fig. 8 shows the spatial predictions of teff Se concentration across the study area. There are clear trends, with larger concentrations in general in the east of the region, and some marked variations over shorter distances, consistent with the variograms in Fig. 5. Fig. 9 shows that, over most of the region, the probability that grain Se concentration is insufficient to provide the RDA of Se from a 300-g intake is large. The interpretation of these probabilities is facilitated by representing them on a scale which represents the probability in terms of the calibrated verbal phrases of Mastrandrea et al. (2010) in Fig. 10. The maps for wheat Se concentration  show comparable spatial patterns, which is not surprising, given the moderate correlation between the spatially correlated random effects for Se concentration in the two grains reported in Table 5(a) and (b).This study shows how joint sampling of soil and grain, with an appropriate sampling design and model-based statistical analysis, allows us to examine the spatial variation of cereal composition with respect to micronutrient concentration over large regions and to represent it as a map. We are not aware of any previous study that has shown the spatial variation of a key determinant of a population's micronutrient supply with comparable spatial resolution.It appears that the risk of Se deficiency, resulting from a diet in which wheat or teff is a staple, is largest in the west of Amhara Region. There are differences between the crops, however, with wheat less likely to provide sufficient Se intake than teff across the whole area. In small parts of the east of the study area it is judged 'unlikely' that a 300-g daily intake of teff would fail to provide the RDA of Se. Such spatial information on potential intake of Se from staple crops could clearly be used to improve the targeting of interventions to address deficiency.A map of Se concentration in grain is of greater use for the identification of regions at risk of deficiency than maps of soil properties alone, as no assumptions must be made about soil-to-crop transfer. That said, our approach made use of soil measurements at sites collocated with the target grain samples, as well as at sampling sites where other crops were grown, by integrating predicted grain Se concentration from these data into the multivariate LMM. The predictive models for Se concentration were based on soil properties selected with false discovery rate control to avoid over-fitting, and so they merit examination. Soil pH was a selected predictor for Se concentration in both teff and wheat grain, with a positive coefficient implying that, other factors remaining constant, less Se is expected in grain over more acid soils. This is consistent with results found in Malawi (Chilimba et al., 2011) and elsewhere in Africa (Ligowe et al., 2020). The interpretation of linear models and their coefficients must always be cautious because of correlations among the predictors, but on the basis of this result it would be worth examining whether liming the more acid soils would improve grain Se concentration. It should be noted, though, that these soils are not particularly acid. The median pH is 6.84, the first quartile is 5.98 and 90% of the samples had a pH in excess of 5.49. Similarly, extractable Se in the soil appeared in both predictive models, although Se obtained with different extractants were selected for prediction of Se in wheat and teff grain. This suggests that a soil test could be developed to make site-specific predictions of Se concentration in grain.Despite the use of methods for variable selection that avoid overfitting, and the fact that our predictions are optimal in the sense of being the best linear unbiased prediction, there is inevitable residual uncertainty in the predictions. Our cross-validation procedure suggests that this uncertainty is well-characterized by the prediction error variance supplied by the model, and so we can quantify the residual uncertainty. In this study we used established methods to represent this uncertainty in the spatial predictionswhile a data-user interested in a particular location can obtain a prediction of Se concentration in grain there, they can also obtain the probability that the true value falls below a threshold of interest to nutritionists, and this can be expressed on a verbal scale which may facilitate communication to a wider audience.This study has demonstrated some innovative approaches to spatial modelling for prediction. First, by using false-discovery rate control with α-investment we were able to select variables for Se prediction from soil properties with confidence that we are not over-fitting, while at the same time maintaining statistical power by testing hypotheses in a sequence determined by prior knowledge and informed hypothesizing about underlying processes. The fitted model may therefore merit further examination for insight into soil factors influencing grain Se concentration, as noted above. One should bear in mind, of course, that the failure to select a variable does not necessarily mean that it has no bearing on the process of interest. One underlying reason that a variable might be rejected is because it is strongly correlated with one already in the model, or because it is measured with substantial error.Second, we can be confident that we are not over-fitting covariates, and indeed none were selected for the prediction of Se concentration in wheat grain. By filtering covariates, where appropriate, by factorial kriging, and testing the predictive value of the different components separately, we also avoided introducing spurious short-range variation into our predictions. It would clearly be wrong, for example, to allow short-range variation in down-scaled precipitation to induce comparable variation in predicted grain Se concentration when the two variables are related because of regional-scale climatic covariation. We avoided this by factorial kriging analysis (FKA). There was no evidence that the short-range component of this covariate extracted by FKA was related to grain Se concentration, and only the long-range component was included in the predictive model.Finally, our multivariate LMM had smaller prediction error variances than did ordinary kriging (Fig. 6(d) and 7(d)). This improved prediction can be attributed to the covariates used in the model, and to the cross-coregionalization with the site information and grain Se concentration at sites where the non-target crop was grown. In this way the multivariate LMM allows us to make maximum predictive use of relationships among variables measured in the field sampling, even when these are not collocated with the particular target variable of interest.There is scope for further development of the work reported in this paper. First, the sampling and statistical methodology can be extended to other mineral micronutrients that may be deficient both in this region and elsewhere. Second, there is potential to combine the predicted concentrations of micronutrients in grain with food consumption data to improve estimates of dietary mineral intakes and, potentially, to target future investments to alleviate deficiencies. Finally, one might compare these inferences about spatial variation in intake with spatial data on human biomarkers for nutrient deficiency to validate the implict hypothesis that spatial variations in staple food micronutrient concentrations will, via intake, induce comparable spatial variations in micronutrient status. Again, this information could help policy makers identify and target efficient interventions.To conclude, joint sampling of the crop and soil in an appropriate design allowed us to map the spatial variation of grain Se concentration across a large region of Ethiopia, making use of both site-specific soil and grain observations and exhaustive covariates derived from remote sensor data and a digital elevation model. A cross-validation procedure showed that the best linear unbiased predictor and its prediction error variance gave predictions with robust characterization of their uncertainty, and this allowed us to quantify and communicate uncertainty in terms of predicted grain Se concentration and the concentration required to provide the RDA from a standard serving of grain. There is substantial spatial variability in the supply of Se from staple cereal crops, which could be relevant to the design of efficient interventions. ","tokenCount":"6879"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fa46fdc6a0afc0356473c069b50fcccc","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/12dc968e-7a40-485f-b55e-afe111a42202/retrieve","id":"-1203856381"},"keywords":["PROGRAMA 11 CURSO .",",",". \".\" .",",",".",". ,",".",".. ,"],"sieverID":"eacaa2f2-3a1b-4724-9156-37c8df3bcb58","pagecount":"189","content":"Un curso postgraduado fué diseñado para Ingenieros Agrónomos,• Veterinarios y Zootecnistas con experiencia de 1 o más años en investigación y producción de pastos y forrajes tropicales.• ..El programa Ganado de Carne desea expresar sus agradecimientos al Programa de Desarr~llo de las Naciones Unidas por ofrecer a través del Proyecto Especial RLA/75/084 el financiamiento necesario para la realización del Curso de Adiestramiento en Pastos -Tropicales en CIAT del 26 de Junio al 30 de Noviembre, 1978.La sección Adiestramientol Ensayos regionales agradece a la Oficina de Adiestramiento del CIAT y al personal del Programa Ganado de Carne su colaboración en el diseño y conducción del curso.Deseamos expresar nuestro reconocimiento a las Instituciones Nacionales que depositaron en nosotros Ta confianza para poder ~ contar con un grupo de excelentes técnicos de América Latina, cuyo interés y disciplina contribuyeron en una ~orma apre~iable a facilitar la conducción del curso y el alcance exitoso de los objetivos señados.Finalmente, tambien debemos expresar nuestro agradecimiento a los conferencistas, asociados y asistentes que participaron en el curso, asi como las secciones a'dministrativas del CIAT que apoyaron todas las actividades del Prográma.Los o~jetivos del Programa de Ganado de Carne han sido orien~ tados hacia el desarrollo de tecnologías para aumentar la producción de carne en aquellas áreas del trópico latinoamericano que debido principalemnt e a la presencia de suelos ácidos de baja fertilidad natural, están siendo subutilizados o utilizados a niveles muy bajos de producción de alimentos. Tomando en consideración el hecho de que los forrajes constituyen la forma de alimentación de rumiantes más económica y su producción de carne constituye una forma factible de ut1izar aquellos recursos naturales queson limitados para la producción de cultivos alimenticios, el Programa está haciendo énfasis en la selección de especies forrajeras y en el establecimiento de praderas mejoradas en los suelos quepresentan esas condiciones.Considerando que las responsabilidades del programa. no solamente abarcan la generación de tecnología, sino tambien asistir en colaboración\"con las instituciones nacionales en 1~ transferencia a los productores para lograr alcanzar los objetivos de aumentar rapidamente la producti~idad y producción de ganado de Carne; y reconociendo que el mecanismo inicial en transferencia está intimamente relacionado con la función de entrenamiento paralela a la investigación; se propuso una actividad de adiestramiento dentro del Programa con énfasis en establecimiento y maneja de praderas' compuestas de asociaciones de gramíneas y leguminosas adaptadas a suelos ácidos e infértiles del trópico.a-Desarrollar un equipo científico en investigación y producción de forrajes en los países comprendidos en el área de actuaciónpara validación, adopción y adaptación de tecnología desarrollada por el Programa Ganado d~ Carne del CIAT.Establecer vínculos de ,cooperación en los paises colaboradores para todas las actividades futuras del Programa, especialmente en Pruebas Regionales.a-Capacitar a los participantes en' la identificación y análisis de los factores ecológicos limitantes en producción de forrajes en el trópico latinoamericano.Adiestrar a los participantes para la identificación de losrecursos forrajeros disponibles en,el área de trabajO, en términos de germoplasma nativo en pastos mejorados, desarrolladas por el Programa de Ganado de Carne de CIAT u otras instituciones. c-Capacitar a los participantes para establecer las necesidades de producción de pastos ( cantidad y calidad) en relación a las diferentes etapas de crecimiento de los animales, diferentes sistemas de producción ganadera y diferentes épocas del año, utilizando al máximo los recursos naturales disponibles en el área. d-Obtener conocimientos en ~ aspecto práctico de establecimiento producción y utilización de pastos; con énfasis en uso de mínimos insumos eficientemente.Estos objetivos fueron desarrollados a través de conferencias seminarios, clases prácticas de laboratorio e invernadero, prácticas de campe, giras por el campo, vivistas a fincas, unidades audiotutoriales. Las invitaciones a participar en éste curso fueron enviadas por el CIAT. Se aceptaron 20 participantes de g paises del área de actuación del programa, además de un técnico especial procedente de Argentina, quien se encontraba en entrenamiento en el programa y quién por motivos especiales dicidió modificar su entrenamiento.En resumen de los participantes. experiencia y posición actual se presenta a continuación el Cuadro 1, quienes fueron seleccionados por prioridades establecidas de acuerdo con los criterios siguientes:1.Provenientes dé países comprendidos dentro de ~rea de actuación del programa por tener condiciones de ~uelos Oxisoles y ultisolescubriendo -gran parte del territorio.Empleados de instituciones de investigación y fomento que estén relacionados con programas de desarrollo ganadero dentro de la áreas definidas como de actuación del Prográma y cuyas funciones no estén relacionadas directamente con posiciones administrativas.Se harTa énfasis en la selección de candidatos para formar equipos de trabajos con otros participantes en adiestramiento en investigación provenientes de la mismo instituci6n, de una misma región, o de un mismo país.La forma de selección de candidatos serIa a través de nomi naciones por parte de los directores de las instituciones nacionales; con evaluación de calificaciones, experiencias, entrevistas y recomendaciones por parte del personal principal del Programa de Ganado de Carne del CIAT.Este curso de adiestramiento se dividió en cinco partes: segun se muestra en el cuadro No. 2.La primera comprendió un curso intensivo de nivelación, con los objetivos de uniformar conocimientos básicos en ruanto a ecología agrfcola tropical para la producción de forrajes con énfasis en relación c1ima-sue10-planta-animil; discutir las caracterfsticas fundamentales de especies forrajera~deseables par~ poder sati! facer los requerimeitnos nutricionales de los animales en pastoreo establecer los conceptos básicos en cuanto a los métodos de establecimiento y manejo de praderas adecuadas y que favorezcan lapersistencia de especies deseables, y discutir los principios aplicados a la evaluación de especies forrajeras y su utilización eficiente por parte del animal.La segunda parte consistió en trabajo práctico de los aspectos estudiados en la parte básica¡'así como, el desarrollo de proyectos inviduales basados en los siguientes tópicos: Adiestramiento en Investigación en selección de especies: Evaluación categoria r. -Evaluación categoria 11 y Ensayos Regionales, valor nutritivo y utilización de forrajes, conservación,de forrajes. producciónde semillas; control de malezas. y fomento y desarrollo de praderas mejoradas.La tercera parte comprendió el diagnóstico de 8 fincas cuyas caractertsticas aparecen en el. cuadro No. 3 . La cuarta fué la gira de estudios realizada por los Departamentos de Córdoba, Bolivar, Sucre, Meta y la Estación Experimental CNtA-CIAl en Carimaqua. con el objeto de observar v comparar zonas de producción qanadera en Colombia v la posible aplicación de resultados de la investiqación desarrollada en cada región.La quinta actividad consistio en evaluaciones del curso tanto de los participantes en adiestramiento como de los conferenciastas y organización y conducción del curso.La organización de las conferencias: del curso se facitiló por la elaboración previa de una programa, sobre los diferentes aspectos que se mencionaron en el curso básico.Los materiales del curso, como copias xerox y libros de consulta fueron entregados a medida que las diferentes conferencias fueron entregados a medida que las diferentes conferencias fueron cubiertas.Las conferencias y los seminarios fueron presentados en la Sala \" f \" de la sala de conferencias del CIAT. La parte práctica sellev'ó a cabo en los laboratorios del CIAl y en la Estación Experimental CIAT-Quilichao.Se iealizaron tres evaluaciones: A la iniciación del curso, al finalizar la parte básica y al terminar el curso. Los resultados de la evaluación, sobre el programa, contenido y organización del curso, fueron muy úti 1 es en aumentar el impacto del presente curso y en planear cursos futuros. Los resultados se incluyen en este informe. EVALUACIONES 8:00 -9:30 Agronomía, leguminosas forrajeras .10:00 -11: 30 Evaluación agronómi ca de leguminosas forrajeras.                   Informe diagnostico de fincas.Grupo Finca \"Miravalle\".Grupo Fincas \"Valle arriba\" \"La Real\".Grupo Fincas \"Machin\" Grupo Fincas \"San Julian\"A-DE LOS PARTICIPANTES.1-EVAlUACION CUATITATIVA.El cuadro No. 4 muestra un resumen de la Evaluación Cuatitativa realizada a los participantes del curso, consistiendo en un examen inicial y otro al finalizar la fase teorica así como evaluaciones de presentaciones de informes de trabajos individuales y realizados por grupos en las fincas. En general el rendimiento de los participantes fue magnífico con un 85% alcanzando niveles de bueno y muy bueno, sobresaliendo un caso de excelente. Esto resultó muy notable por el hecho de que. tratandose de unprofesional especializado en medicina veterinaria. gemostró que el curso le habia dado la oportunidad de mejorar notablemente sus conocimientos sobre aspectos de producción y utilización de pastos 10 cual normalmente no se contempla en la preparación académica de este tipo de técnicos. Los cuadros 5 y 6 muestran los resultados de la.evaluacion de aprovechamiento realizado en base a preguntas de opinion personal de los participantes, Como puede observarse, en generallas opiniones fueron muy favorables al curso, el cual serla recomendado casi por la totalidad de los participantes a otros técnicos en su pais y la capacitación recibida fue considerado por la mayoria de ellos comparable con experiencia de 2-4 años detrabajo regular. Estas evaluaciones se presentan en el cuadro 7. La inmensa mayoria de las presentaciones recibieron Dna opinian muy favorable. salvo algunas pequeñas excepciones que se debieron mas que todo a la ausencia de algunos conferencistas que se encontraban de vacaciones d~rante los dos primeros meses del curso y fuinecesario realizar algunas modificaciones en el programa; A demas es necesario recocer la falta de experiencia por tratarse del primer curso en Pasto de esta naturaleza que se ofrece en CIAT y pDsiblemente en los paises Tropicales; así como el hecho de que algunos mienbros del Proqrama Ganado de Carne tenlan muy pocotiempo de haberse integrado a sus labores. Sin embargo el entusiasmo e interes de los conferencistas y l~ disciplina de losparticipantes contribuyó a compensar las faltas observadas. De todas maneras estos comentarios fueron muy valiosos para realizar corFecciones en los proximos cursos. CUADRO NO. '       La evaluación presentada en\"el cuadro #8.f~é tambien muy favorable para el curso. Las mismas observaciones señaladas parala evaluación de las conferencias tendrian aplicación en estecaso; pero además debemos mencionar que se presentaron algunospequeños problemas de apoyo lógistico y en transporte que causaron algunos ligeros entorpecimientos durante las practicas en la estación CIAT-Quilichao. También es necesario recalcar que a pesar de que la estación contaba tan solo con un año de operaciones,\"al iniciarse la fase practica del curso, el esfuerzo de su personal técnico y administrativo fué muy satisfactorio en superar esos pequeños inconvenientes, ofreci~ndole a los tecnicos en adiestramiento un ambiente adecuado y agradable para realizar sus actividades.:\"las practicas de fincas tambien sufrieron uh poco por las mismas razones, y por tratarse de un año excepcionalmente seco, dichas practicas se limitaron a diagnosticas de problemas yobservaciones de comportamiento de rebaños, sin poder realizar practicas de establecimiento y utilización de pastos mejorados. 2. Datos metereologicos y evaluacfón estres de sequfa. Evaluación de nuevas introducciones y leguminosas promisorias. Evaluación de inoculación de Rhizobium en el campo. 5. Evaluación de especies forrajeras en pastol'eo. 9. Producción y procesamiento de semillas de especies forrajeras.   El cuadro No. 9. muestra el resultado de algunas preguntas dirigidas a los participantes sobre todo con la finalidad de conocer opiniones que pudieron ayudar a mejorar la conducción del curso en el futuro. Esta evaluacion refuerza las opiniones recogidas durante varias reuniones realizadas durante el curso con los tecnicos en adiestramiento para tratar de corregir deficiencias presentadas debido a organización y quizas la falta de experiencia de las personas directamente encargadas del curso En este momento. deberiamos reconocer los esfuerzos realizados por el asociado y asistente en adiestramiento,.asi como la intervención de los conferencistas y otras unidades de apoyo \" participantes en la organización y desenvolvimiento del curso, 10 cual contribuy¿ a que a pesar de tratarse de u~ programa de una duración de casi seis meses los problemas presentados fueron muy pocos y generalmente de fácil y rápida solución. Quizas el número limitado de participantes tambien contribuyo un poco en este aspecto.CUADRO No. 9 EVALUACION DE LA ORGANIZACION. -Mejorar la parte práctica, dándole mayor enfasis.-Ra~lizar los trabajos de investigación en Carimagua.-Tratar de igual forma a los investigadores y a los extensionistas.-Mejorar la programación de los viajes y de las fincas.Coordinar mejor las actividades de fincas y proyectos individuales.• -Hacer mas evaluaciones períodicas.-Establecer un reglamento interno para becarios, V. MATERIAL BIBLIOGRAFICO, Se entregaron un total de 13 libros sobre los diferentes temas tratados en la parte básica del curso, estos libros ademas de los 39 impresos distribuidos les sirvieron como material de consulta no solo para los seis meses de duración del curso, sino se espera que este material les sea útil para toda su vida profesional.Desafortunadamente, la mayoria de la literatura sobre muchos de los temas tratados en el curso, unicamente se encuentra disponible en inglés, 10 cual dificultó la entrega de este material. a los participantes. En general los técnicos en adiestramiento consideraron que el material entregado fué suficiente y adecuado para las necesidades del curso.Alimentación del Ganado en América -Lati na. Manejo y control de malezas en el trópico. Las Gramíneas en la Agricultura. Las Leguminosas en la Agricultura. El nitrógeno no proteico en la nutrición de los rumiantes. IntroduCción al cálculo de los costos agropecuarios \" Las plantas forrajeras tropicales. Algunas malezas de pbtreros tropicales. Introducción alcultivo de los pastos tropicales. Bases biológicas de la producción animal en zonas tropicales. Biología y patologla de la producción de los bovinos. Manual práctico de rizobiologla.Oiqestión de la materia seca orqánica in vitro. Naciones básicas sobre muestreo. Efecto de dos fuentes de fósforo aseis niveles de cada una sobre el rendimiento acumulado de materia seca de- VI CONCLUSIONES Y RECOMENDACIONES.De acuerdo con la estrategia de integración del adiestramiento con la investigación y la transferencia de tecnología en el Programa Ganado de Carne. y con el objeto de darle continuidad a las funciones de adiestramiento una vez que el participante regresa a su país y área en trabajo, se han considerado una serie de actividades diri9ida~ a mantener vínculos de cooperación, apoyar y asistir a las instituciones nacionales en sus funciones relacionadas con selección, establecimiento y manejo de especies de pastos mejoradOS. A continuación sedescriben brevemente las principales actividades consideradas al presente.Los principales ensayos regionales han sido di~enados con el Objeto de evaluar la adaptación de germoplasma seleccionado como promisorio por el Comiti de Germoplasma del Programa endiferentes ecosistemas de suelos ácidos de baja fertilidad natural. Se ha elaborado un proyecto el cual se ha discutido con los participantes, los cuales han recibido adiestramiento en el establecimiento y manejo de este tipo de ensayo. El cuadro -( 11 ) muestra la distribución de estas pruebas que se están estableciendo con 101 participantes del primer curso en pastos y en el Apéndice ( 2 ) se muestra el proyecto.L~ sección Adiestramiento/Ensayos Regionales es la responsable del establecimiento y conducción de estas pruebas y las evaluaciones ticnicas son realizadas por los especialistas del Programa. Estas evaluaciones se realizan a travis de visitas periÓdicas de los especialistas a los sitios donde se realizan estas pruebas y sirven además para presentar apoyo científico a los colaboradores. En número de participantes en el primer curso fué relativamente reducido en relación con la demanda de adiestramiento de técnicos procedentes de Instituciones Nacionales de investigación y fomento. Además. se conoce la necesidad de crear una masa crítica de técnicos adiestrados en cada reglón para poder desarrollar y fórtalecer una red de validación de tecnologias en establecimientos y manejo en pastos mejorados; por 10 tanto deberiamos continuarlos. Sin embargo( en vista del caracter pr!s tico, del adiestramiento, el numero de participantes por cursd no deberia ser aumentado para poder alcanzar los objetivos seña lados.El segundo curso se ha programado para ser ofrecido en el primer semestre del año 1.979. Una copia del programa se prese~ ta en el Apéndice ( 4 ) el cual ha sido diseñado tomando en con síderación 105 res~ltados de la evaluación del primer curso y la mayoría de las sugerencias ofrecidas por los participantes.Durante el segundo semestre del año 1.979 se esta considerando realizar una reunión de trabajo con los colaboradores encargados de la conducción de los ensayos regionales con el objeto de intercambiar experiencias en metodologias y evaluación de res~ltados y-discutir actividades futuras de validación de tecnología.Un manual con recomendaciones para la colección y evaluación de nuevos materiales de germop1asma de plantas forrajeras tropicales, así como las memorias de un Seminario que resume el estado de conocimiento acutal sobre producción y utilización de pastos tropicales en suelos ácidos ~ inflr~iles del trópico,serían distribuídos durante el segundo trimestre 1979. Estas publicaciones, de un valor incalculable, servirían como material de referencia para las actividades futuras de los técnicos participantes del curso.A principios de 1.978 la Unidad de Intercambio de información Cientifico del CIAT, inició un servicio de documentación en el área de Pastos y Forrajes tropicales y colaboró durante el primer curso en un adiestramiento 'en uso de referencias bibliográficas. Estos servicios están disponibles para uso de -' los participantes como un mecanismo adicional de seguimientoal curso.A pesar de que las actividades de consultas técnicas de los miembros del p~ograma están limitadas a visitas brev~s que se realizan a los paises comprendidos dentro del área de actuación, estas pueden ser útiles para ofrecer asistencia a los tec nicos participantes en los cursos yen los directivos de sus instituciones respectiv~s en la,identificación de prioridadesen los prOblemas de la investigación y fomento a nivel regional.La sección Adiestramiento/Ensayos Regionales del Programa -Ganado de Carne, está considerando la necesidad de contar con uan persona adicional a nivel de Asociado de Adiestrameinto en el CIAT cuyas funciones principales estarían relacionadas con actividades de instruccion y seguimiento a los participantes en los cursos de adiestramiento, Ademas esta persona estaria disponible para'ayudar a organizar y coordinar la conducción de cursos de adiestramiento en los paises que estuviesen en condiciones de realizarlos y reuniones l nivel regional de cientificos que participan en ensayos de evaluación de especies forrajeras. La primera fase de un programa de mejoramfento es la recole~ ciónde una amplia variedad de materia genético de los diferentes especies y ecotipos, su multiplicación y evaluación preliminar.Esto implica por 10 tanto el estudio de las mejo.res fuentes de material y los métodos más eficaces 'de recolección y evaluación. En particular la unidad de recursos genéticos del CIAT,ha puesto énfasis en aquellas especies y ecotipos forrajeros tropicales con potencial para el área de impacto de Programa de Ganado de Carne, suelos ácidos. infertiles con elevado contenido de Al y bajo nivel de P. disponible.La importancia de esta fase ha sido puesta de manifiesto a través de todo el curso, en que se ha observado claramente el relativo poco éxito que se ha tenido con las especies forrajeras que se. está trabajando en fases más adelantadas, en el área de impacto.~ercambio con otras instituciones. 2. Aumento inicial y mantenimiento del germoplasma existente* 3. Evaluación preliminar de germoplasma. 4. Su identificación y clasificación mediante un herbario de referencia.11. METODOS y PROCEDIMIENTOS.Debido al elevado número de especies y ecotipos que maneja la unidad de recursos genéticos anualmente. ha sido necesariométodos de evaluación para la fase uno, que resultan prácticos y efectivos.La metodología a la que haremos referencia es la que viene empleando desde aproximadamente un año y medio con el inicio de los trabajos de propagación en la Estación de Santander de Qui-1ichao.Las diferentes especies y ecotipos llegan a la unidad bien sea por recolección' que efectúan sus propios técnicos o por donaciones o intercambio c6n otras' instituciones. a. MATERIAL NATIVO:Al colectar material nativo es necesario anexar cierta ínfor mación sobre el colector. la planta y el lugar. Para tal efecto se tienen las\" Tarjetas de recolección/introducci6n\". Por ello el colector debe conocer los diferentes géneros forrajeros y ser un buen observador del ecosistema donde trabaja.El germoplasma puede llegar a la Unidad bien sea por intercambio por donaciones de otras instituciones o personas, nacionales o-extranjeras debe llegar debidamente reseñado con los datos que se han anotado anteriormente y tratadas con insecticidas y fungicidas para prevenir ataques y propagación de pl! gas y enfermedades. En este caso también se registra la especie o ecotipo en una tarjeta como se hizo anteriormente.Al final de cada mes se hace un resúmen de introducciones en una planilla (Ver apéndice, Hoja No.l) Luego todo ese material es registrado en el libro de control de material existente, con su respectiva codificación ( ver apéndice hoja No.2). Las planillas y tarjetas son archivadas.Del material ingresado a la unidad, una vez codificado, setoma una pequeña cantidad para ser sometido a preger~inación y el resto va al cuarto frío ( banco de germoplasma).La pregerminación se realiza en cajas petri después de someter las semillas al siguiente tratamiento:1. Desinfección de las cajas petri en autoclave a 15 atmósferas de presión. 2. Desinfección con lija o bisturí si la semilla es grande. 3. Desinfección de la semilla con bicloruro de mercurio (HgC1 2 ) al O.l~ durante 30.segundos, lavando inmediatamente cinco veces con agua destilada. 4. Se colocan las semillas tratadas en las cajas petri, con suficiente humedad para facilitar la. imbibición de las semillas. Esta operación se debe realizar cerca a la llama para evitar contaminación por hongos o bacterias. 5. Transcurridas 48 deben estar listas las plántulas para tran~ ladar al invernadero(No.l), donde son colocadas, con sumocuidado, en cajitas especiales de turba comprimida, que contienen uma mezcla de 2 partes de arena y una de suelo. Se les aplica riego diario., 6. Si las semillas no germinan después de las 48 horas, se le agrega tiou~ea al 11 en\"peso en cantidad suficiente, quelas semillas sobrenaden, a las 16 horas siguientes se lavan las semillas hayan o no germinado, para eliminar la tiourea. Las semillas no germinadas se dejan permanecer nuevamente de 24-36 horas aplicandoles otra vez tiourea, si aún asf no germinan .1as semillas se deben secar y someter a una nueva escarificación y repetir los pasos del 3 en adelante. 7. Cuando las semillas sueltan pigmentos fácilmente observables se recomienda hacer un lavado cuidadoso cerca de la llama.A las seis (6) u ocho (8l semanas las plantitas deben estar para el transplante. Cuando existe suficiente material este es transportado al campo de Quilichao (Q), antes de la siembra se hace una primera evaluación donde se observa el estado y unifo~ midad varietal de los ecotipos. Previamente preparado el terreno, se replantea en parcelas que van ep hileras de 4 m cada una y en cada lote una especie o ecotipo que es la que ha tenido el\" mejor comportamiento en evaluaciones antefiores, con la finalidad de usarla como testigo o control.Si se dispone de poco material este se transplanta al campo del CIAT-Palmira{No.2} o bien se deja en el invernadero, en macetas más grandes, ~i resulta posible su manejo ast, en definitiva se busca brindar la mayor protección al germoplasma que se maneja para asegurar la producción de semillas.Es interesante apuntar que cuando el material es muy escaso, no produce semilla y se ve en peligro de perderse, 10 mismo que cuando se recolecta o recibe material vegetativo, especialmente de leguminosa, se procede a la propagaciñ asexual de la siguiente manera.Los esquejes recibidos a bien los tomados de las plantas se sumergen en una solución fungicida 30 segundos, se lavan con~ agua destilada y se ponen en contacto con una solución de ácido indolbutirico al 1% un minuto, para estimular ele-raizamiento, luego se colocan en tubos de ensayos o fra! cos pequeños con agua corriente. Una vez que forman sufícientes raíces adventicias son transplantadas en forma sími lar a las plantas. obtenidas en las cajas de petri, siguiendo el mismo sistema de evaluación y cuido ya señalado.EVALUACION.Una vez transplantado el material, bien sea a NI, N2 o en el invernadero se le hacen evaluaciones periódicas cada 28 días. En Quilichao se comparan con ecotipo de la misma especie que haya mostrado el mejor comportamiento en años anteriores; este ecotipo se le señala con una estaca roja, como control.Se ha establecido una escala arbitraria que va de 1 a 5 para justipreciar las introducíones: 1 = malo; 2 = regular; 3 = bueno; 4 = muy bueno 5 = excelente.Al ecotipo control se le da el puntaje de 3.Los parámetros a con~iderar son los siguientes; 1. Habito de crecimiento si es erecta, rastrera, ascendente,etc. 2. Incidencia de plagas y enfermedades. 3. Vigor o agresividad, es la capacidad de la planta a desarrollarse y cubrir el suelo. 4. Relación hoja tallo, esta apreciación se hace a la vista, sin cosechar la planta. 5. Floración: aquí se observa el inicio de la floración el cual se reseña colocando en la estaca respectiva una cinta de un color deterruinado para que el personal que maneja el campoesté pendiente del momento en que comience a producir semillas y evitar que las semillas se pierd.n por la dehiscencia de las legumbres o absición. También se observa el momento en que las plantas alcancen un 100% de floración.-48,- la cosecha de semilla en NI, N2 o Quilichao debe hacerse con sumo cuidado, especialmente en este último lugar. A tal efecto se dispone de pequeñas bolsas donde se debe anotar: Colector No. de la parcela y fecha. Este material es transportado a la unidad donde personal especializado se encarga de hacerle la limpieza, pesaje, comparación con la semilla original para constatar la autenticidad y luego se registra su peso en un libro que mantiene al d'a la cantidad de semilla existen, la especie, peso de 100semillas y su origen.Finalmente toda esta informaci6n es resumida en un \"Catálogo de Germoplasma de Plantas forrajeras\" y la cual consta en la memoria del computador del CIAT.HERBARIO.Como gran p~rte del mat~rial que se recibe\" en la unidad no viene identificado taxonómicamente como debiera ser y no se conoce, se ha fundado un herbario donde se identifica debidamente y se archiva el material de interés.La unidad también distribuye pequenas cantidades de semillas a otras instituciones y en especial a aquellas intituciones nacionales que trabajan en el área de impacto del Programa Ganado de Carne. Esta entrega se registra en una planilla.  El campo de la producción de semillas forrajeras es diferente a la producción de semillas de cultivos tradicionales ( Arroz, Maiz, etc,), el primero busca producción de semillas para la producción de forraje y el segundo buscá producción de semillas cer.tificadas para obtener rendimientos altos de semillas para consumo. En cambio, las prácticas culturales y las regiones apropiadas son muy similares en ambos campos.Por otro lado, con ,las forrajeras tropicales, el productor de semilla, tiene un objetivo completamente diferente al ganado que está interesado en producir forrajes para producción animal(Carne leche). También es importante tomar en cuenta que una zona muy buena para desarrollo ganadero puede ser ínapropiada como regi6n para la producción de semillas forrajeras. Esto quiere decir que nO,siempre en una región ganadera se puede producir semillas forrajeras, especialmente variedades nuevas que necesitan manejo intensivo.En producción de semillas, las forrajeras tropica'es presentan los siguientes problemas:-Madurez desuniforme.-Bajos índices de producción.-Alta humedad en el cultivo maduro.-Baja eficiencia de la cosecha.-Rendimiento y ratas de multiplicación relativamente bajos.Todo aquello cuando se comparan con los cultivos de grano -tradicionales.Desde luego, en la planificación para el establecimiento de una empresa de producción de semillas debe primeramente definirsequé especies y qué variedades forrajeras son con las que debe trabajarse.Cualquier productor o país que en su organización contemple la posibilidad de involucrarse en la producción se semillas deberá primero considerar tal información no puede obtenerse laproducción de semillas en gran escala puede ser apresurada.Por otro lado es más que importante o imprescindible determinar si hay suficiente mercado, para el uso de semilla forrajera.Más adelante, cuando el mercado de semillas esté bien establecido, se podrá considerar la utilización de algunas formas de certificación de semillas. En el caso de variedades nuevas, la semilla blsica, idealmente, deberl ser ~uministrada a los productores comerciales a través de alguna organización o comité que designe las variedades adaptadas. Cualquier Programa de Producción de semillas debe estar enfocado a Germoplasma adaptado y probado,esto implicará también que el desarrollo de un Programa de semillas debe ser antecedido por un programa exitoso de desarrollo de variedades aptas o superiores por medio de la introducción, la selección o el fitomejoramiento.Los cultivos. para semillas de forrajeras tropicales son muy sensitivas a las condiciones ambientales y producen rendimientos altos solamente en condiciones muy específicas.La selección de una región de producción de semillas; es \" \" de importancia fundamental en el éxito de ese programa. La región ótima combina elementos críticos de:-Clima: Distribución y estabilidad de lluvias. Temperatura. Fotoperiodo Suelo;Drenaje, Nutrientes, Malezas etc. -Condiciones para manejo:Productores y técnicos cliificados, maquinaria mano de obra, conocimientos de practicas culturales, infraestructura física, etc.Con el objeto de producir consistentemente altos.rendimientos y buena calidad con costos razonables por unidad: Muchos programas de producción de semillas de pastos han fracasado por no escoger la regi6n apropiada para las especies particulares? por ejemplo:-Donde ocurren ciclos vegeta~ivos variables.-Lluvias en la época de cosecha.\" -Bajas temperaturas o heladas durante el crecimiento o floración del cultivo. -Incidencia de malezas, plagas y/o enfermedades etc.Toda semilla forrajera que llega a la planta procesadora del CrAT, pasa por los siguientes procesos:1. Registro del lote de semillas.-Se le pone un número ,de 5 cifras ( los dos primeros del año y los tres últimos el número correlativo) se llena en el regist~o la información b~sica -( lugar, ~rea cosecha, fecha de cosecha etc.). ( Techo abierto) Gram loeas.NOTA: El secado debe llegar a 8-10% de humedad.Oesaristado.-Sólo para gramíneas que tengan aristas como; Adropogon, Ang1eton, Puntero etc, se hace con el fin de facilitar el proceso de trilla.Lfmpieza.-Se hace con una máquina llamada cribadora-ventiladora o limpiadora de aire con zaranda,-Elimina el polvo. aristas. material inerte, algo de semillas vanas y material más grande y más pequeño que la semilla. En caso de leguminosas esta máquina limpia y clasifica al mismo tiempo.6. Clasificaeión'-Proceso solo en caso de gramíneas. Se emplea una clasificadora por gravedad, que separa las semillas pesadas ( puras) de las livianas ( donde están las vanas}.7. Escarifi cae 1 ón.-Con ácido sulfúrico comercial ( 401) -Mecánicamente con esearificadora.-Ambos métodos. El objetivos es quitarle la cubierta a la semilla. Si se usa ácido inmediatamente debe lavarse, y secarse. Las gramíneas la única que se escarifica es el Brachiaria. El amacenaje es importante hacerlo en NOTA: El procesamiento previo en el campo es también muy importante:-Luego de la cosecha, debe amontonarse el material cosechado en pilas medianas durante 3-4 días, mejor si se hace bajo un techado encaso de hacerse las pilas a campo abierto este debe cubrirse con hojas o paja. -Luego se procede a realizar la trilla y luego secado a lasombra durante un periodo determinado de acuerdo a varios factores. Nunca debe hacerse ( al menos los primeros días de secado) al sol, pues temperaturas altas matan la semilla.Un sistema de producción, está definido com: \"La combinación de prácticas de manejo aplicadas a una especie particualar producida en una región especifica\".Un sistema de producción se pOdría resumir en la siguiente fórmula: Sistema de producción = especie x región x métodos específicos de manejo.Con el fin de ofrecer una prespectiva amplia, se proponen cinco grupos de producción reunidos de acuerdo con componentes comunes. Establecidas en plantaciones de Palma aceitera, caucho o coco para el control de erosión ylo malezas. Con manejo e inve~i6nmínima porque la producci6n de semillas es una labor secundaria.Cosechas a mano, pero solamente en algunas áreas o años favorables para semilla( especialmente años secosl. Ventas nacionales e internacionales ocasionales, Ejemplo:-Kudza, Calopogonium, Centrosema en:Perú, Brasil, Malasla.Filipinas, Indonesia, etc. \" SISTEMA 3. \" LEGUMINOSAS TREPADORAS CON SISTEMA DE SOPORTE\".En varias zonas establecidas en lotes medianos o pequeños. Manejo semintensivo, posiblemente con fert11tzahtes y control de plagas. Cosecha a mano. Pureza y germinaci6n alta. Rendimientos variables, semilleros propio Vio pero pueden ser altos Potencialmente apropiados para pequeños en las fincas: Ventas nacionales para consumo internacionales. Ejemplo:-Centrosema en : Colombia y Ecuador.Varias leguminosas en campos de investigación en muchos países.En zonas ganaderas. Cuando en algunos años la demanda de semilla es alta, algunas áreas son reservadas para producción de semillas, tan solo con retirar el ganado, Cosecha a mano o concombinada. Procesamiento y calidad variable, a veces óptima, rendimientos medios, pero producción total voluminosa, Ventas Nacionales e internacionales. Ejemplo.-Brachiaria decumbens en : Brasil y Colombia.Panicum maximun en : Brasil. -Siratro y Glycine en Australia.En zonas apropiadas para producción de semillas. Siembra planificadas en lotes de producción como cultivos puros, con manejo intensivo ( herbicidas, abonos, corte control de plagas y enfermedades,etc). Los productores comerciales están especi~lizado con equipos específicos ( Combinados, secadoras, etc) Cosechas muy oportunas.\" Procesamiento completo. Calidad óptima. Rendimientos altos. Almacenaje en zonas secas por períodos apropiados para preservar la germinación de la semilla. Ventas nacionales e internacionales con calidad definida por regulaciones. Ejemplo: -B.decumbens, Setaria sphacelata, P. plicatulum,etc en:Austria.Brasil y Kenya: -Varias leguminosas en Australia y Brasil.VISITA A SEMILLEROS DEL CIAT-QUILICHAO. Un lote de semillas cosechadas nos díó 25gr/lOm 2 . Se hacen las pruebas de calidad nos dió 50 por ciento de pureza; y 20 por ciento • . . de \"(.erminac.ión. Expresar su rendimiento por ha. Temperatura Lectura Pretratamientos recomenda-•C (1) primera\"11ltima bies .. Obligado por las altas demandas de carne, el cultivo de lospastos tropicales est § tomando maYOr auge cada día sob~e todo en aquellas regiones donde los suelos son de baja cá1idad y no com-, piten con cultivos utilizados para consumo humano. Sin embargoestos pastos son de baja calidad nutritiva debido a la baja calidad del suelo es por eso que se busca una manera de balancear la dieta proteica de los animales que pastan esta praderas y la manera más económica y practica sería lograr establecer leguminosas forrajeras que se adapten y puedan persistir en esas praderas.Sin embargo es aqui donde se nos presenta uno de los mayores problemas en este tipo de explotaciones y es el control de aquellas plantas que no son consumidas por el ganado y compiten en los pastos por espacio,nutrientes, luz, agua etc, pensar en un controlmec §nico a nivel de grandes explotaciones resulta dificil y antie-con6mico. por 1u tanto la manera mas viable y adecuada es el control con Qufm¡cos, tanto pari potreros establecidos como para lograr buenos y rápidas establecimeintos en praderas nuevas. Lo importante es encontrar un herbicida adecuado a las distintas sitúaciónes que se sucitan en el campo además conocer sus reacciones y efectos tanto en las gramineas como en las leguminosas asi como su efecto residual. Es por eso que se ha iniciado este ensayo esperando que nos permita responder algunas de estas interrogantes.11. OBJETIVOS. l. Determinar el efecto de herbicidas sobre leguminosas en terminas de selectividad y residualidad para el posterior.2. Establecimiento de gramineas y las evaluaciones de establecimiento y persistencia de la pradera.El presente estudio se realizó en la estación experimental de Santander de Quilichao, CIAT de Colombia. La Estación está situada a 40 Kilometros al sur de Cal;, en una localización -Geogrlfica de 3°06' N Y 76°31' O. aproximadamente a 8 Kilometros al Norte de la población de Santander de Quilichao. Departamento del Cauca, en una comarca de tierras onduladas a 990 metros de altura sobre el nivel del Mar. la precipitación promedio anual es de 1800 mm con dos estaciones lluviosas generalmente bién definidas, de ,Marzo a Junio y -Septiembre a Diciembre. La temperatura promedio es de 25°C.Las parcelas existentes se le hizo una aplicación de para uat a la Dosis de 1.0 Kg/Ha; quema y ligera pasada del Rototi11er.Las leguminosas en estudio son las siguientes: Se busca seleccionar los tratamientos de poca o ninguna toxicidad. Sembraron dos hileras de cada una de las leguminosas en estudio ~na continuaci6n de la otra.• 65 • Las hileras de cada una de las especies fueron sembradas achorro continuo, en surcos distanciados a 0.50 metros entre hileras de una misma especie y dejando 1.0 metro de separación entre cada parcela.La aplicación de los herbicidas se hizo en el mismo sentido a las hileras cubriendo una banda de dos metros, con un equipo experimental AZ accionado con COZ de presión constante, y con boquillas TJ-8003.Este ensayo se inicio el 3 de Octubre de 1.978 y tendra una duración de 18 meses a partir de la fecha de siembra.Se usaron 11 herbicidas en una dosis, aplicada en forma pre• emergente ( Ver cuadro adjunto) y 4 herbicidas\"que se aplicaron en forma Pos~emergentes cua~do las leguminosas tengan 2-3 hojasverdaderas, La selectividad se evaluara en base a su efecto tóxico empléando una escala visual de O a ID, donde 0= ningun daño, 1-3 = pocadaño; 4-6 = daño moderado, 7-9= daño severo; 10 = muerte de todas las plantas. Se evaluará el control de malezas y persistencia de la pradera. El control de malezas se calificara a los 30-60-90 días de la siembra por medio de una escala de porcentaje en donde 0-19= ningúncontrol; 20-39= malo; 40-59= mediocre; 60-79= Bueno a suficiente; 88-99= Excelente a muy bueno.Se empleó, un diseño de parcelas dividas,' en las parcelas tieen un tamaño de 10xlO mts. Quedando las parcelas separadas porcalle ,de 1.0 metro.Las leguminosas fuerón sembradas el 17 de noviembre de 1,978 a chorro continúo y en hileras una al lado de la otra ~ separadas a 0.50 Mts.El control de malezas se ha practicado desde hace miles deaños, ha sido el área mas descuidada tecnológicamente. El hecho de que este factor no haya sido estudiado anteriormente, tanto como el control de insectos, por ejemplo, se debe a que el efecto de las malezas sobre los cultivos no es tan espectacular como el daño de insectos, enfermedades y deficiencias nutricionales.Sin embargo las experiencias en el campo han demostrado que los extragos causados por malezas son de igual magnitud o mayores ocasionados por insectos y enfermedades.Ademas el control de malezas debe ser sistematico o integrado. Para realiiar un control integrado se deben considerar los métodos culturales, mecanicos y Quimicos. a-Por control cultural se entiende el control ejercido por el cultivo sobre las malezas debido a su capacidad para competir con ellas, Las bases para un control cultural son: Uso de se--millas certificada ( Libre de Semillas de Malezas), una buena preparación de terreno, buena humedad, fertilización adecuada y densidad ótimas de siembra para la variedad y la zona (distanela entre surcos y distancia entre plantas en el surco).b-El control mecánico se realiza por medio de implementos adaptables al trac~or o a mano y su propósito es desalojar las malezas de su contacto intimo con el suelo causando su secamiento o bién enterrandolas.c-El control Quimico de malezas ha tomado un gran auge en años recieht~s-d~bido al desarrollo de herbicidas altamente selectivo hacia cultivos eSfecificos, Sin embargo, siempre se debe recordar que el control Químico es un medio de control de malezas, no el único y de ninguna manera el más efectivo en todos los casos.Son Herbicidas que debido a sus propiedades Quimicas es necesario aolicarlos antes de la siembra; reouieren incorooración o mezcla mecánica con el suelo Dara que Queden distribuidos en una capa uniforme. zona en la cual Qeminan la mayoria de las semillas de malezas ( cuatro centimetros superiores,l_ Las herramientas más comunes para la incorporación de estos productos son el rastrillo de discos y el rotovator,Son herbicidas que se aplican después de la siembra pero antes que brote el cultivo y las malezas. Estos productos actúan sobre las semillas de malezas que están e'n el estado de germinación,Por ser aplicados sobre la superficie del suelo requieren lluvias o riegos después de su aplicación para ser distribuidos en la zona de germinación de las malezas.Son los que se aplican después de'l~ emergencia del cultivo y/o las malezas, tienen la ventaja de ser útiles en emergencia. pueden ser aplicados en cualquier tipo de suelo y no depender de la condición de humedad del suelo.En algunos casos hay mayor riesgo de da~o al cultivo. No se deben aplicar cuando las plantas están 'hojadas de rocio o de llu~ vias. A veces, se recomienda el uso de surfactantes para aumentar la acción de estos herbicidas.~ 70 ,.Las leguminosas forrajeras una vez establecidas son plantas que compiten fuertemente con otras especies; no obstante su lento crecimiento inicial las vuelve sensibles al daño de las malezas (2). Es necesario un adecaudo control de malezas para obtener un establecimiento rápido y vigoroso de ellas ( 3 ).Mc Carty y Klingman (3) indican que, dependiendo de las condiciones de humedad y las especies involucradas, cada libra de maleza que crece en los potreros reducen la producción de las plantas forrajeras en una cantidad similar. Añaden que el crecimiento vigoroso de las plantas forrajeras previene la invaslón de malezas y que la fertilización nitrogenada pOdría favorecer más a estas si no se controlan oportunamente.Se debe considerar el hecho de que el crecimiento vigoroso en muchos casos no pueden ser obtenido con una sola eleiminación de malezas, si no bajo un adecuado mantenimiento del cultivo.Al respecto Powell y Box (4) indica' que 'un programa Sistemático de mantenimiento de manejo de las malezas tiene, al parecer, más probabilidad de exito en cuanto a que majora la calidad del forraje y aumenta la producción del mismo que las que pueda tener muchos de los mltodos que pretenden un total exterminio de ellas, Gran parte de la. información disponible sobre el uso de herbicidas en el establecimiento de leguminosas forrajeras tropicales hace mención al 2-40 en sus diferentes formulaciones. Sin embargo. su empleo se ve restringuido por la susceptiblilidad de las especies a' este producto.La necesidad de controlar las malezas constituye uno de los factores mis importantes en el establecimiento de los pastizales. La Glrcine wightii ha encontrado grandes dificultades para su establecimiento en Brasil, ocurriendo este problema con frecuencia en CUba, debido principalmente a las malas 'hierbas, Esto resulta .', .-71costoso y con frecuencia no se dispone de fuerza de trabajo para su control a mano, La lucha contra las malezas se pueden distinguir dos clases de medidas: las preventivas y las destructivas..'Las medidas preventivas tienden a evitar la aparición de nuevas malezas en un determinado lugar ( Región, establecimiento etc).Entre las de esta naturaleza oue se aconsejan; las más impor_ tantes son: a-Utilizar para las siembras solamente semillas pura, es decir libre de toda semilla extraña.b-Usar máquinaria limpias para las labores del establecimiento, particularmente si proceden de otro lugar.c-Impedir que semillas las malas que han invadido áreas sin cultivar.d-Vigilar la posible introducción de malezas por medio de plantas forestales, frutales y de adorno. que pueden ser portadoras de peligros y plagas.e-Controlar el traslado de ganado de regiones con malezas invasoras a otras 'libres y evitar en estos casos los traslados directos.Las medidas destructivas pueden abarcar.dos finalidades concretas: La Producción Pecuaria tiene como objetivo principal que los animales reciban durante su vida productiva, \"alimentos de calidad adecuada para que la función productiia que realizan no se vea afectada por una deficiente alimentación. Asi tenemos que la digestibilidad de los pastos ofrecidos, bien podría medirse por el método\" In vitro\" simplemente, pero se veria afectado por muchos factores de parte del animal.Para obtener resultados significativos en la medición de consumo y digestibilidad de los forrajes ofrecidos a los animales en pastoreo, es necesario correlacionar estos resultados con el análisis botánico de 10 consumido por el animal • . OBJETIVOS. l. Determinar la composición botánica de lo consumido. 2. Determinar la digestibilidad.Ir MATERIALES Y METODOS.El -presente trabajo fui realizado del mes de Septiembre a Noviembre de 1.978 en la Estación Experimental del CIAT-Qui1ichao, la parte de campo localizada a 3\"06\" N. Y 76°31 O. a 8 Km. aproximadamente al norte de Santander de Qui1ichao Departamento del Cauca 10 referente a análisis de M.S. y digestibilidad \"In vltro\" en los laboratorios del CIAT-Palmira-Colombia.Para llevar a cabo el ensayo se contó con un total de 10 novillos fistulados esofagicamente y 2 novillos en libre pastoreo, con una edad promedio de 18 meses en ambos casos.Tanto el comenzar con la experiencia, como al finalizar, sepeso y bañó los animales de pastoreo. El periodo preliminar fue de 12 días, de los cuales 5 fueron de 'acostumbramiento al manejo co~tinuo y los animales en libre pastoreo eran suministrados los 7 días siguientes bolos con óxido de cromo.Se empleó papel filtro No. 40 con una dimens~ón de 10 x 14 cms. en peso aproximado de 1.5 grs. El papel de óxido crómico tenía un contenido aproximado de 30% de cromo. Se pesó 10 grs. de papelcrómico en balanzas de precisión y se \" confeccionó\" los bolos de un tamaño adecuado que pueda ser introducido en el \" lanza bolos\".La colección de 10 consumido por los animales fistulados se hizo en bolsas según descrito por Arnold. La pradera o potrero empleado para el experimento tenra una área de 1 ha, con una capacidad de carga de 2 animales/ha., la misma que contenia 3 gramineas y 2 leguminosas, todas ellas asociadas entre si: así en gramíneas teníamos: Un microscopio bl~ocular para fines de anllisis botlnico; con el auxiliar de una tablilla graduada ( 7), Equipo reactivo de laboratorio para la determinación de digestibilidad » In vitro•, segOn el mltodo descrito por la Universidad de Florida (6) y determinación de M.S. Equipos y reactivos necesarios para la determinación del óxido cromico en las heces, según en mltodo'de K R. Cristian y M.R. coup (3 ) .Diseño completamente al azar.Del 13 de Septiembre al 17 manejo y acostumbramie¡lto de losanimales en pastoreo continuo.El 18 de Septiembre despuls de bañarse y realizado el pesaje, se comenzó con el suministro de los bo1os con óxido crómico, por 2 veces al día, haciendo un total de 40 grs. de papel crómico que teóricamente deben haber ingerido 12 grs. aproximadamente de cromo (Cr 2 0 3 ), torl'o esto durante 12 días ( hasta el 29 de Septiembre).Desde el 25 al 29 de Septiembre, recolección de los heces fecales, por 2 veces al dia ( con un l~tervá10 de 8 horas), 400 grs. por la mañana y 400 grs por la tarde, esto en animales de pastoreo.Paralelo al peso anterior, se hizo muestreo de 10 consumido con dos animales fistulados esofágicamente, al día 2 veces se, colocaba las bolsas de recolección a estos ~ovil1os y eran enviados al potrero 6 la pradera en estudio. De la muestra colectada se separaban 2 sub-muestras, siendo la primera para,análisis botánico y la segunda para la determinacion de la M.S. y digestibilidad \"In vitro\", -luego tenlamos 800 grs/d'a/Animal, para análisis de laboratorio (digestibilidad y M.S.) Y 200 grs. para el análisis botánico.La producción diaria de heces y muestras esofógicas se homogenizaba cada uno de ellas y se guardaba en un congelador a 20°C hasta el día de su respectivo análisis.El analisis botánico o determinación de las especies se hizo con la ayuda de un microscopio binocular, siguiendo los pasos siguientes:-Tomar una porClon de muestra debidamente homogenizada con icido acético al 2 %. -Pesar 5 grs de esta muestra lavada en una placa petrt _ -Identificar las especies al microscopio con la ayuda de la tablilla graduada, especialmente confeccionada 'para el caso, donde se leía 5 puntos en 5 11neas, haciendo un total de 25 puntos, luego se gira la placa en un angulo de 180 0 y se vuelve hacer la lectura de los 5 puntos en las 5 líneas,que suman nuevamente 25 puntos, haciendo un total de 50 observaciones en la primera placa. -Pesar nuevamente 5 gramos de la misma muestra y repetir la operación anterior, donde se tendrá nuevamente 50 puntosobservados e identificados, que sumando la placa 1 y 2 tendremos 100 observaciones, de donde saca un porcentaje delas especies consumidas por cada animal diariamente.En cuanto a Centrosema y Stylosanthes, la diferenciación era más notoria por la abundante pilosidad en tallos y hojas por parte del Stylosanthes, no sucediendo esto con el Centrosema por ser glabro.El procedimiento para la determinación de la digestibilidad in vitro de M.S., de las muestras esofógicas fué realizada con el equipo y método descrito por la Universidad de Florida.U.S.A Por ser demasiado extenso la metodología a seguirse para este análisis se ha creido por conveniente no describirlo, los resultados del mismo se presentan en cuadro adjunto,Los análisis fecales para la determinación del consumo y digestibilidad in vivo. mediante el indicador crómico, que deben ser realizados según el método descrito por Cristian y Coup (3), a la fecha no se pudo realizarlo debido a la falta de reactivo para el efecto.Se puede observar la relación 1:1 que existe entre los promedios totales de gramíneas y leguminosas, de donde se puede deducir que tanto de gramíneas y leguminosas eran consumidas en igual intensidad en un pastoreo continuo, En cuanto a la relación digestibilidad y porcentaje de 10 ingerido, enla gráfica 1 se nota una ligera pendiente negativa entre la relación Digestibilidad y % de lo ingerido en el caso del Andropogon, no sucediendo 10 mismo con la Brachiaria decumbens y Panicum maximull_ ( gráfica 1 y 2 ). donde-se observa una 1 ínea ascendente en ambos casos, deduciendo en un principio que, existe una relación directamente proporcional en estas especies a mayor-.' consumo mayor digesti.bilidad; sucediendo 10 contrario con el Centrosema y Stylosanthes, donde la relación es inversamente proporcional ya que en las gráficas 4 y 5 se puede observar una pendiente ligeramente negativa.Todo esto presumiendo puede deberse a que el Andropogon ~~ nus se encontraba en un proceso de recuperación, motivo por el que estaba cercado este pasto y su consumo fué mínimo por los novillos en estudia; con respecto a Styto puede decirse que esta leguminosa se ha notado bastante cubierta por las gramíneas, haciendo difícil su consumo por los animales. El resultado de Centrosemaposiblemente se deba a la edad avanzada de las plantas.Se hace notar que estas diferencias no se han demostrado aún estadísticamente.RECOMENDACIONES.-Realizar el análisis químico de las muestras esofógicas.-Determinación botánica de la pradera en estudio.-Terminar el análisis de óxido crómico.-Sacar las diferencias estadísticas de las relaciones.--79 -,REFERENCIAS JIBLIOGRAFICAS.  Andropon gayanus. Comunmente conocido como pasto samba esuna graminea nativa del Africa y de gran importancia economlca en ese Continente. Fue introducida a Colombia por CIAT en 1.971, y encuentra en la etapa de la experimentación. Según ensayos agronómicos, se adapta bien a suelos ácidos e infertiles, tolerante a la toxicidad del aluminio , es de facil establecimiento, produce heno palatable al ganado, buena compatibilidad con leguminosas, resistente a sequia y quema. y finalmente produce apreciable cantidad de semillas (220 Kg semilla calsificada x Ha).Este ensayo se llevó a cabo en la Unidad de utilización de pastos de la estación experimental Santander de Quilichao del -CIAT, Departamento del Cauca Colombia, desde el 20 de Sep al 15de Oct 1.978.El heno ha provenido de un campo de 0.5 Ha de A.gayanus de la Hacienda\" El Limonar\", cuyo ultimo corte fue hecho el 7 de Agosto 1978; luego del cual fue quemado.El pasto se cortó con una segadora accionada por un tractor el día 20 Sept-78, es decir tenía una edad de rebrote de 44 días con una altura de 0.60 m, y fue cortado a 0.10, 0.15 m del suelo.Antes del corte se tomaron 3 muestras de pasto de 1 m 2 cada una para estimación de la producción y del % de materia seca.El pasto inmediatamente despues de cortado fue transportado a la estación CIAT Quilichao donde fue secado en una era de piso de cemento durante dos días ( 15 horas de sol) obteniendose de -10-12% de humedad.El heno asi procesado fue empacado en bultos de dos tamaños 8/12 Kgr y de 40/45 Kgr, para lo cual se utilizaron cajones con dos cintas para amarrar, luego del cual fue usado convenientemente.Se emplearon 12 ovejas Africanas de un peso vivo entre 17-31 Kg, Y los cuales fueron dosificados bañados contra parasitos internos y externos, vacunados; contra fiebre aftosa el 16 de Sep-78. y puestos en las jaulas experimentales, el dfa 25 de Sep-78.S~ les pesó en dos oportunidades el día inicial del periodo de acostumbramiento (25-Sep-78) y un día antes de la etapa pre-experimental ( 29-Sep-78).' -Se usaron 12 jaulai de mad~ra diseñadas por CIAT. Los ovejas digerian a traves de una canaleta de hOjalata hacia un balde para su eliminación diaria.La colección de heces fecales se realizó utilizando arneses y bolsas de colección construidas segun modelo descrito por ARNOLD.Estos dispositivos se colocaron un dia antes del fijado para la recolección de heces ( Oct-7)' ALIMENTACION.La ración diaria de heno se suministró dos veces por día mitad-a las 8:30.am. y la otra mitad a las 4 ~m.Por medio de un balde, ovejo por ovejo. dos veces por día: 10 am y 3 pm.Solo en la etapa de acostumbramiento a discreción en recipientes de la jaula al alcance del animal. . ' El contenido de proteina del muestreo nos dió 8.04% de proteina cruda.Estos resultados son menores a l6s reportados por HAGGAR en -1970 en NIGERIA, enque A. gayanus ligeramente fertilizado, obtuvo 32 Kgs MS/Ha/dia pero considerando la época completamente seca en que creció el pasto y sin ninguna fertilización estos resultados se pueden considerar buenos. El contenido de proteinas del forraje está dentro de los mejores de acuerdo a los encontrados porvarios investigadores en ~tros p~ises.Al aumentar la oferta de heno 50 gr/p• 75 /dia al nivel 100 se obtuvo un aumento considerado del consumo M.S. al pasar a los niveles 150 y 200 el aumento es muy poco y ahy tendencia a estabilizarse. El analisis de varianza indica que hay diferencia altamente significativa entre niveles 200-50 ( P<O.Ol) entre 100-50 no se encontró diferencia estadistica entre los anima1es 100-150 y 200. Esto nos indica que por encima de la oferta 100 los incrementos de consumo son minimos o casi nada.Estos resultados son los mismos reportados por O. Paladines, explicandose, el hecho de que el consumo aumenta c~ando se aumenta la oferta del forraje pero hasta cierto limite, luego del cual se estabiliza el consumo. Este limite está dado por la velocidad de paso del forraje por el tracto digestivo 3.CONSUMO DE HOJA ( FIG No . 2).El % de consumo de hojas no varió significativamente al aumentar los niveles de oferta del heno. Esto se explica por elhecho de que en este caso los animales no han tenido oportunidad de seleccionar, ya que el heno empacado esta casi uniformemente mezclado entre hojas y tallos. Se puede observar que no hay diferencias notables ( entre 58-60%) entre los cuatro niveles de oferta estudiadas. Al hacer el analisis estadistico no se encontraron diferencias significativas de los coeficientes de digestibilidad de la M.S.entre los diferentes niveles de oferta estudiados. Esto quiere decir que elide digestibilidad aparente de la M.S .. no aumenta cuando aumenta el nivel de oferta del heno de A. gayanus. Estos resultados ( rango entre 55 y 62% Y promedios entre 58 y 621) son comparables con los mejores resultados obtenidos por HAGGER Y SHMED en 1.971. de Nigeria en A.gayanus como P. maximum, D. decumbens etc.Al analizar la relaci6n entre el heno consumido y la digestibilidad de la M.S. (Fig No . 3) se observa un ligero aumento del % de digestibilidad hast el consumo 6~ gr M.S. p. 7 'dfa, luego del cual comienza a disminuir suavemente. En este punto hay una gran contradiccjón de los resultados obtenidos anteriormente en otros paises. Sin embargo es concordante con la mayorita de da~os que indican una ligera disminución de la digestibilidad aparente a la medida que aumenta el nivel da consumo .de altment6 (SCNEIDER y -FLATT 1975).--- , 91/. f . 9/•:3 . fR.6 9/.' .-,-  -87 -Analizando la relación entre el % de rechazo de la M,S. ofrecida y el % de digestibilidad de la M.S, se observa la misma tendencia que con el consumo.CONSUMO DE M.S. DIGERIBLE.En la Fig No . 5. se puede notar que el consumo de M.S. digerible, aumenta considerablemente al pasar el nivel 50 gr de 100 gr MS/p•75¡dfa, luego este consumo tiende a estabilizarse al aumentar la oferta a 150 y 200 gr. Esto se explica de la misma manera que la relación entre el nivel de oferta y el consumo de M.S.Es importante notar que proximo al nivel mfnimo estudiado (50 gr MS/p• 75 /dfa), se ha obtenido el nivel de mantenimiento de las ovejas que es de 25 gr M.S. digerible/p•75¡dfa. Esto quiere decir que con los otros niveles de oferta (110, 150 Y 200) se ha logrado consumir M.S. digerible para producción ( ganancia de peso vivo) lo que indiéa buena calidad del heno de A.gayanus.CONSUMO DE PROTEINA ( CUADRO• No. 3. ).Se observa un aumento de la proteina ( 4.8, 6,9. 8 Y 9.1) gr/ p.75/ d1a ) a medida que aumenta el nivel de oferta, esto es lógico pensar por lo explicado en relación de M.S.DIGESTIBILIDAD DE LA PROTEINA ( CUADRO No.4)Se observa un decenso de la digestibilidad de la proteina al pasar la oferta de 50 a 100 ( de 64. En la figura No. 6, se puede observar que medida que aumenta -aael % digestibilidad de la protetna se incrementa ligeramenteesto de acuerdo con 10 descrtto por O. Paladines y explicable por las influencias del nitrógeno metabólico en el coeficiente de digestión aparente y por el efecto de la proteina para el crecimiento y actividad de los microorganismos del rumen.En la Fig No . 7, se puede observar poca variación de la digestibilidad de la M.S, a medida que aumenta el % de proteina de la M.S. consumida.RESULTADOS DE ANAlISIS QUIMICOS l CUADRO No. 5 l.Puede observarse del analisis bromatologico ( proteina, ceniza, calcio y fósforo) tanto del ofrecido, recnazado, parte del pasto ( hoja, tallo y material muerto) y de las neces. Esto nos indica el % de proteinas brutas promedio del pasto de 9.6% que puede considerarse bueno y una apropiada relación calcio-fósforo ( aunque no en cantld.d).CONCLU.SIONES.En los cuatro niveles de oferta de heno de A.gayanus es tudiados 50, 100, 150 Y 200 gr de M.S. obtuvieron los siguientes resultados promedios de consumo de materia seca: 40.6, -•62.3 Y 58.9 gr de M.S. por p.75/ dfa , respectivamente para cada nivel de oferta.    , , -',-I ,... , ~. -. 3 '5'0 U: /5' S~.61 I Sb. 3Jf 51.~! %..1 /6,ft, /6./ /¡tI. 8 \" 1. g -f ?. i.f 100 S~.2.1 hl.3h'J•1' ~O,8 i!.1f 30,11 '11M; /¡/.2 37.2-\"15.1 150 (..2.00 5'.00 &0. ~J 5Q . .[± 3./ 5,/.2-J¡J',() 6¿\"J/-51-'1;t 9•3 ~JJO S5.~4 5t¡•92 S8•lft 5/'.3 ± I.S &3. ;2. (,:l.o ::¡O. .lJE,t¡'1 J)/ASJYE. C.i!-8C!I1¡étlTt; . . ' ... . -   Los requerimientos diarios para mantenimiento de ovejas (25gr MS digerible/p•75/ día ) se encontro suministrando aproximadamente 55 gr de materia seca por día, por unidad de peso metab6lico de heno de A.gayanus que correspondió aproximadamente al nivel mas ba~o de oferta dIe presente ensayo (50gr MS/p•75/ dia ). En los otros niveles de oferta los animaleshan consumido materia seca digerible para ganancia de peso, lo que índica la buena calidad del heno de A. gayanus para la producción animal.El consumo de proteina para los cuatro niveles estudiados (50-100-150-200 gr MS/p•75/ di ál, fue de 4,8, 6.9, 8.0 Y -9.1 gr de proteina por unidad de Peso metab61ico .por dla.La digestibilidad de la proteina para los cuatro nivelesensayados fue de 64.3, 61.7, 63.1 y 58.5 respectivamente Se relacionaron el % de proteinas en la materia seca consumida y la digestibilidad de la proteína se encon~ro que esta aumenta a medida que aumenta la orimera. 10 Que indica laimoortancia del contenido de oroteinas en un oasto. oara valorar sus cua 1 i dades forraj eras ..Se recomienda hacer ensayar parecidos con A. gayanus fresco, y con heno del mismo pasto cortado a diferentes edades de rebrote para determinar la edad optima de utización d. este pasto. Este trabajo se considera de la Fase 11. sin embargo, no creemos que los objetivos1esten trazados con la claridad deseada,yaque involucra muchos factores en un solo experimento, dificultandouna interpretación clara de los resultados finales (persistencia), por incluir factores tales como niveles de intensidad de pastoreo, tiempos de reposo y especies, además de haber ~iveles crecientes de cal, los cuales no son proporcionales ( 500, 2.000 Y 4.000Kg/ha) y no son considerados como tratamientos apartes,aunque evidentemente afectan la fertilidad del suelo.SUELO Y CLIMA: El trabajo se ejecuta en la estación CIAT-Qui-lic~ao, Departamento del Cauca, Colombia. Tiene una latitud de 3° N. Y longitud 76 Q 28W, 1.112 msnm; precipitación promedia de 1.800 mm al año con dos estaciones húmedas de Marzo a Junio y Septiembre a Diciembre; y dos de sequfa, de Julio a Agosto y Enero a Febrero. la temperatura promedio es de 23°C, característico de un climacálido, moderado y húmedo, Los suelos se ubican en un delta aluvial de ma~erial volcánico, ácido de baja fertilidad natural, con buen contenido de materiaorgánica, profundas y de buenas propiedades físicas. Están clasificados como u l~soles y poseen propiedades similares a grandesextensiones de suelos de Asia y América latina. los resultados del análisis de suelo antes de la siembra aparecen en los cuadros 2 y 3. Sobre un. proyecto de parcelas subdivididas y sistema de pastoreo adaptado de cafetería restringida, se empleó el método de doblé muestreo con rango en los 54 tratamientos con tres repeticiones, los cuales se describen en los cuadros 2 y 3. La parcela principal la constituye la intensidad de pastoreo/tiempo de descanso ( 4,6 Y 8 semanas), la subparcela meicla (Andropogon Guinea y Braquiaria por la leguminosa Centrosema pubescens)y la sub-subparcela los niveles de f6sforo ( cuadro ll.A todos los -. t~atamrintos se aplicó una fórmula basal de K y microelementos ( cuadro ll. El proyecto aparece en la gráfica l.Para determinar producción de materia seca se empleó un marco de O.5m 2 , el cual se situó una vez ( al azar) en cada tratamiento, cortándose el pasto a la cms de altura.La muestra resultante se marcó, peso y se envió para determinación MS.ademls ~e estimaron 5 puntos dobles con rango del 1 ~l 5, correspondiendo 1 al rendimiento más bajo, 2 al inmediatamente superior, 3 al nivel intermedio, 4 a un nivel superior y 5 al más alto. Además se estimaron 5 puntos de cada subparcela. Posteriormente con los datos de M.V., M.S. y las correlación, se confeccionaron las curvas y se correlacion6 estimaci6n visual Vs, pesadas.Para determinar el fndice de área• foliar (IAF) se tomaron muestras cercanas el mismo día y lugar en que fueron tomadas las de rendimiento, pesando 20 grs. de una muestra y se pasó por máquina medidora de área foliar determinándose por regla de tres simple el IAF. de cada pastizal.El análisis de suelo actual no muestra cambios sustanciales en la mayorfa de los elementos con relación al efectuado antes de la siembra.Así en el cuadro 2, se observa, cuando se aplica pastoreo suave que: El PH generalmente se incrementa desde el primer nivel de P y Cal. subiendo hasta 0.4 en el nivel mis a1to de ambos (400-PH (\\10 p(Pprn) A J Ca. M.9.. -. . . \"a--:--... • -_ ' \",tl      En el cuadro 2 se muestran los resultados del análisis de suelo del pastoreo duro, el cual presenta va'riaciones similares al pastoreo suave, no mostrando como es de esperarse una diferencia marcada ante intensidades de pastoreo diferentes, lo cual puede deberse al tiempo q~e aún es corto (1 año l.Existe además un inconveniente en cuanto a la interpretación de los resultados de este experimento en cuanto a suelo-planta -animal. ya que por no tenerse en cuenta que los niveles de fertilizantes caen en la misma parcela principal las heces de los animales pueden contaminar los diferentes tratamientos; pero esto se ha solucionado una vez que los animales proceden de pastizales nativos que tienen menos riquezas que cualquiera de los experimentales; sin embargo. esto crea un problema. ya que los animales no vuelven al pastizal más rico. desechos de ese valor, como tampoco en los otros. por 10 cual el aspecto animal no es medible en lo referente a la devolución que hace el p~stQ que es un aspecto importante que diferencia al pastoreo el corte a machete.Las correlaciones en todos los casos fueron aceptables; ya que fui siempre mAyor de 0.9, por lo cual se consideran buenas lasestimaciones. En las gráficas 2. 3 Y 4 aparecen las curvas de las mezclas de guinea, andropogon y Braquiaria con Centrosema. lascuales ilustran los resultados de los demás tratamientos.RENDIMIENTO DE MATERIA SECA.La gráfica 5 muestra los rendimientos de M.S. en los tres pastizales con pastoreo suave en la época seca; en éste se aprecia que 4 semanas de reposo genera1ementeproducen menos M.S. independientemente de los niveles de P. siendo más alto en Braquiaria (B). intermedio en guinea ~Gl, y más bajo en Andropogon (A).Seis semanas produjo incrementos en A y B con los niveles crecientes de fertilidad, pero no en G, donde decayó con 200 Kg de P 2 0 5 y produjo el mayor rendimiento con el nivel 4, lo cual no tiene explicación, a no ser por error experimental.Ocho semanas produjo incrementos hasta el nivel 2 en ~ y B bajando con el 4 en Aj y se mantuvo casi estable en B. E!n.G. alcanzó los mayores rendimientos con el nivel 1, y fué de los más bajos en los demás niveles.  En resUmen ~e deduce por estos resultados que en estas condiciones Androp030n se comporta mejor con el nivel 2 y 8 semanas de descanso, mientras 6 semanas y nivel 2 es mejor para braquiaria, sin embargo. Guinea paradógicamente a sus exigencias, tiene resultados muy inconsistentes que no permiten hacer conclusiones.La gráfica 6 muestra los resultados de este .tratamiento en la época húmeda. Aquí braquiaria produjo los más altos rendimientos. (M.S.) con 8 semanas y puede deberse a que no hay presencia de -Anae1amia sp.¡ este pastizal fué el que más produjo el nivel 4 con los tres descansos y fué el de mayor producción con 4 semanas. Los demás pastizales tuvieron poca variación en rendimiento, tanto con los niveles como con el tiempo de descanso, habiendo un ligero descenso en producción de M.S. en todos los' tratamientos con excepción del guinea, el cual sube con 4 semanas y nivel 4. Estos resultados indican que no se justifica en Andropogon y Guinea \"niveles altos de fertilización en esta condiciones. La gráfica 7 ilustra los resultados de los diferentes tratamientos con pastoreo duro en la época dora. Nuevamente se evidencia la res~uesta del ~raquiaria ante niveles crecientes de fertilidad con 8 semanas de descanso, siendo la mejor con 4 semanas y nivel 2 mientras que su comportamiento es negativo con respecto al incremento de fertilidad con 6 semanas.El Guinea muestra aumento significativo solo hasta nivel 2 y no difieren en cuanto'a tiempo de descanso. Sin embargo en Andropagan 6 semanas y nivel 1 aparecen los mejores resultados, siendo el de menor rendimiento en las demás variantes.La gráfica 8 muestra los datos de la época seca. En la misma se observa que 4 semanas hasta nivel 2 produjo menores rendimientos 8 semanas fué superior en braquiaria con nivel 1 y en todos con los niveles 2 y 4; mientras que 6 semanas los resultados son inconsistentes, porque Braquiaria rindió mucho con nivel 1 y bajó progresivamente con las demás, guinea incrementó con 2 y no varió-casi con 4. Andropogon subi6 hasta nivel 2, pero baj6 con el 4. En estas condiciones las especies no son consistentes con los resultados, debilndose esperarla rlplica en tiempo para una mejor interpretaci6n. COMPARACION D~~.A.F. CON RENDIMIENTO.La gráfica 9 representa los rendimiento (M.S.l de guinea con pastoreo suave y duro con 4, 6 Y 8 semanas vs. IAF. se observa que guinea con pastoreo suave tiene mayor producci6n y que está correlacionado con IAF. no as; la producción de M.S. con pastoreo duro, pues con~'IAF.alto la producci6n es menor.Una explicación -. . pudiera ser la gran cantidad de material muerto que tuvo la muestra cuando se determinó I.A.F.En la gráfica 10 se analiza Andropogon, el cual excepto en pastoreo continuo correlaciona la producción de M.S. con el IAF.Esta anomalía se puede deber a que continúa la parcela correspondiente al andropogon, tuvo un descanso, debido a que andropogon casi desaparece. pot 10 cual se muestreo un gran colchón de leguminosaspresentes.La gráfica 11 caracteriza el comportameinto de braquiaria. ilustrando una buena relaci6n de producci6n en IAF, pero se presenta una calda con 8 semanas y puede deberse a la sombra de las hojas superiores sobre las inferiores, debido al colch6n que se obervó enesa época, el cual fui más acentuado en pastoreo suave. La gráfica 12 m~estra aun comparación de los tres pastizales en pastoreo suave. obervándose los mayores rendimentos en branquiaria y Guinea .• La grafica 13 ilustra el comportamiento de los pastizales con pastoreo duro. Aquí la mayor producción de Andropogon y guinea, notándose la menor respuesta de Branquiaria a más de 6 semanas de descanso, pudiendo estar afectada por la intensidad de pastoreo. l. El Centrosema no mostr6 persistencia con Guinea y Braquiaria. Mostr6 persistencia con Andropogon. aunque este presenta una baja pOblaci6n en pastoreo rotacional y c~sí desaparecí6 en el continuo.2. Hay buenas respuestas en rendimientos en general hasta nivel 2 en Braquiaria y guinea; en cambio Andropogon no muestraconsistencia en su comportamiento • 3. Los menores rendimientos en M.S. estuvieron afectados por tiempos de reposo de 4 semanas en general. y los mejores fueron con 6 en Braquiaria y 6 Y 8 en los demás.4. El IAF. tiene alta relaci6n con la producci6n de M•.S.5. Sería interesante separar niveles de los demás tratamientos, lo cual daría resultados más claros de interpretar.-98 - Se hizo el siguiente trabajo con los o~etivos de: l. Vereflcar el comportamiento de la yuca como forraje utilizando microsilos con tratamientos de varios niveles de melaza y úrea 2. Verificar el comportamiento de los ensilados en microsilos, de ca~a de azucar y pasto elefante en mezclas con 25% de forraje de yuca, con varios tratamientos de melaza y úrea.Se utilizaron forrajes de elefante híbrido Penntsetum purpureum H-534, caña de azúcar Sacharum officinarum y yuca forrajera. Manihot utilissimi. producidos en las parcelas del ensayo regional 2 en CrAT-Quilichao Cuando se cosecharon las plantas tenian 24,\", dlas de crecimiento y tenían alturas promedios de 30, 60 y 60 cms. para la yuca, caña y elefante respectivamente.La producción media de materia seca para todos los tratamientos fue: Caña\" de azúcar 9.65 t/ha, elefante O.78t/ha, yuca 0.64t/ha. El proceso de ensilaje y corte fué realizado manualmente y lasplantas fueron cortadas con una picadora de forraje, produciendose fragmentos de 10 a 20 mm, la mezcla con los aditivos fué manual. Se utilizaron los siguientes tratamientos. Caña de azúcar + 25% de forraje de yuca-elefante + 25% de forraje de yuca, + O, 0.25, 0.5 Y II de úrea y O, 1, O, 4.0 Y 8,0 de melaza.Los microsilos se colocaron en 1. Unidad de Ganado de Carne donde permanecieron por 30 días, sIendo abiertos y analizados, Los microsilos intactos se abrieron a los 42 dias, tomándose de cada uno una muestra de 400 gramos, la cuál fué conservada en el refrigerador, Se realizaron pruebas de pH, digestibilidad in vitro y determinación de nitrógeno ureico. La digestibilidad in vitro fué determinada por el mltodo descrito en \"Mltodos para análisis quí micos y la evaluación biologica de alimentos para animales\", se usó como estandar la estrella africana y el jaraguá.Debido a los factores ajenos a los objetivosd1e presente trabajo son practicamente nulos los resultados que pueden ser aprovechados. De acuerdo a los datos se notó una marcada caida de la digestibilidad de la caña de azúcar y la del pasto elefante. factor este bastante conocido;el forraje de yuca ensilado mejoró la digestibilidad'. En materia seca todos los tratamientos presentaron una variación incostante, que no permitieron concluir con relación a los aditivos.El efecto sobre el pH, con.a'dictón 'de úrea a nivel ascendentese observó un efecto alcalinizante en e1 ensilado, con exceso de caña sin tratamiento de melaza. Tambien la melaza ocasiona un efecto acidificante que está de acuerdo con los otros trabajosrealizados. En todos los tratamientos, el pH fué superior a los patrones establecidos' para ensilajes de buena calidad.En los tratam'ientos con 1% de úrea y variando con melaza de 2 a 81, para cana de azúcar se observó un ligero incremento en la digestibilidad. También en pasto e1efant~. la respuesta fué semejante y se obtuvo con el tratamiento con 4% de melaza y úrea al 0.251 a 11. Estos datos contrastan con la literatura existente-en donde los aditivos mejoran la digestibilidad de los ensilados cuando se compa~an con ensilados no tratados. Los dos factoresque influyeron en la digestibilidad fueron la cantidad en los forrajes antes de ensilar y la flora bacteriana que fué utilizada de un animal que estaba ingiriendo forraje común, antes de adaptarse.En todos los tratamientos con dosis crecientes de urea se observ6 un aumento en el porcentaje de nitrógeno en la materia seca. En los tratamientos donde la cantidad de úrea fué fija o vart6 su nivel al adicionar la melaza, hubo disminución del ni-tr6geno.Los comentarios positivos con los datos obtenidos son limitados, pero bajo el número de observaciones permiten el análisis estadístico.Debido a la escaséz de datos sobre conservación de forrajes de yuca ensilada, se sugiere que el trabajo sea repetido, corrigiéndose los siguientes aspectos: l. Antes.de iniciar.e1 trabajo se debe realizar una p1aneación, previniendo el menor detalle posible, los métodos, análisis reactivos, equipos y análisis de los datos.Ha~er un cronograma de actividades y hacer contactos con los jefes de laboratorio, para obtener los análisis en las épocas deseadas.3. Utilizar material para ensilar que sea representativo de los forrajes encontrados en las fincas, B. DE FOMENTO.Como un complemento de las actividades del curso se programó un trabajo de campo el cual consistió esencialmente en un. diagnóstico de nivel de fincas comerciales el cual estuvo orientado hacia la identificación de los problemas limitantes de la producciónganadera en una zona especifica del Valle del Cauca.1. Enfrentar a los técnicos en adiestramiento con los problemas reales que afronta el productor.2. Identificar situaciones limitantes de la producción ganadera en el area.3. Tratar de organizar una eficiente metodología de transferencia de tecnologfa a los productores desarrollando \"fincas o explotaciones modelos.4. Combinar el trabajo intelectual con el trabajo practico en el campo.ESTRATEGIA DEL TRABAJO.El CIAT ~o puede trabajar con explotaciones particulares oprivadas sino a través de instituciones Nacionales y en base aesto se seleccionaron 10 fincas usuarias de credito proveniente de Fondo Ganadero del Valle del Cauca, y sus principales caracteristicas aparecen en el cuadro No. 3. Los tecnicos tuvieron aproximadamente 5 semanas de contacto con las fincas y durante ese tiempo trabajaron en:1. Identificación de las necesidades de alimentación de acuerdo a la evolución del hato.-108 -2. Identificaci6n de los problemas en producci6n de forrajes.3. Identificaci6n y evaluaci6n de los recursos disponibles. El trabajo efectuado consis~i6 principalmente en el Diagnostico y recomendaciones a los problemas encontrados. para llegar a ello los tecnicos dispusieron de una guia de trabajo y una encuesta que les fue entregada.Se hicieron tres. reuniones de grupo para ajustar las actividades programadas y para lograr un mejor conocimientb del medio trabajado.El trabajO continuará con los técnicos del pr6ximo curso de adiestramiento. l. Dar cumplimiento a la programación que sobre visitas de estudio se elaboró ,•como parte práctica del curso sobre producción de forrajes tropicales, 2. Visitar fincas ganaderas de la zona típica de las sabanas de los Departamentos de Córdoba, Su ere y Bolivar ubicadas en suelos problemas.3. Conocer los diferentes sistemas de producción ganadera de la zona de Costa Atlantica.4, Entrar en contacto con instituciones de desarrollo pecuario y conocer el estado de desarrollo de praderas, mejoramiento ymanejo de las mismas. l. Dar cumplimiento a la programación que sobre visitas de estudio se elaboró como parte práctica del curso sobre producción de forrajes Tropicales.2. Visitar con el grupo de becarios el área de actuación en Colombia del Programa Ganado de Carne.3. Visitar fincas ganaderas ubicadas en la zona típica de los Llanos Orientales.4. Conocer los diferentes sistemas de producción ganadera de los Llanos Colombianos.5. Visitar el ensayo reglonal s~bre adaptación de especies mejoradas en la granja la Libertad del ICA en Villavicencio.6. Conocer los trabajos de investigación que sobre pastos Tropicales se adelantan en la granja de Carimagua.7. Hacer durante el ,recorrido observaciones que pudieran ser de alguna utilidad en los pafses representados en en el grupo.ICA-Granja la Libertad. Granja Car;magua.PROGRAMA GANADO DE CARNE.El comité de Evaluación de Germop1asma del Programa Ganado de Carne ha seleccionado varios ecotipos de leguminosas principalmente y algunos ecotipos de gramíneas forrajeras tropicales que se consideran promisorias por mostrar adaptación a suelos ácidos de baja fertilidad natural, tolerancia a ciertas enfermedades de insectos importantes en praderas, y pro ~ ducc;ón adecuada de forraje durante la estación seca en condiciones de corte y pastoreo. Esta investigación se ha realizado principalmente en las dos estaciones experimentales donde se trabaja en Colombia, las cuales son representativas' de suelos Oxisoles y Ultisoles similares a otros' suelos de América Tropi.cal. Sin embargo, reco naciendo las variaciones en' tipos desuelos en los países que comprenden el área de interés del programa, así corno las interacciones relacionadas con variaciones en clima, incidencia y razas d~ patógenos, etc, se considera necesario conocer el comportamiento de este germoplasma en otras condiciones ecológicas antes de poder recomendar su uso en el establecimiento de praderas con especies mejoradas.los primeros ensayos regionales en colaboración coninstituciones nacionales de investigación y fomento han sido diseñados con los objetivos siguientes.Evaluar la adaptación del germoplasma seleccionado comopromisorio por el Comité de Germop1asmi en diferentes ecosIstemas de suelos &cldos de baja fertilidad natural en el trópico americano.Determinar la productividad del germoplasma seleccionado en comparación con ecotipos considerados como comerciales, o naturalizados en el área de interés del programa.En cada lugar se establecería un experimento con asociaciones de las leguminosas promisorias seleccionadas para este ensayo regional y una gramínea de tipo de crecimiento erecto que m&s se adapte a la región de interés, ej. P. maximun o H. rufa.El diseño experimental que se ha seleccionado para estas pruebas es de bloques al azar con 3 repeticiones, establecimiento parcelas de 10 x 5m con distancias de SOcms entre surcos paracada leguminosa y la gramínea se establecería al voleo.Los tratamientos seleccionados han sido ilustrados en el Cuadro No. 1. Algunos diseños de campo se ilustran en el Apéndice 1.Además, en cada lugar seleccionado se pOdrían incluir hasta 3 ecotipos de leguminosas que tengan importancia desde el puntode vista de adaptación a condiciones locales y algunas gramíneas en cultivos puros no asociados incluyendo las sugeridas por el Comité de Germoplasma del CrAT para efectos de comparación con las asociaciones. La fertilización con fósforo deberá repetirse cada año al inicio de las lluvias y además las parcelas con gram1neas en cultivos puros no asociados deberán fertilizarse con un equivalente de 100 Kg de nitrógeno en 2 aplicaciones al principio y final de las lluvias en forma de urea o nitrato de amonio, preferentemente.Los datos meterológicos promedios mensuales de precipitación temperaturas máximas y mfnimas, evaporación, etc, asf como losde an&lisis de suelos y tipo de vegetación sertan necesarios para caracterizar el ambiente local de acuerdo con las sugerencias en el Apéndice 2. Los datos climáticos deberán seguirse tomando durante la conducción del ensayo para evaluar las condiciones de \" estress d2 sequfa\" de las especies establecidas.Las caracterlsticas de adaptación y demás datos relacionados con este ensayo que se proponen'tomar serian las siguientes: l.Evaluaciones cualitativas: (Escala 1-10 ) a-Vigor de Planta. b-Producción de hojas. c-Resistencia, a sequla d-Resistencia a enfermedades. e-Resistencia a insectos f-Potencial de producción de semillas. Escala: (~10) Excelente, ( 7-8 ) Bueno (5)(6) Regular (3)(4) Malo, ( 1-2 ) Pésimo.características de suelos representativos del área. El terreno se prepararía en forma convencional a base de arado y rastra o de \"rototi11er i , o en la fórma tradicional d~ la región.Una vez preparado el terreno se tomará una muestra compues ta de suelo para caracterización y análisis químiCO de acuerdo preferentemente a la metodología adaptada para el Departamento de Suelos de la Universidad de Carolina del Norte para suelos tropicales o algún otro método similar.En cada parcela de 10 x 5 m se establecerán 19 surcos decada ecotipo de leguminosas a una distancia de 50 cms entre surco y dejando una calle de un metro entre parcelas; lo mismo se realizaría para los ecotipos seleccionados de gramíneas. Las parcelas se fertilizarán únicamente can fósforo durante el establecimiento a razón de un equivalente de 50 Kg P205 por he'c-'tarea utilizando superfosfato triple (46-481 P205)' Las especies forrajeras se establecerán por semillas a razón de 3-10 -Kg/ha para las leguminosas y 6-10 Kg/ha para las gr~míneas. Las semillas suministradas por CIAT se encuentra escarificadas yse provee~án los inoculantes adecuados o en forma de •pel1et\" revestidas con fosfato de roca y se empacarln en paquetes individuales para cada parcela y para cada repetición. Los ecotipos locales serán manejados en forma similar. Las siembras se realizarán a una profundidad de 0.5-1 cm al inicio de las lluvias.Durante las pr~meras 2-3 semanas del ensayo se realizarían controles de malezas en forma manual para asegurar el establecimiento de leguminosas; luego se sembrarf.las gramíneas alvoleo en las parcelas de leguminosas, incluyendO las calles entre las parcelas. A partir de este momento no se realizarían controles adicionales de maleza a menos que fuese estrictamente necesario.Otras prlcticas culturales. tales como, control de insectos, etc. se realizarían solamente cuando fuese absolutamente nece -b-A partir de entonces se realiz~r~n evaluaciones cada 4-6 semanas durante\"la estación \"lluviosa y cada 6-8 semanas durantela estación seca. Estas frecuencias de muestreo se podrían modificar en cada localidad de acuerdo con la distribución de las lluvias; sin embargo, estas modificaciones se realizarían únicamente de acuerdo con experiencias previas y en consulta con el Asesor del CIAT. c-De cada subparce1a se tomarfa una muestra para determinar humedad por secamiento a 60°C por 48 horas o hasta que la muestra alcance equilibrio con la temperatura del aire. Los datos de materia seca se reportarán corregidos de acuerdo con esta forma de secamiento. Esta muestra podría servir en algunos casos para determinación de valor nutritivo una vez que se haya molido y pas! do por un cedazo de lmm,aunque no es muy necesario en el caso\"de leguminosas.Todos los datos recopilados deberán ser enviado~ regular mente al CIAT para su tabulación general cada 4-6 meses conservando siem~re un duplicado en cada lugar para fines de evaluación y consulta durante las visitas de observación que realizarán los miembros del Comité de Germoplasma del Programa Ganado de Carne.En vista de que la persistencia es el factor más importante que determina la productividad de las especies forrajeras mejoradas que se adaptan a las condiciones ecológicas de un determinado lugar, se sugiere hacer énfasis en un manejo del ensayo adecuado para determinar este parámetro.En el caso de las leguminosas, el factor perSistencia está determinado no solamente por su adaptación y resistencia a enfermedades e insectos, sino tambíen por su compatibilidad con gra -a-Poblaci6n ( Pllntu1as/m 2 ) inicial y al final de cada estación lluviosa y seca. b-Altura planta antes del corte o pastoreo. c-Producción de materia seca antes del pastoreo o bajo corte ( Kg/m 2 ). d-Tasa de crecimiento estacional (Kg/m 2 /día) durante estaciones lluviosa y seca. e-Persistencia: composici6n botlnica ( % gramínea y % leguminosa) antes del pastoreo o en corte.OTROS DATOS: a-Fechas de floración b-Síntomas de deficiencia.Se propone que las evaluaciones cualitati~as de las caract~ risticas de adaptación de cada especie deben realizarse cada 1-2 meses a través de la duración del ensayo, enfatizando la tomade datos durante el establecimiento, para cuyos efectos'se disenaría una tarjeta ( Apéndice 3 ) en la cual se anotarían las observaciones de acuerdo con las sugerencias suministradas por los especialistas supervisores del CIAT y los técnicos agrónomos de las instituciones nacionales,colaboradoras. Estas formas para anotar los datos serían suministradas por CIAT para facilitarlas evaluaciones.Se propone que la producción de materia seca y composición botánica Se determinaría por medio de muestras de 1 m 2 cortadasa una altura de 5-15 cms del suelo de acuerdo con el hábito de crecimiento de cada especie forrajera en evaluación y a experie~ cias con especies testigos, tomadas en las fechas correspondientes a corte o antes del pastoreo. a-El Primer ano durante el establecimiento, la primera mues tra se tomaría al final de la estación' lluviosa. hábitos de pastoreo para determinar mejor cuando el animal deja de pastorear po~ no haber suficiente forraje ofrecido y de ese modo evitar si es posible el sobre-pastoreo. Determinaciones de altura de plantas después del pastoreo serfan recomendables.Con el objeto de uniformar un poco, en la medida de que esto fuese posible, el manejo general del ensayo, se sugiere seguir más o menos los pasos siguientes en una forma cronológica.Desde luego, estas sugerencias deberán modificarse de acuerdo con las condiciones ambientales las experiencias en la región, y el criterio técnico de cada investigador colaborador de estas pruebas. Establecimiento del ensayo. Observaciones sobre germinación. Deshierbas; conteo de plántulas/m 2 ; evaluación cualitativa ( rating o escala 1-100); siembra al voleo de asociaciones de leguminosas con gramineas. Evaluación cualitativa {rating o escala 1-10 ¡.Evaluación cualitativa; conteo de plátulas/m l ; evaluaciones cuantitativas; primeros cortes o pastoreos por un día; fertilizacion de gramineas no asociadas. Se repite E, excepto conteo de plán-tUlas/m 2 , mineas, tolerancia a pisoteo y por el pastoreo selectivo de los animales. en un grado mayor que las gramíneaS r por ser generalmente plantas menos resistentes a esos factores. Por 10 tanto se sugiere realizar las evaluaciones de este ensayo en condiciones de pastoreo común por períodos cortos en los lugares donde se pueda disponer de animales bovinos preferentemente. aunque también se pudieran utilizar ovejas con algunas precauciones.Si no hubiera disponibilidad de animales para evaluar en pastoreo, se recomienda cortar al azar muestras de 1 metro cuadrado para determinación de materia seca y composición botánica a una altura 5-15 cms de acuerdo con el estado. de crecimiento de las especies forrajeras y luego realizar un corte general a la misma altura a toda la parcela para evaluar la recuperación en cada período de descanso.Una vez tomadas las muestras de 1 mtr. cuadrado al azar para determinación de materia seca y composición botánica a una altura de 5-15cms de acuerdo con el estado de crecimiento de las especies forrajeras, se introduciría un número de animales (10-20 ) suficientes para consumir todo el pasto ofrecido en un solo día de pastoreo.Con el Objeto de disminuir un poco el efecto de pastoreo selectivos y lograr un pastoreo más uniforme en todas las parcelas. se recomienda que los animales permanezcan en ayunas por un período de 12-15 horas previo al pastoreo con acceso a agua Se repite E. incluyendo conteo de plántulas/m 2 , Fertilizaci6n con fosforo en todas las parcelas y con nitr6geno en las gramfneas no asociadas. Se repite E excepto conteo de plántulas/m 2 . Se repite E. incluyendo conteo de plántulasl m 2 .., ' • '. ' 'V \"lj :r. S3S~% :m '\"IoJ \\~¡ \\l ,,!¡ \\1) l.Jdd 'f Il<I \" \"' l~ C'Jl/=\"') me' .. •.¡Y..Jd.:1Jn ~;.. .• UIJ.VJ (j! A'nl'dJ o '=~':l _.    ","tokenCount":"14381"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c1718e55cceca21a0f75be6433b6fddf","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/b57eac1a-baab-4ff8-a7b3-e2c295fc58b0/content","id":"1870424503"},"keywords":["At-1 !1'T'l~r'i\"\"''\"\"'•-r,,T\"\"'1'•T 'Tl'l..o ,..,U....,...0'\"' P th tuA• S . l t • 1 •. _, ''-'\"\"-•-• .:","\"'t...~ -'\"•J ----:.",", t h'\"' f-..,-.~ . . . .,,...., l i•-~.","t1.\"nnr.-.,.....,",",.., ~~","...,, •\"1 ('•r'1+ .... ,... ....,,..,,: n•i+.,...1• '\"IYI•••~ lr~n i~-:-~~fl\"i.~.,-t","l'\"(i C\"\":.:'~:.r -:","J:J t)-r':::i:i~tion o•r ~ s11~~i•,......(\"'f> -!-.,...\"'\"'~+-\"\":\"'\\\") t ..&. ,.., ...... ~~-....,-~\"\"\" t\"\"'...., i•--,~~~•~\"\"t-~ -\"\"\\.=--\"='-i~.J .. -...--••_,.\\.. -•t",", v.-.._ .... \"''\"'•\"•_,I'--.JO 1:_1L .. !._,._1..Il\"\"' ~.l-.• --~ ... ...,,,,(_~:l..,,'J_, ........ .!-•..,,l,","t,, of sh.-..clin","on '}hotosynth:)sis o..nd. gr•Yvth plus Lundi, 3on",".lika, Akova~ :No.d::i./loros, Gizn.-155, HuolquJn, •rh'.\"'.ch:","r, No.jab, Cri:n, Hazi:~ro. and Opal. Sub 9lots. In r","~li~~tions A ~nd D those o.ro control, isol.,t:","r-:. ::>l","ints :::.n~ ath~r l:","c.:f r2mo•T•.l, shoot :::.nd grn.in thinning suo-~roo. t:n:J:nts. In r:!:plic",".tions Ro.ndomis:","c1 block dasir","n, 4 roplicc:i.t:Js. Tr:Jat!n:","nts","gJnoty,)o s listo d in apµr-ox. height grouns. Norm~l h~ight: Chris, Nnpo, G::i.bo, N:i.inni:-i, rrit_)lo Dirk, Flo' -. ..,,,u&' ,"],"sieverID":"cabeba5a-ec55-4090-9451-da9d7c62ba49","pagecount":"190","content":"~t:i~ fi :-st in'2t~nce in :orm.<:'\\.ti«:m is r~(\"lui t\":d on t~e cu\"l tur~.i tr'1ctic~ e n\"'!C3 ss::i.rv f •:>r i.11~.xj..m.u-:i Vi.'3 l•'i of the new '.•rhea.ts being d~v~lo11ed within tl1e Ere.;i.d Wheat~-nu:rum and. Tri tical:3 ::r':og~ans. This is a continu ..... tion of the p:::-oi:;r.\"\".m coniuct~rt in \"P.,,~t se . .,_son' bv \"')r. -q. rJaird. So'.•ring date, seedin~ rate ruid res~onse to nitro~~n ar~ being studied in coon~r~.tion '•''it~~ .'1._:n.ore ext~nsiv~ ~rogr~ -of cultu•cal tri.?\\ls con.:1.u~t~•-1 bv 1;1r. Ha:!:\"io Y~l\"o-: t'2n CI\\FO rese?.rch st::ttion. Sorn-:? oth~r c~'!ltut'9.1. \"9r~ctices '\"re being ~x~.min~d includin~ de11t~1 o: cultiv~.tion, tl1.e role of r~.ised beds '.'.\\.Ilri r~s\"Donse to ::'o'.<rl :;nqnur~.The objectives of this report are three-fold. Firstly, it is planned to review briefly the work conducted by the CIMMYT wheat physiology/agronomy program since its inception 5 years ago and the conclusions forthcoming. The second portion of the report will discuss the application of these research results, and in the final part recommendations will be made regarding the future of wheat physiology in CIHMYT.The purpose .of the physiology/agronomy program was, on the physiological side, to assist the breeding programs in the efforts• to further increase yield, and on the agronomic side, to continue production research initiated by Dr. R. Laird and aiming to determine the package of agronomic practices for the new genotypes being produced by the breeders. A broad interpretation was put on the first aim, so ai to include fairly basic crop physiological work directed towards understcriding t.he physiology of yield in wheat.This was justified on the grounds that virtually no crop physiological work had.been done on wheat in low latitude environments.At the same time the effort was initially restricted to irrigated wheat in the winter crop cycle in northwest Mexico. This is an environment fairly representative of many parts of the developing world whe~e irrigated wheat is widely grown (India, Pakistan, southern China, Egypt, Sudan), and it was a case of doing ~ne thing at a time. 'thus much of the research was carried out on the CIANO research station. The general philosophy was that the physiological research must begin in the field and work back towards the laboratory if and when necessary. This is why it is referred to as crop physiological rather than plant physiological research. Also, emphasis was put upon simple techniques, partly because of the obvious need to study many more genotypes than had ever been studied before, and partly because of maintenance problems with sophisticated equipment.On the agronomic side, wDrk was restricted initially to fairly defined conditions on the experiment station. As soon as it became obvious that interactions between new genotypes and agronomic practices were not going to be as great as had been seen in the past, Huch of the research has been documented in the duplicated reports prepared each year by wheat physiology and production training. Some of it has been published and some has recently been submitted for publication. Copies of most these materials are to be found in the Appendix. In addition the CIMMYT annual reports carry brief sunvnaries <f the wheat physiology research. On the other hand much remains to be published, although it is anticipated that this task will be largely completed in the next 12 months.The biggest effort in agronomy has been in seeding density and row spacing studies. This is fully reported in item A7~2 of the Appendix. Over 4 seasons, a diverse set of bread and durum wheats •-were seeded at a wide range of densities and row spacings under irrigation and high fertility. There was no effect on yield of seeding density in the range 40 to 100 kg/ha and only slight reductions outside this range. Also row spacings between 10 and 45 an did not affect yield.There was no genotype x density or x spacing interaction; in other words all genotypes behaved similarly. This occurred despite considerable diversity of plant type and the inclusion of very erect lines. Al-\"' though responses were therefore minimal, this information is useful for breeders and agronomists, especially as most of the materials were untested beforehand. In addition physiological information gained in these studies permitted the postulation of a simple model predicting wheat response to spacing and density.The major fertilizer element for wheat in northwest Mexico is nitrogen. After steps were taken to reduce the initial soil fertil ity via unfertilized summer cropping, large responses to nitrogen can be demonstrated on the research station. Several large genotype x nitrogen experiments were conducted (see items A2-1, A2-2, A2-3, AS-1).Host genotype x N level interactions were similar to those seen elsewhere: improved short wheats responded more to N, giving them a higher optimum N dosis. This does not mean that a sub optimum N levels they are poorer than less improved wheats, a point often assumed by administrators, etc.In fact, at all but very low N levels, they were clearly better. In other words they are more efficient with N at any level of N input. Good physiological data was obtained to support this, and given the pressure on CIMMYT to produce wheats that \"need Jess nitrogen 1 • 1 these results provided  a sound justification of our existing breeding strategy (that is selec_ tion under moderate to high fertility). Dr. McMahon has gone on to look at some of the apparent except'ions to the above rule, for example at low N levels the better performance of some triticales relative to other tritlcales and bread wheats which outyield the former triticales at higher N • levels (in other words a crossover in the response curves). He is also looking at complications which arise from deficient agronomy in farmers fields. Nevertheless the broad rule that the impr.oved short modern varieties of wheat are the most nitrogen efficient under re~sonable management remains the starting point for future breeding and agronomy.Optimal seeding date tends to be both region and variety specific. A large seeding date study has been carried out each season (see items A2-1 to A2-5). Although the results have not yet been collated for publication several conclusions are evident. In the absence of disease, the optimum seeding date may be somewhat later than recom-. . mended in the past. Factors gover~ing this, besides the slight possibility of frost damaging early plantings, are simply temperature and solar radiation. The physiology experiments have clearly shown that higher temperatures or lower radiation at any stage after tillering, but especially in the month preceding flowering, lower yield. In terms of temperature and radiation, February is• generally the most favourable month (temperature nearly as low as January but radiation 30% higher).Seeding in early November means that grain filling coincides with February; kernels ff11 well and test•weight is high but there are few kernels per square meter. Delaying seeding increases kernel number although kernel weight falls. In an• average year for a medium maturity genotype early December seeding appears to strike the best compromise between these key components and produce the highest yields. The understanding gained from these studies is a considerable advance on previous beliefs which placed all the emphasis on avoiding heat in the grain filling. A sound basis for extrapolation of seeding date recommendations to somewhat different environments has now been established.Experiments dealing with irrigation management are reported in A3-1 to A3-2; the 1974-75 experiments have yet to be sunmarised. These experiments are large and time consuming, and are rather regional specific, hence only one or two have been carried each year and the present conclusions could be modified with further experimentation. From the point of view of new genotypes there is growing evidence that the varieties Yecora 70, Cocorit 71, and the new triticales respond well to more water (more frequent irrigation) at flowering time than is recommended on the basis of experiments with superceded varieties. At the same time, it has been clearly shown that the crop early in its life cycle is relatively insensitive to inadequate water. Attempts have been made with limited success to combine this understanding into new irrigation schedules which give more yield with the same amount of water, or the same yield with Jess water. The value of simple measurements of plant water status such as leaf water potential and leaf permeability as guides to when to irrigate has also been tested. The usefulness of the irrigation studies has been limited since we are still a long way from recommending new schedules and in any case interest in saving water in most developing countries is minimal and/or would be premature. Still the studies are unique in the methodology adopted and the data obtained is being used in a cooperative effort with Prof. R.J. Hanks of Utah State University to test and refine models predicting the response of wheat to water regime.Studies on various subjects such as tillage and fertilization with chicken manure have been conducted, largely in ~ooperation with the production training program. These were aimed to answer questions specific to northwest Mexico and once having done so were discontinued.This researcn was originally an extension of studies done large1y by English and Australian crop physiologists, who used the technique of crop growth analysis to compare varieties of differing grain yield. From the outset it was modified to permit the study of many more genotypes; to do so the sampling frequency was reduced and precision sacrificed in the Jess important aspects. In addition crops were grown under high fertility and irrigation and efforts were made to control disease and lodging. These were largely successful and yield in this context is referred to as yield potential. Each year some 40 to 50 genotypes were compared in these studies. At first the set was very diverse including old as well as new wheats. In later years the work has concentrated on variation within modern dwarf and semidwarf wheats. Bread wheats have predaninated but some durums and triticales have been included.Although much still remains to be extracted from data collected several conclusions are evident(see~so A4-3 and A4-7): i) Genetic progress over the last 30 years, increasing yield potential by about 50%, has resulted from reduced stature as a result of in-;corporation of Norin 10 dwa~fing. This has led to higher harvest Indices (harvest index= grain dry weight/total dry weight at maturity); total dry matter production has changed little. In other words, short wheats outyield tall wheats' even in the absence of lodging, and do so because they distribute their dry matter more efficiently. When the comparison is made including the possibility of lodging in the taller older wheats\", the progress has been even greater. Nevertheless, these same studies provide clear evidence that in the last 5 to 10 years, foJ_lowing the production of the first 11 trip1e dwarf\" varieties (80 cm ht), progress has been minimal.ii) The only clear association between plant traits and this yield progress, other than harvest index mentioned above, is a general increase in grain number per square meter. Many other aspects of the crop have been examined (spike number, spike size, kernel weight, leaf area, leaf area duration after flowering) but none show strong relationships with yieJd. The data even suggests that some traits such as tillering and leaf area production may be excessive for the environment. Although a range of maturities have been studied (from as earJy as 75 days to flowering to as late as 100 days), yield, except in the very cooJ 1974-75 season, was not increased by the extra time that later varieties spent before anthesis. Therefore earJy varieties are clearly more efficient in terms of grain per day or per unit of solar energy intercepted. The reason for the reduced efficiency wrth later genotypes has been identified: they pass the extra time in the pre-flora) initiation or tittering period, the period which shading studies (see tater) have shown is of least importance for yield.This last season has seen several innovations in these comparative studies. Following promising results in a small study in Israel, leaf permeability and leaf photosynthesis measurements were made during the period jointing to maturity across 48 genotypes seeded in replicated large plots. Leaf permeability, an index of the degree of stomatal openin~ can be measured quickly with an air flow poraneter: 3 to 4 leaves can be measured per minute. Leaf photosynthesis measurements took a little longer (2 min each) but were still sufficiently rapid for the study of such a large set of genotypes. The leaf permeability data has already been summarised and in terms of consistent reproducible differences between genotypes and of positive relationships with grain yield is particularly promising. The photosynthesis results have yet to be surrmarised because the samples collected had to be sent to Cornell University for analysis.In a step closer to problems faced by the breeders, two seasons ago studies on methods of assessing yielding ability in other than large plots were initiated (see A]-1). Work concentrated on plants spaced as if in en F2 or F3 population, and on small or microplots. The same homozygous genotypes present in the adjacent large plot studies were used. Because of its relevance to the early selection environment in the breeding program, the spaced plant -large plot canparisons have been particularly valuable. Two years data. show that of the traits it was feasible to measure or score visually on spaced plants, plant harvest index was consistently the best predictor of yielding ability in large plots. Also grain yield per plant •or its numerical components were of little or no value in predicting yield. Leaf permeability measurements made this year on spaced plants also show some pranise in yield prediction.These results on the one hand emphasize an important and often-overlooked aspect of the problem faced by the breeders attempting to select visually for yield in early generations and, on the other hand, they point to potentially more powerful sele~tion criteria for this situation.consider that these findings are very significant and must be followed up.The studies with small plots have, as expected, shown the surprising degree to which edge effects and interplot competition can alter yield rankings. In an irrigated high fertility environment yield is very much related to light received. Genotypes which, by berng taller or of more.spreading habit, can capture extra light from unsown paths or from neighbouring plots, are favored by small plots. Ttis problem has also been examined in the plots presently used for yield testing by the breeding programs. These are relatively large plots but are harvested in their entirity, thereby including possible artificial effects from edge rows adjacent to paths or to other genotypes. In fact these artificial effects were found to be at least as-big as the real yield differences sought by the breeders, and a change in plot type or harvesting procedure is strongly recommended.Comparative studies with exisitng genotypes is by definition retrospective. Its application to breeding involved extrapolation and a good deal of faith on the breeders behalf in the physiologists intu•i t ion. Many of the observed relationships, however feas ib I e they might seem, may be due to chance associations of other unknown traits in the set of genotypES studied. To properly test the effect of a trait_ upon yield requires the development of isogenic Jines or, more appropriate here, isogenic populations. Because management of the large conventional breeding programs does not allow the breeders time for such methodological studies, the physiology section, with the arrival of a geneticist/plant breeder Dr. HilleRislambers in 1973, initiated studies in this area {see also A9-2).Huch circumstantial evidence suggests that erect leaf habit would lead to higher yields in wheat {present varieties are generally quite non erect). Dr. HilleRisLambers located sources of ere~t leaf habit in both bread and durum wheats. These were crossed with high yielding varieties and in some cases several backcrosses to the varieties were also made. Populations were produced with variation for leaf angle in more or less common genetic backgrounds. Although a similar procedure•was used for several other morphological traits (peduncle length, awns and leaf waxiness}, most of the effort was put into testing the leaf angle question.A total of several hundred llnes from a number of populations•were yield tested in northwest Mexico last season (see A2-5). A detailed analysis of the data has yet to be carried out but it does appear that in certain bread wheat populations there is a positive association between yield and erect leaves. The yield testing should be repeated next season, including new populations which were not available for testing last season.A corollary of this type of breeding effort is always the posibility of generating useful new material for the conventional breeding programs. Proper pursuit of the population isogenic method is expensive in both time and space. Where many traits are to be studied, such short cut methods with consequent loss of precision may be justificable on the grounds that the final proof is the performance of the tr:_ait in the conventional breeding program.Study of the effect of environment upon crop yield is important because:i) It permits the construction of models, often quite simple, which.can predict the effect of weather on yield and/or the performance of the crop in different climatic regions. Taken further it could enable the prediction of the performance of varieties and thereby provide a sound basis for understanding varietal adaptability.ii) Yi~td improvement ~hrough breeding must improve the genotype's ability to utilize the limiting environrrental resources at the stages of the crop's development when they are most limiting.Knowledge of what these resources are and when they are most limiting ought to facilitate selection for higher yield.Study of environmental effects in the physiology section has pursued primarily this second goal. Given high fertility and irrigation, it is reasonable to assume that light and temperature are the factors l!miting yield in northwest Mexico. Cons~rvative theoretical calculations predict yields of up to 15 t/ha with the light _available (see A4-1); presently potential yields _run around 8 t/ha in an average season.Modification of crop photosynthesis and development rate.Light affects the crop via crop photosynthesis: as a general rule it was found that more light Jed to more crop photosynthesis.The major effect cf temperature on the crop was acceleration of the rate of development with hi•g_her temperature over the whole range of temperatures encountered. Experiments revolved around these two questions and initially concentrated on the dwarf variety Yecora 70, one of the highest yielding wheats in northwest Mexico. Experiments involved manipu-lation of the environment via shading, co 2 fertilization, thinning and crowding treatments (all designed to alter photosynthesis), and temperature and photoperiod treatments (designed to alter the rate of development). Much of this work has been published or submitted for publication, (see A6-3, A7-3, A]-4).There was general agreement between the results obtained with the different techniques. Crop rate of development or of growth (dry mat~er accumulation via photosynthesis) from seeding up to the end of tillering (around 50 days) bore little relationship to grain yield. On the other hand growth and rate of development from 60 days to just before anthesis (around 90 days) was most critical for yield, for it is during this stage that dry matter accumulates in the spike structure and that the number of grains/square meter is therefore determined. Less photosynthesis and growth, or faster development then, invariably led to reduced yield. The importance of photosynthesis and rates oi deve!cpm~nt after a~chesis for grain fil I ing and hence grain yield varied from season to season. In most seasons they were important, but in one season there was little effect of environmental manipulation on grain filling. This variation depended on the number of grains (sink size), as determined by pre-anthesis conditions, relative to the post anthesis photosynthetic capacity (source} of the particular crops.These studies have greatly advanced the understanding of environmental limitations to yield in Yecora 70. For example the season .to season variation inoyield potential in northwest Mexico, exhibiting a range from 6.5 to 9 t/ha in the 5 years studied, can be satisfactorily explained on the basis of temperature oand solar radiation variation.Valuable data for the construction of predictive models mentioned above has been gathered. More importantly it has been possible to identify the \"bottle neck\" to higher yield .in Yecora 70, namely the spike growth period, and to suggest ways of overcoming this. Some are inmediately applicable in the breeding program (e.g. erect leaves before anthesis , reduced tillering, reduced leaf size); others, potentially more rewarding such as genetic delays to development during spike growth, will require physiological studies in controlled environments before their practical .application.Certain of these techniques of environmental manipulation have been extended to other genotypes in the last 3 years (see expts XXVI in A2-3, A2-4, A2-5). A large and successful shading trial with 12 genotypes was completed this last season. Results await full interpretation, but it appears that with a few possible exceptions most genotypes show, as did Yecora 70, the greatest yield sensitivity to environmental changes in the month or so preceding flowering. Also there is a tendency for higher yield to be associated with a greater post-anthesis sink size (grain number/square meter) and hence greater yield limitation by the grain filling environment than is seen with lower yielding genotypes.Another aspect of this work was the study inittated 3 seasons ago of a liml~d set of genotypes in the different environments available at the CIMMYT expdrimental stations in Mexico. Much of this work is presently being conducted by Mr. D. Midmore, a graduate student who arrived from Reading University in October 1973, and particular emphasis is being placed on adaptation to high temperature regimes (the winter environment of the lowland tropics): A considerable amount.of valuable basic information has been collected on the genotype x temperature interaction for. rate of development, and the role of genes for daylength and cold sensitivity. Because, of many extraneous problems with growing wheat in new non-wheat growing environments, the grain yield information is not as reliable. Nevertheless the broad effects of both temperature and radiation on yield are evident, and there will be useful conclusions regarding adaptability to high temperatures.These studie~ on environment are providing information for modern short wheat which was previously• unavailable. They have esta8-1ished the physiological basis upon which differences in adaptability as determined with CIMMYT•s international yield trials will eventually be explained.As a corollary of these studies, considerable effort has gone into setting up weather stations at the experimental sites and collecting on a routine basis all key weather parameters. Five years ago practically no weather information was being collected by CIMMYT in Mexico nor was reliable iniormation avai~ble from other sources.Since rainfall during the winter and spring is very low at CIANO and the crop therefore relies upon irrigation for moisture, it is possible by witholding irrigations, to create drought with reasonable certainty. Experiments looking at the behaviour of genotypes under different drought regimes have been conducted every year, although only this past season was a satisfactory methodology established for testing many genotypes. Much of the work was carried out as part of the doctoral thesis of R.E. Sojka•{University of California, Riverside) and F~ Bidinger (Cornell University).The.work has concentrated on studying responses to drought in the latter half of the crop cy~le. The above doctoral theses have looked at limited sets of genotypes including however ones which from previous experience show differences in drought resistance. Rooting patterns, soil water changes, plant water status and s•tomatal opening have been studied (see A8-3). Evidence was obtained that some differences in drought resistance are related to these factors. The above methodological studies have led to this season's drought study with 54 genotypes (see A2-5, expt. FXXll). Plot size was increased to take care of interplot interference seen in some earlier studies. Certain key plant water status measurements were made but the major emphasis was upon obtaining precise yield information.Overall the results show that the modern short wheats have a substantial yield advantage {+25% or •more) over older tall wheats under well watered conditions. They must be subjected to fairly severe stress bringing yields down to around 2 t/ha (equivalent to a farmer yields of 1 t/ha) before this yield advantage is eliminated. Even at such severe stress levels, the highest yielding genotypes were semidwarf wheats, although not necessarily those which yielded most under well watered condtions. Studies in prior years had shown that there appears to be no difference between the root systems of short wheats and those of tall wheats.Such results support the CIMMYT wheat breeding strategy of selection and early testing under irrigation. It appears that the new short wheats had such an a~vantage in terms of efficient dry weight distribution (harvest index) that it was possible for them to generally outyield older tall wheats under most dryland situations, despite the fact that the latter group may have specific genes for drought resistance.Not withstanding this, the time has probably now arrived when a breeding program using dwarfing genes s'hould be specifically directed towards the dryland situation. The methodological studies initiated this season may be of some help here. For example, high harvest index ought to be as desirable under water stress conditions as under well watered conditions. Results, with some as yet unexplained exceptions, are tending to support his. Of a whole range of other characte••s studied this last season, few were correlated with performance under drought, although leaf permeability again sha.-1ed some promise. Undoubtedly future studies in the area of drought resistance will have to include consideration of root systems. Some cooperative studies on this question are already underway with Dr. W. Hendrix of Washington State University.Studying genotypes in northwest Mexico under simulated drought conditions can only go part way to testing their resistance to drought.CIMMYT•s network of international yield trials should prov1de additional valuable information. Some attempts have already been.made to extract this information. (see A9-1). In the future some modification of the constitution, location and data collection of such trials will probably be necessary if they are to be used to help identify drought resistantThe goal of the CIMMYT wheat program is to increase wheat production in developing coutries, with varietal improvement.being the most important means by which this is achieved. In this context one may-ask what has been the practical app 1 i cation of the resu I ts of the last 5 years agronomic and physiological research that has just been described. Although practical examples will be pointed to later, it is felt that the major benefit of this research is not yet at the practical level. Rather it lies in establishing a fund of physiological knowledge•regarding the behaviour of spring wheat in low latitude environments.  The solution to the first problem is not easy: it will lie in new selection criteria and perhaps, in the long term, some changes in breeding methodology. The second problem can be overcome easily.ii) Although the thorou;h validation of suggested new selection criteria is not an easy task, this may not be necessary in breeding programs as large as those in CIMMYT. Any feasible criteria with reasonable theoretical justification can •be \"given a try\" without interfering with the general breeding program. In this context physiology has suggested a number of things such as erect leaves, small leaves, reduced emphasis on tillering and on leaf fire in late grain filling, and the fact that triple dwarf height \\80 cm) or lower ought to represent the most efficient plant type for irrigated high fertility conditions. These criteria have not been proven, and a major part of the recommendations for future work revolves around this question; however, there are at least as wall founded physiologically as many of the other criteria used by plant breeders. At the same time there is growing appreelation amongst the breeders of physiological aspects of yield, in particular the importance of sink size or grain number/m 2 as a ~imitation to yield.iii)Through Dr. HiJleRisLambers efforts to locate sources of erect leaves and by using these in crossing to generate new plant types, new and distinct germpJasm has been injected into the bread and wheat 1 \\in particular the durum wheat programs.The role ph~siology might play in future wheat breeding has been discussed in items A4-7 and A6-2, and in a more general sense excellently rev.iewed in the final chapter of the book in which the latter reference is one chapter.• There are precedents which show the advantage of the association of physiologists and breeders; perhaps one of the best examples in the past has been that of the International Rice Research Institute. Also I believe several factors in the future will increase the likelihood of valuable contributions of physiology to yield improvement through agronomy and particularly breeding.These fnclude great advances in instrumentation which now permit 21 for the first time ever the rapid measurement of certain key physiological process in the field. With the flourishing of field studies on various aspects of the physiology of crops in the last 25 years or so, we now have a new group of physiologists, so-called crop physiologists, whose preparation, experience and interest is directed in a more realistic manner towards the problem of crop yield improvement.We are finding in various parts of the world new team approaches to specific crop problems, with the inclusion in these teams of ph~iol ogists. People are optimistic that these new associations of breeders and physiologists will be beneficial and at the same time there is recognition that as yield is improved, further yield improvement becomes more difficult and will require the assistance of disciplines outside of plant breeding.In the context of CIMMYT 1  There are in addition other characters (for example, reduced tillering, high leaf permeability), which ought to be studied in this manner. Some of this work would be close to the area of interest of Ing. R. Rodriguez and ought to be coordinated with him.ii) An irrmediate need is the testing of the usefulness of harvest index and other traits, including those used by the breeders, as selection criteria for yield in early generations. Various of the most appropriate populations from the present breeding programs should be used for this study. A proposal (see A9-7) on this question has been pr~pared for criticism, as it is suggested that Mr. Wall make this his thesis project and initiate the study in the next winter eye le.iii)Comparisons of large groups of genotypes, the studies from which item (ii) was developed, should probably be restricted to some conventional yield trials with new materials, and further testing of the usefulness of leaf permeability and perhaps photosynthesis measurements.iv) The drought studies are beginning to shCM useful results. Given the general interest in this question, especially as selections from the spring x winter crossing programs are now coming up for testi~g, it would seem very worthwhile continuing this work. The usefulness of harvest index and certain plant water status measurements as selection criteria sho'uld be further tested and part of this may be included under {iii) above. In addition, in this context, short cut methods for screening for differences in rooting systems urgently need to he examined. v) Studies of the effect o•f environment on wheat are logical Jy leading to interest in the important question of adaptability to a range of environments. Enough basic information has been gathered on cer~ain key genotypes for an attempt to use this to explain yield variation from site to site and year to year as seen for example in the international yield trials. At the same time, however, an effort would have to be made to upgrade the quality of data, especially weather data, being returned to CIMMYT by people who cooperate with these trials. This would not be an easy task but if restricted to certain key sites, would be feasible. Results should be analysed according to the suggestions of Dr. D. Byth of the University of Queensland.Pursuit of the main initial goal of the environment studies, that of Identifying the yield bottle neck in northwest Mexico, should be restricted to answering ~ertain specific questions, such as why crop photosynthesis appears to be limiting yield in the critical pre-anthesis period when at the same time stem sugar levels in the crop suggest surplus photosynthetic capacity. This area of research has probably the greatest chance of providing a yield breakthrough. Nevertheless it is a medium to long term project and at least some of the work can be more appropriately conducted in controled environment facilities el.sewhere.•vi) A new area of research, touched upon this year by Dr. McMahon, and potentially very beneficial In terms of broader adaptability of CIMMYT wheats, is selection for genotypes which are better abie to compete with weeds. Species differences between small grains in this ability are striking. If the physiological basis of these differences can be understood and then variation within species located, useful genetic progress should be possible in this area.  The same soil problem seemed to be complicating some of Pat Wall's other experiments and there was a suggestion that the variety Yecora 70, which I had adopted as a standard throughout, was more susceptible to the problem and that breeders had unconsciously selected for resistance to the problem in later releases. page 22, recommendation (v) -The idea of looking at the physiology underlying GxE and broad adaptation has always been a tempting challenge, but it would require many resources and has not been tackled, altho11gh Don Byth did complete an interesting multivariate analysis of the GxE found in the 4th ISWYN trial. To my knowledge his results drew no response from CIMMYT, yet I felt the approach potentially very useful.The studies of yield limitation in the north west Mexico environment were continued for 3 years as Pat Wall~ Ph.D. thesis study (Reading 1980). Unfortunately this has not been published, although it contains many useful results and ideas. I have taken up the suggestion of controlled environment studies on the question of yield limitation, more.specifically kernel number determination, in the Canberra Phytotron but I am less sure now that one can learn as much with such facilities than one can with well monitored field experiments. Certainly the controlled environment researcher must re~ain in close contact with field research or his work soon looses relevance. page 25 -I would endorse in even stronger terms the last sentence in the first paragraph -without a physiologist in the team at CIMMYT, cooperation with physiologists in advanced institutes elsewhere (for example via the new Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, ACIAR) wilt remain difficult. Even cooperation with the genetic engineers, something which will no doubt be proposed, in the area of yield improvement will require physiologists identifying and screening for desirable traits.A further means by which research goals of interest to the wheat physiology section can be achieved is through the encouragement of research in other institutions, where often the facilities and expertise are mor_e appropriate than that at CIMMYT for investigating certain•problems. Some such informal projects are presently underway (see A9-3). Without a physiology section at CIHHYT, little advantage could be taken of physiologists interested in visiting and working for short periods in CIMMYT or of those institutions willing to cooperate on physiological problems of interest to CIMMYT.Although it is felt that a strong case has been made for continuing a substantial physiology effort in the wheat program, those who decide upon CIMMYT budget should realize that in the event of a budget insufficiency, the physiology section would likely be the first to suffer. This is because its absence would not i!l\"rTlediately affect the production of germplasm by the wheat program. believe that the usefufoess of this germplasm would however suffer in the medium term if the physiology section were to be eliminated, whether permanently or temporally, or if it were to be restricted substantially.2.f'CMl-:nr -7de poblaci6n sobre el rendimiento y aspectos fisio-16gicos en trigo\". 17i t'lin Gn.ch r3nlicato plots ,1.ro nu.:-:ib-;r~a. t'ro'!l. '!\",~st to 3~St v:ith r3rl St2.~9S in th:ir SOU\"th-v/f?St COrn'.)rS. In tho cas~ of C•4 nnr1 C5, lo~:--.t-: rl.. along th'.J • no::'\"G~'~rn boundary of the far::i to•73rds tho ::?ast corn;r, :1.'!'1!\"!'.'0::.ch is from the northsirl..;. °13})li•::~tes 8.r3 lett:r::?\".l A to D .g-oin::; from •t7•~t ... t north to south; plots ar; a.r;;~in nu,--nb3t\":?d. f:-o'!l wGst to east \\'Tith, in this cr.i.se r::?d-st.~kes in th; no't\"th west cornors.. ••rri.\".Jre a tri::i.l involv:::s sub ::_Jlots g')nor:i.lly thase aro cr;at3i by tr~nsv~rsa srylits in th; ranin nlots and are 13tt:rad a,• b, c, etc., :novin.g in a c1iroction away from th; ~r-:int. Th'J ;xact loc~ti•Jn of orich tri8.l is given by a lnr.:;: ror'l sign to tb .. :; middl. ni troci;;n; Tri'?l; Phos-oh=.t.; for -0~1.-:>snhorus) p.nr:. tn~n the • ar:Ja 1.''as wat:;r~ri. by fl':\\odinr.;. Subs3au~nt wat:-?rings ar3 mOT3 froqu~nt th~n r3COITu.1'.1.';n .:,_~d C01'::I:!l.Ot'Ci?.l 1y in orr:-;r to insure abs~nc~ o•~ -pl~nt 1 ••at\"!r str.3ss; for schc'.:'l.uling w~tcrings tJnsiom.:Jt:~s P..t 10 cm an:-1 l;)lant obs'.\"!r..rations ar!3 r~ li3 d u:pon.A str:'}amlin~d gro,7th a..~~lysis is being cn.:-ri'.'.!d. out in som3 tri::i..ls. At J'1.Ch ::In 7Jling d;J.t:1 b' .' .? for\".? anth3 sis, one 5 row x 35 cm 0u~.:lr:J.t is cut '?~r !.Jlot (or sub?lot) and bt\"ought to the labor~tory. Total shoot n~~~bGr is count~d i l3af ::i.r:;a. \".ncl stom (+sheath) 0.!'-:a is d.3tc:rminod.. cfn•-.\"a sub sa:n:plc i subsrun';>le nn1 ro:n::i.ind::?r dry W')ights a:r-G dotcrmincd. ~•rh;rc root ~listribution o..nd qu:intity is b:;ing stu1i\".)d, the top 5 en of soil is coll~ct3~ ~ro~ a.~ ar::a 2 rows x 14 cm loca.t;rl •within th; qu:::1.~1.rat cut. F.ollo,•ring this, two 3\" cor-:is ar; to.k:~n to a d3-pth of 50 c:n or gr3~.t cr fro!!l within tl1is '.)Vacuat::d area. Dc\"Dth int~rvals arc sci;>ar~tod ann roots wo.shcc1 out on si.:?V3S ror ~-~t\"lr:iination o•i: root dry w3ight. !..ft;r ::i.nth~sis, to}) :n~asi.tr\".l\"':l.3nts will be b:'l.s~d on froqucnt i:-~M..om sa\"J.;;>ling 10-l5 s:1oots p3r plot; t~1c uhotos1n'lth.;tic ar30. 2.n'l a.rv 1 •r:1it;llt ~:ill b:; de- The .Jff1ct of shnding n.t di ff.,:)r;;nt st'\"'l,g::is oCCTov.Jlopmcnt, 0.lld o~ oth.;r tro::..tm:;nts C.P\"?li:id • during gr~in filling ::m~ d.Jsign~d to alt~r light• co~pc- -o1J~1c1 B Tho nU;\"!lb:r of Y:;cor<! plots is doublo that of the oth;r g;notyTJ-JS sinc:J it is int~nc1:}<1. to us~ lF:l•f of th; Dlots •for qua.:i..rnt s.:il'!lnling c1urin& the gro•--. 1  This is the second season of physiology tri~ls at CL'JID. Tho purpose remains uncblmgcd_: to understand factors ca.using grcin yield variation between wide ra.'1gc of genotypes and to dctcroine lioi tations to yield in the best available variety (Yccora). These studies arc conducted u.\"'lder optimal conditions of water and nitrogen supply and disease is m:inioised. Ono exception is an attempt to simulate a mediterrancan-typc water supply pattern to a. group of varieties, exposing them to degrees. of spring drought. The physiolo-•gr effort aims to provide some early clues to ways of raising yield potential, and :f.ield data which, in the longer term, will form the basis of a powerful dynamic model of the growth and yield of the wheat crop. Ji:;, part of the program. relevant meteorological para.meters arc being measured in the field: solar radiation, air temperature and rola\"tivc hur:iid.ity, .rind ru.\"l, cl2.ss ; .. pa...\"1 evaporation, rainfall ar..i s~il ~emperature (5 co a.nd 20 cm). Hot tu1.rclated to the physiology trials are agronocic studies with new varieties and lines of bread and durum wheats in order to see whether they require modified management practices for maxir:lum yield.Trials are conducted in three lots of• CIA1\"0. Lots C2 and C8 \"had wheat in 1970-71, followed by summer follow (includi.~g deep chiselling in C2), autumn cultivation, levelling and furrowing. Tho preparation of C2 for sowing was late and hasty due to October rai.~s and the seed bed was cloddy and uneven. Trials in these lots received at sowing 200 Kg/ha of IT, either as Uitrate of Ammonia. (most cases) or as Urea, nlus 80 kg/ha of P~o 5 as 'I-riple Super. The .~ third lot used (1:..5.) grew wheat in 1970-71 and forage sorghum, which was unfertilized but irrigated, during the following summer. The sorghum •-ras cut twice and removed before plowing in early October. .Again final land preparation was late and hasty and the seed bed cloddy and uneven. The general fertilizer rates were 300-320 kg/ha U as Urea and 85-92 kg/ha P 2 o 5 as 'l'Tiple Phosphate.• ,., A red sign with the trial designation (Ensayo + Roman numeral) stands in front of each trial. From the front, repetitions stand one behind the other (lettered A., B, c, etc., w•i th A in front) a.nd are separated by canals. Plots within repetitions are numbered from left to right. A numbered orange stake marks the front left-hand corner of each plot; a treatment ~ag is usually located above the stake. Transverse divisions or splits in plots are often made and are lettered a, b, c, etc., from the front to the rear.Plots are divided into groups of 5 or 6 by borders for irrigation purposes: thus flood irrigation is used where the basin or 11 melga. 11  Two other subtreat~ents are being carried cut: each week a very heavy shade (approx 95%) is applied for 5 days to a subplot; each two weeks every alternate row of wheat is removed from another subplot: the aim is to determine when light is critical in the deten:iination of yield components. Rate of seeding 120 kg/ha, on 2 December; variety Yecora. Harvest upon terminating shading treatments for given stage of development, and at maturity for straw and grain yield, etc. Ensavo B :;\\XIII Plots of Yecora grown under optimal conditions for possible physiological use. Treatments as yet undecided but will probably i.~volve so.....::rce sir~~ ~ani~:tlation, i~cl~ii2-:g the use of gametoci~es (~therel and R.E. 53.1). 2ate of seed.::X. 0 i20 kg/ha on 3 Jecember; variety Yecora. Ensayo B. XY...XIII Grain yield response to increase in sink size as a result of aggregation of pla.~ts at ear emergence. Yecora plants grotm under relative isolation during vegetative period (6 plants/pot, pots spaced on 80 cm grid), sown on 3 Dece~ber. At ear emergence pots will be aggregated to give simulated high ear density crops (1000 ears m-2 ): between shoot (ear) light competition will be intensified but what.will happen to grain yield? Determination of final grain yield and components.Ensayo B XLIII Intensive study of growth and yield of Yecora under optimal conditions; primarily to use data as aid to interpretation of responses in trials III, XIII, XXIII, XXXIII, no differential treatments. Rate of seeding 120 kg/ha on 3 December, variety Yecora. Crop sampling every 2 weeks b.efore anthesis; frequent shoot sampling after anthesis. Determination of light interception, canopy height at frequent intervals; observations on ear development and size distribution of tillers. I\\!a.turity harves.t for grain yield, etc.•. _, Ehsavo B Y:J:!.TI Importance of source and sink in various important genotypes. Split plot design of 3 replications: main treatments are genotypes Cajeme, Siete .Cerros, Sonora, Tobari, Cocorit, Yecora, Olesen, ~r.115 and Kloka. Subtreatments will involve source sink manipulation: crop thinning and shading, leaf and grain removal, etc. Rate of seeding 100 kg/ha on 4: December. r.raturity harvest only for grain yield and its components. Ensayo  Introduction: Tho aims of above program arc twofold. Physiologically oriented trials attempt to identify yield limting aspects of the \\'Jheat plant grown under optimal descaso-free conditions. The ultimate purpose here is the provision of information useful in tho selection for increased yield potential by the plant breeders. One approach involves the comparison, by crop growth analysis and other techniques, of many diverse genotypes (for example ensayos I, II, V, XLI). Another approach takes key genotypes, especially the most outstanding variety at present, Yecora 70, and manipulates the crop and its environment (for example ensayos III, XIII, XXVI, XLIII). In other trials the yield potential of promising and physiologically-interesting genotypes is determined (ensayos VII, XVII, XXVII). Finally some tria.ls are looking at genotypes under water-limiting situa tions (drought simulation ensayos XII, XXII).The second object of the program involves agronomic trials, designed to study tho response of new varieties and promising genotypes coming from the breeding programs to agronomic practice. Guida lines for necessary management adjustments under irrigated conditions can thus be formulated. Because existing varieties have been widely studied .~nd aro well understood; because new material does not seem to be responding differently; and because of the poor transferability of most agronomic trial results, fe\\'1 purely agronomic trials are planted at present (for example ensayos IV, XI, XIV, XXIV).The trials being conducted this year arc closely related to those carried out in the previous tv10 seasons at CIANO. Because of data processing and interpretation delays it was not been possible at the planning stage for 72-73 to PIE fit fully from earlier experiments. The main change in emphasis has been towards studying genotypes, especially erect-leaf types and putting less emphasis on crop growth sampling in the vegetative stage and somewhat more on that in the post anthesis period and on yield determination. Yield potential experiments with Yecora have also been modified as a result of experiences in earlier seasons.  Methods: Trials are located in three distinct lots of the experiment station, CIANO of the Institute Nacional de Investigaciones Agrfcolas (INIA). Lot C1 was 12 months in fallow before seeding; lot C2 was planted to wheat in 1971-72 and fallowed during the summer. Lot AS grew melons and flax during the preceeding spring and during the summer and autumn, unfertilized forage sorghum which was cut and removed twice before ploughing in November; available soil N levels were thus reduced to low levels.Each trial is identified by a red sign at the front centre. Plots carry a red stake in the front left hand conrner with the replicate letter (capital) and plot number, and usually the treatment as well; if plots are split transversely, subplots are identified by small letters.Unless othen'lise stated, irrigation by flooding is applied frequently enough to avoid any possibility of soil water stress. Thus the period between waterings is somewhat shorter than that recommended to the farmer. Insects (Diabrotica, aphids, army worm) are controlled chemically whenever necessary. Unless otherwise mentioned fertilizer is applied at seeding to the sown area by hand in the form of ammonium nitrate (3.J}{i N) and triple superphosphate (46o/o P 0 ). Weeds are controlled by hand. In the case of varieties susceptible to leaf rus€ {Inia, Siete Cerros, Hira, etc.), early applications of the fungicide RH-124 are made.Growth analysis is made in certain trials (I, II, XLI, LXIII). At each sampling date for each plot, a quadrat cut of 5 x 20 cm rows x 0.35 m is taken (leaving 2 edge rows on each side and 0.40 m between adjacent cuts). The plant material cut is subsampled in the laboratory for leaf area determination; all material is dried (?0°C) to constant weight. In all trials at maturity, larger quadrats (1-2 m 2 ), again adequately bordered by guard rows, are cut for determination of dry matter distribution, and g1'ain yield and its numerical compon ants. Observations of 50% ear emergence (ear base exserted above flag ligule), 50°/o maturity (ears without green), leaf angle, height (to top of canopy or ear tip) and lodging are also standard for all trials.Note added. An unprecedented rain storm (36 mm), accompanied by strong winds, on February 21 caused serious lodging in some ensayos (especially DJ, XIV, and XXIV).Also the ouset of drought in trials XII and XXII will be delayed approximately 10 days, thereby reducing the intensity of the drought treatments.  ENSAYO D XLI Lot C1. Physiological study of diverse set of genotypes (24).Design: Genotypes nested in height, maturity groups; groups arranged in a 4 x 4 latin square. will be also made under continuous light; in addition seed of each genotype, vernalized 30 days at 4°C, will be planted at these two dates in both the normal and extended photoperiods.Seeded at about 50 kg/ha, one 5 m row pe:r genotype with 40 cm between rows: unreplicated: N 200 kg/ha; P 2 o 5 80 ~g/ha. Data collection: 500/a ear emergence, and 50'/a maturity; ear size and fertility, grain size. For genotypes 1 to 12 and 14, 21, 29 and 30, determination of floral initiation and terminal spikelet formation an the main shoat apex along with rate of leaf production and leaf nodes to flowering. ENSAYO D VII Lot C2. Genotypes (21) of general and specific physiological interest far comparison of grain yield, yield components and dry matter distribution at maturity.Design: Genotypes nested within three height groups; groups in randomized block of four replications.   ~YO D XX.XIII Lot AS. Effect of high spike densities (about 1000/m 2 ) achieved by cror1ding on grain yield ofYecora 70 and an erect durum \\ 0 1heat under optimal conditions.Design: Non replicated treatments. 1. Yecora grown in pots crowded to 30 pots/m 2 • 2. As for 1. but lower leaves and late tillers removed before crowding so as to give LAI near that of control Yecoro. plots. 3. As for 1. with erect durum, AAnsn /LD357E-Tc 2 x Gll\"S\" D-31?08-11!.1-2Y-1Fvt-CJY. Vlheat grown in field in soil filled 17 cm diameter, 25 cm tall plastic pots with open bottoms; pots spaced on 75 x 80 cm grid. 01 22 Fob. (approximately oar peep) pots were lifted and arranged on a 20 x 1? cm grid within a solid stand of the sama variety. Each treatment consists of 64 pots (8 x 8), Seeded on Dec 7, leading to about 6 plants per pot. On Jan 12, applied 1 gram of N per pot.Data collection: dry matter, leaf area, etc. at moment of crowding plus standard maturity harvest of 30 central pots in each treatment.     Design: Split block with 5 replications. Levels of N:  Experiments are similar to those carried out at CIANO, the remaining purpose to identify yield limiting factors of the wheat plant grown-under optimal disease free conditions~ The aim lri the long run is to provide information to the plant breeders for the selection of plants with increased yield potential. A certain number of key genotypes are being studied Intensively by crop growth analysis and other technique,, and for a bigger number of prblniling and physiological ly•interesting genotypes their yield potential is determined. The trials being conducted this surrmer are a continuation of ttte ohes at CIANO to obtain information on the behaviour of the sarne genotypes over different environments. There Is a strong emphasis on the study of er~et leaf vartetle!. Methods-The trials are located in lot E-4 at El Batan and Jot S-33 at Atizapan (Toluca). Each plot carries a tag in the left hand corner with the experiment number, the replicate letter, the plot number and the treatment. Fields are fertilized before planting (El Satan 150-150-0(NPK); Toluca 150-150-0) and later a supplemental dressing of nitrogen in the form of ammonium nitrate was made (El Satan 115 kg N/ha on 21 June; Toluca 50 kg N/ha on 14 July). Planting was by hand in 20 an rows. Water is applied whenever rain is insufficient. Tribunil was applied 12 days after planting at a rate of 1.05 kg/ha A.I. At El Satan this caused considerable damage on some plots, especially of durum wheats. Subsequently weeds were controlled by hand. Plantvax 75W was applied at 2-3.5 kg/ha on several occasions to prevent or control attacks of stripe and stem rust.-Growth analysis Is being carried out on the intensive trials (DCI and DCCI). At each sampling date for each plot, a quadrat cut of 5 or 7 x 20 cm rows x 0.35 cm is ta'ken. The plant material Is subsampled in the lab for leaf area determination and weight of the different parts of the subsample; all material is dried to constant weight (70°C). Every week after anthesis ten spikes are randomly sampled to observe the grain growth and at the same time senescence of photosynthetic !issue is estimated.In all trials at maturity, larger quadrat (1-2m) again adequately bordered by guard rows, are cut for determination of dry matter distribution, grain yield and its numerical components. Observations of 50% ear emergence (ear base exerted above flag ligule), height (to top of canopy or ear tip), leaf angle and lodging are also standard for all trials. Complete weather data is being collected at each site.  Part of Lote Al -AS grew unfertilizer forage sorghum in the sunmer in order to. reduce soi I nitrogen levels, part was fallowed during the surrmer and the remainder, the eastern half, was planted to cotton. Lotes C1 and C2 were sunmer fallow.. Al I plots are label led wit.h trial, plot & treatment detai Is. Agroriomic management is optimal (high fertility, frequent watering) under otherwise stated and ,follows procedures estabiished in previous seasons. A novel problem was encountered i.n several varieties of some trials {in particular I and II): infections with stripe rust (P. striiformis) became evident in early February and reached moderately heavy levels by late February. Applications of Dithane S31 and Plant Vax 75W are being made in an attempt to limit these infections.The collection of detailed physiological data refers to crop growth and development measurements during the cycle plus the harvest •t maturity, carried out as in previous seasons. Strict procedures are now followed for most of such operations, with data being collected directly upon computor coding forms:trensformation and ana I ys i s of th Is data is then done by computor us Ing one of severa I cus_tom-des i gned programs (Nos 1, 20, 21, 31, 41 and 46). Extensive data collection refers to key developmental information, plant numbers, height and at the maturity harvest less de..: tailed information than above (using programs 42, 44,4S or 46).  11  Seeded at 100 kg/ha in 5.6m x 9 x 20 cm row plots on Nov 22; fertilized 200 kg/ha N, 80 kg/ha P205. Genotypes marked with asterisk have part of plot protected from lodging.Data collection: standard detailed physiological including apical development. Possibly post-anthesis treatments on random shoot to study since/sink relations.Note: Unintentional water stress in some plots in mid January, increasing variability and complicating interpretation. ENSAYO EX1 Arranged within El so that results comparable. Involves testing of a smaller more efficient plot size allowing 45 plots (genotypes) per melga; results will be compared with those of El.Design: Genotypes nested i-n 3 height groups; groups in .randomized block of 5 replications: 36 genotypes of El plus:    (1) X2802-58N-2M-ON (2) X2802-13N-1H-3N-OM. Subplots are 3 m x 2 rows x 30 cm with one row x 30 cm separating subplots; the same randomization of subtreatments is followed for each main treatment within any given replication so that the contribution of changing competition between adjacent genotypes to tha drought x genotype interaction should be reduced.• Seeded at 80 kg/ha; fertilizer 50 kg/haN, 60 kg/ha ~205. Data collection: ear emergence, maturity plus type 44 final harvest; also measur~ ments of plant water potential with press~re chamber.• ENSAYO E XXXll. Sr. Miranda's Field, Colonia Militar-Deep sand. Simulated drought regimes with same genotypes and subplot arrangement as E XXll. Design: 4 replications of genotypes within each of two drought regimes. The objectives of the program are twofold: (1) the development of pairs of lines which contrast in certain traits thought relevant to yield, but whose genotypic background is ot~erwise t~e same, and (2) •the development, through selection, of variability in such traits, •with a view of possible.future application of the results from agronomic comparisons of the i sog~I\"! i c 1 i nes deve 1 oped sub ( 1) .• . . The program is in its third planting season 'in Y 73-74. Fl •and F2 generations of crosses made previously are in the field, along with later generation lines selected as single plants from the breeding programs of bread and durum wheat Field plan All plots are numbered consecutively, no two plots bear the same number, and each number is preceeded by the letters ES. ES 1 to 160 are a collection of bread and durum wheat varieties and lines of interest to the crossing program. There are about 40 I ines having a low leaf angle and erect leaf blades, 40 lines which have this trait in a lesser degree, 20 lines varying in the proportion of their total height represented by their peduncle, some sources of rust resistance, a number of ear type variants, and some high yielding Mexican varieties. ES 161 to 252 are lines •segregating for presence or absence of awning from which the heterozygotes will be sel~c~ed in an attempt to develop isogenic comparjsons for this trait. These lines may be ~sed in an assessmen.t of the possible effect of awning 9n ¥ield and water use efficiency in different genetic backgroun~~.. ES 2~3 to 2~0 are segregants i~ a cross of durum wheat segregating for wax cover on the stems.• lsogeni~ cornparl~ons are attempted here In the same •way as for the awning segregants, In order to study possible effects on drought resistance. ES 281 to 468 are bread wheat lines selected as single plants in the breeding program in the past two seasons. Most of these lines have been selected for having erect leaf blades, and a minor part of these plots represent lines having a relatively long peduncle. ES 636 to 730 are durum wheat lines selected as single plants from the breeding program. Reason for selection was erect leaf blade position. ES 736 to 775 a.re reselections in the varieties Saric, Yecora and Cajeme for flowering date~ and in lines of Fiserect for resistance to rust. ES 776 to 819 are F2 populations of crosses made In the Y 72-73 season. Among these are crosses of we11-known varieties such as Slete Cerros, Yecora, and Cajeme, with lines having erect leaf blade and low leaf angle. Erect segregants from these populations will be backcrossed to the respective varieties named above. Other populations Involve a parallel effort with the same varieties and a source of liguleless leaves. ES 821 to 1432 are Fl generations of simple, top, and double crosses in bread and durum wheat. The purpose of the crosses can be seen as one or more of the following: combination of several sources of erect leaf position, of sources of erect leaves with different disease resistance genes, and of erect leaves with varieties which may benefit from this, etc. Peduncle length differences have also been considered here.ES 1433 to 1586 are plots of 4 rows, 30 cm apart and 120 long, planted in such a way that they are surrounded at all sides by a common border variety. The plots are planted at a distance of 4 1/2 cm between plants. Objective is a preliminary study of the behavior Fl hybrids and their parents in terms of leaf angle, light transmission and yield components. Host of the hybrids have a line with erect leaf angle as one of the parents. ES 1587 to 1851 are two later dates of the collection of lines and varieties of ES 1 to 160.   Seeded on 20 Nov 1973 at 100 kg/ha using Oyjord Seeder. Base fertilizer dressing: 0-60-0 at sowing time.The herbicide trials were undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of different herbidides on plots of bread wheat, triticale and durum. The following treatments are standard for al I herbicide trials:Design: Split pot, with variety as main plot, and 3 reps: sub plot size= 4 rows x 50 cm x 5 m.• Seeded on 18th Nov 1973 at 100 kg/ha using Oyjord Seeder. Basal fertilizer dressing at seeding: 150-46-0 Method of herbicide--application: small plot C02 research sprayer (AZ Field Test Service) using a 1.5 m swath boom.eeds were sown at the follCMing rates: Phalaris spp spp (1 kg/ha); Chenopodium spp (1 kg/ha); Sisimbrium spp spp were not sown in Tribunil and Tribunil + 2,4-0 trials.(1/2 kg/ha); Malva (5 kg/ha). Malva Data collection. All treatments were visually assessed for phytotoxicity when it was thought that the herbicide had achieved its maximum effect. \\•1eed counts were also taken on each plot. Data collected at harvest time will include grain yield, heads per m2, protein content of grain.Experiment E DCll Dosanex Trial. To evaluate the effectiveness of the herbicide Oosanex on weed control and its phytotoxic effects on Cinnamon, Yeeora and Cocorit at different dates and rates of application. Treatments:1.0 kgLha (non weeded control) 8. 2 kg/ha a. i. at 2 1/2 leaf stage 3. l kg/ha a. i. at sowing 9. 1 kg/ha a. i. at 3 1/2 leaf stage 4. 2 kg/ha a.i. at sowing JO. 2 kg/ha a. i. at 3 1/2 leaf stage s.  T~\"'(.._, . f~c.J <;.h...~ ------•--------------• ---------• • • • ----• --------------------• -----------CIMMYT wHEAT PHY~IOLOGY Sunmary of aims, treatments and methods of trials at CIANO and elsewhere for the 1974-75 season. R.A. Fischer February 1975 lntrodoction: This is the fifth year of the wheat physiology program at CIMMYT and an effort is being made to draw several lines of investigation to some useful conclusions. There Is partfcular emphasis on pnssible selection criteria for yield potential which can be used in spaced plantings (trfa1s F!, F XXI, F XXll). This foll0Ws up (f) last season's data indicating that harvest index may be such a criteria (Fischer and Kertesz, submitted Crop Sci. Jan. 1975) and (Ii) some evidence In the literature suggesting that measurements of leaf photosynthesis and/or stomata) aperture may also be useful. Related to the infll•ence• of competitive environment on relative yields, trial F VII should provide an answer to the doubts raised last season about the validity of comparative yields obtained in the breFdert yield trials. Trfa1 Fii (genotypes x seeding date) at CIANO forms part of a network of 5imilar trials established at El Batan (F103), Toluca (F203), Tlaltizapan (F303) and Poza Ric~ (F403). The overall purpose is to study adaptability to low latitude environments of dif-. fering temperature and radiation regimes and forms part of the thesis work of Mr. David Midmore (Reading University). Mr. Hidmore Is conducting the trials not kcated at CIA~W :nd has added sane studies of phenology and of crop agronomy principally at the two tio~: cal sites (Tlaltizapan and Poza Rica).The study at CIANO of yield limitation by crop photosynthesis using shadlns a;\"'d thinning treatments (F XXVI) concentrates on 12 key enotypes from trial F:. Stu:f'e!'.. in previous years of yield limitation with the variety Yecora 70 have largely been ccn-• eluded and submftted for publication. However, trials F XIII and XXl!I Intend to an~~~r some outstanding questions while F 111 is testing a hypothesis derived from the abc•;e •1orf,•.Simulated drought studies at CIANO continue at the same level of input ~ut plot sizes have been enlarged In F XXll and F XXXll to take care of problems encountered in smaller plots last year. ~r. R.E. Sojka c~mpleted in T974 his work at CIANO and Ph.D. thesis with the University of California Riverside; t~is deals with the drought st~dies of the 2 previous years. However, Mr. Francis Bid!nger, u Ph.D. student from Cornell University, has arrived to work :pecifically this spring en the comparison of wheat and barley in the presence and absence of drought. In addition Srita. Marfa Ester S~nche~ of the Escuela Nacional de Agricultura (Chapingo) ls collecti~q data on plant water status across a series of genotypes under wate.r stress (F XXll) as part of her thesis.Dr. HilleRis Larnbers has completed his post-•d~ctoral appointment in the section. The best of the approximately isogenic lines and populations involving variation In leaf angle which he developed while here are now in yield trial. In addition his segregating material, both bread wheats and durums are planted at CIANO; wide variation for leaf cngle, peduncle length (as a proportion of plant height), awnedness and leaf waxiness exists amongst this material.In addition to the above mentioned people, the physiology prngram thiz season involves the following: Dr. J.R. Syme (visiting scientist from Tr.~woomba, Austral!a), Hr. P. Wall (post doctoral scientist, CIMMYT), Ing. R. Maurer (research assist.9nt, CIMMYT), Ing. I. Aguilar (visiting scientist, Escuela Nacional de Agricultura, Chapingo), Ag. Tech. Sergio Angulo (research Assistant, CIMMYT) 'and Mr. Vicente Guzman (Ayudante, CIMMYT). Methods: Trials at CIANO are again located in lots AS, Cl and C2. In al 1 cases the land was fallowed during the summer. Heavy rain (5 11 ) in early November Interfered with land preparation and as a result of the thorough wettfng of the soil profile, caused the surface soil to remain wetter longer than usual after the Irrigations immediately following dry seeding In late November/early December. It is belie•1ed that this was the cause of p~or s..tands comnongly observed this season especially with t~itlcales and durums.Agronomic management ts as b~fore optimal (high fertility, frequent watering) wtless otherwise mentioned; canpared to previous years.however, seeding rates are less and •-. ::-•-•<:?.r::-esfertllizer rates also less in an effort to eliminate the lodging problem. A5 ct mid February. lodging and disease development has been sligh~; leaf-rust susceptible '::!:-:eties have, however, been sprayed with RH-124. No significant rain has been reg!ste'\"G'\"• h~n=e drought treatments are proceeding as planned.Plots are generally labelled with trial, plot and trea:ment details (see 5ta!~e in front left-hand corner of each plo~). In all trials cevelopmental stages (spik'-6mergence maturity), plant numbers, heig~t, lodging and disease incidence and grain yl~ld ~r noted or measured. Other data collection is ment!oned whenever appropriate. Most data is now collected on coding forms accordin9 to established canputor programs: progr.1rn i (pre antt:esis crop growth analysis), 20/21 (:•~-•~growth analysis post anthesis, usually only anth:=sis + 1 week), 31 (grain grmoJth and non-destructi•;e photosynthet''.c area changes after anthesis), 41 or 46 (maturity harvest with varying d~grees of detail and precision), 9(apical dissection and annotatic~). 10 (crop light interception), 90 (leaf resistance, phctosynthesis) and 91 (any data wh::itsce'!er collected on serial and/or systematic basisL Geriotype Compar i sory_lfilder_Q?.~}m~J_ c~~.::i! t: OriJ?. Ensayo Fl. Lot AS. Detai Jed comparison of 48 diverse but reasonably wel I adapted ~.-.. r, .• .., types of bread whe\"!t, dururr. (D) ar.c triticale (T).Design: Genotypes nested in 4 height maturity groups which are ar;~~ged in a .randomized Early short block of 5 replications: 11) Seeded at 80 kg/ha by machine in 10 row x 20 cm x 6.0 m plots on 29 November; fertilized 200 kg/ha N and 60 kg/ha P 2 05. Genotypes with asterisk have part of plot protected against lodging.Data collection: Crop harvests ~t 7 and 11 weeks, anthesis + 1 week and maturity; photosynthetic area c~~~~es and grain growth post anthesis; canplete developmental observations; leaf diffusive resistance, leaf photosynthesis and leaf permeability measure~ents from February onwards; post anthesls treatments on source/sink relationships.Ensayo F XXI. •Adjacent to Ensayo Fl. •Growth of same 48 genotypes as used In Fl under spaced plant conditions, simulating situation of early segregating generations.Design: Genotypes nested in two height groups which are arranged tn a randomized block of 4 replications. Genotype numbering as for Fl.Seeded lightly in a single row 4.5• m long for each genotype on 25 November; rows 40 cm apart. Plants thinned in early January to 40 cm spacing within row. fertilizer as for Fl.Data •collection: Mat~rity harvest on per plant basis with special attention to harvest index; developmental •observations; leaf permeability measurements.Ensayo Fil. Lot AS. Continued collection of information on the interaction between seeding d<l.t! and developmental pattern in their effects upon grain yield. Similar set of genotype \"is planted at Toluca, El Batan, Poza Rica and Tlaltizapan.Design: Split plot of 3 replications with seeding dates (4) as main plots and genotypes as subplots.Main treatments:1.3. 12.Tobari Stork  Ensayo F XXll. Lot Cl/C2 after sunmer fallow. To test the response of a large group of small grain genotypes to droughts of differing intensity; included are bread wheats, durums (D), tritlcales (T) and barleys (B). Particular attention to comparison of modern semi-<Warf genotypes with those supposedly adapted to dry regions. Included is a study of the same genotypes as spaced plants.. Seeded by machine into moist seed bed on 23 November. Fertilizer approximately 100 kg/ha N before seeding plus some N with irrigation water.Data coll.ection: spike emergence, grain yield; limited plant water potentia: measurements.Ensayo F XLll. Non-replicated plots of miscellaneous barleys (15), spring x winter progeny (21), bread wheats (7), and Bidlnger F2 populations of crosses to reputedly drought resistant lines (32). Seeded on 12 December; grown under conditions of treatment 1 in ensayo f•XXll and repeated under conditions of treatment 4 (moderate drought). Observations only.Ensayo F 101. El Batan, lot E4 after sU111ner wheat. Comparison of genotypes (notfsogenic) of non-erect and erect leaf habit under conditions most likely to favour erect habit (low latitude, higher solar radiation, large leaf area Index).Design: randanlzed block of 4 replications. Treatments: Design: randomized block of 3 replications within F103. Management as for F103.Data collection: weekly sampling until anthesis for spike size and dry weight; weekly non-destructive tiller counts in marked areas. Temperatures during the 1970-71 season were about average, except for a week of frosts (Minima to -4) in early January (Table 1). No appreciable rain was recorded and spring radiation conditions were slightly higher than average. Grain yields are expressed at 12°' moisture on a dry basis. Yields were ~etermined on adequately bordered regions within the plots. Under optimal management and without disease Yecora 70 averaged 7.5 t/ha (n=B) which suggests that the 1970-71 season was favourable for high yields. Yields of other genotypes were also free of interference from disease and lodging unless otherwise mentioned; in tal 1 genotypes lodging was successfully prevented by growing the plants through a wide mesh. Shading reduced yield in the second, third and fourth periods,due to reductions In grain number In the second and third periods and reductions In kernel weight in the last period. There were substantial kernel weight responses to crop thinning around anthesis, but only small responses In grain number/unit row length. Expt AXXlll. Application of CCC, kinetln and Hendolc at different rates and dates to Yecora 70. •.esign split plot of 4 repetitfons.Seeded on Dec 9 at 120 kg/ha, 350 kg/ha N and 100 kg/ha P20 5 • Results showed high yields of Yecora 70 (7.64 t/ha) but no effect'of any treatment with growth substances at any stsge of development on yield or on kernel weight. CCC had n~ effect on plant height, but In an adjacent preliminary study (AVI) it .was observed to reduce the height of tall wheats and improve J~ging res lstance.Expt AXXXlll. Aggre91tions of plants grown under non cm.;:i~titive conditions so as to create an exceptionally high number of spike~/ ~-'fecora 70 was planted in 6 11  Bed refers to two rows on top of approx 50 cm bed with bed centres 85 cm apart and irrigation only down the lnterbed furrows.Differences were small but there was a tendency for the tall triticale to perform better on beds and short bread wheat to do better on the flat. The bed system would appear to be advantageous with tall lodging susceptible materials and where water needs to be conserved. Restricting the rooting depth reduced yield despite frequent waterrngs; possibly shortage of nitrogen and insidious levels cf water stress we!e factors here. Deep chiseling gave a significant lncrea3e In yield (+12%) for which there is no obvious explanation. Curiously total root production was unaffected by treatment, but roots in the zone 50 to 70 ems were increased in deep compared to control.Expt AXI, Response of new genotypes to nitrogen. Design split plot of 4 reps. seeded on 2 December at 100 kg/ha plus 100 kg/ha P205. The high yields at zero nitrogen Indicate a moderate' level of soil nitrogen and hence a rather unsatisfactory situation for demonstrating interactions between genotypes. It is interesting however that Yecora 70 a so-called high yielding triple dwarf wheat was also highest yielding in the absence of added nitrogen. Yields of all genotypes declined at very high N levels associated with reduced kernel weight; only with the triticale could this be attributed to lodging. Preventing lodging in the trlticale almost Increased yield 1 t/ha. Expt AXIi. To demonstr~te tha interactions between genotype, nitrogen, density and water supply. u~~:g~ split plot of 4 reps with water supply as tha main treatment; seeded on 3 December with 80 kg/ha Pz0 5 . , \\~ (.: \\.-•-. I, *WI-Well watered, 7 irrigatrons; W2= omission of irrigation at 27 days;•\"'l-.--1-~ W3• omission of irrigation at 50 days; W• omission of irrigation at 91 _ 1v days.A highly significant interaction was found between genotype and agronomic management, and water supply. For example with Ciano the density response wasni\"l at WI, but yield declined with increased density at W2, w3 and W4; the decline at W2 was statistically significant. Also with Ciano, the N response was greatest under early stress (W2), and least with flowering stress (W3). Finally genotypes responded differently to water stress; this could largely be explained on the basis of differences in days to j9inting because stress before about this stage had little effect on yield.  .   ** 750 ppm co 2 subplots were covered with transparent Mylar chamber during daylight hours and ventilated with air containing 750 ppm C0 2 ; controls are adjacent subplots which were neither covered or ventilated. In 5.300 ppm co 2 refers to subplots which were covered and ventilated with normal air in order to measure the effect of the chamber and ventilation ~~•Main treatment 5 was applied to 2 buffer plots and the results cannot be analyzed along with the. rest of the trial. Convnents: As pointed out earlier, an unusual response to date of seeding was observed: best yields generally with the late December sowing and poorest yields with the mid-Nov. sowing. The latter is not the result of• the heavier lodging observed with earlier sowings since the poor performance is also reflected in ears/m2 and grains/m2, both yield components determined before the onset of lodging. As in earlier years, the best preanthesis development in terms of ears/m2 ~nd grains/m2, occurred with the later dates; in contrast to earlier years, grain size dropped off less rapidly with later dates of sowing. It is possible that part of the grain size reduction observed in Yecora and Cajeme in the last date of seeding is due to the moderately heavy infections of leaf rust which developed. Hira was at all times protected by spraying with RH-124. DXLI-Physiological study of diverse sets of genotypes (24), with genotypes nested in height, maturity groups; groups arranged in a 4 x 4 latin square. All genotypes of group 1 and 2 except Soltane and Penjamo have a portion of each plot pro'tected against lodging.4l. DA--s ~;r\"\"G A_ \\J.~ ~ 11...-._ Seeded at 1io kg/ha on November 16; fertilizer ZOO kg/ha N, and 80 kg/ha P20 5 .Tai Co:nments: lodging probably reduced the yields of several genotypes which normally are not expected to lodge early and were therefore not protected against lodging (Soltane, Penjamo, Cocorit). Comparison between the protected (unlodged) region and the unprotected lodged portion of plots of other genotypes showed that lodging reduced yield an average of 2 t/ha for those genotypes. The moderately erect Durum (S-0195=AA\"S\"/LD357E -Tc 2 xGl1 ~m Unfortunately the second period of shading was 10 days longer than planned and the third 10 days shorter. Days refer to days after seeding. Comments: Shading during the period 60-80 days (4 to 1 week before ear emergence) and to a lesser extent 69-90 days had a drastic effect on grain number and grain yield. This was largely due to a severe reduction in grains per spikelet (in other words ear fertility) although, at least in the case of the former period, anthesis did not take place until more than 1 week after removal of the shades. Such large effects were not observed in the previous two seasons; possibly the increased sensitivity in 1972-73 was due to reduced solar radiation levels particularly during the period of shading (February). Early shading as in other years had no effect on yield. Post ear emergence shading had only a small effect on yield, clearly less than in other years. See also fig. 2.Ensayo DXXlll-Manipulation of post anthesis photosynthetic capacity in Yecora 70 _grown under optimal conditions: defoliation treatments. Design: randomized block of 4 replications. Treatment 1 -control lZ 2 -Defoliation of all leaves other than the flag 3 -Defoliation of half of all leaves. Treatments applied at 50% anthesis (3 March) to an area of 1.5 x l.1 m 2 each Seeded at 120 kg/ha on December 6 in 30 cm rows; fertilizer 300 kg/ha N, 100 kg/ha P205.Yie Conments. Results strongly suggest that post anthesis leaf area was not a critical factor controlling yield of Yecora in 1972-73: thus removing half the leaf lamina (treat 3) reduced yield only 7°k {non significantly). The above degrees of defoliation were also applied to individual ran.dom shoots in an untreated surrounding; in the cases of both treatment 2 and treatment 3 the reductions in grain weight per ear (12 and 10% respectively) exceeded those shown above, when all shoots in a given area were treated, and presumably light relations of the canopy were changed.Ensayo DXXXlll-Lot AS. Effect of high spike densities (about 1000/m2>achieved by crowding on grain yield of Yecora 70 and an erect durum wheat under optimal conditions. Oesign: Non replicated treatments. 1. Yecora grown in pots crowded to 30 pots/m 2 2. As for 1. but lower leaves and late tillers removed before crowding so as to give LAI near that of control Yecora plots.3. As for 1. with erect durum, AA 11 S 11 /LD357E-Tc 2 x G 11 11  Comments: The purpose of the crowding was to increase post anthesis sink size (grain number) without altering the post anthesis ph_,tasynthetic capacity or carry over of photosynthate from the precrowded condition. Thus crowding was carried out on 23 Feb. when no ears were fully emerged and 500k anthesis was not recorded until 11 days later.Grain number was substantially increased, as also was grain yield; this was in close agreement with 1970-71 results. However the fact that the removal of lower leaves and smaller tillers (treat 2) clearly reduced yield under crowded conditions suggests that photosynthate supply may have been unfairly favoured by crowding. Information on dry weight changes of components is available and will assist in resolving these questions.Unfortunately the moderately erect Durum (treat 3) performed no better than the floppy Yeccra uncer the crowded condition.Ensayo DXLll I Lot AS. 1. For the thinning treatments these are artificial yields, calculated on the basis that the single row left after treatment occupied only 20 cm.Comments: As reported in DXlll, the shading effect in 1972-73 was much less than in earlier years, in fact here 50% shading throughout the grain filling period did not affect yield significantly. This agrees with the fact that the response in grain size to thinning was also smaller than in other years (approx 10% in treats 2 and 3 vs 20-25% in other years). Such evidence suggests that 1972-73 was a season when grain yields for Yecora were limited by sink size (grains/m2); the relatively low grain numbers ( 13,000/m2) support this. Despite the small response to thinning, treatments 2 vs 3 and 4 vs 5 permit the conclusion that the response to thinning was due to the elimination of above ground competition undoubtedly for light, and not to changes In below ground competition (water, nutrients) which presumably is not therefore critical for yield In the control situation. * Temperature records show that the \"cold\" treatment did not lower temperature with respect to \"heat\" during grain f i 11; the• coot ing capacity was inadequate. Repeating the treatment with adequate cooling capacity on a late January 18 seeding of Yecora gave an 18% grain size and yield increase over the control (an incidentally a yield of 9 t/ha). Heat conversely caused a 14% reduction in grain size and yield.Canments: Cold and heat had respectively positive and negative effects on yield in the mid and late vegetative-anthesis periods. Curiously heat in the early vegetative stage, markedly reducing tillering, caused no yield reduction. _during grain filling yield. It was believed that misting would both cool the wheat as well as improve its wates status under the hot highevaporative demand conditions of March and April. Thus the misting was regulated to switch on whenever the ear temperature exceeded 25•c.variety used for the experiment was Yecora 70 seeded at 120 kg/ha and fertilized heavily (approx 300 kg/ha N, 80 kg/ha P205). Two seeding dates were studies. No replication was carried out; however, the area misted measured approx. Comments:Misting effectively maintained ear temperature at 25°C or less. It also clearly improved the wates status of the plant during the middle of the day. Grain growth was definitely slowed by misting yet the length of the grain filling period was no greater in the first seeding and in fact Jess in the second date. This was not expected and may be due to some deleterious side effect of the misting. The results do suggest that the diurnal wate deficits, which can reach -15 bar potential even with recently irrigated soil, are not limiting grain yield.Leaf rust was not a factor in this trial as it was effectively controlled by spraying with RH-124. Thus it is interesting to compare the very high yield of the control plot at the late seeding here with the lower yield of Yecora seeded at the same date in 011 but not sprayed with RH-124 and moderately infected with leaf rust. Comments: Responses to shading and to thinning were Jess than in earlier years. Grains per central spikelet was reduced in some genotypes by shading, especially Olesen. There was no clear correspondence between grain size depression by shading and size increase with thinning perhaps because all effects were small. However there was a highly significant genotype x subtreatment interaction and there was reasonable correspondence between the two degrees of thinning,.Ensayo DXI I Lc't C2. Simulated post-anthes is drought effects en genotypes, in order to identJfy differences in drought resistance, whether due to avcidance or tolerance of drought. Design: Split plot with 4 replicaticns. Main treatments (irrigation bays or melgas):  Corrrnents: This trial encountered several problems. The exceptional rain of February 21st (37 mm) delayed the onset of drought about 2 weeks such that the degree of drought stress was only moderate. In addition the unprecedented rain of 15 nvn of April 6th (over 25 times the long term monthly average) probably aided significantly treatment 4, which was still green at the time. This treatment yielded little less than treatment 3. Other problems were the unusual effects of seeding date (see 011)and the heavy lodging caused on February 21; this and the rain rendered treatment 2 meaningless and the lodging has affected the yields presented above {across genotypes yield was negatively associated with lodging r = 0.82 **). Only the durum (067-3)showed a clearly distinc~ response to the stress encountered, (in fact its yield was unaffected, although at all times ICM). Cocorit did tend to show more sensitivity to stress than Yecora confirming results from other trials. Also certain later wheats (Nainari, T-64-2-W, Gabo) showed no more sensitivity than Yecora despite their less favourable developmental pattern in view of the terminal stress applied (see ear emergence dates). The triticales showed no evidence of enhanced resistance to stress.Plant moisture stress observations across these genotypes (Sojka) showed significant differences between genotypes; however these do not seem to be related in any way to the grain yield responses to stress.Ensayo CXXI I Lot C2. Simulated post-anthesis drought effects on genotypes; as in Ensayo XII with the exception that treatments and subplots reduced to the minimum thought to be useful, thus permittigg the comparison of more.genotypes. Design: Split split plot with 4 replications. Main treatments: 1. Contro I Seeded Lee 9, we I I watered a I ways.Seeded Dec 9, last irrigation Feb. 10.3. Drought early severe Seeded Dec 9, last irrigation .Ian. 29 (2 reps. only) Sub subtreatments are genotypes nested within height groups (subtreatments): within each repetition the same randomization is used for sub and sub subtreatments in order to equalise intergenotype competition effects across treatments. Sub subplots are 2 x 30 cm rows x 3.0 m with one unsown row of separation between adjacent sub subplots. Yield is calculated on the basis of 3 rows by 2 m which was cut. Seeded at 80 kg/ha (Barley 60 kg/ha with 100 kg/ha N, 80 kg/ha P205. only 2 reps instead of 4.Possibly owing to lodging, especially in the barleys.variability was high and th,_ ,.•ought* genotype interaction was not significant. In addition as expla•.,ed in DXI I the level of drought was minimal (reducing )'ield •. 25%). Inspection of results shows rather small differences in sensitivity between genotypes and reasonable agreement between CXXll and DXll for the same genotypes and drought treatments.Ens a yo DIV-Agronomic trial involving diverse genotypes (4) and a wide range of row spacings and seeding densities in all canbinatlons. Oe$fgn: ~plit split plot of 4 replications, main plots are genotypes, subplots are row spacings and sub subplots are densities. Seeded on November 16, fertilizer 213 kg/ha of N, and 85 kg/ha P20 Conments: It was hoped to demonstrate with this rather extensive trial that the moderately erect genotypes (Mexico 120 and Duro S-0195) would respond to higher seeding densities and narrower rCM spacing. The results however show very little evidence to support this thesis as all interactions were small. The absence of a response to spacing agrees with trials of earlier years whereas the moderate negative response to increased seeding density over the wide range studied was not seen in earlier years. Grains/m2 and wt/grain both contributed to this negative response; the response of the latter may reflect increased lodging with higher seeding density.Ensayo XIV-Agronomic trial Involving diverse breal. wheat genotypes (8) at extreme of interplant competition. Design: split plot with 4 replications, main plots are competition levels, and subplots ~re genotypes. Seeaed on November 18, fertilized with 213 kg/ha N and 85 kg/ha P20 showing greater grains/m , weight/grain and yield with less interplant competition. However there was no evidence for interactions with genotype despite the considerable variation in erectness of leaf and of crown between the genotypes included. Comments: Yield levels at optimal N application rise from approximately 4.4 t/ha in the oldest and tallest variety, Mentana, to 6.9 t/ha in the newest variety, the so-called triple dwarf Cajeme 71. The N dosis for maximum yield also rises fro~ approximately 100 kg/ha to 300 kg/ha. It should be noted that the site was very infertile as indicated by the low yields with zero N and low soil N03 levels at seeding (this was also the case in DXXI and DXXXI). Also it is interesting that at zero N the tall older genotypes tended to yield more than the shorter new ones. The curious crop in grain ti% 1•1ith the first increment of N has been observed before under ccncitions of low sell fertility.~r\"' uL1.,r    Yields are corrected to a 12% moisture basis and were obtained from adequately bordered regions of plots unless otherwise mentioned. Key parameters shown usually include date of ear emergence, grains/m 2 and kernel weight (ovendry basis). Lodging score is reported for some trials: this was ~Qasursd at maturity and is the percentage of the •plot area lodged x the angle to the vertical of the lodging divided by 90. Full pedigrees of advanced lines included in some trials are available from \"Smmnary of aims, treatments, methods of major trials at CIANO, 1973-74\", duplicated report of CIMMYT t4b.Eat Physiology/Agronomy, Feb.Statistical analysis has been performed and presented here are PF values -for appropriate sources of variance (PF= probably P of occurrence of calculated F value by chance : ** = P(0.01,* = O.Ol(P <0.05), LSD for P(0.05 and coefficients of variation (CV).Most of the trials reported were conducted at the CIANO station of INIA; near Cd. Obregon, Sonora. ~.r•. Midmore's trials,however, were located on the CIMMYT stations at Poza Rica, Tlaltizapan and El Batan. Weather conditions for CIANO are presented in Table 1~ those for the Cil.sMYT stations have been sUmI!1arized .. also. (Table 2) / Temperatures, evaporation and solar radiation at CJ:ANO for the 1973-74 cycle were close to normal for all months. On the other hand, the seasun was drier than average~ only the month of March registered rainfall.According to the results with Yecora 70, yields were higher in 1973-74 than in any of the previous 3 seasons. Yecora 70 yields averaged 7.79 -t/ha (n=13), compared to the next best season, 1970-71 with 7.41 t/ha. These crops were all sown between 15 November and 10 December and were grown under optimal conditions~•~owever, in 1973-74 stripe rust appeared in certain trials in February and despite fungicide applications developed to moderate levels on varieties such as-Yecora by maturity. The average Yecora yield for those trials which escaped stripe rust was even higher at 7.95 t/ha (n=8). In trials with stripe rust there -• 2was usually a highly significant correlation between yield and stripe rust inci-dence1it will be mentioned when this relationship was used to correct yields to zero stripe rust. In general 25% leaf cover with stripe rust near maturity (typical for Yecora 70) appeared to be reducing yield about 0.50 t/ha.The very favourable nature of the 1973-74 season at CI~..NO, indicated by the exceptionally high yields of Yecora 70, was confirmed by the yields of many other materials. It is believed that the high radiation and low night temperatures of February (practically cloudless) in 1974 was the major factor contributing to these high yields.  -------------- :.er   --------- V~f   No significant stripe rust developed in this trial. ~t had been hoped to demonstrate with this wide range of seeding densities that the erect genotypes (2,3,4,7,8) ,had a higher optimal density than the others. However, there was only a weak tendency in this direction and most of the interaction variance came from Cocorit, which lodged significantly as• seeding density incrGased. Genotypes S and 10 represent t'the best available ramified spike typos: they were e~ch the lowest yielders in their species.Feb. 20  CV % e.9f, .1 8.9'\"' • 0 f6 148 -------.      Comments; Stripe rust was moderate (40%) on Yecora and Cajeme, however there was no effect of lodging on stripe rust. Yield reductions with lodging even up -to 4 weeks after anthesis were substantial. This was especially so with Cocorit where portions of crop lodged at anthesis did not tend to right themselves a.s happened in the case of Yecora and C.::ijcme.Even so ~\\Tith Yecora 45 ° lodging at anthesis, hardly vis.ible at rr.aturity, reduced the yield significantly by   '--------------- row 5 removed at 5<1'h anthesis. Yield etc. calculated as for thinning in Conrnents:This trial largely escaped infection by stripe rust;h6wever there was considerabla . lodging in Cocorit and PM312.There was a strong genotype x shade interaction:the most sensitive variety to shading was clearly Tobari; the least sensitive was PM312(T). Yecora occuoied an intermediate position, its response agreeing closely wi'th those in EXI 11. In fact,. several varieties showed a tendency towa.rds the Yecora response,that is two peaksd maxin:um sensitivity to shade, one before and one after ear emergence. Comments: In contrast to last year, rain did not interfere nor was there any lodging. However, .there was moderate development of stripe rust on control plots of Yecora, Gabo and Siete Cerros, suggesting a yield.reduction of approximately 0.50 t/ha1 Cajeme was sli.ghtly attacked. Most surprising was the drastic yield reduction,with treatment 2. 'l'his•treatment resembled \"haying• off''. conditions seen in SE Australia where stress arises after anthesis: kernel. weight was reduced drastically. Treatments 3 and 4 in retrospect should have been more severe as some suggestian of interesting differences were beginning to appear: Cocorit and the triticales appeared more sensitive to. severe stress, Yecora a~peaxed least sensitive. Gabe, a tall.. preaumably drought, resistant Austraµ.an variety or 067-3 a North African durum•,. with the advantage of. earp.ness, were clearly_ no better .than..:Yecora .~:C.~~~!~nn,~~e?~ semi.~arf. ~?':~~n wheats. when• undeJ:-:d;ollqht•stress-. . . .Trial E XXII and E XXXII -Both trials were designed to compare many genotypes under a variety of drought regimes. Plot size was therefore small being 3 m x 2 rows x 30cm with a further 30 cm row, unplanted, separating adjacent plots. Genotypes were grouped by height and it was possible to fit 36 genotypes in an irrigation basin (amelga) for a given drought regime. Varieties were thus sub plots, drought levels main plots and there were 4 replicates.     * EXXII yields hand calculated, awaiting computer analysis.A problem was encountered in both these trials with edge plots.Although they were bordered on the outside by a 30 cm path and then a single 30cm border row, it became apparent that under drought they were at an advantage of approximately 20%. Yields yere corrected for this effect but the procedure was tedious and not very precise. rin addition there is evidence th~t with the small plots usedf interplot competition was affecting yields (compare yields with EXII when no such competi;ion, cS.pecially case of Cocorit) • P.lthough the above data is of some use it is nm~ felt th~t plot size must be increased for this type of study.. , .' .. . , The only clear cut genotype x drought interaction evident-without detailed analysis is the performance of barleys (Porvenir, CM67), compared to all other entries. 'This is illustrated in Fig. 2 where they are compared to other groups of genotypes of similar maturity. Their superior rerformance under drought is so marked that it is unlikely that it is due to any pf the above compounding effects. . In trial. EXXII many (several lOOC) • mea-surements of plant water potential•w~re made with the rressure chamber. There were genotype differences but without detailed analysis thero appears little relation between these differences and differences in yield res Trial EY.XXII was unusual in that 1 probably due to leaching on the s•ant'.y• S<\"il, the crop was deficient in nitrogen•, and. even ccntrol yields \\'re;ir• lo't1. The new trial design facilitating the use of mechanization represents a substantial improvement. H~Jever, somo uncertainty e~ists in my mind as to the magnitude of inter-plot competition. Since all of tho plot is presently harvested, ecge rows '\\•'hich reflect the influence of t.lie neighboring plcts ~re includsd in the yield calculation. Since at ~I1..NO the major competition would be for light, it is the southern edge row and the neighboring plot nn the south which arc involved in this competition. These effects would favour taller genotypes and several pieces of evidence:: suggest that this may be happening:•• i) Taller semiewarf genotypes (such as Jupateco, Sieto Cerros, Tanori an~ Meng-8155) generally performed better than the tripln-dwarf varieties Yecora and Cajeme in breeders trials, whereas the reverse was true for physiclc-gy trials (see FI, EII, EVII).ii) nn analysis in tho breeders trials of the yield of plots of check varieties solely as linear function of the height cf the neighborin~ plots on the southern side revealed no significant relationship for Tanori (n=2€), Yecora (n=S9) and Cajeme (n=132). Rowever, for Jupateco (n=128) the corrolaticn was significant (r?-0.18*) with a yield change of ~6 kg/ha per 1 cm incrzase in height of the neighbour.This would suggest a yield diff€rence due solely to intcrplot competition of about 12 kg/ha per cm of height difference between adjacent plots. This is a small effect, a 20 crn height difference exerting a 240 kg/ha or about 3-4% ccmpounding effect on yields in favour cf the taller genotype1 howeverf the effect is in the ~ight directicn and'the estimation is necessarily rather imprecise. .,,.iii) Harvesting several genotypes in. Hari Exp. LXI by hand enabled a _ comparison of the yie.ld calculated from 3m of the centre 2 rows ~ __ • that calculated from the whole plot ('1.5 m x 4+1 rows). The latter as a% of the former was lOOi for•cajeme, 107% for Jupateco and 1111 for Siete C~rros. Although the differences '\"'ere not quite si~nificant statistically again they were in a c1irecticn to suggest a•competi'.l=J.ve advantage for the taller genotypes. ' ' • -~~:.<,;, .--:. iv) n recent paper (Tovey, Glaszicu, Farcruar and Bull (1973) Crop Science 13:240) calculates the extra light received by plots which• stand above their neighbcrs. Repeatina the calculation for latitude 27° N, mid-winter sun angles, and the plct size used in our breeding trials indicates that a 10 cm height advantage confers an extra 12% radiation received relative to level plots. ~lthough for early spring sun angles the effect woulc. tend to be smaller, one must remember that the height difference is minimal, that for a submerged plot the effect would be opposite and the difference may be doubled,and finally that there is good evidence to suggest a direct rBlaticnship between light received and yield.I would conclude that the circumstantial evidence is strong enough to warrant changing the plot size in order to reduce er eliminate such edge effects. The simplest change would be to sow the path (S rows sown instead of 4) and to harvest the 3 central rows, leaving an edge row on each side. Some modification of the combine is required and problems in harvesting those plots that lodge would have to be anticipated.DEVELOPMENT OF GENETIC MATERIALS SUITABLE FOR PHYSIOLOGICAL TESTING.(D. Hille RisLambers)Emphasis was put upon the deyeiopment of wheat lines having vertical leaves which do not bend readily, to be called 'erect leaves' for brevity. 500 crosses were made with one or more of the following objectives in mind:~./ 1) To develop valid comparisons between lines having erect and floppy leaves, and also having a common background genotype. These crosses involve a high-yielding parent such as 7 Cerros, Yecora, Cajeme 71, INIA, etc, 'and a line having erect leaves, for example the erect lines-RAF & RGA, Lechuza, Grajo, Fiserect, etc.. 72} To improve the source material for erect leaves by combining among erect lines, or between erect lines and lines having disease resistance.3) To develop material with erect leaves in a variety of backgrounds. This was done on the assumption that erect leaves will provide some yield advantage in future testing. •As a result of these actlvities, the nursery in Et Batan (B 74) now contains 70 si~ple.  and durum wheat material.The genetics of erect leaves is not a part of the past or present work, except for the study of liguleles's wheat and its potential. A priori, the trait can be expected to have a complex inheritance, since it is a complex trait. Erect leaves are a result of a oombination of a low leaf angle at the base of the leaf blade, and a non-bending blade which continues in this angle. A non-bending blade in turn is the result of either or several of the following: (1) short leaves, (2) stiff leaves, and (3) leaf lamina curling around the longitudinal axis. In practice, all of these aspects can be observed. For instance, crosses between 7 Cerros and RAF give good recovery of erect segregants whereas Potam yields practically no fully erect recombinants in the F2 with RAF, on account of the greater floppability of the Potam leaves.A bread wheat line, going by the name 'Eligulate', and obtained from the University of Sydney. conters a leaf angle at the base of the blade of o 0 , on account of the absence of ligula and auricle. Regrettably, the eligulate line has a few othertraits: susceptibility to all prevailing rusts, a high proportion of horizontally spreading ~egregants in its hybrids, pollination of the florets before spike extrusion from the leaf sheath. A further circumstance reducing the odds for successful recombinants is the dependence of the expression on two genes, which have to be present simultaneously in the recessive form. This amounts to a 1 to 16 ratio in the F2 of normal x eligulate. Finally, the absence of the combined barrier of ligule and auricle, makes the leaf sheath accessible for insects and spores which would otherwise be IteP.t out, -~ ~ ... In addition, segregants were identified which most likely are homozygous, with one of the two liguleless genes in the dominant allele, and the c;>ther recessive. These• are of interest, because the leaf angle is practically the same as for fully,:e1igu~te; whereas ligule and auricle are present~ be it in reduced form. It is hoped 1hat . further observation will identify materials among these latter recombinants, which do not suffer from the developmental abnormalities at flowering. ~~~~t trials we~e conducted with Fl hybrid mater~ls, parents, and sol'l?e, ~ther lihei:i:Jiaving varying degrees of erect leaf. This was a preliminary study, forming. •a•;~~-~ the general approach to study the relation of lea~ angle and yield paramet~rs._ and.to~rify the claims made on this subjec~ by_ wor~r.s mother crops, n~~b~Y. ric:_e •. •f''°{/r,:/'•~~, ;c'\\! ' , ' , '.;-.~~-~:.:1'lft~i;j.f~j~ Tlie ~¢ediate objective was to observe inheritance of leaf angle in the then a~il-: .,,.;-~~:~:'., ,_a,.b\\e_ni~terial, i.e., the Fl generation •. Each entry was planted in a four-r~~\\>lot ., ..... ,..,.. , , ;~tti roV{~ of 1 meter, and 30 ems between rows. Distance between pl_ots wa.,s ~O cms. It ~s hoped to obtain a prelimmary_ insi.ght into the ?\"elation of leaf angle~~ yi.~1~~,,. .• :::i-but as it turned out, a better understanding was obtained of the relation of yield with rust infestation, due to a rare occurrence of stripe rust in the field.However, the earlier stages of the growth in the experiment are now being ~nalysed in order to establish a relationship between field estimates of leaf angle and objective measurements of light transmission to the ground level, measured at the same time. This represents a test on the first link in the chain of assumptions which connect erect leaves with a higher expected yield potential.   Comm~n~ §__~ Despite fungicide application, heavy c1isease inf P.ctions (mainly Eelminthosporium) C.eveloped at Poza Pica~ also low fertility, weecs, raJ:bits and rats had significant but unknown effects on yield.At Tlaltizapan yields were reduced somewhat cy the soil alkalinity prcbler.i. At El Batan root rct {Fusarium sr) c1ovelo:reC: tc significant levels but yields were corrected for infecte~ nlants. ever all trials the varieties Sicte Cerros ~nd Pnza shower. plant cevelopment, reflected partly :.r.n thej.r grair. yielcs. plots were not affectec1 by scil alkalinity in Tlaltizapan, veloprne:mt was excellent.Tr:'herc plant de- . . weather condf t ions at CIANO and in the Yaqui Valley dur Ing 1974~75 were extremely favourable. Although the unusual heavy rains in the fi.rst week of November delayed most plantings unt.i I late Novembei or later, the subsequent December to Hay period (especially Aprll) was probably. one of the coo lest on record and hence the de lay in see.ding actually proved advantageous for yield potential (see expt. •Fii) .• After early November there was no f'-'rther rain of sig-nlficance and solar radl•atlon was close to average in the subsec:~ier.t months. Parts of the region suffered frost damage ori February 24th. but at. qANO the scr~n minima. ~.that .day q~c) was not. 19W enough for free~ i ng.•      ..The leaf permeability index; an indirect measure of stomatal opentng, showed significant differences between 1 genccypes e~cl these differences were consistent throughout the season. In addition it shows a positive correlation with grain yield (r = 0.47**). Leaf photosynthesis measureme.nts were made In the field each week.from early Feb to mid ~pril across all genotypes. A 30 sec exposure to 14co2 in a circular cuvette was employed, followed by freezing the exposed tissue for digestion and counting at a later stage. The technlQue was manageable and over 2000 measurements were made. However analysis '?f these has_ not yet been completed.      •. ' . . ~hen analysed as randomized blocks the coefficients of. varial:illty ranged from 6% to 10% in these eight trials. lattice analysts clearly improved the precision in only two cases (F702' .+13%, F706 +6%). Yields in these experiments even in the absence of leaf-rust, were not as high-as those obtaihed with some of the same genotypes in exp~s Fl, Fii and FXXVI. This is further evidence that the agronomic management was not quite optimal. Nevertheless SOflle tentative' conclusion can be drawn from this and the fo 11 owing tab 18o ..  •' .. In the case of bread wheats wherever there was a significant correJat'ion between yield and leaf angle (2 trials) it was negative (higher yield wi.th mc>re erect leaves). Associated with this, and seen also• in two other experiments, were neg•ative relationships between leaf angle and grains/ml and positive ones with kernel weight. It ts not' known whether these associations represent casual 1 inkage of characters coming fran the RAF parent {erect leaves, high grain nwpber, low kernel welgbf) Q': whether they reflect underlying physiological relationships (erect leaves= more efficient light utilization before anthesis •more grains/m2). The data does suggest that.a small positive effect of erect leaves upon yield will be shown when the appropriate comparisons are ma~e in the RAF 7 7c and RAF-lnia populations.• .. With durun wheats (expts F702 and F704) erect leaves were significantly correlated with laNer yield and again with. 16Wer kernel weight. In •durt111S erect leaves were. not giving the expected inc•rease fn grains/m2 that was found with bread wheats •. Perhaps spike sterillty,still a problem fn•many semidwarf durums, increased with erect leaves.   It was hoped that development would only be acce-lera.te-d during ... the actua I period •of long photopedod. In fact photoperf od e,xtens ion continued to accelerate development even after Its discontfnuation; • • thus treatments reached anthes is sooner, the earlier they re~e fved photoper iod ex tens ion. Neverthe Jess phOtoper iocf'extens;iori in: °lhe•••per io-d 77 to 90 days separated freatments with little effect (after 90 days) fran those with the maximal effect (before 76 days). This suggests that long photoperiod (and presumab Jy acce le rat Ion of deve loJ)ment) _in __ the. period 63-90 days was having the biggest•deptessing effect •on _yield, and this occurred via reduced grain number/nr'. It is again suggested _that accelerated early development combined_ with retar~ed develoj:>ment lager in the •preanthesis period, •assuming that this 'is genetically possible, coulcl actually inc;rease yield in Yecora 70-type material without increasing the seeding 'td~anthesfs period., . , .~_ : .• ..      •~A large amounto.f acl~itJ.?nal,_..,data•~as co.llec;:ted in ex'F>F~ FXXI I ;\"yl~ld ~ompone~t;sl. •J.eaf ?re~•:.~~anges. •:~~d plan~ wa~er status were studied 1n partrcu(ir.~ Yield under dro.yght which ts of greatest intel\"est here, over::sl genotypes''(exludng one' very late' one) s>lowec' the following phenotypic'correlations with' the following oarameters: total field weiQht (0.48**). fie1cf harvest Index (0.83**), grain number (0.78**). ker11el weight (0.04), days toanthesit_:~,:~'.I'~:• • ( ... o.40**). he t ght in absence of st'ress' (-0.23+). and visualfy. es._t imated_ post-anthesis green area .. duratron (0.25-¥). Of the plant water:statusresults, there was commonly on any -Occasion a significant effect of genntype on leaf 'water-potential and leaf permeabil iW. (approximate s•tomatal aperture). C:enotypic __ differ.ences in leaf water potential were rela'tively consfstent~across~vart'ous.sampling' dates anckacross \"'.f:rea-~ments (wet at1d',..~fy)~' •1her~:,was.,,:a• si~ni.fl<:ant -t~ridency.'for l_e,af water potertt.ial to be' higher (1ess stress)• tGe\"later the maturity. ; of. the• genotype. There~' were . . geri~.ra I ly ~al so. s igrilf i cant\":genoiyp i c , • :•• .. ,. differences ctn leaf. ~rmeabt'JTty\"'-On •.:any~gfven cJite' bi'.i(d1e.re'\"'~~s . •.   ","tokenCount":"17765"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2d1af573c08ff11be60a37cdbb37ff8f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/37c60bdf-80a7-4303-9a2d-0328d06697ff/retrieve","id":"1038752327"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a1fbe6d4-0872-425f-97be-b16c0955a45a","pagecount":"102","content":"This second edition is a complete revision of the contents of the first edition written by Harrie Schreppers, Peter Paap and Erik Schinkel, and edited by Doriet Willemen. I am greatly indebted to Adri Vink and Bennie Bloemberg. Adri suggested improvements in the text and illustrations, based on his long experience in tropical forestry. Bennie, who spent most of his working life in agricultural development in Tanzania, reviewed the manuscript. Wageningen, October 2004, Ed Verheij Examples Product Papaya, guava, cashew Fruits and nuts Nutmeg, clove, cinnamon Spices Coffee, cocoa Stimulants Annatto, wattle, black mangrove Dyes and tannins Pine trees, rubber, gum arabic tree Resin and gum Ylang ylang, camphor tree, citrus species Perfume Neem, derris Pesticides Quinine, snakewood Medicine Oil Oilpalm, candlenut tree Vegetables Young shoots of many trees Timber or other wood products Nearly all treesThis Agrodok is a companion to Agrodok 16: Agroforestry. Trees and shrubs play important roles on the farm and in the environment. Unfortunately too many trees are lost because of overgrazing, excessive fuelwood collection and deforestation. Agroforestry supports the efforts of people in rural areas to plant more trees and to use them to greater advantage, also because of their favourable interaction with crops and livestock.It is fairly common for farm households to propagate a few trees and shrubs in tins, bowls or other containers under a tree or on the veranda. Where larger numbers of planting material are to be produced, it would be helpful do have a better understanding of: different propagation techniques, how to run a proper farm nursery, and planting out and aftercare of young trees. That is why this Agrodok was written. The emphasis is on propagation from seed or cuttings. The more complicated propagation methods used for horticultural crops, such as budding and grafting, are not dealt with. The Agrodok is written using simple language so that the information can easily be used for extension material.Trees are vitally important to people. They provide many products, including food for humans and animals, timber, fuel and medicines. In the tropical zone trees are much more important as food crops and cash crops than in temperate zones, where palms and large herbaceous perennials such as banana are absent because of the cold winters.Trees not only provide products, they also protect the environment and improve the living conditions around a farm. For example, they provide shade and shelter and play a vital role in preventing soil erosion and in sustaining soil fertility. All over the world forests as well as scattered trees are being cut down by people in their search for timber, fuelwood or land for other uses. Uncontrolled fires also destroy many trees.Proper management of trees and forests is necessary to make resources sustainable. Trees -or rather: woody plants in general -play an important part in traditional farming systems in the tropics, not just as food and cash crops but also as suppliers of fuelwood and fodder. Farmers are also aware of the environmental benefits and use trees as fallow vegetation, hedges, windbreaks, erosion barriers, etc. Where these traditional roles of trees are diminishing due to increasing population pressure and/or changing land use, it is necessary to encourage and support local initiatives to plant trees. That is the subjectmatter of Agrodok 16: Agroforestry. This Agrodok describes techniques used to propagate and plant agroforestry trees. It has been written primarily for farmers and extension workers. Simple, low-cost and low-input methods are emphasized.In Chapter 2 the different roles that trees play in various parts of the farm are briefly discussed and the importance of choosing the right tree species for each role is emphasized. Chapter 3 deals with the collection and handling of propagules, i.e. the parts of a plant used in propagation: seeds, wildings, cuttings and layers. Chapter 4 presents propagation methods: from stimulating natural regeneration -which interferes the least in the natural course of events -and sowing tree seeds directly in areas where you want these trees to grow, to raising plants in a nursery for field planting later on.Chapters 5 to 8 all deal with raising and field planting of nursery stock. The techniques are suitable for simple on-farm nurseries to raise small numbers of trees to be planted from year to year, as well as for village nurseries, producing trees for reforestation of communal land.In Chapter 5 the major elements of nursery work are presented in some detail: raising seedlings, using pots, and rooting cuttings. This is followed in Chapter 6 by how to set up a permanent nursery that comprises all these elements: different types of beds for seedlings and cuttings as well as for pots. The chapters on nursery work conclude with Chapter 7 dealing with how to care for the plants in the nursery till they are ready for field planting. Field preparation, planting out and the aftercare for the young trees is the subject of Chapter 8.At the end of this Agrodok there is a list of publications for Further Reading, a list of Useful Addresses where seeds and/or information can be obtained and a Glossary explaining terms used in the text.There are two Appendices. Examples of measurements and calculations are given in Appendix 1. Common names are used for wellknown crop plants, such as cassava and mango. Many agroforestry species have no generally accepted common names. That is why botanical names are used in this Agrodok for all lesser-known woody plants. Appendix 2 lists these botanical names and gives the common names as far as known, along with some other characteristics of the species.Growing conditions differ greatly within the tropics. It is therefore impossible to give detailed information which applies to all local conditions. To develop local methods of propagating and planting trees it is essential to collaborate and exchange knowledge. Readers are strongly advised to gather local knowledge on trees and combine it with the information in this Agrodok, in order to make the right choice for their specific situation.You may contact Agromisa if you have specific questions. In your letter always include information on local climate (in particular seasonal pattern and quantity of rainfall), tree species, soil types and other important factors. Agromisa's address is on the cover of this book.Trees can be used in a variety of ways; they can be planted in various locations and for many purposes. They are extremely valuable in shaping the landscape and in sustaining the capacity of the land to support a growing population. However, trees have a long lifespan and grow to a large size, so the grower has to be able to wait till the tree yields its product(s). Moreover, as land is getting scarce it is becoming more difficult to give trees the space they need. Because of these limitations it is very important to choose the right tree and to plant it in the right place. These aspects are briefly outlined in this chapter. They are discussed much more extensively in Agrodok 16: Agroforestry.Trees protect and produce. They cast their shade over man and beast and provide shelter against strong winds, hot sun and lashing rain. Not only man and beast, but also companion crops, the soil and the entire environment benefit from these protective functions. Trees protect the soil against erosion. Moreover they pump up nutrients from deep down which end up in the topsoil when the tree litter decays, thus replenishing fertility of the topsoil to some extent. Trees shape the landscape and have a moderating influence on the climate: they reduce the wind and the maximum temperature, raise the minimum temperature and humidity, and also act as a barrier against air pollution. Companion crops benefit from soil conservation (erosion control, nutrient recycling) and the ameliorated climate. Garden crops are physically protected against cattle and trespassers by a hedge of woody plants.Trees also yield a wide variety of products as shown in Table 1. And species that do not yield any of these products for the market or home use usually provide forage for the farm animals and/or fuelwood for the household. In fact forage and fuelwood are the two most important tree products in many rural areas. Obviously a single tree may serve several distinct purposes. An excellent example is the coconut: in southern India more than 200 uses have been described for different parts of the palm! Such trees are called multi-purpose trees. On the other hand, using the tree for a particular purpose tends to affect the other uses. For instance, if a farmer regularly lops branches off a tree for fodder he cannot expect that tree to yield much fruit or provide much shade for cattle. Also there will be less fuelwood left when the tree is cut down. Thus it is important to treat each tree in accordance with the main purpose for which it is grown and to accept that as a consequence the other benefits are reduced.It is useful to distinguish trees that are primarily grown for the product they yield, the true TREE CROPS (e.g. fruit trees, plantation tree crops, timber trees), from the so-called AUXILIARY WOODY PLANTS which are primarily grown for their supportive role on the farm, their environmental benefits, and for forage and fuelwood. These roles, e.g. a hedge around a garden, contour hedges to stabilize a slope, live posts to support a cattle fence, a windbreak along a banana plantation, or trees planted to improve fallow vegetation, can often be combined very well with the use of prunings for fodder and/or fuelwood.Agroforestry is mainly concerned with auxiliary woody plants and their interactions with field crops and animals on the farm. Tree crops are mainly found as scattered trees in home gardens and as commercial crops in orchards (fruit trees) or plantations (e.g. rubber, oil palm, coffee). The distinction between tree crops and auxiliary trees extends to the propagation methods. Forestry and agroforestry generally employ simple methods suited to mass propagation, the large majority of the plants being raised from seed. Most tree crops, on the other hand, are cloned using more complicated methods such as rooting of cuttings or (air) layers, or budding or grafting on a rootstock.Figure 2 illustrates the many locations on a farm where trees can be planted. Fruit trees are best planted near the house; trees for livestock feed are best planted near grazing fields and trees for fuelwood can be located further away from the farm.  Stoney, 1986) Bear in mind that much effort is needed to grow trees successfully on poor soils. However, once trees have gained a footing they will improve the fertility and structure of the soil. They add organic material and nutrients to the topsoil from their decaying litter of leaves and branches, and their roots break up compacted soil. (See also Agrodok 2: Soil fertility) If you intend to plant trees in an area where trees have disappeared due to felling, animal grazing or fire, you need to be sure that you can prevent this from happening again.Finally, try to choose a place where a tree will not cause problems for others, for example from the shadow it casts or by decreasing crop yields through competition for water. It may be necessary to consult neighbours in order to avoid conflicts. The choice of species is limited by the site: species that thrive on a dry hillside are different from those suited to a well-watered valley. And as farmers know well, desirable tree characteristics generally come at a price: there are no miracle trees! Fast growth, for instance, leads to quick closure of a hedge, but it also means that the hedge has to be trimmed more frequently to keep it in good shape. Moreover trees that grow fast usually require better growing conditions than slow-growing species. They also tend to be fierce competitors, leading to poor growth of a nearby field crop. Most fruit trees prefer sheltered conditions so if they have to be planted on an exposed site, a windbreak may be needed.If local species cannot quite meet your requirements, or if knowledgeable people convince you that a certain species growing elsewhere would be better, it may be worthwhile to first try out alternative species alongside local species.Although growing trees can have many benefits, you must also take the limiting factors and possible negative results into account:? Some trees are poisonous, like the flowers of the ornamental tree frangipani, for instance. A tree may increase the risk of diseases or pests affecting other plants or animals. The ornamental hedge plant Lantana camara can become a noxious weed. Other shrubs, e.g. Prosopis juliflora in dry areas, may also spread rampantly and become a nuisance. Dovyalis caffra makes an excellent hedge in the highlands, but if allowed to fruit it harbours fruit flies that are much feared by citrus growers. Falling branches and heavy fruit can also cause damage, for instance where sausage trees are planted on the roadside. ? A considerable drawback is that trees take a number of years to provide the desired products or protection. During these years, tree cultivation takes up land and costs time and money; inputs which might have been used to grow field crops, for instance. ? Growing trees entails risks that are related to their long life-span.These risks lie on the marketing side (is there still a good market for the product(s) by the time the trees come into production?), as well as on the production side ('new' diseases or pests may attack them; a fire may ruin years of hard work in a plantation, etc.). The risks involved must be weighed and found acceptable. Generally speaking it is a good idea to plant a variety of trees using several methods (see Chapter 3) in order to decrease the risks. ? Before planting trees the ownership rights for the planned location must be clear. It is important to know who has authority over the tree for the whole period from planting to harvest. Where land is not owned privately, it must be ensured that the benefits go to the planter/caretaker. National and local laws concerning trees on the land must also be respected. For example, felling may be prohibited or reforestation may be obligatory where erosion is a problem or where certain tree species are becoming rare.3 Collection and treatment of seeds, wildings and cuttingTrees that are used for propagation material are called mother trees. Of course it is important to select outstanding mother trees. For instance, choose the seed from a jackfruit which is liked by one and all in the village, or take root cuttings from a breadfruit tree which produces fruit that is particularly suited to making chips. Mark the outstanding mother trees so that you can recognize them in years to come.Selection makes sense because the young trees will be expected to inherit the favourable characteristics from the mother tree, such as fast growth, upright or spreading shape of the tree crown, good flowering and fruiting and tolerance of diseases or pests. However, here we must distinguish between propagation by seed and propagation using other parts of the tree.The seed is the result of sexual reproduction. This implies recombination of the genes when the flower is pollinated. Each pollen grain (the male component) gets a unique set of genes and likewise every ovule (the female component) in the ovary of the flower. Successful pollination is the fusion of the genes of a pollen grain with those of an ovule. As a result each fertilised ovule has a unique set of gene pairs. The ovary becomes the fruit, and the ovules develop into seeds.Because of the recombination of the genes, the genetic make-up of the seeds differs, resulting in seedling variation. Hence, although all the seedlings resemble the mother tree in some respects, no two seedlings are the same. Seedling variation occurs even if the pollen comes from the same mother tree. In that case, while the seeds inherit all their characteristics from the mother tree, the rearrangement of the genes in the flower ensures that each individual seed receives a unique mix of genes, so that its characteristics are not the same as those of the mother tree. The differences between the seedlings will become even greater if they are grown under different conditions. In contrast, if a part of the mother tree -other than the seed -becomes a new plant, e.g. a layer or a cutting, the genetic make-up of that plant is exactly the same as that of the mother tree. Consequently all cuttings from one mother tree have the same set of gene pairs and therefore the same characteristics; they form a so-called clone. Differences between plants of a clone can only be caused by different growing conditions.So, in the above examples of jackfruit and breadfruit, the jackfruit seedlings may not produce the same delicious fruit as the selected mother tree. However, because seedlings inherit characteristics, there is a better chance that some seedling(s) will produce delicious fruit, than seedlings from an indifferent jackfruit tree. On the other hand, all the root cuttings of the breadfruit tree should produce fruit equally suitable for making chips as that of the mother tree, provided the growing conditions are similar to the conditions in which the mother tree is growing.Conclusion: Selection of a superior mother trees is always desirable, but the characteristics for which it was selected will only be reproduced straightforwardly if it is cloned. Cloning implies that within each crop named varieties or cultivars are distinguished. Seedling populations that are better adapted to specific growing conditions can be obtained using seed from carefully selected mother trees grown in so-called seed gardens.Seedling variation is a drawback if you want to reproduce one specific characteristic. A fruit grower, for instance, wants to grow a specific variety of guava, not just any guava, and devotes much time to caring for each tree. A forester, on the other hand, wants vigorous vegetation on an area of land which does not demand much attention. In the latter situation seedling variation is an advantage because it leads to 'the survival of the fittest': the fastest growing trees, the ones that are most tolerant to diseases or pests, and so forth.Another advantage of seedlings is that they have a much stronger root system, typically with a long taproot, than cloned plants. This leads to increased vigour and delays the onset of flowering and fruiting. This advantage -for the forester -becomes a drawback when the trees are grown for their fruit. That is one reason why fruit growers prefer clonal material. Because of the weaker root system cloned trees need far more care: they may have to be tied to a stake and are more likely to require irrigation during a dry season.Finally, propagation by seed has the advantage that few diseases are transmitted through seeds, so that seedlings usually have a healthy start. If other parts of the mother tree are used, they may be infected by viruses, bacteria, fungi, eggs of insects, etc., giving the clonal material a bad start (and making selection for health of the mother tree all the more important!).In the case of wildings -whether seedlings or suckers on a stumpthe characteristics of the mother trees are generally not known, so that selection for superior characteristics is not feasible.You can collect seed yourself or buy it from traders, forestry services or 'seed banks' usually located in research institutes (see: Useful Addresses). If you plan to collect seeds from local trees choose ripe fruit with seeds that are large and healthy. Seeds that have recently fallen are generally good, but very often the first and the last seeds to fall are either infertile, infected or damaged. Ripeness is indicated in different ways: fleshy fruits often change colour, or the flesh becomes softer. Dry fruits often burst open causing the seed to be released.? Gather from under the tree (clear the ground under the tree before fruit/seed falls). ? Hit the tree with a stick or shake branches using a long hook or by throwing a rope (Figure 4), catch the seeds in containers or sheets under and around the tree. ? Use long-handled cutters or a saw. ? Climb the tree and pick the fruit. ? Pick fruit from bearing trees that have been cut down.Ripe fruit and seed must be collected without delay, otherwise they will be eaten by animals, including bats and birds. Many types of seeds lose their germination strength rapidly (especially large seeds, e.g. mango, avocado, durian, jackfruit). Germination of these so-called recalcitrant seeds is even reduced if they are stored for just one week after extraction from the fruit. Moreover the growth of the seedlings lags behind that of freshly sown seed. If recalcitrant seeds cannot be sown immediately, it is best to leave them in the fruit till they are sown.Fruits must be brought quickly to a dry, well-ventilated place. Never leave them in a plastic bag where they may suffocate and rot.Methods for removing seed from the fruit vary. Dry fruits such as cones and pods often need special treatment (e.g. exposure to the sun to open them) to extract the seeds. Sometimes this occurs naturally: the seed pods of some Acacia species disintegrate when they have dried out, and by shaking them gently the seeds will fall out. Advice on suitable methods for extracting seed is best obtained locally. Once the seeds have been removed they need to be cleaned thoroughly to remove all bits of fruit flesh, pod or husk, especially if the seed is to be stored. The flesh of soft fruit (e.g. mango) has to be brushed/rinsed off before the seed is planted; many fleshy fruits contain substances that inhibit germination. You can clean seeds by hand or -for dry seeds -by winnowing in the wind, as is done with most Acacia species and Senna siamea.Seeds may be sieved to remove dirt and low quality seeds. The best quality seeds are nearly always the biggest. Another way of separating seeds is to immerse them in water. The bad seeds and most dirt will float, while the good seeds sink. Remove the good seeds and dry them carefully.If seeds cannot be planted immediately after collection, they must be stored. Some seeds (e.g. legumes) can be stored at normal temperatures for many years as long as they are kept dry. Most seeds, however, can only be kept for a limited period of time; recalcitrant seeds should be sown as soon as possible after extraction from the fruit.Well-stored seeds are kept dry and at a constant cool temperature. Dry the seed before storage to prevent infection by fungi and bacteria. However, extreme heat must be avoided as this destroys the seeds' ability to germinate. Do not dry seeds in direct sunlight, but in a shaded, well-ventilated place.Seeds that have been properly dried can be stored in containers such as pots, tins, boxes or bags. For insulation, seeds can be doubly sealed by first putting them in a thick plastic bag. Close the bag tightly and put it in a container with a lid. By burying the containers under a layer of dry soil in a shaded place you can keep them at a constant cool temperature.Make sure insects or rodents cannot get into the containers. Label each container and insert a note of treatment given and the date of storage. Check the contents regularly and at the same time turn the seeds or shake the container.Germination of seed of some trees may take many months, the seed awaiting the low temperatures of winter or the heat of a forest fire to break seed dormancy. Germination may also be delayed by a hard or tough seed coat or by certain substances in the seed. Such seeds can be treated to speed up germination and -even more important -to ensure more simultaneous germination. If little time lapses between emergence of the first and last seedlings of a sowing, the uniformity of the seedlings greatly facilitates proper timing of all propagation work.A range of treatments is used to accelerate germination: ? Soaking in water or acid This is a simple method involving soaking the seeds for 2 days in cold water prior to sowing. This makes the seed swell, breaking the coat and leaching the substances that delay germination. This method works for seeds from many tree species. In some cases acid is added to make the liquid more abrasive.? Hot water treatment This removes the hard outer cover of some seeds, leaving a softer covering that the sprout can break through more easily. Bring water to the boil (about 4 litres for 1 kg of seeds), take it off the fire and immerse the seeds in it. Allow the water with seeds to cool overnight. Rinse them with clean water the next day. This method is the right one for leguminous species such as Acacia, Senna, and Prosopis species and also for Faidherbia albida. Some seeds must be boiled briefly, e.g. baobab seeds.? Scarification: To facilitate germination a shallow incision is made in the hard seed coat using a file, or the tip of the seed is cut off. A simple way of scarifying legume seeds is to rub them over a rough surface, e.g. sandpaper. This scratches the seed coat, but the scratches should not go right through the coat. You must also be careful not to let the seeds get too hot, as this will destroy the sprout. This method works for instance for Leucaena species and Faidherbia albida.? Stratification: Many seeds of trees from the temperate and subtropical zones require winter chilling to break seed dormancy, e.g. pecan nut, persimmon, peach. Where these trees are grown in tropical highlands it may be necessary to put the seed in a pot with moist sand in the refrigerator for about 2 months. This is not a common method. For more information write to Agromisa or ask your local forestry service (see Useful Addresses).Wildings are planting material collected from natural vegetation, e.g. seedlings or cuttings. Wildings should have at least 2 to 4 fully formed leaves when you dig them up. Larger wildings have a stem about the diameter of a pencil. They can be collected when rain has moistened the soil, either with or without a root ball.Wildings with a root ball are dug up by making a cut on both sides of the plant at an angle of 45 o using a spade or machete. The plant is then lifted on the spade, holding the stem with the other hand and removed with the root ball intact. It is difficult to dig up small wildings with a root ball, because the root system is too small to hold the soil.Bare-rooted wildings are uprooted by loosening the soil around the roots with a pointed stick. The plants are pulled up carefully and the soil is shaken off the roots.In order to facilitate planting out, and avoid planting with crooked roots, the taproot and large side roots are often trimmed. Leaves except for the top ones can be removed to reduce transpiration.It is not a good idea to store wildings. It is better to plant them out as quickly as possible. The roots of bare-rooted wildings should be protected during transport by covering them with damp material (earth, jute sacking, banana leaves, etc.). Alternatively you can give the roots a mud dip in a mixture of clay and water.Different parts of the plant -leaf, stem or root -may be cut for rooting. Propagation by leaf cuttings is virtually limited to some ornamental plants. Stem cuttings are most common; they are classified as softwood or hardwood cuttings. Softwood cuttings are taken from a growing shoot, not far below the shoot tip, e.g. tea. Such tender, leafy cuttings require intensive nursing. In this Agrodok we shall only consider trees and shrubs which root well on hardwood. Hardwood refers to the wood of resting shoots, after the termination of a flush. It includes older twigs and branches, formed in earlier flushes.The preferred time to take hardwood cuttings is generally during the dry or cool season, when shoot growth is minimal. In deciduous trees the cuttings are best taken when the trees are leafless. Most woody plants are evergreen and the leaves have to be stripped from the part of the cutting that is inserted in the soil: about two/third of the length of the cutting. Usually a few leaves -sometimes halved -are left at the tip of the cutting, the number depending on growing conditions (shade, humidity, etc.). Leaves generally stimulate root growth, but cuttings are likely to dry out if the leaf area is large.The tip of the shoot or twig is usually discarded, but a vigorous shoot can still yield several cuttings of 15 -50 cm, the recommended length. Commonly, the diameter of cuttings ranges from pencil-thick to about 3 cm. The upper cut is oblique so rainwater runs off (see Figure 6). The lower cut is usually made just below a node, because rooting generally occurs mainly at the node. Always use clean tools: disinfect your cutting tool in boiling water before use. Never use a blunt knife or machete for taking cuttings. If a cut is not smooth and clean, rot may lead to failure of the cutting; it can also infect the wound on the mother tree. Upright branches and twigs are preferred for cuttings, because they grow upright after rooting, forming a tree with a proper trunk. Cuttings taken from horizontal or drooping branches often do not grow upright.If cuttings cannot be planted straight away they may be stored in a cool shaded place under damp jute bags, grass or leaves. Leafy cuttings should be planted without delay.Stem cuttings of some woody plants strike root more easily if the branches have been ringed beforehand. Two weeks to two months before taking a cutting, a ring of bark about 2.5 cm wide is cut away down to the wood (the shoot will be cut near the underside of the ring). The leaves near the ring are cut off. In a ringed branch the sugars formed by the leaves can no longer travel further down the branch. It results in food reserves being built up in the part that will serve as the cutting. However, this only works if the ringed shoots are growing vigorously; otherwise the accumulating sugars may enhance flowering of the branch. Flower formation and root growth are antagonistic: a part of a plant which is inclined to flower is much less likely to form new roots! Several pruning techniques -cutting back, pollarding, coppicing -are used to stimulate trees to form additional shoots from which to take cuttings. Hard pruning helps to suppress flowering (that is why a frequently pruned hedge fails to flower), enhancing the ability to form roots.? Cutting back Cutting back branches or twigs stimulates buds to break and grow into new shoots. These shoots can be used as cuttings. The advantage is that a larger number of uniform (same age, similar size) cuttings be-comes available. If many branches are cut back the mother tree requires adequate vigour to support sturdy growth of all the new shoots. Make sure that there is enough moisture in the soil. It may be advisable to fertilize the mother tree in the season before it is cut back.Pollarding is more drastic pruning: the tree trunk is cut at a height of about 2 m. Below the cut a number of watershoots emerge, which after about a year can be cut to be used as large cuttings, so-called live stakes. Gliricidia sepium or Erythrina species are examples of trees that produce good live stakes, because they strike root easily when planted during the wet season. They may be used to support a fence or climbing plants (e.g. pepper, vanilla) or a trellis (e.g. for gourds or chayote).Coppicing is cutting the tree trunk off close to the ground in order to stimulate the growth of new shoots on the stump. These shoots can then be cut off and used for planting.Tree roots can also be used to take cuttings, e.g. Casuarina species. Some trees (e.g. breadfruit) even produce root suckers spontaneously. If these suckers form their own roots, they can start life on their own. To encourage the emergence of root suckers, roots are cut using a spade or small axe. The piece of root cut off may form a rooted sucker (see Figure 7A). In the seedless breadfruit in this example, roots a few centimetres in diameter and about 20 cm long are cut off. These cuttings are planted in a shaded spot in the nursery. If a high humidity is maintained rooted suckers will be ready after a couple of months (see Figure 7B). Tree species that cannot be propagated by cuttings because they do not readily form roots, may in some cases be induced to form roots on shoots before the shoots are detached from the mother tree. This propagation method is called layering after its simplest form: tips of drooping shoots of shrubs bend till they lay on the ground where they may root spontaneously, as in the case of some Rubus species (e.g. blackberry).Although in some countries layers are propagated in large numbers, the techniques are particularly suited to home gardeners who have an outstanding tree and want to make relatives or friends happy with one or two plants with the same excellent characteristics.In simple layering long flexible twigs of certain shrubs and vines are bent down and part of the twig behind the tip is covered with soil (see Figure 8). Obstructing the sap flow from the tip of the twig by twisting the part that is to be buried, helps to induce root formation. Instead of twisting the twig it may be wounded by cutting a notch in it or by removing a ring of bark. Rooting will take place near the wound on the side of the tip. Once the roots are sufficiently developed the layer can be cut free from the mother tree. Air-layering It is difficult to bend upright branches down to the ground to be layered. The alternative is to bring the soil up to the branch: air layering (also called marcotting). A ring of bark is removed from the twig or branch that is to be air-layered, as described above, and the soft cambium layer is scratched off, so that the wound cannot heal. A ball of moist friable soil, shredded coconut fibre or other rooting medium is fixed around the ring by wrapping it in polythene so that it does not dry out (see Figure 9). Roots are formed just above the ring and after 2 -6 months (depending on the tree species) the rooted air layers can be cut. Do not cut layers if the shoots on the mother tree are expected to flush during the next few weeks. The layers will flush at the same time and the young roots may not be able to cope with the sudden burden of all these new leaves. In home gardens fruit trees such as guava and litchi are often propagated by air layering. The number of trees can be increased through natural regeneration of existing trees or through man's propagation activities, as shown in the schedule below.? spontaneous growth of seedlings, suckers, layers PROPAGATION BY MAN: ? direct field planting, using e.g. seeds, wildings, cuttings ? in a nursery, raising trees from e.g. seeds, cuttings Natural regeneration is often facilitated and stimulated by foresters or farmers. The methods have much in common with those employed in direct field planting. These two approaches are both discussed below; propagation of plants in a nursery is only outlined in this chapter, because the details of nursery work are dealt with in Chapters 5 -8.Spontaneous growth of new plants, without the interference of man, is called natural regeneration. Seeds are the main source of new plants, in natural vegetation as well as in farming. Some plants -including several shrubs -also spread through suckering: the growth of side shoots (suckers) that form roots and become independent of the mother plant. Others -in particular vines -may form new plants through layering: a long trailing shoot striking root where it touches the ground. Regrowth from the stump after cutting down (coppicing) certain trees -e.g. many Eucalyptus species -is also a way of natural regeneration.Natural regeneration can be encouraged by improving conditions for growth of young trees and by protecting them against hazards such as fire and browsing animals. This applies for instance to fallow fields where the vegetation traditionally results from natural regeneration. Scarcity of land forces farmers to shorten the fallow period; in this situation measures to hasten natural regeneration and to encourage the growth of desirable trees and shrubs are most welcome.Clearing litter from strips of land (the litter may be moved to the adjacent strips) makes it easier for seeds to germinate. The strips are commonly 50 -100 cm wide. Always align the strips along the contour to reduce the risk of erosion; strips running down the slope aggravate erosion. On steep slopes or fragile soils it is best not to disturb the existing vegetation more than is absolutely necessary. In these conditions.stimulating natural regeneration is the preferred approach. The seeds of some species, e.g. Prosopis juliflora, can be fed to animals that graze the area. In this way the seeds will be distributed with the dung, and germinate in the fertile environment provided by the dung. Once the seedlings are growing they can be helped along by weeding around them and later by slashing vegetation that competes with the sapling, leaving the cuttings as mulch under the sapling to conserve moisture and suppress weed growth.Fire is a hazard where the dry season is long, especially if fires are part of the farming routine (e.g. shifting cultivators burning fallow fields, or pastoralists burning parklands to speed up regrowth of grasses). In that case firebreaks -strips of cleared land wide enough to stop a fire -are needed, particularly where litter has accumulated under the trees.In areas in Africa used by pastoralists, planting trees failed because the trees were not protected against browsing animals. This happened in a project in Senegal, where an area of 1,700 hectares was afforested. It is now common practice to protect a selected area from livestock so that natural regeneration can take place till tree cover is restored. Thorny branches can also be used to protect young trees against browsing and trampling by animals.In a community project in the hill country of Nepal, aimed at forest regeneration in combination with fodder grass production, protection goes even further. A plot of degraded land is fenced off and a guard is employed. In this way the natural regeneration (e.g. Alnus nepalensis, Castanopsis species, Sekinia species) is protected against disturbance during the first year. Thereafter, the plot is weeded, undesirable trees are removed and regular grass cutting is allowed. After 5 years branches of the regenerated trees may be cut -for firewood or fodder -as well. Eventually the trees are harvested and the cycle is repeated.Natural regeneration is often not recognized as a form of land-use, which means that other people may occupy the land for their own use. This played a role in Papua New Guinea, where natural regeneration was not successful due to lack of clarity concerning ownership rights and lack of supervision. Areas where regeneration has taken place have been lost through fire or illegal land-use by farmers. This shows that for natural regeneration to succeed, it is necessary to have the cooperation of all people involved in the exploitation of an area.Natural regeneration is of course limited to trees that are already growing in the area. On the other hand these trees have the advantage that they are well adapted to the climate and are tolerant to native pests and diseases. Moreover the local people are familiar with the trees and their uses.It is only a small step from encouraging natural regeneration to direct field planting: foresters or farmers gather the seed and sow it where they want these trees or shrubs to grow. When a farmer takes this trouble it makes sense to work the soil where the seed is to be sown to facilitate germination and early growth of the trees. To minimize the work the soil is not ploughed or hoed but scarified (scarification is just loosening the uppermost soil layer). This improves the uptake of water and reduces the competition by grasses.An elegant way of direct sowing is practiced by Laela Agricultural College in southern Tanzania. The nutritious pods of Faidherbia albida are fed to cattle -a few handfuls per day. The manure is collected and a shovel-full is mixed in the soil at each plant position. This is a very successful and simple method to establish the trees, provided the young seedlings are protected against grazing and competition by weeds.Where the rainy season is short or severe droughts occur direct seeding is often not successful. On sloping land with a soil that stores much moisture, this problem can be solved by guiding the rainwater to shallow pits. A tree can be grown at the edge of each pit. (See Agrodok No.13: 'Water harvesting and soil moisture retention' for detailed information on this so-called 'run-off farming'.) In dry areas of Africa good results have been achieved by direct seeding with Borassus aethiopum, Acacia species and cashew. The seedlings first form a long taproot and grow quickly above the height of surrounding weeds.Fast-growing trees are most suited to direct sowing because they are better able to compete with weeds. Moreover, ample quantities of seed should be available, because only a small percentage of the seed will produce successful seedlings: they face the same hazards as in natural regeneration. The calculation of the amount of seed needed for direct seeding is shown in Appendix 1.In areas with clumps of thorny shrubs it is possible to sow seeds between thorny branches to reduce the chance of seedlings being eaten. Using hardy tree species to establish a shelterbelt in a windswept area will improve growing conditions for more delicate species Direct planting out of wildings Instead of collecting and sowing seed, young seedlings or rooted suckers may also be gathered from where they are growing spontaneously for direct field planting. Field establishment of these wildings needs care and favourable growing conditions, because these plants were not raised to be transplanted and often most roots are lost when the plants are lifted. The soil must be moist; the number of leaves is usually reduced by stripping or by cutting the shoot back. Moreover, if there is still a risk of the wildings drying out, each wilding may need to be shaded during the first season, for instance by one or two palm fronds. A high percentage of survival of the trees can only be expected when species that establish easily are transplanted during the most favourable time of the year, i.e. generally early in the wet season.Farmers often plant cuttings directly on the spot required, for instance to establish a hedge round a garden or field. Examples: Gliricidia sepium, Euphorbia species, Lantana camara. Very large cuttings, socalled live stakes, are up to 2 m long with a diameter of up to 10 cm. They are planted directly along a field boundary: to support a fence (e.g. Albizia procera, Erythrina species); around a cattle pen where livestock will be kept during the night (e.g. Commiphora species); in a field as shade trees for cocoa or coffee (e.g. Gliricidia sepium, Erythrina species); to support climbing crop plants such as pepper or chayote (e.g. Moringa oleifera).In forestry direct field planting of cuttings includes Casuarina species and Eucalyptus species in dry lands and Calliandra calothyrsus and Dactyladenia barteri in humid climates. Only species that strike root easily can be propagated by cuttings. And even fewer species can be propagated by live stakes, partly because live stakes generally receive no aftercare whatsoever.If trees have to be established quickly -as is often the case when the protective function (e.g. erosion control) is most important -direct planting out of wildings or cuttings may be best. This planting material is in principle available throughout the year, although cuttings should not be taken when the tree is flushing. If trees shed their leaves, the best time to take cuttings is when they are leafless.The scale on which planting is to take place also determines the choice of planting material. Wildings and cuttings are often only available in limited numbers. Seed is usually available in larger quantities.If natural regeneration or direct field planting are not successful for the tree species you wish to grow, the trees must be propagated in a nursery. A nursery is a plot of land where young trees can be raised under more or less controlled conditions. These include: ? protection against cattle, goats, chickens, etc. ? a guaranteed water supply ? shade against the hot sun and shelter against strong wind ? improved soil conditions, if necessary by preparing your own potting soil.Consequently 100 seeds or cuttings raised in the nursery will generally yield many more plants, which will be more uniform than following direct sowing/planting in the field. These advantages of a nursery are greater if field conditions are harsh, e.g. free roaming animals, unpredictable rainfall, degraded land. It takes from about two months to a year to raise different agroforestry species in the nursery, depending on how fast the plants grow and on the preferred size for field planting.There is of course a danger that the advantages of better germination and uniformity of plants raised in the nursery are lost following transplanting in the field. To prevent this the nurseryman must stick to two principles:(1) planting material must be ready in time (2) in nursery work the roots come first.(1) Plants should be ready for transplanting in the most favourable season -usually shortly after the beginning of the rains.The entire planning and timing of all activities from ordering seed to hardening off before field planting, should be geared to ensuring that the plants are ready on time, neither early nor late. Even in a climate without a clear dry season there is still a most favourable time of the year for field planting.Farmers in eastern Zambia raise seedlings of Sesbania sesban in a nursery and plant these in fallow fields to improve the fallow vegetation. They have found that it is worthwhile to sow seed twice with an interval of 2 weeks. If the rains come early, the first-sown batch of seedlings is planted; if the rains arrive late, the second batch is used. In other words: farmers are prepared to throw away half the seedlings, just to improve the chances of the plants being ready for planting at the right moment!(2) The survival and uniformity of the plants in the field depends on their roots rather than the shoots. Unfortunately the roots grow in the dark, the shoots in the light and it is very common in nursery work to pay more attention to the shoots than to the roots. A small plant with relatively many roots is much better equipped to survive field planting than a large plant with a small proportion of roots. (see Figure 11).A well-branched root system, even at the expense of shoot growth, is the secret of success in nursery work. In other words: the root:shoot ratio should be high -much root growth in relation to the size of the shoot. If this is not the case the root:shoot ratio must be increased when the plants leave the nursery, by cutting back the shoot or stripping off most of the leaves. Let us assume that you are already doing some nursery work, for instance in a corner of the home garden, and that you want to improve and expand the nursery.Step-by-step we will consider the following topics:? propagation of bare-rooted seedlings and wildings ? the use of pots ? propagation of cuttings ? setting up a farm nursery ? care for the plants in the nursery ? planting out and aftercare in the field.While reading these topics, keep the two points in the boxes above in mind. Proper timing of nursery work is further discussed in Section 6.4, fostering root growth comes to the fore in Sections 5.1 and 5.2 as well as Section 7.1; the root:shoot ratio is one of the subjects of Section 7.3.Chapter 3 dealt with the collection and treatment of seedlings, wildings and cuttings. In this chapter we discuss how to raise these propagules in the nursery.Direct sowing in beds in the nursery Growing bare-rooted seedlings is the simplest form of tree propagation in a nursery. This method is used if the species is 'easy to plant out', meaning. not prone to heavy losses after field planting. Ample quantities of (cheap) seed and a high germination percentage are also favourable for direct sowing. Sow the seed in a well-prepared bed and let the seedlings grow till they are ready for field planting. You may have experience with raising vegetable seedlings, such as tomato and eggplant, in this way. However, vegetable seedlings are ready for planting out in a matter of weeks, whereas seedlings of trees have to stay in the nursery bed for two months to one year. Therefore more care is needed in the preparation and maintenance of the beds, as explained in Section 6.2.The above method is not used much for tree nursery work. It is only suited to seedlings which will be ready within a few months and will survive easily after field planting. A more common method is to sow the seed closely in seedbeds and to prick out the young seedlings into plantbeds at the right spacing for their further growth in the nursery.Pricking out is the term used for transplanting young delicate seedlings by lifting them gently, using a pointed bamboo stick for instance.There are good reasons to separate the germination stage and further growth in the nursery: ? The seed of many trees germinates slowly and unevenly. Seed of Cordia alliodora, for instance, starts to germinate two weeks after sowing, but you may have to wait for 8 months to see the last seeds germinate! As discussed in Section 3.2 pregermination treatments are needed for many species to stimulate germination of the bulk of the seeds within a reasonably short period of time. By pricking out the seedlings that have reached the right stage every few days, a uniform stand is achieved in the plantbed. And if plants grow uniformly they can be given the right treatment (e.g. topdressing with fertilizer, root pruning) at the right time!? The requirements for germination are not the same as those for seedling growth. A seedbed needs careful levelling to prevent washing down of seeds to a lower edge during watering. Rake the bed to obtain a fine tilth so that the seeds can be sown at the proper depth and break through the soil surface easily. On the other hand the soil in a seedbed does not need to be rich. River sand is fine, because it is well drained and relatively free from moulds which attack germinating seeds. The soil does not need to be fertile because the seedlings are pricked out before the food reserves in the seed have been exhausted. A plantbed does not require such a perfect surface, but friable, rich soil to encourage growth and branching of the roots.? A germinating seed first produces a taproot and then the sprout.Usually the taproot grows much faster than the sprout and the growth of side roots lags behind. During pricking out the tip of the taproot breaks off and this stimulates branching of the root system. This is extremely important: remember -in nursery work the roots come first! Instead of seedbeds you can use seed trays, wooden or plastic boxes of, say, 40 × 30 cm and about 5 cm deep, filled with coarse sand. These can be put on the veranda or under a lean-to roof to protect the germinating seeds against heavy rain or the hot sun. Place the trays on a bench or table, so that you do not have to bend down to sow the seed and to facilitate pricking out seedlings that have reached the right stage. As the trays contain little soil, it will be no problem to fill them with clean sand for each batch of seed. This prevents diseases such as damping off. Placing the trays on a bench also puts them out of reach of cutworms.A final improvement in the germination stage is the use of seed trays with an open-mesh bottom. You could make your own wooden trays with a wire mesh bottom (like a sieve) or cut and fold heavy netted plastic sheets that are used as windscreens (see Figure 12). You may even find cheap plastic trays with mesh sides and bottom in the market.Sand would fall through, so you have to fill the trays with friable soil or -better still -with a good rooting medium such as shredded coconut fibre. Place the tray(s) on a bench with an open top, e.g. made of wire netting or slats, so that the underside of the trays is exposed to the air. What happens when you sow the seed in such a tray? Within a few days from germination the taproot reaches the underside of the tray and its growth is stopped by exposure to the air. In response to this airpruning numerous side roots grow out near the root collar. When the seedlings are pricked out one can see the dramatic effect: instead of a long, sparsely branched taproot, the root system looks more like that of an onion with its full skirt of side roots. Prick the plants out 5 to 10 days later than usual to give the side roots time to grow and the seedlings will arrive in the plantbed with a perfectly branched root system in the making! Air-pruning the taproot by germinating seeds in open-bottom trays is recommended where pricking out is not a serious bottleneck. (Pricking out requires much labour and for seedlings with well-developed side roots the work is even more time-consuming.) The fruit, nut and agroforestry species, on which air-pruning has been tested in different parts of the tropics, all responded very well. Where seed trays are already used, it is quite simple to change over to open-bottom trays.Some species of the arid zone need a taproot to reach the groundwater table in the shortest possible time. However, in the Negev desert in Israel it was shown that one or two side roots of trees of which the roots had been air-pruned took over the task of the taproot in racing down towards the water table. For an extensive discussion of the pros and cons of air pruning of roots see AgroSpecial 1: A nurseryman and his trees.The soil in seedbeds must be compacted to ensure good contact between the top layer in which the seeds are sown and the deeper layers.In loose soil the topsoil may dry out quickly because moisture cannot move upwards between the soil particles. Firm the soil, for instance using a board over which you can walk. The soil is sufficiently compacted if only a slight imprint is left when you press it with the knuckles of a fist. Light watering after sowing also helps to settle the soil around the seed. Do not compact the soil in a bed when it is too wet as this can ruin the soil structure.Sow seeds at a density that will produce sufficient seedlings to fill the area. Never sow too densely, as crowding will result in weak, lanky seedlings; it also increases losses due to damping off. Leave a space of about 8 cm around the edge of raised seedbeds without seeds, as the edge often crumbles away. Water seedbeds or trays one day before sowing.If seeds are sown in seedbeds or trays and will be pricked out later, they are broadcast or dibbled in rows. Small seeds (e.g. Eucalyptus species) are mixed with fine sand in a sand-seed ratio of 2:1. This makes even sowing at the right density much easier.Broadcasting is scattering the seed by hand; it requires practice to achieve a fairly even distribution. If you lack experience, it is better to sow thinly, for overcrowding means that the seedlings have to be thinned, which is a waste of planting material. Broadcasting is limited to small seeds, because large seeds cannot be placed at the right depth by broadcasting. Broadcast seed is either raked in or covered immediately with loose material, such as coarse sand or very fine gravel.Light watering of the covered seeds helps to settle the soil, ensuring good contact between seeds and soil.Row-seeding makes it easier to ensure an even distribution, although dibbling also requires practice and some thinning out may be needed. Sowing in rows also facilitates weeding and pricking out. The rows can be made by pressing a slat across the bed to make small V-shaped furrows in which the seed is sown (see Figure 13). If seeds are sown directly in their final position in the nursery (no pricking out) they are sown in pits at the proper spacing in a regular pattern. The spacing depends on the tree species and the required seedling size for planting out. A drilling board, fitted with pegs at the desired spacing is a very useful tool to make holes the correct distance apart and in the correct pattern (see Figure 14). Both large and small seeds can be sown in this way. Sowing depth is generally twice the diameter of the seed. For example, seed with a diameter of 3 cm is sown at a depth of 6 cm (see Figure 15). If seed is sown too deep the food reserves in the seed may be depleted before the seedling has formed green leaves for its nourishment.Cover seeds immediately after sowing. Seed in seed trays is often covered with loose material, such as coarse sand or very fine gravel, which are easier for the seedlings to break through. The soil in seedbeds must be firmed to ensure good contact between seeds and soil; contact is further improved by light watering of the covered seeds. If germination takes several weeks it is worthwhile to mulch seedbeds and seed trays. The mulch softens the impact of watering and keeps the topsoil moist. However, remove the mulch as soon as the first signs of germination are observed, otherwise sprouts growing through the mulch will be blanched, spindly and prone to disease. Pricking out is usually done when the seedlings have one or two normal leaves. Within the seed are preformed leaves, the so-called cotyledons: one for palms and two for nearly all other woody plants. A germinating seed first issues the cotyledon(s); thereafter the sprout forms normal leaves. The shape of the cotyledons is often quite different from that of the normal leaves (see Figure 16). In some cases the cotyledons remain underground.If seeds are sown at the right spacing, the seedlings fill the bed or tray by the time they have reached the stage for pricking out. For most species this is within a few weeks from emergence of the sprout. Simultaneous germination makes it possible to prick out all the seedlings at the same time, but even with proper pre-germination treatments it is often necessary to prick out repeatedly at an interval of several days. In that case the spacing of the seeds in the tray or bed needs to be wide enough to prick out seedlings without damaging the others.For larger seeds, e.g. of nut crops, the problem is sometimes circumvented by germinating the seeds on a moist gunny sack, putting another gunny sack on top. Every few days the seeds that start to germinate can be sown in a seedbed or tray, resulting in uniform batches of seedlings when it comes to pricking out.The way in which seedlings are pricked out is shown step by step in Figures 17 and 18. Figure 18 shows pricking out in pots, but the process is the same for plantbeds. Note that the seedlings are held by a leaf, not by the stem. This is to avoid damaging the tender stem or transmitting damping-off.  If wildings have to be nursed before field planting, they are set in plantbeds at the proper spacing. They can be graded according to size, paying particular attention to the amount of roots, to improve uniformity of the planting material.Raising bare-rooted or potted planting material? Sowing or planting in pots is an alternative to sowing or planting in beds. This requires extra work in the nursery and greatly increases the cost of transport if the seedlings are to be planted in a remote site.Making pots from local materials is time-consuming and earthenware pots are expensive, but with the introduction of cheap plastic pots ('polypots') potting up has become a lot more popular. Polypots are polythene sleeves that are supplied flat; filling with soil gives them their pot shape.The extra work and expense involved in using pots has to be made good by better quality of the planting material, resulting in a high percentage of survival and a uniform stand in the field. The main advantage is of course that the roots are left undisturbed in the potting soil when pot plants are planted out. Seedlings raised in the ground are dug up, and after transport little, if any, soil is held by the roots. Hence, they are planted bare-rooted.The advantages and drawbacks to both types of planting material are listed in Table 2. Potted plants have to be used when bare-rooted material would lead to many casualties, e.g. because of time-consuming transport from the nursery to the field, or unfavourable growing conditions in the field at the time of planting. Commercial nurseries usually raise many plants in pots, because they can be sold and planted over a much longer period than bare-rooted plants.It is not worth spending time and money on raising seedlings in pots if bare-rooted plants produce equally good results. If the roots are airpruned to obtain a sturdy well-branched root system, and if the trees can be planted at the right time of the year, it is unlikely that better results would be achieved with pot plants, even in case of longdistance transport. Often bare-rooted and potted plants are found side by side in the nursery, the choice depending on the hardiness of the tree species and the conditions mentioned above. The simplest and cheapest pots are made by cutting a polythene sleeve into sections of the required length. With one or two staples the sleeves can be converted into pots with a draining bottom. Readymade polythene bags, so-called polypots, are the main alternative (Figure 19). The size of these bags varies, but use ones that measure at least 18 × 8 cm when laid out flat. Hard plastic pots are more expensive. Pots must always have a hole in the bottom so that excess water can drain away. Pots can also be homemade from various materials such as paper, tin, clay, plastic (shopping bags) or plant material such as bamboo, banana stems or leaves.If plants stay in the pot longer than intended the roots either get 'potbound' or escape from the pot. In the case of pot-bound roots, active root growth in search of moisture and nutrients is largely limited to the bottom of the pot where the roots grow in circles. Elsewhere in the pot one finds few whitish root tips indicating active growth. As a result shoot growth slows down too. And during field planting the circling roots have to be cut off to prevent stunted growth, leaving only the inactive roots in the rest of the pot. In other words: instead of starting with an intact root system, the pot-bound plant has to make do with a mutilated and defective root system.Similarly, if roots grow through the drainage holes and find a better supply of water and nutrients in the soil underneath, they will grow vigorously at the expense of the roots inside the pot. The escaped roots are disrupted when the pot is lifted or when the pot is removed during planting out. So, in this case too, the purpose of raising plants in pots is thwarted.A small pot shortens the period during which the plant can be kept in the nursery. And if pots are larger than necessary, their use becomes more cumbersome and expensive. Appendix 1 gives examples of the increasing quantity of potting soil and bed area required if larger pots are used.Conclusion: to reap the advantages of raising plants in pots, it pays to find the optimum combination of pot size, period of growth in the pot, and size of planting material.Soil for filling the pots should be light and loose-textured for good aeration and drainage, so that root development is not impeded. But a ball of moist potting soil should not fall apart when picked up.It is difficult to give a standard mixture for potting soil, because what is used depends on what is available locally. However, a commonly used mixture is 3 parts topsoil, 1 part compost and 1 part sand. Sieve the soil to get rid of lumps and stones. Make a large screen from wire mesh (with 5 -10 mm square holes) stretched over and fastened to a wooden frame. Lean the sieve against a support so that it is at an angle and shovel the potting soil over it so that it falls through the sieve.Pots should be well filled. Tap the pot on the ground to settle the soil, leaving no air pockets Use a funnel to fill narrow pots, e.g. made by cutting the top half of a plastic bottle with a wide top. This works well if the soil is sufficiently loose and dry to flow down the funnel. Water the filled pots and leave them to stand for a few days till the pot soil has settled.Pots are placed close together in blocks of similar length and width as the plant beds in the nursery. It is very important that the ground has been properly levelled and firmed, so that the pots do not fall over and water does not erode the ground. A frame of wood, bricks or earth can be set up along the sides of the bed to keep the pots upright and to prevent overheating of the outer row of pots. (Black pots can get very hot in the sun.) On a slope the pots can be placed in trenches -again with carefully levelled bottom -to be inundated periodically by surface irrigation. The water cascades from the upper trench to the lower trenches, similar to the practice in wet rice fields. If water is scarce the trenches can be lined with polythene.Place the pots together in straight lines of equal length; this makes counting and transplanting easier. Always place the pots upright even though it is often easier to lean them against each other. If the pots lean to one side, even only slightly, water sprinkled over the pots tends to run off the lower edge instead of penetrating into the pots. It also results in a one-sided root system.Pots can be seeded directly, or they can be planted with seedlings pricked out from seedbeds or seed trays. Wildings or cuttings can also be planted in pots.Following direct seeding it is not possible to stimulate branching of the roots by (air)-pruning. So this method is only suitable for species that naturally form a root system branching sufficiently to hold the potting soil together during field planting. Choose a large enough pot to enable the seedling to grow to the desired size.Also, the germination percentage of the seed lot should be known, because this determines how much seed can be sown in each pot (see Table 3). How to calculate the germination percentage is explained in Appendix 1. If nearly every seed produces a good seedling, as is the case for Acacia species, one seed per pot is enough and there will be no need to thin out. For very small seeds use a sand-seed mixture (2:1). Dip a small (paint) brush in water, then in the sand-seed mixture and spread the mixture carefully over five pots that are filled with soil. For Eucalyptus seeds this will produce a maximum of 4 or 5 seedlings per pot. In case several seeds are sown per pot, only the strongest one is left after emergence. Thinned seedlings can be pricked out into pots in which none of the seeds germinated.For most tree species pricking out seedlings into pots is much preferred to direct seeding in the pots, for two reasons: ? Pricking out stimulates branching of the root system, so that the pots are better filled with roots to hold the soil during field planting; ? Because the pricked out seedlings are uniform, each batch of pot plants is uniform; problems with delayed germination are avoided.Cuttings rooted in a nursery are commonly set in raised, well-drained beds of friable soil. Before planting cuttings the lower end may be cut again to ensure that the cut surface is clean. This cut at the base is made just below a node, i.e. the point where a leaf was attached, because generally root formation is best at the nodes. If the bark is thick, it may be sliced or scraped off the base of the cutting to make it easier for new roots to break through.Push the cuttings into the soil until about 2/3 of the length of the cutting is covered. For cuttings of trees two buds are allowed aboveground. If they both grow out the weaker one is removed, so that the most vigorous one will form the tree trunk. In the case of shrubs 3 -5 buds may be left aboveground and all emerging shoots are allowed to grow. The cuttings may be set at an angle. A vertically placed cutting tends to produce one dominant shoot, whereas a more horizontally inclined cutting is likely to produce several more or less equivalent shoots. Hence a vertical position is generally preferred for trees, and a slanted position for shrubs. Do not plant the cuttings upside down! Plant the cuttings in rows about 25 cm apart with a spacing of about 20 cm in the row. After planting, water the bed again.Cuttings can also be set in pots, but this requires close attention to watering. The soil must be kept moist all the time, but if it becomes too wet the young roots quickly die because of lack of oxygen. In a bed it is easier to keep the soil moisture between these limits. Shade helps to reduce moisture loss and is essential for cuttings that retain some leaves, also because shade reduces air temperature. Shelter is also important because it protects the cuttings against drying wind and tends to raise the humidity of the air.Whereas seedlings have a dominant taproot, cuttings form so-called adventitious roots, which are basically all equal. In due course some adventitious roots may become much stronger than the others, but the root system does not become as strong as that of a seedling with a taproot. As mentioned in Section 3.1 this has far-reaching consequences for tree vigour and the onset of flowering and fruiting.Farm nurseries are used successfully in many areas: in West Kenya about a third of households traditionally raise their own seedlings. They are usually grown in the homestead. A nursery should be simple to lay out, requiring very little in the way of materials and maintenance. In the previous chapter we have seen that seedbeds and plantbeds and a collection of pots are possible features of a farm nursery.They may be used to raise seedlings or cuttings and -in some caseswildings. Indeed, in its simplest form a nursery may be limited to one or two beds with seedlings, or some seedlings or cuttings growing in makeshift containers such as old tins, pots or bowls placed in the shade of a tree. In this chapter we shall discuss where and how a farm nursery can best be set up, be it a simple or a more ambitious one. Because, if you plan to propagate trees and shrubs year after year, a permanent location can be chosen and the layout can be perfected.A nursery should be established as close to the house as possible -for instance in the home garden -to facilitate management and supervision. Below is a list of the most important factors that have to be taken into account when choosing the location for a nursery.The nursery must be protected against intruders, in particular animals such as goats and chickens. Usually the home garden is surrounded by a hedge, so if the nursery is in the garden protection against intruders is fairly simple.The nursery requires between 10 and 20 litres of water per square metre bed per day, depending on the temperature and the size of the plants. If rainfall is not sufficient there must be enough water available from another source, preferably throughout the year.Establish the nursery as close as possible to the water supply. A tank may be bought or built to store water in order to balance supply and demand. For instance, if there is shortage of water in the daytime when everybody draws water, the tank can be filled during the night so that you are not dependent on the daytime flow.A nursery is best laid out on fairly level ground, preferably with a gentle slope so that water runs off, avoiding problems of water stagnation and erosion. If the slope of the area is more than 2% (a height difference of about 2 cm over a distance of 1 m) terraces must be made.The nursery soil should be friable, deep and well drained. A thin layer of soil on top of stony subsoil is not suitable. If pots are to be used the quality of the soil is less important: pots can be filled with soil from elsewhere.A nursery must be shaded, because most tree seedlings are adapted to starting life shaded and sheltered by mature trees. Shade prevents overheating during the hot season and raises the humidity in the beds by impeding air movement. A home garden is generally a favourable location because the garden trees can provide the necessary shade. In South-East Asia more even shade is often provided by rows of fastgrowing Sesbania grandiflora (a small tree with large flowers which serve as a vegetable). This tree is sown in the nursery; the fine feathery leaves give a dappled shade, which can be regulated to some extent by pruning.  In Figure 21 palm fronds provide the shade; the shade can be reduced by removing some fronds. Mats made from sorghum or millet stems, split bamboo or grass can be laid on frames made of posts and bamboo or wire, about 50 cm above the beds (see Figure 22).Figure 22: Roll-up mats (From: Nieuwenhuis, 1990) These mats can be rolled out when it gets hot in the morning and rolled up again in the afternoon or when they interfere with work in the bed. Shade mats should allow about half the total amount of sunlight to penetrate so that the seedlings can grow well.Young plants should not be exposed to strong winds, as this greatly increases water requirements and reduces the rate of growth. Again the home garden environment is generally favourable, because the house, the garden trees and the hedge surrounding the garden all contribute to protecting the young plants against wind and dust.If the nursery is in an exposed position, a windbreak must be planted to break the prevailing wind. (See also Agrodok No. 16: Agroforestry and Agrodok No. 13: Water harvesting and soil moisture retention.)Although the beds in the nursery have been mentioned a number of times, we have not yet looked at the way in which they are prepared.In fact the beds are the most important part of the nursery and we shall now pay due attention to their preparation.Begin by preparing the area you want to use: level the ground and if possible make a slope with a gradient of 1 -2%. Dig drainage channels if necessary. Mark out beds and paths before shaping them.Beds are about 1 metre wide so that you can easily reach the plants in the middle from both sides. You should be able to do all the workpricking out, weeding, watering, etc. -without stepping on the bed. The length of the beds is of little importance; choose whatever length is convenient for the numbers of plants you intend to raise. The paths between the beds should be at least 60 cm wide.Beds are generally raised, although one sometimes sees level or sunken beds. Beds for pots are on level ground, occasionally they may be sunken to facilitate watering, as explained in Section 5.2. Raising seedbeds and plantbeds improves drainage, good drainage being the first requirement. Moreover, working with raised beds is easier, because there is far less bending down to do. (Seedbeds require much attention and this is another reason why seed trays are often used instead of seedbeds. The trays can be placed at a convenient height on a workbench, so that you do not have to bend down at all.)Topsoil can be scraped off the paths to raise the beds; the height usually ranges between 8 and 15 cm. Generous amounts of compost or manure (both old, well-decayed!) are added to make the soil more crumbly (friable) and to supply nutrients for the plants. If the soil is sandy this will also improve water retention. If it is a heavy clay soil, sand should be mixed in too, even up to 50 % (1 cm sand for every cm clay, making the bed twice as high). Heavy soil has poor drainage, is difficult to work, and the roots are easily damaged when the plants are lifted. Mixing it with sand will improve these conditions and make it easier for the germinating seed to break through.If the beds are to be used for a number of years it may be worthwhile preparing them more thoroughly, starting with solid edges and filling with material largely brought from elsewhere, as follows (see also Figure 23): ? Construct an edge around the bed, about 15 cm high, using wood, bricks or woven twigs. ? Cover the bottom of the beds with a layer of gravel or broken bricks 5 cm thick to ensure good drainage. ? Cover this layer with 2 -3 cm of compost or a mixture of soil and forest litter. ? For the top layer of the bed use fine textured, fertile soil. This is the layer in which the young trees will root. Use sieved soil, or a mix (1:1) of soil and sand. ? Trample the beds so that the soil is well settled.If this bed construction is too ambitious you may still adopt some of the recommendations, particularly for the seedbeds and beds for cut-tings, because these should meet the highest standards of drainage and tilth of the soil (e.g. the topsoil should certainly not form a crust).Figure 24 shows a model nursery with all the features that have been discussed before, such as water source, windbreak, hedge and beds of various kinds. The model also includes areas for storage and activities such as filling pots, which are described below. These areas, including the paths, access road and headlands, usually require a larger area than the beds. A nursery as depicted in Figure 24, if used intensively, could raise all the trees and shrubs for an entire village year after year.An area of a few square metres is needed for activities such as seed extraction, treating cuttings, filling pots and for potting up plants. Seeds which have been collected may have to be spread on the ground to dry after extraction from fruits, pods, cones, etc. The same space can also be used for treating cuttings. Potting up usually takes up the most space and hence determines the size of the work area. This area should be shaded, keeping you and the plants out of the sun. If pots are used the ingredients for the potting soil, e.g. sand, clay, compost or manure, should be at hand, ready to be mixed whenever pots need to be filled. These materials may also be used to improve the soil in the beds. There should also be room to mix or sieve the potting soil. Poles and stakes are needed for fencing and the construction of shade.Discarded plants, removed mulching materials, prunings from hedges, shade trees and the like can be composted. This reduces the quantity of manure that has to be brought in from elsewhere. Add some manure to the compost heap to enrich the mixture and to speed up decomposition. And when you water the plants check whether the compost heap also requires watering (dry material decomposes very slowly). There must also be enough space to turn the heap over while it is decomposing (see Agrodok No. 8: Preparation and use of compost). If no compost is available, forest litter can be collected.It is important to maintain your nursery well: check drainage channels, paths and terraces regularly for damage or wear. Carry out any repairs immediately, especially during the rainy season. Check fences regularly for gaps. Fill pots each time with fresh, uncontaminated soil to prevent spread of diseases and pests.As emphasized in Section 4.3 the first rule in nursery work is that the plants should be ready on time. This requires planning. Organise the nursery in such a way that good quality seedlings are ready for planting out at the beginning of the rainy season. The mistake often made is to start nursery activities once the rains have set in. This may save the work of watering, but the consequence is that seedlings grow too small and -once planted out in the field -they are overtaken by the dry season. As a result losses in the field are high and stunted growth of the survivors during the first year gives the trees a bad start.To be able to plant out just as the rains begin, seeds should be sown two to twelve months earlier. The exact amount of time needed depends on the tree species you wish to raise and the preferred size for planting out. Pregermination treatments also affect the period of time needed to raise the plants. It is best to obtain this kind of specific information locally, e.g. from the agricultural extension service or the forestry service.Make a calendar showing when collection of seeds, sowing, pricking out, field planting, etc. are expected to take place. (see Figure 25). This schedule also determines the need for watering, the timing of bed preparation or pot filling (preceded by buying pots and gathering the ingredients for the potting soil), etc. Compare the actual dates with your schedule, so that your planning improves as you gain experience year by year.Recalcitrant seeds cannot be stored for any length of time, so the seed must be sown as soon as possible after the fruit ripens. Quite a few fruit crops that are at home in monsoon climates, flower during the dry season, the fruit ripening during the wet season. Hence, if the seed is recalcitrant, as in the case of mango, the plants have to stay in the nursery for nearly a year, if they are to be planted at the beginning of the next rainy season.Labour requirements should be taken into account too. Hand watering is hard work that recurs every day during the dry season. Preparing potting soil and filling pots cause a peak in labour requirement and so does pricking out. In the dry season it may not be too difficult to fit in the work in the nursery, but the beginning of the wet season is the busiest period on the farm, and the help of all members of the household may be needed.If you intend producing planting material in your nursery -whether small or large -for a number of years, you should consider keeping records. You may not like the idea. You may prefer handling the hoe to handling a pen, but as the years go by you will rely more and more on what you wrote down and wish you had recorded more rather than less! Records are a powerful tool to make nursery work more rewarding. One forgets a lot within a year and as the years go by it becomes very difficult to remember what happened when and why. Even for a nursery of a single species -e.g. to raise planting material for improved fallows -records do help. Moreover, for a single species you do not have to write down a lot! As this Agrodok is not about bookkeeping we will limit the discussion to three types of records: seed stock inventory, production records and labels.Keeping track of the kinds, quantities and age of stored seeds is only important if you store seed of several tree species, especially if some seeds are stored for several years. The inventory consists of two parts:? Particulars of each lot of seeds written down when the seed is acquired. ? A running account of the quantities taken out of storage periodically.Both parts can be entered on a single page in your record book, for instance as shown in Table 4. Any seed lot obtained from traders, forestry services or other professional sources should be supplied together with the following information: ? species ? date of collection ? origin of seeds (where collected, from which mother trees or seed garden) ? germination percentage ? quantity and price (both shown on the bill) Copy this information in your own record book and if you collect seed yourself, also write down the species, date and source of seed in that book.You may wish to record further particulars. For instance, seed is usually sold by weight, but you want to raise a certain number of plants. Suppose a batch of seeds weighs 50 gram. By measuring how many seeds weigh 1 g (or 10 or 50 g, depending on seed size) you can calculate how many seeds there are in 50 gram. The number of plants that can be raised from this batch depends on: ? The germination percentage, which gives the expected number of seedlings. ? The success of your nursery work, i.e. the percentage of the seedlings that grows into a good plant.So seed weight is a very useful measure to plan your nursery work and weighing scales are an indispensable instrument for the nurseryman.Appendix 1 shows how to calculate the amount of seed needed to produce the required number of seedlings. It also describes how you can test the germination percentage yourself. If you do this do not forget to write the date and the result in your record book! Give each batch of seed an identification number: the seed lot number, for instance according to the sequence of collection in that year, e.g. 05/1 indicating the first batch of seeds collected (or bought) in 2005.The second part of Table 4 needs no explanation. It contains the record of quantities of seed taken out and the purpose for which it was used.If the seed lot contains less than a few hundred seeds, it may be more convenient to record the number of seeds instead of seed weight.A production record follows what happens to the seed from the moment it is taken out of the store, until the planting material leaves the nursery. The most important elements of the record are the dates and the numbers of seeds/seedlings. By writing down the dates of sowing, germination, pricking out and planting out, you can calculate how long each stage of growth takes and this is a great help in improving your planning for next year.By keeping track of the number of seeds sown, germinated, pricked out and delivered, you see how many good seedlings have grown out of, say, 100 seeds. Also you can see where the main losses occurred: was it poor germination, were many sprouting seeds weak or emerging so late that you did not prick them out, or did something go wrong in the plantbeds or pots? In this way you can learn from your mistakes and within a few years you will be thoroughly familiar with the behaviour of different species in your nursery.Production records can take various forms; an example is given in Table 5. Labels are extremely useful. They link what goes on in the store and in the nursery with your record book. A record book may be big, but labels should be small and require a minimum of writing. The identification number is handy in this respect. If you store the seed in an airtight bottle, you need only to put a label with its lot number in that bottle. You can find the particulars of that batch of seed in your record book. Likewise, you can label the seed tray or the plantbed with the same lot number, adding the date of sowing, or pricking out.A label may be a sticker fixed on the outside of the container, or -better still -a scrap of paper put inside the bottle or plastic bag containing the seed. In trays, beds or pots soft or hard plastic labels can be used, or you can make your own wooden labels. Use a waterproof laundry marker pen to write on labels made of plastic or wood.7 Care for plants in the nurseryThe beds must be watered regularly. Always check soil moisture before watering. Lift potted plants in different parts of the bed to check how moist the soil is.When watering seedbeds or containers that have just been sown, use a watering can with a fine rose, so that the seeds and the covering soil are not washed away. Until the seedlings emerge you should water sparingly and often. Alternatively, the seedbeds may be mulched during this period to save water and to keep the topsoil moist. Remove the mulch as soon as the first seedlings emerge. If this is done late, your first -and probably most vigorous -seedlings are spoilt, as they form long, thin, whitish stems trying to grow through the mulch towards the light.Moisten the soil but do not soak it: lack of air impedes the germination process and encourages seed rot. As the plants get bigger they can be watered less frequently, giving more water each time to match the increasing depth of rooting. Larger seedlings can be watered quickly using a garden hose, but watering slowly with a rose can is better because it gives the water more time to penetrate the (pot) soil.When seeds have been sown, seedlings have been pricked out or cuttings or wildings have been planted, shading is necessary to prevent drying out and scorching of the leaves (see Section 6.1 on shade constructions). Shade mats can be rolled back once the seedlings become established, gradually reducing shading intensity. Shade trees may be pruned to reduce shading when the plants in the nursery are hardened off before field planting.Beds and pots must be weeded regularly, before the seedling roots get tangled up with the roots of the weeds. Reduce weed problems by keeping paths and hedges free from weeds.In the nursery liquid fertilizer is ideal. One part of animal dung in five parts of water is left for 10 days. Before spreading the liquid it should be diluted by adding more water until the colour is that of light tea. Seedbeds require no fertilizer, but plantbeds and pots should receive liquid manure once in two weeks to twice every week. If you water by hand it is easy to apply the liquid frequently, but if you depend on the rains or on watering with a hose pipe, larger dressings at longer intervals are more practical.Factory-made fertilizer is usually not necessary. However, if you cannot find a lime-free soil for your nursery, sulphate of ammonia or urea may be applied to raise the acidity near the roots, for most trees grow best in a slightly acid soil.Root pruning prevents the plant from developing a long taproot. It encourages the growth of side roots and prevents intertwined root systems of neighbouring plants. A well-developed root system improves the chance of survival after planting out. As explained in Chapter 5 pricking out is an early form of taproot pruning; air-root pruning by germination seeds in open-bottom trays is the ideal method to obtain a well-branched root system right from the start. Following air-root pruning there may be little need for further root pruning in later stages: slicing a machete or spade through the soil between neighbouring plants should suffice. In case of direct sowing in the plantbeds and also for seedlings that have been pricked out, further root pruning -as illustrated in Figure 26 -is usually needed.First the taproot is pruned: push a spade down at an angle under the plants. Aim at cutting the taproot at a depth of 15 -20 cm. Taproots of some tree species grow extremely fast and if the seedlings have not been pricked out they may need to be pruned within one month of germination. Potted plants can be moved to break the taproot when it has started to penetrate into the soil under the pots. Alternatively, a wire can be pulled under a bed of potted plants to cut the taproots. In many woody plants, one or two side roots resume the dominant downward growth of the taproot. Here, taproot pruning has to be repeated and it is done on both sides of each row of plants. This time long side roots are also cut, leading to further branching of the roots; the length of side roots should be limited to 20 cm or less (Figure 26).To separate the root systems of adjacent plants in a row they may be cut with a spade or machete. This is commonly done a few weeks before transplanting, allowing time for the growth of new roots in response to pruning.Cuttings require little or no root pruning. They have no taproot; normally several adventitious roots emerge, ensuring a well-branched root system.Damping off control Damping off is a common and serious disease in seedbeds. Several moulds in the soil may infect germinating seeds and emerging seedlings. The stems rot at ground level and the little plant topples or shrivels up. Often you can see a slimy mass at the base of the stem. Sowing in clean soil, such as fresh river sand, is the best way to prevent damping off.High humidity, heavy wet soil, too much shade, crowding of the plants in the seedbed, and a high organic matter content of the soil can all encourage fungus growth, wiping out virtually all the seedlings in a seedbed or seed tray. The risk of damping off is reduced if the soil is well drained and aerated and the air above it well ventilated (e.g. by timely removal of mulching material or thinning out plants) and by ensuring that conditions do not become too damp.If you are planning to propagate conifers (e.g. pine trees), you should spread some soil from stands of established conifers over the beds. This soil contains micro-organisms which cooperate with the conifer roots, improving the uptake of nutrients by the tree. Legumes also grow better if you use soil in which older legumes of the same type are already growing. (This form of living together of 2 organisms to the benefit of both is called symbiosis. Legumes living in symbiosis with bacteria can be recognized by nodules on their roots, which contain the bacteria.)Hardening-off Before planting out watering and shading of the planting material should gradually be reduced. This is known as hardening-off and is done to accustom the plants to conditions in the field. Five to six weeks before field planting watering should be cut down and eventu-ally stopped. Reduction of the shade can start much earlier depending on the tree species. Water the plants copiously once more on the day before planting out.Lifting the plants Bare-rooted plants are usually dug up by carefully lifting the plants with a fork. The plants are shaken gently to remove excess soil from the roots and packed in sacks, polythene bags with holes, banana leaves, or crates for transport to the planting site.The standard of nursery work can be judged by: 1 the health and uniformity of the plants in a bed 2 the sturdiness of the plants To improve uniformity, diseased or unthrifty plants and plants that are not true to type (i.e. plants which look different) should be removed.For potted plants the uniformity can be further improved by grading them: separating the sturdy plants from the slender ones. Plants in beds can be graded when they are lifted for planting out.Although everybody knows that the quality of the root system is the main factor for successful transplanting, root growth too often gets little attention. As stated in Section 4.3 planting material should have a large root mass in relation to the size of the shoot; the root:shoot ratio should be high. For planting material the root:shoot ratio is probably the best measure of sturdiness.Pricking out, air-root pruning in open-bottom germination trays and root pruning in the plant beds have already been presented as methods to enhance branching of the root system. The immediate effect of root pruning is of course a lower root:shoot ratio, but the response -enhanced branching of the root system at the expense of shoot growthincreases the root:shoot ratio in due course.Nursery stock with a well-branched fibrous root system suffers comparatively little damage when lifted from the nursery; such barerooted plants and potted plants can be planted out intact.If the plants have not been nursed to encourage root growth they will have a low root:shoot ratio at the end of their stay in the nursery. And there is inevitably some damage to the roots, further lowering the proportion of roots, when they are lifted for transplanting. At this stage the only possibility to raise the root:shoot ratio is to prune the shoot, wasting part of the growth made in the nursery.Balancing root and shoot mass by curtailing the shoot is fairly common for bare-rooted forestry species. If the plants have grown too large, either through bad planning or an unforeseen delay in the planting season, the shoot can be cut back. This is not uncommon for fast growers, such as Eucalyptus species. The shoots are usually cut back to 30 cm (twice pot height).Two more drastic methods to curtail the shoot result in 'striplings' and 'stumps' (see Figure 27).Striplings are seedlings of broad-leaved trees from which most of the leaves have been stripped, leaving only some leaves at the shoot tip; side shoots -if present -are cut out too. If the main shoot is cut back the seedling is likely to form several side shoots in response. To avoid this very severe pruning is the rule, leaving only a stump a few cm long. The roots can then safely be trimmed too (to 20 cm, to facilitate planting), still leaving a very high root:shoot ratio. Trees with a strong taproot, such as Azadirachta indica, teak and breadfruit are often planted as stumps.Striplings and stumps can be more easily transported than intact seedlings and have better chances for survival under difficult growing conditions. Stumps may be used to stabilise unstable slopes, where unpruned seedlings would find it difficult to survive in the loose soil. The best period for both sowing and planting is after the first regular rains. This period is often the busiest time on the farm, therefore it is very important to be well prepared. If you have your labour and time schedule well worked out then digging up, transport and planting out can all be done in quick succession. You also need to think of activities such as fencing against livestock. This costs time and needs to be in place before planting out.Where trees are to be planted the land should be weeded and the soil loosened to improve the uptake of water. If the weeds are tall they may be slashed, after which the land should be hoed or ploughed and clean-weeded. To plant a windbreak, a contour hedge or even a forest plot, only strips of land need to be cultivated. In some other cases, such as planting avenue trees, clearing and loosening a circle of about 1 m diameter suffices.Tree spacing depends on species and environmental conditions. Hedge plants are spaced 0.3 -0.5 m apart, sometimes in a double row. A barbed wire fence can be supported by heavy stakes, e.g. of Erythrina, Commiphora, Jatropha, or Euphorbia species, planted at distances of 1 to 4 m. Planting distances in plantations range from 1 × 1 m (e.g. improved fallow of Sesbania sesban) to 10 × 10 m (e.g. large fruit trees).Trees in agroforestry parklands are usually planted far apart to minimise competition with crops or pasture. Where trees must be properly aligned, as when planting an orchard or an avenue of trees, this can be done by placing sticks marking the exact spots where the trees are to be planted. The sticks can be aligned by sight.Often a lot of planting material is lost because things go wrong during transportation and storage. To prevent this, pay due attention to the following points: ? Keep the period of time between digging up in the nursery and planting out as short as possible. ? Keep the plants moist and cool by covering them, especially if transported by lorry. ? Make sure that the roots of bare-rooted plants are kept covered throughout; they dry out quickly. ? Handle the planting material gently during loading, transport and unloading.If you move potted plants or plants with a root ball always hold them by the pot or the root ball, and not by the stem.Transport seedlings in trays or boxes where possible, and keep pots upright. Planting material must be given water and kept in the shade the moment it arrives at the planting site.A common cause of death among young trees is delay in planting after they have been dug up. In order to avoid these losses you can dig them in temporarily in the following way (see Figure 28):  The planting hole should be big enough to accommodate the root system or the contents of the pot. Place the plants carefully in the correct position in the planting hole. The root collar, that is the point where the root changes over into the stem, must end up level with the ground, after the soil in the hole has settled. Planting bare-rooted material at the right depth requires experience. Plants in polypots can be removed by carefully cutting the plastic without damaging the root ball (Figure 29).The top of the root ball must be at the same level as the ground. The earth around the plant needs treading down with the heel to get rid of pockets of air. Watering the trees is also an excellent way to settle the soil around the roots. Conditions for planting are best when the earth is fairly moist, the sky is cloudy and the air humid. If the soil is dry even a well-watered pot will quickly dry up, losing its moisture to the surrounding soil. The best time to plant is in the evening. Under such favourable conditions a mere slit in the ground, made with a spade, will suffice to plant bare-rooted plants. Place the roots against one side of the slit at the correct depth (not difficult in this case) and press your foot down against the other side to complete the planting.In places where rainfall is unreliable, a low ridge can be set up around the tree to capture water from rainfall or irrigation. Mulching around the trees is very worthwhile to conserve moisture and suppress weed growth. Use the dried weeds cleared from the site for this purpose or similar material from elsewhere. On stony ground you may even use stones as mulch.Fertilizing the seedlings You can provide the young tree with extra nutrients by mixing compost, manure or fertilizer in the topsoil before or during planting. Fertilizers are salts. If too much is applied or the water content of the soil is low, the moisture in the soil becomes saline and the roots cannot take up water. Therefore fertilizer should be used in small quantities and only in moist soil. Manure and compost have the advantage that they release nutrients slowly over a longer period of time and that they help to retain soil moisture.Once planting or natural regeneration has taken place the work is certainly not finished. Care of the young trees in the field will improve establishment and growth. Maximum vigour during the first year(s) ensures a robust frame with well-spaced branches, a great asset for the tree during all its lifetime.Fire is often a serious threat. Weeding and removing dead branches and dry leaves decreases the risk of fire. This, however, affects the layer of litter, and ultimately soil fertility declines. Firebreaks (strips of cleared land which stop a fire) can be constructed between or around tree stands.Young plants can be protected against the wind by a hedge or a windbreak, e.g. made with palm leaves. Using stakes to support young trees also helps. If the tree is moving to and fro in the wind, young roots that should in due course anchor the tree, are ruptured; this may greatly delay establishment of the plantation. Place the stake on the windward side, so that the tree is not rubbing against the stake when the wind blows. Cross the tie between tree and post, making a figure 8 (∞).Whereas auxiliary tree species are generally fairly hardy, tree crops tend to be more delicate. Many fruit and plantation crops benefit from shade during the first year(s) after field planting. If the trees are staked a palm frond can be tied to the stake to shade the tree.Animals browsing leaves or bark cause much damage. Small wild animals, such as mice, rats and rabbits can be caught in traps. Other solutions include digging ditches, placing wire fences or planting small hedges of strong smelling herbs (e.g. rue). You can also surround individual trees with thorny branches. Young trees can be protected from birds by fine netting. Domestic animals, such as sheep, goats and cattle, not only browse trees, they also trample small trees down. The best solution, however, is to keep livestock away, if necessary by employing a guard.Healthy plants are often able to outgrow pests and diseases. Using hardy species, healthy planting material and good maintenance techniques reduces the risk of damage. Planting strong-smelling plants around the young trees can ward off pests. A mulch containing insect repellent material such as neem (Azadirachta indica) or Eucalyptus leaves can sometimes prevent problems.One of the greatest problems is early onset of the dry season. If you have only a small number of trees to care for you can water them for some time after planting. Clear the weeds around the trees before watering. A small basin around each tree or a trench running along a row of trees will help the water to flow towards the tree.Water should be given in the late afternoon. The quantity needed will of course depend on the weather and the amount of rainfall. It is better to give a large amount of water just a couple of times a month than to give a small amount often.Weeding Keep a circle with a diameter of 50 cm to 1 m around the tree free of weeds; this prevents competition for water, light and nutrients. Climbing or winding weeds can quickly strangle young trees. Apart from weeding, weed growth can also be suppressed by mulching using organic material or stones around the tree.For nutrition use domestic animal dung, compost, liquid manure or fertilizer. For liquid manure see Section 7.1. Spread the fertilizer in a circle around the tree and work it in superficially, taking care not to damage the roots. When you use fertilizer add only a small amount per tree (one handful at the most). Mulching with organic material around the tree will also provide extra nutrients (see also Agrodok 2: Soil Fertility).Replace young trees that die. This is known as filling in or gapping up. Retain some trees in the nursery for this purpose in seedling beds or large pots. These trees should be about the same size as the trees in the field and will require extra care when planting out. Out of 400 seeds 200 seedlings emerged, so the germination percentage is 50. However, the daily counts of emerged seedlings also give valuable information about the germination rate. Germination started 8 days after sowing and was more or less complete 19 days later. Note that more than half of the seedlings emerged within 4 days of the start of germination. The next 7 days contributed 40% and the last 8 days only 8% of the number of seedlings. Such a drop in the rate of germination is quite common; you have to consider whether or not you will wait for the last seedling to emerge.Pinus caribaea seedlings are pricked out 2 or 3 days after emergence. Thus -based on the figures in the table -10 to 15 days from sowing the daily labour requirements will be about twice as high as during the next week; thereafter there will only be few seedlings needing to be pricked out.Therefore, in a germination test it is very worthwhile to include counts of emerging seedlings at regular intervals (daily to weekly depending on the species). Whereas the germination percentage is the basis to determine how much seed needs to be sown, the germination rate is a great help to plan work in the nursery.With the exception of large seed (particularly seed of recalcitrant species) seed is generally sold and handled by weight. To answer the above question you should therefore know how many seeds there are in a gram or kilogram. With scales and a set of weights you can measure how many seeds make up 1g (or, say, 10 or 100 g in the case of larger seeds). Repeat the measurement with another seed sample and take the average. If the difference between the samples is more than 10% repeat the procedure until the figures correspond better.The number of grams to be sown must be increased on the basis of your estimate of: ? the germination percentage ? the percentage of seedlings that does not grow well ? the need to fill gaps occurring shortly after field planting.The germination percentage can be estimated from the above test. In a well-managed nursery losses during nursing should be below 10%. They include mainly plants that are not \"true to type\", plants affected by a pest or disease, and plants that are growing too slowly to be ready in time. Slow-growing plants may still be suitable for filling in gaps that occur shortly after field planting. The need for filling in should be well below 10% of the plants if you, the nurseryman, make sure that sturdy planting material is ready at the right time!The above safety margins of course cannot cover the risk of calamities, such as hailstorms, locust plagues, etc.The simplest way to estimate the quantity of seed to be sown is to start with the number of trees to be planted and first estimate the number of seedlings needed, ? allowing for seedlings which do not grow into good plants and ? allowing for spare trees to fill in gaps following field planting.The second step is to estimate the number of seeds needed to obtain the seedlings, based on the germination percentage. The third step is to convert the number of seeds into seed weight. Quantity of seed to be sown: 240/80 × 10 = 30 g.The following table gives some quantitative aspects of the use of polythene pots of different sizes. The number of pots per kg plastic is given for 0.04 mm thick polythene.The important point in the table is the sharp increase in bedding area and volume of potting soil required when pots with a larger diameter are used. Doubling pot diameter leads to a fourfold increase in area and volume. Compare, for instance, the requirements for 18 cm high pots with a diameter of 4.1 or 8.0 cm. It may not be difficult to find more potting soil and extra space; the main consideration is that so much more labour and effort is required to fill the larger pots and to move them, not only in the nursery but also to the planting site.For cylindrical pots the volume is proportional to pot height. So, 30 cm high pots in Table 2 require just 50% more potting soil than 20 cm high pots of the same diameter. Even so, a 50% increase in load to be carried is sufficiently important to choose the appropriate pot size with great care, as emphasized in Section 5.2.The general appearance of the plant is briefly described. The habit of species that occur over a wide range of ecological conditions may differ substantially at the extremes of the range.Propagation methods that have found practical application are given.In case of several propagation methods the most common method is mentioned first; if one of the methods is recommended, this method is underlined.Stakes are very large cuttings, such as used in the case of live posts.Ecology:Information about the growing conditions that the plant requires is often fragmentary; also it is given in very different terms in the sources. Moreover, within many species several types are distinguished which differ in their ecological requirements, e.g. one type being much better adapted to dry conditions than the other type.In as far as it is available, information starts with the range of altitudes at which the plant is found within the tropics. The symbol < indicates \"lower than\", > indicates \"higher than\"; a plus sign (+) behind a figure means that the plant is generally found up to the altitude given, but in some instances in even higher locations. Rainfall requirements are given in similar terms; however, if plants have access to ground water, e.g. along riverbanks or in depressions, they may thrive with less rainwater than indicated. Information about soil requirements is available for only very few species.Uses: Both use of products yielded by the plant -e.g. fruit, fodder, fibreand environmental uses of the tree -e.g. green manure, shade, shelter -have been listed. It has been attempted to give the principal use first, but this main use may differ in various regions, e.g. in relatively wet areas the plant may be mainly used for fodder, in dry areas for its fruit and fuelwood. The limited space does not permit listing uses extensively; in a few cases the most important uses are followed by \"etc.\"Remarks:In this column information is presented that does not fit into other categories, is of interest to the grower, and can be given in a few words. Seed that has to be sown fresh because it loses its viability rapidly; e.g. that of many largeseeded tropical fruits.The point where stem and taproot of the seedling are joined.Stir the surface of the soil (e.g. with a wire rake), but without turning the soil over.","tokenCount":"19244"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"0d7c69d1fa1de6f4e9e9ff7ae447c19f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f8ba84fd-bb70-47a3-82cd-3008e5d6f141/retrieve","id":"239274500"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8fdb2e89-bcf7-4ca2-9ef0-937924b2932e","pagecount":"1","content":"The Nicaragua team, led by Dr. Norvin Sepulveda and Dra. Jenny Ordonez of CATIE, will sample both LDSF sites in Nicaragua. The Honduran teams are led by Dr. Juan Carlos Flores of CATIE working together with Dr. Kenny Najera of UNA and Jaime Enrique Peralta of FMV. The UNA team will sample the Rio Blanco site near Catacamas and the FMV team will sample the remote Rio Platano site in the north. Field training was extended to students, local farmers, NGOs, CGIAR centres and others. Participants were trained in navigation with the GPS units to locate the randomly generated LDSF plots (160 per site); all aspects of the LDSF, including soil sample collection, tree and shrub measurements, erosion observations, among other variables; and electronic data entry. Preliminary data analysis was conducted on the newly collected data, including infiltration capacity curves and tree density estimates. Students from UNA will use the LDSF data for undergraduate theses.The Honduran Rio Blanco landscape was forested until the 1980s when the landscape underwent a massive conversion to livestock production. Pockets of remnant forest exist along waterways. The landscape is nestled between several protected areas (e.g. Patuca, Sierra de Agalta and Tawahka National Parks). The Rio Platano landscape in northeastern Honduras is within the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve, which is also home to several indigenous groups. This is landscape is dominated by broadleaf evergreen forests, bordered by agropastoral systems. The El Tuma landscape in Nicaragua has diverse land uses including coffee and cacao agroforestry systems, basic grain production and cattle ranching. Farm sizes vary from smallholders with ~5 ha to large-scale farms with 300 to 3000 ha. The Columbus Mine site in northern Nicaragua falls within an indigenous reserve and still has remaining forest.Sentinel Landscapes ThemeNicaragua team in a coffee and cacao AF plot in cluster 12 of the El Tuma landscape, about 30 km from Matagalpa.Four 100 km 2 LDSF sites were selected by local partners within the Nicaragua-Honduras sentinel landscape, based on an initial set of 13 sites representing areas with varying land cover trend trajectories (see map on the right). The sites were selected to represent forested and forest-transition landscapes and currently include protected forest reserves, indigenous reserves, forestpasture mosaics and forest-agroforestry mosaics. This is the first sentinel landscape to implement activities on the ground.Formal presentations on the CRP6 Sentinel Landscape Theme and the LDSF were given at the National Agricultural University (UNA) in Honduras and to CATIE and CIAT staff in Nicaragua. The Rio Blanco landscape in Honduras.","tokenCount":"416"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ee75f121c353d672b79685c20bead1cc","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b272d561-ca3d-4a95-82ed-48f74a1a325f/retrieve","id":"-1095999899"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f83f4bd1-2d1e-4fb7-8924-6fa2f6b95a2d","pagecount":"34","content":"Los altos índices de vulnerabilidad climática, vinculados a la pobreza y pobreza extrema que abate al 70 % de la población en Honduras, suponen una oportunidad para el flujo de financiamiento climático. Sin embargo, la implementación de las políticas de cambio climático se enfrenta a limitantes en cuanto al financiamiento. Con el propósito de conocer a los actores involucrados, la dinámica de los fondos disponibles y las barreras para el acceso a dicho financiamiento, se realizó una primera fase de investigación bibliográfica. Ahora, en esta segunda fase, la investigación se basó en la fuente primaria. Realizando entrevistas a distintos tipos de actores involucrados en el tema del cambio climático para el sector de seguridad alimentaria en el país. Para tal fin, se inició con la caracterización de los actores; seguidamente, se realizó un diagnóstico de los fondos, procesos y beneficiarios, hasta llegar a la fase de identificación y caracterización de las barreras para el acceso al financiamiento, finalmente: se exploró junto a los entrevistados, las oportunidades y tendencias que estos reconocen para un futuro cercano en el tema y se concluyó, conociendo las propuestas que los actores hacen para mejorar el flujo de los fondos climáticos.Los principales y más fuertes actores identificados como fuentes de financiamiento climático en Honduras son las agencias de cooperación multilateral, las agencias bilaterales y el estado. A la fecha, no se identificaron casos importantes de financiamiento privado para cambio climático en la agricultura. El país también se encuentra frente al reto una competencia interna entre fondos de Desarrollo y Fondos climáticos, pues por los criterios de diseño, son mutuamente excluyentes. Y ni el Pai ni los organismos multilaterales y bilaterales de desarrollo, han alcanzado la capacidad para estar en consonancia con los cambios en las disposiciones de la Convención. El clima mundial ha evolucionado siempre de forma natural, pero existen pruebas convincentes en todo el mundo, las cuales revelan que se ha puesto en marcha un nuevo tipo de cambio climático, que está teniendo repercusiones drásticas sobre las personas, las economías y los ecosistemas. Honduras no es la excepción, de hecho, el país está considerado dentro de los países más vulnerables del mundo, Debido a su ubicación geográfica el clima es de características tropicales; sin embargo, la orografía hondureña y su interacción con los vientos que soplan sobre el territorio y los fenómenos tropicales, como ondas y ciclones, generan microclimas que van desde el tropical seco hasta el tropical húmedo 1 .También se sabe que el país, no destaca como emisor de GEI. Lo cual redunda, en que no es un país que debería tener una carga financiera amarrada a la Mitigación. Sin embargo, las NDC que el país, firmo en la última reunión de compromisos, hace mucho énfasis en esta acción y menos en la adaptación. Frente a la condición de alta vulnerabilidad, la cual además de depender de su situación geográfica, también se ve agravada por la pobreza que enfrenta Honduras, (La pobreza y la pobreza extrema oscila entre 63% y 70%). En tal sentido es necesario entrar a la discusión del tema del desarrollo y atención a la pobreza. Pues Honduras es ahora considerado como un país de economía emergente y no un país pobre, lo cual le limita sus fondos para tener en cuenta el tema pobreza, paradójicamente, el país tiene problemas para accesar a fondos de donación y concesiónales para atención climática por que los fondos disponibles son para el desarrollo. 2En el Acuerdo de París, firmado por 195 Partes de la CMNUCC en la COP 21, se destaca la importancia del componente de adaptación con respecto a la mitigación, significando que los países más vulnerables, como Honduras y demás países Centroamericanos, tendrán posibilidad para adaptarse y desarrollarse. El párrafo 4 del artículo 7 del Acuerdo establece la relación entre mitigación y adaptación, donde \"…un incremento de los niveles de mitigación puede reducir la necesidad de esfuerzos adicionales de adaptación\" (Acuerdo de Paris, párrafo 4, artículo 7). Esta es la primera vez que se incluye una meta cualitativa en adaptación, la cual consiste en aumentar la capacidad de adaptación, proteger a las personas, los medios de vida y los ecosistemas, impulsando la participación de todos los países en actividades de adaptación y pone el énfasis en la acción para la adaptación, a escala nacional y global. Además, el Acuerdo fomenta que los países presenten de manera periódica reportes sobre problemáticas y avances en adaptación. 3El artículo 9 del Acuerdo está referido al financiamiento, y establece que se debe buscar un \"equilibrio\" entre el financiamiento para la adaptación y mitigación. En el mismo párrafo se menciona que las subvenciones serán destinadas a los países \"particularmente vulnerables\" y no solamente a los países menos adelantados (PMA) o los estados insulares (PEI), ya que antes solamente se realizaban trabajos o actividades exclusivamente en esos países, por ser reconocidos con mayor vulnerabilidad. Además, la financiación para la adaptación debe ser en carácter de \"donación\", evitando así que los países vulnerables contraigan una deuda para poder combatir los efectos negativos del cambio climático. Para esto, el Acuerdo también exhorta al Fondo Verde para el Clima para que acelere la prestación de apoyo a los países menos adelantados y a otros países en desarrollo para la formulación de sus planes nacionales de adaptación. Por lo tanto, el compromiso, voluntad y capacidad de los países en diseñar proyectos, planes y programas integrales que consideren el clima como un componente esencial en la planificación para alcanzar el desarrollo es la principal estrategia para financiar la adaptación de manera coherente. 4Los sectores agrícolas poseen características únicas que los sitúan en el centro de los esfuerzos mundiales encaminados a la adaptación al cambio climático. En primer lugar, la agricultura es esencial para el suministro de alimentos y, por consiguiente, para satisfacer las necesidades más básicas del ser humano. Además, la producción de alimentos depende directamente de los recursos naturales que, a su vez, están íntima e indisolublemente relacionados con el clima y las condiciones meteorológicas. 5Puesto que la agricultura proporciona un medio de vida para casi dos tercios de la población mundial y más pobre, los efectos que ejerce el cambio climático sobre la agricultura afectan directamente a las ya vulnerables poblaciones rurales, con repercusiones de gran alcance para su seguridad alimentaria; fundamental para la vida y el desarrollo sostenible de los pueblos. Cambio climático, agricultura y seguridad alimentaria. 6 Honduras, no es la excepción y Para lograr aumentar la productividad, reducir pobreza, aumentar la resiliencia y reducir las emisiones del sector agrícola, será necesaria una transformación estructural en la agricultura durante la próxima década, que comprendan innovaciones aplicables al contexto local para avanzar más allá de lo alcanzable con los habituales proyectos de intervención de corto plazo.Es inaplazable la promoción de sistemas de producción agrícolas diferentes, se requiere contar con la información y la creación de los mecanismos reformadores para acceder a los fondos de inversión y otros mecanismos de financiamiento climático. Aunado a esto, se debe destacar que Honduras, ya tiene firmado un convenio de préstamo concesional a 5 años y 0% de interés, por 90M de U.S. $, negociado por el Estado y el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. Para atender Las áreas de corredor Seco y Occidente, y los temas pobreza, mujer y jóvenes, MiPymes, innovación, productividad, y Cambio Climático, de manera transversal; haciendo énfasis en adaptación. 7El objetivo de este estudio exploratorio fue el análisis de las fuentes y mecanismos de financiamiento vigentes para la agricultura, seguridad alimentaria y nutricional ante los efectos del cambio climático en Honduras. Se indagó mediante la entrevista a cinco tipos distintos de actores del sector seguridad alimentaria y nutricional. (gobierno, banca multilateral, agencias bilaterales de cooperación, ONG internacionales y nacionales y organizaciones gremiales del sector).En total se entrevistaron 11 actores de 30 propuestos. Con un éxito de 37%, frente a la expectativa inicial, La respuesta de los funcionarios contactados mediante sus correos electrónicos vía cuenta institucional de CGIAR/CIAT, fue de casi un 21%, y la efectividad de la respuesta por la relación personal con otros actores fue de un 100%. Así pues, podemos cuantificar que de las entrevistas realizadas cuatro fueron por la gestión vía correo electrónico y siete por la relación personal. No obstante, la negociación de los espacios y coincidencias de agenda fue una tarea más ardua de lo esperado.La información se manejó de manera sistematizada; desde el levantamiento de los datos, la tabulación de los mismo y la construcción de la base de datos relacional (BDR), la cual consta de 45 tablas dinámicas que están relacionadas entre sí mediante el uso del complemento PIVOT de Microsoft Excel®.La BDR que se creó para dar respuesta a la relación entre el tipo de actor con los otros 44 cuestionamientos de la entrevista. Permite, en primer término, conocer la prevalencia de las relaciones entre el tipo de actor y las fuentes y tipos de fondos, beneficiarios, barreras, tendencias y propuestas de los fondos climáticos para el sector SAN en Honduras hasta el año 2019. Solamente para tener una idea de la cantidad de información que resultó de la entrevista de 11 actores, con 266 respuestas posibles, repartidas en 45 cuestionamientos. Más aun, la BDR tiene el potencial de hacer relación entre cualquiera de los 45 interrogantes de la entrevista. Por lo que este instrumento, puede gestionar la información directa con PIVOT de Excel®, para crear más de mil quinientas tablas derivadas, relacionando los elementos seleccionados por el usuario. Es por tal razón que, esta BDR confiere a la información en ella sistematizada un valor que aumenta en cantidad y calidad las inferencias posibles.Sin embargo, para este informe se consideran como resultados posibles de presentar: las relaciones directas entre cada una de las cuestiones tratadas en la entrevista, con el tipo de actor o de actividad. Manteniendo la estructura macro del estudio exploratorio, el cual se compone de seis secciones: Caracterización de actores entrevistados, diagnóstico del financiamiento, beneficiarios, barreras para accesar o colocar financiamiento, oportunidades y/o tendencias que los actores reconocen para el futuro cercano en el tema y la última sección trata sobre las propuestas que los entrevistados brindaron para mejorar la movilización de fondos climáticos para el sector SAN, en Honduras.En esta sección, se muestran las primeras cuatro interrogantes y los porcentajes de las percepciones del universo entrevistado.1. La frecuencia de los actores entrevistados y el tipo de sector al que pertenece se presentó así: agencias de gobierno y de cooperación internacional, tres actores de 11 entrevistados o 27.3%, respectivamente. Banca multilateral (BID/BM) y organizaciones gremiales privadas (sin fondos), mostraron una frecuencia de dos actores de 11 entrevistados, para un 18.2% de participación, equitativamente. El ultimo sector y menos representado es el de las ONGs nacionales, se entrevistó una de los 11, para un 9.1% en la representación del universo de este estudio. (Tabla 1 de anexos)2. La percepción de los entrevistado en cuanto al dimensionamiento de la afectación del fenómeno derivado del cambio climático (CC) a la seguridad alimentaria y nutricional (SAN) en Honduras. Como un fenómeno eventual es de 17%, como fenómeno sectorial es de 0% y como fenómeno nacional, es de 83%. (Tabla 2 de anexos)3. Sobre la cuestión, si las organizaciones realizan o no acciones vinculadas al tema de CC y SAN, los resultados son que, 91% si lo hacen u un 9% restantes no. La cooperación Taiwanesa fue insistente, en que su país trata seriamente el tema de CC y que tiene todas las competencias para apoyar Honduras, pero el Estado, no ha colocado el tema de cambio climático en la mesa de cooperantes de manera decidida y estructurada para poder cooperar. Están a la espera lo hagan pronto. (Tabla 3 de anexos)4. Frente a la interrogante de cual objetivo perciben que es el que está recibiendo más financiamiento climático en el país, los participantes respondieron así: atender pequeños agricultores en emergencia humanitaria 18.1%, negocios financieros 21.2%, Mitigación o Disminuir GEI 18.1%, energía renovable 9.1%, adaptación de los medios de vida 18.1%, gestión ambiental 9.1%, resiliencia 6.1%. (Tabla 4 de anexos).Este componente muestra los resultados a las incógnitas de la cinco a la 19, siempre en porcentajes y en relación con la opción propuesta durante la entrevista.5. En relación con la interrogante de, con qué tipo de fondo están trabajando el tema de CC y SAN, los resultados en mediada de frecuencia mostraron que: fondos de donación posee la mayor porción, con un 30%, los fondos bilaterales 20%, los Fondos Nacionales 15%, la administración de otros fondos 10% y los fondos propios10% respectivamente, los fondos de conversión de deuda 5%, préstamo concesional 5%. (Tabla 5 de anexos) 24. Los tipos de actividades priorizadas para financiar en CC y SAN, son: 24.4% en producción agrícola, 13.3% transformación de alimentos, 11.1% comercialización de alimentos frescos , 13.3% en capital semilla, 6.7% en líneas de financiamiento, 13.3% en comercialización de alimentos transformados, 17.8% en inversión para el impulso de elementos habilitadores del desarrollo rural y la agricultura. (Tabla 24 de anexos) 28. La percepción de los sectores entrevistados con relación a las barreras para tener acceso a fondos climáticos, los resultados se distribuyen en 50% para accesar y 50% para administrar y/o dar en financiamiento. (Tabla 28 de anexos)29. Las barreras para accesar y administrar fondos climáticos para el sector SAN, están de esta manera: 32.3% falta de capacidades, 3.2% alta competencia con fondos de desarrollo, 9.7% falta de acercamiento de los fondos vía ventanillas nacionales, 12.9% debilidad del tejido social, 3.2% marco regulatorio limitado, 6.5% falta de conocimiento de fondos, 3.2% beneficiarios no son bancables, 9.7% falta de agilidad firma de aval del gobierno, 5.6 % falta de voluntad del país / 12.9% falta de espacio fiscal fondos CC. 13.9% el país y gobierno no prioriza el tema CC en la mesa de cooperantes. (Tabla 29 de anexos) V. Las tendencias en financiamiento climático en el sector SAN.En la sección cinco de este instrumento se indago sobre las tendencias que los entrevistados podían vislumbrar en relación con las oportunidades del financiamiento climático para el sector investigado, lo que se resolvió entre las interrogantes 39 a la 42 y los resultados se presentan siempre en porcentajes.39. El 81.1% de los actores ven oportunidades en el financiamiento Climático para Honduras y el 18.2% no lo ven. (Tabla 39 de anexos) 40. También se puede reportar que, el 82% de los entrevistados ve oportunidades de financiamiento climático con aplicación a SAN y solamente el 18% no. (Tabla 40 de anexos)41. En la indagación se logró identificar oportunidades, las que en los resultados se reportan repartidas así: 41.2% ven que se están abriendo fondos a nivel nacional, 11.8% reportan que la banca privada se está certificándose para manejar fondos climáticos, el 11.8% también avizora la inminente apertura de una ventanilla FVC Honduras el 11.8% de los entrevistados, concuerda que es una gran oportunidad el hecho que la Secretaria de Agricultura y Ganadería está en reingeniería y está la habilitara para potenciar la inversión en el tema, el 5.9% observan que existe la oportunidad para pago por servicios ecosistémicos, el 0% opina que los préstamos para financiamiento del sector (BID + socios, como FVC y otros), aunque si existe este préstamo y en el año 2020 saldrá a su ejecución. 5.9% de los sectores aprecian que las donaciones de cooperantes bilaterales están más enfocadas al tema. Y el 11.8% consideran que el creciente aumento Capacidades técnicas, abre múltiples oportunidades para la gestión y ejecución de estos fondos. (Tabla 41 de anexos) 42. De acuerdo con los resultados de la pesquisa los actores consideran que las oportunidades dependen en 7.0% los gremios, 9.3% sociedad civil organizada, 23.3%, el gobierno de Honduras 9.3% de la empresa privada, 7.0% de los productores organizados, 18.6% cooperantes, 2.3% ONG certificadas por cada donante, 11.6% gobiernos locales, 7.0% academia, 4.7% banca privada. (Tabla 42 de anexos) Esta investigación exploratoria fue guiada por cuestionamientos fundamentales, las cuales han permitido mantener la cogerencia durante la estructuración y sistematización del trabajo. Así que, para mantener el vínculo, se hará uso de los resultados y de las preguntas orientadoras para construir las conclusiones del presente estudio.En relación con el apartado de la Caracterización de los actores entrevistados y su percepción frente al tema de la investigación, se puede concluir que los principales actores movilizando fondos para atender el tema de cambio climático para la agricultura y la seguridad alimentaria y nutricional en Honduras, hasta el año 2019. Lo hacen en el marco del desarrollo rural y atención a la pobreza. Los actores que son mencionados con mayor frecuencia son: el gobierno y las agencias de cooperación internacional, seguidas por la banca multilateral (BID/BM), aunque en términos del monto de los fondos erogados, la banca multilateral tiene mayor peso. La mayoría de los entrevistados, perciben que los efectos del cambio climático inciden a nivel nacional y prácticamente todos los actores, desarrollan actividades en favor del sector SAN frente los efectos del clima; priorizando los negocios financieros seguido en la misma proporción por acciones para atender la emergencia humanitaria de los pequeños agricultores, frente a la perdida de las cosechas por sequía. Después, se encuentra la inversión para contribuir con la mitigación. Esto último, derivado de los compromisos adquiridos por el país, mediante las NDC y finalmente la adaptación de los medios de vida. El tema de adaptación es al que los actores se muestran más proclives, pero las políticas nacionales y supranacionales, aun priorizan la atención a la pobreza del país y el tópico climático se sigue atendiendo marginalmente y de manera transversal en los planes nacionales.De acuerdo con la sección dedicada al diagnóstico de los fondos climáticos para el sector SAN en Honduras, hasta el año 2019. Se concluye que el financiamiento para atender el tema cuenta en mayor frecuencia con la participación de fondos provenientes de las donaciones bilaterales, seguida por las partidas de fondos gubernamentales y por último se menciona el aporte de la banca multilateral. En cuanto a los montos, ya se ha mencionado que este último actor es mucho más relevante y los fondos son facilitados en calidad de préstamos concesionales. Los objetivos principales para aplicar fondos climáticos en este estudio, resultaron ser los pequeños productores y la generación de negocios financieros. Los criterios más mencionados para atender son la vulnerabilidad y la pobreza. Nuevamente en términos de frecuencia, las fuentes principales son los fondos nacionales, el Fondo Verde del Clima, GEF, AECID y EUROCLIMA. Los criterios para tener acceso a los fondos, son predominantemente ser productores organizados, los cuales son identificados por los ejecutores de los proyectos, quienes normalmente son los socios locales de los cooperantes. Los montos oscilan entre menos de un millón de dólares hasta más de cinco millones de dólares, en la misma proporción de ocurrencia. En cuanto a los mecanismos para movilizar los fondos, prevalece la firma de contratos y/o convenios, para lo que actúan de manera protagónica; la Secretaria de Coordinación Central del Gobierno, Secretaria de Finanzas y la Cancillería de la Republica. La enorme mayoría de los entrevistados, consideran que los mecanismos para accesar a fondos climáticos son complejos y que las barreras o cuellos de botella son más a causa de las políticas, que por la disponibilidad de fondos. Casi todos los participantes coinciden en que no conocen de ninguna condición que inhabilite al país para ser elegible frente a fondos climáticos. En Honduras de acuerdo con esta exploración, la forma de gestionar el financiamiento para cambio climático y SAN se divide de igual manera entre eje transversal y línea estratégica.En cuanto al componente de caracterización de los beneficiarios del financiamiento climático para el sector SAN en Honduras, hasta el año 2019. Los actores a los que se está financiando en mayor medida son agricultores y cadenas de valor y los subtipos son productores organizados y Mujeres y jóvenes de manera priorizada, la producción y los negocios habilitadores del sector de SAN. No se concluyó en algún techo del monto de los fondos porque la mayoría de los participantes no los conocen o no manejan. Las regiones geográficas priorizadas para beneficiar son: el corredor seco y el occidente del país. Los tipos de actividades priorizadas son la producción agrícola, la transformación de alimentos frescos, la colocación de capital semilla. Y los rubros productivos más atendidos y en orden de importancia son: el café, granos básicos y frutales, en muchos casos en esquemas agroforestales. Considerando que existe una fuerte tendencia hacia la producción, el encadenamiento y la mejora del ingreso de los productores, un poco más de la mitad de los actores entrevistados poseen esquemas en los que los planes de negocios no consideran los costos adicionales para la atención de los efectos del cambio climático al sector de la agricultura y la seguridad alimentaria.En coherencia con los resultados obtenidos en la exploración sobre las barreras o cuellos de botella que existen para el fácil flujo del financiamiento climático para el sector SAN, en Honduras hasta el año 2019. Se puede ensayan a manera de conclusión que En Honduras el total del universo entrevistado tiene la percepción que, si existen barreras para el financiamiento climático, la mitad consideran que existen dificultades para accesar y la otra mitad para administrar o dar en financiamiento. Las razones que resaltan con; la falta de capacidades, debilidad del tejido social, falta de espacio fiscal para fondos climáticos y por último, pero no menos importante, se considera que el país y gobierno no prioriza el tema CC en la mesa de cooperantes y por tal motivo no existe más cooperación específica para el tema sino que se maneja más como un eje transversal en los proyectos de desarrollo. La responsabilidad de que las barreras existan y persistan se atribuyen más a MiAmbiente, como autoridad designada; la cual se maneja muy aislada del resto del aparato gubernamental, monopolizando los fondos de la cooperación y en algunos casos suplantando las funciones de otras agencias estatales como el Instituto de Conservación Forestal, La secretaria de Agricultura, entre otras. Se puede afirmar que la opinión está dividida con relación a las causas de las barreras, ya que la mitad considera que es por voluntad política y la otra por razones de tipo estructural. La tendencia que sigue la comprensión sobre los efectos negativos que producen las barreras, es que está afectando a todo el país, aumentando la pobreza y por ende la vulnerabilidad. En general las organizaciones con fondos no tienen problemas ni para identificar ni calificar clientes meta La mayoría de las instituciones poseen lineamientos para autorizar la colocación de fondos climáticos, los que más se utilizan son, objetivo, tipo de financiamiento (donación, préstamo) beneficiarios, tipo de proyecto, monto, certificación (en caso de organizaciones gremiales), criterios de selección y procedimientos de aprobación. Los entrevistados consideran que poseen suficiente información y no conocen más condicionalidades que el país deba cumplir para accesar a estos fondos solamente aquellas que utilizan las bancas multilaterales que son las condiciones macroeconómicas del país.En relación con la sección de las tendencias y oportunidades que los actores perciben para mejorar las condiciones del financiamiento climático en el sector SAN. Se concluye que la mayoría está viendo oportunidades a corto plazo; como es que se están abriendo fondos a nivel nacional, que la banca privada se está certificándose para manejar fondos climáticos, la inminente apertura de una ventanilla de fondos mixtos del gobierno de Honduras y el Fondo Verde del Clima. La reingeniería y el relanzamiento de una Secretaria de Agricultura y Ganadería, más ágil, transparente y moderna. Lo cual abre la oportunidad de captar la confianza de cooperantes, fondos climáticos, entre otros y convertirse realmente en actor protagónico en apoyo a las políticas públicas del gobierno de la república de tal menara que es contundente la opinión general que la responsabilidad de crear y potenciar las oportunidades en el gobierno y la cooperación en general.De acuerdo con el apartado del levantamiento de propuestas de parte de los entrevistados de cómo mejorar la gestión del financiamiento climático para atender al sector de SAN, en Honduras hasta el año 2019. Este trabajo puede concluir diciendo que la mayor frecuencia de opiniones recae en que los fondos deberían ser gestionados y administrados a través de una oficina central y especializada en el manejo de ventanillas de los fondos climáticos que ya existen (préstamos y donaciones); otro grueso de la opinión se concentra en que el tema debe manejarse con fondos de donación, exclusivamente. Otros apuestan al aumento de las capacidades nacionales (la información y los técnicos disponible); igualmente existe una cierta tendencia hacia una institución financiera nacional de segundo piso, acreditada como BANHPROVI; para la gestión de los fondos. Existe una pequeña tendencia que propone descentralizar los recursos financieros y técnicos hacia las municipalidades, para atender las problemáticas locales. Una propuesta con mucho peso fue que el país debe llevar este tema a la mesa de cooperantes y finalmente existe concordancia entre algunas consideraciones de la convención y la opinión de la autoridad designada de CC del país; la cual propone que Honduras junto a todo Centroamérica deben gestionarse como un área de alta vulnerabilidad ante la convención y los fondos climáticos. Las propuestas contribuyeron con la facilitación de una lista priorizada de los objetivos hacia los cuales debe dirigirse el financiamiento adaptación, riegoagua, productividad, competitividad, seguros agrícolas realistas y paisajes productivos. Finalmente se concluyó en que estas propuestas deben ser desarrolladas y ejecutadas por el gobierno del país acompañado de la sociedad hondureña, resaltando a los siguientes actores, cadenas de valor, sociedad civil organizada y la cooperación internacional. Tipificación de fondos con los que se trabaja el tema CC y SAN en el país.Tabla 6.La participación de los actores en la dinámica de los fondos  ","tokenCount":"4268"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8ab2f6696bae0e6613e7ffb6115a5579","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/a1251527-f5af-40f1-b9d6-1ba2f519ff2a/content","id":"1759703119"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0c7c8063-f3d1-441b-a8d9-735d94bf97ad","pagecount":"6","content":"The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and partners are working to apply CRISPR technology to achieve a step-change in pearl millet seed product design: altering fatty acid metabolism to achieve the non-rancidity trait to create grain that when milled into flour has extended shelf life. Kenya is a country where the regulatory environment permits the introduction of geneedited seed products when derived from site directed nuclease 1 and 2 derived technologies. Market intelligence looked to shed light on the question, If such a seed product were available in Kenya, what would be the potential relevance for millet farming and value chains? This brief explores that question by examining the context in which millet is produced, processed, and sold and the associated expectations and requirements of farmers, consumers, and processors. Data were collected through interviews with millet farmers (n=35) and rural consumers (n=35), local processors (n=14), traders (n=3), and flour producers (n=6). Value chain actors reported rancidity as a problem, but it was not perceived to be a primary challenge. Rancidity was overshadowed by larger challenges related to lack of improved seeds of any type, low production volumes, and postharvest challenges. Achieving impact from millet seed products with extended shelf life rests on changing expectations about the commercial opportunities for millet flour (such as flour-blending policies) and building viable, high performing seed systems with new varieties that address farmers' needs, such as high yield, drought tolerance, and bird resistance. This brief concludes with future scenarios on how nonrancidity millet could deliver impact at scale.• Market Intelligence looked to understand the current and future relevance in Kenya of a potential step change in millet seed product design (i.e., introduction of the non-rancidity trait) within the context of existing millet production, processing, and seed systems.• The seed system has not released millet seed products in more than two decades. Farmers typically sow millet grain from previous harvests or purchase grain for planting-they recognize the problems of low yields from very old varieties.• Farmers also reported major challenges to increase millet output. First was bird damage to maturing panicles. Another was the lack of machinery for postharvest processing, including threshers, shellers, and winnowing machines.• Consumers, who are often millet farmers, and millers manage the rancidity issue in different ways, such as milling in small volumes and/or more frequent visits to mills and preparation of porridge in smaller quantities.• The future impact from investments in genetic innovation for millet will depend on advances in creating both viable seed systems and value chains for millet. Future research and engagements should consider building consumer demand for healthier flour, support for flour millers to construct new millet-based product lines, and engaging with traders and millers to set up links with farmers (including support for access to improved millet seeds).Market Intelligence Brief #7The United Nations has declared 2023 as the International Year of Millets. Enthusiasm around millet responds to its potential to advance development goals related to food security, nutrition, health, environmental sustainability, and economic development. Millet and other dryland crops, including sorghum, provide resilience in the face of changing agroclimatic conditions, as well as support smallscale production with income, food, and nutritional security (Satyavathi et al 2021, Wang et al 2018). Their production tends to be less resource-intensive, allowing for production on poor-quality soils and requiring lower volumes of water and fertilizer (Wang et al 2018). These crops can be important for poor and otherwise vulnerable farmers in some of the most challenging agricultural landscapes in Sub-Saharan Africa (Ndiku, Jara, and Sabaté 2014). Additionally, pearl millet is rich in resistant starch, soluble and insoluble dietary fibers, minerals, and antioxidants (Saleh et al 2013).In Sub-Saharan Africa, the production of millet is concentrated in West Africa, with Burkina Faso being the largest producer. Millet production in East Africa is relatively small and has experienced slow growth. Finger millet, rather than pearl millet, has been the more important product for farmers in the region. However, millet and other dryland crops are projected to triple in production toward 2050 in East Africa (Orr et al 2016). At the same time, production areas for maize, one of the most important crops for food security in the region, are likely to decrease in the region due to more frequent periods of extreme heat and drought (Ojara et al 2021).The potential to increase consumption and overall commercial viability of millet flour in East Africa depends on increasing the production and availability of millet production. However, pearl millet traditionally has not been commercially viable in the region due to the short shelf life of pearl millet flour. As a result, pearl millet is mainly consumed on-farm, with any excess production sold to local traders as grain. Pearl millet has a high oil content that makes it prone to rancidity. Off flavors in pearl millet flour develop shortly after milling and is acknowledged as the key bottleneck for wider consumer acceptability, growth, and investment (Goyal and Chugh 2017). Shorter shelf life of the milled flour may also result in food wastage. Additionally, the rancidity problem can be a drudgery for women, as the amount that can be milled by commercial mills is limited, resulting in the need for frequent trips to millers or regularly pounding small amounts of millet grain at home to produce a small quantity of flour.Recently, CIMMYT and partners applied CRISPR technology to achieve a step change in seed product design for pearl millet: flour that has an extended shelf life due to the introduction of the non-rancidity trait. Kenya is a country where the seed regulatory environment allows for the introduction of gene-edited seed products. Through CRISPR 1 technology, new pathways become available to suppress the formation of off flavors after milling (Sharma et al 2022), potentially opening new commercial uses for the crop as well as reducing drudgery for growers.Discovery of CRISPR Cas9 and related genome-editing technologies has opened immense opportunity to edit genes and develop crops with beneficial traits. These technological breakthroughs allow precise and rapid genetic variations in plants to target specific traits.Pearl millet grain has a proportionately larger germ layer than other cereals and a higher lipid content (5-7 percent). During milling, the bran and germ layer rupture, releasing endogenous lipases that commence the hydrolysis of stored lipids (triacylglycerols, or TAG) and release of free fatty acids (FFAs). Two genes were identified, fatty acid desaturase-2 and lipase, which are involved in rapid development of the off flavor of pearl millet after milling. Using CRIPSR Cas9 technology, both the genes will be knocked out in pearl millet to eliminate the process of production of specific chemicals responsible for rancidity.In this brief, we respond to the question, If such a seed product were available in Kenya, what would be the potential relevance for millet farming and value chains? The next section presents our methodological approach to responding to the question. The sections after present results on the expectations and requirements of millet farmers and rural consumers, local processors, traders, and flour producers for millet varieties and assess whether a potential step change in innovation, i.e., pearl millet with the non-rancidity trait, can reinvigorate the seed system and overall interest in pearl millet in Kenya. While Kenya is not a major pearl-milletgrowing country, it does have a mature regulatory framework in place for gene-editing products. In addition, the Kenyan government is planning to make flour blending mandatory to reduce overreliance on maize, support underutilized crops, and improve nutrition. We conclude in the final section with scenarios for how new millet products with the non-rancidity trait could have positive impacts at scale for farmers and across the millet value chain.Key informant interviews were carried out with farmers, rural consumers, and owners of small-scale (posho) mills (n=10) in four Kenyan counties (Embu, Tharaka Nithi, Machakos, and Kitui) located in the drier eastern region of the country (Table 1). These counties were selected due to their relatively high volumes of pearl millet production. Consumers of pearl millet were consulted at home or at posho mills when size of grain and good quality (clean seed with no pest/ diseases/damage) to plant in the next season. However, the continuous use of saved seeds was acknowledged to result in more susceptibility to pests and diseases, coupled with lower yields. Farmers also noted that despite pearl millet being drought tolerant by nature, a prolonged drought in Kenya in recent years has affected overall yield targets, especially since farmers are using old, recycled varieties.Farmers considered bird damage (i.e., loss of grain to birds) to be their biggest challenge for pearl millet production. They also reported spending considerable resources (both money and time) keeping birds away from their fields, using techniques such as scarecrows (mainly made of clothing purchased from a local market), shiny ribbons, sounding a bell (hitting a stone on a metal sheet), and configuring ropes to throw stones (releasing the stone creates a loud sound) to scare the birds off the fields. All farmers noted that they plant at the same time to spread the risk of crop loss to birds-if a farmer plants late, losses can be severe because that crop is the only one available. According to farmer reports, the mwanza (local variety) was not prone to bird attack because of an important trait characteristic-bristles on earheads that are sharp, pointy, or prickly, making it difficult for birds to access and consume the grain. Another critical challenge related to millet farming was postharvest crop management. The postharvest process for pearl millet is labor-and time-intensive. The earheads are cut manually, dried, and threshed using sticks to remove the grain. The lack of mechanized threshers is a deterrent to increasing the acreage. In Kitui, farmers lacked the tarpaulins needed during threshing and drying processes to prevent postharvest losses and maintain the quality of threshed grain. Second, provision of labor is heavily reliant on women and children, who are tasked with winnowing, cleaning, seed selection, seed management and storage, and milling the grain. Pearl millet grain was stored in hermetic bags, especially in Kitui; in Embu and Tharaka Nithi Counties, most farmers stored it in sisal bags.Given the much larger challenges of seed, drought, birds, and postharvest, rancidity was not a top-of-mind concern for farmers or millers. However, that does not mean that rancidity should be ignored. Farmers and consumers have adapted to the challenge by milling pearl millet flour in small, required quantities, which leads to time loss at the millers' and very frequent visits to flour mills. Due to the small quantities brought in, millers require consumers to they were buying pearl millet flour or porridge and having their grain milled to use it for home consumption. We also sought information and insights from representatives of the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS), millet trading businesses (n=3), flour processors (n=6), and Kenyan supermarket visits. Seed companies will be interviewed in a next phase to scope the interest of formal seed producers in seed production.Pearl millet consumption is localized near production areas where the crop is grown. Pearl millet production is mainly for the farm family's own consumption, but when farmers have a surplus yield, they sell it on local markets for relatively high prices (USD 25-50 for 100 kg, which is double the value of maize in the region). Local posho mills are mainly used for milling although some farmers still prefer grinding millet by hand. Outside of local markets, there was no additional demand for pearl millet. Farmers and local consumers consumed a variety of pearl-millet-based foods, but the most popular dish was uji, a fermented porridge made from millet and maize flours often consumed by children.Land area allocated for pearl millet cultivation by the farmers interviewed tended to be small, roughly 0.5-2 ha. These farmers had cultivated pearl millet for more than 10 to15 years and utilized about 10 kg of seed to plant a hectare. Yield in the surveyed areas was very low, with farmers reporting yields from 500 kg to 650 kg per hectare, which is approximately 25 percent of what can be expected from pearl millet (i.e., a yield gap of 75 percent).New pearl millet varieties have not been released since 2001 (Table 2). To date there are three registered and released improved varieties of pearl millet, namely, KAT PM1, KAT PM2, and KAT PM3. These varieties were developed by the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO). A major challenge was that farmers interviewed had no access to pearl millet seed and recalled that the last time they received new millet varieties was in 2001. A visit and discussion with the most popular agrodealers in Embu, Tharaka, Machakos, and Kitui also revealed no available pearl millet varieties in the market. Additionally, breeding for new pearl millet varieties is currently not a priority given the budget constraints in KALRO and the small production zone.Most farmers had tried one or two varieties. Farmers stated they recycle seed, practice seed exchange with other farmers, and purchase grain (USD 1 per kg) from the local market to be used as seed. They preferred to select and save based on the following physical characteristics: large wait for delivery of more grain by other consumers to be milled together, since it is costly to operate the mills that are diesel-operated for minor quantities. Local traders deal with the challenge of having only small volumes of millet flour available in their stores to avoid food waste, which consumers also deal with.One of the biggest consequences of millet rancidity was not found on the farms but on the shelves of supermarkets or local shops. Due to the short shelf life after milling because of the rancidity issue, none of the stores would sell packaged pearl millet flour. Only finger millet could be found in flour blends, often targeted at parents with small children. But fixing the rancidity problem alone would not automatically transform pearl millet into a crop of choice for the processing industry. The processors saw little potential in pearl millet as a flour product due to the low supply and low consumer interest, even with the rancidity challenge resolved.The previous discussion suggests that achieving impact at scale from the introduction of new millet seed products with extended shelf life is a long-term proposition, to be achieved once larger challenges are addressed. Besides introducing the non-rancidity trait, significant efforts will be needed to develop improved pearl millet varieties that are higher yielding and resistant to disease and birds.Seed systems need to be put in place that give farmers access to seed, whether through collaboration with seed companies or public sector investments. Introducing laborsaving mechanization for postharvest millet processing, such as motorized milling and threshing machines, could significantly reduce processing time and effort. Once these challenges are met, what future scenarios could exist for millet in Kenya and what would the return on breeding investments be (Table 3). First, the return on investment (ROI) in breeding will depend on the area of pearl millet production. The popularity of maize as a staple in Kenya together with its well-organized seed systems and significant investments in breeding, could lead to a further decline of millet production area, potentially reducing the ROI. However, the opposite is likely as well. Predictions are that the effects of climate change and increased frequency of crop failure might push farmers to switch to traditional dryland crops such as millet and sorghum. Supported by the availability of new varieties and established seed systems, pearl millet could become the predominant crop in Eastern Kenya. Secondly, value chain drivers could lead to increased ROI in breeding. Currently, pearl millet use is limited to the production zones and there is little to no value addition happening. Flour processors could become interested in expanding their product portfolio and start new production lines with pearl millet; however, processor interviews highlight that without increased consumer demand, there is a reluctance for processors to make substantial investments to increase mill capacity to produce pearl-millet-based products. Also, government policies pushing processors to use millet due to mandatory flour blending could result in a strong increase in millet production, resulting in increased ROI. This scenario would depend less on consumer demand as a necessary condition for success but does necessitate testing of consumer acceptance of blended flours. This scenario requires that non-rancidity millet grain be traded, processed and marketed in a differentiated matter (through different supply chains), which would require a rapid assay to identify grain with the non-rancidity trait. Alternatively, this scenario would be viable if all pearl millet produced had the low-rancidity trait-this would be a huge undertaking and would still require the assay to reject grain without the desired trait. Nevertheless, these scenarios do start from functioning seed systems for millet.","tokenCount":"2780"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"81bc6ff8390844e0b4fa009f9fff54e2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c521443f-68e2-4229-a3a4-14428f491390/retrieve","id":"-1050946979"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"80925d7f-0646-48c6-866d-0eb67c7458fb","pagecount":"21","content":"Table 1. Farming activities in Iwo local government area Jan Mulching of yam, land clearing and harvesting of late maize Feb Mulching of yam, land clearing Mar Planting of maize, cassava, vegetable and melon Apr Planting of maize, cassava, vegetable and melon May Harvesting of maize, okra,, planting of oil palm transplanting of cocoa, Jun Planting of tree crops, cocoa, Jul Harvesting of yam, selling ram Aug Harvesting of cocoa, planting of maize, cassava and okra, selling goats and ram Sep Harvesting of cocoa, selling of goats and ram Oct Nursery planting of cocoa and yam planting, cocoa harvesting, selling of goats and ram Nov Planting of yam, cocoa harvesting, selling of goats Dec Harvesting of last batch of yam and dry season maize, selling of goats and chicken Table 2. Farming activities in Ayedire local government area Jan Mulching of yam, land clearing and weeding of cocoa plots, harvesting of cocoa Feb Land clearing, maize planting, weeding of cocoa and harvesting Mar Land clearing, maize planting, weeding of cocoa, planting of tomato nursery Apr Ridge making, ploughing, tomato nursery May Planting of maize, cassava, water yam Jun Planting of cocoa, oil palm, banana, cocoa, orange and weeding Jul Weeding, harvesting of green maize, cassava, fresh yam Aug Harvesting of yam, planting of maize, okra, beans, melon, water melon, cucumber Sep Planting of cocoa and yam Oct Harvesting of cocoa Nov Harvesting of cocoa, selling of goats Dec Harvesting of cocoa, selling of goats Table 3. Farming activities in Ife East local government area Jan Clearing of land and harvesting of cocoa Feb Fadama farming and harvesting of cocoa Mar Maize cassava and planting Apr Maize and cassava planting May Maize and cassava planting Jun Maize and cassava planting Jul Fumigation and fertilization of cocoa Aug Fumigation and fertilization of cocoa Sep Fumigation, fertilization of cocoa and harvesting of cocoa Oct Harvesting of cocoa Nov Harvesting of cocoa Dec Harvesting of cocoa Table 4. Farming activities in Atakumosa West local government area Jan Planting of cocoa, cocoyam, oil palm, land clearing and harvesting of honey Feb Planting of cocoa, cocoyam, oil palm, land clearing and harvesting of honey Mar Land clearing and preparation, harvesting of honey Apr Planting of cocoa, cassava, water yam, maize and harvesting of honey May Planting of maize and cassava Jun Transplanting of cocoa, palm tree, harvest of yam and maize Jul Spraying and harvesting of cocoa, walnut, palm oil, maize and yam Aug Harvesting of kolanut, cocoa walnut, yam Sep Planting of yam and transplanting of cocoa seedling Oct Land clearing and preparation, harvesting of honey, spraying and harvesting cocoa, walnut, kolanut Nov Land clearing and preparation, harvesting of honey, spraying and harvesting cocoa, walnut, kolanut Dec Land clearing and preparation, harvesting of honey, spraying and harvesting cocoa, walnut, kolanut Table 5. Farming activities in Atakumosa East local government area Jan Nursery planting of cocoa, mulching of yam, land clearing and harvesting of late maize Feb Vegetable production, okra,, harvesting of plantain, land clearing Mar Ridge, heap making, planting of pepper, melon Apr Planting of maize, cocoa, insecticide spraying of cocoa May Planting of maize, cocoa, weeding Jun Harvesting of maize Jul Harvesting of yam ,cocoa starts Aug Harvesting of cocoa and planting of late maize Sep Planting of yam, slashing of cocoa Oct Harvesting of yam Nov Harvesting of yam and cocoa Dec Processing of oil palm, harvesting of cocoaHumidtropics is a CGIAR Research Program that seeks to transform the lives of rural poor in the humid lowlands, moist savannas, and tropical highlands in tropical Americas, Asia, and Africa. In West Africa, the humid tropics occupy an area of 206 million ha and are home to 145 million people. About 28% of the population lives on less than US$1.25/day and 58% of land area is estimated to be degraded. The Humidtropics West Africa Flagship Project has Action Sites in the humid and subhumid regions of Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire.There are nine Local Government Areas (LGA) in Nigeria spread across two states Oyo and Osun. Oyo state has four target LGAs while Osun state has five.As a part of the integrated approach in solving the problems of rural livelihood, income, malnutrition and natural resource degradation ILRI undertook a feed assessment study in the nine LGAs as feed shortage is a major problem in most of the developing countries to augment livestock production and productivity.The purpose of the Feed Assessment Tool (FEAST) is to offer a systematic and rapid methodology for assessing feed resources at site level with a view to developing a site-specific strategy for improving feed supply and utilization through technical or organizational interventions. The tool is aimed at research and development practitioners who are working in the livestock sector and need a systematic means of assessing current feed-related strategies and developing new ones.FEAST differs from conventional feed assessment approaches that focus on the feeds, their nutritive value, and ways to improve them. FEAST broadens this assessment to account for the importance of livestock in local livelihoods, the relative importance of feed problems locally, and the local situation related to labour, input availability, credit, seasonality, and markets (Duncan et al., 2012).Outputs from the FEAST consists of a short report in a defined format along with some quantitative information on overall feed availability, quality and seasonality. The output from the FEAST studies is likely to result in better understanding of the current situation with regard to the issues of crop and livestock integration and the likely interventions that can be thought of in addressing the existing problems.This report pertains to five humidtropics field sites of Osun State: Iwo, Ife East, Atukmosa East, Atukmosa West and Ayedire.The State of Osun is located in the south-Western part of Nigeria. It covers an area of approximately 14,875 square kilometers. It is bounded by Ogun, Kwara, Oyo, Ondo, and Ekiti States in the south, North, West and East respectively. The state lies within the tropical rain forest. FEAST study was carried out at five Local Government Areas (LGA) in Osun state. Of these five, Iwo and Ayedire LGA are located in the North Western part of the state and the remaining three sites -Atukomoso East, Atukomoso West and Ife east are located on the Eastern part of the Osun state.Farmers from each LGA representing different wealth groups based on the land holdings were selected with the help of the state extension agents and local informants. The representative farmers were subjected to participatory rural appraisal (PRA) followed by individual interviews and the data was collected as per the FEAST format. General information on the farming and livestock production systems and feed resource availability and utilization was obtained through PRA while the quantitative information on the on overall feed availability, quality and seasonality was obtained through individual interview. Data collected through individual interview was analysed as FEAST excel template (www.ilri.org/feast). FEAST tool has been developed to help to design site specific strategies for feed supply and utilization.The information gathered during the PRA and the result outputs from the FEAST template on various aspects is presented and discussed below.Small farmers having less than 5 hectares constituted the major proportion in Ayedire (50%) and Atukmosa West (75%) while large farmers having more than 10 hectares were in greater proportion in Iwo, Atukmosa West and Ayedire LGA. None of the LGAs had landless farmers. Ife East had equal proportion of farmers in all three categories of small, medium and large farmers. Characterization of farmers using land information: IwoA wide range of crops mostly food (cassava, maize, yam and commercial crops (cocoa, coffee, fruits) were cultivated in the surveyed areas. Oilseeds and legumes which are important crops for livestock feeds were absent in all the surveyed LGAs. The commercial crop -cocoa was the major crop in Atakumosa East, Atakumosa West and Ayedire while food crops -cassava and yam were the major crops in Iwo and Ife East LGA respectively. Apart from the two food crops maize was the only other food crop that was being cultivated in all LGAs.The rest of the crops cultivated were mainly cash crops and consisted of fruits, vegetables and cashew.The average land size per household was least in Atakumosa East (3.16 ha) followed by Ayedire (7.3 ha), Atakumosa West (8.9 ha), Iwo (11.7 ha) and Ife east (14.3 ha). Land tenure system is widely prevalent in these areas. The household size (numbers/family) in the areas were observed to be medium to high -Ido (8.3), Ayedire (6.2), Atakumosa East(6.5), Atakumosa West(4.8) and Ife East (5.8) and contributed to the family labour for harvesting and processing of farm produce while the hired labours were always engaged in tedious work like clearing, making of heaps, ridges, planting and weeding.The rainy season sets in all the five LGA by April and lasts till October with peak rains in June-August.The period from November to March is generally dry although few of the areas may receive small rains and this period is critical when there is shortage of feeds. In the rainforest zones such as Ife East and Atakumosa (East and West), there was hardly a month that rain would not fall, thus the vegetation remains ever green. Irrigation was not practiced in the surveyed areas. However, where swampy or water logged lands exist, people utilize it for dry season vegetable and this system of cultivation using irrigation is commonly called as Fadama. Labour is available all the year round. The cost of labour sometimes depends on negotiation, the nature of the work and the duration of work.Wages ranged from 130000 to 150000 Naira /annum (1USD = 166 Naira). The rural/urban migration was common especially in areas that are far away from the major cities.Activities at the farm are generally dependent on the rains and crops grown. Month wise activities at the five LGA are summarized in tables below.Livestock is an integral part of the agriculture and almost all households have one or more species of livestock-sheep, goats, pigs, chicken and cattle. The predominant animals in the areas are pigs, goats, sheep and local chicken. Cattle rearing are limited to the Fulani, who rarely practice crop farming. Although there are pockets of intensive systems of management, especially for commercial poultry and pig, the majority of livestock owners operate extensive methods of rearing where animals fend for themselves for feed depending on the common property resources. Housing is never provided; animals sleep in the corridor while birds rest on trees where they are exposed to inclement weather. Veterinarians or their assistants provide the health services for the animals. Farmers purposely provide supplementary feed in order to keep the animals around the home. The feed supply includes peels of cassava, yam and plantain, corn gluten (waste from sieve of fermented corn), wheat offal, brewer's dried grain, palm kernel cake, orange pulp, cashew pulp, mango fruit wastes, cowpea husk, groundnut haulm, corn offal and sorghum chaff. Browse plants and shrubs are also obtained around homestead and farm area. Farmers in the area hardly declare the number of animals they have per household. They rear animals for immediate income, for festival, ceremony, gift and consumption.The farmers were aware of credit facilities. They did not have reason to take borrowed money for the operation of livestock production. Expansion of livestock production was essentially through the process of animal donations. Among the farmers or relatives and friends to the farmer, animal are given to 'care takers' and the profits are shared on agreement. Personal and hired lands are abundant for cultivation of crops and rearing of animals but land was never established for the purpose of rearing livestock. Livestock production was secondary and was not given its due weightage or importance. None of the farmers in the area have heard about artificial insemination.The average household livestock holdings in the five LGA are presented in graphs below. Greens from natural pastures and cultivated fodders are an important feed resources for ruminants and the land allocation for major green fodder surveyed under different LGA in Osun state is depicted in graphs (figure 4) Leucenea Green fodder tree was the major green fodder source in Atukmosa east while green fodder from natural pastures was the major source in Iwo and Atukmosa West LGA. Maize was being cultivated as a major source of green fodder on a reasonably large area of land in Ife East as the dairy animals is one of the major activities. This is further confirmed by largest average land allocation 0.96 ha from cultivated and natural pastures observed in Ife East. The next large allocation was observed in Atukmosa east at 0.40 ha followed by Iwo 0.25 ha and Atukmosa West 0.23 ha. In terms of the range of the feed resources purchased, Iwo and Ife East had the most diverse resources while Atukmosa East and West were the least diverse. None of the LGAs traded in green fodder while crop residues constituted a small component. Most of the traded commodities were concentrate ingredients and were common for all the LGAs. Commercially compounded feeds were being used in Iwo, Atukmosa East and West LGAs. While the proportions of the feed ingredients depicted in the pie charts do not give the quantity of feed resources transacted the quantity of feeds purchased is an important indicator of self-sufficiency of feeds production and the intensity of feeds demand. In terms of the quantity maximum trading took place in Iwo 34.2 tons, followed by Ayedire 9.1 tons, Ife east (5.5 tons), Atukmosa West (4.4 tons) and the least in Atukmosa East.Contribution of major class of feeds-feeds from natural pastures, grazing, purchased feeds and the crop residues for total quantity and quality in terms of protein and metabolizable energy is depicted in different graphs (figures 6 to 10)    Quantitatively purchased feeds contribute substantially in Iwo and Atukmosa West while cultivated fodder was the major contributor in Ife East where it contributed to more than 2/3 of the diet. For Ayedire LGA crop residue was important contributor to quantity and quality of feeds.Monthly availability of feeds from different sources in terms of percentage for the entire year was recorded to know the flush and lean seasons of feed availability. The results for all the five LGAs are presented graphically in Figure 11. In Atukmosa east, crop residues during the dry season and green forage and grazing during the wet season was the major feed resource. In Atukmosa West, concentrates, grazing and crop residues constitute the major feed resource. In Ife East concentrates was the major feed resource throughout the year and the contribution from other resources were minimum to negligible. In Ayedire concentrates and green forages were the major feed resources and the green forage availability was linked to rainfall while the concentrates feeding was not uniform throughout the year.Major sources of income from different sources at house hold level was surveyed and the findings documented in the Figure 12. Agriculture was the major source of income (>60%) in all the surveyedLGAs. Largest contribution of income from livestock was observed in Iwo followed by Ayedire, Atukmosa East, Atukmosa West and Ife East in decreasing order. At the end of the participatory rural appraisal, farmers were asked to rank the list of the problems that they perceived and the possible solutions to address them for their perspective. Ranking of the problems for the first five most important ones and the possible solutions at all the five surveyed LGA in Osun state were tabulated and presented in Table 6.  ","tokenCount":"2571"}
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Q. fLLY.ª[~!:tt.t.J.,. ~2"],"sieverID":"eccf57bd-f8f0-4172-95a8-45d39d600b94","pagecount":"207","content":"Qu i~:.:-ro ar-wov<::~cls.:H• l e:~ opcwtunidad para agr-adecer a todos los técnicos del pr-oyecto~ quienes colabor-aron en la reali zac ión de este catá logo por su trabajo en el campo y en c:a~:;as el[~ mi.: 1l la~ a 1 os Dr•s. J ean-Pi m-r-e Baudoi n ~ Daniel Debouc:k y David ~•Jood por sus s ug en:~nc i as E::'f l cu::;,nt.o al contenido y a la presentación del catálogo; al Se~or-Orlando Tor•o pcw 1 a i ntr•ud u cci ón c.lt::: • ger ntopl.:.-'\\sma y por• su Ecyud.:c en c u <: :ln Lo <' :1 datos dE• po;,~;apc;r •tE•.I I\\JTRCJDUCC I lJN 1 Es t a do de l a e: Cll f? e e i ó n de r:~b:~-l..gi~~-g)_)}_ ~ ___ G_9_f...:_~_c:.:_ül~~!f.~. ~ E:b.fl §-.?_QJJJ s _ R..~.?..A . .':'!'~~'X!.:UL~!.?. y €~ !?.:-p t' ! C i e !f.; r • e 1 a e: i o n \"\"' el a=• O 1 '. i  Dentro del sistema de Centro& Internacionales de Investigación, CIAT tiene la responsabilidad mundial para la colección y conservación del germoplasma de fri jo les del género Eltª- § §'_9.!.~:.~? Las f Or-tnas SÍ 1 Ves tr es de e.:.J2 . . 9J..Y.ant_t!_LlS y E:...:...coc_c;__i_r.!P'LIS fueron clesct.tbi E?t~tas en Guate1nal a y 1'1é :{ i co regpecti vamc-mt:f?~ y si tuan el centro de origen para l as dos especies en Mesoamérica.f' . _c;:_qg_i.r.l~LL~ Sl? cultiva sobr•etodo ~m las zonas altas de Mé xic o y Guatemala .La especie se encuentra también en otr•;:\\s regione!5 de t:::¡mér• ica •..ie l Sur•~ en Eur•opa, Africa y Asia. Se siembr¡, en -.:~lX1éiS de m .tt ~J df.:-1700m em e l trópico.Tiene un comportamiento plurianual, caracterizado por un ciclo de producción más 1 al'\"•gc> que E:..~ .. ' .tq..l.._ !;lªr)  2. • Siendo e s pecie i:: \\1 óg;~ma~ el por•cl-:nti:tj e d t? poli ni :-: c.\"'ci ón cru:~ ada n.:ttLw a l l?S muy ulto. t::...:....P.. 9.lYª-!:ÜJJ.\\:l §.. s~:.-!:;iembl'\"•.::, también en lc:.s n2gic•r11-: : . > S tropicales de altura, de 1600 a 2600m.La distribución de 1 a especie es sin f:.>mbargo má~~ 1 imitada que par a f.:....\"...f.Q.~C i_ne•.J.~:.: Né~•:ic:o y Gl.\\a•t~!me:\\la t• =n Cen•t.n:.> Arnér<tca~ Colombia, Ect . . tC:Idor• y Norte de Perú en América del Sur . Tiene también un comportamiento plurianual, y es especie alógama~ aúnque la tasa de autofecundación natural es más alta que para E:...:_c o ....f e: i M. ..h\\.2.. Este catálogo incluye 785 accesiones que han sido incrementadas en CIAT. Debido al carácter alógarno de las especies~ se estableció una metodologia que permite la conservación de la variabilidad dentro de cada accessión, En vista que permanentamente se multiplican y eva luan acc:esi.one!:;; JH.Ie vas~ <:: J. c:at¿t.l ogo es un documento de tr•abajo preliminar y será revisado y aumentado periodicamente, a medida que haya más información disponible.En cuanto a los descriptores, se utilizó el listado publicado por el IBPGR <Consejo Internacional de Recursos Fitogenéticos), con modificaciones de ac uerdo a las necesidades del material.El catálogo se divide en 3 secciones principales: a) bt,.   Número CIAT o número d e germoplasma es el número asignado a la accesión original del banco de germoplasma de la Unidad de Recursos Genéticos del CIAT~ cuando l a semilla ha sido incrementada. Este número consta de la letra G seguida de cinco digito s. En algunos casos hay una letra después de los digitos (A~ 8~ etc.). Esta letra cc ~r e sponde a separaciones justificadas de la accesión original.El e atál ogo i n c 1 u ye t re~=; e s pecies: E'h~?~2.?.. 9.t~.g li mitada ~ l 8s nud os i n ter-rr.t?di ,,, alta seg t'\"~'gac i ón razón~ cada accesión está representada po r una o varias combi n ac i ones de colores.Primer color: es el color más pálido de la semi l. J. a~ consi d<::?r-adcl como colorde base-::-. Segundo. tercer. c uart o color: son los colores i:tdi ci onal E''=i qLU:.~ apar-ec~:;¡n t:~n la semilla~ ordf: ?nados del más pálido hasta el más oscuro. Significado de los códigos de colores:1::: blanco      Los resultados presentados en el catálogo fueron obtr.:-ni dos en eval uaci or 1 E:~S 11 evad.::ts a c¿tbcl en do~:, p~:;taci ones de altura : Popayán (Cauca, 1 750msnm~ latitud 2 .15N, longitud 7 6.36W) y Rionegro <Antioquia, 2200msnm, lat itud 6.15N~ longitud 75 .21Wl, durante los semestres siguientes : 19848, 1985A, 1985B, 19868, 198  La mayor parte de los re s ultados vienen de e V a 1 u a e:: i CHH:? ~:; r• e a 1 i z a d r:l !5 en (:::¡ • '.  and Mexico respectively, and thus the center of origin for both species is locat ed in Mesoameri ca . F'.J;..f!l;,.ci_Q .. ~~-l::.IS is mairdy c:ultivated in the highlands of Mexico and Guatemala.The species is found also in other regions of South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.In the  ( I n t er-na ti o na l Eto;.~¡-• el f cw F' l ,;mt Ei f::n et i e Resoure: e~;) vJi:.'\\S u sed ~ wit h modificati o n s accor-din g to the necessities of the mate r-i a 1 .The catalogue i ~ s hort descr-iption of data . CIAT nwnb~;:r-or ger mp1 asm nwntH'?t-i ~:. the nurtltJc=!r assigned to the original accession in the Genetic Resources Unit when the seeds have been increas~d.This number has five digits preceded by the l etter G .In sorne cases a letter <A~ B~ C, etc.> follows the five digits;this letter corresponds to justified separ~tions from the original acces-.si on.The e: at é\\1 09 i nc 1 udE•s t hn:e =•pec i e~;: Et! §.J3 ~9J . .    This lo ca l register can be either num~rical or al ph.::\\-numf\"'l\"' i cr.d.Cor-n~spcmcls to t.he l'\"l:'?gi!:;tet-D•F tht? acce~:.~;ic:m used bv ot.he•r in o:;ti tution l•Jhf'~re thP rn c1terial was stored.I s the cou n t t•y whl?l\"'e i..he n,at.c-::-ric:1l li'Jas bred c•r collected. The following codes are used for countries.AFG -• ?-Hgh.:mi stan BLG --Belgium BLV --Bol i vi a BTH ---Bou l: hanGl''ll\\l -•• [~~?rrne:my 13T() •-Guc:.'l.tt::>rnal i:.~ HDF~ --Hondura s IND --India IRN = Ir.:1n ITL = Italv JPI\\I = J c1pan h:YA -• KE'nya t•IEXl'le:-: i e o NLD -Hollancl PER ;:;: F'er-u F'Hl -Puer-to r-;: i. e:() F'TC -Por-tugal r;:--United St<\"tl.<:: ~::. UTK = Un i tf?d l< i n qdom VNZ -VP.nez ur~l .;:, YUG •-Yugosl avi i:.~ ZRE -Zaire 8. PliOCF.~DE:.. --Source I s the seed donor\"s country. The c:odes for the countries are th~ same ones us ed for the origin. Sit.e~ c..)e<:Jqr<:~J.Jhir: distanc(~ and dir-e-~ction fn::Jrn nec:1rest tovm~ vi ll age cw \"'\"' P ,~,rid r-efr~rence.Deqn;:-~es an d m1 nute~; foll ov-H~cl by N U~or-th) ut~ S <South> ..  Measured on the terminal leaflet of third trifoliolate leaf from pulvinus to leaf tip.       Freshly opt?ned •f 1 m-Jer.         Seed coat patterns:..   F\\ S Tr:.: : Ll S 1:. ( P.r. . .  Severity and intensity scale 1 to 9:1 --no symptom 9 -very strong symptoms  Frecuencia según e l tipo de h ábito :  '? e :• ,¿_ • , _ _. 7 . 3 6 . 1 0.9 0 . 3 3 . 0 0 .9          Descri ptorTot a l obs.Descr iptorTotal obs.  Total obs.  45.91 0.9-~ ~• -••. Frecuencia de in cidenc i a en todos los ensayos:Desc r-i ptor-T ot.:.ü ob s .No obs~rvaciones Frecuenc i a de in ci d encia en todos l os ensayos :Total obs.No observaciones Total obs.  . .:...-.r::-   Semilla roja, tipo voluble .Semilla grande, con ma n c has rojas.•tipo voluble.Semilla grande, roja, tipc.' voluble.Semilla grande, roja con manchas blancas, tipo voluble.Sem i ll a grande ~ gruesa, de varios c:ol ore•s;.Semilla grande, redonda, rojo oscuro, tipo voluble .  Semilla grande, variada .S~?cni ll ¿~ qr-,:~nde , con m,nnchas :::.apot.e ,Semilla orande , con ma nchas z~pote-caf~, tipo vo lubl e.Serni 11 a l)r• ande :• ne1~)r• ,:\\ , .::11 guna motead,-:~, tipo vo lubl e.Semilla urande, negra, blanca y morada.Semi ll a grande, negra .Semi ll i.' l unifornu-::~, C:. tr andE?, gris CJ~.curo.Semi ll a grdnde, morado claro, tipo voluble.Semi l la blanca, negra, morada.Semi ll a m orada~ blanca.Re sis tente a Antracnosis.  G35349 Siembra junto con maiz .835350 Siembra con milpa .Acalete abreviador~ sembrado con milpa.G35369 Suelos acidovolcánicos.Tipo voluble~ semilla grande.Semilla grande~ colorada.Semilla mor•,~da . Flcw roja~ se come .Semilla grande~ negra. Tipo voluble.Semilla grande~ moteada~ color rojizo-anaranjado.Vainas pequenas .Semilla grande~ bl.:~nca.Traido de otra altura~ semilla anaranjada.Semilla amarillo lH•• illant.e~ tamaf'1o mediano.Cu l tivado~ semilla crema. Grano uniform e ~ beige~ mediano~ con nervé:\\ción r-•e ticulc:~r .Semi 11 a a11.ar i 11 a j aspe.::H~Ia.Semilla jaspea da gris y negro .Semilla amarillo palido.CLtl ti vado . l\"lezcla de colores y tétmafios.Grano bayo~ gordo~ uniforme.   Semi l 1 él ,~lnr <H\" i 1 1 a j é'IC.:ip e.:tda .St~mi ll c:~ m o 1 '' .:.~da ~ f 1 0 1 '' r oj c.\"' ~ !5e come .Semi 1 l a nror .. ada ~ -f 1 C' l~ r • oj a ~ cnmest il>l e .Sem ill a a maril l o jaspeado.Semi 11 i:l rncw a d a.Semill a grande~ vario s co lores .  Vaina pubescente~ bracteola grande~ rojiz a.Enrededor.Enrededor~ vaina pubescente.Enrededor• .Grano morado y pinto.Grano morado y pinto.Grano morc:tdcl.Grano morado, pinto y neg ro .Grano caf~ c laro~ vio l eta ~ negro.Grano gra nde~ amarillo.Gr anc> am.=\\1'•• i 11 o.Grano color gris-negro~ bayo~ caf~.Grano mo ra do~ blanco. Gr ano amarillo~ roj o y negro.Grano amarillo y rojo.Grano negro, caf~, amarillo, rojo.Grano amal'\"•illo.Grano ans.:1ril lo y l' \"•ojo .Grano rojo.Tipo voluble, varios colores .Tipo vo l1.1b le.Se ns i 11.:: neg r• a .Semi 11 a •.~r and e.Semilla grande , blanco mo te ad o caf~.Semil l a grande, ro jo y bl a nco.Semilla grande, blanco v moteado cafe.Semil l a grande, caf~-rojo.Tipo voluble, semilla negra.Mezcla de colores y t Dmahos .Tipo voluble, semilla grande, brillan te , negrc-1 y morada.Grano grande, mezcla d e colores .Grano grande, amarill o o anaranjado .        ..,-::-., , . . .       ..::.    .,;:. 3            L M F'  F' e  ::-.     -~ ...,... .::.         7\"\"..,.•-'• -• 9 ..,..•-'  .. . . -~     ..:.. . .: ..               ... •:.-, ..::.    ,.,       •-'...,.•-' .J ..,.•-'..,.•-' 7 7 7 7\"'!'•-• ..:.. c-.; 9 9''::'      :3: .9 5 .::..\":!•-•  -:~•-'-,.•-'    1•-•  ..::.                               ","tokenCount":"1732"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"45b08dd532aa336a7b590a2e3da11a12","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/fc7fc3f1-61b9-417a-bec1-dbe9ab3d3046/retrieve","id":"-1344448399"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"bff7d634-3dc5-44c2-ae63-983420803b83","pagecount":"2","content":"Project Title: P329 -Key leverage points for improving diets through food systems Description: A4NH research -a literature review, re-interpretation of data, and examination of consumption and supply of fruits and vegetables in seven countries -shaped priorities for the new program.  on 2022-08-19 at 07:47 (GMT+0) Narrative of Evidence: In 2021, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) began designing a major multi-lateral investment in a new program to improve fruit and vegetable intake in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). Although the multi-year project will not begin before the end of A4NH, it was informed by A4NH research, funded by BMGF. A scoping study (https://www.wur.nl/en/Research-Results/Themes/From-hunger-to-food-security/Food-Systems/Resul ts-from-the-global-scoping-study-on-fruits-and-vegetables.htm) focused on the consumption and production of fruits and vegetables as part of the food system in LMICs, and, in particular, in seven low-income countries. The researchers first mapped trends in global and regional food systems, with a focus on South Asia and East and West Africa. In the country study, the researchers zoomed in on Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nepal, Nigeria, Tanzania, India and Burkina Faso. The study combined a literature review, reinterpretation of data, and examination of consumption and supply. The study looked specifically at what key issues need to be addressed to enhance consumption while offering income opportunities, notably for women and youth (https://www.wur.nl/en/Research-Results/Research-Institutes/Economic-Research/show-wecr/Shift-inthinking-required-to-prevent-malnutrition-worldwide.htm). The total investment is still being negotiated, which is why we have listed the amount as $1.00.• ","tokenCount":"236"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"5ff33b5da79b1bdf778eeb9d73fbeaa1","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/1428d14b-0c2f-4a08-9efa-61f0c7073824/content","id":"-69827821"},"keywords":["Zea mays","maize","biofortification","β-cryptoxanthin","β-carotene","carotenoids","NIRS"],"sieverID":"02365698-a629-488b-8aae-5708e2ddd3d1","pagecount":"13","content":"Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is a public health issue worldwide. Provitamin A (PVA) biofortified maize serves as an alternative to help combat VAD. Breeding efforts to develop maize varieties with high PVA carotenoid content combine molecular and phenotypic selection strategies. The phenotypic assessment of carotenoids is currently done using liquid chromatography, a precise but time-and resource-consuming methodology. Using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) could increase the breeding efficiency. This study used ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) data from 1857 tropical maize genotypes as a training set and NIRS data to do an independent test of a set of 650 genotypes to predict PVA carotenoids using Bayesian and modified partial least square (MPLS) regression models. Both regression methods produced similar prediction accuracies for the total carotenoids (r 2 = 0.75), lutein (r 2 = 0.55), zeaxanthin (r 2 = 0.61), β-carotene (r 2 = 0.22) and β-cryptoxanthin (BCX) (r 2 = 0.57). These results demonstrate that Bayesian and MPLS regression of BCX on NIRS data can be used to predict BCX content, the current focus on PVA enhancement, and thus offers opportunities for high-throughput phenotyping at a low cost, especially in the early stages of PVA maize breeding pipeline when many genotypes must be screened.Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) remains a public health problem in many low-and middleincome countries. Although the global prevalence of VAD in children under the age of 5 years has declined from approximately 39% to 30% over the past two decades, little progress has been made in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where VAD still affects 44 and 48% of children under 5 years, respectively [1].Provitamin A (PVA) carotenoids, (e.g., β-cryptoxanthin, αand β-carotene) are the precursors of vitamin A, which is an essential nutrient for different systems of the human body that helps prevent morbidity, mortality from infections, and childhood blindness [2]. These carotenoids are found in many vegetables, fruits, and, albeit in lower concentrations, in yellow maize. In addition to PVA carotenoids, lutein, and zeaxanthin are the predominant carotenoids in yellow maize [3,4].The analysis and quantification of carotenoids can be challenging due to the large number of naturally occurring carotenoids, the susceptibility of these compounds to degradation, and the wide range of concentrations of carotenoids and their various isomers found in nature [5]. Several methods have been considered in search of a fast, accurate, and cheap assay to screen PVA content in maize grain to support PVA maize breeding programs. Some of the proposed methods have included visual color scoring, the use of colorimetry, and liquid chromatography [6,7]. Currently, PVA maize breeding pipelines rely mainly on lab wet chemical techniques based on liquid chromatography and DNA markers to select for PVA carotenoids [7,8]. However, due to logistical and technical reasons, DNA markers may not be a practical option for small breeding programs in develloping countries. Still, even when DNA markers are used, validation of PVA content with accurate phenotypic data is necessary.Ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) has been an effective method for generating high-quality PVA data for maize biofortification programs. However, it can be laborious, expensive, and generates chemical waste [7,9]. Given the chemical structure and characteristics of the different carotenoids present in maize, visual color determination and colorimetric tests may help selection in the early stages, but they fail to precisely discriminate among provitamin A carotenoids. Further, visual color scoring has low throughput and can be subjective [6,7,10].Recently, researchers have used low-cost non-destructive tools such as near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and nuclear magnetic resonance as a high-throughput phenotype for predicting grain yield and other end quality traits in various crop species [11,12]. NIRS is considered a high-throughput phenotyping tool and is especially suited to the needs of maize breeding programs because the equipment can be installed on research plot combiners and information on quality traits and routine yield data can be obtained simultaneously [9,13,14]. It is fast, simple, and, in some cases, it can be non-destructive; it also allows for measuring different compounds at the same time. NIRS covers the range from 780 nm to 2500 nm of the electromagnetic spectrum, and thus it measures the interactions between electromagnetic radiation and vibrational properties of chemical bonds [13,15]. For maize breeding programs, NIRS has been successfully used to screen for protein, oil, starch, kernel density, anthocyanins, tryptophan, lysine, and popping capacity, among many other traits [14,[16][17][18][19].Different mathematical methods have been applied to NIRS spectral data to make predictions on other samples where the response variables were not measured. Partial least squares (PLS) is a useful multivariate method, it can analyze data with strong collinearity (correlated), noise, and several X-and Y-variables [20]. The PLS method is a practical approach for cases where the number of predictors is larger than the number of observations and has demonstrated better performance than principal component regression. The PLS approach was originally developed by World-systems analysis and for predicting chemical variables from spectral data [21,22], where the number of variables is larger than the number of observations and there is high collinearity among variables. Details of the PLS theory and its similarities with principal components regression and stepwise multiple linear regression are described by Aastveit and Martens [23].Rincent et al. [12] used high-throughput phenotyping for wheat lines and a tree species (poplar) irradiated with infrared measured absorbance from 400 to 2500 nm. Using the NIR wavelength data analyzed as NIR Best Linear Unbiased Predictor (NIR BLUP) (NIR similarity matrix) in grains and leaves, the authors obtained better prediction accuracy than using GBLUP (genomic similarity matrix). Hayes et al. [11] used a multi-trait approach incorporating NIR and nuclear magnetic resonance information to the genomic models for end-use quality traits in wheat. The authors found that genomic predictions ranged from 0.00-0.47, whereas after adding information using NIR and nuclear magnetic resonance, prediction accuracy increased from 0.00 to 0.69.Cuevas et al. [24] used a wheat dataset including NIR, genomic information, and pedigree information. Results from the Bayesian NIR linear regression model (NB) showed that NIR wavelength alone achieved less prediction accuracy than the genomic information alone. Interestingly, pedigree + NIR information achieved slightly lower prediction accuracy than genomic information + NIR. For fitting the models and making predictions, Cuevas et al. [24] used the BGGE function from the library of the same name [25].The main objectives of this study were to: (1) investigate whether NIR can be used to predict carotenoid content in maize grain samples, and (2) compare the prediction accuracies for two regression models: Bayesian and PLS. We used data from 1857 samples as a training set to predict carotenoid content in an independent set of 650 maize samples.The grain samples used in this study were obtained from the PVA maize breeding program at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and included samples from 5 growing seasons (2018 to 2019) and environments in Mexico and Zimbabwe, as well as from different crop management conditions. We used 3 groups of datasets. Group 1 included 1857 cultivars that were used to develop the NIRS calibrations and as training sets and fitting the Bayesian model. Group 2 included 390 cultivars that were used for prediction, and group 3 included 650 cultivars used for prediction or as independent validation. Out of those 650 cultivars, only 260 were completely new, since the remaining 390 were the ones included in group 2. See Data Availability Statement.A total of 50-100 kernels per sample were milled using a cyclotec mill (FOSS Tecator 1093) with a 0.5 mm sieve. A sub-sample of the obtained flour was used for chemical carotenoid analysis by UPLC and the remnant flour was stored at −80 • C in paper envelopes until they were scanned to obtain the NIRS spectra. Moisture content in each sample was between 8-10%.All chemicals used for UPLC analyses were HPLC-grade and purchased from Millipore-Sigma. Ultrapure water was used for UPLC and carotenoid extraction. The standards for β-carotene (BC) were purchased from Millipore-Sigma, while those for lutein (LUT), zeaxanthin (ZEA), and β-cryptoxanthin (BCX) were purchased from Carotenature.Carotenoid extraction and quantification were performed as described by Palacios-Rojas [26]. Briefly, 600-mg samples (fine powder of maize kernels) in 6 mL of ethanol (with 0.1% butylated hydroxytoluene) underwent 5 min precipitation in an 85 • C water bath before being subjected to 10 min saponification with 500 µL of 80% (w/v) KOH in water. After saponification, samples were immediately placed in ice to which 3 mL of cold deionized water was added. Two hundred microliters of the internal standard (β-apo-8 -carotenal) were added, and samples were vortexed. Carotenoids were extracted three times with 3 mL of hexane by centrifugation at 800 g, and the hexane fraction was extracted. The combined extracted hexane layers were dried under nitrogen and reconstituted in 500 µL of 50:50 methanol:dichloroethane (v/v). All carotenoid extraction procedures and analyses were conducted under yellow light. Two microliters of the sample were injected into Acquity UPLC Water equipment. Separation was performed using an Acquity UPLC BEH C18 1.7 µm, 2.1 × 100 mm column, and an Acquity column in-line filter. LUT, ZEA, BCX, and BC were identified based on their characteristic spectra and by comparing their retention times with known standard solutions. 9-cis-β-Carotene (9-cis-BC) and 13-cis-β-carotene (13-cis-BC) were identified and quantified based on BC standards. PVA was computed as all-trans-BC + (1/2) (13-cis-BC) + (1/2) (9-cis-BC) + (1/2) (BCX). Total carotenoids (TC) were computed as all-trans-BC + 9-cis-BC + 13-cis-BC + LUT + ZEA + BCX.The milled material (2-3 g per sample) was scanned by NIRS monochromator model FOSS 6500 (FOSS NIRSystem, Inc., Silver Spring, MD, USA) using small ring cups (internal diameter of 35 mm and depth of 8 mm). Spectra of the samples were collected between 400 and 2500 nm at 2 nm intervals, and each spectrum consisted of 32 scans, which were automatically averaged and saved as absorbance intensity [log (1/R)].All mathematical procedures on the spectral information and calibration development using PLS were performed with WinISI III software from Infrasoft International (FOSS NIRSystems, Inc., Silver Spring, MD, USA). The Bayesian NIR linear regression model was implemented using R codes [27] (see Appendix A).The main purpose of PLS modeling is to decompose both the design matrix predictor (X) and matrix of response (Y) as X = TP and Y = UQ where T and U are projection matrices of X and Y scores and P and Q are orthogonal loading matrices. The method will produce the PLS regression estimates for the response predicted value. In this research, the coefficients of PLS regression were generated with dataset 1 by using the WinISI III software (FOSS NIRSystems, Inc., Silver Spring, MD, USA).Prior to the PLS regression, spectra were pretreated by applying a first-derivative transformation defined by 1,4,4,1 for ZEA, BCX, 13-cis-BC, BC, PVA, and TC, and 2,4,4,1 for LUT and 9-cis-BC, where the first number is the degree of the derivative, the second number is the gap between data points for subtraction, and the third and fourth numbers are the data points used for smoothing. This mathematical pretreatment of the spectral data eliminates the background of constant correlation due to any existing correlation between carotenoid content and particle size [28].The results of the prediction calculations were monitored by checking the t outliers with t > 2.5; the global neighborhood distances (GH) values which are used to determine outliers or samples with unique characteristics; and the X outliers (not the usual spectral data) >10; samples with t > 2.5 were deleted from the sample file. Between 3.61 and 4.79% of the samples were left out for each carotenoid.The standard deviation (SD) between NIRS and reference determinations for the calibration [the standard error of calibration (SEC)] and validation sets [the standard error of prediction (SEP)] were calculated. We also calculated the coefficient of determination of calibration (R2c) and the coefficient of determination of validation (R2v) (the fraction of the variance of the reference values explained by the variance of NIRS determinations) [29].The ratio of standard deviation (RPD) was calculated as the ratio between the SD of the reference value and the standard error of cross-validation (SECV). RPD is indicative of the usefulness of the NIRS calibrations. If this ratio exceeds a value of 3, the prediction accuracy of the calibration equation is higher compared to ratio values lower than 2. In addition, we determined the ratio between the SD and the SEP of each trait because the quality and robustness of a NIRS calibration can also be judged by the SEP and SD/ SEP [19]; an SD/SEP ratio lower than 2 indicates unsuitable calibrations, while ratios between 2 and 3, 3 and 5, and 5 and 10 indicate calibrations with limited, satisfactory, and good quality, respectively. Caution is required when interpreting the SD/SEP ratio because it depends strongly on the distribution and number of reference values. Therefore, the SD/SEP ratio cannot be regarded as the ultimate criterion for prediction quality. However, in combination with SEP, the SD/SEP ratio is helpful for judging the predicted values and may prevent erroneous conclusions concerning the real quality of a calibration model [29].The Bayesian regression model is represented by:where the response vector y representing the values of PVA measured in n maize genotypes is explained by an overall mean µ plus a random vector Z N IR u related to the NIR data and a random error ε.The component Z N IR u that explains the variation in PVA due to NIR comprises the incidence matrix Z N IR that joins the NIR to the observations of PVA of the maize genotypes; also, u is a random vector with normal distribution N(0, σ 2 u K), where the variance-covariance K is a positive semidefinite matrix previously constructed with the NIR data. In addition, ε is the vector of random errors with normal distribution with mean zero and constant variance σ 2 e . For simplicity, we denote matrix X as the matrix of the first or second derivative of the NIRs. Thus, K models the relationships between the NIRs and is a function of X, and when K models the linear relationship between NIRs, it could be named NIRS BLUP (NB) and is computed as K = NB = XX p , where p represents the number of columns of X and the NB establishes the NIR similarity between maize lines, that is, how each cultivar is related to the others based on the electromagnetic spectrum.With the first and second derivatives of the NIR, we formed matrices NIR BLUP, NB1, and NB2, respectively, for the linear NIRs relationship. For the first and second derivatives of the matrix of NIRs, we used the Savitzky Golay function from the prospectr package [30] in R software (R Core Team, 2021). For fitting the models and making predictions, we used the BGGE function from the BGGE library [25]. As mentioned in Granato et al., 2018, the BGGE is an algorithm constructed to fit models within a Bayesian framework that uses the Gibbs sampler for the Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC), which allows convergence to a posterior predictive distribution that provides the predictive values. The R codes used to analyze the data can be found in the Appendix A.The model was fit to the training dataset of 1857 genotypes and 1050 NIRS data ranging in wavelength from 400 nm to 2498 nm (see Table 1). Therefore, the training dataset was a matrix of order 1857 × 1050. The software 'prospectr ' [30] was used to compute the first and second derivative of the NIRs (X) using the Savitzky-Golay method, to better the noise from the NIR evaluation process. To evaluate the model with dataset of group 1 (1857 cultivars), we formed 50 random partitions, and in each partition, we randomly selected 70% of the data to form the training set and 30% of the data for the testing set. Additionally, we formed 50 random partitions, and, in each one, we randomly selected 60% of the data to form the training set and 40% of the data for the testing set. For both random partitions, we computed the Pearson correlations between the observed values versus the predicted ones. The average Pearson correlation across all partitions and their associated standard deviations are presented in Table 1.We performed the prediction of the 650 cultivars of group 3 (testing set) using as the training set the 1857 cultivars from group 1. The prediction accuracy (correlation between observed and predictive values) for each trait can be observed on the last column of Table 2. The second validation was performed forming 50 random samples where for each sample the training set is formed with 1857 cultivars from dataset group 1 and 8 (2%) randomly selected cultivars from group 2. Thus, the testing set comprises the 382 remaining cultivars from group 2 (382). Results of this validation are presented in the last column of Table 1. The summary statistics for each carotenoid of all the genotypes used in the calibration of the models are shown in Table 3. A wide range was observed for all carotenoids, which was expected due to the genotypic differences and environmental effects resulting from the use of samples from different environments. As expected, ZEA and LUT were the predominant carotenoids (about 42.7% of the TC; with values up to 29.06 and 10.88 mg kg −1 , respectively). Some high levels of BC were also observed (values up to 20.93 mg kg −1 , 25.2% of the TC). BCX values up to 19.16 mg kg −1 (18.59% of the TC) were found in this germplasm, most likely due to recent breeding efforts to increase BCX in the PVA biofortified germplasm at CIMMYT. Breeding for increased BCX is justified by the increasing evidence indicating that BCX is more stable and bioaccessible than BC [31][32][33][34]. Thus, the BCX concentration in this set of samples is higher compared to other reports in temperate and tropical germplasm [32,35,36]. The data ranges for BC and PVA content are similar to those previously reported in maize [3,36]. A wide range of variation in the carotenoid content ensures that NIR calibration models are robust. When the PVA breeding program was started, variation for PVA carotenoids was limited, and, as a result, many attempts to develop NIR models were not successful [3].  As expected, high and positive correlation coefficients between 13-cis-BC, BC, and 9-cis-BC with PVA were observed, because these parameters are used to calculate PVA carotenoids (Table 4). LUT and ZEA contents are correlated with each other (R 2 = 0.89) and they are also highly correlated with total carotenoids (TC) (R 2 = 0.614 and 0.719, respectively); this is because LUT and ZEA are the two major carotenoid compounds present in maize. Similar correlations were reported by Sutko et al. [37] between LUT and ZEA with TC (r = 0.69 and 0.81, respectively). BC did not significantly relate to TC (R 2 = 0.189), possibly because it is an intermediate compound in the carotenoid biosynthesis pathway, whereas LUT and ZEA are final products [37,38]. C v = 0.65-0.93) (Table 3), indicating that the calibrations were homogeneous. Based on the RPD values (above 1.5), all calibrations can provide meaningful estimates of each carotenoid [13,19] and therefore they can be very useful for PVA biofortification breeding programs.The results of the independent validation for the different carotenoids, including standard errors of prediction (SEP) and R 2 values for each trait, are summarized in Table 2. The SEP obtained in the validation were lower than their respective SD, indicating that NIRS models can predict carotenoid content in maize flour [28]. In addition, the SD/SEP ratio for all calibrations was between 2.52-5.88 (Table 2), suggesting that the calibrations were of good quality. However, the coefficients of determination were low for BC, 9-cis-BC, 13-cis-BC, and PVA (R 2 v = 0.12-0.22) and moderate to high for BCX, ZEA, LUT, and TC (R 2 v = 0.55-0.75). According to Martínez-Valdivieso et al. [28], R 2 values above 0.50 would indicate that over 50% of the variation in predicted values (carotenoid content) would be attributable to variation in NIRS data, allowing for discrimination between genotypes with high carotenoid concentration and genotypes with low carotenoid concentration. Previous studies have shown that models with an R 2 of 0.60-0.82 can be used for screening and approximate quantitative carotenoid predictions [13,28].Pearson's correlations were calculated between observed and predicted values, and for BCX, ZEA, LUT, and TC they were between 0.74 and 0.87. The data suggest that these carotenoids could be adequately predicted with NIR spectroscopy data.The package R BGGE [25] with 30,000 iterations was used for fitting the model in Equation (1). First, we fitted dataset 1 with 1857 maize samples (without discriminating for outliers). In addition to predicting all 650 maize lines (TST) using all the training sets of 1857 maize lines (TRN) (as shown in Table 2), we performed a random cross-validations study considering dataset 1, dataset 2, and both (as explained above). The results of the Bayesian prediction models are shown in Table 1. Using NIR1 BLUP, the correlation between the fitted values and the observed values for PVA was 0.91, whereas this correlation when using NIR2 BLUP was 0.90; both results are like those obtained with PLS.Table 1 shows results for PVA, BCX, and BC from the random cross-validation of dataset 1 considering 50 random samples each with a sample size of 70% for training (TRN) and sample size of 30% for testing (TST). The mean NIR1 BLUP prediction accuracy for 50 random samples (70% training and 30% testing) measured by the correlations between the observed and the predicted values was 0.88 and 0.834 for PVA and BCX, respectively, and 0.87, 0.825, and 0.825 for NIR2. Furthermore, when 50 random samples (60% training and 40% testing) were taken from the data training dataset of the 1847 genotypes for PVA, but with a TRN set of 60% and a TST set of 40%, the mean correlation between the observed and predicted values was 0.878 for NIR1 and 0.865 for NIR2. For BCX, the mean correlation was 0.829 and 0.821 for NIR1 and NIR2, respectively.The NIR prediction accuracy for 10 random samples using as TRN all data from dataset 1 (1857 maize lines) plus 8 randomly selected from the 392 maize lines (from dataset 2), with the rest of the 384 lines from dataset 2 comprising the TST, is also included in Table 1. The PVA mean correlations between the observed and the predicted value were 0.38 for NIR1 BLUP versus 0.32 for NIR2 BLUP. For BCX, the predicted value was 0.753 and 0.754 for NIR1 BLUP and NIR2 BLUP, respectively. Based on these results, the rest of the analyses were done using the NIR1 model.For BC, the accuracy of the NIR predictions NIR accuracy was very similar to those obtained for BCX except for the last case of NIR prediction using 10 random samples where the mean correlations between the observed and the predicted value were 0.395 and 0.326 for NIR1 BLUP and NIR2 BLUP, respectively.The correlations between observed and predicted values for both MPLS and Bayesian NIR linear regression models are shown in Table 2. The differences between R 2 and Pearson correlation coefficients are because the WinISI software discarded outliers, whereas the codes used for fitting the Bayesian NIR linear regression used all the data. In general, the MPLS gave a slight increase in prediction accuracy when predicting the traits of the 650 lines as compared to the results obtained by the Bayesian NIR linear regression.In a previous study, Brenna and Berardo [39] developed PLS predictions models by NIRS, for LUT, ZEA, BCX, BC, and TC content using 61 varieties of Italian yellow maize (82 samples for calibration and cross-validation and 40 samples to test the goodness of fit of the developed equations). They obtained high values for both R 2 C (0.82-0.97) and R 2 v (0.64-0.95). As the first step in our efforts to apply NIR in the breeding program for PVA biofortified maize, the reported parameters and models were used in tropical germplasm. Although the R 2 C values for LUT, ZEA, BCX, BC and TC were between 0.68 and 0.9, the R 2 v were lower: LUT (0.44), ZEA (0.5), BCX (0.48), BC (0.06) and TC (0.73). Thus, we tested alternative parameters and models and obtained higher R 2 v (Table 2) than when using the parameters described by Brenna and Berardo [37]. The poor fit of the Brenna and Berardo NIR models to the tropical germplasm dataset used in this study could be, as they pointed out, due to scarce genetic and agronomic diversity in the sample set used to develop the models. In this study, we used grain samples from a diverse set of tropical PVA genotypes from varying agronomic management practices, over 2 years. In contrast, Brenna and Berardo [39] used 61 Italian maize genotypes with narrow variation for BC (0-2.8 mg kg −1 ) and BCX (0-6.1 mg kg −1 ), compared to the ranges in the PVA samples used in this study (BC, 0.09-20.93 mg kg −1 and BCX, 0.04-19.16 mg kg −1 ). It is also worth noting that the percentage of outliers eliminated to calibrate in Brenna and Berardo [39] was 10 to 22%, except for LUT (1.3%), while in this research the percentage of eliminated outliers was between 3.61 and 4.79%.Recently, Kahrıman et al. [40] developed NIRS models for carotenoid content in yellow maize using 250 samples of landraces and breeding material improved for higher total carotenoid content (200 samples for calibration and 50 samples for validation). However, the R 2 v for both PVA carotenoids was low (0.233 for BC and 0.161 for BCX). Differences in the scanning interval (1200-2400 nm), and the range of concentrations for TC, BC, BCX, and ZEA could explain the differences in the results obtained in this study. Similar R 2 v values obtained for LUT (0.55), ZEA (0.61) and BCX (0.57) were reported for LUT, violaxanthin and BC in potato flour (0.60) and for LUT in banana flour (0.56) [41,42]. For potatoes, Bonierbale et al. [42] indicated that the developed calibrations can be used at least to differentiate samples with high, medium, and low concentrations of carotenoids. On the other hand, Davey et al. [41] mentioned that their model was unsuitable for measuring lutein content, but this was because the RPD value was <1.5.As mentioned above, for PVA breeding purposes, currently the focus is on the selection of high BCX germplasm. Using the PLS NIR model described here and selecting the top 20% BCX values resulted in the selection of more than 75% of the high BCX values according to the reference method. Such percentages increase to more than 87% if only the top 10% BCX values are selected. Thus, the prediction model can increase the efficiency and throughput of phenotypic selection in the breeding program.To meet current and future maize and other crops production challenges there is a need to increase breeding efficiency. Advances in high-throughput genotyping are providing fast and inexpensive genomic information. However, molecular breeding strategies, such as marker-assisted recurrent selection (MARS) and genomic selection still require phenotypic data [43]. Maize breeding programs focused on increasing carotenoid content around the world require robust, fast, and inexpensive methods to screen large numbers of genotypes. Liquid chromatography (HPLC or UPLC) can accurately identify and quantify carotenoids. However, this technique is slow, labor-intensive, and expensive [6,19,39]. In comparison to NIRS methodology, UPLC requires extensive sample preparation, long analysis time (24 to 26 h per sample, compared to 7 to 10 min by NIR per sample), experienced technicians, and expensive equipment and chemical reagents. NIRS offers a fast and simple screening option, with the capability to measure multiple traits at the same time. Based on estimates of our laboratory costs, the NIR analysis cost is approximately 10 times cheaper (US 4.8 per sample) compared with US 48 per sample by UPLC.Taking the general PVA breeding scheme used at CIMMYT (Figure 1), the cost of screening 1550 samples with NIR and 120 samples with UPLC would be US 7440. If the same number of samples is screened with UPLC alone, the cost would be US 80,160. Thus, the development and use of the proposed NIR models presented here may help breeding programs reduce phenotyping costs and increase throughput, especially when NIRS equipment is installed on research plot combines. High-throughput phenotyping helps breeders to quickly make evaluations and timely select the desired genotypes in the breeding populations. Although molecular tools accelerate and facilitate this process, phenotypic data are very relevant, especially in complex traits. However, phenotyping can increase the breeding process and, in some cases, could also slow down the breeding process as data can be obtained at the end of the growing cycle or just before the next planting season. NIR technology is a powerful highthroughput technology that meets the demand of plant breeding for large-scale evaluation of seed and grain composition in short periods of time. It can provide several compounds High-throughput phenotyping helps breeders to quickly make evaluations and timely select the desired genotypes in the breeding populations. Although molecular tools accelerate and facilitate this process, phenotypic data are very relevant, especially in complex traits. However, phenotyping can increase the breeding process and, in some cases, could also slow down the breeding process as data can be obtained at the end of the growing cycle or just before the next planting season. NIR technology is a powerful high-throughput technology that meets the demand of plant breeding for large-scale evaluation of seed and grain composition in short periods of time. It can provide several compounds simultaneously.Using a large and diverse set of data, it was possible to develop NIR calibration models by two methods: by using the software provided by NIR suppliers and by developing the equations independently using Bayesian models developed in R.With the NIRS models developed here, it is possible to differentiate samples with high, medium, and low concentrations of LUT and BCX. During validation, it was possible to demonstrate the selection of more than 80% of BCX genotypes with concentrations higher than 3 mg kg −1 , which is very relevant for PVA breeding programs. For ZEA and TC, NIRS models can be used for approximate quantitative predictions. In the case of BC, 13-cis-BC, and 9-cis-BC, the coefficient of determination in calibration and the RPD suggest that prediction models have the potential to be useful but must be improved.Using NIR models will greatly decrease the breeding cost and enhance the efficiency of the program. Nevertheless, for the final stage of breeding and before varietal registration, wet chemistry analysis is always recommended for more precise and accurate data.","tokenCount":"5083"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b9fc47a434ff3cbcd450457e694ec92d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/fb52e3b6-e2fd-4130-902d-49d988298972/retrieve","id":"-650065695"},"keywords":["Africa","COVID-19","Poverty","Social Protection I18","I32","I38","N37"],"sieverID":"17507645-25b5-4199-9d33-6e6a5c85d29f","pagecount":"42","content":"The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.Quantifying the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on poverty in Africa has been as difficult as predicting the path of the pandemic, mainly due to data limitations. The advent of new data sources, including national accounts and phone survey data, provides an opportunity for a thorough reassessment of the impact of the pandemic and the subsequent expansion of social protection systems on the evolution of poverty in Africa. This paper combines per capita gross domestic product growth from national accounts with data from High-Frequency Phone Surveys for several countries to estimate the net impact of the pandemic on poverty. It finds that the pandemic increased poverty in Africa by 1.5-1.7 percentage points in 2020, relatively smaller than early estimates and projections. The paper also finds that countries affected by fragility, conflict, and violence experienced the greatest increases in poverty, about 2.1 percentage points in 2020. Furthermore, the paper assesses and synthesizes empirical evidence on the role that social protection systems played in mitigating the adverse impact of the COVID-19 crisis in Africa. It reviews social protection responses in various African countries, mainly focusing on the impact of these programs and effectiveness of targeting systems. Although the evidence base on the protective role of social protection programs during the pandemic remains scarce, the paper highlights important findings on the impacts of these programs while also uncovering some vulnerabilities in social protection programming in Africa. Finally, the paper draws important lessons related to the delivery, targeting, and impact of various social protection programs launched in Africa in response to the pandemic. This paper is a product of the Development Data Group, Development Economics. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authors may be contacted at nyonzan@worldbank.org.The COVID-19 pandemic continues to test global food and social protection systems at an unprecedented scale. Initially starting as a global health crisis, the pandemic has evolved into a major economic crisis, causing disruptions to global economic systems, livelihoods and health. Several waves of the pandemic have prolonged the suffering of households by delaying economic recovery. Developing countries with poor public health infrastructure, limited social protection systems, high levels of food insecurity and poverty rates were projected to be disproportionally affected. The impacts of the pandemic were expected to be highest in African countries, which host about 70 percent of the world's poor. Early projections were particularly pessimistic about the potential impact of the pandemic on poverty, both globally and for Africa (e.g., Laborde et al., 2020;Sumner et al., 2020;Mahler et al., 2020a;Mahler et al., 2020b). On the other hand, national accounts data on actual GDP growth for 2020 provide a more positive picture than these early projections (Pauw and Thurlow, 2022;McDermott and Swinnen, 2022).The uncertainty in poverty projections is not surprising because the pandemic has evolved in an unpredictable way affecting various regions, economic sectors, and households differently. The pandemic had a large negative impact on African economies, but effects vary across countries and sectors (Zeufack et al., 2021). Several studies have shown that services and manufacturing sectors suffered the most while agriculture appeared to be relatively resilient (e.g., Arndt et al., 2020;Zeufack et al., 2021;McDermott and Swinnen, 2022). Informal sector workers, the poor, women, and youth experienced the greatest impact. In many cases, urban dwellers primarily employed in the industry and service sectors, including trade, transport and hotel services, were disproportionally affected by the economic fallout and associated lockdowns and mobility restrictions. 1 The impacts of the pandemic were also compounded by other shocks, political instabilities and conflicts in many African countries.However, most of the initial economic projections were built on expected changes in incomes and prices which were in many cases overstated (Pauw and Thurlow, 2022;McDermott and Swinnen, 2022).Several factors drove these pessimistic projections. First, initial modeling exercises assumed a uniform economic shock to global growth rates, rather than accounting for heterogeneity in impacts by the demographic structure of countries. Africa, on average, has one of the youngest populations compared to other regions and consequently suffered fewer direct health impacts. Second, following from the first point, modeling exercises assumed more restrictive measures and a longer duration of restrictions than those realized in Africa. Third, the projections failed to account for the counteracting responses of governments and businesses to mitigate the adverse impacts of the pandemic. For example, as the pandemic evolved, public health and government measures to counteract the pandemic have adjusted concurrently. The most consequential public health response has been the rapid production and deployment of several vaccines that have slowed the spread of the pandemic and facilitated the gradual lifting of mobility restrictions. Fourth, the external shocks expected to hit economies, including reductions in remittances, were generally less than initially anticipated (Kpodar et al., 2021;Pauw and Thurlow, 2022;McDermott and Swinnen, 2022). These along with the heterogeneity in the impacts of and responses to the pandemic justify the need to revisit these early projections using new sources of data.Besides the public health responses, governments' responses to the pandemic included social protection and stimulus packages to support vulnerable sectors and households. Social protection systems have been reinforced through either increasing the size of transfers or expanding the number of beneficiaries. More than 220 countries and territories have initiated or expanded some form of social protection and safety net systems in response to the pandemic (Gentilini et al., 2020). However, the policy responses among African countries were relatively slow. Furthermore, whether (and how much) such social protection and safety net programs have been effective in mitigating the adverse impacts of the pandemic remains generally unknown. Delivering social protection and safety net transfers during an unfolding pandemic was a daunting task and marred by several challenges. For example, targeting of social protection programs and beneficiaries during a pandemic was difficult, especially in the African context where population registers and administrative data are rarely available. Social protection programs in Africa are characterized by their rural focus and limited size of transfers (e.g., Beegle et al., 2018). Thus, identifying the role of social protection policies and lessons learned in delivering social safety nets in Africa during the pandemic can inform future programing and responses to future crises. This paper serves two purposes: first we use recent data to estimate and reassess the impact of the pandemic on country-level poverty in Africa for 2020. For this purpose, we combine national accounts data -particularly real per capita GDP growth and High-Frequency Phone Surveys (HFPSs or phone surveys henceforth) for several countries. The use of both macro and micro-level sources of data allows us to uncover potential heterogeneities across countries, geographies, and households. We assemble the World Bank's country-level pre-pandemic growth projections, national account data on overall per capita GDP growth and sectoral growth for 2020. Whenever possible, we merge these data with the HFPS collected by the World Bank in collaboration with National Statistical Offices (NSOs). Second, we assess and synthesize empirical evidence on the role of social protection systems to mitigate the adverse impact of the pandemic in Africa. For this purpose, we compile recent studies on the potential impact of social protection programs in cushioning against the adverse impacts of the pandemic. We particularly aim to draw important lessons in the delivery, targeting and impact of various social protection programs launched or expanded in Africa in response to the pandemic.Our poverty analysis reveals several nuanced patterns and heterogeneities. For 2020, the pandemic has increased the extreme poverty rate -defined as those living on less than $1.90 a day in 2011 PPP terms -in Africa by 1.5-1.7 percentage points, relatively smaller than early estimates and projections. For example, Sumner et al. (2020) predicted between 2.6 and 11.2 percentage points increase in extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, and most importantly, we also show significant differences in the impacts across countries and regions. Countries affected by Fragility, Conflict, and Violence (FCV) have suffered most, experiencing a 2.1 percentage point increase in extreme poverty. This is intuitive given that conflict remains a major driver of poverty in Africa (Corral et al., 2020) and that political instability and conflicts have been increasing in Africa recently. The World Bank's 2021 fiscal year FCV report designates 21 of the 54 countries in Africa as affected by some form of conflict or fragility. Fragilities and conflicts are likely to reduce governments' capacity for social protection responses to the crisis while also prolonging the recovery of economies. Consistent with several other studies, we also find significant heterogeneities across rural and urban areas. Despite some differences across countries, urban households suffered more than rural households.Our review of the mitigating role of social protection programs in Africa generated several insights. Despite variations across countries, several African countries have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by introducing and reforming a combination of existing social protection programs, unemployment insurance, and other rescue packages to support those affected by the pandemic (Gentilini et al., 2020;Abay et al., 2021a;Gronbach et al., 2022;Duchoslav and Hirvonen, 2021;Banerjee et al., 2021;Brooks et al., 2021;Alloush et al., 2022). Although the evidence base on their protective role remains scant, some studies show that social protection programs have protected the welfare of vulnerable households. For example, Abay et al. (2021a) show that Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net (PSNP) absorbs much of the adverse effects of the pandemic on PSNP beneficiaries. Similarly, Banerjee et al. (2020) show that a universal basic income (UBI) scheme in rural Kenya during the pandemic had moderate effects on food security as well as physical and mental health while Brooks et al. (2021) and Kimani et al. (2020) show positive impacts of a one-time cash transfer in Kenya and Uganda, respectively. However, the pandemic also uncovered important vulnerabilities in social protection programming in Africa. First, delivering social protection and safety net transfers while practicing social distancing has been challenging for several countries that had no digital delivery systems. Second, while social protection programs in Africa have reached some during the pandemic, many of the poor remained unreached because of the limited scale and coverage of these programs. Third, because social protection programs in Africa have traditionally focused on rural areas (Beegle et al., 2018), they were not sufficiently reaching urban households who were disproportionately affected by the pandemic and associated lockdown measures.Fourth, targeting of social protection amid unfolding an pandemic is a daunting task, leaving these programs susceptible to targeting errors. Finally, expanding social protection programs to reach more people has proven to be challenging, partly because social protection programs and safety nets in Africa heavily rely on funding from development partners, who were also affected by the pandemic.To sum up, although African economies have experienced less than expected effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, post-COVID-19 recovery is likely to be prolonged for several reasons, including the slow progress in vaccination rates and continued conflicts and political instabilities as well as other emerging global challenges. For example, the Russian-Ukraine crisis will continue to delay recovery of African economies, especially for countries that rely heavily on food, fertilizer and oil imports from the Russian Federation and Ukraine. These continued and emerging challenges are reminders of the need to reinforce safety net programs to protect vulnerable households from these multiple crises.Africa has had a mixed record in reducing poverty in the last three decades. The rate of extreme poverty in Africa has been declining over the last two decades. Figure 1 compares the trends in extreme poverty in Africa with the rest of the world (i.e., the world excluding Africa). Extreme poverty in Africa has decreased from a peak of 51% in 1994 to 34% in 2019 --a 17 percentage point or 33% decline. However, the rate of change in poverty reduction has been far slower than that of the rest of the world. Poverty in the rest of the world has decreased from 35% in 1990 to 3% in 2019 -more than 90% decline. Another way to look at this is that it has taken the rest of the world three decades to reach a 3% poverty threshold from a poverty rate similar to that in Africa in 2019. From 1990 to 2019, the number of extreme poor-that is, those living under $1.90-a-day in 2011 PPPhas declined globally from 1.9 billion to 655 million. In the same period, the number of extreme poor in Africa has increased from 290 million to 444 million. Figure 2 shows how these patterns have caused a large increase in the share of the global poor living in the continent from 15% in 1990 to 68% in 2019. One important reason for these differing trends between Africa and the rest of the world is the relatively higher economic growth in the latter. Regions with high levels of extreme poverty in 1990 (namely, East Asia and the Pacific, which hosted 51% of the global poor, and South Asia which had 29% of the global poor) have since seen rapid increases in their income, coupled with large declines in poverty. 2 In the decade before 2019, the average annualized per capita growth was 3.1% in East Asia and Pacific, and 3.8% in South Asia. In the same period, average annualized per capita growth was 1.5% in Sub-Saharan Africa and 0.1% in the Middle East and North Africa (World Bank, 2020).Early estimates of the impact of the pandemic on poverty relied on model-based assumptions about income losses and expected changes in income. These model-based assumptions and projections suffered from lack of real-time data on how economies, businesses and governments reacted to the pandemic. Two years since the outbreak of the pandemic, we now have more data, including national accounts data, that allow us to revisit and refine the early projects on the impact of the pandemic on poverty in Africa. Thus, we utilize realized per capita GDP growth rates along with household survey data to get a sense of the evolution of poverty in Africa. Growth rates in national accounts allow us to calculate poverty across most countries in the region, although aggregate growth in the economy may not necessarily translate equally to growth of household income (Ravallion 2003;Deaton 2005;Prydz et al., 2021, Lakner et al., 2022). Nevertheless, growth rates in national accounts do a fairly good job of identifying the trends in changes in poverty (Mahler et al., 2021a). 3 Macro growth rates are even more important at times when micro data are not widely available. Collection of micro data in the last two years has been especially challenging due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Only a few countries in Africa were able to collect non-traditional sources of survey data, which we discuss and use in the next section.The procedures to estimate the impact of the pandemic on poverty in Africa are the following (see also, Mahler et al., 2022): first, to project household surveys to 2020, we need distribution of welfare (income or consumption) in 2019 for all countries. However, household surveys are not conducted annually in most low and middle-income countries. In most cases, they are conducted in 3, 5, or even 10-year intervals. To derive a 2019 distribution of welfare for a country without a household survey in 2019, we extrapolate the welfare aggregate available in the household survey from the last available year, say 2018, using per capita GDP growth rates from the World Development Indicators. We use per capita GDP growth rates to grow household income of all households within a country. Since the applied growth rate is the same across all households, the inequality observed in that country is held fixed. 4 This allows us to have a baseline distribution for 2019 for all countries. 5 Then, using the same extrapolation method, we extrapolate the 2019 country distributions forward to 2020 and 2021. Following Mahler et al. (2022), we report two different scenarios projecting poverty for the COVID-19 affected years: (i) a series incorporating the effect of the pandemic (\"with COVID-19\"), and (ii) one without the effect of the pandemic (\"without COVID-19\"). The former uses the per capita GDP growth rates from the World Bank's June-2021 Global Economic Prospects (GEP) report, while the latter uses January-2020 GEP forecasts -that is growth forecasted before the pandemic and thus not incorporating the effects of the pandemic. Whereas (i) is the \"actual\" poverty series, (ii) acts as a counterfactual for the COVID-19 series -a series reflecting what could have materialized if the pandemic had not occurred. One reason for reporting the latter series is to net-out the effect of the pandemic from those changes that would have otherwise occurred without the pandemic.Figure 3 reports the trends in the extreme poverty rate and the number of poor (in millions) in Africa from 2015 to 2021. In 2020, the number of poor in Africa was expected to rise to 449 million from 444 million in 2019 even without the pandemic. Due to the pandemic, the number of poor in 2020 is estimated to have increased to 472 million instead. Thus, we infer that COVID-19 pushed 23 million people into extreme poverty in 2020. The net effect is expected to be 30 million people in 2021. In other words, had the COVID-19 pandemic not happened, there would have been 30 million fewer extreme poor in Africa in 2021. Before the pandemic, the poverty rate was expected to decline from 34% in 2019 to 33.5% in 2020 and further to 33.0% in 2021. Instead, because of the pandemic, the poverty rate is expected to increase to 35.2% in 2020 and remain at that level in 2021. For 2020, we find that the net COVID-19 impact is 1.7 percentage points and for 2021 it is 2.2 percentage points. 6 The increase in the number of poor people despite the declining poverty rate is because in some countries population growth outpaces the rate of poverty reduction. The above estimates of the impact of the pandemic on poverty rates in Africa are relatively smaller than early estimates and projections. Initial fears at the start of the pandemic were that there would be a far larger increase in poverty particularly in Africa. This was, among other things, due to the high stock of poor people in the continent, the relatively muted economic growth leading up to the pandemic, and the relatively limited health infrastructure available in the continent. Over the course of the pandemic, the World Bank has come up with various projections for the increased poverty due to the pandemic in 2020. For Sub-Saharan Africa in 2020, the predicted additional poor due to the COVID-19 pandemic has ranged from 26 million -projected in April 2020 -to 34 million -projected in June 2021 (Lakner et al., 2021). Other methods had predicted poverty in Africa to be even worse. For example, simulations accounting for a negative GDP growth shock of between 5% and 20% suggested that the pandemic could push between 28 million and 120 million people into extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2020 (e.g., Sumner et al., 2020). Similarly, our country-level poverty estimates are much smaller than early projections (Table A1).For example, our poverty impacts in Nigeria are smaller than those early estimates by Andam et al. (2020) and poverty impacts for South Africa are smaller than those implied by income losses in Arndt et al. (2020).Overall, macro-based evidence suggests that the economic impacts of the pandemic in Africa have been muted compared to what was feared initially.There is quite a bit of variation in poverty changes across countries due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Figure 4 shows the changes in extreme poverty across the continent grouped into four categories: (i) countries with less than 1 percentage point increase in extreme poverty, (ii) countries with increases between 1 and 2 percentage points, (iii) countries with between 2 and 3 percentage points increase, and (iv) countries with larger than 3 percentage points increases. In general, countries in North Africa had the smallest changes in extreme poverty -likely because they tend to be less poor and hence have fewer people living close to the international poverty line. Countries in southern and central Africa were moderately affected, while a few countries in west Africa and a couple in southern Africa were most severely affected.Note: The COVID-19-induced poverty changes are calculated as the difference between with COVID-19 and without COVID-19 scenarios. See Table A1 for country-level poverty estimates for 2020.Conflict has been, and most likely will continue to be, a major driver of poverty in Africa. Corral et al. (2020) find that 48% of all extreme poor globally were living in conflict affected regions in 2018. They predict that this already high share will increase to 68% by 2030. This is striking considering these countries only account for around 10% of the global population. We hypothesize that fragility and conflict can compound the impact of the pandemic and reduce capacity for effective social protection responses to cushion the impacts on the most vulnerable. To that end, using the World Bank's FY2021 FCV list of countries, we disaggregate the total poverty increases in Africa into countries that are in the FCV group and those that are not. Out of the 54 countries in Africa, the World Bank's FY2021 FCV list designates 21 to be affected by some form of conflict or fragility. 7 Of the 21 fragile and conflict affected countries, two (Burundi and Eritrea) had minimal to no reported social protection responses, and only eight (38%) had major social protection responses, where we define \"major responses\" as those including an increase in cash transfers or unemployment insurance that persisted for more than three months. The remainder had moderate social protection responses such as one-off cash transfers increases, or increased food aid. By contrast, of the 32 non-conflict affected states, all had at least moderate social protection responses and 15 (47%) had major social protection responses (Gentillini et al., 2021).Figure 5 reports the trends in poverty across these groups of countries. First, the levels of poverty in the two groups are drastically different. While 26% of the population (amounting to 196 million people) were living in extreme poverty in the non-FCV group of countries in 2019, there were 45% living in poverty in the FCV countries (amounting to 248 million people) in that same year. For the non-FCV group, an additional 11 million people were pushed into poverty in 2020 (equivalent to 1.5 percentage points increase) and 16 million in 2021 (equivalent to 2 percentage points increase) due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For the FCV group, the expected additional poor is about 12 million people in 2020 (equivalent to 2.1 percentage points increase) and over 14 million in 2021 (equivalent to 2.5 percentage points increase). Not only is the stock of poor higher in conflict ridden countries, the increases due to the pandemic are also estimated to be larger and more persistent.  The macro-level results above assume that the COVID-19 shocks and responses affected all households in a country equally as captured by the aggregated per capita growth rate. We can relax these assumptions using household level phone survey data. In particular, the use of household level data allows us to differentiate trends in poverty in urban and rural areas as well as across various sectors. However, evidence on the scale and size of households' income shocks due to the pandemic remains scarce. Similarly, empirical evidence on the impact of alternative public health and government measures to counteract the adverse impact of the pandemic is not widely available. The lack of household welfare data is in part because data collection in the traditional sense was not feasible during the pandemic. Fortunately, in collaboration with National Statistical Offices (NSOs), the World Bank conducted High-Frequency Phone Surveys (HFPSs) in several countries during the pandemic. These phone surveys asked a multitude of questions on household welfare including questions on job losses, income losses, consumption losses, food insecurity, and learning losses. We utilize the information in the phone surveys to gauge the impact of the pandemic on household income or consumption.HFPSs have been conducted by the World Bank, in collaboration with national statistical offices, in over 80 countries around the world and cover over 100 harmonized indicators. As such, they are designed to be nationally representative by using various weighting measures. Relative to the traditional in-personbased surveys, however, phone surveys (or other remote surveys such as internet surveys) have several limitations. For instance, the phone survey sample is mostly representative of the phone-owning population, which could mean that the surveys potentially underrepresent the poorest populations within a country. In addition, these surveys have been found to collect more information from respondents who are more likely to be heads of households, overstating such things as employment rates (Kugler et al. 2021). While the phone surveys are not as comprehensive as the traditional household surveys, they remain important modules for data collection when traditional surveys cannot be conducted -as was mostly the case for 2020.For poverty calculations, the phone surveys report whether (or not) a household has lost income or consumption because of the pandemic. However, the phone surveys by themselves cannot be used to quantify the welfare changes of households for at least two reasons: (i) no baseline household welfare measure is available in the phone surveys, and (ii) we do not know the size of the welfare changes in the phone surveys, only which households lost or did not lose income or consumption. 8 To quantify the impact of COVID-19 on poverty, we need to map the income or consumption changes from the phone surveys to a traditional household survey for that country. Mahler et al. (2022) propose a methodology that can be used to map the income or consumption losses in phone surveys to an underlying welfare distribution (see also Narayan et al., 2022). First, they calculate the probabilities for each type of household defined by the household size, education and age of household head, and area of residence from phone surveys to estimate the income loss probabilities for a particular type of household. These probabilities for each type of household from the phone surveys are then mapped to the 2019 household survey available for each country. Second, whereas one can estimate the probabilities of income losses for each type of household, the size of these losses for each household is still not clear. The sizes of these losses are important for understanding the changes in household income in 2020, and thus, understanding the impact of the pandemic on poverty. To get a sense of the size of the losses, Mahler et al. (2022) rely on sectoral -agriculture, industry, and service -growth rates in national accounts. The underlying assumption in their formulation is that the sum of all household losses (calculated using the first step above) are equivalent to the total loss in national accounts. Using this assumption allows them to identify the size of income losses for each type of household. Essentially, each household, given their probability of income loss, gets a fraction of the total sectoral growth rate in national accounts. 9Using the sizes of income changes for each household estimated by Mahler et al. (2022), we can use the same extrapolation method as in Section 2 to estimate poverty in 2020. Furthermore, as we did in Section 2, we report (i) a scenario influenced by COVID-19 (\"with COVID\") and (ii) a scenario not influenced by COVID-19 (\"without COVID\"). We also report the net impact of COVID-19, which is the difference between the with COVID and without COVID scenarios. We use this methodology for 20 countries in Africa to estimate poverty changes in 2020.Figure 6 reports the share of households in rural and urban areas that reported a loss of income or consumption in 2020. For these 20 countries, an average of close to 52% of urban and 50% of rural households reported having experienced an income loss. 10 The fact that losses of urban households were on average 2 percentage points larger than losses for rural households provides further support to the wider cross-country literature suggesting that urban workers and those in the informal sector and small businesses were more affected than other types of workers (Bundervoet et al., 2022;Josephson et al., 2021). Yonzan et al. (2022), who study income changes for 34 countries in various regions across the globe, find that the urban poor (i.e., the bottom 40% of the urban income distribution) incurred the largest income losses due to the pandemic. This average, however, masks considerable heterogeneities across countries and within countries.As shown in Figure 6, the gap between the share of urban and rural households experiencing negative income shocks varies across the 20 countries. For instance, 70% of urban households in Zambia experienced a loss in income, which is 24 percentage points larger than the share for rural households. On the other hand, some countries had more rural households negatively affected by the pandemic than urban households. For instance, 75% of rural household and 63% of urban households in Nigeria reported income losses in 2020. For most countries, however, the share of households with income losses in rural and urban areas were relatively close.Source: Authors' calculation using Mahler et al. (2022). Note: Countries reported in the figure include those reporting loss in income or consumption. For the list of countries reporting income or consumption losses see Table A3. For Mozambique, income change is reported only for urban households due to data constraints. Overall, before the pandemic extreme poverty for rural households was expected to rise in only 2 of the 20 countries. With the pandemic, however, we estimate poverty to fall in only 2 of the 20 countries.Of these latter 2 countries (Ghana and Niger) with expected declines in extreme poverty in 2020 compared to 2019, both are expected to have a considerably muted decline in poverty compared to expectations before the pandemic. Rural extreme poverty in both Ghana and Niger was expected to fall by 1.4 percentage points before the pandemic. Due to the pandemic, poverty will instead fall by 0.9 percentage point in Ghana and by 0.7 percentage point in Niger. For the 20 countries on average, extreme poverty for rural households was expected to fall by 0.9 percentage point before the pandemic, it will instead rise by 0.7 percentage point, suggesting a 1.6 percentage points increase in extreme poverty in rural areas attributable to the pandemic.  A4.Figure 8 replicates the estimates from Figure 7 for urban households. For the 20 countries on average, urban extreme poverty before the pandemic was expected to decline by 0.3 percentage point. The magnitude of this decline is a third of the expected declines in rural areas (0.9 percentage point) mostly because there were fewer people living in extreme poverty in urban areas compared to rural areas. Due to the pandemic, however, extreme poverty is set to increase for urban households by 1 percentage pointwhich is a 1.3-fold larger increase in poverty compared to rural areas. The net COVID-19-induced average change in extreme poverty in urban areas is expected to be 1.3 percentage points. Finally, to provide some sense of the differences in poverty estimates derived using macro projections in Section 2 and the phone-survey based estimates in this section, Figure 9 compares the net COVID-19-induced extreme poverty changes for the 20 countries using both methods. For most countries, macro and micro derived estimates are relatively close. There are, however, a few discrepancies. Macrobased estimates for Niger, Senegal, and Zimbabwe are significantly larger than the estimates derived using the phone surveys. Nevertheless, we can safely say that the two sets of poverty estimates re-enforce each other. The overall correlation coefficient between the two set of estimates is 0.82. In 2020, the average increase in extreme poverty for a typical country using the macro-based projections was 1.7 percentage points, whereas the micro-informed average increase is 1.5 percentage points.Note: Micro derived net COVID-19-induced estimates are the difference between the with COVID and without COVID national poverty rates in Table A4. See Table A2 for macro derived estimates. Both use national poverty rates. 20Despite the substantial progresses in reducing poverty rates in Africa, a large fraction of households find themselves in a state of transient poverty, vulnerable to falling back into poverty even due to small shocks.Increases in climate change related weather shocks and conflicts in the continent have amplified the precarious conditions households living at the edge of poverty face. In recognition of this fact, social protection programs have grown in popularity in recent years as important policy tools to reduce the vulnerability of the poor to a variety of shocks. Most African countries currently have at least one operational social protection program (Beegle et al., 2018). The pandemic accelerated the expansion of social protection programs with several governments expanding existing programs as well as establishing new ones to offset the impact of the pandemic on households and firms (Gentilini et al., 2020).While the number of social protection programs in Africa has increased dramatically in the last few decades, their reach remains limited, with only small share of the population covered by the programs. The coverage of social protection programs in Africa is particularly low in countries with high extreme poverty rates. Using the Atlas of Social Protection Indicators of Resilience and Equity (ASPIRE) database at the World Bank, Figure 10 provides the relationships between coverage by some form of social protection program in each country and share of people living in extreme poverty. Although the coverage rates for some African countries is high, the adequacy and benefit sizes are among the lowest in the world. As a result, the vast majority of poor and vulnerable households are excluded from the programs. Programs are often very small and designed to deal with short-term emergency situations, leading to lack of continuity in coverage and predictability of transfers (Beegle et al., 2018).Source: ASPIRE (Atlas of Social Protection Indicators of Resilience and Equity) database, World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/data/datatopics/aspire.There is considerable diversity in the size and administrative design of the programs. Some are larger in size and have highly centralized management (e.g., Productive Safety Net Program in Ethiopia, National Social Safety Net Program in Nigeria, and the Child Support Grants Program in South Africa) while most programs have a narrow geographic coverage or target specific social groups. The most common delivery designs are cash transfers, followed by public work programs and school feeding programs (Beegle et al., 2018;Gentilini et al., 2020). Cash transfer programs account for 64 percent of social protection programs in Africa. The composition of programs, however, varies by income level of countries. In lowincome countries, programs are concentrated in cash transfers, public works and emergency transfers whereas in higher income countries programs are delivered primarily in the form of cash transfers and social pensions (Gentilini et al., 2020). During the pandemic, cash transfer programs were used to protect poor and vulnerable households against the risk of falling into poverty; to offset the income losses of informal and self-employed workers due to the pandemic; to compensate for school feeding programs, among others.Likewise, in-kind/ public work programs have been used to protect food security, expand education access and improve health outcomes. The size of transfers during the pandemic has been relatively generous compared to pre-COVID-19 levels, though it has gradually been scaled down as the economic pressures of the pandemic eased (Gentilini et al., 2020;Gentilini et al., 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic spread to Africa at a moment when social safety net programs were rapidly growing, and countries were beginning to invest in the institutional capacity for coordination and improved targeting and efficiency of social protection programs. The majority of the social protection responses to COVID-19 in the region were built on existing social protection systems and were highly dependent on external financing (Gentillini et al., 2020). Governments' responses included increasing the benefit size (e.g., Niger, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe) and expanding the number of beneficiaries by relaxing eligibility criteria, suspending verification of eligibility or waiving conditionalities (e.g., Ethiopia, the Arab Republic of Egypt, and Tanzania) (Gentilini et al., 2020). Yet, social protection coverage rates during the pandemic remained low relative to the scale of the need and much of the poor population in Africa remained unreached during the pandemic. Leveraging existing programs had benefit of moving quickly and reaching poorer households, but lack of data and administrative structures limited the ability to target the most affected households and the scale of the responses was limited by funding constraints.While the impact of social protection programs on a range of welfare outcomes during normal times is well established (e.g., Ardington et al., 2009;Anderson et al., 2011;Baird et al., 2011;Berhane et al., 2014;Robertson et al., 2013;Banerjee et al., 2015;Haushofer and Shapiro, 2016;Hidrobo et al., 2018), we are only starting to understand the effectiveness of these programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. An emerging literature establishes that social protection programs in Africa protected vulnerable households against food insecurity while also improving physical and mental health as well as firm profits. where each adult receives a one-time transfer of $500; and a control group. They find that the transfers had significant benefits during the pandemic. All three transfers had a modest impact on food security, physical and mental health. The transfers also reduced social interaction during the pandemic, potentially reducing contagion rates.In another study in Kenya, Brooks et al. (2021) implemented unconditional cash transfers to female owned microenterprises in a slum outside of Nairobi. In the study sample, business profits had significantly dropped following the emergence of COVID-19. Business owners who were randomly selected for treatment received $50 and the control group received $5 using mobile money right before infection rates started rising rapidly. The paper finds that the transfer led to increase in reopening of businesses that had temporarily closed, increase in business profits by a third of the decline observed in the first months of the pandemic, and increase in household food expenditures. Spending on personal protective equipment (PPE) also increased in the treatment sample, but only among those who perceived COVID-19 a major health risk, which suggests potential complementarity between cash transfers and information campaigns to reduce the risk of contagion while minimizing impacts on economic activities. The paper found that though food insecurity generally increased during the pandemic, households who received transfers before the pandemic were less affected (and hence less food insecure). The study also found that mask wearing was higher among cash recipients, who reported higher perception of the risk of contracting COVID-19. Alloush et al. (2022) examined the effects of South Africa's Older Person's Grant program on economic and psychological well-being during the pandemic. They exploit an age-eligibility criteria to identify the impacts of access to this program and show that beneficiary households reported improved economic well-being. They particularly find that access to the pension program and associated transfers have improved food security (reduced hunger) and psychological well-being (reduced mental health problems).Besides these direct evaluations, there are other indirect pieces of evidence showing the potential of social protection programs to mitigate some of the adverse impacts of the pandemic. For example, Abay et al. (2021b) evaluate whether COVID-19 induced disruptions in school feeding programs affect beneficiary households in Nigeria. They find that disruptions in school feeding services, because of nationwide suspension of schools, have disproportionally affected communities who used to benefit from school feeding services, evidence that highlights the counterfactual role of these social protection services.Other evaluations from the rest of the world also show some encouraging evidence. For instance, Londoño-Vélez and Querubin (2020) evalaute an unconditional cash transfer program in Colombia and show positive impacts on food access while Bottan, et al. (2021) show that a large-scale noncontributory pension program in Bolivia has significant impacts in protecting households' food security during the pandemic.Despite the instrumental role of social protection programs in Africa, delivering these programs during a pandemic entails several important challenges that can limit the effectiveness of these programs. Most of these challenges relate to targeting, coverage, timeliness, and financing of social protection programs.Ideally, the social protection responses to the COVID-19 shock should be targeted to those households most likely to be tipped into poverty as a result of the lockdowns and global disruptions in food systems. As discussed in Section 4, short-term safety net transfers can protect vulnerable households from falling into extreme poverty or prevent those households from engaging in costly risk coping mechanisms such as selling-off assets or migrating away from employment that could result in these households joining the ranks of the chronically poor.Before the pandemic, social safety net targeting in Africa was mostly oriented towards identifying chronically poor households rather than vulnerability to shocks. Most social safety net programs developed in Africa in the first decade of the twenty-first century employed Proxy Means Testing (PMT) for targeting beneficiaries (del Ninno and Mills, 2015). PMT targeting provides a standardized and objective way to identify chronically poor households at relatively low cost. The targeting accuracy of the PMT approach is moderately effective in general (Coady et al., 2004;Brown et al., 2018), but because it is based on household assets at some point in the past, it is least effective at identifying households that are most vulnerable to shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, collecting household surveys during the pandemic was impossible and most safety net programing during the pandemic had to rely on information collected a few years ago. For example, in Egypt, the national cash transfer program that was expanded in response to the COVID-19 crisis targets households based on survey data that was collected up to four years ago.The COVID-19 pandemic also emerged at a stage when social protection programming in some African countries was striving to be shock-responsive. These institutional arrangements in countries such as Kenya and Uganda were being oriented to rapidly scale up programs in certain geographical areas to respond to weather shocks but were not yet widespread in Africa and were poorly prepared to respond to a new type of shock (Beasley et al., 2021). Shock-responsiveness requires investments in data infrastructure and social registry which can aggregate administrative data and program beneficiary status across a variety of social protection programs, allowing for efficient coordination and identification of new beneficiaries without the necessity of collecting household data in the field. Only 12 countries in Africa were classified in 2018 as having a unified social registry operating at a medium to large scale. Even if some of these data may be available, the lack of digitalization and data sharing procedures may complicate their use for efficiently targeting safety net programs. In a case study of Kenya's social protection expansion, it was noted that the value of social registry was compromised by incomplete data and bureaucratic delays with sharing access with the necessary stakeholders to facilitate the roll-out of new programs (Doyle and Ikutwa, 2021).Even where the use of existing listings for scaling worked most smoothly, basing short-term aid responses for COVID-19 on eligibility for long-term existing programs or social registries risks excluding certain groups, such as migrants and the undocumented. Migrant-receiving countries in southern Africa such as Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa did not have any formal program during the COVID-19 lockdowns to support migrant workers who suddenly found themselves unemployed and cut-off from their home country (Dafuleya, 2020). New program enrollment often required a national ID or mobile phone in one's own name, which disadvantages women and ethnic minorities (Doyle and Ikutwa, 2021).Finally, in general, the challenge for targeting using existing lists was that the most severely affected households in the COVID-19 crisis were urban households while safety nets in Africa have traditionally focused on rural areas (Beegle et al., 2018). The pandemic has particularly affected urban dwellers dependent on the informal sector of the economy (e.g., Zeufack et al., 2021). The informal sector in Africa comprises 76.8% of non-agricultural employment, with a disproportional share of migrants and women (Guven et al., 2021). These households are not poor enough to be included in social assistance programs targeting the poorest and because of the informal nature of their employment they are less likely to benefit from formal social insurance, which on average covers only 10.9% of the working population in Africa (Guven et al., 2021). Some social protection expansions in North and West Africa attempted to target informal workers, including in Benin, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Madagascar, and Mauritius. However, this was difficult in practice as there was less potential to build on existing databases.In addition to targeted cash transfers, other forms of social protection responses especially in Central andWest Africa included provision of subsidies or waiver for utility payments. Angola, Benin, Cabo Verde, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Guniea, Guyana, Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Namibia, Togo, and Zambia all implemented some version of utility payment relief (Gentillini et al., 2020). While in theory, this type of social protection response allows targeting based on past usage levels, many countries skipped this step and simply reduced payments or implemented moratoriums on cutting off utilities across the board. As wealthier households consume more utilities, this even-handed approach is likely to end up disproportionately benefitting the better-off.Even when the utility subsidy was targeted based on past usage levels, in practice, utility subsidies may still be regressive. A household level panel survey in Accra, Ghana, showed limited impact of the utility subsidy on protecting food security or increasing consumption (Berkower, 2022). A major contributor to this lack of impact was that for poor households, it is common to share a meter for multiple households or for the landlord's name to be on the electric bill, so the program ended up being poorly targeted.A new targeting approach pioneered in Togo used mobile phone usage patterns to identify poor households. While this approach does not reach the level of targeting effectiveness of the ideal unified social registry approach, it did compare favorably to broad-based geographical targeting (Aiken et al. 2022).Targeting analysis of the COVID-19 social protection response is already available for some selected countries in spite of the constraints on collecting household level data and subject to the caveats noted above that the ideal response would not necessarily target the household which were poorest pre-COVID. Labor market monitoring surveys in Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt in February 2021 show that social protection targeting was fairly progressive in Egypt with the poorest (pre-COVID) income quartile having almost double the average probability of receiving assistance. On the other hand, in Tunisia, the poorest quartile only had 1.5 times the average probability of receiving assistance and in Morocco, the poorest quartile was only slightly more likely to receive assistance than average. Beyond income quintiles, in Egypt and Morocco, informal workers were two to four times more likely to have lost their work during the pandemic than formal sector workers. Egypt's social protection response specifically targeted informal workers, and informal sector workers were more likely to report receiving government assistance than public or formal sector workers. In Morocco, by contrast, public formal sector workers were significantly more likely to be receiving assistance (Krafft et al., 2021).The World Bank, together with NSOs, collected HFPS data to monitor the impact of the pandemic on households in several African countries. These data can be used to evaluate the potential and targeting of social protection programs. Duchoslav and Hirvonen (2021) use these data to evaluate targeting of social protection and social assistance transfers in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Nigeria based on pre-COVID wealth quintiles. The targeting in Ethiopia which was primarily based on an expansion of the existing Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) was progressive and covered about 27% of the poorest households in rural areas but was much less effective in urban areas. In Nigeria, there was a major expansion of cash transfers, but survey data showed only mildly effective targeting of government aid in urban areas, and a regressive distribution of probability of receiving aid in rural areas (Duchoslav and Hirvonen, 2021). In Malawi, major government plans to expand social protection did not materialize, so reported aid consisted of mostly uncoordinated privately run initiatives, which were poorly coordinated.The targeting efficiency of the social protection response in South Africa has also been found to be generally pro-poor. South Africa benefited from a pre-existing means-tested comprehensive social protection system for which payment sizes were increased after the outbreak of the pandemic. The poorest two deciles of households, however, while being most affected by the lockdowns in terms of lost income, were less likely than households higher in the income distribution to have benefited from the expanded social protection as of April 2020, due to delays in enrollment and confusion about eligibility (Kohler Bhorat, 2020). Figure 11 compares the targeting performance reported in phone surveys in Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and South Africa. Notably, in spite of the limitations mentioned above, the countries with the largest existing social national protection systems were able to expand quickly while maintaining overall pro-poor targeting. Concerns about proper targeting are in tension with another major challenge in social protection programming: timeliness. Across Africa, there was generally a trade-off between fast registration of new beneficiaries on existing systems, with the associated challenges reviewed above, versus rolling out new programs that targeted the right households but arrived too late (Devereux, 2021). Compared to other regions, Sub-Saharan Africa had the longest lag time between the stay-home orders and first payments at 132 days, about twice the global average (Beazley, 2021). This is likely to be driven by lack of institutional emergency responses mechanisms, absence of digital infrastructure and social registry to identify potential beneficiaries. In Kenya, just 50% of target beneficiaries in a new program to support urban informal workers had received support by August 2020, long after the most severe economic impacts of the lockdown (Kimani, 2021). The difference for household welfare between receiving aid during the most severe impacts of lockdowns compared to months later could be substantial. Suggestive evidence on the importance of timing is given by a study in Bangladesh, which showed that anticipatory transfers that provide support to households in advance of an expected flood shock were more helpful the earlier that they were received (Pople et al., 2021).A final and enduring challenge related to the COVID-19 social protection response has been financing of safety net programs. Even before the pandemic, more than half of the funding for social protection programs in Africa came from development partners (Bossuroy and Coudouel, 2018). During the pandemic, social protection responses in Africa have relied heavily on loans and grants from international financial institutions and NGOs. This has inhibited expansion of social protection programs because funding from development partners, which were also affected by the pandemic, has significantly declined. In a selected group of African countries for which data was available in 2020, only 23% of spending on COVID-19 expansions of social protection was from domestic financing (Alfemni, 2020). This tendency to rely on donor funding also explains the relatively slow rate of the social protection response in Africa.On the other hand, some countries such as Kenya and South Africa ran considerable fiscal deficits in order to fund the COVID-19 social protection responses (Alfemni, 2020). While the macroeconomic implications of spending on social protection are still relatively understudied, the potential drag on longterm growth of reduced productive investment is worth comparing to the short-term benefits for households (Breisinger et al., 2021).Nor is the use of external financing without trade-offs. Total aid flows to Africa increased in 2020, but remained small compared to total projected needs and in general were characterized by a sectoral reallocation in favor of social protection at the cost of investments in energy, transportation and storage.The bulk of the increase in official development aid came from international financial institutions, particularly the World Bank, and this aid surge is unlikely to be sustained. After high domestic spending during COVID-19 and now the economic implications of the Ukraine war, the largest bilateral donors are likely to have reduced development aid budgets (McCord et al., 2021).This paper employs recent sources of data to estimate and reassess the impact of the pandemic on countrylevel poverty in Africa. We combine national accounts data along with High-Frequency Phone Surveys for several countries to estimate the impact of the pandemic on poverty. These data can help refine and update early poverty projections which were built on several assumptions about expected changes in income as well as trends about the evolution of the pandemic and public health measures. We also review and synthesize empirical evidence on the role of social protection systems to mitigate the adverse impact of the pandemic in Africa. Our review pays particular attention to lessons learned on the delivery, targeting and impact of various social protection programs launched in Africa in response to the pandemic.We estimate that the pandemic increased the extreme poverty rate -i.e. those living on less than $1.90-a-day in 2011 PPP -in Africa by 1.5-1.7 percentage points in 2020. This is relatively smaller than early estimates and projections. We also document significant differences in the impacts across countries and regions. Countries affected by Fragility, Conflict, and Violence have suffered most because of the pandemic, experiencing a 2.1 percentage point increase in extreme poverty. This is intuitive given that conflict remains a major driver of poverty in Africa (Corral et al., 2020) and that political instability and conflicts have recently been increasing in Africa and may have impeded the social protection responses necessary to counteract the negative shocks experienced by households as a result of COVID-19. Consistent with several other studies, we also find significant heterogeneities across rural and urban areas. Despite some differences across countries, urban households suffered more than rural households.Despite variations across countries, several African countries have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by introducing and reforming a combination of existing social protection programs, unemployment insurance, and other rescue packages to support those affected by the pandemic (Gentilini et al., 2020;Abay et al., 2021a;Gronbach et al., 2022;Duchoslav and Hirvonen, 2021;Banerjee et al., 2020;Brooks et al., 2021;Alloush et al., 2022). Although the evidence base on their protective role remains scarce, some of these studies show that social protection programs have protected the welfare of vulnerable households. For example, Abay et al. (2021a) show that Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net (PSNP) absorbs much of the adverse effects of the pandemic on PSNP beneficiaries. Similarly, Banerjee et al. (2020) show that a universal basic income (UBI) scheme in rural Kenya during the pandemic had significant effects on food security as well as physical and mental health while Brooks et al. (2021) and Kimani et al. (2020) show positive impacts of a one-time cash transfer in Kenya and Uganda, respectively.However, the pandemic also uncovered important vulnerabilities in social protection programming in Africa. First, because social protection programs in Africa target chronic poverty and not vulnerability to shocks and have traditionally focused on rural areas (Beegle et al., 2018), they were not sufficiently reaching urban households who were disproportionately affected by the pandemic and associated lockdown measures. Where large social protection systems existed, progressive expansion of benefits both vertically and horizontally could be accomplished relatively quickly and efficiently, while suffering from exclusion errors which particularly affected migrants, women, and the undocumented. Countries with more limited social protection infrastructure also rolled out numerous programs, but experienced greater challenges with targeting. Second, while social protection programs in Africa have reached some during the pandemic, many of the poor remained unreached, partly because many African countries have limited fiscal space to expand social protection programs, partly because social protection programs and safety nets in Africa heavily rely on funding from development partners, which were also affected by the pandemic. The sustainability of social protection programs in Africa remains a particular concern and the impacts of investments in these programs on long-term economic stability remain to be seen.Looking forward, although African economies have experienced less than expected effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and agriculture and agri-food systems continue to facilitate post-pandemic recovery of economies in Africa (Zeufack et al., 2021), post-COVID-19 recovery is likely to be prolonged for several reasons. First, inequity in access to vaccines and hence Africa's slow progress in vaccination rates continues to delay the recovery of economies. After two years into the pandemic, only 15 percent of the African population is fully vaccinated (WHO, 2022). Second, protracted conflicts and political instabilities, which have recently seen an increasing trend in the continent, could continue to delay recovery of economies and livelihoods. Third, the Russian-Ukraine crisis has important ramifications on food security and food prices in African countries that rely on Russia and Ukraine for cereal and fertilizer imports. These continued challenges are reminders of the need to reinforce social protection programs to protect vulnerable households from these conflicts and food crises. In particular, social protection programing in Africa needs to be \"shock-responsive\" and evolve dynamically in response to the needs and challenges arising from covariate shocks (Roelen, et al., 2018). This requires investing in digital and data infrastructure to facilitate both the delivery and targeting of social protection programs as well as devising sustainable sources and modalities of financing social protection programs. Note: This table reports the rate of extreme poverty-that is, those living under $1.90-a-day (2011 PPP). \"Without COVID\" column reports expected estimates before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, while \"with COVID\" column reports estimates influenced by the pandemic.","tokenCount":"9658"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cdbc0c7d982a8b674b2a2d9921961e1f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ef9973d4-cc1d-45cb-9be6-39313d7632f3/retrieve","id":"1660473215"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2ebcc606-6419-4fba-be34-4a9cd6adc348","pagecount":"32","content":"Cada mes se describen la práctica o prácticas que debe realIZar el productor durante el año, en lo ref erente a preparación del suelo, fertilIzación' siembra. manejo de la pastura , cosecha y beneficIo de semillasDurante la época seca la mayoría de los pastos nativos y mejorados pierden rápidamente su calidad, disminuyendo su digestibilidad y contenido de proteína, lo cual ocasiona baJos índices de productividad y reproducción animal. Una alternativa viable para los ganaderos que deseen incrementar los rendimientos de su explotación es el establecimiento de pasturas mejoradas que hagan uso de la asociación de gramíneas y leguminosas . En esta asociación las leguminosas contribuyen al mejoramiento de la calidad, productividad y persistencia de las gramíneas. aumentando, en consecuencia, la productiVidad animal.En la actualtdad se consigue en el comercio semilla de las leguminosas forrajeras Pueraria phaseolOldes (kudzú tropical), Stylosanthes cap/tata (cv Caplca) y Centrosema aeutifolium cv V,chada La oferta de material de propagación de gramíneas forrajeras es mayor. En el comercio se encuentran. entre otras• Brachiaria decumbens (braqularia amargo). Brachiaria dietyoneura (Llanero), Andropogon gayanus (Carlmagua 1) Y Braehiana brizantha (La Libertad), est a ú ltima recomendada especialmente para las condicIones de pledemonte .Centrosema acutifolium ev. Vichada es una leguminosa originaria de la OnnoqUla colombiana . cuya característica sobresaliente es la de enraizar en sus nudos. además de autopropaqarse por semilla. obteniendo así mayor persis-tenCla. Se caracteriza además por su adapt ación a suelos ácidos de baja fertilidad natural, con textura desde arenosa hasta fra nco-a rcillosa Esta leguminosa tiene alto conte n ido de proteína, alta producción de forrale y buena aceptación por el animal. Una de sus principales ventajas es su vigor y resiste nCia a la seq uía. con lo cual contribuye a mejorar la dieta del animal en la época secaBrachiaria dictyoneura cv Llanero es una gramínea Originaria de Afrlca tropica l y Suráfrica; es una especie perenne, erecta yestolonífe ra. Esta gramínea tolera la sequía, se recupera bien después de la quema y tolera también el ataque del m lón de los pastos (salivazo); por otra parte, no tolera el encharcamiento prolongado . Su valor nutritivo puede considerarse moderado en términos de composIción química. digestibilidad y consumo La cosecha mecánica con combinada. sUjeta la disponibilidad de esta máquina . permite ma yor eficiencia en la recolección Con éll a es posible cosechar de 100 a 300 kg / ha de Caplca y de 100 a 150 kg / ha de Carlmagua 1 ","tokenCount":"406"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d607407b0c2e2c35f74fc1626852d904","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d06420d0-c84d-4766-8f92-f2601ebf6ae0/retrieve","id":"867749728"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"75ae261d-6736-4e78-8613-032ff684a28f","pagecount":"4","content":"Young farmers club together for climate resilience DOSSIER: YOUTH  by Busani BafanaYoung Farmers' Clubs and Hubs promotes agricultural entrepreneurship among rural youth in Zambia by bringing young people (aged 15-35) together in clubs to interact, learn and farm in a fun and collaborative environment. The project has established 10 clubs, which are led by executive committees made up of the young farmers themselves, with support from a DAPP project leader and technical advice from an agriculture extension officer.As a member of the Kalusa Young Farmers Club in Zambia's Chibombo district, 28-year-old Marriam Hamunyemba learnt new ways to add value to Moringa oleiferaby grinding it into a powder, which she packages and sells for nutritional and medicinal benefits. As a result of the training, she now earns €175 a month from the sale of processed Moringaleaves. \"Joining the farmers' club opened my eyes, it has taught me that I can do something on my own and generate income,\" Hamunyemba says. \"I started developing a passion for agriculture during the first few months of hands-on training. The sessions on Moringa growing and processing really caught my attention and I decided to give it a try.\" Hamunyemba is a good example of how young people have been engaged in agriculture as a result of the project's training. DAPP has used the Young Farmers' Clubs and Hubs project to raise awareness of the importance of CSA among rural youth. Each club is given a tablet that contains lessons on CSA, which are shared among youth members. The training focuses on teaching young farmers conservation agriculture practices, such as minimum tillage, crop rotation, preservation of crop residue and diversification of production. The adoption of these farming techniques will not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also help to ensure greater resource efficiency and thereby build the climate resilience of young farmers.Young Zambian farmers are able to harvest crops throughout the year with motorised water pumps provided by the Young Farmers' Clubs and Hubs projectIn addition to training and the provision of seeds -among other inputs -the project has provided young farmers with motorised irrigation pumps to enable them to farm crops throughout the year, in spite of extended dry spells.Preston Kaluka, a 31-year-old farmer from Sichilongwe village, Chimbombo district, joined 38 other youths in the formation of a new young farmers' club when the project first launched in 2016. He cites the field day when water pumps were introduced to his club's demonstration garden as the day that his life changed. \"I realised I could water more vegetables and crops within a short period of time and throughout the year with the perennial well just within my yard,\" he explains. Within 6 months, Kaluka's income from vegetable and maize production increased from €4 to €52 a week.Alpha Kabamba, the grant administrator at DAPP, says the Young Farmers' Clubs and Hubs project was a response to the challenge of declining farm productivity and the lack of interest in agriculture among young people. \"When they acquired a water pump for their groups everything changed,\" Kabamba explains. As a result of the project, young farmers have embraced CSA and have increased their crop yields by over 60% on average. Many have also moved away from the popular practice of monocropping in Zambia to diversify their production through the cultivation of groundnuts, honey, chilli, soybeans, sweet potato and Moringa.By offering rural youth the opportunity to make a profit from farming, the project has successfully engaged Zambian young people in CSA. As Kabamba puts it, \"The youth are looking for income and the moment you trigger that they support any initiative. We wanted to trigger the potential for them to make money from agriculture... By developing entrepreneurs, we have brought back the glory of farming to attract more young people into it.\" In parallel to the CSA training, the young farmers learn marketing skills and are taught the value of savings to help them establish sustainable agribusinesses. This document has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The contents of this document are the sole responsibility of CTA and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union.Growing global youth populations could prove instrumental in developing climate-smart agriculture (CSA). But in order to achieve this, young people must have a say in decisions at every level -from the farm to the policy table.Youth can bring a level of innovation to CSA initiatives To incentivise more young people to engage in agriculture, a CTA-funded project is promoting the adoption of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) through clubs for young farmers. ","tokenCount":"766"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"762804b1dcf618f7fce2d5d8662dc0b0","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/80f2d28c-8586-475d-9194-344edcf2f962/retrieve","id":"-879574542"},"keywords":["Processing and Utilisation. Reaching Agents of Change Training of Trainers (ToT) manual. 10.4160/9789290605027T9 Stathers","T.","Stathers","T.","Sindi","K.","Bechoff.","A.","(2018). Bechoff.","A.","(2018). Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about"],"sieverID":"af8ff3ee-7f89-4dcd-bd1f-aaed5ba23ea8","pagecount":"56","content":"CIP publications contribute important development information to the public arena. Readers are encouraged to quote or reproduce material from them in their own publications. As copyright holder CIP requests acknowledgement and a copy of the publication where the citation or material appears.This team has brought together and shared their many years of experience of working with sweetpotato systems and farmer learning processes across Sub-Saharan Africa to compile this Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Sweetpotato resource. None of this experience would have been gained without the partnership of many sweetpotato farmers and other stakeholders (extensionists, national researchers, traders, transporters, NGO staff, nutritionists, media and donors) across the region. We thank you, and hope that this resource can in return offer you support in your sweetpotato activities.The photographs used throughout this manual come from a wide range of places and we thank Margaret McEwan, Jan Low, Richard Gibson, A. Frezer, Erna Abidin, Aurelie Bechoff, Keith Tomlins, Sam Namanda, J. O'Sullivan, Gabriela Burgos, Tanya Stathers, Olasanmi Bunmi, Benson Ijeoma, Grant Lee Neurenberg, Sammy Agili, Jentezen Franklin, Kwame Ogero, the late Constance Owori, Ted Carey, Robert Mwanga, Ana Panta, Kirimi Sindi, Frank Ojwang, CIP digital archive, Centre for Behaviour Change and Communication, G. Holmes, B. Edmunds, and Nicole Smit for kindly sharing them. Most of the cartoons used in this manual were drawn by Movin Were.This manual was originally produced as part of the Reaching Agents of Change project in 2013 and updated by the Building Nutritious Food Baskets project in 2017/2018 -both projects funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. During the past decade, interest in sweetpotato in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has expanded, the number of projects utilizing sweetpotato has increased, and the demand for quality training resources, training development practitioners and farmers has subsequently risen. Sweetpotato scientists at the International Potato Center and national research centres often received these requests and frequently held 1-3 day training sessions, drawing on whatever training materials they had or could quickly pull together.The Reaching Agents of Change (RAC) project in 2011 changed that situation. Jointly implemented by the International Potato Center (CIP) and Helen Keller International (HKI), RAC sought to empower advocates for orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) to successfully raise awareness about OFSP and mobilize resources for OFSP projects. RAC also sought to build the capacity of public sector extension and non-governmental organizational personnel to effectively implement those projects to promote the dissemination and appropriate use of vitamin A rich, orange-fleshed sweetpotato. The Building Nutritious Food Basket (BNFB) is a three-year project (November 2015 to October 2018) that followed on from the RAC project. The project is implemented in Nigeria and Tanzania and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The goal of the project is to accelerate and support scaling up of biofortified crops for food and nutrition security and to help reduce hidden hunger by catalyzing sustainable investment for the utilization of biofortified crops (OFSP, PVA maize, high iron beans and vitamin A cassava) at scale. BNFB develops institutional, community and individual capacities to produce and consume biofortified crops.The objectives of the project are to strengthen the enabling environment for increased investments in biofortified crops and to develop institutional and individual capacities to produce and consume biofortified crops.RAC/BNFB goal of developing and revising the Training of Trainers (ToT) manual on Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Sweetpotato was to see sustained capacity for training senior extension personnel about the latest developments in sweetpotato production and utilization in each of the major sub-regions of SSA: Eastern and Central Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Hence, CIP identified local institutions to work with in Mozambique, Tanzania, and Nigeria to host an annual course entitled: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Sweetpotato. The course has progressed from initially having CIP scientists working closely with national scientists to implement it, to national scientists and partners independently organising and conducting the course. In subsequent years, institutions in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi and others have been capacitated in conducting the course.In developing the course content, a long-time collaborator of CIP, Tanya Stathers of the Natural Resources Institute (NRI), University of Greenwich, worked with CIP Scientists to review the existing training material, added in new knowledge from sweetpotato scientists and practitioners, and designed the course with a heavy emphasis on learning-by-doing. The CIP personnel who contributed to the development of the initial manual include, (Robert Mwanga, Ted Carey, Jan Low, Maria Andrade, Margaret McEwan, Jude Njoku, Sam Namanda, Sammy Agili, Jonathan Mkumbira, Joyce Malinga, Godfrey Mulongo), Adiel Mbabu and HKI nutritionists (Margaret Benjamin, Heather Katcher, Jessica Blankenship) and an HKI gender specialist (Sonii David) as well as NRI colleagues (Richard Gibson, Aurelie Bechoff, Keith Tomlins). Some of the materials were adapted from the DONATA project training materials, the Reaching End Users project and many others. After practitioners had used the course and the manual, a review was held in 2012 and the manual and course were subsequently updated, and a standard set of accompanying Power Point presentations created. In 2017-2018, the Building Nutritious Food Baskets project led a further review of the manual working closely with Tanya Stathers, the above mentioned CIP teams again plus Robert Ackatia-Armah, Kwame Ogera, Srini Rajendra, Julius Okello, Fred Grant, Joyce Maru, Hilda Munyua and Netsayi Mudege to update the content of topics 3, 4, 5, 12 and 13 which cover: sweetpotato varietal selection; nutrition; seed systems; monitoring, learning and evaluation; and using the 10 and 5 day ToT course.This manual is designed to potentially serve a wide variety of audiences (nutritionists and agronomists, policymakers, extension workers, community development workers, leaders of farmer organizations, farmers etc.). Not all the materials will be relevant to all audiences, but facilitators can adapt the content to their audience and facilitation best practices. To ensure sustainability and wide reach; a cascading approach in the delivery of training is recommended; where key experts (agriculturalists, nutritionists, health workers, marketing and gender experts) will attend more detailed ToT workshops. The experts trained will then become primary facilitators and drive the agenda for OFSP. This group will in turn deliver shorter version courses and step-down the training to various levels of audiences (secondary and tertiary) -based on needs identified. This trend will continue until the training cascades down to \"farmer trainers\" who finally train the end users in their communities.The original version of the manual has also been translated into Swahili, French, Portuguese, and Amharic are available online at https://www.sweetpotatoknowledge.org/learn-everything-you-everwanted-to-know-about-sweetpotato/ with the intension of translating the revised chapters as soon as resources permit. We envision the course to continue to be improved as new knowledge comes in.In this way, we expect the vibrant and knowledgeable sweetpotato community of practice to continue to grow in the coming years. This guide was designed to be used in two ways: Upon completing this module, participants should be able to: Give an overview of the marketing of fresh sweetpotato roots and sweetpotato products in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).  Explain the basic concepts and best practices of marketing and entrepreneurship.  List and describe the five marketing pillars.  Discuss the sweetpotato market value chain.  Defend the benefits of cooperative marketing for sweetpotato farmers.  Describe the obstacles to marketing processed sweetpotato products in SSA.  Explain gender and diversity issues around sweetpotato marketing and entrepreneurship.Marketing and entrepreneurship focuses on the concepts of marketing, market orientation, entrepreneurship, and the 5 pillars of marketing (product, price, place, promotion and people) are discussed in relation to fresh sweetpotato roots and sweetpotato products.By the end of this unit, you should be able to: Describe sweetpotato supply chains, both locally and internationally, and explain why they are usually short.  Identify the players in the sweetpotato supply chain.  List the characteristics urban consumers in SSA use when choosing sweetpotato.  Explain why consumers fear damaged produce.  Describe unfilled market openings for sweetpotato chips or flour, or for roots kept fresh with economical storage technologies.  Explain barriers to trade and conditions that cause rough handling and product damage.Within Southern and Eastern Africa fresh sweetpotato roots are widely traded and usually available in urban markets throughout much of the year. Numerous small producers from different geographical areas sequentially provide the roots, creating a fairly continuous year-round supply in large urban centres (see the above chart, Calendar of sweetpotato sources). Sweetpotato marketing investments typically occur in areas where sweetpotato is consumed as a primary staple food as opposed to areas where it is a secondary staple.Sweetpotato supply chains tend to be short (both intermediary wise and distance wise) because of the bulkiness of the crop, its short shelf-life and its relatively low value/ profitability. Traders, who sell produce in markets to consumers, often travel to rural areas by bicycle or to other markets by road transport to source produce. Small-scale traders sell only a few sacks a week. Additionally, farmers may take their produce to sell to market traders. Bicycle traders may take their own produce or that purchased from other farmers to sell to retailers. Large-scale wholesale traders Urban areas in Southern and Eastern Africa are able to source sweetpotato from different regions for a fairly steady supply throughout the year. However, quality and market price vary greatly from harvest season to off-season.  Small farmers may take their produce to sell to market traders, but traders and larger-scale agents may also travel to find produce for sale in urban markets.  In non-Muslim areas, most sourcing is done by men while consumer interaction is handled by women.  Consumers prefer medium sized undamaged roots.  Increased mass processing of sweetpotato into chips or flour, or improved use of pits to keep roots fresh, could increase yearlong availability.  Barriers along the value chain-such as high transit costs and the expense of transportation-foster poor handling habits, which damage produce; the use of technology to check market prices is in its early stages, and little sweetpotato is exported internationally from SSA.  Traders can help grow the market and build the value chain.move sweetpotato in trucks, and often there are agents in the field who locate the sweetpotato and make sure it is bulked up in a convenient location before the truck arrives. In many Sub-Saharan African countries, in non-Muslim areas, the actual retailing of the sweetpotato roots in the markets and interaction with customers is mainly done by women, while men are the ones who travel to rural areas to source the roots.Studies in Kenya suggest that rural consumers use the sweetpotato root's size, colour, taste, texture of the skin, price, shape, fibre content, health and freshness as the main selection criteria before they buy sweetpotato roots. Size is their most important factor: as an indicator of whether the root is immature or not, and because medium sized roots are easier to cook and package, while larger roots have to be cut up before cooking. Roots are mainly consumed after boiling or steaming without peeling, making them a fast and easy to prepare food; they may also be mashed and mixed with beans. Small and medium roots can also be more easily shared, e.g. one root per household member. Urban consumers were more likely to choose sweetpotato roots based on the skin colour and area or region where root was grown, then size (preferring medium size), then damage, especially weevil damage (consumers fear damaged roots as they may taste bad, and there are concerns that unclean water may have been used for washing the produce and may have entered the root through the damage sites), then shape and freshness. Boiled roots are often taken with a cup of tea in the morning, especially when they are cheaper than bread. Wealthier households in urban areas also prepare chips and doughnuts from sweetpotato.However, from the perspective of farmers in less favoured locations (with limited road and market linkages), marketing fresh sweetpotato roots is problematic. Markets are often located far away resulting in high transport costs or farmers having to take whatever farm-gate price the sole trader buying from their area offers. Local rural markets are typically oversupplied during the harvest season.Due to sweetpotato production being so seasonal, the quantity and quality of supply is not smooth throughout the year. This results in large price variations. In Kenya and Tanzania, the commercial value of sweetpotato is highest during the month of Ramadan as sweetpotato roots are often used to break the fast.To date, there is little commercial processing of sweetpotato into chips or flour, which would have a longer shelf-life and could help encourage year-round consumption of sweetpotato in stiff porridges, bread or other products. In order to try to supply sweetpotato roots for a longer period of the year, farmers practice staggered planting, as most are unaware of or inexperienced in the use of fresh root pit stores (see Managing Fresh Storage of Sweetpotato Roots).Marketing costs of sweetpotato are high due to its bulkiness, perishability, discontinuous and geographically fragmented supply. The high transport costs and tax structure of urban markets in East Africa have resulted in sweetpotato being jammed into large extended bags, which are difficult to carry and therefore result in the bruising and damage of many of the roots inside them. This practice lowers the quality of the roots and shortens their shelf-life. These varied market problems highlight the need for improvements to be made across the value chain.Farmers usually rely on traders or neighbours for market price information, although the use of mobile phones for checking prices is increasing. Sweetpotato prices are rarely available at the national level. Transformation of the value chain could be brought about through successful promotion of the nutritional benefits of consuming orange-fleshed sweetpotato or use of products from processed orange-fleshed sweetpotato, or sweetpotato as animal feed. Extending the period of the year when fresh sweetpotato roots are available is another option. Given the very different natures of markets across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), there is unlikely to be a simple solution, and any strategies will need to be adapted to the specific conditions.The positive role played by traders in the value chain is sometimes downplayed by organisations purporting to assist farmers. However, traders can be used to help develop the orange-fleshed sweetpotato market; traders need to be trained so they have the necessary understanding regards its nutritional benefits in order to be able to help promote and drive market demand for it. In a project in Zambézia province in Mozambique, a market development strategy was developed to: Inform retail sweetpotato traders of the health benefits of consuming orange fleshed sweetpotato, (OFSP) (creating a willingness-to-buy from farmers),  Train farmers and traders on appropriate postharvest handling and transport of roots,  Tell the traders where they would find sources of supply and help facilitate the initial linkages between traders and farmers,  Explain how traders could make a higher margin from trading OFSP, even if they had to pay farmers more for it (OFSP, when available, retailed for a higher price),  Raise urban consumers' awareness through radio advertising and promotional signs in markets, about the advantages of eating orange-fleshed sweetpotato-particularly due to its pro-vitamin a content and its sweet taste-over other types of sweetpotato,  Inform consumers of where orange-fleshed sweetpotato was being sold,  Provide farmers with simple marketing training, and  Link farmer groups to traders. This approach led to a rapid growth in the commercialisation of orange-fleshed sweetpotato.Very small amounts of sweetpotato are exported from Africa. In 2010, Africa exported 14,785 tonnes of sweetpotato with a value of USD $9.7 million. This is ~7% of the global total sweetpotato exported, which is estimated to be 205,845 tonnes with a value of USD$ 149.5 million. Egypt and South Africa are the main African sweetpotato exporting countries, exporting 11,725 tonnes and 2,603 tonnes respectively inAn overfilled sackBy the end of this unit, participants should be able to: Explain the people-related concepts behind marketing and give a few standard definitions.  Define social marketing.  Compare the mindset of businesses with a sales orientation to those with a marketing orientation.  List the five key tasks of managing a market-oriented business. Describe the five pillars of the marketing mix.Make sure your business is market orientated and meeting consumers' needs and wants. Marketing is about meeting the needs and wants of customers; it is about understanding customers and finding ways to provide products or services which customers demand. Marketing is a businesswide function, not something that operates separately from other business activities.There are many different definitions of marketing, including:\"The all-embracing function that links the business with the customer needs and wants, in order to get the right product to the right place at the right time.\"\"The achievement of corporate goals through meeting and exceeding customer needs better than the competition.\"\"The management process that identifies, anticipates and supplies customer requirements efficiently and profitably.\"\"Marketing may be defined as a set of human activities directed at facilitating and accomplishing exchanges.\"\"Marketing is a social and administrative process through which people and groups obtain what they need and want, creating products and values and exchanging them with third parties.\"It is a fundamental idea of marketing that organisations survive and prosper through meeting the needs and wants of customers. This important perspective is commonly known as the marketing concept. Market orientation is generally regarded as the implementation of the marketing concept (see figure below). The 5 Pillars (5Ps) of marketing are often known as the marketing mix, which represents choices the business has to make in order to implement its marketing strategy; they are discussed in section 10.4.A business that is market oriented, produces goods and services that are carefully researched and designed to attract the clients in the market. The customer's needs drive the process, the business must develop the skills to identify the needs and decide which ones it will try to satisfy.Social marketing is a form of marketing which aims to improve the well-being of consumers and of society. Businesses engaged in social marketing determine the needs, wants and interests of their target markets, and have to operate with greater effectiveness and efficiency that their competitors.The alternatives to a marketing orientation are a sales orientation (as shown in the How businesses ensure that they understand the dynamics of their chosen markets and the needs and wants of their target customers.Depending on the business, the resources and the timing and the objectives, this research may be quantitative (e.g. quantified data on market size, growth rates, customer attitudes and awareness), and/or qualitative (e.g. in depth research through focus groups and interviews on customers opinions), and may be a one-off study or a continuous learning/ tracking process. As with all research, the sampling process is very important in determining how meaningful the results will be. The sales-oriented business pays little attention to customer needs and wants and does not try particularly hard to create suitable products or services.A production-orientated business is mainly concerned with making as many units as possible. By concentrating on producing maximum volumes, such a business aims to maximise profitability by exploiting economies of scale. In a production orientated business, the needs of customers are secondary compared with the need to increase output. Such an approach is probably most effective when a business operates in very high growth markets or where the potential for economies of scale is significant.A product-orientated business is \"obsessed\" with its own products. Their products may start out as fully up-to-date and technical leaders. However, by failing to consider changing technological developments or subtle changes in consumer tastes, a product-orientated business may find that its products start to lose ground to competitors.1. Market researchcollection of information on the current and potential needs of customers in their target markets, including how customers buy and what competitors are offering 2. Product development -develop products which meet needs and wants sufficiently to attract target customers to buy 3. Marketing mix/ 5Psafter identifying the target markets and developing the relevant products and developing relationships along the value chain, the price, promotion and distribution methods must be determined. To offer value to the customer, to communicate the offer and to make it accessible and convenient.4. Market monitoring -In addition to attracting customers businesses need to retain them, in order to do this and to develop new products it is important to obtain customer feedback over time, and to recognise that the competitive environment can change very rapidly. Entrepreneurship is the process of creating something new with a value by devoting the necessary time and effort, assuming the accompanying risks, and receiving the resulting rewards.Entrepreneurs are innovators or developers who recognise and seize opportunities; convert those opportunities to marketable ideas (products or services that can be sold); add value through effort and skills; assume the risks of the competitive marketplace; and realise the rewards or losses.Entrepreneurs can be people who enter new or established markets, and through their ingenuity find creative ways to add to their own wealth, power and prestige. Entrepreneurs vary widely, however most of them have the following behavioural characteristics: initiative taking; assertive; organising and re-organising/adaptive strengths which enable them to turn opportunities into practice and to learn; committed; an acceptance of risk and failure. More traits are described in the table below.Selfmotivated  You will need the ability to make decisions intelligently after carefully weighing up several options or alternatives, including those that involve risks  You may have the drive, and remarkable ideas in your head, but if you cannot make sound decisions these will be wasted  When starting-up you need to be aware that despite all your planning there is a great deal of risk inherent in your venture, you will need to make decisions almost daily that involve some gamble. As your business grows so will the impact of your decisions  Your decision-making will need to balance present and future aspects.Monitor your businesses performance accurately so you can base present performance and projections on reality and valid assumptions  Intelligent decisions involve understanding: the context, your objectives, the alternatives and your criteria Resourceful  When you start-up there will not be enough funding to pay for all the things the business needs Planning how you will market your product is crucial. Marketing is not just about selling, it consists of various issues. It involves determining what the customer wants and developing that product, working out a price that is profitable and attractive, delivering the product to a place where the customer will see it in order to purchase it. Additionally, it involves informing the customer about the product and identifying who will be involved in the transactions during the sale of the product, and what knowledge they need to have.People talk about the 5 pillars of marketing, and how these 5 pillars need to work together in order to create a strong foundation for marketing efforts. So what are these 5 pillars of marketing?What to sell? The product can be either a tangible product (a sweetpotato root, or a packet of sweetpotato flour, for example), or an intangible service (such as agricultural extension advice, nutritional information, weeding), or a mixture of the two. Decisions regards what product or service to sell must be based on meeting the customers' needs, at the quality, quantity and value that customers demand (for sweetpotato this includes the size, colour, variety, taste, freshness of roots).It should be noted that sometimes customers are not always aware of their needs, for example many people are not aware they are deficient in vitamin A. Competing crops and products must also be taken into consideration, to understand the market context and competition. For example, is it Product: The first of the five marketing pillars is product. Every business must choose the right product to sell for their market.  Price: Businesses must choose a price that is high enough to make a profit, but not so high that they struggle to move items.  Place: Knowing where to go to get products to consumers is also critical.  Promotion: Businesses must know how to draw attention to their product.Promotional activities need not be costly; a well thought out promotion can be very cost effective.  People: Often forgotten, the final P involves getting the right people involved in your organization to make it smooth running, pleasant, and successful. From a marketing perspective, the People who are consumers are also important to keep in mind.cost-effective to substitute some wheat flour with sweetpotato flour or sweetpotato puree? Can farmers with access to water earn more from horticultural crops than sweetpotato vine production? Are people willing to pay more for undamaged roots than slightly damaged ones? Are OFSP preferred to white sweetpotato roots?How much to sell for? The price point needs to be right; good products at the wrong price will struggle to achieve success. The price has to be both profitable and attractive and should be set and adjusted based on: production and marketing costs; the profit margin over costs; and prices of competing products. Understanding seasonal supply and demand changes and determining which criteria (e.g. root size, shape, variety, geographical source, skin colour, quality, price, convenience) most influence customer purchases is important. It is important to set a price that buyers can realistically afford. It is important to know the competitors' prices. In markets where there is limited purchasing power (poor consumers only have a small amount of money to spend), sweetpotato sellers often keep the same price and adjust the quantity sold in heaps when there are real changes in the price.Where to sell? Includes both the physical location (e.g. home, farm, local market, under a tree stand, urban market, as well as how to display it on perhaps on a raised platform, middle of the shelf etc., how to make sure the place is clean to encourage buyers to visit) and customer's access to information about the product, e.g. how easy is it for a customer to contact the producer or sales person to find out the necessary details about the product. Will you work with middlemen? Consider the transport costs, methods and duration of journeys and storage. Decide on whether to work with farmer groups or form a farmers' association to bulk sales and provide a more continuous supply. Often sweetpotato is found in the least desirable parts of the market and part of changing its image is to negotiate with the traders and the market managers to change its location.How to draw attention or create interest in the product and build demand for it? Advertising/ promotion is important in order to tell consumers about the availability of products or services, their benefits, and why customers should make a purchase decision. Promotion strategies need not be expensive, but if they are well thought out they will attract consumers to your product. To be effective, promotion has to reach the customers you want to target at the right place and time, through a combination of media channels, and to convey information that is compelling enough to persuade them to act. Advertising could include cardboard signposts, product labels with descriptions, attractive packaging, radio spots, posters, flyers, loud speaker messages at markets, painted market booths, signposts about orange fleshed sweet potato availability and price. Other forms of promotion could include: giving out samples of orange-fleshed sweetpotato roots together with nutritional information, adding a free sweetpotato root when someone purchases a different product, training market traders on the benefits of consuming orange-fleshed sweetpotato, exhibiting at field days or special occasions, and creating a brand or positive image about orange-fleshed sweetpotato. Remember consumers are not a bland homogenous group; there are lots of differences amongst them, such as: age, wealth, gender, cultures, formal and non-formal education levels. You may need to use different promotion approaches to reach different consumer groups. We have found that after consumers learn of orange-fleshed sweetpotato's nutritional value and its importance, they are willing to pay a slightly higher price for orange-fleshed roots over white.Who are the people involved in the producing, selling and buying of your product? They are our market value chain actors: farmers, extensionists, brokers, retailers, wholesalers, processors and consumers (e.g. individuals, schools, factories and barracks). The actions, attitudes and knowledge of those involved in the selling of the product (e.g. traders, farmers, vine multipliers) can be influential in whether the consumer has a positive purchase experience that they would wish to repeat or share with other people or not. Being responsive to feedback and evaluating and then making the necessary changes is important.In service organisations, people are part of the product itself, e.g. health care.1. What are the types of products that could be sold to the market? 2. Who are the people involved in the market chain?Unit 5 -Exploring Your Sweetpotato Market Value ChainBy the end of this unit, participants should be able to: Name the participants in the sweetpotato field-to-table value chain and describe their roles.  Describe the proper role for a sweetpotato project facilitator in the value chain.  Define market linkage.  Name the main areas where key opportunities to improve the market value chain are usually found.  Explain the Participatory Market Chain Approach (PMCA). Typically, the sweetpotato value chain begins with the farmer or producer, who sells to a broker/assembler, who sources sweetpotato in the region from farmers' collection points or roadside points; then the product is passed to wholesalers and transporters, who move the produce to markets, where they finally pass through retailers to the consumer.  \"Traders\" refers to retailers, brokers, and wholesalers.  Other actors include agribusiness service providers (equipment suppliers, banks), traders, and processors/ millers.  Scale is not homogenous at any link in the sweetpotato value chain: like farmers, some traders are large with a complex organisation, while others are small and work for themselves.  Projects aimed at building the sweetpotato market value chain need to help link and empower the actors rather than inserting themselves into a bulking or selling role.  When analysing a sweetpotato market value chain, several specific areas tend to offer good opportunities for market building. These include: production; postharvest practices such caring for, storing, and transporting fresh roots and processed sweetpotato; marketing ideas such as nutritional messaging, and pricing and logistics; and interaction with agribusiness service providers, such as credit providers and advertising firms.  Relationships in the supply chain range in formality from agreements to alliances to contracts.  The Participatory Market Chain Approach (PMCA) is a four-phase process for creating trust and connections between different links in the market value chain.The sweetpotato farm-to-market value chain is the chain of actors and institutions that move sweetpotato along from the point of production to the point of consumption-from the farmers to the consumers.The people involved in the different parts of the value chain are often referred to as the value chain actors. They include farmers/ producers, agricultural service providers, traders, processors/ millers, transporters and consumers.The different levels of traders are typically defined as follows: those who buy in small volumes (retailers); those who buy in large volumes (wholesalers); those who play a linking/ negotiating role in return for a fee or commission (brokers). The actors in the value chain need to work together to survive in business; they each have an important role to play and are interdependent. The roles of the different actors in the value chain are shown in the figure below, Roles of Different Actors.Projects involved in working with value chains need to be careful that they play a facilitative role in helping to better link the different actors, as opposed to themselves getting involved in the value chain as a bulking or selling actor. The aim should be to help develop a more sustainable system, by empowering the different actors as opposed to taking on the role of any of the actors, this fact should be made clear to the farmers involved right from the start of the project. That being said, at the beginning of a project, it is often necessary to facilitate the first links to bring the actors together because often traders are risk-averse when it comes to getting involved in a new value chain or financially subsidizing a new concept, like grading roots and getting a higher price for quality roots.By exploring and analysing the sweetpotato value chain in your target areas, you can help identify the weak links in the chains, and pinpoint opportunities for strengthening them. The analysis typically involves analysing prices, volume data, and operations at each point on the value chain, while considering relevant cost factors (labour, inputs, transportation, taxes etc.) and returns on produce marketed. This information is then used in scenarios of increased volumes sold and prices realised from improvements in production yields, product quality, postharvest improvements, processing, market diversification, etc. Following this, the opportunities for upgrading activities and improving returns at different points along the chain are studied. For example:Enabling farmers to respond to market demand by improving quality, supply dependability, increasing volumes sold, or diversifying their product offerings, while simultaneously lowering unit production costs and boosting revenues through the introduction of improved, low-cost technologies and sustainable farming practices.Reducing product losses after harvest by understanding the importance of careful harvesting and avoidance of wounds, curing (wound healing), careful packing and transport at all levels to maintain root quality, temporary and longer-term storage practices, and potential benefits of working in groups. By implementing other improved postharvest practices such as sorting and grading, packaging, and possible value adding and transformation into new products.Facilitating marketing arrangements between smallholder groups and private partners such as traders, institutional customers, wholesalers and processors, which lead to increases in volumes sold. Such arrangements often involve the provision by these partners of market information, technical assistance and inputs to their farmer suppliers, in return for the assurance of receiving consistent quality and supply. The result is the increased integration of smallholder suppliers into the farm-to-market value chain. Training traders about orange-fleshed sweetpotato so they can promote it knowledgeably to their customers often provides a fairly simple opportunity. Availability and quality of services (e.g. extension advice, credit and savings organisations and market information) and inputs (e.g. planting materials) in the target production areas.Market linkage is the process of bringing together different actors in the sweetpotato value chain in order to improve their business. Farmers may be linked directly to retailers, or to wholesalers and brokers, or just to brokers, or to all of them. Subsidised or free inputs such as planting materials can be important initial market drivers. But care should be taken to prevent farmers assuming that those who provide inputs will also purchase the products, as is often done with cotton, tobacco and soya.In Mozambique, once traders started to ask farmers for orange-fleshed sweetpotato and started to visit rural areas looking specifically for it and offering higher prices for it, farmers realised they could earn additional income by growing it. Farmers began to replace their white-fleshed varieties with orange-fleshed varieties and to take better care of their crop and paid more attention to vine conservation. Most farmers planned to increase their orange-fleshed sweetpotato production because of the market demand. In Uganda, in addition to the good market demand for both the roots and vines of orange-fleshed sweetpotato, the fact that children and grandchildren expressed a strong preference for orange-fleshed sweetpotato was an important driver of adoption. Barriers to marketing included lower yields, which affects profitability, and the fact that some orange-fleshed sweetpotato varieties cannot be stored as long in the ground and do not lend themselves to piecemeal harvesting.A study of sweetpotato value chains in Tanzania in 2006, investigated the sweetpotato market networks of the different regions. The following example is from Mwanza, Lake Zone (see chart below). The study mapped the costs associated with sweetpotato roots at each stage of the value chain, and these are detailed in the figure below.The average cost of production of sweetpotato roots was estimated at Tshs. 4,000/ sack. Farm level value addition, including packaging materials, weaving and transportation was estimated at Tshs.2,000/ sack. Selling price at village-based collection centre was Tshs. 7,000/ sack, generating a net profit of Tsh1,000/ sack. The estimated weight of the sack was 100kg.Wholesalers typically purchase sweetpotato at Tshs. 7,000/ sack from farmers' collection points or road side points. They then offload the sack and sell to retailers at Tshs. 18,000/ sack, making a net profit of Tshs. 4,400/ sack after having deducted the costs of transport, loading and unloading, cesses, brokerage, meals and accommodation. Retailers pay Tshs. 18,000/ sack and incur Tshs. 1,000 for business development services such as transport and market fees and sell the roots from each sack at Tshs. 22,000 generating net profits of Tshs. 3,000.At retail level, the roots are arranged in piles of 4-7 fresh roots, with prices ranging from Tshs. 200 to 1,000 depending on the size of the pile. During the high supply season, the number of roots per pile increase but the price levels remain the same. For example, a Tshs. 200 pile would have 3 roots during the low supply season and 6 roots during the high supply season. During the low supply season most of the sweetpotato retailers diversify into selling cassava which is available all year round.Commercial relationships exist between the different stakeholders/actors in the value chain.Commercial relations typically fall into three categories: Agreement -an informal type of relationship in which the exchange is conducted if the terms of sale are acceptable to both parties. Alliance -a more formal type of relationship in which there is a certain level of commitment between both parties. Contract -a formal relationship in which a legal document has been signed by both parties.To improve how the market chain functions, consider using the Participatory Market Chain Approach (PMCA) (see figure below). PMCA brings the different market chain actors together, using facilitation techniques to build trust between the actors so that they begin working together to improve the product they have selected to market. Improving the product could involve all kinds of changes, for example: more continuous supply, grading and sorting the product based on quality standards, better packaging, increased advertising, lengthened shelf-life. Refer to the PMCA manual for details on how to implement the method.Unit 6 -Why Work as a Group to Market Your Sweetpotato?By the end of this unit, participants should be able to: List the advantages of cooperative sweetpotato marketing. Explain the problems associated with long-term contracts between farmers and institutions and suggest ways to improve loyalty.There are several reasons why a farmer might work in a group with other farmers to market their sweetpotato. These include: Being able to supply a larger volume. Traders do not want to spend their time and money collecting small volumes of sweetpotato from lots of different locations.  Being able to supply sweetpotato consistently. If many farmers are involved and some stagger their planting dates, some irrigate, and some store, seasonality in supply can be significantly reduced. Organized groups often come up with production calendars among their members to help stagger their planting and harvesting dates.  To gain a better bargaining position. If farmers work as a group they can negotiate with the trader so that they get a good set price for all members, which would not be possible if farmers were selling individually.  To help build a good relationship with traders so that they will continue to buy from the group.  To improve the quality of their products. The group will have to work at having a uniform quality of product from all members in order to keep their relationship with their trader.  To take advantage of extension services who typically work only with groups so that they can reach more clients per extension agent. Focus on learning how to engage with sweetpotato as a business.Whether marketing individually or as a farmer group, the 5 pillars of marketing can be used to help in planning. Group marketing systems can operate in many different ways, some examples are given in below figure. Linking farmers to institutions as long-term assured outlets for sweetpotato has obvious advantages. However, the idea also comes with some large caveats, as procedures such as supplier registration and payment can be extremely slow. In helping to facilitate contracts between buyers and farmers, it is important to remember that in Sub-Saharan Africa it is difficult to enforce a contract if one of the parties chooses not to honour it. Hence, buyers need to be willing to pay slightly higher than the local market price if they want farmers to honour the contract over time. When they do not, the practice of side-selling emerges, whereby farmers often claim they have lost part or all of their crop, when they really have just sold it elsewhere. A good approach to keep farmers loyal is to offer additional services such as loans on anticipated sweetpotato yield, which is then repaid when the farmer harvests his crop. Processors can offer farmers, who supply roots or dried chips to them, technical support services or inputs which are properly monitored to help maintain loyalty.Another model to consider is a lead out grower model. In this model, there is a large farmer who is not interested in being part of a group, but he or she is willing to buy roots from surrounding farmer groups or neighbours and re-sell to his/her regular buyers or market directly. Sometimes such farmers are willing to serve as quality vine multipliers and/or demonstration sites for their area.1. What are some of the advantages of working as a cooperative? 2. What are some of the issues with long-term contracts?Unit 7 -Can You Make A Profit from Selling Fresh Sweetpotato Roots?By the end of this unit, participants should be able to: List the expenses a farmer must record to calculate whether selling fresh sweetpotato roots can become profitable.  Tell how to calculate farmer profit at a particular selling price.To negotiate effectively, commercially oriented farmers need to understand their costs of production. Encourage farmers to keep a notebook with 4-6 pages reserved for each field to record all associated cost and sales incomes. You may need to support the farmers in their record keeping during the first season to help them understand how important it can be for them and their families (see the box below). Many farmers have no experience of keeping records. Farmers need to calculate production costs to negotiate a profitable price.  All expenses and crop losses must be calculated against the available selling price to find the return on the family's labour. Subtract all costs from gross revenue.  A study in Mozambique found that range-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) generally commands a 15% higher price from the consumer than white or yellow sweetpotato, but this is not always passed on to the farmer.  Market training should encourage families to produce enough to eat plus a surplus to sell.Farmers should record:1. What they pay for inputs: such as purchased vines, chemicals, sacks, land hire, and especially what they pay for hired labour for each task (clearing, ridging, planting, weeding, hilling-up, harvesting, packing, carrying). 2. What they pay for transport, this includes tips given to those assisting to move bags or help in hiring transport. 3. What they pay for marketing fees and staying over in the market, if they sell the crop themselves. 4. How much they harvested in kgs, and what amount can be taken to the market (marketable roots) and what was left at home as it could not be sold (unmarketable roots). If they harvest in sacks or other standard unit, they should know the weight of that sack or standard unit when it is filled with sweetpotato. Estimate the area of the field (10,000 square meters equal 1 hectare) and determine yield (1,000 kgs = 1 ton) in tons per hectare. If they are growing more than one variety, they should grow each variety on a separate ridge so that results for each variety can be easily recorded separately.Calculating whether you can make a profit from sweetpotato is not just about knowing the difference between your sales price and your production, marketing and transaction costs. You also need to know that there is sufficient demand for your product, and in some cases being involved in helping to increase demand through awareness creation strategies. The case study below provides some examples for raising awareness regards marketing orange-fleshed sweetpotato roots.5. How much they sold in kgs, when they sold it, where/to whom they sold it and the price they sold it for. 6. Keep track of the amount of sweetpotato that is lost (number of roots or kgs) -either at harvest time (poor quality) or during storage. Estimate that 4 medium size roots are approximately 1 kg. 7. Then they should calculate their gross revenue: (total amount harvested (kgs) minus total amount lost (kgs)) X average sale price of their sweetpotato. They can also just calculate the value of the amount sold. 8. Then they should add up all of their costs and calculate their net return to their family labour: Total revenue minus total cost. If the area of the field is known, this can be done on a per hectare basis as well. Net returns per hectare can be compared to those for other crops.Encourage farmers to note any problems they encountered during the season and what they did to solve them. Then they can begin to see how their business management ability grows over time.Sweetpotato roots are typically consumed as a secondary staple for breakfast, and as a snack food. The sweetpotato marketing system is well developed, particularly in the south for supply to Quelimane and cross-border to Malawi.To create a self-sustaining market the project used a strategy of informing retail sweetpotato traders of: The advantages of consuming orange-fleshed sweetpotato (to create a willingness-tobuy from farmers).  Where they would find sources of supply.  How they could make a higher profit margin from trading orange-fleshed sweetpotato, even if they had to pay farmers more for it.And simultaneously raising urban consumers' awareness through radio advertising of:  The advantages of eating orange-fleshed sweetpotato -particularly its pro-vitamin A content and its sweet taste.  Where orange-fleshed sweetpotato was being sold.And supporting sweetpotato farmers with marketing training and on how to form marketing committees and establish links with traders. Families need to be encouraged to produce enough to eat (so the family gets the vitamin A and food security benefit) and a surplus to sell. The project held events to promote orange-fleshed sweetpotato to consumers and local leaders where nutrition extensionists explained the nutritional benefits and demonstrated different ways orange-fleshed sweetpotato could be prepared and gave out samples for consumers to taste.The active promotion of the product, led to rapid organisation of orange-fleshed sweetpotato marketing in Gurue town markets within just one season. Most orange-fleshed sweetpotato was sold where there were existing marketing channels and where it could be easily substituted for1. What are the key areas to cover when training farmers? 2. What are the key records that farmers are encouraged to keep? other varieties. Additionally, many innovative farmers became involved in finding and creating new markets. Building trust with the traders is key for a project aiming to create demand for a new product.In the four main markets in Zambezia, orange-fleshed sweetpotato commanded a 15% premium in the sales price compared with white fleshed varieties. However, this price increase was not always passed onto the farmers. In all urban markets, traders reported that orange-fleshed sweetpotato sold faster than white or yellow fleshed varieties. Traders would break off the tip of the root to indicate the 'orangeness'.Objectives By the end of this unit, participants should be able to: Describe the processed sweetpotato market in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).  List the factors that limit development of processing.  Relate the findings of market studies on sweetpotato products.  Explain the conditions and actions that can make a processed sweetpotato product a profitable venture.Few processed sweetpotato products are currently marketed in Sub-Saharan Africa.Key supply issues limiting processing include unreliability of supply, poor quality of chips due to poor drying techniques and high labour inputs required to wash, peel and chip. Farmers complain about the low price of sweetpotato chips compared to the price of fresh roots. In addition to the technical aspects, there are also organisational and market development constraints. Some drying and storage techniques reduce the beta carotene content, which then limits the nutritional value of orange-fleshed sweetpotato as a processed product (see the topic, Nutrition and Orange Fleshed Sweetpotato). Low-cost, direct sun drying on a raised tray or platform can result in beta-carotene losses of 20% if you do not over-dry. Make sure the drying process is relatively fast, not more than two days in order to maintain the drying quality. Insufficient drying may lead to poor quality flour that becomes mouldy when stored, check the moisture content of the chips before milling. If you leave the orange-fleshed sweetpotato to dry for too long (over-drying), you can lose a lot of the beta-carotene and the dried chips will hardly look orange at all.However, storage after drying can lead to even higher losses of beta-carotene content in orangefleshed sweetpotato chips. It is therefore recommended that orange-fleshed sweetpotato chips are only stored for a maximum of 2 months, otherwise the beta-carotene content is greatly reduced (e.g. by more than 70%). Supply, quality, price, technical, and organizational concerns limit the production of processed sweetpotato.  Many processing techniques destroy much of the beta-carotene in sweetpotato; chips fetch a lower price than fresh sweetpotato, and storage losses can harm profitability.  Finding a target consumer and tailoring products, prices, and packaging to them increases the chances for profit.  Sweetpotato flour is more expensive than wheat flour, but studies show that consumers in SSA prefer baked goods made with some sweetpotato flour or puree, and sweetpotato goods are more nutritious.  Snacks, crackers, cereals, and juice are all potential profit-makers.Food preparation methods can also reduce the beta-carotene levels. But in most cases, if 25% or greater of the wheat flour is replaced with a medium to dark-intensity orange-fleshed sweetpotato in puree or flour form, there are significant amounts of pro-vitamin A in the product.While there is a huge range of delicious processed products that can be made from sweetpotato, how many of these products make commercial sense? Before spending lots of time making a wide range of products, figure out which ones are likely to be attractive to consumers and profitable.Below, we use the development of Golden Bread in Zambézia Province in Central Mozambique as an example.The first step is to understand which consumers you are targeting. Is it the poorer consumer that is likely to be more at risk of vitamin A deficiency (VAD), or the middle-to-upper class consumer more able to purchase more expensive products? In Zambézia Province, the majority of the population was poor and at risk of VAD and that was the targeted group.Once you have decided on your target consumer group, find out what products (bakery, fried, juices) they are already consuming and what they are paying for those products. Then investigate what it costs the agro-processor to make those products and identify the ingredients that could be substituted by sweetpotato. In the major urban market in Zambézia, it was found that most products were produced by a single individual who made a batch and sold it before making the next batch.The majority of processed products on the market had wheat flour as an ingredient. Wheat flour was expensive, particularly because it was imported into the Province from the coast over 500 kms away. The major constraint faced by product makers was the low purchasing power of consumers. No unit price of a product sold exceeded US$ 0.04 (in 2003). Net returns to labour were calculated for all products and bread and fried doughnuts had the highest net returns per unit sold. The project focused on bread, because fried doughnuts required oil as well as wheat flour.One of the first questions that normally arises when developing a sweetpotato processed product is whether one should use flour or puree (boiled and mashed sweetpotato). Flour is convenient to store but requires drying and milling. Puree is easy to prepare, but more difficult to store once made. It often requires a processor to have a refrigerator or freezer or alternatively, to store the fresh roots and prepare when needed. The major consideration in making this choice is purely economic. One must also consider access to electricity; in many areas of rural Africa this is not available, meaning that whatever product you select must be able to be made with an alternative electricity source and still give quality products. It takes 4-5 kgs of fresh roots to make one kilogram of sweetpotato flour. It takes 1.25 kgs of fresh roots to make one kilogram of sweetpotato puree. In most Sub-Saharan African countries with sweetpotato yields ranging from 5-15 tons/ha on farmer's fields, sweetpotato flour is usually more expensive than wheat flour. That means, for most products where you are going to use sweetpotato to partially substitute for wheat flour, puree makes economic sense.Sweetpotato flour can usually only be considered if you are targeting a food or feed processor or wealthier, health conscious consumers or if you are sourcing your sweetpotato from highly productive commercial operations producing 40-60 tons/ha. In Zambézia Province, the project started with the recipe that the bakers were already using and tested the substitution of different amounts of orange-fleshed sweetpotato puree for wheat flour. They also increased the amount of yeast. Products were tested with consumers in different forms (round, elongated) as well as with different levels of sweetpotato substitution, with the idea of maximizing the amount of sweetpotato so that the pro-vitamin A content could be pushed as high as possible. They found that consumers liked Golden Bread in which 38% of the wheat flour by weight had been substituted with puree. The other major modification made to the baker's recipe was to reduce the number of risings of the dough from two to one. Further research established that it is also important not to add too much salt, because salt reduces the final volume of the bread.Consumer studies found that the consumers preferred Golden Bread over white wheat bread because of its heavier texture (\"it fills the stomach\"), superior taste, and attractive golden appearance.The Golden Bread was analysed for beta-carotene content. According to United States Food and Drug Administration guidelines, a product can be considered an excellent source of vitamin A if it contains 20% or more of a daily value of a reference amount. It can be considered a good source if it contains 10 to 19%. A 110-gm bun of Golden Bread was found to be an excellent source of vitamin A for children and non-pregnant women and a good source for all other adults.Equally important, was that bakers in Zambézia saw profit increases from 54% to 92% by substituting 38% of wheat flour with orangefleshed sweetpotato puree. As a rule of thumb, the price of wheat flour must be at least 1.5 times greater than the price of fresh sweetpotato roots to consider substituting sweetpotato puree for wheat flour in bread.The challenge in developing any processed product is to ensure continuous supplies of roots to the processor. In countries with two or more sweetpotato growing seasons per year, the continuity of root supply will usually be better than in places with only one main growing season. Although, if farmers all plant and harvest their crop at the same time, there will still be supply continuity problems. Staggered planting and fresh root storage can help to avoid this problem, but processors may need to work with growers on planning of timing and inputs to help ensure they can access the continuous supply they require. In countries with only one major growing season, investments need to be made in fresh root storage or off-season irrigated sweetpotato production. One must always be aware that if fresh root market prices are high, agroprocessors will be less inclined to use sweetpotato roots in their products.Currently, the orange-fleshed sweetpotato products with the most commercial potential being produced in Sub-Saharan Africa are:1. Fried products, such as chips, crisps, chapatis, and doughnuts 2. Baked products, such as breads and biscuits 3. Juice Recipes for these products are provided in the topic, Process and Utilisation. However, it should be remembered that the healthiest way to eat your orange-fleshed sweetpotato is to boil and mash it and add just a teaspoon of oil to increase vitamin A absorption. Deep fat fried products (chips, crisps) are much less healthy than boiled or baked products. When making the juice, the key is to use clean, boiled water.The Zambezia project's experience suggests product training efforts should focus on people already engaged in selling products or in businesses like restaurants that serve products. They are more likely to make the products on a regular basis than farmers, unless the latter are already making chapatis or other products in their households. Women's groups looking for an enterprise may also adopt these products.In Rwanda, the sweetpotato Superfoods project is working with large-scale processors to produce orange-fleshed sweetpotato biscuits and mandazi, and improved packaging.In China there are many commercially sold sweetpotato products, see the topic Process and Utilisation for more examples.1. What are some of the issues with offering processed products? 2. What processed sweetpotato products are currently available in SSA? 3. What are the potential profit-makers in processed sweetpotato products? Sweetpotato biscuits and mandazi being produced in a factory in Rwanda, and nicely packaged sweetpotato products being promoted at a trade fair.By the end of this unit, participants should be able to:  Describe the gender and diversity issues around sweetpotato marketing and entrepreneurship.A thorough discussion of gender and diversity aspects in relation to sweetpotato is presented in the topic, Gender and Diversity Aspects. Key gender and diversity issues relevant to sweetpotato marketing and entrepreneurship include: It is important for development workers to understand who is  typically involved in which aspects of the sweetpotato value chain, as well as what these players do, when and how, and what constraints they typically face. In addition to understanding who does which tasks it is also important to understand who makes the decisions, and who reaps what benefits at each stage of the value chain. A gender sensitive value chain analysis can be a useful tool in building this understanding.  If particular groups of the community (e.g. a particular religious or ethnic groups, poorer people or women) are under-represented in the value chain it is worth probing to find out why this is, and what the constraints to their involvement are. For example, a participatory exercise on the benefits and challenges of women playing the different roles in the sweetpotato value chain could be very enlightening for all involved. The project may be able to develop innovative ways of working which help widen access to the different roles in the value chain.  Attention needs to be paid to postharvest gender roles and how processing may impact on them, including appropriateness of equipment and in what ways the introduction of machines or new products will affect gender roles and income benefits.  The above factors are all relevant for a project in deciding what type of information to share, who to share it with and when. The perceived importance of the sweetpotato value chain crop in the different stakeholders' activities will influence the investment levels in terms of the time and resources that they are prepared to make.  As with all training, attention needs to be given not only to imparting appropriate and practical information to the target beneficiaries, but also to those who make decisions and control access to the raw materials. Timing, duration, location, delivery language, approach and participant composition of training events need to be considered to ensure certain Development workers must understand the roles people play in the sweetpotato value chain, including decision makers and beneficiaries.  If some groups are under-represented, advocates should try to find out why and remedy the cause.  Development workers should be sensitive to male control and involve men in decision making even when they are not directly involved in labour.groups are not unintentionally prevented from accessing training.  In most parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, men are considered the owners of assets such as land and buildings and make decisions regarding their use. It is critical for development workers to be sensitive to male control over resources and ensure that men are consulted about project activities even where they are not directly involved.These learning-by-doing activities will provide hands-on discovery opportunities for participants.Take a research visit to a market with half the group working on fresh root marketing margins and issues and the other half on processed products, find out about characteristics and constraints of each including any gender issues. Back at training centre groups summarise findings into a presentation followed by discussion.Participants will be able to:  Understand the opportunities and challenges in sweetpotato fresh root marketing.  Understand the opportunities and challenges in sweetpotato processed product marketing.  Be aware of how to select an appropriate process product. Organise transport, facilitator should make a pre-visit to the market to find out where the sweetpotato root traders are and whether any sweetpotato processed products are being traded, and if not to look at which processed products the participants could study.1. Spilt the participants into 2 main groups and then into sub-groups of 4 persons each. Each sub-group should have one person assigned to ask the principal questions. All other participants should take notes. One group will be tasked with learning about fresh sweetpotato root marketing, and the other group about processed products. Fresh root group: Brief the 'fresh root group' on the fact that they will be visiting the market and will have 1.5 hours to find out everything they can from small-scale and larger scale sweetpotato traders regards their activities. In the market d) Their view of who the different actors in the value chain are from producers to consumers? e) The typical quantities of sweetpotato that the traders sell each day and week? f) The size of the sack they buy, and the size of the heaps they sell? g) Observe their sales 'place' and style what do you notice about it, is it clean and encouraging to customers, which section of the market is it in, how could it be improved? h) Do they do any 'promotion' of their roots, if so, how? i) Do they sell a range of different varieties, and why or why not? Do they sell other crops or products alongside sweetpotato? j) Do they sort or grade the roots they sell in anyway, if so, in what ways? k) The price that they buy a sack of sweetpotato for, what costs do they then have to pay, what sales income do they earn, what their profits are? l) How they manage risks? m) How their profits from sweetpotato compare to those earned for selling other crops? n) Observe which type of people are selling sweetpotato, e.g. Is it only women or only men, do they also grow sweetpotato, are they typically young or middle aged, or is it a wide range? Why does it tend to be these people? o) What do they know about orange-fleshed sweetpotato? p) What the main problems and constraints they face are (this should include probing on quality aspects of sweetpotato roots as well as other constraints)? q) What information they would like to learn related to sweetpotato trading? r) Ask a few consumers what the main factors are that they use when deciding whether or not to purchase sweetpotato, and which sweetpotato roots to purchase?  Processed product group: Brief the 'processed product group' on the fact that they will be visiting the market, and will need to find out everything they can from traders selling either a sweetpotato processed product (if there are any), or a product that might be able to use sweetpotato as a major ingredient, e.g. bread rolls, mandazi (doughnuts), chapati, juice, chips made with Irish potato or compete with sweetpotato products, e.g. a coconut sugar bar. The group might want to work in pairs and thus be able to cover several products. The group should carry a measuring cup, to help the product makers estimate actual amounts of ingredients used in case they can't remember. Remind them that they should write down what they learn as they will then make a presentation about it to share with the other group. This should include: a) How they got into trading this product, what factors influenced their decisions? b) How do they make their product, step by step, including:i) The amount of each ingredient they use ii) How much they pay for each ingredient and where they buy it from iii) How many units do they make at a time (batch) iv) Whether they hire any labour to help and what that costs v) Any other expenses they may have associated with making the product c) How much they sell the product for and why don't they sell it for a higher price? d) How many customers do they get in a day and how long does it take to sell a batch? How many batches do they make and sell in a week? e) Do they or members of the family eat a part of the batch? f) What do they see as their profit margin per batch? g) Observe their sales 'place' and style what do you notice about it, is it clean and encouraging to customers, which part of the market is it in, how could it be improved? h) Do they do any 'promotion' of their products, if so, how? i) If they sell other products, how their profits from different products compare? j) Observe which type of people are selling these products? E.g. Is it only women or only men, are they typically young or middle aged, or is it a wide range? k) What the main problems and constraints they face are (this should include probing on quality aspects of raw ingredients as well as other constraints)? l) What do they know about orange-fleshed sweetpotato? m) Have they ever considered using any kind of sweetpotato as an ingredient in their product? n) Ask a few of their clients what the main factors are that they use when deciding whether or not to purchase the processed product, and which processed product to purchase? 2. Travel to the market, preferably by foot if it is nearby. 3. Visit the market, the fresh root group and the processed product group will speak with different traders about all the issues listed above as bullets. 4. Return to the training centre. 5. Each group makes a chart comparing what they have learned from different interviews 6. Ask the two groups (fresh root and processed products) to each spend 45 mins discussing what they learnt and preparing a presentation (which could involve role play) about the trading activity they focused on (including gender aspects), which they will share. 7. Presentation. 8. Discussion: Following both the presentations facilitate a discussion on the trading activities observed, differences between fresh root and processed product trading and key characteristics and constraints of each (including gender aspects). Ask the participants to think about how they might involve traders in a sweetpotato project, and what opportunities they saw for improving different aspects of the value chain.Using a farmer case study, participants will work out the profit margins at each stage of the value chain.Participants will know how to calculate marketing margins for fresh root trading.Enough photocopies of the Case Study on Esther (Box 10.3 below) for each person to have a copy.1. In pairs participants are given a written case study describing farmer Esther's costs of producing and marketing sweetpotato roots at each stage of the value chain. Note there are different options described. They need to work out how to present the information in a visual way that they can then use to calculate the costs and profit margins at each stage of the value chain. Highlighting any risks or opportunities they have noticed. 2. Ask each pair to join another pair, and to explain to each other their value chain calculations using the visual diagram they have prepared. 3. In a whole group discussion, ask them to discuss any difficulties they had in interpreting and presenting the case study, any differences between their understanding of the value chain and its costs and profits and that of the pair they joined with, and brilliant ideas they saw or had for presenting the information visually.Role play to get participants to explore marketing issues.Participants will understand the five pillars of marketing 1. In order to explore their existing knowledge of the 5 pillars of marketing, organise a brainstorming followed by group discussion on the key aspects of marketing. 2. Ask for 6 volunteers to create a role play using the orange-fleshed sweetpotato roots to depict a typical market scene with people buying and selling sweetpotato roots. Give them 5 minutes to plan a 5-minute performance. The other participants will be observers. 3. At the end of the role play, ask the participants who were observing to comment on key marketing issues they saw. Note down key observations on a flip chart as the discussion continues. If necessary the facilitator should subtly probe to get the participants to mention aspects related to all the 5 pillars of marketing, and to bring out gender and diversity aspects. 4. The facilitator should then make a presentation about the 5 pillars of marketing, using questions to involve the participants and get them to share their experiences of the different pillars, and the importance of all the pillars.","tokenCount":"11647"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"54dbf90d34fa0b57918845a24c51945e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ac756baa-b6ce-476e-b03f-bad836a34f40/retrieve","id":"-133755870"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8242e73e-5a0d-4360-b349-d923d35b1169","pagecount":"49","content":"This study explores the relationships extension services, formal education and social networks have with egg production in Southern Ethiopia. A cross section survey of 112 farming households was collected and, using a semilog linear production model, a detailed analysis was undertaken to evaluate these relationships. The data suggests social membership has a positive and significant influence on egg production but no discernable association was found between production and extension services. A weak, biased and unsupportive extension service was offered as a possible explanation. Possessing some primary education was also observed to have a positive and significant association with egg yields. Furthermore, the interaction between social members with different levels of education suggests that increasing levels of education have an increasing partial effect on the influence social capital has on egg production. This concurs with theory. Conclusions are that social capital and primary education are important to the productivity of female egg producers in Southern Ethiopia, but extension services are not.Agriculture is considered by many as the \"key driver for mass poverty reduction and rural development for most of the developing world\" (World Bank, 2008). An important feature of the agricultural sector is its ability to directly meet tangible, basic human needs. In Africa, this sector's connection to development is undisputed. For many African economies, agriculture is the largest contributor to the economic base and is typically also its largest employer. This could not be truer for Ethiopia. Ethiopia's agriculture sector employs 80% of its population and contributes the highest share to the country's GDP (CIA, 2009;Dercon, Gilligan, Hoddinott, & Woldehanna, 2006;Belay & Abebaw, 2004).A foundational key to most developing, industrializing economies is an efficient and productive agricultural sector. A crucial economic challenge facing Africa is rooted in this sector's underdevelopment. Its failure was, and continues to be, related to the \"failure to invest in the productivity of its farmers\" (The Hunger Project, 2000). Ethiopia is no exception (CSA, 2008;Getinet, Tesfaye, & Kiflu, 1996). Belay and Abedaw (2004) characterize Ethiopia's agricultural sector as \"virtually small scale, subsistence-oriented and crucially dependent on rainfall\" (i.e. virtually no watershed management) and cite these, along with environmental shocks, fragmented/small plots and a reliance on traditional tools and farming techniques, as major factors in its ongoing fooddeficit over the past 40 years. Characterizing the Ethiopia agriculture sector as largely subsistencelevel farming implies that efficiency and productivity gains may go well beyond simple economics and that opportunities to improve production efficiency of the agriculture sector can mean the difference between life or death for the farming household.The productivity and efficiency of agricultural workers and producers is a key determinant for reducing poverty in rural areas of developing countries (Dao, 2004). Productivity and efficiency gains can be converted into more leisure time and/or larger incomes for rural households. Effective information/knowledge pathways offer opportunities for these gains by facilitating the acquisition of new technical skills, technology and best practices in production. In rural areas, two main pathways exist for adults to acquire new agriculture information -informal education through social networks and through the non-formal, adult education system known as extension. These pathways play a role in linking farmers with knowledge, technology and skills, and each have a place of importance in improving on-farm productivity and efficiency.The importance and value of effective agricultural information pathways to productivity gains has not been lost on the development community. In its quest to reduce poverty, bilateral and multi-lateral economic cooperation agencies contribute substantial resources to capacity building of both rural civil society organizations and agricultural extension systems. In developing countries today, one is hard-pressed to find a grant or loan project that does not include, in one form or another, emphasis on agriculture extension capacity building or NGO/civil society development.One of these projects is the Improving Productivity and Market Success (IPMS) for Ethiopian Farmers Project, a Canadian funded development assistance initiative working to support the efforts of the Ethiopian Government to build a stronger, more efficient agricultural sector. The long term goal of the project is \"to contribute to improved agricultural productivity and production through market-oriented agricultural development, as a means for achieving improved and sustainable livelihoods for the rural population\" (IPMS Project, 2008). The sample for this research was drawn from a group of poultry producers that indirectly or directly benefitted from the work of IPMS.With the aid community and local governments devoting a great deal of attention to efficient and productive knowledge transfer in their efforts to support development of the agricultural sector and rural areas, it is important that we have a clear understanding of what specific bottlenecks restrict these information flows. In many rural areas, particularly in developing countries, farming households suffer from a knowledge deficit. Extension services can be systemically problematicunder-resourced, driven by political agendas and susceptible to cultural and gender biases -its presence can lead to further marginalization and greater income gaps for those that most need this type of support. It is under these circumstances that, perhaps, social networks and social connectedness may offer a viable alternative for technical information flows between farmers. Thus, an interesting question would be:Is social capital more important than human capital as a determinant of egg yields amongst female egg producers in Southern Ethiopia?Using a semi-log, multiple linear regression model and data collected through a cross section survey of egg producers, I compare the effects social networks, formal education and extension services have on egg production. I also test the inter-relationships between extension services, social capital and formal education.The objective of this research is to contribute to the growing body of knowledge regarding the determinants of agriculture productivity -particularly those factors that might bring greater efficiency to subsistence farming. This research will also serve as feedback to the IPMS Project on the specific determinants of egg productivity in Dale Woreda of Southern Ethiopia. At the time this data was collected, the project had completed the first cycle (of three) designed to improve the supply chain for \"exotic\" breeds (in this case, the Brown Bovan breed of egg layers) within the region. The intent is to bring greater productivity to Dale's egg producers. For successive cycles to be effective, it is important for project implementers to have a clear understanding of what factors are most influential in egg productivity in this region. Leveraging this knowledge will contribute to improving the impact this important initiative has to farming households in Dale Woreda.This review covers the relevant literature on information pathways through social networks, formal education and agriculture extension in five sections. The first introduces the notion that the quality and quantity of information pathways are drivers of development. The second and third sections look more closely at theoretical and empirical evidence relating human capital accumulation and social capital accumulation to productivity gains. The fourth examines the relationship formal education has with both extension services and social networks. The last section provides a brief discussion of productivity measures and gender as they relate to the scope of this study.The information highway is a common, contemporary term used to describe the movement of information via the internet. It is not, however, the only information highway. Information has been flowing through more traditional channels for ages -through a range of education systems, social interactions, business relationships and the arts.Pathways for information flows between the sender and receiver are fundamental to human growth and development -socially, economically and intellectually. The number of available information pathways for this transfer to occur is important for accessibility. Equally, if not more important, is the quality of those pathways that move information about. Cotlear (1990) describes three categories of education (or pathways for knowledge transfer)-formal, non-formal and informal. Formal education refers to what is commonly known as schooling or classroom education. Non-formal or vocational education covers transfers of specific knowledge and/or skills (i.e. agriculture extension). Informal education is said to mainly shape beliefs, attitudes and habits through peer exchange. This study addresses all three forms of these information pathways.Cotlear (1990) characterizes non-formal education as a means to \"impart specific information about innovations or sound practices\". For the purposes of this study, non-formal education herein refers exclusively to agricultural extension.In its simplest form, agriculture extension is a mechanism of \"two-way exchange of information that is meant to \"…reduce the differential between potential and actual yields in farmers' fields by accelerating technology transfer [i.e. reduce the technology gap] and helping farmers become better farm managers [i.e. reduce the management gap]\" (Belay & Abebaw, 2004).Extension agents are typically trained professional adult educators that often serve as a communication \"hub\". They also act as a coordinator, communicator, educator and translator;connecting rural communities to government, NGOs, credit mechanisms, and other related services.Extension is delivered in a variety of ways -demonstrations, field days, seminars, workshops, radioshows, publications and one-on-one counseling -but the goal is always the same: transfer important technical information and technology to the producer/farmer.There is ample evidence that extension offers valuable gains to farmers' productivity through improving access to technical knowledge and new skills. The system has also been shown to be an effective determinant of new technology adoption (Birkhaeuser, Evenson, & Feder, 1991). The productivity returns from public spending on research and extension for the agricultural sector have been found to be as high as 88% (Ali, 2000). Given these statistics, the extension system is viewed as an important mechanism for economic change in rural areas, and there is little dispute that it is valued and, for the most part, effective. For these reasons, extension is a popular poverty reduction tool for aid programs targeting agricultural and rural areas (Prowse & Chimhowu, 2007).Agriculture extension, however, is not without its shortcomings. A common failing is a \"one size fits all\" approach to technology and technical skills transfer. The problem with this approach is that it does not take into account differences in farming capabilities, gender, levels of education, and/or experience amongst farmers/producers.In developing countries, where the system is often under-resourced, extension typically caters to the middle-income farmer. In many of these countries, middle to high income malemanaged farms -in some cases, representing less than 20% of the population (Hoang, Castella, & Novosad, 2006) -are intentionally or unintentionally targeted by the extension agent. This is the path of least resistance to an extension agent, whose time is at a premium. The prevalence of this method of selecting clients has been attributed to the extension agent's lack of knowledge and skills to support poorer, less educated, marginalized clients. Moreover, an extension agent's performance is typically tied to the performance of their farmers, a clear disincentive to support poor, less educated, or marginalized farmers.Formal education has been methodically studied regarding its relationship to labor productivity and efficiency (Weir, 1999;Alene & Manyong, 2007;Cotlear, 1990;Lin, 1997). It is widely believed that education increases farm output and productivity in two important ways. The first is that with an improved general learning and knowledge base, technical and allocative inefficiencies in production will be reduced. The second is that attitudes acquired in school encourage the adoption of new technologies, which can lead to an outward shift in the production frontier.Empirical results from the agriculture sector, however, are mixed. Studies show support for positive, neutral, and even negative returns to education for the sector (Asadullah, 2005). This anomaly flies in the face of prevailing growth theories and common intuition. Formal education or schooling is thought to provide people with non-cognitive and cognitive, general and specific skills and proficiencies that improve work productivity.Although difficult to elucidate, the sketchy and inconsistent evidence relating productivity to formal education is reconciled with the notion that perhaps returns to education in rural settings are context-dependent with technology and modernization being the determining feature. That is, those areas with higher rates of modernization and/or increased levels of technology tend to have greater returns to schooling and formal education (Asadullah, 200;Lockheed, Jamison, & Lau, 1980;Alene & Manyong, 2007;Weir, 1999).In Ethiopia, the research is less clear. Traditional and antiquated farming techniques are widespread across rural Ethiopia -particularly amongst small, subsistence farmers -where school enrollment is low. Despite these enrollment figures, Weir (1999) found that there are substantial private returns to education in terms of farmer productivity. Resolving some of this apparent inconsistency with other research, she did identify a threshold effect -four years of primary schooling -with the observed data indicating a significant positive effect on productivity only after a base level of schooling was reached. After this threshold is reached, however, increasing levels of education offered no further gains to productivity. Others have supported this same threshold in their own research (Lockheed, Jamison, & Lau, 1980). Moreover, in more recent studies, Weir suggests that the uniqueness of the Ethiopian context -one of unpredictability over a wide range of environmental, political, and economic variables -and that these features, rather than innovation, may be what determines a positive relationship between education and productivity. This argument, however, has yet to be empirically proven.In her 2000 study, Weir augmented her earlier work and suggested that education does influence the timing of adoption of new technology (fertilizer). Further she found that more educated farmers are better \"copiers\" of users of technology (i.e. through social networks, neighbors, etc.). Other research lends support to this notion (Alene & Manyong, 2007) .In her most recent work, Weir investigates the external benefits schooling has on productivity and efficiency -again reinforcing this argument that schooling is an important change agent for rural communities. She identifies technology adoption and innovation as the source of externalities to schooling (Weir & Knight, 2006).The concept of social capital and its influence on productivity is a relatively new field in the study of economics and sociology. The idea that social relations can impact our rational individual behavior was not considered a part of the \"economic equation\" until about 22 years ago with the work of the University of Chicago based economists James Coleman. Coleman (1988) is one of the first to popularize the term \"social capital\" which he defines as the embodiment of \"relations amongst people\" for the purposes of \"productive activity\". He also centers on the idea that this \"productive activity\" is really information exchange using \"social relations that are maintained for other purposes\" (Coleman, 1988). Dinda (2008) offers a more general definition, calling social capital \"a broad term containing the social networks and norms that generate shared understandings, trust and reciprocity, which underpin cooperation and collective action for mutual benefits, and creates the basis for economic prosperity\".The properties of social capital are quite distinct from physical and human capital. Unlike physical capital but similar to human capital, social capital accumulates from its use (Chou, 2006) -the more we use it, the more social capital we accumulate. Social capital is also uniquely dependent on relations between two people and, as such, there are externalities associated with it (with both positive and negative possibilities).There is no question that, at a macro-economic level, social capital and evidence of its abundance are associated with positive economic growth. Utilizing a newly developed model that incorporates social capital accumulation into the standard Cobb-Douglas production function and applying it to a dataset of 63 countries, Dinda (2008) concludes that social capital does have an important association with incomes and growth rates. Dinda's view, however, is that social capital indirectly affects aggregate productivity through its relationship with human capital formation, more specifically formal education.At the microeconomic level, studies have demonstrated a positive and significant relationship between social capital and business ownership amongst Brazilian immigrants (Siqueira, 2007), self-employment earnings amongst Canadian microfinance borrowers (Gomez & Santor, 2007) and crop production in Ethiopia (Pender & Gebremedhin, 2007).Social capital may manifest its influence on productivity in a number of different ways. Hoang, Castella, & Novosad (2006) suggest that productivity gains amongst rice farmers in Vietnam rely on social capital as an alternate information pathway for the exchange of technical and production information. Pender and Gebremedhin (2007) suggest and prove that social capital offers improvement in land management through better access to information and technologies.Others suggest that social capital may be a mechanism for enhancing the utilization of human and physical capital that can lead to increases in productivity (Chou, 2006). Lastly and more recently, social capital has been found to be an unconventional form of collateral, resolving asymmetric information issues that are associated with extending credit to the poor.For this paper, I utilize Chou's (2006) definition of micro social capital, that is, the mutual benefits derived from bonds between individuals that can have both positive and negative externalities.There is evidence that the direct, internal impact of formal education has spillover effects.For example, there is evidence that higher educated farmers offer productivity gains for their uneducated neighbors based on proximity alone (Weir & Knight, 2006;Foster & Roenzweig, 1995).This suggests an important relationship between formal education and the efficiency of information movement through agriculture extension and social networks. In the context of this present research, formal education externalities may, therefore, act as mechanisms for enhancing the respective efficiencies and effectiveness of information flows through social networks and extension.Theory, backed by solid research, posits that formal education serves to enhance social capital formation and, later in life, this capacity to form quality social connections may offer alternative and valuable pathways for information flows. Rupasingha et al (2006) found that more educated individuals better recognize the value of social capital; both its private and public returns.They go on to suggest that going to school \"promotes social interaction, networking and social responsibility among individuals and produces generally more informed individuals\" (Rupasingha, Goetz, & Freshwater, 2006). Many support the notion of Dinda (2008); that the relationship between social capital formation and human capital formation is reciprocal and mutually reinforcing.That is, staying in school improves the depth and quality of social capital later on in life while, at the same time, social capital improves the chances of staying in school.Intuitively, it seems reasonable to expect that farmers with higher levels of formal education will have an easier time understanding technical information and skills being delivered through nonformal education channels later on in life (i.e. agriculture extension). Jamison and Lau's (1982) review of 16 separate studies evaluates the relationship between education, extension and productivity, and they found that, for half of the studies, \"extension was significantly and positively related to productivity\" but for the other half, \"there was no significance\". They also presented conflicting findings within their study that indicated a negative and significant relationship. In all cases, however, the interaction between education and extension services was found to be insignificant in its influence on production.Understanding this relationship can have important policy implications. These include better understanding how and when extension is most effective. It also serves to re-emphasize the important relationship different forms of education have with one another.Exploiting the positive externality properties of social networks for efficiency gains in agriculture extension has been the subject of much applied research. The integration of the \"contact farmer\" as a mechanism of extension delivery is a case in point (Hoang, Castella, & Novosad, 2006). Contact farmers are selected on the basis of their social position or status within the community. The principle is that, leveraging this status, these farmers would receive technical information from the extension agent and then disseminate this information through social channels to other neighboring farmers, including the marginalized poor (Saito, 1991). This assumption, however, has proven to be contextual. Social and cultural stigmas (particularly gender biases) coupled with inappropriate or unattainable technical skills and technology constrain information flows between farmers (Saito, 1991;Hoang, Castella, & Novosad, 2006). This is a case of negative externality and the consequence is that the use of select contact farmers by the extension system may actually prove to further marginalize the poor and needy.In order to draw out the positive externalities of the \"contact farmer\", it is important that these systemic biases be removed. As such, if the extension services were to target a wider range of contact farmer types, creating information channels for more groups of \"like-people\", it is possible that this could lead to a more effective system. Lack of resources in many developing countries limits this possibility.Formal education, extension services and social capital are temporally distinct from one another. Formal education, for this research, is considered to be a part of the past. That is, most if not all of the poultry managers no longer attend school. The influence information flows from schooling have on production, therefore, are derived from the efficiency and effectiveness of past flows and the ability of the individual to draw on this knowledge now. Information that flows through extension services and social capital, on the other hand, could be considered more \"current\" with regards to their influences on production outcomes (i.e. the application of either and their consequent outcomes on productivity are closer together in time than for formal education).In the context of this study, therefore, formal education is considered a \"base\" for the other two forms of information flow. This is not to say education is not important to productivity in its own right, but that its influence on production may also be exerted indirectly through its relationship with extension and social capital.Productivity or production efficiency is the product of technical and allocative efficiencies.Technical efficiencies are measured by how well the producer manages inputs in order to maximize outputs. Allocative efficiency is a measure of the producers' \"ability to choose optimal input levels for a given factor price\" (Alene & Hassan, 2008). For the purposes of this study, changes in total overall productivity, as measured by production yields, will be treated as one (Belay & Abebaw, 2004).The data for this study is drawn primarily from interviews with women (81%) -usually the female spouse within the family constellation -who are typically designated poultry manager within the household. Productivity gains, therefore, have particular importance in this context.People have a finite amount of time for work, family, and leisure. In many countries, nonincome generating, but equally important, household duties are deemed exclusively women's work.The demands of these duties are exacerbated by lack of infrastructure and limited access to labor saving devices. As such, any gain in terms of efficiency or productivity in women's farm or nonfarm work would bring about improvements in their lives overall.Advances in farming offer the potential for such improvements.Accessing and using appropriate and cost-effective technology and farming technical skills could lead to greater efficiency, offering opportunities to earn more income or more leisure time. The problem is that most women, given their status in many societies, including Ethiopia, are often marginalized by the formal and non-formal education systems.The success of microfinance programs amongst women groups (Wydick, 2008) provides evidence that social capital may have a significant important influence in their adult lives.Dale Woreda is one of ten woredas that make up the Southern Nation's, Nationalities and People's Region (SNNPR) of southern Ethiopia. Comprised of an area of 1400 square kilometers, the woreda is divided up into 77 geo-political Peasant Areas (PAs -the equivalent of a municipality or district). The population of Dale is close to 450,000 people divided nearly equally in half between women (51%) and men (49%). There are three main categories of land: the largest of which is arable, cultivatable land (81%), followed by unproductive land (15%) and forested areas (2.7%). The backbone of the woreda's economy is agriculture.There are two principle systems of agriculture production in Dale. The first is a combined livestock, coffee, and enset (a local grain) production, located in the hilly regions of the woreda. The second is a combined livestock and haricot bean production system found in flatter regions. These two systems are split roughly, east-west, by a major road that bisects the length of the woreda.Throughout the woreda, backyard egg production is a common, well understood, but very informal form of production. Most flocks are composed of the local breed of chicken whose genetic mix is unknown due to generations of inbreeding and cross breeding.A Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) conducted by IPMS revealed that there were significant gaps in the supply of exotic pullets (egg-type hens that are less than one year old) in Dale.Principal amongst these was that demand seemed to be outstripping available supply for high-yield 1. Introduce a high-yield breed of egg layers to Dale Woreda in an effort to improve the supply of these types of pullets.2. Strengthen the capacity of private poultry producers to raise chicks to egg-laying age.3. Enhance overall poultry production in Dale Woreda.The 80 women raised the chicks over a period of 5 months. At the end of this period, the women either: It is from these groups of pullet, egg producers and food security participants that the sample was drawn for this research.The analytical framework selected for this research is a reduced form linear model based on the adapted human capital earnings model used by Gomez and Santor (2007). The model makes use of a mix of level and log-transformed explanatory variables.The model to be estimated is as follows:Qi= β0+ β1extseri + β2educi + β3socneti + β4interactioni + β5 Zi + ui with Q i representing egg yields per household, per week, per hen for observation i;  0 is a constant (intercept);  1 is the scale coefficient on the extension service dummy of observation i;  2 is the scale coefficient for education levels of observation i;  3 is the scale coefficient for social membership of observation i;  4 is the scale coefficient for interaction between the three different explanatory variables of interest; and  5 is a scale coefficient for a vector of control variables for observation i.Egg yield data was measured using recollection of egg yields by the poultry manager. Poultry mangers were asked to provide yield data at three different points in the past. In the data cleaning process, the selection rule was \"the later the better\" when assembling yield data. That is, the most recent data was used but if no data was available for that period, the next earliest was used.In this study, social network and social connectedness is measured by membership in noncommercial (i.e. non-profit) community organizations and sector associations. This network and the degree and depth of the poultry manager's involvement will serve as a proxy for their level of social capital. The premise is that the more involved the poultry manger is in their community organizations, the more social capital they would possess.Respondents were questioned about the depth and breadth of social organizations they belonged to and participated in. Seven different types of organizations were listed on the survey; association, marketing cooperative, peasant association council, savings club, burial society (idir), religious group or church and women's associations/groups. Respondents were asked whether they were a member or leader of the organization and how frequently they participated in the activities of that organization. Three dummy categories were created: Social Leaders (soclea), Social Member/Regular (socmem) that participated regularly in activities and Social Member/Non-regular that did not participate regularly in organization activities (socnrm).In addition to these dummies, a cumulative, weighted index of social connectedness was also employed (a similar index was used by Kaske (2007)). The index was constructed using a point system. A leadership role in a social group earned the manager two points vs. being a regular member which earned only one point. Similarly, attending regular meetings was given more weight (two points) than attending less than regularly (one point).Respondents were questioned about the level of extension services they received. This is a dummy variable that indicates whether they received extension services (extser=1) or not (extser=0).Using the work of Saito Mekonnen & Sperling (1994) as a guide, and giving due consideration to the objective of this research, the following control variables were included in this analysis:Education (educd/edprim, edsec, edpostsec) was measured as an ordinal variable with four different categories representing illiteracy/no education, primary education, secondary education and postsecondary education. Individuals fell into one of these four groups based on their response.Household wealth (lwealth) is a cumulative total of select assets, including land, crops, home style/type and a range of farm and household assets. The value of these assets was based on estimations provided by the supervising enumerator (in birr).HH Income (linc) -Respondents supplied income information. To aid in the accurate recollection of income, a list of possible income sources was used by the enumerator to sub-divide income into more easily manageable pieces.Family size of household (famsize) was a measure the number of people living on the property at the time of the survey.Household Flock size (lflocksz) was the measure of total number of birds per household.Bird ratio (brdratio) is the ratio of flock composition between local breeds and the Brown Bovan breed; 0=all local breed, 1=all Brown Bovan breed Poultry Experience (pouexp) is a control variable that measures, in years, the poultry experience of the poultry manager. This experience is also meant to act as a proxy to a variety of physical input variables including feeding, watering and general care and husbandry of the birds. Input data (i.e.general feeding practices, water practices, etc.) that was collected was decidedly homogenous across the observations due in part to the line of questioning that was used but also due to the informal nature of backyard egg production (i.e. everyone consistently watered their chickens every day).More concrete specifics on input data were beyond the scope of this research.GROUP 1 -Pullet Producers (pull)GROUP 2 -Egg Producers (eggpro) GROUP 3 -Food Security Group (Default)Utilizing the above model as a framework, the following hypotheses will be evaluated:Hypothesis 1: Social networks are of greater importance to egg production in Ethiopia than extension services or formal education.H 0 : There is no difference in the influence of social capital, education and extension services on productivity amongst poultry managers.H 0 :H 1 : Social capital has a greater importance to productivity amongst poultry managers.H 1 : β 3 ＞ β 1, β2 .Hypothesis 2: If theory is correct and there is a reciprocal and mutually reinforcing relationship between education and social capital, and one serves to enhance the other, a test of whether there is a partial effect of the interaction between education and social networks would reveal whether or not this association is, in turn, associated with variation in productivity. That is, the quality of the information pathways, trust and reciprocity that is embodied in social networks would have a greater influence on productivity amongst the more educated.Similarly, given the applied theory that is captured in the concept o the \"contact farmers\" in extension delivery, the relationship between social networks and extension services will also be tested. The expectation is that the association will be positive.Lastly, theory and other empirical work suggest that formal education enhances the effectiveness of extension services. As such, it is expected that the partial effect succeeding levels of education have on the effectiveness of extension delivery (as evidenced by egg yields) will be positive.A second hypothesis, therefore, is: Qi= β0+ β1extseri + β2educi + β3socneti + β4interactioni + β5 Zi a + ui H 0 : The interaction between the three measures of social capital and human capital do not have a partial effect on egg yields. Cross section household data was collected using a survey. The survey instrument was composed of two sections. The first section assessed the Brown Bovan pullet production and information collected from this section was not used in this study. The second, longer section of the survey was designed to collect data on egg production along with basic household characteristics including composition, age, income, and resource endowments. Egg production data included yields, flock size, breeds used, and some of the different practices used by the producers in egg production. Lastly, the survey asked questions related to household time distribution and technical support from extension services. This second survey section was the source of data for this research.A survey sample was generated from the following three different groups: Group 1a: 40 women randomly selected from a group of 80 that received the pullet production packages.Group 1b: 20 women were selected from a group of 47 women who wanted to participate in the pullet production initiative but were not selected to do so.Group 2a: 54 poultry producers randomly selected from a group of 112 that purchased nine or fewer Brown Bovan pullets for egg production from Group 1.Group 2b: 46 poultry producers (the entire population) that purchased 10 or more Brown Bovan pullets for egg production from Group 1.Group 3: 40 randomly selected recipients of benefits under the Ethiopian Government's Food Security Program. The sample was drawn from the 274 food-insecure households that each received 2 Brown Bovan pullets.A random number generator was used to select which households would be surveyed from the total \"population\" of the three different groups of households. In cases where the selected household was impossible to locate (for the most part, due to poor record keeping of addresses), the next randomly selected household was surveyed.The survey was administered through interviews conducted by eight enumerators and one supervisor. The length of each interview ranged from 15 minutes to 2.5 hours depending on the individual's responses. Most interviews were conducted in the Amharic language. There are, however, several different dialects in Dale so, in some cases, a local translator was needed. Each survey was collected from the enumerators, reviewed, and if required, corrected/revised through repeat visits when possible.A total of 200 surveys were collected from households across Dale Woreda, drawing from a mix of both urban and rural regions. Of the 200 surveys, 112 surveys, with non-missing yield and poultry manager characteristic data, were used in this final analysis.Table 1 summarizes the dependent and independent variables for this sample. To summarize, the average poultry manager is female, 34 years old with some primary education, has 13 years of poultry experience, lives with four other people under the same roof, and has a total household annual income averaging 28,000 birr (US$2154). The average flock size per household was approximately 5 birds, half of which are Brown Bovan, generating just over 4 eggs per week per bird. Note that the mean/median differential is small suggesting a fairly normal distribution for each of the different variables. Wealth, income and flock size were log transformed generating a relatively normal distribution as compared to their highly skewed (rightward) level forms. All this suggests that MLR.1 holds and a linear regression model is appropriate for analysis.The composition of the sample is also worthy of comment -particularly the fact that a majority of the sample are female egg producers, most of whom have some primary education and are regular members of social groups and associations.Table 2 provides summary statistics for observations from each of the three different groups that were sampled. The groups appear to be quite similar to one another; particularly in age and family size. As would be expected, considerable differences exist between the groups in flock size and bird ratio.Table 3 provides OLS estimations of the model using robust standard errors for the sample data. Consistently, all estimations suggest that extension services have no impact on mean egg yields for this sample -while the coefficient is of the expected sign, it lacks any statistical significance.As mentioned, one of the primary challenges of agriculture extension in Ethiopia is its susceptibility to cultural, religious and gender biases. The system is male-centric and this, coupled with an already patriarchal society, might explain this lack of influence the system has on female poultry managers.More generally, overall weaknesses in Ethiopia's extension system may limit its influence on egg productivity. Ousman (2007), in his thesis on the effectiveness of extension services in a neighboring woreda, supports this notion, citing large gaps in matching the content of training to the identified needs of poultry farmers. He places the blame on the lack of a participatory needs assessment, a top down management approach of extension delivery, shallow yet largely passive training with little monitoring, and the lack of evaluation process of the activities of the extension agents. Most farmers reported little or no improvement in yields as a result of their participation in extension training events. Belay and Abebaw (2004), in their study of 85 extension workers in Ethiopia, back this up and found that extension services were truly non-participatory in nature in Ethiopia, citing weaknesses in practical skills of the extension agent (specifically, their communication skills and technical knowledge) and a tendency for extension agents to ignore or give little consideration to farmers' knowledge and experiences. They also found the extension agents to be selective, focusing only on the more sophisticated and successful, male-run farms.Reciprocally, it may be that even if the extension system was effective, poultry production, by its very informal nature, may not be responsive to information provided through this system.Backyard egg production in Ethiopia follows very traditional methods and, consequently, education, either formal or non-formal, may have little influence on productivity. This offers some support for the theory introduced in the literature review that suggests that a modernizing or innovative context is important to the influences education, including extension, have on productivity.Note, however, that these conclusions may also be due to the lack of power from this sample size to generate enough variation in egg yields to be able to measure a true effect from the influence of extension. Using the power calculation, the minimum detectable effect to achieve 80% power at the 5% significance level for this sample would require a coefficient value on extension services greater than 0.8624 (estimation=0.342). That is, to reject the null that extension services have no influence on egg productivity at 80% power requires a coefficient on extension to be at least 0.8624.Comparing egg yields between those with some education (regardless of level) and those with none suggest that education has little association with egg yields and productivity.Disentangling the variable through the use of education level dummies for primary, secondary and post-secondary education, offered an opportunity for deeper analysis. The results suggest that, while there is no statistically verifiable association between poultry managers with some secondary or postsecondary education and egg yields, there appears to be a positive and significant association for those with primary education.This corroborates with current theory and literature. Moreover, this finding lends some support to this concept of a primary education threshold in agriculture productivity that was introduced in the literature review. That is, egg production, by its traditional nature, does not offer any returns to education once the most basic education requirements are met.The data suggests that the dummy term \"social member/regular\" have an economically positive, statistically significant relationship with egg productivity. Setting endogeneity aside for the moment and given the deficiencies of Ethiopia's agriculture extension services outlined above, one explanation might be that social networks may default as the information pathway of choice for technical information related to egg production. Kaske (2007), in his examination of technical information networks for 160 farming women living in Dale woreda, found that the women ranked neighbors/friends and other farmers as their first and second most important sources of agriculture information respectively. Development agents were ranked third while the woreda district extension officer was ranked fourth. Accounting for both proximity and perceived value, he found that, in terms of credibility, \"other farmers\" were considered the information source of choice amongst the 160 women.Greater access to technical information through social relations can translate into improvements and adoption of best practices in flock management and animal husbandry. Social capital can also offer greater opportunities for sharing of responsibilities and duties amongst producers. In other words, even though there may be little support to poultry managers through conventional education channels (i.e. extension), informal, social channels may compensate for this by providing an alternative pathway through which technical information and support can flow.Without any qualitative data regarding the nature of the relationships forged through the different social networks of the poultry managers, however, it is difficult to identify what specific social force might be at play -i.e. technical information exchange, trust and reciprocity in chicken rearing or other elements of social connectedness that influences productivity. Kaske (2007) demonstrates, however, that social participation is a positive and significant influence on the level of dairy technical knowledge amongst the farming women he studied. This offers some credibility to the claim being made here -that social networks facilitate information flows.The number of groups a poultry manager belongs to may be a proxy for the degree of their social connectedness. This may have implications on egg production. To test this, three additional estimations were generated -one for each category of social membership i.e. social leader, social member/regular and social member/non-regular. These estimations included \"number of groups\" that poultry managers belonged to as an additional regressor. The results indicate that there are no within group differences in mean yields when number of groups is included in the model. That is, by deduction, it can be posited that it is not necessarily the number of groups one belongs to that is important, but rather it is the quality of the individual associations that is the determining influence on egg yields.Returning to the endogeneity issue, education and age offer some control for endogeneity of social networks. It is still likely, though, that relevant variables that are associated with both social capital and egg yields have been omitted from the model because they were unobserved or unobservable. As such, it is difficult to say with any certainty which direction this influence runsthat is, are higher egg yields associated with greater social capital or is greater social capital associated with higher yields? Regardless, a connection exists and further study to determine the nature of this connection is warranted.Responding to the hypothesis -which is more effective, social membership or extension services -the data suggests that social networks are more important simply because social member/regular have such a strong association with egg production while extension services do not.The discussion above serves as support for this conclusion.It is difficult to conclude, however, which is more important -social networks or formal education. The coefficients on primary education and social member/regular are both positive and significant (at the 5% level). The difference in value of each coefficient is marginal -with social member have a slightly larger value than primary education. A larger sample size with more comprehensive control inputs could alter any conclusions drawn from this current estimation and, as such, it is difficult to conclusively suggest that one is more important than the other.Theory implies that with more formal education, the effectiveness of the poultry manager to form useful and mutually beneficial social bonds (and the various positive benefits derived from these bonds) will be enhanced. To test this theory, an interaction term was added to the model to estimate any partial effects education has on the influence between social networks and egg yields.Estimations of this revised model are summarized below: Two trends emerged from these estimations. The first is that, for the social member/regular, the partial effect succeeding levels of education have on egg yields increases. That is, being a social member with higher levels of education is associated with increasingly higher levels of egg yields. This concurs with theory and empirics. To reiterate, education offers opportunities for information flow and knowledge transfer but attending school also contributes to socialization.The social skills we develop from interacting with others at school are utilized throughout our life.It stands to reason and theory that the more education we have, the more finely tuned our social skills will be and the more benefits we may garner from these skills.The second trend, for social leaders, is opposite and contrary to theory. The partial effect on egg yields of increasing levels of education decreases for the social leader. It must be acknowledged that this effect may be an artifact of the data (the same could be said for the positive trend of social members discussed above). If a relevant variable is missing from the specification, it would lead to biases of the coefficients and spurious conclusions.If the interaction coefficients are, however, unbiased and efficient, it may that education has no partial effect for this level of social membership. Social leader are typically the most productive (i.e. causality is reversed). As such, the inter-relationship between education and social networks may fail to show any conclusive and consistent results simply because the relationship to egg yields is less dependent on these variables and, perhaps, more dependent on other unobserved or unobservable variables. Support for this is the fact that the data failed to show any significant relationship between social leaders and egg yields.The weakness of the extension service coefficient is likely the reason why no significant results (Table 5) were obtained when estimating the influence the combination of social networks and extension have on egg yields. The estimations lack any significance, joint or otherwise, and no conclusions can be drawn based on these results.Similarly, very weak estimations that include an interaction variable between formal education and extension services (Table 6) prohibit any concrete conclusions regarding the partial effects education may have on egg yields through extension services.The sample likely suffers from endogeneity -particularly amongst the key explanatory variables of interest. It is difficult, therefore, to empirically establish/confirm causality between these variables and egg yields. A 2SLS estimation was generated to evaluate endogeneity of extension services using the instrument \"distance to highway\". \"Distance from highway\" is the distance the household sits from a major, sealed road/highway. The results are presented in Table 7.The selection of this variable was based on the notion that it is both exogenous and relevant. That is, the level of extension services would be negatively associated with the distance the farm/household sits from the highway while having no effect on egg yields and no association with any omitted variable (i.e. Cov (extser, u)0; Cov(dishwy, u)0 and Cov(extser, dishwy)0).Unfortunately, these conditions did not hold for this estimation. Distance from the highway was found to be negatively and significantly associated with mean egg yields while having no significant association with extension services. It was, therefore, discarded as an instrument.One suggested explanation for its association with egg yields is that the further the household/farm sits from a major highway the less incentive there might be to produce more eggs to sell at the market (the coefficient was negative and significant when included in the original model). For most of the households surveyed, egg production was split between those consumed in-house and those sold at the market so this influence would diminish with increasing family size. Pender and Gebrenedhin (2007) found that this association was ambiguous in terms of crop production. In any case, the distance from highway variable improved the fit of the model (increased adjusted R-squared) and it was added as an independent variable to the final regression.Chicken breed, representing technology differences, is strongly associated with egg yields in this sample -with the OLS regression rendering a coefficient that is positive and highly significant.The Brown Bovan breed was associated with an average of 2.06 more eggs (49% of mean yield).This significance may be attributed to other factors and not just a more productive breed. These influential factors include differences in clutch cycles between local and Brown Bovan breeds and temporal differences in the data sources for yields (see Measurement Errors).As described in the introduction, the sample was drawn from three different sources of poultry producers. That is, Group 1 is composed of pullet producers, Group 2 is composed of egg producers and Group 3 is made up of Food Security Recipients. The estimations reveal a significant, positive and economically important association between the egg producer group and mean egg yields. On average, egg producers are associated with 1.2 more eggs (29% of mean egg yield) as compared to the food security group. Belonging to the pullet producer group offers a statistically insignificant 0.78 more eggs over food security participants.These results are expected. The poultry managers voluntarily bought Brown Bovan chickens for egg production. This suggests that they are both early adopters (a sign of production proficiency) and committed egg producers. Interestingly, there is no remarkable correlation between the number of years of poultry experience and belonging to the egg producers group.One possible source of unobserved variation may be the ability to accurately recollect actual egg yields by the poultry managers. This could lead to biased and inefficient coefficients (See Figure 1) caused by individual differences in memory capacity. Another problem is that hens do not lay eggs continuously throughout the year. They lay in 2-5 clutches per year, each clutch lasting approximately 26 days (Mekonnen, 2006). Using Mekonnen's data and assuming a clutch occurs throughout the month, an approximation of average per week egg yields is 4.01 eggs per hen. This is similar to the yields observed under this study (4.16). Two procedural changes to the methods could, however, bring greater precision to the estimations presented in this study. One is to conduct a physical count of yield over a sufficiently long period to accurately estimate egg production per week per bird. Alternatively, increasing the sample size would smooth this variation. Both were not feasible given time and budgetary constraints.There is reason to believe that omitted and relevant variables may be the source of bias and inefficiency in the data. Collection of specific and exact physical input data was unfeasible. A review of other studies indicates that these variables might be important independent variables when evaluating productivity (Jamison & Lau, 1982). As mentioned in the description of variables, this was beyond the scope of this research.Selecting specific groups for the cross sectional survey limits the external validity and, thereby, the interpretation of the data from this research.This study set out to evaluate the different influences social network, formal education and extension services may have on egg production in Dale region of Southern Ethiopia. Estimations suggest primary education and social membership are more important determinants of egg yields than extension services. The inter-relationships between formal education and social membership were also found to be important and, in terms of the benefits (i.e. egg yields) derived from social membership, more education is better.Based on these results, the following conclusions were made:1. Extension service in Dale cannot or do not cater to egg production.2. Social channels may duplicate the function of extension services by minimizing weaknesses (biases, approaches) found in Ethiopia's extension system and offering a viable alternative for information exchange and support in egg production.3. Basic education is important to egg production for Dale's poultry managers but, beyond this level (i.e. secondary education or higher), there are no further direct gains to productivity.Higher levels of education, however, appear to improve the production benefits derived from social connections.The non-randomness of the data, small sample size and endogeneity impose constraints on the conclusions drawn here and the degree to which any policy recommendations can be made. For the IPMS Project and Dale Woreda's OoARD, however, this study offers some insight into how better to support egg producers in this region.Two recommendations are offered. The first is that Dale's extension services should consider leveraging this strong association between social capital and egg production to support productivity and efficiency improvements of female poultry managers in Dale. The second is that formal education is important at all levels of production and should always remain a priority.Further study that considers both changes in technology and social networks as they relate to education, both formal and non-formal, in Dale Woreda is recommended. Moreover, future study/initiatives on egg productivity should focus on the \"egg producer\" group. They tend to be the most proficient in production and are, generally, the early adopters of new technology.     ","tokenCount":"8564"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d62f193dcd0518f3b52e769da1d9b1bc","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/47eca965-db34-45d0-a044-daf0ac74afb3/retrieve","id":"1988295020"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"53bb836b-6fe9-493e-9ca1-22eabcdcb80a","pagecount":"11","content":"to provide equitable, transformative pathways for improved livelihoods of actors in mixed farming systems through sustainable intensification within target agroecologies and socio-economic settings.Through action research and development partnerships, the Initiative will improve smallholder farmers' resilience to weather-induced shocks, provide a more stable income and significant benefits in welfare, and enhance social justice and inclusion for 13 million people by 2030.Activities will be implemented in six focus countries globally representing diverse mixed farming systems as follows: Ghana (cereal-root crop mixed), Ethiopia (highland mixed), Malawi: (maize mixed), Bangladesh (rice mixed), Nepal (highland mixed), and Lao People's Democratic Republic (upland intensive mixed/ highland extensive mixed).The rising concerns of over-exploitation of groundwater resources, increasing cost of inputs and cultivation, timely availability of labor and energy, degradation of soil health, and climate change prevail in major agri-food systems in Bangladesh. Thus, reversing the unsustainable way of practicing agriculture to climate-smart agriculture would be key to sustainable agricultural development and productivity. Climate Smart is an approach to agricultural production, that is concerned with the management of available resources, with the latest agricultural management practices and machinery, especially under a particular set of socio-economic and environmental conditions. It works to improve food security and sustainable development goals (SDGs). Therefore, if climate-smart agriculture is implemented at the right time, with the necessary resources, techniques, and knowledge in a particular area, it can lead to food security along with enhancing adaptive capacity and reducing GHG potential for sustainable agricultural production. In Bangladesh, the SI-MFS initiative has been working with some climate-smart agricultural production systems e.g., direct-seeded rice (DSR), sorjan systems crop production, and nano-fertilizer applications.Dry direct-seeded rice (DSR) is an innovative approach to establishing rice crops that have the potential to reduce production costs by saving labor and irrigation water resources and global warming potential by reduction of methane emission. The commonly used chemical fertilizers may increase crop production, but they have deleterious effects on the soil, the environment, and even human health. In addition, due to the recent crisis of Russia-Ukraine conflicts, fertilizer prices have increased dramatically around the globe including in Bangladesh. Nano-scale nutrients when applied as Nano fertilizers are expected to reduce nutrient leaching and volatilization losses. Further, nano-nutrient fertilizers exhibit high sorption capacity, surface area, and control release of nutrients to targeted sites, hence these can be considered as smart nutrient delivery systems. Therefore, these nutrient formulations may act as possible alternatives to conventional fertilizers ensuring slow and controlled release of nutrients. Compared to conventional fertilizer the cost of the nano-fertilizer is also less. The Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative Limited (IFFCO) developed nano urea fertilizer and already tested it in India on different crops and reported promising results. In Bangladesh partnering with BRRI, SI-MFS conducted the nano-urea trial in three different locations in Bangladesh. The trial details are below:Performance of nano-urea on reduction of overall N fertilizer and farmers' production cost in rice.➢ To study the effect of the nano-urea on crop growth, phenology, yield attributes, and grain yield. ➢ To evaluate the impact of the nano-urea on nitrogen use efficiencies and. ","tokenCount":"507"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a20ec52953b79d37374be7eb9fc9eb9a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e9ad8b15-6af7-430a-847b-f47b28652c18/retrieve","id":"-479973833"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"403a6711-84d1-4840-9815-973b2e07f85c","pagecount":"10","content":"Farmer-herder conflicts are enduring features of social life in the Sudano-Sahelian zone. A survey was carried out between August and December 2004 in four sites in Niger, namely Bokki, Katanga, Sabon Gida and Tountoubé to determine the proximate and long-term causes of conflict over natural resource use, to evaluate the appropriateness of existing institutional arrangements for managing conflicts and identify innovative options and incentives to reduce the incidence and severity of conflicts. The research was implemented in three phases: (1) collection of village and household level socioeconomic information, (2) social network mapping, and (3) collection of conflict history and conflict management strategies. Additionally, governmental and NGO agencies in Niamey that address conflict management and/or resolution at the regional and national levels were interviewed. The research employed both quantitative and qualitative survey instruments. Surveys collected information on: historical micro-geographies of cropping and herding in the area encompassing village territory; local day-to-day relationships between transhumance herders, settled herders, and farming households at the study site; nodes of communication under different types of disagreements and negotiative settings; documentation of past conflicts and role of government officials, customary authorities and NGOs in conflict management. Results from this study showed that in all sites, damage to crops was the first reported cause of conflict between farmers and herders. Crop damage is not limited to damage to growing crops on the field but also included unauthorized grazing of crop residues after harvest. Other causes of conflict reported were access to watering points, expansion of crop fields across corridors for animal passage and thefts of animal. The ability of rural communities to prevent and manage conflict is largely based on the strength of networks of communication between herding and farming interests, respected community leaders, and leaders in neighboring communities. Overall, the local institutional arrangements are functional and a high percentage of conflicts are effectively managed at local levels. In all the study sites except Bokki, there was a high level of involvement of internal mediators.Fundamentally, conflict is a part of life. Social conflict can be broadly defined as the opposition between individuals and groups on the basis of competing interests, different identities, and/or differing attitudes (Schellenberg 1996). Social conflict is not limited to the more violent or confrontational forms of opposition. Violence may or may not be involved, though violence is often one of the subjects of special interest. Social conflict is not necessarily bad as commonly portrayed. Conflict is so fully part of all forms of society that we should appreciate its importance -for stimulating new thoughts, for promoting social change, for provoking policy change, for defining our group relationships, and for helping us form our own senses of personal identity. Conflict with another group often leads to the mobilisation of the energies of group members and hence to increased cohesion of the group. Having a right attitude to social conflict is therefore necessary for conflict resolution.Farmer-herder conflict is an enduring feature of social life in the Sudano-Sahelian zone. The phrase \"farmer-herder conflict\" is typically used to refer to conflict between herding and farming groups. The use of this phrase can be highly misleading since it can suggest that \"herders\" and \"farmers\" are separate groups when in fact most herders are nowadays farmers and many farmers may herd their livestock at least on seasonal basis. Moreover, the conflict between a \"herder\" and \"farmer\" often implicate other farmers and herders on both sides of the conflict. For example, Breusers et al. (1998) argue that many conflicts between farmers and herders actually result from tensions within farming communities -tensions that are most evident with conflicts with outsiders -particularly herders.Many outside observers report that farmer-herder conflicts have increased over the past 25 years (e.g. Bennett 1991). Others question the empirical basis for such arguments (Hussein et al. 1999). There are a number of barriers for clarifying this debate. First, the data remain largely anecdotal with real difficulties of collecting comparable data on a regional level. An additional difficulty is the fluidity of the meaning of conflict and the misperceptions generated from references to \"farmers\" and \"herders\". Those that herd animals and those that farm will at least seasonally experience a conflict of interest. Whether a conflict of interest leads to socially-degenerative conflict leading to violence or inhibiting production decisions depends on the capacity of local communities to manage conflicts and not allow them to escalate. Most members of ethnic groups whose identity is linked to animal husbandry (e.g. Fulani, Maure, Tuareg, Bouzou etc.) farm as well and many \"farming\" groups own and manage livestock. Farmer-herder conflicts can therefore occur among \"herding groups\" and among \"farming groups.\"Understanding farmer-herder relations is key to conflict resolution or management. This will help our understanding of the proximate and underlying causes of conflict, the behavioural patterns that are most conducive to provoking or avoiding conflict and the main mechanisms by which conflict between the groups are resolved or managed. The relationships between farmers and herders in the Sudano-Sahelian region of West Africa have always been multi-dimensional and like most social relationships have involved both cooperation and conflict (Turner 2003). There has always been a strong seasonality to this relationship with conflicts associated with crop damage and field encroachment onto key pastoral sites common during the rainy season while cooperative relationships of milk barter and manure contracting are more important during the dry season (Turner 1999).Over the past twenty years, there have been changes in livestock ownership and management that have worked to increase both the inherent conflicts of interest between farming and herding and the potential for these conflicts of interest to escalate to degenerative conflict in many parts of the Sudano-Sahelian region (Turner 2003).Conflicts of interest have intensified in many areas due to the greater proximity of livestock and cropping during the growing season due to a number of reasons including:Movements of people and shifts of livestock ownership toward the south where rainfall is more dependable and agricultural pressure is greater;A shift of livestock ownership away from historic livestock managers along with a growing dependence on farming by pastoral peoples, has contributed to a reduction in the seasonal mobility of livestock herds; Continued security problems in the northern pastures of Niger (for all herders) and the southern pastures in Nigeria (for Konni and Tahoua herders) and Benin (for Say herders) which may increase the year-long presence of livestock in home regions.In addition to these changes that are likely to increase the risk of farmer-herder conflict, there have been a number of changes that have affected how local communities manage farmer-herder conflicts. The continued erosion of the local authority of elders, while welcome on a number of levels, have increased the number of poles of authority which may potentially reduce local communities' ability to manage conflict effectively. The number and nature of social ties between farmers and herding professionals have changed as livestock wealth has become more concentrated, availability of cropland have declined, and the range of herd movements have shrunk and become more erratic. The nature of livestock husbandry and farmer-herder relations are changing and the potential for conflict management failure increases unless systems of governance change accordingly.In this study we have chosen to focus on the factors contributing to local communities' ability to manage conflicts -particularly those that could be called farmerherder conflicts. This involves research on the changing social relationships among farmers and herders, the social networks utilized in conflict management, local institutions, and political governance. Contrary to standard approaches to the problem of farmer-herder conflict, we have chose to first gain an understanding of the changing nature of the productive relations between farming and herding and the social networks utilized to manage village conflicts before asking direct questions about farmer-herder conflicts within study villages. \"Farmers\" and \"herders\" are connected to each other though multiple social networks (Heasley and Delehanty 1996). It is important to understand the evolving nature of these relations before proposing innovations to improve conflict management. Despite the publicity surrounding the most dramatic and violent confrontations, most farmer-herder conflicts are managed effectively at the level of the village. It is important to have an empirical understanding of conflict management processes in order to understand how and why some conflicts are ineffectively managed and allowed to escalate.The research objectives of this study were to analyse natural resource (pasturage and water) use patterns, social relationships between farmers and herders, and past conflicts that were variously managed in four study villages in order to:Determine the proximate and long-term causes of conflict over natural resource use;Evaluate the appropriateness of existing institutional arrangements for managing conflict and.The study focused on the formal and informal institutional aspects of village, districtlevel, and national governance that affect lines of cooperation and conflict mediation among \"farmers\" and \"herders\" in four regions in south-western and south-central Niger: Say (Bokki), Fakara (Katanga), Konni (Sabon Gida), and Tahoua (Tountoubé). The study sites were chosen to span a range of biophysical, social, and political conditions that affect the forms in which conflict and conflict management take (Table 1). Specific study sites (villages) in each region were selected based on a history of previous contact by researchers, in order to capitalize upon established levels of trust. This study was conducted over four phases between August and December 2004. Each phase involved a mix of survey instruments and qualitative research activities. These phases were: (1) Collection of general village-level information through group interviews stratified by major social groups within the village and gender. Topics covered in these initial interviews included: village history, ethnic composition, major livelihood strategies, distribution of resource access (livestock and cropland), and general information on farmer-herder relations.(2) Basic demographic and socioeconomic data were collected from all households in the four study villages. For each household, information was collected on household composition, ethnicity/caste, livestock ownership, agricultural and non-agricultural activities.(3) Seventy-nine households, representing the major social groups found within the four study villages, were surveyed as to their household composition, productive activities conducted by each household member, and the social networks implicated in these livelihood pursuits. (4) Interviews of representatives of major social groups within each village were conducted to collect information on past conflicts, conflict management strategies, and impressions on reasons for farmer-herder conflict. Additionally, the governmental and NGO agencies in Niamey that address conflict management and/or resolution at the regional and national levels were also interviewed.Conflict should be expected in an environment of highly fluctuating resource availabilities on unfenced land. A basic premise that we bring to this study is that conflicts that necessarily arise as people pursue diverse livelihood strategies are largely managed effectively at the level of local communities. Rather than focus our interviews on past \"conflicts\" -e.g. highly publicized, sometimes violent, confrontations that are produced in part by the failure of local conflict management approaches, we have focused our work on understanding how conflicts are managed on a day-to-day basis by investigating how the interests of farmers and herders diverge, the social networks they utilize to pursue their livelihoods, and local strategies to manage conflict. This approach is directed at building upon local institutions and strategies in order to improve the effectiveness of conflict management at the local level. In this paper, results of interviews on access to productive resources, social relations of livestock management, and farmerherder relations and conflict management are presented and discussed.Access to productive resources in four study villages People's ability to gain access to the productive resources that are required to pursue a livelihood plays a strong role in shaping resource-related conflicts such as those that exist between herders and farmers. For example, a herder who loses access to local pastures due to the encroachment of fields onto livestock paths will not only have a more difficult time moving his animals to pasture without causing crop damage but also may be less inclined to avoid causing crop damage. A poor farmer whose single field is damaged by a neighbour's livestock is likely to harbour bad feelings about his rich neighbour. A farmer who owns livestock is more likely to have relations with herders from other social groups and understand the constraints faced by herders. In these and other ways, the distribution of access to productive resources helps shape social relationships and how conflict is managed at the level of rural communities.In group interviews, informants from the main social groups in each village were asked to rank local pastures with respect to their quality to support cattle, sheep and goats during the cropping and dry season (Table 2). Except for the village of Tountoubé, local pastures were seen to have been of lower quality during the year prior to the study compared to the 1988-1990 period. Among the three villages at which groups were asked to assess changes in the quality of pastures (Bokki, Tountoubé, and Katanga), it is at the most southerly site of the highest mean rainfall, Bokki, where interviewees expressed the most concerns about the loss of pasture quality. Common reasons given by the informants for decline in pasture quality include decline in pasture area due to extension of cropped area (crop fields), changes in species composition or productivity of local pastures, changes in the pressure on local pastures due to changes in local livestock population, changing availability of natural pastures due to harvesting of grasses by humans and changes in the density or composition of tree and shrubs on natural pastures.Table 2. Characterizations of local pasture quality in 1988-1990 and 2003-2004 for major livestock species (goats, sheep and cattle) as reported by representatives to major social groups of three study villages. Pasture quality is characterized by good (G), sufficient (S), less than sufficient (LS), and not sufficient (NS).The most commonly stated reason for decline in pasture quality is the extension of crop fields. This is especially true in the case of the village of Bokki where both pastoralist groups (Fulani) and others cited the extension of fields as the most important reason for pasture quality decline. In the other two villages, there is a stronger difference between Fulani, who generally see cropland extension as the major cause, and farming groups, who are more likely to cite declines in the productivity of natural pastures.In all villages, women gain access to land through loans from their husbands or from neighbors with greater land endowments. Bokki and Katanga, two villages lying to the west, show much lower rates of land rental or purchase. For many households in these villages, access to cropland is generally less secure -relying on the loans from a relatively small group of landowners. A higher fraction of Djerma fields are reported as being owned than fields of the Fulani. In Sabon Guida and Tountoubé, informants reported much higher rates of traditional field ownership supplemented by measurable fractions of purchased fields, which are virtually nonexistent in the Bokki or Katanga. As a result of higher rates of field ownership by households in Sabon Guida and Tountoubé than other two villages, the reliance on borrowed or pledged fields is much lower and therefore security of cropland access is presumably higher. These results should be interpreted within the context of different land endowments, different social histories, and different forms of local governance in the four study villages. These differences help shape variations within and across villages with respect to the distribution and security of cropland access. Since herding families rely on farming as part of their livelihood strategies, the relationship between farmers and herders is strongly mediated by how land access is distributed between and within these groups.Along with land, the availability of labour is a major constraint to both crop and animal husbandry. Particularly during the cropping season, the simultaneous labour demands from cropping and animal husbandry contribute to less than desirable husbandry of crops (weeding) and animals (herding). Withdrawals of labour from herding can not only lead to more constricted grazing patterns, which threatens animal nutrition, but an increased potential for livestock-induced crop damage-a major cause of farmer-herder conflict.The major source of labour most households in the four study villages is the familyparticularly family of the household concession. 1 Family labour is strongly influenced by the age of the family unit with respect to the family development cycle. Young families, made up of a husband, wife and small children are notoriously labour deficient. Labour availability in the household grows from this point on until sons (if/when they leave) and daughters leave the concession for marriage. 2 Large concessions are established when the nuclear families of brothers, nephews, and sons of the household head remain in the concession.Livestock is both a store of wealth and a means of production. Livestock also play an important role in the mediation between farmer and herder interests. Farmers that invest in livestock are more likely to have developed a working relationship with a herder. This relationship can be used to facilitate communication between affected parties when conflicts arise. Self-reported livestock ownership is highly skewed in the study villages.It is clear that while there remains a clear difference between ethnic groups that have historically managed livestock (Fulani) and those that have been historically farmers (Djerma and Hausa) in Bokki and Katanga, there is no such difference in Sabon Guida and Tountoubé. In the latter two villages, the relationship between investments into the productive capital necessary for cropping and livestock husbandry are similar while in the case of Bokki and Katanga, Fulani show a much higher preference for investing in livestock.The social relations of livestock management1 One major exception to this is that of households headed by marabouts who often benefit from the labor power of their students.2 \"Household\" can be defined in many different ways -from the group of people that live in the same house, to those that share the same cooking pot, to those that live in the same walled concession. For the purposes of this research, we define the household as those living within the same walled concession which for the ethnic/caste groups of this study, is generally associated with the kinship group that works common fields from which grain is stored in a common granary (individual fields are common within the household).A household's agricultural production is affected not only by the actions of household members but those outside of the household within or outside of the household's social group. Crop production often involves the hiring or sharing of labour, renting/borrowing fields from land owners, engaging in contracts with herders for manure or for herding services, managing disputes concerning field boundaries, and managing disputes concerning crop damage …etc. Livestock production involves herding contracts with livestock owners, managing disputes concerning crop damage, negotiations to gain access to pasture outside of village territory, negotiations to gain access to water for livestock… etc. While most social relationships implicated in agricultural production occur within the household, inter-household relationships are very important. Members of representative households of the major social groups in the four study villages were interviewed about the productive activities they are involved in and how these activities are meaningfully affected (if at all) by people outside of their household. The results of these interviews are presented in Table 3. Of the 500 identified social relations enumerated in these interviews, 57% involved people outside of the interviewee's social group of which 62% were relations between farmers and herders. This finding supports the argument that agricultural production does not involve members of the \"decision unit\" but relies for better or for worse on relationships within and outside kinship and ethnic/caste groups.Farmer-herder relations are not only important for local politics but also for increasing agricultural productivity.Table 3. The reliance on extra-household social relations on household productive activities. Tabulation of the results of 139 members of 79 households on the major productive activities of household members and the reliance of these activities on others.In this study, we attempted to trace out the social networks that people use when conflicts arise in relation to their productive practices. We did this by interviewing members of the seventy-nine households representing the major social groups about the people who they rely on to help them manage conflicts as they arise in their production activities. In all the villages, at least 75% of the cases of farmer-herder conflict between 2002 and 2004 reported by the informants during our interviews were resolved (Figure 1). In Tountoubé all cases of conflict were resolved. The results support a basic premise that conflicts that necessarily arise as people pursue diverse livelihood strategies are largely managed effectively at the level of local communities. In all the villages, the elders, marabouts and chiefs are the main channel for mediation. For example, all resolved conflict cases in Sabon Guida and Tountoubé were through village elders and chiefs. The high level of success of internal mediation in both villages could be attributed to the high respect for the authority of village chiefs and council of elders by all social groups. The opposite is  From the responses of the informants in all the four villages, damage to crops was the first reported cause of conflict between farmers and herders (Figure 2). Crop damage is not limited to damage to growing crops on the field but also included unauthorized grazing of crop residues after harvest. The increasing number of conflicts due to unauthorized grazing of crop residues is a reflection of the change in farmer-herder relations from that of mutual trust that characterized manure and entrustment contracts to more inherently conflictual relationships based on wage and tenancy contracts (Turner 2003). Other causes of conflict reported were access to watering points, expansion of crop field to corridors for animal passage and theft of animal.This study on farmer-herder relations and conflict management has shown that conflict, in some form or another, is common in agro-pastoral communities of Niger. It is clear that conflict has the potential to affect the livelihoods of farmers and herders alike. The relationships between farmers and herders in the Sudano-Sahelian region of West Africa are multi-dimensional and like most social relationships involve both cooperation and conflict. To understand farmer-herder conflict one needs to consider the farmer-herder relationship more broadly than the social interaction concerned with use of common natural resources. The ability of rural communities to prevent and manage conflict is largely based on the routes and strength of communication between herding and farming interests, respected community leaders, and leaders in neighboring communities. Overall, the local institutional arrangements are functional and conflicts are effectively managed at local levels based on results from interviews in the four study sites. ","tokenCount":"3736"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"99f848cdd00de91b24607c8ee2200902","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ff125aea-cc17-4e1e-8ca5-dfa43222890b/retrieve","id":"2018828111"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6704b2a3-2344-4d9c-a714-6a2feca5e63a","pagecount":"66","content":"The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) is a not-for-profit organization that conducts socially and environmentally progressive research aimed at reducing hunger and poverty and preserving natural resources in developing countries. CIAT is one of 15 centers funded mainly by the 64 countries, private foundations and international organizations that make up the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).CIAT also receives funds for research and development services provided under contract to a growing number of institutional clients.Information and conclusions reported in this document do not necessarily reflect the position of any donor agency.The starting place for this guide is a biophysical asset based analysis of the area under consideration, a social profile analysis of the client group(s), and the establishment of an agroenterprise working group.The output of the work from this guide is an action plan, based on two options:(i) A market pilot test for an existing product with the target farmer group, typically with a focus on collective marketing.(ii) A plan to work towards greater crop diversification through the market opportunities identification process.For those following the full CIAT process, this guide is the first step in the agroenterprise process.Service providers should read the guides in their entirety, to absorb the ideas and concepts prior to going to the field. Our experience has shown that best results are attained when these processes are not implemented in a mechanical manner; rather that the principles are interpreted and adapted to local conditions based on the marketing environment, available resources, and anticipated scale of implementation.Introduction and Background to the Guide M any small-scale farmers in developing countries are finding it increasingly difficult to improve their livelihoods using traditional strategies based on agricultural production, particularly when they work as individual family units. In the past 10 years the agricultural world has changed dramatically, with reduced government expenditure, falling commodity prices, and increasing competition in the marketplace.To assist rural communities, many donor organizations follow the convention of investing to increase the production of a limited number of commodities. This approach has merits, it is simple, can increase demand for new research technologies such as varieties and fertilizer, and usually overcomes food security issues. For communities that are unable to provide themselves with a reliable food source, this option is a necessary first step.Unfortunately, in the past, production-based approaches give little attention to marketing issues. Rapid increases in production, with no other changes can lead to markets, especially local markets, being oversupplied. In the worse cases, this can create a situation where farmers receiving less income than before the project.This situation is not caused by a lack of resources or genuine effort to support rural populations, but is a consequence of limited business planning, the need to produce dramatic results within a 3-5 year project cycle and lack of coordination between support agencies and local private sector participants. We believe that for many communities, particularly the poorest communities, a more robust strategy is required which has realistic timeframes and achievable goals. We believe that each intervention should begin with a basic business planning process (Figure 1). In this figure we attempt to show those critical participants who can assist in making markets work better for smallholder farmers. Greater effort should also be made to bring together development agencies working within a defined geographic area and that the local community should be closely involved in the design and testing of options that meets their needs.To address this challenge, CIAT's Rural Agroenterprise Development Project (RAeD) has developed a series of participatory methodologies which aim to assist rural service providers to enable farmers to benefit from improved social structures, learn basic agroenterprise skills, and improve their ability to innovate. This process has been divided into a number of discreet tasks, which when combined, make up a strategy entitled the \"participatory and area-based approach to rural agroenterprise development\". \"Agroenterprise\" is defined in this guide, as a business activity that is implemented by resource-poor smallholder farmers. The approach is based on the idea of developing skills and building assets before moving to scale. \"Service providers\" are those agencies, organizations, and local entrepreneurs who facilitate the process of learning and market engagement. Service providers who do not have expertise in rural business development are encouraged to start small and to read the guides thoroughly before attempting to replicate ideas on a broader scale.This guide provides the starting point for applying the strategy developed by CIAT's Rural Agroenterprise Development Project (RAeD), to address the entrepreneurial development needs of institutions that support rural communities. The methods, tools, and learning approaches described here, were the result of many collaborative projects undertaken over the past 10 years in Latin America, Africa, and South East Asia. The implementation draws heavily upon participatory methods that assist the facilitating institute to focus on realizing new business opportunities for rural communities. The basic steps in the process include: This approach was developed in response to demand from partners who wanted a systematic method for shifting from a food security strategy that focused on increasing production to a market-oriented approach that emphasizes local empowerment and building local skills for income generation and market engagement.The approach aims to provide rural communities with the basic skills to understand their market environment, identify market opportunities, design new agroenterprise projects, and integrate projects within market chains. This process is flexible and decisions will enable smallholders to adopt the most appropriate marketing strategy to assist their prospects for increased income, such as:1. Improving the competitiveness of products in local and regional markets. 2. Achieving economies of scale through collective action and group marketing. 3. Diversifying into improved or higher value products linked to growth markets. 4. Adding value to products by changing farming practices to accesses higher income markets enhance product quality and incorporate processing activities.A flow diagram linking actions and good practice guides is shown in Figure 2, and Appendix 1 provides an overview of the relationships between the main tasks in the agroenterprise strategy, with an indication of the time and effort required. For each stage, there is time allocated for (i) learning, (ii) putting ideas into practice, and (iii) evaluating the outcome. This participatory process aims to work towards building a consensus for activities to increase the likelihood of success.Given that local contexts have unique features and that markets are dynamic, service providers should implement the methods based on local opportunities and resources. Enterprise activities are complicated social activities that need to be facilitated by skilled staff with motivated partners. In all cases the approach requires that roles and responsibilities are agreed at the outset; that planning and investments are client-led and performance is critically observed.Experience shows that for these approaches to be effective, service providers and farmers need to acquire new skills and new working arrangements. This change from a production to a marketing perspective requires time and finances, which is why we recommend the approach is first introduced within a long-term capacity building program, typically over a 2-year period.In certain situations and locations, this market-led approach may not be the most appropriate, such as in areas suffering from civil insecurity or chronic food insecurity, where food assistance maybe the primary need.The aim of this guide is to provide a systematic means to (i) select and evaluate an area, (ii) establish an overall working group to support inter-institutional agroenterprise development, (iii) profile client groups to implement enterprises, and (iv) agree area plans for joint activities.This guide has the following sections:• Basic principles of livelihood development.• Agroenterprise working group development.• Selection and diagnosis of an area.• Profiling of clients.• Planning for action.• Making decisions on pilot testing. • Designing a system for monitoring, evaluation, and learning.The results from each section are used as the input for the following section. On finalizing the methods in this guide, you will have (i) Selected an area. (ii) Established a working group made up of diverse organizations. (iii) Undertaken an area resource assessment. (iv) Agreed upon joint activities with partners for marketing and enterprise development.T o facilitate analysis of the area, we propose using the \"sustainable livelihoods\" approach developed by Scoones (1998) (Figure 3).The term livelihood describes the capacities, capital (human, social, productive/economic, natural), and activities needed to sustain life (Chambers and Conway, 1992). A livelihood is considered sustainable when it can respond and recover from abrupt shocks, and can maintain or improve its capacities and capital without undermining the natural resource base.There are five key elements in this definition:This is related to the capacity of a combination of life strategies to generate employment, whether on the farm or outside it, or in the formal or informal system. Employment has three aspects: income (salaried employment for employees), production (employment producing a consumable good), and recognition (where employment gives the individual recognition for having participated in something of value). Generally, 200 days of employment per year is estimated as the minimum for generating a livelihood.The level of poverty is a key criterion in evaluating livelihoods. Various indicators can be used to develop an absolute measure of \"poverty line\", based on, for example, levels of income, consumption, and access to services. Alternatively, relative measures can be used, such as the Gini coefficient. These quantitative measures of poverty can also be used in combination with more qualitative indicators.This concept goes beyond the material needs for food and income, including the idea of capacities (i.e., \"what can people do or be, given what they possess?\"). Hence, the people themselves should determine those criteria that are part of the concept of well-being, such as self esteem, safety, happiness, low levels of stress and vulnerability, increased power, reduced exclusion, as well as the other more conventional elements.This refers to the ability of a livelihood to respond and recover from abrupt changes and stress. Those that cannot respond (i.e., make temporary adjustments as a result of change) or adapt (i.e., make long-term changes in life strategies) are inevitably vulnerable and have a low probability of achieving a sustainable livelihood.Most rural livelihoods depend on the natural resource base. The concept thus refers to the system's ability to maintain productivity when faced with disturbances, including stress or abrupt changes. This implies preventing natural resource reserves from diminishing to a level that results in the effective and permanent reduction of products and services that these generate to achieve \"the means by which to live\".Achieving a sustainable livelihood is the result of a combination of factors within the area such as available resources, organizations, and institutions. To understand the livelihoods of a given area and possible ways of improving them, we must analyze these factors. This section briefly describes each component of the \"livelihood approach\".The context of an area includes general aspects such as history, policy, climate, agroecology, demography, and social differentiation (Figure 3). Much of the data on these aspects are available in secondary sources of information (e.g., statistical yearbooks) but they are important for obtaining a clear idea of the area in which intervention will be carried out. An important aspect to understanding context is the social Figure 3. The \"sustainable livelihoods conceptual framework\".differentiation between groups. This differentiation can be based on: levels of wellbeing and income, access to certain resources, sex, age, or ethnicity. What is important is to differentiate among the various groups of people that live within the area to understand their relationships with resources, organizations, and institutions, and thus to eventually understand the life strategies they use.The ability to develop different life strategies depends on the basic resources, both material and social, that people possess or have access to. Four types of important resources can be identified for generating livelihoods. These resources are defined as follows:1. Natural resources. These are the set of natural factors (e.g., soil, water, air, forest, genetic resources) and environmental services from which the resources and services needed to achieve livelihoods are derived. 2. Human resources. These include knowledge, abilities, good health, and physical capacity. 3. Productive/financial resources. These refer to basic assets (e.g., cash, credit, savings, and other economic and productive assets, including basic infrastructure, production equipment, and technology). 4. Social resources. These include the social organization (networks, social relationships, associations, norms, confidence, and willingness to work for the common good).The social organization facilitates the coordination, cooperation, and collective action for the common good.On analyzing the resources, a series of questions arise:Sequence: What is the starting point for successfully establishing a given life strategy? Is a particular type of capital (assets) an essential precursor for gaining access to another type of capital? Organizations and institutions: Within the livelihoods framework, the understanding of organizations and institutional processes are important, given that organizations (the players) and institutional processes (the \"rules of the game\") interact in ways that facilitate or hinder the ability of different segments of the population to carry out different life strategies and achieve, or not, sustainable livelihoods (Figure 3).The combination of context, resources, organizations, and institutions combine to generate different life strategies which can be grouped into three broad categories:Rural inhabitants can achieve livelihoods through agriculture (including livestock, fish farming, and forest resources) by processes of intensification (i.e., increasing production per unit of area through capital investments or increased labor), or extensification (i.e., increasing the area of land cultivated).Another option is to diversify towards agricultural activities of greater value, or toward nonagricultural activities. Thus, diversification seeks to develop a portfolio of activities that would generate income, and which would make the population less vulnerable to economic shocks.A third option is migration, either temporary or permanent, to another region or urban center in search of a livelihood. Despite these differences, the reality of life strategies in rural areas is that, rather than choosing one or the other, the population uses a combination of the three, which varies according to the time of year or the reigning economic conditions in the country. Developing plans based on a holistic analysis (i.e., context, resources, processes of social organization, and life strategies), also provides a useful means of designing specific indicators, which can be used for monitoring impact.Incorporating impact analysis into the early plans enables both project staff and community members to design compatible impact pathways and systems for monitoring and evaluating results.In this guide, the livelihoods framework is used as a conceptual tool, for characterizing an area to design and monitor agroenterprise interventions. Given that the local assessment is rapid, we can only gain a basic \"snapshot\" of the situation at a particular time. Therefore this information is complemented with a review of the innovation processes within the target area to gain a better understanding of key changes over time.In its simplest form innovation is the way in which an existing situation is changed and improved over time. These improvements can be derived from a mixture of local and external knowledge applied to a specific situation.Improvements can be technical (e.g., new varieties or production systems) or social (e.g., forms of organization), or a combination of the two. In the context of rural agroenterprise development, we need to understand how processes of agroentrepreneurial innovation are generated. Who generates these processes? How are innovations disseminated?The concepts of livelihoods and innovation provide a general framework on which to analyze agroenterprise development in a selected area. In general, the types of agroenterprises being designed depend upon the resources and capacities of target groups and the innovation systems. The approach therefore begins by gathering information on the resources, organizations, institutions, and innovation status of the community. This information is analyzed with a view to establishing new combinations and/or upgrading specific activities to generate higher income livelihood strategies.Preparing the Groundwork S tarting new projects is a crucial time, as this is when decisions are made about where to work, who to work with, and what types of interventions will take place. When incorporating an agroenterprise approach issues that should be addressed include:• Defining the geographical area of intervention.• Framing the project duration.• Reviewing in-house staffing.• Review the budget.• Sound out key partners.• Gain greater insight into your client capacities, assets, and their communities.• Clarify targeting decisions (i.e., project focus on specific sectors, client types).The lead agency should develop a clear understanding of what they want to achieve in terms of client types, investment areas, levels of individual/family income gain, scale of intervention and expected outcomes when using agroenterprise. Full details do not have to be fully crafted as changes are likely when reformulating ideas with partners. From a CIAT perspective, one of the major goals is to \"empower local communities with the ability to identify market opportunities and develop new agroenterprises using their own skills and resources\". To achieve this goal, participatory tools are used as a means to co-innovation and learning is implemented through learning-bydoing. This goal, however, needs to be tempered with a practical return or level of impact based on the investment costs of the project.As part of the initial planning, the lead organization should undertake a rapid reconnaissance survey of the area in which they intend to work. This information will provide a better understanding of where to start activities and who could be useful partners. When a geographic area has been defined, the survey should gather general information on the following areas, as outlined in the livelihood framework:• Social context: History, climate, population, social groupings.• Natural resources: Basic understanding of soils, climate, product specialization,• Local productive resources: Transport system, market infrastructure,• • Business assets: Interview leading traders, processors, and service providers to gain a basic understanding of the major goods, products and services traded in the area, major challenges and opportunities as viewed from the private sector. This information will be used to identify likeminded partners, to initiate a \"working group\", define criteria for selection of enterprise groups (i.e., farmer groups who will develop new businesses), and to select a defined area for interventions.The entry point for the area-based approach is flexible, depending on factors such as:1. In-house marketing capacity. 2. Partners skills involved in the process. 3. The skills and asset base of the clients. 4. Local political conditions and infrastructure. 5. The level of participation to be used in the process. 6. A priori decisions on client/beneficiary profiles. 7. Investment processes. 8. Duration of the exercise.For the lead organization in this process, the first issue to consider is the level of in-house capacity and competence to lead a marketing program that includes partners and farmer group organization. If skills exist, start working through the agroenterprise approach as indicated in the generic process outlined in Figure 2.If however, your organization or immediate partners are doing this type of work for the first time, they may benefit from testing the method via a pilot project before going to scale. Pilot projects enable the team to learn the basics of the enterprise process and field staff to gain confidence in applying/adapting the methods to local conditions. This experience will put participating organizations in a better position to train others, using their local experience.Agroenterprise development is a complex task that involves working with actors within a market chain and linking to business services that support the market chain (Figure 4). To link activities with multiple actors requires many skills and it is unusual to find all of the necessary technical, social, business, and analytical skills within one organization. Therefore success in agroenterprise generally requires that organizations find like-minded partners from the public and the private sector to support the process at specific points. Partners are also essential when it comes to scaling up activities.The main categories of partners required to facilitate agroenterprise development include: (i) service providers typically NGOs or extension workers form the public or private sector; (ii) farmer groups and associations; (iii) market chain actors; and (iv) business support services.To achieve tangible impact, it is recommended that the lead organization operates at a more strategic level, by facilitating partners through a \"working group\". This will enable the lead organization to focus on capacity building and learning how best to adapt the methods to local conditions, with partners. Local partners will focus their attention at the farm level, where we want impact to occur. There are additional specific guides to assist in more detailed processes; see support guides in this series including Collective Marketing and Market Facilitator's guide (see Preface).To implement the process, there are four main types of organizational players in the agroenterprise approach:• Management team. • Working group.• Farmer groups and associations. • Buyers.An example of the type of network that is envisaged for this process is outlined in Figure 5; however, partnerships should be considered in a flexible manner. Work with partners that want to be together. This team is charged with the overall project design and monitoring and follow-up on project implementation. This agency will be from the development or research sector and their role is to provide overall direction. In some cases, the management team may include a partnership between a research and development agency. This is often how CIAT works with partners. The management team is responsible for:• Selecting an area.• Initiating a working group.• Establishing criteria for selection of client groups.• Decisions on skills training, levels of inputs.• Scale of investments.• Duration of project implementation.• Scaling up approaches.• Entry and exit strategies.The role of the \"working group\" is to provide a focal point where representatives of interested partners can convene to design and implement an agroenterprise work plan. The group's role is to promote improved working relations between service providers, local government, smallholder producers, and traders that operate within a defined area. The agroenterprise working group will be responsible for making decisions on the rules of engagement and the goal of the consortium. At an operational level, the working group will provide technical oversight, training, dialogue with partners, monitoring and evaluation, and a means for managing field activities. This group will also develop core members for scaling up in the future. Tasks for this group are to:(i) Timetable events, and maintain a focus on the goals. (ii) Ensure that results are generated, that they are meaningful. (iii) Provide support to inter organizational or group processes.The working group will set out as a loose association of partners with a common or shared interest in improving their marketing skills and commercialization of identified products. During the agroenterprise process, it is anticipated that membership will change according to levels of activity. Some members will fall out due to loss of interest, lack of resources or a change in focus. Other members will enter into the working group as the process gains tangible results and some specialists may be co-opted into the group. Some more specialized members and private sector partners may be more interested to play an active role once market chains are in operation.Farmer groups are often the target clients/ beneficiaries of an agricultural intervention process. However, in market-led interventions, beneficiaries should also include traders, processors or local entrepreneurs. In the case of farmers, the enterprise process generally works with organized farmer groups. These farmer groups will provide representatives to serve on the working group or be included in a market survey team.The farmer group(s) will learn new marketing skills from the service providers (NGOs) as they design and implement agroenterprise projects in selected market chains. The type of groups chosen for agroenterprise development is an important decision. Methods described in this guide, and in complementary guides, will assist partners to make decisions on how to engage farmer groups in an enterprise process. How producer groups are organized is important as farmer groups are the basic unit of change at the production level. If farmer groups are poorly organized, or simply follow the instructions of service providers, rather than learning new skills in marketing, the enterprise process is likely to be unsustainable.If farmers within the defined project area are not organized, then the service provider will be required to develop some form of farmer marketing groups. These groups may be formal organizations that are maintained throughout the year or may be informal groups that only come together for collective marketing purposes, i.e., produce in larger quantities (truck load) for distribution/sale. CIAT has developed a guide on this aspect. For more information see \"Guide to Collective Marketing for Smallholder Producers\" (www.ciat.cgiar.org/ agroempresas/pdf/guide_collective_marketing. pdf).The information shown in Figure 6 indicates one type of evolutionary process for farmer groups as they become more organized and supply larger markets. In poor, marginalized areas, it is not uncommon to find that farmers are essentially working as individuals. The role input and output markets and financial services. In some cases, farmer associations can themselves start to cluster and there are models whereby a company is established to assist the farmer organizations to supply larger or higher value markets.Problems with farmer groups: One of the obvious and much repeated problems with farmer groups as they become more organized is that the costs in terms of time, money, and relationship building can outweigh the benefits. Whilst it is intuitive to think that the more organized the better for farmers, this is not always the case. Farmer groups can suffer from poor financial management, poor marketing decisions, political abuse, and other problems. Therefore the service provider should seek to develop an appropriate of the service provider in this case will be to bring farmers together into more organized groups. The shift from level 0 to level 1 requires time but can pay considerable benefits in terms of farmers being able to learn new ideas more quickly in a group and also being able to bulk produce for the market.As farmer groups mature they become more stable units that are able to supply a more consistent product to the market. The first level of farmer organization is often recognized as farmers working within a group but not linked to other farmer groups. The second order of organization, which is often termed an association or cooperative, brings together several farmer groups. This has several advantages in terms of being able to provide members with more specialized services for both structure to meet the needs of the situation and aim for light and flexible rather than large and complicated.Whilst, considerable attention is generally given to producer groups, the agroenterprise approach is designed to operate at a market chain level. Therefore working with buyers, such as traders, processors, and retailers is also a vital part of the market linkage process.At the local level, this means that the leading organization should invest in strengthening relationships between the producer groups and people to whom they sell their produce, rather than attempting to \"avoid the middleman\".Working with traders will assist in producing products of the quality and type for which buyers are willing to pay a premium and also provides opportunities for developing collective marketing strategies, by selling bulked produce to known buyers. Traders are also one of the most effective private sector service providers for resource-poor smallholder farmers, especially those linking in remote areas and so these linkages should be fostered so as to facilitate greater sustainability of interventions.More recently, the rise in the power of supermarkets has changed opportunities for many smallholder producers, particularly in the higher value, or niche products. In view of the market share enjoyed by supermarkets, some development specialists believe that far greater emphasis should be given to working with corporate buyers so that smallholders can be integrated into their buying systems.Pilot testing of the agroenterprise approach will involve a limited number of partners and typically focus on a short duration product to accelerate learning. The use of an off-season crop provides an opportunity to work with a partner agency and a farmer's group at a limited level. In Figure 5, the partners with a shaded background indicate a potential pilot project arrangement. A checklist for undertaking a pilot process is outlined in Appendix 1.CIAT is currently testing the agroenterprise method with partners from 30 countries in three continents. Our findings show whilst the basic economic principles apply in all locations, there are major differences in how the approach is applied. In addition to the differences caused by physical, factors such as climate, soils, and topography, other critical factors include political systems and their associated marketing environment, land tenure systems, financial markets, market access as affected by infrastructure and communications, marginalization caused by remoteness from market centers, gender, ethnicity, and power relations within market chains. Other factors include degree of farmer organization and relations with larger agricultural operators.Consequently, the agroenterprise process needs to be used in a flexible manner, taking into account previous history and current opportunities. Our belief is, however, that marketing principles are robust and even under difficult economic conditions farmers are keen to find new ways of increasing their income.Given this background, we would like to stress the need to be aware that within any rural community there are many social classes, each with a particular asset base, level of organization, and agroenterprise capacity. The information in Table 1 shows the different types of client group that service providers are likely to encounter. These groups will have different types of agroenterprise strategies that are most appropriate for their level of development.Starting out: The simplest entry point when working with farmers in market chains is to find ways to improve sales of existing products. This approach is most useful for those with limited marketing capacity. Using this approach is also encouraged as a pilot, to test the enterprise approach so that both the market facilitator and the farmer group get a better understanding of how the process works, prior to going to scale.Diversification: For farmer groups that are already organized and interested in investigating new product ideas, the starting point in the area-based approach to agroenterprise should be a study of market opportunities identification (MOI) (Guide 3). It is anticipated that organized farmers already have competence in growing basic food security crops for the market and are seeking new, typically higher value options. The MOI will provide a list of new opportunities to investigate in more detail.Table 1. Evolutionary stages of smallholder farmers and their agroenterprises.Preconditions to enterprise development Enterprise emphasis 1. Subsistence Individual farmers producing This type of community may require specialist Focus on organization of farmers into groups to build predominantly for their own consumption, intervention that can be considered as pre-socail capital, trust and simple business skills in selling small surpluses to local markets.enterprise oriented. Many agencies supply such order to lay the foundations for increased Precarious to nonexistent access to communities with support processes such as competitiveness. services and no use of purchased inputs.re-stocking assets, after a social/natural shock. This may include provision of For enterprise development, start with existing products Low asset accumulation, most vulnerable.• Food aid. that show high market demand, value, and are produced• Seeds, tools, livestock, inputs.   by the majority of farmers.• Conflict resolution.• Safety net clauses and interventions.Service providers to develop their skills andunderstanding of the marketplace and its opportunities. Identify and support market facilitation.Small scale rural enterprises with low Communities at this stage are well positioned to Focus on group dynamics and developing business skills levels of value addition and weak business benefit from enterprise oriented interest groups, of the group. Level of market engagement will assist in orientation, poor levels of cohesion. Access i.e., coordination of agencies that have a common selection of existing or identifying new market opportunities. to services is incomplete and irregular, interest in market oriented processes. Record keeping, to lay the foundation for future financial limiting enterprise growth prospects.accreditation and suitability for investment from micro Service providers should review their finance, should be introduced. Other group skills such competence and staff profiles to ensure quality leadership, group roles and how to run meetings should be of providing marketing services provided.strengthened. Groups should recruit or train a \"market facilitator\". Seek enterprises that are more profitable for the target group.Commercially oriented enterprises with These groups will require specialist support in Focus on increasing scale and value addition within higher levels of social cohesion that have areas of enterprise development. Service providers the selected subsectors. incorporated value adding handling and/ and their interest group members should develop• Lead groups should seek links to like-minded or transformation processes, and product strategies that bring specific skills to bear. This groups in order to encourage scale and to partner diversification. Selling into local, regional may include aspects such as market information, with more specialized service providers to assist in and national markets. Have access to linkage to micro finances and input supply. developing new market options and find ways of appropriate services that permit enterprise gaining efficiencies in the supply chain. growth.• Record keeping and business planning should be shared with financial experts and group should seek financial support sought.Farmer enterprises are fully integrated into These groups will require support in areas of Focus on chain champions and issues of governance supply chains producing products that business management and are likely to be and equity in the market chain. meet market demands in terms of quality interested in risk capital ventures that will provide • Group should link with specialist skills and information and frequency of supply, both nationally them with progressive edge in the marketplace. service providers, which should be fee based. and for export. Are capable of identifying Increasing use of ICTs to support enterprise• Group should focus efforts on to product development and paying for required business development. Service providers and their interest issues, including branding, customer relations and development services.group members should develop strategies that broadening product portfolio. bring specific skills to bear. This may include • Shift to value chain approaches to consolidate markets. marketinformation, finances, input supplies, etc.In cases where a product has already been selected for investment, the starting point within the area-based approach will be a market chain study of that product. It is likely, however, that the market facilitator will also need to work on improving the organization of farmer groups and initiating links with other support organizations and service providers.In some cases higher order market actors, such as processors, wholesale traders or retail outlets, are interested to work with farmer groups on contractual basis to secure supply of a selected product. In this case, the agroenterprise approach does not need to focus on demand or marketing issues, but concentrate on providing a quality product on a competitive basis.Scale is an issue that the partners need to consider from the outset. Given a successful pilot project, the next stage in a scale process will be for the lead service provider to apply the approach to more farmer groups within the area. The aim of the up scaling process being either to (i) encourage more groups to sell a selected product into an identified market, thus achieving economies of scale or (ii) to empower many groups to diversify into a wider range of products and markets to achieve diversification over a wider area.Whatever the aim of the scale process, the lead organization should investigate opportunities for networking so that other service providers can apply the methodology more widely. In many cases projects that are successful at the pilot level, fail to achieve scale because too much time is invested in learning lessons with the pilot group and there are insufficient levels of facilitation to push ideas beyond a limited few. Therefore we suggest that an aggressive approach to demonstration, learning, and scaling up is adopted and spread through local partners.As part of the planning stage, the lead organization should also make decisions on how to apply an exit strategy. This can be considered in terms of time, i.e., how long the organization intends to spend with a community/farmer group, on skills training provided to a community, on income gains through agroenterprise development or on other selected criteria. A potential timeframe and structure for an exit strategy is given in Appendix 3.Area-based Resource Assessment T his section of the guide describes a methodology for analyzing the livelihoods and innovation processes of a specific geographic area for rural agroenterprise development. The methods should be adapted according to the time and resources available. The steps detailed below could be developed, using secondary information, and by using participatory methods with key informants or focus groups to collect primary information. The steps for carrying out a basic diagnosis for rural agroenterprise development are shown in Figure 7. Each step is explained with some indications of possible methodologies.Before starting an analysis of local resources for agroenterprise development, it is important to form the working group members, as representatives from this group will participate in the resource assessment. As described, the working group will set out as a loose association of partners with a common interest in improving their marketing skills and the commercialization of identified products. The working group members help to avoid duplication of efforts and highlight possible synergies between participating organizations. At this point, those most interested in joining the process will make up the working group membership and survey team.After having organized a survey team, with resources, the first decision to be made is the limits of the area to be studied. In many cases, the area maybe defined by the local political boundaries, a village, a cluster of villages, a dioceses, or a watershed. An alternative is to consider the area where project activities will be implemented. Experience has shown that many projects set out on a large data gathering exercise only to find out later that a very small part of this information is useful, e.g., this can occur when the analysis is made at the district level, and the project only operates in two villages. As a rule of thumb, limit the study zone to the area of the project interventions. If the group is unclear about where to draw the boundary, then the group needs to develop some questions or define some criteria that would help to delimit the area for intervention. These criteria should be developed with the agencies operating in the selected area and may imply negotiation over areas to cover so each entity has a manageable area.• With whom are we working at present? Where are they located?• With whom would we like to work in the future? Where are they located?• What scope do we have as an organization or group of organizations without the quality of our work being compromised?• In the case of companies that provide RAeD services, what populations should they serve to be economically sustainable?• Are activities of production, processing, and marketing carried out in the targeted area? If not, then most probably, the area needs to be expanded to include local or regional markets and thus better understand the region's economic organization.• Other criteria according to the organization(s) participating in the process.Once the area is delimited, decisions on whether some form of zoning is required can be taken. The process of zoning is undertaken so that the intervention team can develop different intervention strategies for specific types of clients or beneficiaries, i.e., very resource-poor farmers and farmers with significantly more assets, or farmers working in the valleys with tropical crops versus farmers working at high altitude with subtropical products, women's groups versus mixed gender groups. Hence, the complexity of this next section will depend upon the size of your area and the heterogeneity of the area.If the project is only dealing with a small area or a cluster of villages, zoning may not be necessary. Similarly, if the area of intervention is highly homogeneous, in terms of landscape, market access, farmer assets, and production possibilities, then zoning may also not prove to be effective, as zoning is a means to separate clients based on existing differences. If the \"working group\" is working over large and diverse areas, such as districts or clusters of districts, a more structured approach to the managing differentiated clients maybe helpful. The following lists show details of some important aspects to evaluate in your areabased diagnosis.• General topography (altitudes: steep, less sloping, flat areas).• Water sources (rivers, streams, springs) and their flows throughout the year.• Relative productivity of soils (good, medium, and poor soils).• Roads (paved, improved, dirt) and their respective usability during the year.• Infrastructure coverage (electricity, phone coverage, potable water, irrigation).• Major businesses with agricultural links (wholesale sorting and packing facilities, processing firms, export firms, among others).• Support services (input suppliers, internet cafes, machinery suppliers or others).• Transport for produce (frequency, costs and quality).• Markets for the area's produce and markets 1 .• Location of communities and their relative populations.• Land tenure structure (farmers who are owners, day laborers, or share croppers).• Location of different ethnic groups, or other defined social groups, and their identification.• Level of social organization (do farmer groups exist, do they work collectively).Once this information is placed on the map, zones that have something in common and can be treated as more or less homogeneous units can be distinguished from zones that are sufficiently different to merit a separate analysis. Some criteria to take into account when zoning the area could include:• Agroecosystem, if this has implications for crops or potential economic activities in a zone.• Access to roads or markets, especially if this factor changes during the year because of rainy seasons or if it affects the produce that can be taken to market.• Land tenure is an important factor, considering as it greatly influences the type of crops planted and the possibility of introducing new ones.• Access to water and how it fluctuates during the year can be a means of distinguishing between areas with good, regular, or poor access. The theme of irrigation can also be reviewed.• Productive orientation zones already producing for markets require different strategies than those oriented towards household consumption or food security.• Types of existing production systems. The presence of a particular crops such as coffee, for example, will significantly affect a zone's economic dynamic.• Others according to the criteria of the local participants.Once the relevant differentiation criteria are identified for the area, a matrix for zoning can be constructed and zones defined. An example is shown in Table 2.When zoning an area the focus should be on criteria that represent the most severe constraints to production and agroenterprise development. These are the aspects that effectively differentiate one zone from another. In addition, the number of selected criteria should be manageable, e.g., two or three at a maximum.Once the communities are located in the matrix, similarities should be checked prior to defining the final zones for analysis. For example, in Table 2 the conditions between the zone with permanent roads and permanent water and the zone with permanent roads and water for more than 8 months per year are similar enough to group them into a single zone for analysis. It is important to remember that the objective of zoning is to distinguish between zones with such marked differences that they will require different strategies. Do not zone for zoning's sake. Effort must be made to seek similarities and thus reduce the zones to a manageable number.1. Some markets may not appear on the map but the roads linking the territory to them should be clearly marked.At the end of this process, each zone should be \"named\" to distinguish it from the others. Such designation can be based on each zone's special characteristics such as slopes (flat land, foothills, and hillsides), access (paved road, car tracks, and bridle path), altitude (highland, midaltitude land, and lowland), or other locally acceptable designations. The logic behind the name assigned to each zone is that it should be clearly defined so that all agree on its use in the future.Once the area is divided into zones, the livelihood resources available to the households and communities who live there can be assessed.The analysis of available resources by zone should be relatively quick because the goal is to highlight the most important themes. Secondary information can be used, if it exists or, through interviews with key informants, focus groups, or participatory transects. The information can then be organized into matrices that permit a brief outline on the resources within each zone.Resources for employment are natural, human, productive/financial, and social in nature. For the first three cases, matrices similar to Table 3 can be used. For social resources, an additional methodological tool is proposed for filling in the matrix. Table 4, provides a matrix for human resources; and Table 5, a matrix for productive/ financial resources.To analyze the availability of social resources, i.e., organizations with business activities and the relationships among them, a \"Venn diagram\" can be used. This method enables the social/ business networks in each zone to be visualized.The method comprises five steps in which the organizations involved in the zone's agroenterprise development are:• Identified.• Briefly described.• Located within or outside the zone.• Have existing relationships with each other described. • Actors identified who are significant for rural agroenterprise development in the zone. For example, traders, processors, transporters, and wholesalers/retailers.To achieve a complete analysis of these networks, this activity should be conducted with key informants or focus groups from several of the identified organizations. The steps for this type of analysis are described in more detail below.Key informants or focus groups are asked to name all the organizations that are involved in the zone's agroenterprise development. These organizations may be within or outside the targeted zone and may be formal (e.g., cooperatives, farmer associations, NGOs, or service companies) or informal (e.g., intermediaries, lenders, or workshops), but should have some relevance to the zone. This step aims to achieve consensus on these organizations and details about each one.In this step, it is also important to differentiate organizations involved in agroenterprise development from those established for purely social purposes. The latter category would include, for example, water boards, parent associations, religious groups, and general associations for development. To facilitate this process, it is better to include only those organizations that fulfill an agroenterprise function, including the delivery of support services, within the zone or area.For each organization identified in the previous step, basic information is obtained on its legal structure (e.g., cooperative, formal company, informal company, individual person, NGO, or association), activities, headquarters, area of influence, and other relevant data (such as the number of members, history, and achievements). This information can be included in a simple table as shown in Table 6. After compiling this information, the name of each organization identified is written on a circular card.  The following step consists of geographically locating the different organizations within or outside the zone being described. To do this, we recommend drawing on a large piece of paper, or on the floor, a circle that represents the zone, and leaving blank space around. Then, cards representing the organizations with headquarters in the zone are placed within the circle, and those that have relationships with the zone but have their headquarters outside are placed outside the circle.Within the zone, the cards of organizations that have their headquarters in the same community are grouped together, to clarify which communities have more and which have less agroentrepreneurial organization.With the external organizations, those that have more presence or are more permanent in the zone are placed closer to the large circle that represents the zone, while those that have less presence or permanence are placed farther away. An example is given in Figure 8.In this step, a key must be developed to help qualify existing relationships in at least three senses: (1) their strength or permanence;(2) power (that is, who sends who); and (3) the type of exchanges (for example, goods for money), that take place in the relationship. Other themes can also be included (such as technology transfer), if they are of interest to the analysis. To explain the diagram a key is required that provides different types of lines, arrows, or codes that express dynamics between partners in terms of relationship strengths, power, and exchanges. Figure 9 gives an example of a key, and Figure 10 shows how it is applied.On finalizing this exercise for each zone, the results should be compared to see if any of the identified actors have activities, or are important, in more than one zone. Hence, identifying people or key organizations for the entire area's agroenterprise development, whether formal or informal, becomes feasible.Once the key actors are identified, they can be grouped by category of principal activity, as shown in Table 7.Once the actors are located, the zones are reviewed one by one to identify actors with a presence in the various zones of the targeted area. Using Table 7 as an example, the key actors for rural agroenterprise development in the area-understood as the set of zones-are identified as the following people or companies:• Fruit growers' association (in zones \"highland\" and \"mid-altitude land\").• Coffee growers' association (in zones \"highland\" and \"mid-altitude land\").• Local and regional intermediaries (at least the two regional ones who handle fruits, coffee, and milk derivatives).• Juice company (in zones \"highland\" and \"mid-altitude land\").Strong, permanent Fair, semi permanent Weak, occasional • The independent technicians (present in all three zones).• The village shop selling inputs (important for all three zones).In zone \"lowland\", the actors related to milk production gain importance. Likewise, if we are interested in this product or zone, we need to include the cooperative, cheese, and milk plants, multinational company, and the Swiss NGO.The importance of this exercise is that it gives a clear idea of who should be taken into account when considering the area's agroenterprise development options and gives an initial base on which to form a working group for a given theme. The list of related agencies does not mean that all should be represented, only the most relevant and effective organizations should be included in the working group. identify different social groups in the area. This complements existing secondary data, such as poverty 2 maps with more qualitative data.This work should be developed with a focus group made up of key actors from each zone to identify possible variations in welfare between zones. By working at the zone level we can differentiate between livelihood strategies that are intensive, high value in small areas or extensive, produce of low value or no added value in large areas. An example is the difference between small-scale fruit production as opposed to extensive livestock ranching 3 .2. Secondary data such as census figures, poverty maps, and participatory poverty assessments can all be drawn on. Much of this data should already exist as it is a major criterion for targeting development funding in most parts of the world. 3. This is simplistic differentiation that leaves out a great many issues that you may confront at the field level. In Asia, for example, the inclusion of livestock in the production system may actually indicate a more intensive use of resources, not a more extensive strategy, while in Latin America ranching is rarely intensive.Before beginning the analysis with the focus group, a short discussion about the different classes of resources (see definitions on page 7) is useful so that the participants have a clear idea of what will be analyzed.It is best to begin with one extreme of the continuum of local welfare, either the most well-to-do or the least well-to-do, as this helps with the analysis of other groups. This process can be facilitated using the matrix (Table 8), and advancing top to bottom by columns or from right to left by well-being level. Care should be exercised in interpreting the relationships among the different well-being levels.To carry out this analysis, a guide can be developed with the focus group to include questions such as the following:• What access to the zone's natural resources do well-to-do families have?• What access to the zone's natural resources do families with medium-sized incomes have?• What access to the zone's natural resources do families who have very limited incomes have?Similar questions are asked about human resources. The matrix in Table 8 can be adapted to note the information (it can also be prepared on a flipchart, as shown in Table 9). As this process is purely subjective, key indicators of well-being in each resource (e.g., measures of land or water for natural resources) must be identified and access of the population group to the key indicator can be discussed. Some indicators of well-being may change from zone to zone according to the life strategies that the respective population has developed while others (e.g., access to health services, formal credit, or public offices) can be kept more or less stable for the entire area. The definition of wealth, \"well-being\" can vary by zone. What is moderately well off in one zone may be well-to-do in another and marginalized in yet a third. It may be more useful to distinguish only among three categories-'wellto-do', medium, and most marginalized-and not in as much detail as is shown in Figure 8.The group facilitating the analysis should make this decision. The number of well-being categories should be constant for all zones.Some projects are designed to support specific groups, such as those living in extreme poverty and women. This section describes a method for understanding the different possibilities that a community's members have to generate income, using the concept of community development and social stratification.The following exercises should be developed for each zone, making use of the previous results (e.g., access to resources) to identify indicators that separate livelihood strategies. The indicators help explain why a household adopts one livelihood strategy versus another and may constitute key constraints to processes of agroenterprise development for certain segments of the population.This exercise is carried out with key informants drawn from diverse groups in each zone. It is important to have good representation across different social groups in order to get a more complete picture of existing livelihood strategies. The steps to follow are:1. Explain the objective of the exercise. 2. Request informant(s) to provide information on all sources of income available to community members (Table 10). Record income sources on a flip chart remove repeats and write different ideas onto cards.At the end of this process you should have a list of cards with different sources of income for households in the zone. 3. Group the sources of income, based on the ease of access to them for households in the zone; for example, can all households in the community access this activity? If not, who can? Who does not have access? Why not? Group the different sources of income.  4. Once all conditions of access have been expressed rank them in order of importance, from the most important limitations to the least important, re order all cards in the form of a flow chart as shown in Figure 11. 5. Identify sources of income that are stable (=), increasing in importance ( ), or losing in importance ( ). An example is shown in Figure 12. 6. The last step is to examine the importance of the different economic activities from the point of view of gender. The key question in this step is: Who is mainly responsible for developing this activity? During the first level of analysis, this question can wait. If there is interest, there are several ways of advancing but perhaps the simplest is to define, by economic category, the specific activities carried out and by whom. An example of this second level of analysis, extracted from Figure 13 appears in Table 11.This study can be deepened by asking who decides what to do, when and who controls income. This probes the question of who makes decisions related to economic activities and who does the work. With this knowledge, future efforts can focus on issues of equity in relation to income generating activities.At the end of these exercises, the enterprise team should have a clear idea of the livelihood strategies of specific segments of the population in specific zones. Some strategies maybe similar and, thus, can be generalized to the entire area. However, it is highly probable that different client types use specific income strategies and by understanding these options, agencies can tailor interventions for specific clients.To complement this livelihood analysis, we recommend a quick review of innovation processes in the area, as described under the next heading. Often, innovations are related to each other, e.g., improvements in production leads to improvements in organization to sell the new surplus and grouped by themes (e.g., specific products of a zone or natural resources). An exhaustive inventory of innovation is not necessary the aim is to obtain an idea of outstanding innovations in each resource, how they came about, and their impact.To understand innovation history and flow, we revisit the zones resource tables, and the social differentiation carried out as part of the livelihood analysis. This information can be generated with a focus group made up of key informants from the zone that represents various social groups. To facilitate this process, the following steps are suggested:1. Remind participants of definitions used for resource analysis.  Washing, selection, and packinggeographical location, and levels of wellbeing. Here, profiles of each zone's innovators should be made. 4. Once the innovation and its innovator(s) are identified, ask the participants to analyze the sources of information that led to the innovation. Was it a process of trial and error carried out by one farmer only? Or was it a combination between external information (e.g., radio, television, flyers, or visits) and local ingenuity? Was it an external actor who shared his or her knowledge with the innovator(s) (e.g., training, written information, or field days)? Most likely, the innovation builds on a combination of factors. What we hope to understand is the relative importance of the local know how versus sources of external information. This process to looks at how innovations are introduced into the zone and how such introductions can be facilitated in the future. 5. Once the innovation was made, how was it disseminated among the zone's households and communities? How did new people learn and adapt the innovation for use on their farms? Who disseminated the innovation? Was it intentional (e.g., workshops, visits, or organized field days) or spontaneous (e.g., informal talks in the village or the general store)?6. What impact has the innovation generated? Who benefited from the innovation and what was their well-being level? An exhaustive analysis of impact is not required but merely to ask participants to evaluate the innovation's relative importance in the zone.If they have concrete data (e.g., X number of sugar mills were improved with the technology), these should be noted.For analysis the focus group's conclusions can be noted in a matrix similar to that in Table 12. Planning Together for Joint Action I n the previous section, representatives of the working group carried out a diagnosis of the resources available to support agroenterprise development in an area, taking into account options for zoning the area. This survey will have provided information on:• Existing endowments of natural, human, productive, and social resources.• Livelihood strategies for differentiated social groups by area and zone according to local welfare criteria.• Existing organizations and institutions relevant to processes of rural enterprise development and their relationships in the diverse zones of the area.• Current and historical processes of innovation in the area.This information is now used to develop simple action plans to promote agroenterprise development. This section is divided into four parts:1. Review of working group members and the formation of the group. 2. Analysis of the area's potential for rural enterprise development.3. Identification of areas of consensus for common action. 4. Generation of a shared action plan.The implementation of these four steps is focused on the organizations that plan to be members of the working group. The steps can be facilitated by an external or support organization but the discussions and final agreements should be the product of the working group members.Before generating an action plan, time should be taken to assess the stakeholders in the working group and to gain a better understanding of their level of interest. In some cases new participants may have been identified from the diagnosis stage. Review the composition of the group; gain an understanding of their expectations, what they can provide and what they may need to play an active role in the group. This is the time to develop some basic ground rules for roles and responsibilities for all group members.One of the results of the diagnosis was the identification of key actors for the area's rural agroenterprise development. These actors may be similar to those already in the working group or they may be different. This is an appropriate time to review the identified actors and openly discuss the following questions as a group:• Do the participants in the working group represent the most important actors for rural enterprise development in the area?• Do they have sufficient information, resources, and access to the market to change the existing situation by themselves, or would it be better to include additional organizations? If so, which organizations?• Are lead organizations for rural enterprise development adequately represented in the group? Who else is missing or needed?Typically, the diagnosis identifies several organizations that share similar approaches to agroenterprise development, such as growers' associations, NGOs, public sector entities, universities, and private enterprises, which could strengthen development processes in the area. This is the moment for identifying those organizations that are available and have both interest and capacity to participate as members of the working group. A key recommendation is to look beyond the traditional partners (growers' associations, NGOs, the government) to include new actors who bring other perspectives to the group. If, for example, a dynamic private company or a local Chamber of Commerce is selected, then these could bring a well-developed business approach that would complement the strengths of the other development actors.More recently, new actors such as large supermarket chains are desirable partners, as they can effectively provide markets for various products from the area and thus \"pull\" processes of enterprise development from the market.Once the key actors are identified and motivated to participate, an informal agreement should be developed in which each participant expresses their intention to collaborate in the rural enterprise development of the area. This agreement should include:• Purpose of the working group's formation.• The group's objectives.• The initial work timetable.• The roles and responsibilities.Once the working group is convened, the planning process can begin as follows:Planning begins with an analysis of local capacities, a review of target zones, local partners, and client farmer groups, a review of the more promising enterprise options, based on zonal preferences and resources required to move the process forward. These issues can be addressed using the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, methodology, more commonly known as SWOT analysis.The SWOT analysis should be undertaken in a rigorous manner, so that the results can be used by the working group. Whilst SWOT analysis can be very useful, if done by a dedicated team, but if done superficially, results will be poor and difficult to interpret in a meaningful way. Spend time on this process if you want a useful product. The basic steps are as follows:1. Ask the working group to list the strengths, in terms of rural agroenterprise development, that are evident in the areabased diagnosis. The strengths grouped by topic (e.g., natural resources, business organization, or markets ties). 2. Once identified and grouped, the strengths are prioritized. Which are more important-or evident-and which are less important? Which constitute solid bases for generating change and which do not? At the end of the discussion, strengths are ranked. 3. Ask the working group to list and group opportunities, in terms of agroenterprise development, that are evident in the areabased diagnosis. Some opportunities may be within the area, others, may have market opportunities beyond the area. This is normal; the key is whether the product can be produced within the area. 4. Prioritize the opportunities. 5. Ask the working group to list and group weaknesses, in terms of agroenterprise development, that are evident in the areabased diagnosis. These weaknesses are found within the area. 6. Prioritize the weaknesses. 7. Ask the working group to list threats, in terms of agroenterprise development, that are evident in the area-based diagnosis.Although threats can be internal, they tend to be external and related to the market or competition. 8. Prioritize the threats.The results of this discussion should be written up in a SWOT matrix and then variables can be combined, or \"crossed\", as shown in Table 13.The combination or crossing step is facilitated using the following questions:• How can we use the strengths found in the area to turn identified threats into opportunities for existing or future processes of rural enterprise development?• How do we take advantage of our opportunities to improve the weaknesses, in terms of rural agroenterprise development, found in the area?The results of these two \"crosses\" are noted in a matrix such as found in Table 14.Once the rural enterprise development potential of the area has been assessed, based Table 14. Results of \"crossing\" between strengths and threats.Opportunities versus weaknesses Results of the group's discussion on comparing Results of the group's discussion on comparing strengths against threats in terms of the area's opportunities against weaknesses in terms of the potential for agroenterprise development.area's rural agroenterprise development.on the results of the SWOT analysis, the group can focus on concrete activities required. At this stage, we must identify the members of the working group who are committed to working together, discover their common vision in terms of sustainable rural agroenterprise development for the selected area, define how the working group can contribute to the attainment of these aspirations (or mission), and define \"rules of the game\" (or principles) for action.Before we define the vision, mission, and principles for the working group, we must be clear on who the participants are. To facilitate information sharing among group members who may or may not know what each other does, each member should briefly describe the organization that he or she represents, the sites where they are active, the products they support, and the needs for support that have been identified. Exiting or desired links with other members of the working group can also be discussed at this time.The rationale behind this exercise is that of facilitating effective networking among members of the working group through complete information and, at the same time, answering concerns regarding the experience, capacity and coverage of each organization.Table 15 presents a sample format for organizing this presentation. Table 13. An example of a SWOT matrix with \"crosses\".The strengths found in the area's potential for The weaknesses found in the area's potential for agroenterprise development noted here.agroenterprise development noted here.The opportunities for the area's potential for The threats to the area's potential for agroenterprise agroenterprise development noted here.development noted here.Table 15. Format for information exchange among members of a working group.ACELY (Asociación Campesina de Enlaces de Ladera de Yoro) [Rural Association for Liaisons for the Yoro Hillsides] Sites:Yorito, Sulaco, and Victoria. Products:Basic grains. Services:• Monitoring visits on soil conservation. • Survey of demand.• Facilitate access to improved bean seed for members.• Marketing.• Financial and credit support.• More training in micro-business.AGASUL (Asociación de Ganaderos y Agricultores de Sulaco) [Association of Sulaco Livestock Owners and Farmers] Site:Sulaco.Coordinate activities in favor of region's livestock and agriculture.Orient and train members on how to increase and diversify production. Needs:• Shorten the marketing chain for produce: basic grains or milk.• Support in acquiring agricultural and livestock inputs.• Financial support soft loans.• Training on processing produce, which would then have aggregate value.Once working group membership is clear, we can begin the planning process with the group with a visioning exercise. This exercise requires that each member define a 'preferred future' for the rural agroenterprise development of the area. This exercise is completed through the following steps:• Each participant indicates, in one or two short phrases, the key elements of their 'preferred future' for the rural agroenterprise development of the area. Key elements might include phrases like, \"I see producer groups working with local processors, NGOs, and traders from the capital city to develop new value-added products for supermarkets\" or \"I see market information reaching farmers and NGOs in a timely and useful manner and crop patters shifting based on market demands\". These ideas should be written on cards using large letters, using a maximum of three lines and one idea per card. Each member then shares his or her ideas with the other members of the group.• As each participant defines and shares her desired future, the cards are placed on a wall, so they remain visible to all participants.• Once all the preferred future cards are presented, they are then grouped according to common themes (i.e., market information, value added products, improved relations between chain actors, etc.).• For each common theme, one or more phrases are written down that summarize the sense of the dream cards generated by the group members. These phrases may come either from the existing cards or be a summary of several phrases from different participants.• The summary phrases are then grouped into one or more paragraphs that describe the desired future for rural agroenterprise development in the area as defined collectively by the group. This final desired future (or vision) should be written on a large sheet of paper and placed so that it is visible to all participants.Once we have a clear idea of the desired future, we need to ask, \"how can the working group contribute to this future?\" The group must determine what it can realistically contribute towards achieving the desired future, in the knowledge that the desired goal will also depend on other local and external actors not yet part of the working group.The working group's mission should reflect the area-based diagnosis, the analysis of agroenterprise development potential of the area, and the capacity, knowledge and coverage of the working group members. The mission should be aligned with the group's capacities. Grounding the mission of the group in reality is important because it is easier to broaden a mission that is too limited than to focus a more ambitious one.The steps for achieving this process are similar to those used to define the desired future:• Each participant writes one or two short phrases with their key ideas on what the working group could contribute to the desired future for the area's agroenterprise development. The phrases are written on cards in large letters, with a maximum of three lines, with one idea per card. Later, each member of the group presents their cards to the other members of the group.• As each participant defines and shares how the working group could contribute to the desired future, the cards are placed so that they remain visible to all participants.• Once all the cards are presented, they are grouped according to common themes.• Once the common themes are identified, one or more phrases are written down that summarize each theme and then fed back to the group for discussion and approval.• The summary phrases are then grouped into one or more paragraphs that describe the role of the working group in bringing about the desired future. This final expression of the role (or mission) of the working group should be written on a large sheet of paper and placed so that it is visible to all participants.The final step prior to drafting a concrete action plan is the definition of basic principals that will guide the working group. The intention of this exercise is to define some general principles that can be adapted to each organization's activities and guide the overall thrust of the working group. They can be generated by following the steps described previously, but with a change towards the end.• Each participant nominates one or two key principals (the idea plus a short description). Examples of working group principals include things like \"participatory decision making\" or \"sustainable management of natural resources\". Each principal is written on a separate card in large letters with a maximum of three lines. Later, the cards are shared among group members as in the previous exercises.• As each member describes their contributions, the cards are placed so that they remain visible to all participants.• Once all the contributions are presented, they are grouped according to common themes.• With the common themes identified, a discussion is conducted to name each group of cards. When consensus is arrived on the name of a group of cards (the principle for this group of ideas), the name is written on a different colored card and place above the others.• Once all the principles are named, a brief description of this principle is written. This description seeks to clearly define the group's understanding of the principal and how it relates to the promotion of agroenterprise development in the area.At the end of this process, the working group will posses a common desired future (vision), a clear idea of what the working group will contribute to this desired future (mission) and shared principals to guide the activities of the working group towards the future. With these inputs, the group is ready to design an initial work plan.An effective work plan is similar to a map, it provides a clear idea of where we want to go and some key signposts or indicators tell us whether we are heading in the right direction.To construct an adequate map, four methodological steps are proposed:1. Identify specific areas for intervention, and who to work with. 2. Prioritize areas according to their importance, feasibility, and impact potential. 3. Identify short-, mid-, and long-term activities that can be done with the existing resources and those that require external support. 4. Construct an action plan with a timetable, showing clear responsibilities for the working group members.The information below outlines the contents of each step. Once the key areas of intervention have been identified and defined, the working group needs to rank them by importance. Often, all the issues seem important and, as result, we do not know where to begin. This exercise helps to orient the working group in this regard. The steps for ranking areas of intervention include:1. Organize a pair wise ranking matrix, where the title of each key area of intervention is placed both on the vertical and horizontal axis. Each pair of ideas will be compared only once so the bottom half of the matrix is not used. In the example, this section is shown in dark gray in Table 16. 2. Each pair of options is then compared to decide which of the two key area of intervention is most critical to develop first. In this case, the facilitator should ask the group \"is it more important that we train ourselves in accounting or organize a meeting with microfinance institutions? Which comes first?\" The group should decide which of the two key areas under analysis is more important, and place this idea in the matrix as shown in Table 17.  18.In the examples shown, it is now clear that the working group should start by analyzing the market chains for products in high demand, followed by arranging for funds from the government and organizing a meeting with microfinance institutions, with training in accounting coming later.This exercise can last an hour or more, depending on the number of activities that must be analyzed and the discussion generated around this process. For the prioritized activities the working group should analyze whether or not the skills and resources needed to move forward are available locally or not. Working group activities should be initiated with interventions that depend principally on existing local knowledge and resources. This helps to focus interventions in areas where rapid change can be achieved with minimum effort and generates a positive dynamic among group members. Establishing a solid base of local capacity does not mean that the working group should ignore opportunities for external support. In fact, working groups with strong internal dynamics tend to be more effective in linking to external technical and financial support and when this assistance arrives more effective in transforming it into sustainable processes of rural agroenterprise development.To assess local capacity to implement key intervention strategies, the working group lists the resources or knowledge it needs for each intervention strategy and compares that list with what exists locally (Table 19).The time needed for this exercise will vary according to the number of activities and the steps that are required to develop each one.With the inputs previously constructed, the last step of this process is to generate an action plan for the first 12 months of working group activities. The matrix can include information such as that found in Table 20.If the working group wishes, the action plan can also include the financial needs for each activity and thus generate a budget that complements the action plan.Based on the analysis of the resources available and potential market options, the members of the working group can start to build a consolidated plan for enterprise development that will engage various local actors.The planning process therefore serves several purposes. It raises the profile of income generating methods, based on agroenterprise development within a defined geographic area, it provides a basic platform for dialogue with diverse partners and an approach that is inclusive, that seeks to build relationships rather than operate in isolation.The approach is long-term and one of the basic principles of this approach is to include local actors in a participatory manner, so that they are able to learn new skills, put them into action, reflect on their level of success, and adapt them to the local context.Although the final outcome of this guide is a basic planning tool, much social capital will have been gained in the process and this will allow for greater sharing of roles and responsibilities in the future.The following two sections raise issues of monitoring the process and the final writing up and dissemination of results from the activities undertaken in this guide.Participatory Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning T he purpose of this section is to provide some general ideas about the utility of a simple monitoring, evaluation, and learning system for the working group. Two simple methods will be put forward document advances place. The final decision on which to use will be in the hands of the group.The principal objective of a monitoring, evaluation, and learning system is to assist the working group and clients to become more effective over time. To build an appropriate system, the working group and client groups should review their information needs and design a system that focuses on those demands. Some key principals to keep in mind in this sense are:1. Design the system around what the working group members and, for example, the farmer groups want to control, evaluate or learn. 2. Keep the system as simple and straightforward as possible. 3. Base the system, where possible, on existing information that can be analyzed in new ways (poverty or income data, for example). 4. Link the system into existing data gathering exercises (i.e., baseline studies, surveys, others) in the area and build on the data collected in the diagnosis of the working group.5. Resist the temptation to gather \"interesting\" information on a wide range of activities. 6. Be systematic in data collection and analysis and make use of locally relevant tools for both (use visual methods rather than surveys for low literacy areas, for example). 7. Assess the utility of information generated for decision making in the working group.If the working group adapts these principles, the resulting system should fit well with their capacities and information demands.This section presents monitoring tools to assess and control activities, and learning tools to highlight important learning experiences for specific members of the working group. While these tools are best used together, it is common to find working groups focused principally on the monitoring and evaluation function. However, without a useful and simple learning process, the working group runs the risk of being stuck in 'single loop learning' as shown in Figure 13.Monitoring and evaluation on its own tends to reinforce a single loop learning system. A monitoring and evaluation system linked to a learning process, on the other hand, moves us towards a more complex learning system. This system, known as 'double loop learning' by Argyris 6 , generates a process through which the basic assumptions underlying planning, implementation, and evaluation are questioned and improved upon. A 'double loop learning' model is shown in Figure 14.A double loop learning system helps to move beyond the simplistic plan-act cycle and begins to question the way that organizations promote rural agroenterprise in the area. This more thorough analysis should lead to a more effective process.Single loop learning 5. For more discussion on this point, see Fairbanks and Lindsay (1997).Governing variable double loop learning 6. For more discussion on this, see: www.infed.org/thinkers/argyris.htm#_Single-loop_and_double-loopIn a single loop learning cycle, people and organizations plan, act, and evaluate the results of their actions. Based on the effects of their actions, they then complete the cycle by returning to the planning phase. This process is useful if the relation between the problem and its solution is straightforward, lineal, and causal. In addition, a single loop system assumes that the basic assumptions on which the system rests are valid and static. However, many problems encountered in rural development, do not respond to this simple model, which requires a more complex analysis.In reality, what is needed is to review basic assumptions about what needs to done, when and why 5 .The two tools included in this section are simple. As the focus of this guide is on basic principles and techniques that can be adapted to diverse needs at the field level, the first tool for monitoring and evaluation draws on the action plan developed in the previous section and focuses on documenting, controlling, and monitoring the implementation of the working group's action plan. The second, known as 'most significant change', seeks to document lessons learned by diverse members of the working group and facilitate discussions on the underlying assumptions of the group to reframe approaches based on experience.The most straightforward way to establish a monitoring and evaluation system for the working group is to base it on the action plan developed in Section 3 of this guide. In the action plan, the working group defined key activities, steps, responsibilities, dates and, perhaps, budgets. A monitoring and evaluation system can revisit each activity in the action plan periodically 7 to assess how successfully this activity has been carried out and what the results are. In operational terms, this process can occur in the course of normal meetings of the working group or, if implemented in conjunction with the 'most significant change' learning tool, to special sessions of the working group focused on monitoring, evaluation, and learning.To document changes, positive and negative, in the evolution of the action plan, the working group can make use of a monitoring tool such as that found in Table 21.The working group assesses each activity in four areas:1. Results achieved.what worked less well. 3. Changes that need to be made to the work plan based on results to date. 4. Level of satisfaction with the activity.It is important to note that the monitoring and evaluation should take place at the level of the activity-which includes several steps-and not at the level of each step. This distinction is made to save time for the working group and avoid getting trapped in details when what we want to assess is the overall effectiveness of the activity as such. Has this activity-with all of its steps-led to the changes that the working group expected? Why or Why not?In operational terms, the revision of the action plan takes place in a workshop with the working group members. Each person or group of people who appear as 'people responsible' for the activity present a short summary of work in this area focusing on results achieved, lessons learned (both positive and negative), and changes that need to be made based on results up to now (points 1 through 3 above). A summary of this information is discussed with the rest of the working group. The final step is to assess the level of satisfaction of the working group with each activity. This information is written on a flip chart prior to advancing to the next activity. Once all of the activities have been reviewed and the level of satisfaction assessed, the working group decides on what changes need to be made to the existing action plan in terms of activities, steps, dates, budgets, responsibilities or any other aspects. These changes are then noted and incorporated into the action plan for implementation. At the end of the workshop, the working group should have several flip charts showing their results to date, the 7. The meaning of \"periodically\" can vary based on the needs of the working group. In those groups with a strong tradition of collaboration, monitoring and evaluation might occur every 3 to 6 months while in newer groups monthly revisions might be more appropriate. assessment of each activity and the changes required in the action plan. These can be typed up and shared within the working group as well as with other interested stakeholders to show the advances made by the group as well as serving as a record of the working group as such.The process of planning, acting, monitoring, and evaluating should lead the group through an iterative process that allows the action plan to evolve and develop or hone skills. In dynamic working groups, this process becomes second nature and continuous while in weaker groups it often falters. To avoid this pitfall, the working group requires tools and spaces to reflect on their assumptions and deepen their understanding of processes of rural agroenterprise development. The 'most significant change' method is one way of doing this.If the working group decides to make use of the 'most significant change' (MSC) method to document learning, this process can evolve directly out of the monitoring and evaluation work described previously. The MSC method comes from experiences in Bangladesh (Davies, 1996) and Australia (Dart, 1999a) that sought to document processes of organizational learning in development activities.According to Dart, MSC can be understood as process through which program stakeholders interpret their experiences with the program and select instances of significant change and record each as a story. They are also required to record why this change is significant to them. Then when the reviewers read and evaluate the story, they engage with it and construct further new meaning. When this is done in a group, this construction may be shared. In the MSC approach the criteria that are used to interpret the story are documented, made transparent and attached to the story itself. It is this transparency that makes the whole process even more open to new and more sophisticated constructions of meaning (Dart, 1999b).To make use of this method, the working group needs to undertake three main activities: (a) establish the kinds of change the group expects to see; (b) organize a system to collect, process and review stories of change, and;(c) find time-and perhaps assistance-to conduct a secondary analysis of the stories selected. Each process is described briefly in the following section.In this step, the working group members should identify no more than three kinds of changes that they would like to document as a result of their activities.Examples could include 'more diversified livelihoods' or 'increasing value added activities'. This list serves as a guide for members of the working group to identify and report changes they see at the field level.Stories that show the kind of changes that the working group would like to document are recorded by those most directly involved in project implementation (i.e., field workers and farmers or entrepreneurs). People at each level of the project hierarchy are then involved in reviewing a series of stories and selecting those that they think represent the most significant accounts of change (Figures 15  and 16). The selection of the stories takes the form of an iterative voting process, until consensus is achieved. At the various review fora, participants are required to document which stories they selected and what criteria they used. This information is then fed back to the storytellers and the project stakeholders. It is intended that the monitoring system should take the form of a slow but extensive dialogue among working group members, their organizations, and farmers during each reporting period (Dart, 2000). This process can be repeated with important external stakeholders (i.e., donors or government officials) to establish a dialogue with them about what constitutes significant change in terms of agroenterprise development in the area.The stories reported by the organizations involved in the working group can be grouped for additional analysis. These stories are of particular use in understanding the outcomes and limitations of agroenterprise development in terms of 'big questions' such as rural poverty, social and gender equality, and changes in natural resource management. The inclusion of social science researchers from local universities may be useful for this kind of analysis.For each of the above mentioned steps, the following tools can be adapted for use by the working group.The definition of the types of change that the working groups hopes to see, can be based on the 'preferred future' (or vision) that they developed in Section 3. From this work, the group selects no more than three specific types of change to document and lists them. This list of expected changes is then communicated to the field workers-staff who work directly with farmers or agroenterpriseswho then identify stories of change that correspond to these categories.The collection of the stories of significant change at the field level can take various forms depending on the region, local culture, and relative levels of literacy. In all cases, the stories of change should be short and focused on answering the basic journalistic questions of:• What was the change that occurred and why is it significant to the people involved?• Where did this story of change take place?• When did this change occur?• Who was involved in the significant change?• How did this change occur?In areas with low levels of literacy, it may be more effective to document stories of significant change using drawings, photographs or Stories collected by those working directly with farmers and brought to monthly staff meetings Figure 16. Idealized flow diagram for stories collected during a reporting period. (Adapted from Dart, 2000) interviews (audio or video). There is ample space here for field staff and farmers to use their creativity and design reporting mechanisms that are adapted to their conditions.Once each field worker has identified and documented with farmers or agroentrepreneurs their best story of significant change in the period of analysis-including the reasons why it is significant-these are fed into organizational meetings (shown as level 2 in Figure 16). The stories are reviewed internally and up to four stories are selected to share with the working group. At this stage it is important that the organization explain why these stories of change are significant in relations to the type of change the working group hopes to see. The working group, in turn, reviews the stories from each partner organization and selects the most significant to share with key stakeholders (shown as level 3 in Figure 16).The final step of the process is sharing and discussing stories of change and their significance with the key stakeholders of the working group. Stakeholders might include upper level managers from the partner agencies, project investors, private sector actors, and relevant government officials. In this space the stories selected by the working group are reviewed and their significance debated with the key stakeholders. The goal of this space is not so much the selection of the most significant story of change but rather the discussion about what constitutes significant change for rural agroenterprise development in the area. This discussion is useful because it helps to:• Inform the key stakeholders of the outcomes of the activities of the working group in a tangible way and build support for agroenterprise development process in the area. What does the working group mean for rural agroenterprise development in the area? How successful are its activities?• Align the goals of the working group with those of the key stakeholders who can facilitate structural changes that are beyond the capacity of the working group as such (i.e., government, donor or private sector policies).• Provide feedback to all levels of the working group as to what is seen as significant change and should therefore be pursued actively.The results of this discussion are communicated with all levels of the working group (levels 1 through 4 in Figure 16) and decisions made incorporated into future action plans. In this way the MSC approach completes the second loop of the double loop learning cycle.The sum of the MSC stories provides a rich picture of how the working group is contributing to agroenterprise development at the field level. This data contrasts and complements more traditional indicator-based impact assessment and can be reviewed to provide important social data about why changes-either positive or negative-are occurring. As mentioned previously, this task is best undertaken in collaboration with social science researchers from local universities who can assist in the interpretation of the stories at other levels.Conclusions and recommendations Appendix 1. List of organizations in the working group Appendix 2. Questionnaire used in resource survey Appendix 3. Cards of the most preferred productsThis final document should be held by the faciltating organization and local working group members as a record of how the process was conducted and results. The product options should now be used in the next step of the agroenterprise development process, which is focussed on the identification of market opportunities and market chain integration.At the end of this planning guide, the working group survey team will have selected a specific area for intervention, identified key partners and farmer groups to work with, and identified potential products that require market evaluation.The study will also have highlighted areas of weak capacity, where additional training is required and where more contacts need to be made. In some cases, additional training and preparation will be required prior to shifting into the next stage. Some issues to review include:• Are the existing smallholder producer groups sufficiently well organized to take on market based interventions? Are they already involved in collective actions, or will this be a new concept for them?• Are the partners and their farmer groups sufficiently interested and/or motivated to invest more time in undertaking further market studies to evaluate market prospects for products they are already producing, or are they more interested to evaluate new market options?• Do the facilitating partners have sufficient in-house capacity to lead a market-based intervention or do they require additional training prior to or as part of their learning process?• Does the combination of partners and farmer groups have sufficient financial capital to invest in new enterprise options? If not, can the group obtain credit from a local service provider, a micro credit organization or do the farmers also need to start a savings and loans scheme to build financial skills and capital.• What scale of intervention is the working group hoping to achieve? Will the working group opt for a small pilot project, several marketing approaches for diverse producer groups, or focus activities on one mainstream market option?• Are there any conflicts between seeking widespread impact for a given market area and the desire to provide differentiated options for diverse beneficiary groups?After discussing the most important issues related to next steps, we advise the team to continue as quickly as possible onto the next step in CIAT's Agroenterprise Development Strategy. Depending on the strategy selected, the farmer group should work with the most appropriate skills set outlined in one of the following guides from the Agroenterprise Development series:• Identifying Market Opportunities for Rural Smallholder Producers.• Participatory Market Chain Analysis for Smallholder Producers.• A Market Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Agroenterprise Development.• Collective Marketing for Smallholder Producers.The service providers, research team, and representatives of interested smallholder producer groups, should evaluate which methods are most appropriate in their next steps and then begin the process of upgrading their skills to identify new opportunities for increasing their incomes through successful agroenterprise development.Undertaking this first practical part of the agroenterprise development approach is the beginning of a new journey towards marketing for smallholder producers. This first step will have highlighted some of the assets and resources available in the target area and also provided a flavor of the requirements in building new enterprise options.Although no investments have been made as yet, the planning stage is an important part of the overall process, and learning how to analyze local resources, and engage local agencies and business options, are important elements in building agroenterprise capacity. This first analysis is an important learning process, not only for the lead service provider but also for the members of the working group, who can begin to use these skills now and in their future business planning.This first step provides a sound basis to start engaging in marketing and for developing skills in systematic information, gathering, analysis, and decision making. These are all vital skills for the subsequent stages in agroenterprise development.","tokenCount":"16169"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"196b49ac8a3b1cf582443efdb2463eff","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/2d29001b-e1f8-4a94-8ac3-7d8418d06e6b/content","id":"1581413171"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6bc9de89-43ef-4137-a06c-40af51374086","pagecount":"10","content":"Developing wheat-alien chromosome introgression lines to improve bread wheat's resistance to stresses, such as drought, salinity stress and diseases, requires reliable markers to identify and characterize the alien chromatins. Leymus mollis is a wild relative of bread wheat resistant to salinity and economically important diseases of wheat, but its genome sequence and cytological markers are not available. We devised a molecular marker-assisted strategy for L. mollis chromosome identification and applied it to produce 10 wheat-L. mollis chromosome addition lines. Using 47 L. racemosus genome polymorphic PCR markers and DArTseq genotyping, we distinguished the L. mollis chromosomes and differentiated disomic and monosomic lines by progeny test. DArTseq genotyping generated 14,530 L. mollis SNP markers and the chromosome-specific SNP markers were used to determine the homoeologous groups of L. mollis chromosomes in the addition lines. To validate the marker-based results, genomic in situ hybridization was applied to confirm the presence and cytological status of L. mollis chromosomes in the lines. This study demonstrates that adequate molecular markers allow the production and characterization of wheat-alien addition lines without in situ hybridization, which saves considerable time and effort.Leymus species are prominent in Triticeae studies as pasture plants and gene sources for improving bread wheat 1-6 . They are reported to have the Ns genomes from Psathyrostachys and Xm genomes from an unknown source 5,7,8 . However, recent molecular analyses indicate that both genomes are from Psathyrostachys and that tetraploid Leymus species are segmental polyploids (2n = 4x = 28, Ns 1 Ns 1 Ns 2 Ns 2 ) 4,9 . This genomic representation of tetraploid Leymus species as segmental polyploids is consistently used in this article.Reports show that Leymus species are resistant to salinity and economically important wheat diseases 6,10,11 . Their chromosome segments in bread wheat genetic background improve wheat's tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses, such as Fusarium head blight, stripe rust and powdery mildew diseases 3,6,[12][13][14][15][16][17] , heat stress 18 , aluminium toxicity 19 , and salinity stress 20 . The recognition of the potentials of Leymus species as valuable gene sources for the improvement of wheat dates back to the 1960s when Tsitsin reported the production of different combinations of wheat-Leymus amphidiploids 21 . Subsequent studies in this direction have demonstrated high cytogenetic stability in wheat-L. mollis octoploids and varying segregation and transmission rates of alien (L. mollis) chromosomes in different backcross generations of wheat-L. mollis backcross populations [22][23][24][25] . The segregation rates are usually narrower in BC 1 F 1 as compared to F 2 , while alien transmission rates are higher in disomic lines, especially disomic substitution lines, than monosomic lines 24,25 . Different types (whole-arm or Robertsonian, intercalary and distal) of wheat-Leymus translocation lines have also been developed 3,12,[26][27][28][29] and Li et al. 29  recorded average translocation frequency of 7.55% for L. mollis chromosomes, while Kishii 28 found that the translocation frequencies of L. racemosus chromosomes ranged between 0 and 8%, with higher translocation frequencies in the short arms. However, the unavailability of L. mollis genome sequence information and known polymorphic cytologicalmarkers to differentiate its chromosomes constitute obstacles to rapid development and adequate characterization of wheat-L. mollis chromosome introgression lines (CILs).Leymus racemosus, a close relative of L. mollis, has reliable variable cytological markers which enables the application of fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) to differentiate its chromosomes in wheat-L. racemosus addition lines 30 . Using these lines and other wheat-L. racemosus CILs for marker validation, we recently developed many L. racemosus genome-based DNA markers and successfully transferred a good proportion of the PCR-based markers to L. mollis genome 31 . Therefore, in this study, we applied the transferred markers to develop a methodology for producing wheat-L. mollis addition lines without in situ hybridization. The PCR markers were used for marker-assisted selection, and DArTseq was applied to further genotype the selected lines, allowing development of L. mollis chromosome-specific SNP markers to complement the PCR-based markers. In order to validate the marker-based results, genomic in situ hybridization (GISH) was applied to confirm the status (disomic or monosomic) of the added chromosomes. The L. mollis chromosome-specific markers developed in this study enabled clear differentiation of the wheat-L. mollis addition lines, and SNP markers among the two Leymus species highlighted their genomic relationship. Also, preliminary phenotypic data summarized the varying effects of the different L. mollis chromosomes.Plant materials. Bread wheat cv. Chinese Spring (CS) (2n = 6x = 42, AABBDD; recipient) was crossed with L. mollis (2n = 4x = 28, Ns 1 Ns 1 Ns 2 Ns 2 ; donor) to produce wheat-L. mollis F 1 hybrids (2n = 5x = 35; ABDNs 1 Ns 2 ). To ensure the survival of the hybrids, embryo rescue was used 32 . The hybrids were backcrossed with CS, and the populations were characterized by chromosome counting and chromosome-specific DNA markers (Fig. 1). The two parents are maintained in the genebank of Tottori Chromosome Bank of Wheat (TACBOW), Arid Land Research Center, Tottori University, with accession numbers KT020-003 (CS) and TACBOW0113 (L. mollis). The L. mollis accession was originally collected from the Japan seashore (37°5′38″N 140°59′6″E) close to Iwaki, Fukushima, Japan.Molecular marker-assisted selection of monosomic and disomic lines. Genomic DNA samples of seedlings of the backcross populations were isolated and purified using the cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) method and genotyped with L. racemosus PCR-based markers transferred to L. mollis 31 . Non-carrier segregants and duplicated carriers were discarded, and the remaining plants were advanced to BC 3 F 4 under a temperature-controlled (22 °C day/18 °C night) greenhouse. In each generation, disomic plants were distinguished using progeny test. In this test, we assumed that monosomic addition lines produce non-carrier (2n = 42, AABBDD), monosomic addition (2n = 43, AABBDD + 1′ [Ns]), and disomic addition (2n = 44, AABBDD + 1′′ [Ns]) segregants, whereas genetically stable disomic plants do not segregate: they produce only disomic addition lines (2n = 44, AABBDD + 1′′ [Ns]). This is because, in meiosis, the monosomic addition lines are expected to produce two different gametes: ABD and ABDNs, while the disomic addition lines should produce one gamete, ABDNs.In order to confirm the presence of L. mollis chromosomes in the selected addition lines and develop more L. mollis chromosome-specific markers, DArTseq genotyping was applied to rescreen three replicates of each of the lines alongside the two parents and L. racemosus. The latter was included to estimate the genomic relationship between the two Leymus species because L. racemosus genome PCR markers were used to genotype the wheat-L. mollis addition lines. All the DNA samples were sent to Diversity Arrays Technology Pty Ltd, Australia (http://www.diversityarrays.com/) for sequencing and marker identification. The genomic representations were sequenced on HiSeq 2500 and the sequences were aligned to wheat_ChineseSpring04 reference and wheat_ConsensusMap_version_4, as our analysis was based on DArTseq platform optimized for hexaploid wheat. DArTseq data in SNP 1 Row Mapping Format, which we used in this study, was scored \"0\" for a reference allele homozygote (wheat allele only), \"1\" for an SNP allele homozygote (L. mollis allele only), and \"2\" for a heterozygote (both wheat and L. mollis alleles). SNP markers with call rate of 100% (definite scores across all the samples: bread wheat, L. mollis and wheat-L. mollis genomes) were used for the analysis. Markers with SNP alleles in the wheat genome were discarded. Genetic mapping-related statistics were not considered because our objective was to identify polymorphic markers to differentiate between the wheat, Leymus and wheat-L. mollis genomes. The data were analyzed for polymorphism between the wheat and L. mollis genomes, and polymorphic markers were used to identify L. mollis segments in the wheat-L. mollis lines. Possible substitutions of wheat chromosomes were analyzed by filtering the SNP markers specific to the L. mollis segment (markers with score of \"1\") in each line. It should be understood that wheat DArTseq platform grouped all the markers (including L. mollis-specific) into the 21 chromosomes of wheat, hence the presence of L. mollis chromosome in a wheat-L. mollis line would be indicated by a score of \"1\" if the wheat homoeolog is substituted, or 2 if the homoeolog is not substituted. The former case indicates a substitution line, while the latter indicates an addition line.On the basis of the correspondence between the SNP alleles and reference alleles in each CS chromosome provided by DArTseq, L. mollis chromosome-specific SNP markers were used to determine the homoeologous groups (HGs) of L. mollis chromosomes in the wheat background. Genomic relationship between the genomes of the two Leymus species was roughly estimated by marker polymorphism between the genomes, whereas markers consistently called (call rate of 100%) among the two genomes, wheat-L. mollis and wheat-L. racemosus addition lines were used to estimate the relationship between the chromosomes of the two Leymus species. This latter set of markers was used for cluster analysis (http://genomes.urv.cat/UPGMA/) to reveal the associations among the chromosomes of the two Leymus species.Identification of L. mollis chromosomes by GISH. L. mollis genomic DNA was labeled with fluorescein-12-dUTP (Thermo Scientific) using Random Primers DNA Labeling System (Invitrogen). With the labeled L. mollis genomic DNA as probe, GISH was performed for the 10 addition lines following a protocol described for Triticeae species 33 , with slight modifications: steps 3-9 of slide pre-hybridization were skipped and the probe was denatured at 100 °C for 5 min instead of 75 °C for 10 min. After hybridization, the slides were viewed and photographed with an Olympus BX61 automated fluorescence microscope (Olympus).Preliminary phenotypic evaluation of the CALs. The 10 addition lines alongside the background wheat cultivar (CS) were laid out in a completely randomized design (CRD) with six replicates in a greenhouse. Seeds of all the genotypes were sown in petri dishes under the same condition, and uniform seedlings of each genotype were transplanted to plastic pots, one plant in each pot. DNA samples of seedlings from monosomic lines were genotyped by PCR to ensure that only alien carriers were transplanted. All the plants grew under a temperature-controlled (22 °C day/18 °C night) condition. Adequate cultural practices necessary for optimum crop performance were observed. Data were taken on number of days to heading and physiological maturity, plant height, spike length, number of spikes per plant, grain yield per spike and grain yield per plant. Two-tailed t-test was applied to compare the mean values of traits between CS and each addition line. At this preliminary stage, differences among the addition lines were not considered, as all the lines are intended to be collectively evaluated under different stress conditions for further selection and production of translocation and recombination lines with desired segments of L. mollis chromosomes.Production of wheat-L. mollis chromosome addition lines. We developed 10 distinct wheat-L. mollis addition lines (Fig. 1; Table 1). The wheat × L. mollis F 1 hybrids exhibited perennial growth, flowered, but failed to set seed. Repeated attempts to double the chromosomes of the hybrids by colchicine treatment were unsuccessful, so we crossed the hybrids with CS pollens. This approach also failed, but when we crossed in a reciprocal direction, two seeds were harvested. These seeds germinated and grew into fertile annual octoploids (2n = 8x = 56, AABBDDNs 1 Ns 2 ). One of them was used to generate backcross populations, from which the addition lines were produced. In the third backcross generation, we selected, by chromosome counting, plants with 43 chromosomes-assumed to be monosomic addition lines-and arbitrarily assigned alphabetical tags (LmA-N) to them (Fig. 1). Leymus markers were then used for L. mollis chromosome identification and differentiation. Chromosome-specific markers (Table 1) were used to differentiate the lines, while progeny test was used to distinguish between disomic (6) and monosomic (4) lines as we advanced the populations to BC 3 F 4 .From 95 PCR markers transferred from L. racemosus to L. mollis 31 and 15,426 SNP markers in the genomes of L. mollis and CS, we developed 14,577 L. mollis polymorphic markers (47 PCR-based and 14,530 SNP markers) (Table 1 and online Supplementary Table S1). The PCR analysis indicated 49% marker polymorphism between CS and L. mollis genomes 31 , whereas the SNP markers revealed a higher polymorphism (~94%) (see online Supplementary Table S1). Chromosomes of L. mollis in the wheat background were efficiently identified by 27 PCR markers and 6,317 SNP markers (Table 1). A total of 5,957 L. mollis chromosome-specific markers, ranging from 185 in LmL to 796 in LmI (Table 1), enabled unambiguous differentiation of the 10 lines. The number of SNP markers with a genotypic score of 1 (representing only the L. mollis allele) in each line ranged between 3 (0.05%) and 15 (0.2%), which lie within genotyping error range. All the lines retained almost 100% of the reference (wheat) alleles in addition to the SNP alleles, showing that none of the CS chromosomes was substituted. Therefore, all the introgressions were confirmed to be addition lines.Homoeologous groups of L. mollis chromosomes added to wheat. The HGs of all the L. mollis chromosomes added to wheat were determined from the correspondence of L. mollis chromosome-specific SNP markers to the HGs of CS. The 10 L. mollis chromosomes fitted well into seven homoeologous groups, with six chromosomes falling into three HGs (Table 2). Chromosomes in the same HG obviously belong to different sub-genomes, granted that L. mollis is a tetraploid species.Because the use of marker-assisted selection in differentiating monosomic and disomic lines is not a common practice, we validated the status (monosomic or disomic) of L. mollis chromosomes in the addition lines by GISH, which confirmed the marker-based results (Fig. 2). All the disomic addition lines were confirmed to have a pair of L. mollis chromosomes, whereas the monosomic addition lines had single L. mollis chromosomes.Out of 8,653 SNP markers consistently scored in the two Leymus genomes, 75% were monomorphic (see online Supplementary Table S2). A cluster analysis using 579 SNP markers among the 10 wheat-L. mollis lines produced in this study and 8 wheat-L. racemosus addition lines reported previously 30 revealed an interesting relationship between the chromosomes of the two Leymus species. Seven chromosomes each of L. mollis and L. racemosus in six HGs clustered in pairs: L. mollis chromosome H (LmH) and L. racemosus chromosome N (LrN); L. mollis chromosome F (LmF) and L. racemosus chromosome H (LrH); L. mollis chromosome C (LmC) and L. racemosus chromosome J (LrJ); L. mollis chromosome D (LmD) and L. racemosus chromosome K (LrK); L. mollis chromosome N (LmN) and L. racemosus chromosome F (LrF); L. mollis chromosome I (LmI) and L. racemosus chromosome I (LrI); L. mollis chromosome A (LmA) and L. racemosus chromosome A (LrA) (Fig. 3). In HG3, L. mollis chromosomes LmF and LmH were associated with L. racemosus chromosomes LrH and LrN, respectively. Apart from LmL in HG1, whose homoeolog in L. racemosus was not produced, every other HG included at least two chromosomes, one from each Leymus species. In each HG, the genomic distance between homoeologous chromosomes of the two species was narrower than that within the same species (Table 3). In HG3 for instance, the distance indices between chromosomes LmF and LrH (18) and LmH and LrN (16) are clearly lower than those between LmF and LmH (90) and LrH and LrN (88). Using the genetic association among the chromosomes (Fig. 3; Table 3), we tentatively named the chromosomes (Table 4). For each of the species, we numbered the chromosomes according to their HGs and arbitrarily assigned each chromosome of a homoeologous pair to different sub-genomes, designated as Ns 1 and Ns 2 ; the superscripts \"m\" and \"r\" indicate L. mollis and L. racemosus, respectively. All non-homoeologous chromosomes in each species were assumed to be in the same sub-genome, as homoeology between two chromosomes should not exist in one sub-genome.From the results of the preliminary evaluation we conducted (Fig. 4; Supplementary Table S3), all the addition lines were significantly different from CS in at least one of the seven traits measured, indicating the effects of L. mollis chromosomes in the lines. Number  of days to heading (DH) was significantly reduced in six of the lines, significantly increased in one, while three lines were not significantly different from CS (Fig. 4a). Five of the six lines with significantly reduced DH also reached physiological maturity significantly earlier than CS, while the other five lines were not significantly different from CS (Fig. 4b). Plant height was significantly reduced in five lines, significantly increased in one line, while four lines were not different from CS (Fig. 4c). All the lines were significantly different from CS in at least one yield component (Fig. 4d-g). Although spikes were significantly longer in some of the lines (Fig. 4d), number of spikes per plant, grain yield per spike and grain yield per plant were significantly lower in all the lines, except LmG and LmI, which were not significantly different from CS in number of spikes per plant and grain yield per spike, respectively. In our experience 30,34 , production of wheat-alien CILs from intergeneric F 1 hybrid plants requires at least eight years of laborious cytogenetic and/or phenotypic screening. Here, we have shown that marker-assisted selection can considerably reduce the time and effort. In this study, marker development, genotyping, selection and confirmation of the status of each alien chromosome in the 10 addition lines were completed within three years. Our marker-based approach of identifying disomic lines was supported by GISH results. Therefore, the use of molecular markers from the genomes of important wild relatives to track their chromosomes in wheat is a reliable method to facilitate speedy expansion of diversity in wheat germplasm 31,35,36 . This approach would incentivize wheat breeders to develop cultivars with improved adaptability to keep pace with the projected global increase in wheat demand 37 .We avoided spurious duplication of different segments of the same chromosome in different addition lines. The chromosome-specific markers developed in this study clearly differentiated the 10 lines. The duplicates we initially selected by chromosome counting were clarified by molecular markers. Identical PCR amplifications and DArTseq genotypic data revealed lines carrying the same L. mollis chromosome. This would not be possible with GISH because GISH uses genomic DNA as probe, which can only identify the alien chromosomes but cannot show differences between them. Using phenotypic data to identify plants that carry different segments of the same chromosome is difficult; hence, they may be mistaken as carriers of different chromosomes. Such situations can be effectively managed with appropriate molecular markers.Determination of the HG of each L. mollis chromosome using the chromosome-specific SNP markers was consistent with the chromosome clustering using shared SNP markers. The HGs of the remaining L. mollis chromosomes, if introgressed in wheat, can be easily determined with this approach. Other methods of HG determination can result in assignment of different HGs to the same chromosome 30,38 . To determine the HGs of alien chromosomes, their ability to substitute wheat chromosomes in interspecific or intergeneric hybrids and functionally compensate the substituted chromosomes in substitution lines is usually applied [39][40][41][42] . This approach is difficult and its accuracy relies, to a large extent, on the morphological similarities between the substitution line and the wild type, which is under environmental influences.The high proportion of monomorphic markers in the two genomes of Leymus species strongly indicates high genomic similarity between the genomes, and the association of their chromosomes suggests that the genomic distance between the sub-genomes of the two species is smaller than the distance between the sub-genomes within each of the species. This gives the impression that the two Leymus species may have evolved from independent hybridization events of the same diploid species with partially differentiated genomes, for instance Ns 1 and Ns 2 . However, at the moment, we cannot draw a convincing conclusion on the evolutionary relationship between the two Leymus species or their sub-genomes, as this would require the application of the genomic resources of their diploid progenitors as analyzers of the polyploid genomes. Diploid analyzers would also enable reliable discrimination of the sub-genomes and help to clarify the sources of the elementary genomes of the Leymus species. Noteworthy is that the chromosomes of hybrids from Leymus species form complete meiotic pairs [43][44][45][46] , which is a rare phenomenon in interspecific hybrids. This and the high transferability of DNA markers between L. racemosus and L. mollis suggest that the genomic resources of any of the two species should be interchangeably deployed to analyze their genomes. But we could not characterize L. mollis chromosomes with ) between CS and each addition line were compared using two-tailed t-test. Differences among the lines were not considered at this preliminary stage, as all the lines will be subjected to different conditions of stress for further selection and production of translocation and recombination lines with segments of L. mollis chromosomes.L. racemosus cytological markers, so the genomic difference between these species still needs to be clarified. The tentative nomenclature for Leymus chromosomes proposed here can easily accommodate all the chromosomes of Leymus species, irrespective of ploidy level. Considering the consistency of HGs determined independently using the chromosome-specific and common SNP markers, we are certain about the HGs of the L. mollis chromosomes, but the accuracy of the assignment of the chromosomes to the sub-genomes needs to be confirmed using diploid analyzers.Interestingly, the preliminary phenotypic results obtained in this study have shown that L. mollis chromosome segments can be used to develop early maturing cultivars which can be cultivated in areas with short periods of favourable wheat growing conditions. However, the exact segment of the chromosome(s) should be identified and used to produce translocation or recombination lines, to reduce the effects of deleterious genes which may have caused the reduction in the yield components observed in the addition lines. At the moment, since all the genotypes were evaluated under normal growth conditions, we cannot conclude that the relative superior yield components of CS will be sustained under stress conditions. Therefore, all the genotypes will be evaluated under different simulated and actual stress conditions to explore the possibility of selecting lines with the sturdy traits of Leymus species 6,[10][11][12][13] .Essentially, we have proven that wheat-alien addition lines can be rapidly developed and reliably characterized using DNA markers for effective selection of carriers and recognition of disomic and monosomic lines. This approach requires the development of chromosome-specific DNA markers from the genomes of potential gene donors or closely related sequenced genomes. The integration of DArTseq genotyping allows confirmation of the PCR results, development of more chromosome-specific markers, and further characterization of the addition lines. Allocation of all the markers on the DArTseq platform to wheat chromosomes enables effective analysis of wheat-alien complexes. The application of genotyping-by-sequencing approaches, including DArTseq, in the analysis of germplasm of wheat and other plants has gained reasonable popularity [47][48][49][50] . This is not the case with the characterization of wheat-alien introgression lines involving distant relatives of wheat, possibly because it may be thought that wide genetic distance and differences in the ploidy levels of bread wheat and these relatives would not allow identification of homoeology between their genomes. Our previous report on wheat-L. racemosus 31 and the results of this study have shown clearly that alien segment-specific markers can easily be isolated and the correspondence of alien chromosome-specific SNP markers with bread wheat reference alleles can be used to determine the HGs of the alien chromosomes. This study has clearly demonstrated that DArTseq SNPs can be integrated with PCR markers to produce and characterize wheat-alien addition lines without necessarily applying in situ hybridization for alien chromosome identification. Given its reliability and savings in time and efforts, we recommend the use of this simple methodology to accelerate introgression breeding of wheat.","tokenCount":"3925"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"23c09f791e7ef12ffc75f4ecaf0f463b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0728eb01-8c8d-44bb-ba19-af4138869adc/retrieve","id":"141148550"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e2c2508f-9cc7-4144-bcb8-6d7845825f99","pagecount":"134","content":".4: Terms and descriptions for basin management objectives in South Africa. (RSA, 2016). These classes are used to interpret the gazetted objectives ................. 34 Table 3.5: Ecological category descriptions (RSA, 2016).    This report contributes to the study of E-flows for the Limpopo River project supported by USAID, with the overall aim of building more resilient communities and ecosystems across four countries, Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe through improved management of transboundary natural resources, especially those related to environmental water requirements. Environmental water requirements (also known as E-flows) relate to the quantity, quality and timing of water required for the environmental protection and the sustainable use of water resources.E-flows are provided for in detail in the South African Water Act of 1998 where they are called the 'Ecological Reserve', but receive variable focus in the legal frameworks of the other three basin countries. The objective of this report is to provide a baseline or description of what we know about the basin, in preparation for subsequent work in determining the E-flows, and also to provide guidance on their operationalization.This report describes the Limpopo Basin and its people by providing a baseline description of the basin from a river flow perspective. This study moves away from reporting data at a basin scale but focuses on areas called risk regions to report the different aspects of the basin. Risk regions are major sub-basin regions as determined by a combination of socio-economic and biophysical characters including transboundary issues. Where information available did not allow for disaggregation of the data, the basin scale was used as the unit of reporting. Level one ecoregions were also developed for the basin as yet another division of the land and waterscape, and assist with interpretation of ecological data in the basin context, and will feed into the next project activities.This report illustrates that the range of developmental initiatives as planned, together with population increases in the basin, will likely have an impact on water availability and allocation, and associated ecosystem services. Most of the risk regions have large rural populations directly dependent on the river flows. Land use activities (mining, wastewater, agriculture) and land use changes in both rural and urban areas continue to affect water resource quantity and quality (i.e., groundwater recharge, groundwater and surface water quality). The basin contains sensitive ecosystems (e.g., conservation areas forming the Greater Limpopo Trans-frontier Conservation Area) and a high socio-economic dependence by riparian citizens on these ecosystems. With the need for equitable water access that leaves no one behind, and balancing urban and rural needs with ecosystem requirements under a changing climate, opportunities in conjunctive surface water -groundwater use and managed aquifer recharge will increasingly contribute to communities' resilience and adaptation to climate change.The study also brings into focus groundwater and surface water interactions in the basin, and the contribution of groundwater to E-flows.The Limpopo River Basin is one of southern Africa's most studied transboundary basins, including its tributaries and sub-basins. The richness in culture, biodiversity and natural resources contribute towards this attention. The basin is however plagued by droughts, floods and water and food insecurity (Petri et. al. 2015). Climate variability has resulted in the unpredictability of the hydrological regime leaving the river in parts without flows for nearly 70% of the year (ADB, 2014). Notable studies that have been carried out include the 2012-2017 Resilience in the Limpopo Basin study (RESILIM, 2017), the 2013 Monograph reports on the Limpopo (Aurecon, 2013a) and the Joint Limpopo Scoping Study of 2010 (LBPTC, 2010). These reports form a foundation for in-depth analysis of the basin on which this study builds.This report contributes to the project E-flows for the Limpopo River -building more resilient communities and ecosystems through improved management of transboundary natural resources. Overall, the project will provide the necessary evidence to secure environmental flows (E-flows) for increasing the resilience of communities and ecosystems in the Limpopo Basin to changes in stream-flow resulting from basin activities and climate change. This report will therefore provide a baseline description of the basin from a river flow perspective. Building on past studies, the study narrows its focus within the basin by describing as much information as possible according to the risk regions. The study also brings into focus groundwater and surface water interactions in the basin, and the contribution of groundwater to E-flows.This report documents the baseline information describing the basin, in particular its flow-related characteristics.The report has been structured to include the following: Risk regions are major sub-basin regions as determined by a combination of socio-economic and biophysical characters including transboundary issues (see Figure 1.1). For the selection of risk regions in this study a combination of the management objectives, source information, and available habitat data was used to establish geographical risk regions for the relative risk assessment (Landis 2004;O'Brien and Wepener, 2012). This allows the outputs of the assessment to be presented at a spatial scale with multiple regions compared in a relative manner. Through this approach, the dynamism of different regions can be incorporated into the study and allow for a holistic assessment of flow and non-flow variables. The approach can address spatial and temporal relationships of variables between risk regions, such as the downstream effect of a source of stress on multiple risk regions, in the context of the assimilative capacity of the ecosystem or the requirements of ecosystem response components e.g. fish.The risk regions remain preliminary in this report as they will be subject to updating following the field surveys where some verification of boundaries may take place. Basin information is reported under the ten preliminary risk regions identified in the Limpopo basin (Figure 1.1). Detail of the risk regions is provided later in the report. The Changane area in Mozambique has not been included in the project and is thus not considered as a risk region. The reason for this exclusion is based on the experience gathered while collecting data for the Monography e-flow study, where although the basin is large with many inhabitants, the area is largely wetland with little flowing river channel. The water was also highly saline resulting from groundwater intrusion. The Changane catchment is also relatively independent of the rest of the river, entering near to the estuary, and thus does not contribute to the overall Limpopo main-stem hydrology.2.1 BY COUNTRYShared among the four countries of Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe, the Limpopo River Basin, brings together a diversity of cultures. Many of the people in the basin are linked to the flows of the Limpopo, its associated groundwater system and the ecosystem services they provide. However, a growing population, among other factors, exerts increasing pressure and demand on the already stressed river system, and poses a serious threat to the sustainability of river flows (Petri et al. 2015). A large proportion of the population lies within South Africa and the least in Botswana. Mozambique and Zimbabwe have the largest rural populations (Aurecon, 2013a). A considerable proportion (80%) of the population is less than 25 years of age (Resilim O, 2013). Nearly three quarters of the total Botswana population lives in Gaborone which is in the Limpopo Basin (Aurecon, 2013a; Table 1). Altogether, the approximate population in the Limpopo Basin is close to 20 million and is expected to grow by just over 10% by 2040 (Resilim O, 2013).  Economic activities linked to water availability in the basin include (i) irrigation agriculture (ii) commercial forestry (iii) mining (iv) power generation (v) industry and (iv) eco-tourism. Data from 2013 shows that almost 1.5 million people in the basin are directly and indirectly dependent on these activities for employment (Aurecon, 2013a). Sectoral contribution to GDP indicates that mining is the biggest contributor to GDP in the basin and also contributes 1 Aurecon, 2013a2 Aurecon, 2013b to 55% of direct employment. Irrigation contributes 5% to GDP yet is responsible for 38% of direct job opportunities (Aurecon, 2013a:   Demands placed on water resources and associated ecosystem services will depend on the socio-economic standards in the basin. The uneven development in the basin translates into uneven water use. Notably, South Africa is responsible for nearly 60% of the basin total water use (RESILIM, 2013) yet occupies only 45% of the basin (Table 1). Inter-basin and intra-basin transfers are common in the basin with the Olifants being the recipient of large volumes of water from the Vaal River and other smaller systems (Aurecon, 2013a). Irrigated agriculture forms an important economic activity in the four basin countries and is also a large water user. The 2013 estimates indicate that South Africa uses over 2 000 million cubic meters of water per year for irrigation compared to 26 million cubic meters in Botswana (Table 2.3). 4 Aurecon, 2013a Poverty incidences are high in the basin across all four countries. Rural populations in particular are vulnerable, most of whom survive by practicing rain fed subsistence agriculture and rely on ecosystem services such as freshwater, forests and fish. While empirical studies continue to determine the exact contribution of ecosystem services in reducing poverty, the dependence of rural communities on flow related ecosystems is nonetheless significant (Suich et al. 2015).According to 2013 data, the highest population is in the Marico Crocodile region, home to about 8 million people (Aurecon, 2013a;   Marico-CrocodileThe Notwane, Marico and Crocodile catchments comprise the main sub -basins in this region.Together the sub-basins represent considerable development and intensive water use both urban, industrial and agricultural. About 90% of the semi-arid Notwane catchment lies within Botswana where the capital city, Gaborone is also located. Over 30% of the population in Botswana is in the Notwane sub-basin where there is growing demand for domestic water supply (Resilim, 2013). Dams in this region include the Gaborone and Mogobane dams used for domestic and industrial water supply. The Mogobane dam is used mainly for irrigation (IWMI, 2016). Flows in the Notwane on which the Gaborone Dam is built, are sporadic prompting transfers from the Molatedi Dam in the Marico sub-basin of South Africa (Resilim, 2013;Aurecon, 2013a). The Marico sub-basin falls largely within the South African boarders.The Upper Groot Marico River has been flagged as a National Freshwater Ecosystem Priority Area (NFEPA) and is the last free flowing river in the northwest areas of South Africa (Nel et al. 2011;Resilim, 2013). Communities depend on this river for game reserves, ecotourism and livestock farming. The Crocodile sub-basin portion that flows toward the Limpopo, consists of tributaries such as the Moretele whose flood plains support wetland and aquatic ecosystems. In the 2013 Resilience in the Limpopo study, the Moretele basin was identified as a hotspot due to the high levels of land degradation, polluted industrial waste from large urban centers like Tshwane, high unemployment, frequent fires and poor spatial planning which aggravate flooding risks (Resilim, 2013).The Olifants risk region falls into Mozambique and South Africa encompassing the catchments of the Olifants River in South Africa and the Elefantes River in Mozambique. Studies have shown that the Olifants River is critical to flows in the Limpopo to Mozambique, particularly in the dry season (Resilim O, 2014). For downstream Mozambique, these flows are central to support the livelihoods of nearly 10 000 small scale farmers and to sustain important ecosystem services (RESILIM O, 2014). Farming on the river's flood plains in Mozambique, where 80% of the population is rural, is an important economic activity for local farmers.Ensuring river flows in South Africa is a balancing act due to the numerous competing demands on the resources. Irrigated commercial farming and subsistence agriculture form an important part of the livelihoods in this risk region. Rural communities have to directly fetch water from the river for domestic use in the Lower and Middle Olifants areas (RESILIM O, 2014). Nearly 70% of the population in the South Africa portion of the Olifants risk region is rural and occupies the former homelands, relying on the natural environment and ecosystem services that the river system provides-their livelihoods inextricably linked to the flows of the river system. Close to 25% of the population relies on wood as a source of energy for cooking (Resilim O, 2014). Wildlife sustained by the flows in this risk region support informal leather goods crafters. The rich plant and wildlife biodiversity supports a thriving tourism industry.The river flows through the Kruger National Park where environmental flow levels have to be maintained. Due to worsening pressures on the water resources in this risk region including over allocation and climate change, compliance with environmental flows has been a challenge compromising even the international flow obligations to Mozambique (AWARD, 2019).In the South African portion, the Upper Limpopo Basin consists of several sub basins: Mokolo, Mogalakwena, Lephalale, Matlabas. These catchments are mostly developed and heavily utilized for activities such as mining, irrigation and supply to power stations such as the Matimba Power Station supplied by water from the Mokolo Dam. The Mogalakwena catchment has approximately 700 farm dams in addition to three large dams providing water for irrigation. There is also extensive groundwater exploitation within this catchment (DWS, 2016). The Botswana portion comprises the Bonwapitse, Mahalapswe, Lotsane and Motloutse sub basins. Data on the socio economic activities on the Botswana sub-basins is scarce, however the main economic activities in Botswana are associated with cattle and game farming (Aurecon, 2013a).The rich cultural and ecological heritage in this risk region is encapsulated in the Greater Mapungubwe Transfrontier Conservation Area (GMTFA), shared among Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The GMTFA is located on the confluence of the Shashe and Limpopo River. Local communities around this region are largely dependent on ecological provisions such as firewood and pastures for livestock and domestic water. In the past decade, degradation of ecosystems in the Botswana portion of the risk region have meant residents have had to travel further to fetch firewood and graze their livestock (Mugari et al. 2018). Droughts frequently ravage the region leading to reduction in agricultural production and loss of species diversity in wildlife and aquatic ecosystems (Molefe and Masundire, 2016). Small scale irrigated agriculture and livestock production support the livelihoods of many of the households in the risk region. There are 9 dams in the sub-basin and 30 8 mines (LBPTC, 2010).Major sub-basins in the Middle Limpopo risk region include the Mzingwane, Bubi, Sand and Nzhelele, and spans across South Africa and Zimbabwe. On the Zimbabwe portion of the basin, livelihood activities are characterized by smallholder irrigation schemes dotted around the catchment as well as gold panning along river beds (ZINWA, 2009). Close to 60% of the domestic water in Bulawayo is supplied from the Mzingwane Catchment although the city lies within the Zambezi catchment (Aurecon, 2013a). Zhovhe Dam supplies water for domestic and irrigation use. Sand dams are a common feature in the Upper Mzingwane Catchment providing irrigation and domestic water to local rural households. On the South African side of the Limpopo, the Sand river sub catchment is considered dry and dependent on groundwater (DWS, 2016). There are significant mining and irrigation activities in this catchment as the main water users. Many rural communities in the Sand catchment rely on groundwater resources for domestic and other uses. The water demand introduced by the controversial proposed Musina Special Economic Zone and Limpopo Eco-Industrial Park planned for Musina may have to be met by water transfers from Zimbabwe by 2028 (DWS, 2016). A growing population in the rural communities of the Nzhelele sub-basin increases demand for grazing land and wood for fuel (Resilim, 2013). Close to half of the population here is unemployed and are mostly women. Access to basic services like water and electricity is severely limited (Resilim, 2013).The Mwenezi sub-basin and risk region falls largely within the borders of Zimbabwe and a smaller portion in Mozambique. The Mwenezi is a seasonal river with sandy alluvial soils that can store large volumes of water. The Manyuchi Dam is the largest dam in the sub-basin with three quarters of its water allocated to irrigated sugar cane plantations in the region (Love, 2006). The lower reaches of the river are critical for wildlife in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park (Love, 2006). Local communities are mostly rural and depend on livestock farming and to a less extent crop agriculture, as most households tend to purchase their food (Ncube et al. 2010).The Luvuvhu sub-basin falls within the Limpopo Province of South Africa. economic activities include large scale agriculture of citrus, fruit and grains, afforestation and ecotourism. Local communities are rural, the majority of them poor and dependent on social grants (Resilim, 2013). Over 20 000 hectares of land are under irrigation representing close to 3% of the total land area (Aurecon, 2013a). In the valleys of the Soutpansberg mountains are fertile lands for agriculture, however rural communities contend with poverty and poor infrastructure for basic services. Proliferation of alien vegetation and increasing population demands compromise the river's ability to provide ecological services (Resilim, 2013).A greater part of the Letaba risk region falls within the borders of South Africa, while a small portion extends into Mozambique. Large dam developments characterize this region, with over 20 dams constructed on the Groot Letaba in South Africa (Table 4). Tzaneen and Giyani are some of the larger town centers. The water constrained Letaba risk region supplies water for domestic, industrial and agricultural needs (Kanjere et al. 2014). The largely rural local communities engage in widespread smallholder agriculture dependent on surface water. Similarly, large scale commercial farms also rely on surface water for irrigation. Livestock grazing and clearing of vegetation by local communities contributes to siltation and impacts on available river flows (DEA, 2001). Sand mining for building and construction is also an important livelihood activity in the risk region. A number of negative impacts on habitats and ecosystems such as loss of habitat and hydraulic changes in the river channels have been associated with sand mining (Lai et al. 2014;Koehnken et al. 2020).Large portions of this region falls within the Kruger National Park (KNP), a wildlife conservation area of close to 2 million ha. Communities outside the national park practice subsistence agriculture. Informal urban settlements and poor land use practices on the flood plains of the Shingwedzi river are an area of concern in the region (Aurecon, 2013a). Small dams are dotted within the region including the Kanniedood and Sirheni dams within the KNP. While small volumes of water are extracted from these dams, they may still have an impact on the flow of the river (Fouché, and Vlok, 2012).The Lower Limpopo risk region falls mostly within Mozambique and falls within the proposed Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park. Low lying and flood prone, this risk region has been investigated both from a hydrological and socio economic point of view. The region experiences significant water quality and flow regime changes due to upstream development activities (ADB, 2014;Aurecon, 2013a) The proposed Mapai dam would serve to mitigate some of the flooding associated with this region as well as deliver on hydropower (ADB, 2014). Flood plain agriculture forms one of the key economic activities for the local communities. Mineral sand mining activities occur at the edge of the risk region. The irrigation schemes at Chokwe, termed the 'granary of the nation' have potential for further growth when utilized to their full potential (Mondlane, 2017). The government of Mozambique continues to support the development of large irrigation schemes such as Chokwe and other small scale agriculture, raising concerns around the availability of water to support these expansions and demands for primary users (van de Zaag et al. 2010). Climate variation and increased incidence of flooding coupled with upstream development adds to the uncertainties that surround water availability in the Lower Limpopo. A growing population will impose greater demands on available freshwater and associated ecosystem services. Most of the sub-basins have large rural populations directly dependent on the river flows.  Economic expansion places a greater risk on sustaining the environmental flows of the Limpopo evidenced by economic expansion plans. Planned future activities in the South African sub-basins may require water transfers from Zimbabwe.  Uneven economic growth in the basin means water use volumes will vary widely causing inequities and stress in particular regions of the basin. Currently South Africa is the biggest water user in the basin.This chapter will present the basin vision and management objectives as articulated by regional and national policies and legislation. This exercise filters basin management objectives as related to flows in the Limpopo from the four governments' perspective and reconciles these to the Limpopo Watercourse Commission (LIMCOM) basin vision. Note that a comprehensive vision setting exercise was not in the mandate of this project.This section presents regional and basin level visions and management objectives, as presented through national and regional policies for the sustainable use of water resources and the protection of environmental flows (E-flows) and the benefits directly related to river flow in the Limpopo basin.Institutions in each country serve to support and implement the basin vision, and as such institutional arrangements in the basin will be briefly discussed.The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is the regional body that builds on the connectedness of the region both in culture and natural resources, to bring about socioeconomic integration and co-operation. All four countries in the Limpopo River Basin are members of the SADC and subscribe to its mandates. Through its policies and strategies SADC, seeks to harmonize regional policies. The SADC Revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses ( 2000) is a regional treaty aimed at a coordinated management of shared watercourses in the region to promote sustainable development. The Protocol upholds the principles of reasonable and equitable utilization as well as not causing significant harm. Specific provisions are made for the protection and preservation of the aquatic environment. (SADC, 2015).LIMCOM is an international basin organization overseeing the Limpopo Basin. Instituted in 2011 through the 2003 Agreement on the establishment of the Limpopo Watercourse Commission its capacity has been limited in recent years with the first permanent Executive Secretary appointed in 2017 (Resilim, 2017). This has hampered meaningful oversight and implementation of basin wide plans developed under previous studies such as the Limpopo River Basin Integrated Water Resources Management Plan 2016-2020. Staff appointments have since taken off in the past year (2019), a move that may have a positive impact on overall progress towards attaining basin management objectives. LIMCOM serves only as an advisor to member states with limited powers to hold individual governments accountable. The riparian national governments therefore tend to protect their own national interests, a limitation that could hinder progress toward building climate resilience in the basin (Resilim, 2017). Three task teams form part of LIMCOM related to legislation, floods and droughts (Figure 3.1). In 2019, the Limpopo Groundwater Committee (LGC) was established to play a role in coordinating the development of groundwater resources across the basin. The LGC's main activities are centered on joint planning activities to promote better coordination and harmonization and include (i) research on groundwater challenges through studies/pilots, information exchange on findings, training and implementation of solutions to emergent and priority groundwater management challenges and (ii) support the need to update Protocols/Agreements with reference to solutions that address shared groundwater challenges, sharing of data and benefits from the cooperation.Technical Task Teams Legal Task Team Flood Task TeamExecutive SecretariatWater legislation and policies in Botswana (i.e., Water Act of 1968, National Water Policy, 2012) are implemented through the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) which falls under the Ministry of Land Management, Water and Sanitation Services (MoLMWSS).Institutional arrangements related to water resources are under a state of transition and realignment as part of the water policy reform measures. Currently, the DWS is responsible for water resource management, planning, protection and monitoring. Ongoing policy reforms are modeled after the integrated water resources management principles similar to Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe (Resilim, 2013). Unlike Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe, water resources management in Botswana is largely centralized with no catchment level institutions (Resilim, 2013).The  (Resilim, 2013). Dayto-day management of water resources is decentralized to Administração Regional de Águas (ARA) -Regional Water Authorities established through Article 18 of the Water Law. Regional Water Authorities operate according to hydrological demarcations. The Limpopo Basin falls under the administration of ARA Sul (LBTC, 2010).In The enactment of the Environmental Management Act (EMA Act) Chapter 20:27 transferred pollution control and ecological protection functions to the Environmental Management Agency from the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA). ZINWA would then be responsible for water resources planning and supply functions. However, a lack of coordinated efforts between the two institutions has resulted in water resources management challenges related to stream bank cultivation among others (Chitakira and Nyikadzino, 2020).Shared basin visions allow countries in transboundary settings to work toward common goals in the utilization of shared resources while at the same time taking into account the many competing demands. Among the four countries sharing the Limpopo, the need to improve the socio-economic standards of their communities is prominent among national development strategies. Poverty reduction as well as the need to sustainably utilize water resources present management challenges to the governments particularly in view of other compounding factors such as climate change and increasing water demands.Flow related basin visions and management objectives were collected in legal and policy documentation at regional and national levels. These included regional policies from SADC, LIMCOM legal and policy framework and the national legal and policy frameworks as follows: -1. SADC protocols and regional strategic plans 2. National policy documents and related documents. a. National departments for water policies related to environmental flows b. Similarly, other local level policies were considered 3. Contact government department officials for the provision of relevant policy documents Flow related basin management objectives were identified under the following categories.1. Socio-economic e.g., domestic water supply, sand abstraction, flood plain agriculture 2. Aquatic ecosystems e.g., wetlands, freshwater ecosystems and ecological water requirements, biodiversity and ecosystem protection e.g., fish 3. Agriculture production e.g., irrigation expansion 3.4 REGIONAL VISION, MANAGEMENT PLANS AND PRIORITY ACTIONS Management of transboundary resources in the SADC -under which the Limpopo basin falls -is guided by the 2000 SADC Revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses. The spirit of this protocol calls for harmonized and sustainable utilization of the region's shared water resources. Through the Water Division of the SADC, Regional Strategic Action Plans (RSAP) have been developed to guide water development in the region across the thirteen shared basins (SADC, 2016). The current plan runs from 2016-2020. Regional guiding principles and visions are provided in strategic documents and shown in Table 3.1. A common future, within a regional community that will ensure economic well-being, improvement of the standards of living and quality of life, freedom and social justice, peace and security of the people of Southern Africa.An equitable and sustainable utilization of water for social and environmental justice, regional integration and economic benefit for present and future generationsTo unlock the potential for water (and related resources) to play its role as an engine and catalyst for socio-economic development through water infrastructure development and management to support water supply and sanitation, energy, food security, and security from water related disasters with the ultimate goal of contributing towards peace and stability, industrialization, regional integration and poverty eradicationTo increase access levels to at least 75% by 2027 for both safe drinking water and sanitation and to increase land under irrigation from the current 7% of irrigable land to 20%.Capacity building programme for methodologies for determining EWR developed.The key activity entails developing a capacity building programme for Member States on the methodologies for determination of environmental flows /ecological water requirements and river health classification.Building capacity of national irrigation structures to promote large scale commercialized agricultureAt the basin level, the LIMCOM has oversight over the management of the basin. The LIMCOM agreement which came into effect in 2003 was modeled according to SADC Revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses as well as the 1997 Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (LIMCOM, 2003).The basin vision as well as the key principles that support the vision from the 2003 LIMCOM agreement as well the vision and goal of the Integrated Water Resources Plan all espouse sustainable use and development of the shared resource and are presented in Table 3.2.  Vision: Sustainable water security for improved livelihoods in the Limpopo River Basin. IWRM Programme Goal: Develop the capacities (individual, organizational and institutional) in the riparian states for the sustainable management and development of the Limpopo River Basin. (Aurecon, 2013a).Activities for specific immediate actions outlined in Table 3.2, such as environmental water requirements and protection of fragile ecosystems (aquatic and terrestrial) are indicated as follows:1. Environmental water requirements a. Develop initiatives that will update and strengthen assessment of environmental water requirements in the basin b. EWR basin assessment 2. Protect fragile ecosystems (aquatic and terrestrial) a. Develop basin wide programmes to demonstrate the value of ecosystems and protection for identified priority fragile ecosystems (LIMCOM, 2018)Strategic objectives in the Integrated Water Resources Plan are formulated around three specific areas (i) disaster management (ii) water quality (iii) water allocation Flow related objectives include:1. LIMCOM promotes the equitable and reasonable utilization of water resources in the Limpopo River Basin 2. LIMCOM promotes methods to increase water availability and the efficient use of water resources in the Limpopo River Basin 3. LIMCOM coordinates the management and development of water infrastructure in the Limpopo River Basin to reduce the impacts of floods and droughts The following sections describe key documents in the riparian countries where basin objectives are presented and how they will be presented according to Preliminary Risk Regions.Botswana. Botswana's Water Act 1968 focuses mainly on water allocation and has not been revised. A draft Water Bill is yet to be adopted; however, a water reform process has seen the development of policies that provide guidance on areas such as environmental water requirements. Water management objectives in Botswana are stated in the National Water Policy (2012), the 2036 Vision document (GoB, 2016) and the National Development Plan 2017-2023(GoB, 2017)). These policies, however, provide little basin specific objectives. Water security for domestic and industrial supply remains a top priority and its articulation filters through the policies. In this section, where no specific basin management objectives are given in the policy documents, the national water resources management objectives in Table 3.3 apply.South Africa. Key legal and policy guidance on basin management objectives was found in;1. The National Water Act (Act 36 of 1998) (RSA, 1998) a. This legal instrument contains directives on the setting of the Reserve, determination of RQO and classification i. Section 13( 1) provides for the Determination of Water Resource Classes ii. Section 13(1)(b) Determination of Resource Quality Objectives iii. Part 3 -The Reserve 2. The National Water Resources Strategy II (DWA, 2013) a. This policy documents provides guidance and what the strategy for managing the water resources and is valid until 3. The National Water and Sanitation Master Plan (DWS, 2019) a. This is an integrated plan that includes sanitation after the institutional reform that saw the transition from Department of Water Affairs to Department Water and Sanitation 4. National Freshwater Ecosystem Priority Areas (NFEPA) a. The NFEPA were developed by a consolidated group of government departments and water institutions toward harmonizing management and protection of environmental, ecological and water resources A description of terms used in the classification and setting of RQOs (Resource Quality Objectives) is provided in Table 3.4. RQOs are determined per Integrated Unit of Analysis (IUA), and priority nodes within the IUA.Throughout this chapter, basins management objectives for South African sub-basins will be presented through the (i) REC to be maintained (ii) WRC (iii) E-flow 9 as % of Natural Mean Annual Runoff and presented as a range across the Integrated Units of Analysis (IUA) in the Preliminary Risk Regions (PRR). Detailed RQO statements and descriptive management objectives are given for (i) water quantity (ii) habitat and biota and (iii) water quality in the specific Government Gazettes to which reference is made. Government Gazettes containing the RQO for the Marico, Crocodile, Matlabas, Mokolo and Letaba, Olifants are provided as Annexes to this document 10 . Table 3.5 provides a description of ecological classes ranging from natural unmodified dates to critical and irreversible changes (A -E). Indicating sustainable minimal protection and high utilisation.A category indicating the ecological management target for a water resource based on its eco-classification that should be attained.The Resource Quality Objectives that are both descriptive statements and numerical values for the biological, physical and chemical attributes of the significant water resources throughout the catchments. They are narrative and qualitative statements that describe the overall objectives for the Resource unit.A catchment that incorporates a social-economic zone, but is defined by a watershed ECOLOGICAL RESERVE Is the quantity and quality of the water required to satisfy basic human needs by securing a basic water supply and to protect the aquatic ecosystem in order to secure ecologically sustainable development and use of the relevant water resources.   Agriculture will be the predominant user taking up 75% of the developed yield. An environmental flow of 4% has been allowed (ZINWA, 2009) Tuli river catchment -a development of only 0.50MAR will be required to cater for the planning horizon, this includes a reserve of 4% of MAR. (ZINWA, 2009) Tuli-Manyange Dam 33 million m³ dam and 2 saddle dams with earth fill volume of 110 000 m³ to be 40% complete by 2020 (GoZ, 2018) MIDDLE LIMPOPO  Improving the resilience and reducing risk of damage to the communities, infrastructure and livelihoods in the lower Limpopo River Basin (ADB, 2014).Efficient use of water for economic development, water for environmental conservation (RdM, 2006). Flow related regional (SADC) and basin wide (LIMCOM) policy frameworks on the Limpopo recognise the importance of maintaining ecological flows, however detail lacks on how exactly these E-flows will be implemented at basin level. The mean annual rainfall varies from 200 millimetres (mm) in the hot dry central Limpopo valley and Mozambique interior to 1 000-1 500 mm in the high mountain areas in South Africa, with a basin average of 530 mm (Environmentek, CSIR, 2003;LBPTC, 2010;Trambauer et al. 2015). The mean annual water input by precipitation to the Limpopo Basin totals approximately 230 000 million m 3 (Mainuddin et al. 2010). The annual number of rain days in the rainy season rarely exceeds 50 (Alemaw 2008) and the mean annual potential evaporation varies between 1 400 and 2 200 mm (Trambauer et al. 2015). The timing of the beginning and end of the effective precipitation is very variable, which makes the lower Limpopo a very highrisk dryland agricultural zone with crop failure in 75-90 per cent of the years (Environmentek, CSIR, 2003). The proportion of rainfall that becomes river runoff (runoff coefficient) is very small, about 4.3 and 1.7-2 per cent for the naturalized and observed discharges respectively, at Chókwe station in Mozambique (Mainuddin et al. 2010;Trambauer et al. 2015). The runoff ratio is very low in the west of the basin (i.e. there is less runoff) and generally increases to the south and east (Mainuddin et al. 2010).This water input is partitioned amongst the major water uses in the basin as shown in Table 4.1 and Figure 4.1. The grassland, which includes shrub land and barren land, is the most extensive landuse that covers 57 per cent of the basin and uses most water followed by rainfed agriculture which covers 40 per cent of the basin and uses 40 per cent of the available water. Net runoff, which is runoff remaining after all the water uses in the basin have been satisfied and includes all other storage changes and losses is 3 595 million m 3 or 1.6 per cent of the total precipitation input (Mainuddin et al. 2010). Most of the Limpopo basin countries are water stressed (below 1 700 cubic metres per capita per year) and Botswana, Mozambique and South Africa face chronic scarcity (below 1 000 cubic metres per capita per year) of water (SADC, 1999;Falkenmark et al. 2007) as shown in Table 4.2. In 2025 all the basin countries will experience chronic water scarcity as water availability per person will decrease (Table 4.2). The population projection for 2025 was exponetial based on average rate of population increase from 2000-2020 for Botswana (2.08%), Mozambique (3.76%), South Africa (1.31%) and Zimbabwe (1.99%) (African Development Bank, 2019). Climate change is projected to have major physical (reduced water availability e.g., for irrigation) and economic impacts in the Limpopo River Basin because the basin is already water-constrained and there is a reliance on rural livelihoods (Aurecon, 2013a). Climate change modeling for each country was summarized in the respective national communications to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The modeling studies are of high quality in Botswana, Mozambique and South Africa, based on ensemble GCMs (and RCMs in South Africa), for two timeframes (~2050 and end century), while modeling work for Zimbabwe is based on one GCM and a timeframe of 2080 (Table 4.3). All parts of the countries are likely to experience increased seasonal rainfall variability. Upward trends for both annual and seasonal rainfall are revealed in most parts of the basin except for the winter season, which shows a decreasing trend. Minimum temperature on an annual basis and for the winter and spring seasons have shown an increasing trend while it has shown a decreasing trend for the summer and autumn seasons. Maximum temperature has shown a decreasing trend on an annual, summer, autumn and spring basis but an increasing trend for winter (Mosase and Ahiablame, 2018).Limpopo river basin In the last few decades, the Limpopo has experienced a number of extreme rainfall events which have created considerable socio-economic and environmental impacts, especially among those dependent on rain-fed agriculture. CHIRPS, 0.05° gridded rainfall data was used to identify and analyse daily extreme events over the 1981-2016 period. Analysis of the top 20 events had suggested a pattern with rainfall generally decreasing from the eastern to western parts of the basin. The highest rainfall amounts were observed to occur over the regions where there are steep topographical gradients between the mountainous regions of northeastern South Africa and the Mozambican flood plains. The monthly distribution of extreme events had shown that most of the events occurred during the late summer months (January-March). On inter-annual timescales, most of the summers with above average number of events have coincided with La Niña conditions and, to a lesser extent, a positive subtropical South Indian Ocean Dipole (Rapolaki et al. 2019).Trends in various parameters of temperature (4 stations), rainfall (10 stations) and discharge (16 stations) from the Shashe and Mzingwane basins have been statistically analysed. It has been determined that rainfall and discharge in the study area have undergone a notable decline since 1980, in terms of the total annual water resources (declines in annual rainfall, annual unit runoff) and the temporal availability of water (declines in number of rainy days, increases in dry spells, increases in days without flow). The main rising risk is identified as an increasing number of dry spells (which is likely to decrease crop yields), and an increasing probability of annual discharge below the long-term average (which could limit water availability). Increasing food shortages are identified as a likely consequence of the impact of declining water resource availability on rain-fed and irrigated agriculture. Further, stresses on urban water supplies, especially to Zimbabwe's second-largest city of Bulawayo, which already experiences chronic water shortages, are also predicted (Love et al. 2010).The most important rivers from a perspective of contributions to the Limpopo main-stem flow are the Crocodile and Olifants Rivers in South Africa and the Mzingwane River in Zimbabwe (Figure 4.2). There is only a single tributary in Mozambique, the Changane River which contributes only a small percentage of runoff to the Limpopo River due to the flat nature of the topography in Mozambique. This tributary has significant wetlands associated with it (Aurecon, 2013a).  The past hydrological studies estimated the total surface MAR at the Limpopo River mouth and this is shown in Table 4.  (Aurecon, 2013a). This indicates that the cumulative net human impacts on the surface water resources of the basin currently constitute about 34 per cent on average of the natural surface water resources. The basin has experienced devastating flood events in the past such as those experienced in February 2000 and January 2012 (Aurecon, 2013a). Continued developments in the flood prone areas have increased the flood risks. Establishment of early warning systems and discouraging further development of flood prone areas have been implemented to reduce flooding impacts, but there is still an opportunity to operate the large dams in the basin as one system to manage floods and droughts. However, floods also bring fertile soil to the flood plain to support agriculture-based livelihoods and other ecosystem services.The flood risk area (maps) for the 1:20, 1: 50 and 1:100 year floods and normal water levels were produced for the basin and municipalities and other land developers have been encouraged to incorporate the flood risk zones in their development and spatial plans and regulations (Table 4.4). The return period does not indicate regularity of occurrence but the average time interval in years, over a long period of time, between occurrences of flood flows which equal or exceed a given magnitude. The impacts of drought (Table 4.5) include the drying up of surface water sources and reducing the significant contribution of groundwater to sustain demands and environment. Limpopo basin A spatial analysis of drought characteristics in the Limpopo basin was undertaken where drought duration, frequency and severity were investigated and drought Severity-Area-Frequency (SAF) curves constructed. The entire Limpopo River Basin was subdivided into four homogeneous regions based on topographic and climate variations in the basin. Monthly and annual SAF curves and maps of the probability of drought occurrence were produced. The results indicated localized severe droughts with higher frequencies compared to moderate to severe low frequency droughts spread over wider areas in the basin. This investigation also revealed that the western part of the basin faced a higher risk of drought when compared to other regions of the Limpopo Basin in terms of medium-term drought patterns (Alemaw et al. 2013).Limpopo basin A 0.05 0 × 0.05 0 resolution PCRaster Global Water Balance (PCRGLOBWB) model has been used to analyze hydrological droughts in the Limpopo River basin in the period 1979-2010 with a view to identifying severe droughts that have occurred in the basin using hydrological and meteorological drought indicators.The indicators considered were able to represent the most severe droughts in the basin and to some extent identify the spatial variability of droughts. Results also show the importance of computing indicators that can be related to hydrological droughts, and how these add value to the identification of hydrological droughts and floods and the temporal evolution of events that would otherwise not have been apparent when considering only meteorological indicators. The study has also characterized drought severity in the basin, indicated by its time of occurrence, duration and intensity (Trambauer et al.Reservoirs/dams are inland water bodies that temporarily store runoff and play a key role in social and economic welfare. They can also support the environment through releases of Eflows. Dams are constructed to impound or divert water in order to maintain a constant water supply for domestic, irrigation, hydroelectric power generation and recreational needs, and may also contribute to streamflow regulation under floods and droughts and may even be used to sustain downstream ecosystems (Figure 4.5). Storage dams in the Limpopo river system shown in Table 4.6 provide reliable supplies of clean water to people in both rural and urban settings, but can also have negative impacts on the environment or other demands if not properly managed (Limpopo Briefing Note, 2015). There are a total of 97 dams (total storage of 7 528 million m 3 ) of various sizes in the basin reported by Aurecon (2013), plus 3 additional recently constructed dams in Botswana (Dikgatlhong, Lotsane and Thune dams), with a total storage capacity of above 400 million m 3 (yield of 70 million cubic metres).Massingir Dam in the Olifants sub-basin in Mozambique has a capacity of 2 200 million m 3 and an annual discharge of 1 800 million m 3 and is the largest water body in the basin (Mainuddin et al. 2010).The development of numerous large, medium and small dams including farm dams has altered the hydrology of the Limpopo River (Figure 4.5), from a perennial river to a seasonal river for about three quarters of its length (Boroto and Görgens, 1999;Ashton et al. 2001;Environmentek, CSIR, 2003). In addition to the decrease in total flows, there has been a shift in river regime flow with parts of the river having increased dry season flows due to wastewater discharge and irrigation return flows that have significantly affected the waterdependent and aquatic fauna and flora, riverine and floodplain woodlands and forests and mangroves. On the contrary, small reservoirs in the upsteam may release flows during times of shortage and contribute to base flow through underground aquifers and thereby help to maintain flows in rivers during the dry season (McMahon and Mein, 1986).  Managed releases from the dam supply the Beitbridge town and commercial agribusiness (citrus plantations) downstream. Water releases also recharge an alluvial aquifer in the lower Mzingwane river, which is abstracted from well points and boreholes. Flow regime changes downstream of the dam include the capture of all flows early in the rainy season, most low flows, many larger flows and the reduction in magnitude of some floods. These flow regime changes are thought to have contributed to the decline in active riverbed width and the abandonment of portions of the river channel on either side, which are colonized by vegetation, competing for water with the established riparian vegetation as well as with water users. These effects together with apparent loss in aquifer material indicate a likely decline in the extent of the alluvial aquifer and its specific yield. The riparian ecosystem, consisting of a stand of acacia woodland, is also likely to suffer (Love et al. 2007;Love et al. 2008). This dam is also expected to be under more pressure in future as it is ear-marked to supply water to the Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone. Middle Limpopo Upper Insiza dam (8.829 Mm 3 ) located on the Insiza river, which is a tributary of the Umzingwani (Mzingwane) river. The dam was constructed in 1967. The Insiza river, located in Zimbabwe, is ephemeral with no flow for 176-245 days per year.The dam provides urban water supply to the city of Bulawayo. No significant difference was detected between the mean annual runoff or the annual maximum flood at gauging stations upstream and downstream of the dam. The amount of water stored during the wet season is thought to balance the releases made during the dry season. The highest floods occur from January to February, which coincides with the period when most dams spill due to earlier inflows from November to January, resulting in an insignificant impact on the annual maximum flood. However, the number of days with no flow is found to be lower at the downstream gauging station due to flow releases in the dry season. Changes in exceedance probabilities of daily flow levels have been The dam provides urban water supply to the city of Bulawayo. The behavior of mean annual runoff, the annual maximum flood and the reasons for their behavior are observed to be the same as those for the Upper Insiza dam. However, in the case of this dam, no significant difference was observed in the number of days with no flow upstream and downstream of the dam.Changes in exceedance probabilities of daily flow levels were observed, but are not reflected at the annual level Middle Limpopo Silalabuhwa Dam (23.454 Mm 3 ) located at (20.75833°S, 29.36056°E) on the Insiza river downstream of the Insiza dam. The dam was constructed in 1966.The dam provides urban water supply to the city of Bulawayo. The behavior of mean annual runoff, the annual maximum flood and the reasons for their behavior are observed to be the same as those for the Upper Insiza and Insiza dams. Similar to Upper Insiza dam, the number of days with no flow is found to be lower at the downstream gauging station due to flow releases in the dry season. Changes in exceedance probabilities of daily flow levels were observed, but are not reflected on the annual time scale (Kileshye Onema et al. 2006) Letsibogo Dam provides provide water to the industrial town of Selebi-Phikwe (BCL Limited involved in copper and nickel mining) and surrounding local areas, with potential for use in irrigation around Mmadinare village. Now it also supplies Gaborone, the capital of the country, via a 400 km pipeline, as well as major villages along the pipeline route (Kjetil, 1994)  Dam water use by power stations is regarded as a strategic water use for the countries. A total of 736 million m 3 /a is required by all the existing and new thermal power stations in the basin. No water is transferred out of the basin but a total volume of 695 million m 3 /a is transferred into the basin from other basins, i.e., the Vaal, Usuthu and Komati basins (Table 4.7). *Large dam as defined by the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD). Total storage of all dams is estimated at 7 928 million m 3 , including recently three constructed dams in Botswana with total capacity of 400 million m 3 (2020). The water yield is an amount of freshwater derived from unregulated flow (m 3 s -1 ) measurements for a given geographic area over a defined period and is generated from a combination of base flow, interflow and overland flow originating from groundwater, precipitation and/or snowmelt (McMahon and Mein, 1986). The water yield modelling for all current-day storages and run-of-river abstraction points in each risk region /at the Sub-Basin rivers' confluences with the Limpopo main-stem and at a few critical Limpopo main-stem points is shown in Figure 4.6. The 1:5 year yield (Aurecon, 2013a) was approximated by the annual draft that caused 18 annual failures out of a 91-year data series (i.e., 1:5 year recurrence interval -80% assurance of supply on an annual basis). The downstream yields incorporated the upstream impacts of 1:5 year recurrence interval of failure drafts. At each yield point a monthly distribution of the annual draft appropriate to the relevant types of water use was employed. Besides climate change, topography, land use/ land cover change and management can have a significant effect on catchment water yields and hence affect water allocation to different uses in the basin, including environmental water requirements.Other benefits of water yield assessment include providing reliable information on availability and interaction of water resources (surface and ground water) to plan their extraction and uses, reflects the management of catchment physical properties required to improve the water yield and provides information on whether to develop conservation measures at head catchment to the tail catchment.  , 2016, 2018). The Zhovhe dam and the Mzingwane river are both located on the Tuli Karoo Aquifer, shared by Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe. However, there are concerns that this special project will negatively impact the water and environmental resources in this water scarce region (Munnik, 2020). The Mokolo Crocodile West Augmentation Project (MCWAP) is planned to bring water for sulphur dioxide scrubbers on Eskom's Medupi power station, (their installation are a contractual obligation to the World Bank), and to expand coal mining and electricity generation (Munnik, 2020). The water will come from the heavily eutrophied (due to wastewater effluent) Hartebeespoort dam on the Crocodile River in Marico-Crocodile risk region.The regulating capacity of the vegetation (  There is need to quantify water supply from surface water and groundwater sources which was also not quantified for some of the water demands. The South African livestock water requirements are low. The contribution of game farming currently needs to be investigated but traditionally utilises minimal water and protects ecosystems. Most of the basin is in a stressed to very stressed condition when the water demands and availability are compared (Figure 4.9), hence meeting environmental water requirements may be challenging.   When precipitation is lacking, groundwater and reservoir storage can supplement water supplies. With the increasing water demand and frequency of droughts in the basin, groundwater resource is increasingly becoming more important, especially in sustaining the groundwater dependent ecosystems. This section describes the groundwater status, potential and role in the sub-basins of the Limpopo River basin as a whole in sustaining ecosystems.Generally the boundaries of the groundwater catchment and the flow directions within the aquifers follow surface water catchments and flow directions (Aurecon, 2013a), with a good correlation (>90%), with exceptions in the lower Limpopo and Bonwapitse sub-catchments due to the predominant inter-granular aquifers in these catchments. The lithology and structural features such as faults and dykes are shown in Figure 4.13. The Limpopo River basin is nearer to become a \"closed basin\", as most of the water resources have been allocated to existing water demands (Munnik, 2020). There are several water transfers into the basin and any new water use will require additional transfers -unless more groundwater from different types of aquifers in the basin is used. The basin was classified into four aquifer types namely fractured, inter-granular, karst and low permeability. The low permeability (low yielding) aquifers are the most predominant aquifer type across the basin (approximately 63%), while fractured (moderate to high yielding) aquifers constitute approximately 19% of the basin (Figure 4.13). Karst aquifers (moderate to high yielding) constitute approximately 4% of the basin, while (moderate to high yielding) inter-granular aquifers make up the remaining 14% (Aurecon, 2013a).Groundwater supply potential includes recharge and storage volume components. An understanding of the supply potential of an aquifer is crucial to the sustainable management of groundwater resources. Due to data limitations the estimated supply potential of the basin does not include the groundwater in storage but only represents the volume of water entering the aquifers as recharge. The mean yield per borehole from all risk regions/ sub-catchments of the basin is 3 ℓ/s. The highest average yields were observed in the Bonwapitse catchment of Botswana with approximately 7 ℓ/s, while the lowest average yields of 0.9 ℓ/s were observed in the Mzingwane catchment in Zimbabwe (Aurecon, 2013a). The recharge values indicate volume of water entering the aquifers and thus give an indication of the maximum groundwater quantity available for abstraction. For sustainable groundwater use, abstraction should not exceed the rate of recharge to prevent unacceptable decline in the hydraulic head or deterioration in water quality in the aquifer.The fractured or karst aquifers are more productive compared to low permeability aquifers (Figure 4.14). There are three transboundary aquifers in the basin and these include the Tuli Karoo Basin (shared among South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana), Ramotswa dolomite basin (shared between South Africa and Botswana) and the Limpopo Basin Transboundary Aquifer, shared among South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. The Ramotswa dolomite basin is a karstic aquifer with high productivity and mainly supplies commercial farms in South Africa and Gaborone City in Botswana, while Tuli Karoo has both alluvial and sandstone aquifers, with sandstone aquifer as most productive (Tuli Karoo TDA, 2019). The alluvial aquifers associated with the Limpopo River and its tributaries are important in areas where river flow is not permanent, and they need to be sufficiently protected against overexploitation, pollution and destruction from sand mining (Figure 4.16) in river beds (http://www.sardc.net/en/wpcontent/uploads/Limpopo/en/Limpopo3.pdf).   Intersecting a buffer area of 20m away from both perennial and non-perennial rivers, a total of 443 boreholes were identified from the database (Figure 4.17). This indicates the number of boreholes most likely to be tapping from the river or supplying the river with base flow during dry periods to sustain the environmental water requirements. GROUNDWATER RECHARGE E-flows for the Limpopo River Basin: Basin Report Groundwater recharge is the downward movement of water and reaching the water table to replenish groundwater resource. This replenishment indicates possible total available water for abstraction from groundwater without significant drop in groundwater levels. The quantity of recharge depends on geology, extend of groundwater abstraction, rainfall and landcover/landuse. The coefficients of recharge estimations were based on the SADC hydrogeological map, which was based on the large scale, SADC 1:2 500 000 geological map (SADC-HGM, 2011). Hence, it is possible that small local areas of hydrogeological significance were masked. Annual groundwater recharge estimates calculated from mean annual precipitation (MAP) for each risk region are shown in Figure 4.18 (Aurecon, 2013a). For sustainable management purposes groundwater abstraction should be smaller than aquifer replenishment to prevent significant groundwater level drawdown. Land use changes in rural and urban areas will continue to affect groundwater recharge and quality. Zimbabwe (Mzingwane catchment) by building weirs across riverbeds to contain groundwater in a sandy aquifer (Aurecon, 2013a;Dabane Trust, 2019). The alluvial aquifers can be dammed to increase water availability during the dry period, resulting increased access to clean water -as the dam acts as a large natural slow sand filtration system through an aerobic filtration process of sedimentation (Hussey, 2007). Sand dams (Figure 4.20) have proved to be effective in enhancing groundwater recharge. The proposed Electro Metallurgical Special Economic Zone (EMSEZ) threat in Makhado (South Africa Limpopo Province) is both a huge risk to water demand, quality and quantity and the environment in the Limpopo valley (Munnik, 2020). This development will likely reduce the water availability for uses and environmental water requirements. Future water supply sources from Gwayi and Zambezi Rivers are being considered for Bulawayo, while Mapai Dam with a capacity of 11 200 million cubic metres is planned for irrigation water supply in the Lower Limpopo in Mozambique (Boroto, 2001).The water quality in aquifers and rivers is impacted by location due to natural inputs of salt and nutrients from the geology and surrounding landscape and anthropogenic activities. The regulation of river flow by dams and weirs, the abstraction of water and effluent discharge (municipal, industrial and accidential mine spills) have influenced the quality of water in the basin which is exacerbated in that many rivers are receiving fewer floods and flow events that would naturally clean and flush the river system.Groundwater quality describes the chemical and physical parameters of groundwater. The groundwater quality is important where groundwater is used for portable purposes or for industry or irrigation purposes. The quality is also important under groundwater-surface water interaction, especially during dry periods, droughts as groundwater can contaminate surface water, and vice versa, thereby affecting the groundwater depend ecosystems.Groundwater resources quality was reported to be one of the main factors restricting groundwater development in South Africa (LPTC, 2010). Of the problems associated with water quality, high concentrations of total dissolved solids, nitrates and fluoride are considered to be the most common and serious problems on a regional scale.Electrical conductivity (EC) is an indication of salinity and gives an indication of the impact of geology as well as human influences on water resource quality. The EC results reported by Aurecon (2013) indicate that the groundwater water quality across the South African portion of the basin is generally within the WHO water quality parameters. Botswana, however, shows many zones of poor water quality, which seem unrelated to geology and perhaps, are a result of human impact. The large zone of poor water quality in terms of conductivity across Mozambique was attributed to the depositional history of fossil sea bed in the area. There were very few data points within the Zimbabwe portion of the basin to make meaningful interpretation (Aurecon, 2013a).Fluoride in groundwater is from natural sources. Fluoride has beneficial effects on teeth at low concentrations in drinking-water, however excessive exposure to fluoride in drinkingwater, or in combination with exposure to fluoride from other sources, can give rise to a number of adverse effects. These range from mild dental fluorosis to crippling skeletal fluorosis, which may result in death. Occurrences of elevated fluoride were reported throughout the basin in Aurecon ( 2013), but no specific sites were mentioned. Hence, future water quality should look at this water quality variable.The presence of nitrates in drinking water is typically associated with pollution from agricultural activities, pit latrines, wastewater treatment, raw sewerage and mine water polluted by explosives. There are local occurrences of high nitrate, poor groundwater quality, in all catchments occurring within both South African and Botswana portions of the basin (Aurecon, 2013a), while no nitrate data was available from Zimbabwe or Mozambique.Sediment movement through the LRB is a particularly important component of this study as it reduces dam capacity and affects the water quality and consequently affects provision of ecosystems and environmental sustainabiltiy. The loss in storage reduces the ability of the reservoirs to meet water demands such as domestic and industrial, irrigation requirements, recreation, hydropower production, flood control, environmental water requirements, resulting in socio-economic, environmental and aesthetic losses. High sediment loads are transported during flood events in non-perennial rivers. The retention of sediment by large dams could also affect the equilibrium conditions of the lower river reaches and estuary (Aurecon, 2013a). Sediment movement is also an indicator of catchment management, especially landuse planning. The average annual storage loss (0.6% ) due to sedimentation in the Limpopo Basin (in South Africa) is slightly lower than the international average annual storage loss (0.8%) (ICOLD, 2009). An understanding of the specific river and reservoir sediment loads, sediment yields and mass balance is essential for the formulation of appropriate solutions for the basin.The total annual average sediment outflow (tonnes) from subcatchments within the Limpopo River basin observed and computed at selected river gauging stations or dam locations are shown in Figure 4.21. Sediment yield values for station numbers 28 and 34 were obtained from the Joint Limpopo Basin Study (1991), while data for Massingir Dam was obtained from Sedimentation Study ( 2002). An analytical method from Msadala et al. (2012) was used to estimate the loads at the other stations.Many mines are reaching the end of their economic lives and the mine shafts or tailings will start filling up with water and will ultimately decant. This water will be polluted and the volumes will be large enough to impact significantly on the regional water quality, thereby affecting the quantity, quality and timing of the environmental flows in the basin.To reduce the negative impact of water quality in the basin, mine water reclamation schemes have already been constructed in the South Africa side of the basin and are supplying water for potable use to the local municipalities, thereby supplying future water demands, especially in the upper areas of the Olifants catchment. Planned thermal power stations for energy production from coal will need water for cooling. However, new coal plants use air-cooling and may result in reduced water pollution. The potential surface water pollutants and sources are presented by risk regions in Table 4.12. Mining, poorly performing wastewater treatment plants and agricultural return flows laden with nutrients and chemicals are the main culprits in polluting the basin. Seven water quality variables (Table 4.13) are presented to describe the fitness for water use in the Limpopo River Basin based on different types of water quality aspects encountered in the basin (Aurecon, 2013a). Green is good, blue is tolerable, orange is poor and red is unacceptable (Table 4.14). Other water quality variables including bacterial and agrochemical pollution could not be assessed due to lack of spatial data. The water quality along the rivers is presente in Figure 4.22. Acid mine drainage from both disused and existing mines is noted from the Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe (Aurecon, 2013a). The Olifants River is highly polluted upstream but as it flows through Kruger National Park it comes out as relatively good. The site considered (Mamba Weir) is in the Kruger National Park after the Phalaborwa barrage (Table 4.14).  Planned thermal power stations for energy production from coal will need water for cooling. However new coal plants use air cooling and may result in reduced water pollution.  Understanding of groundwater and surface water can show where there are opportunities and associated risks thereby ensuring effective investment and mangement of the resource to avoid conflicts between water uses including environmental water requirements. The planned Musina Special Economic Zone and the Limpopo Eco-Industrial Park by 2025, with an estimated water demand of 50 Mm 3 /a will put more pressure on water resources and environment in the Sand catchment.  Land use and land use changes in rural and urban areas will continue to affect water resource quantity and quality (i.e., groundwater recharge, groundwater and surface water quality)  Groundwater will increasingly contribute to resilience and adaptation to climate change  Equitable water access and balancing urban and rural needs with ecosystem requirements under a changing climate is important.  By far the largest available water quality data sets are for rivers in South Africa and therefore water quality of tributaries outside of South Africa (i.e., Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique) are poorly studied.  Due to the size of the Limpopo Basin, the major tributaries drain regions with vastly different water qualities that represent different geological and anthropogenic contributions to the water quality.  The water quality at sites of a particular tributary closest to the confluence with the main stem of the Limpopo River, would represent the cumulative water quality impacts (or assimilative capacity of the tributary of upstream water quality perturbations) of that particular tributary. The majority of water quality variables that are routinely monitored and subsequently included in Environmental Water Requirement studies are limited variables representing salts (i.e. electrical conductivity, major anions and cations), nutrients (nitrites, nitrates, ammonium and phosphates), other anions (e.g. F-and SO 4-2) and pH.  There is a distinct lack in the routine monitoring of variables that pose the greatest water quality threats. These include stressors from extensive mining activities in the catchments of the major tributaries (metals, acid mine drainage, salinization), agricultural activities (agrochemicals, salinization, sedimentation) and sprawling urban and rural communities (microbial pollution, salinization, sedimentation).The Limpopo River Basin is exceptionally rich in biodiversity and, as such, has a wide variety of genes, species and ecosystems (Petrie et al. 2014). Ecosystems (aquatic, terrestrial vegetation biomes, ground water) perform many important water-related roles in the basin and the environment at large, including nutrient recycling, water purification, attenuation of floods, ground water recharge, providing habitats for wildlife and other ecosystem services (Ozment et al. 2015). River discharge is a key aspect of the support of water-related ecosystems, with E-flows specifically designed to ensure that these ecosystems are sustained. This chapter is a general description of the diverse water-related ecosystems that exist within the Limpopo River Basin.Note that later deliverables of this project will include specialist ecological reports. This report provides a general introduction from a risk region perspective where possible.Some of Africa's largest and most renowned conservation areas are found in the Limpopo river basin. These include:  Most of the larger wetlands in the Limpopo River basin are located in Mozambique along the Lower Limpopo and Changane Rivers. This predominance is driven mostly by climate, soil and hydrological conditions i.e., the flat topography, high rainfall and geology. Many other much smaller wetlands are distributed throughout the basin but fine scale wetland data for these smaller wetlands is only available for South Africa and show (Figure 5.2) a high density of wetlands in the upper catchments of the Olifants, Letaba and Luvuvhu Rivers (Aurecon, 2013a) IWMI ( 2003) described a range of wetlands in the basin as follows; in the upper catchment predominantly dambos (seasonally or permanently saturated areas, also referred to as pans), while in the lower catchment in Mozambique there are large floodplains in the Chokwe area. Dambos and pans are common in the upper Olifants catchment in South Africa; the Mwenezi, Shashe, Tuli, Umzingwane and Bubi catchments in Zimbabwe; and the tributaries of the Changane catchment in Mozambique. Much of the population in the basin is concentrated near wetlands and many people use them for pasture to feed livestock and to grow wetland crops, while springs and shallow wells provide potable water. Many of the areas around wetlands are converted into agricultural fields and water from wetlands may be withdrawn for irrigating crops. Masiyandima et al (2005) provided examples of the extensive conversion and alteration of wetlands to support livestock and arable agriculture with examples from the Intunjambili wetland in Tuli, Botswana, the Motlapitsi wetland in the Olifants River, South Africa and the Chibuto wetland on the Changane River in Mozambique.Only three Ramsar designated wetlands are found in the Limpopo River basin, namely;  The General Assembly of the United Nations on the program of further implementation of agenda 21 decided under biological diversity 66(a) that urgent and decisive action is needed to conserve and maintain genes, species and ecosystems, to sustainably manage, use and benefit from biological resources (UNGA, 1997). Aquatic species are generally seen as an important cause of habitat alteration and have caused a loss of aquatic biological diversity in many places around the world (FAO, 2004). The Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC, 2020) describes the biodiversity found in the Limpopo River Basin as rich in diversity with endemic as well as migratory biota occupying the varied ecosystems of all riparian countries of the basin. Table 5.2 presents the number of species in each riparian country of the basin as per World Resources (2000Resources ( -2001) ) statistics. Fish are unfortunately not listed. Petrie and colleagues also noted that the Limpopo River Basin is exceptionally rich in biodiversity (Petrie et al. 2014). Biodiversity hotspots and species within the basin are discussed below. There are two recognized Biodiversity Hotspots areas identified in the Limpopo basin: small remnants of the Coastal Forests of Eastern Africa hotspot that extends mainly to the north; and the Maputoland-Pondoland-Albany that extends from the south and ends its range at the Limpopo mouth (Table 5.3 and Figure 5.3).  Defined as permanent waterbodies greater than 0.25 ha in surface area and more than 2m deep (Kalff, 2002), the Limpopo River Basin has only one natural lake, Lake Pave on the Lumane River. This lake is about 80 ha in size and is fed by small streams that are in turn fed by several swampy areas which usually do not run dry. Due to the stable water supply including ground water flows from the highland areas that infiltrate the sandy bottom of the lake, there is not much fluctuation in water levels during the dry period, while levels can rise >1m higher than normal during the rainy periods e.g., 1.0m and 1.5m during the floods of 2013 and 2000, respectively.The large number of dams and their associated artificial lakes (see Figure 4.5) provides aquatic habitats that to some extent mimic those found in natural lakes (a large body of deeper water, with slow flow, temperature gradients and a different sediment and nutrient profile compared to rivers) even though there are a number of notable differences. However, these ecosystem types are not natural for the Limpopo basin and the presence of these dams and artificial lakes in general contributes negatively to the river ecosystems. Particular negative impacts include river discontinuity, interruption of sediment movement, water quality changes, downstream flow changes, impacts on faunal migrations both up and downstream, lake (lentic) habitats supporting different and unnatural biodiversity, reduced stream power downstream with associated loss of sediment scour and riparian zone influence.Most of the large dams in the basin are found in South Africa (~160 dams) and are located mostly in the Crocodile, Upper Olifants and Middle Olifants catchments, 15 of these dams have storage capacities above 100 Mm³ while 34 have capacities between 10 Mm³ and 100 Mm³ (FAO, 2004). Mozambique has two major dams with the Massingir Dam located on the Elephantes River (right next to Massingir town) having the largest storage capacity at 2800 Mm 3 . Zimbabwe has more than 2000 small dams in the basin with around 21 medium or large dams. Botswana has six large storage dams with an estimated total storage capacity of 355 Mm³ and another approximately 100 smaller dams (FAO, 2004). There are many other privately owned small dams (heights and capacity less than 10 m and 5 Mm³, respectively) within the basin.Many of the dams in the basin are highly polluted (e.g., Loskop, Witbank on the Olifants river) due to the progressive worsening of water quality, especially in the South African portion of the basin due to urbanization and industrialization (Ashton, 2007). Due to this pollution, there is an advanced and at times dramatic reduction in the numbers and abundance of several sensitive species of insects, amphibians, fish, reptiles and aquatic mammals in the worst affected dams and associated river systems (O'Keeffe et al. 1989;Darwall et al. 2009) According to the Limpopo river basin monograph (Aurecon, 2013a), estuaries potentially play a critical role in determining water allocation in a catchment. For a reasonable functionality to be retained in an estuary, some river reaches in the catchment will have to be maintained in high ecological categories to offset those in worse condition, thus ensuring a reliable river flow arriving at the estuary.The Limpopo River has an elongated estuarine zone fed by a catchment of greater than 400 000 km 2 that enters the sea near to Xai in Mozambique (Aurecon, 2013a). The estuary has saline and fresh water in an interface between freshwater and marine environments, which spreads through the dune-field at the coast some 35 kilometers upstream from the river mouth. River flow in the system is highly seasonal with the highest flows occurring during the wetter summer months having a pronounced impact on physico-chemical conditions. The estuary is characterized by mangrove communities on both banks for up to 20 kilometers from the lower reaches, with Avicenna marina interspersed with Phragmites australis reed beds, and relatively small sections of shoreline mudbanks (utilised extensively by subsistence fishers). The E-flows assessment carried out in 2013 on the basin identified the following botanical communities within the estuarine zone; Open surface water area (potential habitat for phytoplankton), Submerged macrophytes, Intertidal sand and mudflats (potential habitat for intertidal benthic microalgae), Macro-algae, Salt marsh Mangrove communities, including landward edges, Reedbeds (nearly uniform occurrences of Phragmites) but including some adjacent sedge communities), Open vegetation mainly comprising grasses, but including some nested reeds and sedges, Sand thicket and Coastal forest and the presence of other alien plant species including Eucalyptus sp. mainly on dunes of the north bank, water Hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) and alien trees including Casuarina equisetifolia (mainly in closer proximity to the mouth), Terminalia catappa and Psidium guajava, the latter two as only scattered trees, however the presence of these alien species has been considered to be small (Aurecon, 2013a).Under the same 2013 E-flow study for the basin, a total of 35 macrobenthic taxa were recorded, dominated by polychaete worms which contributed 10 taxa (families, genera and species) plus some unidentified individuals. The number of taxa increased from five at the mouth site to a maximum of 13 in the middle reaches before declining to two at the top three sites. Due to the lack of information on fish, the study used the records of the entire basin and reference communities to suggest that category II estuarine dependent marine species dominate the Limpopo's estuarine fish fauna (Aurecon, 2013a). The Limpopo river has 24 major known tributaries and flows north of its origin, beginning at the confluence of the Marico and Crocodile Rivers in the Limpopo Province of South Africa, and forms the border with Botswana where it arcs east, is joined by the Shashe river to form the border with Zimbabwe. From here, it flows down the Great Escarpment and east into Mozambique at Pafuri, across the coastal plateau to the Indian Ocean at Xai (Limpopo RAK, 2020).Three logical reaches (upper, middle and lower) of the Limpopo river basin were identified by FAO (1997) in its description of the basin's hydrology. I) the upper Limpopo river down to Shashe confluence at the South Africa-Botswana-Zimbabwe border, II) the middle Limpopo River between Shashe confluence and the Luvuvhu confluence at the South Africa-Zimbabwe-Mozambique border at Pafuri, III) the Lower Limpopo River downstream of Pafuri to the river mouth in the Indian ocean (FAO, 1997). FAO (2004) ranked the tributaries of the Limpopo River from each riparian country according to decreasing mean annual runoff (MAR) which are summarized in the Table 5.4 below. Elephantes Chokwé, Changane (an intermittent tributary) and Lumane Rivers In other parts of the basin on the Mozambique side, the Limpopo River, which used to be a perennial river, can fall dry for up to eight months per year mostly as a result of abstractions in the upper catchment area (GOM-DNA, 1995 as quoted in FAO ( 2004)).The Olifants River, which becomes the Elephantes and joins the Limpopo river in Mozambique, has the largest catchment area and is also the largest contributor of flow to the Limpopo River, while the Luvuvhu River has the highest unit runoff and also has a high ratio of denaturalized to naturalized MAR (86 percent), indicating a relatively low level of development in the catchment (FAO, 2004).Many of the rivers in the basin are seasonal in that they only flow during the wet season. This situation has worsened over time (see hydrology chapter). Since the mainstem Limpopo River itself has also become seasonal in some areas, the changes come with major ecosystem changes as many of the ecosystem processes that existed before can no longer function.The fish of the Limpopo River Basin have historical connections to the Congo Basin resulting in a high regional aquatic diversity (Stankiewicz et al. 2005) with many unique species and those with high conservation value (IUCN Red List status). At least 83 species of fish have been recorded in the basin (FAO, 2004) with 48 of these species being found in the Limpopo River and the others only recorded in its tributaries. Among these species of fish found in the Limpopo River; cyprinids, catfish, Tilapia, exotic trout and several brakish-water species (found in the estuary) provide a source of income and protein to the basin people. A large number of mollusk species that can be harvested are also found in the basin (Darwall et al. 2009) but due to the characteristics of the system, the Limpopo Systems has relatively low endemicity. Urban waste-water treatment works generating treated effluent that enters the basin system mostly via the Crocodile River gives rise to large nutrient loads causing a highly modified habitat template for macroinvertebrates particularly within the upper reaches of the system. There is abundant growth of algae obstructing instream habitat with remnant available habitat in areas where instream flow is sufficiently strong. The benthic algal mats provide excellent habitat, however, for Corbiculids (basket clams) which in many areas dominate the aquatic biota. Once base flows weaken outside of the main stream flow, the algal mats completely dominate and cover the habitat. This nutrient signal gradually weakens down the length of the Limpopo, although is still evident as far as Chokwe (Aurecon, 2013a).There is lack of species level information (distribution and ecology) on Aquatic macroinvertebrates at the basin level. Most of the collected data in the catchment is family based (SASS5) with broad insights into their ecological requirements. Based on family based biotic indices the headwaters of streams draining mountain catchment areas are generally in good condition due to their natural flow providing good instream habitat and thus healthy invert communities. Examples are streams draining the; Soutpansberg mountains (upper Luvuvhu, Dzindi, Mukhase, Mutale, Mutshindudi) (River Health Programme, 2001b); Wolkeberg mountains (upper Ga-Selati, Makhutsi, Letsitele, Groot Letaba, Debegeni, Politsi) (River Health Programme, 2001a and2001b); Drakensberg (Treur, upper Blyde, upper Lisbon, Belvedere Creek, Klaserie) (River Health Programme, 2001a;Diedericks, 2018aDiedericks, , 2019aDiedericks, , 2019bDiedericks, , 2019c)) Streams impacted by weirs, dams, over-abstraction, urban runoff and high waste water loading, with poorly managed commercial forestry areas, agricultural return flow, lack of wellmanaged riparian buffers, poorly managed mining, all provide for severely modified conditions for habitat and invertebrates communities. (River Health Programme, 2001a, 2001b;2005).1) The catchment is dominated by 2 vegetation Biomes: Savanna (more than 60%) on the western side and Indian Ocean Coastal Belt on the eastern side (Mucina and Rutherford, 2006;2012). A small amount of Grassland Biome occurs in the southern regions and supports a high density of seep wetlands, which are vital for base flow maintenance. Several reaches of lowland rivers are characterized by a zonal Lowveld Riverine Forest, a critically endangered vegetation unit.2) The major impacts on vegetation are removal and invasion by alien species. Vegetation removal is comprised mainly of (Aurecon, 2013a): 4) Several large National Parks occur within the basin, as well as numerous other protected areas. These provide refugia for vegetation communities and species and also provide clues to the reference conditions associated with vegetation. Sites within these areas will provide more realistic assessments of water requirements for vegetation.Introduced (invasive alien) species including aquatic weeds are widespread in southern Africa, especially where there are human disturbances (Environmentek, CSIR, 2003). Invasive aquatic species, such as water hyacinth/Eichhornia crassipes, red water-fern/Azolla filiculoides and parrot's feather/Myriophyllum aquaticum provide conditions, which increase the prevalence of water-borne diseases, adversely affect water quality and aquatic life and block river courses, increasing the damage done by floods (UNEP, 2002). The impacts of alien (terrestrial) plants include crowding out the native riverine vegetation, displacing or affecting populations of aquatic organisms and fauna and trap sediment, use more water than the natural vegetation that they replace, deplete soil moisture, reduce groundwater recharge, spring flows and river base flows (Le Maitre et al. 2000;Environmentek, CSIR, 2003). The most aggressive invader, Chromolaena odorata is rapidly spreading northwards into southern Mozambique and its impact will increase in the Limpopo basin. The Limpopo basin especially, its South African tributaries, has been invaded by Australian wattles/Acacia species, guavas/Psidium guajava, bugweed/Solanum mauritianum, lantana/Lantana camara, jacaranda/ Jacaranda mimosaefolia, syringe/Melia azedarach, amongst others (Versfeld et al. 1998;Environmentek, CSIR, 2003). These species are likely to have been widely dispersed by the floods of February 2000. Water hyacinth Eichhornia crassipes was noted in the estuary during the Monograph study of 2013 but in small quantities, presumably originating in upstream dams in South Africa where it is common. There are several operational programs in the basin countries to control alien species but the process is expensive and takes several years to complete.Aquatic ecoregions are areas of similar ecological character. The concept is that any river ecosystem within a single ecoregion would have common characteristics to any other river in that ecoregion. This allows a comparison between these supposedly similar rivers, and also extrapolation from one site to the next with some confidence. Different levels of ecoregion may be mapped, commencing with coarse differentiation and going to finer levels. Within South Africa (Kleynhans et al. 2005), these were mapped for both Level 1 (coarse resolution) and Level 2 (finer resolution) but not for the other riparian countries. In this project Level 1 ecoregions are presented for the entire basin. Level 2 detail was not immediately possible due to lack of mapped information and local experts who could attest to the ecoregion types.The Level 1 aquatic Ecoregions have been mapped for south Africa (Kleynhans et al. 2005), and in this project the methods applied for developing them were applied for the other basin riparian countries (Figure 5.6). Where possible data sets that could be applied at the regional or country level for all riparian countries were used. Predominantly the data sets used to develop Figure 5.6 include:1. vegetation type (which is a good indicator of geology, soil type and climate), 2. altitude 3. contours and rainfall isohyets 4. hydrology 5. climate 6. soil 7. Google earth  5.5 provides a guide to the Ecological Categories that are used in this report, while Table 5.6 provides the achieved PES categories for the Rivers in the basin as developed by the South African Department of Water and Sanitation. Table 5.7 provides the PES for the E-flow sites monitored during the Monograph study and also for existing sites in South Africa that contributed to this overall evaluation (Aurecon, 2013). This latter table also provides the Recommended Ecological Condition (REC) which is a statement of management objective, and a measure of the Ecological Importance and Sensitivity (EIS).  This chapter contains a summary of the discharge in the basin and provides a first indication of how this will impact on the E-flows when they are determined.    Table 6.1 provides a detailed evaluation of the hydrology per risk region, in terms that may impact on the E-flows still to be determined. Such an evaluation considers the nature of the river discharge, its seasonality, fluctuations in flow, flood and drought characteristics. Managed releases from the dam supply the Beitbridge town and commercial agribusiness (citrus plantations) downstream. Water releases also recharge an alluvial aquifer in the lower Mzingwane river, which is abstracted from well points and boreholes. Flow regime changes downstream of the dam include the capture of all flows early in the rainy season, most low flows, many larger flows and the reduction in magnitude of some floods. These flow regime changes are thought to have contributed to the decline in active riverbed width and the abandonment of portions of the river channel on either side, which are colonized by vegetation, competing for water with the established riparian vegetation as well as with water users. These effects together with apparent loss in aquifer material indicate a likely decline in the extent of the alluvial aquifer and its specific yield. The riparian ecosystem, consisting of a stand of acacia woodland, is also likely to suffer (Love et al. 2007;Love et al. 2008).Upper Insiza dam (8.829 Mm 3 ) located on the Insiza river, which is a tributary of the Umzingwani (Mzingwane) river. The dam was constructed in 1967. The Insiza river, located in Zimbabwe, is ephemeral with no flow for 176-245 days per year.The dam provides urban water supply to the city of Bulawayo. No significant difference has been detected between the mean annual runoff or the annual maximum flood at gauging stations upstream and downstream of the dam. The amount of water stored during the wet season is thought to balance the releases made during the dry season. The highest floods occur during January to February, which coincides with the period when most dams spill due to earlier inflows from November to January, resulting in insignificant impact to the annual maximum flood. However, the number of days with no flow is found to be lower at the downstream gauging station due to flow releases in the dry season. Changes in exceedance probabilities of daily flow levels have been observed, but are not reflected at annual level (Kileshye Onema et al. 2006). Middle Limpopo Insiza dam (173.491 Mm 3 ) located at (20.369886 S, 29.246752 E) on the Insiza river downstream of the Upper Insiza dam. The dam was constructed in 1973.The dam provides urban water supply to the city of Bulawayo. The behavior of mean annual runoff, the annual maximum flood and the reasons for their behavior are observed to be the same as those for the Upper Insiza dam. However, in the case of this dam, no significant difference has been observed in the number of days with no flow upstream and downstream of the dam. Changes in exceedance probabilities of daily flow levels have been observed, but are not reflected at annual level (Kileshye Onema et al. 2006).Silalabuhwa dam (23.454 Mm 3 ) located at (20.75833 S, 29.36056 E) on the Insiza river downstream of the Insiza dam. The dam was constructed in 1966.The dam provides urban water supply to the city of Bulawayo. The behavior of mean annual runoff, the annual maximum flood and the reasons for their behavior are observed to be the same as those for the Upper Insiza and Insiza dams. Similar to Upper Insiza dam, the number of days with no flow is found to be lower at the downstream gauging station due to flow releases in the dry season.Changes in exceedance probabilities of daily flow levels have been observed, but are not reflected at annual level (Kileshye Onema et al. 2006) Although evidence points to degrading water quantities and associated fauna and flora, five prominent challenges to implementing E-flows were found: (i) absence of catchment management agencies/authorities (CMA), water user associations and water boards, (ii) lack of understanding of environmental flow benefits, (iii) limited financial budget, legal position and technical hydrological resources, (iv) lack of institutional and human capacity and (v) conflict of interest. These challenges have existed within the Luvuvhu river catchment since the 1960s (Ramulifho et al. 2019).An E-flows assessment method called DRIFT-ARID (A modification of the DRIFT method) has been applied to the semi-permanent Mokolo river. DRIFT-ARID is especially designed for E-flows assessments in nonperennial rivers and consists of 11 phases and 29 activities. The method used integrity scores from several disciplines to determine the overall ecosystem integrity of 5 sites under several different scenarios (Seaman et al. 2016  Lower Limpopo basin An analysis is carried out to verify whether the water resources of the Limpopo basin are sufficient for the planned irrigation developments in the Mozambique part of the basin, namely 73 000 ha, in addition to existing irrigation (estimated at 9 400 ha), and natural growth of common use irrigation (4 000 ha). The study finds that total additional water requirements may amount to 1.3 x10 9 m 3 /a or more. A river basin simulation model has assessed different irrigation development scenarios, and at two storage capacities of the Massingir dam. The model shows that all planned irrigation is not feasible but a maximum of approx. 58 000 ha can be sustained assuming that Massingir will be operated at increased reservoir capacity. This is about 60% of the envisaged developments. Any additional water use would impact downstream users and create All Limpopo river basin An analysis of hydrological, climatic, ecological, socio-economic and governance systems of the basin indicates that its institutional arrangement is neither simple nor effective. The basin is found to be rapidly approaching closure and if proposed ecological flow requirements for all tributaries were to be met, the basin would be closed. Land use changes, water resources developments in the upper part of the basin coupled with projected rainfall reductions and temperature increases may further decrease downstream river flows. The increase in temperature and decrease in rainfall may especially affect poorer communities who rely on rain fed agriculture. Increased temperatures may increase evapotranspiration from reservoirs resulting in a decrease in water availability. This may result in increased abstraction of groundwater, especially from alluvial aquifers, and consequently an increase in river transmission losses and a further decrease in river flows (Mwenge Kahinda et al. 2016). The main rising risk is identified as an increasing number of dry spells (which is likely to decrease crop yields), and an increasing probability of annual discharge below the long-term average (which could limit water availability). Increasing food shortages are identified as likely consequence of the impact of declining water resource availability on rain-fed and irrigated agriculture. Further, stresses on urban water supplies, especially to Zimbabwe's secondlargest city of Bulawayo, which already experiences chronic water shortages, are also predicted (Love et al. 2010).","tokenCount":"15179"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"925b4c7e849702efb47f85106f7ab343","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/07e6d204-56e0-4f7d-b369-9cff50a56462/content","id":"-1771848643"},"keywords":["wheat","speed breeding","photoperiod","generation advancement","selection"],"sieverID":"32168231-9634-431a-82b9-992978f5aa9a","pagecount":"10","content":"The need to increase the annual genetic gain in crops continues to be urgent to sustain the growing food demand and the sustainability of the agri-food system. An important way to achieve this is by reducing the cycle time of crop breeding. There are various approaches where more than one generation of wheat can be grown each year, including by taking off-season crops. The greenhouse or artificial generation advancement facility is also used for quick generation advancement. However, it is costly and not suitable for developing countries or institutions having financial limitations. Moreover, the amount of breeding material to be handled in speed breeding facilities is also quite limited reducing the chance of obtaining all probable recombinant lines. Therefore, we explored a viable and cost-effective way to grow two wheat crops in a single season under natural field conditions in a location in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India where wheat has never been grown in the off-season. The experiment was conducted using six genotypes, varying in days to maturity on four different treatment combinations at the research farm of Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA), Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh which falls under the Central Zone (CZ) of India. Out of four treatments, we got seed germination in two treatments with a success rate of >80%. The results proved that it is possible to obtain at least two generations of wheat crop under field conditions in the location used. This approach not only saves resources and time but also provides an opportunity to make selections in breeding populations at least from the first cycle. The results serve as a base to further refine this technique and eventually use it for wheat breeding or off-season multiplication of seeds to fasttrack the entire process of varietal development and its dissemination.n today's era, global food security is a significant concern. With the increasing population and climate change, it is most challenging to supply competing demands for food (Crist et al., 2017). Globally, wheat (Triticum aestivum) is the most consumed grain by humans among the cereals. Over the last ten years, globally, wheat consumption by humans has increased up to 90 million metric tons (MMT). Wheat is essential to the human diet, accounting for 20% of daily protein and calories. It is the second most important food crop in the developing world after rice in terms of food security, with an estimated 80 million farmers relying on it for their livelihoods (Crespo-Herrera et al., 2021).Conventional varietal development and breeding programs worldwide have achieved remarkable growth in crop production and brought new varieties in the past century. Notwithstanding, such varietal development up to the release of variety had taken 10-15 years of the breeding cycle (Hickey et al., 2017).Marker-assisted selection has been found helpful in the introgression of major genes in wheat in lesser time frame (Vishwakarma et al., 2014(Vishwakarma et al., , 2016) ) but not so effective in introgression of a minor gene or quantitative trait loci (QTLs) (Cobb et al., 2019). In the recent past, Genomic selection (GS) has become popularized and considered an upgraded version of MAS because the selection of superior lines is done by applying genomic-estimated breeding values (GEBVs) based on high density genotyping; GEBVs calculation is done with the dataset of genotyping and phenotyping of the training I 262 Number 41/2024 ROMANIAN AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH population (Poland et al., 2012;Crossa et al., 2013). However, these tools take considerable number of years since to provide genetically static genotypes after rigorous selection. In this context, 'speed breeding, has been found useful in reducing the length of the breeding cycle by taking several generations of wheat crop in a year (Watson et al., 2018). However, this technology is quite costly and is not affordable for most research institutions in developing countries.Continuous light from various sources has been shown to accelerate the reproductive period in most long-day plants (LDP) like pea (Berry and Aitken, 1979), spring wheat (Pérez-Gianmarco et al., 2020), chickpea (Sethi et al., 1981), and barley and radish (Turner et al., 2005;Stautas et al., 2011).Hailstorms and heavy rains causing damage to wheat crop. This leads to almost complete damage of wheat crop in some LDP, wheat demands more photoperiod than the necessary length to flower. Most light sources have a spectrum that covers the photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) wavelength range of 400-700 nm. However, certain parameters, such as temperature, humidity, and lengthy daylight, are naturally available. Such environmental conditions can be advantageous for rapid generation advancement.Taking more than one generation in a year under field conditions can be a sound strategy for wheat breeding as proved by CIMMYT using their world-famous shuttle breeding. However, in a country like India, two wheat crops in a year can be taken only using northern or southern hill stations of India during the monsoon (June-September) period.The hill stations of India have limitation of space and suffer from years. Therefore, exploring suitability of an off-season crop in the plains of India could be a viable alternative to speed up the breeding process in low cost. In this study a location (Jabalpur) in Central India was tested for speed breeding under field conditions by growing wheat crop during off-season.The experimentation was done in the district of Jabalpur falling under the state of Madhya Pradesh. This region comes in the Central Plateau and Hills zone sub-region of Central Narmada Valley. Semi-arid climatic conditions persist throughout the region, with temperatures of 26°C to 40°C in July, 7°C to 24°C in January, and average annual rainfall from 50 cm-100 cm. Soils are mixed red, yellow, and black. Jabalpur falls in this agroclimatic zone.The experiments were conducted at BISA farm, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh (23.18º N, 79.98º E) India using both normal and off-season. A similar experiment was conducted at BISA farm at Ludhiana, Punjab also.A total of five wheat genotypes including two popular varieties (MACS6222, GW322) and three advanced breeding lines (BWL6887, IND497, and GS3051 (GID: 7177664; GS\\2015-16\\3051; QUAIU#1//2*WHEAR/KRONSTAD F2004) were used for this study that was conducted in two consecutive crop years 2018 and 2019. Based on the promising results in the first year, the early maturing genotype GS1054 (GID: 6333158; GS\\2015-16\\1054; SUP152/BAJ #1) was also included in the experiment during the second year. The selected lines vary in genetic constitution and for days to maturity from early to normal in the central zone of India. The sowing was done on 16 th Oct in 2017 in year 1 and 25 th Oct in 2018 in year 2 following the recommended agronomic practices.The field experiment was conducted using four treatments to test and standardize the methodology as per the details given in Table 1. The data on phenological traits like days to heading (DH) and days to maturity (DM), days to anthesis (DA) and plant height (PH) was recorded along with grain yield and thousand grain weight (TGW) from all the lines. The timelines of the activities from sowing to harvesting and growth stages for two cycles of generation advance are shown in Figure 1.  Treatment 1 (T1) Five spikes were randomly collected from each genotype just before the early dough stage (15 days after Flowering; DAF). The selected spikes were sun-dried for nearly 6 hours, each for two consecutive days before placing them in the oven.The spikes were kept in paper bags and dried in the oven for 48 hours at 35°C. Spikes were threshed by hand and seeds were shown directly in the field in two rows of 1.5 meters each with a line-to-line spacing of 22 cm.Treatment 2 (T2)The second treatment was like the T1 except that the spikes were dried in the oven for 72 hours at 35°C.Treatment 3 (T3) Five spikes were randomly collected from each genotype at the early dough stage (20 DAF). The selected spikes were sundried for nearly 6 hours before placing them in the electric oven at 35°C for 48 hours. The seeds were shown directly in the field in two rows of 1.5 meters each with a line-to-line spacing of 22 cm and seed-to-seed distance of approximately 8 cm.Treatment 4 (T4)The fourth treatment was like T3 with two modifications: a) the spikes were dried in the oven for 72 hours at 35°C. b) the seed was kept in Petri plates for germination (Figure 2b).The seeds were moistened whenever needed. Germinated seeds were sown directly in the field under normal conditions. Jabalpur is a high yield potential environment with a shorter duration than NWPZ and NEPZ (Figure 6). There was significant variation among genotypes for DH and DM (Table 2). The DH varied from 60 (MACS6222) to 70 days (GS3051) in the first cycle and 43 (GW322) to 55 (GS3051) in the second cycle of the first year, while grain yield and thousand grain weight were recorded only for the second cycle, where the range of the grain yield of the 189 gm (GW322) to 235 gm (GS3051) and range of TGW were 41.9 (BWL6887) to 47.2 gm (GS3051). Similarly, the DH varied from 55 (GS1054) to 74 (GS3051) in the first cycle and 35 (GS1054) to 54 (GS3051) in the second cycle of year 2, whereas the range of the grain yield of the 179 (BWL6887) to 242 gm (GS1054) and range of TGW were 39.0 gm (BWL6887) to 43.4 gm (MACS6222, GS1054). The weather conditions across two years did not show much variation (Figure 3a and 3b). Hence, there was no significant difference in the phenological traits of each of the lines.   All seeds failed to germinate in T1, while only a few germinated in T2 (Figure 4). However, T3 and T4 were successful in providing normal seeds from each of the genotypes. While T3 showed a partial success, the T4 was able to lead to normal seed development and germination in all cases. The average number of seeds retrieved from each spike ranged from 28-46. The seeds from the top and bottom of spikelets were not used due to low seed formation and too small grain size. The seeds from the individual spikes were dried and tested for germination. T1 seeds completely failed to germinate, while only a few seeds from T2 germinated. On the other hand, we observed nearly 80% and 98% germination in T3 and T4, respectively. The plots from T2, T3, and T4 of the second cycle in the field conditions are shown in Figure 4, while the healthy plants at ear emergence and maturity stages are shown in Figure 5. To test the hypothesis of the possibility of advancing generation twice in a year under field conditions in a location of India where off-season wheat is not grown and farmers and researchers take only one crop in a year, we evaluated the two most common varieties grown in the central zone along with four advanced breeding lines. Based on the first year of results at Jabalpur, the same experiment was also conducted at BISA Ludhiana (North-Western Plain Zones) to test the possibility of taking two generation of wheat crop in that location as well. To have common lines between Ludhiana and Jabalpur, 'GS1054 was included in the Jabalpur experiment in the second year of trials due to its suitability under zero tillage in NWPZ of India. However, the experiment at BISA Ludhiana was unsuccessful due to lower sunshine hours during December and January and longer crop duration.The selected genotypes differed from each other for heading days, maturity days, and plant height. We tested diverse genotypes grown in the Jabalpur region to study whether the lines with different phenological traits and maturity durations may also be advanced by taking two crops in a year. Since the objective of this experiment was mainly to study the possibility and optimization of generation advancement, the thousand grain weight (TGW) gm, were recorded for the 1 st cycle of the season, while grain yield were recorded to ensure the gain of sufficient seed for the next generation.The experiment was conducted at BISA Jabalpur, which falls under the Central Zone of India and is a high wheat yield potential environment. The maturity of wheat takes place nearly at 168 days at Ludhiana (NWPZ) if planted early in October, and up to 158 days under normally sown conditions, i.e., when planted in the first week of November. Compared to Ludhiana, the crop duration at Jabalpur is about three weeks shorter, making this location ideal for growing/obtaining two generations within a year. The results suggest that it is possible to advance the generations at Jabalpur location by using the approach explained in this manuscript. However, it may not be feasible to take two crops for largescale seed multiplication or grain production since two crops methodology requires that ear heads will have to be harvested at dough or just before the dough stage. The grain remains succulent in these growth stages. Hence, there will be severe yield loss and deteriorated grain quality from a consumption point of view (Nedeva and Nikolava, 1999). However, for research purpose two crops can be taken in a year using the approach used in this study. The seed drying appears to have played a significant role, as evident from the first two treatments (T1 and T2) in which spike collection time was the same as in case of T3 and T4. Similar results proving that drying conditions are crucial for improving seed germination were reported by Nedeva and Nikolava (1999). Since the objective was to Number 41/2024 ROMANIAN AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH test the generation advancement in field conditions, the seeds were planted directly in the field. The third and fourth treatments were exercised five days after T1 and T2, where seeds were allowed to develop a bit more and attain the dough stage. As in T1, the seeds were dried for 48 hours in the oven at 35°C and planted directly in the field. Since we did not use seed from the topmost and lowest spikelets of a spike, the germination rate went up to 80%, just by providing five additional days for seed development. The germination further improved to about 100% using pre-planting germination in the Petri plates.Based on the positive results obtained in the first year from T3 and T4, the same experiment was repeated in the next crop season except for T1 and T2. The additional high-yielding line GS1054 was also included in the experiment. The GS1054 (pedigree: SUP152/BAJ#1) is a relatively early maturing line with good yield performance and possesses tolerance to heat (Poudel et al., 2017). There was consistent seed germination in the second cycle (Figure 4). To ascertain the consistency in the protocol across the varieties, the agronomic characteristics like plant height, heading, maturity, growth habit, etc., were recorded (Table 2). There was no significant difference in phenological traits during the first crop cycle in both years. However, a reduction of 35 to 37 days in maturity was observed, which is expected, as has been reported earlier too (Rezaei et al., 2015;Poudel et al., 2017;Puri et al., 2020). All the genotypes selected for this study belong to the spring wheat group. Therefore, no vernalization was required, and plants could complete normal but shorter life cycles during the second cycle of generation advancement during the same year. A uniform trend of reduction in plant height, days to heading, and anthesis was observed in all the genotypes. These results showed almost similar impact of higher temperature on plant growth, but germination was unaffected. There was no significant difference in temperature between the first cycle of both years (Figure 5). The temperature during anthesis in the first crop cycle ranged from 11°C to 25°C. Notably, the flowering period of the second crop cycle was about 6-7 weeks, with a minimum temperature of 13°C and a max of 31°C in both years. It was observed that PAR was nearly 80 watts/m 2 during both seasons, making it ideal for growing two generations of wheat, mainly in the central zone of India. We observed almost a constant PAR value in both seasons. Therefore, the higher temperature appears to be the main factor in shortening the life cycle of plants. Several reports are commensurate with similar observations (Rezaei et al., 2015;Prasad et al., 2017;Liu et al., 2018Liu et al., , 2019;;Shah et al., 2020). Along with the main rabi season if we go with off-season (May to September), there is potential to take three generations with minimal efforts and resources (Figure 7). This approach provides an advantage of selection in the segregating generation during the primary crop season, while seeds from the second cycle will increase the homozygosity in the population.Based on the two years of results, we conclude that improving seed germination by different treatments led to the possibility to obtain two generations per season. This was possible in the central zone of India, where there are sufficient sunny days to support. The challenges to germinating premature seeds was also addressed by developing a new methodology. This Clubbing with offseason (May to September), there is potential to take three generations with minimal efforts and resources. The other potential application could be faster seed multiplication and dissemination of new varieties where the seed is available in limited quantity. The seed may be multiplied several hundred folds from a single grain in a season by harvesting heads (out of several tillers from a single plant) from the main wheat crop and planting in the available fields even in January.","tokenCount":"2888"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b1b0411c8a34b9188bfecdbb29ba2fc6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/7e254390-eec0-44a1-bec3-11d2f0a79100/retrieve","id":"701001314"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"99cef4af-f0a9-4919-b661-ea6525e68774","pagecount":"40","content":"La conférence \"Resserrer les liens\" s'est penchée sur de nombreuses questions politiques.Vous trouverez ci-dessous les principaux thèmes abordés. Ils portent notamment sur l'amélioration des liens entre les petits producteurs et les acheteurs, le développement du commerce intra-régional, la promotion d'un environnement favorable et l'amélioration du financement des chaînes de valeur.1. Les petits producteurs sont essentiels au développement agricole. Il semble indispensable de les renforcer. La taille des exploitations augmentera sans doute mais les petites exploitations devraient demeurer la norme dans les régions ACP durant les années à venir. Les politiques doivent en tenir compte, faire face aux contraintes auxquelles les petits producteurs sont confrontés et faciliter leur développement. L'agriculture doit être source de profits et cela passe par un secteur privé fort.2. Même si les exploitations agricoles demeureront relativement petites, la conférence a clairement établi qu'elles ne sont pas condamnée à rester pauvres. Des chaînes de valeur plus efficaces, des liens plus étroits entre acheteurs et producteurs peuvent entraîner les revenus à la hausse. Ces liens renforcés, notamment grâce à l'agriculture contractuelle, dépendent de l'instauration d'un climat de confiance entre l'ensemble des acteurs d'une chaîne.Les gouvernements ont, à cet égard, un rôle majeur à jouer qui passe par la mise en place de législations favorables.3. Les contraintes du développement des chaînes de valeur, en particulier au niveau du commerce intra-régional, ont fait l'objet d'études fréquentes et sont bien connues.Il faut à présent laisser la place à l'action.Les gouvernements doivent envisager: de prendre des mesures garantissant que tous les responsables concernés sont conscients des règles en vigueur et de leur évolution ; d'élaborer des mécanismes permettant de faire état des violations aux règles ; d'organiser des réunions multi-acteurs afin de débattre de la mise en oeuvre de la législation existante ; et de garantir que leurs politiques sont conformes aux engagements commerciaux régionaux existants.4. Les gouvernements doivent tenir compte des coûts et des bénéfices des diverses décisions d'allocation des ressources. Il sera très probablement moins avantageux de dépenser les fonds en subventions agricoles plutôt qu'en infrastructures de développement et en actions de renforcement des services de vulgarisation et de recherche agricole. Les gouvernements devraient accorder une attention particulière à la mise en place d'un environnement favorable afin de faciliter les échanges commerciaux.5. À lui seul, le secteur privé peut développer des chaînes de valeur rentables. Cependant, obtenir ce résultat à grande échelle nécessite la participation d'un personnel d'encadrement qualifié. La formation sur les questions liées aux entreprises agricoles et aux chaînes de valeur est actuellement limitée dans les universités ACP.Les gouvernements doivent soutenir leurs institutions universitaires afin de mettre au point des cursus adaptés. La collaboration régionale permettra d'y parvenir.6. L'amélioration de la communication entre les secteurs public et privé est essentielle. La conférence a recommandé que les gouvernements facilitent l'accès des représentants du secteur privé aux discussions portant sur les politiques. Ils doivent également encourager la formation d'associations représentant tous les acteurs engagés autour d'un produit spécifique, y compris les producteurs et leurs organisations, afin d'assurer un lien formel entre les industries et les décideurs politiques.7. Les partenariats public-privé permettent aux chaînes de valeur de se développer largement et doivent être promus par les gouvernements. Quelques exemples : l'investissement du secteur privé dans des usines de transformation, avec un investissement du gouvernement dans les routes et autres infrastructures ; le soutien du secteur privé à l'introduction de nouvelles cultures pour les petits producteurs, avec des améliorations variétales fournies par les centres de recherche publics ; et l'extension de l'aide du secteur public aux opérations d'agriculture contractuelle.8. Les technologies de l'information et de la communication (TIC), en particulier les technologies web et mobiles, peuvent améliorer l'efficacité des chaînes de valeur et les revenus des producteurs. Elles seront rapidement adoptées si elles se justifient d'un point de vue économique. Les gouvernements qui n'ont pas encore libéralisé leur secteur des télécommunications perdent en efficacité dans tous les secteurs, pas seulement dans l'agriculture. 9. Les chaînes de valeur sont en principe faciles à financer: l'organisme de financement peut s'assurer d'être remboursé en s'appuyant sur le maillon le plus solide de la chaîne. Mais si de tels exemples de financement des chaînes de valeur ont été concluants dans de nombreux pays, les banques des pays en développement en sont peu informées. Ces solutions sont donc toujours peu appliquées. Il faut surmonter cet obstacle afin que les chaînes de valeur non traditionnelles (qui sont moins intéressantes pour les banques occidentales les plus actives dans le financement des chaînes de valeur) puissent prospérer, notamment dans le commerce Sud-Sud. n Participants assistant à la présentation de l'expert en chaînes de valeur David Hughes.© CTAUne grande conférence sur le développement des chaînes de valeur pour les petits producteurs -la plus importante jamais organisée sur ce thème -a rassemblé plus de 500 participants à Addis-Abeba, en Éthiopie. La conférence portait sur la création de chaînes de valeur efficaces, orientées vers les marchés, afin de renforcer la sécurité alimentaire et d'améliorer le bien-être de dizaines de millions de petits producteurs. Si le terme \"chaîne de valeur\" est largement utilisé par le secteur privé depuis un certain temps, il n'a été adopté que récemment par les professionnels du développement agricole. Il définit une chaîne coordonnée et collaborative au sein de laquelle les producteurs répondent à une demande spécifique des consommateurs et où la valeur est ajoutée tout au long des divers segments de la chaîne. Dans de nombreux pays en développement, les chaînes de valeur commencent à remplacer les transactions ponctuelles traditionnelles -par exemple entre les producteurs et les négociants -à travers une série de relations gérées impliquant les producteurs, les fournisseurs d'intrants, les services de conseil, les transformateurs, les spécialistes de l'emballage, les transporteurs, les gestionnaires d'entrepôts, les acheteurs et les consommateurs. Les chaînes de valeur sont déterminées par le marché. Le secteur privé joue un rôle central dans leur développement et leur succès.Lors de la session d'ouverture de la conférence, les intervenants ont insisté sur la nécessité d'augmenter la production agricole et de relier les petits producteurs aux marchés. L'Afrique était à l'honneur, en partie parce que la majorité des participants en étaient issus et également parce que le continent est à la traîne par rapport à d'autres régions du monde en développement, en ce qui concerne la lutte contre la pauvreté et la malnu- © Tim Smith trition ainsi que le renforcement de la productivité agricole. Par exemple, les rendements céréaliers moyens en Asie du Sud sont de 4,5 t/ha, contre 1 t/ha en Afrique.Ces dernières années, les dépenses de l'Afrique en importations de produits alimentaires ont augmenté à une vitesse alarmante, a expliqué Josué Dioné, alors directeur de l'Uneca en charge de la sécurité alimentaire et du développement durable. \"Nous devons réclamer notre part du marché mondial\", a-t-il affirmé. \"Nous ne manquons pas de ressources hydriques et foncières et l'Afrique dispose d'un potentiel important pour augmenter sa production alimentaire et satisfaire ses propres besoins. Nous devons augmenter la production alimentaire et développer des chaînes de valeur complètes qui intègrent les petits pro-ducteurs dans les marchés commerciaux.\" La croissance agricole représente une voie essentielle pour sortir de la pauvreté. \"Pour les plus pauvres, la cro issance agricole est environ quatre fois plus efficace pour générer des revenus que la croissance extérieure au secteur\", a affirmé Michael Hailu. En effet, lorsque les rendements augmentent de 10% en Afrique, la pauvreté chute de 7%. La croissance n'a pas le même impact dans les secteurs manufacturier et des services.Avant de déclarer la conférence ouverte, Wondiraf Mandefro Gebru, ministre éthiopien de l'Agriculture, a suggéré que l'espoir était permis et a souligné les progrès de son propre pays. L' Éthiopie, l'un des huit seuls pays à atteindre l'objectif du Programme détaillé pour le développement de l'agriculture africaine (PDDAA) de dépenser au moins 10% du budget national dans l'agriculture, a un taux de croissance agricole annuel de 8% par an. Le pays a largement renforcé son soutien aux services de conseils agricoles et dispose actuellement d'autant d'agents de vulgarisation -environ 60 000 -que l'Inde, dont la population est quatorze fois plus nombreuse.\"Le potentiel de renforcement de la productivité de nos petits producteurs et d'approvisionnement des marchés locaux et étrangers est énorme\", a conclu le ministre. \"Cependant, nous devons mieux comprendre le fonctionnement concret des chaînes de valeur, en particulier pour les petits producteurs, en les reliant aux intrants, au crédit et aux marchés.\" Il a conclu en espérant que la conférence permettrait de comprendre comment y parvenir.Dans son intervention inaugurale, David Hughes, professeur émérite en marketing alimentaire à l'Imperial College de Londres, a planté le décor en discutant des tendances alimentaires dans le monde et de leur impact sur les chaînes de valeur dans les pays en développement. \"Au cours de ma carrière, la population mondiale a doublé pour atteindre sept milliards d'habitants et deux milliards devraient s'y ajouter d'ici 2050\", a-t-il commenté. En Afrique, la population devrait passer d'un à deux milliards durant cette période. \"Pourrait-il s'agir d'une occasion commerciale phénoménale pour les producteurs du continent?\", a-t-il demandé.Afin de satisfaire les besoins de neuf milliards de personnes d'ici 2050, la production alimentaire devra augmenter d'environ 70%. Il ne s'agit pas seulement de chiffres qui augmentent. Les pays en développement s'urbanisent.Ainsi, la population de Dar-es-Salam, la capitale tanzanienne, devrait augmenter de 80 % ces quinze prochaines années et une classe moyenne de plus en plus importante demandera une alimentation plus variée, de très bonne qualité. Déjà, l'augmentation de la consommation de produits d'origine animale dans des pays comme la Chine a entraîné une augmentation de la demande de céréales pour l'alimentation du bétail. Cela explique en partie l'augmentation importante des prix des céréales ces dernières années.David Hughes a mis en lumière une série d'autres tendances importantes. Les prix des aliments de base sont devenus de plus en plus volatiles suite à la crise des prix alimentaires de 2007-2008. Cette volatilité devrait se poursuivre dans un futur proche, avec des conséquences alarmantes pour les pays les plus pauvres, où les ménages dépensent une grande part de leurs revenus pour se nourrir. Ces dernières années, la grande distribution mondiale a commencé à s'étendre vers les pays en développement: la présence de Walmart devient ainsi de plus en plus palpable en Afrique. Cependant, les fournisseurs régionaux et locaux continueront à jouer un rôle de plus en plus important, en influençant à la fois les marchés et les prix alimentaires.\"Cette tendance est positive pour l'agrobusiness, mais critique pour les petits producteurs et les propriétaires de petits magasins\", a souligné David Hughes. \"Les petits producteurs sont désavantagés mais pas condamnés.\" Pour survivre et prospérer, ils devront tirer parti de leurs forces, notamment l'utilisation de la main-d'oeuvre familiale, l'attention au détail et les avantages liés à leur proximité des marchés. Les gouvernements ont un rôle central à jouer dans l'instauration d'un environnement favorable. Cela passe notamment par la fourniture de biens et de services essentiels tels que les infrastructures, les soins de santé, la recherche et le développement agricoles, mais aussi par le maintien de la paix au sein des nations et entre elles. Les gouvernements doivent également s'efforcer de limiter la corruption et de faciliter les activités commerciales en réduisant les contraintes administratives auxquelles sont confrontées les entreprises.' expression \"environnement favorable\" peut paraît obscure au citoyen lambda qui voyage en matatu à Nairobi ou en taxi-brousse à Ouagadougou. Pourtant, ce concept revêt une importance cruciale pour le développement des chaînes de valeur. Dans son introduction à la session plénière sur le rôle des gouvernements dans la facilitation du développement des chaînes de valeur, Andrew Shepherd, conseiller technique senior du CTA en charge du développement par les marchés et coorganisateur de la conférence, a déclaré : \"Il s'agit, selon moi, de la session la plus importante de cette conférence. Si l' environnement n' est pas favorable, alors tout le reste est une perte de temps.\"Selon André Dellevoet, de l'Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund, les gouvernements africains se sont efforcés d'améliorer l' environnement favo-rable, par exemple en investissant dans les infrastructures et en réduisant les conflits. Cependant des problèmes de taille demeurent. \"De nombreuses sociétés et entreprises souffrent au quotidien d' entraves à leurs activités\", a-t-il déclaré. Ces entraves peuvent être dues à divers facteurs tels que le manque d'accès au crédit, les barrières non tarifaires et des routes en mauvais état. Souvent, a-t-il poursuivi, entreprises et politiques s'imbriquent largement, ce qui n' est pas sans conséquences. \"Vous pourriez penser qu'un blocage est d' origine administrative, mais vous constaterez très souvent que des responsables politiques agissent pour protéger leurs propres intérêts.\"Lors d'une session plénière précédente, Steve Wiggins, de l'Overseas Development Institute (ODI), a suggéré que les gouvernements devraient prendre des mesures essentielles afin d'aider les Pour aller au marché et y amener leurs produits, les producteurs se déplacent à pied, en vélo ou en voiture sur les routes rurales.© IFAD/Susan Beccio petits producteurs à bénéficier des chaînes de valeur. Avant tout, ils doivent créer un \"climat propice à l'investissement rural\". Cela implique le maintien de la paix et de la sécurité, la stabilité macroéconomique, le soutien aux institutions de base, le respect des droits de propriété et un véritable droit du travail.Les gouvernements ont également la responsabilité de fournir les biens et services de base tels que l' éducation, les routes, les soins de santé et le soutien à la recherche et au développement agricoles. En l'absence d'infrastructures de bonne qualité, les marchés efficaces ont peu de chance de prospérer. Tout porte à croire que les producteurs proches de routes accessibles en toutes circonstances s' en sortent bien mieux que ceux qui en sont plus éloignés. Quant à l'argent dépensé en R&D agricole, il l' est presque toujours à bon escient, avec un ratio coûts-bénéfices pouvant aller jusqu'à 1 contre 20. Silos à grains en Namibie.© Philip Schuler/World Bank également de réduire les vols de cultures, ou la \"délinquance agricole\" comme on appelle ces pratiques dans les Caraïbes.Les gouvernements sont également responsables de réduire l'incidence des pots-de-vin et de la corruption, qui sont une cause majeure de difficultés pour les producteurs et ceux qui transportent les produits agricoles vers les marchés. CHApitRe 2 e n 2000, on ne recensait que 16,5 millions d'abonnements de téléphonie mobile en Afrique. Aujourd'hui, ils sont environ 700 millions et le nombre de personnes sur le continent ayant accès aux téléphones mobiles est plus important que ceux qui ont accès à l' eau potable. Ces dix dernières années, les téléphones mobiles, qui sont l'instrument majeur des technologies de l'information et de la communication (TIC) avec la radio, sont passés du statut de luxe réservé aux riches à un produit essentiel pour tous. Selon un rapport récent d' eTransform AFRICA, publié par la Banque mondiale, les TIC contribuent à 7% du PIB africain. C' est en partie dû à l'usage qu' en font les producteurs et les autres acteurs du secteur alimentaire.Lamon Rutten, en charge du programme \"Politiques, marchés et TIC\" du CTA, a suggéré que la conférence \"Resserrer les liens\" avait changé les façons de penser et d'agir des gens face à certaines questions. \"Je pense que la conférence a encouragé les organisations participantes à envisager les TIC comme des facteurs essentiels du développement des chaînes de valeur plutôt que comme des options\", a-t-il déclaré.Deux des sessions parallèles étaient explicitement consacrées aux TIC et à leur utilisation dans la promotion des chaînes de valeur. L'une d' entre elles, modérée par Ken Lohento, coordinateur du programme du CTA sur les TIC, a exploré l'utilisation des services mobiles dans le renforcement des chaînes de valeur agricoles pour les petits producteurs. L'autre, facilitée par Vincent Fautrel, coordinateur senior du programme sur les Chaînes de valeur du CTA, a examiné les systèmes d'information de marché et les chaînes de valeur, en mettant l'accent sur le rôle des partenariats public-privé.Ces dix dernières années, les systèmes d'information de marché sont devenus de plus en plus sophistiqués et bien plus diversifiés. Les modèles de première génération fournissaient simplement aux producteurs et aux décideurs politiques des informations sur les prix des cultures dans les journaux, sur des tableaux et à la radio. Ceux de deuxième génération, qui remontent à une dizaine d'années et impliquent les secteurs privé et public, fournissent aux producteurs et aux négociants des informations non seulement sur les prix du mar- © IFAD/Mwanzo Millinga ché mais également sur d'autres sujets. \"Les TIC et les solutions basées sur la téléphonie mobile sont de plus en plus utilisées pour une communication dans les deux sens -par exemple entre les producteurs et les marchés ou les agences de vulgarisation -, ce qui améliore l' efficacité au sein de la chaîne de valeur\", a déclaré Vincent Fautrel.Les producteurs et autres acteurs de la chaîne de valeur peuvent à présent bénéficier d'une grande variété d'applications issues des TIC, adaptées à la demande et aux besoins à diverses étapes de la chaîne de valeur. Alors que les producteurs peuvent demander des informations sur les conditions climatiques ou les variétés culturales, les agences gouvernementales peuvent quant à elles s'informer sur les rendements et la disponibilité des cultures. Les TIC sont également utilisées comme service bancaire virtuel. L' exemple le plus connu est le M-Pesa de Safaricom, qui permet aux producteurs kenyans et tanzaniens d'acheter et de vendre des biens via leur téléphone.\"Les téléphones mobiles participent à l'émancipation des petits producteurs qui n'ont pas accès aux services de vulgarisation et de conseil classiques\", a déclaré Ken Lohento. Les Caraïbes sont l'une des nombreuses régions où les téléphones aident à connecter les producteurs avec l'information sur tous les sujets, des marchés à la météo. Ces services les aident à planifier leur calendrier cultural de manière plus efficace. Ils servent également de système d'alerte précoce. \"Les pertes agricoles lors de l'ouragan Sandy auraient été bien plus importantes s'il n'y avait pas eu le service de SMS alertant les producteurs sur l'attitude à adopter\", a expliqué Peter Thompson, de l'autorité du développement agricole et rural   \"Ces cinq dernières années, nous avons observé une évolution significative\", a expliqué Hasit Shah, du groupe Sunripe au Kenya, lors de la session plénière sur la promotion de chaînes de valeur durables axées vers le marché. L' entreprise de Hasit Shah se fournit actuellement en produits horticoles auprès d' environ 1 000 petits exploitants et exporte vers 30 pays. \"Nous vendons davantage sur les marchés régionaux que par le passé et le marché local est également en expansion\", a-t-il déclaré. Le secteur horticole kenyan exporte à présent 1,2 milliard $US de produits -fleurs coupées, fruits et légumes -par an. Toutefois, il est éclipsé par le marché local des légumes, estimé par Hasit Shah à quelque 3 milliards $US par an, dont 90% est du ressort du commerce informel.Dans son discours inaugural, David Hughes a pris l' exemple des exportations de fruits frais sud-africains pour illustrer l'importance croissante du commerce entre les pays en développement. En 1996, approximativement 75% des exportations de fruits frais sud-africains étaient destinées à l'Union européenne. Ce chiffre est à présent passé à environ 50%, les pays d'Afrique voisins représentant une part de plus en plus importante dans les exportations.Vincent Fautrel, du CTA, a raconté aux participants une anecdote sur une négociante de 75 ans qu'il avait récemment rencontrée à Ouagadougou, la capitale du Burkina Faso. Elle lui a dit qu' elle se concentrait de plus en plus sur les États du Golfe et la Chine plutôt que sur l'Europe. En effet, les visas pour pénétrer dans l'UE sont devenus à la fois trop chers et trop difficiles à obtenir. La difficulté à obtenir des visas et le fait que les rencontres demeurent un aspect essentiel des relations commerciales internationales sont devenus une bar- Le succès des chaînes de valeur dépend de la collaboration efficace et transparente entre toutes les parties impliquées, des producteurs et des agences de vulgarisation aux transformateurs et aux distributeurs. Les partenariats sont au coeur de chaînes de valeur bien gérées. À l'avenir, les organisations de producteurs joueront un rôle de plus en plus important, mais de nombreux autres accords de partenariat peuvent également aider à développer et à maintenir les chaînes de valeur. l e succès des chaînes de valeur dépend de la bonne volonté de toutes les parties impliquées -producteurs, organisations de producteurs, transformateurs, négociants, chercheurs, ONG, ministères -à communiquer, coordonner et collaborer. C' est l'un des messages essentiels de la conférence. \"L' extension des chaînes de valeurs nécessite la collaboration d'une multitude d'acteurs différents\", a expliqué Joost Guijt, de l'Université de Wageningen.Les organisations de producteurs ont fortement contribué à l'amélioration des revenus des producteurs et à accroître leur influence dans l' élaboration des politiques. Les Caraïbes illustrent bien leur potentiel. Jethro Greene, coordinateur en chef du Réseau des agriculteurs caribéens (Caribbean Farmers Network, CaFAN), a souligné l'importance de l'alliance entre les petits producteurs, afin d'influencer les politiques et d'accéder aux marchés. Son organisation a aidé les agriculteurs à augmen-ter leur part des marchés locaux et régionaux et les a encouragés à développer des relations durables avec les supermarchés. Le CaFAN encourage également les agriculteurs à grimper les échelons de la chaîne de valeur en s'impliquant dans la transformation des produits agricoles.En Éthiopie, l'Agence de transformation agricole (Agricultural Transformation Agency, ATA) a largement investi dans le renforcement des coopératives et des organisations appartenant aux producteurs. En Afrique, l'histoire des organisations et des coopératives de producteurs est mitigée, selon le directeur exécutif de l'ATA, Khalid Bomba. \"Trop souvent, elles ont été marquées par la corruption et l'inefficacité\", a-t-il déclaré. \"Nous les formons afin de les encourager à se considérer comme des entreprises.\"Une session particulière consacrée aux organisations de producteurs a permis d'insister sur l'importance d'une bonne formation. \"Les orga-nisations de producteurs doivent développer leurs capacités de gestion afin d'améliorer leurs services aux petits producteurs et de les aider à devenir plus compétitifs\", a expliqué Fadel Ndiame, de l'AGRA. Keeley Holder, du CaFAN, a suggéré que les organisations de producteurs devraient améliorer la compréhension qu' ont leurs membres des besoins et des exigences des acheteurs.création De valeur partagée Bien que le développement de chaînes de valeur prospères dépende largement de l'implication du secteur privé, les organisations non gouvernementales peuvent également jouer un rôle central. Larry Attipoe, de l'agence néerlandaise SNV, a déclaré que les ONG sont bien placées pour utiliser les fonds publics afin de tester de nouvelles approches et expériences.Il a souligné que les entreprises du secteur privé impliquées dans l'achat et la transformation de produits agricoles sont souvent réticentes à l'idée d' être confrontées à de nombreux petits producteurs, notamment parce que le processus peut être complexe et que les coûts de transaction sont souvent élevés. Cependant, les ONG sont bien placées pour rassembler un grand nombre de petits producteurs, développer leurs connaissances et leurs compétences et les aider à améliorer la qualité de leurs produits. \"Nous avons un avantage clair sur ce point, car nous comprenons les deux extrémités de la chaîne: les producteurs sur le terrain et les intérêts des entreprises du secteur privé\", a déclaré Larry Attipoe.Ecom Agroindustrial Corporation Ltd, une entreprise mondiale de commerce et de transformation spécialisée dans le café, le cacao et le coton, a reconnu le rôle important que peuvent jouer les ONG dans le développement de chaînes de valeurs prospères. Au Kenya, Ecom a établi une société, Sustainable Management Services (SMS), qui a formé environ 85 000 petits producteurs de café. Cela a permis d'augmenter les rendements et la qualité, au bénéfice des ménages ruraux et de l' entreprise.Jusqu'à présent, les dépenses courantes de SMS ont été financées par les bénéfices d'Ecom. Le coût des formations est principalement couvert par des subventions ou grâce à des partenariats entre Ecom et des ONG ou Ecom et des clients privés qui souhaitent promouvoir les activités de SMS. Selon le représentant d'Ecom, Thomas Delbar, ce modèle n' est pas durable. \"Nous espérons que nous parviendrons à convaincre les producteurs de rétribuer modestement les services de vulgarisation\", a déclaré Thomas Delbar. \"En fin de compte, tout a un prix.\" Cette expérience constitue un excellent exemple de \"marché agricole\" inclusif bénéficiant aux deux parties -producteurs et acheteurs.David Hughes, dans son intervention inaugurale, a parlé de l'importance grandissante des partenariats entre les entreprises et les exploitants. Par exemple, quelque 10 000 petits producteurs rwandais ont été formés à l'amélioration de leurs pratiques agricoles. Cette initiative a été soutenue par une entreprise familiale indépendante, Bettys and Taylors de Harrogate, au Royaume-Uni. La collaboration a permis d'augmenter l'approvisionnement en thé de haute qualité utilisé dans les mélanges \"Yorkshire Tea\" et Taylors a doublé le volume acheté au Rwanda. Les conditions de travail dans les plantations de thé se sont améliorées et le salaire minimum est à présent 40% plus élevé qu'avant le lancement du projet par Taylors. Les avantages environnementaux ont également été significatifs, comprenant notamment une grande campagne de plantation d' essences locales. Par le passé, a expliqué David Hughes, les gens parlaient de responsabilité sociale des entreprises. À présent, ils se focalisent sur la \"création de valeur partagée\".Les associations interprofessionnelles gagnent en importance. Elles rassemblent des groupes divers avec un intérêt pour des produits ou des secteurs spécifiques et peuvent regrouper des producteurs, des acheteurs, des transformateurs, des exportateurs et des fournisseurs d'intrants. Ces associations peuvent jouer un rôle important en stimulant le dialogue politique avec les gouvernements, ainsi que sur les questions d'arbitrage, de détermination des normes et d' échange d'informations.Un exemple de ce type d'association, décrit lors d'une session parallèle sur la gouvernance des chaînes de valeur, est l'Union Nationale des Producteurs de Coton du Burkina Faso (UNPCB). Cette association rassemblant des producteurs et le secteur privé est parvenue à promouvoir les intérêts de la chaîne de valeur dans de nombreux secteurs. Elle a participé à la stabilisation du marché, à la promotion de l'innovation et de soutien technique et a attiré des financements.Ces dernières années, l'influence des associations régionales s' est imposée. Certaines se focalisent sur les produits agricoles. Ainsi, le Conseil céréalier d'Afrique de l'Est (Eastern Africa Grain Council, EAGC) rassemble des producteurs, des négociants et des transformateurs. Le directeur exécutif de l'EAGC, Gerald Masila, a décrit comment, en sa qualité d' organisation sans but lucratif, elle dissémine et promeut l' échange d'informations sur tout ce qui affecte l'industrie céréalière régionale. Le CTA, l'un des partenaires de l'EAGC, soutient © REUTERS/Luc Gnago Accédez à des ressources clés sur les chaînes de valeur en visitant le site de la conférence à l'adresse suivante : http://makingtheconnection.cta.int/fr/ressources. Ces ressources à télécharger sont limitées à celles qui couvrent les problèmes généraux des chaînes de valeur, que leur application soit mondiale ou régionale. Les études nationales ne sont pas citées mais des liens vers des sites web proposant de telles études sont indiqués. ","tokenCount":"4424"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"5747565ee525d6e852d9939e7dc42494","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/bfb9f4a1-fbbd-45f9-8d4e-94e7136abf80/retrieve","id":"22409047"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"9dcf67e7-d3e5-433e-bf02-346699d14946","pagecount":"124","content":"This work is dedicated to my late mother, W/ro Alefetch Abreha (Tsige-Hana) and to my beloved family.iii AKNOWLEDGEMENT Above all, I would like to render my utmost praise to the Omnipotent, God, for giving me the opportunity for this postgraduate study and for giving me health, energy, and favorable situations to carryout the research work. I would like to extend due regards to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development/National Artificial Insemination Center for sponsoring me for this post-graduate study. I would also very much like to extend thanks to ILRI/IPMS for sponsoring the research work. Had it not been for the auspicious support of the IPMS Ethiopian Farmers Project, it would not have been possible to conduct the research in the ten study areas of the five regions. I have special honor and am very grateful to my advisors Prof. Merga Bekana, Dr. Azage Tegegn, and Dr. Kelay Belihu for their unreserved supports and guidance throughout the research work. Their encouragement and all-rounded supports to perform this big work in the one-year research period are highly appreciable. I would like to appreciate the supports given to me by the Sida/SAREC in the Faculty. Special thanks goes to the National Veterinary Institute (NVI) for providing me a bus service from Addis Ababa to Debre Zeit and back to Addis Ababa daily during the two-year study period. I am very great full to the technical and administrative staff of the national AI Center for all the supports they gave me.I am very much indebted to all those who genuinely and affably devoted their times to contribute to the research by participating in focus group discussions, questionnaire filling, and related programs. These include relevant professionals from NAIC, universities, institutes of agricultural researches, regional and wereda agricultural offices, and private sectors.Moreover, the cooperation of artificial insemination technicians and that of farmers in each study region was unforgettable.I would like to thank the staff of ILRI/IPMS at the headquarters for being cordial and cooperative during my stay with them as an associate graduate student. I need to thank, Ato Zerihun Tadesse, senior biometrician, & Ato Aklilu Bogale, data management expert, at ILRI iv for their assistances during formatting data entry and analysis at different times. I would also like to appreciate the cooperation of the staff of Capacity Strengthening department/ ILRI and that of Ato Yasin Getahun, GIS staff at ILRI for his assistance by preparing the Ethiopian map along with the study areas. I am also very grateful to Dale wereda IPMS office particularly Ato Ketema Yilma, Development Officer, and Ato Asfawesen Haile Who, in addition to other supports, generously allowed me to use their only vehicle full time during the works of pregnancy diagnosis and farmers' questionnaires. I would also like to acknowledge the cooperation of IPMS Research and Development officers in Mekelle, Alamata, and Wereta towns for their contribution. v TBLE OF CONTENTS AKNOWLEDGEMENT .Agriculture (mainly crop and livestock production) is the mainstay of the Ethiopian economy employing approximately 85% of the total population (Lobago, 2007). Livestock production accounts for approximately 30%of the total agricultural GDP and 16%of national foreign currency earnings (Lobago, 2007).The total cattle population for the rural sedentary areas of Ethiopia is estimated to be 43.12 million, of which 55.41% are females (CSA, 2006). Out of the total female cattle population, only 151,344 (0.35%) and 19,263 (0.04%) heads are hybrid and exotic breeds, respectively.With an average lactation length of 6 months and an average daily milk production of 1.44 liters per cow, the total milk produced during the year 2006/07 was recorded to be 2.634 billion liters (CSA, 2006). This suggests that the total number of both exotic and hybrid female cattle produced through the crossbreeding work for many decades in the country is quite insignificant indicating unsuccessful crossbreeding work. This again suggests that Ethiopia needs to work hard on improving the work of productive and reproductive performance improvements of cattle through appropriate breeding and related activities.In spite of the presence of large and diverse animal genetic resources, the productivity (i.e., meat and milk) of livestock remains low in many developing countries including Ethiopia for various reasons such as inadequate nutrition, poor genetic potential, inadequate animal health services, and other management related problems (Lobago, 2007).Cattle breeding is mostly uncontrolled in Ethiopia making genetic improvement difficult and an appropriate bull selection criteria have not yet been established, applied and controlled (Tegegn et al. 1995). Although artificial insemination, the most commonly used and valuable biotechnology, (Webb, 2003), has been in operation in Ethiopia for over 30 years, the efficiency and impact of the operation has not been well-documented (Himanen and Tegegn, 1998). Reproductive problems related to crossbreed dairy cows under farmers' conditions are immense (Bekele, 2005).It is widely believed that the AI service in the country has not been successful to improve reproductive performance of dairy industry (Sinishaw, 2004). From the previous, little study (Dekeba et al., 2006) AI service is weak and even declining due to inconsistent service in the smallholder livestock production systems of the Ethiopian highlands. The problem is more aggravated by wrong selection and management of AI bulls along with poor motivations and skills of inseminators (GebreMedhin, 2005).The objective of the research was, therefore, to assess and identify problems and constraints associated with the artificial insemination service in Ethiopia and to come up with pertinent and workable recommendations that could call upon decision makers and stakeholders to give the utmost attention to the AI service.Ethiopia has an estimated cattle population of about 41.5 million heads (EASE, 2003).Around 99.45 are indigenous breeds with very few hybrids, 0.5%, and exotic 0.1%. Cattle production together with the production of other livestock sectors has been known to be an important component of the agricultural sector. Livestock contributes much by providing meat, milk, cheese, butter, export commodities (live animals, hides and skins), draught power, manure, near-cash capital stock (EASE, 2003).It is known that no enough selection and improvement for productivity has been performed on the indigenous cattle. Nevertheless, the indigenous cattle are known to have special merit of coping with the harsh environments of the country. On the other hand, the high performing exotic cattle cannot cope with the harsh environments of the country (MoA, 1996). Therefore, improvement on the indigenous cattle for productivity with out losing traits, which are essential for survival, has been proposed (MoA, 1996).Artificial insemination (AI) has been defined as a process by which sperm is collected from the male, processed, stored, and artificially introduced into the female reproductive tract for the purpose of conception (Morrow et al., 1985;Roberts, 1985;Webb, 2003). Semen is collected from the bull, deep-frozen and stored in a container with Liquid Nitrogen at a temperature of minus 196 degrees Centigrade and made for use. Artificial insemination has become one of the most important techniques ever devised for the genetic improvement of farm animals. It has been widely used for breeding dairy cattle as the most valuable management practice available to the cattle producer and has made bulls of high genetic merit available to all (Webb, 2003;Bearden et al., 2004).In livestock rearing, the producer makes efficient use of the generous supply of sperm available from an individual male in a manner that greatly increases genetic progress, as well as improving reproductive efficiency in many situations. Today, many bulls have been reported to produce sufficient semen to provide enough sperm for 40,000 breeding units in one year (Bearden et al., 2004). Using the long accepted standard of 10 x 10 6 motile sperm at the time of insemination with an average initial motility of 60% and a 33.3% loss of sperm during freezing and thawing, the number of breeding units would entail 1 x 10 12 total sperm.The author also suggested that by using sexual stimulation and more frequent collections, many sperm have been obtained from most bulls in a year without adversely affecting conception rate.The use of AI in Ethiopia is growing but estrus detection is difficult owing to poorly expressed estrus of Zebu breeds (Mukassa-Mugerwa et al., 1989). Similarly, Tegegn et al.,1989, Bekele et al.,1991) have shown that the short duration and low intensity of estrus signs in Ethiopian Zebu cattle caused most estrus detection failures which indicates a need for the use of current advances in AI such estrus synchronization.The first successful AI was performed in Italy in 1780 and over 100 years later, in 1890, it was used for horse breeding (Webb, 2003). In Russia, however, the method was first taken up seriously as a means of improving farm animals (Heinonen, 1989). According to Webb (2003), the history of AI is interesting in that old Arabian documents dated around 1322 A.D.indicate that an Arab chieftain wanted to mate his prize mare to an outstanding stallion owned by an enemy. He introduced a wand of cotton into the mare's reproductive tract, and then used it to sexually excite the stallion causing him to ejaculate. The semen was introduced into the mare resulting in conception. The author further indicated that Anthony Van Leeuwenhook, inventor of the microscope, first observed human spermatozoa under magnification, which led to further research. In fact, Spallanzani has been recognized as the inventor of AI. His scientific reports of 1780 have indicated successful use of AI in dogs. In 1899, Ivanoff of Russia pioneered AI research in birds, horses, cattle and sheep, and was apparently the first to successfully inseminate cattle artificially (Webb, 2003). Mass breeding of cows via AI was first accomplished in Russia where 19,800 cows were bred in 1931Webb (2003)). Denmark was the first European country to establish an AI cooperative association in 1936. E.J. Perry of New Jersey visited the AI facilities in Denmark and established the first United States AI cooperative in 1938 at the New Jersey State College of Agriculture.The first artificial vagina (AV) was reportedly devised by G. Amantea, which was used to collect semen from the dog (Sorensen, 1979). In the years that followed, numerous Russian researchers developed artificial vagina for the bull, stallion, and ram. The method of semen collection using artificial vagina has been reported to be closest to the natural conditions and is assumed to yield the most normal ejaculate of all methods used. An attempt has been made to simulate the normal or best temperature, pressure, lubrication, and position to obtain the optimum response of the male (Sorensen, 1979). The AV consists of an outer rigid or semirigid support with an inner jacket containing controlled-temperature water and pressure and collecting funnel and container.In Ethiopia, AI was introduced in 1938 in Asmara, the then part of Ethiopia, which was interrupted due to the Second World War and restarted in 1952 (Yemane et al., 1993). It was again discontinued due to unaffordable expenses of importing semen, liquid nitrogen and other related inputs requirement. In 1967 an independent service was started in the then Arsi Region, Chilalo Awraja under the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida). Zewdie et al. (2006) has described that the technology of AI for cattle has been introduced at the farm level in the country over 35 years ago as a tool for genetic improvement. The efficiency of the service in the country, however, has remained at a very low level due to infrastructure, managerial, and financial constraints and also due to poor heat detection, improper timing of insemination and embryonic death. In Ethiopia, there is often complaint of the AI service, by service users for imbalance female and male ratios of calves born in which the latter exceeds in percentage, which is against the interests of most of the beneficiaries (Bekele, 2005). Breeding using AI or natural mating affected male: female calf ratio, which gives sense and can be applicable if the system works.However, the reason why natural mating gave more female progenies than males for cows mating to AI is not clearly known (Bekele, 2005). The worldwide scale and importance of the artificial insemination industry in cattle breeding are beyond question (Bonadonna and Succi, 1980;Chupin and Thibier, 1995). Maximum use of superior sires has been considered as the greatest advantage of AI while natural service has been linked to limit the use of one bull, probably, to less than 100 mating per year (Webb, 2003). The author further showed that AI usage enabled one dairy sire to provide semen for more than 60,000 services in one year. Gebremedhin (2005) has listed many advantages of AI including prevention of reproductive diseases, control of inbreeding, minimizing the cost of keeping bulls for natural service and others. Besides, the availability of accurate breeding records such as breeding dates, pregnancy rates, inter-estrus intervals, and days to first service used to monitor fertility are other advantages of AI (Sinishaw, 2004).Artificial insemination, however, has disadvantages that include poor conception rates due to poor heat detection and inefficiency of AI technicians, dissemination of reproductive diseases and poor fertility rates if AI centers are not equipped with appropriate inputs & are not well managed (GebreMedhin, 2005). Other disadvantages include high cost of production (collection and processing), storage and transport of semen (Pope, 2000), as well as budget and administrative problems and inefficiency of AITs (GebreMedhin, 2005). Source: Chupin and Schuh (1992), own observation at NAICThe selection criteria of bulls for AI service must include record-based pedigree information, individual performance as regularly recorded starting from the time of birth, which should include birth weight, subsequent weight increments. Later on progeny testing and general health status should also be parts of the selection criteria (Zewde, 2007). Recruitment of bull calves for the purpose of semen production must be free from a known contagious disease (Yamane, 1995).Infertility or sterility has been accepted as common problem in the male as in the female (Roberts, 1985), but because of the greater hazards presented by parturition and pregnancy, acquired infertility or sterility, however, is much more frequent in the female. The degree of fertility in males may vary greatly but is more easily evaluated because of the large number of females bred by each male, especially by those males used in artificial insemination (Roberts, 1985).Bulls selected for AI have been shown to transmit to their offspring the genetic potential for well-above-average milk or meat production (Herman et al., 1994). In addition, the progeny must be of desirable conformation, be long wearing, have quiet disposition, and be free of genetic defects. Genetic improvement of cattle using AI calls for a continual replacement of the lower-production-transmitting bulls by younger, proven bulls with superior genetic merit. Herman et al. (1994).Libido is defined as sexual desire, while serving capacity is the ability to complete the act of mating (Hansen, 2006). Libido or sexual desire has been found to be affected by age, heredity, environment, and disease (Arthur et al. 1983). Although puberty occurs, for example, in bulls at nine to ten months, in all species poor feeding retards its onset. Full libido may be achieved before normal spermatogenesis and therefore, as a rule animals are not put to stud until a few months after puberty. Bulls retain normal sexual desire until five or six years of age, but beyond this point libido very gradually wanes.In the Ethiopian NAIC, there is no limitation on how long one specific bull may be used as an AI bull (Jokinen and Bertilson, 2003). If an imported bull is considered superior, it is not taken out of the AI service even if there is a risk of inbreeding.Inability to perform service despite normal sexual desire is a frequent cause of bull infertility (Arthur et al., 1983). Copulation comprises several distinct conditions, some of which are not understood. Inability to copulate has been reported to be due to skeletal or visceral pain, in others to lesions of the genital organs, inability to protrude and penile deviations , while in many cases in which no lesions can be found the nervous control of copulation is believed to be defective (Arthur et al., 1983). The prognosis for the virgin bull has been suggested to be favorable, but grave for adult bull.The penis has two-fold function: the expulsion of urine and the deposition of semen in the genital tract of the female (Roberts, 1985). Before the latter process can occur, the penis must become erect, which is accomplished by dilation of the internal and external pudendal arteries to the penis. The cavernous blood sinuses dilate with blood, the out flow of which is retarded by the increased venous pressure caused by contractions of the smooth muscles of the corpora cavernosa and the extrinsic, ischiocavernosus muscle at the base of the penis. The process of ejaculation probably starts in the epididymis and travels along the ducts deferens at the same time the walls of the accessory glands contract and force their contents into the urethra (Hafez, 1993).Semen or sperm is the entire seminal discharge of the male during normal ejaculation. It has been known that semen consists of cellular elements, the spermatozoa produced in the somniferous tubules, seminal plasma, or the liquid portion of the semen produced by secretions of the somniferous tubules, epididymis, ducti differentia, and ampulae, seminal vesicles, prostate, and bulbo-urethral glands (Arthur et al., 1982). Failure of penile erection can, therefore, affect semen collection and it can be caused due to various reasons previously described (Arthur et al., 1982) including lack of libido, which in turn can be affected by age, heredity, environment, and disease.Incapacity to fertilize due to seminal defects forms the largest category of bull infertility.Although incapacity to fertilize is necessarily concerned with morbid changes that may occur in the organs contributing to the seminal ejaculate, it is more directly related to the seminal micro pathology (Arthur et al., 1982).According to various studies (Laing, 1970;Morrow et al., 1985;Roberts, 1985), failure to mount, failure to achieve intromission, and failure to thrust and ejaculate are other important factors that need to be considered during investigation of bull fertility.Scrotal circumference provides a good indication of a bull's ability to produce sperm and is related to his own age at puberty (Hansen, 2006). The measurement should be taken at the largest diameter of the scrotum. Both testicles should be positioned next to each other and a flexible measuring tape should be placed snugly around the scrotum. Testicles need to be descended into the scrotum, and should be of the same size and shape. Any irregular shape or swelling may indicate abnormal structure, illness, or injury. Disease prevention in bulls has been considered as essential as in breeding females (Hansen, 2006) and new bulls need to be screened by a qualified veterinarian for infectious agents prior to entering a new herd. Bulls have been recommended to be purchased only from reputable seed stock producers with adequate herd health plans; including vaccination against infectious diseases, e.g. leptospirosis and campylobacteriosis. New animals should be quarantined (30 days). Bulls are also recommended to be tested annually for brucellosis, but not be vaccinated for brucellosis. In some instances, bulls need to be vaccinated for bovine viral diarrhea (BVD), infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR), and trichomoniasis (Hansen, 2006). Based on personal observations during the study at NAIC, the status of bovine tuberculosis at the Holeta Dairy Farm, the sole source of semen producing bulls,was found to be 48%, 14%, 4%, 22%, and 10% every year since 2003. Unless it is made possible to make full control of the health of bulls selected for semen production, the disadvantages of artificial insemination in disseminating diseases will be much higher (Zewde, 2007).The frequency of tests made and the diseases tested at NAIC are not sufficient (Agegnehu, 2007). According to the international animal health code (2001) of the Office International des Epizooties (OIE)), donor and teaser animals should be tested for the following specific diseases: Bovine Brucellosis, Bovine Tuberculosis, Bovine Viral Diarrhea, Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis, Campylobacter fetus/subspecies veneralis, Trichomonas fetus. Nevertheless, semen-producing bulls at NAIC are tested only for brucellosis and tuberculosis and yet not on regular basis due to many associated constraints (Agegnehu, 2007).Semen collection has been considered like harvesting any other farm crop (Bearden et al., 2004) since effective harvest of semen involves obtaining the maximum number of sperm of highest possible quality in each ejaculate to make maximum use of sires. This involves proper semen collection procedures used on males that are sexually stimulated and prepared.The initial quality of semen has been determined by the male and cannot be improved even with superior handling and processing methods. However, semen quality can be lowered by improper collection and the processing techniques (Bearden et al., 2004).Realization of the maximum benefits of AI depends upon the collection of maximal numbers of viable sperm cells at frequent intervals from genetically superior males (Cole and Cupps, 1977). The success of AI depends on the collection of a relatively large numbers of potentially fertile spermatozoa from genetically superior sires (Garner, 1991).The routine collection of semen for AI in dairy and beef bulls is by using artificial vagina (Faulkner and Pineda, 1980). Several essential features have been considered in designing facilities for collecting semen, of which the safety of the handler and the collector have been found to be the most important in bulls in dairy farm. Safety fences, usually constructed of 7.6 cm. steel pipe with spaces large enough for a person to step through at 2.44 meters intervals, should be provided. The collection area must provide good footing to prevent slipping and injury to the male being collected. An earthen floor in the immediate collection area best provides this. Means to restrain the teaser animals to minimize lateral as well as forward movement must be provided. At the same time, easy access for semen collection must be maintained (Morrow et al., 1985;Roberts, 1985;Bearden et al., 2004).Appropriate and specialized facilities, equipments, and procedures have been used during collection of semen to prevent injury to the bulls and their handlers, to maximize the physiological responsiveness of the bulls in producing semen and to enhance the quantity and the quality of the semen that can be collected (Garner, 1991). The area for semen collection has been preferred clean, relatively quite, free of distractions and any other stressful procedures. There has been a report of increase in spermatozoa motility by 50% through proper sexual stimulation of the bulls (Salisbury et al., 1978).Standard semen collection procedures normally include sexual stimulation, sexual preparation, and collection of the semen (Herman et al., 1994).Providing a stimulus situation that elicits mounting behavior in the bull is termed \"SexualStimulation\" (Herman et al., 1994). The stimulation process has been best practiced by exposing the bull to a mount animal in a collection environment and allowing to move briefly around female/teaser for a couple of minutes (Morrow et al., 1985).This has been found to determine the intentional prolongation of sexual stimulation. It is achieved through a series of false mounts (allowing the bull to mount but not ejaculate) and restraint and ultimately results in an increase in the quantity and quality of sperm ejaculated.In dairy bulls, one false mount plus two minutes of restraint plus two additional false mounts before each ejaculation will help obtain the maximum amount of good quality semen (Herman et al., 1994).Semen has been collected in a number of ways, and the methods of collection are governed by the intended purpose for future use. A sample for evaluation may need to be only a very small volume and not as clean a sample as one for use in artificial insemination (Sorensen, 1979). The following various methods have been used in collection of semen.Recovery: follows normal copulation and can be applied in different ways. A pipette such as an inseminating catheter with an attached suction bulb may be inserted into the vagina following ejaculation and the semen is, then, siphoned into it. This semen is contaminated with the fluids of the female tract but is satisfactory for evaluation. It may also be used for artificial insemination when trying to over come some obstruction in the cervix or satisfy breeding restrictions of some pure bred societies. This method can be applied using different mechanisms and includes spooning, using a sponge, using a cup, and blotting (Sorensen, 1979).Massage: semen has been collected from the bull, in most instances, by massage. The bull is restrained and the gloved arm and hand are lubricated before inserting through the anus into the rectum. The area of the ampulae, vesicular glands, and prostate is located under the rectum. The fingertips then are used to exert a downward pressure milking this area caudally.This stimulates and mechanically causes the sperm to be passed through the urethra by gravity to drip from the prepuce (Sorensen, 1979;Roberts, 1985).Vaginal insert: consists of a tapered insert with a flange on the end that may be placed in the vagina prior to copulation (Sorensen, 1979).Urethral fistula: the male urethra may be cannulated with a tube just under the anus with a Ttype cannula allowing passage of urine through the urethra proper or collection of sperm under the anus at the time of copulation (Sorensen, 1979;Roberts 1985),. This is only useful experimentally since rather exacting surgery is involved (Morrow et al., 1985). The electro ejaculation method of semen collection has been derived from observations of persons being electrocuted that ejaculated in response to the electrical stimulus. The semen collected by electro ejaculation is equal in quality to that collected by the artificial vagina, and processing, storage, and later use are comparable (Sorensen, 1979). The method of electro ejaculation for semen collection is preferred to the artificial vagina method under certain conditions (Bearden et al. (2004). It has been used for dairy bulls that have become crippled, have low sexual activity due to age, or for other reasons are unable to serve the artificial vagina. However, semen should not be collected and used from males that have not demonstrated normal sexual behavior or ability to ejaculate, as the cause may be genetic and transmitted to the offspring.Monitoring of qualitative semen characteristics has been indicated to be an important function of the AI Laboratory (Herman et al., 1994). Seasonal and even daily fluctuations in a bull's seminal characteristics are possible. Therefore, to maintain a quality AI program constant vigilance is required. An integral part of this monitoring is an accurate system for keeping records of the bull's seminal quality. Such records document the bull's history of seminal quality and provide information on which to base production -related decisions.The gross appearance of freshly collected bull semen has been described usually to be the first measure of quality made by the semen laboratory. Neat (unaltered) semen normally appears as a thick whitish to slightly yellowish fluid whose consistency is mainly determined by the number of spermatozoa it contains. Normal bull semen has very little odor (Herman et al., 1994).The microscopic appearance of bull's semen varies between ejaculates, individual bulls, breed, and age. Normal bull semen is generally white or yellowish creamy in color (Zewdie et al., 2005). The volume of the ejaculate is readily measured by collecting the sample directly into a graduated vial (Garner, 1991). Alternatively, it can be done by weighing the tubes after semen collection on top-loading balance, and later converting the reading into milliliter by using a computer program. The latter has been known to reduce error associated with visual reading of the tube specially when small volume or bubbles are found by 10% (Bearden and Fuquary, 2000).The volume has been reported to decline when young bulls are used or when there is frequent ejaculation or incomplete or failure of ejaculation and in bilateral seminal vesiculities (Garner, 1991;Hafez, 1993). Furthermore, those authors have described in summary that a number of factors like season of the year, method of collection, and the sexual preparation of the bull have been known to affect semen volume.The volume of bull's semen varies between ejaculates, individual bulls, breed, and age.However, a bull with less than 2ml of semen per ejaculate is not acceptable (Zewdie et al., 2005).Semen volume for Bos taurus bulls in Brazil was reported to be 6.9ml and 8.2ml in different years (Brito et al. 2002). Crossbred bulls had higher values of semen volume while Friesian bulls had better values in the rest of the parameters and age had significant effect only on semen volume(p<0.050) , (Sinishaw, 2005).Differences between reports on semen volume could be attributed to differences in age, breed, nutritional status geographic locations, seasons of year of study, method of semen collection and handling of bulls during collection, procedure and frequency of collection (Caroll et al., 1963;Igboeli and Raka, 1971;Salisburyet et al., 1978;Tegegn et al., 1992a;Hafez, 1993;Blezinger, 1999;Andrabie et al., 2002).The mass activity is evaluated by putting a drop of semen onto a slide without cover slip under low magnification (100X). A rapid wave motion with formation of eddies at the end of waves indicate a good quality of semen (Zewdie, et al., 2005).Motility of spermatozoa has been defined as the percentage of sperm cells that are motile under their own power and progressive motility of spermatozoa has been defined as those spermatozoa that are moving or progressing from one point to another in a more or less straight line (Bearden and Fuquary, 2000). Spermatozoa are driven by a propulsive apparatus, the flagellum, which is equipped with contractile proteins strategically arranged in longitudinal organelles, the coarse fibers, and with associated sub filaments, and micro tubes, which provide the propulsive force necessary to overcome internal structural resistance and external viscous drag of extra cellular fluids (Hafez, 1993). Motility of spermatozoa at time of collection has been used commonly as a measure of the fertilizing ability of the sperm (Roberts, 1985;Bhosrekar, 1990). However, spermatozoa have been found to lose their fertilizing capacity before they lose motility, which puts motility estimation to be not necessary indicative of fertilizing capacity of the sperm (Hafez, 1993). In general, however, a definite correlation has been found between concentration, morphology, and motility of spermatozoa and the proportion of the total number of actively motile normal spermatozoa in the ejaculate has been found to show levels of fertility of the bull (Roberts, 1985).The individual sperm motility is evaluated by taking small drops of semen onto a slide with cover slip under high magnification (200X). Sperm cells moving in a straight-line forward direction are considered in the motility measure. In order to be acceptable bull semen should have at least 70% and 40% motility respectively at the time of collection and after freezing (Zewdie et al., 2005).Live-dead sperm evaluation (vital staining)The percentage of live sperm has been determined by means of a differential vital stain (Herman et al., 1994). The measure of the live-dead sperm ratio may be useful in conjunction with the motility examination for a more complete analysis. A certain percentage of dead sperm may not be apparent in initial microscopic motility examinations, since these inactive sperm might be moved about merely by action of the live motile sperm. In addition, a proportion of sperm estimated to be motile may be weak and show only slow oscillatory movements. Differential live-dead staining may help reveal these differences, thus supplementing initial motility estimations and providing more conclusive results.Previous studies have shown that the normal morphology of spermatozoa is composed of a head and a tail that is divided into a mid-piece, main-piece, and end-piece (Bearden et al., 2004). Films for microscopic examination under the oil immersion lens are made immediately after the motility estimation, but the examination can be made, subsequently, in the laboratory (Arthur, 1979). To obviate temperature shock and the assumption of spurious morphological defects, a drop of semen is mixed with two drops of Indian ink previously raised to body temperature on a warm slide. The drops are mixed and spread like a blood film. Between 200 and 300 sperms are examined and classified according to their shape and appearance. Fertile bulls show about 90 percent of the morphologically normal sperms.According to previous studies (Arthur, 1979 andBearden et al., 2004), the following morphological abnormalities can be investigated. These include: tailless sperms and sperms with looped tail, the commonest sperm abnormalities which are detachment of the sperm head and bending of the middle piece and tail around and over the sperm head (looped tails), sperms with coiled tails (this abnormality is of two types: the coil involves the extremity of the tail, or the coil, which includes the whole of the tail & sometimes the middle piece), immature or unripe sperms (these are characterized by the presence of a droplet of protoplasm at the junction of the sperm head with the middle piece at the so-called neck), abnormalities of the sperm head and cytogenic disturbances, and other defective sperms.Evaluations routinely conducted by the AI laboratory that have been used to determine whether the semen that is collected and processed for use could be used for practical purpose are screening tests for quality and number of spermatozoa in order to eliminate any substandard ejaculates. This initial screening also avoids wasting expensive supplies, antibiotics, semen extenders, etc., because substandard samples are not processed (Herman et al., 1994). Semen that passes initial screening have been further extended, cooled, packaged into straws, and frozen. After freezing, a representative sample is normally thawed and evaluated using various laboratory tests. These post-thaw evaluations not only reflect the ability of the semen to with stand the processing conditions (process quality control) but also can give some indication of the potential fertility of the semen (fertility prediction).Assessing the progressive motility of the semen sample is probably the most common evaluation made for post-thaw viability (Herman et al., 1994). Estrus has been defined as a period when the female shows characteristic sexual behavior in the presence of a mature male, such as immobility, raising the hind quarters or arching the back, pricking of the ears-features that are collectively termed lordosis in small laboratory animals;mounting and riding behavior between females is also common (Gomes, 1977;Hunter, 1980;Heinonen;1989;Herman et al., 1994;Bearden et al., 2000;Bekana et al., 2005;GebreMedhin, 2005).Where AI or hand mating is being used, estrus detection is the most important limiting factor for optimum reproductive performance. Insufficient and/or inaccurate estrus detection leads to delayed insemination (with in estrus and post-partum), reduced conception rates and thus extended calving intervals (Daris, 1998).Since the fertile life of eggs in most species is relatively short and sperm may require capacitation before they are capable of fertilizing ova, insemination should precede ovulation. Ovulation is difficult to determine routinely, so inseminations are usually related to the time of on set of estrus (Gomes, 1977). Estrus in the cow is characterized by the psychic manifestation of heat. The cow may bawl frequently, is usually restless, may attempt to mount other animals, and will stand to be mounted/standing heat. The vulva is swollen and mucus is often secretedIn the cow, maximum fertility has been achieved if inseminated from mid estrus to the end of estrus (Gomes, 1977). Fertilization of the ovum has been reported to occur in the oviduct at the junction of the isthmus and ampulla (Daris, 1998). The life span of the ovum is around 12 -18 hours and its viability decreases with time. About 8 hours after service sufficient spermatozoa have reached the isthmus of the oviduct. For fertilization to take place, capacitation of the spermatozoa is required. Capacitated sperm cells show a hyper motility and have undergone the acrosome reaction. The life span of spermatozoa is limited. If insemination takes place too early, the sperm cells will die before fertilization of the ovum can occur. Conversely, when insemination is over delayed, the ovum has lost its capacity to be fertilized (Daris, 1998).  Reason for control of estrusThe estrus cycle can be regulated pharmacologically to induce or control the time of estrus and ovulation (Morrow et al., 1985;Daris, 1998;Bekana et al., 2005). The main reasons for estrus control are: induction of estrus in lactating dairy cows that are not observed in estrus by 45 days post-partum, synchronization of groups of heifers for insemination with semen of easy calving bulls, reduction of the time necessary for estrus detection, to facilitate the use of AI under extensive conditions, synchronization of donor and recipient cattle for embryo transfer and induction of ovarian activity in beef cows with lactation anoestrus.In cattle with active ovaries, the estrous cycle can be manipulated by administration of prostaglandin to induce early regression of the corpus luteum (Davis et al., 1987;Daris, 1998;Bekana et al., 2005) and by the use of progestagens that act as an artificial corpus luteum (Daris, 1998). The detection of estrus by regular surveillance or by the use of vasectomized teaser males may not be warranted or possible and, in any event, neither of these approaches in it enables insemination to be performed at the optimum time with regard to fertility (Hunter, 1980).Detection of estrus is getting more and more difficult according to the extension of the numbers of cows reared, the improvement of milking cows with a high milk production and the changes of the circumstances of feeding. Other factors include management of cows, implying the dependence on the techniques for estrus and ovulation synchronization in the reproductive management being very high (Sugawara, 2004). More logical and satisfactory way of estrus detection by far would be a situation in which the estrous cycles of animals to be bred could be controlled by a pharmacological or pseudo-physiological treatment such that the time of onset of estrus could be predicted in the great majority of animals receiving the treatment (Hunter, 1980).Furthermore, the author showed that the precise time of ovulation has been predetermined, and thus the animals can be inseminated at a fixed time without reference to the state of behavioral estrus, thereby avoiding the penalties associated with incorrectly timed insemination and the aging of gametes.In essence, therefore, a system of estrous cycle control would attempt to detect the desired timetable of breeding rather than permitting females to impose their own reproductive rhythms on the farming system. Synchronization of estrus has been known to have many advantages including the reduction of time needed for detection of estrus (Hunter, 1980;Hailu, 2007).Synchronization of estrus and ovulation can be conducted by the use of either, PGF 2α or GnRH or the combination of the two where the former is injected 7 days before the latter to induce a new follicular wave (Sugawara, 2004;Hailu, 2007).Failure to detect estrus is the main cause of sub optional fertility in dairy cows. Control of the time of luteolysis will help estrus detection. Commonly, these animals are submitted to a rectal examination in order to determine the stage of the cycle. When treated after day 6 of the cycle, insemination can be carried out at detected estrus 3-4 days after prostaglandin injection. For animals that are in pro-estrus, no treatment is required and the day of expected estrus can be predicted. In both cases, the farmer knows which animals to pay attention to. This will greatly improve the estrus detection rate.The site of semen deposition has been an important factor in the success of AI in cattle. In addition, the deposition of semen in the uterine body resulted in a 10% higher non-return rate than did cervical deposition (Macpherson, 1968). An increase in the conception rate has been reported when semen was deposited in the uterine horns rather than the uterine body (Senger et al. (1988). In contrast, no difference was found in the fertilization rate, conception rate or nonreturn rate, respectively, between uterine body and uterine horn inseminations (Hawk and Tanabe, 1986;Williams et al., 1988;and McKenna et al., 1990). In super ovulated cows, Hawk et al. (1988) used a modified insemination device requiring two technicians to deposit semen near the uterotubal junction and as compared to uterine body deposition; he found no effect upon the fertilization rate.The major factors that determine AI efficiency are heat detection skills, fertility level of the herd, semen quality, and efficiency of inseminators (Barrett, 1974). Similarly, a successful insemination requires the acquisition of quality semen from a bull, the detection of estrus in the female, and the ability to properly place the semen in the reproductive tract of the female (Damron, 2000). Detection of estrus has been known to be one of the most difficult tasks for successful AI activities, which in turn is affected by diseases of testis, epididymis, and accessory glands in the male (Sori, 2004) and diseases of the female reproductive tract (Roberts,1985). The success of AI depends upon various factors such as the efficiency, capacity and commitment of AI centers in procedurally and ethically producing, processing, handling and distributing semen;the commitments and efficiencies of AITs; presence of appropriate breeding policy along with proper control of indiscriminate crossbreeding; proper heat detections by farmers and other factors (GebreMedhin, 2005).Fertility is measured by calving rate to first service for artificially inseminated dairy cattle (Hafez, 1980). Conception rate at first breeding provides a useful estimate of the conception rate for a herd. However, it is a measurement that combines the effects of semen quality, fertility of the cow, timing of insemination, semen handling and insemination techniques, as well as factors such as high environmental temperature and stress (Nebel, 1998).In USA, conception rate of virgin heifers has been found relatively constant at approximately 65% to first service conception; where as the first service conception rates for lactating cows has decreased approximately 33% from 60 to 40 % (Nebel, 2002;Thirrunavukkarasu,2006 ). Number of services per conception as an indicator of reproductive efficiency has been defined as the number of services required for a successful conception (Albero, 1993;Bekele et al., 1991;HaileMariam et al., 1993;Negussie et al., 1998;Shiferaw,1999;Shiferaw et al., 2003). The number of services per conception is directly related to the conception rate in the herd (Smith and Becker, 1996). Female fertility, male fertility, environmental factors, and techniques used in AI are the four general multitude factors that determine the ultimate outcome of conception per insemination. Female fertility refers to any factor directly related to the heifer/cow that may alter her probability of becoming pregnant, including condition of the reproductive tract, nutritional status, changes in body condition from calving to insemination, age, and breed (Nebel, 2002).Male fertility cannot be controlled by the dairy producers. The mean first service conception rate for Virginia Dairy Herd Institute herds over the past 12 months in USA has been found 40 ± 13% (Nebel, 2002). There is a great reduction in fertility during the summer for lactating cows than for non-lactating heifers. High milk yield intensifies the effects of heat stress on conception and is related to increased metabolic rates and reduced thermoregulatory ability for cows with high milk yield. Techniques used in AI include accuracy of heat detection, timing of insemination, semen handling, and placement in the reproductive tract.Fertility in cattle is affected by environmental, genetic, disease, and management factors (Mukasa-Mugerwa and Tegegn, 1989). These influence the reproductive process at ovulation, fertilization, or implantation during gestation and parturition.In Ethiopia, Several factors have been reported to influence the number of services per conception. Breeding taking place during the dry season required more services per conception than the short and long rainy seasons (Swensson et al., 1981, HaileMariam et al., 1993;Negussie et al., 1998). Management factors such as accuracy of estrus detection, timing of insemination, insemination technique, semen quality, skill of pregnancy diagnosis have been reported to affect number of services per conception (Shiferaw, 1999;Shiferaw et al., 2003). Higher number of services per conception might also result from repeat breeding due to infectious and/or noninfectious diseases (Bekele, et al, 1991).In postpartum cows, the mean number of services per conception as 2.4 and 2.7 for sub clinical endometritis positive cows, fourth and eighth weeks postpartum, respectively as compared to 1.7for sub clinical endometritis negative cows showing that sub clinical endometritis has a significant effect on number of services per conception (Bacha, 2007).Similar findings have been reported for number of services per conception as 1.74 ± 0.43and 1.65 ± 0.43 for Nharira and Lancashire, respectively in Zimbabwe (Kaziboni et al., 2004). Higher number of service per conception was found at Assela Dairy Farm and has been reported due, in most cases, to inefficiency in AI operations (Negussie, 1992). Similarly, Haile Mariam (1987) has reported a significant effect of year on the number of services per conception at Abernossa Ranch. This has been supposed to be due to the fact that incentives and bonuses which used to be given to AITs for each insemination resulting in conception was later stopped and subsequently resulting in increased number of services per conception. The role of inentivesfor inseminators is also well documented to increase reproductive efficiency (Mc Dowell 1972;Abate, 2006). At present, there is no legal framework in Ethiopia to regulate crossbreeding or to regulate the importation and distribution of exotic genetic materials (ESAP, 2007). In an increasingly globalized market, the absence of breeding policies and regulations, as well as the absence of gene bank for animal genetic resource conservation, could put indigenous breeds at risk and endanger the future generations of livestock in Ethiopia and the rest of the world.Lack of appropriate livestock policies have been identified as one of the increasing key factors causing threats to Farm Animals Genetic Resource (FAnGR) in the developing world (Gibson et al., 2006). The following were identified as some of the primary justifications for conserving FAnGR:• Prevent genetic erosion of populations that retain value for current use;• Maintain sufficient genetic diversity to meet the needs of current and future utilization• Provide options for adaptation to changing environmental conditions;• Support sustainable animal production systems for food security;• Provide genetic resources for cross-breeding and development of new genotypes;• Provide options to meet the demands of new markets for livestock products and services;• Preserve cultural and historical values;• Sustain the bequest value of livestock; and• Fulfill the rights of an existing genetic resource to continue to exist.The research was conducted at the National artificial Insemination Center and in ten purposively selected areas of five regions, viz., Addis Ababa, Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Region, Oromia, Tigrai and Amhara (Figure 5). All the study areas were purposively selected because it was believed that these areas are the ones where an AI service is widely exercised and constitute wide range of agro-ecology. The background information of the study areas is presented in Table 9.The National Artificial Insemination Center is the only place where semen is produced for use allover the country and is responsible for the coordination of AI operations in the country. The Center uses 0.25ml capacity mini straws for filling semen and 30 million spermatozoa per straw is the standard used by the center. Any semen with concentration of less than 500 million spermatozoa per ml at the time of collection was automatically rejected.  Physical and retrospective evaluations of semen producing bulls at NAIC, physio-morphological assessment of semen in laboratory were conducted. Eighteen bulls were checked for locomatory and other physical situations at standing status, during sexual stimulation and during mounting.Scrotal measurement for all the 18 bulls was done using a flexible scrotal circumference tape.Semen was collected from each bull involved in the study once a week per bull for three consecutive weeks. The collection of semen was done using artificial vagina. Semen characteristics were assessed in the semen laboratory of the Centre. Stage-heated microscope with a magnification of 100x for mass activity, 200x for sperm motility, and 1000x for morphology were used.Bulls and AI personnel in the National Artificial Insemination Center, cattle owners and their dairy cattle in the five regions, animal health and production professionals in federal, regional, zonal and Woreda agriculture and rural development offices and also professionals in NGO's., research centers and academic institutions were represented in the study population.A cross-sectional type of study supported by questionnaire survey, and observation was carried out from August 2007 to March 2008 in the National Artificial Insemination Center and the five regions included in this study.Sample sizes were determined by the following formula (Thrusfield, 2005) Total cows (n) = Z α 2 x p (1-p) Based on this formula, the total number of cows to be sampled was 384. However, the study was conducted on 375 cows (98%). In the case of farmers, the value used for d (absolute precision was 0.02 and hence the total sample size required was 246 and this size was fulfilled in this study.In addition, all the bulls, which were in use for semen production during the study (18), all animal science professionals (17) in the Center, and 30 artificial insemination technicians, were included in the study purposely. Furthermore, a total of 52 animal health and production professionals were included in the focus group discussion the number of people in each group ranging from 9 to 14.In the sampling procedure, the five major regions, which are major users of AI service in the country, were purposively selected to conduct the study. Moreover, the specific study areas (Zones and Woredas) were also purposively selected considering the same reason. Stratified sampling was used to determine the total number of farmers and cows for each region while systematic random sampling method was used to select cows and farmers within region. Table 10 depicts the summary of the number of cows, farmers and number of participants for focus group discussion in each study area. Scrotal measurement for all the 18 bulls was done using a flexible scrotal circumference tape.Three consecutive semen collections were done in the National Artificial Insemination to determine semen quality of bulls used at the Center. The collection of semen was done using artificial vagina. Semen characteristics were assessed in the semen laboratory of the Centre.Stage-heated microscope with a magnification of 100x for mass activity, 200x for sperm motility, and 1000x for morphology were used. The values for semen parameters were recorded every week while semen was collected. The parameters included were semen color, volume, mass activity, individual motility, live-dead percentage, and morphological abnormalities of the semen collected from AI bulls. The details of the procedures are indicated in Annex 10. Semen analysis was done in accordance with the procedures provided by (Cole and Cupps, 1977;Salisbury et al., 1978;Sorensen, 1979;Faulkner and Pineda, 1980;Morrow et al., 1985;Roberts, 1985;Garner, 1991;Herman et al., 1994;Bearden et al., 2004).Bulls used in the NAIC were also checked for fitness of locomatory organs, scrotal circumference, and libido. Bulls were evaluated as very good, good, adequate, and poor for locomatory organs and libido. The following criteria were used to categorize the status of locomatory organs and libido (Arthur, et al., 1983;Zewdie et al, 2005;Hansen, 2006).Very good: having no any defect with the locomatory and can move easily and freely Good: having some type of problems with hoof, untrimmed nailPoor: having major hoof problem and hence problems in moving and mounting.Very good: showing sexual desire in less than 5 minutesshowing sexual desire in 5 minutesshowing sexual desire in 5 to 10 minutesshowing sexual desire in 10 to 30 minutes Evaluation of spermatozoa motility for each region was done for comparisons between that of the regions and the Center to check if there were major changes in spermatozoa motility between NAIC and the regions due to handling differences. It was initially planed to perform the motility check in each region. But because of lack of stage-heated microscopes in the regions, it was done by transporting sample semen back from each study area to the semen laboratory at NAIC using a three-litter capacity with periodically controlling and filling liquid nitrogen by making maximum care for the semen. A total of 93 straws of semen from 16 bulls in which 49 were from regions and the other 44 from NAIC were analyzed for semen motility. Moreover, 17 straws of new batch semen of which eight were from region 5 and 9 from NAIC were analyzed for motility to check why semen motility from region 5 was so low.Pregnancy diagnoses by rectal palpations were conducted to assess the number of services per conception and conception rates to first insemination in each study area.Structured questionnaires were prepared to interview farmers, AI technicians, animal health, and production professionals to collect data on the status of AI services and constraints associated with the service. The details of the questionnaire formats for farmers, AI technicians and animal health and production professionals are presented in Annex 4, 5, and 6. During the interview process, every respondent included in the study was briefed about the objective of the study before starting presenting the actual questions. Then the questions were presented to the respondents. Farmers were being convinced to come for the meetings at their respective houses few days before the actual dates.A total of five groups were organized one in each region. Each group was made of 9 to 14 professionals originating from development, academic and research institutions in the regions.The points of discussion and the list of participants are presented in Annex 7 and 3. Before the start of the discussion, participants of each group were briefed about the objective of the study and invited to participate in the discussion.All data were entered in to Ms-Excel after the completion of data collection work from the study areas. Then the analysis work was done using SPSS (release 11.05, 2002). The data was summarized using descriptive statistics (means, standard errors and percentages) and mean comparison was done by one way ANOVA while rank comparison was made by Mann-Whitney U test.The outcome of the assessment of locomatory organs and libido are presented in Tables 11. Mostof the bulls were under the category of very good libido (77.8%) and good locomatory organs.Four bulls (22.2%) had hoof problem affecting their locomotion. The results of one-way ANOVA on the scrotal circumference of bulls in the NAIC showed that there was no statistically significant difference in mean scrotal circumference (p>0.05). However, the highest value for scrotal circumference was observed in Jersey cattle (41cm) followed by Holstein-Friesian (39.71cm) and crosses of Holstein-Friesian (39cm) and indigenous cattle (39cm). The result of assessment of scrotal circumference is presented below in Table12.Table 12. One-way analysis of variance to assess scrotal circumferences of semen producing bulls at NAICThe result of one-way ANOVA on the semen characteristics of bulls used for semen collection at NAIC is presented in Table 13. Only total morphological defects showed significant difference between the breeds of bulls (p<0.05). The highest proportion of defects was observed in Jersey bulls (18.8%) followed by crossbred (13.33%) and Holstein bulls (8.5%). With regard to the color of semen, most of the collected semen had milky (41.2%) and creamy color (37.3%). There were also some bulls with bloody (7.8%), watery (3.9%), and yellow (9.8%) colors. The results indicated that 14.29 percent of the semen colors for the Holstein bulls were bloody while 22.22 percent for that of the crosses were watery. The detail results are indicated on the Table15. Eighty two percent of the NAIC technical staff confirmed that there are no appropriate collaborations and communications between the NAIC, regional agriculture bureaus and other stakeholders at all. Similarly, participants of the focus group discussions in all study regions unanimously supported the above idea. Again, 88.2% of the NAIC staff said that the AI service is not doing appropriately at national level and that there is no structured and procedural way of recruiting semen-producing bulls by the center. About 88.2% of the NAIC personnel indicated that there is no structured and procedural way of selecting AI bulls and selection is being done from only one farm and 70.6% revealed that bull selection and management at NAIC is not being done according to recommended procedures and all agreed that the Center is not regularly and appropriately checking bulls for reproductive diseases. Eighty eight %of the respondents confirmed that there is no policy that guides the distribution of semen in the country.Results of the focus group discussions have revealed that there are no functionally effective responsible bodies at the respective regional and wereda levels to coordinate the AI services and no proper mechanisms of controlling indiscriminate inseminating/breeding. Moreover, it was found with full consensuses that there are problems associated with the AI service as regards to properly carrying out responsibilities by the NAIC, the regional, and the wereda agriculture bureaus.The evaluation of the technical know-how of AI technicians showed that most of them were in the category of good (56.7%) and very good (26.7%). The remaining were evaluated as poor (10%) and excellent (10%). Regarding their motivations, 86.67% of the respondents were totally unmotivated while the remaining had some motivation (13.33). Nearly all (96.7%) of the AI technicians responded that they never got on job trainings and other incentives at all. About three fourth (73.3%) of the AI technicians were not giving service on the weekend while others did so on personal agreements (26.3%). Most of the AI technicians complained that liquid nitrogen is not readily available (86.7%) and the rest 13.3% had no problem in getting liquid nitrogen. More than three fourth of the AI technicians (76.7%) believed that there is a risk of indiscriminate insemination while the others either did not have any idea about the problem (13.3%) or believed it can be controlled. Seventy percent of the AITs confirmed that they started their careers as AITs within the last ten years while the more experienced ones had abandoned and/or changed their jobs. Ninety-three percent said that they do not believe that NAIC is doing its responsibilities properly. Eighty seven percent of the AITs revealed that farmers are willing to pay more fees for the services provided they get reliable and quality services. On the other hand, 80 percent of them revealed that they do no get necessary supports by the respective wereda and regional bureaus of agriculture to perform their duties appropriately. Similarly, 83 % said that AI service delivery is not consistent in their respective areas.Ninety seven percent of the AITs revealed that they are not satisfied and neither are they happy with their jobs as AITs because of the very little attention given to it by all responsible bodies.Ninety three percent, of the farmers who participated in the Questionnaire surveys bitterly revealed that, they do not get reliable and consistent AI service at all and 81% of them explained the reasons for that as absence of service on weekends & holidays, shortage of AITs and shortage of inputs. In relation to this, 64% of them said that they pass the estrus with out breeding the cow while 34% said that they us bull/ natural mating at times where they do not get the AI service.The study has clearly confirmed that 93.1% of all the farmers participated in the study areas showed dissatisfaction with the overall AI service. In many places, it was observed that farmers trek their cows for more than 28km round trip to fetch for AI service (with or without success). This is happening in many areas and the reason is AITs are unable to get facilities and services like motor bicycles, fuel, etc. The results of the questionnaire surveys indicated that 91.5% of farmers participated in the study confirmed their willingness to pay more fees for the service provided they get reliable, efficient, and effective services. Moreover, 90% of the AIT's who took part in the study confirmed that the AI service is not doing well in their respective areas due to many impeding situations (6.7% responded \"AI is doing well\" and 3.3% of them abstained from giving any judgment).In Bahir Dar, where artificial insemination service was being delivered by a private AIT only, farmers were supposed to pay not less than 30 Birr per single insemination and yet the average NSC in this place is much higher (5). Nevertheless, in the same place with the same AIT, the NSC for Jerusalem Children's and Community Development Organization was found to be as low as 1.3.Ninety percent of the farmers said that they usually have herd health problems, which directly and indirectly have impacts on the efficiency of the AI service. The diseases said to be of major importance in order of prevalence were mastitis with 39%, tuberculosis with 24%, problems associated with calving with 17%, and others. In relation to this, 76 percent of the farmers said that they do not have easy access to animal health services while 21 percent said they more or less get the service.According to the responses of the respondents in the questionnaire survey and focus group discussion, the necessity of a national body responsible to coordinate AI service was emphasized by 94.1% of the NAIC personnel (94.1%) unanimously by AI technicians and the focus group discussion groups. Most of the respondents in the questionnaire survey (82.4%), all the respondents in the AI technician group and all the groups in focus group discussion agreed that there is no appropriate collaboration and regular communication between AI and stakeholders.Lack of breeding policy, absence of herd recording system, inefficient management at national level and lack of clearly defined share of responsibilities among stakeholders were the constraints mentioned by 70.6% of the AI personnel at NAIC and all the groups in the focus group discussion. Lack of ownership and follow-up, inadequate manpower and lack of commitment, lack of attention and incentives to AIT's, limitation of inputs and facilities and structural problems were also mentioned by 29.4% of the NAIC personnel, all of the AI technicians and all the groups in the focus group discussion.Regarding the possible solutions, institution of a national breeding policy and strategy, restructuring the service at all levels and create awareness, diversifying the service and establishment of a system of monitoring and evaluation, and encouraging the private involvement in the sector were emphasized by 52.94% of the NAIC personnel, all of the AI technicians and all the groups involved in the focus group discussion. Establishment of means for strong stakeholder participations, establishment of ownership to the sector, integration of AI service with health and feeds packages, re-establishment of incentive mechanisms to AITs and coordination of efforts to alleviate the technical management problems of the NAIC were also mentioned by 11.76% of the NAIC personnel, all the AI technicians and all the groups in the focus group discussion.The results of one-way ANOVA showed that semen motility at NAIC (53.2%, n=44) and in the regions after dispatch (51.7%, n=49) was not significantly different (p>0.05). The result indicated that there was no significant difference (p>0.05) in semen motility among the regions as well.The result is presented on Table 15.However, a Special case was observed whereby the average value of motility for semen obtained from region 2(SNNP) was as low as 20%. Similarly, the average motility for semen obtained from region 5 was as low as 32.5%. Nine straws of semen for the same bulls as that of region 5were taken and checked for motility from NAIC for assessing the reasons why the motility in region 5 was so low and it revealed that the average motility was as low as 38%. The results of One-way analysis of variance on the number of services per conception (NSC) and conception rates to first insemination (CRF) in the different study areas are presented in Tables 16 & 17 respectively. There was significant different among the study regions in NSC (p<0.001).The least NSC was observed in Amhara (1.55) followed by Addis Ababa (1.70) and Oromia (1.78). Highest value for NSC was recorded for Tigrai (2.47). These values of number of services per conception did not take in to account 152 cows (40.53% of the total sampled cows) which were found to be repeat breeders. There was also significant variation between the regions in conception rate after first service (CRF). The highest CRF was observed in Addis Ababa (40.23 %) and the least was found in Tigrai (7.14%). The volume of semen did not differ (p>0.05) among the three breeds. These results did not coincide with that of Sinishaw (2005) and Sori (2004) where 6.77% by Sinishaw for Friesian breeds and 4.4 % by Sori for indigenous breeds were found. The absence of significant difference among the breeds could be due to similar management at the Center level. According to Zewdie et al. (2005), the volume of bull's semen varies between ejaculates, individual bulls, breed, and age. Other reasons, which could contribute, to differences in semen volume include nutritional status, geographic locations, season of years of study, method of semen collection and handling of bulls during collection and procedure and frequency of collection (Caroll et al., 1963;Igboeli and Raka, 1971;Salisbury et al., 1978;Tegegn et al., 1992a;Hafez, 1993;Blezinger, 1999;Andrabie et al., 2002). Sorensen (1979), Sinishaw (2005), and Sori (2004) reported similar findings for the other parameters (semen motility, semen concentration, live cell percent, and morphological defects).The results of the assessment of semen colors for all the three breeds of bulls in percentages was found to be 41. 2, 37.3, 7.8, 3.9, and 9.8 for milky, creamy, bloody, watery and yellowish, respectively. The proportion of milky and creamy colors do not differ much from the findings of Sinishaw (2005), while they differ significantly from that of Sori (2004) (77.61% and 1.49% respectively) .The other color proportions differ much from those of Sori (2004) (17.92% watery,1.49% bloody, and none for watery) and Sinishaw (2005) (none for watery, and bloody, 20%yellowish). The presence of semen with abnormal colors indicates problems associated with the process of spermatogenesis and pathologies accessory reproductive organs and the reproductive passageways. The normal color of bull semen ranges from thick whitish to slightly yellowish fluid whose consistency is mainly determined by the number of spermatozoa it contains (Herman et al., 1994).The out come of the assessment of AI technicians regarding their technical knowledge was 10%, 26.7 %, 53.3%, and 10%, respectively for excellent, very good, good, and poor. This result and the finding that most of the technicians do not get on job trainings shows that there is some deficit indicating a need for upgrading the capacity of technicians through giving proper trainings particularly for those who were under the category of the poor technical expertise.The study has found an alarming result with motivations of the AI technicians in which 86.67% Again, it was revealed that all responsible bodies from federal to wereda levels, particularly the NAIC, are not giving proper attention to the AI service indicating that decision makers need to work hard to change the current situation of the AI operation at national level.It was found that 94.1% of NAIC personnel, 100% of AI technicians, and the full consensus of the focus group discussions supported the necessity of a national responsible body to coordinate the AI service. This result agrees with the reasons identified as problems of AI by Chupin and Schuh (1992), GebreMedhin (2005), Belaineh et al. (2006). Semen Production andDistribution Department (2006), FAISETD (2007) and Zewdie et al. (2006).Again, out come of the study revealed that there is no appropriate collaboration and communications among stakeholders in which the NAIC failed to do which consequently contributed to the unsuccessfulness of the service.As far as the constraints associated with the AI service at national level/regional levels is concerned, 70.65% of NAIC personnel and all the groups in the focus group discussions indicated that lack of breeding policy and herd recording scheme, inefficient management at national level and lack of clearly defined share of responsibilities among stakeholders were identified as the most important constraints. Similarly, 29.4% of the NAIC personnel, 100% of the AI technicians and all the groups in the focus group discussions indicated low attention/lack of ownership and follow-up, inadequate manpower and lack of commitment, lack of attention and incentives to AI technicians, limitation of inputs and facilities, and structural problems as other major reasons. These findings are in agreement with the suggestions of Tegegn et al. (1989), Mukassa-Mugerwa et al. (1989), Garner (1991), Jokinen and Bertilson (2003), Bearden et al.(  2007) and Zewde (2007). This indicates that the NAIC is not functioning well and is consistently losing the confidence of stakeholders in the country.There was no difference in semen motility among the regions and between the regions and the NAIC due to difference in handling. Hence, this justifies that there is no significant effect on semen motility due to handling differences. However, the low motility observed in four straws of semen obtained from region 2(SNNP) was as low as 20% on the average. The reason for this condition was believed to be that the semen was produced from 50% bulls and distributed with out demand to the region and was kept for many years with out being utilized. Similarly, the mean semen motilities for sample semen obtained from region 5 was as low as 32.5% and that of sample semen from the same bulls taken from NAIC was as low as 38%. Even though statistically significant differences (p<0.05) between the two was found the value for both was lower than the recommended lower values, 40% (Zewdie et al., 2005). The reason was hypothesized to be either of or a combination of two facts. The first assumption was that the center shifted from using Laiciphos to Andromed as semen extenders during the production of this particular batch. The other possible reason assumed to cause the difference was also the shifting of the long-experienced laboratory technicians by new ones during that time.The overall mean number of services per conception was found to be 1.88 as the national average. This result is lower than the reports of Abate (2006) (2.48) but within the range reported by Bacha (2007) (1.7-2.7) and higher than the finding of Kaziboni et al. (2004) (1.65-1.74). The values of number of services per conception in the current study did not take in to account 152 cows (40.53% of the total sampled cows) which were found to be repeat breeders. The very high repeat breeding condition in the country is believed to be a serious problem. The problem of repeat breeders was also mentioned by farmers and hence needs to be seriously addressed. High numbers of services per conception are the results of problems associated with poor semen quality, poor semen handling practices and poor insemination practices (Macpherson, 1968;McDowell, 1972;Negussie, 1992). Other reasons were such as discontinuation of incentives to AI technicians, season of breeding, management factors in relation to estrus detection, timing of insemination and skill of pregnancy diagnosis were also indicated by other reports (Haile- Mariam, 1987;Swensson et al., 1981;Denbarga, 2005;Haile-Mariam et al., 1993;Negussie et al., 1998;Damron, 2000 andShiferaw et al., 2003).The difference in the number of services per conception among the five regions was significant.It was understood during the study that the NSC could have dramatically increased than the actual/obtained result if it was possible to include in the study all the cows/heifers, which were continuously being sold due to repeat breeding in many farms.The conception rates to first inseminations in general were poor ranging from 7.14 to 40.23%.The differences for these parameters among regions were also highly significant. This is also an indicator of very low level of fertility or reproductive efficiency, which could be due to AI inefficiency among other reasons. The umber of services per conception is an indicator of reproductive efficiency/ conception rates (Albero, 1993;Bekele et al., 1991;Haile-Mariam et al., 1993;Negussie et al., 1998;Shiferaw et al., 2003).According to the results of this study, AI service in Ethiopia has been given little or no emphasis at the federal, regional or wereda levels during the last years though it is an important and the most widely practiced animal biotechnology all over the world. Hence, it can generally be concluded that the AI service in Ethiopia is on the verge of total collapse unless urgent corrective measures are taken. The most important constraints associated with AI in Ethiopia include loss structural linkage between AI Center and service giving units, absence of collaboration and regular communication between NAIC and stakeholders, lack of breeding policy and herd recording system, inadequate resource in terms of inputs and facilities, and absence of incentives and rewards to motivate AI technicians. The values for semen volume, concentration, live-dead percentage, fresh individual motility, and thaw motility, were within the recommended values whereas the values for morphological defects among the jersey and crossbred bulls and mass activity were not encouraging. The locomatory organs and libido of AI bulls were in general good but needs to be checked regularly and improved for some of them particularly the status of hoof problems with in the bulls. The repeat breeding situation was a very alarming finding.Similarly, the conception rates were found to be very low and discouraging at large. The source of AI bulls particularly the HF bulls is only one farm that is highly tuberculosis-infected farm amongst others, which is an obvious hazard to the AI operation in the country.Based on the above conclusions the following are recommended:• One national body responsible to coordinate and monitor AI service, herd recording and also livestock breeding programs needs to be established and be very well organized in human and material resources; • Mechanisms should be devised to increase the involvement of stakeholders in the activities of AI in the country. Professional associations should critically work in close collaborations with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in formulating policies and implementation strategies;• Selection of bulls for AI should strictly follow the standard guidelines and procedures set for the purpose and also the national livestock development policies of the country; • The private sector should be encouraged to be involved in the AI service sector but with strict control by an active breeding policy;• Establishment of a functional breeding policy and strategy should be given at most priority and each stakeholder and professional should work hard towards its implementation;• Import semen of the desired quality for the immediate use in accordance with the rules and regulations for the import of genetic materials to be followed by creating reliable source of semen producing bulls through reestablishing the Milk recording Scheme of the center in a more strengthened status;   ","tokenCount":"12257"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"61b7a61845a2008927e70d1de00f6552","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/7844e3a4-f6f4-4464-95b9-51916fa6ef15/retrieve","id":"-1227404014"},"keywords":["Jason Nickerson","Senior Program Manager","Context Global Development","and Temi Adegoroye","Sahel Capital","see presentation here"],"sieverID":"f089bd2e-406c-4341-ba41-e537f6d0af26","pagecount":"37","content":"The CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB) is a partnership collaboration led by the International Potato Center (CIP) implemented jointly with the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT),the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), and the Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD), that includes a growing number of research and development partners. RTB brings together research on its mandate crops: bananas and plantains, cassava, potato, sweetpotato, yams, and minor roots and tubers, to improve nutrition and food security and foster greater gender equity especially among some of the world's poorest and most vulnerable populations. www.rtb.cgiar.orgReport on the first virtual seminar for the course on the RTB Toolbox for Working with Root, Tuber and Banana Seed Systems, 2021 26, 28, & 29 July 2021• Present the individual tools of the RTB Toolbox for Working with Root, Tuber and Banana Seed Systems (the \"Toolbox,\" for short) to an audience of seed system professionals within the CGIAR system and beyond • Receive feedback from these colleagues, as questions and comments • Explain the next two phases of the course on the ToolboxToolbox supervisors (Jorge Andrade-Piedra, Margaret McEwan, Conny Almekinders), tool owners (the specialists who have designed the tools), and potential members of the active, committed training teams (ACTTs), as well as academics, government functionaries, researchers, donors and other seed system professionals (table below).(not including presenters and staff)July 26 th 134 39July 28 th 110 36July 29 th 85 26 ^ 43 countries in total: Armenia, Australia, Bangladesh, Benin, Bolivia, Brazil, Burundi, Chile, China, Colombia, Congo, Democratic Republic of the, Côte d'Ivoire, Ecuador, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Germany, Ghana, Haiti, India, Italy, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, Rwanda, Spain, Suriname, Tanzania, The Gambia, The Philippines, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom, The United States, Uganda, Vietnam, Zambia, Zimbabwe.Three parts:• July 26 th . Welcome by the director of RTB, and an Introduction to the Toolbox. Four tools: Multi-stakeholder framework, Small-N/exploratory case study, Means-end chains and the Four-square method, presented by the tool owners. Feedback from the audience.• July 28 th . Four tools: Seed tracing, Impact network analysis (INA), Seed Tracker, and Experimental auctions, presented by the tool owners, with feedback from the audience.• July 29 th . Four tools: Integrated seed health approach, Cassava Seed Unit Toolkit, Seed regulatory framework analysis, and Sustainable early generation seed business analysis tool (SEGSBAT), by the tool owners, with questions and answers.Next steps, what to expect from phases 2 and 3 of the course, presented by the facilitator.DAY 1 -JULY 26 TH   Watch the recorded presentations here.Graham Thiele (RTB director). See full presentation here.The Toolbox is an integral part of RTB, which is an alliance of different CGIAR centers. The Toolbox wouldn't have been possible without some amazing collaboration from Wageningen University and Research, and the University of Florida. We work with a cast of thousands, and hope to work with more as a result of this course. RTB works with five major crops (bananas-&-plantains, cassava, potato, sweetpotato, and yam) as well as some minor root and tuber crops, to harness their potential to improve food security, nutrition, income, climate change resilience and gender equity.Seed systems are at the heart of work with these genetically complex crops. They are all vegetatively propagated (bulky, perishable and may carry pests and diseases).This Toolbox is one of RTB's golden eggs, which are our collective assets, the result of nearly ten years' work in RTB. We are immensely proud of this Toolbox.As CGIAR moves into the One CGIAR next year, partnerships, capacity building with other seed system networks will be important, and the Toolbox will play an important role. We are pleased to bring on board Context Network, which worked with us on our BASICS project in Nigeria.We are grateful to our donors, the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (CDO), the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).Margaret McEwan, Senior scientist, International Potato Center (CIP). See full presentation here.Begins by playing the video \"Toolbox, Tools 4 Seed Systems.\"Hopefully this is the first of a series of trainings across several continents. Roots, tubers and bananas are produced on 570 million farms and most of their seed systems are informal. Seed systems are complex. We need skills in agronomy, and in other sciences and social sciences as well as in policy and regulatory frameworks. The RTB seed system of practice is interdisciplinary. In a recent publication we identified gaps (McEwan et al. (2021). \"Breaking through the 40% adoption ceiling.\" Outlook on Agriculture). These gaps relate to how to get quality seed to different farmers in different contexts for different crops. It's not a one-sizefits all. The breeders are doing a great job, but without functioning seed systems, we will not benefit from new varieties.The tools. A continuing problem is assuring good seed health. We must understand the demand characteristics of different types of farmers (men, women, poor, less-poor). Their demand will vary according to context. We work across 17 countries, with over 50 researchers. The Toolbox has 11 tools and a glossary. Each tool has been validated in at least two countries and with two crops. That evidence has been published in peer-reviewed journals. Each tool has a two-page description page and a longer user guide. The tools are backed by science.When you decide which tool to use, you may consider either the seed value chain or the project cycle. Different tools are more appropriate for different points along the value chain or the stage of the project.Some of the tools can be used across the value chain, such as the multi-stakeholder framework. We are looking at the perspectives of different actors.Many tools focus on the downstream end, what do farmers prefer about varieties and seed.We will learn about some of these tools today, like the Small N/exploratory case studies, Foursquare method, and Means-end chain analysis.Later in the week we will look at other, more business-oriented methods, like SEGSBAT and we are happy to have Context Network with us.You may choose a tool based on the part of the seed value chain that you are working with … … or choose a tool according to where your project is in its life cycle Project cycle. Different tools are suited for problem identification, designing objectives and strategies, implementing the project, monitoring evaluation and learning (MEL) and scenario analysis. E.g. Impact Network Analysis (INA) and seedHealth models are suited for scenario analysis.Growth. Many colleagues are using the Toolbox for other crops, including cereals, and fruits. The Toolbox has been applied in 10 crops, in 26 countries, in 76 applications.We want to collaborate with our partners to move away from research and more towards development by:• Identifying effective seed delivery pathways• Ensuring seed health and stopping the spread of disease• Capturing the demand characteristics of different types of farmers• Designing effective policies & regulations.Jorge L. Andrade-Piedra, plant pathologist, CIP, see presentation here.The Multi-stakeholder framework can be used for planning or for monitoring and evaluation (M&E). It is an excellent way to get an overview of a seed system. People from different stakeholder groups fill in a chart that provides a qualitative description of the seed system, including the constraints and a snapshot of the state of knowledge about the system.Martha Giraldo. Could the framework include researchers or crop specialists and extension agents?Reply. Yes, definitely. Having scientists, and researchers and crop specialists in the workshops is key. These are some of the stakeholders we include in the method.Isubikalu. An example of a populated matrix would help me understand what type of info to include hence the questions to ask.Have a look at this document:Andrade Piedra, J. L., Bentley, J. W., Almekinders, C. J. M., Jacobsen, K., Walsh, S. Sethuraman Sivakumar Paramasivan. Are we looking at the importance and influence of each stakeholder (as followed in stakeholder analysis) in the seed system?Reply. This is an important issue. In many complex seed systems there are power struggles, so we need to be sensitive to understand these issues. We call them coordination breakdowns, so the framework can help to identify these. If there are issues, we need to manage these. Before the workshop we can interview people to try to understand these issues. The workshop helps us to identify these potential coordination breakdowns.Mark Tokula. How does the Framework ensure that appropriate respondents are selected in the focal group discussion?Reply. That is why it is important to have social scientists on the team. I am a plant pathologist so I don't have the expertise to identify key stakeholders or assign appropriate questions. So having people with experience in multi-stakeholder processes, and having social scientists on the team is important for making sure that everyone's voice is heard.Thomas Remington. Given the prevalence of donor support and subsequent seed subsidy might add donor and implementing agency to the matrix.Reply. The Framework was adapted from one of the Seed Systems Security tools developed by Tom Remington, and Louise Sperling and others. It's an option to add rows. We provide here a tool that can be adapted to specific conditions. If you need to add other columns or rows that is possible. We encourage people to modify the tool. But if it is modified too much, then meta-analysis would be difficult. The matrix and questions should be reviewed and adapted to each context, so adding donor and implementing agency would be good. There is already a row for NGOs.Anna K. Wamache. Is the information collected static or does one have to update the SH Matrix while the project is ongoing?Reply. Ideally we can use the framework at the beginning of the project, at the diagnostic phase, but it can also be used for M&E, every six months or year. So yes, the tool can be used at different stages in the intervention.Setegn Gebeyehu. Considering the level of rigor employed, are the results from such analysis acceptable for publication in peer reviewed journals?Reply. When we adapted the tool we published it in a peer reviewed journal. You can complement the tool with other tools. The website has many examples of published articles using this method. You can find some on the toolbox website https://tools4seedsystems.org/tools/multi-stakeholder-framework/Stephen Walsh. What do you think are some of the institutional challenges to encouraging more stakeholders to use the framework?Reply. Good question Steve! Too often the design of seed system interventions is done on paper or on the back of the envelope and very quickly, using existing biases and preconceptions. It would be good if new interventions have an inception period, when the MSF can be used to obtain broader consultation and to identify key constraints, and then design the intervention to address those constraints. Others can contribute! David Obisesan. Is this tool adaptable to other crops apart from RTBs?Hi David, YES! Even though they were developed for RTBs, most of the tools are adaptable for other types of crops, like grains and forages. We actually have some examples already of using the framework for other crops. Especially for other vegetatively propagated crops, but in many cases for others too.Diego Naziri. It seems that the framework might need many adaptations based on objective and context. Do you provide detailed guidance on this adaptation process so that fidelity is maintained and meta-analyses is possible?Reply. The objective of using the framework is to have a snapshot of a seed system, especially in relation to seed security. If you see that major changes need to be done for using the framework according to your objectives, maybe it is an indication that you may need another methodology. Please have a look at the user guide for a comprehensive discussion on this: Bentley, J. W., Mudege, N. & Andrade-Piedra, J. L. (2020 Reply. Good question. The MSF can disaggregate different stakeholder types -e.g. different socio-economic, gender of seed producers or seed users. So, their perspectives on different constraints will come out, but not specifically cultural issues. However, additional probing questions could be added to draw out cultural issues.Conny Almekinders, Professor, Wageningen University and Research, see presentation here.This tool helps to understand and diagnose farmers' seed systems, and to identify the challenges in improving local availability and access to quality seed. It is a qualitative method for focusing on a single crop in farm communities, to understand the major issues in the system.Conny Almekinders. I want to take a moment and add something. I said that the Small N is not representative. But I meant that in a specific way. The case study is representative, because we make these relevant categories and we make sure that everybody is included, particularly women. However, you can run into a problem with representativeness is you do not know what is the proportion of women in the total population. With women and men, it is usually half-half. But with rich and poor farmers you don't know how many belong to each category and it is difficult to get the exact proportion.Setegn Gebeyehu. How does the Small N/exploratory case study differ from normal (conventional) survey work that also uses a questionnaire?Reply. Primarily the difference is that conventional surveys usually aim for a large sample size to ask all the same questions across a large number and do statistical tests. Small N focuses on gathering more detail in a smaller sample to get deep understanding in an agile way without being constrained by statistical tests for large samples. With Small N we usually get descriptive statistics. For a category of farmers, you can describe their varieties and seed uses. Not having the statistical tests for some researchers might be a problem. But there are many journals that will accept studies that collected data with Small N.Stephen Walsh. One of the key 'tools and capacities' for the small N approach is to have an open mind and not a fixed mindset (i.e. -we are looking for X data to prove X point to support our intervention ideas); do you have suggestions on how to encourage / motivate having this open mind when it comes to doing small N work (many practitioners may arrive with a fixed idea of the issues)?Reply. It is the purpose of the small N to not be narrow minded and to develop a broader view of how access to varieties and seed works differently for different farmers. Before doing the study, it is important to do interviews with experts, to walk around the farm community and get an idea of what farmers think is working well and what they would like to see changed. That will help you come up with a better survey. We often don't think of talking to the local extension agent, but they know the local situation so much better than we do. When we fly in from the north we should not presume that we know how to do a small N study. We need the local people. I would also add, having a multi-disciplinary team helps to question set perceptions from each of us. Using principles of triangulations is also important. Reply. Important question Erima. We do usually include some method(s) of differentiating, many of which do not rely on only rich vs. poor, but recognize a range of measures of wealth and complex socio-economic situations in society. Small N is valuable for understanding these complexities. Clusters or typologies can be constructed where useful, by using a range of characteristics.David Obisesan. Are there other limitations or anticipated limitations of the Small N that researchers might face using it?Reply. The ones given in the presentation are the main ones ....Before a certain variety is taken the farmers, do you first test soil to prove if it can do well?Fleur Kilwinger, Ph.D. candidate, Wageningen University and Research, see presentation here.This tool from marketing studies helps to understand how consumers evaluate and why they value a certain product or service, such as seed. It provides a hierarchical value map. One of the strengths is that the consumers (usually the farmers, in our case) define the criteria that they themselves value, in seed or other products.Prossy Isubikalu. What does means-end really mean?Reply. When people buy a product or a service, they buy it because they will get a certain benefit or value. It is the means to an end, not just that farmers want the means; they want to get a certain end. That is what you do with the laddering interview. People say they prefer traditional varieties, and so you ask why do you prefer traditional varieties? And it may be because it has a longer lifespan and they can invest less in seed and that will leave them with more money for other household needs, and so you create a ladder of what is really important. The method helps you to understand 'means' to achieve 'ends'. For example, the different traits of a variety can provide 'means' to achieve 'ends' like meeting household food needs, or making money from market sales.Prossy Isubikalu. For the part of chain analysis, am I right to think we look at all actors at each node or function and get a means of how they evaluate?Reply. That relates to the earlier question. The means is a means to an end.Prossy Isubikalu. Evaluating seem to be more qualitative, how do I get means of a quantitative measure?Reply. It gets more quantitative because you group all the means in a matrix and you get an overview. So you code responses and aggregate them in a matrix to get a quantitative analysis.Abebechindi Egebasa. Is it possible to use a tablet during the interviews?Reply. That would be possible if you use a hard laddering approach, where you already define your categories. So then you only have to write down which links are made. If you use a soft laddering approach, you have really qualitative interviews, so if you want to write everything the interviewee said it might be better to use a voice recorder and then write out the responses at home.How is sample size determined with this approach to avoid bias?Reply. You usually want to get an overview of how a certain group of people think. And in your interviews after a while you start to get repetitive answers. That is usually a sign that you have all the information you need. This is usually between 30 and 60 respondents, especially if they are like-minded. So young men from a certain region might have more similar responses than older women at the other end of the world. You notice it by getting repetitive answers. Then you know that you have most of the information.Question. What is the distinction between hard laddering and soft laddering in terms of sample size?Reply. The whole reason you do a hard laddering approach is because it is easier to get large sample size. The benefit of means-end chain analysis is that the respondents select and verbalize attributes that they find important. With hard laddering you select those attributes and put them in the table and the respondents make relations between them, so you lose some of the benefits of means-end chain analysis. You could make a combination if you know which attributes your respondents find important. You could then change that to hard laddering. Means-end comes with a lot of theory behind it.Putriabidin@gmail.com. How does this compare to the perceptual mapping in marketing?Reply. I'm not familiar with that, so I don't know.Putriabidin@gmail.com. One of the limitations indicated is 'bias'; is this the interviewers' or respondent? As a further advantage, farmers get to give their views-please expound and relate.Reply. You have interview bias. If you clearly mention that you are from the NGO that promoted a variety, and then you ask farmers what they think of that variety, they will likely tell you that they like it. You have to be careful in the interview to get the real answer, but it is not just with means-end. That is with any interview. You can reduce the bias a bit with how you ask the questions. Instead of saying \"Is animal welfare important when you buy meat?\" Ask \"What is important to you when you buy meat?\" Then they have to mention animal welfare on their own.Lucy Mulugo, Professor, Makerere University, see presentation here.The Four-square method is used in communities to estimate the frequency with which varieties are grown. Depending on whether they are grown by many households or few, on large areas or small, some varieties are common, some are safe, some are limited, and some are rare.Discussion, the Four-square method Aman. How do you define rich and poor farmers? Are you dividing them based on their landholdings or is there a different criteria used?Reply. It depends on the farmers themselves. They define what a rich farmer is and what a poor farmer is. And based on that, landholdings must come in, but it is up to the farmers to decide.Prossy Isubikalu. How do you measure large or many when using the Four-square?Reply. Large and small are relative and depend on the context. The farmers themselves define the terms. Even on a large land area. They will define that.Prossy Isubikalu. What is the boundary between few and many or large vs small area?Reply. Like the previous question, this depends on the context and the definitions get agreed upon at the beginning of the exercise. It depends on the farmers. It changes from one place to another.Prossy Isubikalu. How do you then go about the limitations because they greatly affect the quality of data collected?Reply. It takes skill to use this method. With skill you know how to facilitate this discussion so you don't get confused. You are already aware that this is a shortcoming, so you can take the farmers through it. One way that the method guards against this is through participatory group validation. This allows for corrections and rethinking during the exercise.Prossy Isubikalu. I missed how the Four-square is used in identifying bottlenecks.Reply. If I take you back to the video that was showed in the introduction, they showed the project cycle. There was a part that showed where the Four-square method could be used. Reply. You as a researcher you cannot know this community better than the people there. In this case you make sure that the farmers delineate for you what they mean by large and small area. To them what is few versus many. Place yourself outside and let the people take you through. We also need social scientists on board. Four-square method is not meant to create homogeneous groups. Some level of diversity is meant to be there, so a lively discussion will develop, and different opinions will come to the fore. The method is participatory. This means that the participants themselves are ultimately making the placement in the squares. They have a chance to discuss, validate, and review during the exercise.Prossy Isubikalu. I think we need to be clear on what is on the X axis and Y-axis.Reply. That is true. We have a square with varieties that are grown by many farmers, or few, on a large area or small, that is your X axis and Y axis.Carl Wahl. I think with the complexity of the tools (to users without experience) it might be a good idea to do deep dives into each tool to be posted to YouTube or Vimeo, etc.Watch the recorded presentations here.Conny Almekinders, Professor, Wageningen University and Research, see presentation here.Fleur Kilwinger, Ph.D. candidate, Wageningen University and Research, see presentation here.Seed tracing can be used to map seed flows, information flows, or to trace how disease might spread. The data may form the basis of an impact network analysis (INA). Seed tracing provides a quantitative understanding of the links between key actors of the seed system.Carl Wahl. With seed tracing ... if conducting the survey before the farmers source their seeds, is there a risk that they will give idealized cases? (Where they plan on sourcing their seed).Reply. It is possible that they would tell you an ideal. Or they may have something in mind, and then another opportunity comes along, and they change. So there is a risk if you just ask them where they plan to get seed. I would always ask them afterwards, \"Where did you get seed?\"Charles Staver. It would seem that step 1 is the definition of questions to be answered. Any examples of specific questions which RTB teams have tried to answer?Reply. I realized during the presentation that I included the small image and that is from a network where they try to identify key nodes in the network (people who share a lot of seed).And that was for health management. Because if people share a lot of seed they can share a lot of pests and disease. So if you know who these key nodes are, you can take quarantine or other measures to prevent the spread of pests and disease. Mark Tokula. How will the seed tracing overcome the problem of multiple names given to same varieties in different locations when done over the phone?Reply. That is an issue. We recently did a seed tracing study and the government provided a list of all the local names in the area, so in 95% of the cases we were able to rename the varieties with an official name, but it is not always possible. Basil Mugonola. Farmers in our setting use a lot of saved/recycled seeds especially for RTB and may not even recall where the seed came from. How does this tool handle this?Reply. That is true. First you can map farm-saved seed, so it just loops to itself. You can map how many farmers save their own seed. Or get it from an off-farm source. If they don't remember, that is a limitation. It can result in bias. Farmers will always remember the link from a neighbor, but if they just asked for seed from a field, they may not have the information. It's good to ask, but there may also be some bias.Carl Wahl. We're talking about \"seed\" tracing -but seeds can travel distances that RTB cannot practically. Do you see physical / distance limits emerging with transfer of vegetatively propagated planting materials?Reply. I have not done much research on true seed, so I don't know how big their networks are, but I am amazed at how far seed can travel, on a motorbike, or on a truck. Seed still moves some distance, even across borders. True seed may have longer distances.How can the seed tracing study improve the seed system?Reply. If you know the key nodes in a network, you can work with them to prevent diseases. You can also use them as introduction points to introduce new varieties. It helps you understand for the people who don't have access: is there a difference in access for men and women? There are a lot of questions you can answer with seed tracing studies and based on that information you can design your intervention about how to spread a variety with key actors.Gentle Komi. How do you account for, or trace seeds transported by animals especially invasive species?Reply. That is mainly applicable to true seed crops. For RTB seeds I don't know about animals spreading these. We usually trace seed spread by human actors.Eric Delaquis. In our work in Southeast Asia we have documented cassava seed transfer over 500 kilometers. When RTBs become commercialized. the assumptions that RTB seeds are not transportable quickly disappear.Reply. That is very true. Sometimes seed goes over a long distance. True seed you can move by plane. With trucks and so on it can really be distributed.In the informal seed system, the real source may not be known clearly.How does seed tracing help to understand this?Reply. We try to find out what the original source is, and in some cases it is not possible to trace it back. Farmers may not remember, or may not have contact details, or may not want to give them. You have to try your best. That is the reality that sometimes you cannot try it out. Sometimes farmers remember, and you may get confirmation from the other person.Karen Garrett, Professor, University of Florida, see presentation here.Impact network analysis (INA) provides a scenario analysis to evaluate seed system outcomes.It may be used to answer questions about the locations that are important for managing a seed system; how the benefits of the system are distributed by gender and age; how policies and subsidies can influence system outcomes, and can provide information for monitoring and evaluation. INA examines the socioeconomic network and the seed and pathogen movement network.Setegn Gebeyehu. What will be the best team composition, i.e. the disciplinary background, the experience, how many people to conduct a seed system study using INA?Reply. For a dream team, you would want three types of disciplines. A person with experience in using R and thinking about models using R. And a person who is familiar with the biology of the system, so if you are considering the spread of disease, someone who knows how that disease works in the system, and a person with social science experience who has expertise thinking about the human interactions in the system. And then if you can represent each of those three types of people with more than one person, that is even better.Sometimes the choice of variety is made based on the customer preferences. Where is this one captured in the analysis?Reply. If we are thinking about a variety moving through a network of farmers, we might want to form more than one network. Reply. Just as it can be hard to get enough data to characterize the system, it can also be difficult to get enough data to validate that. In some cases, we might just have to realize that we have some data and we can do speculative analyses. The Seed Tracker TM is a digital tool for seed system development. The software can be used on a smartphone or any other Internet enabled device. The information can be used for business, e.g. to connect buyers and sellers of seed. Seed Tracker can also be used by seed regulatory agencies, to facilitate electronic certification of vegetatively propagated seed.Lawrence Kent. Can Lava tell us more about the use of Seed Tracker to simplify certification of stems? And to facilitate marketing of stems produced by commercial seed entrepreneurs in Nigeria?Reply. This highlights two objectives that led to the development of Seed Tracker. 1) How does it facilitate certification? The digital, coding system that is encoded in Seed Tracker, the digital data collection forms, have been tailored to automatically comply with the national regulatory requirements that would allow certification of seed. So in that way, it simplifies. It also takes over the need for visiting offices to submit paper forms, which has been highlighted as one of the bottlenecks for compliance. So the digital tool simplifies both submission and tailoring the production practices for the regulatory practices. 2) Regarding marketing, one of the benefits of using Seed Tracker is the visibility. Once the app is downloaded, all app owners can benefit from receiving alerts. If anybody submits a request for seed, they all get an alert. Likewise, it also gives an opportunity for seed buyers to specifically choose a particular seller nearest to them, or a seller who is producing and marketing a variety of choice, to make a specific contact.Daniel Manduwa. We are really struggling to establish a workable cassava seed system in Malawi. Can I include other players in the Seed Tracker and adopt it to Malawi? It would be great now that we have the semi-autotrophic hydroponics (SAH) which seems to be a promising technology for some of our challenges in the seed value chain.Reply. It is quite easy to adapt Seed Tracker to Malawi. All it requires is to define at what level you want to use it. At the project level? At the national level? If you want to use it at the national level, it is better to engage with the regulator so we can start working with them to set up a system which is in compliance with national regulatory requirements for cassava seed production as well as for marketing. But if you want to use it as a specific project tool, that is also possible. So it is quite flexible, and I would be happy to work with you. IITA also has an office with the Cassava Program in Malawi. You can contact us through them; we'll get back to you and set up a system for your requirements.Daniel Manduwa. I am actually working for IITA/Malawi.Reply. Great, then it is much easier to make a connection.In Tanzania we have the Tanzania Official Seed Certification Institute (TOSCI) as the seed certification institute carrying out same tasks as the National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC) in Nigeria.Reply. TOSCI is already piloting Seed Tracker for cassava in Tanzania, and they're also interacting closely with NASC so they can learn from each other's experience.Ndirigwe Jean. How do you ensure or verify the quality of quality declared seed (QDS) at the producer level? How can inspectors verify the quality of seed before certification?Reply. It is done in two ways. 1) There are guidelines about who can use Seed Tracker. Seed Tracker for the seed producers who have been accredited. They are already under the scrutiny of the regulatory agencies. And the only way they can stay in the system is by ensuring compliance to the monitoring guidelines. And the inspection is carried out by the regulatory authorities, and there is a separate module which facilitates inspection. So there is no need for any extra applications to be submitted. Once a seed field is registered, it automatically sends an alert to the regulatory agencies. They will deploy an inspector closer to the field to perform inspection. And the regulatory inspectors also feed the data into the Seed Tracker system, so that all the data is in one place. Once a field is accredited, it appears as a field that has passed certification. If the seed fails certification, that will not appear for the sale process.The stems are forbidden for further reuse as seed, but the roots can be harvested for consumption, and for sale in the markets.Setegn Gebeyehu. What major technical adjustments or modifications are needed to use (adapt) the tool for other crops such as potato and sweetpotato?Reply. The major modification is going to be under the production planning form, and the crop management. Because these are specific aspects and change for each crop. For example, some crops are plantable multiple years. Some, like cassava. are usually planted once per year. So, we have to make certain adjustments to enable the crop cycles and likewise the propagation type. Usually these changes are just a matter of a couple of days of programing.We have the frameworks which have already been developed, for all RTBs: cassava, yam, sweetpotato and potato. It is fairly straightforward to make these modifications. And recently we are also adapting these tools for seed field crops like maize and rice in Nigeria, so these adjustments don't take much time.Anna K. Wamache. Is there an integration phase with existing in-country ICT systems? What are the lessons learned in applying the seed tracker in the informal seed system in Tanzania and transition to a formal system? Does the seed tracker integrate in harmonization of seed movement across borders?Reply. The integration phase with the existing ICT systems depends on whose ICT systems you refer to. Is it an organization promoting the seed? Or is it regulatory agencies? We have experience with both. It usually changes by country. For example, with the Nigerian regulatory agency, they already have an ICT system. During the piloting phase we hosted an ICT server.Once the system passed all the checks and balances, then it has been transferred to the NASC ICT systems. This generally requires consultation with their administration on how this is going to take place, so this is done on a case by case basis. It is not something we can generalize.What is important is that this integration is straightforward. We have examples of establishing a new, stand-alone system, as well as integrating Seed Tracker with already established ICT systems.Regarding the second question: so far it was done only for cassava. It has been piloted as part of a project. So the first aspect is familiarization. People are not used to using digital tools for seed management, so obviously the tool needs to be introduced to all the value chain actors who are going to use this tool, and you also need to explain to them what are the benefits, and what it takes to adopt. And then it requires a little hand holding, especially to teach them how to use the tool, and how do they benefit from the data that is incorporated into this tool.In the informal sector we have different levels. We can't generalize all seed producers at the same category of ICT literacy. So, there are some stakeholders who are well aware of using ICT tools. For them, the learning curve is short, whereas at the grassroots level, those who have not been exposed to smartphones (this is a smartphone based tool), it requires a little more hand holding, and sometimes even supplementing the smartphones and provisioning data. This transition generally requires quite a bit of effort and this is most important in order to make this tool successfully adopted by all stakeholders, especially seed producers at the grassroots level.Anna K. Wamache. ICT system of regulatory agencies?Reply. Yes; Seed Tracker offers a module suitable for regulatory agencies.Erick Chang'a. Can Seed Tracker work for other crops in order to maintain our improved varieties and to ensure adoption effectively?Reply. Yes, it is adoptable for other crops.To what extent are cassava farmers (root growers) in Nigeria using Seed Tracker to access seed? As a farmer, can I install the app on my android phone and start using it to access seed without being part of a project? Who is hosting Seed Tracker in Nigeria and who is responsible for scaling up? Is it NASC or IITA?Reply. It is promoted through projects focused on establishing commercial cassava seed entrepreneurs. The tool adopter can scale the tool. For instance, NASC is responsible for scaling \"NASC Seed Tracker\" as an electronic tool for regulatory compliance.Apolo Kasharu. How is seed tracker different from seed tracker we heard from at the start?Reply. (That was Seed tracing, and this is Seed Tracker).How can Seed Tracker be scaled, especially among root producers given the low penetration of android mobiles in farming communities?Reply. This is a digital gap issue. I advise performing a needs assessment to tailor a specific strategy to address the digital issue. A straightforward option is to organize groups to use a shared device to serve the community or equip users with smartphones. In the interim, maintain a hybrid option to avoid excluding those who can't access ICT tools, especially for regulatory compliance requirements.Erik Delaquis, Senior Research Associate, Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, see presentation here.Experimental auctions, where participants bid for seed with real money, help to understand how much farmers would be willing to pay for planting material. The auctions shed light on the traits and conditions that affect this price, and how willingness to pay may be influenced by gender or by other socioeconomic characteristics.Lawrence Kent. Are there examples of such auction results being used operationally by seed producers-sellers? Or is this only an academic methodology?Reply. There are many examples in many products. In seed the use of auctions in vegetatively propagated seed is a lot newer. You can find a lot more information on auctions of seed in cases where it is true seed, grain crops, and hybrid crops. There are a few examples on the website, and here is a link: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2018.00073/full. In our case in Lao we are constructing a model that's working with private sector actors, like cassava starch factories. They want to enter the clean seed system space, but there is not any information on seed prices, so the will use this data to set the price of seed.Carl Wahl. What are options for following up to validate the proposed bids (before planting) with what was actually paid (after planting)?Reply. We thought about that. There are several practices. One that is gaining ground is the use of experimental shops, like pop up seed sale booths to validate those price points. In our case, a month after the auctions we returned to two of the villages with a large tractor trailer with seed to sell, to see how the results matched up with the auction.In Tanzania there is a pre-set price for the certified materials, especially in cassava. How can experimental auction be used in this case?Reply. There are a few ways. You can compare the price people would pay for certified vs uncertified seed. You would be asking: does the price for uncertified cassava approach the price for certified material? A more sophisticated approach would be to think about seed treatment and make them very similar. They might all be certified, but they have different flesh color, and that way you can exclude certification and narrow in on that key quality you are interested in. Or you could focus on big sellers or small ones. Or is the seed coming from someone the bidders know, or someone they don't know.What are the key points to consider for minimizing the negative influences caused by some people in group auctions?Reply. In any group auction you have this issue. You have some people that are going to place crazy bids. That is why we like to use sealed bids. In one slide I said we were going to talk about silent, sealed bids. The bidders can't see what the other people are bidding. And the silent part is important. They can talk to each other. And in that way you try to minimize these negative influences as much as possible, to prevent people from talking. So we joke about saying, \"no cheating\", \"no talking to your neighbor.\" These are jokes that encourage people to really give their own perceptions, not to chat with each other and conspire. There is a lot written about these strategies for conspiracy in auctions and how people can rig the results. I didn't talk about how it is popular to use second or third or fourth price auctions. The winner doesn't pay the top price; they pay the second price. That reduces people's tendencies to bid high or low. That lets people give more realistic bids.Apolo Kasharu. The issue is auction. What is experimental in all these?Reply. By selecting carefully which products we compare in the auction, we are choosing \"experimental treatments\". With a big enough sample size, we can then statistically test for differences between products, or between single characteristics of seed. There is a large literature around the experimental aspect you can check out.Sometimes biding can result in a lower price which a producer will not be able to offer his materials. How to get around this, if this happens? Maybe we should set a minimum price before starting the auction. I suggest.Apolo Kasharu. Vegetatively propagated crops have very low levels of competitive prices. How do these auctions increase interest to offer higher prices?Basil Mugonola. In the experimental auctions, the farmers may not be fully aware of the full range of characteristics of the new varieties. Do you have to provide this information before the auction?Sethuraman Sivakumar Paramasivan. In a project site where the improved varieties are demonstrated, there may be farmers in different stages of innovation decision. The experimental auctions work only when they reached \"intention to use \" stage. How will you apply this in a diverse group of farmers who are under different stages of innovation decision?Watch the recorded presentations here.Jorge L. Andrade-Piedra, plant pathologist, CIP, see presentation here.Karen Garrett, Professor, University of Florida, see presentation here.The Integrated seed health approach is a tool for evaluating how quality seed purchases, disease-resistant varieties and on-farm management work together. The seedHealth model generates likely outcomes of seed health management combinations. It helps to evaluate requited system improvements needed for better seed health.Jason Nickerson. It could be interesting to pair up this tool with data from seed of value chain purity assessments that value the level of similarity and purity between different seed classes, including breeder seed.Reply. That's one thing we had in mind for this model, also that it can be a component of other sorts of models and in other sorts of questions. That would be interesting to think about, how to integrate it into the kind of model you just mentioned. We're also thinking about it and have taken some steps towards the seedHealth model, in something like an impact network analysis, where each node or each grower in an impact network analysis represents one farm, and so then something like the seedHealth model could be used to look at disease build up in a farm, and the implications of that build up across the network. We are interested in using the seedHealth model in other contexts as well, especially since the seedHealth model lets us see what is happening at one location, then it could be incorporated into systems analysis that look at how individual farms scale up through the system.Jeff Bentley. You are also the author of the INA, and the model is also fairly intuitive.Reply. We intended to set them up so that they reflect how people think about a disease management system. Maybe it's worth taking a minute to compare those two. The seedHealth model focusses more on what happens at an individual farm, so based on the choices of an individual farmer, what is going to happen with the disease load at that farm? If people are saving their own seed, and there is a tendency for disease to build up over time, then that might be worse for the farm, but if they have other strategies like resistant varieties and on-farm management (like positive selection), then the disease build up might not be such a problem on the farm, or they might be able to save their own seed for some years before there's an economic incentive to buy new seed. And then the impact network analysis that I was talking about yesterday is looking more at a system level, so how does an individual farmer influence a system, for example if disease builds up on one farm and that farmer shares seed, what are the impacts on the larger system?Charles Staver. How does the seedHealth model interface with special epidemiological models? Or how does seedHealth take into account special dimensions as for example disease spread?Reply Reply. This whole set up is based on the vertical integration model observed in Southeast Brazil, and through CODIPSA in Paraguay, and Southeast Asia. That is all based on a whole lifecycle approach to profitability, thinking about efficiency inside the factory as being the driver. It is the core business of processors. It's really being where the return comes for customers, partners, processors. Could this system be profitable, independent of having a processing factory? It's really about willingness to pay for improved, clean planting material.If that exists, and there is a margin between cost of production and willingness to pay, there is an opportunity. The other thing that feeds into that is the costs of production. It's not just about higher average revenue for sales, but it's also about cost of production. So, if you can reduce costs, and look at what a grower wants to pay, then there's an opportunity. In the model that we developed, in the context where we developed it, we didn't find that to be the case. Seed sales did not cover the investment costs and the running costs of the system.Edward Walters. Is there a minimum processor size to justify undertaking the approach?Reply. Economies of scale do matter here. These production systems do turn out a lot of material, so the real advantages come with some level of scale of processing capacity.Eric Delaquis. You mentioned that seed sales were not enough to turn a profit on their own. Is this statement based on market prices observed in a particular location?Reply. That is context specific. That is based on our experience in Nigeria, and willingness to pay for improved material, or to deduct the higher costs from when they deliver roots to the factory.Phineas. How can you explain to a farmer or to extension staff the Cassava seed unit toolkit in simple terms?Reply. The focal point of this is to put the processor or the stakeholder at the center of this and create the tool from their perspective. It's about understanding the value to all the actors in the seed value chain. That connects production of cassava to an end user or a processor, and what is the value to the outgrowers, and to the business as well.Reply. The tool is focused on the processor, so it might be difficult to explain it to a smallholder farmer or an extension agent. It is basically a tool that helps you to understand the value of an improved variety.Stephen Walsh. Sorry I missed it, what the is the unit cost per cutting for material coming out of the out-growers?Reply. This is going to be highly specific to a processor. We can share this model with you, to see the base-level assumptions, but ultimately it depends on the specific cases of the processors.Stephen Walsh. Can you say what it is now?Reply. I just sent you the base model with cost per cutting at the outgrower-level, based on assumptions for inputs (including seed from processor), production cost, and stem yield per hectare which need to be tailored to specific contexts. The base model has a cost of cutting between $0.01 and $0.03 depending on your assumption for the exchange rate.Stephen Walsh. Thanks Jason. Just the back of envelope at 1 cent a cutting = 100 USD for a certified outgrower (10,000 cuttings @ 1 x 1 spacing) -assuming the target is to get the price down to about 1 cent to make it feasible.Margaret McEwan, Senior scientist, International Potato Center (CIP). See presentation here.This tool provides actionable evidence on policy and investment options to accelerate seed system and market development. The analysis catalyzes dialog among stakeholders on appropriate regulatory frameworks for vegetatively propagated crop (VPC) seed systems. It can be used to describe the regulatory framework of an entire, national seed system.Jeff Bentley. Near the end of your presentation you mentioned the checklists. These are lists of questions to ask in key informant interviews with different stakeholders, like policy makers, researchers and others. It's quite a valuable resource. You can use these as a draft for your own lists. You used those in several countries.Reply. Yes, we piloted them in Kenya, and it was important to do a literature review first to understand some of the issues around the crops. Because if you're working with key informants you want to know what's happened in the past. In Kenya, the pilot was using seed potato and then the checklists were improved, and adapted for cassava in Nigeria, and then in Vietnam it was cassava and potato. We tried to mainstream gender into the checklist. They are a guide, and are not to just to take the list and apply it, but it's always easier to have something to start with and adapt, rather than starting from scratch.Abebechindi Egebasa. Can we amend the checklist to our context or use as it is?Reply. It is critical to adapt it to your crop and context, but it is better to start with something and adapt it. We use the Multi-stakeholder framework (MSF) to make sure that we are covering all the stakeholders in a country. We often forget some stakeholders, like traders, or informal markets. We might be focused more on the formal side of the seed system, so for your context there might be other stakeholders. For example, in Uganda with sweetpotato systems we are appreciating much more the role of aggregators who act as links between the markets for roots and root producers and seed producers.Charles Staver. How does this framework take into account the different RTB crops which are quite different in their degree of commercialization and of course the nature of the planting material and the importance of local diversity?Reply. When we call the tool \"seed regulatory framework analysis\" the framework we are talking about is the national seed regulatory framework. That includes the policy, the legislation, the regulations, the seed standards, and any schedules associated with those. Every country's seed policies are different, and so the seed regulatory framework is also different. But the challenge is that most of the seed regulatory frameworks are based on the seeds for grain crops. So, you get oddities like how many lots should be sampled, and germination rates, and so language and the thought processes are not appropriate for vegetatively propagated seed. That's why we're trying to use this tool. Then you have the comment on commercialization. This is important, so where our study is looking at seed potato, which is relatively more commercialized, for seed and for ware potato (and perhaps for cassava in Vietnam). Will the price you can get for seed (and that farmers can get for their ware product) cover the cost of certification or not? We've got Erik here, and if you look at commercialization of cassava in Southeast Asia, and the vertical integration that Jason talked about, your ability to use an external, quality assurance system may be better, because you can cover those costs. But for some crops, like sweetpotato, the added cost of inspection for certification may outweigh the actual cost of the seed. That's why VPCs need more appropriate regulatory processes. Rather than with grain crops where you may have centralized production and storage, for many of the vegetatively propagated crops that doesn't make sense, because they are perishable and bulky, so we're looking at much smaller, more dispersed production units and what are the implications of that for seed regulation and inspection procedures?Charles Staver. Another way to ask the question might be whether what works for potato with few varieties in Uganda is also applicable for banana with many, many varieties?Setegn Gebeyehu. Once a study is conducted using this tool, for how long will the information generated remain valid (because seed systems are so dynamic by their nature) for use by researchers, policy makers, etc.? Do you think the same tool can be employed to carry out periodic (follow-up) studies to monitor the changes happened/made in the seed system of the region/country where the previous study has been conducted?Reply. When we are looking at policy and regulatory processes, which are legislated, i.e. they are part of the formal system, the lag time between what is happening on the ground and how that can be appropriately reflected in the regulatory process can be long. From using this tool and understanding the different layers of legislation from policy to legislation to regulations to standards to schedules to guidelines, the decision-making at each level is different in government. Some policies have to be made by the legislature, and others can be signed off by ministers, but further down the chain decisions can be made by the head of the regulatory body, and often within that body there are committees that can meet and assess new information and adjust standards or guidelines. We haven't repeated the use of the tool and we would need to change the checklist. Then, depending on any change that has happened in the legislation we would have to adjust the checklist to review that.Stephen Walsh. I am wondering to what extent these tools could be used in specific projects to help implementing partners design and develop their own seed quality protocols? I ask this, as it is not evident that it is realistic to see the quality standards driven by the public sector as much as from funded projects, or for nascent private sector. My concern is: developing new frameworks for quality, but then expecting it to be 'operationalized by publicsector seed regulatory agency' where currently they struggle to operationalize, even for cereal crops.Reply. I think there would need to be some adaptation. But the current checklists do ask what are the existing quality assurance (QA) processes (both internal and external) highlighting constraints, so this could be the basis for arguing for internal QA, perhaps using the existing seed standards, but with peer inspection or accredited inspectors. This is easier if a country allows a QDS type seed class. However, still in some countries selling seed which has not been officially certified is illegal. So we still need to argue for the recognition of the informal seed system. As part of ISSD Africa (https://issdafrica.org/) we are developing an inventory on more appropriate QA approaches, and engaging through the AU Seed and Biotechnology group. Some see QDS as a step towards the formal system, however it should be considered appropriate for some types of seed in its own right. More discussion needed!At the end of the last day, a short, online questionnaire was posted, to gauge participants' satisfaction with the course. Thirtyeight people left comments.Three-quarters of them had attended all three days of the event.All but one felt that the announcements and information surrounding the seminar had been satisfactory.Over half (61%) said that the technical content was very relevant. A third thought that it was relevant. Only 5% said it was more or less relevant.I would have liked to see more about specific examples and types of results and insights and how they were converted into practice. And more about how different crops and contexts have been documented with the tools.Charles Staver","tokenCount":"9663"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"961f0b016adefd720c6df6aab43a525f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/23b07855-9b8d-407b-ad5a-5b94fc1ed5a4/content","id":"1436741553"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2e66c8a4-255d-42fd-842d-12786ec2b933","pagecount":"4","content":"Today's food system faces triple challenges of feeding an increasing population, adapting to and mitigating climate change. Climate change impacts all components of food systems (production, delivery, and consumption) affecting all pillars of food security (food availability, access, utilization and stability). On the other hand, the current food system is the significant source (23-35%) of total anthropogenic GHG emission (IPCC, 2019). Recent evidence suggests that coordinated actions are required to improve land, enhance food security and nutrition and help to end hunger in the face of climate change. Action and investment in the sector have been constrained by the lack of policy-relevant and science-based methods of estimating GHG emission and quantifying mitigation potential that contribute to decision-making.A seminar was organized at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China on GHG mitigation potential of food systems at the global level and present a framework for a bottom-up approach to assess GHG emissions, identify mitigation options and quantify their mitigation potential from food systems. The objective of the seminar was to build the capacity of graduate students and faculty members on food system approach to address climate change mitigation and framework to quantify the mitigation poentail at landscape level.The seminar was organized on 30 October 2023 at the department of of agricultural economics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou. Seminar was attended by factulty members and graduate students of various departments in Zhejiang University. Seminar was opened by Kevin Chain, the China leader of Low Emission Food System Initative. Tek Sapkota from CIMMYT delivered the seminar followed by questions and answers moderated by Lois Verchot, the leader of Low Emission Food System Initiative.8:30 am FSL Seminar given by Tek at Zhejiang University Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Potential of Food Systems and Approach to Quantify Them 9:00 am -11:00 am12:00 pm -2:00 pmThe framework's distinguishing features include the use of minimal and readily available data yet scientific enough that helps countries to identify mitigation hotspots; and scientifically robust estimates of mitigation potential and cost. This help countries to compare their estimates with the level of ambition needed to meet the 2-degree target based on their NDCs. The bottom-up analysis is based on identification of jurisdictional zones and the feasibility of implementing mitigation options relevant to them. Such analysis help countries to identify mitigation hotspots by geography and commodity and priortise their investments according to their food security and environmental goals.The seminar was well taken by students and faculty members as evidenced by the level of questions and interaction followed by presentation. It is expected that the seminar was successful in sharing knowledge on food systems climate change interaction, climate change impact and food systems and vice-versa, solution measures across food systems to address climate crisis. The seminar also help building capacity around quantification of climate mitiation potential at the country level. We believe that such knowledge sharing and capacity building activities help set targets for food systems mitigation based on local agro-environmental conditions, the mitigation options best fitted for those conditions and stakeholder input.","tokenCount":"494"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ac59b670a06e47527d1f40c342af6679","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0602b343-43f5-4ea5-8d4f-1026c02dcff3/retrieve","id":"1840338684"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"07283443-419b-4339-8e78-f0fecdc2194d","pagecount":"3","content":"Finding strategies that work in developing countries A one-size-fits-all solution won't work T he H5N1 form of avian influenza that has recently swept across Asia into parts of Europe and Africa is unprecedented in scale and geographical spread. The international community has pledged over US $ 1.9 billion to fight this highly pathogenic form of avian influenza, or bird flu, and prevent (or prepare for) a human pandemic. Emergency efforts in many developing countries, where the disease may become entrenched, show that conventional responses may be inappropriate. A better understanding of the developing-country context is needed to make the enormous investments devoted to control efforts effective and equitable. Our assumptions are that unless we employ control strategies appropriate for developing countries, we will fail in our efforts to control bird flu globally. Rather than keep technical and socio-economic issues separate in our thinking and planning, we must unite them and fully engage the countries of the developing world and their small-scale poultry farmers and sectors in this battle -perhaps the first of many campaigns to control potentially devastating new diseases. The image of an emerging human disease being tackled by an all-out global effort that triumphantly eliminates the threat is enduring but (outside Hollywood) generally inaccurate. Whereas a few new diseases such as SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) have been handled in this way, the nature and context of highly pathogenic bird flu means it will not be so easily conquered. Some countries in the developing world, for example, are likely to face a fairly constant threat of bird flu, and the disease may become endemic in some areas. Detecting the disease and controlling it are often hampered not only by weak veterinary services, but also by the difficulties of getting large numbers of dispersed, unorganized, small-scale and backyard poultry keepers to understand the dangers of the disease and to comply with efforts to control it. This kind of challenge raises a new set of research issues that needs addressing. To identify those issues, an international group of experts is working together to determine the research gaps Their common goal is to identify appropriate strategies for the developingcountry context and to help governments make informed decisions on how to control the spread of bird flu while protecting livelihoods of the poor. The need to advance understanding in this area is urgent. Rapid changes in poultry production systems, trade regimes, and consumer perceptions are challenging existing ways of dealing with bird flu. Developed countries and their poultry producers have largely shaped thinking on how to best tackle bird flu. But conventional control measures -culling and compensation -are increasingly questioned in developing countries, where these strategies are often problematic if not impossible to implement.Poultry production is a central source of food and income for billions of poor households in the developing world. In Southeast Asia, where highly pathogenic bird flu is endemic in many areas, poultry are crucial to the farming systems of poor people. Poultry raising and selling has long provided a pathway out of poverty.Rapidly rising demand for poultry, linked to population growth, rising incomes, and urban migration, has intensified production, creating jobs and expanding opportunities for smallholders to sell their poultry products.In both Asia and Africa, meat and eggs from poultry are important sources of essential micronutrients for poor and vulnerable groups, comprising mostly women and children. Bird flu is a global problem. The implications of ineffective control of bird flu are not limited to poor communities. If the disease is left unchecked, and continues to cycle and periodically break out, large-scale commercial poultry production and worldwide trade will remain under constant threat. The risk of highly pathogenic bird flu becoming transmissible from human to human is of course a concern shared by the whole world. Furthermore, the transboundary nature of zoonotic diseases such as bird flu requires that efforts to prevent or control the disease elicit the cooperation of key stakeholders worldwide.The key to successful control of bird flu in developing countries is enlisting the cooperation of all actors, including the many poor households that keep poultry, to help rapidly detect the disease and comply with control measures. The conventional strategy is to compensate producers who lose their flocks through preventive culling; this helps stop disease spread and provides an incentive for poultry farmers to report suspected outbreaks. But developing-country governments are struggling with this control method. The first problems are determining how, and how much, to compensate farmers for their destroyed birds. Then there are the obstacles to be faced in implementing a compensation scheme where administrative infrastructure is weak and corruption a problem. It is also difficult for poor countries to find the resources with which to compensate poultry farmers, especially when repeated outbreaks occur. Finally, there may even be new problems generated by poorly designed compensation schemes, which could perversely encourage people to try to benefit from the compensation or to elude culls.To help developing-country governments and aid agencies make informed pro-poor decisions on bird flu control, in June 2006 ILRI and IFPRI convened a consultation that used frontline and expert opinion (1) to identify roles that research could play to support lead agencies in controlling bird flu and ( 2) to highlight medium-and long-term research needs in the areas of epidemiology, genetics, vaccines, diagnostics, and socio-economics. Findings from this consultation are posted at www.ilri.org and www.ifpri.org.The CGIAR centers and their partners are focusing initial activities on helping governments make more informed decisions on how to prevent or limit the spread of bird flu while minimizing the adverse impacts of those interventions on the poor. Even governments that never face an outbreak must decide how much to allocate to surveillance. These funds are often diverted from other activities (e.g., HIV/AIDS control, food security, rural infrastructure), which are also crucial to the welfare of the poor. Developing-country governments are therefore challenged to determine the difficult trade-offs between the potential benefits of preventing and controlling bird flu with the costs of doing so -even before an outbreak takes place. Furthermore, the burden of control costs may fall disproportionately on the rural poor, who consume their own poultry and rely on it for their livelihoods. This and similar discrepancies raise other issues inadequately addressed as yet. The importance of developing countries as locations where the highly pathogenic bird flu virus is most likely to spread undetected, possibly leading to a full-blown global human pandemic, is a strong incentive for the developed world to support poor countries in combating the disease. No global control strategy will succeed without the involvement of developing-world communities.Researchers can help provide developing countries with the information they need to implement equitable, effective and evidence-based control strategies, thereby strengthening the voice of developing countries in international fora where global strategies are negotiated. Partnerships that help developing countries establish capacity in risk analysis, epidemiology, and socio-economic analysis should help position these countries as full partners in the battle against highly pathogenic bird flu. Finally, this research can help the global community learn lessons on how to reduce the growing risk of emerging zoonotic diseases that threaten livelihoods as well as lives.A young man on the outskirts of Hyderabad, in south-central India, takes his family chickens to market.Foto: ILRI","tokenCount":"1202"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"05e76a9e84f729d858f06804fe313a25","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/80a431e8-a59a-4385-a64a-e0ddc8224bfe/retrieve","id":"-1025032552"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c7f48b4c-4b5f-47b9-9caf-73f19ba55269","pagecount":"2","content":"The East Africa Dairy Development (EADD) project is a regional industry development program implemented by a consortium of partners led by Heifer International. It is currently being piloted in 18 sites in Kenya, 8 in Rwanda and 27 in Uganda. The overall goal of the project is to transform the lives of 179,000 families, or about 1 million people, by doubling household dairy income in 10 years through integrated interventions in dairy production, market access and knowledge application.This brief presents an overview of the methodology used to carry out a baseline survey for the EADD project in 2008-09. The objective of the survey was to assess the baseline situation of dairy farmers and their communities at the start of the project, and to identify key constraints faced by dairy farmers and market agents and opportunities for overcoming them through targeted project interventions. The study had three components, namely, community, household and market agent surveys. Details are available in the baseline survey report No. 1.In the absence of a sampling frame (complete list of households in these areas), geographic random sampling was used to select the households to be surveyed. For the market agent survey, snowball sampling was used. Seventy-five households and 20 market agents were sampled per site. Table 2 summarizes the numbers of hubs and households surveyed. In each site, the PRA took about one day with about 20-25 persons from the area around the hub. At each baseline sampled hub, PRAs were conducted at two sublocations. The PRA was not conducted at the control sites so as not to raise expectation in these sites. The following topics were discussed:Project Brief The household survey recorded information on survey sites (country, district, sites and geographic positioning system [GPS] coordinates of the household location); details of the respondent; details of the enumerator; and data quality control procedures followed in the field. The remaining part of the survey was structured into ten sections (see Table 3). The market agent survey recorded information on date of interview; establishing whether or not the interviewee is in charge of the business activities; and field level data quality control procedures (e.g. supervisor/enumerator code). The remaining part of the survey was structured into five sections.The first section recorded general information related to the interviewee (e.g. age, gender, year of schooling, role of the respondent and position in the business). Data related to the location where the interview was conducted were also recorded (e.g. GPS coordinates and whether this was at the business premise or elsewhere), as were businessrelated details and information on constraints related to financial, transport and organizational maters.While interviews on the general section were conducted with all business types, the remaining four sections were designed for different categories of business service providers, i.e. feed suppliers; artificial insemination and other animal health service providers; milk traders; and credit providers. These sections were designed so that information would be collected on business constraints and opportunities specific to each category and made available for use in formulating strategies for interventions.Disclaimer: This material was funded by and is the absolute property of the East Africa Dairy Development (EADD) Project. The designations employed and the presentation of material in this information product do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the EADD Project. The mention of specific organizations or their services, whether or not these have been patented, does not imply that these have been endorsed or recommended by EADD in preference to others of a similar nature that are not mentioned. This document is licensed for use under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License ILRI works with partners worldwide to help poor people keep their farm animals alive and productive, increase and sustain their livestock and farm productivity, and find profitable markets for their animal products. ILRI's headquarters are in Nairobi, Kenya; we have a principal campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and 14 offices in other regions of Africa and Asia. ILRI is part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (www.cgiar.org), which works to reduce hunger, poverty and environmental degradation in developing countries by generating and sharing relevant agricultural knowledge, technologies and policies.","tokenCount":"693"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"5ffcbf4a41d22e6c3d14bcd553a809a2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c6a2f0bd-1811-430b-bdeb-9114141831e0/retrieve","id":"-2005491146"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"522edb8b-e0a0-4f7d-b179-97427cebbc97","pagecount":"144","content":"Figura 15. Cambios proyectados en precipitación (arriba), temperatura mínima (medio) y temperatura máxima estacional (abajo) para 2030s, 2050s y 2080s bajo el escenario RCP 2.6. . 39 Figura 16. Cambios proyectados en precipitación (arriba), temperatura mínima (medio) y temperatura máxima estacional (abajo) para 2030s, 2050s y 2080s bajo el escenario RCP 4.5. . 40 Figura 17. Cambios proyectados en precipitación (arriba), temperatura mínima (medio) y temperatura máxima estacional (abajo) para 2030s, 2050s y 2080s bajo el escenario RCP 6.0. . 41 Figura 18. Cambios proyectados en precipitación (arriba), temperatura mínima (medio) y temperatura máxima estacional (abajo) para 2030s, 2050s y 2080s bajo el escenario RCP 8.5. . 42 Figura 24. Incertidumbres en la proyección de precipitación total para RCP 8.5 en 2050s.Izquierda: A) Cambio en precipitación total de un promedio de 18 GCMs. B) promedio del primer cuartil (25%), C) promedio del tercer cuartil (75%), y D) fracción de GCMs en acuerdo con la dirección del cambio medio de la precipitación. Derecha: Dispersión de GCMs (sombreado) entre diferentes escenarios y periodos y media de todos los modelos (línea azul). .............................. 48 Figura 25. Incertidumbres en la proyección de temperatura media anual para RCP 8.5 en 2050s.A) Cambio en temperatura media anual de un promedio de 18 GCMs. B) promedio del primer cuartil (25%), C) promedio del tercer cuartil (75%), y D) desviación estándar. Dispersión de GCMs (sombreado) entre diferentes escenarios y periodos y media de todos los modelos (línea naranja). La información climática actual y futura desarrollada con la construcción de los escenarios de cambio climático se constituyen en el elemento base para determinar cómo dicho fenómeno podrá afectar a la República de Honduras. La generación de los escenarios de cambio climático para la el país contempló dos fases: 1) generación de la línea base climatológica (clima de referencia) en base a registros de estaciones meteorológicas, 2) generación de las proyecciones futuras de clima en base a Modelos de Circulación General (GCM por sus siglas en inglés).Para la generación de la línea base climatológica se empleó información de variables meteorológicas entre 1981-2010 proveniente de estaciones meteorológicas de diversas fuentes (nacionales y regionales) a nivel diario, las cuáles se agregaron a nivel mensual y posteriormente se promediaron en normales climatológicas de 30 años. Las estaciones fueron sometidas a controles de calidad estadísticos y complementación de datos faltantes apoyados en datos satelitales.En la generación de datos de cambio climático futuro, se emplearon las salidas de las simulaciones más recientes de GCM corridas sobre cuatro escenarios de emisiones denominados Caminos Representativos de Concentración (RCP, por sus siglas en inglés). Se proyectaron horizontes de corto, mediano y largo plazo (2030s, 2050s y 2080s), relevantes para toma de decisión en gestión ambiental, salud pública, energía y agrícola. Se generaron resultados detallados y agregados por cada una de las 16 subregiones de desarrollo establecidas en el marco conceptual del Plan de Nación y Visión de país (CNEG, 2010). Se muestran los cambios en precipitación y temperatura mínima y máxima mensual, a nivel nacional y regional. De la misma, manera se hicieron proyecciones del aumento del nivel del mar a futuro.Para la apropiación de la información por parte de los actores nacionales, especialmente tomadores de decisión, se desarrolló un módulo académico de capacitación, una aplicación web para consultar los resultados de escenarios y fichas regionales que resumen los posibles impactos del cambio en el clima sobre los diversos medios de vida de cada región de desarrollo.El presente informe forma parte de las consultorías realizadas por el Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD), para la elaboración de la Tercera Comunicación Nacional sobre Cambio Climático de Honduras dentro de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre Cambio Climático (CMNUCC).Se considera todo el territorio de Honduras incluyendo la zona insular para el estudio. Para la caracterización del clima se recolectó información de estaciones meteorológicas en todo el territorio del país sumado a recursos de información de Guatemala, El Salvador y Nicaragua. Para la generación de las superficies climáticas de referencia fue utilizado un marco de interpolación mayor al territorio de Honduras para asegurar que los recursos de información o estaciones climáticas de otros países se incluyeran (12.3-16.8°N de latitud y ~90-83° W de longitud).Para línea base de referencia y las proyecciones de cambio climático, se generaron superficies de 1 km de resolución y se hicieron análisis regionales tomamos como referencia las 16 subregiones de desarrollo del país delimitadas en el marco conceptual Visión de País 2010-2038(CNEG, 2010). La Tabla 1 y Figura 1 muestran la organización de las regiones y las cuencas hidrográficas que las componen. Estas regiones fueron planteadas de acuerdo a la organización del territorio en grandes corrientes de agua, las cuales también definen regiones de desarrollo socioeconómico. La división está basada variables socio-económicas y en las cuencas hidrográficas del país. Las 16 subregiones se tomarán como base para la elaboración de fichas regionales de cambio climático.Figura 1. Regiones de desarrollo según Plan de Nación de la República de Honduras empleadas en los análisis de clima histórico y futuro.Tabla 1. Regiones de desarrollo de la República de Honduras y cuencas que las componen.Cuencas Hidrográficas Subregiones La caracterización del clima de un lugar determinado se realiza a partir de la estadística del tiempo atmosférico en un periodo de tiempo prolongado. En la ciencia del clima, es común el uso de normales climatológicas que hacen referencia al valor medio de un elemento climático durante un lapso de tiempo de al menos 30 años (WMO, 2012). Las normales climatológicas constituyen una base con la que se puede evaluar las condiciones del clima en una zona, comparar las observaciones presentes o recientes, y en particular para fundamentar muchos conjuntos de datos basados en anomalías (e.g. escenarios de cambio climático). El procedimiento de definición de una normal climatológica de acuerdo a lo recomendado por la organización meteorológica mundial (WMO,Análisis de impacto de cambio climático requieren de información meteorológica confiable como datos de entrada. Sin embargo, las redes climatológicas nacionales de la mayoría de países centroamericanos están caracterizadas por la baja densidad de estaciones. Esto dificulta capturar la variación ambiental que puede ser mayor en las montañas y otras áreas con gradientes altitudinales. La orientación brindada por la Organización Meteorológica Mundial (OMM) dice que una red debe proporcionar una representación satisfactoria de las características climáticas de todo tipo de terreno en el territorio, incluyendo llanuras, regiones montañosas, mesetas, costas, islas, entre otros (WMO, 2015).Existen además algunas limitaciones en el trabajo con información de estaciones meteorológicas, a saber: ( 1  El Servicio Autónomo Nacional de Acueductos y Alcantarillados (SANAA). La Empresa Nacional de Energía Eléctrica (ENEE). El Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales de El Salvador (MARN). El Instituto Nacional de Sismología, Vulcanología, Meteorología e Hidrología de Guatemala (INSIVUMEH). La Red Global de Climatología Histórica (GHCN, siglas en inglés). El Resumen diario de Superficie Global (GSOD, siglas en inglés).Tras la recopilación de la información y dado que cada una de las instituciones utiliza su información para diferentes propósitos y la almacenan en diferentes formatos, se realizó una estandarización de los datos. Así mismo, para asegurar la calidad de la información se diseñó un esquema de control de calidad de los datos con el que se depuraron datos erróneos o dudosos relacionados con problemas en la observación realizada por el lector meteorológico y/o errores de digitalización o transcripción de la información. Posterior a eso, rellenamos datos faltantes empleando métodos estadísticos. Los códigos de programación para el reformateo de los datos, control de calidad y rellenado de datos faltantes se encuentran en un repositorio de GitHub 2 del estudio.Para el análisis de control de calidad se aplicaron los 5 filtros que son descritos a continuación:   Todos los pasos mencionados del control de calidad se encuentran compilados en el paquete RClimTool (Llanos-Herrera, 2014), el cual identifica y corrige los errores en los datos de estaciones. Solo las estaciones con menos del 40% de datos faltantes fueron seleccionadas para el análisis de línea base. Se seleccionó el periodo 1981-2010, con el periodo de referencia de línea base, puesto que contenía el mayor porcentaje de información asociada a las estaciones y es el periodo de la normal climatológica histórica más reciente. El número total de estaciones meteorológicas antes y después de ese proceso se muestra en la Tabla 2 y la lista de estaciones después del procesamiento de control de calidad figura en el Anexo 1. Una vez hecho el análisis de control de calidad de todas las estaciones recolectadas, aplicamos una metodología de llenado de datos faltantes basada en datos derivados de satélite y de reanalisis.Para precipitación la metodología genera un modelo de regresión lineal entre las observaciones con control de calidad y lo observado por CHIRPS (Climate Hazards group Infrared Precipitation with Stations, siglas en inglés; Funk et al., 2015) para el punto de localización de la estación. Para las estaciones con buen ajuste del modelo lineal (R2 >0.4), se predicen los valores de precipitación basados en el modelo ajustado para la estación a escala mensual. Se descargaron datos de CHIRPS para el período 1981-2010 3 a 0.05º (~5km) de resolución. Un ejemplo de los resultados de este proceso se muestra en la Figura 4, donde se presentan los datos de precipitación para la estación 21 de Octubre -56035 (CENAOS-COPECO) y su respectivo ajuste utilizando los datos de CHIRPS, los cuales explican un 78% del total de la variabilidad para esta estación (R 2 = 0.78).Figura 4. Rellenado de datos faltantes para la estación 21 de Octubre -56035 (CENAOS/COPECO).Observaciones en negro, CHIRPS en rojo y datos modelados en azul.En el caso de la temperatura, se empleó para el llenado de datos faltantes TerraClimate (Abatzoglou et al., 2018), un set de datos mensuales de alta resolución (0.04° ~4km) que combina las normales climatológicas de alta resolución de WorldClim v2.0 (Fick & Hijmans, 2017) con datos de resolución más gruesa como CRU TS v4.0 (Harris et al., 2014) y JRA-55 (Kobayashi et al., 2015). El ajuste de TerraClimate en comparación a la mayoría de estaciones es mayor al 70% (R 2 =0.7). Los códigos de programación para el reformateo de los datos, control de calidad y rellenado de datos faltantes se encuentran en el repositorio de GitHub 4 del estudio.La distribución espacial de las estaciones meteorológicas resultantes tras los procesos de control de calidad y llenado de datos faltantes para Honduras se muestra en la Figura 6 y Figura 6. Los mapas muestran que la mayoría de las estaciones están ubicadas al oeste del país tanto para precipitación como para temperatura. El conjunto de datos más grande proviene de DGRH dispersos por todo el territorio, con baja densidad en llanuras por debajo de 200 msnm y bosques.Considerando esta y otras fuentes de información, se obtienen 135 estaciones con precipitación y 22 con temperatura (máxima y mínima) dentro de los límites del país (vea un listado completo de estaciones después del control de calidad en los Anexo 1-2).La red meteorológica hondureña denota una densidad de una estación en 830 km 2 para precipitación y 5113 km 2 para temperatura. Aproximadamente un 90% de las estaciones se encuentran debajo de los 1000 msnm. Así mismo, gran cantidad de estaciones tienen series de tiempo incompletas, siendo algunos casos, inferiores a un año de datos (vea Anexo 3-Anexo 6).Esto factores hacen ver la necesidad de complementar la base de datos con otras redes regionales y globales. Sumando datos provenientes de INETER (Nicaragua), MARN (El Salvador), INSIVUMEH (Guatemala), GHCN (global) y GSOD (global) se obtiene una base de datos final con 282 estaciones de precipitación y 69 de temperatura (Anexo 1-2).En algunas áreas de baja densidad de estaciones con información de precipitación, se complementó la red con datos derivados de CHIRPS. Se seleccionaron puntos aleatorios en zonas fuera del radio de acción de las estaciones meteorológicas (>25 km) basados en funciones de densidad de Kernell.Se establecen 131 puntos, denominados pseudo-estaciones (Figura 5). La complementación con datos CHIRPS es importante en la modelación del clima por los patrones heterogéneos del país y la influencia de los efectos atmosféricos locales en el clima nacional. El mismo procedimiento se empleó para datos de temperatura, en este caso usando datos 25 puntos extraídos de TerraClimate (Figura 6). Figura 6. Distribución de las estaciones meteorológicas recopiladas de diversas fuentes, para precipitación (arriba) y para temperatura (abajo).Con el objetivo de caracterizar el clima histórico para la República de Honduras, se desarrollaron superficies climáticas mensuales a través de interpolación espacial de los promedios climatológicos a nivel mensual de cada estación de acuerdo a los procedimientos descritos anteriormente. Las superficies fueron generadas a ~1 km 2 de resolución (30 arco segundos), para precipitación, temperatura máxima y mínima. De estas últimas se derivaron el rango de temperatura (diferencia entre la temperatura máxima y mínima) y la temperatura media. Asimismo se agregaron todas las variables por trimestres: Diciembre-Enero-Febrero (DEF), Marzo-Abril-Mayo (MAM), Junio-Julio-Agosto (JJA) y Septiembre-Octubre-Noviembre (SON). En función a la disponibilidad de datos se seleccionó el periodo 1981-2010 para el cálculo del clima de referencia.Para el desarrollo del clima de referencia se interpolaron las estaciones siguiendo el procedimiento descrito por Hijmans et al (2005), empleando el algoritmo ANUSPLIN versión 4.4, el cual utiliza una técnica de suavizado denominada thin-plate spline para la interpolación espacial de datos multivariados y ruidosos, aprobada por la OMM. Se hizo una interpolación de segundo orden empleando latitud, longitud y elevación como variables independientes. Se usó el modelo de elevación digital CGIAR SRTM (Jarvis et al., 2008b). A fin de evaluar el desempeño en la interpolación se hicieron comparaciones entre los datos de estaciones de la línea base original y datos de estaciones de las nuevas superficies interpoladas (observados vs. interpolados).Adicionalmente, se realizó un método de validación cruzada, usando k =25 como una cantidad aceptable de iteraciones y un porcentaje de test/train de 25/75 para analizar el error. Los códigos para generar la interpolación y todos los métodos aquí descritos se encuentran en el repositorio de códigos de GitHub mencionado anteriormente.Los resultados de la interpolación para las variables precipitación acumulada, temperatura máxima, media y mínima a nivel mensual se muestran en las Figuras 7 a 10 y a nivel estacional (trimestral y anual) en las Figuras 11 y 12 para precipitación y temperatura media. La resolución    La Figura 13. muestra una evaluación el rendimiento del algoritmo de interpolación a través de la validación cruzada. La precipitación acumulada mensual para los datos modelados y observados muestra un coeficiente de determinación (R 2 ) mayor a 0.5 (50%; línea punteada roja) en la mayoría de meses y 0.75 (75%; línea roja continua) en los meses más secos (Noviembre-Marzo). La variación del R 2 es alta en todos los meses y más baja en los meses más húmedos. Pese a ello, elError Medio Cuadrático (EMC) sigue siendo bajo, especialmente en los meses más secos (<40 mm; línea roja punteada). El coeficiente R 2 a lo largo de los meses es más alto para la temperatura mínima y más bajo para la temperatura máxima, sin embargo, el error permanece por debajo de 0.3 ° C en ambos casos, mostrando una amplia confidencia del algoritmo de interpolación. Un escenario de emisión es un resultado plausible y consistente que ha sido construido para explicar las consecuencias potenciales de la influencia de las emisiones humanas de gases de efecto invernadero sobre el clima (Jones et al., 2004) En el marco de la Tercera Comunicación Nacional, se hicieron proyecciones de cambio climático para los horizontes de tiempo de corto, mediano y largo plazo. Se trabajan en promedios de 30 años futuros, delimitados así: 2020-2049 (2030s), 2040-2069 (2050s) y 2070-2099 (2080s). Como lo muestra la Figura 14, hacia los periodos de tiempo más lejanos temperatura global no convergen en relación con el modelo de cambio medio para un escenario dado. Por tal motivo, se consideraron todo el abanico de los 4 RCPs (2.6, 4.5, 6.0 y 8.5) en la generación de las proyecciones. No se realizaran series de tiempo de los periodos porque el objetivo es analizar el cambio climático progresivo.Fuente: Knutti & Sedláček (2012).Para estimar los efectos que las emisiones establecidas por los escenarios tienen sobre el clima global, se emplean los Modelos Climáticos Globales (GCM, siglas en inglés). Los GCMs describen importantes elementos y procesos en la atmósfera, los océanos y la superficie de la tierra.Son algoritmos que simulan los procesos terrestres a escala mundial, basado de una serie de fuerzas motrices (población, economía, tecnología, energía, uso del suelo, agricultura).La mayoría de los GCMs simulan amplias características de clima y pueden mostrar los cambios de gran escala observados en el pasado reciente, de manera que puede ser usado con alguna confianza para dar proyecciones de la respuesta de clima a la actual y futura actividad humana.Los componentes principales de los modelos globales son: atmósfera, océano, suelo y hielo de mar, los cuales han sido gradualmente integrados y acoplados. Los escenarios climáticos basados en la salida de los GCMs son la mayor fuente de información para las investigaciones climáticas.Cada variable de salida de un GCM se ejecuta en un determinado escenario de emisiones, en una resolución espacial de 3 a 5 grados.Idealmente, la generación de escenarios de cambio climático se debe realizar utilizando las salidas de una amplia gama de modelos climáticos con el fin de representar las incertidumbres que conlleva el uso de diferentes escenarios de emisiones, estructuras de los modelos, esquemas de parametrización y variabilidad climática (Lobell & Burke, 2010;Schlenker & Lobell, 2010). La selección de los escenarios y los modelos siempre representa un desafío científico, principalmente debido a la dificultad de entender y cuantificar las incertidumbres las cuales están relacionadas con los factores de cambio (i.e. las fuentes y los sumideros de gases antropogénicos de efecto invernadero y aerosoles) y la respuesta del sistema climático a estos factores (Mote et al., 2011).Todo ello provoca un amplio rango de dispersión entre escenarios de emisiones e incertidumbre entre los modelos (Figura 14).El Proyecto de intercomparación de modelos acoplados (CMIP, siglas en inglés; Taylor et al., 2012) ha puesto a disposición la última serie de simulaciones de GCM correspondientes al informe de evaluación del IPCC AR5 a través del portal en línea del Earth System Grid (ESGF, 2016).Estos fueron los datos de entrada para la generación de las proyecciones de cambio climático.Debido a la baja convergencia entre GCM para un escenario dado, se emplearon la mayor cantidad de GCMs disponibles para los 4 RCPs, con un total de 18 modelos (Tabla 4).  Collins et al., 2011;Martin et al., 2011 Cambios proyectados Figura 15 a 18 muestran los cambios proyectados en el clima para la República de Honduras para precipitación, temperatura mínima y máxima considerando tres periodos futuros (filas) y temporadas (columnas). Cada Figura corresponde a un RCP diferente, desde el más optimista al más pesimista. A continuación describimos el panorama general de las proyecciones de cambio climático y en la sección Fichas Regionales se ofrece un análisis en detalle por las 16 regiones de desarrollo.Se proyectan déficits de precipitación estacional en toda la geografía Hondureña en el trimestre más húmedo del año (JJA), en comparación con la normal climatológica 1981-2010, a corto, mediano y largo plazo. Para todas las demás temporadas la tendencia es al aumento especialmente en el trimestre MAM, lo cual sugiere que hacia futuro las lluvias podrían comenzar antes en el año en comparación con las condiciones normales. Los cambios en precipitación fluctúan entre -10% and +20% con mayores incrementos hacia el centro y sur del país, y déficits hacia el Litoral Caribe.La tendencia de cambio es la misma a través de todos los periodos futuros pero con mayores contrastes (positivos/negativos) hacia fin de siglo. De la misma manera, la tendencia de cambio es similar entre escenarios, a excepción del escenario RCP 8.5, donde hay una marcada proyección hacia la disminución de la precipitación en todas las estaciones del año y en el acumulado anual.Para el caso de la temperatura mínima mensual y máxima mensual se proyectan aumentos de temperatura para todos los escenarios y épocas del año. Para RCP 2.6 los cambios en temperatura máxima son de un máximo de +1.5°C, para RCP 4.5 de +2.0°C y para RCP 8.5 hasta 4.5°C hacia fin de siglo. Los mayores aumentos de temperatura se acentúan hacia el trimestre JJA. Pese a que la distribución de la temperatura máxima y mínima es muy homogénea en toda la región, el calentamiento podría intensificarse hacia la zona centro y sur occidente del país. Las proyecciones también indican un aumento más rápido de la temperatura máxima que de la mínima. Esta discrepancia en la que la temperatura máxima crece a una tasa más alta que el mínimo en la mayoría de los escenarios y estaciones, sugiere mayor grados día a lo largo del año y en consecuencia mayores tasas de evapotranspiración y áreas de aridez más extensas.  CSM1 1  1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1   BCC CSM1 1 M  1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1   CESM1 CAM5  1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1   CSIRO MK3 6 0  1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1   R 2 FIO ESM 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1  < 0.50   GFDL CM3  1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1  0.50 -0.60 GFDL ESM2G 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1  0.60 -0.70 GFDL ESM2M 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1  0.70 -0.80 GISS E2 R 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1  0.80 -0.90 IPSL CM5A LR 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1  0.90 -0.95 MIROC ESM 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1  0.95 -0.98 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1  0.98 -1.00 MIROC MIROC5 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1   MOHC HADGEM2 ES  1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1   MRI CGCM3  1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1   NCAR CCSM4  1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1   NCC NORESM1 M  1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 NIMR HADGEM2 AO 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1  4 3 4 3 4 4 4 4 5 1000-1400  Al presente existen muchos vacíos en la representación del sistema climático. Los GCM no proporcionan estimaciones realistas de las condiciones climáticas en un sitio en particular, sino que proporcionan proyecciones para una gran escala. Para que las proyecciones de clima puedan usarse en estudios de impacto (por ejemplo en agricultura o recursos hídricos), se deben tener presente las incertidumbres y las dispersiones que deben cuantificarse de manera sólida (Ramirez-Villegas & Challinor, 2012), entendiendo que siempre se toman decisiones en un contexto de incertidumbre.Existen diferentes fuentes de incertidumbre, incluyendo aquellas asociadas a la elección de los GCMs y de escenarios RCP. Para considerar la incertidumbre inherente al clima y asociada a la elección de los modelos, se tomó un rango amplio de modelos (18 GCMs en total) y se cuantificó el acuerdo de los modelos al cambio medio de la precipitación (Figura 24) y la desviación estándar en el caso de temperatura (Figura 25), al igual que el primer y tercer cuartil considerando el rango de modelos. Por otra parte, para considerar la incertidumbre asociada a la elección de los RCP, se compararon los cambios de precipitación y temperatura bajo los cuatro RCP y los tres periodos de estudio.En la mayor parte de la geografía del país un 60% o más de los modelos están de acuerdo con el cambio medio de la precipitación anual. En algunas zonas del Occidente, particularmente delCorredor Seco, lo modelos muestran un nivel de acuerdo por debajo del 40% y por tanto existe una mayor incertidumbre allí. Para precipitación el cambio medio bajo el escenario RCP 8.5 en 2050s muestra disminuciones leves (con un máximo de -10% de déficit) generalizadas en todo el país incluyendo la zona insular. Algunos modelos muestran mayores déficits de precipitación (primer cuartil) e incrementos leves-moderados (tercer cuartil). Sin embargo, hay más tendencia al déficit. Considerando los cuatro Caminos de Concentración, bajo escenarios de mayores emisiones la tendencia es mayormente hacia el déficit de precipitación, especialmente sobre los horizontes de mediano y largo plazo. Solo el RCP 2.6 muestra incremento medio de precipitación, pero la incertidumbre es alta entre modelos. A medida que la proyección se hace más lejos en el tiempo, la dispersión entre GCM se hace mayor.Figura 24. Incertidumbres en la proyección de precipitación total para RCP 8.5 en 2050s. Izquierda: A)Cambio en precipitación total de un promedio de 18 GCMs. B) promedio del primer cuartil (25%), C) promedio del tercer cuartil (75%), y D) fracción de GCMs en acuerdo con la dirección del cambio medio relevantes a escala gruesa, y que las relaciones entre las variables se mantienen hacia el futuro (Ramírez y Jarvis, 2010). A pesar de las asunciones, el método es apropiado para llegar a escalas de análisis regional como se requiere en el presente estudio.Los pasos empleados para el proceso se muestran en la Figura 26 y se describen a continuación: a) Cálculo de la normal climatológica histórica 1981-2010 en base a la interpolación de la información de estaciones meteorológicas, para las variables precipitación acumulada mensual, temperatura máxima y mínima mensual multianual.b) Obtención de las salidas del ensamblaje multi-modelo de los GCMs a nivel mensual.c) Suavización a 30 arco-segundos (~1 km 2 ) de las anomalías a partir de una interpolación de los centroides de GCMs, utilizando el método splines.d) Adición de las anomalías al clima de referencia obteniendo superficies futuras de 30 arcosegundos (~1Km 2 ), conforme a las Ecuaciones 1 y 2, para temperatura y precipitación respectivamente, obteniendo así las superficies futuras de alta resolución.XDCi es el valor futuro con downscaling de cada pixel para la variable X, en el mes i.XOBSi es el valor actual de las observaciones (línea base interpolada) de cada pixel para la variable X, en el mes i.ΔXIi es el valor de la anomalía interpolada de cada píxel para la variable X, en el mes i. Los superficies regionalizadas a 1 Km 2 para Honduras, se usaron para la elaboración de las fichas regionales (próxima sección) y sirven de base para estudios posteriores de impacto del cambio climático sobre medios de vida, agricultura, hidrología y otros estudios ambientales.A partir de la información de alta resolución generada para la línea de referencia desarrollada y las proyecciones de cambio climático, se realizaron unas fichas regionales, que contienen la información descrita a continuación:Figura 27. Componentes de las fichas de cambio climático de las subregiones de desarrollo.Los escenarios no muestran cambios representativos de precipitación total en la región, sin embargo se proyectan aumentos ligeros hacia el sur y disminuciones hacia el norte bajo el escenario RCP 4.5, y disminuciones generalizadas, acentuádas hacia el norte bajo el escenario RCP 8.5. En general, las poblaciones que pueden verse más afectadas por aumentos de precipitación serían zonas altas como Villanueva y Potrerillos. Los escenarios plantean aumentos de precipitación para la región hasta de un 5% para 2050s y disminuciones de hasta el 12% para fin de siglo. Se proyectan disminuciones en gran parte de la época lluviosa (Jun-Sep) y aumentos finalizando esta (Oct-Nov).Los escenarios muestran aumentos de la temperatura media anual de hasta 2°C para 2050 y 3.5°C para el fin de siglo. Las zonas de mayor aumento se concentran al sur de la región, hacia el Lago de Yojoa, donde también se presentan las mayores precipitaciones. El cambio de temperatura se incrementa transversalmente hacia el sur este. Los incrementos en la temperatura especialmente en los meses de mayor afluencia turística (Marzo-Abril y Octubre), pueden generar disminución en los bancos de pesca por cambios en el metabolismo, propios de los incrementos de temperatura de las aguas, especialmente en el Lago de Yojoa y en la costa Atlántica.Se esperarían aumentos en costos energéticos en maquilas por aumentos de temperatura y el uso de aires acondicionados. Cambios en el clima también traerían afectaciones a la salud (contaminación hídrica y proliferación de vectores).Podría incrementarse el turismo interno, por condiciones óptimas de temperatura y bajas precipitaciones en Omoa, Puerto Cortés y Tela. Sin embargo, el aumento del nivel del mar (alrededor de 30cm) podría afectar la infraestructura turística en algunas playas y las comunidades costeras que subsisten a base de este medio de vida.En el área de la producción hidroeléctrica aumentos de temperaturas influirían negativamente en los caudales de los ríos, sin embargo, el aumento de precipitación proyectado podría impactar positivamente el sector energético, especialmente en el largo plazo. La agricultura familiar y de gran escala pueden verse afectadas por los incrementos de la temperatura, principalmente sobre sistemas de café, banano y palma. Adicionalmente, debido a las variaciones en los patrones de precipitación los granos básicos como maíz y frijol, y otros cultivos como caña de azúcar y hortalizas, necesitarían estrategias de adaptación para la producción sostenible. Al incrementar la temperatura y precipitaciones, especialmente hacia el final del periodo humedo y con el suelo saturado, incrementaría la evaporación, la intensidad de las precipitaciones cortas, y posiblemente la aparición y propagación de plagas y enfermedades en los cultivos.Incrementos de precipitación hacia el final de la temporada humeda (Sep-Oct) podrían incrementar la incidencia de inundaciones, afectando la agroindustria de palma africana, banano, plátano, caña de azúcar y cacao, especialmente en las zonas bajas. Adicionalmente, la disminución de las precipitaciones especialmente en Julio con mayores temperaturas podrían incrementar los requerimientos de riego.El incremento de la temperatura podría disminuir la producción de carne y lácteos por el aumento del gasto energético de los animales y podrían darse pérdidas de forraje en las zonas bajas inundables. Hacia 2050s los escenarios de cambio climático proyectan aumentos ligeros de precipitación anual en toda la geografía de la región de Comayagua, acentuándose hacia el sur bajo el escenario intermedio. Bajo el escenario pesimista se proyectan disminuciones ligeras de menor proporción hacia el sur. Los aumentos son del orden de 6% en 2050s y menores hacia fin de siglo. Bajo el RCP 8.5. La tendencia es al déficit en todos los periodos evaluados. Se proyectan disminuciones en gran parte de la época lluviosa (Jun-Sep) y aumentos leves en los demás meses (Oct-May).Los escenarios muestran aumentos de la temperatura media anual de hasta 2.2°C para 2050 y 3.7°C para el fin de siglo. Espacialmente, los escenarios muestran un aumento homogéneo de la temperatura media que fluctúa entre +1.5 y 1.7°C en 2050s bajo el escenario intermedio. Las zonas de mayor aumento se concentran al este de la región, donde también se presentan las mayores precipitaciones.En el área de la producción hidroeléctrica aumentos de temperaturas influirían negativamente en los caudales de los ríos, sin embargo, el aumento de precipitación proyectado podría impactar positivamente el sector energético, especialmente en el largo plazo. La mayor afectación por el incremento de temperaturas puede presentarse en el café, el cual requiere de medidas de adaptación para afrontar los efectos adversos del cambio climático (especialmente el aumento de la temperatura) o incluso transformación a otros sistemas agrícolas en las zonas de menor altitud (Bunn et. al., 2018). Modificaciones en el ciclo de precipitación anual, podrían alterar la siembra y la cosecha de los granos básicos en el departamento de Comayagua y la desincronización del café. El alza de temperatura y los trastornos potenciales del ciclo hidrológico podrían modificar la disponibilidad de agua, afectando el suministro de agua para agricultura y usos domésticos. Estas condiciones son propicias para una mayor frecuencia de incendios forestales, pérdidas de producción de granos y desfases de ejecución de prácticas agrícolas como la siembra, el control de plagas, enfermedades y la cosecha. Para granos básicos en el valle durante la temporada Junio-Septiembre, especialmente en Julio en la Canícula, requeriría mayor suministro de agua de riego por la reduc- Los escenarios muestran aumentos de la temperatura media anual de hasta 2.2°C para 2050 y hasta 4°C para el fin de siglo, siendo más alto que la mayoría de regiones del país. Espacialmente, los escenarios muestran un aumento homogéneo de la temperatura media en 2050s. por lo que un programa de cosecha de agua puede ser adecuado por la topografía de la región.Cambios en la distribución de lluvias en el ciclo anual, podría aumentar la frecuencia de inundaciones, afectando el turismo cultural y ecológico, las carreteras y provocando daños en la infraestructura turística, especialmente en las zonas de mayor pendiente del occidente. La salud humana también se puede ver afectada por el incremento de vectores e incidencia de enfermedades respiratorias. Podrán aumentar deslizamientos sobre las poblaciones que se encuentran ubicadas en topografías con pendientes elevadas, debido al aumento de precipitaciones y cambios en la cobertura del suelo, por lo que los sectores de construcción e infraestructura en general deben incorporar medidas de adaptación en este sentido. La producción agrícola puede verse afectada por los incrementos de temperatura y cambios leves en las cantidades de precipitación. Las zonas climáticas aptas para el cultivo de café, podrían desplazarse hacia zonas de mayor altitud, dejando a su vez amplias zonas en Cópan y Ocotepeque con la necesidad de cambiar de cultivo (Bunn et. Al., 2018). Los granos básicos, podrían tener déficits en la producción en el departamento de Copán, lo que supone implementar medidas de adaptación para esta región. Las condiciones climáticas favorecerían la proliferación de enfermedades fungosas por lo que deberán existir solidos programas de monitoreo y control sanitario. El aumento en las precipitaciones proyectado por algunos escenarios podría ayudar a disminuir los requerimientos hídricos de algunos cultivos o mejorar la disponibilidad especialmente en épocas húmedas, Los escenarios no muestran cambios representativos de precipitación total, sin embargo se proyectan aumentos ligeros hacia el oeste y disminuciones hacia el centro y el este de la región bajo el escenario intermedio, y disminuciones leves generalizadas bajo el escenario pesimista. Los escenarios plantean aumentos de precipitación para la región hasta de un 5% para 2050s y disminuciones de hasta el 12% para fin de siglo. Se proyectan aumentos en los meses de mayor pluviosidad Oct-Nov) y dismuniciones en los demás meses, particularmente hacia el inicio de la época lluviosa (Ago-Sep).Los escenarios muestran aumentos de la temperatura media anual de hasta 2.1°C para 2050 y hasta 3.5°C para el fin de siglo. El incremento de la temperatura se acentuaría de hacia el centro y oeste de la región, donde también se incrementaría la precipitación. A través del año el aumento es homogéneo en todos meses. Cambios en la distribución de lluvias en el ciclo anual, podrían aumentar la frecuencia de inundaciones, afectando el turismo cultural y ecológico, las carreteras y provocando daños en la infraestructura turística. Aumentos de temperatura de 2°C hacia 2050s, podrían ocasionar cambios en los ecosistemas terrestres y marino-costeros, con pérdida de biodiversidad, desplazamiento y posible extinción de especies. Los incrementos en el nivel del océano podrían afectar algunas construcciones presentes a la orilla del mar. Así mismo, las áreas con tendencia a inundación durante marea alta presentarían mayor susceptibilidad a dichos eventos. Podrían ocasionarse cambios en los sistemas agrícolas y pecuarios. Algunos cultivos como la yuca, en los que la tasa fotosintética aumenta con el calor (sembrada ampliamente por comunidades garífunas), podrían ser beneficiados con los aumentos de temperatura. Algunos otros cultivos de subsistencia como el plátano (en las zonas costeras), o el maíz, frijol y arroz (en los litorales), pueden verse afectados negativamente por cambios en el clima. La palma aceitera, ampliamente sembrada en el litoral caribe, podría ser vulnerable a los cambios en el clima (especialmente por la modificación de los patrones de lluvias) en el mediano y largo plazo por ser un cultivo de planificación de 25 a 30 años. De la misma forma, podrían modificarse los ciclos reproductivos de plagas y la aparición de nuevas plagas y enfermedades. Los escenarios no muestran cambios representativos de precipitación total, sin embargo se proyectan aumentos ligeros hacia el oeste y disminuciones hacia el noreste de la región bajo RCP 4.5. Considerando el escenario RCP 8.5 se proyectan disminuciones en de precipitación en toda la región que se acentúan hacia el centro y norte. Los escenarios plantean aumentos de precipitación para la región hasta de un 5% para 2050s y disminuciones de hasta el 12% para fin de siglo. Se proyectan aumentos en los meses de mayor pluviosidad (Oct-Nov) y dismuniciones en los meses más secos del año.Los escenarios muestran aumentos de la temperatura media anual de hasta 2.1°C para 2050 y hasta 3.5°C para el fin de siglo. El incremento de la temperatura se acentuaría de hacia el centro y suroeste de la región, donde también se incrementaría la precipitación. A través del año el aumento es homogéneo en todos meses. Podría incrementarse el turismo interno, por condiciones óptimas de temperatura y bajas precipitaciones. Sin embargo, el aumento del nivel y el calentamiento oceánico del mar podría afectar en turismo en algunas playas, los ecosistemas marinos y las comunidades costeras que subsisten a base de este medio de vida. Cambios en la distribución de lluvias en el ciclo anual, podría aumentar la frecuencia de inundaciones, afectando el turismo cultural y ecológico, particularmente por daños en la infraestructura y las carreteras. Los escenarios no muestran cambios representativos de precipitación total, sin embargo se proyectan aumentos ligeros hacia el centro y oeste, y disminuciones hacia el este de la región bajo el escanrio intermedio. Bajo condiciones pesimistas (RCP 8.5), se proyectan disminuciones ligeras de precipitación generalizadas en toda la región. Los escenarios plantean aumentos de precipitación para la región hasta de un 5% para 2050s y disminuciones de hasta el 12% para fin de siglo. Se proyectan aumentos en los meses de mayor pluviosidad (Oct-Nov) y dismuniciones en los meses más secos del año.Los escenarios muestran aumentos de la temperatura media anual de hasta 2.2°C para 2050 y 3.7°C para el fin de siglo. Espacialmente, los escenarios muestran un aumento homogéneo de la temperatura media que fluctúa entre +1.5 y 1.7°C en 2050s. Las zonas de mayor aumento se concentran al oeste de la región, donde también se presentarían aumentos de precipitación. El sector de ganadería podrá verse afectado dada la posible disminución del recurso hídrico en las épocas secas. Así mismo, se podrían disminuir la producción de carne y lácteos por el aumento temperatura, ya que el ganado tendría mayor gasto energético.Debido a que en esta zona hay una gran explotación de madera, por la disminución de las lluvias, habrá una alteración de la biomasa afectando su producción También se podrían incrementar los incendios forestales y las especies serían más vulnerables a plagas como el gorgojo. El sector agropecuario a escala familiar se vería afectado por los incrementos de las temperaturas. Así mismo, las variaciones en los patrones de precipitación obligarían a la implementación de estrategias de adaptación para una producción sostenible particularmente de granos básicos que suplen un porcentaje de la demanda nacional. Particularmente fríjol y maíz podrían estar bajo presión en el departamento de Yoro, por bajas en la precipitación en las épocas lluviosas y especialmente por la mayor disminución en Julio en la época de Canícula. El incremento de temperatura podría incrementar la evapotranspiración disminuyendo la oferta hídrica para la agricultura y otros usos. La incidencia de enfermedades y plagas para por cultivos puede La tendencia de cambio de precipitación es hacia el aumento leve (acentuádose hacia el oeste) bajo el escenario intermedio, y déficit leve bajo el escenario pesimista en toda la extensión de la región. Los escenarios plantean aumentos de precipitación para la región hasta de un 5% para 2050s y disminuciones de hasta el 12% para fin de siglo. Se proyectan aumentos en el inicio y final de época lluviosa (Mayo y Octubre) y disminuciones en los meses intermedios (Junio a Septiembre).Los escenarios muestran un aumento en toda la región para la temperatura media anual variando entre 1 -2.1 °C en 2050 y 1 -4°C en 2080. El incremento se muestra de manera uniforme en la región. Algunas zonas que comunmente son las más frías (noroccidente), aumentarían considerablemente su temepratura media. Noreste de Olancho podría sufrir considerables bajas de rendimiento. Los aumentos de temperatura sumados a los déficits de precipitación en la época lluviosa podrían generar mayores costos para los cultivos.El sector de ganadería podrá verse afectado dada la posible disminución del recurso hídrico y la oferta de forrajes como consecuencia del incremento de temperatura. Así mismo, la producción de leche y carne se puede afectar directamente por las altas temperaturas que provoca estrés calórico en los animales.Las fichas regionales sobre cambio climático forman parte de las consultorías realizadas por el Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD), para la elaboración de la Tercera Comunicación Nacional sobre Cambio Climático de Honduras dentro de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre Cambio Climático (CMNUCC).El aumento de la temperatura y los trastornos potenciales del ciclo hidrológico podrían modificar la disponibilidad de agua, las condiciones de aridez y la frecuencia y duración de las sequías.Estas condiciones son propicias para una mayor frecuencia de incendios forestales, pérdidas de producción de granos y desfases en la determinación de actividades agrícolas como la siembra, el control de plagas y la cosecha. Por los cambios en la temperatura incremento de enfermedades y plagas en los cultivos pueden ocasionar disminuciones en la producción. Por los incrementos de temperatura y cambios leves en las cantidades de precipitación el maíz en el Los escenarios no muestran cambios representativos de precipitación total, sin embargo se proyectan aumentos ligeros hacia el centro y oeste, y disminuciones hacia el este de la región bajo el escenario RCP 4.5, y dismiuciones ligeras generalizadas bajo el escenario RCP 8.5. Los escenarios plantean aumentos de precipitación para la región hasta de un 5% para 2050s y disminuciones de hasta el 12% para fin de siglo. Se proyectan aumentos en el inicio y final de época lluviosa (Mayo, Octubre y Noviembre) y disminuciones en los meses intermedios (Junio a Septiembre).Los escenarios muestran aumentos de la temperatura media anual de hasta 2.1°C para 2050 y hasta 3.7°C para el fin de siglo. El incremento de la temperatura se acentuaría de hacia el centro y oeste de la región. A través del año el aumento es homogéneo en todos meses.Las fichas regionales sobre cambio climático forman parte de las consultorías realizadas por el Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD), para la elaboración de la Tercera Comunicación Nacional sobre Cambio Climático de Honduras dentro de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre Cambio Climático (CMNUCC).Por los incrementos de temperatura y cambios leves en las cantidades de precipitación se podría disminuir la producción de maíz y frijol en Juticalpa, Catacamas y otras zonas productivas de la región. Además, se aumentarían enfermedades y plagas en los cultivos, lo que ocasionaría significativas disminuciones en la producción.La producción de leche y carne en zonas como el valle de Guayape se pueden afectar directamente por las altas temperaturas que provocan estrés calórico en los animales. Además, el déficit de precipitación sugiere sequías más intensas en la temporada lluviosa lo que puede afectar la producción de forrajes y el pico de producción de leche entre Junio y Septiembre en el departamento de Olancho.Las alzas en la temperatura podrían aumentar la frecuencia de incendios forestales. Debido a que en esta zona hay una gran explotación de madera. La disminución de las lluvias podría alterar la generación de biomasa y su producción. También se podrían incrementar los incendios forestales y las especies serían más vulnerables a plagas. Dulce Nombre de CulmiLos escenarios no muestran cambios representativos de precipitación total, solo un déficit generalizado en toda la región de menos de entre 3% (bajo RCP 4.5) y 4% (bajo RCP 8.5) hacia 2050s. Considerando los diversos horizontes de tiempo futuro, se proyectan aumentos de precipitación para la región hasta de un 5% para 2050s y disminuciones de hasta el 12% para fin de siglo. Se proyectan aumentos en la precipitación acumulada en el inicio y final de época lluviosa (Mayo, Octubre, Noviembre y Diciembre) y disminuciones en los meses intermedios (Junio a Septiembre).Los escenarios muestran aumentos de la temperatura media anual de hasta 2°C para 2050 y hasta 3.5°C para el fin de siglo. El incremento de la temperatura se acentuaría de hacia el sur de la región. A través del año el aumento es homogéneo en todos meses. Los ecosistemas marino-costeros se verán afectados con cambios en la biodiversidad, por desplazamiento y posible extinción de especies. En las especies acuáticas las temperaturas corporales varían en función de la temperatura ambiente. Aumentos de temperatura de su hábitat influye notablemente en su metabolismo, tasa de crecimiento (por inapetencia de alimento), productividad, reproducción estacional y sensibilidad a enfermedades y toxinas.El sector de ganadería podrá verse afectado especialmente por el incremento de las temperaturas y la oferta de forrajes verse afectada, especialmente por posibles anegamientos en zonas bajas, lo que puede inducir a un incremento en la frontera agrícola. Así mismo, la producción de leche y carne se puede afectar directamente por las altas temperaturas que provoca estrés calórico en los animales.Las fichas regionales sobre cambio climático forman parte de las consultorías realizadas por el Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD), para la elaboración de la Tercera Comunicación Nacional sobre Cambio Climático de Honduras dentro de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre Cambio Climático (CMNUCC).En el sector agrícola por los incrementos de temperatura y cambios leves en las cantidades de precipitación los cultivos pueden disminuir la producción de maíz y frijol en Colón. Sin embargo, podrían existir zonas de presión de estos granos básicos los que podría provocar que sus áreas de producción migren a mejores condiciones climáticas en algunas zonas de Colón. Cambios en la temperatura incrementarán la incidencia de enfermedades y plagas en los cultivos. Algunos cultivos como la yuca, en los que la tasa fotosintética aumenta con el calor (sembrada ampliamente por comunidades garífunas), podrían ser beneficiados con los aumentos de temperatura. Algunos otros cultivos de subsistencia como el plátano (en las zonas costeras), o frijol y arroz (en los litorales), pueden verse afectados negativamente por cambios en el clima. toxinas. Por esto, se esperan pérdidas de rendimientos y mayor morbilidad en el sector pesquero, especialmente el artesanal.Algunos cultivos como la yuca, en los que la tasa fotosintética aumenta con el calor (sembrada ampliamente por comunidades garífunas), podrían ser beneficiados con los aumentos de temperatura. Algunos otros cultivos de subsistencia como el plátano (en las zonas costeras), o el maíz y arroz (en los litorales), pueden verse afectados negativamente por cambios en el clima. Sin embargo, podrían existir zonas de menor precipitación donde el fríjol podría migrar por mejores condiciones climáticas en Gracias a Dios.Las fichas regionales sobre cambio climático forman parte de las consultorías realizadas por el Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD), para la elaboración de la Tercera Comunicación Nacional sobre Cambio Climático de Honduras dentro de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre Cambio Climático (CMNUCC).Debido a la explotación de madera en la zona el sector forestal será uno de los mayores afectados, especialmente por la disminución de las lluvias, lo que podría alterar la producción de la biomasa. También se podrían incrementar los incendios forestales y las especies serían más vulnerables a plagas como el gorgojo. Por las alzas en la temperatura podrían aumentar la frecuencia de incendios forestales.En las especies acuáticas las temperaturas corporales varían en función de la temperatura ambiente. Cualquier cambio en la temperatura de su hábitat influye notablemente en su metabolismo, tasa de crecimiento (por inapetencia de alimento), productividad, reproducción estacional y sensibilidad a enfermedades y La agroindustria alimenticia se vería afectada por bajas en el rendimiento de materias primas para productos en base a maíz y otros cereales.La producción de leche y carne se puede afectar directamente por el incremento de la temperatura que provoca estrés calórico en los animales. Es posible que en la temporada seca se alargue habiendo poca disponibilidad de agua para abrevar o alteraciones en la producción de forrajes.En el sector forestal, por la disminución de las lluvias, habrá una alteración de la biomasa afectando su producción. El aumento de temperatura y la mala distribución de las lluvias puede presentar una mayor presencia de plagas y las alzas en la temperatura podrían aumentar la frecuencia de incendios forestales.Las fichas regionales sobre cambio climático forman parte de las consultorías realizadas por el Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD), para la elaboración de la Tercera Comunicación Nacional sobre Cambio Climático de Honduras dentro de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre Cambio Climático (CMNUCC).La producción agrícola puede verse afectada por los incrementos de temperatura y cambios leves en las cantidades de precipitación. La incidencia de enfermedades y plagas para cultivos puede incrementarse. Café como rubro de importancia económica requeriría medidas de adaptación para afrontar los efectos adversos del cambio climático (especialmente los cambios en temperatura) o incluso transformación a otros cultivos en las zonas de menor altitud (Bunn et.al., 2018). Modificaciones en el ciclo de precipitación anual, podría alterar la siembra y la cosecha de los granos básicos en el departamento de El Paraíso y la desincronización de algunas actividades en el cultivo de café. Particularmente zonas de producción fríjol en El Paraíso podrían verse seriamente afectadas por bajas en el rendimiento, debido a condiciones climáticas que favorecerían la proliferación de enfermedades fungosas.Línea Al igual que en otras regiones del sur-occidente del país, la tendencia de cambio de precipitación es hacia el aumento leve en el escenario intermedio en toda la extensión geográfica de la región, acentuádose hacia el oeste, donde se registran las mayores precipitación (por arriba de 1200 mm/año). Bajo el escenario pesimista las condiciones futuras son de déficit leve, ligeramente acentúando hacia el este. Los escenarios plantean aumentos de precipitación para la región hasta de un 8% para 2050s (bajo el escenario RCP 2.6) y disminuciones de hasta el 10% para fin de siglo (bajo RCP 8.5). Considerando el ciclo monomodal de precipitaciones presente en la región, se proyectan aumentos hacia inicio y final de la época lluviosa (Mayo y Octubre) y disminuciones en los meses restantes (Junio a Septiembre). En la época seca, las precipitaciones permanecen sin variaciones significativas.Los escenarios muestran un aumento en toda la región para la temperatura media anual variando entre 1 -2.1 °C en 2050 y 1 -3.7°C en 2080. El incremento se muestra de manera uniforme en la región.  et, al., 2018). Modificaciones en el ciclo de precipitación anual, podría alterar la siembra y la cosecha de los granos básicos en la zona montañosa del departamento de Francisco Morazán y cambios en algunas prácticas asociadas al café. Incremento de enfermedades y plagas en los cultivos pueden ocasionar disminuciones importantes en la producción.La agroindustria alimenticia se vería afectada por bajas en el rendimiento de materias primas para productos en base a maíz y otros cereales.Las fichas regionales sobre cambio climático forman parte de las consultorías realizadas por el Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD), para la elaboración de la Tercera Comunicación Nacional sobre Cambio Climático de Honduras dentro de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre Cambio Climático (CMNUCC).El incremento en la cantidad de precipitación durante el mes de octubre puede incrementar el riesgo de deslizamientos e inundaciones. La producción agrícola puede verse afectada por los incrementos de temperatura y cambios leves en las cantidades de precipitación. Para café, ganadería, y granos básicos serían necesarias estrategias de adaptación sistémicas y en algunos casos de transformación a otros rubros productivos. Café como rubro de importancia económica requeriría medidas de adaptación para afrontar los efectos adversos del cambio climático (especialmente los cambios en temperatura) o incluso transformación a Al igual que en otras regiones del sur del país, la tendencia de cambio de precipitación es hacia el aumento leve-moderado, acentuádose hacia este a oeste bajo el escnario intermedio y hacia el déficit leve bajo el escenario pesimista. Los mayores aumentos se presentarían donde se registran las precipitaciones más altas (por arriba de 1200 mm/año). Los escenarios plantean aumentos de precipitación para la región hasta de un 8% para 2050s (bajo el escenario RCP 2.6). Hacia el inicio de la época lluviosa (Mayo) el aumento es mayor que en otros meses. También se esperarían algunas disminuciones ligeras durante los meses húmedos (Junio a Septiembre). En la época seca, las precipitaciones permanecen sin variaciones significativas.Los escenarios muestran aumentos de la temperatura media anual de hasta 2.2°C para 2050 y 3.7°C para el fin de siglo. Espacialmente, los escenarios muestran un aumento en toda la región pero se acentúa con mayor intensidad al norte de la región, donde las temperaturas medias registradas son menores (abajo de 24°C). En las especies acuáticas los aumentos de temperatura influirían notablemente en su metabolismo, tasa de crecimiento, productividad, reproducción estacional y sensibilidad a enfermedades y toxinas. Por esto, se esperan pérdidas de rendimientos y mayor morbilidad en el sector pesquero del Golfo de Fonseca. El déficit de precipitación durante los meses lluviosos (Junio a Septiembre), podría reducir la producción de camarón en granjas. Así mismo, el incremento en la temperatura puede afectar la reproducción del camarón. Aunque se proyecta un aumento bajo del nivel del mar a futuro, el incremento de la frecuencia de marejadas podrían limitar la actividad pesquera.Las fichas regionales sobre cambio climático forman parte de las consultorías realizadas por el Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD), para la elaboración de la Tercera Comunicación Nacional sobre Cambio Climático de Honduras dentro de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre Cambio Climático (CMNUCC).Las sequías estacionales son frecuentes en esta región, por lo que las comunidades cuyos medios de vida son dependientes de la agricultura con pocas opciones de adaptación, podrían estar expuestas a inseguridad alimentaria por las reducciones de precipitación en los meses húmedos, especialmente en Julio y agosto, donde el efecto de la Canícula se prevé más marcado. El alza de la temperatura y los trastornos potenciales del ciclo hidrológico modificarán la disponibilidad de agua, las condiciones de aridez y la frecuencia y duración de las sequías. Estas condiciones son propicias para una mayor frecuencia de incendios forestales, pérdidas de producción de granos y desfases de ejecución de prácticas agrícolas como la siembra, el control de plagas y la cosecha. Cambios de precipitación en los meses de canícula Julio-Agosto podría también afectar la agricultura de granos básicos de subsistencia. La tendencia de cambio de precipitación es hacia el aumento moderado en toda la extensión de la región, acentuádose hacia el sur, donde se registran las mayores lluvias (arriba de 2000 mm/año en algunas zonas), bajo el RCP 8.5. Considerando el RCP 4.5 la tendencia es hacia el déficit leve. Los escenarios plantean aumentos de precipitación para la región hasta de un 7% para 2050s (bajo el escenario RCP 2.6) y disminuciones de hasta el 14% para fin de siglo (bajo RCP 8.5). Considerando el ciclo monomodal de precipitaciones presente en la región, se proyectan aumentos hacia el inicio y final de época lluviosa (Octubre y Noviembre) y disminuciones en los meses de mayores lluvias (Junio a Septiembre).Los escenarios muestran aumentos considerables de la temperatura media anual de hasta 1.9°C para 2050 y 3.2°C para el fin de siglo. Espacialmente, los escenarios muestran un aumento en toda la región pero se acentúa con mayor intensidad al norte de la región. sequías son frecuentes en esta región, por lo que las comunidades cuyos medios de vida son dependientes de la agricultura con pocas opciones de adaptación, podrían estar expuestas a inseguridad alimentaria por las reducciones de precipitación en los meses húmedos. Cambios de precipitación en los meses de canícula Julio-Agosto podría también afectar la agricultura de granos básicos de subsistencia.El sector de ganadería podrá verse afectado dada la posible disminución del recurso hídrico. Así mismo, la producción de leche y carne se puede afectar directamente por las altas temperaturas.Las fichas regionales sobre cambio climático forman parte de las consultorías realizadas por el Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD), para la elaboración de la Tercera Comunicación Nacional sobre Cambio Climático de Honduras dentro de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre Cambio Climático (CMNUCC).La producción agrícola se podría ver afectada por los incrementos de temperatura, principalmente al sur de la región en la frontera con el Salvador. Sumados a los cambios leves en las cantidades de precipitación, café y granos básicos se verían afectados e incluso se podría evaluar el reemplazo por otros rubros más aptos. Fríjol y maíz podrían tener decrementos en la producción en el departamento de Lempira lo que supone implementar medidas de adaptación para esta región. Así mismo, podrían existir zonas de presión a donde fríjol y maíz podrían migrar por mejores condiciones especialmente en la zona montañosa limítrofe con El Salvador. Las condiciones climáticas favorecerían la proliferación de enfermedades fungosas. Las Los escenarios no muestran cambios representativos de precipitación total, solo un déficit generalizado en toda la región de menos del 3% bajo el escenario intermedio (RCP 4.5) y alrededor del 5% para el escenario pesimista (RCP 8.5) hacia 2050s. Bajo diversos escenarios RCP se proyectan aumentos de precipitación para la región hasta de un 5% para 2050s y disminuciones de hasta el 14% para fin de siglo.Los meses de mayor precipitación (Octubre, Noviembre y Diciembre), presentarían aun mayores precipitaciones a futuro.Los escenarios muestran aumentos considerables de la temperatura media anual de hasta 1.9°C para 2050 y 3.2°C para el fin de siglo. El cambio de temperatura es homogéneo en la región y podría aumentar la evapotranspiración. Los incrementos en el nivel del océano podrían afectar las construcciones actualmente presentes a la orilla del mar, así mismo, las áreas con tendencia a inundación durante marea alta presentarían mayor susceptibilidad a dichos eventos. Los ecosistemas marino-costeros se verán afectados con cambios en la biodiversidad, desplazamiento y posible extinción de especies. El turismo de playa en general podría sufrir afectaciones por marejadas y pérdidas de costa. La tendencia de cambio de precipitación es hacia el aumento leve en toda la extensión de la región bajo el escenario intermedio y disminución leve (acentuada hacia el norte) bajo el escenario pesimista. Los escenarios plantean aumentos de precipitación para la región hasta de un 7% para 2050s y disminuciones de hasta el 12% para fin de siglo. Se proyectan aumentos en el inicio y final de época lluviosa (Mayo, Octubre y Noviembre) y disminuciones en los meses intermedios (Junio a Septiembre), así como en la época seca.Los escenarios muestran aumentos considerables de la temperatura, incluso a mayor tasa que otras regiones del país. La temperatura media anual aumentaría 2.3°C para 2050 y casi 4°C para el fin de siglo. El cambio de termperatura es homogéneo, acentúado hacia el sur-oeste de la región, pero afectaría también la zona de la Montaña de Santa Bárbara. El sector de ganadería podrá verse afectado dada la posible disminución del recurso hídrico. Así mismo, la producción de leche y carne se puede afectar directamente por las altas temperaturas que provoca estrés calórico en los animales.Café como rubro representativo en la región se vería desplazado de las zonas bajas hacia zonas más montañosas de la región, sin embargo, áreas de mayor aptitud climática futura para el cultivo son áreas declaradas de protección. Déficit de precipitación podría afectar afectar la agroindustria de la caña de azúcar debilitando su productividad.Las fichas regionales sobre cambio climático forman parte de las consultorías realizadas por el Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD), para la elaboración de la Tercera Comunicación Nacional sobre Cambio Climático de Honduras dentro de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre Cambio Climático (CMNUCC).El alza de temperaturas y los trastornos potenciales del ciclo hidrológico modificarán la disponibilidad de agua, las condiciones de aridez y la frecuencia y duración de las sequías. Estas condiciones son propicias para una mayor frecuencia de incendios forestales, pérdidas de producción de granos y desfases de ejecución de prácticas agrícolas como la siembra, el control de plagas y la cosecha. Los aumentos de temperatura sumados a los déficits de precipitación podrían generar mayores costos para los cultivos.La expansión térmica del océano junto con el derretimiento de los glaciares son los principales contribuyentes al aumento del nivel medio del mar. Desde 1993 se ha experimentado un aumento más acelerado del incremento del nivel del mar, lo cual es una respuesta al forzamiento radiativo (tanto antropogénico como natural) y al aumento de la pérdida de masa de la capa de hielo (Church et al., 2013). El cambio climático futuro, agregará calor al sistema climático lo cual hace muy probable que la tasa de aumente del nivel del mar se incremente gradualmente durante el siglo 21.Es muy probable que este cambio tendrá un fuerte patrón regional, con algunos lugares experimentando desviaciones locales y regionales de cambio del nivel del mar en comparación con el cambio medio global, como es el caso de los litorales hondureños.Los escenarios futuros de aumento del nivel del mar para Honduras se derivaron de   Comparación entre los escenarios de la segunda y tercera comunicación nacional y otros escenarios de cambio climático para Honduras y la región En la Tabla 5, se evidencia que los actuales escenarios del proyecto TCN/BUR son los únicos realizados a nivel nacional con base en las proyecciones del quinto reporte de evaluación del IPCC.Adicionalmente, dos de los mayores avances fueron: primero, la construcción de una línea de base o normal climatológica actual propia para Honduras con 282 estaciones de precipitación y 69 de temperatura; segundo, la regionalización o downscaling de 18 MCG y para los 4 RCPs para evaluar los impactos y vulnerabilidades. Existen otros escenarios regionales (No incluidos en la tabla) desarrollados por CATIE (Imbach et al., 2018) que evalúan 2 RCPs (RCP4.5 y RCP8.5), sin embargo, la resolución espacial es más baja (8km2), solo se evaluó el 2050 y la normal climatológica es de la base de datos mundial de Worldclim, por lo que se considera que los escenarios de la tercera comunicación de Honduras, son los de mayor especificidad y validez para el territorio Hondureño.Pese a las diferencias en los datos de entrada y las técnicas empleadas para la modelación de clima, los escenarios de la segunda y tercera comunicación muestran una tendencia de déficit de precipitación sobre el territorio hondureño. La segunda comunicación proyecta valores de hasta 40% (60%) de déficit de precipitación anual estacional en 2050s (2080s), mientras que los presentes nuevos escenarios proyectan valores máximos de déficit de 10% (30%) en 2050s (2080s). En temperatura la segunda comunicación presenta incrementos de cerca de 2°C y en estos nuevos escenarios entre 2 y 2.5°C. Ambos reportes coinciden en disminuciones de precipitación y aumentos de temperatura más significativos en la temporada Junio-Julio-Agosto.a una resolución espacial de 30 arco-segundos (~1Km 2 ) y en el sistema de coordenadas geográficas WGS84. En la Tabla 6, se muestran los acrónimos y las unidades de las variables generadas. SdP/00090482/001-2017 / UNDP D267 Descripción: Las superficies climáticas para Honduras (promedios de 30 años) fueron desarrolladas a partir de las observaciones de estaciones meteorológicas de diferentes fuentes oficiales (instituciones locales, nacionales y regionales) para el periodo 1981 a 2010 (último periodo definido por la OMM para el cálculo de la normal climatológica), con una resolución espacial de 30 arco-segundos (1Km2). Las variables generadas fueron precipitación mensual (prec), la temperatura mínima mensual (tmin), temperatura máxima mensual (tmax), temperatura media mensual (tmean) y el rango diurno de temperatura mensual (dtr). Adicionalmente, fueron derivadas las superficies trimestrales y anuales a partir de los juegos de datos mensuales. Para las interpolaciones, seguimos el procedimiento descrito por Hijmans et al. (Hijmans et al., 2005), usando como entrada las normales climatológicas de las estaciones meteorológicas luego de los procesos de control de calidad y llenado de datos faltantes. En áreas con poca densidad de estaciones meteorológicas fueron complementadas con pseudo-estaciones de Terraclimate (Abatzoglou et al., 2018) para la temperatura y CHIRPS (Funk et al., 2015) para la precipitación. Este juego de datos hace parte del trabajo desarrollado por el CIAT para la generación de los escenarios de cambio climático para Honduras en el marco de la Tercera Comunicación Nacional ante la CMNUCC.Línea  (bcc_csm1_1, bcc_csm1_1_m, cesm1_cam5, csiro_mk3_6_0, fio_esm, gfdl_cm3, gfdl_esm2g, gfdl_esm2m, giss_e2r, ipsl_cm5a_lr, miroc_esm, miroc_esm_chem, miroc_miroc5, ohc_hadgem2_es, mri_cgcm3, ncar_ccsm4, ncc_noresm1_m, nimr_hadgem2_ao). Finalmente, en el tercer nivel, dentro de la carpeta de cada modelo, los  El tercero (anomalies_sealevel_models_honduras.zip), donde se organizaron los archivos en dos carpetas, una por cada RCP evaluado y dentro de cada una de ellas 10 subcarpetas que corresponden a cada GCM evaluado (csiro_mk3_6_0, gfdl_cm3, gfdl_esm2g, gfdl_esm2m, giss_e2_r, ipsl_cm5a_lr, miroc_miroc5, mohc_hadgem2_es, mri_cgcm3, ncc_noresm1_m).Dentro de cada sub-carpeta se presentan las series de tiempo anuales (ts) y los promedios de cada periodo de referencia evaluado (avg) para los 2030's, 2050's y 2080's. Se entregan los mapas raster en formatos netCDF (.nc).Los metadatos en la plataforma Dataverse para este conjunto de datos se muestra en la Tabla 9. Las condiciones de referencia provienen del \" Global Ocean -Multimission altimeter satellite gridded sea surface heights and derived variables \", distribuidas por el Servicio de Monitoreo del Medio Marino de Copernicus. Específicamente, utilizamos el conjunto de datos Sealevel-Glo-Phy-L4-Rep-Observations-008-047. Este procesa datos de todas las misiones de altimetría satelital: Jason-3, Sentinel-3A, HY-2A, Saral / AltiKa, Cryosat-2, Jason-2, Jason-1, T / P, ENVISAT, GFO, ERS1 / 2. La resolución es 0.25X0.25 grados y tiene una resolución temporal irregular. Los datos comienzan en 1993 hasta el presente. Usamos el promedio de 20 años y las series temporales de 1996-2015. Re-distribuimos los datos procesados, incluyendo: -_ts: Cambios en la altura del nivel del mar entre el período de referencia 1996-2015 y los datos satelitales históricos.   El módulo académico de capacitación es un espacio virtual diseñado para facilitar el uso de la información de los escenarios de cambio climático para la tercera comunicación ante la CMNUCC.Este módulo busca aclarar algunos conceptos claves para comprender los métodos usados y la información obtenida. Adicionalmente, facilita guías y/o ejercicios que permiten visualizar los resultados sobre la línea base climática y de los escenarios de cambio climático, descargarlos y usarlos en aplicaciones específicas.El módulo fue desarrollado en la plataforma CourseSites by Blackboard®, la cúal es una plataforma con licencia Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY), que permite el acceso gratuito para administrar la entrada de estudiantes e instructores, integrar contenido multimedia, material de apoyo y evaluaciones estructuradas en unidades, evaluar el rendimiento y gestión de calificaciones.El contenido del módulo está constituido por cuatro secciones principales:1. Conceptos de cambio climático.2. Manejo de la información sobre el clima histórico (Normal climatológica).3. Manejo de la información sobre proyecciones de cambio climático.4. Repositorios de información.A continuación, se describen los principales temas incluidos en cada sección o unidad: vi. Las siguientes son las herramientas del grupo que pueden ser usada en ejercicios pedagógicos.Como prueba piloto del módulo de la eficacia del módulo, se impartió un taller a dos grupos identificados y convocados por el proyecto de la Tercera Comunicación y la Dirección Nacional de Cambio Climático. El primer grupo con la presencia de expertos nacionales en el manejo de información meteorológica y de datos de Sistemas de Información Geográfica (SIG). El segundo grupo, tomadores de decisión y/o técnicos de instituciones los cuales deban usar la información generada de los escenarios para generar sus planes sectoriales de adaptación y mitigación del cambio climático.El taller a expertos en manejo de SIG y datos meteorológicos se llevó a cabo el miércoles 12 de Septiembre a doble jornada en el auditorio de la Facultad de Ambiente y Desarrollo de la EAP Zamorano y en la jornada de la tarde del jueves 13 de septiembre en el centro interactivo del agua de MiAmbiente+. En los Anexo 10 y 11 se puede observar la programación de estos talleres, mientras en el Anexo 11 se pueden encontrar un registro fotográfico de los talleres.El taller general, enfocado en tomadores de decisión y/o técnicos encargados de usar la información para generar planes de adaptación y mitigación sectoriales, fue desarrollado en el Centro Interactivo de MiAmbiente+ el jueves 12 de septiembre a doble jornada. En el Anexo 2, se puede observar la programación de este taller general, mientras en el Anexo 12 se pueden encontrar los listados de asistencia y registro fotográfico del taller.Observaciones y recomendaciones para el manejo y gestión de información meteorológica en HondurasLuego del proceso del proceso de caracterización del clima de honduras basado en la información de las estaciones meteorológicas, se realizó un análisis de la situación de la gestión de la información hidro-meteorológica en el país. Este análisis se realizó basado en el esquema planteado en la consultoría \"Diagnóstico de la información existente sobre el recurso hídrico, actores, roles, avances, limitantes y necesidades\" (Peña, 2016) (ver Figura 33) financiado por PNUD y que consolidó la situación de la gestión de este tipo de información basado en opiniones de expertos e interesados nacionales. Por lo cual, el presente análisis, busca complementar o actualizar la consultoría de Peña (2016) (Tabla 10, Gris), a la luz de la experiencia del CIAT como centro de Investigación y usuario de la información hidro-meteorológica en Honduras (Tabla 10, Blanco).Figura 33. Gestión de la Información hidroclimática en Honduras (Peña, 2016).Inter-institucionalidad de los datos Espacialidad y calidad Información disponible en tiempo y forma Conclusiones y recomendaciones de la consultoría para la generación de los escenarios climáticos de Honduras  Los datos meteorológicos de las entidades públicas en Honduras permitieron construir una normal climatológica de alta resolución con datos locales, los cuales fueron complementados con información satelital. Esto marca un precedente para trabajos posteriores que podrán contar con este producto y sin duda se debe valorar el trabajo realizado por las entidades como CENAOS/COPECO, Meteorología Aeronáutica, DGRH, ENEE y SANAA para mantener las observaciones y registros meteorológicos que fueron usados en este trabajo. Para la mejora de la gestión de información meteorológica, además de los costos operativos requeridos por estas entidades públicas, se ha identificado un factor crítico que es la contratación y/o formación de personal técnico especializado en el manejo de grandes bases de datos meteorológicas y aprovechar así la tecnología disponible. Un gran reto es la inter-institucionalidad de los datos y por ende la falta de centralización de los mismos, sin embargo, se deben alinear esfuerzos y fortalecer la generación de bases de datos unificadas como MCH de la OMM, lo cual permitirá facilitar la implementación de múltiples e innovadoras iniciativas como la Plataforma Agua de Honduras, Observatorios regionales y otros que requieren de bases de datos hidro-meteorológicos. Los escenarios de cambio climático de la TCN/BUR, son una herramienta para la toma de decisiones única en la región, porque involucra la regionalización de 18 MCG, 4 RCP's y 3 horizontes temporales, además de 8 variables, incluidas la altura sobre el nivel del mar. Sin embargo, se evidenció la necesidad de poner a disposición de múltiples actores la información de forma libre y ágil. Un primer esfuerzo se hizo por iniciativa del grupo consultor en https://aguadehonduras.gob.hn/cambioclimatico.php, sin embargo, se podría profundizar y hacer aplicaciones más detalladas buscando siempre que la información sea utilizada por los tomadores de decisión y se tomen decisiones basado en información cuantitativa y con soporte científico. Los escenarios generados son una herramienta que puede servir a otros para evaluar los impactos y vulnerabilidades. Son un resultado que busca nutrir la discusión en el país y que le permitirá a diferentes actores investigar sobre los impactos y vulnerabilidades. Es decir estos escenarios de cambio climático son un punto de partida para la evaluación de los impactos y vulnerabilidades debidas al clima en el país, se requiere de procesos de planificación, investigación aplicada a nivel sectorial para sacar provecho de los mismos. Uno de los productos más atractivos de la consultoría realizada es el módulo virtual, el cual busca aclarar muchos conceptos para la interpretación y posterior uso de los escenarios. Se buscó mediante un lenguaje sencillo explicar conceptos que para muchos interesados resultan complejos. Se espera que mediante los recursos de información generados, se generé una discusión amplia que permita la interacción entre diferentes interesados en la búsqueda de una mejor adaptación al cambio climático en el País. Las fichas regionales diseñadas en esta consultoría son una primera versión ejecutiva de los impactos climáticos a nivel de región de desarrollo, se espera que los interesados regionales y locales las puedan usar para propiciar discusiones basadas en datos cuantitativos y complementarlas basado en sus experiencias y conocimientos locales.Anexo 1. Listado general de estaciones con información de precipitación empleadas en el desarrollo de la línea base climatológica luego del control de calidad  Capacitar a expertos hondureños en el área de sistemas de información geográfica (SIG) interesados en el tema de cambio climático y el manejo de la información espacial generada sobre los escenarios de Cambio Climático para Honduras.Las superficies climáticas de alta resolución, tanto de las condiciones actuales (Línea base) como de cambio climático, son juegos de datos que pueden ser utilizados con múltiples propósitos en la gestión ambiental del país. Estas superficies se constituyen en un punto de referencia para entender los efectos de cambio climático y planificar acciones de adaptación y mitigación en diversos sectores como la agricultura, hídrico, salud, infraestructura, biodiversidad, entre muchos otros.Sin embargo, uno de los principales limitantes para la apropiación y uso habitual de este tipo de información espacial en el país, por ejemplo con la información de la segunda comunicación nacional de Cambio Climático (Argeñal, 2010), ha sido la limitada difusión y las dificultades propias de la manipulación de múltiples superficies climáticas de alta resolución en un SIG. Esta consultoría, está colocando a disposición más de 1000 superficies climáticas de todo el país, con diferentes variables climáticas de las condiciones actuales y proyectadas a diferentes horizontes de tiempo y escenarios de acumulación de Gases Efecto Invernadero (GEI). Por lo que se hace necesario capacitar a interesados expertos en el área de SIG para que estos a su vez puedan difundir el uso de este tipo de superficies.Personas con experiencia en manejo de Sistemas de Información Geográfica (SIG) e información ambiental como son las variables climatológicas. Deseable experiencia básica de ArcGIS y R.Materiales Requeridos: Computador portátil con ArcGIS y extensiones de análisis espacial, R y R Studio Instalados. Deseable la lectura previa de métodos y resultados obtenidos en esta consultoría (Proveídos por el equipo de la TCN/BUR).   2:30-3:30 Ejercicio con la aplicación y las fichas Ejercicios prácticos de consulta y análisis de información de la línea base climática a nivel de región de desarrollo, municipio, microcuenca, etc. 3:30 pm -4:30 pm Aplicaciones de la información de escenarios de cambio climático en Honduras Agua de honduras 2. Impactos 3.Plataforma curso virtual 12:00 pm -12:30 pm Retroalimentación de la jornada 137 Anexo 12. Registro fotográfico del módulo académico de capacitación presencial en la EAP Zamorano y el centro interactivo de mi Ambiente+  Retroalimentación y aclaración de dudas sobre los métodos usados para la generación de escenarios de Cambio Climático. Exposición de fundamentos del paquete R y práctica del manejo de rasters y shapefiles en R","tokenCount":"12623"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"290b1e56cf2984db60bdc498acfa4a1c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/14a29b15-22ca-4372-b630-d52517d31463/retrieve","id":"204326634"},"keywords":["aflatoxin","management","Africa","Aspergillus","mycotoxins"],"sieverID":"97ddae30-b1b9-4c86-badc-9b214f463f6c","pagecount":"15","content":"Aflatoxins are natural poisons produced by some members of the Aspergillus section Flavi group. Their control is critical in sub-Saharan Africa as in other parts of the world because of the health and economic dangers that aflatoxins cause. Aflatoxin management requires a pipeline approach (from production to consumption) that addresses the pre-disposing factors to aflatoxin contamination. These strategies will involve strategies at the pre-harvest, peri-harvest and post-harvest stages to prevent contamination. Post-contamination practices are also relevant in situations where avoidance of contamination is not possible. Strategies that inform producers, handlers, consumers of what aflatoxins are, how they can be prevented from contaminating produce or managed are important for aflatoxin management. Additionally, the engagement public and private sectors, regional bodies and community associations are critical for effective aflatoxin management as they have the capacity to influence behavior changes and modulate practices that predispose food and feed to aflatoxin contamination. Furthermore, the role of research and academic institutions to provide factual information and effectively communicate technical information for aflatoxin management is crucial to avoid misinformation and application of improper practices.Most parts of sub-Saharan Africa fall within the region of high perennial risk to mycotoxin contamination. This region is within 40 o N and 40 o S of the equator with warm and humid environmental conditions [1]. Under these favorable conditions of humidity and temperature, fungal prevalence is rife. Unfortunately, some fungi, as part of their metabolic processes, synthesize mycotoxins (fungal toxins), that contaminate crops intended for human and animal consumption [2]. Ingestion of contaminated crops results in morbidity and mortality where tolerable levels are exceeded in food and feed [3,4]. Associated health dysfunctions caused by aflatoxin ingestion include liver carcinoma and other hepatic dysfunctions, stunting in children and associated cognitive deficiencies, reduced immunity, and ailments associated with nutrient malabsorption due to disruption to villi architecture [5][6][7]. Acute aflatoxin ingestion can result in death. In livestock, including poultry, swine and fishes, listlessness, poor feed conversion ratio, reduced productivity are additional signs of aflatoxin ingestion [8,9].In addition to the negative health impacts caused by aflatoxins, aflatoxins also limit income generation. This is because the import of aflatoxin-contaminated produce above regulatory limits of importing countries is prohibited. Therefore, aflatoxin contamination has been responsible for depriving the sub-Saharan region of trade opportunities. Also, trading relationships have been marred by notifications of consistent aflatoxin contamination such as through the rapid alert system of the European Union (https://ec.europa.eu/food/safety/ rasff_en). Moreover, economies of households within the sub-Saharan region are negatively affected because household income is diverted in addressing morbidity caused by aflatoxicosis (illness caused by ingestion of aflatoxins) termed disability adjusted life years (DALYs) [10]. This reduces availability of income for more economically advantageous ventures. Therefore, aflatoxin management is critical for the health and economy of sub-Saharan Africa However, it is reported that countries build social networks of trading relationships based on achievable mycotoxin limits [11]. For example, France is a trading partner with the UK, Spain and Netherlands (among others) which have similar total aflatoxin standards of 4 ng/g. Similarly, the USA is a trading partner with Mexico, Colombia, Dominican Republic (and others) which have similar total aflatoxin standards of 20 ng/g in maize.Aflatoxin management is critical also because in addition to environmental reasons for aflatoxin exposure, infrastructural deficits, informal market structures and improper cultural habits can introduce additional aflatoxin-exposure risks [12]. Management strategies therefore, of necessity requires multi-dimensional approaches that mitigate risks from multiple sources such as contamination risks during crop development, during harvesting and post-harvest. This chapter discusses the approaches that are necessary for aflatoxin mitigation, and those that have been used for the management of aflatoxins in sub-Saharan Africa and progress made so far. Brief mention is also made of emerging strategies for aflatoxin management. and reports and by some news media outlets. Technical research has disclosed the prevalence and exposure levels in crops (e.g. maize, groundnuts, melon seeds (egusi), chillies, dried fish, local spices) [13][14][15]; in addition to biomarkers (e.g. those present in breastmilk of nursing mothers, blood serum and urine) [16,17]. A comprehensive report of incidences have been reviewed [18]. These have revealed the presence of aflatoxins in food crops as an indicator of dietary exposure. These scientific studies have been conducted as part of academic programs, and developmental efforts in collaboration with national systems to establish exposure levels. They have majorly been for chronic exposures, and to provide empirical evidence for outbreaks caused by acute exposure. Incidences of chronic exposure are not as momentous as those for acute exposure, but they could be lifelong starting early in life. This is especially because exposure can precede birth, from foetal exposure through umbilical cord, to aflatoxin exposure very early in life (from the first 1000 days of life), via mothers' breastmilk (where the nursing mother has had dietary aflatoxin exposure), and through weaning foods made using contaminated food products [19]. Furthermore, in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, staple food consumption is frequent and forms a constant source of dietary exposure to consumers. Limited diversity in the meals consumed increases exposure risk, especially if the food consumed is contaminated by these harmful toxins. Aside from the consumption of foods for dietary needs, recreational consumption of locally brewed beers is another risk factor contaminated cereals could form the stock material from which the brews are made from [20].Converse to reports majorly on chronic exposure by technical experts, news media/communication expert reports are often based on acute exposure. Acute outbreaks have caused national alarm (such as those recorded in 1980, 2004 and 2012 in Kenya; and 2016 in Tanzania). These outbreaks of acute aflatoxicosis occurred due to the ingestion of unsuspectingly high levels of aflatoxins in maize consumed as a staple food Outbreaks were first reported as 'mysterious illness' or caused by 'toxic' or 'poisonous' food. This is due to the clandestine nature of aflatoxins. This bears similarity to the foremost global report of aflatoxicosis in 1960 called the \"Turkey X' disease, where 'X' was the mysterious unknown [21]. The covert nature of aflatoxins is primarily because sensual perception of aflatoxins is nearly impossible since the toxins are invisible, tasteless and odorless when present in food crops. Management of aflatoxins during these times have called for crisis response actions that immediately forestall continued exposure.Aflatoxin management requires multiple strategies including the following which are further discussed in details hereafter: Awareness of aflatoxins, Pre-harvest aflatoxin prevention/ reduction, Peri-harvest aflatoxin prevention/reduction, Post-harvest aflatoxin prevention/ reduction and Post-contamination aflatoxin management.Awareness of aflatoxins is critical to its management because information is the basis for initiating and sustaining measures to control aflatoxin exposure and associated health and economic implications. Awareness is a result of access to available information. This knowledge helps to inform the general public, health care practitioners, social workers, policy makers and other stakeholders on the risks of mycotoxins and control strategies necessary for prevention of aflatoxicosis and post-contamination management of contaminated crops, where prevention of contamination is not possible. There are different schools of thought regarding the way awareness creation is most effective [22,23]. One school of thought suggests that the focus should be a top-bottom approach in terms of awareness creation about the problems of and solutions to aflatoxins without a bottom-up approach. The argument for this is that all that is required by the general public is to understand that there are differences in food quality, rather than the technical details of aflatoxins. This system will require that a food grading system is in place that enables the lay buyer to make financial decisions based on product differentiation. Furthermore, this may be more effective in a more organized market system where product differentiation on price and quality attributes are easily discernable. Another school of thought suggests that awareness creation should be a combination of topdown and bottom-up approaches. The argument for this is that education of the lay person on the risks associated with aflatoxicosis is necessary for behavioral changes towards crop management practices. This is important given the informal systems of trading that occur at the rural levels. Furthermore, as the systems of crop management are varied and so may require specific changes in practices suited to the customs of the regions.Current efforts made on aflatoxin awareness have been via multiple channels including policy briefs, regional reports, traditional media and social media reports, and word-of-mouth by various bodies such as regional government bodies and government institutions, privatesector and commercial organizations, extension services and farmers groups/community societies, and academic and research institutions among others.The most notable regional bodies in sub-Saharan Africa regarding aflatoxin management is the Partnership for Aflatoxin Control in Africa (PACA), established under the Africa Union at the 7th Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP). PACA has raised awareness at regional and national levels through programs such as Pan-African workshops (these workshops have brought together scientific experts, lay people, policy makers, farmers and industries), policy briefs, coordination of sensitization and surveillance exercises at regional and national levels (http://aflatoxinpartnership.org). Through PACA's efforts, which are often in partnership with key organizations involved in aflatoxin management/mitigation, policies requiring the control of aflatoxins in foods is becoming mainstream. In recent years (from 2014), PACA has implemented the Africa Aflatoxin Information Management System) (AfricaAIMS) in pilot countries (including Senegal, The Gambia, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda) to collate and harmonize data on aflatoxins [24]. This has been useful for assisting countries to make definitive and coordinated efforts in aflatoxin surveillance and discussions for aflatoxin management.There are concerns that these reports are too technical and so the dire messages of aflatoxin exposure, and beneficial information on relevant interventions for aflatoxin management may not reach all stakeholders. Infographics and short documentations via policy briefs such as those by PACA and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) are being developed. These are deliberate measures that that have been taken for technical information to be readily grasped by lay readers/audiences and policy makers.Other regionals communities involved with raising awareness on aflatoxin management in the sub-Saharan African region include Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel/Comité permanent inter-État de lutte contre la sécheresse au Sahel (CILSS), Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Regional governments and government institutions communities assist with the development of regulatory schemes and their enforcement, aflatoxin testing, development of infrastructure and trade relationships, coordinating the access to appropriate technologies and infrastructure and establishment of trade relationships. Awareness within the communities is also important for proper decision-making. This is done through workshops and meetings wherein technical experts can communicate the technical details in simpler terms and respond to queries to clear doubts.Private sector participation is key for aflatoxin management in the sub-Saharan Africa. This is particularly important because the private sector through demand-driven approach can influence the behaviors of growers, aggregators and important stakeholders towards adoption of aflatoxin management techniques. However, where there is no financial incentive or social incentive to change, growers' inertia to change can be high. The positive influence of the private sector in changing behaviors that promote aflatoxin accumulation have been demonstrated. A few examples are discussed here.Through a scheme, Pay for Performance (P4P), the WFP provided food relief in danger and conflict prone-regions of the world and aided those economies in improving crop quality and reducing aflatoxin contamination [25]. P4P requires grains for food relief. Due to the need to procure high quality food materials for disaster relief and a desire to promote crop production and so aid the economies within such regions, WFP influenced growers' behaviors for reduced aflatoxin contamination. This improved grain quality in the market and introduced grading systems. Examples of countries where this project covered include Zambia, Tanzania, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia. The project was implemented between 2008 and 2013 [25].P4P operated via grassroot and growers' education on aflatoxin mitigation and measurement. Aflatoxin measurement in crops was done by using the blue box that contained aflatoxin test kits, moisture meter, sieves, in addition to other items. Due to the P4P scheme/initiative, WFP rejections of grains in market outlets decreased. WFP also paid a premium price above the prevailing market price to farmers who invested in behavior change as part of P4P. This percentage reduction demonstrated the power of influence that the private sector or those with high purchasing power can have on the market. A more detailed information on this program can be found at http://www1.wfp.org/purchase-for-progress. As part of the program under P4P, producers were trained on crop management practices at post-harvest such as rapid drying of grains to below 14% moisture content, grain sorting, proper sampling techniques for aflatoxin measurement, aflatoxin testing and sample grading. WFP purchased products from the farmers were possible and linked the farmers to markets for grains that they were unable to take up.Mycotoxin screening, including screening for aflatoxins forms a critical component of Nestlé's quality assessment of raw materials. Like WFP, Nestlé has embarked on capacity development initiatives from farmers in out-grower schemes that they work with. This was the Grains Quality Improvement Project. Through training on crop management practices, including post-harvest management, Nestlé markedly reduced their rejection rate from 96 to 4% (between 2007 and 2017) in sub-Saharan countries such as Ghana where this concept has been applied [26]. The Grain Quality Improvement Project (2009) was conducted with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Ghana, Nigeria and Côte D'Ivoire [27,28]. This kind of initiative was imperative for an International Food Brand Nestlé. Additionally, it helped the company to continue to buy locally and at the desired quality. The social impact of this project was perhaps important for Nestle's cooperate social responsibility goals and for the brand to retain its competitive advantage while not reneging on the strict quality standards for its food grains.The private sector involvement via the AgResults Nigeria Aflasafe™ Pilot program was designed to incentivize the use of technologies and implement practices that reduce aflatoxin incidence in crop (http://agresults.org/en/283/). Aflasafe™ is a biological control technology that favors the proliferation of naturally occurring populations of non-aflatoxigenic Aspergillus strains through competitive exclusion of toxin-producing aflatoxigenic Aspergilli [29]. The AgResults Nigeria Aflasafe™ Pilot Program introduced in Nigeria in 2013 encourages private businesses, called (Aflasafe) Implementers, involved in coordinating farmers and aggregating farmers' produce to reduce aflatoxin prevalence in crops by providing the necessary skills and technical information for Implementers to do so via training workshops and linking them to markets seeking premium quality grains (via Innovation Platforms) [30]. The AgResults program operates in Nigeria and is specifically targeted at promoting the use of Aflasafe™ as an inclusion to the good agricultural practices provided in the training package.The private sector's involvement via this pilot program is two-fold. (1) The farmers' grain purchase coordination through Implementers (private businesses that coordinate the training of aflatoxin management including the use of Aflasafe™) ensures that demand for high quality grains are accessible; and (2) Purchase of high quality grains by the food and feed industries (especially the poultry industry) drive the demand for high quality grains. These food and feed industries pay a premium price for the high-quality grains. Additionally, the implementers gain a premium for proper implementation of the aflatoxin-management practice [31]. Due to the sustained demand for high quality grain by the food and feed industries, the implementers maintain the demand for the use of Aflasafe as part of aflatoxin management practices. As such, with the modulation of Aspergillus populations through repeated use of Aflasafe demand for maize with safe levels of aflatoxins in maize grains where the market demands are met with a price incentive as a driver in a pull-mechanism for the implementation of aflatoxin management techniques and technologies.In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, farmers rely on and trust extension officers as accurate and reliable sources of agricultural advice. Therefore, extension agents are a powerful source of knowledge dissemination and awareness creation. However, due to the limitations in budgetary allocations, extension officers do not always have the financial power to reach out to many farmers in the farming communities with up-to-date knowledge on skills and technologies. Additionally, budgetary constraint also limits the ability of the extension officers to regularly receive training required to update their knowledge, skills and practices.Farming communities have started organizing themselves into community groups with leadership structures that help in information dissemination [32]. When training is received by leaders in these groups within a central location, they are then able to disseminate the information in their local chapters. Information about aflatoxin management in many occasions has reached farmers this way. Through these organizational structures, groups are also able to organize field days or famers field schools. Field days where demonstration plots are displayed to farmers also constitute a form of training regularly done. However, this is difficult for aflatoxin control demonstrations, since the chemical toxin is not perceptible with the senses.Academic and research institutions play a key role in creating awareness of the control strategies for aflatoxin and aflatoxicosis prevalence. It is important for them to share accurate information about the management of aflatoxins. Distorted or inaccurate information about aflatoxin management is detrimental to awareness creation efforts made towards aflatoxin mitigation. Academic and research institutions have contributed to raising awareness through the publication of technical reports, discussions at technical meetings and contributions to non-technical writings and reports. They also contribute by organizing training meetings for important stakeholder groups such as extension practitioners, farmers groups, the private sector, regulatory organizations, and other important stakeholders to attend. It is also important for educational institutions and research organizations to partner in training students on aflatoxin management and other phytopathology concerns. This may ensure continuity in capacity development for the management of aflatoxigenic fungi, their toxins and other food security and food safety threats.Online documentation (e.g. websites, blogs, social networks), field extension services, commercial organizations and word of mouth are also important avenues of awareness creation. Dissemination of information via traditional media such as newspaper publications, radio broadcasts and discussions are also important for ensuring that the population gets the required information and to gauge the level of awareness/responses to the sensitization efforts. It is important that these efforts continue where already in place and make-up concerted efforts that are contributory to awareness creation as an important aflatoxin management strategy.Although pre-, peri, and post-harvest aflatoxin management strategies; have been itemized as different from awareness creation, knowledge of these strategies is important for awareness. For pre-harvest aflatoxin management to receive contextual appreciation it is important to understand how aflatoxin contamination occurs. Natural contamination of food by aflatoxins requires contamination by aflatoxigenic strains of Aspergilli. Aflatoxin-producing strains of the Aspergillus section Flavi group such as Aspergillus flavus, A. parasiticus, A. nominus and S strains are responsible for contamination. Recently, a novel aflatoxin producer called A. korhogoensis (defined as a \"a novel cryptic species within the A. flavus clade\" was identified in Côte d'Ivoire [33]. Route of contamination is typically one by which the spores of these strains can enter the grains. Fungal spores reside on crop debris, in soils and can be air-borne when dispersed by wind. Spores can also be carried by insects and birds directly to the grains and thereby contaminate them [34][35][36].To this end, methods that serve as barriers in preventing aflatoxigenic fungi from gaining entrance into the crop are critical for the control of aflatoxin contamination. For the maize during crop development, spores can enter grains via the silk channel (each silk thread leads to a kernel of maize), through cracks in the kernel because of abiotic stress such as heat or drought, and biotic stresses such as insects or birds [34,37]. Furthermore, reducing the populations of the aflatoxin-producers in the environment can also reduce the risk of human exposure to aflatoxin. Pre-harvest management of aflatoxin contamination therefore comprises:• Breeding efforts that increase the barriers to aflatoxigenic fungi [38]. These have been explored through increased tightness of husk cover and increased hardness of grains. These reduce the possibility of fungal entry into the grain and therefore aflatoxin contamination. However, flint grains (very hard grains) are difficult to process and because of that, farmers are not always willing to grow these varieties. Gene silencing as a method for aflatoxin management was recently developed by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) [39]. However, acceptance of genetic modification of foods in and for sub-Saharan Africa has not received wide acceptance.• Insect and pest control reduces the populations of pests that pre-dispose the crop to aflatoxin contamination. Insect control is particularly very important because of the strong correlation between mycotoxin contamination and insect damage. Using pest control can significantly reduce the risk of associated mycotoxins. With the growing inclinations for organic farming globally, the use of non-synthetic pesticides is preferable. Bird scare to prevent damage to the crop is also important. These practices do not only address the risk of contamination but are also important for maintaining optimum yields.• Biological control of aflatoxin is another pre-harvest control strategy that is being adopted in sub-Saharan Africa. Aflasafe as reviewed earlier is a biocontrol measure. It involves the use of non-toxin producing strains to compete with aflatoxin-producing strains on the field as a naturally occurring displacement strategy implemented about a fortnight before crop flowering. Native strains are isolated from regions where the product is to be applied to the most suited/adapted non-toxin producing strains to that environment through rigorous research efforts for isolate selection. The technology has been commercialized under the trade name Aflasafe in a few African countries with continuing research efforts [29].While mold contamination is known in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa because of their visual presentation and bitter taste, the aflatoxins that they produce are frequently unknown because they lack sensory attributes. Therefore, moldy grains would attract lesser value, while grains without visible mold, are not necessarily without aflatoxin contamination. Therefore, it is not uncommon for these grains to be used in the processing of food or feed material in which mold appearance is masked. This is for instance, in the processing of peanut butter, groundnut cake, poultry feed and fermentation for beers [40][41][42][43]. However, this is not a good management technique for aflatoxins as these poor-quality grains enter the food chain as alternative food products and the processing techniques may either minimally reduce the aflatoxins or concentrate the aflatoxins. However, visual signs of mold are not the only indicators of fungal infestation. It is possible for strains that produce high levels of aflatoxins to mildly infected grains, resulting in high aflatoxin levels. Also, grains contaminated with aflatoxins that have been washed and dried after infection, may no longer have visible mold growth but still contain the aflatoxins. This is because aflatoxins are only very mildly soluble in water at 10 mg/ml and are heat stable up to 150°C, after which they are only mildly detoxified [44].During harvest, exposure to aflatoxin contamination can occur due to practices that expose the crop to aflatoxigenic fungi as it is harvested. These could include harvesting during the rains or during high moisture conditions that encourage fungal proliferation; harvesting into recycled or contaminated containers such as bags, and carts that harbor the toxigenic mold or insects, or directly onto uncovered ground surfaces, threshing during harvest in a way that damages the grains. Preventing these would therefore involve the use of clean surfaces or containers for placement of harvested grains and rapid drying after harvest to avoid incubation of the fungus and subsequent accumulation of the toxin.Post-harvest practices occur immediately after harvesting grain produce. These practices are inclusive of practices undertaken such as transportation, storage and processing of the harvested agricultural produce. As with peri-harvest practices, it is important to prevent predisposing factors such as pest infestation, re-contamination from re-used bags or improperly sanitized vessels or vehicles. It is therefore critical to ensure proper pest control, good aeration by placing stored grains in dry and well aerated storehouses. The use of wooden pallets, and away from walls, rather than placing bags in direct contact with floor surfaces and walls limits aflatoxin accumulation in hot spots. Other important post-harvest practices for reducing contamination include winnowing and sorting of grains to remove low density materials and grains that tend to harbor high proportions of the contaminated material [45].Post-contamination management strategies are implemented when all attempts of reducing aflatoxin levels to permissible limits have failed. It is not recommended as a strategy without attempts to prevent contamination. There are controversies surrounding the implementation of some of these practices for the management of aflatoxins. Some of the practices include dilution with non-contaminated grains to reduce bulk contamination, ammoniation [46], binding of aflatoxins using adsorbents or aflatoxin-binders used for animal feed [47], nixtamalization [48], grain fermentation, radiation (including solar radiation) [49], grading to allow higher levels for non-dairy ruminants up to permissible levels, or use as alternative non-food uses such as production of bio-ethanol.Aflatoxin management, including continuous public awareness and monitoring is required both on-farm and off-farm. Awareness is a critical stage of management and covers preharvest, peri-harvest, post-harvest stages of crop production. Post-contamination options are the last alternative to aflatoxin management and is the least preferred method for aflatoxin management in food and feed grains due to other associated risks of contaminant fate. The most preferred method is to prevent entry of aflatoxin-producing fungal strains, then limiting the ability of contaminating aflatoxin-producing strains from synthesizing and accumulating the harmful toxins in food grains. With proper aflatoxin-management, health and income improvement will increase in sub-Saharan Africa -a region with a high perennial risk of aflatoxin exposure, thus boosting the health of the people within the region.","tokenCount":"4246"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"93a4e099a61ac6a51d07f50835fd70d4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/bbfe5dbf-6db1-4fd9-9bfa-e7c032c6a237/retrieve","id":"-1186223199"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"4a49bb89-7577-4781-890f-ba44c87d20f2","pagecount":"5","content":"La yuca (Manihot esculenta Crantz) constituye un alimento básico en la dieta de 17.8 millones de personas en el mundo (FAO 2007), además de ser un cultivo industrial con alto potencial que genera ingresos permanentes para pequeños y medianos agricultores, y aporta al desarrollo social de las regiones donde se cultiva. Entre las características de la yuca se destaca su gran adaptación a condiciones marginales de crecimiento, aspecto relevante para los agricultores que deben afrontar patrones climáticos imprevisibles en los próximos años. El largo ciclo del cultivo de la yuca y su producción en ambientes donde el invierno no interrumpe los ciclos, hace necesario establecer estrategias para mitigar el impacto económico de enfermedades como el Cuero de Sapo (CS), que reporta pérdidas en algunos países de Latinoamérica superiores al 90% (Alvarez et al  2009). El manejo integrado de plagas y enfermedades (MIPE) es fundamental para la producción de yuca y está basado en una explotación y combinación eficiente de fuentes de resistencia genética. Existen varias aproximaciones acerca de la mayoría de factores bióticos que pueden afectar la yuca. Una combinación de resistencia genética, control biológico y/o simples prácticas culturales, como la selección de materiales limpios, son suficientes para asegurar un confiable y saludable crecimiento de la planta y una producción competitiva. Sin embargo, con el cambio climático podrían incrementarse los problemas relacionados con enfermedades y plagas, ocasionando pérdidas económicas significativas. Predecir el surgimiento de enfermedades y plagas y el subsecuente daño del cultivo a partir de los posibles cambios en el clima es deseable, pero difícil de obtener. Muchos vectores de enfermedades y sus enemigos naturales benéficos son fuertemente influenciados por el clima. Una acertada predicción del incremento o reducción de las poblaciones en relación con el cambio climático requiere de un largo monitoreo de su incidencia, severidad y de los niveles poblacionales según las condiciones climáticas. De acuerdo al cuarto reporte del Panel Intergubernamental de Expertos sobre el Cambio Climático -IPCC, por sus siglas en inglés-( 2007), la temperatura se incrementó en 0,6 ºC en el siglo XX, y el incremento más severo ocurrió entre 1976 y 2000, el nivel del mar aumentó entre 0,1 y 0,2 metros, la precipitación varió en al menos 1% por década, hubo mayor incidencia de eventos extremos de lluvia, entre otras afecciones del sistema atmosférico. Además, el reporte concluyó que en latitudes bajas, donde se incluyen países como Paraguay, un incremento pequeño (1-3ºC) podría disminuir los rendimientos de algunos cultivos, pero en el caso puntual de la yuca podría generar condiciones óptimas para el establecimiento de una enfermedad como el CS, teniendo en cuenta que la temperatura es probablemente el factor ambiental más importante influenciando el comportamiento de la enfermedad, su distribución, desarrollo, sobrevivencia y reproducción, factores que en últimas incrementarían las repercusiones económicas del problema. Aunado a todo esto, si el aumento en temperatura es acompañado por extensos periodos de sequía, la actividad de la enfermedad se intensificará y el daño en el cultivo será mayor. El éxito en el control de la enfermedad dependerá, entonces, de un efectivo entendimiento de estas interacciones biótico-climáticas. En América Latina la yuca todavía es cultivada ampliamente con manejo tradicional y hay gran desconocimiento de los agricultores sobre las enfermedades del cultivo y su manejo integrado. Además, el cambio climático está ocasionando que los vectores de la enfermedad se distribuyan en nichos ecológicos diferentes a los reportados, aumentando el riesgo de diseminación del CS y otras enfermedades. En Costa Rica se cultivaron 26.526 ha de yuca en 2007, gran parte de la cual se exportó a Estados Unidos y tuvo un rendimiento que alcanzó las 15 t/ha. En el 2008 el área sembrada disminuyó en un 71,6% y el rendimiento fue de 13 t/ha, ocasionando pérdidas económicas significativas en las regiones de mayor importancia de la yuca en este país, donde se benefician alrededor de 2.100 familias. En estas zonas, el CS ha afectado el 35% del área cultivada (Información personal B. Mora, INTA-Costa Rica 2009). En Colombia, tomando como fuente los datos estadísticos de la agrocadena de Cereales, Avicultura y Porcicultura IICA-MADR (MADR 2007), se observa la yuca como el séptimo cultivo que más empleo directo genera (5,0%), después del café, la caña panelera, el plátano, las flores, el maíz y la papa, además de ubicarse como el sexto cultivo con mayor superficie sembrada en el país (4,6%), después del café, el maíz, el arroz, el plátano y la caña panelera. Según la FAO, en el 2008 el área cultivada en yuca fue de 165.170 ha, área que ha oscilado entre 172.100 ha y 190.200 ha desde 1995, después de alcanzar 207.300 ha en 1990. Losrendimientos promedio nacionales fueron el 40,35% (11,3 t/ha), de los obtenidos en la India, que registra los mayores rendimientos promedio en el mundo, con 27,9 t/ha. Actualmente en Colombia hay varias zonas con CS como la Costa Norte, Llanos Orientales, Región Amazónica y departamento del Cauca, con fincas que han sido afectadas en su totalidad. Es importante resaltar que esta situación también pone en riesgo el cultivo en países limítrofes como Panamá, desde donde se intercambia material vegetativo sin controles fitosanitarios (Información personal M. De Gracia, IDIAP-Panamá 2010). Por su parte Paraguay, es el país con mayor consumo de yuca per cápita en el mundo. En el 2008 destinó 300.000 ha para el cultivo de yuca y alcanzó un rendimiento de 16 t/ha, convirtiéndose en el segundo país productor de yuca en América Latina, después de Brasil (FAO 2010). En los últimos años se ha reportado la enfermedad del CS en los cultivos, problema que de no manejarse adecuadamente, amenazará la sostenibilidad de la producción y la seguridad alimentaria de la región (Información personal G. M. Vega, CODIPSA-Paraguay 2010). Un manejo integrado del CS de la yuca en estas regiones permitirá disminuir y prevenir el impacto de esta enfermedad, que bajo las condiciones cambiantes del clima podría diseminarse por todo Latinoamérica. En Venezuela, por ejemplo, se reportó por primera vez la enfermedad con una incidencia superior al 10% en los estados de Aragua y Barinas, situación relacionada con el incremento de 2 °C en la temperatura promedio de la temporada seca (Chaparro-Martínez & Trujillo-Pinto 2009). A través de este proyecto se fortalecerán las cadenas productivas y favorecerá su sostenibilidad a través de la participación activa de todos sus actores, ofrecerá acompañamiento para la creación de empresas rurales para producción de semilla vegetativa certificada y participación de comercializadores y procesadores de yuca en la identificación de nuevas variedades resistentes a la enfermedad con aceptación en el mercado.Fortalecer las cadenas de valor, mejorando el bienestar socioeconómico de los productores de yuca y disminuyendo la enfermedad del CS en Colombia, Costa Rica y Paraguay, a través de la implementación masiva de tecnologías innovativas que permitan optimizar la productividad, reducir el impacto del cambio climático sobre el cultivo, proteger la seguridad alimentaria y el ambiente, aplicando un esquema de investigación con participación de Universidades, productores y procesadores de yuca.Los productores de yuca en Colombia, Costa Rica y Paraguay implementan un sistema de producción de semilla certificada, identifican fuentes de resistencia genética a CS y utilizan extractos vegetales e inductores de resistencia como una herramienta más económica y que genera mayor rendimiento para sus cultivos. Los investigadores obtienen un estudio epidemiológico de la enfermedad en diferentes altitudes y latitudes, utilizando mapas de predicción e identifican el vector asociado con la enfermedad y su distribución espacial en los tres países. Estos logros tienen un impacto ambiental favorable, contrarrestando el efecto tóxico de los agroquímicos, protegiendo la salud de productores y consumidores, ofreciendo un producto más sano y de mejor calidad, que compite en mercados internacionales. Adicionalmente se hacen talleres de evaluación y seguimiento con los productores para evaluar la sostenibilidad económica y financiera de las tecnologías implementadas.V.Se implementará un sistema de producción de semilla vegetativa certificada mediante el uso de un sistema in vitro y de cámaras térmicas, que facilitará a los productores multiplicar semilla sana a bajo costo. Se evaluará el efecto de micro-elementos y extractos vegetales como fertilizantes sobre el comportamiento de la enfermedad en variedades locales susceptibles. El modelamiento climático permitirá un completo estudio epidemiológico de la enfermedad e identificará los posibles vectores naturales que la transmiten, además se seleccionarán genotipos de yuca resistentes o tolerantes, facilitando un manejo eficiente del CS en las zonas productoras evaluadas.Al finalizar el primer año de ejecución del proyecto, profesionales estarán capacitados en detección de fitoplasmas y virus mediante PCR y PCR en tiempo real y se habrá implementado la producción de plantas in vitro como sistema de obtención de material genético puro y plantas libres de CS. Durante el segundo y tercer año, se implementará el sistema de producción de semilla vegetativa certificada mediante el uso de cámaras térmicas, con supervisión de las entidades de control fitosanitario en cada uno de los tres países. Además, se hará el reporte de insectos portadores de fitoplasmas y virus asociados a la enfermedad y se presentarán mapas de predicción del comportamiento de CS para los años 2020 y 2050. Estos mapas serán el resultado del modelamiento climático de la enfermedad basado en el modelo de nicho ecológico MaxEnt (Phillips & Dudik 2008). Se hará separadamente para cada unos de los países involucrados en el proyecto. Se describirá el plan de manejo de fertilizantes alternos para reducir la severidad de la enfermedad, con base a los resultados obtenidos en los ensayos de cada región. Al final del proyecto se reportarán las variedades seleccionadas, con características agronómicas deseables resistentes a CS. Basados en los modelos de predicción, se contará con alternativas de manejo integrado la enfermedad, que permitirán a los productores aumentar productividad, reducir costos en cultivos tecnificados y sustituir agroquímicos, con una reducción de contaminantes que beneficiará a cultivadores, pobladores cercanos a los cultivos y consumidores. Los cultivos no tecnificados podrán contar a mediano plazo con materiales productivos y resistentes, así como con tecnologías innovativas de manejo integrado de la enfermedad, que les permitan mejorar sus ingresos. Se espera que se beneficien potencialmente más de 2.500 agricultores a través de mayores ingresos, se genere empleo para los habitantes de las regiones productoras y se reduzcan contaminantes en la yuca y el ambiente. Con los resultados obtenidos se apoyará el cultivo de yuca en otras regiones y servirán de referencia metodológica para apoyar el mejoramiento del estado fitosanitario del cultivo en países como Venezuela y Panamá. Por otra parte, se fortalecerán capacidades profesionales, mediante la formación de estudiantes a través de tesis de grado. Se harán días de campo en zonas productoras de cada país y se distribuirán folletos, con el fin de capacitar a productores y técnicos en el reconocimiento y manejo de la enfermedad.El componente espacial del proyecto consistirá en evaluar la incidencia probable del cambio climático sobre la distribución potencial del CS bajo el escenario de emisiones de gases efecto invernadero A1B, para dos épocas (2020 y 2050) y usando un juego representativo de resultados de modelos de clima global (GCM, por sus siglas en inglés). Por su parte, para la obtención de semilla certificada libre de patógenos se fortalecerá en cada país un sistema de producción de plantas in vitro mediante una técnica de propagación a través de yemas apicales que permite la propagación cada 45 días a escala de 1:3-4 dependiendo del clon. Así mismo, se trabajará con un sistema de escala masiva (RITA®) que permite mejoras en la tasa de propagación de 1:6 a 1:23 dependiendo del clon (Escobar 2003). Se evaluará una metodología basada en cámaras térmicas las cuales permitirán una producción de semilla vegetativa de alta calidad, libre de problemas fitosanitarios y con garantía de su identidad genética, a un bajo costo, más rápido y en grandes volúmenes, pudiendo satisfacer las necesidades de producción de material limpio y teniendo en cuenta las características biogeográficas de cada región. A través de los agricultores, se promoverá la creación de empresas rurales para la producción de semilla certificada. Para el establecimiento de un protocolo que certifique la semilla, se implementará la técnica de PCR y PCR en tiempo real, con el fin de aumentar la sensibilidad y rapidez en la detección de patógenos asociados a la enfermedad. Partiendo de los mapas de predicción, se estudiará la epidemiología de la enfermedad en cada región, identificando específicamente a los vectores y huéspedes alternativos que permitan evaluar el o los posibles vectores naturales de CS, colectando homópteros en lotes de yuca y malezas aledañas. Se capturarán especímenes vivos y se alimentarán sobre medio artificial, para detectar y caracterizar el patógeno mediante PCR en tiempo real. Posteriormente se identificarán las especies que hayan dado resultados positivos al CS. Se monitorearán quincenalmente, para determinar incidencia, frecuencia y la abundancia de especies posibles vectores en los lotes de yuca y en malezas dentro y fuera de los cultivos. Al final se hará una colección de referencia de insectos vectores por localidad y hospederos. El efecto de micro-elementos fertilizantes y extractos vegetales sobre el comportamiento de la enfermedad en variedades locales susceptibles se evaluará en parcelas demostrativas del cultivo, durante un máximo de dos ciclos a escala comercial. Se sembrará un ensayo por cada localidad seleccionada, con dos a tres variedades regionales con la implementación de modelos de fertilización desarrollados por el Programa de Patología de Yuca del CIAT (Fertilización con ácidos húmicos y fúlvicos: lixiviado de compost de raquis de plátano y otros disponibles en cada zona; fertilización con fosfito de potasio y microelementos como Boro, Manganeso, Silicio y Calcio como elementos relacionados con resistencia a enfermedades). En estudios de campo realizados en CIAT, se ha demostrado que existen diferentes niveles de tolerancia a la enfermedad entre las variedades mejoradas-élite de yuca con potencial para consumo humano, la agroindustria de almidón y bioetanol. Basados en los grupos de variedades con mejor adaptabilidad, y de acuerdo con los mapas de predicción y el modelamiento climático de las zonas, se realizarán ensayos de campo con variedades tolerantes y/o resistentes, permitiendo observar si existe alguna diferencia en el porcentaje y tiempo de transmisión de la enfermedad entre las variedades, evaluando su efecto en la epidemiología de la enfermedad.Una vez se analice cuáles variedades serán las más adecuadas se procederá a realizar un cultivo tipo comercial para la obtención de semilla y se procederá a la multiplicación masiva de material de siembra sano. Se seleccionarán algunas variedades de interés para cada región y se sembrará un lote aislado con semilla certificada libre de la enfermedad para posteriormente ser distribuida en las zonas productoras. Se analizarán los resultados obtenidos de los diferentes ensayos para realizar la evaluación económica teniendo en cuenta los parámetros de ausencia o presencia de síntomas de la enfermedad, altura, ramificación y vigor de las plantas para cuantificar cantidad de semillas que se obtienen por planta, producción obtenida por planta para evaluar rendimiento promedio por variedad; cálculo de los costos de producción de semilla, cantidad de semilla obtenida a partir de cámaras térmicas, impacto de la divulgación del conocimiento de la enfermedad y la forma de controlarla para evitar su diseminación en estas zonas y medir el impacto económico y social en el uso de semilla certificada. Finalmente, teniendo en cuenta que existen todavía muchas dudas y desinformación con respecto a la enfermedad, se impartirá al sector agropecuario charlas informativas del manejo del CS. Esto se logrará mediante la realización de jornadas culturales con agricultores y técnicos en días de campo y talleres en diferentes zonas productoras de cada país. Se conformará un equipo de personal con experiencia en la producción de yuca en las zonas de ejecución del proyecto para que orienten reuniones de campo de corta duración acerca de la manera de conseguir los mejores resultados en la propagación de material de yuca para la obtención de cultivos sanos y productivos. El proyecto, con base en los objetivos específicos a lograr, establecerá una batería de indicadores de monitoreo y evaluación de la sostenibilidad económica del proyecto y sus resultados.La ejecución del proyecto, además de los agricultores y procesadores de yuca, será realizada por un equipo de investigadores que incluye fitomejoradores, entomólogos, fitopatólogos, analistas espaciales (geógrafos) y economistas, expertos en cultivo de yuca de centros de investigación, empresas y universidades de Colombia, Costa Rica y Paraguay. Los agricultores participarán en las selecciones de clones élite de yuca resistentes a CS (AMUC, APROYSA), conjuntamente con los procesadores (PCI, CODIPSA) e investigadores de CIAT, Universidad de Córdoba, FIDAR (Colombia), INTA (Costa Rica) y DIA (Paraguay). Los productores también participarán en las evaluaciones en campo de las alternativas de manejo fitosanitario y se capacitarán en tecnologías de manejo integrado de plagas y enfermedades. Las empresas líderes jugarán un papel clave en la evaluación de los materiales en los mercados de interés y en la toma de decisiones durante la implementación del proyecto. Para la ejecución de las actividades del proyecto las universidades y centros de investigación de los tres países participarán con infraestructura, investigadores, técnicos y estudiantes. El tiempo de dedicación del equipo ejecutor principal será del 70% del total del proyecto, las otras entidades co-ejecutoras serán responsables del otro 30%. El CIAT, como investigador líder del consorcio aportará la tecnología in vitro y cámaras térmicas, capacitará a los profesionales en detección de fitoplasmas y virus mediante PCR y PCR en tiempo real y llevará a cabo la identificación de los vectores. A través de DAPA, el CIAT también evaluará la incidencia probable del cambio climático sobre la distribución potencial del CS. Con la respectiva supervisión de la organización líder y FIDAR, el INTA, DIA y la Universidad de Córdoba se encargarán de realizar el montaje de los ensayos de campo pertinentes para el cumplimiento de los objetivos específicos planteados y serán los encargados de la transferencia de tecnología y capacitación de los productores locales acerca del manejo integrado del CS, teniendo en cuenta los resultados obtenidos por cada miembro del consorcio.Indicar el monto estimado que el consorcio solicitaría a FONTAGRO y los aportes estimados de contrapartida: Recursos FONTAGRO: US $ 320.000 Recursos de contrapartida: US $360.000 Monto total estimado: US $680.000","tokenCount":"2996"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ba0f4492334e5ff5a87cf57993a4ee2e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/477f2003-00b0-481a-99d4-418d763a4cf0/retrieve","id":"350471527"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c346b019-aecb-40d4-92b0-1b4b66ee489d","pagecount":"1","content":"Las condiciones heterogéneas de la agricultura como clima, suelos, topografía, manejo, materiales de siembra, entre otros, y la dificultad de predecir su comportamiento, como por ejemplo los cambios meteorológicos y las epidemias de plagas y enfermedades, han llevado al desarrollo de investigaciones que suministren tecnologías para cada finca de acuerdo a sus condiciones especificas, para cada lote de cultivo.Con este enfoque se define la Agricultura Específica por Sitio (AES) como \"el arte de ajustar las prácticas agronómicas requeridas por una especie vegetal de acuerdo con las condiciones espaciales y temporales del sitio donde se cultiva, para obtener de ella su máximo rendimiento\". (Isaacs. E., CH. et al. 2004). La Agricultura Específica por Sitio vincula la experiencia y los conocimientos de los agricultores y las prácticas en sus mismas fincas en la adaptación de nuevas tecnologías.La productividad de los cultivos hace referencia a los rendimientos (peso/unidad de área), la oportunidad (picos y precio de cosecha en el tiempo), y calidad de la fruta (apariencia, grados Brix, tamaño).La utilización de tecnologías específicas a cada sitio mejora la productividad de los cultivos.La importancia del conocimiento y experiencia de los productores. La confianza que tienen los productores en resultados y conclusiones derivados de sus campos bajo condiciones comerciales. La posibilidad de transferir resultados a una zona de otra homóloga en condiciones sociales y agro ecológicas.Agricultores, comercializadores, técnicos, científicos se convierten en investigadores que se involucran en todo el proceso desde el registro de sus observaciones sobre el comportamiento de los cultivos hasta la utilización de la información generada para tomar decisiones sobre qué cultivar y la mejor forma de hacerlo.• Muchos agricultores de diferentes sitios realizan observaciones sobre el comportamiento de sus cultivos en cada uno de sus lotes. • Se reúne toda la información de muchos agricultores y de muchos sitios.• Toda la información se analiza para entender qué pasa con los cultivos en los diferentes sitios.• Se interpreta la información con los agricultores para que la utilicen en la toma de decisiones para su finca. Contribuyen a entender los sistemas de producción con todas sus variables y predecir su comportamiento gracias a resultados anticipados ante una serie de situaciones. Por ejemplo un agricultor podrá conocer los sitios que reúnen las condiciones ideales para sembrar un cultivo o que cultivo es apropiado para sembrar en un lugar específico.Seleccionar sitios óptimos para establecer un nuevo cultivo; seleccionar el cultivo apropiado de acuerdo a las características de un lote; decidir qué material de siembra es apropiado para las características de un lote; determinar las tecnologías apropiadas de acuerdo al lote y al material vegetal.Objetivo: Encontrar en Colombia zonas homólogas (temperatura, precipitación) a aquellas donde se encuentran unidades productivas de mora, lulo y guanábana de las cuales se conocen sus características climáticas.La georreferenciación del lote permite acceder a información sobre el clima con una resolución espacial de 30sg ~1 km en la base de datos WorldClim, la cual tiene datos del promedio mes a mes del temperatura y precipitación, de los últimos 50 años.Los mapas se construyen a partir de la información de los puntos caracterizados en cada cultivo.El nivel de pertenencia de cada punto en el mapa a cada zona de referencia, fue convertido a un único valor (unión difusa). El nivel de color en la escala de azul a rojo representa la pertenencia al conjunto de zonas caracterizadas. Rojo: pertenecías altas. Azul: pertenencias bajas.Objetivo: Encontrar zonas homólogas a zonas donde se han identificado la presencia de materiales élite de guanábana empleando la metodología basada en la lógica difusa.Se seleccionaron árboles con las mejores características fenotípicas de acuerdo con su estructura, resistencia a plagas y enfermedades, calidad y cantidad de producción, que pueden servir como árboles élite para su propagación. Para esto se caracterizaron los árboles preseleccionados por cada propietario en cada finca. La caracterización incluyó: caracterización del suelo con la metodología RASTA, caracterización agromorfológica de los árboles, caracterización de frutos y caracterización socioeconómica del productor.De los 49 árboles caracterizados se seleccionaron 5 materiales élite, como resultado de análisis estadísticos.Árbol CBVA # 2: Finca Villa Angela, Vereda La Meza, El Pital (Huila) -Latitud 2o 15' 6.20\" Longitud 75o 49' 7.37\". Árbol CBVA # 3: Finca Villa Angela, Vereda La Meza, El Pital (Huila) -Latitud 2o 15' 6.28\" Longitud 75o 49' 68.9\". Árbol CBVM # 1: Finca Villa Medina, El Pital (Huila) -Latitud 2o 16' 38.5\" Longitud 75o 46' 11.5\".Árbol CBEA # 1: Finca El Avispero, Suaza (Huila) -Latitud: 1o 52' 8.93'' Longitud 75o 49' 12. 9''.Árbol CBLE # 2: Finca La Esperanza, Vereda La Sabina, Corregimiento Maito -Tarquí (Hulia) Latitud 2o 2' 27.1'' Longitud 75o 54' 60''.Figura 1. Zonas homólogas a las zonas donde se identificaron los materiales élite de guanábana. Metodología basada en lógica difusa.La figura 1 muestra en rojo los valores con pertenencia al conjunto de zonas donde se identificaron los materiales élite de guanábana marcados con una cruz (+). Valores cercanos al azul presentan pertenencias menores a las zonas donde se identificaron dichos materiales.Los resultados indican que además de las zonas donde se identificaron materiales élites, otras zonas como Norte de Santander, Santander, Cundinamarca, Tolima, Cauca y Nariño reúnen condiciones de temperatura y precipitación, similares.Utilidades: Identificar lugares apropiados para cultivar materiales seleccionados. Guiar la búsqueda de materiales élite.Experiencias Huila, Valle Nariño, Caldas, Risaralda, Cundinamarca y Tolima Desarrollo con los productores y con instituciones de asistencia técnica de la zona, capacidades para: r econocimiento de plagas y enfermedad","tokenCount":"895"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"bad05c8fd11a43e85eb0db3bb26c35a9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/65b5a11e-c2df-4d90-8312-c2f696591fb1/retrieve","id":"148836619"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"af42b645-c74f-482c-9dfe-1b8c4cec4822","pagecount":"11","content":"In situ conservation of plant genetic diversity has received growing attention in the last 30-40 years, primarily in relation to wild species. In Asia, the number of protected areas tripled between the 1960s and early 1990s (MacKinnon, 1995). In situ maintenance of crop genetic diversity, however, was not considered a viable conservation strategy by international organizations or leading specialists until recently (Williams, 1988;Frankel, 1970). The earlier assumption was that landraces were used only in traditional agricultural systems. Technological modernization then, especially the introduction of new cultivars, would inevitably lead to the loss of landraces in most cases. Since it would be both impracticable and immoral to preserve an entire system in its traditional state, it was argued, ex situ rather than in situ conservation was the only solution.In fact, the cultivation of diversity has survived enormous historical changes in these supposed unchanging societies (Wolf, 1982). There is clear evidence that landraces continue to be cultivated under modern conditions and with modern technology (Brush, 1991(Brush, , 1993)). Nevertheless, some of these findings give rise to concern. Modern or selected commercial cultivars seem to have contributed in some cases to the decline of area, fragmentation into pockets or islands of production, and even the disappearance of indigenous cultivars altogether (Brush, 1993).That is an important issue for sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam.) in Asia, the secondary center of diversity and the primary center of production and use of the crop. There is an urgent need to identify adequate national conservation strategies to ensure the continued availability of genetic diversity to farmers and plant breeders. In situ conservation could provide greater accessibility to diversity and, by spreading the costs of conservation, reduce the vulnerability of publicly funded ex situ genebanks. It could maintain diversity and habitat viability where continued crop evolution could take place provided a few commercial cultivars do not dominate and displace local crop genetic diversity.To gauge the real potential of in situ conservation, it is necessary to fully understand cultivar maintenance practices of households under different socioeconomic and ecological conditions, and the dynamics of varietal dominance. Does dominance mean displacement? This paper draws conclusions for the future role of in situ maintenance in crop conservation strategies. It is based on case studies in three areas where varietal dominance is important.To document and evaluate sweetpotato diversity in Asia and to understand how farmers maintain cultivars, CIP has supported germplasm collection and socioeconomic studies in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam since the early 1990s. Fieldwork methods have varied considerably. Some focused on collection and characterization with minimum documentation of   (Prain, 1995). The last is the most commercialized production system in Southeast Asia and by volume the most important system in Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The different systems influ-ence farmer maintenance of sweetpotato diversity.The case study on shifting cultivation in mountain environments is based on published and unpublished data collected in Wagawaga, Central Irian Jaya, Indonesia (Schneider and Yaku, 1996;Schneider et al., 1997;and Prain, Widiastuti, and Yaku, unpubl.). Wagawaga is in the northern part of the Baliem Valley, a large, flat agricultural area. The valley is surrounded by steeply rising mountain walls, which also support shifting agriculture. There are two main sweetpotato production systems. In one, hipere wen, sweetpotato is planted in individual mounds on high ridges surrounded by deep drainage ditches. The other, yabu waganak, is similar to hipere wen but without the drainage ditches. Yabu waganak is sometimes practiced in gardens near the compounds, particularly on hillsides.As in most parts of highland Irian Jaya, steamed or baked sweetpotato is the staple food of Wagawaga families, accounting for as much as 90% of their diet (Heider, 1979). Production systems are designed to supply freshly harvested sweetpotato yearround. Households maintain several beds at different stages of development as well as mixtures of cultivars in each bed to ensure supplies. Mixtures are important. Local people compare the mixing of many sweetpotato cultivars in one garden bed with the need to mix up the clans for marriage to ensure the continuity of the tribe. Short duration cultivars are important components of the mixtures. The number of cultivars maintained per bed ranged from 7 to 20, with an average of 12. Women who maintain multiple sweetpotato beds do not plant the same set in each bed, but the most important cultivars are likely to be common in all beds.Wagawaga was designated as an in situ site in 1994. A preliminary study on the genetic diversity (Yuliantiningsih, 1995) identified 47 cultivars in the 30 beds of the in situ study garden. A follow-up documentation of 30 beds in 1998 also documented 47 cultivars, but only 27 of these were the same as the cultivars planted in 1994 (Table 1). The distribution of the different sets of cultivars in 1994 and in 1998 are quite similar, although the beds documented in 1998 were not exactly the same as those in the 1994 study since beds are periodically remade within the same garden area. We can better understand the cultivar distribution by considering two key characteristics of farmers cultivar management: the number of plants of a cultivar and the frequency with which the cultivar is planted in different beds (Figures 1 and 2). The planting density of cultivars was calculated differently in 1994 and 1998. In 1994, the total number of plants in the garden was counted and the percentage of the total calculated for each cultivar. In 1998, each bed was mapped and the percentage each cultivar occupied in the bed was calculated.Helaleke asli was the most widely planted cultivar in both 1994 and in 1998, with 34.9% of bed area in 1994 and 42% in 1998 (Cluster 1, Figures 1 and 2). This cultivar is the most important human food in Wagawaga and, in particular, is the appropriate food for women to present to men. The second most widely planted cultivar, in area and in number of beds where it was grown, was Musan. It occupied 16% of bed area in 1994 (Figure 1) and 24% in 1998 (Figure 2). This cultivar produces large roots and is an important source of pig feed in the area. According to women (who plant and tend the beds), the proportion of beds dedicated to particular cultivars varies, depending on the proportion of people and pigs in households and compounds.The second clustering (Cluster 2, Figures 1 and 2) includes cultivars planted in more than 10 beds and which occupy more than 1% of bed area. These clusters comprise cultivars that are also important, but for different reasons. One is connected with the use of sweetpotato for baby food, such as cultivars Arukulek, Welelom, and Welelum Baru. The rapid diffusion of the new cultivar Wortel between 1994 and 1998 seems to be due to its orange color and less floury texture, preferred characteristics for baby food. Some, such as Hupuk are ancestral cultivars. They must be planted, often before other cultivars and by the fertility chief, for the sake of the ancestors and to ensure a bountiful harvest. Many of these cultivars are valued as adult food and are also fed to pigs, especially the smaller roots. Cluster 3 involves cultivars that appear residual. In 1994, 30 of the 47 cultivars were grown in fewer than 10 beds and accounted for only 4% of area. In 1998, 33 cultivars were grown in fewer than 10 beds and accounted for 6% of area. Women say they do not forget to plant any of the cultivars, even these with such tiny representation. However, they may not replant some cultivars if they do not find cuttings,   Cluster 3 Cluster 2Cluster 1 Helaleke (42.9%) Musan (24%)Figure 2.Distribution of 47 sweetpotato varieties in 30 beds, Wagawaga, Irian Jaya, Indonesia, 1998.which is especially possible with this last cluster. These cultivars account for most of the variation between 1994 and 1998 as they slip in and out of the system. Of the 20 cultivars that disappeared, almost all covered less than 0.5% of beds and were planted in fewer than 5 beds.A similar situation applies to the newly introduced cultivars in 1998. Almost all were found in fewer than 5 of the 30 beds, with very small area planted. Exceptions are Tinta (in 18 beds in 1998) and Wortel (14 beds). Tinta is grown as pig feed. Wortel is grown as baby food and for sale to non-Irianese consumers who like its yellow flesh. Both cultivars are new (baru), meaning they have recently been introduced or identified as novel types, probably having emerged as seedlings.The upland rotations case study involves a semicommercial system practiced in Maambong Province on Mindanao, the southernmost of the larger Philippine islands (Prain and Piniero, 1999). It is one of the wettest areas of the country with well-distributed rainfall allowing crops to be planted throughout the year. That favors sweetpotato conservation, because vegetative planting material is readily available for replanting. Maambong is situated in the relatively flat, northern part of a generally undulating grassland plateau, crosscut with deep river valleys.Farmers practice adapted plow agriculture and rotations on the plateau and in the hills, especially for maize, root crops, and, more recently, vegetables. Another common production system is the home garden, which normally supports a large amount of biodiversity. Sweetpotato is a supplementary staple in both systems. There has been a steady increase in sweetpotato genetic diversity with the influx of cultivars brought by migrants from the northern coast and from nearby smaller islands. However, the growth in diversity may have peaked around the early 1980s. That was around the time a multinational pineapple plantation became an increasingly important employer in the area; this increased opportunities for vegetable production.Through an agreement with an informal group of women in Maambong, a conservation garden was established. The garden, initially consisting of 24 beds, was modeled after household gardens. Following initial experimentation, however, the women adopted a rotation system with peanut for replanting their root crop collections. Each woman cultivated her own plot and initially planted cultivars from her own fields and garden, leading to considerable duplication of cultivars across the plots.There was a sharp rise in sweetpotato diversity in the second planting, from 11 to 19 cultivars, with one lost (Table 2). That can be explained by several factors, the most important of which is the influence of the project itself. The considerable interest and enthusiasm among the women in diversity maintenance resulted in their scouring the locality for additional cultivars. However, five of the added cultivars had already disappeared from the garden by the third planting; all had disappeared by the fifth planting. It was felt that the project had heightened the normal practice of evaluating any new cultivar for which planting material is available.That impression was supported by the similar pattern that characterized subsequent plantings, with a few rare local or exotic cultivars added only to be abandoned later. A cluster of preferred cultivars present from the beginning of the garden (Klarin, Five Fingers, Igorot Pula, Igorot Puti, Amerikano, Kamada, and Tapol) were consistently planted by most women and gradually became the main cultivars (Table 2). Furthermore, in later plantings there was a tendency to reduce the numbers of plants of other cultivars in favor of the preferred cultivars. That was particularly true of Klarin and Five Fingers, which are popular in the fresh market. Characteristics of the preferred cultivars are given in Table 3. The wide genetic diversity suggests close relation between diversity of use and genetic diversity.The lowland postrice sweetpotato production system case study (Anganon et al., 1998;Data et al., 1997) is based on the key commercial sweetpotato producing  Key: Plant type = 1 erect, 9 extremely spreading. Vine color = 1 green, 9 totally dark purple. Leaf vein color = 1 yellow, 2 green, 3 purple spots main rib, 4 purple spots several veins, 5 main rib partially purple, 6 main rib mostly purple, 7 all veins partially purple, 8 all veins mostly purple, 9 lower surface and veins totally purple. Leaf shape (combination of 4 numbers): 1 st Outline = 1 rounded, 7 almost divided; 2 nd Type of lobe = 1 none, 9 very deep; 3 rd Lobe number; 4 th Shape of central lobe = 0 absent, 9 linear. Immature and mature leaf color (combination of 2 numbers) = 1 yellow-green, 9 totally purple. Petiole pigment = 1 green, 2 green with purple near stem, 3 green with purple near leaf, 4 green with purple both ends, 5 green with purple spots throughout, 6 green with purple stripes, 7 purple with green near leaf, 8 some petioles purple, some green, 9 totally/mostly purple. Root shape = 1 round, 9 long, irregular or curved. Skin color (combination of 3 numbers): main = 1 white, 9 dark purple; intensity = 1 pale, 3 dark; secondary = 0 absent, 9 dark purple. Flesh color (combination of 3 numbers): main = 1 white, 9 strongly pigmented; second color = 0 absent, 9 dark purple; distribution of color = 0 absent, 9 covering all.region in Central Luzon, the Philippines. Located about 50 km north of Manila, it is the main supplier for the urban fresh root market. Sweetpotato is commercially grown in ricefields during the dry months from December to April, with peak harvest in March. Central Luzons six provinces had a sweetpotato production area of approximately 9,000 ha in the early 1990s. Recently, the area has expanded to 10,000 ha through increased demand for sweetpotato as a raw material for large-scale starch processing. Moreover, destructive flows of volcanic debris resulting from the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 forced the shift from rice and sugarcane to sweetpotato.A total of 25 sweetpotato cultivars have been grown in the region since the early 20th century, according to farmers. Only four are now widely grown and a single cultivar Superbureau covers at least 80% of the total production area. High root yield, marketability, and early maturity are the most important traits considered by farmers. Historically, farmers grew a mix of cultivars for both general and specialized uses. For instance, two popular cultivars, Bureau and Taiwan, were preferred for the high quality of their boiled roots. Girayan and Lampangog were grown because they commanded high prices for their use in traditional dishes. Finally, the establishment of starch factories created a demand for Superbureau as a processing cultivar.Availability of planting materials has also been a major determinant of cultivar. Most farmers maintain their own mini-seedplots of preferred cultivars. With the high demand for planting materials at the start of a cropping season, some enterprising farmers have offered specialized seed production and marketing services. The cultivars propagated by these commercial suppliers determine the varietal combinations for the next season. For instance, Tarlac farmers, faced with the acute shortage of their preferred Bureau, resorted to planting Superbureau, the only material available from seed suppliers from the neighboring province. The seed suppliers have in turn been responding to agroecological and socioeconomic changes in the region. Bureau was being severely affected by feathery mottle virus (SPFMV) and possibly other viruses in the early 1990s and seed growers began looking for an alternative cultivar. Superbureau had many of the characteristics of Bureau, but was more resistant to SPFMV and more appropriate for the developing processing industry. In 1998, Superbureau itself began exhibiting a similar susceptibility to the virus complex, prompting farmers to seek newer, more tolerant cultivars. Meanwhile, with increasing attention to the processing market, cultivars high in dry matter became important.Despite the relative uniformity of the postrice system in Central Luzon, agroecological variation affecting cultivar choice still exists. Variation may be stable and long-term such as in soils, topography, drainage, etc. For example, in some areas Superbureau performs very poorly. Or variation may be produced through natural disasters such as the accumulating volcanic debris in agricultural land after the Mount Pinatubo eruption. For instance, there has been greater preference for Ube over Binicol in some affected areas.Patterns of Diversity: Maintenance, Dominant Cultivars, and In Situ Conservation In all three case studies, one or two cultivars are preferred. They are planted by most farmers and over much larger areas than other cultivars. That reflects the fact that the dominant local concerns will be reflected in the one or two cultivars that best address those concerns. Even when dominant concerns are the same, such as cultivars for home consumption or for sale in the market, they can result in different dominant cultivars. That is because the agroecological conditions themselves vary and different cultivars adapt in different ways such as between provinces in Central Luzon or between Irian Jayas hill-dwelling and valley-bottom farmers. Similarly, in Mindanao comparative studies of neighboring communities revealed that different, but isomorphic, genotypes essentially fulfil the same function (Prain and Piniero, 1999). Given the variability of the environment that exists in the uplands, especially in the mountains, we can expect to find considerable genetic diversity, even when cultural preferences are similar.When we observe cultivar maintenance along the dimensions of frequency of planting in different beds and the more common measure of plant density per bed, the regular and often substantial occurrence of other cultivars indicates other important societal concerns. In Maambong, in addition to the two dominant cultivars grown primarily for the fresh market, other cultivars are maintained for early maturity, vegetable use, pig feed, etc. In Wagawaga, while Helaleke asli and Musan are the main sources of food and feed, respectively, several cultivars are also maintained for infant food or for sale. The most striking example of what we can call cultural saliency, however, is the role of particular cultivars in rituals of first planting and consecration of land.In both Wagawaga and Maambong, the dynamism of local maintenance appears to occur primarily among cultivars that are planted in a few beds with few plants per bed. Ritual cultivars also have few plants per bed, but the many women who plant them do not let them disappear. The old cultivars are planted first, not only to comply with custom but because they are said to need more fertilization than exotic cultivars. The extreme case is Inin, which is planted in a pile of ash from burnt branches of cleared garden to ensure production. This careful management contrasts with the treatment of cultivars in few beds and small areas. These residual or experimental cultivars, which might certainly include the products of fortuitous seed germination, usually enter and exit individual collections quite rapidly. Occasionally, a cultivar like Wotel or Tinta will be taken up by increasing numbers of farmers.The Central Luzon case indicates that in the past diversity of use stimulated diversity of cultivar. More recently there has been a shift from spatial to temporal diversity, a process shared with other highly commercial areas (Prain and Fano, 1991). The one or two commercial cultivars covering a wide area are quite rapidly replaced as their productivity declines due to disease, they are outperformed by new cultivars, or market demand changes.These findings have implications for in situ conservation strategies. A more comprehensive analysis of dominance suggests that evolution toward modern sweetpotato agriculture dominated by a single cultivar is not inevitable. Even if sweetpotato were to become a more commercial crop in Wagawaga, the maintenance practices are resilient enough to incorporate one or two commercially dominant cultivars without overall decline in variability. Maambong also gives reason for optimism. There the same kind of cultural salience characterizes several cultivars besides those dominant in plant density. Moreover, in the upland, particularly the hillside environments of these regions, there is isomorphic variability. That is, genetically diverse cultivars with similar cultural salience are found at different sites in a region. One could therefore envision a network approach to in situ conservation. Sets of culturally salient and genetically highly diverse cultivars could be maintained in selected sites within a region. The contribution of the national genetic resources conservation system toward this type of farmer-led conservation should focus on five things. 3. Simple reward system involving agricultural seeds and low-input technologies. 4. Facilitating access to exotic germplasm from other sites and from breeding programs. 5. Supporting continuing diversification of use and the cultural salience of different cultivars.Although the kinds of lowlands represented by Central Luzon are unlikely to become repositories of genetic diversity, in situ conservation strategies at least should attempt to increase local diversity through diversifying uses (Amihan- Vega and Bacusmo, 1999). That could help to avoid the serious consequences that virus disease is now having on the mono-cultivar crop in Central Luzon.","tokenCount":"3401"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c03f64321fff18022063531bf61ba2aa","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/81e82dbc-586f-4763-b015-e64ef947c589/retrieve","id":"1139153178"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"005fdb5c-3f19-46db-930b-021db76ebb4a","pagecount":"28","content":"Maní Forrajero Perenne (Arachis pintoi) también evaluada por elICA y el CIA T para mejorar la calidad de pasturas de Humidicola.Una de las actividades de investigac ión del Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario (ICA) es la evaluación de materiales forrajeros, con el fin de ofrecer nuevas y mejores alternativas de alimentación para los rumiantes en las diferentes condiciones edáficas y climáticas de las zonas ganaderas del país.Desde 1970, el ICA en un esfuerzo interinstitucional con el Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIA T), ha venido desarrollando en los Llanos Orientales de Colombia una importante labor con tal propósito. Dentro de los materiales de forrajeras introducidos al país por el CIA T y evaluados por las dos entidades se encuentra el pasto Hu midicola (Brachiaria humidicola!, gramínea que se hadifundido principalmente en la al ti llanura yen los piedemontes llanero y amazónico, debido a su buena adaptación a las condiciones climáticas, a la acidez y baja fertilid ad natural de los suelos de estas regiones. Igualmente importante para su difusión ha sido su crecimiento estolonífero vigoroso, su cobertura del suelo, tolerancia al mión de los pastos y alta capacidad de carga animal.Para obtener buenos rendimientos en producción animal con Humidicola es necesario asociarlo con leguminosas forrajeras; por ello, durante los últimos años los esfuerzos combinados del ICAy el CIA T se han orientado a la selección de leguminosas compatibles y productivas con gramíneas estoloníferas, como es el caso del pasto Humidicola.Este arduo y constante proceso investigati vo permite al ICA recomendar en este boletín la tecnología adecuada para el manejo y la utilización del pasto Humidicola. Esta tecnología enfatiza el uso de una leguminosacomoEl pasto Humidicola (Brachiariahumidico/a) se hadifundido ampliamente entre los ganaderos de los Llanos Orientales de Colombia, debido a su adaptación a condiciones de suelos ácidos y de baja fertilidad, densa cobertura, alta capacidad de carga y tolerancia a exceso de humedad en el suelo.Las evaluaciones realizadas por el Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario (TCA), conjuntamente con el Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIA 1) en diferentes localidades de los Llanos Orientales de Colombia, han demostrado el buen comportamiento agronómico de esta gramínea y han pennitido identificar problemas que limitan la productividad animal. Así, se ha encontrado que las ganancias de peso vivo animal son menores que las encontradas con otras gramíneas del género Brachiaria. En pasturas de Humidicola la producción animal disminuye rápidamente con el tiempo como consecuencia de una reducción en el valor nutritivo, principalmente proteína, y bajo consumo voluntario por los animales.En suelos ácidos de baja fertilidad natural, las asociaciones de pasto Humidicolacon leguminosas compatibles y persistentes con esta gramínea, como Maní Forrajero Perenne (Arachis pintoi), constituyen buenas alternativas para mejorar la calidad de la gramínea y lograr incrementos significativos en la producción animal.En este boletín se describen las características principales del pasto Humidicola y se dan recomendaciones sobre su manejo y utilización . Con esta información, resultante de varios años de investigación, se espera contribuir al mejoramiento de las pasturas y a la producción animal en el trópico latinoamericano.El pasto Humidicola se destaca por las características siguientes:-Tiene buena adaptación a suelos ácidos, con alta saturación de aluminio y baja fertilidad.-Se propaga por material vegetativo (estolones y cepas) y por semilla.-Tiene crecimiento estolonífero vigoroso; presenta una cobertura densa; es agresi vo; poco compatible con leguminosas, excepto con Maní Forrajero Perenne y Desmodium ovalifo/ium.-Tolera bien los excesos de humedad en el suelo, pero no el encharcamiento prolongado.-Tolera la sequía; sin embargo, en suelos arenosos durante esta época disminuye su producción de forraje.-Soporta altas cargas animales en pastoreo (Foto 1).Foto 1. El paslo Humidicola soporta altas cargas animales en pastoreo.-Es tolerante a la quema, a plagas y enfermedades, aunque en zonas muy húmedas puede ser atacado por la roya (Uromyces se/anae i/alicae). El pasto Humidicola puede hospedar altas poblaciones del mión de los pastos que ocasiona daños severos a esta gramínea y a otras especies susceptibles.-Produce poca semilla viable y presenta latencia prolongada.-Su calidad nutritiva es baja, particularmente en términos de proteína cruda, locual afectael consumo voluntario y la ganancia de peso del animal.-La calidad disminuye rápidamente a travéz del tiempo y la productividad animal es menor que la de otras especies de Brachiaria.Brachiaria humidico/a es nativo del Africa tropical oriental y suroriental, especialmente de zonas con altas precipitaciones. Se cultiva en Brasil, Ecuador, Venezuela y otros países de América tropical. Fue introducido a Colombia en 1973 por el CIA T con el número de acessión CIA T 679 y se ha evaluado en diferentes ecosistemas como las sabanas de los Llanos Orientales y los piedemontes llanero y amazónico de Colombia.EL pasto Humidicola es perenne y estolonífero; los entrenudos superiores miden 8 a 10 cm de longitud y los inferiores 2 a3 cm, son glabros y de color verde claro. Las vainas de las hojas carecen de vellosidades. Los estolones son fuertes, largos, de color púrpura, y enraízan con facilidad.Las hojas son lineales, lanceoladas, semicoriáceas, con el ápice acuminado. Las hojas de los tallos tienen de lOa 30 cm de longitud y de 0.5 a 1.0 cm de ancho. Las hojas de los estolones tienen de 2.5 cm a 12 cm de largo y de 0.8 a 1.2 cm de ancho.La inflorescencia es terminal, racimosa, con 1 a 4 racimos de 3 cm a 5 cm de longitud . Las espiguillas son uniseriadas, bifloras, alternadas a lo largo del raquis con pedicelos cortos, y miden de 5 cm a 6 cm de longitud.Crece bien en regiones tropicales desde el nivel del mar hasta 1800 m de altura, con precipitaciones entre 1500 mm y 4000 mm al año. Se comporta bien en d iferentes tipos de suelo, desde fértiles hasta ácidos y pobres, y de francos a arcillosos.En regiones con alta incidencia de malezas, como las de los piedemontes llanero y amazónico, es conveniente efectuar la preparación convencional del suelo con suficiente anticipación a la siembra para controlar la vegetación existente y permitir la descomposición de la biomasa. En el piedemonte llanero se recomienda iniciarlas labores de preparación al final del período de lluvias para controlar el crecimiento de la vegetación y asegurar la descomposición de la vegetación existente. Las labores de preparación se deben culminar al inicio del siguiente período de lluv ias con una o dos rastri liadas.En la alti llanura de los Llanos Orientales, la preparación del suelo se debe iniciar al final de la época de lluvias con la quema de la vegetación nativa y un pase de rastrillo, y terminarla al inicio del siguiente período de lluvias con dos O tres pases de rastrillo. Después de estas labores, el suelo queda con alguna rugosidad, lo cual se considera adecuado para la siembra con semi lIa o con material vegetati vo.La siembra de Humidicola puede hacerse por estolones, cepasocon semilla (Foto 2) . La semi lIa presenta generalmente problemas de germinación por su prolongada dormancia. Cuando la calidad de ésta no es garantizada, la siembra debe hacerse con material vegetativo. Cuando se siembra por estolones, se requiere aproximadamente I tonelada de éstos por hectárea, y si se trata de cepas se necesitan 6 toneladas por hectárea.Foto 2. Material vegetativo para la multiplicación de pa!' to Humidicola.La siembra de Humidicola, solo o asociado con leguminosas, debe hacerse durante el período de lluvias. En la siembra po r estolones se requiere un suelo con mayor humedad que en la siembra por cepas .Para la siembra con material vegetativo se requiere un buen contacto del suelo con el material. En zonas mecanizables se puede surcar el terreno y distribuir el material, cubriéndolo con rastrillo o con azadón (Foto 3). En zonas de ladera, para evitar la erosión del suelo, se puede sembrar en fonna manual por sitios, o en surcos a través de la pendiente. La distancia de siembra en surcos puede variar entre 60 cm y 100 cm y de 50 cm a 60 cm entre plantas.Por su agresividad y dominancia, el pasto Humidicola ha mostrado poca compatibilidad con leguminosas como kudzu (Pueraria phaseoloides), Cenrrosema sp. y Stylosanthes sp.; sin embargo, Desmodium ovalifolium s Foto 3. Siembra de pasto Humidicola con material vegetativo .y Maní Forrajero Perenne constituyen excelentes alternativas para asociar con esta gramínea, debido a su buen desarrollo estolonífero, alta producción de semilla, tolerancia a la sombra y al pastoreo intenso, lo cual garantiza la persistencia de estas leguminosas en las pasturas(Foto4). Las leguminosas pueden sembrarse al mismo tiempo que la gramínea, a voleo o en surcos alternos, con material vegetativo o con semilla.La calidad del forraje del pasto Humidicola disminuye rápidamente a través del tiempo, debido principalmente a la deficiencia de nitrógeno; por lo tanto, se requiere la aplicación de fertil izantes nitrogenados, o la introducción de leguminosas persistentes y productivas.Pard introducir leguminosas en pasturas ya establecidas con Humidicola se puede usar una de las alternati vas siguientes: -Sobrepa~toreo y control de toda la vegetación con uno o dos pases de rastrillo, o un pase con arado de cincel y dos pases con rastrillo californiano. A continuación se siembra Maní Forrajero Perenne con semilla a voleo (8 kg/ha) ocon material vegetativo (600 kg/ha) en surcos distanciados entre 1.0 m y 1.5 m, y 0.6 m entre plantas.-Sobrepastoreo y siembra de la leguminosa en franjas. En este caso, las franjas de la leguminosa se hacen con 2 ó 3 pases de rastrillo. Se pueden hacer franjas alternas de 3.5 m de ancho y sembrar en ellas la leguminosa en surcos distanciados 70 cm.En ambos casos, se deben aplicar en el sitio de siembra las dosis de fertilizante siguientes: 15 a 20 kg/ha de fósforo como roca fosfórica Huila, Pesca, o calfos; 25 a 50 kg/ha de K como cloruro de potasio, 15 kg/ha de Mg y 15 kg/ha de S.Las investigaciones realizada. en el C.I. Carimagua indican que en las paslurasde Humidicola QCume una bajata<;a de mineralización del nitrógeno; además en suelos deficientes en materia orgánica, el pa_to presenta bajo contenido de proteína, lo cual trae como consecuencia la reducción en el consumo por el animal y bajas ganancias de peso vivo.La fertilización nitrogenada es costosa; por lo tanto, se recomienda establecerlo en mezcla con leguminosas compatibles y persistentes como el Maní Forrajero Perenne (Arachis pilIlOi), la cual suministra el nitrógeno requerido por la gramínea, mejoran la calidad del forraje en oferta y seleccionado porel an imal y,porconsiguiente, incrementan la producción animal.Para el establecimiento de la gramínea sola en los piedemontes llanero y amazónico y en laalti llanura, se pueden aplicar los siguientes nutrimentos y dosis: fósforo = 15 a 20 kg/ha de P y potasio = 15 a 25 kg/ha de K. Se recomienda sembrar esta gramínea en asociación con una leguminosa, en ese caso se deben aplicar las dosis de fertilizantes siguientes: fósforo = 20 a 25 kg/ha de P; potasio = 25 a 50 kg/ha de K; magnesio = 15 a 20 kg/ha de Mg y azufre = lOa 15 kg/ha. Para una adecuada fertilización, utilizando insumos disponibles en el mercado, se presenta la alternativa siguiente: roca fosfórica del Hu ila o de Pesca (20% de PP,) = 200 a 225 kg/ha; cloruro de potasio (60% de K(0) = 50 a 100 kg/ha; carbonato de magnesio (24% de Mg) = 67 a 88 kg/ha y flor de azufre (85% de S) = 12 a 18 kg/ha. Como fuente de fósforo también puede utilizarsecalfos(IO%de P,O,) a razón de 440 a 500 kg/ha. Cuando no sea posible usar la alternativa de fertilización anterior, se pueden emplear fertilizantes compuestos, tales como: 10-30-10, 10-20-20, 15-15-15, 14-14-14, 12-24-12en dosis de 100a 200 kg/ha, adicionando magnesio y azufre en las dosis recomendadas.Los suelos de la altillanura plana de los Llanos Orientales de Colombia presentan generalmente menores contenidos de estos minerales; por tanto, las recomendaciones se aproximan a los niveles más altos indicados anteriormente.Cuando la siembra de las especies se hace a voleo, se sugiere aplicar e incorporar la fuente de fósforo con el último pase de rastrillo, pero si la siembra se hace en surcos el fósforo debe aplicarse en banda al momento de la siembra. Los demás fertilizantes deben aplicarse 30 a45 días después de la siembra y su forma de aplicación dependerá del sistema de siembra, a voleo o en hileras, y de la maquinaria disponible.La fertilización de mantenimiento debe hacerse a partir del segundo año; aplicando anualmente 25 % a 50% de las dosis empleadas en la siembra.La aplicación debe hacerse al inicio o un poco antes de finalizar el período de lluvias.En pasturas de Humidicola el nitrógeno puede limitar su producción y calidad nutritiva, lo cual hace más importante el establecimiento de este pasto asociado con una leguminosa.La realización oportuna y adecuada de las labores de preparación del suelo, rendimientos de forraje cuando se establece en áreas de suelos arcillosos hasta francos . Sin embargo, los rendimientos bajan a medidaquedisminuye la precipitación, especialmente en suelos arenosos.En el piedemontedel Meta (Foto 5), con una fertilización basal de 15 kgl ha de P y 25 kglha de K la producción de forraje seco por corte en época seca fluctúo entre 550 y 700 kglha, y en la época lluviosa entre 750 y 2000 kglha, cosechado a intervalos de 5 a 8 semanas. La producción anual de forraje en base seca varió entre 7000 y 9000 kglha.En el piedemonte del Casanare con una fertilización de 15 kglha de P y 12 kglhade K, el rendimiento promedio anual, de forraje seco fluctuó entre 3900 kglha en suelos arenosos de Villanueva y 6700 kglha en Yopal, cosechado cada 8 semanas.En la altillanura plana COn una fertilización de 25 kglha de P, 30 kglha de K, 100 kglha de Ca y 25 kglha de Mg, la producción de Humidicola alcanzó 8300 kglha de materia seca, promedio anual. desapareció al final del primer año de pastoreo; por lo tanto, la estabilidad de los rendimientosseatribuye a un efecto resid ual del nitrógeno proveniente de la leguminosa.En general, la producción por animal obtenida con pasto Humidicola en monocultivo es menor que en otras especies de Brachiaria y, en algunos casos, es inferior a la obtenidaen pasturas naturales de los Llanos Orientales de Colombia.Una alternativa para mejorar la calidad nutritiva del pasto Humidicola consiste en establecerlo asociado con leguminosas. Estudios realizados en los C.I La Libertad y Carimagua demuestran que cuando esta gramínea se asoc ia con D. ovalifoliumCIA T 350 o con ManíForrajero Perenne, el nivel de proteína cruda de la gramínea en oferta llega a 8% ó 9%, lo cual se traduce en mayores ganancias de peso.En la altillanura plana, pasturas de Humidicola solo, manejadas en pastoreo alterno, han producido ganancias de 82 kg/animal por año y 164 kg/ha por año, mientras que en pa'tums de esta gramínea en mezcla con ManíForrajeroPerennela produccióndecarneanual ha fl uctuado entre 150 Y 180 kg/animal y, entre 300 y 360 kg/ha, respectivamente. Las mayores ganancias de peso están asociadas con una proporción alta de la leguminosa en las pasturas.Duran te 4 años se ha evaluado en el C.I. La Libertad la producción de carne en pasturas de Humidicola solo y asociado con Maní Forrajero Perenne, manejadas en pastoreo alterno con 3 animales/ha. La producción anual de peso vivo animal en las pasturas solas ha sido de 90 kg, Y en las asociadas de 151 kg. Igualmente, durante 4 años de evaluaciónen el c.1.La Libertad en pasturas de Humidicola asociadas con Desmodium ovalifolium CIAT 350 y en pastoreo alterno flexible con 3.0 animales/ha, se han obtenido ganancias de 410 g/animal por día, lo cual representa una producción anual de ca rne de 150 kg/animal y 450 kg/ha .El lento creci miento de esta gramínea duranteel período de establecimiento, al igual que el de las leguminosas compatibles con élla, exige un manejo cuidadoso en los primeros pastoreos para asegurar un buen balance y persistencia de los componentes de la asociación. Aproximadamente 4 meses después de la siembra puede efectuarse el primer pastoreo en forma suave paraestimularel macollamiento y el enraizam iento de losestolones. Después del primer pasto reo se puede realizar el control de malezas .Por el hábito de crec imiento esto lanífero, Humidicola asociado con Maní Forrajero Perenne o con Desmodium ovalifoliu¡n CIA T 350, soporta el pastoreo continuo con carga, de '2 a 3 animales/ha. En el piedemonte llanero, en pasturas de la gramínea sola manejada en pa, toreo alterno y fertili zación de mantenimiento soporta cargas has ta de 4.0 animales/ha sin presentar degradación.Para el manejo de asoc iaciones, se recomienda un pastoreo alterno o rotac ional con períodos de ocupación y descanso de acuerdo con la composición botánica de la pastura, con ajustes de carga animal acordes con la dispon ibilidad estacional del forraje. Cuando se presente exceso de leguminosa se debe ampliar el período de descanso de la pas tura .En general, el pas to Humidicola solo o asociado con Maní Forrajero Perenne tolera cargas altas, lo cual resulta en aumentos de proteína cruda en el forraje en oferta, pero la cantidad de forraje disponi ble seconvie rte en limitante para la producción y, porconsiguiente, las ganancias de peso son bajas.En los Llanos Orientales de Colombia, Humidicola florece en el segundo semestre pero produce muy poca semi ll a viable . La semill a es atacada por Oebalus sp., un ch inche que la consume cuando está en formación (estado pastoso). Igua lmente, la semillaes atacada por lachisga(canario silvestre) de los arrozales. Estos factores const ituye n limitantes seri os para la producc ión de semilla de esta gra mínea en la región. La semilla de Humidicola presenta latencia prolongada y puede ser mayor de nueve meses.El pasto Humidicola (Brachiaria humidico/a Rendle Schweickt) es originario del Arrica tropical oriental y suroriental, fue introducido a Colombia por el CIA T en 1973 como acessión No. 679. Crece bien en regiones tropicales desde el nivel del mar hasta 1800 m de altura, con precipitaciones de 1500 mm a 4000 mm al año. Se comporta bien en diferentes tipos de suelos, desde ácidos y pobres a fértiles y desde francos a arcillosos. Tolera altas cargas animales, excesos de humedad del suelo y sequías prolongada~; igualmente tolera el ataque del mión de los pastos, pero es susceptible a la roya en zonas tropicales muy húmedas.La producción de forraje varía con la precipitación, el grado de fertilidad y la textura del suelo, siendo mayores los rendimientos en el piedemonte que en el extremo oriental de la Orinoquía.","tokenCount":"3045"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a3f8a78e37276ba1a0399bf224d6b7f1","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/671e2c65-4f40-42c1-9a51-6839a80ba79a/retrieve","id":"307714417"},"keywords":["food security","gender","land rights","intrahousehold dynamics","West Bengal","India"],"sieverID":"42b592d6-ee23-4a83-b00a-a9fb10a03905","pagecount":"36","content":"established in 1975, provides evidence-based policy solutions to sustainably end hunger and malnutrition and reduce poverty. The Institute conducts research, communicates results, optimizes partnerships, and builds capacity to ensure sustainable food production, promote healthy food systems, improve markets and trade, transform agriculture, build resilience, and strengthen institutions and governance. Gender is considered in all of the Institute's work. IFPRI collaborates with partners around the world, including development implementers, public institutions, the private sector, and farmers' organizations, to ensure that local, national, regional, and global food policies are based on evidence. IFPRI is a member of the CGIAR Consortium.Despite rapid economic gains over the last decade, India continues to struggle with hunger and undernutrition. India is home to the largest number of malnourished children in the world, and its Global Hunger Index score has stagnated for the past 17 years in spite of a concurrent near doubling of its gross national income (von Grebmer et al. 2012). The Indian paradox, whereby high levels of hunger persist despite solid state-level economic performance, holds true in West Bengal, a state that, with an 18.5 percent prevalence of undernourishment, 38.5 percent of children under five underweight, and a 5.9 percent under-five mortality rate, ranks eighth among the 17 Indian states in the State Hunger Index (Menon, Deolalikar, and Bhaskar 2009).This lack of significant progress on food security is not for want of effort. National and state governments have implemented various public programs with mixed results, underscoring the complexity of India's food security situation (Deaton and Drèze 2009). The Public Distribution Program, for example, is a massive government intervention that distributes staples to India's poor through Fair Price Shops. Although implementation varies by state, in most cases, the Public Distribution Program is a perennial political target for its various failings and abuses, such as black marketing of foodstuffs, ghost ration cards, distribution of inferior quality goods, and misidentification of beneficiaries (Food Corporation of India 2010). The Integrated Child Development Services and the Mid-Day Meal are two national initiatives targeted at children's food security, the former for children under the age of six and the latter for all children in primary school. A recent evaluation of the Integrated Child Development Services food supplement found 65.8 percent effective coverage rate (India, Programme Evaluation Organisation, 2011) and the most recent work plan from the northeastern state of West Bengal acknowledged that the Mid-Day Meal program implementation varied greatly in quality by administrative area (India, Ministry of Human Resource Development 2011).In parallel to a number of food distribution programs, state governments have invested considerable efforts on a wide range of training and asset-based interventions meant to improve food security by decreasing poverty and improving livelihoods. In rural communities, the menu of interventions often includes programs that allocate or regularize homestead land, such as the Nijo Griha, Nijo Bhumi (NGNB) program, which is the immediate successor to a related homestead allocation program launched in 2006 under another name by the Department of Land and Land Reform in West Bengal. 1 According to the Indian National Sample Survey Organization's 2004 report, 427,000 households in the state were landless and homesteadless. Under the program, the government purchases tracts of land and provides microplots, only a fraction of an acre in size, to landless rural families. The microplots are intended for building a homestead, cultivating a small vegetable garden, planting fruit and wood trees, and raising livestock. These plots, documented with pattas (land titles) issued by the state, are expected to enhance families' ability to access government services, agricultural inputs, and financial resources, thereby enhancing families' income, reducing their vulnerability, and improving their food security. Recognizing the pervasive additional constraints that women often face in accessing economic resources and acknowledging the key role women can play in their households' well-being, NGNB explicitly stipulates that pattas issued to dual-headed households should be issued in the woman's name only or jointly titled to the male and female heads.Landesa, a nongovernmental organization focused on land legislation and programming among poor populations, has provided technical support to the Department of Land and Land Reform since 2009 to pilot changes to the NGNB program (and, earlier, the Cultivation and Dwelling Plot Allotment Scheme), identify best practices, and facilitate scaling it up to reach 100,000 households. In addition, and as part of an umbrella initiative to study the gender gap in asset ownership, Landesa has partnered with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) to evaluate this land-allocation program. This paper evaluating linkages between homestead allocation and food security is a result of this collaboration.This study is particularly timely, given that the Government of India has recently promulgated a food security ordinance concerned with household-level food security that will soon be considered by Parliament; that the Government of India has to craft and approve its 13th Five Year Plan, which is bound to propose avenues for enhancing these same outcomes; that the Government of India is committed to passing a national rural homestead bill entitling landless households in rural areas to a homestead plot of 10 decimals; that India's minister of Rural Development has recently signed an agreement to fund statelevel land-allocation programs; and that India's civil society is playing a critical role in advocating and monitoring for inclusive land rights.Using mixed methods data collected between 2010 and 2012, we explore three sets of questions. We start by briefly examining who becomes a beneficiary of the NGNB program, drawing on key informant interviews with government officials involved in the process at all administrative levels from village to district and on interviews with the beneficiaries themselves. We then assess program outcomes such as household tenure security, household agricultural investments, and women's involvement in food and agriculture decisionmaking-outcomes that when enhanced are expected to lead to increased household production and long-term food security. Lastly, we examine whether the NGNB program has already yielded some of its expected long-term food security benefits by considering households' vulnerability to hunger, their dietary diversity, their protein consumption, and how food is distributed within the household.Our results indicate that the program's implementation at the block level allowed for considerable variation in the processes used to select beneficiaries, to demarcate plots, to distribute titles, and to provide infrastructure support. Compared to eligible nonbeneficiary households, we find that NGNB households are significantly more likely to have improved intermediate outcomes, including reports of tenure security, use of credit for agriculture, investments on improved agricultural inputs, and women's decisionmaking over household food and agriculture. We find that the size of the plots matters and that the inclusion of women on titles is instrumental in achieving these improved outcomes. Although these results are very encouraging and expected to improve future food security, we found no evidence of significant improvement in current food security among beneficiary households. Our study finds results similar to those of Li, Rozelle, and Brandt (1998), with tenure security having an impact on longer time horizon investments, and empirically shows the gendered link between land-tenure security and a number of agricultural inputs and outcomes.In the following sections, we describe why and how agricultural production and tenure security relate to food security more generally and provide context with brief descriptions of the land situation in West Bengal and the NGNB program. We describe the data collection, methodological approach, and key indicators used in the analysis. We then use qualitative data to portray the process by which the NGNB program selected beneficiary households and rely on quantitative analysis to test NGNB's impact on households' pathways to future food security (intermediate outcomes) as well as their current food security status. We conclude with a discussion of results, recommendations for land and food policy, and suggestions for further research.At the World Food Summit in 1996, it was agreed that \"food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.\" Food security thus comprises three so-called pillars: food availability, food access, and food use (Quisumbing et al. 1995). Food availability requires that enough food of adequate quality is produced, purchased, or received on a consistent basis. Food access requires having the economic, social, or political means to obtain nutritious food on a continuous basis. Food use refers to the knowledge and complementary conditions required to appropriately consume food that meets nutritional needs. This extends to issues such as sanitation, food preparation, healthcare, and water safety. These pillars are applicable from the global level to each individual within a household. Thus each unit of aggregation-a nation, a region, a household, an individual-is considered food secure only if its food availability, access, and use requirements are met.Agricultural advancements in more nutritious crops and improved yields have the potential to secure the availability of a larger supply of more affordable, healthier food. Studies such as those by Li, Rozelle, and Brandt (1998) and Deininger et al. (2008) explored direct links between land-rights security and agricultural production, finding that land-rights security will positively affect long-term land saving investments and induce new investment in land, which leads to higher production. Studies by Kyomugisha (2008), Deininger (2003), andBesley (1995) looked at linkages between land-rights security and factors such as access to credit and technology adoption that are hypothesized to improve agricultural production, finding that land security is an important aspect of these processes.However, food production is only one aspect of food security. Most of the rural poor in developing regions continue to experience difficulties accessing food due to poverty. Since their livelihood strategies tend to rely heavily, directly or indirectly, on agricultural activities, their income is more responsive to growth in the agricultural sector than in any other sector (Ligon and Sadoulet 2011;Christiaensen, Demery, and Kuhl 2011). This argument for supporting smallholder-inclusive agricultural investment seems particularly relevant in the context of India, where remarkable economic growth at the national level has not trickled down to the rural poor (FAO, WFP, and IFAD 2012).Furthermore, there has been increasing, yet far from sufficient, acknowledgment that gender differences, social norms, and intrahousehold dynamics can affect whether and to what extent households' rights to land affect food security. The literature suggests that reducing the gender gap by enhancing women's control over resources can yield increases in agricultural production (Quisumbing 1996;Allendorf 2007;Fletschner 2008) and that, compared with men's income, women's income has a greater effect on their households' calorie consumption, on the share of the family budget allocated to staples, on food expenditures, on children's weight-for-height, and on preschoolers' weight-for-age (Quisumbing et al. 1995).When it comes to land, it is often assumed that strengthening women's rights to land can improve their ability to exercise control over those plots, can enhance women's tenure security, and can strengthen their position within their households, giving them the power to influence how resources are allocated, what is produced, and who consumes what. Unfortunately, robust evidence to support the latter is still scarce, 2 and as national, regional, and global actors prioritize efforts to reduce hunger and undernutrition, there is a growing demand for robust, nuanced, and gender-sensitive evidence informed by intrahousehold dynamics on the links between land tenure and food security. It is within this context that we chose to examine whether and to what extent the NGNB land-allocation program is poised to improve the food security of its beneficiaries. The links we examine are depicted in Figure 2.1. We start by exploring NGNB effects on a host of important intermediate food security outcomes such as households' and women's perceptions of tenure security 3 : households' access to financial resources; households' agricultural investments and practices 4 : and women's participation in food and agriculture decisionmaking. These outcomes are considered intermediate because they are expected to impact a household's future food security. Although we realize that statistically observable improvements in food security may take more time to materialize, we also run preliminary analysis to assess NGNB effects on households' vulnerability to hunger, their dietary diversity, their consumption of proteins, and intrahousehold patterns of food distribution. Before we proceed with the analysis, we provide a brief overview of key features of the NGNB program and the context in which it operates.In West Bengal's precolonial period, land was administrated by zamindars, a class of Indian aristocratic landlords, and worked by rent-paying cultivators. The zamindar system was characterized by a series of intermediaries responsible for tax collection, and this hierarchy was preserved when the British instated the zamindars as the land proprietors under their Permanent Settlement. Two important legacies of the colonial period were increasing layers of rent-collecting intermediaries and an emergence of a new class of wealthy landholders, jotedars, who were able to claim large tracts of land outside of the British Permanent Settlement. These factors caused much peasant unrest, which set the trajectory for West Bengal's post-independence land reforms (Hanstad and Brown 2001;Bardhan and Mookherjee 2003).West Bengal is widely recognized as one of the most progressive states in redistributive land reform, and one of the more successful implementers of national-level land to the tiller efforts. Behind this success are the West Bengal Land Reforms Act and the strong political will to implement its provisions. Beginning in 1978, the Marxist Left Front-led government launched Operation Barga, a statewide effort to document and enumerate West Bengal's bargadars (sharecroppers), thus providing them with greater tenure security under the law. West Bengal was also at the fore among states in terms of effective distribution of ceiling-surplus land, 5 having taken control of and allocated 1.04 million acres by 2001 (Hanstad and Brown 2001). These redistribution efforts did not explicitly confer rights upon individual women in married households, assuming their interests were subsumed under the household. Only decades later would the West Bengal government adopt an explicit policy of joint titling when allocating land under these acts (Brown and Das Chowdhury 2003).The Government of West Bengal launched the homestead allocation program in 2006 (amended in 2009 and then renamed Nijo Griha, Nijo Bhumi 6 in 2011) to provide land for the poorest landless and homesteadless agricultural-laborer households. The NGNB program is mainly implemented by the Department of Land and Land Reforms, with major roles for the Block Development Office and Panchayati Raj Institutions. West Bengal's land policy is notable for allowing the government to purchase land for redistribution in addition to reallocating vested ceiling surplus land. The program established a Land Purchase and Land Distribution Committee at the block administrative level, responsible for finding large tracts of land available for purchase at government-defined rates. This committee solicited a list of recommended eligible families from pradhans, or heads of the local gram panchayat (village-level government). Eligible families were defined as those that relied on daily agricultural wage labor, food gathering from common property, or menial labor, and that lived below the poverty line. Households were then selected in order of priority, where priority was given to agricultural-laborer and rural-artisan households that have been landless for two generations, women-headed households, and households having only daughters and no sons. The selected families were then relocated in clusters to those purchased tracts of land on household plots of 10 to 16 decimals (a decimal = 1/100 acre). In some cases, the Block Development Office and the Panchayati Raj Institutions then supported the cluster with additional infrastructure, housing programs, and agricultural extension services. The land documents were to be issued in the woman's name only or jointly with the woman's name first for married couples. Land issued through this program was restricted from alienation, sharecropping, or the use of hired labor (West Bengal 2006). After the pivotal 2011 elections, the State Government of West Bengal under the new Trinamul Congress leadership relaunched the homestead allocation program as the NGNB program with a revised parcel size of a maximum of 5 decimals.Qualitative information provides important context and helps understand the process by which NGNB selected beneficiary households and the factors that influenced how land was allocated. We gathered this data in the postmonsoon season, September and October 2012, one to two years after beneficiaries received patta. We conducted 12 key informant interviews with implementers of the NGNB program to acquire a better understanding of its processes and how it has been implemented; 11 life-history interviews with beneficiaries to gather insights into possible changes to food security at the household and individual levels; and 8 focus-group discussions to obtain a view of community-level norms about landownership and use, as well as how food is allocated within families. Participants for the qualitative work were purposefully sampled from one district, Coochbehar, to gain an in-depth perspective in a specific locality. Key informant interviews were sampled to include perspectives from all levels of implementation, from the village to the district administrative level. For the life histories and focus-group discussions, we purposefully selected representatives of diverse demographic categories, such as single women, Muslims, and Scheduled Castes. Categorizations of interviews and focus-group discussions conducted are detailed in Appendix Table A .1. 7 We analyzed the resulting data with NVivo, using NGNB's published guidelines as the framework for our deductive analysis of program implementation as we identified cases of adherence to or deviations from these prescribed steps. We looked for underlying patterns in program implementation by matching these cases with the geographic and demographic data we had collected.The qualitative information we gathered strongly suggests that at a more local level, the pradhans and the gram panchayats played a critical role in the selection of NGNB beneficiaries. Block-level officers relied on the gram panchayats' local knowledge to compile a list of potential beneficiaries, which was later verified. The opinion of higher-level administrative officials was that only the active pradhans took the necessary initiative to participate in NGNB and help identify land and beneficiaries. These officers would comment that it was not possible to implement the program properly without cooperation from the gram panchayats. Given the key role the pradhans played, it is important to note that even the more active ones differ in the process they followed to create the list of potential beneficiaries. For example, one pradhan said that he consulted widely with other political leaders and schoolteachers to identify the landless, and others held community meetings based on the existing government Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act list. 8  A portion of beneficiaries indicated some degree of self-selection onto beneficiary lists, although others said that they were unaware of the program until the gram panchayats notified them of their beneficiary status. However, there did not appear to be a clear pattern of self-selection at the gram panchayat level. 9As soon as we learned that land will be distributed, we visited to them (the pradhan's office) in a group to know who will be getting land. They went through the list and said that there are names of these eight families. Then we started pursuing the process because if we receive some land, we can plant some trees there. Our children are growing [and] we need some place to live there, therefore we pressured the pradhan to distribute the land. He also gave a time period and promised to give land within that time. He kept his promise and gave us patta, then we requested them to show us the plot. 7 The tools used for this study are available from the authors upon request. 8 We did not hear reports of purely political decisions over the beneficiary lists in the four gram panchayats where we did the qualitative interviews. Results from our representative quantitative survey indicate that only 7.5 percent of the respondents who knew of the NGNB program reported that the program had not been implemented \"fairly\" in their village-although over 20 percent mentioned that there had been disagreements in their village about who was included.9 Although the complex politics of the gram panchayat system, involving class and caste, are of relevance to this type of program, studying them is beyond the scope of our study. By design, our modest qualitative exploration focused on only four gram panchayats, which limits our ability to identify generalizable patterns.Then they came here and showed us our plots.-Female head of household beneficiary, focus group Panchayat gave this land, I did not ask for it. I was in Assam at my son's place there [when] I got the message that land is going to be allotted in our names and I have to be present that time. Nobody else could collect that on my behalf. Therefore I returned back.-Female head of household beneficiary, life history, age 60Prior to the program, most of the households participating in qualitative focus-group discussions were living with relatives. Tight quarters and family dynamics were a source of daily disputes and an uncomfortable living situation. In many cases, those cohabiting relatives were the primary source through which landless households learned of, and were motivated to apply for, the NGNB program.The verification and distribution of patta was also done at the block level. First, members of a land committee comprised of block-level development and land officers personally visited the identified households to verify their status. Block-level officers we interviewed indicated a difficult trade-off between reaching the largest number of beneficiaries and demarcating larger plots for fewer beneficiaries, and found themselves opting for including the maximum number of eligible beneficiaries. Personal safety and political reasons related to West Bengal's history of land-related agitation were among the key motivating factors for appeasing the largest numbers of landless.Selecting beneficiaries was the most difficult work. There are many landless people here; selecting only few out of them on the basis of their needs was a difficult job. Moreover, there are many other issues, like politics. We need to come here from a distant place, and if by chance I get attacked by any mob, assistance from department will reach there after my death. Since the land availability is limited, we face such situations. If there would have been enough to distribute among all, then it would have been easier.-Revenue inspector, Key Informant Interview, age 56 Other block-level officers decided that in peri-urban areas, beneficiaries do not need cultivable land beyond the footprint of a house-one Block Land officer recalled distributing one acre of peri-urban land among 50 beneficiaries, resulting in plots of 2 decimals each. These accounts suggest potential block-level differences in the criteria used to pare down the beneficiary list and consequently how much land was allocated. Land availability appears to be a major contributing factor in these decisions. Several block-level officers mentioned that the government rates for purchasing land to allocate to beneficiaries were too low compared to actual land market values in the area. Selling land to the government at those rates is spoken of by both beneficiaries and officials as a charitable transaction, not a regular market transaction.Once the final selection of beneficiaries was agreed upon, the actual plots were distributed according to a lottery. How pattas were distributed seemed to vary by location. In some cases, the pattas were distributed from the Block Development Office or gram panchayat office with little ceremony. In other cases, the respondents recalled a large function in their area with political speeches and distribution of tiffin, seeds, and saplings.On the day of lottery, there was a big function. Many people came here . . . They offered us tea and biscuits. They called our name on the mike, and we went there and picked up one chit [piece of paper] from the basket . . . On the next day, staffs from BLLRO [Block Land and Land Reforms Officer] came to do the land measurements and showed us which area belongs to us as per the lottery. They gave us Singara [snacks] on that day.-Married female beneficiary, focus groupWe collected a quantitative baseline by interviewing NGNB households after they received their homestead plots and obtained their pattas but before they moved to their new plots. Because the implementation of NGNB is affected by monsoon rains between June and September, data collection for our baseline took place in two rounds: May-June of 2010 and January-June of 2011. We surveyed a sample of 1,373 households in three districts: Coochbehar, Bankura, and Jalpaiguri. Of these, 803 households are NGNB beneficiaries, and the remaining 570 households serve as the control group. For the control group, we chose households who made it to the list of NGNB-eligible households but did not benefit from the program. Throughout this study, we use district-level survey weights to consider the population distribution of eligible NGNB beneficiaries and ensure that statistics computed from this sample are representative.The baseline survey targeted a head of household if available, with a subset of questions repeated for the female spouse if the identified head of household happened to be male. The instrument used included questions on demographics, schooling, housing condition, physical infrastructure, water and sanitation, participation in decisionmaking, income-generating activities, expenditures and debt, membership and participation in local social institutions, household food security, home garden cultivation, and livestock assets.We visited these households for a second time between October and November of 2012, this time targeting the interviews to the adult woman. We were unable to interview 338 of these women and had to replace their households because their entire household had migrated out of the block or because there was no adult female member in the house capable of answering most of our questions without the assistance of a man. At 24.62 percent, this relatively high attrition rate between the two surveys could cast doubts on the reliability of any inferences based on the second round of data. To rule out biases that could result from differential attrition, we conducted t-tests between the households in the full panel and those who attrited. We find no significant differences when looking at the food security outcomes of interest, but as the results included in Appendix Table A.2 indicate, the two samples differ in a few characteristics. Compared to those in the full sample, attriting households were more common in Coochbehar, where outmigration is high; men from attriting households were younger and less likely to be married, characteristics that make them more likely to out-migrate; and female respondents from attriting households were slightly more educated. To further test whether attrition is random, we ran an attrition probit. We found that caste, household size, religion, and district are significant predictors of attrition. (See Appendix Table A.3 for the attrition probit results.) Although the model explains 14 percent of the attrition, we chose not to rely on it to adjust for attrition in the rest of the analysis because missing information for some of the explanatory variables used would reduce our sample size considerably, and earlier studies on selectivity in attrition suggest that attrition will not be a severe problem for obtaining consistent estimates of the coefficients of interest for this study (Alderman et al. 2000). Still, we note the need for caution in interpreting our results.After eliminating attrited households, the sample consists of 1,035 households: 671 NGNB beneficiaries and 364 that serve as the control group. We compare beneficiary and control households in Table 5.1. Control and beneficiary households should be statistically similar for the characteristics that determine NGNB program eligibility, but Table 5.1 shows that they differ in characteristics such as caste and religion, and on factors related to their location. As a result, simply comparing outcome variables across the two groups of households can yield biased estimates of the NGNB program effects. To address this concern, and as suggested in Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983), we analyze the determinants of NGNB program participation and construct a propensity score model.The propensity score we estimate is the probability that an NGNB-eligible household becomes a beneficiary, given a set of variables related to the NGNB program eligibility criteria described by the Government of West Bengal: completely landless 10 and homesteadless agricultural-laborer and artisan families of rural West Bengal. Results from the propensity score model allow us to form a control group that is, on average, observationally equivalent to the NGNB households. The characteristics that are now balanced include those capturing the program eligibility criteria as well as other variables that serve as proxies for land pressure in the block, for households' likely demand for land, and for sociocultural characteristics that might affect households' ability to take part in this program (see Appendix Table A.4 for the propensity score model results).Thus, to estimate unbiased NGNB program effects on intermediate and current food security outcomes, we use regression analysis in which we weigh observations from NGNB households by the following equation as recommended by Emsley et al. (2008) and Hirano, Imbens, and Ridder (2003):where W h is the weight of the observation, p h is the propensity score, and T h is the treatment status of the household, which is equal to 1 for NGNB households and 0 for control households.Summary statistics of all the variables are presented in Table 5.2. We considered four intermediate outcomes that are expected to contribute to future food security: perceptions of tenure security, use of credit for agricultural production, investments in agricultural production, and women's participation in decisionmaking. We identified between three and six indicators as proxies for these outcomes. See Table 5.2 for a full list of these indicators with their descriptive statistics.We also examine household-level current food security indicators that can serve as proxies for households' vulnerability to hunger, their dietary diversity, and their protein consumption. As a proxy for households' vulnerability to hunger, we use a binary indicator that captures whether households reported experiencing times when they did not have food or money to buy food in the last three months. To capture dietary diversity, we use the Household Dietary Diversity Score, an indicator that summarizes the total number of food groups (out of a possible 12) consumed by members of the household in the last 24 hours (Swindale and Bilinsky 2006). Finally, to capture households' protein consumption, we rely on a binary measure indicating whether any household member consumed protein in the last 24 hours.To account for the possibility that food security may vary systematically for individuals within a household, we constructed four additional indicators of food consumption that refer to the adult females, adult males, young females, and young males in the household (where adults are age 12-plus and the youth are age 4-11). We collected the number of full meals consumed by each household member in the last seven days, where full meals were previously defined by the respondent. With this information, we calculated the gap between the average number of full meals consumed by each demographic group (adult females, adult males, young females, and young males) and the most food-secure person in the household. 11  Our data show that implementation of the NGNB program varied beyond the selection process. NGNB beneficiaries interviewed for the baseline were at the same stage-they had received pattas but had not moved yet. However, two years later, about a quarter of them had relocated to their new plot, but the others had not. The qualitative evidence we gathered supports this pattern of slow transition, with many beneficiaries claiming that they are waiting for complementary housing and infrastructure services to be delivered before relocating. We also found that, despite the provision that pattas needed to be issued in the woman's name only, or jointly for married couples, only 75 percent of the pattas issued include the woman's name. Our qualitative research provides some insight into this pattern, showing a number of instances where pattas were allocated according to the local officials' discretion and their understanding of each family, as well as instances where beneficiaries were asked whose names they would prefer to include on the titles. For example, in a village where households were given documents in their husbands' names onlyconforming to social norms but not to program guidelines-officials made an exception and allocated land solely in the name of the woman if officials determined that the husband had \"bad addiction and (sic) can destroy the property if he gets a chance\" (married female beneficiary, focus group). Although family preferences and community norms appear to play a role in how land is allocated and whether the allocation conforms to program guidelines, our interviews suggest that the first, and arguably stronger, determinant of whose names are included on the documents are the officials who ultimately choose whether to invite, listen to, and accept the families' opinion.Recognizing that the NGNB program has not reached all beneficiaries in the same way, we separately explore its impact on households that have been allocated land, on households that have moved to their new plots, and on households in which women's names were included on the pattas.We use inverse-propensity-score weighted-regression models to assess the NGNB effects on each of the intermediate outcomes of interest (perceptions of tenure security, use of credit for agricultural production, investments in agricultural production, and women's participation in decisionmaking) as well as on the food security outcomes (households' vulnerability to hunger, their dietary diversity, their protein consumption, and intrahousehold distribution of food). 12 Specifically, for outcomes at the household level, we estimated:(2) where Y h is the specific outcome being tested for household h; NGNB h is a dummy indicating whether or not the household is an NGNB beneficiary; X h is a vector of control variables capturing respondents' caste, religion, age, households size, whether there are children under four in the household, 13 whether the household owns livestock, jewelry, or other assets, and the district in which they live; and, is the robust error term. We later expanded (1) to test whether the size of the plot they received matters and whether having a woman's name on the document matters, as follows:(3) (4)For the plot-level outcomes, namely those related to perceptions of tenure security, we use similar specifications: ;(5)where Y hp is the specific outcome being tested for household h and plot p, CDPA hp is a dummy indicating that the plot was obtained through the NGNB program, X hp is a vector of control variables, and, is the robust error term.We summarize our findings in Table 6.1 We report marginal effects based on inverse propensity weighted models within the region of common support for the two rounds of data, and in parentheses we report the standard errors clustered by block. We chose to simplify the presentation by focusing our discussion and reporting only the results associated with the land-related variables of interest for this study. Full results from these 54 regressions are available upon request.The results of our analysis are very encouraging: we find statistically significant NGNB program effects on the four intermediate food security outcomes under consideration. This is particularly promising, given that most households in our sample, regardless of whether they are NGNB beneficiaries, had access to some land, however insecure that access might have been, and that these program effects are being statistically identified, despite this being a relatively recent allocation of land.Results from Model 1 (first column of numbers in Table 6.1) indicate that respondents perceive NGNB plots as more secure, that NGNB beneficiary households are more likely to access credit for agriculture and to invest in agricultural improvements, and that women in NGNB beneficiary households are more likely to participate in food and agricultural decisions.Controlling for the host of socioeconomic and demographic variables enumerated in the previous section, women report significantly higher levels of tenure security for NGNB plots than for non-NGNB plots. More specifically, the women interviewed are (1) 8 percent less likely to report being concerned about having to vacate NGNB plots; (2) 18 percent more likely to report that they expect their households to have retained access and control over NGNB plots five years from now, with this number dropping slightly, to 17 percent, when women referred to their own personal access and control; and (3) 7 percent more likely to report that they could convince other decisionmakers in the family not to sell the NGNB plot against their will.Similarly, households that are NGNB beneficiaries are significantly more likely to access financial resources from the formal system and to allocate them to agriculture. Compared with those who did not make it into the program, the average NGNB household is 12 percent more likely to report taking out a loan from a formal bank since 2009 and 88 percent more likely to use a loan for agricultural purposes.NGNB households are also more likely to invest in agriculture. During the year before the survey, NGNB households were (1) 11 percent more likely to have used fertilizer or pesticides; (2) 11 percent more likely to have used seedlings, seeds, or stems; 14 and (3) 7 percent more likely to have rented tools, machines, or other agricultural equipment than eligible households that did not become NGNB beneficiaries.Finally, our results indicate that if their households are NGNB beneficiaries, women are more likely to be involved in important food and agriculture decisions. Compared to their non-NGNB peers, women in NGNB households are (1) 12 percent more likely to be involved in decisions to take loans from Self-Help Groups or microfinance institution; (2) 12 percent more likely to be involved in decisions on whether to purchase productive assets; (3) 9 percent more likely to be involved in decisions related to food purchase and consumption; and (4) more likely to be involved in decisions about the family land. The share of the family land over which they are involved in decisions increased by 15 percent for how to use the land, 14 percent for what to grow on it, and 11 percent for whether to sell produce from it. In an attempt to understand some of the factors underlying these results, we ran two additional sets of regressions. First, we explored whether the size of the allocated plot matters-an important question, given the scarcity and cost of land in this region. To do this we expanded the model to include a variable that captures the size of the NGNB plot, as specified in equations ( 3) and ( 6). This allows us to distinguish benefits in tenure security, agricultural finance and investments, and women's decisionmaking that stem from being an NGNB beneficiary and receiving a documented plot of land, regardless of the size of this plot, from benefits that are sensitive to the plot's size. Results from this second model are reported under Model 2 in Table 6.1.Of particular relevance to those involved in designing, funding, and implementing land-allocation programs, we find that the tenure-security benefits associated with the NGNB program and the increase in the use of fertilizers, pesticides, seedlings, seeds, or stems by NGNB beneficiary households do vary with the size of the plot. To put it simply, on average, respondents perceived NGNB plots as more secure than non-NGNB plots, but this gap in tenure security gets larger as the plot size increases-with tenure security improving 1 percent per decimal of land allocated (see the first 4 rows, column 3 of Table 6.1). This means that although the gap in tenure security between NGNB and non-NGNB plots is almost negligible when plots are 1 or 2 decimals in size, NGNB beneficiaries who received plots of 10 decimals can experience between a 10-percent and 30-percent improvement in their perceptions of tenure security. Similarly, the 1-percent marginal effect associated with the size of the NGNB plot when explaining households' use of fertilizers, pesticides, seedlings, seeds, or grafted stems (rows 3 and 4 under Agricultural Investments, column 3) suggests a 10-percent increase in households' investments in these agricultural inputs if the NGNB plot is 10 decimals in size, but almost none for plots that are only 2 decimals.Lastly, to test whether including women's names on the pattas-an important directive of the NGNB program-yielded some of the expected results, we ran a third set of regressions described by equations ( 4) and ( 7) that include an additional dummy variable indicating whether the woman's name had been included. These results are listed under Model 3 (columns 4, 5, and 6 on Table 6.1). We find that including women's names on the pattas matters-it significantly contributes to women's perceptions of increased tenure security and to women's involvement in food and agriculture decisionmaking. Women's report on tenure security outcomes improves up to 10 percent when their names are included on the land documents (rows 1 to 4 under Tenure Security, column 6). When their names are on the pattas, women are 14 percent, 15 percent, and 13 percent more likely to participate in decisions about taking loans, purchasing productive assets, and food purchasing and consumption, respectively. Finally, women with land documents under their name have a say over a larger share of their households' land when it comes to decisions on how to use the land, what to grow on it, and whether to sell the produce from that plot (rows under Women's Participation in Decisionmaking, column 6).Results from our qualitative research suggest that land is seen as an important way to offset cash expenditure on food purchases.Yes, there are many families with small piece of lands like 1 or 2 bighas [1 bigha is approximately 1/3 acre], which is not enough to grow food for the whole year. They are poor too. But we are the poorest, we do not have any cultivable land at all. Whatever we eat, we need to buy those.-Female qualified nonbeneficiary, focus groupThe link between land and food security appears to be most relevant for women because of their limited mobility and outside cash-earning opportunities. Land, in addition to children, was seen as a source of social security for widows or women in old age.Having land in my own name is even more supportive than having sons. Sons will look after me as long as they are not married, but if I plant a tree in my land and take care of [it], that will give me money for purchasing food and medicines when needed in my old age.-Female beneficiary, life history, age 37 However, as the results in Table 7.1 suggest, at this point in time we are unable to identify statistically significant NGNB effects on households' current food security. On average, households that are eligible for the program are just as likely to be food secure regardless of whether they became program beneficiaries (row 1, column 1 of Table 7.1). Since, arguably, the expected food security benefits would not materialize until households have relocated to their new plots and have had the opportunity to settle and adjust their livelihoods, we repeated the analysis, this time limiting the \"beneficiary\" category to households that had moved to their NGNB plot at least six months prior to the survey. We find no significant improvements in their food security (row 1, column 2 of Table 7.1). Finally, because the results described in the previous section indicated that women were in a stronger decisionmaking position when their names were on the land titles, and women tend to play a key role in their families' food security, we also checked whether including women's names on the pattas made a difference (Model 3, reported in columns 3 and 4 of Table 7.1). According to our results, this measure has yet to yield a significant impact on food security (row 1, column 4).We repeated the same analysis to explore whether the program made a difference in the diversity of their diet (second row), their consumption of proteins (third row), and how food was allocated within the family (rows 4 to 7). There was no statistical difference in any of these cases, either.Two factors might contribute to these results. First, not enough time has passed for the food security outcomes to materialize-therefore we identify intermediate effects that are expected to improve future food security, but cannot identify an impact on current food security. Although our data indicate that, on average, 29 months have passed since demarcation, suggesting ample time to plant, our qualitative research highlighted the fact that the parcels allocated were often of marginal quality. Many beneficiaries recounted the need to amend their soil and infill and level their new plots before the yard was cultivable. Second, not enough beneficiary households have moved. NGNB's expected effects are predicated on households relocating to the plot and cultivating a backyard garden, but only 25 percent of the beneficiaries in our sample have moved.Full regression results, included in Appendix Table A.5, suggest additional patterns affecting the food security of households eligible for the NGNB. In particular, Muslim households appear to be more vulnerable to food scarcity than their Hindu peers; households with more valuable assets or with largeand medium-size livestock are more likely to be food secure; Scheduled Tribe households are less likely to consume proteins; and households with a larger number of young children appear to have a more diverse diet, perhaps because they qualify for food programs. Acknowledging that it would take time for families to settle and observe food-related changes, this variable is defined as a dummy that takes the value of 1 if the family relocated to their NGNB plot at least six months before they were interviewed. * significant at 0.1; ** significant at 0.05; *** significant at 0.01.Our results suggest that although current food security might not have improved yet, the West Bengal NGNB land-allocation program has led to significant and positive impacts on outcomes that are expected to lay the foundation for future food security, both at the household and individual levels. More specifically, women perceive higher tenure security over NGNB plots, and NGNB households are more likely to access credit for agriculture, more likely to invest in agriculture, and more likely to use improved inputs-actions that are likely to lead to increased food production. This is similar to the findings of Li, Rozelle, and Brandt (1998), who reported that the short-term investments in land did not change with improved land-tenure security, but that long-term investments in land did.Although resource constraints will strongly and undoubtedly encourage policymakers and program implementers to consider allocating very small plots, it is important that our study argues that the size of the plot matters. Even though our data do not allow us to predict the optimal plot size, our study provides evidence that the larger the plot, the stronger the program impacts.Furthermore, the program's emphasis on allocating land jointly and including women's names on pattas has already yielded some of its expected benefits: women whose names are on a patta reported significant improvements in tenure security and were significantly more likely to report being active participants in family decisions, outcomes that are expected to improve household and intrahousehold food security. This is in alignment with results found by previous literature focusing on gender and tenure security, most notably Allendorf (2007). It is worth noting that these positive and significant impacts of naming women on the land documents do not hinge on whether their households have relocated to the new plots.Given that homestead development requires the convergence of other government services (roads, water, extension work, seeds, and so forth) as well as household investments that may take time to bear results, a full assessment of the program's impact would benefit from additional data gathered after one or two more years have passed. In addition, taking advantage of the variation in program implementation, researchers could examine what aspects worked well and identify best practices that can be put in place as the program is scaled up. Furthermore, given the government's recognition of the importance of ensuring that women in beneficiary households are fully included, it will be helpful to explore which processes and decisions resulted in 25 percent of the pattas not including a woman's name and why. Although we recommend further analysis of the questions outlined above, we believe the findings presented in this study are of immediate relevance to the Indian government, which is currently weighing a national Homestead Act and laying plans for strategies to address food security.Our findings suggest that (1) homestead development programs can lay the foundation for longterm food security; (2) although microplots can enhance livelihoods, their potential benefits increase with the size of the plot and might be negligible if the plots are too small; (3) including women's names on the land documents can improve women's tenure security and their ability to influence household decisions; (4) due to the longer-term nature of this type of intervention, the government should consider pairing homestead development programs with complementary food distribution programs that ensure that immediate food and nutritional needs are met while the benefits of the homestead development programs mature and materialize; and (5) because a considerable number of the NGNB beneficiaries surveyed have not yet moved, it is important that homestead development programs proactively address concurrent financial constraints or lack of available housing to enable families to fully benefit and leverage the allocated plots.As public and civil society actors in India continue to grapple with food security challenges, they must recognize and embrace the fact that these problems are complex and that addressing them requires integrated approaches that, at a minimum, combine strengthening land rights with adequate access to financial services, housing, extension services, and infrastructure support. We argue that a one-time, integrated, and well-executed homestead allocation and development program can lay the foundation for household and individual food security.     ","tokenCount":"8188"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c9b8d2cac8542aff33359f278cdf5270","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/445474d8-4194-46fa-9a26-da5ca1ad5d42/retrieve","id":"1640825803"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"03b99c3e-d6cf-42eb-a818-e833cabef02e","pagecount":"50","content":"Las publicaciones del CIP contribuyen con información importante sobre el desarrollo para el dominio público. Los lectores están autorizados a citar o reproducir este material en sus propias publicaciones. Se solicita respetar los derechos de autor del CIP y enviar una copia de la publicación donde se realizó la cita o se publicó el material,| 3Como resultado del trabajo conjunto que por más de 40 años han venido realizando el Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP), el Instituto Nacional de Investigación Agraria (INIA) -a través del Programa de Investigación Agraria en Papa-y otros socios nacionales, se han liberado en el país más de 34 variedades de papa mejoradas, como la INIA 303 Canchán (liberada en 1990), e INIA 302 Amarilis (liberada en 1993), que han sabido responder tanto a las demandas del mercado como a la preferencia de los consumidores, no solo por su resistencia a enfermedades como el tizón tardío -o rancha-sino por los buenos rendimientos obtenidos en su producción.Tradicionalmente, las estimaciones de adopción de variedades se obtenían a través de la opinión de expertos o de muestreos limitados a localidades específicas. La falta de muestras representativas a nivel nacional limitaba la validez de las estimaciones e impedía generalizar las causas por las cuales los agricultores adoptaban tal o cual variedad mejorada. Una retroalimentación certera es crucial para que los programas de mejoramiento genético ajusten sus estrategias de generación de nuevas variedades.Durante la campaña agrícola del 2013 se encuestó a 1,098 productores de papa en 120 localidades paperas del Perú, con el fin de tener una muestra representativa a nivel nacional. Para estimar el tamaño de la muestra se siguió un novedoso método de cinco pasos que tomó en cuenta: 1) la información existente sobre los niveles de adopción; 2) la heterogeneidad de la población respecto a la adopción de variedades de papa; 3) el nivel de precisión deseado, y 4) las restricciones presupuestales del estudio. La información recolectada en 11 diferentes regiones representa el 86 por ciento (275.000 hectáreas) del área total de papa sembrada en el Perú al año 2013.Los principales determinantes de la adopción de variedades de papa mejorada se identificaron mediante un modelo Probit, y el impacto se analizó utilizando el modelo de efectos del tratamiento, mediante una regresión basada en técnicas de emparejamiento (\"propensity score matching\") para controlar la heterogeneidad en las decisiones de adopción.Los resultados del estudio mostraron que 60 por ciento del área sembrada con papa en el Perú corresponde a variedades mejoradas. De ellas, la papa Yungay, una variedad liberada en 1971 por la Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina (UNALM), lidera la lista con 22 por ciento del área total de siembra; INIA 303 Canchán e INIA 302 Amarilis, variedades liberadas por el CIP en colaboración con INIA-Perú, cubren el 11 y 10 por ciento, respectivamente, de la superficie total de papa. Otras variedades, como UNICA y INIA 309 Serranita, liberadas en el marco de esta colaboración y la participación de otros socios nacionales, ocupan el 4 y 1 por ciento respectivamente.Los resultados muestran que los niveles de adopción de variedades liberadas por la colaboración entre el CIP con el INIA y otros socios nacionales, que fueron estimados en base a encuestas sobre una muestra representativa a nivel nacional, son más bajos que estimaciones previas realizadas utilizando otros métodos menos confiables. Por ejemplo, el nivel de adopción de INIA 303 Canchán, estimado previamente en 40 por ciento del área sembrada de papa, en realidad es del 11 por ciento, según nuestro estudio. Por otro lado, la variedad Yungay es la variedad más cultivada en el Perú, con 22 por ciento. Los factores determinantes para la decisión de los agricultores de adoptar determinada variedad fueron: haber recibido capacitación en producción de papa (principalmente plagas y enfermedades), percepción sobre facilidad de acceso a los mercados y percepción de beneficios de la producción de papa con las nuevas variedades. Los impactos identificados muestran que sembrando las nuevas variedades mejoradas los productores tienen un rendimiento adicional de 1.0 t/ha sobre el rendimiento promedio de 11 t/ha obtenido con variedades mejoradas más antiguas. Asimismo, que dichos agricultores tienen una ganancia adicional anual de 1,650 soles por productor en promedio. Los factores determinantes de adopción y el impacto identificados en este estudio son útiles para orientar estrategias regionales de desarrollo que buscan incrementar la productividad de los sistemas de producción de papa en el Perú.El presente proyecto ha sido implementado con la valiosa contribución de instituciones y personas claves. En primer lugar, los autores agradecen a la Secretaría Técnica de Colaboración (STC) del CGIAR y al Programa de Investigaciones en Raíces, Tubérculos y Banano del CGIAR por el apoyo económico al estudio. Adicionalmente agradecemos al Ing. Ricardo Sevilla, responsable de la STC-CGIAR en el Perú durante el periodo en que se ejecutó este proyecto (enero 2012julio 2014), quien motivó y acompañó en todo momento la iniciativa, viabilizó su financiamiento y brindó el asesoramiento técnico necesario. De la misma forma, el Dr. Ricardo Labarta, ex economista del CIP, actualmente en el Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), asesoró en la adaptación de la metodología usada en el proyecto DIIVA 3 para la realización de la encuesta a nivel nacional. También se agradece a los científicos del CIP que dieron aportes técnicos y logísticos al estudio: Stef de Haan 4 , Miguel Ordinola, Luis Maldonado, Cristina Fonseca y Thomas Miethbauer. El apoyo de las estaciones experimentales del INIA fue de extrema importancia para la realización de las encuestas de campo: INIA Andenes en Cusco (Ing. Miguel Ángel Pacheco e Ing. Sergio Cardoso), INIA Baños del Inca en Cajamarca (Ing. Héctor Cabrera), INIA Illpa en Puno (Ing. Jesús Arcos), e INIA Santa Ana en Junín (Ing. Noemí Zúñiga). También agradecemos a las diferentes agencias agrarias y direcciones regionales del Ministerio de Agricultura y Riego que nos apoyaron, como las agencias agrarias de Espinar, Anta, Urubamba y Paucartambo (Cusco), Baños del Inca (Cajamarca), Yunguyo (Puno) y Barranca (Lima). Finalmente, agradecemos los aportes del personal del CIAT que asesoró en el procesamiento estadístico de los datos, en especial al Ing. José María Martínez, quien visitó el CIP en mayo de 2014, a Manuel Gastelo y Miguel Ordinola, del CIP, y a Héctor Cabrera del INIA, por la revisión del informe.El Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP) colabora activamente, desde hace más de 40 años, con el Instituto Nacional de Innovación Agraria (INIA) de Perú, a través del Programa de Investigación Agraria en Papa; adicionalmente, el CIP colabora con universidades de todo el país y con otros centros nacionales de investigación. Como resultado, más de 34 variedades de papa mejoradas se han liberado en el país desde 1971 (Thiele et al., 2008, INIA et al., 2012). Entre las variedades más importantes se encuentran INIA 303 Canchán (liberada en 1990), e INIA 302 Amarilis (liberada en 1993) y, recientemente, UNICA (1998) e INIA 309 Serranita (2006). Todas las variedades liberadas, además de responder a demandas del mercado, con diferentes resistencias a factores bióticos y abióticos, proporcionan mayores rendimientos y menores costos de producción, incrementando los ingresos y contribuyendo a la reducción de la degradación ambiental al disminuir el uso de pesticidas (Maldonado et al., 2008;Salazar et al., 2009).Tradicionalmente, las estimaciones de adopción de variedades de papa se obtenían basándose en la opinión de expertos (Thiele et al., 2008), o solo representan una aproximación limitada a localizaciones muy específicas sin una validación representativa a nivel nacional (Maldonado et al, 2008, SEINPA, 1994). Esto en parte se explica por los altos costos económicos, pero también logísticos -debido a la accidentada geografía del Perú-que demanda aplicar otras metodologías. Uno de los pocos estudios de adopción de variedades realizados en el país ha sido de variedades de arroz en el norte del Perú (Suárez, 2014). La falta de una muestra representativa a nivel nacional limita la capacidad de entender las causas por las que los agricultores han adoptado las variedades, una retroalimentación crucial para que los programas de mejoramiento puedan mejorar sus estrategias de desarrollo de nuevas variedades.Este estudio tuvo como objetivo generar evidencia rigurosa sobre la adopción actual de las diferentes variedades de papa en el Perú, así como identificar los factores de éxito de las tecnologías desarrolladas como resultado de los trabajos conjuntos entre el CIP y el INIA para, de esta forma, contribuir a los esfuerzos para el desarrollo sostenible de la agricultura basada en papa que permita reducir los índices de pobreza y malnutrición en el Perú. También se buscaba generar información para identificar los beneficios producidos a nivel nacional con dichas tecnologías y estimar los retornos de la inversión en investigación.El presente estudio cierra esta brecha de conocimiento y describe los antecedentes metodológicos y el proceso seguido para estimar en forma rigurosa la adopción de variedades de papa en base a una encuesta representativa a nivel nacional.El estudio fue ejecutado en el marco de la colaboración del gobierno del Perú como miembro del grupo de donantes del CGIAR, a través de la Secretaria Técnica de Cooperación con el CGIAR (STC-CGIAR). El monto total del financiamiento recibido de la STC-CGIAR fue de US$ 108,000 (ciento ocho mil dólares americanos) para un periodo de dos años comprendido entre enero 2012 y diciembre 2013. Debido a retrasos en la toma de datos y análisis de los mismos se solicitó una extensión del proyecto hasta julio del 2014. Los investigadores principales del proyecto fueron el Dr. Guy Hareau, líder del área de evaluación de impacto de la División de Ciencias Sociales y de Nutrición, y el economista Willy Pradel, también de la División de Ciencias Sociales y de Nutrición. El proyecto desde un inicio integró al economista Agrario Luis Quintanilla como contrapartida directa por parte de INIA. El Ing. Víctor Suárez, de la División de Ciencias Sociales y de Nutrición, contribuyó en varios aspectos del diseño estadístico del proyecto, de la toma de datos y de su análisis.| 7La papa es uno de los cultivos más importantes del Perú, con más de 730 000 productores que la cultivan en aproximadamente 317 647 hectáreas esparcidas por casi todos los departamentos del país (Página web DGIA-MINAGRI), aunque su producción está concentrada en la región andina por las características climáticas que favorecen su cultivo. Diversas variedades son sembradas con distinta importancia relativa a nivel local, regional o nacional. A su vez, al ser el centro de origen del cultivo, existen más de dos mil variedades de papas nativas en el Perú (Tapia y Fries, 2007). En general, las variedades pueden ser clasificadas como papas modernas o mejoradas -producto de la selección en programas de mejoramiento genético del INIA o alguna otra institución-y papas nativas, las cuales no ha sido sometidas a ningún proceso de mejoramiento formal (Egúsquiza, 2014). Las papas nativas, a su vez, pueden clasificarse en: (1) papas harinosas (Ccompis, Yana Imilla, Huayro), ( 2) papas amarillas (Peruanita, Amarilla del Centro, Tumbay, Huagalina y Limeña) y (3) papas amargas, mejor adaptadas a climas muy fríos alto-andinos y que previamente deben ser transformadas para su consumo, normalmente por algún proceso de deshidratación (por ej. para la producción de chuño, moraya o tunta) (Watanabe et al., 2008). Una de las principales restricciones para la producción de papa es el tizón tardío o rancha (Phytophtora infestans), una enfermedad fungosa que puede provocar grandes pérdidas de rendimiento, afectar la calidad del tubérculo y generar perjuicios económicos (Pérez y Forbes, 2008). La generación de variedades mejoradas con resistencia a esta enfermedad es, por lo tanto, una de las principales prioridades de los programas de mejoramiento genético del cultivo (Hareau et al, 2014).Las variedades mejoradas de papa, además de incrementar los rendimientos, son desarrolladas para superar restricciones de producción en campo como el tizón tardío, virus, sequías y heladas, entre otras. Para alcanzar los potenciales genéticos de rendimientos, la adopción de variedades mejoradas debe acompañarse de otras prácticas integrantes de un paquete tecnológico (fertilizantes, pesticidas, prácticas de manejo, entre otras), lo cual no siempre se cumple en el campo. En la Figura 01, se puede apreciar el incremento en los rendimientos y en el área de papa en el Perú en los últimos 20 años. La mejora en la calidad de las papas comercializadas y una mayor demanda de productos derivados de la papa (para pollerías, procesamiento para chips, etc.) han permitido que, a pesar del aumento de la producción, los precios se hayan mantenido al alza (Figura 02). La mayor demanda ha sido resultado del aumento de los ingresos en las zonas urbanas y del aumento del consumo de papas procesadas en restaurantes (Scott y Zelada, 2010). Asimismo, en los últimos años se han llevado a cabo procesos de innovación que han mejorado el desarrollo competitivo de la papa a nivel comercial (Ordinola et al, 2013), lo cual ha generado un efecto multiplicador positivo para el consumidor urbano (mayor disponibilidad de variedades de papas, diversidad en la preparación, identificación con el producto, entre otros).Escobal y Torero (2006) al analizar las principales fallas del mercado para los productores de papa en los Andes centrales encontraron diferentes factores como pobre infraestructura, segmentación e información imperfecta de los mercados, y altos riesgos, entre los más importantes. Resultados similares fueron encontrados por Céspedes et al., (2016), Zegarra y Minaya (2007) y López (2005), quienes demuestran que las inversiones en infraestructura mejoran los ingresos rurales. Por otro lado, la productividad agrícola está influenciada positivamente por el nivel de educación (Quisumbing, 1995) y el crédito agrícola (Guirkinger y Boucher, 2007).Figura 02. Producción (t/año) y precio en chacra (soles/kg.) de papa a nivel nacional entre 1991 y 2015 en base a precios ajustados por el índice anual de precios al consumidor en Perú. Fuente: elaboración propia en base a datos de la Dirección General de Información Agraria del Ministerio de Agricultura del Gobierno de Perú (producción y precio de chacra) y del Banco Central de Reserva del Perú (índice de precios al consumidor).No existen muchos estudios de estimación de la adopción de variedades a papa a nivel nacional en el Perú. Tapia y Fries (2007) hacen un profundo análisis de la historia, sistemas de producción, agronomía e identificación de variedades de papas, tanto nativas como mejoradas en diferentes regiones de Perú y Bolivia. Los datos para la identificación de variedades provienen del proyecto \"Semilla e Investigación de Papa\" (SEINPA, 1994), ejecutado con fondos de la Cooperación Suiza (COSUDE). En la época del proyecto SEINPA (década de los 80), se realizaron encuestas para identificar y cuantificar las variedades sembradas en cuatro departamentos del Perú (Cajamarca, Junín, Cusco y Puno). Se observó que las variedades adoptadas en mayor proporción en ese momento eran Mariva, Yungay, Tomasa Tito Condemayta y Revolución. Luego de 15 años, Maldonado et al. (2008)   (Maldonado et al., 2008;Thiele et al., 2008). Las variedades Serranita 6 y UNICA, se identificaban con un gran potencial de crecimiento todavía no documentado hasta la fecha del presente estudio.Respecto a los factores que influyen en la adopción de variedades, uno de los estudios más emblemáticos a nivel global es el de Feder et al. (1982), que examina los patrones de adopción desde el punto de vista teórico y práctico. Concluyen que la difusión depende del riesgo asociado con la tecnología, la actitud asociada de los productores al riesgo, la existencia de costos fijos de adopción (como necesidad de compra de activos fijos para incorporar determinadas tecnologías) y la disponibilidad de recursos financieros. Sin embargo, dicho estudio señala que no hay evidencia conclusiva, y a veces es hasta contradictoria, sobre el significado de las variables claves como tamaño de finca, necesidad de crédito, tenencia de tierra, etc. debido a factores subyacentes a las variables observables y no observables.El objetivo del presente estudio es contribuir a estimar los niveles de adopción de variedades de papa en el Perú y desarrollar metodologías para profundizar el análisis de impactos de la difusión varietal en el Perú.Los objetivos específicos del proyecto financiado por la STC-CGIAR fueron:1. Cuantificar la adopción y difusión de variedades de papa mejoradas en las principales zonas paperas del Perú. 2. Estimar los efectos de la adopción en los ingresos de los agricultores que han adoptado variedades mejoradas de papa en Perú. 3. Desarrollar una metodología que pueda ser utilizada por la comunidad científica para la determinación de la adopción e impacto.La realización de este trabajo tuvo varias justificaciones:• La papa es el cultivo de mayor importancia en la economía de la sierra peruana y abarca más del 25 por ciento del área total de cultivos transitorios, reflejada en una producción que alcanza casi cinco millones de toneladas al año y beneficia a 730 000 productores de papa. • Existe la necesidad de reforzar la interacción y el intercambio de información entre los investigadores del INIA y del CIP para identificar el porcentaje de adopción de las variedades liberadas hasta la fecha. • La magnitud del área adoptada es el determinante más importante para determinar el tamaño del beneficio económico en las evaluaciones de impacto ex-post de tecnologías (Fonseca et al., 1996;Morris et al. 2003). • La identificación de áreas geográficas donde el cambio varietal es alto o bajo, y el entendimiento de las principales restricciones para la adopción, no han recibido la suficiente atención científica en el Perú. • La identificación de demandas tecnológicas por parte de los agricultores (como origen, calidad y disponibilidad de semilla, problemas tecnológicos del cultivo) permite reorientar los objetivos de los programas de mejoramiento genético de los cultivos. • El estudio contribuye a profundizar el conocimiento sobre la relación entre el mejoramiento de cultivos y pobreza, nutrición, y seguridad alimentaria (Escobal y Valdivia, 2004;Trivelli et al., 2009;Zegarra y Tuesta, 2009).Este estudio tuvo como antecedente el realizado por el grupo de centros internacionales de investigación del CGIAR para estimar la adopción e impacto de variedades mejoradas de diversos cultivos en África. El proyecto, denominado DIIVA (Difusión e impacto de variedades mejoradas en África, por sus siglas en inglés), fue ejecutado entre 2010 y 2012 (Walker and Alwang, 2015). Su finalidad era recolectar evidencia científica sólida sobre la adopción de variedades de diferentes cultivos en África, para tener un dato más realista que permitiera estimar el impacto que las instituciones de investigación tienen en la región y contribuir a generar información para definir mejor las estrategias de los programas de investigación. Esta misma metodología fue adaptada para el Perú en este proyecto, pero enfocándose exclusivamente en el cultivo de papa, aunque pudiéndose replicar en diferentes cultivos.El presente estudio tuvo dos componentes principales: en primer lugar, el cálculo estimado del área de adopción de las diferentes variedades de papa; y en segundo lugar, un análisis estadístico de los datos obtenidos que permita entender los procesos detrás de las tomas de decisiones de adopción y la estimación del impacto económico basado en un análisis econométrico. Existen diversos modelos para determinar los factores determinantes que contribuyen al proceso de adopción.Los pasos que se siguieron para la realización del estudio están identificados en la Figura 03.Figura 03. Pasos seguidos para la realización del estudio de adopción de variedades de papa en el Perú.La metodología para la cuantificación de la adopción de tecnologías agrícolas se basa en la realización de encuestas a una muestra de productores de papa estadísticamente representativa del área de producción a nivel nacional. El tamaño y diseño muestral son elementos fundamentales en el diseño de una encuesta de adopción. El tamaño de la muestra influye en el costo de la encuesta, mientras que el diseño determina cómo se seleccionará a las unidades a encuestar, buscando optimizar el proceso de decisión entre precisión estadística y costo del estudio, con el objetivo de lograr la mayor precisión estadística posible al menor costo (o ajustada al presupuesto disponible para el estudio).El diseño muestral siguió el método diseñado a estos efectos por Walker y Adam (2011) para el proyecto DIIVA. El proceso de este método consta de cinco pasos que toman en cuenta la estimación previa de los niveles de adopción de la variable de interés (en este caso, las variedades de papa liberadas por colaboración del CIP con sus socios nacionales), la heterogeneidad de la muestra, el nivel de precisión deseada, y las restricciones financieras del estudio.Paso 1. Tamaño de muestra para un muestreo aleatorio simple. Paso 2. Determinación de la correlación entre grupos o grado de homogeneidad de la muestra. Paso 3. Determinación del tamaño del clúster óptimo. Paso 4. Determinación del efecto del diseño. Paso 5. Tamaño final de la muestra. Paso 1. Tamaño de muestra para un muestreo aleatorio simple. El diseño del estudio consiste en estimar primero el tamaño mínimo de la muestra siguiendo un muestreo aleatorio simple, en base a la siguiente fórmula:Donde n es el tamaño de la muestra, N es el tamaño de la población (número de productores de papa a nivel nacional), P es la probabilidad de ocurrencia del evento (en el caso del presente estudio, la adopción esperada de variedades mejorada de papa en base a la información preexistente). Se necesitan dos informaciones básicas para el cálculo del tamaño mínimo en un muestreo aleatorio simple: una es el nivel de precisión deseado y la otra es el porcentaje de adopción de variedades mejoradas. No existían estudios previos que evidenciaran el porcentaje de adopción de variedades mejoradas, pero como es observable en la tabla, escoger un valor del 50 por ciento permite colocarse en los valores más altos del número de encuestas necesarias.Luego se decide, en base a los recursos que tiene el proyecto, el nivel de precisión deseado. Debido a que el proyecto contaba con recursos limitados para una encuesta de representatividad nacional, se decidió ir por un nivel de precisión del 4 por ciento y un nivel aproximado de nivel de adopción del 50 por ciento.Paso 2. Determinación de la correlación entre grupos o grado de homogeneidad de la muestra. Debido a que es un diseño de etapas múltiples en las cuales varios productores de la misma localidad son encuestados (el caso del presente estudio), se debe ampliar el diseño aleatorio simple para incorporar la pérdida de variabilidad en la muestra que ocurre al encuestar productores de una misma localidad. El principio básico es que productores de una misma comunidad tienen mayor probabilidad de ser similares entre sí que productores de comunidades diferentes. Para incorporar este aspecto particular se recurre a un índice conocido como la tasa de homogeneidad o ICC (por las siglas en inglés de Intra-Class Correlation). La fórmula para el cálculo de la tasa de homogeneidad es la siguiente:Variancia dentro de la comunidad Variancia entre comunidadesAl momento del estudio no existían datos para el cálculo del ICC, por lo que se usó información de expertos dentro del CIP y la experiencia del proyecto DIIVA. Finalmente se utilizó un valor de ICC de 0.08. Paso 3. Determinación del tamaño del clúster óptimo. En este procedimiento se minimizan los costos relacionados a la recolección de datos, tomando en consideración los costos de agregar una encuesta adicional dentro de una comunidad, con los costos de adicionar una nueva comunidad al estudio. La fórmula para dicho cálculo es la siguiente:Donde C1 es el costo de seleccionar una unidad de muestreo primario (PSU por sus siglas en inglés) o, en nuestro caso, una comunidad adicional, C2 es el costo de seleccionar un hogar adicional en cada comunidad y p es el ICC. Para el presente estudio se usó un costo de 20 soles por hogar adicionado y de 100 soles por adicionar una comunidad. Paso 4. Determinación del efecto del diseño. Este paso sirve para compensar el tamaño de la muestra por la pérdida de variabilidad. Con un muestreo en bloque, el efecto del diseño depende del tamaño de muestra en el PSU y la correlación entre clases.El efecto de diseño δ para un estimador es definido como la relación entre la variancia del estimador bajo el diseño δ y la variancia del estimador bajo un muestreo aleatorio simple.También se puede reescribir la fórmula y este efecto del diseño es dado por Deff = 1 + (bopt -1)ρ. El efecto de diseño para un muestreo en bloque es generalmente mayor a uno.Paso 5. Tamaño final de la muestra.Cuando se multiplicó el tamaño de la muestra para un muestreo aleatorio simple por el efecto del diseño, el tamaño final de la muestra mínima para el muestreo en etapas múltiples fue de 928 encuestas.La siguiente etapa fue la distribución de la muestra a nivel nacional. Para dicho efecto se usaron los datos de intención de siembra de papa de la campaña 2011-2012 del Sistema de Intención de Siembra del MINAGRI (MINAGRI, página web 7 ) mostrados en la Tabla 02.Tabla 02. Área declarada de intención de siembra de papa por departamento en la campaña 2011-2012 y los 10 departamentos con mayor área de papa seleccionados para el estudio.Nro Como los recursos disponibles no permitían abarcar una distribución muestral que incluyera a todos los departamentos del Perú donde se cultiva papa, se restringió el estudio a aquellos que contribuyen en mayor proporción a la producción del tubérculo. Así, se seleccionaron los diez departamentos con mayor área de papa, los cuales equivalían al 86 por ciento del área de papa según el Sistema de Intención de Siembra 2011-2012. Adicionalmente se agregó Lima, para tener una visión de lo que pasaba con la producción de papa en la costa, debido a que por su área, la costa no fue incluida entre los 10 departamentos seleccionados. De Lima se seleccionaron los dos distritos con mayor producción del tubérculo: Huaral y Barranca. Con este agregado, los 11 departamentos seleccionados representan casi el 90% de la producción de papa a nivel nacional. La lista completa de departamentos y provincias seleccionados se presenta en el Anexo 1.En la figura 04 se ubican en el mapa del Perú las provincias encuestadas por departamento: | 15De acuerdo al área sembrada con papa en cada departamento se determinó el número de encuestas totales a realizar en dicho departamento, dándole también representatividad a nivel departamental a la muestra. Luego se procedió a una selección aleatoria ponderada por área de papa por distrito (los distritos con más papa, tenían más opción de salir seleccionados y un mismo distrito podía salir seleccionado más de una vez). En Excel se usó la función RAND() para generar números aleatorios y se escogió el número de encuestas que le correspondía a cada departamento. En los distritos seleccionados se escogió al azar la o las comunidades que serían encuestadas en base al Directorio Nacional de Municipalidades Provinciales, Distritales y de Centros Poblados del INEI, 2011 y verificada con la información de los expertos de las estaciones experimentales del INIA y agencias agrarias (Ver Anexo 1).Finalmente, se seleccionó aleatoriamente a los agricultores participantes en cada comunidad encuestada, conjuntamente con informantes calificados identificados en cada comunidad (normalmente líderes de la comunidad respectiva). Una vez en la comunidad, los encuestadores se dirigían a los productores seleccionados. Si no se le encontraba, el encuestador se dirigía al vecino más cercano.Las encuestas fueron recolectadas entre noviembre del 2012 y julio del 2013. En total se recolectaron 1,098 encuestas en 120 comunidades de 83 distritos en 44 provincias de 11 departamentos del Perú. Dichas encuestas, después de ser revisadas en campo, fueron enviadas a las oficinas centrales del CIP en Lima para su digitación en una base de datos. Para dicho efecto se contrató a un egresado de estadística, quien ingresó la información en una base de datos construida en ACCESS. Dicha digitación se realizó entre agosto y noviembre del 2013.La información necesaria para un estudio de adopción se centra principalmente en el área sembrada de las diferentes variedades. Pero es necesario complementarla con la producción, destino de la producción, problemas productivos, características del hogar, entre otras preguntas que ayuden a entender el proceso de adopción.El diseño del cuestionario estuvo a cargo del programa de ciencias sociales. La experiencia del área en temas de estudios socioeconómicos efectuados en diferentes proyectos garantizaba al equipo de investigadores la adaptación de la encuesta del DIIVA a la realidad peruana. Un punto clave en el diseño de encuestas es encuadrar el número de preguntas a la investigación y modelo a aplicar y hacer una validación de la encuesta. La nuestra tenía 8 secciones distribuidas en 16 páginas y la duración promedio por encuesta era de una hora.Con la encuesta lista y revisada, se procedió a la selección de supervisores y encuestadores. Los seleccionados debían cumplir varios requisitos: 1) experiencia en encuestas, 2) conocimiento de las zonas donde se trabajaría, y 3) tener formación en agronomía o carreras afines. Se les dio una capacitación de 3 días, que incluyó una simulación de encuesta y una encuesta piloto en los sitios de trabajo. Un punto importante para la reducción del sesgo por encuestadores es reducir el número de éstos en todo el proceso, por lo que se trabajaron 3 grupos de encuestadores para la zona norte, centro y sur del Perú. Asimismo, se contrataron dos supervisores que garantizarían la calidad del trabajo en campo, manejarían la logística en las zonas de trabajo y solucionarían cualquier conflicto que pudiera presentarse. Las personas seleccionadas fueron escogidas por su dedicación al trabajo y cumplimiento de objetivos. La lista de los encuestadores y supervisores está en el anexo 02.Foto 1. Equipo de encuestadores de Huánuco y Junín en la EEA Santa Ana, Junín (Izquierda) y los de Huancavelica-Ayacucho-Puno en el barco rumbo a la Isla Amantan, Puno (derecha), 2013.El equipo de encuestadores y supervisores tenía la ventaja de conocer muchas de las zonas de trabajo. Sin embargo, para facilitar la entrada a las localidades, el trabajo de campo se hizo en estrecha colaboración con las estaciones experimentales del INIA que tienen programas de papa (Ing. Miguel Ángel Pacheco, del PIAI de papa e Ing. Sergio Cardoso, de la oficina de planificación de la EEA Andenes, Cusco; Ing. Jesús Arcos, del PIA de papa de la EEA Illpa, Puno; Ing. Héctor Cabrera, del PIA de papa de la EEA Baños del Inca, Cajamarca; Ing. Noemí Zúñiga, del PIA de papa de la EEA Santa Ana, Junín, e Ing. Máximo Morote, del PNI de papa de la EEA Canaán, Ayacucho). En estas estaciones experimentales se presentó el proyecto y se solicitó apoyo para interactuar con las agencias agrarias y otras autoridades locales de interés en las zonas de estudio (Foto 2). Adicionalmente, por el INIA participó el Ing. Luis Quintanilla, como contraparte directa para realizar el estudio.En algunas comunidades, inicialmente los productores desconfiaban de los encuestadores, confundiéndolos con trabajadores mineros y no querían recibirlos. Pero el equipo había sido capacitado para generar confianza, por lo que en esos casos se identificaban apropiadamente y presentaban cuidadosamente el proyecto. En tres ocasiones se tuvieron que replantear los sitios de encuestas debido a diferentes motivos: o la producción de papa no era tan importante como aparecía en los datos de intención de siembra (en una localidad en Espinar, Cusco y en un distrito de Chota, Cajamarca), o por motivos de seguridad no se podía entrar a dichos lugares (Pataz, en La Libertad, estaba tomada por mineros informales, las carreteras estaban bloqueadas y los pocos autos que pasaban eran asaltados).El proceso de recolección de datos de campo fue documentado gráficamente como se aprecia en las siguientes fotos.Foto 3. Abonamiento de campo de papa en Barranca en Lima (izquierda) y cosecha de papa en Accocro, Ayacucho (derecha), 2013. Foto 6. Encuestas en el campo de cultivo de un productor en Ahuaycha, Huancavelica (izquierda) y dentro del local comercial de un productor en Panao, Huánuco (derecha).Foto 7. Encuestas en el campo de cultivo de un productor en Atuncolla, Puno (izquierda) y encuesta en el campo de cultivo de un productor en Otuzco, La Libertad (derecha).Foto 8. Encuestas en el parque de una plaza en Huacachi, Ancash (izquierda) y encuesta bajo la lluvia en Jacas Grande, Huánuco (derecha).La limpieza de datos es un trabajo fundamental para tener garantía de que los datos obtenidos tengan sentido y sean válidos para su análisis subsecuente. Los ajustes de la base de datos se dieron principalmente en cuanto a la nomenclatura de las variedades y al área cultivada.| 19La base de datos está en formato Microsoft Access, y las variables relevantes del estudio en formato Stata (.dta). La base de datos estará disponible para acceso público irrestricto en el sistema Dataverse a fines de 2017.El análisis descriptivo sirve para elaborar las frecuencias de las diferentes variedades presentes y determinar las áreas. El presente estudio usó STATA (Versión 12) para hacer dichos cálculos.Además de calcular los niveles de adopción de las distintas variedades de papas, el estudio buscaba entender los determinantes de adopción, es decir los factores que afectan las decisiones de adopción. Para el cálculo de dichos determinantes se usó el modelo de regresión binaria probit. Este modelo tiene como supuesto que las probabilidades de respuesta que se estimen estén estrictamente entre 0 y 1. En el modelo probit de distribución normal, bajo estos supuestos, se puede derivar la probabilidad de respuesta para y:En modelos de respuesta binaria como el probit, se quiere explicar los efectos de una variable independiente (x j ) en la probabilidad de respuesta P(y=1|x).Al hacer las regresiones en STATA, se usa el comando probit, pero los β obtenidos no son útiles, excepto para determinar la dirección del efecto. Debido a eso, se estima el efecto marginal de la variable o variables de interés usando el comando margins. Los β provenientes de este comando son interpretables y tienen el mismo signo o dirección que los β obtenidos en probit.Uno de los principales problemas para la estimación del impacto es la dificultad de encontrar contrafactuales (o grupos de comparación) para corregir por los sesgos observables de la muestra que causan estimados inconsistentes de los efectos promedios del tratamiento (ATT por sus siglas en inglés). Una de las técnicas más usadas para identificar dichos contrafactuales en observaciones no experimentales, como los datos de la encuesta, es el Propensity Score Matching (PSM), junto con otras técnicas de emparejamiento. El sesgo de selección de la muestra en estimados de diferencias simples puede ser reducido emparejando dos grupos basados en características observables. El PSM permite encontrar a un grupo de comparación entre no adoptadores que tienen características similares a los adoptadores: los productores que adoptan son emparejados a los productores que no adoptan basados en los \"propensity scores\" o la probabilidad de ser un adoptante.Sin embargo, las críticas más fuertes al uso del PSM son que las variables no observables aún pueden tener influencia en los tratamientos y sus efectos, así como presentar problemas sobre la representatividad de la población ya que, al eliminar casos para el emparejamiento, podría no representar a la población de estudio. Asfaw et al. (2011), Becerril y Abdulai (2010) y Mendola (2007) usaron métodos de PSM para hacer sus estudios de identificación y estimación de los determinantes de adopción de prácticas agrícolas en distintos lugares como Etiopía, México y Bangladesh.La sección de resultados y discusión proporciona una referencia de los principales hallazgos del estudio, en base a los tres objetivos del proyecto presentados en este informe. Los dos primeros objetivos corresponden a la adopción de variedades de papa y a la estimación del impacto económico, mientras que el tercer objetivo es la generación de capacidades al INIA para que pueda realizar estudios rigurosos de adopción e impacto en otros cultivos y otros años.Los resultados del estudio encontraron que de las 275 000 hectáreas sembradas con papa en el Perú en 2013, alrededor de 60 por ciento corresponde a variedades mejoradas. La muestra identificó también 372 variedades de papa nativa con pocas oportunidades de mercado, 18 variedades nativas con mercado asegurado, 15 variedades mejoradas que no provenían de la cooperación del CIP y sus socios nacionales, y 10 variedades que provenían de dicha cooperación.En Otras papas mejoradas 70s y 80s NATIVAS énfasis en el uso de papa para elaboración de chuño y moraya (Figura 06). De hecho, Puno -el departamento con mayor cantidad de área cultivada de papatiene un sistema de producción del tubérculo muy distinto al resto del país, con sus propios desafíos y mercados de papa muy diferentes, por lo que para hacer futuros estudios, Puno deberá considerarse como un caso aparte.Figura 06. Adopción de las principales variedades mejoradas de papa provenientes de la cooperación entre el INIA, la Universidad Nacional de Ica y el CIP; y adicionalmente la variedad Yungay en la campaña 2012-2013.Los siguientes mapas permiten tener una mejor visualización de la distribución e importancia de las principales variedades desarrolladas por la colaboración CIP-INIA, y de la variedad UNICA, desarrollada en colaboración con la Universidad Nacional de Ica a nivel departamental (Figuras 07-10). Figura 08. Área estimada de adopción de la variedad Amarilis en los principales departamentos de producción de papa del Perú.Figura 09. Área estimada de adopción de la variedad UNICA en los principales departamentos de producción de papa del Perú.Figura 10. Área estimada de adopción de la variedad Serranita en los principales departamentos de producción de papa del Perú.Se observa que la variedad INIA 303 Canchán tiene mayor importancia en la sierra centro y en la costa, al igual que la variedad UNICA, aunque esta última en menor importancia. La variedad INIA 302 Amarilis es más importante en la sierra norte de Perú. Finalmente, la variedad INIA 309 Serranita, está siendo cultivada en algunos sitios del país, pero todavía no en porcentajes significativos.Podemos concluir pues que las variedades modernas provenientes de la colaboración del CIP con el INIA y otros socios nacionales están presentes en la mitad del área cultivada con variedades mejoradas. Sin embargo, la variedad INIA 309 Serranita, con grandes cualidades de resistencia a la rancha y buenas características de sabor, color y diversidad de usos culinarios, tiene todavía un escaso nivel de adopción, por debajo del margen de error de la muestra que era del 4%.Para entender el comportamiento de los productores de papa respecto a la adopción de variedades, es necesario conocer las características de dichos productores. En la Tabla 04 se muestran los resultados a nivel nacional de las características socioeconómicas, mientras que en el Anexo 4, se muestran los detalles por departamento.Tabla 04. Resumen de datos socioeconómicos de la muestra de la encuesta de adopción a nivel nacional, (los promedios y desviaciones estándar se muestran entre paréntesis cuando es apropiado). Para la descripción socioeconómica se incluyen variables demográficas, económicas y problemas fitosanitarios debido al interés del proyecto en entender las razones para cultivar ciertas variedades de papa, y ver la relación entre variedades de papas y ciertas características del agricultor y de la zona donde vive.El nivel de educación de los jefes del hogar productores de papa fue en promedio de 6.6 años, o secundaria incompleta. En las variaciones entre departamentos (Anexo 4) se puede observar que en Lima existe en promedio una mayor cantidad de años de educación formal recibida (9.6 años) seguido de Ayacucho (8.2 años) y Huánuco (7.5 años). Los valores más bajos se encontraron en La Libertad (5.4 años), Huancavelica (5.6 años) y Cusco (5.8 años). El resto de los departamentos está entre 6 y 7 años de estudios escolares.El capital social de personas pertenecientes a una organización relacionada con la agricultura (incluyendo organizaciones relacionadas al riego) y nutrición (vaso de leche) varía entre las diferentes zonas de estudio desde 6 por ciento en Puno hasta 45 por ciento en Lima.Excluyendo estos dos tipos de organizaciones, la participación en organizaciones agrícolas va desde 3 por ciento en Ancash a 21 por ciento en Ayacucho.Uno de los puntos clave para la adopción de tecnología agrícola es la capacitación en temas agrícolas. A nivel nacional, solo 18 por ciento de los productores de papa han recibido algún tipo de capacitación relacionada al cultivo de papa. Los productores de Lima han recibido mayor capacitación (60%) en comparación, por ejemplo, de Ancash, Puno o Huancavelica, donde solo un mínimo número de productores ha recibido algún tipo de capacitación agrícola.Los animales de granja constituyen bienes de capital de la familia para momentos de necesidad, son fuente de fertilizantes orgánicos y de productos como lana, leche, huevo, y carne. En la encuesta se dividieron los animales en tres grupos: animales mayores (vacunos, caballos y/o burros), animales menores (alpacas, ovejas, llamas, y porcinos) y cuyes y gallinas. En promedio se tienen 3 animales mayores, 8 animales menores y 11 animales entre cuyes y gallinas.Los productores de Cusco (5.2) y Apurímac (4.7) tienen mayor cantidad de animales mayores, mientras que los de Lima no tienen animales mayores. Huánuco (2.4) y Junín (2.4) tienen menor cantidad de animales mayores. La tabla de animales menores está liderada por Cusco (12.9) y Huancavelica (13); Cajamarca (2.2), Apurímac (3.4) y Lima (3.5) son los que tienen menos animales menores. Finalmente, Apurímac (24.3) y Ancash (20) tienen mayor cantidad de cuyes y gallinas mientras que en Lima (5.1), Puno (4) y Ayacucho (5.7) se tiene menor número de estos animales.Al monetizar el valor total de los animales se obtiene en promedio S/. 3 686, siendo Cusco el departamento con el mayor valor promedio de animales (S/. 5 863) y Lima el de menor valor promedio (S/. 1 256).La cantidad de papa vendida es muy superior en Lima que en otros departamentos, lo que se refleja en los ingresos por venta del tubérculo. Por otro lado, la cantidad vendida en Puno es casi nula (39 kg/productor en promedio), seguida por Ancash, Cajamarca y La Libertad.También se examinaron las restricciones a la producción de papa por aspectos socioeconómicos (semilla de papa, fertilizantes, mercados, e información) aspectos bióticos (plagas y enfermedades) y abióticos (sequías, heladas, granizadas, inundaciones).La calidad de semilla constituye un problema relativamente importante en Lima, Puno y Huancavelica: más del 50 por ciento de productores en estos departamentos así lo indicaron.Por otro lado, la rancha es la enfermedad más importante, que afecta a la mayor cantidad de productores en el país. Las plagas más importantes son el gorgojo y la polilla de la papa. La rancha es un problema importante en todos los departamentos encuestados, mientras que el gorgojo no es tan importante en Cajamarca y muy poco importante en Lima. La polilla es más importante en Lima, Ancash, Puno, Apurímac y Huánuco, donde más del 50 por ciento de productores lo señaló como problema sanitario.El evento climático más serio es la sequía, que representó un problema para más del 50 por ciento de productores en Cusco, Apurímac, La Libertad y Cajamarca. Otros problemas climatológicos presentes en los Andes son las heladas y las granizadas, especialmente en Puno, donde el 34 y 24 por ciento declararon que la granizada y la helada, respectivamente, constituían un problema, seguido de Huancavelica, con 20 y 17 por ciento respectivamente.En cuanto a mercados, el principal problema identificado es el de acceso a dichos espacios.El análisis descriptivo permite tener una visión rápida de los valores promedios y desviaciones estándar de las variables de interés del estudio. Debido a que uno de los objetivos de este estudio es identificar las determinantes de adopción a través de modelos de regresión de variable dependiente binaria, los datos de la variable de adopción se dividieron en dos grupos, uno con productores que tenían menos de 25 por ciento de su área plantada con alguna de las variedades provenientes de la colaboración del CIP-INIA/CIP-socios nacionales, y el otro grupo que cultivaba al menos 25 por ciento de otras variedades mejoradas (principalmente Yungay). Adicionalmente se seleccionó un grupo de variables dependientes para poder identificar los determinantes de adopción, incluyendo características demográficas, socioeconómicas y agronómicas de acuerdo a la literatura encontrada sobre el tema. Inicialmente se hizo un análisis descriptivo de las variables de interés, y posteriormente se usó el modelo probit para identificar las principales determinantes de adopción y, subsecuentemente, analizar el impacto de las variedades de papa mejoradas:Tabla 05. Estadística descriptiva de las principales variables explicativas de los dos grupos de productores de acuerdo a la proporción de variedades mejoradas provenientes de la STC, 2013. Fuente: Encuesta de adopción e impacto, elaboración propia. En la Tabla 05, los datos demográficos describen a los productores que adoptan mayormente las variedades desarrolladas por la colaboración del CIP con socios nacionales, ligeramente más jóvenes y con mayor educación que los productores que adoptan mayormente otro tipo de variedades, siendo interesante que en ambos grupos en promedio los jefes del hogar están por debajo de los 50 años con primaria completa. Respecto a la capacitación en temas agrícolas y pertenencia a asociaciones agrícolas, también los productores que plantan mayormente variedades CIP-socios nacionales, tienen mayor capacitación y hay ligeramente una mayor proporción de productores vinculados a asociaciones.Por otro lado, se puede observar que los problemas productivos en lo que respecta a problemas bióticos y abióticos son similares para los dos grupos, siendo la rancha, el gorgojo de los Andes y la polilla de la papa los principales problemas que afrontan los productores de papa, además de los problemas agregados de semilla (personas que sufren cualquiera de los problemas de semilla: calidad, disponibilidad o acceso).Los hogares de productores que cultivan mayormente variedades de papa desarrolladas en colaboración entre el CIP con socios nacionales, tienen áreas mayores y un valor monetario del ganado mayor que los hogares de productores que cultivan mayormente otras variedades de papa mejorada. Adicionalmente, estos últimos tienen una menor cantidad de papa que destinan a venta en el mercado, probablemente debido a que están menos insertados en el mercado.El modelo probit relaciona la decisión de adopción de variedades de papa con diversos factores o variables. Dicho modelo permite que la variable dependiente pueda tomar dos valores (0 o 1), por lo que la decisión es adoptar o no adoptar, sin importar la intensidad de adopción. La descripción de las variables presentadas en la tabla anterior sirvió para desarrollar el modelo de determinantes de adopción. En STATA se corrió el siguiente modelo probit:Tabla 06. Resultados del análisis de probit en STATA de los datos de la submuestra de la encuesta de adopción e impacto de variedades de papa. Los resultados muestran la significancia y los coeficientes de las variables del modelo, sin embargo, los coeficientes del probit no son útiles, excepto para determinar la dirección del efecto. Así tenemos que las variables Capacitación y Percepción de beneficio con papa tienen un efecto positivo y significativo sobre la probabilidad de adopción, mientras que la variable Problemas de mercado, tiene un efecto negativo y significativo sobre la probabilidad de esta.Para determinar el efecto marginal de la variable se usa el comando \"dy/dx\". Los coeficientes obtenidos con ese comando sí son interpretables:Tabla 07. Resultados del análisis de efecto marginal en STATA de los datos de la submuestra de la encuesta de adopción e impacto de variedades de papa. | 29Los resultados nos indican que existen tres factores que influyen más significativamente para la adopción de variedades desarrolladas por la colaboración del CIP con otros socios nacionales: la capacitación en temas agrícolas -principalmente manejo de plagas y enfermedades de la papa-y la percepción de beneficios por cultivar esas papas, influyen positivamente sobre la adopción, mientras que los problemas en el acceso al mercado influyen negativamente. Estos datos son revelados por la menor parte de la producción destinada a la venta por parte de este grupo de productores. En términos cuantitativos, la capacitación aumenta un 10 por ciento la probabilidad de cultivar variedades modernas provenientes de la colaboración del CIP con INIA u otros socios nacionales; de igual manera, la percepción de que la papa es un cultivo beneficioso para los productores incrementa en 10 por ciento la probabilidad de cultivar cualquiera de las 4 variedades examinadas provenientes de la colaboración mencionada. Sin embargo, la percepción de que existen problemas de acceso al mercado afectando la producción de papa disminuye en un 15 por ciento la probabilidad de cultivar dichas variedades.La evaluación de impacto tiene por finalidad identificar los impactos generados por las tecnologías en estudio. Sin embargo, para que dichos valores sean válidos se deben reducir los sesgos presentes en la muestra, como por ejemplo la deficiente infraestructura de la zona, las características propias del productor, u otros factores que afectan la productividad de las diferentes variedades. Uno de los métodos más usados para el control de los factores observables son los métodos de emparejamiento, que con distintas técnicas logran minimizar dicha influencia y así poder tener resultados con un sesgo reducido.Para la evaluación del impacto se utilizó el método propensity score matching, para reducir la endogeneidad de las variables de producción y de ingresos por venta de papa. La técnica usada fue la del emparejamiento por el vecino más cercano (Anexo 04) y se controló por la educación del jefe del hogar, por el área de papa y por la percepción de la existencia de problemas en el mercadeo de papa. Los resultados son resumidos en la Tabla 08.Tabla 08. Resultados del análisis de emparejamiento del vecino más cercano en STATA de los datos de la submuestra de la encuesta de adopción e impacto de variedades de papa: Cálculo del ATT o efecto promedio del tratamiento en los tratados. (N antes del emparejamiento = 675) Los resultados de la evaluación de impacto usando el emparejamiento para reducir el sesgo en el estudio de adopción demuestran que hay un efecto positivo en la productividad y en los ingresos por venta de papa de las variedades de desarrolladas por el CIP, el INIA y otros socios nacionales, en comparación con otras variedades de papa mejoradas. Como se mencionó anteriormente, el estudio controló por el tamaño del área de los productores y por la educación del jefe del hogar, la percepción sobre problemas en el mercado. Estos factores trataron de cubrir los sesgos presentes por tamaño de la finca, presencia de ineficiencias en el mercado y características propias del productor.El estudio de impacto estimó en 1 t/ha extra de rendimiento en el cultivo de papas debido mayormente al uso de variedades mejoradas provenientes de la colaboración del CIP y otros socios nacionales. Además, se estimó que los agricultores que producen mayormente variedades de papa provenientes de la colaboración CIP-socios nacionales envían al mercado en promedio 2.7 t/productor de papas adicionales. Esto contribuyó a que dichos productores tuvieran ingresos adicionales por venta de papa de 1 650 soles/productor en comparación a los productores que producían mayormente Yungay.3. Desarrollo de una metodología para ser usada por otros científicos para la determinación de la adopción e impacto de diferentes tecnologías, no solo variedades mejoradas de papa.Por ser uno de los objetivos del proyecto financiado por la STC-CGIAR, el presente documento describe de manera detallada la metodología usada, para su replicación por otros profesionales interesados en utilizar un método sólido de medición de la adopción e impacto de tecnologías agrícolas. El Ing. Luis Quintanilla, economista del INIA, estuvo involucrado en el proyecto desde su inicio, y el economista Ricardo Labarta llevó a cabo en el campus del CIAT en Cali, Colombia, una capacitación sobre esta metodología de evaluación del impacto. El economista Labarta trabajó anteriormente en el CIP y fue quien desarrolló, junto a un equipo de varias instituciones internacionales, la metodología del Proyecto DIIVA, que es la que se adaptó en este estudio para evaluar la adopción e impacto de la papa en el Perú.El formato de encuestas se trabajó en conjunto entre el CIP y el INIA, involucrando a las estaciones experimentales del INIA con presencia en el Programa de Investigación Agraria papa -(Baños del Inca, Cajamarca; Andenes, Cusco; Illpa, Puno; Santa Ana, Junín; Canaán, Ayacucho)-en los trabajos de organización de la logística del estudio, manteniendo las comunicaciones con distintos estamentos del INIA. Esta metodología está disponible para su utilización en otros cultivos en el marco del nuevo Programa Nacional de Innovación Agraria del INIA.La metodología y los resultados del estudio se presentaron en la IV Conferencia de la Red de Seguimiento, Evaluación y Sistematización en América Latina y el Caribe (ReLAC), realizada en marzo del 2015 en el Campus de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú en la ciudad de Lima, generando interés de las instituciones participantes de otros países, como la Fundación McKnight de Ecuador, abriendo posibilidades para su implementación en otros contextos y para otros cultivos.Otro evento en el que se compartió la metodología y resultados de este estudio fue el taller de evaluación de impacto para las prioridades de investigación agrícola, celebrado en Lima, Perú, en abril de 2016, organizado por el CIP, el CIAT y el IFPRI 10 y que contó con la asistencia de diferentes instituciones nacionales y regionales y una gran participación de personal del INIA.Durante la Conferencia de la Asociación Latino Americana de la Papa (ALAP), realizada en Panamá en agosto del 2016, también se presentó esta metodología y sus resultados y próximamente se publicará en la revista de dicha asociación (Anexo 6).Es importante anotar que los datos del estudio de adopción están siendo analizados por una estudiante de maestría de la universidad Virginia Tech de los Estados Unidos. Se espera que su tesis, a ser publicada en el segundo semestre del 2017, agregue valor al estudio.| 31En el Perú, el cultivo de papa sigue siendo fundamental para una vasta población de agricultores, principalmente en la sierra del Perú. Debido a ello, diversas instituciones, como universidades y centros de investigación, trabajan para mejorar la productividad y calidad del cultivo mediante diversas tecnologías, siendo la generación de nuevas variedades de papa la principal, destinada a los agricultores.Este estudio de adopción de las variedades de papas desarrolladas como fruto de la colaboración del CIP con socios nacionales, proporciona los mejores estimados de dicha adopción hasta la fecha, además de un estimado de los beneficios económicos para los agricultores. Sus resultados pueden ser usados como insumo para estudios posteriores que deseen profundizar los impactos multidimensionales de esta adopción. La metodología empleada permite replicar este estudio en el futuro y generar datos que sirvan para estudios de adopción e impacto de otros cultivos.Además, los estudios en base a muestras representativas también sirven como fuente de verificación y apoyo a estudios basados en opiniones de expertos.La metodología del estudio se basó en estudios similares realizados en África por varios centros internacionales de investigación y universidades americanas, y fue muy útil para definir el tamaño de muestra requerido para tener la seguridad de que los hallazgos del estudio representen a la población de estudio, y para definir los criterios para asignar pesos a los distritos productores de papa de acuerdo a la información disponible a la fecha. Los datos recogidos permitieron calcular el área adoptada de variedades, los factores que influyen en la adopción y el impacto económico de dicha adopción.Los Andes peruanos tienen una geografía compleja por lo que llegar a las comunidades seleccionadas fue todo un reto logístico. Sin embargo, la capacitación, el apoyo y el profesionalismo del equipo permitieron cumplir los objetivos. En el estudio participaron expertos en el cultivo de papa de diferentes profesiones como agrónomos, economistas y biólogos del INIA y del CIP, así como personal de diferentes agencias agrarias. De esta forma se logró involucrar varios de los posibles usuarios de esta información.Entre los resultados más importantes del estudio se destaca que el 60 por ciento del área total de papa está plantado con variedades mejoradas, siendo Yungay la variedad mejorada más adoptada (22 por ciento de adopción), pese a que fue liberada hace más de 40 años por la Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina. El área plantada con Yungay casi duplicó al área plantada por INIA 303-Canchán, que es de 12 por ciento. Estos resultados sugieren la amplia adaptabilidad de Yungay a diferentes condiciones, así como un amplio sistema informal de provisión de semillas de esta variedad.Las variedades desarrolladas por el CIP junto a otros socios nacionales ocupan el 30 por ciento del área total de papa e incluyen las variedades INIA 303 Canchán, INIA 302 Amarilis, UNICA e INIA 309 Serranita, entre otras. Esto significa que la mitad del área plantada con variedades mejoradas de papa en el Perú tiene su origen en materiales del CIP. Estas variedades tienen mayor presencia en el mercado, y un mejor precio por kilo en comparación a Yungay.El análisis de los determinantes de adopción analizados mostró que: la capacitación, principalmente en manejo de plagas y enfermedades (+), la percepción de que el acceso al mercado es un problema para la producción de papas (-), y la percepción de que es beneficioso para el agricultor producir papas (+), son factores significativos en la decisión de los agricultores de adoptar variedades de papa desarrolladas con participación del CIP y socios nacionales. Estos factores pueden ser abordados con adecuadas políticas públicas para mejorar la extensión agrícola y las condiciones para un mejor acceso a los mercados, aunado a mejores mecanismos de información de precios por variedades.El estudio ha permitido identificar puntos de intervención para mejorar los ingresos de los productores mediante la adopción de variedades mejoradas de papas a través de un sistema de extensión que capacite a los agricultores y mejore el acceso al mercado, con caminos que permitan sacar los productos, e información en tiempo real del precio de las diferentes variedades en el mercado.El estudio de impacto también ha revelado que los agricultores que siembran papas mejoradas provenientes de material del CIP perciben ingresos adicionales respecto a los que siembran otras variedades mejoradas. Así, los productores que siembran INIA 303 Canchán, INIA 302 Amarilis, UNICA y/o INIA 309 Serranita, obtienen una tonelada más de papa por hectárea y generan 1 650 soles/anuales/productor más por venta de papa en el mercado. En consecuencia, la inversión en extensión agrícola y mejor acceso al mercado -vale decir, mejor infraestructura e información sobre precios-traería efectos positivos para la adopción de nuevas variedades de papa con las características que el mercado demanda.De otro lado, el estudio mostró que los sistemas de producción de papa en Puno, que representan alrededor del 17 por ciento del área total de papa del Perú, son significativamente diferentes del resto del país, debido a la altitud de los campos donde se siembra el tubérculo, además de la susceptibilidad a factores abióticos como sequías y heladas, que no permiten que las variedades mejoradas se adapten fácilmente. En Puno, más del 90 por ciento del área de papa está sembrada con papas nativas. Estos resultados sugieren que para mejorar las condiciones de vida de los agricultores de papa en ese departamento se requiere de una estrategia diferente a la introducción de variedades mejoradas.Finalmente, es conveniente continuar profundizando acerca de los impactos económicos que incluyan, por ejemplo, estudios para entender por qué la variedad Yungay es la más adoptada en el Perú, y por qué la variedad Amarilis llegó a tener tanta importancia en el norte del Perú, pero no en otras regiones. Dichos estudios deberían incluir impactos en seguridad alimentaria y en reducción de la pobreza.Anexo 1. Listado de localidades encuestadas por distritos, provincias y departamentos, incluyendo los datos de altitud promedio de la localidad y el número de encuestas realizadas por comunidad. --------------------------------------------------------n. treat. n. contr. ATT Std. Err. t ---------------------------------------------------------290 193 1.019 0.653 1.562 ---------------------------------------------------------Note: the numbers of treated and controls refer to actual nearest neighbour matches  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------Note: N = normal P = percentile BC = bias-corrected ATT estimation with Nearest Neighbor Matching method (random draw version) Bootstrapped standard errors --------------------------------------------------------n. treat. n. contr. ATT Std. Err. t ---------------------------------------------------------290 193 1.019 0.657 1.552 ---------------------------------------------------------Note: the numbers of treated and controls refer to actual nearest neighbour matches ","tokenCount":"9849"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ae0eb9f0157acace163d2d63b2f3f0fb","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/fa6033ce-1b75-4efd-a090-060ffcfa795e/retrieve","id":"918437192"},"keywords":["Farmer in Jawhar","Maharastra","India. Photo credit: Neil Palmer (CIAT/CCAFS). Creative Commons License"],"sieverID":"f2b023ec-c9f5-479a-b8ad-c91090fb3617","pagecount":"63","content":"Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).Table 1. Indicators of climate change adaptation and mitigation and their relationship to agroecology .14 commissioned this rapid evidence-based review to assess the quality and strength of evidence regarding (i) the impact of agroecological approaches on climate change mitigation and adaptation in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) and (ii) the programming approaches and conditions supporting large-scale transitions to agroecology and transitions. The review also aims to identify knowledge gaps critical to understand and inform future public and private investment in research, development, and deployment of agroecological approaches. The focus here is on the science of agroecology at the field and landscape level, not on social movement, value chain or business aspects. We use the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) 10 elements of agroecology with the Gliessman (2016) framework to identify agroecology practices (transition level 2) and agroecology systems (transition level 3).To assess evidence related to agroecology's climate change outcomes we conducted a systematic literature review of i) synthesis papers and ii) primary empirical studies related to nutrient and pest and disease management. For the latter we documented the presence of evidence for climate change outcome indicators, but not the magnitude or direction of the change. We also conducted semi-structured interviews with representatives from 12 organisations supporting or implementing on-the-ground agricultural development programmes to better understand the feasibility of scaling out agroecology.How much evidence is there?We identified 18 synthesis papers of high scientific quality relevant to the impacts of agroecology on climate change adaptation, mitigation or on the scaling of agroecology in the tropics or LMICs, representing over 10,212 studies. Nine papers presented findings based on 50% or more articles with data from LMICs, including four based 100% on LMICs data. Next, we conducted a systematic literature review to identify primary evidence for agroecological approaches related to nutrient management and climate change outcomes (15,674 articles) and for agroecological approaches related to pests and diseases and climate change outcomes (5,498 articles). From there, we identified a subset of 138 papers that also considered some aspect of scaling or adoption, and were conducted in the Global South. Of these papers, 115 reported on indicators relevant to climate change adaptation and mitigation. About one-third of these papers (48 papers) provided empirical evidence related to scaling agroecological approaches.The availability of evidence for impacts on climate change outcomes is mixed. Substantial evidence exists for the impacts of practices and systems aligned with agroecology (e.g., farm diversification, agroforestry and organic agriculture) on indicators of climate change adaptation. Evidence for impacts on mitigation is modest, except for enhanced carbon (C) sequestration in soil and biomass associated with agroecological approaches, notably for agroforestry. The modest number of studies conducted in the Global South, and the short-term, field-and farm-scale nature of most studies highlights the need for more studies in the tropics and LMICs, including high-quality, long-term, research on farms and at landscape scales that compares agroecology against alternatives. Studies on climate change mitigation are particularly needed.What does the evidence tell us?The agroecological approach with the strongest body of evidence for impacts on climate change adaptation was farm diversification (strong evidence and high agreement ). This included positive impacts of diversification on pollination, pest control, nutrient cycling, water regulation and soil fertility.The agroecological approach with the strongest body of evidence for impacts on climate change mitigation was tropical agroforestry, which had associated sequestration of carbon in biomass and soil. In general, agroecology impacts on climate change mitigation were primarily substantial carbon sequestration benefits (medium evidence, high agreement). There was also evidenceprimarily from the Global North -that mitigation of nitrous oxide (N 2 O) is often associated with organic farming and ecological management of nutrients (medium evidence, medium agreement).However, a large data gap was found for agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, with almost no evidence from the Global South. There were also evidence gaps for agroecology approaches involving livestock integration, landscape-scale redesign and for multi-scalar analysis.Agroecological approaches related to co-creation and sharing of knowledge support climate change adaptive capacity (strong evidence, medium agreement). Multiple lines of evidence show that engaging with local knowledge through participatory and education approaches are effective at adapting technologies to local contexts and thereby delivering improved climate change adaptation and mitigation.Farmer co-creation and exchange of knowledge, community-based, participatory engagement, localised solutions and social organising were common components of field programmes for bringing agroecology to scale. Scaling agroecology systems, as opposed to practices, made more use of participatory and farmer-to-farmer processes and the role of policy, according to the literature. Scaling also relied on market and policy measures that privileged local production. The inherent complexity and knowledge intensity of agroecology, sometimes incurred higher cost and more time compared to conventional agriculture, but this also enabled effectiveness and sustained benefits. The literature review of scaling agroecological approaches for nutrient management and pest and disease management showed many of the same interventions, enabling conditions and barriers as those observed for conventional agriculture.We recommend an outcome-based approach to assessing performance of agricultural development. This is to avoid contestation around what is encompassed by a specific label for an agricultural alternative, and instead assess performance in terms of environmental services and climate change response. A number of frameworks exist that can inform this work (Wezel et al. 2020, Kapgen and Roudart 2020, Grabowski et al. 2018) and can be used to measure performance. The lack of data on response to extreme climate events and on greenhouse gas emissions from tropical agriculture is a matter of great concern. We call for investment to fill these knowledge gaps, including comparative (alternatives versus conventional) and holistic (social, financial, and environmental as well as agronomic) assessment of climate change mitigation effectiveness and response to weather extremes that threaten future food security. There is urgent need for research on these topics in agricultural systems of LMICs, and by scientists and institutions from the Global South to build capacity in these regions.Investment is also required in analysis of performance across multiple dimensions and trade-offs for approaches aligned with agroecology relative to other agriculture development approaches, at plot and farm levels, as well as beyond. This should include cost-effectiveness. Valuation of a range of agroecological benefits can be hard to quantify (e.g., environmental and social benefits), and economics often reflect current policy context and short time horizons.Therefore, evidence-based priority investments include:The diversification of products and practices at field, farm and landscape level.Processes that support farmer innovation, co-learning and adaptation of innovations to local contexts.Move beyond contestation regarding what is agroecology and alternative labels. Focus instead on assessing outcomes of agricultural development approaches, building on indicator frameworks newly available (TAPE, Sustainable Intensification (SI) Assessment Framework).It is widely recognised that transformation of food systems is needed to achieve food and nutrition security globally in the context of a changing climate (Steiner et al. 2020). Agroecology is increasingly seen as one pathway to transform food systems by applying ecological principles to ensure the sustainable use of natural resources and provision of ecosystem services (HLPE 2019).In November 2020, FCDO and CCAFS commissioned this rapid evidence review to increase knowledge of impact of agroecological agricultural practices on climate change adaptation and mitigation. The goal of the study is to conduct a robust, but rapid synthesis of the quality and strength of evidence of the impact of agroecological approaches on climate change mitigation and adaptation in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). Evidence for achieving agroecological impacts at large scales is an emphasis. The review also aims to identify knowledge gaps critical to understand and inform future public and private investment in research, development and deployment of agroecological approaches.The objectives of the review are to synthesise the evidence and knowledge gaps for:1. the impacts of agroecological approaches on climate change adaptation and mitigation in major agricultural systems in LMICs, and 2. the programming approaches and conditions supporting large-scale implementation of agroecological approaches and transitions.We reviewed the evidence for climate change adaptation and mitigation impacts using a combination of systematic scientific review papers and primary evidence from scientific papers; we also conducted interviews to better understand the conditions supporting scaling up of agroecology (see Methods). Given the time constraints of a rapid evidence review we focused on agroecology approaches at field, farm and landscape scales, thus on practices and farm systems, not social movements, value chain or business aspects. Given these caveats, we synthesised key findings and conclude with recommendations to inform public investments in agricultural development.Agroecology can refer to a (1) social movement (Altieri andToledo 2011, Anderson et al. 2019), (2) set of principles (Wezel et al. 2020), or (3) scientific discipline (Tomich et al. 2011) (Andrieu and Kebede 2020). The role of agroecology in development is often divergent and contested, depending on these different perspectives (Bellword-Howard and Ripoll 2020). Our focus is on a scientific description of agroecology at field, farm and landscape levels, given our purpose of reviewing the evidence for impacts on climate change adaptation and mitigation (Tomich et al. 2011). We use the abbreviation AE to refer to agroecology or agroecological approaches in this document. Climate outcomes refer here to climate change adaptation and mitigation resulting from agricultural practices.While there is no a priori, clearly defined single set of agroecological approaches to use for this analysis, we considered approaches as more agroecological to the extent they made use of ecological processes, supported increasing autonomy from external inputs, and enabled whole system change, rather than focusing on changing single practices (Sinclair et al. 2019, Leippert et al. 2020). We drew on the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations' (FAO) ten elements of agroecology (Barrios et al. 2020) and Gliessman's (2016) agroecological transitions concept to provide a general framework for the analysis (Figure 1).Given our scope, our review focus is on the scientific evidence for agroecological practices (agroecological transition level 2) and systems (agroecological transition level 3) (Gliessman 2016, Figure 1). Agroecological elements that support transition levels 2 and 3 include recycling, synergy and diversity, all of which foster ecological processes to provide ecosystem services in agricultural systems (Barrios et al. 2020).Approaches aligned with agroecology were identified based on practices and system changes related to FAO's ten elements of agroecology (Box 1).We propose that agroecology supports climate change adaptation and mitigation outcomes most directly by promoting resilience, diversification, efficiency, synergies, circular economy, recycling and co-learning (Andrieu and Kebede 2020). These elements do not inherently assure climate-related impacts however. For example, adaptation and resilience outcomes are not necessarily specific to climate change risk (Sinclair et al. 2019). Actual impacts depend on local conditions, for example, environment mediates the effect of crop diversification on soil carbon accrual (Hermans et al. 2020). Expected relationships between agroecology elements and climate change outcomes are summarised in Table A1 (Annex 1).The approaches examined are not unique to agroecology and agroecology is not always labelled as such or implemented at whole system scales.To distinguish agricultural methods in the literature aligned with agroecology, we considered field, farm and landscape-level practices that relied on enhanced ecological processes and services Figure 1. Agroecological transition levels as they relate to the FAO ten elements of agroecology (Source: Leippert et al. 2020).LEVEL 5: Rebuild the global food system so that is it sustainable and equitable for all.LEVEL 4: Re-establish connections between growers and eaters, develop alternative food networks.LEVEL 3: Redesign whole agroecosystems.LEVEL 2: Substitute alternative practices and inputs.LEVEL 1: Increase efficiency of industrial inputs.LEVEL 0: No agroecological integration.FOOD SYSTEM LEVEL compared to conventional agricultural. Examples of agroecology practices (level 2) reviewed here include diversifying crop production through growing accessory plants, e.g., cover crops, green manures and hosts for beneficial insects, managing organic nutrient sources, and biopesticides (Drinkwater and Snapp 2007). Examples of system redesign (level 3) include crop-livestock integration, landscape mosaics, agroforestry and certified organic farming (Table 1).To assess the evidence for agroecology's impacts, we addressed three research questions:1. Climate change outcomes of agroecology: Does agroecology support better climate change adaptation and mitigation as consequence of whole-systems approach, co-benefits in addition to productivity, or capacity to respond to extreme events? We expect that agroecology's emphasis on whole systems lead to more comprehensive ecosystem services that support climate change adaptation and mitigation, such as agroforestry systems that support buffering of temperature and moisture regimes, nitrogen fixation and soil carbon sequestration. Sustainable intensification practices such as precision agriculture and fertiliser formulations to improve efficiency of agrochemical inputs are not considered agroecological practices here. Agronomic efficiency (Level 1 in Gliessman's framework) is insufficient on its own as an agroecological approach, especially if they are associated with other negative environmental impacts (Wezel et al. 2020). Agroecological approaches involve more than enhancing the efficiency of nutrient use and energy cycles. Instead, agroecology draws upon ecology, a scientific discipline that supports hypotheses that can be tested and used in designing agroecological practices and systems. An example is the role of diversity in resilience, an ecological theory drawn upon in AE. This stands in contrast to sustainable intensification, which is a general concept that doesn't generate design elements or hypotheses upon which to base the design of systems for agricultural development (Petersen and Snapp 2015).To address the research questions above, we conducted a rapid evidence review of agroecological approaches' impacts on climate change adaptation and mitigation. An emphasis was on evidence for achieving large-scale impacts in LMICs.We used three sources of information or the analysis: 1) synthesis and review articles, 2) articles providing primary evidence for deep dives on agroecological approaches, and 3) interviews with agricultural development organisations (Box 2).To identify articles for the literature review, we conducted a comprehensive search of the published scientific literature using Web of Science (WoS) for English-language articles since 1982.The assessment of review papers allowed us to get a big picture view of the coverage of agroecology and climate change adaptation and mitigation in the literature, as well as to identify trends in key effects of agroecological approaches. Some articles included information for countries other than LMICs.The primary evidence literature review enabled us to look in depth at the evidence in LMICs for specific approaches. Given the time available for the review, we focused on two types of approaches aligned with agroecology: nutrient management and pest and disease management.These were selected for in-depth review based on these being the major yield-suppressing factors in agriculture. Ensuring sufficient nutrient supply and regulation of pests also can be particularly challenging in low income and tropical countries, where farmers have limited access to chemical inputs. We selected articles that provided primary evidence (e.g., data from research trials, surveys)for single practices and agroecological system changes. We defined the deep dive approaches as follows:Nutrient management: Agroecological approaches based on the FAO ten elements, including practices and system levels, for nutrient management.• Practices included: (i) organic nutrient source (manure, compost, green manure), (ii) legumes (intercrops, rotations, push-pull, doubled legumes), (iii) crop diversity (crop/seed variety or mixed cropping, no mention of legumes), and (iv) conservation tillage, low input and mulch.• Systems included are listed in Table 1: (i) agroforestry, (ii) organic farming, (iii) organic integrated management including legume and conservation systems, and (iv) livestock integration representing a total of 29 papers.Pest and disease management: Agroecological approaches based on the FAO ten elements, including natural regulation and synergies, diversity, and local adaptation and farmer autonomy in pest and disease management against conventional and efficiency approaches.• Practices included: (i) intercropping (not push-pull), (ii) bioprotection (biopesticide/natural pesticides, botanicals), (iii) biological control (enhancement of beneficial organisms), (iv) field sanitation measures, (v) mechanical control, and (vi) improved or reduced pesticide application.• Systems included: (i) landscape structures (flower strips, trees integration), (ii) push-pull/ companion crops, (iii) integrated pest management, and (iv) organic farming, representing a total of 34 papers.To efficiently assess the evidence available for the impact of agroecology on climate change adaptation and mitigation, we compiled information from two sources: 1) selected, high quality peer-reviewed review papers relevant to agroecology and climate change adaptation and mitigation impacts or to the scaling of agroecology, based on a review of the published scientific literature; and 2) published primary evidence in scientific papers for deep dives on approaches aligned with agroecology for (a) nutrient management and(b) integrated pest and disease management, based on a systematic literature review. To assess climate change adaptation and mitigation impacts, we triangulated findings across these sources.For the primary evidence papers, studies were only selected for analysis if they also indicated some aspect of scaling up agroecology. Scaling was defined broadly and included adoption, farmer innovation, scaling mechanisms or enabling conditions, learning, market or policy incentives and participatory research methods. (Line 32 Table A1). For these papers, we documented the presence of evidence for adaptation and mitigation impacts, but did not ascertain the direction (positive, negative, neutral or variable) or magnitude due to the need for a rapid analysis. Many of these papers were also case studies that did not provide comparison against a clear baseline.We also conducted semi-structured interviews with twelve organisations involved in agricultural development in LMICs, including the major known organisations implementing agroecology at large scales. The aim of these interviews was to explore the conditions and constraints for scaling up agroecology, as experience with agroecology is still recent and this information was not widely available in the scientific literature.A total of 34 papers for pest management and 29 for nutrient management were related to approaches involving systems-level approaches to agroecology. The number of papers relating to each category of system approach for nutrient and pest management deep dives are reported in Annex I (Table A2). For nutrient management, the most frequent categories of system approach were respectively agroforestry, organic farming and livestock integration; for pest management the most frequent categories were respectively integrated pest management (IPM), push-pull/ companion crop.We defined the indicators for climate change adaptation and mitigation by drawing from and modifying the agroecological outcomes identified in the IPES-Food report (2016). Indicators for climate change adaptation were productivity, agricultural diversity, water and nutrient regulation, soil health, pollination and pest regulation, landscape conservation, response to extreme weather and local adaptation processes (Table 1). Indicators for climate change mitigation included reduced GHG emissions and carbon sequestration in soil and biomass (Table 1).Climate Change Adaptation IndicatorsHalf of the 10 elements of agroecology are directly related to production aspects (diversity, efficiency, recycling, resilience, and synergies); In AE, beyond the increase of yield, stability of yield, input autonomy, diet diversity and nutritional quality are important components for increasing CC adaptation and enhancing resilience of agroecosystems and people.Localised adaptation through farmer participation, indigenous knowledge and codevelopment of technical options suited to local conditions support more successful implementation and scaling up of practices with climate change adaptation and mitigation impacts. Co-creation can enhance farmers' adaptative capacity.Enhances generalised adaptation and resilience; can enhance mitigation by increasing vegetation abundance or period of cover with consequences for increased organic matter input to the soil.Water and nutrient regulation AE aim at enhancing positive ecological interaction, synergy, integration, and complementarity among the elements of agroecosystems (plants, animals, trees, soil, water) and at reducing or eliminating dependency on external inputs, contributing to nutrient leaching, underground water pollution. This can contribute to reduce vulnerability to variable climate conditions and enhance resilience.Pollination and pest regulation services AE aim at enhancing diversity of species, functional diversity and genetic resources and maintain biodiversity in the agroecosystem over time and space at field, farm, and landscape scales. This enhances natural regulation of pest and diseases and can lead to reduced exposure to a wide range of predators which abundance and unpredictability of occurrence is expected to increase with variable climate conditions. AE also promote reduction or elimination of pesticide use, reducing environment and people exposure to toxicity in addition to economic benefits for the farmer.Many of the practices promoted under AE (legumes intercropping, cover crops, rotation, agroforestry, crop-livestock integration, etc.) can have a positive impact on soil health: nitrogen fixation, soil organic matter, soil biological diversity, soil carbon stocks. An improvement of soil health has in return a range of benefits for Climate Change adaptation and mitigation: reducing Nitrogen and Carbon in the atmosphere, increasing fertility therefore production; increasing soil structure and water holding capacity which can lead to reduced soil losses due to wind or water erosion or floods.AE promotes landscape-level approaches to integrate diverse challenges which cannot be tackled at plot and farm level, this also allows for sectorial integration and policy harmonisation between conflicting land uses.Carbon sequestration in biomass AE practices such as permanent soil cover, agroforestry, residues retention etc. can impact C sequestration in biomass thus reducing C release in atmosphere.Soils are carbon sinks, many of the practices promoted under AE can help increase the soil C sequestration thanks to increased soil microbial diversity and abundance, the maintenance of continuous living plant cover on soils year-round, by increasing the mass and quality of plant and animal inputs to soils. This in turn can enhance various soil processes that protect carbon from microbial turnover and contribute to climate stability.GHG emissions AE promotes reduced use of inorganic fertilisers and pesticides, this reduces GHG emissions related to the production of those external inputs. In addition, AE supports short value chains and local consumptions which reduces energy use for transport, processing, storage agricultural products.Agricultural systems relying on ecological interactions, diversification, synergies among the elements of agroecosystems as supported by AE could potentially come back faster to stability after a climatic disturbance.Table 1. Indicators of climate change adaptation and mitigation and their relationship to agroecologyIn the reviews, agroecological approaches and their direction of change were reported. For the review of primary evidence (literature deep dive) we examined the indicators reported on by the studies, but not the direction of change of these indicators or magnitude of their effect. Asserting directionality or magnitude would have required the control, baseline or counterfactual system for each study to be identified through close reading of the text of a study, and then the positive, negative, neutral, or variable response of agroecological approaches relative to controls to be determined. This was not feasible in the timeframe given and many papers lacked this information, so we used reporting on indicators as a proxy.Statistically significant differences were tested using Fisher's exact test. See Annex I for a summary of the methods used to review the published literature.We conducted semi-structured interviews of 12 organisations supporting or implementing on-the-ground agricultural development programmes. The questionnaire and names of the groups interviewed are provided in Annex I. The purpose of the interviews was to understand implementing organisations' activities relevant to agroecology and the factors enabling scaling up of these activities. Organisations were selected to represent diverse types of programme donors and implementers (5 donors, 3 non-governmental organisations, 2 farmers' organisations, and 2 government agencies) of agricultural development in LMICs. We selected organisations with a strong agroecological focus, but included several where agroecological activities were only a minor component of their programmes.A donor advisory group and technical advisory group of agroecology, methods, and programme specialists both provided feedback on the workplan and draft report. See Annex III for the members of these groups.The very short time span of the study did not allow in-depth analysis such as the direction of change of climate indicators from the deep dives.Agroecology initiatives that are reported in grey literature were not captured in this report as it was a published literature-based evidence review.We did not assess future climate change impacts.Trade-offs between indicators of climate change adaptation and mitigation and with other ecosystems services indicators were not assessed.We identified 18 review papers that provided quality evidence on approaches aligned with agroecology and their climate change adaptation and mitigation impacts. These included systematic reviews, meta-analysis and meta-analysis of meta-analysis of the literature review. In      In addition, 72% of papers had a narrow geographic scope (i.e., single agroecosystem or country).The majority of papers concentrated in Africa (74%) and on small farms (< 2 ha or smallholder farming) (72%) (Table A6, Annex II). Climate change adaptation indicators were reported more frequently for nutrient management than climate change mitigation. There was only one paper that reported on mitigation for pest and disease management. The climate change adaptation indicator related to productivity was the most frequently identified indicator for nutrient management, whereas pollination services and pest and disease regulation services were the most frequent indicators for pest and disease management (Table A6, Annex II).The interviews of 12 donors and implementing organisations provided evidence about their experience with scaling up agroecology programmes. Determining whether a programme promoted agroecology was not straightforward. Respondents' answers reflected differing organisational perspectives and definitions of agroecological approaches. Respondents agreed that these divergent definitions and positions on agroecology hampered action. They suggested alternative methods, such as outcome-based criteria rather than practices to define agroecological approaches. It was also suggested that agroecological programme interventions are most relevant when they support processes of farmer innovation and farmers' priorities rather than practices selected a priori. Another suggestion was to avoid the term agroecology and just focus on providing relevant technical advice that farmers need.Organisations differed in the extent to which they emphasised distinctive aspects of agroecology (Figure A3, Annex VI). Assessing the FAO ten elements of agroecology across all organisations interviewed (Figure 3), we found that: Diversity, co-creation of knowledge, resilience and human and social values (i.e., livelihoods, equity) were the elements with the highest average rate across the interviewed organisations.Responsible governance, culture and food tradition and efficiency were the following group of elements with similar average rate across the interviewed organisations.Synergies, circular and solidarity economy and recycling were the elements with the lowest average rate across the interviewed organisations. We found significant evidence that agroecological approaches that involved whole system change supported climate change adaptation (strong evidence and high agreement). One systematic review with 110 studies found that approaches aligned with agroecology provided the highest value among all approaches reviewed for effective adaptation (Owen 2020). Among agroecological elements, biological diversification on farms consistently had strong positive climate change adaptation and mitigation impacts (strong evidence, high agreement). The review papers in Table 3 showed consistent evidence for the positive impacts of diversification on pollination, pest control, nutrient cycling, water regulation and soil fertility (strong evidence, high agreement) (Beillouin et al. 2019, Dainese et al. 2019, Tamburini et al. 2020). These papers summarised several decades of research across a wide range of agroecosystems and climates. Significant evidence also existed for the impacts of agroecology on regulating and supporting environmental services. A global metaanalysis of 54 studies of ecological restoration at landscape scales showed increases in regulating environmental services of 120%, supporting environmental services of 42%, and the biodiversity of all organism types by 68% (Barral et al. 2015), which is directly related to resilience and adaptation.The review papers also provided in-depth evidence for the impacts of agroforestry and organic agriculture on adaptation. For example, agroforestry had a positive impact on biodiversity, water regulation, soil carbon, nitrogen and fertility and for buffering temperature extremes (Beillouin et al. 2019, Niether et al. 2020, Kuyah et al. 2019). Organic agriculture improved regulating (pest, water, nutrient) and supporting services (soils, biodiversity).The evidence from the deep dive analysis showed that system-level agroecology approaches were more frequently associated with climate change adaptation outcomes related to local adaptation (P= 0.08), pollination, pest and disease regulation services (P= 0.02), compared to single agroecological practices. However, there was no difference between practice and systems for the other climate change outcomes (See Fisher's test outputs, Annex V).The evidence for whole-system impacts on climate change mitigation on the other hand was more limited (Table 4). There was a high-quality body of evidence that showed agroforestry was consistently associated with gains in soil carbon sequestration (Corbeels et al. 2019, Feliciano et al. 2018). Also, there is a moderate and growing body of evidence for organic agriculture and associated gains in soil carbon (Gattinger et al. 2012). There was also evidence primarily from the Global North regarding the impacts of organic farming and ecological management of nutrients on the mitigation of nitrous oxide (medium evidence, medium agreement). The mitigation of nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions was based on greater reliance on legume sources of nitrogen and modest rates of nitrogen inputs associated with agroecology (which often relies upon recycling, synergies and diversity), compared to conventional sustainable intensification (Guenet et al. 2021, Han et al. 2017). As the greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of outcomes depends on where system boundaries are drawn, more multi-scalar analyses are needed to capture flows of inputs and impacts beyond the farm scale.Several research gaps were evident in the review papers and the deep dives. Overall, GHG emissions data was a major research gap. We found very few reports on N 2 O, NH 3 and methane emissions associated with agricultural activities in low-income countries (Skinner et al. 2014). No reviews were found for agroecological approaches related to livestock production or crop-livestock integration. There were also few studies of landscape-scale approaches.Most interview respondents agreed that system approaches provide substantial benefits for climate change outcomes, often more than single practices. One respondent explained that \"farmers are inherently system-based and adjusting to their reality has made the work effective and created more opportunities\".B. Climate co-benefits: Do agroecological approaches provide better co-benefits to agricultural production for climate change adaptation and mitigation?Evidence for trade-offs between yields and other climate change adaptation and mitigation services exists but is not systematically reported. There were win-win outcomes for yields and climate change mitigation associated with agroforestry, crop diversity and organic nutrient management.Diversification was associated with increased or maintained yields (although variable) compared to conventional agriculture (high evidence, high agreement). Variable and sometimes modestly lower yields were reported for organic agriculture (Skinner et al. 2014). Agroforestry systems had variable impacts on yield depending on the main crop, agro-ecological zone and soil types, including lower yields for cocoa systems. At the same time, in several reviews, agroforestry system yields in the tropics were high and no trade-offs were found with climate change services (Kuyah et al. 2019, Niether et al. 2020).The evidence from the deep dive analysis showed that yield co-benefits were reported for a wide range of climate change adaptation and mitigation indicators (Figure 4). In addition to productivity, system agroecology approaches were frequently associated with climate change adaptation outcomes related to local adaptation (P= 0.04), pollination, and pest and diseases regulation services (P= 0.002). As we did not examine the direction of impact of agroecological approaches on pollination and pest regulation, further study is needed to assess whether impacts were positive or negative.C. Extreme climate events: Does agroecology enable better adaptation to extreme weather events?No systematic review and very few papers in the deep dives (less than 10 papers) were found about AE response to extreme weather conditions. We acknowledge that there are considerable challenges associated with studying response to erratic, and rare, events. This may require modelling and global analytical approaches that were outside the scope of the studies reviewed. Overall, no systemic reviews or papers in the deep dives reported on the topic of AE to enhance resilience, other than stability of yield which was an indicator reported in some studies.Does agroecology provide more climate change adaptation and mitigation than conventional agriculture by emphasising locally relevant solutions, participatory processes and co-creation of knowledge?We evaluated the extent of adaptation in the deep dive literature review of AE for nutrient and pest management. More than half of the papers reported adaptive capacity and local engagement processes supporting farmers to adapt practices to local conditions (80 of 138 papers). Localising processes included use of local knowledge, education or extension, technology selection by context, and farmer organisations (Figure 5). There was modest evidence that system agroecology was more frequently associated with localised and engaged adaptation, more so than practices, as shown for education and extension (P=0.085). The majority of interview respondents reported participatory approaches as key for scaling up agroecology, in particular the participation of farmers and local communities in the co-design of projects and development of locally adapted interventions, building on local knowledge and respecting local belief systems and values. Respondents also indicated that scaling agroecology requires a community-led bottom-up approach, collective actions, farmer-to-farmer extension system. One stated, \"it is slow, but the only way to go\". They identified the need for self-sustaining advisory and training mechanisms, although one organisation also mentioned a need for long-term \"hand-holding\" support. Most interviewees (11 of 12) identified the role of civil society organisations and partnerships as a major enabling condition for scaling agroecology. With support and ownership of programmes by governments, national policy was also mentioned as essential for scaling by a number of respondents.Do the programme interventions, enabling environment or barriers, needed for agroecological transitions to reach many people at scale differ compared to conventional systems?We investigated the evidence for large-scale impacts of agroecology, by asking whether the type of programme interventions, enabling conditions or barriers needed for agroecological transitions differed compared to conventional systems.Evidence in the scientific literature relevant to scaling and enabling conditions of agroecology was poor to modest. We identified 4 systematic reviews and 48 additional papers on nutrient management or pest and disease management related to scaling. While the reviews synthesised findings from ~220 papers (Table 4), scientific robustness was mixed, and most reviews did not address agroecology at scale explicitly or compare the scaling conditions of agroecology and conventional agriculture. This is not surprising, as the complexity of scaling of agroecology poses challenges to assess systematically, especially for meta-analysis, which requires pair-wise comparisons (Krupnik et al. 2019). Most larger scale agroecology programmes are also relatively recent.According to the literature reviewed, the drivers and enabling conditions for scaling agroecology were similar to those for conventional agriculture (e.g., bundles of new practices, advisory services, finance, market benefits, or payments) (Hazell andWood 2008, Feder et al. 1985, Sunding and Zilberman 2001, see also references in Table 4, and Table 5). However, important differences exist. Scaling agroecology was most distinctive in its reliance on co-creation of knowledge with farmers to develop site-specific technical options, farmer organising and reliance on inclusive social movements. Market drivers differentiated agroecological production through public policy support for smallholder production (e.g., purchasing arrangements), local or regional food market development or certification, for example of organic or fair-trade goods. Government policy supported reformulation or shifts away from agro-industrial models (Mier y Terán et al. 2018). Social movements often emerged in response to agrarian conflict (Mier y Terán et al. 2018). In addition, enforced regulatory frameworks, payments for environmental services, and credit or payments conditional on environmental outcomes were important incentives associated with environmental outcomes for sustainable agriculture, in addition to market or technical interventions. In contrast, market or technical interventions were the most important incentives for adopting sustainable agriculture practices that enhanced productivity (Piñeiro et al. 2020). The reviews highlighted the need to marshal more institutional support for monitoring co-benefits to productivity, especially environmental outcomes.  2) market-based approaches (21% of papers). Common barriers included weak or absent supporting institutions or organisations (35% of papers), farmer capacity (27%), and labour (27%). The one exception was that policy change was more likely to be associated with whole-farm system intervention like agroforestry or integrated pest management than practice-based approaches (P=.097). Evidence for scaling up outcomes related to climate change mitigation or adaptation were generally lacking, as were most environmental services of agroecology.Interviews with donors and programme implementers aligned with the findings from the literature findings and provided further insights (Table 5). Half of the organisations interviewed ( 6) indicated that scaling agroecology differed from scaling conventional approaches in the following ways (see detailed answers in Table A9, Annex VI):Agroecology is intrinsically complex and knowledge-intensive, requiring a multidisciplinary approach and making it more difficult to scale than single practices;The government will need to play a stronger role to go beyond short-term market-driven decisions;Farmers and local communities are the centre of knowledge co-design and dissemination Common features of scaling conventional and agroecological transitions were the necessity of involving government, the lack of cooperation between government offices of agriculture and environment, and poor implementation of policies (low evidence, medium agreement).The most frequently mentioned enabling conditions for scaling were (Figure A4 Frustration concerning agroecology was expressed by some donors who experienced the agroecology movement as more political and value-based than content and evidence-driven, and not necessarily always responsive to farmers' wants (e.g., farmers wanting agro-chemicals), or no acknowledgment of existing development work related to food system transformation, diversification and agroforestry. The use of the term has become divisive and now lacks unifying power. Climate change adaptation may require some farmers to migrate or find new livelihoods and requires a broader frame of thinking than agroecology. It was noted that some conventional practices have been scaled up through conventional means yet resulted in elegant agroecological systems. More attention to the content of practices would enable more collaboration. A doubt was raised about how to make agroecology financially sustainable when markets drive decisions in the short term. These factors may act as barriers.Agrodiversity is a key agroecology element, and recent high-level meta-analyses have found few yield trade-offs with multiple gains in ecosystem services, data that could feed into an economic analysis (Dainese et al. 2019, Tamburini et al. 2020).While scaling up approaches aligned with agroecology differed from conventional approaches in a few key dimensions (low evidence, strong agreement), the general categories of drivers were similar. Agroecology emphasised farmer co-creation and exchange of knowledge; communitybased, participatory engagement, localised solutions and social organising. Government and market interventions promoted these local processes and solutions. None of the differences by themselves were unique to agroecology but rather reflected an emphasis, often reinforced by a vision for agricultural development distinctive from market-driven, agro-industrial agriculture. We note that we did not assess AE relative to other pathways, and there may well be multiple pathways to promoting diversification. At the same time, there are global trends towards cropping pattern simplification with many unintended negative consequences, including poor climate change outcomes. AE approaches often rely upon diversification and offer lessons in how to scale diversification. Much work remains to be done and interview respondents highlighted barriers that need to be overcome.Agroforestry and organic agriculture are widely associated with agroecology, and both were associated with substantial gains in carbon sequestration and modest or no yield trade-offs, as shown by a number of systematic and often global reviews (Leippert et al. 2020, Smith et al. 2019, Tamburini et al. 2020). However, landscape-scale evaluation of climate change mitigation is understudied, which leaves unanswered the critiques of organic agriculture in particular (Connor 2018).There was also evidence -primarily from the Global North -regarding greenhouse gas emissions as organic farming and ecological management of nutrients were associated with mitigation of nitrous oxide (medium evidence, medium agreement). A comparison of agroecological practices and system approaches showed that both supported climate change outcomes. However, there was a system advantage related to local adaptation, and pollination and pest regulation services. There were evidence gaps in agroecological approaches that included livestock integration and landscapescale redesign, as noted by others (Skinner et al. 2014). There was limited data on GHG emissions for the tropics and almost no evidence regarding resilience to extreme weather events. One study that monitored farm plots in Nicaragua under conventional and participatory, sustainable management found that the later was associated with resilience after Hurricane Mitch (Holt-Gimenez 2002). We also point to the large body of literature in ecology on biodiversity in natural systems as key to providing 'insurance' services (Mace et al. 2012). Further, a country-wide, multi-year study has shown yield stability to be highly associated with biodiversity on smallholder farms in Malawi (Snapp et al. 2010), and other studies in our deep dive literature review did assess yield variability, which provides a starting place for improved understanding of resilience and AE taken together, the evidence is consistent with AE approaches as enhancing the resilience of farming systems (Schipanski et al.An overall finding was that agroecological approaches prioritise adaptive capacity, which improves climate change outcomes (medium evidence, high agreement). This was supported by evidence from both the deep dive literature review and interviews. Only one synthesis of synthesis review reported on adaptation; it highlighted the role of agroecological approaches in supporting effective adaptation (Owen 2020). Interviews with representatives of organisations involved in scaling agroecology often stressed the role of co-knowledge and localised adaptation. This was consistent with the deep dive findings for nutrient and pest and disease management, where the majority of primary evidence reviewed reported agroecological approaches involving co-creation and sharing of knowledge, important in delivering climate change impact.Taken together, our findings are consistent with agroecology as an approach that prioritises processes that enhance adaptive capacity and fit local conditions, through indigenous knowledge, education, technology re-design, participatory learning and local capacity building. This is an important differentiating aspect of agroecological approaches operating at both practice and system levels. This is in addition to agroecology's ecological elements, which are environmentally sound principles, e.g., diversity, synergy, efficiency, and recycling. Adaptive capacity can be challenging to document and has been overlooked in some agroecology reviews, but we found evidence that it is important. Further, we suggest that an outcome-oriented definition of agroecology, which includes adaptive capacity and co-generation of knowledge, could be a useful way forward in scaling agroecological approaches to reach more people and achieve development goals. This can help in overcoming the divide on agroecology which is less on the scientific concept of AE but rather on the type of value chains (short/long), the level of intensity in agricultural use (low/high input agriculture), market orientation (export oriented/local consumption) etc.Agroecology was not evaluated relative to conventional intensification, due to the scope of a rapid evidence review. Agricultural development following conventional intensification that has in many cases relied on technology transfer approach is not supportive of local adaptation, and AE may offer an alternative. More research is needed on how to promote scaling, but AE elements include co-creation with stakeholders and investment in local adaptation capacity, which support climate change adaptation (Leippert et al. 2020, Owen 2020). We acknowledge that scaling of participatory approaches poses challenges, including human and financial resources to support engagement in co-knowledge generation with millions of farmers and other stakeholders. There are innovations in local learning that should be evaluated and successful ones promoted, such as information and communication technology informed campaigns and digital approaches to promote action learningapproaches. An example is provided by scaling of farmer field school approaches that have enabled large-scale reduction in pesticide use and enhanced biodiversity in rice systems (Heong et al. 2014).Scaling also relied on market and policy measures that privileged local production. Together with the inherent complexity and knowledge intensity of agroecology, these factors sometimes incurred more cost and time but then enabled greater impact and benefits in the long term. More evidence on scaling is needed, especially for mitigation outcomes in Asia and Latin America.These findings are broadly consistent with the wider literature. Reviews for scaling of sustainable agriculture (Piñeiro et al. 2020), agroforestry (Mercer 2004)  that address externalities, market options). They also indicate the need for better evidence about how to scale agroecological approaches to support democratic processes and equity, a critical point for climate change mitigation, as wealthier farmers tend to produce more environmental outcomes (Piñeiro et al. 2020).In spite of these findings, a major question is to what extent scaling up agroecology may restrict farmers' options and become a poverty trap by maintaining the status quo and not providing access to the growth possible through industrial and corporate models (Mugwanya 2019). There is a lack of data or scenarios showing the impacts of agroecological transitions on economic development, and it is a complex topic that was deemed beyond the scope of this review. This topic is a key research priority addressed by the Transformative Partnership Platform (TPP) on agroecological approaches, aiming to document and evaluate the socioeconomic viability of agroecological practices across Africa. This is supported by French funding and coordinated by the agroecology research priority of the CGIAR Programme on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA).Agroecological principles encourage farmers and local communities to act as decision-makers and leaders in finding solutions for their own issues. In relation to this, the idea of scaling has a very specific meaning in agroecology. In fact, agroecological science and practices are intrinsically linked to farmers' knowledge in relation to the specific geographic contexts they live in and constraints they encounter. Therefore, the innovation developed by farmers is inherently locally adapted. General principles and knowledge can emerge from one geographic context and inform another with similar agroecological and pedo-climatic conditions, even though the scaling of the principles and knowledge will have to build on organisational and institutional context (Mier y Terán et al. 2018).Therefore, scaling agroecology requires attention to mechanisms that support scaling of adaptation, learning, participatory decision-making, and social organising.Tackling climate change will require broad cooperation and diverse approaches. Operationalising agroecology across organisations with different political visions for development will require transcending the many labels for sustainable agriculture and climate change (e.g., climate smart agriculture, regenerative agriculture), including agroecology. This means focusing more on the content of the changes needed or using an outcome-based approach to defining agroecology.Attention to outcomes relevant to the SDGs such as climate change resilience, environmental health, gender equity and social inclusion, soil health, biodiversity conservation, healthy diets and resource efficiency could provide common points of reference (Leippert et al. 2020). Another outcome-based approach is to aim to develop a negative ecological footprint of current practices (HLPE 2019).Toward agroecology transitions for climate change impactsRecent reviews of funding for agroecology found that most donors at least partly support agroecological principles (Biovision and IPES Food 2020, CIDSE 2020), which was confirmed in interviews with programme experts for this study. However, the majority of agricultural investment (63%) is reinforcing or making minor adjustments to existing systems (Biovision and IPES Food 2020) despite calls for food system transformation (Steiner et al. 2020). Funding for agroecology is a small proportion of major global agricultural development investment. About 80% of the EU's funding to FAO, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (Figure 6a) and 80% of the Green Climate Fund's funding (Figure 6b) flow to activities supporting conventional or efficiency-oriented agriculture such as sustainable intensification (CIDSE 2020).Comparison of project funding from Switzerland, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and Kenya's research institutes shows that 85% of the BMGF-funded projects and more than 70%of Kenyan research institute funding focuses on industrial agriculture or increasing its efficiency (Biovision and IPES Food 2020). These analyses do not examine flows related to climate change adaptation or mitigation.Requirements of donors, such as short-term reportable returns on investment, can be a constraint to funding investments that mostly yield benefits in the long-term. At the same time, major donors have made explicit commitments to long-term agroecology goals; these include France, Switzerland, Germany, the FAO and IFAD (Biovision and IPES Food 2020).Figure Despite the challenges associated with scaling up agroecological approaches, this review suggests several models of implementation for achieving scale, drawing on current programmes:Small-scale finance (COMDEKS, UNDP-GEF);Collaborative crop research community of practice (McKnight Foundation);Farmer organising and driving a social movement (Andhra Pradesh Community-managed Natural Farming);Participatory, pro-poor technical support (International Institute for Rural Reconstruction).A research priority is evaluating the impacts and drawing lessons from these programmes and others, such as those of the Scaling up Agroecology Initiative of FAO and partners in Senegal, Mexico, and regional programmes in West Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean.This review concurs with recommendations regarding long-term funding modalities, setting targets for outcomes that include environmental services and climate change outcomes and seeking systemic change to building farmer capacities and incentives (Biovision and IPES Food 2020).Rather than treating climate change adaptation and mitigation as \"co-benefits,\" which risks limiting progress to incremental change, there is a need to actively manage for climate change benefits. Key Improved climate change outcomes from agroecology and alternatives rely on evidence. This includes improved understanding of links in agricultural performance to impact on the environment and effective climate change adaptation pathways. There is currently almost no primary evidence on tropical agriculture GHGs (N2O and CH4) and approaches that can mitigate these or how to buffer effects of extreme weather events. Longer-term studies with innovative approaches such as benchmark on-farm studies, participatory modelling and community engaged research is urgently needed to understand climate change outcomes at multiple scales, while building capacity to adapt. Policy research is also needed on effective ways to scale approaches that are effective at achieving environmental services and other climate change outcomes without compromising productivity services.This rapid evidence review identifies agroecology related practices, systems and approaches that address climate change outcomes. It also points to critical knowledge gaps.Donors investing in agroecology should consider how to position and define their work in ways that transcend divergent definitions and political versus scientific perspectives and avoid the need to determine whether practices are agroecological or not. One approach is to focus on the content of approaches and outcome-based definitions and indicators. Assessing multiple dimensions of performance is important to achieve climate change outcomes, including productivity, but also environmental services, climate change response, and adaptation. A number of agroecology frameworks exist that can inform this work (Wezel et al. 2020, Kapgen and Roudart 2020, Grabowski et al. 2018) and can be used to evaluate performance and trade-offs associated with agricultural development approaches, such as the Tools for Agroecological Performance Evaluation (TAPE by FAO), Sustainable Intensification Assessment Framework (USAID-supported), and FAIR Sahel by the French Agricultural Research Center (CIRAD). Labels like agroecology can still be expedient for communication; the point is to spend less time debating what is or is not agroecology. We note that valuation of a range of agroecological benefits can be difficult to quantify (e.g., environmental and social benefits), and economics often reflect current policy context and short time horizons.In prioritising agroecological approaches that support climate change adaptation and mitigation, donors can focus on approaches where there is strong evidence and high agreement. A large body of evidence points to diversity supporting the climate change outcomes both for adaptation and for mitigation. Programme implementation experts also indicated diversity as a common and scalable intervention. The evidence from the literature and programme experts' experience also strongly supports co-design and co-development of knowledge with farmers or communities to enhance adaptive capacities and locally relevant solutions. Investment in technologies or high-level market or policy interventions alone is not sufficient.To implement these approaches at scale, donors can support shifting institutional practices and capacities. Priorities for governments, donors and policy makers include:Creating incentives and capacity that support diversification at multiple scales, and local adaptation;Better linking funding and performance indicators in agriculture to environment and climate change outcomes. Support for agroecology approaches is an important way to achieve this linkage as these approaches were shown in this review to provide a broad range of environmental services, including regulatory services, diversification and carbon sequestration.To address knowledge gaps, research priorities include:Barriers and opportunities for scaling out of diversification and local adaptation processes, across landscapes and regions, through multiple agricultural development pathways that include agroecology;Research in tropical and low-income countries on climate change adaptation to extreme weather and quantitative assessment of greenhouse gas emissions;Scientific documentation of the effectiveness of agroecological approaches compared to alternatives, including performance in terms of environmental, social and cost-effectiveness, and direction of impact on climate change outcomes;Evaluation of the impacts and identification lessons from programmes presently implementing agroecology at scale;South-South research collaboration.The relationship of the ten elements of agroecology, according to FAO, can be related to climate change adaptation and mitigation (Table A1) The review of synthesis papers aimed to identify paper reviews of research with primary evidence, i.e., studies that were primarily experimental or observational in nature and demonstrated agroecology performance or scaling up. We identified which papers were systematic reviews and classified these as (i) meta-analysis of the literature and (ii) systematic reviews that are rigorous and transparent by stating the search terms used and the numbers of studies included in the review.Criteria for removal included 'reviews' that considered fewer than five studies or did not state how many studies were reviewed. Geographical scope needed to include more than one country.A study was also removed if it did not include agricultural systems and only reported on natural areas, forestry or rangeland.Expert judgement was used to identify other relevant reviews and then develop a \"best set\" of top reviews. The reviews chosen were included based on the quality of the study, strength of the evidence and relevance to agroecology and climate change impacts in low-and middleincome countries. The criteria included the number of studies reviewed, systematic process and transparency of the review, global or appropriately targeted to regions of interest.Review papers were evaluated qualitatively, and key points were highlighted in three tables. These tables were based on each study's primary topic: climate change adaptation, climate change mitigation, and scaling. In the case of overlaps, such as regarding soil carbon supporting services, if soil carbon was the primary indicator considered in the study, then it was reported under climate change mitigation. However, if multiple ecosystem services were reported, including soil C, then the study was included under climate change adaptation. Evidence gaps were then assessed.Literature searches for both the nutrient management and pest management deep dives were performed within the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection using the same search criteria, except for two search rows, which included search terms specific to the respective deep dive (Tables A3   and A4. All searches were based on articles published from 1982 to the present.Figure A1 shows the steps taken to identify and refine candidate articles for each deep dive. Initially, separate WoS searches were conducted to identify literature corresponding to agroecological practices (levels 2, i.e., \"practices\") and agroecological systems (level 3, i.e., \"systems\") as proposed by Gliessman (2016). However, the different search results did not match the defined levels, so the agroecological practices and systems search results were combined (i.e., Levels 1,2 and 3).Each article's agroecological level was later determined when performing data entry. We searched for articles that included key terms related to agroecological practices that (i) were conducted in developing countries, (ii) were not related to agroecosystems, agro-ecological zones, metaanalyses, review, opinion, or perspective articles, (iii) included indicators of climate change mitigation, adaptation, or related co-benefits, and (iv) included terms related to scaling up (Figure A1, Tables A3 and A4). Each study was assessed in terms of its relationship to the five research questions.The studies were characterised as relevant to agroecological management of nutrients, pests or both. Up to two agroecological interventions per article were characterised according to the type of agroecological approach. For nutrient management, interventions were categorised as:Further characterisation of each study included the approach level (practices v. system) (Table A2), the extent of local adaptation conducted (local or indigenous knowledge, extension and education, altering technology by context, and involvement of farmer organisation), geographic scope, the relative size of farms referenced or participating in each study, and the quality of the study. A study's quality was determined by the type of evidence (empirical or modelled) and whether the study triangulated evidence (i.e., used multiple methods).Each study's assessment of climate change mitigation, adaptation, or co-benefits in relation to the agroecological intervention(s) was recorded. More specifically, whether or not the study reported on productivity, agricultural diversity, water and nutrient regulation, soil health, pollination services and pest regulation, greenhouse gas emissions, carbon sequestration in soil, carbon sequestration in biomass, landscapes and conservation, or response to extreme events was recorded.Finally, whether the study considered enabling conditions or barriers related to scaling-up the intervention(s) of interest was also reported. These were as follows:• Only for nutrient management deep dive TS=((intercrop* OR \"crop association*\" OR \"doubled up\" OR \"doubled-up\" OR \"legume diver*\" OR \"rotat* diver*\" OR \"mixed crop*\" OR \"mixed cultivar*\" OR \"cover crop*\" OR \"green manure\" OR \"living cover\") AND (agricultur* OR farm* OR agroeco*))Cropping practices TS= ((biofertili* OR \"organic fertili*\" OR manur* OR compost* OR mulch* OR \"crop residue*\" OR biopesticide* OR bioprotection OR \"biological control\" OR biocontrol*) AND (agricultur* OR farm* OR agroeco*))Soil amendments and pest management TS= ((\"perennial grain*\" OR \"push-pull\" OR \"recycl* nutrient*\" OR \"integrated crop\" OR \"integrated soil\" OR \"couple* carbon\" OR \"tighten nutrient\" OR \"nutrient budget\") AND (agricultur* OR farm* OR agroeco*))Pest management, nutrient recycling, and diversification #1 AND (#2 OR #3 OR #4)Combine search terms specific to the nutrient management deep dive with the search terms for Agroecological Practices TS=((\"crop livestock system\" OR \"integrated crop livestock\" OR \"croplivestock\" OR \"agro-sylvo-pastoral\" OR \"sylvopastoral\" OR \"rotational grazing\" OR diversif* OR \"nutrient cycl*\" OR \"crop interaction\" OR \"pest-crop interaction\" OR ecolog*) AND (agricultur* OR farm* OR agroeco*))Crop-livestock integration TS=((\"farmer participatory\" OR \"action research\") AND (agricultur* OR farm* OR agroeco*))Participatory action research TS=(((\"*ecologic* intensification\" OR \"low input\" OR permaculture OR holistic OR \"integrated organic\" OR \"certified organic\" OR agroforest*) AND (agricultur* OR farm* OR agroeco*) ) OR ((regenerative OR organic OR sustainab* OR agroeco*) NEAR/0 (agricultur* OR farm*))) Organic/sustainable/regenerative agriculture, permaculture, or agroforestry TS= ((\"integrated pest management\" OR \"landscape ecology\" OR \"landscape mosaic*\" OR \"landscape redesign\") AND (agricultur* OR farm* OR agroeco*)) High-income countries TS=(agroecosystem* OR \"agro-ecosystem*\" OR \"agroecological zone\" OR \"plastic mulch\" OR \"seed coating\" OR soilless OR (wastewater NEAR/0 (municipal OR treatment))) Agroecosystem, agroecological zones, and irrelevant agricultural practices TI=(meta-analysis OR review OR opinion OR perspective) Meta-analysis, reviews, and opinion articles #11 NOT #12 NOT #13 NOT #14Exclude studies in high-income countries, articles on irrelevant topics, and meta-analysis and review articles Table A3 continued TS=(\"climate change mitigation\" OR \"greenhouse gas*\" OR \"carbon sequestration\" OR \"carbon storage\" OR \"sequester carbon\" OR \"store carbon\" OR \"carbon sink\" OR \"soil organic carbon\" OR \"carbon storage\" OR \"emissions* abatement\" OR \"emission* reduction\" OR \"reduced emission*\" OR \"low-emission* development\" OR \"nitrous oxide\" OR \"carbon dioxide\" OR \"methane\") Climate change mitigation TS=(\"climate change adaptation\") Climate change adaptation TS=(productivity OR production OR yield OR co-product) Productivity or yield TS= (\"crop diversity\" OR \"livestock diversity\" OR \"Ag* diversity\" OR \"genetic diversity\" OR \"Micro* diversity\") Agricultural diversity TS=(\"Water regulation\" OR \"Water infiltration\" OR \"Nutrient regulation\" OR \"Soil water\" OR \"Soil nitrogen\" OR \"Soil aeration\") Landscapes or conservation TS=(\"human capital\" OR \"traditional knowledge\" OR \"learning process*\" OR \"learning cycle*\" OR \"farm* learn*\" OR \"farmer exchange\" OR \"participatory extension\" OR \"citizen science\" OR \"living laborator*\" OR \"learning hub\" OR \"stakeholder engagement\" OR \"co-creation\" OR \"knowledge sharing\") Refine search results by requiring that they reference farm size or agricultural scale TS= (transition* OR scaling OR scale OR scale-up OR scale-out OR transform* OR adoption OR disadoption OR uptake OR innovation OR \"institutional change\" OR \"organisational change\" OR \"systemic change\" OR \"social movement\") Scaling of agroecological practices or systems TS= (drivers OR \"enabling environment\" OR \"enabling conditions\" OR barriers OR constraints OR obstacles) Enabling conditions and barriers TS= (intervention* OR development OR program* OR initiative* OR market* OR price* OR policy OR regulation OR governance OR subsidy OR \"publicprivate\" OR finance OR credit OR inputs OR \"ecosystem payment*\" OR \"environmental payment*\" OR \"results-based payment*\" OR \"carbon market*\" OR \"ecosystem services market*\" OR certification OR \"land rights\" OR tenure OR gender OR \"food sovereignty\" OR training OR \"capacity building\" OR \"farmer field schools\" OR education OR extension OR \"co-learning\" OR \"innovation systems\" OR participatory OR \"action research\" OR \"seed systems\" OR \"consumer awareness\" OR traceability OR collaboration OR \"circular economy\" OR stakeholder OR coordination OR organiz* OR \"Value chain*\") Potential enabling conditions #29 AND (#30 AND (#31 OR #32))Refine search results by requiring that they reference scaling or barriers to scaling Table A4. Search terms for pest and disease management deep dive. Note that TS refers to topic, TI refers to title.Description of Search Terms TS=(((Pest OR Disease OR Arthropod*) AND (biopesticide* OR bioprotection OR \"biological control\" OR \"natural pesticides\" OR botanical* OR \"beneficial arthropods\" OR \"Trap cropping\" OR \"Companion planting\" OR \"semiochemicals\" OR biocontrol* OR \"Push-pull\" OR \"Integrated crop\")) AND (agricultur* OR Farm* OR forest*))Only for Pest and Disease Management deep dive TS=((intercrop* OR \"crop association*\" OR \"doubled up\" OR \"doubled-up\" OR \"legume diver*\" OR \"rotat* diver*\" OR \"mixed crop*\" OR \"mixed cultivar*\" OR \"cover crop*\" OR \"green manure\" OR \"living cover\") AND (agricultur* OR farm* OR agroeco*))Cropping practices TS= ((biofertili* OR \"organic fertili*\" OR manur* OR compost* OR mulch* OR \"crop residue*\" OR biopesticide* OR bioprotection OR \"biological control\" OR biocontrol*) AND (agricultur* OR farm* OR agroeco*))Soil amendments and pest management TS= ((\"perennial grain*\" OR \"push-pull\" OR \"recycl* nutrient*\" OR \"integrated crop\" OR \"integrated soil\" OR \"couple* carbon\" OR \"tighten nutrient\" OR \"nutrient budget\") AND (agricultur* OR farm* OR agroeco*))Pest management, nutrient recycling, and diversification #1 AND (#2 OR #3 OR #4)Combine search terms specific to the pest management deep dive with the search terms for Agroecological Practices TS=((Pest OR Disease OR Arthropods) AND (agricultur* OR Farm* OR forest*))Only for Pest and Disease Management deep dive TS=((\"crop livestock system\" OR \"integrated crop livestock\" OR \"crop-livestock\" OR \"agro-sylvo-pastoral\" OR \"sylvopastoral\" OR \"rotational grazing\" OR diversif* OR \"nutrient cycl*\" OR \"crop interaction\" OR \"pest-crop interaction\" OR ecolog*) AND (agriculture OR farm* OR agroeco*))Crop-livestock integration TS=((\"farmer participatory\" OR \"action research\") AND (agriculture OR farm* OR agroeco*))Participatory action research TS=(((\"*ecologic* intensification\" OR \"low input\" OR permaculture OR holistic OR \"integrated organic\" OR \"certified organic\" OR agroforest*) AND (agriculture OR farm* OR agroeco*) ) OR ((regenerative OR organic OR sustainab* OR agroeco*) NEAR/0 (agriculture OR farm*))) Organic/sustainable/regenerative agriculture, permaculture, or agroforestry TS= ((\"integrated pest management\" OR \"landscape ecology\" OR \"landscape mosaic*\" OR \"landscape redesign\") AND (agriculture OR farm* OR agroeco*)) High-income countries TS=(agroecosystem* OR \"agro-ecosystem*\" OR \"agroecological zone\" OR \"plastic mulch\" OR \"seed coating\" OR soilless OR (wastewater NEAR/0 (municipal OR treatment))) Agroecosystem, agroecological zones, and irrelevant agricultural practices TI=(meta-analysis OR review OR opinion OR perspective) Meta-analysis, reviews, and opinion articles #12 NOT #13 NOT #14 NOT #15 Exclude studies in high-income countries, articles on irrelevant topics, and meta-analysis and review articles Table A4 continued TS=(\"climate change mitigation\" OR \"greenhouse gas*\" OR \"carbon sequestration\" OR \"carbon storage\" OR \"sequester carbon\" OR \"store carbon\" OR \"carbon sink\" OR \"soil organic carbon\" OR \"carbon storage\" OR \"emissions* abatement\" OR \"emission* reduction\" OR \"reduced emission*\" OR \"lowemission* development\" OR \"nitrous oxide\" OR \"carbon dioxide\" OR \"methane\") Climate change mitigation TS=(\"climate change adaptation\") Climate change adaptation TS=(productivity OR production OR yield OR co-product) Productivity or yield TS= (\"crop diversity\" OR \"livestock diversity\" OR \"Ag* diversity\" OR \"genetic diversity\" OR \"Micro* diversity\") Agricultural diversity TS=(\"Water regulation\" OR \"Water infiltration\" OR \"Nutrient regulation\" OR \"Soil water\" OR \"Soil nitrogen\" OR \"Soil aeration\") Landscapes or conservation TS=(\"human capital\" OR \"traditional knowledge\" OR \"learning process*\" OR \"learning cycle*\" OR \"farm* learn*\" OR \"farmer exchange\" OR \"participatory extension\" OR \"citizen science\" OR \"living laborator*\" OR \"learning hub\" OR \"stakeholder engagement\" OR \"co-creation\" OR \"knowledge sharing\") Refine search results by requiring that they reference farm size or agricultural scale TS= (transition* OR scaling OR scale OR scale-up OR scaleout OR transform* OR adoption OR disadoption OR uptake OR innovation OR \"institutional change\" OR \"organisational change\" OR \"systemic change\" OR \"social movement\") Scaling of agroecological practices or systems TS= (drivers OR \"enabling environment\" OR \"enabling conditions\" OR barriers OR constraints OR obstacles) Enabling conditions and barriers TS= (intervention* OR development OR program* OR initiative* OR market* OR price* OR policy OR regulation OR governance OR subsidy OR \"public-private\" OR finance OR credit OR inputs OR \"ecosystem payment*\" OR \"environmental payment*\" OR \"results-based payment*\" OR \"carbon market*\" OR \"ecosystem services market*\" OR certification OR \"land rights\" OR tenure OR gender OR \"food sovereignty\" OR training OR \"capacity building\" OR \"farmer field schools\" OR education OR extension OR \"co-learning\" OR \"innovation systems\" OR participatory OR \"action research\" OR \"seed systems\" OR \"consumer awareness\" OR traceability OR collaboration OR \"circular economy\" OR stakeholder OR coordination OR organiz* OR \"Value chain*\") Potential enabling conditions #30 AND (#31 AND (#32 OR #33))Refine search results by requiring that they reference scaling or barriers to scaling Conventional scaling leads to regional specialisation and this will be hard to break away from.Complexity of applying disaggregated solutions at scale. How to make it sustainable financially when markets drive decisions? More significant role from the government is needed.Easier to scale conventional agriculture because of the commodity approach, agroecology is intrinsically complex, leading to complexity in scaling.Agroecology requires multidisciplinarity and stakeholder involvement in implementation, but also in the scientific arena alone. Values also need to change.The transition could only work if it is a community-led bottom-up approach and even then, it would be difficult.Farmer-to-farmer extension system. Women self-help groups play a critical role in collective action and knowledge dissemination.Long-term handholding support to each farmer. We believe that a farmer requires 3 to 5 years to make the transition. Whole village approach.No yes or no answer, or not enough info on scaling AE, or both different and the same GEF Agroecology is not yet at scale. In agroecology, knowledge sharing among people -peer to peer exchange is key. Peer to peer knowledge exchange process can be expensive; we're still in the early stages though. More research is needed to understand scaling potential.Scaling a conventional approach is more top down. In agroecology civil society is committed and engaged, they also have a closer relationship with the researchers. Agroecology scaling can be more expensive in the short-term but can pay back in the long term; it will enable more assets in the next 5-10 years. Conventional is rapid in short term, but in 5-10 years you see the negative consequences.Digital Green Video approach works well for agroecology because the visuals help with teaching complex things, but videos are also used for more conventional approaches.These questions come from a very industrialised agriculture perspective. The definition of conventional is relative. In some places, the conventional practices have been scaled up through conventional means but are still rather elegant agroecological systems.","tokenCount":"10900"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"523c19dec841c491213c7dfcd9382ad9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/92259441-d52c-4ee8-b4e8-c64e8d4f220b/retrieve","id":"-48418790"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"4343baf9-d92b-4360-8372-cfdca78831d7","pagecount":"48","content":"• The seed industry need to be led by enabling policies and implementation of regulations • Seed is a biological material, and it can cause great harm to a country's economy, if not managed well • Seed import and export policy • Policies on PVP and PBR • Stringent measures on \"fake seeds\" and \"seed piracy\" • Incentives, smart subsidies to attract investment and build competitiveness • Cadre of seed systems specialists based at the different regional hubs (Africa, Asia and Latin America)• New products announcement and allocation (precommercial hybrids)• Open to both public and private institutions• Elite germplasm for developing joint products• Diverse CMLs available for users from gene bank• A quick business approach for SMEs and start upsWhat CIMMYT offers to hybrid licensees?  In Summary…• Asia's seed sector in general has made significant progress in the last two decades, but not all countries have progressed optimally.• Need intensive efforts to strengthen the formal seed systems, and to create local capacities.• Tremendous potential to drive genetic gains by replacing old/obsolete varieties with improved genetics, and by addressing bottlenecks in the seed value chains.• Great opportunities for strengthening regional cooperation in the seed sector, across an array of crops. ","tokenCount":"199"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a3eee1688a59873d02da53bdf73b0dba","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/e77065f6-942d-480e-a2f8-d039dc3b81b4/content","id":"1013450255"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c6637092-fe9f-4cdf-ad9e-02862152aa9c","pagecount":"26","content":"En las zonas tropicales bajas y hUmedas, las sequfas pe-ri6dicas de corta duraci6n causadas por una distribuci6n irregular de las lluvias, son responsables de reducciones importantes en el rendimiento del mafz. Esto es particularmente cierto cuando la disminuci6n del agua disponible coincide con el estado crftico del desarrollo del cultivo: la floraci6n. No es posible evitar el escape a tal sequfa mediante la madurez del genotipo, la fecha de siembra y tampoco se cuenta con otras especies que estttn major adaptadas. El mejoramiento de la resistencia del mafz a este tipo particular de sequfa podrfa, par lo tanto, incrementar la productividad y minimizer las riesgos para los agricultores.De una comparaci6n entre sorgo y marz bajo condiciones de sequra. parece que el primero mantiene la fotosfntesis y el crecimiento a niveles mas bajos de agua y que tiene una mayor plasticidad de desarrollo que el malz. El incremento de la materia seca disponible para el desarrollo de la mazorca cerca de la floraci6n puede ayudar a reducir los efectos detrimentales de la sequra cuando se presents en este estado crltico def malz.Se ha sugerido la modificaci6n de muchos caracteres mor-fol6gicos y fisiol6gicos. a fin de aumentar la resistencia def mafz a la sequfa. En el CIMMYT una poblaci6n de malz de Iv tierra baja tropical se esta mejorando para resistencia a la sequra, por medio de un programa de selecci6n recurrente. Las progenies se seleccionan usando un indice basado en el rendimiento de grano bajo condiciones limitantes y no limitantes de humedad, en la tasa de elongaci6n foliar, en el intervalo entre la antesis y la floraci6n femenina, en la temperature del follaje y perdida del area foliar durante el llenado del grano. La evaluaci6n del avance despues de tres ciclos de selecci6n recurrente muestra un incremento significativo del rendimiento bajo condiciones de sequia severa. La ganancia es de aproximadamente 9.5% por ciclo y esta asociada principalmente con una disminuci6n del nUmero de plantas horras.Otros caracteres morfol6gicos estan siendo evaluados por su efectividad para cambiar la respuesta de la planta a la sequfa. Selecciones por tamano reducido de la espiga, de hoja y altura pueden mejorar el rendimiento bajo condiciones severas de limitaci6n de humedad. El CIMMYT ha logrado tambien una mayor tolerancia a la sequia por media de pruebas y selecci6n en mUltiples localidades dentro de su Programa de Ensayos lnternacionales de Mafz.En este trabajo se define primero un tipo especifico de sequia no prolongada que afecta grandes areas bajas tropicales. Se compara los mecanismos de resistencia a la sequia del sorgo y del maiz. La capacidad del sorgo para continuar la fotosintesis a niveles bajos de agua junto con su plasticidad de desarrollo, puede explicar algunas de sus ventajas sobre el maiz bajo este tipo de sequfa.Posteriormente, se describe la filosofia de las estrategias actuales de mejoramiento generales para resistencia a la sequia y se revisan las tecnicas usadas en la medici6n de las diferencias en resistencia entre genotipos de maiz.Finalmente, se presenta evidencia sobre la efectividad de la selecci6n recurrente para lograr la resistencia a la sequfa usando como criterios de selecci6n: la tasa de elongaci6n foliar, intervalo entre floraci6n femenina y la antesis, la temperatura del follaje, la perdida de area foliar y el rendimiento de grano bajo condiciones limitantes y no limitantes de humedad. Este metodo se estc!i practicando en el CIMMYT en un material para tr6picos bajos para mejorar la resistencia respecto al tipo especffico de sequia mencionado.A traves de las zonas tropicales, la sequfa peri6dica causada por la distribuci6n irregular de las lluvias y acentuada por la presencia de suelos con baja capacidad de retenci6n de agua, causa reducciones severas en los rendimientos de maiz (Wolf et al. , 1974). Algunas estimaciones revelan que la sequia puede ser causa de perdidas promedio del 1 F por ciento de la producci6n en las areas tropicales, aun donde la precipitaci6n pluvial total es razonablementa alta. Ademas, la probabilidad de perdida de rendimiento debida a la sequia influye en el uso y utilizaci6n de fertilizantes y otros insumos. Por tanto, la sequfa es probablemente responsable de mayores perdidas econ6micas que la indicada.Con base en experimentos en invernadero, ensayos en el campo y analisis hist6ricos de datos de rendimientos en la finca, los agr6nomos y meteor61ogos han llegado a la conclusi6n que la sequia que se presenta cerca de la flora-ci6n tiene un efecto mayor sobre el rendimiento de grano. Deficits de agua durante perfodos de uno o dos dlas durante la floraci6n masculina o durante la polinizaci6n pueden causar una reducci6n del rendimiento hasta de 22 por ciento (Robins y Domingo, 1953), mientras que la escasez de agua durante los estados de llenado del grano (McPherson  y Boyer, 1977) y los estados vegetativos (Denmead y Shaw, 1 960) puede tener efectos mucho menores sobre el rendimiento.Es claro que la manera mc!is efectiva de reducir los efectos de la sequfa sobre el malz, serfa escapar a los perfodos de baja disponibilidad de humedad, mediante la manipulaci6n de la madurez del genotipo y de la fecha de siembra. Kassam et al. ( 1975) presentan un ejemplo de esto para el maiz cultivado en Ibadan, Nigeria (Figura 1 ). En esta localidad la precipitaci6n pluvial total es de cerca de 1 1 40 mm y esta distribuida de Marzo a Noviembre dentro de un patr6n Final de las lluvias Nov bimodal. La primera estaci6n de cultivo dura lo suficiente para una cosecha de maiz de 1 20 dias; sin embargo, en la segunda estaci6n, los requerimientos de agua del cultivo pueden ser satisfechos sin deficits altos de humedad del suelo para el maiz con una madurez de entre 80 y 90 dias. Los programas de mejoramiento genetico, por lo tanto, debieran dirigirse a la provisi6n de genotipos de alto rendimiento con una gama de madurez para su mejor adaptaci6n a la estaci6n, determinandose esta por la disponibilidad de humedad.El maiz cultivado en grandes areas tropicales, sin embargo, se ve afectado por la sequia que ocurre durante la estaci6n principal de cultivo de verano y usualmente en la mitad de esta. El total de lluvia para la estaci6n de cultivo puede ser adecuado, pero una reducci6n en el nUmero de dias con lluvia, particularmente alrededor del estado critico de flora-ci6n del cultivo, pueden tener un efecto marcado sobre el rendimiento de grano. La primera estaci6n en Ibadan ilustra esta forma de sequia. Aunque la humedad total es adecuada, el margen entre el requerimiento de agua por el cultivo y la disponibilidad de agua es pequef'io, particularmente durante el periodo justo antes de la floraci6n. Cuando ocurre la escasez de agua en este memento, puede haber una reducci6n considerable en el rendimiento de grano. Masino y Garcia (1968) sugieren que la sequfa durante el verano puede afectar mas de 7 millones de hectareas de maiz de secano en Mexico, incluyendo la mayor parte las areas tropicales en las que la precipitaci6n pluvial total es mayor de 1000 mm. En El Salvador, aunque la lluvia mensual puede promediar 300 mm, la sequla durante el verano conocida como canlcula puede ser la responsable de reducciones de hasta 20% en los rendimientos y se la cita coma la mas frecuente de perdidas de las cultivos, en campara-ci6n con los insectos, el acame y el exceso de agua (Walker,1 980). La madurez del genotipo o la fecha de siembra no puede ser evitada, dado que el memento exacto en que ocurre esta sequra durante la estaci6n de crecimiento es impredecible. Ademas, el maiz puede ser el cereal mejor adaptado para estas condiciones, ya que la humedad alta y la lluvia durante el tiempo de cosecha puedieran ser perjudiciales para un cultivo alternative coma el sorgo. Para minimizar el riesgo de perdida en el rendimiento, los agricultores pueden escalonar sus siembras de maiz, sembrar mafz con madurez diferente o intercalar especies diferentes. Practicas agron6micas mejoradas, tales coma un mejor control de malezas y el mantenimiento de una cubierta vegetal sobre la superficie del suelo (labranza minima), tendran un efecto substancial sabre los rendimientos de maiz bajo condiciones de sequfa. Variedades de maiz con mas capacidad para resistir el efecto de la humedad reducida, particularmente alrededor del tiempo de floraci6n, tambi6n ayudarran a estabilizar las rendimientos de grano bajo estas condtciones.En este trabajo son examinados, por lo tanto, algunos criterios de selecci6n que pueden ser Utiles en el desarrollo de tales variedades. Se sugiere que para aquellas situaciones en las que la duraci6n de la humedad adecuada es limitada, los rendimientos podrian ser estabilizados mediante el uso de genotipos y arreglos de siembra los cuales permitirfan escapar a la falta de agua. En aquellas situaciones en las que la disponibilidad de humedad se prevee inadecuada para sostener una siembra de maiz, deberia plantarse especies alternativas de cultivos o bien proveer humedad adicional.La resistencia a sequia en un sentido agrfcola, se refiere a la capacidad de una planta cultivada para rendir su producto econ6mico con agua disponible limitada. En un contexto evolutivo, sin embargo, resistencia a sequia normalmente seria la capacidad de una planta o de una especie para sobrevivir y eventu~lmente reproducirse bajo humedad limitada. Es probable que los mecanismos responsables solamente de la supervivencia de una especie, puedan de hecho diferir de aqu611os que proparcionan una maxima producci6n econ6mica. El hecho de que la supervivencia del mafz haya dependido siempre de la intervenci6n del hombre reduce, por lo tanto, la probabilidad de que esta especie haya evolucionado mecanismos fuertes para la supervivencia bajo limitaciones de humedad (Oualset, 1979). Lebitt (1972) sugiri6 que los mecanismos para la resistencia a sequia (usada en sentido general) sean divididos en mecanismos de escape a la sequia, de evitaci6n de la sequia y de tolerancia a la sequia. El escape a la sequfa tiende a minimizer la interacci6n de la sequfa con el crecimiento del cultiva y su rendimiento; la tolerancia proporciona la capacidad para producir a pesar de la p6rdida en la condici6n de humedad de la planta; la evitaci6n aumenta la capacidad para mantener una condici6n hidrica relativamente alta de la planta, a pesar de la insuficiencia de humedad en el ambiente (O'Toole y Chang, 1979;Fischer y S~nchez, 1979;Fischer y Turner, 1978). Sin embargo, O'Toole y Chang (1979) hacen notar que con mucha frecuencia estas mecanismos son consideradas en terminos de uno o el otro (excluyentes), lo que implies que deber hacerse una elec-ci6n, mas bien queen t0rminos de y/o (complementaries).El escape es a menudo la forma mas importante y exitosa de resistencia a la sequfa y es impartida mediante la combi-naci6n de madurez del genotipo y fecha de siembra. Sin embargo, debido a lo impredecible de la sequia que aqui se esta discutiendo, la resistencia a la sequia mediante escape generalmente no es factible y lo que resta de este trabajo se concentra, por lo tanto, en la selecci6n para mecanismos de evitaci6n, tolerancia o ambas.Fischer y Turner ( 1978) han analizado la productividad de las plantas bajo condiciones aridas y semi-aridas en t8rminos de agua total transpirada (obtenida), la eficiencia con la que esta agua es usada (eficiencia en el uso del agua como gramos de materia seca producida por gramos de agua transpirada) y el rndice de cosecha (la relaci6n entre el rendimiento econ6mico y la materia seca total). Estos autores encontraron poca evidencia de diferencias consistentes entre variedades en cuanto a la eficiencia en el uso del agua, asr que el rendimiento bajo condiciones limitantes de humedad estuvo determinado por la transpiraci6n total (exploraci6n radical, etc.) y el fndice de cosecha (estos dos par6metros pueden ser antag6nicos, i.e. un aumento en la materia seca distribuida a las rafces para permitir una explo-raci6n radical extra podrfa reducir el indice de cosecha). En el caso del trigo hay evidencia de que existe el potencial genetico para aumentar tanto el fndice de cosecha como las patrones de enraizado (Fischer y Turner, 1978;Passioura, 1981 ).Aunque el volumen de informaci6n requerida para explicar las bases flsiol6gicas de la resistencia a la sequfa sigue en aumento, es diffcil discernir una asociaci6n importante entre un caracter o varios caracteres y la resistencia a sequia, que pudiera tener aplicaci6n dentro de un programa de mejoramiento genl!tico (Fischer y Wood, 1979). Un procedimiento empleado para estudiar la utilidad de un factor en el mejoramiento de un cultivo es el desarrollo de Hneas isogenicas o selecciones divergentes para el caracter en cuesti6n. Este proceso consume mucho tiempo (Moss et al., 1974), pero puede ser necesario para descifrar la complejidad de las mecanismos de resistencia a la sequia. Para determinar cuales factores son probablemente importantes, es Util comparar dos especies, tales coma mafz y sorgo, que difieren marcadamente en resistencia a la sequia pero que al mismo tiempo estan adaptadas a ambientes similares. Al hacer esto, debe reconocerse que la informa-ci6n obtenida estara tan influida por el genotipo o las genotipos escogidos para representar cada especie coma por cualquier caracter dentro de cada especie.Existen varios estudios en las cuales se ha comparado mafz y sorgo. Baja condiciones tropicales sin limitaciones de agua en Nigeria, Kassam (1976) midi6 la eficiencia en el uso de 3.9 y 3. 7 mg de materia seca/g de agua para maiz y sorgo, respectivamente; mientras que Ludlow ( 1976) en-contr6 valores de 2.8 y 3.3 mg/g para las dos especies respectivamente. No hay datos comparables para condiciones limitantes de humedad.En cuanto a lo que concierne a la asociaci6n entre caracteres particulares y resistencia a sequfa, el Cuadro 1 presenta una lista de aquellos caracteres examinados par varios investigadores, junta con la importancia que estos conceden a aquellos caracteres que explicarian las diferencias en resistencia a la sequia entre maiz y sorgo. No siempre hay un acuerdo con respecto a la importancia de un carflcter en particular y esto puede notarse en el cuadro.De entre las caracteires presentados en el Cuadro 1 , las dos probablemente de mayor importancia para el caso de sequia no prolongada son las diferencias en potencial critico de humedad (el potencial cercano a cero turgor cuando las estomas se cierran) y la plasticidad de desarrollo. Neuman et al. (1974) midieron potenciales hfdricos criticos en las hojas de -8.1 a-9.6 bars para maiz y -11.2 a -13.8 bars para sorgo; mientras que las datos de campo para ambas especies muestran valores de -16 y -21 bars, respectivamente (Turner, 1974). Asf, el sorgo toler6 deficits internos de agua mas elevados antes de cerrar las estomas y pudo continuar la fotosintesis a potenciales de humedad mas bajos (Boyer, 1970a;Beadle et al., 1973).Las especies tambien difieren en plasticidad de desarrollo. En cuanto a que el sorgo sea mas capaz de evitar las efectos de la falta de agua en un estado critico del desarrollo de la planta, Whiteman y Wilson (1965)  Bajo desarrollo de la inflorescencia podfa suspenderse durante la escasez de agua y reanudarse desput!s de eliminada tal escasez. La falta de agua durante varios estados del de-sarroUo de la panfcula del sorgo causa una reducci6n en el nOmero de granos, pero las plantas emitiriln panfculas incompletas aOn bajo condiciones severas (Eastin, 1980). Esto es en contraste con el mafz, en el que la falta de agua inicialmente reduce el tamafio de la mazorca pero luego reduce el nOmero de plantas con mazorca (aumento de plantas horras). Esta puede ser una caracteristica especial de las inflorescencias del maiz--las flores estimadas son producidas en la inflorecencia terminal y las flores pistiladas en brotes laterales {mazorcas). Ademas, en el sorgo los granos individuales tienen una mayor capacidad para compensar una reducci6n en el nOmero de granos (Fischer y Wilson, 1975;Fischer y Palmer. 1980). La capacidad del sorgo para formar hijos con panfcula hace posible la recuperaci6n y la producci6n de grano de esos 6rganos, una vez que se alivia la escasez de agua.La comprensi6n de los factores que controlan el desarrollo de la mazorca y la infecundidad de las plantas cultivadas bcijo condiciones de escasez de agua, podrfa probar ser Util en el desarrollo de resistencia a sequfa en el mafz. Shaw (1977) ha estimado la sensibilidad de varios estados del desarrollo a la escasez de agua (Figura 2). El perfodo crftico incluye la floraci6n y coincide con el tiempo de mllxima transpiraci6n del cultivo (Downey, 1971;Andre et al., 1978). El patr6n de reducci6n del rendimiento debido a la sequfa es similar a los efectos de la radiaci6n reducida como lo han mostrado Fischer y Palmer ( 1980) y Prine ( 1 9 71 ) . T ollenaar ( 1 9 7 7) volvi6 a examinar el control del rendimiento de grano en el mafz y concluy6 que la irra-diaci6n por planta durante la floraci6n, era el factor dominante en la determinaci6n del nUmero de granos. En consecuencia, el mantenimiento de la fotosintesis durante este estado era crftico para el rendimiento.Ademas de la influencia de la acumulaci6n de materia seca total en el perfodo crftico, la distribuci6n de materia seca a la mazorca en desarrollo y los factores que afectan la fertilidad de las espiguillas son importantes en la determinaci6ri del rendimiento mediante el control de! nUmero de granos. Fischer y Palmer ( 1980) examinaron otra vez algunos caracteres morfo-fisiol6gicos que podrian afectar el nUmero de granos bajo condiciones no limitantes; algunos de ~stos podrfan ser tambi~n de importancia bajo condiciones de sequfa no prolongada.En mafz tropical cultivado bajo niveles deficientes de nitr6geno y agua y con altas densidades de siembra, la remoci6n cuidadosa de la inftorescencia masculine antes de la flora-ci6n, aument6 el rendimiento de grano en 9.5, 21.0 y 17.9%, respectivamente (Poey eta/., 1977). Hlbridos con inflorescencias masculinas mas pesadas mostraron intervalos mas largos entre la antesis y la aparici6n de los estigmas (Daynard, 1968) y m~s bajo rendimiento de grano bajo pre-si6n de densidad (Buren et al., 1974). La resistencia a la sequfa de algunos hfbridos estuvo tambi~n relacionada con menos area foliar y un intervalo mas corto entre la antesis media y brotaci6n media de los estigmas. En los genotipos mils hojosos, el desarrollo foliar puede ser a expenses del crecimiento de la mazorca en desarrollo (Dow,1 981).El intervalo entre la antesis y la aparici6n de los estigmas aumenta bajo la mayorfa de las condiciones limitantes. incluyendo sequfa y densidad alta. Este retraso en el desarrollo de los estigmas puede estar relacionado con un descenso en reductasa de nitrate (Hsiao et al., 1976). con una reducci6n en el aprovisionamiento actual de asimilados (Dow, 1981) o con otros factores. Varios autores (Jensen, 1971;Duvick, 19771 han abogado por la selecci6n para ;ntervalo reducido entre antesis y aparici6n de las estigmas Figura 2. Efecto de un solo Dia de Escasaz de Agua (A) y Once Dias con 540/0 de Sombreado por el Cultivo, sobre el Rendimiento de Grano del Maiz (A)Dias de Floracion bajo condiciones de presi6n de densidad, come una manera de lograr un comportamiento major bajo condiciones limitantes de humedad. Genotipos que muestran una tendencia a la prolificaci6n (dos mazorcas) tambii!n tienen una tolerancia mayor a las altas densidades de siembra (Buren et al., 1974). Hallauer y Troyer {1972) examinaron el comportamiento de tipos prolificos y concluyeron que este carllcter contribuye a la reducci6n de la interacci6n genotipoambiente mediante su capacidad para ajustarse a las presiones ambientales, incluyendo sequra.Dow { 1 9 81 ) concluy6 que los hibridos resistentes a la pre-si6n de densidad tueron tambien mils resistentes a sequia. Sin embargo, este autor advirti6 que mientras la selecci6n para una reducci6n en el intervalo entre antesis y aparici6n de estigmas bajo alta densidad y condiciones no limitantes de humedad mejoraria la resistencia a sequfa, otros parllmetros que confieren resistencia a sequia podrlan ser perdidos o sometidos a selecci6n negative.Mejoramiento Genetico para Resistencia a la Sequia Blum { 1979) ha descrito dos filosofias principales del mejoramiento genetico dirigido a la obtenci6n de mejores genotipos en su resistencia a condiciones limitantes-: \"El primero y mas com(Jn de los enfoques acepta que una variedad con rendimiento superior al nivel potencial, tambi0n rendirlll relativamente bien bajo niveles sub-potenciales. La resistencia a sequia puede estar presente en tal variedad y expresarse como un componente no identificado de la estabilidad en comportamiento bajo varies ambientes. Durante el proceso de mejoramiento, el rendimiento y la estabilidad en comportamiento se manejan como un complejo. La acumu-laci6n de genes ambientales estables se iguala con un major comportamiento bajo situaciones destavorables''. Este enfoque ha tenido buen 6xito en sorgo I Blum, 1979), en trigo {Worrall et al., 1980) y en maiz (Russell, 1974;Duvic, 1977). En trigo, el mejor rendimiento de los genotipos derivados por el CIMMYT a lo largo de una amplia gama de condiciones, se atribuye principalmente a un aumento en el potencial de rendimiento, un aumento en estabilidad ambiental ya un cambio pequeno en la respuesta del genotipo a las condiciones ambientales IWorral et al., 1980). Parece que algunas caracterlsticas, por ejemplo un fndice de cosecha mejor en los trigos de paja corta, tiene un efecto positive suficientemente fu0rte sobre el rendimiento bajo todas las condiciones, coma para conferirles una superioridad obvia sobre las variedades tradicionales o colecciones, aUn bajo condiciones de sequra y no obstante las mecanismos especrficos de resistencia a la sequla que este Ultimo grupo pueda poseer (Fischer y Wall, 1976). Sin embargo, un trabajo posterior de Fischer y Wood 11979) no indic6 una rela-ci6n entre lndice de cosecha bajo condiciones de irrigaci6n y rendimiento de grano bajo sequla.Las ganancias en rendimiento del malz debidas al mejoramiento genetico en la Faja Maicera de los Estados Unidos de 1930 a 1970, indican un aumento en el potencial de rendimiento; en los hibridos comerciales mils recientes hay un mejoramiento considerable en los ambientes de rendimiento mas bajo {Cuadro 21 (Russell, 1974). a una mejor calidad del tallo y la rafz causada par la selec-ci6n inicial bajo altas densidades de plantas y a las pruebas extensas de germoplasma par su estabilidad de rendimiento (Russell, 1974).En vista de la falta de informaci6n s61ida sabre caracteres especfficos de la sequfa y la oportunidad considerable para el mejoramiento del potencial de rendimiento, una estrategia de mejoramiento genetico basada en la selecci6n bajo condiciones no limitantes de agua, podrfa muy probablemente ser la mils eficiente (en tiempo) para lograr un progreso r6pido. Este sistema tiene la ventaja de que bajo condiciones 6ptimas para el crecimiento, la hereditabilidad para rendimiento es mas alta que bajo condiciones sub6ptimas (Johnson y Frey, 1967).Las pruebas en un gran nUmero de sitios con variaciones en disponibilidad de humedad, aunque caras, deberfan permitir la eliminaci6n de aquellos genotipos que pudieran tener caracterfsticas negatives de rendimiento bajo condiciones de humedad limitante. La separaci6n de las efectos del escape a la sequfa y la identificaci6n de caracterfsticas que especfficamente favorecen el comportamiento bajo estas condiciones de prueba, podrfan tambien facilitar la selec-ci6n. Para las centres internacionales dedicados al mejoramiento de cultivos, coma el CIMMYT, las pruebas a lo largo de una amplia gama geogrlifica tambien proveen un vehfculo para la introducci6n de germoplasma mejorado en las programas nacionales.\"Un segundo enfoque en el mejoramiento gen0tico para rendimiento en un media limitante, sostiene queen realidad el rendimiento potencial no es pertinente\" (Blum, 1979).Las variedades deber ser seleccionadas, desarrolladas y probadas bajo condiciones pertinentes. Hay unos cuantos ejemplos de mejoramiento de poblaciones de mafz basado en este procedimiento. En Colombia se hizo un estudio sabre selecci6n masal en la estaci6n lluviosa (600 mm) y en la estaci6n seca (300 mm) separadamente y en combi-naci6n (Arboleda-Rivera y Compton, 1974). El criteria de selecci6n fue el rendimiento de grano. Tres ciclos de selec-ci6n en la estaci6n lluviosa incrementaron el rendimiento en 10.5% par ciclo para esa estaci6n, pero aumentaron el rendimiento durante la estaci6n seca en apenas 0.8%. Tres ciclos de selecci6n durante la estaci6n seca incrementaron el rendimiento en 2.5% par ciclo para esa estaci6n y en Se infiere, par lo tanto, que la selecci6n debe hacerse para aumentar o al menos mantener el rendimiento potencial y ademl:ls para mejorar las caracterfsticas de resistencia a la sequfa. Es probable que en maiz tales caracterfsticas sean polig0nicas y en bajas frecuencias g0nicas en una pobla-ci6n dada; y serl:I necesario aumentar su frecuencia mediante programas de selecci6n recurrente. El aumento de la frecuencia de las genes para una o dos caracterfsticas de resistencia a la sequfa, manteniendo al mismo tiempo el rendimiento, puede conducir a un mejor rendimiento bajo condiciones limitantes. La selecci6n recurrente para una caracterfstica morfol6gica que tiene una relaci6n fisiol6gica con el rendimiento de grano ha sido efectiva en el mejoramiento del rendimiento de grano bajo condiciones no limitantes (e.g. Johnson y Fischer, 1979). Es interesante especular sabre el efecto en el rendimiento de grano bajo condiciones limitantes, si se lleva a cabo un programa de selec-ci6n recurrente para una caracterfstica asociada con la resistencia a sequfa. Esto dependerfa de una comprensi6n de las mecanismos de resistencia a la sequia en relaci6n con la ecologia para la cual se estli desarrollando el material y en la identificaci6n rlipida de tales mecanismos en grandes viveros. Al mismo tiempo, las materiales deberian ser evaluados bajo condiciones favorables para mantener a mejorar el potencial de rendimiento.Baja la infuencia de la selecci6n natural, unas cuantas razas de mafz de varias partes de las tr6picos han desarrollado mecanismos de evitaci6n de la sequfa, de tolerancia o de ambas. Una colecci6n, Michoactiin 21 , fue descrita por Palacios de la Rosa ( 1959) coma poseedora de una clara respuesta a la sequia y a las heladas; el mecanismo fue llamado latente. Esta colecci6n se mantiene sin florecer bajo sequia, se recupera notablemente al recibir agua de nuevo, es mas resistente al marchitamiento permanente en el estado de pll:lntula, transpire ml:ls que otras lineas bajo irriga-ci6n y transpire menos bajo humedad limitante al cierre de las estomas (Munoz, 1975). Esta respuesta puede ser debida en parte a niveles altos de flcido abscisico (Larque-Saavedra y Wain, 1974). La caracteristica /atente se ha probado que es dificil de transferir a un germoplasma de mtiis alto rendimiento y agron6micamente deseable, particularmente en las tr6picos bajos. Sin embargo, en otras partes las cientificos han usado este material con 0xito coma una fuente de genes para el mejoramiento de la resistencia a la sequia de hibridos para la Faja Maicera de las Estados Unidos de Am~rica !Castleberry y Lerette, 1979). En su estudio, el caracter latente no parece ser de herencia simple y el desarrollo de los hibridos resistentes a la sequia requirieron de la selecci6n de las lineas endocrinadas bajo condiciones controladas de humedad para rendimiento y otros caracteres asociados con resistencia a sequfa.Se ha sugerido muchos caracteres morfol6gicos y fisiol6gicos a ser modificados y asi acrecentar ya sea la evitaci6n o la tolerancia a la sequia o ambas (Moss et al., 1974;Parker, 19681. Se ha usado varios m6todos de calificaci6n para comparer las respuestas de diferentes genotipos de mafz a la sequfa y mientras algunos de estos metodos parecen ser Utiles en un programs de mejoramiento genetico, hay una insuficiencia de evidencia sobre su uso en un programs de mejoramiento de poblaciones (Oualset, 19791. En casi todos los casos citados, la evaluaci6n de lfneas era el producto final del programs de mejoramiento gen6tico. Hay muy pocos programas de los que se haya informado en los cuales las materiales seleccionados hayan sido recombinados y probados. En muchos cases, tambi6n los resultados obtenidos en pruebas de laboratorio no son posteriormente comprobadas bajo condiciones de campo. Hurd ( 1976) ha revisado muches casos en los que la limita-ci6n de agua en la plants disminuy6 con el aumento en la profundidad y la ramificaci6n de las raices. Puede haber, sin embargo, algunas condiciones ecol6gicas en las que un crecimiento radical reducido, particularmente temprano en el ciclo del cultivo, es una ventaja (Passioura, 1972). Nass y Zuber ( 1 9 71) midieron diferencias entre cuarenta genotipos de mafz, en t6rminos de volumen radical total y peso de las rafces nodales en dos estados del crecimiento antes de la floraci6n. Estes caracteres esttin correlacionados con la resistencia al arrancado de raiz de las plantas a la madurez. Diferencias en volumen radical en mafz, tambi6n han sido registradas por Musick et al., 119651 y Thompson 119681.Spencer ( 1 940) not6 grandes diferencias entre lineas endocriadas de mafz en la tasa de desarrollo de rafces laterales y en la relaci6n entre el peso seco de la parte aerea y de la raiz de las pll!intulas. Muleba (com. pers.l usando plantas j6venes crecidas en soluci6n de cultivo, seleccion6 families para alto peso y longitud radical y las recombin6 para former variedades experimentales. La evaluaci6n de estas variedades bajo condiciones de escasez de agua en el campo, mostr6 que la selecci6n para un peso mayor de rarz tuvo su utilidad en el aumento del rendimiento de grano bajo esca• sez moderada de agua, mientras que la selecci6n para aumento en longitud de la rafz fue superior bajo condiciones de escasez severa.La tasa de elongaci6n de la hoja ha mostrado ser sensible a cambios en el potencial de humedad de la hoja (Boyer, 1970b;Watts, 19741 y la disponibilidad de agua en el suelo (Acevedo eta/., 197118oyery McPherson (19751 sugieren que la tasa de elongaci6n celular en las pltintulas, puede ser usada para clasificar por tolerancia a la sequia en los cereales. Fischer y Edmeades {1977) usaron las tasas de elongaci6n de la hoja para clasificar progenies de maiz par resistencia a la sequfa bajo condiciones limitantes de humedad de campo.Ha habido un considerable esfuerzo en mejoramiento gem'>tico para la modificaci6n de la respuesta estomatica y reducir la pltrdida de agua por transpiraci6n. Varios cientfficos han tenido buen 6xito en la reducci6n de la transpiraci6n por unidad de area foliar en otros cultivos (Jones, 1979). La selecci6n ha sido para la frecuencia y estructura anat6mica de los estomas y para la conductancia estomatal medida ! Wilson, 19751. La termometrfa infrarroja ha sido usada para clasificar grandes nUmeros de genotipos por la temperatura de follaje; esta puede ser relacionada con la conductacia estomatal (Jackson eta/., 1977;Kretchmar et al., 19801. Williams et al., 11967) compararon la resistencia a la sequfa de lfneas endocriadas e hfbridos mediante: al el porcentaje de pltlntulas que se recuperaron de una exposici6n de 6 horas a 52°C (tolerancia al calorl, bl porcentaje de germinaci6n de semillas expuestas a una soluci6n de manitol de 1 5 atm6sferas y cl porcentaje de recuperaci6n de plantulas regadas 14 dfas despues de haber llegado al marchitamiento. Las clasificaciones obtenidas mediante cada uno de los tres ml!itodos, fueron probadas mediante un antllisis de correlaci6n con evaluaciones de campo basadas en la relaci6n entre el rendimiento de grano bajo humedad limitante y rendimiento bajo irrigaci6n complete. Los resultados sugieren que la informaci6n proveniente de estas t6cnicas estti correlacionada con los datos de campo y que por lo tanto, cualquiera de ellas pueder servir de ayuda en un programs de mejoramiento gen0tico.Otros investigadores han usado tecnicas similares. Hunter et al., 119361 Tatum ( 19541 y Killen y Andrew (19691 demostraron que las diferencias relatives en respuesta a la alta temperature, coinciden con las observaciones sobre el quemado de las hojas en el campo. Munoz 119751 condujo tres ciclos de selecci6n masal de pl8ntulas que mostraron una buena recuperaci6n cuando se les reg6, despul!s de haber sido inicialmente sometidas a falta de agua hasta el punto de marchitamiento. Kilen y Andrew ( 1 969) usaron la estabilidad de la clorofila como un rndice de la tolerancia al calor en lfneas de mafz y la encontraron correlacionada con las lectures de quemadura de la hoja en el campo.La evaluaci6n de semillas o pltintulas en soluciones de diferente potencial osm6tico.,. fue usada por varios investigadores desde 1930 y ha tenido resultados muy limitados (Ashton, 19481. Parmer y Moore ( 19681 modificaron esta tecnica para el maiz, usando soluciones de glicol polietileno y Johnson y Asay ( 1978) demostraron la efectividad de este osm6tico para diferenciar lfneas de Agropyron sp.Se ha demostrado que el llcido abscisico es importante en la resistencia a la sequfa. En mafz, Larque-Saavedra y Wain 11974) midieron una gran diferencia de tlcido abscfsico libre in vivo, entre una lfnea resistente a la sequia (Michoacan 21, latente) y dos variedades europeas, bajo condiciones limitantes y no-limitantes. No hay ejemplos de la evaluaci6n de un gran nUmero de genotipos de mafz bajo condiciones de campo por esta caracterfstica, aunque un trabajo semejante se estti conduciendo en otros cereales (Austin et al., 19811. Recientemente se ha usado la evaluaci6n del contenido de ciertos aminoflcidos, que aumentan dramflticamente bajo condiciones limitantes, como una manera de evaluar la resistencia a sequfa. Uno de estos, prolina, fue sugerido como de utilidad en la evaluaci6n de la resistencia a sequla por varios autores (Singh et al.,1 972). pero esto ha sido puesto en duda recientemente (Hanson et al., 1977). Los resultados de algunos trabajos con el compuesto betalna, sugieren que esta puede ser un indicador vfllido de la tensi6n acumulativa experimentada por las plantas y de ser asi, descartar los genotipos con un contenido alto de betafna puede ser efectivo en la selecci6n para evitaci6n de la sequfa. En mafz, Pinter et al., 11978) informaron que el contenido de asparagina y prolina libre de tejidos vegetales sometidos a sequia, estuvo positivamente correlacionado con la resistencia a la sequla, estimada por medio de la diferencia en rendimiento de grano bajo condiciones limitantes y no-limitantes.Los objetivos del Programa de Malz del CIMMYT son aumentar el rendimiento real y el potencial de rendimiento de cierto numero de poblaciones adaptadas de malz y mejorar la estabilidad de sus rendimientos. El metodo de selec-ci6n y mejoramiento aparece descrito en otra parte (Johnson, 1974;Vasal et al., 1978;Paliwal y Sprague, 1981). En 1 976 se comenz6 a hacer algo de trabajo en la valoraci6n de la viabilidad de seleccionar mfls directamente para resistencia a sequfa en maiz tropical. Los objetivos fueron demostrar el mejoramiento mediante selecci6n recurrente, del comportamiento de una poblaci6n de maiz tropical expuesta a un tipo particular de sequfa. En lo particular, este trabajo estaba dirigido a mejorar la resistencia a sequla que ocurre durante la fase critica del desarrollo de la planta: la floraci6n. Nose utilizarlan mecanismos de escape.Los datos de los Ensayos Varietales Experimentales de 1973 (CIMMYT, 1974) fueron usados para identificar una poblaci6n con un rendimiento alto y estable. El rendimiento promedio de cada localidad estuvo positivamente correlacionado con la cantidad de lluvia durante la estaci6n de crecimiento (r = 0. 7 4 * l. sugiriendo esto que el rendimiento estaba influido hasta cierto punto por la disponibilidad de humedad. Los datos fueron analizados para estabilidad de rendimiento, usando el anfllisis de regresi6n (Finlay y Wilkinson, 1963) y para similitud de respuesta siguiendo la tecnica del anfllisis de grupos (Montgomery et al., 1974); los resultados aparecen en la Figura 3. Dentro del grupo de accesiones de germoplasma tropical, aquellas con una preponderancia de la raza Tuxpei'lo tuvieron una pendiente menor de 1.0 y un rendimiento medio mfls alto que el promedio de todos los sitios. La raza Tuxpei'\\o ha sido descrita por Wellhausen ( 1956) como una de las mfls importantes y prodl.Jctivas razas modernas tanto en los Estados Unidos de Norteamerica como en Mexico. Dado que se le encuentra tambien en flreas que sufren de lluvia limitada durante la es-taci6n de verano, no es improbable que pudiera tener algu-• Significativo a 0.05 8 na adaptaci6n natural a la humedad limitante. Se decidi6, por lo tanto, usar este germoplasma como la base para el mejoramiento de las poblaciones por su resistencia a la sequla.El enfasis de este trabajo estuvo en la clasificaci6n en el campo. En Tlaltizapfln, Morelos, Mexico, no hay lluvia apreciable desde Octubre hasta finales de Abril; las siembras hechas en Noviembre dependen enteramente de la irriga-ci6n. Esta localidad estfl a una elevaci6n de 900msnm con una temperatura media mflxima para la estaci6n de crecimiento de aproximadamente 28 ° C y una media minima de 1 5 ° C. El suelo es un vertisol calcflreo de aproximadamente 1.8 a 2 .0 m de profundidad, que descansa sobre un material madre calcflreo y humedo.La respuesta de ocho genotipos de malz (incluyendo Tuxpei'\\o-1 *) de diferentes antecedentes geneticos a condiciones de sequia simulada en este sitio, se us6 para desarrollar criterios relevantes de selecci6n. La irrigaci6n fue controlada de tal manera que los tratamientos de tensi6n de sequia comenzaron en la indicaci6n floral y se extendieron a traves de la floraci6n (para abarcar el estado crlt1co de prefloraci6n-floraci6n) y antes de la floraci6n para continuar hasta la maduraci6n del grano . Estos tratamientos redujeron el rendimiento de grano . Fischer y Wood (1979)• Tuxpeno-1 (c 0 ) representa el ciclo II de selecci6n recurrente para planta corta en la poblaci6n  Rendimiento de Grano (t/ha) han definido un lndice de intensidad de sequla en trigo como uno menos la relaci6n entre el rendimiento media bajo sequia y el rendimiento media sin tensi6n de sequia. El uso de este fndice condujo al clllculo de intensidades de sequfa de 0.48 y 0.4 7 para la tensi6n de la iniciaci6n floral hasta la floraci6n y para la de diez dlas antes de la floraci6n hasta la maduraci6n del grano, respectivamente. Sin embargo, aunque la intensidad de la sequfa fue similar los componentes del rendimiento afectados por la sequia difirieron. En la sequfa impuesta temprano, el nt'.lmero de granos se via reducido en un 45%, pero debido a la aplicaci6n de agua despues de la floraci6n, el tamano final del grano no fue afectado. Sequfa desde diez dias antes de la floraci6n hasta la ma-duraci6n, redujo el nUmero de granos en un 33% y el tama-~o de grano en un 20%.En este trabajo, se valor6 la respuesta de ocho genotipos a la sequfa, mediante un fndice de sequfa basado en el rendimiento tanto bajo condiciones de riego completo como bajo condiciones limitantes de humedad. (El fndice de sequfa para un genotipo cualquiera es la relaci6n de su rendimiento bajo sequla y no-sequfa, con la relaci6n entre el rendimiento medio de todos los genotipos bajo sequfa y no-sequia. Asf, un indice de sequf a > 1 .0 sugiere una resistencia relative a sequia y un indice < 1.0, susceptibilidad relative a la sequfa). Hubo diferencias entre genotipos tanto en potencial de rendimiento como en fndicP. de sequfa; Tuxpeno-1 mostr6 tanto el potencial de rendimiento m6s elevado como el m6s alto lndice de sequla. La clasificaci6n de los genotipos de acuerdo con su fndice de sequ,a, fue independiente de la altura de planta y la madurez, medidas bajo condiciones no limitantes, sugiriendo que las diferencias observadas en fndice de sequfa no eran debidas a mecanismos de escape. Sin embargo, el rendimiento bajo condiciones no limitantes estuvo correlacionado con el fndice de sequla (r = 0.75', datos no publicados).Se hicieron mediciones del potencial de agua en la hoja y de la resistencia estomatal en varios estados de desarrollo del cultivo ya diferentes horas durante el ctra. Hubo diferencias significativas entre g.enotipos en potencial hfdrico de la hoja medido a las 12:00 horas durante la floraci6n (Cuadro 31. Sin embargo, las diferencias en fndice de sequfa estuvieron correlacionadas (r = 0. 76*1 con el potencial hldrico maxima de la hoja medido a las 06:00 horas y no con el potencial de humedad mlnimo de la hoja medido a las 12:00 horas (Cuadro 4). Huba diferencias significativas entre genotipos con respecto a resistencia estomatal medida a las 09:00 y las 13:00 horas durante la floraci6n (Cuadro 3). La resistencia estomatal, particularmente cuando se la mi-di6 durante el mediodfa, estuvo negativamente correlacionada con el lndice de sequla (Cuadro 4). El potencial de agua en la hoja y la resistencia estomatal tambi8n fueron medidos durante el perlodo de llenado del grano en el tratamiento de sequfa de diez dfas antes de la floraci6n haste la Cuadro 3. lndice de sequia basado en rendimiento de grano de los tratramientos de sequ ia y de riego potencial de agua foliar y resistencia estomatel, medidos a diferentes horas del dla durante la floraci6n, sujetos a sequia desde la inicia-ci6n floral en adelante, Tlaltizaplm, 1975 10:00 horas (Cuadro 4).La capacidad de los genotipos para restaurar el potencial hldrico m6ximo durante la noche (antes del amanecer) y la capacidad para mantener estomas abiertos durante el dia, parecen estar asociadas con un comportamiento mejor bajo la limitaci6n particular en este sitio. No obstante que se sugiere que la diferencia en morfologfa radical puede explicar parte de esta respuesta diferencial, no se hizo observaci6n alguna de las rafces.En este estudio tambil!n se midieron dos caracteristicas morfol6gicas: el intervalo entre la dehiscencia del polen y la aparici6n de los estigmas bajo humedad limitante (retardo de la floraci6n femenina) y la tasa de elongaci6n del tallo tambien bajo humedad limitante. La elongaci6n del tallo estuvo positivamente correlacionada (r = 0.84 *) y el retardo de la floraci6n negativamente correlacionado (r = -0.66*) con el fndice de sequia. Ambas caracterfsticas parecieran ser Utiles para la selecci6n. En el trabajo subsecuente se us6 una medida de la tasa de elongaci6n de una hoja recientemente expuesta, mflis bien que la del .tallo. Esta medici6nCuadro 4. Correlaci6n entre un lndice de sequfa basado en rendimiento de grano bajo condiciones de sequ la y de riego, potencial de agua foliar y resistencia estomatal medidos a diferentes horas, TlaltizapAn, 1975 l/ Diferencial de selecci6n para 80 familias fue hecha cuando las plantas en el tratamiento de limita-ci6n severa de agua, mostraban enrollamiento foliar al mediodia; se midi6 la altura desde el suelo hasta la hoja mas joven visible en el verticilo (cogollo). La medici6n se repiti6 una semana despues en la misma hoja. Estas mediciones fueron hechas en seis plantas por parcela tanto en los tratamientos irrigados como en los de limitaci6n de agua. La ex-tensi6n (que incluye componentes de elongaci6n del tallo y de la vaina tanto como de elongaci6n foliar) bajo sequfa fue expresada relativa a la extensi6n bajo condiciones no limitantes de agua para librarla de diferencias genf!ticas en tasa de elongaci6n bajo condiciones no-limitantes. La elonga-ci6n foliar relativa (EFR) es:x 100 donde Al 7 = altura a la punta de la hoja bajo irriga-ci6n en dia 7. Alo = altura a la punta de la hoja bajo irriga-ci6n en dia 0. AS7 = altura a la punta de la hoja bajo sequia en dia 7.ASo = altura a la punta de la hoja bajo sequia en dia 0.Cuadro 6. Coeficientes de correlacii>n lineal (r) entre rendimientos de grano y otras caracterlsticas usadas para seleccionar familias resistentes a la sequla en la poblaciOn Tuxpeiio-1, bajo condiciones de riego y de sequla, Tlatizapcin, 1979 En este estudio no se midi6 las diferencias en duraci6n del llrea foliar. Sin embargo, si la provisi6n de asimilados durante el llenado del grano es importante para el comportamiento bajo sequfa (como lo sugiere la correlaci6n entre indice de sequfa y resistencia estomatal), entonces la dura-ci6n del area foliar activa puede ser tambien un criterio importante en la explicaci6n de las diferencias geneticas. En el trabajo subsecuente se calific6 las plantas visualmente por la necrosis de tejido foliar, usando una escala de 1 a 5(1: perdida minima, 5: perdida maxima). Las calificaciones fueron hechas semanalmente, hasta la cosecha.Este trabajo inicial trajo como resultado el desarrollo de un indice de selecci6n para ser usado en la evaluaci6n de un gran nUmero de families segregantes. Se basa en el rendimiento de grano bajo irrigaci6n (potencial de rendimiento) y bajo sequia, retardo de la floraci6n, perdida de area foliar durante el llenado del grano y tasa relative de elongaci6n foliar (EFR). El indice de selecci6n considers estas tres caracterrsticas en un arreglo multi-espacial y asigna a ellas distancias relatives de un objetivo de selecci6n. La distancia para cada carllcter, relative a la de otro, puede ser variada definiendo el objetivo seleccionado en terminos de errores estllndard a partir de la media. A cada carficter se le asigna luego una ponderaci6n en el indice de selecci6n general (Schwarzbach, 1976). Las correlaciones entre caracteres no son tomadas en cuenta.Un ejemplo del uso de este indice en la selecci6n de las mejores families (para la formaci6n de una variedad experimental) y 80 families (para recombinaci6n de la siguiente generaci6n) en un ensayo de progenies con 256 entradas, se presenta en el Cuadro 5. En la selecci6n son incluidos dos caracteres adicionales, a saber: altura de la planta y madurez bajo irrigaci6n. Debido al tamalio pequei'io de la parcels usada, las progenies altas tuvieron una ventaja competitiva por luz y por lo tanto tuvieron rendimientos mayores, particularmente bajo irrigaci6n. De manera similar, el rendimiento bajo sequfa tendi6 a estar positivamente correlacionado con madurez temprana. El prop6sito del trabajo fue seleccionar para resistencia a la sequia a traves de mecanismos que no fueran -de escape. Mediante el indice de selecci6n, altura de planta y madurez son mantenidas constantes (en relaci6n con la medida de la poblaci6n) y se logran ganancias para las otras caracteristicas.En el Cuadro 5 aparecen el objetivo de la selecci6n expresado en valores absolutes y en errores estfindard a partir de la media y la ponderaci6n para cada uno de las caracteres incluidos en el indice de selecci6n. La intensidad de selec-ci6n es mas alta para rendimiento bajo sequia y dias a flora-ci6n; es relativamente mas bajo para los demas caracteres. Los diferenciales de selecci6n (media de las familias selectas menos la media de poblaci6n fueron de aproximadamente un error estandard para rendimiento de grano bajo sequia y para muerte de tejido foliar; mientras que para rendimiento de grano bajo riego, intervalo de floraci6n y elon-gaci6n foliar relative fueron de alrededor de 0.5 errores estandard. Las correlaciones de estos caracteres con rendimiento de grano bajo sequla y bajo riego aparecen en el Cuadro 6.Usando estos criterios, fueron clasificados ochenta y cinco familias de hermanos de la poblaci6n Tuxpei'lo-1 bajo regfmenes de humedad similares a las descritos antes. En otra parte (CIMMYT, 1981) se public6 un perfil de la humedad disponible en el suelo a la floraci6n y en la maduraci6n en el tratamiento de sequfa severa. El anftlisis del rendimiento indic6 una interacci6n significativa genotlpo x limi-taci6n de humedad. Sin embargo, hubo un gran aumento en el coeficiente de variaci6n en el ensayo bajo el tratamiento de sequfa.Fueron formadas variedades experimentales con base en las familias seleccionadas para rendimiento bajo irrigaci6n y rendimiento bajo sequfa y tambi~n las selecciones divergentes para resistencia y susceptibilidad con base en el rndice de selecci6n y todas fueron de nuevo cultivadas bajo regtmenes de humedad similares.Los rendimientos de grano de las variedades experimentales bajo los tratamientos de sequra y no-sequra, aparecen en la Figura 4. No hubo una interacci6n significativa de variedad por nivel de sequia. Sin embargo, los valores de F para comparaciones planeadas con anterioridad entre variedades indican diferencias varietales significativas. Al comparer aquellas variedades experimentales seleccionadas principalmente por rendimiento de grano, apareci6 un aumento significativo en la variedad seleccionada por mejor rendimiento de grano bajo riego al ser cultivada bajo riego. Sin embargo, bajo condiciones de sequfa no hubo diferencia significativa entre esas variedades, aunque la variedad experimental seleccionada por major rendimiento de grano bajo sequia, tendi6 hacia un major rendimiento de grano.Una comparaci6n entre las variedades experimentales basadas en el indice de selecci6n para resistencia y susceptibilidad, mostr6 una diferencia significativa bajo sequia; siendo los rendimientos de las variedades resistentes y susceptibles de 2.3 y 1.5 t/ha, respectivamente. No hubo, sin embargo, diferencia bajo riego. Bajo el tratamiento de sequia, el rendimiento de grano de la selecci6n resistente fue tambi0n mayor que el de las variedades experimentales seleccionadas con base en el rendlmiento solamente.Estos estudios sugieren: a) que hay variaci6n genetica dentro de esta poblaci6n tropical de maiz para comportamiento bajo estas dos condiciones especificas de sequia y b) que la inclusi6n de caracteres de la planta ademfls del rendirniento, mejora la identificaci6n de familias resistentes a la sequia.Con base en estos hallazgos, se indic6 un progrpma modificado de seleccl6n recurrente usando la poblaci6n Tuxpelio-1; tal programa estti actualmente en el cuarto ciclo.Doscientas cincuenta y seis families de hermanos se eva-IUan en Tlaltizaptin, Mexico, durante la estaci6n seca, bajo dos regfmenes de agua: irrigaci6n normal y limitaci6n severe (sin irrigaci6n despues de la siembra). Las familias son arregladas en un ltitice simple 1 6 x 1 6 con dos repeticiones. Para el tratamiento sin riego despues de la siembra hay dos ensayos (i.e. 4 repeticiones). El tamai'io de parcela es de 2.50 m de largo y 0.75 m de ancho; la densidad de siembra es de 52,000 plantas por hectc'.lrea (2 plantas cada 0.50 m). Estas familias son evaluadas de acuerdo con las caracteres discutidos antes y ademtis se mide la temperatura del follaje con un term6metro infrarrojo (Barnes lnstatherm Model 14-220 D-4). Las mediciones se hacen en el tratamiento sin riego antes de la floraci6n masculine y entre las 11 :00 y las 13:00 horas. Esta medici6n permite evaluar la temperature media de una secci6n del follaje de 1 x 0.40 m dentro de cada progenie. La utilidad de esta medi-ci6n puede percibirse a partir de los datos del Cuadro 6. La temperatura del follaje de 256 familias, medida antes y durante la floraci6n, estuvo negativamente correlacionada con su rendimiento de grano (r = -0.56 * y-0. 73 *, respectivamente). Cuando se la us6 en el fndice de selecci6n, la temperatura media del follaje de las BO familias seleccionadas para recombinaci6n fue 1 . 13 unidades de error estllndard mas baja que la de la media de la poblaci6n !Cuadro 5).De las 2 56 familias evaluadas en Tlatizapan se seleccionan aproximadamente 80 y con la semilla remanente de 0stas se siembra un tote de cruzamiento en la estaci6n experimental de tierra baja tropical del CIMMYT en Poza Rica. Se hace un gran nUmero de cruzamientos recfprocos entre hermanos tomados al azar entre las families y a la cosecha se toman 2 56 mazorcas para constituir el nuevo ciclo de se-lecci6n. Estas families son entonces evaluadas en Tlaltizaptin en el ciclo (seco) de invierno.Evaluaci6n de Progreso Despu&s de tres ciclos de selecci6n recurrente para resistencia a sequra en Tuxpeno-1, se condujo une evaluaci6n • Diferencia significativa con el ciclo original (prueba F preplaneada) a P=0.05.!/ Variedad experimental (intensidad de selecci6n de 4o/o) 2/ Mejores estimados del ciclo original ~/ Fechas de siembras arregladas de tal manera que todos los ciclos florearan mas o menos (± 1 a 2 dias) al ~/ mismo tiempo Seleccionada por rendimiento, estabilidad y adaptaci6n mas amplia a traves del sistema internacional de pruebas de progenies.del progreso logrado. Adem~s. hubo una evaluaci6n de varios ciclos de selecci6n para menor altura de planta en la poblaci6n Tuxpeno Crema I y para reducci6n en tamano de la inflorescencia masculine (ciclo 61, tamano de hoja (ciclo 5) y rendimiento y estabilidad del rendimiento mediante el sistema internacional de pruebas de progenies (Poblaci6n 21, ciclo 3) en TuxpeM-1. Se ha mostrado que las selecciones para altura reducida de planta afectan la madurez y la densidad 6ptima de plantas para un rendimiento mtlximo de grano. En la evaluaci6n, las fechas de siembra para las varies ciclos de selecci6n para altura reducida de planta fueron arregladas de tal manera que todos las genotipos en el estudio florecieran al mismo tiempo; esto sirvi6 para reducir las efectos resultantes de mecanismos de escape a la sequia. Tambien se vari6 la densidad de siembra de los ciclos de selecci6n para plantas cortas, basandose en experiencias previas, para proveer una densidad 6ptima para cada ciclo. Todas las demas selecciones en el ensayo fueron sembradas a 52,000 plantas/ha. Hubo cuatro repeticiones de cada entrada en el tratamiento con riego y ocho repeticiones en el tratamiento sin riego. El tamario de parcela fue de 8 hileras de 5 m de largo con una distancia entre surcos de 0. 75 m. Todas las porciones cosechadas fueron areas bien bordeadas de cada parcels.El analisis de rendimiento de grano de los tratamientos bajo sequia y bajo riego de las varias selecciones sembradas en sus densidades 6ptimas, aparecen en Cuadro 7. Los valores de F para comparaciones planeadas con anterioridad, muestran que la selecci6n para resistencia a la sequfa mejo-r6 el rendimiento de grano bajo sequfa. Sin embargo, con riego hubo apenas un pequeno y no significativo aumento en el rendimiento de grano. Con una presi6n de selecci6n de 30% en la selecci6n familiar, la tasa de aumento en rendimiento para las condiciones de sequfa fue de aproximadamente 9. 5% por ciclo. El rendimiento de la variedad experimental que representa una presi6n de 4% en la selecci6n familiar en el Ultimo ciclo de selecci6n (ciclo 3), mejor6 todavfa m6s (4. 7% m~s alto que el ciclo 31.La selecci6n para reducci6n en la altura de planta, tamafio de la inflorescencia masculina o area foliar, result6 en un aumento de rendimiento bajo ambos regfmenes de agua (Cuadro 7). El porcentaje de aumento por ciclo bajo escasez de agua fue de 6.3 y 4.1 para la selecci6n basada en la inflorescencia yen la hoja, respectivamente. El rendimiento maximo de grano para las selecciones por altura bajo condiciones de sequia, fue alcanzado por el ciclo 1 5 con una ganancia promedio par ciclo de 5.8% (del ciclo 6 al 1 5). La selecci6n ulterior para altura reducida de planta {ciclo 18)Cuadro 8. Materia seca total, Iodice de cosecha y mazorcas por planta de varias selecciones de Tuxpeiio, cultivadas bajo condiciones de irrigaci6n y de sequia, ~I Mejores estimados del ciclo original result6 en una reducci6n del rendimiento de grano bajo sequia, pero no bajo el tratamiento de riego. La entrada correspondiente a la Poblaci6n 21 mostr6 el mas alto aumento (5% por ciclo) en rendimiento bajo riego y 2.8% por ciclo de aumento bajo condiciones de sequfa. En la se-lecci6n por tamano de hoja, el rendimiento de grano por unidad de 6rea foliar aument6 de 44.4 y 67 .8 g/m2 de superficie foliar (datos no publicados).El rendimiento fue examinado en tBrminos de sus componentes: materia seca total e lndice de cosecha (Cuadro 8).Las selecciones para resistencia a la sequra tuvieron un aumento no significativo (3.0 y 4.5% por ciclo para el ciclo 3 y la variedad experimental, respectivamente) en materia seca total producida bajo sequfa. Bajo condiciones de riego, el aumento en materia seca total fue de 1.5% por ciclo para la variedad experimental. Para la selecci6n morfol6gica para altura reducida, tamano reducido de la inflorescencia masculina y de la hoja, no hubo cambios significativos en materia seca total ya fuera bajo sequfa o bajo riego.La materia seca total puede ser considerada en t6rminos del total de agua transpirada y la eficiencia en el uso del agua por el cultivo (gramos de materia seca producidos por gramos de agua transpirada). El experimento no fue disef\\ado para medir estos componentes, pero se hizo un intento para anotar las diferencias en densidad de enraizamiento entre las entradas, mediante la calificaci6n visual de la cantidad de ralz encontrada en muestras de suelo tomadas con barreno a intervalos _de 0.30 m y a una profundidad de 1.50 m (1: baja densidad, 3: alta densidad). Esto se hizo al mismo tiempo (a la madurez fisiol6gica de la planta) que se hicieron mediciones volum6tricas de la humedad del suelo.Cuadro 9. Estimaciim visual de la actividad radical, contenido de humedad del suelo, uso del agua y estimacion de la eficiencia del uso del agua de varias selecciones de Tuxpeiio, cultivadas bajo condiciones de sequia  Hubo efectos varietales significativos tanto en las calificaciones de la rafz coma en el contenido volumetrico de humedad del perfil del suelo realizado entre 1 . 20 y 1 . 50 m de profundidad (Cuadro 91. Aunque no hubo grandes diferencias entre las entradas, hay una indicaci6n de que tanto la selecci6n par resistencia a la sequfa como la prueba internacional de progenies han aumentado la actividad radical a esta profundidad. La generaci6n temprana de selecci6n para plantas mils cortas, pudo haber reducido la densidad radical percibida a esta profundidad. Sin embrago, la humedad del suelo fue menor para el decimoquinto ciclo de se-lecci6n para altura reducida.La cantidad de agua usada par el cultivo del perfil entre 0 y 1 . 50 m fue calculada a partir de mediciones de la humedad gravim8trica y la densidad de masa tomadas para cada ac-cesi6n en la germinaci6n, a la floraci6n y a la madurez (Cuadro 9). De nuevo no hubo diferencias significatlvas, con una tendencia en la selecci6n de sequia a tener altura de plants reducida (ciclo 1 5) y la del programs internacional de pruebas de progenies a aumentar la cantidad de agua tomada par el cultivo. Basilndose en estos datos y en las de materia seca total a la aparici6n de la capa negra, se hizo una estimaci6n de la eficiencia en el uso de\\ agua par estos materiales. No parece una tendencia consistente con las diferentes selecciones. El valor media de todas las selecciones fue de 2.5 mg de materia seca/g H20, el cual es considerablemente mils bajo que el valor de 3.9 mg/g para condiciones de no limitaci6n de humedad publicado par Kassam (1976).Muchos de los cambios en rendimiento de grano estiln asociados con cambios en el fndice de cosecha bajo condiciones 6ptimas de densidad de plantas (Cuadro 8). Para la selecci6n de sequfa, el fndice de cosecha aument6 un 9.0%por ciclo bajo condiciones de sequfa: esto parece estar asociado con el aumento en el nUmero de plantas con mazorca (la selecci6n para resistencia a la sequfa redujo el nUmero de plantas horras de 33 a 1 5%). El lndice de cosecha aument6 7.7, 6.9 y 10.7% para la selecci6n para altura reducida de planta (ciclos 6 a 15), para tamano de inflorescencia masculine y para tamano de hoja, respectivamente.Estes selecciones mostraron tambi0n un aumento en fndice de cosecha bajo condiciones de riego (Cuadro 8). Sin embargo, puede haber un limite a la cantidad de mejoramiento en rendimiento corTio resultado del mejoramiento del indice de cosecha. Aunque el indice de cosecha para el ciclo 18 de la selecci6n para planta corta fue mils alto bajo riego y similar bajo sequfa al ciclo 15, el rendimiento de grano y el nUmero de mazorcas por planta bajo sequia fueron mils bajos. En las selecciones de sequia, el rendimiento mas alto de la variedad experimental bajo condiciones de sequia, estuvo asociado no con un fndice de cosecha mas alto sino con una tendencla hacia una materia seca total mayor y mas mazorcas par 100 plantas.Los datos en el Cuadro 1 0 muestran las relaciones entre varios caracteres que pueden influir el nUmero de plantas con mazorca y por tanto en el indice de cosechal y el rendimiento de grano bajo sequia. La variaci6n en cada uno de los caracteres es aquella que existe entre las varias selec-Cuadro 10. Estadisticas para caracteres asociados con producciOn de grano bajo sequia (resistencia a la sequia) para selecciones de la PoblaciOn Tuxpeiio 11 Condiciones favorables de humedad ciones de Tuxpeno incluidas en el ensayo. Aunque no todas las correlaciones son significativas (n = 10), las tendencias en la relaci6n son similares a las encontradas para la va-riaci6n entre familias indicada antes. Asr, rendimiento de grano bajo sequfa estll correlacionado con el intervalo entre floraciones (-0. 71 *), elongaci6n relativa de la hoja (0.65 *I Este estudio muestra que hay una oportunidad para seleccionar dentro de la poblaci6n Tuxpeno-1 para un mejor rendimiento bajo limitaci6n de humedad (resistencia a sequia), manteniendo al mismo tiempo su potencial de rendimiento relativamente alto. No obstante que las hallazgos son s61amente para una poblaci6n expuesta experimentalmente a un tipo especffico de sequia, las procedimientos son aplicables a otras poblaciones de mafz y a otras localidades.El mejoramiento de la resistencia a la sequfa es mucho mlls rllpido cuando el procedimiento de selecci6n usa mlls caracteres que s61amente el rendimiento de grano per se; muches factores estlln involucrados en conferir resistencia a la sequla. El uso de un fndice de selecci6n basado en la elongaci6n relativa de la hoja, el intervalo entre la dehiscencia del polen y la aparici6n de las estigmas, temperature del follaje, perdida de area foliar y rendimiento de grano bajo condiciones de sequia y de riego, result6 en una ganancia mllxima de rendimiento par ciclo bajo condiciones de sequla (9.5%).La selecci6n para resistencia a sequfa requiere de un lugar en el campo con una humedad uniforme y controlada y un area suficiente para una replicaci6n adecuada de las progenies. Todos los criterios usados pueden ser medidos rflpidamente y son par lo tanto adecuados para la evaluaci6n de un gran nUmero de progenies, y con excepci6n de la temperatura del follaje no requieren de instrumentos sofisticados. La elongaci6n relative de la hoja, la temperature del follaje y el intervalo entre la dehiscencia del polen y la aparici6n de las estigmas pueden ser medidos antes de la polinizaci6n y cuando se les combina explican el 54% (R2 = 0.54) de la variaci6n en rendimiento de grano bajo condiciones de sequfa.La selecci6n morfol6gica para altura reducida, tamano de la inflorescencia masculine y de la hoja, practicada bajo con-y temperatura del follaje (-0.35*) medidas bajo sequfa. El peso seco de la inflorescencia masculina y del tallo y el lndice de area foliar, medidos bajo condiciones de irriga-ci6n, tambi6n estuvieron correlacionados con rendimiento de grano bajo sequfa. Los valores de correlaci6n (r) fueron -0.58, -0.51 y-0.64*, respectivamente.diciones no limitantes de humedad, tambien mejoraron el rendimiento de grano bajo condiciones limitantes. Estos criterios pueden ser fflcilmente incorporados en un programs de mejoramiento gen0tico y pueden ser usados para selec-ci6n de plantas individuates. Tuxpeno-1 (Pob. 211 mejorado en sus caracteres agron6micos generales y amplia adaptabilidad mediante el Sistema Internacional de Pruebas de Progenies, mostr6 una ganancia alta en rendimiento de grano por ciclo bajo condiciones no-limitantes y tambien un mejoramiento en rendimiento bajo condiciones de sequfa (aunque la ganancia par ciclo fue menor).En todas las selecciones estudiadas, la mayor parte de la mejora en rendimiento fue el resultado de aquellos proce~ sos que redujeron el nUmero de plantas horras y aumentaron el indice de cosecha. Sin embargo, hubo cierta indica-ci6n de que el lndice de selecci6n tambien cambi6 el patr6n de enraizamiento y elev6 la producci6n de materia seca total. Dado que todos estos criterios de selecci6n pueden alterer componentes de la 'resistencia a sequia, parece haber una necesidad de incorporar todos los caracteres en el proceso de selecci6n. Un programs ideal de mejoramiento evaluarfa las progenies simult~neamente par las caracteres usados en el lndice de selecci6n y haria uso de la variaci6n dentro de families (selecci6n de plantas individuales) para las caracteres morfol6gicos deseables, durante el ciclo de recombinaci6n. Se logr6 ganancias significativas en rendimiento bajo sequia, despu~s de Unicamente tres ciclos de selecci6n recurrente. Continuer la selecci6n y acumulaci6n de genes para caracteres de resistencia a sequfa, mientras que al mismo tiempo se mantiene el potencial de rendimiento, deberia conducir a un ulterior mejoramiento del rendimiento bajo condiciones de sequfa. Seguramente que hay una variaci6n amplia para estos caracteres dentro del germoplasma tropical productive disponible y bien adaptado.","tokenCount":"10454"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"96321cd01200c9281ee7b6deebd1f4d2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/88a77d5c-96b4-49d3-a2ef-3b08ce093975/retrieve","id":"-205469291"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"783b00a6-b229-4047-9844-7be8f0b19db0","pagecount":"30","content":"Livestock represent a key asset in rural areas and, as a sector, it is considered as a key component to come out from rural poverty and increase income of rural communities (FAO 2009). Rural women and men rely largely on livestock for their welfare. In the Horn of Africa a big population (60 million people) depends on livestock for their livelihood.Among this group, the vast majority of the workforce managing small livestock is represented by women, who consider livestock a productive, physical and social asset. In Kenya 55% of household income derives from livestock related activities (52.7% male headed households and 68% female headed household). In Tanzania trends are similar, with livestock contributing to 69% of the household income, 68% and 75% for male and female headed household respectively (Njuki et al, 2011).The gender issues in the livestock sector vary widely on regional basis. Depending on regional and cultural basis, some general patterns can however be identified. The main constraints that women face in the livestock production/management sector include, but are not limited to: a. Limited access to services, credit, technologies, trainings and information; b. Difficult Access to markets (mobility issue and lack of trading skills); c. Poor Participation in decision making process at the household, community and village level; d. Limited control over income and frequent lost of majority of the income over men, who do not reinvest in the household; e. Poor participation in farmers cooperatives/lack of women farmers cooperatives that would enable them to achieve economic empowerment while connecting to rural finance institutions and markets;Women and men of different ages often have different and quite specific knowledge about, and responsibilities for, various aspects of animal husbandry and livestock. Depending on the livestock sector, women and men have diverse tasks and responsibilities that, as a result, provide them with quite specific knowledge and skill that are usually not shared across gender lines.The intra household control over livestock and income coming from selling animals/livestock products it is also an important aspect, albeit often difficult to monitor. The 2010/2011 SOFA report highlight hat women tend to reinvest the vast, majority of her income in the household while men are not likely to do the same. There is evidence that income under the control of women is more likely to be used to improve family welfare women spend upto 90% of their income on their families, while men spend 30-40% (FAO, 2011).Report on Training Workshop \"Understanding and Integrating Gender in Livestock Projects and Programs\" Jemimah Njiuki and Francesca Distefano Also, as a result of women's limited access to training, services and credit, men are more likely to scale up livestock production and management and then use livestock as a business. Women, instead, mainly keep and manage livestock for the immediate welfare of the household. Small livestock products meet the immediate nutritional needs of the children, ensuring a level of food security, while selling of small livestock gives them a small and immediate amount of money to meet special needs of the household (school fees, death of a parent, climate changing shocks).Despite of all these constraints, women do manage livestock worldwide and are sometimes able to control the entire value chain of a livestock species. There is evidence that generally men are responsible for keeping and marketing large animals, such as cattle, while women tend to control, own and manage smaller animals, such as goats, sheep, and, specially, poultry although this varies widely across regions and cultural contexts (Kristjanson et al, 2010).Given these gendered patterns of livestock ownership, marketing patterns and income management, and the different constraints faced by men and women in livestock production and marketing, projects aimed at using livestock as pathway out of poverty for rural and urban producers may fail if they do not take these into consideration.Understanding the importance of and addressing gender issues in livestock projects, activities and strategies is necessary to enhance the quality of project design and implementation in order to achieve the desired impact/result.In 2010, under the supervision of the former Gender focal point of the FAO's Animal Production and Health Division (AGA) a stock taking exercise was carried out on gender mainstreaming in the Division's work. During the course of the stocktaking, AGA officers in the field as well as at HQ were interviewed and were able to provide feedback as regards needs and constraints of the Division while trying to understand and address gender in their work.The qualitative survey emerging from the stocktaking exercise highlighted, in its recommendation 3, the urge for an upgrade of the gender analysis skills of AGA staff and livestock focal points in field offices through gender sensitization and specific trainings to enhance and strengthen capacity of staff to include gender in their work.Upgrade the gender analysis skills of AGA staff and livestock focal points in field offices. Gender sensitization and training should be organized for more key The stocktaking also pointed out the need for a more active collaboration between AGA and the Gender, Equity and Rural Employment Division (ESW).In order to address these important issues highlighted in the qualitative survey emerging from the 2010 stock taking exercise, ESW and AGA strengthened their collaboration and, in late 2011, jointly started designing the idea of a training-workshop with a participatory approach, to be implemented in the field and using the Socio Economic and Gender Analysis (SEAGA) approach.This collaboration is part of the ESW process focused on strengthening the Gender Focal Points Network across FAO trough an active collaboration and improved communication between technical divisions and ESWThe workshop was designed for FAO livestock officers working on the field and livestock experts coming from Ministries of Agriculture and Livestock.The objectives of the four days training workshop were: a.Strengthen the capacity of FAO staff to address the specifics of livestock management related to gender in their work plan, strategies and activities and to be able to appreciate that social inclusion is required to enhance the quality of project design, implementation, monitoring and impact, thus benefitting both rural women and men.Finalize comprehensive Gender and Livestock Checklist that would provide guidance while designing or implementing livestock projects and activities and help users in identifying and addressing the main gender issues in the livestock production sector.Support and strengthen the creation of regional linkages between FAO offices in the field and Ministries of Livestock in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.Report on Training Workshop \"Understanding and Integrating Gender in Livestock Projects and Programs\" Jemimah Njiuki and Francesca DistefanoThe workshop was divided into 3 main clusters of activities, specifically designed to give participants the possibility to have a comprehensive increase of their gender knowledge.1-Identification of baseline knowledge as regards gender; interactive training on key gender issues, concepts and approaches and knowledge of the specific gender issues related to livestock management and production was provided to participants;2-Intensive training on Socio Economic and Gender Analysis (SEAGA) approach and tools, focusing on livestock management and following the project cycle. The expert trainer, Jemimah Njuki, Team Leader: Poverty, Gender and Impact at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) adapted the SEAGA introductory manual and the SEAGA and Livestock manual to the purpose and scope of this activity. Participants were introduced to the SEAGA method, and were trained on how to selectively use different SEAGA tools throughout the all project cycle. The raining included an extensive working group session were participants were able to test the SEAGA tools learned;3-Finalization of Gender and Livestock checklist: a draft was designed from ESW Division and participants were tasked with the responsibility of finishing the product. They provided extensive comments and there was a sense of ownership of the checklists by the workshop particpants. The exercise was closed by the working groups presentations of findings, changes and outcome of their work on the assigned checklist. The exercise allowed to test overall acquired knowledge.The training workshop was held at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from the 22 to the 25 November 2011. Jemimah Njuki, Team Leader: Poverty Gender and Impact, from ILRI, acted as expert trainer for this activity, providing guidance, material and knowledge to all of the participants.The activity was entirely funded by the FAO's AGA Division and implemented under the overall guidance of AGA's Gender Focal Point, Raffaele Mattioli.Regina Laub, Team Leader of the Strategic Objective K, and Francesca Distefano, Gender and Development consultant, both from the FAO's ESW Division, provided consistent and relevant technical support in the formulation, designing and implementation of the activity and its tools.The workshop was facilitated from the FAO Sub Regional office for East Africa (SFE). Maria Pia Rizzo, Gender Focal Point for SFE, provided logistical support and acted as counterpart in Ethiopia.Report on Training Workshop \"Understanding and Integrating Gender in Livestock Projects and Programs\" Jemimah Njiuki and Francesca Distefano 6. SessionsThe workshop was opened from Emmanuelle GuerneBleich, Livestock Officer for the FAO Sub regional Office for Easter Africa (SFE),who made the opening address and provided participants with an overview of FAO livestock priorities in the sub-region of Eastern Africa.The important roles that women play in agriculture in the region was immediately underlined: agriculture growth, a key means of coming out from poverty, relies on improving the production and productivity of women farmers, since women form the majority of farmers and laborers in many rural countries.Livestock, particularly small stock, are traditionally kept by women in Ethiopia, who are often responsible for milking cattle and managing poultry and small ruminants. Ethiopian rural women produce most of the food that is consumed locally and they are the ones mainly responsible for the household nutritional standards. Their income is known to impact strongly upon poverty: it ensures that children have access to livestock proteins and helps maintaining a separate source of income that they can use to meet immediate households needs. Advancing rural women productivity directly helps to increase household productivity, improve rural livelihoods and leads to a wider economic growth and poverty reduction.The first session of the workshop focused on giving participants good base of gender knowledge from where to start building up. Key concepts like Gender, Gender Equality and Gender Mainstreaming were clarified, as well as the difference in gender approaches as regards programmes, policies and projects (Gender neutral/blind; Gender aware and Gender transformative). Also the potential gains from reducing gender disparities were underlined. Some data and findings from the FAO's State of Food and Agriculture 2010/2011 (SOFA) were shared with participants: if women had the same resources as men, they could increase yields on their farms by 20-30%, raise agricultural output by 2.5-4% and reduce hungry people by 100-150 million.The session continued then with a more specific focus on key gender and livelihood issues in livestock production, management and marketing. Under this topic many points were raised including the importance of livestock as a productive and social assets for rural women.Men and women's different role in livestock keeping was highlighted, and the important issue related to the division of labor according to sex was raised. Depending on the livestock value chain, different tasks and responsibilities are assigned only to women or only to men. A good example can be provided from the management of cattle: in this specific livestock sector generally women's tasks are mainly related to the milking phase and, consequentially, on the dairy value chain; men tend to sell, slaughter and build shelters for this big animals, keeping also the formal ownership on them. Who is doing what and who should be trained or get the capacity building and trainings, needs to be determined and assessed in every projects, programmes or policies related to livestock management and production in rural areas.The other important issues of women's difficult access to extension services, information, technologies and knowledge was raised. Due to the fact that women do not have equal access to different opportunities, they are not able to participate in the decision process at village or even household level. They have poor participation in farmers organizations and groups. As a result they have a weaker \"voice\" when applying for loans and this leads to low/poor access to business and production trainings. Also the different participation of women and men in livestock markets represent an issue and a constraints for women's full economic empowerment. Women are generally not trained as well as men and their poor access to markets due to illiteracy or lack of knowledge about prices and skills in trading prevent them to have full control over the income generated from the selling of the animals or their products.The last important link highlighted during the first day was, lastly, the fundamental relation between gender, livestock, food security and health. Women play a key role in food preparation, dietary quality and intra-household allocation and their role as housekeepers make them the key link as regards the level of food security and nutritional choices and standards of the household.The conclusion of day one was an exercise designed to assess participants' knowledge of gender livelihood analysis tools and other PRA tools. The exercise was designed in light of the second day of the workshop that would have been focusing on SEAGA approach and tools: the scope of this groups activity was to identify and describe which gender, livelihood and PRA tools participants have used in the past and which kind of advantages and limitations they had encountered while implementing the tools itself.The second day of the workshop was opened by Lois Muraguri, Assistant Director: Policy and External Affairs, from the Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines (GALVmed), who gave an overview of gender related activities and research at GALVmed Institute.Working with key partners to make a sustainable difference in providing access to animal health products for poor livestock keepers is a key aspect in improving rural livelihood.Working in order to close the gender gap in agriculture has to be a priority for every organization that works in the developmental sector, especially in rural areas, where women supply majority of labour and expertise on smallholder farms (66%).The second cluster of activities of the workshop, the Socio Economic and Gender Analysis pillar, started with an in depth introduction on the SEAGA approach. A strong emphasisReport on Training Workshop \"Understanding and Integrating Gender in Livestock Projects and Programs\"Jemimah Njiuki and Francesca Distefano on livestock was provided throughout all the training, underlining the importance of understanding the key gender and socio-economic issues in the targeted area in order to design project that have real impact on different socio-economic groups in the community. Project identification and preparation should be done after undertaking context analysis, livelihood analysis and stakeholder analysis.In order to provide participants with the possibility of applying the acquired knowledge as regards the importance of the livelihood and gender analysis, different tools were presented and explained. Specifically: The training continued with an overview on how to integrate gender in projects design.The trainer stressed the importance of undertaking a very good context analysis, which allows to identify priorities, setting goals and objectives.Important key concept related to gender in project implementation were also provided to participants, highlighting the different approaches that can be used:  Capacity building: gender trainings to aware on gender inequalities, on women's status, access to and control over resources  Targeting approaches: levels of targeting, targeting resources, activities or services.  Collective action: governance, leadership, women's voice  Participatory approaches: involving rural women in the design of any technologiesThe last part of the SEAGA intensive training conducted by Jemimah Njuki was then focused on integration of gender in monitoring evaluation and impact assessment. While making a clear point as regards the results chain, the trainer explained how to go from objectives of the planned activities to designing Indicators that are gender sensitive. As regards this matter it was stressed that men and women have different indicators based on their preferences: involving men and women in developing evaluation criteria and Report on Training Workshop \"Understanding and Integrating Gender in Livestock Projects and Programs\" Jemimah Njiuki and Francesca Distefano indicators is a key element, but separate evaluation and tools between men and women are needed to take into account their differences.The third day of the workshop was mainly focused on the finalization of Gender and Livestock checklist. A draft was designed from ESW Division and participants were faced with the challenge of finishing the product.A The draft checklists presented to participants followed the lessons learned emerging from the material listed above, focusing mainly on those livestock value chains that are mainly managed by women.Women do not access/manage all species of livestock for different reasons; for example their heavy workload pushes them to prefer management of smaller livestock, like poultry, which can be kept at a backyard level production and does not require women to work outside the house. As a result the checklists presented focused on :  Poultry value chain;  Small ruminants value chain;  Dairy value chain.The finalized checklist will provide guidance to users while designing, implementing or monitoring livestock projects and activities, helping them in identifying the main gender issues in the livestock sector. Is a straightforward tool that can be used even from users that have not an extensive or specific gender knowledge.Participants were divided in groups and worked specifically on 3 different checklists:Group one -Gender and Dairy production Group two -Gender and Poultry Production Group three -Gender and Small Ruminants Participants developed a sense of ownership, providing extensive comments to the zero draft that FAO's ESW division provided them and presented findings, changes and outcome of their work on the assigned checklist.The working groups presented the outcome of their work and delivered as regards consistency of comments provided, accuracy in individuating burning issues and improved knowledge while working on the checklist itself.The last day of the workshop was opened with an in-depth review of the final decisions related to the revise version of the checklists.According to the participants ideas and suggestion, the outcome was a comprehensive checklist that will have the following structure: The FAO-ILRI training workshop brought together 4 different relevant international Organization (FAO, ILRI, GALVmed and IFAD) and participants from 2 different levels (FAO and Ministries of Livestock), from 4 different countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania).As a result from this activity, participants enacted and increased their knowledge as regards gender, gender issues in agriculture and gender issues specifically related to livestock management. They got a better understanding of gender issues designing, implementing and monitoring of livestock projects. They also learned how to select and use gender analysis tools, according to the specific situation they are working on.Awareness as regards gender issues was raised among participants and relevant partners that attended the training workshop. The importance of social inclusion as one key factor to strengthen the quality of project design, implementation, monitoring and impact was stressed.The main outcome emerging from the training workshop is a comprehensive \"Gender and Livestock\" checklist. The draft checklist has been originally designed building on existing literature as regards gender and livestock: participants enriched the checklists with their comments and inputs coming from their personal experiences, backgrounds and constraints faced while trying to understand gender and address it in their work.a. There is a need to upgrade the gender knowledge of professionals working in the developmental sector as regards the importance of integrating gender in their work. Specific trainings related to gender and livestock related issues are needed in order to enact capacity of understanding and addressing gender related issues in livestock projects programmes and policies.Tailored trainings should be designed for for policy makers within governments in order to Report on Training Workshop \"Understanding and Integrating Gender in Livestock Projects and Programs\" Jemimah Njiuki and Francesca Distefano enact their capacity and encourage the formulation of regional gender programme for livestock policies and programmes.Internalizing gender issue is not achieved through an event but through a process: training must be continuous and cut across all levels, from the top to the bottom. Award certificate to training's participants could be an encouraging factor.b. Rural women need to receive extensive trainings on how to improve/scale up their livestock production . In order to improve women's livelihood in the livestock sector, providing opportunities for capacity building and facilitate trainings is a key aspect. Participants reported their successful experience in targeting both male and female within the households in trainings programmes. This strategy helped the community in recognizing the important role that women play in the management of livestock and pave the way to make women overcome the cultural limitations and become beneficiary of opportunities. Strengthen women's skills through inclusion of women in trainings on husbandry practices, milk handling, processing, and marketing is a priority, ensuring that trainings are provided also in villages and small rural communities.2) USE and SELECTION of TOOLS (SEAGA and other gender, livelihood and PRA tools):Different tools have been elaborated, through the years, from relevant organizations, therefore many tools that can be used for livelihood and gender analysis. The tool that can be used widely depends on the purpose of the analysis.Tailored and extensive trainings are needed in order to enact professional's knowledge of these tools and, most of all, capacity of selecting the most appropriate tool to use according to different situations.Many institutions and governments are not gender blind but poor in implementation. A wider dissemination of gender material would be an asset. Most importantly a stronger and more systematic way of collecting and sharing lessons learned should implemented throughout the institutions working in this field. This would provide governments and institutions with the possibility to learn from experiences, and successful stories collected while putting into practice programme, policies and projects that are gender sensitive.Report on Training Workshop \"Understanding and Integrating Gender in Livestock Projects and Programs\" Jemimah Njiuki and Francesca Distefano Also a wider collection and dissemination across organizations of technical and practical strategies developed while implementing programme, policies and projects in the field should be encouraged, in order to enhance quality of projects and delivery of tangibles results. A more systematic work on baseline studies and case studies would be an asset for this purpose.4) DESIGNING OF SIMPLE TOOLS for gender mainstreaming in specific technical agricultural areas of work Simple tools are needed as regards mainstreaming of gender into projects and programmes. It is has been highlighted that in many situations, in order to mainstream gender, an extensive gender knowledge is requested. When there is lack of gender knowledge, the designing of simple tools is required and should be strongly encouraged in order to guide users in integrating gender in their work.The use of the Gender and Livestock checklist will be monitored. A questionnaire will be sent out in February 2012 to all participants, in order to collect their feedback, constraints and issues encountered while applying the tool in their every day work.Also, FAO, GALVmed and ILRI agreed to pursue a longer term cooperation to further promote the role of gender in the livestock sector as a key component to address rural poverty and increase incomes of rural communities. The three organizations agreed to establish a \"working group\" or a \"think tank\" (about 7-8 persons) to explore the possibility of establishing/creating a network or a platform on issues and challenges related to Gender and Livestock (and Poverty/Food Security  ","tokenCount":"3851"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6c2b782b7ce6d23624d9faa97b20e832","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/19869402-8102-4ec8-9637-335974a8279a/content","id":"-1030416109"},"keywords":["Code Number: CS97022 Sizes of Files: Text: 51K Graphics: Line drawings (gif) -8.6K Fertiliser","fungicide","herbicide","improved variety","insecticide","shoot fly","sowing date Date de semis","engrais","fongicide","herbicide","insecticide","mouche de la tige","variete amelioree"],"sieverID":"b2f9ee1b-1ae2-40d2-9b8b-c8069d3c44f6","pagecount":"11","content":"Crop management (CM) research conducted in Ethiopia has tended to quantify yield gains and losses associated with single management factors, making it difficult to determine the relative importance of main effects and interactions among factors. During 1987 and1988, exploratory trials examining several CM factors for bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) production were conducted at four research centres situated in the priority wheat production zones of Ethiopia. In the two cropping seasons of 1990, five similar trials were executed in south-eastern Ethiopia to examine the differential responses to four CM factors between farmers' fields and a research site. All 13 trials examined differences between local and improved bread wheat varieties, and response to fertiliser and hand weeding. A fourth factor of local significance such as fungicide, insecticide, or sowing date was added at each site to complete a 24 design. Treatment main effects exerted the predominant influence on grain yield (GY). Relative to unimproved traditional germplasm, GY increments from modern varieties ranged from 13 to 315%. Fertiliser application reduced GY by 9% in one trial due to enhanced lodging, but, in nine others, increased yield from 20 to 88%. Hand weeding increased GY in nine trials; the increases ranged from 17 to 94%. Fungicide increased GY by 5% in two trials, primarily by increasing the yield of a susceptible semi-dwarf variety under a heavy epidemic of stripe rust (Puccinia striiformis). Seed treatment with insecticide for control of shoot fly (Delia arambourgi) increased GY by 13 to 46% in four trials. Two way interactions involving variety emphasised the greater responsiveness of modern varieties to improved management and higher levels of inputs. Overall, the interactions demonstrated the beneficial impact of combining improved production practices in one cultural package. From the comparison of on-farm and on-station results, it was apparent that station conditions differ dramatically from farmers' circumstances in terms of heat crop response to hand weeding, fertiliser application and insecticidal seed treatment. This has obvious implications for the extrapolation of research results generated on station to the surrounding small-scale farming community.Constraints to the realisation of potential grain yield (GY) in any particular agro-ecological zone consist of a number of factors (Nilson and Juhnke, 1984). In an environment such as the central highlands of Ethiopia, where moisture is relatively non-limiting, reported constraints to bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) production include inappropriate varietal selection, poor weed control, low soil macronutrient and/or micronutrient levels, inappropriate seeding date and rate, poor seedbed preparation, and inadequate crop protection technology (Tanner et al., 1991;Tanner and Giref, 1991). Several of these factors have been identified as major constraints to bread wheat production at the peasant farmer level in farming system surveys in Ethiopia (Aleligne and Franzel, 1987;Alemayehu and Franzel, 1987). Weed competition has been reported to reduce wheat yields by up to 36% (Rezene, 1985). Breakdown of varietal resistance to, in particular, the rust diseases (Puccinia spp.) has seriously hampered wheat production by peasant farmers in Ethiopia (Bekele and Tanner, 1995). In the Sinana district of Bale Region in southeastern Ethiopia, constraints to bread wheat production at the peasant farm level include a high density of insect pests of wheat (e.g., Delia arambourgi, barley shoot fly; Diuraphis noxia, Russian wheat aphid) (Alemayehu and Franzel, 1987).Historically, crop management (CM) trials conducted in Ethiopia dealt with single factors (Hailu et al., 1988), but in the midlate 1980s, commodity researchers began conducting more comprehensive multi-factor trials to examine the interactions among various factors (Alem et al., 1990;Nigussie and Mesfin, 1994). This paper summarises the results of 13 multi-factor CM trials conducted on bread wheat in Ethiopia. Eight trials were conducted at four government-funded research centres during 1987 and 1988, and five trials were situated on-farm and on-station in Sinana district in southeastern Ethiopia in 1990. Each trial examined the main effects of varietal differences, fertiliser application, and hand weeding on wheat GY, and the interactions among these factors. A fourth factor such as fungicide, insecticide, or sowing date, indicated as being of local importance, was added at each site, resulting in a total of four factors. Concurrent evaluation of response to CM factors on farmers' fields and on-station was conducted to evaluate the representativeness of research station conditions.Experiment I. Multi-factor CM trials were conducted during 1987 and 1988 at four government-funded research stations representing the high potential zones for bread wheat production in the northwestern, central and southeastern highlands of Ethiopia. Characteristics of the four stations are listed in Table 1. The Adet and Sinana stations were newly established in late 1986. TABLE 1. Characteristics of the four research stations participating in the crop management study on bread wheat in Ethiopia Each trial was repeated for two seasons at the same station. At Kulumsa, Holetta and Adet stations, the trials were conducted in 1987 and 1988, but at Sinana, located in a zone receiving bimodally-distributed rainfall, the two growing seasons of 1988 were used for the trial.The experimental design used at all sites except at Adet was a 2^4 factorial in randomised complete blocks with three replications; CM factors included in the trials (Table 2) consisted of zone-specific recommendations versus farmers' practices for wheat variety, fertiliser application and hand weeding. In each zone, these three factors were combined with a fourth factor of local significance. At the Adet site, sowing date comprised a main plot factor within replications and the subfactors were randomised as subplots within sowing dates. At the other three sites, all 16 treatments were unrestricted in randomisation within replications.TABLE 2. Factors studied at the recommended (+) and farmers' (-) levels in the crop management study on bread wheat in Ethiopia Individual plot sizes were 2.2 x 5 m (= 11 m^2) with a row spacing of 20 cm. Seed rate was 150 kg ha^-1. Seeds and fertilisers were applied in rows constructed manually using a row marker. Fertilisers were applied first and mixed with soil in the row, then seeds were sown and covered with soil. Seeds and fertilisers were sown as early as possible each season (i.e., when the soil was moderately moist), except at Adet where sowing date was an experimental variable fixed as June 16 and July 16. Sowing dates for all other trials are listed in Table 2. Seedbeds at all research sites had been prepared according to conventional tillage practice (i.e., primary tillage by mouldboard plough followed by disk harrowing). For plots weeded twice, hand weeding was carried out from 15 to 20 days and again at 35 to 40 days after crop emergence; single weedings were applied from 25-30 days after crop emergence.In all trials, the crop was harvested close to the soil surface using a sickle, enabling determination of grain, biomass, and straw yields and harvest indices.Individual site GY data were analysed using a random linear additive model (Steel and Torrie, 1960).Experiment II. In both cropping seasons of 1990, a series of trials were established in Sinana district in southeastern Ethiopia to examine the differential effects of four CM factors in trials established concurrently on farmers' fields and on the research centre. Three trials were established in the first crop season (\"Belg\" from March to June) and in the second crop season (\"Meher\" from July to November) of 1990. During each season, two of the trials were sown on selected farmers' fields within 10 km of the Sinana Research Centre (SRC) and one trial was sown on SRC's research fields. Host farmers were selected on the basis of being representative wheat producers, and having expressed a willingness to host an on-farm trial. The farmers' fields varied in texture from sandy loams to loamy clays.For the 1990 trials, the experimental design used, a 2^4 factorial in randomised complete blocks with three replications, was identical to that of Experiment I. Crop management factors included in the trials (Table 2) consisted of zone-specific recommendations versus farmers' practices for wheat variety, fertiliser application, hand weeding and insecticidal seed dressing. Relative to Experiment I, the improved bread wheat variety ET13 was substituted for the semi-dwarf Dashen (Table 2) which had broken down to stripe rust in 1987-88 as reported by Bekele and Tanner (1995). Fertiliser application rate was also modified in 1990 to reflect revised zone-specific recomme-ndations (Amanuel et al., 1991).In 1990, plot sizes were modified to compensate for the greater heterogeneity of farmers' fields. The gross plot size used was 5 x 5 m. On farmers' fields, seed was broadcast at the rate of 150 kg ha^-1, and then was incorporated (with or without fertiliser, according to treatment) by one pass of the local ox-plough. In the on-station trials, seed was broadcast and subsequently incorporated by hand hoes according to normal station practice. The seedbed at each farm site had been prepared by ox-plough according to the host farmer's conventional practice, while the research station staff prepared land using a mouldboard plough followed by a disc harrow for secondary tillage. A net plot of 9 m^2 was harvested close to the soil surface using a sickle, enabling determination of grain, biomass and straw yields and harvest index. One of the on-farm trials in the \"Meher\" season of 1990 was harvested prematurely by the host farmer, and was excluded from further analysis.Individual site data were analysed using a random linear additive model (Steel and Torrie, 1960). Subsequently, Sinana trial data from 1990 were combined for analysis, grouping together on-farm and on-station trials.Experiment I. Trial yields reflected the yield potential associated with each environment, with Kulumsa exhibiting the highest mean wheat grain yields of 4,864 and 4,010 kg ha^-1 in 1987 and 1988, respectively (Tables 3 and 4). Trial C.V.s were within an acceptable range at all sites except Adet; there the high C.V.s in both 1987 and 1988 reflected the relatively heterogeneous field conditions at this newly established (i.e., 1986) research centre. For each station, year by treatment interaction was significant, necessitating the presentation of results by individual trial.Differential response to almost all of the CM factors tested (i.e., varieties, fertiliser, hand weeding, fungicides, and insecticide) across sites and between seasons within sites was apparent. Concerning treatment main effects, variety, hand weeding, and fertiliser had a significant impact on wheat GY in 7, 7, and 6 of the 8 trials, respectively. Fungicide (2 of 4), insecticide (1 of 2), and sowing date (0 of 2) had less effect in those trials in which they were included. Of the six two-way factor interactions measured in each trial, the number of significant interactions ranged from 0 to 3 (Tables 3 and 4). The relative unimportance of interaction effects on GY can be seen by comparing the sums of each of the four main effects in each trial with the difference between the two treatments having all factor levels + or -in the same trial; only at Holetta and Adet in 1987 did these two values differ by more than 300 kg ha^-1. Specific interactions from Experiment I will be discussed in a subsequent section in conjunction with those from Experiment II.  -----------------------------------------------------------   --------------------------------------------------------------- Variety. The variety Dashen, released commercially in 1984 in Ethiopia, is a high yielding, input responsive, semi-dwarf selected from the \"Veery\" germplasm originating from Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo (CIMMYT). At two sites, Kulumsa and Holetta, Dashen was compared to the older variety Enkoy, released in 1973 in Ethiopia; at the remaining two sites, Dashen was compared to unimproved farmers' germplasm (i.e., Israel at Adet, Wollandi at Sinana).Dashen consistently outyielded the older Ethiopian variety Enkoy at Kulumsa; the yield differential was 18 and 10% in 1987 and 1988, respectively. However, at Holetta, Enkoy outyielded Dashen in both seasons; the difference was 10% and 18% in 1987 and 1988, being exactly the same magnitude of GY difference as at Kulumsa, but in favour of Enkoy. There is no obvious explanation for this reversal of yield performance, but it must reflect specificity of adaptation of the bread wheat varieties released in Ethiopia (Bekele and Tanner, 1995).Comparing Dashen to the local awnless, tall and unimproved farmers' varieties revealed significantly higher GY for Dashen in 3 of the 4 trials; Dashen outperformed Wollandi at Sinana by 27 and 81% in the 1988 \"Belg\" and \"Meher\" seasons, respectively, while at Adet in 1987, Dashen outyielded Israel by 315%.Weeding. The main effect of hand weeding was significant and positive in 7 of 8 trials; GY increments ranged from 17 to 94% across the 8 trials.At Kulumsa, the GY increment due to hand weeding represented 31 and 17% of the unweeded check in 1987 and 1988, respectively. Response to hand weeding at Holetta was also quite high in 1987, resulting in a 30% yield increase. At Sinana, the main effect of weeding increased GY in the \"Belg\" and \"Meher\" seasons by 34 and 20%, respectively; farmers report that the \"Belg\" season is usually associated with the highest level of weed infestation (Alemayehu and Franzel, 1987). At Adet, hand weeding increased GY significantly by 94 and 32% in 1987 and 1988, respectively.Fertiliser. Fertiliser effect was significant in 6 of 8 trials. At Kulumsa there was no GY response to fertiliser in 1987 and a negative response in 1988: 60 kg N plus 26 kg P ha^-1 reduced GY by 380 kg ha^-1 or 9% relative to the 0-0 check. The lack of response to fertiliser in 1987 was consistent with reports over the past decade indicating a lack of response to either N or P on the Kulumsa station (Tanner et al., 1991), due to high historic rates of fertilisation and the rotation with leguminous crops practised on the centre's fields. Thus, it is not possible to extrapolate the fertiliser response from this trial to neighbouring farmers' fields where response to N and P has been consistently positive (Amanuel et al., 1991). In 1988, the negative GY response to fertiliser was due to enhanced lodging during heavy rains late in the season.Response to fertiliser at Holetta was positive and high in both years. Yield increases due to fertiliser application were 88 and 79% in 1987 and 1988, respectively, representing conversion ratios of 16.6 and 12.1 kg grain per kg nutrient.At Sinana, GY response to fertiliser was positive in both seasons; GY increased by 29 and 20%, respectively, in the 2 seasons, due to the application of 60 kg of N and 26 kg of P ha^-1. The grain conversion ratio was quite low, however, being 5.0 and 3.6 kg grain per kg nutrient in the \"Belg\" and \"Meher\", respectively. This low conversion efficiency suggested that the fertiliser level applied may not have been optimal for this zone, and recommendations were subsequently adjusted for the 1990 trials (Table 2), based on concurrent on-farm N by P trials (Amanuel et al., 1991;Zewdu and Tanner, 1994).At Adet, the fertiliser effect on GY was significant only in 1988, increasing yield by 88%. The lack of response to fertiliser in 1987 may have been associated with the early-season flooding which deposited large amounts of eroded sediment on the trial area.Fungicide. The effect of fungicide on GY was significant in 2 of 4 trials. In 1987 at Kulumsa, despite low observed levels of foliar pathogens, triademefon produced a 217 kg ha^-1 or 5% increase in GY. This was probably a result of the \"stay green\" effect exerted by triademefon on leaf tissue due to its cytokinin-like properties (E. Saari, pers. comm.).In Ethiopia in 1988, there was a serious epidemic of stripe rust (Puccinia striiformis), consisting primarily of the race virulent to the resistance gene Yr9 carried by Dashen and related wheat varieties (Bekele and Tanner, 1995). Thus, Dashen was severely affected in the trial at Kulumsa in 1988, and mean wheat grain yield was increased by fungicide (P=0.065). Variety by fungicide interaction was significant at the P=0.05 level: the GY of Dashen was increased by 455 kg ha^-1 or 11% by the application of triademefon, while the GY of the rust-resistant variety Enkoy was unaffected by fungicide.Although the main effect of fungicide on GY was non-significant at Holetta in both seasons, fungicide by fertiliser and fungicide by weeding effects were both significant at Holetta in 1987. With fungicide applied, fertiliser efficiency improved, resulting in a conversion ratio of 18.6 kg grain per kg nutrient vs. 14.5 without fungicide (data not shown). For hand weeded treatments, there was a significant GY increase in response to fungicide application, whereas without weeding there was no response to fungicide. Both interactions demonstrate synergism of CM inputs.Insecticide. The effect of aldrin insecticide on wheat GY was only significant in 1 of 2 trials at Sinana; during the \"Meher\" season of 1988, which usually has a higher incidence of barley shoot fly, D. arambourgi (Alemayehu and Franzel, 1987); GY was increased by 398 kg ha^-1 or 27% by aldrin.Sowing date. The fact that sowing date had no significant effect on GY at Adet in both seasons was probably due to its inclusion as a main plot factor in the experimental design: the F test for sowing date had only 1 and 2 d.f. for error, making it virtually impossible to detect differences. In 1987, the first sowing date appeared to outperform the second (1963 vs. 1523 kg ha^-1) due to flooding caused by heavy rains soon after the second sowing. In 1988, the first sowing date was affected by a prolonged dry spell immediately following sowing (1174 vs. 1513 kg ha^-1). Sowing date by fertiliser response interaction was significant in 1988: the grain to nutrient conversion ratio for the June 16 sowing was negative while for July 16 the conversion ratio was 6.6 kg grain per kg nutrient (data not shown). Thus, the optimum sowing date changed from year to year according to climatic patterns.Experiment II. In the trials conducted in Sinana district in 1990, wheat GY averaged 2075 kg ha^-1 on-station and 2396 kg ha^-1 on farmers' fields (Table 5). Visual observation of the trials prior to harvest suggested that both weed competition and crop damage by barley shoot fly were much more severe on-station compared to the on-farm situation. On farmers' fields, fertiliser response was more apparent.TABLE 5. Effects of crop management factors on bread wheat grain yield (kg ha^-1) and absolute yield range on-station and on farmers' fields at Sinana in 1990 ------------------------------------------------- For combined analysis, the data from the on-station trials were grouped together across seasons, and the same was done for the on-farm trials. Trial seasons were considered as a fixed factor for the purpose of this analysis (i.e., the trials sampled fixed seasons -\"Belg\" and \"Meher\"). Analysis of the GY data confirmed the visual observation of the differential impact of the various CM factors on-station and on-farm.Grain yield response to fertiliser (41 kg N and 20 kg P ha^-1) was significant in all on-farm trials, but was only marginally significant (P<0.1) on-station during one (\"Meher\") season; the mean on-farm GY response to fertiliser was 597 kg ha^-1 (Table 5) or 28%. The on-farm grain to nutrient conversion ratio of 9.8 kg grain per kg nutrient was similar to that reported by Zewdu and Tanner (1994), representing an improvement in conversion efficiency vis-a-vis that observed in Experiment I; presumably, this reflected the usage in the 1990 trials of a recommended nutrient rate determined from prior on-farm fertiliser trials (Amanuel et al., 1991).The main effect of hand weeding was non-significant in all of the on-farm trials, but was highly significant in the on-station trials, increasing GY by 48% (Table 5). Presumably, this reflects the build-up of weed populations on-station due to high rates of fertiliser application in previous years and suboptimal control of weeds.The effect of aldrin seed treatment for the control of barley shoot fly was highly significant on-station in both seasons, increasing GY by 29%. However, seed dressing had a marginally significant effect (P<0.1) on GY in only one on-farm trial, and the effect was non-significant in the combined analysis (Table 5).The improved bread wheat variety ET13 significantly outyielded the tall, local farmers' variety, Wollandi, in all trials except the on-station trial during the \"Meher\" season. The mean GY increment with ET13 was 26% on farmers' fields, and only 10% on-station. This differential response was due to the higher level of weed infestation on-station, and the inability of ET13 to compete with weeds as effectively as the taller, unimproved variety as reported by Tanner et al. (1995). When combined with hand weeding, ET13 outyielded Wollandi by greater margins in the on-station trials.Comparing the response of wheat GY to the four CM factors on-farm and on-station suggested that research station circumstances differ dramatically from the farmers' situation in terms of wheat response to hand weeding, fertiliser application, and insecticidal seed treatment (Fig. 1). This has obvious implications for the extrapolation of research results generated on-station to the surrounding small-holder farming community, and emphasises the importance of on-farm agricultural research in Sinana district since the research station does not appear to be representative of farmers' conditions.Figure 1 -Incremental effects of crop management factors on bread wheat grain yield on-station in the Sinana district of Ethiopia in 1990.The absence of a fertiliser response on-station can be explained by the use of high levels of fertiliser on the centre site since its establishment in 1986. The relatively high weed population on the station may reflect partly its elevated level of soil fertility, but may also suggest the need to reduce weed numbers. The effect of the shoot fly on-station suggests that some aspect of CM renders the station's wheat trials more susceptible to attack by the insect; perhaps the depth of sowing and the seed covering method used on-station result in a shallow crown depth, rendering the plant more susceptible to attack by the shoot fly. Overall, agricultural researchers must be cautious in extrapolating results from the station to farmers' fields.Contrasting the magnitude of the yield increment when \"improved\" levels of all four CM factors were applied simultaneously with the sum of the four individual main factor effects indicates that interaction effects had a relatively insignificant impact on wheat GY. For the on-station trials (Table 5), the sum of the main effects was 1552 kg ha^-1 compared to a difference of 1389 kg ha^-1 between the control and the treatment consisting of improved levels for each factor (i.e., +All). On-farm, the corresponding values were 1330 and 1293 kg ha^-1.The results suggest that small-holders' wheat yields could be increased by over 70% in Sinana district by introducing seed of a recently released variety, and applying N and P fertiliser; the use of seed treatment to control barley shoot fly was not warranted by the on-farm response.The most common, significant two-way factor interactions are discussed in the sections that follow. In most cases, the interactions demonstrate the beneficial impact on wheat GY of simultaneously combining improved production practices in one cultural package (i.e., improved variety + fertiliser + weed control).Variety by weed control. There were five instances of significant variety by weed control interaction across Experiments I and II; three representative cases are included in Table 6. In all five instances, the highest GY was obtained with the improved variety combined with hand weeding. In each case, with hand weeding, the improved variety was higher yielding than the check (V-) variety; without weeding there was no difference between the two varieties in 3 of 5 cases as in the Sinana 1988 \"Belg\" trial (Table 6). In all 5 cases, the GY of V+ responded positively to weeding, but in 2 trials, Sinana 1988 \"Belg\" and Adet 1987, V-did not respond to weed control (Table 6). Thus, both the semi-dwarf variety Dashen and the improved variety ET13 were more responsive to improved management of weeds than the older tall varieties, in agreement with another report of the differential ability of Ethiopian wheat cultivars to compete with weeds (Tanner et al., 1995). Conversely, the improved varieties exhibited a more pronounced suppression of their greater potential yield under conditions of weed competition.TABLE 6. Effects of interaction of bread wheat variety by weed control on grain yield (kg ha^-1) -------------------------------------------------------------- ^a Varieties listed in Table 2 ----------------------------------------------------------------Fertiliser by weed control. The trials at Holetta in 1987 and Sinana on-station in 1990 exhibited a significant fertiliser by weed control synergism (Table 7). In both trials, +F responded more to weeding than did -F, although all responses were positive and significant. At Holetta, +W responded more positively to fertiliser than did -W.TABLE 7. Effects of interaction of fertiliser application by weed control on bread wheat grain yield (kg ha^-1) ---------------------------------------------- At Holetta, weeding markedly improved fertiliser efficiency; weeding resulted in a conversion ratio of 19.4 kg grain per kg nutrient vs. 13.8 without weeding.At Sinana in 1990, GY tended to decrease with fertiliser applied in the absence of weeding (-8%), but increased significantly when both factors were present (+48%). This suggests that weeds proliferated under the influence of fertiliser, and exerted a greater competitive effect on the unweeded wheat crop.Variety by fertiliser. In the Sinana 1988 \"Belg\" trial, variety by fertiliser (P=0.069) interaction (Table 8) indicated that the semi-dwarf variety Dashen was more responsive to fertiliser than the unimproved farmers' variety Wollandi. In the absence of fertiliser, there was no difference between the 2 varieties, whereas with fertiliser, the GY of Dashen was greater than Wollandi. Wollandi exhibited no GY increment with added fertiliser.TABLE 8. Effects of interaction of bread wheat variety by fertiliser application and insecticidal seed dressing on grain yield (kg ha^-1) at Sinana in 1988 --------------------------------------------- Variety by insecticide. In the Sinana 1988 \"Meher\" trial, variety by insecticide interaction was marginally significant (P=0.057). The GY of Dashen increased by 618 kg ha^-1 with insecticide (Table 8) while Wollandi exhibited a nonsignificant increase of 178 kg ha^-1. With or without aldrin, the GY of Dashen was greater than Wollandi. However, as for the other factors, the semi-dwarf exhibited a greater responsiveness to CM inputs.Insecticide by weed control. In the Sinana 1990 on-station trials, weed control interacted significantly with insecticide (Table 9). The GY of the unweeded treatments responded markedly to the aldrin seed treatment (+52%), while the weeded treatments responded to a lesser extent (+15%). Similarly, the GY of the -I treatments responded more (+73%) to weeding than did the +I treatments (+31%). Presumably, improved weed control facilitated the recovery of plants damaged by shoot fly attack, and control of shoot fly enabled wheat plants to compete more effectively with weeds.TABLE 9. Effects of interaction of insecticidal seed dressing by fertiliser application and weed control on bread wheat grain yield (kg ha^-1) in the on-station trialsa at Sinana in 1990--------------------------------------------Weed control Fertiliser ----------------------------+ -+ --------------------------------------------Insecticide:- ^a Mean of 2 trials (i.e., one in each season) ^b LSD at P=0.10 level ---------------------------------------------Insecticide by fertiliser. Also in the Sinana 1990 on-station trials, fertiliser response interacted significantly with insecticide (Table 9). The aldrin insecticide increased GY more in the absence of fertiliser (+40%) than when fertiliser was applied (+19%), suggesting that vigorous, well-fertilised wheat crops are damaged to a lesser extent by shoot fly or are better positioned to recover subsequent to the attack. Although the main effect of fertiliser on GY was non-significant in this particular trial, the fertiliser response in the absence of insecticide was almost significant at the P=0.1 level (Table 9) suggesting the effect of a yield compensation mechanism.The main effects of varietal differences and the response to fertiliser and weed control exerted the greatest impact on wheat GY in all 13 trials. However, the two way interactions, particularly those involving variety, generally exhibited synergism between CM inputs, and emphasised the greater responsiveness of modern wheat varieties to improved management and higher levels of CM inputs. Overall, the results demonstrated the beneficial impact of combining improved production practices in one cultural package: the differences in GY between the farmers' practices and the recommended production package in each trial ranged from 801 to 4302 kg ha^-1.The results of this study further emphasised the importance of on-farm agricultural research in Ethiopia since research station circumstances are often not representative of farmers' conditions, particularly in terms of differential response to fertiliser, weed control, and insecticide. Overall, agricultural researchers must be cautious in attempting to extrapolate results from on-station research to farmers' fields.Furthermore, this study indicated that small-holders' wheat yields could be increased by over 70% in Sinana district with the introduction of seed of new varieties and the application of N and P fertiliser; the use of a seed treatment to control barley shoot fly was not justified by the on-farm response.","tokenCount":"4721"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9dccd7ea78b744e52cfff68d14ebb6c8","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/80f5b599-a97e-455a-b49c-7567c77242fb/retrieve","id":"357503282"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"83108ef0-4f35-4a60-b1d1-40ec4dd2f24c","pagecount":"1","content":"Phytophthora infestans, the causal agent of potato late blight which sparked Irish Great Famine in the 1840s, is one of the most important crop pathogens that that threaten global food security. Late blight resistance (R) genes were introgressed into cultivated potato (Solanum tuberosum). A collection of eleven conventional R potatoes were used to characterize the virulence phenotype of individual P. infestans isolates, and as such to monitor the dynamics of P. infestans field populations. However, emerging reports suggest that the filed strains already breakdown a substantial R genes in different geographic regions, threatening the local potato production. Here we performed genome and transcriptome sequencing analysis on two Chinese field strains. The filed strain HB1501 (from north of China) and HN1602 (from south-west of China) overcome all the eleven conventional potato resistance. Our analysis reveals extensive sequence and expression polymorphisms in these strains. In particular polymorphisms at AVR locus enable these strains to overcome conventional R genes. Although field strains have evolved multiple strategies to evade disease resistance, we experimentally verified that the R genes such as R8/Rpi-Smira2, Rpi-vnt1 are still effective against these strains, and are valuable to potato breeding in the future.• Two newly emerged strains HB1501 and HN1602 have distinct background and are rich of gene sequence and expression polymorphisms; • Examination of AVR genes suggest resistance genes such as Rpiblb1, Rpiblb2, Rpivnt1 and R8 may provide valuable resistance to these two strains.• Scale up sequncing input and monitoring pathogen population at genome level;• How these two strains evolve in Chinese potato field in future.   ","tokenCount":"257"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d0f4bfd2db08fcdd1c8b15ce5e11727a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/37a5d0cf-0eb9-48e1-92de-c68b2ee33606/retrieve","id":"1082701159"},"keywords":["Lozano-Ramírez, N.","Dreisigacker, S.","Sansaloni, C.P.","He, X.","Islas, S.S.","Pérez-Rodríguez, P.","Carballo, A.C.","Nava-Díaz, C.","Kishii, M.","Singh, P.K. Genome-Wide Association Study for Resistance to Aegilops tauschii","durum wheat","synthetic hexaploid wheat","tan spot","genome-wide association study"],"sieverID":"fddda17a-28ef-475a-8339-bcbf44b7fb91","pagecount":"19","content":"Synthetic hexaploid wheat (SHW) has shown effective resistance to a diversity of diseases and insects, including tan spot, which is caused by Pyrenophora tritici-repentis, being an important foliar disease that can attack all types of wheat and several grasses. In this study, 443 SHW plants were evaluated for their resistance to tan spot under controlled environmental conditions. Additionally, a genome-wide association study was conducted by genotyping all entries with the DArTSeq technology to identify marker-trait associations for tan spot resistance. Of the 443 SHW plants, 233 showed resistant and 183 moderately resistant reactions, and only 27 were moderately susceptible or susceptible to tan spot. Durum wheat (DW) parents of the SHW showed moderately susceptible to susceptible reactions. A total of 30 significant marker-trait associations were found on chromosomes 1B (4 markers), 1D (1 marker), 2A (1 marker), 2D (2 markers), 3A (4 markers), 3D (3 markers), 4B (1 marker), 5A (4 markers), 6A (6 markers), 6B (1 marker) and 7D (3 markers). Increased resistance in the SHW in comparison to the DW parents, along with the significant association of resistance with the A and B genome, supported the concept of activating epistasis interaction across the three wheat genomes. Candidate genes coding for F-box and cytochrome P450 proteins that play significant roles in biotic stress resistance were identified for the significant markers. The identified resistant SHW lines can be deployed in wheat breeding for tan spot resistance.Diseases are major threats that significantly reduce yield when crops are grown under disease-favoring conditions. Wheat foliar diseases have gained increased importance in recent years due to various factors such as the adoption of conservation agriculture practices, commercial cultivation of susceptible varieties, and high-evolution dynamics of the causal pathogens [1]. Furthermore, climate change often results in severe disease epidemics that significantly limit grain yield and quality in wheat [2]. About 12-14% of the global wheat production is lost each year due to diseases [3]. The causative agents of these diseases, mainly fungal pathogens, infect multiple wheat tissues such as root, stem, leaf, spike, and grain. Based on the frequency and severity levels of disease epidemics, the diseases that infect leaf and spike/grain are considered of greater importance. In this sense, many researchers agree that \"stripe rust\" caused by Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici; \"tan spot\" by Pyrenophora tritici-repentis (Died.) Drechs. (anamorph Drechslera tritici-repentis (Deceased) Shoem.); \"Septoria nodorum blotch\" by Parastagonospora nodorum (syn. ana. Stagonospora; teleo. Phaeosphaeria) (Berk.) Quaedvlieg, Verkley & Crous, and \"Septoria tritici blotch\" by Mycosphaerella graminicola (Fuckel) Schroeter, in Cohn (anamorph Zymoseptoria tritici Rob ex Desm.) are some of the most important foliar diseases [3,4].Tan spot (synonymous with yellow spot) pathogen P. tritici-repentis belongs to the order of dothideomycete in ascomycete [5] and can attack durum and bread wheat, as well as many other grass species. This foliar wheat disease is found globally, with symptoms mainly including necrosis and chlorosis on leaf tissues, reducing the photosynthetic area, and resulting in poor grain filling, kernel shriveling, a reduced number of kernels per head, and severe yield losses [6]. Yield losses of up to 49% have been attributed to tan spot under favorable disease conditions [6]. Additionally, the disease can lead to reductions in grain quality by forming red or pink smudge. The pathogen-induced lesions may coalesce and cover most, or the entirety of, the leaf surface; these symptoms are associated with the fungal-produced necrotrophic effectors (NEs), previously known as host-selective toxins (HSTs) [7]. The necrosis and chlorosis associated with tan spot result from toxins produced by the pathogen as initially proven by Tomas and Bockus [8] and Lamari and Bernier [9]. Currently, eight races of P. tritici-repentis have been identified based on symptoms of necrosis and chlorosis on a set of differential wheat varieties/lines [10].Due to the overwintering habit of P. tritici-repentis on crop residues or stubbles, tan spot is a major concern in sustainable zero-tillage agricultural systems. The disease cycle consists of a primary infection caused by fungal ascospores at the beginning of the growing season, and numerous subsequent infections by fungal conidia throughout the growing season. Although the disease can be controlled using cultural and/or chemical methods, host resistance against tan spot is the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly way to limit yield losses.To identify novel and more effective sources of resistance, breeding programs have explored synthetic hexaploid wheat (SHW) that harbors a broad spectrum of resistance to diseases and insects [11]. SHW (2n = 6x = 42, AABBDD) derives from a cross between modern durum wheat (2n = 4x = 28, AABB, T. turgidum L.) and wild goat grass (2n = 2x = 14, DD, Ae. tauschii Coss.). SHW is considered as an ideal bridging germplasm for the transfer of desirable genes from DW and Ae. tauschii to bread wheat [12].The genome-wide association study (GWAS) explores linkage disequilibrium (LD) in a collection of varieties or accessions [13][14][15][16] and is a powerful tool to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL). It uses recombination events that occurred during the history of variety development, resulting in an often-improved genetic resolution for identifying QTL compared to bi-parental mapping populations, which have usually undergone only one or a few generations of recombination. In addition, GWAS allows for the screening of a large number of lines for a whole spectrum of traits. GWAS has been applied to identify genomic regions associated with tan spot resistance in common wheat. Gurung et al. [17] conducted the first GWAS for tan spot resistance in a spring common wheat landrace collection and found QTL on chromosomes 1D, 2A, 2B, 2D, 4A, 5B and 7D for race 1 and on chromosomes 1D, 2B, 2D and 7D for race 5. Furthermore, GWAS has been performed with different races of P. tritici-repentis in panels of spring wheat landraces [18] and with unknown races on a European winter wheat collection [19]. Multiple races were used for a GWAS in a collection of North American winter wheat cultivars and breeding lines [20], and race 1 isolates in the Vavilov wheat collection at both seedling and adult stages [21]. The QTL identified in those studies corresponded partly to the NE sensitivity loci and previously reported loci, whereas others were novel.A few GWAS studies have also been performed to identify significant markers related to tan spot resistance in CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center) wheat germplasm [22][23][24]. Singh et al. [22] indicated the association of tan spot resistance with markers on multiple A-and B-genome chromosomes. Similarly, Juliana et al. [23] identified 14 markers on A-and B-genome chromosomes. Phuke et al. [24] performed GWAS on a panel of South Asian and CIMMYT spring bread wheat genotypes and found significant markers on chromosomes 1B, 2A, 2B, 3B, 4A, 5A, 5B, 6A, and 7D. However, none of these studies included SHW.The current GWAS study was conducted on a diverse panel of 443 SHW plants in order to (1) evaluate their resistance to tan spot under controlled environmental conditions and (2) identify possible new genomic regions for tan spot resistance.Uniform and consistent tan spot development was observed during seedling evaluation in the greenhouse. Analyses of variance (ANOVA) showed significant differences among SHW plants (p < 0.001) for reaction to tan spot. The checks Erik, Glenlea, 6B-662, and 6B-365 displayed scores of 1.0, 4.8, 2.5 and 3.4, respectively (Table 1), verifying the identity of P. tritici-repentis and successful inoculation. Most SHW plants displayed resistant and moderately resistant reactions (Supplementary Table S1). Out of the 443 SHW plants, 219 (49.4%) showed resistance (R) and 195 (44.0%) moderate resistance (MR) with disease scores of 1.5 to 2.5 that were comparable to the resistant check Erik and the moderately resistant check 6B-662. Only 29 SHW plants (6.5%) were moderately susceptible (MS) with disease scores of 2.6 to 3.5 that were still better than the susceptible check Glenlea and 6B-365 (Table 1, and Figure 1). Of the 40 DW parents, six (15%) had reaction scores of 1.0-1.5 (R) and 12 (30%) had reactions scores of 1.6-2.5 (MR), developing mostly small dark to maroon lesions on the leaves. Twenty-two entries (55%) were observed to have a mean reaction score between 2.6 and 4.3, being considered MS to S, wherein large necrotic lesions with or without chlorosis was observed. (Table 1, Supplementary Table S1).Using the markers mapped on the 100K consensus map, the first two principal components (PCs) separated two clear groups of entries of similar sizes and some entries in between, explaining around 34% of the total variability (Supplementary Figure S1). As Of the 40 DW parents, six (15%) had reaction scores of 1.0-1.5 (R) and 12 (30%) had reactions scores of 1.6-2.5 (MR), developing mostly small dark to maroon lesions on the leaves. Twenty-two entries (55%) were observed to have a mean reaction score between 2.6 and 4.3, being considered MS to S, wherein large necrotic lesions with or without chlorosis was observed. (Table 1, Supplementary Table S1).Using the markers mapped on the 100K consensus map, the first two principal components (PCs) separated two clear groups of entries of similar sizes and some entries in between, explaining around 34% of the total variability (Supplementary Figure S1). As described in the Section 4, possible population structure was controlled by fitting the first five PCs from the correlation matrix as a fixed variate. In addition, the coefficient of parentage used as a random variable for fitting the GWAS mixed linear model (MLM) effectively controlled the remnant population structure after fitting the first three PCs.Significant marker-trait associations detected using the consensus map are shown in Table 2 and Figure 2. The 16 significant markers were located on chromosomes 1B (3), 2A (1), 4A (1), 5A (2), 5B (1), 6A (5), 6B (1) and 7D (2). The markers with the highest allele substitution effects were located on chromosomes 4A (−0.55), 6B (−0.44), and 7D (0.59).Significant marker-trait associations when markers were aligned to the whole genome sequence of Chinese Spring (CS, IWGSC RefSeq v1.0) are shown in Table 3 and Figure 3. The 18 significant markers were located on chromosomes 1B (1), 1D (1), 2A (1), 3A (2), 3D (3), 4D (1), 5A (2), 6A (3), 6B (2) and 7D (2). Ten of the markers overlapped with those presented in Table 2, out of which six exhibited the same chromosome assignments on the genetic and physical maps, whereas four showed different chromosome assignments (yet mainly homologous chromosomes) on the two maps. The markers with the highest allele substitution effects were located on chromosomes 3A (−0.44), 4D (−0.56), and 7D (0.61).Thirteen markers were significantly related to tan spot resistance, aligned to the durum wheat cultivar Svevo and the Ae. tauschii reference genomes. These markers were located on chromosomes 1B (4), 2D (2), 3A (2), 4A (1), 5A (1), 6A (2) and 7D (1) (Table 4 and Figure 4). Only three markers from Table 4 coincided with the significant markers found in Tables 2 and 3. Marker 3026113 on chromosome 1B in Svevo was found to be significant on chromosome 1D aligned to the physical map of CS. Similarly, marker 1125862 on chromosome 3A in Svevo aligned to chromosome 3D in the physical map of CS (Table 3). Marker 16793126 aligned to chromosome 7D in the Ae. tauschii and CS physical maps (Table 3). The markers with the highest allele substitution effects ranged from −0.20 to −0.27 and were located on chromosomes 1B, 3A, 5A, and 6A.         Table 5 summarizes the 30 genomic regions identified with different maps. A realignment of the sequences to the ABD, AB and D genomes could verify the physical position of several of the significant SNPs. Furthermore, 16 SNPs were found within annotated high-confidence gene sequences. Eight of these 16 possible candidate genes were annotated in the CS reference genome, four in Svevo and the residual four in the Ae. tauschii reference genome (Supplementary Table S2).   The allele frequency correlations (R 2 ) among the markers were used to estimate LD. Based on the physical positions of observed marker-trait association in the CS reference genome, three potential QTL were identified on each of the chromosomes 3A, 5A and 6A. Out of the four significant markers on chromosome 3A, with marker IDs 1125872, 1668224, 1019955, and 1065211, the latter two markers were positioned at 474,447,292 Mb and 474,447,226 Mb, respectively, only 66 bp apart with a R 2 of 0.89 and a significant LD p-value of 8.62E-16. The third marker (ID 1668224), despite being located 5.9 Mb apart from the previous two, still had R 2 values of 0.87 and 0.89 and significant LD p-values of 6.54E-16 and 2.30E-16, with the two SNPs, respectively. Therefore, these three markers can be considered for a single QTL for resistance to tan spot. Marker 112872, however, was located far from the markers mentioned above and must represent an independent QTL.Likewise, two markers on chromosome 5A (100034112 and 3064590) and four markers on chromosome 6A (1254459, 2266481, 100027398, and 1862737) were located in LD and thus represented one same QTL, whereas all the remaining SNPs identified in our study represented independent QTL, due to their mutually unlinked physical positions.The development of genetically resistant wheat cultivars is an effective and environmentally friendly mechanism for the control of diseases such as tan spot. In the following subsections, we discuss the findings of this GWAS in relations to previous studies performed.Modern bread wheat cultivars have only a few broad-spectrum sources of resistance to the major foliar spotting diseases, such as tan spot [25], and great efforts have been made in recent decades to identify and introduce new sources of resistance. Despite the number of studies performed and published for wheat diseases, only a few included SHW. For example, Bhatta et al. [26] studied 125 SHW plants for their resistance to diseases and pests such as rust, crown rot, cereal cyst nematodes, and Hessian fly. To the best of our knowledge, so far, no GWAS was performed to evaluate SHW for tan spot resistance.Our study indicates that SHW plants present considerable resistance to tan spot due to the diverse genetic backgrounds of these lines. The DW parents were mostly of reaction types of MS and S, suggesting that the resistance in the SHW was either derived from Ae. tauschii or through possible favorable epistatic interaction (activation) between A/Band D-genomes.Our study found significant marker-trait associations for tan spot resistance on chromosomes 1D (marker ID 3026113), 2D (marker IDs 1217275, 1046621), 3D (marker IDs 987556, 1125862, 1217411), 4D (marker ID 4993454) and 7D (marker IDs 16793126, 991140, 993425). Thus, this is the first study to detect several significant genomic regions to tan spot resistance in the D-genome, in addition to the few loci reported previously. Phuke et al. [24] found a significant marker on chromosome 7D located at 550,216,751 Mb in CS. The closest significant marker on chromosome 7D in this study (marker ID 993425) was positioned at 620,252,508 Mb, physically distant and suggesting that at least two of the three marker-trait associations on chromosome 7D in this study are novel. The physical position of the third marker 991140 in CS could not be determined.Tadesse et al. [27] studied resistance to tan spot in segregating F 2:3 derived populations of SHW using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. The authors found that loci tsn3a, tsn3b and tsn3c are all located in the vicinity of the marker Xgwm2a located on chromosome 3D. The physical distance of this SSR marker to the SNP markers in our study was difficult to determine. Gurung et al. [17] performed GWAS in spring wheat landraces using DArT markers to identify chromosome regions associated to tan spot race 1 and 5 resistances. The authors found significant markers, among others, on chromosomes 1D and 7D associated to tan spot race 1 and in regions of chromosomes 2D and 7D for tan spot race 5. Similar to the study by Tadesse et al. [27], genomic regions could not be compared as different genotyping platforms were used.The present study found significant marker-trait associations on the A-genome chromosomes 2A (marker ID 10770935), 3A (marker IDs, 1125872, 1668224, 1019955, 1065211) and those forming a QTL on chromosome 6A (marker IDs, 1862737, 100027398, 1254459, 2266481, 4993056, 5331622). None of the marker-trait associations coincided with those reported by Juliana et al. [23], except on chromosome 3A. Marker 1125872 was located at 135,590,641 Mb in our study and the marker in Juliana et al. [23] at 182,028,651 Mb. In the B-genome chromosomes, we found significant marker-trait associations on chromosomes 1B (markers IDs, 1106306, 6045377, 1089962, and 4909460), 4B (marker ID, 4993454), 5A (marker IDs, 4393896, 1200982, 100034112, and 3064590), and 6B (marker ID, 1112961); none of them were reported by Juliana et al. [23].Phuke et al. [24] also found several marker-trait associations in the A-and B-genomes. The authors found a significant marker on chromosome 2A but in a different position than the one found in this study. A significant locus on chromosome 1B mapped to a physical position at 465,584,555 Mb and was also distant from markers on chromosome 1B of this study located at 340,462,174 Mb and 558,561,647 Mb. Significant marker on chromosome 6A was located at 596,903,177 Mb and coincided with the QTL found in this study at 599,622,814 Mb, 601,233,092 Mb, 602,989,232 Mb, and 602,745,555 Mb, thus representing the same QTL. The marker located on chromosome 5A in Phuke et al. [24] mapped to the physical position of 597,291,565 Mb, whereas the markers identified in this study forming a QTL are located a distance apart, at 454,770,615 Mb, 471,723,681 Mb, and 470,186,523 Mb, thus likely presenting a novel QTL.The study by Kokhmetova et al. [28] detected three significant loci on chromosome 1B within a range of 86.7-92.2 cM, not distant from marker ID 1089962 located at 83.6 cM in this study using the same 100K consensus map. Furthermore, the QTL on chromosome 6A were in proximity to the markers found by Kokhmetova et al. [28] on the same chromosome. Kalia et al. [29] performed bi-parental QTL mapping for resistance to tan spot race 1 in a population with a SHW parent and identified QTL only on the A-genome chromosomes 1A, 6A, and 7A. Because DArT markers were used in this study, the physical positions of the QTL were, once again, difficult to compare. Similarly, Chu et al. [30] identified QTL on chromosomes in the A-and B-genome (2A, 5A and 5B) in a bi-parental mapping population having a SHW parent. The authors hypothesized that the expression of tan spot resistance genes in DW is suppressed (or diluted) but are activated when DW is crossed with Ae. tauschii, which could be due to inter-locus interaction (epistasis effects) between loci on A/B-and D-genomes. In the current study, increased resistance in SHW in comparison to their direct DW parents supports this hypothesis.Two markers, one on chromosome 5A (marker ID 3064590) positioned at 470,186,523 Mb and the other one located on chromosome 6A (marker ID 1862737) at 599,622,814 Mb, were of particular interest in this study as they were positioned within genes that code for disease resistance related proteins, i.e., TraesCS5A02G254500/TRITD5Av1G155700 (F-box protein) and TraesCS6A02G378800/TRITD6Av1G217060 (cytochrome P450).Candidate genes TraesCS5A02G254500/TRITD5Av1G155700 code for F-box proteins that play a role in protein regulation and degradation, plant photoperiodic and hormone signaling transduction. A total of 1796 F-box proteins have been identified and classified in wheat [31], many of which have been related to biotic stresses, particularly to fungal pathogens. In addition, F-box proteins have been observed to affect the plant metabolism and the regulation of plant enzymes involved in several diverse cellular processes [31]. It has been found that the F-box proteins can act in different development stages in a wheat cultivar. The identification of candidate genes being related to specific disease resistance should offer an opportunity to further elucidate the biological functions of F-box genes and proteins in wheat.The cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzyme in plants is involved in the biosynthetic pathway of phytoalexins that are synthetized by plants to deter hostile organisms [32]. This CYP enzyme plays an important role in the metabolism of herbicides as a key factor in providing tolerance to some species and thus selectively between crops and weeds. Plants encounter various biotic and abiotic factors at different stages of their growth and development, and the group of CYP enzymes is important in the synthesis of certain metabolites which play a fundamental part in the response to biotic stresses. The CYT enzymatic protein participates in the formation of numerous secondary synthetized metabolites that protect plants from biotic and abiotic stresses [33]. The mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON) is a virulent factor for the development of Fusarium head blight in wheat. A wheat cytochrome P450 subfamily was found on chromosomes 3A, 3B and 3D of the wheat genome that was activated in the wheat spikelets as a response to the mycotoxin DON [34].A total of 443 SHW plants generated by the CIMMYT Wheat Wide Crosses Program throughout several years were evaluated (Supplementary Table S1). These SHW plants were selected from a group of 1,524 SHW plants for resistance to diseases such as Fusarium head blight, Septoria tritici blotch, and rusts and phenological traits such as plant height and days to heading. The SWH plants were derived from crosses involving 40 DW parents and 277 Ae. tauschii accessions, where the DW parents were used in 1 to 54 crosses and the Ae. tauschii accessions were used in 1 to 7 crosses (Supplementary Table S1).The disease screening for tan spot was carried out in a greenhouse in CIMMYT, El Batán, Mexico (19 • 31 N, 98 • 50 W, elevation 2249 m above sea level) in 2018-2019. In addition to the 443 SHW plants, the 40 DW parents were also evaluated, while the Ae. tauschii parents could not be screened due to their challenging phenology as a wild species. The SHW seeds were vernalized (7 days at 4 • C) to break dormancy and to obtain an even germination. Greenhouse experiments were arranged in a randomized complete block design with 12 replicates for each of the SHW entries and eight replicates for the DW parents. Each entry in each experiment had four plants. Four entries with different levels of resistances were considered \"checks\"-Erik (resistant), Glenlea (susceptible), 6B-365 (moderately susceptible), and 6B-662 (moderately resistant)-grown in plastic trays as experimental units to derive mean values for subsequent analysis. The seedlings were grown under controlled conditions in a temperature of 22-25/16-18 • C (day/night) and with a 16 h photoperiod.For the induction of disease, the Mexican P. tritici-repentis isolate CIMFU 531-Ptr1 (race 1), well characterized by the CIMMYT Wheat Pathology Laboratory, was used. This isolate produces ToxA, based on inoculation experiments with differential genotypes, infiltration experiments, and PCR with the ToxA specific marker (data not shown). The isolate was grown on V8-PDA media [9], and the conidia concentration for inoculation was adjusted to 4 × 10 3 spores mL −1 using a Fuchs-Rosenthal counting chamber, with one drop of Tween 20 (a surfactant reagent) per 100 mL added to the spore suspension.In the two-leaf stage, when the second leaf was fully expanded at two weeks after sowing, the seedlings were inoculated with a conidial suspension of the CIMFU 531-Ptr1 isolate until runoff. Subsequently, the trays were moved to a mist chamber (RH 100%, 21-22 • C) to facilitate infection. After 24 h, the plants were transferred back to the greenhouse bench. Seedling response was evaluated seven days post inoculation following the 1-5 lesion rating scale developed by Lamari and Bernier [9]. The readings from 12 and 8 inoculation experiments of the SHW plants and DW parents, respectively, were used to calculate the average seedling response, which was used for subsequent statistical analysis. The scale used for the tan spot reaction was based on continuous data given by the mean of the replicates: 1.0-1.5 = Resistant (R); 1.6-2.5 = Moderately Resistant (MR); 2.6-3.5 = Moderately Susceptible (MS); 3.6-5.0=Susceptible (S).The genomic DNA was extracted from 10-day-old seedlings of each SHW line using the modified cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) method described in the CIMMYT laboratory protocols [35]. The DArTseq TM technology [36] was applied to all samples at the Genetic Analysis Service for Agriculture (SAGA) in CIMMYT, Mexico. DArTseq uses a complexity reduction method including two enzymes (PstI and HpaII) to create a genome representation of the samples. A PstI-RE site-specific adapter is then tagged with 96 different barcodes enabling the multiplexing of a 96-well microtiter plate with equimolar amounts of amplification products to run in an Illumina sequencer Novaseq6000 (Illumina Inc., San Diego, CA, USA). The successfully amplified fragments were sequenced up to 83 bases.A pipeline developed by DArT P/L was used to generate allele calls for SNP and SilicoDArT (presence/absence variation markers) [36]. A 100K consensus map [37] was used to obtain genetic positions of the SNPs. To obtain the physical positions, sequence reads were aligned to the reference genome of Chinese Spring (CS) IWGSC Ref Seq v1.0 [38], the reference genome of DW cv. Svevo Ref Seq Rel. 1.0 [39] and the reference genome of Ae. tauschii (v.4, 2017) [40].A total of 67,436 DArTSeq SNP markers were originally scored, out of which 50% (34,790) were aligned to the reference genomes. Filtering was carried out excluding SNP with <0.05 allele frequency and >20% missing data points. Finally, 5800 DArTSeq markers were retained and used for GWAS analysis. The allele substitution effects for the significant marker-trait association were estimated by the mean phenotypic differences of alleles making the assumption that one genotype has effects equal to zero. Marker sequences were re-aligned (BLASTn) to the diverse reference sequences using the Ensembl plant public website (https://plants.ensembl.org/, accessed on 2 February 2022) to verify the position of the SNPs.For the disease data, statistical analyses were performed using the Statistical Analysis System version 9.1 [41]. Analyses of variance (ANOVA) were conducted on the average reactions of the SHW, the DW parents and checks for tan spot. The Best Linear Unbiased Estimates (BLUE) were computed for each of the 443 SHW genotypes.The BLUE for disease severity were used as an input to conduct GWAS using the TASSEL (Trait Analysis by Association Evolution and Linkage) software ver. 5 [42]. We used the mixed linear model (MLM) [43] to simultaneously include the level of relatedness based on marker data and identical by descent (IBD) computed from the coefficient of parentage, which controls population structure. Additionally, population structure was controlled by fitting the first three principal components (PC) from the kinship matrix taken as the fixed variate and the coefficient of parentage (COP) as the random variable. The false-discovery rate (FDR) was used to assess the significance of the p-value (<0.05). The allelic effects of the significant marker-trait associations were estimated as the difference between the mean value of lines, with and without the favorable alleles, and were presented as box plots.The results of the GWAS from MLM are presented in the Manhattan plots and the corresponding Quantile-Quantile plots (QQ-plots) are displayed to compare the quantiles of the empirical distribution of the results obtained in this study with those of the distribution that we would expect theoretically if the null hypothesis is true.Our research identified new sources of resistance to tan spot in CIMMYT's SHW that can be used in wheat breeding via crosses and backcrosses with elite bread wheat lines. A total of 30 significant marker-trait associations were found on chromosomes 1B, 1D, 2A, 2D, 3A, 3D, 4B, 4D, 5A, 6A, 6B, and 7D, of which some SNP markers clustered and likely represent single QTL. Several marker-trait associations found in this study can contribute to the genetic diversity of resistance, specifically those on D genome contributed by Ae. tauschii, which were almost all novel, but also several on the A-and B-genomes. Furthermore, our study supports the previous concept of possible inter-locus effects caused by the activation of resistance genes in the DW genomes by interaction with the D genome of Ae. tauschii after hybridization.","tokenCount":"4618"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a00691ce5175a184623bc368eb3d1ebd","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/98a0286b-0400-4ef0-9baa-94762633b67d/retrieve","id":"806116754"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"77ccef1a-5563-484d-acee-add08975c70a","pagecount":"50","content":"En el año 2014, el programa Cambio Climático Agricultura y Seguridad Alimentaria (CCAFS por sus siglas en inglés) inició los estudios de línea base a nivel de comunidad en sitios inicialmente identificados tanto en Latinoamérica como en el Sur del Asia. Esto complementa las encuestas cuantitativas de línea base a hogares y las encuestas a instituciones; y además, representa el primer paso hacía el compromiso local de investigación-acción participativa. Estudios similares de línea base a nivel de comunidades también fueron implementados en la primera mitad del 2011 en todos los sitios CCAFS del Este y Oeste de África y el Sur de Asia.Este reporte resume los resultados del estudio de línea base de la comunidad Tierra Fría, del Municipio Santa Rita, localizada en el Departamento de Copán en Honduras. El mismo se basa en la percepción de hombres y mujeres de la citada comunidad a cerca de: (i) los recursos con los que cuentan actualmente y los cambios que han ocurrido en las condiciones de dichos recursos durante los últimos 15 años 1 , (ii) las instituciones con presencia en la comunidad y los temas en los que las mismas trabajan y (iii) las redes de información que las personas utilizan para acceder a información relacionada a agricultura y el clima.Las personas identificaron en su comunidad recursos naturales tales como: bosque y pozos (agua), e infraestructura: caminos y carreteras, centro de salud, viviendas, escuela e iglesia. Las personas perciben cambios en el estado de sus recursos, principalmente disminución de los bosques, lo que repercute en menor existencia de fauna, calidad del agua y del ambiente. Entre los cambios también mencionan la baja fertilidad de los suelos, resultando en bajos rendimientos de sus cultivos. Los miembros de la comunidad argumentan que la alta densidad poblacional y el inadecuado y desinformado manejo de los recursos han degradado su espacio y agudizado los efectos del cambio climático en la zona.Tanto hombres como mujeres son conscientes de los beneficios ambientales que proveen los recursos naturales como: fuentes de agua (pozos) y el bosque, así como de la existencia de diversas acciones que están afectando a estos recursos repercutiendo en los beneficios obtenidos de los mismos. Los miembros de la comunidad argumentan tener incidencia sobre el manejo de la mayor parte de los recursos naturales, lo que representa una gran ventaja para su involucramiento en el manejo y mejora de la calidad de estos recursos.La seguridad alimentaria y nutricional (SAN) es un tema importante en la comunidad y debido a ello hay presencia de instituciones trabajando en temas relacionados con los tres pilares de la SAN. De las nueve instituciones que los hombres identificaron en el mapeo institucional cuatro de ellas están trabajando temas SAN y de las 10 instituciones identificadas por las mujeres, ocho trabajan en alguno de los pilares de la SAN.Los principales medios de comunicación identificados por las personas de la comunidad para acceder a información climática son: la radio y la televisión, así como relaciones interpersonales con vecinos, amigos y técnicos. Se identificó que aproximadamente el 50% de la población cuenta con servicio de teléfono móvil, lo que puede considerarse una oportunidad en actividades para compartir información.Palabras claves: línea base, Santa Rita, Copan, Honduras, percepción local El presente documento resume los resultados del estudio de línea base de la comunidad de Tierra Fría, Municipio Santa Rita, Departamento Copán, Honduras. Tierra Fría forma parte de la región Trifinio (zona fronteriza de Honduras, Guatemala y el Salvador). Esta zona comparte un área geográfica transfronteriza que incluye a 45 municipios de los tres países, la Comisión Trinacional del Plan Trifinio (CTPT) coordina con diferentes instituciones y escalas el trabajo en la región en el marco del Tratado de las vicepresidencias (Honduras, Guatemala y El Salvador) puesto en marcha a través de la ejecución del Plan Trifinio y su permanente actualización.Este documento se basa en información recopilada en ocho grupos focales efectuados en la comunidad antes citada, durante los meses de marzo, abril y mayo de 2015. La primera reunión abierta con la comunidad para obtener el consentimiento informado se realizó en marzo de 2014 y el último grupo focal, en el que se realizó la devolución de resultados a la comunidad, se efectuó en mayo de 2015. Las percepciones de hombres y mujeres fueron colectadas por separado, con el fin de captar las diferentes perspectivas de género en relación a los distintos temas abordados en cada grupo de enfoque.Estudios similares fueron realizados en la primera mitad del 2011 en sitios seleccionados por el programa de Cambio Climático Agricultura y Seguridad Alimentaria (CCAFS por su siglas en inglés) en el este y oeste de África y el sur de Asia, recientemente, este tipo de estudios también se han realizado en otros sitios de Centro América, específicamente en Nicaragua, comunidad Wasaka Abajo, departamento de Matagalpa, municipio de El Tuma-La Dalia y en el Cauca de Colombia.El estudio de línea base a nivel de comunidad pretende brindar información sobre: (i) los recursos naturales actuales con que cuenta la comunidad, (ii) el mapeo de las instituciones presentes en la comunidad y (iii) las redes de información agrícola y climática a que las personas recurren para la toma de decisiones. Los objetivos del estudio de línea base de comunidades son: Proveer indicadores que permitan dar seguimiento a los cambios que ocurran en las comunidades a través del tiempo. En particular, cambios que le permitan a las personas:o Gestionar riesgos climáticos actuales o Adaptarse a los efectos del cambio climático o Reducir/mitigar emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero  Entender el ambiente habilitador que influencia ciertas prácticas y comportamientos, y que además crea limitaciones y oportunidades (políticas, instituciones, infraestructura, información y servicios) para que las comunidades respondan al cambio.Honduras es un Estado unitario y autodefinido como libre, soberano e independiente. Su estructura territorial permite que sea un país con una vasta biodiversidad. Ubicado en Centroamérica limita al norte y al este por el mar Caribe, al sur con la Republica de Nicaragua, el Golfo de Fonseca y la República del Salvador y al oeste con la República de Guatemala. Cuenta con 18 departamentos y 298 municipios distribuidos en un territorio total de 112.090 km² (Figura 1).El departamento de Copán, está ubicado en el occidente Honduras, siendo fronterizo con Guatemala, y cuenta con una superficie aproximada de 3.242 km². En el año 2011, a lo largo de sus 23 municipios vivían poco más de 226 mil personas. Con un Índice de Desarrollo Humano 2 (IDH) del 0,632 éste departamento ocupa el lugar 14 (de 18 departamentos) a nivel nacional (PNUD 2012).En el año 2001, el municipio de Santa Rita perteneciente al departamento de Copán, contaba con una población total de 23 mil habitantes (CPME, 2001). En el año de 2009, Santa Rita contaba con Índice de Desarrollo Humano (IDH) de 0.568, lo que comparado con IDH nacional de 0.580 lo ubica por debajo de la media nacional. Al analizar los índices de índice de salud, educación e ingreso del mismo año, se encuentra que todos están por debajo del nacional (0.746 versus 0.792 para el índice de salud y 0.523 versus 0.727 para educación) Por último, el índice de ingreso de Santa Rita (0.470), el cual es obtenido a partir del PIB 3 , también se encuentra por debajo de la media nacional (0.609) (PNUD 2011; PNUD 2012).Figura 1. Mapa de ubicación del municipio de Santa Rita, Copán, Honduras 2. Tema: recursos de la comunidad-interpretación participativa de la imagen satelital y construcción de la visión a futuro Los recursos con los que cuenta actualmente la comunidad de Tierra Fría, Santa Rita fueron analizados participativamente a través de la realización de cuatro sesiones de trabajo divididas en dos grupos uno de hombres y otro de mujeres. Durante dichas sesiones se usó una imagen satelital de alta resolución (rapideye) que fue interpretada por los miembros de la comunidad. El objetivo principal de estas sesiones de trabajo fue entender cuáles son los recursos actuales con los que cuenta la comunidad y de qué modo los miembros de la comunidad se relacionan con ellos. Con el fin de conocer las diferentes perspectivas de género, en cada sesión de trabajo se realizaron dos grupos focales paralelos, es decir, un grupo focal con participantes mujeres y otro con participantes hombres. Cada grupo focal fue apoyado por un equipo constituido por un facilitador (a) y un tomador (a) de notas. En el caso del grupo de mujeres se trabajó con una facilitadora y una tomadora de notas, mientras que en el caso del grupo de hombres tanto el facilitador como el tomador de notas eran hombres. En ambos grupos se abordaron los mismos temas.Para lograr el objetivo principal propuesto, en cada grupo focal se: a) discutió el estado actual de los recursos de la comunidad en términos de calidad, acceso y manejo. b) identificaron los principales cambios que han ocurrido sobre los recursos de la comunidad en los últimos 15 años. La metodología establecida por CCAFS propone registrar los cambios sobre los recursos de la comunidad y sus impulsores de cambio para un periodo de 10 años atrás. Sin embargo, debido a que los participantes de la comunidad mencionaron que los cambios más notorios ocurridos en su comunidad se iniciaron a partir del año 2000, el equipo de trabajo en campo del CATIE, decidió trabajar con el horizonte de tiempo sugerido por la comunidad.Posteriormente, con el fin de entender las oportunidades, limitaciones y aspiraciones a futuro de la comunidad se construyó, con un grupo mixto de hombres y mujeres, una imagen a futuro (2030).2.1 Recursos con los que cuenta la comunidad actualmente 2.1.1 Enfoque metodológico de la sesión de trabajo de recursos actuales de la comunidad La identificación de los recursos con los que actualmente cuenta la comunidad se realizó en dos sesiones de trabajo 4 . En la primera sesión los participantes de los grupos focales dibujaron un croquis de la comunidad en donde ubicaron sitios de referencia geográfica. El dibujo de la comunidad respondió a la pregunta: ¿cuáles son los sitios claves en su comunidad? Posteriormente, se les entregó una imagen satelital de alta resolución (rapideye), sobre la que identificaron los sitios de referencia geográfica que ya habían representado en el croquis. Seguidamente, se les preguntó sobre los recursos con los que actualmente cuenta su comunidad. Tanto las mujeres como los hombres identificaron recursos naturales (ríos, pastos, bosques, cultivos) e infraestructura (caminos, pozos, puentes, iglesias y viviendas) (Figuras 2 y 3). Con base en la información brindada en los grupos focales, fue posible identificar los recursos actuales con los que cuenta la comunidad de Tierra Fría, Santa Rita y su estado actual.En la segunda sesión, se indagó sobre los cambios que han ocurrido en los últimos 15 años en el estado de los recursos con los que cuenta actualmente la comunidad. Inicialmente la metodología consideraba el analizar los cambios observados en los últimos 10 años, sin embargo en la comunidad de Tierra Fría, las personas participantes en el grupo focal mencionaron que los cambios más significativos en el manejo de los recursos naturales, han ocurrido a partir del año 2000 y sugirieron trabajar con un horizonte de 15 años.Los cambios identificados quedaron plasmados en un dibujo realizado sobre una segunda pieza de papel para calcar, que se colocó sobre la imagen satelital (Figuras 4 y 5). 2.1.2 Análisis de los resultados de la sesión de trabajo sobre recursos actuales de la comunidad A continuación se detallan los principales recursos con los que actualmente cuenta la comunidad Tierra Fría y que fueron identificados por los participantes de los dos grupos focales. También se presenta la percepción masculina y femenina sobre el estado de los mismos (Anexo 1).Estado actual: en el grupo focal de los hombres se estableció que en la comunidad cerca del 70% del uso actual del suelo es destinado a bosque y a cultivo de café, 10% a granos básicos y 20% lo ocupan los centros poblados, los pastos, tierra sin cultivos y las fuentes de agua. Los hombres mencionan que existe una influencia comunitaria sobre este recurso. Los mismos fueron localizados en toda la franja norte de la comunidad, a una distancia de aproximadamente 30 minutos de camino desde el centro de la comunidad. Con respecto a su estado actual, los participantes manifestaron que los bosques se mantienen en buen estado y que existen iniciativas para promover el manejo sostenible de este recurso. Los dueños de estos bosques son los que tienen título individual y comunal sobre estos espacios. Los hombres mencionan que algunos de los beneficios que les proporcionan los bosques son el aire y el agua.En el grupo focal de las mujeres estableció que el área de bosque de la comunidad fue sobreexplotada para extraer madera y leña. También indicaron que en la actualidad estas actividades han disminuido debido al establecimiento de sanciones y la necesidad de tramitar permisos para hacer uso racional del recurso. Las participantes también citaron la conciencia ambientalista sobre el uso del recurso a partir de capacitación y reglamentación para su correcto uso. El lugar donde se encuentra el bosque se llama las Lomas y está ubicado a una distancia de aproximadamente dos horas desde el centro de la comunidad. Aunque la mayor parte del bosque se encuentra en una zona de propiedad privada, la comunidad tiene influencia en su uso y conservación. Entre los beneficios que les proporcionan los bosques identificaron provisión de oxígeno y de protección a ríos, quebradas y pozos.Limitaciones y oportunidades: tanto hombres como mujeres consideran que no hay limitaciones en el manejo de los bosques de su comunidad, ya que cuentan con la reglamentación adecuada para el buen manejo. En cuanto a las oportunidades, los hombres consideran que una oportunidad en el manejo del bosque, es que forma parte de la microcuenca Marroquín, la cual cuenta con una organización comunitaria y actualmente dispone de un fondo propio para cubrir las actividades de manejo y control del recurso, este fondo es conocido como \"fondo verde\" el cual es un mecanismo de compensación para realizar acciones de manejo con propietarios del bosque para que no permitan acciones de pastoreo o que siga creciendo la frontera agrícola, este mecanismo se estableció como una iniciativa de la Junta de Agua quien destina el 10% del pago por servicio de agua para actividades de protección y manejo de la microcuenca, a cada usuario se le extiende un recibo por el pago del servicio más la cuota de compensación el cual es un pago consciente. Actualmente es coordinado y administrado por la Junta de Agua local. Las mujeres mencionaron que el conservar y reforestar el bosque les ayudará a mantener las fuentes de agua para un futuro. Percepciones de género: la percepción sobre el recurso bosque fue diferente entre hombres y mujeres. Los hombres identificaron como oportunidad el \"fondo verde\" de la cuenca Marroquín ya que de él pueden obtener diversos beneficios para la conservación de los bosques, afirman que los bosques se encuentra en un buen estado. Las mujeres por otro lado, identificaron que aunque el bosque es un área de propiedad privada, la comunidad tiene una gran influencia sobre su uso y conservación, también reconocieron con mayor precisión los servicios ecosistémicos que les proporcionan.Estado actual: de la discusión llevada a cabo en los grupos focales se desprende que la comunidad cuenta con cuatro pozos de agua: Pontanzas, el Manzano, Ruin y el Centro, que ocupan el 2% del territorio de la comunidad. Los pozos se sitúan a una distancia aproximada de 10 minutos (según los hombres) y a media hora (según las mujeres) del centro de la comunidad. Los hombres y las mujeres que participaron del grupo focal mencionaron que se tiene influencia comunitaria sobre este recurso a través de la Junta de Agua. Tanto hombres como mujeres perciben que este recurso está \"dañado o deteriorado\" por la presencia de contaminantes y la ausencia de un manejo adecuado. También identificaron que el pozo del barrio el Manzano es la fuente de agua que se encuentra en mejores condiciones.Los hombres mencionan que este recurso es de propiedad privada según escritura pública que así lo determina, sin embargo, actualmente el mismo es manejado por la Junta de Agua. Desde la perspectiva de las mujeres este recurso pertenece a la comunidad provee agua durante todo el año lo que facilita su utilización para uso doméstico, cultivos y animales, aunque están conscientes que la calidad del agua es baja.Limitaciones y oportunidades: tanto hombres como mujeres mencionan que la principal limitante es el mal manejo, las mujeres añaden la falta de interés de la comunidad para darle mantenimiento a los pozos. Los hombres mencionan como una oportunidad la posibilidad de que la comunidad a través de la Junta de Agua gestione ante la Municipalidad u otros entes recursos para darle mantenimiento y mejorar las condiciones de los pozos. Las mujeres mencionan el hecho de que el agua está disponible, pero que se debe mejorar su calidad.Percepciones de género: la perspectiva de mujeres y hombres difiere en cuanto a la propiedad del recurso, los hombres indican que es privado, mientras que las mujeres indican que pertenece a la comunidad. Adicionalmente, las mujeres señalaron la importancia del recurso dada la posibilidad de utilizarla a lo largo del año principalmente para uso doméstico, cultivos y manejo de animales.Áreas dedicadas a cultivos: los principales cultivos mencionados por las personas de la comunidad fueron café, árboles frutales y granos básicos (maíz y frijol). Resaltaron además la pequeña presencia de áreas de bosque de pino, el cual forma parte de la vegetación natural y en parches o pequeñas áreas en las bordas de café y granos básicosEstado actual: según comentaron los participantes de los grupos focales, los granos básicos ocupan el 10% de la tierra de la comunidad y la misma está bajo propiedad privada individual con escritura pública. Hay una minoría de productores que renta tierra para la siembra de estos cultivos. Por tanto no existe influencia comunitaria sobre el área en donde se cultivan los granos básicos. Según los hombres la mayor área de la tierra ocupada con granos básicos se encuentra fuera del área poblada de la comunidad en la zona conocida como Petapilla, ubicada aproximadamente entre 15 y 30 minutos del centro de la comunidad. Así mismo, los hombres mencionan que dentro de los beneficios ambientales que les proveen estos cultivos está el manejo con agricultura sostenible y que en laderas existe manejo con agroforestería.Las mujeres indican que los terrenos donde se cultivan granos básicos son de propiedad privada o rentados por los productores y los ubicaron en El Salámo, área situada a una hora desde el centro de la comunidad. Así mismo las mujeres mencionan que el suelo para los granos básicos está bastante deteriorado y que no genera ningún beneficio ambiental debido a que se usan abonos químicos en su manejo.Limitaciones y oportunidades: las mujeres consideran como limitación para producir granos básicos: (i) la falta de riego, principalmente durante la temporada de sequía, (ii) la degradación de los suelos y (iii) las malas prácticas de producción. Los hombres mencionan como limitante que el cultivo no es rentable. Por otro lado como oportunidades las mujeres mencionan que el cultivar granos básicos es para sostener la seguridad alimentaria de sus familias. Para los hombres la oportunidad la encuentran en cultivar granos básicos en asocio con árboles de alto valor como los forestales o frutales Percepciones de género: la percepción femenina resaltó la importancia del cultivo de granos básicos en la seguridad alimentaria y el impacto ambiental en la degradación del suelo, la percepción masculina resaltó la ventaja de asocio de granos básicos con árboles, sin embargo recalcaron que estos cultivos no son rentables.Estado actual: las mujeres de la comunidad mencionan que el área en donde se cultiva café se encuentran en Las Lomas y en el Barrio El Manzano, aproximadamente de media a una hora de camino desde el centro de la comunidad. Dicho cultivo se realiza en áreas de propiedad de los productores y que los mismos poseen documentos que lo acreditan así, principalmente documentos privados de compra-venta. Las mujeres mencionan que el cultivo de café actualmente se encuentra en un proceso de recuperación y renovación dentro de las fincas por los daños ocasionados por la roya, lo cual significó una disminución en los ingresos de la comunidad en el último ciclo de cosecha. Adicionalmente, mencionaron las mujeres que aunque el cultivo de café no genera ningún tipo de beneficio ambiental por el tipo de sistema establecido actualmente, genera oportunidades de ingreso y empleo, así como de seguridad alimentaria para las familias.Limitaciones y oportunidades: las mujeres mencionaron como limitantes las plagas y enfermedades como la roya de café, así mismo mencionan que este cultivo permite a la comunidad la generación de ingresos mediante el empleo y por tanto a la seguridad alimentaria, la incorporación de especies forestales y frutales para mejorar la cobertura arbórea y la provisión de otros servicios.Percepciones de género: la percepción femenina fue la que mencionó directamente el cultivo del café, los hombres lo incluyeron dentro de los bosques considerándolo como parte de éste sistema. Es claro que las mujeres hacen énfasis en el beneficio económico para el ingreso familiar lo que relacionaron con la seguridad alimentaria principalmente con acceso y disponibilidad.Estado actual: las mujeres de la comunidad mencionan que la escuela y las iglesias son de uso comunitario, cuentan con una escuela y las iglesias en los cuatro barrios de la comunidad: Barrio El Centro/Portelas, Barrio Los Pontazas, Barrio Los Migueles y Barrio El Manzano. Con respecto a las viviendas, algunas se encuentran en buenas condiciones, mientras que otras en mal estado. Mencionan que la distancia en donde se ubican las iglesias es de entre cinco a 30 minutos del centro de la comunidad. Por otro lado, la posesión de estos espacios va desde documentos privados hasta escrituras públicas.Los hombres se enfocaron en los caminos, la escuela y el proyecto de agua potable indicando que son comunitarios y ocupan el 10% del total del territorio de la comunidad. Ellos mencionan que en general esta infraestructura se encuentra en condiciones regulares, sin embargo los caminos se ponen en mal estado principalmente en época lluviosa. El proyecto de agua se encuentra a una hora de distancia del centro de la comunidad y cuenta con una escritura pública. La escuela pertenece al estado, las viviendas y la iglesia son de propiedad privada.Limitaciones y oportunidades: las mujeres identifican como una limitante que el Barrio El Manzano no cuenta con energía eléctrica. La comunidad no cuenta con Centro de Salud. Los hombres no perciben limitantes en este rubro. Las mujeres mencionan que la mejora en la infraestructura es una oportunidad para el acceso a la educación, así como el inculcar los valores morales y espirituales. Los hombres encuentran como una oportunidad la ampliación del proyecto de agua. Percepciones de género: los hombres perciben la existencia de infraestructura como un beneficio ambiental debido a que existe higiene ambiental en la comunidad. Los hombres se muestran más interesados en el manejo del recurso agua, mientras que las mujeres muestran interés en el acceso a educación, salud y el promover los valores sociales y morales, además de que la comunidad presenta una gran influencia religiosa.Estado actual: solo los hombres mencionaron este rubro, indicando que los pastos ocupan el 5% del territorio de la comunidad, encontrándose a una distancia de entre cinco a 10 minutos del centro dela comunidad. El estado actual es regular y la comunidad no tiene influencia sobre este recurso, la propiedad de los pastos es privada con una escritura pública.Limitaciones y oportunidades: los hombres identifican como limitaciones el robo de animales en la zona y comentan que no creen que esta actividad tenga alguna oportunidad de crecimiento ya que en general la actividad ganadera fue disminuyendo desde hace 15 años por el cambio de uso de suelo al cultivo del café. Percepciones de género: los hombres perciben que los pastos no contribuyen a ningún beneficio ambiental, al contrario contribuye al Cambio Climático, las mujeres no mencionaron este rubro en el grupo focal.Estado actual: solo los hombres mencionaron este rubro, indicando que las tierras sin cultivo ocupan el 3% del territorio de la comunidad, encontrándose a una distancia de media hora del centro de la comunidad. El estado actual de dichas tierras es regular y la comunidad no tiene ninguna influencia sobre el uso de este recurso, dado que la propiedad de estas tierras es privada con una escritura pública.Limitaciones y oportunidades: los hombres no encuentran ninguna limitante, ningún beneficio ni oportunidad de estos espacios.Percepciones de género: los hombres perciben que las tierras sin cultivo no ofrecen ningún beneficio u oportunidad a la comunidad, las mujeres por otro lado, no mencionaron este rubro en el grupo focal.2.2 Principales cambios en las condiciones de los recursos de la comunidad 2.2.1 Análisis de resultados de la sesión sobre cambios en las condiciones de los recursos de la comunidad Los hombres y mujeres que participaron en los grupos focales identificaron cambios en las condiciones de los recursos con los que actualmente cuenta la comunidad (Anexo 2). En el caso de los bosques, los hombres mencionan que el bosque se encontraba menos intervenido y tenía mayor cobertura, las mujeres por su parte mencionan que el clima era más fresco, el aire era más puro y existían suelos vírgenes. Tanto hombres como mujeres coinciden en que el deterioro se inició hace aproximadamente 15 años. Ambos grupos atribuyeron que el cambio en los bosques se debe principalmente al crecimiento poblacional. Otras causas identificadas incluyen, la tala del bosque para sacar madera y leña (mujeres) y la caficultura con variedades que no requerían sombra (hombres). Tanto los hombres como las mujeres reconocen los beneficios que traía el bosque, principalmente el aire puro, obtención de buena madera, diversidad de animales y disponibilidad de agua.En lo que respecta a la producción de granos básicos como maíz y frijol, tanto hombres como mujeres mencionaron que los suelos eran más fértiles, las mujeres mencionan que en el pasado había mayor rendimiento de la producción, los hombres consideran que actualmente el rendimiento es menor debido al manejo inadecuado que le dieron los productores a los suelos en el pasado. Identifican que los cambios se han percibido en los últimos 15 años. Los entrevistados mencionan que los factores que determinaron los cambios en los últimos 15 años en los cultivos de granos básicos están relacionados con el crecimiento poblacional y con el uso de químicos en el suelo. Las mujeres enfatizan que el manejo de los granos básicos en el pasado no implicaba contaminación para la zona, los hombres mencionan que probablemente por el menor uso en la cantidad de químicos. Como dato interesante los hombres consideran que la quema de la tierra para la siembra de ésos granos básicos, era una práctica no adecuada para el cultivo y la tierra.Con respecto al cultivo del café, las mujeres hicieron énfasis en que anteriormente el suelo era más fértil, por lo que se obtenían mayores rendimientos. Identifican como impulsores del cambio la incorporación de nuevas variedades de café que disminuyeran la incidencia de plagas y enfermedades, así como el uso de agroquímicos para combatir la roya. Encontraban que los beneficios ambientales más palpables eran menos contaminación por el uso de buenas prácticas y menos residuos de aguas mieles del despulpe del café.Las mujeres participantes del grupo focal mencionaron que hace 15 años los ríos, quebradas y pozos (Pozo de los Pontanzas, Pozo del Manzano, Pozo Ruin y Pozo del Centro) tenían mayor volumen de agua y por lo tanto mayor acceso para el riego y otros usos. Ellas mencionaron que el incremento de la población y la degradación del bosque han influenciado este cambio.En lo que respecta a la infraestructura, las mujeres mencionan que hace 15 años el número de hogares era menor, se ha observado un aumento de la población y la migración de personas de otras comunidades hacia Tierra Fría, lo que ha resultado en un aumento en la presión de los recursos. Para los hombres el aumento de habitantes locales, así como la llegada de familias de otras áreas, han influenciado en mal estado de las vías de acceso, debido a que en el pasado solo residían 70 familias y actualmente el número se estima en 160 familias.Por otro lado, los hombres mencionan que hace 15 años existía una mayor cantidad de espacios con cultivo de pastos para ganado, indican que actualmente la cantidad de pastos ha disminuido considerablemente debido principalmente al robo de ganado, repercutiendo en la disminución de la actividad ganadera. Dentro de los principales cambios ocurridos en los últimos 15 años en los recursos naturales de esta comunidad los hombres mencionan: (i) el bosque se ha reducido en un 10%, debido a la tala, incendios y la incorporación del cultivo de café como un nuevo rubro para la comunidad; esto ha provocado que los bosques sean menos densos, más transitables, y que alberguen menor cantidad de especies de animales silvestres, (ii) antes solo se cultivaba un 5% del territorio con granos básicos, ya que la población era menos de la mitad de la que existe hoy, además los suelos eran más fértiles, (iii) en cuanto a la actividad ganadera se ha reducido considerablemente a consecuencia de la delincuencia.El incremento de la población se considera como el factor más importante en los impactos negativos sobre el uso de los recursos naturales, tierra, agua y bosque; esto implica tala desmedida del bosque para la construcción de nuevas viviendas, aumento del área de los cultivos, mayor consumo de agua y mayor índice de pobreza en la comunidad.2.3 Visión a futuro de la comunidad (2030) 2.3.1 Enfoque metodológico de la sesión sobre la construcción de la visión a futuro de la comunidad (2030)El objetivo de esta sesión de trabajo fue crear una imagen del estado de los recursos de la comunidad a futuro, tomando como base el año 2030 (Figura 6). Esto se desarrolló con el fin de entender las oportunidades, las limitaciones y las aspiraciones a futuro de la comunidad de Tierra Fría (Anexo 3). Para el desarrollo de la sesión de trabajo se utilizaron las fotografías tomadas por dos grupos mixtos de jóvenes de la comunidad. Las fotografías reflejaban: (i) los recursos de la comunidad que les gustaría seguir preservando para las futuras generaciones, (ii) los lugares de los cuales ellos se enorgullecen y, (iii) las acciones/prácticas que no les gustaría que se sigan haciendo.Uno de los grupos no se presentó en la sesión argumentando que se encontraban fuera de la comunidad. El grupo de jóvenes explicó a los demás participantes de la sesión de trabajo lo que querían representar con cada fotografía y con base al análisis derivado del ejercicio se procedió a construir la visión a futuro de la comunidad.2.3.2 Análisis de resultados de la sesión sobre la construcción de la visión a futuro de la comunidad (2030)Fotografías tomadas por el grupo mixto de jóvenes #1 En las fotografías tomadas por el grupo mixto #1 se encuentran los recursos/sitios/prácticas de la comunidad que al grupo le gustaría seguir preservando, tales como: (i) la carretera, (ii) la iglesia, (iii) el Barrio el Manzano, (iv) el Pozo del manzano, (v) comunidad de Tierra Fría y, (vi) los árboles de la microcuenca.Entre los recursos/sitios/prácticas que al grupo considera que podrían cambiarse se encuentran: (i) escorrentía de aguas servidas en la entrada de la comunidad, (ii) aguas servidas cerca del pozo el Ruin, (iii) viviendas en mal estado (iv) Pozo del Ruin y, (v) terrenos deforestadas y uso de plaguicidas cerca de la fuente de agua. Al término de la presentación de fotografías, los participantes del grupo focal llevaron a cabo una reflexión colectiva, considerando el mapa de los recursos actuales con que cuenta la comunidad y la representación fotográfica del estado actual de los recursos. Estos fueron utilizados como insumos clave para crear la visión de futuro de la comunidad, seleccionando algunos recursos comunitarios que las familias quisieran mejorar y fortalecer para garantizar la sostenibilidad de los mismos y que las futuras generaciones puedan hacer uso de ellos. Entre esos recursos están: el agua, el bosque, cultivos como café y granos básicos, mejora de caminos y carreteras, saneamiento básico, construcción del Centro de Salud, construcción de Centro Básico para Educación Media, incorporación de prácticas de adaptación al Cambio Climático y el fortalecimiento organizacional de la comunidad. Se hizo mención que la comunidad Tierra Fría a nivel de patio y finca produce árboles frutales (cítricos, mangos, aguacate, musáceas, zapotes, etc.) los cuales son de suma importancia para la comunidad y los cuales quieren rescatar y preservar.Los participantes del grupo focal resaltaron la importancia de: (i) mantener los bosques actuales y reforestarlos, (ii) proteger las fuentes de agua para garantizar el acceso al servicio de agua en la cantidad y calidad adecuada, (iii) mayor productividad y disponibilidad de alimentos utilizando prácticas amigables con el ambiente, (iv) contar con una comunidad más higiénica y saludable, (v) contar con buenas vías de acceso interno y externo, (vi) contar con una educación fortalecida, (vii) ver a la comunidad alcanzar niveles de desarrollo en diversas áreas y, (viii) la comunidad se ve implementando medidas de adaptación y mitigación al cambio climático.Se identificó que en la comunidad existen recursos que han sido degradados producto del incremento de la población y la falta de sensibilización sobre la misma. Se requiere conservar, proteger y fortalecer los bosques, para que las fuentes de agua no se sequen, para mantener un clima agradable, pero también porque, se ha perdido la mayoría de los animales silvestres. Tierra Fría cuenta con cinco pozos de agua con acceso comunitario, pero no se hace manejo adecuado de los mismos y por lo tanto no se pueden utilizar para labores domésticas. Además es urgente para la comunidad un proyecto de sistema de alcantarillado, que contribuya a la higiene del entorno comunitario, la disminución de olores fétidos y criaderos de hospederos de patógenos que causan enfermedades principalmente diarreas. Por otro lado, es importante trabajar en los caminos y carreteras con el fin de tener buen acceso, así como, gestionar un terreno y recursos para que la comunidad cuente con un Centro de Salud y un Colegio para Educación Media (Figura 6). Figura 6. Visión a futuro de la comunidad Tierra Fría, Santa Rita, Copan, HondurasLos participantes del grupo focal identificaron dos limitante para la construcción de la visión 2030 en la comunidad: (i) el CODECO no está fungiendo los roles que le competen como ente gestor a lo interno y externo de la comunidad para buscar soluciones y consensos que enfrenten los principales retos y desafíos que tiene la comunidad y, (ii) la falta de organización y conciencia comunitaria.A continuación se detallan las principales oportunidades y limitantes de la comunidad para alcanzar la visión 2030 construida por los participantes del grupo focal:Oportunidades: se identificaron tres oportunidades: (i) la zona con cultivo de café puede incorporar barreras vivas con árbol de madreado Gliricidia sepium, (ii) fuentes de agua con potencial de mejora en cuanto a calidad, (iii) vinculación del Instituto de Conservación Forestal-ICF y la Municipalidad de Santa Rita sobre la utilización de \"fondo verde\" en acciones de compensación por la conservación del bosque Limitaciones. Se identificaron como limitantes: (i) la población no tenga conciencia de la importancia de este recurso y, (ii) tenencia de tierra.Oportunidades: (i) la comunidad cuenta con una Junta de Agua la cual tiene experiencia en el manejo del recurso y administra los fondos de compensación por el servicio de agua a los propietarios del bosque, (ii) identifican el involucramiento del manejo del recurso a la Municipalidad de Santa Rita como vigilante en el cumplimiento del reglamento y, (iii) la capacitación por parte de la Unidad Municipal de Ambiente-UMA para implementar acciones de conservación, uso y manejo del bosque. Limitaciones: existen diversas fuentes de contaminación que actualmente impactan en el recurso del agua dentro de la comunidad, entre ellas: residuos de agroquímicos, desechos sólidos y líquidos provenientes del cultivo de café y excretas de animalesOportunidades: se identificó que la comunidad de Tierra Fría considera como oportunidad principal (i) la diversificación de cultivos para enriquecer la dieta familiar y los ingresos, (ii) la intervención de las organizaciones involucradas incluyendo a la Municipalidad y organizaciones proveedoras de servicios técnicos presentes en el municipio que puedan brindar asistencia técnica en la comunidad. Limitaciones: se identificaron dos limitaciones: (i) los y las productoras se encuentran desorganizados y (ii) no se cuenta con asistencia técnica que los apoye.Oportunidades: la comunidad identifica tres oportunidades (i) el proyecto de alcantarillado el cual puede gestionarse para su instalación, (ii) manejo adecuado de los animales de patio y (iii) manejo adecuado de la cosecha del café. La institución que puede intervenir para concretar estas actividades es la Municipalidad de Santa Rita y los entes responsables de aplicar las sanciones ambientales Limitaciones: la falta de conciencia de la población, ya que esto limita el manejo adecuado de los desechos que beneficie la higiene y salud comunitaria.Oportunidades: la disponibilidad de la infraestructura es importante debido a que la zona es productora de café, se identifican como organizaciones involucradas para el desarrollo de estas oportunidades al fondo cafetero y a la Municipalidad de Santa Rita.Limitaciones: la limitación principal que identifica la comunidad es que el CODECO se encuentra inactivo, quien tiene la atribución promover, organizar y llevar la voz ante distintas instancias sobre las necesidades y prioridades de la comunidad  Centro de Salud Oportunidades: la comunidad tiene condiciones adecuadas para construir el Centro de Salud debido a que cuenta con espacio suficiente, el número de hogares es alto, se encuentra con ubicación estratégica para brindar servicio a otras comunidades cercanas. Los participantes identifican a los Comités de Salud, la Municipalidad y el Fondo Hondureño de Inversión Social FHIS como organizaciones involucradas en consolidar este proceso de la construcción del Centro de Salud. Limitaciones: la falta de un terreno para la construcción.Oportunidades: se tiene disponible el terreno para la construcción del colegio (contiguo a la escuela), se puede construir involucrando organizaciones como la Sociedad de padres de familia, la Secretaria de Educación y el FHIS. Limitaciones: se identificaron dos limitantes (i) la falta de recursos y (ii) el CODECO se encuentra inactivo en la comunidad para que promueva esta iniciativa, sin embargo la sociedad de padres de familia puede impulsar esta propuesta.Oportunidades: se identifican como oportunidades el fortalecimiento del nivel organizativo de la comunidad en distintos sectores; salud, educación, medio ambiente, producción y comercialización, desarrollo social y económico de la comunidad.Limitaciones: se identificaron como limitantes en cuanto a la organización comunitaria que los procesos de gestión a nivel comunitario no son colectivos y son dispersos.Oportunidades: se identifican como oportunidades que la comunidad cuenta con gran diversidad de medios de vida, lo cual permite a las familias definir diferentes estrategias de vida para su sustento y adaptación a las variantes de clima a corto y mediano plazo (café, granos básicos, frutas, aves). Limitaciones: se identificaron como limitantes la falta de organización en la comunidad.Los objetivos del mapeo institucional fueron (i) identificar las instituciones (formales o informales) que actualmente trabajan con la comunidad de Tierra Fría, Santa Rita Copan y (ii) conocer si las instituciones identificadas están enfatizando temas como la seguridad alimentaria, el manejo de recursos naturales y el cambio climático. Lo anterior ayudará a entender la capacidad que tiene la comunidad para prepararse ante los retos futuros, como por ejemplo la variabilidad climática y la dificultad de abastecerse de alimentos en ciertos periodos del año.3.1 Ámbitos de trabajo/acción de las instituciones con presencia en la comunidadEnfoque metodológico de la sesión de trabajo sobre los ámbitos acción de las instituciones con presencia en la comunidad Las personas participantes del grupo focal respondieron a la pregunta ¿cuáles son las instituciones que están operando en la comunidad?, las respuestas fueron anotadas en fichas de papel que fueron colocadas en los círculos concéntricos que habían sido dibujados en el piso con anterioridad. Cada círculo representa el rango de acción de la institución, colocándose así en el círculo pequeño las instituciones comunitarias, en el círculo mediano las instituciones presentes a nivel local (comunidad y municipio) y en el círculo grande las instituciones que inciden en la comunidad, pero cuya acción se extiende a otros municipios y/o a nivel de país. De las instituciones identificadas anteriormente, los hombres y las mujeres eligieron por medio de votación, las cinco instituciones más importantes para la comunidad, con el fin de levantar información más detallada para las mismas, como por ejemplo: el campo de acción, sus principales actividades, el número de miembros que tienen, el origen, entre otras.Resultados obtenidos en la sesión de trabajo sobre los ámbitos de acción de las instituciones con presencia en la comunidad A continuación se presentan los resultados de las sesiones paralelas (grupo de 10 hombres y de 15 mujeres) en las que se analizó el ámbito de acción de las instituciones con presencia en la comunidad.En el grupo focal de mujeres se identificaron 10 instituciones con presencia en la comunidad y de estas 10 se priorizaron las cinco más importantes para las mujeres (Cuadro 1). Con el fin de conocer el rango de acción de las instituciones, las participantes colocaron los nombres de las mismas en los círculos concéntricos de la siguiente manera: (i) en el círculo pequeño ubicaron el nombre de cinco instituciones comunitarias: la iglesia, CODECO, Comité de Educación, Junta de Agua y el Comité de Salud (ii) en el círculo mediano colocaron el nombre de una institución que posee un rango de acción a nivel de municipio: Municipalidad y (iii) en el círculo grande, colocaron el nombre de cuatro instituciones que inciden en la comunidad, pero que se extienden a nivel de municipio o de país e internacional: Amigos de los Niños, Cooperativa Ocotepeque Ltda., Cooperativa Mano a Mano y Comisión Trinacional del Plan Trifinio (Figura 7).En el grupo de los hombres, se identificaron nueve instituciones con presencia en la comunidad y de ellas priorizaron cinco (Cuadro 2). Con el fin de conocer el rango de acción de las instituciones, los hombres colocaron los nombres de las instituciones en los círculos concéntricos de la siguiente manera: (i) en el círculo pequeño colocaron el nombre de cinco instituciones comunitarias, tales como: las iglesias de la comunidad, la Juntas de Agua, la Sociedad de Padres, Comité de Educación, y CODECO. (ii) en el círculo mediano, colocaron el nombre de dos instituciones que trabajan a nivel local y municipal: Secretaria de Salud y la Municipalidad y (iii) en el círculo grande colocaron el nombre de dos instituciones que extienden su trabajo a nivel de municipio y a otros dos países transfronterizos (Comisión Trinacional del Plan Trifinio y Amigos de los Niños) (Figura 8).  Aspectos metodológicos del mapeo institucional de seguridad alimentaria y nutricional En esta sesión de trabajo se discutió sobre el concepto de seguridad alimentaria que fue analizado desde sus tres pilares: (i) disponibilidad, (ii) acceso y (iii) utilización biológica. El concepto de seguridad alimentaria fue explicado utilizando como ejemplo intervenciones realizadas por el CATIE en cooperación con instituciones locales. Posteriormente, los participantes del grupo focal procedieron a identificar: (i) las instituciones que están trabajando en la comunidad en algunos de los tres pilares de SAN y (ii) los tipos de vínculos que existen entre dichas instituciones.Con el fin de identificar las instituciones que se encuentran trabajando en la comunidad en algunos de los tres pilares de la SAN, los participantes escribieron el nombre de las mismas en fichas de papel de color, cada color identificaba uno de los tres pilares de SAN. Las fichas fueron colocadas en un papel rotafolio, en el que se habían dibujado círculos concéntricos que representaban el rango de acción de la institución (al igual que en el ejercicio realizado en el punto 3.1). Posteriormente, las y los participantes del grupo focal identificaron los vínculos entre instituciones y los plasmaron sobre el papel rotafolio con marcadores de distintos colores según el tipo de vínculo que consideran existe entre las instituciones.De las nueve instituciones identificadas en el mapeo institucional por lo hombres y de las 10 instituciones identificadas por las mujeres, un 44% y un 80% respectivamente trabaja con al menos uno de los tres pilares de la SAN.Los hombres y las mujeres participantes del grupo focal coincidieron en que: (i) la organización Children International-Programa Amigos de los Niños-trabajan en dos pilares de la seguridad alimentaria acceso y utilización, (ii) las mujeres señalan que el Programa Amigos de los Niños y la Junta de Agua se encuentran trabajando en los tres pilares de la seguridad alimentaria, (iii) Para los hombres el programa Amigo de los Niños solo hace incidencia en el acceso y utilización. Tanto hombres como mujeres mencionaron a otras instituciones que trabajan en algunos de los pilares de SAN (Cuadro 3). Lo anterior evidencia que en la comunidad de Tierra Fría hay presencia de instituciones trabajando en al menos uno de los tres pilares de la SAN. Las mujeres identificaron que los vínculos entre las instituciones pueden ser de tres tipos: (i) suministro de alimento, (ii) financiamiento de recursos y (iii) fortalecimiento organizativo (Figura 9). Mientras que los hombres identificaron dos tipos de vínculos: (i) suministro de alimentos y (ii) fortalecimiento organizativo (Figura 10).Las mujeres y los hombres indicaron que enfrentan crisis alimentaria generalmente durante tres meses del año (junio-agosto), para poder subsistir durante este periodo de escasez la mayoría de las familias almacena granos básicos, lo que contribuye a reducir los efectos de la escasez de alimentos.Vínculos entre instituciones según diferentes percepciones de género  Suministro de alimentos, los hombres mencionaron que Children International-Programa Amigos de los Niños-, la Secretaria de Salud, la Secretaria de Educación y la Sociedad de Padres de Familia, atienden temas de nutrición y dotan alimentos. Por otra parte, las mujeres identificaron al programa Amigos de los Niños, Comité de Salud y Comité de Educación debido a su contribución en el acceso al suministro de alimentos, bolsas solidarias y merienda escolar. Financiamiento, para las mujeres existe una relación entre Children International-Programa Amigos de los Niños-, Comité de Salud y el Comité de Educación, debido a que consideran los apoyos proporcionados en becas para los estudiantes, medicina y proyectos. Así como, el vínculo entre la Junta de Agua, la Iglesia y la Comisión Trinacional del Plan Trifinio debido a que promueven mantener la inocuidad de los alimentos y la utilización del agua para la producción agrícola. Fortalecimiento organizativo: según opinaron los hombres Children International-Programa Amigos de los Niños-y la Secretaria de Salud fortalecen la parte organizativa de las familias con las que trabajan para mejorar su nutrición. Mientras que para las mujeres mencionaron a la Municipalidad y los Comités de Salud y Educación, por un lado la Municipalidad gestiona proyectos comunitarios como la construcción de la escuela, el suministro de medicinas y capacitaciones, por otro lado la Junta de Agua, la Iglesia y la Comisión Trinacional del Plan Trifinio se vinculan con capacitaciones y concientización para el manejo de los recursos en la zona.Cuadro. 3 Resumen de la percepción masculina y femenina sobre las instituciones que trabajan en la comunidad los tres pilares de la seguridad alimentaria y nutricional en la comunidad Tierra Fría, Santa Rita, Copan, Honduras Promueve el acceso mediante la asignación de recursos Uso y manejo adecuado de los alimentos para consumo familiarDetermina el acceso al agua Apoya a la utilización para la inocuidad y limpieza de los alimentos Provee el recurso agua que apoya a la producción de alimentosDa acceso mediante la asignación y preferencia Promueve el consumo de alimentos con valor nutricionalProporciona capacitaciones sobre el valor nutricional de los alimentos, además de promover el valor social Iglesia Promueve valores sociales en la utilizaciónPromueve valores sociales en la utilización Cooperativa Ocotepeque ltda.Promueve el financiamiento de actividades agrícolas a familias socias Promueven la disponibilidad con herramientas para la producciónPromueve el financiamiento de actividades agrícolas a familias socias Promueven la disponibilidad con herramientas para la producciónAsignación de alimentos a las familias, en especial a niños (as) desnutridos (as)Asignación de merienda escolar Preparación de merienda para niños (as) En los grupos focales de mapeo institucional del manejo de los recursos naturales y cambio climático se identificaron las instituciones que están trabajando activamente en la comunidad para proteger los recursos naturales y que brindan algún tipo de asistencia en el tema de cambio climático. Para ello los participantes debían responder la siguiente pregunta: ¿cuáles instituciones están trabajando activamente para proteger el medio ambiente, manejar adecuadamente los recursos naturales y en la mitigación y adaptación al cambio climático? Posteriormente, con el fin de conocer los vínculos entre las diferentes instituciones, se consultó desde cuál de los siguientes enfoques dichas instituciones contribuyen con la comunidad: educación, capacitación a otras instituciones o miembros de la comunidad y suministro de recursos para la conservación de los recursos naturales.En este grupo focal los participantes debían de colocar en fichas de papel de distinto color un número que identifica a cada institución (según el tema en el que ellos perciben trabaja la institución). Posteriormente, colocaron las fichas sobre un papel rotafolio en el que se habían dibujado los círculos concéntricos y con marcadores de color señalaron los tipos de vínculos existentes entre instituciones, al igual que fue realizado en los apartados 3.1 y 3.2.Las mujeres que participaron del grupo focal sobre mapeo institucional del manejo de los recursos naturales identificaron ocho instituciones y los temas que abordan: (i) Children International-Programa Amigos de los Niños-que trabaja en capacitación sobre el recurso agua, (ii) la Junta de Agua que da mantenimiento y conservación de los recursos, influyendo principalmente en el bosque, el suelo y el agua, (iii) el Comité de Educación que realiza capacitaciones y campañas de reforestación, con el fin de conservar los recursos bosque y agua, (iv) la Comisión Trinacional del Plan Trifinio realiza actividades de capacitación y dotación de recursos e insumos apoyando al mantenimiento de bosques, agua y suelo, (v) La Iglesia da apoyo al cuidado y mantenimiento del bosque, además de concientiza y sensibilizar a la comunidad, (vi) La Municipalidad da apoyo para la gestión de organizaciones comunitarias que influyan en el manejo del bosque, agua y suelo y (vii) La Cooperativa Ocotepeque Ltda. Y la Cooperativa Mano a Mano Realiza campañas de sensibilización sobre el bosque y el agua, a través de diversos medios.Por otro lado los hombres reconocen a dos instituciones, (i) la Comisión Trinacional del Plan Trifinio que apoya a la conservación del bosque y el agua mediante actividades de protección contra incendios forestales, siembra de árboles e incentivos a la comunidad/productores (as) con prácticas amigables con los recursos naturales y (ii) la Junta de Agua que promueve la protección del agua y del bosque mediante actividades para cuidar las fuentes de agua, incluyendo un mejor manejo de plaguicidas y que desarrolla actividades de reforestación (Figuras 11 y 12).Vínculos entre instituciones según distintas percepciones de género Los participantes identificaron los siguientes vínculos entre instituciones los hombres identificaron los siguientes tipos: (i) financiamiento, (ii) suministro de insumos y (iii) capacitación. Mientras que las mujeres identificaron la existencia de los siguientes vínculos: (i) financiamiento, (ii) insumos y (iii) capacitaciones.Según la percepción masculina, identifican a la Comisión Trinacional del Plan Trifinio y la Junta de Agua como organizaciones involucradas y vinculadas, debido a que la CTPT financia las actividades de capacitación de la Junta de Agua. Las mujeres también mencionaron esta vinculación y agregan el tema de un \"fondo verde\", que es un fondo de compensación por el uso del agua para realizar actividades de conservación y manejo del bosque en coordinación con la CTPT, este aporte económico es un cobro que se realiza a los usuarios en sus cuotas mensuales por el uso del servicio para la sostenibilidad del bosque, por otro lado mencionan el vínculo de Children International-Programa Amigos de los Niños-y el Comité de Educación que promueven un apoyo financiero para la reforestación y el manejo del bosque.Los hombres participantes del grupo focal comentaron que la Comisión Trinacional del Plan Trifinio y la Junta de Agua se encuentran vinculadas debido a que proveen herramientas y equipos para realizar las actividades de manejo (trajes para guarda bosques, palas, piochas, machetes, alambre para cerca, bomba de mochila). Por otro lado, las mujeres identificaron esta misma relación, añadiendo que dan apoyo para viveros para reforestación, insumos agrícolas y otros. Además las mujeres mencionan el vínculo de la Municipalidad con la Junta de Agua, debido a que la Municipalidad apoya en la gestión de recursos realizados por la Junta de Agua.Los hombres retoman la relación entre el CTPT y la Junta de Agua debido a que las mismas se vinculan con capacitaciones en temas administrativos a la comunidad. Las mujeres añaden a este vínculo las jornadas de capacitación para el manejo del bosque, además identifican el vínculo entre Children International-Amigos de los Niños-con el Comité de Educación donde realizan una coordinación de jornadas de capacitación para el cuidado de los recursos. Además las mujeres identifican el vínculo de la Municipalidad, La Junta de Agua y el Comité de Salud quienes desarrollan jornadas de capacitación para la inocuidad del agua. El propósito de este ejercicio fue entender la diversidad de opciones que los miembros de la comunidad tienen para acceder a información relacionada con la agricultura y el clima. Se busca responder las preguntas: ¿Cómo las personas aprovechan las fuentes de información disponibles? Y si algunas fuentes no son usadas, indagar el ¿por qué? Se pretende describir las redes por medio de las cuales las personas acceden y comparten información dentro de la comunidad. Previo al ejercicio el equipo de estudio realizó una dinámica grupal para entender el concepto de red y su importancia.Análisis de datos del grupo focal sobre redes de información Según las respuestas de los participantes hombres y mujeres del grupo focal sobre redes de información, se deduce que los medios de comunicación más utilizados para obtener información son: (i) la radio, mismo que fue mencionado por hombres y mujeres, (ii) la consulta a vecinos y amigos, según las mujeres y la consulta a técnicos según los hombres y, (iii) la televisión, misma que fue mencionada por ambos (Cuadro 4).Los temas para los cuales las mujeres usualmente buscan información son: (i) clima, (ii) enfermedades de cultivos como roya en el café, (iii) variación del clima, (iv) cuidado del agua y el bosque, (v) Seguridad Alimentaria, (vi) manejo de aves, (vi) disponibilidad de alimentos, (vii) enfermedades en niños, (viii) educación de niños y prevención de enfermedades en las mujeres, (ix) cuestiones de producción, (x) precios de productos y mercado, y (xi) reuniones comunitarias.En el caso de los hombres los temas paras los cuales buscan información son: (i) siembra de cultivos, (ii) incremento en la producción (provisión de alimentos), (iii) protección del agua, (iv) manejo de enfermedades del café, principalmente porque existen muchos problemas con el cultivo, lo que afecta a la baja producción y por tanto a los ingresos y (v) el clima, debido a que perciben que está cambiando y (vi) el mercado.Los hombres consideran la radio y la televisión como primera fuente de información para la toma de decisiones en temas como seguridad alimentaria y nutricional, agricultura, clima, recursos naturales, entre otros. Para los hombres la información que tiene mayor relevancia es la provisión de alimentos, clima, protección de agua y manejo de enfermedades de café. Se constató que el 50% de los habitantes de la comunidad cuentan con telefonía celular.En el caso de las mujeres los temas con mayor búsqueda de información se relacionan con el manejo del agua y el bosque, las enfermedades en el café, disponibilidad de alimentos y enfermedades en los niños. El medio más utilizado para la búsqueda de información es la radio, así como los amigos, vecinos, el centro de salud y los agro servicios. Es muy importante resaltar que las mujeres se encuentran informadas sobre temas de agricultura y disponibilidad de alimentos, sin embargo consideran algunos otros de suma importancia como son educación y salud tanto de sus hijos e hijas como de ellas mismas.Cuadro. 4. Fuentes de información según tema y género, Tierra Fría, Santa Rita, CopanA partir del análisis de los resultados del estudio de línea base de la comunidad Tierra Fría, Santa Rita, Copan se puede concluir que: Los miembros de la comunidad, hombres y mujeres conocen y reconocen los recursos comunitarios con los que cuentan y la influencia que tienen sobre cada uno de ellos. También identifican que los recursos como el bosque, los pozos (agua), los suelos de las áreas de cultivo y la producción de café, principalmente, han experimentado cambios en los últimos 15 años. Dichos cambios los atribuyen a la densidad poblacional y el mal manejo de los recursos. tema de financiamiento y educación en los recursos agua y bosque. Así como la relación de la Municipalidad con la Junta de Agua y el Comité de salud, en temas de capacitación y suministro de insumos considerando el recurso bosque, agua y suelo. Los hombres reconocen que falta mayor apoyo de las instituciones para mejorar el manejo sostenible del suelo.Las mujeres opinaron que cuentan con crisis alimentaria la cual dura tres meses en el año (junioagosto), para poder subsistir durante este periodo de escasez la mayoría de las familias almacena los granos básicos, lo que contribuye a reducir los efectos de escasez, los hombres coinciden con este periodo y que cada año se presenta una disminución de alimentos para las diferentes familias de la comunidad.Las principales herramientas de información de la comunidad que se destacaron en los grupos focales de hombres y mujeres fueron la radio, y algunas relaciones interpersonales como los amigos, vecinos, técnicos y familia. Los temas principales para mujeres son el cuido de agua y bosque, para los hombres la siembra de cultivos.Al finalizar el estudio en la comunidad CCAFS se comprometió a realizar la devolución de información y resultados, con el fin de que la comunidad pueda hacer uso de la información para la gestión comunitaria. Esta iniciativa de CCAFS motivó el compromiso de la comunidad a participar activamente en las jornadas de trabajo que se realizaron, por lo que es importante que los habitantes vean la utilidad de la información generada.El CCAFS puede ahora estudiar con mayor profundidad temas más específicos que contribuyan a la promoción de agricultura sostenible adaptada al clima (ASAC), manejo adecuado de los recursos naturales, la seguridad alimentaria de la población, con el fin de contribuir con la adaptación al cambio climático. Estas acciones se pueden concentrar en identificar las principales prácticas ASAC utilizadas en los sistemas agrícolas, el rescate de conocimientos locales que la comunidad ha desarrollado y conservado a lo largo del tiempo, principalmente para la conservación de semillas de granos básicos. Cultivo éste que es utilizado como una medida de adaptación en épocas de sequía u otros eventos relacionados con la variabilidad climática. Desarrollar talleres de capacitación que promuevan la integración y el fortalecimiento del CODECO, lo cual permitiría que este ente ejerza su rol en el proceso de mediación ante otras instituciones a nivel local, estatal e internacional, contribuyendo a la solución de las problemáticas que enfrenta la comunidad.En la comunidad de Tierra Fría, Santa Rita, hay presencia de instituciones, las cuales han estado trabajando con la comunidad en temas afines a los de CCAFS por lo que podrían convertirse en futuros socios para potencializar sus objetivos. Las instituciones identificadas se enfocan en temas de carácter agrícola y poseen un ámbito de trabajo más allá de lo local (Cuadro 5). Además, se identifican vacíos de información y/o temas para futuras investigaciones a ser desarrolladas ya sea por CCAFS o por las instituciones socias (Cuadro 6). ","tokenCount":"9906"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"0ff3d1d03cf12f287830d708194ecd59","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/77f0cc8b-4988-4d51-9946-8e3cf502605c/retrieve","id":"2087186480"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"15135fef-1257-4011-a881-b27284474517","pagecount":"34","content":"Chapter 3 -Intra-African Trade in Virtual Water: Trends and DriversIncreasing intra-African trade is expected to have a wide range of benefits, including contributing to increased economic growth, employment, and food security. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), launched in 2021, will have potentially significant impacts on economic output and incomes when fully implemented. A recent study suggests that AfCFTA implementation will drive substantial employment growth, generating more than 7 million new jobs in manufacturing, public services, trade, and other services (World Bank 2020). Bouët, Laborde, and Traoré (2022) estimate that an ambitious implementation of the AfCFTA, which eliminates tariffs and significantly reduces nontariff measures, would increase Africa's gross domestic product (GDP) by 0.2 percent compared to baseline trends in the absence of the AfCFTA by 2035. Increased intra-African trade in agriculture could also contribute significantly to improving food security and nutrition, including by increasing dietary diversity, promoting food price stability, and boosting the availability of key micronutrients (Bonuedi, Kamasa, and Opeku 2020;Makochekanwa and Matchaya 2019;Odjo and Badiane 2018;Olivetti et al. 2023).A further potential benefit of increased intra-African trade is its contribution to environmental sustainability and efficient use of scarce natural resources. The impacts of trade on the environment are complex. Although trade expends resources and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, it could also contribute to sustainable resource use if it allows countries to specialize in production patterns according to their resource endowments and comparative advantage (Odjo, Traoré, and Zaki 2023). In the context of climate variability and water scarcity, trade could potentially help to minimize the negative impacts by moving commodities from areas with high water availability to water-scarce areas (Matchaya, Garcia, and Traoré 2023). This chapter reviews overall trends in intra-African agricultural trade and, to assess the contribution of this trade to sustainability, takes a close look at its potential to address issues of water scarcity and contribute to efficient use of water resources. The chapter examines intra-African agricultural trade in virtual water-that is, the water content embedded in trade flows of agricultural products. Trade is most commonly measured in value terms, but the monetary value of a product does not always reflect the resources used to produce it. Trade flows expressed as virtual water trade (VWT) reflect both the specific water requirements of different crops and the varying crop yields obtained in different countries. Examining intra-African trade in virtual water terms and identifying the impact of countries' resource endowments and water productivity levels on VWT helps us to assess the contribution of intra-African trade to addressing water stress and scarcity in African countries and contributing to more efficient water use.Water is a key resource for food security in Africa. Water availability is a significant constraint to agricultural productivity. Distribution of Africa's water resources is highly unequal (Xie et al. 2014), with ample water resources in some areas (for example, Central Africa) and pronounced water scarcity in others (notably North Africa). Intra-African agricultural trade in virtual water could thus be a means to allow countries with greater water scarcity or less productive use of water to import virtual water content from countries with greater water endowments or greater water productivity, rather than exhausting their own limited resources.The chapter is organized as follows. The next section reviews intra-African agricultural trade in value terms, assessing overall trends over time and across regional economic communities (RECs) and countries. The third section examines trade trends in terms of virtual water content and explores the relationship between trade in value and trade in water content for selected crops. The fourth section carries out an econometric analysis to explore the determinants of VWTThe authors thank Winnie Pele of the International Water Management Institute for organizing data on yields and crop water requirements and Isabelle Ick of Georgetown University for research assistance.Chapter 3 -Intra-African Trade in Virtual Water: Trends and Drivers among African countries. Specifically, the analysis examines the impact of water productivity and water and land endowments as well as other factors on VWT at the continental level and among RECs and for specific commodity groups. The final section concludes.This section reviews current and recent patterns in intra-African agricultural trade measured in value terms as a backdrop to the subsequent examination of trade in virtual water terms. It should be noted that the trade data included in this chapter-both in terms of value and in terms of virtual water-include only formal trade. While there are no comprehensive continentwide data on informal trade in Africa, this trade is thought to constitute a significant share of crossborder flows, particularly for agricultural products (Bouët, Cissé, and Traoré 2020). A recent United Nations Economic Commission for Africa study estimates that Africa's informal trade represents 7 to 16 percent of formal trade at the continental level, and between 30 and 72 percent of formal trade between bordering countries (Gaarder, Luke, and Sommer 2021). Analyses of the content of informal trade suggest that perishable products are especially likely to be traded informally (Bensassi, Jarreau, and Mitaritonna 2019;Siu 2019) and that livestock products and cereals constitute a high share of informal trade (Afrika and Ajumbo 2012). Given the large share of informal trade in cross-border trade in agricultural products, all trade flows in the chapter should be considered substantial underestimates of actual intra-African agricultural trade. The composition of intra-African agricultural trade in terms of product groups has shown moderate changes over time. Stimulants and tobacco-which comprises important cash crops including coffee, tea, sugar, and tobacco-is consistently the largest category, with an average share over the entire period of 27.1 percent of intra-African agricultural exports. However, its share has begun to decline in the last few years, reaching its lowest point in 2022 at 20.3 percent. Cotton has also shown declining importance in intra-African trade. Its share declined from 8.3 percent of intra-African exports on average during the 2003-2005 period to less than 3 percent of exports in all subsequent years. Along with the share, the overall value of intra-African cotton exports fell by around 3 percent per year between 2003 and 2022. These trends reflect the declining importance of cotton in Africa's global trade: as the continent's cotton production faces challenges, including low productivity and water stress, exacerbated by recent droughts, cotton subsidies in developed countries, and increasing international cotton price volatility, its global cotton exports have also declined significantly, and Africa has become a net importer of cotton (Sall, Odjo, and Zaki 2023). In contrast, the export shares of most food product categories remained the same or rose over the period. The share of oils and oilseeds rose moderately over the period, reaching its highest point of 16.9 percent of agricultural trade in 2022. The share of vegetables and fruits also rose slightly, while the shares of cereals and of animal products remained fairly stable over the period. There were several changes in relative importance of products within the category, including stimulants and tobacco. Sucrose, or table sugar, rose from 8th position in 2003-2005 to first in 2020-2022, while unroasted coffee declined in importance and disappeared from the top 10, declining from the 4th to the 17th most traded product. Intra-African exports of unprocessed tobacco decreased significantly between the two periods, dropping from the 6th most traded product to the 44th, but cigarettes maintained a position among the top products, rising from the 4th to the 3rd most traded product. Among other products, the trade share of beer decreased significantly between the two periods, while rice, other vegetables, and wheat flour increased their shares and entered the top 10 in the second period.   In addition to being the only REC where intra-African agricultural imports are more than double the exports, ECCAS stands out as the REC in which intra-REC trade accounts for the smallest share of its total intra-African agricultural trade. Member states of COMESA, EAC, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and SADC trade with countries within their RECs at far greater levels than with countries outside their RECs. This is especially the case for SADC, where nearly 80 percent of intra-African exports and nearly 90 percent of intra-African imports are directed to or sourced from within the REC. In the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), intra-REC exports exceed extra-REC exports, but countries import more from non-AMU countries than from countries within the REC. In ECCAS, extra-REC exports are slightly higher than intra-REC exports, while extra-REC imports are more than five times higher than imports from within the REC. Unlike the other RECs shown in the figure, AMU and ECCAS do not have functioning intra-REC free trade agreements: in AMU, political issues between member countries have impeded progress in regional integration; and in both AMU and ECCAS, tariff and nontariff barriers to intra-REC trade remain high (Baghdadi, Karray, and Zaki 2021;Efogo, Kane, and Ndoricimpa 2022). Their smaller shares of intra-REC trade may reflect the importance of free trade areas in facilitating intraregional trade (see also Aboushady, Ramzy, and Zaki 2023).Chapter 3 -Intra-African Trade in Virtual Water: Trends and Drivers    Because the production of agricultural products requires water, trade in agricultural products can be viewed as an exchange of virtual water resources between nations. In the next section, we investigate the patterns in virtual water exchange associated with the above-described intra-African agricultural trade flows.Chapter 3 -Intra-African Trade in Virtual Water: Trends and DriversVirtual water trade (VWT) refers to the amount of water used to produce goods that are then traded internationally. Annual intra-African agricultural trade volumes are transformed from tons to VWT in m 3 per transaction, following the methodology in Chapagain and colleagues (2006) and Matchaya, Garcia, and Traoré (2023). To compute the water equivalent aggregated across all transactions, we multiply the specific water demand (SWD) of a commodity by the volume of the crop traded (CT ij ) from the i th exporter to the j th importer:where VWT ij is the water equivalent aggregated across all transactions, CT is in tons, and SWD (cubic meters per ton) is the commodity's water requirement (cubic meters per ha) divided by the crop yield (tons per ha). The total VWT is the sum of all virtual water for all crops traded from the i th exporter to the j th importer. This approach is consistent with the methodology used by Tamea and colleagues (2014). The crops' water requirements are documented in Hoekstra and Hung (2002), SWDs are available in Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2010), and the yields are taken from FAO (2023). Many factors, including technological advances, affect crop yields. Hence, the current average yield for each crop in each country is used to compute the weighted average SWD where crop water requirement data are available. In a few cases where SWD are absent from Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2010), we use the older crop water requirements from Hoekstra and Hung (2002), as there are no databases with recent data for crop water requirements across countries. Although these data are old, the use of current productivity parameters to calculate SWD ensures that the SWD estimates are not distant from reality.The results of the SWD calculations are presented in Figure 3.4, which illustrates the large variability in water demand among crops traded within the continent. 2 SWD ranges between less than 100 m 3 per ton and more than 7,000 m 3 per ton. Vegetables are among the least water-intensive crops, while the most water-intensive are perennial crops.2 See also Chapter 5, this volume, which uses these estimations of SWD to assess which traded products are the most affected by climate change.Chapter 3 -Intra-African Trade in Virtual Water: Trends and Drivers The remainder of this section examines the patterns of virtual water transfers among Africa's regions and countries through trade in a dozen selected crops. The selected crops are those for which trade quantity data and necessary conversion parameters are available to enable estimation of the water hidden in every bilateral intra-African trade flow. Processed food products are not included in the analysis due to a lack of data on their water requirements. We start with a comparison of the volumes of virtual water associated with intra-continental export of individual crops, and then explore the leading virtual water trading regions and countries for every selected crop.Figure 3.5 presents the volumes of virtual water traded across the continent per US dollar of export value for the different crops. Of the crops under analysis, maize and millet are the largest virtual water movers across Africa, while spinach and currants are the lowest. For every one dollar of maize export revenue, 25 m 3 of hidden water are moved, on average, from one place to another within the continent in recent years (an average over 2018-2022). The corresponding number for millet is 16 m 3 , but only 0.16 and 0.21 m 3 for spinach and currants, respectively. In other words, for the same economic benefit, intra-African trade in maize and millet entails a higher water footprint than trade in other selected crops. It is worth noting that the volume of intra-African VWT per US dollar of export value decreased between 2008-2012 and 2018-2022 for some crops, including most notably millet and pepper. For instance, the volume of virtual  The role of different countries and regions in VWT could potentially be influenced by the availability of water resources. Table 3.3 categorizes African countries by the degree of water stressthat is, the ratio of water demand to renewable water supply. Many African countries have high water stress, including those in North Africa, Sahelian countries, some East African countries, and those around the Kalahari and Namibian deserts, as well as South Africa, which also faces considerable physical water scarcity. At the regional level, North Africa has the highest share of countries with high levels of water stress, followed by Southern Africa and East Africa. Most Central African countries have abundant water resources, and nearly all are classified in the low water stress category.  Although the data appear to categorize many of the countries as less water stressed, withincountry realities can vary. For example, Kenya falls within the low water stress category at the national level but has counties with high levels of local water stress (WRI 2023).Figure 3.6 and Table 3.4 break down the volume of intra-African VWT related to each crop into leading source regions and countries for the 2018-2022 period. A broad pattern of specialization exists among Africa's regions with respect to their contributions to the hidden water outflows associated with each crop's trade. East Africa is the leading source of intra-African virtual water transfers related to trade in pepper, carrots, and beans. Madagascar, Ethiopia, and Tanzania emerge as the leading sources of hidden water trade in these three crops, respectively. Southern Africa, and particularly South Africa, is the dominant exporter of water embedded in intracontinental trade in spinach, globe artichokes, and currants, which are among the crops with the lowest volumes of hidden water trade per US dollar of export value. West Africa dominates the export of virtual water in intra-African trade of guavas and mangoes, maize, and millet, the crops with the largest volumes of virtual water transfer per US dollar of export value (Figure 3.5). North Africa contributes the largest shares of hidden water associated with the trade of watermelons and of cauliflower and broccoli across the continent. No significant transfer of virtual water originates in Central Africa to the rest of the continent, despite the region's abundant water resources. This recalls the relatively small share of ECCAS Chapter 3 -Intra-African Trade in Virtual Water: Trends and Drivers in intra-African trade in value terms (Figure 3.3). Trade in lettuce is associated with hidden water outflows from East and Southern Africa. In short, West Africa tends to specialize in crops that move the largest volumes of virtual water per unit of export value, while the reverse applies to Southern Africa. This may be related to the relatively high water stress of several Southern African countries (Table 3.3). However, further investigation with a larger set of crops is needed to confirm these patterns. Figure 3.7 presents the breakdown of the volume of intra-African virtual water transfers associated with each crop's trade by destination regions for the 2018-2022 period. East Africa is the main destination of water transfers embedded in carrots, maize, and lettuce traded across Africa, and the region is also the primary source of virtual water exported through carrots and lettuce across Africa (as shown in Figure 3.6). Hence, the water-stressed region of East Africa dominates intracontinental inflows and outflows of the virtual water traded through carrots and lettuce, which are among the least water-intensive crops (see Figure 3.4). The same trend is observed in Southern Africa. Southern Africa is the leading destination of virtual water transfers related to globe artichokes, currants, and spinach, which predominantly originate in the same region (Figure 3.6). Hence, trade in virtual water embodied in these three crops mostly occurs within the region. For instance, Table 3.4 indicates that South Africa is the primary source of virtual water flows through exports of currants, and Lesotho is their primary destination.Similarly, the virtual water transfers associated with the trade of guavas, mangoes, and millet predominantly occur within West Africa, which also receives the bulk of water embodied in traded quantities of cauliflower and broccoli. North Africa receives the largest share of water embodied in traded pepper and retains part of embedded water flows in intracontinental trade of watermelons. In short, Figure 3.7 reveals that VWT between African countries generally occurs through intraregional flows, that is, originating and ending in the same region. This pattern is similar to that presented in Figure 3.  As demonstrated in the previous section, patterns in intra-African trade in virtual water differ across countries and commodities. A study of the trade in agriculture commodities and the VWT that flows from it should provide insights into whether factor endowments explain trade or whether other determinants matter. The Heckscher-Ohlin (Leamer 1995) and Rybczynski (1955) theorems, which relate trade to the factors used to produce traded products, imply that international trade can save water globally or regionally if a water-intensive commodity is traded from an area of high water abundance to an area with water scarcity. According to Hoekstra (2010), global use of water in agriculture could be reduced by 5 percent through international VWT. Dalin et al. (2012) find that the VWT associated with international food trade increases global water use efficiency and contributes to water resource savings. A nation can preserve its domestic water resources by importing a water-intensive product instead of producing it domestically.Export of agricultural products entails expending national water resources, whereas import of agricultural products saves national water resources (Chapagain et al. 2006). Water-abundant countries could profit from their abundance of water resources by producing water-intensive products for export. VWT between nations and even continents could thus be used as an instrument to improve regional water use efficiency and to achieve water security in waterscarce regions of the world (Shi, Liu, and Pinter 2014). Despite the potential of the virtual water concept to help societies achieve some level of water security through trade, empirical research in this area in Africa is limited.Focusing on Brazil, da Silva et al. ( 2016) find that the nature and magnitude of virtual water movements depend on the specific crops studied. Fracasso (2014) suggests that bilateral VWT is determined by economic variables as well as by water endowments and the level of pressure on water resources. However, Feng and colleagues (2014) report the opposite, finding that waterscarce areas in northern China export water-intensive products to water-abundant southern China. Similar observations in China have been explained by three possibilities, including low costs for water use, differing climate conditions and water management practices, and economic and other government policies (Feng et al. 2014;Guan and Hubacek 2007;Islam and Susskind 2013;Zhuo, Mekonnen, and Hoekstra 2016). In SADC, Matchaya, Garcia, and Traoré (2023) find that VWT in cereals varies with distance, as well as with water endowments.This section weighs in on this debate by analyzing bilateral VWT (exports and imports), considering economic variables and sociocultural and geographical factors, in addition to water-related aspects of agricultural production. It uses a large database of more than 75,000 observations of trade transactions for African countries, which was not available to many previous studies.The analysis uses data drawn from the AATM database for annual trade transactions involving more than 100 unprocessed agricultural commodities (listed in Appendix 3.3) for the 55 African Union member states for the 2003-2022 period. Data on processed products are not included in this analysis due to challenges in calculating their virtual water content. The production database of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations provides data on crop production, hectares planted, and arable land and yields, and the FAO publishes statisticsChapter 3 -Intra-African Trade in Virtual Water: Trends and Drivers on crop water requirements (FAO 2023). GDP, population, proportion of the population with access to water, and exchange rate data are obtained from the World Development Indicators (World Bank 2024). Data for the dummy variables related to common borders, membership in regional groupings, language, and distance between commercial capitals are taken from the database of the Centre d'Études Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales (CEPII), 3 while data on water stress by country are from the World Resources Institute. 4 Data on conflicts are taken from the database by Davies et al. (2024), data on international water treaties are from the Oregon State University website, 5 and variables for AfCFTA ratification are derived from information available at Tralac. 6The VWT variable is the key variable for the analysis. Annual traded volumes are transformed from tons to VWT in cubic meters per transaction, as described in the preceding section, following the methodology in Chapagain and colleagues (2006) and Matchaya, Garcia, and Traoré (2023).A trade matrix is constructed on export values between pairs of countries for each of the 55 African countries for all of the more than 100 commodities considered. The commodities are also grouped into four main categories (cereals, fruits, nuts, and vegetables) to permit further group-level analysis. This is important because analysis at the individual specific commodity level would encounter problems of insufficient data for some years. The matrix of the quantities of VWT thus consists of 55 countries, each with 100 commodities recorded over 20 years, and more than 110,000 observations, which reduce to 75,000 once other data quality checks are applied. Our focus is on the total VWT between each pair of countries; hence, both bilateral exports from and imports to each country are considered in line with Matchaya, Garcia, and Traoré (2023). This differs from Lenzen et al. (2013), who focus on virtual water imports only. Finally, all the continuous variables are converted into natural logarithms for ease of interpretation and to lessen the influence of heteroscedasticity in the analysis.The classical gravity model is widely used in estimation of international trade (Anderson and Van Wincoop 2003;Bensassi, Jarreau, and Mitaritonna 2019;Head and Mayer 2014;Kamin 2022;Melitz and Toubal 2014; as well as Matchaya, Garcia, and Traoré 2023), but its application in understanding the flow of virtual water among nations has been limited (Dang et al. 2015;Matchaya, Garcia, and Traoré 2023;Tamea et al. 2014). We adopt the formulation in Matchaya, Garcia, and Traoré (2023) to model the bilateral trade process (as detailed in the technical note in Appendix 3.4). The dependent variable is bilateral VWT. We examine the impact on VWT of variables associated with water and other natural resource availability in the exporting and importing country, including the ratio of water productivity of the exporter and importer, the ratio of freshwater withdrawals of the exporter and importer, the ratio of the degree of water stress of the exporter and importer, and the ratio of exporter's and importer's available farmland.We also include variables that represent the ease or difficulty of trade and other economic factors explaining trade flows, including the distance between trading partners, the ratio of the exporter's and importer's GDP per capita, the exchange rate between the exporter and importer, and variables capturing whether exporters are landlocked, as well as the existence of a common border, language, or colonizer between the trading partners. We also include language similarity, as this is found to influence trade (Melitz and Toubal 2014); existence of Chapter 3 -Intra-African Trade in Virtual Water: Trends and Drivers present and/or past conflict within the trade dyad, as wars can influence the amount and pace of trade (Kamin 2022); and common membership in a REC, as well as common membership in water treaties/transboundary water agreements in the form of river basin organizations, as these are also key for trade, since lack of cooperation on water use could limit production and tradable surpluses (Gbandi 2024). 7Appendix 3.5 and Appendix 3.6 present the regression results, and Figures 4.8 and 4.9 summarize results for variables of interest. Many of the results are significant and are in line with previous studies (Kamin 2022;Matchaya, Garcia, and Traoré 2023;Melitz and Toubal 2014;Tamea et al. 2014), suggesting that the models have the capacity to identify important drivers of VWT. The discussion of the regressions focuses on the different RECs and different commodity groups to tease out the heterogeneous effects of water stress and endowments on these different groups. This is important because policy prescriptions are likely to vary across RECs and commodity groups, depending on the specific drivers of trade in each region and commodity category. Where the focus is on REC trade (Appendix 3.6), the analysis focuses on intra-REC trade only.Figure 3.8 and Appendix 3.5 to this chapter show the effects of water endowments on VWT across all key commodity groups. Studying the effects across different commodity groups is useful because demand for agricultural commodities may be heterogenous, and their response to various factors may also differ. Studying them separately can offer insights that pooled regression may hide. The signs and statistical significance of the coefficients for the variables of interest (water stress variables) are consistent across all commodity-based regression estimates.A central focus of this study is to gain insight into which factors affect VWT. Variables directly related to water and land are of particular interest. The coefficient on the degree of water stress for the exporter and the degree of water stress for the importer evaluated as a ratio is negative, as well as statistically significant at both the 5 and 1 percent levels across all commodity groups (Figure 3.8). The negative and significant coefficients on exporters' and importers' degree of water stress suggests that countries with low water endowments import more virtual water, whereas those with high water endowments tend to export more. Water therefore is a limiting factor in international trade, and trade can be used to ameliorate the effects of water stress in a country. Only results significant at the 1 or 5 percent levels are shown. All variables are constructed as logarithms of the ratio of exporter and importer values. The values shown by the bars represent elasticities of virtual water trade (that is, the percentage change in virtual water trade expected to result from a 1 percent increase in the value of the variable). Results for freshwater withdrawals are significant at the 1 percent level but are omitted due to low magnitudes.Across the commodity categories, it is clear that water availability affects production of cereals, nuts, fruits, and vegetables, and thus trade, differently. For example, a 1 percent increase in the ratio of the water stress index between the exporter and the importer is associated with reduction in VWT of −0.13 percent for vegetables, −0.05 percent for nuts, −0.06 percent for fruits, and −0.02 percent for cereals. For all the commodities, a 1 percent increase in the ratio of water stress leads to a -0.07 percent reduction in VWT through those commodities, at the continental level. Thus, there are differences in trade sensitivities across commodity groups following an increase in water stress, with vegetables most affected, followed by nuts and fruits. The variation in impacts of water stress on trade depending on the commodity, with the largest impacts on trade in vegetables, can be explained by the different water sensitivities of these crops, which affect their production (FAO 2012). Our results recall da Silva et al. ( 2016), who also identify differential impacts of drivers of VWT depending on the commodity concerned.Other measures of water availability-including freshwater withdrawals and water use productivity-also support the important role of water endowments in VWT. Generally, an increase in the ratio of freshwater withdrawals between exporters and importers (implying more withdrawals by the exporter) is associated with an increase in trade across all the commodity types. This result implies that an increase in water withdrawals among importers is associated with a reduction in virtual water imports, likely because the resultant production reduces the need for virtual water imports. Again, where the ratio in water productivity between exporter and importer is high, implying that exporters have higher withdrawals, VWT generally increases.A 1 percent increase in the ratio of water productivity for exporters and importers is associated with a 0.01 percent increase in all VWT. The effect varies by crop type, such that a 1 percent increase in the ratio of water productivity leads to a 0.02 percent trade increase for vegetables and a 0.01 percent increase for fruits. Similarly, an increase in the exporter-importer ratio of Chapter 3 -Intra-African Trade in Virtual Water: Trends and Drivers land allocated to agriculture generally positively drives VWT. These results are significant at the 5 and 1 percent levels, implying that land endowments are also important for trade dynamics across the different commodity groups.Thus, virtual flows of water through the trade in crops are affected by the amount of arable land and availability of water. That is, it appears as if arable land and water endowments, if all else is the same, provide the ability to produce for export, that is, specialization and agricultural trade, as trade theory suggests. This implies that irrigation expansion could bring about increases in marketable surpluses that can be exported from countries where arable land and water are available to countries where water and land are scarce (see Matchaya, Garcia, and Traoré 2023).As discussed previously, other key variables that explain bilateral trade include the distance between the bilateral partners and their purchasing and production power. The logarithm of distance is negative and significant at the 5 and 1 percent levels across all commodity groups (except for cereals), underscoring the importance of transport and storage infrastructure as well as other trade facilitation factors that undermine the smooth and timely flow of commodities.Countries that are contiguous tend to trade more in virtual water, underscoring the importance of not only distance but also other cultural similarities. Although the common official languages do not appear to systematically positively influence trade in virtual water, likely because these areas are spread far apart and may not trade despite similar languages, trade is influenced more positively by local native languages. Countries with a common colonizer appear to trade more because transaction costs of trade are lower. Across the continent, being landlocked encourages intra-African trade. Countries that belong to the same REC trade more because trade restrictions are generally lower for members. Similarly, common membership to the AfCFTA is associated with more bilateral trade, but as this agreement is not yet fully operational, this result should be interpreted with caution, and more studies are needed once it is fully operational. Underscoring the importance of water in trade, common membership in water treaties is also associated with more bilateral trade, likely because such treaties simplify water use within basins, which leads to marketable surpluses. It is interesting to note that wars appear to have a mixed effect on commodity trade within Africa, likely because while wars undermine production and market access in some places, conflicts may increase the need for trade in search of resources to finance the war (Cali 2015).An increase in the exporter-importer income ratio is associated with increased VWT. The logarithm of the exchange rate between the exporter and the importer is generally positive, implying that countries tend to export more when their currencies are relatively weaker and import more with stronger currencies. This finding also implies that under certain conditions, a depreciation improves the exporter's competitiveness.Figure 3.9 and Appendix 3.6 show the effects of water endowments on VWT within six RECs.Studying trade by region is important because some policies are region specific, and the findings can have applications at that level of administration. Water endowments also vary across regions, with some RECs experiencing more significant water stress than others. Among the RECs analyzed here, the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD) has the largest share of countries with high water stress, followed by SADC and COMESA; ECOWAS and ECCAS countries have the least water stress (see Table 3.3). It is important to understand how intra-REC VWT varies across regions in relation to water endowments. The signs and statistical significance of the coefficients for the variables of interest (water stress, water withdrawals, and water productivity variables) are mostly consistent across all REC-based regression estimates.The coefficients on the ratio of the degree of water stress for the exporter and importer are negative and statistically significant at the 5 and 1 percent levels across all the RECs, except forChapter 3 -Intra-African Trade in Virtual Water: Trends and Drivers the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and ECCAS, where the coefficient on the degree of water stress was either not estimable due to low within-REC variation for this variable or was not significant. The negative and significant coefficients on the ratio of the degree of water stress suggest that countries with low water endowments import more virtual water, whereas those with high water endowments tend to export more virtual water; and, in fact, trade is negatively affected by water scarcity. Across the RECs, it is clear that water availability affects trade in SADC, ECOWAS, COMESA, IGAD, ECCAS, and CEN-SAD differently. For example, a 1 percent increase in the ratio of water stress index is associated with a 0.08 percent reduction in virtual water exports in CEN-SAD, 0.07 percent in IGAD, 0.08 percent in COMESA, 0.04 percent in ECOWAS, and 0.05 percent in SADC. In IGAD, the coefficients are not statistically significant. Thus, there are differences in trade sensitivities across REC groups following an increase in water stress, with CEN-SAD, COMESA, and SADC most affected. The higher sensitivity of these RECs to additional water stress may be related to the already high levels of water stress among many North, East, and Southern African countries (see Table 3.3).Water is therefore a limiting factor again in intraregional trade, and trade can be used to ameliorate the effects of water stress in a region. The variation in the effects across RECs also suggests that there are unexploited opportunities to reduce the impacts of water scarcity within regional blocs through trade between blocs. Similarly, land endowments are important for trade dynamics across the different RECs. Other measures of water availability, including freshwater withdrawals and water use productivity, also support the important role of water endowments in VWT. Generally, an increase in freshwater withdrawals among importers is associated with a reduction in virtual water imports across all RECs, likely because the resultant production reduces the need for virtual water imports. A 1 percent increase in the ratio of water productivity for exporters and importers is associated with notable percentage increases in VWT as follows: SADC, 0.01 percent; COMESA, 0.01 percent; ECCAS, 0.03 percent; and CEN-SAD, 0.02 percent. The same factors, including common membership to water treaties, contiguity, native languages, land lockedness, common AfCFTA membership, and common colonizers, are all important in determining VWT at the REC level as well.The magnitude of the statistically significant elasticities is often around 0.01 percent or greater, except for water withdrawals. These elasticities are comparable to other studies on impacts of virtual water on agriculture trade and, given the scale of current trade flows, imply economically significant impacts. Therefore, these results are significant from both a statistical and a policy perspective.This chapter reviewed intra-African agricultural trade trends in terms of value and virtual water and analyzed the determinants of VWT. The analysis of trade trends by value shows that the level of trade has begun to increase again after stagnating throughout the mid-2010s.The commodity composition of trade has changed moderately over time, with a sizable but declining share of cash crops such as stimulants, tobacco, and cotton, and increasing shares of oilseeds and oils, vegetables, and fruits. Most RECs trade more within their regions than with the rest of Africa, reflecting the importance of intra-REC free trade agreements in facilitating intraregional trade.An analysis of the relationship between trade in value terms and trade in virtual water terms for selected crops shows that some products are characterized by much higher water use per dollar of exports than others. Millet and maize have the highest impact on water use of the examined crops, followed by guavas and mangoes and beans. West Africa tends to specialize in crops that move the largest volumes of virtual water per unit of export value, while the reverse holds true of Southern Africa. As was observed for trade in value terms, most VWT is intraregional, with trade originating and ending in the same region.This chapter has explored the factors that characterize agricultural VWT associated with intra-African trade in unprocessed commodities, as in Matchaya, Garcia, and Traoré (2023). The principal research question was whether such agricultural trade reflects relative water availabilities in member states or whether other factors drive agricultural trade, such that VWT flows in the opposite direction, from water-scarce countries to water-abundant countries.The results on water stress and endowment variables support the argument that management of water resources through intraregional trade can reduce the mismatch in water availability and water scarcity (see also Matchaya, Garcia, and Traoré 2023). Both the availability of arable farmland and water availability as well as water stress in the exporting country affect export of virtual water in a manner that indicates that high water endowments encourage trade flows to areas of low water endowments. High water stress discourages exports, while low water stress encourages exports, and high water stress encourages imports of virtual water. These results are consistent for most commodity groups and RECs studied. Given the poor quality of water infrastructure in many parts of Africa, facilitating virtual water exports is a key strategyChapter 3 -Intra-African Trade in Virtual Water: Trends and Drivers for reducing the impacts of differential water availability within the continent. Country-and regional-level policies and strategies that support irrigation systems and/or improvement in water management practices for crop production could have the desired effect in terms of moving water from where it is relatively abundant to where it is scarce. This finding therefore can be very useful for climate change adaptation.The significance of the coefficient on distance, a proxy for transportation costs, suggests that efforts to reduce the cost of transport, storage, and related marketing costs could improve commodity trade and the flow of virtual water within and across RECs. The commodity-and REC-level results suggest that distance matters particularly in SADC and ECCAS and for vegetable trade, perhaps owing to vegetables' perishability; thus, trade facilitation would be beneficial for commodity trade and especially for vegetable trade in those areas, likely because vegetables are more perishable than the other crops.Thus, there is a clear role for trade policy in each REC to reduce the impacts of water insecurity through trade. Countries that are water stressed can lessen the effects of the scarcity through imports of water-intensive commodities. This knowledge can be very beneficial in guiding anticipatory action in preparation for water-related crises. For example, where dry spells are predicted for a region with some precision, the affected areas can consider switching to producing more low water-intensive crops and prepare to import more water-intensive commodities.Further, understanding the potential impact of an impending water crisis, or indeed macroeconomic instability, can inform the targeting of safety nets and reduce the impact of such crises on poverty and livelihoods. Given that many African countries experience high levels of water scarcity, it would be beneficial in the long term for countries to make efforts to reduce water stress, for example through water conservation measures or improved water use efficiency. Reduced water stress would in turn lessen the influence of water stress on bilateral trade. Regional integration as well as transboundary water cooperation are also very important in encouraging bilateral trade in Africa, and it is important that these both be encouraged or strengthened.On a broad level, the chapter's findings call for further efforts to facilitate intra-African trade in order to increase the contribution of trade to alleviating the impacts of water scarcity. Constraints to intra-African trade include the poor quality of transport and market infrastructure, inefficient and lengthy border procedures, harassment and corruption, and other tariff and nontariff barriers, all of which increase the cost of trade; lack of knowledge about trade regulations and limited compliance capacity; and lack of transparency about product quality, which lowers consumers' confidence in local products. Addressing these issues would help to strengthen the positive contribution of intra-African trade to enhancing the efficient use of natural resources.It should be noted that the commodity coverage of this chapter's examination of the virtual water content of trade is limited by data availability. Developing methodologies to accurately estimate the virtual water content of processed products is an important area for future research.In addition, comprehensive data on informal trade are essential to provide a more complete picture of intra-African trade. Despite this limitation, the chapter provides initial evidence on the role of water endowments in driving intra-African trade, and the potential for trade to address issues of water scarcity on the continent.     ","tokenCount":"6936"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d1fb78139b9adcd2aa20d82301c3e6af","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/6fd52a94-31c2-492f-b28d-5704ac478584/retrieve","id":"-23107488"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8a5b86af-e699-4213-9b53-c9d0141a7e7f","pagecount":"23","content":"Relevant stakeholder dialogues conducted for meta-analysis of social, economic, and institutional bottlenecks, barriers, and opportunities to more inclusive small and medium agribusiness in the ESA region .This report summarizes the meta-analysis findings on the social, economic, and institutional bottlenecks, barriers, and opportunities to more inclusive small and medium agribusiness in the ESA region. It serves as a link between the visible integration of GESI focus in WP1 and its interventions. The GESI framework 1 brings about inclusive and scalable agribusiness innovations through targeted GESI support to UU ESA work packages 1-6. This framework will ensure that planned interventions under UU are designed and implemented to empower more women and youth as farmers, agribusiness owners, and actors with voice and visibility across agribusiness value chains (Nortje et al. 2023). The CGIAR Initiative on Diversification in East and Southern Africa (Ukama Ustawi-meaning \"wellbeing\") is focused on diversification for resilient agribusiness ecosystems in Eastern and Southern Africa, also known as Ukama Ustawi (UU).Work package 5 of UU focuses on empowering and engaging marginalized social groups in agribusiness through capacity strengthening and influencing an enabling policy and institutional context. Focal countries in 2022 include Ethiopia, Kenya, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. In each country, Work Package 5 engaged in dialogues with partners and key stakeholders as part of a meta-analysis of social, economic, and institutional bottlenecks, barriers, and opportunities for more inclusive agribusiness. The aim is to ensure that planned interventions under UU are designed and implemented to empower more women and youth as farmers, agribusiness owners, and actors with voice and visibility across agribusiness value chains.The global market over the years has witnessed trade liberalization, technological advancement, and other progress that continue to leave its mark in the agricultural and food systems (FAO, 2016). While some of these shifts have brought about new markets and linked farmers to buyers but have also introduced challenges for agricultural actors in rural communities. These challenges are often unique for women who traditionally experience difficulties in accessing productive resources and benefit less compared to men within the agrifood value chains (Nortje et al. 2023). Therefore, the quest to reduce marginalization and disadvantages faced by targeted groups within value chain development has resulted in mainstreaming gender and social equality as a sustainable strategy for pro-poor development.We used a participatory research approach conducted through workshops and dialogues (virtual and in person) that brought stakeholders from diverse sectors to discuss very specific topics on agribusiness. The focus was for them to (a) identify key stakeholders in agribusiness; (b) discuss bottlenecks and opportunities to more inclusive agribusiness; and (c) discuss the next steps for work package 5 activities in the different countries of work (Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe). The analysis included key challenges for women and men at nested levels as well as practical steps to GESI integration in agribusiness and agrifood value chains. There were, however, slight variations in the questions and methodological approach used for the different dialogues and workshops.The findings reveal that socio-economic and institutional bottlenecks have significantly affected the implementation of well-meaning gender strategies and programs within countries in ESA. Some traditional norms and practices inhibit the full participation of women at the household level and reduce control and ownership of productive assets by women and youth. It is good when traditional leaders such as head persons and chiefs actively participate in changing harmful cultural norms and practices as it continues to reduce their benefits in the most profitable value chains. Moreso, women tend to be concentrated in particular segments of the value chain. For instance, in the fish value chain, they are concentrated in retail, in production for tea, and often produced for household consumption. Practical GESI steps for action highlight the need to have affirmative actions and policies led by the government across the different countries.Ukama Ustawi: Diversification for Resilient Agribusiness Ecosystems in East and Southern Africa. UU Initiative supports climate-resilient agriculture and livelihoods in 12 countries in East and Southern Africa by helping millions of smallholders intensify, diversify, and reduce risks in maize-based farming through improved extension services, small and medium enterprise development, supporting governance frameworks and increased investment with a gender and social inclusion lens. Targeted to address seven key SDG goals, the focus of this initiative is improving public and private extension and delivery channels enabled by the agribusiness ecosystem, enterprise development, and private investment. The region's agribusiness ecosystem has been identified as a critical engine for agricultural and economic development, climate change adaptation, and gender and youth empowerment with multiple benefits cutting across all 5 CGIAR Impact Areas:1. Nutrition,Health,and Food Security;2. Poverty Reduction,Livelihoods,and Jobs;3. Environmental Health and Biodiversity;4. Gender Equality,Youth,and Social Inclusion and;5. Climate Adaptation and Mitigation; This report focuses on Work Package 5 objective of empowering and engaging marginalized social groups in agribusiness through a meta-analysis of social, economic, and institutional bottlenecks, barriers, and opportunities for more inclusive agribusiness. This information remains a key input to capacity strengthening and influencing an enabling policy and institutional context in Ethiopia, Kenya, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.East and Southern Africa is a climate-crisis hotspot, putting agricultural production worth more than 45 billion United States dollars (USD) at risk from higher temperatures, shorter growing seasons, more extreme and frequent droughts and floods, and increased water scarcity 2 . Maize production is particularly vulnerable. Maize is projected to face not only 15% climate-related declines in yield without adaptation but also challenges from diminished cropland suitability and poor agronomic inputs and management, degraded environmental bases with declining soil fertility, and degraded water systems (Jacobs-Mata and Girvetz, 2021). These vulnerabilities are already apparent. Given that maize-mixed systems account for more than three-quarters (75%) of cropland in many places, it is vital to build climate resilience and de-risk through diversification. Production is low due to, among others, poor-quality seeds, suboptimal input use, poor agronomic management, and pest and disease outbreaks (Mulungu and Ng'ombe, 2020).In Ethiopia alone, agriculture contributes to 36% of the GDP and employs more than two-thirds of the population. Ethiopian women are important stakeholders in the agribusiness value chain constituting more than 60% of the agricultural labor force (Anbacha et al. 2023). Despite their contribution, women face unique challenges such as poor access to resources and farm inputs, credit, technologies, markets, and poor decision-making power (Monterroso et al. 2022). Moreover, the high domestic and care responsibilities of women add to their workload and limit the time available for agribusiness. These barriers hamper women's capacity for productive agriculture, which in turn impedes the country's agriculture potential. There is a gender gap in the productivity of land between female-and malemanaged farms of the same size is 24 percent. Women earn 18.4% less than men in agriculture. Despite the high potential of agriculture in absorbing rural youth, those engaged in the sector experience challenges similar to those experienced by women: limited access to land, farm inputs, technologies, and lack of information and credit (Anbacha et al. 2023).In the Republic of Zambia like in most East and Southern African countries, there exists a deep-rooted concept of an unequal gender relationship in which men are considered to be superior to women. This biased view regarding gender equality originates from not only traditional cultural and social norms but also from the dual structure of statutory law and customary law in Zambia (IITA, 2022). Rights, which are supposed to be protected under statutory law, are not necessarily observed and women endure unfair treatment in terms of child marriage, unequal distribution of property, control and ownership of productive resources and benefits derived from the work of household members, etc. Women, youth, and other vulnerable groups such as people living with disabilities who engage in agrifood systems experience barriers unique to them. The barriers include low access to agricultural system inputs; low uptake of farm best practices and technologies; low market integration; limited access to finance; and Unequal household and community power balance. Additionally, people living with disabilities experience the barrier of Technologies often not being adapted to their needs (IITA, 2022).The agribusiness ecosystem is a critical engine for agricultural and economic development for climate change adaptation and for achieving strategic gender gains and youth engagement in agriculture. Developments that transform the ESA agri-food system should infuse sustainable intensification in maize-mixed systems, and crop diversification to de-risk other systems (Jacobs-Mata and Girvetz, 2021). The developments should also empower more women and young farmers, agribusiness owners, and value-chain actors; promote healthier diets; and protect the natural environment from further degradation. Agribusiness in Kenya has been growing tremendously as more people continue to realize its benefits. It is mainly driven by the abundant natural resources readily available in Kenya. Agribusiness has created employment opportunities for women and youth who are locked outside formal employment (Adam et al. 2022). This leads to the question: are agribusiness opportunities equitably distributed in terms of gender and social inclusion? Kenya's agribusiness ecosystem is replete with challenges and opportunities regarding gender equality and social inclusion (GESI).Developments that transform the ESA agri-food system should infuse sustainable intensification in maize-mixed systems, and crop diversification to de-risk other systems. The developments should also empower more women and young farmers, agribusiness owners, and value-chain actors; promote healthier diets; and protect the natural environment from further degradation. To achieve the core goals of sustainable development in low and middleincome countries, agricultural policy, research, and interventions must be more inclusive so that the needs and priorities of women and youth are more intentionally addressed. This underscores the objectives of the different stakeholder workshops conducted by the Ukama Ustawi WP5 between July 2022 and January 2023.Relevant stakeholder dialogues conducted for meta-analysis of social, economic, and institutional bottlenecks, barriers, and opportunities to more inclusive small and medium agribusiness in the ESA region• July 2022: A stakeholder workshop on Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) in agribusiness ecosystems for multidimensional mapping of opportunities and challenges was convened in July 2022, at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya by WorldFish 3 . The goal was to better understand GESI opportunities and challenges, and how to tap and address them. The workshop was convened under the auspices of the One CGIAR partnership strategy of integrated research that aims to achieve a food-secure future through the Ukama Ustawi Initiative. The workshop objectives were: (i) to identify the challenges or barriers that inhibit the inclusion of women, youth, and people living with disabilities (PLWDs) from participating in the agribusiness ecosystem and benefitting from available opportunities; (ii) to understand how social networks and digital platforms can catalyze GESI; and (iii) to inform the development of a pan-ESA digital network.• September 2022: A stakeholder workshop on Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) in agribusiness ecosystems on multidimensional mapping of opportunities and challenges under the CGIAR Initiative on Diversification in East and Southern Africa held in September 2022 in Lusaka, Zambia by IITA 4 . The objectives of the workshop included: i) conceptualizing gender equality and social inclusion mapping of multidimensional opportunities and challenges in agribusiness ecosystems in Zambia; ii) identifying successful agribusiness projects implemented in Zambia; iii) creating an agribusiness network and developing collaborative tactics to overcome barriers based on gender that prevent women, young people, and people with disabilities from actively participating in Zambia's agribusiness ecosystem.• November 2022: A stakeholder dialogue workshop on gender and social inclusion held in Harare, Zimbabwe in November 2022 by IFPRI 5 to i) examine social, economic, and institutional bottlenecks, barriers, and opportunities for more inclusive agribusiness and ii) finalize actionable gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) framework.• November 2022 -January 2023: Voice amplification dialogue workshops and baseline studies in Kenya and Zambia by Solidaridad to learn about inclusive value chain opportunities across the cotton and fruits and vegetables sectors, constraints and experiences related to programming of interventions aimed at advocacy, voice amplification and acceleration of farmer voices, particularity women and youth. This includes promoting gender and social inclusion, policy, advocacy, and innovations as well as addressing identified issues across the supported sectors.• January 2023: A stakeholder consultation workshop by IWMI and partners under the CGIAR Initiatives on Diversification in East and Southern Africa (Ukama Ustawi) in January 2023 at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The workshop aimed to investigate existing opportunities and recommend possible integrated solutions for more equitable and inclusive value chain development. The specific objectives of the workshop were as follows: i) Identifying major challenges in agricultural value chains concerning gender equality and social inclusion ii) Identifying socio-technical innovation bundles that can build resilience and empower farmers across the vegetable value chain iii) Mapping possible opportunities for women and youth participation in agricultural value chains and iv) Networking with key public, private and civil society stakeholders, and providing an opportunity for experience sharing by women and youth agrientrepreneurs.A suit of methodological approaches was used for data collection, although all methods were qualitative through dialogues and workshops with diverse stakeholders. In Zimbabwe, the stakeholder dialogue workshop was conducted to establish a gender equality and social inclusion agribusiness network in the region; strengthen the capacity of marginalized women and youth as successful entrepreneurs; and inform policies and strategies for more inclusive agribusiness (Davis et al. 2023). In collaboration with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) under WP1, a total of 22 stakeholders (including two virtual) from businesses, networks, governments, academia, and research came together for a half-day dialogue. In Kenya, two separate workshops were organized by IWMI and WorldFish respectively to understand GESI opportunities and challenges in agribusiness, and how to tap and address them (Gatonye and Adam, 2022) For Zambia, the workshop followed a similar approach to that of Kenya bringing together 31 participants (14 women, 17 men) comprising government agencies, NGOs, traditional leaders, female and youth farmer groups, and individual farmers. The discussions built on their shared experiences on GESI in agribusiness for sustainable livelihood as explored in the sex-disaggregated focus groups (Akamandisa et al. 2023). Dialogue workshops had also been led by WP5 external partners, Solidaridad in Kenya and Zambia for their collaborative work Reclaim Sustainability! Program in Eastern (Uganda and Kenya) and Southern (Zambia) Africa. Reports from Solidaridad were reviewed for the meta-analysis on GESI challenges and opportunities for women and youth in agribusiness. While their study targeted clients-farmers, miners, and workers of coffee, tea, food products, and gold value chains, our analysis was limited to only food products. The research design followed a gender and intersectional lens integrating different tools across three levels (micro, meso, and macro). Table 1 summarizes the methodological approaches and objectives for the studies and workshops described in this report in addition to the literature reviewed.Dialogues/workshops Objectives Methodology and approaches used Solidaridad: Reclaim Sustainability! (RS!)To examine inequalities resulting from multiple identities of RS! target clients-farmers, miners, and workers of coffee, tea, food products, and gold value chains. Identify opportunities, challenges, and genderspecific indicators, outcomes, and potential activities that can be adopted to inform gender and social inclusion activities across the commodity areas and impact pathways.Generate information on gender relations, gender issues, constraints, opportunities, and inequalities in the sectors at the micro, meso, and macro level -Used an intersectional and gender lens applied through the ABC strategy - -To identify key stakeholders in agribusiness -To discuss bottlenecks and opportunities for more inclusive agribusiness.Followed a participatory approach with mixed groups of stakeholders (businesses, networks, governments, academia, and research) responding to specific questions.-Identifying major challenges in agricultural value chains for gender equality and social inclusion -Identify socio-technical innovation bundles that can build resilience and empower farmers across the vegetable value chain -Mapping possible opportunities for women and youth participation in agricultural value chains and -Networking with key public, private, and civil society stakeholders, and providing an opportunity for experience sharing by women and youth agri-entrepreneurs. Followed a participatory approach with mixed groups of stakeholders (businesses, networks, governments, academia, and research) responding to specific questions.Our data provides insight into the bottlenecks and enablers encountered in each of the agri-business value chain phases experienced by women, youth, men, and other social categories. The different dialogues and workshops allowed the WP to:• Pinpoint where people can self-identify bottlenecks (across the value chain; see Fig 1) -for agency building, for self-identifying training needs etc • Provides insight in terms of which phases are currently dominated by activity, and which are not -links to identifying bottlenecks and solutions to moving through value chain phases • Provides insight into where certain types of bottlenecks are clustering thus preventing movement through the value chain • Helps to identify where acceleration activities will find early traction, and where more work will be required to accelerate particular solutions • Helps us to see what kind of stakeholders and partnerships could help with specific bottlenecks and provide solutions within the value chains.The specific bottlenecks affecting women and youths within the agricultural value chain can be grouped as internal and external. These challenges and opportunities emerging from across the UU and partners' activities are presented in Table 2. The contention is that needs and bottlenecks are not necessarily the same for women and youth, even though they may be considered both as 'vulnerable' groups. Even within these groupings, there is limited homogeneity as unmarried and married women may face different challenges.February 24 |A meta-analysis of social, economic and institutional bottlenecks, barriers and opportunities to more inclusive small and medium agribusiness in ESA region 10 -Encourage the formation of women and youth groups to provide windows of opportunities related to credit, farming inputs, and capacity development. -Support women and youth groups to take up leadership positions across the value chains through mentorship training programs. -Support inclusive and gender-responsive budgeting at all levels.-Existing policies on gender mainstreaming are implemented on a limited scale especially policy frameworks for gender mainstreaming in food products.-Lobby through advocacy programs for private and public institutions to share information on gender inclusion. To also implement and enforce policies that are gender-sensitive within the value chains.Youths group:-Bad road networks and high cost of transportation discourage youth from engaging in agribusiness. -Poor access to the mobile phone network is a challenge for young people who want to run online businesses for agricultural products and services. -High cost of inputs and poor storage facilities for perishables. -Lack of knowledge and skills/equipment/financial services affect farmers to create value addition of products. -Climate change impact on agriculture discourages young farmers.-Skills and knowledge of good planning to run agribusinesses. -Technical knowledge and networking -Access to machinery and equipment for value addition.-Lack of financial support and collateral for securing loans affects agribusiness. -Male dominance in leadership positions within farming associations.-Building on already existing establishments for support -Build on large labour force (80%) being women in farming. -Strengthening networking and getting recognition from governments, donors, and royal establishments. Enhance women's participation as most projects require at least 40% of women's participation.-Location/position of projects are hard to reach -Access to market and product information on what/where to produce is limited. -Lack of technical support to build skills as agripreneurs.-Poor connectivity to better markets of inputs and products -Poor coordination.-Financial support available, likewise the knowledge about agribusinessWomen:-Overburdened by domestic chores and agricultural labor which is often undervalued or not paid. -Limited capacity to act (lack of agency) and low education leaves women at low-paying activities and crops such as beans. Compared to men in high-value crops like coffee and tea.-Adequate representation of women in policy formulations to promote GESI -Sensitization of women on their self-worth and the importance of their voice to build their confidence by raising their awareness of their value-Inability for women to make decisions on income from the sale of products. -Inability to control high-nutrient produce needed for household consumption.-Difficulty in getting young people to see the opportunities that lie in agriculture. -Low level of education and engaging in low-wage laborintensive work.-Availability of training/mentorship opportunities youth (in and out of college) to improve their skills (in agriculture) and other areas. -Build on agricultural value chains that provide diversification opportunities for the youth. -Creation of awareness of gender relations and associated inequalities. -Financial inclusion of women and youth, especially those in groups that enable collective bargaining.-Sociocultural factors and lack of will to implement policies. -Limited ownership of land and other productive resources for women and youth widens the GESI gap. -Lack of appropriate role models and negative attitudes by youths about agriculture makes it hard for them to engage in the sector. -Technologies are generally not gender-responsive.-Issues of entitlement where young people are not allowed to open accounts before 18 years. -The mentality that young people are mobile and hard to plan with them or lack the necessary skills limits their survival in the agri-business sector. -People living with a disability still face stigmatization.-Set up a policy initiative desk with women and youth focal persons in each ministry. -Support the development of a national strategy on gender and education. -Build on the financial inclusion policy recently issued by the reserve bank to create youth and women banks.-Provide village-level training with affirmative actions.-Inability for women to inherit land and other basic resources due to cultural norms. -Lack of collateral to access credit impedes women's growth in agribusiness. -Time to manage triple roles, coupled with the lack of technology that supports women in managing their time.-Lack of improved seed and organic fertilizers  The different workshops and dialogues that were conducted provided insights into the challenges experienced within UU countries in East and Southern Africa. This report further acknowledges that the bottlenecks are not necessarily separate from one another and that they feed into one another and are integrated on many levels. However, by unpacking the issues into these two spheres for women and youth one may gain better insight into 1) where specific attention needs to be given to creating a knock-on solutions effect and 2) target areas for acceleration of identified solutions. Key insights have been presented separately by gender (men and women) and youths as we argue that grouping youths (young men and women) into the gender category does not allow the guide to explore specific challenges and practical steps for young people. Moreover, by disaggregating the data into youth and gender, we can develop solutions or pathways that speak directly to these needs and bottlenecks and suggest practical steps for GESI integration. This report also asks the question so what are we learning from the challenges and opportunities for women and youth in agribusiness in ESA? Drawing from the reports, some practical steps for GESI integration in agribusiness were identified and key actors as entry points for UU WPs. Table 3 presents practical steps suggested for GESI integration for WPs and identifies key actors for the uptake of relevant activities. The table highlights practical GESI steps that emerged from the different workshops and dialogues that were organized to understand how women and youth in agribusiness can be better supported. A number of the high-level discussions as noted in the table were centered on the following:-Government-centered/focus: Supportive gender affirmative policies should be formulated, designed, and implemented for women and youth following inclusive interventions such as organizing them in cooperatives and providing them with land, linking them with financial institutions, and providing them with opportunities for capacity development on proposal development, technical training, financial management, and life skill. -Land as a resource: Providing land to women and youth groups organized in cooperatives that want to engage in agri-business. As land becomes scarce, in densely populated rural and semi-urban areas, government can encourage young men and women to organize themselves into cooperatives, to enhance their engagement in agri-business. -Access to Finance: In addition to collateral, high interest rates, lack of tailored financial services for diverse social groups, short loan periods, and small loan size are also issues of concern. A practical approach will be to support women and youth to access tailored financial services for improving agribusiness activities. -Empower women and youths: Particularly focusing on capacity development such as technical training and in some cases through the provision of other agricultural input. -Gender Transformative Approaches: We can consider changing them to gender-responsive approaches. GTA is not a common practice across all levels. Rather, it is practiced only by a few institutions that commit to addressing gender issues and allocating sufficient resources. -Sex disaggregated Data: In addition, limited availability of gendered data, information, and research are also issues. Establishing and strengthening gender-related information management systems is also important.The synthesis review looks at high-level findings from across a meta-analysis of social, economic, and institutional bottlenecks, barriers, and opportunities for women and youth in agribusiness and across the different countries in ESA. In Ethiopia, documenting gendered (socio-technical) bundling options in Climate Smart Agriculture Innovations -CSA solutions tends to be overly technical. Focusing on smallholder productive agriculture (vegetable value chain work with Gender Equality and WorldVeg), the initiative (UU WP5) will undertake quantitative and qualitative studies to document how the technical need to be bundled with social innovations and outreach that address key barriers experienced by marginalized women in transitioning from high-risk, high-burden subsistence farming to inclusive CSA innovations. The WP also outlined the need to follow a Feminist Approach to Agri-enterprise Public and private sector interventions as a way of recognizing and addressing the plurality of challenges faced by marginalized women. A feminist approach to agri-enterprise will include attention to the following issues:-the increasing demand and need (male outmigration, climate impacts) for women's engagement in productive agriculture in the face of persisting gendered domestic care work, the lack of agency and voice amongst marginalized women.In Zambia, the findings echoed the need to establish a GESI agribusiness network of public, private, and grassroots stakeholders. The information will be documented in a database for use by many stakeholders. The aim is to ensure actors and partners can network with agribusiness experts, practitioners, and other professionals from related disciplines. There was a high interest in learning more about gender mainstreaming and social inclusion in agriculture value chains for the social and economic empowerment of women, youth, and other marginalized citizens in Zambia.-People living with disability Solidaridad dialogues -Advisory agents to extend services nearer to the women.-Extension workers should use local language to enable the illiterate farmers, particularly the women understand and internalize the agronomic practices and their application. -Linking women producer groups to larger supermarkets and high value chain storesRecommendations resonated with the need to have traditional rulers and other key actors be mobilized during such workshops to leverage support where they implement projects. Partners' reports (Solidaridad) in Zambia also noted the following key takeaways:To achieve systemic and transformative change, all the RS! Programme interventions, gender strategies, and related interventions must be designed on a gender-responsive inclusive market system approach, with an added focus on social and behavioral change aspects. In addition, interventions across all three commodity sectors and related value chains need to:-Strengthen advocacy targeting government and private companies for more focused investment in female small-scale farmers, and for marginalized workers to improve agriculture-based incomes. -Support youth, disabled farmers, and women at the community level to increase access to village and community funds; train women and marginalized people on literacy, numeracy, and entrepreneurship as part of a Finance and Business Literacy Program. -Facilitate increased agricultural productivity and access to markets by providing government-approved seeds, fertilizers, and small-scale technologies. -Facilitate relief for small-scale farmers of their household duties to be fully involved in all aspects of the value chain. -Support the building of strong networks and strengthen organizations supporting social inclusion integration into the value chain on the ground.In Kenya, sociocultural challenges such as historical injustices of denying women land ownership and devaluing their work require strategies that will change gender power dynamics such as having women beneficiaries from credit programs. The findings also indicated the need for men and couples from the same locality to be sensitized on how to collectively resist domestic violence against women over household credit and resources by questioning the violence, and stating that it is immoral. Hence, push strategies that complement such as training on power dynamics that engender entrenched injustices, rather than training on roles and responsibilities.In Zimbabwe, women and youth play a significant role in agricultural value chains although they encounter a myriad of challenges as highlighted in the findings. With issues around access to productive resources, including livestock, land, information, technology, credit, and education there is a need to have interventions that reduce such challenges.Major highlights from the reports noted the creation of secondary markets to consider the produce from women and youth such as sweet potatoes, and beans as well as promote value addition for crops grown by women and youth.The CGIAR Initiative on Diversification in East and Southern Africa aims to help smallholders transition to sustainably intensified, diversified, and de-risked agri-food systems based on maize in 12 ESA countries. Specifically, it seeks to enable 50,000 value chain actors, including farmers (at least 40% women, 40% youth), to adopt climate-smart maize-based intensification and diversification practices and one million to access digital agro-advisory services. Emphasizing the role of the private sector in driving such transformation, UU targets to support at least 30 startups and SMEs.This publication has been prepared as an output of the CGIAR Initiative on Diversification in East and Southern Africa and has not been independently peer-reviewed. Responsibility for editing, proofreading, layout, opinions expressed, and any possible errors lies with the authors and not the institutions involved.","tokenCount":"4867"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"151f4b41e15da576c8b7f5698a720a4f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/3dc76fe0-a622-46a2-8a1e-75cb64396dbf/retrieve","id":"-1316034901"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"db05b1e2-f937-4f9e-ad67-01dc058deace","pagecount":"2","content":"supports the U.S. Global Food Security Strategy's Feed the Future Initiative by improving the ability of non-government entities to conduct research, develop agricultural sector strategies, and develop stronger policy institutions that formulate and advocate for evidence-based reforms resulting in improved food security, nutrition, and climate resilience. The five-year, $15 million activity contributes to improving agriculture and food systems, building resilience for marginalized communities and increasing access to education for target populations in Burma.The activity engages a variety of stakeholders in planning for the future of the nation's agricultural sector and offers research, technical support, and capacity strengthening to civil society organizations, business associations, and other nongovernmental partners. By integrating the perspectives of a wide range of stakeholders in policy design and organizational reforms, MAPSA helps all people in Burma benefit from agriculture and food system development. MAPSA also works closely with local stakeholders to promote the adoption of evidence-based, thoughtfully designed and locally-driven strategies and policies, thus ensuring the long-term sustainability of agriculture-led economic growth and food security in Burma.• Improve key stakeholders's ability to carry out research and prioritize strategic reforms that improve food security and nutrition in Burma. • Engage a broad and diverse group of stakeholders in dialogue and advocacy to promote agriculture-led economic growth.• Implementing a multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary research program designed to anticipate and monitor the impacts of COVID-19 and political instability on key actors of Burma's agri-food system, and vulnerable rural and urban populations.• Hosting a platform for the Agriculture and Rural Development Sector Coordination Group to have evidence-based dialogues on the impacts of COVID-19 and political instability, and the effectiveness of recovery efforts.• Identifying constraints and opportunities in agricultural production, value chains, and markets to stimulate inclusive agribusiness and rural growth.• Researching the role of agriculture and the food systems in driving improved nutrition outcomes informing more nutrition-sensitive agricultural programs and policies.• Identifying development strategies that improve agricultural productivity, product quality, and consistency.• Improving the long-term sustainability of agricultural policy by sharing best practices and training non-government partners to effectively design, analyze, and implement policy.• Collaborating with local research institutions, private sector actors, civil society organizations, and other non-government partners to ensure policy recommendations are relevant and achievable.• MAPSA has produced over 100 publications in Burmese and English that identify how the COVID-19 pandemic and recent political instability have impacted food security and nutrition in Burma.Evidence and policy recommendations have been widely disseminated to key agriculture and food system stakeholders to influence their decisions and programs. • Prior to the February 1, 2021, coup, in response to MAPSA analysis and advocacy, the Myanmar Agriculture Development Bank provided an additional 50,000 kyat/acre for farmers ($430 million) to offset the COVID-triggered economic downturn. This analysis also provided convincing evidence to justify taking on debt from international finance institutions for activities that provided much needed support to both farm and non-farm rural households.For more information, please visit usaid.gov/burma or contact Alexander Albertine, Director USAID Economic Growth Office at aalbertine@usaid.gov.","tokenCount":"493"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"788546e90330c499dcef9250f85fd811","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a7f1d760-f7e1-4e28-b879-448673d88ba3/retrieve","id":"-645280731"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c87a786e-5180-48fd-81d7-dcda390c6bba","pagecount":"2","content":"Tecnología de bajos insumos para suelos ácidos del trópico puede ser definida como un grupo de prácticas que permitan obtener alrededor del 80% de la producción máxima de especies y variedades tolerantes a la acidez del suelo con el uso más eficiente de los suelos y de los insumos en fertilizantes. Varios componentes de esta tecnología están relativamente bien identificados e incluyen: l. Selección de Oxisoles y Ultisoles bien drenados sin pendientes pronunciadas.2. Selección de especies y variedades adaptadas con tolerancia a las toxicidades de Al y Mn así como también a bajos niveles de P.3. Uso de prácticas en la preparación de tierras que impliquen la quema y minimicen la compactación del suelo.4. Uso de técnicas agrícolas tenimiento de pasturas.de~~rak~~trb' Fimiento y man-5. Atenuar la acidez del suelo sin la aplicación masiva de cal usando germoplasma tolerante, aplicación 'de cal dolomítica para proporcionar Ca y Mg como nutrimentos y promover el movimiento de estos cationes en el • perfil hacia el subsuelo.6. Manejo del P más eficiente determinando las mejores combinaciones de niveles y métodos de colocación del fertilizante fosforado para acrecentar los efectos iniciales y residuales, métodos analíticos más sensibles para suelos ácidos, uso de rocas fosfatadas y selección de especies y variedades tolerantes a bajos niveles de P disponible.7. Maximizar el uso de la fijación de N por leguminosas en asociación con cepas de rhizobium tolerantes a la acidez del suelo.8. Aumentar la eficiencia de la fertilización nitrogenada y potásica. 9. Identificar y corregir las deficiencias de S y micronutrimentos, y finalmente 10. Promover el reciclamento de nutrimentos.Varias inquietudes han sido expresadas en el sentido de que tales prácticas pueden agotar completamente las bajas reservas de nutrimentos de Oxisoles y Ultisoles y hacerlos más improductivos. Sin embargo, un análisis de las reservas totales de nutrimentos en tales suelos, remoción de nutrimentos por cultivos y pasturas, cantidades de fertilizantes a ser aplicados y reciclaje de nutrimentos en el sistema, indican un aumento en vez de una disminución, en el estado nutricional de estos suelos. ","tokenCount":"336"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d83cf228b0203d305b4ee981dcbf4da2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5a1e7398-c4c1-4950-b23a-1739cbf02a26/retrieve","id":"-1529747303"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"30ca6d40-c2b2-46c1-8d7d-9e0741143985","pagecount":"39","content":"L'usage des plantes en médecine est très ancien. On a même découvert que les animaux sauvages utilisent instinctivement certaines plantes pour se soigner ! Aujourd'hui, pour que la médecine traditionnelle puisse porter ses fruits à une large échelle, et de manière encore plus efficace, il lui faut rencontrer la médecine dite «moderne».Les plantes médicinales font partie de l'histoire de tous les continents : en Chine et en Inde, à travers les siècles, le savoir concernant les plantes s'est organisé, documenté et a été transmis de génération en génération. Aujourd'hui, le recours à la médecine par les plantes connaît un regain d'intérêt dans les pays occidentaux, particulièrement pour traiter les déséquilibres entraînés par la vie moderne, qu'il s'agisse du stress ou des problèmes de poids. Le recours à la médecine par les plantes devient quotidien, sous forme de prévention, et n'est plus réservé au traitement des maladies.En Afrique, les comportements varient, en partie à cause de la persistance de la sorcellerie : des millions de personnes utilisent avant tout et parfois exclusivement la médecine traditionnelle, parce qu'elle demeure la plus abordable et qu'elle semble efficace. D'autre préfèrent la médecine occidentale, parce qu'ils associent médecine traditionnelle et superstition. Un chiffre global permet de se rendre compte de l'importance du recours à la médecine traditionnelle : on estime que 80 % de la population mondiale y recourt pour ses premiers soins de santé.Après avoir, pendant très longtemps, combattu la médecine traditionnelle, médecins et organismes de santé reconnaissent désormais la valeur et l'efficacité des traitements par les plantes. Elles entrent également dans la composition de médicaments dits «modernes». Par exemple l'Artemisia annua, utilisée en Chine depuis plus de deux mille ans : le principe actif de cette plante est devenu l'ingrédient essentiel des traitements contre le Paludisme. Il est désormais inscrit sur la liste des médicaments essentiels de l'OMS, après plus de 20 ans de recherches et travaux. L'Artemisia Annua est aujourd'hui cultivée en Afrique de l'Est pour fournir les marchés européens. D'autres plantes Africaines connaissent un regain d'intérêt, comme le Géranium Africain, le Prunier d'Afrique, et la Sutherlandia frutescens. Cette plante, qui ne pousse qu'en Afrique du Sud, est utilisée en complément des thérapies de lutte contre le SIDA. Par contre, d'autres plantes sont présentées comme produits « miracle » par certains charlatans qui profitent de la crédulité et du désarroi des malades (en particulier pour soigner le sida).Il est donc très important que médecine moderne et médecine traditionnelle collaborent :• afin de permettre la validation et l'amélioration des remèdes traditionnels • afin de pouvoir apprendre l'une de l'autre et se compléter, en faisant évoluer la recherche De nombreuses actions sont également menées au niveau international, par les associations et les ONG. L'organisation ANAMED (Action Médecine Naturelle) soutient la médecine naturelle à base de plantes médicinales dans les tropiques. Pour cette organisation, la médecine naturelle devrait représenter une «combinaison des avantages des systèmes de santé des pays du Nord et du Sud». Son objectif est d'aider les populations locales à tirer plus de bénéfices des plantes médicinales disponibles sur place, afin de réduire la dépendance aux produits importés.Elle incite les tradipraticiens à suivre des règles simples :Concernant les produits :• connaître et prescrire à bon escient les produits qu'ils utilisent, en tenant compte des effets secondaires des traitements qu'ils recommandent • utiliser des procédures et des matériaux scientifiquement reconnus pour la fabrication des médicaments • indiquer précisément sur les emballages leur composition et leur date de péremption Concernant les patients :• être proche de ses patients (parler la même langue et être de la même culture), et porter une attention particulière à tout ce qui peut affecter leur santé au-delà de leurs besoins immédiats • «rationnaliser» leur pratique en utilisant les termes scientifiques des plantes, et en s'abstenant de recourir à la magie Concernant l'implication des tradipraticiens dans la société et l'économie locale :• être présents partout dans le pays même dans les régions les plus rurales et les plus reculées, et pratiquer des prix que même les plus pauvres peuvent payer • utiliser des plantes disponibles localement, afin de ne subir aucun problème d'approvisionnement dû à des événements extérieurs • ne produire pratiquement aucun déchet et veiller à ce que ceux qui sont produits ne soient pas toxiques • créer des emplois locaux dans les jardins médicinaux et pour la préparation des médicaments • chercher à obtenir la reconnaissance des autorités sanitaires de leur pays et être reliés à un réseau international de praticiens de médecine naturelle Ce dossier technique n'a pas pour objectif de questionner la validité ou l'efficacité des plantes médicinales. Nous souhaitons plutôt susciter l'intérêt des communautés rurales concernant les opportunités et les possibilités offertes par la culture de ces plantes.Nous aborderons les thèmes suivants : comment inscrire les récoltes de plantes médicinales dans une agriculture durable et dans le respect de la biodiversité, les techniques de culture, la production destinée à l'industrie pharmaceutique et notamment les critères de qualité pour pouvoir exporter, et les productions à plus petite échelle. Les interviews aborderont également la question de l'intégration de la médecine traditionnelle dans les politiques de santé publique.1. Lien entre la conservation de la biodiversité des forêts et l'exploitation durable des plantes médicinales :En Afrique comme ailleurs les forêts sont menacées par l'exploitation abusive et les coupes sauvages. Les plantes médicinales qui y poussent à l'état sauvage disparaissent donc aussi rapidement, souvent pour toujours et la biodiversité s'en trouve considérablement diminuée. Dans l'interview sur ce sujet provenant de Côte d'Ivoire, le professeur Avoni-Koblan, naturothérapeute, fondateur du Centre de recherches en biomédecine africaine, fait deux recommandations essentielles : il faut d'abord développer les espaces protégés comme les parcs nationaux. Comme il le fait remarquer, en Côte d'Ivoire comme ailleurs en Afrique francophone, les parcs et réserves naturelles ne sont pas bien respectés et on trouve souvent des plantations de cacao en pleine réserve naturelle ! La seule façon d'empêcher cela c'est de donner de vrais moyens aux responsables chargés de protéger ces espaces naturels. Pour l'instant c'est loin d'être le cas. Ensuite, selon lui, l'un des meilleurs moyens de protéger la forêt et la biodiversité est de promouvoir la culture des plantes médicinales. Comme il le dit, il faut domestiquer certaines plantes pour laisser la forêt sauvage à son état sauvage et à son rôle de réserve de biodiversité (Pour l'exploitation durable des plantes médicinales, respecter les espaces protégés).C'est une question à laquelle plusieurs interviews se réfèrent dans cette série (1-Pour l'exploitation durable des plantes médicinales, respecter les espaces protégés 2 -Culture ou cueillette ? 3 -Artemisia Annua, un espoir pour l'Afrique mais une plante difficile à cultiver) parce qu'elle est à la fois extrêmement importante et particulièrement d'actualité. Les avantages de la culture des plantes médicinales sont en effet évidents :• Disponibilité des plantes sans besoin d'aller dans la forêt détruire les espèces ;• Apports substantiels de revenus pour les paysans qui les cultivent ;• Disponibilité prévisible des plantes médicinales au moment voulu et en quantité voulue ; • Disponibilité et protection des plantes actuellement rares ou en voie de disparition dans la nature ; • Contrôle plus facile de la qualité, de la sécurité et de la propreté des plantes.• Perte possible des valeurs culturelles associées à la cueillette des plantes médicinales;• Réduction possible de l'efficacité du principe actif des plantes cultivées par rapport aux plantes poussant à l'état sauvage; • Contamination génétique possible des espèces locales à travers l'introduction de plantes étrangères au pool génétique local.Quoi qu'il en soit, beaucoup de tradipraticiens commencent à admettre que la culture des plantes médicinales est la solution à la disparition de beaucoup de plantes médicinales (Culture ou cueillette ?), une disparition qui a deux causes essentielles : l'urbanisation galopante et l'exploitation non durable des plantes en question notamment par un arrachage sauvage des racines ou des écorces. Mais la stratégie de culture des plantes les plus rares en particulier doit s'accompagner d'une gestion judicieuse des plantes sauvages (Le rôle positif de l'Etat : le Mali à l' avant-garde) et également de croisements entre plantes sauvages et plantes cultivées à partir de sources locales.Une question qui n'est pas abordée dans cette série mais qu'il est important de considérer est la taille optimale des exploitations et des plantations de plantes médicinales pour qu'elles soient rentables. Suffit-il de cultiver de petites surfaces (Culture ou cueillette ?) ou faut-il se diriger vers des plantations de taille commerciale mesurant plusieurs hectares ? Des études de marché sont également nécessaires avant de commencer toute culture pour considérer les débouchés locaux (Le projet APM au Sénégal : agir tout au long de la filière).Les techniques de culture des plantes médicinales ne diffèrent pas beaucoup de celles des autres plantes pour lesquelles il faut considérer le type de sol, la disponibilité en eau, la susceptibilité aux parasites, etc. Mais certaines plantes médicinales sont particulièrement difficiles à cultiver, comme Artemisia Annua, très efficace pour prévenir le paludisme ( Artemisia Annua, un espoir pour l'Afrique mais une plante difficile à cultiver) mais qui exige beaucoup d'eau et de soins et pour laquelle l'usage de pesticides n'est pas recommandé.Les tradipraticiens qui font usage des plantes médicinales utilisent non seulement plusieurs parties des plantes (racines, feuilles, fruits, fleurs, écorces) mais également une grande variété de plantes (arbres, lianes, buissons, herbes). Comme on l'a mentionné plus haut, l'urbanisation galopante et de mauvaises pratiques de cueillette ont conduit à la raréfaction de certaines espèces. De bonnes pratiques de cueillette sont essentielles et obéissent à certaines règles très précises ( Le projet APM au Sénégal : agir tout au long de la filière et De la récolte à la vente : comment bien conserver le principe actif des plantes).Les techniques durables de récolte des écorces, racines et feuilles doivent donc prendre en considération les facteurs suivants :• Les exigences des consommateurs, autrement dit la demande concernant cette plante ;• La disponibilité et l'état de la plante ;• La partie de la plante qui fait l'objet de la récolte, autrement dit le fait que la récolte est susceptible de tuer la plante ; • La réponse spécifique de chaque plante à telle ou telle technique de récolte : par exemple certains arbres résistent très bien à la récolte de leur écorce alors que d'autres meurent tout de suite ; • Le taux de production de la ressource et la vitesse de régénération de telle ou telle plante ou de l'écorce de tel ou tel arbre ; • Les alternatives possibles pour le développement d'autres ressources similaires ; • Le système foncier au sein duquel pousse la ressource, notamment les forêts ;• La législation en vigueur pour l'exploitation de telle ou telle ressource.L'interview provenant du Cameroun (De la récolte à la vente : comment bien conserver le principe actif des plantes) est celle d'un industriel exportant des plantes médicinales à l'état brut. Autrement dit, il ne s'agit pas de médicaments mais encore de plantes, ce qui pose bien sûr des problèmes spécifiques puisque c'est souvent dans le transport que les plantes médicinales s'abîment et perdent leur principe actif. Il est donc capital de savoir à quel moment on doit récolter, comment on doit transporter les plantes pour éviter toute contamination et comment les sécher pour préserver la qualité et la quantité de matière active.L'exportation de plantes médicinales à l'état brut est un secteur en constante expansion car la demande mondiale, en particulier en provenance d'Europe (surtout d'Allemagne), du Japon, de Corée et des Etats-Unis ne fait qu'augmenter. En 2002, les Etats-Unis seuls ont importé plus de 200 000 tonnes de plantes médicinales à l'état brut pour l'industrie pharmaceutique. Le potentiel économique est donc énorme au niveau mondial et l'Afrique est après la Chine le deuxième exportateur mondial de plantes médicinales mais il n'existe pas de statistiques spécifiques à chaque pays africain. D'après les estimations faites par l'OMS, c'est l'Egypte et le Soudan qui sont les plus gros exportateurs en Afrique.Le rôle de l'Etat et du législateur est capital dans la promotion des plantes médicinales. Dans cette série, vous pourrez constater la différence d'approche entre deux pays pourtant voisins, le Mali et le Sénégal. Le premier, le Mali, fait figure de pionnier en la matière puisque dès le lendemain des indépendances, le gouvernement malien créait, en 1968, un Institut de recherche sur les plantes médicinales. A l'époque, cette initiative avait été extrêmement critiquée autant au Mali qu'à l'étranger parce que les savoirs locaux ancestraux n'étaient pas valorisés comme ils le sont maintenant. Depuis, le Mali continue à promouvoir activement les plantes médicinales en travaillant avec les tradipraticiens et à faciliter l'intégration des deux médecines, traditionnelle et moderne. (Le rôle positif de l'Etat : le Mali à l'avant-garde). La dernière réglementation date de mars 2007 où le législateur malien a énuméré et réglementé les différents types de cueillette. Par contraste, le Sénégal tarde à réagir et la loi régularisant l'usage des plantes médicinales, prête depuis deux ou trois ans, reste dans un tiroir malgré l'action de lobbying de nombreuses ONG de terrain et le fait que près de 85% de la population fait usage des plantes médicinales qui sont notamment vendues en pharmacie … de façon illégale ! (Le projet APM au Sénégal : agir tout au long de la filière).En dehors de l'usage local pour les remèdes traditionnels, de la fabrication locale de médicaments essentiels ou de leur exportation vers les industries pharmaceutiques occidentales ou asiatiques, les plantes médicinales sont également utilisées pour la fabrication de cosmétiques ou celle d'huiles essentielles en aromathérapie.Une huile essentielle est un liquide concentré, hydrophobique, qui contient les composés aromatiques volatiles d'une plante. Ces huiles sont obtenues par distillation et doivent être utilisées et diluées dans de l'huile pour les massages ou alors brûlées comme de l'encens. L'aromathérapie est une forme de médecine douce dont les effets thérapeutiques sont attribués aux composés aromatiques des huiles essentielles et des extraits de plantes. Elle connaît un engouement croissant en Europe et commence à être connue également en Afrique à des fins médicinales.Au Bénin par exemple, l'huile de citronnelle et l'huile d'Eucalyptus, pour lutter contre les moustiques ou pour le traitement de la toux, sont tellement demandées que la fabricante interviewée n'arrive pas à satisfaire la demande. Le potentiel économique des huiles essentielles faites à base de plantes médicinales est donc important autant pour les paysans qui cultivent la matière première que pour les producteurs d'huile. (Huiles essentielles : un secteur porteur pour les plantes médicinales).Le projet APM, qui signifie « appropriation des plantes médicinales », est un projet initié par l'ONG sénégalaise ENDA. (Le projet APM au Sénégal : agir tout au long de la filière). C'est un projet modèle à plusieurs égards : d'abord il engage exclusivement des groupements de femmes, leur permettant ainsi d'exercer une activité économique autonome et d'obtenir des Les plantes médicinales revenus non négligeables. Ensuite c'est un projet qui intervient à tous les niveaux de la filière des plantes médicinales : au niveau de la culture et de la récolte d'abord, au niveau de la conservation, transformation et commercialisation ensuite et même enfin au niveau des conditions de vente par les herboristes dans les marchés. Les plantes médicinales sont donc suivies du producteur au consommateur. Ceci est très rare en Afrique et les difficultés qui se présentent au niveau de la conservation après la récolte, de la transformation ou encore des conditions de vente souvent insalubres dans les marchés constituent les principaux problèmes qui se posent pour l'efficacité des remèdes traditionnels.Comme toujours, les interviews que nous vous proposons ne sont que des exemples de ce qui se fait dans certains pays et sur certains aspects de la question des plantes médicinales mais la série est loin d'être exhaustive. Nous vous recommandons donc de compléter ces interviews par des informations plus spécifiques à votre contexte local ou par d'autres interviews ou débats sur les aspects qui ne sont pas traités ici.Lien entre la conservation de la biodiversité et l'exploitation durable des plantes médicinales Dans l'interview réalisée en Côte d'Ivoire, deux solutions sont proposées pour conserver la biodiversité des plantes médicinales : la protection des espaces protégés et la domestication, autrement dit la culture, des plantes médicinales, surtout les plus rares. S'il existe dans votre pays des parcs ou des réserves naturelles, il serait intéressant d'en inviter les responsables pour voir de quels moyens ils disposent pour faire respecter la réglementation. Dans bien des cas, ils doivent surveiller d'immenses espaces et ne disposent que de très peu de moyens humains et financiers.Il serait également intéressant de connaître le point de vue des tradipraticiens par rapport à la cueillette des plantes médicinales dans les forêts classées, les bois sacrés ou les forêts domaniales. En effet, dans de nombreux pays, l'usage qui est fait des ressources forestières et la loi stricte ne vont pas forcément bien ensemble. Donc un débat réunissant des tradipraticiens, des agents des eaux et forêts et des chefs de village pourrait être particulièrement instructif et inciter les autorités à régulariser la situation.On entend souvent, et notamment dans plusieurs interviews de cette série, des informations contradictoires concernant les techniques de cueillette, les anciens étant accusés de ne pas employer des méthodes durables et d'arracher les plantes de façon anarchique (c'est le cas de l'interview faite au Burkina) alors que d'autres personnes, comme celle interviewée au Mali, affirment que les anciens respectent au contraire beaucoup plus la nature et aussi les plantes. Plusieurs interviews de thérapeutes villageois pourraient jeter la lumière sur les pratiques courantes dans votre pays. Ainsi il serait bon de compléter ces interviews sur les techniques durables de cueillette : pourquoi alors ne pas inviter un forestier qui pourrait parler de la vitesse de régénération des écorces de différents arbres par exemple, des bons outils à utiliser, des mesures de contrôle et de surveillance à mettre en place pour une régénération satisfaisante et des précautions essentielles lorsque les écorces sont récoltées. Il faudrait cependant ajouter à cette interview le point de vue des utilisateurs : ceux qui récoltent l'écorce, ceux qui la vendent et ceux qui en font des médicaments.La culture des plantes médicinales C'est là un sujet très important dont de nombreux aspects n'ont pu être traités dans cette série d'émissions. Il serait bon par exemple de compléter les interviews présentes par d'autres, portant par exemple sur la façon de s'y prendre si l'on veut commencer à cultiver des plantes médicinales : quelles plantes choisir et pour quelles raisons (rendement maximum, rapidité de pousse, facilité de culture), où s'adresser pour se procurer les plants, quelles précautions prendre pour telle ou telle plante, quels sont les débouchés possibles sur le marché local, national ou même international, doit-on les vendre à l'état brut ou déjà séchées ou broyées, à partir de quelle quantité la production commerciale des plantes médicinales est-elle rentable, etc. Un débat en studio ou un documentaire pourraient suivre toutes les étapes nécessaires que doit suivre un paysan qui veut se lancer dans la culture des plantes médicinales.Il est aussi important de connaître les techniques appropriées de conservation des plantes, à l'état brut ou ayant subi quelques transformations, que les bonnes techniques de cueillette ou de culture. L'interview de cette série provenant du Sénégal explique la façon dont le projet APM-ENDA a travaillé avec les herboristes pour leur procurer des cantines pour bien ranger leurs produits et donc éviter les mélanges potentiellement dangereux et les réactions chimiques entre les plantes. Une enquête dans un marché comportant plusieurs interviews d'herboristes pour voir ce qui se fait à leur niveau serait intéressante et pourrait être complétée par quelques micros-trottoirs faisant intervenir des utilisateurs pour savoir si ils ou elles sont conscients des dangers potentiels des mélanges et aussi de la perte d'efficacité des principes actifs des plantes si elles sont mal conservées.Il serait donc très utile de compléter les interviews contenues dans cette série par d'autres interviews portant sur les processus de conservation, transformation et emballage des plantes médicinales. En général, les herboristes traditionnels vendent les plantes sous trois formes : produits frais ou séchés mais entiers, produits broyés et enfin extraits bouillis dans l'eau. Les emballages varient de la feuille de papier journal au sachet en plastique en passant par la bouteille en verre recyclée. Les herboristes ne mettent pratiquement jamais d'étiquettes sur leurs produits. Une fois ces pratiques évoquées par le présentateur, il serait intéressant d'inviter un scientifique qui puisse en énoncer les inconvénients :• Les produits bruts, qui ne sont pas stabilisés, sont donc périssables et les plantes perdent leur principes actifs ; • Certaines plantes ne sont efficaces qu'à certaines périodes de l'année ;• Les extraits bouillis varient en concentration et le risque est donc l'overdose pour certaines plantes qui contiennent des produits chimiques potentiellement toxiques à haute dose ; • Les emballages artisanaux exposent les plantes à des contaminations de toutes sortes ;• Les produits qui ne présentent ni leur provenance ni aucun étiquetage n'inspirent pas confiance aux consommateurs des villes de plus en plus sophistiqués.Il serait aussi intéressant de découvrir s'il y a des projets ressemblant au Projet APM-ENDA dans votre pays ou si certaines ONG sont actives pour la formation des tradipraticiens, notamment en matière de dosage de leurs produits.Cet aspect n'est pas traité dans cette série d'interviews car il s'agit plutôt d'un sujet touchant à la santé mais étant donné que le dosage exact des plantes médicinales est souvent le point faible des tradipraticiens, il serait sans doute bon d'inviter un pharmacien ou un pharmacologiste qui puisse informer les auditeurs sur les différents facteurs qui ont une influence sur le dosage à prescrire :• Le poids du patient : même chez les adultes, les dosages sont différents selon qu'il s'agit de quelqu'un de grand et de fort ou de quelqu'un de petit et maigre ; • La gravité de la maladie ou de la condition à soigner. Si la maladie est en phase aigüe, la plante doit sans doute être administrée à intervalles fréquents et en dose d'attaque. Des maladies chroniques exigent sans doute un dosage plus doux et moins fréquent ; • La nature de la plante : certaines plantes médicinales peuvent être ingérées plusieurs fois par jour sans effets secondaires tandis que pour d'autres l'effet combiné de plusieurs prises en peu de temps peut présenter des dangers ; • La vitesse d'absorption : certaines préparations comme les teintures sont très vite absorbées par l'organisme et nécessitent des prises fréquentes pour maintenir l'effet curatif. D'autres au contraire, comme les pilules, gélules et cachets doivent d'abord être digérés par l'estomac et mettent davantage de temps à agir : les doses seront plus importantes mais moins fréquentes;Les circonstances particulières relatives au patient : certains médicaments à base de plantes sont déconseillés aux femmes enceintes, aux hyper-tendus ou à ceux qui prennent certains autres médicaments dont il faut connaître les incompatibilités.Les plantes médicinales sont comme leur nom l'indique surtout utilisées en médecine et en pharmacie mais aussi en aromathérapie (qui est l'utilisation des huiles essentielles pour se soigner), en cosmétique, pour éloigner les moustiques, et même dans l'industrie où certaines plantes sont utilisées en extraits comme désodorisants. L'interview de cette série faite au Bénin sur les huiles essentielles vous donne un exemple d'usage de plantes médicinales dans les huiles essentielles. Les huiles essentielles sont utilisées pour soigner toutes sortes de maux : par exemple l'huile de lavande est calmante, utile contre les insomnies, l'anxiété et les maux de tête. Elle est aussi cicatrisante pour les plaies, les brûlures et les piqûres d'insectes et bénéfique pour les problèmes de peau en général, telles l'acné et les dermatoses. L'huile de « tea-tree » est un puissant anti-infectieux et un antiviral qui renforce les défenses immunitaires. Elle soulage les piqûres d'insectes et les coups de soleil et désinfecte les blessures. Elle traite efficacement les infections ORL et broncho-pulmonaires. Mais quelles sont les pratiques dans votre pays ? Une petite enquête auprès de naturopathes serait judicieuse et pourrait par exemple donner des idées à certains des entrepreneurs voulant exporter.Ici il s'agit simplement d'inviter un représentant du ministère de la Santé de votre pays et de l'interroger sur les lois régissant l'usage, l'exploitation et la commercialisation des plantes médicinales. Comme on le voit dans cette série, les exemples du Mali et du Sénégal montrent que les approches sont radicalement différentes d'un pays à l'autre. Qu'en est-il dans votre pays ? Et quelle est la marge de tolérance par rapport à la loi ? Mettre face à face des tradithérapeutes, des usagers des plantes médicinales et un représentant des autorités pourrait permettre des avancées en matière de reconnaissance officielle de la médecine traditionnelle, si ce n'est pas déjà le cas dans votre pays. 1 -Culture ou cueillette ? 4'57 La leçon des jardins botaniques : les avantages de la culture des plantes médicinales dépassent de loin ceux de la cueillette.Laisser la forêt à son rôle de réservoir de la biodiversité et domestiquer les plantes médicinales rares sont des solutions d'avenir pour notre environnement.4'58 La cueillette des fruits, fleurs, écorces et racines a toujours un rôle important mais dans le respect de certaines règles.Pour la conservation, certaines règles et principes doivent également être respectés.6'10 Dès 1968, le Mali légiférait pour réglementer l'exploitation des plantes médicinales. Il fait toujours figure de pionnier.La cosmétique et l'aromathérapie s'intéressent tout autant que la médecine et la pharmacie aux plantes médicinales.3'58 une plante difficile à cultiver L'artémisine, maintenant inscrite sur la liste des médicaments essentiels de l'OMS, est extraite de cette plante d'origine chinoise qui fait de timides débuts en Afrique.Ce projet soutient les acteurs à tous les niveaux : cueillette, culture, conservation, transformation, commercialisation et même vente dans les marchés.CHAPEAU Il semble plus facile, moins fatigant et meilleur marché d'aller faire la cueillette des plantes médicinales dans la forêt ou dans la savane lorsqu'on en a besoin. Mais quand les plantes disparaissent, que faire ? Beaucoup de tradipraticiens commencent à admettre que la culture des plantes médicinales est la solution. Un moyen de cultiver les plantes médicinales à petite échelle consiste à créer des jardins botaniques. C'est ce que fait Jean-Marie Compaoré, tradipraticien et phytothérapeute burkinabé qui répond aux questions d'Adama Zongo.   Pour une récolte de feuilles, généralement cela se fait le matin de très bonne heure ou en fin d'après midi quand il fait moins chaud. Cette récolte-là obéit uniquement à la concentration maximale en principe actif qui, on le sait, se fait au niveau des plantes le matin très tôt ou en fin d'après midi.Et pour les racines ?Pour les racines c'est à peu près disons la même période sauf que pendant la période hivernale, il est conseillé de ne pas récolter la plante et les racines en hivernage parce qu'effectivement il y a une abondance en termes de concentration en eau et là ce serait bien peut-être de récolter les plantes quand il fait vraiment sec et quand il fait un peu chaud.Et pour les écorces ? On va prendre l'exemple du baobab. Parce que l'intérêt c'est que, un paysan qui écoute, ça peut l'aider.Toute plante devrait être récoltée très tôt avant le lever du soleil. Dans ces conditions, la sève est encore en surface c'est-à-dire au niveau de la plante, au niveau des branches, des feuilles. Mais dans la journée avec le soleil, tout ce qui est comme sève redescend dans le tronc et va dans le sol.Quand la sève descend et qu'on récolte les écorces qu'est-ce que cela a comme conséquence sur le produit ?Comme conséquence, la sève contient la matière active donc quand elle est accumulée dans l'écorce même, la matière active est plus importante.Et une fois la plante récoltée qu'est-ce que vous respectez également comme exigences ?Les exigences c'est que le produit ne soit pas mélangé à des contaminants c'est-à-dire l'essence, le pétrole, et tout ce qui est acide, même l'huile, tout ce qu'on peut considérer comme corps étranger, et que le produit soit transporté dans des conditions saines.Et au niveau du séchage est-ce qu'il y a également des conditions qu'il faut respecter ?Le séchage, c'est mieux qu'on le fasse à la température ambiante, pas d'exposition au soleil parce que les rayons du soleil détruisent également la matière active, donc en séchant à l'ombre sans exposition directe au soleil, la matière active est préservée.Les conditions que vous venez d'énumérer ça concerne quels produits exactement ?Çà concerne plus exactement les écorces comme le yoyimbé et le pygeum.Comment faites-vous pour savoir que vos fournisseurs ont respecté ces conditions de récolte ?Nous avons des contrôleurs de chantier. Quand ils ouvrent des chantiers nous envoyons des contrôleurs dans les chantiers pour pouvoir contrôler.Maintenant quand c'est séché, est-ce qu'il y a d'autres conditions qu'il faut respecter pour pouvoir envoyer au client ?Oui il y a certains clients qui demandent le pré-broyage, nous avons une unité pour faire le broyage. Nous pouvons broyer les écorces, permettant au client de faire uniquement l'extraction. Fin de la bande. Et quels sont ces critères ?Et bien ces critères … Le premier critère c'était que ça soit des groupements fonctionnels où il y avait un Bureau qui avait été élu, que le Bureau se réunisse régulièrement et que ces groupements-là s'adonnent vraiment à la culture en général, à l'agriculture ; et aussi un autre critère c'était que ce groupement-là ait, disons, de la terre. Donc ça, ça a été un critère qui a quand même éliminé beaucoup de groupements. Et ces trois groupements qui sont restés donc remplissaient à peu près les critères qui avaient été définis.Et où en est le projet aujourd'hui ?Et bien aujourd'hui on continue sous une autre appellation, c'est-à-dire APM, ou appropriation des plantes médicinales, et dans ce programme-là, il y a disons trois objectifs spécifiques. Le premier objectif spécifique c'est donc de renforcer la capacité des groupements de femmes dans la culture et la récolte des plantes médicinales. Le deuxième c'est vraiment de renforcer les capacités dans la conservation, la commercialisation et la transformation des plantes médicinales. Et le troisième objectif c'est de contribuer à l'amélioration des conditions de vente dans les marchés par les herboristes, c'est-à-dire comment amener ces herboristes-là à respecter les conditions d'hygiène et de salubrité dans la vente des plantes médicinales.On va prendre les objectifs un par un : vous avez parlé de renforcer la capacité des femmes en matière de culture. Comment cela se traduit-il ?Et bien c'est juste un transfert disons de compétences. Nous avons eu à faire des essais de culture sur Cassia italica et sur Euphorbia hirta et nous avons donc établi un itinéraire pour la culture de ces plantes-là. Quand je parle d'itinéraire technique, c'est surtout le processus qui part donc du choix d'abord du terrain, de la préparation du terrain, du semis jusqu'à la récolte. Tout cela a été étudié et les données ont été transférées aux populations qui maîtrisent aujourd'hui la culture des plantes médicinales.Le deuxième objectif c'est encore le renforcement de capacités mais dans la conservation ?Effectivement là aussi ce sont des séances de formation : comment conserver les plantes médicinales. A partir du moment où on a récolté, comment faire le séchage de manière vraiment adéquate et comment conserver les plantes de façon à ce qu'il n'y ait pas de détérioration par rapport à ce qu'on cherche. Dans le deuxième objectif, il y a aussi la transformation. On sait que ces deux plantes-là, aussi bien Cassia italica qu'Euphorbia hirta, sont aujourd'hui transformées sur place au niveau des groupements et qu'une partie de la production est vendue sur place. Donc ce qu'on est en train de faire aujourd'hui, c'est d'essayer d'améliorer un peu les conditions de vente c'està-dire comment améliorer l'emballage afin que ces femmes-là puissent vendre directement avec une traçabilité de ces produits-là. Je crois que c'est important quand on vend des plantes médicinales d'avoir une certaine traçabilité c'est-à-dire que le client qui achète le produit sache que ce produitlà vient de tel ou tel autre groupement, où ça a été cultivé, avoir le nom du responsable du groupement, ça je pense que c'est important. Chaque groupement va cultiver, va transformer et aura un petit label.Et l'emballage vient d'où ?Et bien l'emballage, c'est des petits sachets qu'elles ont pour l'instant parce que la production n'est pas aussi importante que ça. On a même dans le programme un projet de mettre en place une unité de production de médicaments à base de plantes. Mais je crois que pour l'instant nous en sommes à une petite amélioration des conditions de vente parce que, disons, la production n'est pas si importante que ça. ","tokenCount":"5380"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"61de16e09ab65f4bdb7a34f8f8ec3d0f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c159e18c-2fdb-4e6b-af37-0b846050cd2d/retrieve","id":"-1177900802"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"dbb65187-6df4-4dc4-8ded-43295aa29103","pagecount":"32","content":"Our sincerest thanks to all key stakeholders and members of the Pursat Multi-Stakeholder Platform (MSP) from relevant Government Agencies, academics and research organizations, local authorities, community-based organizations, and other individuals for their active contribution to the project.The following individuals/firms have received this document: MK16 recognizes the strong linkages between research and effective water management are required to minimize conflicts and competition that may occur between key stakeholders including; irrigated agriculture, hydropower, domestic water supply and sanitation, fisheries etc. In addition, MK16 recognizes that strategies exist to translate integrated water resources management (IWRM) into governance practices. This can be achieved by improving planning and management of water resources by taking into account the competition for and conflicts over water. Such integrated planning can lead to multi-purpose storage reservoirs and other infrastructure projects, water allocation systems, and river operations that try to accommodate a wide range of users.MK16 is implemented in a single sub-catchment of Tonle Sap basin in western Cambodia, the Stung Pursat. The project sought to address and/or improve three aspects of water management: (a) cross-sectoral collaboration in the management of water resources; (b) use of data or scientific analyses to inform water management in Cambodia; and (c) institutional mechanisms for intersectoral management, or interpretation and use of existing or new scientific data.The Stakeholder Analysis Report was prepared before the first Multi-Stakeholder Platform Meeting which took place in Pursat City on January 24-25, 2013. The report was finalized in March 2013. This Report \"Conflict/Difference and Power Relation Analysis in Pursat Catchment\" builds on the stakeholder analysis report.The MK16 report analyses stakeholder roles, relationships, and views on water resources management in Cambodia in general, and Pursat specifically, for developing good IWRM structures that incorporates a shared understanding of the reality and complexity of different stakeholder interests and relationships. The analysis is designed to examine the degree of consistency or disparity between different stakeholders, and between formal stakeholder roles and actual practices.The Conflict/Difference and Power Relation Analysis in Pursat Catchment addresses the following research questions:1.What are the key stakeholder roles, relationships, and perceptions in existing water governance arrangements, and how consistent are these perceptions among different stakeholders at different levels?What are the consistencies and inconsistencies between formal stakeholder roles and actual practices?The analysis was built on the stakeholder typology described in the Stakeholder Analysis Report (March 2013) that differentiated possible groups or actors that: consume resource(s)/control the site; benefit from the use of resource(s)/targeted schemes; have rights and responsibilities over the use and management of the targeted resource(s)/schemes; and have decision making power.Tonle Sap Stakeholders at Various Scales.This above structure was used to develop a stakeholder typology, determine power relative positions, identify existing capacity for MSP and identify requirements for strengthening participatory IWRM in Pursat specifically and Cambodia generally.Table 1 and Table 2 below summarizes and briefly describes major stakeholders, grouped according to stakeholder type (e.g., resource users/primary stakeholders and regulators/secondary stakeholders).  Tension between upstream and downstream communities manifest in different ways: 1. Tension arises when upstream communities close irrigation gates for water withdrawal. This results in a reaction from downstream communities worried this activity may impact their ability to meet irrigation requirements. To avoid conflict better collaboration through, for example, an agreement on water allocation, adapting timing and farming calendar; and 2.In the dry season, most downstream communities (below national highway 5) face water shortages and turbid water, due to low flows, upstream diversions, and inter-sub-basin diversions (e.g. from Pursat to Svay Don Keo).Communities living adjacent to the project sites Using Damnak Ampil reservoir as an example, the two communes -Roloksor (downstream) and Bac Chhonchean (upstream) -face similar challenges. These include reservoir water inundating river-bank gardens and paddy fields, and restricted access to water (for paddy fields which are higher than the water surface level) due to the high costs of pumping water. Affected communities at the Dam 3 and Dam 5 project sites have been waiting for the implementation of the resettlement plan and land compensation, pending decision from the Ministry of Economy and Finance (Personal communication of Phnum Kravanh District Governor, 2013).China Funding ($66Million) Korng Dong Construction Company China has become a leading grant and soft loan provider in Cambodia, and in Pursat. Pursat 3 and 5 are in an advanced stage of development (20% construction completion expected in the next 2-3 years). Pursat 3 storage capacity will be about 25.5 MCM, and Pursat 5 will be about 24.5 MCM. Some villages were subject to involuntary resettlement.Korean company conducting prefeasibility study with China as a potential developer.The Pursat 1 dam feasibility study is being conducted by a Korean Company. Three options for the dam location and designs were proposed.Alternative 2 appears to be the leading contender, with an effective storage capacity of 992.5 MCM with an installed capacity of 40-70MW. MOWRAM included Pursat Dam 1 in its Basin Development Plan produced by K-Water in 2008. MOWRAM inputs included development for both hydro-electric generation and irrigation. However, this was abandoned for the hydropower alternative studied by Korean Company for MIME as a single purpose dam.Japan Funding JICA has been heavily involved in Cambodia in many sectors (water, irrigation, road and bridge, and education etc.). In Pursat, JICA is supporting irrigation improvement in Western Tonle Sap. It is divided into 3 sub-projects for irrigation rehabilitation and improvement in Bang Knar (tributary of Pursat), Wat Chre, and Wat Luong.4 Sand-mine developers Three major sand mining operators There are three medium scale operators in the upper stretches of the river, in Kravanh District and Pursat Town. There are concerns about changes in morphological conditions from downstream communities, particularly related to increased turbidity caused by disturbances to the riverbed and potential changes in flow direction and velocity, and about proper monitoring of mining activities and the license approval process.+ numerous smaller sand mining groups are waiting for licensing.Pursat is attracting many private companies that are investing in the agriculture sector; companies have purchased 800-100 hectares of land.Major crops include rice, sugar palm, sweet potatoes, sesame, beans, mixed vegetables, corn and cassava. In total, there are about 1,000 private enterprises in Pursat, including manufacturing industries, ice factories, drinking water companies, soft drink producer, and horticulture.Parts of Pursat province have been allocated to a range of concessions (agricultural concessions, economic land concessions and social concessions; as well as mining exploration leases and possibly exploitation agreements) 1 .1 A very large land concession allocated to Pheapimex located in the lowlands to the north and east of Phnom Aural.   Administer international collaborations, including those within the Mekong River basin. MOWRAM has been preparing a sub-decree on procedures describing the; Establishment, Dissolution, Roles and Obligations of Farmer Water User Communities (FWUCs), a sub-decree on river basin management (RBM), and two sub-decrees (licensing/water allocation and water quality). The adoption of RBM into law will certainly lead to a broader look at river basin management in many key catchments, and potentially can be a good entry point for our outcomes from this study to be used. In Pursat Basin, MOWRAM is regulating and implementing multi-purpose reservoirs (e.g. Dam 3 and 5 which are now being implemented), and through provincial departments (PDOWRAM), operating and managing reservoirs and main irrigation canals; providing support to the Farmer and Water Users Communities (FWUCs), and approving and monitoring sand mining activities. MOWRAM is searching for possible mechanisms to improve coordination and information sharing with MIME in designing and operating cascade of dams and water diversion. MOWRAM and MAFF are jointly responsible for the development and implementation of the Strategy for Agriculture and Water (SAW).The Tonle Sap Authority is an Inter-Ministerial and Agencies Coordination body for the Tonle Sap Basin. Its main mission is to coordinate the management, protection, conservation and development of water and other related resources in the Mekong River basin. Similar to other National Mekong Committees of Mekong River Commission (MRC) Member countries that play critical roles in the effective implementation of 1995 Mekong Agreement and preparation and implementation of other related MRC projects and programmes. TSA draws its members from the sub-national level and from relevant National Agencies. Its geographic scope is limited to the Tonle Sap Basin located within the National Roads 5 and 6. Its role in coordination for the whole Tonle Sap may be worth revisiting. Formulates policy, strategy and planning for the industrial, mining, and power sectors, and urban and city water supply authorities;  Provides water supply to provincial towns;  Drafts policies and strategies on urban water supply and sanitation; and  Administration of hydropower projects whose main objective is electricity generation. In Pursat Basin, MIME is regulating and implementing single purpose hydropower dams (e.g. Pursat 1 [currently in the advanced pre-feasibility stage] and Pursat 2). MIME is searching for a proper mechanism for co-approval of sand-mining licenses.   Participate in the preparation of land reform and utilization policies;  Establish agriculture sector development plans;  Co-ordinate monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of policies and activities for agriculture development; Propose legislation and regulations related to the management, maintenance and protection of natural resources in the agriculture sector, and monitor implementation;  Evaluate and develop human resources required for agriculture development by increasing technical skills and know-how, and ensure effective use of these human resources;  Support and advise farmers on technologies to increase productivity;  Establish guiding principles and monitor implementation to enhance and improve involvement of relevant professional organizations and associations involved in the agriculture sector;  Provide advice on agricultural land development, soil quality improvements and appropriate utilization of land, seeds, breeds, fertilizers, chemicals appropriate for different environmental and climatic conditions to increase yields and environmental sustainability;  Co-ordinate and co-operate with internal and external organizations and NGOs involved in agricultural development;  Develop policies and strategies for agriculture, forestry and fisheries related to the management of water resources; and  Manage forests (which have relevance to the condition of watersheds, hydrological regimes and water quality).MOWRAM and MAFF are jointly responsible for the development and implementation of the Strategy for Agriculture and Water (SAW).The FA manages forests and forest resources according to the National Forestry Sector Policy and the Forestry Law to ensure sustainable management of forests throughout Cambodia. In Pursat, the FA undertook inventories of NTFPs at the district level, managed exploitation of annual timber harvestings, and supported the villagers especially where community-protected areas are established.Fisheries   Figure 2 describes the characteristics of stakeholders, and the benefits and risks plotted on two axis; 1) Level of influence, and 2) Sensitivity to impacts. These two axis are used to place different stakeholders according to the level of influence or power over the system and their sensitivity to changes in the system. The value of such a typology lies in providing insights into the relative positions of stakeholders in water governance and management. It is important to understand the complexity of: interests and motivations; power relations; evaluations and predictions of impacts; and, human capacity assessments, and their comparative influence (power) and interests (extent of being affected) within this system. The Figure above shows a complex landscape that includes a wide range of public, private and community level actors. The y-(or vertical) axis ranges from highly sensitive groups to those who stand to most benefit. Groups with low and high influence are found on left and right side of the horizontal axis, respectively. There are multiple claims on water as a shared resource and multiple levels of authority when managing and making decisions regarding water resource development and allocations. The classification of stakeholders into levels of influence, and levels of sensitively to impacts (or levels of potential benefit), allowed the project team to develop steps to support the most impacted groups (some of which have been overlooked) and to work closely with those \"most influential\" groups to bring to their attention various legitimate concerns from communities and other groups.The initial stakeholder relation map shows that those who are in the best position to influence the decision-making process include: 1) Head of the Government, and some key Ministers -MEF, Resettlement Committee, MOWRAM, MIME, MPWT, and MRD: 2) Developers (national and foreign, especially those from China, and Korea): 3) Asian Development Bank, Japan Funding institutions: and, 4) Land concession owners, mining companies etc. Hydropower projects in Cambodia attract investment from different companies including; foreign private companies, foreign state own companies, and joint ventures between local and foreign companies (MK4, 2013). Hydropower projects in Pursat are being developed or planned under Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) agreements that will operate for 25 years or more 2 . Some domestic private developers and investors have greater influence due to their position, having political alliances with top-decision-makers, being a member of the Senate, and/or being a financier or developer of the projects or concessions.Some water and environment related agencies have called for a mechanism to improve cross-sectoral coordination between different water users (for hydropower, irrigation, mining, tourism and rural development) to minimize the potential for being sidelined or by-passed. For example, the Fisheries Administration said their fisheries interests were not adequately considered, and that they were not adequately involved in decision-making. MOWRAM felt that they were not adequately involved to ensure irrigation benefits would be considered in hydropower dam design and development etc. (MSP1, 2013).The preliminary stakeholder relationship map shows that those who are most vulnerable to impacts/change do not have enough say in decision-making. The relationship map illustrates that some stakeholders, like foreign investors from China, India, etc. may exercise a high level of influence on the system, but have low sensitivity to the changes that occur in a system, and in fact reap high benefits from those changes. This is in contrast to the highly sensitive downstream communities or poor people that are very vulnerable to the changes in the system, but have no or limited say in the decision-making system. Local communities at the project sites are involuntary risk takers, and the developers are taking calculated risk in investing in hydropower or irrigation development.The key question is how to make the investment and development cost incorporate all relevant costs, and minimize the externality costs that have to be shouldered by the local communities.Existing community-based organizations such as Farmers and Water Users Communities, Forestry Communities, and Fisheries Communities, cannot perform as expected, and often find that they have very little power. It was reported that out of 16 Farmer Water Users' Community (FWUC), only 5 are operational. These are sustained through funding from various development bank projects. This raises the concern about the sustainability of FWUC and/or of any MSP in the long run (Minutes of MSP 1, 2013).It is interesting to observe that the elected local authority (Commune Councils) are not included in the group that have decision-making authority but are potentially vulnerable to being voted out of the office by voters. Key decisionmakers such as Ministers and other high ranking officials seem somewhat immune from being voted out by voters. This is consistent with the challenges associated with decentralization (re-distributing power from national to local levels of governance), deconcentration (distributing power across various government, non-government and community stakeholders) and local Hatfield Power Relations in Pursat Catchment democratization (through direct election of commune councils) of governance.The position held by NGOs and academia in this power and risk sharing relationship is interesting. Currently they have been rated as less influential and less vulnerable players. From our observation, the NGO/CSOs can hold more policy influence if particular processes are secured and maintained, e.g. through closer partnership with the key LAs, and developers, and if they possess adequate capacity (financial, technical, resources and personnel with right aptitude and skills). There is still a misperception about the role of CSOs among some key officials and CSOs leaders. It is important to work towards a higher level of acceptance of multi-stakeholder communications and providing an effective space for information exchange (Pech in MK4, 2013). Experience shows that CSOs need to work closely with influential institutions to achieve greater influence in getting reluctant Line Ministries to become more involved (Pech in MK4, 2013). The position/role of NGOs' and academia can be changed depending on their ability and opportunity to play an active role and on their trust in constructively promoting the many dimensions related to collective action. This may involve diverse actors working together, supporting local communities, leveling playing fields, negotiating outcomes, and sometimes addressing conflicts around water resources.The analysis also confirms our hypothesis that the practices of different stakeholders and the relationships between them are often a departure from established formal arrangements. It is therefore important to examine the degree of consistency or disparity in two key dimensions: between different stakeholders, and between formal stakeholder roles and actual practices.Administrative arrangements in Cambodia are currently divided into national and sub-national levels. Figure 3 illustrates various stakeholders at the national and subnational levels. It also shows that most ministries and agencies in Cambodia have provincial-and district-level offices that should allow them to interact closely with the local communities that they are supposed to serve. Currently, interactions and communications between central ministries, local authorities and agencies, and with local communities is primarily top-down. A gap therefore exists in feed-back communications, a situation which is rarely effective for establishing effective communication and coordination. Such poor interaction and participation may be caused by a lack of capacity, in mutual trust, and in resources allocated from the national to sub-national levels (World Bank and ADB, 2006).With respect to the Pursat catchment, the Cambodia National Mekong Committee (CNMC) There are instances of jurisdictional overlap between ministries and lack of adequate communication between coordinating committees/bodies at the national and sub-national levels. These bodies are often housed and coordinated by different national agencies. These overlaps and communication gaps have impacts at the national, provincial, district and ultimately commune levels of the government, creating uncertainty and inefficiency within the realm of service delivery and local planning (CDRI, 2009).For example, the MOI is a powerful ministry in charge of administration of subnational authorities, and leads the implementation of the Strategic Framework on Decentralization and Deconcentration. The Framework proposes restructuring of existing levels of sub-national administration. These levels consist of provintial, municipal, district, khan, commune and sangkat. The National Committee for Support (NCS) is chaired by the Minister of Interior and co-chaired by the minister in charge of the Council of Ministers. It has ministerial level representation from MEF, MRD, MLUPC, MoP and MWVA. The Department of Local Administration, MOI, acts as the secretariat to the NCS. MOWRAM appears absent in this NCS.The local democratic processes described above requires review and recommendations to develop better synergies with community-based organizations and river basin committees led by other sector ministries (such as FWUCs and RBC procedures led by MOWRAM and supported by MAFF).A case in point is there is not enough capable staff and resources in MOWRAM's FWUC Department to provide follow-up training needed to keep FWUCs motivated and active. The Commune Councils (which are now legally responsible, under the new Organic Law, for all infrastructure within their communes) have some funds which could be used to repair irrigation facilities, if they are authorized to exercise this role in relation to MOWRAM's structures and systems (CTDA, 2013).There are also other cases of jurisdictional division and overlap between MOWRAM and MIME. MIME regulates single-purpose hydropower dams and MOWRAM regulates multi-purpose dams and irrigation systems. This division may hamper a stronger synergy and promotion of multi-purpose systems in the catchment, and hinders optimization of development, operation and maintenance of these water infrastructures and systems (MSP1, 2013).There are also 5 district levels of government in Pursat. The various line ministries have district level offices, with the district chief playing a coordinating role. District chief and line ministry district offices largely operate based on direct instructions from the province, with little autonomous authority. The newly elected commune councils and associated structures represent the current system at the commune level. As commune chiefs create various administrative committees, the various line ministries are supposed to delegate agency functions to commune councils, and additional staff members are to be hired to carry out added responsibilities.Schematic illustration of sectoral/single project decision-making processes in Cambodia and Pursat.Figure 4 shows the current planning and assessment processes for major projects. Each hydropower, irrigation, navigation, forest/land use, transport or infrastructure development proponent undertakes their own environmental and social impact assessment that includes discrete elements such as noise, air, soil, surface water, ground water etc., and in a format preferred by them or their investment banks and as per requirements described in Cambodian laws and regulations. The Master Plan for Tonle Sap or Pursat are not available, and the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) or cumulative impact assessment (CIA) have not yet been conducted. In brief, the impact of any qualified development project on the environment and community is primarily studied using sectoral environmental impact assessment (EIA) instruments and sectoral decision-making that result development of sectoral or single project decision making, mitigation, management and monitoring plans.EIA's are governed by the 1996 Law on Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Management (Chapter 3 -EIA) and EIA Process Sub-decree of 1999.The law and its sub-decrees have been in force for over a decade, enforcement and compliance are limited. 3   Screening requirements specifying projects requiring either an initial environmental examination (IEE) or full-scale assessment are contained as an Annex to the 1999 Sub-Decree. Projects that exceed certain thresholds (i.e., projects exceeding a certain size, all factories, hydropower projects more than 1 megawatt in size, mining projects, large hotels, roads over 100 km and land concessions over 10,000 hectares, among others) must complete and receive approval for an EIA before commencing work. However, there is no clear guidance on criteria by which a full EIA is deemed necessary.A draft EIA report must be submitted by project proponents for approval by the Ministry of Environment, before the proponents can apply for investment approval from the Council for Development of Cambodia (CDC) and/or receiving project approval by the government. In this sense, the Cambodian EIA process covers only the project preparation phase. Limited capacity within Cambodia exists to prepare credible EIAs. The Department of EIA Review within the Ministry of Environment, is constrained both by insufficient staff capacity and size to manage the review of large EIAs within the 30-day period stipulated in the sub-decree; and some decision-makers view the need for a project's compliance with the EIA process as secondary to the need for rapid economic development in Cambodia (Middleton, 2008;Li, 2008). Another challenge lies in broadening EIA procedures to increasingly include assessment of the social aspects of environmental decisions, as well as cumulative and regional impacts (SEA, CIA, SIA etc.).The role of sub-national authorities and communities is limited to participating in the consultation conducted during the EIA stage. Local civil society organizations and some government agencies have complained about the lack of meaningful participation and consultation on impact assessments, and lack of access to the results of Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) of major projects.In 2007, the RGC established an Inter-Ministerial Resettlement Committee (IRC) with permanent members within the MEF. For many years, land resettlement issues have been a major cause of delay in project implementation in Cambodia (MEF SOP, 2012). IRC generally uses guidelines of major Development Partners to formulate land resettlement plans. It is the responsibility of the IRC to develop resettlement plans jointly with the IA/EA, and to ensure that they are executed to the satisfaction of both the RGC and the DPs. However, dams funded in Pursat are mainly financed using bilateral funding. There is a policy on involuntary resettlement which proponents are required to follow. An implementable resettlement plan is required, assets should be compensated at replacement cost (although this can be difficult to calculate) and special assistance should be provided to vulnerable groups (female and disable headed households). Further, monitoring and evaluation must be performed by both internal and external monitors and a grievance redress mechanism established. Sub-groups of this Inter-ministerial Resettlement Committee at the provincial and district levels are involved mainly in implementing the resettlement plans after the committee has approved them.A case study conducted by the Royal University of Phnom Penh (Kimkong, 2007) recommended that ESIA's should not be conducted immediately prior to the start of a project. ESIA and environmental mitigation management plans should also be made public during early stages of project planning and design, and communities likely to be affected by the project must be informed (Kimkong 2007). They also recommended that the financial arrangements used to implement these plans, together with the roles and responsibilities of implementing agencies be provided. The study also pointed to the absence of conflict resolution mechanisms for managing conflicts between local residents and dam builders/operators. Guidelines and mechanisms should be created in order to deal with trans-boundary (administrative, cross-sectoral or cross political boundary) issues/conflicts and compensation. The practice proved to be fragmented and incapable of dealing with subjects that cut across sectors or river basin management themes; this normally led to incomplete and inaccurate assessment of project impacts.The capacity of primary and secondary stakeholders to participate in multistakeholder platforms was assessed during the project inception phase and during field work.Data collection focused on social capacity/capital and its two dimensions, namely structure: policy, laws and institutional forms; and capacity: the knowledge, skills, and processes by which government staff and community members participate in water governance issues, especially leaders of community-based organizations (Ashwal et al. 2011). There are formal legal and policy frameworks to support local decision-making within relevant subnational governments, such as provincial, district and village authorities; elected commune council; sub-national sectoral departments and offices; as well as numerous community-based natural resources users' organizations (Pech 2010).Institutional and capacity issues are present at both the national and subnational levels.While it is true that a structure is only as good as the people working in it, and that any structure can be rendered ineffective by poor management, a dysfunctional structure is also a contributing factor to (poor) management performance. At the national level, much could be done to move forward from the current lack of horizontal coordination between Cambodian sectoral ministries and the excessively top-down approach between various levels of government (central, provincial and local). Figure 5 is a schematic diagram of a proposed mechanism for improving coordination during development of 'national vision and positions' and for coordinating the implementation of international commitments.Strengthening institutional links at the national level to contribute to better management of international relations.The process of aligning various interests, commonly referred to as 'governance', is the responsibility government agencies, and should take into account the interests of key stakeholders, is of strategic importance to the success or performance of any modern organization (Lusthau et al. 2002). Effective governance requires interactive and constant two-way communication between ministries overseeing the negotiation of international commitments and ministries in charge of implementing these commitments. During this process, government organizations and other key stakeholders attempt to resolve conflicts of interest and discuss and address policy issues in a timely manner. As shown in the Figure above, the process of governance at the national level requires improved coordination not only in a horizontal institutional sense (e.g., across ministries and numerous inter-ministerial committees) but also vertically (e.g., across levels of government and social groups) (Pech 2010).Another key challenge is to harmonize existing national legislation and policies and to ensure strict adherence to these legal and policy requirements (Pech, 2010). In all Mekong Region (MR) countries, the evolution of water and related resource legislation and policies can be traced from early resource exploitation legislation to more recent legislation (Pech, 2010). Many of the provisions relating to natural resource conservation, pollution control and protection of historical and cultural sites are scattered among a wide range of statutes and, in some instances, developed at different times and in vastly different political, economic and social contexts (Oliver et al. 2006). The existence of different legislation and laws based on sectoral responsibilities requires an evaluation of and solutions to a number of legal problems related to overlapping powers and functions, shared institutional duties, inconsistencies, and conflicting jurisdictions and legal provisions (Pech, 2010).To address institutional inconsistencies and conflicting jurisdictional responsibilities requires strong political support and commitment from the highest levels of government. This can be achieved through increased awareness of the importance of change, with clear declaration of environmental objectives and policies and a definition of common procedural principles for environmental decision-making applicable to all sectors (Pech, 2010). A lack of resources and a tradition of cross-sectoral and vertical coordination may limit Cambodia's ability to incorporate all of these issues and sectoral interests into this process. The experience of other developed countries demonstrates that certain characteristics are likely to promote an effective and successful decisionmaking and coordination process (UNITAR, 2001). An effective risk management decision-making process could include: Participatory: National position-making and strategies should be developed and implemented in consultation with a wide range of interested and affected parties; Informed: Decision-making requires various types of information and thus often calls for efforts to access and review a wide range of information sources; and Cyclical/iterative: An iterative approach will help to ensure that strategies remain up to date with evolving national policies and priorities and new scientific findings or technological developments, and help ensure that strategies take into account the results of systematic monitoring and evaluation of existing strategies and policies.The results of an analysis of the Mekong River Basin (MRB) ecological system and modern history (see Pech et al. 2007) suggests that, when a country is highly dependent on a complex and poorly understood ecosystem, development should be cross-cutting (incorporate various sectors and disciplines), integrated, precautionary, and supportive enough to sustain livelihoods in the region.Asymmetry in causal responsibility and externality and asymmetry in capacity, require design principles that properly address the issues of monitoring and accountability, equity, and strengthened institutional and financial capacity (Pech, et al. 2007). Both 'pro-dam' and 'anti-dam' groups in the MR agree that their assessments on the positive and negative impacts of dam projects are limited by lack of adequate information, since access to data is limited, even among different government agencies within a single country. Moreover, there is no evidence that strategic and accumulative impact assessments and monitoring have been conducted in a wider context (Plinston andHe, 2000, Pech andSunda, Tonle Sap, 2006).The MR requires mechanisms that will increase the benefits of compliance and/or raise the costs of non-compliance. Linking institutional arrangements together (MRC and GMS) can raise the price of non-compliance by increasing the probability that consequences of violations in one issue area will result in less cooperation in areas of importance to individual actors (Sadoff and Grey, 2003). Monitoring mechanisms, strategies and frameworks to encourage implementation and compliance are required and generally involve both state and non-state activities focused on achieving the goals and objectives of the treaty regime. Such mechanisms require an agreed-upon baseline and methods for verification established in a transparent and participatory manner. In addition, the quality of requirements is crucial, as compliance with dysfunctional regime rules will not improve outcomes.In spite of its deficiencies, the 1995 Mekong Agreement, which established the Mekong River Commission and outlined a legal framework for sustainable management of the MRB. This agreement provides a useful point of reference for the analysis of agreed-upon rules and procedures and \"soft-law\" documents among key MR players whose activities are guided by the rules of the institutions in which they participate (Young, 2000). Within the processes of the MRC and GMS, some commonly accepted principles have gradually developed, such as an emphasis on equality and mutual respect, consensus building and consultation, all of which can play a catalytic role in shaping common ground rules. Furthermore, the performance and effectiveness of this agreement depends on the success in overcoming current major bottlenecks, which inhibit cooperation and coordination due to negative focal relations at both the local national and regional levels. Much work remains to be done in moving from the current lack of horizontal coordination between key ministries and vertical coordination between various levels of government (central, provincial and local). Finally, as shown by the MRC Upper Mekong Commercial Navigation Channel Improvement Project (UMNCIP) test case, high levels of transparency can deter actors from violating rules, even when there are substantial gains to be reaped from non-compliance and when enforcement mechanisms are poorly developed.Local communities in Cambodia require institutions that facilitate debate among government and non-government groups, policy makers and other stakeholders, highlighting multiple interests and positions of power. Power asymmetries are highly visible in the region, so much so that the current framework has been forced to stretch beyond its role as facilitator of public debates, assuming the more proactive role of negotiation on behalf of the powerless and helping to articulate their concerns and needs as demands (IUCN, TEI, IWMI, M-POWER, 2006). As a multi-stakeholder dialogue, the Mekong Regional Waters Dialogue can be further institutionalized to provide a Mekong regional dialogue for state, non-state and business actors to inform and to be informed, to assess national and regional water resources development strategies. It can also be used to enable the articulation of different perspectives about Mekong water-related development for consideration during decision-making processes (Pech, Sunada, Oishi, 2007).The establishment of such a unified regional cooperation mechanism, supported by an agreed-upon analytical framework, harmonization of policy targets, evaluation tools, benefit distribution, impact mitigation and compensation strategies, would require a considerable amount of time (Bird, 2004;World Bank and ADB, 2006). Clearly, improved partnerships among key regional bodies connected to the MRB must go hand-in-hand with the promotion of meaningful multi-stakeholder dialogue among government and non-government groups, policy makers and other stakeholders to enable the articulation of different perspectives about Mekong water-related development. A mechanism ultimately enabling key actors to understand and interpret the real needs of MR communities is also essential (IUCN, TEI, IWMI, M-POWER, 2006).The process of selecting and convening members for the MSP, a forum of key players in the water and related sectors in the Stung Pursat has been completed. The first MSP meeting held on 24-25 January, 2013 in Pursat, officially established the Pursat MSP, and set the tone for the entire MSP. The project team developed the Stakeholder Analysis Report, which laid the grounds for identifying areas for further research (including this power relation, conflict analysis, and principle document) under the Components 2 and 3 of the project. This report identifies how existing power relationship structures influence stakeholder participation in IWRM (and MSP) in terms of gaps, overlaps and power inequities.Jurisdictional overlaps exist amongst various line ministries in coordination, cooperation and control at the provincial and district levels. It affects the way in which the provincial governor and his office, river basin organizations or committees, FWUCs, etc. participate in decision-making around shared water resources. A clear delegation of authority across administrative boundaries (subnational administrative arrangements as opposed to hydrological boundaries) is required for full participation to occur.The government is undertaking decentralisation reforms to devolve power to semi-autonomous elected governments at the commune and sangkat (urban commune) level, and to move towards enhanced roles for provinces and municipalities as deconcentrated entities of the centre. Hence, it is important to understand that the current governmental structure at the provincial and district level is in flux: new processes and procedures are currently being put into place. While the benefits of decentralization are clear by increasing the involvement of local governments and communities' in local natural resources planning and management, the devolution of authority over resources increases the risk of actions in one district, commune or village impacting others. Ensuring appropriate participation demands the establishment of a structure that involves all stakeholders in the catchment.The village is the lowest level of government structure in Cambodia. Villages are an administrative arm of the commune, district, province and MOI. Discussion has taken place on the change in rules and regulations that should authorize commune councils to appoint a village chief, who acts as the main conduit of information and communication between the council, including council committees, and the village. Capacity within the line ministries in the subnational level offices (provincial and district) is generally quite low.The principal finding of this paper confirms that the level of cooperation from the local to the international level hinges on implementing effective planning and coordination structures, and elimination of negative focal relations at both national and regional levels. The effectiveness and efficiency of MRB regimes can be improved by increasing the level of connectedness and cooperation, starting at the local level and eventually continuing to the regional cooperation mechanisms among governments and non-state stakeholders. Community-based resource user groups (i.e. FWUCs, fisheries communities, and forestry communities) require consistent sources of funding and support to maintain sustainable contributions to IWRM. Time and effort may be required in order to affect a change in perception which will allow CSOs and Line Ministries to work more closely with each other and in order that CSOs achieve more influence.After improving its regional environmental governance, Cambodia, the weakest and most vulnerable MR country, should be able to better address its internal problems and derive benefits from regional economic cooperation. However, because Cambodian government officials are not in a position to challenge the potentially negative impacts of large development projects spearheaded by upstream countries (particularly China) without losing financial assistance, the local community in Cambodia needs a multi-stakeholder dialogue that can facilitate debate among government and non-government groups, policy makers and other stakeholders, highlighting the multiple interests and positions of power. Power asymmetries have become so visible in the region that civil society organizations are now required to move beyond their traditional role as facilitators of public debate and help powerless citizens translate their concerns and needs into demands that can then be delivered to policy makers. Institutionalized MSP can provide a space for: minimizing and resolving potential conflicts surrounding water resources development; for various actors to inform and to be informed; to assess water resource development strategies, and to enable the articulation of differing perspectives about development under consideration.","tokenCount":"6303"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"91bae4e2c274fa61d77b4c79bfcae514","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/57a08ccae5274a27b200141d/R6913Trade-offs.pdf","id":"-1589673172"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"475b1878-a30a-42df-b98b-2c728e3c2765","pagecount":"15","content":"This chapter looks at some of the institutional challenges of combining qualitative and quantitative approaches in development research and asks whether the benefits outweigh the costs. We focus on experience from the forestry (including agroforestry) sector, specifically from the conservation/development interface where debate is often polarised along quantitative and qualitative lines respectively. Our basic premise, however, is that questions relating to the complex interaction of people and natural resources can only be answered by drawing on some combination of quantitative and qualitative information. We also assume that this should be done without compromising the quality of data collection for any component approach. Finally, we take as read that, in the specific context of development research, there is usually a strong emphasis on capacity-building of partners and on achieving buy-in by the eventual users of the research results.To examine the reasons why the reality of achieving these goals is often frustrating, we draw on four different development research projects (supply and demand of nontimber forest products (NTFPs) in Benin, conservation of trees on farm in Honduras and Mexico, domestication of indigenous fruit trees in Cameroon and Nigeria, and commercialisation of NTFPs in Bolivia and Mexico), all of which deal loosely with the use by local people of trees in a more or less managed environment. Each involved different numbers and types of researchers and institutions as well as representing a different combination of research approaches (Table 1). Based on the experience in these projects, we highlight some of the key practical challenges and trade-offs (in terms of resources and time) associated with trying to bring together more qualitative and quantitative approaches.A similar range of problems was encountered in all four projects. Some related specifically to how one combines more qualitative and quantitative approaches in the field, some were more to do with the different worldviews of researchers working in different disciplines, and others arose from the fact that collaborating across different disciplines almost always means collaboration across institutes.As outlined by Holland and Campbell (introductory chapter), the key to the effective combination of methods and data lies in the iterative relationship between descriptive (usually more quantitative) and explanatory (more qualitative) approaches. In practice this means careful and, where necessary, flexible sequencing of methods so that the results of one strand can feed into another.Sequencing of methods in the natural resource field is complicated by the fact that so many of them -whether qualitative or quantitative -are seasonally constrained. Phenological studies are by their very nature a record of change across the seasons. Yield studies or market surveys for fresh produce (fruit, leaves, etc.) are similarly seasonal and farmers are more 'switched on' to discussion of domestication issues when the trees are fruiting. Botanical surveys may be restricted to periods of the year when plants are in leaf but terrain remains accessible. In the same way, much community-level and household-level work is dependent on farmer availabilityaffected both by seasonal migration and the agricultural calendar as well as by daily work patterns.Seasonality issues can spoil plans for integration. In the CUBOS project in Honduras, for example, our initial aim had been to have a combined fieldwork team consisting of a socio-economist and a botanist to carry out semi-structured household interviews and biodiversity inventories of the household's plots, the latter accompanied by a member of the household being interviewed. The botanical surveys were under great seasonal constraints, however, and were found to be so time-consuming that it was impossible to wait for farmers' availability to do them. We were therefore obliged to separate the socio-economic and botanical teams.The CUBOS project also illustrates how important it is to be clear about the objectives of the project when deciding how to sequence methods. If CUBOS had only been about finding the most effective way to conserve threatened tree species diversity, then we should have focused first on botanical surveys to determine the location of threatened species (which turned out to be only in Mexico and not in our other case-study country, Honduras) and then carried out the socio-economic research to see how to conserve them. The fact that the project also had livelihood objectives, however, justified the concurrent implementation of both qualitative and quantitative methods.Sequencing can also be constrained by how experienced researchers are in different methods. The researcher's knowledge of an area is more important in determining the quality of qualitative than quantitative work (Schreckenberg, 1995). In Benin, for example, the same participatory research was carried out with five groups of women one after the other, over a period of nine months. The information collected later was much more complete and reliable than that obtained from the first group of women. In the early stages we accepted too much information at face value. Later, with a deeper understanding of the area (in part derived from collection of a range of quantitative data on natural resources and markets), we were better able to recognise evasive statements or conflicting information, and probe further. A research team new to an area may, therefore, be better off starting with quantitative work and only engaging in qualitative work at a later stage.The greatest difficulties arise when trying to combine seasonally constrained methods with a 'process' approach, in which the issues raised in early rounds of research determine the direction taken by later research activities. In the CEPFOR project, the main data collection tool, a questionnaire investigating various aspects of the commercialisation process of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) amongst community members and traders, was developed in a very participatory manner and took into account the results of preliminary qualitative work in the study communities. By the time it had been completed, tested and revised, however, the pressure to implement it quickly was very great if the project was to finish on time. Unfortunately, of the ten NTFPs studied, several were highly seasonal and some of the communities were only accessible for part of the year. Implementation of the questionnaire in some communities was therefore substantially delayed with knockon effects on the timing of data analysis. This raises the issue of how to squeeze research, of whatever type, into a conventional project cycle. Even a slight delay in starting a project can lead to the boat being missed on some seasonally constrained activities and in turn require a change in the overall sequence of methods. Sequencing is further complicated by the need for development research projects to keep an eye on the policy process, producing briefings for specific events. Donors' requirements for interim policy outputs also put increasing pressure on interdisciplinary research projects which may need to draw on several strands of research (each with its own timetable of analysis) to come up with integrated recommendations.Sampling strategies (and the resulting recommendation domains) are without a doubt one of the most difficult issues to resolve within a multi-disciplinary team.The first issue relates to sampling over time. Many quantitative approaches in the forestry sector are dependent on the vagaries of nature (e.g. phenological, yield and market studies) and should be carried out over several years to enable the team to learn (test and amend methods) in the first season and to allow for year-to-year variation in fruiting (which may impact on prices, etc.). In the Cameroon project, for instance, many of the trees that had been selected for observation did not fruit in the year we were working. This need to carry out fieldwork over several years may be difficult to combine with qualitative approaches (community-level PRA in the Cameroon case) that hope to provide rapid feedback to communities.It may also be necessary to compromise over spatial sampling. In Cameroon the fact that the 'biophysical' team (who were measuring variation in fruit characteristics) needed to access trees of particular species meant that one of the four case-study villages was selected for its abundance of a particular species even though it was atypical of the area in many socioeconomic respects. Furthermore, although we wanted to carry out the biophysical work on the trees observed in the farm tree inventories, this was not possible because the biophysical study required a minimum number of trees and these could not be found within the 20 households involved in the farm inventory (and sometimes not even within the village selected). So the biophysical sampling strategy had to be adapted and we were unable to test some of the hypotheses (e.g. that various farmer characteristics were linked to particular fruit characteristics) that would have required socio-economic and biophysical information to be collected for the same trees/owners.Modern researchers tend to undergo increasingly specialised disciplinary training. Bringing together qualitative and quantitative approaches therefore requires not just a multi-disciplinary team but also a multi-person one. This means that projects need to deal with the relative requirements of the methods as well as of the individual researchers and their parent institutions.Trying to meet several individual research agendas may 'inflate' projects beyond what is necessary to answer the central questions at hand. How willing individuals are to compromise depends greatly on how well they understand, and are interested in, the different project components. This kind of mutual respect and common focus on project goals may take time to develop. In the CEPFOR project, for example, the assumption of half of the core project team that we should take a participatory approach to the development of the research methods was not explicitly shared or agreed with the other half. As a result, the inception workshops in each country were primarily devoted to collecting a specific subset of data from participants to enable an early trial data analysis. But it meant that methodology development had to be pursued by email in a manner that was very time-consuming and did not result in immediate ownership of the overall approach by all partners.Ideally trust should be established when sampling strategies and data quality issues for each research strand are being discussed, as these issues can usually be understood across disciplines. Data analysis, however, may be beyond all but the relevant specialists. Having confidence in each other's conclusions therefore depends on the trust built up early on in the project.One of the problems of a multi-disciplinary team is that it is often large, and few of the researchers are likely to be working on the project full-time. Budget constraints simply make it impossible to fund a large number of specialists for the duration of the project. Instead, each one is paid for short periods, sufficient to carry out their research component, but rarely sufficient to cover the interaction time required to facilitate integration between disciplines. When all of a project's researchers are dividing their time between several activities, it is hard enough to schedule fieldwork let alone cross-disciplinary project meetings. Successful integration of qualitative and quantitative approaches therefore almost inevitably extends the length of the project.Given that many institutions specialise in a particular type of research, achieving multi-disciplinarity often implies working with several institutions. This introduces many complications that, although only indirectly the result of combining qualitative and quantitative approaches, can prove a serious obstacle to integration. All institutions have different ways of working including the extent to which they insist on strategic versus operational planning of research agendas. In some cases research must be included in annual work plans, in others it can be planned more quickly and informally. Differing financial years can complicate budget management as can varying flexibility in an institution's ability to transfer funds between years and budget lines. Together these factors determine how likely an organisation is to be able to support a process project, in which qualitative and quantitative approaches are sequenced in response to results of earlier data collection.Different institutions typically have quite different goals, which can impact greatly not only on how research is carried out but also on what forms of dissemination are expected. Thus academic institutions are interested in testing research hypotheses and researchers are judged on the basis of peer-reviewed publications. Others are more interested in achieving policy impact. Development NGOs, on the other hand, usually want immediate results for the study communities. The Benin PhD study was a typical example of the problem of having multiple task masters: the university required 'innovative' work, the bilateral donor required standardised data, and the host project sought practical advice -resulting in the need to collect sufficient data to satisfy all three and produce several types of outputs. In such a situation it is essential to get all stakeholders to agree exactly who needs what at an early stage.Three of the projects worked with local NGOs, most of which had either a strongly qualitative development focus or a more quantitative conservation focus. While this caused some difficulties with respect to how receptive they were to multidisciplinary approaches, a more fundamental issue was their lack of experience in carrying out rigorous research. In the CEPFOR project it became clear that this was particularly problematic for the qualitative data collection. We had selected various PRA tools precisely because our NGO partners were experienced in using them, but it turned out to be impossible to convince partners that these needed to be employed in as rigorous a manner as our quantitative data collection tools if we wanted data that were comparable across the 17 study communities.The Cameroon project represents an ideal case in which the national coordinating organisation, in this case the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), itself has a mandate to work in an interdisciplinary manner and therefore had a good understanding of the methodological and consequent logistical needs of all the research strands.Over the course of the four projects, it has become clear that compromise and sufficient resources of time and money can help overcome many of the obstacles discussed above.Jointly developed hypotheses can be an excellent way of focusing all project partners on the key thematic questions. They are particularly useful in determining the relative contributions of qualitative and quantitative approaches and how they can be integrated most effectively.It pays to state hypotheses explicitly unlike in the CUBOS project in which hypotheses resided primarily in the heads of the original project planners. They were therefore not 'owned' by the new field team that took over just after the inception of the project. As a result, for justifiable logistical and methodological reasons, this team dropped some of the more quantitative elements of the household interviews and the botanical surveys. Some of the analysis originally foreseen was therefore not possible. The lack of guiding hypotheses was compounded by low intensity management (split between two institutions with very different worldviews) and a lack of project reviews, which might have enabled the team to identify and remedy data gaps at an early stage.The CEPFOR project took the decision to invest time in developing six fairly general hypotheses, each supported by a set of more specific research questions. Based heavily on the international literature, these turned out to be an excellent way of introducing national partners to this body of theory. More importantly, they were an essential tool for ensuring that different components of the research focused on the same issues and fed into each other's analysis (Table 2).Many research projects compromise on their methodology to keep within budget and time. The existence of a clear set of hypotheses can be very helpful in determining just how much it is possible to compromise before the project loses its focus. In the CEPFOR project, for example, it was impossible to carry out a detailed quantitative market analysis for all the NTFPs being studied and decisions about which ones to drop were based on how much each product could contribute to the understanding of the project's hypotheses. This also illustrates that it is often not necessary for all research methods to be implemented across all case-study products or communities. The Cameroon project found that it was more effective to focus qualitative community-level work in Cameroon only while some of the more quantitative tools were also used in two Nigerian communities. Although less complete, the Nigerian data provided a good balance to the Cameroon data and greatly enriched the overall results. Ravallion (2001) argues that the main barriers to mixing qualitative and quantitative methods lie in the resistance of practitioners to stepping outside the traditional boundaries of practice. To get around this, both the Cameroon and CEPFOR projects invested heavily in capacity-building for their partners.The Cameroon project began by training biophysical, market and socio-economic researchers in participatory methods and community-level work. In addition to generating a broad understanding of the aims of the project, the training course was a fun way for the diverse research team to get to know each other and appreciate each other's skills and disciplinary perspectives. At the time we considered it less important to train the whole team in the more quantitative (and seemingly more straightforward) biophysical and market research techniques. In retrospect this was a missed opportunity for the biophysical team, in particular, to influence elements of the market and socio-economic work.In addition to providing cross-disciplinary training, the CEPFOR project illustrated the need to train NGO partners in general research 'best practice' including consistent standards of data collection, recording and management. It also showed that ongoing capacity-building was vital not just for the field staff but also for the core planning team to ensure that they understood and respected each other's approaches. This was achieved through frequent team meetings and mini seminars by each specialist enabling participants to begin to understand each other's disciplinary languages and appreciate both the potential and the limitations of different analytical approaches.Meetings to trial analysis at an early stage of the project are an essential part of capacity-building for partners, who are much more likely to collect data well if they understand how they are going to be used. Such meetings also provide an early opportunity to determine whether data type and quality are sufficient to meet the project's needs. In Cameroon, for example, very simple information like 'plot age' was not recorded on the inventory forms as the collectors did not realise the importance of this particular information for linking different data sets. Delays between data collection and analysis meant it was then impossible to go back to the same plots to complete the data.In the CEPFOR case, conclusions based on early analysis of the quantitative data were challenged by the qualitative information, and further inspection revealed an error in the original data. Parallel analysis of the different strands also highlighted which of the project's hypotheses and research questions needed were not being sufficiently tackled by any strand. Joint analysis at an early stage of the project has the added advantage of focusing the mind of the mainly part-time research team and provides a deadline for work components to be completed by and, where necessary, helps to bring the different research strands back into step with one another.Inviting selected disciplinary experts to some of these analysis meetings can be very rewarding. In the CEPFOR project, for example, an external statistician facilitated an important discussion about the limitations of our varied research approaches and the implications for the project's recommendation domains.A full-time research coordinator is always a benefit, but particularly so in multidisciplinary (and multi-institutional) projects which, as outlined above, require additional work to ensure that all collaborators work towards the same goal. It is important that this person understands the research requirements of all the partners and can mediate fairly between different research strands as necessary, e.g. if compromises on sampling strategies are needed or delays in one component cause problems in another. In a comparative project, at least one person from each discipline should know most if not all the fieldwork sites in order to be able to evaluate the quality of the data collected in them.It is almost impossible for a project crossing disciplinary, institutional and usually also national boundaries to have too many opportunities to feed ideas from one research team/component to the other(s). As much as Email has revolutionised communications, crossing disciplinary boundaries requires a great deal of trust between collaborators, which can best be fostered through frequent face-to face meetings. In the CEPFOR project, meetings built rapport and enabled all collaborators to question, doubt and explore issues directly with other partners, fuelling learning curves, increasing transparency and reducing any potential confusion, misunderstanding or resentment in achieving joint project goals.In addition to the more intensive management required and greater number of crossproject meetings, a project combining qualitative and quantitative approaches is likely to need more time simply to allow for the complexity of sequencing, particularly if seasonally constrained quantitative methods are being integrated into a process project.Carvalho and White (1997) discuss three ways of combining the best of qualitative and quantitative approaches:Integrating the quantitative and qualitative methodologies Examining, explaining, confirming, refuting and/or enriching information from one approach with that from the other; and Merging the findings from the two approaches into one set of policy recommendations.Each of the four case-study projects attempted to achieve some or all of these in different measure. The Benin PhD study deliberately kept each methodological approach quite separate in order not to compromise quality. But the fact that all were undertaken by a single researcher, who could determine sequencing to suit the needs of the research rather than being constrained by the availability of disciplinary specialists, meant that the separate methods were used in a flexible and iterative manner. As a result, even though the research was carried out during a single year, a combination of information about agricultural practices, how women earned their livelihoods and patterns of tree densities (from tree surveys) allowed for a complex understanding of how NTFP use was changing over time.The original aim in the CUBOS project was to integrate the botanical and socioeconomic methodologies. In the event this was not practical but the two teams at least overlapped in the same communities for some of the time and ended up providing different but complementary types of information. In comparing biodiversity in Honduras and Mexico, for example, a good grasp of tenure issues and their relation to biodiversity was vitally important to understand why some areas might have rare species and others not. By merging the findings from the two approaches it was possible to derive rich policy recommendations that spoke to both the conservation and livelihoods worlds.In Cameroon, there was no direct integration of methodologies though each took into account the other's needs when determining sampling strategies and used the same villages. The location of the project within a permanent research institution with ongoing work in the study areas also made it possible for some iteration to take place and additional research to be carried out. The merging of the findings from the qualitative and quantitative strands was important not just in the development of highlevel policy recommendations, but also at a very practical level in helping farmers select trees for domestication. This requires not only an understanding of people's very varied preferences (e.g. for large kernels or tasty fruit, for low trees to facilitate harvesting, or for aseasonal production to meet local market requirements) but also an understanding of the existing biophysical variation within a particular species or tree population and how different characteristics are linked. For the individual researchers, the greatest benefit of the multi-disciplinary collaboration was the personal understanding and experience they gained, which has benefited their subsequent work.The CEPFOR project made the greatest attempts to achieve methodological integration. Its research hypotheses were framed in such a way that they could only have been investigated with a combination of qualitative or quantitative approaches.Based on qualitative work at community level, the project developed a survey tool that provided data for econometricians, market analysts, socio-economists and Bayesian networkers. The process was much more time-consuming than if the research approaches had been pursued separately and also led to some loss of quality in the data collected. The benefits were in the establishment of a truly interdisciplinary team, from field based researchers to office based managers, who shared a fuller understanding of the project objectives and achievements, and in a comprehensive and multi-faceted approach to commenting on the project's hypotheses.Overall, the projects suggest that there are many benefits of combining qualitative and quantitative approaches:• More complex understanding of the issues being researched leads to more meaningful recommendations; • Drawing on different disciplinary approaches ensures a broader policy impact as recommendations are taken seriously by policy-makers from both quantitative and qualitative schools; • Reciprocal capacity-building within the team opens researchers' eyes to the potentials and pitfalls of different approaches; • Working within a multi-disciplinary team means that each researcher is constantly being challenged to justify their approach and conclusions, ensuring that only the best is taken from each; • The continuing challenge and opportunity to learn from colleagues leads to much greater researcher satisfaction.This chapter began with the premise that natural resource management questions can only be answered with some combination of qualitative and quantitative data. These data could be obtained through two or more separate single-disciplinary projects, with an additional project to integrate the results. Depending on when and how well the separate projects were planned, the integrated results might or might not respond precisely to the questions being asked. Another option would be to design a single integrated project from the start. The lessons of the projects presented in this chapter are that this latter option is worthwhile not only because it produces a set of rich and layered results that are more relevant, useful and adoptable at the level of the ultimate (farmer) beneficiary, but also because it ensures buy-in from varied stakeholders and has the added benefit of achieving high levels of researcher capacity-building and satisfaction.We should not, however, be under any illusions that simply because we are dealing with one project instead of several, a project integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches will be a cheaper or faster option. The costs are primarily in the form of more project meetings and capacity-building to ensure mutual methodological acceptance, the time needed for iteration of methods (particularly if some are seasonally constrained), and the intensive management required to keep a multidisciplinary (and usually multi-institutional) project on track. If we face up to these resource implications, then qualitative and quantitative approaches can be combined to great benefit.  No. Methods used to explore general research themes.No. Some implicit in project document but never explicitly amended in the light of emerging findings and changing donor priorities.No. But some developed as research progressed.Yes. 6 hypotheses, each with about 10 research questions, were developed at first project meeting.None between all partners. Few others. Most consultation by post.All project partners only brought together for the final project 'maturity' meeting. Core team met about once per year.  ","tokenCount":"4435"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9d6d68f0155582612b3c4cf10a579d22","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/9b563c32-d216-44e0-aba3-cad09d404f73/content","id":"1452953726"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c0a6c42d-2514-4430-82da-ec320576f20d","pagecount":"54","content":"The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (C1MMYT) is an internationally funded, nonprofit scientific research and training organization. Headquartered in Mexico, the Center is engaged in a worldw ide research program for maize, wheat, and triticale, with emphasis on food production in developing countries. It is one of 13 nonprofit international agricultural research and training centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which is sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the Un ited Nations , the Internation al Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) . The CGIAR con sists of 40 donor countries, international and regional organizations, and private foundations.C1MMYT receives support through the CGIAR from a number of sources, including the international aid agencies of Australia ,In the last 25 years, attention to the septaria diseases of wheat has intensified. The two pathogens of the septaria group that have the greatest impact on global wheat production are Septaria tritici and Septaria nodarum. Annual yield losses worldwide due to both diseases are estimated at about 9 million metric tons. Breeding for resistance has obtained a preeminent place in a number of research and crop improvement programs worldwide.In this introduction, emphasis is placed on summarizing the more pertinent scientific reports for managing the two major septoria pathogens. Research data are interpreted into concepts and procedures. Topics incl ude the biology of the fungi, infection process, collection and handling of infected material, isolation and maintenance of the fungi, inoculum product ion, artificial inoculation, disease assessment, epidemiology, pathogen specialization , breeding for resistance, and means of cultural and chemical control.Each treatment of a topic or group of alternative methods is followed by the recommendation of one or more preferred techniques or approaches. This information is intended for wheat scientists in developed and developing countries who are unfamiliar with these diseases.The econo mic impact of the septa ria diseases of cereals on wheat production in certain parts of the world has caught the attention of increasing numbe rs of growe rs, scientists, pol icy makers, and admi nistrators. This inten sif ied interest has lead to more funds all ocated to plant patho logica l research and cultivar develo pment programs. Thi s in tu rn has lead to a better understanding of the di seases and the release of a nu mber of hi gh-yield ing, disease-resistant cultivars for the septaria-prone areas. Tho ugh much scient ific literature has accumulated, no publ ication , to date, has gathered together the basic information necessary for a practical approach to understanding the diseases, the metho dology for screeni ng resistance, and other control measures.In this publicatio n, we have reviewed the lite rature and presented it in a format co ncentrating on the bio logy of the pathogens, processes associated wi th infect io n, isolation and mainten ance of the fungi, inocu lum produ ction, inoculation, disease assessment, epide miology, breeding for resistance and means of cultural and chemica l contro l. W e have not intend ed to present an intensive, detail ed overall review of the literature, but to bring attentio n to the more relevant scientific reports pertaining to the vario us top ics cove red. The informa tio n elaborat es on concepts and methods employed in septo ria research and thei r implementation .The practical information is int ended for w heat scienti sts who are unfami li ar with these diseases in both developed and develo pi ng countries.Septaria is the name commonly applied to more than 1,000 species of fungi, most of which are plant parasites. Approximately 100 species are parasitic on cereals and grasses. Many are economically important on crops other than cereals (123).There are two major septaria diseases that cause problems in wheat in many parts of the world . These are septaria tritici blotch (Plate 1, p.19) (syn. septaria leaf blotch, speckled leaf blotch of wheat) incited by the fungus Septaria tritici (sexual state: Mycosphaerella graminicala) and septaria nodorum blotch (syn. septaria glume blotch of wheat) caused by the fungus Septoria nodorum (sexual state: Leptosphaeria nadorum). The world distribution of these diseases is shown in Figure 1. Both diseases cause serious yield losses (35,54,97,111,137,139). Yield losses attributed to heavy incidences of septaria tritici blotch and septoria nodorum blotch of wheat have been reported to range from 31 % (4) to 53 % (35). In 1982, worldwide loss was estimated to be 9 million metri c tons w ith a value of over U.S. $1 billion (123). The average yearly losses in yield in the United States due to septaria tritici blotch and septaria nodorum blotch were estimated at 1% in 1965 (2). The other few available national loss estimates range between 1 and 7% annually (35). Both diseases are capable of reducing yields by as much as 30-40 %, values usually obtained from numerous fungicide control comparisons (18). Under severe epidemics, the kernels of vulne rable wheat cultivars are shrivelled and are not fit for milling (Figure 2).  Within the Fungi Imperfecti, fungi of the genus Septaria are classified among the order Sphaeropsidales, characterized by the production of conidia, termed pycnidiospores, which are produced in variously shaped, semiclosed fruiting bodies known as pycnidia. The sexual states of S. tritici and S. nodorum are associated with the class Ascomycetes (Table 1).During the 2nd International Septoria Workshop (123), a motion was passed stating that \"the taxonomic names of the fungi involved in the septoria disease complex would be based on their sexual state, namely, Leptosphaeria nodorum E. MOiler, Leptosphaeria avenaria Weber f. sp. triticea T. Johnson, and Mycosphaere/la graminicola (fuckel) Schroeter, and the common names of the diseases would be septaria nodorum blotch of wheat, septoria avenae blotch of wheat, and septaria tritici blotch of wheat, with chlorotic border respectively. The lower case's' will be used for septoria, septoria nodorum blotch, etc. which are not written in italics.\"Leptosphaeria avenaria, which is not discussed in this manual, is the most recent Septoria species to be characterized on wheat and is probably of lesser importance than those previously mentioned. The intermediate size of the pycnidiospores often leads to confusion with S. nodorum.in differentiation and identification. In the United Kingdom, northern U.S.A., Brazil, Uruguay, western Australia, and other areas, septoria tritici blotch and septoria nodorum blotch are often found together, many times with fruiting structures of both organisms on the same leaf. Moreover, other fungi that form similar fruiting structures, spores, and other symptoms are often present to complicate identification (Figure 3). Thus, field identification without confirmation in the laboratory is often difficult if not impossible; however, with the preparation of a few slides and microscopic examination at lOOx or 400x, identities of the pathogens can usually be confirmed.. avenae f.sp. avenae oat I[ '~f~~~OO~,B:~~M~~~~~sa venae f.sp triticea wh•• leptosphaeria nodorumAlthough the sexual state has been reported in several countries and will most likely be found elsewhere, it is the asexual state that causes most disease symptoms and associated yield losses. Therefore, throughout this text the pathogens will generally be designated by their asexual state.The descriptive comparisons of S. tritici and S. nodorum are presented in Table 2 (123).Symptoms vary according to cultivar, cultural practices, and geographic location (44). Under Mediterranean conditions, where spring wheats are grown during the cool and rainy winter months (November-May) of the year, S. tritici is most important. It is important to note that the sexual state has not been reported as yet in the literature from this region. Usually many pycnidia are produced making identification relatively simple. In the southeastern United States and northern Europe, S. nodorum is most common, usually producing an abundance of pycnidia allowing identification with ease; however, under certain environmental conditions, pycnidia of S. nodorum may not occur readily within the necrotic lesions. In many other wheat-growing areas, both S. tritici and S. nodorum occur, thus introducing some difficulties The asexual state of M. graminicola, namely S. tritici Rob. ex Desm., was found on wheat and described by Desmazieres in 1842 (133). The sexual form M. graminicola (Hickel) Schroeter was described by Sanderson in 1972 in New Zealand (113). The sexual state has also been identified in Australia, Brazil, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.A. Pycnidia bearing pycnidiospores of the asexual state were found on plant specimens of wild emmer (Triticum turgidum dicoccoides) collected in Israel in 1906. Only occasional yield losses of economic impact were reported prior to the 1960s.The increase in the economic importance of septaria tritici blotch was largely due to the widespread and rapid replacement of local wheat cultivars with early-maturing, semidwarf cultivars that were susceptible to the pathogen. Cultivars with adequate resistance are now replacing the original introductions. Changes in cultural practices have also significantly contributed to the increase in disease incidence. Severe outbreaks of septoria tritici blotch have occurred in high-rainfall areas such as South America. Epidemics also occur in semiarid countries along the Mediterranean Coast and in Australia.A pseudothecium, asci, and ascospores of M. graminicola are presented in Figure 4 and Plate 2. A pycnidium and pycnidiospores of the asexual state, S.tritici, are presented in Figure 5.   without septa (114,137,138). Both spore forms are equally able to infect wheat (137).Pycnidiospores germinate on a suitable substrate, following release from the pycnidium, when the plants are wet. Germination occurs either by elongation of the apical cell or by budding. In the laboratory, spores begin to germinate within 12 hours and leaf penetration occurs after 24 hours. The fungus may penetrate the .leaf through the stomata or directly through the cell walls of the epidermis.and pycnidia development by lengthen ing the time required for each. Symptoms generally appear after 14-21 days. The time from infection to production of pycnidia depends, however, on environmental conditions (moisture, temperature, and light), the cultivar, and the septaria isolate. It appears that there is a compensation effect between moisture and temperature in susceptible wheats.Where the moist period is short, an increase of temperature up to 25°C may still result in severe levels of disease.With long moist periods and low temperatures, high disease levels are again observed (57). Spore germination and mycelial growth of 5. tritici are optimum at 8-12,000 lux (8). Pycnid ial formation is most rapid at 2,000 lux. It may be concluded that the infection processes occur best on rainy, cloudy days with temperatures between 20 and 25°(,The life cycle of 5. tritici is shown in Figure 6. First symptoms of infection on wheat leaves are expressed as irregular chlorotic lesions that usually appear 5-6 days after inoculation. However, the time of first expression is highly dependent on the cultivar and environmental cond it ion s during the infection process. Three to six days later, at 18-24°C and high relative humidity, necrotic (dead tissue) lesions develop at the chlorotic sites (plates 4 and 5). The necrotic lesions appear sunken and grayish-green at first. By holding the leaf up against the light, the beginning of pycnidia formation (when occurring) can often be seen, usually after 15 days (Plates 6, 7, and 8). The pycnidia, ranging in color from light to dark brown, develop in the necrotic lesions. The pycnidia are scattered within the lesion, and can be on both the upper and lower is required for all stages of infection: germination, penetration, development of the mycelium within the plant tissue, and subsequent pycnidial formation (21,60,130). Periods of 72 and 96 hours in a moisture chamber result in similar levels of disease, while only 48 hours may produce significantly less disease. A moist period of only 24 hours is generally insufficient to produce disease symptoms (57).Cardinal temperatures reported for germination of 5. tritici conidia are a minimum of 2-3°C and a maximum of 33-37°C, with an optimum of 20-25 °(, Infection can be delayed in the field if the temperature falls below 7°C during 2 consecutive nights (129,130). Low temperatures (4°C) affect spore germination, myceli al growt h, and lesion surfaces of the leaf. The size of pycnidia may vary among cultivars and is also affected by the number of pycnidia present. As the number of pycnidia on the leaf increases, the pycnidia themselves may become smaller (37). The size of the pycnidia and pycnidiospores is not significantly affected by changes in the percentage of the leaf area covered by lesions bearing pycnid ia, or by the isolate of S. tritici (133). Pycnidiospore production may be related to cultivar response, with lower pycnidiospore production occurring on the resistant cultivars (51). It is important to state that immunity in Triticum species is rare.Pycnidiospores can remain viable in pycnidia on infested stubble tor several months (58). Nevertheless, there are reported instances of epidemics of septoria tritici blotch develop ing in field plantings following several years of nonwheat cropping. The primary inoculum could possibly have arisen from windblown infested crop debris, airborne ascospores, volunteer wheat, other susceptible grass species, or from latent septoria mycelium in crop residues (though the last is not proven). Information on some of these parameters is scarce. The sexual state, M . graminicola, is a source of primary inoculum wherever it occurs. The morphological appearances of asexual pycnid ia and sexual pseudothecia are quite similar. This may lead to the false conclusion that the pycnidiospores are the sole source of primary inoculum. As a result, the sexual forms can be and often are overlooked .Pycnidiospores are released from pycn idia when the leaf has been wet for 30 minutes or more. The spores are produced in a thick, sticky matrix containing a high concentration of preserving sugars and proteins (48). This \"preserving medium\" or ooze permits the pycnidiospores to remain viable during periods of dry weather. An oozing drop, or cirrhus , containing pycnidiospores exudes through the ostiole at the top of the pycnidium following sufficient leaf wetting. After drying, part of the oozing drop may return into the pycnidium or remain on top of the ostiole for additional rewetting.There are reports that S. tritici does not form new pycn idia on dead tissue, and that pycn idia are not capable of regenerating new pycnidiospores after each release of spores. Fewer pycnidiospores are released after each wetting, with the bulk of the spores released on the first wetting (34). However, in Tunisia, regeneration of pycnidiospores did occur when pycnidia that had been dried and emptied were moistened by autumn rains (32). This regeneration of pycnidiospores continued in a cyclic manner and formed the primary inoculum to infect autumn-sown wheat.The asexual state of L. nodorum MUlier, namely, S. nodorum (Berk.), was described by Berkeley in 1845 as a pathogen affecting mainly the glumes and nodes of wheat. Pseudothecia were found in cultures of S. nodorum as early as 1904. But it was not until 1952 that MUlier described L. nodorum as the sexual state of the septoria nodorum blotch fungus. Septoria nodorum has been isolated from hosts in 17 genera, and it has recently been identified as a disease of barley in Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia (47). Cross-inoculation studies have show n that wheat isolates are more harmful to wheat than barley. Both wheat and barley isolates are capable of infecting many grasses w ithout causing obvious symptoms.Septoria nodorum is especially important in warm , moist growing areas such as the southeastern U.S.A., Europe, and southern Brazil (122). It can occur and cause damage in relatively dry areas such as Montana, U.S.A., as well (75). In the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic , head infection was stated to be the main cause of yield reduction ( 70), yet foliar infection can be as detrimental to yield as head infection. In both cases, infection results in shrivelled seeds.The highest reduction in number of heads/plant, number of kernels/head, and thou sand kemel weight occurred with artificial inoculation of S. nodorum after emergence, followed by reinoculation when the second node was formed (49). Susceptibil ity is generally expressed at its maximum during heading-floweringmaturity (132). Pseudothecia, formed on host tissue, contain numerous club-shaped asci holding eight ascospores (Plate 11). The ascospores are straight to slightly curved and have three septa (Plate 12). The second cell from the apex is the largest. These sexual spores are known to play an active role in over-seasoning. It is also a source of primary inoculum in many areas of the world. Its full role in the disease cycle is still not understood completely.The mycelium of S. nodorum is usually branched, has dividing walls of tissue called septa, and is transparent. Later, however, it may turn dark in color. Pycnidia and pycnidiospores develop quickly in artificial culture (unlike S. tritici) and on host tissue. The pycn idia appear under the epidermal layer of cells plants kept in a conti nuously watersaturated atmosphere..The latent period extended to 10 days wh en plants were kept at 20°C under a regime of 12 hou rs of complete saturatio n alternati ng w ith 12 hours at 85-90 % relative humidity (134). A dry period of 8 hours every 16 hours resulted in lower disease levels than with co ntinuous wetting. A dry interruption of the wet period occ urring within 24 hours of the appl icatio n of spores may result in even less di sease development (142). In the field, an increase in temperature, duration of leaf wetn ess, and high inoculum density cause a decrease in the latent period (1 35).The pycnidiospores are spread by splashing or w ind blown rain. Dispersal of pycnidiospores in a droplet was found to occ ur wh en at least 5 mm of rainfall and a temperatur e greater than 10°C was followed by at least 10 mm more rain falling during a 48-hour period and reaching an intensity of 2 mmlhour (65, 66). Pycnidiospore s of S. nodorum were dispersed by rain at a height up to 2 m and to a di stance greater than 92 cm from infected plant s (53,150). Airborne S. nodorum spores were coll ected at a height of 40 cm at distances up to 10m downwind of a target spore suspension on which simul ated rain fell (12). Wind greatly increases the dispersal of smaller droplets and spores in the downwind direction.The life cycl e of S. nodorum is shown in Figure 8. Septoria nodorum lesion s are often lens-shaped w ith a yellow-green border surroundin g the dead tissue area (plates 14 and 15). Pycnidia may or may not appear w ithi n the center of the lensshaped lesions on the leaves, but are more common on nodes and stems, leaf sheaths, and glumes (Plates 16 and 17). Whenever nodes are infected, it may cause distortion and bending of the straw pycn idium Infection of S. nodorum is best at 22-24°C, with symptoms appearing after 7-14 days. Infection in Wales occurred wh en relative hum idity wa s greater than 63 % (63). In addit ion, in the 24 hour s that followed ino culation , at least 4 hours had to be at a temperature above 6°C and a relative hum idi ty greater than 69%. The period from inoculation to the production of mature pycnidia (latent period) was as short as 6 days after inoc ulation was achieved at 22°C on envi ronment, usually free water, followin g exudation from the pycnidium on rainy and/or dewy days. They w ill germinate w ith in a temperatur e range of 5-37°C w ith an optimum between 20-25°C. The pycnidiospores germinate in the laboratory within 2 hours after emerging from the pycnidium. Spore germination and penetration are greatest between 15-25 °C, with a min imum of 6 hour s of wetness (high relative humidity) necessary for good infection (121).  Each spore cell contain s one nucleus (137). Infective micropycnidiospores (3-6 x 0.7-1 p'-m) may also be present (56). An atypical form of pycnidiospores (12-27 x 2-3 p,m) with no or one septum has been isolated in Pennsylvania, U .S.A. (55).The organism on wh eat can attack all plant parts above ground. It can infect any tim e from seed germination to plant maturity. The mycelium of S. nodorum also can be seedborn e and can cause seedling infection. Brown lesions on coleopti les of wheat seed li ngs grown from infected seed were fir st described in 1945 in Canada (82).Pycnidiospores germinat e in a moi stHistological studies have shown that during mycelial invasion, the hyphal colonization in the leaf was both between Secondary cycles and within the cells and the host cell walls seemed disorganized (5). On wheat leaves during the infection process, as well as in an artificial medium containing wheat cell walls, S. nodorum releases digestive enzymes that break down cell wall material (B3).The processes associated with infection of S. tritici and S. nodorum are summarized in Table 3.~Offi Seed Ra in activates spore disposalWi\"d~low\" ascospores Perithecia culture (10,11,33). Some of them may playa role in symptom development (6B).For example, septorin reduces seedling growth of the susceptible wheat cultivar, Etoile de Choisy. In mitochondria isolated from the same cultivar, septorin induced changes in respiratory activities similar to that of 2,4-D (10). Ochracin is a phytotoxin that inhibits photosynthesis and leads to a decrease in the opening of the stomata. It may affect stomatal behavior indirectly by inhibiting C02 assimilation (33).with a possibility of lodging and breakage of the straw at the node with subsequent losses in yield. Cyclic regeneration of pycnidia and pycnidiospores in dead wheat tissue has been reported in S. nodorum (116). The pycnidia initiated new pycnidiospores in 10-33 days, depending upon the wheat cultivar.Infected seed has been the primary source of septoria nodorum blotch inoculum in Germany (92). Seed infection ranging as high as 80% has been reported in Georgia, U.S.A. (26). Several authors have discussed the relationship of seed infection to symptoms on glumes (26,53,91). Just one infected seedling among 5,000 plants in a field may be enough to initiate an epidemic (54). The extent to which S. nodorum colonizes wheat seeds might be more important than the percentage of infected seeds (26). In the southeastern U.S.A., infected seeds of susceptible wheat cultivars often exceed 40-50%, even when septoria nodorum blotch is not severe. As the incidence of seed infection at planting increases from 1 to 40%, the intensity of subsequent disease increases (BO). However, 10% seed infection can supply sufficient inoculum to cause a severe epidemic, and higher levels of seed infection only slightly increase the disease levels in the crop. Disease infection may occur in crops grown in areas where wheat has not been cultivated for a number of years if infected seed is used. This' clearly demonstrates the role of seed as one of the potential sources of primary inoculum.Septoria nodorum produces various phytotoxic compounds such as septorin and ochracin when grown in liquid • .-9 The following method s deal w ith collection and handling of infected plant material, isolation of the fungi, maintenance of septoria cultures, production of inoculum, inoculation procedures, and disease assessment.These procedures are identical for both S.tritici and S. nadarum. If the septoria worker has chosen to maint ain large quantities of infected plant material for future inoculation, the coll ected material should be kept in a dry place. Dry plant material can be kept in aerated sacks or as bales.Both S. tritici and S. nadorum produce pycnid ia on green plant parts. Under high hum idity (usually free water) an ooze that contains pycnid iospores will emerge from the openi ng of the pycnidium (ostiole) and form a drop (cirrhus) on top of the dark pycnid ium. This can be observed with the aid of a magnifying hand lens (xl0) or under a stereoscope (x40). To grow cultures from leaf samples, isolation method s utilize this oozing process.Direct method-Leaf segments are attached to glass slides with tape that is resistant to moisture. The pycnid ium opening must be facing up. Check thi s with a magnifying glass. The number of the collection is marked on the slide if more accurate studies are planned with a particular collection (Figure 9). Each slide is placed in a petri dish fitted on the bottom with filter paper saturated with sterile water. Replace the petri dish cover to provide a moist environment. The wetting period necessary for oozing to begin depends on the degree of leaf dehydration and how quickly the leaf becomes moist. Dry , dead leaves require several hours; dry, green leaves require 1-2 hour s. Temperature is also important; best results are obtained at 24°C. The leaf segment must be checked period ically to see whether oozing drop s are formed on top of the pycn idia . This is done by observing the petri di sh, w ith its cover still on, under the stereoscopic microscope with illumination from above.The oozing drop can be clear or cloudy. Cloudiness indicates that many pycnidiospores are present within the drop.Transfer procedure s require a microbe-free environment. Depressurized isolation hoods, UV sterile chambers, laminar-flow clean air cabinets, isolation chambers, or similar devices may provide this steril e environment. Whenever the oozing drops are ready to be transferred, the petri dishes are placed within a microbe-free environment. All necessary tools (needles, media plates, stereoscopic microscope, etc.) are also placed there before actual isolation. The closed petri dishes are observed under the stereoscopic microscope and oozing pycnidia are located. With the help of a fine-po inted needle, sterilized in a flame and cooled briefly, the oozing drop is qu ickly transferred to water agar or potato dextro se agar (PDA) (39 g of PDA in 1,000 ml of water), containing any of the following antib ioti cs: 250 mg/liter chloramphenicol succinate, 50 mg/liter streptomycin, 0.13 mg/liter kanamycin sulfate, 10 mg/liter aureomycin, or 10 mg/liter of gentamycin sulfate. The antibiotics gentamycin and kanamycin can be autoclaved (30-40 minutes at 1.5 kg/cm 2 pressure and 126°C), and thus added with other ingredients pr ior to autoclaving. All other antib iotics must be added to warm medium (approximately 50 °C or less) after autoclaving and before pouring it into petri dishes in a microbefree environment. If the antibiotics are added in a liquid form, then it is important that water, syringe, and/or pipettes be sterilized before the liqu id antibiotic is prepared or added.If the pycnidia do not ooze after several hours, they should be kept longer and checked for oozing later in the day. Do not allow the leaves to remain in the moist petri dish for an extended period (more than 8 hours), because secondary organisms (Alternaria, etc.) may grow on the leaf surface. This will interfere with the isolation procedure since the antibiotics will exclude many bacteria but not other fungi. The success of isolation depends on: 1) the condition of the leaves, 2) keeping the environment sterile, and 3) procedures and methods used during the isolation .The inoculated petri plates are kept at 18-20 oe for 7-10 days. Following this, the small, pinkish-orange colonies that develop are transferred to PDA or yeast malt agar (YMA) without antibiotics.Direct method-The pathogen is isolated after surface sterilizing of the infected plant material, leaves or kernels. The following surface sterilizing solution has been used: 0.5 % sodium hypochlorite plu s 5.0% ethanol (95%) in 100 ml of distilled water . One or two drops of a content of a pycnidium, that is the pycnidiospores, directly from wetted leaves. This is done by digging with a sterile needle inside the pycnidium and transferring the contents to a medium containing antibiotics. The chances of transferring pycnidiospores by this method are smaller, yet the technique is much simpler.of NUV light and darkness. Indirect method-A different method for isolating bulk 5. tritiei isolates may also be used (46). Active leaf lesions (green leaves with pycnidia) caused by 5. tritiei are washed for 1 hour in running tap water, then immersed in 5% sodi um hypochlorite for 2-3 minutes, and blotted dry on sterile filter paper. The leaf pieces containing pycnidia are moved across the surface of an agar plate (PDA + 50 mg/liter Rose Bengal + 125 mg/liter streptomycin). Where pycnidiospores ooze out onto the agar surface, small colonies develop.• . 13 24 hours, view with a stereoscopic microscope, pick up single pycnidiospores with a sterile needle under microbe-free conditions, and transfer to PDA containing antibiotics. Be sure to transfer approximately 10 spores to each petri plate. The success rate is usually low. If the water agar petri plates are left for longer than about 24 hours, colonies will start growing which may have been derived from a single pycnidiospore. The mycelium then can be transferred to PDA.The easiest and most effective method to isolate both S. tritiei and S. nadarum is the direct method, in which pycnidiospores are directly transferred to an appropriate artificial medium. When very specific studies are to be carried out, the single-spore method may be necessary to ensure absolute uniformity of the inoculum source.Several methods have been suggested for maintaining Septaria spp. isolates for short or long periods. Isolates can be preserved either in the pycnidial or in the conidial forms.Pycnidial form-Short-term maintenance of isolates of both S. tritici and S. nadarum can be achieved by storing green leaves with pycnidia which were separately inoculated with the specific isolates. The leaves are placed in a marked paper envelope (isolate, cultivar, date, etc.) for drying during several days at room temperature. Then the envelopes are placed in a sealed plastic bag in the refrigerator at 5-10°(, The pycnidia remain viable for several months and often up to 1 year if kept dry and cold. This method is useful if the pathogenicity of the fungal cultures on artificial media becomes attenuated. Then reisolation of the culture from pycnidia will be required to recover pathogenicity. Pycnidia of S. tritici and S. nodorum on solid media may be obtained on a modified Czapek Dox V-8 medium: 200 ml V-8 ju ice, 109 agar, 800 ml deionized water (24). Irradiation is supplied with a black light (NUV) tube (Philips TL40 W/80) mounted approximately 45 cm above the petri plates inside an enclosed cabinet that is kept at 20°(, The inner walls of the cabinet are covered with aluminum foil to give a more uniform radiation . Sporulation of S. nadarum may be induced with high relative humidity in a cabinet fitted with a water bath, a vent, and an air fan (59).Septaria nodorum may also produce pycnidia directly on YMA (75,76). When at regular intervals only spores are transferred, pathogenicity is maintained .Conidial form-Septoria tritlci. The production of slanted S. tritlci cultures is as follows: 3-5 ml of medium (PDA or YMA) in liquid form is placed into test tubes. These are closed with plastic caps or cotton plugs. Immediately following autoclaving, the test tubes are placed at an angle and the medium allowed to solidify. Thus, so-called \"slants\" are obtained. When the slants are cool, S. tritiei spores can be transferred to them under microbe-free conditions. Septaria tritici grows well on such slants, which can be easily handled.On artificial medium , S. tritici reproduces mainly by the product ion of conidia through budding. Such cultures of S. tritici usuall)\\remain pathogenic following repeated monthly transfers of spores over several years. Their relative ability to cause infection may decline somewhat, although they continue to grow well on slants. Therefore, the cultures should be renewed periodically by reisolating pycnidiospores from newly infected seedling leaves of a susceptible cultivar. At some laboratories, this procedure is being followed every 4-6 month s. For routine laboratory work, reculturing on agar slants is performed at 14-to 21-day intervals. When a fungal culture is used to inoculate a liquid medium, fresh 5-to 10-day old cultures should be used.Cultures of certain isolates may form a mycelial mat (usually dark) in the slant as they become older . The cultures vary greatly in their sporulating (budding) or mycelial formation characteristics. A culture whi ch tends to form mycelium after a rather short period require s more frequent transfers. By increasing the frequency of transfers, con idial production is maintained. The cultures should be transferred in their conidial form if they are to be used for inoculations. This is especially true if sprayers with fine nozzles are used to apply inoculum in the field since the mycelium may block the apparatus.Septaria nodarum is maintained on agar slants or petri plates with appropriate artificial medium on which it usually forms pycnidia. Cirrhi on top of pycnidia may be directly used for transfer of spores from the original medium to a fresh medium . Alternat ively, the following procedure may be employed , which allows the collection of a larger number of spores. Sterile water (2-5 rnl) is transferred with a sterile Pasteur pipette in a microbe-free environment to the slant or petri plate containing the fungal culture. Cirrhi w ith pycnidiospores are mixed w ith the water on the surface of the medium by gently rubbing with a glass rod previ ously sterilized in ethy l alcohol and flamed. A sterile Pasteur pipette is then used to transfer the suspension of pycnidiospores to a fresh medium.Summary and recommendations-The simp lest short-term maintenance method for either fungus is proper storage of leaves infected with pycnidia as described in the \"Pycnidia l form\" section above. If the fungi are to be maintained on artificial medi a, the respective methods descri bed in the \"Conid ial form\" section above are preferred.Ell iot V-8 j uice agar (133). Five-gram samples of a coarse sandy loam soil at 1% moist ure are placed in bottle s. The bottles are autoclaved twice (20 min utes at a 12-hou r interval). Conidial suspensions (2 rnl) are transferred to the bottles. The inoculated soil-spore bottles are sealed, thoroughly shaken to evenly distribute the spores thro ughout the soil, and im mediately stored in the dark at 4°C. Soil from soil-spore preparation s is suspended in 2 ml of sterile deionized water and spread on the surface of nutrient agar for conid ial increase. lyophilization-Both f reezing and lyoph il ization have been studied as methods for long-term storage. Freezin g results in loss of pathogenicity. How ever, Iyoph iIization proved very successfuI (109, Ubels, personal co mmunication).Procedu res for lyophil ization of S. tritici conidia and S. nodorum pycnidiospores are as follows : Pyrex test tubes (10-x 0.6-cm) and Pasteur pipettes should be steril ized in an autoclave or in an oven (48 hours at 90 °C) . A skimmed-m ilk suspension (12%) is steamed for 15 min utes, three ti mes, preferably du ring 3 separate days in an autoclave without pressure buildup. Spores of S. tritici and S. nodorum grow n in liqu id. shake cu ltures (S. tritici) or on solid media (S. tritici and S. nodorum) are transferred to test tubes to which 2.5 ml of the skimmed milk suspension was previously added. A sterile paper label with an isolate identification code and the date is placed in each test tube. Cotton plugs are inserted and pressed dow n the tube above the spore suspension and the tube label. The test tubes are then freeze dr ied at -20 °C in a dry ice-acetone bath for several minutes. After the contents are frozen (this only takes a few min utes), the tubes are then placed into a vacuum chamber, and subjec ted to 20 mm Hg vacuum for about 4-5 hours (Ube ls, personal comm unication) .The freezing and vacuu ming are not do ne under sterile co nditions. Steri le cond itions should be maintaine d before and wh ile the cotton plugs are inserted into the tube. Some investigators prefer to flameseal the test tubes. Thi s requi res a set up in w hich the test tubes are attached to a viny l or rubber hose capable of wi thstanding the vacuum . Then the tube is sealed under vacuum with an oxygen/gas torch. If test tube sealing is not perfo rmed, the followi ng procedu res should be used: after 2 hours, the dry-ice acetone bath is removed and the drying is co ntinued at room temperature. As long as the tubes are still evaporating, they will feel cool to the touch. After they reach room temperature let them dry for another hour. The tubes maintain steri li ty due to previous sterile conditio ns and the cotton plu g. Both the sealed and the unsealed tubes should be kept at 4°C in a refrigerator. Whenever cultures are wi thdrawn from cold storage, the following procedures are necessary for sealed and unsealed tubes: • Unsealed tubes should be marked with a file under the cotto n plug, flamed, and broken in half. Add 0.2 ml of sterile water to each test tube w ith a steri le pipette under microbefree conditio ns to resuspend the mil k and the spores and then transfer the co ntents to an agar plate.W hen high spore concentrations, 1 x 10 6 spores/ml or higher, are used, germinatio n of spores and pathogenic ity are indis ting uishable fro m \"fresh\" fungal cul tures. Especially for S. nodorum , a slightly modified method of lyophilization has been published (109).Cold st orage-Cultures of septoria on PDA or YM A slants can be kept in cold storage (4°C) or in regular refrigerators.The test tubes should be carefully sealed, especially if cotton or foam rubber stopper s are being used. Cu ltures stored in this manner tend to dry up but keep viabil ity for several months. This method is useful in providing a backup storage of specific isol ates under study. It also provi des the needed backup if cultures in use get contaminated or lost for some reason.Summary and recommendations-The lyophili zation method is recomm ended for we ll-equipped laboratori es that co nduct long-term studies on virul ence or other studies w here the original characteristics of the isolates need to be maintai ned. However, the short-ter m maintenance method recommended for the pycnidial form, in wh ich infected leaves are stored under dry conditions in a refrigerator, is often applicable as well for long-term maintenance. In that case, as an additional precaution, spores should be obtained from the stored material every 6 months, multiplied, and used for inoculation of new seedlings. Thus, freshly infected leaves are available for continued storage.Artificially cultured conidia of S. tritici and pycnidiospores of S. nodorum are often used for greenhouse and field trials (102,122). These types of trials call for a high concentration of live spores per volume (rnl), High concentrations of S. tritici pycnidiospores can be produced in either solid or liquid media. Septoria nodorum can be increased on solid medium or on kernels.Solid media on which S. tritici and S. nodorum grow well and develop many spores (PDA + 4-5% of yeast extract, or YMA) are good for inoculum increase. Large numbers of petri plates containing medium are inoculated with either fungi by streaking the spores from a 5-to 10-day-old slant or petri plate across the surface. They can also be inoculated by transferring a spore suspension to the fresh plates in microbe-free conditions. These suspensions are obtained by adding 2-5 ml sterile water with a sterile Pasteur pipette to 5-to 10-day-old slants or petri dishes containing the fungus. The surface of the culture is then scraped with a glass rod in order to suspend the spores into the surface water. Then 2 ml of the cloudy suspension are transferred to petri plates with the help of a sterile pipette. A spore suspension of S. tritici can also be obtained from liquid shake cultures where an aliquot of 1-2 ml is transferred to the solid medium plates. The petri plate is rotated to ensure that the suspension is distributed evenly.  This assures that if growth is poor in one flask, other flasks of the same isolate can serve as substitutes.For germplasm evaluation of field trials, grow each S. tritici isolate in a separate flask instead of growing the isolates in mixed cultures. Just before inoculation, the separately grown isolates are mixed together.This method has been most successfully applied to S. nodorum. A culture of S. nodorum grown on V-8 juice/Czapek Dox agar or YMA incubated at 17°C under NUV light is flooded with sterile distilled water. The surface of the culture is scraped to remove air bubbles and allow the water to reach the pycnidia. The pycnidiospores are then discharged into the water. After 30 minutes, about 3 ml of the resulting spore suspension are transferred with a sterile Pasteur pipette to a 250-ml flask containing sterile wheat kernels (6). Prior to transfer, these flasks are prepared by autoclaving 25 g of wheat seed and 30 ml of water for 20 minutes at 1.5 kg/cm-' pressure and 126°C. During this time, all free water is taken up by the seed. The inoculated flasks are incubated in the dark at 5°C for about 4 months. More than one flask is prepared for each isolate, so substitutes are available in case of contamination or poor growth.To prepare inoculum for a field trial, flood each flask with 150 ml distilled water. This breaks up the mat of infected grain in the bottom of the flask. The pycnidia are then allowed to discharge their spores over a 30-minute period. The spore suspension is filtered through cheesecloth to remove fragments of fungus, pycnidia, and grain. The spore concentration of each isolate is determined with a counting chamber and adjusted to 1 x 10 6 spores/ml.For S. tritici the liquid media method is recommended for large-scale production of spores. Although the kernel method for S. nodorum is very successful, it requires a lot of time and thus is less flexible. Therefore, when large-scale increase is requested on short notice, the solid media method is used for S. nodorum.Seedlings can be inoculated with a spore suspension by using quantitative or nonquantitative methods. The method used depends on the objectives of the study. Seedlings can be inoculated by gently rubbing the leaves with cotton swabs that have been soaked in a spore suspension. One drop of a surfactant is a helpful additive since it reduces surface tension and increases the creation of a uniform suspension. This method does not provide good control of the various steps involved in the inoculation process, such as the number of spores reaching the leaves. But if other more quantitative methods are difficult to use, the results from rub inoculation can serve as a preliminary evaluation method. Quantitative inoculation methods allow the researcher to determine the number of spores/ml, and the volume of spore suspension sprayed onto the plants. Special techniques, such as the use of a turntable or a settling tower, can control the delivery of a known number of spores per volume during a given time.Revolving inoculation technique-A method using rotary motion (a turntable) devised by Eyal and Scharen (38) has successfully been used for evaluating seedling-host response to both S. tritici and S. nodorum (38,40,148).The increase of inoculum for this method was described in the section on production of inoculum. Inoculum is prepared from 5-to 7-day old septoria cultures. A 15-ml spore suspension (1 x 10 6 to 1 x 10 7 spores/rnl) is sufficient to inoculate about 200 10-to 12-day old seedlings. Ten to twenty seedlings should be used per cultivar when host response is to be evaluated. Seedlings are grown in rows in a square container. The container is placed on a turntable and, while rotating at 45 rpm, seedlings are spray inoculated with a 15-ml spore suspension per container during about a 2-minute period (Plate 18). A drop of a surfactant should be added to the spore suspension.After inoculation, the container with seedlings is placed into an incubation chamber with a saturated atmosphere for 48-72 hours at 18-22°C (Plate 19). A saturated atmosphere can be made by putting very fine tap water mist nozzles in the chamber which is enclosed with clear plastic film. It can also be made by creating high relative humidity within the chamber with water pans, wet cloth, etc. (122). At the end of the incubation period, the plants in the seedling containers are left to air dry. They should not be removed while wet because the inoculum might be spread or mixed by contact with other containers. They are then transferred to a greenhouse bench or to controlled environment chambers.Septaria tritici trials are kept there from Agar containing benzimidazole has also been used for S. nodorum. Leaf sections are placed on the medium, inoculated, incubated, and subsequently evaluated for infection (5,9,18,67). This method shows a fairly good correlat ion with field assessments (9,67).Adult plant technique-It may be desirable to evaluate germplasm beyond the seedling stage in the greenhouse. Summary and recommendation-The choice of inoculation method will depend on the degree of accuracy required in the experiment and on equipment availability.Where quantitative inoculations are required, the revolving inoculation technique method, widely used for both pathogens, is recommended.Infested crop debris-Nurseries, yield trials, and chemical control studies, etc., can be readily inoculated with the two septoria pathogens. After seedlings emerge, usually about 2-3 weeks after planting, they are covered with pycnidiabearing straw. The inoculation should begin at the tillering growth stage and may continue until the later maturing cultivars reach the post-flowering growth stage. Establishing septoria epidemics in the field requires repeated inoculations (usually at least 3-4) throughout the inoculation period under proper conditions (rain, temperature). These efforts will reduce escape and faci Iitate the proper selection of resistant germ plasm. Loss-severity trials also require adequate and uniform levels of disease. However, when inoculum is artificially applied from the top (spray inoculated) after head emergence, the upward spread of the disease is limited making selection for genetic factors difficult or impossible.Inoculated trials in semiarid countries need special attention . If possible, disease progress during the season should be promoted by 15-30 minutes of sprinkler or nozzle irrigation over the crop once or twice a day. Irrigation should be done in the mornings before the dew dries to extend the dew period or in the evenings after the dew forms to promote splashing of the oozing pycnidiospores. A wet period of at least 24-48 hours following inoculation is best to ensure infection in the field.An increase in humidity can be achieved by wetting the soil prior to inoculation. Also, portable plastic humidity chambers can be placed over the plants immediately after inoculation with a spore suspension. If pressurized water is available, increased relative humidity can also be obtained by fitting the chamber with a dewspraying nozzle. Inoculation of a limited number of entries (crossing block, segregating populations, etc.) can be carried out in a nethouse or in other permanent housing covered with transparent plastic or fitted with dewspraying water nozzles connected to a timer.Summary and recommendations-Spreading infected straw, collected at the right time in the previous season and stored in a dry place, is the simplest field inoculation procedure, but adequate levels of disease for selection can not always be guaranteed. Repeated inoculations using spore suspensions will ensure good infection in most situations. However, if inoculation is continued into the adult plant stage, certain resistance components that, under natural infection, would limit the upward spread of the disease from lower to upper leaves may become difficult, if not impossible, to select for. It may be advisable to inoculate repeatedly only during the tillering stage, and no longer once stem elongation commences .Assessment of disease infection is essential for evaluating germplasm response to pathogens in genetic and epidemiological studies and for studying other aspects of the interaction of the hosts and pathogens.Septoria diseases of wheat are usually evaluated on the basis of plant tissue affected by the pathogen. Estimates of disease severity are made two ways: 1) evaluating how dense the pycnidia are, and 2) determining the area of dead tissue on the affected plant, the nongreen leaf area or the remaining green leaf area. The former method estimates the total presence and direct manifestation of the pathogen. The latter takes into account interactions between the host and the pathogen . Thi s interaction is not always directly related to the effect of the disease. The host does not always show obvious loss of quality because of the presence of the disease. In these cases, a combination of both approaches may be necessary. The presence of disease may also be evaluated by quantifying mycelial or spore production .Although research workers usually evaluate the presence of disease, the nonaffected area or the absolute green leaf area is likely to be more closely related to yield potential than the disease index (the sum of the percentage of nongreen leaf area on the top four leaves of diseased plants minus the sum for healthy plants) (50).Host response may be greatly influenced by the growth stage of the host. Several investigators studied the relationships between host growth development and disease severity (35,124,126). These relationships are strongly affected by host genotype and phenotype. It is thus of great importance to record the growth stage of the host at the time of disease assessment.The decimal code of Zadoks et al (154), which was developed from the Feekes growth stage scale (78), is used by many cereal workers (Figure 10). It appl ies to all small grain cereal species growing in a wide range of environments.When the effects of infection on yield are studied, disease evaluations are usually made between medium milk (growth stage 75) and late milk (growth stage 77). This is the period when the kernels are accumulating dry matter most rapidly and compensation for diseased plants by adjacent healthier plants is least likely to Plate 1. Septaria tritici on durum wheat. -.  occur ( 70). Yet, in many cases, disease assessment is conducted throughout the growing season starting with the onset of the disease. Evaluation of disease progress with time may provide some explanation s as to relationships between disease and plant development and its reflection on yield . Moreover, various types of disease protection (slow di sease progress, etc.) can only be evaluated by following disease development over time.Several methods used to assess disease for each of the pathogens will be presented and discussed. There is not a single uniform assessment method accepted by all septaria workers for either controlled studies in the greenhouse or for field evaluation .Saari-Prescott 0-9 scale, double digit 00-99 scaleThe Saari-Prescott 0-9 scoring scale (110) for evaluating the intensity of foliar diseases other than rusts in wheat, triticale, and barley is most commonly used for both septaria diseases when taking notes in the field (Figure 11).The method was recently improved by using two digits, representing the vertical disease progress and an estimate of severity (Figure 12). The first digit gives the relative height of the disease using the original 0-9 Saari-Prescott scale as a measure. The second digit shows the disease severity as a percentage but in terms of 0-9. Because it is difficult to evaluate diseases on dead leaves, disease notes should be taken when at least four leaves are still alive and green (soft to mid-dough growth stage). Then visually evaluate the average percentage severity on only those leaves of the uppermo st four that are infected (Figure 12). In practice, the percent severity is estimated by looking at 10-20 plants and deciding on an overall score. The following format is used for scoring severity :The score of 10 is not used.For example, a certain line of wheat is infected by S. tritici. If the height of the disease is at about the mid-point of the plant, the score on the 0-9 Saari-Prescott scale for relative height is 5. The average coverage with S. tritici on only those leaves of the uppermost four that are infected, that is, those at and below the midpoint, is 10%. Then the numerical disease description is 51 (Figure 12). This scale is called the double-digit 00-99 scale and can be used for many foliar diseases that \"climb up\" the plant, including the septaria blotches, butshould not be used to evaluate the rusts.  5 -Very Susceptible (VS) -Large, abundant pycnid ia, lesions coalescing extensively.Eyal's Septoria tritid disease evaluation methods Septoria progress coefficient-To overcome some of the difficulties associated with plant growth habit (maturity and height) and the expression of symptoms, Eyal and Ziv (43) have used the Septoria Progress Coefficient (SPC) together with an evaluation of disease severity (Figure 14). Plant and disease height (em) are determined. Disease height is the maximum height (em) from the ground where pycnidia of the pathogen are found on the plant. the pathogen is on the plant might be due to the characteristics of the plant and how these relate to the spread of the disease. This variation might also be due to genetic factors that determine the upward progress of the disease over time . The spread of disease cannot be measured by only looking at the uppermost leaf (flag leaf). If this were done , taller plants would generally show less susceptibility to disease and vertical disease spread would not be taken into account.Diagrammatic scale-Disease severity can be evaluated according to the Eyal and Brown diagrammatic scale (37), wh ich is used to evaluate the actual pycnidial density per unit leaf area (Figure 15). 19.89   62) is an illustrated series of evaluation keys for plant leaf diseases, their preparation, and usage. The standard area diagrams were accurately prepared with an electronic scanner (Figure 17).Cough's pycnidiospore production method Other methods have used pycnidiospore or mycelial production to evaluate host response. A method based on pycnidiospore production is presented. Gough (51) has reported on a method to evaluate cultivar response to S. tritici  hours by dipping each leaf segment 10 times into the distilled water and counted using a hemacytometer. After the first harvest, the dishes are left for 30 hours.Then they are rewetted. After another 24-26 hours, a second spore harvest and counting take place. The total number of spores produced is determined from the two hemacytometer counts.The nine assessment methods include two distinct approaches:1) One is designed to evaluate germplasm response on a comparative or relative basis, thus allowing the large collection of cultivars usually sown in disease evaluation nurseries to be evaluated in a relatively short time. Examples are the Saari-Prescott 0-9 scale and its modification, the double-digit 00-99 scale. These are widely used by plant breeders and pathologists. The inclusion of the disease severity assessment of the area of the plant affected adds a quantitative parameter to the method.2) When more precise evaluation of germplasm is required, then the quantitative scales designed by Bronnimann (15), Eyal et al (42), Eyal and Brown (37), and James ( 62) can be used or other quantitative assessment methods may be employed, such as quantification of pycnidiospore production (51).For both S. tritici and S. nodorum, the procedures outlined in this methodology chapter are summarized in Table 4 in the form of recommendations. disease height and severity (Saari-Prescott severity (Saari-Prescott 0-9 scale, double digit 0-9 scale, double digit 00-99 scale) 00-99 scale)1 Boldface terms in parentheses refer to sections in the Methodology chapter.Epidemics of septoria tritici blotch and septoria nodorum blotch of wheat are associated with favorable weather conditions (frequent rains and moderate temperatures), specific cultural practices, availability of inoculum, and the presence of susceptible wheat cultivars.The splashing dispersal mechanism affected by rain limits distances to which pycnidiospores can be spread. The usual vertical progress of septoria from lower to upper leaves is affected by the distance between consecutive leaves-the \"ladder effect.\" The distances between the first emerging three to four leaves are similar for short and tall cultivars. On tall varieties, the distance between each leaf is greater toward the flag leaf. In the dwarf cultivars (70-90 cm), the closeness of the upper leaves to the lower leaves facilitates contact between newly emerging leaves and splashed pycnidiospores. Movement of the pathogen from infected lower leaves is thereby made simpler . As a result, pycnidia often appear earlier on upper plant parts of dwarf cultivars than they do on leaves of taller cultivars. Thus both resistance-and morphology-related genetic factors influence disease spread and resulting severity. Under severe epidemics, the differences in plant architecture and stature of susceptible cultivars are of no importance to the pathogen. In moderate to light epidemics, however, upper plant parts of dwarf cultivars are more receptive to the pathogen than taller wheats as they are nearer to inoculum sources (34). In wheat-growing regions where septoria pathogens are a potential danger, plant architecture, especially leaf placement , should be taken into account when new wheat cultivars are to be released.Because of the splashing dispersal mechanism, exposed plants are often infected to a higher degree than plants closely surrounded . Therefore, observing disease levels on plants on field borders usually indicates the greatest infection level at a particular time during plant growth. Open areas within the field that result from skips during machine sowing are also good areas to observe disease occurrence. In areas facing the rain, the splashing effect is increased because the penetration of drops is undisturbed.In countries where M. graminicola has not been found, it is still assumed that pycnidiospores of S. tritici serve as the primary inoculum. It is probable, however, that M. graminicola will be found in other wheat-growing areas and countries as more effort is devoted to systematically searching for the pseudothecia and ascospores.The primary inoculum for initiating epidemics of septoria tritici blotch in New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom is wind-blown ascospores of M . graminicola. Early seedling infection by ascospores was reported to have a greater effect on yield in New Zealand than later infection by pycnidiospores on upper plant parts. This phenomenon is called a two-staged epidemic cycle.Cultural practices in New Zealand leave the wheat plants after harvest as standing stubble during wet periods, whereas in many other places the wheat residue is left as debris on the soil surface or incorporated into the soil (114). This difference in wheat residue management is considered the main factor for the development of the sexual fruiting bodies when the environmental conditions are favorable (summer rains). Because the standing stubble is predominantly dry and when wetted dries out rapidly, it is not subjected to rapid breakdown by saprophytic microorganisms. Standing stubble, therefore, is in a much better physical position to produce pseudothecia and release ascospores. During milder autumn and winter conditions, pseudothecia and ascospores have been found in Australia, Europe, New Zealand, and the United States. Where the absence of summer rains and high temperatures makes conditions unfavorable for development of the sexual state and leaf debris remains relatively untouched on the soil surface for long periods, pycnidia of the asexual state are most likely the main primary source of inoculum. Crop residues that remain in direct contact with the soil surface are, however, very vulnerable to decay, as are incorporated crop residues.Soil management practices that leave large amounts of wheat stubble and debris on the soil surface increase the chance of septoria epidemics under favorable climatic conditions. Cultural practices that reduce wheat residue through plowing, burning, removal for feeding, crop rotation, etc., help remove the major source of primary inoculum . Crop rotation with wheat cropping intervals of 3-5 years has decreased septoria tritici blotch incidences in Israel. However, spores themselves may survive in soil up to 20 months and remain pathogenic (136).Unlike pycnidiospores, ascospores have the potential to travel long distances by air currents from the source of origin and threaten new crops, in addition to their ability to introduce new virulence combinations. The horizontal spread of septoria tritici blotch from an infected center is associated with the upward spread of the disease in infected plants.The vertical and horizontal spread is slow under unfavorable conditions, such as low temperatures and lack of rainfall. The spread is faster when the minimum temperatures rise to 8-1OOC during the nights, provided that rainfall is adequate.The horizontal spread increases in less dense fields because splashing raindrops penetrate better to infected lower plant parts.Long rainless intervals with high temperatures often occur in Mediterranean environments towards the end of the growing season. These intervals interrupt septoria tritici blotch progress from lower infected leaves to upper plant parts.Septoria nodorum epidemics can start from infected seeds, especially in wetter years (26). In the southeastem U.S.A., seed infection by S. nodorum was chronic and varied from 40 to more than 50% (80). One infected seedling in 5,000 was enough to initiate a septoria nodorum blotch epidemic in the field (53).Besides infected seed, crop debris is an important source of primary inoculum. After 1 year, wheat straw still contains pycnidia able to produce viable and infective pycnidiospores (115). Crop rotations out of wheat for 1 or 2 years did not lead to lower disease levels in the subsequent wheat crop if infected seed was used for planting. Even in conjunction with fungicide treatment (benornyl) of the seed, a l-year rotation did not reduce infection in the crop.However, when the seed was treated and a 2-year rotation was observed, then the amount of disease was greatly reduced, but nevertheless still present ( 81). It appears therefore that infected crop debris on the soil may function as a source of primary inoculum for a number of years.A combination of seed treatment or the use of clean, certified seed, plus at least 2 years of rotation; seems desirable if high levels of disease are to be avoided. A confounding factor may nevertheless be the survival of S. nodorum as potentially pathogenic spores in the soil up to 20 months (136).Septoria nodorum spores are mostly dispersed over short distances within crops causing localized disease spread.Although most spore-carrying rain droplets are 200-400 p:m in diameter, some are smaller and often become airborne in moving air (13). Septoria nodorum spores may be carried in such small droplets, and can be dispersed over considerable distances (44,150). Most S. nodorum spores, however, are dispersed less than 2 m in the large \"ballistic\" splash droplets. Wind greatly increases the dispersal of smaller droplets and spores in the downwind direction (12,13).Tall cultivars often show lower levels of infection with S. nodorum than short ones. The dispersal of S. nodorum from the base to the top of the plant occurs less readily when the distance to be travelled is greater (127). The canopy of a taller cultivar might generate a microclimate that is less conducive to the development of S. nodorum than that of a short cultivar, which may be denser and closer to the soiI. Leaf wetness may be less and its duration may be shorter than that in some short cultivars that have denser canopies.Wheat cultivars reported to be resistant in one country may sometimes succumb to attack by septoria populations in another country. Some sources of resistance were overcome by the pathogens after they were incorporated into agronomically suitable wheats and submitted to national trials. Knowledge of the virulence spectra of the septoria pathogens would be useful in establishing a reliable resistance breeding program (88). Specific hostpathogen interactions have been reportedfor both S. tritici and S. nodorum, but their generality remains unproven.There are conflicting reports on the issue of physiologic specialization in S. ttitici, Cultures of S. tritici isolated in Israel have behaved as races in the conventional connotation on both Triticum aestivum and T. durum (36,153). Their parasitic characters have remained stable through successive host passages and repeated transfers on nutrient media. Physiologic specialization has been reported in the U.S.A. ( 94), Australia (6), and Uruguay (30). Isolates secured from T. aestivum are in general avirulent on T. durum with several exceptions (36). In Tunisia , there appears to be a lack of resistance in most durum wheats while several bread wheats are highly resistant to the local S. tritici population (31).Isolates and cultivars may differ significantly with respect to the incubation period , percentage of leaf area infected, and the number of pycnidia produced (30). The interaction between cultivars x isolates may also be significant for the above parameters. In that case, this suggests the existence of races. Virulence patterns were evaluated for 97 isolates from 22 countries on seedlings of 35 wheat and triticale cultivars (39).Significant cultivar x isolate interaction indicated the presence of specific virulence genes among isolates. The geographical regions and countries varied considerably in their relative virulence frequencies . The virulence frequencies of S. tritici were the highest in Latin America, with Uruguay and Mexico having the most virulent populations.The cultivar x isolate interaction was minute when the reaction of 13 durum wheats to 34 isolates from seven countries was evaluated . Comparison of genetic effects among these cultivars also suggests that the presence of classical races is unlikely (148,149). It seems that certain S. tritici isolates are better able to infect bread wheats than durum wheats, and vice versa. Isolates may differ in the infection levels they can cause within a species, either bread wheat or durum wheat. In the absence of differential interaction between cultivars and isolates, such differences are due to varying levels of aggressiveness among the isolates (84,148,149).Septoria occurring naturally in common chickweed (Stella ria media) is pathogenic on wheat. Wheat was inoculated with this isolate and spores were collected from the resulting pycnidia. Upon reinoculation of new wheat plants, the level of virulence had increased. With repeated passages through wheat, the virulence on this crop kept increasing (95).Inoculation with certain combinations of S. tritici isolates grown together in mixtures or grown separately and mixed prior to inoculation may result in a marked reduction in the level of symptoms compared to the level on plants inoculated separately with the individual components of the mixture.Symptom expression may be dependent on the ratio of each of the isolates in the mixture (155).The presence of classical races for S. nodorum also remains unclear.Researchers have found 282 isolates of S. nodorum from the principal wheatgrowing areas in northern Florida to have distinct resistance patterns. Despite differential interactions, this did not permit conventional race differentiation It appears that, in S. nodorum , terms such as \"race,\" \"cultivar,\" and \"isolate\" might not be meaningful outside a specific experimental situation (54).Barley isolates of S. nodorum exhibited increased virulence to wheat after two passages through wheat, but no change occurred during passage of wheat isolates through barley (47). Isolates of S. nodorum from wheat were characteristically virulent to wheat and avirulent to barley. However, a biotype pathogenic on barley has been recovered from wheat isolates after various numbers of passages through barley. The biotype of S. nodorum on barley which occurs in the southern U.S.A. appears to be largely restricted to barley (25). Septaria nodorum isolates of barley and wheat were highly virulent to their original host but nevertheless weakly virulent to the opposite crop in reciprocal inoculations (27). Isolates from wheat and barley with differing characters might therefore be considered biotypes of S. nadorum.Septaria nodarum may infect several forage grass species (74). Three of the isolates studied were still pathogenic on wheat after passage through the grass hosts.For both Septaria spp., there are reports supporting and arguing against the presence of classical races operative in the host-pathogen system. There is a need to evaluate the diversity of the two pathogens in relation to their hosts. The implications of differential interaction, if shown to be widely applicable, would be great for growers, breeders, and pathologists alike.Exact knowledge of the host-isolate responses will aid in the identification of distinct resistance sources and in the selection of resistant germplasm. Consequently, it will enable the design of more effective breeding and disease control strategies.Most of the high-yielding wheat cultivars grown today are susceptible to septoria tritici blotch and septoria nodorum blotch. Therefore, resistance is a high-priority breeding goal. Host resistance is \"the main pillar of defense against disease\" (21,122) . But not enough is known about the types of resistance, their mode of action, inheritance, manipulation, and accumulation. These aspects, together with the possibil ity (35,107,108,119) that 5. tritici and S. nodorum are able to adapt their virulence or aggressiveness, are difficulties faced by the programs that breed for resistance to these pathogens.Favorable environmental conditions, lack of resistant cultivars, chronic seed infection (5. nodorum), and improper cultural practices are the major factors that contribute to severe septoria outbreaks in certain parts of the world. A yield loss of 1% for each 1% increment in severity on the flag leaf and a loss of about 0.6% for each 1% increment on the leaf below the flag leaf has been recorded (71).Evaluating the relationship between disease severity and losses in yield or yield components (17,43,145) in advanced cultivars of septoria-infected vs. fungicide-protected trials should provide information on the vulnerability of these lines to the pathogen. It should also permit agriculturists to design proper protective measures (chemical control, limited varietal distribution, improved breeding approaches, etc.), Resistance to septoria can be evaluated in field nurseries, which are naturally or artificially infected. Low infection levels are often associated with late maturity and tall plant stature. In countries where rains stop early in the season and/or temperatures increase rapidly, there is a greater chance of escaping infection.In order to evaluate host response to both pathogens, disease epidemics of a uniform and quite high level should be established in the nurseries. Artificial inoculation of the nursery assures infection. Host response can then be evaluated.Evaluation is restricted to the pathogenicity spectrum of the selected isolates. Differences in aggressiveness among isolates can shift the initial virulence spectrum of the iso late mixture. This may result in an unbalanced virulence spectrum. Artificial inoculation of screening nurseries should be performed several times throughout the season, ending when later-maturing wheats reach anthesis. Such methods might introduce difficulties in evaluation if slow disease progress is sought or plant growth stage affects host receptivity (132). These difficulties might be partially overcome if early maturing wheats and later maturing wheats are divided into separate subnurseries. In these nurseries, accessions could be compared with the same check cultivars representing wheats of various growth habits . One may also prefer to inoculate heavily only in the tillering stage and subsequently allow natural development of the epidemic fueled by autoinfection .Resistances to septaria tritici blotch and septaria nodarum blotch appear to be more widely distributed among bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) cultivars with winter growth habit than among those with spring growth habit. Resistance has also been reported in several wild relatives of wheat (14,151,152).Dominant, partially dominant, recessive, and additive gene actions were found to condition resistance to both septoria tritici blotch and septoria nodorum blotch (20,31,72,73,75,76,89,90,98,100,104,106,107,110,116,122,128,139,148,149,152). The additional presence of genes that modify the expression of dominant genes for resistance might explain in part the lack of success in transferring adequate protection from the cultivars in certain crosses.Resistance to both Septoria spp. did not often reside in the same line when 43 varieties resistant to S. tritici were evaluated for their reaction to isolates of 5. nodorum collected in Montana, U.S.A. (118). However, when a similar group of cultivars was tested for resistance to a large number of isolates of both pathogens collected from eight different countries, a very high correlation was found between host responses to the two pathogens (120). This stresses the need to study the diversity in the two pathogens and their dissimilarities.Plant height and growth habit (photoperiod and vernal ization requirements) interact with specific genetic factors that control disease expression. This interaction makes evaluation of germplasm to septoria diseases difficult (29,35,125,140) .Tolerance to septoria pathogens (that qual ity enabling a susceptible cultivar to endure severe attack by a pathogen without sustaining severe losses in yield) has been identified in certain highyielding wheat cultivars (16,156). The tolerant cultivars yielded well and produced heavy, unshrivelled kernels under severe septoria epidemics when compared to fungicide-protected plots and nontolerant wheat cultivars. In the future, tolerance could be combined with resistance expressed by low disease severity. This would provide the endurance together with a recognizable resistance.Of 22 T. monoeoeeum boeotieum lines (genome AA), only two were susceptible to a wide virulence spectrum of S. tritici in Israel (153). Of 47 wild emmer (T. turgidum dieoeeoides) lines, 25 were resistant to all seven S. tritici isolates used in the experiment. A high level of resistance to S. tritici has been detected among populations and accessions of T. longissimum, T. speltoides, and T. tausehii lAegilops squarrosa) no. 33. Resistance to S. tritiei has been transferred to bread wheat from Agropyron elongatum (52).In many countries (31,35,118,119), durum wheats and triticales have a higher frequency of resistance to S. tritici than spring bread wheats. However, in Tunisia several bread wheat lines and cultivars were highly resistant to S. tritici whereas very few durum wheat cultivars showed good resistance (31). This condition might result from the fact that durum wheats are widely grown in Tunisia, thus producing directed selection pressure on the pathogen to adapt to durum wheats rather than bread wheats, which are grown on a much smaller scale.Resistance to septoria tritici blotch from winter wheat germplasm (Aurora, Bezostaya 1, Kavkaz, and others), available in agronomically suitable, resistant semidwarf cultivars developed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (C1MMYT) in Mexico and released by national programs, although not universal, is effective against a rather wide spectrum of pathogenicity patterns. The inheritance of resistance of Bezostaya 1 and Bezostaya 1-derived winter wheats (Aurora, Kavkaz, and Trakia) to two distinct S. tritici isolates under controlled field trials indicated that the resistance of the four winter wheats to the isolate ISR398 (ATCC 48507) is controlled by one or two dominant genes.There was no indication for maternal effect on the expression of disease coverage. The two S. tritici isolates (ISR398 and ISR8036) possess at least two different genes for virulence. Low correlations were expressed between heading date and plant height and pycnidial coverage of septoria tritici blotch (28). A gene that modifies the expression of the dominant effect of Bezostaya 1 to S. tritici has been reported (29). Additive effects in the inheritance of resistance to S. tritici have been shown to be of prime importance, although dominance effects have been also often present. Epistasis seemed negligible in the durum wheat material studied (148,149).The dwarfing gene Rht2 has only a slight effect on resistance to S. tritici (125,127). Therefore the relationship between height and resistance appears to be determined chiefly by genes other than Rht2.Resistance to S. tritici in some winter wheat cultivars is expressed by low pycnidial density which has been successfully transferred to early-maturing, short-statured wheats (29).Resistance to S. nodorum was successfully transferred from T. tausehii (Aegilops squarrosa) no. 33 to winter wheat (144).In moderately resistant cultivars , resistance may be controlled by additive action of several genes, whereas in highly resistant cultivars, resistance may be governed by major resistance genes (119). There is some evidence that resistance at the seedling stage is conferred by one or more dominant genes. Available experimental analyses indicate, however, that the resistance of wheat to S. nodorum is mainly under polygenic control and involves several genes (79,87,89,90,120). General combining ability (GCA) effects are highly significant, but specific combining ability (SCA) effects have been observed as well, indicating nonadditive gene action for some specific crosses (89). In advanced generations, transgressive segregation may occur (117). One or more genes modify the expression of resistance of the dominant gene of Atlas 66 to S. nodorum.Resistance in wheat to S. nodorum may be of a nonrace-specific or \"horizontal\" type and, while reasonably durable, relies on several individual partial resistance components (64). These components can be subdivided into resistance to infection, resistance to colonization, and resistance to reproduction (93). If all the components are acting together, disease will be reduced and yield increased. Four principal components of partial resistance have been determined which may represent genuine physiological processes under genetic control that may possibly be separable: 1) infection frequency; 2) latent period; 3) size, shape, and rate of growth of lesions; and 4) spore production and its mode of increase. Significant differences between lines under severe attack by S. nodorum were observed in the incubation time and in the rate of symptom expression, which explain the differences in epidemic development and the slowing down of disease progress (99). The durability of partial resistance to S. nodorum of the cultivars Razon and R82 can apparently be overcome only if a biotype with new aggressiveness is present in the pathogen population at the beginning of the epidemic (101).There appears to be a connection between resistance to S. nodorum and plant height. This association was suggested to be due to chance association between shortness and susceptibility in parental lines, genetic linkage, or pleiotropy (128). Results indicate that these characters may not be associated by chance, but at least partly by pleiotropy or linkage (126). The same association is apparent, but less consistent, between resistance to S. nodorum and lateness.Resistance in the crosses studied is not determined by individually identifiable genes of large effect. Resistance may be determined by certain genes of small effect, possibly many in number.Pleiotropy may be the most probable cause of the association between height, Numerous genetic studies indicate that tolerance to septoria nodorum blotch is additively and polygenically inherited with a relatively high heritability value (17). Most progress in breeding for septoria tolerance may arrive through a combination of tolerance with the \"slow septoring\" or slow disease development effect.A uniform and moderately high level of disease is required in breeding nurseries so that there is sufficient disease pressure on the material for selection. Artificial inoculation will assure this. Positive selection will then be possible without the risk of escapes. In both pathogens, dominant, partially dominant, and recessive genes that condition resistance have been found. Additive gene action, polygenically inherited, appears to be of major importance. Resistance may also be available in wild relatives of wheat. Linkage between height and susceptibility does not seem to be strong. The relationship rather appears to be one of pleiotropy for some genes, mainly expressed in an altered plant architecture affecting disease spread and severity. Tolerance has been insufficiently explored.Fungicide protection has been used either as a stop-gap measure, or as an integral part of the crop management system. Its purpose has been to secure the high yields of susceptible cultivars (23), The design of an economical chemical control program for protection from the septoria pathogens of wheat depends upon several crop management cons iderations. Prior to applying chemicals, wheat growers and/or researchers must decide whether to resort to chemical control of the specific wheat field if necessary. The considerations are as follows: 1) early assessment of yield potential and econom ics of the specific wheat field; 2) vulnerability of the wheat cultivar to septoria and/or other diseases; 3) history of wheat cropping and septoria epidemics in the specific field; 4) disease levels in the specific field; 5) cultural practices before sowing (burying of refuse, deep plowing, etc.) that might reduce the amount of primary inoculum; 6) early detection of the diseases and assessment of their progress; 7) weather conditions; 8) cost of fungicide protection relative to other investments in the crop; and 9) projected yields and losses.An effective chemical control program for septoria diseases should be accompanied by an extensive disease surveying system. Some countries routinely condud disease surveys and disease forecasting and a few others incorporate computer-generated recommendations based on data collected in the field. This system provides for the early detection of diseases, evaluation of disease distribution, and evaluation of disease development. Success in decreasing the effect of these diseases on yield potential depends on the integration of all components into a disease management scheme that is part of the regular crop management system. These components include epidemiology, cultural practices, genetic protection, chemical control, biological control, and extension.Protectants Dithiocarbamates (maneb, manzate, mancozeb, zineb) have proved effective in controlling septoria diseases (31,41) . However, these protectant fungicides require repeated application at 10-to , have also been found to be effective. Combining protectant and systemic fungicides to control septoria disease might provide an alternative route, since tolerance to carbendazim was reported in S. nodorum (61). The systemic fungicides can lengthen the protection effect, counterading outbreaks and timing difficulties. The protectant fungicide reduces the selection pressure on the pathogen exerted by the systemic fungicides and expands the control spectrum and longevity of the control program .Methyl benzimidazole carbamate (MBC) group-Under the normal commercial situation in New Zealand, fungicide is applied toward the end of the winter when the plants are at the 4-5 leaf stage. At that time, the natural dispersal of ascospores has ceased, but no symptoms are yet visible. A single spray of benomyl at 0.25 kg active ingredientlha is then adequate to control septoria tritici blotch (112) .When disease levels on the wheat heads due to S. nodorum are moderate to severe, chemical control with MBC-type fung icides has proven profitable in Europe. In West Germany, toxicological considerations have, however, led to the withdrawal of the official use of MBC-type fungicides (45).n .Isolates of S. tritici resistant to benzimidazole have been reported in the U.K. The minimum inhibitory concentration was 0.2-0.4 ppm far benomyl-sensitive isolates and greater than 1,000 ppm for benomyl-resistantisolates. An S. tritici culture resistant to 4,000 ppm benomyl was recovered in Israel. The culture did not differ from the wild type in its virulence spectrum (155).The benomyl-resistant isolates secured in the U.K. were resistant to carbendazim, thiabendazole, and thiophanate-methyl, but not to 11 other fungicides including captafol , chlorothalonil, iprodione, maneb, prochloraz, propiconazole, triadimefon, and triadimenol (46). Poar control of S. tritici following five sprays of carbendazim has been associated with a high proportion of benzimidazole-resistant strains in the pathogen population (86).Fungicides of the MBC group (e.g., benomyl) in combination with dithiocarbamates (e.g., maneb) are used in some countries in northwestern Europe to control septoria nodorum blotch (91,92).Ergosterol-biosynthesis inhibitors-The introduction of ergosterol-biosynthesis inhibitors such as prochloraz (Sportak), propiconazole (Tilt), and triadimefon (Bayleton) has, to a certain extent, overcome the deficiencies of the protectants. The new fungicides offer more flexibility in time of application, and they are broad-spectrum fungicides that control rusts and, in some cases, powdery mildew (Erysiphe graminis), in addition to the septaria diseases. The mean infection frequency of S. nodorum is greatly reduced by three fungicides (captafol, prochloraz, and propiconazole) on certain spring wheat cultivars, but less on others (64). The latent period often becomes longer following fungicide treatment. Propiconazole and prochloraz inhibit pycnidial production, while captafol markedly reduces pycnidial production in some cultivars.In Germany, two applications of propiconazole (Tilt) several days apart were found to be mare suppressive on septaria nodorum blotch development and more effective in increasing yield than a single treatment. Treatment at the early boot (growth stages [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40] or boot (growth stage 45) stages is most likely to be economical if attack on the lower leaves is heavy and moderate to slight on the higher leaves (45).In a fungicide trial conducted in Israel to control septoria tritici blotch, the most effective treatment was two early successive applications of either propiconazole (Tilt) or benomyl. The fungicides were applied at growth stages 40 and 47 when infection had reached 5% on the first or second leaf below the flag leaf (the action threshold). This resulted in slower disease progress, low pycnidia coverage, and significantly higher yields and kernel weights than the untreated, inoculated controls (22). A single application of propiconazole at the action threshold just mentioned was more effective in controlling the pathogen and securing high yields, than when applied at a later date, but less effective than the two successive early applications. Under high disease levels, the curative effect of propiconazole was less obvious than under low to moderate disease levels. Repeated appl ications of the protectant maneb were less effective than the systemic fungicides, especially if the action threshold was misjudged. When the protectant was applied after the disease severity was more than the recommended action threshold, an attempt to use propiconazole to correct the earlier misjudgement was not When applied as leaf sprays, the fungicides triadimefon (Bayleton), RH 2161, chlorothalonil (Bravo 500), carbendazim, and benomyl all reduced the severity of S. tritiei in New Zealand .In addition, significant yield responses were obtained in field plots (141). A single application of prochloraz 5 days prior to artificial inoculation with S. nodorum was less effective than curative treatments applied 1 week after inoculation (45).The economic effectiveness of seed dressing in controlling septoria tritici blotch is questionable and supportive information is lacking. Bimodal disease progress curves are characteristic of epidemics in Australia and New Zealand, in which M . graminieola ascospores are a primary inoculum source for septoria tritici blotch for 2-3 months after seedling emergence (19). As an alternative to foliar applications, seed treatment has been investigated. Seed treatment with systemic fungicides reduced pycnidiospore production in Victoria, Australia, for up to 3 months after sowing, though without a measurable increase in yield. The most effective chemicals far seed treatment were: thiabendazole (1 .5 g/kg seed), triadimenol (0.3 glkg seed), and nuarimol (0.2 g/kg seed), which reduced the number of plants infected with S. tritici by 62, 52, and 36%, respectively, but without improving yield .When dealing with septoria nodorum blotch, seed dressing with suitable systemic fungicides can be effective in reducing the primary infections from seedborne inoculum. The frequency of current septoria nodorum blotch epidemics from infected seeds treated with seed-dressing fungicides is uncertain.Protecting the head with fungicides in seed production fields increases yield. It also can reduce the percentage of infected seed. Furthermore, seed treatment with fungicides can lessen the degree of infection by S. nodorum. Sanitary measures, such as decreasing seedborne inoculum, might also delay the start of an epidemic (26). Effective seed treatments combined with cultural practices that eliminate exposure to infested crop debris can further reduce infection of seedlings.A comparison of different effective chemical control programs against septoria tritici blotch and septoria nodorum blotch is presented in Table 5. Table 6 lists the fungicides currently used in the chemical control of S. tritici and S. nodorum.   ","tokenCount":"14294"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"13f131c8725f6543a789659588b72ad9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/Factsheet/MSP-Infosheet02.pdf","id":"-28106169"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"4c034c9c-c121-419e-a323-ab8daf8ab45c","pagecount":"4","content":"Designing meaningful, inclusive spaces for transformative change How to: design for context So you've mapped existing and past experiences with MSPs in your landscape, and decided that you want to implement one. Now it's time to home in on context -the resources, actors, governance arrangements, power structures and relationships, and conflicts that exist within, or affect, the landscape in question. Trying to address land and/ or resource-related challenges by putting in place new ways of doing things, without taking into account existing ones, can hinder MSPs' ability to reach their goals (Sarmiento Barletti et al., 2020b). If you have not done so already, at this point we highly recommend hiring a social scientist, perhaps a gender expert, or someone experienced in addressing complex sociopolitical challenges. Our proposal for 'designing for engagement' includes a series of contextual issues that may affect your MSP and that you may want to keep in mind as you design, implement, and monitor it (Larson and Sarmiento Barletti, 2020; Sarmiento Barletti et  al., 2020a).Here are some ways to design an MSP with context in mind.Define the geographic scope. This could be landscape or ecosystem-based (particularly if the focus is on a specific resource challenge), or it might align with administrative or jurisdictional boundaries. If you're using landscape boundaries, make sure all the relevant government authorities are involved (Ratner et al., 2022).Map 'who's who' within the landscape, and how they relate to each other in terms of their interests, connections to the issues you want to address, capacities to be able to participate in whatever it is you want to put together, power structures and relations, conflicts over resources, etc. This analysis will allow you to identify the obstacles to inclusion and equity and to use this as the basis for discussions with key actor groups, especially the groups you are targeting for inclusion, to design strategies for change. This mapping will also be important to identify who should host the MSP and the pros and cons of working through existing platforms.Pay attention to 'translation'. Many projects approach the landscape with great ideas, a commitment to equity, and to bottom-up participation. But at every layer of interaction, both among the people working on the project and those engaged with it, everyone has their own interpretation of the concepts you promote, and their own ideas of how things like participation and inclusion should work (Sanders et al., 2017; see also Colfer et al., 2022). Don't assume everyone is on the same page. Translation always happens. If you want your commitment to inclusion and equity to carry through, you'll need to get key actors on board with your vision, from the project organizers to the field technicians, and among influential government, NGOs and grassroots leaders. This \"top-to-bottom\" translation needs to be combined with the \"bottom-up\" engagement that is part of your inclusion strategy. We have included some resources below that you may want to consider to facilitate these processes.Link to other platforms and multiple scales to maximize impact. By making these kinds of connections, you can build momentum across the larger landscape, make greater policy impact, and more effectively promote change. Connecting with other MSPs at the same scale allows for mutual learning across similar groups, while multiscale approaches can help with targeted planning and producing a range of impacts based on the potential of each arena (Hewlett et al., 2020).Be aware of 'governance gaps' -and the potential of MSPs to fill them. Often, actors in a landscape -including different governance offices -lack effective space for coordination to address land use and other resource governance challenges. This may have different impacts on your MSP, as filling gaps can support coordination and improved governance (Palacios Llaque and Sarmiento Barletti, 2021). However, if there really is a lack of similar spaces in your landscape of intervention, your MSP may be taken over by other issues (Rodriguez and Sarmiento Barletti, 2020). Where would your MSP fit?Case study in Chemba, Tanzania: successful design-for-context Chemba is a district in central Tanzania that was experiencing land-use conflicts among pastoralists, crop farmers, settlers, and conservation organizations. A local NGO, the Tanzania Natural Resource Forum (TNRF), convened an MSP to attempt to resolve these conflicts, improve community participation and engagement, and strategically addressing power imbalances between local and higher-level authorities. This landscape-level MSP successfully cut across divisions between government sectors and different actors in land governance. It supported coordination among responsible land governance and administration institutions and the establishment of new village-level land councils, which helped to make decentralization in land and resource governance more genuine and meaningful. As one village leader said, it \"is a bridge that connects villagers at the grassroots level with high decision makers. It helps the village authority to understand their responsibilities on land issues better.\"The work is now being scaled up: after another successful MSP with similar objectives in nearby Iringa District, MSPs are being established in additional districts to address land-use conflicts across the country (Ratner et al., 2022). The challenges of multiple governmentalities and forms of participation in protected natural areas:The Amarakaeri Communal Reserve (Peruvian Amazon). International Forestry Review 23(S1).Ratner BD, AM Case study in Karnataka, India: when context isn't considered carefully enoughIn the early 1990s, a group of NGOs, communities, and government institutions collaborated to create a forest planning and management MSP in Karnataka, India. The project built upon national legal and policy frameworks and emphasized creating Village Forest Committees to co-manage forests with the Forest Department.But this MSP did not achieve its hoped-for outcome of more equitable forest management. Before the program's establishment there were no official activity zones in the forest landscape, and the allocation of specific areas for certain activities was controlled by village councils and traditional institutions. Under the new system created through the MSP, the Village Committees and Forest Department what areas were demarcated for specific activities. The new restrictions they applied ignored informal institutions and relationships, which had often allowed marginalized groups access to certain forest resources. As such, the process undermined their ability to maintain their livelihoods.Overall, the MSP failed to address inequalities among local people, or to change the opinion of some Forest Department officials that local people lack capacity to manage their own forests (Martin and Lemon, 2001). ","tokenCount":"1039"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"83c83d34e544aa21221629a48f986ce5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4a8ab2ec-712c-4d25-9b62-0f45da9eac25/retrieve","id":"-1203110445"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"bbbf9c8c-2e2a-40cd-a7b8-b3d99bcd3883","pagecount":"16","content":"Where a simple search can lead Sulah Ndaula I CTs are helping small-scale farmers along every step of the value chain. Computer software enables groups of farmers to manage their combined stock and organise into cooperatives. Internet access offers marketing opportunities and puts smallholder organisations in touch with new buyers. Cell phones deliver market data and aid efficient communication along the supply chain. Using technology, millions of small-scale farmers can participate, influence regional and global markets, and bring food security and economic development to their communities.An ambitious project being piloted in three West African countries is developing a voice-based system to deliver market prices and agricultural information to radio stations and cell phones. A partnership of organisations, which includes the World Wide Web Foundation has developed software that automatically converts details from a database into an audio file that radio stations can access and rebroadcast, and which is available to farmers from their cell phones. The audio is constructed to give the information in an accent that is familiar to the people of the area, and will soon be available in local languages.The system, developed as part of the Web Alliance for Regreening in Africa project, is currently operating in Burkina Faso, Ghana and Mali and encouraging environmental development in the region. The hope is that farmers will use new techniques to preserve the soil and water resources on their land, enabling them to grow more, and better-quality, products. The market information can link them to new and profitable markets. The eventual aim of the project is to develop a voice-based web of information services that farmers can call from their cell phones to find the exact information they require.Spoken information is also an essential element of the Eat Caribbean project, where a weekly radio programme discusses value chain issues with people involved in producing and supplying agricultural products. The programmes are broadcast live online and are available for download afterwards. The project also has a blog, which acts as a resource portal and offers the listeners the opportunity to continue discussing the issues raised on air.As part of the FAO special programme for food security, the project also offers training courses to farmers in the Caribbean Farmers Network (CaFAN). The radio programmes continue to deliver relevant information long after the courses have finished, and the project is now experimenting with social networking, including Facebook, to help connect farmers with other businesses that operate in agricultural value chains.Meanwhile in the Caribbean, the fisheries sector is using a suite of cell phone applications called mFisheries to get up-to-date market prices, find new buyers and even get safety tips. In Trinidad and Tobago, where the apps where tested, fishing boats used to have to to sell their fish to the first willing buyer when they reached the shore so that the catch was sold while still fresh. Using mFisheries, which was developed by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of the West Indies, small fishing enterprises are able to make new connections, become part of new value chains and escape their reliance on the first prices they are offered.ICTs have proven to be very useful for helping small-scale producers in ACP countries to become part of larger value chains. In doing so, they become part of a network of businesses that work together for the benefit of everyone involved. A well-structured value chain provides stability and security to every link in the chain. That is why it is essential that small-scale producers -without whom there would be no product and therefore no value chain -have the tools to strengthen their position, provide the best possible products and get a fair return for their efforts. ◀The importance of producers ICT Update issue 64, February 2012.ICT Update is a bimonthly printed bulletin with an accompanying web magazine (http://ictupdate.cta.int) and e-mail newsletter. The next issue will be available in April 2012.A t the heart of the value chain concept is the idea of farmers, traders, processors and distributors working to produce and deliver goods and services to consumers, adding value at each stage. The difference between this and a traditional marketing chain is that value chain activities are coordinated, with considerable collaboration throughout the process.Farmers who sell their vegetables at the side of the road are not part of a value chain. Farmers who grow vegetables using seed supplied by a buyer, and harvest their produce at the time and in the quantities requested by the buyer are, on the other hand, very much part of a value chain. Similarly, traders who buy at the side of the road and sell at a wholesale market are not part of a coordinated chain. But buyers who work with farmers to meet the needs of supermarkets, processors or overseas importers are. It is the coordination that differentiates value chains from traditional marketing practices.In ACP countries, many improvements are being introduced to chains by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), often in coordination with all those in the chain. Such improvements include strengthening links with farmers, working with overseas buyers to better meet their requirements, promoting product innovation, improving logistics and developing new markets. prices to farmers very quickly, but that achieves nothing if the information being sent is inaccurate. Rural internet access can be improved, but we must make sure that the information that is available to farmers over the internet is accurate, useful and relevant to their location. That, perhaps, is the bigger problem. ◀ Andrew Shepherd (shepherd@cta.int) is a consultant with CTA's programme on value chain development (www.cta.int)Analysing value chains requires the consideration of all factors that affect the ability of farmers and fishers to access markets profitably. In the past, a donor may have decided to support just one stage. For example, postharvest problems may have been diagnosed because losses were high, when the real problem was the lack of a market. Many 'white elephant' processing facilities were built as a result of a failure to consider in detail the capacity and willingness of farmers to produce the quantities required, or to fully consider the market potential of the processed products.Improving chains is all about coordination. And coordination requires communication. While working at FAO 25 years ago, I was involved in publishing a manual on horticultural marketing. The author, Grahame Dixie, insisted that the cover photo should be of a farmer standing in a vegetable plot talking into a phone. Many FAO colleagues thought that to be a strange idea for a cover photo. But both Grahame and the farmer were ahead of their time. Nowadays, it is almost essential for farmers who are involved in value chains to have phones. They can liaise with buyers, check prices, find out when inputs will be delivered, receive extension advice and even check if payments have been made to their bank accounts.ICT developments are moving so fast that it is difficult to predict how value chains will be using them in the coming years. What seemed ridiculous to some people 25 years ago is now commonplace. What may seem ridiculous now may be commonplace in less than a decade. In 2020, will value chains all be coordinated through Twitter or Facebook? Will a carton of flowers packed in Kenya be traced by GPS all the way to a buyer here at the headquarters of CTA in Wageningen, in the Netherlands?However, we must be wary Koda sought to bring ICTs, information and knowledge closer to small farmers and other agricultural stakeholders and rural communities through community informatics initiatives. He was a firm believer in building a knowledge economy from the grassroots.His skills and dedication to advancing agriculture and rural development, and improving the lives of those in rural communities, was apparent in all his work. The passion he had for development work was contagious, and felt by colleagues and partners alike.A true gentleman, Koda's kindness, warmth and generosity of spirit will be greatly missed. We have lost an outstanding colleague and friend.G RAMbAldi / CTA S ibiri Sawadogo is a farmer in Burkina Faso. Over the past few years, using very simple farming techniques, he has managed to fight desertification by 're-greening' the degraded and barren soil in his fields. He protected young trees and seedlings against grazing animals, used manure to improve the land, and aligned stones along his fields to prevent the rain from flushing away the topsoil.Conditions have never been easy in this part of Africa. Water is scarce and soil is poor in the Sahel. Farmers who manage to apply re-greening techniques have more trees on their land and better soil conditions, which leads to better crops. The trees provide additional produce, such as honey and shea butter. The total increase in food production makes them less vulnerable in periods of drought, and leaves the farmers with a surplus that they can sell in the local markets. Higher productivity also offers opportunities to access new value chains.Sibiri Sawadogo does not have sophisticated tools to cultivate his land. He holds a hoe in one hand, a cell phone in the other. His farming knowledge is of great value to others in the Sahel. If more producers in the region could take advantage of these methods of re-greening the land, their living conditions and livelihoods could greatly improve.Many farmers in remote rural areas in the region like to share information about the produce they want to sell on the local markets, about vaccinating their herds and other topics. Many farmers are not able to read or write. They rely on voice communication, talking mainly in local African languages. Any useful method for sharing information would, therefore, have to use voice communication.Development specialist, Jeffrey Sachs, said that mobile telephony had become 'the single most transformative technology of economic development of our time' . The widespread availability of cell phones is creating opportunities to bring the benefits of the world wide web within the reach of many poor people in developing countries.However, even if it is possible for farmers to access and exchange information about re-greening on the web, and even supposing that the web could be accessed simply by speaking through a cell phone, farmers in the Sahel do not have smartphones that can host a mobile browser. Many are not able to send or read an SMS.The problems they face in terms of communication and lack of information are common. Creating, searching for and sharing information are very basic human needs. Unfortunately, the web was designed in the context of rich, industrialised countries. Adaptations are needed to make it accessible to and relevant for the other 4.5 billion people in the world.With this in mind, the Network Institute from VU University Amsterdam, together with the World Wide Web Foundation and Sahel Eco, an NGO from Mali, initiated a project called the Web Alliance for Regreening in Africa (W4RA). Since 2010, the work of W4RA has been part of VOICES (VOIce-based Community-cEntric mobile Services), a research project investigating generic voice-based web access and its application in agriculture and health.The project team began with a visit to three countries in West Africa -Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana -where they met with many rural communities, farmers, nomadic pastoralists, local NGOs, farmer organisations, local ICT entrepreneurs and local community radio stations. The team talked with the various groups to learn more about their lives and work, and about how they share information.During the trip, the team spoke with farmers and shepherds and visited several small radio stations in the three countries. Community radio and cell phones are, apart from word-of-mouth, the main communication channels. In the remote villages, there is no electricity, television or internet.Every day, radio programmes are broadcast in the local languages to a wide audience. People often walk several miles to have a handwritten message for their friends or family read out on the radio. They are ready to pay a broadcasting fee of 500 CFA francs (just under one euro), which is a considerable amount for many people in this region.The team asked the farmers, herders and radio professionals to share their thoughts on voice-based services that might be of use to them. The concept gave rise to a vivid discussion with many original ideas for innovative services. The farmers have a lot of information to share with their peers and they indicated that they were prepared to pay a small amount for a service if it was useful to them. OneA project to improve environmental conditions for farmers in West Africa is developing a voice-based market information system. The Web Alliance for Regreening in Africa intends to develop the system further to create a speech-operated world wide web.Anna Bon (a.bon@vu.nl) is a senior ICT adviser at the Centre for International Cooperation (www.cis.vu.nl) at the VU University Amsterdam (www.vu.nl), and Stéphane Boyera (boyera@webfoundation.org) is a programme manager with the World Wide Web Foundation (www.webfoundation.org).farmer envisioned some sort of directory service, which could put him in touch with an expert who could teach him how to prune shea trees.That first visit to Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana provided enough data to develop plans for the creation of voice services based on simple cell phones and involving community radio stations.The work done by the W4RA is based on the 'living labs' concept. Following this approach, all stakeholders, especially the end-users, are involved in the development of a new system. Accordingly, stakeholders in Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana were explicitly involved in various stages of the project's development.The first system built by W4RA-VOICES is known as Radio Marché (or 'market radio'). It supports agricultural value chains by delivering market information and simplifying the trading of goods in the region. Radio Marché is based on a combination of cell phone, voice and web technologies, and has been designed to automatically generate voice messages containing market information that can be broadcast over the radio.There is the web-based form, for example, for Sahel Eco staff to enter and store the market data, a voicegenerating module that creates speech with a Malian French accent. This system can be connected to the computer or a phone network, so that the radio stations can access the speech messages by phone. In this way, it becomes easier for farmers to have their details entered into the Radio Marché system and have the availability of their products promoted on the radio.Sahel Eco specifically requested the development of the system, and provided suggestions for the initial design. The organisation is already working to improve trading conditions for 20 rural communities in the Tominian area of Mali. Farmers here sell honey, nuts from the shea tree, a moisturising cream made from the oil of the nuts (shea butter) and other products.The communities already use radio advertisements to reach new customers. And, every week, the farmers send SMS messages to Sahel Eco with information on the types and amounts of goods they have available for market. Previously, a staff member from Sahel Eco would manually enter the information into a computer text file, then print the data on paper and send it to the radio station by bicycle. Now, the Sahel Eco employee enters the market information into a form on a dedicated Radio Marché website. With the data stored on a database, the system can automatically convert the information into a speech message. The radio station then receives an SMS notification when a new speech message is ready. The programme presenter can dial a number to hear it, and can either broadcast the information directly from the phone or record it for broadcast later.The station often plays the messages several times a day. A presenter no longer has to read out the long list of details, which saves time and ensures that the data are broadcast accurately. If the radio station has an internet connection (not all of them do), they can receive the voice message as an audio-file attached to an e-mail.As well as hearing the automatically generated voice messages on radio, farmers will be able to listen to updated market information on their cell phones.To create the automatic speech messages, the W4RA project team recorded and processed the voices of two radio journalists from Radio Moutian and ORTM Segou. Although the voice message is computer generated, recording human voices gives it a very natural sound. In 2012, the Radio Marché system will be extended to generate voice messages in the local Bambara language, and there are also plans to make it available in the Bomu languages.When the W4RA team next visited the region they met radio journalists and farmers and talked to them about the Radio Marché system. The radio journalists were keen to use the new technologies, and the farmers were pleased with the fact that the system helped to connect them with new customers for their products.The main objective of the W4RA project is to improve value chains for farmers by setting up mobile web services that are useful in the local context. Making the world wide web available on simple cell phones through voice access, however, is a great challenge. Speech is a very different medium from written text. A speechoperated web would therefore need a very different design from a text-based one, and would have to be adaptable to be able to recognise spoken words in every language, and ideally every dialect within that language.The current Radio Marché system, for example, is only equipped to produce audio messages in French. An important step is to record the required audio fragments in other regional languages, and to adapt the audio message construction methods to be able to deal with these languages.W4RA hopes to overcome these issues by listening carefully to the needs of users, and by developing and deploying innovative technologies that provide access to knowledge-sharing systems that really suit the local context.To ensure the system is as robust as possible, Radio Marché has been extensively tested in the environment where it will be used. The software developed by W4RA and VOICES projects will be made available as open source products so that anyone can use, or further develop, the voice services without paying a subscription fee or licence. Anyone who wants to support and help build these services is welcome to join the W4RA networked community. Meanwhile, W4RA will train local ICT entrepreneurs (initially in the three project countries and later in others) to set up and maintain voice services similar to Radio Marché.In November 2011, Radio Marché began operating in Mali with the backing of a group of local radio stations and staff members from Sahel Eco. Since then, W4RA has been developing other voice-based systems that can benefit more organisations and rural communities. They will do this by introducing facilities such as voice-based social networking, voice information services related to value chain development and other rural and regreening matters.Over the coming years, W4RA plans to focus on developing local communities by organising events, workshops, and training activities, and by creating a group of individuals, businesses and institutions that want to build on the success of innovative voice services in the areas of regreening and in support of poor communities.The project also plans to make the information from the system available to non-radio users, providing any potential buyer or seller with the latest market messages. The project will further investigate the economic sustainability of the system too. Radio Marché is designed to be a low-cost, easy-maintenance system, and early market analysis results suggest that it can be economically sustainable even with a small number of users. Moreover, the system can be easily replicated in other regions and can cover a wide variety of uses.W4RA is not just any other project. It is a global networked community involving computer scientists, farmers, local radio stations and ICT entrepreneurs in Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana. It aims to expand the world wide web by creating a communications system where people can create, access and share their knowledge -even if they cannot read or write, and even if they only speak a single language. The philosophy of W4RA is to build an open web platform -based on voice servicesthat will empower men and women in remote rural areas of Africa.Voice-based services may bring new opportunities for people to exchange information about regreening activities, or about prices at the local market, about health or legal issues, local news or about music and entertainment. Just about anything you can imagine. Just like the world wide web. ◀ 'F armers do not always have time to read booklets and guides, however useful they are. But they can listen to the radio while they work and hear from people just like them, experiencing, and solving, the same problems. ' Roderick St Clair is the host of the Eat Caribbean radio programme, part of a project of the same name, run by the Caribbean Farmers Network (CaFAN). Eat Caribbean is part of a larger FAO initiative to improve food security with specific aims to develop and strengthen food security and agricultural value chains throughout the region.On the Eat Caribbean programme, St Clair talks to farmers, extension officers, exporters, buyers and financiers. The talks aim to show how value chains can meet the requirements of buyers (such as supermarkets, fast food chains, processors and exporters) and link these buyers to farmers, while also discussing challenges and success stories. 'We talk to anyone who is involved in agricultural value chains and who has some experience and advice they can pass on to others, ' he says. 'We discuss the links between each business to give the others a better understanding of the challenges and options at each step along the chain. Farmers call in and speak directly to the guest advisers. They can ask the financiers questions about banking, get to know the problems transporters face, and discover the issues that concern the buyers. 'The programmes are broadcast on a local radio station in Grenada, and streamed live online every week. Anyone who misses the broadcast can visit the website to download and listen to a podcast. Its reach already goes far beyond the Caribbean. People from all round the world, particularly in Africa and South America, are downloading and subscribing to the podcast and sending comments and questions to the project website.The discussion continues on the project's blog, which also acts as a resource with case studies, further information and links for people to read more about value chains, and share ideas.The project also uses social media, including Facebook. 'We have just started to promote the project through Facebook, ' adds St Clair. 'We hope to develop the page there in the next year to help people meet and share information. Using social media should help to attract a bigger audience from outside the Caribbean, and give people the opportunity to interact with each other through the chat functions and by commenting on articles and photos posted there. 'The programme started broadcasting in early 2011, but farmers are already making connections as a result of the programme, and using the information. The project organises regular meetings and training courses for farmers, giving information on how to work in, and develop, a value chain. The training courses provide farmers with the initial information they need to go back to their respective countries and begin establishing value chains there. The radio programme, podcast, blog and social networking reinforce the lessons the farmers have learned, and continue to provide extra information, Talk about shared experience and motivation, long after the training course is over.Although many small-scale farmers still do not have regular access to the internet, St Clair is convinced that the Eat Caribbean approach is effective. 'We have to remember that the value chain goes beyond the farmers. The businesses and companies that we are trying to involve are all using the internet, and they are the ones who drive the value chain. As they get involved, the farmers see that the technology can benefit them too, and so even small-scale producers are willing to pay the extra cost to access this information. 'In the near future, St Clair hopes to develop an online radio station dedicated to agricultural and food issues concerning not only the Caribbean, but also African and Pacific countries. The technology is now available to make this possible at very low cost, and to have contributions and an audience from beyond the region.'Farmers have a lot of stories to tell, and they like to tell those stories, ' he says. 'They also want to hear stories from other farmers. When farmers hear other farmers speaking, they feel more empowered, responsible, challenged and respected because they hear themselves speaking. It is not just another politician or bureaucrat that they hear, but someone like them. With the help of radio, blogs and social media, this project helps all those farmers, and everyone else involved in the value chain, to speak to each other and give them a chance to share their stories. ' ◀The Eat Caribbean project uses radio, podcasts, blogs and social networks to provide information on agricultural value chains to farmers and related businesses in the region.Roderick St Clair (cafanvaluechains@gmail.com) is the host of the Eat Caribbean radio programme (www.eatcaribbean.net) A combination of ICTs gives farmers the opportunity to connect with other businesses and share their experiences. I n Trinidad and Tobago, the smallscale fisheries industry is under threat as young people are drawn away from traditional livelihoods, fish stocks dwindle and large trawlers, many of which may be operating illegally, present debilitating competition. As a result, the country now imports more fish and fish products than it exports.While many small-scale fishers in ACP countries share the same challenges, fishers in Trinidad and Tobago enjoy relatively good access to urban centres, electricity, radio, television, cell phone services and, in some cases, even wired internet. Most local fishers have achieved at least primary-level education, and almost all have cell phones.In 2009, the government's Distance Learning Secretariat (DLS) asked the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of the West Indies (UWI) to make use of the cell phone technology and develop an innovative means of delivering training content to small-scale fishers. With support from the International Development Research Centre, UWI carried out a survey among over 500 small-scale fishers, vendors and processors. More than 95% reported that they used cell phones for fisheriesrelated work.The survey revealed a number of challenges facing the fishers that couldA range of cell phone applications, known as mFisheries, improves market connections, supply chain efficiency and safety at sea for small-scale fishers in Trinidad and Tobago.not be solved by training alone, and where it was felt that cell phones could help. Chief among these were market and operational inefficiencies, safety at sea, financial capacity, concern for the environment and the lack of a voice in determining fishers' regulations and working conditions.From the earliest stages, the project team worked closely with organisations in the fishing sector and fifty fishers from five coastal areas. This collaboration led to the development and assessment of a suite of mobile applications, called mFisheries.The two main market-related apps in the suite are Got Fish Need Fish (GFNF) and Prices, which together constitute a virtual marketplace. GFNF is an interactive application that linksindividuals who have fish for sale with those who want to purchase fish. The app displays matches of those selling and buying a particular type of fish and gives the contact details to facilitate the sale. The Prices app displays the most recent prices that different types of fish sold at in two local markets. These prices are gathered each day by the National Agricultural Marketing Development Corporation.A number of other apps in the mFisheries suite address other key concerns, especially safety at sea. These include a compass, GPS tracking and an SOS alert. In an emergency, the SOS Alert sends pre-defined e-mails and text messages to a number of prescribed recipients and automatically initiates a call to the Trinidad and Tobago coastguard.The GPS logging and retrieval app includes a position tracking system which periodically updates a web server with the fishing boat's location coordinates , including the date and time of retrieval, in the event that a fisherman is thought to be lost at sea. This tracking is triggered when the cell phone is detected as having left the 'geofence', defined as the boundary of Trinidad.The The training tips app delivers audio podcasts on themes such as emergency boat maintenance, fishing methods, the handling of fish, preparations for going to sea, the rules of the road at sea and survival at sea. The camera tool helps in the reporting of incidents, such as nets being damaged by ploughing vessels. Other, third-party apps, such as TideApp and WeatherBug, are freely available and are bundled with the mFisheries suite.During a field trial, the project offered 50 water-resistant and scratch-resistant Android smartphones to the fishing communities at a subsidised rate. Along with this, they received a complimentary mobile data service. After eight months, 86% of the participants were using mFisheries regularly.Significantly, more than 80% of the trial sample indicated that the apps could save at least a quarter of the time it takes to conduct their work. Of this group, almost 60% felt that at least half of the time it takes to fish could be saved using these tools, making their operations more efficient.The apps have also provided better links to buyers, with 78% of users saying they rely more on market prices than they did before they used mFisheries, with almost all using the Prices app to get an idea of fish market pricing before buying or selling fish, and for setting their own wholesale and retail prices. Having been exposed to mFisheries, nine out of ten people from the trial group are now confident that smartphones, installed with the right mix of apps, can be used to improve their fisheries-related work.Most fishers sell their catch to buyers who buy from them at the shore, travelling quickly to meet the boats in their vans. These mobile vendors resell to large regional markets, fixed-location vendors, wholesale purchasers and directly to consumers. The vendors' market access relies heavily on existing relationships with particular buyers, such as supermarkets.The fishers are generally removed from the final, consumer market. The vast majority do not own a fishing vessel, so they work for other boat owners. Their day's pay depends on the size of the catch and the price fetched. As the fishers typically do not have on-shore cold storage or on-land transport, they must get the catch off the boat as soon as they dock. They are, therefore, largely dependent on the mobile vendors. The mFisheries' apps provide the fishers with market information that allows them to negotiate better prices.Through working closely with the fishing communities and other partners, the UWI project has provided important insights into the interdependence of the fishers and the vendors. Despite the bitter complaints from the fishers about their local vendors, they have generally not dared to offend them by seeking new buyers because they are afraid that they will be denied the vendors' access to ice, and an immediate market for their fish on landing.The fishers have, therefore, shown a great deal of interest in the Got Fish Need Fish app because it makes a potential new network of clients available to them. Also, by engaging all parties along the value chain, it should be possible to reduce the reliance on selling to first vendor, who will also benefit from the ability to interact with a richer and more varied market.To make mFisheries available to everyone in the small-scale fisheries value chain, the project has adapted the suite of apps for Android and other smartphones, and for the web. The system is based on open source tools to make it easier to replicate. The project will also explore schemes for using further market and marine data that the fishers can use, and will examine ways of allowing them to get more information and learn more about their business.One of the primary aims of mFisheries is to improve the efficiency of the market to make participation easier for fishers at the supply end of the value chain. The apps have facilitated the use of fish prices in daily trade negotiations, and, due to the readily available weather and tide data, changed the way fishers plan and execute their trips to sea.The system also helps to reduce inefficiency in other areas indirectly related to the value chain by providing navigational, safety and fishing advice. These improvements at the supply end will result in more stable wholesale and retail pricing further along the value chain. ◀With the mFisheries application installed on their cell phones, fishers can access market information, safety tips and training modules.To make mFisheries available to everyone in the small-scale fisheries value chain, the project has adapted the suite of apps for Android and other smartphones, and for the web an initial investment of US$10,000, the centre was developed with a VSAT internet connection, computers, video players, telephones and two motorcycles.The farmers saw an opportunity to work with a miller in the town of Ibadan, 150 kilometres away, who was processing maize to produce feed for the poultry industry. In order to work with this miller, the farmers would have to grow a certain type of maize that would meet the miller's specific standards. This meant that the farmers needed information on how to grow the new maize crop.At first, the farmers experienced problems with mildew and maize streak virus -so the project helped them to find varieties that were resistant to these diseases. While sourcing the new seed varieties, the project got in touch with an agricultural input supplier who could also supply fertiliser and pesticides to the farmers. The centre also developed links with the local transporters' union, and with a bank that was willing to lend money to the farmers.'The farmers had access to loans to buy the new seed types, ' explains Adekunle. 'They could get information on growing the crops from extension officers and from the multi-purpose centre. The input provider could sell products to help improve productivity. After harvest, the transporters took the maize to the miller for processing, and the miller sold the product on to the poultry industry. That is how the chain works. ' Advances Before long, 20,000 farmers in the area were in contact with the centre. Some 5,000 farmers lived near enough to travel there to search the internet, or ask for information themselves. The others are either linked by telephone or a representative who travels to the centre by motorbike, on their behalf.Each representative works with a group of 20 farmers. Whenever they want information, the representative comes to the centre to search theA mutli-purpose iCT centre in nigeria facilitates discussion among those involved in value chains, including researchers. The approach has now expanded to more countries.T he Ago-Are area of south-west Nigeria has a good climate and favourable soil conditions for farming. The farmers living there, however, have not been able to take advantage of the area's agricultural potential, as poor roads, a scarcity of telephone connections and an unreliable electricity supply made it difficult to reach buyers and markets elsewhere in the country.'I was working as a scientist at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) at the time, ' says Adewale Adekunle. 'I had an idea to set up a multi-purpose centre, ' he adds, 'equipped with a variety of ICTs, which would help input dealers and researchers to work with extension officers and farmers in the area. 'IITA realised the centre would need broad support, and investment, to establish the centre and make it successful. The organisation involved the farmers, of course, and included the country's universities, multi-national corporations, international and national institutes, including the Commonwealth of Learning, and a local village NGO called the Ago-Are Community Development Agency. With Adewale Adekunle (aadekunle@fara-africa.org) is director for partnerships and strategic alliances at the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (www.fara-africa.org) internet, videos and other reference material for the answer. If they need further information, they have access to a support desk at the centre and can call a researcher at the IITA help desk. Generally, researchers are able to provide answers immediately, but when they cannot, they can access the internet and have recourse to colleagues either within the institute or outside.In the early stages, the farmers agreed to pay 10% of their income to fund the centre. But over time, running costs gradually decreased as Ago-Are developed. The advent of a more stable electricity supply has meant that the expensive diesel generator was no longer needed, and a cable internet connection has replaced the VSAT service. Now, the farmers no longer have to subsidise the centre from their profits as it funds itself through running an internet café and snack bar and by hosting film nights.The centre also organises discussions between the farmers and other businesses in the value chain. This work has led to the development of agricultural innovation platforms (AIPs), a forum for people involved in agricultural value chains. An AIP brings together the farmers in a particular area with other private sector businesses to discuss problems and ensure that they all benefit from improved collaboration.Adekunle now works for the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), and has expanded the idea of innovation platforms and is using them to develop value chains in other countries, with the express aim of including agricultural researchers in the process.'Farmers in remote areas need to be able to find solutions to their problems quickly, ' he says, 'so that they can participate fully in the value chain. The multi-purpose centre and the innovation platforms have proven to be very efficient and effective in providing smallholders with the information they need. We now use the same principle to help reduce the gap between researchers and farmers. ' ◀By developing new connections in the value chains, the farmers have moved from subsistence to commercial farming.Agritrade is an interactive website featuring daily news, expert opinions and policy briefs covering the latest developments in agricultural and fisheries trade issues in ACP countries. The site is aimed at policy makers, agrifood businesses, farming and fishing communities and anyone involved in policy and value chain development. By registering with the site, users can customise which updates they receive and join the social networking feature to exchange ideas and information with other members.Visit the Agritrade website at http://agritrade.cta.int.The tabbed menu across the top lists the main subject areas: agriculture, fisheries, regions, publications and events. Mouse over each word to see the topics covered in each category. The agriculture category, for example, is divided into topics (such as ACP regional trade, market access, product differentiation, biofuels, climate change), commodities (including bananas, cocoa, coffee, cotton, dairy, poultry, sugar), and regions (ACP, EU, and global).Click on the topic of interest, or the category heading, to see all the relevant articles from the site, plus, on the left side, a list of the topics. Check the boxes in the list to refine your search further. Clicking on the 'events' tab, on the homepage loads a new page with a calendar of events.Recent additions to the site are also displayed on the homepage, including news and analysis, executive briefs, interviews, videos and a list of the site's most read articles.Register with the site to create a profile, connect with other members, and set your preferences to tailor the information you receive from the site. Members can access newsletters, custom news updates and news alerts. You can also create blogs and comment on any articles posted online.On the homepage, enter your e-mail address in the 'E-mail updates' textbox on the right-hand side. Hit enter and the site will load a new page where you will be asked to fill in your full name, and choose a username and password. As soon as you click 'submit', the site will send a confirmation e-mail with an activation link to your inbox. Open this e-mail and follow the instructions.The first time that you log in to your account you will be asked to complete your profile with additional information about yourself, select your topics of interest and the frequency with which you want to receive personalised updates.You can also add the URL of your Twitter, Skype, LinkedIn and Facebook profiles, and paste the web addresses of your blog or other web pages. Upload an image and choose the degree of visibility of your Agritrade profile to other community members. The more information you share within the community, the easier it will be for other members to find and communicate with you.With the profile details completed, you can then choose the types of information you would like to receive from the site, and specify how often you would like to receive updates. You can also choose to sign up for the site's regular agriculture and fisheries newsletters and news alerts. When you are satisfied with your choices, save your profile.The next time you log in, the MyAgritrade page will load a personal news feed according to your list of subscriptions. On the right-hand side, the profile pictures and names of new members and others with interests similar to yours will be displayed.You can send private messages to other members, or add them to your network. TosvEn TORFinn / hh do this, mouse over the member's profile picture and click 'view profile', this will take you to their page in the community section. Click 'connect' or 'send a message' . When you connect to another member, a link to that person will appear on the MyNetwork page and on your public page. You can use the MyNetwork page to remove members from your network.On the right-hand side of the MyAgritrade homepage, you can also see the latest blog posts and recent comments from other community members.To create your own blog, click the 'blogs' link in the MyAgritrade drop-down menu on the toolbar. Then click 'create a blog' to add text and images. The blog post will then be available to other members.You can access the MyAgritrade section anytime from any page on the Agritrade site by clicking the link at the top right-hand side of the page.Agritrade uses a variety of social media to post updates, relevant links and information.Click the buttons on the site's homepage to stay up to date with new additions on the site. ➜ Facebook page: facebook.com/agritrade.cta.int ➜ Twitter: @Agritrade ➜ YouTube: http://goo.gl/Dk0Bi ➜ Vimeo: http://goo.gl/OJHS4 ◀ ICTs help to deliver advice to farmers, connect them to other businesses and improve the efficiency of the value chain.Using value chain approaches in agribusiness and agriculture 'A value chain is a sequence of steps involved in the process of production to market delivery of a product. It provides a means of understanding relationships between businesses, methods for increasing efficiency, and ways to enable businesses to increase productivity and add value. ' This guide from the World Bank considers value chain approaches in the context of five main issues: trust and cooperation, governance, market power, innovation and knowledge, and focus/intervention points. ➜ http://goo.gl/BGpoIThis report is authored by a range of experts from universities and research institutes around the world, including the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Kenya and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It offers six principles that will advance research into food value chains in developing countries. The authors suggest that more focus should be placed on the opportunities that are available in domestic markets because food exports account for such a small percentage of food production in most developing countries. ➜ http://goo.gl/6IavYReflecting donor agencies' increased interest in value chains, this report from the Institute of Development Studies examines how poverty alleviation was investigated in 30 projects. The authors, John Humphrey and Lizbeth Navas-Alemán, found that very few projects carried out impact assessments, and so could not provide sufficient evidence that their interventions had been effective in reducing poverty. ➜ http://goo.gl/986kgThis website provides an introduction to how value chains can be implemented in poverty-reduction strategies in developing markets. Developed by Research in Use, the site provides in-depth explanations of value chain terminology, compares traditional market systems to those that employ value chain systems and gives an overview of value chain analysis. The site also lists a number of related projects covering crops, livestock and fishing, and gives links to downloadable technical reports and further information. ➜ http://goo.gl/3UVBvThe Agricultural Business Information System for Jamaica, offers a range of web-based market information that is aimed at anyone involved in agricultural value chains in Jamaica. As well as pricing information for a wide range of commodities, the site provides crop, livestock and property reports for download. It also features a tracker function for finding farms and crops based on their location, name or expected yield. The site is an initiative of the Rural Agricultural Development Authority of Jamaica. ➜ www.abisjamaica.com.jmAs part of their rural market intelligence project, the not-for-profit Ugandan organisation, i-network, developed an illustrated guide for farmers who want to access market information. Available for download as a PDF, the guide outlines the processes farmers' groups can go through to integrate market intelligence into the planning, production, storage, branding and selling of agricultural produce. This 16-page booklet includes details about how to develop a business plan, create awareness and evaluate progress along the way. ➜ http://goo.gl/vJ2v9The Organic Producers and Processors Association of Zambia (OPPAZ) is using a variety of ICTs, including the internet, cell phones and handheld computers, to monitor quality and improve crop production. This helps farmers to access the organic and fair trade agricultural value chains, and achieve international certification. OPPAZ is supported by the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD), which is helping to develop an internal control system for the organisation to facilitate quality control inspections and the publication of monitoring results on the internet. ➜ http://goo.gl/J3tBJ eRAILS The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), in collaboration with the German Centre for Documentation and Information on Agriculture (ZADI), has implemented an electronic advisory service that connects farmers with experts in value chain development. Farmers receive immediate answers to their questions, and researchers can gather data on the issues affecting the agricultural sector. The data can then help them to adapt and develop advisory services to closely meet the needs of farmers. ➜ http://goo.gl/9L6nuThe Kenyan National Livestock Marketing Information System is a market intelligence tool designed for use in the livestock sector. In an attempt to improve the links between the various participants in this particular value chain, the system uses cell phones to deliver marketing and business information to traders and producers. Traders are now able to upload and download livestock data, while traders and producers in primary markets have been able to attract buyers from terminal markets. All of which has resulted in better prices. ➜ www.lmiske.net liz lEydEn / isTOCk JOhn GyOvAi / isTOCk EdGAR sAnChEz-sinEnCiO / isTOCk What kind of information do farmers need to participate in value chains? ➜ At the start of the farming year, they need information about fertilisers, seed types, prices, and weather information. When harvesting and marketing what they grow, their need for information is even stronger. Farmers need to collect information about preservative chemicals from agricultural extension officers, crop stocks and prices from the markets, and even road situation and transport costs from local contacts and transport suppliers.➜ Rural farmers in Tanzania, where we conducted our research, mainly use their cell phones for simple one-to-one communication. Very few mentioned using other media, like radio. They simply do not rely on these methods in the same way that they rely on cell phones. Cell phones save farmers money and time because they no longer have to travel to look for the best seeds and to get advice from extension officers.Cell phones have also helped farmers organise extra labour from distant farms and villages for the planting and harvesting periods, and they make voice calls to local transport owners to negotiate cost and availability. Sometimes, groups of farmers will get together and negotiate tractor prices to get a better deal. The phones also play a role when farmers are hiring and borrowing farm implements. Farmers borrow oxen, ploughs and harrows from each other because it is not possible for any one farmer to own all the equipment.➜ Farmers can now communicate with extension officers and agrovets in real time. They are able to make decisions about which seeds and species of crops to plant depending on weather conditions and soil types. This has often doubled yields and improved the quality of their produce. Owning and using cell phones has also boosted farmers' confidence because it brings them into contact with agricultural experts and gives them direct access to market information.➜ Our data show that improved communications and access to information via cell phones has resulted in great changes across the entire cycle of farming life and along every link of the value chain; because of this, it has helped farmers to take control of their businesses. Farmers are able to reduce some of the risks associated with their businesses, and many are more proactive in taking care of their businesses. Better access to market information via cell phones has increased opportunities for farmers. These positive changes have led to higher incomes and improved livelihoods.Are those advantages great enough to justify the cost of buying and using a cell phone? ➜ For sure. Even if people in rural Tanzania in general are very poor, they are willing to spend a remarkably large amount of money on running a cell phone, which shows that they feel they gain many benefits from it. It is not a luxury item -most of the calls made relate to investments, information seeking and crisis handling rather than leisure. And, they are not buying expensive handsets but cheap, user-friendly and simple phones, often with a torch that they use at night.➜ Some information providers send updated market information to farmers' cell phones. But this effort is not effective, and our observations show that most farmers are not aware of these services. We recommend that cell phone companies establish a wider, affordable and effective service offering instant market prices and additional, relevant market information.We also suggest developing the existing money transfer systems using cell phones in order to make the service more reliable and affordable in rural areas where banking services are limited. Farmers have emphasised that mobile money transfers will considerably reduce the risk of being robbed. Currently money transfer services have been a great success in neighbouring Kenya, and have revolutionised the way financial services are accessed there.Are cell phones likely to remain the principle method of connecting farmers to information services in the coming years? ➜ The overwhelming majority of people living in ACP countries do not have the technological resources to connect to the internet. Even those who can connectthrough telecentres or cybercafés, for example -do not know what information is available or how to access it. The advent and spread of mobile technology can ease this concern.More than any other technology, cell phones have spread at a breathtaking rate in developing countries. The immense potential that mobile technology has for development cannot be over-emphasised. Our educated guess is that mobile technology will quickly grow to make the internet affordable even for poor people in rural Africa, helping them to become citizens of the Global Village in the near future. ◀ However, there is a strong trend for African mobile subscribers to have multiple SIM cards, so the number of unique users of mobile services on the continent is smaller than the number of subscriptions. The number of unique users in Africa at the end of 2016 is forecast to be 572.35 million, representing a penetration rate of 86.92%, which is still lower than in other regions.Nigeria will continue to be Africa's biggest mobile market with a predicted 152.09 million subscriptions at the end of 2016. ➜ For more information see: http://africa.comworldseries.comThe One Laptop per Child (OLPC) organisation recently unveiled its latest device, a tablet computer, known as XO3. OLPC was set up in 2005 to provide low-cost educational computers to schoolchildren in developing countries. Since most of the people who use OLPC devices live in areas with little or no access to grid electricity, the XO3 was designed to run on very little power. The battery can be charged by a 12-volt adapter, an accompanying solar panel, or even by a hand crank. Turning the crank for six minutes gives enough power (around 2 watts) to run the device for an hour.Another important design consideration is that the XO3 is able to operate in a wide variety of environments. Its robust rubber outer case means it can be used outdoors and transported safely. OLPC also offers the option of a low-power display that can be read in sunlight. The default eight-inch LCD display has 1024x768 resolution. The computer can run on other Linux or Android operating systems, has WiFi connectivity, and is fitted with a 1GHz processor, 512MB RAM. This makes the XO3 twice as fast as the organisation's previous computers, while using only half the power.OLPC chairman, Nicholas Negroponte, told New Scientist magazine that the new computer is likely to be tested in villages in Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Liberia. In contrast to how it has previously operated, the organisation will be working with other computer manufacturers. Some hardware technology of the XO3 has been shared with manufacturers in return for access to their distribution networks in an attempt to bring the device to as many people as possible. The XO3 tablet is expected to be sold for around US$100. This included a study of how ICTs are being used in agriculture. The authors stressed the potential economic and social improvements that ICTs can bring to farmers. And, while they make it clear that there is no simple solution that can be applied in all cases, they do offer some recommendations, such as focusing on a specific territory.This would mean concentrating project efforts to cover specific areas with a comprehensive range of services, leveraging synergies and economies of scale out of a single platform servicing farmers. In order for the project to be relevant, each service needs to relate to real situations in the locality. This will, potentially, lead to the formation of partnerships with different local actors in each area -leading to collaboration across sectors and actors to address such issues as insurance and logistics. Such collaboration seems feasible given the range of actors with vested interest in supporting rural development. ➜ Read the full report at http://goo.gl/QTsYO AnTOny nJuGunA / REuTERsThe World Bank has produced the ICT in Agriculture e-sourcebook. Available online and for download as a PDF, the book is designed to support people using ICTs in agricultural development projects. The book is divided into four sections and 15 modules.Section 1 gives an overview of ICTs in agriculture and has modules on improving the accessibility and affordability of ICT services in rural areas, the impact of mobile devices on agriculture and rural development, and gender equity in the sector. Other sections concentrate on enhancing agricultural productivity, assessing markets and value chains, and improving public service provision.All 15 modules can be viewed individually on the web or downloaded as PDFs. Each covers the challenges, lessons learned, and advantages associated with using ICTs to improve the livelihoods of smallholders. The modules include examples and case studies from around the world to illustrate the practical use of technology.The module on ICTs in farmer organisations has information on an SMS service developed by Zambia's National Farmers Union. It also explains how farmers in Burkina Faso use ICTs to share new production, processing and marketing skills. And in Niger, it gives details of community listeners' clubs that empower social networks.The main goals of the sourcebook are to increase the information that is available on ICT and agriculture, and to generate discussion on how to use ICT effectively to improve the sector and reduce poverty. To further develop resources for the book, the World Bank is working with the FAO's e-agriculture community to host online forums, with each discussion focused on a particular aspect of agricultural development. All the resources and forum archives will be collected on the ICT in Agriculture website. ➜ www.ictinagriculture.org KB, the size of the average web page by the end of 2011, according to HTTP Archive. A 30% increase on the previous year. www.httparchive.org KB-per-second, the average internet bandwidth per user in Africa, compared with 8.79 KB per second per user in Europe. http://goo.gl/ATKl7 seconds, the time it takes for an average internet user in Africa to download an average web page (using a 56K modem)The European Environment Agency (EEA), Microsoft and GIS software developer, Esri, have launched a cloud computing-based network to provide organisations with a secure central location for managing mapping and geospatial data.The Eye on Earth network uses Esri's ArcGIS Online cloud services coupled with Windows Azure and Microsoft SQL Azure. The user interface enables the easy creation and sharing of map-based services and the translation of complex scientific data into accessible, interactive and visual web services. With Eye on Earth, users can create and share maps within their organisation or make the content public as web-accessible services.Eye on Earth includes three services, all of which monitor and display environmental quality data. The app allows users to take noise-level readings with their mobile devices and instantly upload them into NoiseWatch's database.  My laptop, however, is my most important device. Take away my laptop and you take away my efficiency. My old laptop was stolen, and I remember I was complaining for about three months until I got used to the new one. Whenever I travel, I take my laptop with me and use the web regularly to communicate with my home and with the office. I can follow work activities using the office mail chat room and use Skype to either chat or call my family.I usually back up my documents on Google Docs, but I also make sure that I store essential documents as e-mail attachments that I send to myself. That way they are secure and I can easily access them from anywhere as and when I need them. ◀","tokenCount":"9712"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"60daa45ea445a616c0b61e5a1444670e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d149fd30-92f3-4cb9-b491-8a45a6e8d1b9/retrieve","id":"-1550908698"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"291e71a6-5ddb-4b3d-b227-90ac7087535d","pagecount":"16","content":"• There are important geographic, ecological and scientific biases.• Urban ecology is significantly more studied in wealthier African countries.• More urbanized areas (now or in the future) are not the main focus of study.• We need to redirect our priorities regarding urban ecology in Africa.Rapidly expanding urbanization is a major threat to nature worldwide, leading to the reduction of biodiversity and alteration of species interactions and ecosystem services (Gaston, 2010;McDonald, Kareiva, & Forman, 2008;McKinney, 2006;United Nations, 2016). The impacts of urbanization could be even worse in the near future due to the geometric progression of human population. According to the United Nations (2019), the global human population density will increase from 60 humans/km 2 in 2020 to 78 humans/km 2 in 2050, while the global urban land cover will increase from 824,200 km 2 to 1,145,698 km 2 during the same period (Angel et al., 2011). Thus, research on urban ecology is imperative to achieve sustainable development, allowing for the understanding of ecological processes in urban areas and providing necessary data for urban planning, landscape design, policy formulation and biodiversity conservation (Corbyn, 2010;Moragues-Faus & Carroll, 2018).Given the availability of various definitions of urban ecology, we follow the scientific proposition that incorporates the 'interaction of organisms, built structures and the physical environment where people are concentrated' (Forman, 2014). Due to the transformative potential of urbanization, the concept of social and ecological integration (inclusiveness) has been proposed to enhance biodiversity in urban areas (e.g., Haase et al., 2017). For instance, Ferketic et al., (2010) demonstrated the usefulness of inclusiveness in promoting conservation justice in Cape Town (South Africa), thereby influencing the ecology of the city, and an understanding of such a nexus is useful to design resilient and sustainable urban areas (Childers et al., 2015;Grimm et al., 2008).The globally recognized multi-disciplinary fields and the embedded scientific topics in urban ecology have attracted increasing attention from researchers (e.g., Anderson et al., 2013;Cilliers et al., 2013;Girma et al., 2019). However, several papers have highlighted important knowledge gaps across regions, taxa and scientific topics (e.g., Magle et al., 2012;Tóth et al., 2020;van der Walt et al., 2015). Probably, one of the most important mismatches between urban ecology research effort and the urbanization process is the lack of knowledge on the topic from the most rapidly urbanizing continents of South America, Asia and Africa (Ibáñez-Álamo et al., 2017;Seto et al., 2012;Shackleton et al., 2021). As identified in these studies, geographic biases impede the full comprehension of the real impacts of urbanization on nature. Future studies conducted in appropriate areas will therefore be useful to determine ameliorative strategies needed to promote the co-existence of humans with nature, thereby enhancing urban habitats and the associated biodiversity, which is in line with the 11 th Sustainable Development Goal of the United Nations (2021).Literature reviews provide an opportunity for summarizing the state of evidence-based knowledge applied in many fields (e.g., Ibáñez-Álamo et al., 2017;Magle et al., 2012). Broadly, this involves the incorporation of published literature in any given field (Garousi et al., 2019). However, the generalization and application of findings from literature reviews in decision-making have been a subject for debate, mainly due to transparency, objectivity, repeatability and credibility (Sánchez-Tójar et al., 2020). Since traditional approaches to literature reviews are prone to errors (Grant & Booth, 2009), rigorous methodological approaches have been developed and applied more recently in the field of urban ecology (e.g., Cilliers et al., 2018;Kendal et al., 2020;Ibáñez-Álamo et al., 2017), allowing for an important advancement in our understanding of the effect of urban areas on organisms.In the present study, we conducted a systematic literature review to determine trends in urban ecological research conducted in Africa. Relative to other regions such as Asia, Europe and North America (Forman, 2016;Lin & Grimm, 2015;Magle et al., 2012;Wu et al., 2014), there have been few attempts aimed at synthesizing the state of knowledge in African urban ecology (e.g., Cilliers et al., 2013;Shackleton et al., 2017;Lindley et al., 2018;du Toit et al., 2018). Our aims were to (i) analyze the current status of research effort on urban ecology in this continent, (ii) identify research gaps (geographic, taxonomic and ecological) and (iii) provide recommendations and insights on future prospects. Additionally, (iv) we investigated the potential association of urban ecology research effort with some factors previously associated with the number of scientific publications. On the one hand, we tested whether the number of publications in the field (i.e., urban ecology) per country could be influenced by human population density, economic wealth, as well as the current or future urbanization prospects. Given the positive association between human population density and the degree of urbanization (e.g., Gao & O'Neill, 2021;Qizhi et al., 2016), we would expect that countries with high human population density would hold the majority of studies in urban ecology. Furthermore, if urban ecology research effort is driven by the intensity of urbanization, based on the scientific reasoning of geographic focus areas of particular interest, we could predict a positive association of the number of publications on this topic in those countries currently more urbanized or with the highest rate of urban expansion (i.e., future urbanization). Although the relationship between urbanization and economic growth is often contested (e.g., Chen et al., 2014;Moomaw & Shatter, 1996), we would expect that wealthier countries (i.e., higher Gross Domestic Product -GDP-) are those concentrating the majority of urban ecological studies as increased funding positively influences publication rates (Man et al., 2004). On the other hand, we also tested whether the number of publications in the field could be influenced by the conservation status and size of African ecoregions. Previous reviews have pointed out the positive association between the conservation status of study sites and research effort (e.g., de Lima et al., 2011). Thus, if research effort is based on conservationoriented reasons, we would expect that threatened ecoregions will be more studied. In addition, since smaller areas generally support lower species richness (see Rantalainen et al., 2005), we would expect that larger ecoregions will provide more study opportunities for researchers specializing in different species and scientific topics, and will therefore be more studied. Considering the marked differences between Global North and Global South urban settings (Shackleton et al., 2021), we acknowledge that there could be other factors (e.g., climate severity, colonial history or high diversity in human-nature interactions) shaping the urban ecology research effort in Africa, which is considered part of the Global South. However, we did not include them because of the difficulty of extracting such information and to avoid overparameterization of models. Findings of this study will provide additional information about African urban landscapes that should generate interest among researchers, conservation practitioners and policymakers.We performed a literature search in Web of Science, Google Scholar and Scopus on 8 March 2021 using different combinations of 89 relevant keywords within the article titles, abstracts and keywords, covering the period 1920-2020. The search string containing research focus (23 keywords; e.g., ecology, biodiversity and wellbeing) and urban terms (5 keywords; e.g., urban, city and town) were matched with region (Africa and country name). We performed independent searches for each of the 58 countries and autonomous territories in the continent. A detailed description of these search terms, and the relevant Web of Science categories (41) and Scopus study fields (10) selected can be found in Table S1. The relevance of the use of such comprehensive keywords has been demonstrated by previous studies (e.g., Raji & Downs, 2021;Roy et al., 2012;Tan & bin Abdul Hamid, 2014).We then uploaded all detected papers on Rayyan (https://www. rayyan.ai/) for screening. Rayyan is a web-based App that uses a semiautomation process to screen paper's preliminary pages with a high degree of precision (Olofsson et al., 2017;Ouzzani et al., 2016). Its adaptability and many functions allow the detection of duplicates, verification, collaboration and decisions in systematic reviews (Abreha, 2019;de Keijzer et al., 2016). In the present study, both authors independently performed the paper selection process by activating the \"blind function\" in Rayyan and reached a consensus thereafter.Our selection process followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA Statement) (Abreha, 2019;Moher et al., 2009), which is presented in Fig. 1. Based on article titles and abstracts, we first excluded duplicates, non-African studies and investigations carried out outside urban settings. We also excluded papers on human diseases, climate change, pollution and agriculture when they were exclusively focused on clear different disciplines, such as malaria studies exclusively focused on the medical science (e.g., Kigozi et al., 2020) or agricultural papers investigating different crop varieties without any socio-ecological, biodiversity or human dimensions focus (e.g., Kent et al., 2001). Several systematic reviews already exist on these disciplines (e.g., Fayiga et al., 2018;Hulme et al., 2001;Orsini et al., 2013). The remaining articles were then screened and those that met the following criteria were retained for data extraction: (1) urban landscape, ecological and sociological studies, (2) journal articles published in English, (3) peer-reviewed as a first step towards quality control (Beninde et al., 2015;Raji & Downs, 2021), and (4) biodiversity conservation studies (including pet animals and introduced species).We extracted the following data from each included paper: title, year of publication, journal, country of study and study sites. We then classified each paper based on type (field study, review or perspective) and scale, which included city (conducted in a single city), local (involving more than one city in a country), regional (involving more than one African country) and global (involving more than the African continent). Further, we followed the classification of Magle et al. (2012) to allocate each paper to one of the following scientific fields, including animal behavior, community ecology, conservation, human dimensions, human-wildlife conflict, landscape ecology, population ecology, wildlife disease and wildlife management. For taxonomic studies, we extracted information on the kingdoms and classes of focal species based on the classification of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) (GBIF, 2021;accessed May 2022).With the exception of reviews and perspectives, we obtained the coordinates of all 1405 African study sites included in the selected papers by using Google Earth. This ensured conformity and completion given that the coordinates of some sites were either not originally provided in the papers or were presented in different formats. We then obtained information on all terrestrial ecoregions found in Africa from the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF: Olson et al., 2001). Further data on the ecoregions, including size, conservation status and the biome they are located in, were also collected (Burgess et al., 2004). In addition, we obtained data on urbanization intensity and urban land cover (2015) across the continent, as well as the total population (2015) and total land area of each studied country from Africapolis (OECD/ SWAC, 2020; accessed 9th June 2021). Urban land cover was used as a proxy for country urbanization intensity, while the total population was divided by the total land area to obtain the population density of each country. We then overlaid the study sites across ecoregions and urbanization intensity, as well as urbanization intensity across ecoregions, using QGIS (version 3.24 Tisler). Africapolis is the single most important and comprehensive geospatial database on cities and urbanization dynamics in Africa, which incorporates data on demography, satellite and aerial imagery and other cartographic sources (OECD/SWAC, 2020). To investigate urbanization prospect based on the urban land cover, data on the average annual rate of change of the percentage urban expansion by country (2015-2050) were integrated (United Nations, 2018). The Gross Domestic Product (GDP 2020; US$) of each studied country was also extracted from the National Accounts Section of the United Nations Statistics Division (accessed 6th May 2022).All analyses were carried out using R Version 1.4.1717 (R Core Team, 2016). We performed descriptive statistics using the number of published urban ecological studies to determine temporal and spatial trends in urban ecological knowledge across years, countries, study scales, scientific fields, journals, and taxonomic kingdoms and classes.We first used the number of published urban ecological studies (hereafter: research effort) per country as the response variable to test the effect of urbanization intensity, urbanization prospect, human population density and GDP using general linear models (LM). We used the \"performance\" package to check for multi-collinearity among the independent variables (Bernat-Ponce et al., 2021;Lüdeck et al., 2021) and tested the normality (Shapiro & Wilk, 1965) of the dependent variable (p < 0.05). The independent variables had low correlation (Variance Inflation Factor < 5) and, consequently, were all included in the models, but research effort was log-transformed to obtain reasonably normally distributed residuals from final models, and models that did not violate LM assumptions when examined visually as diagnostic plots (Crawley, 2013). Using the stepwise backward selection method (Crawley, 2013), variables with the highest p values were removed and the procedure repeated until the best model was selected as the one with the lowest Akaike Information Criterion value (Burnham & Anderson, 2002). Statistical significance was set at p value < 0.05. We also conducted a sensitivity analysis (Moher et al., 2009) due to the disproportionate weight of South African studies in our database, causing outliers. Of the overall 710 field studies that mentioned the 42 African countries represented here, 313 (44 %) were from South Africa. The second model therefore incorporated the same variables as the first but without South African papers.Secondly, we tested for mismatches in the distribution of research effort across ecoregions. Note that this information could not be combined with the one collected at the country level and thus requires for an additional model to be tested. Given that research effort was not normally distributed (p < 0.05) even after log-transformation, we built a separate model using Poisson Logistic Regression to test if the size and conservation status of ecoregions (factor: Critical, Endangered, Vulnerable, Relatively Stable or Relatively Intact) influence research effort. We then conducted a Tukey post-hoc test for a pairwise comparison across the different categories of conservation status using the package \"emmeans\" (Manley et al., 2015;Yvoz et al., 2020).Our search string detected a total of 60,355 papers out of which 17,793 duplicates were removed. The output of the remaining processes of Rayyan screening led to the retention of 795 papers considered in this review (Fig. 1). Out of them, 691 (87 %) were field studies, 90 (11 %) reviews and 14 (2 %) perspectives, all of which were published in 377 journals (Table S2). The first urban ecology studies focused on Africa date back from the 1970s (Okpala, 1978;Hugo, 1979), but the publication rate on the topic was slow (<10 papers/year) until 2006 when an exponential growth started, culminating in 126 papers published in 2020 (Fig. 2). From a geographical point of view, we found studies from 72 % of the countries that make up the African continent (42 out of 58 countries and autonomous territories; Fig. 3). However, a single country (South Africa) published 4 out of every 10 papers on the topic (N = 313), with the highly-urbanized and biodiversity-rich countries of tropical regions of the continent recording little (<40 papers; e.g., Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kenya) or even no urban studies (e.g., Angola and Liberia; Figs. 3 and 4) for the period of study . Furthermore, papers found in our literature search showed that most urban ecological research in Africa (89 %) was performed within countries, either focused on a single city (N = 434; 55 %) or conducted locally (N = 270; 34 %). We identified very few international research as only 4 % of the studies were carried out regionally (i.e., including more than one African country; N = 29) and only 8 % were coordinated at a global scale (i.e., including data from other continents too; N = 62).The result of the LM analysis for all countries shows that research effort significantly increased with higher GDP, but not according to any other predictors (Table 2; Fig. 5). Contrary to our expectation, countries with higher human density and current or future urbanization prospects (up to 2050) have not been more studied (Table 1). In contrast, wealthier African countries have significantly investigated more on urban ecology (Table 1; Fig. 5). The same significant pattern was found for the sensitivity analysis (i.e., when South Africa was removed; Table S3).Regarding ecoregions, we found information from 75 out of the 119 ecologically relevant regions in Africa (Fig. 6a-b; Table S4). This implies 37 % of ecoregions without a single urban ecology study. The research effort at this respect is not homogeneously distributed and varies considerably depending on the biome (Table 2). Furthermore, 22 out of the 44 African ecoregions without urban ecology studies are classified as threatened (Table S4) (Burgess et al., 2004). The Poisson Logistic Regression shows that research effort significantly increased in larger and more threatened ecoregions (Table 3). Urban areas in critical, endangered and vulnerable ecoregions have been more intensively studied (Fig. 7).Our review also showed important taxonomic biases in the study of urban ecology in Africa. We found information on studies focusing on seven kingdoms, with Animalia and Plantae being the most studied so far (Fig. 8). This result also highlights our limited understanding of other organisms, including Archaea, Bacteria, Chromista, Fungi and Protozoa, which when combined accounted only for 5 % of the studies. The number of studied classes was considerably higher in Animalia ( 27) than Plantae (9), with Aves (N = 138; 34 %) and Mammalia (N = 95; 23 %) accounting for the majority of studied animal groups (Fig. 9). Regarding plants, the most commonly studied classes were Magnoliopsida (N = 253; 66 %) and Liliopsida (N = 94; 24 %).From a more conceptual point of view, we found variation in research effort among scientific fields (Fig. 10). The main focus of urban ecology in Africa seems to be applied studies given that conservation and human dimensions studies were the two most commonly investigated fields, with 41 % of all papers falling into these two categories. The scientific fields of wildlife management, wildlife disease and humanwildlife conflict were the least studied, accounting for merely 6 % of the total publications represented in this review. Our data showed that pattern approaches (e.g., Population, Community or Landscape Ecology) are more common than mechanistic studies (e.g., Animal Behavior) in Africa (Fig. 10). The first animal behaviour studies were published in the early 1990s, investigating insects (Paillette et al., 1993) and birds (Van Zyl, 1994). But the focus on this discipline has considerably increased since 2015, with 64 % of all Africa urban ecology studies on animal behavior published after this year (Table S2). Despite this increasing interest, there is still an important taxonomic bias, and only 44 % of the 27 animal classes were represented in animal behaviour studies, including Mammalia (38), Aves (47), Reptilia (7), Amphibia (6), Insecta (5), Gastropoda (2), Actinopterygii (2), Arachnida (1), Clitellata (1), Entognatha (1), Malacostraca (1) and Sarcopterygii (1).Our literature search shows almost 800 urban ecology papers for the entire African continent. According to a recent review investigating the top 20 countries publishing on urban ecology (Shackleton et al., 2021), this number is lower than the number of publications from mediumsized European countries, such as Germany (2,479) or Spain (1,864), and much lower than the research effort identified for the United States (12,728), China (6,655) or Australia (2,900). This suggests that urban ecology research in Africa is still considerably low compared to other regions of the World (e.g., Europe, North America, Asia or Australia), matching previous findings that already indicated the African continent was the least studied regarding urban ecology (e.g., Magle et al., 2012 stated that Africa accounted for 2.8 % of published papers on urban wildlife ecology in 2010). It is interesting to note that despite the exponential growth in research effort during the last 15 years, mimicking the global trend on the topic (Lin & Grimm, 2015), Africa has not increased its relative contribution to the field like other regions (e.g., Asia) that were also underrepresented a decade ago (Magle et al., 2012;Wu et al., 2014;Shackleton et al., 2021). The overall number of urban ecology papers in Africa does not seem to be associated with a delayed start in the discipline. Our review shows that African urban ecology started at the end of 1970s around the same time that this discipline started in other regions of the World (McDonnel, 2011;Wu, Xiang, & Zhao, 2014). We cannot be completely sure that there have not been earlier publications in non-English languages, but probably the first African paper explicitly mentioning the concept of urban ecology corresponded to Okpala's study (1978). This pioneering investigation focused on socio-economic aspects from Lagos (Nigeria), already highlighting the potential conflict of trying to apply European or American urban ecology theory to the African case, an argument that is still valid within the Global North and Global South framework (Shackleton et al., 2021). The current underrepresentation of African urban ecology is particularly worrying as most African urban settings are considered as clear representatives of the Global South urban settings, integrating particular biophysical and socio-economic contexts (Shackleton et al., 2021). Thus, the lack of knowledge at this respect impedes us to complement our understanding of urban ecology, which is based on the more traditional Global North perspective.There could be other different reasons explaining the low number of publications from Africa. The lack of local capacity/experts in the field is one of them. This factor has been previously highlighted as a key difference between the Global North and Global South urban settings that could influence the lower level of urban ecology research effort in the latter (Shackleton et al., 2021). According to the UNESCO's database for the period 2015-2020 (UNESCO, 2020; accessed 30 Oct 2022), the number of researchers per million of inhabitants in Northern (732.4) and, particularly, Sub-Saharan Africa (97.4), is considerably lower than in other regions of the planet, such as North America (4,544.8), Europe (3,010.4) or Oceania (3,510.5). This low ratio of skilled people has been demonstrated to influence research effort in Africa regarding other fields such as ornithology (Cresswell, 2018). Therefore  reaching to the 1 % of GDP invested in R&D (United Nations. Economic Commission for Africa 2018), current data indicate that it is 0.64 % and 0.34 % for northern and sub-Saharan Africa, respectively. This is quite far from the values of North American, European or Eastern Asian countries that reached a mean of 2.6 % in 2020. Matching the target proposed by the African Union will certainly help to increase the focus on multiple topics, including urban ecology. However, there are ways to improve knowledge on urban ecology in Africa even without the need of large economic investments. For example, the use of available databases, such as the various atlas projects, which have been successfully implemented in the continent (Botts et al., 2011;Lee & Nel, 2020). Other repositories, such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, laboratories, herbaria and museums in and outside of Africa are also useful tools to advance our understanding of the ecology of African urban areas and biodiversity as some recent studies have already shown (e.g., Cohen et al., 2021;Fishpool & Collar, 2018). This approach could also be implemented in collaboration with inhabitants of African urban areas through citizen science projects (e.g., iNaturalist or the Southern African Bird Atlas Project) that can serve to improve information on certain urban questions (e.g., animal distribution) as well as promote the connection between citizens and nature (Reynolds et al., 2021). Engaging citizens could also be instrumental to help increase the urban governance in the Global South, including Africa (Shackleton et al., 2021), and ultimately promote additional support for urban ecology studies in this continent.Our review also shows that research effort is not homogeneously distributed within the African continent. From a political point of view, there is an important variation among African countries in their urban ecology research effort. One single country (South Africa) stands out as it is responsible for almost 40 % of published papers on the topic. This is so despite only representing 4 % of African territory and 1.02 % of all urban areas in the region (OECD/SWAC, 2020). This high rate of urban ecology publications matches previous information indicating that South Africa is very active in the field at the global level (Shackleton et al., 2021). This does not seem to depend on its number of researchers per million of inhabitants (411.6) or its R&D investment (0.62 % of GDP), which is lower than the mean for Northern Africa (UNESCO, 2020), an area that not even combining all its countries reaches half the number of papers published in South Africa. This country started publishing urban ecology papers at the earliest stages in Africa (Hugo, 1979), so it is possible that this long-term publication period is behind its uniqueness. Another possibility could be that several South African cities (e.g., Cape Town and Durban) are located in biodiversity hotspots of global importance (Cilliers & Siebert, 2012). Alternatively, given that Fig. 5. Relationship between urban ecology research effort (number of urban ecological studies) across all countries and Gross Domestic Products (USD). Note that the y-axis is on a logarithmic scale and that there are several overlapping points.Results of a GLM exploring the predictors of the number of urban ecological studies published across all countries. The number of urban studies +1 was logtransformed to achieve a normal distribution of residuals. The last model (F 40 = 51.9, P < 0.001; AIC = 100.57) incorporated only the significant variable and had an adjusted R 2 = 0.55. Global North urban principles do not always apply to Global South urban areas (Okpala, 1978;Shackleton et al., 2021), there could be a special interest by funders and/or researchers from this country to acquire first-hand knowledge of direct application to South-African urban settings. For instance, some universities from this country (e.g., Witwatersrand) have strategically focused on global change research, including urban ecology (Scholes et al., 2013) or have developed specific institutes for the study of 'urbanism from an African perspective' (e. g., The African Centre for Cities, from the University of Cape Town; <https://www.africancentreforcities.net/about/acc-at-uct/>). Independently of the reasons for this important outlier, urban ecology research effort varies considerably within African countries. We identified that 28 % of these countries did not publish a single urban ecology study and thus, they completely depend on urban knowledge obtained elsewhere that sometimes might not be really useful for their local situations.Our analyses show that the number of publications per country on the topic is not associated with current or future urbanization. This result contradicts our initial prediction; however, it could be well understood from a Global South perspective. African countries, like other countries from this group, have several particularities compared to those from the Global North (Shackleton et al., 2021). One of them is the extremely high urbanization rate. Africa is the continent of the World with the most intense urbanization (Cohen, 2006;Seto et al., 2012), with many African countries experiencing urbanization rates above 4 % (e.g., Mali, Nigeria, Angola or Mozambique), an order of magnitude higher than those from other regions of the planet (World Bank, 2021). This factor leads to unplanned urbanization (Zhang, 2016) and compromises sustainable urban development in the continent by impeding the implementation of ecologically-sound practices (Cohen, 2006) and hence potentially explaining the mismatch between urbanization and urban ecology research effort.Furthermore, we found that the human population density of a country was not significantly associated with the number of publications on urban ecology either. The reasons for this lack of association could be the same as explained before for the current and future urbanization prospects as these are positively correlated with human population density (e.g., Gao & O'Neill, 2021;Qizhi et al., 2016). However, this predictor could also be associated with other potential factors that might prevent investing resources and effort in investigating about urban ecology. For example, there is an increase in people living in extreme poverty in Africa, with more than half of the urban population living in slums and informal settlements (World Cities Report, 2016). Highly populated areas also require a higher infrastructure investment, which is particularly needed in Africa (Zhang, 2016). Thus, socio-economic priorities combined with an insufficient capacity of urban governance (Zhang, 2016;Shackleton et al., 2021) could prevent finding the initially expected effect of human population density. Considering all these results and factors, particularly the uncoupled distribution between urban ecology knowledge and future urban prospects, we would recommend local authorities, funding bodies and researchers to make an effort in the study of the areas that soon will be transformed into urban landscapes. The maps were simplified to facilitate interpretation. Thus, we retain outlines of relatively large ecoregions >10,000 km 2 and those including study sites. However, the names of all ecoregions, their corresponding numbers in the map and additional details (e.g., size) are included in Table S4.Results of a Poisson Logistic Regression exploring the relationship between the number of published urban studies and the conservation status and size of ecoregions. Conservation status is a factor with 5 levels (Critical, Endangered, Relatively Intact, Relatively Stable, Vulnerable) and size is a continuous variable. Critical has been set as the intercept in the model. This is particularly important in the tropical African belt given that it will concentrate the greatest urban expansion in the future (Seto et al., 2012), but also holds the largest biodiversity of the continent (Cazzolla Gatti et al., 2015). Interestingly, our results indicate that the number of published urban ecological studies depended on economic factors (i.e., GDP). This association has been found in other cross-sectional (e.g., (Doi & Takahara, 2016;Fisher et al., 2011) and longitudinal studies (Vinkler, 2008). This economic indicator is in addition significantly associated with a higher rate of influential publications within their subject area (Bornmann et al., 2014). However, other investigations showed that R&D investment rather than per capita GDP is positively associated with research productivity in different continents (Meo et al., 2013(Meo et al., , 2014)). It is possible that GDP is a better predictor of R&D in Africa than in other regions, thus potentially explaining the obtained finding. This influence of economic factors on urban ecology research effort is crucial given the link between cities and economic wealth (Zhang, 2016), which could lead us to think that as urbanization progresses in Africa, the better their economies will be and consequently more research on urban ecology could be made. This scenario seems unlikely as this association between economic and urban growth is decoupled in the African continent (Cohen, 2004), which does not warranty this increasing research effort in the future. Other factors not considered in our analyses could also explain the country-wide variation in urban ecology research. For example, political instability could play an important role for the lack of studies on the topic in certain countries such as Western Sahara, South Sudan or Libya.The fact that the majority of published studies were conducted locally within a single city or country (e.g., Koricho et al., 2020;Lindley et al., 2018;Muleya & Campbell, 2020) suggests the need for investigation of local/national cases for the application of specific solutions. However, it also highlights the lack of transnational collaboration among African countries. This low level of international research both within Africa and with countries from other continents is particularly important considering that: (1) it impedes the generalization of findings at the continental and global scale, and ( 2) reduces the number of substantive contributions to scientific progress (Bornmann et al., 2014). Therefore, we recommend funders and researchers alike to strengthen or promote the creation of new international networks or institutes on African urban ecology as well as encourage urban ecologists of the continent to participate in other global actions, networks (e.g., the Urban Biodiversity Research Coordination Network) or societies (e.g., Society for Urban Ecology) that are already running.The geographic variation in research effort could also be linked to conservation aspects. Conservation research in Africa is particularly relevant and prolific in the global context (Doi & Takahara, 2016). There are still some controversies on whether conservation status is significantly and positively associated with research effort at the species level (e.g., Brooke et al., 2014;Ducatez & Lefebvre, 2014;Ibáñez-Álamo et al., 2017), but countries with a higher level of environmental protection activity investigate more in ecology (Doi & Takahara, 2016). Our results match this finding given that urban ecology research effort is significantly associated with the conservation status of African ecoregions. The ecologically relevant regions belonging to the most threatened categories (Critical, Endangered and Vulnerable) showed the highest number of publications on the topic. This is logical considering the previously described restricted R&D investment in Africa that would divert the current available resources towards areas of conservation concern. Despite this, we found that about half (50 %) of African Fig. 7. Urban ecology research effort (number of urban ecology studies) across the conservation categories of ecoregions. Box-plots show median, quartiles, 5-and 95-percentiles and extreme values. Different letters indicate significant differences (P < 0.01) between conservation status according to Tukey post-hoc tests using the package \"emmeans\" (Manley et al., 2015;Yvoz et al., 2020). ecoregions without a single published study on the topic are classified as threatened, and urbanization is considered a leading threat in the area (Burgess et al., 2004), suggesting the need for additional studies to determine the ecological effects of urbanization and propose suitable conservation actions. On the other side, the significant effect of ecoregion size fitted our initial expectations as larger ecoregions would support higher biodiversity levels (Rantalainen et al., 2005) and consequently a higher likelihood of being investigated. As larger and more threatened ecoregions were significantly more studied in the continent, there is a need to expend greater research effort on smaller and relatively stable ecoregions (e.g., East African Montane Moorlands and Lake Chad Flooded Savanna), which are more likely to suffer unnoticed fragmentation from urbanization and other anthropogenic landuse changes as also indicated by previous studies (e.g., Beyer, Venter, Grantham, & Watson, 2020;Burgess, Hales, Ricketts, & Dinerstein, 2006;McDonald et al., 2008). Particularly surprising is the lack of studies from the majority (77 %) of ecoregions from the Tropical and Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests biome. These ecoregions mainly correspond with large areas of Madagascar, a megadiverse country (<htt ps://www.biodiversitya-z.org/content/megadiverse-countries> accessed 30 October 2022) with the lowest percentage of urban landcover in the whole continent (0.04 %; OECD/SWAC, 2020). In contrast, other forested biomes are quite well represented, which makes sense considering that forests, especially those from Western Africa, support higher biodiversity and endangered species, thus promoting a more intense ecological research effort (Doi & Takahara, 2016).Our review also offers interesting information on the current methodological and conceptual orientation of urban ecological research in Africa. From a methodological point of view, we found an important taxonomic bias in the study of urban ecology in Africa similar to those previously reported (e.g., Callaghan et al., 2020;Shwartz et al., 2014). This taxonomic bias has a strong effect in our urban ecology knowledge given that the impact of urbanization varies considerably depending on the type of organisms considered (McKinney 2008;Paul & Meyer, 2001). Our literature search offered studies focused on organisms belonging to seven kingdoms, although the majority of urban ecology research used either animals or plants as model systems. This result highlights our  limited understanding of other organisms in the African urban context, including Archaea, Bacteria, Chromista, Fungi and Protozoa, which should be prioritized for future studies. This is justified by current literature highlighting their relevance in natural environments (e.g., Epp Schmidt et al., 2019;Kartzinel et al., 2019;Thompson et al., 2017). The uneven distribution of urban ecology research effort went down to lower taxonomic levels (e.g., classes). Among animals, birds and mammals were the two most studied groups. The publication bias towards these two classes in urban ecology is not restricted to Africa alone (Donaldson et al., 2017;Shwartz et al., 2014), and has also been identified in other study fields such as conservation biology (Lawler et al., 2006) and invasion ecology (Pyšek et al., 2008). Several reasons have been proposed to explain this bias for birds and mammals, such as body size (Brodie 2009) or conservation status of focal species (Donaldson et al., 2017). Regarding plants, flowering plants (Magnoliopsida and Liliopsida) dominate urban ecology research effort in Africa, replicating the patterns found by other research effort studies on plants (Richardson & Rejmanek, 2011;Stranga & Katsanevakis, 2021). In contrast with plants, with the richly diverse Magnoliopsida (Tracheophyta) relatively well studied (Cilliers & Bredenkampl, 1999;Moussa et al., 2020;van der Walt et al., 2015), the most diverse animal group of Arthropoda is clearly underrepresented in urban ecology and calling for additional scientific attention (reviewed here;McIntyre, 2000).Urban ecology research effort in Africa also varied in terms of scientific disciplines. Conservation was the most studied scientific field. This result is in agreement with previous findings already highlighting the relevance of Africa in the study of environmental conservation and ecology (Doi & Takahara, 2016), and matches also with our initial result that indicates preference for ecoregions of conservation concern. Interestingly, a handful of such African conservation studies diagnosed different socio-environmental issues in urban areas and developed useful frameworks or plans for promoting nature conservation and sustainable urban development in the continent (e.g., Boon et al., 2016;Cilliers et al., 2004;Goosen & Cilliers, 2020;Rebelo et al., 2011). While these findings imply the availability of data that could be useful for promoting conservation actions, they are mostly restricted to South Africa. For an effective implementation of conservation actions, more studies are needed from unrepresented areas as they may help to discover local issues such as environmental injustice (Ernstson, 2013). The human dimension field is well-represented within African urban ecological research, which points to the relevance of multifaceted approaches in Africa, particularly regarding ecosystem services that complements conservation or ecological studies (e.g., population ecology or animal behavior). For instance, the majority of human dimension studies in our review indicate that people in African urban areas appreciate the socio-ecological services (Dipeolu et al., 2020;Rogerson & Rogerson, 2020) and economic benefits provided by urban biodiversity (Babalola et al., 2013;King & Shackleton, 2020). In a study by Popoola and Ajewole (2002), most Nigerian respondents were even willing to support the conservation of urban nature through personal funds. The conservation of urban biodiversity is tightly linked to public support (Miller & Hobbs, 2002), and thus, human dimension studies could be useful educational tools to reconcile urban development and nature preservation in the continent (McDuff, 2000). In addition, unlike in other regions where the important roles of urban biodiversity in enhancing ecosystem services and human well-being have been welldocumented (Brown & Grant, 2005;Dallimer et al., 2012;O'Sullivan et al., 2017), this interplay is much more complex in the African case (Wangai et al., 2016) usually not considering the ecosystem disservices that could be of critical importance in areas of the Global South (Davoren & Shackleton, 2021). In general, ecosystem services in Africa have been poorly studied (du Toit et al., 2018), although there is a clear effort in recent years to overcome this important gap (e.g., Dobbs et al., 2021;Escobedo, 2021;Shackleton et al., 2021;Wangai et al., 2016), including the evaluation of how different frameworks are applied to African urban settings (Lindley et al., 2018).We identified that many urban ecology papers focused on Africa used pattern approaches either at the species or community level. Several reviews on urban ecology or specific aspects of urban ecology (e.g., urban ornithology) have also found similar results at the global level (Magle et al., 2012;Marzluff, 2016;Wu et al., 2014). As we have stated before, Africa is understudied in urban ecology, and we lack many basic information on even the presence/absence of certain organisms in cities of this continent. Some of the studies in these categories describe new species (e.g., Malonza et al., 2016;Smales et al., 2017), provide information on potentially problematic organisms (e.g., invasive species; Bigirimana et al., 2011;Hima et al., 2019) or provide much needed information on the distribution of organisms in African urban settings (e. g., Moussa et al., 2020;Muchayi et al., 2017). But some of these articles also used applied approaches by integrating human-nature interaction aspects. For example, Chamberlain et al. (2019) found evidence supporting the luxury effect in South Africa. This effect states that there is a positive correlation between wealth and biodiversity, and thus relates to environmental injustice issues (Reynolds et al., 2021). These patternapproach studies that also consider applied aspects and the particularities of Global South urban areas are excellent examples on how we can advance in our understanding of African urban ecology. Some researchers have highlighted the lack of urban ecology mechanistic studies in countries of the Global South compared to those from the Global North (Marzluff, 2016). Mechanistic studies would, for example, include animal behavior papers that could explain the observed patterns (e.g., feeding behavior explaining the presence of certain animals in cities). Africa has produced quite a lot of animal behavior studies centered in urban areas but most of them were observational (e.g., McPherson et al., 2016;Widdows & Downs, 2016), with only a handful of experimental manipulations (Cronk & Pillay, 2018;Patterson et al., 2016) that are much more powerful to identify cause-effect associations. Future studies should try to put more emphasis on experimental manipulations to fill in this important gap in our urban ecology knowledge.Landscape ecology is still not as well studied as in other regions regarding urban areas (Magle et al., 2012;Wu et al., 2014), but it offers unique opportunities for the development of this field in Africa. On the one hand, landscape ecology studies in our database extensively utilized the Geographic Information System (GIS) for estimating land cover and habitat heterogeneity (e.g., Benza et al., 2016;Kowe et al., 2020). The use of GIS techniques could enhance better coverage of study sites (e.g., conflicting/dangerous/remote areas), helping to complete the missing geographic areas in urban ecology research detected in our review. These techniques require highly qualified personnel but provide useful information at minimal time and cost (Langat et al., 2019), thus, offering a good opportunity for capacity building in the continent while considering the economic restrictions in R&D of the region (see above). On the other hand, landscape ecology is an integrative discipline merging geospatial patterns, ecological and socio-economic processes and ecosystem services/disservices, thus favoring the interdisciplinary collaborations between sociologists, ecologists and geographers among others (Wu et al., 2014), thereby facilitating the establishment of much needed interdisciplinary collaborations in African urban ecology. For all these reasons, we expect that the field of urban landscape ecology will continue to increase as it has happened at the global scale (Magle et al., 2012).This review shows that research effort on urban ecology is still low in Africa, with the exception of South Africa, particularly in the highly urbanized and biodiversity-rich areas of the continent. This continent is an important representative of the Global South, and thus the lack of information on the topic is an important impediment to try to overcome the traditional Global North perspective on urban ecology (Shackleton et al., 2021). In addition, the information presented here could be crucial to achieve the 11 th Sustainable Development Goal in the rapidly urbanizing African continent (Cobbinah et al., 2015). Urban areas, if well-planned, can still provide substantial benefits for biodiversity, act as hotspots and habitat corridors for some threatened species (Ives et al., 2016;Kumdet et al., 2021) and serve important socio-ecological (Dipeolu et al., 2020;Rogerson & Rogerson, 2020) and economic benefits (Babalola et al., 2013;King & Shackleton, 2020). To our knowledge, this is the first general literature review of urban ecological studies for the entire African continent that follows rigorous, verifiable and repeatable methodological approaches recommended in recent times (Ibáñez-Álamo et al., 2017;Magle et al., 2012;Moher et al., 2009;Sánchez-Tójar et al., 2020). Previous methodologically-similar reviews of African urban ecology, though interesting and useful, either focused mainly on socio-ecological systems (e.g., Cilliers, 2019;Lindley et al., 2018) or specific aspects of African urban biodiversity (e.g., Güneralp et al., 2018;Roets et al., 2019;Trimble & van Aarde, 2014). The low research effort in African urban ecology seems to point to socioeconomic factors such as the low level of skilled people and reduced investment in R&D typical from this continent (e.g., Cresswell, 2018). We believe that this situation could be partially reverted if African countries follow the African Union recommendation of investing 1 % of their GDP in R&D, although other socio-economic needs (e.g., infrastructure, security, health issues) could make this change very difficult (Zhang, 2016).Economic factors (GDP) rather than other urban indicators (e.g., urbanization intensity, human population density) are also crucial to explain urban ecology research effort within the continent. South Africa congregates many of the papers on the topic, while there are 16 African countries without urban ecology studies, providing clear targets for future investigations. The South African case could be useful to identify specific aspects that could be reproduced in other neighboring countries to try to boost urban ecology research. Thus, studies comparing different urban ecology aspects between South Africa and other African countries would be particularly interesting at this respect. In addition, it is especially worrisome the uncoupled nature between future urbanization prospects and urban ecology knowledge as local authorities will not count with valuable information to take scientifically-based actions. This lack of information has already been suggested as an important impediment to achieve sustainable urban development in Africa (Cobbinah et al., 2015;Patel et al., 2017).In addition, greater research effort is expended on larger and threatened ecoregions. Threatened sites and species are usually prioritized for conservation actions (Brooks et al., 2006), and could influence research effort (e.g., de Lima et al., 2011). However, relatively stable ecoregions could suffer unnoticed effects of urbanization, which could be detrimental to certain biodiversity that may suffer regional extinction before being identified. This pattern has been previously reported in Africa (Ahrends et al., 2011), and could even be more severe in the future given the mismatches in the allocation of research effort across regions. This research bias towards threatened areas is partially linked to the fact that conservation studies dominate the urban ecology literature produced in the African continent. Our literature search also indicated that African urban ecology research is multidimensional with an important contribution to human dimension studies including those on ecosystem services and disservices. These studies have increased in recent years providing much needed information for the urban settings of this continent and ultimately helping to improve our understanding of the complex urban environment in which many different components interact (e.g., sociological, ecological, economical…).We argue that for African urban ecology to provide more useful information for decision-making and promote sustainable development, future research should try to overcome the detected geographic, taxonomic and ecological biases. To help in this endeavor, we provide a list of the articles reviewed here as well as the journals of publication, where key stakeholders or researchers could obtain relevant data on the topic (Table S2).Based on our review, we propose the following recommendations to promote urban ecology research in this continent: (1) strengthening collaboration and networking among researchers across regions and countries, as previously suggested in a more general context (McPhearson et al., 2016). This will allow for larger scale studies that will provide an additional and complementary perspective to city/local studies that tackle more specific problems. ( 2) Helping the education of local experts on urban ecological studies can be also instrumental to overcome some of the previously described publication biases on the topic (Shackleton et al., 2021). (3) Engaging with the citizenship through citizen science projects. This will allow the acquisition of additional scientific information at the same time as it promotes a better urban governance through participation of urban inhabitants. (4) Use of low-cost techniques like GIS or available databases (e.g., museums) to maximize the scientific outcome considering the economic restrictions of the region. We hope that this review will help to re-orientate our research effort on the topic and fill in some important knowledge gaps highlighted here to grant a balanced strategy between urban development and nature conservation in this unique continent. The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.","tokenCount":"7995"}
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The latest version of the portal comes with many new databases that have been created by our ever-growing community. It also comes with better support and extensibility for data analysis and visualization tools. A new addition to our toolbox, the enrichment analysis tool is now accessible through graphical and web service interface. The BioMart community portal averages over one million requests per day. Building on this level of service and the wealth of information that has become available, the BioMart Community Portal has introduced a new, more scalable and cheaper alternative to the large data stores maintained by specialized organizations.The methods of data generation and processing that are utilized in biomedical sciences have radically changed in recent years. With the advancement of new high-throughput technologies, data have grown in terms of quantity as well as complexity. However, the significance of the information that is hidden in the newly generated experimental data can only be deciphered by linking it to other types of biological data that have been accumulated previously. As a result there are already numerous bioinformatics resources and new ones are constantly being created. Typically, each resource comes with its own query interface. This poses a problem for the scientists who want to utilize such resources in their research. Even the simplest task such as compil- ing results from a few existing resources is challenging due to the lack of a complete, up to date catalogue of already existing resources and the necessity of constantly learning how to navigate new query interfaces. A different challenge is faced by collaborating groups of scientists who independently generate or maintain their own data. Such collaborations are seriously hampered by the lack of a simple data management solution that would make it possible to connect their disparate, geographically distributed data sources and present them in a uniform way to other scientists. The BioMart project has been set up to address these challenges.BioMart is an open source data management system, which is based on a data federation model (1). Under this model, each data source is managed, updated and released independently by their host organization while the BioMart software provides a unified view of these sources that are distributed worldwide. The data sources are presented to the user through a unified set of graphical and programmatic interfaces so that they appear to be a single integrated database. To navigate this database and compile a query the user does not have to learn the underlying structure of each data source but instead use a set of simple abstractions: datasets, filters and attributes. Once a user's input is provided, the software distributes parts of the query to individual data sources, collects the data and presents the user with the unified result set.The BioMart software is data agnostic and its applications are not limited to biological data. It is cross-platform and supports many popular relational database managements systems, including MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL. It also supports many third party packages such as Taverna (2), Galaxy (3), Cytoscape (4) and biomaRt (5), which part of the Bioconductor (6) library.The BioMart project currently maintains two independent code bases: one written in Java and one written in Perl. For more information about the architecture and capabilities of each of the packages please refer to previous publications (1,7). The latest version of the Java based BioMart software has been significantly enhanced with new additions to the existing collection of graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It has also been re-engineered to provide better support and extensibility for data analysis and visualization tools. The first of the BioMart tools based on this new framework has already been implemented and is accessible from the BioMart Community Portal.The BioMart project adheres to the open source philosophy that promotes collaboration and code reuse. The BioMart community consists of a wide spectrum of different research groups that use the BioMart technology to provide access to their databases. It currently comprises 30 scientific organizations supporting 38 database projects that contain over 800 different biological datasets spanning ge-W592 Nucleic Acids Research, 2015, Vol. 43, Web Server issue nomics, proteomics, model organisms, cancer data, ontology information and more. The BioMart community is constantly growing and since the last publication (9), 11 new database projects have become available. As new BioMart databases become available locally they also become gradually integrated into the BioMart Community Portal. The main function of the portal is to provide a convenient single point of access to all available data that is distributed worldwide (Figure 1). All BioMart databases that are included in the portal are independently administered and funded. Table 1 provides a detailed list of all BioMart community resources as of March 2015.The current version of the BioMart Community Portal operates two different instances of the web server: one implemented in Perl and the other in Java. Both servers support complex database searches and although they use different types of GUIs, they share the same navigation and query compilation logic based on selection of datasets, filters and attributes (9,10). The Java version of the portal also includes a section for specialized tools, which consists of the following: Sequence retrieval, ID Converter and Enrichment Analysis. Sequence retrieval allows easy querying of sequences while the ID Converter tool allows users to enter or upload a list of identifiers in any format (currently supported by Ensembl), and retrieve the same list converted to any other supported format. The enrichment tool supports enrichment analysis of genes in all species included in the current Ensembl release. For each of those species a broad range of gene identifiers is available. Furthermore, the tool supports cross species analysis using Ensembl homology data. For instance, it is possible to perform a one step enrichment analysis against a human disease dataset using experimental data from any of the species for which human homology data is available. Finally, the enrichment tool facilitates analysis of BED files containing genomic features such as Copy Number Variations or Differentially Methylated Regions. The output is provided in tabular and network graphic format (Figure 2).The BioMart Community Portal handles queries from several interfaces such as: r PERL API r Java API r Web interfaces r URL based access r RESTful web service r SPARQL For more detailed description of all the interfaces please refer to earlier publications (1,7). In the section below we provide a description and compare the REST-based web service, which is implemented in Perl and its counterpart, which is implemented in Java. It is worth noting that the web service maintains the same query interface both in Perl and Java implementations. For example, the web service query (Figure 3A) can be run against java-based server as follows: The Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analysis was performed using BED file containing human data. This tool is also accessible through web services (Java version only). The programmatic access complies with a standard BioMart interface: dataset, filter and attribute. curl -data-urlencode query@query.xml http://central. biomart.org/martservice/results or its Perl-based counter-part as below curl -data-urlencode query@query.xml http: //www.biomart.org/biomart/martservice By default, query sets the attribute processor to 'TSV' requesting tab-delimited results (Figure 3B). Alternatively, by setting processor to 'JSON', would return JSON formatted results (Figure 3C), which are readily consumable by thirdparty web-based clients saving overhead of parsing and format translations. Please note that JSON format is only available in the java version.A simple way to compile a web service query for later programmatic use is to use one of the web GUIs and generate the query XML using REST/SOAP button. After following the steps outlined by the GUI and clicking the 'results' button, the user needs to click the REST/SOAP button, save the query and run it as described above. Alternatively a user can take advantage of the programmatic access to all the metadata defining marts, datasets, filters and attributes. The access to the metadata served by the Java and Perl BioMart servers is provided using the following webservice requests: Java (central.biomart.org) The FANTOM5 project mapped a promoter level expression atlas in human and mouse. The FANTOM5 BioMart instance provides the set of promoters along with annotation.RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies (CLST), Japan The Rfam database is a collection of RNA families, each represented by multiple sequence alignments, consensus secondary structures and covariance models (CMs).Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (WTSI), UKRhesusBase a A knowledgebase for the monkey research communityPeking University, ChinaRice-Map Rice (japonica and indica) genome annotation databasePeking University, China UniProt Protein sequence and functional information European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), UKVectorBase Genome information for invertebrate vectors of human pathogens University of Notre Dame, USWellcome Trust Sanger Institute (WTSI), UKWormBase C. elegans and related nematode genomic informationCold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), USa Denotes new databases that have become available since last publication (9 Please note that the granularity between mart and dataset has been improved in the Java version through the introduction of multiple dataset configs. This facilitates the endusers to browse various views of the same dataset, which are presented through the portal either using a different GUI or subsets of data.Given the coverage of the current BioMart datatsets, many relevant biological questions can be answered. For example, a researcher who has detected potentially pathogenic variants in FGFR2 (ENSG00000066468) from exome sequencing patients may be interested if the same variants have been previously described and if they were associated with the same or similar diseases. To answer this, integrated data from Ensembl can be queried as shown in Table 2 to display all known variants annotated within FGFR2 that are predicted as pathogenic by SIFT (11) and Polyphen (12). The genomic position outputs can be compared to the researcher's variants and the phenotype data used to assess candidacy for their cases. For example, the first batch of results shows a C->G variant at position 121520160 on chromosome 10 that is associated with Apert syndrome (OMIM:176943).Another common use case that BioMart is used for is to analyse a list of genes to establish whether they are associated with particular protein functions, pathways or diseases more often than would be expected by chance (enrichment analysis). For example, a researcher may have discovered that AURKA, AURKB, AURKC, PLK1, CDK1 and CDK4 are differentially expressed in their experiment and used BioMart's enrichment tool with its default settings to analyse these genes. The results show that these genes are enriched for involvement in the cell cycle, kinase activity and mitotic nuclear division amongst others. Many other real usage examples are documented in our previous paper (10) W596 Nucleic Acids Research, 2015, Vol. 43, Web Server issue and the BioMart special issue in Database: the journal of biological databases and biocuration (www.oxfordjournals. org/our journals/databa/biomart virtual issue.html).Since its conception as a data-mining interface for the Human Genome Project (13) BioMart has rapidly grown to become an international collaboration involving a large number of different groups and organizations both in academia and in industry (14). It has been successfully applied to many different types of data including genomics, proteomics, model organisms, cancer data, etc., proving that its generic data model is widely applicable . BioMart has also provided a first successful solution for the unprecedented data management needs of the International Cancer Genome Consortium proving that the federated model scales well with the amounts of data generated by Next Generation Sequencing (48).There are a number of important factors that contributed to the BioMart's success and its adoption by many different types of projects around the world as their data management platform. BioMart's ability to quickly deploy a website hosting any type of data, user-friendly GUI, several programmatic interfaces and support for third party tools has proved to be an attractive solution for data managers who were in need of a rapid and reliable solution for their user community. BioMart has also proven to be a platform of choice for many smaller organizations that lack the necessary resources to embark on the development of their own data management solution. As a result, more and more database projects have become accessible through the BioMart interface. The arrival of these new resources coupled with the data federation technology provided by the BioMart software has galvanized the creation of the BioMart Community Portal. The federated model has proven to be very cost-effective since all development and maintenance of individual databases is left to the individual data providers. It also has proven to be very scalable as the internet and database traffic is handled by the local BioMart servers. As a result the BioMart Community Portal service has grown impressively not only in terms of available data but also the level of service. The BioMart community portal now averages over million requests per our services per day. Building on this level of service and the wealth of information that has become accessible through the BioMart interface, the BioMart Community Portal has effectively introduced a new, more scalable and much more cost-effective alternative to the large data stores maintained by specialized organizations.","tokenCount":"2223"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f2066e6f0d63dfb0625ff22755d86329","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/13f010db-927c-4cb2-88b4-c21bfc308173/retrieve","id":"-223858305"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6099cdda-b7c0-46f9-a5d5-e523ba53717c","pagecount":"12","content":"Located at and managed by ILRI in Nairobi, Kenya, the BecA-ILRI Hub provides a common biosciences research platform, research-related services and capacity building opportunities in Africa. The Hub increases access to affordable, worldclass research facilities, while creating and strengthening human resources in biosciences and related disciplines. These activities focus on addressing key constraints in African agriculture. The Hub is developed as one of four biosciences centres for excellence that are part of the African Union-New Partnership for Africa's Development (AU-NEPAD) African Biosciences Initiative. It has been created under the Comprehensive African Agricultural Productivity Programme (CAADP) to service the needs of countries in eastern and central Africa. CAADP's goal is to support agriculture-led development that eliminates hunger and reduces poverty and food insecurity, generating agricultural growth.annual training workshop; Introduction to Principles in Laboratory Management and Equipment Operations. This course brings together BecA scientists, biotechnology private sector trainers and ILRI engineers to train partners on overcoming operational gaps that exist in managing research facilities in Africa.Dear Friends, I t gives me great pleasure to share with you the exciting progress made in 2012 by the BecA-ILRI Hub and our partners. Thanks to the support from our devoted partners and investors, we have again made great strides in expanding research for Africa's agricultural development, our capacity development activities are building and empowering African science leaders and institutions, and our research related services cater to the region and beyond.The year 2012 marked a decade of the BecA-ILRI Hub's existence. To ensure that we capitalize on our successes and lessons learned for the benefit of African agriculture, we've started to refresh our business plan. The new plan outlines our strategies to adapt to the changes in the CGIAR Consortium and to strengthen our alignment to the regional research priorities identified in the African Union-New Partnership for Africa's Development (AU-NEPAD) Science and Technology Strategy and the Comprehensive African Agricultural Productivity Programme (CAADP).The BecA-ILRI Hub (hereafter referred to as the Hub) has continued to find ways of working more closely with our African and international partners. We have expanded our research activities to include more collaborative and national partner-led research projects and added new capacity building activities. The year 2012 saw the formulation of new research programs under a partnership with Sweden. The support from the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs through the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) is focused on tackling food security issues. With additional funding received from Sweden in November 2012, we have begun a project that focuses on developing climate-smart grasses for improved livestock productivity. In response to feedback from national partners obtained during our visits to laboratories in the region, we have introduced a newThe Hub owes its existence primarily to the significant financial contribution from the Government of Canada through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the visionary support of the AU-NEPAD and the core donors of ILRI. CIDA supported renovation of existing laboratories and construction of new facilities, helping us better accommodate the needs of the region. The Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA), a long-time supporter of the Hub, is providing substantial financial and technical support critical to our sustainability.We are also grateful for substantial financial support from AusAIDthrough the partnership with CSIRO; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF); the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs; Sida; the Government of Kenya and many others who have supported our partners and students. With the help of our key partners and investors, the Hub continues to grow as a focal point for the African agricultural biosciences research community and their global partners. Last year also saw the departure of the Hub Director, Dr Segenet Kelemu, who led the team since 2007. Her visionary leadership, dedication to the promise of African biosciences and unwavering passion to inspire African scientists and their partners to great achievement is appreciated and will be dearly missed. Segenet has taken on a new role at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) as Vice President-Programs, while the Hub team continues to provide an environment that fuels optimism and enthusiasm, inspiring researchers to dream and act on the scale necessary to help usher in the coming African agricultural revolution.As we continue to work for the advancement of African agriculture with our regional partners, farmers, private sector and governments, we hope you enjoy this highlight of our collective achievements from 2012.Funded by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), the partnership between the Hub and Australia's National Science Agency, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) supports a program of biosciences research focused on enhancing food security through nutrition via improved quality of foods, food safety, and better management of animal diseases in sub-Saharan Africa.The project portfolio consists of seven projects that bring together scientists from 10 countries in Africa as well as Australia, USA, France, Sweden, Scotland and Spain. Three projects, Cavies, Mushrooms and Amaranth, are led by African partners in Cameroon, Tanzania and Kenya, respectively. All projects have engaged a broad network of stakeholders from disciplines outside the core bioscience component, including regional agencies such as the African Union's -Inter African Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR); smallholder agribusiness enterprises; farmers and farming cooperatives; national seed traders; national veterinary officers; government ministries; CGIAR centres; National Agricultural Research Institutes (NARIs); African universities; NGOs and others.Leading Australian scientists are key collaborators in these projects. They include researchers from CSIRO and other Australian institutions with core skills ranging from bioscience, biometrics, food processing, analytical chemistry, biosensors, human nutrition, farming/ecological modelling and social science. CSIRO is also contributing invaluable communication and stakeholder engagement expertise to assist projects to capitalize on opportunities for exposure and increased impact for resource-poor farmers and other stakeholders in Africa.Africa (CAAREA Project): Food safety is an essential component of food security. Approximately 4.5 billion people in the developing world are chronically exposed to high levels of aflatoxins, a highly toxic fungal metabolite (generally termed mycotoxins) produced by species of Aspergillus fungi. Maize, a staple food for over 100 million people across eastern Africa, is highly prone to aflatoxin contamination. Aflatoxins cause cancer, and are associated with stunting of infants, immunosuppression, reduced nutrient absorption and are lethal at high doses. The CAAREA project, led by the Hub and involving a number of key partners from the region and internationally, is assessing the aflatoxin risks in maize in Kenya and Tanzania to fill the information gaps that exists on the pathogen, toxin prevalence and levels of maize resistance to fungal and aflatoxin accumulation pre-harvest. This information will help in the development of mitigation strategies including breeding for aflatoxin resistance by the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) and Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (ARI) national maize breeders who are leading the first aflatoxin resistance field trials in the region (supported by the Open University of Tanzania and other collaborators). The project team is also developing novel diagnostics to detect the toxin in the laboratory, in the field and at the mill, and is conducting modelling to produce risk maps.Together, these will contribute to the development of real-time tools for surveillance and detection of potential aflatoxin outbreaks in maize. The team has established regional mycotoxin research platforms (Biosafety level 2 mycology laboratory and diagnostics) and nutritional analysis platforms available to African national research programs and their partners. Through the project, the capacity of the Hub and CAAREA partner institutions is being significantly strengthened to tackle this largely unaddressed threat to human health and trade. The platform is already in use by researchers from several African countries and their international partners, including four fellows fully funded through the Africa Biosciences Challenge Fund (ABCF). Thanks to the platform, they are now able to conduct their research locally to address the spectre of mycotoxins in Africa. Other partners include CSIRO, University of Queensland/Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (UQ/QAAFI), Tanzania Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, HarvestChoice, the Queensland Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (QDAFF), Cornell University and the University of Pretoria.In sub-Saharan Africa, many people are faced with severe food and nutrition insecurity. Amaranth, a traditional vegetable, is a vital source of macro/micronutrients and bioactive compounds of health benefits and offers low cost complementary nutrition for starchy staples. The amaranth project, led by the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) in Kenya, aims at addressing the main challenges to production, processing and marketing of amaranth in order to increase its consumption in eastern Africa.  The BecA-CSIRO partnership strongly supports bioscience innovation in the region through the establishment of and support for the competitive Africa Biosciences Challenge Fund fellowship program (described fully on page 8). The partnership has also delivered a new model of partnership in which Australian scientists directly contribute a range of experts to the Hub's research and training activities as significant project collaborators. To date, the Hub has benefited from the expertise of 26 Australian staff from CSIRO, UQ/QAAFI and QDAFF.The third phase of the partnership presents an exciting opportunity to progress research and capacity building toward significant impact on the ground for farmers and communities throughout the region. This will be achieved through augmenting the strong, largely science-focused teams with additional partners including development agents, NGOs, the private sector and others.In The research portfolio under the BecA-Sweden partnership brings together scientists from many African countries, the United Kingdom, United States of America and France. It focuses on improving food and nutritional security across Africa by improving the productivity of a range of underutilized plant species and of livestock through improved health and breeding practices. The projects also encompass capacity building elements, to increase the knowledge and skills of researchers in African NARIs and universities to increase technical capability within the Hub and the region.Goats are a significant component of the livelihood of smallholder farmers and pastoralists in Cameroon and Ethiopia. In this project, partners in both countries aim to increase goat productivity through strengthening the capacity of national The possibility of using mobile telephony to help farmers to improve recording and farm enterprising management is also being explored. The tools and breeds developed by this project will enhance the food security of the millions of farmers who depend on goats for their livelihoods.A total of five plant tissue culture/transformation projects and eight plant and animal diagnostics projects were developed following a project inception workshop held at the Hub in February, 2012. A number of unique projects aimed at addressing food security issues were designed in a series of discussions among the NARIs, African universities and regulatory bodies, private sector, international research institutes, foreign universities, the CGIAR and other participants.Clean and resistant planting materials: plant tissue culture and transformation projects: Many of the crops grown in the region are severely affected by a crippling range of diseases.The Hub is working with African and international partners to develop tissue culture methods for production of diseasefree, high-performing, farmer-preferred varieties of crops of importance to African food, nutritional and medicinal security. Tools to detect the pathogens causing these diseases are also being developed to ensure that planting materials produced are clean. The tissue culture projects include: Through the BecA-Sweden partnership, training in specialized areas has been conducted to enhance research skills of national partners. This included a workshop in designing rapid diagnostic kits for livestock diseases conducted in collaboration with the USDA/APHIS/FADDL, and a two day workshop on the phenotypic characterization of goats organized jointly by ILRI and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). The BecA-Sweden partnership avails technical advice and enhanced capacity from SLU to the Hub bioinformatics platform. This includes an infrastructure upgrade carried out to facilitate better bioinformatics support to more researchers in the plant virome, goat genetic diversity and diagnostics projects.The Beans are a vital crop in eastern and central Africa, both as an essential part of the diet, rich in protein and micronutrients such as iron, and as a natural fertilizer, enriching the soil with fixed-nitrogen. However, aphid-transmitted viruses pose a serious risk to beans, resulting in large losses for smallholder farmers.Previous work by researchers from the University of Cambridge has demonstrated that virus infection alters the biochemistry of plants to make them smell and taste different to insects, including aphids, which results in insects spreading the virus further. The project led by the University of Cambridge, UK includes partners from the Hub; Rothamsted Research; and the Eastern and Central African Bean Research Network (ECABREN) coordinated by CIAT, Uganda. The team is surveying bean growing areas in three distinct ecological zones within Uganda to look at how virus infection shapes the distribution of aphids under natural conditions. In addition, the team will use a combination of molecular analyses, mathematical models and field observations to identify how to select and deploy plants that could act as decoys for aphids by attracting them.At least 70% of the world's poorest people rely on rice as their staple food and it is estimated that by 2050, 50% more rice will need to be produced. But rice production is under threat from the devastating 'rice blast' disease. Precise figures for the impact of rice blast disease on yields are not known, but losses of 50-80 per cent are not uncommon.In recent years, rice development programmes across Africa have produced new high-yielding varieties of rice that have been grown widely in sub-Saharan African countries. Many of these varieties are susceptible to rice blast disease. Through a four year project led by the University of Exeter, UK, researchers from the University of Arkansas; KARI; the Hub; Makerere University Uganda; the Ohio State University, USA; and Station de Recherches de Farako-Bâ, Burkina Faso, will join forces to identify sources of resistance to rice blast by screening a wide selection of rice varieties from around the world. Rice blast resistance genes will then be bred into varieties that are specifically adapted to thrive in African countries, to produce durably resistant rice varieties. Capacity building at the Hub continues to be implemented in three ways:(1) hands-on training workshops, (2) provision of research fellowships to early career African scientists with placements for a period of 3-6 months at the Hub to undertake priority food and nutritional security research projects under the guidance of the Hub scientists, technical staff and partner institution scientists and (3) institutional capacity building and visits to BecA countries (with emphasis on the underrepresented countries) to raise awareness of the Hub, identify training needs and expertise.Through the Africa Biosciences Challenge Fund (ABCF) program, early career scientists receive fellowships which enable them to spend up to six months at the Hub addressing key agricultural constraints through research, while building their scientific and leadership skills. The ABCF program has grown by 1200% since its inception in 2010. In 2012, the Hub hosted 52 researchers from national universities and agricultural research institutions in 15 countries across the region. Thirty five per cent of the ABCF fellows were women, and for the first time the program received researchers from South Sudan, Eritrea, Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Rwanda, Burundi and Madagascar. Thirteen fellows with funding from regional partners were also able to conduct their research at the Hub.In addition to increased research fellow numbers, the donor support base for the ABCF program has substantially expanded. The initial donors to the fund included AusAID (through the BecA-CSIRO partnership), the BMGF, SFSA and the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs through Sida. In 2012, additional partners have supported a number of jointly-funded fellowships and workshops. Our investor-partners include the African Women in Agricultural Research & Development (AWARD) program; ASARECA; International Foundation for Science (IFS); UNESCO; and Helica Biosystems, USA.An innovative approach to building science leadership is the foundation for collaborative work among scientists conducting research on similar areas through the ABCF program. In 2012, thematic groups created through the ABCF program included Cassava virus epidemiology (Congo Brazzaville, DRC), Passion fruit virus diagnostics development (Kenya, Rwanda), Taro tissue culture and disease diagnostics (Burundi, Ethiopia), Napier grass diversity (Kenya, Uganda), mycotoxins in food and feed (Cameroon, Kenya), Cavies, goat and chicken diversity for improvement (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Cote d'Ivoire, DRC, Uganda, Sudan), and Control of theileriosis in East Africa (South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda). Some of these groups are assembled and led by returning BecA alumni, evidence of the evolving cascade of capacity building from the last ten years of BecA activities. The Hub will continue building linkages and encouraging collaborative research projects in the region.The nurturing environment at the Hub has led to the development of crop and animal disease diagnostic tools by ABCF research fellows which will improve farming practices by small holder farmers. Donatien Bigirimana from the National University of Burundi is one member of the taro team that is developing clean taro planting materials to be produced at the Hub.The clean materials will be transferred back to Burundi for multiplication and distribution by the Burundi national programs and private sector partners. Esther Kanduma, an Assistant Lecturer at the University of Nairobi and also an AWARD Fellow, is developing a rapid field based diagnostic test for use in rapid East Coast Fever (ECF) detection which will greatly improve the epidemiology, management and control of ECF among smallholder livestock farmers and pastoralists. Tajelser Idris Badri, a researcher at the Veterinary Research Institute, Khartoum, worked with the PPR project team at ILRI on the production of a thermostable PPR vaccine. Batches of PPR vaccine will be tested in an endemic area in Sudan to assess the efficacy and potency of the vaccine against the natural infection in a hot climatic environment.Training workshops continues to be a key part of our strategy to strengthen the regional biosciences capacity. The Hub holds four demand-driven annual workshops in key skills areas: Molecular Biology, Bioinformatics, Science Paper writing, and Laboratory Management and Equipment Operations.Overall, the training workshops were attended by 171 participants from 12 countries -Burundi, Cameroon, Congo Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Republic of South Sudan, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. These workshops were facilitated by trainers from Kenya, South Africa, Australia, Sweden, Germany and Spain.The expanded capacity of scientists and institutions in the region to conduct biosciences research and to develop and deliver new technologies at their own institutes remains a top priority for the Hub. While we continue to receive applications and interest from a wide range of institutions in the region and globally, we actively reach out to and partner with institutions from under-represented countries. Hub staff members travel within the BecA region, raising awareness and identifying key laboratories and individuals who are strategically placed to benefit from support from the Hub and impact food security for resource-poor farmers.In An exciting expansion at the Hub in 2012 was the establishment of a mycology/mycotoxin and nutritional analysis platform, in response to the many requests for these capacities by our partners over the last several years. Through funding received for the BecA-CSIRO partnership, the Hub acquired many advanced technologies to create mycology, mycotoxin diagnostics and nutritional analysis laboratories. The equipment acquired for this platform include an Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer which can test for metals including heavy metals and residues; a UV-VIS Spectrophotometer to test for sugars, vitamins, carotenoids, colour, turbidity and structural changes; and an Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography This visit to Gabon helped inform the Hub of the specific challenges related to lack of equipment and need for system to test for nutrients, mycotoxins including aflatoxin, plant toxins, amino acids, antibiotics, antioxidants, pesticides and herbicides residues.Already, the mycology/mycotoxin and nutritional analysis platform has hosted several projects, and received numerous requests for services including testing of maize for aflatoxin in mills, nutritional analysis of various food crops and capacity building in the use of the new technologies. While we are not currently offering research services outside the Hub, we plan to include this activity in the future so researchers can use the platform for their own research projects.The Hub bioinformatics platform provides support for research projects using modern bioinformatics tools, databases, data storage and high-performance computing. In 2012, research projects from 14 African and international institutions and two international research organizations received support from this platform. The bioinformatics platform is also actively engaged in strengthening bioinformatics skills in the region through annual training workshops (\"Introduction to Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics\" and \"Advanced Genomics and Bioinformatics\"); group training of ABCF fellows, hosting post-graduate students and collaborative workshops with institutions.The platform is continually evolving to meet dynamic research needs. A mobile phone-based data collection and delivery system to support field research, and a GIS-based information system for collecting, analysing and reporting viral data related to small farm ecosystems have been developed.The DNA sequencing, genotyping and oligonucleotide services unit (SEGOLIP) has continued to expand its capabilities through the acquisition of an illumina MiSeq genome sequencing machine and a Roche Light Cycler Nano. The MiSeq complements the existing Roche 454 pyrosequencing platform while significantly reducing perbase sequencing costs, and the Light Cycler Nano, an ultrafast real-time PCR instrument, is being used for genotyping, SNP/mutation detection and discovery.In 2012, this robust genomics platform provided services to 62 institutions from 20 African and non-African countries, and nine international organizations conducting research in pathogen discovery, crop improvement and food security. It has also supported capacity building activities in the BecA region and beyond.The Hub's team of core scientific staff and technical staff continues to grow with the increased research and capacity building activities. The reworked 2012 communication strategy has helped the Hub to showcase its research and capacity building activities to a much broader audience on the world stage.The Hub now has a webpage dedicated to the Hub's research projects (http://hub.africabiosciences.org/aboutus/food-and-nutrition-research-focus.html and http://hub. africabiosciences.org/about-us/animal-health-researchfocus.html) and the ABCF (http://hub.africabiosciences.org/ about-abcf).The crop and animal research activities have featured widely in regional and international media as diverse as The New Agriculturalist, Reuters Alert Net, Stock Journal, Radio Okapi and La Voix du Paysan, Ouest Littoral.Press releases coinciding with high level international engagements by Hub staff members have given rise to very broad international coverage. The Hub has also received journalists from Sweden, South Korea and Kenya, which generated a number of news articles and featured radio interviews.We have been privileged to host over 450 visitors to the Hub including policy makers, private sector leaders, donors, scientists, journalists and students. In We are grateful for the interest shown by all our visitors. Not only have they taken the time to learn more about what we do at the Hub, but many have served as our enthusiastic ambassadors, spreading the word of our collective achievements, giving rise to more collaboration in the region and beyond.As the Hub's interim Director, I am in awe of the hard work and dedication that is evident in the corridors at the Hub. I am also deeply grateful for the dedication of our partners and investors in working with the Hub to build a strong platform for strategic growth. My personal reasons for coming back to Africa from the USA were to see change for this continent, to enable science in Africa to advance so that it can contribute to the critical food security issues faced by so many Africans. Already, I can see these changes occurring and have personally witnessed the professional and personal growth of so many African scientists.None of this would be possible without you.As we look to 2013, the key focus for the Hub is the consolidation of all our existing activities and our new projects to achieve real impact on food and nutritional security in Africa. Our research and capacity strengthening efforts must ensure that the foundation for cutting edge research is strengthened and that biosciences innovation continues. At the same time, supporting our scientists with the resources and partnerships to ensure impact is critical to tackle the region's food security challenges. Our teams will increasingly work closely with farmers, regional institutes, governments and the private sector to achieve this impact.The wheels are turning for Africa's future and the Hub will continue to play its role in empowering the next generation of science leaders. We know that many of you share our vision for a tomorrow where Africa's vibrant culture of innovation ushers in a new era of prosperity, when Africa feeds herself and becomes a breadbasket for the world.Sincerely,Interim Director, BecA-ILRI Hub ","tokenCount":"4023"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"17ccd761f15b011e2a5f0f56c25b1234","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c2077ec1-2879-4f92-8978-1330c2c939f0/retrieve","id":"-623052360"},"keywords":["acid soil","agronomic performance","disease susceptibility index","dry matter accumulation","grain yield","high temperature","photochemical processes","photosynthetic response"],"sieverID":"596dc494-41e8-4ebc-a63d-7d69313b2c82","pagecount":"26","content":"The evaluation of disease resistance is considered an important aspect of phenotyping for crop improvement. Identification of advanced lines of the common bean with disease resistance contributes to improved grain yields. This study aimed to determine the response of the photosynthetic apparatus to natural pathogen infection by using chlorophyll (Chl a ) fluorescence parameters and their relationship to the agronomic performance of 59 common bean lines and comparing the photosynthetic responses of naturally infected vs. healthy leaves. The study was conducted over two seasons under acid soil and high temperature conditions in the western Amazon region of Colombia. A disease susceptibility index (DSI) was developed and validated using chlorophyll a (Chl a ) fluorescence as a tool to identify Mesoamerican and Andean lines of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) that are resistant to pathogens. A negative effect on the functional status of the photosynthetic apparatus was found with the presence of pathogen infection, a situation that allowed the identification of four typologies based on the DSI values ((i) moderately resistant; (ii) moderately susceptible; (iii) susceptible; and (iv) highly susceptible). Moderately resistant lines, five of them from the Mesoamerican gene pool (ALB 350, SMC 200, BFS 10, SER 16, SMN 27)  and one from the Andean gene pool (DAB 295), allocated a higher proportion of energy to photochemical processes, which increased the rate of electron transfer resulting in a lower sensitivity to disease stress. This photosynthetic response was associated with lower values of DSI, which translated into an increase in the accumulation of dry matter accumulation in different plant organs (leaves, stem, pods and roots). Thus, DSI values based on chlorophyll fluorescence response to pathogen infection could serve as a phenotyping tool for evaluating advanced common bean lines. Six common bean lines (ALB 350, BFS 10, DAB 295, SER 16, SMC 200 and SMN 27)  were identified as less sensitive to disease stress under field conditions in the western Amazon region of Colombia, and these could serve as useful parents for improving the common bean for multiple stress resistance.The common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is the most important food legume and it is particularly valued for its protein and micronutrient content [1]. In parts of Africa and Latin America, it provides an average of 15% of total daily calories and 36% of daily protein content [2]. Most of the production of common bean is carried out by small farmers under Plants 2022, 11, 1371 2 of 26 adverse climatic conditions in the tropics and subtropics [3,4]. The growing conditions in these regions, particularly in the humid tropics, favor numerous infectious diseases caused by fungi, viruses, bacteria and nematodes that result in yield losses up to 100% [5][6][7].Common bean germplasm is divided into two major gene pools that have been individually domesticated: the Andean gene pool, mainly large-seeded, and the Mesoamerican gene pool, which is small-to medium-seeded [8]. The infection-causing pathogens (fungi, viruses, bacteria and nematodes) are also classified into two genetic groups (Andean and Mesoamerican), which co-evolved with the gene pools of their host [9]. While the Andean group of pathogens affect Andean beans, Mesoamerican pathogens are more pathogenic to Mesoamerican beans, as well as, to some extent, Andean beans, thus showing a greater diversity of virulence [6]. Biotic stress caused by pathogens in plants inevitably induces various changes in their physiological functions, resulting in metabolic disorders due to infections or nutritional deficiencies [10]. Biotic stress symptoms can generally be seen in leaves, stems and roots, but lesions can also appear in seeds, leading to losses in productivity and grain quality [5]. Thus, accurate assessment of plant symptoms can be used as a proxy indicator when monitoring diseases, estimating yield loss and developing resistant genotypes against plant diseases [11].In breeding programs, the evaluation of disease resistance or biotic stress resistance is based on disease severity, which is defined as the area of plant tissue infected by diseasecausing organisms and expressed as a percentage of the total amount of plant tissue [7,12]. Likewise, evaluation relies heavily on traditional methods such as rating scales based on visible symptoms [13], which in most cases measure severity based on rater subjectivity that often lacks precision, reproducibility and traceability [14]. Plants have evolved complex sensory mechanisms to identify biotic invasion and overcome detriments to growth, yield and survival [15]. Changes induced under both light and dark periods are critical for plant survival [16]. Disease resistance has been observed to have a positive influence on plant photosynthesis compared to sensitive cultivars [17]. A disease-resistant cultivar usually shows higher rates of photosynthesis, electron transport and dark respiration, eventually reaching high yields in regions where widespread diseases are present [17,18]. However, the presence of a disease in a susceptible plant triggers alterations in morphology, physiological functions and plant integrity that can cause partial or total damage [10], as these are determinants in the plant's ability to adapt to specific environmental conditions [19].Among different stress responses, photosynthesis plays an important role in plant disease defense responses [20]. The reduction of photosynthesis by the pathogen can be caused by the deterioration of the photosynthetic apparatus. This can substantially reduce the ability of the leaves to fix CO 2, that is necessary for the formation of the photosynthates that are required during the reproductive phase [21]. In addition, stress induced by diseases can increase the excitation energy, to the point that it exceeds the amount necessary for photosynthetic metabolism, generating reactive oxygen species (ROS) [22] as well as a series of related changes in chloroplast-disease interaction [23]. These include: (i) fluctuation of chlorophyll fluorescence and reduced chlorophyll pigmentation [24][25][26], (ii) inhibition of photosystem efficiency [27], (iii) unbalanced accumulation of photoassimilates [28], (iv) changes in chloroplast structure and function [29] and (v) decreases in F v /F m , ΦPSII and increases in NPQ heat energy dissipation [30], and these changes can alter leaf temperature. For example, when pathogens directly or indirectly impair transpiration, the net effect is a lack of thermal regulation resulting in an increase in leaf temperature [19,31].Improving disease resistance by developing and identifying more resistant genotypes is considered the most sustainable method to reduce yield losses due to disease [6,7]. This disease resistance breeding approach is an efficient, reliable and inexpensive way to sustainably manage disease with fewer chemical inputs [32]. Among plant responses to stress, chlorophyll fluorescence is very sensitive to plant physiological changes and is used to measure the physiological state of a plant under both biotic [13,25,26,33] and abiotic [34,35] stress conditions. Chlorophyll a (Chl a ) fluorescence results from light energy absorbed by chlorophyll in photosystem II (PSII), which can be used for photosynthesis (qP, photochemical quenching), re-emitted as fluorescence or lost as heat (NPQ, nonphotochemical quenching). If the quantum yield of one of the processes decreases, the quantum yield of one or both of the other two processes will increase [13,36]. One of the main strengths of Chl a fluorescence measurements is that many stresses can be detected before any sign of visible damage occurs [37,38], depending on the type of stress suffered by the plant, so there is great potential for helping to minimize crop production problems through early detection of stress factors [39].The objective of this work was to determine the response of the photosynthetic apparatus to natural pathogen infection by using Chl a fluorescence parameters in different common bean lines and comparing the response from naturally infected vs. healthy leaves under field conditions. Based on this information on chlorophyll fluorescence imaging, a disease susceptibility index (DSI) was developed for phenotyping different bean lines and to identify the less susceptible ones under the field conditions (acid soils and high temperature) of the Colombian Amazon. For this purpose, the existence of variability in the tolerance-adjustment mechanism of the photosynthetic apparatus to disease stress was hypothesized. To test this, a DSI was developed using chlorophyll fluorescence as a tool to evaluate the disease resistance of the Mesoamerican and the Andean lines of common bean and identify sensitive genotypes. The DSI was mostly based on the comparison of light use and paths of energy transformation (i.e., energy that passes to photochemistry ΦII, dissipates as heat ΦNPQ and dissipates in a non-regulated manner ΦNO) in healthy and naturally infected leaves.Chlorophyll fluorescence parameters showed that the initial fluorescence yield (F o ) was 38.7% higher in infected leaves, contrary to what was presented for the maximum fluorescence (F m ), which was 25% higher in healthy leaves (p < 0.05). The maximum quantum yield of the PSII photochemistry (F v /F m ) for both healthy and infected leaf conditions was found to be below 0.82, which suggests that stress conditions exist due to acid soil and high temperature stress (Figure 1). When analyzing the increase of the irradiance level, we found that the effective PSII quantum yield (Y(II)) was significantly reduced for both conditions analyzed. The value was always higher in the healthy leaf, where at 300 µmol m −2 s −1 the value of Y(II) was 0.20 for healthy and 0.14 for infected leaves, respectively (Figure 2a). As for the fraction of the energy dissipated as heat related to non-photochemical quenching (NPQ), it was found that in the two conditions with increasing PAR, the NPQ also increased. The curves were different from 300 µmol m −2 s −1 , reaching a difference of 14.2% at 700 µmol m −2 s −1 between the two conditions (p < 0.05, Figure 2b). For the quantum yield of non-regulated energy dissipation (Y(NO)), we found that it increased up to 21 µmol m −2 s −1 , at which point the values were 0.45 and 0.50 for the healthy and infected leaves, respectively, and reached a difference of 23% between the two leaf conditions at 700 µmol m −2 s −1 of PAR (p < 0.05, Figure 2c). The apparent electron transport rate (ETR) was the most sensitive variable. The greatest difference was observed between the two conditions at PAR 500 µmol m −2 s −1 , where the ETR in the healthy leaf was 3.6 times higher compared to the infected leaves (p < 0.05, Figure 2d). The coefficient of photochemical quenching (qP) decreased with increasing PAR, with the qP value being higher in the healthy leaf (p < 0.05, Figure 2e). Finally, the non-photochemical quenching coefficient (qN) was proportional to PAR, with no differences from PAR 350 µmol m −2 s −1 (p < 0.05, Figure 2f).    When analyzing the relationships between the different variables of chlorophyll fluorescence in both healthy and infected leaves, contrasting differences were found (Figure 3). For example, in healthy leaves all correlations were significant, excluding the relationship between qP and Y(NO). In infected leaves, no correlation was found between Y(NO) and Y(II). Among the positive correlations (green to blue gradient), we found a reduction in the correlation between qN and ETR; while in the healthy leaf it had a relationship of 0.45, it decreased to 0.22 in the infected leaf (p < 0.05, Figure 3). A similar situation occurred regarding the correlation of ETR with NPQ and Y(NPQ); under the healthy conditions, the relationship was 0.28, but the infected leaf presented a correlation of 0.11 and 0.06, respectively (p < 0.05, Figure 3). In general, the variable with the greatest variation between the two conditions was the electron transfer rate (ETR) (p < 0.05, Figure 3). When analyzing the relationships between the different variables of chlorophyll flu orescence in both healthy and infected leaves, contrasting differences were found (Figure 3). For example, in healthy leaves all correlations were significant, excluding the relation ship between qP and Y(NO). In infected leaves, no correlation was found between Y(NO and Y(II). Among the positive correlations (green to blue gradient), we found a reduction in the correlation between qN and ETR; while in the healthy leaf it had a relationship o 0.45, it decreased to 0.22 in the infected leaf (p < 0.05, Figure 3). A similar situation occurred regarding the correlation of ETR with NPQ and Y(NPQ); under the healthy conditions the relationship was 0.28, but the infected leaf presented a correlation of 0.11 and 0.06 respectively (p < 0.05, Figure 3). In general, the variable with the greatest variation be tween the two conditions was the electron transfer rate (ETR) (p < 0.05, Figure 3). Using chlorophyll fluorescence imaging, the disease susceptibility index (DSI) was designed to phenotype advanced bean lines. When we analyzed the response of the pho tosynthetic apparatus using DSI, we found contrasting differences (p < 0.05, Figure 4, Ta ble 1. From the cluster analysis, four DSI-related typologies were obtained (moderately resistant, moderately susceptible, susceptible and highly susceptible). Using chlorophyll fluorescence imaging, the disease susceptibility index (DSI) was designed to phenotype advanced bean lines. When we analyzed the response of the photosynthetic apparatus using DSI, we found contrasting differences (p < 0.05, Figure 4, Table 1. From the cluster analysis, four DSI-related typologies were obtained (moderately resistant, moderately susceptible, susceptible and highly susceptible).  ). In terms of agronomic response (Table 1), these lines accumulated a greater amount of biomass in different organs, such as the root, stem, leaves and canopy biomass (p < 0.001), and showed a greater number of pods (4.6 ± 0.29 g). The plants accumulated canopy biomass twice as much compared to the highly susceptible type. ii.Moderately susceptible (MS; DSI = 0.33, n = 16; 27.1%) was a typology that was characterized by an increase in the fraction of non-regulated energy (qN), and its reaction centers were moderately reduced so that its electron transfer rate (ETR) was lower compared to the moderately resistant bean lines. The best and lowest rated lines in terms of DSI were SMR 84 and SAB 686, respectively. This typology reduced its pod biomass; however, a strong presence of flowers was found with an increase in root biomass. iii.Susceptible (S; DSI = 0.48, n = 29; 49.1%) was a typology where Y(II) was reduced by 40% and the fraction of energy dissipated as heat (NPQ) and non-regulated (qN) was increased by 46% and 40%, respectively, in relation to the moderately resistant bean lines. Likewise, this typology showed a considerable reduction in the fraction of energy distributed to the photosynthetic process (qP, 44.8%) and in the electron transport rate (ETR, 53.2%). The lines that conformed to this typology experienced a greater effect from disease stress on pod production, as well as on the other plant organs. iv.Highly susceptible (HS; DSI = 0.69, n = 8; 13.5%) was a typology where the energy was distributed in a higher proportion in the form of heat dissipation (NPQ) and as nonregulated (qN), and the efficiency of the photosynthetic apparatus was very low (qP and ETR). At the agronomic level, a significant effect was found since several plant organs did not show adequate development; however, an increase in root biomass was found at the expense of shoot growth.  ). In terms of agronomic response (Table 1), these lines accumulated a greater amount of biomass in different organs, such as the root, stem, leaves and canopy biomass (p < 0.001), and showed a greater number of pods (4.6 ± 0.29 g). The plants accumulated canopy biomass twice as much compared to the highly susceptible type. ii.Moderately susceptible (MS; DSI = 0.33, n = 16; 27.1%) was a typology that was characterized by an increase in the fraction of non-regulated energy (qN), and its reaction centers were moderately reduced so that its electron transfer rate (ETR) was lower compared to the moderately resistant bean lines. The best and lowest rated lines in terms of DSI were SMR 84 and SAB 686, respectively. This typology reduced its pod biomass; however, a strong presence of flowers was found with an increase in root biomass. iii.Susceptible (S; DSI = 0.48, n = 29; 49.1%) was a typology where Y(II) was reduced by 40% and the fraction of energy dissipated as heat (NPQ) and non-regulated (qN) was increased by 46% and 40%, respectively, in relation to the moderately resistant bean lines. Likewise, this typology showed a considerable reduction in the fraction of energy distributed to the photosynthetic process (qP, 44.8%) and in the electron transport rate (ETR, 53.2%). The lines that conformed to this typology experienced a greater effect from disease stress on pod production, as well as on the other plant organs. iv.Highly susceptible (HS; DSI = 0.69, n = 8; 13.5%) was a typology where the energy was distributed in a higher proportion in the form of heat dissipation (NPQ) and as non-regulated (qN), and the efficiency of the photosynthetic apparatus was very low (qP and ETR). At the agronomic level, a significant effect was found since several plant organs did not show adequate development; however, an increase in root biomass was found at the expense of shoot growth. The PCA of chlorophyll fluorescence and DSI variables could explain 67.4% of the total variability along the first two axes, separating the different bean lineage typologies (p < 0.05) (Figure 5a). Axis 1 (46.4%) contrasted bean lines (highly susceptible) with higher fractions of energy dissipated as heat (NPQ and Y(NPQ)) and lines with higher DSI, qP and ETR values (moderately resistant) (Figure 5a). Axis 2 (21%) was notable for its high F o value, associated with the susceptible and highly susceptible bean lines (Figure 5a,b). A Monte-Carlo test showed that the difference in chlorophyll fluorescence values significantly (p < 0.001) differentiated the different typologies of the bean lines in our study, with an explained variability of 36% (Figure 5b). When we analyzed the major contributing variables in both 1 and 2 in the PCA, we found that those above the red line in Figure 5c,d were statistically the most important in separating the bean lines in each of the typologies according to the level of disease susceptibility. The PCA of chlorophyll fluorescence and DSI variables could explain 67.4% of the total variability along the first two axes, separating the different bean lineage typologies (p < 0.05) (Figure 5a). Axis 1 (46.4%) contrasted bean lines (highly susceptible) with higher fractions of energy dissipated as heat (NPQ and Y(NPQ)) and lines with higher DSI, qP and ETR values (moderately resistant) (Figure 5a). Axis 2 (21%) was notable for its high Fo value, associated with the susceptible and highly susceptible bean lines (Figure 5a,b). A Monte-Carlo test showed that the difference in chlorophyll fluorescence values significantly (p < 0.001) differentiated the different typologies of the bean lines in our study, with an explained variability of 36% (Figure 5b). When we analyzed the major contributing variables in both 1 and 2 in the PCA, we found that those above the red line in Figure 5c,d were statistically the most important in separating the bean lines in each of the typologies according to the level of disease susceptibility.     The bean lines with the highest DSI values from all typology groups were obtained from quantitative analysis and from Chl a fluorescence parameters. For example, in the dark adaptation phase, we found red color gradients in the leaves with disease stress for the variable F 0 (Figure 6a), up to the point of having black areas caused by pathogen necrosis in some bean lines of the highly susceptible typology such as RRA 60 and SEF 40 (Figure 6b). The maximum quantum yield for the PSII photochemistry (F v /F m , Figure 6c) was found in the healthy leaves for the lines BFS 10, ALB 350 and DAB 295, which corresponded to the moderately resistant typology. When decreasing the level of resistance in the bean lines of the other typologies, the value F v /F m was significantly reduced in the infected leaf, a condition that can be observed in the gradient changing from violet and blue to light green (Figure 6c).Plants 2022, 11, x FOR PEER REVIEW 10 of 26The bean lines with the highest DSI values from all typology groups were obtained from quantitative analysis and from Chla fluorescence parameters. For example, in the dark adaptation phase, we found red color gradients in the leaves with disease stress for the variable F0 (Figure 6a), up to the point of having black areas caused by pathogen necrosis in some bean lines of the highly susceptible typology such as RRA 60 and SEF 40 (Figure 6b). The maximum quantum yield for the PSII photochemistry (Fv/Fm, Figure 6c) was found in the healthy leaves for the lines BFS 10, ALB 350 and DAB 295, which corresponded to the moderately resistant typology. When decreasing the level of resistance in the bean lines of the other typologies, the value Fv/Fm was significantly reduced in the infected leaf, a condition that can be observed in the gradient changing from violet and blue to light green (Figure 6c). We found that Y(II) decreased with increasing irradiance level (PAR), being different in both the different leaf conditions (healthy and infected) and among the different advanced lines of common beans (Figure 7). The line BFS 10 showed in both healthy and infected leaves a higher level of Y(II) (p < 0.05, Figure 7A). Highly susceptible lines such as SEF 40, RRA 60 and INB 604 showed zero Y(II) in the infected leaves from 280 μmol m −2 s −1 of PAR (Figure 7Ab). It is worth noting that these susceptible lines were of interspecific origin. The ETR was reduced by an average of 34% in the infected leaves for all the bean lines evaluated, reaching the point of having zero values at 600 μmol m −2 s −1 of PAR for the SEF 40 and RRA 60 lines (Figure 7B(a,b)). We found that Y(II) decreased with increasing irradiance level (PAR), being different in both the different leaf conditions (healthy and infected) and among the different advanced lines of common beans (Figure 7). The line BFS 10 showed in both healthy and infected leaves a higher level of Y(II) (p < 0.05, Figure 7A).  For the photochemical quenching coefficient (qP) level, a decrease in the color gradient from blue to light green was found. This resulted in a decrease in qP with increasing PAR (Figure 8A). Among the advanced bean lines, ALB 350 had the highest fraction of energy devoted to photochemical quenching (qP, p < 0.05, Figure 8A) in the healthy leaf. BFS 10 showed the highest qP values in infected leaves during the rapid light curve For the photochemical quenching coefficient (qP) level, a decrease in the color gradient from blue to light green was found. This resulted in a decrease in qP with increasing PAR (Figure 8A). Among the advanced bean lines, ALB 350 had the highest fraction of energy devoted to photochemical quenching (qP, p < 0.05, Figure 8A) in the healthy leaf. BFS 10 showed the highest qP values in infected leaves during the rapid light curve (Figure 8A). Therefore, those lines that reduced their energy fraction in qP increased the dissipation of energy in the form of heat (NPQ, Figure 8B) or non-regulated processes (qN, Figure 8C). Thus, advanced lines of the highly susceptible typology such as SEF 40 and RRA 60 presented the highest values. In these cases, the color gradients for NPQ (Figure 8B) in the healthy leaves tended towards green while in the infected leaves the NPQ value increased as the color gradient changed from blue to violet from the level of 300 µmol m −2 s −1 of PAR, and a similar condition was observed for qN.Plants 2022, 11, x FOR PEER REVIEW 12 of 26 (Figure 8A). Therefore, those lines that reduced their energy fraction in qP increased the dissipation of energy in the form of heat (NPQ, Figure 8B) or non-regulated processes (qN, Figure 8C). Thus, advanced lines of the highly susceptible typology such as SEF 40 and RRA 60 presented the highest values. In these cases, the color gradients for NPQ (Figure 8B) in the healthy leaves tended towards green while in the infected leaves the NPQ value increased as the color gradient changed from blue to violet from the level of 300 μmol m −2 s −1 of PAR, and a similar condition was observed for qN.  Chlorophyll a (Chl a ) fluorescence parameters were found to be related to the agronomic variables that were also related to DSI (Table 2). For example, DSI was negatively correlated with most parameters of chlorophyll fluorescence, significantly affecting the fraction of energy devoted to the photosynthetic process (qP ratio coefficient r = −0.82) as well as the rate of electron transfer (ETR r = −0.72). Increasing the susceptibility level increased photosynthetic efficiency (r = 0.27) as well as leaf temperature (r = 0.32), but the difference in leaf temperature (leaf temperature differential, LTD) had a negative relationship with the photosynthetic efficiency (r = −0.29). With the dry matter accumulation variables, DSI was positively correlated with the increase in root biomass (r = 0.28), but it was negatively correlated with the other parameters such as stem biomass (r = −0.4), pod biomass (r = −0.29) and canopy biomass (r = −0.33). When leaf temperature increased, the functioning of the photosynthetic apparatus was compromised, specifically for photosynthesis (qP r = −0.3) and the rate of electron transfer (ETR r = −0.37). However, when leaf temperature increased, the plant also increased the dissipation of energy in the form of non-regulated energy (YNO, r = 0.36). At the agronomic level, the increase in leaf temperature compromised the number of grains per pod (r = −0.43) because the number of aborted grains increased too (r = 0.36). Likewise, leaf temperature correlated negatively with the chlorophyll content index (CCI r = −0.41), as well as with ambient temperature (r = −0.9), relative humidity (r = −0.52) and leaf temperature differential (r = −0.52). Since we observed a negative relationship between different parameters of chlorophyll a (Chla) fluorescence (ETR, qP and NPQ) and DSI, other important correlations were explored to improve confidence in the phenotyping of the advanced bean lines. For example, significant correlations were found between the ETR and stem biomass (r = 0.36) and the fraction of energy devoted to photosynthesis (qP) and pod biomass (r = 0.30). Finally, the energy dissipated as heat (NPQ) was negatively correlated with root biomass (r = −0.31). In our study we found that pathogen-related biotic stress generated differential responses in chlorophyll fluorescence parameters. The changes related to the increase of initial fluorescence (F 0 ), the reduction of maximum fluorescence (F m ) and the maximum efficiency of PSII photochemistry (F v /F m ). These parameters responded by activating acclimation mechanisms with the aim of adjusting the photosynthetic machinery to the new conditions [40]. The interaction between plant and pathogen caused alterations in several physiological processes, in which photosynthetic reaction to light, carbon assimilation and respiration-associated processes were negatively affected [41]. We found that the maximum efficiency of PSII photochemistry, determined by F v /F m , decreased to values below 0.80 in disease-stressed leaves [42], and this could be considered as a response to the infection process presenting greater damage to the photosynthetic apparatus, resulting in two different processes [43]. On the one hand, the decrease in F v /F m revealed that infection interferes with chloroplast protein synthesis, confirming that oxidation causes detrimental effects at the chloroplast level [44]. On the other hand, the decrease in F v /F m may be attributed to changes in the number of functional reaction centers of PSII, presenting increased inactivation of reaction centers through damaging processes, and/or an increase in the rate constant of the non-radiative dissipation of excitation energy [13,14]. Likewise, the decrease in the rate constant of the PSII photochemistry led to an increase in the initial fluorescence at the PSII open centers (F 0 ), a feature that was observed in infected leaves that showed increases in F 0 compared to healthy leaves. This suggests a loss of excitation energy, which is required during electron transfer from pigments to reaction centers [45]. In the case of reduced maximum fluorescence (F m ) in infected leaves, it is possible that maximum quinone reduction did not occur, because reaction centers may not function properly due to an operationally inefficient light energy capture process [19,46].We found that infected leaves had to make certain adjustments to cope with the infection process, such as decreases in Y(II) and qP photochemical quenching, resulting in a decreasing electron transport rate (ETR) compared to healthy leaves [40]. Moreover, this inhibition of light-dependent pathways was accompanied by an increase in qN [47]. Similarly, an increase in Y(NO) was detected at the expense of a decrease in NPQ condition, as was also observed by Suárez at el. [48]. These observed changes are possibly attributable to irreversible damage in the PSII reaction centers due to the infection process, and they resulted in possible photoinhibition as reflected by low F v /F m levels [49]. However, greater energy allocation towards the heat dissipation or non-photochemical pathway (NPQ) was observed in healthy leaves compared to infected leaves. This could indicate that pathogen infection may increase or decrease non-photochemical processes of energy dissipation [40,49].Looking specifically at the behavior of NPQ we found certain adjustments due to the incidence of infection. It would be expected that greater allocation of energy to the non-photochemical pathway (NPQ) is presented as a photoprotective mechanism [4]. This would likely lead to lower stomatal conductance and increasing photosynthetic function, thus limiting the negative feedback on biomass productivity and/or acting as an escape from disease stress [50]. However, we observed that in infected leaves, the energy allocation to NPQ was lower than that presented by healthy leaves. This situation can lead to a low pH gradient (∆pH) across thylakoid membranes, reflecting a high ATP demand due to metabolic stimulation in the host plant leaves [49]. Likewise, it has been observed that these decreases in NPQ denote a loss of chloroplast functionality, possibly related to leaf senescence [51]. Furthermore, under infected conditions, we found negative correlations between Y(NO) and the non-photochemical energy pathways of NPQ, qN and Y(NPQ), and low correlations between F 0 , Y(II), qP and qL. The above-mentioned relationships indicate that infected leaves devoted a larger proportion of the energy absorbed by PSII to other non-regulated energy dissipation processes [Y(NO)] [52]. The increase in Y(NO) reflect the plant's inability to protect itself against photochemical damage [53]; i.e., high Y(NO) values and low NPQ values are reflected in a suboptimal capacity for photoprotective reactions, which ultimately leads to photoinhibition [52].Plant defense responses in terms of photosynthetic activity have mostly been studied independently in the past [54]. However, it has been observed that it is possible to identify materials that are disease-resistant in addition to serving as a basis for signal transduction for plant immune defense [55,56]. The common bean originates from two main gene pools and some diseases [8], due to the process of coevolution, present the same classification and higher degrees of pathogenicity within specific gene pools [9,57]. These studies indicate that plant photosynthesis and immune defense processes are interconnected [58]. In our study, climatic conditions (high air humidity, high rainfall and high air temperature) in the Amazon region were favorable for the more frequent development of diseases. However, in the previous studies conducted by Suárez et al. [48,59,60], we identified bean lines that were adapted to abiotic stress conditions at the physiological level and these lines produced grain yields that were above the Colombian average yield.The specific adaptation level of a bean line depends on its physiological responses and degree of susceptibility to a given stress condition. For example, based on the physiological responses of the lines evaluated under healthy and infected conditions, we classified bean lines into four typologies. We found six common bean lines belonging to the moderately disease-resistant typology, with five of them belonging to the Mesoamerican gene pool (ALB 350, SMC 200, BFS 10, SER 16, SMN 27) and one belonging to the Andean gene pool (DAB 295), with a higher energy allocation towards photochemical pathways (Y(II), qP, qL, ETR) [61]. DAB 295 stands out as a line that was characterized by a greater allocation capacity in Y(II), allowing it to maintain higher ETR levels than the other bean lines. Likewise, its high qP and qL values indicated greater Q A oxidation with a greater proportion of PSII reaction centers open and connected, showing optimal functioning in the photosynthetic apparatus [13]. In the case of the ALB 350 and BFS 10 lines, it was observed that they maintained a higher proportion of energy allocation to Y(II). However, these two bean lines belonging to the moderately resistant typology were the ones that most used the non-photochemical pathway (NPQ) for improving their stress tolerance response [40,49]. Thus, these two lines responded to disease stress by activating the acclimation mechanisms to adjust the photosynthetic machinery with the objective of maintaining their photosynthetic activity, which included the increase in energy dissipation capacity, and this was detected by the increase of the non-photochemical pathway without altering the yield of PSII Y(II) [40].The bean lines that formed the moderately disease-susceptible typology (SMR 84, SMC 33, SMR 193, RRA 3, SMR 72, SIN 509-1, SMR 140, RRA 177, SMC 101, SMC 205, CALIMA, DAB 525, SMC 216, SMC 199, SAB 618 and SAB 686) had an average DSI value of 0.33, with a range from 0.24 to 0.39. This typology was characterized by lower efficiency in the functioning of the photosynthetic apparatus compared to the lines of the moderately resistant typology. Some outstanding traits were found in the old commercial Andean bean cultivar CALIMA, which presented higher NPQ and qN values [40], indicating higher dissipation of excess energy in PSII in the form of heat as a protection mechanism against disease stress [62,63]. This change in energy allocation allowed the CALIMA bean cultivar to maintain higher values in qP and qL with a high energy fraction (Y(II)), similar to that presented by the ALB 350 bean line, allowing photosynthetic activity to be maintained intact and without being affected by the rate of electron transfer to PSII [4,64]. The bean line SMC 33 exhibited high values of qP and therefore the infection from the pathogen did not generate damage to the reaction centers of PSII, as they remained open without affecting the reduction in the proportion of energy used for photochemical processes, which resulted in higher values of ETR [65].The incidence of the pathogens did not favor the bean lines SER 394, ALB 352, ALB 351, ICA QUIMBAYA, SIN 351-1, SMC 135, RRA 60 and SEF 40, which conformed to the highly disease-susceptible typology due to their values of DSI being above 0.69. This typology presented low values of qP, and this parameter is considered useful to estimate the saturation level of PSII under stress conditions [66]. These low qP values were due to a degradation of photosynthetic pigments in leaves, in addition to high production of ethylene and reactive oxygen species (ROS), which affected the biochemical function of the chloroplast [20]. Likewise, an increase in the NPQ fraction was observed with the genotypes ICA QUIMBAYA, RRA 60 and SIN 351-1. This effect is considered as a photoprotective mechanism in these lines to mitigate infection [23]. However, this increase was probably more associated with the limitation of CO 2 assimilation, possibly due to an imbalance between the activity of PSII and the electron requirement for photosynthesis, which was reduced due to disease stress, and the above process was supported by the low ETR values observed [67]. These conditions led to an overexcitation of light energy and subsequent photoinhibition [68]. Other lines, such as SEF 40, SMC 135, ALB 352 and ALB 351, only presented an increase in non-photochemical dissipation (qN), which was reflected through the activation of non-photochemical processes that led to the dissipation of nonradiative energy, leading to changes in the trans-thylakoid pH gradient and consequently to photoinhibition and disconnection among light-harvesting complexes [69].Pathogen incidence is known to disrupt the function of the photosynthetic apparatus, resulting in differences among the bean lines [44]. Based on the response mechanisms observed among different bean typologies, we found two types of mechanistic responses: (i) greater allocation of energy to the photochemical pathway; and (ii) the ability to distribute energy to non-photochemical pathways. For example, in lines within the moderately susceptible (SAB 618, SAB 686), susceptible (INB 841, INB 604) and highly susceptible (RRA 60, SEF 40) typologies, fluorescence imaging showed increased values in the maximum efficiency of PSII photochemistry in infected leaves compared to healthy leaves. This stress-induced decrease in the F v /F m ratio may result in an increase in the non-photochemical quenching processes, which decreases the value of F m [70]. This can also be accompanied by photoinactivation, leading to oxidative damage and loss of PSII reaction centers [71], both of which are associated with increased value of F 0 [72,73].We found that the function of the photosynthetic apparatus is severely affected in infected leaves. For example, with the RRA 60 and SEF 40 lines, PSII Y(II) yield was proportionally reduced with increasing PAR level starting at 300 µmol m −2 s −1 , indicating no photosynthetic activity at 500 µmol m −2 s −1 and resulting in total loss of electron transport at a PAR level of 600 µmol m −2 s −1 . This behavior was expected because of the disease severity leading to inhibition of light-dependent reactions (Y(II), qP and ETR), and causing a severe loss of PSII function [40,47]. This loss was due to a reduction in the capture of excitation energy from open PSII reaction centers [74], which promotes an increase in the proportion of closed PSII reaction centers [67]. Thus, since the F v /F m ratio represents the balance between the PSII photodamage rate and the PSII repair rate [71] and it is not related to changes in light absorption [75], we hypothesized that infection interferes with chloroplast protein synthesis [44].When analyzing the agronomic performance of the evaluated bean lines we found that the lines that conformed to the moderately resistant typology (ALB 350, SMC 200, BFS 10, SER 16, SMN 27, DAB 295) had a greater capacity to increase biomass production at the canopy level. This was due to a greater resistance to disease stress (lower leaf damage) that made it possible to allocate more energy to the photochemical pathway (qP), contributing to a better rate of CO 2 fixation and plant development. Thus-in similar environments with comparable soil conditions-higher CB values could be an indicator of a genotype's greater capacity to fix CO 2 , assimilate nutrients and effectively use water under both stress conditions as well as optimal conditions.The DSI was created with the objective of being a phenotyping tool for the selection of bean lines with lower susceptibility to disease stress based on Chl a variables. The DSI is based on calculating the differences in the responses of different Chl a variables between healthy and infected leaves. The DSI uses the different chlorophyll fluorescence parameters related to different energy pathways, the electron transfer rate and the different points on the photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) response curve, which show the functional status of the photosynthetic apparatus. Therefore, DSIs based on chlorophyll fluorescence parameters could be useful to identify bean lines with higher levels of adaptation to combined biotic and abiotic (acid soil and high temperatures) stress conditions. This observation is consistent with previous studies by Suárez et al. [48,59,60,76]. These previous studies showed that a few bean lines (ALB 350, SMC 200, BFS 10, SER 16, SMN 27, DAB 295) are capable not only of greater accumulation of photosynthates but also their mobilization to developing grains under stress conditions. Therefore, we can highlight, among others, the BFS 10 line, which demonstrated a high degree of adaptation under different types of abiotic stress. This is because it has a high capacity in the functioning of its photosynthetic apparatus, as we observed in this study, and it also has greater capacity to maintain its physiological processes under both biotic and abiotic stress conditions. Thus, BFS 10 could serve as a very good parent to develop multiple stress-adapted common bean lines.It has been shown that the high temperatures present in the western Amazon region of Colombia impact the phenology and grain yield of common bean lines [59,76]. These conditions can also effect the plant-pathogen interaction and thereby influence genotypic differences in disease resistance [77]. Bean lines of the moderately resistant typology presented phenotypic variation and plasticity [78] at the level of their photosynthetic apparatus. These lines, in addition to increasing energy devoted to carbon fixation (qP), equally increased other dissipation pathways in the form of heat (NPQ) or non-regulated (qN) energy. These moderately resistant bean lines can surely be used as progenitors in bean breeding programs that aim to combine disease resistance with abiotic stress (acid soil and high temperature) resistance.A set of 59 bean genotypes were evaluated in two seasons ((i) April to July 2019, (ii) August to November 2019) at the Macagual Research Center of the Universidad de la Amazonia, Colombia (1 • 37 N and 75 • 36 W). The Center is located in the municipality of Florencia, Caquetá (Colombia), in a tropical rainforest ecosystem. The average annual rainfall is 3800 mm, with an average temperature of 25.5 • C and a relative humidity of 84% and 1700 h of sunshine per year. The first season had a mean temperature of 24.2 • C, with a minimum temperature range between 16.7-23.6 • C, maximum temperature between 23.9-34.4 • C and a total precipitation of 1,511 mm. The second season was characterized by a total precipitation of 844 mm and a mean temperature of 26.8 • C, with minimum temperatures ranging between 18.6-26 • C and maximum temperatures ranging between 27.2-37.2 • C (Figure 9). A set of 59 bean genotypes were evaluated in two seasons ((i) April to July 2019, (ii) August to November 2019) at the Macagual Research Center of the Universidad de la Amazonia, Colombia (1°37′ N and 75°36′ W). The Center is located in the municipality of Florencia, Caquetá (Colombia), in a tropical rainforest ecosystem. The average annual rainfall is 3800 mm, with an average temperature of 25.5 °C and a relative humidity of 84% and 1700 h of sunshine per year. The first season had a mean temperature of 24.2 °C, with a minimum temperature range between 16.7-23.6 °C, maximum temperature between 23.9-34.4 °C and a total precipitation of 1,511 mm. The second season was characterized by a total precipitation of 844 mm and a mean temperature of 26.8 °C, with minimum temperatures ranging between 18.6-26 °C and maximum temperatures ranging between 27.2-37.2 °C (Figure 9). A total of 59 bean genotypes from the Mesoamerican and Andean gene pools from crosses between different species (Phaseolus vulgaris, P. acutifolius, P. coccineus and P. dumosus) were used (Supplementary Table S1). The ALB (small red kidney, black kidney) lines are better adapted to drought and acid soil conditions. BFS (small red) lines are adapted to drought and soils with low fertility. The DAB lines (speckled red, red-pink) are drought-adapted Andean materials selected for their color and grain size. The INB line is an interspecific progeny between the tepary bean and common bean, with some level of common bacterial blight (CBB) resistance. The RRA lines have outstanding performance in terms of resistance to root rot caused by Pythium and Sclerotium. The SAB line is heat and drought resistant and produces medium-sized cream-colored mottled seeds. The SAP line is of growth habit I with a mottled red grain color. The SEF and SER (small red) lines show adaptation to both drought and heat stress. The SIN (black) lines are interspecific with adaptation to drought. The SMC (various colors), SMN (black) and SMR (red) lines have high mineral content, specifically iron (Fe) in the seed, and are adapted to drought stress. The commercial cultivars ICA QUIMBAYA (cream mottled red) and CAL-IMA (red) are adapted to acid soil stress. AMADEUS (bright light red) is a commercial line. The experiment was conducted using a randomized complete block design (RCBD) A total of 59 bean genotypes from the Mesoamerican and Andean gene pools from crosses between different species (Phaseolus vulgaris, P. acutifolius, P. coccineus and P. dumosus) were used (Supplementary Table S1). The ALB (small red kidney, black kidney) lines are better adapted to drought and acid soil conditions. BFS (small red) lines are adapted to drought and soils with low fertility. The DAB lines (speckled red, red-pink) are droughtadapted Andean materials selected for their color and grain size. The INB line is an interspecific progeny between the tepary bean and common bean, with some level of common bacterial blight (CBB) resistance. The RRA lines have outstanding performance in terms of resistance to root rot caused by Pythium and Sclerotium. The SAB line is heat and drought resistant and produces medium-sized cream-colored mottled seeds. The SAP line is of growth habit I with a mottled red grain color. The SEF and SER (small red) lines show adaptation to both drought and heat stress. The SIN (black) lines are interspecific with adaptation to drought. The SMC (various colors), SMN (black) and SMR (red) lines have high mineral content, specifically iron (Fe) in the seed, and are adapted to drought stress. The commercial cultivars ICA QUIMBAYA (cream mottled red) and CALIMA (red) are adapted to acid soil stress. AMADEUS (bright light red) is a commercial line. The experiment was conducted using a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications where the plots in each block corresponded to each bean line evaluated. Each plot consisted of four rows with a distance between rows of 0.6 m, and each row was 2 m long. The bean seeds were sown at a distance of 15 cm, equivalent to 11 plants m −2 . Soil preparation and planting were done manually. No amendments or products to regulate soil pH were added to the soil, nor was any type of chemical compound added to control the incidence of disease. The above-mentioned management ensures the similarity of the infection level conditions with those observed in the farmers' fields in western Amazonia.During the flowering period (BBCH 65) in both crop-growing seasons under field conditions, eight plants per plot were selected in each block (n = 3). Four plants with healthy leaves (n = 4) located between the fifth and eighth trifoliate leaves (from the apex to the base) were selected as well as four plants with infected leaves (n = 4) with the presence of the asexual stage (Rhizoctonia solani) of the web blight (Thanatephorus cucumeris (Frank) Donk, [79]). The infected leaves showed the first visible symptoms with a severity level of four, which presented in the form of small wet spots that later turned into light brown spots with dark margins [12]. In both healthy and infected leaves, two circular areas of interest in the central part of each leaflet were selected for measurement (Figure 10). The area in which the information on different chlorophyll fluorescence variables was obtained (59 bean lines × 4 plants per line × 4 leaves per plant × 3 leaflets × 2 AOIs per leaflet, for a total of 5664 units of data per each of the healthy or infected leaf condition per block). This evaluation was carried out in the field to evaluate the disease by observing the natural occurrence of the web blight in the most appropriate stage, which corresponded to the main flowering period [80]. The objective of the mentioned management was to obtain better discrimination between the lines for their disease susceptibility by identifying a number of lines based on the disease susceptibility index (DSI) and finding the relationship of the DSI with the grain yield [81,82].with three replications where the plots in each block corresponded to each bean line evaluated. Each plot consisted of four rows with a distance between rows of 0.6 m, and each row was 2 m long. The bean seeds were sown at a distance of 15 cm, equivalent to 11 plants m −2 . Soil preparation and planting were done manually. No amendments or products to regulate soil pH were added to the soil, nor was any type of chemical compound added to control the incidence of disease. The above-mentioned management ensures the similarity of the infection level conditions with those observed in the farmers' fields in western Amazonia.During the flowering period (BBCH 65) in both crop-growing seasons under field conditions, eight plants per plot were selected in each block (n = 3). Four plants with healthy leaves (n = 4) located between the fifth and eighth trifoliate leaves (from the apex to the base) were selected as well as four plants with infected leaves (n = 4) with the presence of the asexual stage (Rhizoctonia solani) of the web blight (Thanatephorus cucumeris (Frank) Donk, [79]). The infected leaves showed the first visible symptoms with a severity level of four, which presented in the form of small wet spots that later turned into light brown spots with dark margins [12]. In both healthy and infected leaves, two circular areas of interest in the central part of each leaflet were selected for measurement (Figure 10). The area in which the information on different chlorophyll fluorescence variables was obtained (59 bean lines × 4 plants per line × 4 leaves per plant × 3 leaflets × 2 AOIs per leaflet, for a total of 5664 units of data per each of the healthy or infected leaf condition per block). This evaluation was carried out in the field to evaluate the disease by observing the natural occurrence of the web blight in the most appropriate stage, which corresponded to the main flowering period [80]. The objective of the mentioned management was to obtain better discrimination between the lines for their disease susceptibility by identifying a number of lines based on the disease susceptibility index (DSI) and finding the relationship of the DSI with the grain yield [81,82].   Responses of Chl a parameters in healthy and infected leaves were monitored using a MAXI-Imaging PAM M-Series (Heinz Walz GmbH, Effeltrich, Germany), equipped with 44 high-power royal blue (450 nm) LED lamps furnished with collimating optics that provided pulse-modulated excitation light and at the same time served for actinic illumination and saturation pulses. For the calibration of the light intensities, an ULM-500 light meter and recorder was used, which was equipped with a micro quantum sensor (Heinz Walz GmbH, Effeltrich, Germany). Chlorophyll a (Chl a ) fluorescence emissions were captured using a CCD (charge-coupled device) camera with a resolution of 640 × 480 pixels and a visible sample area of 24 × 32 mm on each leaf. From the color gradients and trends with increasing photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) obtained with the Imaging-PAM M-Series and Imaging WIN version 2.32 software (Heinz Walz GmbH, Effeltrich, Germany), different parameters related to chlorophyll fluorescence (Chl a ) were determined. The bean leaves were individually fixed to a holder at a distance of 18.5 cm from the CCD camera in order to perform a 60-min dark adaptation process, a process that was performed with the aim of fully opening (i.e., oxidizing) the PSII reaction centers and minimizing non-photochemical energy dissipation.After adaptation, the leaves were exposed to a weak, modulated light beam (0.5 µmol m −2 s −1 , 100 µs, 1 Hz) with the aim of determining the initial fluorescence (F 0 ). A saturating pulse of white light (2400 µmol m −2 s −1 , 10 Hz) was then emitted for 0.8 s to determine the emission of maximal fluorescence (F m ) or when all PSII reaction centers were expected to be \"closed\". After 10 min, the steady-state chlorophyll fluorescence yield (F s ) of plants under actinic illumination was determined and a second saturation pulse, with the same settings as for determining F m , was applied to measure the maximum light-adapted fluorescence yield (F m ). After the application of continuous actinic light saturating pulses, the fluorescence level increased to the F m level and up to the F m level, thereby determining the amount of energy taken by the photochemical pathway [qP = (F m − F)/(F m − F o )] [83]. Using the above protocol, different parameters of Chl a in dark-adapted and light-adapted states were calculated, as described as follows. The maximum quantum yield of the PSII photochemistry was calculated (F v /F m = (F m − F o )/F m ) as well as the different routes of the energy fractions. Among these were the effective quantum yield of photochemical energy conversion in PSII (Y(II) = ∆F/F m ) as well as the quantum yield of non-regulated non-photochemical energy loss in PSII (Y(NPQ) = (F s /F m ) − (F s /F m )) and the quantum yield of non-regulated heat dissipation and fluorescence emission (Y(NO) = F s /F m ) [84]. The sum of these three yields is equal to 1.In order to determine the incidence of the irradiance level on the PSII fluorescence emissions, rapid light curves (RLCs) composed of 12 steps, with durations at each PAR level of 20 s, were performed (0, 1, 21, 56, 111, 186, 281, 336, 396, 461, 531, 611, 701 µmol photons m −2 s −1 ). At each point on the curve, the electron transport rate (ETR) of the plants was calculated using the following formula: ETR (µmol e − m −2 s −1 ) = (∆F/F m ) × PAR × 0.5 × 0.84 [85,86] where ∆F/F m refers to the effective quantum yield of photochemical energy conversion into PSII [i.e., Y(II)] at a given radiation level; PAR is the nominal incident photon flux density in terms of µmol m −2 s −1 ; 0.5 refers to an assumed stoichiometric distribution of absorbed light energy between the two photosystems; and 0.84 denotes an empirical absorption efficiency of 84% of incident light in higher plants. Using the results of the RLCs, the maximum ETR (ETR max ), the maximum saturating irradiance (E k ) and the photosynthetic efficiency (α) were calculated. α was calculated as the initial slope of the curve at the first light passage and ETR max was considered as the highest calculated ETR value of the curve (ETR = ETR max × tanh (αETR × PAR/ETR max ), where ETR is the relative electron transport rate mentioned above, ETR max is the saturated ETR, tanh is the hyperbolic tangent function, αETR is the efficiency of the electron transport (initial slope of the ETR vs. irradiance curves) and PAR is the incident irradiance [87].Between 7:00 to 9:00 am, on four fully developed leaves selected between the fifth and eighth trifoliate leaves (nodes were counted from apex to base) at the onset of physiological maturity of each plant (n = 4), the leaf chlorophyll content index (CCI) was measured using the SPAD502 (Minolta Camera Co., Osaka, Japan) chlorophyll meter. Leaf stomatal conductance (g s ), leaf temperature (LT, • C) and relative humidity (RH %) were measured using a leaf porometer (Model SC-1, Decagon Devices, Inc. Pullman, WA, USA). The difference between leaf temperature and ambient temperature was used to calculate the leaf temperature differential (LTD) [48]. In each plot, a row segment of 0.5 m (equivalent to an area of 0.3 m 2 ) was selected, and five plants were collected for destructive sampling, an activity that was carried out at the time of harvest (BBCH 89) in which the dry biomass of the different components of the plant (root, stems, leaves, flower buds, flowers, pods) was recorded as the total biomass of the canopy. The average number of viable and non-viable grains per pod was also measured for each bean genotype.The disease susceptibility index (DSI) was developed to quantify the level of pathogen influence on photosynthetic functioning under stress and non-stress conditions. The DSI was adjusted for the disease stress intensity presented in each season. This index eliminates the effect of intra-and intergenotypic variability, showing the level of susceptibility of individual genotypes in the context of the population median [48]. To develop the DSI, as a first step, an initial standardization ([0-1]) of the data was performed using the value obtained from each genotype's chlorophyll fluorescence variable (Chl a V i ) divided by the geometric value of the whole individual experiment (year repeat); i.e., Chl a V i [0-1] = Y j /Ÿ, where Chl a V i = any of the monitored fluorescence ith variables, Y j = mean value of the individual jth genotype, Ÿ = geometric mean of the whole experiment and [0-1] are standardized values between a range of 0 to 1. Once the data were standardized, two sub-indices were calculated. The first sub-index (SI 1i ) considered the performance of the photosynthetic apparatus of the bean lines in healthy leaves from the Chl a V i ; this was calculated from the difference between the genotype that had the highest value obtained (Max Chl a V i , the more the better or the less the better) and the value of each jth genotype (SI 1 = Max Chl a V i − Chl a V ij ). The second sub-index (SI 2i ) considered the difference between each healthy leaf (HL) and one infected (AL) by the pathogen (SI 2i = HL Chl a V i − AL Chl a V i ) in each jth genotype. After obtained the two sub-indices for each variable, we added the differences calculated and then added the score obtained for all variables. Thus, we developed and validated the DSI by having a greater difference within any genotype, in terms of photosynthetic characteristics, between the healthy leaf and the infected leaf with the pathogen. Where higher DSI values were observed with certain genotypes, they were considered as bean genotypes with greater susceptibility to disease stress (DSI [0-1] = ΣChl a V i SI 1i + Chl a V i SI 2i ).Using the different chlorophyll fluorescence variables, such as DSI and grain yield, a cluster analysis was performed to identify moderately resistant, moderately susceptible, susceptible and highly susceptible bean genotypes [12,88]. From these typologies, a principal component analysis (PCA) was used to identify the relationship of genotypes with chlorophyll fluorescence variables and to test the effect of disease stress on the physiological response in maintaining a higher photosynthetic efficiency, a situation that was tested by means of a Monte-Carlo permutation test. Statistical differences for each of the chlorophyll fluorescence variables were analyzed by fitting a linear mixed model (LMM). For this purpose, the fixed effect within the LMM was the bean genotype, and the blocks within the monitoring period (repeated measures) were included as random effects. Assumptions of normality and homogeneity of variance were evaluated using an exploratory analysis of residuals. Differences between genotypes were analyzed with Fisher's post-hoc LSD test with a significance of α = 0.05. Pearson correlation analyses were performed for each of the chlorophyll fluorescence variables in both healthy and disease stressed leaves, as well as analyses of correlation between DSI, LT, ETR, qP and NPQ with different chlorophyll fluorescence, environmental and agronomic variables. The graphs were visualized in four quadrants plotting the corresponding means and statistical significance on each axis. LMMs were performed using the lme function of the nlme package, and cluster analysis, PCA and graphical outputs were performed in the packages ade4, ggplot2, factoextra and corrplot in R language software, version 3.4.4 [89] (R Development Core Team, 2019), using the interface in InfoStat [90].The photosynthetic apparatus of the common bean was markedly affected by leaf disease stress as revealed by chlorophyll fluorescence parameters (initial F 0 and maximum F m fluorescence; the maximum quantum yield of the PSII photochemistry F v /F m ; the fraction of energy devoted to photochemical processes qP; and electron transfer rate ETR). Based on the chlorophyll fluorescence responses of naturally infected and healthy leaves of 59 common bean lines, we classified the bean lines into four typologies ((i) moderately resistant, (ii) moderately susceptible, (iii) susceptible, and (iv) highly susceptible) based on the disease susceptibility index (DSI). Five bean lines from the Mesoamerican gene pool (ALB 350, SMC 200, BFS 10, SER 16 and SMN 27) and one line from the Andean gene pool (DAB 295) were identified as promising genotypes that can combine disease resistance with abiotic stress resistance. These lines allocated a higher proportion of energy to photochemical processes, which increased the rate of electron transfer. Based on the results from this study, we suggest that DSIs generated from chlorophyll fluorescence responses to pathogen infection could serve as a phenotyping tool in common bean breeding programs for evaluating large number of genotypes under field conditions and for identifying and/or developing common bean lines with multiple stress resistances.","tokenCount":"10108"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"725808e42493d29912cc78bbfd1eb541","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/815a31d3-6509-4438-8f73-64df04cd7821/retrieve","id":"-1056474795"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"befde649-ef82-45db-a2e5-bf5c57a46bd0","pagecount":"1","content":"Soil health is the ability of soil to sustain the productivity, diversity, and environmental services of terrestrial ecosystems.AUDA-NEPAD. 2024. Soil health -critical to addressing climate change and realising Africa's agricultural potential. African Union (AU) Development Agency-NEPAD.The chemical properties of soil can be improved by reducing nutrient deficiencies, the accumulation of pesticide residues, and by increasing the soil organic carbon content.Healthy soil contains a large and diverse population of soil fauna comprising bacteria, fungi, and invertebrates such as earthworms and nematodes.The physical health of soils, its structure and resistance to erosion or compaction, is determined by meteorological factors, the state of soil moisture, and activities such as tillage, the type of cropping system, the application of organic fertilisers and vegetation cover.For more information contact: Manyewu Mutamba | ManyewuM@nepad.org ","tokenCount":"127"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"121e145ab1069b8a757c8683a4b539a9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H002764.pdf","id":"-459857925"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"cdc923aa-0029-4570-b574-ead81cb6605c","pagecount":"7","content":"\"Main System\" refers to the canal system from the headworks of a storage reservoir or diversion structure down to the outlet where water is delivered to the farmers. In large public irrigation systems, the canal network is complex and comprises the main canals, branch canals, distributaries, sub-distributaries, and minors. (The terminology of primary, secondary, and tertiary canals is also used). The operation of the canal system is governed by a set of rules for allocating and distributing water. The irrigation bureaucracy is responsibte for operating and properly maintaining the canal system.For over a decade, policy makers, planners and administrators in South and Southeast Asia have been concerned about the poor performance of irrigation systems. Although considerable irrigation potential is being created, there is a time lag before it can be utilized; the yields from irrigated agriculture are relatively low; the problems of waterlogging, salinity and alkalinity are increasing; and there are also other problems of organization and of on-farm development activities below the outlet. However, it soon became clear that improved and more equitable water distribution at the outlets was a prerequisite for increasing the agricultural productivity of the land. Thus, the focus has been shifting to the main system water distribution and improving its performance. Methodologies have been devised for monitoring the performance of large scale irrigation systems. There have also been some attempts by engineers and administrators to improve performance by effecting changes in the main system distribution. This paper presents, first, a framework for understanding the main system water distribution in a systemic context and focussing on the problems, potentials, and opportunities for improvements. Some evidence is presented of improved performance from changes in main system distribution.Second, a practical typology and description of methods of main system water distribution is described. These are actually used or potentially usable in South Asian systems. And, third, w e discuss research priorities for improved distribution in main systems.Input-output concept. The limited objective of the main conveyance and distribution system is to deliver water to the outlets. The water supplies at the outlets should be equitable, reliable, predictable, and reasonably adequate to meet the requirements of the farmers. The system (Fig. 1) has hardware and software components which have complex interactions in them and between them. Water from storage or diversion is the input into the system, and water at the outlets is the output. The s y s tern is embedded in and interacts with technological, social, economic, and political environments.It is important to understand why a system has evolved the way it has and why certain methods of water distribution have become accepted. The design process'of the main distribution system is based on a series of assumptions about crop-water requirements, irrigation requirements (which may be aggregated at some level), rugosity coefficients, conveyance losses, and discharge coefficients. A certain method of system operation is also assumed. In many cases, efforts are never made to test the assumptions and check the conformity between the expected operation as per the design and the actual operation. In the absence of effective feedback to improve the planning and design process, the same assumptions continue to be made. Other attributes. The main distribution systems are large in terms of canal length, numbers of controt structures, and numbers of people involved. The interactions among elements and with the environment are very complex. They are dynamic in that the demands on the system and its condiges over time. There are uncertainties associated with the system, the foremost is the c uncertainty affecting the availability of water.location and distribution of a scarce and valuable resource tike water is bound to generate n, conflicts, and corruption. There are many decision makers operating at various levels outlet gate up to the headwork. Decisions are made and controls exercised by personnel igation bureaucrcy and by farmers, formally or informally, legally or illegally. Each control represents a degree offreedom for whomever may exercise that freedom.A Typology of Main Systems and Methods of Water Distribution systems.. The interactions among the elements of the system and between the system and rbnment, and the probjems arising in the system, can vary widely. Classifying the systems th rn our understanding: ms: major, medium, and minor. arid, and semi-arid. non-paddy systems. administered and managernent-oriented (top-down), and participatory munal systems and government or public systems.Methods of water distribution. Several distribution s y s t e m s have evolved through practice or design to meet specific physical and/or social requirements. They may be broadly categorized as:1. Rotational Water Distribution System (RWDS or \"warabandi\"). Warabandi is a rationing system used when water supply is insufficient to provide adequate irrigation to all the land served by the system. In the past, such systems, in north-western India and Pakistan, had no adequate storage and supplies to the unpredictable. The principal objectives of warabandi systems are: a high degree of equity in water distribution, and high efficiency in water use by imposing scarcity o n each user. Each farmer, based on his land holding, gets his share of water according to a schedule, The farmer is at liberty to decide on his own cropping pattern and how to use his share of the water.Water. from a river or a reservoir is conveyed by a main canal, -which feeds two or more branch canals. These operate by rotation and funciion as the primary distribution system to provide a varying supply of water throughout the season. Branch canals supply water to many distributaries which must run full supply for eight day periods by rotation. This is the secondary distribution system. Distributaries supply water to watercourses through ungated outlets. The flow in water-courses is allocated among farmers by a time roster covering seven days (i,e., 168 hours). This is the tertiary distributary system. The water distribution from an outlet, and flowing into a watercourse, is managed by the farmers, while the flows in the system above the outlet are managed by the state. Each cuftivator's right to a share of water in the water course in guaranteed by law and the Canal Act empowers the canal officer t o enforce this right for any farmer who institutes a grievance procedure, Every other aspect of managing the system is up to the farmers.Water delivery is fixed according to how much area is served and what crops are grown, but water is not delivered on a continuous basis; the entire system or a portion thereof is closed intermittently. Applications for water are received from farmers who state the crop they wish to grow and the area to be planted. Water is then sanctioned, according to the crops and the total demand on the system. The farmers can propose a proportionate reduction in irrigated area if the demand exceeds the available water. A schedule giving turns t o different irrigators is prepared for each rotation, and farmers are informed in advance. The rotation interval depends on the watering interval for crops which need large amounts of water, and crops on the same outlets which need less water may receive it on alternate rotations.The system works smoothly as long as the full area demanded by the irrigators for the different crops can be sanctioned. However, when the irrigated area is restricted, there is a tendency for farmers to take more water than authorized for irrigating the curtailed portion. Punishment by imposing penal water rates does not prove to be a deterrent.Canal systems from diversion structures or storage reservoirs run continuously during the crop season and serve concentrated areas of paddy-growing commands, The systems are designed on the concept of duty, that is, the area that can be irrigated by a unit discharge flowing continuously for the duration of the crop (base period). When the farmers are few and the s ~p p l y is more than the demand (as in the rainy season), the system can be used efficiently if proper drainage a t the farm level is ensured. In all continuous flow systems, there are problems of inequitable distribution of water t o head and tail-enders. , equitable distribution, environmental stability, and human welfare. The performance of on system may be evaluated according to these criteria. s of main system water distribution. Delivering irrigation water at various levels down or turnout through minors, distributaries and canals, is the objective of the main system.or evaluating the performance of the main system should, therefore, concern the sures of water delivery and compare the actual performance with the performance es of water delivery. Delivery measures include: quantity of water delivered, and supply. Performance indicators for a water distribution system can be can be made on a sample basis, and performance can be evaluated at 6tandards of performance. Currently there are no performance standards for various systems.it is necessary to establish expected standards for a well-designed and well-maintained erated according to some well-defined procedures in a given environment. This can be through extensive research on various systems.The management of main system water distribution is a relatively neglected research field and, at presegt, ?here are not many empirical studies Gf acceptable quality available for comparative s. There is need for studies of problems related to main system management, especially he technical aspects of the physical system, including planning, design, operation and maintenance, and performance evaluation.Problems arise in large public gravity systems from unclear objectives. Fundamental problems relate to the role of public systems, and the conflict between the goals of management and those of the system manager, water is generally the limited resource. He enefit from the limited and variable amounts available to a the system. To the farmer, on the other hand, land isusually the individual wants to maximize his benefit from the limited land he rea and served by the existing canal system. Thus, he is interested in attaining maximum objective is to obtain maximum benefit per unit of land, and he attempts to get as much water as he can for irrigating his land.The smooth operation of a large public system requires the elimination or reduction of this environment of conflict. This can be done by rejecting the concept of meeting the total crop water reqiirements for every farmer. Management's clearly stated objective must be to supply equitable, predictabfe, and reliable quantities of water at stated intervals to farmers. And the water allocated to each farmer should be less than his full requirement so that he is induced to obtain maximum effciency in its use. In this way, the objectives of the individual farmer and that of the system as a whole will coincide.Problems arising a t planning and design stages. Misunderstanding and lack of clarity also exist regarding tocalization and the desire to enforce cropping patterns by executive fiat. Another important assumption is that farmers will irrigate during the night as well as during the day, Some other design deficiencies are: 1) outlets which are too small to supply the designed discharge, 2) outlets which are not located properly, 3) sluices or outlets which come directly from the distributary instead of a minor, 4) the assumption that duties at the heads of all distributaries will be the same irrespective of channel length, 5) the assumption that seepage and operational losses will be lower than they actually are, and 6) not providing drainage facilities even where they are necessary.Testing the system for acceptable performance it? its ability to deliver water at various points as per the design is not a standard practice in many irrigation departments.Problems arising from construction phasing. During early construction stages, storage facilities provide abundant water to the first reaches of canals that are complete. This often results in over irrigation in the head reaches. When the entire canal system is completed. there is insufficient water for tail-enders.Problems of operation and maintenance ( O a M ) . Operation and maintenance of irrigation systems is not given a high priority. There are n o manuals for O&M. Adequate measurements are not made for effective monitoring and management. Communication systems are weak. There is no organized feedback from the beneficiaries to the management. Maintenance grants are very inadequate.The situation is further compounded by the complex operations that involve many controls and many peopleboth farmers and irrigation agency personnel. The interactions of the water distribution system with the social and political environment also play a part in O&M.Potential for improvement. The potential for improving main system water distribution is widely the systems,\" noted Walter, \"need to know the objectives: should they design for ease of management, for simplicity of maintenance, or for maximum performance?\" Ait Kadi noted that the greater capital investment required for downstream control must be weighed against the more intensive management required by systems for upstream control.This raises the question of the relationship between system design and institutional arrangements.As Saldanha put it, \"When w e talk of system management, we cannot talk of management isolated from the bigger organization to which it belongs.\" Managers need incentives for accountability, and technical, financial, and manpower support. \"And if the manager doesn't get that support from the bigger organization, what is the use of his develop more creative and effective methods of distribution?\" One approach to improved irrigation management, suggested Huppert, is to look outside irrigation at management approaches that could be applied to irrigation systems or agencies.While all participants agreed on the need for comparative research studies, they debated the methodology for comparing one system with another. System performance means different things to different people; until performance is better defined, h o w can two systems be compared? Should performance be limited to physical measures, such as water loss efficiency or agricultural productivity? Rao suggested that performance evaluation must be tied to clearly defined objectives. The concept of production performance vs. management performance arose as a refated issue: \"We can't assume that because a canal performs well in terms of physical measures, its management also performs well.\" Moore noted, \"a canal might be designed so wet1 that it performs adequately in spite of poor management.\"What then is meant by improving the performance of managers? Should Performance be limited to efficient use of water, or does it also include efficient personnel management? Groenfeldt suggested that so long as the marginal productivity of irrigation staff is not negative and t h e physical performance of the irrigation system is not adversely affected, the issue of superfluous staff should not be IIMl's concern. Carruthers argued that inefficient management of people necessarily involves an opportunity cost which could in theory be applied elsewhere.At what level are performance indicators needed? Do w e want to compare the performance of irrigation sectors in different countries or different systems within a region? Saldhana suggested that our primary task is \"to improve the management of specific irrigation systems and the capacity of managers and planners.\" Wade argued for a more macro-perspective: \"We need t o be able to measure effects if we're going to make prescriptions. If we're going to talk about performance above the system level, it rneans'indicators that can compare the performance of whole irrigation sectors at the national level.\"One of the key factors in improved system Performance is improved communications. Chambers cited the installation of a new communication system along the Nile. Radio signals will link solarpowered monitoring stations to computers in Cairo and Aswan t o regulate the entire irrigation network from Aswan to the Mediterranean. Boonyok outlined some of Thailand's options for improved communications. A communications system, observed Rao, should be thought of \"as a linkage between an information system which fiows up and a control system which flows down.\"-Coward cautioned that communication technology is only useful if it is integrated into the management organization of an irrigation system.","tokenCount":"2609"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c97c0df2992ca5fb3cf70c3c5e8f6585","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/7941b163-7a36-47ea-a527-e6a6157771e7/retrieve","id":"-41921531"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f776ac6d-c2a5-4464-a3ab-2bfe1d790db1","pagecount":"35","content":"Estrategia de conservación ex situ usada como un método complementario dentro de una estrategia de conservación de recursos fitogenéticos.Implica el mantenimiento de los explantes en un medio estéril y libre de agentes patógenos.Las técnicas in vitro ofrecen metodologías para la conservación y multiplicación de especies que producen semillas recalcitrantes o que no producen semillas.USOS: Introducción o establecimiento, colecta, eliminación de patógenos, multiplicación, conservación y distribución e intercambio de germoplasma.-Manihot esculenta Crantz recibe los nombres de cassava, manioc, mandioca, tapioca o yuca.-Una especie eficiente en la producción de calorías constituye un alimento básico -La fuente primaria de calorías para cerca de 500 millones de personas -Además de ser fuente de carbohidratos en alimentación humana presenta grandes posibilidades de uso en la alimentación animal o como de materia prima para la industria como es el caso de los almidones. Quimioterapia Crioterapia Uso de las técnicas de crioconservación, para la erradicación de patógenos tales como virus, fitoplasmas y bacterias (Bayati et al., 2011;Wang et al., 2008;Wang & Valkonen, 2008;Helliot et al., 2002) Utilización de productos químicos, sustancias químicas específicas a plantas o tejidos infectados para alterar el metabolismo de síntesis de los virus, y de esta manera eliminarlos (Weiland et al., 2004).Acción sistémica antivírica + 40 moléculas sintéticas (Panattoni et al., 2013) In vivo e in vitro distintas [Virasol] enfermedad del cuero de sapo, sólo se observó la ausencia de síntomas en un 20% de las plantas in vitro al ser tratadas en un medio con 40 mg/l. (CIAT, 1983) Disponibles metodologías de crioconservación (Escobar et al., 1997;2013) Reporte de uso en la limpieza de material vegetal (Aranzales et al., 2014).Proceso de micropropagación en yuca. Las fotografías a), b) y c) muestran el proceso de corte para la obtención de los explantes (ápices y yemas axilares), d) muestra la selección y siembra de los explantes en el medio, e) pueden verse el tubo rotulado y sellado, finalmente f) y g) los cuarto de crecimiento y conservación respectivamente a donde finalmente son llevados.  Gracias !","tokenCount":"331"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/5564448621.json b/data/part_1/5564448621.json
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2556280395db1f93bc00f1cbce7975ac","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5c57d0ff-adad-4171-bcc8-cc02c7d65142/retrieve","id":"-1251742810"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"9e8711e6-9fbe-48b5-b877-d583c12f9d69","pagecount":"5","content":"• A suite of different methods and approaches are available for researchers to engage in policy processes, these range from involving partners in knowledge production processes to engagement in formal policy processes.• There is no 'one size fits all', and a policy engagement strategy will need to make use of different methods which are relevant to the context, to navigate complex policy landscapes. This brief provides some practical examples of how policy impact can be achieved.• Effective engagement requires active efforts by researchers to adapt to the policy making culture, that is characterised by different expectations, timelines, and organisational culture.Stepping up science-policy engagement to tackle environmental change:Methods & examples for achieving policy impact Briefing paper, June 2019In the context of rapid and unprecedented environmental change, there is growing emphasis amongst the scientific community to engage in policy processes and realise societal outcomes in addition to generating new knowledge. But, how can science-policy engagement efforts be delivered? What are the methods and tools? What are common challenges which need to be addressed? To address these questions, we provide insights and examples of the methods of science-policy engagement by researchers at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford. These practical insights aim to provide guidance for others in the research community to deliver their ambitions to engage in policy processes and generate societal outcomes.This briefing is available to download from www.eci.ox.ac.uk/publications/xxxxFar reaching decisions are being made about our planet's resources and sustainable future and it is important to ensure that these decisions are grounded in sound science. To achieve this, sciencepolicy engagement has emerged as an important aspect of research efforts related to environmental change (Cash et al., 2003, Clayton and Culshaw, 2009, UNEP, 2017, Clark et al., 2016, McNie, 2007). It involves social processes between scientists and policy actors to enrich decision making (Van den Hove, 2007). The overarching goal of science-policy engagement efforts is to enhance the credibility, salience and legitimacy of knowledge generated (Cash et al., 2003). While credibility relates to the adequacy of knowledge generated, salience refers to its relevance for the target users and legitimacy refers to how the knowledge generation process has remained unbiased and fair in dealing with different views and interests (Cash et al., 2003, Hegger et al., 2012).Policy processes can be complex, involving multiple actors, drivers and motivations. Therefore, a sound understanding of the process is essential in order to develop a suitable science-policy engagement strategy. For example, policy processes could be in different stages of agenda setting, policy design, adoption, implementation, review and reform (Resnick et al., 2015, Jann andWegrich, 2007), and the approach which may be taken would differ across these stages. Therefore, an approach which takes into account the policy processes, stakeholders involved, and challenges which may be faced, is desirable while designing a science-policy engagement strategy (Sitko et al., 2017). This may involve the following steps:1. Identification of the policy process and stage, which is most appropriate to planned research efforts. Typically research findings are used in the design and review stages.Mapping stakeholders to understand their roles, motivations and the power relations involved.Identifying challenges that may be encountered.Develop actions, which target the policy process identified, at the appropriate stage to exploit the 'window of opportunity' , addressing the motivations of different stakeholders and overcoming perceived challenges.This brief is envisaged as a resource for researchers undertaking science-policy engagement efforts in the context of environmental change... Best practice in science-policy engagement has been identified, including clear targeting of the audience, effective communications, ensuring easy access to research findings, joint knowledge production, participation in policy processes and knowledge brokering (Stringer and Dougill, 2013, Edelenbos et al., 2011, Marshall et al., 2017, Dinesh et al., 2018). In this brief, we have identified the different methods of sciencepolicy engagement that have been used within the University of Oxford's Environmental Change Institute (ECI), within its five research areas: climate, ecosystems, energy, food and water. This brief is envisaged as a resource for researchers undertaking science-policy engagement efforts in the context of environmental change, and aims to provide practical guidance that is illustrated with examples. We have interpreted science-policy engagement in a broad sense, to include not only efforts related to formal governmental/ intergovernmental policy processes, but also informal norms and procedures, including influencing the strategies of community organisations, businesses and nongovernmental organisations.Formal dialogue with partners can take the form of participation in high level meetings, presenting at formal briefings, and through formal commitments to work together (Clayton and Culshaw, 2009). High level meetings can include both planned ones (as part of established processes, such as under the Rio Conventions) or ad hoc meetings which help researchers to understand priorities and the needs of partners, as well as to exchange information about research findings. Formal agreements such as, memoranda of understanding can demonstrate a formal commitment to collaborate. Science briefings and seminars can help communicate research findings, and provide evidence for policy decisions and processes (Clayton and Culshaw, 2009). At ECI, formal dialogue is used by many of the research groups, for example to support the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) to analyse the UK's long-term economic infrastructure needs strategic vision (Case 1). There is a formal collaboration between ITRC-MISTRAL and the NIC that enables the uptake and use of the model results for this analysis and strategic vision.There are a number of methods which can be applied in sciencepolicy engagement, and these need to be selected based on the specific context. Clayton and Culshaw (2009) have identified policy-engagement methods for the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) community, which we have adapted as below, together with context specific examples from ECI.Informal interactions with policy partners, including through meetings, telephone conversations, secondments, and staff exchange, are important mechanisms for sciencepolicy engagement. In fact, such informal interactions have been suggested to be the most effective science to policy route (Clayton and Culshaw, 2009), and ECI's experience also shows the popularity and value of such interactions (Figure 1). These interactions are often quicker than formal methods, based on trust and involve ongoing relationships and sharing of information, which can complement other methods of science-policy engagement. Frequent working meetings and telephone conversations with partners can help tailor research efforts to changing priorities and needs. Secondments and staff exchange can support ongoing science-based policy making within partner organisations, while also building the capacity of partners, as well as that of the researcher. Workshops and other external events with partners can create opportunities for networking, secure partner inputs, and help highlight research findings. Informal interactions require proactive participation by researchers, taking account of context specific conditions (e.g. time constraints), but are valuable in different stages of the science-policy engagement process. In some cases these remain unstructured, in other cases, these interactions may take a more structured approach, such as through staff exchange and secondments (Case 2).A staff member was seconded to the Cambodian Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, to support the Ministry to incorporate a future scenarios approach into the development of Cambodia's Climate Change Priorities Action Plan for Agriculture (CCPAP). This was part of the ECI-hosted CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) future scenarios project. This engagement resulted in the CCPAP plan featuring a scenario-guided priority-setting, with a focus on climate-smart agriculture, and subsequent financial allocations to implement the plan.Information on the social and economic impact of research can help convince policy makers and practitioners to take on board research findings. This can include providing research evidence to inform public policy, enhancing research capacity and skills of policy organisations, as well as downstream impacts of research, such as changing practices and improving well-being of target populations. Capturing and presenting such information can help build a business case to justify the benefits of future engagement (Case 3).At Local level -Cherwell District Council and Bioregional approached the Ecosystems team within ECI for their support with developing their Green Infrastructure (GI) Plan. The policy outcomes have included a more robust GI plan for Bicester, input into the National Planning Policy Framework and Guidance and a tool box of proven GI assessment tools suitable for use by Local Authorities (Smith et al., 2019). At National level -ECI staff have contributed significant knowledge and expertise to various chapters of the second UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) that is part of the Governments' commitment under the Climate Change Act 2008 to publish a CCRA every 5 years. The evidence from the CCRA feeds into the UK National Adaptation Programme that sets out the actions being taken to address the risks and opportunities posed by a changing climate. It was published by Defra in July 2018. ECI contributed evidence to Chapter 3 Natural environment and assets, and Chapter 8 Cross-cutting issues (Interactions between risks, distributional and indirect impacts). At EU level -the adaptation team within ECI contributed to a report on the methods being used for assessing vulnerability to climate change in Europe for DG Clima, European Commission (Downing, 2017). The knowledge from this study also contributed to a European Environment Agency report that completed a survey of the status of Member States' vulnerability and risk assessments to climate change (Füssel et al., 2018). Both of these reports, along with other evidence sources, fed into the Evaluation of the EU's Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change 2018.Workshop on scenario-guided policy analysis development, food security and environment in South East Asia | Photo: E. van de Grift for CCAFSThis is a highly demand driven route and involves responding to requests from partners for technical assistance (e.g. evidence generation, analysis for specific tasks and parliamentary questions). There is usually a gap in technical capacity within policy partners' organisations which can be filled by researchers, while at the same time ensuring that their findings are used in the analysis. Requests for technical assistance may often be received at short notice, and it is useful to have the flexibility to respond to these requests, in order to increase the non-academic impact of research. ECI is involved in providing technical assistance to policy partners at various levels, for example providing technical assistance to the Scottish Government (Case 5).There are often opportunities to respond to consultations launched by partners. This method helps ensure that the consulting organisation is aware of relevant research findings while developing a policy or making an investment. Case 6 shows an example of responding to consultations under the UNFCCC's Warsaw International Mechanism.Involving policy makers and nonresearch impact partners within research programmes and projects can help ensure that the project/ programme has a policy focus at the very outset and allows researchers to obtain timely advice from partners. Such involvement can also help ensure that research outputs cater to the needs of partners, and improve dissemination and communication efforts (Clayton and Culshaw, 2009). Partners can be involved either on advisory boards for the project/ program, as well as peer-reviewers and advisors for specific outputs. Engaging the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) within the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Global Environment Change and Food Systems (GECAFS) project was crucial in ensuring that research outputs informed policy processes within the FAO and the international community (Case 4).Researchers can become members of relevant partner advisory committees to provide advice and ensure that scientific findings are incorporated within the policies and plans developed. This usually happens at the level of individual researchers' and not at the project/programme level. While some advisory committees are reconstituted periodically, others maybe created at short notice to deal with specific problems and opportunities (Clayton and Culshaw, 2009), therefore some level of flexibility is beneficial while adopting this approach. ECI staff members are involved in ten partner advisory committees , expert panels or steering groups (see Figure 1).The GECAFS project was developed with the specific aim of helping to set the policy agenda for major agencies working in the development agriculture and food security sector. FAO was the principal 'client' from the outset and in addition, several other major organisations have also adopted food systems 'thinking'. An FAO representative was invited as an inaugural member of the Scientific Advisory Committee from the design stage and FAO colleagues were also engaged in the research. The co-development and co-ownership of the project outputs enhanced the stakeholder adoption and helped FAO embrace a stronger food systems perspective. The GECAFS food systems 'thinking' was incorporated into FAO's major strategic policy document -Climate Change and Food Security: A Framework Document (2008). An analysis of the different methods used within ECI during summer 2017 (see Figure 1) shows that the full range of methods for sciencepolicy engagment are applied and that the most common method is capturing information on social and economic impacts, such as contributing to policy reports and briefings. The analysis also showed that individual personal relationships (respectful and respected) were frequently used and critical to successful science-policy engagement. These relationships tended to be developed over a long time while working together on different projects and a range of different activities.","tokenCount":"2152"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"df7e897ad54ea8ca3eb42dcaa36d8004","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/74179cd2-21a3-419f-b283-598adaf9163f/retrieve","id":"-2109500255"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"92f9faae-3857-42ed-8bcb-90699cefe87b","pagecount":"190","content":"VIdOIH13 SV9V9V SiaaV S6899 X09 Od VOIddV UOd 3U1N30 »0OlS3AIl \"IVNOIlVNy31NI z86i.Annr (avNuv) sionaoud-xa nvunnnoiuov uod XUOM13N Preliminary observations on grain sprouts to l08 supplement poor quality roughage M.A. Naga The economics of by-product transportation lll G. Mlay Forage research in smallholder and pastoral ll8 production systems J. Mclntire & S. Debrah Feeding of crop residues to milking cows in l27 small scale farms in Botswana B. Mosimanyana & B. Kiflewahid Eh --C ro co VO in H H ro p a < VO co in in * r-h *r io r-VD in rH cn ci ci in ID CM ■a* in rsl m in in in eft 0 rn CTi GO r-00 lO i£i --4 0 0 oif in r» rr io ^r *r rH in cn 0 in OO CO CO CO CO CO CO r-co r» cn in ^r *r d * cn m * CO r-in in m ^* in (M cn CO in in in cn in in un in in *T GAMBA (Andropoqon gayanus ) BAY BY CATTLEA note on the effect of supplementation with noug l36 cake (Guizotia abyssinica) on the milk production of crossbred cows D.A. Little, F.M. Anderson  The present methods of estimating nutritive value were discussed including chemical analysis such as crude fibre, acid and neutral detergent fibre, lignin and soluble carbohydrates and biological measurements such as in vitro and in vivo determination of digest ibility and determination of rate and extent of digestion using the nylon bag method. It was shown that the chemical analyses were very poor predictors of differences in nutritive value between different types of fibrous residues, between different varieties of straws and also in estimating improvements occas ioned by chemical treatment. Only biological measurements esti mated utilization with any degree of accuracy, and of the biolo gical measurements, the nylon bag method of describing rate and extent of degradation was by far the best predictor and better than in vivo digestibility determined in restricted fed animals.Development of laboratory methods to estimate nutritive value of feeds has been the goal of many research workers in the past. Numerous equations have been developed relating chemical analysis to nutritive value. For concentrate feeds developments of chemical methods to predict nutritive value have on the whole been very successful. This in part is due to the fact that they usually contain very little fibre and the starch sugar or fat they con tain are virtually completely digestible. Estimating fibre digestibility for ruminants has been fraught with many more prob lems. The method used for many years was the Weende system deve loped in Germany to measure crude fibre, crude protein, ether extractive and ash. The apparent credibility of this system was due to the fact that the feeds used to develop the equation varied greatly in nutritive value, due mainly to different stages of maturity of the plants investigated.The use of biological measurements to estimate nutritive value of forages was introduced particularly by development of the in vitro system by Tilley and Terry (l963) in which substrate disappearance was measured after laboratory incubation in rumen fluid. This was a spin-off from development of easy methods of fistulating ruminant animals and thus obtaining rumen fluid. The problem, however, with the in-vitro system is that it assumes that the conditions in the incubators remain similar to rumen content for 48 hours in spite of the accumulation of end products. It also depends on maintenance of constant temperature in the laboratory incubation. Power failures will render the results void and power failures are not unusual in developing countries.Development of equations to estimate in vivo digestibility from any parameters, chemical or biological, assumes that the in-vivo digestibility gives the true value of the feed. It is now increasingly recognized that even the in vivo value is by no means constant. It varies mainly due to differences in rumen retention time, but can also vary according to the rumen environ ment. This infers that the value to be predicted is not static, but is itself dynamic. This is best illustrated by describing the course of diges tion, for example of straw, as in Fig. l. This relationship can be described by the formula p = a + b (l -e\"ct) where a, b and c are constants, p is degradation at time (t) and e is the natural logarithm (0rskov and McDonald,l979). This type of equation is chosen because it gives some biological meaning to the constants insofar that a is the intercept or the immediately soluble fraction, b is the insoluble but potent ially degradable material and c is the rate constant of b. It follows that a + b is the maximum potential digestibility of the feed. If an accurate measure could be obtained of these parameters it would assist greatly in predicting not only digestibility but intake as well.In Fig. l it can be seen that the maximum potential, or the asymptote, is reached only after more than 90 hours of fermenta tion. The rumen retention time, however, is seldom as high as that. Mean retention time with straw is likely to vary from 36 to about 60 hours. This variation however implies that one measure ment in vivo is only a point on the graph, and may not represent the in vivo situation in which it is to apply. In other words the use of sheep fed at maintenance level of feeding may give values quite different from cattle given a high level of feeding. The difference is not likely to be constant either, but will depend on the shape of the degradation curve, i.e. its a, b and c values. The in vivo estimates are likely to differ most from the maximum potential in feed with a high b value and a low rate constant c. What is then the best description of nutritive value of fibrous residues? A description of degradation as in Fig. l, using nylon bags and a rumen environment in which cellulolysis is opti mal, is no doubt more informative than one in vivo value of dige stibility. In fact determination of in vivo digestibility can be used subsequently as a means of learning whether the diets are being utilized adequately, which in turn can lead to further studies to investigate reasons why if this is not the case.Although the use of nylon bags in rumen cannulated sheep is a robust tool and does not fail due to failure of power supply etc., it would still be of great value if chemical analysis could identify some differences in nutritive value of fibrous feeds.In a recent experiment (Ramanzin et al. l986) studied whether chemical analysis could identify differences in quality of straw and differences in quality conferred by ammonia treatment. It is clear from the results presented in Table l that there was no relationship between ADF and nutritive value within leaves *> m c a:> > i0 i0 0) 0) P P ro  a and within stems although there were clear differences in degradability due to variety, confirmed also in voluntary intake and in vivo digestibility studies. However ADF was clearly different between stems and leaves.In later unpublished work (G.W. Reid, M. Kay and E.R. 0rskov) we have made some comparisons of chemical and biological methods (Table 2). It can be seen again that ADF and lignin content did not distinguish between nutritive values of type and varieties of straw and could not predict increases in nutritive value due to ammonia treatment. On the other hand it can be seen that both in cubation with cellulase enzymes and in vivo in rumen fluid distin guished between variety, types and ammonia treatment.It can be asked quite legitimately, if the chemical analyses do not predict nutritive value, why use resources to measure them? It is clear that differences between nutritive values of straws could not be predicted from chemical analysis developed so far.The available evidence suggests that while gross chemical composition may be interesting, only biological measurements can presently provide sufficient information about the nutritive value of fibrous feeds or residues. We need to search for labor atory methods which can identify the factors controlling accessi bility of bacteria to the substrate and the rate at which it can occur. These factors are more likely to be found in surface chemistry of cell walls rather than in gross chemical composition. Nigeria has about l40 million hectares of natural range which serves as the major source of forage for livestock, supplemented in a few places by sown pasture, grazing reserves and crop resi dues. Nomadic communal grazing involving migration of herds and families is gradually being replaced by limited transhumance, in which extensive grazing both in the range and in government approved grazing reserves is practised. Under this system, animals rely almost totally on natural forages. Crop residues become available after harvest, at the onset of the dry season.The Fulani pastoralists and agro-pastoralists together control about 90 percent of the national herd. Recently, because of the realisation that land development and expansion of crop farming activities will continue to reduce the available grazing land, efforts are being made to encourage the settlement of pastoral ists and to integrate them with the non-pastoralists . The impli cation of this is that economic feeding systems must be developed, especially for dry season feeding. This would eliminate the need for migration in search of feed and water and limit the cyclical weight gain/loss of livestock.Most of the 90 genera and 300 species of grasses found in Nigeria are members of the Paniceae and Andropogoneae tribes. One natural feed resource on which feeding systems can be based in Nigeria is the Gamba grass, Andropoqon gayanus. Gamba grass is available in abundance in almost all ecological zones in Nigeria. The problem with gamba like other tropical grasses is the rapid decline in crude protein and soluble carbohydrate with age. This is coupled with a progressive increase in crude fibre and lignin (Agishi l985;de Leeuw l979). Consequently, tropical grasses are low in voluntary intake and digestibility after maturity (Obioha and Ndukwe l976;Adu and Adamu l982). It is therefore well established that significant alteration of plant composition occurs and decreases their nutritive value and adversely affects animal performance (Zemmelink l973).Mature fodder plants could be improved by alkali treatment. Urea treatment of crop residue is not new (Sundstol eit ail. l977). Improved utilization of low quality tropical hays by treatment with urea, ammonia, sodium and ammonium hydroxide has been reported (Sherma et al. l972: Sundstol l98l: Buettner et al. l982; Green halgh l984; Nwakatundu and Owen l974; Utley et al l978; Umunna l982).Preliminary trials at Napri, Shika in Nigeria, have shown significant improvement in the rumen degradation of urea-treated gamba hay when 40g urea was dissolved in 600g of water and sprayed on lkg of hay sealed in polythene bags for 20 days (Lufadeju,et al. l986).The objective of the study reported here was to compare the utilization of untreated and urea-treated gamba hay, with or without feed grade urea supplementation as the sole diet for Friesian/Buna ji dairy heifers.Three Friesian/Bunaji heifers approximately l8 months old and weighing l94 + l0kg liveweight were used. They were fitted with permanent rumen cannulae with an internal diameter of 50mm. The animals were kept in individual pens to facilitate separate coll ection of faeces and urine.The heifers were allocated at random to receive ad libitum diets of (A) Untreated gamba alone; (B) Untreated gamba plus urea; (C) Urea treated gamba alone; (D) Urea-treated gamba plus urea in four experimental periods, so that each animal received each diet once in random order. By this arrangement four different rumen environments were created, which contained varying amounts of nitrogen.The hay used in this experiment was cut in February, during the dry season. Two tons of untreated mature gamba hay containing 5.5 gN/kg DM, and two tons of urea-treated gamba were used as the sole diet. The hay was treated with 40g of urea, dissolved in 600g of water per kg hay. The stack was covered with a poly thene sheet in a pit and left to stand for 20 days. After the polythene was removed, the stack was allowed to aerate for 2 days to eliminate volatile ammonia before animal feeding comm enced.For diets containing supplementary urea, l2. 5g urea/kg DM intake (maximum 50g Urea/head/day) were dissolved in water (50:50 W/V) and sprayed on the hay at feeding time. The heifers were fed twice daily at 8.00 and l6.00 hours. The animals were fed to appetite with each receiving 5kg DM hay per day, for 28 days for each treatment. Bone meal, trace minerals, sodium sulphate, salt licks and vitamin premix were mixed with the urea solution or water before being sprayed on the hay. Sodium sulphate was added to give a calculated l0:l N to S ratio. Fresh water was available at all times. Voluntary intakes were recorded daily and the animals were weighed weekly.During the last 7 days of each period, total faeces and urine were collected, faeces from the gutter behind the animals, and urine was collected in plastic buckets through transparent polythene tubes l5 cm diameter glued around the vulva, in a manner similar to that described by Cowan eit a.l (l98l). Urine was kept acid by adding 50ml of 4 M-H2 SO4 (ph 2-3) to the l5 litre bucket for preservation.Daily collections of faeces and urine were weighed, mixed thoroughly and a l0 percent subsample of each was taken. Samples of urine were stored at -l6 °C, and faecal samples dried immediately at 70°C for 48 hours and stored. At the end of the collections, samples were bulked, mixed thoroughly and sub-samples of urine analysed for nitrogen and of faeces for dry matter, nitrogen, neutral and acid detergent fibre and ash.Feed and faeces were analysed for dry matter by oven drying at l05°for 24 hours; for nitrogen by micro-kjeldahl technique, using Markham micro-distillation apparatus; and for neutral and acid detergent fibre by the methods of Van Soest and Wine (l967).Treatment of gamba hay with urea significantly (P<0.0l) improved the nitrogen content from 0.55 to l.78g/l00g (Table l); there were no significant differences in the proportions of other compo nents. Prolonged exposure after the treated stack was opened did not affect chemical composition or rumen degradation (Table 2).The intakes and digestibilities of all treatments contain ing urea, whether supplemented or from treatment were not signif icantly different from each other, and all significantly exceeded the figures from untreated hay (P<0.05, Table 3). Significantly higher (P<0.05) urinary nitrogen excretion was observed in animals fed treated compared with untreated hay (Table 4). The amount of nitrogen apparently absorbed differed among all treatments (Table 4), increasing with increased dietary concentration of nitrogen; it was negative for the untreated unsupplemented hay.Apparent nitrogen retention did not differ significantly between treatments using the treated hay, and exceeded those figures recorded from the untreated hay. There were no signifi cant differences between treated hay alone and untreated urea supplemented hay. The control hay gave a negative nitrogen balance (Table 4). Similar proportions of absorbed nitrogen were retained in the treated diets despite differences in dietary nitrogen concentration . The urea treatment of gamba hay in this study enhanced its nitro gen content threefold. This extent of increase in nitrogen has been reported previously (Orskov et a.l. l983). Urease enzyme present in plant material, converts urea to ammonia at high temp erature and moisture. Ammonia then penetrates plant material. Exposure of hay for 2 days after plastic cover removal allowed excess ammonia to escape and the pungent odour of ammonia to disappear. However, the amount of nitrogen which penetrated plant material did not change significantly with prolonged exposure. This is similar to the finding of Gordon and Chesson (l983).The in vivo dry matter digestibility reported here for treated hay varied from 64 to 68 percent, similar to values of Greenhalgh (l984) and Fahmy and Orskov (l984). Urea supple mentation of treated hay slightly but non-signif icantly improved dry matter intake and digestibility. However, significant improve ments of 28 and 25 percent in intake and digestibility respect ively were obtained when untreated hay was supplemented with urea. This level of improvement falls within the range reported by Sharma eit ail. (l972). There were no significant differences between treated and untreated hay supplemented with urea in either intake or digestibility. This observation raises funda mental economic questions about the efficiency of urea treatment in view of the requirement for labour and water, a question even more relevant to arid areas where water for human consumption is scarce. The degree of improvement in animal performance from urea treated forage resulting from the combined effects of higher digestibility and additional nitrogen has been reported to be similar to those of urea supplemented untreated hay (Verma and Jackson l984). Under dry tropical conditions, nitrogen not energy has been identified as the first nutrient limiting animal perform ance (Verma and Jackson l984). The lack of significant differ ences in nitrogen retention from treated or urea supplemented treated hay indicated that the nitrogen in treated hay was ade quate for the amount of energy available from its fermentation, and further urea supplementation of treated material was of no benefit in the absence of additional energy. Animals fed untreated unsupplemented hay in this study had negative nitrogen retention, as did the sheep of Adu and Adamu (l98 2) which were fed three low crude protein tropical grass hays; the poor utilization of these grasses was attributed to low energy availability and inad equate nitrogen supply. CONCLUSIONS A consideration of the economic rearing of cattle requires the use of cheap fodder, either grass, legume, browse or crop residues. With regard to mature tropical grass of poor quality, one way their utilization can be enhanced is through urea supplementa tion either as feed additive or for treatment. The choice of method of supplementation depends on availability of labour and water. Addition of urea supplements to urea-treated roughages appears wasteful unless supplementary energy can be provided. Urea supplementation at the rate of l percent of total dry matter intake sprayed on hay at the time of feeding would elicit simi lar improvements in intake and digestibility as would urea-treat ed hay.It is tentatively suggested that urea supplementation of hay would enhance its utilization, reduce the need for concen trate supplementation, and limit animal weight loss during the dry season.Amongst the productive areas of research in alleviating the above problem is the enchanced utilization of arable farm by-products such as maize stover, millet and sorghum stovers, and other home offals. In recent years studies have been under taken to improve the nutritive value of stover and straws. Of probable practical significance for the small holders is the use of urea solution for treating maize stover, the most abund ant by-product on their holding. Some work on urea treatment is reviewed in this paper. Urea treatment improved both intake, digestibility and liveweight gain by cattle and sheep.Other alternatives to treatments are chopping the stovers and supplementing them with maize bran and/or molasses. The use of forages as dual purpose legumes either in pure stands or as inter-crop fodder will increase both the utilization and availability of feeds and improve soil nitrogen, albeit at prob able variable reduced yields of the main food crops. However, other studies have reported improved main crop yields.Smallholders have emerged as an important and a distinct sector in the overall agriculture production in Kenya. Apart from the traditional smallholdings, of pre-independence and now, the attainment of independence in l96 3 saw accelerated efforts by the Kenya Government to resettle the \"landless\" on former \"Sched uled\" areas which were European farmed. On the eve of independ ence in l96l a \"Million Acre Settlement Scheme\" was started for purchasing l.2 million acres of largely mixed farming land. Post independence, many other settlement schemes were undertaken in collaboration with the former colonial administration (Said l985). The change in land ownerships also continued through private individuals and land owners cooperatives that would normally subdivide the bought land into small units to settle many families.It is estimated that the total numbers of smallholders in six of the eight provinces in Kenya is 2.437 million (Table l). Average agriculture land per household and per caput in the six provinces is also given in Table l . Table 2 gives agriculture land per household and per caput in four divisions in Kiambu and Kakamega; two of the highly populated and intensively farmed districts in Kenya. It is estimated that about 75 percent of the land per holding is under arable cropping and at the most only 25 per cent is available for livestock and livestock feeds.The major agricultural activity on almost all the small holders is arable cropping with maize forming the major crop. Maize stover is therefore the most abundant arable by-product on all the smallholdings. Except for plantation crops such as tea, coffee and sugar cane, arable farming is mainly for sub sistence. In some areas excess food crops are sold to generate cash for the family. In Western and Nyanza Provinces, a sub stantial number of smallholders grow sugar cane as a major cash crop and sell it as contracted outgrowers to the sugar cane estates. In Kisii tea and coffee are the major cash crops. In Kericho and Nandi Hills tea is also the major cash crop while in Kiambu and Meru tea, coffee and potatoes are the major sources of income; variable with the ecozones within the divisions. Smallholders on irrigation schemes grow cotton, rice, and other horticultural crops for cash. Converted into value of marketed production smallholders generated between 54.8 and 5l.2 per centage share of the total marketed production in Kenya between the years l978 and l983 (Statistical Abstract l984).Dairying is the major animal production enterprise. In l985 the total dairy cattle population in Kenya was estimated at 2.278 million; 80 percent of which were found on smallholdings (Bartilol l986). Out of the estimated national marketable milk production of 595 million litres, the small-scale holders produce 476 million litres or 80% of the national figure. Only ll9 million litres are produced by the large-scale farmers. In l986 the total number of dairy cattle in Kakamega District was estimated as 48,558; ll.9% of the total cattle population of 405,697 for the whole District (Said l986b). In Kiambu District, another heavily populated smallholder farming area, there are 89,437 dairy cattle which form 78% of the total cattle population of ll4,586 for the District. The remaining 25,l49 head are the indigenous Zebu cattle (Said l986b).In Western Kenya and in parts of Eastern Province small holders use a substantial amount of draught power either on their own holdings or for hiring to the other holders who may not have any.Other minor ruminant livestock enterprises of the small holders are sheep and goats, used for ceremonial purposes and sometimes to provide extra cash income. In l976 it was estimated that out of the total 8.3 million sheep and goats in Kenya, 4.4 million or 53% were reared on small farms (FAO l976). Mburu (l986) gives the total numbers of sheep and goats in Kenya in l984 as l3.27 million. Assuming that 50% of these are reared by the smallholders there would have been 6.64 million small ruminants on small farms.Over the last four years the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MALD), in collaboration with Winrock International, have been implementing a project. Small Ruminants-Collaboration Research Support Project (SR-CRSP) to introduce dairy goats/dual purpose to smallholders in Western Kenya and in Nyanza Provinces.As will be clear from tables l and 2 the major constraint to ruminant livestock production, apart from available capital for bought in feed and other logistics, is the severe competi tion on the available land for food crops and fodder for live stock. There is also competition on the available farm manure and compost between food crops and fodder crops for zero grazed dairy production. It is imperative that with the passing of time this situation will be worsened in that the smallholdings will be broken down further due to increasing population growth and the traditional systems of land tenure/inheritance. In the cropped semi-arid dryland areas in Machakos, Kitui and Kibwezi in Eastern Province, increased population pressure will mean even scarcer fodder for the livestock in those areas (Thairu and Tessema l985).In almost all the smallholder areas, from the high potential areas of Western and Central Provinces and parts of Rift Valley Province, to the medium and semi-arid areas of the Rift Valley, Eastern and Coast Provinces, maize is the main food crop. It is logical therefore to nationally look at how best the maize stover, the major bulky by-product, easily and cheaply available to the farmers, can be utilized to feed the ruminant livestock especially during the dry season when there are no green fodders either from within the small land holdings or from the road side no manSs patches. f>6' 60' TO' S1•s 'S -fr Utilization of Maize Stover Production levels Accurate figures for the maize grain and stover generated by the smallholders are not available as most of the grain crop is used for domestic use or sold at the local open air markets. Fairly exact statistics are easier to get for the cash crops that are organized and handled by statutory boards. Said (l982) estimated that in l978 the total amount of maize stover in Kenya, generated by both the smallholders and by the large-scale farmers, was 5 million metric tonnes. He used a residue grain ratio of 2:l. Kayongo-Male (l984) in a study on techniques for inventorytaking on crop wastes established a maize stover grain ratio Of 2.03:l.Fairly accurate hectarage and maize grain yields were esti mated by aerial photography and by air borne digital photometers in only 8 maize growing districts in Kenya (KREMU l985). Within the 8 districts, covering a total of 36,l60 km2, of Bungoma, Kakamega, Nandi, Nakuru, Uasin Gishu, West Pokot, Elegeyo, Marakwet and Trans Nzoia grain yield was estimated as 703,279 metric tonnes. Using a ratio of residue to grain 2:l the amount of stover generated would be about l,407 million metric tonnes. Most of the land in these 8 districts is occupied by smallholders. Jaetzold and Schmidt (l982 and l983) estimated that percentages of smallholder land under maize is variable within the districts and within the agricultural ecozones. It ranges from 50 percent downwards. Other food crops, in some areas, such as cash crops take the rest of the land. A small percentage of the holding, in some areas, is under pasture or fodders. Yields of maize grain are also variable depending on the ecozones and management factors. It is therefore difficult under these conditions, to estimate accurately the amount of stover that would be generated. However, it is not incorrect to state that maize stover may be the major if not the only roughage available to# the small holders during the dry season.Smallholders use maize stover for cooking to save on expenses for fire wood and for charcoal. Some stover is left on the fields or put on terraces to conserve soil. However, a substantial amount of the stover in the high potential smallholder areas is used as an important feed resource both for cattle, sheep and goats. In Western Kenya and in parts of Eastern Province maize stover may be the only roughage available to the oxen used for draught power. In both cases, where it is used as a feed, it is fed as whole stalk and leaves without chopping. Wastage is therefore very high and intake level low.Like many other high lignin arable farm by-products maize stover has low digestibility. The high lignin inhibits microbial digestion of cellulose and hemicellulose. The low content of nitrogen and defficiency of readily available carbohydrates also limit microbial activity in the rumen.Musiraba (l980) and Tubei (l98l) reported protein level of 2.3l percent and 6.29 percent respectively of maize stover. Said (l979) gave a protein content of maize stover at 2.76 percent. Thairu and Tessema (l985) found that maize stover of early maturing variety had a crude protein content of 2.59 per cent; NDF, ADF and ADL levels were 69.55, 60.34 and 9.92 percent respectively. Dzowela (l985) reported a protein level of maize stover in Malawi at 5.43 percent and a ME value of l.09 Mcal/kg DM; marginally below the ME of 2.00 Mcal/kg DM; a threshold value to meet maintenance requirements by beef cattle (NRC l976). Kevelenge et al. (l983a,b,c) reported that green maize stalk has low levels of calcium and phosphorus. The crude protein level in the green maize stalk ranged from 8.5 to 8.8 percent DM.The earliest documented work on maize stover in Kenya was by Mulder and Waweru (l973) who looked into the use of maize stover as a supplement on rations used for intensive beef production on smallholder. Musimba (l980) reported that NaOH and Magadi* treated maize stover were higher in -vitro organic matter digest ibilities at 70.6 and 80.3 percent respectively in comparison to 48.8 percent in the untreated material. Said (l98l) reported that NHj treated maize stover increased in-vivo organic matter digestibility from 56.l percent for untreated stover to 60.9 percent, intake of organic matter increased from 22.4 g/kgWu-?5 to 27.0 g/kgWu-?5 per ijay and average liveweight gain by sheep in the l3 weeks experimental period was 6l.8 g for the untreated stover and 88.7 g for the NH3 treated stover. Said (l98l) showed that NaOH treated maize stover was about equal to Chloris gayana hay in its nutritive value when fed to wether sheep. He also reported that NH3 treated maize stover fed to steers was apparently better than Chloris gayana hay, and at 26 percent silage DM replacement level, it was only slightly inferior to sorghum silage. A review of treatment methods tried in Kenya and their limitations was given by Said et al (l982).Thairu and Tessema (l985) showed that urea treated maize stover fed to sheep and goats with either leucaena leucocephala or pigeon pea (leaves and stems) gave better liveweight gains compared to feeding untreated maize stover with leucaena and with pigeon pea. Treatment was with 5 percent urea solution sprinkled on the chopped stover and left in air tight bins.Work is in progress in the Department of Animal Production, University of Nairobi, on urea treated wheat straw fed to wether sheep (Alayu l985), and on the dacron bag digestion of urea treated maize stover (Said and Wanyoike l986). Another study on the utilization of urea treated maize stover supplemented with varying levels of oil cakes is about to be started (Chepkitony and Sundstol l986).( *Magadi -natural sodium bicarbonate complex deposit at lake Magadi , Kenya) .Under Kenyan conditions urea is cheaper compared to NaOH and NH3, the two most effective treatment chemicals. It is easily available as a fertilizer grade urea in small packs of 2 kg. It is not hazardous to use compared with NaOH and NH3 and it has the added advantage of increasing the nitrogen content of the roughage in form of NPN, which could be used by the rumen microflora to synthesize microbial protein; other conditions in the rumen being right. Saadullah et al (l98l) reported that crude protein content of rice straw increased from 2.9 percent in untreated straw to 5.9 percent after 20 days ensilage with 5 percent urea. Khan and Davis (l98l) reported significantly increased dry matter intake and increased liveweight gain and increased total milk production from urea treated rice straw at 5 percent urea and ensiled for seven days only.Based on the present knowledge for urea treatment, it is recomm ended that smallholders in Kenya should use maize stover in a urea treated ensiled form by the method described by Khan and Davis (l98l). Depending upon the available resources farmers can either use a hand-operated chaff cutter to chop the stover or they can use ordinary methods of chopping it into smaller pieces, l-2 cm lengths.Batches of l0 kg chopped stover should be sprinkled with urea solution made up of 0.5 kg urea dissolved in l0 litres of water. The treated stover should immediately be put in poly ethylene (500 gauge) bags measuring 70 cm x l20 cm. Alternatively ordinary polyethylene bags that come with fertilizers can be used. Bamboo baskets or papyrus baskets can be used but they should be plastered with a mixture of mud and cow dung and lined with banana leaves. Ordinary silage pits can also be used success fully. Recommended size is 4 x 3 m and about l.5m deep. The pit should be lined with banana leaves (Saadullah et al. l98l) and the top should be covered .with banana leaves or polyethylene sheet, on top of which should be put about 30 cm of soil.In both cases ensiling should be for two weeks. Khan and Davis (l98l) successfully ensiled rice straw for seven days and Hossain and Rahman (l98l) reported that there was no advantage in prolonging treatment time beyond two weeks. The ensiled maize stover should be ready for feeding either plain or ideally with a green fodder supplement, molasses or with concentrates by farmers on commercial dairy enterprise.An important characteristic of the Kenyan smallholders who keep cattle as well as grow food crops and/or cash crops is the distinc tion between those smallholders who are actively engaged in commercial dairy production from improved dairy cattle and those to whom milk production from the local zebu cattle is, at the very best, providing milk for home consumption and a little surplus for the local markets. In the second setting the main uses of the cattle are for draught power and/or a source of cash income when the need arises. The need and urgency for altern ative feed resources are accordingly variable. The recent thrust on introduction of dual purpose dairy goat within the small holders in Western Kenya by SR-CRSP/MALD may also provide new incentives for alternative feed resources. Almost all the small holders in Kenya that keep sheep and goats make no special efforts to provide additional feeds for them. They are either tethered around the homesteads or are expected to scavenge around.Potter (l985), Abate et al (l985), Thairu and Tessema (l985), Mukhebi et al (l985) and Onim et al (l986) looked at various aspects of alternative feed resources for smallholders in Kenya. Said (l986a, b) reviewed feed constraints and strategies in two of the highly populated, intensively farmed districts in Kenya; Kiambu and Kakmega. Dzowela (l985) reviewed the role of legume forages in improving the utilization of maize stover by small holders in Malawi. In their Technical Note No. l KARI (l985) gave results of their work on Bana grass, integration of maize and livestock production and on the use of poultry waste in cattle rations. Saleem (l984) reviewed the role of forage legumes in agropastoral production systems within the subhumid zones of Nigeria.Based on our own assessments and the quoted works the follow ing are suggested as alternative feed resources for smallholders: Bana/Napier grass: Assuming that there is an economic incentive by the smallholder to grow fodder on the very limited available land, results have shown that Bana/Napier grass used on a \"cut and carry\" method would be a possible crop to consider. The extra labour required would be compensated by the manure that would be obtained from the animals. Extension efforts should be on establishing \"bulking plots\" of Bana/Napier grass for dis tribution to the farmers. It is estimated that l ha will yield enough bulking material for 30 ha.Dual purpose fodder/food crops and/or intercropping: Intercroping fodder crops with food crops and/or planting dual purpose food crops such as pigeon peas, lab lab, cassava, and cow peas. Other dual purpose crops such as Sesbania sesban and Leucaena leucocephala would provide forage and fire wood. Some legume crops and/or pasture legumes could be intercropped with maize.Maize defoliation: Recent studies on the use of green maize leaves derived by defoliating the growing plant have shown that it is possible to obtain up to l tonne of forage dry matter per hectare over a three month period without adversely reducing grain yield. However, this innovation needs to be restudied in various ecozones as responses on the grain yield; the main crop by the smallholders may be different in different ecozones. In some cases defoliation has been observed to increase lodging.Use of other arable faro by-products: These include sweet potato vines, bean haulms, banana leaves and peelings, cassava leaves and peelings and other home offals.Fodder conservation: Grass and other fodders from the road side or from no manSs-land could be conserved into silage or hay. Ensilage could be made in polyethylene bags or pits. Small-scale hay making could be made as per innovation devised by the SR-CRSP/MALD method. It consists of a simple wooden box, a grass cutting sickle and sisal twine. One family can make l0 bales each of 20 kg in one month on part time basis or 4 bales a day on full time basis.Stovers and fodder legumes: Chopped maize, millet or sorghum stovers will give better performance if fed with forage legumes or with molasses by smallholders in the sugar cane belt. Small holders nearer the urban areas may have the incentive to feed the stovers with some concentrates to increase intake and digest ibility.  Recent estimates by Mkamanga (l986) on national cereal grain production in Malawi puts the hectarage devoted to maize pro duction at l,l45,l00 ha with a total grain production of l,355,200 tonnes. This production figure is 4.6 times the documented pur chases of this crop by the Agricultural Development and Market ing Corporation (ADMARC) (Dzowela l985). The reason for this discrepancy is that the major portion of the national production is used directly for consumption by the farm families themselves, maize being the stable cereal crop.Alongside this large cereal grain production, there is an estimated l.5 million tonnes of maize stover. This maize stover is a readily available feed resource to smallholder live stock producers which is utilized by livestock in situ, after the maize ears are removed, or cut and stall-fed. Maize stover per se as a feedstuff for livestock is inferior when compared to other locally available feed materials (Table l).The most limiting factor to animal performance fed on maize stover appears to be that of dietary protein. Protein supple mentation alleviates the deficiency but a majority of protein supplements may be too expensive for the smallholder producers to afford on a regular basis. The most logical way of getting round this problem would be to incorporate tropical forages in the maize cropping systems (Dzowela, l985). After the maize ears have been removed, the forage legume component, especially the climbing types could make an important contribution to main taining adequate protein levels in the maize stover-based diets. The legume component could act as a source of protein above the 7% threshhold and also in promoting increased intake of the ass ociated maize stover. Dzowela (l985) outlined some of the chemical-based technol ogies for increasing the nutrient availability from maize stover. These methods include ammonia treatment and soaking in a solu tion of sodium hydroxide. This paper focusses on the work currently undertaken by the Pastures Commodity Research Team of the Ministry of Agriculture in attempt to integrate improved forages with maize cropping systems in Malawi.Using the adaptive on-farm research approach, some smallholder dairy farmers participated in an integrated maize crop-forage improvement programme in the Kasungu Agricultural Development Division. The pasture intervention was based on four systems, namely: a. Pure Rhodes grass b. Rhodes grass in association with silver leaf desmodium (Desmodium uncinatum) c. Rhodes grass in association with Common Centro (Centrosema pubescene) d. Rhodes grass in assotiation with a \"Shotgun\" mixture involving Silverleaf desmodium. Common Centrosema, Neonotonia wightii and Joint vetch ( Aeschynomene americanum) .All these pasture systems were undersown to maize after the first weeding operation before the maize crop was knee high. A similar approach was adopted in the l984/85 season, in which the maize crop-improved pasture integration was done on three smallholder farms as a pre-f allow exercise. During the l985/86 season a quantification of the forage production in both the newly established four pasture systems and those established in the l984/85 season was done.This work was undertaken for a second season at Chitedze Agri cultural Research Station during the l985/86 season. The object was to generate simple technologies geared towards the integra tion of forage in cereal grain production of smallholder dairy producers. Four pasture systems were tested, namely;common Centrosema (C. pubescens ) Neonotonia wightiiCentrosema pascuorum Silverleaf desmodium.These four forage legume systems were either sown at the same time the maize (MHl2) was planted in November, l985 or undersown after the first weeding of the maize crop when the maize plants were 30cm high. In both cases the forage legumes were drilled on top of the ridge in between the maize planting stations which were 0.90m apart.Based upon similar work in the previous year (Dzowela l985), the maize leaves below the maize cob were stripped at weekly intervals from the silking/anthesis physiological development stage for seven weeks. The stripping of the lower maize leaves which serve no useful purpose in maize grain filling (Loomis l935; Stickler and Pauli l96l; Hoyt and Bradfield l962; Chaudhry l969; Tanaka and Yamaguchi l972; Soza et al l975), could provide a cheap feed resource of high nutritive value to dairy animals on smallholder farms (Dzowela l985). In the current study, results of this work are presented.A quantification of the pasture systems sown the previous (l984/-85) season revealed that the silverleaf desmodium -Rhodes grass system produced the largest amounts of forage dry matter (Table 2); being 38 per cent more than the pure Rhodes grass pasture system. The Rhodes-Centrosema system resulted in ll per cent more forage than the pure Rhodes system. The silverleaf botanically accounted for more than 40 per cent of the sward, based on visual estimates, whereas Centrosema was less than 20 per cent. The Rhodes grass -Centrosema pasture system was the best intervention from the point of view of total forage production even though the very low maize stover yields in this system was below average. The system contributed l04 per cent more forage over and above the maize stover, but of the forage produ ction only 4 per cent was contributed by the Centrosema component. The Rhodes-silverleaf system which produced comparable forage yields to the pure Rhodes system had a 30 per cent silverleaf contribution to the overall forage production of the pasture intervention over and above maize stover. The Rhodes-shotgun mixture system on the other hand, gave lower forage yields than the pure Rhodes interven tion; the legume component in this system contibuted l2 per cent to the total forage production over maize stover.All systems were able to contribute significantly towards feed resources of the smallholder livestock producers over and above the maize stover production. The forage production from the pasture intervention system had a higher crude protein content of well above the minimum recommeded value of 7.0 per cent, whereas the maize stover alone is less than 5.0 per cent in crude protein content (Dzowela l985).Maize grain yield was not affected by the forage legume sowing/ undersowing time and both the forage legume system and maize stripping intensity treatments did not have any effect on grain yield either. The fact that there were no sifnificant grain yield reduction as a result of maize leaf stripping confirms what is already known about the physiology of the maize plant (Loomis l935; Stickler and Pauli l96l; Hoyt and Bradfield l962; Chaudhry l969; Tanaka and Yamaguchi l972;Soza et al. l975). Maize stover yields were also not affected by legume sowing/undersowing time, forage legume systems or maize leaf stripping intensity (Table 4). With respect to forage dry matter yields as affected by the stripping of the different maize leaves, there was no interaction with time of undersowing. But the forage systems resulted in significant differences in the amounts of stripped leaf forage DM produced. The least amount came from the Neonotonia forage system (P<0.05) as shown in Table 5. There was a significant progressive increase in the amount of forage DM produced the more the plant leaves were stripped (P<0.0l).The total forage yields from all the leaves below the cob indicate the potential of using such a feed resource for ruminant feeding which is otherwise a useless component in maize grain filling processes. Use of these leaves below the cob for forage puposes is a practice in Guatemala, Eygpt and Kenya (Soza l975; Abate et al, l985). It is a feed resource of high quality with a crude protein content of no less than l2 per cent (Dzowela l985). Delay in sowing/undersowing of the forage legume from the time of planting maize to after the first maize weeding operation resulted in a significant reduction in forage yields from the pasture systems (P<0.0l) as shown in Table 6. This reduction is a reflection of the smothering effect of the maize canopy on the early development of the forage legumes.The forage legume component contribution to overall forage production in the different interventions was not affected by time of sowing/undersowing. The least amount of forage was con tributed by Neonotonia which for two years now has indicated to be slow in establishment and hence most smothered in asso ciation with a maize crop (Dzowela l985). The largest amount of forage came from the Pascuorum followed by the Silverleaf system (Table 7). There was a tendency for the legume forage DM to increase with maize leaf stripping intensity as a mani festation of improving light relationship underneath the maize canopy.     Qualitatively, maize stover crude protein content was not appreciably affected by the forage legume sowing/undersowing time. The inclusion of the climbing forage legumes (Centrosema Neonotonia and Pascuorum) resulted in a maize/legume and stover product higher in crude protein content than the silverleafbased stover (P<0.0l) (Table 8). The climbing forage legumes were intact on to the stover at the time of harvesting the stover and contributed to the high CP contents. The silverleaf desmodium, on the other hand being determinate in its growth habit was not attached to the maize stover at the time of cutting.There was a tendency for the maize stover crude protein content to decrease with the maize stripping intensity (Table 6). Maize stripping as such is a physical removal of the compo nent of the maize plant that is more nutritive than the stem. However, the fact that the stripped leaf material when stripped before senescence is a product of high quality (Dzowela, l985) which could be fed to animals fresh or dried, may more than compen sate for the reduction in the CP content of stover per se.These sets of data appear to demonstrate the potential for intergrating improved forage technology in maize cropping systems of smallholder livestock producers. It helps to improve the feed resources of such smallholder livestock producers quantitively and qualitatively. Once adopted they could have an enhan cing effect on the utilization of crop by-products such as maize stover and some of the otherwise wasted products from the maize plant.The potential of climbing forage legume species ought to be explored further, especially those that stay green longer after the maize crop has dried up. To be published in the proceedings of the Pasture Network for Eastern and Southern Africa Workshop on \"Animal Feed Resources for Small-scale Livestock Producers\", November ll-l5, Nairobi, Kenya.Crop residues have been estimated to account for about 25 per cent of the total feed energy suitable for ruminant livestock in both developed and developing countries (Kossila l985). In l98l, maize was considered the leading crop in providing crop residues that could be utilized as a livestock feed (Table l).In Tanzania maize is the most important cereal crop grown for human food production (Table 2). Using a ratio of l:2 between grain and amount of crop residues produced, suggests that about 4 million tonnes of maize stover and maize cobs are produced annually. In some areas the high potential maize producing areas have high cattle populations as well, while in other areas maize is grown in marginal rainfall areas and does not overlap with high cattle populations.Both maize stover and maize cobs contribute significantly as ruminant livestock feed particularly during the dry season. Some of the major constraints that limit efficient utilization of maize stover and/or maize cobs are as tabulated below:Atributes and disadvantages of using maize stover/cobs as live stock feed. The practice of in situ grazing is wasteful and ineffic ient (French l943). Where the animals have to be fed indoors, the bulk factor becomes as important constraint as this increases transportation and storage costs. Grinding of maize cobs on the other hand increases wear and tear on the hammer mills.Several studies were conducted at Morogoro, Tanzania with the overall objective of assessing the nutritive value of maize crop residues with a view of developing feeding packages for farmers. Results involving alkali treatment have been omitted since the technology can no longer be justified because of the prohibitive costs of alkalis. Data on chemical composition, derived from work carried out at Morogoro and Kabete, in Tanza nia and Kenya respectively, are given in Table 3, and Table 4 presents the formulation and digestibility of several diets based on maize cobs and stover. The results indicate that maize stover and/or maize cobs can successfully be incorporated in ruminant rations and that such rations have relatively high digestibilities.With rations l and 2 (Table 4) the replacement of cotton seed cake by urea as a source of protein did not affect digest ibility, although Kategile (l978) observed a slight depression in voluntary feed intake when urea was used at 0.5 percent with no further effect when urea was increased above 0.5 per cent. There was no significant difference in digestibility between diets 3 and 4 when urea was used as a source of protein in place of cottonseed cake. Other sources of protein such as leucaena can be used effectively with maize stover as shown in diet 5. The comparatively low digestibility coefficient noted with diet 6 is probably due to the fact that digestibi lity was determined at ad libitum level of intake and that the roughage constituted a much higher percentage of the ration. Both maize stover and maize cobs are high in lignocellulose content and would probably require a source of readily available carbohydrate for optimum utilization. Preliminary studies (Table 5) have shown that cassava combines well with both stover and cobs, but more so with stover (Kategile l98l), producing substantial increases in dry matter digestibility. Further work is required on the utilization of available sources of readily available cabohydrate in the production of rations with these maize residues. After obtaining results on the potential of maize stover/cobs as a livestock feed, complete rations were formulated and tested using various classes of livestock (Table 6). The rations pro moted reasonable rates of production even at high levels of residue inclusion. Diets l, 4, 5 and 6 constituted complete rations while diets 2 and 3 were used as supplementary rations for grazing steers.The above results indicate that maize stover/cobs is a potentially valuable feed resource for ruminants, whose effic ient utilization can result in appreciable production improve ment in various livestock classes. Dry seasons in Tanzania as well as in many other tropical countries are marked with periods of fe^esd shortages resulting in general retardation in animal growth and production. Maize stover/cobs contribute significantly in reducing the dry season feed stress. This contribution could probably be increased if the following im provements could be made: l.Improving handling and transportation of maize stover by reducing bulkiness and transport costs by baling or other processes to minimize wastages. 2.Studying optimum ration formulations both as a means of improving feed quality as well as formulating a least cost ration.Where technology allows, grinding of maize cobs provides opportunity of utilizing a feed resource which is other wise wasted, and ground maize cobs could form a major component in basal rations for steers for which feedlots could easily be established near large scale maize farms. A review of the utilization of crop residues for stallfed cattle revealed that composite maize have about 2.5% crude protein (CP) higher than that of hybrid maize and groundnut tops contain almost twice the CP content of maize stover. Adequate liveweight gains by cattle can be achieved by supplementing a maize stover and restricted (3.6kg) maize bran diet with either groundnut tops, cottonseed cake or leucaena. Large gross margins can be obtained by fattening cattle on crop residues and the stallfeeding of cattle is likely to increase as land pressure cont inues to increase.Maize ( Zea mays ) and groundnut tops (Arachis hypoqaea ) are major food crops in Malawi. Approximately 59 and 24% of the total area cropped by smallholder farmers is devoted to maize and ground nut production respectively (Manda et al.,l985). The corres ponding production of crop residues from these crops in l985 was 2.7l and 0.7 million tonnes for maize and groundnuts, res pectively (Munthali and Dzowela l985). The majority of these crop residues are grazed iii situ while variable quantities are either burnt, ploughed into the soil or stallfed to cattle.Hence crop residues constitute a major feed resource for cattle during the dry seasons.This paper gives the scope for the utilization of crop residues in Malawi and a review of the research findings aimed at improving animal performance from feeding crop residues, mainly maize stover and groundnut tops.Utilization of crop residues in Malawi is optimal on smallholder farms where both crops and cattle are raised. Smallscale zero grazing commercial livestock production, based on one to four dairy cows or steers, is being practised. Increased land pressure (Table l) is likely to result in increased intensive livestock production. Zero grazing is already popular in Malawi not only because of immediate cash benefits from the sale of milk or fattened cattle, but also because of the large quantities of organic manure produced in the feeding pens. The manure is widely used in the production of cash crops such as tobacco and maize. The production of milk and high quality beef from fattened steers makes a tremendous saving on imports of animal products by the country. The traditional stallfeeding diets are maize stover and/or groundnut tops supplemented with maize bran. Animal production from these diets is very variable. Research on the utilization of maize stover and groundnut tops as basal diets for stallfed cattle has been conducted since the early l970 Ss (Anonymous, l972-l979). The main objective of such studies were to determine the production levels that could be achieved by feeding various quantities of these roughages with various supplements.Up until now, crop residues are being fed to cattle without any regard to varietal differences in their quality. For example, there are several varieties of maize grown in Malawi which can broadly be categorized into hybrids and composites, whose resi dues might have different nutritive value. Thus a survey of common crop residues was carried out at Chitedze Research Station to find out if large varietal differences in quality exist and to estimate their yields. Samples were collected from maize agronomy, groundnut breeding and sweet potato ( I pome a batatas ) breeding trials. The maize crop was given l05 kg N/ha while groundnuts were sprayed with Daconil 2787 W 75 at the rate of 3.6 kg/ha. Sweet potatoes did not receive any fertilizer. Crop residue samples were collected from the fields soon after harvest ing. The results of their nutritive value and dry matter pro duction are given in Table 2. The composites (local and UCA) tended to have more crude protein than hybrid maize (NSCM 4l and MH l2). The acid detergent fibre (ADF) was high in all maize stovers which is consistant with other studies (Holloway et al. l977;Berger et al. l979;Oji and Mowat l979;Butterworth and Mosi l986).Dry matter yields of maize stover were also higher for the composites than for the hybrids used. In a mixed farming system (crops and livestock) commonly seen on smallholder farms composites could be more attractive than hybrids for cattle feeding; based the chemical analysis and dry matter production. Differences in CP content amongst groundnut tops were also observed (Table 2). RGI, a rosette resistant variety, was the poorest in CP content whilst Chalimbana (the most susceptible variety to rosette) had the highest level of CP. The differences in CP between the sprayed and unsprayed groundnut tops was neg ligible except for RGI in which the sprayed crop had a high CP. The ADF content was similar amongst the groundnut tops although the sprayed crop tended to have lower ADF content. The applica tion of Daconil increased dry matter production which could be beneficial to livestock feeding. Potato vines had similar CP and ADF contents except vines from Yoyela which had a high level of CP.Groundnut tops had the highest content of CP whilst potato vines had the lowest. Maize stover had the highest levels of ADF, characteristic of most crop residues from cereals. Groundnut tops might be used to supplement maize stover to raise its CP content, and its composite maize is likely to produce better animal pro duction if fed with groundnut tops.The most abundant crop residue is maize stover and it is commonly stallfed to cattle in conbination with maize bran. Experiments have been conducted to determine the level of feeding of these ingredients and the expected animal performances. Table 3 summar izes results of such trials. Feeding ad libitum quantities of maize stover with restricted amounts of maize bran produced lower daily liveweight gain than ad libitum maize bran; indicating that most of the liveweight gain was due to maize bran. The consumption of maize bran increased by 44 and 78% when it was fed ad libitum with ad libitum or restricted maize stover respectively. Daily liveweight gain was increased by corresponding 70 and 84%. As maize bran becomes more expensive (than the present MKO.02* per kg) ad libitum maize stover and maize bran would become more pop ular than just ad libitum maize bran. * l US$ =2.23 Malawi Kwacha In cognizance of the limitations of a maize stover/maize bran diet for fattening cattle, trials were carried out to find out if nitrogen supplementation would improve daily liveweight gains beyond the maximum of 0.68 kg/day (Table 3). Table 4 gives the results of feeding maize stover and maize bran with differ ent sources of nitrogen. l = maize stover, 2 = groundnut tops, 3 = ad libitum, 4 = cotton seed cake.The supplements were fed to give similar levels (l8.5% CP in supplement) of CP intake. When groundnut tops were fed with restricted (3.6 kg) amount of maize bran, daily gain by steers almost doubled (Table 4), and that was similar to daily liveweight gains obtained by feeding ad libitum (5-6 kg) amounts of maize bran (Table 3). Feeding cottonseed cake or leucaena ( Leucaena leucocephala ) with maize bran produced similar average daily liveweight gains but slightly higher than those obtained with feeding groundnut tops. This indicated that CP was indeed a limit ing nutrient in promoting liveweight gains of steers fed a maize stover/maize bran diet.Another experiment was conducted to determine the effect of feeding groundnut tops as a sole roughage with either plain miaze bran or maize bran with leucaena. Leucaena was fed to ascertain if additional CP would be required when groundnut tops are fed with maize bran. Two breeds of steers, Malawi Zebu (MZ) and Friesian (F) x MZ, were used. They were divided into two groups and fed either ration A (maize bran + salt) at the rate of 5 and 6.5 kg/head/day for the MZ and F x MZ, respect ively, or ration B (maize bran + leucaena (4:l) + salt) at similar rates to those fed in ration A. Groundnut tops and water were given ad libitum. The results are given in Table 5. There were no differences (P<0.5) in both total and daily liveweight gain between the rations for both breeds. The FxMZ steers gained more liveweight and consumed more DM than MZ steers (P<.0l). There were no differences within breeds in feed conversion between rations, but feed conversion efficiency was higher in F x MZ than in MZ steers. The results indicate that feeding groundnut tops to appetite would provide enough nutrients to offset any deficiencies found in maize bran. Similar results were obtained by Addy and Thomas (l976) who also reported breed differences between MZ and F x MZ in rate of gain and feed consumption. Although groundnut tops have consistently been found to be better than maize stover in promoting liveweight gain of steers, the quantities available in Malawi are far lower than maize stover (Munthali and Dzowela l975). Hence farmers frequ ently feed it in unknown combinations with maize stover. A trial was conducted to determine the best combination of maize stover and groundnut tops in stallfed animals. Unchopped maize stover and groundnut tops were fed ad libitum in five combinations as shown in Table 6. Maize bran was fed at the rate of 4 kg/steer daily on as is basis. Results of the experiment are given in Table 6. Daily liveweight gains and cold dressed weights increased (P<0.05) with increased groundnut tops ratios in the diet. Total dry matter intakes were similar for all diets even though steers tended to consume more groundnut tops than maize stover. Butterworth and Mosi (l986) reported improvements in DM intake when 0 to 50% trifolium (T. tembense ) was fed with maize stover. Lack of improvements in DM intake in the present study was due to the poorer quality of groundnut tops than trifolium; 9.2 and 20.l% CP for groundnut tops and T. tembense respectively. The best combination of maize stover and groundnut tops in pro moting liveweight gain of steers was as 50: 50 ratio (Table 6). This study confirmed that ad libitum maize stover and res tricted maize bran is not adequate to finish steers, but that groundnut tops could be useful in improving daily gains. The picture of land availability presented in Table l indicates that little cultivable land will be available for arable crop production, let alone the production of forages for animal pro duction. Improvements in plant breeding and husbandry might increase both crop and by-products yields per unit area gener ating feed for livestock. A farmerSs choice to raise cattle will depend upon their importance in the overall farming system (man ure and draft) and the demand for milk and meat.Economic analyses of feeding crop re by I. H. Proverbs (unpublished) and A. P. D.W. Pervis (unpublished), and both repor gross margins. An economic analysis based is given in Table 7. The cost of feed is smallholder conditions where crop residue cost and maize bran is obtained by batter maize bran was estimated at MK 0.02/kg wh was MK 0.46/kg liveweight and the carcass at MK l.35/kg. The gross margins are high than for those steers issued on loan, mai of servicing the loan. Stall feeding is 1 able in Malawi so long as family labour i as the cost of crop residues and by-produ sidues were conducted Mtukuso, R.C. Graaf and ts showed favourable on data in Table 5 strikingly low under s are used at very low with salt. The cost of ile the price of a steer (first grade) was valued er for producer feeders nly because of the cost ikely to remain profits not costed and as long cts remains low. an important summer crop by-product in on tons of rice straw and 0.5 million produced every year from the rice fields ss respectively. There is no practical cts, up till now, except for fuel. This earch results relevant to the use of lis as feeds for ruminants in Egypt, on of these materials is given in Grinding of straw increases its intake and leads to a higher digestible energy intake by some 30% (Jackson l978). Grinding usually decreases digestibility, but at the same time increases net energy content. The effect of grinding is much less to nil when straw comprises 50% or less of the diet (Jackson l978).Steam-processing of low quality roughages has been recommended to increase energy availability (Bender et al. l970), and in Alkali treatmentFour methods of applying NaOH to rice straw (Nour et a^l987), were compared in order to select the optimum method to be used in the small farms in Egypt. Chopped rice straw was treated with NaOH by the methods of Torgrimsby (l97l), Boliden (as described by Jackson l978), Jackson (l977) and Wilson and Pig den (l964). Treated straws were compared with untreated rice straw in a feeding experiment with sheep fed a resticted amount of concentrate mixture. The results in Table 3 show that NaOH treatment of rice straw increased feed intake and digestib ility of DM of rice straw, which was calculated by difference. The methods of Torgrimsby and Boliden appeared to be more effec tive than the other methods evaluated. Abou Raya el: ail. (l983) showed that boiling rice straw for one hour in water or in 0.2% Ca (0H)2, or in 0.2% NaOH greatly improves the nutritive value of rice straw (Table 4). Ammonia treatment of rice straw, increased digestion co efficients of organic matter, crude protein, ether extract and crude fibre (Fahmy l985). TDN content was also increased to 52.6 which represents a l0% improvement (Table 5). Ammonia treatment has the advantage in increasing both crude protein content and digestibility. When limited amounts of concentrates were added to rice straw the nutritive value of treated and untreated rice straw was improved (Table 5). Fahmy (l985) rep orted that alkali treatment resulted in increased water consumption and urine volume by some 2.5 -3.0 fold. Ensiling rice straw (whether treated or not) with berseem (Trifolium alexandrinum) resulted in a clear improvement in the performance and daily liveweight gain of fattening sheep (Table 6). This method of rice straw treatment exceeded in its beneficial effect any alkali treatment (N. Esmaiel l983).Mohsen et. ail (l983) showed that ensiling of rice straw with 6% molasses with or without monensin (5 ppm) increased its digestibility and nutritive value. The TDN% values were 55.03 and 52.83% when rice straw was ensiled with molasses and monensin or molasses respectively. Monensin is a biologi cally active compound that has been shown to alter silage fermentation.  7 indicate that feed intake is improved by the addition of molasses and urea).Shehata and Nour (l986) showed that straw fed with concen trates has a superior feeding value than concentrates alone. Results in Table 8 indicate that increasing the percentage of rice hulls in the diet increases the contents of ash and crude fibre, and decreases crude protein, ether extract and nitrogen free extract. Nour and El Shazly (l98l) showed that coefficients of digestibility, nutritive value and nitrogen balance were higher for rations containing 35 and 40% rice hulls than those containing 60 or 70% rice hulls. The highest depression in measured parameters occurred when rice hulls was increased in the diet from 60 to 70%. Therefore, it is possible to include rice hulls in pelleted diets at the 60-70% level for maintenance and at 35-40% level for production. The presense of rice hulls in the diet improved the average daily liveweight gain of bulls (Table 9). No significant differences were found between the different groups in dressing percent age, carcass bone/muscle ratio.  Fahmy ejt al (l968) reported that the presence of rice hulls in a diet improved the utilisation of feed constituents. The addition of sand to a diet high in concentrates stimulated better utilisation of the ration (Gooley and Burroughs l962). The relatively high silica in rice hulls may have produced a similar effect in the experiments of Fahmy et al (l968) and in the present experiment.The review of the results indicates that rice straw and rice hulls are deficient in protein, energy, and minerals and their nutritive values are quite low. Physical, chemical and microbiological methods have been investigated to improve the digestibility and nutritive value of these by-products.Supplementation with energy, protein, minerals and vitamins resulted in improving the utilisation of the roughages. It could be concluded that improving the utilisation of rice straw and rice hulls may be achieved through: l.Pelleting of roughages after supplementation with concen trates (maize, molasses, rice or wheat bran, cottonseed cake) urea, minerals and vitamins to produce optimum com plete diets suitable for feeding ruminants on large scale farms .Ensiling of rice straw or rice hulls after urea treatment and mixing with berseem or any other legume forage -this method is recommendable to the small scale farms in Eygpt and perhaps elsewhere where rice straw and rice hulls are available.• The practice of fattening cattle on maize-based high energy diets has become uneconomical due mainly to the high cost of maize grain relative to beef producer prices in Zimbabwe. In an earlier trial a less expensive diet than the conventional maize-based fattening diet was achieved by using cane molasses, a by-product of the sugar industry (Chakanyuka,Sibanda,Grant and Mlilo,l987). Molasses was incorporated into this diet at the rate of about 20 per cent, equivalent to replacing 23 per cent of the maize, with no adverse effect on the performance of cattle in feedlot.Molasses cannot fully replace maize due to handling prob lems and possible toxic effects if it is fed at very high levels (Van Niekerk l98l). However, since it is cheaper than maize grain, as much of it as possible should be included in fattening diets. It was therefore necessary to determine the maximum level of molasses which could be used in cattle fattening diets with out adversely affecting performance. This study was carried out to investigate the relationship between the level of molasses in the diet and the performance in feedlot of both steers and heifers over a 90 day feeding period.A total of l00 eighteen month old steers and heifers, 50% Sussex x Africaner and the other 50% Hereford x Mashona x Sussex crossbreds, with an average starved body weight of about 280 kg were used. Animals of each sex were divided into 5 equal groups of l8 animals each balanced for breed and body weight.A 6th group of l0 animals for each sex was slaughtered at the start to estimate the initial carcass weight of the remaining 5 groups for each sex, which were randomly allocated to one of five dietary treatments, the first a conventional high energy diet containing no molasses, and the other four containing increas ing proportions of molasses; their formulations are shown in Table l. Each group was divided into 3 sub-groups of 6 animals comp rising the heaviest, medium and lightest animals balanced for breed. The 6 animals in each sub-group were housed in one pen and group-fed ad libitum for a period of 90 days. The animals were weighed fortnightly and food intake was calculated weekly. At the end of the feeding period the animals were slaughtered and carcass measurements taken.The following measurements were taken: initial and final starved body weight (no food and water for 24 and l5 hours, res pectively), initial and final cold dressed carcass weight, total food intake, efficiency of food conversion and carcass grades.Differences between treatments were determined by analysis of variance with initial starved body weight as a covariate for all the variables, except carcass grades where only means are presented.The body weight changes are shown in Table 2. There was no signi ficant difference between the steers and heifers, although the r._ifers had marginally smaller body weight changes than the steers. There was a significant (P<0.05) quadratic effect of level of molasses on body weight changes with the rate of in crease falling with increasing level of molasses. Body weight changes for the animals on l0, 20, and 30 per cent molassses were similar and higher (P<0.05) than the zero and 40 per cent molasses groups. The 40 per cent molasses diet gave the lowest body weight change but this was not significantly lower than that of the conventional zero molasses diet. Initial body weight as a covariate of body weight change and the interaction between sex and diet were not important.The initial carcass weights of the feedlot cattle were estimated from equations based on data derived from l0 each of steers and heifers slaughtered at the start of the experiment. Regres sion equations (l) and (2) were used for steers and heifers, respectively:where CW is cold dressed carcass weight (kg), BW is the initial starved body weight (kg) and In is the natural logarithm. The carcass weight changes of heifers and steers were similar (Table 3). There was a significant (P<0.05) quadratic effect of level of molasses on carcass weight change, as the rate of increase decreased with the higher levels of molasses. The mean carcass weight change of the conventional zero molasses animals was lower (P<0.05) than those of all the other dietary treatments.The diets containing l0, 20, and 30 per cent molasses produced similar gains which were higher (P<0.05) than those of the zero and 40 per cent molasses diets. The highest mean carcass weight changes were achieved by the animals on the 20 per cent molasses diet for both sexes. As with body weight gains, initial body weight as a covariate of carcass weight change and interaction between sex and level of molasses was not important.There was little difference between the two sexes in total food intake (Table 4), but intake increased as the level of molasses increased, reaching a peak at 30 per cent molasses. The effic iency of food conversion for body and carcass weight gain was the same for steers and heifers (Table 4). The efficiency of conver sion for body weight gain exhibited a linear relationship with the level of molasses in the diet as the rate of decrease con tinued to increase with higher levels of molasses, but the de cline became very marked (P<0.05) at 40 per cent molasses. The rate of decrease in efficiency of food-conversion decreased   x o x j j a puB ( q s a * j -* x B ' p B a q / 6 j [ ) a j f B ûx pooj t b ôj , -p a*qBi as the level of molasses increased. However, there was no sig nificant difference between the efficiency of food-conversion for carcass weight gains of the zero, l0, 20 and 30 per cent mol asses animals. The 40 per cent molasses diet produced a significan tly (P<0.05) lower efficiency of food-conversion for carcass weight gain than all the other diets. There was no interaction between sex and diets and similarly initial body weight as a covariate of efficiency of food-conversion for carcass and body weight gain was not important.The fleshing and fat grades awarded at slaughter are shown in Table 5. The fleshing index is based on the ratio of carcass weight to length. Classes l and 2 depict animals with adequate fat cover, class 3 would be underfat and class 9 overfat. The last two classes carry some form of penalty. Overall the highest fleshing grades were obtained with the 20 per cent molasses diet, whilst the conventional zero molasses diet produced the lowest grades. The fleshing grades for heifers fell more mark edly than those for steers at molasses levels higher than 20 per cent. There was little difference between the treatments in fat grades, although heifers tended to be fatter than steers.The results of this study agree with earlier trials carried out in this laboratory (Chakanyuka et ail. l987) and elsewhere (Lishman l967; Elliot and OSDonovan l973; Van Niekerk l98l). They indicated that molasses can make up to 30 per cent of fatt ening diets without adversely affecting animal performance.The diets containing molasses up to and including 30 per cent, produced higher body and carcass weight gains than the conventional maize-based diet with no molasses. This confirms the results of the earlier work in which a diet containing 20 per cent molasses produced marginally higher carcass weight gains than the conventional high maize diet (Chakanyuka et al. l987) .The reason for the better performance of cattle on molasses diets compared to the conventional high maize diets is thought to be the creation of a more suitable rumen environment for the microbial population (Hatch and Beeson l972). This would mean that animals on molasses diets would have fewer digestive problems and would take a shorter time to adapt to the diets. In the present trial in took up to three weeks before the animals on the conventional zero molasses diet stopped scouring, while those on the molasses diets did not scour at all. Since the level of metabolisable energy (ME) decreased with the increase in the level of molasses it would seem that total food intake was controlled by the level of ME. On as fed basis all molasses diets produced lower efficiency of foodconversion, a finding which confirms earlier studies in this country (Elliot and OSDonovan l973; Chakanyuka et a^l. l987) and elsewhere (Van Niekerk and Voges l976; Van Niekerk l98l). •ETHowever, the diets containing l0, 20, 30 and 40 per cent mol asses had 5.4, l2.2, l8.9 and 25.7 per cent, respectively, less ME than the conventional diet. Therefore, the ME in the diets containing l0, 20, 30 and 40 per cent molasses was utilised more efficiently than that of the conventional diet by 4.4, ll.2, 7.l and 4.5 per cent, respectively. These results are in agreement with the last trials when the ME in the diet con taining 20 per cent molasses was utilised with 5.5 per cent higher efficiency than the conventional diet (Chakanyuka et al. l987).The results of the carcass grades are also in favour of molasses-based diets. While the conventional diet may exhibit a higher efficiency of food-conversion the returns from it are likely to be lower due to the resultant smaller carcass and lower grades.It has been customary to assume that heifers were less efficient than steers in feedlot. The results of the present trial show that there was no difference between steers and heifers in efficiency of food-conversion for carcass weight gain. How ever, the fat grades indicate that heifers may tend to get fatter. It may be advisable to slaughter heifers earlier than steers of similar size.Molasses can be included in fattening diets by up to 30 per cent without any marked detrimental effects on performance. This would result in relatively cheaper diets, provided the molasses was available and continued to be cheaper than maize grain. These results apply to both steers and heifers, although heifers may need to be slaughtered earlier to prevent them from getting overly fat. Forty two Bunaji and Friesian/Holstein crossbred yearling steers averaging l92 kg liveweight were randomly assigned to 6 Phase I treatments: dry grain sorghum stover; dry grain sorghum stover plus groundnut cake; dry grain sorghum stover plus urea-molasses; untreated grain sorghum stover silage; untreated grain sorghum stover silage plus groundnut cake and urea-molasses treated grain sorghum stover with additional urea-molasses supplement. After the treatment study lasting 56 days all the steers were placed on a Phase II feedlot diet, consisting of dry grain sorghum stover and a concentrate mixture, for 4 2 days.In Phase I ensilage significantly (P<0.0l) improved dry matter intake per head per day but there was no economic advantage in overall performance. Supplementation with limited quantities of groundnut cake or urea-molasses maintained liveweight.In Phase II the steers, in their respective groups, main tained their relative and significant differences (P<0.05) in feed intake per head/day but when expressed in intake per meta bolic liveweight the differences were not significant. There were no significant differences in liveweight gains between groups. The applicabilty of the results to the agro-pastoralist system of cattle production and to fattening enterprises is discussed.Over seventy percent of NigeriaSs national herd is located within the Sudan and Sahel zones. The transhumant ruminant livestock in these areas derive about 69% of their annual dry matter intake from upland savanna (including browse material), l3% from flood plains and l8% from crop residues. In terms of nutritional availa bility, the critical months of the year are December, January, February, March and April when cattle obtain 9l, ll3, 79, l30 and ll2 gram/day digestible crude protein respectively from their total feed intake ( Van Raay et al,l974). A summary of reports (Adegbola and Onayinka l968; Egunjobi l970; Akinola l974 and l983; de Leeuw l977; Fricke l979; Awogbade and Famoriyo l982) on range and feed resources inventory suggests that under the existing level of grassland management there is inadequate feed to sustain the present ruminant population of about l4.5 million animal units (A.U.). Table l gives the area of grazing land, her bage yield and carrying capacity of Nigerian Savannah. However, there is a tremendous potential from cereal and legume crop residues which Reddish and Scarr (l986) estimated to be about 50 millionTab*e T. Grazing *ands, herbage yie*ds and carrying capacity of Nigerian S a v a n n a . tonnes annually. Most of this material is presently wasted through burning, improper feeding and termite attacks.The nutritive value of the crop residues could be enhanced through physical and/or chemical treatment and/or supplementa tion with concentrate agro-industrial by-products or forage legume. But the quantity and quality of feed should satisfy the requirement for the type of production (maintenance, growth, lactation or draft) and the feeding regime imposed should be based on economic advantage .In some cases it might be economically justifiable to offer sub-maintenance diets to non-producing animals during the dry season and accept loss of liveweight, if the cost of supplemen tary feeds is not economical.The objective of the study was to look at effective utiliza tion of sorghum stover, a common by-product in the agro-pastoralist farming system, and to assess the carry over effect at the fatten ing phase using sorghum stover and a concentrate mixture.The study was carried out at the National Animal Production Re search Institute (NAPRI), Zaria, Nigeria located in Northern Guinea Savanna on latitude ll°ll ,N and longitude 7°38 ,E. The average annual rainfall is l050 mm falling between June and Sep tember.Forty two Zebu x Friesian/Holstein crossbred steers, average age 24 months and l90 kg liveweight, were randomly assigned to 6 treatments of 7 animals each based on age and liveweight; using balanced group continuous trial methods as described by Lucas (l974). The study covered two phases -maintenance and fattening. The 6 treatments imposed in the first trial are given in table 2.The steers were individually penned and fed ad libitum twice daily at 0800 hrs and l500 hrs. Records of voluntary feed intake were kept during the l4-day preliminary and experimental periods. All the steers were weighed weekly. At the end of the experimental period of 60 days, a digestibility study of the 6 diets was conducted using the total collection technique.The second phase of the study was carried out on the steers from the phase one experiment to monitor their performance on better feeding under feedlot management. This simulates the situ ation in the dry Sudan and Sahel zones where a feedlot operator purchases animals of different body weight from differently managed herds. The forty two steers, retained in their previous groups, were allowed free grazing and exercise for 7 days before the commencement of the second phase. They were fed in individual pens to appetite for an adjustment period of l4 days and sub sequently for 60 days on a concentrate mixture and dry, untreated sorghum stover as the only roughage (Table 5). Water and mineral salts were offered ad libitum. Daily voluntary feed intake and The chemical composition of the experimental diets in Phase one is given in table 3. In the Phase I trial, (Table 4) it was found that ensilage significantly (P<0.0l) improved dry matter intake per head per day by 26%, but intake per metabolic body weight improved by 4l percent. This could be attributed to a faster rate and better digestion of stover silage compared to dry stover possibly due to a better rumen ecosystem resulting from the attri butes of microbial products of ensilage.Supplementation with groundnut cake (treatments 2 and 5) resulted in a significant (P<0.05) improvement in dry matter intake. This was expected as energy and nitrogen supplied could have been used to meet part of the rumen microbial requirements, and concomitantly those of the host animal in the form of micro bial and escape protein (Van Soest l982). Although addition of nitrogen and energy in the form of urea and molasses (treatments 3 and 6) depressed dry matter intake per head per day by 8% (Table 4), their influence appeared to have a significant asso ciative (P<0.05) effect on feed efficiency. The depressant in fluence on dry matter intake of urea-molasses supplement was comparatively higher on dry sorghum stover-based diet (which consistently had the lowest intake-Table 4) than on ensiled sorghum stover. This suggests a positive associative interaction between the basal diet and urea-molasses supplement probably due to ensilage effect. However, significant superiority of en silage observed in dry matter intake had no corresponding effect Considering the labour and other inputs required in making silage from sorghum stover, ensilage does not appear to offer either biological or economic advantage. Supplementation of dry sorghum stover with either urea-molasses or limited amount of oil cake could support liveweight maintenance and some producti vity during the dry season when rangeland is dry, bare and burnt.In Phase II study, which was intended to simulate a situa tion where animals previously under different feeding regimes and management were purchased for feedlot operation, there were significant (p<0.05) differences in the overall dry matter intake per head per day in favour of treatments 2, 5 and l which, apart from group 2, had the lowest intake in Phase I. Mayer et al (l965) obtained relative higher intake of high energy feed in animals that had previously been placed on restricted feeding. However, when the same data were expressed on intake per unit metabolic body weight, there was no significant difference over the whole period. Treatments 3 and 6 which suffered depressed influence of urea-molasses supplementation during Phase one continued to show lower dry matter intake per head per day but intake per metabolic body weight was just slightly lower in the fattening phase as well and had the best feed conversion rates (table 6). This suggests that those treatments which in the earlier study had reduced intakes, continued to have reduced feed consumption during the fattening phase as well as achieving similar or better results. A similar observation was made by Ledger (l973) but under a restricted intake of balanced diets.There was no significant difference in average daily liveweight gain between treatment groups except for treatment one which had superior (P<0.05) liveweight gain over the remaining treatments. It is possible, as was observed by 0 S Donovan (l984) that under-nourishment previously suffered by this group probably resulted in a compensatory liveweight gain when later fed ad libitum on a high energy diet (Table 6). However, the overall average daily liveweight gain was similar to that reported in the same environment under feedlot management (Olayiwole et al,l973;l98l). By implication, the economic advantage and increased meat output are significant. Thus it can be hypothesized that if about 698,000 out of about l.2 million cattle slaughtered anually in Nigeria are put on feedlot diets their body weights could be increased by l00 kg per head over a period of ll0 days. This would result in an increase of about 69,800 tonnes of beef annually.On the basis of ratio of liveweight gain per unit feed in take (reciprocal of feed efficiency), the two treatments (l and 4) on basal diets appear to have had the best biological and economical advantage followed by treatments 6, 2, 3 and 5 in that order.Studies on ruminant livestock ownership profile in the Sudan and Sahel zones (Fricke l979) showed that 6l.5 and 35% of thetotal population are in the hands of sedentary agro-pastoralists in the rainy and dry seasons respectively. This integrated crop and livestock production system ensures a reasonable tonnage of crop residues. Hence, supplementing these with agro-industrial by-products is one of the cheap and convenient ways to at least maintain body weight and a marginal productivity in the dry season.A feedlot operator who buys his cattle at the end of the dry season when the animals are at their lowest weight and poorest condition, would benefit both in reduced time and food consump tion from compensatory growth.The results of the trials indicate that the weight losses incurred during the maintenance phase do not adversely affect the animal performance of the feed lot stage. It may be inferred from the results obtained that steers could be maintained on sorghum stover with added limited quantities of protein and energy sources under intensive or semi-intensive management. There should also be adequate and regular supplies of water and mineral salts.It is uneconomic for a grazier to sell his animals at the end of the dry season when they are in the poorest condition; he should take advantage of compensatory gain and economic effic iency. On the other hand, a fattener would capitalise on both the biological and economic advantage in buying his animals for fattening during and at the end of the dry season in these regions.This paper is based on the practical utilization of agro-indust rial by-products as experienced in the feedlot. The availability of suitable by-products, together with an assured supply of feeders were the main reasons for locating the feedlot in the Shire Valley. At that time, early l978, there was an ample supply of whole cottonseed from ADMARcl, Bungula, and molasses and bagasse from SUCOMA2 . With the addition of urea, salt and vitamin A we were able to produce a complete fattening ration at low cost. Unfortunately the supply of whole cottonseed dwindled as more was used for extracting the oil. We therefore had to look at other available feedstuffs to produce equally efficient or better rations at reasonable costs. Over the past eight years we have tried nearly all by-products which are available in quantity in Malawi. Those we have used successfully are reported on below. (Refer to Appendix l for the standards used in ration formulation) .A by-product of sugar successfully included at rates of up to 58% of fattening rations. A palatable feed which improves feed intake, especially initially. It also has the advantage of reduc ing the incidence of laminitis in high energy fattening rations. Can be used in dairy, pig and sheep feeds and liquid and solid maitenance feeds. I mentioned maintenance feeds as the feedlot unit has its own holding grounds where steers are grown out to feeding stage.Molasses has been fed as a \"wheel lick\", put in worn out vehicle tyres cut and used as troughs (molasses with urea mixed in a ration of l0:l by weight). It was found that as the grazing quality deteriorated, supplementation in this form was not enough. We have had far greater success with a solid lick containing 8% urea and 2 3% molasses together with other energy, protein and mineral sources, achieving maintenance plus through winter. Daily intake is 500 g per livestock unit at a cost of approxi mately l2 tambala (l US dollar equals 2.23 Malawi Kwatcha ; l Malawi Kwacha equals l00 tambala).As mentioned, molasses has been used in our rations at up to 58%. The inclusion rate varies greatly with the type of roughage used, depending on its ability to absorb molasses. For example, rice husks will absorb little if any, cottonseed husks (not delinted) will absorb more, whereas baggase absorbs a greater amount. Other ingredients in a ration may also have a bearing on the quantity of molasses used; wheat offals or maize bran can carry a greater amount of molasses than cotton seed cake. Because of the availability and convenience of molasses (our feedmixer being adjacent to the sugar mill) and of course the cost, we try to maintain as high a level as possible in all our feeds without affecting the efficiency of the ration.Another by-product of sugar; used in our rations as a roughage. Very useful as a carrier for molasses. Inclusion rates vary as to fibre requirement. The success of our rations, we believe, is due to the coarse bagasse used as opposed to the separated and dried fine bagasse and pith used in other similar operations Separating and drying allows the bagasse to re-absorb a greater amount of molasses and gives longer storage life. Un fortunately we do not have the facilities to do this. We use the bagasse as is, straight from the sugar mill. This sometimes contains a lot of moisture, depending on how soon we use it, which greatly reduces storage life to as little as 3 or 4 days. Mixed in the correct proportions, molasses and dried bagasse can totally replace maize in fattening rations and can replace a percentage of maize in pig and sheep rations, (protein corretion would be necessary), thereby conserving a valuable human feed.Bagasse is also used a fuel in the sugar mill and is there fore not always available, especially during the sugar off-crop period, December to April, when alternate roughages have to be used.A useful form of roughage which can totally replace bagasse in our feeds, higher in protein and T.D.N• (total digestable nutrients) but without the property of absorbing as much molasses.A roughage which does not absorb molasses and is not used to replace more than 50% of the bagasse -higher in protein but considerably lower in T.D.N.As mentioned earlier, the availability of this product was one of the reasons our feedlot was sited at Ngabu. Together with molasses, bagasse, urea, salt and Vitamin A, a complete feed was formulated capable of producing weight gains of one kilogram plus per day. This simple mixture, supplying approximately l2.5% crude protein and 69% T.D.N. , has been the basis of all subse quent rations.When whole cottonseed was no longer available to us, other sources of energy and protein were investigated. The first of these, cottonseed cake, remains an essential ingredient in our rations. Being higher in protein we were able to reduce the urea content, maintaining the level of protein. T.D.N• was more difficult to maintain, the cake being l0% lower than cottonseed and this dropped the T.D.N• to 57%. With the inclusion of wheat offals we were able to produce a successful feed.A by-product of wheat milling, fairly high in protein and T.D.N. Suits our high molasses feeds as it is a useful carrier for the molasses when bagasse is replaced by cotton or rice husks.A by-product of maize milling which has been used in our fatten ing rations and is a major ingredient in our dairy and pig feeds. Also a useful carrier for molasses. Combinations of the above ingredients formulated as complete fattening rations of the following standards have been used successfully over the past 8 years.ll.5% -l3% T.D.N. 67% -70% Fibre 9% -l2% Calcium 0.7% 0.9 Phosphorus 0.3% 0.4 Fat 3% 5%Rations of these standards on the type of cattle we are feeding, local steers aged l8 months to 3 years, give a liveweight gain of approximately l kg per day and a conversion ratio of an estimated l0:l. The average feeding period is 95 days.Dressing out percentage from liveweight before transporting to Blantyre, is 52%. Average grades achieved over the past 7 months are 89% Choice, l0% Prime and l% Standard.Sidelines of the main feedlot operation are a beef breeding herd of 250 cows, dairy and pigs on a small scale and sheep breeding and fattening under intensive and extensive conditions. Production and maintenance feeds for all these operations are produced by the feedmill. Dairy feed is also produced for sale to small-holder farmers.In conclusion I will say that the success of this feedlot operation is mainy due to the availability of suitable feedstuffs, mostly by-products, from which an efficient feed can be formulated.Standards used for ration formulation -(as is) A 37-day digestion trial was conducted to evaluate feed intake and utilization by male castrated Ethiopian highland sheep (initial weight, l7.9 + 0.80 kg). Sheep were randomized across twelve treatments ( 3/treatment ) on the basis of fasted body weights. The treatments were: teff (Eragrostis tef) straw ad libitum (basal), basal + 3 g urea, basal + 88 g molasses or 86 g molasses-urea (2.5% urea). The latter two were also given with 6.5 and l3 g noug (Guizotia abyssinica) cake or 65 and l30 g Trifolium steudneri hay.Addition of urea to teff straw increased N digestibility significantly, and increased teff straw intake, dry matter (DM) and neutral-detergent fiber (NDF) digestibilities by 3.7, 8.3 and 7.3%, respectively over teff straw alone. Supplementa tion of teff straw with molasses alone (about l5% of diet DM) depressed teff straw intake, DM, N and NDF digestibilities, and depressed N retention below the levels attained with teff straw + urea, teff straw + molasses-urea (fed also at l5% of diet DM) and with teff straw alone. The depressing effects of molasses were reversed by including urea at 2.5% (2.2 g) of the mixture. Response of sheep to N (urea) supplementation was greater than to energy (molasses) supplementation, indi cating the N deficiency in cereal crop residues is a greater cause of poor animal performance than energy deficiency. In addition to showing that molasses-urea was a better supplement than molasses, the data indicated that the effects of urea as a non-protein N supplement on increasing the intake of low quality roughages, nutrient digestibility and N retention were enhanced (often significantly) by giving urea with molasses instead of dissolving it in water and sprinkling onto the straw. Hence, molasses-urea was also a better supplement than urea alone.The effect of feeding noug cake or Trifolium hay with molasses or molasses-urea on the measured parameters were sig nificantly greater than those of feeding molasses or molassesurea alone. Additional responses to the higher levels of noug cake and Trifolium hay were not significantly greater than the lower levels. The lower levels of noug cake and Trifolium hay would therefore be more appropriate for peasant farmers using molasses or molasses-urea to supplement cereal crop residues. Although noug cake in Ethiopia is a cheaper source of N than Trifolium hay (0.37 vs 0.95 cents/kg N), the latter is more appropriate and available to small-scale farmers.When N content of the diet is less than l.2%, rumen function may be impaired, feed intake reduced and animal growth markedly reduced (Conrad and Hibbs l968). The N content of most cereal crop residues is usually less than l.0% (Mosi and Butterworth l985). Nitrogen deficiency is therefore the most important limiting factor in these feeds (Preston and Leng l984). In addition to this quantitative protein deficiency, a qualitative deficiency; the limitation of the amino acid precursors of the branched (isobutyric, isovaleric and 2-methylbutyric) and straight chained volatile fatty acids (VFAs) may exist. Since these VFAs are essential nutrients for the growth of the princ ipal cellulolytic and some non-cellulolytic rumen bacteria (Russell and Sniff en l983), their deficiency may contribute to poor animal performance from unsupplemented or inadequately supplemented cereal crop residues (Butterworth and Nuwanyakpa, unpublished data).The metabolizable energy (ME) requirement for maintenance of a 20 kg sheep kept in a thermoneutral environment is 3.4 meagajoules (MJ)/day (ARC l980). The ME consumed by sheep fed various cereal crop residues ranged from 2.8 to 4.l MJ/day (Mosi and Butterworth l985), making energy deficiency another important factor limiting animal production from cereal crop residues. The low N and energy contents indicate that unless adequately supplemented, cereal crop residues may provide no more than maintenance rations for sheep and cattle. Some of the beneficial effects of N supplementation rep resented by increased digestion, higher intake of low quality roughages and body weight gain in young animals, may be achieved through N fertilization of forages or supplementation with protein or non-protein N (Ammerman ejt ail l972). Whether the full benefits of urea supplements can be achieved with urea alone or whether preformed carbon skeletons such as molasses are required also, is still debatable (Hunter and Vercoe l984).The objectives of this experiment were to compare two methods of administering urea (sprinkled onto straw vs mixed with molasses), to study the effects of energy (molasses) vs N (urea) supplementation and to evaluate the effects of two levels of noug (Guizotia abyssinica) cake and Trifolium (steudneri) hay when fed with molasses or molasses-urea on feed intake and utilization by sheep given a basal diet of teff (Eragrostis tef ) straw.Thirty-six castrated Ethiopian highland sheep (initial weight: l7.9 + 0.80 kg) were drenched against liver fluke with Ranide (Rafoxanide) and dipped to control ectoparasites two weeks before the trial started. They were allocated to twelve treat ments (three/treatment) at random within fasted bodyweight classes.The treatments were: l.Teff straw ad libitum + l0% of air-dry straw weight as water (intended to equalize possible effects of water addition in Treatment 2. Water was not sprinkled onto the straw fed in Treatments 3-l2). 2.Teff straw + 3g urea (dissolved in l0% weight of straw as water. Elemental sulfur was added to achieve N:S ratio of l0:l and the resulting mixture sprinkled onto and mixed in the straw) .Teff straw + 88 g molasses (Amounts for molasses and the other supplements listed below are on DM basis)* 4.Teff straw + 88 g molasses + 6.5 g noug cake. 5.Teff straw + 88 g molasses + l3 g noug cake. 6.Teff straw + 88 g molasses + 65 g Trifolium hay. 7.Teff straw + 88 g molasses + l30 g Trifolium hay. 8.Teff straw + 86 g molasses-urea (2.5% urea). 9.Teff straw + 86 g molasses-urea + 6.5 g noug cake.l0.Teff straw + 86 g molasses-urea + l3 g noug cake. ll.Teff straw + 86 g molasses-urea + 65 g Trifolium hay. l2.Teff straw + 86 g molasses-urea + l30 g Trifolium hay.* The ad libitum amount of molasses or molasses-urea offered daily was fixed at l20 g/sheep. Noug cake was offered at 7 and l4 g, and TH at 75 and l30 g/sheep, respectively. The DM contents of molasses, molasses-urea, noug cake and Trifo lium hay were 73.3, 7l.7, 92.9 and 86.6%, respectively.Sheep, tethered in metabolism cages, had free access to mineralized salt licks and drinking water. The trial consisted of a l0-day preliminary period followed by three 7-day collec tion periods, and a 3-day \"rest\" period between collection periods. During the \"rest\" periods, faecal and urine collectors were removed. Rumen fluid samples were taken with a stomach tube l hour before feeding on the third \"rest\" day, and acidi fied with concentrated sulphuric acid.The mean intake of teff straw by each sheep established during the adaptation period was increased by l5%, and was offered throughout the trial to ensure ad libitum intake. Noug cake and Trifolium hay were given in the morning and were com pletely eaten before teff straw with molasses or molasses-urea was offered. Molasses and molasses-urea were poured onto and thoroughly mixed with each sheepSs daily straw requirement. The ratios of teff straw and molasses or molasses-urea offered each sheep daily were therefore known. The ratios of teff straw and molasses or molasses-urea in the feed offered each sheep was assumed to be the same as those in the feed refused. For example, if 720 g of teff straw + molasses was offered, then the proportion of molasses was l6.7% (l20 g/720 g x l00). If the feed (teff straw + molasses) refused was l50 g, then 25 g molasses (l50 g x 0.l67) was refused. Mixing molasses and mol asses-urea with teff straw was necessitated by the refusal of some sheep to eat these supplements when they were fed sep arately.During the measurement periods, samples of teff straw, molasses, molasses-urea, noug cake and Trifolium hay offered and teff straw or teff straw with urea, molasses or molassesurea were taken and composited. Subsamples of the weekly compo sites were dried at 60°C for 24 hours and ground through a l-mm screen for analyses. Aliquots were dried overnight at l00 °C for DM determinations.Faeces and urine were collected every 24 hours during each collection period. Urine was acidified with concentrated sulphuric acid and measured volumetrically . Aliquots of each sheepSs urine and faecal outputs were refrigerated, bulked at the end of the period and subsampled. Faecal samples were processed as for feeds.Feed, faecal and urine samples were analyzed for N, rumen fluid for ammonia (AOAC l980), and feed and faecal samples for neutral-detergent fibre (NDF) (Goering and Van Soest l970). Apparent digestion coefficients were calculated. All data were subjected to analysis of variance and differences among treat ment means were determined (Snedecor and Cochran l980).The N and NDF contents of feeds offered are shown in Table l, while Table 2 shows the effects of supplementation of teff straw with urea. Adding urea at about 0.7% of the air-dry weight of teff straw offered increased straw intake, apparent DM and NDF digestibilities by 3.7, 8.3 and 7.3%, respectively, but these increases were not significant (P<0.05). Urea supplementa tion significantly increased N digestibility and rumen ammonia concentration. Since about 80% of rumen bacteria may use ammonia as their sole source of N for microbial synthesis (Bryant and Robinson l962), the boost in rumen ammonia concentration result ing from the addition of urea could have contributed to increased feed intake and utilization. The rumen ammonia concentration in sheep on the basal diet was lower but that in urea-supple mented sheep was similar to the 5-8 mg% reported by Satter ans Slyter (l974). It was lower in all sheep in the study than the l5-20 mg% suggested for optimum utilization of fibrous feeds (Krebbs and Leng l984). However, rumen ammonia concentra tion may be an unreliable indicator of the degree of feed utili zation if other factors needed for rumen microbial growth are not supplied in adequate amounts (Hunter and Vercoe l984).Sheep given urea supplemented teff straw excreted 42% more urine volume, containing significantly (P<0.05) 5l% more N than those fed teff straw alone (6.7 vs l0.l g). Since urea represents about 70% of the total urinary N in ruminants (Living stone eit a.l l962), urea-supplemented sheep had a slightly lower N retention than the unsupplemented ones. The effects of molasses or molasses-urea alone, or of molasses or molasses-urea with noug cake and Trifolium hay on feed intake, and DM, N and NDF digestibilities are shown in Table 3. Total feed intake increased significantly (P<0.05) as the level of noug cake nor Trifolium hay with molasses or molasses-urea increased. The 6.5 and l3 g noug cake and 65 and l30 g Trifolium hay supplements represented about l.5, 3.0, l3.9 and 24.4% of the diet DM intake, respectively. Neither level of noug cake nor Trifolium hay suppressed the intake of teff straw. These results agree with those of Mosi and Butterworth (l985) when a forage legume hay comprised l9 and 22% of the diet DM. Preston and Leng (l984) suggested that supple ments may have beneficial effects on the utilization of fibrous feeds if the level of supplementation does not exceed 20% of the diet DM. However, in a trial by Butterworth  (unpublished data), supplementing teff straw up to 42% of the diet DM with a legume hay significantly increased feed utili zation.Adding a small amount (6.5 g) of noug cake with molasses (0.7% N) significantly increased DM, NDF and N digestibilities over molasses alone. However, doubling the amount of noug cake did not significantly increase these parameters beyond the levels obtained with 6.5 g (Table 3). Similar results were obtained when molasses was fed with 65 and l30 g Trifolium hay (except for N digestibility). These data suggest that in a N deficient diet the effects of a N supplement may be greater at the lower levels of supplementation, with additional benefits decreasing as supplementation is increased (Butterworth and Mosi l985). Therefore, the lower levels of noug cake and Tri folium hay are more appropriate for smallholders.When noug cake was fed with molasses-urea, DM and NDF digestibilities were affected differently than observed for molasses. Except for N digestibility, neither level of noug cake improved feed utilization beyond the levels attained with molasses-urea alone. This suggests that the amount of N provided by noug cake was not high enough to significantly affect feed utilization more than molasses-urea, which was moderately (2.l%) high in N. As with molasses, the effects of feeding molassesurea + 24.4% of the diet as Trifolium hay were statistically similar to those of molasses-urea + l3.9% Trifolium hay. The data therefore show that the lower levels of legume and noug cake supplementation were as effective, but more appropriate for small-scale farmers.Dry matter intake and digestibilities of DM, N and NDF were lower in sheep given teff straw supplemented with molasses alone (Table 3), than in those given either teff straw + urea or teff straw alone (Table 2). Therefore, N deficiency may be a greater cause of poor performance in animals given cereal crop residues, than energy deficiency.Nitrogen (urea) supplementation did not only result in better feed intake and utilization than energy (molasses) supp lementation, but was also more economical. At prevailing market prices in Ethiopia (6 and 80 cents/kg for molasses and urea, respectively), about 0.24 and 0.53 cents were spent/sheep/day for single supplements of urea and molasses respectively. Urea is also easier to transport than molasses. Therefore, even if both urea and molasses were available, and could be handled and fed safely, supplementation with urea alone would be more beneficial for small-scale farmers than with molasses alone. Nuwanyakpa et a.l (l986) fed molasses-urea (2.5% urea) ad libitum to Ethiopian highland sheep and observed that teff straw intake and fibre digestibility were negatively correlated with the intake of molasses-urea. The increase in feed utiliza tion associated with molasses-urea (also 2.5% of urea) supple mentation in the present study may have been because the amount of molasses-urea on offer was limited. Loosli and McDonald (l969) stated that in order to improve the utilization of forages with molasses-urea as a supplement, intake of the supplement must be restricted by making the mixture \"unpalatable\" or by limiting the amount offered.Feed intake and utilization were greater when teff straw was supplemented with molasses-urea than molasses. The infer iority of molasses to molasses-urea could be explained by the fact that when molasses is used, even at restricted levels, as the sole supplement to low quality roughages (Peralta and Hughes-Jones l98l), digestibility, rate of passage and volun tary feed intake may be reduced (Sutton l979; Van Niekerk and Jacobs l985). These effects may be caused by the proliferation in the rumen of the fast-growing sugar digesting micro-organisms depriving the slower-growing cellulolytic organisms of what little N is available in the rumen (Gilchrist and Schwartz l972).Molasses-urea (Table 3) significantly (P<0.05) improved DM and N digestibilities, and N retention than urea alone (Table 2) or molasses alone (Table 3), although the dietary proportions of molasses (l4.8%) and molasses-urea (l4.7%) were similar. At each level of noug cake or Trifolium hay, the effects of molasses-urea on teff straw and total feed intake, and nutrient digestibilities were significantly greater than those of molaases, suggesting that the small amount of urea significantly improved the value of molasses as a supplement, perhaps through making more N available for rumen bacterial growth and protein synthe sis .That molasses is a poorer supplement to low quality rough ages than urea or molasses-urea is in agreement with the find ings of Van Niekerk and Jacobs (l985). These workers reported that the intake of sugarcane tops and liveweight gains in cattle were significantly greater with protein (25% true protein and 75% urea) than energy (molasses) supplementation. The greatest performance in cattle was obtained when both supplements were fed together.Sheep performance was better on teff straw + molassesurea than teff straw and urea diets, suggesting that the energy and minerals in the molasses (McKiernan l982) may not only be beneficial at the whole animal level, but also in enhancing the utilization of urea by rumen microbes. As such, administer ing urea as part of a molasses-urea mixture rather than dissol ving it in water and sprinkling onto straw is recommended.As shown in Table 4, N retention in sheep given molassesurea alone was greater than in those given molasses alone. While N retention in sheep supplemented with molasses alone was significantly (P<0.05) lower than in those given molasses + l3 g noug cake, feeding the same amount of noug cake with molasses-urea did not affect N retention. This differential response between molasses and molasses-urea suggests that in the presence of urea, the small amounts of noug cake did not stimulate rumen microbial activity enough to contribute signifi cantly to N retention. Feeding 65 g and l30 g Trifolium hay with molasses or molasses-urea significantly increased N retention over either supplement alone. Greater beneficial effects were obtained with Trifolium hay than with noug cake probably because more N was ingested from Trifolium hay than from noug cake. M.Y. Nuwanyakpa, M. Butterworth and L.J. Lambourne (unpublished data) fed lactating dairy cows a forage legume hay and noug cake at iso-nitrogenous levels, and found that two supplements to be statistically similar in their effects on hay intake, milk production and composition, and molar proportions of str aight -and branched -chain rumen VFAs.Changes in rumen ammonia concentration due to the inclu sion of noug cake or Trifolium hay with molasses or molassesurea were generally non-significant. This may have been due to the fact that the same amount of urea fed was low and that rumen fluid samples were taken 24 hours after noug cake and Trifolium hay had been consumed. With either molasses or molas ses-urea, rumen ammonia concentration was higher in sheep fed Trifolium hay than in those given noug cake (more N was offered through Trifolium hay).The major conclusions drawn from this trial were that: l.Feed intake and utilization were slightly greater in sheep given teff straw + urea than in those fed teff straw alone, and significantly greater than in sheep on teff straw + molasses indicating that N deficiency in cereal crop resi dues may be a greater cause of poor animal performance than energy deficiency. At prevailing market prices in Ethiopia, N (urea) supplementation was also more econo mical than energy (molasses) supplementation.Feed intake was, in general, significantly greater in sheep on teff straw supplemented with molasses-urea than in those supplemented with urea alone. Therefore, urea is more beneficially administered as part of molassesurea mixture rather than being dissolved in water and sprinkled onto a cereal crop residue.Whether given with molasses or molasses-urea, the lower levels of noug cake and Trifolium hay were as effective as molasses or molasses-urea but more affordable and hence recommended for small-holders.Even when offered at a restricted level, molasses decreased the intake of teff straw and reduced the digestibilities of DM, NDF and N, and the retention of N below the levels observed in sheep given unsupplemented teff straw. There fore molasses should probably not be used as the sole supplement to cereal crop residues.At each level of noug cake or Trifolium hay, the effects of molasses-urea on teff straw and total feed intake, and nutrient digestibilities were significantly greater than those of molasses, showing that a small amount of urea significantly improved the supplementary value of molasses.BY CATTLE D Wegad and R D NDumbe Mesres -I.R.Z., Bambui , Cameroon ABSTRACT Twelve (l2) young Zebu bulls of Gudali breed, 276 kg average liveweight and 2\\ years of age were randomly put into 4 groups of 3 animals under intensive feeding system to determine the effect of different protein supplements on growth, and intake of chopped, dried maize stover. A control group was fed stover and libitum only, and the other groups were fed daily 750 g cotton seed cake/head, l kg leucaena hay or 900 g of leucaena/cottonseed cake (66:34; w/w ) . Significant differences were observed on average daily liveweight gains. Animals on leucaena and its mixture registered higher daily gains (236 g) and (325 g) respectively, followed by cotton seed cake (l54 g); The control group lost weight (-8.0 g/d).Contrary to the liveweight gains, animals fed on leucaena and its mixture had lower maize stover intakes, 3.35 kg DM/animal/ day and 3.70 kg DM respectively, while those on cottonseed cake and the control group ingested respectively 4.72 kg DM and 4.l6 kg DM maize stover.It is concluded that during the critical period in the south ern part of Cameroon, small-scale farmers can prevent loss in liveweight by utilizing simple available rations.In southern Cameroon small-scale farmers practise mixed farm ing. Animals, especially ruminants, lose 20 to 30 percent of their liveweight during the dry season due to low productivity of pasture (Hoste l974). Therefore six years of studies on the utilization of rice bran and rice straw in ruminant feeding have been implemented at the animal research centre in Bambui. Satisfa ctory results with the incorporation of l00 percent rice bran (NDumbe l979, l980) and 60 to 80 percent chopped maize stover (NDumbe et al.; l982, l984) were obtained. But the use of concen trate supplements, or the chemical, physical and microbial treat ments generally recommended (Nicholson l98l; Hartley l98l) to im prove the low energy and protein in lignified straw ( Leng et al. l983) are not actually applicable to small scale farmers. There is a great need to prevent weight loss by using simple techniques and readily available rations.A study was therefore undertaken to evaluate the effect of different protein supplements on the growth and feed intake of young bulls fed intensively on chopped dried maize stover.Twelve Gudali Zebu bulls, of average liveweight 276 kg and aged 2*5 years were randomly assigned to 4 groups of 3 animals each. The animals were housed in a roofed, half walled shed with a concrete floor, treated for worms and ectoparasites, and injected with A, D, K, E polyvitamins.A two week adaption period of maize stover was followed by a l2 week experimental period during which maize stover was given ad libitum at the rate of l20% of the intake. The diets were composed of :ad libitum dried chopped maize stover. basal diet + 750 gm cottonseed cake/animal/ day. basal diet + l000 gm leucaena hay/animal/ day basal diet + 900 gm/day of a mixture of leucaena hay and cottonseed cake in the ratio of 66:34 (w/w).The supplement was given separately each morning before the basal diet of maize stover. Water and a mineral supplement (50:50 common salt/bone meal) were given separately ad libi tum. Chopped maize stover and refusals were weighed each morning. Animals were weighed fortnightly from the beginning of the adapta tion period to the end of the experimental period.The chemical composition of maize stover and leucaena was determined using the methods of Van Soest (l967) for cell wall materials and nitrogen was measured by a Kjeldahl procedure; these figures are shown in Table l. Liveweight gains and feed intake were submitted to analysis of variance and FisherSs test was applied to determine signifi cant differences among treatments.Intakes of maize stover and liveweights are given in table 2. Cottonseed cake slightly but non-signif icantly increased maize stover intake, but both leucaena and leucaena/cottonseed mixture reduced maize stover intake significantly (P<0.5). Table 2 shows that the liveweight gains (LWG) of the supple mented groups differed significantly from each other, and all significantly exceeded that from the basal diet of maize stover, which produced weight loss (-8 g/animal/day ) . In terms of LWG, leucaena hay alone was more effective for animals than cotton seed cake alone. Animals supplemented with the mixture of leuc aena hay and cottonseed cake registered the highest LWG, showing the mixed supplement to have been more beneficial for cattle growth than either supplement alone. In the three supplemented groups, the quantity of supplementary protein was the same, and thus LWG was significantly affected by the source of supple mentary protein. Morgan (l977) observed in sheep that finely ground cotton seed meal provided animals with by-pass protein resulting in increased total feed intake (Leng and Preston,l983). The low voluntary intake of maize stover could be the result both of low crude protein content and low digestibility (Finn l976), in turn probably related to its high lignin content (l2%) which limits the fermentable energy available (Lindberg et al.,l984).While both leucaena hay alone and its mixture with cotton seed cake significantly decreased maize stover intake, the effect of leucaena alone was relatively more pronounced. This might have been due either to its lignin content (l2% as in corn stover) or to the toxic effect of mimosine (Jones et al.,l983) which was not assessed, but in view of the gains observed, probably unimportant.It is concluded that small-scale farmers could avoid animal wieght loss during the critical period of the year by using small quantities of higher quality supplements, and consequently reduce animal mortality and weakness due to malnutrition.A survey of sheep and goat production systems in Cameroon showed that nutrition, especially in the dry season, and the tethering management practice, are the principal constraints to increased meat and milk production from these species. This study attempts to evaluate the use of cassava by-products as feedstuffs for animals in an attempt to avoid weight losses normally observed during this period (mid-November to mid-March).Cameroon produces an estimated 620 thousand tonnes (t) of cassava (Manihot esculentum Crantz) annually, the by-products of which amount to 37.2 thousand t of leaves, 74.4 thousand t of peels and 528 thousand t of stems. Currently these by-products are used as manure, or fuel in the case of stems. Some leaves are used as human food. Cassava contains the cyanogenic glucosides linamarin [2(B -D -glucopyranosyloxy ) isobutyronitrile] and lotaustralin [2(B -D -glucopyranosyloxy) 2 -methylbutyronitrile] which yield HCN on hydrolysis; apparently grass-eaters are somewhat adapted to dispose of this poison and its metabolic products (Oke l973, Devendra l977).Sonaiya and Omole (l98l) demonstrated that growing rabbits successfully utilized a ration containing 40% cassava peel meal. Eshiett, Omole and Ademosun (l98l) fed five-week old rabbits on rations containing 0, l5, 30 or 40% cassava root meal and found liveweight performance and carcass quality to be similar on all rations. Adebowale (l98l) fed sheep fermented cassava peels at levels of 0 , 20, 40 or 60% in the diet over a 6 month period. The 40 and 60% cassava peel rations had lower digestibilities of dry matter, crude fibre and TDN, feed intake, body weight gain and feed efficiency, but had no effects on weights of liver and hides.In this work the effects of including sun dried cassava leaves with the diet were examined in rabbits and sheep.Animals: 36 four-week old rabbits, (l8 male, l8 female crossbred New Zealand x chinchilla x Californian) were allocated to three groups each of 6 males and 6 females, and fed diets containing 50, 62.5 or 75% cassava leaf (Table l). Water and feed were given ad libitum with feeding being carried out twice a day. The feed and water were supplied in clay croques and the animals were allowed l2 hours of light. The temperature ranged from 23.2°C to 28.3°C. Ten hour fasted weights were obtained every week and the experiment lasted four weeks. In the second trial, nine rams of initial weight 24.3 kg were fattened on three test diets (Table 2) using a 3 x 3 latin square design over 3 months . Cassava leaf and peels Cassava leaf including petioles and cassava peels were obtained from l5 month-old plants and were sundried on black polythene sheets for about 2-3 days. Old leaves, seeds and stems were picked out and the rest bagged in jute sacks and stored until ready to be fed. Leaves contained 74 mg HCN/kg leaf and peels contained 203.4 mg/HCN/kg determined by the agentometric method.Table 3 shows that sex differences and ration effects were not statistically significant as far as rabbits fed graded levels of cassava leaves were concerned. However, female rabbits tended to eat less feed (66.0 g/d vs 7l.2 g/d) and grew slightly faster (l8.8 g/d vs l8.0 g/d). Female rabbits are generally heavier than male rabbits. There was a tendency for higher feed intakes and higher weight gains with higher levels of cassava leaf in the diet. There were no differences between sexes or rations in efficiency of feed utilization, and no rabbits died nor were any cases of diarrhoea observed. Harris et a.l (l98l) fed several tropical forages to wean ling rabbits and observed daily weight gains of 33 g/rabbit and a feed/gain of 3.38 for rabbits fed cassava leaf -based diets. These workers observed no mortalities nor diarrhoea cases with these diets, but diarrhoea did occur in rabbits fed low saponin alfalfa, winged bean and Stylosanthes quianensis .The low weight gains observed in this trial may be due to the fact that the feed was not pelleted and was scattered. Harris, Cheeke and Patton (l983) showed that feeding non-pell eted diets resulted in much feed being scattered. Nevertheless, cassava leaf based diets for rabbits show promise, and will reduce competition for other protein sources such as oil seed cakes as well as supplying the fibre required for rabbit growth.In the second trial (Table 4) the sheep fed diets with cassava peel grew significantly better (P<0.05) than those fed the elephant grass diet (227 g/d vs 45.2 g/d ) . The differences could be attributed to higher intakes of digestible dry matter. The cassava peels also contributed additional soluble carbohy drate (8%) as peels were removed from tubers in pencil sharpen ing format. Adebowale (l98l) fed fermented cassava peel to sheep and observed depressed weight gains as the level of peel increased in the diet. It is possible that fermented cassava peels dep ressed rumen function, while in the present work, sundried cassava did not. The diets were palatable and no sheep died nor showed any adverse effects.Cassava peels show great potential in sheep and goat pro duction in Cameroon not only in preventing dry season weight losses but also in supporting growth. The technology of feed stuff preparation is simple, not labour intensive and easily applicable to farmer situations.Before the recent droughts and human population explosion, feeding animals on pasture and cultivatable land for food crops did not present any problem. Economics demand maximum inclusion of agricultural and agro-industrial by-products in animal diets to save as much cereals and oil seeds for human consumption as possible.Many successful approaches to improving the nutritive value of these by-products are now practised either through alkali treatments, feeding with leguminous forage or supple mentation of the deficient nutrients by adding urea, molasses, vitamin A and some minerals. Such improved by-product based diets may satisfy the maintenance requirements of animals. Feeding for production or reproduction necessitates supple menting the by-product based diet with some nutritious concent rates to a level around 30% of the diet dry matter. The supple ment in this case should be rich in protein, energy and vitamin A. It may, therefore, be expensive, especially under most small farmer conditions.The present results describe the adaptation of the hydroponic technique to obtain an adequate supplement at a reason able cost.The hydroponic technique Rice straw was chopped and spread over a plastic sheet as a bedding for maize and barley seeds. Used fertilizer bags were spread close together to form the sheet. The grains ;o8 were sown on the surface of the bedding, and left in the open air. Irrigation was applied frequently by spraying tap water until the seedlings reached a height of 30 cm. The final product, consisting of the bedding and sprouts, was offered to sheep as the sole diet.The technique was tried in winter with barley and in summer with maize. Mould growth was prevented by adding 4% chlorax in the irrigating water; at the beginning and on the 7th day. The mould disinfectant was not detectable in the bedding four days after application. It did not apparently cause any harm to the animals.The effect of the length of chopped rice straw was investigated, using three lengths (l, 3.5 and 7 cm), and three bedding depths (4, 8 and l2 cm) were also compared. The bedding was irrigated with 7, l4 or 2l litres per m2 per day. Irrigation was carried out at three frequencies, once or twice per day and every other day. Foliar fertilizer was dissolved in the irrigating water at one or two parts per million.The voluntary feed intkae (g/head/day) and dry matter digestibility of this products were estimated. An economical evaluation was also carried out.There were no significant differences between any of the treat ments in dry matter production of the sprouts, although increas ing depth of the bedding showed a tendency to promote higher production (Table l), possibly through greater water holding capacity and reduced evaporation. The results also indicated that a grain to bedding ratio by weight of l:2 was preferable to ratios of l:l or l:4 (Table 2). Perhaps higher grain density caused competition by the sprouts for nutrients in the bedding, while light density may have been inadequate for optimum photosynthetic activity. Athough frequency of irrigation and rate of foliar fertilizer application showed no significant effect on the DM yield from sprouts, water tended to be more effective when it was applied at three times the weight of the bedding. Sheep consumed the product at the rate of 86 g/kgwO-75/ /day, and the digestibility of DM approximated 57%. Total crude protein content in the shoots ranged between 20 and 25. Three to l0% of the dry matter of the bedding was contibuted by the root network of the sprouts. Tables l and 2 indicate that the weight of grains increased about 6 times in two weeks. This would mean that 4.25 tons of grain sown on 8.5 tons of chopped by-products (maize stover or cobs) and irrigated with 450 cubic meters of water, repeated over 20 cropping batches each of l5 days would result in the production of l50 tons of a nutritious feed containing ll% crude protein and 55% TDN. This technique reduces the need for extended land areas for producing animal feed and also cuts down the water demand for cropping 0.5 ha from l4-l6 thousand mVyear to only 9000 m1.If a diet of roughage and concentrate in the ratio of l:l is sought it is recommended that 20% maize or barley grains be added to chopped roughage and irrigated for some l4 days. The price of the roughage by-product material may be one sixth of the price of grain. The two weekSs old sprout is very rich in protein, low in fibre and is high in digestibility. It also contains high levels of carotene.The sprouts can be fertilized by any nitrogenous ferti lizer to improve their true protein content. They supply the by-product based diet with easily fermentable carbohydrates, vitamin A-precursor, true protein and improve its palatability and digestibility. The technology reduces the costs of feed production by reducing rent on land and irrigating water, while maximizing the benefits of photosynthetic activity through such an intensive cropping system.The increasing costs of manufactured feeds, and the declining land area available for grazing and/or pasture production due to human population pressure have led to a growing interest in the utilization of crop by-products to feed livestock. Although crop by-products are available in large quantities, they do not in all cases occur at user sites. Their bulkiness and low value cause the costs accociated with transportation to be high. In addition, their removal from the fields and transportation may have to be done within a short time period to avoid spoilage by rain or to give way to field cultivation.Smallholder dairy production in the Hai District is concen trated in the highland zone. The bulk of the crop by-products, mainly maize stover and bean straw, are obtained from the lowland zone. The average distance from the homestead in the highland zone to the farm plots on the lowland zone is l5 km (Urio and Mlay, unpublished data). By-products are transported in loose form using either human power or hired trucks. The loose form of transporting the by-products apart from leading to wastage, contributes to high cost per unit weight since volume limits the quantity that can be transported per trip. Baling would be one way to maximize the weight of by-products that can be trans ported per trip. Transport charges are fixed by contract and can be very variable. A survey conducted in the study area in March, l986 showed that the average cost to transport a load of by-products over a distance of 7.5 km is Sh. 750. It is felt that costs associated with utilization of by-products can be reduced if the Cooperative movement undertakes on a commercial basis the function of baling and transportation of the by-products to user sites.The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the applica tion of mathematical programming techniques in planning the trans portation of the by-products to user sites such that costs are minimized.In the Hai District, three zones have been identified as having the potential for large scale baling of maize stover and bean straw. These are Sadala-Weruweru, Sanya-West Kilimanjaro and Boma Ngo Smbe-Lawate. Ten user sites are considered in the problem and these are Mowo Njamu, Kirisha, Mae, Wanri, Siha, Kyuu, Nguni, Lukani, Machame and Lyamungo. The by-products are to be moved to central locations in the user sites, and these are selected to coincide with the location of the primary societies. Several of these central locations can be reached by more than one route. Since the cost of delivery is affected by distance travelled per unit of product delivered, any procedure which will result in driving a shorter distance or spending less time enroute while providing the same services can contribute to lower costs and improved marketing efficiency. Algebraically the transportation model can be presented as follows:In the second case it is assumed that this source supplies 22% of the dry matter requirements. In both cases, bean straw is set at 33% to reflect the limited supply. These assumptions gene rate two sets of demands as presented in table 3, hence permitt ing the observation of how costs change. A standard linear prog ramming package is used to generate an optimum solution. Z92S S92E IES2 ZSEI S0* 0 S S S 0 0 0 S S 0 0 S 0 0 S 0 0 0 0  The objective of the optimisation model is to select source and routes to deliver by-products to user sites to satisfy specific demands. In the case when maize stover and bean straw provide l6% of the required dry matter, the total cost of delivering the required quantities is Tz Sh l,472,54l. When the percentage contribution of dry matter from these two sources is raised to 22%, the total cost becomes TZ Sh 4,490,276 which is a 20.5% in crease. The increase in dry matter contribution from crop residues has caused activities which were excluded in the initial solution to enter the optimum solution. Details of the results are presented in tables 4 and 5.In addition to providing the optimum solution and costs for transporting the required quantities to user sites, shadow prices for activities in solution and exhausted resources are provided (Tables 4, 5). The shadow prices show how the optimum solution would change if a unit of the activity not in solution was forced into solution or if a unit of an exhausted resource was made available. These prices allow a user to evaluate the solution to see whether a change is required.Although not implemented in the present analysis, sensitiv ity analysis on unit transport costs could be performed. This would permit the evaluation of the stability of the optimum trans portation plan when unit costs on some of the routes change. The tool is therefore quite useful in evaluating alternatives before resources are committed, and can assist in planning an efficient crop by-products marketing system. One recommended means of relieving the nutritional constraint is to incorporate forage legumes into animal diets. Such legumes can be grown in pure stands on farms, incorporated into natural pastures, intercropped or cultivated in fodder banks. Progress in such incorporation on the sub-continent has been slow. This paper seeks to explain why it has been slow by showing how forages fit into farming systems. The use of forage legumes in this paper is discussed in the contexts of seasonality of other feeds, parti cularly natural pastures and crop residues, the seasonality in animal movements, the competitiveness for land and labour of forage legumes with other feeds in smallholder as well as pastoral production systems in sub-saharan Africa. The paper argues that the principal constraints to the introduction of forage legumes into smallholder and pastoral systems is not their supply, that is, not the fact that they do not grow in sufficient quantities but that they are demanded only in special circumstances, ones which are not generally found in the sub-continent. This explana tion then serves as the basis for some speculations about the kinds of technical research which might be carried out to accele rate the incorporation of such legume crops into the current animal production systems.The paper also discusses forage legumes in the contexts of seasonality, competiveness and complementarity and shows how these attributes fit into the smallholder and pastoral systems. The reasons why forage legumes are not widely adopted on the sub-continent are discussed. This is followed by a discussion of research implications and recommendations.Forages play varying roles in the different livestock production systems. In general, however, they are important as adjuncts to crop residues and natural pastures and may be used to fill the feed gaps during the periods of inadequate crop residue and 5 S a.St. e <o ll9 natural pasture supply. Even in the presence of abundant crop residues, which are often free feed for ruminants, forage crops, especially legumes, are needed to improve the utilization of crop residues. Crop residues are potential energy sources while forage legumes provide protein. Forages also provide benefits to other crops. When used in rotation with other crops, they provide bene fits such as soil fertility through their nitrogen-fixing ability and are also useful in breaking insect, weed or disease cycles which are likely to occur in their absence. In many situations, however, forages compete with other crops. In land-scarce small holder systems, forages may compete with other crops for land, while in land-abundant pastoral systems, they may compete for the herderSs labour.A common production problem faced by past lists as well as smallholders is the seas and quality of animal feeds; particularly crop residues. In the absence of irrigati duction profile of natural pastures and dry, wet and post-harvest seasons is show cal axis shows total availability of crop pastures, assumed to be of quality adequa production. The horizontal axis depicts t oralists, agro-pastoraonality in the quantity natural pastures and on, a hypothetical prorop residues in the in Figure l. The vertiresidues and natural te for maintenance and he production calendar.Crop resi their maximum at the end of in the post-ha rise sooner du supply rises f the cropping s 50% during the to proposition may be of rele dues are only about 20% early in the cropping s the cropping season and rvest season. Natural pa ring the cropping season rom about 30% availabili eason, peaks towards l00 post-harvest season. Th l about the supplementa vance to forage research available, relative to eason, peak towards l00% then decline to about 60% sture supply begins to than crop residues. The ty at the beginning of % and declines to about is kind of pattern leads ry role of forages which Proposition l: Forages are most useful during periods of low quantity and quality of crop residues and natural pastures.Seasonality in animal movements can be defined according to the degree of crop-livestock interactions depicted in Figure 2. Limited animal move ments; more use of crop residues.Animals kept on farm year round; crop resi dues form the main available roughage.With low interations, there are extensive nomadic movements of animals characterized by free grazing of natural pastures. There is little cropping and crop residues are unavailable for feeding animals. With low to moderate interaction, there is more crop production and less animal movement. More crop residues are fed as herds are closer to sites of crop production. With high integration, animals are kept on the farm year round and consume crop residues as a major share of their diet. Herds are generally less mobile in such systems. This explanation leads to the proposition 2 about forage production vis-a-vis seasonal movement of animals: Proposition 2: The less mobile a herd is, the more favourable are conditions for forage production and vice versa.In the African context crop-livestock relations are positively related to population density. At very low population density, animals and crops will be managed by separate units and there will be little physical contact between the two; animals will graze open pastures. This situation introduces proposition 3. Proposition 3: At low population densities, a new crop such as forage legumes will compete for the farmerSs labour.Under high population density, there will be very close interaction; animals will graze crop residues and will be managed and owned by cultivators, a system that generates proposition 4.Proposition 4: At high population and cultivation densities, a new crop such as forage legumes competes for land.In addition to contributing to soil nitrogen and providing a break in cereal dominated rotations, forage legumes contribute significantly to livestock production in crop-livestock systems. Low quality crop residues need nitrogen supplementation, which could be provided by forage legumes, to become productive diets. In the Ethiopian highlands, for example, Vicia faba is not fed to livestock except in combination with cereal straw (Anderson l985). It is also possible that forage legumes will increase both food crop production and quantity of crop residues available for livestock feed.The use of forages during the cropping season for smallholders depends on animal mobility. Where animals are not mobile, forage production is an option if their benefits exceed the combined opportunity cost of such substitutes as leaf strippings, crop thinnings, pastures or cut hays. As noted above, where animals are highly mobile, then they are distant from forage production sites and would only benefit from such forage if conserved for the dry season. In terms of wet season use we propound proposi tion 5.Proposition 5: Because of earlier pasture growth during the wet season, forages are not likely to have a comparative advantage at that time unless they are selected for rapid early growth and can support higher grazing pressure. However, if pasture land is limited, forages may be an option in the wet season. This proposition holds whatever the degree of mobility.Under normal weather conditions, crop residues become available in high quantity soon after harvesting. Their utilization, in most cases, is not labour intensive since they can be grazed in situ and may be preferred to forages in the post-harvest season. They may contain high quality fractions for a short period after harvesting. In such a situation proposition 6 can be advanced.Proposition 6: Crop residues will dominate forage use during the post-harvest season if they are of high enough quality to be fed alone.Although the post-harvest period is short, it is probably the least relevant for forages. An exception is found in root crop systems where crop residues are less available.This is the most relevant time for forages because of the general absence of crop residues (unless preserved earlier) and natural pastures. The critical constraint is soil moisture, but if forage can be cultivated on residual moisture it can fill the feed gap. The alternative is the use of conserved forages from the wet season for dry season use.African pastoral systems are subsistence-oriented and based on seasonal milk production. The system is characterized by an acute conflict between milk intake for calves and milk offtake by humans. Because of low nutritional levels and lack of water, an animalSs ability to produce milk under stress and to survive may be more important to pastoralists than high yields.The introduction of forage crops into the pastoral system requires different considerations than in the smallholder system. First, potential conpetition between forages and crop residues is low or non-existent mainly because the system is not based on crop production. Second, labour use in pastoral systems is much less than in cropping systems. Third, local spatial risk in a pastoral environment is probabaly higher than in an annual cropping system. In the pastoral system there is a strong incen tive for animal mobility to minimize risks. These considerations lead to the following propositions about the place of forage legumes in a pastoral system: Proposition 7: The introduction of forage crops in a pastoral system implies less herd mobility, more total labour input per production unit, and higher short-term risks.Proposition 8: Forage crops might be suitable for herds which are at least partially sedentary. If such herds are managed by women and children leaving the men to manage the mobile herd, labour demands for forages would be high relative to supply.Proposition 9: Forages in pastoral systems would not face compet ition from crop residues and would not compete for land, but might compete with natural pastures in the wet season and for herding labour.Loss of competition from crop residues means that, in con trast to smallholder systems, the post-harvest/early dry seasons are highest potential periods for forages. In view of the conflict between milk for calves and for humans, options for forages may be to supplement dams or calves. But it is better to grow forages for these purposes or to grow food crops for humans and leave milk for calves? Food crops face the same water constraint and the same labour constraint that forages face if there is exten sive herd mobility. However, in terms of productivity in calor ies per labour input, food crops may be more efficient. It is to be understood that food crops and forages are only a solution to the milk conflict for that part of the herd that stays near the home site. For the mobile part, neither forages nor crops are an option and the mobility conflict remains.The above considerations apply to a smallholder or to a pastoralist producing forage crops for his own animals. What if he pro duces forage for sale? Demand constraints, in terms of competi tion from crop residues and pastures, still apply by season. Therefore what is necessary is an external market for forage and animal products. Such markets would usually be urban where there is year-round demand for milk and no seasonal competition from pastures and crop residues. On the supply side, the same arguments apply. Forage production will be done if it does not compete for land and if it is not too labour intensive; proposi tion l0. Proposition l0: Forage production for sale will occur on common properties where land competition is low; the only costs to the producer will be collecting and transportation. It will also occur on private lands of low quality.However, both sites are unfavourable production, irrespec tive of its labor intensity, but they provide saleable fodder at low cost. Production from marginal lands will fall when popu lation density rises enough to make it necessary to cultivate or graze such lands.Proposition ll: Specialized forage production will occur where urban demand is good, or where the specialized producer can assure food supplies via the market, or he is a small part of an extended family who has no responsibility for family food supply.Forage crops are neither widely adopted for own use nor for spe cialized production; principally because of demand and supply constraints unique to forages and the production system. There are two conflicting forces militating against forage adoption in smallholder and pastoral or agro-pastoral systems. One is land abundance and site heterogeniety associated with it. Land abundance is unfavourable to forage use in extensive smallholder and in pastoral and agro-pastoral systems because such systems are based on herd mobility and on cropping with low labour input per hectare. Accordingly, forages compete with pastures and crop residues which can be grazed at low labour input (Propositions 2, 3 and 6). In pastoral systems, the structure of labour input is also unfavourable to intensive forage production (Propositions 7 and 8 ) .The second force is land scarcity, since forage production must then compete with food crop production for land (Proposition 4). In land-scarce smallholder systems with close integration of crops and animals, crop residues are the main animal feed. The availability of crop residues reduces the demand for forages. Lack of herd mobility and irrigation would be favourable to forage production.Forage crops are not widely adopted as specialized products for sale mainly because of the structure of market demand. As mentioned earlier, specialized forage markets would usually be urban. Problems of transporting cut forage and the impossibility of transporting uncut forage limit use to production sites, for the producerSs own animals. The specialized producer is also likely to face competition from the other feeds.The preceding sections highlight seasonality and other considera tions in forage production and adoption in the smallholder and pastoral agro-pastoral systems. The challenge to forage research ers is to match this erratic pattern with continued feed require ments throughout the year.In the wet season, forage demand is constrained by the ex istence of competitors such as grass, crop thinnings and leaf strippings . Forages must be selected to fit into relatively small or specialized niches to provide additional benefits. A selection strategy for the wet season would have to select for: a) earliness; that is forages which can be sown with the first rains to provide major benefits before grasses, thinnings and leaf strippings become available. b) tolerance for intercropping; if forages can be grown as intercrops, in whatever spatial arrangement, then they do not compete for land and compete less for labour than forages grown in pure stands. They may in addition suppress weeds and fix nutrients, both of which would benefit the other crop in the mixture, and c) tolerance for marginal environments; select those which thrive on marginal lands or which can fit into fallow cycles. Each of these niches may be small and research for fitting into one might entail high experimental costs.Assuming no severe crop failures, crop residues become avail able at low labour costs in the post-harvest season. If they are of high enough quality and type to be fed alone, forages become less important as animal feed in this season. A selection strategy for forages would include selection for harvest when crop residues are no longer available or when their quality falls off. These might be forages grown in relay systems, or those planted with residual moisture after the main harvest. selection for forages which do not interfere with land pre paration for the next cropping season. The latter conflict may be particularly severe in bi-modal rainfall regimes, where the short rains are necessary to prepare land for the crop in the long rains. It should be noted that browse species meet most of these criteria.Research emphasis should be in areas of high population density with low herd mobility. Research into intercropping, serial and relay cropping of cereals with legumes, and alley cropping might increase feed without diverting land from food crops. Forage research emphasis should also be on marginal lands unsuitable for food crop production or with residual moisture available after harvests. Forage research should be carefully evaluated in extensive smallholder areas, and in pastoral areas. The adv antages of extensive grazing are such that it will be difficult to adopt forages unless some very special conditions are met. In these areas, supplementation should be provided by purchased supplements since they do not pose a conservation problem, do not compete for labour, and do not inhibit mobility.The updating of the existing feed data base to allow the construction of feed supply and demand profiles is essential for estimating feed gaps which might be filled by forages. Forage crops can then be screened for periods during which they are available and for their competitiveness and complementarity with other crops.The use of irrigation trials should be viewed with scepti cism. The reasoning here is that the constraint to forage use is not production, that is the capacity to grow them, but the demand for them by livestock owners in view of the alternatives available. Therefore, irrigation trials, while they provide useful information on growth characteristics, do not address the funda mental issue, which is fitting forages into existing systems. Even though irrigation gives a powerful impetus to forage pro duction and use by providing high quality feed in the dry season, it is relatively rare in sub-saharan Africa and should not be the main focus of a research programme.The present forage valuation system may be underestimating the economic profitability of forage crops. An economic valua tion of any crop comes down to a comparison between crop value and crop cost. Forage crops, being intermediate products, suffer from difficulties and inconsistencies in their valuation. There is generally no accepted yield unit, hence no consistent valua tion method for forages. Forage yields are directly valued in tons per hectare, dry matter (DM), animal unit months (AUMs) of carrying capacity, beef, milk or wool produced per hectare, or as nutritional components such as total digestible nutrients (TDN) or crude protein (CP). Indirectly, many prefer to value forages by starting from the final product and inputting forage value backwards. Since different valuation methods result in various economic values, research emphasis could be directed towards a consistent valuation method for forage crops.Anderson F.M. l985. \"Farmer Circumstances in Ethiopia and the Improvement of Animal Feed Resources\" Paper presented at the PANESA Workshop on \"Animal Feed Resources for Small-Scale Livestock Producers\", Nairobi, Kenya, Nov. ll-l5.The need to increase milk production by the peri-urban smallscale farmers in Botswana is seen as a major objective by the Ministry of Agriculture during the current six-year National Development Plan; (NDP6-l985-9l ) . Achievement of such object ives require investigating additional feed resources for live stock nutrition. Land suitable for arable farming is used mainly for cash and subsistence crops rather than for forage cropping.To compensate for the increased need for milk on one hand and to examine the production potential of small farms, a re search project was conducted and sponsored by the Animal Pro duction Research Unit (APRU) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Botswana and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada.The objectives of this work were to: l.Increase milk production by the animals owned by the small scale farmers.Investigate the feeding and nutritive value of forages and by-products introduced to milking cows on-farm and on-station.Technical and economic evaluation of new interventions, such as the introduction of dual-purpose crossbreds and fodder crops.The project area included four villages situated between l5 -20 km from Gaborone. The average rainfall was 3l6-4l4mm in l985.At the end of the harvest season in June, l985 all project farmers were encouraged to collect crop residues and legumes from their farms. Previous estimates of cereal crop residues for sorghum, millet and maize were l.22, l.l5 and l.l6 ton of dry matter (DM) per hectare, respectively (Mosienyane l983). In l985 the average DM yield of lablab hay (Lablab purpureus ) was l.2 ton per hectare. Dry matter yield of cereal crop resi dues and lablab hay from farmerSs fields ranged from l20 kg to 2,940 kg per farm (table l). The wide variation in cereal stover yield was attributed to the low rainfall during l985. The in vitro digestion coefficients of the crop residues and fodder legumes harvested by farmers are given in table 3. Digestibility of dry matter (DMD) and organic matter (OMD) were lower for the cereal stovers (maize, sorghum and millet) than those of the fodder legume and cowpea stover. Digestibility of maize stover exceeded those of sorghum and millet stovers. The results show that higher digestibility coefficients were related to higher crude protein and lower crude fibre contents ( tables 2 and 3 ) .It is clear that cereal crop residues need to be fed in association with supplements of higher crude protein and energy contents to meet the animals requirements for growth and milk production. The rationale for introducing the legume fodders in the farming system was, therefore, to formulate diets that could satisfy nutritional requirements for pregnant and/or lactating dairy cows. As shown in table 3 the crude protein content of lablab (l6.4%) and velvet bean (l6.27%) were as high as that reported for lucerne hay (l6.0% NRC l970).In the rural production situation the opportunity to improve the quality of cereal stover based diets is either by providing a high quality legume fodder or by feeding moroko ( a by-product of the local milling process of sorghum) or by a combination of both.As part of the programme to evaluate alternative manage ment interventions three winter feeding systems were carried out for the on-farm trials involving twelve farmers in the project. The objectives of the comparative feeding trial were to determine voluntary feed intake and performance of lactating cows fed sorghum stover supplemented with either lablab or moroko. Bonemeal salt (l:l) or Dicalcium phosphate/salt (l:2) were available to animals at free choice.Twelve farmers were divided into three groups to carry out a winter feeding trial on crossbred Simmental and Tswana cows in groups each of four head. The crossbred Simmental were provided by Government on an exchange basis with the Tswana cows from farmers. The treatments (feed systems) used by these three groups of farmers to feed their lactating cows were: 85% sorghum stover and l5% lablab (TRT A) 75% sorghum stover and 25% moroko (TRTB) l00% sorghum stover (TRTC) All treatments had ad libitum phosphate lick.The average chemical composition of the sorghum stover based diets as fed during the trial are shown in table 4. Crude protein in sorghum stover (5.5%) was lower than the 7.0% maintenance requirements. Supplementation with either lablab (l5%) or mor oko (25%) increased the crude protein in the diet to 7.40% and 7.0l% respectively. Table 4 also shows that the crude pro tein contribution to the diet by lablab and moroko were 37.7% and 39.4% respectively, implying therefore that l5% lablab and 25% moroko are equivalent in their contributions as supple ments. Mean daily dry matter (DM) intake (kg) and DM intake (kg) per l00 kg of body weight during the trial period for the three treatments are giver in table 5. The higher intake of the moroko diet was attributed to the concentrated form of the bran which was fed first, before the sorghum stover. The DM intakes of the first and the third diets were close to the amount required to cover the requirement of suckling cows of 350 kg liveweight (NRC l970).Roughage consumption of 2 kg per l00 kg liveweight is considered satisfactory during the late stage of the lactation period (Crampton and Harris l969). The average daily milk yield (kg) per herd and per cow during the milking period for the different treatments is given in table 6. Recorded daily milk yield does not include milk left for the calf. To initiate milk let down, calves were allowed 30 seconds to suckle before milking and put back to dams l hr after milking. The results showed that both Simmental crossbreds and Tswana cows on TRT B produced higher daily milk yields than cows on TRT A. (2) Data from l3 cows of 4 farmers.( 3 ) Data from 9 cows of 3 farmers . All cows lost weight from September to January primarily due to parturition as well as the drought conditions (table 7). By January l986 SX and TS cows on TRT A and TRT B had lost l7.8, l5.6, 24 and 2l% of their initial liveweight, respectively. However, by March, l986 the liveweight losses decreased to 6.6, 7.2, l0.7 and l0.l% of their initial liveweight respectively. On-station feeding trial A comparative on-station partial milking system had been going on at the Research Station since l98l using both Tswana and crossbred Simmental cows. Results from investigations on the partial milking system conducted by APRU indicated the improved potential for milk production by the Simmental crossbred cows as compared to the Tswana cows (APRU l983/84). Response to supplementation (Dairy meal) was evident during the period after deterioration of range grazing quality in March. Both types of cows produced higher milk yields in this period when their feed was supplemented. The results showed no advantage in supple mentation of the feed during the normal grazing season (APRU l984). There was no improvement in the performance of either cow or calf to supplementation and therefore, unless feed costs are very low, supplementation must be regarded as of marginal benefit during active pasture fodder growth.The trial was redesigned using Tswana, half-bred Simmental and three-quarter-bred Simmental cows to evaluate milk produc tion and response of both cow and calf performance to altern ative feed supplements. Within a breed type, cows were randomly allocated to treatments in calving sequence. Tswana cows (TS) received so supplement, half-bred Simmental were divided into two groups, with or without moroko supplement, while the threequarter-bred Simmental (SSX) received either moroko or dairy concentrate. Calves from either treatment were divided into two groups, with and without moroko. The herd was milked twice daily with recorded milk being total milk less that suckled by calf.Table 8 provides the lactation data according to breed and supplementation treatment. The drought conditions which pre vailed in l984/85 meant that throughout the grazing season (20 weeks of lactation) the cows had to be fed additional fodder in the form of either crop residues or medium quality hay.Due to poor quality of the fodder, milk yields became low and continued declining progressively. The effects of supplementation are summarised in Table 8. In the SX group there was only a small response to feeding moroko, mainly towards the end of lactation when the roughage diet was mainly maize/sorghum stover. The lactation yields were not significantly different (P>0.l0) between animals fed moroko or no-moroko (Table 8). Mean lactation lengths between the two feed treatments were significant (P<0.l0). There were 269 days for animals consuming moroko versus 245 days for those who were not supplemented.There were no differences (P>0.l0) in total lactation yield and lactation length in the SSX fed moroko versus those fed the dairy concentrate (Table 8). Comparisons between the breeds revealed higher lactation yield for SX and SSX compared to TS because of greater lactation persistence of the former. Milk yields in the SSX were 2.5 times those of the TS group.The TS cows had a net post-calving gain of l.6% while the unsupplemented and supplemented SX gained 5.l and 6% res pectively. There was no effect of the level of supplementation on the SSX who gained on average 6% of post-calving liveweight. The poor performance of the cows can be attributed to the drought conditions that prevailed during the trial.Table 9 shows the performance of calves fed with or with out moroko. The progeny of the TS cows were bred from pure Tswana or Tuli whilst those of SX and SSX were bred by a Simmen tal bull. The results are expressed in terms of liveweight gain to 2l0 and 305 days corrected for sex and date of birth. Liveweight gains were generally poor, reflecting both the rate of milk extraction (twice per day) and the poor fodder situation. Liveweights at 2l0 days from weaning were 40% below the expected weights of ranch calves of these breeds under good grazing conditions. However, by 305 days, when the calves were weaned, liveweights were 25% lower than those from APRU ranches. The potential for self-sufficiency in feeding dual purpose cattle based on crop residues was confirmed for milk production.Cereal crop residues are available to all farmers and since they are low in crude protein content, there is a need to supple ment them with high protein legumes (cowpeas) and fodder crops (lablab) or locally produced milling by-products (moroko). The feeding systems based on natural grazing (summer) and feed ing of conserved crop residues (winter) are the most practical.Further research is needed to investigate economic methods of allocating land for both feed for human consumption and livestock. Conservation methods for crop residues and other legumes should continue to assess the full benefits to be der ived from these fibrous materials. The great importance of milk in the animal production systems of African smallholders is widely recognized, and the benefit of increased milk yields gained by introducing exotic breeds, particularly the Friesian, for crossing with indigenous stock, has also been demonstrated (Schaar et al l98l). For example, a large study in Southern Ethiopia (Kiwuwa et al l983) demonstr ated that the mean milk production of local Bos indicus cattle (approx. 2.7 kg/day and 870 kg/lactation) was greatly increased in their Friesian crossbreds (approx. 6 kg/day, and 2000 kg/lacta tion), in conditions where concentrate feeding was practised.While the feeding of concentrates is impractical in many areas, significant quantities of agro-industrial by-products frequently are available to supplement poor quality grass or crop residues that form the basis of many ruminant diets in Africa. In Ethiopia such a by-product is noug cake, a widely available high protein meal, the residue after extraction of oil from the seed of Guizotia abyssinica.The Nutrition programme at ILCA is designed to emphasize the efficient utilization of readily available resources for optimal animal production, and this paper reports an experiment in which the influence of noug cake supplementation on the milk production of cows fed grass hay was measured.Thirteen mature lactating crossbred cows (Friesian x Zebu) were randomly allocated to 3 treatments after stratification on the basis of stage of lactation, with an effort to ensure that aver age stage of lactation within each treatment was the same. The animals were maintained in individual stalls at ILCASs Debre Berhan station in the Ethiopian highlands and experimental obser vations made from April 2l to July 7, l986.Poor quality grass hay and molasses/urea blocks were fed ad libitum, and the experimental treatments consisted of a daily allowance of 0, l or 2 kg noug cake, with 4 cows in each of the first two treatments and 5 in the third. Hay was offered at a rate sufficient to allow for a 20% refusal. The molasses blocks, which weighed between 6 and l0.5 kg, were weighed daily and re placed when the quantity remaining was less than 2 kg. The mola sses blocks were made at ILCA, with a percentage composition as follows: molasses 42, urea l0, cement l5, triple superphos phate 3, NaCl 5 and wheat bran 25.The cows were weighed weekly, milked twice daily and the total daily yields recorded. Samples were obtained at each milking, and those from individual animals bulked for weekly determina tions of fat and protein contents by the Gerber and formalin titration methods respectively. Daily samples of feed offered were taken and bulked weekly, and individual feed refusals were treated likewise. Determinations of dry matter (DM) were made to allow calculations of voluntary DM intake, and the samples were subsequently analysed for N by a Kjeldahl method; OM; NDF and ADF by the methods of Goering & Van Soest (l979); in vitro digestibility (IVD, Tilley & Terry l963); P (colorimetry) and Ca, Na, K, Mg, Cu, Zn, Fe & Mn (ato mic absorption spectrometry). Noug cake was analysed similarly, and also for ether extract. The IVD data were used to estimate daily intakes of metabolizable energy (ME, MJ).The daily estimated ME consumption (excluding noug) and daily milk production for each cow after week one were analysed, with the fixed effect of treatment and the regressor of first weekSs milk production per day per cow, by the least squares procedure of Harvey (l977), using a fixed model. As the cows entered the trial at different stages of lactation, it was necessary to include the first weekSs daily milk production of each individual as a covariate in the model, to remove the effect of differing level of initial milk yield.Linear contrasts of least squares estimates were computed to determine the significance of differences between treatment groups .The compositions of the hay offered and refused are given in Table l, from which it is clear that there was no evidence of selection since these did not differ. All of the noug cake offered was consumed. Body weights, and lactation stage at the outset, are shown in Table 2. There were no significant differences bet ween groups in any of these parameters, and no significant changes in body weight occurred during the experiment.  Average daily milk yields were 2.86, 3.87 and 3.96 l for the 0, l and 2 kg noug treatments respectively for the experimental period. The mean squares of the analysis of variance show that significant effects of treatment occurred, and that the effect of level of milk production during the first week was also sig nificant (table 3). For this reason the statistical approach was adopted whereby individual milk yields were adjusted to a common origin, so as to remove the effects of initial differences in yield due to wide variation in the stage of lactation at the outset. The resultant figures are shown in Table 4; milk yields from the two supplemented treatments were very similar, and both significantly greater than that from the control group. Actual yields are plotted in Fig. l, showing the marked improvement following the provision of l kg noug, and illustrating that no further benefit was gained from the second increment. There was no effect of treatment on the fat and protein concentrations in the milk; respective mean ( + SD) percentages of fat for the 0, l and 2 noug treatments were 4.4 + 0.33, 4.2 + 0.59 and 4.l + 0.29, and of protein, 2.8 + 0.36, 3.0 + 0.46 and 3.0 + 0.4l. The mean daily intakes of hay for the 0, l and 2 kg noug treatments were ll.09, ll.6l and l0.83 kg DM respectively, and intakes of molasses/urea block averaged l470,570 and 900 g/d respectively. It was estimated that the hay contained 5.99, and the molasses blocks, 5.26 MJ ME/kg. These values were used as noted above to compute intakes of ME from hay plus block against which to compare the effects of noug supplementation. Table 3 shows the effect of treatment on daily estimated ME intake from hay plus block only, significant at the l0% level, whereby the intake of hay plus block decreased linearly with increasing intake of noug. The noug was estimated to contain about l0 MJ ME/kg, resulting in total estimated ME intakes for the three treatments of approximately 80, 88 and 95 MJ ME respectiv ely, for the 0, l and 2 kg noug treatments. The increment of 7 MJ between the two noug treatments was not reflected in increased milk yield. There is some suggestion in the body weight data that extra tissue was being stored, since these groups respect ively gained l and 9 kg over the experimental period, while the control group lost 24 kg (Table 2); none of these changes or differences was statistically significant, however.In the Debre Berhan area, noug cake currently costs about l4 ^/kg, and the market value of milk approximates 60 fi/1. It is clear, therefore, that the extra litre of milk yielded daily bt the group supplemented with l kg noug, compared with the control animals, was obtained on a very economically beneficial basis, bearing in mind also the lower level of consumption of hay and molasses/urea block.The programme of smallholder dairy farming was initiated in Malawi by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) through the agency of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in the early l970Ss. The main objectives are: l.To provide fresh milk for the increasing population. 2.To reduce imports of milk by-products. 3.To provide an alternative source of income to farmers.Each farmer established a pure stand of Leucaena leucocephala and a mixed stand of Napier grass. In drier areas Rhodes grass (Chloris gayana) was also planted, on a minimum of 0.8 ha per two-cow unit. Liberal amounts of a mixture of maize bran and dried leucaena leaves are fed on some farms while the majority of farms use only maize bran. All cows are con fined to stalls as a means of conserving energy, for easy de tection of heat and to avoid contact with local Malawi Zebu bulls.The economy of Malawi depends on agriculture, in which about 90% of the population is involved. Main cash crops include tobacco, tea, groundnuts and rice. Average land holding size is l.5 ha, and emphasis is therefore on increased production per hectare.The Government policy on livestock is directed towards self sufficiency in all livestock products and to export any surpluses that arise. However, the country suffers from insu fficiency of milk and milk products, sheep and goat meat. Both large and smallholders are integrated in the farming system programme. There are about l,200 dairy farmers in Blantyre (in the South), Lilongwe (in the Centre) and Mzuza (in the North) who were g?Lven *s Friesian crosses. Upgrading continues on the farms due to the breeding programme being implemented. This paper describes dairy farming systems before and after l984.Records for each cow were kept -from l973 to l984. Data collected from these records (over l0 years) was sent to the International Livestock Centre for Africa (ILCA) where it was analysed with the following objectives: l.Compare the important reproductive and productive traits. Measure the infuence of environment (years, season, etc) on dairy production traits. Assess the suitability of various crosses to the different agricultural areas; and Determine trends in dairy production over the years.The results of data alalyses covering the years l973shown in Table l In the Blantyre North area, where rainfall was only about 700 mm, the age of heifers at their lst calving was later than that in the other areas. Birth in years of higher rainfall resulted in earlier ages at lst calving, and the 50% Friesian heifers delivered their first calf 3 months earlier than the 75% Friesian heifers.Long open periods (and hence long calving intervals) may be ascribed to improper management and/or reproductive problems, but problems of management of artificial insemination (heat detection, time of insemination and attendance to calls etc.), are likely to be significant.Agricultural area, breed group, year and month of calving, and area by breed interaction each had a significant effect on total lactation milk yield (Table 2). Total milk yield was highest in Zomba and Thyolo North where feed resources are more uniform throughout the year and where most farmers were new to livestock farming. In these areas farmers were prepared to accept innovations from extension agents more readily than their counterparts elsewhere who had previous experience in raising the Malawi Zebu, and who resisted the idea that cross bred cows should be managed differently. In addition, small holder dairy operations were first started in Thyolo North and farmers in that area had gained more experience in handling crossbred cows than farmers elsewhere.Crosses with 75% Friesian blood produced significantly more milk than the 50% crosses (2424 kg versus l953 kg). Cows that calved in bad years, in terms of rainfall distribution, produced significantly low milk yields. Likewise cows that calved between November and April produced more milk than those that calved between May and October. These differences also closely followed the monthly rainfall distribution which de termines the availability of feed.The longer lactation length is attributed to the follow ing factors: l.Where farmers realised that cows that calved in a favour able month were capable of producing more milk there was a tendency to milk these cows longer. It can also be a reflection of the problems associated with management of artificial insemination.Dry periods were associated with decreases in lactation lengths; this suggests that the shortening of the lacta tion length was a result of constraints (most likely feed availability) that forced cows to dry up while the foet uses they were carrying were still young.From Tables l and 2 it is evident that productivity of cows in smallholder farms was low. The need was recognized to develop feed resources that would allow an increase in total animal pro ductivity without increasing the size of land The concentrate mixtures shown in Tables 3 and 4 have been in use only relatively recently at the smallholder level. In the Southern area, Holstein/Friesian cows on the smallholder farms have been found to produce a mean 2,900 kg milk in an average lactation of l70 days (mean l6.3 kg/d), while on the Goverment farm in Central Malawi, average figures of 4,880 kg during an average lactation of 259 days (mean l8.8 kg/d) have been recorded. Strict comparisons of these data is not possible because of differences in rations used, and the fact that machine milking was employed on the Government farm, but the figures give an indication of the levels of production that may be expected, and could encourage the acceptance of higher yielding breeds by smallholders particularly those who intend to go into dairy as a full time farming activity.Many areas of Malawi are geographically unsuitable for pro ducing and sustaining good stands of crops or forages. With the increase in the availability of agro-byproducts and the identification of private firms prepared to undertake milling a production of dairy concentrates from these materials, the potential of the smallholder dairy business in Malawi appears promising. Many Friesian x Malawi Zebu cows have proved capable of high milk yields, and crosses appear superior to the Friesian in this environment. Considerable research has been, and is being, carried out on the potential of these by-products and crop residues but to date, very little effective practical application has been achieved. This paper concentrates on their use for ruminant nutrition, as due to their ability to digest low quality feeds and roughages, ruminants can utilise these products more effect ively than monogastric livestock, and in doing so, they are not competing for human feed resources. If this optimal utiliza tion can be achieved, then considerable increases in animal production will follow, helping to reduce the acknowledged animal protein deficit. This production will be achieved at a lower cost than before, resulting in improved net profits and most importantly, in foreign exchange savings.Cattle fattening has been an established practice in Nigeria for some time, but in the past, largely carried out by butchers and cattle traders, being the only category with the resources to buy both cattle and feed. This traditional fattening was largely inefficient, and consisted mainly of the purchase of low priced cattle in the dry season and merely keeping them alive until the wet season. During NigeriaSs First Livestock Development Programme (FLDP), the Livestock Project Unit (LPU) developed and promoted the smallholder fattening of cattle.Essentially, this was achieved by the provision of supervised credit, enabling the smallholder to purchase 4 cattle, suffi cient supplementary feed for a l20 day fattening period, also to purchase anthelmintics and to cover other miscellaneous charges.The cattle used for this smallholder fattening scheme (SHFS), are the indigenous cattle of Northern Nigeria (white Fulani, Red Fulani and Sokoto Gudali) in the range of 300-350 kg live weight; although in Southern Nigeria the smaller Ndama cattle in the range of 200-250 kg liveweight were used. The South ern States of Nigeria are infested with tsetse fly, and thus most cattle fattening is carried out in Northern Nigeria which is comparatively tsetse free. The aim is to purchase healthy fairly mature bulls or oxen in poor to lean condition, the combina tion of improved animal health and improved feeding maximises the benefits of compensatory growth, thus obtaining the optimum liveweight gain. In addition to their supplementary feed, the cattle are provided with crop residues, or grass in the wet season. The target feeding standards are to achieve a daily intake of 56.40 M.J. of metabolisable energy (M.E. ) and 540 gm crude protein, theoretically allowing a daily liveweight gain of 0.5 kg per head.The actual supplementary feed rations vary according to the availability and cost of the ingredients. The 3 most common rations are shown in Table l, and provide a daily allowance of 3 kg wheat offals or dried brewers grains and l kg molasses, and may use groundnut or cottonseed cake. The ration using dried brewers grains and molasses is considerably cheaper, but unfortunately its use is limited by the present low availab ility of dried brewers grains.It has proved very difficult to obtain reliable informa tion on the actual liveweight gains achieved; the cattle are weighed at purhcase, but only rarely has it been possible to achieve reliable sale weights. However, from the liveweight gains achieved by two groups of cattle in NE Nigeria (Table 2) it seems reasonable to assume that the target daily liveweight gain of 0.5 kg has been achieved. In view of the gains acheived in the first periods of fattening (Table 2) it seems possible that if the standard fattening period was reduced to l00 days, gains approximating 0.7 -0.8 kg/d might be achieved, with the added advantage of rendering two fattening cycles per year feasible. Further close study of feed utilization and cattle gains is presently being conducted in Kaduna State.The present practice in Nigeria is to market one product, a combination of weatings and wheat bran containing approximately l0 MJ metabolisable energy and l50 crude protein per kg dry matter. Wheat offals are generally widely available and cost about N l40 per tonne; a considerable quantity is also exported, but this material constitutes a major ingredient of LPUSs cattle fattening rations, particularly as dried brewers grains are not readily available in Northern Nigeria.In l975, l25,000 tonnes of cottonseed were purchased for pro cessing, whereas in l983 only ll,946 tonnes of cottonseed were available, producing only 6,08l tonnes of cake. In l978 the average price per tonne was N50, and is now N 300. The approx imate energy and protein values are ll.0 MJ ME and 269 gm crude protein per kg dry matter. Its use in monogastric rations is restricted due to the presence of gossypol, but it is widely used and well accepted by cattle and sheep. It was first used in l962/63 for supplementary feeding of cattle to reduce morta lity and weight loss during the dry season (Anon l962/63). Initially the quantities used were small but gradually increased, until during the Supplementary Feed Programme l970-75, a total of 22,488 tonnes were used for dry season supplementation  (Anon l975). The main constraints to the present and future use of cottonseed cake are its declining production and esca lating price.In l974, 450,000 tonnes of groundnuts were purchased for pro cessing, whereas in l983, less than 20,000 tonnes were pur chased, a potential of less than l0,000 tonnes of groundnut cake. In l978, the average price per tonne was N 220, but is now N 600. The approximate energy and protein values are l2 MJ of ME, and 486 gm of crude protein per kg dry matter. This also has been used for dry season supplementation since l962/63, although in smaller quantities; during the l970-75 supplemen tary feed programme only 4,568 tonnes were used (Anon l975). It was also used as a protein ingredient in the cattle fatten ing rations during the First Livestock Development Programme. Unlike cottonseed cake, it can also be used for monogatric nutrition, and thus is widely used in compounded feeds for pigs and poultry. The main constraints to its use are availa bility and price; other factors influencing its use are high oil content and the aflatoxin level, which can become unacceptably high, if the groundnuts are of poor quality, or badly stored.In l974, 293,000 tonnes of palm kernels were purchased for processing, and in l983, l73,000 tonnes were purchased, of which 85,000 tonnes were exported, the remainder being pro cessed, producing 47,300 tonnes of palm kernel cake/pellets. The approximate energy and protein values are l2 MJ of ME and 207 gm crude protein. Its use to date has been limited, due to its alleged unpalatability, and at present the bulk (75%) of this product is exported.There are two sugar cane processing factories in Nigeria, the Nigerian Sugar Company at Bacita, in Kwara State, and Savannah Sugar Company at Numan, in Gongola State. The Nigerian Sugar Company sells the bulk of its molasses for the distillation of alcohol, but estimates that there could be up to 3,000 tonnes available for animal feeding during l984-l985; their present price is N 60 to N 65 per tonne. The Savannah Sugar Company is prepared to sell all its molasses for animal feeding; in previous years production varied from 7,000 to l0,000 tonnes. Although no molasses was produced during l983-l984, the l984-l985 production was estimated at l0,000 tonnes. Prior to Octo ber l983, the price was N l5 per tonne, and is now N 45. The approximate energy and protein values of molasses are l2.7 MJ of ME amd 4l gm of crude protein per kg dry matter. It is a cheap source of energy, has the further benefit of being extremely palatable, and is frequently used to encourage the intake of other less palatable feeds. It can be fed to all livestock, but due to its laxative effect, inclusion rates should not exceed l0% for poultry, and 20% for pigs; this rate is also recommended for cattle and sheep, but under certain systems this can be exceeded (Preston & Willis l970;Preston l972). The main constraint to the use of molasses, apart from its laxative effect, is the high cost of transport, and handl ing problems in actually getting the molasses to the small holder.At present, the annual production of dried brewers grains in Nigeria is just under l0,000 tonnes, the approximate energy and protein values are l0.3 MJ ME and 204 gm of crude protein per kg dry matter. The cost per tonne varies from N 45 to N l20. At present only 20% of the available brewers grains is being dried. Apart from availability, the main constraint to the use of dried brewers grains is transport; the majority of NigeriaSs breweries are in the South, whereas the cattle are in the North. This can involve distances of up to l400 km which greatly increases the cost to the farmer.Until recently, the bulk of NigeriaSs rice was milled locally, and the quantities available have been small and scattered. The Nigerian Grains Board is now responsible for the majority of rice milling and by l985 expected to have 6,000 tonnes of rice bran available for sale. The approximate energy and protein values of a recent sample were l0.8 MJ ME and l40 gm of crude protein per kg. High fibre content limits its use by mongatric animals, but it can be utilized by ruminants. The major constr aint is the high oil content which limits its storage life; stabilising is required, further adding to costs.The major crop residues are maize, sorghum and rice straw; smaller quantities of millet straw are also available. These have traditionally been used by NigeriaSs pastoralists, the cattle and sheep being allowed to graze on the crop residues, in return for the manurial value of their dung. However, sorg hum straw in particular contains a far higher proportion of lignin than the temperate cereal straws, which reduces its nutritive value and also the actual dry matter intake by the cattle.Small scale treatment of maize and sorghum straw with urea, an adaptation of the ammonif ication of rice straw using urea (Saadullah et al l98l) has been initiated in Kano (W.B. Ritchie unpublished data). The sorghum stover was placed in a polythene lined pit and 5% urea added (l kg urea in l0 litres of water per 20 kg sorghum straw); when full the pit was sealed for 20 days. This treatment increased the crude protein con tent of the sorghum straw from 2.2% to ll.9%, increased its digestibility and estimated ME value, and the voluntary intake of the treated straw was greater than that of untreated straw.The various by-products presently available have been compared on the basis of costs per unit ME and crude protein (Table 3). Palm Kernel meal and dried brewers grains are the cheapest sources of crude protein, and molasses, palm kernel meal, and dried brewers grains are the cheapest sources of ME. However, palm kernel meal is mainly exported, while the total annual production of dried brewers grains is less than l0,000 tonnes. Thus the by-product with the greatest potential is molasses, especially in close proximity to the Savannah Sugar Company where transport costs will be lower. There is also scope for an increased use of wheat offals, in that exports could be reduced, although the price is rapidly escalating. Millers now sell wheat offals for the same price as they pay for imported wheat. The traditional protein supplements, cotton seed cake and groundnut cake also are rapidly becoming prohib itively expensive.Present production is approximately l0,000 tonnes per annum, and a survey of breweries indicates that a further 28,600 tonnes could be produced by those breweries that indicated an interest in drying their spent grains. This quantity could provide suff icient feed, if fed at 3 kg per head for l00 days, to fatten an additional 95,333 head of cattle, with a potential liveweight gain of 6,673,333 kg, and a potential saleable meat production of 6,000 tonnes. If eventually the other breweries also dried their spent grains, the additional l2,000 tonnes would help to produce a further 2,500 tonnes of saleable meat. This appears to justify Government intervention, to ensure that this valuable by-product is made more available as a live stock feed (Adegbola l976).This probably has a potential for increased use second to that of dried brewers grains. Reports from Latin America (Chico & Shultz l976) indicate that palm kernel meal can be used for ruminants, and that up to 2-3 kg per head can be fed to cattle. It is almost certain that its reputation for unpalatability is unjustified and that its present and previous under-utilization has been due to the earlier availability and low cost of cottonseed cake and groundnut cake. Further research into its use in Nigeria is certainly warranted.There is considerable scope for an increased use of molasses, firstly as a liquid feed and secondly as an important consti tuent of a molasses/urea feed. A prototype mineralised mola sses/urea feed has been produced, further improvements are required, and a decision will have to be made as to whether to produce a feed block, or pellets, or both. It is important to restrict the intake of urea to less than l00 g per head per day for cattle, and to less than l0 g per head per day for sheep. This is usually done by limiting intake by the degree of hard ness of the block, but it could also be done by restricting the intake of pellets. It must be remembered that this molasses/ urea feed is only suitable for ruminants and cannot be fed to monogastric animals. However, it could be safely fed to cattle and sheep as a partial substitute for cottonseed cake and groundnut cake, and at half the cost per l00 g crude protein (Table 3). If this feed can be successfully produced and mar keted as a mineralised molasses/urea block or pellet, it would have a tremendous effect on NigeriaSs cattle production and reproduction.An estimated 6,000 tonnes are available annually as a potential livestock feed, providing that it can be effectively stabilised.If then fed as a supplement, at 3 kg per head per day together with l kg of the mineralised molasses/urea feed, similar liveweight gains to those achieved on dried brewers grains and molasses might be achieved, i.e. 0.7 -0.8 kg liveweight gain per head per day. Thus the 6,000 tonnes of rice bran would help to provide sufficient feed to fatten an additional 20,000 cattle, representing a potential incremental meat production of l,260 tonnes of saleable meat.In order to make more locally produced feed available for poultry and pig production, the flour millers should be en couraged to separate the wheat offals into \"weating\" and wheat bran. The weatings could then be used for pigs and poultry, and the wheat bran would still be available for cattle and sheep. In addition the millers should be encouraged to make these products available to Nigeria at a reasonable price, rather than to export them as they are doing at present.Present production is approximately 400 tonnes per annum, and this could be increased to at least 2,500 tonnes if the poten tial production could be achieved. This would represent a saving of 2,000 tonnes in the annual imports of protein concentrates for poultry and pig feeding.If as discussed above, more breweries were persuaded to dry their spent grains, only the prior separation of the yeast from the grains would be required.Both these products are over-priced at present, largely because oil seed processing capacity vastly exceeds the availability of cottonseed and groundnuts for processing. If the Nigerian Cotton Board and the Nigerian Groundnut Board can take steps to ensure a higher production of cottonseed and groundnuts processing costs would be reduced, which might lead to a red uction in the selling price of cottonseed cake and groundnut cake.These are on the whole being utilised, but there is consider able scope for more effective utilisation. The treatment of crop residues by ammonif ication using urea, initiated by the Kano Agricultural and Rural Development Project, should be replicated in other project areas where the necessary exten sion supervision is available. There are at present 13 Agri cultural Development Projects and ll River Basin Rural Devel opment Projects in Nigeria, the main aim of which is to increase crop production. If this crop residue can be successfully treated using urea, the resulting increases in digestibility, crude protein and metabolisable energy could well benefit animal production.Most of NigeriaSs estimated 9.3 million cattle are located in the Northern States and experience a dry season at least of five to six months duration, during which the poor quality feed produces weight loss which is often severe. Reduced fert ility and increased mortality are common, and these effects can be alleviated by dry season supplementation. There are approximately 8 million cattle in Northern Nigeria, at least 3 million of these are breeding cows, their present calving percentage approximates 45%, overall herd mortality about 7%, and calf mortality 20%. If dry season supplementation were made available to those breeding cows, it is quite possible that calving percentage could increase to 50% ( a potential increase of l50,000 calves), herd mortality could be reduced to 5%, (a potential saving of 60,000 breeding cows) and calf mortality could be reduced from 20% to l0% ( a potential sav ing of l50,000 calves). In addition to the above savings, it would also be reasonable to expect heavier weaning weights. Thus although more difficult to quantify, the benefits from dry season supplementation could be far greater and longer term than those from cattle fattening.Due to the ever increasing cost of supplementary feed in recent years, the ILCA sub-humid team has introduced the fodder bank concept, a protected area of protein rich forage, usually of Stylosanthes spp., kept as a reserve for dry season grazing by selected animals. ILCA and LPU have successfully introduced this fodder bank method of supplementation to settled and semi-settled pastoralists in Kaduna State, and are now monitoring its introduction to other Northern States, One of the most acceptable methods of establishment is to undersow a cereal crop with Stylosanthes seed, since the farmer, having cleared the land, wishes to crop it before using it as a fodder bank. This has the additional advantage of increasing the inte gration of crops and livestock, and increases the value of the crop residue.There is tremendous scope for an increased and more efficient utilisation of agro-industrial by-products and crop residues, which will result in a significant increase in animal production. Dried brewers grains alone could cater for an annual increase of over 8,000 tonnes of beef, which would help both to reduce NigeriaSs animal protein deficit and reduce imports. Further increases would be made possible by an improved utilisation of palm kernel meal and rice bran, and also from an increase in the urea treatment of crop residues. This paper has concentrated on the use of by-products and crop residues for small-scale ruminant fattening, but they can also be used for dry season supplementation, although the benefits of this are more difficult to quantify. If they were used also for intensive or feed-lot fattening, such production established in close proximity to the major feed sources would result in considerable reduction in feed costs. The by-products and methods of utilisation described in this paper are not specific to Nigeria, they are found and can be applied through out the tropical world.In almost all developing countries, particularly in Africa and Asia, there is a large rural population, sometimes up to 95% of the total. Common to most of the rural populations are very low incomes or subsistence-type farming, high birth rates and more often than not low literacy. Attention to their progress has often been neglected as governments have paid more atten tion to industrial development. Usually the rural populations have little or no political power and usually their voice is not heard, even in affairs dealing with their own development.On the other hand problems of rural poverty and rural de velopment are in many respects soluble and it is in the relief of rural rather than urban poverty that such agencies as the Food and Agriculture Organization can play a major role, because they have the technical expertise to assist in its amelioration.It is relatively easy to identify target groups for development. They can be defined as communities below a certain income and subsistance communities producing little or no surplus and re ceiving few or no services.Having identified the target groups for aid and development assistance, the next and by far the most difficult problem is that of identifying constraints, in particular of identifying which of the many constraints are the most important. It is in this process that most mistakes in development have been made.In the identification there can be conflicting views. First of all, government officials may be biased somewhat by orienta tion towards increasing the supply which are limited in cities. The ex-patriate expert can be equally biased since his percep tion of constraints and indeed perception of normality is influ enced by his background. The target group, having limited poli tical power, is hardly ever consulted in the process of identi fying the constraints.From my limited experience in project identification work in rural communities, the target group rarely appears on the initial itinerary. Yet I have become firmly convinced that, in order to identify the correct constraints and the order of constraints, one must understand the target group, their social conditions, their perception of constraints and their perception of values, all of which are crucial to any success in development. While a specialist in animal breeding or feed resource util ization may feel tempted to identify constraints which come within his or her area of expertise, this temptation must be resisted at all costs. The sight of cows yielding 2 litres of milk/day should not necessarily lead to a recommended policy of crossbreeding and importation of exotic animals. Nor should the sight of poorly utilized resources necessarily lead to pro jects involving investments in methods of increasing resource utilization. Lack of concentrate in pelleted form should not lead to a recommendation for the erection of large feed mills.While famine occurs in rural areas due to droughts, wars and other catastrophies, let us for the moment deal with rural communities in which it is desired to increase the production of food and, if possible, to produce an excess to supply food for the cities.It is common to all subsistence farmers that investments involv ing perceived risk will not readily be made. There are good reasons for this; poor investments can have serious repercus sions for subsistence farmers. Even long term reasonably safe investments are difficult; such as buying feeds for calves in which the investment may only be returned in 2 years time. In vestments in fertilizer for crops, in anticipation of returns at harvest, are sometimes reluctantly made, particularly in drought prone regions. Sometimes the most serious constraint is simply risks and the solution simply the removal of risks.Investment in feeds for dairy cows is on the whole more readily made if the milk can be sold at a high price, as the investment may be returned quickly in increased milk yield. A guaranteed price for products can greatly assist. Production of maize by communal farmers in Zimbabwe increased several fold when a fixed price was offered and the maize was collected.Farmers in a part of Bangladesh did not invest in high yielding varieties of rice. This was not due to lack of knowledge but to a high risk of damage from flooding. High yielding varieties also need higher investment in fertilizer than the indigenous varieties.Constraints due to lack of infrastucture and land rights tenure However high in demand a product may be in cities it is often too difficult to reach the markets because roads are inadequate. A constraint in a rural area can sometimes be removed simply by making the area accessible at all times of the year. Poor grassland management and overgrazing on communal land cannot be overcome without some legislation on the land rights or agree ment among farmers using the communal land. The right to crop land which maybe withdrawn, can make life uncertain for pastoralists and thus make investments difficult. Secure investments in banks, rather than in cattle or other animals, could lift many constraints to production in Africa.The examples mentioned above are but few. However, they serve to illustrate the difficulties in identifying constraints adequately, without which an aid development programme is un likely to succeed.Let us assume that animal feed resource quantity and quality have been identified as major constraints in a given community and that prices of products are correct relative to input and that marketing of the product is possible and sustainable in the foreseeable future. It is then necessary to identify the most relevant principle of improvement in nutrient supply and the most important technology.Sometimes an appropriate technology has to be developed. The methods chosen obviously depend on the type of resources locally available. There is little point in importing molasses in order to feed urea via molasses blocks. There is little point in recommending feeding of urea or treating straw with urea unless the supply of urea is secure and sustainable. There is no point in chopping straw for treatment if straw is normally handled in bundles. There is no point in using urea if the cost is prohibative relative to potential benefit. Nor is there any point in recommending schemes for breed improvement if the present constraint to production is nutrition. On the other hand improved resources can often be exploited better by crossbred animals.It is important to discuss the technologies in detail with the rural community for which it is intended. Sometimes simple things which can make or break a new method have been overlooked. Adaption of technologies must be done in collaboration with village farmers before a large venture into a community develop ment programme is undertaken.Useful technologies to increase resource utilization when this has been identified as a constraint to production Urea supplementation Lack of degradable N in many fibrous residues can be corrected by supplementation with urea or a mixture of urea and sulphur. In some areas where molasses is available and underutilized, urea can be incorporated into blocks made from molasses and fibrous residues (bran, poultry manure, etc) and cement. This makes urea available for supplementing poor rangeland as the blocks can be transported with the animals. Urea-molasses blocks can also be used to supplement fibrous residues grazed in situ.A relatively safe method for adding N to fibrous residues is to spray them with a solution of urea at feeding time. Here the consentration of urea involved is only about l% whereas much higher consentrations are used for the ammonia treatment of straw. Simple addition of urea can lead to considerably greater intakes and increased digestibility.Urea/ammonia treatment While simple additions of urea ensure increased digestion of the feed, use of urea as a source of ammonia increases the poten tial digestion further by making more cellulose and hemicellulose available for digestion. The use of urea as the method of ammonia treatment has advantages over the use of anhydrous ammonia for small farmers in rural communities, particularly in areas where the mean daily temperature is l0 to l5°celsus or above since high temperature ensures a rapid hydrolysis of urea. The exact method adopted will depend on the harvesting procedure and the form in which stover/straw is gathered (chopped, bundles etc). It will also depend on the site of treatment (pit, stack etc) and that which is locally most appropriate.Use of anhydrous ammonia requires relatively large scale production and a developed infrastructure for economy and may be used on farm co-operatives; making its use much less wide spread than that of urea. Other alkalis such as calcium hydroxide, caustic soda or other locally available sources can also be used. However it must be remembered that the increasing avail ability of cellulose also increases the need for N supplementa tion and this is usually taken care of when ammonia is used.Planting legumes before maize, millet or sorghum is ripe is another method of improving utilization of straws which can be produced in many parts of Africa. Legumes provide N supplement for the straw as well as a highly digestible forage.Rates of fermentation of fibrous residues can often be improved by feeding small amounts of highly digestible nutrients such as citrus residues, sugar beet pulp, green grass, leguminous forages or leaves/pods of trees or poultry manure. Production of milk and meat by the host animal is often limited by the supply of protein which escapes degradation in the rumen and research into methods for decreasing the rumen degradability of locally available protien supplements is needed.It is possible in some areas to increase output of human food by greater attention to recycling. Thus it may be possible to recycle manure through feeding, biogas or aquaculture before it is returned to the soil.It is well known that many rough grazing areas are underutilized due to limited access to water. Thus resource availability can be improved either by increasing watering points or by using a selection of animals with greater ability to conserve water, which can graze over wider orbits around existing watering points Disease and pests This is not the place to discuss aspects of disease, except to point out for completeness the resources in large areas of Africa are underutilized due to tse tse and tick infestations. Selection of animals tolerant to these pests and associated diseases can thus increase resource availability as, of course, can methods of controlling the pests themselves where practical and economical.Many small farmers in Africa, while keeping their animals in a kraal at night, make no attempt to feed milking or working animals differently from non-producing animals. A separate pen for milking animals, with preferential feeding, might help both to increase milk yield and to decrease calving interval.It is sometimes difficult to predict the consequences of the introduction of a new technology such as improved resource dist ribution. FAO has increasingy encouraged the use of a system approach in which a survey of all aspects of the communitySs activities have been conducted. After introduction of the tech nology or new price system the resulting changes are monitored at regular intervals. This is for instance the case in the areas where integrated dairy development programmes have been intro duced.There are many pronciples for improving resource utilization. From the point of view of FAO it is important first of all to ensure that for example resource utilization is a major const raint, the removal of which could contribute to relieving rural poverty and increase surpluses for sale. Having ascertained that it is a major constraint, it is then important to identify the most appropriate method or methods for its removal and how best to adopt those most appropriate for the community. It is essential to consult the target group regarding all aspects since otherwise many projects can be wrongly conceived and doomed to failure, often creating more harm than good to the community it was designed to benefit.Intensive poultry production in Malawi is increasing slowly, and major factors limiting growth of the poultry industry include shortages and high prices of balanced feed. At times such ingred ients as groundnut cake and fish meal are not available in the country for compounding chicken feed, and meat and bone meal is not produced in sufficient quantities to replace fish meal in time of scarcity. There are no data on the effect of feeding local fish meal from Mangochi to chickens, and although ground nut cake has long been used in the country no research has been documented.Studies have shown that groundnut meal of high protein value (54%) does not need di-methionine supplementation to improve the performance of layers (Davidson and Boyne l962;Carpenter et al l954). Reports on roasted soybean have shown this to be a suitable source of protein for layers (Arends et al. l97l). When roasted or extruded soybean meal or soybean meal plus raw soyabeans were fed to layers, all treatments gave similar egg production, but soybean meal with added fat gave the highest egg weight (Lalshaw and Clayton l976). There is a need, though, to heat-treat soybeans to deactivate trypsin inhibitors (Rogler and Carrick l964). Bray et al. (l97l) found that heating soy beans to less than l20°C, resulted in pancreatic hypertropy in hens and that heating to l40°C increased the efficiency of util ization of the soybeans. Fish meal is one of the most used animal protein sources for poultry. In Malawi commercially used fish meat is imported and is the main animal protein source for monogastrics.The objective of these experiments was to find locally avail able protein sources that could be used in broiler diets without adversely affecting performance.Experiment l: 270 two-week old mixed sex broiler chicks (shaver starbro) were used in this experiment on deep litter with wood shavings. There were two replicates per treatment (diets) with 27 birds per replicate.Five broiler starter and finisher diets were used (table l). Diet l contained groundnut cake with meat and bone meal, diet 2 contained roasted soybean meal with meat and bone meal, diet 3 contained groundnut cake with local fish meal (Mangochi fish meal), diet 4 contained roasted soybean meal with local fish Experiment 2: 270 two-week old mixed sex broiler chicks (Shaver starbro) were used; also on deep litter. There were three replicates per treatment with 30 birds per replicate.Three broiler starter and finisher diets were used in this experiment (Table 2). Diet l contained groundnut cake with 2.50% meat and bone meal and 5% local fish meal, diet 2 contained roasted soybean meal with 2.50% meat and bone meal and 5% local fish meal, and diet 3 contained roasted soybean meal with l0% cotton seed cake, 2.50% meat and bone meal and 5% local fish meal. The soybeans were roasted at 200°C for ten minutes and then ground. All the diets were drum mixed at the site of the experiments. Both trials were carried out in 5 weeks, 2 weeks for starter diets and 3 weeks for finisher diets. The birds were randomly assigned to diets. Weight and feed consumption data were collected weekly, and subjected to analysis of variance and DuncanSs Multi ple Range Test.The results of experiment l (Table 3) indicate that birds fed on experimental diets 3 and 5 (both starter and finisher diets) gained significantly more than those fed on diets 2 and 4 which contained roasted soybean meal (P<0.05). Birds on starter diet l had statistically similar weight gains to those on starter diets 2 and 4, but finisher diet l did give significantly higher gain. The figures for feed conversion efficiency yielded the same picture as those for weight gain. There were no significant differences among diets in terms of feed consumption.The results of experiment two are shown in table 4. Birds fed on starter and finisher diets l gained significantly more than those fed on diets 2 and 3 (P<0.05). There were no statisti cally significant differences in feed conversion efficiences in the three finisher diets. Feed conversion efficiency for birds on diet l was better than those on starter diets 2 and 3 (P<0.05), and again no differences between diets in feed consumption occurred.The findings of these two experiments indicate that groundnut cake is superior to roasted soybean meal, the poorer performance from the latter probably being due to the processing of the soy beans to deactivate trypsin inhibitors. Although soybeans were roasted at 200°C for ten minutes, it is probable that the time was not enough to inactivate trypsin inhibitors so as to increase utilization efficiency. high energy full fat roasted soybean meal will consume less feed. Dewan and Gleaves (l969) similarly reported that heated full fat soybean meal significantly reduced feed intake by layers.In this study, however, energy determinations of the experimented diets were not made.Finisher diets l and 2 in experiment one containing meat and bone meal did not have adverse effect on the performance of the birds over the experimental period of 5 weeks. However, Anderson and Warnick (l97l) stated that bone meal is a poorer source of essential amino acids than fish meal. Isabo and Trifunovic (l963) reported that groundnut cake is low in lysine and methionine. They also reported that broiler pullets fed 7% fish meal in their diets together with either soybean meal or ground nut meal performed equally well. In this study birds on ground nut cake performed better than those on roasted soybean meal. It is possible that the meal and bone meal and fish meal could have improved the lysine and methionine contents sufficiently in these diets.It is concluded that groundnut cake in combination with either meat and bone meal or local fish meal can be used in broiler feeds without adverse effects. Importation of fish meal may be necessary only to add to the local sources. The use of roasted soybean meal needs to be studied further before recommending it to the smallholder farmers. There is a need to establish opti mal roasting time and temperature and inclusion rate for optimum performance by poultry.Technical recommendations formulated during a final discussion period in which rapporteurs first presented major points from discrete sessions of the workshop, fell into two categories: i)Standardization of Methodology Indiscriminate performance of large numbers of chemical analyses on feeds should be discouraged as being poten tially wasteful. Since nitrogen is probably the most widely deficient nutrient, its concentration will be the most frequently performed analysis.Determination of apparent digestibility of N is meaning less, unless accompanied by fractionation of faecal N using detergent procedures, so that the proportion of truly indigestible feed N can be identified.-N balance remains a useful determination if carried out with due care, but cognizance should be taken of the phy siological state of the experimental animals used. Lactating or young growing animals are the most sensitive to nutritional stress, and attempts should be made to use such animals as far as possible in experiments designed to evaluate feeds in terms of production response criteria.Digestibilities of dry and organic matter remain useful measurements that should continue to be made, and emphasis was also placed on the value and applicability of the intraruminal nylon bag method for determining degradation of feeds. Further development of a standardized approach to all aspects of this technique is to be undertaken at ILCA.Several areas were identified in which a need was felt for further applied research results. These included:The influence of suckling management (restricted suckling) on calf growth and survival, and reproductive and lacta tional performance of the cow.Urea supplementation vsi urea treatment of crop residues on their utilization.Use of forage and browse legumes to improve crop product ion and residue utilization.Supplementation using molasses/urea based blocks of vary ing formulation depending on the local availability of appropriate ingredients.Survey data obtained during collaboration between crop and animal scientists in relation to regional availabili ties of quantities of crop residues, variation in grain: stover ratios, and studies directed towards economic as pects of residue transport and alternative uses.-Use of by products in non-ruminant rations.Other matters raised included the identification of con straints to by-product utilization in smallholder communities, the responses of these communities to the introduction of inter ventions, and problems of technology transfer. All of the above items will be considered in developing the programme for the l987 workshop; problems associated with smallholder production systems remain the recognised priority for ARNAB activities.","tokenCount":"36168"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"66fc33ad24dcc4a09d0fcff1eb818fdb","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/66d1bf62-c8ab-4509-a3be-d5b235e022ed/retrieve","id":"-346385146"},"keywords":["malnutrition","QTL mapping","GWAS-genome-wide association study","speed breeding","new breeding techniques (NBTs)","biofortification","genomic selection"],"sieverID":"3965fc99-7784-4aa2-9d7f-b8762123ddd5","pagecount":"20","content":"More than three billion people worldwide suffer from iron deficiency associated anemia and an equal number people suffer from zinc deficiency. These conditions are more prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. In developing countries, children under the age of five with stunted growth and pregnant or lactating women were found to be at high risk of zinc and iron deficiencies. Biofortification, defined as breeding to develop varieties of staple food crops whose grain contains higher levels of micronutrients such as iron and zinc, are one of the most promising, cost-effective and sustainable ways to improve the health in resource-poor households, particularly in rural areas where families consume some part of what they grow. Biofortification through conventional breeding in wheat, particularly for grain zinc and iron, have made significant contributions, transferring important genes and quantitative trait loci (QTLs) from wild and related species into cultivated wheat. Nonetheless, the quantitative, genetically complex nature of iron and zinc levels in wheat grain limits progress through conventional breeding, making it difficult to attain genetic gain both for yield and grain mineral concentrations. Wheat biofortification can be achieved by enhancing mineral uptake, source-to-sink translocation of minerals and their deposition into grains, and the bioavailability of the minerals. A number of QTLs with major and minor effects for those traits have been detected in wheat; introducing the most effective into breeding lines will increase grain zinc and iron concentrations. New approaches to achieve this include marker assisted selection and genomic selection. Faster breeding approaches need to be combined to simultaneously increase grain mineral content and yield in wheat breeding lines.Minerals are important components for physical and mental health development in humans. Malnutrition from micronutrient deficiencies, also known as \"hidden hunger,\" is one of the most challenging health issues globally and particularly in developing countries. Dietary deficiencies of zinc (Zn), iron (Fe), iodine, and vitamin A are most prevalent among children and women. Worldwide, more than three billion people are affected by zinc (Zn), iron (Fe), and vitamin-A deficiencies (Raemaekers, 1988;Beal et al., 2017), with such nutrient deficiencies being particularly high among people in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Fe is an essential part of hemoglobin and myoglobin and being directly involved in oxygen transport, enzymatic functions, energy production and DNA synthesis. Fe deficiency causes anemia (https://www.who. int/health-topics/anaemia); children below 5 years of age (40%) and women at reproductive or lactating stages (30%) are more anemic. Likewise, Zn is a ubiquitous element for every living organism including human beings, acting as a co-factor for more than 300 enzymes and proteins at the cellular and sub-cellular levels during nucleic acid production, metabolism, cell division and differentiation, and the immune system. Zn deficiency impairs physical growth and development and the proper functioning of the immune and reproductive systems and mental acuity, as well as increasing child mortality. On average 20% of women and children are Zn deficient, with a high prevalence in low-and middle-income groups and even among adult men (Gupta et al., 2020b). Another study reported 31.3% Zn deficiency among the children of higher income groups in western Europe and no significant difference was observed between children of the different socio-economic groups (Vreugdenhil et al., 2021). Food supplements and fortification and more diverse diets can help to address micronutrient malnutrition. Iron and zinc supplements, for example, have substantially reduced diarrhea and anaemia in affected segments of the population (Gupta et al., 2020b). Food fortification for vitamin-A and iodine deficiency through pharmaceutical products and iodized salt have reduced related deficiencies, but such products may be unaffordable for lowincome families, particularly in developing countries. Reduced consumption of vegetables and fruits is observed due to lower purchasing power in many farm households in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa; now the COVID-19 outbreak substantially reduced the income of poor households that cut down on their intake of fruits, vegetables, and animal-based foods and increased their dependence on staple grains (Heck et al., 2020). In 2022, restrictions in the movement of farm produce, disrupted supply systems, and continued economic fall-out due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia-Ukraine conflict jeopardized food supply chains, including distribution to Central Asia and Africa, and triggered food prices, augmenting global hunger and malnutrition (https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/agriculture/ brief/food-security-update). Increasing nutrient density and bioavailability in staple food crops, as well as their production and distribution at affordable prices, can greatly improve the nutrition of low-income groups.\"Biofortification\" refers to increasing essential mineral and vitamin content and bioavailability in edible parts of staple food crops, either through conventional breeding and/or biotechnological interventions, as well as through fertilizer. \"Golden rice\" is a successful example of improving the betacarotene content in rice through the transformation of three biosynthetic pathway genes: phytoene synthase (psy), phytoene desaturase (crtI) and lycopene β-cyclase (lcy) (Ye et al., 2000). Biofortification in staple food crops has progressed through initiatives such as Harvest Plus, the Grand Challenge in Global Health, the India Biofortification Programme, Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN), and Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), among others, and has gained global and local recognition. Numerous countries (Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Malawi, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia) have included biofortification in their national health and development policies (Virk et al., 2021). Efforts also have been made to speed the seed production and distribution of biofortified crop varieties to reach resource-poor farmers in remote areas. The government of India has proposed the inclusion of fortified wheat, rice, edible oil in mid-day meal programs, the public distribution system and integrated child development program (https://www.livemint.com/Politics/91RAsPJFJLykDywTPHRCeI/ Fortified-MidDay-meals-by-December-2019-to-fight-malnutriti. html).Wheat provides 25% of calories in human diets worldwide and 60% in Central and West Asian countries (Cakmak, 2008). The wheat endosperm is rich in starch but poor in minerals, particularly Zn, Fe, and vitamins (Cakmak and Kutman, 2018). Moreover, minerals and bioactive components of the wheat grain are concentrated in the aleurone layer, which is removed during milling, so the remaining flour generally contains only small amounts of minerals and vitamins. The average Zn concentration in the white flour is around 8 mg per kg, falling short of the daily recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of from 9-19 mg per day for adults (Cakmak, 2007;Gillies et al., 2012;Cakmak and Kutman, 2018). The low mineral contents in rice and wheat is due to the deficiencies of these substances, particularly of Zn, in the soils of most of the areas where the crops are grown. Finally, breeding for high yielding wheat genotypes since the mid-20th century has reduced genetic variation for grain Zn and Fe in modern cultivars from the levels found in landraces and genotypes released during Green Revolution (Debnath et al., 2021).Through agronomic and genetic interventions, mineral density can be enhanced (Cakmak, 2008). Genetic biofortification is the most sustainable and cost-effective approach to alleviate micronutrient malnutrition among lower-middle income consumers. Based on estimated average micronutrient requirements; average staple food crop intakes; mineral losses incurred during harvesting, processing, and storage; and micronutrient bioavailablility, a minimum target levels have been set for different minerals in staple food crops (Bouis et al., 2011). To meet out 30 and 40% of estimated average requirements for Fe and Zn, respectively for children and adult women, the target levels of 59 ppm for Fe and 38 ppm for Zn are set in wheat grain, considering the baseline of 30 ppm for Fe and 24 ppm for Zn. Large-scale screening of germplasm, identification of genotypes, mapping of underpinning genomic regions, and their use to develop high-yielding, disease resistant, biofortified wheat genotypes are the major focuses of genetic biofortification research. Wild relatives carry higher levels of Zn and Fe in their grain than cultivated wheat genotypes. The locus Gpc-B1 for grain protein, Zn, and Fe was detected and fine mapped in Triticum durum ssp dicoccoides and can serve as a source to enhance these traits in cultivated wheat (Uauy et al., 2006). Genome sequence information of T. aestivum cv. Chinese Spring (Mayer et al., 2014) and a highly annotated chromosome level genome sequence (Ref Seqv1.0;Appels et al., 2018) can be used for gene discovery, cloning, and functional analysis of genome targeting to grain Zn and Fe. In this article we review the status of wheat biofortification and how genomic resources can be used in breeding for biofortified wheat genotypes.Initial research on agronomic biofortification to increase grain Zn in wheat took place in Turkey (Cakmak et al., 1996;Cakmak et al., 1999). Mineral density can be modulated by soil Zn and Fe status and their availability for the crop. Soil zinc and iron availability depends on edaphic factors such as soil physical and chemical properties, micronutrient availability, pH, the status of soil moisture and organic matter, grain filling duration, and the timing of senescence (Cakmak and Kutman, 2018). Irrespective of this, wheat grain zinc and iron concentrations can be increased by applying these elements directly to wheat (Yilmaz et al., 1997). Zn and Fe can be applied in inorganic or organic forms but the most commonly used are ZnSO 4 and FeSO 4 , due to their ready availability and low cost. Soil and foliar applications of zinc fertilizer increase grain Zn density in wheat and can positively affect agronomic parameters such as the number of tillers, thousand kernel weight, chlorophyll content, and biological yield (Rizwan et al., 2018;Dimkpa et al., 2020). Hussain et al. (2012b) reported that soil applications of Zn increased whole grain zinc concentrations up to 95% and grain yield by 29%. However, foliar application was found to be more effective than soil application to increase zinc and iron concentrations in wheat. Foliar application is also advantageous under stress conditions, particularly drought, to avoid impairment of mineral uptake due to lack of soil moisture. Foliar applications of ZnSO 4 @ 0.5% and FeSO 4 @ 1% were more effective than applying to soil alone or both soil and foliar applications (Ramzan et al., 2020), and foliar application during grain filling resulted in a more effective translocation of zinc to the grain. Spraying zinc fertilizer at the grain development stage improved grain zinc concentration by 68% (Zhang et al., 2010). Unlike for zinc, iron fertilization of soils is not effective at increasing grain iron concentrations (Gupta, 1991), but in several studies the foliar application of iron increased grain Fe concentration up to 28% (Zhang et al., 2010); 21% (Pahlavan-Rad and Pessarakli, 2009), and 14% (Aciksoz et al., 2011b). Application of N-fertilizers along with FeSO 4 increased iron concentrations in shoots as well as in the grain (Aciksoz et al., 2011b;Singh et al., 2018). Previous reports showed that N application increased the secretion of phytosederophore that chelate Fe in the soil and Yellow Stripe 1 protein act as Fe transporter (Aciksoz et al., 2011a). Seed priming is another way to deliver minerals to plants. Zinc also improves coleoptile and radical growth and germination in wheat (Ozturk et al., 2006). The recent practice of applying nano particles (NP) to the soil is becoming popular as a cost effective, environmentally-friendly approach to reduce fertilizer losses and raise productivity and profitability. Applying ZnO-NP and Fe-NP in wheat enhanced grain yield, biomass, chlorophyll content, and drought tolerance (Dimkpa et al., 2020). Nano zinc and iron treatments significantly increased Zn and Fe concentration in the roots, shoots, and grain (Rizwan et al., 2018;Dimkpa et al., 2020). Applying ZnO-NP or Fe-NP alone or coated with NPK can reduce farmers' costs and, in case of zinc, it is cheaper than ZnSO 4 .Whereas, foliar and soil applications of Zn and Fe must be repeated in each crop cycle, genetic biofortification provides a longterm solution against micronutrient malnutrition. Genetic biofortification is complex, involving several physiological pathways and proteins right from soil uptake of minerals to their accumulation in the grain. Targeting the genes or proteins that play key roles in mineral sequestration may increase grain Zn and Fe. The two major approaches that may be used are selective plant breeding and transgenic breeding, to develop biofortified crop genotypes. Transgenic approaches and outputs are subject to stringent policies in many countries and their use is restricted or prohibited, so this paper focuses on selective breeding. Mainstreaming biofortification as a selection priority in breeding programs-along with yield, disease resistance, end-use preferences, and environmental adaption-is paramount, and includes the use of micronutrient dense parental lines and setting grain micronutrient target levels. The review consists of three major sections: the first section deals with physiological and molecular mechanism of uptake, translocation and grain sequestration of Zn and Fe; second section deals with breeding for grain zinc and iron including mapping of gene(s) and QTLs; and the third section deals with new breeding techniques which need to be adopted with conventional breeding.Complex physiological and metabolic processes are associated with the uptake and accumulation of Zn and Fe into the grain. Broadly, there are three kinds of mineral uptake mechanisms: 1) direct uptake of Zn 2+ and Fe 2+ molecules via the root system with the help of ZRT-IRT like proteins; 2) where Zn 2+ and Fe 3+ molecules are chelated first and then taken up through roots; and 3) a combination of 1 and 2. Cereals and millets (rice, maize, wheat, barley, pearl millet, among others) use mechanism 2 to extract Fe and Zn from the rhizosphere into the root system, where secretion of phytosiderophores (PS), proteins of the Mugineic acid (MA) family, help in chelating Fe and Zn and form a complex of Fe 3+ -MA or Zn 2+ -MA (Marschner and Romheld, 1994;Nozoye et al., 2015). The role of MA is well understood in Fe uptake and transport in rice and barley, but also showed its affinity towards molecules like Zn and Cu. In zinc-deficient wheat plants, more MA was released (Cakmak et al., 1994). Methionine acts as a precursor of MA synthesis, which is converted to S-adenosyl-Lmethionine (SAM) with the help of the enzyme SAM synthetase (Mori and Nishizawa, 1987). In a subsequent reaction, SAM is converted to nicotianamine (NA) by NA synthase (NAS) followed by 3″-keto acid and 2′-deoxymugineic acid (DMA) by NA aminotransferase (NAAT) and DMA synthase (DMAS), respectively (Shojima et al., 1990). In some species, DMA is further converted to MA. In graminaceous crops MA is commonly produced, whereas NA is most common in nongraminaceous crops. In wheat, MA producing genes such as TaNAS, TaNAAT, and TaDMAS were identified (Pearce et al., 2014). MA secreted in the root zone chelates iron along with zinc, manganese (Mn), and copper (Cu). The complexes of Fe 3+ -MA or Zn 2+ -MA are taken up by roots. This mechanism is well established for Fe uptake in rice, barley and maize, but little is known about the genetic mechanism of metal uptake and its transport in wheat. Using the knowledge of model crop species, it is possible to identify the candidate genes in wheat of potential use for breeding.The gene family \"transfer of MAs\" (TOM) plays important role in the uptake of soil iron and its translocation. TOM1 was first identified in rice and barley as facilitating MA secretions from roots to soil (Nozoye et al., 2011) and their transport. TOM2 and TOM3 are homologous to TOM1 and transport PS into the plant. Over expression of TOM2 using a GUS-promoter in rice allowed scientists to locate it in roots, shoots and seeds, with the highest expression in basal plant tissues (Nozoye et al., 2015). Several zinc-induced facilitator (ZIFL) genes have been identified and their role in zinc homeostasis assessed. ZIFL acts as an efflux transporter of vacuolar NA. In rice, ZIFL transports MA synthesized in the roots. In wheat, 15 TaZIFL proteins distributed on chromosomes 3, 4, and 5 have been characterized; genes like TaZIFL2.3, TaZIFL4.1, TaZIFL4.2, TaZIFL5, TaZIFL6.1, and TaZIFL6.2, were upregulated in roots under zinc and Fe deficient conditions (Sharma et al., 2019).Other than MA, nicotianamine is produced by roots that also help in chelating soil Fe and Zn. NAS increases the production of NA and DMA, which improves the uptake and translocation of chelated metals. Overexpression of rice nicotianamine synthase genes, the OsNAS2 gene in wheat, increases the uptake and translocation of grain zinc in shoots as well as the grain (Singh et al., 2017).A complex mechanism of metal transport, chelation and sequestration helps plants to avoid metal toxicity. Plants produce several transporter proteins varying in their substrate, expression, and locations. Colangelo and Guerinot (2006) provide a detailed discussion of the P 1B -ATPase family, the CDF family as metal efflux proteins, ZIP, yellow stripe-1 (YSL), the natural resistance associated macrophage protein (NRAMP), and the copper uptake proteins (COPT) as metal uptake proteins. Heavy metal transporting P type ATPase (HMA), a protein of the P 1B -ATPase family, act as a Zn, Cd, and Pb transporter. Arabidopsis mutants of hma2 and hma4 showed lower Zn uptake than the wild type (Hussain et al., 2004). HMA helps Zn to move from roots into shoots and plays a role in xylem loading and unloading. In wheat, 32 HMA protein-producing genes were detected on chromosomes 2A, 2B, 2D, 4A, 4D, 5A, 5B, 5D, 6A, 6B, 6D, 7A, 7B, and 7D (Zhou et al., 2019). Overexpression of the TaHMA2 gene in wheat increased the Zn concentration in the shoot as well as in the grain; however, grain Zn concentration was limited to the embryo and aleurone layer (Tan et al., 2013). Similarly, metal tolerance protein (MTP) is another transmembrane metal transporter protein of the CDF family located in the vacuole membrane of roots, shoots, and leaves and helps in Zn transport into the vacuole. Knocking out the mtp1 gene in Arabidopsis reduced Zn accumulation in various plant tissues (Desbrosses-Fonrouge et al., 2005). NRAMP is another protein located in the vacuole membrane and which takes active part in Fe transport. Eight homologues of TaNRAMP genes have been identified in wheat (Borrill et al., 2014). Other genes known as vacuolar iron transporter (VITs) genes help transport of iron into the grain and offer a potential target for iron biofortification. Wheat has two functional VIT genes, TaVIT1 and TaVIT2 on chromosomes 2 and 5, each with three homeologs from the A, B, and D genome. Overexpression of TaVIT2 increased grain iron 2-fold (Connorton et al., 2017).Several proteins belong to the yellow stripe (YSL) family, a complex of transporter proteins that help in the uptake of chelated metals in the soil into roots and their subsequent transport to stems, leaves, and grain. First detected in maize, YSL-1 is involved in the uptake of metals that form complexes with PS or NA and its role in Fe 3+ -MA transport has been well established (Curie et al., 2001). Rice genes OsYSL15 express in the seed and are involved in seed germination, while OsYSL2 plays an important role in phloem transport and transport into the seed (Nozoye et al., 2015). Likewise, zinc-induced transporter family (ZIP) proteins are involved in metal uptake and transport. In wheat, 14 and 19 members of YSL and ZIP gene families have been characterized in up and down regulation during senescence and which play key roles in metal transport from the cytoplasm to the phloem and the phloem to the grain (Pearce et al., 2014). Several YSL, ZIP, and NRAMP homologs are involved in the uptake, transport, and remobilization of Fe and Zn in wheat (Table 1). Overexpression of the specific transporter protein using a tissue-specific promoter could be a target area for research to increase the grain mineral concentrations.Minerals deposition in grain occurs through the direct uptake of Zn/Fe by roots at grain filling stage, or remobilization of stored Zn/Fe from leaves and stems. Studies in rice to understand the contribution through continued root uptake and remobilization of stored minerals into the grain observed that minerals are accumulated via both processes. Under conditions of adequate minerals in the soil, continued root uptake plays a major role in Zn/Fe deposition into the grain while, under mineral deficient conditions, remobilization of stored Zn/Fe from leaves and stems contributes more to rice grain mineral content (Sperotto, 2013). A similar result was observed for grain Zn accumulation in winter wheat by Liu et al. (2019a), also reported a critical value for soil Zn availability (7.15 mg kg −1 DTPA Zn concentration) for wheat, above which the direct uptake of soil Zn during grain filling is predominant and below which remobilization is the major source of Zn in the grain. Remobilization of Zn/Fe depends on the xylem to phloem loading and mobility. In rice, grain Zn concentrations depend on plants' ability to redistribute Zn from older leaves and stems, as well as phloem mobilization of Zn (Wu et al., 2010). Significant contributions of the flag and penultimate leaves to wheat grain yield have been observed (Roy et al., 2021a), but there are no detailed studies concerning the proportionate remobilization of Zn and Fe from different wheat plant parts. Uauy et al. (2006) observed an abundance of Zn, Fe and proteins in wheat flag leaves during grain filling, in plants carrying the Gpc-B1 locus.Micro elemental analysis revealed higher concentrations of Zn, Fe and other bioactive elements in the embryo and grain aleurone layer; achieving localized increases of mineral concentrations in the endosperm is challenging. To better understand mineral translocation and deposition in the grain, experiments in model crop plants identified key genes. Ferritin is a Fe storage protein located in the plastid and readily bioavailable. Enhancing FERRITIN gene expression is important for Fe-biofortification. Genetically transforming rice using the soybean FERRITIN gene under the seed-specific promoter gene Glu-B1 (Goto et al., 1999) and the pea FERRITIN gene under the Gt-1 promoter (Lucca et al., 1999) increased endosperm iron levels. The soybean FERRITIN gene under the control of the maize ubiquitin promoter was expressed in wheat, resulting in higher iron concentrations in both plant tissue and the grain, but with much higher levels in the former (Drakakaki et al., 2000). Wheat carries two ferritin genes, TaFer1 and TaFer2, located in chromosomes 4 and 5 and each with three homoalleles in hexaploid wheat. Overexpression of the endogenous TaFer1-A gene targeting the endosperm raised wheat grain Fe levels by 50%-58% (Borg et al., 2012).The endogenous vacuolar transporter (TaVIT2) gene using a promoter of the GLU-1D-1 gene achieved a more than 2-fold increase in Fe concentrations in white flour (Connorton et al., 2017). In another attempt, the constitutive expression in bread wheat of the rice OsNAS gene that produces chelators such as nicotianamine (NA) and 2′-deoxymugineic acid (DMA) improved grain Fe and Zn concentrations (Beasley et al., 2019). Effective genetic biofortification approaches for wheat should focus on increasing mineral uptake from the soil and translocation and remobilization into grains, combining genes for higher metal uptake and translocation (NAS, NAAT, DMAS, TOM, YSL, ZIP etc.) and genes that affect targeted transport to the endosperm (VIT, FERITTIN etc.). Singh et al. (2017) developed wheat transgenic lines using the rice OsNAS2 and bean PvFERRITIN genes separately and combining both genes and observed increased grain Zn and Fe concentrations in all three cases. The OsNAS2 gene was most effective; a grain of related transgenic wheat lines contained 93.1 ppm of Fe and 140.6 ppm of Zn (Singh et al., 2017) and there was a more than 2fold increase in grain Fe, compared to a 1.6-fold increase with the combined expression of both genes. This differs from the case for rice, where the combined expression of OsNAS2 and FERRITIN gave a 6-fold increase in grain Fe content (Trijatmiko et al., 2016), suggesting that the two genes may not be synergistic in wheat and the overexpression of endogenous genes in wheat could be an alternative for increasing endospermic mineral expression. However, the very low efficiency of transformation in wheat, compared with crops like rice and barley, and of transgene expression in hexaploid wheat needs to be considered.Minerals in cereal and legume grains are less bioavailable. The presence of phytic acid (PA), a phosphorus (P) storage protein in seed representing 65%-85% of seed P, acts as a chelator for cations of Ca 2+ , Mg 2+ , Zn 2+ , Mn 2+ , and Fe 3+ and reduces their absorption in the intestine (Bhati et al., 2016). Thus, the bioavailability of grain Zn and Fe depends on proportionate phytic acid content in the grain or diet. The molar ratio of phytate: Zn/Fe can be used as a determinant of mineral bioavailability; an increase in the molar ratio indicates lower adsorption of Zn and Fe. Morris and Ellis (1989) determined critical ratios of phytate: Fe > 1 (Hallberg et al., 1989) and phytate: Zn > 15. Genotypes with lower phytic acid lines of PA: Zn < 0.4 and PA: Fe < 5 or 5-10 are preferable for biofortification (Gupta et al., 2022). Assessment of phytic acid in wheat genotypes showed higher genetic variability. Average PA in wheat grain ranges from 7.1 to 11.1 mg g −1 , giving a molar ratio for PA: Zn from 24 to 41, in a set of 65 wheat genotypes from Pakistan (Hussain et al., 2012a). Another study involving 42 durum wheat genotypes showed PA variation from 0.462 to 0.952% and ranges for molar ratios of PA: Zn and PA: Fe of 16.9-23.6 and 12.1-29.6, respectively (Magallanes-Lopez et al., 2017). Wen et al. (2022) evaluated 330 wheat genotypes from CIMMYT, Mexico and reported 0.9%-1.72% range in PA content. Genome wide association studies revealed six stable genomic regions and the effect of four of the six region could reduce PA content from 1.21% to 1.13% which could potentially increase grain Zn and Fe bioavailability by 7%. In comparison, the PA content in T. monococcum, T. turgidum and T. aestivum was less in diploids than in tetraploids or hexaploids (Bilgrami et al., 2018). Seasonal variation of PA was also observed a significant difference in PA between tetraploids and hexaploids was recorded in the fall but was non-significant in the spring. Likewise, the PA: Zn molar ratio was less in T. monococcum (2.15), than T. turgidum (2.66) and T. aestivum (3.15) (Bilgrami et al., 2018). Understanding the physiological and metabolic pathways their underlying genes related to PA biosynthesis allow researchers to mitigate/reduce/control PA activity in grains. Phytic acid is produced during grain development and abscisic acid (ABA) and gibberellic acid (GA) regulates its accumulation during seed maturation. PA is synthesized from glucose-6-phosphate through a series of phosphorylation reactions by several inositol phosphate kinases (IPK) proteins. Genes such as TaIMP, TaITPK1-4, TaPLC1, TaIPK1, TaIPK2 were identified as being involved in PA biosynthesis in wheat (Aggarwal et al., 2015). A protein, TaABCC13, acts as a PA transporter and showed a pleiotropic effect on seed germination and root development (Bhati et al., 2016). Improving mineral bio-availability is possible by reducing PA expression in grain and also can be achieved through overexpression of the phytase enzyme, which degrades phytic acid and release minerals.Approaches such as mutagenic treatment and transgenic development were adopted to develop low phytic acid mutant lines of maize, rice, barley and soybean. Maize low phytic acid mutants can be grouped into lpa1, lpa2, and lpa3 mutants; lpa1 affects transporter proteins that packages PA into vacuoles; lpa2 impairs the production of the inositol phosphate kinase enzyme (IPK1) that phosphorylates inositol-5-phosphate to PA and lpa3 impairs myo-inositol kinase that phosphorylates myo-inositol to inositol monophosphate (Singh et al., 2020). Plants with lpa mutations produced seeds with normal levels of phosphorus but greatly reduced PA bound phosphorus. Low phytic acid mutants of wheat showed a two-fold increase in grain Zn and Fe concentrations (Guttieri et al., 2004;Kenzhebayeva et al., 2019). In mutant lines, the distribution of grain P was altered, increasing the P content in the central endosperm and lowering it in the aleurone layer. But negative pleiotropic effects in lpa mutant line Js-12-LPA included reduced yield and height and weak straw, thus limiting the promise of lpa mutation for breeding (Guttieri et al., 2004).Increasing grain phytase activity can readily increase nutrient bioavailablility. Endogenous phytase is produced during seed germination and releases the P from the PA, but in dry seed and flour, digestive tract phytase activity is very low or absent. Overexpression of the Aspergillus niger phytase gene (phyA) resulted in a 4-fold increase in phytase activity in wheat (Brinch-Pedersen et al., 2000). Detailed studies about increasing phytase activity in wheat are not available. Orthologous genetic information from other related species can be used to identify the gene families involved in PA biosynthesis and degradation and facilitate their use to develop wheat cultivars whose grain features low levels of phytic acid.Breeding for improved grain zinc and iron content in wheat Genetic analysis of grain zinc and iron in wheatUnderstanding the nature of gene action and inheritance for micronutrient accumulation in the wheat grain is a prerequisite for improving the trait. Genetic analysis revealed the quantitative nature of inheritance for grain Zn and Fe contents, making improvement through conventional breeding is slow. Few studies exist regarding the nature of gene action for grain micronutrient content in wheat. One of the studies reported the predominance of additive gene action for grain Fe and dominance and duplicate epistasis for grain Zn in bread wheat (Amiri et al., 2020). Holasoua et al. ( 2021) reported additive gene action as being significant for both grain Zn and Fe. Higher heritability is paramount for increased genetic gains through selection. High heritability for grain Fe and moderately low heritability for grain Zn were reported by Amiri et al. (2020). Moderate-to-high heritability was detected in other studies (Velu et al., 2016a;Narendra et al., 2021). Low heritability for grain Zn and Fe content was also reported by Joshi et al. (2010). The existence of moderate-to-low heritability and the predominance of dominance and duplicate epistasis suggests advanced generation selection for the traits. High genotype × environment (G × E) interaction for grain Zn and Fe was reported under multilocation testing (Joshi et al., 2010;Velu et al., 2016a). Numerous factors affect grain Zn and Fe content, including soil nutrient availability (Alloway, 2009), soil moisture and organic matter (Cakmak, 2008;Pal et al., 2009), pH (Kirk and Bajita, 1995;Rupa and Tomar, 1999), tillage (Stipesevic et al., 2009), and soil N availability (Singh et al., 2018). Wheat grown under stress conditions showed higher grain Zn and Fe concentrations than crops grown under optimum conditions. Elevated temperatures and drought stress at post-anthesis increased grain Zn concentrations in wheat (Velu et al., 2016a;Narendra et al., 2021). This may be a result of the production of smaller grains and an increased aleurone: endosperm ratio under stress, particularly given that the overall Zn and Fe yield per unit area was higher in nonstressed environments (Velu et al., 2016a). For iron, there was no significant change in grain concentrations between genotypes grown under stressed or optimum conditions (Narendra et al., 2021).A significant association between grain Zn and Fe contents has been observed (Velu et al., 2016a;Velu et al., 2019;Narendra et al., 2021), indicating improvement in micronutrient levels of one will lead to improvement in the other. This may be due to commonly associated proteins and enzymes for Zn and Fe uptake and translocation to the grains. However, studies have also found a negative association of grain Zn and Fe with grain yield (Morgounov et al., 2007;Narendra et al., 2021). Velu et al. (2016a) reported a negative association of grain yield with grain Zn but no association with grain Fe content. Simultaneous improvement of both traits is challenging. The significant negative association of grain yield with mineral concentrations could be due to a dilution effect, where highyielding genotypes are contributing less grain Zn and Fe than photosynthates to the grain. In a study comparing modern wheat and rice cultivars with the cultivars released 50 years earlier, it was found that modern cultivars have less capacity to sequester Zn and Fe in the grain than earlier cultivars (Debnath et al., 2021). A study by Hao et al. (2021) found that wheat landraces carry higher grain Zn contents than cultivars and that landraces accumulated more grain Zn under foliar applications of the mineral.With intensive breeding efforts, high-yielding, mineral dense wheat genotypes can be developed. An example is BARI Gom 33, developed by CIMMYT and released for commercial cultivation in Bangladesh and which offers a 7-8 ppm Zn advantage (Velu et al., 2019), as well as resistance to wheat blast (Roy et al., 2021b). Identification of high-yielding wheat genotypes with higher root uptakes or with a higher capacity to remobilize stored minerals or both is important. Grain Fe was improved with the supply of N in soil and foliar application (Aciksoz et al., 2011b), indicating the presence of useful genes for a higher uptake of N and Fe. In addition, a significant positive association of grain protein content with grain Zn and Fe has been reported (Morgounov et al., 2007). The locus TaNAM-B1 was detected to correspond higher levels of grain protein, Zn, and Fe (Uauy et al., 2006).Interestingly, wild species, landraces and synthetic hexaploid wheats (SHW) are probable sources of grain iron and zinc in wheat. Monasterio and Graham (2000) evaluated around 3000 CIMMYT genotypes for grain Zn and Fe concentrations. T. tauschii genotypes had average and maximum iron concentrations of 76 and 99 ppm, with an average and maximum zinc concentrations of 50 and 68.9 ppm, respectively. T. monococcum had maximum iron and zinc levels of 70 and 131 ppm, respectively. T. dicoccoides and T. dicoccon showed zinc levels of 142 and 135 ppm. A core collection of Asian bread and durum wheat in the CIMMYT gene bank showed grain Zn levels ranging from 16.85 to 60.77 ppm and, for grain Fe, from 26.26 to 68.78 ppm (Velu et al., 2011). Ninety diploid and tetraploid wheat progenitors were screened for grain Zn and Fe content, few accessions of D and S genome species including Aegilops tauschii (D), Ae. kotschyi (US), Ae. speltoides (S), Ae. longissima (S) and Ae. bicornis (S) were found promising (Chhuneja et al., 2006). Grain Zn level up to 115.4 ppm (Syn43 [T. durum (Yuk) • Ae. tauschii (864)], 90.4 ppm (Ae. tauschii acc. 14,129) and grain Fe of 109.4 ppm (Ae. tauschii acc. 14,102) and 104.4 ppm (Ae. kotschyi acc. 3,573) were recorded. Another study reported non-progenitor wild species with S, U and M genome carrying 3-4 times higher grain Zn and Fe than the bread and durum wheat (Rawat et al., 2009b). Tetraploids showed higher concentrations of grain Zn and Fe than hexaploids, with ranges for Zn of 45-177 ppm in T. boeoticum, 20-159 in T. dococcoides, 29-89 ppm in T. monococcum and, for grain Fe, 41-92 ppm in T. boeoticum, 28-78 ppm in T. dococcoides, and 34-85 ppm in T. monococcum. This compared to 15-61 ppm for grain Zn and 24-51 ppm for grain Fe in T. aestivum and 18-50 ppm for grain Zn and 10-50 ppm for grain Fe in T. durum (Cakmak et al., 2000). Other studies have also reported the high genetic potential for grain Zn and Fe contents in diploid and tetraploid wild species such as T. monococcum, T. turgidum ssp dicoccoides, T. boeoticum, Aegilops tauschii and landraces (Cakmak, 2007;Velu et al., 2014). Grain Zn in T. turgidum ssp dicoccoides varied from 69 to 139 ppm; Fe concentrations from 44 to 88 ppm and protein from 164 to 382 g/kg (Peleg et al., 2007). A few accessions of T. turgidum ssp dicoccoides showed both high grain Zn and Fe concentrations. In most cases, the cultivated wheat genotypes showed lower levels of grain Zn and Fe. A range of grain Zn and Fe was 21-35 ppm and 22-34 ppm, respectively (Tang et al., 2008), 26-40 ppm and 35-56 ppm, respectively (Peterson et al., 1986), 29-46 ppm and 34-66 ppm, respectively (Ficco et al., 2009), 8-12 ppm and 29-38 ppm, respectively (Cakmak, 2000) were reported in the cultivated wheat genotypes.Genomic regions associated with higher micronutrient density can be transferred from wild relatives to cultivated varieties. Wheat secondary and tertiary gene pools can be used to broaden the genetic base for grain mineral density through pre-breeding or the production of synthetic hexaploid wheat useful for the breeders. Chromosome addition lines from Ae. peregrina, Ae. longissima and Ae. umbellulata have been found to carry genes for high Zn and Fe in the grain and roots and control the release of high levels of mugineic acid in the root zone (Neelam et al., 2012). Synthetic amphidiploids produced from T. aestivum (AABBDD) and Ae. kotschyi (UUS 1 S 1 ) carrying grain Zn and Fe more than double of the hexaploid parents (Rawat et al., 2009a).The addition of rye chromosomes 1R and 7R improved the Zn efficiency of wheat cultivars. Increased zinc concentrations and contents were found in the shoots of chromosome addition lines (Cakmak et al., 1997). One of the most significant achievements in wheat breeding is the addition to hexaploid wheat of the 1BL:1RS rye chromosome segment, which has proved an invaluable source of resistance to stem, leaf, and yellow rust and powdery mildew, as well as providing wide adaptation, enhanced yield, and abiotic stress tolerance (Kumar et al., 2003). Likewise, the 2NS segment from Aegilops ventricosa is associated with cyst nematode resistance (Williamson et al., 2013), lodging resistance (Singh et al., 2019), and resistance to wheat blast, one of the devastating diseases of wheat (Roy et al., 2021b;Singh et al., 2021;Phuke et al., 2022). A study using Ae. longissima × T. turgidum ssp durum crosses showed that amphidiploids received genes from Ae. longissima for higher grain Zn and Fe contents than their durum parents (Tiwari et al., 2008). Considering the importance of wild relatives as a source of important genes for cultivated wheat, CIMMYT started production of SHW during the 1980s and many of these synthetics provided enhanced resilience against biotic and abiotic stresses (Mujeeb-Kazi, 1995). SHW developed from crossed of T. turgidum ssp turgidum x T. tauschii, T. turgidum ssp durum x T. tauschii, and T. turgidum ssp dicoccoides x T. tauschii produced higher grain Zn and Fe than parental accessions (Zhao et al., 2017). SHW developed by CIMMYT using T. spelta, T. turgidum var diccocoides, and Ae. squarosa were found to be promising for grain mineral concentration (Calderini and Ortiz-Monasterio, 2003;Crespo-Herrera et al., 2016). Calderini and Ortiz-Monasterio (2003) reported SHW carrying 25%-30% higher grain Zn, Fe and manganese (Mn). Using SHW, several novel genes responsible for high grain Zn and Fe have been transferred into CIMMYT elite wheat breeding lines; some were tested in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan and released for commercial cultivation (Khokhar et al., 2018;Velu et al., 2018).Attempts to detect the genomic regions associated with variation for grain protein, zinc and iron in cultivated and wild relatives of wheat have identified the relevant chromosome locations. For grain protein content, the locus GPC-B1 was mapped on chromosome 6B (DIC-6B) in the durum wheat genotype LND, a D genome disomic substitution line of durum wheat variety LANGDON (LND) from T. turgidum var dicoccoides (accession FA-15-3) (Joppa et al., 1997). The DIC-6B allele encodes a protein specific to the NAC transcription factor family and was found to be similar to the Arabidopsis No Apical Meristem (NAM) protein; therefore, it has been named NAM-B1 (Uauy et al., 2006). The NAC transcription factor is associated with auxin signaling, responses under biotic and abiotic stress, and early leaf senescence. This pleiotropic gene also increases grain protein, Zn, and Fe and triggers early senescence in the plant. Cultivated wheat carries a non-functional allele of the same gene with a 1 bp insertion of thymine base at position 11 that caused a frameshift mutation (Uauy et al., 2006). The presence of the DIC-6B locus increased durum wheat grain Zn, Fe, and Mn levels by 12, 18, and 29%, as well as resulting in a 38% higher protein accumulation than occurs in durum wheat without the locus (Distelfeld et al., 2007). Discovery of high-throughput, tightly-linked markers for GPC-B1 facilitated the marker-assisted transfer into the cultivated wheat. Through marker assisted breeding, the GPC-B1 locus was transferred into the Indian wheat variety HUW 468; some derivative lines showed significantly higher levels of grain Zn, Fe, and protein (Vishwakarma et al., 2014). Use of the DIC allele was a breakthrough for quality improvement in wheat worldwide. Wheat varieties with more than 14% GPC using the DIC locus were developed in Canada (https://www.grainscanada. gc.ca/en/grain-research/scientific-reports/pdf/canadian-wheat.pdf) and Australia (https://seedworld.com/australian-researchersdevelop-high-protein-wheat/). Cultivars \"Lassik\" and \"Farnum\" in hexaploid wheat and \"Westmore\" and \"Desert King High Protein\" in durum wheat in United States; and \"Lallian,\" \"Somerset\" and \"Burnside\" in hexaploid wheat in Canada have been developed (Balyan et al., 2013). Recently, Indian scientists have developed a biofortified wheat variety MACS 4028 that contains 14.7% GPC and above 40 ppm zinc and iron (https:// dst.gov.in/scientists-ari-pune-develop-biofortified-high-proteinwheat-variety). Major constraints on the expression of GPC-B1 appear to be a genetic background and environmental conditions, particularly high temperatures (Carter et al., 2012), making breeding to develop high-yielding, biofortified genotypes using the locus is a challenge, particularly for areas where terminal heat and drought are constraints and may lead to early senescence.Selecting genotypes for highly quantitative traits that also show high G × E interaction is difficult through phenotypic assessment. QTL detection and their use through marker assisted selection can improve selection efficiency. The high environmental influence, narrow range of variation, and tedious phenotyping procedures for estimating grain Zn and Fe have made QTL mapping challenging. Phenotyping through inductively coupled plasma spectrometry (ICP-S) and, recently, use of energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (ED-XRF) has facilitated the screening of large samples, then the atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS).Efforts have been made in the last two decades to dissect the genetic components governing grain Zn and Fe content in wheat. A number of QTLs associated with the genetic variation of grain mineral content have been detected. QTL mapping was performed on the diverse genetic backgrounds using bi-parental and association mapping population and several QTLs of major and minor allelic variations were detected (Table 2). Most of the QTL mapping studies have focused on the background of SHW or wild relatives of tetraploid or diploid species, due to the presence of higher levels of genetic variation. One early study has reported the GPC-B1 locus, which has been cloned and sequenced (Uauy et al., 2006). Peleg et al. (2009) used recombinant inbred lines (RILs) developed from T. durum (cv. Langdon) × wild emmer wheat (accession #G18-16) and identified 82 QTLs for different minerals, six of which were associated with grain Zn and located on chromosomes 2A, 5A, 6B, 7A, 7B, and 11 of which linked to grain Fe were found on chromosomes 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B, 4B, 5A, 6A, 6B, 7A, and 7B. Using interspecific crosses between Triticum boeoticum (pau5088) × Triticum monococcum (pau14087), 2 QTLs for grain Fe were detected on chromosomes 2A and 7A and 1 QTL for grain Zn on 7A (Tiwari et al., 2009). Genes for enhanced grain Zn and Fe content were observed on chromosome 2S and 7U of Ae. kotschyi and substitution of 2S and 7U for the homoeologous A genome increased up to 117.4% grain Fe and 136% grain Zn over T. aestivum cv. WH 711 (Tiwari et al., 2010). A number of SHW were identified as potential donors and their underlying QTLs were detected. Using a SHW × T. spelta recombinant inbred line population, 12 QTLs for grain Zn and 7 QTLs for grain Fe were detected (Crespo-Herrera et al., 2017). The QTL Qgrain Zn.cimmyt-7B_1P2 for grain Zn on chromosome 7B, with a maximum phenotypic variation explained (PVE) of 32.7% and QTL Qgrain Fe.cimmyt-4A_P2 on chromosome 4A with 21.14% for grain Fe can be used in marker assisted breeding. Pleiotropic QTLs can be targeted through marker assisted selection for simultaneous improvement of multiple traits including yield. QTLs detected on chromosomes 2A, 5A, 6B for grain Zn were colocalized for high GPC and 5 loci on chromosomes 2A, 2B, 5A, 6A, and 7B for high grain Fe and GPC, indicating the potential correlated improvement for grain content of both minerals and proteins (Peleg et al., 2009). Other studies have reported common genomic regions. QTL for grain Zn content on 7B was co-localized with a QTL for grain Fe (Crespo-Herrera et al., 2017). Common genetic regions influencing high GPC, Zn and Fe contents were also found on chromosomes 2A and 5A (Peleg et al., 2009) and on 2A (Krishnappa et al., 2017). Although few, QTLs were detected in the hexaploid wheat background is advantageous, as they can be transferred through breeding without linkage drag, cross compatibility issues, or much time. Using RILs from a cross between a Chinese wheat line (with the lineage Hong Hua Mai/ . ../Blouk #1) and the commercial bread wheat cultivar Roelfs F2007, 10 QTLs for grain Zn, 9 for grain Fe, 5 for GPC, and 36 for agronomic traits were detected (Liu et al., 2019b). Pleiotropic QTLs for grain Zn and Fe content on chromosome 3D and for grain Zn, GPC and thousand kernel weight were detected on chromosome 2B. Shi et al. (2008) used a double haploid population derived from two winter wheat cultivars and mapped 4 and 7 genomic locations for grain Zn concentration and grain Zn content, respectively. Four QTLs on chromosomes 4A, 4D, 5A and 7A were identified for grain Zn concentration and content and may facilitate simultaneous improvement of grain Zn content and concentration. Surprisingly, collocated QTLs for grain Zn and phosphorus (P) were found on chromosomes 4A and 4D, TABLE 2 Mapping population, number of QTLs detected along with their percent of phenotypic variation explained (PVE%) and chromosome carrying the QTLs for grain zinc and iron in wheat. suggesting the potential for their correlated breeding improvement, even though the elements share an antagonistic relationship for plant uptake in soils. Genome wide association studies (GWAS) use potential natural variations to map significant marker trait associations (MTA), and provide the advantages of high resolution, high allele coverage over the bi-parental mapping population, and elimination of the disadvantages associated with RILs, where variation is confined within the two parental lines. Using GWAS in winter and red wheat cultivars, 161 MTAs were detected on 15 wheat chromosomes. The most significant regions were on chromosomes 3A and 5B and are related to transporter proteins such as those of the ZIP family and signal proteins of the MAPK family (Alomari et al., 2018). GWAS performed using a diverse panel of SHW develop from of T. durum, T. dicoccon, T. spelta, pre-breeding derivatives from T. polonicum, and landraces detected 39 QTLs for grain Zn on chromosomes 1A, 2A, 2B, 2D, 5A, 6B, 6D, 7B, and 7D (Velu et al., 2018). QTLs with large effects were detected on chromosomes 2B and 7B and are associated with transcription factors such as zinc finger motifs and metal ion binding protein (phosphatase), all of which has a role in the additional loading of Zn in wheat grains. Multiple studies have reported QTLs for high Zn and Fe concentrations on chromosomes 2A, 2B, 5A, and 7B (Srinivasa et al., 2014;Alomari et al., 2018;Alomari et al., 2019;Krishnappa et al., 2022). Transfer of these QTLs through marker assisted breeding will certainly improve mineral concentrations in wheat grains. However, detection of QTLs with major effects and stable expression across environments remains a constraint for marker-assisted breeding. Stable QTLs reported in some studies will be initial targets for breeding, but few QTLs were reported to be stable across years or locations. Based on across-location evaluations in India and Mexico, Velu et al. (2018) reported 39 stable MTAs (significant across at least three environments) for grain Zn. Crespo-Herrera et al. (2016) reported a QTL on 4BS that appeared across years governing 19.6% of the PVE for grain Zn and with pleiotropic effects on grain Zn and grain Fe. Alomari et al. (2018) reported a single MTA with minor effects on chromosome 3B and expressed in all 3 years of the study. Cu et al. (2020) reported five MTAs on chromosome 5B expressed over the season and having pleiotropic effects on grain Fe, Mn, Cu, and P contents. Recently, a meta-analysis using QTLs from seven different studies of diverse parental combinations (Shariatipour et al., 2021) detected meta-QTLs (MQTL) on chromosomes 1B, 2B, 4A, 5A, 7A, and 7B with MQTL-1, MQTL-5 and MQTL-7 on chromosomes 1B, 7A, and 7B, respectively, were detected with the highest number of initial QTLs. Functional analysis of candidate genes confined in the MQTL revealed that most of the genes were associated with Zn and Fe homeostasis. The meta-QTL analysis is a powerful tool to reduce the confidence interval for the QTLs by integrating information from independent QTL analyses performed by different authors and helps to identify more reliable QTLs. Wheat biofortification is challenging, an integrated approach needs to be constructed integrating conventional breeding, biotechnological tools, new breeding techniques, and agronomic measures for immediate soil remediation (Figure 1). In populations with diets heavy in staple crop foods and highly susceptible to micronutrient deficiencies, supplementation through pharmaceutical products and food additives may be required and need support through governmental policies.A number of wheat genotypes with higher grain Zn and Fe content have been developed and released for cultivation in Australia, Bangladesh, Bolivia, India, Nepal, Mexico, and Pakistan (Table 3). Constraints associated with selective breeding include limited genetic variation, low heritability, crossability barriers, and linkage drag, to name several. Yield gains through pure line varieties have plateaued and the development of pure line varieties is slow. Working in the joint Rockefeller Foundation-Mexican government Office of Special Studies in the mid-20th century, Nobel Peace laureate Dr. Norman E. Borlaug launched a \"shuttle breeding\" approach to speed wheat varietal development, allowing two breeding cycles per year and still used by CIMMYT. Double haploids represents another method to rapidly fix genotypes from gametospores of an F 1 plant, but are also associated with the flaws of a single generation of recombination and not exposed to diverse environments for hardening. Recently, speed breeding has emerged as an approach to the rapid advancement of generation. In this approach, plants are raised in growth chambers under controlled conditions with extended temperatures and photoperiods (Watson et al., 2018). Among other things, this modulates flowering genes to stimulate the early onset of flowering and, as a result, allows 5-6 generations to be grown in a year and the rate of genetic gains is greatly increased. For instance, genetic gain is ΔG = ihσ A /L, where i = selection intensity, h = heritability, σ A = standard deviation of additive genetic variance and L = length of breeding cycle interval or generation. Through modification in the selection intensity and accurate phenotyping, genetic advance can be enhanced to some extent. Rapid breeding cycles Frontiers in Genetics frontiersin.org multiple genetic variations that require genome-wide selection approaches, rather than targeting single QTLs. GS calculates genomic assisted breeding values (GEBVs) by estimating all available genetic variations in an individual. It uses the genomic best linear unbiased prediction (GBLUP) model and a multi-environment, linear mixed model to estimate correlated environmental structure, to predict the performance of individuals before phenotyping, based on genotyping and pedigree information. In GS, a set of individuals are genotyped and phenotyped as a training population for use to develop the prediction model (Juliana et al., 2018). The efficacy of GS has been tested for multiple traits in several crops, including wheat, for yield (Juliana et al., 2018), leaf rust and yellow rust (Juliana et al., 2017), spot blotch (Juliana et al., 2022b), and wheat blast (Juliana et al., 2022a). GS to improve grain mineral concentrations has been employed in maize (Mageto et al., 2020), rice (Rakotondramanana et al., 2022), and wheat (Velu et al., 2018), with reasonable prediction accuracies. Velu et al. (2018) reported prediction accuracies ranging from 0.331 to 0.694, with an average of 0.542, for grain Zn content and 0.324 to 0.734, with an average of 0.529, for grain Fe content, in the Harvest Plus Association Mapping (HPAM) panel.Prediction accuracy was higher in the environments with high heritability and soil available Zn. Genetic relatedness increases prediction ability and prediction ability sharply declines as relatedness between the training and testing population decreases (Crossa et al., 2010) and when evaluations are conducted in poor environments and with poor phenotyping (Velu et al., 2018). GS becomes more effective with higher prediction accuracies and applied in early generations of selection to retain lines with high breeding value and discarding those not expected to give higher genetic gains in advanced generations. GS can easily be incorporated with speed breeding to increase genetic gain. GS has not been studied in detail for increasing mineral density in wheat. A model has been proposed where GS was accumulated through speed breeding and predicted higher genetic gains over conventional breeding (Voss-Fels et al., 2019). It has been shown that the incorporation of GS with speed breeding can significantly increase grain yield, over conventional phenotypic selection.Genome editing is a powerful tool in the field of medicine, agriculture and the life sciences, allowing targeted changes in a genotype and avoided the random changes that occur in induced mutations. Genome editing can produce targeted genetic variation where none previously existed. Unlike the case of genetically modified crops, gene editing does not require the insertion of foreign DNA. Deletions, additions, single nucleotides or DNA segment substitution are used to change a target gene. Researchers have developed artificial site-specific nucleases, broadly classified as zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs), transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-CRISPR-associated (Cas) nucleases that are designed to effect a targeted, double-stranded break in the DNA (Karmakar et al., 2022). ZFNs consist of a zinc finger DNA binding domain attached with nuclease FokI (Carroll, 2011). TALENs are engineered with a TAL effector binding DNA domain attached with FokI nuclease (Joung and Sander, 2013). CRISPR-Cas nuclease consists of a guide RNA and a Cas nuclease. Using the Cas9 endonuclease, CRISPR-Cas9 is the most extensively used system for genome editing, thanks to its simple design, cost effectiveness, high efficacy, reproducibility and engineering feasibility (Karmakar et al., 2022). A single guide RNA (sgRNA) hybrid consisting of a CRISPR-RNA and a transactivating RNA locate the binding and cleavage site for the Cas9 nuclease. CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing is increasingly used to enhance disease resistance, tolerance to abiotic stresses (drought, heat, salinity) and end-use quality in food crops. The role of genome editing in crop biofortification is being exploited for several traits including vitamin-A enrichment, targeted increases in grain zinc and iron, and reducing anti-nutritional factors in the grain (Kumar et al., 2022). Targeted knockout of the OsAAP6 and OsAAP10 genes using gene editing has reduced protein content in rice (Wang et al., 2020). The CRISPR-Cas9 system was used to create novel OsBADH2 genes in nonaromatic rice lines and created aroma (Kumar et al., 2020). Targeted change in OsNRAMP2 gene enhanced iron remobilization and distribution in rice (Chang et al., 2022). In wheat, CRISPR-Cas9 mediated genome change in the α-gliadin gene resulted in low gluten wheat (Sánchez-León et al., 2018). Reduction in phytic acid levels through the disruption of inositol pentakisphosphate 2-kinase 1 (TaIPK1) improves grain Zn and Fe bioavailability in wheat (Ibrahim et al., 2021). In the future, numerous genes can be targeted through CRISPR-Cas to develop biofortified crops. To promote genome edited technology in crop improvement, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, India, and the United States have established regulatory measures separate from those applied for transgenic crops.The suppression of gene expression through antisense or RNAi technology is a powerful way to modulate biosynthetic pathways. RNAi is preferred over antisense technology, as it is more stable, efficient, and precise. Using a double stranded RNA (dsRNA) molecule, RNAi inhibits the expression of a gene at the transcription and translational levels. It has been used for biotic and abiotic stress tolerance and nutritional quality improvement. RNAi mediated suppression of the inositol pentakisphosphate kinase (IPK1) gene involved in the phytic acid biosynthesis pathway reduced phytic acid level of 28%-56% in wheat (Aggarwal et al., 2018). Similarly, downregulation of the rice inositol triphosphate kinase (OsITP5/6K-1) gene through RNAi resulted in a 42% reduction in phytic acid in rice grains (Karmakar et al., 2020). This technology can be used to elucidate biosynthetic pathways and understand the roles of different genes in Zn and Fe sequestration.Advancement in next-generation sequencing platforms has enabled the development of a whole genome sequence for Triticum aestivum cv. Chinese Spring (https://www.wheatgenome. org/News/Latest-news/RefSeq-v1.0-URGI), which is the largest cereal genome. Genome sequence information of diploid (AA, DD genome) and tetraploid (AABB) progenitors are also available (Zhou et al., 2020). Sequence information for wheat wild relatives will elucidate the genetic mechanisms and variation for micronutrient levels in wheat grain, paving the way for structural genomics, functional genomics and metabolomics. Integration of multiple omics data with high-throughput techniques has elucidated the complex pathways of plant growth and their responses under biotic and abiotic stress. The availability of other omics technologies (mutagenomics, pangenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, ionomics, and phenomics) would provide new knowledge on complex biological systems. Huge amounts of data are generated using these technologies; advances in computing and integrated system-based analysis to use and manage data will expand our understanding of genotype and phenotype relationships, allowing wheat breeders to make targeted changes in the pathways of metal homeostasis and develop bio-fortified genotypes.The review updates about wheat biofortification research include conventional and molecular breeding. Mainstreaming biofortification is essential along with yield, disease resistance and other parameters. Being quantitative, limited genetic variations in the cultivated wheat varieties, improvement through conventional breeding is hard. Available genomic resources are needed to be utilized while breeding for high grain zinc and iron content wheat varieties. An integrated breeding programme including marker assisted selection, genomic approaches and gene editing tools will gear up development of biofortified wheat varieties.","tokenCount":"9545"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"caa07bdf11787a5985bed22fc5f174d5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8874bdac-b6ea-49a2-b25a-bf316fa8c064/retrieve","id":"-1463683104"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7cf3263f-f858-4131-9bd1-af78f354dec6","pagecount":"18","content":"Este documento se publica bajo la licencia de Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Licencia Internacional. Este trabajo puede ser copiado, adaptado, y distribuido, dando los respectivos créditos y un enlace a la licencia dada, indicando si se han realizado algunos cambios.Las radiografías de los países son una descripción de la situación de referencia de los sistemas de mercado principales para el café y el cacao en los países MOCCA a nivel nacional, en función de las evaluaciones rápidas realizadas en cada país 1 .El nivel de detalle presentado es, en cierta medida, un reflejo de la complejidad y madurez del sector en cada país. No se esperaría que el sistema de mercado para un nuevo cultivo en un sector pequeño y en un país pequeño, sea necesariamente tan desarrollado como el de un cultivo histórico en un sector grande y en un país grande. Las Radiografías de País se encuentran disponibles para los sistemas de mercado de café y cacao en El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, y Perú, y para el sistema de mercado de cacao en el Ecuador. A continuación, se describen las tablas y figuras en el orden que se encuentran en las radiografías.Figura: Mapa -el mapa del país al comienzo de cada radiografía muestra sombreadas las principales áreas productoras de café o cacao del país a nivel de departamento/provincia. Tabla: Cacao o Café en País -proporciona estadísticas nacionales de alto nivel sobre el sector para proporcionar al lector una contextualización básica de los diferentes casos, por ejemplo, el tamaño del sector y la importancia económica relativa para el país. Las fuentes de datos se describen en el anexo. Se utilizaron fuentes para las cuales había datos similares disponibles para todos los países. En algunos casos, particularmente para los datos de cacao de Guatemala, no fue posible encontrar datos consistentes en las fuentes oficiales.Figura: El mapa del mercado (Sistema de Mercado Principal para Cacao o Café en País) -El mapa del mercado tiene tres partes. 1) El centro muestra la cadena de mercado y sus principales canales competidores. La cadena de mercado es la cadena de actores (participantes) económicos que poseen un producto a medida que pasa de productores primarios a consumidores. Las flechas representan el flujo de dinero, de izquierda a derecha, ya que el producto es comprado de un actor por otro. Siempre que fue posible, se mapearon para diferentes calidades de café/cacao, y se agregó un número de actores o participación de mercado donde esté disponible. Esta sección ayuda a comprender la estructura de la cadena y a pensar en la eficiencia sistémica. La parte superior muestra las reglas y el entorno empresarial, incluidas las políticas e instituciones (influyentes) que dan forma al sistema de mercado. Estos se organizan de izquierda a derecha según el año en que se convirtieron en una influencia en el sistema de mercado, con el más reciente a la izquierda y el más antiguo a la derecha. Esta sección ayuda a identificar políticas o instituciones que influyen en el funcionamiento de la cadena. La parte inferior muestra los servicios, por ejemplo, servicios comerciales y de extensión, que respaldan la operación de las cadenas de mercado en cualquier punto de la cadena. Estos se organizan -tanto como sea posible-en función de los actores o parte de la cadena a la que prestan un servicio, con servicios en el extremo derecho más relacionados con la producción, y aquellos en el extremo izquierdo más relacionados con las exportaciones. Esta sección ayuda a identificar servicios clave o servicios faltantes, y a vincular servicios con usuarios dentro de la cadena.Figura: Sistemas de Mercado de Soporte Priorizados -estos diagramas en forma de dona del sistema de mercado desglosan algunas de las funciones de apoyo para los sistemas de mercado de café y cacao identificados como áreas de intervención en la teoría de cambio de MOCCA, que incluyen asistencia técnica, investigación, material genético y servicios financieros. La gráfica en forma de dona es un mapa de mercado simplificado donde el centro muestra una función genérica de oferta y demanda para el servicio de soporte de interés. La parte superior de la dona muestra los servicios que respaldan la prestación del servicio principal, y la parte inferior muestra las reglas que dan forma a la prestación del servicio principal. Cuando este servicio o función reguladora se asocia predominantemente con uno o pocos actores, y existe el suficiente espacio, estos se nombran. Utilizando la \"asistencia técnica\" como ejemplo: la asistencia técnica brindada a los agricultores se encuentra en el centro del diagrama en forma de dona, y se describe brevemente en el texto debajo del diagrama en términos de quién brinda el servicio, quién lo paga, la naturaleza del servicio y las funciones y regulaciones de apoyo clave. En la parte superior del diagrama, se señalan las funciones de apoyo identificadas que permiten brindar asistencia técnica a los agricultores, incluida la capacitación de agentes de extensión, la financiación de la asistencia técnica, la producción de contenido, la investigación, entre otros. En la parte inferior del diagrama, se señalan todas las normas, reglamentos, e instituciones que influyen en la forma en que se brinda asistencia técnica a los agricultores, p.ej., una entidad que certifica a los proveedores de asistencia técnica o dicta el contenido o la metodología utilizada para proporcionar asistencia técnica a los agricultores.Perú es un importante lugar de origen de café arábica de grado comercial, y uno de los principales productores de café orgánico y de comercio justo a nivel mundial. Los compradores también ven a Perú como una fuente de café sostenible cultivado por pequeños agricultores. La mayoría de los caficultores son pequeños y medianos, muchos en áreas remotas. El 25-30% de los agricultores están asociados con unas pocas cooperativas grandes de segundo nivel, que sirven como su principal canal de comercialización de café (gran parte certificado Comercio Justo). Como estrategia, Perú está tratando de diferenciar su café como sostenible y cada vez se utilizan más los puntajes de catación para determinar la compra y el precio hasta los agricultores. Honduras y Colombia pueden verse como competidores y referencias en términos de cómo podría evolucionar el sector.Desde la crisis de la roya del café de 2012/2013, el gobierno ha dado una importancia cada vez mayor al sector, primero con el Plan Nacional de Renovación y Asistencia Financiera a través de Agrobanco (2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018), y ahora bajo el Plan Nacional para el Sector, desarrollado con el apoyo de PNUD, y una nueva 2 Para las fuentes de datos ver Anexo.  Importación, Tm (verde) 5.229 (0,4%) Importación/ Exportación, volumen 2% Figura 1 Principales áreas de producción de café ley para fortalecer Agrobanco. DEVIDA, el programa peruano para erradicar cultivos ilícitos, continúa canalizando grandes inversiones en regiones específicas hacia el café (30% del total) como una alternativa a la coca.Las exportaciones están dominadas por alrededor de diez exportadores que obtienen la mayoría del café a través de intermediarios, incluidas las principales empresas nacionales y multinacionales. Las multinacionales ingresaron al Perú hace aproximadamente una década y han aumentado cada vez más su participación en el mercado, superando a las empresas nacionales como grupo en 2016. El sector es muy competitivo y los márgenes son ajustados. Los comerciantes buscan diferenciarse, pero la falta de transparencia y coordinación dentro del sector lo dificultan. La compra y venta de café de grado comercial no permite mucha reinversión en las cadenas de suministro.La gobernanza está fragmentada, sin una sola entidad que represente al sector. MINAGRI y el Consejo Nacional del Café, lideraron el proceso reciente para desarrollar el plan de acción nacional para el sector cafetalero. La Junta Nacional del Café representa a los agricultores organizados, es decir, solo el 25% de los agricultores, con más importancia en la región central. Actualmente son débiles como institución, tienen fondos mínimos y a muchos les resulta difícil trabajar con ellos. La Junta también representa al Perú en el Programa Cooperativo Regional para el Desarrollo Tecnológico y la Modernización de la Caficultura (PROMECAFE), aunque hay conversaciones sobre si una entidad diferente debería desempeñar ese papel. La Cámara Peruana del Café y Cacao, representa a los exportadores y también tiene una capacidad operativa relativamente pequeña. La Junta, Cámara y MINAGRI, forman el Consejo, pero el Consejo como tal, no tiene una estructura operativa ni autoridad para tomar decisiones. La brecha obvia es la (no) representación del 75% de los agricultores no asociados y otras partes de la cadena de valor. Si bien MINAGRI está presente a través de SENASA y AgroIdeas, otras ramas del gobierno tienen importantes inversiones en café y en áreas de producción de café sin un mecanismo claro para coordinar. Estos incluyen DEVIDA, el Ministerio de Producción con CITE (plataformas de innovación), y el Instituto Nacional de Calidad (INACAL) (estándares de calidad), gobiernos regionales con Mesas Técnicas Regionales y Agencias Agrarias, y la Comisión de Promoción del Perú para la Exportación y el Turismo (PROMPERÚ) (promoción de exportaciones). El nuevo plan propone la creación de un Instituto Nacional del Café similar al de Honduras o Colombia para mejorar la coordinación.Las tendencias y preocupaciones actuales en el sector incluyen la gobernanza, la falta de trabajo sobre material genético resistente en el país, los bajos precios actuales, las certificaciones, los problemas financieros de algunas cooperativas representativas y el sector financiero público, una vez más rescatado de problemas. Dada la importancia del Perú como fuente de café orgánico y de comercio justo, particularmente para Europa, existen importantes preocupaciones recientes sobre el cumplimiento de estas certificaciones. La reciente detección de glifosato en los envíos de café orgánico desde Perú ha generado alarma y ha puesto en duda la reputación de Perú como origen de café orgánico. Como resultado, su café orgánico estará bajo escrutinio y el cumplimiento deberá ser mucho más estricto, particularmente para Europa, que tiene una tolerancia mucho menor a los agroquímicos. Los compradores y los productores deberán adaptarse. Para las certificaciones de Comercio Justo, existe la preocupación de que los intermediarios y otros compradores organicen grupos de agricultores para acceder a las certificaciones de comercio justo, consideradas como competencia desleal con las cooperativas y una forma cuestionable de cumplir con los estándares de certificación. Comprar combosla práctica de comprar lotes que combinan la compra de FT certificado, orgánico y otros -es otra práctica que preocupa a las cooperativas en particular. Como la oferta de café certificado excede la demanda, los compradores pueden negociar con las cooperativas para comprar una gran cantidad de café certificado donde pagan primas de certificación en una parte del lote según sus necesidades, pero la cooperativa debe venderles una cantidad adicional de café certificado como café convencional para completar la venta. Si bien los compradores no pueden revender como certificado, en el café que compran como comercial (aunque esté certificado), pueden obtener un producto de alta calidad a un precio más bajo. Las cooperativas sienten que no tienen más remedio que negociar en estos términos, pero a muchas les preocupa el efecto de esta práctica en la transparencia a lo largo de la cadena, y la captura de beneficios de estas certificaciones por parte de los agricultores.La R&R sigue siendo una necesidad persistente, particularmente la renovación con variedades resistentes a la roya (actualmente el 70% es Typica). Según USAID (1) más del 50% de la tierra requiere renovación o rehabilitación, y la renovación es una necesidad particular debido a que los árboles son predominantemente viejos y al impacto del brote de la roya de 2012 a 2014. Las cifras del gobierno (2) informan que el 69% de la tierra está afectada, con el 19% severamente afectada. El gobierno respondió con un plan nacional de renovación e informa que ha renovado casi la mitad de las áreas severamente afectadas a un costo de $ 3.273/ha. Sin embargo, el sesenta y dos por ciento de esto fue solo en Junín. Se otorgó crédito a tasas favorables, pero el reembolso y el acceso al nuevo capital sigue siendo un desafío, así como el acceso para los pequeños agricultores. Sesenta y cinco por ciento de las nuevas áreas eran Catimor. USAID (1) sugiere que la R&R podría duplicar los rendimientos para los pequeños agricultores, por lo que las ganancias potenciales son grandes.Falta una orientación técnica clara en términos de cómo se debe llevar a cabo la R&R. Los diferentes proveedores de asistencia técnica recomiendan diferentes técnicas de poda y variedades. Los participantes del grupo focal mencionaron que hay agricultores que habían introducido variedades resistentes y que ahora quieren volver a las variedades tradicionales, realizando así una doble inversión. Esto crea confusión en el sector, particularmente en ausencia de una organización técnica de referencia. Honduras es un ejemplo de referencia para muchos. Algunas de las cooperativas y exportadores más grandes están apoyando la introducción y difusión de variedades resistentes de Centroamérica, como Marsellesa o Parainema, u otro material genético de interés para un comprador específico.Más del 80% del café peruano es café de grado comercial, producido en gran parte por pequeños y medianos agricultores que no están asociados. Estos agricultores venden su café a comerciantes nacionales y multinacionales a través de intermediarios en el mercado internacional. El café puede cambiar de manos varias veces antes de llegar a un exportador. El café certificado (10%) es predominantemente orgánico y de comercio justo, producido principalmente por agricultores organizados en asociaciones que a su vez están organizadas en cooperativas. La mayor parte de este café se adquiere a través de algunas grandes cooperativas. A menudo, las cooperativas colaboran para compartir servicios como el procesamiento, el transporte o la exportación, siendo Norandino un importante proveedor de servicios. CENFROCAFE acaba de invertir en sus propias instalaciones en Jaén. Los comerciantes y algunas cooperativas también compran y venden café gourmet, pero los volúmenes son pequeños (2%) (3). Solo el 5% del café peruano se consume en el país, y el 75% de ese consumo es café instantáneo de baja calidad.Las principales regulaciones que han tenido impacto reciente en el sector, incluyen el Plan Nacional de Renovación sobre la distribución de plántulas, variedades adaptadas, y crédito; la reciente ley para fortalecer Agrobanco en apoyo del sector; y certificaciones, especialmente las dos principales, comercio justo y orgánico. El Plan Nacional del Café fue un proceso con amplia participación, y MINAGRI ha lanzado un Programa Nacional del Café en paralelo a este. Existen varias regulaciones vigentes con respecto al material genético, pero a nivel de viveros más pequeños, no parecen tener mucho impacto sobre qué o cómo se producen las plántulas de café. Estos viveros más pequeños operan por reputación, vendiendo a clientes que confían en la calidad de sus plantas y no están preocupados por los materiales certificados.Los servicios de apoyo para el café, particularmente en las zonas de producción tradicionales, están bien desarrollados, incluidos los insumos, el crédito para las cooperativas y la promoción del café peruano en el mercado global. Los laboratorios de catación, que pertenecen a organizaciones de agricultores, exportadores y un número creciente de intermediarios, son una función de apoyo importante para la diferenciación de calidad y precio en las transacciones de café, así como para construir capacidad y transparencia en torno a la calidad como un medio para acceder a mejores precios. Las brechas importantes incluyen crédito a largo plazo, asistencia técnica más coordinada e investigación. También existe la oportunidad de mejorar el suministro de insumos orgánicos. Muchas cooperativas han tratado de responder ante esta demanda de sus asociados, pero aún se requiere de un sólido apoyo técnico e investigación para respaldar estos esfuerzos.Figura 2 Sistema de mercado principal para café en PerúFigura 3 Sistema de mercado de soporte: Asistencia técnica para café en Perú La asistencia técnica para los agricultores es proporcionada por redes de extensión públicas no gubernamentales y privadas, incluidos comerciantes, cooperativas, instituciones financieras y proveedores de insumos. La AT está financiada en gran medida por el gobierno y los donantes para mejorar los ingresos en las zonas rurales y promover cultivos alternativos a la coca. Los comerciantes invierten en AT, a menudo incorporando asistencia técnica en su estrategia de adquisición integrada con certificaciones. Las organizaciones de agricultores tienen importantes redes de AT, también vinculadas a verificaciones de certificación, y acceden a fondos gubernamentales para AT e inversiones (AgroIdeas, PNIA, CITE). Los proveedores de insumos también incluyen AT en sus servicios. Existe una necesidad reconocida de armonizar los mensajes a los agricultores, particularmente para R&R y las variedades. Los participantes del grupo focal reconocieron la falta de contenido técnico de referencia/manuales para capacitar a los agricultores. SENASA a través de sus escuelas de campo de agricultores enfocadas en el manejo integrado de plagas, difunde contenido sobre el cual se podría construir.Las funciones de soporte incluyen contenido generado y difundido por SENASA y certificadores; capacitación de proveedores de AT a través de capacitación académica formal (principalmente en universidades agrícolas regionales) y capacitación en el trabajo; y financiamiento de AT para agricultores. Las visitas de intercambio son una fuente importante de información. Falta la función de apoyo a la investigación, especialmente para las prácticas de manejo orgánico. Los proveedores de AT se sienten aislados en el acceso a información de referencia, incluso con acceso limitado a internet en el trabajo.La AT no está regulada directamente, pero las regulaciones relacionadas con las normas del café, como la calidad, las certificaciones y los estándares de sostenibilidad, forman la base de su contenido. Un esfuerzo reciente apoyado por Solidaridad, la Cámara Peruana de Café y Cacao, y la Red de Asistencia para Productos Básicos Sostenibles (SCAN), produjeron tres documentos sobre el café climáticamente inteligente.Figura 4 Sistema de mercado de soporte: Investigación para café en Perú La investigación es realizada por universidades nacionales y regionales, el INIA y centros de investigación internacionales. No existe un instituto especializado en investigación del café, y existen pocos investigadores especializados en café. Para INIA, el café no es un área de investigación específica sino un cultivo bajo su programa de cultivos agrícolas de exportación; su experticia es en otros cultivos. WCR, en asociación con la Junta Nacional del Café, ha establecido ensayos varietales y agronómicos en Perú como parte de varios ensayos globales que está realizando. Las universidades nacionales y regionales han llevado a cabo investigaciones sobre la resistencia genética y el control biológico de la roya, y sobre postcosecha. El Centro Internacional de Investigación en Agroforestería (ICRAF), el CIAT y otros, han trabajado en el cambio climático y las estrategias de mitigación para el sector. Los fondos para la investigación en café provienen del gobierno, donantes, universidades y algunos sectores privados. Algunos fondos para centros internacionales se obtienen de donantes internacionales y fondos del sector privado. CITE y CONCYTEC (gobierno) financian la investigación, pero los fondos son pequeños, a corto plazo y no son específicos para café. Varias cooperativas se dedican a la validación de variedades y tecnologías de producción orgánica y podrían beneficiarse de la colaboración con instituciones de investigación.Las funciones de apoyo incluyen subvenciones para investigación de CONCYTEC, infraestructura de laboratorio en universidades y en el INIA; y colaboraciones internacionales de investigación. La capacitación para investigadores, la asignación de recursos humanos, la financiación de la investigación a largo plazo, la colaboración internacional más amplia y la infraestructura de investigación de campo deben fortalecerse.Las regulaciones relacionadas con CITE y CONCYTEC establecen cómo se puede acceder a los fondos para investigación e innovación para el café. La inclusión del café en la agenda de investigación del INIA para cultivos agrícolas de exportación hace parte del mandato del INIA.Figura 5 Sistema de mercado de soporte: Material genético para café en Perú El material genético para siembra es producido en gran parte por los agricultores con sus propias semillas o semillas obtenidas informalmente de otros. A nivel local, hay agricultores reconocidos como productores de semillas en función de su reputación, aunque no están necesariamente certificados. SENASA tiene una lista de viveros certificados, con algunos de los más grandes en la región de Selva Central. El Plan Nacional de Renovación, DEVIDA, y otras iniciativas gubernamentales y de donantes han apoyado pequeños viveros comerciales o cooperativas para producir plántulas, incluida la financiación de PNIA y AgroIdeas. Las cooperativas visitadas distribuyen plántulas con dos cotiledones para facilitar el transporte (sin suelo), y en su mayoría brindan servicio para nuevas variedades que los agricultores aún no tienen, incluidos los materiales importados. Ecom ha importado semillas y variedades resistentes producidas en masa de América Central y también ha facilitado las compras por parte de cooperativas y otros.Las funciones de apoyo incluyen el monitoreo y registro de viveros de SENASA para promover las mejores prácticas e identificación de plántulas de calidad; parcelas de demostración establecidas por proyectos, cooperativas y sector privado para exhibir variedades en diferentes regiones; y proyectos de desarrollo que faciliten el acceso a plántulas de calidad e incentiven viveros comerciales. La investigación nacional sobre variedades es un vacío que la RGC está comenzando a llenar, incluida la disponibilidad de material genético diverso en el país.El marco regulatorio existe para la certificación de viveros (SENASA) y operadores de viveros (INIA). Las regulaciones se revisaron en 2013 para facilitar la producción y comercialización de semillas y plántulas de café de alta calidad y sin certificación. En ausencia de una demanda de material genético certificado, estas regulaciones no son la base para la mayoría de las transacciones de material genético en el país.Figura 6 Sistema de mercado de soporte: Servicios financieros para café en Perú Los servicios financieros son proporcionados por tres tipos principales de proveedores. Las cooperativas de crédito (es decir, CAC Norandino), las cajas de ahorro municipales y las cooperativas agrícolas que han establecido servicios financieros para sus miembros (p.ej. CENFROCAFE) han desarrollado algunos productos a más largo plazo, pero con cobertura limitada. El gobierno ha otorgado crédito específicamente para R&R a los agricultores más afectados por la roya, a través de AGROPERÚ y otros fondos administrados por Agrobanco como parte del Plan Nacional de Renovación. Agrobanco está en proceso de reestructuración lo que limita sus servicios. Los prestamistas sociales (Oiko, Rabobank, Root Capital, Alterfin) están muy presentes en Perú, pero prestan a cooperativas, principalmente crédito comercial y alguna infraestructura, pero puede haber potencial para expandir sus contribuciones al financiamiento de R&R. Finalmente, los comerciantes e intermediarios otorgan crédito a los agricultores para las actividades de cosecha, y a veces insumos, a cambio de la venta de café. La financiación para crédito a los agricultores proviene de fondos públicos, prestamistas sociales/prestamistas de segundo nivel, ahorro de cooperativas de ahorro y crédito y capital de trabajo de comerciantes e intermediarios. La línea base del sector realizada por el PNUD identificó los servicios financieros como deficientes y de acceso limitado (2).Las funciones de apoyo incluyen prestamistas de segundo nivel del gobierno, prestamistas sociales y bancos comerciales; contratos de compra que ayudan a las cooperativas a aprovechar el crédito; ahorro de miembros en cooperativas de crédito; asistencia técnica; y centrales de riesgo crediticio.Las regulaciones incluyen leyes que regulan las instituciones financieras, incluidas las cooperativas de crédito rurales, los sistemas de seguros y Agrobanco. El bajo riesgo relativo del país y las leyes relacionadas con el movimiento de recursos también facilitan los préstamos, además de la fuerte presencia a largo plazo de prestamistas sociales con capital extranjero. Los compromisos del gobierno con la renovación en el sector cafetalero también influyen en la provisión de crédito. gubernamental que promueve el desarrollo alternativo en las zonas productoras de coca. El café ha sido uno de los cultivos alternativos más importantes promovidos, con un 30% de los proyectos de DEVIDA actualmente apoyando el café. Las actividades incluyen asistencia técnica, producción y distribución de plantas, infraestructura, apoyo a pequeñas empresas, entre otros. Para ciertas regiones del país, representan una inversión importante en el sector que se superpone con varias de las actividades de MOCCA, como AT y material genético. • Alianza Café: Coffee Alliance for Excellence, 2018-2023, TechnoServe: este proyecto se está asociando con actores del sector privado para mejorar la asistencia técnica, la productividad y el acceso al mercado. Hay un fuerte enfoque en R&R y diferenciación de café para los mercados internacionales, así como un esfuerzo importante para mejorar el contenido y la entrega de asistencia técnica. Las lecciones aprendidas y las redes construidas pueden ofrecer complementariedades para MOCCA, especialmente porque esto es liderado por TNS. Será importante alinear los esfuerzos en torno a las intervenciones a nivel de mercado.• Estandarización del contenido de asistencia técnica particularmente para R&R: hay muchos actores que apoyan la R&R a través de financiamiento, asistencia técnica y material genético. El impacto combinado de estas inversiones podría ser mayor si se pudieran armonizar los mensajes y crear sinergias entre las diferentes inversiones para promover técnicas de rehabilitación apropiadas, semillas y plántulas de alta calidad, variedades apropiadas y productos financieros de apoyo. Posibles socios: DEVIDA, AGROBANCO/MFI, Alianza Café, JNC, y comercializadores.• Gobernanza: el recientemente desarrollado Plan Nacional de Acción del Café Peruano describe las deficiencias y estrategias para fortalecer la gobernanza y la representación en el sector a nivel regional y nacional. Este puede ser un punto de partida para MOCCA para la Actividad 6, creación de capacidad nacional.• Investigación: el sector cafetalero peruano es demasiado grande para no tener una institución que tenga algún grado de especialización en café. La presencia de WCR en el país junto con MOCCA deberían ayudar a fortalecer a los actores del mercado que pueden realizar esta función en el futuro, especialmente en torno a ensayos de variedades y manejo de cultivos. Las universidades como la Universidad Nacional Agraria \"La Molina\" o el INIA, son instituciones nacionales potenciales con capacidad de investigación y mandatos que podrían explorarse, en ausencia de un instituto especializado.• Insumos orgánicos: como origen importante de café orgánico, existe la oportunidad de colaborar con el sector privado y el gobierno en torno a los insumos orgánicos para mejorar la productividad del café, tanto para sistemas orgánicos como para sistemas potencialmente convencionales. El brote de la roya ha aumentado la conciencia de la importancia de la nutrición de las plantas. En ausencia de un sector de investigación sólido que brinde orientación sobre la fertilización orgánica, muchas de las cooperativas que se especializan en producción orgánica se han dedicado a su propia investigación, y a la producción de insumos orgánicos para sus miembros. Esta red podría capitalizarse para proporcionar una mejor justificación técnica para las prácticas de gestión orgánica, incluidos los análisis de costo-beneficio. Posibles socios: cooperativas, es decir, CENFROCAFE, Keurig, proveedores de insumos orgánicos, certificadores, y el INIA. • Cafés especiales: parece haber un interés creciente entre los actores a lo largo de la cadena de valor en acceder a los mercados en función de los puntajes de catación como una forma de diferenciar y capturar un nuevo valor. Actualmente, el precio se basa en el rendimiento desde pergamino hasta el grano verde, y muchos intermediarios evalúan una muestra para determinar el precio. Algunos comienzan a usar puntajes de catación. Los comerciantes también están interesados en los cafés con un margen más alto, pero actualmente obtienen gran parte de su café especial de las cooperativas debido a los desafíos de abastecerse a través de intermediarios. Pasar a las puntuaciones de catación como determinante del precio, puede abrir nuevas oportunidades de mercado e impulsar una mejor gestión posterior a la cosecha; sin embargo, también requerirá la creación de capacidad y sistemas de trazabilidad. Posibles socios: Helvetas/SECompetitivo, Ecom y comercializadores de especialidades. ","tokenCount":"4541"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cbded98c3f98f2ab28be5821735e917f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/Books/BColfer220101.pdf","id":"-631163515"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"ff2d49b3-776e-4680-8c84-6c48dcda0f9d","pagecount":"25","content":"The right of Carol J. Pierce Colfer, Ravi Prabhu, and Anne M. Larson to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.Here we are, nominally at the end, but really only at the beginning. It should be clear by now that we have entered the histories of people and forests somewhere in the middle, their beginnings lost in time, their futures beyond our compass. The ancient Greeks visualized this as ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail, and understood it as a loop, a cycle, the depiction of the neverending story. This may be the story of the people and their forests, but the story of ACM is a little different.That story would best be depicted by yet another ancient symbol, the spiral. The Greeks, always to be relied on in such circumstances, have a triple, interconnected spiral called the triskelion, which, in many ways, captures the essence of what we hope ACM will lead to -a spiralling out and up, one of collaborative, structured learning, with improved outcomes for people and their environments.The ACM process spirals out from co-created and shared evidence, from a shared vision of a better future and from collective actions to achieve it, seeking to make collective sense of what is happening and to enhance it. Within a shared framework of history, preferences and aspirations, ACM participants act within and upon this shared framework in the awareness that outcomes may not match expectations. Better said, ACM embodies the ambition of making an improved collective sense of what is happening within a shared framework of aspirations for better and more sustainable outcomes.A number of the authors of the preceding chapters have tried to look under the hood of these ambitions, to describe and analyse the practical steps that make up ACM in order to determine whether they actually led to improved outcomes. They analysed roles of proximate actors -primarily those in their communities -and distant ones, the government for example. The focus was on actors who matter or \"count,\" although this is not always immediately knowable. We are led to wonder, does ACM successfully harness the power of the \"adaptive learning and action\" spiral and lead to improvements? And if so, how does it do that? This is the central question we address in this chapter as we look across the landscape traversed earlier.inherently focused on forest management and human well-being, unlike our version of ACM. ACM's initial forest focus allowed us to integrate this social science approach within a CGIAR centre in a way that was unusual within that network. The approach served as an entrée for the use of methods that addressed human factors (termed \"human well-being\" in our early days), which we deemed much needed but at that time under-utilized.Others have seen and used PAR as the more comprehensive umbrella. The PAR process has been used in a wide range of settings, far beyond forestry, as shown in Chapters 2 and 9 particularly. Those who have begun with PAR are likely to consider ACM as a special case, focused on forests and their management. Most of our ACM team members over the years have focused on forests and begun with ACM, thus seeing PAR as a subset of tools or approaches of use in the management thereof.Another element of the \"confusion\" about ACM and PAR derives from the fact that both recognize the holistic nature of cultural and biological systems. Both address a wide range of concerns. Within ACM, for instance, diverse topics have at various times and with various individuals taken centre stage, within any particular project situating that topic within the system of which it was a part. Examples include:• Gender and inclusivity (Colfer 2005;Indriatmoko et al. 2007;Evans et al. 2017) • Social learning (Wollenberg et al. 2001a;McDougall et al. 2009McDougall et al. , 2010;; Evans, Larson and Flores 2020) • Monitoring (the collection by Guijt 2007or CIFOR 1999) • Governance (Cronkleton et al. 2010;Colfer and Pfund 2011;Flores et al. 2016) • Equity (Colfer 2005;Wollenberg, Anderson and Edmunds 2001b;McDougall et al. 2013) • Modelling (Vanclay, Prabhu and Sinclair 2003;Vanclay, Prabhu and Sinclair 2006) • The future (Evans et al. 2006;Wollenberg, Edmunds and Buck 2000) and • Collective action (Komarudin et al. 2012) This diversity also characterizes PAR. The iterative, cycling triskelion process is also central to both.Another differentiation that has bedevilled our attempts at conceptual specificity and clarity with regard to concepts -more related to ACM than PAR -is that between management and governance. ACM, of course, includes management in its very name; and forest management has been a central pillar of our concerns. However, our initial recognition that ACM processes would have to span levels, from the local \"up\" to higher levels or \"out\" to broader scales, quickly brought us into questions of governance -an involvement that has only strengthened. McDougall and Ojha and others have written of \"adaptive collaborative governance\" (McDougall et al. 2013); see also Chapter 8).Colfer once opined that \"One could say that management is to a defined organization or sector, such as forestry, what governance is to society at large\" (Colfer et al. 2011, p. 26). In early 2021, she carefully read the book Forest Governance and Management Across Time (Marald et al. 2017), seeking a clear differentiation between the two; she found none. One could construct a Venn diagram showing the overlap, with ACM in the intersecting arcs -the overlap perhaps contracting or expanding depending on the varying topics addressed and analyses conducted.Fisher and Jackson (Chapter 9) focus on whether the action research components of PAR and ACM constitute a legitimate approach to research. They counter a common scientific bias that research needs to be replicable, and perhaps also more quantitative, to be reliable and legitimate. They also discuss their experience of NGO disapproval of PAR as too focused on \"research\" -a very different complaint from those of scientists but showing the sometimes difficult battle for legitimacy for such participatory methods. In Fisher and Jackson's formulation, ACM does not always have research objectives, but when it does, it has revealed important scientific findings in multiple contexts, as well as leading to important social and practical outcomes. Its distinctive feature is that it permits much better engagement with the specificities of context, which can make or break any project intervention. It permits project organizers to admit that they do not (and perhaps cannot) have the full a priori knowledge required for a successful intervention.Considering ACM, Johnson and Pokorny (Chapter 2) recognize:the need to carefully take into account the capacities and agendas of all involved actors, the researchers, technicians, their supervisors, and local research partners. … It is also clear that collaboration requires more than the simple application of participatory techniques and methods. It requires a true interest in and understanding of the perceptions and susceptibilities of the community and the inequalities related to logistics, lifestyles, expectations and priorities. Adequate training and intensive supervision are mandatory but may sometimes be insufficient.Further, Cronkleton, Evans and Larson (Chapter 6) also point to the importance of scaling \"learning to the needs, interests and capacities of the participants.\" They go on to point out that these processes can be uncomfortable, particularly when such experiences challenge the assumptions and identities of those involved. Nevertheless, in order to work in and engage with the complex environments of forest communities, everyone has to \"learn how to learn\" more effectively. Their chapter lays out in detail how this was accomplished.Learning is integrally related to participation in decision making regarding natural resource management. Mukasa et al. (in Chapter 5) identify the ACM approach as an intervention \"designed to enhance participation by all stakeholders (especially marginalized groups) in deliberate community efforts including decision making and benefit sharing.\" As Bomuhangi et al. (Chapter 4) point out, this process can be formalized: ACM can be an approach \"where decision making by forest adjacent communities in making rules related to enforcement and benefit sharing has been formally acknowledged by the state,\" as it seeks to improve management with improved outcomes. Or it can remain informal. In the early ACM sites, several teams opted for the former (e.g., Nepal, Zimbabwe, Malawi), others for the latter (e.g., Brazil, Indonesia). Sites like Bolivia, Cameroon and the Philippines opted for intermediate structures, tying in closely with government policies and institutions, but forming loose local groups.As Cronkleton, Evans and Larson (Chapter 6) put it, ACM requires that everyone adopt the \"learning way,\" that is, despite the fact that a part of what makes us humans is our ability to communicate, collaborate, learn and adapt, this is a process that benefits from active support, engagement and capability strengthening. Collaborating, learning and adapting through collective action -in a way that is equitable, and with outcomes that are both sustainable and beneficial -is clearly not a trivial task. Seen this way, ACM is a capability strengthening approach as much as it is a management approach.McDougall and Ojha (Chapter 8) highlight another pervasive dimension to this collaborative learning environment: unequal power relations. One of the reasons that communication and collaboration do not \"naturally\" emerge is because people are not bringing the same resources to negotiations. As these authors suggest, through their deep theoretical inquiry, assuming a level playing field is unlikely to bring about a successful learning process that promotes the kind of critical inquiry and reflection required to challenge inequalities. Thus, we return to the importance, as emphasized in so many of the chapters, of capacity building at all levels, from the researchers to community participants: it takes considerable understanding, skill and tact to surface implicit assumptions and enable their questioning in \"safe spaces.\"In Chapter 9, Fisher and Jackson take us through a repertoire of ways that action research has been used -sometimes emphasizing action, sometimes research. Where we (the editors) have focused rather clearly on the use of participatory action research, they write more about \"action research,\" which does not necessarily have to be collaborative, in their view. They discuss action research that has been conducted in several sectors and at varying scalesemphasizing its versatility and broad utility.In our experience, borne out also by the chapters of this book, ACM has to emerge out of strengthening and connecting capabilities that exist in every social grouping -local communities, multi-stakeholder forums, forms of governance. To the extent that it already exists (our unpolished gem), it may mainly need coaxing in contexts where there is already a spirit of collaboration. But unequal power relations can not only keep it from emerging but take it in untoward directions. It thus requires strengthening processes of reflection, based on gathering and analysing evidence that can challenge confirmation biases and entrenched views -including those that underlie unequal power relations. It requires an ability to share and communicate collective insights in ways that are equitable and constructive. It involves learning as well as being open to unlearning. Only when the resulting social learning is transformative can we say that ACM 1 has emerged. Whether this results in better outcomes or not is the question we turn to next.We turn now to understanding what ACM has achieved. Has it actually helped or not, and if so, how? What made this possible?In Chapter 9, Fisher and Jackson report a number of action research findings that were essential for understanding local contexts, and which at times led to important changes in policies and approaches. For example, in Nepal, the revelation of indigenous forest management systems and organizations informed the shift from the panchayat (subnational government) model of community forests to the current community forest user group (CFUG) model, one of the most successful community forestry experiences in the world (Gnych et al. 2020).In Chapter 5, Mukasa et al. document the clearest evidence of the kinds of local management outcomes that ACM processes have helped to deliver: \"with the coming of ACM, [previous adverse conditions] have been reversed. The forest has been restored and there are alternative income-generating projects that are not forest based,\" says one interviewee in possibly the strongest statement of a positive outcome from ACM processes recorded here. But despite seeing changes to \"sticky\" social norms after six years of ACM, the evidence remains at best mixed (Table 5.7). Changing attitudes, behaviours and norms is clearly what ACM sets out to do on a path to delivering positive outcomes that can be sustained. But we have long known that this is not a quick process in forested contexts, as results from other chapters indicate as well. Indeed, such change rarely happens quickly in any context. 2  Bomuhangi et al. (Chapter 4) record that \"More women in ACM sites reported enhanced participation and quality of participation in forestry management activities as compared with women in non-ACM sites.\" Mukasa et al. (Chapter 5), using in-depth evidence from their ACM cases, also record evidence for women's empowerment and greater equity in decision making. They note that one woman member of a group participating in ACM was \"chosen as a chief in the Buganda Kingdom, a cultural institution, after demonstrating her leadership skills.\" But they, like other ACM researchers, also note that this requires focused building of capabilities if gender transformative outcomes are to ensue, consistent with what Cronkleton, Evans and Larson (Chapter 6) also show. It must be added that these ACM efforts did focus on women's empowerment, rather than, say, economic empowerment as a whole. They provide evidence for legally recognized ACM groups accessing new opportunities, with improved farming practices and income generation as the result. Self-empowerment through ACM intertwined with legal recognition, mutually reinforcing the groups' forward movement. The mixed results in Table 5.7 suggest that positive outcomes from ACM processes were more likely if they were able to successfully engage at multiple levels of governance, authority and power, rather than being only locally focused.Cronkleton, Evans and Larson (Chapter 6) saw in ACM \"a way to generate a culture of transparent information sharing and learning in an environment where examples of good governance were rare, and where logging historically had been conducted through bribery, conflict, and clientelism.\" They too note positive impacts on women's participation and greater acceptance of their views in discussions and reflections. Mukasa et al. (Chapter 5) warn of challenges to the implementation of ACM from power imbalances and elite capture on the one hand or elite resistance on the other when power begins to shift and dependencies may arise, especially from disadvantaged groups -issues that arose (and were dealt with) routinely in ACM sites. McDougal and Ojha (Chapter 8) show how the approach to ACM in Nepal successfully overcame such underlying power imbalances, improving the participation of previously excluded Dalits (marginalized groups) and women in decision making, and the central role that social learning plays in mediating responses and outcomes. 3  It seems clear that ACM has led to consequential, if mixed, outcomes in all these cases (as well as most others about which researchers have published). In our experience here and elsewhere, we have been able to see examples of improved trust among stakeholders, better negotiation and self-analytical skills, conflict management, bonding social capital and greater self-confidence, in addition to important research contributions to understanding local contexts. Nevertheless, the evidence for outcomes is patchy and responses are variable -though how could they not be, given the diversity of contexts, of locally determined goals, of facilitation skills, as well as the inherent ACM responsiveness to evolving local conditions? All \"successes\" are notoriously difficult to \"prove.\" This persistent difficulty of measuring success across sites remains a dilemma for donors and management and governance institutions considering an ACM approach.Fundamental to ACM successes has been their consistent attention to the context where change is being encouraged. All of these (and any genuine ACM) are firmly grounded in knowledge of and interaction with the cultural and ecological realities encountered. Success also appears contingent on how well the ACM approach addresses the distribution of power and authority at any particular level (mostly the local, in these case studies) and across scales within which that level was nested. The clearest indication of successful outcomes reported here were shifts in gender roles. Where these were directly linked to resource utilization outcomes, there were also positive economic outcomes.Nevertheless, we remain dissatisfied with our abilities to assess the effectiveness of the approach. Our personal experience tells us that enormous changes -of uncertain duration --have occurred in individuals and communities. We believe that many of the shortcomings of more conventional approaches to \"development\" are addressed and overcome within ACM -particularly as it functions on a small scale. Our efforts at higher levels began later; and we have struggled more at these levels, where we confront power more equivalent to our own (informal power); where trained and committed individuals can be relocated by their bureaucratic superiors and thus lost to the endeavour; where desirable local funding can be withdrawn; and so on. 4  We also recognize that expecting truly substantive success, long-lasting beneficial change, has been illusive no matter what approach has been used. Our sense is that holistic and multi-scale efforts, like ACM or PAR, are needed, approaches that recognize the systemic and dynamic nature of societies and environments. These qualities and their inevitable variation from place to place and time to time suggest that logically we cannot use conventional experimental scientific methods alone 5 (seeking generalizability and replicability) as the overarching umbrella approach. These fly in the face of the variability on the ground.Still, as noted previously, our ability to measure and prove the impacts of our efforts, especially at larger scales, have been limited. In fact, any approach that is embedded in reality is challenging to implement in large, complex socio-political landscapes. The decisions made at local scales, especially in forests, which are rarely locally owned, are deeply influenced by multiple actors (e.g., government, investors) and drivers (e.g., regulations, markets) that originate far from local forests and farms. The effects of ACM, as noted, have so far been mostly local -at least those are the effects we have found easier to document. Shifting the underlying power structures at larger scales, with an ever larger and increasingly diverse -and likely more powerful -set of actors becomes increasingly difficult. The cases presented here and in other research (e.g., Sarmiento Barletti et al. 2020) suggest that efforts in larger political landscapes need to be not only bottom-up but also top-down, with a clear analysis of power and interests and an engaged and theoretically grounded strategy for change (see also Chapter 8).Although we recognize the need for better measurement of impacts at various levels, one constraint has been that the changes we seek take time; return visits are costly and rare. As we put together this book, we learned of some multi-level successes beyond those highlighted in Nepal in Chapters 8 and 9:1. In Indonesia, the levels of trust, established among diverse stakeholders in Jambi's ACM programme around 2000, have continued for years after the program ended (Liswanti, Tamara and Arwida 2021, in draft). 2. The Jambi community-based effort to secure rights to manage a protected area was secured, after a decade of effort by the community, an NGO and various bureaucratic levels up to national (thereby contributing to the national experience of effective local management; Yuliani et al. 2021, in draft). 3. In Zimbabwe, where national crises have been recurrent since ACM days (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006), the human resources trained within the Ministry of Forestry have disappeared, though it seems likely that the ACM capabilities they acquired may be usefully applied elsewhere. Kozanayi et al. (2021, in draft) document the continued activity of some of the community ACM groups who continue managing as they did during the funded ACM years. 6More anecdotal evidence of impacts includes, for example, In summary, ACM, in the cases we have discussed here, clearly has helped to improve equity, especially gender equity, especially locally. In some cases, this led to changes in the way forest resources and forests were managed, as men's interests in and needs for these resources were confronted constructively with women's. There remains little doubt that those researchers/facilitators involved gained valuable experience, which no doubt many have continued to use to facilitate similar processes subsequently (e.g., Cronkleton et al., Chapter 6;Yuliani et al. 2015, in West Kalimantan;Colfer et al. 2015a, b, in Sulawesi; and many more). But as with any complex adaptive system, progress evolves in unpredictable directions, is seldom linear and can take varying amounts of time. All this is likely to require changes in beliefs, behaviour and institutions, and rarely happens quickly. And it wreaks havoc with attempts to assess progress.Ultimately, in forest communities, the capability to adapt collectively to changing circumstances will be of paramount importance to forest stakeholders and their resources. The evidence that ACM improves such adaptive capacity, and therefore lives up to its name, is clearer. It will take longer-term, more consistent and possibly more ambitious engagement to understand whether cultures, conditions and ecosystems at broader scales are also changing for the better.Looking beyond the forests, and the work presented in the previous nine chapters, we, the three authors of this chapter, take a peek at what is happening with ACM outside the canopy of the trees. We turn to agriculture and the management of common property resources in two short excursions to get a sense of ACM from \"outside\" its birthplace in the forest. The first of these deals with SHARED, an approach that has been successfully used to support subnational decision making in Turkana County, Kenya. We turn then to the wildly ambitious Regreening Africa project that seeks to improve the lives of 500,000 households across eight countries by \"regreening\" a million hectares of degraded agriculture, essentially by supporting local communities to naturally regenerate or plant trees in their crop and pastoral lands. In these cases, we wanted to open a small window of insight into how multiple, often nested, scales of intervention can be connected through social learning processes with some roots in ACM, nurtured in part from the rich intellectual soils of the forest.SHARED represents an attempt to move beyond the village or forest management unit level, in addressing agricultural improvements over a broader scale, in an iterative process that retains ACM's responsiveness to local conditions. SHARED incorporates the social learning deemed so important in ACM; and emphasizes previously more latent aspects of communication and decision making. The need to alter attitudes, as discussed particularly in Chapters 6 and 7, was evident at this intermediate scale (a county), as the county sought to enhance its resilience. The successes to date are impressive.About one year after Prabhu began engaging with the challenges of agroforestry -integrating trees more effectively into agriculture with crops and livestock -it became apparent to him that there were significant disconnects in the information that flowed between those involved in making decisions about investments in agriculture and the farmers who actually managed the land. The frames of reference and the data and evidence these farmers and broader decision makers used differed. Power, authority and hierarchy further confounded communication, learning and decision making. This was not a particularly new or original insight; but for someone with a history of working in forests and with ACM, it suggested an opportunity. Better connections among the various people and groups operating at different scales could bridge the disconnects, allow new evidence to be considered and improve the nature of decisions based on the social learning that ensued.In Constance Neely, he found a collaborator with an intuitive understanding for creating connections where gaps existed and a much deeper understanding of agriculture than his own, especially the agriculture of pastoralists: very different because in the management of rangelands and the pasture they provide, water and soil are so dependent on herd size and the movement of these herds through these landscapes. Neely had been charged with helping the county government of Turkana (see Figure 10.1) to improve their development plans as part of a USAID and UN funded effort. She, Sabrina Chesterman and Minu Limbu from UNICEF began looking together at the challenges of opening up entrenched positions and views, including among the technocrats charged with helping to improve the situation. New ways of seeing the evidence would be needed. This was when Tor Vagen joined the efforts with his superlative spatial modelling skills and his deep personal history in the arid counties of Kenya. The result of the evolving ACM was the Stakeholder Approach to Risk-Informed and Evidence-Based Decision Making (SHARED). What follows is drawn from the description by Neely et al. (2021), who reach the conclusion that ACM and multiple loop learning are essential for the kind of institutional learning that leads to better understanding and values, which in turn are essential for organizational change. Essentially, SHARED is a process that enables the co-construction of bridges between different kinds of data and evidence and among different kinds of people, at different levels of hierarchy or disciplinary background. The intent is to facilitate joint understanding, gain insight and make decisions about the group's shared environment.Key phases in the SHARED framework (see Figure 10.2) 8 consist of: Context, Integrating Evidence, Prioritizing, Planning and Learning and Responding. The phases are designed to support institutional learning and understanding, shift institutional values and promote organizational change. Neely et al. describe SHARED at length and its impact on decision making in Turkana County. It has since been used in other counties in Kenya and in about ten other countries around the world, with outcomes that varied from changing development plans to the identification of policy gaps. It almost always resulted in better insights into the complex agricultural systems that people were seeking to influence in order to improve their livelihoods (see e.g., Hughes et al. 2020;Vågen et al. 2018;Winowiecki et al. 2021).Turkana County opted to use the SHARED approach, 9 with SHARED scientists, collaborators and partners facilitating events with and for a variety of stakeholders. These included local and international civil society, development partner agencies, intergovernmental organizations, sectoral executives and technical staff, county assembly members, national government representatives and scientific and academic partners. Community consultations took place in each of the 30 Sub-County Wards to incorporate local priorities fully in county-level plans.Based in ACM, the way the SHARED approach was applied in Turkana County in Kenya intentionally integrated multiple loop learning. The results corresponded to institutional learning that contributes to a shift in understanding and values (a form of double-loop learning) and organizational change in the form of changes in norms and policies (corresponding to triple-loop learning). The initial policy goal was to enhance the resilience of the Turkana County Government. The actors sought to \"make decisions that will have an impact on outcomes -despite the risks Turkana faces.\" By imbedding institutional learning, they hoped to shift the decision-making culture, as a prerequisite to changing how decisions would be made in the future and formally imbed such decision making in the development of a five-year integrated development plan.With an aim to shift understanding and values, something that Turkana County officials saw as important for the county's future, the SHARED approach evolved, as represented in Box 10.1. Although functioning on a broader level than many ACM programmes, one can recognize the progression of steps, for the most part, similar.SHARED evolved towards a) supporting an understanding of how decisions are taken, based on behavioural and structural influences and self-awareness of the existing decision-making process used by the Turkana County government; b) co-developing a compelling and commonly held vision, framed in resilience, among a broad set of government sectors, partners and stakeholders; c) introducing systems thinking and causal analyses for addressing development challenges; d) creating an evidence culture to motivate securing, managing and using socio-ecological evidence; and e) facilitating an appreciation for the insights of diverse actors and the advantage of functioning partnerships and collaboration from the community to county level with responsibility for adaptively managing resources.Though building on ACM, this was a process that emerged out of several workshops that Neely, Chesterman and Limbu facilitated, with active and constructive engagement of Turkana County government officials. Vagen's creativity also proved influential, as he helped to visualize complex data and evidence in ways meaningful to the participants. It was an iterative process of improvement, with SHARED emerging as co-constructed by those involved. Prabhu moved to the back seat and took on the role of a sounding board for the team's thinking -a team that had expanded to include all the authors of the Neely et al. paper (2021).Integrating accessible and actionable high-quality evidence into decision making was seen as critical by the participants in the process from the Turkana County Government. They radically changed the way they developed their \"County Integrated Development Plan,\" a plan required of all counties by the central government in Nairobi. They emerged with a sense that they had truly managed to integrate thinking and decision making across various government departments and with local stakeholders. They had overcome skills barriers, adapted the culture of gathering, organizing and storing data, and improved their ability to interpret it, particularly socio-ecological data. They overcame problems of defensiveness associated with displaying data that might reflect negatively on a sector's performance. Their appreciation for the importance of grounded and credible evidence led to the creation of a county data management strategy, a co-designed central web-based and transparent platform for sharing data, the requirement of evidence to support resource allocation proposals, the integration of statistics into the planning department and a monitoring and evaluation framework, department and policy. Ultimately, these changes involved opening them up to information coming from sources other than the bureaucratic channels they had used hitherto. In McDougall's terms, this was a transition to adaptive collaborative governance (2013; or Chapter 8).Purposeful, structured and continuous stakeholder engagement resulted in more meaningful community participation and deepened cross-sectoral and multi-stakeholder linkages and relationships. This in conjunction with working hand in hand with the pivotal Department of Finance and Economic Planning led to the promotion of coordination and finance mechanisms that foster synergies, cross-sectoral and multi-stakeholder partnerships and transformative pathways.Regreening Africa, a more recent effort, which began in 2017, takes ACMstyle efforts to an even grander scale (https://regreeningafrica .org/). Again, the project strives for communication, co-creation of knowledge and social learning as central features; and it has negotiated unusually flexible funding (so valuable in a responsive ACM process). The emphasis on restoration -one of the world's foci at the moment -makes this a particularly timely contribution.About the time the SHARED team in Turkana was winding up its first phase with encouraging outcomes, the European Commission was discussing a major restoration project with ICRAF (World Agroforestry Center). The idea was to use mainly farmer-managed natural regeneration to \"regreen\" about a million hectares of farm and pastoral land across eight African countries. Involving development-oriented non-governmental organizations like World Vision International, Catholic Relief Services, CARE International and Oxfam, the project would be led by ICRAF-a research organization -intended to benefit 500,000 households. Apart from farmer-managed natural regeneration, the Regreening Africa project as it has come to be called, involves tree planting and other forms of agroforestry, complementary sustainable land management interventions along with community mobilization, the formation of multistakeholder advisory groups in addition to teams focused on research and the delivery of knowledge and technical support.The project was initially conceived as a standard development project where ICRAF, as the \"knowledge partner,\" would provide technical inputs and NGO partners would deliver and implement these with local communities through their teams in the eight countries. However, based on past experience with other projects, success with ACM approaches and the coming of age of SHARED, Prabhu was able to convince a very open-minded, farsighted and engaged team at the European Commission (Bernard Crabbe and Alexandru Ghiurca) to consider modifying the design. His proposed changes were intended to make the project more flexible, integrated and based around adaptive management principles, where it could \"learn to improve\" as it moved forwards, a rather radical departure from business as usual.The European Commission team enshrined these ideas in the grant agreement signed with ICRAF; it was then possible for Prabhu to structure this project using principles of collaborative learning. Establishing trust and a basis for collaboration among the research and delivery partners was essential, but a challenge as the integration of research into development in this way was seen as novel there and participants had no real experience of working together. Susan Chomba joined the team as its project manager several months later and instituted a culture of trust, high standards and negotiated agreements that allowed congenial and productive working relationships to emerge and collaborative processes to take root. Institutionally, these were based in the committees, teams, workshops, sharing events and continuous outreach that Chomba and her team led, modelling behaviours that engendered trust.Just as essential as the collaborative engagement among the project participants was the means to learn effectively together. This meant stepping back from a standard technology transfer model to one where knowledge was cocreated based on the analysis of credible evidence. This meant structuring the project so that evidence and related learning loops would be \"hard wired\" into it. This was done in two ways -dedicated teams would deliver evidence, some of it co-created, into soft-institutional platforms (informal structures, where rules of engagement are agreed though not formally) where participants could analyse and learn from it. A monitoring, evaluation and learning team (MEL) was designed into the project, and it developed an approach to measuring change based on modifications to standard, mostly extractive techniques of establishing baselines and endlines.ICRAF has some of the best remote sensing tools for assessing change over time to soil and biomass, and a land degradation dynamics (LDD) team (Leigh Winowiecki and Tor Vagen) was charged with providing this layer of information. The SHARED team, led by Mieke Bourne and Neely, would deliver information from interactive meetings that considered what people understood to be happening in the project landscapes; the MEL and LDD teams also provided relevant information. The transfer of the technology team (design techniques implementation -DTI) responded to all three and to information they received from their own meetings with communities and partners, surveys and other assessments. Two further soft institutional platforms were designed into the project at the outset: First, a steering committee that involved the European Commission and all the project implementing partners. This assessed progress against the targets and helped to make adaptive changes to structures, shift funding or even deploy additional funding. This last change became an option as the European Commission and the European Parliament gained faith in the project and what it was achieving. Second, in each of the eight countries, a national stakeholder committee (NOCC) was constituted to guide implementation and adaptation in that country. 10  Three and a half years into the implementation of this project, learning and adaptation are firmly established in its DNA. So much so that the team has continued to innovate and develop additional collaborative learning mechanisms and opportunities. At the end of the first year, they developed and successfully carried out \"joint reflection and learning missions\" (JRLMs, see Neely and Bourne 2021); and when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, they successfully took these missions into cyberspace. Approaches such as \"planned comparisons\" that promoted experiential learning with the farming communities were introduced, so that new technologies or tree species could be adopted (or not) and adapted to farmers' needs. Throughout the process, an \"options by context\" approach has been applied to ensure proposed changes and solutions suit the intended beneficiaries and were fit for the social and ecological contexts within which they were being applied. The communications team worked to ensure that information generated in one location could be shared across all. This involved using multiple channels including social media and especially WhatsApp groups, which have proved enormously popular among project participants.A more recent innovation is a new mobile application (created by Vagen, Ahmad and Winowiecki) that helps lead farmers, government extension agents and project officers to collect data on key indicators of land restoration such as the number and type of species of trees planted; those that survived over different time periods; the GPS location of tree nurseries and the type of tree species they stock; the polygons and management practices in farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR) sites; the trainings offered to farmer groups, including women and youth beneficiaries; among other variables. It has become an additional way of monitoring their progress, with data they have generated and which is accessible to them on their own smartphones through a user-friendly online data-reporting system.While the project has paid great attention to collaboration, learning and adaptation among project investors and implementors, it is less clear how all of this has impacted the communities concerned. 11 It will not be enough to simply assume that because of discernible changes on the ground in terms of tree cover, adoption of new techniques or new tree or shrub species that communities have internalized the kinds of social learning approaches we have identified as ACM or have gained the benefits that have accrued at lower scales. At the same time, a project that had the aim of regreening Africa at 20 euros per hectare would have no hope of meeting its targets if there were no collaborations from the communities concerned and if they were unable or unwilling to adapt. Indeed, current assessments of adoption, innovation and adaptation are very encouraging. While it is still unclear that the ambitious targets will be met, benefits to communities from their endeavours and changes in attitudes and behaviours of development partners are being recorded.Olaf Westermann of Catholic Relief Services has noted that the nature of the project's structure forced a paradigm shift. \"The idea of different international NGOs, who otherwise would be competitors, working together to deliver a common goal is, in itself, a great paradigm shift,\" he said.There's little doubt that over the last 20 years, there's been a significant global paradigm shift about development, conservation and natural resource management (see Box 10.2).Many have recognized that we need:• new approaches based on systems thinking; • involvement of a variety of stakeholders in management and governance; • better interaction between the local scale -such a central focus in the earliest ACM work 12 -and broader scales; • recognition that farmers and other rural dwellers have key contextual information, experience and knowledge warranting respect; • acknowledgement that marginalized groups exist within communities and vis-à-vis other national and international actors, and that the views of such people deserve attention; and • understanding how power differentials can have devastating results as policies are developed and implemented (or not).Still, more traditional approaches tend to prevail, particularly in global responses to climate change and biodiversity loss, which are still based largely on topdown visions (e.g., REDD+, zero deforestation commitments, nature-based solutions, forest landscape restoration). Local peoples are still an afterthought, or a group to be \"safeguarded,\" or perhaps convinced to change their practices, rather than being seen as equal partners in change.In addition, our continuing perusal of NRM literature convinces us of a global shortage of needed skills -to conduct research, facilitate collaboration and learning loops, formalize plans and develop policies that respect the above observations. Awareness of this shortcoming has been one of our motivations for pulling together the analyses in this book (and a forthcoming collection on the same topic). We have introduced some tools and procedures we found useful in conducting ACM; shown how these have evolved; and considered how such approaches can be used beyond the forest.In Chapters 2, 4 and 5, we looked at the details of ACM and PAR processes (processes which can most usefully be seen as an overlapping part of a Venn diagram). Within our own (the editors') work, we have seen PAR as a tool to help bring about ACM, though not everyone sees it that way. Both concepts, however, include iterative learning cycles, one of ACM's most central attributes. All three of these chapters, using different methods and styles, convey the process of ACM as well as some evaluation of its functioning (in Bolivia and Uganda).We then discussed more specific issues that need addressing in any ACM project: ensuring good interdisciplinary collaboration (Chapter 3); training participants in the approach itself (Chapter 6); and one way groups can monitor their interactions to ensure inclusivity (Chapter 7).In Chapters 1, 8 and 9, we delve into first the theoretical background of the original conceptualization of ACM, along with reflections on the editors' varied perspectives and backgrounds (1); then more recent theories and considerations as ACM has evolved, focusing particularly on issues of power (8); and finally, an overview of the use of action research in various sectors and contexts, demonstrating its versatility and broad applicability, a topic we have continued in this chapter (10), emphasizing attempts to move up and outwards with ACM-style approaches.Meanwhile, we will make other efforts to encourage the development of the skills needed to conduct research and action that attend to issues like those listed in Box 10.1. Colfer and Larson are both also working, for instance, on forest landscape restoration, where the lack of attention to local level realities is striking (also identified, e.g., in collections by Mansourian and Parrotta 2018 or Butler and Schultz 2019). They and their colleagues are working to rectify this situation (e.g., in this volume and in one by Katila et al. under development). Larson and her team continue to work on multi-stakeholder platforms and processes, not simply to support their existence but also their quality, with regard to equity and social inclusion (see https :/ /ww w .cif or .or g /too lboxe s /too ls -fo r -man aging -land scap e s -inc lusiv ely/). Prabhu's work in agroforestry has identified shortcomings in their research as well, much of it captured in the agricultural cases in this chapter.About the time this book appears, the global community will be preparing to meet to discuss the critical contributions that smallholder agriculture, forest-dependent people and those involved in the supply chains that originate in the forested and treed landscapes of our small planet, as well as discussions on preventing -or exacerbating -forest and biodiversity loss, greenhouse gas emissions and losses of soil fertility. If there is anything we can offer the global community it is this: these people are both exploiters and stewards of the land. How we view them, and how they view themselves, will determine which trajectory or spiral of change emerges -towards improvement or towards further degradation. The triskelion is agnostic about its direction -it can devour or protect. ACM offers a spiral of improvement and empowerment, where people are viewed and treated, and view themselves, as inter-generational stewards of all that the land produces, tangible and intangible.1 A clear use of \"ACM\" as the desired endpoint as well as the process of getting there. 2 Three draft chapters for our second ACM volume document changes over time (since the early 2000s): two in Indonesia, where national conflict levels have been low and success substantial (e.g., successful formalization of local management rights in a local forest, widespread trust among stakeholders at different levels, and continuing collective action locally; Yuliani et al. 2021 (in draft form), Liswanti, Tamara, and Arwida 2021 (in draft)); one in Zimbabwe, where some local capabilities linger, but efforts to institutionalize triskelion style processes at higher levels stalled due to national crises, political and economic implosion and the disappearance of trained personnel in the Ministry of Forestry (Kozanayi et al. 2021 (in draft)). 3 For examples from earlier work, see e.g., Wiliam-deVries (2006) for an approach that successfully overcame Islamic concerns about ACM, feared to be trying to negate women's \"legitimate fate\" as submissive homemakers in Indonesia; or Bolaños and Schmink (2005) for community antagonism to women's involvement in logging enterprises in Bolivia. 4 See e.g., Colfer and Pfund (2011) for a CIFOR-based comparative study; or Butler and Schultz (2019) for a rather similar, US-based collaborative programme operating at a larger landscape level (also Colfer and Prabhu 2021 (in draft)). 5 Clearly, we can and often do use them for specific purposes within the umbrella of ACM. 6 That these authors from Jambi and Zimbabwe respectively, conducted these return visits without any financial incentives is evidence of their continuing interest in the approach and its impacts. Indeed, we provided no funding for the participation of any of the authors of this book (though some have been able to consider it part of their normal job). 7 Two initial sites had trouble nearly from the beginning (Ghana, Kyrgyzstan). 8 Unfortunately, this image does not fully capture the evolving and responsive aspect of the process. 9 The researchers worked with an inter-institutional working group in developing the second Turkana County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP), led by the Department of Finance and Economic Planning. 10 These two kinds of committees were extremely helpful in the original ACM programme as well. 11 CIFOR's Landscape Mosaics programme, in five countries, had similarly worded planning documents; but the learning and empowerment processes were never truly implemented in the field, so the anticipated community benefits were unlikely to have been forthcoming. Hopefully, Regreening Africa has learned from such shortcomings elsewhere.12 This was partly because of the dearth of information about life at local scales being taken into account in forest policymaking at the time (a similar rationale to that of Women in Development specialists in the 1970s who were filling a gap before attending to gender dynamics).","tokenCount":"7608"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9e379e68b494cc9bd3beee260bd7875a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://apps.worldagroforestry.org/region/sea/publications/download?dl=/LE00275-21.pdf&pubID=4690&li=8746","id":"-130414353"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c63bc913-ab74-4721-a6b0-15be57a9672a","pagecount":"8","content":"Bangunan fisik sumur bor adalah semua komponen yang berada diatas pemukaan tanah seperti perpipaan, keran, pengukur tekanan, kerangkeng pengaman, dan pondasi bangunan.Komponen tersebut perlu dipantau untuk memastikan tidak ada kerusakan sehingga sumur bor dapat mengalirkan air dengan baik.• Petugas yang ditunjuk oleh kelompok tani pengguna air setempat.• Pelaksanaan didampingi Gerakan Rejoso Kita Gerakan Rejoso Kita berupaya mengenalkan teknik konstruksi sumur bor (artesis) yang aman dan benar, serta mengajak kelompok tani pengguna air untuk melakukan pemantauan sumur bor dan saluran irigasi agar berfungsi dengan baik untuk jangka panjang. Pemantauan debit bertujuan untuk memahami kondisi sumur bor.Idealnya, debit air sama dari waktu ke waktu. Bila debit berkurang secara drastis, maka kemungkinan air dari sumber air (akuifer dalam tanah) memang sudah berkurang (atau habis). Bisa juga karena terjadi penyumbatan di dalam pipa konstruksi.1. Siapkan alat dan bahan yang diperlukan.2. Buka seluruh keran pada posisi maksimal (katup gerbang dan katup bola).3. Tampung air yang keluar sumur bor menggunakan ember selama 3 detik atau sesuai kebutuhan. Catat waktu lamanya penampungan ini.4. Perhatikan agar jangan ada air yang melimpah / meluber dari ember.5. Hitung banyaknya air yang tertampung dalam ember menggunakan gelas ukur.  2. Di saluran irigasi, letakkan Penanda 1 pada jarak 20 m dari sumur bor (searah aliran irigasigambar di atas).3. Letakkan Penanda 2 pada Jarak 3 m dari Penanda 1.4. Ukur lebar penampang saluran irigasi yang ada pada Penanda 2.5. Ukur tinggi air pada saluran irigasi di Penanda 2 menggunakan penggaris.6. Lepaskan pelampung di Penanda 1, kemudian ukur berapa lama pelampung mencapai Penanda 2.7. Catat waktu dalam Formulir Pengukuran Debit Saluran Irigasi (Lampiran 2).8. Ulangi tahap 6 dan 7 sebanyak 3 kali. Siapkan alat dan bahan yang diperlukan. 2.Di saluran irigsi, letakan Penanda 1 pada jarak 20 m dari sumur bor (searah aliran air -gambar di atas).Letakan Penanda 2 pada jarak 3 m dari Penanda 1. 4.Ukur lebar penampang saluran irigasi yang ada pada Penanda 2. 5.Ukur tinggi air pada saluran irigasi di Penanda 2. 6.Lepaskan pelampung di Penanda 1, kemudian ukur berapa lama pelampung mencapai Penanda 2. 7.Catat waktu dalam Tabel Isian Pengamatan Kebersihan Saluran Irigasi (Lampiran 2) 8.Ulangi tahap 6 dan 7 sebanyak 3 kali 9.Hitung luas penampang basah menggunakan persamaan: Siapkan alat dan bahan yang diperlukan. 2.Di saluran irigsi, letakan Penanda 1 pada jarak 20 m dari sumur bor (searah aliran air -gambar di atas).Letakan Penanda 2 pada jarak 3 m dari Penanda 1. 4.Ukur lebar penampang saluran irigasi yang ada pada Penanda 2. 5.Ukur tinggi air pada saluran irigasi di Penanda 2. 6.Lepaskan pelampung di Penanda 1, kemudian ukur berapa lama pelampung mencapai Penanda 2. 7.Catat waktu dalam Tabel Isian Pengamatan Kebersihan Saluran Irigasi (Lampiran 2) 8.Ulangi tahap 6 dan 7 sebanyak 3 kali 9.Hitung luas penampang basah menggunakan persamaan: Siapkan alat dan bahan yang diperlukan. 2.Di saluran irigsi, letakan Penanda 1 pada jarak 20 m dari sumur bor (searah aliran airgambar di atas).Letakan Penanda 2 pada jarak 3 m dari Penanda 1. 4.Ukur lebar penampang saluran irigasi yang ada pada Penanda 2. 5.Ukur tinggi air pada saluran irigasi di Penanda 2. 6.Lepaskan pelampung di Penanda 1, kemudian ukur berapa lama pelampung mencapai Penanda 2. 7.Catat waktu dalam Tabel Isian Pengamatan Kebersihan Saluran Irigasi (Lampiran 2) 8.Ulangi tahap 6 dan 7 sebanyak 3 kali 9.Hitung luas penampang basah menggunakan persamaan: ","tokenCount":"540"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"09283e749c76411cbd2e4fc4de8173f9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/59b139a6-6707-46e7-a3d8-a661bf7a933e/retrieve","id":"107060225"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"de8146b9-aace-482c-ab3a-c067c9f9c382","pagecount":"9","content":"The prices of staple grains on international markets began to rise in mid-2020 in response to higher fertilizer prices and supply constraints associated with the Covid-19 pandemic. They further spiked in early 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. This brief examines the impact of these events on poverty in Nigeria. It is part of a series of six such briefs that estimate the poverty impact of higher world prices for staple grains. The other briefs cover Kenya,Maize prices, represented by US No 2 yellow maize, followed a similar pattern, though the increase was greater, as shown in Figure 1. It spiked once in May 2021 at 77 percent above the pre-pandemic level, and again after the invasion of Ukraine, when it reached double the pre-pandemic price. Unlike the wheat price, the maize price has remained high. As of April 2023, the maize price was still 70 percent above the pre-pandemic level.The international price of sorghum rose even more than wheat or maize, reaching 116 percent above the pre-pandemic price in May 2021 and again in March 2022 following the invasion. Although the price has declined somewhat since then, it was still 86 percent above the pre-pandemic price in April 2023. Russia and Ukraine are not important exporters of sorghum, but sorghum prices typically follow maize prices because they are close substitutes as animal feed.Somewhat surprisingly, the price of Thai 100% B rice has remained relatively stable throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and during the war in Ukraine. The war had little effect on the production or transport of rice in world markets, much of which is centered on Asia. Rice prices began to creep up in early 2023 but were just 11 percent above the pre-pandemic level in April 2023.Source: FAO Global Information and Early Warning System. FAO (2023). Note: Wheat prices are for US soft red winter wheat. Maize prices are for US No. 2 yellow maize. Sorghum is represented by US sorghum prices at Gulf Ports. Rice prices are for Thai 5% broken rice.What matters to farmers and consumers in Nigeria is not the trends in international markets, but the prices they face in domestic markets. Thus, the question is how much of the shocks in international markets are transmitted to domestic grain markets in Nigeria? Without an international price shock, we would expect domestic prices to rise at the rate of inflation in the country. An increase in international prices should cause domestic prices to rise faster than inflation; that is, it causes the real (inflation-adjusted) domestic price to rise. Econometric analysis suggests that shocks in international food prices are generally not fully transmitted to domestic markets, implying that domestic prices generally rise by a smaller proportion than the increase in international prices of the same commodity (Minot, 2011;Ceballos et al., 2017). There are several reasons for this. First, if the marketing margin between international and domestic prices is fixed in monetary terms, the domestic prices in an importing country (which are generally higher than international prices) will rise by a smaller percentage than the international price. Second, local and imported grains may be somewhat different to consumers, making them imperfect substitutes for each other. Third, the government may reduce tariffs when world prices increase, thus insulating domestic consumers from the full shock (Martin and Minot, 2022).Table 1 shows the changes in the world price (expressed in US$), local nominal prices, and the local real price for three staple grains: wheat, maize, and sorghum. Rice is not included in the analysis because international prices have been relatively stable. The analysis covers four time periods: February 2020 (pre-pandemic), January 2022 (pre-invasion), May 2022 (peak international prices), and July 2022 (post-peak). The analysis does not extend beyond July 2022 because, as shown in Figure 1, the world prices of wheat, maize, and sorghum in the second quarter of 2023 have remained in the same broad range as they were in July 2022.Because wheat prices are not available for Nigeria, we use the retail price of bread. Between February 2020 and May 2022, when international prices peaked, the world price of wheat rose 76 percent, before falling back somewhat, remaining 25 percent above the pre-pandemic price. Source: IMF (2022) for international sorghum price. FAO (2023a) for others. The international prices are the US soft red winter wheat price, the US No 2 yellow maize price, and the US International Grain Council price of sorghum. The local prices are the retail price of bread in Damaturu, the wholesale price of white maize in Lagos, and the wholesale price of white sorghum in Lagos.Over this period, the nominal price of bread in Nigeria was relatively stable, dipping prior to the Ukraine war and then rising back to the pre-pandemic level. Given that the inflation rate in Nigeria rose from 12 percent in early 2020 to over 20 percent in early 2023, this implies that the real (inflation-adjusted) price of bread actually fell by about 30 percent over the period. Because the world price of wheat increased and the domestic real price of bread fell, the price transmission ratio was -120 percent. The government of Nigeria faces considerable pressure from urban consumers to keep the price of bread low. Because Nigeria depends on imports for 90 percent of wheat products, both import and foreign exchange policies affect bread prices. Wheat and flour can be imported at the official exchange rate, which has become increasingly overvalued in recent years. Because exchange rate overvaluation creates shortages of foreign exchange, reflected in high parallel market exchange rates, a policy of supplying enough foreign exchange to meet market demand at the official exchange rate requires a strong bias in foreign exchange allocation in favor of wheat imports. This may have occurred and played a role in dampening price increases for bread.In the case of maize and sorghum, the international price more than doubled between February 2020 and July 2022. The nominal price of these commodities in Nigeria also more than doubled, and the domestic real prices of maize and sorghum rose by 62 percent and 56 percent, respectively. As a result, the price transmission ratio was 79 percent for maize and 62 percent for sorghum, reflecting incomplete transmission of the international price shocks to domestic markets. This is not surprising given that Nigeria is essentially self-sufficient in both commodities, importing less than 2 percent of domestic requirements.How do staple food price changes affect household income? These impacts vary widely across households depending on the importance of the commodity as a source of income and its share in the household budget. Households that produce and sell the commodity gain from higher prices, while those that are net buyers lose. The percentage change in income will be proportional to the magnitude of the price change and the net sales of the commodity (positive or negative) as a share of income (Deaton, 1989).The first column of Table 2 shows the importance of maize, sorghum, and wheat in the Nigerian diet. Maize is the most important of the three, contributing 12.3 percent of the calories on average. Maize is the second most important food in terms of caloric intake, after yams. After maize, cassava and rice are third and fourth in caloric contribution. The analysis does not consider yams and cassava because there is no international trade in yams and cassava for human consumption. Rice is excluded from the analysis because, as discussed earlier, international rice prices have been relatively stable over the period under consideration. Sorghum and wheat are the fifth and sixth most important items in the Nigerian diet in terms of caloric intake.The second and third columns show the importance of each commodity as a source of household income and as a component in household budgets. The last column gives the net benefit ratio, defined as the income share minus the expenditure share, that is, net sales as a proportion of household income. The net benefit ratio can be interpreted as the short-run elasticity of real income with respect to price changes. Maize and sorghum show rough parity between income and expenditure shares, reflecting the fact that Nigeria neither imports nor exports large quantities of these commodities. On the other hand, wheat is important in expenditure but negligible as a source of income, which is expected given that 90 percent of the wheat and wheat products consumed in Nigeria are imported. Thus, average household income is much more sensitive to changes in bread prices than changes in maize and sorghum prices. For maize and sorghum, the losses of consumers due to higher prices are offset by the gains to farmers who grow and sell it.The impact of price changes on the incidence of poverty is particularly sensitive to the net benefit ratio of households near the poverty line. For these households, a price change may affect their income enough to nudge them above or below the poverty line. Low-income households generally spend a larger share of their budget on staple grains, but they are also more likely to be farmers. The effect on the net benefit ratio is, therefore, mixed.The simulation of the impact of staple food price changes on poverty in Nigeria is based on the real price changes of maize, sorghum, and wheat products in domestic markets combined with information about the income and expenditure patterns of each household in a nationally-representative survey. Real (inflation-adjusted) price changes are used to capture the impact of the rise in grain prices relative to the prices of other goods. The analysis does not attempt to measure the welfare impact of general inflation. Such an analysis would be challenging because of the need for data on which incomes and prices rise with inflation (such as agricultural prices) and which ones tend to lag behind inflation (such as formal-sector wages).The results are shown below in Figure 2. Overall, the simulations indicate that the higher prices for maize, wheat, and sorghum in international markets have had little effect on the incidence of poverty in Nigeria. The national poverty rate remains close to 39.1 percent, while the rural poverty rate is stable close to 46.4 percent. The urban poverty rate actually declines slightly from 16.1 percent in the pre-pandemic period to 15.8 percent in July 2022. These results are unusualin the other five countries where this analysis has been carried out, the poverty rate rises by 1-3 percentage points as a result of the higher staple food prices.There are two explanations for these unexpected results. First, the net benefit ratios for maize and sorghum are close to zero for the average household and for households close to the poverty line. This means that the losses for consumers due to higher maize and sorghum prices are offset by benefits to farmers growing and selling these commodities. Second, in the case of wheat, the negative net benefit ratio suggests that higher prices for wheat products would reduce income and increase the prevalence of poverty. However, domestic policies have prevented the higher wheat prices from being transmitted to domestic Nigerian markets. More specifically, the government maintains the official exchange rate below the market rate, creating excess demand for foreign currency. It appears that wheat and flour importers may have been given valuable allocations of foreign currency at the low official rate, implicitly subsidizing bread prices. In September 2022, the official exchange rate was 460 naira/USD, while the parallel market rate was 715 naira/USD. Thus, the official rate was 64 percent below the official rate, the largest gap in six years (Mojeed, 2022).These policies reduced the domestic real price of bread in spite of the rising international price of wheat. The lower price of bread is estimated to have actually reduced poverty in urban areas, thanks to the relative importance of bread in urban areas of Nigeria.Source: Authors' calculations based on changes in real prices of maize, wheat, and sorghum and household income and expenditure patterns.In this section, we compare the main results from Figure 2 with the poverty impact under two alternative sets of assumptions. We estimate the impact on poverty 1) if the world price shocks in the three commodities had been fully transmitted to domestic markets and 2) if we included both the increase in the real price and the increase due to inflation for the three commodities, while also assuming that other prices and income are fixed in nominal terms.As discussed earlier, the shocks in international prices are frequently not fully transmitted to domestic markets. What would the poverty impact be if the international price shocks were fully transmitted, that is, if the domestic real prices of wheat, maize, and sorghum rose in the same proportion as international prices did? Figure 3 compares the estimated actual change in poverty from Figure 2 (in green) with the hypothetical change in poverty assuming full transmission of shocks (in blue).While the estimated impact on poverty in Nigeria was almost negligible, if international price changes for the three staple food commodities had been fully transmitted to domestic markets, the impact on poverty would have been substantial. More specifically, the national poverty rate would have increased by 1 percentage point in February 2022, just before the invasion of Ukraine, and an additional 1 percentage point in May 2022, when world prices peaked, before subsiding as international prices declined. The bulk of this increase in poverty would have been due to the increase in the price of bread in Nigeria. As discussed earlier, income and poverty rates in Nigeria are not particularly sensitive to changes in the price of maize and sorghum.Thus, the results suggest that the overvalued exchange rate and the prioritization of wheat and flour imports in allocating scarce foreign currency were successful in preventing higher international food prices from increasing poverty in Nigeria. However, this does not necessarily imply that the policy of currency controls and overvaluation is justified by this outcome. First, it does not take into account uncertainty, the misallocation of scarce foreign currency, and the risk of rent-seeking behavior associated with having the government allocate a scarce resource administratively, favoring some imports and importers over others. In addition, the implicit subsidy on bread was not well targeted, with a majority of the benefits accruing to non-poor households. The same level of poverty reduction could have been achieved in a more cost-effective manner through some form of targeted assistance such as a cash-transfer program. Source: Authors calculations based on changes in real prices of maize, wheat, and sorghum and household income and expenditure patterns. Note: Our best estimate of the poverty impact of international shocks uses domestic real price changes (in green). Full transmission of international shocks is represented by the world price changes (in blue). And the domestic nominal price increase (in red) describes the impact of both international shocks and inflation on the three commodities, while assuming other prices and income are fixed in nominal terms.The overvalued exchange rate and prioritization of wheat and flour imports is a type of insulation policy, designed to protect domestic food markets from international price volatility. On a global level, insulation policies inhibit the adjustment of domestic food markets to changes in international prices, particularly grain prices. As such, they exacerbate the volatility in international grain markets. Martin and Minot (2023) found that insulation of domestic markets following the invasion of Ukraine likely doubled the spike in international wheat prices. A few large countries (notably India and China) were responsible for much of this magnification. Thus, insulation is a double-edged sword: it protects domestic markets from international shocks, while simultaneously exacerbating the size of those shocks.The second alternative is to estimate the poverty impact of the increase in domestic nominal prices of the three commodities, which is the combination of the increase in the real price and the increase associated with domestic inflation, while assuming that all other prices and incomes are fixed in nominal terms over the being examined. The results are shown in red in Figure 3. In this scenario, the poverty rate would increase 0.4 percentage points by January 2022, 0.8 percentage points by the peak in April 2022, and remain at that level in July 2022. The poverty increase in this case is greater than in the main simulation, but less than in the hypothetical case of full transmission of the international price shock. As noted above, this likely overstates the poverty impact of the world grain price rise since it includes the effect of inflation on the three commodity prices and excludes the effect of inflation on incomes.International commodity prices rose in the wake of the Covid-19 epidemic and spiked sharply in the first months of the war in Ukraine. This was particularly true in the case of wheat and maize because of the importance of Russia and Ukraine as exporters of these commodities. A critical question was: will the higher prices for wheat, maize, and other staple grains have an adverse effect on poverty and food security in low-income countries?In the case of Nigeria, we find that the real price of maize and sorghum increased over 2020-2022 but by less than the increase in world prices, as expected. In contrast, the real price of bread in Nigeria declined in real terms over this period, at least in part because of increasing overvaluation of the naira and the prioritization given to wheat and flour imports in allocating scarce foreign currency. When combined with information about the spending patterns and composition of income, these staple grain price changes had a negligible effect on national poverty rates. This is explained by the fact that poverty is not sensitive to increases in maize and sorghum prices, since gains to farmers offset the losses of consumers. Higher wheat prices would have increased poverty, but wheat prices were kept stable in nominal terms and pushed down in real terms. The analysis finds that if world price shocks were fully transmitted to domestic markets in Niger, the increase in poverty would have been in the range of 1-2 percentage points. The overvaluation and prioritization of wheat and flour imports prevented poverty from rising due to higher prices for staple foods on world markets, but it seems likely that alternative programs could have achieve this end without distorting the market for foreign currency and with less leakage of benefits to non-poor households.This study is part of a series of case studies that IFPRI is undertaking to assess the impact of higher commodity prices on income and poverty in developing countries. The analysis presented is an initial impact assessment designed to estimate the impact of higher food prices on poverty in selected countries. The initial set of case studies covers Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali. The analysis may be extended to cover other countries in the future.","tokenCount":"3122"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7f0c86a949addceed52f1e7b2fe4fb65","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0726cca2-1b4e-423b-ac9d-51d1cd0f3697/retrieve","id":"-863826652"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f4575745-25c8-45d5-a3d1-a17c36d7d04c","pagecount":"20","content":"Ethiopia is home to 120 million people and is the second most populous nation in Africa. It is also the most populous landlocked country in the world. The population of the country is expected to reach 172 million by 2050.Despite achieving consecutive double-digit economic growth since 2007, Ethiopia is one of the poorest nations in the world, with a per capita income of USD 1,080 and a considerable share of the population living below the poverty line.Agriculture is the main pillar of Ethiopia's economy, employing 75% of the labor force, accounting for 40% of GDP, 1 and 80% of the national export value. Approximately 95% of Ethiopian agriculture is rain-fed small-scale farming characterized by low-input, low-output subsistence practices.Digital readiness of a country (to create and facilitate enabling conditions) and its population (ability to use digital tools for valuable purposes) are crucial to transform agriculture and foster economic growth.Access to and use of digital services in Ethiopia have increased considerably in the past few years as a result of improvements in telecom and electricity infrastructure. However, access to and use of digital services remain low compared to the rest of the East African region.Digital literacy in Ethiopia is low. The country ranks 112 out of 138 economies in terms of digital skills of the general population. However, with 69% of the population under the age of 29, there is huge potential to transform digital literacy.There are positive prospects for agricultural digitalization in Ethiopia, propelled by a digital strategy that aims to build a digital agriculture platform to offer decision-making tools and support, and incentivize agri-tech entrepreneurship.Improving agricultural productivity in Ethiopia is crucial to alleviate poverty and meet growing food demand amid environmental stress and climate change. Agricultural innovation and access to digital agricultural solutions have the potential to boost productivity while reducing negative environmental footprints in agriculture and food system value chains. However, most smallholder farmers in Ethiopia have limited access to digital farming solutions. A disruptive approach is required to overcome crises in the sector and boost productivity to meet ecosystem needs and the related service demands of a growing population. Digital readiness is crucial to embrace and deploy existing technologies and transform agriculture.With the world moving towards a digital economy over the past decade, Ethiopia has made significant progress in laying the groundwork for digital agriculture solutions. However, Ethiopia's digital agriculture is still in its infancy, with very few digital service providers and a handful of government-led digital initiatives. An overview of Ethiopia's digital agriculture ecosystem reveals that digital solutions are provided by a variety of public, private, international development and research institutions, and non-governmental organizations. Most of the digital solutions focus primarily on digital tools and advisory services for smallholder farmers. Less attention is paid to reliable digital data creation, big data storage and sharing, data analytics, and other critical digital content development components.There are several challenges hampering the development of digital agriculture in Ethiopia. Access to advanced agricultural, knowledge, and information technologies is constrained due to weak digital infrastructure and facilities in the country. This includes limited data sharing policies and implementation guidelines to facilitate the collection and storage of, and access to, data to support digital solutions. The low digital literacy rate is another barrier to the expansion of ICT 2 -based agricultural extension and consulting services. The majority of farmers have limited technical capacity to adopt digital services and products. Limited financing to support the launch and upscaling of digital products and services also limits the advancement of digital agriculture in Ethiopia.Digital agriculture has the potential to support and incentivize agri-tech entrepreneurship to boost innovations and job creation in agriculture and related industries. However, opportunities for the private sector to fill technological gaps and provide efficient digital 2 Information and Communication Technology solutions are not well utilized in Ethiopia. Public-private partnerships to catalyze agricultural digitalization remain nascent. Currently, few private sector initiatives and startups provide digital agriculture solutions. This is expected to change with recent government policy reform focusing on private sector-led growth, which opens the space for private sector innovation in diverse fields. The government's ten-year development plan provides an opportunity to move towards digital agriculture. The plan aims to increase the share of private sector jobs in technology and digitalization from 50% to 80%, as well as to support and promote tech start-ups that have the greatest promise of large economic and social impacts.Political and economic reforms ratified in recent years have significantly altered the digital infrastructure and connectivity landscape, paving the way for digital agriculture to thrive. The government's recent telecom market liberalization, nationwide skill development, and enhancement of implementation capacity are important developments towards agricultural transformation, with an increased role of the private sector in offering digital solutions.The potential for digital agriculture in Ethiopia is untapped. Reaping its benefits requires well-designed strategies and measures implemented at various levels. Fundamental measures that should be taken to accelerate digital agriculture in Ethiopia include: developing ICT 3 infrastructure and big data analytics capacity; creating institutional mechanisms for highEthiopia has a total land area of approximately 1.14 million km 2 .It is known as \"the land of origins,\" where many important archeological and paleontological milestones have been uncovered. It is Africa's second most populous country, with an estimated 120 million people. 4 In addition, the country has the largest and most diverse livestock population in Africa. Ethiopia has varied geography; its elevation ranges from 4,550meters above sea level (Ras Dashen peaks) to 110 meters below sea level (Afar Depressions). The country is thus endowed with diverse agro-ecologies and biodiversity. Ethiopia is known as the Water Tower of East Africa due to its large, trans-boundary rivers.Despite its potential, Ethiopia is still a developing country. Agriculture employs more than 75% of the population. Climate change, specifically variability in rainfall, has a significant impact on agriculture. Despite these challenges, the country has recently experienced healthy economic growth. In the 2019-2020 fiscal year, real GDP 5 grew by 6.1% compared to 3.5% average growth predicted for sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. 6 This rise in real GDP can be attributed to 9.6% growth in industry, 5.3% growth in services, and 4.3% growth in agriculture. The agricultural sector contributed 22.9% of GDP growth on average, with the crops sub-sector contributing 65%. The industrial sector contributed 42.6%, with the construction and manufacturing subsectors contributing 72.6% and 23.9%, respectively, to overall GDP growth in the industrial sector. The service sector has contributed to 34.5% of GDP growth. 7 Despite recent rapid growth, nominal GDP per capita remains low at USD 1,080 8 compared to USD 1,586 in sub-Saharan Africa and USD 11,312 globally. 9Although it is the engine of Ethiopia's economic growth and provides a large portion of the country's foreign exchange earnings, the agricultural system is characterized by low productivity, low input use, and limited capacity to respond to environmental shocks. As a result, the country faces a daunting challenge: produce more food for a rapidly growing population on low-fertility soils under uncertain climatic conditions and in a sector dominated by poor smallholder farmers who cannot afford adequate input use. To address this challenge, the sector must be transformed through effective use of technology throughout the entire value chain. Modernizing the system through digital transformation can boost productivity while also promoting resilience. Embracing the transformation of agriculture with digital solutions in big data analytics (e.g., programming, artificial intelligence, modelling), as well as digital communication of agricultural technologies, tools, and advisory services, is critical to attract youth to study and practice agriculture.Digital transformation is the journey from an analogue society, where government, business, and social interactions take place in person, to a fully integrated inclusive digital economy where transactions become faster, cheaper, and more secure using technology, and where most interactions take place online. 10 The term \"digital economy\" refers to economic activity that utilizes the enhanced interconnectivity of networks and the interoperability of digital platforms. 11 It is born through the combination of two key network developments: 12 (i) the internet, and (ii) IP 13 -enabled communications systems-such as mobile networks, electronic payment systems, and public service networks.Digital technologies have been touted as potentially revolutionary solutions to improve the performance and sustainability of agricultural production systems through economic, social, and environmental dimensions. The agri-food sector can be made more efficient, inclusive, and environmentally sustainable through application of digital technologies, thereby increasing benefits to farmers, consumers, and society at large. 14 Digital technologies can help to raise on-farm productivity, improve resource-use efficiency, and support climate resilience. 15 Implementation of digital technologies can lead to notable improvements in primary production and supply chain and logistics performance, and reductions in food loss and waste. 16 Digital agriculture (or \"smart farming\") refers to the design, development, and use of digital technologies in agriculture and the wider agri-food sector. 17 It encompasses a range of technologies that include sensors, robots, digital communication tools, blockchains, computational decision and analytical tools, and cloud-based technologies. 18 In the context of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, digital agriculture has the potential to deliver economic benefits through increased agricultural productivity, cost efficiency, and market opportunities; social and cultural benefits through increased communication and inclusivity; and environmental benefits through optimized resource use and adaptation to climate change. 19 The digital transformation of agriculture has many benefits for smallholder farmers, including improved market transparency, enhanced farm productivity, and more efficient logistics. 20 Digitalization boosts the connectivity of all actors across the agri-food system. More specifically, it helps farmers to access technical information, obtain higher quality seeds, collect real-time data, improve the traceability of food, and enhance competitiveness. 21 Therefore, it is an innovative solution to problems faced in the current global food system.Evidence based on a meta-analysis of six studies shows that the transmission of agricultural information through mobile technologies has increased yields by 4% in sub-Saharan Africa and India and has enhanced the likelihood of adopting recommended agrochemical inputs by 22%. 22 In Europe, an increase of 10% in digitization results in 1.4% growth in GDP per capita. 23 Given its benefits as observed in many regions of the world, digital transformation of agriculture is essential for developing countries such as Ethiopia. Considering that agriculture is the basis of the global economy and people's livelihoods, and has tended to be neglected in terms of the application of new technologies, agricultural improvement should be supported with the best available solutions (such as digital systems and technologies), targeting these to agriculturalists in developing countries, who are most in need.Agriculture is the backbone of the Ethiopian economy and drives its development. The agricultural sector has great potential to stimulate growth, create jobs, and eradicate poverty. It contributes USD 27.5 billion to the economy, employs 75% of the population, accounts for 80% of foreign earnings, and is the major source of raw materials and capital for investment and market development. 24 19 Trendov et al., \"Digital  The contribution of agriculture to GDP growth is 22.9%of which crop production accounts for 65%, followed by animal farming and hunting (25.9%), and forestry (8.8%). 25 The agricultural sector grew by 4.3% in the 2019-2020 fiscal year, compared to a 3.8% increase in 2018-2019. This was due to a 4.7% increase in crop production and a 3.3% increase in animal farming and hunting. Total grain production reached 335.2 million quintals, with cereals accounting for 88.5% and pulses and oil seeds accounting for 11.5%. The main agricultural exports are coffee, oil seeds, cereals, sesame, beans, khat, spices, natural gum, incense, and cut flowers. Coffee is the largest export commodity; Ethiopia is the largest African coffee producer and hosts a unique diversity of coffee flavors. Coffee is believed to have first been discovered in Ethiopia. Wheat and palm oil are the main agricultural imports. 26Ethiopia's agricultural sector is dominated by smallscale farmers who practice rain-fed mixed farming with traditional technology and a low-input, low-output production system. Smallholder households account for more than 90% of total agricultural output. 27 They generate income from agricultural production either in cash or through personal consumption. Despite efforts to commercialize and transform agriculture from subsistence to production of high-value crops, performance has been below expectations. 28 The failure to achieve projected agricultural productivity levels is related to the coverage and quality of agricultural technology use, as well as the agricultural extension system in general, both of which could be addressed by promoting digital agriculture.Ethiopia's population was estimated at 120 million in 2021. 29 Those under the age of 29 years account for 69% of the population (76 million people). The median age is 19.1 years. Approximately 24.5 million people (21.3%) live in urban areas. 30 The population of the country is expected to increase by 2.6% per year, reaching 138 million people in 2030 and over 172 million by 2050. 31 In order to meet the nutritional and food security needs of the increasing population, cereal production must increase by one billion tons and annual meat production by two hundred million tons. 32 Most Ethiopians rely on subsistence agriculture-the carrying capacity of which is decreasing over timefor their livelihoods and consequently, most rural households are exposed to chronic poverty and food insecurity. 33 Livelihood requires an adequate flow of food, stocks, and cash to meet necessities in the household. 34 It comprises household capabilities, activities, and assets (resources, claims, stores, and access) that are essential for living. 35 Ethiopia's agriculture is characterized by tools and production systems that have remained unchanged for millennia. 36 Due to population pressure, the size of smallholder plots has decreased, with over 60% of farming households operating on plots smaller than 1 ha 37 that are dispersed across wide areas, posing significant operational challenges. 38 Population growth in Ethiopia has forced households to make a living from these small plots of land. 39 The majority of rural households become vulnerable to food insecurity and chronic poverty as their plot sizes decline, their holdings are fragmented, and their income from farming activity remains low. 40 Furthermore, periodic drought and extremely variable environments increase the risks associated with farming, resulting in income fluctuation.The agricultural development plan focuses on reducing reliance on rain-fed agriculture by developing irrigation capacity; expanding agricultural mechanization services; enabling highly productive smallholder farmers to become investors by assisting them to gain access to additional land; improving animal husbandry, fodder development, and animal health; expanding horticulture development; increasing the participation Ethiopian agriculture is confronted with a number of challenges in addition to climate and soil fertility constraints. Low availability and poor quality of seeds and fertilizers, economic constraints such as low income and lack of financial support, and insufficient policies and guidelines all hamper crop productivity. Smallholder farmers with limited resources have difficulties overcoming these obstacles. 42 The combined effects of rapid population growth; environmental degradation; conversion of fertile farmland to construction; climate change; price inflation of basic needs; youth unemployment; constrained input supply systems; and limited mechanization options, limited effective and accountable organizational capacity, and agricultural and rural financial and credit facilities 43 are likely to cause significant food security challenges for Ethiopia in coming decades. To address some of these agricultural bottlenecks, massive transformation is required to increase productivity and improve livelihoods. Thus, appropriate management practices supported by digital solutions, are urgently required to alleviate constraints and increase agricultural production. The proliferation of mobile technology, remote sensing data, and distributed computing and storage capabilities is creating new opportunities for the integration of smallholder farmers into the broader agri-food system. 44Digital agriculture has the potential to transform agriculture and improve food security. However, there are obstacles to overcome in the \"digitalization\" of agriculture and the food value chain; the country should be \"digital ready\" to embrace digitalization and support transformation. Acquiring adequate and clean digital data, processing the data smartly and efficiently, creating reliable location-and context-specific content, disseminating content to actors and stakeholders, and collecting feedback from representative groups to finetune the content and advisory and improve the entire \"data ecosystem/value chain\" are essential for digital transformation. Digital solutions such as the use of technologies including the internet, mobile devices, sensors, aerial and satellite images, GPS, 45  IV. Limited access to digital knowledge and information due to poor interconnectivity and network coverage.For digital transformation to have the desired impact, several conditions must be met. Some of the prerequisites for digital transformation in Ethiopia (and enhance digital readiness) are described below. The telecommunication penetration rate (telecom density per 100 people) increased from 45.9% in 2019-2020 to 54.8% in 2020-2021 due to an improvement in mobile density (per 100 people) to 52.9%, from 44.9% in 2019-2020. Internet and data density (per 100 people) increased to 24.3%. 49 Internet penetration increased from 3% of the population in 2012 to 25% in 2021. Average mobile-cellular subscription in sub-Saharan Africa (per 100 people) is 80%, with 28% internet penetration. Hence, Ethiopia's internet penetration is below average for both sub-Saharan Africa and the world (53%).In Ethiopia, internet network coverage is 86% for 2G, 85% for 3G, and 70% for 4G. 50 However, only 19% of Ethiopians report using the internet frequently, due to poor real-time connectivity and reliability, low digital literacy, and high access costs that exclude a large portion of the population. 51 Infrastructure upgrades that enable reliable internet connections with a broad geographic reach are critical enablers of digitalization of various economic sectors, including agriculture. Ethiopia is making strides towards universal connectivity. Recent developments to transform telecoms and sell a significant part of the public stake to private companies will propel the system even further.There are also efforts to transition to broadband mobile services, which have already reached many cities across the country. However, there is further room for improvement in order to enable a transformative digital economy. While internet use has grown, its application to economically productive activities remains limited.Rather than e-commerce, business, or education, much internet activity is currently focused on social media. Due to a lack of access and exposure in the local market, the private sector has difficulty using the internet in an economically productive or commercial manner. This undermines the ability to provide adequate digitally enabled business services. 52 With very large investments, the capacity for further capital expansion of the incumbent operator will be significantly enhanced, following the planned sale of 40% of the stake of the government-owned telecom sector to a foreign or strategic investor in the second half of 2021. The recently announced entry of Safaricom, the market's leading telecom operator group, will also result in significant investments in network capacity, boosting access and network availability. Based on these considerations, the number of users is expected to double and triple by 2024 and 2026, respectively. 53 Given the trends and targets for expanding broadband access, 4G data access should be widely available in all densely populated urban areas. Meeting the tenyear development plan would also imply a significantly improved physical infrastructure base in coming years, including plans for nationwide mobile and data access, additional data centers, and more electronically delivered government services.Another critical enabler for promoting digital solutions is the cost and accessibility of connectivity. Since 2020, the cost of telecom services has dropped dramatically, increasing accessibility far beyond what would have been possible with infrastructure improvements alone.Telecom voice costs have dropped from ETB 0.72 per minute to ETB 0.28 per minute, while data access costs have dropped 80% from ETB 0.30 to ETB 0.06 per MB. 54 Monthly package subscriptions lower these costs even further. For example, a monthly 1 GB data package now costs ETB 75 (USD 1.78). This represents a significant decrease from USD 3-4 a few years ago and USD 2.40 one year ago. 55The foundation for embracing digital solutions is consistent and dependable power. Approximately 33% of Ethiopians have access to on-grid electricity, while 11% access electricity through off-grid systems such as generators, solar home systems, and minigrids. 56 There is a significant difference in electricity access within Ethiopia between urban and rural areas. Digital options are intended to benefit users across multiple value chains. The types, amounts, and detail of information required are determined by the needs, aspirations, and opportunities at each stage of the value chain. Accordingly, digital agriculture end users can be divided into four hubs. 62 Each hub has distinct digital agriculture resources and needs, as well as distinct challenges for which digital agriculture may provide solutions. The hubs are not mutually exclusive; any given individual may function within multiple end-user hubs. Interactions and feedback occur between the various hubs. The major features and constraints of each hub are described below. Understanding the constraints associated with each hub is critical for defining enabling conditions and facilitating appropriate support. In this regard, opening market systems and involving the private sector may be necessary to add value across the multiple chains.agricultural inputs, such as seeds, fertilizers, feeds, agrochemicals, machinery, and finance. 63 The primary challenges of the input hub include lack of decision support tools, poor market linkages, inconsistent demand and supply, and a lack of financial services.This hub fundamentally consists of farmers and livestock keepers. 64 Producers face a lack of decision support tools and knowledge sharing, limited access to financial services, poor market linkages, low mechanization, and lack of input traceability, in addition to high initial investment risks exacerbated by climate change.This consists of all actors in the value chain stretching from the farmer to the consumer; this includes traders, transporters, and processors, among others. 65 Poor market linkages, low transparency, a lack of real-time communications, poor monitoring and traceability systems, minimal value addition, high costs, high inefficiencies, and high postharvest waste are significant barriers for this hub.This hub consists of consumers of both raw and processed agricultural products-in effect, the entire population. The accessing public services, increase the share of private sector jobs in technology and digitalization from 50% to 80%, and increase access to mobile and internet services from 37.2% and 18.6%, respectively, to 100%. Furthermore, the development plan intends to support and promote selected tech start-ups with the potential for large economic and social impacts. 69Digitalizing agriculture relies heavily on the availability and accessibility of credible data. The lack of systems, infrastructure, policies, and guidelines that facilitate storage, standardization, access, and sharing of agricultural data is a significant barrier to digital agriculture. In order to address this, an organized and concerted effort was initiated by CIAT 70 with the support of GIZ 71 -Ethiopia. This process resulted in the creation of a platform called the Coalition of the Willing (CoW), which is a team of agricultural experts and institutions that are willing to share their data and promote datasharing efforts in the country. Within a few years, the CoW had built a data repository hub and developed data standardization and sharing guidelines. 72 Soil and agronomic data collected and shared by the CoW 73 has already been used to develop a fertilizer recommendation tool 74 and to prepare the first spatially representative soil type map of Ethiopia. The result-oriented and pragmatic approach of the CoW has inspired national actions in the same direction. Ethiopia is still in the early stages of digital transformation.In recent years, some government-led digitalization initiatives have been launched, and a few private sector digital services have emerged. 75 Several institutions, including government organizations, corporations, donor institutions, small start-ups, private companies, universities, and international and national research institutes are striving to provide a variety of digital agricultural solutions.The role of institutions in digital agriculture ranges from digital content development to scaling and dissemination of digital products and advisory services, with some performing a combination of the two. Platforms, content, products, tools, and advisory services for digital agriculture provide new insights that improve decision-making abilities. Ethiopia's digital readiness can be improved by strengthening existing infrastructure; developing enabling systems; facilitating digital interactions among the government, private sector, and citizens; and strengthening the larger ecosystem-specifically, improving access to capital investment, human capital, and the regulatory environment. In order to reap the untapped potential benefits of digital agriculture and ensure that it is successfully implemented and sustained in Ethiopia, the following recommendations should be considered:1. Coordination of various digital solution development projects by public institutions, the private sector, and development partners will improve digital platform interoperability. A digital ag-data hub can bring together various workshops and forums, marketplaces, and road maps, as well as synergize the efforts of providers of digital agriculture solutions. This will help to reduce duplication of effort, while also ensuring the availability of non-contradictory digital advisory services, and eliminate skepticism and the spread of misinformation.2. Precise and user-friendly databases should be created to make positional and geo-referenced data available to all parties involved in digital agriculture. Improving the big data hosting infrastructure of the digital ag-hub and integrating digital payments, products, and advisory services to specific crops across value chains will help provide capability for cutting-edge data analytics. Implementing data access and data sharing policies across the ag-food system will ensure consistent and timely data flow to support Ethiopia's digital agriculture.3. The liberalization of the telecom sector will promote competition, increasing the digital exposure of smallholder farmers through improved network interconnectivity, smartphone ownership, and internet access. Off-grid solutions will improve access to electricity in remote areas, allowing smallholders to power their digital equipment.4. In order to implement a holistic, gender inclusive, and contextualized digital agriculture system that provides site-specific and multilingual support to farmers, pastoralists and agro-pastoralists, women, and female-headed smallholder households, the existing agricultural research and education system must be streamlined to accommodate digital solutions. This will also give agricultural professionals greater power by increasing their digital literacy and exposure.5. Improving private sector collaborations with the government, international research institutions, and non-governmental organizations to develop accurate, dependable, and consistent digital content will create a favorable environment for the private sector to lead in digital agriculture. This can be facilitated by providing incentives to innovative start-ups, loans and financing, and capacitybuilding assistance, as well as implementing policies that encourage the development of userdriven (smallholder) digital technology innovations and eliminate systemic barriers.","tokenCount":"4319"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"51cef775345b2a0e09fbde2f28c53165","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/c5c5c0e0-a278-43a4-a89c-781f6b05508e/content","id":"1858650859"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7d73e120-8b21-4c0f-aa3f-d710e387bf2c","pagecount":"23","content":"Physical maps Gene and Genome Sequences DNA marker platforms Gene expression platforms Transformation protocolsPhenotyping in controlled conditions Multi-environmental trials High throughput screeningsGenomics-assisted breeding strategies   Introgression of TaGW2 double mutants into CIMMYT durum and bread wheat germplasm.Introgression of newly identified haplotypes with favorable effects on TGW and grain yield• Predicting the performance of lines that have never or insufficiently been phenotyped• Reducing the cost of yield trails (e.g., sparse testing)• Separate parental selection from product advancement Phenotyping network: GY and disease data from NARS GS to provide increased genetic variation to NARs","tokenCount":"91"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"65bf09bf5b77170087e6ce506e69156a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e7e57a74-926e-4a69-9305-64c20bc773d6/retrieve","id":"-1204077684"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f8578c81-b8d7-4b17-a328-ca096927205f","pagecount":"1","content":"There is abundance of crop residues during the farming season but improper methods of conservation and storage often results in significant losses of feedable dry matter and nutrients (Fig. 1) resulting in feed scarcity and poor animal growth performance in the dry season.• Ensiling groundnut haulms resulted in greater retention of nutrients than the traditional methods of drying and storage (Tables 1 and2).Objective: To train framers on innovative techniques of ensiling crop residues and to compare the nutritional quality of the two forages. Approach: Three communities consisting of ~45 farmers were each trained in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions of Ghana. Farmers then used the conserved forages to formulate diets (Table 2) that were fed to their sheep and goats in the dry season.• Through field demonstrations, farmers now appreciate the losses associated with the traditional methods of conserving crop residues by drying compared to ensiling (Fig. 1). • The silage was well preserved and had favourable fermentation characteristics (lower pH and higher lactic acid concentration; Table 1) resulting in higher crude protein and energy in the diets (Table 2) compared to the hay.• Constraints of feed availability and quality remain the greatest challenge of smallholder livestock farmers in Northern Ghana. • Wider adoption of this innovation will be higher because it does not interfere with the traditional systems of staple food production. Up-scaling of this project will therefore increase the number of beneficiaries to about 750 compared to the current 400 farmers. • Also feeding trials will further validate the effects of this innovation on animal growth performance.  ","tokenCount":"262"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2a60eb184feade2c62a80af6df056f28","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4eacb8f7-862d-415f-91d8-8cbb685e72d7/retrieve","id":"1315312104"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"08c3b745-091f-4390-87a2-3cdfeec8fe16","pagecount":"32","content":"Tropical (CIAT) -miembro del Consorcio CGIAR-desarrolla tecnologías, métodos innovadores y nuevos conocimientos que contribuyen a que los agricultores, en especial los de escasos recursos, logren una agricultura eco-eficiente -es decir, competitiva y rentable así como sostenible y resiliente. Con su sede principal cerca de Cali, Colombia, el CIAT realiza investigación orientada al desarrollo en las regiones tropicales de América Latina, África y Asia. www.ciat.cgiar.org CGIAR es una alianza mundial de investigación para un futuro sin hambre. Su labor científica la llevan a cabo los 15 centros de investigación que integran el Consorcio CGIAR, en colaboración con cientos de organizaciones socias. www.cgiar.org CVC La Corporación Autónoma Regional del Valle del Cauca es la entidad encargada de administrar los recursos naturales renovables y el medio ambiente del Valle del Cauca, que como máxima autoridad ambiental y en alianza con actores sociales propende por un ambiente sano, contribuyendo al mejoramiento de la calidad de vida de la población y la competitividad de la región en el marco del desarrollo sostenible. www.cvc.gov.coLa elaboración del Atlas de Recursos Energéticos no Convencionales para el Valle del Cauca es el resultado de un esfuerzo para comprender la disponibilidad y potencial de los recursos energéticos no convencionales para actividades de generación de energía eléctrica, aprovechamiento agroindustrial y demás aplicaciones energéticas de la región vallecaucana.En estos momentos, cobran importancia, desde el punto de vista energético, conceptos relacionados con el desarrollo sostenible, la autosuficiencia energética, los mecanismos de desarrollo limpio, la reducción de emisiones contaminantes, etc. Esto crea un marco de desarrollo local y regional que permite vislumbrar, en el mediano plazo, la capacidad de producción local de electricidad y otras formas de energía con los recursos disponibles en el departamento, buscando facilitar -a quienes consulten la herramienta -la posibilidad de desarrollar mecanismos de implementación de tecnologías no convencionales para aprovechamientos residenciales, comerciales y agroindustriales.El actual y creciente interés mundial en la búsqueda de recursos energéticos que permitan una gradual sustitución de los combustibles fósiles (carbón y petróleo), así como de la energía nuclear, por los efectos negativos sobre el ambiente y la salud en general del planeta y sus habitantes, ha generado una oferta interesante en opciones de producción de energía eléctrica que no solo permiten su aprovechamiento en zonas rurales sin ningún tipo de suministro de electricidad, sino también en estrategias de uso y ahorro de energía eléctrica en grandes centros urbanos a niveles residencial, comercial e industrial. El conocimiento de estas tecnologías y sus posibilidades de aprovechamiento, aunadas con las viabilidades técnicas y económicas de su implementación, permite vislumbrar un panorama de diversidad energética en el mediano y largo plazo, lo que hace necesario conocerlas adecuadamente para su integración y utilización.Sin embargo, la utilización de estas tecnologías basadas en recursos energéticos no convencionales debe pasar primero por una adecuada identificación y evaluación para conocer la prefactibilidad de su implementación. Si bien la herramienta facilita el acceso a la información disponible del recurso energético no convencional en el Valle del Cauca, se requerirán estudios más detallados para que las estimaciones técnicas y económicas puedan promover su uso tecnológico.La presente herramienta provee información de referencia para el recurso solar, eólico, biomasa e hidráulico. Estos cuatro recursos dan un vistazo inicial a la potencialidad del aprovechamiento de recursos energéticos no convencionales en el Valle del Cauca y, de paso, sirven de plataforma de información que permita en el mediano plazo su actualización en función de los planes de desarrollo departamental y nacional para el aprovechamiento sostenible de estos recursos, procurando un desarrollo económico más próspero y equitativo para la región.Este tipo de propuestas se enmarcan dentro de la actual presentación del Plan Nacional de Desarrollo preparado por el Gobierno nacional y que traza las rutas de desarrollo rural que requiere el país para un escenario de posconflicto.Se espera que esta herramienta pueda ser ampliada, desarrollada y actualizada de manera que puedan integrarse en ella análisis de inclusión de nuevas tecnologías para el aprovechamiento de recursos renovables no convencionales, análisis económicos y financieros, análisis de impactos ambientales para las regiones menos desarrolladas y aquellas con más potencial de desarrollo. En un futuro, se podrá contar con apoyo de esta información para los planes de ordenamiento territorial de las comunidades, de manera que puedan contar con recursos abundantes que permitan su autosuficiencia energética.Ing. Electricista, PhD Consultor, Desolcon Andina S.A.S.iii Prefacio La vulnerabilidad ambiental de los recursos naturales del departamento ante eventos climáticos cíclicos como el fenómeno del \"Niño\", sumada a condiciones de marginación económica y social en las comunidades rurales del departamento del Valle del Cauca, insta a la Corporación Autónoma Regional del Valle del Cauca (CVC) a desarrollar estrategias de acompañamiento en el desarrollo sostenible de iniciativas productivas que permitan el crecimiento económico y el mejoramiento del nivel de vida de dichas comunidades, mientras se protegen los recursos naturales.Durante el diseño de estas estrategias, el grupo Producción Sostenible, adscrito a la Dirección Técnica Ambiental de la CVC, identificó que las Fuentes No Convencionales de Energía Renovable (FNCER) son una alternativa ideal para reducir la presión sobre bosques, ríos y suelos, pero que existe muy poca información consolidada sobre el potencial energético en esta materia en el departamento.Este trabajo pretende aportar las bases para un futuro sistema público de información, en donde los usuarios accedan a la información más actualizada en la materia, posibilitando la realización de estudios exploratorios preliminares con información confiable y de bajo costo, que permitan dar luces con criterio técnico sobre el potencial de generación con fuente renovable en su municipio.Cabe destacar que a pesar de que la principal fuente de datos fue la misma CVC, existen áreas con vacíos que se podrían llenar fácilmente si las entidades públicas involucradas, desde el orden local hasta el nacional, articularan esfuerzos en pro de un sistema de información unificado nacional.Consideramos que el nivel de compromiso y la buena imagen de la CVC, como autoridad ambiental regional ante entidades de orden superior, podría permitirles articular actividades con otras entidades públicas y privadas para lograr este gran sueño (y necesidad apremiante) que es el desarrollo y fortalecimiento de los sistemas energéticos que involucren FNCER en todo el país.Coordinador Grupo Técnico Desolcon Andina S.A.S.El resultado de este trabajo es producto de la suma de esfuerzos conjuntos entre la Corporación Autónoma Regional del Valle del Cauca (CVC) y el Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), con la presencia de Desolcon Andina S.A.S. como aliado técnico ejecutor, dentro del marco del Convenio No. 033 de 2014, que tiene como objeto: \"Aunar esfuerzos y recursos humanos, económicos y técnicos para realizar acciones en el marco de la mitigación y la adaptación al cambio climático en el Valle del Cauca\". Actividad D2014: Identificación de energías alternativas no convencionales de potencial aplicación en el Valle del Cauca. Desolcon Andina S.A.S. hace un reconocimiento y agradece a las entidades que suministraron información referente a las áreas de cultivos agrícolas, potencial energético de residuos agrícolas y pecuarios, nivel de radiación solar diaria por unidad de área, magnitud de velocidad de viento promedio mensual y caudal de cuencas hidrográficas del Valle del Cauca. La metodología propuesta para la elaboración de este documento se compone de los siguientes elementos (Figura 1):1. Obtención de la fuente de información del recurso energético renovable. 2. Extracción de la información de interés o específica del recurso energético renovable. 3. Inclusión de la información sobre una capa de información geográfica para su visualización y manipulación en un sistema de información geográfica.La metodología propuesta ha recurrido a la fuente de información del Centro de Datos Meteorológicos de Superficie y Energía Solar (SSE) de la NASA 1 .Figura 1. Metodología utilizada.Centro de Datos Meteorológicos de Superficie y Energía Solar (SSE) de la NASA 2Consiste en un sistema en línea, de libre acceso a la información, en donde la Administración Nacional de Aeronáutica y del Espacio (NASA) de Estados Unidos, a través del Programa de Ciencias de la Tierra, proporciona datos para el estudio del clima y la radiación solar. La información se basa en mediciones realizadas durante más de 22 años sobre diferentes regiones del planeta a partir de una red de satélites geoestacionarios.Con el rápido crecimiento de las tecnologías de aprovechamiento de recursos renovables (especialmente solar y eólica), esta fuente de información ha ofrecido datos globales y continuos en el tiempo, los cuales han permitido que sea una fuente confiable de información para el desarrollo de distintos proyectos a nivel global.La información suministrada por esta base de datos tiene una resolución de un grado longitudinal por un grado latitudinal. Entre los parámetros de mayor utilidad ofrecidos por la base se tienen:• Parámetros para el dimensionado y orientación de módulos solares para aplicaciones fotovoltaicas y térmicas (por ej.: Radiación global promedio, mínima y máxima sobre superficie horizontal; radiación directa promedio, mínima y máxima sobre superficie horizontal; radiación difusa promedio, mínima y máxima sobre superficie horizontal).• Geometría solar (por ej.: duración del día solar, horas de brillo solar, declinación y ángulos horarios de puesta del sol).• Parámetros meteorológicos (por ej.: temperatura, humedad, velocidad del viento, presión atmosférica).En la Figura 2, se puede observar el carácter global de los datos suministrados. La información obtenida se elabora en función de la distribución espacial de la información contenida en la base de datos (1° Lat -1° Long). Como se detalla en la Figura 2, esta información se debe considerar para abarcar el territorio del Valle del Cauca de acuerdo con su división político-administrativa.Una vez obtenidas las celdas en las que se puede incluir toda la extensión del departamento, para cada una de ellas, se procede a la obtención de información de interés. Como ejemplo de ello, se presenta la obtención de la información del recurso solar y eólico para un punto geográfico específico del departamento (Figura 3):La información obtenida se lleva a un formato de manipulación geográfica. En este sentido, es posible convertir dicha información en dos fuentes principales:• Información cartográfica en formato vectorial • Información cartográfica en formato raster La información cartográfica tipo vectorial recoge la variabilidad y características de la zona geográfica escogida mediante entidades geométricas, para cada una de las cuales dichas características son constantes. Las entidades más destacadas de dicho espacio corresponden a puntos, líneas y polígonos (Figura 4).La información cartográfica tipo raster permite obtener información a partir de una serie de unidades mínimas denominadas celdas, las cuales contienen un único valor a pesar de que la información de la imagen raster puede contener información sobre distintas variables.A continuación, se especifican algunas características de este tipo de información empleada en la investigación:Figura 3. Obtención de la información de interés de la base de datos del SSE de la NASA.Fuente: SSE-NASA. Parameters for sizing and pointing of solar panels and for solar thermal applicationsMonthly Averaged Air Temperature at 10 m above the Surface of the Earth ( o C)Monthly Averaged Wind Speed at 50 m above the Surface of the Earth (m/s)Minimum and Maximum Difference from Monthly Averaged Wind Speed at 50 m (%)It is recommended that users of these wind data review the SSE Methodology.The user may wish to correct for biases as well as local effects within the selected grid region.All height measurements are from the soil, water, or ice/snow surface instead of \"effective\" surface, which is usually taken to be near the tops of vegetated canopies.Figura 4. Información geográfica tipo vectorial.Fuente: (Olaya, 2010).La Misión Topográfica Radar Shuttle (SRTM) consistió en una misión realizada alrededor del globo terráqueo con el fin de obtener un modelo digital de elevación de la esfera terrestre entre las latitudes 60°N y 57°S y generar de esta manera una completa base de cartas topográficas digitales de alta resolución de la mayor parte de la Tierra.El sistema SRTM consiste en un radar modificado que voló a bordo de la nave Shuttle Endeavour durante los 11 días que duró la misión STS-99 de febrero de 2000. Para adquirir los datos de elevación topográfica estereoscópica, el SRTM llevaba dos reflectores de antenas de radar. Cada reflector de antena estaba separado del otro a una distancia de 60 m gracias a un mástil que extendía la anchura del Shuttle en el espacio. La técnica empleada conjuga software interferométrico con SAR (radares con anchos de banda sintéticos) en sus antenas reflectoras (Figura 5A).  mejor mapa topográfico mundial. Este nuevo conjunto único de datos globales se encuentra disponible en línea sin costo alguno (Japan Space Systems, 2011). Será útil para aquellos usuarios e investigadores que deseen disponer de información sobre la elevación del terreno. Los puntos de elevación del terreno han sido medidos cada 30 metros (Figura 5B).La disposición de los datos encontrados y las capas geográficas previamente seleccionadas para la elaboración de la información base correspondiente a la división político-administrativa del departamento del Valle del Cauca hacen que la selección de los datos para la elaboración del mapa de recursos renovables se base en la construcción de una capa vectorial para la inclusión de los recursos renovables solar y eólico.Para la recopilación de datos del potencial de generación con fuente hídrica, el estudio se basó en dos grupos de datos. Los primeros corresponden a los caudales medidos en tiempo real en las estaciones limnigráficas activas de la Corporación Regional Autónoma del Valle del Cauca (CVC), suministrados por su grupo de Sistemas de Información.Sin embargo, el número de estaciones activas actualmente no cubren el 50% de las cuencas hidrográficas del Valle del Cauca, lo que nos hizo remitir a un segundo grupo de datos tomados de un estudio exploratorio realizado por la CVC y el Grupo de Gestión y Apoyo a la Ingeniería Agrícola de Colombia (GAIACOL) en 2007.Este estudio, llamado Caudales específicos para las cuencas en el departamento del Valle del Cauca, se centró en determinar los caudales específicos y curvas de duración del caudal de las cuencas de la vertiente del río Cauca 3 (CVC/GAIACOL, 2007).La metodología utilizada en su momento por los autores del estudio se incluye de forma literal en el presente documento para referencia del modo como en su momento se obtuvieron los datos aquí reflejados.Valle del Cauca (CVC/GAIACOL, 2007)Se identificaron y localizaron cartográficamente todas las estaciones hidrométricas en el Valle del Cauca, con el propósito de determinar las cuencas con registro de información de caudal.Se observó que algunas cuencas están instrumentadas. Sin embargo, los caudales registrados en las estaciones no son representativos del comportamiento hidrológico real de las mismas. Por lo tanto, estas cuencas se clasificaron como no instrumentadas para el desarrollo del presente estudio.Cuencas instrumentadas: Amaime, Bolo, Bugalagrande, Cali, Calima, Claro, Dagua, Guadalajara, Jamundí, La Paila, La Vieja, Lili -Meléndez -Cañaveralejo, Mediacanoa, Obando, Pescador, Riofrío, Tuluá y Yumbo.Cuencas no instrumentadas: Arroyohondo, El Cerrito, Desbaratado, Fraile, Guabas, Las Cañas, Los Micos, Morales, Mulaló, Piedras, Sabaletas, San Pedro, Sonso, Vijes y Yotoco.Veinte (20) series de caudal diario registrado en las estaciones hidrométricas denominadas Amaime, Los Minchos, El Placer, Bocatoma, La Trojita, La Luisa, Bendiciones, El Vergel, Potrerito, La Sorpresa, Cartago, Pasoancho-Lili, Calle Quinta, El Jardín, Mediacanoa, Obando, La Florida, Salónica, Mateguadua y Pasoancho-Yumbo.Los datos de estas estaciones fueron evaluados por el grupo de Recursos Hídricos en el año 2007 mediante la realización de un análisis estadístico.• Dieciséis ( 16) series de caudal diario generado con el modelo hidrológico lluvia -escorrentía HBV.• Cartografía base y límites de las áreas de drenaje correspondientes a las cuencas de primer y tercer orden.• Precipitación media mensual y anual para cada una de las áreas de drenaje correspondientes a las cuencas de primer y tercer orden.El caudal específico se refiere a la cantidad de escorrentía que se produce en un punto dado de un río por unidad de superficie o área relativa a dicho punto; representa el caudal aportado por cada hectárea de cuenca o área de drenaje.Con la información de caudales medios mensuales multianuales registrada en las estaciones hidrométricas y la generada con el modelo hidrológico lluviaescorrentía HBV, se calcularon los caudales específicos medios mensuales y anuales para cada una de las áreas de drenaje correspondientes a las cuencas objeto del presente estudio, aplicando para ello un factor de área y precipitación.Adicionalmente, se construyeron las curvas de duración de caudales diarios, a partir de las cuales se determinaron los caudales específicos asociados a varios porcentajes de permanencia en el tiempo para cada una de las áreas de drenaje correspondientes a las cuencas objeto del presente estudio.La fuente principal de los datos del potencial energético de biomasa fue el Atlas del Potencial Energético de la Biomasa Residual en Colombia (UPME/Ideam/ Colciencias, 2010) 4 .El Atlas se centra en el concepto de biomasa residual, el cual la define como los subproductos que se derivan de las transformaciones naturales o industriales que se llevan a cabo en la materia orgánica.Asimismo, el Atlas recopila y consolida información sobre el área cultivada, la población pecuaria y el volumen de residuos sólidos orgánicos urbanos; y muestra los resultados de la caracterización fisicoquímica a nivel nacional, de 96 muestras de campo tomadas en 2008.En resumen, el Atlas muestra el potencial energético anual por unidad de área a nivel departamental y municipal de la biomasa residual, estimado mediante modelos matemáticos específicos. La Figura 6 muestra gráficamente la metodología utilizada para la elaboración del Atlas en referencia.Los mapas que el Atlas comprende son:1. Zonas de biomasa residual, agrupadas por características comunes de producción.2. Localización de los cultivos a nivel municipal y departamental y área cultivada por año (ha/año).3. Población pecuaria, número de cabezas de animales por año.4. Cantidad de biomasa residual por fuente generadora, toneladas de residuos generados por año (t/año).5. Potencial energético de la biomasa residual, por sector y especie, terajoules por año (TJ/año).Figura 6. Metodología de elaboración del Atlas del Potencial Energético para la Biomasa Residual en Colombia.Fuente: UPME/Ideam/Colciencias (2010).6. Rendimiento neto de energía, concentración de oferta energética por unidad de área cultivada, terajoules por hectárea y por año (TJ/ha-año).Los datos recopilados por los investigadores se centraron en tres fuentes principales de la biomasa residual como son:1. Sector Agrícola: Residuos agrícolas de cosecha y de procesos agroindustriales (Figura 7).2. Sector Pecuario: Estiércol bovino, porcino y avícola (Figura 8).3. Sector de Residuos Sólidos Orgánicos Urbanos (RSOU): Residuos de plazas de mercado, centros de abastos y poda en centros urbanos (Figura 9). Figura 9. Ciudades generadoras de residuos.Fuente: UPME/Ideam/Colciencias (2010).Sector Residuos Sólidos Orgánicos Urbanos (RSOU) A continuación, describiremos los criterios utilizados para la construcción de los mapas que identifican el potencial energético con fuente renovable, para aprovechamientos de pequeña y mediana escala en el departamento del Valle del Cauca.Lo primero es aclarar que, excepto para el mapa de potencial de generación hídrica del departamento -dividido por cuencas hidrográficas -se usó como referencia la división política del departamento en municipios para la presentación de los datos, tomando como referencia las consultas más comunes que le hacen al grupo de Producción Sostenible de la CVC.Considerando que es el primer ejercicio realizado por una entidad departamental en esta materia, la toma de datos se concentró en fuentes fiables y validadas por otras instancias, evitando caer en la especulación sobre datos aún en proceso de comprobación o con rangos de aplicación limitados en el tiempo.Identificación del potencial de generación energética con fuente solar y eólica Estos datos fueron obtenidos del sitio web del Centro de Datos Meteorológicos de Superficie y Energía Solar (SSE) del Centro de Investigación de la NASA en Langley, Virginia, Estados Unidos.Uno de los puntos principales que nos ayudó en la selección de esta fuente de datos es la cantidad de años que cubre la información estadística que comprende el período solar 1983-2005.Una de las debilidades de la información es que son mediciones realizadas desde satélites con rangos de incertidumbre entre 6-12% (NASA, 2015b). Sin embargo, en la actualidad la NASA está trabajando en la reducción de la incertidumbre al comparar los datos recopilados desde el satélite con estaciones en tierra que permiten el ajuste de dichas mediciones, como se muestran en la Figura 10.La identificación del potencial energético para sistemas con fuente solar se realizó tomando como referencia el valor promedio anual de radiación solar en kWh/m 2 -día, que recibe una determinada ubicación sobre el departamento del Valle del Cauca.El punto de referencia de cada municipio fue la geolocalización del casco urbano, coordenadas de latitud, longitud y altitud, y dependiendo de la extensión del municipio o la variación de altitud (+/-500 m), se definía un segundo punto de control para identificar la variación en dicha magnitud.Figura 10. Localización de estaciones en tierra de la línea base de la red de radiación superficial con cámaras de visión hacia arriba.Fuente: NASA (2015b).Elevación Con esta estrategia, pudimos identificar que el Valle del Cauca posee cuatro zonas principales de radiación solar con rango de valores entre 3,9 kWh/m 2 -día y 4,65 kWh/m 2 -día (Figura 11).1. Pacífico Oeste: Corresponde al Distrito de Buenaventura desde el Litoral Pacífico hasta el inicio de la cuenca media de sus ríos, que vienen desde la cordillera Occidental hacia el océano Pacífico, con un valor tipo entre 3,9 kWh/m 2 -día y 4,21 kWh/m 2 -día, siendo la zona de menor radiación promedio anual incidente.2. Centro-Sur: Comprende todos los municipios que limitan con el departamento del Cauca, excepto el Distrito de Buenaventura, hasta los límites superiores de Calima-El Darién, Yotoco, San Pedro y Guadalajara de Buga, 5 con un valor de radiación promedio anual de 4,14 kWh/m 2 -día.3. Oriente: Comprende los municipios de Alcalá, Ansermanuevo, Caicedonia, Cartago, Obando, Sevilla, Ulloa y las partes altas de Tuluá y Guadalajara de Buga, 6 con valores de radiación promedio anual entre 4,20 kWh/m 2 y 4,6 kWh/m 2 -día, siendo la zona de mayor radiación anual promedio.4. Centro-Norte: Comprende los municipios desde el límite inferior de Riofrío y Tuluá hacia el norte, excepto los incluidos en la región Oriente. Estos municipios presentan el nivel más bajo de radiación con un estimado promedio anual de 3,9 kWh/m 2 -día.5 Guadalajara de Buga en zonas con altitud inferior a los 2.000 m. 6 Altitudes entre los 2.500 y 3.500 m. Para la fuente eólica, se presenta como una medida del potencial de generación la velocidad de viento en m/s. En este caso, los datos obtenidos muestran un potencial muy bajo con esta fuente renovable, con velocidades promedio entre 1,5 y 1,8 m/s.Sin embargo, quedan interrogantes sobre áreas específicas de los municipios de Dagua, Calima-El Darién, Vijes y Roldanillo, donde estudios independientes con periodicidad limitada han encontrado velocidades superiores al mínimo aceptable 7 para pensar en el aprovechamiento de esta fuente (Figura 12).Figura 12. Mapa del potencial de generación con fuente eólica en el departamento del Valle del Cauca (m/s).7 Si bien las tecnologías actuales nos ofrecen turbinas eólicas con velocidades de arranque de hasta 2 m/s, se considera que el mínimo aceptable para pensar en sistemas rentables con fuente eólica debería ser de 4 m/s.Si bien la generación de energía con fuente hídrica requiere básicamente de dos datos principales como son los caudales máximos, mínimos, promedio y la diferencia de alturas entre el punto de toma de dicho caudal y el eje de succión de las turbinas (INEA, 1997), se escogió mostrar el dato de caudales en m 3 /s, dado que en pequeños y medianos aprovechamientos es muy sencillo para el usuario medir en sitio este valor.La información de caudales está muy limitada, dado que muchas estaciones se encuentran inactivas o se centran en la medición de niveles de precipitación y otros datos meteorológicos. En esta oportunidad, se tomó la información existente en el catálogo de la CVC con datos actualizados a diciembre de 2013 y se complementó la información con el resultado de un estudio estadístico realizado en 2007 por la CVC con el Grupo de Gestión y Apoyo a la Ingeniería Agrícola de Colombia (GAIACOL).Los datos recopilados dan un cubrimiento de aproximadamente el 45% de las cuencas del Figura 14. Mapa de potencial de generación energética con fuente hídrica, caudal promedio anual (m 3 /s).departamento, permitiéndonos identificar las zonas de nula cobertura actual (Figura 13).Los datos de caudal mostrados son útiles para una aproximación inicial a un potencial de generación para aprovechamientos con embalse o al filo de agua o de paso en pequeñas centrales hidroeléctricas (Potencia nominal inferior a 20 MW) (Figura 14). Identificación del potencial de generación energética con biomasa residual El potencial energético se enfoca en los desechos orgánicos producidos por la actividad agrícola y pecuaria del departamento, en un intento de no afectar la seguridad alimentaria del país, ni convertir esta herramienta en un promotor del aprovechamiento del suelo para la producción de energéticos primarios, que si bien no está penalizado por la legislación colombiana, sí podría poner en grave riesgo la seguridad alimentaria de la nación.La fuente principal de los datos recopilados son el Atlas de Potencial Energético de Biomasa residual en Colombia (UPME/Ideam/Colciencias, 2010), tomando información suministrada por el Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural (MADR) y de fuentes de datos de diversos gremios del sector.El potencial energético de la biomasa residual no es más que una medida del producto del poder calorífico interior de las fuentes energéticas estudiadas por la producción anual de residuos de dichos recursos anuales.Este punto generó un obstáculo significativo para este proyecto, dado que si bien la metodología de cálculo del potencial está definida, la información actualizada para el período comprendido entre 2012-2014 se encuentra en período de revisión por parte del grupo de trabajo de la UPME y del MADR con el objetivo de publicar una versión actualizada de dicho mapa.Por esta razón, se decidió presentar como referencia las áreas cultivadas a 2013 de siete de los ocho cultivos que utilizó la UPME para desarrollar el Atlas de Potencial Energético de Biomasa Residual en Colombia, como fueron:1. Arroz 2. Banano 3. Maíz 4. Café 5. Caña de azúcar 6. Caña panelera 7. PlátanoExcluyendo los datos de cultivos de palma de aceite, cuya presencia en el departamento no es significativa.Los datos de la producción agrícola de estos cultivos fueron suministrados por el MADR, a través de la plataforma Agronet (www.agronet.gov.co)Para el mapa de potencial energético de biomasa residual producto del estiércol pecuario, se tomaron los datos del Atlas, según el rango de potencial energético calculado y publicado por la UPME en 2010 en el Atlas nacional.Todos los rangos del potencial se presentan en terajoules/año (TJ/año) y están actualizados hasta el año 2010 (Figuras 15 a 24).Figura 15. Mapa de potencial energético biomasa residual de cultivos de arroz (TJ/año).Figura16. Mapa de potencial energético biomasa residual de cultivos de banano (TJ/año). La privilegiada ubicación del departamento del Valle del Cauca ofrece un gran potencial de generación con fuente renovable, especialmente con los recursos hídricos, solar y biomasa. La generación eólica no tiene un gran potencial si miramos el departamento como un todo, e incluso a nivel municipal. Sin embargo, existen sitios específicos que requieren una mayor atención y deberían inscribirse en un plan regional de captura de datos para definir su potencial real.Los resultados de la identificación del potencial energético con fuente renovable abren las puertas al diseño de planes concretos para cubrir las necesidades energéticas de las zonas no interconectadas del departamento, como son las partes altas de las cordilleras Occidental y Central, así como toda la zona costera del departamento.Otro de los beneficios identificados, especialmente con el potencial de biomasa residual, es la posibilidad de desarrollar planes de acción concertados entre la CVC y autoridades locales para impulsar la generación de biogás para cocinas residenciales, a pequeña escala, reduciendo la presión sobre el bosque y la consecuente degradación de los suelos, por reducción del consumo de leña para actividades agrícolas y del hogar en las zonas rurales.Esta herramienta no debe convertirse en un objeto de colección del catálogo de la CVC; por el contrario, debe ser publicada para que su mejoramiento dependa no solo del criterio técnico de los expertos involucrados, sino del sentir de los usuarios, haciéndola cada día más amigable y útil a las necesidades de los usuarios finales.Es importante que la CVC advierta a los usuarios que la herramienta no se diseña para sustituir el desarrollo de los necesarios estudios específicos que podría requerir cada solución. No obstante, pretende ofrecer un panorama preliminar que permita al usuario seleccionar las fuentes adecuadas a su necesidad, antes de comprometer recursos humanos, técnicos y económicos de gran magnitud en la búsqueda de una solución final.Dentro de las estrategias iniciales para el sostenimiento y mejoramiento de esta herramienta, proponemos:1. Liderar la creación de una red de monitoreo departamental que permita la inclusión de variables ambientales para su integración en proyectos de desarrollo rural y urbano que incluyan el uso de recursos energéticos no convencionales.2. Actualizar permanentemente los mapas de la herramienta.3. Promocionar el catálogo de datos disponible en la CVC sobre esta materia y establecer procedimientos que faciliten el acceso a la información de las estaciones en línea para organismos públicos y privados interesados.4. Gestionar la creación de un grupo de trabajo interdisciplinario con las universidades e instituciones tecnológicas de la región para la formación de personal idóneo en las actividades de generación, levantamiento y actualización de información de recursos energéticos no convencionales.5. Gestionar recursos de orden nacional y departamental para la consolidación de capacidades en evaluación de recursos para su integración en la plataforma productiva del departamento.6. Integrar en la plataforma más variables de análisis que permitan la evaluación de escenarios a futuro que impliquen el uso de energéticos no convencionales y el impacto en los medios rurales y urbanos.7. Desarrollar estrategias de promoción a nivel municipal, para aumentar el flujo de visitas y uso de la herramienta, permitiendo la retroalimentación desde los usuarios.8. Aumentar el cubrimiento de la red de estaciones limnigráficas, especialmente en las cuencas de la vertiente del Pacífico y del norte del departamento, no solo para determinar caudales para el aprovechamiento energético a pequeña y mediana escala, sino para crear escenarios de comportamiento simulado de las cuencas ante amenazas inminentes como la minería. 9. Realizar estudios para el aprovechamiento de otras fuentes de biomasa residual como la hoja de la caña, que podría ayudar a solucionar problemas ambientales, como la quema de cultivos en áreas periurbanas.","tokenCount":"4976"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8eebc447a05d6f45a9506568a3e3f90d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/965dff23-e31a-4af9-943c-59777d482207/retrieve","id":"327735647"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"fa55c1be-d8c1-4279-a8ee-71078765bfa2","pagecount":"3","content":"Livestock and crop farming are the two key primary and secondary income sources for rural households in Nyando.◼ Access to formal education promotes livelihood diversification among smallholder farmers.◼ Non-governmental organizations in Nyando have a significant impact on the decision of households to diversify their livelihood sources.◼ Community-based farmer organizations in Nyando have a negative impact on the decision of residents to diversify from on-farm activities.◼ Young farmers are more likely to diversify as compared to older farmers.The livelihood of an individual or group is defined by access to productive and non-productive resources, capabilities of individuals, asset ownership, economic activity of the individual and institutions (Sisay 2010). Diversification of livelihoods is one of the strategies used by rural households to improve their disposable income. In the Nyando Basin, farming households have diversified to different livelihoods, especially in the wake of climate change and climate variability.Three diversification strategies available to smallholder farmers in Nyando include engaging in on-farm, off-farm and non-farm activities. On-farm income is derived from production in own farm; off-farm income is obtained from working in other people's farms; while non-farm income refers to income obtained from working in non-agricultural occupations in urban or rural areas (Kassie et al. 2017). Diversification of livelihoods is driven by pull and push factors. Push factors are negative factors such as unfavorable climate; drought, floods, and unreliable and erratic rainfall, which push an individual to eventually seek other sources of income. Pull factors are positive forces that encourage households to diversify, especially for wealth accumulation reasons, they include an individual having requisite skills enabling them to diversify, access to productive resources like having assets that can be deployed to alternative activities, for instance, a truck that can be used for own farm use as well as renting out. There are a number of reasons that convince households in Nyando to diversify their livelihoods:◼ Obtaining cash to purchase food items when crops fail following unfavorable weather;◼ Earning an income to finance farming operations in the absence of formal and informal credit access;◼ Accessing cash to finance investment in CSA technologies;◼ Reducing income risks by having multiple sources of income.Livelihood sources in Nyando are derived from crop farming, livestock farming, salaried employment, selfemployment off-farm and casual labor, both non-farm and off-farm. Crop and livestock farming are on-farm while the remainder are non-farm and off-farm livelihood sources. Individuals who choose crop or livestock farming or both as their primary and secondary sources of income are classified to have not diversified, while households engaging in at least one off-farm or non-farm activity as a primary or secondary source of income are considered to have diversified. On-farm activities account for at least 60% of primary household income; non-farm income accounts for at least 36%; while off-farm accounts for nearly 2% of the income with very few people engaging in rural wage employment. On-farm income contributes 68% of secondary income; non-farm income accounts for 22%, while off-farm accounts for at least 4%. Crop farming contributes only 29% of secondary income but 52% of primary income, while livestock farming contributes 38% as a secondary income source as compared to 8% of primary income. Notably, on-farm income accounts for more than 50% of either primary or secondary income. CSA technologies would prove useful since the majority of the households rely on farming as a livelihood source.55% of households have at least diversified to other sources of income other than on-farm income (Figure 3). The diversification could be ex-post or ex-ante depending on the unique circumstances of a given household. Ex-post diversification refers to diversifying sources of income in order to supplement available income while ex-ante diversification involves diversifying to cushion against a possible income loss in the future. Completion of at least secondary education by the household head influences diversification. The possible explanation is that education enables one to acquire capabilities that enable them to engage successfully in offfarm and non-farm activities. Older farmers are less likely to diversify possibly because they are reluctant to take up new ideas and exhibit rigidity in trying new ways of earning income. Similarly, membership to community-based organizations (CBOs) and access to training had a negative influence on the decision of a household head to diversify. The fact that a respondent belongs to a CBO and is less likely to diversify is contrary to expectations in literature. The reason may be that CBOs within the Nyando Basin encourage their members to concentrate on on-farm sources of income. A household head trained by a nongovernmental organization (NGO) is less likely to diversify. The reason could be that non-governmental organizations encourage the residents to engage more on on-farm Although slightly more than half of the respondents have diversified their sources of income, there remains a large population of households who rely solely on on-farm income. Nyando Basin is particularly prone to adverse climate change and relying on on-farm income alone makes households vulnerable to uncertain income loss. CBOs can organize workshops to encourage their members to diversify to non-farm and off-farm activities.Older farmers should be trained by the local and national governments to acquire capabilities that enable them to diversify easily. Thirdly, formal education within the region should be expanded because formally educated individuals have higher chances of diversifying. Lastly, NGOs working with farmers in Nyando should train farmers on non-farm and off-farm income sources as possible livelihood alternatives.","tokenCount":"891"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6c7c35d0f0e311980723a45aa2c20c8b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/aac27efe-d3e5-4305-bcef-dfbdfb448409/retrieve","id":"1826427"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8b83ab50-2782-4622-8bdd-f9a60e48c3f2","pagecount":"35","content":"El proceso de selección en el mejoramiento del fríjol voluble tiene que hacerse con maíz en asociación debido al alto costo del monocultivo con estacas o con espaldera. La relación entre rendimientos de fríjol y de maíz es negativa y el coeficiente de regresión queda normalmente entre -1 a -2. Es decir, para cada kilo adicional de fríjol se pierde entre uno a dos kilos de maíz por competencia. La línea de regresión pue de usarse para prognosticar el rendimiento del maíz en monocultivo, y la reducción de rendimiento del maíz sirve como un índice de la capacidad competitiva del fríjol. Por consiguiente, no es necesario sembrar los monocultivos respectivos .,Los genotipos más competitivos de fríjol tienen los rendimientos más altos en asociación con maíz. Sin embargo, en monocultivo las variedades de menos capacidad competitiva tienden a ser las más productivas. Las variedades más competitivas son más altas y más tardías y tienen el hábito de crecimiento IVB.El análisis economlco indica que las variedades más competitivas del fríjol (hábito IVB) dan el mayor ingreso. El hábito IVB confiere alta capacidad para sobrevivir con la competencia del maíz, de malezas, de enfermedades y plagas. Para contemplar un cambio del tipo de planta hacia una planta más precoz (hábito IVA) que, junto con un maíz más precoz, permita extender el sistema de relevo o rotaciones con otros cultivos, habrá que incluir mejores prácticas culturales y resistencia a las enfermedades y plagas principales. Estos son los objectivos del programa, y los resultados hasta ahora obtenidos indican que se puede seleccio nar por una capacidad competitiva reducida y mayor productividad en asociación con maíz en las generaciones tempranas.El mejoramiento intencional de cultivos con miras a la siembra asociada es la consecuencia lógica del incremento constante del número de estudios sobre los cultivos múltiples, los cuales indican un mayor ingreso por hectarea en sistemas asociados comparados con los monocultivos (Lépiz, 1974;Lépiz, 1978;Santa-Cecilia y Vieira, 1978); y, quizas más importante aún para el pequeño agricultor, mayor estabilidad de producción (Francis y Sanders, 1978;Rao y Willey, 1980). ~a desventaja que más se menciona con respecto a los cultivos multiples es la dificultad para la mecanización y, por consiguiente, la demanda por mano de obra que requieren. Sin embaroo, estos problemas han sido solucionados para algunos sis temas (Brown y Graffis, 1976;Valadao y von Búlow, 1980). En muchas areas de los trópicos la mecanización con maquinaria pesada no es factible o no es aconsejable. Es hacia estas areas, principalmente de fincas pequeñas, que el programa de mejoramiento del fríjol voluble es dirigido.Se hace necesario un estudio del tipo de planta específicamente para asociación ya que se trata de competencia entre dos o más especies. Kass (1978). por ejemplo, menciona la necesidad de considerar el efecto de cada cultivo sobre el otro para determinar el tipo de planta más apropiado para la asociación. Según Donald (1963) la productividad y la capacidad competitiva son características distintas de la planta, y sería un error asumir que fueran atributos idénticos. En el caso particular del fríjol voluble casi todas las etapas de selección y pruebas de progenies tienen que hacerse con maíz debido al costo excesivamente alto del monocultivo y. por lo tanto, los genotipos de más capacidad competitiva saldrán adelante. Por otra parte, el valor económico relativo de los cultivos debe jugar un papel importante en la determinación del nivel de capacidad competitiva relativa de cada especie componente de la asociación.El objetivo del estudio aquí presentado es establecer la relación entre poroductividad y capacidad competitiva para el fríjol voluble igual ! ¡ como se ha hecho para otros cultivos especialmente arroz (Jennings y Aquino, 1968;Kawano. Gonzalez y Lucena, 1974), pero con la diferencia de que se trata de la competencia entre dos especies en asociación. Los datos utilizados provienen de cinco ensayos, cuatro de los cuales fueron sembrados en CIAT-Palmira entre 1978 y 1980, y un ensayo de la estación experimental ICA-Obonuco, Pasto, cosechado en 1980. Se da una explicación sobre los materiales y métodos en el apéndice.Si la capacidad competitiva fuera igual a la productividad no se esperaría una interacción del genotipo por sistema de cultivo, al comparar los sistemas de monocultivo y asociación. Para fríjol siempre se observa una interacción muy fuerte, con valores para la prueba F no muy inferiores a los valores para la comparación entre variedades (Cuadros 1 y 2). La interacción se observa también en otras características tales como la altura de la planta y días a madurez y las variedades de maíz tienen un efecto diferencial sobre el rendimiento del fríjol (Cuadro 1).Para maíz no se ha observado una interacción de genotipo por sistema (Cuadro 3) aunque es muy probable que exista si se utilizara un rango más amplio de variedades. Con las variedades usadas tampoco hubo una interacción de variedades por densidad de siembra. Pero sí hubo un efecto de las variedades de fríjol sobre el rendimiento de maíz y el acame del tallo.No se ha observado hasta ahora una interacción entre genotipos de fríjol y de maíz. Esto se aprecia mejor en el Cuadro 4 en el cual se obtienen correlaciones altamente significativas entre las asociaciones con las variedades de maíz, y no significativas entre el monocultivo y las asociaciones. Quiere decir que la selección de genotipos para asociación puede hacerse en asociación, pero con cualquier variedad.Al incluir el sistema de relevo (Cuadro 5) se nota que el sistema no se asemeja mucho al monocultivo en cuanto al desempeño de las variedades a pesar de la poca competencia entre cultivos. Esto se debe a que las variedades tienen que tolerar un período de sombra durante las primeras etapas de crecimiento'y la incidencia de enfermedades y especialmente plagas es diferente en los dos sistemas. El tipo de planta ideal para el relevo no es muy agresivo para que pueda sembrarse a una densidad relativamente alta (90.000 p1/ha) sin causar volcamiento del maíz.Dado la falta de evidencia por una interacción entre genotipos de fríjol y maíz, la relación competitiva entre los dos cultivos se ha estudiado utilizando el promedio de las variedades, o para fríjol o para maíz. Para variedades de fríjol (Fig. 1) hubo una relación negativa entre rendimiento de fríjol y de maíz. El coeficiente de regresión fue -1.9187 de tal manera que para cada aumento de 100 Kg. en el rendimiento de fríjol se mermó en aproximadamente 200 Kg. la producción de maíz. la intercepción de la regresión fue un buen prognóstico (menos de 3% de diferencia) del rendi:Jiiento de maíz en monocultivo. Se cree que no hace falta sembrar más el monocultivo de maíz ya que la línea de regresión con fríjol permite prognosticar su potencial.Sólo una variedad desvió significativamente de la línea de regresión, la P 503, la cual fue excesivamente competitiva con el maíz sin producir el rendimiento correspondiente de frljol.Las variedades de maíz, $uwan -1 y la Posta, tuvieron la misma producción en monocultivo, pero esta última variedad fue más competitiva con el fríjol de manera que su rendimiento en asociación fue m~s alto (Cuadro 6), yel rendimiento de fríjOl correspondiente fue más bajo (Cuadro 7). La variedad lCA H-210, por otra parte, se ha comportado de una manera distinta: a pesar de su rendimiento reducido, no ha dejado al fríjol la posibilidad de producir más. Este comportamiento se debe a ciertas características de la planta desfavorables para la asociación.En el ensayo (2) se observó una relación similar con coeficiente de regresión de -1.6214 y un prognóstico del rendimiento monocultivo de maíz de 4818 Kg/Ha (Figura 2). La reducción media de rendimiento del maíz debida a la asociación fué de 1.430 Kg/Ha (30%), comparado con 1.650 Kg/Ha (también 30%) del ensayo (1). Hubo tres variedades de fríjol en común en los dos ensayos: P 589, P 732 Y G 2801. Sus posiciones relativas en las gráficas para los dos ensayos son muy parecidas.El ensayo (2) incluyó el sistema de relevo, en el cual se esper6 poca competencia ya que los fríjoles fueron sembrados cuando el maíz se acercaba a su madurez fisio16gica.La corre1aci6n entre el rendimiento de fríjol y de maíz fue r = 0.2527 la cual indica una relaci6n ligera y positiva entre la producción de fríjol y de maíz debido a las variaciones en fertilidad del suelo que pudieran afectar a los dos cultivos de una manera similar.El ensayo (3) se 11ev6 a cabo en Pasto, Nariño, bajo condiciones ambientales quizás más típicas para la asociación de maíz-fríjol voluble en la zona Andina. Las 114 variedades de fríjol y el maíz fueron sembrados simultáneamente y el coeficiente de regresión fue de -0.6178 (Figura 3), una re1aci6n mucho más favorable que en los ensayos anteriores: un valor> -1 implica una mayor producci6n total a medida que aumenta el rendimiento del fríjol. El prognóstico de rendimiento para maíz monocultivo fue de 3.891 Kg/Ha con una reducci6n en promedio de 598 Kg/Ha en asociaci6n con fríjol cuyo rendimiento promedio de 968 Kg/Ha fue similar a la producción lograda en los dos ensayos anteriores, aunque dos variedades produjeron más de los 2.000 Kg/Ha.El rendimiento de fríjol en el ensayo (1) fue afectado tanto por el sistema de cultivo (74% reducido en asociación) como por la variedad de maíz (Cuadro 7). La altura de planta fue reducida por la asociación con ICA H-210 debido a que este maiz de porte bajo no dejó crecer a las variedades de frijol a su altura potencial. Los dias a floración no han sido afectados por los tratamientos pero la asociación con ICA H-210 ha resultado en maduréz más tardía.La capacidad competitiva para fríjol puede definirse como su rendimiento en asociación como porcentaje de su rendimiento en monocultivo. Se ha encontrado una correlación muy estrecha entre la capacidad competitiva del fríjol y la reducción de rendimiento del maíz (Fig. 4). Para ensayos de fríjol voluble no es conveniente el tener que sembrar parcelas en monocultivo debido al alto costo de este sistema, y parece que no hace falta sembrarlas ya que se puede prognosticar la capacidad competitiva del fríjol utilizando la reducción de rendimiento del maíz. Se ha eliminado de esta manera la necesidad de incluir en los diseños experimentales parcelas en monocultivo tanto de frí.io1 como de maíz. Se observa que el índice de uso eficiente de la tierra (UET) decae a medida que aumenta la capacidad competitiva del fríjol (Figura 4).[a capacidad competitiva del fríjol se ha relacionado en forma positiva con el rendimiento de fríjol en asociación pero, por lo contrario, con el rendimiento en monocultivo la relación fue negativa (Cuadro 8). Las variedades mas competitivas fueron las de mayor producción en asociación mientras las variedades de menos capacidad competitiva han sido las mas productivas en monocultivo. Esta correlación negativa entre productividad en monocultivo y capacidad competitiva concuerda con los resultados obtenidos para mezclas de genotipos en otros cultivos tales como arroz (Jenningsy Aquino, 1968) pero en el caso de cultivos asociados conduce a la pregunta sobre cual debería de ser el objetivo de selección, capacidad competitiva o productividad? Antes de buscar una respuesta a la pregunta miremos algunas otras características de planta del fríjol voluble relacionadas con el rendimiento y la capacidad competitiva (Cuadro g). La altura de la planta fue ; correlacionada con el rendimiento en asociación, ,la capacidad competitiva y la reducción de rendimiento del malz. Los días a maduréz fueron correlacionados con la reducción de rendimiento del maíz, y, aunque no significativamente, parecía que el ancho de la hojuela se relacionaba positivamente con la capacidad competitiva y la reducción de rendimiento del maíz.Las características de las 114 variedades de fríjol en el ensayo (3), cuyos rendimientos se aprecian en la figura 4 se muestran en el cuadro 10. Las variedades fueron agrupadas en tres tipos (hábitos de crecimiento), d~ finidos subjetivamente en términos de la altura de planta y su ramificación. La clasificación para el tipo de planta corresponde con el rendimiento de fríjol en asociación y, por lo tanto, con la capacidad competitiva. Las variedades del tipo IVB son las más rendidoras en asociación con maíz y también son las más tardías a floración y maduréz y han causado la reducción más grande en el rendimiento del maíz.La reducción media para maíz como resultado de la asociación fué 31% en el ensayo (1) (Cuadro 6). La reducción más baja de rendimiento fue obtenida con La Posta, la variedad de porte más alto. Parece que la capacidad competitiva del maíz también se relaciona con la altura de la pla~ ta, igual como para fríjol. Sin embargo, ICA H-210, a pesar de su porte bajo fue una variedad sorprendentemente competitiva debido a sus entrenudos cortos y hojas anchas (Cuadro 6), factores que no la dejaron responder a la densidad alta de siembra. Habría que buscar una variedad de maíz de porte bajo pero sin las características antes mencionadas para probar las bondades de una capacidad competitiva reducida en maíz.El efecto de la variedad de fríjol sobre el rendimiento del maíz fue relacionado estrechamente con el acame del tallo (Fig. 5). Esta relación ha sido encontrada en muchos ensayos no mencionados en el presente seminario y demuestra la necesidad de incorporar resistencia del tallo de maíz como característica fundamental para su adaptación a la asociación con fríjol voluble. Ya se sabe que existe variabilidad para esta característica en maíz (Zuber y Grogan, 1961). También el acame del tallo nos da un índice visual del nivel de competencia en cada parcela, o sea la capacidad competitiva del fríjol.Por cada aumento en el acame del tallo de 1% se mermó el rendimiento de maíz en 152 Kg/Ha.Partiendo de una base de los precios y los costos variables, los cu~• les contaron con la mano de obra pero sin recargos por la tierra, se hizo un análisis económico simple de los resultados del ensayo (1) y del ensayo (3).Se compararon las tres variedades de maíz en asociación con fríjol (Fig. 6). El maíz de porte bajo dió el peor resultado bajo cualquier relación de precios de fríjOl: maíz.Hasta una relación de precios de 3:1, el maíz alto La Posta (de mas capacidad competitiva) daba un retorno económico similar al de Suwan -l. Por encima de esta relación Suwan-l tenía progresivamente mas ventaja debido a que fué menos competitiva y permitió mas producción de fríjol. Parece que los maíces altos y competitivos, tradicionales en los trópicos, no tienen el tipo de planta más indicado para aumentar la eficiencia de la asociación.Tres variedades de frijol fueron escogidas para comparación porque en monocultivo sus rendimientos fueron idénticos (productividad potencial igual), pero en asociación sus rendimientos fueron distintos (diferencias en capacidad competitiva). Las variedades fueron la P 758 (menos capacidad competitiva, hábito 1118), la P 589 (capacidad competitiva intermedia, hábito IVA) y la G 2258 (alta capacidad competitiva, hábito IVB). El monocultivo de fríjOl fué capaz de producir el retorno más grande, con una .relación de precios mayor de 4: 1, pero también fué el sistema más costoso y por lo tanto, el más ries90so de los sistemas de cultivo (Figura 7). La relación de precias en América Latina comúnmente está entre 3:1 a 4:1, y sobre este rango la asociación con la 62258 obtuvo el mayor ingreso. Fue preferible sacrificar un poco la producción de maíz por una variedad más competitiva de fríjOl. El monocultivo de maíz fué preferible sólo a una relación muy baja de precios. para fríjol en F3 y en F4 fue de r = 0.5582 **, Y para maíz de r = 0.5934**.Tomando en cuenta las diferencias que siempre ocurren entre semestres y el efecto de segregación en las generaciones tempranas, demuestra en efecto una heredabi1idad aceptable para rendimiento de fríjol (efecto del genotipo) y para el maíz en asociación (efecto indirecto del genotipo de frijol por competencia).Se está haciendo ensayos de este tipo en forma rutinaria en las generaciones F3 Y F5 del programa de mejoramiento, sin protección medades y plagas y. en Popayán, con inoculación de Rmzobium. contra enfer-El objetivo de selección es mayor producción de fríjol con el mínimo de reducción de rendimiento del maíz. Junto con la selección para resistencia a las enfermedades y plagas principales se espera que los genotipos que salgan de este proceso sean más eficientes para el sistema de siembra maíz-fríjol.Se busca combinar la productividad alta de los monocultivos con la estabilidad inherente en los sistemas tradicionales de cultivos asociados y se cree que este objetivo se conseguirá con variedades menos agresivas y menos tardías que las variedades tradicionales, tanto de maíz como de fríjol. El hábito IVB de fríjol le confiere al fríjol una alta capacidad competitiva para sobrevivir en competencia con el maíz, con las malezas, con enfermedades y plagas. Ya con la incorporación de resistencia a ciertas enfermedades y plagas, y con mejores prácticas culturales, se puede buscar un genotipo más precoz y más productivo (hábito IV A de fríjol) y posiblemente extender el sistema de relevo (para reducir la competencia) a climas más fríos, o por 10 menos ampliar las posibilidades para rotaciones.Quiero reconocer el gran aporte de los miembros del programa en este trabajo, en especial de mis asistentes lng. Susana Garcia e Iog. Gerardo Tejada y las valiosas discusiones con los Drs. Doug1as Laing, Aart van Schoonhoven y Charles Francis.Una situación semejante fue revelada en el ensayo (3) (Figura 8) con la diferencia de que la ventaja para la asociación fue obtenida con una relación de precios más baja (;> 2:1). La asociación más satisfactoria en términos económicos también se obtuvo con el tipo más competitivo de fríjol (hábito IVB). Parece que los fríjoles altos y competitivos, tradicionales en los trópicos, sí tienen el tipo de planta más indicado para asociación, por lo menos con los maíces probados hasta ahora.El análisis económico demuestra la importancia de mantener la capacidad competitiva para que el fríjol pueda defenderse con el maíz, el cultivo dominante. Sin embargo, la evidencia indica que la selección por mayor capacidad competitiva conduce a menos productividad. La selección en el progral~a de mejoramiento, por lo tanto, debe buscar una combinación de rendimiento máximo en asociación con una capacidad competitiva reducida (o sea menos reducción de rendimiento del maíz). Algunos de los factores que pudieran contribuir a este objetivo para fríjol serían:-Eficiencia fisiológica bajo sombra -Eficiencia de fijación de nitrógeno -Resistencia a enfermedades y plagas.En el ensayo (4) se ha intentado seleccionar por rendimiento combinado de fríjol y de maíz en la generación F3 de 49 familias de fríjol voluble (Figura 9). Se seleccionaron 21 familias divididas en 4 grupos: el grupo 1 ~ rendimiento bajo de maíz y bajo de fríjol; grupo 2 ~ rendimiento alto de maíz, bajo de fríjol; grupo 3 = rendimiento alto de ambos cu1-,tivos; grupo 4 = rendimiento alto de frijol, bajo de maíz. En el sen~stre siguiente se sembró en CIAT la generación F4 de las mismas 21 familias, (Figura 10). El comportamiento de los grupos de familias puede compararse con su producción en F3 (Figura 9), y se ve que en promedio los grupos siguen comportandose en forma similar. La correlación entre rendimiento          '. , , ' ' .\"\"\"'''_\"''''''~~''''''''''''''\",*\"\"~'''''Ú~\"'''¡'\"_C''''''~~_'/''''''';';¿~.'~ ... '',,,,,,'',, __ .. ~ \"\"'_\"\"\"'~~ ... ,\"'~\"\"\"\"'~_< ,,'. ..  ","tokenCount":"3181"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d6518d6984f724c9063bd09ccca090aa","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/47d34295-ab71-4f10-9e98-b75e5e63779d/retrieve","id":"-538379221"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"9fb6b092-01fa-4a5b-8251-1c8f84db933a","pagecount":"6","content":"• At the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), DSI was part of the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) package and Parties agreed to establish a multilateral mechanism and a global fund for benefit-sharing.• DSI was also included in the recently adopted High Seas Treaty on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ).• Genetic sequence data under the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) system is also included in the Zero Draft text of the WHO Pandemic Preparedness CA+, currently under negotiation.• Finally, DSI has been a long-standing, but unresolved, item under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA).Sharing benefits which stem from the use of Digital Sequence Information (DSI) is now recognized as a critical topic by many governments and other stakeholders. It is currently the subject of discussions in four UN fora:The compartmentalized way in which DSI is being addressed in international policy fora reflects the approach by which national governments and the United Nations commonly structure responsibilities around differentiated sectors such as health, agriculture, and the environment. When applied to the development of a mechanism to share benefits from the use of DSI, this sectoral approach poses a number of potential practical challenges, since it does not reflect the way DSI is increasingly being made available and used in cross disciplinary, cross sectoral, research and development.DSI data is stored in a variety of databases, and most researchers collect and use data that cut across different sectors, from agriculture, through human health to the conservation of wild species. For example, the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC) is the largest repository of raw DSI data globally in which sequences generated from biological samples originating in all parts of the world are deposited. The INSDC does not separate out data from sovereign territories, marine habitats, plant species, or pathogens. Other databases can \"specialize\" in certain types of data, but vast amounts of data of different types are stored together in the larger databases. In fact, the most valuable databases for researchers are those that combine data, regardless of origin, because the data become useful when compared to other data. In isolation, a single segment of DSI has little value for researchers. Yet, with the parallel discussions under CBD, BBNJ, WHO, and ITPGRFA, multiple benefit-sharing mechanisms could apply to the same DSI data.A multiplicity of co-existing benefit sharing mechanisms for DSI could contribute to creating DSI silos and divergent rules on benefit-sharing:• DSI silos: if harmonization of the different ABS systems is not achieved, the result could be subsets of DSI (e.g., plants, vertebrates, algae, pathogens) being housed in separate databases, or in the same databases, with different conditions for benefit sharing, affecting interoperability of databases. This compartmentalization would restrict, and even block, data from entering and freely flowing in and out of the global reference databases where most sequence data are currently stored and accessed. While this is not the intent, if different rules apply to different subsets of data, combining them into the larger databases could prove impractical and undesirable.• Divergent rules on DSI benefit-sharing: if different policies require substantively different conditions to access and use DSI (e.g., clearinghouse notifications during and after use of DSI, changes to database terms and conditions, or subscription/annual payments fees at certain trigger points), then users may struggle to understand what their legal obligations are and whether they have correctly complied with applicable rules. Regulators will similarly struggle to monitor user compliance when multiple paths towards compliance exist.• Interoperability: the usefulness of DSI depends on interoperability and integration of many types of data to facilitate meaningful analysis and conclusions. If DSI datasets are kept in separate compartments (i.e., in specific databases to ensure benefit-sharing according to specific provisions) or are subject to different rules within the same database, accessing and using DSI could be much more burdensome for researchers, limiting scientific enquiry. This is especially challenging if mixing benefit sharing models that link access to payment and models that do not.• Legal certainty: Most research makes use of DSI that is in the remit of different international fora. If each of the international instruments governing DSI develops divergent benefit sharing mechanisms, it will be necessary to clearly define mutually exclusive scopes of application. Otherwise, a clear legal path for compliance will be elusive. As researchers frequently use thousands of DSI sequences, their datasets will most likely cut across several fora. Depending on the benefit sharing approaches adopted in those fora, it may not be clear which forum's benefit sharing rules, should apply. It is quite possible that researchers would be obliged to comply with two or more benefit-sharing mechanisms simultaneously, given the increasingly cross sectoral nature of much R&D. This will encourage risk-averse behavior and slow down research, which in turn would slow down benefit-sharing.• Compliance: if users have to keep track of where DSI originated, it will require tracking and tracing subsets of DSI over the course of R&D processes. This monitoring of data is not always possible, but even when it is technically feasible, it would require complex compliance strategies for the hundreds of millions of DSI data. Such a system would incentivize \"forum shopping,\" in which users preferentially use DSI that falls under a specific set of benefit sharing norms with simpler procedures at the expense of using the most appropriate DSI data. In some cases, users may decide to reduce the burden of compliance by avoiding use of DSI from certain fora if the system is too complex. The benefit sharing system must also take into account new developments which could render a system based on compartmentalized DSI obsolete, such as the use of artificial intelligence tools, which allow the \"de novo\" design of new synthetic sequences based on information contained in millions of sequences.Both issues of silos and divergent rules have consequences for research. In concrete terms, these restrictions would affect:Research is the primary pathway through which benefits from DSI are realized. Benefits might come in a range of forms, such as generating new knowledge and innovations. If benefit-sharing systems undermine research or make it more difficult, in the long term they will ultimately reduce the benefits being created. If the system encourages opt-out or \"forum shopping\", it will also reduce the benefits being shared.• Mechanisms for benefit-sharing from DSI should be developed according to the existing scientific research infrastructure and practices, recognizing that all DSI data contained in thousands of biological databases and exchanged daily with millions of users can potentially be of relevance under more than one international instrument.• Terms of use and trigger points for benefitsharing for all 4 UN fora (CBD, WHO, FAO, BBNJ) should be harmonized from the user perspective so that they are able to access and use data without undue transaction costs, and ideally, with none. Simple user compliance, which covers broad obligations under all fora and provides overarching legal certainty, is needed.• Access and use of DSI should be decoupled from benefit-sharing so that researchers can use all types of DSI for a variety of purposes, such as conservation, food security and health, regardless of which forum they are associated with.• Open access should continue to guarantee that all users are able to access, compare, and analyze data across all databases and datasets.The system should also account for emerging tools and technologies, such as artificial intelligence, which might reduce the need to directly access individual sequences in deriving research outcomes and future benefits.• DSI benefit-sharing mechanisms should be coherent across fora in terms of the kind of monetary and/or non-monetary benefits they expect from the use of DSI. Monitoring schemes could pool and maximize outcomes across all fora, while still supporting the specific goals of the various frameworks.• Capacity-building to optimize DSI access and benefits should be broadly defined, conducted, A harmonized system across all four relevant instruments needs to satisfy the following conditions:What is needed for a harmonized system to succeed?A harmonized multilateral system for DSI access and benefit-sharing must be simple in order to ensure compliance and implementation, provide legal certainty to users, offer transparency on the benefits generated and cost less to enforce than the value of the benefits.A critical window of opportunity now exists to ensure the various international policy processes involved in developing benefit-sharing mechanisms are compatible with scientific practices and DSI database structures, while maximizing benefits shared from the use of DSI.Cold-active enzymes have been described since the 1980s and have been associated with microorganisms living in temperature ranges of -2 to 20°C in a variety of environments such as deserts, mountains, wetlands, polar regions and deep-sea waters. They are ideal candidates for a variety of industrial applications, including as efficient enzymes used in laundry detergents to improve fabric protection and reduce energy consumption by washing at lower temperatures.If each UN forum develops divergent benefit-sharing mechanisms for DSI without considering how researchers use DSI, particularly if these uses fall simultaneously within the scope of two or more international instruments, negative impacts will result for both research and benefit-sharing.The DSI Scientific Network calls on negotiators to take these critical issues for scientific research into account now, while different mechanisms are still under development. Such concepts and aspirations as OneUN and OneHealth will be unattainable if siloed DSI benefit-sharing systems are created. DSI is fundamentally a cross-cutting resource in science, and mechanisms regulating its use must be coherent and mutually supportive.The comparison of new sequences against DSI already publicly available in databases is a critical step for characterizing genetic material from novel organisms. The identification of the cold-adapted amylase enzyme, amy175, using DSI analysis and functional experiments, was a breakthrough for researchers seeking to develop more efficient and environmentally friendly detergents 2 .To identify and characterize the microbe that produces this enzyme, and the enzyme itself, researchers looked at hundreds of sequences from cold-active enzymes, microbes and a range of other sources. The research focused on function (i.e., whether enzymes could be efficient in cold water), not on geography or type of organisms, since these dimensions would be irrelevant to the qualities that researchers were seeking. In the end, fourteen sequences from the global databases (INSDC) were usedArctic Sea Ice Credit: Jacob Skowronek and accounted for with the aim to reduce the gap of capacities across different fields, such as conservation, food security and health, around the world.Wheat is an essential staple food for one third of the world's population. 70% of the global production of wheat is used for human consumption, but pests and diseases are a growing threat. For example, stem rust, caused by Puccinia graminis (Pgt), which had been well-managed through improved varieties since the mid-20th century, has seen a resurgence in recent years due to the emergence of new races of Pgt, particularly affecting the Middle East and Africa 3 . Another pathogen, Zymoseptoria tritici 4 , which causes Septoria tritici Blotch (STB) disease in wheat, has become a serious concern in Europe and North America as it started to develop resistance to the fungicides commonly used to manage STB. To prevent crop losses and support food security, research into new varieties of wheat with resistance to these diseases is a priority.A recent study 5 in France looked at fungal and bacterial communities of three varieties of wheat (two susceptible to STB and one with a resistance gene, Stb16q) at three time points of the growing season. Using open access DSI databases (e.g., SILVA, UNITE), the authors were able to identify and compare fungal and bacterial communities in infected and healthy wheat leaves and infer whether their compositions could act as beneficial biocontrol against Z. tritici.Another study 6 , focused on Puccinia graminis (Pgt), sought to understand the evolutionary history of the Sr22 gene, found in a wide variety of plants and grasses. After looking over 80 plant species and performing DSI analysis, the researchers determined that plants with gene clusters might be more resistant than those with a single locus.Case study #2: Using DSI to improve pathogen resistance in crops  to confirm the microbe producing the enzyme, then twenty-seven amylase protein sequences from a specialized database were used to confirm enzyme family and function. The DSI used was from a broad range of organisms, including humans, frogs, insects, and bacteria.This study shows how researchers are using data from a broad range of sources and across databases. DSI that could fall in the scope of BBNJ and CBD, as well as unknown DSI were used in various, dynamic proportions through the R&D process. The researchers working on this project would not know whether they should share benefits through a BBNJ or CBD framework. And some of the DSI could not be traced back to the origin, so compliance based on origin would not be possible.In both studies, researchers used DSI from various genetic resources in a dynamic way throughout the R&D process. In the case of Z. tritici, all samples were taken in France, a country with a legal framework for benefit-sharing of genetic resources under the Nagoya Protocol, and a signatory to the Plant Treaty.As the geographical origin of the fungal and bacterial sequences was irrelevant to the research, this information was not available. Trying to infer this information for over 72,000 sequences would be a huge burden. For Pgt, similarly, DSI relevant to plants under ITPGRFA and to plants and pathogens under CBD were used, in addition to unknown DSI. Both these examples show how R&D involves accessing and using genetic resources and DSI that are regulated under different international instruments. And it highlights the negative potential impact on such research if the benefit-sharing mechanisms for related DSI adopted under those instruments are not coherent, undermining open access and interoperability of databases, creating additional burden on users of DSI.","tokenCount":"2287"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ba24f12e1442de3e650cea4fbf43e7a6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/8bc7ed52-ef82-41da-81db-b4545e2967e6/content","id":"-982574979"},"keywords":["Maize hybrids","Nitrogen fertilizer","Soil nitrogen depletion","Nitrogen use efficiency","Africa"],"sieverID":"9727480d-667f-4dff-a611-aaa8dda28241","pagecount":"12","content":"Sub-Saharan Africa is facing food security challenges due, in part, to decades of soil nitrogen (N) depletion. Applying N fertilizer could increase crop yields and replenish soil N pools. From 2010 to 2015, field experiments conducted in Embu and Kiboko, Kenya and Harare, Zimbabwe investigated yield and N uptake response of six maize (Zea mays L.) hybrids to four N fertilizer rates (0 to 160 kg N ha -1 ) in continuous maize production systems. The N recovery efficiency (NRE), cumulative N balance, and soil N content in the upper 0.9 m of soil following the final harvest were determined at each N rate. Plant and soil responses to N fertilizer applications did not differ amongst hybrids. Across locations and N rates, NRE ranged from 0.4 to 1.8 kg kg -1 . Higher NRE values in Kiboko and Harare occurred at lower post-harvest soil inorganic N levels. The excessively high NRE value of 1.8 kg kg -1 at 40 kg N ha -1 in Harare suggested that maize hybrids deplete soil inorganic N most at low N rates. Still, negative cumulative N balances indicated that inorganic soil N depletion occurred at all N rates in Embu and Harare (up to -193 and -167 kg N ha -1 , respectively) and at the 40 kg N ha -1 rate in Kiboko (-72 kg N ha -1 ). Overall, maize N uptake exceeded fertilizer N applied and so, while yields increased, soil N pools were not replenished, especially at low total soil N levels (\\ 10,000 kg N ha -1 in top 0.9 m).Maize cropping systems in Kenya have been reported to deplete the soil an average of 42 kg N ha -1 annually (Smaling et al. 1993). In Zimbabwe, the annual depletion rates are purportedly lower than those of Kenya at around 30 kg N ha -1 (Henao and Baanante 2006). This difference in depletion is in part due to the one growing season per year in Zimbabwe yielding an average 3 t ha -1 year -1 less grain than the combined yields of 2 growing seasons per year in Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10705-020-10049-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Kenya between 1961and 2016(FAOSTAT 2019). Although soil erosion plays a large role in soil degradation, Drechsel et al. (2001) found that the average N and K balances in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) would be negative even in scenarios where no erosion was occurring. Since the majority of soils in SSA have large soil K reservoirs, the short-term agronomic impact of K depletion is most likely negligible (Vanlauwe and Giller 2006). On the other hand, a negative N balance in SSA's low N environments is likely to have negative effects on crop production. Moreover, the risk of potential negative effects has increased in conjunction with crop intensification aimed at meeting the food needs of SSA's growing population (Drechsel et al. 2001).One potential solution for mitigating the depletion of soil N is the application of inorganic N fertilizer. The average rate of inorganic N fertilizer applied in SSA, however, is only 5-7 kg N ha -1 in 2010/11 and is expected to only reach * 12 kg N ha -1 in 2020 (Sheahan and Barrett 2017;AfricaFertilizer.org 2019). This greatly contrasts with the 2013 global average of 74 kg N ha -1 (Lu and Tian 2017). Few field experiments in SSA to date, however, have quantified soil N depletion at inorganic fertilizer N rates less than 100 kg N ha -1 (Akintoye et al. 1999;Nyamangara et al. 2003;Oikeh et al. 2003) and no previous study, to our knowledge, has examined N depletion at inorganic fertilizer N rates less than 60 kg N ha -1 . While older studies often referenced the high cost of fertilizer as a major reason for the low application rates, more recent work has focused on challenges associated with a lack of access to fertilizers and on low potential profits from any fertilizer input due to the variability in yield response to N (Stocking 1988;Larson and Frisvold 1996;Crawford et al. 2003;Sileshi et al. 2010;Vanlauwe et al. 2014;Kihara et al. 2016;Njoroge et al. 2017;Maman et al. 2018). Both nutrient and water limitations in maize have been cited in many studies as primary causes of SSA's low yields (Zingore et al. 2015;Kihara et al. 2016;Johansson et al. 2016).While organic fertilizer and crop residue have been proposed as being more affordable sources of nutrients, they do not currently provide enough nutrients to meet the needs of maize grown on small-holder subsistence farms, much less the needs of maize in an intensified production scenario (Bationo et al. 1998;Franzluebbers 2002;Mtangadura et al. 2017). In addition, crop residues are also used as feed and, therefore, are often not available for soil fertility improvement. It is crucial, therefore, to determine how applying moderate (\\ 100 kg N ha -1 ) and low (\\ 60 kg N ha -1 ) amounts of N impacts grain yield, especially in a continuous maize cropping system, which is more dependent on higher N input levels than maize in rotation and is commonly utilized in eastern and southern Africa (Tully et al. 2016).Maize response to N management in any environment must always be understood in the context of the actual genotypes employed. Hybrids account for around 80% of the maize cultivars planted in Kenya and around 95% in Zimbabwe. Many farmers plant more than one maize cultivar on their land (up to 5 in Kenya and up to 4 in Zimbabwe) (Fisher et al. 2015). In order to test the viability of N fertilizer as a potential solution for the yield gap and soil N depletion in SSA, it is essential to investigate the yield response and N recovery efficiency (additional plant N content per unit N applied) of a variety of hybrids: both hybrids that are widely popular in the targeted regions as well as those marketed as superior to currently adopted hybrids (Jama et al. 2017).This study, therefore, quantified apparent soil N depletion across the rooting zone after 5 to 9 seasons in continuous maize cultivation in three low N sites varying in weather conditions and soil properties. We evaluated the capacity of inorganic N fertilizer applied consistently at multiple rates to mitigate this depletion.Three field experiments [Embu, Kenya (00°31 0 S 37°29 0 E); Kiboko, Kenya (02°13 0 S 27°42 0 E); and Harare, Zimbabwe (17°43 0 S 31°5 0 E)] were established in 2010. These sites were under continuous maize cultivation for a total of 9 seasons in Embu, 7 seasons in Kiboko, and 5 in Harare with 2 seasons a year in the Kenya sites and 1 season a year in Zimbabwe.Embu's soils were Humic Nitisols, Kiboko's soils were Acri-Rhodic Ferrassols, and Harare's soils were Ferric Luvisols. These sites were selected to capture some of the variability in soils and agroecosystems in SSA. In the 5 years preceding the initiation of this experiment, continuous maize (in Embu and Harare) and sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) (in Kiboko) were cultivated continuously without any inorganic or organic inputs to simulate the N depleted conditions of the average small-holder farm in SSA. More details about the site conditions can be found in Supplementary Table 1 and in Pasley et al. (2019).The experiment was a split-plot design with 4 replications in which N rate was the main plot and hybrid the sub-plot. The locations of the main and subplots were randomized the first season, but were fixed thereafter.Four N fertilizer rates (0, 30, 60, 90 kg N ha -1 in Embu and 0, 40, 80, 160 kg N ha -1 in Kiboko and Harare) were applied in two applications, the first 30% at planting mixed into the seed hill and the remaining 70% broadcast 5-6 weeks after planting. The fertilizer source was calcium ammonium nitrate in Embu and Kiboko and ammonium nitrate in Harare. At the time of the main N application, 20 kg P ha -1 was broadcast applied as triple superphosphate. All above-ground biomass was routinely removed at harvest in Embu and Harare, while 1/3 of the post-harvest stover biomass was returned in Kiboko. More plot management details can be found in Supplementary Table 2 and in Pasley et al. (2019).Six maize hybrids, consisting of commercially available and drought-tolerant CIMMYT hybrids, were selected for each site (for more details, see Supplementary Table 3 and Pasley 2018). Commercial hybrids were selected based on their prevalence among farmers in the targeted countries. For instance, in 2013/14, one hybrid we used (Duma43) was planted on 20% of the land area, more than any other individual hybrid in Kenya, while Duma43 and two other hybrids we used (SC513 and PAN413) were the most widely grown hybrids in Zimbabwe with SC513 alone planted on * 40% of the maize area in the country (Fisher et al. 2015). CIMMYT hybrids were selected for their water-use efficiency as evaluated during controlled drought studies as part of the Water Efficient Maize for Africa project (Beyene et al. 2015). Final plant population densities were uniform across hybrids and years within a site, and averaged 53,300, 44,400, and 66,700 plants ha -1 in Embu, Kiboko, and Harare, respectively (Supplementary Table 2).In this paper, grain yield is reported at 15.5% moisture whereas grain and plant biomass are given at 0% moisture. The following calculations were used to quantify N efficiency:Both equations were used to quantify the crop's demand for N and how well the application of N fertilizer mitigated soil N depletion. In Kiboko, where 1/3 of the stover biomass was returned to the soil postharvest, only 2/3 of the total plant N was used to calculate plant N removal in the fertilizer N balance Eq. ( 2). In addition to the fertilizer N balance, the soilplant N balance approach can be used to quantify possible legacy soil N from fertilizer applications in earlier seasons and allows for a hybrid's recovery of N to be related to the hybrid's response to the naturally available soil N reservoirs that were not applied as fertilizer.The plant sample collection schedule is outlined in detail in Supplementary Table 2, but is described here in brief. Every season, the center 13.5 m 2 area in each plot in Embu and Harare and the center 7.5 m 2 area in each plot in Kiboko were harvested for grain yield estimation (differences in the harvested area reflected differences in the land availability at each site and, thus, the plot sizes). At harvest of the ninth season in Embu (2015SR), the fifth and sixth seasons in Kiboko (2013LR and 2014SR), and the fifth season in Harare (2014/15), 6 to 10 plants were sampled from the center of each plot at harvest and partitioned into grain and stover biomass. A Retsch SS MM200 Ball Mill Plant was used to grind these partitioned plant tissue samples to \\ 100 lm. A flash 2000 CHN Analyzer (ThermoFisher Scientific Inc.) was used to analyze for total C and N concentrations in the plant samples via the combustion method (Etheridge et al. 1998).Following the 2015 harvest in all sites, composite soil samples comprised of 5 or 15 soil cores were taken near the center of each plot (both in row and between row) to a depth of 0.9 m in 5 depth increments (0-0.15, 0.15-0.3, 0.3-0.45, 0.45-0.6, and 0.6-0.9 m). Fewer cores (5) were taken in Embu due to the excessively compacted nature of the soil. Soil samples were ground, sieved through a 2 mm screen, and sub-sampled before shipping to Purdue University for analyses. Bulk density for each depth increment was measured using intact cores (Blake 1965).Chemical and physical analyses of soil were performed to measure non-N essential plant nutrients and other factors (texture, CEC, pH etc.) that have been found to enhance or limit nutrient/water availability in maize systems (see Supplementary Table 1; Pasley et al. 2019 for more details). Soil samples were extracted with a 1 M KCl solution (10:1) and analyzed for NO 3 -N and NH 4 -N using an AQ2 Discrete Analyzer (SEAL Analytical) (Keeney and Nelson 1982). A sub-sample was ground to 100 lm diameter using a Retsch SS MM200 Ball Mill and analyzed for total C and N using the combustion method (Bremner and Mulvaney 1982;Nelson and Sommers 1982). Carbonates in soils were negligible, thus soil organic matter (OM) was estimated using the total C concentration and a single factor estimation of OM to C conversion factor of 2:1 (Pribyl 2010).Rainfall/temperature data (NASA 2020) were totaled/ averaged for the season, the critical period (the time interval starting 2 weeks before anthesis and ending 2 weeks after silking), and for the grain filling period (estimated to begin 2 weeks after the end of the critical period and ending at harvest) (Supplementary Table 4; Pasley et al. 2019). An indeterminate amount of irrigation was applied in Harare and Kiboko to supplement rainfall throughout the season. In Embu, the plots were not irrigated and low rainfall levels resulted in dry growing conditions (Supplementary Table 4; Pasley et al. 2019).Data was analyzed using SAS 9.4 PROC Mixed ANOVA and differences in Least Squares Means were considered significant at P B 0.05. Seasons could not be pooled for plant data due to significant variance in residuals. The resulting least squares means were compared to a constant with a 2-tailed LSD (/¼ 0:05). The factors investigated were N rate and depth (for soil). Stover N was only measured in 1 or 2 seasons at each site. To calculate the cumulative plant N content and, thus cumulative N balance, total plant N content was estimated using the N harvest index which was calculated as grain N content per total plant N content, using measured grain N concentration data from each hybrid and N rate plot (N harvest index averaged 0.66 in Embu, 0.52 in Kiboko, and 0.59 in Harare).Pearson Correlations were conducted to analyze the linear relationship between total soil N in the upper 0.9 m of soil and cumulative grain yield for all seasons (9 seasons in Embu, 7 seasons in Kiboko, 5 seasons in Harare) in each plot. The linear regression fit was selected, as the quadratic component was not significant (P [ 0.05). The slopes of cumulative grain yield response to change in total soil N as affected by N rate were tested using linear regression.Soil at Embu and Harare was a clay/clay loam (Supplementary Table 1a and c, respectively) while at Kiboko soil was a sandy loam/sandy clay loam (Supplementary Table 1b). In the upper 0.15 m, OM, P and K levels and bulk density values were: Embu-5.8%, 24 mg P kg -1 , 373 mg K kg -1 , and 0.93 Mg m -3 ; Kiboko-2.6%, 107 mg P kg -1 , 240 mg K kg -1 , and 1.53 Mg m -3 ; Harare-2.6%, 21 mg P kg -1 , 135 mg K kg -1 , and 1.37 Mg m -3 (Pasley et al. 2019). These values suggest that Embu and Harare had an insufficient amount of soil P while Kiboko had an optimal P level (Heckman et al. 2006). All sites had optimal levels of K (Heckman et al. 2006).The data reported in this paper are averaged over all hybrids, but detailed hybrid data is reported in Pasley (2018). Unless otherwise noted, there were no significant interactions between hybrid, N rate, and/or depth effects for any of the plant-soil N dynamics reported in this paper.Grain yield response to N fertilizer application rates was analyzed and used to calculate the agronomic optimal N rate for each site in Pasley et al. (2019). The following text is a summary of those findings to provide context for the results reported in this paper. Grain yield increased at the lowest rate of applied N each season at all sites, but yield plateaued at the low or medium N rate (30 or 60 kg N ha -1 ) in Embu and at the medium N rate (80 kg N ha -1 ) in Harare. Grain yield did not plateau in Kiboko within the range of N rates applied in any season. There was no hybrid by N rate interaction for grain yield at any site. Averaged over all hybrids, in the final season of the experiment, grain yield ranged from 3.6 to 5.2 t ha -1 in Embu, 4.0 to 7.6 t ha -1 in Kiboko, and 5.4 to 7.9 t ha -1 in Harare.Total plant N content increased as N rate increased in all sites, but plateaued at the medium N rates in Embu and Harare (60 and 80 kg N ha -1 , respectively) (Fig. 1). As was the case with grain yield, plant N content did not plateau within the applied N rate range in Kiboko. Plant N content did not differ consistently among hybrids from season to season at any site (Pasley 2018).The NRE values were high, averaging 0.9 kg kg -1 across all applied N rates in Kiboko and at 1.5 kg kg -1 at the lowest two non-zero N rates in Harare (Table 1). There was no N rate effect on NRE in Embu or Kiboko. In Harare, NRE decreased from 1.8 to 0.69 kg kg -1 as N rate increased from 40 to 160 kg N ha -1 .The cumulative fertilizer N balance was negative at 0 kg N ha -1 and at the lowest non-zero N rate in all sites, as well as at the highest 2 N rates in Embu and Harare (Table 1). Had a third of the residue not been returned in Kiboko, the cumulative balance would have only reached a net positive balance of 14 kg N ha -1 in the highest N rate treatment plots (assuming the cumulative N uptake remained the same).Residual soil inorganic N In Embu, there was no N rate effect on soil NH 4 -N or NO 3 -N concentrations (averaged across all depths) following harvest (Table 2). However, when total inorganic N content in the top 0.9 m of the plots was considered, slight but significant differences were Where there are no letters, the difference was not significant. Error bars show the standard error of the mean. *The N rate effects on total plant N content in Kiboko in the 2014SR season were the same as in 2013LR (plant N content increased as N rate increased) and so the grain and stover data presented is the average of the two seasons detected among treatments: there was less inorganic N remaining in the soil where 30 kg N ha -1 was applied than where 0 or 90 kg N ha -1 were applied (Fig. 1). Nitrate-N concentration increased with depth, but there was no depth effect on NH 4 -N concentration (Fig. 2). There was no significant N rate by depth interaction effect on NO 3 -N and NH 4 -N concentrations or contents.In Kiboko, the average soil NO 3 -N concentration increased as N rate increased, but NH 4 -N concentration was unaffected by N rate (Table 2). Total inorganic N content in the top 0.9 m of soil also did not respond to N rate (Fig. 1). Soil NO 3 -N Letters by values denote significant differences among the treatments in a site as assessed by LSD (/¼ 0:05). Where there are no letters, the difference was not significant The NRE values are sourced from the Embu 2015SR, the average of Kiboko 2013LR and 2014SR, and Harare 2014/15 seasons. The cumulative N balance was summed over 9 seasons in Embu, 7 seasons in Kiboko, and 5 in Harare. Letters denote differences among the total plant or total soil contents at different N rates averaged across 6 hybrids as assessed by LSD (/¼ 0:05). Where there are no letters, the difference was not significant concentration decreased as the depth increased, but soil NH 4 -N concentrations were similar at all depth intervals (Fig. 2). There was no significant N rate by depth interaction effect on NO 3 -N and NH 4 -N concentrations or contents.In Harare, a significant N rate by depth interaction effect on the soil NO 3 -N concentration was evident wherein the concentration increased with depth increments at 0 kg N ha -1 , but accumulated more between 0.3 and 0.45 m relative to the other depth increments at the higher N rates (data not shown). The NH 4 -N concentration was lower in the 0.15-0.3, 0.45-0.6, and 0.6-0.9 m depth increments relative to the 0-0.15 and 0.3-0.45 m increments (Fig. 2). There was neither an N rate nor a N rate by depth interaction effect on average NH 4 -N concentrations. The total inorganic N content in the upper 0.9 m was greater in plots where 80 kg N ha -1 was applied relative to plots where 0 kg N ha -1 was applied, but otherwise N rates resulted in similar inorganic N contents (Fig. 1).While the distribution of inorganic N in the soil profile reflects the seasonal effects of applying N, differences in the organic-N reservoir reflect the long-term effects on crop N use and N loss from the soil.In Embu, the organic-N concentration was higher at 30 and 60 kg N ha -1 relative to that at 0 kg N ha -1 (Table 2). In Kiboko and Harare, the average concentrations of organic N across the top 0.9 m (Table 2) were unaffected by N rate treatments. In all sites, averaged across all N rates, organic-N concentrations decreased as depth increased (data not shown).The total soil C to total soil N ratio (C:N) in the 3 sites in the top 0.15 m (where C:N is typically measured and is most likely to reflect the soil's OM and microbial biomass levels) varied in their responses to N rate. In the top 0.15 m, the soil C:N in Embu, averaged across all N rates, was 11.3:1; it was lower at 30 and 90 kg N ha -1 than at 0 kg N ha -1 (Table 2). In Kiboko, averaged across all N rates, the C:N in the top 0.15 m was 12.5:1; it was lower at 40 kg N ha -1 than at 0, 80, and 160 kg N ha -1 , but did not differ among the latter 3 N rates (Table 2). In Harare, the C:N in the top 0.15 m, averaged across all N rates, was 11.7:1; it was unaffected by N rate (Table 2).While there were relatively strong correlations between plant N content and grain yield (Supplementary Figure 1; Embu: r = 0.82; Kiboko: r = 0.91; Harare: r = 0.99), Embu was the only site where there was a significant relationship between cumulative grain yield and total soil N (Fig. 3). In Embu, at 0 kg N ha -1 , cumulative grain yield increased at a rate of 4 kg ha -1 for every additional kg ha -1 of soil N content in the top 0.9 m (Fig. 3). Cumulative yield in Embu increased at a rate of 18 kg ha -1 for every additional kg ha -1 of soil N content in the top 0.15 m at both 0 and 90 kg N ha -1 (r 2 = 0.51 and 0.21, respectively; data not shown). There was no relationship between cumulative yield and soil N contents (in the top 0.9 or 0.15 m) at the other N rates.  Oikeh et al. (2003) determined the NRE values of five tropical maize hybrids, four of which were selected for enhanced root growth capacity while one was an open pollinated control, in Nigeria. These 3 studies found NRE values ranging from 0.31 to 0.69 kg kg -1 , a range consistent with the values found in Embu at all N rates and in Harare at 160 kg N ha -1 . Higher NRE values, like those found in Kiboko at all N rates and Harare at the lower two non-zero N rates (40 and 80 kg N ha -1 ) have also been found to some extent in SSA. In Nigeria, Akintoye et al. (1999) found NRE values of a wide variety of single-and double-cross maize hybrids averaged over N rates of 70, 140, and 210 kg N ha -1 to range from 1.06 to 1.35 kg kg -1 . Similarly, at 60 kg N ha -1 (Nyamangara et al. 2003) and 90 kg N ha -1 (Oikeh et al. 2003), NRE values were as high as 1.0 kg kg -1 and 1.63 kg kg -1 , respectively. The range of NRE values found in Kiboko at all N rates and in Harare at 80 kg N ha -1 fell within the higher range of NRE values found in Akintoye et al. (1999), Nyamangara et al. (2003), andOikeh et al. (2003). When 40 kg N ha -1 was applied in Harare, however, the NRE value spiked to 1.8 kg kg -1 , exceeding all values found in the literature. We believe that this exceptionally high NRE value is not an anomaly, but rather, points to the potential of newer maize hybrids to further deplete the soil of inorganic N at lower N rates (Mueller et al. 2019).A review by Ciampitti and Vyn (2012) found that, generally, NRE decreases as N rate increases. In our study, the only site in which NRE increased when N rate decreased was Harare. Embu and Kiboko's stagnant NRE values suggest that while N uptake was likely restricted by drought stress in Embu and sub-optimal N rates in Kiboko (Pasley et al. 2019), these constraints lessened with increased fertilizer N supply (Vanlauwe et al. 2001;Betra ´n et al. 2003). Meanwhile, P deficiency in both Embu and Harare likely equally limited N uptake at all N rates (Pasley et al. 2019). Like Harare, some other studies in SSA showed NRE values increased as the N rate decreased, but unlike Harare, they did not apply such a low fertilizer N rate as 40 kg N ha -1 . As acknowledged previously, a low rate of 40 kg N ha -1 is more representative of what is typically applied in SSA than the higher N rates. Our findings in Harare, therefore, suggest that maize in a typical small-holder farm in referring to 0, 30, 60, and 90 kg N ha -1 in Embu and 0, 40, 80, and 160 kg N ha -1 in Kiboko and Harare, respectively). The relationship between soil N content and cumulative yield was significant (P B 0.05) in Embu at 0 kg N ha -1 , but not in the other sites or at the other N rates. A regression line was therefore fitted to the data points from that site/treatment, but not the others SSA may be taking up almost two-fold the amount of N applied, with the more than half arising from N depletion of soil reserves.In general, the cumulative N balance range found in Embu and Harare was negative at all N rates; this is consistent with previous studies examining maize hybrid response to N fertilizer in West Africa (Oikeh et al. 2003). Consistent with their higher NRE values, hybrids in Kiboko had an average annual fertilizer N balance of -37 kg N ha -1 across all N rates applied. Had no stover residue been returned to the soil postharvest for the same hybrids in Kiboko, an average fertilizer N balance of -33, -32, and 13 kg N ha -1 for N rates of 40, 80, and 160 kg N ha -1 , respectively, would have resulted. These average annual depletion rates were significantly higher than those of Embu (-29, -21, -12, and -3 kg N ha -1 at 0, 30, 60, and 90 kg N ha -1 , respectively) (P \\ 0.05). Oikeh et al. (2003) found less residual inorganic N in the top 0.9 m when they had higher NRE values in maize production. Similarly, the higher NRE values in Kiboko and Harare, relative to Embu, may, in part, explain why Embu had more inorganic N in the top 0.9 m than the other 2 sites (P \\ 0.05). Hybrid selection in our study did not impact the fertilizer N balance, a conclusion also reached by Oikeh et al. (2003).In clay-rich Embu and Harare, the soil NO 3 -N and/ or NH 4 -N increased in at least one of the subsoil depths relative to shallower depths (data not shown). In Embu, this increase in inorganic N was due to increases in both NO 3 -N and NH 4 -N, but in Harare this increase was solely a result of increased NH 4 -N at the 0.3-0.45 m depth increment. This retention of inorganic N, especially at the deeper depths, was also found in other studies on acidic soils where the anion exchange capacity of kaolinite reduced NO 3 -N leaching (Thomas and Hargrove 1984;Oikeh et al. 2003;Xie et al. 2018). In general, consistent with the aforementioned negative N balance values, soil inorganic N levels in all sites were low and, therefore, the potential for N leaching was also low. Higher levels of exchangeable acidity may have restricted nitrification (Kemmitt et al. 2006;Nugroho et al. 2007;Zhao et al. 2017), resulting in the accumulation of NH 4 -N throughout the soil profile in Embu and at the 0.3-0.45 m depth increment in Harare.While both Embu and Harare have clay-rich soils, which tend to protect soil organic N from decomposition by heterotrophic microorganisms (Christensen 1996;Mungai et al. 2005), the dry conditions in Embu may also have depressed microbial activity and, thus, soil organic N turnover in contrast to the betterwatered conditions of Kiboko and Harare (Stanford and Epstein 1974;Hart et al. 1994;Vanlauwe et al. 2015). Nevertheless, there was a positive correlation between cumulative grain yield over the 9 growing seasons and total soil N to a depth of 0.9 m at 0 kg N ha -1 in Embu, suggesting that grain yield was still impacted more by mineralization of organic N at 0 kg N ha -1 in this site than in the other two sites. Soil OM levels were higher in Embu than in Kiboko and Harare; this suggests higher levels of labile organic N available for mineralization in Embu. While soil N mineralization probably also occurred in Kiboko and Harare, these two sites also had a greater tendency towards N being recalcitrant as there was less total organic N in the rooting profile. Embu soil's low moisture and pH characteristics may have also limited how much additional N was lost to leaching (Tully et al. 2016).While the application of inorganic N fertilizer alone did not mitigate or lessen soil N depletion, the findings of this study point to the potential of the integrated application of inorganic and organic N fertilizer to increase maize yields in low N sites without exacerbating soil N depletion. Positive soil N responses to N fertilizers may not be seen, however, at N rates as low as 40 kg N ha -1 . More research is needed to define the optimal application rates of inorganic and organic N needed for grain and whole-plant maize production across variable environments. Such future work should include sampling soil below a 0.3 m depth, as this study found that soil N was accumulated deeper in the profile. In general, our findings suggest that advances in breeding for higher yields and more N use efficient hybrids may have negative consequences for soil N status unless more research effort is invested in finding practical and effective N management strategies for SSA maize production at low to moderate N input levels.","tokenCount":"5241"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"56f38fe0f22ab4746284c6392ed88381","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/04842a17-3a05-4e6b-b34f-97648b3c9ae2/retrieve","id":"-1416470952"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"9c01a7d9-2a75-4949-be23-f557f3e8d1a1","pagecount":"15","content":"To enhance performance of decision making about resource allocation in agricultura! research and development (R&D).To genera te and disseminate inforrnation and tools to improve the capacity of CIAT and its partners to make efficient and effective use of resources in agricultura! research and development.l) Adequate funding to agricultura! research and extension.2) Decision makers willing to use economic analysis in research priority setting.Research planners in CIA T and partner organizations who make decisions on resource allocation. All stakeholders who need to evaluate the impacts of investment in agricultura! and natural resource management research and development. The project name has been changed from \"Impact Assessment\" to \"Impact and Policy Analysis\" The change reflects an evolution in project strategy towards combining intem ational public goods-oriented research with methods and capacity development to contribute to processes of leaming and change within institutions. In addition, the new name and slightly re-phrased outputs more clearly locate the project within the research agenda defined in the new Science Council priorities, specifically Priority #5. With the Sharing the benefits of agrobiodiversity RDC, we participated in ex ante and ex post ímpact studies of improved crop varieties-especially beans, cassava and foragesin Asia, Africa and LAC. In the case of HarvestPius, we Iooked not only at productivity impact, but also at nutritional and health impacts, and at the economic, cultural and policy factors that can enhance or inhibit impact in different countries. We are also working on better understanding the benefits and costs of GMOs in developing countries, looking at the economics of GMOs research, the benefits and costs from a policy perspectíve, and issues of consumer acceptance.In support of the Improving management of agro-ecosystems in the tropics (IMA T) RDC, BPI contríbuted to several ex ante and ex post studies ofthe impact ofp1ot-1evel soil management technologies and practices in Vietnam, Thailand and Colombia. At hígher scales, the potential of compensation for environmental services mechanisms to contríbute to resource conservation and poverty reduction is a topic of growing importan ce in BP l. An empirical model was developed this year for jointly estimating the profitability of agricultura! and environmental service production, with an empirical application to carbon sequestration in the Colombian llanos. As part of joint work with the Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF), conceptual and empirical work was conducted on the potential impacts of cross-scale watershed management on poverty.The ex post study of the impact of cassava systems research in Asia, conducted jointly with researchers from the Rural lnnovation RDC, looked specifically at the impact of user participation. The analysis of the beef industry in Central America uses the supply chain approach promoted by the RI's agroenterprise project. Impact assessment and evaluation are important research areas within Rl, especially the development of participatory and leaming-oriented methods, and BPI collaborates with methodological support on an ongoing basis.* A study of the impact of a participatory research project on improving the sustainability of cassava systems in the uplands of SE Asia showed high adoption of and retums to improved cassava varieties. Adoption of soil conservation practices was lower but still significant, and in sorne cases it contríbuted to yield increases and expansion of cassava area. The relationship with area expansion suggests that the conservation practices are allowing farmers to cultivate steeper, more erosive land in a sustainable way. Perhaps the most significant finding of the study was that farmer participation had a large impact on yield that was independent of its impact via higher levels of technology adoption. Farmers who participated in the trials had higher yields, not only because they were more likely to have adopted the new technologies, but because they appear to have increased their human capital though participation in a way that allowed them to manage their farrns better .* A farm level model for analyzing joint production of agricultura! products and environmental services was developed and tested for the case of agrosilvopastoral systems in the Colombian Llanos. The results indica te that the incorporation of forestry for both forest products and carbon sequestration is an economically viable option, however its success depends in large part on capital intensity of the operation. Disaggregating the results by initial capital investments shows that, under current conditions, environmental services will only be a viable option for larger, richer farmers. Policies such as the CIF (certificado incentivo forestal) that subsidize establishment and maintenance of forests, or the pre-payment of carbon credits would make environmental service options more pro-poor.* Estimates of the potential benefits of biofortified beans in Central America and cassava in Brazil were finalized and compared with those of other biofortified crops. Even under pessimistic assumptions beans and cassava generate positive returns, however compared to the results of crops such as rice or wheat, in populous countries such as India, they are less attractive from an economic point ofview. These results suggest that the crop strategies, especially target countries, should be reevaluated.","tokenCount":"814"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"0debfcd6d08f3c498fd62c23913a188c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/a4442fa4-97e2-4f37-9dcb-7542f0c2ec95/content","id":"-805530837"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2638428e-6773-4493-97f3-3f0144dd6c40","pagecount":"12","content":"Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated nations that nonetheless has largely achieved staple self-sufficiency. This development has been enabled in part by the rapid proliferation of small-scale irrigation pumps that enabled double rice cropping, as well as by a competitive market system in which farmers purchase water at affordable fee-for-service prices from private irrigation pump owners. Excess groundwater abstraction in areas of high shallow tube-well density and increased fuel costs for pumping have however called into question the sustainability of Bangladesh's groundwater irrigation economy. Cost-saving agronomic methods are called for, alongside aligned policies, markets, and farmers' incentives. The study assesses different institutions and waterpricing methods for irrigation services that have emerged in Bangladesh, each of which varies in their incentive structure for water conservation, and the level of economic risk involved for farmers and service providers. Using primary data collected from 139 irrigation service providers and 556 client-farmers, we empirically examine the structure of irrigation service types and associated market and institutional dimensions. Our findings demonstrate that competition among pump owners, social capital and personal relationships, and economic and agronomic risk perceptions of both pump owners and farmers significantly influence the structure of irrigation services and water pricing methods. Greater competition among pump owners increases the likelihood of payper-hour services and reduces the likelihood of crop harvest sharing arrangements. Based on these findings, we explore policy implications for enhancing irrigation services and irrigation sustainability in Bangladesh.Bangladesh faced considerable food shortage challenges in the early 1970s, its post-independence era with a population of less than 70 million (Dorosh, 2000;Hossain, 2009). Bangladesh's population has more than doubled since (164.7 million in 2017), (GoB, 2018) making it the 8 th largest populace on a relatively modest land mass (93 rd among 215 countries in terms geographic size), and hence ranks among the top five most densely populated countries (World Bank, 2019a). Yet, the country is now almost self-sufficient in staple food production (Ahmed et al., 2000;Dorosh, 2000;Hossain, 2009;Hossain et al., 2007Hossain et al., , 1994;;Mottaleb et al., 2015). This achievement comes despite low and declining per capita arable land due to population pressure, and competition for other land uses (United Nations, 2017). Domestic rice and wheat production have more than doubled from an yearly average of 14.1 million metric tons (MMT) during 1971-1990to 37.4 MMT in 2017-18 (BBS, 2018a, 2017;BRRI, 2019a).The rapid adoption of modern high-yielding varieties (HYV) along with the proliferation of irrigation, has underpinned this success. According to BRRI (2019a), in 1971-72, with a national average yield 1.28 ton/ha, total paddy rice produced in Bangladesh was 11.1 MMT from 9.3 million ha of cultivated land, in which the contribution of high-yielding rice varieties was 16.1% (1.8 MMT) (BRRI, 2019b). In contrast, in 2017-18, with a national average yield 3.0 ton/ha, total paddy production in Bangladesh was 36.3 MMT from 11.6 million ha of land. This is 226% more than productivity levels observed in 1971-72, with the contribution of high-yielding and stress tolerant cultivars increasing to 94.3% (34.2 MMT) (BRRI, 2019b). During 1971During -2018, the , the total rice area of Bangladesh increased by 25% from 9.3 million ha in 1971-72 to 11.6 million ha in 2017-18 (BRRI, 2019b)). The implications of these changes on food self-sufficiency are widely documented (Bera and Kelley, 2002;Dorosh, 2000;Hossain, 1988;Hossain et al., 2012Hossain et al., , 2007Hossain et al., , 2006Hossain et al., , 2003;;Mottaleb et al., 2015). In contrast, the contribution of small-scale irrigation systems in Bangladesh has received relatively less attention, although it has been perhaps as equally important as the introduction of new varieties in the enhancement of cereal productivity in Bangladesh, as elaborated below.After independence in 1971, the Bangladesh government started investing heavily in irrigation, and until 1979, ground and surface water pumping was largely government managed. Original emphasis was on pumping surface and ground water, with the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) supplying surface water irrigation pumps, establishing deep tube wells (DTWs) and subsidized fuel to farmer groups and individuals (Mottaleb et al., 2017). Smallscale pump irrigation only rapidly expanded when the government privatized the irrigation facilities and liberalized agricultural machinery imports (Hossain, 2009;Mottaleb et al., 2017). Entrepreneurial farmers acquired irrigation pumps for their own land, and then provided irrigation services to the neighboring farmers on a service-for-fee basis.Irrigation services and pricing can vary substantially across and within locales (Aggarwal, 2007;Dinar and Subramanian, 1997;Garrido and Calatrava, 2010;Johansson et al., 2002;Rhodes and Sampath, 1988;Sampath, 1992;Wichelns, 2010). Bangladesh is no exception, and over time, different irrigation services, payments methods, and institutions have developed in rural economies (Chowdhury, 2012;Rahman et al., 2015). Payments for irrigation services are now primarily monetized, but in-kind payments through crop sharing are still common in parts of the country. Such service provision arrangements reduce monetary outlays for farmers and provide risk sharing mechanisms (Kajisa and Sakurai, 2005). Monetized payments include fixed and variable rates that may or may not include fuel cost sharing by farmers. Irrigation services that imply real marginal costs (e.g., volumetric irrigation water pricing and/or extra fuel costs by farmers) likely incentivize farmers to use water more efficiently and on a need-based basis (Dinar and Subramanian, 1997;Easter and Liu, 2005). These, therefore, appear to be more environmentally and socially desirable methods. Irrigation services and efficiency become particularly important against the backdrop of declining per capita availability of renewable internal freshwater resources throughout the developing world (World Bank, 2019a).Bangladesh is primarily a downstream delta -located in the eastern lower Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP), a relatively fertile plain area that is intensively cultivated. Declining groundwater tables are particularly prominent in the drier northwestern IGP (Erenstein and Thorpe, 2011), and are only occasionally reported in specific locations of the more humid and flood prone eastern IGP in Bangladesh (Qureshi et al., 2015). The total freshwater withdrawal in Bangladesh in 2008 was 35.9 billion m³, of which 88% was used for crop irrigation (World Bank, 2019b). Out of Bangladesh's 8 million hectares of cropland, 67% (5.37 M ha) is under irrigation, of which 77% is derived from groundwater abstraction (BADC, 2015). Irrigation is particularly prominent for winter season 'boro' rice, with farmers applying 500-1000 l of water per kg of grain produced (Bouman, 2009). Despite being primarily a river delta with recurrent flooding, the massive extraction of groundwater has resulted in gradually declining water tables in some locales, particularly in Rajshahi Division and to some extent in Khulna Division by between 0.01-0.05 m yearly (Dey et al., 2017;Shamsudduha et al., 2009). Given the high population density and intensively doublecropped rice systems, these indications of declining groundwater tables are an increasing concern in parts of the country. This calls for watersaving agronomic methods, alongside aligned policies, markets, and farmers' incentives. The study thereby assesses different institutions and water-pricing methods for irrigation services that have emerged in Bangladesh. We examine the factors that affect varying irrigation payment methods in Bangladesh in order to better inform incentives and policies to efficiently use irrigation water. To our knowledge, this is the first empirical attempt to examine the factors that influence types of irrigation contract choice between irrigation service providers and client-farmers in Bangladesh.Aspiring to achieve food self-sufficiency, the government of Bangladesh initially heavily invested in agricultural mechanization (Hossain, 2009;Justice and Biggs, 2013;Mottaleb et al., 2017). During the early 'green revolution' of the 1960s, farmers were encouraged to cultivate dwarf rice varieties, apply fertilizer, and irrigation. To expand the irrigated area, the government first established centralized irrigation systems, from which the ground-water based deep tube wells (DTWs) and surface-water based low-lift pumps (LLPs) were supplied to farmers' groups and cooperatives on rental basis. Until 1978, under the control of the BADC, the government also supplied fuel for pumping at a 75% subsidized rate (Hossain, 2009). By 1978, a total of 9000 DTWs and 35,000 LLPs were reportedly managed by BADC (iDE, 2012).In the early 1980s, Bangladesh undertook market liberalization policies (Gisselquist et al., 2002;Justice and Biggs, 2013;Mottaleb et al., 2017). Earlier in 1970, in order to reduce the economic and operative burdens, in BADC began selling DTWs and LLPs to farmers' cooperatives and individual farmers. Over time, the latter group became some of the original pump service providers (Hossain, 2009). The proliferation of pump sets used for irrigation in Bangladesh, however, accelerated in 1989, after the removal of several tariff and non-tariff barriers on the imports of agricultural machinery, including diesel engines (Justice and Biggs, 2013;Mottaleb et al., 2017). During that time, the ban on the imports of small horsepower engines and other agricultural machinery by the private sector, particularly from China, was removed (Justice and Biggs, 2013;Mottaleb et al., 2017). Restrictions of minimum distances between shallow tubewells (STWs) to limit overabstraction were also abolished (Hossain, 2009). These actions accelerated the proliferation of the private-led small-scale irrigation system in Bangladesh (Fig. 1). The shift to service provision for irrigation was also observed in other South Asian countries -particularly India -and more recently in parts Sub-Saharan Africa where groundwater irrigation is feasible (Diao et al., 2017;Takeshima et al., 2013).In 1982-83, Bangladesh relied on a mix of STWs, LLPs and DTWs to irrigate 1.52 million hectares of land (Table 1). The total rice and wheat productions were 13.63 and 1.10 MMT, respectively. In contrast, in 2015-16, the irrigated area had increased nearly 5-fold to 5+ million hectares of land -with a more than 10-fold increase in irrigation pumps, particularly STW's (Table 1). Average cropping intensity (the number of crops harvested from the same land per year) reached 194% in 2017-18 (BBS, 2018b), with total rice, maize and wheat production in 2015-16 registered at 36.3, 3.02 and 1.09 MMT, respectively (BBS, 2019(BBS, , 2018b;;BRRI, 2019a). Bangladesh is now self-sufficient in rice production. Combined with increased economic growth, this has resulted in a decline in extreme poverty (Hossain, 2009).With the expansion of groundwater abstraction, different forms of pump ownership and management have emerged. Chowdhury (2012) described five types of irrigation systems in Bangladesh, including (1) traditional methods (e.g., swing basket), (2) government managed and centralized canal irrigation projects, and decentralized (3) LLPs, (4) STWs, and (5) DTWs. Initially, the government provided considerable subsidies to establish DTWs. At present, the establishment of DTWs is primarily private, with individuals and/or groups of farmers or cooperatives owning and managing DTWs command areas. In contrast, as a STW establishment is relatively less costly, most STWs are owned by individuals, relatives, and /or friends. Owners of STW pumps usually enter into informal contractual agreements with client-farmers for irrigation services, with the size of the command area determined by the engine capacity, as well as mutual agreements between client-farmers and service providers.Different forms of irrigation water pricing and payment methods have subsequently emerged. Following the decentralization of BADC's control over tube wells and LLPs, the primary payment method for irrigation water that emerged was the sharing one-fourth of the crop harvested by farmers with pump owners (Chowdhury, 2012;Rahman et al., 2015). Payment methods have evolved over time towards different forms of monetary systems. These include cash payment per hour of pumping or a seasonal flat-rate basis depending on crop type. Payment methods and the amount of payment per hectare still vary greatly even within small geographic areas (Rahman et al., 2015), although volumetric pricing is rare (Krupnik et al., 2015).We hypothesize that irrigation water markets consisting of a pump owner and farmer-clients settle on an irrigation water payment method that tends to maximize the profit of the pump owner, while also minimizing farmers' costs for purchasing irrigation services. These actors' ability to achieve such a mutually agreeable equilibrium payment method is likely to be associated with the negotiation power of the pump owner and client-farmers, in addition to other environmental, market and exogenous factors. In a functional form, a mutually agreeable irrigation water payment method PM i * between pump owner (p) and client-farmers (f) can be represented as: , , , )Where, PM i * is the method of irrigation service payment that was chosen in the current season, determined based on the interaction of the negotiation power of the pump owner NP p and the negotiation power of the client-farmer NP f , that maximizes pump owner profits ( ) p * , and minimizes farmers' irrigation costs (C ) f * within an irrigation command area. PM pf e is conversely the payment method practiced in the previous year for the same crop. Note that, because PM pf e is the payment method for irrigation decided in the previous year, a new payment method, PM , is * is likely to be decided only through the interaction of both the pump owner and client-farmers if the preexisting payment method PM , pf e , cannot ensure profit maximization and cost minimization for pump owners and farmers, respectively. The factor j includes environmental and domain variables, such as the competition among pump owners, which can be captured by the density of irrigation service providers in a village, and water availability in the cropping season, while I v includes irrigation-scheme specific characteristics such as the quality of field drainage. Arrow (1968), and Otsuka and Hayami (1988) assert that the presence of a strong patron-client type community relationship can mitigate market failure problems and ensure Pareto optimality. In Eq. ( 1), the variable C r is the indicator of the community relationship, between the pump owner and the clientfarmers. Lastly, i is the random error term.Several factors can influence the negotiation power of pump owners NP ( ) p * and the client famers NP ( ).f * For example, the perceptions of drought or market risk, and willingness to act (irrigate) under different levels of risk, social networks, human and social capital, and physical assets such as landholdings of the pump owner and the client-farmer could influence price negotiation. These factors can influence the negotiation power of the pump owner and the client-farmer, and therefore the irrigation water pricing method. For example, in an ideal environment, a risk-taking farmer may prefer to pay cash to the pump owner on fixed cost-per-hour basis or cash-per-season per unit of land basis, because by doing so, he or she can be the net residual claimer at the end of the rice production season.In contrast, a risk-taking pump owner might prefer to choose cropsharing as his or her preferred method, from which they can more reliably claim a portion of grain produced at the end of the season. The degree of human and social capital, and specifically the relationship between pump owners and client-farmers, can also influence negotiation power, and as such the choice of the irrigation payment system. In functional form, this relationship can be described for farmers in Eq.(2):and for pump owners in Eq. ( 3):In these equations, NP p * and NP f * are the negotiation power of the pump owner and client-farmer respectively, HC , p HC , f are the level of human capital measured by years of formal schooling, and R p and R f are the self-assessed risk scores provided by pump owners and farmers, respectively (see Section 3.2). SC p and SC f are the social capital and physical asset scores of the pump owner and client-farmer; SR pf and SR fp are an indicator of the social relationship between pump owner and client-farmer and i , and i are error terms (also described in Section 3.2).We further hypothesize that the strength of the social relationship between pump owner and client-farmer can vary and is likely to have a considerable degree of influence on the payment method. For example, both pump owner and the client-farmer may be familial relatives, and they could, for example, can reside in the same village, shop in the same markets, and may pray in the mosque. These social interactions and their resulting relationships, therefore, can also influence irrigation water pricing payment methods and fees. As it is infeasible to estimate all three Eqs. ( 1)-(3) separately to identify the factors influencing the method of irrigation payment in a particular location, we developed reduced form functions collapsing Eqs. ( 1)-(3) separately separately for farmer-clients (Eq. ( 4)) and pump owners (Eq. ( 5)) as follows:For client-farmers:For pump owners: We operationalize the conceptual framework to identify the personal and social relation factors as well as human capital endowment and environment domain that can affect the mode of irrigation water payment method. The resulting empirical model is specified as follows:Where PM s is the dependent variable that assumes a value of zero if the payment method in an irrigation scheme requiring cash payment seasonally per unit of land by the client-farmer, in addition to the supply of fuel from the farmer. We assume a value one if the payment method is on a cash-per-hour irrigation service basis, or a value of two where farmers pay cash-per-season per land unit, but farmers are not required to supply their own fuel. The model assumes a value of three if farmers share a portion of their harvested crops with the pump owner for irrigation. The default payment method (PM s = 0) is cash per season with client-farmer supplying fuel.Explanatory variables include a vector of irrigation scheme specific variables (EV i ) that include:(1) the number of irrigation service providers (pump owners) operating in a sampled village; (2) a dummy variable that assumes a value of 1 if the community voluntarily participated in irrigation system maintenance, including within-field canal and/or field drainage operations (zero otherwise); (3) a dummy variable (value of one) if there was no reported shortage of water in the pump command area at the peak of the boro rice season (zero otherwise), and; (4) a dummy if the command area has a poor water drainage system (value of one) if excessive water accumulates within the irrigation scheme that causes stagnant waterlogging and that can potentially reduce crop productivity (0 otherwise).The vector of variables HC i is comprised of pump owner and clientfarmer specific variables, including:(5) familial relative dummies that assume a value of one if the pump owner and client-farmer have at least one blood relative employed in a government sector or who works as or around local politicians (zero otherwise); (6) At the time of data collection, we asked the sampled respondents on how much risk they usually take in their daily economic activities and asked them to score it in between zero to ten, in which with zero indicating a completely risk-averse attitude of the sampled pump owners and farmer-clients, and 10 indicating a strong preference for risk-taking. The self-assessed general risk scores provided by pump owners and farmer-clients are included in HC i .The vector HC i includes some additional variables for the pump owner and client-farmer:(7) number of years of schooling; (8) the household size measured by the number of immediate family members; (9) area total land cultivated land (ha) during the boro season; and (10) dummy variables that assume a value of one if the major occupation of the pump owner and farmer-client involves off-farm employment (zero otherwise).In Eq. ( 6), the independent variable social relation index i includes the social interaction indicators between a pump owner and client-farmer. This index is constructed by applying the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to dummy variables for pump owner and client-farmer familiar relations, residence the same village, and for owners and clients who pray in the same mosque or temple. These variables are intended to capture the influence of the social and personal relationships on irrigation water payment method. Details of the process of generating the relation index are included in Appendix A. The Northern region dummy is a dummy variable that assumes a value of one (zero otherwise) if the surveyed village was located outside greater Barishal region that is characterized by a higher potential for and use of surface water irrigation (Krupnik et al., 2017) and that tends to be poorer with limited physical infrastructure than other study areas (Mottaleb et al., 2016). 0 is a scalar parameter and s , , i i , and i are the parameters to be estimated;i is the error term. In solving Eq. ( 6), we applied the multinomial logit estimation, as the dependent variable (payment method type) is categorical and independent. Eq. ( 6) is estimate separately for pump owner and client-farmers.This study is based on primary data collected from April 22 to June 8 in 2015 from 139 pump owners who provided irrigation services, and from 556 farmer-clients who purchased their irrigation services. In Bangladesh, dry season boro rice is the major irrigated crop, although some supplementary irrigation may also provided to the summer/wet season aus and aman rice and other winter crops, such as wheat or maize (Krupnik et al., 2017;Qureshi et al., 2015). As the primary focus of this study is to examine the factors that affect the payment methods and amount of payment for irrigation services, we focus on the dry season boro rice farmers and the irrigation service providers (pump owners) in the completed 2013-14 season.We focused on two prevailing smallholder irrigation systems: surface water irrigation using LLPs that are common in Barishal division, and ground-water extraction using STWs, which are more common in north and west (including Dhaka, Rangpur and Khulna divisions, Fig. 2). Pump owners were randomly selected based lists of irrigation service providers supplied by the Department of Agricultural Extension. After selecting the pump owner, we requested them to supply the names of four client-farmers who purchased irrigation services in the 2013-14 winter season. Of 89 pump owners and their 356 clients, farmers were sampled from Barishal division, and a further 50 pump owners and 200 client-farmers were sampled from Dhaka, Khulna, and Rangpur divisions (Table 2). The sample thereby covers four divisions, nine districts, 12 sub-districts, 15 unions, and 43 villages (Fig. 2). According to BADC (2015), out of 1.63 million DWs, STWs and LLPs, 19.3% were electrically powered, with the remainder mainly reliant on diesel. In our sample, out of 139 irrigation schemes, only six used electricity, with the remainder using diesel.We identified four major irrigation payment methods (Fig. 3) including:(1) Hourly payment, in which farmer-clients pay cash per hour to pump owners (includes both with and without client fuel given our limited sample size), (2) Seasonal with client fuel, in which client-farmers pay a fixed cash rate per season per unit of land, and in addition, supply fuel or provide fuel costs for the full season, (3) Seasonal without client fuel, where farmer-clients pay a flat cash rate per season per unit of land without additional fuel charges, and (4) Crop sharing, also known as share cropping, in which farmer-clients trade an agreed share of harvested grain and/or straw (typically 10-20%) in lieu of cash for irrigation.All of the sampled irrigation service providers were using the centrifugal pumps and practiced flood irrigation. No solar irrigation pumps were identified, and none of the sampled farmer-clients or irrigation service providers used alternate wetting and drying (AWD) or System of Rice Intensification (SRI) techniques, which was widely promoted but also critiqued in Bangladesh and South Asia, to address the increasing water scarcity in rice-based cropping systems (Bouman and Tuong, 2001;Lampayan et al., 2015). Overall, out of 556 sampled farmers (and 139 service providers), 9% practice the hourly system, 32% used the seasonal system with client-farmer fuel supply, 51% used the seasonal without fuel and 8% crop sharing systems, respectively A total of 512 client-farmers (and 128 service providers) thus followed cash-based payment services-with only 44 sampled farmer-clients (and 11 service providers) using sharecropping (primarily in selected locales, Table 2). A total of 460 farmer-clients (and 115 service providers) followed seasonal payment, of which 282 farmers (and 70 service providers) paid a seasonal flat rate, and the other 178 farmer-clients (and 45 service providers) provided fuel or paid fuel costs. The observed mix payment categories (a base rate plus farmers' supply or payment per unit of fuel used for irrigation services) can be described as a two-part tariff system (Dinar and Subramanian, 1997;Easter and Liu, 2005), and to some extent incentivize need-based irrigation as farmers can save on fuel costs. The hourly payment service was split into two relatively small subsets, 20 client-farmers who also supplied fuel and another 32 only paying the hourly rate. For simplicity, we clubbed these groups together during analyses.On average, a client-farmer allocated 0.22 ha land for boro rice in 2013-14. Each sampled command areas had < 19 client-farmers with a mean command area of 5.74 ha (Table 3). On average, more than 40% of the sampled client-farmers reported that they participate in preparing within-field canals and drainage systems on an annual voluntary basis. Nearly 77% reported irrigation water was sufficiently available in the 2013-14 boro season (Table 3). More than 95% of the sampled pump owners and client-farmers live in the same village, and nearly 74% pray in the same mosque or temple. On average, nearly 35% of the sampled client-farmer and pump owners are relatives (Table 3). On average, 43 pump owners operated in each sample village.Pump owners who worked on a crop share basis served 78 farmers on average, each of whom cultivated 0.15 ha of boro rice. On average, the pump owner provided irrigation to 16 ha of land, and there were only four irrigation providers in the same village (Table 3). In contrast, other pump owners who worked on cash-based services managed relatively small command areas, smaller numbers of farmer-clients, who also had many alternative irrigation service providers (39-67) found in the same village (Table 3). These pump owners also used relatively lower horsepower pumps (Table 3). Interestingly, the client-farmers engaged in cash-based services cultivate larger boro on more land. Voluntary participation canal and drainage maintenance was not reported in share crop schemes and was only associated with cash-based services (33-58%, Table 3). LLPs were comprised 100% of the sample where crop-sharing was used, and 54-69%, where the cash payment was accepted (Table 3).On average, farmers relying on hourly irrigation services paid BDT (Bangladesh Taka) 80 per hour 1 , comprising BDT 56 per hour for farmer-clients who provided fuel costs, and BDT 95 per hour for those who did not. In the 2013-14 boro season, the price of diesel -the major fuel of the irrigation pumps -was BDT 70/l. The seasonal irrigation service payments averaged a cost of BDT 25,200/ha, but differed by modality (Table 4). The hourly irrigation service implied the lowest cost to farmer-clients (BDT 21,900/ha). Farmer-clients in the crop-sharing group paid the highest service charge -sharing on average 16.7% of their harvests with the pump owners, equivalent to BDT 32,300/ha 2 (Table 4). Total seasonal boro production costs averaged BDT 90,800/ ha for farmers, in which > 27% cost was derived from irrigation.On average, an irrigation engine consumed 401 l/ha of diesel equivalent fuel for an entire season for irrigation, however, the fuel consumption in crop-sharing arrangements was the lowest (174 l/ha, Table 4), reflective of the more common use of LLPs compared to STWs that are more energetically costly (Krupnik et al., 2015). Bangladesh is a net importer of crude oil and petroleum products. During 2016-18 (triennium average), Bangladesh imported 1.18 MMT of crude oil and 463,000 tons of refined petroleum products (BPC, 2018), at a value of worth of USD 3.38 billion (GoB, 2018). Although no solar irrigation pumps were found in our study, the greenhouse gas implications of fossil-fuel based irrigation relative to alternative power sources should be further studied. Table 4 also compares the (gross) irrigation service revenue to the pump owner -being highest for crop sharing. In contrast, the boro rice yields were lowest for crop share services and highest for hourly services (Table 4).Sampled farmer-clients reported irrigation services were determined by local tradition (42%) and to a lesser extent by the pump owner (23%) in study areas (Table 5). However, in the case of crop sharing, survey respondents indicated that prior to the cropping season, farmers and pump owners would meet and decide the crop share percentage based on current fuel and paddy prices. Pump owners provided  Sources in addition to the survey: BARC (2019) 1 and BADC (2013).a much longer list of the factors that they consider in determining irrigation pricing, albeit a similar share acknowledged local tradition (47%). More commonly though, pricing decisions considered fuel price (83%), consultation with client-farmers (61%), or simply following other nearby pump owners' pricing systems (55%). Some respondents elaborated that members of an irrigation scheme (pump owners and client-farmers) often meet before the beginning of the season to discuss and decide on irrigation service charges. On average, a sampled client-farmer had 4.6 years of formal schooling, 0.81 ha of land, and five family members. Seven percent were engaged in off-farm economic activities (Table 6). By contrast, pump owners were somewhat better endowed with 6.7 years of schooling, and 0.94 ha of land, an on average, more than five family members, although with similar (8%) engagement in off-farm income generation. Considering risk-taking profiles, on average, pump owners ranked themselves somewhat more risk-taking (mean score of 6.95 scores) than farmer-clients (6.21 score). Fifty-nine percent of pump owners reported at least one blood relative engaged in politics or governmental positions, against only 41% of the sampled farmers. Pump owners accepting crop share payments were endowed with less land (0.19 ha), though they were more risk-taking (risk score of 7.36) than pump owners in the other groups. Farmer-clients engaged in crop sharing were, in general, more resource constrained and risk-averse, and hence appear to be more interested in sharing risks with pump owners in the form of crop sharing agreement for irrigation water. In contrast, pump owners who opt for crop sharing are in general more  risk-taking, and seemingly short on their own crop production or engaged in grain trading, and hence interested in in-kind produce payment as a compliment. These various variables are included in our empirical estimation procedures, discussed below.We hypothesize the different irrigation services provide different incentive mechanisms to conserve water from farmer-clients' point of view. Using the seasonal with client fuel service (a two-part tariff payment) as the default group in Table 7, we anticipated the hourly rate to provide the biggest incentive to conserve pump fuel use, which may be considered as a rough proxy for irrigation water, compared the seasonal flat rate without farmer's fuel and crop sharing payments.The number of irrigation service providers in a village is positively associated with the hourly service payment system for both pump owner and client-farmer, whereas the crop sharing method is strongly and negatively associated. The findings suggest that competition among irrigation service providers thereby encourages the adoption of relatively water conserving irrigation services. Voluntary participation in irrigation command area maintenance, which we used as a proxy for community relationship, is negatively associated with seasonal payment without farmer-client fuel supply systems, in addition to crop sharing irrigation services for both pump owner and client-farmer. This suggests that the presence of a strong community relationship discourages flat rate irrigation services that are less efficient directly in terms of fuel -and indirectly water.The availability of irrigation water during the season was positively associated with crop sharing in the case of pump owners and all types of irrigation services (compared to two-part tariff methods) for clientfarmers. The poor drainage dummy was positively associated with crop sharing for both the pump owner and client-farmer, reflecting problems with canal and field water management in lower-elevation areas of Barisal division (Krupnik et al., 2017). Poor floodwater drainage systems tend to make the irrigated boro rice farming riskier and less productive, with crop sharing allowing the partitioning of risks between farmers and pump owners while reducing the cash costs for the latter.Having a blood relative in a government job or active in politics positively affected only the seasonal flat rate without fuel use by farmers. This could potentially be indicative of the farmers' increased negotiation power. Where feasible, more risk-taking farmers likely prefer to reduce their reliance on seasonal flat rate without fuel, and crop sharing systems, which provide forms of risk sharing (e.g., Kajisa and Sakurai, 2005), and are therefore more favorably viewed by risk-  averse farmers. Relatively more educated pump owners and farmers are more likely to prefer a crop sharing method. Farmers that however, derive most of their income from off-farm employment also appear to be more likely to choose crop sharing or the seasonal flat rate without fuel systems, possibly because they have higher assured opportunity costs. Interestingly, the size of pump owner's landholdings was positively associated with the likelihood of using seasonal flat rate payments without fuel, whereas client-farmer farm size was negatively correlated with all irrigation services compared to the two-part base tariff. Well-off pump owners are economically more capable of bearing irrigation expenses including the cost of fuel for an entire season; conversely, economically affluent client-farmers are more likely to choose the two-part tariff, in which farmers can be the residual claimer after paying the irrigation charge. Finally, the social relation index between pump owner and farmers has negatively associated the likelihood of crop sharing, suggesting that  social bondage can increase incentives to opt for socially desirable payment systems, but without such capital, less risky and potentially more cost-effective irrigation services may prevail. Compared to the two-part tariff payment as a base, the hourly, seasonal flat rate and crop sharing payment systems are less prevalent in northern or western Bangladesh, where civil infrastructure is relatively more developed with greater cropping intensity (Mottaleb et al., 2016).Bangladesh's privatization policies and the liberalization of machinery imports contributed to the rapid proliferation of small-scale mechanized pumps and irrigation services provision. Using primary information collected from 556 farmers and 139 pump owners, this study demonstrates that different irrigation service payment systems have emerged in Bangladesh over time, with a shift away from crop sharing towards cash-based options. This study unpacks the development of varying types of pricing systems and explores the factors that contributed to their differentiation.Today, irrigation in Bangladesh primarily relies on groundwater abstraction using a diesel engine and centrifugal pump, with a significant environmental footprint. Currently, out of 5.3 million ha of the total irrigated land, 58% is irrigated by 1.31 million diesel engines (BADC, 2015). On average, 401 l of diesel were used to irrigate one ha of boro rice land during the 2013-14 winter season. This equates to roughly 1.23 billion liters of diesel being consumed for in a single season. Stationary burning of one liter of diesel results in the release of 2.69 kg of direct and embodied carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) (IPCC, 2006). In a single boro season, Bangladesh thus produces 3.30 billion kg CO 2 from burning diesel for irrigation alone. Actual emissions from rice cropping are set to be even higher when accounting for pump efficiency losses, groundwater depth, and considering emissions of CH 4 and N 2 O from soil-water based processes related to agronomic management practices. Policy may want to explore alternative irrigation modalities -including increased rural electrification, electric motors, solar irrigation options, and more fuel-efficient diesel pump alternatives that -when appropriately managed -could help mitigate these externalities.Our study demonstrates that Bangladesh's irrigation payment systems are mainly groundwater-based, with traditional centrifugal pumps used for water abstraction. Recently, projects led by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) have introduced axial flow pumps (AFP) that are suitable for surface water irrigation and respond to governmental policy priorities championing increased surface water use (Krupnik et al., 2015;Mottaleb, 2018). AFPs can lift from 72% to 55% more water at 1 and 2 m lifts, respectively, compared to centrifugal LLPs, with 51% and 21% greater fuel efficiency, respectively (Mottaleb, 2018;Valle et al., 2014). Currently, roughly 173,000 centrifugal LLPs are engaged in irrigating 1.16 million ha of land using surface water. Rapid replacement of the LLPs by AFPs cold help to mitigate some of the negative environmental ramifications of irrigation while offering pump owners and farmer-clients opportunities for fuel and overall payment cost reductions, respectively. Where appropriate, AWD can also be attempted (Qureshi et al., 2015), although evidence in Bangladesh indicates new irrigation pricing structures and business models that align pump owner and farmer-clients interests -for example, volumetric-based payment systems -may be needed to encourage widespread adoption (Pearson et al., 2018). Other novel pricing systems are also being experimented with at this time, including pay-as-you-go DTW irrigation system that equates with volumetric water pricing using smart-cards and automatic payment machines located at the pump source, although this system remains in a pilot stage and is used only in select areas of northwest Bangladesh (Islam, 2016). These topics are similarly relevant to the irrigated systems that prevail in other South Asian countries.The study confirms that geography and pump type can influence the irrigation service choice, in which farmer-clients and pump owners in relatively riskier environments, such as Barisal division are more likely to choose crop sharing. Social capital and risk profiles also substantially influence irrigation payment types. Public support reducing crop production risks could potentially encourage risk-averting farmers to choose more socially desirable water conserving irrigation services, such as hourly or two-part tariff methods that both constitute a variable production cost and, hence, provide an incentive to reduce the quantity of water applied. Finally, our findings indicate that competition among pump owners could contribute to the emergence of socially desirable irrigation services with an in-built incentive for water conservation. These hypotheses, however, need to be verified with further research. A major policy recommendation, therefore, will be how to encourage and maintain healthy competition among service providers to enhance smallholder adoption of sustainable and environmentally sounds irrigation practices alongside increased food security given Bangladesh's pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals.","tokenCount":"6259"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fefa3edfc630696f5ba6de7bdf94f409","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/6015daeb-14bb-40cb-86f6-cde93db4860c/content","id":"1997265388"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"9f9a6d37-d157-44f1-9912-2bee99de9bfc","pagecount":"14","content":"Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) has a significant role to play in reducing the gender gap in labor burden for women in agriculture. A targeted approach to address this gap can be useful in developing a women-responsive climatic risk management plan focused on reducing their labor burden in agriculture, especially in areas with high climate risks. The paper therefore presents a top-down approach to identify potential labor-saving CSA technologies for women farmers in areas facing high climate risks. It involves mapping women in agriculture, climate risks, and poverty hotspots and entails understanding the role of women in agricultural activities to identify the suitable CSA options for reducing the levels of labor drudgery. The study is illustrated for Nepal where feminization of agriculture is rapidly increasing, a high level of climatic risks persists, and adaptive capacity to climate change is very low, especially among women in agriculture. Results are presented for two hotspot districts, Rupandehi and Chitwan. Household socioeconomic characteristics were found to play a major role in women's labor contribution in different crop production activities. Discussions with farmers provided a list of more than 15 CSA interventions with labor reduction as well as yield-improving potential. Accordingly, considering the local crop, agro-climate, and social conditions, and women's participation in different agricultural activities, CSA technologies and practices such as direct seeded rice (zero tillage and low tillage using machine), green manuring (GM), laser land leveling (LLL), and system of rice intensification (SRI) were found to potentially reduce women's drudgery in agriculture along with improvement in productivity and farm income.Women's involvement in agriculture and their contributions to food security has been widely recognized in the developing countries. Women play a key role in improving agricultural productivity and food security in the farming communities (Agarwal 2013;Aly and Shields 2010). In the last few decades, women's involvement, access to productive resources, and decision-making roles in agriculture and allied sectors have been the focus areas of research and development in the global south. Many studies claim that differences in men and women's responsibilities, priorities, and access to resources and services at the community and household levels are responsible for the gender gap in agriculture in many developing countries (Quisumbing et al. 2014;FAO 2011). A clear linkage has been shown among social, economic, and gender dimensions in agriculture (Peterman et al. 2014;FAO 2010a).Agriculture is one of the most vulnerable sectors to climate change impacts. Within agriculture, however, several studies highlight that women are likely to be affected more than men by climate impacts, especially in the developing countries where their involvement in agriculture is high (Goldsmith et al. 2013;MacGregor 2010;UNDP 2013;Goh 2012;Nellemann et al. 2011). Most of this gender gap analysis in agriculture in the context of climate change have been limited to access to resources and decision making (Kristjanson et al. 2017). However, the labor-intensive roles that women play in agriculture from sowing, weeding, to harvesting also determine the nature and severity of climate change impacts they face. Climate change impacts such as decreasing supply of crop residues and biomass for energy and livestock feed, increasing severity of weeds, crop resowing/transplanting requirement, and loss of crop yields are likely to affect women more, given their involvement in related activities (Bradshaw and Linneker 2017;Nelson and Huyer 2016). Thus, there is a need to understand climate change impacts on women based not just on their social, cultural, and economic characteristics but also their role and responsibilities in specific agricultural activities (Nightingale 2011;Morton 2007).The climate-smart agriculture (CSA) approach is emerging as a new paradigm for adapting agriculture to the changing climate. This approach seeks solutions that improve agricultural productivity, build resilient food production systems, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions (FAO 2010b;Steenwerth et al. 2014). CSA includes a range of technologies, practices, and services to minimize the impact of climate change in agriculture. These CSA options range from a simple adjustment in crop management practices to the transformation of agricultural production systems to adjust to new climatic conditions in a particular location (Khatri-Chhetri et al. 2017;Vermeulen et al. 2012;Howden et al. 2007).However, the efficacy of CSA options in terms of its benefits to both men and women stands to lose out if the gender gap in agriculture is not taken into account. (Nelson and Huyer 2016). For instance, the level of women's involvement in agriculture, such as their labor contribution in different agricultural activities (from land preparation to crop harvesting), can have significant implications for the adoption and sustainability of the CSA approach. There are plenty of suggestions for gender-differentiated climate change adaptation strategies in agriculture. Improving women's access to productive resources, finance and knowledge, promoting off-farm employment, and capacity building on adaptation options can empower them to adapt to a changing climate (Huyer et al. 2015;Edmunds et al. 2013;Chaudhury et al. 2012;Huyer 2016). While the role of CSA in agriculture has been widely discussed, its potential to help women in reducing their labor burdens in particular is not clear.This paper therefore presents a systematic approach to assess the labor-reducing potential of selected CSA technologies and practices. The objective is to highlight hotspots of women in agriculture, climate risks, and poverty; assess CSA interventions relevant for women in two of these hotspots, based on their role in agriculture and factors affecting the role; and evaluate some of the CSA technologies on their labor-reducing potential for women in agriculture. The study was conducted in Nepal, a country characterized by low-ranked gender-related development indicators and increasing feminization of agriculture due to male out-migration (UNDP 2016;CBS 2013a;Gartaula et al. 2010;Tamang et al. 2014).Three indicators were used to map women in agriculture-poverty-climate risks hotspots across Nepal. The first indicator was women's involvement in agriculture which was calculated as the percentage of women in agriculture in the district multiplied by a weight. The weight was the proportion of total number of women involved in agriculture in the district compared to that of the country. Data for this indicator was collected from the national population and housing census survey in 2011. Participation in agriculture also included forestry and fishing industries. The second indicator was climate risk exposure at the district level developed by the Ministry of Environment, Government of Nepal. This exposure indicator included annual temperature and rainfall trends, droughts, floods and landslide risks, and population dependency in natural resources and other risks factors (GoN 2010). The third indicator was the district level poverty (% of population under poverty line). The poverty levels were taken from the census data, which was conducted by the Government of Nepal in 2013 (CBS 2013b).The hotspots were identified by overlaying women's participation in agriculture with climate risk exposure and poverty levels usinga GIS (geographic information system) tool. Sincethe study focused on women's participation in agriculture, 50% weight was given to this indicator while a weight of 25% was given to each of the other two indicators. All three indicators-women's participation in agriculture, climatic risks and poverty level-were combined and normalized between 0 and 1 values. Using the BJenks Natural break^method in GIS, the district values (combining women's participation in agriculture, climate exposure, and poverty) were categorized as low (below 0.4), medium (0.4-0.65), and high (more than 0.65). Districts under the Bhigh^category were defined as the hotspots, where both the women's participation and the climate risks and poverty were categorized as high.Two women-agriculture-climate change vulnerability hotspot districts (Rupandehi and Chitwan) were randomly selected for a more detailed assessment. Gender disaggregated data on labor contribution was collected from a cross-section survey of randomly selected 215 agricultural households in 2013/2014. Quantitative data was collected using a questionnaire on men and women's role in different agricultural activities such as land preparation, crop sowing, tillage, weeding, harvesting, and threshing in major crops. Participation has been measured in terms of labor days contributed to particular agricultural activity.To compare men and women's participation in agricultural activities, we compared the average labor contribution to each agricultural activity from land preparation to crop harvesting using mean comparison test (t test). Additionally, to understand variables affecting women's participating in agriculture, a multiple regression model was run using total labor contribution by women in different agricultural activities (dependent variable) and independent variables such as landholding size, family size, main occupation of household head, gender of household head, and non-agricultural income.To identify a list of currently adopted and potential CSA technologies for the study areas, focus group discussions were conducted with five women farmers' groups in each research location. In addition, a review of CSA-related literature was also conducted. The technologies were identified based on the dominant crops in these regions (MoAD 2015) (Table 1). The group participants were also asked about the potential impact of the identified CSA technologies on labor, income, and yield.The study used five major indicators including gender to assess the potential benefits of CSA options in the study areas (Table 2). For each technology and indicator (except environment), primary data was used for calculation of an index (details in Annex 1). Secondary information was used to calculate the environment index using a study from Pathak and Aggarwal (2012) about low carbon technologies for agriculture. All CSA technologies were evaluated by comparing with and without technology intervention scenarios by using an index where the value for farmers' conventional practice (FP) is 100. For the objective of this paper, we have mainly focused on the gender indicator which highlights the change in women's involvement in agricultural activities due to the introduction of CSA technologies and practices. Technologies which reduce women's labor contribution including improvement in productivity and income have been considered as women-friendly technologies. Given the focus on reduction in labor burden, this study did not consider other outcomes of CSA such as changes in women's decision-making authority, changes in women's control over income, and improved access to agricultural resources. Out of the list in Table 1, we estimated a gender participation index for six prominent CSA technologies adopted in the study areas. These technologies include direct seeded rice without machine use and with machine use, system of rice intensification, zero tillage and direct seed rice, green manuring, and laser land leveling.    We selected Rupandehi and Chitwan districts from the hotspots for a detailed analysis of women in agriculture and climatic risks (Fig. 1). Survey results identified flood, extreme and erratic rainfall, cold waves, and frequent droughts as the major climate change events occurring since 2001 in these areas. Many farmers reported significant crop yield losses (30-70% loss) as a result of these events. Incidence of climatic risks in these two districts, households affected by them, and their negative effects on crop production all increased from 2003 to 2012 (Fig. 2). Similar to farmers' experience, the incidence and severity of climatic risks such as flood, droughts, rainfall-induced landslides, and thunderstorms have also increased in the last decade across Nepal (NEOC 2015; Krishnamurthy et al. 2013). Since 2007, the frequency of these extreme weather events has increased significantly, with their occurrence every alternative year. Figure 3 highlights the number of times these events happened across the country during 2000-2014.Figure 4 presents the average days of labor contribution of women and men in the surveyed households. Women's labor contribution in agriculture is significantly high compared to men's contribution. The range of total number of days of women's labor contribution to agricultural activities among the survey household is also large. This high level of women's involvement in agricultural activities is largely influenced by out-migration of male and/or low off-farm opportunities for women. They work primarily as family workers in subsistence agriculture with low technology-driven conventional farming practices.Table 3 clearly differentiated the role of men and women in agriculture. In some activities, such as rice transplanting, weeding, irrigation application in rice, and harvesting/threshing of wheat and maize, women' labor contributions are significantly high. Land preparation, crop sowing, and fertilizer application, on the other hand, are mainly men's responsibility. This information builds the case for the promotion of CSA technologies that, for instance, facilitate transplanting of rice, weeding, and harvesting/threshing which can significantly reduce women's labor contribution in agriculture. Table 4 highlights the role of socioeconomic variables in determining women's participation in agriculture. Women in large landholding and non-agricultural income households contribute less to agricultural activities due to their access to off-farm economic activities and ability to hire labor. On the other hand, increasing family size, agriculture as a main occupation of the household head, and woman household head all act as contributing factors for increased women's participation in agricultural activities over that of men. Large family size is generally related to poor income level and more females in the household (Maharjan and Khatri-Chettri 2006). Understanding these results can play an important role in better targeting of CSA intervention for women farmers.Farmers in the household survey and focus discussions provided a list of agriculture and related activities where women's involvement is high and highlighted key CSA interventions suitable in each activity along with their expected impacts on labor, income, and yield (Table 5). The roles of these CSA technologies in improving crop yield and farm income while reducing women's labor burden in agriculture are also well recognized as per literature (Kristjanson et al. 2017;Jost et al. 2016).  of some of these CSA interventions highlighted that all selected technologies have significant potential to reduce women's labor contribution in agricultural activities, particularly in transplanting, nutrient management, and sowing of crops (Fig. 5). Direct seeded rice (zero tillage and low tillage using machine) and green manuring (GM) in particular can significantly reduce women's labor hours/days in agriculture.Figure 6 presents impact of technologies on efficiency, equity, gender, environment, and sustainability indicators of CSA. Higher production efficiency over farmers' practices was observed in DSR methods, LLL, and SRI technologies. This was mainly due to a positive effect of technology in crop productivity. Similarly, for the equity indicator, employment  generation and higher calorie production were observed for DSR machine (after plowing), SRI, and LLL.In zero-till DSR and GM, no women's participation was observed whereas a higher proportion of participation of women was observed in farmers' conventional practice (without CSA technology interventions). Sustainability index was found to be higher in zero-till DSR, indicating higher sustainability than other farming technologies. The environmental index was found to be higher for GM applied in rice fields indicating a higher potential of greenhouse gas emission compared to other technologies. Lowest emission values were calculated for DSR using machine and DSR hand broadcasting, which ismuch lower thantheGHG emissionindexof GM riceand farmers'practice(FP).The study adopts a top-down approach of examining the potential of CSA to reduce women's labor burden in agriculture in the wake of climate change. A targeted approach using the hotspot methodology can prove to be useful in cases where prioritization of resources is a criterion. This method of hotspot identification and targeting of CSA options is seldom being used by most of the current development-related programs on women and agriculture. National and sub-national government and development organizations also focus on implementation of outcome-oriented strategies which tend to cover a large proportion of the target population, without much streamlining. This study promotes a more focused approach to identify more vulnerable regions (hotspots) related to women in agriculture-poverty-climate risk and promote technologies for reducing labor burdens for women in those regions.Based on the activities majorly conducted by women, this study shows that CSA technologies and practices such as direct seeded rice, zero tillage machines, laser land leveling, and green manuring can reduce women's labor burden in agriculture. Other CSA technologies such as crop harvesters, weeder, solar pump irrigation, and post-harvest management practices can also substantially reduce women's labor burden. However, apart from reduction in labor hours, CSA also has an instrumental role in improving women's access to agricultural resources and decision-making process as well as provide linkages to new market opportunities. Further studies, therefore, are needed to consider holistic approaches that would evaluate the implications of different CSA interventions on men and women in different socioeconomic settings and roles.Equity: Total number of man-days required for each technology was calculated and compared with farmers' practice. Similarly, additional calories produced from each intervention were calculated and compared. Averages of these two indexes are used for calculating equity index for each technological intervention.Gender: Female participation in each technological intervention was used and compared with farmers' practice for gender index.Environment: To calculate the environment index, secondary source of GHG emission for upper Indo-Gangetic Plain from BPathak H. and Aggarwal P.K., (Eds.) (2012) Low carbon technologies for Agriculture: A study report on Rice and Wheat system in the Indo-Gangetic plains. IARI^was used. During calculation, GHG emissions from burning of rice straw were discarded. Similarly, CO 2 emissions from on-farm and off-farm were also not included as we are not producing fertilizers and biocides for rice production. To convert all units into CO 2 equivalent, H 4 and N 2 O-N were multiplied by 23 and 310 (Wightman, J. Production and Mitigation of Greenhouse Gases in Agriculture) respectively.Sustainability: For sustainability, proxy indicators nitrogen use efficiency and energy use efficiency (diesel used) were used for calculation and result compared with farmers' practice. Average of both nitrogen use efficiency and energy use efficiency was taken as sustainability index.Index development: The proxy indicators under each intervention were used for comparing with the farmers' preference (baseline data) for index development. Index development was done by using the formula:The overall index development for each indicator under each intervention was calculated as follows:Example:Except for Environmental index for GHGs, the formula is reversed as in (GHG value from farmers' practice/value from intervention) × 100.Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.","tokenCount":"2971"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"38fca07a077e5e50e57ca8f095273951","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/47e8bef0-95dc-433d-b00d-2fa4e9e86e0a/retrieve","id":"2070996187"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6c8c656d-a5fd-4443-8ccd-d7d121401fb4","pagecount":"67","content":"combi ni ng or spl i tti ng accessi ons as a tool to i mprove germplasm management efficiency management The International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) is an autonomous international scientific organization, supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). IPGRI's mandate is to advance the conservation and use of genetic diversity for the well-being of present and future generations. IPGRI's headquarters is based in Maccarese, near Rome, Italy, with offices in another 19 countries worldwide. The Institute operates through three programmes: (1) the Plant Genetic Resources Programme, (2) the CGIAR Genetic Resources Support Programme and (3) the International Network for the Improvement of Banana and Plantain (INIBAP).The international status of IPGRI is conferred under an Establishment Agreement which, by January 2001, had been signed and ratified by the Governments of Algeria,The Technical Bulletin series is targeted at scientists and technicians managing genetic resources collections. Each title will aim to provide guidance on choices while implementing conservation techniques and procedures and in the experimentation required to adapt these to local operating conditions and target species. Techniques are discussed and, where relevant, options presented and suggestions made for experiments. The Technical Bulletins are authored by scientists working in the genetic resources area. IPGRI welcomes suggestions of topics for future volumes. In addition, IPGRI would encourage, and is prepared to support, the exchange of research findings obtained at the various genebanks and laboratories.Production of this publication has been triggered by the following observations: (a) It is essential to document good accession management practices that have developed in practical genebank situations, as part of the process of establishing guidelines for optimal genebank management. (b) To date there has been no systematic treatment of issues related to the genetic composition of genebank accessions. (c) Genebank operations are becoming increasingly expensive, not only because of ever increasing collection sizes but also due to permanently rising labour and recurrent costs and the introduction of high-cost molecular and information technologies. This requires new approaches to optimize genebank operations, for example to benefit from the gains in productivity and performance now achievable through the new technologies. (d) There is a need to ensure that genebank management practices are indeed optimal, based on appropriate scientific and economic principles. Rising costs, falling budgets, developing molecular and information technologies, changing expectations are rapidly changing conditions, which present new challenges and opportunities that genebanks must face. To maximize the genetic and economic efficiency of conserving and utilizing ex situ collections of plant genetic resources, genebanks must develop innovative approaches more suited to modern conditions and make use of these opportunities.This Technical Bulletin deals with one aspect of the broader objective of helping to improve genebank management in response to changing conditions. Specifically, it aims to encourage discussion and consideration of the optimum genetic composition of the unit of management that we call the accession: if it is not optimal, should we split or combine accessions?The publication is aimed at curators and other genebank staff. It is meant to be a discussion guide, to provide ideas and suggestions on how management procedures can be improved, and to point to possible implications of a given management procedure. It does not aim to provide a definitive theory on composing genebank collections or on the management of accessions, nor does it attempt to provide a complete overview of possible approaches and procedures. The reader is invited to give feedback to IPGRI (comments, additions, alternative approaches, etc.) on any aspect of the contents, and thus contribute to the discussion started with this publication.The publication has had a long evolution. Following recognition of the problem, IPGRI developed an outline plan, which was revised and developed during a small brainstorming workshop in 2000 to create its final basic structure. This led to a first draft that was presented as a paper and discussed at the International Conference on Science and Technology for Managing Plant Genetic Diversity in the 21st Century (van Hintum et al. 2001). The first draft was finalized among co-authors, following which wide consultation was sought with many other members of the PGR community.It should be noted that IPGRI is currently producing a publication on germplasm collection management strategies with very complementary ideas and approaches to this Technical Bulletin. It addresses conservation strategies in the national and institutional context, which are broader than the more technical procedures presented in this Bulletin.1 IntroductionIn the past, the strategy for creating collections of plant genetic resources for ex situ conservation has often been straightforward: choose a crop, and gather some or all of the available samples. This approach has resulted in many huge collections. World-wide, more than six million samples are stored and conserved as seed and more than half a million are held in field genebanks, in more than 1300 genebanks (FAO 1996).After a first period of collecting, documenting and evaluating accessions, the genebank community has gradually shifted towards a phase of developing strategies for improving the composition and management of collections. With increasing numbers of accessions conserved, increasing requirements for regeneration as seed lose viability and seed stocks become exhausted, decreasing budgets, and the changing role of governments as privatization increases, there is now a need to streamline conservation activities and increase efficiency. The increasing global emphasis on shortterm solutions has further increased the need to justify and streamline long-term conservation, and consequently increased the need to ensure that decisions are optimal in the long-term.Optimizing genebank efficiency involves choosing between many different conflicting demands for limited resources. For example, allocation of resources to running or improving management of a genebank must be assessed against allocating those resources to networking and sharing efforts with other genebanks. The potential benefits of investment in collecting new diversity must be judged against investing in better conservation or utilization of existing collections. Such broader issues are beyond the scope of this publication, which focuses on the issue of optimizing the genetic information contained in a given set of accessions (i.e. a collection).Moreover, genebank management involves many issues that fall beyond the scope of this publication, such as methods for viability monitoring, germplasm health issues, and exploiting new molecular and information technologies. Here we are concerned only with the issue of optimizing the composition of individual accessions.Decisions on what should be included in a collection and how the collection is organized are fundamental to efficient operation of a genebank. In an ex situ collection, each clone or genotype may be managed as a distinct entity. More commonly, a population of genotypes is grouped together and managed as a single unit. For seed samples of obligate outbreeders, we cannot manage each genotype as a separate entity, and the management unit has to be a population of inter-breeding genotypes. Whatever its composition, this unit of management is termed the accession.Grouping different clones or genotypes into a single management unit raises the question, 'What is the optimum grouping?' This question is not new. Decisions have had to be made concerning the composition of accessions ever since the first genebanks started conserving germplasm. The decision-making process starts during the collecting phase (Guarino et al. 1995), and continues during preparation of the samples for inclusion in the genebank collection. A good example is the common practice to separate the different genera or species in a mixed sample. In many genebanks it stops at that point. Other genebanks go further, by separating accessions of selfing crops into different morphotypes (Lehmann and Mansfeld 1957;Hammer et al. 1995).It is often supposed that the unit of management should correspond to the sample of seed or plants received for inclusion in the collection. For example, material received as a single clone is usually managed as a single clone, and material received as a genetically heterogeneous population (e.g. a wild population or mixed landrace) is often managed as a single accession. In some cases this may indeed be appropriate. For example, to conserve a mixed landrace we should conserve not just all its component alleles but all its component genotypes (the combinations of alleles across all loci) at their original frequencies. Depending on its breeding system and the traditional system for maintaining the landrace, and on the conditions or understanding under which the material was obtained, managing the landrace as a single accession may be the only acceptable option.However, a decision to manage each original sample as an accession is not necessarily optimal for efficient conservation or for efficient utilization. If the composition of existing accessions is not optimal, a genebank manager may consider restructuring accessions. Two options are available: accessions may be split or combined. The objective of this publication is to help genebank managers decide what is the optimal composition of accessions, and whether they should consider splitting or combining.Increasing emphasis is being placed on reducing costs by eliminating or combining duplicates. It is obvious that if two accessions in a collection are identical in all aspects, one of them is redundant and should be removed. However, except for pure homozygous lines, accessions will very rarely be identical duplicates. Therefore, the question \"Are the accessions identical?\" should be reformulated as \"Are the accessions sufficiently different to justify managing them as distinct entities?\"Combining accessions is irreversible. Depending on breeding system and genotypic composition and the curator's knowledge of the original genotypic composition, splitting may also be at least partly irreversible. There is therefore a need to consider the consequences of making 'wrong' decisions, and to consider economically feasible ways of correcting wrong decisions by keeping 'backup' copies of the original.It is also necessary to have due regard for the principles of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD 1992) and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA 2001). In particular, the sovereign rights of nations over their biodiversity must be respected. For example, if a curator would combine accessions from different countries of origin, this could lead to problems if one of those countries requested repatriation of their native accessions. It is possible that the only solution would be that the genebank also keeps the original samples, possibly in an archive collection. However, since the exact implications of these international agreements for accession management are not resolved yet, they will not be considered any further in this Technical Bulletin.A recurring and fundamental theme throughout this document is that management decisions depend critically on the objectives of the genebank, in line with its institutional mandate and mission. Genebanks differ in their objectives for conservation and utilization, in the economic constraints under which they operate and in the completeness of their collections.For some genebanks, the need to reduce the cost of maintaining existing collections is becoming of over-riding importance. For others, genetic efficiency and the cost of filling gaps in the collection remain the primary objectives.For some genebanks, emphasis is on efficient facilitation and promotion of the immediate utilization of the active collection as a working collection for breeding, pre-breeding and research. In this case, decisions on accession management should be aimed at maximizing the efficiency of identifying and deploying valuable genes to the user community. For other genebanks, efficient conservation is the primary objective. Many genebanks aim at both objectives, maintaining an active collection for utilization and a base collection under optimal conditions for conservation. Such genebanks have the opportunity to make different decisions for their active and base collections, optimizing them independently for utilization and conservation.Objectives for conservation also differ between genebanks. The focus may be on conserving certain combinations of genes or genotypes, such as landraces or wild populations evolved in a particular habitat. In this case, decisions on accession management must be aimed at maintaining the genetic composition of each accession as close as possible to its original state. Opportunities for splitting or combining accessions are then relatively few. Alternatively the focus may be on maximizing the total genetic diversity conserved in the collection, such as the total number of alleles or total genetic variance or genetic variance among accessions. In this case, maintaining the precise genetic identity of an accession is not as important as ensuring that its genes remain represented somewhere in the collection. Choices to split or combine accessions can then be a more important part of the genebank management process. A single genebank may span both these objectives. For example, it may hold some accessions that must be conserved in their original genetic state, such as heritage landraces, or accessions with detailed genetic data that are valuable only so long as they accurately describe the accessions. At the same time it may hold other accessions whose value lies not in their particular genetic composition per se but rather in their contribution to the total diversity conserved in the collection. Curators of such genebanks may make different management decisions for the different types of accession.Obviously there is a positive correlation between the number of accessions being maintained and the costs of the genebank operation; more accessions means each operation must be undertaken more times. The relationship is not perfect since the cost per accession is not constant, but nevertheless, controlling the number of accessions is a key consideration in managing the genebank's budget. Confronted with increasingly severe financial limitations, genebanks must look critically at collection management procedures. The economic pressure is to limit or reduce the size of a collection, in order to meet the universal genebank objective of minimizing cost. The task facing the genebank manager is to reconcile this increasing economic pressure with other objectives.The size of a collection may be limited by choosing not to add new accessions, and reduced by eliminating existing accessions.Taking such decisions constitutes abrogation of responsibility for conserving those accessions, and as such should be undertaken only after due discussion with, and agreement of, the genebank's funding body, parent organization, user community and related genebanks. Ideally, it should be undertaken only as part of rationalization of collections across genebanks, with inter-genebank agreement on responsibilities for conservation to avoid unnecessary duplication. Such issues are beyond the scope of this publication.The only other option for reducing the size of a collection is to combine accessions. The genebank manager needs to determine whether this option does in fact reduce costs and whether it facilitates or conflicts with other genebank objectives. For example, combining accessions requires additional documentation and could even increase costs per accession for other operations so much as to increase total costs. It can have major genetic consequences, such as increasing the loss of alleles or genotypes during regeneration. The genetic and operational aspects of combining accessions are dealt with in this publication.Conversely, splitting accessions could be economically undesirable because it might increase costs. The general expectation is an increase in costs because of the increase in numbers of accessions to be managed, although, as discussed in this document, in certain situations it may reduce costs if it generates accessions that are easier to manage. It may help improve quality aspects, such as maintenance of genetic integrity, quality of documentation and ease of use; but these potential improvements come with a real economic price to pay. The genebank manager needs to determine whether splitting brings any quality improvements and, if it does, whether these benefits are worth the price to be paid. Genetic and operational aspects of splitting accessions are also dealt with in this publication.A decision concerning the genetic composition of an accession is always made, even if only implicitly, at the moment of including the material as an accession in the collection. Decisions can also be made at any point in ex situ conservation from the point of collecting onwards. At the collecting phase, the future desired composition of the accession could influence the sampling strategy, as will be elaborated in later sections. Decisions can be made when the collection is being reorganized or restructured or when the material in the collection is optimized for use. Decisions can be changed as more information is acquired on accessions. If sub-samples for conservation are kept separately from sub-samples for use, different decisions may be made for different sub-samples.Genebank management operations are interdependent; as a consequence of making a decision for one operation, we may then have to modify other aspects of genebank management. The decision for one operation must therefore not be based on analysis of that operation in isolation, but rather on optimizing the entire genebank performance. For example, harvesting plants individually in a regeneration plot can help reduce genetic drift and shift. However, the higher costs of doing so may make it economically unacceptable unless we use only a small number of plants per plot. So if we choose to harvest plants separately to reduce drift and shift, the consequence is we may have to reduce the number of parents, which has a genetic cost of increasing drift. We should choose balanced bulks (see Section 2.3) only if the genetic benefit for drift and shift exceeds the genetic cost for drift and the economic cost.A conceptual framework for the management of germplasm accessions is presented in Sections 2-4. Genetic issues of the conceptual framework are described in Section 2 (i.e. distribution of genetic variation, correlation between characters, and reproductive characters), and the operational aspects in Section 3 (i.e. regeneration, characterization, evaluation and documentation, storage, viability monitoring, as well as facilitating use). Both reasons for and consequences of deliberate changes of the composition of accessions will be examined in both Sections 2 and 3. Section 4 considers the economics of optimization, formalizing the central objective, which is to maximize value at minimum cost. Based on these concepts, Section 5 presents the implications for the management of different categories of accessions, i.e. clones, true-breeding lines and outbreeders. These implications are illustrated with examples of actual cases where accessions were combined or split to improve efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Based on these theoretical considerations and the actual case studies, Section 6 summarizes some provisional recommendations.In this section we outline the genetic issues that are relevant to a decision to split or combine, i.e. the genetic impact of splitting or combining relative to retaining the original designations. These genetic issues must be considered in the total context of the genebank storing the accessions, which includes the biology of the species concerned, the objectives of the genebank, the economic impacts of splitting or combining accessions, and the impacts of and consequences for optimal management of accessions.The evolutionary processes of mutation, recombination, drift, selection and gene flow form an intrinsic, natural and necessary part of in situ conservation. The same processes also occur during ex situ conservation, except that evolutionary changes occurring in response to the ex situ environment involve qualitatively and quantitatively different patterns of drift, selection and gene flow. Their continuation ex situ thus represents a loss of genetic integrity of the conserved germplasm, which we aim to halt as much as is economically possible. Remembering that the rate of evolutionary change tends to be greatest when the environment and consequent selection pressures change, we expect high rates of change when a population sample is collected and transferred ex situ; the challenge to halt the change is therefore difficult.The principles of ex situ evolutionary change during regeneration have been reviewed by Breese (1989). Alleles and genotypes may be lost from an accession by drift or by selection. Losses may occur by chance sampling effects when sub-sampling for regeneration or storage, by differential mortality during storage or during any stage of the regeneration cycle, and by differential seed set during regeneration. Losses by drift are stochastic 1 and are highest for rare alleles and genotypes. They therefore tend to be highest in genetically variable accessions, since such accessions tend to have most rare alleles and genotypes. Losses by selection are less stochastic and tend also to be highest in genetically variable accessions, although for different reasons and in different ways. 2 In general, therefore, the more variable an accession is, the more difficult is the task of maintaining its genetic composition intact.So, if an accession is genetically variable, we may wish to consider splitting it to create two or more new accessions. To justify splitting an accession, the following conditions must be met.1 That is they occur by chance. This means that at best we can only determine the likelihood that an allele will be lost: we cannot determine exactly when it will be lost.increase the frequency of rare alleles (the subject of this section). 2. The lower variability of the resulting accessions must significantly improve their conservation and utilization (the subject of the next section). 3. The benefits for conservation and utilization must be worth the extra cost of managing more accessions (the subject of Section 4).Conversely, if two or more accessions are genetically similar, we may wish to consider combining them to create a single new accession that is cheaper to conserve or utilize. The key question to resolve is whether combining two accessions increases variability to an extent that may interfere with efficient conservation or utilization. This is a two-part question: 1. What level of intra-accession variability is acceptable or desirable for efficient conservation and utilization? (The subject of the next two sections.) 2. How similar must two accessions be to achieve that level of variability by combining them? (The subject of this section.) Three major genetic issues determine the effect of splitting and combining on the genotypic composition of the resulting accession(s). The first is the distribution of the genetic variation for a character, the second the possible correlation between characters, and the third is the role of the character in reproduction. We shall consider each of these in turn.The possibility of combining accessions on the basis of a character, or separating one accession into groups with different genotypes for a character depends on the ease of scoring the character, the distribution of its expression, and its genetic background. If it is 2The theory of response to selection is complex (see e.g. Mather 1973;Mather and Jinks 1971). The most basic rule is Fisher's (1930) fundamental theorem of natural selection, \"the rate of increase in fitness of any organism is equal to its genetic variance in fitness at that time\". Exactly the same principle applies to artificial selection. Crudely, selection operates through differences in fitness, i.e. differences in reproduction and mortality. The rate of response to selection for a character is proportional to the heritability of that character and the strength of selection, and depends also on the mode of inheritance of the character. Selection for one character will also cause changes in other characters that are pleiotropic expressions of the first or that are genetically linked to the first. Consequences in terms of probabilities and rates of loss of the alleles selected against depend further on the mode of inheritance of the character: for example, recessive alleles are less likely than dominant alleles to be eliminated by selection.difficult or impossible to observe the character state, it obviously is not a good criterion for combining or separation. If the expression of the character has low heritability, it is also not a good criterion for combining or separating.If the expression of a character within an accession follows a discrete distribution function i.e. with a number of distinct states, and each state corresponds to a genotype, and it is easy, cheap and quick to identify the distinct genotypes, then splitting may be a workable option. It is still more likely to be a workable option if the species is inbreeding and the accession comprises a set of homozygous, true breeding lines. Then splitting may produce accessions that are pure lines at least for the character concerned. A small number of states is also better, because a large number of states would require creation of a large number of new accessions, which would have a high cost.If the expression follows a continuous distribution, due to a high environmental effect or a large number of genes involved in the expression, splitting the accession to form two or more new accessions is usually less beneficial. Splitting may produce accessions with lower genetic variance within accessions than the original, but the extent of reduction is smaller, especially if heritability is not high. The resulting small reduction in withinaccession genetic variance will in most cases have relatively small impact on drift and selection, and the increased costs of maintenance are unlikely to be justifiable. Fitness characters are an exception to this rule, as discussed below.The efficacy of splitting is still lower for outbreeding populations, since they contain heterozygotes with genetic variation 'hidden' as recessive alleles in heterozygotes. In this case, even if identification of parental genotypic states is perfect, the progeny will include genotypes that do not conform to the parental state. In outbreeding populations, it is also necessary to avoid inbreeding depression, which may be caused by splitting using too few plants for a new accession in an attempt to reduce variance.Conversely, forming one new accession by combining two or more original accessions may be a workable option if the accessions have similar distributions of genotypes and it is easy, cheap and quick to identify the distribution of genotypes. This will result in little increase in drift and selection, or even no increase if they are identical. It is still necessary for the character to have high heritability, since otherwise we cannot confidently measure their similarity. In contrast, the presence or absence of heterozygotes and outbreeding will not strongly influence a decision to combine. Accessions should not be combined if they are homozygous for different discrete states. Thus, to be potentially useful in decisions on splitting or combining accessions, a character must be highly heritable and easy, cheap and quick to measure. To be useful for splitting accessions, a character must be present within accessions as a small number of discrete homozygous states. To be potentially useful for combining accessions, the character may be continuous or discrete, homozygous or heterozygous; we just need to be able to quantify genetic variation within and between accessions.At this point we will have decided either that a character is definitely not useful for splitting or combining, or that it might be useful. If it is an agronomically important character but difficult or expensive to measure, it may be appropriate to split solely on the basis of that character, as discussed in the next section. If a character state is rare within a given accession so that many plants of that accession must be screened to find another example, it may be appropriate to split opportunistically when the rare character state is detected. More generally, if we decide a character might be useful, whether it is indeed useful then depends on further genetic considerations discussed in the next two sections.If genetic variation within an accession for one character is not correlated with genetic variation in other characters, then splitting an accession on the basis of that character is likely to be relatively ineffective. If the character is present as a small number of discrete, easily identifiable homozygous states, splitting will be effective for the character concerned, but without correlations it would not reduce genetic variation within accessions for any other character. This is illustrated in Fig. 1 (a) and (b), in which splitting on the basis of character A would not help reduce variation in character B. The only acceptable reason for splitting in this situation would be that character A is expensive to measure or of high importance for current utilization, such that it is considered desirable to fix the genotype of that character regardless of the rest of its genome.Conversely, if genetic variation within an accession for one character is correlated with genetic variation in other characters, the character is more likely to be useful as a basis for splitting accessions. Splitting an accession in this way first requires that the character be present as a small number of discrete, easily identifiable homozygous states, but its efficacy depends on the magnitude and cause of correlation. Under appropriate conditions, splitting will reduce variance not only for the character concerned but also for the other correlated characters, as illustrated in Fig. 1(c).Similarly, knowledge of correlations between characters is also required for decisions on combining similar or duplicate accessions. If two homozygous accessions are historically duplicate (i.e. derived by random sub-sampling from the same original seed lot), they would need to be scored for only a few distinguishing characters to confirm whether they are biologically duplicate. In the case of outbreeders, and of inbreeders without prior expectation of being duplicates, many more characters are needed.Different characters may be correlated by three mechanisms. First, they may be pleiotropic expressions of a single gene locus. For example, genes controlling 'size' may simultaneously influence the size of leaves, petioles, flowers etc. Expression of pleiotropic characters will inevitably be correlated. This form of correlation should be disregarded since it involves the same loci.Second, characters may be correlated through genetic linkage. This occurs when the gene loci controlling the characters are so close together on a chromosome that they tend to be inherited together. Information on linkage between genes is becoming widely available in the form of genetic linkage maps for many species (e.g. Lombard and Delourme 2001;Ortiz et al. 2001): defining length in terms of linkage, chromosomes tend to Fig. 1. Some hypothetical distributions of character expressions within an accession, illustrating the importance of correlations between characters. In all cases, character A shows a discontinuous distribution with two distinct states, and is therefore a potential candidate for splitting accessions. Splitting into two accessions on the basis of the character state for character A will also reduce variance within-accessions for character B only in example (c) where the two characters are correlated. be of the order of 100 centiMorgans (cM) in length. 3 A few species have mechanisms that unite the entire genome into a single 'supergene' (such as the translocation ring joining all 14 chromosomes of most species of Oenothera: see e.g. Chapman and Mulcahy 1997). In this case, splitting by one character will effectively reduce intra-accession diversity of all characters. However, this is an extreme case. In most species, only a few characters will be correlated by genetic linkage, and splitting will help reduce variance only for these characters.Thirdly, characters may be correlated by descent from a common ancestor: all the descendants of one plant share the set of characters inherited from the common ancestor. For mixtures of inbred lines or populations of obligate inbreeders or apomicts, the correlation by descent is complete and the complete correlation spans the entire genome. In these cases, splitting an accession on the basis of one appropriate character is fully effective in reducing intra-accession diversity for all loci. For wild populations of inbreeding species, the correlation will also span the entire genome but may be less complete because selfing rates are rarely 100%. Correlation by descent can be increased by forced inbreeding, e.g. by preventing cross-pollination during regeneration, and this can be a useful pre-cursor to splitting.The genetic neighbourhood area of wild plant populations (Crawford 1984) is usually remarkably small. It is usually much smaller than the area sampled as a single accession by collectors (Sackville Hamilton and Chorlton 1995;Hayward and Sackville Hamilton 1997). The area sampled may then comprise a set of genetically distinct, but often overlapping, sub-populations. In such cases the original sample of collected seed, if treated as a single population, shows a relatively high level of apparent inbreeding even if the species is an obligate outbreeder, and plants from the same sub-population will have high correlation by descent. One cycle of seed multiplication is enough to remove this correlation completely if the sample is grown as a single panmictic unit. However, depending on collecting and storage methodology, in some cases it may still be possible to classify seed according to their original sub-population, and this can provide a good basis for subdividing samples of variable 3 One cM is defined as the length of DNA separating two genes between which there is a 1% probability of recombination during meiosis. On average, 1 cM is roughly equivalent to 10 6 nucleotide base pairs, although this varies widely between 'hot' and 'cold' spots of recombination.wild populations, regardless of breeding system, into more homogeneous units.Variation in reproductive characters within an accession has a direct impact on drift and selection, i.e. on random and nonrandom changes in genetic composition of the accession.Micro-environmental variation within regeneration plots results in drift. For example, if one plant in a regeneration plot happens to be in a relatively nutrient-rich patch of soil, that plant may have a higher yield and so contribute more pollen and seed than the other plants to the next generation. This represents a chance change in genetic composition of the accession in favour of the genotype of that plant. Since this is purely a chance factor, with no systematic bias favouring any plant of that genotype, by definition it constitutes random drift and not systematic selection.Conversely, genetic variation for reproductive characters results in selection. That is, any genotype that increases male or female contribution to the progeny generation by definition results in a systematic increase in frequency of that genotype in the progeny seed. The direction and strength of selection may vary with year, location (including location of the regeneration site and location of the plot within the regeneration site) or management.The existence of any kind of heritable variation within an accession in fitness characters may provide justification for splitting it. Conversely, the existence of any kind of heritable variation between two accessions in reproductive characters may rule out the possibility of combining them.For example, the number of flowers produced by a plant is a major determinant of its male and female contribution to the progeny generation. Heritable variation in male and female contributions constitutes selection pressure favouring the most productive genotypes. The selection also favours any character that contributes to high pollen and seed production in the regeneration environment (such as plant size, growth rate, developmental triggers controlling the onset of flowering, thermotolerance when regenerating in a hot climate, etc). Splitting an accession into high-and low-yielding genotypes may help reduce the selection even if the distribution is continuous. The potential benefit of splitting by fecundity must be compared with alternative approaches. Alternatives include pruning to equalize the number of flowers or inflorescences, and taking a balanced bulk (i.e. harvesting seed separately from each mother plant, taking an equal number of seed from each and bulking them to form the accession). A balanced bulk eliminates both drift and selection through female contributions but does not control male contribution, whereas splitting reduces both female and male fitness differentials but does not control drift.Another important character is maturity date. If intra-specific genetic diversity for maturity date is high, there may be no single satisfactory harvest date. An early harvest will select for earliness by eliminating the late plants. A late harvest may select for lateness if ripe seed drop from the early plants before harvest. An intermediate harvest may lose variation by eliminating both early and late plants. Splitting an accession by maturity date may help reduce such selection. As with other reproductive characters, it will also reduce selection for all characters that contribute to earliness or lateness. An alternative approach is to take multiple non-destructive harvests, ideally all of the same size.In summary, splitting accessions can improve conservation only if it is highly effective in reducing variation within accessions. This condition applies primarily to inbreeding species, but in the case of reproductive characters it can be used for a wider range of species. Combining accessions can be economically desirable and genetically acceptable for all types of species, but only if the economic benefits of combining exceed the costs of identifying which accessions to combine. This means it must be easy to quantify genetic variation within and between accessions, and there must be some prior expectation of duplicity (i.e. identical passport data), so that observing genetic duplication for a few alleles can be extrapolated to assume genetic duplication at all alleles.3 Conceptual framework: operational issuesSplitting increases and lumping decreases the number of accessions in a collection. This has direct implications for all aspects of genebank management. In general, increasing the number of accessions will increase the number of times each operation must be repeated, so that splitting accessions will tend to increase the cost of all genebank operations. If the genebank's budget is fixed, the curator cannot increase the cost of genebank operations; then increasing the number of accessions can be accommodated only by reducing the resources that are available for conserving and utilizing each accession. However, this universal effect has to be balanced with other effects, which can be slightly more complicated. For example, if management protocols can be simplified for genetically uniform accessions, a large number of uniform accessions may be cheaper to conserve than a small number of variable accessions. Thus there is not a simple direct relationship between the size of a collection and the cost of maintenance, and total cost of conserving many uniform accessions is not necessarily higher than that of conserving fewer more variable accessions. These effects will be discussed below separately for routine genebank activities.The main issue here is maintenance of the genetic integrity of the accession during regeneration, and the price to pay. The greater the number of accessions, the less input for regeneration per accession is available for a given genebank capacity. But reducing the number of accessions by lumping usually increases diversity within the accessions; and the more diversity within the accession, the higher the magnitude of shift and selection if not properly managed. Choosing to split or combine accessions may therefore require changes to the regeneration protocol (Sackville Hamilton and Chorlton 1997), and consideration of the costs and implications of these changes must be included in the decision-making process.The major threats to loss of genetic integrity during regeneration are drift as a result of random effects, selection as a result of a higher fitness of some genotypes, and contamination with alien pollen or seed (Sackville Hamilton and Chorlton 1997). In general, the more diversity there is in an accession, the higher the threat of drift and selection, and the more difficult it is to recognize contamination. At one extreme, for an accession consisting of one homozygous genotype of an inbreeding species (e.g. a modern variety of barley) there is no risk of loss of genetic integrity by drift or selection. The only risk is of contamination by mechanical mixing with seed other accessions, and the regeneration protocol must be chosen to minimize that risk and to identify contaminants.For a mixture of genotypes (irrespective of whether homozygous or heterozygous, inbreeding or outbreeding), care must be taken to ensure that the composition of the accession stays the same. The regeneration protocol should seek to avoid selection and drift, since both processes will result in a change of the frequencies of genotypes, or even the loss of genotypes. Furthermore contamination is more difficult to detect since the accession already contains different types. Therefore, maintaining genetic integrity of a heterogeneous accession is more demanding than for homogeneous homozygous accession, and can therefore be more expensive.Splitting one heterogeneous accession to create several more homogeneous accessions might prove beneficial for achieving these aims with the given resources, particularly with inbreeding species. If the process of splitting is taken too far with outbreeding species, there is a risk that the resulting relatively uniform lines will suffer inbreeding depression.However, even for an 'easy' crop such as barley, maintaining the genetic integrity of genebank accessions can prove very difficult. A recent study revealed that the effective population size in barley regenerations using an estimated 600 plants, was only 4.7 (Parzies et al. 2000). van Hintum and Visser (1995) showed that duplicate barley accessions had developed into quite different mixtures in different genebanks. Both studies looked at the consequences of historical protocols, and therefore may not accurately reflect the consequences of modern regeneration protocols.Different measures are required to prevent contamination, selection and drift. This means that, with limited resources, the curator may have to choose which component is most important to prevent. For example, avoidance of drift involves the use of a large number of parent plants, but increasing the number of plants per accession reduces the resources that can be invested in each plant, and this may prevent effective application of measures to control contamination and selection. This need for prioritizing the factors causing loss of genetic integrity complicates the decision on whether regeneration protocols should be altered following splitting or lumping. Part of the decision-making process should include a consideration of whether the curator should also change the relative priorities attached to contamination, selection and drift.In some cases, a valid strategy is to use a small number of plants per accession despite the resulting greater loss of diversity due to drift. The reason for this is the easier management of the regenerations: less space is needed per accession and more care can be taken per accession. For example in one case curators chose to take only 30 plants per accession of the outbreeding ryegrass, so that using balanced bulks and isolation chambers became economically feasible. Possible drift is accepted, since eliminating pollen contamination and reducing selection were considered higher priorities.In another case, a curator chose only eight parent plants per accession of the inbreeding crop lettuce. The intra-accession diversity was considered small and relatively unimportant, and the cost per plant was very high as a result of the complicated and expensive treatments of the individual plants during regeneration such as cutting the heads, GA 3 treatment, staking, etc. The acceptance of drift allowed inclusion of a considerably higher number of accessions in the collection.Intra-accession variation complicates efforts to describe and record character states. Although some systems for recording this diversity have been devised, it remains a problem for both qualitative and quantitative diversity. As a result, it is often neglected although the deviating minority genotypes might determine the value of an accession. Furthermore the experiments needed for efficient description of intra-accession diversity require more plants and are therefore more expensive than those where only the majority or the average is described.To be able to score intra-accession diversity of qualitative characters, the experiment should allow the expression of differences between the character states. Depending on the genetic background and the minimum frequency that should be detected, a considerable number of plants may be needed to reliably detect an allele. For example, if a recessive allele occurs at a frequency of 5% in a panmictic population, 1197 plants must be observed to be 95% sure that the allele is detected. 4  Moreover, once the intra-accession diversity is observed, the question arises how it should be recorded and documented. Several systems have been devised to solve this problem, including a scoring protocol that denotes the presence of diversity without specifying what, the recording of estimates of the frequencies of each score, or intermediate approaches (e.g. Rana et al. 1991;van Hintum 1993). Further complications arise at the point that the scores need to be retrieved, e.g. how to query the database, how to extract data in a form suitable for statistical analysis, how to combine data scored or stored following different systems.In the case of quantitative characters there is another problem connected to intra-accession diversity, namely that environmental variance is entangled with genetic diversity. Large scale experiments are needed to quantify the genetic component. This is very rarely done, and consequently within-accession variation for such characters will often simply be neglected altogether.Splitting accessions into more homogeneous accessions may help reduce these problems, especially for inbreeding species. The extra costs of evaluating heterogeneous accessions need to be assessed against the cost and genetic efficiency of separating accessions into uniform components. In the case of lumping accessions, care should be taken that these problems are not created or aggravated.A choice to split or combine of accessions itself needs to be documented. Data on the original accession(s) should be retained on the curator's database regardless of whether seed of the original accession(s) are retained in the seed store. Pedigree information must be recorded relating the new to the original accession(s). Some of the required data elements should already be available in the database, such as who did it and when. The database manager may need to establish new elements of pedigree information, such as the reason and methodology for splitting or combining.The chance of finding a phenotype occurring with the frequency f p in a sample of n plants is 1-(1-f p ) n . The frequency of a phenotype (f p ) corresponding with a homozygous recessive allele occurring with frequency f g in a panmictic population will be f g 2 .The most obvious effect of splitting or lumping accessions on the storage of genetic material will be, as for other operations, that of the numbers of accessions. It can also have implications for other aspects of storage.The minimum number of seeds that must be stored and distributed depends in part on the requirement to maintain the genetic diversity within the original sample, and to distribute that same range of diversity to users. If there is no diversity in the accession, or the curator accepts the loss of diversity, the minimum numbers can be smaller. This might be relevant especially in the case where the size of the seeds determines the capacity of the collection or where the size of container limits the number of seeds that can be stored for each accession. If the crop is inbreeding, it might be preferable to split the accessions up into homogeneous sub-samples. This would allow the curator to regenerate on the basis of only the number of plants needed for sufficient seed production, and to send users only very few seeds.Many genebanks maintain separate active and base collections. The base collection is held in optimal conditions for long-term storage, and exists for optimal conservation. The active collection exists to facilitate utilization, and is held in conditions where access is easy. The existence of more than one seed sample of each accession raises the possibility that different management decisions can be applied to different samples. For example, if combining accessions facilitates utilization but adversely affects the quality of conservation, the curator may consider combining them in the active collection but retaining the original accessions in the base collection.This concept can be taken further as an insurance against wrong decisions. For example, if two accessions have been identified as duplicates and therefore combined, the curator may consider 'archiving' small samples of the original accessions in optimal storage conditions along with the base collection. Then, if future evidence suggests the decision to combine was wrong, the curator can revert to the original accessions. Such a decision is feasible where the marginal costs of archiving is low, for example where the long-term storage facility has unused space available. The process of identifying duplicates will usually involve a statistical analysis that enables a degree of confidence to be attached to the statement that two given accessions are duplicates. To reduce costs of archiving, a curator may choose to archive the original accessions only for the decisions where the level of confidence is relatively low.A completely different implication of accession management on seed storage relates to the conservation of wild populations that are subdivided into genetically distinct sub-populations. Storage of the population sample in a single container loses this genetic population structure, permits random crossing between genotypes that would not normally cross and therefore creates new recombinants, and a panmictic population that is more variable than the original subpopulations and that is therefore subject to greater drift and selection.An option to help overcome this problem is to use a different container to store the seed of each subpopulation in the base collection while managing the entire population as a single accession. That is, seed of all subpopulations would be mixed to form a single seed sample in the active collection, and documentation and utilization would be based on the entire population. Repeat regeneration for utilization would involve taking an equal number of seed from each subpopulation to form a mixed parental generation. Benefits of such a system include improved control of drift and shift during regeneration, and the potential to study genetic subdivision of populations. It may be justified if the additional costs are low.An alternative option is to split into sub-populations completely and maintain each as a different accession. The additional costs of doing so are potentially high, since the number of accessions to be regenerated, documented and characterized is multiplied by the number of subpopulations. It may be justified if the population comprises a small number of highly distinct sub-populations.A decision on use of multiple containers must be made at the time of collection, since once seeds are mixed, it is not possible to return to the original subdivided population structure.The main issue here is that splitting or combining directly affects the numbers of seed lots whose viability must be monitored. One additional point, however, needs to be raised. In the case of variable accessions, there might be a difference of viability between the different components. Consider the case of a mixture of two genotypes, of which one occurring in 90% 'stores well', and the other with frequency 10% 'stores less well'. At a certain moment in time the small fraction will have completely died whereas the viability test does not indicate the necessity to regenerate.In theory this danger could be reduced by reducing the intraaccession diversity, although this is likely to be difficult. Detecting intra-accession diversity for seed longevity is exceptionally expensive and slow. Splitting on the basis of other characteristics will not reduce intra-accession diversity for seed longevity unless they are correlated, such as in the case of mixtures of homozygous lines. Moreover, non-genetic variation in seed storage characteristics, e.g. associated with harvesting at different stages of seed maturity, can mask any genetic variation in some species. Therefore, it is generally not cost effective to attempt to reduce this danger.An equivalent situation can arise when combining accessions if the seed lots being combined have different seed quality. This situation should be avoided by always rejuvenating seed before combining to ensure the same seed quality.Facilitating the use of genebank material is a key element in genebank operation. For the user the quality of a genebank depends to a large extent on the ease of use of the conserved germplasm. Combining or splitting accessions can have a direct effect on this.If the user is looking for character states that can be observed from single plants in a population, there might be a preference for highly variable accessions, allowing the screening of many plants from a limited number of accessions. If a collection consists of 1000 accessions that can be classified in 50 groups, it might be an option to include in the active collection 50 bulked samples each containing all accessions within the each group. A user might prefer to evaluate the 50 bulked accessions rather than the 1000 individual accessions, if the character states of interest can be more easily found in the bulked samples. This is likely to apply only for highly visible character states such as disease resistance in a heavily infected plot, and only where it is possible to easily to recognize individual plants within a plot, and only if the scoring system is tailored to recording individual plants. The system may also have benefits for the curator, since it reduces the number of accessions that need to be distributed. The curator will need to consider whether all users prefer to evaluate bulked accessions, or whether it is necessary to retain the original as well as the bulked accessions in the active collection.Maintenance of genetic integrity of the bulks is likely to be more difficult. The curator should therefore consider bulking in the active collection only, and retaining the unbulked accessions in the base collection.Many characters are scored on whole populations rather than single plants, by choice or necessity. It is necessary in grass swards because it is difficult to distinguish single plants within a dense population. It also applies for characters where the contrast between desirable and undesirable genotypes is not visually striking, so that it is difficult to detect elite plants within a population. It also applies where the user's methodology is based on scoring whole populations, and observing individual plants is inconvenient. In all three cases, alleles present at low frequency will not be detected, and identifying elite populations from among a large number of relatively uniform accessions will be more efficient than trying to identify elite individuals within a few populations.In these cases, improving the quality of genebank accessions from the user perspective can involve selections within accessions or splitting accessions into more homogeneous groups.In addition, modern varieties must be genetically uniform. When using landraces or wild populations, breeders have to select for uniformity. In this case, splitting variable accessions constitutes pre-breeding that helps achieve the level of intra-accession diversity that the breeder requires.Analysis of the costs and benefits of genebank operations is fundamental to efficient genebank management. In the context of this document, we need to know quantitatively the economic implications of splitting or combining accessions, relative to leaving them 'as is'. However, no simplified methodology is on hand that genebank managers can use to conduct a comprehensive cost-benefit calculation. This is because of conceptual and measurement problems associated with the benefits calculation. There is sufficient methodology, however, to enable genebank managers to conduct a thorough analysis of costs. With this methodology, managers can assess the relative cost of their operations. Moreover, the methodology is an appropriate one when managers have the objective of minimizing costs subject to maintaining some level of viable, genetic diversity. For this section we will briefly summarize what is known, highlight what is missing from our economic understanding and then outline the issues that should be addressed.The most comprehensive information available to date details the costs of conservation as estimated by compiling data from records kept by genebank managers (Burstin et al. 1997;Epperson et al. 1997;Pardey et al. 2001). Pardey et al. (2001) give comprehensive details of the production economics theory and calculations they have used to construct cost estimates for the maize and wheat genebanks held at CIMMYT. The essential notion of production economics is that outputs are produced with some combination of inputs. The institutions and technological environment that prevail at a point in time predetermine the combination of inputs, though these factors change over time. Applied to the case of a genebank, the inputs of labour, equipment, and acquired seeds are processed to produce outputs in the form of stored, viable seeds and accompanying information. Properly stored seeds and relevant information can be disseminated immediately for current use, or placed in the storage facility as options that can be exercised (repeatedly if necessary) in future years.Costs of inputs to the genebank operation are broadly classified as variable, capital, and quasi-fixed. Variable inputs are those that are sensitive to the size of the operation, capital inputs as those that are not, and quasi-fixed inputs as a group of inputs that are neither fixed nor variable, but 'lumpy.' A quasi-fixed input is 'lumpy' in the sense that it is a discrete, indivisible unit that cannot be adjusted easily with fluctuation in the extent of genebank operations; it is variable in that it is more easily adjusted than a capital item such as the building itself. In the framework outlined by Pardey et al. (200), skilled labour with scientific expertise, such as the genebank manager and laboratory scientists, are classified as quasi-fixed inputs. Technicians and temporary workers, or those paid on an hourly basis, are treated as variable labour inputs. Over a sufficiently small size range-i.e. the size range over which we would not alter the complement of skilled labour-quasi-fixed inputs can be regarded as fixed, so that costs can be classified simply into fixed and variable.Consider the effect of varying the size of the genebank operation (Fig. 2). By definition the fixed costs do not vary with size, so are represented by a horizontal line on a plot of total cost vs. size. Some variable costs would vary in direct proportion to the size of the operation; for example the number and therefore total cost of labels used for regeneration plots will increase in direct proportion to the number of accessions regenerated each year. However, overall the 'law of diminishing marginal returns' is typically assumed for production factors as the size of the operation becomes large. This law reflects the classical proposition, still widely recognized as empirically valid, that the physical productivity of an individual factor, such as labour, declines as more is added while all other inputs are held constant.  Diminishing marginal returns is reflected in Fig. 2 in as an upwards curvature in the line for total variable cost towards the right of the graph.Costs per accession can be expressed in two ways (Fig. 3), as average and marginal costs.The marginal cost per accession is the increase in total cost of the genebank caused by adding one more accession to the collection. By definition this increase in cost involves only variable cost elements. The law of diminishing marginal returns is reflected in the increase in marginal cost as the collection becomes large.The average cost per accession is the total cost of running the genebank divided by the number of accessions in the collection. It has two components, average fixed cost and average variable cost. Average fixed cost is the total fixed cost divided by the number of accessions, which, because total fixed costs are constant, monotonically decreases as the number of accessions increases. By contrast, average variable cost is in general U-shaped. As the number of accessions increases from a small size, the operation becomes more efficient and average variable cost decreases. After a certain minimum level of cost, it increases with the number of accessions due to excessive use of variable resources given fixed factors.Because of the fixed costs, average cost per accession typically decreases as the size of the collection increases. It reaches a minimum at the point where average cost = marginal cost. Above this point, average cost increases with the number of accessions, but this reflects excessive and inefficient use of variable resources for a given level of fixed costs, and genebanks should not normally operate in this region.We identify two particular difficulties that restrict our ability to apply a simple formula in order to optimize the composition of accessions: the quantification of cost per accession and the quantification of benefits.Published estimates of costs based on records kept by genebank managers (Burstin et al. 1997;Epperson et al. 1997;Pardey et al. 2001) are for total costs of running the genebank. From this information, the average cost per accession can be easily and accurately calculated.On the other hand, marginal costs are difficult to estimate. They cannot be calculated from genebank managers' financial records even with a long time series of historical data. The genebank manager does not keep records of what the genebank would have cost if one more or one less accession had been kept during year-yet that is the information needed to calculate marginal costs.Yet for the purpose of guiding management decisions, what we need to know is the marginal cost, not the average cost per accession. If we need to choose whether to change from action A to action B for an accession, the average costs of actions A and B are irrelevant. Instead, we need to know what would be the cost saving achieved by not doing action A, and the marginal extra cost of doing action B instead.Economists typically apply theoretical principles to make assumptions that allow estimation of marginal cost. One of three assumptions can be made as follows. (i) Over the relevant size range, marginal costs are constant. (ii) Curators are operating at the most efficient point possible, where average costs have reached a minimum level. At this point, marginal cost equals average cost. (iii) Fixed cost items (capital or quasi-fixed inputs) are utilized at a less-than-full capacity. In this case, marginal costs are always less than average cost.For practical purposes, the third case is generally assumed and the average costs are interpreted as upper bounds of the corresponding marginal costs. However, clearly this is not entirely satisfactory.Much of this document is concerned with genetic impacts, on the assumption that improving conservation of genetic diversity has a value and a benefit. To choose an optimal conservation strategy by maximizing benefits relative to costs, we must be able to quantify benefits. How can this be achieved?Conceptual advances in estimating benefits have been hindered by the fact that crop genetic resources generate values with multiple dimensions. Progress in empirical analysis has also been hampered by measurement difficulties, since only some dimensions of the value of crop genetic resources are revealed in market prices. The value derived from crop genetic resources is broadly categorized as use value and non-use value. Sometimes referred to as existence values, non-use values reflect the satisfaction individuals or societies may derive simply from knowing that something exists, independently of whether it is used (Krutilla 1967). It is difficult to imagine, however, that many people, other than a few specialists, derive pleasure only from being assured that crop genetic resources are housed somewhere in a genebank. Instead, crop species are conserved precisely because they are thought to embody alleles of potential use to human society. Most value associated with the accessions in a genebank collection is derived from their use rather than their mere existence. Use value includes current use value and expected future use value, as well as the value of retaining the flexibility to respond to some unknown, future event-called option value. Overviews and surveys discussing the sources of economic value in crop genetic resources are numerous, including Pearce and Moran (1994) and Swanson (1996).Both current and future use values can be estimated through market prices when a product or good, such as grain or seed, is traded. We can use forms of 'hedonic analysis' to ascertain the current value for productivity enhancement of crop genetic resources embodied in crop varieties (Evenson et al. 1998). A genebank collection, in contrast to a breeder's working collection, exists to a large extent in order to respond to future, unforeseen challenges, and therefore the expected future use value of a genebank collection is an important component of its total value. We can, with some methodological difficulty and a number of caveats, calculate a present value of expected future benefits from direct use of germplasm in crop improvement. We do so by combining the probability of finding useful material with its predicted productivity benefit once it is found and incorporated into new varieties. The time required to search for and incorporate useful genes into well-adapted germplasm affects the magnitude of expected benefits in a major way because of the time value of money.Option value is similar to expected future use value conceptually, but distinct from it in practice. For example, we might use the past incidence of changes in rust disease pathogens or other major pest outbreaks to predict the expected future value of certain types of accessions as sources for new sources of resistance for a known pest. However, there are some pests and other environmental events for which we have no prior knowledge at all. Accessions, and collections of accessions, can have option value related to this uncertainty-but determining its magnitude is difficult.Crop genetic resources are public goods and market prices generally fail to capture the full value of public goods. While recent changes in intellectual property rights may alter the public good nature of crop genetic resources, the problem of relying on market prices to assign value to streams of direct use benefits from utilization of accessions in crop improvement is likely to persist. Finally, there are many current and future uses of genebank accessions other than their direct use in breeding new crop varieties-and many of these are contributions to other types of public goods, such as knowledge.Alongside conceptual overviews of the sources of value, several theoretical economic models have analysed the value of genetic resources (For example, Brown and Goldstein 1984;Weitzman 1993;Polasky and Solow 1995;Simpson et al. 1996;Evenson and Lemarié 1998). By contrast, there are few published examples that use empirical data to estimate the value of genebank collections. Evenson and Gollin (1997) traced the flow of rice germplasm from the International Rice Research Institute into improved varieties grown in the developing world, and estimated that adding 1000 accessions to the collection was associated with annual income of US$325 million in present value terms. Gollin et al. (2000) studied several cases of the search for resistance among germplasm stored in a wheat collection at CIMMYT genebank, drawing inferences about the optimal size of collections and the conditions under which marginal accessions may or may not have high value. Zohrabian (2000) estimated the lower-bound value of an additional accession in the U.S. soybean collection, concluding that while the absolute value may not be great in absolute terms, it more than justified its cost.Unfortunately, none of the above treatments of value addresses the question of how much the use value might be increased by improving the genetic efficiency of conservation. Part of the problem lies in the need to estimate the expected benefit B in terms that can be compared with the cost C. That is, we must be able to assign a value in monetary equivalents (a price in some currency) to all of the multiple dimensions of benefits mentioned above. In fact, most genebank managers face fixed budgets in the short-term. Their objective in such circumstances is to maximize expected net benefits given their budget constraint, or to be as 'cost-effective' as possible in their management. In that case, regardless of how they measure benefits, if expenditures are fixed, they can pursue their objective by choosing the strategy that maximizes expected benefits for the outlay. Stated differently, they can maximize the ratio of expected benefits to costs. It is important, however, that costs be calculated correctly, as outlined in the next section. Benefits could be measured by whatever criterion we judge appropriate, which in the case of genebanks means some measure of genetic efficiency of conservation and utilization, rather than a figure expressed in monetary terms. Then management decisions should be based on comparing the expected benefits associated with a set of options, all of which have the same total cost. However, even so, benefits of genebanks, and more especially the options available to us for measuring genetic efficiency, are multi-dimensional. For example, maximizing genetic efficiency embodies, inter alia, the following components: minimizing drift, minimizing selection, maximizing the number of distinct alleles conserved, maximizing between-accession genetic variance, minimizing the genetic distance between the current and original seed samples of each accession, and maximizing the ease of identifying and locating an allele in the collection. If we could quantitatively assess the relative impacts of each of these on current and expected future use values, we would be able to derive a single objective function to maximize. However, this is not currently possible. We do not know which component of genetic efficiency is most important, yet without this knowledge we cannot identify the management that will maximize expected benefits.In practice this brings us back to the need to establish clear genebank objectives in the context of the genebank's institutional mandate and mission. We first define what we are seeking to do in terms of conserving and utilizing genetic diversity, in the form of a quantifiable criterion. Maximizing an agreed quantifiable criterion should be set as one of the genebank objectives. If we accept that criterion as our best predictor of current or expected future use value, and fix our budget so that we have only to maximize our selected criterion-then we can begin to solve the problem of choosing the optimal management strategy.With the above caveats, we can outline in principle the steps that are required assess the economic costs of either lumping or splitting accessions. We need to begin by identifying all the cost elements of running the genebank (Table 1). We then need to identify the basic operations like those presented by Pardey et al. (2001)-e.g. acquisition, medium-term storage, long-term storage, germination testing, dissemination, safety duplication, regeneration, information management, general management. Next, we need to consider the impact of lumping or splitting on each of these activities presented, in accordance with the relevant considerations described in Section 3. The nature of the economic assessment depends on the magnitude and conditions of re-structuring that is being considered: • If the splitting and/or lumping is to be undertaken with no change in capital infrastructure, then we can simply ignore the capital costs. • If it is to be undertaken with no change in the complement of senior scientists, then the total quasi-fixed costs must be held constant. This means that any increase in senior scientist inputs for one activity must be accompanied by an equivalent reduction for other activities. • If the genebank is assigned a non-negotiable fixed total budget, then the same applies to the total for variable (labour plus non-labour) costs. Then, for each cost component of each activity, two key estimates must be generated. First, we must determine the impact on the number of accessions to be processed each year. For storage this is simple: splitting an accession into two and discarding the original increases the number stored by one; and combining two accessions into one and discarding the originals reduces the number stored by one. For germination testing there will be, at least in the long-term, a pro rata increase/decrease associated with splitting/lumping. For regeneration there might be complex dependencies on usage. For dissemination and chatacterization the genebank manager may have greater flexibility in choosing which and how many accessions are disseminated and characterized each year, independently of the number stored.Second, we must determine the impact on the efforts required to maintain the quality of the accessions processed each year -and hence estimate the effect on average costs per accession. This is probably one of the most difficult parts of the process. As outlined above, existing analyses of genebank costs are retrospective, first calculating total economic cost and then estimating average cost by dividing the total cost by the number of accessions. For planning to lump or split, managers need to estimate future average costs per accessions that will result from a change in management procedures. For example, after careful consideration of the elements of the handling procedure, we might estimate that the average costs per accession will rise by 10%.Then, the manager's best estimate of the change in total costs would be given by multiplying the expected change in costs per accession multiplied by the change in total numbers of accessions processed annually. By doing this we shall have completed the achievable half of the economic analysis-impacts on economic costs. The remainder-impacts on value-is beyond the scope of this document and beyond the achievements of any genebank analysis undertaken to date.In this section we consider some specific situations where splitting or combining accessions may be appropriate. We classify accessions according to the breeding system of the species and the magnitude of genetic variation present within them. We also present a selection of examples for different collections where different genetic, operational and economic constraints have resulted in the application of contrasting management decisions.Different factors are relevant for clonal species, true-breeding genotypes (inbreeders and apomicts) and outbreeders. For seed collections (true-breeding and outbreeders), the relative importance of different factors varies with the magnitude of intraaccession diversity. The scale of intra-accession diversity is illustrated in three categories: varieties and breeders' lines are the most uniform, landraces are generally more variable, and wild populations are usually the most variable. Each of these situations is exemplified here.The difference between cultivated and wild populations lies not only in the amount but also in the distribution of intrapopulation diversity. It is usually distributed at random among the genotypes of a landrace but non-randomly in wild populations. Wild populations of many species of plant have a remarkably small 'genetic neighbourhood area' (Crawford 1984;Cahalan and Gliddon 1985;Beattie and Culver 1979;Kerster and Levin 1968;Levin and Kerster 1968;Richards and Ibrahim 1978;Schmitt 1980). 5 The distribution of pollen and seed dispersal is highly skewed: a small percentage of pollen and seed can often be dispersed very large distances, but the vast majority falls close to their parents. The precise distribution of dispersal distances depends on the dispersal mechanism (e.g. the longest documented dispersal distances are recorded for dispersal by water and birds). However, the general principle that dispersal is skewed, with most progeny falling close to the parent, applies 5The area within which plants can be regarded as crossing at random. For obligate outcrossers, this equals the variance of pollen dispersal distance plus the variance of seed dispersal distance. The genetic neighbourhood size is the number of plants of the species present within that area. The genetic neighbourhood area defines the minimum scale for population subdivision and should not be confused with larger scale effects of gene flow. For example, although the genetic neighbourhood area of Lolium perenne is estimated to be 8 m 2 , effects of gene flow on population structure can be detected at distances of over 100 km (Monestiez et al. 1994).to most species regardless of dispersal mechanism. Thus, a small genetic neighbourhood area is a feature of many plant species. Some estimates are 2.5 m 2 for the self-incompatible insectpollinated herbaceous legume Trifolium repens L., and 8 m 2 for the self-incompatible wind-pollinated grass Lolium perenne L. (Hayward and Sackville Hamilton 1997). This can be much smaller than what appears as one physically continuous population. Where the area covered by such a physical population exceeds the genetic neighbourhood area, the population will be subdivided into a large number of overlapping but genetically distinct sub-populations, even if the site is homogeneous. The implications of distribution of intra-population diversity will also be considered below.In the case of plants conserved as clones, each clone will normally be managed as a separate accession, and the concepts of splitting and combining are then meaningless. The size of the collection may, however, be reduced by eliminating accessions that are found to be the same clone as another accession in the collection (i.e. perfect duplicates). In such species, if there is a need to reduce costs and duplicates cannot be found, alternative efficiency measures must be considered, e.g. core collections. When eliminating duplicate clones, just as when combining or splitting accessions, it is important not to eliminate data on the original accessions. For example, passport data on eliminated clones remains valuable for studies of the ecogeographic distribution of genetic diversity.For species that are normally propagated and used as clones, this will apply to all cultivated lines. Opportunities for combining are limited to accessions collected and stored as seed, which may include wild relatives, landraces, and pre-commercial breeders' lines. Case Study 1 shows an example where the high cost of conserving clones has made it economically effective to identify and eliminate duplicates.Clonal species that may be collected as clones but managed as seed (for example temperate forages) would normally be conserved as seed rather than as clones. Therefore, for genebank management purposes, such species would be classified according to their sexual reproduction, as described below. However, the clonal population structure also has implications for collecting methods (Sackville Hamilton and Chorlton 1995) including the choice to split or combine at the point of collecting, collecting each sub-population as a separate accession, or combining all sub-populations to form one accession).These include apomicts, obligate inbreeders and artificially inbred lines. As described below, inbreeders may present good opportunities for splitting. There may also be opportunities for combining, as illustrated in Case Study 2 for accessions with little associated passport data.Commercial varieties and late-generation breeders' lines will normally be genetically completely or almost completely uniform, comprising a single genotype. Splitting in this situation is not an option.For synthetic varieties and simple mixtures, all characters will show full correlation by descent, so that splitting will be fully effective in minimizing genetic variation within mixed accessions. The normal recommended procedure would be to split mixtures both in the base collection for conservation and in the active collection for utilization. The mixture can and should be reconstituted for specific evaluation of the mixture. The Case Study 1. Potatoes at CIP (Centro Internacional de la Papa, Lima, Peru)Since conservation of potato as clones in a field genebank is expensive, we decided it would be cost effective to undertake a comprehensive assessment of duplication, and have achieved major savings by reducing the size of the collection from 15 000 to 3500. Accessions stored as seed are genetically variable so we decided we should assess whether they should be split, but found it was unnecessary.Cultivars are maintained as clones in a field genebank, re-grown every year. The field genebank is backed up by storage of tubers in cold stores, by in vitro culture of diverse accessions at two locations, and by conventional seed conservation of the non-sterile accessions. Botanical seed are stored dried in medium-and long-term storage in accordance with international standards for seed conservation. This multiple system is necessary for secure conservation, but is expensive.We therefore decided to look for and eliminate duplicate clones. The search involved a sequential process of initial morphological characterization for preliminary identification of potential duplicates, followed by full morphological characterization of those potential duplicates, followed by electrophoretic analysis of tuber proteins and esterase isozymes in morphologically identical accessions (Huamán 1994(Huamán , 1998)). By this means we have identified 3500 genetically distinct cultivars in the original untyped collection of 15 000 clonal accessions, and have eliminated the duplicates.For accessions stored as seed, we had the opposite concern that maintenance costs are not high, but high genetic variation within accessions means we risk losing diversity by drift. RAPD markers have been used to test for genetic drift in the seed collection ex situ, and repeat collections have been made to compare with drift in situ. Large changes have been detected in situ (Rio et al. 1997a), but no significant drift has been detected during regeneration ex situ (Rio et al. 1997b). It is concluded that there is no need to split accessions to reduce drift ex situ.For more information see http://www.cipotato.org/projects/germplasm.htm genebank may also choose to retain a sample of the original mixture, if doing so presents benefits that justify the additional cost.Combining identical accessions in this category is also likely to be cost-effective, because of a relatively low cost of identifying identical duplicates (i.e. accessions that have identical alleles at all loci) and relatively high benefit of combining them. The high benefit results from reduced cost and improved efficiency of conservation and utilization, with zero loss of genetic integrity. The low cost arises because two accessions with identical registered names can be considered to have a high probability of being biologically identical, so that confirmation that they are indeed identical would require evaluation of only a few loci. Therefore, combining identical duplicates is generally recommended for such accessions. However, care needs to be taken in identifying duplicates, because of possible identification errors and possible contamination with alien pollen, genes or genotypes. If two accessions with the same registered name were genetically different, it would be necessary to determine which Case Study 2. Flax at CGN (Centre for Genetic Resources Netherlands, Plant Research International, Wageningen, Netherlands)The flax collection at the Centre for Genetic Resources, Netherlands (CGN) contains many accessions with almost no passport data. We decided it was wasteful to fill a collection with such poorly documented and possibly similar accessions, so we chose to investigate the feasibility of identifying and combining genetically similar ones. We were able to reduce the number of accessions in the group studied by over 50% with minimal loss of variation between accessions.For about 30% of the flax accessions at the CGN, the only passport data available was a coded accession name consisting of a few letters and a number, such as 'M 25-341' or '324-Rm' for example. These names allowed grouping of the material in series, such as the M 25 or the Rm series. To investigate the genetic relationships of the accessions within and between the different series, an AFLP study was carried out on 29 accessions belonging to three such series. Subsequently, an analysis of molecular variance (Excoffier et al. 1992) was used to compare the genetic variation observed within and among accessions. Substantial differences in intra-accession variation were observed and accessions that were not significantly different were bulked into groups. As a result, more or less homogeneous accessions remained separate entries while more heterogeneous accessions could often be lumped. Combining to reduce 29 accessions to 14, reduced the among-population component of variance by only 2.6% while at the same time maintaining similar levels of variation among accessions (Treuren et al. 2001).For more information see http://www.plant.wageningen-ur.nl/cgn/ is the true variety-but that is a question beyond the scope of this document.Much of the relative simplicity of research and breeding varieties of such species lies in being able to produce and study genetically uniform lines. Combining similar but not identical accessions may remove some of this benefit. The curator will therefore need carefully to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of combining such accessions before deciding whether to do so.Landraces of true-breeding species can be 'simple' mechanical mixtures from a genetic perspective. If they are genuinely 100% true-breeding, they can be treated as synthetic varieties as above, i.e. split for conservation in the base collection, and split and/or maintained as the original for utilization in the active collection.If, as is often the case, they are not entirely true-breeding, then more care will need to be taken in how they are maintained. Conservation should be based on the normal practice for maintaining the landrace in situ under the original cultural practices in the original environment. We note an important corollary: efficient ex situ conservation of a landrace requires knowledge of traditional cultural practices and environments of that landrace-knowledge that is often missing. Collectors should be trained to document this information when collecting, and any collecting forms that do not already have relevant data fields should be revised. Moreover, ex situ it is often difficult to mimic the original in situ environment and traditional cultural practices. Therefore, consideration should be given to true in situ conservation, and indeed to complementary in situ and ex situ conservation.In some cases, such as Sorghum in Yemen (Sackville Hamilton and Al Khawlani 1981) and Phaseolus vulgaris L. in some African countries, a landrace can be deliberately maintained as a mixture by the farmer reconstructing the mixture each year. At each harvest the farmer selects seed of each component, and re-mixes them to form the seed mixture to sow the crop for the following year. A curator conserving such a landrace ex situ should likewise split it into its components for conservation.In other cases, the landrace is maintained by farmers as a population, being harvested and sown as a self-maintaining mixture. In such cases, splitting the landrace into its components may be irreversible as it may not be possible to reconstitute the original landrace by re-mixing the components. If possible and if consistent with genebank objectives, splitting such landraces should generally be avoided. On the other hand, it is often not possible for a curator to mimic the environment and traditional cultural practices used for the landrace in situ, in which case, since the landrace is genetically heterogeneous, it is expected to lose genetic integrity rapidly, which is also undesirable.The curator then faces a difficult choice-which is worse, progressively losing genetic integrity by conserving the landrace intact but in the wrong conditions, or losing genetic integrity in one step by splitting with minimal subsequent further degradation? One option could be to do both: maintain the original intact in long-term storage and use it only for critical landrace restoration or assessment; and split a sample into components that can be used, regenerated and re-mixed frequently with minimal progressive loss of genetic integrity.If a curator decides to split a landrace, but considers it not justifiable to maintain the original as well, the curator should first at least examine the composition of the original sample.Case Study 3 illustrates a situation where accessions are routinely split during regeneration if they are found to be a mixture of easily distinguishable genotypes.As illustrated in Case Study 4, for some purposes it can also be acceptable to separate and use only one genotype from each mixed accession while retaining the original.As illustrated in Case Study 5, for some purposes it can also be acceptable to increase uniformity within accessions by reducing population size, without trying to split and retain the original within-accession diversity.In the extreme case of zero outcrossing, pollen dispersal contributes nothing to dispersal of genes, and the variance of seed dispersal distances is sufficient as an estimate of the area of random maternity. The extent of genetic subdivision of wild populations of inbreeders is therefore generally greater than for outbreeders. Being true-breeding means that the characteristics of progeny derived from each mother plant will show perfect correlation by descent, or at least high correlation if they are not quite 100% inbreeding or apomictic.This situation largely fulfils the criteria for splitting on the basis of the identity of the mother plant. Collecting and conserving the seed of each sampled mother plant as a separate accession will be highly effective in reducing genetic variance within accessions, compared with bulking all seed collected to create and conserve one accession to represent the entire physical population. However, it is not ideal for splitting, since the Case Study 3. Landrace populations of self-pollinating crops (Institut für Pflanzengenetik und Kulturpflanzenforschung, Gatersleben, Germany)Landraces and other locally adapted germplasm can show a high degree of morphological diversity in a collected sample. To counteract the possible loss of rare alleles while regenerating accessions of such landraces of self-pollinating crops, the genebank of IPK for more than fifty years has been practising the splitting of variable accessions into morphologically distinct lines.The main aim of splitting is to retain as many as possible of the rare components of a population, thus maintaining as much of the within-accession diversity as possible. Another reason is related to genebank management practices: it is easier to detect results of unconscious selection, admixtures or mistaken identity of accessions if they are homogeneous. Finally, the morphological infraspecific classification of cultivated plant species, as practised at IPK's genebank since its foundation in 1943, is only possible if accessions are homogeneous and can be assigned, using botanical keys, to certain taxa which, in turn, are denominations for combinations of stable morphological characters.The first splitting usually takes place during collecting, or when processing the collected seeds in the genebank immediately after collecting. Mixtures of different crops, or crop-weed mixtures, are first divided into components comprising single species. Variable landraces may also be dissected using characters that can be seen on the seeds or plants (e.g. two-rowed vs. six-rowed barley, seed colour in garden beans). The collector appends lower-case letters to the collection number to designate the selections. For example, from a bean sample with the collection number 3456 within a particular expedition, the sub-samples 3456a, 3456b, 3456c, etc. may be derived.Upon arrival in the genebank, a preliminary accession number is assigned to each (sub)-sample. At the first multiplication in Gatersleben (for which Lehmann and Mansfeld 1957, recommend a larger plot size than the standard size of 2.5 m 2 for cereals), the within-accession variation is carefully observed, and morphologically distinct lines are harvested separately. From each of these lines, a herbarium sample, or in case of cereals, a spike bundle, is taken to document the morphological characteristics of the accession, together with a seed sample, for later comparison purposes. The original population is also maintained as a separate accession and designated as such. This process is continued at up to three multiplications until a stable situation is reached (i.e. no further segregation occurs), or until it becomes obvious that the offspring of the 'pure' lines will be segregating again, in which case the accession will be maintained as a variable population only. Segregations occurring at later generations are eliminated, because the probability that they are the result of admixtures, spontaneous mutations or crosspollination, increases with each regeneration cycle. The offspring of the single lines is being compared with the herbarium or spike samples to ensure stability of character expression. Upper-case letters are appended to the preliminary, or later the final, accession number to designate derived accessions. For example, a legume accession with the preliminary Gatersleben accession number V 147 may have been split up into V 147 A, V 147 B, V 147 C, etc.For example, several oat samples collected in Czechoslovakia have been split up into 20 and more lines, the maximum being 34 for collection number 574 from Hvozdnica, western Slovakia of the IPK expedition in 1981; the derived lines were classified into 4 different botanical varieties. Collected samples from Iran, Ethiopia, Libya and the Balkan area have been subdivided into 20 and more lines. H. Kuckuck (expeditions in Iran in 1952-1954) seems to have assigned one collection number per site. Collection number 9 from Behbahan gave rise to a total of 44 genebank accessions of Hordeum vulgare (2 lines, 1 botanical variety), Linum usitatissimum (19 lines, 2 varieties), Triticum aestivum (13 lines, 7 varieties), and T. durum (10 lines, 7 varieties).This practice was first described in 1957 (Lehmann and Mansfeld, 1957), and with minor adjustments, it is still practised today.This approach leads to an increase of the number of accessions that to be maintained in the genebank. Among ca. 90 000 accessions maintained at IPK's genebank headquarter in Gatersleben, ca. 38 000 originated from collecting expeditions. Approximately 14 500 of these accessions resulted from splitting-up collected samples of landraces.For more information see Lehmann and Mansfeld (1957) Case Study 4. The International Barley Core Collection Even landraces are forced to be homogeneous in the Barley Core CollectionThe International Barley Core Collection provides standard material for barley research. Therefore, it was decided to include as far as possible homogeneous homozygous lines, to ensure that different scientists use the same genotype when they use the same accession from the Barley Core Collection.The idea behind the International Barley Core Collection (BCC) was to create a stable set of between 2000 and 3000 barley genotypes that represent the genetic diversity in barley, including landraces and wild species. We wanted to guarantee full comparability of results obtained by different research groups around the globe and across years by ensuring that all studies are based on an identical set of genotypes. For example, we wanted the AFLP fingerprints generated at one place to be produced by the same genotypes that expressed a level of drought tolerance determined somewhere else. This combination of results creates a tremendous added value.To achieve this we chose to select only one homozygous line by SSD (single seed descent) to represent each genebank accession to be included in the BCC, even if it was initially heterogeneous, such as in the case of landraces and the wild progenitor of barley (Hordeum vulgare ssp. spontaneum). From each heterogeneous genebank accession we selected only the single most abundant genotype and split it from the remainder of the genebank accession to form the BCC accession. We had three important reasons for this:1. we avoid the risk of one scientist choosing one genotype and another scientist choosing another from the same accession, so that results can be truly comparable across laboratories; 2. we avoid changes in genetic composition of accessions during regeneration, so that results can be truly comparable across generations, 3. we allow the documentation to be simple, one score per trait per accession per trial. Owing to the difficulty of multiplication, accessions of other wild inbreeding species in the BCC have been established from few original seeds (not SSD) and may thus be heterogeneous. The two outbreeding, selfincompatible Hordeum species are maintained as populations.Because of the benefits of homogeneity, we accepted the disadvantage that it would not be possible to use the BCC to study diversity within landraces and wild barley populations. The link with the original accession is documented, so that for such studies it is always possible to go back from the BCC accession to the original heterogeneous accession maintained somewhere in a genebank.Roland von Bothmer Chairman Barley Core Collection committee For more information see Knüpffer and van Hintum (1995) population would have to be split into a large number of accessions-one for each mother plant sampled. Therefore, doing so risks making the genebank collection very much larger and more expensive-for example, if seed are collected from 100 plants per field, then the choice to split or not is a choice to make 100 or 1 accession from one field. Therefore, the curator needs to be sure that the advantages of splitting are large enough to justify its high costs.The decision to split or combine on the basis of the identity of the mother plant must be undertaken at the time of collecting. Once seed from different plants are mixed, it is not possible to separate them again later, and therefore a decision to bulk seed and to conserve them as one accession is irreversible. It should also be noted that many population genetics studies require seed to be harvested separately from each mother plant. For example, estimates of inbreeding coefficients in the field, the magnitude of population subdivision, the extent of gene flow and the strength of selection pressures are impossible from a bulk sample. Therefore, a decision to bulk is not only irreversible but also rules out a large area of research.Often the collecting site is clearly heterogeneous. For example,• the species being collected may occur in more than one distinct type of vegetation on the same site. Spatial heterogeneity of vegetation is a feature of almost all plant ecosystems, whether ruderal or permanent, whether herbaceous, shrubby or forested. That is, an ecosystem does not comprise a uniform mixture of all its species; rather there are more or less discrete patches of different kinds dominated by different species. Each species in the ecosystem may occur in more than one type of patch. Since regenerating lettuce is rather difficult and expensive, the Centre for Genetic Resources, Netherlands (CGN), has chosen to concentrate on the diversity between accessions rather than the diversity within accessions.Regenerating lettuce is very labour intensive. Seeds are sown, young plants are potted in a greenhouse, flowering plants staked to prevent lodging, and seeds are harvested manually. The plants have to be protected from a number of pests and diseases. Furthermore, depending on the species, a treatment of seeds to break dormancy, vernalization of germinating seeds or a gibberellic acid treatment of young plants is required to induce flowering. A few species are crosspollinating and need isolation and insect pollination. The inflorescences of wild species need to be wrapped up in perforated polythene bags to prevent the seeds from floating all through the green house. Apart from labour costs there are also high costs involved in the taking and testing samples of each plant for Lactuca Mosaic Virus.Since using the 'normal' number of plants (100 according to 'Genebank Standards': FAO 1994) for regeneration was so expensive, we decided that only 8 plants would be used for cultivars, which can be assumed to be homogeneous, and 16 plants for heterogeneous landraces and wild species. This implies that the chance of losing alleles as a result of drift is considerable (see table ), but, on the other hand, it became feasible to manage a much larger number of accessions. This approach increases diversity between accessions, by accepting a reduction of within-accession variation, and thus allows the genebank to conserve more accessions without increasing the overall cost for conservation.Chance of losing a selfing genotype in two regenerations with different initial frequencies and population sizes. • grasses may be found on and off a path; • in an undulating site, plants may be found on the dry tops as well as in the wet hollows; • in a forest site, understorey species may be found in the shade of a tree or in an unshaded gap in the forest. In these cases, separate samples should normally be collected from each distinct microenvironment. The decision to split or combine must be taken at the time of collecting. A decision to combine at the point of collecting is irreversible, and makes the accession valueless for research on evolutionary adaptation to the micro-environmental heterogeneity.A decision can be determined by the objectives of the genebank; Case Study 6 illustrates a situation where a decision to split by parent or not when collecting depends on whether there is a need to study population genetics.Case Study 6. Lettuce at CGN (Centre for Genetic Resources Netherlands, Plant Research International, Wageningen, Netherlands)A scientist might be interested in a population, a breeder in a pure line. A genebank has, apart from these users demands, also to consider biological and financial constraints. The result is a pragmatic approach, as will be illustrated with the CGN lettuce collection.The common sampling strategy for wild populations is to collect seeds randomly, from as many plants as possible at one site, trying to collect all alleles present in the population. Hawkes (1980) advises to collect 100 plants from highly variable populations and 50 plants from uniform populations. In practical situations this is not always achievable.For genebank material it is often not known how many plants were collected. The most common wild relative of lettuce is L. serriola, a species with a high selfing rate. The material of this species in the CGN lettuce collection, was, as far as we know, collected from between 1 and 60 plants. This high variation in plant number was caused by differences in size of the collected population, or availability of seeds on the plants in the population at the time of collecting. Another important factor is the collector's strategy; some collectors collect single plants, and call each plant an accession.Users of the lettuce collection sometimes complained because they expected homogeneous accessions, but obtained variable results when they screened accessions for resistances or other characters. This causes problems in discriminating between resistant plants and plants that were not properly inoculated. In such cases progeny testing is required before parent plants can be selected for further breeding.The preference of users for homogeneous material from genebanks implies that lines of a population should be stored instead of the population itself. Splitting a population into lines can be done during collecting, by sampling single plants instead of populations, or later, for example during the first regeneration. CGN stores each complete wild lettuce population as an accession. Only if very different morphotypes appear during the first regeneration, these will become separate accessions. Since, due to limited regeneration capacity, only 16 plants per population are regenerated, the conserved lettuce populations will suffer from drift narrowing down the diversity within the population.Collection of populations from as many different origins as possible should be attempted. Especially in the case of wild species, the diversity between accessions can be considered more important than the diversity within accessions.Curator CGN lettuce collection for more information: Hawkes (1980) Case Study 7. Managing temperate forages at IGER (Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research, Aberystwyth, UK)The Genetic Resources Unit (GRU) at IGER has determined that it would not be economically viable to attempt to rationalize by combining duplicate accessions. We chose instead to reduce costs by identifying a subset of the collection most relevant to current breeding and research objectives, keeping only that subset active, and temporarily 'archiving' the rest of the collection.In our situation, combining accessions would bring little economic benefit because conservation costs per se are low (full cost ~€0.2 year -1 accession -1 ), would be detrimental to utilization because it is difficult to evaluate variable accessions and identify rare alleles, and would be detrimental to conservation because of the resulting increase in within-accession diversity. The costs of identifying duplicate accessions to be combined are high and the probable frequency of duplicates low, because accessions are highly variable and historically duplicate accessions are likely not to be biologically duplicate. Even historically duplicate copies of commercial cultivars with identical registered names are known to be biologically distinct. As a consequence, identification of duplicates would require an exceptionally detailed molecular characterization of large numbers of plants from each accession. Therefore attempting to reduce the size of the collection by combining accessions would be economically and genetically detrimental, and we choose not to do so.Utilization costs are orders of magnitude higher (full cost to the GRU ~€80 year -1 donation -1 for donating accessions to external users, and ~€1000 year -1 accession -1 for utilization by the GRU for routine characterization and evaluation). By definition, most of any good PGR collection has low value for current utilization, and is being conserved for its potential value for future breeding and research objectives. Our users do not want immediate access to most of the collection. Therefore, maintaining the entire collection active for current utilization is unnecessary and, given the high cost of utilization, economically wasteful. Therefore, given the low cost of conservation, we choose to conserve the entire collection intact but to keep only a targeted subset in the active collection available for current use, temporarily 'archiving' the remainder for future use. Success of this approach depends on close collaboration with users, on being highly responsive to changing users needs, on being able to define a subset optimized for current use, and on being able easily to bring an archived accession back into use when required.N R Sackville Hamilton IGER GRU For more information see http://www.igergru.bbsrc.ac.uk/All kinds of populations of outbreeding species generally show relatively high levels of genetic variation within populations, even when selected for uniformity as is the case with varieties and breeders' lines. Many agronomically important characteristics show continuous distributions with low correlations between characters. It is therefore usually not appropriate to split, but in some situations, it may be appropriate to combine.It can be appropriate to combine duplicate varieties, for similar reasons outlined for the inbreeding species described above. However, because they are genetically variable, the costs of identifying duplicates can be higher and the benefits can be less clear. Two accessions that share the same registered name are likely to be similar but not identical. Combining them will there-fore generally increase diversity within the accession, and the curator needs to determine whether this is acceptable. For example, the genebank at IGER contains 15 accessions of the Lolium perenne cultivar 'S23'. This is an old variety that remained popular for many years and is genetically more variable than the modern cultivars. There is evidence that the genotypic composition of the commercial product has changed significantly over the years, and assessing the extent and cause of the change is a potential research topic. Combining the accessions into one would prevent any such research, and therefore a decision has been taken to retain them as separate accessions instead of combining them (see Case Study 7). The Brassica collection at the Centre for Genetic Resources, Netherlands (CGN) contains many genetically similar selections of the same landraces. Since regenerating Brassicas is rather difficult and expensive, we have chosen to combine them, and by doing so have reduced the number of accessions in the collection by 80%.The Netherlands has a long history of selection and breeding of Brassica oleracea. Breeders and farmers have made their own selections of landraces and old cultivars. The Dutch material in the CGN B. oleracea collection consists to a large extent of such selections, many of which are derived from a limited number of parental landraces, so-called 'umbrella varieties'. Since cabbage is an insect pollinated biennial crop, and regeneration is difficult and expensive, it was decided to limit the number of accessions as far as possible (Boukema and Hintum 1994). Sometimes up to 16 selections were combined to reconstruct one umbrella variety.Material derived from the same umbrella variety was planted side by side. Assisted by B. oleracea experts involved in commercial plant breeding and variety registration, groups of very similar selections were composed. Other selections were kept as individual accessions. In some cases a number of groups from a single umbrella variety were created on the basis of maturity or other distinctive traits. As a result the number of accessions in the CGN collection of Dutch B. oleracea was reduced from 273 to 54, a reduction of 80%.Subsequently, the process of lumping accessions was validated by an isoenzyme study, using a number of cabbage and Brussels sprouts groups. We tested the hypothesis that isoenzyme markers would correctly place a single accession in one of the groups. It appeared that most of the accessions were correctly classified. All misclassifications were within similar groups. In two cases the isoenzyme patterns suggested that the groups could have been even larger. In one of these cases this was a real option since it involved two groups made from the same umbrella variety. In the other case it involved groups with a common genetic background but a distinct identity as defined by morphology and history (Hintum et al. 1996).For more information see http://www.plant.wageningen-ur.nl/cgn/ variation. Splitting is therefore not generally effective. Moreover, reconstituting a landrace after splitting can be difficult. If we can assume that gene frequencies in the original landrace were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, then reconstitution requires a cycle of seed multiplication after re-mixing the components in the correct proportions in order to regenerate the original heterozygote frequencies. The additional economic cost and time delay involved in reconstituting a landrace from its components must be considered as part of a decision on whether to split.Case Study 9. Collecting temperate forages at IGER (Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research, Aberystwyth, UK)Since variable accessions and rare alleles are difficult to utilize, and since the potential loss of diversity by shift and contamination is high, the Genetic Resources Unit at IGER (GRU), has chosen to concentrate on controlling shift and contamination to maintain diversity between accessions. We decided that an increase in drift and loss of diversity within accessions is acceptable for conservation and beneficial for utilization.Much of the variation within accessions is continuous and multi-dimensional with low correlations between characters. Therefore the conditions for splitting are not met in genebank accessions. On the other hand, splitting at the time of collecting a wild population can be appropriate. Wild populations are genetically highly variable for many characters of evolutionary and agronomic value. Some of the genetic variation within populations is associated with adaptation to easily identifiable micro-environmental heterogeneity within the site, for example a path through a pasture. We form a separate accession for plants collected from each obviously distinguishable micro-environment, to improve conservation, utilization and evolutionary research. For example, collecting separate accessions from nearby plants on and off a path through one site provides an efficient basis for conserving, identifying and studying genes for trampling tolerance.Even in an apparently uniform site, we find much genetic variation within populations, and genetically distinct subpopulations. We also find a strong genetic shift associated with collecting seed samples of perennial forage species (Hayward and Sackville Hamilton 1997). To avoid this shift we collect vegetative samples (usually 30 adult plants per population) and produce seed for storage in isolation chambers from the original vegetative plants (Sackville Hamilton and Chorlton 1995). One consequence of collecting 30 plants per population is that our accessions have a small effective population size, we reduce genetic variation within accessions, and we do not effectively conserve rare alleles. Although this may be regarded as a disadvantage in terms of PGR conservation, it has benefits for utilization since the reduction in diversity within accessions facilitates evaluation and is essential for breeding. It replaces a cycle of pre-breeding that would otherwise be needed to reduce diversity within accessions.The small population size also enables regeneration and storage procedures to be modified in a number of ways to reduce genetic shifts and eliminate genetic contamination, and thus conserve diversity between accessions more effectively. The set of modifications represents an integrated package, but one modification is of particular relevance to this publication. One result of the set of modifications is that it costs us almost nothing extra to store the seed of each original mother plant in a separate container while managing the population as one accession. Apart from improving conservation by reducing genetic shift during subsequent regeneration cycles, this also maintains some of the original population structure needed for population genetics studies, and maintains high correlation by descent between characters of seed from each plant. We can therefore at any time choose to split an accession by mother plant, and do so whenever research requirements indicate that it would be beneficial.IGER GRU For more information see http://www.igergru.bbsrc.ac.uk/ Combining similar landraces may be an option for some purposes. Case Study 8 shows an example where similar landraces have been combined to create umbrella landraces.The principles are broadly similar to those for wild populations of inbreeding species, except that there is more genetic variation within populations and thus more heterozygosity. Wild populations can be divided into highly distinct sub-populations (Hayward and Sackville Hamilton 1997). For example, a series of studies on Trifolium repens (reviewed by Sackville Hamilton 1989) has shown differentiation with respect to many micro-environmental variables, even in a superficially homogeneous site. In perennial grasses, intra-population variation in reproductive output can be very high (Sackville Hamilton 1999), implying the possibility of large and rapid genetic changes during regeneration. Rapid genetic shifts in response to selection in newly sown pastures are well documented (e.g. Brougham and Harris 1967;Charles 1964;Falkner and Casler 2000). These indicate that high priority should be attached to limiting genetic shifts during regeneration.A decision to attach high priority to limiting genetic shifts in accessions has implications for many aspects of genebank management, including not only collecting methodology but also regeneration, storage and chatacterization, is illustrated in Case Study 9.As with wild populations of inbreeding species, a decision to split or combine must be made at the time of collecting; a decision to combine during collecting is irreversible. Splitting into a separate sample for each identifiable micro-environment within a site is always recommended. Finer splitting is necessary for more detailed population genetics studies on the structure of genetic variation within populations. Such studies are an essential component of improving our understanding of the causes and implications of genetic diversity. It is not appropriate to give definitive recommendations, in part because of inadequate knowledge. We know in principle that a decision to split or lump has genetic and economic implications for conservation and for utilization, and we know in principle that we should not choose an action if its economic and genetic costs are too high relative to its economic and genetic benefits. But we have failed to find even a single case study where decisions have been based entirely on a quantitative cost-benefit analysis. All the case studies above include at least an element of qualitative subjective assessment, even those that have included some quantitative analysis. Therefore this document is intended rather to promote further consideration of the issues and to highlight the knowledge gaps. Moreover, the curator's decisions should depend critically on the objectives of conservation and utilization, so we can do little more than to identify the tools available to help the curator choose a strategy.In this spirit, the following may be regarded as provisional recommendations pending further research and discussion. -Maintain a landrace intact in the base collection (to conserve a sample of the original), and split in the active collection (if this reduces cumulative loss of genetic integrity by frequent use and regeneration). 6. If your decisions to split or lump are user-driven, remember that different users have different needs. For example, breeders may prefer landraces to be split into genetically more uniform components that are easier to incorporate into a breeding programme, whereas a traditional community requesting repatriation of its landraces will require them to be repatriated complete with their full original diversity. 7. Split under the following conditions:-Split while collecting, regardless of breeding system, if it improves conservation and or utilization. -Split while collecting as much as possible (down to separate mother plants or even separate flower heads), regardless of breeding system, if intended usage includes research into population genetics structure. -Split mixtures at any time (e.g. during regeneration or evaluation) for inbreeding but not outbreeding speciesbut only if splitting is compatible with users' objectives and with the economics of conservation and utilization. 8. Lump under the following conditions:-Maintenance (regeneration, storage, germination testing) or evaluation costs per accession are high. -Costs of identifying duplicates are relatively low.-Usage is more efficient.-The value of the accessions to be combined lies more in the diversity of genes that they jointly possess than in the specific genotypic composition of each accession. For example, if nothing is known about the origin or characteristics of an accession, there is little to be gained by investing resources in maintaining it in its original state. -There is no requirement to assess genetic variation between the original accessions. 9. Consider alternatives to lumping and splitting, since these are only two of the tools available to improve management efficiency. For example:-Reduce costs by combining the base and active collections (D. Debouck pers. comm.)-but only if this does not exacerbate conflicts between conservation and utilization.Standard recommended practice is to maintain them separately (FAO 1994)  In this document we have demonstrated that curators should not consider an accession as a fixed entity. Conserving an accession 'as is' may be regarded as an appropriate default action in the absence of good reasons to do otherwise. Nevertheless, subject to careful analysis of genetic and economic consequences in relation to genebank objectives, curators should be prepared to consider splitting or combining accessions to optimize the genebank's efficiency. Decisions may be made to reduce running costs, increase the economic and/or genetic efficiency of conservation, increase the economic and/or genetic efficiency of identifying alleles for utilization, or increase the range of types of research that can be undertaken with an accession. We have discussed the issues that need to be considered in reaching a decision, and we have presented a number of specific situations where splitting or combining is appropriate. The specific examples presented are not comprehensive. We hope, however, that we have given a sufficient variety of examples to encourage other curators to think about improving their own situation in these or in other ways.","tokenCount":"19080"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"66be707e986f012124313d1289cde082","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/40f90a5b-75e8-4b75-acca-9e1f4e6d0a7e/retrieve","id":"1280791448"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"02112a66-72a5-475c-95aa-e439ffa1b0ba","pagecount":"20","content":"People, Animals and their Zoonoses (PAZ) project   The RBT results gave a prevalence of zero, suggesting that goats in western Kenya may be free from B. melitensis. Since RBT has a sensitivity of 80.2% and a specificity of 99.6%, unlike ELISA that has specificity of 92.9% and is 99.6% specific(Rahman et al.2013), there is need for this result to be confirmed with ELISA to rule out the 19.8% chance of a false negative. We will therefore use ELISA to confirm the results before making a final conclusion of this result. There is need for regular surveillance and education on the prevention and control of brucellosis to reduce or avoid the risk of transmission in animals and people.Parting shot• Goats can easily pass zoonotic infections due to their close interaction with people • Let's join hands in controlling brucellosis for a better future!","tokenCount":"142"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1d2d0b730a542a9e9558260fc133a4b5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/2a75c6c5-9831-4f80-9f13-280a39be01e5/retrieve","id":"-1958954946"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"51b03b9a-29d7-4d80-b193-05f506634d4c","pagecount":"1","content":"The Zebu Club (Ext. 2094) is located across from the cafeteria and is open to all guests and visitors to the ILRI campus. Guests staying for more than three months on campus should pay a membership fee; contact the Housing Office for details.It is the social and recreational hub of the campus. It is also the main focus of social events and Ethiopian celebrations on campus and it attracts a diverse membership and clientele.Facilities and services include a bar, swimming pool, tennis and squash courts, gym, steam and sauna facility and children's play area. Snacks and light meals are available from 1700 to 2130, seven days a week and from 1300 to 1400 on Saturdays. Buffet lunches are served on Sundays from 1300 to 1400. Pizza menu is available 1100-1900. The bar also provides hot and cold drinks throughout the day. Coaching in swimming, tennis and squash is available for a fee. Zebu Club","tokenCount":"154"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2eaf4b6359240900a9b49aa1226489e8","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/6fd823c6-3f71-41e6-b408-13f1d2f3e13b/retrieve","id":"-995014563"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"14a9be70-0215-490a-9750-2ba1348e12bc","pagecount":"12","content":"World Bank Vice President for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development, was named Chairman of CGIAR. He takes on the CGIAR leadership role in addition to his regular responsibilities.Francisco has had extensive national and international experience, collaborating with FAO and the World Bank, and with several national institutes outside Brazil. He received Brazil' s highest award for major contributions to the develop-ment of agriculture, the Frederico de M. Veiga Prize. He has been widely published. He was awarded his first degree, in agronomy, at the University of Brazil, and his Ph.D. in plant pathology, at the University of Wisconsin. At the CGIAR his connections are strong, having been associated with the Consultative Council, as member of the Finance Committee, and Vice Chairman of CIFOR' s Board of Trustees.\"Ian Johnson has the unique combination of substantive knowledge, passionate commitment to development, and leadership skills to head the CGIAR,\" announced World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn. \"A strong environmentalist, he has been an important member of my management team and was one of the architects of the Global Environment Facility. He brings to the task a deep understanding about the need to fight poverty by promoting rural development, improving natural resource management, and increasing poor people' s capacity to improve their own lives.\" \"It is an honor to accept this appointment,\" Johnson said. \"The CGIAR is one of the best examples of a successful partnership to improve agricultural development in some of the world' s poorest, ecologically fragile areas.\"Two CIMMYT scientists have been awarded the Millennium World Food Prize for three decades of ardent research effort to produce a higher yielding, more wholesome type of cornquality protein maizethat is helping to meet the food and nutrition needs of millions of poor people. Dr. Evangelina Villegas, a Mexican biochemist, and Dr. Surinder K. Vasal, an Indian plant geneticist, received the $250,000 prize at ceremonies October 12 in Des Moines, Iowa.Dr. Villegas is the first woman ever to receive the World Food Prize.\"This is people-centered science at its very best, providing better nutrition while fostering economic growth for the world' s poor,\" said CGIAR Chairman Ian Johnson. \"We salute our colleagues at CIMMYT for overcoming long scientific odds to develop, test, and distribute to developing countries varieties of high quality protein maize that are preventing malnutrition worldwide.\"Francisco Reifschneider, currently Head of International Cooperation, Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA) has been chosen as the new CGIAR Director to succeed Alexander von der Osten who will be retiring in November 2000.This year's star speaker is Mr. J. Craig Venter, President, Celera Genomics, who will speak on \"Genomics: From Microbes to Man\" on Thursday, October 26, 2000 at 5:30 pm in the World Bank's 'H' Auditorium.Mr. Venter led the hugely-successful private sector effort to decode the human genome. A friend and ardent supporter of the CGIAR, he donated the entire proceeds of the prestigious 2000 King Faisal International Award to support ILRI's collaborative efforts with The Institute of Genomic Research (TIGR), a private non-profit research institute to develop a vaccine for East Coast Fever.The Sir John Crawford Memorial Lecture is sponsored by the Australian Government as part of CGIAR International Centers Week. Sir John Crawford was a distinguished civil servant, educator, and agriculturist who was one of the founders of the CGIAR. Building on the momentum of the Dresden Mid-Term Meeting, which unveiled a new vision emphasizing both the poverty aspect of CGIAR research and the opportunities offered by modern science, ICW2000 will discuss: A special seminar \"Frontier Science, Global Public Goods and the CGIAR,\" will be inaugurated by World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn on the afternoon of October 23, and will feature prominent speakers such as Jeffrey Sachs of Harvard University and Per Pinstrup-Andersen of IFPRI, among others. On October 24 morning, Robert Watson, World Bank Chief Scientist will present an update on climate change, and on October 25 afternoon, Hans Binswanger, the Bank' s Sector Director for Rural Development in Africa will discuss the impact of HIV/AIDS on African agricul-ture. The practice of holding a Centers' Forum -a series of Center presentations under a unifying theme and spread out across ICW -will be continued. This year' s Forum will run from October 24 to 27, and highlight Center efforts and impacts in mobilizing frontier science to produce global public goods that benefit all.Other highlights include a special session on October 25 \"The CGIAR in the New Millennium: From Renewal to Rebirth\" to honor former CGIAR chairman Ismail Serageldin,. The traditional Sir John Crawford Memorial Lecture will be held on October 26 and this year' s star speaker is J. Craig Venter, President, Celera Genomics, who will speak on \"Genomics: From Microbes to Man.\"A special exhibit built around the overarching theme \"Science and Technology for Development\" will be held in the impressive, 13-story high Atrium of the World Bank' s main complex building. Chairman Johnson and Robert Thompson, World Bank Rural Development Director and CGIAR Cosponsor representative, will launch the event with a ribbon-cutting as part of opening day ceremonies. A large number of Bank staff, visitors, and international development professionals are expected to view the exhibit and see how CGIAR efforts are helping to improve the lives of farming communities worldwide. Ian Johnson hasn't wasted any time tapping into the heart of the CGIAR system. A week after taking office in mid-July, Johnson and World Bank Rural Development Director Robert Thompson visited CIMMYT, the flagship CGIAR Center located outside Mexico City. The visit allowed Johnson to observe firsthand how agricultural science is promoting rural development and reducing poverty. The two World Bank officials (Thompson also serves as the Bank' s CGIAR cosponsor representative) spent two days in the fields and laboratories at CIMMYT headquarters.Birthplace of the Green Revolution that has transformed tropical agriculture, CIMMYT has mobilized quality science to help the poor in low-income countries develop more profitable, productive, and sustainable systems for growing maize and wheat. The importance of these two crops cannot be underestimated: they provide 25 percent of the total food calories consumed in poor countries and are an important source of income for poor farmers. Development of a higher yielding, more wholesome type of quality protein maize recently won CIMMYT scientists the Millennium World Food Prize (see accompanying story). During the Chairman' s visit, the scientists demonstrated how they are using science to create:• maize and wheat varieties that can thrive in drought-ridden soils;• pest-resistant maize that prevents large-scale losses in Africa, and• apomictic maize that reproduces asexually, enabling farmers to recycle even hybrid seed without incurring yield losses.\"I truly believe in your mission and the centrality of your work for human well-being in the new century,\" said Johnson at a special convocation of CIMMYT scientists and staff. In his broad outline of the challenges and themeshuman and environmental -that will influence the performance of research in the next two decades, Johnson emphasized management of both natural resources, a \"measure of whether we really are going to have a planet where our children and their children can have a better life,\" and social capital, an \"important determinant of social, economic, and political stability.\" He suggested that the CGIAR would play an increasingly significant role with respect to each. ICRAF-in collaboration with the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, Kenya Forestry Research Institute, and other African organizations-has adopted innovative approaches to pressing problems of poverty in the densely populated rural highlands of western Kenya. Instead of imposing their own ideas about how on-farm trials should be managed, the researchers are tapping the farmers' capacity for experimentation. A specific goal is to anchor research and development in the local community and to empower local groups to conduct these activities.In the Emuhaya Division of the Vihiga District, women farmers who have been wrestling with striga, a harmful weed highly damaging to maize crops, welcomed the Bank group with lively songs about the challenges they face. One farmer, Damaris Akonya Abednego, warmly thanked the guests for their support with a special poem she wrote: Root and tuber (R&T) crops are undergoing a resurgence, and by the year 2020, well over two billion people -many living in the poorest parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America -will depend on them for food, feed, or sources of income.A new report, \"Roots and Tubers in the Global Food System: A Vision Statement to the Year 2020,\" jointly prepared by five Centers -CIAT, CIP, IFPRI, IITA, and IPGRI -takes an indepth look at the role of R&T crops in sustainable agriculture. Its principal conclusion: R&T crops will play increasingly important roles, both in human diets and in promoting the welfare of poor farming communities worldwide.Cassava, potato, sweet potato, and yams are some well known R&T crops. Agronomically robust and physiologically adaptive, the inherent hardy traits of R&T crops allow them to grow on marginal lands and produce harvests when other crops have failed. They are also abundant sources of dietary energy and nutrients. And extremely efficient in producing large amounts of edible plant matter: 85 percent of the potato plant is edible, compared to only 50 percent for cereals. During 1995-97, farmers in developing countries harvested nearly half a billion metric tons of the major R&T crops, with an estimated annual value of $41 billion, nearly one-fourth the value of the major cereals.\"Acre for acre, R&T crops offer poor farmers opportunities to link with emerging markets, providing a diversified range of high-quality, competitive products for food, feed, and industry,\" says Mark Rosegrant of IFPRI, and co-author of the report, \"and what is more, many of the developing world' s poorest look to these crops as an important source of food, nutrition, and cash income.\"Multiple roles, steady growth rates R&T crops will be many things to many people by 2020. Their adaptation to marginal environments, vital role in promoting food security at the household level, and their flexibility in mixed farming systems make them preferred crops of choice, both by farmers and consumers, and an important component of strategies to improve welfare of the rural poor. The report' s projections for R&T crops were generated using IFPRI' s IMPACT model. The simulations of the economic value of R&T crops take into consideration the production of nearly all the major commodities in the global food system, including cereals, soybean, and meat. The share of R&T crops in the total value of these products is projected to remain at roughly 11 percent.The projected annual growth rates in output are particularly strong for potato (2.7 percent) and yam (2.9 percent). Production of cassava and sweetpotato is expected to expand at a more modest pace -1.95 percent and 1.0 percent per year respectively. These projected growth rates actually represent a slowdown compared to recent rates of expansion for these crops. More importantly, future growth rates for cassava, potato, and yam are expected to exceed those for rice and wheat (see figure). Agricultural research -of the sort at which the CGIAR system excels -can help tackle the various challenges facing improvement of R&T crops. CGIAR contributions cover the entire food chain, from production through to utilization and policy. CGIAR' s particular strengths include well-characterized germplasm collections, plant varieties with valueadded traits, collections of the major pests and pathogens and the beneficial organisms that control them. The CGIAR has accumulated knowledge spanning the entire production-to-consumption continuum, and has developed innovative research approaches that range from hightech laboratories to community meeting halls in tiny villages, from the latest techniques in molecular biology to the newest methods of farmer participation in research.In 1998, CGIAR activities on R&T crops were conducted by five Centers through some 35 projects at an approximate cost of $44 million. This amounts to 14 percent of the total CGIAR budget, and a series of impact studies have shown that these investments have paid very high rates of return.Given the projected importance of R&T crops in developing countries to 2020 and beyond, it is essential to retain these crops as an integral part of a global strategy to increase food production and utilization in Africa, Asia, and Latin America in the decades ahead. CGIAR research efforts will continue to play an important role in ensuring the availability of R&T crops for the two billion plus people who rely on them for food and livelihoods.Agricultural research has been an important driver of technological change, boosting agricultural productivity and making modern day agriculture the most productive in human history. However, relentless pressures -burgeoning population growth, agriculture' s growing 'ecological footprint' on the natural resource base, and rising rural and urban poverty -are combining to make the task of improving agriculture ever more urgent. Recent spectacular advances in biotechnology such as the decoding of the human genome, mapping of the rice genome, the development of beta-carotene enriched rice, and others have raised hopes that modern science can tackle and accelerate the fight against age-old problems of hunger, malnutrition, and poverty.In a major development, seven prestigious academies of science from around the world, including five from developing countries (Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and Third World Academy of Sciences), the venerable Royal Society of London, and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences recently released a White Paper -\"Transgenic Plants and World Agriculture\" -that spells out the promise of agricultural biotechnology for alleviating hunger and poverty in developing countries.\"The revolution in molecular biology provides the developing world with some important new tools for feeding and caring for its people,\" says Bruce Alberts, President of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. \"It will be critical to use the best science to make wise choices with respect to the application of these technologies.\" Mr. Alberts is no stranger to the CGIAR and was a member of the CGIAR Third System Review Panel led by Maurice Strong.In a direct reference to the important role of agriculture in reducing hunger and poverty -important pillars of CGIAR research -the report notes \"It is essential that we improve food production and distribution in order to feed and free from hunger a growing world population, while reducing environmental impacts and providing productive employment in low-income areas. Key to moving forward is responsible research, development, and implementation of genetic modification (GM) technology for widespread agricultural use.According to the paper, most GM technology has not been developed with Third World needs in mind. Rather, these techniques were developed primarily for large-scale agriculture in the industrialized world. There are concerns that a growing backlash against GM technology will completely overshadow all the promise that the technology offers. The paper urges governments to base their decisions regarding biotechnology on sound science, and strongly encourages private sector corporations and research institutions to share their technology with scientists and farmers in developing countries who desperately need it.On the important issue of achieving balance between public and private sector roles, the report points out that funding for agricultural research in general, and GM technology in particular, has shifted from the public sector to private corporations, with an eye toward creating profitable products. Concurrently, public and non-commercial research efforts have waned. Private companies today can obtain plant varieties -free of chargefrom farmers and non-commercial institutions such as the CGIAR, add one or more proprietary traits, and then release seed with a variety of forms of legal or technical protection against copying, farm retention, and farm-to-farm transmission. GM technology intensifies the dilemma because of the high level of skill and infrastructure that it requires. To compensate, the report argues that public sector research, as practiced by the CGIAR and by farmers and national agricultural research systems, needs to be strengthened and provided with increased resources and attention. • Governments should fully recognize that there will always be public interest/goods research requiring public investment even in the marketdriven economy;• It is imperative that public funding of research in this area is maintained at least at its present level both in the CGIAR and in national research institutions;• Governments, international organizations and aid agencies should acknowledge that plant genomics research is a legitimate and important object for public funding and that the results of such research should be placed in the public domain;• Innovative and vigorous forms of public-private partnerships are urgently required if the benefits of GM technologies are to be brought to the world's people;• Incentives are needed to encourage commercial research companies to share with the public sector more of their capacity for innovation, and• Care should be taken so that research is not inhibited by over-protective intellectual property right regimes.As the debate about the safe and equitable use of biotechnology intensifies, it is clear that the CGIAR's research efforts will serve as important examples of how quality science can be brought to bear on the problems of tropical agriculture for the ultimate benefit of all.The White Paper is available on the Web at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/9889.html most destructive cattle parasites. East Coast fever threatens 24 million head of cattle; in Africa, a cow dies of the disease every 20 seconds. A vaccine would \"inject\" up to $300 million annually into the economies of the 11 countries where the disease is widespread and could have enormous implications for malaria and cancer research.ILRI' s work on dairy-processing options and marketing was in evidence during a visit to a peri-urban farm just outside Nairobi. The farm' s owners, Chege Njoroge and Grace Wairimu, are part of the informal or \"raw\" milk markets that dominate the dairy sector in developing countries. Of the 16 liters of raw milk that Njoroge and Wairimu get from their cows daily, they sell approximately 14 liters in informal markets, by far the most profitable enterprise on their 2 acre plot. ILRI research has shown that Kenya' s informal dairy industry employs two to three people full time for each 100 liters of milk handled daily. Wages earned through milk vending are 50-100 percent higher than the national average and well over the minimum wage. The 2000 CGIAR King Baudouin International Agricultural Research Award goes to WARDA for developing a new strain of rice that is transforming agriculture in a large portion of West Africa, potentially benefiting 20 million rice farmersmostly women -of the region, and helping reduce crippling rice import bills.Dubbed NERICA (for NEw RIce for AfriCA), the new rice combines the ruggedness of local African (Oryza glaberrima) rice species with the phenomenally high productivity traits of Asian rice (Oryza sativa) that was the mainstay of the Green Revolution.The development of NERICA is fueled by the rapid advances in agricultural science. WARDA scientists overcame a series of disappointing failures when they succeeded in crossing the two species using a technique called \"embryo rescue.\" The new rice, the product of an 'interspecific hybrid cross' in sciencespeak, smothers grain-robbing weeds like its African parents, resists droughts and pests, and is able to thrive in poor soils. The trait of higher productivity conferred by the Asian rices mean that with a few additional inputs, farmers using NERICA rice can double production and raise incomes.\"Food means rice for many people in West Africa today, and demand for rice is spiraling. NERICA is helping to meet multiple needs -food, nutrition, and income -for millions of people in the humid tropics of West Africa, \" says Kanayo Nwanze, director general of WARDA. \"The new strain of rice is helping us move toward sustainable agriculture in some of the most ecologically fragile areas of the world.\"NERICA rice is a 'designer plant' in the best sense of the term. A progeny of African-Asian crosses, NERICA' s owe their wide, droopy leaves that help smother weeds to African parentage. The important trait of high productivity is gained from the Asian rices, allowing NERICA panicles to hold up to 400 grains compared to the 75-100 grains that is the norm in African rice species. Further improvements in the plant' s architecturelonger panicles with forked branches, strong stems, and panicles that hold grain tightly and prevent shattering -allow the new rices to outyield others, and produce bountiful harvests with modest fertilization. The new rices mature 30 to 50 days earlier than traditional varieties, allowing farmers to grow extra crops of vegetables or legumes.The King Baudouin International Agricultural Research Award is keenly coveted. Conferred in the form of a scroll and cash prize of $10,000, the biennial prize rewards \"persons or organizations, irrespective of nationality, which have made a significant contribution to the development of the Third World, as also to solidarity and good relations between industrial and developing countries and between their peoples.\" For the 2000 award, the Technical Advisory Committee led by Emil Javier evaluated submissions from seven CGIAR Centers.Participatory research is at the core of the NERICA success story. A symbiotic relationship between scientists and farmers was a key ingredient, as was a virtuous cycle of communication. Through a mechanism called \"Participatory Varietal Selection\" (PVS), a communication dynamic was established and allowed farmers to grow several varieties and provide valuable feedback to scientists. In turn, the scientists were able to learn about the traits that were of most value to the farmers and incorporate those preferences in breeding strategies. Helping people to help themselves, sharing knowledge, building capacity, and forging international partnerships are hallmarks of the World Bank' s strategy to 'fight poverty with passion and professionalism for lasting results.' In pursuit of its developmental mission, the Bank' s Development Grant Facility (DGF) provides grant financing to support selected global and regional development initiatives that are of significant value for the Bank' s borrowers, but cannot be adequately assisted through country lending operations alone. Through the DGF, the Bank assists a broad range of programs focusing on environmental, rural, and social development, health, education, finance, governance, and economic management.On August 1, 2000, the World Bank' s Board approved $146.9 million to support 47 programs in the coming year, including $50 million for the CGIAR. \"Our contribution to the CGIAR helps to catalyze partnerships, build coalitions, and encourage innovation in the fight against hunger,\" said Motoo Kusakabe, World Bank Vice President for Resource Mobilization and Cofinancing. Other prominent programs receiving DGF support include the Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest (CGAP, a microfinance facility modeled along the lines of the CGIAR), the Post Conflict Fund, the Onchocersiasis Program, the Convention to Combat Desertification, the Critical Ecosystems Partnership Fund, and the Millennium Ecosystem Condition Assessment among others.All DGF-supported programs have strong financial backing from other partners. It is expected that the Bank' s contribution to these programs will help to catalyze, with others, more than $1 billion in additional funds. The CGIAR acknowledges with gratitude the continued support of the World Bank.In Memoriam: Mmes. Bichapu Gandamma, Peta Pentamma, Lalitha Ramdas, Mukkera Salamma, and Gulli Suguna On August 23, 2000, five female temporary farm workers -Mmes. Bichapu Gandamma, Peta Pentamma, Lalitha Ramdas, Mukkera Salamma, and Gulli Suguna -lost their lives in a rescue attempt when flash floods inundated large parts of ICRISAT' s Patancheru campus. The torrential rains also severely affected the neighboring city of Hyderabad, causing the worst flooding in more than 50 years.David Elliott Bell, a Harvard University emeritus professor and friend of the CGIAR passed away on September 6 in Cambridge, Mass. He was 81. David' s career spanned five decades, and in the 1960s he served as director of the U.S. Budget Bureau and then of the Agency for International Development (AID). \"The Bell Report\" is widely acknowledged to have laid the foundations of a culture of rigorous evaluation and review that permeates the CGIAR.Robert Kerr Cunningham passed away on June 22. He was 77. Bob was a CGIAR aficionado, and highly respected throughout the international agricultural development community. He served on the boards of IITA, IRRI, ISNAR, and WARDA.","tokenCount":"3925"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"802ef78be4922fcddbbedd90782da26d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4cef9b3d-7b65-4c75-9717-1a679e9a7523/retrieve","id":"2010554450"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"df437242-6dff-4993-a55f-2ae2dfdbb322","pagecount":"14","content":"Food systems need to meet food security, nutrition and environmental goals, especially in a world with growing demand and a changing climate. There is now broad consensus on the need to transform current food systems towards more sustainable models. Agroecology is increasingly seen as a framework for transforming food systems (HLPE 2019). A key question is: how far can agroecology meet the needs for climate change adaptation and mitigation in food systems, especially in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) and at large scales?To address this question, we conducted a rapid, evidence-based review to assess the quality and strength of evidence regarding (i) the impact of agroecological approaches on climate change mitigation and adaptation in LMICs, and (ii) the programming approaches and conditions supporting large-scale transitions to agroecology.Box 1: Contemporary Approaches to Defining Agroecology Ten elements of agroecology: Diversity, the co-creation and sharing of knowledge, synergies, efficiency, recycling, resilience, human and social values, culture and food traditions, responsible governance, circular and solidarity economy Thirteen principles of agroecology (HLPE 2019, also summarised here):recycling, input reduction, soil health, animal health, biodiversity, synergy, economic diversification, the co-creation of knowledge, social values and diets, fairness, connectivity, land and natural resource governance, participation. Gliessman (2018): \"Agroecology is the integration of research, education, action and change that brings sustainability to all parts of the food system: ecological, economic, and social.\" It is transdisciplinary, participatory, actionoriented and \"grounded in ecological thinking where a holistic, systems-level understanding of food system sustainability is required.\"Defining agroecology with precision is a challenge. The interpretation of agroecology in development has been divergent and contested, viewed variously as a set of practices, a social movement or the science of sustainable agriculture (Wezel et al. 2009(Wezel et al. , 2020)). Moreover, differentiating agroecology from other forms of alternative agriculture for sustainability can be challenging due to vague or diverse definitions (Newton et al. 2020;Giller et al. 2021;Petersen and Snapp 2015). Box 1 provides examples of approaches to defining agroecology. Box 2 summarises major schemes for sustainable agriculture related to agroecology and climate change. All share the aim to reduce the negative impacts of agriculture, but approaches vary in their reliance on ecological processes, external inputs, whole system design, or emphasis on specific outcomes.For this analysis, we considered approaches to be more agroecological to the extent that they made use of ecological processes, supported increasing autonomy from external inputs, or enabled whole system change, rather than focusing on changing single practices (Sinclair et al. 2019;Leippert et al. 2020). We focused on the biophysical science and practice aspects of agroecology to assess impacts on climate change adaptation and mitigation, and on drivers and enabling conditions of farmer behaviour for the analysis of scaling.We identified agroecology practices and systems guided by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) 10 Elements of Agroecology and Gliessman's (2016) transitions framework. To distinguish agricultural approaches aligned with agroecology, we considered field, farm and landscape-level approaches and Climate Change (Adapted from Petersen and Snapp 2015)• Regenerative agriculture seeks \"to improve the health of soil or to restore highly degraded soil, which symbiotically enhances the quality of water, vegetation and land-productivity\" (Rhodes 2017). The potential to enhance soil carbon has recently made these practices more prominent in climate discussions. • Sustainable intensification is the production of more food on a sustainable basis with minimal use of additional land (Baulcombe et al. 2009). It creates \"synergistic opportunities for the co-production of agricultural and natural capital outcomes\" (Pretty et al. 2020). Often associated with increased energy or fertiliser inputs and viewed as a means for sparing land, e.g., to avoid the conversion of forests. • Ecological intensification \"harness(es) biological understanding to improve agricultural system performance, both in terms of productivity and environmental services\" (Petersen and Snapp 2015). • Biodynamic farming involves \"organic farming techniques that improve soil health\" in ways that \"influence biological as well as metaphysical aspects of the farm\" (Ponzio et al. 2013). Developed by Rudolf Steiner. • Organic agriculture is a production system that sustains the health of soils, ecosystems, and people. It relies on ecological processes, biodiversity and cycles adapted to local conditions, rather than inputs with adverse effects. Organic agriculture combines tradition, innovation, and science to benefit the shared environment and promote fair relationships and a good quality of life for all involved. • Climate-smart agriculture is \"agriculture that sustainably increases productivity, enhances resilience (adaptation), reduces/removes GHGs (mitigation) where possible, and enhances achievement of national food security and development goals\" (Lipper et al. 2014).that relied on enhanced ecological processes and services, compared to business-asusual agricultural development. Examples of the agroecology approaches reviewed included diversifying crop production through cover crops, green manure and hosts for beneficial insects; managing organic nutrient sources; biopesticides; croplivestock integration; agroforestry and organic farming.The evidence for the review was based on the published scientific literature and semi-structured interviews with representatives from agricultural development programmes. For the literature review, we identified eighteen synthesis papers relevant to the impacts of agroecology on climate change adaptation and mitigation or to the scaling of agroecology, representing over 10,212 studies. Only four of the eighteen synthesis papers focused on LMICs, and only five others included at least 50% of the studies reviewed on LMICs, indicating the poor representation of LMICs for available syntheses in English. In addition, we conducted a systematic literature review of the primary evidence from LMICs for agroecological approaches and climate change outcomes related to nutrient management (15,674 articles) and pests and diseases (5,498 articles), resulting in a final selection of 138 papers representing about 20 agroecological practices. Of these papers, 71% represented data from Africa, 21% from Asia and 7% from Latin America, the latter suggesting the need for a similar review of the Spanish-language literature. One percent of the papers covered multiple regions. Seventy-eight percent of the papers addressed small farms, 9% addressed medium farms and 2% large farms. The full report is available online.2 What Does the Evidence Tell Us?Substantial evidence 1 exists in favour of climate change adaptation in LMICs that is associated with practices and systems aligned with agroecology, e.g., farm diversification, 2 agroforestry and organic agriculture (Fig. 1). The agroecological approach with the strongest body of evidence for its impacts on climate change adaptation was farm diversification (strong evidence and high agreement). This included positive impacts of diversification on crop yield, pollination, pest control, nutrient cycling, water regulation and soil fertility. This is consistent with a recent global systematic review of similar practices within smallholder agriculture (Reich et al. 2021).We found profound evidence concerning the impacts of agroforestry and organic agriculture on adaptation. Agroforestry had a positive impact on biodiversity, water regulation, soil carbon, nitrogen and soil fertility and the buffering of temperature extremes (Beillouin et al. 2019;Niether et al. 2020;Kuyah et al. 2019). Organic agriculture improved regulating (pest, water, nutrient) and supporting services (soils, biodiversity) (Smith et al. 2019).Very little information was found about how agroecological approaches can improve resilience to extreme weather, which may be partly due to the challenges 1 The number of articles with primary evidence from LMICs for adaptation was 120 out of 138, based on indicators of productivity (100), diversity (58), water and nutrient regulation (41), soil health (52), and pollination services and pest regulation (59). The quality and relevance of the eight synthesis papers found were mostly medium to high.Two synthesis papers were found for diversification (covering crop diversification, organic farming, intercropping, accessory crops, and agroforestry) with 98 and 99 high-quality metaanalysis articles, respectively. 2 \"Agricultural diversification is the intentional addition of functional biodiversity to cropping [and livestock] systems at multiple spatial and/or temporal scales, and it aims at regenerating biotic interactions underpinning provisioning [regulating and supporting] . . .ecosystem services. It embraces a variety of practices encompassing the management of crops, noncrop habitats, soil, and landscapes.\" Tamburini et al. 2020. Brackets added by brief authors. of studying responses to erratic, rare events and the need for modelling and global analytical approaches that were outside the scope of the studies reviewed.Evidence regarding impacts on mitigation is modest, 3 except for enhanced carbon sequestration in soil and biomass (Fig. 1). The agroecological approach with the strongest body of evidence concerning its impacts on climate change mitigation was tropical agroforestry, which was associated with the sequestration of carbon in biomass and soil (medium evidence, high agreement) (Corbeels et al. 2019;Feliciano et al. 2018). Also, there is a moderate and growing body of evidence in favour of organic agriculture and associated gains in soil carbon, predominantly from temperate regions and high income countries (Gattinger et al. 2012;Smith et al. 2019).For example, Gattinger et al. (2012) reported that soil carbon stocks were higher by 3.50 ± 1.08 Mg C ha -1 , and soil carbon sequestration rates were higher by 0.45 ± 0.21 Mg C for pairwise comparisons of organic compared to non-organic farming, based on datasets from 74 studies. Nitrous oxide mitigation evidence was modest for tropical agriculture overall, and data on methane mitigation was very limited. Evidence from the global North suggests that reliance on organic nutrient sources and organic farming would likely avoid increased nitrous oxide emissions compared to the use of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser (medium evidence, medium agreement).As the greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of outcomes depends on where system boundaries are drawn, multi-scalar analysis is needed to capture flows of inputs and GHG impacts beyond the farm scale; for example, emissions associated with nutrient sources (e.g., industrial fertiliser production), land-use change or feed production (Connor 2018). The almost complete lack of data on tropical agriculture GHG emissions in agroecology exacerbates this research gap (Box 3).To assess the evidence concerning the impact of agroecology on climate change outcomes, we compiled information from two sources and triangulated findings. We selected:1. high-quality, peer-reviewed review papers relevant to agroecology and climate change adaptation and mitigation impacts or the scaling of agroecology; and 2. primary evidence in scientific papers on approaches aligned with agroecology for (a) nutrient management and (b) integrated pest and disease management.For the primary evidence papers, studies were only selected for analysis if they also indicated an aspect of scaling up agroecology. Scaling was defined broadly, and included adoption, farmer innovation, scaling mechanisms or enabling conditions, learning, market or policy incentives and participatory research methods. For these papers, we documented the presence of indicators as evidence in favour of adaptation and mitigation impacts. This did not include whether impacts were positive or negative relative to a control. We also conducted semi-structured interviews with twelve organisations involved in agricultural development in LMICs, including several organisations implementing agroecology at large scales. These interviews aimed to explore the conditions and constraints for scaling up agroecology, as experience with agroecology is still novel, and thus this information was not widely available in the scientific literature.Evidence was evaluated based on its quality and the level of agreement based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidance for conducting syntheses (Mastrandrea et al. 2010). The evaluation was qualitative and relative. The strength of evidence was based on the degree of scientific robustness (statistical significance, sample size, use of systematic comparison, pairwise comparison, number of articles), relevance to agroecology, extent of geographic representativeness, relevance to LMICs, and overall quality or credibility of an article. The level of agreement was generally \"high\" if there were more than 100 articles with strong evidence, \"medium\" if there were 50-99 articles with strong evidence, or \"low\" if there were less than 50 articles with strong evidence, or, in the case of interviews, where the majority of the respondents agreed.Evidence suggests that agroecology provides more climate change adaptation and mitigation than conventional, higher-input agricultural development in LMICs by emphasising locally relevant solutions, participatory processes and the co-creation of knowledge as core values. Specifically, the co-creation and sharing of knowledge supported farmers' capacity to adapt practices more successfully to local conditions (strong evidence, medium agreement). In addition, multiple lines of evidence have shown that engaging with local knowledge through participatory and educational approaches effectively adapts technologies to local contexts, and thereby delivers improved climate change adaptation and mitigation.Most interview respondents agreed that system approaches that prioritised local adaptation provided substantial benefits for climate change outcomes, often more than single practices. One respondent explained that \"farmers are inherently systembased, and adjusting to their reality has made the work effective and created more opportunities.\"Evidence concerning trade-offs between yields and climate change adaptation and mitigation exists, but was not systematically reported. There were win-win outcomes for yields and climate change mitigation associated with crop diversity and organic nutrient management. There was some evidence for modest trade-offs between yields and climate outcomes for organic farming and agroforestry. Diversification was associated with increased or maintained yields (although variable) compared to conventional agriculture (high evidence, high agreement). Conversely, variable and sometimes modestly lower yields were reported for organic agriculture (Skinner et al. 2014). Agroforestry systems had variable impacts on yield depending on the main crop, agroecological zone and soil type. For example, cocoa agroforestry produced lower cocoa yields, but higher overall yields from other crops in the system and improved climate change mitigation and adaptation (Niether et al. 2020). A review of agroforestry in sub-Saharan Africa found that agroforestry significantly increased yields and soil carbon (Kuyah et al. 2019).Evidence in the scientific literature relevant to scaling and enabling conditions of agroecology was poor, with only four relevant systematic reviews identified. The scientific robustness of the evidence was also mixed. Most reviews did not address agroecology at scale explicitly or compare the scaling conditions of agroecology and conventional agriculture. The literature review of primary evidence in favour of agroecology approaches to nutrient and pest management reported many of the same interventions and enabling conditions as those observed for scaling conventional agriculture interventions. These included the need for farmer capacity-building, use of markets, the necessity of involving government, the lack of cooperation between government offices of agriculture and offices of the environment, and poor implementation of policies (low evidence, medium agreement).Based on interviews with field programmes, common components of these programmes' efforts to bring agroecology to scale included the co-creation and exchange of knowledge with farmers, community-based, participatory methods, localised solutions and social organising. According to the literature, scaling agroecology systems, as opposed to practices, made more use of participatory and farmer-to-farmer processes and policy. Scaling also relied on market and policy measures that privileged local production. Agroecology's inherent complexity and knowledge intensity sometimes incurred higher costs and more time than conventional agriculture, but this also enabled effectiveness and sustained benefits over multiple years.Modest evidence was also found regarding disadvantages and challenges that impede agroecological transitions. Of the eighteen synthesis papers addressing agroecology and climate change impacts, only one explicitly addressed scaling (Cacho et al. 2018). Our review of the primary literature on nutrient and pest management yielded only 58 out of 138 articles on scaling-out processes, enabling conditions or barriers.Critiques of agroecology have raised the issue of how to transition and reach large numbers of people. Compared to high-input sustainable intensification, agroecology can require more land to enable the use of ecosystem-based inputs and nutrient cycles (Connor 2018;Schreinemachers et al. 2011). The co-design of options with farmers can be slower and more costly for facilitating organisations, compared to top-down technical solutions, but farmers are also more likely to benefit. The attention to local knowledge around adaptation is, in this regard, both a strength and a challenge. Supporting local knowledge also requires a change in mindset of local and international actors involved in agricultural research and development and additional investment. Using conventional economic analysis, agroecological approaches can be more expensive, and some require more labour inputs compared to high-input agriculture optimised for yields; however, long-term and ecosystem benefits can be higher. The yield trade-offs associated with some agroecology approaches are a disadvantage and may pose a substantial challenge to adoption, particularly for farmers with limited resources in LMICs. Because of these constraints, the private sector has lacked incentives to facilitate agroecological practices.There is a need for research, especially in LMICs, that compares agroecology against alternatives, including current practices and expected trajectories in particular localities. More research is also needed for long-term studies on farms and at landscape scales in LMICs. A large data gap was found regarding agricultural GHG emissions and mitigation, with almost no evidence from LMICs. There were also evidence gaps regarding agroecology approaches involving livestock integration, landscape-scale redesign and multi-scalar analysis.Critiques of agroecology question the extent to which scaling agroecology may restrict farmers' options and become a poverty trap through a lack of access to growth opportunities (Mugwanya 2019). Similarly, to what extent does agroecology empower and enable farmer organisation? There is generally a lack of data or scenarios showing the impacts of agroecological transitions on economic development. A better understanding of the political economy of development, including who wins and who loses, and evaluation of the short-term and long-term social and ecological benefits and trade-offs of agroecology compared with other agricultural development approaches could help inform development investment. The Transformative Partnership Platform on agroecological approaches aims to contribute to this area by evaluating the socioeconomic viability of agroecological practices across Africa.Recent reviews of funding for agroecology found that most investments at least partly support agroecological principles (Biovision and IPES-Food 2020;CIDSE 2020). However, these analyses do not examine investments related to climate change adaptation or mitigation. The majority of agricultural investment (63%) is targeted at reinforcing or making minor adjustments to existing systems (sustainable intensification, separate funding mechanisms for agriculture and environment, performance measured mostly via yields) (Biovision and IPES-Food 2020), despite calls for food system transformation (Steiner et al. 2020). Funding for agroecology remains a small proportion of major global agricultural development investment.To improve investment in agroecology for the sake of climate change, long-term funding modalities, the setting of targets for outcomes that include environmental services and climate change outcomesin addition to nutritional and livelihood and social outcomesand a search for systemic change to building farmer capacities and incentives are needed (Biovision and IPES-Food 2020). Rather than treating climate change adaptation and mitigation as co-benefits, which risks limiting progress to incremental change, there is a need to actively manage for climate change benefits. Key programme elements to increase support for agroecology and climate change outcomes include (Fig. 2):• Processes for the co-design of practices by farmers, with research to generate relevance, fit the local context, and enable ongoing adaptation to climate risks, rather than pre-determined technical packages. 2.8 What Actions Need to Be Taken?Tackling climate change will require broad cooperation and diverse approaches.Implementing agroecology across organisations with different political visions for development will require transcending the many labels around sustainable agriculture and climate change (e.g., climate-smart agriculture, regenerative agriculture), including agroecology. Labels like agroecology can still be expedient for communication; the point is to spend less time debating what agroecology is.We thus recommend an outcome-based approach to guide donor investment and national policy, using an assessment of the performance of agricultural development that integrates agroecological principles and climate change adaptation and mitigation indicators. This is to avoid contestation around what is encompassed by a specific label for an agricultural alternative and instead assess performance in terms of environmental services and climate change response. Attention to outcomes relevant to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as climate change resilience, environmental health, gender equity and social inclusion, soil health, biodiversity conservation, healthy diets and resource efficiency can provide common points of reference (Leippert et al. 2020).A number of frameworks can be used to systematise the monitoring of agroecology performance (Wezel et al. 2020;Kapgen and Roudart 2020), including FAO's Tools for Agroecological Performance Evaluation (TAPE) (Barrios et al. 2020). The USAID-supported Sustainable Intensification Assessment Framework provides systematic approaches to outcome-based assessment and trade-off analysis (Grabowski et al. 2018).Based on the strength of the evidence, a second important action is to direct agricultural development investments towards agricultural diversification, local adaptation and pathways to scaling both. Programme implementation experts indicated that promoting agricultural diversity can be a scalable intervention, and that it is often prioritised in programmes supporting agroecology. However, trends in agricultural development overall lean in the opposite direction, with widespread simplification of farms and cropping systems. Local adaptation can be promoted by supporting farmer innovation, co-learning and the adaptation of innovations to local contexts. Top-down technology packages are often promoted, rather than menus of farmer-co-designed options. Thus, diversification and local adaptation may require special attention at the policy and program levels.In many countries, local and national agroecology platforms already exist, but can be strengthened to successfully use agroecology for climate change adaptation and mitigation in addition to the improvement of local livelihoods. Knowledge systems of agricultural producers need to be affirmed through networks of farmers and other stakeholders within the food systems to support the co-design of climate-friendly practices. To support farmer investment in diversified farms, women and men farmers' access and control over land and other elements of agroecosystems will be key enabling conditions (FAO 2012).The limited information concerning agroecological approaches' response to extreme weather events and GHG emissions is a matter of great concern. A third action is to develop national strategies and action to enhance resilience to extreme weather events and climate change mitigation outcomes. This should build on the knowledge of countries with considerable experience of repeated extreme weathersuch as the Philippines, Thailand, Haiti, and Hondurasto support strategies that will embed planning for extreme weather events in national policies. There is an urgent need to build the capacity of policymakers, scientists and institutions from the global South to work on these issues.A fourth action is public investment in research to improve analysis of agroecology relative to other agriculture development approaches at multiple spatial and time scales so as to better evaluate alternative approaches to sustainable agriculture. Assessment is required for food security, environment and other dimensions of sustainable development, as well as the cost-effectiveness of different options in different contexts, including geographic regions. Assessment of costeffectiveness should consider how to value environmental and social benefits and how assessment based on current policy contexts (e.g., subsidies) and short-time horizons might bias comparisons. Research includes comparative (alternatives versus conventional) and holistic (social, financial, environmental and agronomic) assessments. Reviews of French and Spanish-language literature would also enrich the foundation of evidence further, particularly for Latin America and West Africa.","tokenCount":"3691"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2e4a3943a96e6379a1b0eeaaef99abf7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/3fc7a32a-b170-41d7-9dea-433c39c0e5c8/retrieve","id":"694918543"},"keywords":["Wheat","Genomics","Gene mapping","iron","Zinc"],"sieverID":"0ce2e214-6522-4a44-a386-4932c152fb37","pagecount":"17","content":"Globally, about 20% of calories (energy) come from wheat. In some countries, it is more than 70%. More than 2 billion people are at risk for zinc deficiency and even more, people are at risk of iron deficiency, nearly a quarter of all children underage group of 5 are physically and cognitively stunted, and lack of dietary zinc is a major contributing factor. Biofortified wheat with elevated levels of zinc and iron has several potential advantages as a delivery vehicle for micronutrients in the diets of resource-poor consumers who depend on cereal-based diets. The conventional breeding strategies have been successful in the introduction of novel alleles for grain Zn and Fe that led to the release of competitive Zn enriched wheat varieties in South Asia. The major challenge over the next few decades will be to maintain the rates of genetic gains for grain yield along with increased grain Zn/Fe concentration to meet the food and nutritional security challenges. Therefore, to remain competitive, the performance of Zn-enhanced lines/varieties must be equal or superior to that of current nonbiofortified elite lines/varieties. Since both yield and Zn content are invisible and quantitatively inherited traits except few intermediate effect QTL regions identified for grain Zn, increased breeding efforts and new approaches are required to combine them at high frequency, ensuring that Zn levels are steadily increased to the required levels across the breeding pipelines. The current review article provides a comprehensive list of genomic regions for enhancing grain Zn and Fe concentrations in wheat including key candidate gene families such NAS, ZIP, VLT, ZIFL, and YSL. Implementing forward breeding by taking advantage of the rapid cycling trait pipeline approaches would simultaneously introgress high Zn and Fe QTL into the high Zn and normal elite lines, further increasing Zn and Fe concentrations.Micronutrients deficiency has an influential impact on to enhance the nutrition value of wheat but also to improve the bioavailability of Zn and Fe in the edible parts of plant which can only be possible if the anti-nutrient characteristics of phytate is modified. Hence, there is a need to fix this problem in long run by developing wheat genotypes with improved Zn and Fe contents and increased bioavailability of these nutrients through reducing the phytate content in seeds. Wheat bio-fortification can be achieved through new varietal development with inherently elevated Fe and Zn content in their grains. However, the ambiguity of genetic regulators and metabolic pathways links that regulates the Zn homeostasis are still need to be elucidated which makes the nutritional breeding approach quite complicated [7].Again, the internal mobilization patterns of these trace elements are affected owing to the differences in Zn use efficiency of wheat crops, variable translocation into the grains, and genotype-dependent source-sink relations [8]. The nutritional quality parameters viz., Zn and Fe are inclined to be polygenic. Hence broadening the genetic base through the exploitation of landraces, wild cultivars via advanced breeding strategies would assist in identifying genetic control and its effects. Again, the genetic base dissections including the exploration of loci, controlling important nutritional quality traits can aid in further enhancing the wheat nutritional values [9]. Quantitative trait loci (QTL) studies have successfully uncovered the genetic basis of QTL positions for Zn and Fe concentrations in wheat bi-parental populations but possess low resolution [10][11][12]. Hence, now genomewide association studies (GWAS) are extensively used to dissect the genetic bases of complex crop traits [13] and also have widely utilized to scrutinize the genetic regulation of complex traits in wheat. GWAS offers better QTL resolution, broad allele coverage, as compared to traditional QTL mapping. It also can analyze a broad range of natural germplasm resources including landraces, wild relatives, elite cultivars, and advanced breeding lines [9]. In wheat, GWAS has been used in several studies to examine the genetics of improving milling and baking qualities of wheat [14]. This review briefs about the significance of Zn and Fe in human nutrition along with their genetic control in wheat. We have also described the various mechanisms such as metal transporters that facilitate uptake, translocation as well as storage of grain Fe and Zn. Moreover, the genetics and molecular breeding aspects have been addressed in wheat for grain Fe and Zn biofortification.Micronutrients are very much essential to sustain adequate growth and development. These elements play a key role being the structural component or cofactor to multiple on the health care system. This alarming situation is also challenging the agricultural scientific community because of the rising global population and augmenting food demand. Malnutrition resulted mainly due to the deficicencies of vitamin A, zinc, iodine, folate, and iron [1]. Mineral deficiencies, primarily Zinc (Zn) and Iron (Fe), are impacting over half of the world population considering their cereal crop dependency, especially on wheat, rice, and maize for their daily diet. Around 50% of the global cereal cultivated soils are deficient in Zn content while Fe deficiency is substantially reported in arid regions along with high pH and calcareous soils. Hence, bio-fortification of these crop species with microelements can assure a sustainable solution for food security [2]. The trace element Zn is very important as it plays a key role in many enzymes that are involved in the metabolism of auxin and carbohydrates, protein synthesis, and membrane integrity [3,4]. It also involves in development of pollen, fertilization, and synthesis of chlorophyll. Another important element, Fe takes part in the electron transport chainand cytochrome and also aids inactivation of several enzymes. Malnutrition of micronutrients causes child death causalities every year hence it is mandatory to nourish the human population with these very essential trace elements [3,4].Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) being extensively cultivated and consumed cereal staple crop can be exploited as an appropriate target for Zn and Fe bio-fortification for minimizing the nutritional gaps in cereal diet-based nations. The nutrient deficiencies of Zn and Fe in the cereal crops are posing serious challenges to fulfil the nutritive needs of women and children around the globe. The unavailability of these mineral nutrients causes serious sickness in the developing countries. Hence, optimum intake of Zn and Fe is crucial to achieve the goal of food security and overcome the hidden hunger [5]. In wheat these nutrients are readily present in aleurone layer in excess amount, but the bioavailability of Zn and Fe are very low due to the presence of phytate in wheat seeds which is considered as a major factor to chelate metal ions. The phytate is consist of myo-inositol and phytic acid that is the greatest brunt on Zn and Fe uptake in human body. It has the strong properties to bind the free metal ions and chelate them to make as salt compounds. Biofortification of wheat is the promising, cost-effective and most sustainable approach to deal with the Zn and Fe deficiencies. It is a technique to develop biofortified crops in which Zn and Fe are readily available. Biofortification method is more convenient and sustainable as compared to other conventional methods of fortification because there will be no additional cost to make Zn and Fe available for human intake [6]. To cope with this problem, several initiatives have been taken to improve the genetic make up of wheat through conventional and modern breeding approaches. The aim is not only overuse of Zn may also cause toxicity. An appropriate check of cellular zinc is crucial for the balance between health and disease [15].Like Zn, there is another important trace element called Iron (Fe) is also responsible for enormous body functions. Iron serves as the central hemoglobin atom as well as the constituent of myoglobin [18,23] whose role is to store oxygen in muscle tissues and of the cytochrome system that is vital in the energy liberating means of cellular respiration. The prime reason for Fe deficiency involves limited bioavailable iron absorption, rapid use of Fe during a massive growth phase, menstrual cycle, pregnancy as well as gastrointestinal blood loss due to hookworm and whipworm [24][25][26][27]. Iron deficiency impacts over 2 billion individuals at a global level and iron-deficiency anemia remains the core reason for anemia worldwide [28]. In mitochondria, Fe acts as a cofactor for heme-containing enzymes and nonheme iron-containing enzymes in the electron transport chain. Hence Fe deficiency interferes with the heme and iron-sulfur clusters biosynthesis which eventually disrupts the hemoglobin, myoglobin, nitric oxide synthase, and cytochromes synthesis. And these resulted in fatigue, lethargy, and dyspnea. Fe is also essential for various enzymes that are associated with the replication and repair of DNA and aids in the regulation of the cell cycle. Fe is even crucial for immune cell growth, proliferation, differentiation, and for particular cell-mediated effector pathways [29]. Fe deficiency is also responsible for heart failure, chronic kidney disease, cancer, and inflammatory bowel disease [30]. However excessive Fe consumption causes hemochromatosis and is characterized by the deposit of Fe in the liver leading to fibrosis. The recommended daily iron consumption varies from 12 to 28 mg/day but a high quantity of iron is recommended for 14-50 year age group female than that of same-aged men. During pregnancy high Fe content (30-38 mg/day) is required while during lactation it is required in a lesser amount (Brown et al. 2021). In addition, since 2020, the human being has been troubled with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus COVID-19 hence these important trace elements are very much critical for immune strengthening.Different plants have designed excellent sensing and sophisticated genetic regulators to control the complex mechanics involved in Zn/Fe availability. Higher plants used two major processes to absorb Zn/Fe from soil [31,32] and evolved various homeostatic networks to mitigate the ZN/Fe toxicity in the cell through controlling the nutrient uptake by enzymes and proteins that are concerned with various biological and physiological activities [15]. There are approximately fifty essential micronutrients are required by the human body to perform all the crucial metabolic functions. Lacking any of these micronutrients may cause adverse affect on human growth and development. At present, there are several complications associated with malnutrition which have become a great matter of concern worldwidely. One of the main reasons for malnutrition is the unavailability of vital micronutrients including Zinc (Zn) and Iron (Fe). These trace elements though required in a minor amount by our body system, but their deficiemcu can cause numerous disorders [14].Zn deficit has affected around 2.2 billion individuals throughout the globe and has placed at 11th rank among the global threat for mortality and 12th for the burden of disease. According to the country food balance sheet, nearly 15-20% of the world population are unable to fulfil their Zn requirements because of their insufficient absorbable Zn carrying national food supplies [16]. Wessells et al. [16] suggested a cut-off using a plasma zinc concentration of 50 µg/dL (7.65 µmol/L) for harsh zinc deficit in adults. The everyday Zn needs of an adult individual range from 8 to 11 mg per day while pregnant and lactating women require the highest intakes at 11-13 mg per day [17,18]. In our body, limited dietary intake, scanty absorption, additional loss or use during disease conditions resulted in Zn deficiency [19]. The most common trace element Zn performs a vital role in biochemical processes that affect growth and development by acting as a structural, catalytic, and signaling factor in human body [20] for several proteins that are involved in neuronal development, immunity, signal transduction, cell proliferation, migration, survival, and death [21]. The catalytic enzyme functions or the structural stability of proteins are supported by the direct involvement of Zn for their folding and oligomerizations. In hormones like steroids and thyroid as well as A and D vitamins, the prosthetic group of innumerable enzymes and the receptor proteins are formed by the Zn element. The synthesis and/ or degradation of certain metabolic products viz., carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids are dependent upon various enzymes like oxidoreductases, transferases, hydrolases, lyases, isomerases, and ligases whose have broad Zn fraction [22]. Due to the deficit of Zn content in the body, retarded growth, impaired immune and nervous systems have resulted. The general clinical symptoms in the human body are skin lesion formation, depressing mental functions, retarded night-vision, anorexia, hypogonadism, delayed wound healing including a high incidence of diarrheal, pneumonia, and malaria because of defective immune function. Again, the Zn deficiency at a cellular level as well as its overload can generate oxidative stress. However, the them readily available for absorption and translocation [40]. A large number of similar types of protein families are participated to transport Zn/Fe at many steps. However, in some cases, Zn and Fe are considered independent metals by plants due to the contribution of multi-genes and complex molecular interactions [41]. For example, different contradictory reports are describing the release of MA by plant roots under Zn/Fe deficiency. A study in wheat showed that the excretion of MA is enhanced under Zn stress while some findings indicated the increase of MA under Fe deficiency [42].Zn/Fe chelators including nicotianamine (NA) are keys for the sublime flow of Zn and Fe across the root cells and transport the Zn from root to shoot [41,43]. Methionine is used to synthesize MA in a multistep mechanism which in turn originates from S-adenosyl-methionine in the presence cells, intracellular compartmentalization, cytosolic efflux and chelating via Zn/Fe binding ligands [33,34]. Strategy-1 is a reduction-based mechanism, generally adopted by non-gramineous monocotyledon and dicotyledon plants which involved the direct absorption of Zn 2+ and Fe 2+ from the rhizosphere of roots [31,35]. This led to the transfer of Zn 2+ /Fe 2+ across the cell membrane facilitated by several Fe/Zn transporter such as iron-regulated transporter (IRT) and zinc-regulated transporter (ZRT)-like proteins [36,37].Most of the gramineous plant species such as wheat adopt the strategy-II (Fig. 1) which is characterized by the release of mugineic acid (MA) by roots and phytosiderophores (PSs) to carry out the Fe 3+ chelation-based mechanism to chelate Fe 2+ in soil [38,39]. Subsequently, yellow stripe-like (YSL) transpoters are vital that are used to transfer the PSs-Fe 2+ complexes into the root cells and make Fig. 1 Illustrated the genetic mechanism of Fe/Zn regulating the availability, uptake, and translocation across the different tissues from root to shoot and from shoot to grains in wheat. The roots release the MA and PS which act as a chelating agent to reduce Fe3 + to Fe2 + to make it readily available for root uptake. Different metal transporters (ZIP, IRT-like proteins) assist the Zn2 + absorption in roots while NAS, YSL, and ZIF translocate the Zn/Fe from root to shoot. Some vegetative tissues specific transporters like VTL and MAPK deposited the Zn/Fe in the wheat grainsTo maintain Zn/Fe homeostasis, plants established an array of complex regulatory networks to control Zn/Fe uptake, transport, and storage. Despite numerous reports on Zn/Fe deficiency in different plants, these processes still need to be uncovered significantly to present a clear snapshot of genetic regulators involving in translocation in wheat. After uptake by the root rhizosphere, Zn/Fe is translocated to different cells and tissues of the plants according to demand. In the case of Fe, it must be attached with other molecules and transfer as a complex, as Fe 3+ has low solubility and Fe 2+ is injurious to plant cells [55]. In wheat, Zn/Fe is deposited in the aleurone layer of the grain which is destroyed during milling. Also, Fe is accumulated in protein storage vacuoles in these tissues that are tightly bound to phytate and became unavailable [50,56]. Ferritin is considered a good form of bioavailable Fe storage in endosperm amyloplast stored in the form of Fe-rich nanoparticles [57]. Hence, it is very crucial to consider all the Zn/Fe contents in the grains including specialized metal transporters, chelators, and other protein subunits that responsible for its translocation across the plant cells and bioavailability.The translocation of Zn/Fe from root to shoot and their deposition in grains are the main reasons for Zn/Fe deficiencies in wheat. It is important to understand the underlying pathways for translocation and identified unique metal transporters for efficient biofortification. Several metal transporters have been identified for Zn/Fe translocation in wheat loading [45]. For example, Li et al. [58] reported that TaZIPs transporters were involved in the translocation of Zn from root to shoot and maintain ion homeostasis for greater Zn tolerance to wheat. The results showed that the TaZIP5, TaZIP6, and TaZIP13 were associated with Zn uptake while several TaZIP genes facilitated the Zn translocation. Zn deficiency triggered the expression of transcription factors of group F bZIP and 14 TaZIP transporters in wheat. Functional analysis of Group F TabZIPs revealed the presence of cysteine-histidine-rich motifs, that were supposed to be involved in Zn 2+ binding under a limited supply of Zn. Zn-deficiency-response elements (ZDREs) were found to operate in ZIPs and some ZIPs including TaZIP3, TaZIP5, TaZIP7, and TaZIP13can translocate Zn. Additionally, the conservation of ZDREs differs among ZIPs indicating that each ZIPs can have a unique function in Zn homeostasis [59].Genetic dissection of pathways controlling the grain Zn concentration was performed to study the putative genes associated with higher accumulation of Zn in wheat grains. Genotyping of European wheat cultivars identified novel genomic regions linked with Zn uptake and translocation. Some candidate genes representing mitogen-activated of nicotinamine synthase (NAS) [44]. Many other gene families like ZRT, NRAMP, NAS, YSL, and IRT-like proteins consisting of ZIFL, NAAT, MTP, HMA, and ZIP have also been found to regulate Zn/Fe homeostasis [45,46]. In the later step, Zn/Fe are shifted into the xylem where Zn can transfer as citrate by forming a complex with organic acids or move as a cation [47], while Fe is chelated [48]. Protein families YSL and ZIP facilitated the movement of Zn/Fe from xylem and phloem to shoot and during grain filling. Due to the discontinuous nature of the xylem in wheat, phloem is the major structure moving all the nutrients into the grain [49]. Followed by Zn/Fe are translocated by forming different complexes with small proteins or NA into the endosperm cavity and embryo aided by metal tolerance protein (MTP) families [50].Some reports have revealed that most of the nutrients derived from vegetive tissues especially 70% of Zn accumulated at the grain filling stage. The elevated applications nutrients to soil increase the Zn uptake about 3 folds by roots while translocation of Zn enhance up to 8 folds from roots to shoots [51]. However, the nutrient stress conditions hampers the Zn accumulation and its translocation. The development of micro-nutrients dense genotypes and identification of nutrient efficient genotypes is required to overcome micronutrients deficiencies. A better knowledge about stress tolerance signs is needed to for designing satisfactory screening techniques to select micronutrients efficient genotyopes. The micronutrients efficient genotypes has the ability to absorb maximum nutrients through roots and their effieint transportation and translocation from roots to other parts of the tissue under any condition. For example, Gupta et al. [52] identified 28 unique transcripts related to Zn/Fe absorption and transportation mechanisms that involved in efficient transportation and accumulation of Zn and Fe in wheat. Zn stress-tolerant germplasm of wheat utilize particular mechanisms like organic ligands, phytosiderophore, and release of proton to increase Zn absorption efficiency of roots; thus, Zn tolerant genotypes can cultivate on Zn deficient soil [53]. Recently, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) developed a diversity panel through genetic dissection of wheat grain to calculate the Zn concentration. The wheat landraces and wild relatives genomes are recognized to have increased levels of micronutrients in grain. Also, the wild relatives and landraces has very low nutrients needs and can grow under limited supply of nutrients. Introgression breeding was used to transfer some unique traits into modern lines via backcrossing to develop a rich gene pool with enhanced genetic diversity [9,53,54]. The results showed that 39 genetic markers were identified controlling the variations in Zn level and detected 7 candidate genes like metal-ion binding and zinc finger motif of transcription-factors.wheat. Other metal transporters include the super family of vacuolar iron transporter (VITs) that have been extensively characterized in cereals. A gene TaVIT2 was investigated for its role in Fe translocation and results showed upregulation of TaVIT2 in vegetative tissue cause 2 fold increase in Fe accumulation [71]. Sharma et al. [72] revealed the upregulation of certain genes such as TaVTL2, TaVTL3, and TaVTL5 in different tissue of wheat and regulate the Fe homeostasis in the cell.Developing biofortified varieties of food crops through conventional breeding is still a most preferred and cost-effective approach.  [74]. In addition, HUW711 a biofortified Zn wheat variety released by Banaras Hindu University, India. Recently released four bread wheat varieties viz., DBW 187, HI 1605, HD 3249 and HD 3298 have more than 43 ppm Fe content [75]. Durum wheat breeding program of IARI, Indore is leading in developing high Fe and Zn rich varieties. Their durum variety HI 8777 possesses high Zn (43.6 ppm) and Fe (48.7 ppm) content; two more varieties protein kinase (MAPK) and bZIP were also identified about Zn concentration in wheat grain [60]. Nie et al. [61] discovered that the ample supply of nitrogen improved the Zn concertation and increase the translocation rate from root to shoot in winter wheat grains. The nitrogen supply up regulated the expression of TaZIP3 and TaZIP7 genes in different tissues. In another study, the role of ZIPs in the uptake of both Zn/Fe was examined under nutrient deficiency conditions. The Overexpressed genes TaZIP3 and TaZIP7 showed higher accumulation and translocation of Zn/Fe in roots and shoots of wheat [62].Nicotianamine synthase (NAS) is regarded as the largest gene family of NAS genes due to the recent discovery of 21 NAS genes in bread wheat. These genes revealed the complex genomic architecture of Fe homeostasis and may function in several pathways involving Fe uptake and translocation [63]. Beasley et al. [64] characterized deoxymugineic acid synthase (DMAS) and nicotianamine aminotransferase (NAA) genes for Fe uptake and translocation in wheat. Under Fe stress conditions three homeologs genes including TaNAAT1, TaNAAT2, and TaDMAS1 were detected that expressed at higher levels in roots. The NAS genes TaNAS1 and TaNAS2 were also upregulated in roots and shoots and enhanced the Zn/Fe uptake and transport in winter wheat subjected to increased applications of nitrogen [65]. Numerous genes have been upregulated in different tissues under nutrients starvation in wheat [66,67].Likewise, Zinc-Induced Facilitator-Like Family (ZIFL) transporters comprised of many genes that have been studied for their function in translocation of Zn/Fe in wheat [68]. Sharma et al. [69] analyzed the ZIFL genes under Zn/Fe starvation in wheat and identified some genes like TaZIFL2.3, TaZIFL4.1, TaZIFL4.2, TaZIFL5, TaZIFL6.1, and TaZIFL6.2 which were up regulated in root in response to nutrient stress. Wang et al. [67] studied the molecular pathways governing the Fe stress response in wheat. The genes involved in the biosynthesis of phytosiderophore were up regulated in roots, showing the significant importance of deoxymugineic acid (DMA) in Fe uptake. The higher expression of DMAS and NAS genes in flag leaves and grains indicated the role of DMA in Fe chelation and translocation especially during grain filling in wheat. Furthermore, BASIC HELIX-LOOP-HELIX (bHLH), NATURAL RESISTANCE ASSO-CIATED MACROPHAGE PROTEIN (NRAMP), YELLOW STRIPE-LIKE (YSL), and TRANSPORTER OF MUGINEIC ACID (TOM) were also highly expressed in Fe starvation. Similarly, Wang et al. [70] also studied that Fe deficiency triggered some genes related to OLIGOPEPTIDE TRANS-PORTER (OPT), ATP-BINDING CASSETTE (ABC) transporter superfamily, MAJOR FACILITATOR SUPERFAMILY (MFS) family, NRAMP family, and bHLH family which showed higher accumulation in roots and flag leaves bread biofortified varieties in Public Distribution System where food grains are distributed at affordable prices to lowincome group of the society will contribute to alleviating hidden hunger in these countries.Genetic mapping approaches like QTL mapping using biparental populations and Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) can identify novel genomic regions and genes affecting important nutritional traits in wheat. The genomic resources like high throughput SNP genotyping and the reference genome sequences will accelerate the mapping of loci for iron and zinc content in wheat. This will facilitate the development and deployment of molecular markers into an elite genetic background and will increase the efficiency of bio-fortification breeding programs.A good number of studies have been conducted for mapping QTLs of grain Fe and Zn content in wheat. Several bi-parental mapping populations have been utilized in mapping these two traits. In majority, these bi-parental mapping populations was developed using bread wheat cultivars 'as parents, however, related hexaploid species like Triticum spelta and stabilized synthetic hexaploid wheat (SHW) lines and tetraploid parents were also utilized for the same. Most of these studies involve MET (multi-environment trial) data for finding consistent QTLs, as grain Fe and Zn contents showed strong genotype x environment interaction.Several QTLs have been identified for grain Fe and Zn content in wheat which can be deployed in elite genetic backgrounds for enhancing micronutrient contents (Table 1). In one of the important studies conducted at CIMMYT, Mexico, several QTLs have been identified for grain Fe and Zn content in three RIL populations [10,79]. In a mapping population derived from a cross Seri M82 and SHW line CWI76364, two major QTLs viz. QZn.Y13-14_4BS and QZn.Across_4BS explaining the good level of phenotypic variance (PVE) of 19.6% and 17.3% respectively for grain zinc content and QTLs viz., QFe.Across_7DS and QFe.Y13-14_4BS explaining PVE of 14.5% and 12% respectively for grain Fe content have been identified [79]. Two QTLs on chromosome 4B for Fe and Zn content were pleiotropic indicating their feasibility of simultaneous improvement. In another study by the same group of researchers, two major effect QTLs viz., QGZn.cimmyt-7B_1P2 on chromosome 7B andQGFe.cimmyt-4A_P2 on chromosome 4 A explaining largest PVE 32.7% for grain Zn and 21.14% for Fe viz., HI 8759, HI 8805 have > 40 ppm Fe and Zn content [75]. One durum wheat variety MACS 4028 having high Fe (46.1 ppm) and Zn (40.3 ppm) developed by Agharkar Research Institute, Pune, India have been included in the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to tackle the hidden hunger in the rural areas of India under the National Nutrition Strategy (MACS 4028 https://dst.gov.in/scientists-ari-pune-develop-biofortified-high-protein-wheatvariety). In 2012, the HarvestPlus program of CGIAR, in alliance with Banaras Hindu University, India, and CIM-MYT, developed high-Zn genotypes with better agronomic benefits designated as BHU 1, BHU 3 (Akshay), BHU 5, and BHU 6. Through public-private partnership, Harvest-Plus has reached more than 500,000 wheat farmers in the Eastern Gangetic Plain of India [76].Fast track multiplication of quality seed is important for spread of variety on large acreage. Public -private partnership (PPP) is now commercially been exploited in India. Indian seed sector involving smaller to bigger companies and using PPP model for seed availability. The 'Nirmal seeds' of India in collaboration with HarvestPlus took up large scale multiplication of seeds of two Zn rich varieties namely Abhay (Zinc Shakthi) and Akshay (BHU 3) over 250 diverse sites in 2015-16. Another medium scale seed company 'Astha Beej' also marketed 4 tons of 'Zinc Shakthi' seeds in 2014 as \"Chitra\" and also multiplied its seeds in over 100 acres for marketing in 2015 [76]. This has helped in quicker availability of seeds of Zn rich varieties to the farmers of Indo-Gangetic plains.In other Asian countries like Pakistan, a Zn rich variety 'Zincol 2016' in the background of wheat variety NARC 2011 was released in 2016 in collaboration with Harvest-Plus and CIMMYT. Another Zn rich variety 'Akbar 2019' released by the Ayub Agricultural Research Institute (AARI) in Faisalabad, Punjab during 2019 was grown by farmers in Pakistan during the 2020-2021 planting season. In addition, another Zn biofortified wheat variety 'Nawab 21' released in Pakistan. The country has a plan to produce more than 4000 tons of seed of the two released zinc wheat varieties in 2020-21 crop season (HarvestPlus 2020 https://www. harvestplus.org/knowledge-market/in-the-news/pakistanfarmers-grow-new-zinc-wheat-variety-improved-nutrition).Furthermore, human intervention trials to determine the bioavailability of the zinc in the biofortified lines are currently being carried out in Pakistan [77] In Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), in collaboration with CIMMYT, has developed blast resistant, Zn enriched wheat variety 'BARI Gom 33' for commercial cultivation in 2017 [78]. These biofortified varieties are extremely important in South Asian countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh where people do not consume enough Fe and Zn in their diets. Involvement of these 'WH 542' and SHW line, four QTLs each were identified for grain Zn and Fe content [84]. They have also identified a common region in the interval of SSR markers Xgwm359-Xwmc407 on chromosome 2 A associated with Fe, Zn content. SHW lines were also utilized in developing the RIL population for identification of QTLs for grain Fe, Zn, and other three micro-nutrient content [85]. They have identified 39 QTLs for five micronutrient concentrations and of these, 22 alleles were from synthetic wheat. Similarly, in a bi-parental mapping study, a RIL population derived from an Iranian germplasm line 'Tabassi' revealed very high PVE (29.1% and 51.4%) QTLs for grain Fe and Zn content [86]. Another mapping study involving RILs derived from low Zn parent and SHW derived line having high Zn content, showed two major QTLs viz., QGzncpr.cmt-1Bc, QGzncpr. cmt-5B on chromosomes 1B, and 5B respectively. The QTL on 1B from high Zn parent explains about 15% of phenotypic variation [9]. Hexaploid species Triticum spelta has been utilized in developing the RIL population for mapping QTL of Fe and Zn [87]. The accession of T. spelta (H + 26) used in this study was reported to have higher Fe and Zn accumulation capacity. They have reported five QTLs each of Fe and Zn. Two QTLs viz., QZn.bhu-2B and QFe.bhu-3B for Zn and Fe content explained 16.46% and 25.96% PVE. These stable QTL linked with SNP marker can be effectively used in breeding programs.Developing countries in Asia and Africa are worst affected by Fe and Zn deficiency. Bio-fortification of wheat varieties by introgression of major effect QTLs of grain Fe and Zn content is the most cost-effective and sustainable approach.To achieve the target level of Fe and Zn, screening of unexplored landraces, related species, wild relatives, promising SHW lines, and alleles from high-nutrient genetic resources are required. Evaluation of mapping populations across the environments for a clear understanding of genotype x environment interaction will be key for identifying stable and major effect QTLs for these two traits. The reported QTLs if deployed in elite genetic backgrounds will lead to a new generation of nutrient-rich breeding lines and will provide a sustainable solution to the problem of malnutrition.Genetic mapping of QTLs has been facilitated greatly in understanding the genetic basis of complex polygenic traits like Fe and Zn accumulation in the wheat grains. Using different bi-parental mapping populations derived from cultivated tetraploid, hexaploid, and SHW lines, several QTLs were identified for these two micro-nutrients (Table 2). However, the QTLs identified using bi-parental populations have low resolution and are confined to the genetic variation present in the two parental lines used in developing the respectively in two different RIL population have been identified [10]. In another study, conducted at two locations in Turkey and CIMMYT, Obregon, Mexico, for two years, two major effects of stable QTLs for Zn content on chromosome 1D and 6B in tetraploid and hexaploid RIL populations have been reported [12]. The same study [18] was also conducted in glass house in Zn depleted soils with high pH (8.0), a major QTL QshootZn.sar_1B with phenotypic variance more than 14% for shoot Zn content was reported. These genomic regions could be important for marker development and their utilization in MAS for improving grain Fe and Zn content. In India, field experiment with plot size of 4.5 m 2 conducted at two locations for two years from 2011 to 2013, in a DH population derived from a cross Berkut/ Kirchauff, three highly stable major QTLs for grain Zn and Fe were reported. The QTL on chromosome 1B and 2B for Zn content explained up to 23.1 and 35.9% PVE, whereas, up to 22.2% PVE was explained by the Fe QTL co-located with the Zn QTL on chromosome 2B [80]. In a RIL population developed using Indian Mega variety PBW 343 and Kenya Swara, Hao et al. [11] identified two novel, stable and large effect QTLs on chromosomes 2Bc and 3AL that explained up to 15% PVE. Many other studies have also identified QTLs for grain Fe and Zn content in wheat [52,74]. Recently, at CIMMYT, Mexico, two studies have reported major effect QTLs of grain Zn and Fe content. In the first study, a Mexican commercial bread wheat cultivar (Roelfs F2007) was crossed with a high grain zinc content line of Chinese origin to develop a RIL mapping population to identify QTLs. Two QTLs viz., QGZn.co-5 A for Zn content and QGFe.co-3B.1 for Fe content explained more than 14% PVE [81]. They have also identified 55 candidate genes from the markers for grain Zn and Fe content using annotated wheat genome sequence. In the second study, a major effect QTL QGZn_Y17_6a on chromosome 6 A with 10.76% PVE was reported for grain Zn content [82]. A RILpopulation developed from a cross Kachu / Zinc shakti was utilized by few studied aiming to identify grian Fe and Zn contents in mature grains (111,113). In a recent study by Rathan et al. [113], three major QTLs with good magnitude of phenotypic variance for grain Fe and Zn content was identified (Table 1).Modern wheat varieties/ elite lines have limited variation for grain Zn and Fe, hence utilization of related species, landraces, local cultivars, and SHW lines could serve as important genetic resources for improving grain micro-nutrient content in wheat. The SHW lines harboring useful and novel genetic diversity from the D genome are rich source of genetic variation for high Fe, Zn, and other micro-nutrients [83]. Therefore, their large-scale utilization in breeding programs for developing nutrient-rich elite lines should be on priority. In a RIL population derived from an Indian variety chromosomes 5 A and 3B. QTLs on these genomic regions were also reported in previous studies [10,91]. The same two panels were also used to determine the genetic architecture of grain Fe concentration. GWAS revealed 41 and 137 significant SNPs in the whole and subpanel, respectively, including significant MTAs on chromosomes 2 A, 3B, and 5 A for Fe concentration [92]. SHW lines are being used for introgression novel genetic variation into elite lines and it is a good source of high grain minerals. Two studies utilized SHW lines for finding significant MTAs for grain Zn and Fe content using SSR [93] and SNP markers [94]. The diploid species Aegilops tauschii which is a D genome donor of cultivated wheat and exploited in developing SHW lines is also an attractive genetic resource for improving mineral nutrition in cultivated wheat. In India, a panel of 167 Ae. tauschii accessions were phenotypes for four mineral concentrations including Fe and Zn and genotyped with 5249 GBS markers. For grain Fe and Zn concentrations, five and four significant associations were detected, respectively [95]. Overall, these studies have improved the understanding of the genetic architecture of grain Fe and Zn concentrations in wheat. Though these two traits are under polygenetic control and often influenced by soil parameters, their level can be enhanced by pyramiding multiple major effect QTLs in an elite genetic background. Such genomics studies will not only increase the understanding of the genetics of these traits but also, will improve the breeding efficiency of the biofortification program.Genetic engineering is one of the approaches to develop nutrient-enriched varieties of staple food crops. Conventional and molecular breeding approaches have been respective mapping population. On the other side, genomic regions identified in GWAS have a good level of QTL resolution, allele coverage as it captures the natural variation from germplasm lines like landraces, local cultivars, SHW lines, released varieties, and advanced breeding lines representing diverse gene pool.GWAS is now being utilized in the identification of marker-trait association (MTA) for grain Fe and Zn content in wheat (Table 2). In the cited GWA studies, different association panels have been used comprising of Harvest Plus Association Mapping Panel (HPAM), European elite wheat varieties, CIMMYTs Spring Wheat Reference Set (SWRF), Chinese bread wheat varieties and mini-core panel, SHW lines, and accessions of Aegilops tauschii. HPAM panel comprising of 330 diverse lines have been characterized by SNP markers for find MTAs. This panel was evaluated in India and Mexico in 6 environments for Zn content; GWAS revealed 39 significant MTAs and two large-effect QTLs on chromosomes 2 and 7 [9]. The same HPAM panel was genotyped for Fe and Zn content in mature grain and rachis at two developmental stages. GWA studies revealed 72 and 65 MTAs significantly associated with Zn and Fe content [88]. A panel comprising of 207 Chinese bread wheat lines were used to detect the genetic basis of Zn accumulation in wheat. GWAS was performed using a 660 K SNP array and 29 unique loci associated with Zn grain accumulation having 12-25% PVE were identified [89]. Similarly, in a panel of Chinese mini-core collection comprised of 246 bread wheat lines, 16 loci associated with grain Zn content on 11 chromosomes were identified using SSR markers [90]. Two panels representing 369 European elite wheat varieties and 183 genotypes were used in GWAS for grain Zn concentration using 15,523 and 28,710 polymorphic SNP markers respectively [60]. Notably, 40 and 161 MTAs were detected in elite varieties panel and subpanel respectively (Table 2) of which, highly significant MTAs were found to be present on comprehensively used to develop bio-fortified varieties and understanding the genetic nature of major nutrient traits respectively. Through transgenic technology, a gene of interest can be directly transferred into an elite variety to elevate the level of micronutrients, provided the nutrient should accumulate in the edible part of the crop without adverse effects on plant physiology or development and economic yield [96]. In wheat, very limited work has been done to improve Fe content using genetic engineering. Borg et al. [97] made an effort to improve Fe content in wheat grain by using the wheat ferritin gene (TaFer1-A). Their results resulted in an improvement of Fe content by 50-85% (44.5 µg/g in endosperm) in grain by overexpressing the Ferritin gene. In a more recent study, a VACUOLAR IRON TRANSPORTER (VIT) gene (TaVIT2), was overexpressed under an endosperm-specific promoter, in the endosperm of wheat grains that resulted in a 2-fold increase in Fe in white flour fractions without an increase in antinutrient phytate content [71]. To date no efforts have been made in developing Zn-rich transgenic wheat lines, however, the QTL responsible for increasing grain protein content (Gpc-B1) is also known to improve Fe and Zn remobilization in wheat [98]. The cloned Gpc-B1 gene and mechanism regulating Fe and Zn remobilization pathways provided an avenue for their effective manipulation and translations into nutrientrich wheat varieties.Several genetic and QTL mapping experiments have shown that inheritance of grain Zn (and Fe) is governed by smallto-intermediate-effect QTL of additive effects. Although several QTL of moderate effect for grain Zn and Fe have been found in different germplasm sources, the genetic control of the trait appears to be best treated as polygenic.The additive and additive × additive gene actions for the selected traits will allow the continuous addition of high grain Zn in high-yielding backgrounds by crossing the best elite lines from the current high Zn breeding lineage with the best elite high-yielding lines. Based on the published results, the most promising candidate hotspot regions for increased grain Zn on chromosomes 2B, 3 A, 4B, 5B, 6B, and 7B; and some QTL regions have a pleiotropic effect for grain Fe as well with grain size QTLs. Moreover, 2B and 4B QTL had a pleiotropic effect for the increased thousand-kernel weight (TKW), suggesting that a simultaneous improvement of grain Zn and seed size is possible.Of the several QTLs, the promising QTL on chromosomes 2, 5, and 7 has the potential to be used in forward breeding. These QTL showed a significant effect for grain Zn when combined inadequate genetic backgrounds. Further","tokenCount":"6631"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"520278f40f795c103492670abae949f6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d62b2c7f-8b8f-4da7-add1-b2699d7e648c/retrieve","id":"751859274"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"18b78490-589a-4fb8-8131-c7a2335d7c57","pagecount":"23","content":"The Vietnam Pig Sector Model (VPM) was initially developed under a project funded by The Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) entitled Improving Competitiveness of Pig Producers in an Adjusting Vietnam Market. The project was implemented by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). The modelling component of this project was carried out by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) under a subcontract to ILRI.The initial version of the Vietnam Pig Sector Model was constructed in 2010 by Nicholas Minot 1 , Karl Rich 2 and their Vietnamese collaborators -Nguyen Ngoc Que 3 and Nguyen Anh Phong.With help from a collaborative research started in late of 2010 between ILRI and Center for Agricultural Policy (CAP), the model was substantially upgraded.The Vietnam Pig SecTor Model of the upgraded version in 2014, VPM2014, is a spatial recursive-dynamic non-linear programming model of Vietnam's pig sector, developed within the General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) framework. The VPM2014 model solves simultaneously for the consumer and producer equilibrium prices in related urban and rural markets of all seven regions in Vietnam by Mixed-Complementary-Problems Solver. Supply and demand are functions of price, all markets must clear (production plus imports equals consumption plus exports) and price relationships must hold. Price relationships are held through the following assumptions: a) Producer and consumer prices relate through margins; b) Regional prices are linked through transport and marketing costs so that the relationship between regional prices is maintained. c) Domestic prices and world prices relate through import and export margins;The demand side of the model is represented by a log-log model where price elasticities are calculated from an underlying regional urban-rural AIDS model for food expenditure calculated for budget shares in the base year. Over a ten year time horizon urban-rural income and population growth determine demand for a product.The model is dynamic in that it projects changes over time in response to demand growth driven by income and population growth. Productivity growth in terms of crop productivity, yield per animal and food conversion ratios drive growth in output over time. Aside from food demand, treatment of the interaction between the Vietnamese pig sector and the rest of the economy is dealt with by using exogenous parameter assumptions that reflect economic growth paths, such as changes in urban and rural income, population and world prices.The aim of this User Manual is to provide a guide on how to:  Set up and run the VPM2014 model;  Make changes to the VPM2014 model structure;  Make changes to model inputs; and  Control model outputs.VPM2014 model uses the General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS). GAMS software can be downloaded for free from the supplier, but to run a model of more than a specific number of variables a GAMS licence for specific solvers needs to be purchased. VPM2014 requires the basic licence which includes the necessary MCP solver 4 . GAMS can run from an operating system command line or on Windows machines using the Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Our user manual is based on use of IDE. IDE is designed to allow editing, development, debugging and running GAMS works in one program. Once installed, the IDE interface can be opened through the icon, start menu or Explorer.The first step in running the VPM2014 model is to create a new GAMS project. The IDE employs a 'Project' file for two reasons:a) The project location determines where files are saved and where GAMS looks for files when executing; and b) The project saves file names and program options associated with the effort in a file called projectname.gpr.To create a new project, select the 'File' menu in the upper left corner of IDE, select 'Project' and 'New Project' (Figure 1). Define a project name and locate the project in a directory where you want to use. All files associated with this project will be saved in that directory. In the \"File name\" area, enter in a name for the project file you wish to use (e.g. \"VPM2014\") (see Figure 2). This defines the directory where the files you wish to access are located (those specified without full file path names). The extension 'gpr' stands for GAMS project. The VPM2014 Model uses input data from the excel file \"VPMInput2014.xlsx\" and extracts its outputs into the excel file \"VPMOutput2014.xlsx\". These excel spreadsheets must be available from the same file location as the three GAMS instruction files, and it must be saved. Before running the GAMS model, ensure you have this file in the correct location (Figure 3).To run the VPM2014 Model, make sure \"VPMSim2014.gms\" is open and selected (If other gms files are open, ensure that \"VPMSim2014.gms\" is selected). Run the model by either clicking the run icon with a red arrow on the tool bar (Figure 4), selecting the 'File' menu and clicking \"Run\", or pressing F9. This causes GAMS to run and the process window to appear, which gives a log (actually containing the LOG file) or the steps GAMS goes through in running the model. The user can narrow the process window and drag it to the right so that the list file (LST) window can be viewed (Figure 5). Error description text appears in the process window and in the LST file that is not automatically addressed. When the shift key is held down you will go to the corresponding spot in the LST file.b) Using the list file navigation window.Clicking on the lines in the LST file allows access to program output both in general and at particular locations (see Figure 5). The positioning of the cursor is determined by the type of line you click on. A list of types of lines typically in the LST file is given in Table 1. Most model inputs are housed within the excel file VPMInput2014.xls. The user can change data within this file, re-save the file and close it. If the excel file is not saved, any changes to model inputs will not be recognised within GAMS. If the user would like to change the name of the Excel file, the updated name must be changed within \"VPMInput2014.gms\" in the line reading $CALL 'GDXXRW VPMInput2014.XLSX skipempty=0 trace=2 index=INPUT!A3' (see Figure 7). The excel file contains data for 29 variables. A list of these variables and their location within the spreadsheet are contained within the block A4:E32. For example, parameters called \"MPAR\" are to be found at INPUT!A35:F39. Users can go to this location and change the values of these parameters or exogenous variables.The variables that users are most likely to want to change are income, population, productivity and world price growth.A small amount of input data is housed in the GAMS file \"VPMInput2014.gms\" (see Figure 8a&b). Changes to this data must be made directly into this GAMS file. VPM2014 contains a number of sets defined within \"VPMInput2014.gms\". Changes to these sets must be made directly into this file. One of these set is titled \"T\" and determines the number of years for which the model is run (Figure 10). When this set is defined as \"/2014/\", then the model will run for the baseline year only. When it is defined as \"/2014*2025/\", then it will run for the baseline year 2014 to year 2025 including all years in between. Where: AR: Feed crop area; α A : Intercept of crop area function; β A : Elasticity of feed crop area with respect to its own & cross-prices; P SF : Feed crop producer price; f and f ′ : Feed crop index and its alias; r: Region index; u: Urban-rural index. ","tokenCount":"1258"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"06906fbbbcec74a253cf6589f353a46d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/61661ef3-9ec5-414f-a62f-2e3d91000961/retrieve","id":"-2136170949"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b60aa63c-a467-410b-ac50-72738e12ffe9","pagecount":"15","content":"This project represents an effort by the East African Dairy Development Project (EADD) consortium to combine and consolidate talents and resources to assist the smallholder dairy farmers in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. As we reflect on the progress of the EADD project, we are very thankful for the opportunity to work with each and every one of you consortium partners and dairy stakeholders.Today the dairy industry has several breeding technologies including, AI using quality proven genetics, heat synchronization for fixed time breeding and sexed semen. Genetics is the smallest input in the farm production level value chain yet its impact on dairy cattle productivity is big. In Rwanda genetic progress using AI is now enhanced by the predetermined breeding schedules such as synchronization of cows.The key driver of the East African dairy industry development plan hinges on individual country dairy policy and a strong market that exerts a pull effect as enabled by the dairy chilling plants hub model. The hub model market is attractive and has quantifiable incentives for the dairy producers that include service provision and access to credit. The artificial breeding services are anticipated to grow exponentially as more planned dairy chilling hubs become functional and are capable of delivering the dairy services farmers need.Improving personal and milk hygiene at farm level is critical to producing quality dairy products and has impact on penetrating regional export markets for East African dairy products. Transfer of technology on udder care and milk quality testing is ongoing in the EADD target areas including introduction of effective pre and post teat dips, milk screening for mastitis, microbial diagnostics and milk component testing equipments. Call your nearest EADD appointed service provider to learn more about these technologies. ABS TCM will maintain standards of excellence with a technical service team available to improve dairy production with AI and synchronization tools, diagnostic testing for mastitis, specialized hands on training on AI, reproductive management, genetic management and quality milk systems. Key to dairy business profitability are: producing a pregnancy in a timely manner, maximizing milk quality, quality feeds and prudent feeding strategies, reproductive and herd management and record keeping. We urge all dairy farmers under the EADD project to use quality genetic products and services to experience a huge impact on your dairy profitability.EAST AFRICA DAIRY DEVELOPMENT NEWS | AUGUST 2009 VOLUME 3 | SPOTLIGHT ON EADD'S BREEDING EFFORTS R wanda is not only a country of a thousand hills; it is also a country of a thousand opportunities and challenges for dairy development. Artificial insemination using high quality bull genetics, and improving milk hygiene and quality are some of the major production and market access enhancement activities being undertaken by EADD.In this article we highlight the Rwandan experience with regards to AI and its intake. We also give an in-depth insight on why AI is good for the country and highlight the best AI strategies applicable.The target for EADD is to improve dairy production for smallholder farmers who earn less than US$2 per day. The entry point into dairy production is a dairy cow. A large majority of farmers in the target project districts in Rwanda own indigenous breeds of cattle whose milk output is extremely low, typically less than 4 liters per cow per day. This certainly does not qualify them as dairy cows. For owners of such cows to meet their household milk needs and have some surplus for sale to improve their income, All these presented tremendous opportunities and incentives for genetic improvement of the cattle breeds so farmers can reduce their numbers of animals while improving their output of milk. A poor smallholder farmer in Rwanda has two options when it comes to genetic improvement of their cattle. The first option is to use natural breeding. Natural breeding requires the farmers to have access to both male and female livestock. Under such circumstances, normally only a few males breed most of the females leading to inbreeding. Leaving the breeding to the livestock lets nature take its own course at best results average-producing animals. Artificial insemination is the second and best option for smallholder farmers in the target project areas. Artificial insemination. is well suited to improving herd performance. It also permits the farmer to select the ideal male to mate with each female on the farm.EADD is using quality genetics from performance tested bulls, whose records are kept, allowing the farmer to select the right bull for their cow or the bull that meets their breeding goals. From a pool of world class genetics, farmers can choose for example, calving ease bulls to avoid the problems of dystocia in their herds. Proven bulls are also ranked on type traits such as udder attachment, fitness traits such as leg conformation and production traits. The difficulty with AI is the level of herd and semen management required. An AI program can fail in several ways.The first is incorrect heat detection. Identification of cattle in heat is critical especially in large herds as with the case in Rwanda. The farmer must closely monitor those cattle exhibiting estrus to decide when they are in standing heat and ready to breed. Ear tagging when done properly, is foolproof cow identification procedure.A recent study by part of the EADD team shows that in the operational zone, only 6% of the farmers are able to correctly pin point true estrus (heat) in animals. This is a major challenge which weighs down on AI following natural heat detection. The challenges of heat detection in the project area gave further impetus for EADD Rwanda to adopt synchronization and time breeding to avoid the inefficiencies associated with poor heat detection.Careless semen handling is the second way AI can fail.The bull semen must be stored, transported and thawed correctly to ensure it remains viable. The third area is im-proper insemination technique. Lack of handling facilities makes it difficult for the inseminators to follow proper semen handling procedures and times. Proper training and experience are necessary to be successful. The farmer often overlooks the last area. Record keeping is important for following individual cows' cycles, birthing dates and missed breeding. EADD has so far trained 336 farmers in record keeping.The Rwanda Government is anxious to see a rapid change over from indigenous animal type to exotics of any level. This has resulted in the country adopting a strategy of using hormones for estrus synchronization and artificial insemination, though it is more expensive compared to natural heat detection. The aim is to get as many improved breeds as possible in the shortest possible time. Basing on experiences of the first year of project implementation where on average, not more than 300 inseminations were achieved per month using natural heat detection, EADD Rwanda had to adopt synchronization and timed AI as a breeding strategy to go along with the government's initiative, and avoid undue competition. However, synchronization was not part of the initial project strategy, and this has called for a review of the budgetary alloca- I n Uganda, some of the target farmers were pastoralists who have now settled in very remote areas. Accessibility to AI services has been a major challenge to these farmers. EADD has therefore set up 'AI Satellite Centers' which bring AI services to the farmers' doorstep. AI Satellite Centers are points from where services, semen and other breeding and animal ID supplies (liquid nitrogen, gloves, sheaths, ear tags, ear tag applicators, etc) can be accessed by the farmers. Other AI service providers also draw supplies from these AI centers to serve farmers in the locality. Farmer groups act as the basis and locality to set up AI centers. Each center is managed by a qualified AI technician who is also the contact person of EADD. To serve farmers better and create trust, the AI technicians sign binding agreements with EADD and the groups. So far, seven AI Satellite Centers have been set up in the various EADD operational areas. This is helping to ease on service delivery to the targeted dairy farmers. Eight more AI satellite centers are planned to be set up in the third quarter of 2009.T his second year has seen tremendous improvements in the EADD project with regards to breeding. Results of intensive breeding are beginning to show. We are celebrating the beginning of births of numerous PoGs! In Kenya, the first calf was born on 6th July to Mr. and Mrs Francis Warui of Silanga village Olkalou the calf was as a result of insemination by Justus Ndwiga from a Holstein bull called Spillman. Mr Warui is also an EADD accredited farmer trainer in fodder establishment and feed conservation, stemming from his knowledge and experience over time. He has been very instrumental in recruiting farmers to deliver milk to Olkalou Dairy. In Rwanda, the first three calves were born in Nyagatare district, Nyagatare site. The calves are two females and one male. All were born in the month of July and all belong to one farmer, Mr. Alexis Kagabo, who is also a community animal health provider working with EADD. One piece of interesting information about the mothers of these calves is that they are all 75% Friesian, and are currently producing on average 16 litres each per day (morning) milking only. Finally, in Uganda, the first calf was born on the 14th June to Mr and Mrs William Kibirige in Wakiso district. The calf is as a result of insemination from a Holstein bull called Vital Sign. Mr. Kibirige is an EADD model dairy farmer whose farm also doubles up as a milk collection center before selling the milk to Jesa farm. He collects 160 liters of milk daily from neighbors.Mr. Kibirige has been over the years passing on weaned calves to assist non-dairy farmers start small dairy businesses. Three Business Plans for Gahengeri, Kibondo & Gasi sites were completed within the last quarter. A fourth one for Matimba is being re-written. Meanwhile, three sites in Nyagatare were linked to processors and are in the process of signing of contracts.Other key activities included linking of two sites, Kirebe and Matimba with the Development Bank of Rwanda to fast track CP financing, site validation that identified four sites to work with EADD in the districts of Rwamangana and Gatsibo. This was followed by feasibility studies that were largely completed within the same period. Business Training Manuals and a Quality Assurance Manual were also developed.EADD Kenya now produces a quarterly newsletter EADD Today in which they highlight the project's progress in Kenya. The newsletter features stories and photographs from the field. To see the inaugural and subsequent editions, EADD held several Business Opportunity Seminars for Business Delivery Service (BDS) providers in Kipkaren, Kipkelion, Siongiroi, Ol Kalou and Mweiga. In order to develop a sustainable dairy value chain, EADD Kenya adopted a sub sector business development services (BDS) approach that aimed in making the dairy market function efficiently by facilitating the provision of BDS services to farmers and capacity building of service providers. EADD identified and is working with private sector providers who are entrepreneurial, business like and willing to invest in the sector. EADD is also partnering with members of the supply chain such as input providers who provide embedded services that can be promoted and replicated.Numerous exchange visits took place within the quarter where skills and knowledge were shared and transferred to farmers on areas such as calf rearing from birth to maturity, good feeds and better feeding methods, feed conservation (silage preparation and management), records and record keeping, income generating activities identification and modern practical animal husbandry tips from the exchange/ host farmer. After the installation of a 5000liter capacity cooling tank, Kiboga opened its doors to members to start selling milk.Currently, it is collecting about 3600 litres daily. Several staff have joined us within the last quarter. In the regional office, Gaitano Simiyu joined as the Regional Direc-  A club catering for the wealthy city woman visited a dairy farm as its monthly outing programme. Most of the ladies had lived in the city all their lives, and had never seen a farm before. On the way, they looked out of the windows as the city squalor turned into lovely, unpolluted countryside. After they arrived, they were greeted by the farmer who invited them to look him up should they have any questions. Maggie, after looking about and being amazed by what she saw, stepped into a building and viewed something she thought was quite remarkable. She saw the farmer walk by and hailed him. He sauntered in. \"Sir,\" she inquired.\"Why doesn't this cow have any horns?\" The farmer cocked his head for a moment, then began in a patient tone: \"Well, ma'am, cattle can do a powerful lot of damage with horns. Sometimes we keep 'em trimmed down with a hacksaw. Other times we can fix up the young ones by putting a couple drops of acid where their horns would grow in, and that stops 'em cold. Still, there are some breeds of cattle that never grow horns. But the reason this cow don't have no horns, ma'am, is because .... it's a horse!","tokenCount":"2185"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2fd1345dfaa7261153dace48372bc630","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ddfa91c9-a7ee-478b-aad7-5fae7a160080/retrieve","id":"1940918422"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"9ab167c1-14ff-4135-b58d-77c0467a7a7a","pagecount":"12","content":"Maize is an important crop grown in most parts of the Uganda for food, feed and income (Asea. et al, 2014). Given climate risk to agricultural seasons, drought tolerant maize varieties can play an important role in maintaining production and protecting livelihoods. Potential barriers for uptake of advanced seed technology could be that farmers lack information to assess benefits of drought tolerant maize, or because of liquidity constraints, or downside risk. Recent empirical literature argues that downside risk, for example risk of substantial income loss associated with weather shocks, may deter farmers to invest in production enhancing technology such a certified seed (Emerick et al., 2016). This despite the fact that the seed has a much higher yield potential and is often more drought tolerant than the varieties traditionally grown by farmers (CCAFS, 2019). Farmers rely mostly on home-saved seed and low quality products from local markets.Research shows that Drought Tolerant Maize (DTM) varieties provide higher and stable yields under dry spells, and provide a risk management strategy in absence of institutional insurance mechanisms (Asfaw et al., 2012;Kostandini et al., 2015;Wossen et al., 2017). Yet despite these benefits' adoption remains persistently low (Fisher et al., 2015). The literature describes the main barriers to adoption as either related to downside risk, incomplete markets and credit constraints, or related to access, awareness, availability and affordability of DTM (Simtowe et al., 2019).When asking smallholder farmers in Uganda Farmers they perceive (hybrid) maize seed as not affordable. The literature on expanding access to agricultural inputs in Africa and serving bottom of the pyramid consumers consider affordability as a liquidity constraint; the ability to pay for products, without being further defined. Proposed solutions to the affordability constraints tend to focus on offering inputs in smaller packages and/or to improve access to credit. (Axmann et al., 2019;Fisher et al., 2015). Therefore, the research team is interested in understanding the concept of affordability from the demand perspective and as a barrier to adoption of DTM varieties. To enhance the understanding of why farmers are not buying quality seed, but mainly use home-saved seed and re-plant grain from the local market, Promoting Climate Resilient Maize Varieties in Uganda (PROMO) project intends to conduct a research study on Affordability and Willingness to pay for hybrid Drought Tolerant Maize seed: Anchoring and learning and economic barriers to adoption of hybrid drought tolerant maize seed and other agricultural inputs. The research team under ISSD Uganda invited participants to an online webinar with the major objective of seeking their contributions on perceptions of affordability and anchoring of willingness to pay for DTM seed on grain. This webinar is a follow-on webinar from the earlier one held in May 2021 on adoption of drought tolerant maize varieties in Uganda.The main objectives of the webinar were; 1. To share proposed tools, materials & methods with a wider audience along the maize value chain 2. To provide a platform for feedback on tools, materials and methods for improvement of the proposed study on Affordability of hybrid drought tolerant maize varieties 3. To get methodological knowledge on how to prepare the study from different maize value chain actors1. Information or ideas on how to improve tools, materials and methods incorporated in the study experimental design 2. A report on the proceedings of the webinar compiled and shared accordinglyA webinar meeting was conducted with stakeholders along the maize value chain in Uganda and beyond on Friday 4 th of June, 2021, starting at 15:00 to 16:00 hours EAT. A presentation on the tools, materials and methods of the study Entitled: Affordability and Willingness to pay for hybrid Drought Tolerant Maize seed was made. A total of 27 participants from different organization including; universities, government, private organization attended the webinar meetings. Details are given in table 1 belowThe discussion questions were prepared using mentimeter where participants accessed the questions and gave their responses. Two discussants (a production officer from Kiryandongo & a PhD student) were contacted prior to the meeting to prepare their views on question 3 and 4 which they presented during the meeting.The participants were also allowed to raise questions for clarification on the presentation and via the chart during the meeting. Responses to the questions were given (see annex)This section presents the proceedings of the webinar meeting including; opening remarks, presentation on the study on affordability of drought tolerant maize varieties, discussions from the plenary and panel discussants.She welcomed all participants and thanked them for accepting the invitation and turning up for the meeting. She informed participants that the meeting is going to be recorded for internal purposes of writing the report so if anyone is not comfortable with it, should feel free to leave the meeting. Integrated Seed Sector Development (ISSD) Uganda is implementing PROMO project. PROMO is Promoting Climate Resilient Maize Varieties in Uganda. In our first webinar, we shared results from a study on community-based risks and barriers to adoption of DTM varieties in Uganda. The project team is planning to conduct another study on affordability and willingness to pay for hybrid Drought Tolerant Maize seed. The main objective of this webinar was to seek contribution from participants on materials and methods we are to use for the study.The presentation was made by Astrid Mastenbroek, the principal investigator for the study on affordability and willingness to pay for drought tolerant maize seed in Uganda. Four possible explanations• Farmers are worried that investment does not cover production costs (risk aversion)• Farmers fear risk of losing the capital investment (loss aversion)• Farmers do not have the money to buy seed (capital/ liquidity constraint)• Farmers take maize grain as a reference point for determining willingness to pay for maize seed (anchoring)-Maize seed and maize grain look the same -No difference between grain price for grain produced by recycled seed or hybrids -Hard to distinguish the two products and connect a different willingness to pay for it -Not willing to pay the full price of DTM varieties1. Do farmers use maize grain as a reference point to decide how much they are willing to pay for hybrid drought tolerant maize seed? -How can we measure the anchor/ reference point? 2. How can we break this reference point to make farmers refer to grain and seed as two different products? -How can we break the unconscious automatic connections between grain and seed in the farmer's mind?Question 1: The presentation is looking at tackling a phycological issue in the mind of the farmer. Is this problem of confusing maize seed and grain only in Uganda or worldwide?Response: if the anchor actually exists, it is a wide issue even in other countries.Connect to website www.menti.com, password is 38092086Question 1: In your opinion, which are the main constraints hindering farmers investment in DTM seed?Responses:Question from the chart: Are you looking at the entire country Uganda?Response: We shall narrow down to one or two districts to make sure we have no variation and don't have to control for differences because we want to establish if this mechanism works or not. It is important to select the right place that is very representative to be able to explain the results we get. If the participant who asked the question wants to comment on why we should control for differences, we would be very happy to hear that.Question 2: Do you think that farmers take maize grain as reference (anchor) for determining their willingness to pay for maize seed?Explanations to the responses on Question 2 Strongly disagrees because there are other factors that hinder farmers, production requirements for instance. Fertilizers among other complimentary inputs limit farmers. In Uganda, farmers due to limited awareness believe that those varieties are GMOs. Thus, there is no political will to support GMOs yet. Therefore, limited awareness and lack of accurate information are some of the factors stopping farmers from taking up some of those varieties. Disagrees (meaning the statement is partly correct) because it is to do with our culture in Uganda, looking at grandfathers and -mothers, they did not study agriculture, so no need to go to school and no need to buy seed, they just keep recycling. Mindset change is needed to improve adoption of DTM seeds.Disagrees because when farmers consider maize, they will be looking at the whole cob of maize, they don't sell maize grain rather they sell grain still on cob. Farmers will be considering the size of the cob with grain. In reference to the tomato example she disagrees.Disagrees with the statement because of the Uniqueness. In fact, in Bukwo district, where he was, they kept confusing seed with grain until early 2000. Currently in Bukwo farmers perspective changed towards the habit of using certified seed and they know that it is possible to get higher yields compared to when home-saved seed are used.Neutral because from experience farmers are no longer just looking at the price of seed versus price of grain. They look at other factors such as investment costs, soil fertility, weather condition, pests and diseases control. If these factors are not taken into account, farmers cannot realize the expected potential. Farmers think that even if they would have bought DTM seeds the output will not be different to the one obtained from home-saved seed. Extension workers have to ensure those other factors are considered.On the other hand, he agrees with the presenter. There are some farmers who want to take up DTM seeds. They then compare the price of 1kg of DTM seed, which is 6,000/=, with the price of 1 kg of maize grain, which is 500/=. So they wonder which benefit do they get from growing DTM seed. However, these farmers who ask are still few.Question 3: Why do (or don't) you think that farmers refer to the maize grain prices when they say that seed is expensiveAdditional response:Farmers say that improved seed is expensive because there is a way you need to manage them looking at all production costs compared to home-saved seed with less management. That is why farmers say seed is expensive.The price of maize is a key factor for them to make up their minds to take up these improved varieties or not. The issue is that the maize grain price is highly volatile can pick at 1000/= then can go as low as 200/=, it is very difficult to predict. Maize farmers, unlike tomato farmers, have the alternative of using home-saved seed which is free. They can get it from their social connections. Many of the farmers look at maize as a source of food rather than income. If a farmer has a perception that he will not get the price he expects, he will not put in extra to buy seed so they opt to go for free seeds that is homesaved seeds. A farmer needs 70,000/= to buy improved seed for planting an acre which is psychologically high compared to zero price for home-saved seed.From experience farmers get low yields even from improved varieties because of soil fertility, weather condition, pests and diseases etc. They don't see themselves different from those who bought seed.Regulation of quality of improved seed, some farmers say if I invest 70,000/= to buy improved seed and there is a possibility that they may get seed which is fake then that will be a loss, so this pushes them back to use home-saved seed.Question 4: How to change farmers automatic thought process between grain and seed in the farmers' mind?Looking at the previous discussions and some of the challenges hindering farmers' willingness to take up improved seeds, the following measures can be taken;• Change mindsets of farmers by presenting facts about these seeds eg. Performance. Most farmers think there is no yield difference between certified seed and home-saved seed • Stop looking at seed as the only input required to increase maize production. This should be taken as a whole package. In addition to having seed outlets, let us also have fertilizer outlets so that farmers after buying seed can get the other inputs. In this way, it becomes a complete common agronomic practice to get high yields and other farmers can learn from that • Engage with government to ensure reduced inputs adulteration so that farmers can gain trust in some of these inputs like improved seedsSeed breeders do a lot and don't envision the whole value chain of producing seed and roll out to smallholder farmers. Private sector (agro dealers) multiply the seed but don't have most of the information. It is up to the agro dealer to give information to the farmers if they have it. Breeders should design small seed packs for farmers to try out and see the difference between local seed and hybrid seed. This will improve adoption of improved varieties.She complimented the moderator for keeping time and thanked all participants for the lively discussion. She added that from the meeting participants are sending the research team back to do a little bit more homework. Saying yes anchoring could be possible but we have to look at the location because it can be in certain places or group of farmers and also check whether the farmers look at grain or cobs with grain. We have to look at other risks, information as well as the entire package. There are many different gaps, we need to narrow down on a topic and hoped that when we have done our homework, participants will be interested to have another discussion with the research team to see if we have narrowed down better and hoping such feedback will be equally use to the participants too. Finally, she appreciated all participants for their time and looking forward at having the next engagement soon.","tokenCount":"2279"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f740e1015a40bb0bcdf3868d8ccef4d1","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f2105b11-d8ee-4368-8bc6-4c27749be94f/retrieve","id":"-1105600777"},"keywords":["Climate-smart agriculture","innovation development and scaling","human-centred design","design thinking","scaling mind-set","system thinking","innovation environment"],"sieverID":"4cc60629-8f4e-410e-9ff9-c09de604d2ec","pagecount":"38","content":"Titles in this series aim to disseminate interim climate change, agriculture and food security research and practices and stimulate feedback from the scientific community. The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) is led by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and carried out with support from the CGIAR Trust Fund and through bilateral funding agreements. For more information, please visit https://ccafs.cgiar.org/donors.Global food systems are at the intersection of major challenges under climate change.Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) has emerged as an approach to drive the agricultural transformation. In recent years, the international community has increasingly emphasized the need to bring CSA to scale, to accelerate the transformational agenda.Since 2009, the CGIAR Research Program Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) aims to facilitate this through research and action based on science. As working definition, CCAFS understands scaling as \"the set of processes required-in the context of climate variability, climate change and uncertainty about future climate conditions-to go beyond pilot projects through sustainable change (i.e. in knowledge, attitudes and skills) that can bring higher quality solutions to millions of farmers and food system actors in a fast, equitable, inclusive, and lasting manner, towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (CCAFS).\"Since CCAFS entered its second phase (2017)(2018)(2019)(2020)(2021)(2022), scaling up efforts have been supportedby the program's theory of change, and by the crosscutting Learning Platform on Partnerships and Capacity for Scaling CSA (LP6). With the review of CCAFS Scaling Activities, implemented in the first semester of 2019, CCAFS intends to increase its internal learning on scaling, and to steer its scaling processes in the most effective and best possible way.Premise of the review was that scaling processes are already happening and are being reported on within CCAFS portfolio. In fact, the outcomes of the first two years of CCAFS current phase accumulated to 3 million households that have already been reached by the program.Based on this premise, this review was commissioned by LP6 to reflect upon the CCAFS project portfolio, to highlight good practices and gaps of CCAFS scaling activities, and to enable institutional learning and improvement from the implementation perspective. The targeted outputs of the review were: Information on needs from the implementation level  Information on structural needs for change within the organization  Management input from involved staff  Clear demand orientated mandate for LP6 activities  Concept of a learning and exchange format as \"service product\" for LP6 Implementation of LP6 learning and exchange formatScaling is a complex process that happens in complex environments. Therefore, it requires a holistic approach and adaptive systemic management. Further, scaling is a highly user-centric process that can benefit from a business perspective, in terms of usability, added value to both the users and providers, access and distribution, and sustainability. This will require research organisations and projects to respond with changes at a systemic level, including the areas of project design and implementation, M&E, finance, management and organisation.The review therefore used the concepts of design thinking and system thinking with the aim to draw organisational learnings. These concepts were applied throughout the Reviews process, from the design of the interviews, to the analysis and finally, as concept for a connected Scaling Workshop with the CCAFS Core Team, validating the results and prioritizing next steps.During the review, 21 active practitioners within CCAFS ongoing projects were interviewed from March to May 2019. The interviews were semi-structured, with open lead-questions in order to draw on the practitioners´ experience and perspectives. Interview topics were based on the main findings of the multi-stakeholder CCAFS SEA and cross-CRP Conference on Scaling in Hanoi 2018 (Koerner et al. 2019). Gender, youth and social inclusion were added as additional topic as specified in the review's terms of reference.The projects were selected in a staged process with criterion of good or excellent results for the latest internal outcome evaluation (2018), scaling activities reported in the internal monitoring tool MARLO and by recommendations. These included projects that had not scaled (yet), but also projects with innovative partnerships, especially in the finance and private sector, and with innovations' potential for disruption. Another criterion was a balanced regional, thematic and centre-representation. The review was concluded with a Workshop on Scaling with the CCAFS Core Team in May 2019 in Madrid.The main findings are presented and discussed in relation to the respective interview topics as considered most expedient by the authors. During the interviews, however, the same recurrent issues were more redundantly mentioned throughout the different topics.\"Scaling is leveraging across different projects, a series of synergies and momentums.\"The projects that informed this review were spread across local, national, regional and global levels. Scaling cases ranged from technology packages and climate services to system solutions and approaches like climate-smart villages and citizen science, from data management to institutional support, from mitigation strategies to policy advice andimplementation. Some projects focused directly on testing innovative scaling pathways.Accordingly, scaling was understood differently across projects.In all cases, the scaling processes were based on long term research, engagement, knowledge and presence in the respective contexts. In most cases, scaling of the innovations was seen as integral part or logical next step of the projects. However, many projects struggled with the meaning of scaling, and perceived a trade-off between reaching the required numbers of beneficiaries, and the quality of their research outputs.\"Not only user-but very stakeholder oriented.\"All projects named early engagement of users and stakeholders as crucial factor for innovation uptake and scaling. Degrees of engagement varied, with several projects emphasizing that meaningful engagement would entail to involve users and stakeholders in all critical and programmatic decisions, so that these would really own the approach. One project explicitly worked on \"fostering autonomy in the villages and upstream linkage to reduce the dependency from researches.\" Some projects noted that early engagement would also foster a participatory, bi-directional learning process that could help projects to better target their research. As one interviewee mentioned, many projects would start with a \"boiling the ocean\" approach to identify the most important leverage points. Asking the relevant stakeholders in the first place would get them there one or two years earlier.All projects put solid evidence for their innovations' effectiveness at the core of their scaling processes, with many of them emphasizing that pilot projects need to take place in real settings to discover constraints. In most cases, the exposure of stakeholders to the demonstrated evidence/pilot projects was crucial for their buy in. As one interviewee put it:\"It did not acquire attention until people figured it out by themselves.\" In addition, tools were said to be more useful when users developed them by themselves.In the same gist, it was stated that more time should be spent on capacity building, especially for national science partners, since these would be \"very quick to sustain the processes in the long term\". One project working on big data explicitly used universities for \"scaling capacities\" to develop their own system of data management. They employed strategies from hosting the universities' professionals in their own centre, sharing all script analysis files and building and technically supporting a Community of Practice between the technicians working on these topics, over several years. They also developed several university courses, and curricula for bachelor and master studies.Another crucial element was the credibility of the innovations themselves, and that solutions would need to bring tangible results and benefits for the farmers. Several projects used bundled approaches, or aimed to \"present the user with the entire business case\". This would also require entrepreneurial spirit and the involvement of the whole value chain, as well as good economic analysis, which several projects found they lacked in terms of capacities or opportunities to work on.Many projects further mentioned the need to \"link all levels for scaling up and out\" as highly important. For this, it was important to create consensus and a common vocabulary. One project described that before they did anything, they had to help \"levelling the playing field\", to build trust and relationships among the actors.With regard to the projects' management for scaling, it was stressed that social science should be strongly involved in scaling initiatives, both in terms of the design of the scaling mechanism and/or the choice of distribution channels, as well as for impact evaluations. It was further found beneficial to empower the own team by \"learning as we go\", fostering entrepreneurial spirit and having a young team that enjoys going to the field. It was also mentioned that iteration processes need to be well documented and socialized, to be able to build on what was said and done in previous workshops.Textbox 1: Summary of findings on scaling with policy incidence.With regards to solutions that involve several stakeholder groups, projects found it very important to understand the needs and to find the \"sweet spots\" of all parties, with a clear incentive structure. One interviewee felt that this role of brokering and creating \"win-winwin\" solutions was often missed in the scaling debate. For example, in his scaling project, Summary of findings on scaling with policy incidence: \"Changing the mind-sets of politicians takes time!\"\"In scaling up and out a solution, the political calculus is extremely important. In project \"There is a gap between action and impact.\"Maybe the biggest challenge mentioned by many projects was to provide solid evidence on scaling, related to both proving that it works, and to learning how it works. This was largely attributed to missing impact assessments, but also to missed opportunities in knowledge management.Another challenge concerned the cooperation with different stakeholder groups, which would require to manage the different interests. Making commitments to stakeholders without really understanding their needs was mentioned as possible pitfall for scaling. Also, not all partners or institutions would change at the same pace.Several projects also struggled with the business model perspective and finding cost effective scaling models. This would require more economic analyses on costs and benefits in the different context, and also within the different solutions. Stakeholders need to know which part of the packages are the crucial ones that bring the main impact. In addition, \"you need to prove that your idea is superior to all the many others currently tested\". Another still open area was how to integrate consumer preferences more, and generally, how to assess market demand.With regard on impact investment, it was found that \"the impact investors need a level of detail that we currently cannot deliver.\" Private sector people would need concrete recommendations with clear cost-benefit analysis and returns on investment: \"Overall it is all about risk management: Implementers need to understand the investment and maintenance costs and the time until the investments lead to return on investments (roi), and seek opportunities to bridge the attached risks.\" Some projects were starting to undertake smaller studies to assess potential rois, others tried to assess what is the potential to scale (e.g. market size) or to quantify the scalability With regard to the internal management for scaling, projects faced the challenge that the portfolio comprised many small projects, and that the lacking stability of funding would lead to high staff turnover, since \"everyone has to work on cost-recovery basis\".Inter-centre cooperation and the set-up of interdisciplinary teams was said to work best on local and personal levels, (e.g. by scaling other centres technologies), but oftentimes missed mid-level involvement. This was attributed to a competition for funds, and would result in different institutes trying to invent their own social sciences. It was also acknowledged that with a diffusion of funds, interventions would become less impactful.Some interviewees felt strongly that the donors' demand on reaching \"numbers\" would push the limits of research: It would direct the focus from achieving impact (by reaching large numbers) to reaching scale, potentially at the expense of the quality of the solutions (e.g. by omitting context-specificity, or by aiming for less sustainable solutions). It was expressed that there is a need to manage the expectations between donor communities and what research can contribute, and that a narrative on this would be really important.Main gist of this topic was that there is a conceptual difference between pilot and scaling projects, which is not reflected in the usual funding schemes. Some interviewees rather found that project research and funding would be \"fundamentally in opposition to scaling\".Several projects mentioned that they would work in different phases, with a first phase focusing on technical and non-technical research, and a second phase dedicated to markets and policy dialogue. This was mainly the case with technology oriented projects. Other projects, often around Climate-smart Villages, citizen science and climate services, described how they \"tested innovations as they were doing their research\". These had generally a strong focus on initial and ongoing user-and stakeholder engagement, with the users' deciding \"what was going to be scaled\".Here, some interviewees felt that it was really hard for researchers to get money from the donors for trying things out in the field, since these would prefer to fund research and publishing, and rarely fund prototyping. On the other hand, user-centred methodologies were strongly recommended for future projects, especially in the digital domain.With regard to preparation of scaling projects, active stakeholder mapping was mentioned as good practice to identify partners with legitimacy and mandate that could complement the project's work. Also the scaling mechanisms, e.g. distribution channels, would have to be checked and in place before impacting at large scale.Projects with a strong focus on capacity building noted that there was a steep curve with intensive initial financial and human resources, which diminished in degree as the process accelerated and the partners took over the lead.Another crucial ingredient of project design was the design of a hand-over strategy. Some projects (mainly technology based) did this rather at a second phase or end of the project, while others (approach oriented) used stakeholder engagement as a way to build in the handover from the very beginning. However, the biggest mistake in scaling was mentioned to be assuming that once the project is handed over to the partner, the work was done.Important considerations here were that even as the policy or private sector partners take over, they will do their own pilot schemes before really going to scale, adapting and modifying the innovations to their own terms and conditions. To ensure design fidelity (or the \"sanctity of research\"), it was considered important that partners share the same vision, and that researchers continue to be close to the implementation for further advise. This will still require transaction costs that need to be covered.Especially with regard to climate services, continued presence on the ground would still be key, which comes with its own set of challenges, e.g. with regard to the field work expenditures. Partners working on field level could be easily interested, but not be ready to take risks or to put money in. They have their own structures to subsidize. Possible negotiations could be to get services to these organizations for an add-on price, not striving to cover the full price of the ground agents. In turn, research projects often have the knowledge, but not the budget to equip farmers with the necessary material.Theories of change were generally seen as too static. E.g. Government strategies and language would change fast, but theories of change were designed for three years. Although the vision/ objectives would remain the same, projects would adapt the path on how to get there.Theories of change shall rather lead to circular project designs, supporting the understanding of connectedness and trade-offs, and provide spaces for learning from other projects.Textbox 2: Summary of findings on leveraging projects.\"As you scale the approach you also need to scale the monitoring.\"All projects recognized the need for solid evidence, with most projects valuing evidence not only as starting point, but at the different stages of the scaling processes. Checking the assumptions when scaling up was seen as crucial, as was evaluating pilots/projects before expanding to another place/stage. This and impact assessments should be part of project design. The generated evidence would then serve both as proof as for learning.Summary of findings on leveraging projects: \"The incentive for uptake might not rest in one single project/solution\"The scope and duration of projects was in many cases cited as limited factor for scaling.Projects were dealing with this in different ways. One regional initiative on climate information would seek to always having a core project delivering the \"building blocks\".These would be knowledge, tools and mechanisms for scaling climate information in the different contexts. Aligned smaller projects would then support the scaling out to the different countries of the region. Here, the different projects would also have to accommodate e.g. spontaneous requests for support of other countries, or impact assessments from previous projects. Accordingly, the whole initiative shared one theory of change, written in an overarching way, and generating knowledge across the smaller projects.A similar example researched the mitigation potential of different livestock strategiesinitially without \"scaling component\". However, by the time this project ended, seemingly without impact, the previous engagement with policy makers, cattle associations and an NGO had already resulted in a business model based spin-off project. This new scaling project looked at the whole meat value chain and signed agreements with major supermarkets about preferential prices for meat with a low carbon footprint. This project now runs as joint venture between the CGIAR centre and the NGO, and under the umbrella of the Region of Colombia! However, there was some ambiguity about the meaning of big numbers in the development context, which might result in situations that are \"more about getting scale than impact.\" The welfare indicators that projects were using would depend on the respective programs' goals.Interviewees found that measuring would be different for the different innovations or \"products\". Most agreed that an adequate M&E for scaling would contain quantitative and qualitative and progress indicators. Especially with regard to gender integration, several projects were not really sure about what to aim for and how to measure, although they found this topic increasingly important for their projects.A shared concern was the attribution gap, since especially impact evaluations usually happen after the projects' end, and it was seen as difficult to measure impact after handing over to the next user. As one way for addressing the attribution gap it was suggested to give money to partners for evaluations, linked to analysing the different partners' contributions. Within financial or business approaches, measuring of impact was suggested to be more straightforward, since these sectors work with sales data and customer satisfaction and/or closely monitor their supply chain. In turn, the role of farmers in providing evidence and data was seen as more complex, since farmers would be stronger and more enthusiastic in experimentation than in collecting and storing data.With regard to CCAFS internal monitoring tool, projects appreciated its (and the managements') flexibility on deliverables, but found this tool rather suited for monitoring than for evaluation. Oftentimes, the data would be entered by people that would not be aware of the projects' scaling processes and learnings. Several interviewees stated that the knowledge management for the CGIAR system could generally be improved, within or beyond MARLO.With regard to gender, youth and social inclusion the integration in project design and scope of action was very different for the projects, depending on their respective context. In some areas, decision makers were still mainly men, and it was difficult to meaningfully involve women. Other projects worked directly with women, or aimed to scale technologies in which women could play an important role (e.g. setting up and maintaining community seed banks).Especially with regard to scaling, it was found that each scaling topic has its own specificities for women, youth and vulnerable groups, like e.g. ethnic minorities. There is a need to understand more about synergies, barriers and unintended consequences.One project worked with a strong \"do no harm\" principle, e.g. taking into account women's work load and their voice in decision making. Since \"things can easily go wrong\" here, the project tests innovations on a small scale first and puts a lot more attention to the social science and behavioural aspects.Another still critical topic was mentioned as being women's access to finance. Women's access to markets was seen both as a limitation, as also an opportunity. E.g. one project experienced that a scaled innovation provided such a salient business case for women that these entered the sector and therewith changed the traditional role of men.Good practices were further to frame interventions in a way that they were important to women and for the next generation, e.g. to work with women at the nexus of climate change, gender and nutrition. With regard to risk management, it was found that women can actually be strong agents of change. One suggestion was to ask the key question: How can women help scaling?With regard to youth, interviewees found mainly that this issue was still quite open, with the meaning currently determined from donors and development sides. They also found that this would need future work and probably social media and other digital engagement strategies.The main entry point was seen for connecting youth to markets, to generate income more quickly and to keep them interested in the agricultural sector.Several projects saw youth as potential carriers for innovation, especially targeting them for digital approaches. One project directly focused on collaboration with universities in order to produce data mining start-ups by students, or internet communities for technologies, triggered by a lack of professionals in this sector.The worst mistake in scaling, however, was said to be simplifying when striving for achieving scale. This would point to integrating \"youth, gender and social inclusion at scale\" into frameworks and projects in ways that would not require more resources and/or people's time.\"How to assess something unknown?\"Across projects, climate-smart agriculture technologies and practices are seen as risk-reducing measurements in the context of climate change, that are further very well researched for this purpose. As such, technical risks are well known, and large parts of the work are dedicated to assessing suitability for the different contexts before scaling.Remaining risks are mainly interpreted as e.g. residual risks with regard to climate information and insurance schemes. Here, the best way to deal with it was considered to give farmers and next users transparent and complete information on potential benefits and risk areas. To help farmers in understanding the probabilistic nature that underlie climate services, projects invest in trainings with games and exercises.Consideration was also given on how this uncertainty, and eventually \"getting it wrong, which you will\", would affect the projects' relation with the end users and institutions. This could be mitigated by stakeholder engagement and maintaining agency with the decision makers, which again would have to be reflected in the budget.Risks in the sense of unintended consequences were hardly considered, although considered as quite important and relevant by some projects. One project actively pursued a \"Do no harm\" approach (see previous chapter). One interviewee cautioned to be careful about connecting farmers to markets. A second interviewee made a case for critical assessment of one's own capacities: \"Before you give guidance, ask yourself: do I know where the bottleneck is and am I the right person to fix it?\" A third interviewee suggested that this was probably a good topic to \"explore explicitly with our co-development partners -this could be something that they hopefully would have had more thought about or experience than we have.\"Another interpretation of risks was more a reputational one, directed to the perception of CCAFS/CGIAR as research organizations. Some interviewees felt that with the \"tilt towards being more a marketing organization\", at some points academic circles would not take them seriously anymore.On the portfolio strategy side, it was mentioned that there was currently \"a bit of a hype\" with regard to apps, which still would need people working on the ground, and that sensor technique had the potential to bring a technological revolution in about three years' time, when this technology and the communication around it would become cheaper.\"Find a niche: where do we add value compared to existing networks?\"While interviewees generally valued the autonomy and flexibility of CCAFS regional and flagship programs, some expressed that stakeholder coordination could still be improved, e.g.by providing access to the different projects' stakeholder networks. As good practice was also seen to set up regional or thematic stakeholder hubs with the respective expertise. On CCAFS global level, projects mentioned that they would benefit from a global mapping of stakeholder needs.Projects also felt that they needed stronger commitments from donor sides, which could be addressed on CGIAR level by more strategically engaging with multi-lateral donors and national governments. However, it was found that there was a lack of strategic view and leadership in the CGIAR system that led to a significant reduction in CGIAR's political power.Projects would appreciate conceptual guidance from the CCAFS Learning Platform on Partnerships and Capacity Building for Scaling CSA (LP6) in finding the most important leverage points for scaling, including guidance on economic assessment tools and market studies, and support in convincing the private sector to participate. Some would further highly welcome LP6 to develop, introduce and promote applied research components, e.g. \"prototyping formats for scaling\". LP6 was also sought to facilitate access to and guidance for the use of scaling tools.There was a high demand among projects for support of LP6 or the CCAFS in general in providing evidence for scaling, both for proving and learning from the scaling processes. This would also include to tackle the lack or scarceness of social & economic evaluations and long term monitoring of projects' impacts along the scaling processes.The Knowledge Product Incubator: \"Because we are time bound and with limited resources … we will use these better!\"Currently, many research \"products\" are tailored to specific donor needs. There are missed opportunities to further adapt our research outputs to make them more widely applicable and more relevant to private sector partners. The Knowledge ProductIncubator, developed by CIAT, focuses on existing knowledge products, which will be further tailored to private sector needs. With an additional 25% effort, the incubator aims to multiply the additional value from existing products by several times. This happens by making them more usable and accessible to next users (e.g. consultants, verification and other knowledge providers), who in turn would translate these into recommendations for private sector and commercial partners.This new pilot project is an opportunity to understand development from an applied approach, leaving the conceptual debate and trying out something tangible. It will be a huge learning experience regarding the barriers for similar product development, e.g. how to identify high-potential knowledge products at CIAT, licensing, cost recovery, financing, contracting. Success would then be measured in terms of financial volumes (e.g. number of users who value the information service enough to pay). Pioneering a project, there is always a chance of failing: \"If the incubator fails, then there is definitely not going to be any internal support for a second year of this kind of risk taking\". But if it works, this could turn into a future source of funding to develop new products. After one year, the incubator will have established a method for ranking potential products based on technological readiness and interest from private sector, as well as identified best practices through the design and launch two prototypes. \"Ideally, in 7 years, the approach of the incubator will be integrated into the way we think about project outputs, and the incubator will be gone\".There is an important opportunity to adapt the CCAFS research approach: Especially for decision support and digital projects, oftentimes the comparative advantage of different systems is less obvious and can be more related to accessibility: design features integration with existing information and value chains. Acknowledging this helps us to identify effective new distribution channels, e.g. \"start-ups massively need novel info. We have lots of this …!\"Referring to evidence, some interviewees also mentioned that CCAFS might revisit the ownership of impact claims, since there might be some attribution issues between centres/projects, but also of CCAFS sometimes being perceived as \"piggy backing\" on centres' projects' achievements.Most projects made a strong point that they would greatly benefit from more active learning from their fellow re-searchers and implementers. As one interviewee put it: \"As an organization that is people-based, we are lacking internal feedback, and a targeted knowledge management.\"This would include the improvement of learning and interaction between centres, relevant partners, and powerful external actors, but also creating learning platforms for and with farmers. CCAFS was considered to be suited for that for having a \"perception of objectivity here, being an external force\".However, as one interviewee started \"sharing itself is not difficult, but who will be in charge of that, and who funds this?\" It was found that there is a need for some kind of framework to carry learning further than occasional sharing on CGIAR-organized events. On the potential role of communities of practice, some interviewees emphasized that these should be targeted and geared towards impact. Members would need a real incentive to participate, e.g. with relevant donors being part of the group: \"You do not want to be in a Community of Practice and be alone …\"Communication was further rated as highly important, and one interviewee suggested to involve their communication officer in the learning platforms, for quicker sharing of discussion contents.Several projects stated that they would wish for more advocacy, open dialogue and narratives along some sensitive, strategic or critical topics related to scaling. One project had to overcome ideological counteractions from a national government, and would welcome dialogue and diplomatic support, for which CCAFS would be well placed, due to excellent communication.Other areas where open dialogue would be welcomed were on risks and unintended consequences, and on the meaning of impact. As one interviewee stated, there were different ways of communicating impacts, \"one for marketing and one being honest.\" It was felt that CCAFS could provide some \"sense of reality\" on this important matter.\"This is something to be really proud of!\"When asked \"what makes your work exciting?\" most interviewees responded with spontaneous enthusiasm. Although the challenges at times felt overwhelming, nearly all were excited to create outputs with large impacts, and to see that they really contributed to change things, on the different levels.Textbox 4: Case study 2: IWMI's grid-connected solar solution for farmers.\"In India, water subsidies had become a political issue and farmers strongly resisted any attempt to rationalize or to abolish these subsidies. The commercial energy sector was basically bankrupt. We were interested in finding a solution that would replace the existing perverse incentives into virtuous ones while preserving the interests of electricity utilities and farmers. We kept on writing papers, and kept adjusting and tweaking.Finally, we found a way how farmers could produce solar energy and feed the surplus in the gridthus both decreasing grid dependency at peak times for irrigation, and introducing new revenue streams.The idea was intuitively appealing in conferences, but nobody thought that this could actually be done. CCAFS then came in and they offered us 200,000 USD, to actuallyshow that this could work on the ground. This was a very bold and brave thing to do! CCAFS fund gave us a lot of flexibilitymost research grants are not designed to provide material, just staff time. So we created a functioning pilot case with 9 farmers.The real scaling then started after the Minister of Energy came, and talked to the farmers.He basically made it his own project, for gaining political mileage. By now, the local government already solarized 70 feeders and intends to solarize 3,000 more feeders in 2019. The national government has announced a 5 billion USD scheme, with a component of scaling out this pilot nationwide over the next 10 years.\"Help us to implement more ideas like this -give us more seed funding for prototyping!We love creating impact and getting credit for that. We have a lot of more ideas.\"One interviewee was excited by the growing recognition for diversity among research and development communities. Another interviewee described how \"linking and understanding from local to intermediate to national levels created a \"eureka!-moment for everyone\". One researcher working with farmers described the moment in which one initially sceptical farmer turned into an active promoter, even before the workshop had ended. Others were thrilled by the sudden attention and credit of high level stakeholders and connected media exposure. One interviewee felt energized by \"untangling the knot\" and detecting possible avenues and leverage points.Others were inspired by \"making science actionable\" and by seeing the shift in attitude of the scientists toward being implementers. CCAFS was credited several times for being an environment for innovation.As a next step, these findings were screened and analysed with the perspectives of design thinking and system thinking to extract organizational learnings.Design thinking is a process for creative problem solving that places the user in the focus of product-or service development. Designing for users' needs, and combining this with what is technologically feasible and economically viable, increases the relevance of products and services, and their applicability and up-take by users. User-centred design is an agile and iterative process in which developers constantly test and improve their assumptions and prototypes in real live situations with the next-and end users (see figure 1). The review used the concept of design thinking to understand how users and stakeholders are engaged in the scaling processes of CCAFS' project portfolio.The interviews revealed that CCAFS project staff already employed stakeholder-and usercentric approaches widely and in iterative ways. These were even identified as crucial learnings and key success factors for scaling. Generally, the reviewed projects were characterized by a strong user-focus and concentration on stakeholder needs, by using iterative steps in \"product\" development and stakeholder engagement, as well as in project adaption and implementation. However, projects found their progress often limited by the current structure, with regards to the initial project design, project duration and funding schemes, and found that there were missed opportunities in the knowledge management.It was also found (more implicitly) that also on CCAFS management level, the use of the principles of design thinking could improve some of the offered formats. E.g., as one interviewee stated with regard to Learning Platforms: \"I have to understand why this is important for me!\"The visualization of the iterative processes happening within CCAFS can also help projects to understand at which point of innovation development and scaling they currently are, and what support and next steps are needed.The concept of systems thinking provides useful perspectives when working on wicked problems in complex dynamic systems. It presumes that wicked problems defy the classical logic of problem -solution, but rather are symptoms of an underlying system at work. A system is understood as an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized for a certain purpose. As a holistic approach, system thinking focuses on these interrelationships and patterns of change.The review used the Iceberg-Model for analysis, with the hypothesis that people usually react to an event, which are taken as the cause for the reaction. However, these events are only the smallest part of an \"iceberg\". Observable patterns underlie these events, giving hints about the again underlying structures that evoked these patterns and events. These structures are supported, or kept in place, by people's mental models. The review revealed a lack of clarity and consensus within the CCAFS portfolio about the meaning of scaling among the different projects. The donors' increasing demand that research shall contribute to the SDGs can be seen as an event that forces projects to react and to adjust.This can lead to projects seeing scaling as imposed numbers by donors. Some projects even distanced themselves from \"scaling\", although they actually worked very impact oriented.At the pattern level, it was observed that many projects started with a certain premise, usually defined within the projects´ and institutes´ limits and scientific expertise, and directed to tackle the specific challenges that they faced or strived to address in the respective context.\"No matter what is the entry point, sooner or later we will have to address the other aspects, too.\"When progressing to achieve impact at scale, at some point most projects were pushed to broaden their approach in order to reach their goal of scaling. To do so, they had to incorporate factors and applications from other domains, e.g. of social sciences (policy making, business models, marketing), and novel forms of cooperation. Many projects then experienced clashes with the underlying structures, e.g. with regard to project design, the needs for different sets of capacities, or inter-centre cooperation. In some cases, this also raised questions about the mandate of research. In most cases, projects expressed a strong desire to learn more from peers that experience the same or similar situations or challenges. The diagram in figure 3 shows a summary of the reported entry points of the projects, and the additional factors that they had to include during the scaling progress. This pattern reveals how entry points and \"destinations\" are complementing each other, but also points to the need to break these linear pathways of interventions. The concept of system thinking helps to understand the scaling processes as a journey on the same landscape, but with different entry points. This also opens the space for a more holistic management approach with regard to the portfolio, knowledge management and learning.At the level of mental models, interviewees found that they had started off as experts in their respective scientific research fields, often times unaware of the complexities and demands of scaling. The interviewees then described their own changes in their mental models, which during the process has made them more dynamic, flexible and resilient in responding to the challenges of scaling. They perceived their transformation from scientists to implementers and solution providers as highly exciting and motivating.This change of the researchers' mental model is ground-breaking and creates a unique fertile environment for impactful scaling, which can be leveraged across the CCAFS program.Researchers that worked with a scaling mind-set were very successful in a structure that by many is perceived as limiting. Examples range from working more efficient within the structure (e.g. by incorporating other centres' technologies into the scaled solutions), working around the structure (e.g. by scaling a solution in form of parallel and complementing projects) or even by working on the structure itself (e.g. by testing new ways of cooperation and funding).The reviewed projects also showed how the application of the principles of design and system thinking at the different stages of innovation development and scaling can help to sustainably improve the work and impact of all projects across CCAFS portfolio: Designing and implementing projects with the principles of design thinking help to increase their relevance (needs-based, demand oriented), the iterative character helps to identify challenges and opportunities at all stages of the process (applicability, risk at scale, but also new uses, users and partners), the scaling mind-set helps to ask the right questions (e.g. what would be a winwin-win solution?) and to act in an entrepreneurial way (e.g. seizing opportunities).The review also showed the need for an open dialogue on strategic, sensitive or critical topics related to scaling. As topics, interviewees planted risks and unintended consequences of scaling, ideological discussions that have repercussions in partner governments' counteraction (e.g. about OPVs versus GMOs), and the strongly perceived tension between quantity and quality of outcomes. A strong shared narrative would provide guidance and also reassurance, ideally accommodating the different positions on quantity versus quality, sanctity of research versus innovations' adaptability, being a science or a marketing organization, to name just a few.\"The issue of scaling could be a piece of CCAFS, be of the whole CCAFS, or of the whole world of development.\"The new narrative on scaling can be seen as meta-concept for CCAFS, thus becoming a holistic perspective towards achieving broad sustainable impact. Asking the right questions allows the shift of the focus from problem orientation (\"structure is limiting us\") towards productive solution space. Introducing scaling as a meta-concept enables the organization to identify areas of improvement at all stages of project development and implementation.Instead of asking: \"How can we achieve scale?\" we should ask: \"How can we improve our work through scaling?\"CCAF was already perceived by some projects as an innovation environment. This related mainly to being flexible, for \"listening to what we are doing\" and for having given uncomplicated seed funding for prototyping. CCAFS is further characterized by its highly motivated people working on a diverse set of highly relevant technologies. It has access to own or leveraged resources and excellent communication and recognition of powerful actors across all levels. This puts CCAFS in a great position to step up its scaling efforts and to accelerate the progress towards achieving the SDGs and the Paris Climate Agreement.Strengthening CCAFS role as an innovation environment can help CCAFS to remain efficient, relevant and competitive in the face of current and future challenges. This entails creating the capacities needed for continuous change among all levels of leadership and implementation. It also involves developing and testing new approaches and formats that address current barriers for scaling, and that could serve as example and be leveraged across the CGIAR and the entire development community. Finally, CCAFS still has potential to improve and accelerate its learning and knowledge sharing processes.The findings and learnings of this review were shared with the CCAFS Core Team in the frame of a Scaling Workshop in Madrid on 15th May 2019. In interactive formats, the Core Team gave management inputs and prioritized the areas for change. The following section summarizes each of these prioritized themes with their main discussion points:\"There is a role for funding different types of effort, different modalities for different projects.\"One of the two main priorities was to explore how to design portfolios in a way that would incentivize participants' scaling activities (\"going the last mile\"), while at the same time managing donors' and stakeholders' expectations. Stage gates would allow to fund innovations at different levels of development and scaling. Projects' performance would be measured and evaluated for different criteria at the different moments or phases. Thus, more seed funding could be given to small projects, which could develop into big scaling, or be terminated timely, if they do not work (e.g. following the example of a challenge fund).On the downside, there was the possible trade-off that stage gates could impose again a linear structure, while the strengths of many CCAFS projects was to work simultaneously at all levels, and to use feedback for iteration.Changing the tone of dialogue of all users, engage partners that have the right know-how and social movements \"The discourse on scaling leads all project leaders to think about the same questions\"The second of the two highest ranking priorities related to dialogue and partnerships for scaling. While was felt that the CCAFS' narrative on outcomes and impacts during the last 10 years had largely contributed to its success, there was still a need to integrate the discourse on scaling into this narrative, to reach also the remaining CCAFS scientists, other CGIAR research programs, and the wider scaling community. It was felt that the CGIAR had enormous power in changing world views (\"even better than doing technology\"). For example, the topic \"finance\" had been lifted within two years from discussions at farmers' levels to a priority theme with huge management support and \"thinking big\".Further, the need for purposeful partnerships that go beyond superficial conversations was stressed, to improve project design, innovation and scaling processes. Since everyone had different assumptions about how scaling processes work, and what would be the entry points, continued discussions were crucial to revise assumptions along the way. Energy is set free when users, partners and stakeholders feel intimately connected, and all understand their respective needs, roles and responsibilities.It also depends on the type of partners, and their ownership, if the scaling processes or impacts continue after the projects' end. Sometimes, national policies might hinder partners to carry the process forward, other times CCAFS might influence the policies, but implementing partners, e.g. the private sector, still need incentives. Ideally, the \"research supply\" aligns to the stakeholders' agendas. Crucial are also partners with know-how on scaling, though again it is necessary to differentiate: \"Some partners are good in piloting, some are complementary all the way through\". Special efforts shall be made to explore engaging with social movements, since these are \"going to define the next decade in terms of discourse\".\"If you take the bull out, you kill the innovation process.\"A more innovative portfolio would also propose an approach and space to fail intelligently. Within an innovation ecosystem, projects are encouraged to increase their risk appetite, and to put aside some time and efforts for innovative ideas and activities that could lead to scale, knowing that those might as well fail.One way to design projects that scientists really believe in, could be to string innovation with prizes. Also, CGIAR's performance standards would need to adapt, to reward people that \"get fantastic outcomes and do iterative stuff with stakeholders!\" \"Re-thinking projects, and being innovative about what to deliver!\" Some engagements with the private sector or finance institutions already turned the research process upside down. Although these partners often have the ability to design themselves, they still outsource, or turn to science to help to developing their ideas.While this approach poses challenging questions (e.g. \"how far should we support private companies with public research resources?\"), it also means translating or integrating research results into business models, which would make uptake easier.Connecting the M&E process with the knowledge management process in order to provide ongoing learning \"Not learning to scale, but learning from scaling!\"It was felt that although CCAFS has a strong narrative on outcomes, there were no clear indicators or language around the scaling processes. These would help not only for monitoring, but also for communication (e.g. when wanting to benchmark CCAFS performance with other initiatives), and for learning: Different types of projects would follow different processes, thus the different phases of innovation development and scaling would need different sets of indicators.It was found that the existing Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation (ML&E) system would provide great lessons. However, for better using these lessons, the knowledge management and learning cycles would need to be broadened beyond the ML&E system. For example, they could help to tell the story of how outcomes are the harvest of long previous project incubation processes, or they could provide guidance (e.g. in form of synthesis or webinar) on the possible implications when wanting to transfer successful innovation and scaling initiatives from one sector or country to another.Scaling needs a vision shared by all key stake holders, and their commitment to invest time and efforts. Equally crucial are opportunism and quick responses to iteration needs. While the CCAFS' participatory research approaches (e.g. participatory breeding, participatory integrated climate services for agriculture), have much in \"Can we achieve scaling in projects, or shall we better design programs?\"Although it was found that in most cases, the environment was favourable for investing more time on project design and implementation, there was still the gap for bringing innovations \"to the final stage, the last part of the system\". This could be improved by better hand-over strategies, including ways to promote sustainability after projects were finished. Another possibility was to reshape the portfolio, based on the scaling mind-set: Rather than trying to fit the constant iteration into the project cycle, trying to line up the projects towards the solutions -\"aiming for an end-to-end solution\".This went back to the coordination of different projects, according to their stage and level of maturity, and to the responsibility of the regional program and flagship leaders, to cater for the continuity of the projects. However, it was not always clear \"at which stage the projects and what the entry points are\".Based on the findings of the review and the prioritization of themes by the CCAFS ","tokenCount":"7935"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f8e4e74922ecca67a44d54e2d8681b45","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f0344220-3aaf-490f-9ea8-965518690dcc/retrieve","id":"381078616"},"keywords":["Dioscorea species","Phenylacetic acid","Somatic embryos","Phytochemicals and plantlet regeneration","Micropropagation"],"sieverID":"abaa6c89-12c6-4adf-8d3a-1b0c8117b7b4","pagecount":"10","content":"In vitro propagation of yam via organogenesis is constrained with low multiplication rate. Somatic embryogenesis (SE) has shown rapid multiplication potentials in yam. However, it has not been adopted by practical seed system scenarios due to genotype specificity. Reports have shown that SE is regulated endogenously by phytochemicals, but this is yet to be elucidated for yam. This study identified, quantified endogenous, and evaluated effects of exogenous application of selected identified phytochemicals in yam SE. Callus was induced from in vitro axillary bud explants of three Dioscorea rotundata genotypes in Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium containing 9.1 µM 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 5.4 µM naphthaleneacetic acid. Plantlets were regenerated using MS medium containing 4.4 µM benzylaminopurine and 34.0 µM uniconazole-P. Endogenous phytochemicals associated with axillary bud, calluses, and plantlets were identified and quantified using GC/MS. Effect of selected identified phytochemicals on the genotypes was investigated in a 5 × 6 factorial in completely randomized design (r = 3). Data taken on plantlet regeneration was analyzed using ANOVA at α 0.05 . A total of 27, 22, and 35 phytochemicals were identified in Kpamyo, Ekiti2a, and Asiedu, respectively. Hexamethylcyclotrisiloxane (36.4%, Kpamyo), Tris-tertbutyldimethylsilyloxy-arsane (59.3%, Ekiti2a), and 4-methyl-2-trimethylsililoxy-acetophenone (52.7%, Asiedu) were highest in callus. N-Methyl-1-adamantaneacetamide (31.8%, Kpamyo) and Tris-tert-butyldimethylsilyloxy-arsane (52.7%, Ekiti2a, Asiedu) were highest in plantlets while Tris-tert-butyldimethylsilyloxy-arsane (41.2%, Kpamyo), hexamethylcyclotrisiloxane (55.8%, Ekiti2a), and erythro-9,10-dibromopentacosane (38.9%, Asiedu) were highest in axillary bud. Plantlet regeneration differed significantly among phytochemicals and ranged from 0.7 ± 0.3 (control) to 4.5 ± 0.5 (40.5 µM phenylacetic acid). Also, genotype × phytochemical interactions on number of plantlets regenerated were significant, and mean values ranged from 0.0 ± 0.0 (TDa2014, 4.8 µM decamethyltetrasiloxane) to 7.0 ± 1.7 (TDa2014, 40.5 µM phenylacetic acid). The application of 40.5 µM phenylacetic acid enhanced plantlet regeneration in Kpamyo and TDa2014 by 5.39% and 343.04%, respectively.Yam is a multi-species crop that is mostly propagated using the tuber part, which is also the edible part (Adeigbe et al. 2015). Despite the importance of yam in alleviating food insecurity in Africa, the availability of clean planting material remains a major challenge due to its low propagation ratio, coupled with the long periods of tuber dormancy (Maroya et al. 2014). Various technologies have been investigated for increase in yam propagation rates. These include the advanced yam minisett technology (planting cut yam tubers of 25 to 50 g size range), rooted vine cuttings, the temporary immersion bioreactor system of tissue culture, and aeroponics and hydroponics system (Maroya et al. 2014;Balogun et al. 2017Balogun et al. , 2021)).Tissue culture technique has the advantage of cleaning infected propagules from pathogens hitherto accumulated during cultivation in the informal seed system (Coyne et al. 2009;Balogun et al. 2014). However, the use of tissue culture technique through organogenesis is still constrained with low multiplication ratio (1:4). Somatic embryogenesis (SE) (the production of embryos from somatic cells and subsequent conversion of the embryos to plantlets) has been successfully used by many researchers to increase this limited multiplication in different crops (Junaid et al. 2013;Ossai et al. 2018). However, rates of SE are affected by genotype, type and concentration of growth regulators in culture medium, photoperiod, type, and stage of explants and endogenous phytochemicals that mediate hormone actions in various plant developmental stages and their morphogenic processes (Kakkar and Sawhney 2002).Yam is rich in different levels of hormonally active phytochemicals (Polycarp et al. 2012) which could play different roles in their competence to SE as seen in other plants. Plants typically release some of these phytochemicals into the environment in response to alterations in the ambient conditions, whether harmful or beneficial, a condition known as plasticity (Loretta 2014). According to Graf et al. (2007), plant response to tissue culture is controlled largely by the epigenetic changes (methylation or demethylation) exhibited by the plants at different stages of regeneration pathway (organogenesis or somatic embryogenesis).In somatic embryogenesis pathway, several genes that regulate oxidative stresses in plants (Santos et al. 2018) characterize the somatic embryo induction stage. This is because environmental stressors stimulate the callus induction stage, which leads to the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) or pro-oxidants. These ROS under normal conditions are controlled by antioxidants, which are endogenic (phytochemicals) in plants (Joseph and Jini 2010). However, in a stress condition, there is an imbalance between the production and elimination of ROS in plants, and the capability to balance the redox varies among and within plant species, a situation that could necessitate the exogenic application of the antioxidants to balance the system experimentally. Proteomics is a veritable tool to understand these phytochemicals and their control mechanisms (Ahmad et al. 2016). Knowledge of these phytochemicals is important in adjusting the media compositions to enhance SE in otherwise incompetent genotypes. This study identified, quantified endogenous, and exogenically evaluated effects of selected identified phytochemicals during stages of SE in white (Kpamyo, Ekiti2a and Asiedu) and water (TDa2014 and Swaswa) yams.The tissue culture experiments were carried out at the Cell Biology Unit of the Bioscience Center, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), while the identification of expressed phytochemicals during somatic embryogenesis was carried out at the Central Research Laboratory, Tanke Road, Ilorin, Nigeria. The equipment were sourced from the central store, supply chain unit of IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria, while the PGRs and phytochemicals were sourced from Bristol Scientific, a Sigma-Aldrich distributor in Lagos, Nigeria.Three Dioscorea rotundata Poir (Asiedu, Ekiti2a, and Kpamyo) and two Dioscorea alata L. (Swaswa and TDa2014) genotypes were used for the somatic embryogenesis evaluation. Asiedu, Ekiti2a, and Kpamyo were used for phytochemical profiling, while Asiedu, Ekiti2a, Kpamyo, Swaswa, and TDa2014 were used for evaluating selected expressed phytochemicals during somatic embryogenesis. To induce callus, in vitro axillary bud explants (0.1 × 0.5 cm 2 ) excised from 2-wk-old organogenesis-derived plantlets of Asiedu, Ekiti2a, and Kpamyo were cultured in Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium (Murashige and Skoog 1962; callus induction medium (CIM)) and modified with 9.1 µM 2,4-dichlorophenoxylacetic acid and 5.4 µM naphthaleneacetic acid under laminar flow hood. The cultures were incubated in the dark for four (4) wk at 25 ± 1 °C. The induced calluses were transferred to plant growth regulator (PGR)-free MS medium and incubated at 16-h photoperiod producing 4000 lx of light and 25 ± 1 °C for three wk for the formation of somatic embryos. The somatic embryos were thereafter transferred to MS medium modified with 4.4 µM benzylaminopurine and 34 µM uniconazole-P (plantlet regeneration medium (PRM)) and kept at 16-h photoperiod and 25 ± 1 °C.Stages of Three Genotypes of White Yam (D. rotundata Poir) (Fig. 1) Organogenesis-derived axillary bud 4-wk-old callus and 8-wk-old callus cultures at plantlet regeneration stage of Asiedu, Ekiti2a, and Kpamyo were collected for phytochemical profiling and quantification following the protocol of Saleethong et al. (2016) and Bradford (1976-Bradford protein assay), respectively. The protein samples were lyophilized and derivatized by the addition of 5 µL hexadecane, 73.0 µL dimethylformamide, 20.0 µL N-tert-butyldimethylsilyl-N-methyltriflouroacetamide, and 5.0 µL of triethylalanine (catalyst) at a temperature of 60 °C and left for 30 min. The derivatized samples were injected into a gas chromatograph, heated up to 300 °C where the material was volatilized to enable separation of components that flow through the column by size for phytochemical detection. The data generated were searched against the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) databases for phytochemical identification and the respective percentage of the sample covered by each phytochemical detected.Decamethyltetrasiloxane (DT), hexamethylcyclotrisiloxane (HC), phenylacetic acid (PAA), and glutaric acid (GLA) were quantified prior to investigation of effects of their exogenous application on SE. In endogenous determination in tissue cultures, 1 L of callus induction medium was dispensed into 60 Petri plates of 16.7 mL each. Five (5) axillary bud explants were cultured in 16.7 mL of callus induction medium for callus formation. Hence, weight (g) of phytochemical / liter = detected weight of phytochemical (g) per callus × 5 × 60 (Table 1). Selected DT and HC were found across the three genotypes in the 4-wk-old callus culture, and PAA was detected across the three genotypes in the 8-wk-old callus cultures, while GLA was detected across the genotypes in the organogenesis-derived axillary bud. The phytochemicals were sourced from Sigma-Aldrich and added to the callus induction and plantlet regeneration media for Asiedu, Ekiti2a, Kpamyo, Swaswa, and TDa2014 genotypes.Callus induction medium (CIM) was prepared and the selected phytochemicals were added to give six ( 6) treatments (T): T1: CIM, T2: CIM plus 2.1 µM GLA, T3: CIM plus 28.5 µM PAA, T4: CIM plus 95.9 µM HC, T5: CIM plus 9.6 µM DT, and T6: yam multiplication medium (YMM). The six culture medium regimes were autoclaved at 121 °C and 15 Psi for 15 min and dispensed into Petri plates (16.7 mL each) under the laminar flow hood. Five (5) in vitro axillary buds (0.1 to 0.5 cm) of Asiedu, Kpamyo, Ekiti2a, Swaswa, and TDa2014 were excised and inoculated into Petri plates containing 16.7 mL of the different callus induction media and replicated three times per genotype. The cultures were kept in the dark for callus formation and proliferation (Manoharan et al. 2016).The calluses were transferred to PGR-free YMM and kept in a 16-h photoperiod at 25 ± 1 °C condition for 3 wk. During this period, the cultures were assessed for the formation and maturation of somatic embryos by   Competence of Selected Genotypes of White and Water Yam for Somatic Embryogenesis (Figs. 2 and  3) Asiedu took the longest number of day (23.00 ± 2.43)   In general, out of the phytochemicals identified at the axillary bud stage across the three genotypes, only GA was common to the genotypes. At the callus stage, DT, TRIS, PAA, and HC were found across the three genotypes, while at the PR stage, 13 phytochemicals (TRIS, HC, silicic acid, PAA, methyltris(trimethylsiloxy)silane, 2,4-dimethyl-benzo(h)quinolone (24DB), 2,3-dihydro-6-nitro-1,4-phthalazinedion, 1,2-bis(trimethylsilyl)benzene, HT, 1,4-bis(trimethylsilyl)benzene, 1-methyl-2-phenyl-1H-indole, and 1,2-benziosothiazol-3-amine) were present across the three genotypes.Table 3. Summary of phytochemicals identified at axillary bud, callus, and plantlet regeneration stages of somatic embryogenesis in three genotypes of Dioscorea rotundata Poir (Kpamyo, Asiedu, and Ekiti2a) AB, axillary bud; PR, plantlet regeneration; TNP, total number of phytochemicals per genotype; NP@Callus, number of phytochemicals found at callus stage; NP@PR, number of phytochemicals found at plantlet regeneration stage; NP@AB, number of plantlets found at axillary bud stage; NP@Callus, PR, and AB, number of phytochemicals common to callus, PR, and AB; NP@Callus and PR, number of phytochemicals common to callus and PR; NP@Callus and AB, number of phytochemicals common to callus and axillary bud stages; NP@PR and AB, number of phytochemicals common to PR and AB stages Genotypes TNP NP@Callus NP@PR NP@AB NP@Callus, PR and AB Plantlets Regenerated in Kpamyo, Ekiti2a, and Asiedu (Fig. 4) In Kpamyo, decamethyltetrasiloxane, 4-methyl-2-trimethylsililoxyacetophenone, and methyltris(trimethylsiloxy)silane were significant and positively correlated (r = 1.0) with number of plantlets regenerated. In Ekiti2a, 5-methyl-2-trimethylsilyloxyacetophenone, hexamethylcyclotrisiloxane, silicic acid, diethyl bis (trimethylsilyl) ester, and 1,2-bis(trimethylsilyl)benzene were positively correlated with plantlet regeneration, while in Asiedu, decamethyltetrasiloxane, arsenous acid, and tris(trimethylsilyl) ester had significant and positive correlation (r = 1.0) with number of plantlets regenerated (Table 4).The main effects of medium composition on SE were significant. The lowest number of days to callus induction was recorded in the medium without addition of identified phytochemicals so it was the earliest to induce callus (T1: 15.23 ± 3.10). The medium T5 (20.13 ± 1.93) was the latest to induce callus and not significantly different from the conventional multiplication medium, which served as negative control (T6: 19.52 ± 2.51) (Table 5). The same trend was observed for percentage of callus formation, which was highest in T1 (69.00 ± 23.00) while in T5 (18.00 ± 18.00) was lowest. The earliest plantlet regeneration was recorded in M3, in which plantlets were regenerated at an average of 61.20 ± 6.62 d after culture initiation, while it was significantly later in M6 (70.33 ± 4.62) and M2 (65.23 ± 8.17). However, days to plantlet regeneration were not significantly different among M3, M1 (64.4 ± 5.01), M4 (63.40 ± 8.12), and M5 (63.80 ± 6.39) (Table 6). The number of plantlets regenerated was highest in M3 (4.53 ± 0.48), but it was not significantly different from M1 (3.93 ± 0.39). However, they were both significantly higher than the number of plantlets regenerated in other media compositions. The same trend was recorded for number of roots, which was highest in M1 (3.80 ± 0.68) followed by M3 (2.67 ± 0.49) with both being significantly higher than the other treatments.Table 7 shows that genotypes' main effect was also significant in response to exogenous application of identified phytochemicals. Kpamyo and Swaswa were latest to form callus (18.88 ± 2.99 and 17.92 ± 3.15 d respectively) relative to other genotypes (lowest = 17.02 ± 3.20 d). The percentage of callus formation was highest in Kpamyo and Ekiti2a (45.00 ± 27.00 and 2.00 ± 26.00 respectively). Table 8 shows that Kpamyo was earliest to regenerate plantlets at 61.50 ± 7.66 d, significantly earlier than other genotypes, the latest being 67.14 ± 6.04 recorded in Asiedu. However, there were no significant differences among the genotypes in the number of plantlets regenerated. The water yam genotypes had the highest number of roots (Swaswa: 2.56 ± 0.61; TDa2014:2.44 ± 0.47) while white yam had the lowest (Asiedu: 1.17 ± 0.36; Ekiti2a: 1.11 ± 0.36; Kpamyo: 1.06 ± 0.41).Table 4. Relationships (r 2 ) between identified phytochemicals and plantlet regeneration in three genotypes of Dioscorea rotundata Poir (Asiedu, Ekiti2a, and Kpamyo) M52T, 5-methyl-2-trimethylsilyloxy-acetophenone; DT, decamethyltetrasiloxane; TRIS, tris-(tert-butyldimethylsilyloxy) arsane; D23, 2,3-dihydro-6-nitro-1,4-phthalazinedion; M52P, 5-methyl-2-phenilindolizine; E2, 2-ethylacridine; HC, hexamethylcyclotrisiloxane; SD, silicic acid, diethyl bis (trimethylsilyl) ester; PAA, phenylacetic acid; M, methyltris(trimethylsiloxy)silane; DB24, 2,4-dimethyl-benzo(h) quinolone; D23, 2,3-dihydro-6-nitro-1,4-phthalazinedion; M42T, 4-methyl-2-trimethylsililoxy-acetophenone; B35, 3,5-bis-trimethylsilyl-2,4,6-cycloheptatrien-1-one; B12, 1,2-bis(trimethylsilyl)benzene; NM, N-methyl-1-adamantaneacetamide; T, l-tryptophan; D68, 6,8-difluoro-4-hydroxy-3-quinolinecarboxilic acid, ethyl ester; A, aspartic acid; B123, 1,2-benziosothiazol-3-amine tbdms; HT, hexamethyltetrasiloxane; AT, arsenous acid, tris(trimethylsilyl) ester; B14, 1,4-bis(trimethylsilyl)benzene; M12P, Interactions between genotype and medium composition regarding exogenously applied phytochemicals were significant. The days to callus formation ranged from 14 d recorded in Asiedu and Ekiti2a (CIM), Ekiti2a and TDa2014 (CIM plus 28.5 µM PAA), and Swaswa (CIM plus 95.9 µM HC) to 33 d in TDa2014 (CIM plus 95.9 µM HC) (Fig. 2). The percentage callus formation ranged from 7% recorded in Asiedu and Swaswa (CIM plus 9.6 µM DT) to 85% recorded in Ekiti2a (CIM). The numbers of days taken to regenerate yam plantlets ranged from 54 d in PRM plus 1.2 µM GLA (Ekiti2a), PRM plus 4.8 µM DT and PRM plus 20.4 µM HC (Kpamyo), and PRM plus 40.5 µM PAA (TDa2014) to 74 d in YMM (Ekiti2a), PRM plus 1.2 µM GLA (Swaswa), and PRM plus 20.4 µM HC (TDa2014) (Fig. 6). Average number of plantlets regenerated ranged from 0.33 ± 0.58 (PRM plus 20.4 HC in Asiedu) to 7.00 ± 1.73 (PRM plus 40.5 µM PAA in TDa2014) (Fig. 3).Table 8 shows that the highest callus formation was obtained in medium containing 9.1 µM 2,4-D plus 5.4 µM NAA in all genotypes at baseline and after this study. However, the medium that gave the highest plantlet regeneration varied among genotypes. For Asiedu, Ekiti2a and Swaswa, average of 4.83 plantlets were regenerated from 100%, 7.17 from 86.5%, and 4.70 from 55% of the explants, respectively, on the medium containing 4.4 µM BAP plus 34.0 µM UP. In Kpamyo and TDa2014, medium containing 4.4 µM BAP and 34.0 µM UP plus 40.5 µM PAA had the highest average of 4.30 and 7.00 plantlets regenerated from 82 and 54% of the explants respectively. Comparing the baseline with the realized competence for somatic embryogenesis, the intervention of expressed phytochemicals was higher in water yams than in white yams. Means with the same letter down the group are not significantly different from each other at p ≤ 0.05. Treatment one (T1: CIM), treatment two (T2: CIM plus 2.1 µM GLA), treatment three (T3: CIM plus 28.5 µM PAA), treatment four (T4: CIM plus 95.9 µM HC), treatment five (T5: CIM plus 9.6 µM DT), and treatment six (T6: yam multiplication medium (YMM): negative control The induction of callus is a response of explants to stress, such as wounding and high salt concentration, and is associated with increased formation of ROS at some point during exposure, which may result in the unspecific reduction of proteins and membrane lipids (Joseph and Jini 2010). Similar effects are also achieved through the inclusion of phytochemicals like auxins (2,4-D, NAA, IAA, and picloram) at high concentrations in the culture environment (Momoko et al. 2013). At the callus formation stage, two organosilicons (decamethyltetrasiloxane and hexamethylcyclotrisiloxane) and a carboxylic compound (phenylacetic acid (PAA)) that were identified across the genotypes in this study suggest that they are part of the defense systems to ROS. Amino acids, catalases, peroxidases, and enzymatic scavengers of activated oxygen which can be endogenic in the plants or exogenically applied in the SE culture environment have been reported in other crops (Joseph and Jini 2010).Organosilicons are linked to antioxidant activities that are essential in plant defense mechanism in response to stress (Ethela et al. 2017), while PAA, being a naturally occurring auxin, has been used to maintain callus proliferation in tobacco, sunflower, and pea although at higher concentrations of 25 to 500 µM (Leuba and Letourneau 1990). Organosilicons have antioxidant properties, as demonstrated in Origanum vulgare (Galehassadi et al. 2014), and siliconderived amino acids have also been described as a potent antioxidant (Annaliese and Sean 2013). Antioxidants are essential in callus cultures to reduce ROS (Momoko et al. 2013) because too much oxidation can cause the callus to turn brown and eventually die back. However, the optimum concentration and the time of exogenous application during callus induction are yet to be determined in order to avoid its being counterproductive in the case of SE since the interest is to produce more callus.More phytochemicals were identified at the plantlet regeneration stage while the callus induction stage had the least number of phytochemicals. This could be that the plantlet regeneration stage is more complex, requiring more phytochemicals or antioxidants for the conversion of somatic embryos into plants. This finding could be an insight to the recommendation of Gaj (2004) for the hormonal characterization of somatic embryogenesis environment and responsive cells in plants. In the axillary bud explant used, out of the 26 phytochemicals discovered, only glutaric acid belonging to the carboxylic group of compounds was identified across the three genotypes. Glutaric acid is a dicarboxylate analog of glutamic acid, and aspartic acids are amino acids that have been reported in yam (Doss et al. 2019). Other phytochemicals belonging to the carboxylic group are dlaspartic acid and phenylacetic acid. Aspartic acid is a precursor of four essential amino acids: asparagine, methionine, threonine, and lysine (Johnson 2017), and both glutaric acid and aspartic acid have been shown to have significant positive correlation with the sprouting of Saffron corm (Bagri et al. 2017), which is a vegetative propagative part of Saffron like the axillary buds of in vitro yam plantlets. Another carboxylic compound identified in the axillary bud explant of yam in this study is l-tryptophan, an essential plant-derived amino acid needed for the in vivo biosynthesis of proteins (Mendel 2018) and a precursor for the production of indole-3-acetic acid (Lalit 2002) which is an auxin that plays a role in callus formation (Harish et al. 2010). The incorporation of tryptophan in callus induction and plantlet-regenerating media of rice favored callus induction and plantlet regeneration through somatic embryogenesis (Shahsavari 2011).The addition of the identified phytochemicals to callus induction medium successfully induced calluses in the different genotypes within a 3-wk period, except for the addition of decamethyltetrasiloxane to callus induction medium that could not induce callus in TDa2014. A higher or lower concentration than what was applied could have produced the desired effect if its stability varies significantly with environment (Mathe et al. 2012). However, this was not significantly different from the medium without the phytochemicals. The baseline callus induction medium gave the highest percentage callus induction (69%) in all genotypes except Swaswa where addition of glutaric acid to callus induction medium improved callus formation. Callus induction from the treatments containing the two (2) organosilicons (decamethyltetrasiloxane and hexamethylcyclotrisiloxane) was less than the 22% induction rate from the PGR-free yam multiplication medium, probably due to habituation (Ossai 2014). Studies have shown that an appropriate combination of NAA and 2,4-D gave the best condition for callus induction in yams (Belarmino and Gonzales 2008;Ossai et al. 2018). Both decamethyltetrasiloxane and hexamethylcyclotrisiloxane as detected from the callus explants of Asiedu, Ekiti2a, and Kpamyo might not be playing an active role in callus formation but on the protection of the plants from free radicals (Galehassadi et al. 2014). This can be confirmed using more specific methods like radioactive labeling (Khosrav et al. 2019).The Dioscorea alata genotypes responded more favorably than the Dioscorea rotundata genotypes in terms of gain in SE from baseline to the realized plantlet regeneration. This could be that the D. alata genotypes respond more or are more affected by the changes in environmental conditions. Fluctuations in the concentration of endogenous hormones in water yam were reported to be high (Matsumoto et al. 2013). The white yams on the other hand are more stable, thereby having little changes in SE protocol alterations. Despite the superior effect of baseline callus induction medium on callus formation relative to others, addition of 2.1 µM GLA gave above 50% callus induction rate in the three (3) genotypes of white yam. Although there is a dearth of information on the use of glutaric acid to induce callus in yam, the application of ketoglutaric acid at 100 mgL −1 was reported to improve the formation of embryogenic callus from Zoysia japonica seeds (Asano et al. 1996).The use of 4.4 µM BAP plus 34.0 µM UP for plantlet regeneration had been reported by Ossai et al (2018) as the best treatment combination for plantlet regeneration in yam through somatic embryogenesis. In this study, an addition of 40.5 µM PAA to PRM also gave improved plantlet regeneration from the somatic embryos of Kpamyo and TDa2014 by 5.39% and 343.04%, respectively. It also supported better root formation from the somatic embryos of the five (5) yam genotypes than other treatments. Phenylacetic acid has been used in the direct regeneration of chickpea (Ghanti et al. 2009). Auxins like phenylacetic acid at high concentrations in culture media are mostly used to induce callus by causing an oxidative stress to the wounded explants. However, PAA has been reported to possess moderate levels of free radical scavenging activities in Ilex aquifolium (Nahar et al. 2005;Kazan and Manners 2009). Akram et al. (2016) also found that PAA elicits induced systemic resistance (IRS: resistance mechanism in plants activated by infection or injuries) in plants, which is accompanied by the expression of defenserelated genes and proteins (Zamioudis and Pieterse 2012).A total of 27, 22, and 35 different phytochemicals were identified in callus, axillary buds, and plantlets of white and water yam. Out of the tested exogenously, phenylacetic acid improved plantlet regeneration significantly while decamethyltetrasiloxane and hexamethylcyclotrisiloxane were detrimental. The implications of these to the seed system development are the need for further standardization of the timing of application and different concentrations of phytochemicals towards the adoption of the SE system. This is expected to lead to significant increase in the multiplication ratio of yam leading to its availability all season. However, it is necessary to confirm the genetic integrity of the plantlets regenerated since somaclonal variation is indispensable during SEs.","tokenCount":"3897"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"deeee39ff6f4b3ef42f66d39d9e215f4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/db9c78e4-ba81-443b-a597-6f2e7da1876f/retrieve","id":"852912243"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"bf375875-c03b-4137-9ae0-ec2312717dcf","pagecount":"12","content":"Life Alliance (BLA) project in Zambia showed potential reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), mostly (85%) due to avoided savanna degradation and conversion. The GHG impact due to BLA's interventions is estimated at -902,531 tCO2e/yr, equivalent to saving 2,089,550 barrels of oil.  BLA's business model linked prevention of degradation and conversion of shrubland to market-based incentives for agricultural crops, thereby providing farmers with economic incentives for conservation and climate change mitigation. BLA promoted a comprehensive approach to soil fertility management. It promoted agroecological approaches such as recycling farm organic resources, planting nitrogen-fixing trees, minimal tillage, and cover crops. BLA reduced postharvest loss (PHL) through improved product processing, storage, and packaging. Changes in PHL were estimated for groundnuts (-100%), maize (-40%), rice (-80%), and soybeans (-67%), which contributed to decreases in emission intensity (GHG emissions per unit of production) for each of these products.Established in 2011, BLA was a 4-year project funded by the Feed the Future (FTF) initiative and implemented by Community Markets for Conservation Ltd. (COMACO) in the Luangwa valley in the Eastern Province of Zambia (Figure 1). BLA aimed to achieve poverty reduction, sustainable land management, and improved conservation by linking smallholder farmers to market incentives. This area encompasses communal lands for 63 chiefdoms that surround five national parks and protected forests. BLA focused on improvements to agricultural value chains and market links. BLA provided direct training and capacity building for small-scale farmers to adopt conservation practices. BLA also introduced natural resource management plans that targeted conservation of wildlife habitats to prevent conversion to agriculture.BLA connected farmers to consumer markets through a product label called \"It's Wild!\" COMACO offered premium prices (10-20% above market prices) to farmers who complied with wildlife conservation standards and practiced conservation agriculture (COMACO 2015). To ensure compliance, the project developed a scoring system based on sustainable agriculture, forestry, and wildlife criteria. COMACO validates compliance for individual chiefdoms with this scoring system. Its strategy was based on the assumption that its market-based approach would provide incentives to conserve critical shrubland from degradation and from conversion to agriculture.In the 2009 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) discussions, countries agreed to the Copenhagen Accord, which included recognition that \"a low-emission development strategy is indispensable to sustainable development\" (UNFCCC 2009). Low emission development (LED) has continued to occupy a prominent place in UNFCCC agreements. In the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries established pledges to reduce emission of GHGs that drive climate change, and many countries identified the agricultural sector as a source of intended reductions (Richards et al. 2015).In general, LED uses information and analysis to develop strategic approaches to promote economic growth while reducing long-term GHG emission trajectories. For the agricultural sector to participate meaningfully in LED, decision makers must understand the opportunities for achieving mitigation co-benefits relevant at the scale of nations, the barriers to achieving widespread adoption of these approaches, and the methods for estimating emission reductions from interventions. When designed to yield mitigation co-benefits, agricultural development can help countries reach their development goals while contributing to the mitigation targets to which they are committed as part of the Paris Agreement, and ultimately to the global targets set forth in the Agreement. As part of the broader effort to frame a strategic approach to LED in the agricultural sector, several case studies, including this one, quantify the potential climate change mitigation benefits from agricultural projects and describe the effects of low emission practices on yields and emissions. Systematic incorporation of such emission analyses into agricultural economic development initiatives could lead to meaningful reductions in GHG emissions compared to business-as-usual emissions, while continuing to meet economic development and food security objectives.The team analyzed and estimated the project's impacts on GHG emissions and carbon sequestration using the FAO Ex-Ante Carbon Balance Tool (EX-ACT). EX-ACT is an appraisal system developed by FAO to estimate the impact of agriculture and forestry development projects, programs, and policies on net GHG emissions and carbon sequestration. In all cases, conventional agricultural practices (those employed before project implementation) provided reference points for a GHG emission baseline. The team described results as increases or reductions in net GHG emissions attributable to changes in agricultural practices as a result of the project. Methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide emissions are expressed in metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e). (For reference, each tCO2e is equivalent to the emissions from 2.3 barrels of oil.) If the agricultural practices supported by the project lead to a decrease in net emissions through an increase in GHG removals (e.g., carbon sequestration, emission reductions) and/or a decrease in GHG emissions, the overall project impact is represented as a negative (-) value. Numbers presented in this analysis have not been rounded but this does not mean all digits are significant. Non-significant digits have been retained for transparency in the data set. This rapid assessment technique is intended for contexts where aggregate data are available on agricultural land use and management practices, but where field measurements of GHG and carbon stock changes are not available. It provides an indication of the magnitude of GHG impacts and compares the strength of GHG impacts among various field activities or cropping systems. The proposed approach does not deliver plot, or seasonspecific estimates of GHG emissions. This method may guide future estimates of GHG impacts where data are scarce, as is characteristic of environments where organizations engage in agricultural investment planning. Actors interested in ex-post verification of changes in GHG emissions resulting from interventions should collect field measurements needed to apply process-based models.Agricultural and environmental context: Zambia Zambia (752,618 km 2 ) has a population of over 15 million people. Over 64% of the population lives in extreme poverty and 40% of children suffer from stunting (World Bank 2016a). Agriculture employs a large portion of Zambia's labor force (Day et al. 2014) and occupies 32% of its land (World Bank 2014). Small-scale farming (<2 ha) accounts for 70% of farms, yet represents for less than a third of agricultural production (Hichaambwa et al. 2015).Smallholders harvest a number of crops, but maize dominates, with 86% of small-scale farms growing this crop (Weitz et al. 2015). It accounts for 48% of the area dedicated to agriculture (FAOSTAT 2015). Relying on a unimodal rainfall pattern, the majority of smallholder farmers produce one harvest each year and struggle to reach production sufficient for household consumption and market sales. Reliance on rain-fed maize as the main staple crop contributes to the vulnerability of smallscale farmers (Weitz et al. 2015).Land degradation, climate variability, and low soil fertility contribute to poverty and food insecurity in Zambia. Excessive wood extraction for charcoal production and savanna burning drive land degradation (FAO 2015a), and agricultural expansion is a primary driver of land use change (Day et al. 2014). In recent decades, Zambia has experienced decreases in average rainfall, increases in temperatures, and numerous extreme weather events such as droughts and flooding (Funder et al. 2013). Climate change is widely recognized as a serious food security issue for Zambia due to its potential to reduce crop yields (World Bank 2016b). Soil fertility is generally low, and prolonged periods without vegetative soil cover during the dry season due to droughts may further deplete the soil (FAO 2015b). As a result, agricultural development programs are focusing on land management, climate change adaptation, and integrated soil fertility.In Zambia, savannah degradation and conversion are major GHG sources (Day et al. 2014, FAO 2015a). Zambia's Intended Nationally Determined Contribution submitted to the UNFCCC identified agriculture and land use change as major contributors to national GHG emissions and included mitigation targets for the agricultural sector (Richards et al. 2016).The emission analysis of BLA focused on groundnut, maize, rice, and soybean value chains. GHG emissions and carbon sequestration changed due to avoided degradation and conversion of savanna; agroforestry expansion; soil and manure management improvements; crop-residue burning reduction; and fertilizer management.Table 1 shows estimates of the area of adoption for each practice by the end of the project. A description of each practice follows, including a description of the intervention and its effects on the environment, the project plan for the intervention, and estimated impacts on emissions.Background. Avoided degradation and conversion of savanna are important practices that minimize loss of habitat and maintain carbon stored in woody biomass. In savannas, nearly 50% of biomass carbon can be stored underground in roots. Clearing, burning or slow degradation of these ecosystems leads to biomass/carbon loss both above and below ground. In Zambia, charcoal production, agricultural expansion, and hunting are drivers for savanna degradation and conversion (COMACO 2015, FAO 2015a).Practice plan. BLA introduced community conservation plans to prevent savanna fires (avoided degradation) and to reduce savanna conversion to annual crops (avoided conversion). To validate compliance with the plans by individual chiefdoms, the project developed a monitoring and evaluation system that included forestry and wildlife criteria. BLA estimated these plans avoided degradation on about 395,000 ha (5% of the 7.8 million ha of natural savanna) and avoided conversion of 15,450 ha (5% of the 309,000 ha under active stewardship plans).In BLA, an annual estimated GHG mitigation benefit of -1.50 tCO2e/ha in emissions results from avoided degradation, while -10.89 tCO2e/ha is achieved by avoided conversion (Figure 2). When scaled to the full area of implementation, avoided degradation and conversion result in estimated annual GHG mitigation benefits of -590,509 tCO2e and -168,279 tCO2e in emissions (Figure 3). Emission factors and carbon stocks are relatively well-known for savanna systems, so the largest source of uncertainty in this portion of the analysis is the area and extent of reduced degradation and conversion.Background. Agroforestry systems have a number of benefits for carbon storage. These systems increase available water and nutrients in the soil and act to protect soil from wind and water erosion (Glover et al. 2012). These conservation measures for erosion and runoff keep soil, nutrients and water on the farm, which is a local benefit, as well as keeping them out of bodies of water. Compared to annual crops, tree crops have deeper and larger root networks that store carbon in their biomass. They increase organic matter input to the soils, helping them hold more water and nutrients (Jose, 2009) global perspective, perennial crops increase terrestrial carbon storage by removing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in plant biomass, thus mitigating carbon increases in the atmosphere from other sources. Addition of perennial crops to a farm can improve household resilience by increasing the diversity of products for sale and home consumption. Agroforestry systems that contain nitrogen-fixing woody perennials (\"fertilizer trees\") support long-term soil fertility (Sileshi et al. 2014) that can be intercropped with food plantings. The fertilizer trees also provide farmers with firewood, construction materials, and fodder (Kuntashula and Mafongoya 2005).Research demonstrates that the benefits of agroforestry can enhance smallholder farmer resilience to climate change in Africa (Lasco et al. 2014).Practice plan. BLA promoted alley agroforestry systems of Gliricidia (Gliricidia sepium) and maize. Project staff estimated the tree density at roughly 4,000 trees/ha (based on dense crop spacing of 5 x 0.5 m), which was used for carbon sequestration estimates. BLA estimated farmers would convert about 6,500 ha of annual cropland to such agroforestry systems.Impact on sequestration. To estimate the specific carbon sequestration rate for BLA, FAO assumed each Gliricidia tree had at maturity an above-ground biomass in dry matter (DM) of 30.18 kg (Fuwape and Akindele 1997), equivalent to 121 t DM biomass/ha. Conversion of annual cropland to agroforestry systems resulted in carbon sequestration of -13.5 tCO2e/ha/yr. Increased tree biomass contributes the greatest share of these benefits (-10.5 tCO2e/ha/yr), complemented by improvements in soil carbon changes (-3.0 tCO2e/ha/yr). Considering the full area of implementation, agroforestry expansion resulted in carbon sequestration benefits of -87,859 tCO2e (Figure 3). The greatest uncertainty in these estimates is the tree survival rate, which BLA notes can be roughly 50%. These calculations assumed 100% survival based on the initial information collected but can be scaled linearly to estimate the impacts of mortality. These estimates have a higher level of certainty for biomass and a lower level of certainty for soil carbon impacts, stemming from the lack of site-specific soils monitoring data during and after project implementation.Background. Improved soil management practices involve cropping, fertilizer, organic resources and other amendments that are essential to maintain or increase productivity and input use efficiency. These changes can increase crop resilience to drought, such as by increasing rooting depth, while reducing emissions from soils and fertilizers (Lal 2004;Cheesman et al. 2016). Many improved soil management practices confer mitigation benefits for GHG emissions by increasing N recovery by crops and retention of nitrate in soils, thus limiting N2O production. The regular and appropriate supply of organic matter to soils, such as compost, is essential to maintain or increase production and soil carbon. In Zambia, low soil fertility limits the productivity of groundnuts, maize, and soybean systems.Practice plan. BLA supported improved soil management and manure usage as part of groundnut, maize, and soybean value chains (Table 1). Specific practices included the retention of crop residues, minimal tillage, and incorporation of green manure and/or cover crops. The adoption of improved seed contributed to greater yields as well as to biomass in crop residues.Mitigation benefits resulted from changes in soil management (-0.29 tCO2e/ha) and manure usage practices (-1.45 tCO2e/ha) (Figure 2). When scaled to the full area of implementation, these usage practices result in carbon sequestration of -4,455 tCO2e and -30,535 tCO2e, respectively (Figure 3). These estimates are based on IPCC Tier 1 estimates, which may overestimate N2O emissions in some tropical soils by a factor of 2 to 4 (e.g., Hickman et al. 2015) although the direction and magnitude of change relative to N inputs remain linear. Soil carbon storage increases due to incorporation of crop residues, minimal tillage, cover crops and green manure are well studied. Improvement of these estimates would require process-based models parameterized for tropical fertilized crop systems, additional soils and climate data. Further refinements in estimates could come from constraining the estimates of farmer adoption.Background. Soil nutrient stocks are a function of the removal of nutrients in the form of crops and stover, balanced with the input of nutrients from crop residues, fertilizer, manure, and other sources. Farmers employ fertilizer management to balance inputs and losses of nutrients to boost crop yields. Traditionally, efficient fertilizer management focused on the timing, type, placement, and quantity of nutrients to minimize nutrient loss and optimize crop nutrient uptake to increase yields. Today, the focus is broader and includes practices such as intercropping as well as rotations to build agroecosystems that minimize N losses, maximize plant use of available nutrients, build soil organic matter to hold nutrients, and minimize external nutrient inputs. GHG emissions result from production of fertilizers and pesticides (Lal 2004) and conversion of nitrogen fertilizers to N2O in fields (Butterbach-Bahl et al. 2013). Fertilizer management can reduce emissions of N2O from fertilized soils (a GHG 298 times as potent as CO2) (Myhre et al. 2013), as well as emissions associated with the energy intensive production of fertilizers.Practice plan. BLA promoted manure application as a substitute for synthetic fertilizer for maize on 17,742 ha. Reductions in fertilizer purchases reduced costs to the farmer and dependence on agrochemical inputs. During interviews, BLA estimated that, prior to interventions, the average maize fertilization rates were 250 kg/ha (compound D) plus 150 kg/ha (urea), which were used in these estimates. Subsequent discussions with local experts suggested that typical rates are around 200 kg each for compound D and urea. BLA also promoted a certification with the label \"It's Wild!\" to signify that neither synthetic fertilizers nor pesticides were used in production (COMACO 2015).Impact on emissions. Reduction in synthetic fertilizer application impacted GHG emissions by an estimated -0.95 tCO2e/ha annually (Figure 2) and would reach -16,822 tCO2e at full project scale (Figure 3). Constraints that affect this practice are similar to those detailed under soil and manure management. Please note the differences in the estimated fertilization rates would change the net GHG impact by only a few hundredths of a percent.Background. The burning of crop residues left over after harvest leads to GHG emissions and air pollution (Smil 1999, Turmel et al. 2015, WHO 2014) as carbon in biomass is converted to GHGs and particulates. Burning removes a valuable resource that could be used for animal feed, composting, or soil amendment (Rusinamhodzi et al. 2016, Turmel et al. 2015). The calculation of overall benefits includes both the GHG from combustion that is avoided and the benefits from recycling crop residues on the farm.Practice plan. BLA encouraged farmers to discontinue all crop-residue burning in rice (12,000 ha) and maize (17,742 ha) systems. Data from monitoring indicate that discontinuation of burning was widely adopted.Impact on emissions. FAO estimated the rates of residue return from reported crop grain yields (IPCC 2006), which are well known for maize and rice systems. Reduced crop residue burning resulted in a net reduction in GHG emissions (-0.13 tCO2e/ha/yr) (Figure 2) from maize (-0.154 tCO2e/ha) and rice (-0.111 tCO2e/ha). When scaled to the full area for these crops, reduced residue burning would lessen GHG emissions by-4,072 tCO2e/yr (Figure 3). These reductions have a high level of certainty due to the availability of crop specific data on residues.BLA linked prevention of savanna degradation and conversion (landscape approach) to market-based incentives for agricultural crops (value chain approach). Specifically, the project encouraged farmers to practice conservation agriculture and comply with wildlife conservation standards through providing price premiums for certain agricultural products. This approach created incentives for farmers to invest in existing production systems instead of clearing new cropland to overcome soil nutrient depletion in current annual systems. BLA actions reduced postharvest losses through changes in handling, processing, storage, and packaging, with notable increases in remaining annual yield for rice (131%) and soybean (55%).BLA's interventions reduced net GHG emissions (-902,531 tCO2e/yr), 85% of which was due to avoided savanna degradation and conversion. Expanded agroforestry and avoided savanna conversion provided the greatest mitigation per ha (Figure 2). Avoided savanna degradation (burning) with improvements in manure and fertilizer usage provided moderate mitigation benefits per ha. Soil management improvements and reduced crop residue burning had relatively lower emission impact per ha but have important agronomic benefits. Overall, the large area of avoided savanna degradation accounted for 65% of BLA's GHG mitigation impact (Figure 3). Avoided savanna conversion, the second largest practice by area, accounted for 19% of GHG mitigation. Expansion of agroforestry, reduction of crop-residue burning, and improvements in soil, manure, and fertilizer management contributed about 16% of total annual GHG mitigation. Emission intensity (GHG emissions per unit of output) is a useful indicator of LED in the agricultural sector. Table 2 summarizes emission intensity for groundnuts, maize, rice, and soybeans without and with agricultural practices supported by BLA.Annual yield. BLA increased yields tremendously for rice and soybeans (133% and 55%, respectively) and more moderately for maize (13%) and groundnuts (20%). Rice yield improvements were due to improved seed, integrated pest management, and plant spacing. Soybean crops benefited from the retention of crop residues, incorporation of organic material, and reduced tillage.Postharvest loss. BLA reduced PHL through improvements in postharvest handling, processing, and packaging in the four crops considered here. BLA also invested in physical infrastructure, including the construction and maintenance of 21 community-owned depots for crop storage. COMACO estimated that PHL decreased for groundnuts, maize, rice, and soybeans (Table 2). BLA conducted a targeted, standardized, computer-assisted survey of PHL with farmers to provide clear quantification of PHL changes.Emission intensity. BLA reduced emission intensity (Table 2), increased crop yields, and reduced PHL. Groundnut, maize, and soybean systems all resulted in net carbon storage (carbon sinks). Interventions in maize systems had the greatest impact on emission intensity, a change from being a source of emissions to becoming a sink. Rice systems tend to have high emissions compared to other annual crops, so the 65% reduction in the emission intensity achieved through BLA is notable. 1. Total GHG emissions per ha signifies the net emissions per hectare of product harvested per year. 2. Annual yield signifies the tonnes of product produced per hectare harvested each year. 3. Postharvest loss is the measurable product loss during processing steps from harvest to consumption per year. 4. Remaining annual yield is calculated by subtracting postharvest loss from annual yield. 5. Emission intensity is calculated by dividing the total GHG emissions per hectare by the remaining annual yield. (-) Denotes that the percent difference could not be calculated. A comprehensive description of the methodology used for the analysis presented in this report can be found in Grewer et al. (2016); a summary of the methodology follows. The selection of projects to be analyzed consisted of two phases. First, the research team reviewed interventions in the FTF initiative and additional USAID activities with high potential for agricultural GHG mitigation to determine which activities were to be analyzed for changes in GHG emissions and carbon sequestration. CCAFS characterized agricultural interventions across a broad range of geographies and approaches. These included some that were focused on specific practices and others designed to increase production by supporting value chains. For some activities, such as technical training, the relationship between the intervention and agricultural GHG impacts relied on multiple intermediate steps. It was beyond the scope of the study to quantify emission reductions for these cases, and the research team therefore excluded them. Next, researchers from CCAFS and USAID selected 30 activities with high potential for agricultural GHG mitigation based on expert judgment of anticipated emissions and strength of the intervention. he analysis focused on practices that have been documented to mitigate climate change (Smith et al. 2007) and a range of value chain interventions that influence productivity.Researchers from FAO, USAID, and CCAFS analyzed a substantial range of project documentation for the GHG analysis. They conducted face-to-face or telephone interviews with implementing partners and followed up in writing with national project management. Implementing partners provided information, data, and estimates regarding the adoption of improved agricultural practices, annual yields, and postharvest losses. The underlying data for this GHG analysis are based on project monitoring data.The team estimated GHG emissions and carbon sequestration associated with agricultural and forestry practices by utilizing EX-ACT, an appraisal system developed by the FAO (Bernoux et al. 2010;Bockel et al. 2013;Grewer et al. 2013), and other methodologies. EX-ACT was selected based on its ability to account for a number of GHGs, practices, and environments. Derivation of intensity and practice-based estimates of GHG emissions reflected in this case study required a substantial time investment that was beyond the usual effort and scope of GHG assessments of agricultural investment projects. Additional details on the methodology for deriving intensity and practice-based estimates can be found in Grewer et al. (2016).This analysis of GHG emissions and carbon sequestration by agricultural practice raises issues that those designing or implementing other programs will need to consider in the context of low emission agriculture and food security for smallholder farmers, including: Soil management. Which soil management practices benefit yields while also increasing sequestration of carbon? Which practices can farmers adopt easily? Which practices require training or technology improvements? Which practices should be adopted individually or bundled with other practices, given biophysical, social, and economic circumstances? Crop residue burning. Are there any negative side effects from reducing crop residue burning regarding pest and disease management or pasture renewal? Agroforestry expansion. What incentives or changes to enabling conditions are needed to help farmers invest in agroforestry establishment? What kind of technical knowledge and market analysis will help farmers choose agroforestry species that are also adaptable to expected climate changes? Avoided degradation of savanna. What elements of sustainable land management programs are most effective at reducing the degradation of savanna? What is the feasibility of scaling BLA's value chain approach across other food security programs?","tokenCount":"3957"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"13d4a7e5898920850dcd5833f45594fb","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f1a46d10-c134-403c-a762-f13b7b344cb7/retrieve","id":"-1593574113"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"5c2d00a1-df68-4d5d-96bc-446c45d4be82","pagecount":"18","content":"Notes from three multi-stakeholder workshops, March-April 2013Compiled by Peter Ballantyne CGIAR is a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for a food secure future.Stakeholder discussions and planning for the Livestock and Fish small ruminant value chain development project began in mid 2012. By November, sites were selected and teams were trained to carry out rapid value chain assessments in the project's 8 research sites (including for the safe food fair food project).In March and April 2013, three workshops were organized to take stock of the value chain (VC) assessments and formulate 'best best' intervention plans for each of the sites.The objectives of the workshops were:1. Share and validate results from the rapid VC assessment in the 8 sites 2. Draft a vision/outcome statement for each VC site 3. Identify and prioritize best bet interventions for each site 4. Develop intervention plans for each site (to be taken later to local VCD actors and communities) 5. Identify emerging cross-cutting issues by research components -breeding, feeding, health, genderInputs were the draft reports of the VCA assessments, VC 'maps' (see annex 2) and constraint tables as well as 'safe food' project VCA summaries per site Together, 67 individuals from the sites and other partners joined the workshops. These came from research, academic, NGO, private companies, as well as international research organizations. This document briefly reports on the process and outputs of the workshops -all materials from the workshops are accessible at http://livestock-fish.wikispaces.com/ethiopia_vcd_bestbetplanning.Each team presented its initial value chain assessment (VCA) report, including a table of VC constraints and potential interventions as well as a map of the market channels. The tables were validated and the elements prioritized in groups discussions involving invited people from outside the sites; they formed the basis for the subsequent identification of 'best bet' interventions and draft intervention plans.For each site, the teams produced a set of prioritized 'best bet' interventions targeted to the constraints and opportunities already identified.In prioritizing, groups initially looked at those that are 'easy' -so-called 'low hanging fruits' that offer quick and visible results and those that are 'essential' -without these, the intended VC transformation and outcomes would not happen. In the last workshop, these were called 'killer' interventions.An important dimension to consider was the expected timeframe within which an intervention would be expected to produce outputs. The three timeframes used in planning were: Short term: up to 2 years; medium-term: between 2 and 4 years; and long-term: more than 4 years.Other aspects of best bets taken into account in prioritization included: The phase of evolution of the VC -participants differentiated between infant, growth, and mature phases based on inputs from a colleague working for SNV.  The VC 'stage' -whether the intervention mainly targets issues around inputs, production, marketing, processing or consumption.  The types of interventions were considered important -whether they are primarily about technologies, are organizational or institutional, or are capacity developing.  Finally, it was thought useful to pay attention to whether the intervention is primarily 'action research', is 'developmental', or involves more upstream 'science.'What emerged? The full tables will be part of the VCA reports produced from this exercise. Draft outputs are at http://livestock-fish.wikispaces.com/ethiopia_vcd_bestbetplanning. The table on the next page gives some examples.The constraints analysis and best bet interventions were combined to produce draft intervention plans per site. For each prioritized intervention, teams explained who would be expected to deliver the activity, when (short, medium or long term) and how -the approach to be used. These plans form part of the VCA reports per site; they will be taken to VC local actors/communities for further validation and implementation. As part of the planning process for each site, the teams developed initial vision/outcome statements for where they expect their value chain to be in 2020. These are provided below:  Borana: By 2020: Yabello pastoralists will have improved their incomes, nutrition and health through sustainable market oriented goat production  Shinelle: By 2020: Shinelle pastoralists will practice sustainable market-oriented sheep and goat production which contributes to improved nutrition and incomeAlongside the site by site planning, two of the workshops also looked at cross-cutting issues across sites, to identify priority interventions and issues needing attention. These are listed in the table below. ","tokenCount":"702"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"33083f1fb75fad26fe3289436f5360ff","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/160029a8-2fb2-43e0-a377-c9979e2a1eb0/retrieve","id":"777876663"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0c7f978b-7e15-4e04-942a-026b34578012","pagecount":"51","content":"siguiente manera:• Barras grises indican la lluvia que habitualmente tenemos.• Barras naranja indican la lluvia observada el año pasado (2020).• Barras azules indican la lluvia pronosticada para este año.• Barras amarillas indican la lluvia observada en lo que va del año. ¿Cómo leer esta Información?El l mapa muestra las regiones económicas del estado de Chiapas agrupadas por condiciones climáticas similares.centro y norte del estado se esperan lluvias por debajo de lo habitual.Únicamente en la costa se esperan lluvias por arriba de lo habitual.En las regiones de Meseta Comiteca y Altos Tsotsil-Tseltal, las lluvias se esperan por arriba de lo habitual en mayo, similares en junio y ligeramente menores entre julio y agosto. Sin embargo, se esperan más lluvias que el año pasado en julio. Se recomienda estar al pendiente de las actualizaciones del pronóstico estacional los primeros días de cada mes y a los avisos y boletines del pronóstico meteorológico en https://smn.conagua.gob.mx/es y twitter @conagua_clima Para mayor información sobre calendarios agrícolas y manejo agronómico de cultivos póngase en contacto con INIFAP al correo lopez.aurelio@inifap.gob.mx Cuando el valor de la lluvia (línea azul) está por encima del valor de evaporación y transpiración (línea naranja) significa que la planta tiene suficiente humedad. Cuando la línea naranja está por encima de la línea azul, significa que la planta puede sufrir de una deficiencia de humedad.¿Cómo leer esta Información?  -----Lluvia pronosticada -----Evaporación del suelo y transpiración de la plantaSe esperan buenos acumulados de lluvias por lo cuál es recomendable sembrar un maíz más rendidor.Fechas de siembra Es importante ver las condiciones para cada zona. Si se pronostica una canícula en el momento de floración del cultivo, se recomienda modificar la fecha de siembra o la variedad a sembrar (ver sección \"calendarios agroclimáticos\").Considere la humedad del suelo para conocer el momento oportuno de siembra. Esto se puede realizar a través de un análisis visual y de tacto del suelo.Para siembras tardías, utilizar híbridos o materiales tolerantes a mancha de asfalto, como son:• Proase (PAS-112 y PAS-110)• Reycoll Seeds (SKW-501)• Reycoll Seeds (SKW-505)• Mater (MS-400)• Rega (CELTA)• PROGEN (PG1703W)• PROCESO (PS-610)Variedades (Ciclo corto) En regiones que pueden presentar sequías se recomienda sembrar materiales de ciclos cortos, sobre todo en sistemas de autoconsumo: variedad VS-560, criollo Cuarentano Blanco y Cuarentano Amarillo. En Cintalapa y Venustiano Carranza se han sembrado criollos como Rocamey, Z 30 y Zapatista.Variedades (Criollas) Para la siembra de maíces nativos en sistemas de milpa, se recomienda ajustar los arreglos de siembras con las siguientes distancias: 1 metro entre hileras y 40 centímetros entre matas. Esto favorece el rendimiento de maíz y permite la siembra de otros cultivos dentro de la misma parcela.Fósforo (P) Azufre (S) Hierro (Fe)Chiapas, 2014 -@BJiménezCIMMYT Para mayor información sobre manejo agronómico del cultivo de maíz póngase en contacto con el hub de Chiapas de CIMMYT +52 (1) 961 215 3974Mesa Técnica Agroclimática ChiapasAsociación con flores u otros cultivos Promover sistemas diversificados con flores que atraen polinizadores y con ello se controla mejor a las plagas: milpa con chícharo gandul, girasol (forraje), mucuna, canavalia.Asociar maíz con frijol o calabaza, podría ayudar a mitigar los efectos de los bajos rendimiento de maíz que podrían darse, especialmente en zonas con pronóstico de lluvias menores al promedio.Por ser un buen año, se recomienda sembrar también maíz para ensilar y complementar el forraje. Se han obtenido buenos resultados al utilizar girasol y triticale para ensilaje como alternativa para la alimentación del ganado de traspatio.Para el manejo de mancha de asfalto, productores recomiendan el uso de ácido acético y agua oxigenada, y cuando la enfermedad se presenta con mayor incidencia (generalmente en jiloteo) se puede utilizar un producto a base de fitoalexinas, controlando la enfermedad y mejorando la calidad.Hacer monitoreos frecuentes y uso de feromonas sexuales. En caso de una incidencia alta se recomienda aplicar Basillus t preferentemente por la tarde o aplicar insecticidas específicos de bajo impacto como el Palgus, Denim, Exalt, Drony o Novaluron.Fertilización Es importante una fertilización balanceada con Nitrogeno, Fósforo y Potasio. Aplicaciones foliares que contengan los nutrientes Boro y Zinc. Se recomienda el uso de micorrizas y azospirillum, lixiviados de lombriz, también con composta, vermi composta y estiércol de res composteado.Tratamiento de semillas Para tratamientos de semilla, se recomienda utilizar micorrizas para mejorar la nutrición del cultivo y Beauveria bassiana o Metarrizium para proteger el cultivo de plagas del suelo.Para manejo de arvenses en aplicaciones presiembra se recomienda el uso de herbicida orgánico.Manejo de otras arvenses Para el manejo de coquillo, se recomienda el uso de coberturas verdes como la canavalia y el ajonjolí. Si la incidencia es muy alta se recomienda aplicación de Sempra o Calixto. Para zacate llanero se recomienda tratamientos mecánicos sobre todo en temporadas con sequía.Para mayor información sobre manejo agronómico del cultivo de maíz póngase en contacto con el hub de Chiapas de CIMMYT +52 (1) 961 215 3974 Agradecemos el apoyo de las instituciones que hacen parte de la MTA Chiapas. Si aún no formas parte, te invitamos a que asistas a las próximas reuniones. La MTA de Chiapas cuenta con grupos de WhatsApp y lista de correos. Si quieres ser incluido, contáctanos:La Mesa Técnica Agroclimática es posible gracias al esfuerzo de diversas instituciones del estado y la coordinación de la Secretaría de Agricultura de Chiapas (SAGyP) y la Secretaría de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural (AGRICULTURA)Lavado de manos durante al menos 20 segundos con agua y jabón, en caso de no contar con agua y jabón se pueden usar soluciones con base de alcohol.Limpiar (con agua y jabón) y desinfectar (con una solución clorada) las superficies y objetos de uso común.Mantener una sana distancia entre personas (de 1.5 a 2 metros), en caso de no poder mantener esta distancia usar cubreboca, por ejemplo en el transporte público.Etiqueta respiratoria (cubrir nariz y boca con el ángulo interno del codo o con un pañuelo desechable) al toser o estornudar.En caso de presentar síntomas compatibles y no formar parte de un grupo vulnerable ni tener indicios de dificultad respiratoria, recuperarse en casa.Mesa Técnica Agroclimática ChiapasSe recomienda estar al pendiente de las actualizaciones del pronóstico estacional los primeros días de cada mes y a los avisos y boletines del pronóstico meteorológico en https://smn.conagua.gob.mx/es y twitter @conagua_clima Se prevé lluvia de normal a por arriba de lo habitual en la mayor parte del estado.Las barras indican la cantidad de lluvia, de la siguiente manera:• Barras grises indican la lluvia normal que es el promedio de 30 años.• Barras naranja indican la lluvia observada el año pasado (2020).• Barras azules indican la lluvia pronosticada para este año.• Barras amarillas indican la lluvia observada en lo que va del año.¿Cómo leer esta Información?El mapa muestra las regiones económicas del estado de Chiapas agrupadas por condiciones climáticas similares.Gráfico de barrasSe recomienda estar al pendiente de las actualizaciones del pronóstico estacional los primeros días de cada mes y a los avisos y boletines del pronóstico meteorológico en https://smn.conagua.gob.mx/es y twitter @conagua_clima Se recomienda estar al pendiente de las actualizaciones del pronóstico estacional los primeros días de cada mes y a los avisos y boletines del pronóstico meteorológico en https://smn.conagua.gob.mx/es y twitter @conagua_clima Se recomienda estar al pendiente de las actualizaciones del pronóstico estacional los primeros días de cada mes y a los avisos y boletines del pronóstico meteorológico en https://smn.conagua.gob.mx/es y twitter @conagua_clima Para mayor información sobre calendarios agrícolas y manejo agronómico de cultivos póngase en contacto con INIFAP al correo lopez.aurelio@inifap.gob.mx ------Lluvia pronosticada ------Evaporación del suelo y transpiración de la plantaCuando el valor de la lluvia (línea azul) está por encima del valor de evaporación y transpiración (línea naranja) significa que la planta tiene suficiente humedad. Cuando la línea naranja está por encima de la línea azul, significa que la planta puede sufrir de una deficiencia de humedad.¿Cómo se lee esta información? Se recomienda sembrar a finales de agosto y durante el mes de septiembre. Este cultivo tiene varias ventajas: genera buena cobertura que reduce presencia de malezas, mejora la fertilidad del suelo, aporta materia orgánica. Para facilitar la cosecha manual se recomienda la siembra de manera alterna, un surco sí y uno no.Siembras de relevo con Dolichos Se recomienda la siembra a finales de agosto y durante el mes de septiembre, en surcos alternados, no sí y otro no. El dolicho proporciona cobertura de suelo, materia orgánica, fijación de nitrógeno y ayuda a mejorar la calidad del rastrojo como forraje.Siembras de relevo con Chícharo Gandul Se recomienda la siembra a finales de agosto y durante el mes de septiembre. Este chícharo tiene raíces fuertes y profundas que facilitan la descompactación de suelos, fija nitrógeno, materia orgánica, es eficiente en el control de malezas, las hojas son un buen forraje y el grano tiene alto contenido de nutrientes para alimentación.Se recomienda un manejo preventivo con aplicaciones de cobre pentahidratado (½ kg por hectárea) o cal micronizada (4 gr por litro de agua) o productos con base de cobre. De forma curativa aplicar Azoxystrobin, Tebuconazole, trifloxistrobin, pyraclostrobin o formulaciones similares. En ambas aplicaciones se sugiere agregar un adherente y dosis recomendadas en las etiquetas. Se recomienda la práctica de dobla de maíz.sdsd Manejo de gusano cogollero y elotero Hacer monitoreos frecuentes y uso de feromonas sexuales. En caso de una incidencia alta se recomienda aplicar Bacillus t preferentemente por la tarde o aplicar insecticidas específicos de bajo impacto como el Spinoteram, Benzoato de emamectina, o Novaluron.Realizar monitoreo y si se encuentra presencia se recomienda hacer tratamientos con insecticidas como Delta, Cipermetrina o Permetrina según la dosis especificada en la etiqueta.Para el manejo de arvense o malezas en etapas avanzadas del cutivo, se recomienda el uso de glufosinato de amonio y, preferentemente, de coberturas verdes como canavalia, dolichos, chicharo gandúl, o deshierbes manuales.¿Conoces los síntomas de las enfermedades?Asfalto DiplodiaFrijol de Humedad residual Fecha de siembra Se recomienda sembrar a partir del 15 de agosto y durante el mes de septiembre. Se esperan lluvias alrededor de la normal que mantendrán la humedad residual suficiente para completar el periodo de desarrollo del cultivo de frijol solo y de relevo a maíz.Verdín, Sangre Maya, RB200, Frailescano y Negro Tacaná. También se identifican materiales locales como el Bolita, vaina morada, botil, frijol de enredo, otros.En suelos arcillosos y planos (menos 5% de pendiente) tener cuidado con mal drenaje que puede afectar el cultivo. En las siembras de lomeríos (5 al 15% de peniente) y en laderas (más del 15%), se deben de aplicar las prácticas de conservación de suelo y agua.Plagas La mosquita blanca es el principal vector del virus del mosaico dorado. Se recomienda hacer aplicaciones a base de Bifentrina porque reduce la población de mosquita blanca y la enfermedad.Fertilización Para mejorar la calidad del grano, se recomienda mezclar micorrizas y rhizobium con la semilla. En la siembra, realizar fertilización de cultivo al suelo con 100 kg de sulfato de amonio, 50 kg de DAP y 50 kg de KCL.Se recomienda hacer aplicaciones foliares.Se recomienda la siembra a partir del 15 de agosto y durante el mes de septiembre. Se esperan lluvias alrededor de la normal que mantendrán la humedad residual suficiente para completar el periodo de desarrollo del cultivo de ajonjolí solo y de relevo a Maíz.Considerar variedades locales o criollas de la Costa de Chiapas y del Istmo de Tehuantepec que prosperan favorablemente. Ejemplo: Blanco Istmeño, Río Grande 83, Cola de Borrego, China Amarillo, entre otras. Prosperan en suelos francoarcilloso y sin problemas de inundación.Son generalmente los que comen las hojas y tallo, como las diabróticas, arrieras, cahpulines y otras. Se controlan con la aplicación de insecticidas de contacto que contienen PiretroidesSiempre es recomendable emplear prácticas agrícolas tales como:Para mayor información sobre manejo agronómico de maíz y cultivos de alternativa póngase en contacto con lopez.aurelio@inifap.gob.mx o b.jimenez@cgiar.orgMesa Técnica Agroclimática ChiapasBarreras vivasFrijol AjonjolíAgradecemos el apoyo de las instituciones que hacen parte de la MTA Chiapas. Si aún no formas parte, te invitamos a que asistas a las próximas reuniones. La MTA de Chiapas cuenta con grupos de WhatsApp y lista de correos. Si quieres ser incluido, contáctanos:La Mesa Técnica Agroclimática es posible gracias al esfuerzo de diversas instituciones del estado y la coordinación de la Secretaría de Agricultura de Chiapas (SAGyP) y la Secretaría de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural (AGRICULTURA)Lavado de manos con agua y jabón, en caso de no contar con agua y jabón se pueden usar soluciones con base de alcohol.Limpiar (con agua y jabón) y desinfectar (con una solución clorada) las superficies y objetos de uso común.Mantener una sana distancia entre personas (de 1.5 a 2 metros), en caso de no poder mantener esta distancia usar cubreboca, por ejemplo en el transporte público.Etiqueta respiratoria (cubrir nariz y boca con el ángulo interno del codo o con un pañuelo desechable) al toser o estornudar.En caso de presentar síntomas compatibles y no formar parte de un grupo vulnerable ni tener indicios de dificultad respiratoria, recuperarse en casa.No La MTA-EdoMex tiene como objetivo ser un espacio de diálogo, entre productores, instituciones gubernamentales y el sector académico, para sumar esfuerzos en la construcción de investigaciones, proyectos y políticas públicas en materia agrícola y su relación con el clima y su variabilidad en nuestro Estado.En la última reunión celebrada el 13 de octubre (modalidad virtual), se presentó la perspectiva climática para el Estado para periodo de Octubre 2021 a Enero de 2022, donde se discutieron impactos y recomendaciones para el sector agrícola. La información generada, se ha recopilado en el presente boletín agroclimático, a ser divulgado entre técnicos, promotores agrícolas y productores.La MTA EdoMex es realizada gracias al esfuerzo de diversas instituciones del Estado, enfocado en ayudar a garantizar la seguridad alimentaria y la agricultura sostenible. Agradecemos a todos los organismos que forman parte de la MTA- Así mismo, la mesa cuenta con la participación de productores y asociaciones ubicados en todas las regiones del estado.Para conocer más sobre las Mesas Técnicas Agroclimáticas visite: https://ccafs.cgiar.org/es/mesas-tecnicas-agroclimaticas-mtaLos mapas a continuación muestran la lluvia esperada por meses para las regiones de interés del Estado de México.• Los mapas de la columna de la izquierda muestran las cantidades de lluvia habitual.• Los mapas de la columna del centro muestran las cantidades de lluvia esperadas.• Los mapas de la columna de la derecha muestran la diferencia (anomalía) de la lluvia que se espera con respecto a lo habitual.Mesa Técnica Agroclimática EdoMexEn la región de Amecameca se esperan lluvias ligeramente por arriba de lo habitual.En Durante el mes de enero en las 7 regiones se esperan lluvias por debajo de lo habitual.Los colores azules y verdes indican valores bajos de lluvias habituales o esperadas. Los colores amarillos a rojos indican valores altos de lluvia.Los colores café indican menos lluvia esperada que lo habitual. Los colores verdes indican más lluvia esperada que lo habitual..Te recomendamos incorporar al menos el 30 % de rastrojo de tu cosecha.Distribuye uniformemente sobre la parcela, puedes auxiliarte del uso de implementos como la desbaradora.Puedes incorporarlo con el uso de rastra, fraccionando los residuos para un buen manejo.Asegúrate de que el rastrojo esté totalmente seco para un mejor manejo, esto evitará atascos en los implementos.Incrementa la disponibilidad de nutrientes, reduciendo gradualmente el uso de fertilizantes quimicos Protegé al suelo de la erosion y degradación, mejorando sus propiedades fisicas.Mesa Técnica Agroclimática EdoMexPara mayor información sobre manejo de rastrojos visita AC CIMMYT Recuerda que puedes aprovechar las lluvias por arriba de lo habitual, conservando la humedadd mediante la cobertura e incorporación de rastrojos.Si se presentan lluvias, antes de cosecha la entrada de agua puede reducirse doblando la planta de maíz justo debajo de la mazorca, asegurar que la planta haya llegado a madurez y cosechar en un día soleado colocando las mazorcas sobre una lona limpia o directamente en costales evitando el contacto con el suelo, esto evitara la transferencia de esporas que puedan producir hongos.Se recomienda secar el grano a un nivel por debajo del 13% de humedad para mantener la calidad y evitar el crecimiento de bacterias, hongos e insectos. El secado puede realizarse sobre una lona plástica de color obscuro para acelerar el proceso. Para determinar la humedad adecuada utilizar el método de sal el cual consiste en colocar grano en un frasco de vidrio, con una cuchara de sal y mover durante 1 minuto, si la sal se pega en el grano y en las paredes del frasco, el grano aun esta muy húmedo , si la sal se queda en el fondo sin pegarse estará listo para poder almacenar.Realizar el desgrane con humedad entre el 14 al 16 % para evitar grano quebrado, separar las mazorcas dañadas de las sanas para evitar contaminación , realizar una limpieza del grano con el uso de cribas con malla de 5 y 2 mm. para retirar olotes, terrones, piedras, hojas, semillas de maleza, esto evitara el desarrollo de plagas y enfermedades además de brindar un mayor valor comercial.Para almacenar el grano debe estar: sano, seco, limpio y fresco en un lugar fresco. Limpiar y desinfectar los contenedores y el lugar de almacenamiento eliminando residuos de cosecha anterior para evitar la aparición de plagas como roedores. Dentro delos métodos de almacenamiento se recomienda el uso de tecnologías herméticas que conservan el grano sin el uso de ninguna sustancia química conservando la calidad y sanidad del mismo, también el uso de polvos inertes como cal micronizada a dosis de 4Kg por tonelada de grano, conserva el grano evitando la aparición de hongos e insectos dentro de los contenedores.Para mayor información sobre practicas y tecnologías poscosecha para la conservación de grano visita AC CIMMYT Mesa Técnica Agroclimática EdoMexRecuerda se recomienda adecuar el secado y almacenamiento de tus cosechas ya que, se tendrán lluvias por arriba de lo normal, siendo estos algunos de los factores que afectan la calidad de grano.. NUTRICIÓN, PLAGAS Y ENFERMEDADES En la temporada de cosecha es importante monitorear que el \"terreno da piso\" para el ingreso de maquinaria, y así realizar el corte y picado, y ensilaje. Siempre es recomendable emplear prácticas agrícolas tales como:Labranza verticalBarreras vivasNo quemaSi se encuentra en etapa de floración es importantes monitorear la presencia de plagas (trips) y cuidar la nutrición foliar para evitar la caída de flor por los cambios bruscos de temperatura. Si se encuentra en etapa de llenado es importante monitorear el cultivo para un adecuado control de enfermedades como manchas en las vainas por la presencia de humedad (Municipio de Texcaltitlan)FECHA DE SIEMBRA Regiones como Amanalco, podrían tener condiciones para siembra de haba en los siguientes meses una vez que disminuya la presencia de lluvias.Para tener en cuenta: Subsistema de Información Estatal sobre Cambio Climático NUTRICIÓN, PLAGAS Y ENFERMEDADES Colocar agribon (es la manta o tela térmica usada en agricultura) en árboles pequeños, aplicar hormonales para estimulación de flor y fruto, aplicar fertilización adecuada, insecticidas y fungicidas, para mantenerlos nutridos y sanos libres de plagas y enfermedades.No es susceptible al fotoperiodo por lo tanto no hay problema con los días nublados. Considerar las bajas temperaturas ya que se lleva a cabo la programación para fechas pico: 1 y 2 de noviembre, 12 de diciembre y 14 de febrero, con respecto a las horas de luz natural y crepúsculo durante el día se recomienda cerrar cortinas antes de las 17:00 y abrirlas a las 09:00 hrs. para evitar perdida de temperatura dentro de los túneles, así mismo se reduce la entrada de aire frío para evitar problemas fitosanitarios como son cenicilla, botrytis, roya.FECHA DE SIEMBRA Se recomienda la siembra durante el mes de diciembre, pues es un cultivo que requiere un período de vernalización (se comporta como una especie tolerante al frío), en las primeras etapas de desarrollo para lograr una buena floración. La vernalización de 2°a 5°C por 1 a 7 semanas acelera la emergencia de panículas y produce un mayor número de panículas por planta.FECHA DE SIEMBRA Se recomienda la siembra durante el mes de noviembre. El trigo de invierno necesita un periodo frío (vernalización) durante sus primeras etapas de crecimiento, para el desarrollo normal de las espigas durante días largos. En sus etapas iniciales de desarrollo, el trigo de invierno tolera temperaturas de hasta -20°C, sin embargo, en las siguientes etapas de desarrollo el trigo es susceptible al daño por heladas o temperaturas cercanas a 0°C.LUZ Y TEMPERATURA Requieren de luz artificial al menos dos horas más por día cuando la duración de la noche es mayor a la del día. Se tienen que considerar dos horas más de luz artificial para no detener su crecimiento vegetativo para el corte en la fecha programada, cuidar la temperatura dentro de los túneles para no detener su crecimiento y tener buen drenado en pasillos y camas para evitar daños por hongos como son la roya blanca.Estos cultivos no son susceptibles al fotoperiodo por lo tanto no hay problema con los días nublados. A finales del mes de octubre cuando se realiza la cosecha de estos cultivos, se debe de tener cuidado al realizar el manojeo y conservar en condiciones adecuadas para preservar su calidad.Agradecemos el apoyo de las instituciones que hacen parte de la MTA EdoMex. Si aún no formas parte, te invitamos a que asistas a las próximas reuniones. La MTA de EdoMex cuenta con grupos de WhatsApp y lista de correos. Si quieres ser incluido, contáctanos:La Mesa Técnica Agroclimática es posible gracias al esfuerzo de diversas instituciones del estado y la participación de productores.Lavado de manos durante al menos 20 segundos con agua y jabón, en caso de no contar con agua y jabón se pueden usar soluciones con base de alcohol.Limpiar (con agua y jabón) y desinfectar (con una solución clorada) las superficies y objetos de uso común.Mantener una sana distancia entre personas (1.5 -2 metros), en caso de no poder mantener esta distancia usar cubreboca, por ejemplo en el transporte público.Etiqueta respiratoria (cubrir nariz y boca con el ángulo interno del codo o con un pañuelo desechable) al toser o estornudar.En caso de presentar síntomas compatibles y no formar parte de un grupo vulnerable ni tener indicios de dificultad respiratoria, recuperarse en casa.Denise Robles Secretaría del Campo deromasdc@outlook.com Helada negra: se desarrolla cuando el aire del ambiente se encuentra excesivamente seco, no existe condensación ni formación de hielo sobre la superficie y se le denomina \"negra\" por la necrosis o daño en las plantas que adoptan un color oscuro.Granizada: es agua congelada que cae de las nubes en forma de \"granos\" de distintos tamaños. Es una precipitación sólida.Lluvia: Precipitación de gotas de agua líquida de diámetro mayor de 0.5 mm, o más pequeñas, pero muy dispersas (Servicio Meteorológico Nacional, 2021)Llovizna. Precipitación uniforme constituida por minúsculas gotas de agua, menores a los 0.5 mm de diámetro, dando la impresión de que las gotas flotan y no caen. La llovizna cae de una capa densa de estratos. En México comúnmente se le dice \"chispear\". (Servicio Meteorológico Nacional, 2021)Lluvia atípica: se refiere a que las características de la lluvia (momento, cantidad, intensidad, etc) resulta diferente a lo que se considera como lluvia común o esperada porque se ha presentad de forma recurrente.Puede también considerarse como extrañas o irregulares.Incertidumbre: Falta de seguridad, de confianza o de certeza sobre algo. Una situación de desconocimiento que se tiene acerca de lo que sucederá en el futuro.Pronóstico: estimación sobre lo que se espera que pueda suceder respecto a una variable. Se hacen colectando tantos datos como sea posible acerca del estado de la atmósfera (particularmente temperatura, presión atmosférica, vientos, humedad y precipitaciones) a través de la meteorología para determinar los patrones futuros atmosféricos. Para mayor información póngase en contacto con ss.produccion.sedapa@hotmail.com, cano.miguel@inifap.gob.mx o A.Leal@cgiar.orgMesa Técnica Agroclimática ChiapasSe recomienda estar al pendiente de las actualizaciones del pronóstico estacional los primeros días de cada mes y a los avisos y boletines del pronóstico meteorológico en https://smn.conagua.gob.mx/es y twitter @conagua_clima Nota: Los colores en el mapa corresponden a los mostrados en la escala de color ubicada en la parte inferior de la figura, la cuál representa valores de precipitación acumulada en milímetros.Durante el mes de octubre en las cercanías de Tuxtepec, María Lombardo de Caso, Ayotzintepec, Usila y Valle Nacional, se esperan lluvias por arriba del promedio, en cambio en la región del Istmo donde se encuentra la población de Palomares, se esperan menos lluvias de lo normal. Mesa Técnica Agroclimática OaxacaSe recomienda estar al pendiente de las actualizaciones del pronóstico estacional los primeros días de cada mes y a los avisos y boletines del pronóstico meteorológico en https://smn.conagua.gob.mx/es y twitter @conagua_clima Nota: Los colores en el mapa corresponden a los mostrados en la escala de color ubicada en la parte inferior de la figura, la cuál representa valores de precipitación acumulada en milímetros. Mesa Técnica Agroclimática OaxacaSe recomienda estar al pendiente de las actualizaciones del pronóstico estacional los primeros días de cada mes y a los avisos y boletines del pronóstico meteorológico en https://smn.conagua.gob.mx/es y twitter @conagua_clima Nota: Los colores en el mapa corresponden a los mostrados en la escala de color ubicada en la parte inferior de la figura, la cuál representa valores de precipitación acumulada en milímetros. Esto significa más lluvias comparado con lo habitual y con el año pasado.Se esperan lluvias acumuladas de 143 mm.Esto significa más lluvias comparado con lo habitual pero menos que el año pasado.Se esperan lluvias acumuladas de 59 mm.Esto significa menos lluvias comparado con lo habitual pero más lluvias que el año pasado.Se recomienda estar al pendiente de las actualizaciones del pronóstico estacional los primeros días de cada mes y a los avisos y boletines del pronóstico meteorológico en https://smn.conagua.gob.mx/es y twitter @conagua_clima Para mayor información póngase en contacto con ss.produccion.sedapa@hotmail.com, cano.miguel@inifap.gob.mx o A.Leal@cgiar.orgSe recomienda sembrar cultivos en relevo como: ajonjolí, chícharo gandul, caupi, frijol, canavalia, frijol nescafé, a finales del ciclo de producción de ´maíz, es decir, 15 días antes de la madurez, estos cultivos de relevo generan buena cobertura que reduce presencia de malezas, mejora la fertilidad del suelo, aporta materia orgánica. Para facilitar la cosecha manual se recomienda la siembra de manera alterna, un surco sí y uno noSe recomienda sembrar cultivos de rotación como: girasol, frijol nescafé, canavalia, caupi, en aquellos terrenos donde los suelos estén muy degradados o donde la incidencia de malezas sea muy fuerte, estos cultivos generan buena cobertura del suelo permitiendo competir con las malezas y suprimiendo su desarrolloSe recomienda la siembra de cultivos asociados en áreas con menor mecanización, se pueden establecer diferentes combinaciones, ejemplo: maízfrijol, maíz-caupi, girasol-frijol, maíz-cacahuate. La asociación de cultivos ayuda a disminuir la incidencia de malezas, diversifica los alimentos y los ingresos Manejo de mancha de asfalto Se recomienda un manejo preventivo con aplicaciones de cobre pentahidratado (½ kg por hectárea) o cal micronizada (4 gr. por litro de agua) o productos con base de cobre.De forma curativa aplicar Azoxystrobin, Tebuconazole, trifloxistrobin, pyraclostrobin o formulaciones similares. En ambas aplicaciones se sugiere agregar un adherente y dosis recomendadas en las etiquetas. Se recomienda usar variedades resistentes a esta enfermedad Manejo de gusano cogollero y elotero Hacer monitoreos frecuentes y uso de feromonas sexuales específicas. En caso de incidencias mayores al 10% aplicar Bauveria bassiana o Metarhizium anisopleae, durante las mañanas, sobre todo si hay humedad en el ambiente. Cuando las larvas son pequeñas (menores a 1.5 cm de largo) se pueden realizar aplicaciones de tierra de diatomeas en dosis de 10-15 gramos por litro de agua. Si la incidencia es cerca al 20% o mayor entonces aplicar insecticidas específicos de bajo impacto como el Spinoteram, Benzoato de emamectina, o Novaluron.Para el manejo de arvense o malezas en etapas avanzadas del cutivo, se recomienda el uso de glufosinato de amonio o paraquat+diuron, para mantener libre de malezas al momento de la cosecha. Se recomienda el uso de coberturas verdes como canavalia, dolichos, chicharo gandúl, otros. O deshierbes manuales.Maíz con cultivos de relevo, asociados y rotación ¿Conoces los síntomas de las enfermedades?Asfalto DiplodiaChiapas, 2020 -@BJiménezCIMMYT RECOMENDACIONES Frijol de humedad residual Fecha de siembra Se recomienda sembrar a partir del 15 de octubre y durante el mes de noviembre. Se esperan lluvias alrededor de la normal que mantendrán la humedad suficiente para completar el periodo de desarrollo del cultivo de frijol solo y de relevo a maíz. Se recomienda la siembra a partir del 15 de octubre y durante el mes de noviembre. Se esperan lluvias alrededor de la normal que mantendrán la humedad residual suficiente para completar el periodo de desarrollo del cultivo de ajonjolí solo y de relevo a Maíz. ","tokenCount":"4702"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4dee5bf8e2ac97b01ae86a55f33c06cb","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/498f6950-8543-4e22-9bca-78bb846ba72b/retrieve","id":"952023921"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"666e684f-c094-4468-89b3-42d49bba0b6f","pagecount":"16","content":"The Amazon is crucial for the climate and the proper functioning of ecosystems across the planet. In addition to that, over 27,5 million people live in the Brazilian part of the Amazon biome. Recently, businesses have also started to recognize their dependence on natural resources, and understanding the potential impacts of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation on their activities.The Catalyzing and Learning through Private Sector Engagement (CAL-PSE) program results from a unique partnership between USAID/Brazil and the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). The program aims to transform the way we address biodiversity conservation in the Brazilian Legal Amazon, while improving the wellbeing of local communities. By mobilizing the active engagement of the private sector toward implementing sustainable development funding and action, we seek to intensify the involvement of the private sector in the diversification of initiatives aimed at innovating and boosting traditional conservation actions.CAL-PSE has two main lines of activities: engaging the private sector in innovative projects, and creating monitoring and evaluation methodologies that provide clear evidence on the impact of these initiatives on conservation. The private sector's growing interest in impact investment has opened up new avenues for sustainable business models in the Amazon, that bring together economic results with positive environmental impacts.What started as a niche, today attracts governments, development and investment banks, private companies, foundations and institutes to debates and actions. According to the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), there are more than US$500 billion assets in impact management in the world.As impact initiatives focused on the Amazon expand across the private sector, there are some priority paths to support the transformation of the Amazon economy. This includes strengthening the value chains of non-timber forest products, promoting agroforestry systems, and restoring degraded land through sustainably managed production systems, among other solutions and initiatives.For these models to become prevalent, it is necessary to have clear evidence of their impact on conserving biodiversity and improving the quality of life of local communities. Therefore it is fundamental to develop standards and tools that can ensure transparency to the impact of investments in biodiversity and the well-being of communities. Thus, CAL-PSE's Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) team combines scientific rigor and cutting-edge technology to develop monitoring and evaluation solutions that facilitate project management and the dimensioning of their impact in the long run -generating methodologies and information that also enable the production of guidelines and lessons learned to enable and support new projects and initiatives.CAL-PSE promotes the design and application of targeted multidisciplinary research tools and methodologies. This set of tools aims to monitor and evaluate the process of engaging the private sector as a strategy to achieve biodiversity conservation and sustainable development.The impacts that different and combined initiatives may have on biodiversity in the territories covered by the program are measured, considering general local and regional socioeconomic factors. The goal is to ensure that our shared private sector networks make informed decisions, communicate learning, and impact, and thus mobilize more investment and commitment.By using these tools together or individually, CAL-PSE offers different ways to engage the private sector in accelerating sustainable development in Brazil and catalyzes the adoption of business models based on forest conservation and biodiversity protection. Social Network Analysis (SNA) is a methodology that uses a set of techniques to quantify and qualify the relationships between different actors in a network. CAL-PSE applies this tool to assess the health and impact of engagement networks and the performance of private sector initiatives -as well as to generate an understanding of how they evolve and how to catalyze their strengthening.SNA maps the relationship between the actors engaged in social and environmental impact investing. The goal is to understand how relationships among partners change over time to identify good practices and ways of strengthening such networks.In a network, each circle represents an actor, and the lines represent the relation between them*Visualization example of how the SNA can present the relationships between the different organizations involved in a network. » Identifying key actors for expanding partnerships.» Data collection about the interaction between multi-actor networks.» Providing transparency among network members. Understanding the wider context is crucial when launching or strengthening any initiative. Through a set of methodologies and cross-cutting processes, CAL-PSE works on three fronts of data collection and analysis to address a fundamental question: how to measure a project's socioenvironmental impacts (and their reach) in the territories and regions affected by them. Context analysis may be complemented with data from other tools, such as Network Analysis and Terrabio.The information collected makes it possible to define specific monitoring and dimensioning protocols for each project or action front -which, in turn, can help to identify management improvements and areas of interest for the implementation of future projects, and reinforce project transparency.Development and implementation of a protocol for dimensioning the areas covered by projects developed in the Brazilian Legal Amazon.Amazon -treatment of secondary data from sources such as PRODES, DETER, and MapBiomas. Data collection and validation through more than 60 environmental, social and economic indicators in all municipalities in the Brazilian Legal Amazon.Monitoring and analysis of changes in local and regional contexts 1 2 3Terrabio is a monitoring, evaluation and reporting approach to generate evidence on environmental impacts for companies that commercialize forest products from sustainable agriculture and invest in sustainable business models.Traditional forest and biodiversity monitoring projects in multiple locations tend to be expensive, time-consuming and difficult to standardize.TerraBio integrates cutting-edge remote sensing technologies with innovative techniques for collecting biodiversity data in order to calculate the environmental impact associated with implementing sustainable practices.This methodology generates high-resolution land-use maps and analyzes high-precision information on the presence of species. This approach provides a cost-effective assessment of impact over time.» Definition and monitoring of indicators that help to understand the functioning of ecosystems and map where action can be taken to improve ecological balance.» Accurate inventory of biodiversity and the health of the ecosystem where the private sector operates.» Greater transparency on conservation initiative results. On the side of local communities, the work methodology and its implementation present an opportunity to identify and organize demands, as well as strengthening partnerships and projects developed with a common goal. The SPI is a tool that constitutes a rare and important two-way street between project areas and the private sector.CAL-PSE works with different partners to adapt the SPI methodology to different communities and projects, and to learn from other initiatives in the program's network that already use the tool.Created in 2010, the SPI has a unique complementary role, as it facilitates socioeconomic analyses linked to our diagnostics of biodiversity conservation and network performance. Such diagnostics are produced through a set of other monitoring and evaluation tools and methodologies.The methodology is used to measure the impact of public and private investment on the well-being of communities and the environment. It goes further than other development indexes that also consider more than just economic growth, such as the Human Development Index (HDI). Within the scope of the Program, the methodology used to monitor and evaluate project actions, supported by the validation of around 290 quilombolas and riverine people from eight communities involved in the project. Validation gives communities an opportunity to say whether the information collected corresponds to their reality and to suggest adjustments, if necessary, to be implemented in the next SPI data collection round. The collected data may also be used by communities to better organize themselves and set their own priorities.","tokenCount":"1239"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cede24f8618bca9a28b61b2f925e10b3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/9b3e0ce4-8798-4750-9fef-6a8b020a851c/content","id":"-355112281"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2e65ead4-9fbf-460e-910d-af5104d0ff2d","pagecount":"6","content":"Ernesto David Narváez-González 1 , Juan de Dios Figueroa-Cárdenas 2* y Suketoshi Taba 3 La mayoría de los estudios microestructurales del maíz se han orientado a la industria de los almidones y pocos se han relacionado con alimentos o calidad de tortilla. Se estudió la relación entre la microestructura del grano y las propiedades funcionales de razas de maíz de América Latina, y su posible uso de acuerdo con la zona geográfica. Se analizaron aspectos microestructurales, como grado de compactación de los cuerpos celulares del endospermo, tamaño y morfología del gránulo de almidón, de 71 razas de maíz. El uso final del grano estuvo relacionado con su microestructura. Granos con altos grados de compactación, con gránulos de almidón pequeños (< 12 µm), de forma hexagonal y rodeados de una densa matriz proteica, predominaron en razas aptas para elaborar palomitas de maíz. A medida que el grado de compactación y el grosor del pericarpio (75 µm) disminuyeron, aumentó el tamaño del gránulo de almidón y el grano correspondió a razas aptas para botanas, harinas, \"tortillas\", \"pozoles\" y \"atoles\". Las razas apropiadas para elaborar \"pozoles\" y \"atoles\" presentaron gránulos de almidón esféricos y menor grosor de pericarpio (32 µm). Las razas apropiadas para elaborar tortillas y harinas nixtamalizadas presentan ambas clases de morfología debido a la proporción casi igual de endospermo suave y duro en el grano. Las razas de México y Sudamérica tuvieron una amplia variación en los usos estudiados, mientras que las de Centroamérica y El Caribe mostraron ser apropiadas solamente para tortillas y botanas.Palabras clave: Zea mays, almidón, microestructura, pericarpio, razas de maíz, usos del maíz.Most microstructural studies of maize have been starch industry oriented and only a few have been related to food or tortilla quality. The relation between kernel microstructure and functional properties of Latin American maize (Zea mays L.) races and their possible uses in relation to their geographical origin was studied. Seventy-one races were analyzed for microstructural features such as endosperm cell bodies compactation and starch granule size and morphology. The final use of its grain was related to the microstructure. Highly compacted kernels, with small (< 12 µm), hexagonal-shaped starch granules surrounded by a dense protein matrix, were more frequent in races suited for popcorn. As compactness and pericarp thickness (75 µm) decreased the size of starch granules increased, and that race became more suitable for snacks, flour, tortillas, \"pozole\" and \"atole\". The races appropriate for making \"pozole\" and \"atole\" had spherical starch granules and thinner pericarp (32 µm). The races appropriate for making tortillas and nixtamalized flour evidenced both kinds of morphology due to the nearly equal proportions of hard and soft endosperm in the kernels. Races from México and South America showed wide variation in the end uses studied, while those from Central America and the Caribbean were found to be appropriate only for tortillas and snacks. Index words: Zea mays, starch, microstructure, pericarp, corn races, maize end-use.Gran parte de la diversidad genética del maíz (Zea mays L.) se concentra en América, principalmente en México, donde se consume en forma de \"tortillas\", \"arepas\", \"pinoles\", \"atoles\", \"tostadas\", \"botanas\", \"tamales\" y \"elotes\", entre otros alimentos (Figueroa et al., 2005). La elaboración de cada uno de esos productos requiere de granos con características de color, tamaño y dureza específicas.La clasificación de las razas de maíz se ha hecho desde los puntos de vista botánico, genético, agronómico, citológico y taxonómico (Wellhausen et al., 1952;Hernández y Alanís, 1970), sobre todo con base en descriptores fenotípicos de la mazorca o grano (Wellhausen et al., 1952). Pocos trabajos abordan caracteres físicos del grano (dureza, gravedad específica, tamaño, peso de mil granos) y su relación con la calidad de la tortilla (Mauricio-Sánchez et al., 2004;Figueroa et al., 2005) y menos aún los aspectos microestructurales (tamaño del gránulo de almidón, grado de compactación, grosor del pericarpio, morfología del gránulo, tamaño del gránulo en endospermo suave, porcentaje de endospermo suave y duro) y su relación con el uso final y la calidad del grano.Los estudios de microestructura se han orientado principalmente a la industria de los almidones y evalúan el almidón aislado, ya sea para estudiar sus propiedades térmicas y funcionales (Seetharaman et al., 2001), tamaño del gránulo (Campell et al., 1996) y contenido de amilosa (Robutti et al., 2000). Sin embargo, en la industria alimentaria y específicamente la relacionada con la producción de tortilla, los estudios del almidón aislado de la matriz proteica del maíz proporcionan información limitada para predecir el uso final de las razas, que paradójicamente los indígenas desarrollaron con propósitos alimentarios. Además, Goodman y Bird (1977) indican que las relaciones entre razas de diferentes regiones han sido poco estudiadas.En esta investigación se analizaeon los aspectos microscópicos del grano de maíz como un sistema (no solamente el almidón aislado) y se evaluaron las relaciones entre razas de diversas regiones de América Latina, con base en la calidad del grano, para determinar la relación entre la microestructura y la calidad, así como su posible uso de acuerdo con la zona geográfica de los cuales provienen.Material biológico. Se analizaron 71 muestras (200 granos) de razas de maíces de México, El Caribe, Centro y Sudamérica, proporcionadas por el Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (CIMMYT).Aspectos físicos. En cada muestra se midió el peso del mil granos (Mauricio-Sánchez et al., 2004). La dureza se evaluó en 10 granos seleccionados al azar en cada raza; la parte dorsal de cada grano se sometió a una fuerza de penetración mediante un punzón, con ángulo de corte de 30°, montado al analizador de textura universal TA-XT2. Esta prueba se hizo a una velocidad de 2 mms -1 y una distancia de penetración de 2 mm (Mauricio-Sánchez et al., 2004). La composición anatómica se determinó por disección manual, para lo cual se colocaron en un recipiente cinco granos enteros previamente pesados y se los añadieron 10 mL de agua caliente (90 °C) por 1 h; después se separó el pedicelo, pericarpio, germen y endospermo de cada grano. Cada parte se colocó en recipientes separados y después de permanecer por 12 h en un horno a 100 °C, se pesaron y se calcularon los porcentajes respectivos con base al peso total de los granos, en base seca. Esta prueba se hizo por duplicado y se presenta el promedio correspondiente. La proporción de endospermo suave y duro, expresada con base en el endospermo total, se determinó en los granos cortados longitudinalmente, como se indica en la sección de microestructura, mediante una cámara fotográfica montada en un estereomicroscopio óptico (Olympus SZ61; Olympus Imaging Europe GMbH).Microestructura. Se utilizó un microscopio electrónico de barrido ambiental ESEM XL30 Philips que se acondicionó para que trabajara en módulo de bajo vacío, con el haz de electrones ajustado a 20 kV y aproximadamente 50 μA de corriente. Las imágenes se tomaron a 500X, 1 torr, con un detector GSE con 'spotsize' del láser de 4.6 a 5.0. El grado de compactación del almidón en el endospermo se asignó de acuerdo con los criterios siguientes: 1) Almidón esférico, con espacio libre entre gránulos y sin matriz proteica visible; 2) Almidón achatado, con poco espacio libre entre gránulos y sin matriz proteica visible; 3) Almidón poligonal, sin espacio libre entre gránulos y con matriz proteica visible; y 4) Almidón poligonal, con matriz proteica entre gránulos rodeando al cuerpo celular.Para medir el diámetro del gránulo de almidón en el endospermo duro y suave del grano, tres granos cada raza se cortaron longitudinalmente y se dividieron en dos partes, una de las cuales se cortó nuevamente, a 4 mm de espesor, con una máquina de alta precisión (Acuttom-5 Struers) provista con un disco de diamante, y se pegó en un portamuestras de aluminio para su observación. En cada muestra se midieron entre 80 y 120 gránulos de almidón, cuyo tamaño se determinó en al menos cuatro fotografías de cada una de las áreas del grano. También se midió el grosor del pericarpio. Las fotografías se digitalizaron y procesaron con un programa de análisis de imágenes (IMAGE-J).Propiedades de gelatinización. La curva viscoamilográfica se determinó con un equipo Rapid Visco Analyser 3C (Newport Scientific PTY LTD, Sydney, Australia), mediante el método citado por Jane et al. (1999) excepto de que en lugar de 8 g de almidón se utilizaron 4 g de maíz. El maíz se molió y se cribó con la malla US 60 (250 µm) y los 4 g de la harina se suspendieron en 24 mL de agua destilada; la mezcla se calentó de 50 a 92 ° C por 8.5 min, luego se mantuvo a 92 °C por 5 min y se enfrió a 50 °C por 8.5 min.Propiedades térmicas. Se aplicó el método citado por Lauro et al. (2000), excepto que en vez de 8 mg de almidón se emplearon 3 mg de maíz. Se utilizó el equipo DSC Mettler Toledo Mod. 821. Se colocaron 3 mg de material molido y cribado en la malla US 60 y 7 μL de agua destilada, en un crisol de aluminio que se selló con una prensa Mettler Toledo. Las muestras se calentaron de 30 a 100 °C a razón de 10 °C por minuto.. Variables de calidad de nixtamalización. Las masas se obtuvieron mediante cocimiento óhmico con base en la técnica reportada por Mauricio-Sánchez et al. (2004). Se midió la capacidad de absorción de agua (Arámbula et al., 1999), rendimiento de masa, rendimiento de tortilla, pérdida de peso durante el cocimiento de la tortilla (Mauricio-Sánchez et al., 2004) y tiempo de cocimiento.Se utilizaron distancias euclidianas para designar el uso potencial del maíz (Figueroa, 1985;Mauricio-Sánchez et al., 2004) y el método de Ward para evaluar las distancias entre grupos (\"clusters\") y asociarlas con los usos potenciales y el origen geográfico de las razas (Manly, 2000). Todos los análisis se hicieron con paquetes estadísticos de SAS (1999).Microestructura. Los aspectos físicos del grano permiten hacer inferencias acerca de su calidad en las razas de maíz (Mauricio-Sánchez et al., 2004;Figueroa et al., 2005) pero no permiten explicar el porqué de tales diferencias. Los análisis de los aspectos microscópicos del grano pueden proporcionar tal explicación, pero la mayoría de los estudios se han orientado a la industria de los almidones y pocos casos se han relacionado con la calidad alimentaria. Con este enfoque, las razas de maíz con granos de textura suave, como 'Cacahuacintle', 'San Jerónimo Huancaveliano', 'Chillo', 'Shima', 'Blando', 'Avatí Morotí' y 'Cónico Norteño-Bofo', presentaron más de 90 % de sus gránulos de almidón con diámetros mayores de 12 µm en el endospermo suave, pero casi 85 % de los gránulos eran más pequeños que 12 µm en su endospermo duro; en otras porciones del grano la variación fue de 14 a 15 μm de diámetro. Estas razas mostraron grosores de pericarpio menores de 30 µm y menor grado de compactación de los gránulos.Lo contrario se observó en razas de textura dura, como 'Palomero', 'Reventador', 'Arrocillo', 'Curagua', 'Cuban Flint', 'Pisingallo', 'Celaya' y 'Cónico', las cuales presentaron casi 72 % de gránulos de almidón más pequeños que 12 µm en su endospermo suave y 78 % de gránulos de almidón más grandes que 12 µm en su endospermo duro. Estas razas también presentaron el más alto grado de compactación y grosores de pericarpio de más de 90 µm. Los gránulos de almidón con un grado de compactación intermedio se presentaron en razas como 'Azul', 'Negrito', 'Naltel', 'Dzit-Bacal', 'Dulce', 'Bolita', 'Común', 'Montaña' y 'Vandeño', en las que el grosor del pericarpio y el tamaño del gránulo de almidón también fueron intermedios. Otros estudios han consignado tamaños en gránulos de almidón de 2 a 9 µm de diámetro (Varriano-Marston, 1983;Campbell et al., 1996). Seetharaman et al. (2001) encontraron maíces dentados con gránulos más pequeños (7.8 a 8.3 µm) que los harinosos (8.6 a 9.9), aunque con tendencia similar a la del presente trabajo.Agrupación por usos y microestructura. La clasificación de las razas de maíz de acuerdo con su uso final potencial (Cuadro 1), muestras que algunas razas tienen hasta tres diferentes usos, lo cual indica que la versatilidad todavía está presente. El Cuadro 2 muestra el promedio de las características microestructurales de cada grupo, de acuerdo con su potencial uso final: grado de compactación, tamaño del gránulo de almidón del endospermo duro y grosor del pericarpio, datos que indican una tendencia a disminuir en el siguiente orden de uso: \"palomitas\" > \"botanas\" > \"harinas\" > \"tortillas\" > \"pozoles\" > \"atoles\".La tendencia contraria se encontró para el tamaño de gránulos de almidón del endospermo suave. La excepción parece estar en las razas para palomitas, en las cuales el tamaño de gránulos de almidón en ambos tipos de endospermo tiende a ser pequeño. De igual manera, esto puede relacionarse con la morfología del gránulo de almidón para un uso potencial específico. Los gránulos de almidón de las razas apropiadas para elaborar \"palomitas\" o rosetas de maíz y \"botanas\" nixtamalizadas son hexagonales; los de las razas aptas para elaborar \"pozoles\" y \"atoles\" son esféricos; y los de razas para elaborar \"tortillas\" y harinas nixtamalizadas presentan ambas clases de morfología, debido a la proporción casi igual de endospermo suave y duro en el grano.Cuadro 1. Uso final potencial de razas de maíz de Latinoamérica.Razas \"Palomitas\"Pop-Corn, Palomero, Uchuquilla, Arrocillo-Palomero, Negrito, Cateto Sulino, Reventador, Carmen, Cónico, Pisingallo y Curagua.Común, Cuban-Flint, Padentado, Naltel, Zapalote Chico, Puya, Dzit-Bacal, Arrocillo-Palomero, Cónico, Pop-Corn, Sacramento, Tuson, Haiti Yellow/Early Caribbean, Perla, Uchuquilla, Lady Finger, Sabanero, Reventador y Chococeño.Clavillo, Haití Yellow/Early Caribbean, Perla, Padentado, Uchuquilla, Dzit-Bacal, Reventador, Camelia, Olotillo, Chococeño, Cateto Sulino, Puya, Común, Cuban-Flint, Cónico-Mushito, Tuson, Quiche, Negrito, Salvador-Olotón, Salvador-Naltel y Harinoso de Ocho.Salvador-Naltel, Diente de Caballo, Clavillo, Zapalote Chico, Salvador, Olotón, Chullpi, Montaña, Huillcaparu, Cristalino de Chihuahua, Sabanero, Cónico Norteño, Tepecintle, Shima, Dzit-Bacal, Kulli, Vandeño, Apachito, Harinoso del ocho, Tuxpeño-Norteño, Tuson, Quiche y Azul.Cacahuacintle, Cónico Norteño-Bofo, Kulli, Pool A, Cónico-Mushito, San Jerónimo Huancaveliano y Perla.Chillo, Huatalco, Cacahuacintle, San Jerónimo Huancaveliano, Cónico Norteño-Bofo, Shima, Azul, Kulli, Huillcaparu y Cónico-Mushito.Cuadro 2. Promedios (y desviación estándar) de las características microestructurales del maíz de acuerdo con su uso final. . Uso potencial y origen geográfico. Se formaron 12 grupos al utilizar las características de aspectos físicos, microestructura, viscosidad, propiedades térmicas y variables de calidad de nixtamalización (Cuadro 3). Los resultados muestran una gran similitud, especialmente para las razas de Sudamérica, con el agrupamiento agronómico de razas latinoamericanas efectuado por Goodman y Bird (1977) y de usos reportados por Figueroa et al. (2005). El Grupo 1 es de razas provenientes de México y Centroamérica (la zona de Mesoamérica), las cuales mostraron ser de buena calidad para elaborar \"tortillas\" y harinas nixtamalizadas. El Grupo 2 (razas provenientes de México) y el Grupo 3 (clasificadas como del complejo andino por Goodman y Bird, 1977) resultaron muy cercanas en calidad en el dendograma (no mostrado), pero están separadas geográficamente. Algo similar ocurrió con el Grupo 4 (razas de México) y Grupo 5 (razas de Sudamérica), los cuales presentaron características adecuadas para elaborar \"palomitas\" de maíz y se localizaron juntos en el dendrograma (no mostrado), lo que indica una relación genética muy cercana.Los Grupos 6 y 7 son razas mexicanas parientes del maíz palomero, pero aptas para elaborar \"botanas\" y harinas nixtamalizadas. El Grupo 8 está formado por razas de México, Centromérica y los Andes, lo que sugiere una posible ruta de migración con amplia variabilidad en su posible uso final. El Grupo 9 pertenece a razas de México con buenas propiedades para consumo como \"elotes\". El Grupo 10, similar al Grupo 8, representa otra posible ruta de migración puesto que comprende razas de México y de Centroamérica, que van hacia el Caribe y finalmente entran a Sudamérica por Colombia. Muchas razas del Grupo 10 son apropiadas para preparar \"botanas\" y harinas nixtamalizadas. El Grupo 11 muestra razas del noroeste de Sudamérica, según la clasificación de Goodman y Bird (1977), en la región del Amazonas, principalmente de Colombia y Brasil, las cuales pueden emplearse para producir \"tortillas\", \"botanas\" y harinas nixtamalizadas. Finalmente, el Grupo 12 contiene una sola raza de México (Dulce de Michoacán) apropiada para elaborar \"elotes\" o \"esquites\".Las razas provenientes de México y Sudamérica resultaron apropiadas para los seis diferentes usos potenciales analizados, lo cual parece sugerir que la variabilidad genética es responsable de la amplia diversidad de usos finales potenciales. Una diferencia importante entre las razas de maíz de México y las de Sudamérica es que en las primeras predominan usos finales que requieren granos de textura dura-intermedia, mientras que en las de Sudamérica predominan las de textura suave. Las razas de Centroamérica mostraron potencial para elaborar harinas nixtamalizadas y \"tortillas\", mientras las razas del Caribe mostraron ser apropiadas para elaborar \"botanas\" y harinas nixtamalizadas.Existe relación entre los aspectos microestructurales del grano, tales como grado de compactación, grosor del pericarpio, tamaño del gránulo de almidón y morfología, con el uso potencial del maíz. El origen geográfico también se relaciona con el uso final. Las razas de México y Sudamérica tienen una amplia variación en usos, mientras que las de Centroamérica y el Caribe mostraron ser apropiadas solamente para \"tortillas\" y \"botanas\".A la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores de México por la beca de Maestría de Ernesto Gonzáles Narváez y al CO-NACyT-Querétaro por el apoyo financiero al proyecto QRO-2004-C01-38. A José Eleazar Urbina, Marcela Gaytán y José Juan Véles, del Cinvestav-Querétaro, por su apoyo técnico. ","tokenCount":"2863"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"451cef2e3362ab45d5185f909959e9a2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/34e4fbfa-ac5b-4aa0-9005-6c8b8a5478d3/retrieve","id":"1742745080"},"keywords":["Figure 1","A : Inflorescence verte en épis ramifiés","B : Inflorescence verte en épi","C : Inflorescence en grappe violette","D : Inflorescence violette en grappe","E : Inflorescence verte en grappe"],"sieverID":"666fd3ee-2bf8-4e99-8498-3843148f5786","pagecount":"183","content":"Annexe 2 : Implication des parties prenantes dans la sélection des sites au Burkina Faso .Cette Activité a examiné le potentiel commercial des cultures et les conditions socioéconomiques des femmes et des jeunes, et leur contribution au système alimentaire local, dans le but de classer en ordre de priorité les espèces qui ont le plus d'incidence sur leur autonomisation.Ce rapport est le livrable principal de l'activité et se focalise sur le processus de sélection des cultures cibles fondé sur une démarche consultative et participative entre les parties prenantes, eu égard à la nutrition, la résilience et les possibilités de création de revenus, avec l'ajout de fiches techniques très détaillées sur les NUS sélectionnées.3. Processus de sélection des NUS, méthodologie et choix final 3.1 Premières consultations en ligne, définition des NUS et importance de travailler sur les NUS La première activité de l'A1.1 a été une première série de discussions bilatérales entre l'Alliance et le CHIEAM-Bari pour discuter des différents processus décisionnels à suivre afin d'arriver à un résultat partagé par les partenaires et en même temps en phase avec les exigences des différentes activités du projet et son mandat général.Par la suite, dans les mois de septembre et octobre 2021, l'Alliance a réalisé un rapide travail de revue de la littérature sur des projets préexistants dans la zone subsaharienne qui avaient étudiés et utilisés différentes NUS afin d'augmenter la résistance climatique et alimentaire des communautés rurales et urbaines. Elles peuvent être adaptées localement, des cultures mineures ainsi que des espèces forestières nonligneuses. La désignation « NUS » est également fluide, comme lorsqu'une culture est simultanément une culture majeure bien établie dans un pays et une culture mineure négligée dans un autre.Les NUS diffèrent des cultures de base de manière fondamentale. Elles ont tendance à être gérées avec des systèmes traditionnels, en utilisant des sources de semences informelles et impliquant un fort élément de genre. Leur transformation peut être laborieuse, le calibrage et le conditionnement primitifs et les produits commercialisés localement avec une participation limitée des grandes entreprises. Longtemps négligée par l'agriculture traditionnelle pour une variété de raisons agronomiques, génétiques, économiques, sociales et culturelles, ces cultures sont aujourd'hui de plus en plus reconnues pour leur rôle potentiel dans l'atténuation des risques dans les systèmes de production agricole. Depuis une dizaine d'années, un nombre croissant de projets a attiré l'attention sur l'importance des NUS dans l'amélioration de la nutrition, la génération de revenus, le maintien de De nombreuses NUS ont le potentiel de contribuer à la sécurité alimentaire aux niveaux locaux et régionaux. Dans un monde de plus en plus globalisé et interdépendant, l'éradication de la faim est une condition préalable à la paix et la sécurité mondiale. Si nous voulons nourrir durablement 9 milliards de personnes en 2050, tout en protégeant l'environnement, en fournissant à tous une alimentation saine et nutritive, et améliorer les moyens de subsistance des agriculteurs, nous avons besoin de systèmes agricoles et alimentaires plus diversifiés.Bien que les NUS aient généralement des rendements inférieurs à ceux des principales cultures de base, elles compensent souvent cela en étant plus résistantes aux défis biotiques et fournissant des récoltes fiables dans des conditions climatiques défavorables ou sur des sols difficiles. Cette capacité d'adaptation est l'une des principales caractéristiques de nombreuses NUS. Elles sont souvent cultivées dans des zones pauvres où prédominent des conditions agro-écologiques difficiles et où les petits exploitants et les agriculteurs n'ont pas les moyens d'adopter les pratiques agricoles à haut niveau d'intrants, adaptées aux principales cultures de base. Les agriculteurs maintiennent des niveaux élevés de diversité des variétés traditionnelles. Cela constitue une assurance car les variétés traditionnelles sont souvent les mieux adaptées aux écosystèmes marginaux et aux environnements hétérogènes, et les plus résistantes aux ravageurs et aux maladies locales.3.2 Réunion des partenaires du projet, Bari -10 et 11 novembre 2021 Afin d'éviter tout type de biais initial qui aurait pu provenir d'une définition préétablie et unique de ce qu'est une NUS, les partenaires ont été laissés libres de contribuer à la liste des espèces qu'ils considèrent comme des candidats potentiels pour le projet dans chaque pays.Ici, la longue liste avec toutes les NUS proposées par les différents partenaires pour les deux pays. Projet SUSTLIVES : Assurer un alignement technique, scientifique et méthodologique concernant les activités de SUSTLIVES surtout celles qui commencent durant la première année du projet (août 2021 -juillet 2022), avec une attention particulière à celles qui sont essentielles à la mise en oeuvre de tout le projet (p. ex. tâche 1.1) ; et produire une planification détaillée et partagée des activités de la première année du projet, en particulier les ateliers et les réunions à organiser au Burkina Faso et au Niger et impliquant les acteurs locaux, les chercheurs et autres acteurs concernés.Les prochaines étapes du processus de sélection ont été définies lors de la réunion : (i) AICS, en collaboration avec les Universités de Ouagadougou et Niamey et sur la base des informations disponibles auprès des autorités des deux pays, des Ambassades d'Italie et d'autres partenaires au développement, proposera l'aire d'intervention du projet dans les deux pays aux Délégations de l'Union Européenne pour validation ; (ii) l'Alliance coordonnera le processus de pré-identification des NUS sur la base des critères établis dans le document de projet (p. ex. changement climatique, nutrition, disponibilité durant la période de soudure, potentiel de développement des filières, synergies avec DeSIRA) ; (iii) parallèlement, AICS, suite à des rencontres organisées dans les deux pays, proposera une liste des parties prenantes (p. ex., organisations des producteurs, de femmes, d'association d'entreprises, ROPPA -Réseau des organisations paysannes et de producteurs de l'Afrique de l'Ouest), qui deviendront membres des forums des parties prenantes (stakeholders' forums) et seront consultés pour ce qui concerne l'identification des NUS.3.3 Liste des critères de sélection et de priorisation, deuxième réunion à Bari, 9 et 11 janvier 2022, et premier croisement des NUS avec les zones potentielles de travail Une fois qu'une liste complète et détaillée des NUS suggérées par tous les partenaires a été reçue et qu'une méthodologie partagée sur la manière de procéder pour la sélection a été définie, une série de critères ont été discutés pour guider le choix de ceux qui relevaient de la définition des NUS et entre celles-ci qui présentaient les caractéristiques les plus intéressantes pour le projet.Le premier groupe de critères défini est celui des critères de sélection. Ces critères permettent de définir de manière dichotomique, selon chaque partenaire, si le NUS sélectionné répond ou non au critère. Si la majorité des critères de sélection ne sont pas satisfaits, la NUS peut être éliminée, sans avoir à passer par les critères de priorisation. Il existe de nombreux aspects de la recherche qui n'ont pas encore été explorés.La NUS a une bonne valeur nutritionnelle.La NUS est cultivée dans les zones du projet à conditions agro climatiques critiques.Zone de culture connue La principale zone de culture de la plante est connue.Espèce cultivée L'espèce est cultivée et non spontanée.L'Alliance, les universités, Afrique Verte, CIHEAM et AICS ont ensuite transmis leurs évaluations concernant les critères de sélection. Une moyenne a été calculée pour chaque critère et pour chaque NUS. Pour faciliter l'analyse, les résultats ont été comparés en prenant trois lignes de démarcation différentes ; NUS avec un score moyen d'au moins 80%, 60% et enfin 40% ou moins.Suivent les tableaux pour les deux pays. Ici, les critères de priorisation élaborés par les partenaires du projet sont les suivants :a) Niveau d'importance culturelle de la NUS malgré un système politique/institutionnel défavorable.Ce critère permet de comprendre le niveau d'importance socioculturelle de la NUS. Il tient compte de l'utilisation de la NUS pour des cérémonies, des événements communautaires, des mariages, des funérailles, etc. La NUS a-t-elle un fort ancrage culturel ? Présente-t-elle des valeurs symboliques et plusieurs usages différents ?b) Adaptation à la culture sur de petites superficies.Ce critère permet d'établir si la NUS peut être cultivée sur de petites parcelles. Cela implique qu'elle pourrait être cultivée, collectée et commercialisée par des femmes ou des groupes défavorisés qui peuvent avoir un accès limité à la terre et aux intrants externes (engrais et pesticides). Les petites zones de culture pourraient être considérées des jardins potagers, des terres dégradées ou des bords de route.c) Degré d'inclusion parmi les plantes prioritaires dans les politiques sectorielles du pays.Ce critère permet d'établir si la NUS est prise en compte dans les plans nationaux d'actions ou d'autres outils stratégiques opérationnels de différents secteurs (p. ex. agriculture, sécurité alimentaire, nutrition, changement climatique, environnement) ou sur la biodiversité qui visent à assurer la conservation ou le rétablissement dans un état de conservation favorable d'espèces menacées ou faisant l'objet d'un intérêt particulier.Ce critère sert à établir la disponibilité des données sur la production agricole pour la NUS. Les données peuvent être disponibles au niveaux national, régional ou local (le cas échéant) et peuvent inclure des informations qualitatives ou quantitatives.e) Disponibilité durant la période de soudure.Ce critère établit si la NUS est disponible et utilisée pendant la période de soudure sur un site donné.f) Valeur agronomique = niveau de productivité/rendement pour les paysans.Ce critère capture la productivité actuelle et le rendement pour les agriculteurs de la NUS au niveau agronomique. Quelle est la performance agronomique de la NUS ? Projet SUSTLIVES g) Degré de promotion de la part des services de vulgarisation étatiques.Ce critère permet de comprendre si oui ou non la NUS fait l'objet de vulgarisation dans le pays. Existe-t-il des politiques ou stratégies de vulgarisation de la NUS ? Des variétés améliorées et adaptées ont-elles déjà été développées (ou en cours de développement) par la recherche et vulgarisées par les services de vulgarisation ?h) Degré de disponibilité de variétés paysannes avec temps de multiplication court.Ce critère permet de comprendre si des variétés traditionnelles a cycle court sont disponibles pour les agriculteurs, en termes de graines et de plants. Des variétés traditionnelles à cycle de production court sont-elles disponibles ? En existent-elles beaucoup ? Est-il facile d'obtenir les graines ou des informations sur la façon de les cultiver ?i) Degré de connaissance de développement agro-morphologique de la NUS.Ce critère capture les informations actuelles sur l'agro-morphologie de la culture. Ces informations doivent provenir de sa culture dans le pays (ou dans des contextes similaires, le cas échéant). Les données disponibles peuvent inclure des informations qualitatives ou quantitatives. j) Qualité du cadre institutionnel.Ce critère vise à saisir si l'environnement politique/institutionnel actuel propice à la promotion des NUS. Fait-elle partie des plans de développement politique ? Y a-t-il des activités poussées par le secteur public pour faciliter sa diffusion ou son commerce ?k) Contribution à l'emploi, en particulier des femmes et des jeunes.Ce critère reflète la dimension socio-économique du système de production et de la chaîne de valeur. Une culture est considérée comme contribuant positivement à l'emploi de manière inclusive si la chaîne de valeur (de la production à la transformation et à la vente) crée des opportunités d'emploi pour les femmes et les jeunes.l) Demande potentielle de la NUS par les consommateurs.La NUS présente des caractéristiques prometteuses ou des paramètres de marché favorables existent qui peuvent stimuler la demande de la NUS à court terme. Glycine Soja (soja) x x x x 3.4 Choix des poids pour les critères de priorisation Une fois un consensus atteint sur la définition des critères de priorisation, il a été demandé à chaque partenaire de les attribuer des poids. La logique d'attribuer des poids différents à chaque critère découle du constat que tous les critères n'ont pas la même importance au sein du projet, et que différents acteurs peuvent juger différemment l'importance d'un critère.Les poids qu'il était possible d'attribuer aux critères de priorisation sont les suivants :-0 (critère pas du tout important) -0,25 (critère d'importance limitée) -0,5 (critère d'importance moyenne) -0,75 (critère de grande importance)-1 (critère d'importance absolue)Les poids finaux attribués par les partenaires du projet ainsi que les moyennes sont affichés dans le tableau ci-dessous.       présenter le projet, afin de faire connaître à l'avance les différentes activités prévues sur le terrain et de recueillir les contributions et les suggestions des parties prenantes.Lors des rencontres avec les parties prenantes, l'exercice de priorisation des NUS a été poursuivi suivant la méthode suivante : Pour chacun des 3 groupes de plantes, chacune des parties prenantes a classé par ordre de priorité les NUS (de 1 ère à X ième , 1 ère étant la NUS la plus prioritaire du groupe, X étant le nombre de NUS dans le groupe) et a indiqué les raisons de leur hiérarchisation.Les résultats des consultations ont été croisés avec ceux du sondage. En général les résultats du sondage ont été retenus pour la priorisation des NUS de sorte à avoir deux NUS par groupe pour un total de 6 par pays, mais en fonction des criticités exprimées par les parties prenantes lors des consultations, des ajustements seront éventuellement faits.Des méthodes et outils de recherche-action participative, tant quantitative que qualitative, ont été appliqués afin de déceler et analyser de façon raisonnée les différences et les questions liées au genre et à l'âge, à l'échelle locale, lors des consultations avec les parties concernées et pendant les processus de suivi pour finaliser le choix des cultures. L'état et les menaces d'érosion génétique des cultures ont été également discutés lors des consultations. Il est important de noter que lors des consultations, sans être influencés par l'équipe du projet, les critères d'importance et les raisons des choix des NUS proposés par les parties prenantes coïncidaient généralement avec ceux proposés dans l'enquête.Dans le tableau suivant, nous pouvons voir les résultats de l'enquête en ligne considérant les poids pour chaque critère donnés par les partenaires du projet et la moyenne des différentes consultations.    La localisation des sites du projet au Burkina Faso est indiquée dans la carte suivante (Figure 6).  Dans ce rapport, nous avons décrit de manière exhaustive le processus qui a conduit à la sélection des NUS et des zones de travail du projet au Burkina Faso et au Niger.En ce qui concerne les NUS, la revue de littérature, l'interaction et l'échange entre les partenaires du projet lors des réunions présentielles et virtuelles, le sondage en ligne et les consultations avec les parties prenantes (représentant, entre autres, les institutions de recherche et de formation, les organisations de la société civile, les groupements de producteurs) ont permis la sélection de 8 NUS, 6 par pays dont 4 NUS communes aux deux pays, représentant les 3 groupes botaniques sur lesquelles se focalise le projet SUSTLIVES (tubercules et racines, légumes et légumineuses). Les NUS sélectionnées au Burkina Faso sont : patate douce et fabirama (tubercules/racines), oseille de guinée, moringa et amarante (légumes) et vouandzou (légumineuses). Tandis qu'au Niger les NUS sélectionnées sont : patate douce et cassava/manioc (tubercules/racines), oseille de guinée, moringa et gombo (légumes) et vouandzou (légumineuses). Pour chaque NUS sélectionnée, une fiche technique, traitant aussi bien les aspects agronomiques que nutritionnels, a été préparé.Parallèlement, l'équipe du projet a procédé à l'identification des sites d'intervention qui couvrent régions dans les deux pays (4 régions au Burkina Faso et 3 régions au Niger). Il s'agit au Burkina Faso des provinces de Boulkiemdé (région Centre-Ouest), Oubritenga (région Plateau Central), Bazèga (région Centre-Sud) et Kadiogo (région Centre). Les sites retenus au Niger sont localisés dans les départements de Boboye et Loga (région Dosso), Kollo et Say (région Tillabéry) et Niamey.Les consultations avec les parties prenantes ont été particulièrement utiles pour fournir des informations utiles pour les phases ultérieures du projet, c'est-à-dire quels autres acteurs étaient déjà sur place, quel était l'intérêt des communautés par rapport à la NUS et surtout quels étaient leurs besoins et comment le projet peut aider à y répondre.En outre, les résultats provenant des consultations approfondies et de l'enquête en ligne auraient dû donner lieu à deux ateliers finaux des parties prenantes à Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso et Niamey, Niger. Cependant, en raison des vagues continues du virus Covid-19 et des récents changements politiques vécus au Burkina Faso, il a été choisi de conserver le format de consultation bilatérale et de partage des résultats finaux avec toutes les parties concernées.Au cours des mois de mai et juin 2022, les premières missions de terrain -concernant les activités 1.2 1 , 1.3 2 , 1.4 Enfin, la conclusion de l'activité 1.1 a permis de procéder également à l'engagement des communautés locales qui comprend des missions dans chaque village dans lesquelles :1-Présenter le projet à la communauté 2-Comprendre les groupements/coopératives qui sont présents dans les localités et sur quoi ils travaillent 3-Fournir une cartographie approximative des agriculteurs gardiens (identité, ce qui fait d'eux des agriculteurs gardiens, sexe, âge) 4-Avoir une première compréhension de l'existence de banques de semences communautaires dans les sites du projet ou dans des localités proches Le statut taxonomique et la relation interspécifique du genre sont mal compris en raison de la grande variation phénotypique. Cette variation est due, entre autres, à l'hybridation sporadique entre les espèces (voir Ouedraogo et al. 2021). Les Amaranthaceae sont une famille de plantes à fleurs communément appelée famille des amarantes, en référence à son genre type Amaranthus. Il comprend l'ancienne famille des chénopodiacées et contient environ 165 genres et 2040 espèces ce qui en fait la lignée la plus riche en espèces au sein de son ordre parent, les Caryophyllales.L'amarante est un genre cosmopolite des plantes vivaces annuelles ou de courte durée. Quelques espèces d'amarante sont cultivées comme légumes-feuilles, pseudo-céréales, et plantes ornementales.L'amarante varie en couleur de fleur, de feuille et de tige avec une gamme de pigments saisissants du spectre du marron au cramoisi et peut pousser longitudinalement de 1 à 2,5 mètres (3 à 8 pieds) de hauteur avec une tige cylindrique, succulente et fibreuse qui est creuse avec des rainures et des bractéoles à maturité.Les types des espèces d'Amaranthus cultivées au Burkina Faso : Au Burkina Faso, les amarantes sont communément appelées « Bolombourou » dans la langue mooré locale. Six espèces ont été identifiées (Amaranthus dubius, Amaranthus graecizans, Amaranthus cruentus, Amaranthus hypochondriacus, Amaranthus viridis, Amaranthus spinosus) mais seules trois espèces sont cultivées: Amaranthus cruentus, Amaranthus hypochondriacus, Amaranthus dubius. De manière générale, les espèces cultivées peuvent être classées en deux principaux groupes, celles cultivées pour leurs feuilles comestibles et celles cultivées pour leurs graines (Ouedraogo et al. 2021).3. Diversité des amarantes au Burkina Faso L'étude de Ouedraogo et al. (2021) a révélé une grande diversité phénotypique caractérisée par la couleur de la tige et des feuilles, la forme et la taille des feuilles ainsi que la couleur de l'inflorescence (Figure 1). Trois variantes de couleur ont été observées, à savoir la couleur verte (85%), la couleur violette (12,5%) et la couleur verte-violette (02,5%) (Figure 2). Le système racinaire est de type peu profond et pivotant. Trois variations de couleur ont été observées : rouge, rose clair et blanc (Figure 3). La couleur des feuilles au stade épiaison présente une large variation allant du vert au violet avec une prédominance de couleur vert clair. La majorité des feuilles avaient un limbe lancéolé, les autres étaient ovales ou ovales lancéolées. Sept morphotypes appartenant à trois espèces ont été observés : Amaranthus cruentus (Figure 4), Amaranthus hypochondriacus (Figure 5) et Amaranthus dubius (Figure 6). L'analyse de variance a montré plusieurs caractères quantitatifs discriminants dont la hauteur, le diamètre de la tige, le nombre de branches et le nombre de jours avant la floraison. L'espèce Amaranthus cruentus à feuilles vertes a montré les rendements les plus élevés en biomasse foliaire (283,57 g) avec un cycle de floraison long (72,5 jours) et un nombre élevé de ramifications (45,6). Des accessions à feuilles ovales à larges limbes longs et à floraison précoce ont été identifiées chez l'espèce Amaranthus dubius. Le morphotype vert clair de l'espèce Amaranthus hypochondriacus et les accessions de l'espèce Amaranthus dubius ont produit une faible biomasse foliaire.     Les plantes d'amarante se caractérisent par leur capacité à s'adapter à différentes conditions agroclimatiques. Étant des plantes de type C4, les amarantes ont une capacité de séquestration du carbone, ce qui leur permet d'avoir une production élevée de matière sèche et de protéines par unité de surface. L'amarante (Amaranthus spp.) est une culture prometteuse pour les régions semi-arides en raison de sa haute valeur nutritive et de sa capacité à s'adapter au stress hydrique. L'amarante présente une capacité élevée d'ajustement osmotique (1,08 à 1,24 MPa), ce qui garantit que les plantes continuent de fonctionner dans des conditions de sécheresse sévère. Les espèces d'amarante possèdent la voie photosynthétique C4, qui permet aux plantes d'avoir une plus grande efficacité d'utilisation de l'eau (WUE 5 ) que les plantes C3 (voir Liu et Stützel 2004). L'amarante a été qualifiée de culture polyvalente : elle résiste à la sécheresse, à la chaleur, aux ravageurs et s'adapte plus facilement aux environnements difficiles que les cultures céréalières conventionnelles. Sa tolérance aux différentes conditions climatiques et son cycle de production court font de l'amarante un légume d'une grande importance économique (Aderibigbe et al. 2022).Il existe trois espèces d'amarante cultivées pour leurs feuilles au Burkina Faso. Parmi les amarantes à graines, Amaranthus hypochondriacus L. (Figure 5) est le type le plus robuste et le plus productif. Cette espèce convient aux zones tropicales et aux conditions sèches. Elle a le plus grand potentiel pour être utilisée comme ingrédient alimentaire grâce à l'excellente qualité de ses graines.L'Amaranthus dubius L. (Figure 6) est cultivé uniquement pour ses feuilles. L'espèce Amaranthusus cruentus L. (Figure 4) est utilisée à la fois comme source de pseudo-céréales et comme légumefeuille. L'Amaranthus cruentus se compose de deux types : le type à graine blanche utilisé comme pseudo-céréale et le type à graine brune ou noire utilisé comme légume. Le morphotype vert à graines noires de l'espèce Amaranthus cruentus est le plus cultivé et consommé au Burkina Faso ainsi que dans d'autres pays d'Afrique de l'Ouest comme le Bénin, la Côte d'Ivoire, le Togo, le Nigeria et le Sénégal. D'une manière générale, la couleur verte semble être un trait de sélection pour les producteurs et préféré par les consommateurs, notamment les femmes, dans la production de légumes à feuilles en Afrique de l'Ouest.L'amarante, le cornet végétal et l'oseille sont les principaux légumes à feuilles les plus consommés en milieu urbain et périurbain au Burkina Faso. Les feuilles et les rameaux tendres de l'amarante sont utilisés dans la préparation de divers plats locaux. Leur vente procure des revenus importants aux producteurs, contribuant à la lutte contre la pauvreté, notamment celle des femmes. Pour une meilleure conservation des graines d'amarante, la teneur en humidité après le séchage ne doit pas dépasser 12 % lors du stockage ; toute valeur supérieure favorisera éventuellement le développement de moisissures et réduira la qualité (Uganda National Bureau of Standards 2011). Il est également important de stocker les graines dans des conteneurs sur des palettes surélevées pour permettre un échange de chaleur.Les recherches ont montré que les espèces d'amarante font partie des plantes prometteuses pour l'avenir : elles ne sont pas seulement populaires en Afrique, mais sont largement consommées et cultivées dans le monde entier. Pour en savoir plus sur l'utilisation de l'espèce amarante dans les produits alimentaires, voir Aderibigbe et al. (2022).En 2018, la production nationale d'amarante a été estimée à 1357 tonnes sur une superficie de 246 hectares au Burkina Faso.   . dubius, A. graecizans, A. retroflexus, A. spinosus, A. tricolor, A. viridis). Les espèces Amaranthus cruentus, Amaranthus caudatus et Amaranthus hypochondriacus sont habituellement domestiquées pour la production de céréales et sont communément appelées « pseudo-céréales » (Ruth et al., 2021). Les feuilles d'amarante sont riches en protéines et en micronutriments. En ce qui concerne les propriétés fonctionnelles de l'amarante, les feuilles et racines bouillies sont considérées comme ayant des propriétés anti-inflammatoires, immunomodulatrices, anti-androgènes et anthelminthiques et leur consommation a été associée au traitement de troubles gastro-intestinaux (dysenterie, diarrhée) et de bronchites aiguës. Les grains de certaines espèces d'Amarante (A. cruentus, A. hypochondriacus) sont utilisés comme substitut du maïs dans la fabrication d'ogi (un porridge local préparé habituellement à partir de céréales fermentées) ou dans la fabrication de farine. Ils constituent une bonne source de protéines sans gluten. Par conséquent, l'amarante peut être considérée comme un légume protecteur de la santé. Leur disponibilité et leur accessibilité en tant que source peu coûteuse de nourriture et d'énergie essentielle les rendent aptes à remplir ou à contribuer de manière significative à la composante sécurité alimentaire du développement durable (Ogwu, 2020). D'autre part, l'amarante est également appréciée pour ses propriétés ornementales et des colorants rouges et verts sont également obtenus à partir de différentes espèces et utilisés pour les textiles ou les boissons (Ruth et al., 2021). Projet SUSTLIVESOn sait que l'amarante a une valeur nutritive relativement élevée par rapport aux légumes exotiques qui sont la plupart du temps préférés. Les feuilles d'amarante sont riches en protéines, en acides aminés essentiels comme la lysine, la thréonine, la méthionine et le tryptophane, et en minéraux comme le calcium, le magnésium, le fer, le phosphore et le potassium. Ils contiennent également des quantités élevées de vitamines A, C, B2 (riboflavine), B3 (niacine), B9 (folate) et une faible quantité de glucides. C'est aussi une bonne source de fibres et ne contient pas de gluten. Les feuilles d'amarante sont faibles en calories. Par conséquent, elles doivent être complétées par des aliments riches en calories. De plus, les feuilles d'amarante sont riches en propriétés antioxydantes et phytonutritives (Ruth et al., 2022). Les feuilles d'amarante contiennent des composés antinutritionnels comme les oxalates, les phytates, les tanins et les nitrates qui interfèrent avec la digestion, l'absorption et l'assimilation des nutriments en formant des complexes insolubles. Ces composés sont souvent présents en quantités variables selon les espèces (Ogwu, 2020).Toutefois, l'ébullition réduit considérablement les nutriments (acide ascorbique, phosphore) et les anti-nutriments (nitrates et oxalates), mais même si les pertes de nutriments à la cuisson ne sont pas excessives, les antinutriments peuvent être considérablement réduits (Mziray et al., 2001).  (Emmanuel et Babalola, 2021). Compte tenu de ce point, ainsi que de la nécessité d'accroître l'acceptation de l'amarante par les agriculteurs et la confiance des consommateurs, il est nécessaire de mettre en place un moyen efficace de diffusion de l'information sur sa valeur nutritionnelle et d'accroître l'impact en milieu rural en impliquant des organisations locales, des entreprises agroalimentaires, des restaurants et des écoles de gastronomie (Alemayehu et al., 2014). La petite production d'amarante n'est pas vendue sur le marché organisé, auquel les petits agriculteurs n'ont pas accès. Les produits sont vendus par des vendeurs ambulants ou sur des marchés informels, moins chers et sans protection contre les températures élevées et le soleil (Emmanuel et Babalola, 2021). La fusion de la production des petits agriculteurs afin de répondre à la demande des détaillants qui demandent un approvisionnement stable en légumes-feuilles peut contribuer à l'affirmation d'une chaîne de valeur pour plusieurs légumes-feuilles.L'amarante est une espèce indigène des Amériques mais grâce à sa capacité d'adaptation et à ses nombreuses utilisations, sa culture s'est étendue à divers continents et environnements. Cultivée en Amérique Centrale et du Sud, en Asie et en Afrique ; en Afrique de l'Ouest, ses utilisations vont de l'alimentation, au fourrage et même l'utilisation ornementale (Aderibigbe et al., 2020) Dans de nombreux pays, l'amarante est un ingrédient de la cuisine traditionnelle. En Afrique de l'Ouest, la plante est cultivée pour ses feuilles, qui sont consommées comme légumes. Les feuilles d'amarante sont consommées crues en salade et cuites dans un ragoût de légumes (Herbst, 2001). Au Nigeria, l'amarante est utilisée dans des plats traditionnels tels que l'igname pilée, l'amala et le fufu (Enama 1994 ;Akin-Idowu et al. 2013). La consommation de grains d'amarante n'est pas courante en Afrique de l'Ouest, contrairement à l'Amérique du Sud et centrale (Paredes-Lopez, 1994) où la demande est augmentée ces dernières années, notamment en raison de leur valeur nutritionnelle et pour la préparation de farine ainsi que des utilisations industrielles (Aderibigbe et al., 2020).En termes de méthodes traditionnelles de culture, nous notons que l'amarante cultivée pour ses graines/semences et l'amarante cultivée pour ses feuilles ne sont pas séparées ; il n'existe pas de production distincte claire entre les différents cultivars. En effet, les feuilles des cultivars d'amarante cultivés pour leurs graines et les semences (A. hypochondriacus, A. cruentus et A. caudatus) sont également utilisées comme herbes aromatiques pour la préparation de sauces. Cette pratique est courante chez les petits exploitants qui les cultivent dans leurs jardins familiaux (Kauffman, 1992 ;Aderibigbe et al., 2020), qui constituent la majorité des producteurs au Burkina Faso.L'amarante a un certain nombre de propriétés médicinales et nutraceutiques. En s'agissant d'une céréale sans gluten, il est utilisé comme substitut pour les patients atteints de la maladie céliaque. L'extrait d'huile d'amarante peut réduire le taux de cholestérol (Martirosyan et al., 2007) et contenir des composés bioactifs ayant des effets bénéfiques pour la santé (Karama et al., 2019). Etant facile à digérer, l'amarante est traditionnellement donnée à ceux qui se remettent d'une maladie ou d'une période de jeûne (Kauffman, 1992). En Afrique de l'Ouest, l'amarante est utilisée en médecine traditionnelle pour traiter le paludisme (Soriano-García & Aguirre-Díaz, 2019). Cependant, la littérature au Niger et au Burkina Faso sur l'utilisation traditionnelle de cette culture, en particulier l'utilisation médicinale, est plutôt rare et des données supplémentaires devront être collectées.Achigan-Dako EG, Sogbohossou OE, Maundu P. ( 2014). Current knowledge on Amaranthus spp.: research avenues for improved nutritional value and yield in leafy amaranths in sub-Saharan Africa. Euphytica, 197, 303-317. doi: 10.1007Euphytica, 197, 303-317. doi: 10. /s10681-014-1081-9 -9 Aderibigbe OR, Ezekiel OO, Owolade SO, Korese JK, Sturm B, Hensel O. (2022). Exploring the potentials of underutilized grain amaranth (Amaranthus spp.) along the value chain for food and nutrition security: A review. Crit. Rev. Food Sci. Nutr. 62,[656][657][658][659][660][661][662][663][664][665][666][667][668][669]  C'est la troisième légumineuse la plus importante en Afrique semi-aride après l'arachide (Arachishypogaea) et le niébé (Vignaunguiculata). La noix de bambara est une légumineuse importante au Burkina Faso où elle occupe la deuxième place économique après le niébé. L'arachide bambara est aussi appelée pois de terre, haricot jugo ou haricot nyimo 6 .Les sites de culture de l'arachide bambara Le Nigeria est le plus grand producteur d'arachides au monde. L'arachide bambara est cultivée dans les provinces sud-africaines de Mpumalanga, Limpopo et KwaZulu-Natal. Ces dernières années, on a constaté un regain d'intérêt pour sa culture dans les zones arides de la savane, car elle résiste à la sécheresse et peut donner une récolte raisonnable même sur des sols pauvres, comme dans la région de Bambara, près de Tombouctou, au sud du Sahara 7 . Au Burkina Faso, sur la base de la texture des sols (sablonneux), le site de Rollo situé dans la région du Centre-Nord du Burkina Faso peut être utilisé pour la culture de la noix de bambara. Le climat Les variétés sauvages, ainsi que les variétés cultivées, produisent des arachides de différentes couleurs et tailles, allant de petites graines violettes à de grosses graines de couleur crème avec des yeux noirs (figure 1). Les variétés blanches et crème avec de grosses graines sont préférées en Afrique, tandis que les variétés noires et rouges sont préférées en Asie du Sud-Est 8 . La noix de bambara tolère beaucoup la sécheresse car elle est résistante aux températures élevées. Elle convient aux sols marginaux où d'autres légumineuses ne peuvent pas être cultivées. Cette plante constitue une culture à faible impact. Dans les zones sèches, Bambara semble être remarquablement exempt de graves problèmes de ravageurs et de maladies. Cependant, dans les régions où d'autres légumineuses à grains sont cultivées, des maladies virales ont été observées. Les deux maladies virales courantes sont le virus de la marbrure du niébé (CMeV) et le virus de la mosaïque transmise par les pucerons du niébé (AbMV). Les maladies fongiques sont courantes dans des conditions humides, telles que les taches foliaires (CLS) (par exemple Cercospora sp.), le flétrissement causé par Fusarium sp. et la pourriture de la tige (Sclerotium rolfsii). En climat sec, les gousses peuvent être attaquées par les termites. Le nématode à galles (Meloidogyne javanica) attaque également le Bambara dans les sols sablonneux. Pendant le stockage, les graines de pois bambara décortiquées sont extrêmement sensibles aux attaques des bruches (Callosobruchus maculatus). Les autres insectes nuisibles comme les pucerons, les termites moissonneurs, la mineuse des feuilles et le lépidoptère ravageur ont été également observés. Les nématodes affectent aussi le rendement (voir Hillocks et al. 2012). La culture d'arachide Bambara donne un rendement raisonnable sur des sols pauvres dans des zones à faible pluviométrie (500 à 800 kg ha -1 ) et peut être cultivée sans engrais ni produits chimiques qui sont coûteux et souvent difficiles d'accès dans les zones plus éloignées.La noix de bambara se développe bien sur les sols latéritiques acides qui sont courants en Afrique, mais moins bien sur les sols calcaires. Elle est utile dans la rotation des cultures car elle apporte de l'azote au sol à un niveau similaire à celui des autres légumineuses (20 -100 kg ha -1 ) (voir Ouedraogo et al. 2012).Cette légumineuse originaire d'Afrique est principalement cultivée par les femmes. Au Burkina Faso, le système de culture de l'arachide de Bambara est caractérisé par le semis d'une graine par trou, dans un sol labouré, suivi d'un buttage manuel. Cette pratique agricole consiste à amener la terre jusqu'au collet de la plante à l'aide d'une houe manuelle. Le buttage doit être effectué tôt (environ 2 semaines après le semis = SAS) ou tard (7 SAS) mais pas à 4 SAS sur les variétés qui mûrissent avant 90 jours. Le buttage à 4 SAS réduit de manière significative le rendement moyen (voir Hillocks et al. 2012).L'arachide de Bambara est apparentée au niébé et est utilisée pour la consommation humaine et animale. Elle est cultivée principalement pour ses graines, qui sont utilisées comme aliment, dans les cérémonies traditionnelles (comme les funérailles) et les échanges de cadeaux. Les graines matures et sèches sont bouillies et consommées comme légumineuses, moulues en farine et utilisées comme aliments pour animaux 9 . Le rôle important des femmes dans la culture du bambara est associé à la croyance que seules les femmes qui ont perdu un enfant peuvent cultiver la plante. On croyait que la récolte invite la mort dans le ménage, mais si une mère a déjà perdu un enfant, une autre mort lui serait épargnée.Les croyances et les tabous limitent les hommes à de nombreuses activités liées à la culture et, dans certains cas, même à toucher la graine et à la consommer. D'autres significations symboliques puissantes du bambara incluent la fertilité, la guérison et la protection, et il a été largement utilisé dans la médecine traditionnelle et les pratiques spirituelles. Ces significations se sont développées en un ensemble de pratiques et de règles socioculturelles que les communautés doivent suivre et qui affectent la vie quotidienne des ruraux de différents groupes ethniques.Ces questions ont des implications importantes pour les interventions ciblant d'autres cultures spécifiques, même les cultures mineures. Dans ce cas, il existe une opportunité d'augmenter les revenus des femmes en améliorant les opportunités commerciales pour les produits de bambara. Cependant, les avantages des femmes leurs pourraient être menacés car elles sont souvent exclues lorsque les cultures deviennent plus rentables. Par conséquent, les futures interventions de développement doivent garantir la participation et les avantages continus des femmes à toutes les étapes, en s'engageant activement et en étant façonnées par les valeurs, les objectifs et la prise de décision des femmes.Composition nutritionnelle du Bambara  L'arachide Bambara (Vigna subterranea (L.) Verdc) est une légumineuse africaine sous-utilisée, principalement cultivée par les femmes dans les zones tropicales et subtropicales où elle sert de moyen de subsistance dans la région semi-aride de l'Afrique subsaharienne. Cette culture prend son nom de la tribu des Bambaras au Mali et dans les provinces sahéliennes d'Afrique de l'Ouest. Selon les statistiques de la FAO, sur la période de 1993 à 2014, la production mondiale d'arachide Bambara provenait exclusivement de l'Afrique, les principaux producteurs répertoriés étant le Burkina Faso (premier pays producteur d'arachide Bambara), le Mali, le Cameroun, le Niger et la République démocratique du Congo (FAOSTAT, 2016).L'arachide de Bambara produit essentiellement des légumineuses, mais presque toutes les parties de la plante (feuilles, gousses, fanes, graines) sont utilisées et trouvent place dans plusieurs recettes dans la région de l'Afrique sub-saharienne (Ade-Omowaye et al., 2021).Au Nigéria, l'arachide bambara a trouvé diverses utilisations alimentaires : elle peut être frite ou bouillie et consommée comme collation ou pilée en farine et utilisée dans la préparation de soupes, de porridge et de divers produits alimentaires frits ou cuits à la vapeur tels que « akara, moin-moin » et « okpa ». Elle est également utilisée dans la préparation de boissons alimentaires locales comme le « kunnu » et le « tuwo » (Adeleke et al., 2017).L'arachide bambara est considérée comme un aliment complet qui répond aux besoins nutritionnels de l'alimentation humaine avec sa composition composée de 21% de protéines, de 6,6% de lipides et de 57% d'hydrates de carbone dans les graines (Feldman et al., 2019). La combinaison de légumineuses et de céréales nécessaire pour satisfaire les besoins nutritionnels essentiels trouve une solution optimale dans l'association de l'arachide bambara et du sorgho dans des conditions agricoles limitées en eau. La combinaison est très satisfaisante pour chaque besoin nutritionnel (protéines, hydrates de carbone, énergie, lipides, vitamines et micronutriments) (Mustafa et al., 2021).Les graines d'arachide bambara ont une valeur énergétique brute supérieure à celle des légumineuses ordinaires, et les graines rouges pourraient être utiles dans les régions où la carence en fer est un problème, car elles contiennent presque deux fois plus de fer que les graines crèmes (Hillocks et al., 2012). Plusieurs auteurs ont décrit les propriétés nutritionnelles de l'arachide bambara (Abberton et al., 2022;Ibrahin et Ogunwusi, 2016;Nwokolo, 1987;Séraphin et al., 2015;Hillocks et al., 2012). Parmi les acides aminés essentiels, la leucine et la lysine sont présentes à des concentrations plus élevées tandis que la méthionine est la plus faible. La phénylalanine, la valine, l'histidine et l'isoleucine sont également présentes en fortes concentrations. Sa composition riche en lysine et pauvre en méthionine fait de l'arachide Bambara une bonne source de protéines complémentaires aux céréales, souvent déficientes en lysine mais riches en méthionine (Tan et al., 2020). La majorité des acides gras de l'arachide bambara sont insaturés, principalement les acides oléique et linoléique (oméga-6). L'acide palmitique est le troisième acide gras le plus abondant et l'acide linolénique (oméga-3) est présent en faible concentration. Bien qu'une teneur élevée en acides gras insaturés soit attrayante du point de vue de la santé des consommateurs, elle accroît la susceptibilité des graisses à l'oxydation et au rancissement. Par conséquent, les utilisations finales devraient être prises en compte lors du choix du caractère souhaitable de la composition lipidique (Tan et al., 2020). Les inhibiteurs enzymatiques sont des composants chimiques qui inhibent les enzymes digestives et exercent donc des effets antinutritionnels. L'inhibiteur enzymatique le plus prédominant des légumineuses africaines est l'inhibiteur de la trypsine, bien que d'autres inhibiteurs tels que les inhibiteurs de l'α-amylase aient également été signalés (Okafor et al., 2014). Les glycosides cyanogènes sont des glycosides de 2-hydroxynitriles et sont largement répandus dans les légumineuses, y compris l'arachide bambara (Nkafamiya et al., 2015). Toutefois, la toxicité des glycosides cyanogéniques n'est pas préoccupante dans les légumineuses transformées, car la plupart des procédés normaux de transformation des aliments réduisent considérablement leurs concentrations (Duodu et Apea-Bah, 2017). Effet des méthodes de transformation traditionnelles sur les facteurs nutritionnels et antinutritionnels L'arachide bambara est séchée après la récolte pour un entreposage à long terme. Le séchage est une technique efficace de conservation des aliments qui prolonge la période d'entreposage et assure la disponibilité des aliments en cas de pénurie alimentaire. Avant d'être consommées, les graines séchées sont soit réhydratées par trempage dans de l'eau, soit broyées sous forme sèche en farine. La plupart des prétraitements ou traitements ont une incidence sur les propriétés nutritionnelles, sensorielles et fonctionnelles des graines (Tan et al., 2020).Tableau 14 : Méthodes de transformation traditionnellesLe tégument de la graine (ou testa) est parfois séparé des cotylédons avant tout traitement ultérieur. Étant donné qu'une grande partie des composants antinutritionnels est présente dans le testa, le décorticage peut améliorer la digestibilité et la valeur nutritionnelle des graines, notamment en augmentant la disponibilité des minéraux et des protéines.Parmi les autres conséquences du décorticage, l'on mentionne l'augmentation du lessivage des minéraux pendant le trempage et la cuisson, ce qui nuit à la qualité nutritionnelle.En particulier, une diminution de la teneur en inhibiteurs de la trypsine de 64%, en hémagglutinine de 65%, en tanin de 64%, en phytate de 32%, en raffinose de 46% et en stachyose de 57% a été signalée.Fraisage L'arachide Bambara séchée peut être broyée en farine pour améliorer sa polyvalence. La perturbation de la structure de la paroi cellulaire, par le broyage ou d'autres procédés abrasifs, peut accroître la disponibilité et la digestibilité des nutriments, de l'amidon et des protéines en particulier. Le broyage pourrait accroître les interactions entre les minéraux et les facteurs antinutritionnels, réduisant ainsi leur biodisponibilité.Après séchage, les graines d'arachide Bambara sont généralement réhydratées par trempage dans l'eau pendant 12 à 24 h avant la cuisson. Le trempage provoque la lixiviation des éléments nutritifs et des facteurs antinutritionnels dans l'eau de trempage. En particulier, une diminution de la teneur en inhibiteurs de la trypsine de 53%, en hémagglutinine de 52%, en tanins de 55%, en phytate de 24%, en raffinose de 36% et en stachyose de 51% a été rapportée.La fermentation est une option de transformation traditionnelle à faible technologie qui permet d'améliorer la valeur nutritive de l'arachide bambara. Habituellement, le processus consiste à tremper les graines entières, puis à décortiquer, cuire et envelopper dans des feuilles de bananier avant de fermenter pendant environ 4 jours.Les effets positifs de la fermentation sont une décomposition des oligosaccharides et polysaccharides non digestibles en hydrates de carbone plus simples digestibles et une réduction des facteurs antinutritionnels et de la teneur en phénols (diminution moyenne des inhibiteurs de la trypsine de 40%).Les graines de bambara sont souvent cuites dans une eau excessive pendant des périodes variables jusqu'à ce que la texture souhaitée soit atteinte. L'ébullition a un impact positif sur la qualité nutritionnelle en détruisant les facteurs antinutritionnels (diminution des tanins de 43% et des phytates de 26%) et en améliorant la digestibilité in vitro de l'amidon et des protéines Les graines d'arachide bambara peuvent être consommées crues comme légume frais, bouillies, frites, cuites et rôties (Feldman et al 2019). La consommation de graines fraîches immatures comme légumes en salade ou cuites en soupe comme les pois peut ouvrir de nouvelles possibilités de transformation industrielle en offrant une alternative aux pois et autres légumineuses fraîches. Les légumineuses séchées sont utilisées après avoir bouilli dans les ragoûts et les soupes ou pour faire des haricots en conserve. Les graines cuites et/ou grillées sont consommées directement comme snack aux noix ou sont utilisées dans différentes formulations de snack sain riches en protéines (Ade-Omowaye et al., 2021). Les graines séchées, brutes ou préalablement grillées servent à obtenir une farine qui remplace partiellement la farine de blé dans des produits comme le pain, les pâtes, les sucreries et les biscuits. Enfin, l'arachide bambara permet de produire un lait de qualité comparable au soja, prêt à être consommé ou prêt à être fermenté avec de l'acide lactique comme boisson probiotique (Ade-Omowaye et al., 2021).En ce qui concerne le processus d'ébullition, les graines de cette légumineuse ont une contrainte en raison de la longue durée de cuisson. Ils ont généralement besoin de 3 à 4 heures d'ébullition. Cela peut ne pas convenir aux communautés rurales en raison de la demande accrue de combustible (bois) (Feldman et al., 2019). Le phénomène de la difficulté à cuire peut limiter son utilisation. Elle est associée à des modifications structurales cellulaires et à des changements de composition qui se produisent dans les cotylédons et les téguments des graines. Les méthodes de traitement utiles pour remédier à cet inconvénient comprennent les traitements chimiques (auxiliaires de cuisson), biologiques (germination et fermentation) et physiques (ècrasage, broyage, torréfaction et mise en conserve) (Mubaiwa et al., 2018).Les produits dérivés des graines peuvent être représentés par des isolats de protéines, utiles dans la formulation de vinaigrettes pour salades et sauces, d'amidon et d'émulsifiants comme ingrédients naturels des produits industriels (Ade-Omowaye et al., 2021).Les feuilles, les tiges et les haubans servent d'aliments au bétail (Majola et al., 2021).Le bambara est souvent délaissé dans les communautés rurales comme une « culture des pauvres » et est également considérée comme une « culture des femmes », car les femmes en sont les gardiennes et les hommes se concentrent généralement sur la production céréalière, dont le prix est plus élevé, en particulier dans les pays à faible revenu, comme en Afrique subsaharienne (Feldman et al., 2019). En fait, il est principalement cultivé par les femmes dans ces régions, où il sert de moyen de subsistance. La perception qu'il s'agit de toute façon d'un aliment pauvre se traduit par une difficulté à développer une chaîne de valeur par rapport aux grandes cultures. Au fur et à mesure que les conditions de vie s'améliorent ou que la disponibilité des aliments augmente, d'autres aliments sont préférés au bambara. Néanmoins, plus récemment, l'arachide bambara a bénéficié d'une culture relativement étendue comparativement à d'autres légumineuses sous-utilisées, en particulier dans les pays d'Afrique subsaharienne (Mubaiwa et al., 2018). Elle a l'avantage d'être une légumineuse riche en protéines et de haute valeur nutritionnelle. Par conséquent, elle a de bonnes chances de créer des marchés de niche pour les graines brutes et les aliments transformés potentiels. Pour les mêmes raisons, le bambara a également le potentiel de devenir une culture d'exportation (Feldman et al., 2019). Certains produits dérivés de graines fraîches ou sèches présentent le potentiel de développer un peu d'activités de transformation, à condition que des équipements tels que des machines de transformation ou de l'énergie soient mis à disposition.Un système semencier coordonné fait défaut en Afrique de l'Ouest ou en Afrique subsaharienne en général. Les agriculteurs utilisent des semences de mauvaise qualité à la ferme, bien qu'ils profitent de la grande variabilité génétique des variétés locales (Majola et al., 2021).Abberton M, Paliwal R, Faloye Le manioc appartient à la famille des Euphorbiacées, qui compte environ 7200 espèces, caractérisées par le développement notable de vaisseaux lactifères, eux-mêmes constitués de cellules sécrétrices appelées lactifères.Celles-ci produisent la sécrétion laiteuse, ou « latex », qui caractérise les plantes de cette famille. Un genre très important de cette famille est Manihot, auquel appartient le manioc. Le genre Manihot n'est originaire que des Amériques, avec des espèces réparties du sud-ouest des États-Unis à l'Argentine. Bien que toutes les espèces du genre puissent se croiser entre elles, des données suggèrent que, dans la nature, elles sont isolées sur le plan de la reproduction. Environ 98 espèces ont été décrites comme appartenant à ce genre, dont seul le manioc (Manihot esculenta Crantz) a une importance économique et est cultivé. Il existe peut-être plus de 100 noms communs pour cette espèce, en raison de sa diffusion dans le monde tropical par les premiers commerçants (Ceballos & de la Cruz, 2012).Le manioc est un diploïde fonctionnel (2n = 2x = 36). Certaines parties du génome peuvent être dupliquées et, par conséquent, le manioc peut en fait être un allotétraploïde segmentaire (Ceballos & de la Cruz, 2012).Sites de culture au Niger L'utilisation du manioc a été introduite au Niger comme stratégie de lutte contre la famine d'abord sous forme de gari, un tourteau de manioc séché, au début des années 1900 puis sous forme de culture maraîchère depuis la grande famine sahélienne (Muller et Almedom, 2008). Les régions de Tahoua, Dosso et Zinder sont les principales zones de production de manioc 10 . La région de Dosso au sud du Niger, à environ 300 km de Niamey, a également été répertoriée par Saidou et al. ( 2011), comme zone de production de manioc (voir Figure 1). Aucune information trouvée sur les types de manioc cultivés au Niger.Le manioc est important pour les petits agriculteurs et les plantations à grande échelle en raison de ses faibles besoins en nutriments, de sa capacité à tolérer les conditions de sécheresse et de sa facilité de propagation à faible coût. Le manioc est bien connu pour sa capacité à résister à des périodes importantes de stress hydrique, mais avec une réduction associée de la croissance et des rendements. La réponse des plantes de manioc au stress hydrique est fonction à la fois de la durée et de la sévérité du déficit hydrique et du cultivar. Dans des conditions expérimentales, la biomasse des racines et des tiges peut être inférieure de 70 % chez les plantes soumises à un stress hydrique. Non seulement la gravité du déficit hydrique est importante, mais aussi son déroulement, les effets étant plus prononcés si le déficit hydrique se produit dans les 1 à 5 premiers mois après la plantation (voir Burns et al. 2010). L'augmentation récente de l'incidence des maladies causées par des virus dans le manioc présente une menace sérieuse pour la production. L'incidence des épidémies de virus de la mosaïque du manioc a augmenté au cours des vingt dernières années en Afrique de l'Est, entraînant des pertes de 47% de la production et de 60 millions de dollars par an (en rendement perdu), et provoquant une famine locale. Le virus de la striure brune du manioc a dévasté les cultures de manioc en Afrique de l'Est et continue de se propager. Cela a entraîné des investissements importants dans les programmes de sélection des Projet SUSTLIVES plantes pour surmonter ce problème. L'incidence des maladies des plantes est affectée par les conditions environnementales ; par exemple, les maladies causées par des agents pathogènes bactériens et fongiques ont tendance à être plus graves lorsque les conditions sont plus chaudes et plus humides, bien que certaines maladies soient favorisées par des conditions fraîches. Ainsi, dans un climat changeant, la gamme des agents pathogènes des plantes peut changer, tout comme l'incidence et la gravité des maladies des plantes (Burns et al. 2010).Technique culturale, gestion des mauvaises herbes et conservation post-récolte Les rendements du manioc varient considérablement d'une région du monde à l'autre. La différence de rendements dans le monde est probablement le résultat de pratiques agronomiques, ainsi que des conditions environnementales. Le manioc nécessite peu de gestion active après les 4 à 6 premiers mois suivant la plantation (c'est-à-dire après l'établissement et la fermeture de la canopée) et est compatible avec de nombreux types de cultures intercalaires. En Afrique, par exemple, le manioc est souvent cultivé comme culture intercalaire dans des exploitations de subsistance sur des terres marginales. L'accès aux intrants agricoles, tels que les engrais et les pesticides, est souvent limité ou inexistant dans de telles situations. Par conséquent, les cultures intercalaires doivent être soigneusement gérées pour minimiser l'épuisement des nutriments du sol. Cependant, ces cultures ont l'avantage d'augmenter la diversité des aliments consommés, ce qui a des implications sur la capacité humaine à détoxifier le cyanure dans l'alimentation. Le manioc est également cultivé comme une imitation de jachère, c'est-à-dire qu'une culture de manioc est plantée au lieu de laisser la terre se reposer et que le matériel végétal rejeté est paillé dans le sol. Cependant, les impacts environnementaux potentiels de l'utilisation d'espèces cyanogènes comme engrais vert, tels que le lessivage des glycosides cyanogènes dans les eaux souterraines et les effets allélopathiques, doivent être pris en compte. La compétition entre le manioc et les mauvaises herbes, pour l'espace, l'eau et les nutriments, peut également réduire de manière significative les rendements du manioc. Bien que les mauvaises herbes puissent être contrôlées avec des herbicides lorsqu'ils sont disponibles, elles doivent généralement être enlevées à la main dans les systèmes d'agriculture de subsistance, ce qui représente une dépense importante de temps et d'énergie. Si la production de manioc devait passer d'un système d'agriculture de subsistance à un système d'agriculture de profit, il serait presque certainement nécessaire d'utiliser des herbicides pour contrôler les mauvaises herbes. Cela doit cependant s'accompagner d'une connaissance de leur utilisation sûre, tant en termes de sécurité humaine qu'environnementale.Le manioc est la troisième source de calories dans les tropiques et la sixième culture vivrière après la canne à sucre, le maïs, le riz, le blé et la pomme de terre, en termes de production annuelle mondiale (Burns et al. 2010). Les rendements moyens en Indonésie et en Thaïlande sont le double de celui de l'Afrique (8-10 t/ha), avec des rendements enregistrés de 18 à 23 tonnes par hectare en 2008. Des rendements de 90 tonnes par hectare ont été enregistrés dans des conditions de croissance idéales en Colombie. Cela suggère que le potentiel de rendement du manioc n'est pas pleinement exploité dans certaines régions, y compris celles où une augmentation modeste du rendement pourrait contribuer à la sécurité alimentaire (Burns et al. 2010). Projet SUSTLIVES Au Niger, la production annuelle de manioc est estimée à 371.135 tonnes 11 . Le manioc peut être trouvé en vente dans les rues comme collation ou comme condiment au Niger, et il est souvent consommé au déjeuner et même comme dessert. Bien qu'il soit toujours considéré comme de moindre qualité que le millet, et que les participants aient exprimé leur regret s'il s'agissait du seul aliment pour le dîner, il a toujours un rôle dynamique dans la culture, qui imite des traditions plus anciennes telles que le kopto ou le dibi gunda, et peut représenter un changement positif en réponse à une famine vécu précédemment (Muller & Almedom 2008).Propriétés nutritionnelles et fonctionnelles Manihot esculenta Crantz, communément appelé manioc, est l'une des cultures vivrières de base les plus importantes des régions tropicales du monde. La production de cette culture contribue au maintien de la sécurité alimentaire dans la plupart des pays en développement, y compris en Afrique.Le manioc est particulièrement riche en hydrates de carbone composés presque entièrement d'amidon. Il représente donc actuellement la troisième source d'hydrates de carbone des tropiques pour la consommation humaine après le maïs et le riz. Ses racines contiennent également des vitamines et plusieurs minéraux, tandis que sa teneur en protéines est faible par rapport à d'autres racines et tubercules. Un inconvénient majeur pour le manioc est que les racines se détériorent deux à trois jours après la récolte en raison de leur forte teneur en humidité (Udoro et al., 2013, Shittu et al., 2016). Toutefois, les produits stables de manioc (croustilles et farine) pourraient tout simplement être produits puis utilisés à des fins industrielles et domestiques (Udoro et al., 2021).Dans les régions où le manioc est cultivé, la chair est traditionnellement blanche, mais des variantes biofortifiées à chair jaune, contenant davantage de caroténoïdes de provitamine A, sont maintenant disponibles et offrent un potentiel considérable pour atténuer l'insécurité alimentaire dans les pays en développement. La valeur ajoutée qu'offrent ces variantes pourrait renforcer l'acceptation et la culture généralisée par les agriculteurs, et, peut-être, la culture des variantes à chair jaune pourrait dépasser celle des variantes à chair blanche à l'avenir (Ayetigbo et al., 2018).Le manioc est l'une des dizaines de cultures qui contiennent des glycosides cyanogènes (glucosides α-hydroxynitrile) qui se décomposent pour libérer du cyanure toxique (HCN) lorsque les tissus végétaux sont broyés ou mâchés, perturbant ainsi les cellules (Alves et al., 2002). Par conséquent, le manioc peut causer de graves maladies ou la mort chez les consommateurs s'il n'est pas d'abord traité adéquatement (Cliff et al., 1995).Le manioc est principalement une source d'hydrates de carbone, qui représentent environ 80 à 90% de sa composition en matière sèche. La teneur en glucides est d'environ 80% d'amidon et de faibles quantités de saccharose (36-46 mg/g), de glucose (5-14 mg/g) et de maltose (2-19 mg/g) sur la base du poids sec. Les racines de manioc contiennent des vitamines A, C et E et plusieurs minéraux comme le calcium, le magnésium, le sodium, le potassium, le fer, le phosphore et le chlorure. Ces ingrédients bioactifs présents dans le manioc indiquent que la racine tubéreuse peut posséder certaines propriétés médicinales (Udoro et al., 2021) Tableau 1 : Composition chimique de la farine de manioc blanc, tubercule de manioc à chair blanche cru et tubercule de manioc à chair jaune cru (g/100g de portion comestible (PC)). ). La farine et les racines de manioc contiennent également du phytate (1054 mg/100 g PC et 99 mg/100 g PC, respectivement) (Vincent et al., 2020).La teneur en cyanogène et en tanins des racines de manioc dépend fortement du génotype, de l'emplacement et des conditions environnementales qui, avec les méthodes de production, influent sur les propriétés physico-chimiques et fonctionnelles des produits comestibles (farine et amidon) obtenus à partir du manioc (Ayetigbo et al., 2018). Propriétés fonctionnelles et effets bénéfiques pour la santé de la farine de manioc La farine de manioc est considérée comme une source efficace d'amidon résistant, qui aurait des effets bénéfiques sur différentes pathologies (diabète, maladies cardiovasculaires et du côlon, obésité), car l'amidon résistant atteint le côlon et sa fermentation par la microflore produit principalement des acides gras à chaîne courte (Pereira et al., 2014). De plus, la farine et l'amidon de manioc sont sans gluten et peuvent être consommés en toute sécurité par les patients coeliaques (Udoro et al., 2021).Le manioc est principalement cultivé pour ses racines alors que les feuilles sont surtout considérées comme un sous-produit disponible toute l'année. Les feuilles de manioc sont consommées comme légume dans au moins 60% des pays d'Afrique subsaharienne, y compris au Nigéria où elles constituent l'une des principales composantes de l'alimentation. Les feuilles de manioc sont riches en protéines (plus riches que les racines), en acides aminés essentiels, en minéraux (particulièrement phosphore, potassium, magnésium, calcium) et en vitamines (vitamines B1, B2, C). Projet SUSTLIVESBien que les feuilles de manioc soient une source de nutriments précieux, elles sont aussi toxiques en raison des glucosides cyanogéniques et de facteurs antinutritionnels comme la teneur élevée en fibres, les tanins et l'acide phytique qui réduisent la biodisponibilité, l'absorption et la digestibilité des nutriments, et peuvent éventuellement avoir des effets toxiques selon la méthode de transformation et la quantité consommée (Latif et Muller, 2015 ;Oresegun et al., 2016).L'enrichissement d'aliments courants riches en protéines, en micronutriments et en vitamines s'est révélé la stratégie la plus durable et la plus rentable pour accroître la disponibilité de protéines et de micronutriments dans l'alimentation. Les feuilles de manioc sont un candidat important pour de telles interventions et peuvent aider à réduire la malnutrition, comme l'anémie, les carences en vitamine A et en protéines, chez les Nigériens et les Burkinabés (Latif et Muller, 2015). Différentes variétés de feuilles de manioc contiennent des substances phytochimiques, des minéraux et des éléments antinutritionnels qui jouent un rôle important dans le développement humain (Ogbuji et David-Chukwu, 2016). Utilisation de la farine de manioc dans les procédés alimentaires et industriels La farine de manioc est un représentant convenable et l'un des produits alimentaires les plus faciles à conserver pour la portion comestible de la racine de manioc hautement périssable.La farine est le principal produit du manioc (environ 70% de la racine de manioc du Mozambique est utilisée pour produire de la farine). Le caractère agronomique du manioc favorise le faible coût et la disponibilité de sa farine tout au long de l'année. On l'obtient facilement en broyant les racines séchées, alors que le traitement pour obtenir de l'amidon est plus complexe et coûteux (extraction sous forme de lisier de la mouture humide des racines) et on l'utilise déjà pour mettre au point divers aliments comme le pain, les biscuits et les nouilles, sous forme de farine composite ou de farine de base (Udoro et al., 2021). Quelques exemples sont présentés dans le tableau.Les farines et les poudres d'amidon sont les deux principaux produits primaires à base de racines de manioc commercialisés dans le monde entier. La farine de manioc est préparée à partir de copeaux séchés moulus ou de purée humide. Le moût préparé peut être fermenté ou non fermenté (Shittu et al., 2016).Tableau 9 : Application de farine de manioc (FM) dans divers produits alimentaires à base de farine. Le manioc est une culture potentiellement évolutive à forte biomasse. Comparé à d'autres cultures bioénergétiques potentielles, le manioc s'adapte à des terres peu fertiles et à des conditions climatiques moins favorables comme la sécheresse (Jolayemi & Opabode, 2018). Les biocarburants de première génération sont principalement produits à partir de la fermentation de sucres dérivés de cultures vivrières (Hirani et al., 2018). Les biocarburants de deuxième génération proviennent de cultures non alimentaires (Awogbemi et al., 2021) ou de matières premières lignocellulosiques et de résidus agricoles (Morato et al., 2019). La racine tubéreuse du manioc est la principale partie utilisée à la fois pour le bioéthanol et l'alimentation, ce qui entraîne une concurrence directe. Cependant, les parties de la plante comme la tige ne sont utilisées que comme matériel de plantation, les feuilles étant peu utilisées comme nourriture et les restes des deux sont éliminés après la récolte. Les tiges et les feuilles ont également un potentiel bioénergétique. La tige de manioc contient environ 11,62%FOOD/2021/422-681Rapport sur le processus de sélection des NUS et des zones cibles 78 Projet SUSTLIVES d'hémicellulose et 21,43% de cellulose sous forme de sucres fermentescibles sous forme de lignocellulose (Sovorawet & Kongkiattikajorn, 2012). Cela signifie que le manioc peut servir de matière première pour la production de biocarburants de première et de deuxième génération. Le potentiel de production de bioéthanol du manioc est comparable à celui d'autres grandes cultures bioénergétiques comme le maïs (Pradyawong et al., 2018). La plupart des microbiomes végétaux contribuent à la tolérance des végétaux aux stress abiotiques et biotiques, ce qui joue un rôle très important dans l'amélioration de la biomasse végétale. Les endophytes les plus fréquents chez le manioc ont été identifiés comme des microbes appartenant aux genres Bacillus, Burkholderia, Enterobacter, Pantoea, Escherichia, Pseudomonas, Serratia, Stenotrophomonas, Fusarium spp., Aspergillus spp., Lasiodiplodia spp., Nectria pseudotrichia, Penicillium citrin et Schizophyllum commune (Hartanti et al., 2021;Leite et al., 2018).Les endophytes offrent des méthodes respectueuses de l'environnement et rentables pour accroître la productivité de la biomasse tout en rendant la biomasse végétale facilement utilisable pour la production de bioénergie.En conclusion, les efforts de recherche visant à accroître la productivité du manioc pour l'alimentation humaine et animale, y compris le génie génétique du manioc pour réduire la complexité de l'amidon, l'utilisation d'endophytes pour rendre la biomasse cellulosique de manioc propice à la fermentation en bioénergie et l'édition du génome pour réduire la complexité de la lignine dans les tiges de manioc rendent possible son utilisation pour la production bioénergie, malgré sa production bioénergie.La chaîne de valeur du manioc a un fort potentiel au Burkina Faso et au Niger, mais certains problèmes doivent encore être résolus en identifiant les points clés d'amélioration et les opportunités de marché pour améliorer les moyens de subsistance des petits producteurs et agriculteurs. L'encouragement et la promotion de petites entreprises locales visant à transformer le produit semifini du manioc en attiéké frais et déshydraté, un aliment de base local largement consommé, est souhaité. Il pourrait être redistribué à un marché local de consommateurs à faible revenu, afin de limiter l'importation de manioc semi-transformé des pays voisins tout en créant des emplois pour les jeunes et les femmes transformant le manioc local (2SCALE, 2022). Il est essentiel de pouvoir s'appuyer sur de nouvelles variétés améliorées, testées au Nigeria voisin, qui produisent 30 tonnes par hectare au lieu des 10 normalement produites dans cette zone et sur l'utilisation de techniques de production durable qui incluent un meilleur accès à l'utilisation des engrais, pesticides et herbicides et une livraison rapide du produit au secteur de la transformation à petite et à grande échelle (NDPI Foundation, 2018). Les Burkinabés appellent la culture « Fabirama » (en langues bambara et dioula), qui a de nombreux autres noms communément connus, tels que pomme de terre indigène, pomme de terre de campagne, pomme de terre Frafra, pomme de terre Hausa, pomme de terre Soudan ou pomme de terre Zulu, selon la zone de culture en Afrique. Dans la langue Mòoré, la langue la plus parlée au Burkina Faso, la Fabirama s'appelle Pessa, mais en Inde, par exemple, la Fabirama est appelée pomme de terre chinoise (voir Ouédraogo et al. 2007, Sugri et al. 2013, Hua et al. 2018).  Le Fabirama est une plante herbacée vivace de la famille des menthes (Lamiaceae) originaire d'Afrique tropicale. On pense qu'il est originaire d'Afrique centrale ou orientale, mais il s'est répandu très tôt dans toutes les régions tropicales du monde (Murugesan et al. 2020). Il est largement cultivé au Burkina Faso, au Mali, au Ghana, au Nigeria, au Togo, au Cameroun, au Tchad et en Afrique du Sud (Hua et al. 2018, Nanéma et al. 2019). Le Fabirama est également répandu en Asie du Sud-Est, notamment en Inde, au Sri Lanka, en Malaisie et en Indonésie, où sa culture se fait normalement à petite échelle (Tindall 1983). C'est l'une des cultures mineures importantes de tubercules ayant une valeur nutritionnelle et commerciale dans les régions tropicales du monde.Le Fabirama est une petite plante annuelle. Il mesure 15 à 30 cm de haut, prostré ou ascendant, avec une tige succulente et des feuilles un peu épaisses ayant une odeur aromatique ressemblant à celle de la menthe. Les fleurs sont petites, de couleur violet pâle, produites sur une grappe terminale allongée (Figure 1) (Sugri et al. 2013). Le Fabirama produit des tubercules comestibles et ovoïdes pouvant atteindre 8 cm de longueur. Les tubercules crus sont exceptionnellement nutritifs (Hua et al. 2018). Les tubercules sont consommés sous forme de curry, cuits au four ou frits (Nanéma et al. 2019). L'utilité de Fabirama s'étend au-delà de la nourriture, et ses tubercules sont populaires pour les applications pharmaceutiques et de médecine traditionnelle (Hua et al. 2018). Par exemple, les tubercules sont utilisés pour traiter la dysenterie dans les communautés rurales nigérianes (Tindall, 1983). Chez les Frafra du nord du Ghana, les tubercules de pomme de terre frafra (Fabirama) sont présentés à la belle-famille en guise de dot (Aculey et al. 2011). Cette plante a un nombre de chromosomes de 2n = 64 (Murugesan et al. 2020). Le fabirama est devenu une culture vivrière rare en Afrique. Il semble également peu commun dans la nature. Cependant, il existe encore une grande diversité de germoplasmes sauvages et cultivés sur tout le continent africain (Nkansah 2004).Les sites de culture du Fabirama au Burkina Faso Le Fabirama a été signalé pour la première fois en Haute-Volta (actuel Burkina Faso) par un explorateur français, Louis Gustave Binger, en 1888 (voir Ouédraogo et al. 2007). Le Fabirama est ainsi bien adapté aux régions sahéliennes et soudano-sahéliennes du Burkina Faso. Il pousse bien dans les grandes zones recevant des précipitations annuelles comprises entre 400 et 1200 mm (Nanéma et al. 2017). Le plateau central du Burkina Faso est la principale zone de culture (Ouédraogo et al. 2007), et Ouagadougou est connue pour être une ville importante de consommation de Fabirama (Nanéma et al. 2017). Les provinces de Kadiogo, Kourwéogo et Ganzourgou ont également été répertoriées comme sites de culture (Ouédraogo et al. 2007) (Figure 3). Les centres de culture importants de Fabirama dans la province du Kadiogo sont Tanghin-Dassouri et Komsilga (Ouédraogo et al. 2007). Dans la province du Ganzourgou, Meguet et Baudry sont les principaux centres de culture (Ouédraogo et al. 2007). Les provinces de Passoré (nord du Burkina Faso) et de Nahouri (sud du Burkina Faso) ont également été considérées comme des zones de culture de Fabirama (Nanéma et al. 2019).En se basant sur la couleur de la peau des tubercules de Fabirama (noir, rougeâtre et blanc-jaune), trois types différents (variétés locales) appelés respectivement « A », « B » et « C », ont été distingués au Burkina Faso (Nanéma et al. 2019). Les tubercules à peau noire et rouge ont été mentionnés comme étant les types de Fabirama les plus courants sur le marché du Burkina Faso (Figure 4). Alternativement, Ouédraogo et al. (2007) ont décrit quatre types différents de Fabirama (comme on le voit également dans le tableau 1):-« pès yaanga » ou Fabirama « femelle », qu'ils décrivent comme ayant un plus grand port, des feuilles larges et des tubercules ovoïdes -« pès raaga » ou « pès raogo », qui est le Fabirama « mâle » avec un port plus petit, des feuilles moins grandes et produisant des tubercules de forme oblongue -« pès miugu » ou « fabirama rouge » distingué sur la base des tubercules qui sont de couleur rougeâtre -« pès sablega » ou « fabirama noir », qui a des tubercules noirâtres.  Kwarteng et al. 2018). Étant donné que la petite taille des tubercules présente la principale contrainte à la culture de Fabirama, les objectifs de sélection peuvent être orientés vers le développement de cultivars à haut rendement avec des tubercules plus gros pour augmenter la valeur marchande de la culture (Kwarteng et al. 2018). Les connaissances sur le potentiel d'amélioration génétique et la manière de développement de cultivars améliorés de Fabirama sont encore rares (voir Kwarteng et al. 2018).Tableau 1 : Liste des types de Fabirama distingués dans différentes localités du Burkina Faso (Ouédraogo et al. 2007).Projet SUSTLIVESLa variabilité intra-spécifique a été évaluée pour décrire les différents types de Fabirama au Burkina Faso (Nanéma et al. 2019). Trois accessions (E02, E35 et E20) représentant les morphotypes « A » (peau de tubercule noire), « B » (peau rougeâtre) et « C » (peau blanc-jaune) ont été caractérisées. Vingt-quatre traits liés au cycle, à la taille de la canopée, à la production de tubercules et à la taille des tubercules ont été mesurés (Nanema et al. 2019). Les tubercules à peau noire étaient originaires de la province du Passoré au nord du Burkina Faso, alors que les accessions à peau rouge et à peau blanc-jaune provenaient toutes deux de la province du Nahouri au sud du Burkina Faso (Nanema et al. 2019) (tableau 2). Les trois morphotypes « A » (peau du tubercule noire), « B » (peau rougeâtre) et « C » (peau blanchejaune) ont été identifiés comme étant des différents groupes de cultivars (Figure 5). Le morphotype « A » s'est avéré être à maturation précoce et la variété la plus productive. Les accessions de ce morphotype pourraient constituer un matériel très intéressant pour le développement de variétés précoces à haut rendement et à gros tubercules (Nanéma et al. 2019). Un programme de sélection pourrait contribuer à augmenter la taille des tubercules pour les cultures ultérieures (Nanéma et al. 2017).Le Fabirama est connu pour être l'une des cultures de tubercules les plus adaptées d'Afrique de l'Ouest. Il est adapté à la culture sur des zones marginales dans les régions de savane sèches avec des sols peu fertiles (Aculey et al. 2011). Cependant, une période de sécheresse pendant le cycle de culture peut affecter gravement la production, voire entraîner une perte totale de la récolte (Ouédraogo et al. 2007). Les agriculteurs du Ghana considèrent les ravageurs et les maladies comme une contrainte mineure dans la production de Fabirama, apparemment inconscients des dommages potentiels qu'ils pourraient causer (Sugri et al. 2013). Les chenilles et les termites sont les principaux ravageurs au stade de la croissance végétative. Les termites et les mille-pattes creusent également des trous dans Projet SUSTLIVES les tubercules, provoquant leur pourriture pendant le stockage. Les ravageurs les plus importants sont les nématodes, qui provoquent l'enroulement et le rabougrissement des feuilles au stade végétatif (Anyalewechi et al. 2009, Sugri et al. 2013). Le Fabirama ne peut pas être cultivé avec succès dans des champs fortement infestés de nématodes à galles (Meloidogyne spp.), ni utilisé dans la rotation des cultures avec d'autres cultures sensibles aux nématodes à galles (Anyalewechi et al. 2009 ;Sugri et al. 2013). Au Burkina Faso, le Fabirama peut souffrir d'attaques de larves de papillons nocturnes, de rouille des feuilles, de pourriture de la tige et des tubercules provoquant la coupe des pousses et la perforation des feuilles (Ouédraogo et al. 2007).Technique de culture et conservation post-récolte Culture :La sécurité alimentaire a toujours été un problème majeur, surtout pendant la période entre la plantation et la récolte des cultures successives. Par conséquent, les cultures (comme la Fabirama) qui arrivent à maturité et sont prêtes à être consommées pendant ces périodes sont généralement plantées avant les principales cultures de base. Au Burkina Faso, le Fabirama est cultivé par les petits exploitants agricoles pour la consommation domestique et contribue à la sécurité alimentaire dans une grande partie du pays (Nanéma et al. 2017). Cette plante a un grand potentiel économique, mais de nombreuses contraintes dont la détérioration rapide des tubercules, les petits tubercules et leur court délai d'approvisionnement, sont des problèmes majeurs dans leur utilisation (Nanéma et al. 2017). Le fabirama est souvent planté dans les jardins familiaux par des personnes âgées burkinabés, qui ne peuvent plus participer aux grands travaux ruraux. Les petits exploitants agricoles qui cultivent le Fabirama le conservent comme culture résiduelle à côté du sorgho ou du mil traditionnel. Il demeure une culture accessoire, qui n'a toujours occupé qu'une place secondaire dans l'activité des agriculteurs (Ouédraogo et al. 2007). Au Burkina Faso, des prospections et des enquêtes auprès des agriculteurs et des commerçants ont été faites par Ouédraogo et al. (2007) en termes de pratiques culturales de Fabirama. En tant que culture, elle se propage principalement par les tubercules racinaires. Cependant, les boutures de vigne de deux à trois noeuds peuvent également être utilisées pour la multiplication (Aculey et al. 2011). Des greffes et des bourgeonnements en fente et en épissure, utilisant des germes dormants et en croissance active, ont été testés (Aculey et al. 2011). Le Fabirama se cultive dans des zones moyennement arrosées recevant entre 700 et 800 mm d'eau par an. Il est cultivé sur tous les types de sols arables : argileux, gravillonnaires, sablonneux. Lorsque le sol est meuble et suffisamment humide, le Fabirama a une productivité élevée en tubercules (Ouédraogo et al. 2007). La plantation se fait sur de petites parcelles directement sur un sol plat ou aménagé en buttes. La parcelle est préparée plusieurs mois avant le semis, en y ajoutant de la fumure organique (excréments d'animaux, restes de cultures, ordures ménagers, etc.). Aux premières pluies, la parcelle est profondément remuée. Les tubercules pré-germés sont ensuite plantés et les bourgeons apicaux découverts (Ouédraogo et al. 2007). L'écartement entre les semis est d'environ 30 cm. La plantation se fait à l'envers de sorte à éviter d'abîmer les bourgeons des tubercules déjà plantés. La parcelle est ensuite délicatement recouverte de branchages ou de paille pour protéger les jeunes pousses du soleil, des prédateurs et pour maintenir l'humidité du sol.Après la levée, les branches sont retirées de la parcelle et les feuilles restantes recouvrant le sol constituent du fumier organique supplémentaire. Les mauvaises herbes sont régulièrement arrachées à la main ou par désherbage léger. Tout au long de la plantation, la plante doit être débarrassée des mauvaises herbes contre lesquelles elle se défend très mal (Ouédraogo et al. 2007).A la récolte, ce sont les tubercules de plus petite taille qui sont triés et réservés pour les prochains semis. Deux raisons justifient ce choix d'après les paysans (Ouédraogo et al. 2007):-les petits tubercules sont difficiles à éplucher à la préparation et se vendent mal sur le marché ; -ils résistent mieux au pourrissement et se conservent mieux et de façon durable.Le Fabirama est difficile à conserver. Traditionnellement, les tubercules sont stockés dans le sol sous un arbre où il fait plus frais que dans un espace ouvert (voir Enyiukwu et al. 2020). Dans des conditions chaudes, le goût particulier de Fabirama ne dure généralement que deux mois, après quoi les tubercules deviennent fades et ne sont plus considérés comme un mets délicat. Le Fabirama est également conditionné dans des sacs ou des paniers remplis de paille. Si ceux-ci sont conservés dans des conditions chaudes, les tubercules se faneront rapidement et ne seront plus comestibles. Pour conserver les tubercules plus longtemps, les gens les mettent dans des pots scellés avec de la bouse de vache. Les petits tubercules nécessaires pour la prochaine saison de plantation sont stockés de cette façon (Nkansah 2004).Au Burkina Faso, la conservation des semences de fabirama se fait soit dans des jarres (marmites en terre), soit dans des paniers confectionnés avec de la paille, ou dans des greniers. Les tubercules y sont stockés seuls ou mélangés à du sable ou des débris végétaux fins, à l'abri du soleil, avec des corps gras et du sel qui les empêchent de pourrir. Les tubercules doivent également être tenus à l'écart des rats et des poulets (Ouédraogo et al. 2007). En raison du manque des moyens de stockage adéquats, la plupart des agriculteurs africains ne sont pas en mesure de stocker suffisamment de nourriture tout au long de l'année. Développer des méthodes appropriées pour la conservation et la transformation des tubercules pourrait être une alternative à court terme (Nanéma et al. 2017). Dans des conditions plus fraîches, comme dans les régions montagneuses ou en Afrique du Sud, le stockage est plus facile (Nkansah 2004).Malgré son adaptation aux conditions agricoles locales au Burkina Faso, et son importance comme denrée alimentaire, le fabirama n'est actuellement qu'une culture mineure (Nanéma et al. 2017). Des activités de recherche antérieures ont mentionné que la commercialisation de Fapirama a été moins rentable par rapport à d'autres cultures de tubercules (igname, patate douce) (Nanéma et al. 2017). Le petit calibre des tubercules constitue la principale contrainte à la culture de Fabirama en tant que principale culture de base (Aculey et al. 2011). Le rendement potentiel rapporté en Afrique de l'Ouest variait de 5 à 15 t/ha (Enyiukwu et al. 2014 ;Kwarteng et al. 2018). La plupart des tubercules trouvés en Afrique mesurent de 2,5 à 4 cm, mais certains atteignent jusqu'à 8 cm. Les tubercules de Fabirama sont généralement petits -environ 28 g, mais ils peuvent peser jusqu'à 480 g. Ces plus gros tubercules sont la norme en Inde et au Sri Lanka, où les rendements sont également plus élevés que ceux des zones semi-arides d'Afrique (voir Kwarteng et al. 2018).Selon Sugri et al. (2013), la production de Fabirama est principalement orientée vers la consommation domestique, qui représente jusqu'à 20% des aliments consommés d'octobre à décembre au Ghana. Elle est généralement produite en agriculture pluviale par moins de 30% des agriculteurs sur moins de ¼ d'hectare par agriculteur au Ghana. Une étude menée en Afrique du Sud a montré que le rendement potentiel de Fabirama peut atteindre 45 t/ha dans des conditions optimales de pluviosité, de fertilité et de texture du sol (Nkansah 2004).Au Burkina Faso, les tubercules de Fabirama à peau noire sont les principaux types vendus par tous les commerçants. Seuls 30% d'entre eux vendaient les tubercules de Fabirama à peau rouge. Le gros calibre des tubercules, le bon goût et la facilité à s'éplucher par rapport aux autres variétés ont été identifiés comme les principales caractéristiques préférées du Fabirama à peau noire (Nanéma et al. 2017). Une enquête menée à Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) a révélé que 16 à 32 g de tubercules de Fabirama étaient vendus par jour/commerçant et les prix variaient de 1,2 à 3 USD/kg (Nanéma et al. 2017). Des échanges internationaux ont été signalés entre le nord du Ghana et le Burkina Faso (Nkansah 2004).Les tubercules de Fabirama sont vendus sur une courte période par rapport aux autres tubercules (igname ou patate douce). Leur faible productivité et leur détérioration rapide pourraient expliquer cette situation. La détérioration rapide des tubercules a été également signalée par les agriculteurs comme l'une des principales contraintes à la culture des Fabirama au Burkina Faso et au Ghana (Nanéma et al. 2017). De mauvaises conditions de stockage des tubercules après la récolte peuvent entraîner leur détérioration rapide. Par conséquent, il est important que les commerçants et les agriculteurs puissent stocker les tubercules pendant une longue durée selon leurs propres conditions afin d'assurer une meilleure planification de l'utilisation de ces tubercules. Le développement de méthodes efficaces pour le stockage des tubercules pourrait inclure des techniques appropriées à appliquer à la ferme. Une autre alternative pourrait être la transformation des tubercules (Nanéma et al. 2017).Propriétés nutritionnelles et fonctionnelles 91 Projet SUSTLIVES Solenostemon rotundifolius ou Plectranthus rotundifolius (Spreng/Tumuku) (noms communs : pomme de terre Hausa, pomme de terre haoussa, pomme de terre Sudan, pomme de terre ronde Zulu, pomme de terre Coleus, pomme de terre chinoise, pomme de terre noire) est une plante herbacée vivace de la famille de la menthe (Lamiaceae) et originaire d'Afrique tropicale. Elle est cultivée pour ses tubercules comestibles principalement en Afrique de l'Ouest (zones de savane intérieure du Ghana, du Nigeria, du Bénin, du Togo, du Burkina Faso et du Mali). Cette culture est une source alimentaire vitale pendant les périodes de soudure en Afrique. Cette plante a un parfum distinctif et un goût de tubercule particulier. Les tubercules peuvent être bouillis, cuits au four ou frits (Kwarteng et al., 2018).Sur le plan ethnomédical, les feuilles de cette culture sont utilisées pour traiter la dysenterie, le sang dans l'urine et les troubles oculaires. Les tubercules sont consommés comme principal aliment amylacé ou en partie en combinaison avec des légumineuses, des légumes ou des céréales (Enyiukwu et al., 2014).Il a également une grande importance médicinale et est connu pour réduire le taux de cholestérol dans le sang ainsi que pour combattre les infections fongiques et virales chez les humains. Les feuilles de cette plante ont également été utilisées comme cicatrisantes et antiseptiques. Outre son importance agricole, elle a des usages ornementaux, médicinaux, culinaires et bien d'autres (Kwarteng et al., 2018).La pomme de terre Hausa est difficile à stocker. Traditionnellement, les tubercules sont stockés dans le sol, sous un arbre, où il fait plus frais qu'à l'air libre. Lorsqu'ils sont stockés de cette manière dans des conditions de chaleur, le goût particulier de la pomme de terre Hausa ne dure généralement que deux mois, après quoi les tubercules deviennent fades et ne sont plus considérés comme un délice (Nkansah, 2004). Les tubercules de la pomme de terre hausa sont riches en calories et en micronutriments essentiels et présentent un bon potentiel socio-économique pour atténuer la faim. Par rapport à d'autres cultures de tubercules comme le manioc, l'igname et la patate douce, S. rotundifolius a une teneur élevée en protéines, calcium, magnésium, fibres et fer. Les tubercules de Fabirama peuvent être utilisés pour fabriquer des boissons aromatiques et alcoolisées, tandis que les feuilles peuvent parfois être consommées comme des potherbes (Kwarteng et al., 2018).La peau de S. rotundifolius contient des quantités plus élevées de protéines brutes, de lipides bruts et de fibres brutes par rapport à la chair. D'autre part, la teneur en humidité, les glucides et la valeur énergétique de la chair sont plus élevés que ceux de la peau. Les teneurs en éléments minéraux obtenues ont montré que la peau contient des niveaux significativement plus élevés de magnésium, calcium, potassium et fer que la chair. La chair contient des quantités significativement faibles de composants anti-nutritionnels. La chair et la peau pourraient donc être de bonnes sources d'aliments pour la consommation humaine et la formulation d'aliments pour animaux (Kwazo et al., 2021). Le Fibirama au Burkina Faso contient également de la vitamine B1 (0,05 mg/100g de portion comestible (PC)), de la vitamine B2 (0,02 mg/100g PC), de la vitamine B3 (1,0 mg/100g PC) et de la vitamine C (1,0 mg/100g PC) (Djè, 2005) Tableau 5 : Composés anti-nutritionnels du tubercule de S. rotundifolius (mg/100g de poids sec).  (Murthy et al., 2018), sa réponse glycémique (Lakmali et al., 2019 ;Eleazu et al, 2017), sa qualité prébiotique (Jayatilake et al, 2008) et pour sa capacité à développer de nouveaux produits alimentaires fonctionnels (Hasna et al., 2020 ;Ukpabi et al., 2011) en raison de son potentiel inexploité en tant que source alimentaire alternative et pour augmenter les revenus (Reddy, 2015;Andrias et al., 2019).Les tubercules sont principalement consommés bouillis, sautés, écrasés ou épluchés et frits (Kwarteng et al., 2018). Ils sont également moulus en farine et utilisés dans divers produits alimentaires, notamment le porridge du petit-déjeuner (Morton, 2004 ;National Research Council, 2006). Une étude comparant différents types de cuisson (ébullition et friture) de certaines espèces de tubercules, dont le Solenostemon, a mis en évidence sa bonne prédisposition à fournir des frites très croustillantes avec des caractéristiques organoleptiques très appréciées par les panélistes avec l'absence de mauvais goûts et un goût très similaire au Solanum tuberosum mais avec une teneur en fibres plus élevée qui pourrait être utile dans le régime alimentaire des pays les plus industrialisés (Ukpabi et al., 2011).En outre, étant donné l'augmentation de la consommation de pain comme aliment de base, même dans les zones rurales de l'Afrique subsaharienne, il est important de valoriser toutes les études qui proposent des farines alternatives et produites localement (Olaye et al., 2006) y compris celles obtenues à partir de Solenostemon pour éviter l'importation plus coûteuse de blé (Edema et al., 2005). Cela contribuera davantage à diversifier l'utilisation de cultures largement connues et d'autres inconnues disponibles localement.Une autre étude a appliqué le processus de pré-gélatinisation à la farine de Solenostemon, augmentant sa qualité, ses propriétés physicochimiques et fonctionnelles par une structure granulaire modifiée (Majzoobi et al, 2011). La pré-gélatinisation a amélioré l'absorption et la viscosité de la farine dans l'eau froide. Ainsi, par la pré-gélatinisation, la mise en oeuvre de l'amidon sera plus applicable dans les produits alimentaires. Dans l'application alimentaire, l'amidon de pré-gélatinisation est utilisé comme agent épaississant ou de remplissage dans la soupe instantanée, le pudding, la sauce, les produits de boulangerie et les aliments congelés, également appliqué dans les flocons, les aliments en poudre, les craquelins, d'autres industries de collation (Hasna et al, 2020).C'est une culture de petits exploitants, principalement cultivée par les femmes comme nourriture de subsistance où les tubercules sont cultivés, séchés et stockés pour les périodes de soudure (National Research Council, 2006). Ce n'est pas principalement une culture de rente, mais une partie de la récolte est vendue, ce qui permet aux femmes africaines de tirer des revenus considérables (Morton, 2004 ;Sugri et al., 2013 ;National Research Council, 2006).  Le gombo (Abelmoschus esculentus) est une herbe largement cultivée pour ses fruits qui sont consommés comme des légumes. Abelmoschus esculentus (2n = 130) est probablement un amphidiploïde (allotetraploïde), dérivé de A. tuberculatus (2n = 58), une espèce sauvage de l'Inde, et une espèce encore inconnue avec 2n = 72 chromosomes. Une autre espèce de gombo comestible se trouve dans les régions humides de l'Afrique de l'Ouest et du Centre. Décrit à l'origine comme une variété botanique (Hibiscus manihot L. var. caillei A. Chev.), il a été reconnu comme une espèce distincte (Abelmoschus caillei (A. Chev.) Stevels). Il n'y a pas de différences apparentes d'utilisation entre le gombo ordinaire (A. esculentus) et le gombo d'Afrique de l'Ouest (A. caillei), c'est pourquoi ils sont souvent mis dans le même groupe. Morphologiquement, le gombo ouest-africain diffère à plusieurs égards, mais son épicalice offre les meilleures caractéristiques discriminantes avec 5-10 segments ovales libres, 10-35 mm x 4-13 mm. La plante est plus robuste que A. esculentus et la durée de culture peut dépasser 12 mois. Il possède de très nombreux chromosomes (2n = environ 192 (184-200)) et il pourrait s'agir d'un allohexaploïde, A. esculentus étant l'un des parents 12 . En Afrique, le gombo a été qualifié de « légume parfait pour les villageois » en raison de sa nature robuste, de ses fibres alimentaires et des protéines distinctes de la graine, équilibrées en acides aminés : lysine et tryptophane (contrairement aux protéines des céréales et des légumineuses) qu'il apporte au régime alimentaire. Cependant, le gombo a été considéré comme une culture mineure et jusqu'à présent, aucune attention n'a été accordée à son amélioration (Kumar et al. 2010).Sites de culture au Niger Au Niger, le gombo est l'une des cultures maraîchères les plus importantes. Il est rapporté que la culture du gombo est active dans la région de Zinder au Niger (Figure 1) (Abdou et al. 2022). Une autre région, où la culture du gombo a été signalée est Damergou (Tanout), située dans la partie nord du Niger. Cette zone est l'une des régions les plus touchées par les catastrophes naturelles (famine, sécheresse). Pour faire face aux insuffisances de leur système de production, les habitants de cette région ont développé la culture du gombo dans les zones de production 13 .  Le gombo est une culture tropicale à subtropicale et est sensible au gel ; les conditions de basse température, d'engorgement de l'eau et de sécheresse. La culture a certaines caractéristiques distinctives adaptées spécifiques au pays auquel elles appartiennent (Kumar et al. 2013). Les maladies fongiques les plus graves du gombo en Afrique sont la fonte des semis (Macrophomina phaseolina, Pythium aphanidermatum, and Rhizoctonia solani), flétrissement vasculaire (Fusarium oxysporum), Brûlure cercosporéenne (Cercospora abelmoschus, Cercosporamalayensis) et l'oïdium (Erysiphe cichoracearum, Oidium abelmoschi). Le virus de la mosaïque du gombo (TMV), transmis par les altises (Podagrica) est répandu en Afrique mais les dégâts sont beaucoup moins importants que ceux causés par la maladie de l'enroulement des feuilles du gombo (OLCV), transmise par la mouche blanche (Bemisia tabaci). La mouche blanche est également le vecteur du virus de la mosaïque des nervures jaunes (BYMV), une cause majeure de mauvaises récoltes en Asie. Ces virus ne peuvent être contrôlés que par le contrôle des vecteurs. Les nématodes du genre Meloidogyne constituent un problème majeur. Les dégâts causés par les nématodes sont évités par la rotation des cultures (par exemple avec des céréales) et par de grandes applications de fumure organique. Les ravageurs les plus importants sont les foreurs de fruits et de tiges (Earias spp. et Heliothis spp., Pectinophora gossypiella), altises (Podagrica spp.) et les jassides (Empoasca spp.). Le gombo est en général plus gravement affecté par les maladies et les ravageurs que le gombo d'Afrique de l'Ouest (Kumar et al. 2013).Le gombo peut être cultivé sur une large gamme de types de sols, bien que les sols riches en limon sableux soient optimaux. Il est très important que le sol soit bien drainé et non sujet à l'engorgement. Il est difficile d'obtenir de bonnes plantules lors d'un semis direct dans des sols argileux lourds. Le sol doit être bien approvisionné en matière organique. Cela peut être accompli en épandant du fumier animal ou en incorporant des cultures d'engrais verts. Le gombo est légèrement sensible à l'excès d'acidité du sol ; un chaulage approprié est donc essentiel. Le pH optimal du sol pour le gombo se situe entre 6,0 et 7,0. Si de la chaux est nécessaire, il est recommandé d'utiliser de la chaux dolomitique pour fournir du calcium et du magnésium (Lamont, 1999). La fertilisation doit être basée sur une analyse du sol pour éviter une vigueur excessive des plantes et de mauvais rendements. Si une analyse de sol n'est pas disponible, une recommandation générale est d'appliquer N 34 kg/ha, P 29 à 38 kg/ha et K 55 à 74 kg/ha. Tout cela peut être incorporé sous la rangée ou appliqué en bande sur le côté. L'azote doit également être traité à 28 kg/ha, lorsque les plantes mesurent 15 à 20 cm et à nouveau 2 à 3 semaines plus tard. Un apport supplémentaire d'azote peut être en cas de précipitations excessives susceptibles de lessivage des engrais précédemment appliqués (Lamont, 1999).La production mondiale de gombo (les deux espèces) en tant que légume-fruit frais est estimée à 6 millions de t/an. Le gombo commun représente 95 % de cette quantité. Ce n'est qu'en Afrique de l'Ouest et du Centre (représentant environ 10 % de la production mondiale) que le gombo commun et le gombo d'Afrique de l'Ouest sont tous les deux utilisés. Ils se partagent le marché à peu près moitié-moitié (Kumar et al. 2013). Un rendement maraîcher de 10 t/ha peut être considéré comme une bonne récolte de gombo, mais des rendements supérieurs à 40 t/ha peuvent être réalisés dans des conditions optimales. Les rendements sont généralement faibles (2-4 t/ha) en raison de méthodes de culture non intensives. Les rendements en graines sont de l'ordre de 500-1000 kg/ha (Kumar et al. 2013).Propriétés nutritionnelles et fonctionnelles Comme aliment, le gombo peut être consommé frais ou cuit et utilisé comme additif dans les soupes, les salades et les ragoûts. Le gombo est une culture de grande valeur parce qu'il représente une source d'éléments nutritifs importants pour la santé humaine, par exemples les vitamines, le potassium, le calcium, les glucides, les fibres alimentaires et les acides gras insaturés comme les acides linolénique et oléique (Durazzo et al., 2019). Les glucides sont présents dans le gombo principalement sous forme de mucilage, couramment utilisé dans différents secteurs industriels et à des fins médicinales. Les fruits, les graines et les feuilles du gombo ont des applications en raison de leur composition et de leurs propriétés (Dantas et al., 2021).Le gombo, connu pour ses capacités de guérison, a été utilisé comme médecine traditionnelle pour traiter plusieurs maladies. Une série de composés bioactifs, comme les flavonoïdes et les catéchines, y ont été trouvés et ont été associés à de nombreuses propriétés biologiques observées lors d'études qui ont signalé entre autres des effets antidiabétiques, anticancéreux, antihypertenseurs et antimicrobiens à la suite de leur consommation. Ces bienfaits potentiels pour la santé contribuent à la mise au point d'aliments fonctionnels nouveaux et utiles, dont l'ingrédient mis en évidence est le gombo (ou ses dérivés) (Agregan et al., 2022). en énergie du gombo, ses graines contiennent des acides gras insaturés, comme l'acide linoléique, essentiels à la nutrition humaine. Les graines sont également riches en α-tocophérol et ont des teneurs élevées en minéraux, notamment calcium, potassium, cuivre, fer, phosphore, magnésium, zinc et manganèse (Dantas et al., 2021).  (Elkhalifa et al., 2021).La présence de facteurs antinutritionnels a été signalée dans les feuilles de gombo. Ces composés limitent la biodisponibilité des minéraux et l'assimilation des protéines. En particulier, une teneur similaire en tanins a été mesurée dans les feuilles fraîches et blanchie (respectivement 0,44 ± 0,22% ; 0,45 ± 0,05% d'équivalents d'acide tannique) et a également été observé que le processus de cuisson a réduit la teneur à des valeurs acceptables (0,27± 0,06%) (Caluete et al., 2014).Le gombo est considéré comme un aliment fonctionnel présentant de multiples avantages pour la santé en raison des nombreux composés bioactifs découverts dans ses tissus. Parmi ces composés, on trouve des polyphénols, qui sont principalement des catéchines oligomériques et des dérivés de flavonol (Agregán et al., 2022). De nombreuses études ont indiqué les activités biologiques de différentes parties du gombo (activités antioxydantes, anti-inflammatoires et immunomodulatrices, antibactériennes, anticancéreuses, antidiabétiques, protectrices des organes et neuropharmacologiques, hypolipidémiantes, inhibitrices de la trypsine, hémagglutinantes, antiadhésives et antifatigues) en raison de leur teneur élevée en composés bioactifs.Les fruits frais (gousses) sont riches en pectine et en mucilage, en vitamines, en acide oxalique et en acides aminés. Les graines de gombo contiennent une grande quantité de catéchines oligomériques et 108 Projet SUSTLIVES de dérivés de flavonol, ainsi que des protéines. La fraction huileuse dérivée des graines contient une quantité élevée d'acides palmitique, oléique et linoléique. Les racines contiennent des glucides et des glycosides de flavonol tandis que les feuilles contiennent des minéraux et des glycosides de flavonol (Islam, 2019 ;Durazzo et al., 2019). En plus de ses qualités nutritionnelles, de sa teneur élevée en molécules bioactives et des bénéfices pour la santé qui y sont liés, le gombo ne contient pas de gluten et possède des propriétés technologiques intéressantes telles que l'émulsification, l'épaississement ou la gélification. Toutes ces caractéristiques font du gombo un ingrédient potentiel pour la production d'aliments fonctionnels (Dantas et al., 2021).Les glucides sont présents dans le gombo principalement sous forme de mucilage, c'est-à-dire un polysaccharide très visqueux composé principalement de monosaccharides D-galactose, L-rhamnose et acide galacturonique, ainsi que de protéines et de minéraux. Les propriétés fonctionnelles du mucilage de gombo ont été largement étudiées, principalement pour son activité antidiabétique potentielle ; en fait, son utilisation comme adjuvant ou nutraceutique dans le traitement du diabète est très prometteuse. En raison de ses propriétés rhéologiques, il constitue une ressource potentielle pour des applications pharmaceutiques et alimentaires (Dantas et al., 2021).Bien que les avantages potentiels du gombo sur différents troubles chroniques aient été explorés scientifiquement, le potentiel de cette culture végétale extraordinaire, rentable, facilement disponible et bon marché n'est pas encore pleinement exploité pour les formulations nutraceutiques. En particulier, les nutraceutiques à base de gombo pourraient devenir une source idéale de nutrition pour les personnes souffrant de malnutrition dans les pays moins développés, jouant ainsi un rôle essentiel dans la prévention et la gestion de la santé, ainsi que dans l'amélioration de la santé (Elkhalifa et al., 2021).Comme aliment, le gombo peut être consommé frais ou cuit et utilisé comme additif dans les soupes, les salades et les ragoûts. Le gombo offre de nombreuses possibilités de production. Les gousses contiennent de grandes quantités de fibres alimentaires et sont souvent séchées, stockées et consommées sous forme de soupe/sauce comme un aliment de base. Une demi-tasse de gousses cuites (fraîches) fournit environ 10 % des niveaux recommandés de vitamine B6, d'acide folique et de vitamines A et C. Comme il peut être facilement séché, moulé (en poudre) et stocké pendant de longues périodes (contrairement aux légumes périssables), les producteurs et les transformateurs peuvent ajouter de la valeur et profiter des fluctuations saisonnières des prix. Outre le rendement en gousses, le feuillage et les tiges peuvent peser jusqu'à 27 t/ha. Cette biomasse est susceptible de devenir utile à mesure que les prix des carburants augmentent et que les nouvelles technologies promettent une conversion efficace en carburants liquides. Il convient de mentionner que les tiges de gombo génèrent une chaleur considérable sans étincelles, fumée excessive ou mauvaises odeurs. Les possibilités d'utilisation non végétale sont les suivantes : pâte à papier, comme son proche parent le kenaf, oléagineux, mucilage, sacs et cordes, bioabsorbant, médecine (National Research Council, 2006).La principale application du gombo est alimentaire, mais les parties restantes de la plante peuvent être utilisées comme élément structurel dans les matériaux composites. Les fibres libériennes de gombo sont considérées comme une alternative aux fibres les plus couramment utilisées, comme le jute, le lin ou le chanvre, ce qui va dans le sens de la tentative générale d'élargir le nombre d'espèces botaniques dont sont extraites les fibres (Stawski et al., 2020). Un avantage supplémentaire de l'utilisation des fibres de la tige de gombo est l'utilisation des parties non comestibles, qui sont normalement des déchets recyclables. En effet, obtenir des fibres de tige de gombo signifie retirer des champs les déchets de la production alimentaire. Par conséquent, la production de fibres de gombo n'entre pas en concurrence avec la production alimentaire car les deux processus se déroulent en parallèle dans la même zone (Arifuzzaman, 2017). Le mucilage de gombo est un exemple clair de nutraceutique pouvant être utilisé dans la préparation de produits alimentaires recherchant une fonctionnalité industrielle et/ou nutritionnelle, se révélant être un bon agent émulsifiant pour différentes matrices, tant à des fins alimentaires que pharmacologiques. Outre leur capacité à former des émulsions stables, les polysaccharides de gombo peuvent être utilisés comme épaississants, améliorateurs de viscosité ou gélifiants dans des produits tels que les sauces, les pâtes à tartiner hypocaloriques ou les substituts de mayonnaise (Agregán et al., 2022).Les principales applications potentielles des polysaccharides de gombo dans différentes industries sont décrites dans la figure ci-dessous (Dantas et al., 2021). D'autre part certaines études ont montré la possibilité d'extraire des nanoparticules d'argent de manière écologique et économique, en utilisant les feuilles de gombo, pour une utilisation ultérieure comme antimicrobiens applicables à certains pathogènes alimentaires (Hatipoğlu, 2021).Le gombo est cultivé de manière extensive et on trouve ce légume sur la plupart des marchés d'Afrique. La culture est largement répandue dans les régions tropicales, subtropicales et à température chaude. Certaines études indiquent que le gombo a influencé positivement le développement humain, en fournissant des avantages nutritionnels, médicinaux, pharmaceutiques et économiques. En plus de servir d'aliment, la production de gombo a permis d'améliorer le niveau de vie et l'économie des agriculteurs locaux, en fournissant un revenu pendant la saison morte pour compléter les cultures telles que le manioc et l'igname et en contribuant à l'augmentation de la production agricole mondiale (Adiaha, 2017).Au Nigéria, une étude menée dans le cadre d'une évaluation rurale participative a mis en évidence un écart important entre les sexes, 73 % des hommes interrogés s'occupant principalement de la culture et 27 % des femmes s'occupant de la conservation et de la transformation. La plupart des agriculteurs étaient âgés de 31 à 60 ans (71%), 23% avaient moins de 30 ans, tandis que 7% avaient plus de 60 ans. La majorité des répondants étaient mariés et parmi eux, 31% n'avaient pas été scolarisés, 24 et 23% avaient suivi un enseignement primaire et secondaire, respectivement, 10% avaient suivi un enseignement supérieur et 13% avaient suivi un enseignement coranique et des adultes. Les communautés étudiées sont principalement agricoles, la majorité (97%) des répondants ayant l'agriculture comme occupation principale. La plupart des répondants exercent leurs activités agricoles sur des terres héritées (53%) et cultivent le gombo au moins deux fois par an (58%). 78 % utilisent la méthode de la polyculture, et 93 % cultivent une variété indigène non améliorée de gombo. Leur principale source d'approvisionnement en graines de gombo pour les semis est issue des graines conservées de leur récolte passée (53 %) (Ibitoye et Kolawole, 2022).Abdou, R., Zango, O., Toudou, A. K., So, T. K. A., & Bakasso, Y. (2022a). Effet des fertilisants sur la productivité de trois variétés de gombo (Abelmoschus esculentus L. Moench.) de la région de Zinder (Niger). Int. J. Biol. Chem. Sci, 16(1), 378-389. Le moringa est l'un des arbres vivaces à croissance rapide, à feuilles caduques de taille moyenne d'environ 10 m à 12 m de hauteur. L'écorce a une couleur gris blanchâtre et est entourée de liège épais. Les jeunes tiges ont une écorce violacée ou blanc verdâtre. Les fleurs sont blanc crème jaunâtre et odorantes. Le fruit mûr est une capsule pendante de 20 à 45 cm contenant 15 à 20 graines globuleuses brun foncé de 1 à 1,2 cm de diamètre (voir Mallenakuppe et al. 2019).Moringa oleifera est un arbre polyvalent répandu qui aurait des propriétés nutritionnelles, thérapeutiques et prophylactiques avec plusieurs applications industrielles. Il est bien connu du monde antique, mais ce n'est que récemment qu'il a été redécouvert en raison de la grande variété de ses utilisations potentielles. Chaque partie de l'arbre moringa (fruits, graines, feuilles, fleurs, écorce et racines) est associée à la présence d'au moins un ou plusieurs avantages. Toutes les parties de l'espèce sont traditionnellement utilisées à des fins différentes, mais les feuilles sont généralement les plus utilisées dans le monde entier (voir Mallenakuppe et al. 2019).Sites de culture au Burkina Faso Le moringa est cultivé dans le district rural de Gaongo, province de Bazega dans le centre-sud du Burkina Faso (Zongo et al. 2018). Cinq provenances du Burkina Faso (Gaoua et Dano dans la zone sud-soudanaise, Ouagadougou, FadaN 'Gourma et CNSF dans la zone nord-soudanaise) ont montré des performances supérieures pour la culture, et le moringa peut être recommandé pour la plantation dans d'autres zones présentant des conditions écologiques similaires (Dao & Kabore 2015).Le moringa est une culture commerciale au Niger consommée quotidiennement comme légume à feuilles dans les zones urbaines. Les régions de Maradi et Tillaberi sont les deux principales zones de Projet SUSTLIVES production de moringa du Niger. La région de Maradi est la plus ancienne zone de production de moringa au Niger. Les plantations des agriculteurs sont situées principalement dans la vallée de la rivière Goulbi (Halilou et al. 2022). Dans la région ouest du Niger, les trois principaux sites de production de moringa sont Toulware, Karey-Gorou et Sarando (Haougui et al. 2017).Au Burkina Faso, pour différencier les moringas cultivés, les traits de croissance (hauteur, nombre de branches et de pennes, longueur et largeur des feuilles) et la production de biomasse ont été mesurés sur des plantules de moringa âgés de deux semaines et de deux mois. Le résultat n'a indiqué aucune corrélation significative entre les caractéristiques morphologiques et les données agroclimatiques (longitude, altitude et précipitations annuelles) de l'origine des graines. Des variations significatives entre les provenances pour les caractéristiques morphologiques et la production de biomasse (P ≤ 0,05) ont été observées (Dao & Kabore 2015).L'Inde a effectué la plupart des recherches sur le moringa dans le monde. L'Inde a également reconnu la variété de MoringaPKM1, qui est une variété annuelle. Il n'y a pas de variété établie de moringa vivace 14 .Le moringa tolère un large éventail de conditions environnementales. Il pousse mieux à des températures variant entre 25 et 35˚C, mais tolère jusqu'à 48 ˚C à l'ombre et peut survivre à une légère gelée. Cet arbre tolérant à la sécheresse pousse bien dans les zones recevant des quantités de précipitations annuelles allant de 250 à 1500 mm. Les altitudes inférieures à 600 m sont les meilleures pour le Moringa, mais cet arbre adaptable peut pousser à des altitudes allant jusqu'à 1200 m sous les tropiques (Palada & Chang, 2003). Le moringa préfère un sol sableux ou limoneux bien drainé mais tolère aussi l'argile. Il ne survivra pas en cas d'inondation prolongée et de mauvais drainage. Le moringa tolère un pH de sol de 5,0-9,0 (Palada & Chang, 2003).Le moringa est résistant à la plupart des ravageurs et des maladies, mais des épidémies peuvent apparaître dans certaines conditions. Par exemple, la pourriture des racines causée par Diplodia peut apparaître dans les sols gorgés d'eau, provoquant un flétrissement important et la mort des plantes. Les populations d'acariens peuvent augmenter dans un climat sec et frais. Ces parasites provoquent le jaunissement des feuilles, mais les plantes se rétablissent généralement dans un climat chaud. Les autres insectes ravageurs comprennent les termites, les pucerons, les mineuses, les aleurodes et les chenilles (Palada et Chang, 2003). Au Niger, les recherches ont révélé la présence de 11 genres de nématodes phytoparasites dans le moringa, parmi lesquels les plus fréquents et les plus abondants sont Helicotylenchus spp. et Hoplolaimus spp. (Haouigui et al. 2017). La production et la gestion du moringa sont faciles en raison de sa croissance rapide, de sa faible demande en nutriments du sol et en eau après avoir été planté, surtout aux stades ultérieurs, de sa grande capacité de repousse après la récolte, ce qui lui permet de mieux se comporter dans des conditions extrêmes avec une qualité nutritionnelle élevée. Ses racines pénètrent profondément dans le sol à la recherche d'eau et de nutriments, ce qui permet aux arbres de moringa de tolérer des conditions sévères. Des exigences relativement faibles en matière d'irrigation rendent le moringa supérieur à d'autres aliments pour le bétail comme le soja, les tourteaux de graines de coton et les graminées qui nécessitent une irrigation intensive, ce qui le rend trop difficile à cultiver pour les petits éleveurs. Le moringa peut être cultivé dans divers sols, y compris les régions tropicales et subtropicales chaudes, humides, sèches, à l'exception des conditions gorgées d'eau. Les sols légèrement alcalins argileux et limono-sableux sont considérés comme les meilleurs pour cette espèce en raison de leur bon drainage (Mallenakuppe et al. 2019).Source : Mallenakuppe et al. (2019).Le moringa peut être multiplié par plantation directe de graines, repiquage de plantules et boutures de tiges matures. Le semis direct est préférable, lorsque le taux de germination est élevé. Les graines doivent être semées à une profondeur maximale de 2 cm car un semis plus profond pourrait réduire le taux de germination. Il y a environ 4 000 graines de moringa (avec leur coque) pour 1 kg avec un pourcentage de germination de 78 à 94 %. Les graines de moringa germent après 5 à 12 jours du semis.Les semis sont effectués dans des sacs en polyéthylène ou des sacs pré-remplis de terreau en semant les graines à une profondeur de 2 cm et en arrosant une fois tous les 2-3 jours. Après le semis, il faut les placer dans un endroit légèrement ombreux et les protéger des fortes pluies. Les plantules de moringa doivent être entretenues pendant 4 semaines avant d'être transplantées pour un meilleur taux Tableau 1. Les exigences pour la culture des arbres moringa.Projet SUSTLIVES de survie lorsqu'elles atteignent environ 30 cm de haut. Lors de la transplantation, le sac en polyéthylène doit être retiré en veillant à ce que les racines de la plante ne soient pas endommagées.Des boutures de bois dur de 40 cm de long et de 4 à 5 cm de diamètre peuvent également être utilisées pour la propagation en enterrant un tiers de la tige dans le sol. Les plantes produites avec des boutures n'auront pas un système racinaire profond et seront plus sensibles aux attaques du vent, de la sécheresse et des termites. L'espacement doit être beaucoup plus large pour la production de semences ou de fruits. Les arbres doivent être espacés d'au moins 2,5 m et plantés selon un schéma triangulaire de 3 x 3 m pour les exploitations productrices de semences (Mallenakuppe et al. 2019).Le sol doit être soigneusement préparé avant la plantation afin de lutter contre la croissance précoce des mauvaises herbes. Il est recommandé d'appliquer de la paille et/ou un paillis de plastique autour de la base de chaque jeune arbre. Pour maintenir une plantation exempte de mauvaises herbes, il faut cultiver régulièrement entre les lits et les rangées (Palada et Chang, 2003).La lutte chimique contre les insectes nuisibles ne doit être utilisée qu'en cas de grave contamination. Il faut choisir un pesticide qui cible le ravageur spécifique à l'origine des dégâts et éviter les pesticides qui tuent ou empêchent le développement d'organismes utiles. Il faut également opter pour des pesticides qui ne durent que quelques jours.Les bovins, les moutons, les porcs et les chèvres mangent les plantules, les gousses et les feuilles de moringa. Il faut protéger les plantules de moringa du bétail en installant une clôture ou en plantant une haie autour de la parcelle (Palada & Chang, 2003).L'arbre de moringa a été signalé comme ayant des valeurs économiques et culturelles élevées. Cet arbre miracle est cultivé dans le monde entier à des fins économiques et à l'échelle commerciale. Il est cultivé en tant qu'arbre unique dans les fermes, autour des étables, sur les limites des exploitations agricoles ou en tant que groupe d'arbres sur les terrains vagues des villages, ce qui a également conduit à l'émergence de la plantation de moringa, des entreprises de transformation avec son implication dans la création d'emplois et donc la réduction de la pauvreté. Un bon nombre de familles, et en particulier les femmes, s'engagent dans la distribution et la vente de feuilles de moringa fraîches. Elles vivent de l'approvisionnement quotidien des centres urbains (Omotesho et al. 2013).Au Nigeria, le rendement moyen en feuilles humides par moringa est de 4,5 kg par an, ce qui équivaut à 1 kg de poudre de feuilles sèches, soit un ratio de 4,3 kg pour 1 kg de poudre de feuilles organiques sèches. En moyenne, un hectare de moringa planté donnera 50 616 kg de poudre de feuilles sèches et un revenu brut de 75 924 $ par an. Il est important de noter que la plante moringa produit pendant sept ans ou plus, ce qui permet d'économiser le travail des établissements récents et le coût des intrants tandis que la plante continue à produire des revenus pour l'agriculteur. Avec le besoin de sources alternatives de biogaz pour répondre à la demande croissante, le potentiel de l'arbre moringa dans la production de biogaz a été exploré. (Omotesho et al. 2013). Moringa oleifera, qui appartient à la famille des Moringaceae, est communément appelé « arbre pilon » ou « radis à cheval ». Toutes les parties du Moringa oleifera (feuilles, racines, fleurs, gousses et graines) sont comestibles et contiennent de grandes quantités de divers micronutriments, tels que calcium, potassium, zinc, magnésium, fer, cuivre, vitamines (A, B, C, E) et phytochimiques tels que tanins, stérols, terpénoïdes, flavonoïdes, saponines, les anthraquinones, les alcaloïdes et les sucres réducteurs.En outre, l'huile de Moringa contient environ 76% d'acide linolénique et d'acide oléique, ce qui en fait un substitut potentiel de l'huile d'olive. Les feuilles de Moringa contiennent une quantité exceptionnellement élevée de protéines comparativement à d'autres feuilles consommées comme nourriture et acides aminés essentiels comme la lysine, le tryptophane, la phénylalanine, la valine, etc. (Trigo et al., 2021). Le Moringa fournit 7 fois plus de vitamine C que les oranges, 10 fois plus de vitamine A que les carottes, 17 fois plus de calcium que le lait, 15 fois plus de potassium que les bananes et 25 fois plus de fer que les épinards (Gopalakrishnan et al., 2016). Cette composition nutritionnelle fait du Moringa un remède efficace pour traiter la malnutrition et lui confère des activités anti-tumorale, antipyrétique, antiépileptique, anti-inflammatoire, diurétique, antihypertenseur, hypocholestérolémiant, antioxydant, antidiabétique, antibactérien et antifongique. Par conséquent, il est utilisé pour plusieurs pathologies (telles que cardiopathies, maladies gastro-Projet SUSTLIVES intestinales circulatoires, hyperglycémie, dyslipidémie, etc.). Les Africains utilisent depuis longtemps le Moringa en phytothérapie (Gopalakrishnan et al., 2016 ;Kashyap et al., 2022).Tableau 2 : Composition chimique des feuilles de Moringa (ben oléifère), fraîches, crues et feuilles de Moringa (ben oléifère), fraîches, bouillies (g/100g de portion comestible (PC))Moringa (ben oléifère), feuilles, fraîches, crues Moringa (ben oléifère), feuilles, fraîches, bouillies Énergie (kJ) 338 359Énergie (kcal) 81 86Eau (g) 75,1 73,5Protéines totales (g) 8,4 8,9Lipides totaux (g) 1.4 1.5Glucides disponibles (g) 4,5 4,8Fibres alimentaires totales (g) 8,2 Les feuilles de Moringa contiennent des facteurs antinutritionnels comme l'oxalate et le phytate et les tanins qui peuvent réduire la biodisponibilité de certains nutriments. Il a été signalé que des traitements comme la torréfaction (Alidou et al., 2016) et l'ébullition (Sallau et al., 2012) réduisent efficacement la teneur en ces éléments antinutritionnels, ce qui augmente la biodisponibilité des nutriments. Faire bouillir les feuilles avant de les consommer est une pratique traditionnelle des communautés locales de Zaria, au Nigeria.Les feuilles de Moringa sont riches en polyphénols, dont les principaux composés sont les flavonoïdes et les acides phénoliques. Les flavonoïdes observés sont principalement la quercétine et le kaempférol, alors que les acides phénoliques sont principalement des acides gallique, chlorogénique, ellagique et férulique. Les feuilles contiennent également des saponines, des tanins, des tanins catécholiques, des anthraquinones et des alcaloïdes (Omede, 2016).Tableau 6 : Concentration de certains composants antioxydants contenus dans les feuilles de Moringa oleifera du Nigeria1,622 ± 0,068 1,058 ± 0,091 2,099 ± 0,087 Total des flavonoïdes 0,921 ± 0,050 0,66 ± 0,130 1,311 ± 0,152 Anthocyanine 0,126 ± 0,040 0,060 ± 0,016 0,348 ± 0,006 Proanthocyanidine 0,026 ± 0,012 0,06 ± 0,011 0,291 ± 0,017 Tanins 1,332 ± 0,311 1,246 ±0,860 1,678 ± 0,987Toutes les valeurs sont exprimées en moyenne ± EME (n=3), les phénols totaux sont exprimés en mgGAE/g de poids sec ; la teneur totale en flavonoïdes des différentes fractions est exprimée en équivalent quercétine par gramme d'extrait végétal ; la concentration en anthocyanes, proanthocyanidines et tanins est exprimée en g/100g.Source : Omede (2016).Le Moringa présente des avantages remarquables pour la santé, notamment une activité antioxydante, antimicrobienne, anticancéreuse, anti-inflammatoire et antidiabétique, comme le montre la figure.  Par conséquent, presque toutes les parties de la plante Moringa oleifera ont été utilisées dans les systèmes de médecine ethnomédicale et traditionnelle pour guérir diverses maladies humaines, notamment la dysenterie, l'asthme, la syphilis, les rhumatismes, les maux d'oreille, les maux de dents, les maux de dents, les maux de tête, les fièvres, les bronchites, les infections oculaires, l'hyperchite, la chole-stérolémie, l'athérosclérose, l'arthrite, le cancer et les troubles immunitaires (Trigo et al, 2021 ;Ghimire et al, 2021 ;Kashyap et al, 2022).En particulier, en ce qui concerne les feuilles de Moringa, leurs bienfaits pour la santé (antidiabétiques, antibactériens, anticancéreux et anti-inflammatoires) sont dus à leur teneur élevée en phytochimiques, en caroténoïdes et en glucosinolates (Kashyap et al, 2022).De plus, on s'intéresse de plus en plus à l'utilisation du Moringa comme ingrédient à valeur ajoutée dans la mise au point d'aliments fonctionnels (Kashyap et al, 2022).Utilisation des différentes parties de la plante -en tant qu'aliment ou à d'autres fins -, etinformations sur la transformation Le Moringa est attrayant pour sa croissance rapide, sa tolérance à la sécheresse, sa forte production de biomasse et sa grande valeur nutritive (Kwaambwa et al., 2012). Le Moringa est aussi appelé « Arbre Miracle » ou « Arbre de vie » probablement en raison des multiples usages et fins auxquels il 122 Projet SUSTLIVES est destiné. La plupart de ses composants sont utilisés à des fins médicinales et commerciales, en plus des propriétés nutritionnelles et du traitement de l'eau (Kwaambwa et al., 2012). Les feuilles et les gousses sont principalement utilisées comme aliments, crues ou cuites, alors que les effets médicinaux de ses parties n'ont pas encore été scientifiquement prouvés, au point que de graves idées fausses sur leur efficacité et leur utilisation sont à craindre, principalement liées au risque que les personnes vivant avec le VIH arrêtent le traitement antirétroviral (Kwaambwa et al., 2012). À cette fin, la plupart des recommandations scientifiques considèrent la supplémentation nutritionnelle de Moringa comme faisant partie d'une approche globale basée principalement sur le traitement antirétroviral (Gambo et al., 2021).Toutes les parties (feuilles, fleurs, cosses, racines, gomme) de Moringa oleifera sont une source de polysaccharides précieux avec un potentiel incroyable en raison de leurs nombreuses bioactivités et propriétés thérapeutiques, utiles dans la formulation de nouveaux médicaments et adjuvants (Sharma et al., 2022).En particulier, au Nigeria, les feuilles de Moringa sont fréquemment utilisées comme légume, consommées seules ou en combinaison avec d'autres plantes à feuilles ou préparées d'une manière spéciale mélangées avec du gâteau d'arachide (Kwulikwuli) et d'autres épices, puis consommées. La consommation de ce médicament à base de plantes est associée au traitement de plusieurs maux comme indiqué dans le tableau (Popoola et Obembe, 2013). Ces dernières années, les feuilles de Moringa oleifera sont apparues comme un ingrédient potentiel pour le développement de produits alimentaires nutritionnellement riches et thérapeutiquement actifs, en raison du nombre croissant de rapports scientifiques qui documentent leurs activités biologiques et leurs effets bénéfiques dans la prévention et l'atténuation des complications de différentes maladies (Hassan et al., 2021).Les feuilles de Moringa ont été utilisées comme ingrédients fonctionnels dans le développement et la formulation de différents produits alimentaires (Kashyap et al., 2022). Pour ses propriétés nutritionnelles, Moringa oleifera est une source d'alimentation extrêmement précieuse pour traiter la malnutrition et prévenir les carences en micronutriments sans modifier les habitudes alimentaires de la population et pourrait représenter une ressource importante notamment pour les pays pauvres (Trigo et al., 2021). En outre, il s'agit d'une plante avec une bonne adaptabilité à différents sols et de climats ayant une propagation facile et des faibles coûts de production. Par conséquent, cette espèce qui reste encore négligée et sous-utilisée a le potentiel de devenir une importante culture polyvalente en Afrique et une ressource industrielle et économique pour le pays (Trigo et al., 2021).Le Moringa oleifera a été introduit comme une nouvelle culture en Afrique du Sud où certains projets orientés par le gouvernement soutiennent la production de Moringa dans le but de soulager la malnutrition et consacrent un soutien financier et technique aux agriculteurs de Moringa. En 2013, la Moringa Development Association of South Africa a été financée pour promouvoir la production, l'utilisation et la commercialisation du Moringa. Elle regroupe des agriculteurs, des développeurs de produits et des consommateurs et collabore avec des infrastructures et des organisations de recherche (Mashamaite et al., 2021). Les projets ont commencé par la distribution de quelques graines à chaque participant lors de la réunion de promotion dans le but de faire pousser un arbre dans chaque village ou jardin familial (Kwaambwa et al., 2012). Le résultat de ces projets est que des produits à base de Moringa sont disponibles sur le marché. Cependant, toute la chaîne de valeur doit être construite pour assurer la stabilité de la production et des prix, pour former les agriculteurs et les producteurs sur La roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa L.) 15 est une espèce de plante à fleurs du genre Hibiscus originaire d'Afrique, plus probablement d'Afrique de l'Ouest. Au 16e et au début du 17e siècle, la roselle s'est déjà répandue dans les Indes occidentales et en Asie, respectivement, où elle s'est depuis naturalisée dans de nombreux endroits. Aujourd'hui, la roselle est largement cultivée en Australie, au Brésil, aux Caraïbes, en Amérique centrale, en Floride, à Hawaï, en Inde et aux Philippines (Mahadevan et al. 2009). Au Soudan et dans d'autres pays arabes, la roselle est appelée « Karkade » (Mohamed et al. 2012). Hibiscus sabdariffa est une plante herbacée annuelle de la famille des Malvaceae (Famille des Malvacées ou de l'Hibiscus) 16 . Plus de 300 espèces d'hibiscus poussent dans le monde (Mohamed et al. 2012). La roselle est un arbuste annuel érigé, principalement ramifié. Sa tige est de couleur rougeâtre et mesure jusqu'à 3,5 m de haut, avec une racine pivotante pénétrant profondément. Ses feuilles sont diversement colorées, vert foncé à rouge ; feuilles alternes, elles sont glabres, à long pétiole, divisées palmées en 3 à 7 lobes, à marges dentelées. Les fleurs de roselle sont grandes, à pédoncule court, rouges à jaunes avec un centre sombre. Les sépales accrescents, larges et charnus, s'élargissent et deviennent succulents, faisant une excellente gelée (Orwa et al. 2009). Hibiscus sabdariffa est une espèce tétraploïde (2n = 4x = 72), et ses chromosomes sont apparentés à ceux de l'espèce diploide (2n = 2x = 36) Hibiscus cannabinus. Il existe deux types botaniques de  roselles : Hibiscus sabdariffa var. sabdariffa, cultivée pour son calice charnu rouge brillant, et Hibiscus sabdariffa var. altissima cultivée pour ses fibres de phloème (voir Mohamed et al. 2012). La partie commercialement importante de la roselle est le calice charnu (sépales) entourant le fruit (capsules). Les graines contiennent 17,8-21 % d'huile non comestible et 20 % de protéines, et elles sont principalement utilisées pour l'alimentation animale (voir Mohamed et al. 2012). Pour l'alimentation humaine, la roselle est utilisée comme légume feuillu et comme fruit au Burkina Faso. En effet, toutes les parties de la plante (feuilles, calices et graines) sont utilisées dans l'alimentation humaine (Ouangraoua et al. 2021). Au Burkina Faso, l'utilisation de la roselle varie d'une ethnie à l'autre et même au sein d'une même ethnie (Ouangraoua et al. 2021).2. Les sites de culture et les variétés de Roselle au Burkina Faso La roselle est largement utilisée au Burkina Faso (Ouangraoua et al. 2021). L'Hibiscus sabdariffa a déjà largement contribué à la lutte contre la famine au Burkina Faso de 1930 à 1931 causée par l'invasion des criquets pèlerins, car l'espèce était la seule plante épargnée par ceux-ci (voir Ouangraoua et al. 2021). La région des provinces de l'Ouest du Burkina Faso représente les zones de forte production de roselle. Il s'agit des provinces du Mouhoun et de Kossi dans la zone soudano-sahélienne et des provinces de Ioba, Poni, Balés et Houet dans la zone soudanienne (Figure 3) (Ouangraoua et al. 2021).Au Burkina Faso, pour la dénomination des cultivars locaux, les paysans utilisent les critères morphologiques tels que la couleur, la taille de la plante et la taille des calices. Ainsi, deux morphotypes de roselle ont été différenciés sur la base des calices : le morphotype à calice court et le morphotype à calice long, appelés respectivement, « bii » et « wegda » en langue mooré (Ouangraoua et al. 2021). Quant à la taille de la roselle, deux morphotypes ont également été classés. Le La roselle est connue pour pousser dans toutes les provinces du Niger (Atta et al. 2011) (Figure 4). Elle est bien adaptée aux conditions qui prévalent dans le sud du pays (Figure 5). Au Niger, six écotypes de Roselle ont été identifiés dans quatre régions (Tillabéry, Zinder, Maradi et Dosso) du   La diversité génétique et la structure de la population de roselle sont peu connues. Au Niger, Bakasso et al. (2013) ont identifié deux grands groupes distincts chez H. sabdariffa. Ces deux groupes génétiques étaient associés à des différences statistiques dans trois caractères phénologiques : le nombre de jours jusqu'à la floraison, le poids de 100 graines et la taille du calice. Cependant, la couleur du calice, une caractéristique morphologique couramment utilisée pour classer les différents écotypes locaux, ne se superposait pas à cette séparation (Bakasso et al. 2013). Ces résultats suggèrent que la diversité de la roselle est génétiquement structurée. Deux groupes distincts étaient clairement associés à des différences morphologiques, mais n'étaient pas couramment utilisés par les agriculteurs pour leur classification (Bakasso et al. 2013).Les contraintes liées à la production de Roselle au Burkina Faso sont généralement les inondations et les périodes sèches de la saison des pluies, les attaques de ravageurs, dont principalement les aleurodes, les ravageurs des feuilles et des calices, les chenilles qui détruisent les fruits immatures et les ravageurs des graines (Ouangraoua et al. 2021). Au Soudan, lorsque la sécheresse est prévue, les agriculteurs préfèrent cultiver la roselle plutôt que les céréales en raison de sa résistance dans des conditions défavorables (Mohamed et al. 2012).La roselle peut être attaquée par plusieurs champignons : Aecidium garckeanum, A. hibiscisurattense, Alternaria macrospora, Cercospora abelmoschi, C. malaysensis, Corynespora cassiicola, Cylindrocladium scoparium, Diplodia hibiscina, Fusarium decemcellulare, F. sarcochroum, F. solani, F. vasinfectum, Guignardia hibisci-sabdariffae, Irenopsis molleriana, Leveillula taurica, Microsphaera euphorbiae, Phoma sabdariffae, Phymatotrichum omnivorum, Phytophthora parasitica, Phytophthora terretris, Pythium perniciosum, Rhizocotonia solani, Sclerotinia fuckeliana, S. sclerotiorum, Sclerotium rolfsii. (Orwa et al. 2009).Les plants de roselle sont également attaqués par diverses maladies virales : L'enroulement des feuilles, l'enroulement des feuilles de coton et la mosaïque des nervures jaunes.La bactérie Bacillus solanacearum a également été isolée de la Roselle.En général, la récolte de Roselle doit être effectuée après 5 à 6 mois de la plantation ou 15 à 20 jours après la floraison et se poursuivre pendant environ 2 mois. En Indonésie, la fibre est récoltée après 10 mois de la plantation. Lorsqu'elle est cultivée pour sa fibre, la Roselle est plantée serrée pour produire de longues tiges avec peu de feuillage (Orwa et al. 2009). Pour la sélection, les capsules matures sont récoltées et débarrassées des calices par décortication puis séchées. Plusieurs morphotypes sont cultivés souvent en parallèle dans un même champ et sont récoltés ensemble et le tri se fait uniquement au niveau des calices. Les calices des morphotypes rouges sont séparés des calices des morphotypes blancs. Les graines obtenues sont aspergées de cendre ou de sable et stockées dans différents récipients. Ces récipients sont essentiellement des bouteilles d'eau minérale ou de boissons gazeuses, des emballages de pesticides, des bouteilles ou des sacs en plastique. L'ensemble est parfois stocké soigneusement dans un bidon ou placé dans un coin inaccessible de la maison jusqu'à la prochaine saison (Ouangraoua et al. 2021).Le Soudan est actuellement le principal producteur de Roselle. Cependant, les agriculteurs le considèrent comme un aliment de famine (Mohamed et al. 2012). La Roselle soudanaise est d'un rouge vif attrayant, très acide, et elle est extrêmement populaire en Allemagne, qui importe la majeure partie de la récolte. Les prix à l'exportation pour la saison 1992-93 pour la Roselle soudanaise, chinoise et thaïlandaise étaient de l'ordre de 1 700,00 $US/t (voir Mohamed et al. 2012). Au Soudan, la superficie totale cultivée en Roselle a été estimée à 121 800 ha pour la campagne 2000/2001, contre 9 000-33 000 ha dans les années 1970 et 20 000-25 000 ha dans les années 1980. L'augmentation de la superficie a fait passer la production de 454 tonnes dans les années 1960 à 26 000 tonnes au cours de la saison 1999/2000 (Mohamed et al. 2012). Il existe un grand potentiel de marché pour la Roselle en tant que culture commerciale pour les agriculteurs situés dans des climats plus chauds où elle pousse bien. En Asie (Malaisie/Bangladesh), le rendement en calices frais varie de 4 à 6,5 t/ha, soit environ 800 à 1 200 kg/ha, lorsqu'il est séché à 12 % d'humidité. Une seule plante de roselle peut produire jusqu'à 250 calices, soit 1 à 1,5 kg de poids frais selon les conditions environnementales. Le rendement en feuilles est d'environ 10 t/ha (Islam et al. 2016).Outre son utilisation comme légume, la commercialisation des feuilles, des calices et des graines est une importante source de revenus pour les producteurs essentiellement au Burkina Faso. Les feuilles fraîches et sèches sont vendues en tas ou en lots dans les marchés. Il en est de même pour les calices et graines dont les prix de vente varient d'un morphotype à l'autre. Ainsi, les calices du morphotype rouge, relativement plus rentables, sont vendus dans de grandes boîtes de tomates (environ 0,5 kg de calices secs) (Ouangraoua et al. 2021). Les calices du morphotype rouge communément appelé « Bissap » demeurent la principale partie de la plante la plus appréciée grâce à sa valeur marchande élevée au Burkina Faso (Ouangraoua et al. 2021).Roselle est connue pour ses propriétés médicinales, et la recherche sur la plante s'est développée ces dernières années, documentant l'attention croissante portée au potentiel de cette culture (Singhet al. 2017;Da-Costa-Rocha et al. 2014 ;Luvonga et al. 2010). Les propriétés nutritionnelles et sanitaires sont principalement attribuées au calice, aux feuilles et aux graines. L'infusion de calice est connue Projet SUSTLIVES au Soudan pour ses propriétés bénéfiques dans la réduction de la température corporelle ou de la toux (Padmaja et al., 2014). En Afrique de l'Ouest, la poudre de graines et les feuilles sont utilisées dans les repas quotidiens, crus ou cuits, et comme extrait pour les boissons froides et chaudes (Arslan et al. 2021). Traditionnellement en Afrique, plusieurs propriétés sont attribuées aux feuilles, parmi lesquelles, pour n'en citer que quelques-unes, émolliente, antimicrobienne, antipyrétique, sédative, diurétique, anthelminthique et antitussive (Duke, 2002).La perception que les femmes et les hommes ont de la culture peut être différente. Les femmes ont généralement un niveau plus élevé de considération pour l'hibiscus à la fois comme aliment et comme médicament. Cela n'est pas surprenant car la conservation de l'agrobiodiversité et les pratiques culturelles sont souvent associées à des pratiques et à un rôle différent des femmes. Une étude menée en Inde a révélé que les femmes étaient particulièrement importantes à la fois dans les pratiques de culture et dans l'entretien de la parcelle et dans la préservation des recettes alimentaires traditionnelles (Singh et al. 2006). En Afrique de l'Ouest, l'hibiscus est souvent utilisé par les femmes pour préparer des condiments alimentaires dérivés de ses graines fermentées (Arslan et al. 2021).La culture est perçue comme une culture de résilience pour sa capacité à résister aux conditions climatiques extrêmes (c'est-à-dire la sécheresse) et pour le faible niveau d'intrants qu'elle nécessite. L'hibiscus est cultivé dans le cadre d'un système agricole traditionnel, principalement pluvial et constitue une culture de rente vitale pour de nombreux petits agriculteurs (Arslan et al. 2021). Hibiscus sabdariffa (HS), communément appelé Oseille de Guinée ou Roselle, est un membre de la famille des Malvacées et compte plus de 300 espèces réparties dans les régions tropicales et subtropicales du monde entier. Elle est considérée dans le monde entier comme une plante médicinale et des effets hypolipidémiques, hypotension artérielle et antidiabétiques ont été signalés comme étant associés à la consommation d'eau et d'extraits éthanoliques des calices ou de feuilles séchées (Da-Costa-Rocha et al., 2014 ;Bule et al., 2020).De nombreuses parties de l'Oseille de Guinée, telles que les graines, les feuilles, les fruits et les racines, sont utilisées comme aliments dans différentes régions du monde. Les calices rouges charnus de Roselle sont couramment utilisés pour la production de boissons gazeuses et toniques sans alcool riches en carotène, riboflavine, anthocyanes, acide ascorbique, niacine, calcium, fer et vitamine C. Au Soudan et au Nigeria, on les fait bouillir avec du sucre pour obtenir une boisson appelée « Karkade » ou « Zoborodo ». Les jeunes feuilles et les tiges tendres de Roselle sont consommées crues ou cuites, ou sous forme de légume aigre. Les graines sont consommées grillées ou moulues dans les repas, comme les soupes et les sauces huileuses. Elles constituent une bonne source de protéines, de matières grasses et de glucides totaux et sont largement utilisées dans l'alimentation de nombreux pays africains (Singh et al., 2017).Les feuilles de roselle sont une bonne source de divers nutriments comme les protéines, les lipides, les glucides, le phosphore, le fer, le β-carotène, la riboflavine et l'acide ascorbique et contiennent de grandes quantités de composés polyphénoliques qui contribuent à la capacité antioxydante et à l'activité anti-inflammatoire. Les graines de roselle sont une bonne source d'huile grasse brute, de protéines brutes, de fibres brutes, d'hydrates de carbone et de cendres. En ce qui concerne les minéraux, le potassium est le plus répandu, suivi du sodium, du calcium, du phosphore et du magnésium. Les principaux acides gras saturés identifiés dans l'huile de graine sont les acides palmitique (20,84%) et stéarique (5,88%) et les principaux acides gras insaturés sont l'acide oléique (32,06%) et linoléique (39,31%) (Riaz et al., 2018). Les extraits de roselle contiennent divers flavonoïdes et acides polyphénoliques. Dans les extraits méthanoliques, des teneurs plus élevées en phénoliques et en flavonoïdes ont été observées dans les extraits foliaires. La teneur totale en composés phénoliques a été déterminée dans 25 populations différentes du monde entier et elle variait de 18 à 29 mg d'équivalent acide gallique (EAG) /g et comprenait l'acide néochlorogénique, l'acide chlorogénique, l'acide cryptochlorogénique, la quercétine, le kaempférol et leurs glycosides (Zhen et al., 2016). On sait que les extraits de calice séché contiennent des composants chimiques tels que des acides organiques (acide citrique, acide ascorbique, acide maléique, acide hibsicique, acide oxalique, acide tartrique) ainsi que des phytostérols, polyphénols, anthocyanes et autres antioxydants solubles dans l'eau.Les acides organiques ainsi que les composants bioactifs ont une activité de piégeage des radicaux libres. L'effet bénéfique sur la santé est principalement attribué à ces molécules bioactives (Riaz et al., 2018).Propriétés fonctionnelles et effets bénéfiques sur la santé de Hibiscus sabdariffa L'Hibiscus possède une vaste gamme d'applications médicinales, comme anticancéreuses, antispasmodiques, antifongiques, antiparasitaires, antibactériennes, anti-inflammatoires, antipyrétiques, anti-nociceptives, hépatiques et néphroprotectrices, en plus des effets antihypertenseurs potentiels (Da-Costa-Rocha et al., 2014 ;Salem et al., 2021 ;Zhang et al., 2014).  (Riaz et al., 2018).Hibiscus est l'espèce la plus citée contre l'anémie étant riche en fer et en acide ascorbique. Cet acide ascorbique contribue à l'absorption du fer non hémique, ce qui justifie leur potentiel comme antianémique en ethnomédecine (Riaz et al., 2018).La feuille d'Hibiscus présente également diverses bioactivités in vitro et in vivo, notamment des propriétés antioxydantes, antihyperlipidémiques, antiathérosclérotiques et anti-prolifération (Zhen et al., 2016).La présence de quantités importantes de vitamines, de caroténoïdes et de polyphénols fait de la Roselle un conservateur alimentaire précieux bien documenté et un produit à base de plantes sain antioxydant (Salem et al., 2021).  (Omobuwajo et al., 2000).Diverses parties de la roselle ont été utilisées en médecine traditionnelle pour traiter les rhumes, les maux de dents, les infections des voies urinaires et la gueule de bois (Riaz et al., 2018). La Roselle a diverses utilisations en nutrition et en médecine populaire. Elle est considérée comme une plante exceptionnelle ayant une variété de composants médicalement importants (produits phytochimiques). Toutes les parties de la plante, à savoir les feuilles, les calices fruitiers et les graines, sont utilisées en médecine traditionnelle. Les extraits de feuilles et de calices de fruits jouent un rôle important dans l'hypertension, les maladies cardiovasculaires, le diabète, le cancer, l'anti-vieillissement, l'obésité, etc. (Jamini et Islam, 2021).En tant que culture industrielle, la roselle est sous-utilisée. Les parties végétales telles que les calices, les graines, les fleurs et les feuilles sont utilisées à différentes fins.Les  (Sankaralingam et al., 2022).Au Burkina Faso, les femmes jouent un rôle majeur dans la production alimentaire à l'échelle familiale. De plus, la roselle est une culture qui nécessite peu d'attention et est souvent considérée comme une culture féminine (Boureima et al, 2015). Cependant, selon la région considérée et la prédominance de la culture, il est possible d'affirmer une prédominance des hommes parmi les producteurs par rapport aux femmes. Dans deux des trois régions étudiées au Niger (Dosso, Maradi et Zinder) pour la culture de la roselle, il y avait une prédominance masculine (près de 80% de l'échantillon interrogé), tandis que dans la troisième région (Dosso), il y avait une prédominance féminine (77%) pratiquant la culture 17 . Dans ces régions spécifiques, cette dernière culture a pris le rôle d'une culture à grande échelle, gérée par les hommes (Boureima et al., 2015).Pendant la saison des pluies, il est possible que son prix soit jusqu'à trois fois supérieur à celui du mil ou du sorgho. Au Niger, les agriculteurs ont besoin d'un marché fiable pour leurs produits, dont l'absence entrave le développement de cette culture. Ils auraient donc besoin d'une technologie appropriée et peu coûteuse pour entreposer la roselle en attendant de meilleures perspectives de prix (Boureima et al., 2015).  chromosomes extrêmement petits, l'origine polyploïde incertaine, l'auto-incompatibilité et l'incompatibilité croisée, etc. En particulier, l'origine polyploïde de la patate douce a fait l'objet de débats considérables depuis un demi-siècle et reste incertaine malgré la disponibilité croissante des données génomiques (Gao et al. 2020)   Projet SUSTLIVES Koussao et al. (2014) ont également analysé la diversité génétique des accessions de patate douce (Figure 2) du Burkina Faso et les ont comparées à leurs caractères morphologiques. Huit caractères phénotypiques ont été utiles pour distinguer les différents cultivars (112 accessions) en champ. Les résultats des analyses morphologiques et génétiques n'ont cependant pas montré de corrélation (avec un indice de dissemblance de 0,95). En se basant sur des approches d'évaluation moléculaire et phénotypique, le germoplasme de la patate douce au Burkina Faso présente une diversité modérée à élevée. En Ouganda, des valeurs modérées de diversité génétique ont également été signalées (Yada et al. 2010). Cependant une faible diversité dans les cultivars de patate douce d'Afrique de l'Est a été observée (Gichuru et al. 2006)   La patate douce est cultivée dans toutes les régions tropicales tempérées chaudes où il y a suffisamment d'eau pour soutenir sa croissance. La culture est sensible à la sécheresse au stade d'initiation du tubercule après 50-60 jours de la plantation (Daryanto et al. 2016). La patate douce n'est pas tolérante à l'engorgement de l'eau, car il peut causer la pourriture des tubercules et réduire la croissance des racines si l'aération est faible. La patate douce ne tolère aucune gelée 19 .Les principaux problèmes biotiques de la production de patate douce dans le monde sont les charançons de la patate douce et les maladies virales. Les charançons rayés, Alcidodes spp. et Blosyrus spp., sont très répandus en Afrique de l'Est (Lenné 1991). Par ailleurs, les champignons (foliaire, racinaire et maladies post-récolte), les bactéries (qui provoquent le flétrissement et la pourriture de la vigne), les nématodes et les phytoplasmes affectent la patate douce et entraînent des pertes de rendement (Clark et al. 2015).Parmi les maladies fongiques qui peuvent affecter la patate douce, au moins 40 agents pathogènes ont été signalés. Les plus fréquentes sont les tâches foliaires et les brûlures des tiges (causées par Cercospora, Alternaria, Helminthosporium), la pourriture des tiges, la rouille blanche et la pourriture de stockage. La maladie de brûlure des tiges et des pétioles causée par Alternaria bataticola a été signalée au Kenya, en Ethiopie et en Ouganda. Il a été suggéré que les variétés de patates douces à peau rouge sont plus résistantes à la brûlure des tiges et des pétioles que les variétés à peau blanche (Clark et al. 2015). Projet SUSTLIVES Culture Au Burkina Faso, la productivité de la patate douce en champ reste faible par rapport au potentiel de la culture (Somé et al. 2015). Malgré l'intérêt croissant des producteurs pour la patate douce, peu de résultats existent sur les systèmes de production comme ceux pratiqués par les agriculteurs en vue de la durabilité de leur activité (Ouedraogo et al. 2020). Les grosses racines tubéreuses amylacées et sucrées de la patate douce sont utilisées comme légume-racine. Les racines tubéreuses arrivent à maturité en deux à neuf mois, selon le cultivar et les conditions de culture. Les patates douces fleurissent rarement lorsque la lumière du jour est supérieure à 11 heures. Dans les zones tropicales, la culture peut être maintenue dans le sol et récoltée au besoin pour le commerce ou la consommation à domicile.La patate douce se développe mieux à une température moyenne de 24 °C, avec un ensoleillement abondant et des nuits chaudes. Des précipitations annuelles de 750 à 1 000 mm sont considérées comme les plus favorables, avec un minimum de 500 mm pendant la période de croissance. Les patates douces sont cultivées sur différents sols, mais les sols bien drainés, à texture légère et moyenne, dont le pH varie entre 4,5 et 7,0, sont les plus propices à la culture (Woolfe 1992, Ramirez 1992, Toungos et al. 2019). D'après les producteurs, différentes doses de fertilisation sont adoptées au niveau de la plaine selon la pauvreté des sols (Ouedraogo et al. 2020). La patate douce est très sensible à la toxicité de l'aluminium et meurt environ six semaines après la plantation, en absence d'application de chaux dans ce type de sol (Woolfe 1992, Toungos et al. 2019). Récemment, il a été conclu que l'application de biofertilisants et de nutriments inorganiques améliore nettement les rendements de la patate douce (Mukhongo et al. 2017). Ces plantes se multiplient principalement par coupes de tiges ou de racines ou par des pousses adventives appelées « boutures » qui poussent à partir des racines tubéreuses pendant le stockage (George et al. 2011). Au Burkina Faso, la période de plantation des patates douces varie selon la saison et les producteurs (Ouedraogo et al. 2020). Les vraies graines ne peuvent être utilisées que pour la reproduction. Étant donné que les patates douces sont plantées par des boutures de vigne plutôt que par des graines, elles sont relativement faciles à cultiver. Parce que les vignes à croissance rapide ombragent les mauvaises herbes, peu de désherbage est nécessaire. Un herbicide couramment utilisé pour débarrasser le sol de toutes les plantes indésirables qui peuvent interférer avec la croissance est le DCPA, également connu sous le nom de Dacthal (Wilson et al. 1977). Comme les patates douces ont peu d'ennemis naturels, les pesticides sont rarement nécessaires ou utilisés (Bashaasha et al. 1995). La rotation des cultures est indiquée comme une méthode de contrôle des principaux ennemis de la patate douce (Koussoubé et al, 2018).En 2019, la production mondiale de patates douces était de 92 millions de tonnes, menée par la Chine avec 56% du total mondial. Les producteurs secondaires étaient le Malawi, le Nigeria et la Tanzanie (FAOSTAT). Au Burkina Faso, la patate douce est la culture racinaire la plus importante et occupe la troisième place, après les céréales et les légumineuses, parmi toutes les cultures pratiquées (Tibiri et al. 2020). Au Burkina Faso, la patate douce est cultivée sur 5385 ha en 2020 (FAOSTAT). Le rendement était de 119.983 hg/ha en 2020. La production nationale au Burkina Faso est passée de 41.646 tonnes en 2001 à 141.000 tonnes en 2011, soit une multiplication par plus de trois (FAOSTAT). En 2020, la production n'était cependant que la moitié de celle de 2011 (70.010 tonnes, FAOSTAT). Au Niger, les patates douces ont été cultivées sur 6993 ha en 2020 (FAOSTAT). Le rendement était de 300.106 hg/ha et la production de 209.864 tonnes pour cette même année (FAOSTAT). La production de patate douce a doublé, passant de 29.860 tonnes à 59.284 tonnes au Niger entre 2001 et 2011. La consommation moyenne de patate douce au Niger était de 84 kg/an/habitant (Harouna Issa et al. 2015). Au Nigeria, la culture de la patate douce a atteint 1.511.243 ha en 2020, avec un rendement de 25.594 hg/ha (données calculées) et une production de 3.867.871 tonnes (FAOSTAT). Ainsi, la patate douce a un haut potentiel au Burkina Faso et au Niger pour devenir une plante cultivée économiquement plus importante.Si d'un côté les interdits alimentaires puissent constituer un obstacle à une alimentation équilibrée, particulièrement pour les femmes en âge de procréer et pour les enfants de moins de cinq ans, de l'autre ils existent pour protéger les parties plus faibles de la population. Parmi les Zulus en Afrique du Sud, les aliments solides à croquer (frais) comme la patate douce sont interdits pour les enfants à cause de leur digestibilité limitée spécialement par les systèmes digestifs des enfants (Ramulondi et al., 2021).Au Cameroun, dans les communautés rurales, les hommes ne mangent pas de patate douce. Son goût douceâtre fait que le tubercule soit considéré faible et donc approprié aux enfants et aux femmes. D'autant plus, on croit que sa consommation peut affaiblir les organes reproducteurs masculins et conduire à l'infertilité. Les conséquences adverses qui s'ensuivent de la consommation de la patate douce ne peuvent s'arrêter qu'avec la purification rituelle (Asi et al. 2018). A côté des croyances traditionnelles, il y a aussi des mythes autour de la patate douce qui peuvent affecter sa demande : Mythe 1 : La consommation de patate douce ou d'aliments contenant la patate douce cause le diabète. Un régime alimentaire particulièrement riche en certains types de sucres augmente le risque de développer la maladie. Contrairement aux croyances, la patate douce est souvent un aliment recommandé pour les diabétiques étant donné qu'elle contient un faible indice glycémique (IG) par rapport à de nombreux autres féculents. Cela est dû en partie à sa teneur élevée en fibres. Les aliments à faible IG libèrent lentement le glucose dans le sang ; ce qui permet de contrôler le niveau de sucre dans le sang (glucose). Mythe 2 : Les aliments sucrés comme la patate douce ont des répercussions sur la fertilité de l'homme. Faux. En fait, la vitamine A contenue dans la patate douce à chaire orange (PDCO) est importante dans la prévention de la lenteur de mobilité du spermatozoïde. La PDCO est aussi riche en acide folique et en diverses vitamines B aux propriétés antioxydantes indispensable à la protection des spermatozoïdes contre les anomalies chromosomiques. L'apport adéquat en folate est également important pour les femmes pendant la grossesse.Propriétés nutritionnelles et fonctionnelles 159 Projet SUSTLIVES Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam., communément appelée patate douce, appartient à la famille botanique des Convolvulaceae. En 2019, les quatre premiers producteurs mondiaux de patate douce, après la Chine, étaient tous des pays d'Afrique subsaharienne : le Malawi, le Nigéria, la Tanzanie et l'Ouganda. La patate douce est résistante à la sécheresse une fois établie. Elle a donc le potentiel d'améliorer la sécurité alimentaire et nutritionnelle dans l'agriculture pluviale des pays en développement, où les sécheresses pourraient gravement affecter les rendements d'autres produits de base comme les céréales (Amagloh et al., 2021).Presque toutes les parties de la patate douce (p. ex. la tige, la feuille et la racine) peuvent être consommées et leur composition en éléments nutritifs, bioactifs, non nutritifs et antinutritionnels peut varier. La racine est le plus couramment consommée dans le monde entier ; toutefois, les feuilles de patate douce sont également consommées en Afrique subsaharienne et constituent une excellente source de constituants anthocyaniques et polyphénoliques bioactifs (Islam, 2006).Toutefois, il faut noter que la composition nutritionnelle peut varier en fonction de différents facteurs, dont le génotype, la maturité, la récolte et la géographie (Alam, 2021).Les composés bioactifs présents dans les racines et/ou les feuilles de la patate douce auraient des propriétés antioxydantes, anticancéreuses, antidiabétiques, cardioprotectrices, antimicrobiennes, immunitaires et hépato-protectrices (Alam, 2021).La patate douce est riche en protéines et riche en minéraux (magnésium, fer, cuivre, manganèse, calcium, potassium), pauvre en matières grasses et en caroténoïdes (β-carotène -pro-vitamine A -et lutéine), vitamines (B1, B6, C, E) et fibres alimentaires. Par conséquent, il pourrait être une excellente source de nutriments alimentaires essentiels pour prévenir ou gérer la malnutrition liée à la vitamine A et à d'autres micronutriments. En outre, la patate douce a des propriétés fonctionnelles particulières car elle contient des hydrates de carbone bioactifs, des flavonoïdes, des anthocyanes et des acides phénoliques dans ses feuilles et ses racines (Alam, 2021). Les feuilles de patate douce se sont avérées être une source riche en lutéine, un caroténoïde capable de retarder la dégénérescence maculaire liée à la cécité. La teneur en lutéine varie de 0,38 à 0,54 mg/g de poids frais (Menelaou et al, 2006). Le contenu en bêta-carotène était significativement plus élevé (P<0,05) dans les feuilles (16,43 -34,47 mg/100 g de poids sec) que dans les racines (non détecté -11,1 mg/100 g de poids sec) (Abong et al., 2020).Propriétés fonctionnelles et effets bénéfiques pour la santé de la patate douce 166 Projet SUSTLIVES Les racines de patates douces sont considérées comme un aliment fonctionnel, car elles procurent, en plus des nutriments, d'autres bienfaits physiologiques. Ils sont riches en composants phytochimiques comme les caroténoïdes, les tocophérols, les composants phénoliques, les tanins, les flavonoïdes, les saponines et les anthocyanes, dont les concentrations varient selon la couleur de la chair et la variété. Ces phytochimiques bioactifs, individuellement ou collectivement, ont des activités antioxydantes, cardioprotectrices, antidiabétiques, hépato-protectrices, neuroprotectrices, anti-inflammatoires et antimicrobiennes, ainsi que des propriétés de régulation intestinale et de prévention de la malnutrition en vitamine A. Les effets qui en résultent sont la lutte contre les maladies et le renforcement du système immunitaire, ce qui, en fin de compte, favorise la santé et la longévité (Amagloh et al., 2021).L'analyse de la composition a révélé que les variétés de patates douces à chair orange constituent une source supérieure de β-carotène, alors que les variétés de patates douces à chair violette présentent d'excellentes teneurs en anthocyanes. Au contraire, les variétés de patates douces à chair blanche ne contiennent pratiquement pas de β-carotène. Par conséquent, les apports alimentaires des patates douces sont fortement recommandés en raison de leurs propriétés bénéfiques indéniables pour la santé. Elles offrent également des applications potentielles dans les industries alimentaires pour des aliments nouveaux à valeur ajoutée (Alam, 2021). teneurs intrinsèques élevées, comme l'indique le tableau pour les racines fraîches et bouillies de patates douces du Kenya (Abong et al, 2021).Une diminution significative de la teneur en oxalates solubles, en tanins et en acide phytique des racines bouillies est également signalée (Abong et al., 2021). En effet, l'ébullition provoque un enlèvement des parois cellulaires conduisant à la lixiviation et à la dégradation des éléments antinutritionnels, améliorant ainsi les valeurs nutritionnelles de ces matrices alimentaires. Tannins (g/100 g) 0,28 ± 0,06 0,20 ± 0,02 0,32 ± 0,15 0,12 ±0,04 0,24 ±0,02 0,15 ±0,00Acide phytique (g/100 g) 0,95 ± 0,37 0,68 ± 0,34 0,56 ± 0,30 0,25 ± 0,27 0,85 ± 0,39 0,61 ± 0,22Source : Abong et al (2021). Projet SUSTLIVES Utilisation des différentes parties de la plante -en tant qu'aliment ou à d'autres fins -et informations sur la transformation Parmi les pays d'Afrique subsaharienne, la production de patates douces au Burkina et au Niger n'est pas particulièrement importante (Low et al., 2009). Il s'agit principalement d'une culture de subsistance qui tend à devenir la principale culture de base lorsque les cultures traditionnelles, le sorgho, le maïs et le riz, deviennent difficiles à cultiver pour plusieurs raisons (Low et al 2009;Haile et al 2019). Les patates douces sont principalement destinées à la consommation fraîche. Toutefois, la disponibilité du produit est concentrée sur une période limitée de l'année, en particulier dans les régions où le climat ne permet qu'un seul cycle de production. De plus, les racines n'ont pas une longue durée de conservation. Pour contrer le caractère périssable des racines matures, les agriculteurs les stockent sous terre et les récoltent à la pièce à la demande, lorsqu'elles sont destinées à la consommation domestique. Ils peuvent aussi opter pour l'entreposage dans des fosses (Ndanyi et al., 2021).La plupart des dommages racinaires sont dus à la peau fragile et immature qui peut être durcie en étalant les patates douces au soleil pendant quelques jours après la récolte (Nabubuya et al., 2017). Pendant l'entreposage, la teneur en humidité et les composants nutritifs (amidon, caroténoïdes, vitamine C) diminuent, cette diminution peut être contenue en adoptant une température d'entreposage de 12 à 13°C. Toutefois, l'absence d'installations de stockage dans certains pays africains entrave le développement d'une chaîne de valeur stable (Ndanyi et al., 2021).La production de farine de patates douces à partir de tubercules appartenant à différents génotypes (caractérisés par des couleurs et des propriétés nutritionnelles différentes) peut représenter une utilisation potentielle de tubercules dépassant la demande locale comme aliment frais. Ils peuvent également être séchés et moulus par des machines ménagères pour être ajoutés à la farine de riz ou de blé pour obtenir des produits de boulangerie (Waidyarathna & Ekanayake, 2021).La couleur de la chair peut varier du blanc, crème, jaune, orange au violet. Les variétés à chair orange sont promues pour lutter contre la carence en vitamine A. La rétention des caroténoïdes après transformation varie selon les méthodes de transformation. Le taux de rétention le plus élevé (85-90%) a été observé chez les patates douces à chair orange séchées au four ; par contre, le taux de rétention le plus faible (63-73%) a été obtenu lors du séchage au soleil, peut-être en raison de l'effet néfaste de la lumière du soleil sur la stabilité enzymatique des pigments. C'est un facteur important à garder à l'esprit pour préserver la valeur nutritionnelle de la patate douce et, par conséquent, pour aider à faire face à la malnutrition de la population locale. Néanmoins, la teneur résiduelle en caroténoïdes après séchage au soleil est très précieuse pour la production de farine (Vimala et al, 2011).Outre les utilisations traditionnelles (cuites ou frites) de la patate douce comme aliment pour l'homme, de nombreuses applications de transformation peuvent donner naissance à des produits dérivés capables d'atténuer les conséquences de la saisonnalité et de la périssabilité de la production. De la production simple et domestique de petits morceaux ou tranches séchées à l'ombre, pouvant être conservés pendant plusieurs mois, au jus, à l'amidon et à la farine, voilà les produits les plus polyvalents pour les usages domestiques et industriels (pain, biscuits, gâteaux, etc.) (Bovell-Benjamin, 2007). Projet SUSTLIVES La patate douce est également considérée comme un légume feuillu adapté à la nutrition humaine, non seulement en raison de son rendement élevé, de sa tolérance à la sécheresse et de son aptitude à différents climats, mais aussi en raison de sa forte teneur en composés bioactifs utiles pour lutter contre la malnutrition (Nguyen et al 2021).La patate douce est généralement cultivée sur de petites parcelles par des agriculteurs pauvres (pour cette raison, on l'appelle « la nourriture des pauvres »), mais les femmes prédominent dans sa culture (Low et al 2009). Bien que la patate douce soit réputée pour être une denrée alimentaire pour les pauvres, elle présente certains éléments pour soutenir le potentiel d'accroître sa diffusion en tant que culture de base en Afrique subsaharienne. Pour commencer, sa faible sensibilité aux maladies des plantes et aux conditions climatiques défavorables, contrairement au manioc ou au maïs. Sur le second point, l'existence d'un grand nombre de génotypes, du blanc au jaune en passant par l'orange et le pourpre, riches en composés bioactifs (comme la vitamine A dans la chair d'orange, mais aussi les vitamines B et C et les micronutriments essentiels pour lutter contre la malnutrition).Troisièmement, en plus de garantir la sécurité alimentaire des agriculteurs, la patate douce peut procurer des revenus en mettant sur le marché des racines et des vignes fraîches et en développant des produits à valeur ajoutée grâce à l'introduction de petites chaînes de transformation des aliments.Les propriétés amylacées uniques de ces racines peuvent présenter un intérêt pour les petites entreprises de transformation locales (Low et al, 2009). L'intervention intermédiaire de coopératives ou d'associations permettrait de surmonter l'obstacle réaliste résultant de l'absence d'outils de transformation permettant l'application de certaines techniques de transformation. ","tokenCount":"25779"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"36c8ede4baf5ada9c80cc5ce90eede06","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/85be60c0-d0e9-4b24-b056-dbb309b5ba2e/retrieve","id":"1150966298"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"483d835f-9916-4759-bfea-cdf2dfd1cdd5","pagecount":"8","content":"Efforts by the Nigerian government to tap the $5billion per annum cassava market demand investments in weed science research, agronomy, and cassava seeds system with a view to raising the productivity frontier of the root crop, says the Dr Alfred Dixon, Project Leader, Cassava Weed Management Project.Though the largest producer of cassava in the world with about 53 million tons in 2013, Nigeria is yet to maximize the benefit of cassava exports due low yield of less than 13 tons per hectare as opposed to Asian countries where yields are more than 25 tons per hectare and upwards. This yield gap puts Nigerian farmers at a disadvantage position, and they can't compete in the global cassava market. \"Nigeria's cassava production accounts for about 20% of the total global output of cassava but less than 1% of export,\" Dr Dixon explained in a keynote at the 2016 National Cassava Summit with the theme: \"Towards a U.S.$5 billion Per Annum Cassava Industry in the Next Five Years\" in Abuja on 8 September.Dr Dixon who is popularly referred to as 'Dr Cassava' urged the government and development partners to address the yield gap question in order to move the cassava sector forward.He described cassava as a poverty fighter, and as \"Africa's best kept secret\" that if fully harnessed could change the fortunes of farmers and contribute significantly towards the transformation of African economies.According to him, cassava is an appropriate commodity to feature in Nigeria's economic development and confront the problems of a rapidly growing population and rising urbanization that is demanding more food, feed for livestock, and raw materials for industries.Besides the constraints of weed control, agronomy, and a lack of improved cassava seeds, Dr Dixon also brought to the front burner the low mechanization, limited access to finance and markets, poor transportation, and limited use of fertilizers, and other inputs as bottlenecks that have limited the potential of cassava in Nigeria.On the way forward, the keynote speaker stressed the need for the government to develop a market oriented strategy for the root crop, and to create incentives and efficient input delivery systems.He underscored the need to involve youth in cassava production, and more importantly, to sustain the local content policy of 10 percent inclusion of cassava in wheat flour for baking of bread. Dr Sanginga urged the country to take advantage of cassava and create wealth and jobs for the young population.According to the IITA boss, \"Value addition from cassava can generate jobs and income for youth, women, and investors. Youth in agribusiness in particular will provide the new business innovators to both drive down youth unemployment and fill agriculture with a new generation of vitality and expertise.\"The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, acknowledge that the cassava industry's potential had been hampered by the same factors that have hindered the development of other agricultural subsectors. These factors include the relatively low yields and high production costs, weak value chain coordination, poor infrastructure and poor access to finance.In spite of the challenges, the Minister noted that the journey of a $5 billion begins with a single step, and that the government was ready to take that step together with partners. \"Our Ministry is here to listen and learn of innovative ways in which we can collaborate to address the challenges ahead,\" he said. S takeholders will converge on IITA-Ibadan, 4-6 October, for a major workshop to develop aroad map for an efficient and equitable gari processing.According to Dr Claude Fauquet, Director of the Global Cassava Partnership for 21st Century -GCP21, the purpose of the workshop, is not a scientific exchange of information, but rather to identify together, what should be done to greatly improve gari processing in quantity and quality in the near future and to improve the livelihoods of those involved gari processing. The meeting is convened by GCP21 and partners, and will attract a broad range of actors around gari to stimulate actions for change.Of special interest is the development of the TAAT program (Technologies for the African Agricultural Transformation) by the African Development Bank (AfDB) that will begin in 2017. Gari being such an important food for Africa in the present and future, will obviously be an important component of the TAAT program.Organizers say a TAAT representative will give an introductory remarks at the meeting. Additionally this workshop will build on the process of results based management led by RTB with IITA and other partners for small and medium scale cassava processing in Nigeria. In both states, the team visited the states' Agricultural Development Project (ADP) offices. The Project manager of the Benue State ADP, Mr James Ker expressed great satisfaction with the collaboration with SG2000 in implementing ACAI field trials in the state. He promised to provide all the support required from his office to ensure that the project is successful in Benue state, and that the farming population would benefit accordingly.In Anambra state, the Commissioner for Agriculture, Hon Afam Mbanefo was very pleased to welcome the delegation. He outlined the Governor's well-meaning plans to boost agricultural production in the state. He informed the team that the state now has a clear vision and strategy to promote agriculture and make it beneficial to the farming population. He showed the team developments in information technology which are being used by his office, and that are providing much needed data on agricultural development in the state. He demonstrated the rich statistical information contained in their database with up to about a million registered farmers who can be reached instantly by mobile phone. The team was impressed with the database that would be useful in the implementation of ACAI.Overall, Dr Vanlauwe expressed great satisfaction for the amount of work that has been achieved under the project during its first year of implementation. He underlined the need for stronger partnerships, and was very happy to interact with the SG2000 and NRCRI teams. He encouraged the team to pursue ongoing activities so that the project would remain on course. He further encouraged the team to maintain the rich relationship with the various development partners they are collaborating with. Dr Olojede, who is leading the project team in eastern Nigeria, thanked Dr Vanlauwe for finding time to visit his region and promised to continue collaborating with all the development partners to achieve the project's goals.Cassava Seed Quality team on a learning visit to Tanzania BASICS team in Tanzania for an experiential learning T he BASICS Quality Seed team had a learning visit to IITA research centre in Dar es Salam, and other cassava project sites at the Sugar Research Institute Kibaha, and Mtwara in Tanzania. The team comprised Julian Smith, the International Partnerships Manager at Fera; Ishiaku Khalid (Deputy Director, Seed Certification, National Agricultural Seeds Council, Abuja); Ralph Ike Okalanwa (Deputy Director & Regional Head, NASC, South East Region, Umudike); and Hemant Nitturkar, Project Coordinator, BASICS. The visit, 4-7 September 2016, was aimed at strengthening the quality regime in cassava seed system in Nigeria through the exposure of the NASC team to Tanzania's seed certification protocol on cassava. It also provided opportunity for information sharing between Tanzania and Nigeria on their seed systems and seed certification in cassava.At the Sugar Research Institute, Kibaha, the team was shown a screen housebased rapid multiplication system that could take 100 virus-free cassava plantlets from tissue culture tubes through shade house to about 20,000 seedlings ready to plant in open fields within one year. In Mtwara, Southern Tanzania, the team also visited the Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) led project called 'Mihogo Mbegu Bingwa' (Cassava Seed Champion), which is involved in an integrated chain of pre-basic, basic, certified, and quality declared materials (QDM) multipliers in a public-private partnership model. The experiential visit aims to empower NASC as it will be working with other stakeholders on appropriate quality control systems along the value chain to combat the Cassava Brown Streak Disease problem which has a devastating economic impact on cassava yield and quality. NASC will also be reviewing its cassava seed certification protocols on isolation for the various classes of seed to forestall the spread of viruses as Tanzania has 300m, 200m, 100m and 50m for prebasic seed, basic seed, certified seed and QDM respectively while Nigeria has 5m for all classes. All of the results will be shared with stakeholders next year. The Quality Seed component is led by Fera Science Ltd. of UK (Fera)-a partner under the Building an Economically Sustainable, Integrated Cassava Seed System (BASICS) project.It will be recalled that BASICS is working to enhance both the soft and the hard infrastructure at the National Agriculture Seed Council (NASC), which is the agency of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), that is charged with the overall development and regulation of the national seed industry in Nigeria.T he ACAI project held an in-house planning meeting in Tanzania 6-9 September. The objectives of the meeting were to discuss the current status of activities, and plan the way forward. The meeting also evaluated and discussed the progress being made by the project, and benchmarked progress against the result tracker milestones of the project. Participants also discussed cross-country (Nigeria/Tanzania) synergies through lessons learnt from both countries.During the meeting, all ACAI zonal leaders from both Tanzania and Nigeria presented synopsis of activities which were done during trials' implementation, current status, challenges associated with implementation, what went right, and what went wrong, and the way forward.After the meeting some participants and project managers visited trial sites in Mkuranga, Kineng'ene, and in Zanzibar (Pemba and Unguja) where they interacted with extension agents and farmers on various issues in connection with the trials. In Mkuranga Farmers agog in Benue, Oyo, and Ogun state In Benue, Oyo and Ogun state, farmers were excited over the results of trials from the cassava-maize intercrop. They were also educated on safe use of herbicides and other mechanical equipment.Farmer Hajia Amina at Agunrege in Oyo state said, \"I never thought it is very important to use protectives like nose cover, rain boot, gloves and overall when spraying.\" She commended the IITA-CWMP for involving the community in the trials. Yet another farmer based at Akufo, farmer Sunday said the project was very educative and informative. \"These trials have revealed to us the benefit of controlling weeds and we are willing to use these techniques,\" he said.Besides farmers, partners from the chemical industries that participated in the FFD also commended the mobilisation and enthusiasm of farmers towards the FFD. Mr Kehinde Johnson of Monsanto said the FFDs were excellent strategies for behavioral change. \"Farmers themselves have seen the performance of plots treated versus those not treated and they can make their choice,\" he said. Mr Orolakin Seun who represented Mr Sunday Ameh of Syngenta lauded the idea of the FFD. They were also impressed with the performance of the different trials. The FFD ended with farmers evaluating the fields on a three point scale. Ten farmers comprising 5 men and 5 women were randomly selected for the exercise. In the coming days, the team will be organizing more FFDs across the trial sites. Stephen Weller, a professor of weed science at Purdue University gave kudos to the IITA-Cassava Weed Management Project during his recent visit to Nigeria 15-24 September. The professor of weed science could not hide his feeling after touring on-farm trial sites in Benue and Abia Nigeria and pronounced congratulations to the team. He was particularly impressed with the leadership of the project under Dr Alfred Dixon coupled with the performance of the different treatments and the extension activities. Farmers willingness to adopt the weed control innovation is key, and Prof Weller said that he had no doubt about adoption of the technologies, thanks to the collaborative teamwork. The national research partners in Nigeria and Tanzania are increasingly embracing the ACAI initiative of transformative agronomy and exposing postgraduate students to advanced research tools and techniques. Following the recruitment of two PhD students each in Tanzania and Nigeria who have now been enrolled in universities in Belgium and Switzerland, at least two students have been identified in each of the two countries to pursue M.Sc degree programs. These students will be enrolled in local universities in the respective countries. The project will cover tuition fees while all costs associated with data collection will be covered under the researchoperational funds managed by the collaborating institutions. These students have the opportunity to be jointly supervised by professors and senior scientists in their respective institutions together with IITA scientists. In the meantime, a total of 10 students including 3 female students have been given the opportunity to participate in the ACAI research activities implemented by the Federal University of Agriculture in Abeokuta (FUNAAB). Five of the students including all the females and 3 of the male students will be undertaking postgraduate thesis research using the ACAI field trials. The students are privileged to be mentored by experienced scientists and using state of the art equipment and techniques to collect data for their thesis research. The ACAI coordinator, Dr Abdulai Jalloh who is leading the capacity strengthening component of the project believes that, \"enhancing the capacity of these young chaps is a worthwhile investment which will benefit them, the university as well as their respective countries.\" Professor Felix Salako who is the coordinator of ACAI at FUNAAB, described the capacity strengthening of the ACAI project as a formidable assistance to the university and the nation. In Benue state, Nigeria, Dr Mark Tokula leading ACAI activities in the state on behalf of the National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI) has been collaborating with the state's agriculture development officers in engaging the youths sent there on Industrial Training. A total of 9 youths comprising 4 attached to NRCRI and 5 attached to the Benue State Agriculture Development Programme were involved in mapping out experimental plots on farmers' fields thereby gaining relevant experience in basic plot lay out techniques and cassava agronomy including appropriate land preparation and selection of planting materials. Most of these young students will soon be engaged in jobs where such knowledge and skills will be helpful in carrying out their duties. Thereafter, it became quite evident that collecting the required data from the ACAI field trials would require appropriate equipment to ensure that the quality of the data is at a desirable level and collected efficiently. This is particularly crucial in view of the fact that the ACAI field trials are numerous and more complex than the traditional on-farm trials.In this regard, a critical mass of postgraduate students associated with the ACAI project were exposed to the use of advanced equipment including the Ceptometer which measures canopy Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) interception and calculates leaf area index at any ACAI boosts the capacity of national partners location within a plant. Increased use of this equipment is facilitating efficient data collection and ensuring quality data for the project as well as the students' thesis research.Also, with a view to ensuring that the application of treatments and data collection are as scheduled, the project team has instituted regular monitoring of field trials as well as training of students, and backstopping field technicians in data collection. These efforts are ensuring the collection of quality data and hence the reliability of the results.This newsletter is produced by the Cassava Weed Management Project in collaboration with the ACAI and the BASICS projects. Advisers: Drs Bernard Vanlauwe, Alfred Dixon, Abdulai Jalloh, Hemant Nitturkar, and Friday Ekeleme.Editor: Godwin Atser (g.atser@cgiar.org) Writers: Godwin Atser, Abdulai Jalloh, and Timilehin Osunde Integrated weed control holds promise for cassava revolution in smallholder farms, says Cornell professor Integrating diverse but proven weed management options drawn from mechanical, biological, cultural and chemical weed control methods could help small-scale farmers overcome the limitations posed by weeds and help them maximize the benefits of genetic improvement, according to Prof Ronnie Coffman, Director of International Programs in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (IPCALS), Cornell University. Grown by over 4 million farmers in Nigeria, cassava's productivity has been disappointing at about 14 tons per hectare as opposed to more than 20 tons per hectare in countries of Asia such as Thailand. One principal factor that has kept yields low is poor weed control. In most cases, smallscale farmers -especially women and children -use hoes, cutlasses and hands to weed. The use of herbicides in cassava is growing but not common. Prof Coffman said efforts in weed management should be directed towards helping smallholder farmers. \"And I see the use of chemicals as one option that can benefit smallholder farmers,\" he added on 2 September in IITA, Ibadan at a meeting with IITA researchers and members of the IITA Cassava Weed Management Project The Cassava Weed Management Project is a five-year project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that is seeking solutions to weeds menace in cassava farming systems using mechanical, best-bet agronomic practices, and the use of environmental friendly herbicides. Prof Coffman also suggested more research into mechanical weed control, saying that mechanization and integrated weed management approaches were likely to provide more sustainable results.Seminar presentation in IITA Earlier, while presenting a seminar to researchers in IITA, Prof Coffman underscored the need for research that would create impact at the farm level with positive outcomes on the lives of resource-poor farmers. Prof Coffman concluded by calling on scientists to speak out and communicate their findings to the public. He said that most organizations were becoming \"flat\" in decision-making and funding. He said the more people get to know about an innovation, the more chances it had of being scaled out. He argued that investment in science communication has benefits with enormous returns some of which could be greater public acceptance of new technologies.Dr Peter Kulakow, Head of Cassava Breeding Unit, IITA called for stronger ties between IITA and Cornell. The two institutions agreed to harness their complementarities with a view to fighting hunger and poverty. Cornell and IITA will be working together on the second phase of the NEXTGEN Cassava Project proposal and other initiatives of mutual interest.Prof Coffman with colleagues in IITA Prof Coffman","tokenCount":"3015"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a563abfbb4cb874e2e23e05227d2efcf","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4b8d90c2-5e04-4715-a661-0d5f854f479c/retrieve","id":"1706095963"},"keywords":["Property rights","varieties","plant breeding Genetic resources","plants","germplasm exchange","property rights","legislation Genetic resources","breeders rights","biotechnology","GATT","farmers rights","plant genetic resources Genetic resources","biodiversity","legislation","Nigeria Genetic resources","Latin America","Caribbean","policies Plant genetic resources","legislation","intellectual property rights","international agreements Intellectual property rights","international agreements","patents","plant genetic resources","policy","transgenic plants","breeders rights","right of access","biotechnology Genetic resources","legislation","indigenous knowledge","plant genetic resources Genetic resources","plants","germplasm exchange","access Utilization","breeding","public sector","private sector","ethics","breeders' rights","biotechnology","technology transfer","plant genetic resources","intellectual property rights","germplasm exchange Germplasm exchange","genetic resources","policy Biodiversity","genetic resources","sustainability","policy Plants","genetic resources","agriculture","human feeding","legislation","natural resources Biodiversity","private sector","genetic resources","international agreements","plant genetic resources Economic policy","conservation","legislation","international agreements","utilization","plant genetic resources","biodiversity","intellectual property rights Intellectual property rights","economic development","international agreements","breeders' rights","biotechnology","plant genetic resources Breeders' rights Biotechnology","legislation","breeders' rights Biodiversity","biotechnology","germplasm exchange","international agreements","intellectual property rights","plant genetic resources Legislation","genetic resources","Colombia Legislation","plant breeding","international agreements","biodiversity","germplasm exchange","plant genetic resources Policy","plant breeding","international agreements","germplasm exchange","plant genetic resources Biotechnology","breeders' rights","genetic resources","legislation Sugarcane","plant diseases","varietal reactions","disease resistance","quarantine","genetic resources","germplasm exchange","plant genetic resources Sugarcane","plant diseases","quarantine","germplasm exchange","plant genetic resources Germplasm","introduced species","exotics","small farms","plant breeding","multipurpose trees Biotechnology","private sector","research","law","poverty","groups","rural development Biotechnology","Breeders' rights","plant genetic resources Genetic resources","Breeders' rights","biotechnology","plant genetic resources. Ehrenberg","C. 1975. Gene bank as a supply source. II. [Forest genetics]. K-Skogs Lantbruksakad Tioskr 114 (1/ Forest trees","plant collections","germplasm exchange Intellectual property rights","breeders' rights","germplasm","biodiversity","genetic resources","patents","farmers' rights","plant genetic resources Biotechnology","intellectual property rights","plant breeding","technology","agricultural development","regulations","plant genetic resources","agricultural policy Seed production","farmers","germplasm exchange","economic impact","development programmes Genetic resources","policies","legislation","Colombia Germplasm exchange","policies","legislation","Colombia Genetic resources","policy","germplasm exchange","genetic resources conservation Biodiversity","plant genetic resources","organizations","private ownership","legislation Genetic resources","germplasm exchange","policies Biodiversity","genetic resources","intellectual property rights","regulations","policy","legislation","plant genetic resources Biodiversity","genetic resources","legislation","plant genetic resources Ethics","biodiversity","resource utilization","plant genetic resources","rural development Plant genetic resources","international agreements","germplasm exchange Genetic resources","germplasm exchange","policy Biodiversity","Plant genetic resources","policy","intellectual property rights Breeding","biotechnology","breeders' rights","plan genetic resources","germplasm exchange Essential oil plants","plant genetic resources","harvesting","intellectual property rights","biodiversity","nature conservation","natural resources","sustainability","medicinal plants Plant breeding","companies","technology transfer","breeders' rights","Intellectual property rights Plant breeding","contracts","varieties","breeders' rights","intellectual property rights Plant breeding","varieties","restriction fragment length polymorphism","breeders' rights","intellectual property rights Plant genetic resources","germplasm exchange","policy","international agreements Breeders' rights","plant breeding","genetics Rice","gene banks","germplasm exchange","plant genetic resources. Jaffe","W. and M. Rojas. 1994. Attempt to implement the Biodiversity Convention in the Andean region. Biotechnology and Development Monitor No.2:15. Keywords: Biosafety","plant genetic resources","intellectual property rights","legislation","breeders' rights","policy","international agreements Seeds","breeders' rights","international trade","agricultural trade","breeding","agricultural policy Agricultural trade","trade liberalization","agricultural research","breeders' rights Biotechnology","international agreements","international trade","biodiversity","international cooperation Genetic resources","research","right of access","resource allocation","biodiversity","pharmaceutical products","plant protection","biotechnology","international agreements Agroforestry","environment","trade","biodiversity","nature conservation","biotechnology","breeding","germplasm","genetic resources","intellectual property rights","technology transfer Biotechnology","breeders' rights","genetic resources","CGIAR","intellectual property rights","plant genetic resources Breeders' rights","plant genetic resources Biotechnology","breeders' rights","developing countries Andean region","genetic resources","germplasm exchange","plant genetic resources Farmers' rights","legislation","ornamental plants","breeders' rights Plant breeding","genetic resources","policy","intellectual property rights","biodiversity","agriculture","biotechnology","farmers' rights Cherimoyas","genetic resources","biodiversity","legislation","organizations","plant genetic resources Intellectual property rights","industry","legislation","biotechnology","biodiversity Plant genetic resources","breeders' rights","intellectual property rights","farmers' rights","indigenous knowledge","legislation","biodiversity","biotechnology. UK","Intermediate Technology Development Group. 1992. The gene traders: security or profit in food production? Legislation","subsistence farming","traditional farming","plant genetic resources","intellectual property rights","on farm conservation","genetic diversity Genetic resources","germplasm exchange","biodiversity","policy","legislation Genetic resources","policy","biotechnology","plant genetic resources Plant genetic resources","groundnuts","international agreements","Arachis hypogaea","Capsicum Biodiversity","sustainability","policy","plant genetic resources Conservation","regulations","legislation","plant genetic resources","breeders' rights","genetic resources","policy Intellectual property rights","investigation","agriculture","plant genetic resources","Conservation","intellectual property rights","germplasm","biodiversity","indigenous knowledge","regulations","legislation","plant breeding","plant genetic resources Biotechnology","public opinion","intellectual property rights","legislation","plant genetic resources Cloning","planning","research","ethics","biodiversity","European Union","genetic resources","genetic erosion","technology transfer","public opinion","biotechnology legislation","intellectual property rights","European Union","biotechnology","plant genetic resources Risk","legislation","utilization","genetic resources","biotechnology","plant genetic resources","germplasm exchange","intellectual property rights","biosafety Intellectual property rights","Philippines","biotechnology Legislation","intellectual property rights","breeders' rights","farmers' rights","plant genetic resources Intellectual property rights","farming systems","innovations","technology transfer","farmers' rights","breeders' rights","plant genetic resources Transgenic plants","biodiversity","plant genetic resources","breeders' rights","biotechnology","intellectual property rights","legislation","International agreements Biotechnology","genetic resources","politics","intellectual property rights","plant genetic resources Intellectual property rights","legislation","ethics","biotechnology","plant genetic resources Pesticides","biotechnology","azadirachtin","intellectual property rights","multipurpose trees","pesticidal properties","plant genetic resources Plant breeding","seed industry","innovations","protection","biotechnology","breeders' rights","legislation","genetic resources","breeding","legal rights","intellectual property rights","plant genetic resources Plant genetic resources","intellectual property rights. Juma","C. 1989. Intellectual property rights for biological innovations. Pp. B.] In Innovation and sovereignty: The patent debate in African development (Juma","C.","J. Ojwang (eds.)). Also African Centre for Technology Studies Research Series No. 2:145-170. Keywords: Biotechnology","genetic resources","breeders' rights","patents","developing countries biotechnology","biodiversity","farming systems","agricultural development","intellectual property rights","small farms","case studies","genetic engineering","international trade Agroforestry","environment","trade","biodiversity","nature conservation","biotechnology","breeding","germplasm","genetic resources","intellectual property rights","technology transfer Indigenous knowledge","intellectual property rights","pharmaceutical products","ethics","medicinal plants","international agreements","tropics","plant genetic resources Intellectual property rights","plants genetic resources"],"sieverID":"ca35cc89-6a73-4c38-95c2-f63cdc21104d","pagecount":"36","content":"Begemann, F., W. Ritter, M. Auer et al. 1996. Teil 2: Statement of the ATSAF-working group \"Conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources as a part of biological diversity\" on access to and exchange of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. (PGRFA). IGR, ZADI,Plant genetic resources constitute the biological foundation of humankind. Research systems and agricultural production also depend on them. Plant genetic resources result from natural evolution and human intervention, and are considered patrimony of the nations. Although their conservation, use and exchange are among the objectives of the Convention of Biological Diversity and have been recognized internationally, the threats against their safety continue to increase. On one hand are the social and environmental factors and economic difficulties national programmes face, and on the other the limitations to exchange them due to the complex political climate in which they prevail.The political debate of the last years over ownership of genetic resources and the benefits derived from them has resulted in the appearance of national and international laws regulating access to these resources and intellectual property rights. This has modified the work environment of those who manage genetic resources because they must understand the legal environment surrounding their activities and become familiar with a series of agreements whose provisions are not always clear, do not always harmonize among each other and for whose fulfillment there is not always appropriate national legislation in place.IPGRI has for long been interested in this topic, being its main objective to help plant genetic resources professionals understand the development and adoption of national and international policies. With this aim in mind, IPGRI publishes Issues in Genetic Resources, a series addressed to researchers and those responsible for setting up laws and policies on plant genetic resources. This bibliography, which contains work published all over the world since 1984, intends to contribute to IPGRI's goal on plant genetic resources policy.The bibliography contains 433 references with local descriptors. The records are organized in 2 subjects-access to plant genetic resources (91) and intellectual property rights (342). It includes references on the status of intellectual property rights in several countries, the application of farmers' rights to local varieties and the consequences of limiting access in the development of seed production systems.We hope this bibliography is useful to researchers and other professionals working with plant genetic resources and policy aspects. For further contributions and updates, please contact Ms. Dimary Libreros, Information Assistant, IPGRI -Americas Group (d.libreros@cgiar.org).Los recursos fitogenéticos constituyen la base biológica del sustento de la población mundial y de ellos dependen los sistemas de investigación y producción agrícola. Los recursos fitogenéticos son producto de la evolución natural y de la intervención humana y forman parte del patrimonio de los países.Aunque la conservación, el uso y el intercambio de los recursos fitogenéticos figuran entre los objetivos de protección de la biodiversidad y han sido reconocidos internacionalmente en el Convenio de Diversidad Biológica, las amenazas contra la seguridad de ellos siguen aumentando. Por un lado están los factores ambientales, sociales y las dificultades económicas que enfrentan los programas nacionales y por otro las limitaciones para intercambiar los recursos fitogenéticos debido al complejo clima político.La dinámica de los últimos años ha hecho aparecer leyes y políticas internacionales y nacionales aplicables al acceso a los recursos fitogenéticos y los derechos de propiedad intelectual, modificando el ambiente de trabajo de quienes administran los recursos fitogenéticos. Los investigadores y administradores han tenido que esforzarse por entender el ambiente legal que rodea sus actividades y familiarizarse con una serie de convenios cuyas disposiciones no siempre son claras y armonizan entre sí, y para cuyo cumplimiento no siempre se cuenta con legislación nacional apropiada o completa.El IPGRI ha tenido interés en este tema, siendo su principal objetivo el ayudar a entender el desarrollo y la adopción de leyes y políticas de carácter nacional e internacional. Para tal fin el IPGRI ha publicado diversos trabajos en la serie Issues in Genetic Resources, dirigida a los investigadores y responsables de establecer las leyes y políticas en este tema de los recursos fitogenéticos. Para seguir contribuyendo en este campo se ha compilado esta bibliografía en la que se incluyen trabajos publicados en todo el mundo desde 1984.La bibliografía contiene 433 referencias con descriptores locales. Los registros están organizados en 2 temasacceso a recursos fitogenéticos (91) y derechos de propiedad intelectual (342). La bibliografía incluye referencias sobre las implicaciones de las limitaciones de acceso en el desarrollo de sistemas de producción de semillas, la situación de los derechos de propiedad intelectual en algunos países y la aplicación de derechos del agricultor a variedades locales.Esperamos que esta bibliografía le resulte útil a investigadores y otros profesionales que estén trabajando con recursos fitogenéticos. Para información adicional, contactar a Dimary Libreros, Asistente de Información, IPGRI -Grupo Américas (d.libreros@cgiar.org). ","tokenCount":"794"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ba79899ba2104c90ca08152b05c1acc4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/a7629e5c-a1aa-408a-8bb8-9d3e2bfb0d7f/content","id":"-1772109522"},"keywords":["Gene pools","genetic resources","germplasm conservation","quarantine","seed treatment","Triticum aestivum AGRIS category codes: F30 (Plant genetics and breeding)","FOI (Crop husbandry). Dewey decimal classification: 631.521"],"sieverID":"aa1e0d35-b809-45fa-8335-b9571d871d4b","pagecount":"24","content":"Assorted bread wheat spikes represent wide genetic variation in the crop. Bad coyer: Primitive wheat Trilicum diaJccum-a source of heat tolerance and resistance to Russian wheat aphid and SeptOTÛl triliri. Cover photos: Gene Hette!.CIMMYT is an internationally funded, nonprofit scientific research and training organization. Readquartered in Mexico, the Center is engaged in a worldwide research program for maize, wheat, and triticale, with emphasis on improving the productivity of agricultural resources in developing countries. It is one of 16 nonprofit international agricultural research and training centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which is sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The CGIAR consists of a combination of 40 donor countries, international and regional organizations, and private foundations.CIMMYT receives core support through the CGIAR from a number of sources, including the international aid agencies of Australia,Prior to the late 18th century, agricultural practices were totally dependent on crude handtools, crop landraces, and mixtures of these landraces. Then came the Industrial Revolution with an associated population explosion that transformed the subsistence nature of agriculture and its farming systems forever. In the mid-19th century, Mendel (and later other pioneering plant geneticists) provided a new knowledge of plant genetics and breeding that made it possible to increase dramatically the production and production potential of agriculture. Undeniably, the wonders of crop improvement have resulted in the erosion of genetic diversity of many crops in farmers' fields, induding wheat, due to the replacement of landraces and old farmers' varieties with modem high yielding varieties.Fortunately, our understanding of the sources of genetic diversity and their distribution and interrelationships between cultivated crops and their wild relatives has rapidly expanded in the latter half of the 20th century. This enhanced awareness has resulted in the present-day concept that genetic resources are our heritage and consequently should be preserved, protected, and made available without restrictions to aIl who need them.The CIMMYT Wheat Program follows the broadest sense of categorizing genetic resources consistent with Frankel (1977) and the FAO Commission on Plant Genetic Resources (pAO, 1983):• Cultivated varieties-high-yielding ones in current use (advanced varieties) and those they have superseded (obsolete varieties), generally with a known breeding history.Clear indications of how important conservation of genetic resources is today include:• The establishment of the FAü Commission on Plant Genetic Resources; • Creation of numerous gene banks by the national agricultural research systems;• Primitive varieties or landraces (like those from Tibet in photo at left) with no known breeding history. • Wild and weedy relatives of the crop species. Twenty-seven species are included in this group for wheat (Kimber and Feldman, 1987). • Special genetic and cytogenetic stocks.• Elite and advanced breeding !inesincluded because they have potential breeding value or special characteristics even though they did not reach cultivar release.• Ongoing conservation efforts of international agricultural research centers (lARCs) such as IPGRI and commodity centers such as CIMMYT; • The Keystone International Dialogue on Plant Genetic Resources.The inclusion, in 1988, of Genetic Resources as one of the Wheat Program's four subprograms (the others being Germplasm Improvement, Crop Protection, and Crop Management and Physiology) demonstrates the Program's conviction that genetic diversity is fundamental to sustaining wheat production in the future. It formalizes our responsibility to preserve genetic resources of wheat and to support the active breeding programs by collecting and/or acquiring germplasm with traits needed by the programs. Further, it demonstrates our commitment to characterize, evaluate, document, andActive collection-A collection of accessions maintained for medium term viability (about 40 years), stored at temperatures close to O°C, and 3-7% moisture. Ideally, all accessions should be maintained in sufficient quantity to be available on request.Base collection-A collection of accessions kept for long-term (-18°0, secure conservation, which is not used as a routine distribution source. Cultivar-A variety (cultivated variety) of a plant produced by selective breeding, which has been specifically improved for agricultural or horticuItural purposes and is grown in cultivated conditions. Genetic resources-Germplasm of plants, animaIs, or other ogranisms containing useful characters of actual or potentiaI value. See Box on page 1.Germplasm-l) The genetic material that forms the physical basis of heredity for a species and that is transmitted from one generation to the next by means of the germ cells. The Wheat Germplasm Bank interacts with national programs by:• Acting as a backup for national collections; In serving as a backup for national program collections, including working collections, the Bank provides insurance against loss of such germplasm. Such collections can he stored, either as part of the CIMMYT collection or as special holdings that will not he available for distribution. In the fust case, the material is available to other programs outside of CIMMYT, in the second case, the material would he available as parental material to CIMMYT breeders. Products of such crosses will he freely available to an our clients. In the future, we anticipate that national programs will become active partners in the evaluation of wheat genetic resources.Acquisition of new germplasm through active collection is a component of the CIMMYT program that is coordinated with IPGRI and ICARDA (see Box, page 5). The Bank supports and/or actively participates in collection expeditions on a case-by-ease basis. Special consideration is given if germplasm in an area is threatened by \"genetic wipeout\", i.e., the wholesale destruction of a genetic resource (Wilkes, 1983). Of special interest are areas that have material which may not have been collected.CIMMYT is particularly interested in collecting cultivars from around the world released by breeders in the 20th century that are now obsolete. In view of the history of wheat breeding, these are very important genetic resources. Most of the landrace and hybridi zation-derived wheat cultivars from South America are now in the CIMMYT collection.Recent Expeditions to Acquire Wheat Germplasm  1.Currently, the entire collection is maintained as an active collection.When our long-term storage facility is completed and when the Wheat Germplasm Bank Information Management System is installed, a base collection of the hexaploid wheat and triticale germplasm will be formed while the rest (durum wheat and wild Triticale (X Triticosecale) is a recently synthesized species, hence there are no landraces of this crop. However, because of intensive plant breeding in several agroecologic zones in North America and Europe, there is a wide array of genotypes in existence. The rye (Secale cereale) and wheat (Triticum spp.) parents of triticale have been conserved for many years, but even now the genetic resource collections of rye do not fully represent the diversity within cultivated and wild Secale.In 1992, a 3-year collaborative project with the University of Califomia at Davis, was conc1uded, in which a comprehensive genetic resource collection of triticale was assembled for placing in gene banks. Emphasis was placed on North American germplasm because three prominent triticale breeders, R.J. Metzger, E.N. Larter, and Re. Jenkins, had retired and the germplasm they accumulated was at risk of being abandoned or not inc1uded in a public collection.Both winter and spring type triticales were grown at Davis, Califomia, in a common environrnent. Descriptor data and severa} evaluation traits were scored. More than 3,000 distinct accessions were multiplied for the National Small Grain Collection in Idaho, the CIMMYT Wheat Germplasm Bank, and for others who may request seeds. This collection is now available from the CIMMYT Bank.relatives) will remain as an active collection. This conforms to the lCARDA-CIMMYT agreement. Barley germplasm is stored at CIMMYT only as a working collection for the joint ICARDA-CIMMYT Barley Program.Multiplication and regeneration are two of the most important functions of a germplasm bank because the long term viability of seed is very much dependent on the quality of the seed being placed in storage. Further, care must be taken to avoid genetic drift, as well as mechanical mixtures and other handling errors.CIMMYT multiplies wheat seed in a screenhouse at the El Batan headquarters rather than in the field. This facility (photos at right) expedites the production of quality seed for medium-and long-term storage. ft also helps avoid accidentaI mechanical mixing and other handling errors since the planting for multiplication is programmed year-around instead of being done strictly by the annual crop season. Thus, a limited number of accessions can he multiplied at any one time by planting weekly or bi-weekly. This is much better than the traditional, simultaneous harvesting of thousands of lines when a single, seasonal planting is made in the field.   of even these fungi will be greatly decreased with the use of the screenhouse facility. SHU screens each planting in the screenhouse so that a complete record of organisms encountered can be accum.ulated.Seed health analysis is useful to indicate potential problems so that prophylactic chemical applications can be planned during seed multiplication to avoid any disease outbreaks. Also, these analyses are used for planning seed treatments prior to shipment.Presently, the seed treatment utilized for seed shipped from the program is a combination of Vitavax 300 and Daconil (both 2 g/kg seed), applied as a slurry using 3 ml/kg of Pellistac as a sticking agent.A major activity of the Bank is to identify useful genetic variability and make it available to breeders. We expect that variability will be needed to:• Further increase yield potential;• Provide new sources of resistance to diseases and pests to maintain the yield level so far achieved; • Provide adaptation to the more marginal environments; • Provide improved quality.Most evaluation work is demand driven, meaning that evaluations are done for traits or characteristics where the breeding programs lack variability. Evaluations can be requested by CIMMYT and by national program breeders. An example is the request of CIMMYT bread wheat breeders to evaluateBank accessions for sources of resistance to the Russian Wheat Aphid (RWA). Resistance was identified in both Triticum aestivum and T. dicoccum  Genes imparting resistance to wheat leaf and stem rust provide an example of the genetic variability that can he provided by wild wheat relatives. To date, sorne 20 unique stem rust and 12 leaf rust genes for resistance have been found in eight related wild grasses compared to 21 resistance genes for stem rust and 23 resistance genes for leaf rust found in wheat itself (Skovmand and Rajaram 1990).considers such a step to be premature and believes more research is needed to determine if a core collection wouid actually provide better utility.Pre-breeding is done to develop parental material for the breeding sections and is carried out only when the needed characters are found in accessions that have very poor agronomie type or are super susceptible to one or several diseases. It normally involves intraspecific or interspecific hybrids where special techniques, such as embryo rescue, are not needed. Pre-breeding will normally be done either to transfer specifie genes; or to create source populations based on dominant male-sterile wheats.Genes transfers will be done using a traditional baekeross program where the recurrent parent is an improved semidwarf wheat. If the character is judged important enough for future use, the production of isogenie stoeks will be considered. The following traits are presently under transfer to improved wheats: 1) glume pubescence in bread wheat, 2) flooding tolerance in bread wheat, 3) Russian wheat aphid resistance in spring bread and durum wheats, and 4) earliness in durum wheat.Creation of genepools is based on dominant male-sterile wheats and will mostly be concerned with biotic and abiotie stresses. Different sources of resistance can be incorporated in a population that can be placed under reeurrent selection. These populations will then be made available to breeders. Such populations will be ereated for various traits when the proper parental material has been identified.(continued on page 15)In the past, information generated by different sources, e.g., national trials, international trials, laboratories, and germplasm banks, could not be effectively integrated around the germplasm to which it pertained. For this reason, the Wheat Program resolved to develop an integrated strategy to manage aIl data pertaining to germplasm in the Program. This strategy, which relies on unique identification of germplasm and features of a relational database, is being implemented in three phases:• The unique identification of germplasm by cross identification (CID) and selection identification (SID) numbers. This feature of the Wheat Pedigree Management System (WPMS) has been completed and is on line. • Germplasm description and information (genotypic or G data), This phase has been partially completed with the installation of the Wheat Gennplasm Bank System (WGBS).• A Wheat Data Management System (WDMS), which will deal with evaluation data of both Gand G x E (environment)-type information.WPMS-This database will be the core of the complete, integrated  Nonredundant storage of pedigree information will provide means to extend individual pedigrees through additional information conceming ancestors. These features can he exploited through the development of tools such as coefficient of parentage. The power of WPMS has already been seen in sorne unexpected ways. For example, preliminary investigations suggest that cytoplasmic diversity in CIMMYT bread wheats is restricted.To date, the following WPMS functions have been developed:• Wheat PMS Fieldbook System (WPFBS)-Generates fieldbooks for (continued on page 14)the breeding sections and prints them with field tags and harvest labels. This system performs rigorous verification of fieldbook data, thus improving data quality. It allows synonyms 50 different names can be used for identical germplasm in data entry, while the preferred name appears in the fieldbook.• Wheat PMS Reports-l) Cross expansion, which reports a cultivar based on cross and selection identification. It can expand a cross to indude aIl ancestors. 2) Dendrograms, which permit examination of genealogies of a cultivar and provide a table of theoretical Mendelian genetic contribution of each parent, as provided in the Kauz example. 3) Wheat abbreviations, which create an alphabetically 50rted list of wheat cultivar abbreviations. This replaces Special Report 749 from Oregon State University, and is now available for international distribution as CIMMYT Wheat Special Report No. 4, in either electronic or hard copy form. 4) CM Numbers, which report crosses where a given line has been used as a parent.WGB5-The Wheat Germplasm Bank System manages the Bank's passport, regeneration, and logistical information as described in the text. The WGBS is connected to the other main systems, WPMS and WDMS, through the unique identifiers and can retrieve and supply information to the complete system. See more about WGBS on page 15.WDM5-The Wheat Data Management System (WDMS) will provide a secure, flexible system for data storage on wheat, triticale, and barley. It will also provide a set of tools for filtering, tranc;forming, accessing, and exploring data.WDMS, currently in the planning and design stages, will store original data of three types: 1) environmental, 2) genotype x environment, and 3) genotypic. Tools will be provided to allow basic data manipulation, reporting, and graphic presentations. The ability to query the relational database will provide a powerful research tool. For example, it is envisaged that WDMS could produce a list of sites where international bread wheat, durum wheat, and triticale trials have been grown in the same sea50n with less than 350 mm of CIMMYI' Files available water. WDMS will he able to list instances where line X, to be released by a national program, occurs in the database and a second sub-list in which ail instances of susceptible reactions to specified diseases for the line are reported. The system will extract files for downloading to personal computers for further analysis using standard packages.Putting it aIl together-The WPMS, WGBS, WDMS, and associated functions have been developed in System 1032 on a VAX computer under the VMS operating system. We plan to add the User Data Management System, which is a data access tool kit for VAX systems and which facilitates reporting, querying, and exporting. The efficient use of this integrated network will he an invaluable tool for tapping and distributing information on accessions in the Bank.The Wheat Molecular Biology is involved in mapping specific genes, Le., resistance genes or gene complexes for certain diseases, photoperiod response, vernalization, and drought. The Section is also looking at genomic variability as weil as evaluating and investigating other new methodologies with applications in wheat improvement.In the near future, it is expected that Wheat Molecular Biology, through the use of molecular markers, will assist the Bank in transferring to improved wheats sorne of the genes identified through its evaluations. In the more distant future, the Section is anticipated to become involved in identifying genomic variation in the Bank's collection, isolating the genes themselves, and applying novel methods of alien gene transfer and gene expression modification.The Wheat Germplasm Bank System (WGBS) is a software system that electronically manages data (Le., passport, characterization, evaluation, and logistical information) in the Bank  (Rosales and raba, 1988).WGBS uses the same pedigree identifiers as does the Wheat Pedigree Management System (WPMS), which will allow for data interchange among the crop breeding sections, the international nursery section, and the Bank collection. When germplasm is submitted to the Bank, existing evaluation data will be irnmediately available for Bank use.The functions of the WGBS include:• Storing and updating of passport data, which allows new material to be accessed; • Producing field books needed for introductions, regenerations, and characterizations;• Producing lists for seed shipment;• Assigning storage location in the active and base collections of present material and new introductions;• Monitoring storage dates, seed viability, and seed amounts; • Selecting materials that are at critically low levels and need regeneration; • Filing data obtained from introduction and regeneration nurseries; • Facilitating selection of accessions based on passport data and/or specifie traits.In the Bank's base and active collections, accessions are continuously added and sometimes subtracted. Therefore, the publication of a catalog of accessions is not foreseen at this time because of the problems of keeping it CUITent. Sorne time in the future, Bank information may be published using CD-ROM technology. With the WGBS, we can search the database at any point in time and will do so for any scientist/ cooperator upon request. We can supply listings of accessions of particular interest, either on diskette or as a hard copy. Presently, the collection can be categorized on such attributes as crop, growth habit, species, origin, maturity, height, and grain color. Other attributes will be added to this list when the information has been added to the database.Specifie seed requests, Le., those that indieate name or accession number, are easily filled (if the particular germplasm is in the active collection) and normally mailed within one week.If an import permit is required for seed shipments, the process will be expedited if the permit is included withWhere to Write the initial request. We make every effort to fill more general requests by deterrnining which material will be most useful through further cOITespondence. In these types of requests, the following information will help us to identify the appropriate germplasm:• Crop of interest;• Growth habit required; • Goal of investigation;• How much material can be handled in a growing season; • Growing conditions.Conservation and distribution of seed are important functions of the Bank, but our concems do not end there. Another important function is to promote free flow of information about the performance of Bank materia1. The Bank compiles data on each accession and this is utilized to select materials to satisfy requests. Reports from cooperators are important contributions to our knowledge about each accession and we request a copy of any results obtained on Bank material.Genetic diversity is critical in enhancing yield potential and sustaining that potential through new sources of resistances and tolerances to biotic and abiotic stresses. Thus, genetic resources are fondamental to sustaining wheat production in the future.Modem wheat cultivars are an assembly of genes or gene combinations pyramided over the last century by breeders using, in most cases, weIl adapted cultivars of their region. The advance of international agriculture has enormously expanded the availability of germplasm with wide adaptation and from more sources, thus significantly changing patterns of cultivar distribution. Given this scenario, introgression of additional variability found in genetic resources is necessary to increase stability and to add further improvements in wheat.ClMMYT's major objectives include increasing farm-level productivity while safe-guarding against genetic vulnerability. The preservation, evaluation, documentation, enhancement, and easy availability of genetic resources are central to those ends.","tokenCount":"3352"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cc121fce48dabcd0f3fc17ea423abf8e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ccfa57a0-b6fd-432c-bb08-1399cb5d0f49/retrieve","id":"-1367905070"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7e71a62b-2c3b-4178-9940-2821b42402d7","pagecount":"4","content":"Disclaimer: The views expressed are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), ICARDA or BKCV.Over the last six decades in India, there has been an unsatisfactory gain in pulse productivity, which is a severe threat to the creation of resilient livelihoods and the overall food and nutritional security of the country. To specifically enhance lentil productivity under rice-based cropping systems in West Bengal, the International Centre for Agriculture Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) began a multi-disciplinary project in 2012/13 providing improved technologies, including 29 improved lentil varieties, and a package of agronomic practices to farmers. This policy brief documents the major constraints lentil growers have faced in adopting ICARDA's improved lentil varieties, and increasing their knowledge, skills, and good practices. It also outlines suitable policy recommendations and identifies strategic actions to enhance the adoption and scalability of ICARDA's improved lentil varieties in West Bengal to boost the productivity of farmers.The study found that years of farming experience, along with a basic education level, were the prime contributors behind the overall adoption of new technology and quality seeds. Meanwhile, the unavailability of suitable and timely information brochures, pamphlets, leaflets, and news for growers meant that a significant proportion of farmers are still unaware about the new varieties and modern technology. One of the key recommendations to encourage uptake is to offer crop insurance to lentil farmers, to protect them from losses resulting from natural calamities, and boost their risk-bearing ability.Lentil is one of the most nutritious cool season food legume crops produced in India. Between 2012/13, when the ICARDA project began to be implemented, the crop was grown on 1.14 million ha and 0.86 million tons was produced, resulting in a productivity rate of 756.2 kg/ha (DES, 2013-14). Almost half of the world's lentil production (48.2%) is cultivated in Southern Asia, but indigenous lentils in India are a specific ecotype (a genetically distinct geographic variety) with a marked lack of genetic variability, poor germination rates and yields. In India, the indigenous varieties are primarily grown in northern and central regions, and both whole and dehulled lentils are used to make dal (a traditional dish), as well as other culinary preparations (Reddy, Bantilian and Mohan, 2013).Lentils contain about 25% protein, 0.7% fat, 2.1% minerals, 0.7% fiber and 59% carbohydrate. It is generally grown as a rainfed crop and, in West Bengal, the seeds are broadcast in a rice crop, seven to ten days before the rice is harvested (also known as paira cropping or relay cropping), to capitalize on the residual moisture in the soil, and ensure timely sowing and germination as tillage operations can be skipped.There is tremendous potential to grow lentil as a cool season food legume in West Bengal, but productivity levels are low. Despite pulse production increasing by 3.45% per annum during 2000-10, before ICARDA intervened, India ranked ninth in lentil productivity globally during the same period. Increases in production costs, and supply constraints also pushed lentil prices so high that they became unaffordable for most consumers. Increased lentil demand resulted in the Indian Government having to import between 3-4 million tons of lentils every year.To achieve self-sufficiency in all pulse crops by 2025, an estimated 27.5 million tons needs to be produced each year. In addition to reducing post-harvest losses, productivity also needs to be enhanced from 897 kg/ha in West Bengal (DES, 2020/21) to 1,000 kg/ha, and an additional area of about 3-4 million ha needs to be brought under pulses (Ali and Kumar, 2005;ICAR, 2014-15). Achieving these ambitious aims will require a proactive strategy from researchers, planners, policymakers, extension workers, the private sector, and farmers to boost productivity and reduce production costs.Delayed sowing: In general, lentil crop yields are drastically reduced when sowing is delayed beyond November. Many areas in West Bengal cultivate long duration kharif rice varieties, which often keep the land occupied until the middle to end of November, which then delays sowing of lentils. Excessive soil moisture due to untimely rains during November and December can also further delay sowing until mid-December.Weeds: Lentils have slow vegetative growth in the early stages of crop growth and are a poor competitor to weeds (Siddique et al., 2012;Singh, Shahi and Singh, 2017). Adoption of zero tillage, conservation agriculture-based technologies, and paira cropping further intensifies weed growth. These agronomic practices involve minimal to no soil disturbance and, as a consequence, weed seeds remain largely on the soil surface competing with the lentils for natural resources. The extent of yield reduction in lentil due to weed infestation has been reported to be as high as 50% (Rana et al., 2016), implying the severity of weed-induced losses, which could mean that in conservation agriculture-based systems the losses could be even higher.A lack of good quality and affordable seeds is a major constraint. Not only does this lack of access limit production (traditional varieties yield between 500-600 kg/ha, while high-yielding seeds can reach up to 1,500 kg/ha), but it is also one of the principal reasons behind crop failure (poor germination rates coupled with poor management practices). Timely availability of quality chemical fertilizers also continues to be a problem in many lentil-growing areas. While availability of pesticides (including herbicides) in West Bengal has been reasonable, they are often of a poor quality and are not as effective which means more quantities are applied, which is detrimental to human and crop health.Technological constraints: Legumes are grown under varied agroclimatic conditions (soil types, rainfall and thermal regimes) in West Bengal. Yet, the availability of region-specific production technologies is lacking, including crop varieties with traits relevant to prevailing biotic and abiotic stresses and cropping sequences in the region. Poor native Rhizobium (soil bacteria) has been observed in 40% of West Bengal's pulse growing areas which means that it is less efficient at fixing nitrogen in the soil (Reddy, 2009). Yet seed inoculation with a suitable Rhizobium strain (which could boost lentil productivity by 10-12%) is not widely implemented. Despite an increase in irrigated area, cereals or cash crops are often prioritized, and pulses including lentils are relocated to rainfed areas which make these crops vulnerable to biotic and abiotic stresses. Currently, only 12% of the irrigated area in West Bengal is currently under pulses (Reddy and Reddy, 2010). Other constraints to boosting yields include the use of a low seed rate (10-15 kg/ha) and improper sowing methods (often broadcasting in a standing crop), no land preparation, no application of chemical fertilizer, insecticides and pesticides, and no irrigation.Credit and market constraints: Marginal farmers are most likely to be engaged in lentil cultivation, and, with limited resources, struggle to access credit to invest in their crops. Markets are also fragmented and infrastructure for storage and post-harvest processing near production areas is lacking. Consequently, most farmers sell their produce at a very low price to local village traders.Varietal constraints: A lack of access to high-yielding, short-duration varieties means that most farmers plant traditional varieties. These traditional varieties have a low harvest index (the ratio of grain to total dry matter; used as a measure of productivity), are susceptible to pests and diseases, have intermediate growth habits, do not respond well to inputs, and have unstable performances.There is a lack of informative and timely brochures, pamphlets, leaflets, and news about new varieties and better inputs, and the benefits of using modern varieties for farmers in West Bengal. Farmers are often illiterate, and with little access to information are therefore unaware about new varieties and modern technologies that could be used to boost their lentil production.Small farmers are less able to take a risk on adopting improved technologies, and the risks involved in growing lentils are not compensated under the Minimum Support Price (designed to ensure that harvest prices for other crops are higher than the production costs).Under the ICARDA project, which provided farmers with 29 new high-yielding lentil cultivators and an improved package of agronomic practices, lentil productivity rose by 36.61% compared to traditional growers. The technological change (use of new varieties and practices) contributed 31.81%, while substitution with higher-quality inputs amounted for the other 4.81%. Proper land preparation, use of quality seed, and better pest and disease management were the prime factors behind the enhancement of lentil productivity.After surveying 135 farm households (with 90% belonging to low and poor economic status groups), it was observed that years of farming experience and level of basic education were the prime factors in determining how likely a farmer was to adopt new technology and seeds. Of these farmers who adopted a new variety, most began to cultivate Moitreyee, followed by Bari-7, PL-6 and HULL-57 (with the 29 new certified seeds having a germination percentage of between 71-80%).On average, farmers applied 31 kg/ha of the new lentil seeds when planting (priced at Rs. 53/kg), and operational costs for the year totalled Rs. 24,731/ha (approx. US$300). Average production on 0.19 ha of land (with medium fertility status) was 181 kg, where 40 kg was consumed and 141 kg was sold on the local market. An average transportation cost to sell seeds was Rs. 163, with middlemen taking a share of Rs. 249 on an average for every sale. Each farming household consists of five members, on average, and has an average annual expenditure of Rs. 57,868, and a daily intake per household of 71g of pulses per day. Overall, we found that the cost benefit ratio for lentil was 1.25 for farmers who adopted ICARDA's technologies, compared to 0.74 for traditional cultivators which meant that it cost them more to grow than they earned.Continue to develop input-responsive, non-lodging and very short duration lentil varieties to mitigate problems like germination loss and yield loss due to environmental factors, such as untimely rains, cyclones etc., which specifically occur during the harvesting season, causing huge production losses. Development of early matured varieties of lentil (L-4717: maturity in 105-107 days) is highly recommended; a shorter vegetative phase and early flowering also results in higher yields. L-4717 has been widely adopted in various parts of West Bengal, particularly for seed production in Hooghly Goghat-I block, but the block in general is mono-cropped and dependent on the winter rabi season. So, research needs to be particularly targeted at different blocks to raise the livelihoods of pulse farmers.Improve marketing infrastructure and marketing channels for marketing of pulses. Our study completed regionspecific market surveys to determine market margins (the difference between producer and consumer price), to highlight how this varies. Our data revealed that the market margins for lentil range from as high as Rs. 65-75/ kg in 24-Parganas, to as low as Rs. 30-55/kg in Haringhata market. The higher margins in some markets are likely to be caused by middlemen hiking prices, which reveals why region-wide information about pulse marketing should be made more widely available for farmers. Providing farmer cooperatives with dehuller machines will also help farmers to process lentil and sell the processed products, which will increase farmers' percentage of the money consumers spend on lentils by around 40%. This will enhance farmer incomes and boost interest from other farmers in lentil production.Bring additional areas under pulse production. The scope for introducing pulse crops in rice-fallows (mostly un-irrigated) needs to be exploited with supplemental irrigation. There is a vast area of fallow land in West Bengal (1.7 million ha), with most suitable for pulse cultivation. A national taskforce on pulses, created in 2015, has already identified the areas with the greatest potential for expansion (Reddy, 2015). The recommendations from the pulse taskforce include:à Utilize rice fallow land (3-4 million ha) in eastern India. This would yield around 2.5 million tons of pulse each year.à Diversify 500,000 ha of low-yielding upland rice, 450,000 ha of millet and 300,000 ha of barley, mustard and wheat, by bringing these areas under rabi pulses.à About 1.65 million ha vacated by wheat, pea, potato and sugarcane production can be used to grow 60-65 day summer mungbean crops in states (including West Bengal) where adequate irrigation facilities exist (Singh, Shahi and Singh, 2017).","tokenCount":"2004"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"43b086261aecaf73ce011c46b67ce641","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/c76082e0-1669-4043-b11a-271612ba5c44/content","id":"-375829376"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"904cb0dc-d2f2-4e15-bc01-8772365bbbb6","pagecount":"13","content":"Dietary zinc (Zn) deficiency is widespread globally, and in particular among people in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In Malawi, dietary sources of Zn are dominated by maize and spatially dependent variation in grain Zn concentration, which will affect dietary Zn intake, has been reported at distances of up to ~ 100 km. The aim of this study was to identify potential soil properties and environmental covariates which might explain this longer-range spatial variation in maize grain Zn concentration. Data for maize grain Zn concentrations, soil properties, and environmental covariates were obtained from a spatially representative survey in Malawi (n = 1600 locations). Labile and non-labile soil Zn forms were determined using isotopic dilution methods, alongside conventional agronomic soil analyses. Soil properties and environmental covariates as potential predictors of the concentration of Zn in maize grain were tested using a priori expert rankings and false discovery rate (FDR) controls within the linear mixed model (LMM) framework that informed the original survey design. Mean and median grain Zn concentrations were 21.8 and 21.5 mg kg −1 , respectively (standard deviation 4.5; range 10.0-48.1). A LMM for grain Zn concentration was constructed for which the independent variables: soil pH (water) , isotopically exchangeable Zn (Zn E ), and diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) extractable Zn (Zn DTPA ) had predictive value (p < 0.01 in all cases, with FDR controlled at < 0.05). Downscaled mean annual temperature also explained a proportion of the spatial variation in grain Zn concentration. Evidence for spatially dependent variation in maize grain Zn concentrations in Malawi is robust within the LMM framework used in this study, at distances of up to ~ 100 km. Spatial predictions from this LMM provide a basis for further investigation of variations in the contribution of staple foods to Zn nutrition, and where interventions to increase dietary Zn intake (e.g. biofortification) might be most effective. Other soil and landscape factors influencing spatially dependent variation in maize grain Zn concentration, along with factors operating over shorter distances such as choice of crop variety and agronomic practices, require further exploration beyond the scope of the design of this survey.Zinc (Zn) is an essential micronutrient with critical roles in human health 1 . Zinc deficiency among human populations is widespread 2,3 . In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), Zn deficiency is likely to exceed 40% of the totalpopulation in many countries based on dietary Zn supply 3 . In Malawi, an estimated Zn deficiency prevalence rate of 62% was reported 4 , based on a national survey of serum Zn concentration conducted in 2015/16; this is likely to be higher in rural areas 5 . In Ethiopia, 72% of the population was reported to be Zn deficient 6 , also based on a national survey of serum Zn concentrations in 2015/16, also with a greater prevalence of deficiency in rural areas.Many people in SSA rely on locally produced cereals for most of their dietary Zn supply and have limited access to Zn-rich plant and animal source foods 3,7 . The grains of most cereals are a poor source of dietary Zn, which is compounded by high contents of anti-nutritional compounds such as phytates (inositol phosphate compounds) which inhibit the absorption of Zn and other micronutrients in the human gut 7 .Recent evidence has emerged of geospatial variation in grain Zn concentration in staple cereal crops in SSA, linked to soil properties and environmental covariates. This variation is likely to be of dietary significance in the context of dietary Zn supply, especially for rural populations. For example, in Malawi, the grain Zn concentration of maize grown on Vertisols was ~ 30% larger than the grain concentration from other soils 8 . Among smallholder communities farming on these Vertisols, a 35% greater dietary Zn supply was seen compared to other soils in Malawi, based on the analyses of composite diets 5 . Geospatial variation in Zn concentrations of staple crop grains has also been observed in Uganda, where smaller grain Zn concentrations were observed in sandier soils 9 . Evidence that soil properties and environmental covariates influence geospatial variation in the Zn concentration of maize grain has recently been reported in both Ethiopia and Malawi 10 . For example, soil pH and soil organic carbon (SOC) were predictive for maize grain Zn concentration (positive relationships) in both countries. Mean annual temperature and a topographic index-which indicates the potential water content of soils arising from drainage-were positively related to grain Zn concentration for maize in Malawi. The value of the variogram increased at distances up to 100 km in Malawi, providing robust evidence that soil properties and landscape factors can influence maize grain Zn concentration at multiple scales 10 .The aim of this study was to gain a greater understanding of soil properties and environmental covariates influencing grain Zn concentration. The focus was on maize grain and co-located soils, sampled at locations that provide a wide spatial coverage of the cultivated soils of Malawi 10 . In addition to general soil properties such as soil pH and SOC, this study sought to characterise Zn in soils in greater detail. Thus, 'geochemically-reactive' (labile) fractions of Zn were measured using stable isotopes of Zn, alongside a broader suite of standard soil properties including 'total' (aqua regia) and diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA)-extractable Zn. Indices which characterise labile Zn in soils include the solution ⇌ solid phase distribution coefficient of an enriched isotopic spike (Zn Kd ), which indicates Zn mobility in soil, and the isotopically exchangeable Zn fraction (Zn E ), which is considered to be a more accurate estimate of the potentially accessible pool to plants [11][12][13] . In a recent study in Amhara Region of Ethiopia, a positive relationship between Zn E and soil pH was reported 13 , however, it is not yet known how this relationship might influence grain Zn concentration. For landscape factors, downscaled precipitation and temperature, terrain index (TIM), slope, and vegetation index were considered. An explicit, hypothesis testing approach was adopted, using a method to maximise power to detect significant predictors, based on expert ranking of the soil and environmental factors considered most likely, a priori, to influence grain Zn concentration and using false discovery rate (FDR) control. A similar approach was used previously to identify factors influencing grain selenium (Se) concentration in Amhara Region, Ethiopia 14 . More information on the procedure is provided in the \"Materials and Methods\" section.Exploratory analyses. The summary statistics for maize grain Zn concentration, together with residuals from model fitting and cross-validation errors (see Methods) are shown in Table 1.The summary statistics for soil properties (Table 2) indicated that most of these were markedly skewed, except for Zn Kd and pH, which are both reported on logarithmic scales. Skewness coefficients for the other variables ranged from − 0.26 to 18.39, and the octile skewness ranged from − 0.10 to 9.52. All these variables were transformed to their natural logarithms prior to further analysis, as a result of which the conventional skewness coefficient and octile skewness were all restricted to the intervals [− 1,1] and [− 0.2,0.2], respectively. The summary statistics and exploratory plots for the residuals from an exploratory fit of the saturated models (all soil properties or all environmental covariates as fixed effects) indicated that an assumption of normality was plausible without any transformation of the data on grain Zn concentration (Supplementary Figures S1 and S2).Table 1. Summary statistics of Zn concentration in grain (n = 1600), of residuals from fitted exploratory saturated models and cross-validation errors for the E-BLUP with easting and downscales mean annual temperature as fixed effects. As described in the \"Materials and Methods\" section, the identification of variables to include as fixed effects (covariates) in statistical models for the target variable of interest, was done by a sequential set of hypothesis tests about the candidate variables in turn, with control of the False Discovery Rate (FDR) to allow for the fact that this process involves testing of multiple hypotheses. To maintain the power with which valid predictors are detected, a method called α-investment was used. This method is most effective when the tests are conducted in a sequence with the predictors most likely to be related to the target variable considered first. Before examination of the data a ranking of the soil properties and of the environmental covariates was elicited from an expert panel, and the rankings are presented in Table 3, with the first-ranked property the one thought most likely to be predictive of Zn concentration in grain. The first-ranked soil property, Zn extracted in calcium nitrate, is interpreted as a measure of soluble Zn and is an intensity variable, related to the concentration of Zn in the soil solution. Such Zn could be expected to be readily available to the growing crop. The next variable, pH, was included because of its potential effects on the uptake of Zn by the plant. The isotopically exchangeable Zn (Zn E ) and DTPA-extracted Zn (Zn DTPA ) are capacity measures reflecting the reservoir of Zn in the soil available to re-supply that which has been removed from the soil solution 13 . The former variable was ranked first because DTPA is used at a small concentration (0.005 M) which may not be a fully efficacious extractant. The 'total' Zn extracted by aqua regia (Zn AR ) was ranked lower because it may include soil Zn which is unavailable to plants. Soil organic carbon (SOC) was included after Zn DTPA and ahead of Zn AR . This was based on evidence for larger concentrations of Zn in maize grain growing on soils with larger organic inputs 15 , potentially through effects on Zn availability and as a source of Zn. The effective cation exchange capacity (eCEC), and the sum of oxalate-extractable Fe, Mn and Al oxides were then included; these properties of the soil may influence the overall capacity to retain cations such as Zn. The solid ⇌ solution distribution coefficient (Zn Kd ), which is a measure of how strongly the soil adsorbs Zn, was included last. The first-ranked environmental covariate was down-scaled precipitation, reflecting conditions for plant growth and which also influence soil climate and processes such as immobilisation. The topographic index is informative about the distribution of water in the landscape and so the local soil climate and water supply to the crop, but also relates to position in the soil catena moving from the erosion on interfluves to the accumulating positions at the topographical bottom. The remotely sensed vegetation index was then included, as a direct measure of the environment for plant growth as influenced by water supply and soil conditions. Slope was included as an additional variable reflecting landscape position. Downscaled mean annual temperature was included last as a potential proxy variable for altitude and associated environmental factors.The sequential fitting of models with predictors ordered as in Table 3 resulted in the retention of the 2nd-3rd-and 4th-ranked soil properties, pH, Zn E and Zn DTPA as predictors for grain Zn concentration. The corresponding p-values and the corresponding thresholds under FDR control with α-investment are shown in Fig. 1a,b. Table 4 shows the estimated parameters for this model, relative to the null model with eastings as the only fixed effect. Figure 2 shows the variogram functions for the null model (eastings the only fixed effect) and for the models in which the selected soil predictors are added in succession. The variogram function summarises the variance parameters of the random effects in the LMM. The variogram is half the expected squared difference between two observations of the variable as a function of the distance between them. The variance of the iid random effect (the nugget variance) is a constant component of this value, and there is an additional contribution from the correlated random effect which depends on distance in a way determined by the f and k parameters. The sum of variances of the iid and correlated random effects is the upper bound of the variogram and gives the variance in the dependent variable not accounted for by the fixed effects. The reduction in this variance achieved by adding the soil properties is a small proportion (0.034) of the value of the variance for the model with eastings only, this is the quantity reported as the approximate adjusted R 2 value for the model in Table 4 R 2 adj , equal to the difference of the sums of the two variance components for the null model and the model with predictors included expressed as a proportion of the sum of variance component of the null model. However, note that most of the variance in both models comes from the iid component, τ 2 . This is the so-called  1. The solid circles are the threshold for rejection of each null hypothesis under the FDR control.nugget variance, partially attributable to sources of variation spatially correlated over very short distances and also potential measurement errors (which are likely to be small). Most of the random variation in grain Zn is therefore fine-scale, representing factors varying over short distances and Fig. 2 shows that this quantity is unaffected by the inclusion of soil properties as predictors. A larger proportion of the spatially correlated variation seen in the variable, R 2 adj,c (0.069), is accounted for by the inclusion of the soil properties as fixed effects, although much remains unexplained. The quantity R 2 adj,c is the difference between the variance of the correlated random effects, σ 2 , for the null model and the model with predictors included, expressed as a proportion of the correlated variance for the null model. The effect of this small, though statistically significant, success of the model in accounting for variation in Zn grain concentration is seen in the somewhat smaller upper bound on the variograms for the models with the soil properties included (Fig. 2).Soil pH has a positive coefficient, indicating that, overall, the less acid soils have a larger concentration of Zn in grain. There is also a positive coefficient for Zn DPTA and a smaller but negative one for Zn E . The mechanistic Table 4. Fitted models for soil properties and maize grain Zn concentration in Malawi. *β 0 -β 4 , fixed effects coefficients β 0 is a constant and β i is the coefficient for the ith random effect; R 2 adj , the difference between the sum of the variances of the random effects for the null model and the proposed model expressed as a proportion of the sum for the null model; R 2 adj,c , the difference between the variance of the correlated random effect (σ 22 ,variance of the iid random effect (nugget variance); σ 2 , variance of the correlated random effect; ϕ, distance parameter of the Matérn correlation function. **The subscripts E and DTPA denote the isotopically exchangeable (isotopic dilution), and potentially available (DTPA extractable) fraction, respectively.  interpretation of these coefficients must be approached with caution because they partly reflect the mutual correlation among the fixed effect variables, and so are conditional on the other variables present in the model. The only environmental covariate selected by the FDR procedure is the last-ranked one, a positive coefficient for mean annual temperature. Table 5 shows the estimated parameters for this model, relative to the null model with eastings as the only fixed effect, and Fig. 3 shows the variogram functions. As with soil properties, the overall proportion of the random variation in grain Zn accounted for by the fixed effects is small (0.093), but again a much larger proportion of the spatially correlated variance is reduced by inclusion of the covariate (0.523).The summary statistics for the cross-validation errors are in Table 1 and their exploratory plots are in Fig- ure S3. The assumption of normal errors appears plausible. The mean standardised squared prediction error is 1, but the median is 0.37. This is smaller than expected; the 95% confidence interval for the median under a valid model is [0.40, 0.51], and the kriging variances may be somewhat large, possibly due to outlying observations in the data, so inferences will be conservative in the sense that uncertainty is slightly overestimated. Table 5. Fitted models for environmental covariates and maize grain Zn concentration in Malawi. *β 0 -β 4 , fixed effects coefficients β 0 is a constant and β i is the coefficient for the ith random effect; R 2 adj , the difference between the sum of the variances of the random effects for the null model and the proposed model expressed as a proportion of the sum for the null model; R 2 adj,c , the difference between the variance of the correlated random effect (σ 2 ) for the null model and the proposed model expressed as a proportion of that variance for the null model; κ, smoothness parameter of the Matérn correlation function; τ 2 , variance of the iid random effect (nugget variance); σ 2 , variance of the correlated random effect; ϕ, distance parameter of the Matérn correlation function.  Spatial mapping. Spatial patterns of grain Zn concentration show larger values in the Shire valley in the south, and along the margins of Lake Malawi (Fig. 4a). These trends in grain Zn at national scale should be interpreted with caution over small regions where the covariate changes markedly. The prediction error variances in Fig. 4b show the variation in uncertainty over the country. For example, the concentrations are smaller around the Mulanje Massif in the south east of the country and the Nyika Plateau in the North. Whilst this may reflect the influence of the mean annual temperature covariate, the kriging variances are greater over the Mulanje Massif and the Nyika Plateau.Figure 5a shows the probability that Zn grain concentration falls below a threshold of 18.6 mg kg −1 . This threshold was defined as supplying a proportion of the Zn dietary Estimated Average Requirement (EAR) that is equivalent to the proportion of 50% dietary energy intake from maize in a typical diet. In Fig. 5b, these values are presented as 'calibrated phrases' to communicate probabilistic information about uncertain variables 6,[16][17][18] . Over much of the central, northern and more western parts of the country the probability is in the interval 33-66%, interpreted as 'about as likely as not' . In these regions further measurements would be needed before deciding whether interventions are needed, for example agronomic biofortification by fertiliser application 19 , because the dietary supply of Zn from the locally-grown staple crop is small.Based on a median grain Zn concentration of 21.5 mg kg −1 and a reference daily maize intake of 343 g capita −1 day −1 from food balance sheets 20 , the typical dietary intake of Zn from maize alone in Malawi is 7.4 mg capita d −1 . This intake represents 72% of an EAR of 10.3 mg capita d −1 for Zn in adult woman of 18-24 years. However, the spatial structure observed in grain Zn concentrations from the survey, and their range from 10-48 mg kg −1 indicates that the dietary intake of Zn from the locally-produced staple maize crop could vary markedly for an individual, 3.4-16.5 mg Zn capita d −1 from maize, or 34-160% of the EAR for Zn.. This observation highlights the importance of the effect of location on the likely prevalence of Zn deficiency among populations, especially where there is a reliance on a single dietary staple crop 10 . From a previous dietary recall survey 7 , median Zn intake per capita was previously estimated to be 8.5 mg d −1 and with a median intake per Adult Male Equivalent (AME) of 10.0 mg d −1 . Lower intakes are likely in rural areas and among poorer households who have more limited access to more Zn-rich food sources such as meat, fish, and vegetables 7 . These populations are also less likely to benefit from current large-scale food fortification policies, as they are likely to consume a smaller proportion of fortified foods 21 . From food supply data at a national level, it was previously estimated that Malawi has a dietary Zn supply of < 14 mg capita −1 day −1 , compared with a supply of ~ 20 mg capita −1 day −1 in many higher-income countries 22 .Geographical differences in Zn intake have been reported previously in Malawi, based on (1) direct compositional analysis of dietary intakes in two different locations 5 , and (2) from national-scale dietary surveys linked to food composition data based on convenience sampling 7 . The current spatially representative survey of maize grain Zn concentration is consistent with data from both of those earlier studies. Siyame et al. 5 reported a median Zn intake among adult women of 4.8 (1st and 3rd quartiles 3.5, 6.4; n = 55) and 6.4 (1st and 3rd quartiles, 3.5, 6.4; n = 58) mg capita −1 d −1 in Zombwe and Mikalango Extension Planning Areas (EPAs), respectively. Zombwe EPA is in the Northern region (within a light green area in Fig. 4, representing low grain Zn concentrations), compared with Mikalango EPA which is in the Southern region (a dark green area in Fig. 4, representing high grain Zn concentrations). Siyame et al. noted that these differences corresponded with a reported ~ 30% greater grain Zn concentration in maize growing on Vertisol soil types of higher pH in Mikalango EPA, than maize growing on the more acidic soils typical of Zombwe EPA, as reported earlier by Chilimba et al. 8 . Joy et al. 7 also used data from Chilimba et al. together with new food composition data obtained by convenience sampling 23 . Among 179 EPAs across the country, median Zn supply per AME ranged from 4.4 mg d −1 in Kalumba EPA (n = 16 households) to 15.8 mg d −1 in Masambanjati EPA (n = 32). Again, these contrasts are consistent with the current study, whereby Kalumba EPA is in the Central region, and falls within an area shaded lighter green (maize grain Zn concentration of 13.1-21.4 mg kg −1 ), and Masambanjati EPA which is in the Southern region, and falls within an area shaded darker green (maize grain Zn concentration of 21.5-24.2 mg kg −1 ).The predictive value of soil factors for maize grain Zn concentration was significant, albeit the three factors reported here (pH, isotopically-exchangeable Zn, DTPA-extractable Zn) explained only a small proportion of the random spatial effects (adjusted R 2 = 0.034) within the overall model, once the fixed spatial trend effect had been accounted for. A positive relationship between soil pH and maize grain Zn concentration is consistent with contrasts reported between soil types 5,8,23 , and with trends reported for maize grain Zn concentration in Ethiopia and Malawi 10 . Furthermore, increasing soil pH has been shown to increase the pool of isotopically exchangeable Zn in soils, and therefore its potential plant availability 13 . In this study, the isotopically exchangeable Zn fraction had significant predictive power for maize grain Zn concentration, as did DTPA-extractable Zn (a more conventional measure of plant Zn availability in soils), even after controlling for the effects of soil pH using FDR adjustments.Relationships between SOC and grain Zn concentration were not observed in this current analysis. In a previous study using these data, in which soil pH and SOC were the only two soil factors included in the analysis, a significant but weak positive correlation was observed between SOC and maize grain Zn concentration in both Ethiopia and Malawi 13 . That previous report was consistent with survey-based observations that the preferential use of locally sourced organic materials by smallholder farmers can improve grain Zn concentrations in maize (in Zimbabwe 15 ) and wheat (Ethiopia 24 ) cropping systems. A lack of association between SOC and maize grain Zn concentration in this analysis should be treated with caution. Whilst the SOC effect was > 0.05, it is possible that the predictors included previously in the analysis are correlated with SOC, and so act as a proxy. For example, DTPA-extractable Zn and SOC were shown to be correlated in the studies of both Manzeke et al. 15 and Mossa et al. 13 . The positive relationship between mean annual temperature and grain Zn concentration had the largest predictive power of all the soil properties and environmental covariates tested in this study. However, this factor still only accounted for a relatively small proportion of the variation in grain Zn concentration due to random spatial effects (adjusted R 2 = 0.093), once the fixed spatial trend effect had been accounted for within the overall model. The reason why a greater mean annual temperature leads to increased maize grain Zn concentration may be due to smaller grains and greater transpiration occurring under warmer conditions. This observation could be used to support the design of future surveys, which might be able to incorporate further information on temperature and other climate-related and spatially correlated landscape factors.Strengths of the current study include the use of a formal hypothesis testing framework and FDR control based on expert ranking of potential soil properties and environmental covariates which influence maize grain Zn concentration. Such a robust statistical approach is well-suited to this type of survey in which the sampling frame was conditioned to maximise the spatial coverage of a geographical area. Using this approach, we have identified soil properties (pH, isotopically exchangeable Zn, DTPA-extractable Zn) and an environmental covariate (mean annual temperature) that explain some of the spatially correlated variation in maize grain Zn concentration. This study was not designed to quantify the effects of how crop variety (Genotype, G) or farmer practices (Management, M) will influence grain Zn concentrations. Genotypic variation in maize grain Zn concentration is already being used to breed biofortified varieties of maize, for example, the grain Zn concentration of new hybrid maize varieties released in Guatemala (ICTA HB-18, ICTA B-15) and Colombia (BIO-MZN01) are reported 25 to contain 15% and 36%, respectively in the two countries, above target levels of ~ 30 mg kg -1 . Multiple agronomic factors will affect yield, yield components, and grain micronutrient concentrations across multiple scales. These include the use of both standard NPK-and Zn-containing fertilisers and the use of organic soil amendments, which can increase maize grain Zn concentrations 15,19,26 . Future surveys could be designed to determine the contribution of G and M factors, together with complex G × E × M interactions, to gain a greater more understanding of the factors which influence variation in grain Zn concentration, and to design practical interventions to increase the dietary supply of Zn through crops.The field sampling and analyses of grain, soil pH, and SOC was described previously by Gashu et al. 10 , with further details provided here.The sampling domain was defined as all raster cells in the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative data within Malawi 27 for which 'cropland' was used in the land use description. The primary objective of this sampling was to support spatial prediction for mapping of the variables measured. Such a sampling design requires good spatial coverage, to minimise the distance between any location where a prediction is made and the nearest sample to support that prediction 28 . It also requires an additional subset of close pairs of points to support the statistical modelling required as a basis for spatial prediction 29 . We formed an initial 'spatial coverage' target sample set of 1710 locations, including 820 fixed points from the 2015/16 Demographic and Health Survey of Malawi, 890 additional locations, plus a further 190 close-pair sample locations 10 .Sampling was undertaken by trained teams as described in Gashu et al. 10 . From a total of 1812 sites where grain and soil samples were taken, 1790 had location accuracy of ≤ 9 m. A further 16 sites had location accuracy of 10-17 m, whilst six locations had positional uncertainties of 2,900-5,000 m most likely due to either poor satellite signal or enumerators not giving the devices enough time to establish the location. These latter six locations, along with 204 locations from which crops other than maize were sampled (sorghum, rice, pearl millet, finger millet) were excluded from the analyses reported in this paper, giving a sample size of 1602 locations.Grain and soil analyses. Grain samples were prepared and analysed using methods described in Gashu et al. 10 . Briefly, Zn concentration in grain determined using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS; iCAPQ, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Bremen, Germany) following acid digestion with 6 mL of 70% Trace Analysis Grade (TAG) HNO 3 in a Multiwave microwave. Soil parameters were determined using methods described in Mossa et al. 13 and Gashu et al. 14 : soil pH (water) in a soil:water suspension ratio of 1:2.5; total nitrogen (N); total carbon (C, dry combustion); soil organic C (SOC) based on the difference between total C and measured inorganic C; effective cation exchange capacity (eCEC) and exchangeable cations using hexaminecobalt trichloride solution; amorphous oxides (AlOx, FeOx, MnOx) using ammonium oxalate extraction; Olsen P; DTPA-extractable Zn; isotopically exchangeable Zn (Zn E ). Two data points were excluded, one with a grain Zn concentration less than the limit of detection and one with a missing Zn Kd value, giving a final sample size of 1600.A set of environmental covariates, possibly correlated to Zn status of grain through effects on crop growth and soil conditions, were identified for consideration. We obtained the MERIT Digital Elevation Model 30 , and the associated values for surface slope and the topographic index, which measures the tendency of water to accumulate at a location in so far as this is determined by overland flow. We also obtained the downscaled values for mean annual temperature and precipitation in the CHELSA data set 31 . Finally, we obtained the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) based on data from the MODIS remote sensor satellite 32 . Specifically, we used the average value of the 250-m EVI product (MOD13Q1) over the period 2000-2016.There are two overall objectives. The first is to identify relationships between soil properties and the concentration of Zn in maize grain. The second is to model the spatial variation of Zn concentration in maize grain at national scale to support mapping of this variable, exploiting any relationships with the environmental covariates for which there is evidence. A Linear Mixed Model (LMM) framework was used in which the variable is modelled as a combination of fixed effects (linear functions of soil properties or environmental covariates), a correlated random effect, and an independent and identically distributed (iid) random error (nugget effect) which incorporates variation due both to measurement error and factors that vary over short distances relative to the spacing of sample points. A LMM is necessary for modelling to support spatial prediction, and for testing hypotheses about relationships between grain Zn concentration and soil properties, because the sample sites were not selected by a probability sampling design that would enable them to be treated as independent and modelled using other methods, such as ordinary least squares regression 28,33 . Here, the random effect was a Gaussian random field with a spatial covariance structure 33,34 . This spatial LMM provides a basis for interpolation of the variable of interest, whereby the prediction error variance (expected squared error) is minimised conditional on the LMM. This prediction is called the best linear unbiased predictor (BLUP), and the BLUP based on a fitted LMM to data is called the empirical BLUP (E-BLUP). For a spatial LMM, in which the only fixed effect is an unknown mean, the E-BLUP is equivalent to the ordinary kriging prediction 35 , if spatial covariates are incorporated in the fixed effects then the E-BLUP is equivalent to the kriging prediction with an external drift.In a LMM framework, the evidence that a fixed effect coefficient is significantly different from zero can be tested by calculating the Wald statistic 33 , and the evidence that adding fixed effects to a simpler model achieves a significant improvement by computing the log-ratio statistic:where ℓ 1 and ℓ 0 denote, respectively the maximised log-likelihoods from fitting the model with the additional fixed effects, and the simpler model without them. Under the null hypothesis, where the additional fixed effects are not related to the dependent variable, this statistic is asymptotically distributed as chi-square with degrees of freedom equal to the number of additional fixed effects.We used this approach to hypothesis testing for the identification of independent variables (covariates) to include as fixed effects in models for target properties of interest. However, a step-wise procedure in which candidate predictors are considered and accepted or rejected on the basis of a hypothesis test is not a robust approach to variable selection 36,37 . A statistically consistent approach to variable selection is to treat it as a problem in multiple hypothesis testing 38 . That is to say, to recognise that the sequence of tests in step-wise variable selection do not constitute a set of tests of single hypotheses, each of interest in themselves, but rather that the interest is in which subset of candidate covariates appears to be related to the target variable 39 . The probability that a set of tests, all of which are of null hypotheses, result in incorrect rejections may be substantially larger than the threshold at which individual tests are conducted. One approach to multiple hypothesis testing is to control the false discovery rate (FDR) over a set of tests 40 . The FDR is the proportion of false rejections of null hypotheses out of those rejected. Various methods have been proposed to control FDR over a set of multiple tests 41 . A FDR control does reduce the power to detect real effects among a set of predictors. One way to reduce this loss of power, while maintaining FDR control, is by the method of α-investment 42 . This can be applied to a sequence of tests, and the power to detect real effects is increased when those null hypotheses most likely to be false (on the basis of a priori expectation, not exploratory analysis of data on the dependent variable) are tested at the beginning of the sequence. This is because the threshold against which the p-value for a test in the sequence is examined can be varied according to a quantity called the α-wealth which is depleted when null hypotheses are accepted and increased when they are rejected, while still controlling FDR.Here, we used FDR control with α-investment 43 . Models were fitted sequentially, starting with a 'null model' with the only fixed effect a spatial trend identified in exploratory analysis of the data. This model was used, rather than a model with a constant mean as the only fixed effect, because the latter model would violate assumptions of second-order stationarity when a spatial trend is pronounced 35 . The null model was fitted by maximum likelihood (ML). The first predictor was then included as a fixed effect and the model refitted. The log-likelihood ratio statistic (Eq. 1) was then computed. If the p-value for this test exceeded 0.05 then the predictor was dropped, otherwise it was provisionally retained, and the next predictor was considered. Once all the predictors had been considered the p-values for each were compared to thresholds according to the α-wealth controlling FDR (here 0.05). The predictors for which the p-values fell below the α-wealth (FDR threshold) were then definitively retained, and the final model refitted this time by residual maximum likelihood (REML).To apply this method, we required separate rankings of the soil properties and the environmental covariates as potential predictors of the Zn concentration in maize grain. These rankings were based on a priori expectations, based on understanding of the processes involved, and not from exploration of relationships between the available predictor variables and the target variables of interest. However, once a predictor is included in the ranking, a second predictor strongly correlated with it is unlikely to include much additional information about the target variable, and so is placed lower in the ranking that it would be based on process considerations alone. Whilst a poorly-informed ranking, which fails to reflect the relative importance of a predictor, can reduce our power to detect real effects as significant, the FDR is always controlled at the specified rate. An approach to variable selection based on FDR control with α-investment is therefore conservative, in the sense that FDR control reduces the risk of fitting an unduly complex model as a result of multiple hypothesis testing, and thatan effective ranking simply increases the power of the procedure to detect those predictor variables for which there is evidence for a relationship with the target variable.Rankings were provided by a panel meeting of soil and plant scientists. Before the meeting, the two lists of potential predictors available (soil properties and environmental covariates), and information on the correlations among the predictors within each group (Figure S4), were circulated among the panel members. Panel members were asked to share their views on the processes by which these might determine the concentration of Zn in grain. At the meeting, the principles of the approach to FDR control, and key points outlined in the previous two paragraphs were presented. The two sets of predictors were then ranked through a discussion, facilitated by statisticians with experience in group elicitation, who ensured that the discussion was not dominated by a few voices and that statistical concepts were understood correctly (e.g. how correlations between predictors might influence the process). Rankings of the two groups of predictors were obtained by a consensus.Exploratory data analysis and model-fitting. Summary statistics of the predictor variables were first examined along with the octile skewness coefficient 44 , which is robust to the effect of outlying observations. Whereas variables with (conventional) skewness in excess of 1.0 typically require transformation 35 , the equivalent guide value of the octile skewness is 0.2. Those with a pronounced octile skew coefficient were transformed to natural logarithms before they were used. The data on Zn concentration in maize grain were examined using the plot.geodata function from the geoR library 45 . This allows to examine the data for evidence of pronounced spatial trends by examining plots of the variable against the northings and eastings, and spatial plots of the data, coded with colour symbols to indicate the quartiles of the data set to which they belonged. 'Saturated' exploratory models for grain Zn concentration with (1) all soil properties as fixed effects, along with a trend in the eastings identified from the spatial plots, and (2) all environmental covariates and easting as fixed effects were then fitted, and the summary statistics and histograms of the residuals were examined to decide whether grain Zn concentration required transformation for an assumption of normality to be plausible in either or both cases. These exploratory models were fitted by ordinary least squares.The LMMs were fitted using the likfit function in the geoR package for the R platform 45,46 . This method finds estimates of the parameters of the random effects by ML or REML. The former method is appropriate when two LMM with different fixed effects structures are to be compared. The latter is most appropriate when forming a model for prediction because bias in the estimated random effects is reduced when the fixed effects are more complex than a constant mean. The model-fitting procedure for LMMs is described previously 33,45 . Briefly, the estimated parameters for the random effects comprise the variance of the iid error (τ 2 ), the variance of the spatially correlated random component (σ 2 ), a distance parameter which quantifies the spatial scale over which the correlated random effect shows spatial dependence (ϕ), and a parameter which describes the smoothness of the spatial process (κ). This latter parameter can be challenging to estimate, so we used a profiling method 45 in which the parameter is fixed at each of a set of discrete values and the others are fitted by ML. The value of κ for which the likelihood was largest was selected. This was done for the null model, and the selected value of κ was then used for all others.The LMM with environmental covariates, to be used for spatial mapping, was examined by a cross-validation method in which each observation was extracted from the data set in turn and the E-BLUP and its prediction error variance computed from the remaining data. The summary statistics and exploratory plots of the errors were examined to evaluate the plausibility of assumptions of normal errors. The standardised squared prediction errors, the square of the difference between the observed value and the E-BLUP divided by the prediction error variance, were calculated and their mean and median values computed. We expected the mean value to be close to 1 and the median to be close to 0.455 for a valid model 47 .Once a LMM was fitted with selected predictors from among the environmental covariates, the E-BLUP was computed for each raster cell at which the selected covariates were recorded 33 . The prediction can be thought of as a combination of a 'regression-type' component, based on the selected covariate(s), and a 'kriging-type' prediction from the random effects. The prediction minimises the expected value of the prediction error variance, a quantity which is also calculated, and which quantifies the uncertainty of the prediction. The kriging variance along with the spatial predictions of Zn concentration were then presented as a map using ArcGIS (version 10.4.1; Environmental Systems Research Institute, ESRI, https:// www. esri. com/ en-us/ home).Because the uncertainty of E-BLUP predictions can be quantified in this way, one may also examine the uncertainties attached to interpretations of the map of grain Zn concentration. For example, the expected average requirement of Zn on a population-weighted basis 22 is ~ 10.3 mg capita −1 day −1 . Given a reference daily maize intake 20 of 342.8 g capita −1 day −1 , and an energy density for maize of 3.79 kcal g −1 , the daily energy intake from maize is 342.8 × 3.79 kcal = 1,299.2 kcal, which is 61.9% of the average daily energy requirement (ADER) in Malawi 48 . Therefore, if maize is to provide the same proportion of the EAR of Zn, as it does of the ADER, then the concentration of maize in grain must equal 18.6 mg kg −1 . A policy maker could therefore examine the map of grain Zn concentration provided here and identify where the concentration is below this threshold. However, these predictions are uncertain. If one assumes normal prediction errors, the probability that grain Zn falls below the threshold at a location can be computed from the normal distribution function, with mean equal to the E-BLUP at that location and variance equal to the E-BLUP prediction error variance. These probabilities were also presented as a map using ArcGIS (version 10.4.1; ESRI).Statement on grain samples. All the methods were carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations, including ethical approvals (as the samples were taken with the informed consent of the fam-","tokenCount":"7160"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cd81e734f76f137a38b7c1f061eb861c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8c3327a2-74d6-470c-8b0c-89736a3676ef/retrieve","id":"-90205111"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"591edff0-d6de-4dfe-82c6-8f531bb16a28","pagecount":"28","content":"Plus proches des producteurs, les médias ruraux s'engagent à leurs côtés | Point de vue Marie-Pauline Voufo : le Web, formidable vivier de lecteurs Grâce à Internet, La Voix du Paysan atteint désormais la sous-région et les jeunes Camerounais | Reportage Bénin : AIC-Infos, tout sur le coton Au service de l'interprofession coton du Bénin, un bulletin s'est rendu indispensable | Filière Chameaux : la bosse du commerce | Publications | Agir avec le CTA MÉDIAS RURAUX Nouvelles frontières, nouvelle ère Éditorial Agriculture et changement climatique Le changement climatique aura des répercussions profondes sur l'agriculture. Une hausse de 2 °C des températures d'ici la fin du XXI e siècle, scénario optimiste, modifiera radicalement les productions agricoles, avec des conséquences sur la sécurité alimentaire dans les pays ACP. Toutefois, l'agriculture contribue aussi significativement au changement climatique : elle est responsable de près d'un tiers des émissions mondiales de gaz à effet de serre si on inclut la déforestation réalisée au profit des cultures et de l'élevage. Les agriculteurs doivent donc répondre à un triple défi : accroître la production alimentaire, adapter leurs productions au changement climatique et adopter des pratiques qui réduisent l'empreinte carbone de ces productions. Jusqu'à présent, l'agriculture n'est pourtant pas au centre des débats internationaux sur le changement climatique. Il est donc vital qu'elle occupe une place privilégiée lors de la 17 e Conférence des parties à la Convention-cadre des Nations unies sur les changements climatiques (CCNUCC) prévue à Durban, Afrique du Sud. Durant cette conférence, le CTA coorganisera, le 3 décembre 2011, la 3 e Journée de l'agriculture et du développement rural.Ce sera l'occasion de discuter avec des associations de producteurs, instituts de recherche, agences de développement et ONG de solutions intelligentes par rapport au changement climatique. Aucun gouvernement n'adoptera des mesures visant à réduire les émissions de gaz à effet de serre si elles compromettent la capacité du pays à s'alimenter. C'est une des raisons pour lesquelles l'agriculture doit figurer au coeur des négociations.endant un temps, ils ont semblé la réponse aux problèmes énergétiques du monde. Les agrocarburants de \"première génération\" -produits essentiellement à base de cultures vivrières -ont d'abord paru très prometteurs. Mais cet espoir s'est évanoui quand les chercheurs ont constaté qu'ils nuisaient à l'environnement et empiétaient sur la terre et l'eau destinées à la production alimentaire, limitant l'approvisionnement local et faisant grimper les prix. L'attention s'est alors tournée vers les agrocarburants dits de \"seconde génération\". Il s'agissait d'accroître la production énergétique à partir d'un plus vaste éventail de végétaux. Ces nouveaux agrocombustibles sont tirés de résidus agricoles et d'espèces végétales invasives, mais aussi de plantes non alimentaires à haut rendement pouvant être cultivées sur des terres plus marginales ou dégradées. L'utilisation la plus courante de ces agrocarburants avancés concerne le transport, mais ils peuvent aussi alimenter des générateurs pour la production d'électricité.Si la recherche et le développement dans ce domaine sont actuellement dominés par les pays industrialisés -la production commerciale devant débuter dans les prochaines années -, les pays en développement auront pourtant toute latitude pour jouer un rôle en la matière, pour peu qu'ils relèvent certains défis. D'après une étude de l'Agence internationale de l'énergie (AIE), les agrocombustibles assureront 26 % du carburant de transport en 2050 ; 90 % d'entre eux seront alors de seconde génération. Plus de la moitié des agrocarburants de seconde génération devraient être produits dans les pays non membres de l'OCDE. Les agrocarburants en cours de développement sont notamment à base de matières premières lignocellulosiques, telles que le bois, les graminées, les résidus sylvicoles et agricoles, et les algues.Certains pays ACP s'efforcent déjà de participer. Les Fidji ont identifié les sites de 23 usines d'agrocarburants, qui pourraient ouvrir d'ici 2013. Elles exploiteront le coprah, déjà utilisé par l'huilerie de l'île de Koro. L'entreprise sud-africaine Stellenbosch Biomass Technologies a acquis les droits pour commercialiser la technologie de production de l'éthanol cellulosique développée par Mascoma, société de biocarburants basée aux États-Unis. Cette technologie pourra ainsi être adaptée aux conditions propres à l'Afrique australe et à ses végétaux. Toujours en Afrique du Sud, les scientifiques du Conseil pour la recherche scientifique et industrielle cultivent et récoltent des microalgues et ont commencé à développer des procédés de production d'agrocarburants.Sans aucun doute, le potentiel est là. \"Théoriquement, le continent [africain] pourrait remplacer sa demande de carburants fossiles de transport par des agrocarburants renouvelables et en rester exportateur net\", explique Emile Van Zyl, de l'Université de Stellenbosch. Une étude de 2007 estime que, d'ici 2050, l'Afrique pourrait fournir un quart de l'agroénergie mondiale par le biais de ces technologies de seconde génération. Des experts brésiliens considèrent, eux, que le Sénégal pourrait produire 28 millions de litres d'éthanol par an d'ici 2013. Cela réduirait la dépendance du pays vis-à-vis desLes agrocarburants de seconde génération pourraient créer de nouvelles opportunités de revenus et favoriser le développement rural sans concurrencer la production alimentaire. Mais, s'ils veulent profiter de ce secteur émergent, les pays ACP devront fournir davantage d'infrastructures et d'investissements. carburants d'importation, et ce dans le cadre de son programme de développement agroénergétique sur cinq ans, dont on prévoit qu'il créera 100 000 emplois. La Stratégie 2007 d'agrocarburants industriels de l'Afrique du Sud prévoyait, elle, qu'une production annuelle de 400 millions de litres d'agrocombustibles générerait 25 000 nouveaux emplois. Une étude récente de l'AIE a établi qu'au Cameroun la production d'agrocarburants de seconde génération pourrait excéder la demande nationale en combustibles.Ne pas gaspiller, pour ne pas manquer D'après les experts, les résidus sylvicoles et agricoles devraient être les matières premières privilégiées au stade initial de la production, puisqu'ils sont déjà disponibles et ne requièrent pas de culture supplémentaire. Ainsi, les déchets de l'agriculture et de la sylviculture (paille, tiges, sciure et feuilles), ceux de la transformation (coques de noix, bagasse et sciure de canne à sucre) ou encore les déchets urbains organiques sont autant de sources potentielles. Les résidus restants peuvent être réutilisés, notamment comme fourrage, engrais biologique ou combustible pour la cuisson domestique. Actuellement, dans un certain nombre de pays ACP, les résidus et produits dérivés de l'agriculture propices à la production d'agrocarburants de seconde génération sont jetés, brûlés ou sous-exploités.Certaines cultures énergétiques cellulosiques dédiées sont également prometteuses. Elles présentent des avantages majeurs en termes de viabilité environnementale par rapport aux cultures de première génération. Comparativement aux féculents riches en amidon et aux oléagineux traditionnels, elles générent une biomasse par hectare plus importante, car la plante entière peut être transformée en combustible. Certaines plantes pérennes à croissance rapide comme les plantes ligneuses à rotation courte et les graminées peuvent pousser sur des sols pauvres et dégradés, peu propices aux cultures alimentaires du fait de l'érosion ou d'autres facteurs. Néanmoins, le pourghère (Jatropha curcas) -principale plante utilisée en Afrique pour produire des agrocarburants de nouvelle génération -a suscité une vive polémique, se voyant reprocher de détourner des terres agricoles de qualité et de nécessiter un entretien plus important qu'initialement prévu.Une filière agrocarburants D'importants défis restent à relever. Au Cameroun, comme dans beaucoup de pays ACP, le régime d'occupation des terres s'appuie sur la propriété collective et les droits fonciers restent flous. L'insuffisance de la R&D, la faiblesse des infrastructures et le manque de maind'oeuvre qualifiée sont autant d'obstacles supplémentaires. La biomasse cellulosique se broye plus difficilement que l'amidon, le sucre ou les oléagineux, aussi sa transformation en carburant liquide est-elle plus coûteuse. Un autre aspect à ne pas négliger est l'influence cruciale qu'a la biomasse en décomposition sur la fertilité et la texture des sols ; des prélèvements excessifs à des fins agroénergétiques pourraient s'avérer néfastes.Pour encourager la participation des petits exploitants à la production d'agrocarburants, des politiques publiques et un soutien de l'État sont nécessaires. Les efforts doivent porter sur les infrastructures, la recherche, le financement, l'information sur les marchés et le cadre juridique. Une filière agrocarburants doit être mise en place, avec la participation du secteur privé, pour superviser les récoltes et la transformation.En outre, de plus amples recherches sont nécessaires pour s'assurer que les agrocarburants de seconde génération procureront un avantage économique aux pays en développement.L'AIE préconise d'adopter une feuille de route mondiale pour le développement des technologies, d'évaluer l'impact de la production commerciale d'agrocarburants de seconde génération et d'améliorer les données sur les terres disponibles.Dans l'intervalle, il importe de ne pas laisser les pays ACP à l'écart. D'ici la mise au point de nouvelles technologies viables sur le plan commercial et l'instauration d'un cadre macroéconomique adapté, des systèmes agroénergétiques de seconde génération peuvent exister à petite échelle et améliorer utilement la production agricole et l'offre énergétique. Parmi les pistes évoquées par l'AIE figurent une utilisation plus efficace de la bagasse en Tanzanie et l'exploitation des résidus de scieries au Cameroun pour la production de chaleur et d'électricité.■ En Namibie, les communautés indigènes contribuent à la rédaction du premier projet de loi sur l'accès aux ressources génétiques et au savoir traditionnel. La loi devrait être prête en fin d'année, pour permettre aux autorités de signer le Protocole de Nagoya, un cadre juridique international qui veille au partage plus équitable des ressources génétiques.Cette législation vise à empêcher l'exploitation de ressources indigènes telles que la griffe du diable (Harpagophytum), une plante qu'utilise le peuple San pour soigner les rhumatismes et l'arthrite, ou le hoodia (Hoodia gordonii), qui sert de coupe-faim. Par le passé, les communautés namibiennes n'ont reçu qu'une faible compensation pour les produits fabriqués à partir de ces plantes. \"Elles tireront avantage de ce projet si leurs savoirs traditionnels associés sont utilisés ou si ce sont elles qui, sur le plan juridique, fournissent directement la ressource en question\", explique Pierre du Plessis, négociateur namibien du Protocole de Nagoya. Le projet de loi inclut une plateforme qui engage des juristes pour conseiller ces communautés afin de formuler des accords équitables. La création d'une coopérative de commercialisation de cacao composée de 11 petites associations de producteurs des villages de la région d'Água Izé, São Tomé et Príncipe, a permis une augmentation significative de la production. \"CECAQ-11\" est passée de 50 à 600 tonnes de 2004 à 2010. La formation de cette coopérative est le résultat de plusieurs années de travail et de progrès, basées sur la qualité du produitde variété Criollo -et sa transformation locale, plutôt que sur l'exportation de fèves de cacao brut. Grâce à l'adoption progressive de méthodes plus modernes de culture, de fermentation et de séchage, les producteurs ont obtenu de meilleurs rendements. Ils se sont aussi dispensés d'intermédiaires de commercialisation. Ils obtiennent aujourd'hui un prix environ cinq fois supérieur à celui reçu jusqu'alors. Pour atteindre ces résultats, la coopérative a bénéficié du soutien conjoint d'un programme des Nations unies et de l'organisation de commerce équitable Cafédirect, qui certifie le cacao \"commerce équitable\" et l'importe directement de la coopérative.Imaginé voici plusieurs décennies, le barrage de Kandadji, situé dans la région de Tillabéri sur le fleuve Niger, va-t-il enfin voir le jour ? Tout semble l'indiquer, après l'inauguration, en mai, des travaux de construction par le président de la République du Niger, Issoufou Mahamadou. Un objectif : assurer la sécurité alimentaire des Nigériens. En stockant quelque 1,6 milliard de m 3 d'eau, le barrage devrait permettre d'irriguer 120 000 hectares de terres, produisant 700 000 tonnes de vivres par an. La fin des travaux du barrage, confiés à une entreprise russe, Zarubezhvodstry (ZBS), pour une enveloppe d'environ 89 milliards de FCFA (135,6 millions d'euros), est prévue en 2014.nOIX De CAJOU■ L'Ouganda relance son secteur de la noix de cajou (Anacardium occidentale), affaibli par des années d'abandon. Un projet pilote est mené dans les sous-régions de Teso et de Lango, où les chercheurs ont multiplié 200 000 plants et réhabilité 100 000 arbres mal entretenus. Mis en oeuvre par l'Institut national de recherche sur les ressources forestières (NaFORRI) et le Fonds commun pour les produits de base (CFC), il prévoit de cultiver à la fois des variétés traditionnelles et améliorées.Joseph Okilan, de l'association des producteurs de noix de cajou de Teso, estime qu'avec 30 arbres à l'hectare le rendement par saison est d'environ 4 500 kg de noix décortiquées, avec une moyenne de 150 kg par arbre. Un kilo de noix décortiquées se vend 5 000 UGX (environ 1,5 €), mais le marché des noix grillées est beaucoup plus lucratif, les hôtels étant prêts à payer quatre fois le prix au kilo (environ 6 €).De la même famille que le manguier, l'anacardier prospère sur des sols sablonneux à faible pluviosité. Les noix de cajou étant très sensibles aux parasites et aux maladies, les chercheurs testent actuellement plusieurs variétés pour y remédier.■ Pour accroître l'exploitation, la consommation et la commercialisation des fruits forestiers, l'Institut sénégalais de recherches agricoles (ISRA) a initié le projet de \"villages fruitiers\". Il s'agit pour l'institut de procéder à des recherches pour améliorer la qualité de fruits dits \"sauvages\" et répondre à la demande des villageois qui les consomment habituellement. En partenariat avec ces villages, les chercheurs de l'ISRA ont pu domestiquer ces fruits. Ils ont, par exemple, amélioré la pomme de jujube (Zizyphus mauritania) en augmentant sa taille et en la rendant plus savoureuse, raccourci le cycle de fructification du tamarinier (Tamarindus indicas) de 15 à 4 ans, du madd (Saba senegalensis) de 5 à 2 ans, etc. Selon Ibrahima Thomas, ingénieur au Centre national de recherche forestière (CNRF) de l'ISRA, le jujube domestiqué est vendu aujourd'hui jusqu'à 1 500 FCFA le kilo (2,5 euros environ) sur les marchés de Dakar. Formés aux techniques de reboisement, les villageois participent à la vulgarisation et la domestication de ces fruits. Macoumba Diouf, directeur général de l'ISRA, informe qu'étant donné son succès auprès des populations rurales, ce projet de villages fruitiers est transféré aux services des Eaux et Forêts du Sénégal. tRAnSFORMAtIOnCentré sur les villages, un projet aide 30 000 petits exploitants au Kenya, en Ouganda et en Tanzanie à augmenter leurs revenus en transformant le manioc. Le Projet de transformation du manioc au village (CVPP) qu'ont lancé l'Alliance pour une révolution verte en Afrique et Farm Concern International s'appuie sur le modèle suivant : un huitième des produits de chaque parcelle sert à la consommation des ménages, tandis que le reste est transformé à des fins de production industrielle. Les collectivités locales ont mis en place, au niveau des villages, 120 unités de transformation. Il s'agit de donner aux agriculteurs les moyens de s'engager dans la production commerciale et la semi-transformation du manioc pour le vendre aux fabricants d'aliments pour le bétail.■ Au Mozambique, Gouda Gold, entreprise à capitaux mozambicains et zimbabwéens, produit un fromage de qualité dans la région centrale de Manica, qui bénéficie d'une tradition et d'un potentiel élevé pour l'élevage bovin, la production de lait et la fabrication du fromage. Cette entreprise a récemment reçu un appui financier hollandais, qui lui a permis d'importer un équipement moderne et adapté aux conditions locales. Environ 12,5 tonnes de Gouda sont désormais produites par semaine, conformément aux normes internationales, y compris celles de l'exigeant marché hollandais. Au Mozambique, le fromage est vendu dans les réseaux de supermarchés installés dans les principales villes du pays, dans les entreprises de restauration, dans les compagnies aériennes, etc. Pour ce qui concerne l'exportation, l'entreprise mise sur le puissant marché sud-africain. L'usine, installée dans la périphérie de Chimoio, capitale provinciale, emploie environ 30 personnes et compte 75 vaches de type \"Holstein\". Toutefois, d'après le directeur de l'entreprise, Brendon Evans, il y a toujours de la place pour davantage de fournisseurs de lait : \"Nous sommes prêts à aider les petits agriculteurs de la province de Manica en achetant leur lait. C'est ce que nous ferons bientôt.\"Une ferme d'insémination artificielle de bovins, la première du genre en Mauritanie, vient de voir le jour près d'Idini, à 55 km de la capitale, Nouakchott. Cette ferme pilote, qui dispose d'une capacité de traitement de 300 têtes de bovins, a pour objectifs d'améliorer les espèces et d'augmenter la production laitière et en viande du pays. La priorité sera donnée aux éleveurs les plus démunis. Sont concernés, dans une première phase, les trois régions de Nouakchott, du Trarza et du Brakna. Selon Fall Moktar, conseiller technique du ministre mauritanien du Développement rural, chargé de l'élevage, l'opération sera, par la suite, étendue à l'ensemble du pays.Le varroa, un acarien qui parasite les abeilles et décime les ruches, menace l'apiculture malgache. Les principales régions productrices sont touchées. Un plan de surveillance du parasite, axé sur la valorisation de la recherche paysanne, a été mis en place dans le cadre d'une convention entre la Fédération nationale des apiculteurs malgaches (FenAM), la Direction des services vétérinaires (DSv) et la Faculté des sciences.PISCICULtURe Concombres de mer ■ L'Institut halieutique et des sciences marines de Toliara (IHSM) à Madagascar vient d'étendre son centre d'élevage de concombres de mer (holothuries). Une production de 200 000 juvéniles par an est ainsi prévue contre 90 000 par an actuellement. Parallèlement, l'IHSM poursuit, en partenariat avec le Projet d'appui aux communautés des pêcheurs de Toliara (PACP), la promotion de l'holothuriculture (élevage du concombre de mer) auprès des pêcheurs intéressés. Le PACP, financé par le Fonds africain de développement, prévoit la mise en place de 50 réserves marines pour l'élevage de concombres de mer, ainsi que la recherche et développement pour la promotion de la culture d'algues rouges. Ces réserves, qui seront approvisionnées par la production du centre d'élevage de l'IHSM, seront gérées par les communautés de pêcheurs, préalablement formés par le PACP. Le concombre de mer constituera pour eux une source de revenus permanents. Mollusque marin ressemblant à une grosse limace, l'holothurie est très demandée par les Chinois qui la consomment en sauce ou frite. Un morceau de choix L'écotourisme, avec la production légale de gibier et la chasse touristique sur des terres privées, peut contribuer à la conservation de la faune sauvage, à la sécurité alimentaire -apport protéique -et à la croissance économique de la Namibie -source d'emplois et de devises. C'est ce qu'indique le réseau TRAFFIC, qui contrôle les échanges relatifs à la faune sauvage. D'après une étude, le gibier constitue l'essentiel des repas d'environ 23 000 travailleurs agricoles, qui en consomment plus de 4 500 tonnes par an. La chasse légale sur les fermes privées pourrait également contribuer à réduire la chasse illégale de la faune, un sérieux problème dans certaines régions.■ Résidu de la distillation de la mélasse, la vinasse est traditionnellement utilisée comme engrais au Bas Congo. Fait nouveau, ce sous-produit de la canne à sucre est désormais aussi employé pour revêtir des routes en terre. Répandre ce liquide noirâtre sur les voies en terre battue argileuse permet de lutter contre la poussière souvent source de maladies pulmonaires. L'environnement est ainsi plus sain. Une fois répandu sur la terre argileuse, ce \"goudron\" peut tenir assez longtemps, jusqu'à une année, voire plus, si les pluies ne sont pas trop abondantes. Des témoignages sur l'utilité de ce sous-produit de la canne à sucre ont atteint des contrées éloignées du Bas Congo, au point d'attirer de nombreux demandeurs. Mais la compagnie sucrière, qui en produit 90 720 m³ à chaque campagne culturale, ne le commercialise pas. Elle en donne gratuitement aux travailleurs qui en font la demande. Elle-même s'en sert principalement comme engrais pour ses cultures. \"Compte tenu de sa richesse en potassium, nous utilisons la vinasse dans nos plantations de canne à sucre, qui couvrent 48 villages\", indique Louis Mweze Lowa, directeur à la Sucrière.Soutenu par l'ONG britannique Farm Africa, un projet de gestion communautaire des forêts protège la forêt de Kafa, sur les hauts plateaux éthiopiens. Le déboisement pour l'aménagement agricole, l'abattage des arbres pour produire du charbon de bois et l'expansion des exploitations commerciales l'avaient réduite de moitié. Aujourd'hui, cette forêt est un modèle d'exploitation durable. Les membres de la communauté produisent du miel et des épices et cultivent du café, de la cardamome, du poivre long (Piper longum) et des fruits dans le cadre de projets d'agroforesterie. La zone est divisée en trois : une zone centrale de forêt non exploitée, une zone tampon réservée à l'agriculture durable, et enfin, une zone de transition où sont cultivés des céréales, du thé et du café.Vente de canne à sucre sur un marché du Sud-Kivu (RDC)ÉneRGIe RenOUveLABLeAccord Tchad-Cameroun Stagiaires ingénieures en énergie solaireDans certains villages de la province du Bas-Congo, au sud-ouest de Kinshasa, les toits en bambous remplacent ceux en tôles, plus chers, ou en paille, moins résistants. Ils gardent en outre les maisons fraîches, ce que beaucoup d'habitants apprécient.Coupés en grand nombre dans la forêt, les bambous sont mis à sécher au soleil puis divisés en deux dans le sens de la longueur avant d'être solidement assemblés. Mais des défenseurs de l'environnement sonnent l'alarme. Grâce à leurs racines qui retiennent le sol, les bambous permettent, en effet, de lutter contre l'érosion. \"On doit arrêter l'abattage anarchique et incontrôlé des bambous si l'on veut éviter une catastrophe plus tard\", conseille Anderson Mavungu, du ministère provincial de l'Environnement, de la Conservation de la nature et du Tourisme de la République démocratique du Congo.La présence de criquets pèlerins dans le sud-ouest de Madagascar va nécessiter de traiter au moins 300 000 hectares infestés d'ici mai 2012, prévient la FAO. Les campagnes de traitement ont permis de contenir les infestations durant la saison 2010, mais, au cours du premier semestre 2011, les conditions météo favorables à la reproduction ont fait resurgir la menace acridienne pour 13 millions d'habitants.■ Au Kenya, les petits exploitants peuvent désormais stériliser leurs terres à l'aide d'un dispositif fabriqué localement, qui fonctionne à l'énergie solaire. Ce concentrateur utilise des miroirs pour focaliser les rayons du soleil et les diriger sur un conteneur rempli de terre. La température élevée tue les agents pathogènes (les champignons, par exemple) et prépare le sol à la plantation de jeunes plants. \"J'ai compris l'utilité de cet équipement en voyant les agriculteurs utiliser du bois de feu, qui se raréfie à mesure du déboisement\", explique Peter Mwathi, l'inventeur.Ce concentrateur solaire a fait l'objet d'essais et son utilisation se révèle concluante, surtout pour la germination, par culture tissulaire, des plants de bananier, très sensibles aux agents pathogènes.Ruth Githii, qui cultive des macadamiers dans le district de Mukuru-ini, fait partie de ses utilisateurs. Elle témoigne : \"Il est de plus en plus difficile de trouver du bois de feu, qui coûte aussi de plus en plus cher.\" Cette invention peut même servir à chauffer de l'eau ou à griller les noix de cajou et les graines de macadamia. Selon son auteur, le concentrateur réduit les coûts d'énergie de 50 %. Son prix est de 174 €, mais P. Mwathi cherche à le diminuer.■ Une équipe internationale de chercheurs et d'universitaires va travailler sur les perspectives alimentaires du continent africain à l'horizon 2025. Ce programme baptisé Sustainable Nutrition Research for Africa in the Years to come (recherche sur la nutrition durable pour l'Afrique durant les années à venir), ou SUNRAY, prendra en compte les principaux paramètres qui influencent la problématique des disponibilités alimentaires et de la nutrition comme le changement climatique, la hausse des prix des denrées alimentaires, la raréfaction des ressources en eau, la dynamique sociale des ménages et l'urbanisation rapide. SUNRAY devrait durer deux ans, durant lesquels seront élaborées des stratégies pour s'assurer que l'Afrique aura de quoi se nourrir durant les 10 ou 15 ans à venir. Les chercheurs africains sont invités à proposer des documents de travail sur ce thème afin de veiller, indique Carl Lachat, un responsable du programme, chercheur de l'Institut de médecine tropicale (IMT) d'Anvers (Belgique), à ce que \"les interventions soient alimentées par les réflexions des pays africains et que leurs priorités ne soient pas préalablement définies par les donateurs\".Un programme relance une technique fondée sur la culture intercalaire pour repousser les insectes ravageurs. La stratégie \"pousser-tirer\" associe les céréales à une plante répulsive bordée d'une plante piège. Depuis sa mise en oeuvre en 1997, cette technique a aidé 40 000 agriculteurs d'Afrique de l'Est à accroître leurs rendements. C'est ce qu'indique le Centre international de la physiologie de l'insecte et de l'écologie, qui vient de lancer un projet pour identifier de nouvelles plantes \"pousser-tirer\", qui résistent à la sécheresse et à des températures élevées. L'initiative Adaptation et diffusion de la technologie \"pousser-tirer\" (ADOPT) bénéficie à 50 000 agriculteurs supplémentaires vivant en zone aride.Selon des scientifiques, une technique simple qui utilise des filets arrosés d'insecticide peut réduire de façon notable les dégâts dus aux ravageurs, causés aux cultures de forte valeur telles que les tomates et les choux. Ces filets, conçus par l'Organisation mondiale de la santé, en partenariat avec des entreprises privées japonaises et tanzaniennes, protègent les cultures pendant 3 à 5 ans.blanche) explique le fonctionnement du concentrateur solaire.On a souvent besoin d'un plus petit que soi. Le baobab de Madagascar le constate avec un champignon microscopique dont la présence dans le sol donne du tonus aux jeunes plants en stimulant leur nutrition minérale et hydrique. Cette association bénéfique entre les racines et le champignon est appelée symbiose mycorhizienne. Pour favoriser la présence de ces champignons, les \"symbiotes\", dans les zones peuplées de baobabs, des chercheurs de l'Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD) y ont mis en culture des plantes dites \"nurses\" qui favorisent naturellement la multiplication de ces champignons. Avec cette méthode, les forêts de baobabs, menacées par la déforestation, devraient se régénérer plus facilement.Les ministres de l'agriculture du G20 ont approuvé, le 23 juin à Paris, leur soutien à l'Initiative internationale de coordination des recherches pour l'amélioration du blé (International Research Initiative for Wheat Improvement, IRIWI). L'objectif de cette initiative est de renforcer la synergie entre les programmes de recherche conduits sur le blé à l'échelle internationale pour contribuer à la sécurité alimentaire mondiale.■ Un fonds de microfinance baptisé Fonds européen de financement solidaire pour l'Afrique (FEFISOL) a été lancé le 21 juillet à Bruxelles. Il appuiera spécifiquement des organisations de producteurs actives dans l'agriculture durable et les domaines du commerce équitable et des produits biologiques, ce qui devrait contribuer à stimuler la qualité et le développement de leurs activités à long terme, notamment par l'accès à de nouveaux créneaux de marché. Les organismes africains de microfinance bénéficieront d'un prêt bonifié accordé par l'Agence française de développement (AFD) qui absorbera les pertes de change sur les devises locales. Une assistance technique sera également fournie pour aider ces institutions à élaborer de nouveaux produits, améliorer la planification de leurs activités et développer les capacités des ressources juridiques et humaines. Les petits exploitants au Vanuatu comptent sur le marché chinois. Les communautés s'engagent d'ores et déjà auprès des commerçants à planter de vastes surfaces de bois de santal (Santalum spicatum). Les prix mondiaux atteignent un niveau record et la Chine se révèle être un marché accessible. L'homme d'affaires Jonathan Naupa a démarré une plantation de bois de santal et créé une entreprise de transformation, Tropical Rainforest Aromatics, en association avec de petits exploitants. \"En raison de sa grande valeur économique et de son aptitude à être cultivé, y compris dans des systèmes d'agroforesterie et en plantations, le bois de santal peut apporter une contribution significative à l'économie rurale\", estime-t-il.Pédologue ghanéenne, Olufunke Cofie cherche à développer de l'engrais en granulés à partir de déjections humaines traitées, pour améliorer la productivité agricole et le système sanitaire. elle bénéficie d'une bourse dans le cadre de l'initiative explorations de grands défis en faveur de la santé mondiale (GCe) de la Fondation Bill & Melinda Gates. O. Cofie a déjà mené plusieurs projets visant à transformer les déchets en produits utiles.Les entrepreneurs du Cap-vert et de la Guinée-Bissau ont établi des partenariats concernant l'importation de fruits bissauguinéens. Les Cap-verdiens devraient ainsi importer, en outre, mangues, citrons, ananas et oranges de Guinée-Bissau. Des fruits qui abondent dans ce pays, plus proche que l'Amérique latine, traditionnelle exportatrice.La Banque ouest-africaine de développement (BOAD) a commandité une étude de faisabilité pour la mise en place d'un mécanisme d'assurance récolte dans la zone de l'Union économique et monétaire ouest-africaine (UeMOA). Cette assurance permettrait à ses souscripteurs de recevoir des compensations financières en cas de pertes de récoltes dues aux aléas climatiques.Mondialisation, changement climatique, dans un contexte en évolution, quelles sont les actions et priorités de l'OIE ? Qu'en est-il de votre rôle de lobbying ?Notre message vis-à-vis des États et des bailleurs de fonds s'appuie sur un argumentaire détaillé. La santé animale mondiale a de multiples impacts, au premier rang desquels je placerais la sécurité alimentaire. L'élevage et l'aquaculture sont la première source de protéines, de lait, d'oeufs, qui sont indispensables à la croissance. La traction animale est encore très importante dans les pays ACP, la bonne santé des animaux est donc essentielle à la production végétale. La sécurité sanitaire des aliments entre en ligne de compte. Une bonne gouvernance de la santé animale peut avoir un impact décisif sur l'existence d'accidents alimentaires. Elle a aussi un impact sur la santé publique, 75 % des maladies émergentes étant des maladies d'origine animale. Elle a enfin un impact en termes de réduction de la pauvreté. Un milliard de personnes dans le monde ont besoin de l'animal pour survivre. Les paysans des pays ACP ont, pour la plupart, des chèvres, quelques volailles, un boeuf… Les liens entre la santé animale et la réduction de la pauvreté sont très forts car des animaux sans soins ne peuvent être source de revenus. Un bon état sanitaire des animaux permettrait également un accès à des marchés rémunérateurs. Aujourd'hui, seuls trois pays d'Afrique ont un accès aux marchés européens pour ce qui concerne les exportations de boeuf : le Botswana, la Namibie et le Swaziland.Après l'éradication de la peste bovine, beaucoup de maladies redoutables demeurent. La rage est ainsi responsable de plus de 50 000 décès par an, en grande majorité des enfants. On pourrait éradiquer la rage, car nous disposons de très bons vaccins. Il suffirait de vacciner les chiens. Mais il existe un manque de volonté politique. La fièvre aphteuse est un autre exemple. S'attaquant aussi bien aux bovins qu'aux chèvres, moutons et aux porcs, elle entraîne une faible mortalité mais d'importantes baisses de production et empêche les pays touchés d'exporter leur bétail et ses produits. Soixante pays sont actuellement indemnes de cette maladie qui s'éradique par la vaccination. Une bonne gouvernance, accompagnée de moyens fournis grâce à la solidarité internationale pour acheter les vaccins, est indispensable. L'année 2011, année mondiale vétérinaire, a permis, avec une forte mobilisation de nos pays membres, une émulation pour la reconnaissance de l'importance d'une bonne gouvernance mondiale de la santé animale. L'OIE travaillera à ce que cet intérêt ne s'émousse pas.Créé en 1924, l'Office international des épizooties, devenu Organisation mondiale de la santé animale (OIE) en 2003, veille sur la santé animale. Une vigilance de tous les instants, au service du développement rural à l'échelle planétaire. V ecteurs de changement, passeurs d'innovations, les médias ruraux sont d'indispensables facteurs de développement pour les communautés rurales. Du plus ancien au plus récent, des plus rudimentaires aux plus perfectionnés, radios (publiques, privées, communautaires, associatives), télévision, presse écrite mais aussi vidéo, théâtre ou médias du Web, tous se saisissent de sujets au coeur des préoccupations des agriculteurs des ACP : l'adaptation au changement climatique, la sécurité alimentaire, la modernisation des exploitations. Au Bénin, la radio nationale a mis en place, en lien avec la Fédération des unions de producteurs du Bénin (FUPRO), un système de pré-alerte agrométéorologique pour permettre aux agriculteurs de mieux planifier leurs activités agricoles (dates de semis, récoltes, etc.) afin de faire face aux risques climatiques. Au Nigeria, des programmes de théâtre radiophonique donnent des conseils pour limiter les effets de ces dérèglements. Dans les îles du Pacifique, où ils ont un impact dramatique, la radio a aidé les communautés à revenir à une vie normale après le passage du tsunami à Tonga sur l'île de Nivatoputapu. Rapidement installée, elle a diffusé des programmes pour informer les habitants et leur permettre de rester mobilisés.Les médias soutiennent aussi l'implication toujours plus grande des producteurs et de leurs organisations dans les politiques. Ainsi, au Mali, Radio Fanaka, animée par une équipe jeune et dynamique, a encouragé les paysans de la région de Fana lors de la crise du coton en leur offrant une plate-forme en langues locales pour faire entendre leurs voix. Au Congo, la radio communautaire Biso na Biso, animée par et pour les Pygmées du nord du Congo, diffuse leurs savoirs pour mieux protéger la forêt. Au Cameroun, La Voix du paysan, « Mensuel de l'entrepreneur agricole », est devenu le porte-voix des producteurs. Il a développé un site Internet qui permet un rôle de lobbying croissant. Dès 2007, le mensuel relayait ainsi une pétition pour la libération des manifestants contre la vie chère. En 2011 il renouvelle l'expérience avec succès. Internet permet à toute une partie du monde rural jusqu'alors isolée d'avoir accès à l'information internationale et voix au chapitre.Le développement des technologies de l'information a profondément modifié le panorama des médias dans les ACP. Alors qu'aujourd'hui moins de 30 % de la population a accès à l'électricité en Afrique, 11,5 % ont accès à Internet (d'après l'Union internationale des télécommunications, www.itu.int). Plus de 500 millions de téléphones mobiles sont utilisés sur le continent. Ces téléphones sont désormais polyvalents. Envoi de SMS, accès à Internet offrent des possibilités de communication infinies, dont les médias peuvent tirer profit. L'apparition des réseaux sociaux, qui permet une communication en temps réel, est aussi, en soi, une révolution. Les agriculteurs etUn journal, une radio, un centre multimédia communautaire (CMC). Pour l'association Huguka (\"sois informé\" en kinyarwanda), ces médias sont tous là pour assurer la formation et favoriser la communication de la population rurale, très pauvre et peu alphabétisée. Ce sont ainsi les agriculteurs, à travers 22 comités de rédaction locaux, qui déterminent les sujets traités dans Huguka, le journal mensuel en kinyarwanda (4 500 exemplaires) diffusé dans tout le Rwanda. Au CMC, des ordinateurs, une bibliothèque de plus de 1 000 ouvrages permettent à tous, en particulier aux jeunes, de s'informer. Dernier outil en date, la radio, lancée en 2011, qui doit, pour Eugène Ndekezi, coordinateur d'Huguka, permettre de \"diffuser davantage les meilleures pratiques agricoles et promouvoir le développement communautaire en accédant aux personnes non alphabétisées\" La presse rurale associative est quant à elle très dynamique. Organisations de producteurs, chambres d'agriculture, interprofessions ont toutes ou presque leur bulletin, à la diffusion plus ou moins régulière, mais toujours apprécié. Muni d'un ordinateur, d'une imprimante et d'un téléphone mobile, on peut aujourd'hui facilement produire des bulletins illustrés de qualité. Ceux-ci renforcent les liens avec les membres de l'organisation, et assurent avant tout sa communication et la défense des intérêts des membres : promotion auprès des bailleurs, lobbying vers les décideurs. Les femmes passent parfois aux commandes, avec, en Afrique du Sud, l'édition d'un journal par un syndicat paysan féminin : Sikhula Sonke.Des agences de presse spécialisées existent également, à l'instar d'Agropresse Haïti qui produit des articles de presse, des reportages et émissions radio, de même que des reportages et documentaires vidéo sur des expériences réussies ou non, de nouvelles techniques.Ailleurs aussi, la vidéo a apporté une nouvelle dimension aux médias ruraux. Devenue facile à mettre en oeuvre et peu coûteuse, c'est un canal d'information utilisable jusque dans les zones les plus reculées, alors que la télévision ne s'intéresse que très rarement au monde rural. À Bama, dans l'ouest du Burkina Faso, Abdoulaye Ouédraogo, président de l'Union des coopératives rizicoles de la vallée du Kou, a produit de sa propre initiative une vidéo projetée lors d'une assemblée générale pour sensibiliser les producteurs à l'ensablement de la lame d'eau. Les paysans ont alors proposé des solutions pour y remédier. Le compte rendu de cette rencontre sera utilisé comme outil de plaidoyer auprès des autorités.Créées depuis la libéralisation des ondes, la décentralisation et l'émergence de collectivités locales, les radios associatives, communautaires et commerciales ont poussé comme des champignons en Afrique cette dernière décennie. Connaissance du milieu, de la culture, de la langue des auditeurs, elles ont aussi plusieurs missions : donner aux communautés rurales un accès à l'information, faciliter la communication entre elles, valoriser leurs expériences et sensibiliser l'opinion et les gouvernements à leur cause. Elles remplacent souvent les radios rurales publiques qui se sont éteintes, faute d'appropriation, avec la fin des financements extérieurs.Mais ces radios vivent avec peu de moyens, fournis souvent par les auditeurs eux-mêmes qui paient pour la diffusion de messages (décès, carnet rose, annonces commerciales, etc.), parfois par des ONG locales ou des bailleurs de fonds. La diversité des programmes permet d'atteindre un large auditoire. Lors d'un atelier réunissant à Bissau les radios communautaires des pays africains de langue officielle portugaise (PALOP), l'importance numérique des auditeurs a été reconnue comme essentielle pour la survie Confrontés à des sujets de plus en plus complexes, audelà de l'agronomie et de l'agriculture (APE, politiques agricoles, etc.), les journalistes doivent être formés pour traiter du monde rural. Vecteurs cruciaux pour la vulgarisation, ils sont de plus en plus associés à la diffusion de messages aux producteurs. En témoignent les services Questions-réponses développés par les radios rurales. Mais les animateurs et les journalistes ne sont pas des techniciens agricoles. Trop souvent, faute de mieux, ils se contentent de diffuser ce qu'ils ont trouvé ou entendu,Chouchou d'un million d'agriculteurs, la radio associative Mampita, implantée à 500 km au sud de la capitale malgache, Antananarivo, est devenue un outil vital pour les paysans. \"C'est la seule radio qui parle de nos préoccupations quotidiennes : nos rizières, nos familles, nos marchés, notre sécurité\", soutient Alphonsine Ravaonoro, membre de l'association Mampita. \"La façon de travailler des agriculteurs a grandement évolué depuis la création de la radio\", estime quant à elle Rasoa, une auditrice. Selon le directeur de l'information du ministère de la Culture, \"90 % des 250 radios qui existent dans le pays sont urbaines et très peu d'entre elles parlent des réalités paysannes\". 26 % de la population adulte est alphabétisée au Mali. 4 500 exemplaires du journal rwandais Huguka sur le développement rural sont imprimés chaque mois.Marie-Pauline Voufo est journaliste, rédactrice en chef de La Voix du paysan (LVDP) au Cameroun.Quelles sont les spécificités de LVDP ? La Voix du paysan, sous-titré \"Mensuel de l'entrepreneur rural\", est publié depuis 1988 en français. Sa version anglaise, The Farmer's Voice, est née en 1996. C'est un journal édité par une ONG camerounaise, le SAILD, qui a pour objectif de rendre accessible une information qui permettra aux paysans de vivre de leur exploitation. Chaque mois, 10 000 exemplaires sont diffusés, à plus de 60 % par abonnement. En quoi le rôle de LVDP a-t-il évolué depuis sa création ? À l'origine, LVDP a été créé comme un bulletin de liaison entre organisations de producteurs. C'est peu à peu que le mensuel a développé des services de conseil, pour répondre aux demandes de producteurs désemparés par la baisse des cours du cacao et du café, qui souhaitaient développer les cultures vivrières et le petit élevage. Puis les préoccupations des producteurs ont évolué vers des questions plus \"politiques\" : semences, de distribution d'intrants, de commercialisation du coton graine et est chargé de la représentation des acteurs de la filière coton du Bénin au niveau national et international. AIC-Infos est ainsi au coeur du monde du coton au Bénin. Son organisation, souple, avec un coordinateur épaulé par un comité de rédaction de cinq membres, permet la remontée des informations de terrain et leur traitement par différents services en fonction des besoins. Le mensuel diffuse surtout une information des plus précieuses, qu'il est le seul à produire : des tableaux indiquant la gestion des flux physiques et financiers du coton et les prix convenus par les acteurs et homologués par l'État. De ce fait, les numéros deviennent des documents de travail qui se conservent tout le long de la campagne et même au-delà. La vie des coopératives fait aussi l'objet de nombreux articles.Diffusé en version papier à 1 200 exemplaires puis, par la suite, au format pdf sur le site de l'AIC, le bulletin est victime de son succès : ce nombre est largement en deçà des besoins, chaque membre de l'interprofession voulant à tout prix disposer de sa copie. \"Pour couper court à cette pagaille qui s'instaure à chaque distribution, j'ai exigé que le secrétaire fasse suffisamment de copies pour permettre à tous les membres de disposer de son exemplaire\", déclare Midou Alassane, président de la coopérative de Bahounkpo. L'AIC a engagé un partenariat avec des radios de proximité qui diffusent dans les langues locales, tout au long de la campagne, de juin à décembre, des émissions thématiques : itinéraires techniques, traitement, gestion coopérative. Un bon complément à un outil qui, au fil des publications, a su se rendre indispensable.hukri Adan, 49 ans, a toujours élevé des chameaux, mais encore récemment les bénéfices restaient maigres. Aujourd'hui, un projet de commercialisation et de transformation développé à Garissa, au nord du Kenya, l'aide à tripler ses revenus mensuels portés à 750 €. Ont ainsi été mis en place un centre de recherche, une laiterie et un abattoir. Environ 40 000 éleveurs se sont regroupés en coopératives pour pourvoir cette laiterie en lait, et 20 000 approvisionnent l'abattoir. À mesure de l'aggravation des sécheresses sous l'effet du changement climatique, le rôle des chameaux pour fournir lait, viande et revenus suscite un intérêt grandissant.Les échanges de produits camelins sont, pour beaucoup, informels et donc difficiles à quantifier. Mais ils se développent plus que jamais, sous la pression des marchés urbains dans les pays en développement, de la demande croissante du Moyen-Orient et, avec la tendance aux aliments sains, de l'apparition de nouveaux marchés dans les pays industrialisés.Parmi les produits destinés aux marchés septentrionaux -presque exclusivement tirés du dromadaire (Camelus dromedarius) -figurent le lait en poudre, le beurre, la viande maigre, le savon, les cosmétiques et le chocolat.D'après la FAO, le marché mondial des produits camelins présente un potentiel de 10 milliards $ US (6,95 milliards €) par an, malgré d'importants défis. En règle générale, une chamelle produit 5 litres de lait par jour. Or la traite se fait à la main, et la transformation et la commercialisation posent problème aux éleveurs qui disposent de moyens de transport et de systèmes de vente au détail limités. Dans certains pays ACP, la filière est toutefois en cours de réorganisation et les experts soulignent un bon potentiel. La production mondiale de lait de chamelle s'élève à 1,3 million de tonnes -500 fois moins que le lait de vache -mais la demande monte en flèche. Le lait de chamelle contient trois fois plus de vitamine C que le lait de vache ; il est riche en fer, en acides gras insaturés et en vitamine B. Les chercheurs étudient son rôle dans la réduction du diabète et des maladies cardiovasculaires. À condition d'améliorer le fourrage, l'eau, les pratiques d'élevage et les soins vétérinaires, il serait possible de faire passer les rendements quotidiens à 20 litres, toujours selon la FAO. Un chiffre prometteur puisque, dans les pays africains, le lait frais de chamelle rapporte habituellement au moins trois fois plus que le lait de vache.Les actions menées se concentrent sur les produits laitiers. Elles encouragent les investissements industriels à petite et moyenne échelle ainsi que les unités mobiles de collecte et de transformation pour accroître la valeur des produits camelins et étendre leur durée de conservation. En Somalie, l'ONG britannique VETAID et l'association Vétérinaires sans frontières-Allemagne collaborent pour créer des points de collecte et de distribution du lait, améliorer les conditions d'hygiène et renforcer les compétences entrepreneuriales. À Nouakchott, en Mauritanie, la laiterie Tiviski a développé un processus de stérilisation pour accéder à un plus grand marché. Les recettes annuelles tirées des produits camelins atteignent aujourd'hui 1 million €, et 800 chameliers perçoivent un revenu régulier. Sur les conseils d'un expert-fromager français, Nancy Abeiderrahmane a lancé son entreprise dans la production d'un fromage à pâte molle, rapidement surnommé Camelbert. Au Kenya, la société Vital Milk exporte du lait de chamelle et des produits camelins vers l'Afrique du Sud et la Tanzanie. Et la demande de poils et de cuir de chameau s'accroît, le cuir pouvant rapporter 50 € l'unité.La capacité du chameau à s'adapter à des conditions climatiques changeantes a entraîné une hausse des prix et ouvert de nouvelles perspectives. Selon une nouvelle étude, l'élevage de chameaux serait envisageable pour 35 millions d'Africains vivant sur des terres semi-arides. Certaines communautés, comme la tribu Samburu au nord du Kenya, s'affairent déjà à vendre leurs vaches et leurs chèvres pour les remplacer par des chamelles et lutter ainsi contre la sécheresse. De nombreux éleveurs se tournent donc vers une économie qui obéit davantage aux lois du marché, certains exerçant désormais comme négociants en bétail dans les petits centres d'activités commerciales le long de la route Garissa-Lamu-Mombasa. Les femmes se mettent aussi au commerce et vendent, par exemple, des gâteaux au lait de chamelle. À Garissa, les ventes de bétail génèrent 367 000 € par semaine. D'autres négociants vont sur les marchés éthiopiens, où les chameaux sont vendus au Moyen-Orient.Production de lait de chamelle en Afrique (en tonnes) 1000 -5000 5000 -10 000 10 000 -25 000 25 000 -50 000 50 000 -100 000 Somalie, moitié de la production mondiale Promouvoir et commercialiser les produits camelins, mettre en relation les groupes de producteurs et les transformateurs, améliorer les méthodes de conservation du lait et accroître la valeur ajoutée : voilà quelquesunes des initiatives qui contribuent à réguler la filière cameline dans les pays ACP. Malgré sa capacité à s'adapter à des écosystèmes variés et son fort potentiel de production de matière sèche comestible, le bananier plantain reste une culture marginale au regard de ses potentialités. Cet ouvrage décrit la technique de production des plants de bananiers plantains issus de fragments (PIF) de tige. Facilement reproductible, cette technique connaît un essor rapide auprès des paysans. À partir d'un rejet, on peut obtenir dix à cinquante plants de bananier plantain en fonction de la variété et de l'expérience du manipulateur. Une seconde partie présente l'itinéraire technique préconisé pour la culture de la banane plantain. Celui-ci peut connaître des adaptations diverses en fonction des besoins et des moyens de chaque paysan. Le lecteur y découvrira également des informations utiles sur certains aspects économiques et utilitaires de cette production agricole. Facile à consulter grâce à une mise en page aérée, l'ouvrage est assorti de nombreuses illustrations décrivant les différentes phases des opérations de production des PIF et de la culture des plants de bananiers. Le 25 e rapport Cyclope propose une analyse de la conjoncture de l'ensemble des marchés mondiaux des matières premières agricoles et minérales, avec, en toile de fond, comme le précise son sous-titre : \"Le printemps des peuples et la malédiction des matières premières\", en référence aux révolutions arabes et à l'instabilité des marchés des produits.  ■ La symbiose ectomycorhizienne -symbiose entre la racine d'une plante et une colonie de champignons -joue un rôle majeur dans le fonctionnement des écosystèmes forestiers (productivité, régénération naturelle, etc.). Cet ouvrage a pour but de synthétiser les connaissances acquises sur ce phénomène biologique au cours des vingt dernières années en Afrique de l'Ouest, dans le cadre de travaux menés en partenariat par l'Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD), le CIRAD et des instituts et universités sénégalais, burkinabè et guinéen. Il présente, dans un premier temps, la symbiose ectomycorhizienne dans son ensemble, de la diversité des partenaires impliqués (champignons et plantes hôtes) jusqu'à son application afin d'améliorer la croissance d'essences ligneuses. Il envisage enfin la production de champignons ectomycorhiziens comestibles en Afrique tropicale, qui peut également contribuer au développement socio-économique régional. Illustré de photographies en couleurs et de nombreux tableaux, cartes et graphiques, l'ouvrage s'adresse à un large public : des étudiants, chercheurs, enseignants aux décideurs. ■ Les porcs sont sensibles à diverses maladies qui ont une incidence sur la productivité et, par voie de conséquence, sur les revenus des producteurs. La grippe pandémique de 2009 causée par une nouvelle souche du virus H1N1 d'origine porcine a en outre rappelé les risques pour la santé humaine découlant de la production du bétail. Dans ce contexte, le renforcement de la biosécurité doit être considéré comme prioritaire dans la prévention, le contrôle et l'éradication des maladies animales transfrontières (TAD). L'objectif est le changement des habitudes et des pratiques, de manière à diminuer le risque de transmission des maladies. Une approche participative favorise la sélection de mesures de biosécurité qui soient sans risques, réalisables, acceptables par les éleveurs sur la base d'un ratio coût/avantages et durables, ainsi que leur adoption. Ce document, qui décrit en détail les risques pour la biosécurité dans chaque système de production, s'adresse en premier lieu aux éleveurs de porcs, mais il sera également utile aux vétérinaires et aux prestataires de services techniques qui sont à même d'assurer la mise en place et l'application des mesures proposées. ■ Le titre donne le ton : cet ouvrage dresse un inventaire peu réjouissant des agressions subies par notre environnement et de leurs conséquences sur la santé publique. Tandis que la productivité des élevages augmentait rapidement durant la seconde moitié du XX e siècle avec le développement de l'élevage intensif et industriel, de nouvelles maladies faisaient leur apparition : SRAS, pneumonie atypique, vache folle, grippe aviaire… Dans le même temps, la nature s'est trouvée surexploitée tandis que la biodiversité fondait à vue d'oeil. Toutes ces erreurs commises plus ou moins consciemment dans la gestion des ressources naturelles sont dénoncées avec force documents et exemples à l'appui dans cet ouvrage. Face à ce constat pessimiste, étayé par un inventaire sans concession de tout ce qui va mal dans le monde et mis à la portée de tous par un important effort de vulgarisation, la conclusion se veut toutefois rassurante avec la multiplication des prises de conscience qui se font à tous les niveaux pour tirer les leçons d'un passé encore très récent et préparer ainsi un avenir meilleur. Le 24 e Briefing de Bruxelles sur le développement, intitulé \"Principaux facteurs de transformation rurale en Afrique : création d'emplois et croissance rurale\", s'est tenu le 14 septembre. Ce Briefing a débattu des principaux défis induits par les processus de transformation rurale. Plusieurs conférenciers de haut niveau, tels que le Dr Ibrahim Mayaki du NEPAD, le Prof. Peter Hazell de l'École des études orientales et africaines de Londres, et Paul Dorash de l'IFPRI, ont partagé des perspectives différentes sur les processus de transformation rurale à travers les continents. Le débat s'est concentré sur l'emploi rural et les marchés ruraux de l'emploi, nécessaires pour créer de la croissance et du développement économique. Le Briefing a rassemblé plus de 150 participants et une centaine ont pu suivre les débats en ligne. Le Briefing a été organisé en partenariat avec le CTA, l'Agence de planification et de coordination du NEPAD, la Commission européenne (DG DEVCO), le Secrétariat ACP et Concord, entre autres. ","tokenCount":"8425"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"dc5a41c96c898838cbee28075cbce1d3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/87a56810-d3e1-4741-8ecf-8dbddacb05d2/retrieve","id":"1506740505"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2e8bf5ac-6a43-4c00-872a-2916293c699f","pagecount":"4","content":"An innovation platform is a space for learning and change. It is a group of individuals (who often represent organizations) with different backgrounds and interests: farmers, traders, food processors, researchers, government officials etc. The members come together to diagnose problems, identify opportunities and find ways to achieve their goals. They may design and implement activities as a platform, or coordinate activities by individual members.Innovation capacity enables groups of people to shape their own future by taking advantage of opportunities and dealing with changing situations. Some key elements of innovation capacity include: self-organization, learning new skills, changing mindsets, valuing others' roles in innovation, having a holistic view, being able to adapt to changing situations, creating new ideas, recognizing opportunities, being proactive, using indigenous ideas, and looking to the future.An innovation platform is like a cooking pot. The pot is the container where innovation capacity can develop, given the right preconditions and ingredients. It is a collective cooking pot: innovation platforms are about collective action to solve complex problems.One of the most important things that innovation platforms do is to build the capacity of their members to innovate. This is a crucial function. Innovation capacity is vital if the innovation platform is to achieve its aims. It is the invisible glue that ties successful innovation platforms together-the 'capacity to get things done' (see the Definitions box).This brief uses the analogy of a traditional African cooking pot to explain how innovation capacity is developed within an innovation platform. It draws on three examples of innovation platforms: in Babure, Uganda; Gwanda, Zimbabwe; and three regions in Ethiopia.• A fourth important ingredient is social learning. In Ethiopia, a learning and practice alliance, driven through process documentation and exchange visits, was formed by nine platforms in three regions and at the national level (Case 3).Mixing ingredients together is no good without a catalyst: the fire.The catalyst may be an external organization that initiates the platform and triggers innovation. Or it may be internal factors and market conditions. In Babure, for example, the market could not absorb the amounts of sorghum that platform members produced. That was a catalyst for developing a new product, a sorghum-based drink.What comes out of the pot? After bringing ingredients and helping with the cooking, the chefs naturally want to enjoy the bowls of soup they have prepared. Innovation platforms can serve up various benefits for their members: more profits from product diversification in Babure (Case 1), or cheaper feed prices in Gwanda (Case 2).What is innovation capacity? It is like the cooking process in the pot. It is where individual platform members, and the platform as a whole, develop the abilities to find solutions to problems and to respond to opportunities.There is no single way to develop this capacity. It may seem effortless to an outsider: outcomes (tasty, nutritious soup) suddenly emerge from an unruly mess of ingredients.But there are a few essentials: the participants have to interact well; the facilitation has to be suitable, and all those involved must have the patience to let the process unfold (Brief 10).Paying attention to the process and to learning by the group is central to developing a sustained capacity to innovate, as is appropriate training to develop relevant capacities locally.Brief 1 outlines a seven-step process which innovation platforms generally follow, from initiation to analysis and learning. Innovation capacity can (and indeed does) occur in all these stages.Various people gather around the pot: farmers, government officials, community leaders, researchers, private investors, and civil society. These are the members of the innovation platform. They all help to cook: feeding the fire, adding ingredients, stirring the contents, and serving the broth.Each contributes specific skills, knowledge and capacities-the ingredients that go into the pot.There is no one recipe, but a few key ingredients can make success more likely: scientific knowledge, local knowledge, facilitation techniques, training, mixed with social learning.• A helping of scientific knowledge enabled members of the Babure innovation platform in Uganda to increase their sorghum production (Case 1).• A dollop of local knowledge, people's networks and their skills enabled farmers in Zimbabwe to come together to buy feed in bulk, so negotiating prices down by more than half (Case 2).Case 1. A new sorghum drink for UgandaThe Babure innovation platform in Uganda focuses on sorghum. The platform first tackled the productivity of the crop. Researchers in the platform recommended several measures, including improving the soil fertility, resulting in improved yields. But that led to a new problem: the market could not absorb the larger amounts of sorghum the farmers were growing. Prices fell, and farmers could not sell their crop.Platform members realized the need to create a new market. They suggested developing a new product to use the extra grain. Two platform members (Makerere University and the Huntex group, a private sector processor), jointly developed a non-alcoholic beverage made from sorghum. This is an improved form of a local drink known as 'Bushera'. The Makerere researchers managed to prolong the shelf life of this drink from a few days to about two years without additives.Known as 'Mamera', this patented product is now available in supermarkets and generates income and jobs for the farmers and the processor.More: Adewale Adekunle (aadekunle@fara-africa.org)• A handful of facilitation techniques fosters understanding of the expectations of all stakeholders, the role they play in the overall system and their relationship with others (Brief 10).For example, many straightforward methodologies exist to help innovation platform members identify problems and come up with innovations to address them. But it is during the later stages-testing and refining solutions, analysis and learning-that most of this 'magic' takes place.Innovation capacity can go beyond the members of the platform. They can share their new experiences and insights with people and organizations outside the platform: they share their soup with others.The cases here illustrate innovation capacity at the local level, it can also be developed at higher levels, such as in policymaking (Brief 2). These processes can be sustained and replicated if they are monitored and documented (Case 3 and Brief 5).The tangible results of an innovation platform (better incomes, lower costs etc.) are a result of an intangible product: innovation capacity. Perhaps because it is intangible, innovation capacity is rarely explicitly included in a project design. It is often seen as an implicit side-product.Even in RiPPLE (Case 3), which made special efforts on this front, process documentation eventually fell through the cracks and was abandoned two years into the program as management and donors emphasized formal monitoring instead.Just as a cooking pot is not the only way to prepare food, innovation platforms are not the only way to enhance innovation capacity. And if the pot is rusty-if it lets unhealthy power relationships taint the contents, the soup will be a lot less tasty. Brief 4 explains how to avoid this.Project designers should be wary of innovation platforms as a 'solution looking for a problem'. They should identify the right conditions or entry points for this type of intervention.Case 2. Self-organization and changing mindsets in ZimbabweIn the 2011 dry season, livestock farmers in Gwanda faced severe feed shortages. Using information and skills they had gained from their innovation platform, the farmers began to buy feed in bulk. Local agrodealers were selling feed at USD 21-26 for a 50 kg bag. But the manufacturer in Bulawayo sold the same bag for USD 12.50. The dealers justified the difference by pointing at the low turnover of feed.The farmers clubbed together through the platform to buy a lorry-load of feed at a time. In October and November 2011, 250 farmers collectively bought 40 t of feed worth USD 15,000. Each farmer spent an average of USD 60 on feed. By acting together, they bought the feed at a price that was more cost-effective. And they could feed their animals through the dry season. Now, neither ICRISAT (the originator of the innovation platform) nor the platform itself is involved. Farmers continue to self-organize and engage with the local private sector suppliers and traders.Through collective action in the innovation platform, farmers understood the value of their livestock; they were able to analyse the constraints (high local prices) and resolved this through efficient problem analysis and they devised solutions by pooling resources.More: Andre van Rooyen (a.vanrooyen@cgiar.org)Finally, innovation platforms are not meant to last forever. Once the underlying problems they were formed to address are resolved, they should not be kept alive artificially.On the other hand, the innovation capacity that develops through the process can (and should) live on-again underpinning its importance as a key output of the innovation platform.Enhanced innovation capacity is one of the most sustainable outcomes that innovation platforms can strive for.","tokenCount":"1438"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f30c5d4b0340b48d71280e6266bc3fd2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/87acf7dc-98f3-4720-808e-f17f59d75ee3/retrieve","id":"-1299810033"},"keywords":["Cotton","efficiency","Ethiopia","market chain","market concentration ratio","oligopoly","marketing margins"],"sieverID":"9e32f901-81f4-4eaa-b0e2-d9d2201a5e9f","pagecount":"13","content":"The efficiency of cotton market chain that can have great influence on farm level supply of marketable cotton was evaluated for Metema District of Ethiopia, using structure-conduct-performance approach. Market concentration ratio (CR4) at District level was 49.76 percent and there were observed barriers to entry into the cotton market. These structural characteristics indicate oligopolistic structure of cotton market at the District level. Cotton market at ginneries and textile factories were highly oligopolized by two ginneries and three textile factories. Buying, selling, and pricing strategies, which are indicators of market conduct showed deviation of cotton market from competitive market norms. The performance of cotton market chain analyzed using Marketing Margins supplemented with analysis of costs incurred and gross profits generated for different market chain actors, showed poor performance of the chain. In the chain farmers are the most disadvantaged chain actors.Cotton is an important cash crop to a number of developing countries. In Africa, cotton is typically a smallholder crop, and the main cash crop grown in rain-fed land where the use of purchased inputs such as chemicals and fertilizer is minimal (Baffes, 2004). Cotton has a strong poverty reduction impact because it is cultivated in small family farms in areas where opportunity for growing other crops is very limited and per capita income very low (Goreux, 2004). As indicate in Anderson and Valenzuela (2006), low-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa like Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and other similarly poor countries elsewhere in the world depend heavily on cotton for earning foreign exchange.Ethiopia is one of the African countries that produce and export cotton. It has an estimated area of 2,575,810 hectares that is suitable for the cultivation of cotton (ESTC, 2006). Mulat et al. (2004) argued that despite its potential capacity to produce abundant cotton, Ethiopia performed weakly in its exports of textile and garment products. One indicator is the fact that the country is largely limited to semi-processed textiles (e.g. woven cotton fabrics and cotton yarn) and to a certain extent, apparels made of cotton.Cotton crop has direct connections with various agro processing industries like textile, oil mills and the livestock sub sector. In other words, the crop has a direct linkage with the industrial sector.The main aim of this study was to analyze and evaluate the efficiency of cotton marketing in the cotton market chain. According to Mendoza (1995), making such an analysis and evaluation can enable one to gain information about the flow of goods and services from their origin to their final destination Westlake (2005) stated that increasing only the value of commodities at export market level cannot make a market efficient and ensure economic growth. In other words, increasing the value of exports is not an end in itself and it is only a means of accelerating the pace of economic growth. In the context of processing and marketing a specific commodity, economic growth is accelerated directly by increasing the value that is added between the producer and the value point of export, and indirectly by improving cost efficiency. Part of this improvement must be captured domestically in the form of higher prices and profits for producers and/or higher profit for traders and processors. Doing this may accelerate economic growth as the increased profits are invested (Westlake, 2005). Thus, if market performance is inefficient, the sustainability of the production become questionable and, as a result, a steady supply of a commodity for the market may become difficult. Kaplinsky and Morris (2000) outlined three main reasons why value chain analysis is important in this era of rapid globalization. The first is that with the growing division of labor and the global dispersion of the production of components, systemic competitiveness has become increasingly important. The second is that efficiency in production is only a necessary condition for a successful penetration of global markets. Thirdly, entry into the global market and making the best use of globalization requires an understanding of dynamic factors that are inherent in the whole value chain.The most fundamental factor that constrains increased domestic value added is lack of production. In addition, deficiencies in processing and marketing systems constrain production by reducing producers' prices and raising uncertainty over future producer price levels. They also constrain production by causing delayed payment and by being incompatible with the effective supply of finance and inputs to farmers (Westlake, 2005). In Ethiopia, income generated from export of cotton and textile products is low when compared to other commodities. It is important, therefore, to study the efficiency of cotton marketing in the country. The information obtained through rigorously structured studies may provide better insights as to what should be done to improve the production and marketing of the commodity. Therefore, this study was initiated to address these gaps in Metema District of Ethiopia.Metema District (Fig 1) is located about 900 km North West of Addis Ababa and about 160 and 340 km west of Gondar and Bahir Dar towns respectively. It is one of the west most Districts of Ethiopia bordering the Sudan. The district has twenty kebeles of which 18 are rural-based peasant administrations.  (IPMS, 2005). The mean annual rainfall ranges from about 850 mms to 1100 mms, with unimodal distribution. Thus, the rainy months extend from June to the end of September. However, a considerable amount of the rain falls in July and August. This study is based on primary and secondary data. The primary data were drawn from small-scale farmers in fourteen purposively selected Kebele administrations, assemblers, primary cooperatives, the district's Cooperatives Union, ginneries in Gondar, Bahir Dar Textile Factory and from Gondar Oil Mill that has been using cottonseed as raw material. In addition to these, different government offices having direct and indirect relation with cotton production and marketing were contacted. Semi-structured questionnaires and personal interviews were used to collect the data. Focused group discussions (FGDs) that involved key informants were the other method of data collection. These were complimented with direct observation.The secondary data were from primary cooperatives involved in cotton marketing, Metema District Agricultural Cooperatives Union, Metema District office of Agriculture and Rural Development, Small Scale Enterprise Development Office, District Office of Trade and Industry, Ginneries, Gondar Oil Mill, Bahir Dar Textile Factory, different reports, bulletins, and websites.For this study, 139 farm households were sampled and interviewed from the District. A two-stage sampling technique was used to sample cotton farmers. First, 14 Kebeles from the District were selected through purposive approaches. During the selection, the Kebele's potential for cotton production and the accessibility of the areas to travel were taken into consideration. In the second stage, using the population list of cotton farmers from sample Kebeles, the intended sample size was determined proportionally to population size of cotton growers. Then the predetermined size of the sample farmers from each Kebele were randomly selected using systematic random sampling.Prior to formal survey, a rapid market appraisal (RMA) was conducted to get the overall picture of cotton marketing chain. The sample size of cotton traders was 23. Since the number of cotton traders in each locality of the District was few, almost all of them were interviewed. Both licensed and unlicensed traders were included in the traders' survey.The cooperatives involved in cotton marketing in the year 2005/06 were six out of 18 cooperatives in the District and were used as data source. The Metema Farmers' Cooperatives Union was also one of the sources of data. In addition, Dess and Gondar Ginneries found in Gondar town were data sources from Ginneries. Bahir Dar Textile Factory was used to represent textile factories as a source of data. This factory is the major purchaser of lint cotton from ginneries in Gondar whose source of seed cotton is Metema District and the vicinity. The Gondar Oil Milling Factory was also used as the other source of data.Structure conduct performance (S-C-P) approach was considered useful for analyzing the performance of cotton market chain and used for this study.To analyze market structure of cotton buyers/ sellers' concentration, product/service differentiation, and entry barriers were applied. Concentration Ratio which is a common measure of market concentration is applied in this study thus: Concentration Ratio(C):1 Where = Si the percentage market shares of th i firm and = r the number of largest firms for which the ratio was calculated.To analyze market conduct, conditions believed to express the exploitative relationship between producers and buyers were analyzed. Since there are no agreed procedures for analyzing the elements of market conduct, the following few questions were taken into consideration to systematically detect indicators of unfair price setting practices and conditions in places or areas where such market injustices are likely to prevail. The issues that were taken into consideration were the existence of formal and informal marketing groups that affect the bargaining power and the availability of price information as well as its impact on prevailing prices.In analyzing the buying and selling practices, the source of product, the existence of formal and informal marketing groups that affect the bargaining power, the nature of the buying/selling practices in place, the distribution channels used, and observed trading practices that were unethical were taken into consideration.During the analysis of pricing behavior, the following things were seriously considered: the chief determinants of price (one buyer or many buyers), price setting mechanisms (the degree of personal contact among market participants), factors that influence the setting of price (example, basic supply and demand conditions or artificial price restraint), the basis for price differentiation and the impact of physical location of the market on prices and marketing arrangements.To evaluate market performance a marketing margins analysis was performed. The total marketing margin was calculated using the following formula:Where TGMM is total gross marketing marginWhere GMMp is producers' participation (farmers' portion). Consumer price of cotton was taken from purchase price of textile industry and oil mills since these are industries where cotton produced from Metema District is destined. Conversion factor for lint cotton x price of lint cotton/quintal + conversion factor for cotton seed x price of cotton seed/quintal. Mendoza (1995) warns that precise marketing costs are frequently difficult to determine in many agricultural marketing chains. The reasons are that these costs are often both cash costs and imputed costs; the gross and not the net marketing margin is advised to be calculated. According to Mendoza (1995), \"marketing margins\" should be understood as the gross marketing margins. In this study, gross marketing margin was considered instead of net marketing margin, as it was difficult to estimate the implicit costs incurred during transaction of cotton.To understand the structure of cotton market at each market level, that is the level of competition existing in the cotton market, the market concentration ratio and barriers to entry and exit into the market were used as evaluation criteria.Since the number of traders at each local market level was few, the market concentration ratio was calculated at the district level to analyze the concentration of cotton market prevailing in the district as indicated in Table 1. Kohls and Uhl (1985) suggested, as a rule of thumb, a concentration ratio of 50 percent or more for the four largest enterprises (CR4) as an indication of a strongly oligopolistic industry. The District level CR4 was 49.76 percent (Table1). This indicates that the top four traders handled almost 50 percent of the cotton market. Hence, according to Kohls and Uhl (1985) the cotton market at the district level has an oligopolistic market structure. Except some amount supplied for hand craft purpose (about 1.75 percent from farmers supply and about 8.95 percent of assemblers supply), seed cotton from Metema District is supplied to ginneries found in Gondar. The ginneries found there are only two. This also indicates that cotton market in Gondar is highly oligopolistic. The number of textile factories that purchased lint cotton in 2005/06 from ginneries found in Gondar were only three. The study revealed that about 52 percent of the purchase was made by Bahir Dar Textile Factory. This shows that at textile factories level, the cotton market is also characterized by a strongly oligopolistic market structure. The Ministry of Trade and Industry, Small Scale Enterprise Development Agency and Customs Authority have district offices that provide services and regulate markets. However, during the survey, there was as such no strict regulation on cotton trade. Due to the absence of strict regulation, about 62 percent of the assemblers in the survey were unlicensed. The measure, which the District Office of Trade and Industry takes against the unlicensed assemblers, is closing their business. However, to escape from this strategy, in most cases the unlicensed assemblers simply store their cotton in an open space where the concerned body cannot take any measure. It is not surprising that the licensed assemblers who have cotton stores also use the same strategy to decrease amount of income tax levied on them.Capital: capital is reported to be one of the major entry barriers to cotton trading. In the survey, about 96 percent of assemblers identified capital as the entry barrier to cotton trading.Price fluctuation: Price risk of cotton (price fluctuation) is reported to be one of the entry barriers in cotton marketing and processing. The study made clear that about 17 percent of assemblers considered price fluctuation as the entry barrier to cotton marketing.The study revealed that licensing is not such a limiting factor as to constitute an entry barrier. Of the interviewed 21 assemblers, only 38 percent had license to trade cotton whereas the remaining 62 percent of them are without the license. However, according to the rules and regulations of Trade and Industry in the country, licensing is imperative to enter into cotton trading. At the level of ginneries and textile factories, licensing is a necessary condition to enter into the business.Inability to compete with unlicensed traders: About 26 percent of the interviewed assemblers pointed out that one of their serious problems was competition with unlicensed assemblers in the cotton market. This is one of the indications for the presence of imperfect competition in cotton market. Generally, inadequate capital, fluctuation in prices, problems in licensing and their subsequent inability to compete with the unlicensed traders are identified to be the major entry barriers to cotton marketing even though there are no exit barriers. Since the market concentration ratio is high and since there are entry barriers into cotton market, the cotton market chain has deviated from the norms of competitive market structure. Because of these, the cotton market chain has an oligopolistic market structure.The cotton farmers in Metema District have weak or no organizations. Thus, they lack the power to negotiate. Because of this, they simply take price and other terms like payment deadline from input suppliers and buyers of seed cotton. Most of them, therefore, are not in a position to interact effectively with other stakeholders in the cotton market chain. About 18 percent of the farmers reported that they had faced very low sales price of cotton as a problem after they had brought their cotton to market. Asked the action they took after they faced low price on the market, 2.9 percent of them pointed out that they took the produce back home to take it to another market, 3.6 percent of them indicated that they sold it at cheaper price, and 11.5 percent indicated that they stored it and waited for another market day. During survey, it was observed that storing at assemblers storage and waiting another market day is a common practice of cotton farmers in the District.During the study, all of the farmers identified price as the major determining factor that affect their decision as to whom to sell their seed cotton. Hence, this is an indication of absence of competitive pricing system, which in turn indicates the deviation of cotton market from the norm of competitive market. Cooperative spirit, family linkages and availability of transport facilities are considered by farmers when they decide for whom they have to sell their seed cotton produce to. Similarly, the farmers use assemblers, cooperatives, friends and personal visit as their sources of market information. Usually, they lack reliable market information and because of this, they are usually unable to decide or influence the market price. About 90 percent of them clearly pointed out that they have no power to decide the price.For about 86 percent of the surveyed assemblers, the purchasing site of seed cotton was adjacent to their home (storage places). About 14 percent of them indicated that they purchased seed cotton from places that were about 12 kilometers away from their residence (storage place) in the 2005/06 production year. In contrast, ginneries purchase seed cotton at the site of the industry.During the survey, there was no serious competition observed for purchasing seed cotton. It was observed that most assemblers wait supply of cotton by setting their scale at open space near a place where they store their purchased cotton. All days in the week are used for transaction of cotton at district as well as ginneries levels. Respondents from each market level reported absence of government restrictions on the location of cotton purchasing and selling. Financial position of the purchasers and profitability are the only factors considered in selecting the locations. Due to this situation, about 91 percent of assemblers preferred purchasing cotton at nearby storage places (markets). Ginneries' officials also preferred to make their seed cotton purchase at the factories site. Since purchasers at each market level are oligopolysed, there is no need to go to the site of suppliers. The selling site for lint cotton depends on the agreement between lint cotton buyers and suppliers. The recent trend of Bahir Dar textile factory is that ginneries deliver lint cotton to factory site after the assessment of quality by the textile factory. All of these conditions indicate that purchasers at each market level are the main decision-makers.The survey indicated that no formal contractual agreements have been made between producers and purchasers. As a result, assemblers as well as ginneries purchased what is available on the markets. However, assemblers reported that based on prior knowledge of individuals or family linkage, there is an informal agreement made between assemblers and farmers that are providing credit when farmers are at critical cash shortage and providing packaging materials on credit basis. In turn, farmers supply their seed cotton to those assemblers who helped them when they faced financial problems. About 26 percent of the surveyed assemblers reported that they had provided credit to the cotton farmers in the 2005/06 production year. On their part, the officials of ginneries reported that market risk (price risk of cotton) has limited them from making contractual agreement with cotton producers. This situation forced them to purchase whatever is available on the market in order to minimize the risk. They said that they adjust purchase price when there is low sells price for lint and/or cottonseed in the absence of contractual agreement. If the contractual agreement is signed and the selling price of lint and/or cottonseed is lower, then there is no room to adjust price.Comparison of the status of cotton purchasing prices among the assemblers indicated that about 28 percent of assemblers reported that they set somewhat higher purchase prices to attract customers and make big purchase when there is supply shortage. About 72 percent of assemblers reported that they tried to keep purchase price as possibly the same as their competitors. About 95.23 percent of the assemblers suggested an absence of uniformity in the price of cotton in a single market on the same market day at the same time.Concerning the purchase price of seed cotton at ginneries, recently due to shortage of supply of seed cotton, the existence of some difference in purchase price (imperfect competition) between ginneries to make big purchase was reported.Assemblers take purchase price of ginneries as a basis to determine the price with which they purchase seed cotton from farmers. The textile factories purchase price for lint cotton and the sale price of cottonseed is used as an input to determine the purchase price of seed cotton for ginneries. The officials from textile factories reported that even though they determine the price of lint cotton by negotiating with sellers of lint cotton according to its quality, there is some communication with other textile factories on general price situation. Therefore, since the number of textile factories in the country is limited and given their collusive pricing system, it is possible to say that lint cotton price is not competitively determined. Thus, selling and buying strategies used by cotton market players and price setting behavior of market players in cotton market chain have generally deviated from competitive market norms.Cotton market performance was evaluated based on the level of marketing margins by taking into consideration associated marketing costs for key marketing channels. Therefore, based on the 2005/06 production year, costs and purchase prices of the main chain actors', margins at farmers', assemblers' and ginneries' level were analyzed.By taking the average sales prices of different participants in the cotton market chain (farmers, assemblers and ginneries), the marketing margins of cotton was calculated (Table 2). Note* average value of sum of lint and cottonseed was obtained from one quintal of seed cotton TGMM (complete distribution channel) = 40.79% GMM (Assemblers) = 9.86% GMM (Ginneries) = 30.93% GMM P (Producers participation) = 100%-40.79=59.21%Table 2 reveals that 40.79 % total gross marketing margin was added to cotton price when it reached the final consumers (textile factories and oil mills) at domestic markets. From the total gross marketing margin, 9.86 % was gross marketing margin of assemblers (received by assembler) while 30.93% was that of ginneries. The gross profit of farmers per quintal suggested a loss of 65.40 Ethiopian Birr per quintal. However, the assemblers and ginneries had gross profits of 5.48 and 46.07 Ethiopian Birr. This situation implies a poor performance of the cotton market chain. In this inefficient cotton market chain, assemblers and ginneries are relatively advantaged whereas the farmers are disadvantaged.Ethiopia has great potential for cotton production. However, out of the country's total potential areas of cotton production, only about four percent is being utilized currently. Due to this, the amount of cotton produced in the country is low. A number of factors affect the supply of marketable cotton at the farm level in the country. In the case of Metema District, Structure-Conduct-Performance analysis of the cotton market chain indicated poor performance of the chain that places farmers at a disadvantage. Thus, policy interventions are required to alleviate the problem.","tokenCount":"3740"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3d13cc2ef5ff31b00b3787ba3b6edcaa","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/076c567f-3b9e-4445-9817-e5b42e5c3de5/content","id":"612503178"},"keywords":["Genome-wide association study","Stem rust of wheat","Ug99","Adult plant resistance","All-stage resistance","Resistance breeding"],"sieverID":"8346eb67-2777-41c2-b168-69eb259d37d8","pagecount":"19","content":"The recently identified Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici (Pgt) race TTKSK (Ug99) poses a severe threat to global wheat production because of its broad virulence on several widely deployed resistance genes. Additional virulences have been detected in the Ug99 group of races, and the spread of this race group has been documented across wheat growing regions in Africa, the Middle East (Yemen), and West Asia (Iran). Other broadly virulent Pgt races, such as TRTTF and TKTTF, present further difficulties in maintaining abundant genetic resistance for their effective use in wheat breeding against this destructive fungal disease of wheat. In an effort to identify loci conferring resistance to these races, a genome-wide association study was carried out on a panel of 250 spring wheat breeding lines from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), six wheat breeding programs in the United States and three wheat breeding programs in Canada.Stem rust of wheat, caused by the fungal pathogen Puccinia graminis Pers. f. sp. tritici (Pgt), is considered potentially the most damaging disease of wheat. Historical crop losses caused by stem rust epidemics have been recorded in all wheat growing regions of the world [1,2]. This disease has been primarily controlled via genetic resistance with resistance genes discovered in bread wheat and its relative species [3][4][5]. However, the emergence of the highly virulent stem rust race TTKSK (also known as Ug99) and its variants has rendered many of the resistance genes ineffective to the pathogen [5,6], and threatens global wheat production and supply.The race TTKSK [7], first observed in Uganda in 1998 was found to be virulent to Sr31 [8], a widely deployed and important stem rust resistance gene. Within a few years, virulence to three other resistance genes was documented in the Ug99 lineage: Sr24 was defeated by race TTKST [7], Sr36 was defeated by race TTTSK [7,9], and Sr9h was defeated by race TTKSF+ [10,11]. The urediniospores of the stem rust fungus can travel long distances with the flow of wind [1,12]. Consequently, Ug99 race groups have traveled from hotspot areas in East Africa to South Africa and Iran in the North [13,14]. The Ug99 race group is projected to spread further to other wheat growing areas in the world [5,14,15].Realizing the threat posed by the Ug99 race group, over 200,000 wheat lines including accessions from germplasm collections to breeding materials from wheat breeding programs throughout the world were screened for resistance to Ug99 in Kenya and Ethiopia [5]. The results showed that 85-95 % of wheat lines grown globally are susceptible to Ug99. The results obtained from screening global germplasm highlights the risk looming over worldwide wheat production due to the susceptibility of current varieties. It is therefore essential that resistance genes are identified and used in breeding programs in these areas, including North America, to prepare for the possible arrival of the Ug99 race group and other highly virulent races. One of such highly virulent races is the newly identified race TKTTF, which has a different genetic lineage from the Ug99 race group [16]. This race caused yield losses close to 100 % on the most widely grown wheat cultivar, 'Digalu' , in southeastern regions of Ethiopia in 2013-2014 [16]. Hence, there is urgent need to identify and characterize new genes for resistance to such races, and their rapid incorporation in the breeding pipeline to develop varieties with improved level of resistance.Two main types of resistance strategies are used in wheat breeding against stem rust: 1) all-stage resistance (ASR) or seedling resistance, and 2) adult plant resistance (APR). ASR is usually characterized by a hypersensitive reaction upon fungal attack, and usually confers a high level of resistance that is effective in all stages of plant development [17]. On the contrary, APR is generally expressed during the adult growth stages of the plant, usually beginning at booting stage. The major drawback of ASR is the high likelihood of the gene being defeated by new pathogen races when resistance genes are deployed singly, in so called \"boom and bust cycles\" [18]. While APR genes are considered more durable to wheat rusts than ASR genes, they may not provide adequate levels of resistance to high disease pressure [19]. Therefore, a gene-pyramiding strategy that utilizes a few seedling genes or 4-5 APR genes or genes of both resistance types would be highly desirable. Discovery and development of reliable markers for effective marker-assisted gene introgression and selection is vital to routinely combine resistance genes. Such genes and linked markers can be identified in primary, secondary, and tertiary gene pools of wheat and its related species. However, to minimize linkage drag during resistance gene introgression from wild relatives and increase breeding efficiency, discovery of resistant material in existing breeding programs is preferable.Association mapping (AM), or linkage disequilibrium (LD) mapping, is a powerful technique used to identify marker-trait associations, and has been used successfully in several crop species such as wheat, barley, soybean, and maize [20][21][22]. The AM strategy exploits historical recombination events existing in the lines being studied, which can range from natural collections to breeding populations. Since existing populations can be used for mapping loci associated with traits of interest, as opposed to specifically designed populations, this approach is widely used to study the genetic makeup controlling trait variation in wider germplasm pools [22,23]. As allelic variation and marker polymorphisms are observed at a higher frequency in a genome-wide association study (GWAS) panel compared to a biparental population [24,25], useful and novel alleles associated with traits of interest may be identified when pairing with high-throughput marker technologies. One drawback of AM is that the underlying population stratification due to breeding history, selection, genetic drift, or founder effects can lead to false associations [26,27]. This issue, however, can be reduced by accounting for population structure using the relationship matrix or distance matrix among the lines [28].The objective of this study was to evaluate spring wheat lines from nine breeding programs in the United States and Canada, in addition to CIMMYT lines, for their fieldbased resistance to the Ug99 race group and conduct a GWAS to identify loci associated with resistance. We also made an attempt to distinguish between loci associated with APR and seedling resistance to exotic virulent Pgt races TTKSK, TRTTF, and TKTTF.Two-hundred and fifty spring wheat lines from wheat breeding programs in North America were assembled as part of the Triticeae Coordinated Agricultural Project (www.triticeaecap.org). Elite lines were representative of the following wheat breeding programs in the United States: Montana State University (MSU), South Dakota State University (SDSU), University of California-Davis (UCD), University of Idaho (UI), University of Minnesota (UMN), and Washington State University (WSU); in Canada: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (Ag-Canada) Manitoba, Ag-Canada Saskatchewan, and Ag-Canada Alberta; and in Mexico: the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). This germplasm panel was previously used to assess root morphology traits [29].A panel of 250 lines was evaluated for field response to stem rust in four disease environments: at Njoro, Kenya during the off-season (January to April 2013), and the main-season (June to October 2013), and at Debre Zeit, Ethiopia during the off-season (January to June 2013, and 2014). These environments are referred in the text as KenOff13, KenMain13, EthOff13, and EthOff14, respectively. In all environments, phenotypic data was collected from plant heading stage up to grain maturing stage (i.e. between Zadoks 50 and 90) [30], when the susceptible checks reached maximum severity (usually ~80 % severity).In Njoro, plots were arranged in an augmented design with the lines represented once and the susceptible check line 'Red Bobs' planted after every fifty entries. The lines were sown as 70 cm long twin rows, 20 cm apart, flat bed. Spreader rows were sown perpendicular to the twin rows, surrounding the field to initiate disease development and maintain uniform disease pressure in the nursery. The spreader rows comprised of a mixture of lines susceptible to race TTKST (Ug99 + Sr24 virulence): 'CCK' (Canadian Cunningham Kennedy), 'PBW343' , 'Morocco' and few susceptible CIMMYT lines. The disease was initiated by inoculating the spreader rows using a bulk inoculum of Pgt urediniospores collected at the Njoro field site. Wheat stem rust differential lines with known stem rust resistance genes indicated that the predominant, if not only, race present in the nursery since 2008 was race TTKST; [31]). The urediniospores were suspended in water and injected into spreader plants at 1 m distance prior to booting (growth stage Z35-Z37; [30]). The spreader plants were then sprayed with urediniospores suspended in light mineral oil Soltrol 170 (Chevron Phillips Chemical Company, The Woodlands, TX).The nursery in Debre Zeit was set up similar to the Njoro nursery. Lines were planted in 1 m long twin rows, flanked by spreader rows comprised of a mixture of susceptible wheat varieties 'PBW343' , 'Morocco' , and 'Local Red'. The spreader rows were artificially inoculated with a bulk of fresh urediniospores collected from PBW343 (PBW343 has Sr31 and several races in the Ug99 race group are virulent to Sr31) and also collected from local fields. Inoculation was carried out in Debre Zeit as it was in the Njoro nursery.Disease severity on a 0-100 % modified Cobb scale [32] and infection response [17] were recorded for each line. Severity and infection response notes were recorded 2-3 times during the season; the terminal data, which exhibited better disease segregation among the lines in the panel, was used in the analysis. The infection response to disease was assigned constant values as recommended by Stubbs et al. [33] with the response types 'resistantmoderately resistant' and 'moderately susceptiblesusceptible' coded as 0.3 and 0.9, respectively. The stem rust severity values were multiplied by the infection response values to obtain coefficient of infection values [33], which were used in subsequent analyses.Seedling assays were conducted at the United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) Cereal Disease Laboratory during the winter months between December and February starting December 2012 through February 2014. The 250 spring wheat lines were evaluated with three virulent races of Pgt race TTKSK (isolate 04KEN156/04, Ug99), race TRTTF (isolate 06YEM34-1), and race TKTTF (isolate 13ETH18-1). Race TRTTF was detected in Yemen and Ethiopia and characterized as broadly virulent to wheat stem rust resistance genes including Sr13 and Sr1RS Amigo [34]. Seedling assays were performed as described previously by Rouse et al. [35] for evaluating wheat germplasm for reaction to Pgt races. Two biological replicates of the seedling assays were performed for each Pgt race. Infection types (ITs) were recorded on a 0 to 4 scale according to Stakman et al. [36]. ITs less than or equal to 2+ are considered low infection types whereas ITs greater than or equal to 3-are considered high infection types [36]. In order to use the Stakman ITs in the GWAS, the 0-4 scale was converted to a 0-9 linear scale as proposed by Zhang et al. [37] (Additional file 1). The average linear scale score across the two replications was used in the AM analyses.Data sets from each field environment were fitted into a mixed model with environment as a fixed effect and wheat lines as a random effect to correct for data distortion due to trial effects. Using this model, best linear unbiased predictors (BLUPs) for each line were predicted from the combined analysis model using SAS 9.1, from which final corrected trait values were obtained. After the mean values were normalized for each environment, trait values for each line in all environments were averaged, and used for genome-wide mapping. Heritability on an entry mean basis was calculated based on the method described by Holland et al. [38].The AM panel was genotyped at the USDA-ARS Cereal Crops Research Unit, Fargo, ND as part of the TCAP project for 90,000 gene-based SNPs using a custom Infinium iSelect bead chip assay following the manufacturer's instructions (Illumina Inc., Hayward, CA) [39]. Allele calls were performed using the computer program GenomeStudio v2011.1 (Illumina Inc.). As genotyping of these lines was carried out as a part of the TCAP, the genotype data was obtained from The Triticeae Toolbox. During data download, SNP markers with minor allele frequency less than 0.05 and no calls for more than 10 % of the lines were removed from the dataset. Lines that were genotyped at less than 20 % loci were also removed from the dataset. These filtering steps yielded 23,976 SNP markers and 241 lines that were used for genome-wide association analysis.Principal component analysis (PCA) on the marker data of the lines was performed by using the Genomic Association and Prediction Integrated Tool (GAPIT) R package [40]. For the purpose of displaying the PCA results, the R package 'princomp' was used to reconstruct the covariance matrix. Principal component 1 scores were plotted against principal component 2 scores for each line in the mapping panel. In order to confirm the results of PCA analysis, the lines were also clustered by their genetic distances using JMP Pro 11.0.0 (SAS Institute Inc.) with Ward's hierarchical clustering method [41].Linkage disequilibrium between the markers was estimated as squared allele-frequency correlations (r 2 ). The package 'LDheatmap' in R was used to calculate r 2 in each of the A, B, and D genomes of common wheat. The LD decay between the marker pairs for each genome was estimated using the least squares regression function, and is represented by the exponential curve. Map positions of the SNPs were obtained from Wang et al. [39].A total of 18,302 mapped SNP markers were used to estimate pairwise LD. LD between markers were calculated for the A, B, and D genomes, and plotted against the genetic distance in centimorgans (cM). The extent of LD between marker pairs was visualized by fitting locally weighted polynomial regression (LOESS) curves into the scatter plot.Genome-wide association analysis investigating the marker-trait association was performed using the R package GAPIT [40], with the growth stages of genotypes included as covariate for Pgt resistance. The population parameters previously determined (P3D) model [42] was used to conduct association analyses with all trait data. Based on the model selection using the Bayesian information content criterion (BIC), a kinship-mixed linear model (K-MLM) approach that accounts for Type I error rate due to relatedness was used for all traits.Adequate disease pressure was observed in each environment to discriminate among the entries, as indicated by highly significant (p < 0.01) F-values from ANOVA results of the field data (results not shown). Distribution of rust severities in all environments indicated a quantitative mode of disease distribution with the Njoro main season (KenMain13) recording both higher severity and wider distribution of scores (Fig. 1a). On average however, disease severity was relatively lower in Njoro environments with mean values of 33 % during the 2013 offseason and 35 % during the 2013 main season, compared to Debre Zeit, Ethiopia with 52 % severity during the 2013 offseason and 50 % during the 2014 offseason. Moderate correlations (r ranging from 0.44 to 0.57) between the field data from the four seasons was observed (Table 1). The estimated broad sense heritability across the four environments was 0.72.The complete panel of 250 lines was inoculated with Pgt races TTKSK, TRTTF, and TKTTF at seedlings to uncover genetic factors contributing resistance to these virulent stem rust races. Replications of the seedling tests were highly correlated with r-value ranging from 0.84-0.99 (p < 0.001). However, the pair-wise correlations among the three races were low and not significant (data not shown). Most of the lines screened for seedling resistance against race TTKSK were susceptible, and only 15 (6 %) showed resistant reactions (IT 22+ or lower) (Fig. 1b). Seedling resistance was more common to races TRTTF, with 44 %, and TKTTF, with 63 % of lines with low infection types. Of the seedling resistant lines, nine lines showed resistance to all three races; three lines showed resistance only to races TTKSK and TRTTF; and five lines showed resistance only to races TTKSK and TKTTF (Additional file 1). The University of Minnesota cultivar 'Thatcher' was heterogeneous for resistance to race TTKSK (IT 0; / X in the first replication and IT 0; / 3+ in the second replication) yet susceptible to both TRTTF and TKTTF (IT 33+ to both races in both replications). The average adult plant disease severity of lines with seedling resistance to race TTKSK was lower in all four environments than lines susceptible to this race (t-test p-value of 0.02 at α = 0.05; Additional file 1).To investigate the population structure of the germplasm panel, the genotypes were analyzed for clustering based on principal component (PC) values. The groupings of lines belonging to each breeding program based on PC values are presented in Fig. 2. The first and second PC values explained 8.9 % and 4.3 % genetic variation in the panel, respectively. Although the genetic relationship among representative lines of different breeding programs was not very distinct, a general statement can be made that two main clusters are observed based on genetic differentiation. The cluster on the left of Fig. 1 (hereafter referred to as Cluster 1) comprises lines from breeding programs in the Upper-Midwest of the United States: MSU, SDSU, and UMN; and in Canada. The cluster on the right (hereafter referred to as Cluster 2) comprises lines from the Western United States: UCD, UI, and WSU; and in Mexico: CIMMYT. The CIMMYT lines included in this analysis were selected because of their potential heat and drought stress resistance and may not be representative of the entire CIMMYT breeding germplasm. Despite the noticeable amount of relatedness among breeding programs, these two main clusters may be divided further into six sub-clusters: Cluster 1 into two sub-clusters with lines from MSU clustering separately while lines from Alberta, Manitoba,Fig. 1 Frequency distribution of stem rust severity scores for the North American Spring Wheat Breeding Germplasm (250 lines) during (a) four seasons in East Africa; (b) screening for resistance at the seedling stage with three stem rust races. Seedling infection type (IT) scores have been converted to the linear scale, as discussed in 'Methods' Saskatchewan, SDSU, and UMN form a single subcluster; and Cluster 2 into four sub-clusters with lines from CIMMYT, UCD, UI, and WSU. The population stratification and germplasm sharing among the lines revealed by the PC was also corroborated by the results from hierarchical clustering using Ward's method in JMP (Additional file 1).In the A-genome, LD declined to 50 % of its original value at about 8 cM (Fig. 3a), whereas these values for the Bgenome and the D-genome were about 7 cM and 6 cM, respectively (Figs. 3b and c, respectively). These values are similar to the LD values reported by Chao et al. [43] in their detailed LD characterization of wheat varieties having different growth habits from several breeding programs.Initial association analysis was conducted on all 241 lines, without removing any lines that showed resistance to race TTKSK during seedling screening of the lines as described later. This approach detected 24 SNP markers on seven different chromosomes (2A, 2B, 3B, 4A, 6A, 6B, and 7A) that were significantly associated (p-value <0.001) with field resistance to Ug99 (Table 2).In addition, five significant markers with unknown map positions were detected. The phenotypic variance explained by these 29 SNP markers ranged from 0.2 % to 4.6 %.As the germplasm in the panel was known to possess ASR genes that are effective to the Ug99 race group, it was assumed that these ASR genes could lead to the masking of potential APR genes. Therefore, in an attempt to detect loci conferring APR, lines that were resistant to race TTKSK during seedling screening were removed. Lines that were resistant (IT ranging from 0 to 2+) in either of the two replications of seedling screening, and with a complex score with low and high ITs (for example 2 + 3-) were also removed. This filtering step yielded a subset of 219 lines for the APR-specific genome-wide association analysis.The APR-specific AM approach identified 26 SNP markers providing APR to Ug99 race group (Table 2). Of the 26 significant SNPs, 23 SNPs were distributed across nine chromosomes (1B, 2A, 2B, 2D, 3B, 4A, 5A, 7A, 7B), whereas the remaining three SNPs were unmapped. Six of the 23 mapped SNPs were also detected in the initial analysis on the whole set of 241 lines. The R 2 values for the significant SNPs ranged from 0.1 % to 0.6 % (Table 2).Significant SNP markers detected on the complete panel and by APR-specific mapping were cross-checked with the GWAS results for each of the four environments. While no significant SNPs were detected in the Kenya 2013 offseason environment, three, six, and nine SNPs were confirmed in the Ethiopia offseason 2013, Ethiopia offseason 2014, and Kenya main-season 2014, respectively (Table 2). Two SNPs -IWA3120 (mapped to 1B) and IWB35697 (mapped to 6B) were common between the Ethiopia 2013 and 2014 environments. No SNP markers were common in all four environments. The genome-wide scan for SNPs linked with seedling resistance to race TTKSK detected 16 significant SNP markers on chromosomes 1D, 3B, 4A, and 5B, and 7 additional significant SNP markers with no mapped locations (Table 3). These SNPs explained 2 to 7 % of variation observed in race TTKSK seedling resistance. The results also revealed that the loci conferring seedling resistance to TTKSK are different than those involved in APR to Ug99 (Table 3, Table 2).Similarly, GWAS was conducted for resistance to race TRTTF, a virulent race of Yemeni origin. This resulted in detection of 77 significant SNPs on six chromosomes (1B, 1D, 5D, 6A, 6B, 7A), and 9 SNPs that were unmapped (Table 4). Additionally, mapping of resistance was carried out for a new virulent race TKTTF of Ethiopian origin. A genome-wide scan for resistance loci resulted in 109 SNPs distributed on five chromosomes (1A, 4A, 5A, 6B, 7A), and 2 unmapped SNPs (Table 5).Wheat stem rust disease has been primarily controlled by the use of resistant genes discovered in hexaploid wheat and its related species. However, the Ug99 race group has defeated many of the widely deployed resistance genes, and thus poses a threat to wheat production globally. Moreover, several of the previously identified genes discovered in wild progenitors or landraces are not desirable for their use in resistance breeding because of linkage drag [3,44]. Therefore, discovery of loci contributing resistance to Ug99 and other virulent races in elite breeding germplasm is a clear advantage. The resistance uncovered in this study, composed of elite germplasm from North American breeding programs, can provide a great resource for the fight against Ug99 and stem rust in general. As no SNP markers were significant across all four field environments, differences among the disease environments with regard to races present, temperature, and other environmental factors as well as locus by environment interaction are likely involved in this lack of consistency. Lack of strong correlations among the environments also corroborates this assumption (Table 1).The map locations of significant SNP markers in our study, obtained from Wang et al. [39], were compared to positions of markers and genes/quantitative trait loci (QTL) reported in previous mapping studies conducted to uncover loci associated with stem rust resistance. In this section, we have used from the integrated genetic map consisting of different marker types generated by Maccaferri et al. [45] to obtain the relative distances between previously reported markers and the significant markers in our study.Five significant SNP markers (IWA3120, IWB21176, IWB31027, IWB56771, IWB59663) were detected at position 90 cM on chromosome 1B, of which all except IWA3120 were also detected in Ethiopia 2013. The marker cfd48 reported by Pozniak et al. [46] in a durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) GWAS study is located 4 cM from the SNP markers we detected, and could represent the same locus. Bhavani et al. [47] and Njau et al. [48] both reported the marker wPt-1560 on 1BL to be associated with Ug99 resistance in separate spring wheat RIL populations. This marker, as well as Sr58, an APR gene for stem rust of wheat [49,50], are located at a distance of >50 cM from these five SNP markers. QTL on chromosome 2A providing APR to Ug99 have also been mainly reported in durum wheat mapping populations. Letta et al. [51] detected gwm1045 to be significantly associated with Ug99 resistance in a durum wheat AM panel; and Haile et al. [52] reported a QTL linked to the marker gwm1198 on 2A that confers resistance to Ug99 in the durum wheat population Kristal/Sebatel. Neither of these markers was in proximity to the SNP markers detected in our study. We detected one significant marker, IWB8481, located at 9 cM on chromosome 2D. The only reported QTL on 2D that provides APR to Ug99 and its derivative races is in the CIMMYT biparental population PBW343/Kiritati [47]. Two Sr genes -Sr32, and Sr46 have been mapped to the short arm of 2D [49,53], and both provide resistance to Ug99 [44]. It should be noted that Sr32 has also been introgressed to 2A and 2B [54], but is not expected to be present in the 250 lines analyzed in this study. We used the Sr32 markers developed by Mago et al. [53] to screen our panel but found the markers to be not predictive of the gene (Additional file 1). As no reliable marker for Sr46 has been developed, we are unable to distinguish between these two genes and the marker we found on 2D.The marker IWA4275 detected on chromosome 2B (position 197 cM) in our study is very close (distance of 2.7 cM) to the marker wPt-8460, known to be linked to Sr9h in 1956 Rockefeller Foundation cultivar Gabo 56 (CI 14035) [11]. The same marker was also reported by Yu et al. [55] in their association mapping study constituting of CIMMYT spring wheat germplasm. Sr9h, previously temporarily designated as SrWeb, is derived from the Canadian wheat cultivar 'Webster' (RL6201) and confers ASR gene effective to TTKSK [56]. Markers developed by Rouse et al. [11] showed that Sr9h is present in 13 lines (5 %) in our panel (Additional file 1), implying that IWA4275 could represent the Sr9h locus in our panel. The gene Sr9a is also located on 2BL [55,57], but is ineffective to Ug99 [44]. On 2B, we also detected five SNP markers: IWA8534, IWB23660, IWB25868, IWB69631, and IWB25869 located at 126 cM. Based on the consensus map published by Maccaferri et al. [45], these markers are located at a distance of 4 cM from wmc332, which is linked to Sr28 [58]. We used two markers: wmc332 [58] and a newly developed SNP marker (Michael Pumphrey, personal communication) to investigate if Sr28 was present in our panel. While both markers have only been tested on a limited panel of lines and are not confirmed as diagnostic, we detected that up to 20 lines (8 %) could possess Sr28 (Additional file 1). Thus, our marker-trait association may be detecting Sr28 on this 2B region.Nine SNP markers were detected on the short arm of chromosome 3B with 8 SNPs located at positional range of 11.5 -14.1 cM and one additional SNP at 32.2 cM. These 8 SNPs in the range 11.5 -14.1 cM may be proximal to Sr2, a highly important APR gene for stem rust of wheat [3,59]. Upon marker screening, it was found that 22 lines (9 %) in the panel contain Sr2 (Additional file 1). This gene is used extensively in the CIMMYT spring wheat breeding program, and is shared by some US breeding programs that also incorporated this gene in their germplasm for broadspectrum resistance. It is possible that the SNP at 32.2 cM is associated with Ug99 resistance that has been observed near the Sr12 locus [60]. Another stem rust APR gene, Sr57 [61], is located on chromosome 7D. Screening of the panel using the sequence-tagged site marker developed by Lagudah et al. [62] showed that 97 lines (39 %) could contain Sr57. For other two stem rust APR genes: Sr55, located on 4D [63] and Sr56, located on 5B [64], no diagnostic markers are available. As no SNP markers were detected on chromosomes 4D and 5B during the analysis, we believe these genes are not present in our mapping panel.Several QTL located on chromosome 4A that provide resistance to Ug99 have been reported in association mapping studies [55,65,66], and in biparental studies [47] in CIMMYT germplasm. These sources of stem rust resistance are not located in the vicinity of the SNPs IWB46973, IWB56556, and IWB67877 detected also on 4A in our study. Similarly, QTL on chromosome 5A providing resistance against Ug99 have been reported in biparental and association mapping studies [46,47]. The '+' sign indicates that the SNP was also detected in GWAS results in each of the environments. The '-' sign indicates that the SNP was detected only in combined analysis of all environments, and not in individual environments   However, chromosome positions of the QTL and significant loci reported in these studies differ from those detected in our study. We detected only one significant SNP (IWA233) on 6AS. Mapped at 66 cM, this SNP is located away (>100 cM) from the marker gwm617 reported by Pozniak et al. [46], and from the marker Sr26#43 linked to Sr26, which provides resistance to the Ug99 and its derivative races [55,67]. Marker screening confirmed that Sr26 is absent in the panel under study (Additional file 1). Several QTL effective to Ug99 and its derivative races have also been discovered on chromosome 6B [4,49]. Of the reported QTL, the DArT marker wPt-6116 in the AM study conducted by Yu et al. [65] is located very close to the significant markers detected in this study: 1.1 cM from IWB24757 and 2.2 cM from IWB45581. The gene Sr11 is located on 6BL, but is ineffective to Ug99 and its derivative races [3,5]. Likewise, several QTL have been reported on 7A that provide field resistance to Ug99 [46,47,51,52,68]. However, none of the reported QTL or positions of significant marker effects coincide with the significant markers detected in this study. Two 7B SNP markers -IWB47548 and IWA4175were significantly associated with resistance to Ug99. Letta et al. [51] have reported loci associated with resistance to Ug99 in durum wheat germplasm, however they are located at a large distance (>50 cM) from both markers in our study.The significant SNP markers associated with APR to Ug99 reported in this study provide several resistance loci to fight the disease, of which some are likely novel. Validation of the significant markers in all chromosomes is essential to confirm the identity of the associated resistance loci as well as to test their usefulness in marker assisted resistance breeding in breeding programs.The results of the GWAS for seedling-resistance in this study were compared with previous findings for ASR to stem rust of wheat. As the discovered SNPs are suspected to be linked primarily with existing or putatively novel resistance genes, a search for similarities in chromosomal location with known resistance genes was emphasized.  We detected 23 SNPs in our germplasm panel that were significantly associated with race TTKSK resistance at the seedling stage. The SNP marker IWA642 mapped at 67.7 cM on 1D is relatively close to Sr50, a gene that provides resistance to the Ug99 group of races [28]. The seedling resistance genes SrCad and SrTmp are considered to be present in the panel used in this study. SrCad is a stem rust resistance gene derived from the Canadian wheat lines 'Peace' and ' AC Cadillac' , and is effective to Ug99 and its derivative races [69]. Located on chromosome 6D, this gene confers a highly resistant reaction (IT of 1 to 12) to TTKSK in seedling stages, and is moderately resistant to Ug99 in field nurseries. SrCad has not been shown to be different than Sr42 in either map position or resistance specificity [70].  SrTmp is another gene resistant to TTKSK yet no SNPs were detected on 4B where the SrTmp gene is thought to be located [3]. Additional data suggest that SrTmp may be located on 6DS at a similar location to Sr42/SrCad [71]. We used two markers: SSR marker cfd49 [72] and a SNP marker (Gao et al., unpublished) to screen the panel for presence/absence of Sr42. Results indicated that at least 71 or more lines in the panel could carry this gene, yet the markers did not support each other (Additional file 1). Neither marker results also corroborate our TTKSK seedling screening results. We are not aware of any study carried out on broad germplasm to determine if these two markers are diagnostic or even predictive. From our results, it appears that they are neither diagnostic nor predictive of Sr42/SrCad. Similarly, Sr9h has a resistant reaction to race TTKSK at the seedling stages (1 to 2 infection type) [56]. The presence of Sr9h was confirmed by marker screening, as discussed above. Except for the likely presence of Sr9h, the position of the loci conferring Ug99 resistance in this study suggest that different genes than the ones discussed above could be present in our panel. We suspect that association mapping is limited by the low frequency of resistance loci (only 15 (6 %) of 250 lines resistant to TTKSK), leading to lack of detection of SNPs significantly associated with SrCad or SrTmp. Since no ASR genes effective to Ug99 are known to exist on chromosomes 3B and 5B, our findings indicate that the North American breeding germplasm might contain previously undiscovered important sources of resistance to the disease.The genes Sr24 and Sr36 are resistant to the race TTKSK, yet no SNPs associated with resistance to this race were detected in the chromosomes containing these genes. Sr24, located on 3DL, is widely used in Mexico and the USA; Sr36, located on 2BS, is known to be present in wheat lines in the USA [3]. Lack of detection of these genes can be attributed to either 1) representative germplasm with these genes are not present in our GWAS panel; or 2) if present, the allele frequency is very low which does not pass our stringent analysis filters. Upon marker screening (Additional file 1), we discovered that Sr36 is not present in our panel; and only 7 lines (3 %) contain Sr24, confirming our assumptions.Of the 77 mapped SNPs significantly associated with resistance to TRTTF, 57 SNPs were located on the short arm of chromosome 6A (position range 2 cM -26 cM). These markers are most likely linked to the gene Sr8a which is located on 6AS and is effective to the race TRTTF [34,73]. Similarly, the SNP marker IWB48466 located on the long arm of 7A (217 cM) is in the same region as the stem rust resistance gene Sr22. This gene was introgressed into 7AL of hexaploid wheat from its diploid relative Triticum boeoticum [74], and is effective against TRTTF [75]. Marker screening of the GWAS panel with a robust sequence tagged site (STS) marker developed by Periyannan et al. [76] confirmed that Sr22 is not present in the panel. Sr31, while ineffective against TTKSK, is effective against TRTTF, and is located on 1BL [75,77]. Our GWAS results detected 13 significant SNPs, all on the short arm of chromosome 1B (position range 44 cM -65 cM). Given the presence of CIMMYT lines in our panel and the widespread use of Sr31 in breeding programs, screening of lines with Sr31 with these markers is needed to determine if the markers are linked to Sr31, or if a novel source of resistance to TRTTF is located on 1BS.Chromosome 1DS is known to harbor multiple Sr genes [49], and could be represented by the two SNPs that were detected on 1DS in our analysis. We also discovered markers on 5DL and 6BS associated with resistance to TRTTF. As no ASR genes effective against TRTTF are known to exist on 5DL and 6BS, the North American elite breeding germplasm likely possesses novel genes for resistance to the Yemeni stem rust race TRTTF.One-hundred and nine SNPs associated with seedling resistance to the newly detected Ethiopian stem rust race TKTTF were detected on five chromosomes: 1AS, 4AL, 5AL, 6BL, and 7AS. The 52 6BL SNPs distributed in the positional range of 109 cM -123 cM likely represent the gene Sr11 which is effective to this race. Fifty-one significant SNPs were located on 4AL (142 cM -164 cM) possibly indicative of resistance gene Sr7a (TKTTF is virulent to Sr7b). No ASR genes are known to be located on chromosome 5AL, and therefore the germplasm under study may possess a new source of resistance to the race TKTTF in this region. APR QTL providing resistance to the Ug99 and its derivative races have been detected in the 1AS region [49,55]. Additionally, the gene Sr1RS Amigo is located on the 1RS.1AL rye chromosome arm translocation. Chromosome 7AS does not possess any known ASR genes, yet APR QTL effective to Ug99 and its derivative races have been detected in the region [49,68].None of the SNPs associated with seedling resistance for the three races were common, suggesting that none of the genes in this material are broadly effective. Further studies involving development of populations for fine mapping and allelism tests are required to elaborate and confirm the nature of the genetic mechanisms controlling the resistance to these three rust races.One of the main advantages of conducting association mapping on a panel consisting of breeding germplasm is to explore the genetic composition of the lines, and estimate the effects of significantly associated loci with the trait(s) of interest. The discovery of significant SNPs can allow for tagging of lines that are enriched for alleles associated with the trait, and their use in gene introgression for resistance breeding. More importantly, as the lines used in this AM study are elite, they possess the desired agronomic traits, and are adapted to the desired regions. This helps in avoiding the problems that could otherwise arise from linkage drag, when more diverse germplasm is used to introgress alleles of interest. Singh et al. [5] have reported that up to 95 % of germplasm from global seed collections and breeding programs are susceptible to Ug99. As Ug99 and its derivative races have not yet been observed in North America, it is prudent to prepare for their possible arrival by developing resistant varieties. Discovery of resistant sources in existing breeding programs can speed up the process of gene introgression into elite lines, gene pyramiding for elevated resistance to the disease, and possible identification of diagnostic markers that can be used in marker assisted resistance breeding. Germplasm sharing among the breeding programs for this purpose, at least within the US, is plausible given the genetic similarity among the lines, as observed in Fig. 2. The availability of SNP alleles associated with reduced disease severity (as well as increased severity) in both adult plant and seedling stages (Additional file 1) should be useful for breeders to make decisions about selection of lines to be used as parents in their breeding programs. Breeders may also use the significant SNP markers we have provided to design assays for possible marker assisted selection or screening of resistant materials in their own breeding programs. Additionally, Table 6 has been populated with a list of lines that exhibited high levels of APR to Ug99 (Table 6), and The average disease severity (%) across four environments seedling resistance to TTKSK (Table 7). The complete genotypic and phenotypic data presented in this study have also been made available on The Triticeae Toolbox (T3 webportal) with the goal of facilitating line selection based on Sr marker associations. We are confident that the North American wheat breeding programs can fortify the stem rust resistance in their germplasm by capitalizing on the information provided in this study.In this study, we report the frequency and variability in seedling resistance and APR present in North American spring wheat breeding germplasm to virulent exotic Pgt races. Several loci were found to be significant, which is an indication that despite the relatively narrow goals for germplasm development, enough genetic variation lies within the current North American breeding germplasm that can be utilized to breed for resistance against the virulent stem rust races, including the Ug99 race group. While only a small portion (6 %) of the germplasm showed seedling resistance, APR to Ug99 revealed several likely-novel genomic regions associated with resistance to Ug99. The lines that performed well at either or both growth stages (seedling and adult) could be used immediately to make crosses with elite lines to generate lines with improved rust resistance. Specific crosses could also be made to create mapping populations to fine map the regions of interest in an effort to identify diagnostic markers linked with the resistance loci. The discovery of such diagnostic markers will add great value to recurrent selection breeding programs as well as in identification of lines that carry the resistance loci. As such, further characterization and validation of the detected loci is necessary for effective utilization of these results. The availability of marker and trait data on the T3 webportal that were generated for this GWAS panel should enable interested groups to pursue these studies.The genotypic data generated on this GWAS panel and used in this article are available under the genotyping experiment 'TCAP90K_SpringAM_panel' in The Triticeae Toolbox repository, https://triticeaetoolbox. org/wheat/display_genotype.php?trial_code=TCAP90K_ SpringAM_panel). The phenotypic data collected on this GWAS panel and used in this article are available under the experiment set 'USSpring_GWAS' in The Triticeae Toolbox repository, https://triticeaetoolbox.org/wheat/view. php?table=experiment_set&uid=48). The data sets supporting the results of this article are included within the article and its additional files. ","tokenCount":"6903"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8add9e7a7cd8fed79716fe678c5bc6d7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4281889b-58f7-40fe-aa43-8e603f5f7974/retrieve","id":"182688205"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"5c1014a5-bd0e-4549-97b0-dcf872ca0cc1","pagecount":"3","content":"Landscape targeted fertilzer advisory services to improve nutrient use efficiency, cost reduction and enhance productivity is tested by smallholder farmers in Ethiopia (Fertilizer Ethiopia Use Case).The agronomy at scale solution aims to improve nutrient use efficiency, reduce cost and enhance the productivity of teff, wheat, and sorghum crops in the highland and dry humid areas of Amhara, Oromia, and Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region (SNNRP) regional states of Ethiopia. The advisory tool will run on a prediction engine that uses data analysis techniques to generate fertilizer recommendations that will be of value at the local and national levels where its advisories will be a reference point for the national soil health investment and the national soil strategy.The nature of this innovation isInnovations that already exist and undergo constant, steady progress and improvement.CGIAR Innovation Packages and Scaling Readiness (IPSR)This innovation is characterized asInnovations of technical/material nature, including varieties/breeds; crop and livestock management practices; machines; processing technologies; big data and information systems. The innovation is validated for its ability to achieve a specific impact under uncontrolled conditionsThe innovation is being tested for its ability to achieve a specific impact under uncontrolled conditionsThe innovation is validated for its ability to achieve a specific impact under semi-controlled conditionsThe innovation's key concepts have been validated for their ability to achieve a specific impactThe innovation is being tested for its ability to achieve a specific impact under semi-controlled conditionsThe innovation's key concepts are being formulated or designedThe innovation is validated for its ability to achieve a specific impact under fully-controlled conditionsThe innovation's basic principles are being researched for their ability to achieve a specific impactThe innovation is being tested for its ability to achieve a specific impact under fully-controlled conditionsThe innovation is at idea stage For more information on this innovation please contact Gizaw Desta (gizaw.desta@icrisat.org)","tokenCount":"301"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"01f89f501503dea131a51f2c37b48ffa","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/fa631aac-bd4b-40a2-bb14-877901b8491c/retrieve","id":"-853991924"},"keywords":["climate smart agriculture","prioritization framework","climate change","adaptation","mitigation","climate action","experts' knowledge"],"sieverID":"8406b2d5-4cb1-46cd-aa1c-d3ec54def81e","pagecount":"24","content":"Ethiopia's diverse agroecological zones showcase a variety of Climate Smart Agricultural (CSA) Practices, yet the documentation and prioritization of best-bet practices have been lacking. To address this gap, this study utilized the Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS)-CSA Prioritization framework. This approach was deployed across nine key agro-ecologies in Ethiopia to identify and prioritize CSA practices based on the three pillars of CSA and gender-equity considerations. By employing this participatory framework, this study successfully identified and prioritized over 200 Climate Smart Agricultural (CSA) practices within Ethiopia's nine major agroecological zones. These practices were segmented into four main systems: crop management (40 practices), livestock management (41 practices), soil fertility management (40 practices), erosion control and water management (41 practices), and forest and agroforestry (40 practices). Notably, the results highlighted the significance of CSA practices linked to agroforestry/forestry management, rangeland/forage enhancement, exclosure strategies, and water management in addressing the goals associated with the three pillars (productivity, adaptation, mitigation) of CSA practices simultaneously. The findings also revealed that the majority of Climate Smart Agricultural (CSA) practices focused on improving productivity and enhancing adaptation to climate change. Additionally, the results demonstrated that trade-offs exist among the three pillars of CSA, emphasizing the need for integration with other practices to enhance complementarity and achieve all pillars simultaneously. Overall, this study underscores the importance of combining CSA practices of various categories to maximize their effectiveness and impact in sustainable agriculture.Agriculture forms the backbone of the Ethiopian economy, accounting about 36% of gross domestic product (GDP) and 66% of employment. It is deeply affected by climate change (variability), uncertainty and extremes, all of which significantly reduce the GDP (Bekana, 2018). Increasing average temperatures, changes in rainfall patterns, an increasing frequency of extreme weather events such as severe droughts and floods and shifting agricultural seasons have all been observed in different agro-ecological zone of Ethiopia (Zerssa et al 2021).Studies indicated that Ethiopia has experienced an average temperature increase of 0.25 °C per decade, with the most notable rise observed between July to September (McSweeney et al 2009). According to McSweeney et al (2009) and MoEF Ministry of Environment and Forest (2015), the number of hot days and nights has also risen dramatically, with an increase of 20% and 40% respectively, between 1960 and 2003. This warming is linked to increased evapotranspiration and reduced soil moisture, with the central highlands experiencing the most substantial effects (MoEF Ministry of Environment and Forest 2015). Climate models predict a rise in Ethiopia's average annual temperature by 2030, ranging from 0.44 °C to 1.4 °C under a moderate emissions scenario (RCP4.5) and from 0.61 °C to 1.47 °C under a high emissions scenario (RCP8.5) (Gudoshava 2016). Both highest and lowest temperatures in Ethiopia are expected to rise by up to 1 °C by the 2030s, with CSA prioritization framework in their study. Their research, conducted in Ghana's Coastal Savannah Agroecological Zone, identified seven promising CSA practices: crop rotation, improved crop varieties, enhanced nutrient management, minimum tillage, mixed cropping, improved livestock housing, and supplementary feeding. Applying the CSA prioritization framework in India, Khatri-Chhetri et al (2017) found those farmers' preferences and willingness-to-pay for CSA technologies differed significantly based on the perceived benefits and costs of those technologies. This suggests that location-specific prioritization, considering farmers' perspectives, is crucial for successful CSA implementation in various parts of the world.This study was conducted in 9 major Agroecological zones (AEZs) of Ethiopia. As shown in figure 2, there are 15 major AEZs in Ethiopia (Hurni et al 2016). However, identification and prioritization of CSA practices was conducted in 9 of the 15 major AEZs of Ethiopia (table 1, figure 1). Agro-ecological zones are used to identify and prioritize CSA practices due to relatively distinct climatic risks in AEZs as compared to farming system. In total, the study AEZs comprises more than 95% of the total land mass of the country. In addition, about 75% of the land mass is covered by four AEZs including Dry Kolla (41%), Dry Berha (12.7%), Moist Weyna Dega (11.5%) and Moist Kolla (9.2%). Generally, 'dry' is defined as having less than 900 mm of annual rainfall. 'Moist' is between 900 mm to 1400 mm, and 'wet' is above 1400 mm of annual rainfall. Only one zone is used for the extreme lowlands of the Berha belt (below 500 m), namely the moist zone in the western lowlands of Ethiopia. Three zones are in the Kolla belt (500-1500 m), namely a dry, moist and a wet zone. Three zones are also in the Weyna Dega belt (1500-2300 m). The Dega belt (2300-3200 m), too, has a wet, moist, and dry zone, the dry zone being located mainly in the north-eastern highlands. Major crops grown in these AEZs include barley (Hordeum vulgare), maize (Zea mays), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), teff (Eragrostis tef ), sesame (Sesamum indicum), sunflower (Helianthus annus), groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.), safflower (Carthamus tinctorius), niger seed (Guizotia abyssinica), rapeseed (Brassica napus), enset (Ensete ventricosum), potato (Solanum tuberosum), cassava (Manihot esculenta), sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas), coffee (Coffea arabica), tea (Camellia sinensis), and cotton (Gossypium herbaceum) (Mekbib 2006). Most important constraints in various AEZs include drought, overgrazing, soil erosion (wind/water), soil acidity, soil salinity, low agricultural productivity, feed shortage, disease (crop/animal), drainage problems (e.g., waterlogging), and water shortage.The CCAFS-CSA Prioritization framework was adopted for identifying and prioritizing CSA practices (FAO 2010, Corner-Dolloff 2014, Campbell et al 2016, Gardezi et al 2022). The framework is a participatory approach and uses various steps/phases to guide stakeholders through the process of filtering a long list of applicable CSA practices into priority of CSA practices (Khatri-Chhetri et al 2017, Thornton et al 2017). According to Corner-Dolloff (2014), the approach employed three major phases/steps including i) collect/ conduct long list of CSA practices, assess/characterize the long-listed CSA practices based on productivity, adaptation, mitigation, and gender equity, as well as social-inclusion indicators), ii) identify top CSA practices (select shortlisted CSA practices based on scores, assess trade-offs among the three goals of CSA practices), and iii) conduct cost-benefit analysis of the selected CSA practices. Each step was driven by the combination of literature review and experts' knowledge gathered from various disciplines. Accordingly, based on their experience and field of specialization, 25 participants were invited from various national institutions (including public universities e.g. Haramaya University, Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, Ministry of Agriculture), Regional Agricultural Research Institutes e.g., Southern Region Agricultural Research Institute, Amhara Region Agricultural Research Institute, non-governmental international research institutes e.g., the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)). The participants discussed the CSA practices in various agroecologies and were agreed that their results can be reported in different forms. Based on thematic areas and field of specialization, the experts were grouped into five categories (with five experts each) including (i) Crop production and management; (ii) Livestock production and management; (iii) integrated Soil Fertility Management; (iv) Erosion control and water management, and (v) and agro-forestry and forest management. The workshop participants identified and prioritized CSA practices using CCAFS CSA prioritization framework (Mwongera et al 2017, Lizarazo et al 2021) in nine Agroecological Zones (AEZ) 1 of the country. In this exercise, the framework was adopted using the following specific procedures/steps (figure 2): (i) Participants were asked to understand and present the environmental/climatic issues to be addressed in each AEZ. This was done based on review literature and experts' knowledge.(ii) Based on their knowledge and the literature, participants were asked to identify and present an exhaustive long-list of CSA options based on the environmental/ climatic issues to be addressed in each AEZs (iii) Experts developed indicators based on the literature and their own knowledge (Adimassu et al 2023a). The indicators for each CSA practice were assigned by experts to the three pillars, namely productivity and income (P), adaptation/resilience (A) and mitigation (M) and gender equity and social inclusiveness (GESI) indicators. The most important indicators related to GESI include females' control of income from practice, potential for women to benefit from increased productivity, reduces workload of female and youth, female access to cash and ability to spend it, acceptability of the practices by all religious groups, accessed by poor farmers, provides job creation opportunities.(iv) They were asked to score CSA options against the three CSA pillars (P, A, M) and gender equity /social inclusion indicators (GES). Likert scales of between 3 and −3 were used to score CSA practices. We introduced this score range as we observed negative impacts of CSA practices in some pillars. For example, applying lime to manage acid soils increased crop yield significantly, but such application emits CO 2 and negatively affects mitigation (M). The scoring was done based on detailed discussion and consensus of group members. The scores include: If a practice has high positive effect (3), medium positive effect (2), low positive effect (1), no effect (0), low negative effect (−1), medium negative effect (−2) and high negative effect (−3).(v) Weights were assigned for the three pillars of CSA (P, A, M) and GESI indicators. Like scoring, experts assigned weights based on consensus. By combining scores and weights, weighted averages were computed across each CSA practice. For example, experts assigned 0.45 (45%), 0.30 (30%), 0.15 (15%), 0.10 (10%) to P, A, M and GESi, respectively for Dry Kolla AEZ.(vi) CSA practices were ranked based on the weighted average scores. The results under each expert's group were presented in a plenary for further discussion and review to provide cross-fertilization and share experiences among the experts group. (vii) For the sake of discussion the top five CSA practices for each AEZ from each category were described.(viii) Finally, radar graphs were used to interpret the scores and trade-offs among the three pillars of CSA practices of the top 5 CSA practices for each AEZ.This approach has been used in various parts of the world including sub-Saharan Africa (Mwongera et al 2017, Nganga et al 2021) and Asia (Khatri-Chhetri et al 2019). For instance, Girvetz et al (2017) argued that the approach is used to design and execute CSA programs in sub-Saharan Africa countries. The approach was also used to prioritize and target context-specific investments in CSA practices in Mali (Andrieuu et al. 2017) and Western Kenya (Mwongera et al 2017). The approach was also used to facilitate cost benefit analysis of CSA practices in Ghana (Nganga et al 2021) and perceived effectiveness of CSA technologies and their scaling potential in India (Das et al 2022).3.1. CSA practices in the dry kolla agroecological zone As presented in table 2, experts prioritized the top five CSA practices suitable for Dry Kolla AEZ across each category including crop production and management, livestock production and management, soil-fertility management, erosion control and water management, and agroforestry/forestry management (Sida et al 2018). Accordingly, crop cultivar choice, using agroclimate advisory services, crop rotation with cowpeas and common beans, improved sesame varieties, and using striga resistant sorghum cultivars were selected as the top CSA practices in crop management (Mekbib 2006, Seyoum et al 2019). Rangeland improvement, selective breeding, livestock insurance, mobile-community based animal health services and supplementation were key CSA practices associated with livestock production and management in this AEZ. Since this AEZ is affected by moisture stress, most CSA practices in relation to ISFM, ECWM (Erosion Control and Water Management) and AFAF (Agro-forestry and Forestry) are related to moisture conservation practices. In this regard, using tied ridging, mulching, and leaching (salt-affected soils) practices are integrated with applying inorganic appropriate fertilizer source, rate, timing, and place (4Rs) to manage soil fertility in the Dry Kolla AEZ. Moreover, appropriate fertilizer use increases crop yield and nutrient-use efficiency (Xie et al 2023).As shown in table 2, CSA practices related to water harvesting and water management (water storage dams, shallow wells, level fanya juu with trench and spate irrigation) were selected as the top five practices in the dry Kolla parts of the country. Studies in Eastern Ethiopia revealed that households harvesting rainwater had better nutrition and income compared with households without water harvesting (Mume 2014). Similarly, promoting agroforestry practices (particularly, Silvo-pasture, parkland, and fodder bank); assisted natural regeneration; using drought tolerant trees/shrub species; promoting management, processing and proper utilization techniques (Prosopis juliflora), and using moisture conservation practices (mulching, hydrogel) improved productivity, enhanced adaptation, reduced GHG emissions and sequestered carbon at the same time in Dry Kolla AEZs of Ethiopia. Hence, these practices have complementarity effects on the three pillars of CSA practices. Combining the CSA practices from the five categories brings various possible packages for targeted AEZs and different types of farmers.Table 2 also presents the average scores of the three CSA pillars (productivity, adaptation, and mitigation) across the five categories in the Dry Kolla AEZ. The table showed variation in the contribution of each CSA practice for productivity (P), adaptation (A) and mitigation (M). For example, the highest scores showed that CSA practices such as tied-ridging, livestock insurance, and erosion control practices increased crop productivity and enhance adaptation. CSA practices including the using agro-advisory, crop rotation, improved sesame, and striga resistant sorghum had the highest score to adaptation and the lowest to mitigation. Similarly, range land improvement and using selective breeding of livestock scored the highest score across the three CSA pillars (P, A, M). A higher score in one pillar and lower score to the other pillars shows that there are tradeoffs among the three outcomes of CSA practices (P, A and M). Overall, in dry kola AEZ, forestry and agroforestry practices had higher scores and lower trade-offs across the three pillars, suggesting that multiple benefits of the tree-based CSA approaches are important when mitigating climate risks. Besides experts' knowledge, empirical studies showed that these CSA practices are effective in these AEZs of the country. For instance, the use of several CSA practices such as tied-ridge and soil bunds/fanya juu improved soil moisture, reduced soil erosion, improved nutrient use efficiency (Araya and Stroosnijder 2010) and profitable for small-scale farmers with NPV (Net Present Value) of US$ 2,500 per hectare (Adimassu 2023b). Similarly, the use of Bench terracing reduces soil erosion, increases cultivable area for crop and generates up to US$5,847 per ha NPV in Ethiopia (Adimassu et al 2023b). In general this study showed that these practices not only improve productivity but also enhance adaptation to climate risks and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Combining practices from different categories offers customizable solutions for diverse farm types within the Dry Kolla AEZ (Bayu et al 2012).Dry Berha AEZ is not suitable for rain-fed crop production. Hence, experts identified CSA practices related to livestock management and water management practices (table 3). Accordingly, key CSA practices identified included: rangeland improvement, developing watering points, using drought season feeding, and increased use of off-take rates linked with feedlot and selective breeding. Using river diversion (stream diversion weir), water storage (dam and micro dam), shallow wells (washer pump, treadle pump), road water harvesting and drip irrigation increases livestock and range land productivity, enhances pastoralists' adaptation to climate change, and reduces GHG emissions in this AEZ. Using water management practices such as water harvesting, and using Table 3 presents the score of the three CSA pillars among livestock management and water-managementrelated CSA practices in the Dry Berha AEZ. Overall, CSA practices in Dry Berha AEZ contribute significantly to the adaptation (A) pillar of CSA. Looking into the specific CSA practices, rangeland improvement and developing watering points ranked highest in all three CSA pillars (P, A, M) implying that these practices are critical for achieving productivity, adaptation, and mitigation co-benefits in this AEZ. However, using droughtseason feed storage, increasing off-take rate linked with feedlot, and selective breeding of livestock ranked highest in P and A. Similarly, empirical evidence showed that most water-management-related CSA practices such as river diversion, using water storage, shallow wells, road water harvesting and using drip irrigation ranked highest for boosting productivity and adaptation (Teshome et al 2010, Assefa et al 2019, Ejigu 2021). Due to Berha AEZ's limitations for crop production and associated Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) practices, only livestock management and erosion control/water management practices were evaluated in this exercise.The Moist Weyna Dega AEZ is one of the most important agricultural zones, mainly with teff, maize, wheat, and pulses. The most important constraints in this area include soil erosion, nutrient depletion, water lodging, feed shortage, deforestation, over-grazing and pests and disease (table 4).Growing crops using residual moisture, introducing insect tolerant verities, using Integrated Pest Management, and using rust-resistant varieties were the most important CSA practices to increase productivity/ income, enhance adaptation and contribute to mitigating climate-change impacts. Using cross-bred cows, improved forage development, intensification, and diversification of forage crops, promoting low-GHGemitting animals and precision feeding (stall feeding) are the top CSA practices. Using integrated soil nutrient management (organic (compost/vermin-compost+ inorganic 4R), at the right, time and place, biochar with inorganic fertilizer (4R), crop residue mulching + 4R, using well managed inorganic fertilizer (4R) and applying lime integrated with inorganic fertilizer (4R) in acid soils can increase crop productivity/income, enhance adaptation to climate change and mitigate its effects in AEZ crop production systems. Using bench terrace, controlled grazing, graded soil bunds with grass, graded fanya juu with grass and sub-soiling improved the three pillars of CSA practices (Adimassu et al 2017). Promoting and planting fast-growing tree species as woodlots and homesteads; using agroforestry practices (homestead, parkland, farm boundary, fodder bank), producing/using native tree species quality seedlings; protecting existing natural forest through Participatory Forest Management (PFM); and using indigenous knowledge and skills for propagation and management tree/shrub species are the most important CSA practices that increase productivity/income, enhance adaptation and improve mitigating capacity of agro-forestry and forest production system in the Moist Weyna Dega AEZ (Mekonnen et al 2021).As shown in table 4, experts scored the highest value for P in most of CSA practices including using residual moisture; cross breeding; improved forage development; ISFM (compost/vermicompost + 4R; biochar+4R); crop residue mulching +4R; bench terracing, controlled grazing, and sub-soiling. Similarly, experts scored the highest value for all the tree CSA pillars (P, A, M) to all CSA practices in agroforestry/forestry management category (table 4). This shows that CSA practices related to forestry and agroforestry have no tradeoff effect within the three pillars of CSA practices. Previous research on CSA practices prioritized in this AEZs such as bench terrace and fanya juu are reduced soil erosion, increased cultivable area, improved land productivity and profitable when properly designed and implemented (Subhatu et al 2018). A study in Anjeni landscape of Northwestern Ethiopia showed that bench terracing generated US$1,542 per ha in 30 years period with an IRR of 300% (Adgo et al 2013, Tesfaye et al 2016). Studies also showed that CSA practices such as conservation agriculture and intercropping of cereals (e.g. sorghum) and pulses (e.g. common bean) reduced fertilizer costs and increased crop productivity and profitability with NPV of US$6,760 per ha (Adimassu et al 2023b). Using ISFM (organic fertilizer such as compost/vermicompost + 4R); crop residue mulch+4R; managed inorganic fertilization (4R); compost/vermin-compost and biofertilizers (inoculants) improve soil fertility and hence increase the three pillars of CSA practices in relation with ISFM practices. Similarly, using agro-forestry practices, fast growing trees; indigenous knowledge and skills, non-timber forest products (NTFPS) (e.g., gum, resin, wild edible fruits and lowland bamboo), and exclosure with stall feeding improves productivity of trees/ shrubs, improve animal feed availability, enhance adaptation, increase carbon sequestration and reduce GHG emissions in the Moist Koll AEZ (Mekuria et al 2007, Mekuria et al 2011, Mekuria and Aynekulu 2013).As shown in table 5, using FYM; compost/vermicompost with 4R; hillside terracing with grass; controlled grazing; hand-dug wells; solar-based drip irrigation; conservation agriculture; agroforestry and fast-growing tree species satisfy productivity (P) increments and adaptation (A) enhancement. Agroforestry and bench terracing with grass as animal feed increases the three pillars of CSA at the same time (table 5). The study shows tradeoffs among the three pillars in most CSA practices except in exclosure and agroforestry practices. In general, some of these CSA practices were tested and verified by researchers in the country. For example, combined applications of vermicompost and inorganic NPK gave the highest potato yield and net economic benefit in Dire Dawa as compared to vermicompost and NPK only (Mengistu et al 2017). A study in the SNNP region of Ethiopia showed that hillside terracing reduced soil erosion, and increased vegetation cover and crop yield (Wolka 2014).This AEZ is the best zone for agricultural activity, with main crops of teff, maize, wheat, and pulses. Severe soil erosion, deforestation, vertisol water-logging, and crop / animal pests and diseases are the main agricultural production constraints. Experts identified inter-cropping maize with climbing legumes, using coffee-berry disease (CBD) resistant varieties (e.g., Aba Buna), concentrated liming on acid soils, installing a broad-bed furrow (BBF) Vertisols drainage system for wheat production, and using agroclimate advisory services as the top 5 CSA practices for crop production. Intensifying and diversifying forage, using cross breeding, introducing community-based animal health service, precision feeding (stall feeding) and using low GHG-emitting animals such as small ruminants and poultry are the most important CSA practices in livestock management, based on experts' knowledge. Using FYM and inorganic fertilization, Biochar and 4R, drainage with 4R, Gypsum with 4R, and applying FYM are CSA practices related to ISFM practices to increase agricultural productivity and enhance farmers' adaptation to soil fertility decline.The top-five CSA practices for controlling soil erosion and more effectively managing water include bench terracing; controlled grazing; graded soil bund with grasses; graded fanyaa juu with grass, and sub-soiling to break the hard plough pan. Similarly, adopting agro-forestry practices; introducing rapid propagation and multiplication techniques (e.g.; tissue culture; clonal forestry and forest biotechnology); afforestation/ reforestation with fast-growing tree species; and sustainable forest management options, including applying PFM and exclosure are CSA practices that can improve productivity of agroforestry and forestry production and sequester GHGs in above-and below-ground biomass (table 6).The contribution of various CSA practices in the Wet Weyna Dega AEZs across the five categories to improve productivity (P), adaptation (A) and mitigation (M) are presented in table 6. All CSA practices under agroforestry and Forest management category including agroforestry, rapid propagation/multiplication techniques, afforestation/re-afforestation, sustainable and participatory forest management (PFM) and exclosure addressed the three pillars of CSA practices (table 6). Similarly, intensifying and diversifying forage crops addresses the three pillars of CSA practices because they improve livestock productivity, enhance adaptation to feed shortage and reduce GHG emissions at the same time (Menghistu et al 2021). This indicates that if properly managed it is possible to reduce GHG emission from livestock production in Ethiopia (Ayele et al 2014). In essence, Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) practices like intensifying forage crops and effective forest management cover all three pillars of CSA -productivity, adaptation, and mitigation. By integrating these practices, solutions for addressing agricultural hurdles in the Wet Weyna Dega region can be established while fostering sustainability. Experts identified integrated soil-fertility management practices to improve soil fertility and increase crop yield. These CSA practices include tie-ridging with ISFM practices (organic + inorganic fertilization), tie-ridging with mulching and 4R, ISFM (organic + inorganic fertilization), biochar+4R and mulch+4R. Exclosure, conservation bench terracing, level soil bunds, level fanya juu and hillside terracing with grass are the top five CSA practices to control soil erosion and manage agricultural water. Agroforestry practices, fast-growing tree species as wood lots, managing exclosure, alley cropping and using drought-tolerant trees improves agroforestry and forestry management.The result also shows that agroforestry practices and exclosure simultaneously increase productivity, enhance adaptation, and reduce GHG emissions as reported by Lemenih and Kassa (2014). Other CSA practices such as the use of tie-ridging with ISFM, level soil bund, hillside terrace with grass, conservation bench terracing also improved productivity and adaptation (Mekuria et al 2007, Mathewos andMamo 2023) and land profitability (Meaza et al 2016, Mesfin et al 2018) in many parts of the country.The moist Dega AEZ covers about 4.31% of the county and it is a zone of high agricultural activity with barley, wheat, and pulses as main crops. Soil erosion; deforestation; overgrazing; soil crusting; soil nutrient depletion; feed shortage; low agricultural productivity; crop, and animal pests/diseases are the main constraints of Moist Dega AEZ (table 8). Experts identified using bio-inoculants; optimal variety selection (e.g. improved potato; improved beans (Faba bean/Field pea)); using agroclimatic advisory services (mobile based application); crop rotation (cereal/potato versus legume) (Tesfamichael and Reddy 1996), and using fallow for boosting productivity and mitigation under ongoing climate and environmental changes. Intensifying and diversifying fruit and forage crops; introducing community-based animal health services; promoting low-GHG-emitting animals; using silvopastoral systems, and cross breeding are the top CSA practices under livestock management (Abegaz et al 2014, Abera 2019). Similarly, managed inorganic fertilization (4R), Biochar + 4R, Liming + 4R, Compost/vermicompost, green manure can be used to improve soil fertility and improve crop productivity in this AEZ. In order to control soil erosion and better manage water resources, using BBF; graded soil bund with grass; graded fanya juu with grass; flood-water diversion, and sub-soiling can reduce land degradation and improve water-use efficiency. Agro-forestry practices; introducing rapid propagation and multiplication; afforestation/reforestation with fast-growing tree species; and sustainable forest management option including PFM and exclosure, all improve the three CSA pillars in agroforestry and forestry production system.The result shows that most CSA practices in Agroforestry/forestry management category including agroforestry practices, using rapid propagation and multiplication, afforestation, and using PFM approaches improved the three pillars of CSA practices (P, A and M). In addition, intensifying and diversifying forage crops increases P, enhances A, and reduces GHG emissions from livestock production. Several CSA practices increase P and enhanced A. These practices include using bio-inoculant, variety selection, agroclimatic advisory, community-based animal health service, managed inorganic fertilization (4R), and using BBF and a broad-bed maker (BBM). Wubie (2015) reported that the use of BBM is low-cost and appropriate technology that drains excess water from the vertisols and improved yield of Wheat in the Vertisols of Etiopian highlands. Moreover, studies in Ethiopia showed that application of biochar in acidic soils significantly improved crop yield through improved total nitrogen, soil organic carbon, available reduction and exchangeable acidity (Berihun et al 2017).This zone covers about 3% of Ethiopia's land mass and is a zone of high agricultural activity with barley, wheat and pulses as main crops growing in two seasons: Belg (Short rain season) and Meher (main season). High rainfall reliability, soil erosion, and water lodging in vertisols are the key production constraints. Experts identified and prioritized key CSA practices in the five categories (table 9). Water-logging tolerant crops, (e.g., cultivated Oat), traditional ridging (locally called Shurube), using acid tolerant crops, growing crops using residual moisture, and using a Broad Bed maker (BBM) are the most important CSA practices related to crop management in Wet Dega AEZ. Intensifying and diversifying forage crops; consulting community-based animal health services; promoting low-GHG-emitting animals; establishing silvopastoral-integrated forestry; integrating fodder species production, and cross breeding (Adimassu andTamene 2021, Tamene et al 2021). The using organic + inorganic fertilization with drainage, organic + inorganic fertilization, biochar+4R, residue incorporation + 4R and using lime +4R are the top-five CSA practices to enhance soil fertility and crop productivity. Experts identified using BBM, graded soil bund/graded fanya juu with grass, bench terrace and conservation agriculture are identified as key CSA practices to control soil erosion and manage agricultural water. Similarly, using agroforestry practices, assisted natural regeneration (ANR) and fast-growing tree species are CSA practices in forest management category. Agroforestry practices for assisted natural regeneration (ANR); intensifying and diversifying forage crops, planting waterlogged tolerant crop varieties and traditional ridging (e.g., 'shurubee') can all address P, A and M (table 9). Using acid-tolerant crops; consulting community-based animal health services; growing crops under residual moisture; BBF; ISFM (organic + inorganic fertilization); using non-timber forest products and planting fast-growing tree/shrub species could increase productivity and enhance adaptation to climate change.The Wet Kolla AEZ covers about 1.5% of the Ethiopian landmass and is suitable for citrus, cotton, maize, taro with two cropping seasons. Soil erosion, soil fertility depletion (due to nutrient fixation), water-logging and disease/insect pests are the main challenges for agricultural production. According to experts' knowledge, appropriate fertilizer application methods (such as microdosing); intercropping; planting acid-tolerant crops; using agroclimatic advisory services and taking out crop insurance are the top CSA practices in crop management (table 10). Community-based animal health services, selective breeding, supplementation of minerals and vitamins, pastureland improvement and crop residue treatment (e.g., urea treatment) improves animal productivity, farmers' adaptation and contributes to reducing GHG emissions. Using organic fertilizer (compost/vermicompost) + inorganic fertilization (4R), crop residue mulch+4R, organic fertilizer (compost/ vermicompost), bio-fertilizers (inoculants) and FYM are CSA practices related to integrated soil fertility management. Again, alley cropping, conservation tillage, BBF, graded soil bunds with grass and graded fanya juu with grass are key CSA practices for controlling soil erosion and manage agricultural water. Similarly, agroforestry practices (agro-silviculture, fruit-based agroforestry), promotion of fast growing trees in the homestead, farm boundary and buffer lands, promote the using PFM, NTFPs (e.g. using gum, resin, wild edible fruits and lowland bamboo) and exclosure with stall feeding are CSA practices in forest management category (Abebe andBongers 2012, Balana et al 2012).Agroforestry practices (such as agrosilviculture, alley cropping), conservation tillage and using BBF to manage vertisols are key CSA practices that increase productivity, enhance adaptation and reduce GHG emissions (table 10). Applying fertilizer using microdosing 3 , using integrated fertility management (Organic + inorganic at 4R) can address the two pillars (productivity, adaptation) of CSA practices. Moreover, studies have demonstrated the economic viability of these practices. Adimassu et al (2023b) conducted a cost-benefit analysis revealing that compost and biochar use increased crop production and generated a net present value (NPV) of US$3110 and US$1883 per hectare.Climate-smart agriculture encompasses three pillars: productivity (P), adaptation (A), and mitigation (M). The concept of trade-offs within these pillars highlights that prioritizing practices related to one pillar may potentially impact the effectiveness or success of another. This dynamic interplay emphasizes the need for holistic approaches that balance the goals of enhancing productivity, building resilience to climate change, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Achieving a sustainable agricultural system requires careful consideration and integration of strategies that address the interconnected nature of these pillars to optimize outcomes while minimizing negative trade-offs. For example, increasing productivity through intensive farming practices may lead to higher greenhouse gas emissions, compromising the mitigation pillar. Hence, balancing these trade-offs is crucial for implementing effective climate-smart agricultural practices. As shown in figure 3(A), productivity is ranked highest in ISFM practices suggests that CSA practice related to ISFM is important to maximizing crop yield. The CSA practices where the three pillars coincide at its maximum value were CSA practices related to livestock management practices (e.g. rangeland management) and forest and agroforestry management (Duguma 2013). This implies that these practices synergized and maximized the three pillars simultaneously without trade-offs among the pillars. As shown in the figure, productivity and adaptation are equally important to some CSA practices, such as erosion control and water management. Figure 3(B) resents the combined pillars across various AEZs of the country. The highest average scores of adaptation were recorded in almost all of the AEZs implying that adaptation as CSA pillar is the most important pillar of CSA practices. Similarly, the lowest average scores were recorded for mitigation pillar for each AEZ. The results in figure (A) and (B) imply that there exists trade-off among the three CSA pillars for most of CSA categories across major AEZs of the county. A study showed the potential trade-offs between economic and environmental objectives of CSA practices in Malawi (Schaafsma et al 2018). Another study in Kenya with selected CSA practices indicated that the productivity pillar to be the best performing CSA pillar synergistically while trade-offs to occur across CSA pillars (Ogola and Ouko 2021). When considering the three pillars of CSA (Climate-Smart Agriculture) -productivity, adaptation, and mitigation -there exists a delicate balance that requires thoughtful tradeoffs. It's crucial to prioritize enhancing agricultural productivity to ensure food security and economic stability while also incorporating adaptation strategies to cope with the impacts of climate change. Additionally, focusing on mitigation efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is equally important for long-term sustainability (Adgo et al 2013). Striking a harmonious balance among these pillars involves implementing practices that boost productivity, increase resilience to climate variability, and minimize environmental impact. By carefully navigating and optimizing these tradeoffs, agricultural systems can become more sustainable, efficient, and resilient in the face of a changing climate.One key limitation of the CSA-PF approach is its incompatibility with statistical testing. This paper consequently lacks any statistical analysis. Additionally, the study relies solely on expert knowledge and literature review, omitting the valuable perspective of farmers.The use of CCAFs-CSA Prioritization framework is appropriate method to identify and prioritize CSA practices using experts' knowledge and literature review. Through this framework, more than 200 context-specific and best-bet CSA practices were generated. The prioritization exercise has provided information about the contributions of the various CSA practices related to the three CSA pillars (productivity, adaptation, and mitigation). Moreover, this study has generated databases of CSA practices to be used for various stakeholders including farmers, researchers, development organizations and policymakers. Prioritizing CSA practices based on AEZ provides opportunities to develop context-specific CSA packages across different AEZs and farms, and farmer types. Based on the types of farms/farmers, it is possible to develop CSA packages across the various agroecologies by considering the selected CSA practices in the five categories. Since this prioritization is based on experts' knowledge at national level, it is also crucial to test and validate the CSA practices with various typologies of farmers in selected agro-ecologies. The results show that CSA practices related to agroforestry/forestry management practices, rangeland/forage improvement, and exclosure and water management addressed the goals associated with the three pillars (productivity, adaptation, mitigation) simultaneously. Hence, developing and implementing policies that promote CSA practices including agroforestry, rangeland/forage improvement exclosure and rainwater can promote CSA practice in Ethiopia. Incentivize farmers (e.g. financial support, subsidies, and access to credit) to implement site specific and best-bet CSA practices is crucial to improve productivity and enhance resilience against climate change impacts. Hence, Ethiopia can strengthen its agricultural sector's resilience to climate change, increase agricultural productivity, enhance food security, and promote sustainable development in the country through the use of CSA practices.","tokenCount":"5684"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"446032f0e854a6b8efcb3918633b4179","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c5664cad-e32a-4783-88a4-917604b99f62/retrieve","id":"-1733336142"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1e33613d-902b-45ab-896d-22ae272ae9c9","pagecount":"16","content":"DossiER ,8 soil fertility No stone must be left unturned in the struggle to feed the land uField report from Rwanda FoCUs ,11 Theft Tactics for battling crime viEwpoiNT ,16 Animal health By Malick Faye iN BRiEF ,3 pUBLiCATioNs ,12 BETwEEN Us ,15Many businesses are taking steps to improve their environmental and social performance through voluntary initiatives. Codes of conduct can produce tangible benefits for communities in developing countries. But they could also act as a barrier to market access.When Hurricane Ivan swept across Grenada in 2004 leaving a trail of destruction in its wake, the Belmont Estate, a 400-acre cocoa and nutmeg plantation, was among the first to step in. Managers quickly mobilised emergency food, clothing, cash, building supplies, seeds and agricultural tools to help stricken families. In common with a growing number of companies, the plantation believes it has a duty to plough some of its profits back into the community.New social and market pressures are leading to changes in the way companies do business, with many of them integrating ethical and environmental concerns into their operations, a process known as corporate social responsibility (CSR). The World Bank defines CSR as \"the commitment of businesses to contribute to sustainable economic development by working with employees, their families, the local community and society at large to improve their lives in ways that are good for business and for development.\"CSR is partly a response to growing calls for the private sector to make a greater contribution to development. Companies, especially corporate giants operating in the developing world, are frequently criticised for exploiting workers, causing pollution and extractingresources without offering proper compensation to local communities. The trend is also being driven by consumers, who are increasingly keen to source their purchases from firms that treat their workers fairly and respect the environment. Nowhere is this more so than in the food industry, with shoppers scrutinising both the quality of what they buy, and the conditions in which it was produced.\"Corporate responsibility will increasingly become a priority to companies, pushed forward by consumers who are paying more attention to how their food is produced and the impact their lifestyles have on the rest of the world,\" said Kavita Prakash-Mani of UK consultancy firm SustainAbility.CSR is certainly good PR. It can help companies boost their image, build customer loyalty, attract good staff and even secure contracts from governments. However, some critics are sceptical of the CSR approach, questioning the extent to which it makes a real contribution to development. \"Despite widespread rhetoric, its impact is still patchy,\" declares the World Bank.The list of major companies doing good deeds grows daily, with most of them keen to advertise their worthy actions. In the UK, Marks and Spencer is offering education to children in Uganda and a range of other CSR programmes, which are trumpeted on giant screens posted in every store. For each bottle of water sold by French firm Volvic, the company makes a contribution to sinking wells in Niger. A survey carried out for The Economist in 2008 found that while in 2004 just 35% of businesses gave CSR high or very high priority, that figure has now risen to 55%. Some corporations have formed strategic alliances with NGOs to strengthen their credibility. The transport company TNT has teamed up with the World Food Programme to improve school food distribution in Liberia and Congo. Drug company Merck has joined forces with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to provide HIV/AIDS treatment in Botswana.But while businesses in the North dominate the CSR limelight, the movement is taking hold in the South too. Botswana entrepreneur Seteng Motalaote, who runs a waste sanitation business, has forged links with local communities by sponsoring the Clean Up the World Campaign, a global initiative aimed at encouraging people to conserve their environment. In Papua New Guinea, Oil Search Limited, a major oil and gas company, has made a point of improving conditions for staff, who are given the opportunity of buying shares and enjoying other benefits. A growing number of Kenyan companies are supporting an initiative launched by the Ufadhili Trust which fosters links between businesses and poor communities to organise interventions such as borehole drilling, bursary schemes and medical facilities. Kenyan automobile company D T Dobie has extensive internal CSR activities that include counselling and drug treatment for employees living with HIV/AIDS. Sher Flowers, based in Naivasha, offers education to workers' families. \"They pay for my kids from primary to secondary school,\" said one staff member Biruk Tesafaye.Taken to its logical conclusion, CSR should cover all activities in the supply chain, a sizeable challenge for firms operating in a global market. Some companies have already started to replace suppliers who fail to meet their standards, a move that may open opportunities to small-scale producers who can satisfy requirements, but which may equally develop into a non-tariff trade barrier for others. The burden of monitoring and certification can present a significant expense that could exclude small-scale ACP enterprises from markets.Coffee is one sector where companies are increasingly monitoring the social and economic responsibility of suppliers, through certification schemes such as UTZ Certified and Max Havelaar. Other organisations tracking CSR performances include the UN Global Compact, whose business members pledge to respect principles in the fields of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption and the Global Reporting Initiative, which aims to provide an international sustainability standard. In spite of such frameworks however, CSR is still not controlled or certified in the way that fair trade or organic products are, so there are no objective parameters to evaluate its impact. Some experts are calling for help for countries and businesses in the South to adopt CSR practices. Transnational corporations, civil society organisations, governments and multilateral bodies such as the United Nations can play a crucial supportive role says the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) which offers governments and regions support in the establishment of networks or hubs for CSR excellence.Not all businesses are entirely honest about who pays for CSR. \"Research by ODI suggests that the cost of complying with ethical standards is often passed down the supply chain to developing country producers, rather than being borne by the instigating companies,\" said Overseas Development Institute (ODI) researcher Karen Ellis, author of a paper on the subject.Critics also point out that CSR is not simply a question of getting out the company cheque book. Impact assessments should examine a wide range of issues, including use of local inputs -materials and staff -as opposed to imported ones. Trinidad energy company Petrotrin has invested heavily in the local community with cultural, educational, sports and conservation initiatives but has faced criticism for not hiring more local labour.There is widespread agreement that there need to be more incentives to reward companies that practise genuine CSR approaches. To do that, agreed benchmark indicators will have to be established, so that companies -and consumers -can measure the effect their policies are having on staff, communities and the environment. To get the ball rolling, the ODI is pushing for the launch of a 'Good for Development' label with gold, silver and bronze levels for products sold by companies that make a genuine impact on local development.Photo: © Syfia Internntional Some companies are paying the school fees of their workers' children and are carrying out HIV/AIDS prevention programmes.iN BRiEFA new website offers information about Farmers' Rights as defined by the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, as well as help in how to enforce them. Launched by the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen Institute (FNI), the tool is aimed at decision makers, practitioners and researchers. It provides information on the history, legal status and contents of farmers' rights and on the implementation of these rights. There is a comprehensive database of legislation and policies as well as concrete recommendations on how to go about enforcing rights, including a free workshop module and success stories from all over the world.www.farmersrights.orgThe Intellectual Network for the South (INSouth) brings together policymakers, research and academic staff, members of the media, the private sector and civil society from countries of the South. It offers a range of interactive services including a database of contacts, intergovernmental organisations and think tanks. The network is the latest initiative of the South Centre, a Geneva-based organisation that supports the South on major issues through research, negotiations assistance and policy support, and through training, capacity building and networking activities.Terra Viva Grants is a new website offering information about grants in the agriculture, energy, environment, and natural resources sectors. It can be used to find out where and how to look for grants that finance technical assistance, capacity building and research, as well as prizes and awards. The resource currently displays profiles of about 300 grant providers worldwide, including independent foundations, corporate foundations, NGOs, government and international organisations. Visitors can browse the profiles of grant providers or search the database to speed up filtering and comparison. Thembi Ndema, of the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FAN-RPAN), reported a good response to several of its information products showcased at the event. Meanwhile, Prisca Githuka, representing the Kenya National Federation of Agricultural Producers (KENFAP), was impressed with the layout and quality of stands. \"EDD is a very good opportunity to learn how to market organisations more effectively, especially those from developing countries,\" she said.The EDD also provided an opportunity for CTA to showcase its work on the use of low-cost laptop computers to improve access in rural areas to agricultural information for local decisionmaking and innovation.The Posters show amusing photographs of cows posing with stars (a rapper, a fashion model and a wrestler), while underneath are messages describing the advantages of local milk and the negative aspects of using imported dairy products. The campaign also informs the public that \"in Senegal and Burkina Faso, livestock keepers and processing companies respect good hygiene and quality practices for their milk\". Two maize varieties, Amen and AB11, are newly available in Togo after disappearing for more than 15 years due to the socio-political crisis that gripped the country from 1990 onwards. Producers like the varieties because of their short growing cycle (between 95 and 105 days), their high yields (an average of 3 to 4 t/ha), and their resistance to maize streak virus. An added advantage is that their grains are easy to mill. Amen and AB11 both eventually disappeared after difficulties caused by the crisis prevented the renewal of plant material and caused problems with the maintenance of conservation infrastructures, especially cold storage facilities. The two varieties had been developed in 1980 by Togo's agronomic research institute (ITRA) in response to strong demand for maize to feed a rapidly growing population.In 2004, repeated requests from farmers prompted ITRA to embark on a programme to retrieve the varieties by cleaning degraded stock recovered from several farmers. After 3 years of work to regenerate the material, the varieties were again ready for production. They have again proved very popular with producers, who can obtain them from ITRA centres.Contact: Didjeira Akihila ITRA/CRAL BP 30 Tsévié Togo itra.cral@ids.tgIn rural Nigeria, as in many other ACP communities, good agricultural information can make all the difference to a household's revenue and food security. ICTs play an important role in spreading this kind of knowledge, but access to them is often weighted against women. A programme to build the ICT capacity of female teachers in Olanla, an isolated community in Oyo State mainly populated by women who produce yams, cassava and citrus, aims to shift this balance. The scheme, designed by the Information Development Network (IDevNet), is one of 15 initiatives that have made it through to the fourth and final round of the CTAsponsored Small Grants Fund to address Gender Issues in Information and Communication Technologies for Agricultural and Rural Development in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (GenARDIS). Each organisation will receive a €6,000 grant to help their prize-winning ideas become a reality.Submissions to this, the third round of GenARDIS since its launch in 2002, attracted a record number of entries. All the projects focused on innovative use of ICTs by or for rural women to improve the well-being of their families and communities. Award-winning entries included that of Women Learning Women (WLW), which is launching women-led community information centres in the Tigray Region of northern Ethiopia, and a scheme to promote ICTs use for the waste water irrigation of vegetable crops amongst rural women in Zimbabwe. Another project, in the Dominican Republic, will help women to use e-business tools to manage rural cooperatives. In Benin, a programme will help women use ICTs to improve production and processing methods in the fisheries sector. Forty families are due to be evacuated from the six Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea, starting in March. Some 2,000 inhabitants live a precarious existence on these tiny islands, which are 90 km north-east of the islands of Buka and Bougainville. The relocation of all the islanders is expected to be completed by 2014. Due to climate change (Spore Special Issue Climate Change, August 2008), rising sea levels have gradually swallowed up much of the territory. The authorities predict that the islands could be wiped off the map altogether in the next 10 to 15 years. Their communities will have the sad 'privilege' of being among the planet's first climate refugees.UNESCO's Worldwide Hydrogeological Mapping and Assessment Programme (WHYMAP) offers the first global inventory (maps of the world and continents) of transboundary groundwater resources. Almost 96% of the planet's fresh water is located in underground aquifers, most of which are shared by at least two countries. This detailed database offers information on their location, quality and the rate at which they are replenished. To date, 273 groundwater sources have been documented, including 38 that are among the largest in the world. These latter are still considerably under-exploited, and are all in Africa. www.whymap.org/cln_092/whymap/ EN/Downloads/downloads__node__ en.html?__nnn=trueIn northern Namibia, the government of Galicia (Spain) and the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AECID) are building a factory to produce fish feed. The aim is to cut the cost of buying food for fingerlings and encourage the production of local species such as tilapia and catfish. Fish feed was previously imported from South Africa, in small quantities and at high cost to local fish farmers.In Congo, producers and consumers are enjoying the benefits of improved potopoto. Generally prepared using just fermented maize, this paste contains nothing but starch. The addition of peanuts produces a pap that has twice as much protein and four times as many lipids. Used as a supplement to breastmilk for young children, it can also be consumed by adults.To make the paste, simply wash and soak the maize and peanuts in separate bowls of water, then mix them (75% maize and 25% peanuts) before grinding and seiving.The maize-peanut mixture is then left to settle for about 6 hours before being drained overnight so as to obtain a compact paste that will be used to make the porridge.This technique was developed as part of the EU-funded CEREFER fermented cereals project, which is also being carried out in Burkina Faso. The aim of CEREFER is to diversify and improve certain foods so that producers have access to processes that are technically and economically viable and consumers have access to products of good quality. The arrival in 2000 of Chinese remedies and cosmetic products based on Aloe vera set agronomists and biologists thinking in the Béni region of eastern DR Congo. \"We saw that most of the products were based on Aloe vera, a plant that grows well here\", explained Kato Ndako, a chemist and pharmacist from Beni. \"Since then, we have been encouraging farmers to grow more of it, before starting to process it\". In Nord-Kivu, the number of producers, encouraged by improved facilities for distributing and marketing aloe, has risen from 1,000 to almost 5,500 in 4 years, according to Jule Katoto, head of rural development.Since 2007, farmers have been grouped into the Béni Aloe vera Planters Cooperative (Coopevac), receiving advice from agronomists on how to manage their land. Although it is a cactus, Aloe vera needs a certain amount of water to germinate, and does best in a well-drained, preferably sandy soil.More than 200,000 plants are grown around Béni. Coopevac buys the leaves from the farmers and processes them into soaps, creams, juices and syrups that are sold locally.Photo: © Syfia International Photo: © CEREFERTwo new practical tools aim to make it easier for organic farmers in developing countries to steer their way through the maze of different standards and requirements. Designed by FAO, the UN Conference on Trade and Development and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements, they aim to streamline acceptance of products that are traded internationally.Equitool is a guide to help decision-makers assess whether an organic production and processing standard applicable in one region of the world is equivalent to another organic standard.The second tool, International Requirements for Organic Certification Bodies (IROCB), is a minimum set of performance requirements for organic certification bodies that will enable import of products certified under foreign control systems. Both tools are managed by the International Task Force on Harmonization and Equivalency in Organic Agriculture (ITF).Organic trade is expanding at the annual rate of 15-20%, but is hindered by a multitude of standards, regulations, and conformity assessment systems. Over 400 public and private certification bodies now operate in the global organic marketplace, leading to confusion and high costs for producers and exporters.Both tools can be downloaded free from the ITF website: www.itf-organic.org iN BRiEF Efforts to control past outbreaks have been hampered by an inability to distinguish between infected and disease-free animals, prompting governments to slaughter more cattle than they needed. An epidemic in the UK in 2001 was finally contained after the culling of more than 6 million animals. Most were not infected. CSIRO officials say the new 'DIVA' test will be relatively inexpensive and produces rapid results.Foot-and-mouth disease is the world's most economically devastating livestock disease, with an especially serious impact in Africa. Botswana is the latest country to be affected by an outbreak.Geelong VIC 3220 Australia Fax: + 61 3 5227 5377 Judith.Maunders@csiro.auResearchers at Togo's agronomic research institute (ITRA) have turned to papaya seed as a weapon against internal parasites in chickens. The treatment, developed to counter the problem of finding adequate local supplies at affordable prices of the two main veterinary medicines used to treat worms and coccidioides in poultry, has a 100% success rate in eliminating parasites.A number of tests conducted by ITRA have shown that powdered papaya seeds administered to chickens, at a ratio of 3 g/kg of live weight for two consecutive days, is as effective as using piperazine citrate to treat g a st ro -i n test i n a l worms. For coccidioides, another intestinal parasite, the recommended dose is 3.5 g/kg of live weight for 6 days.\"This discovery makes us feel much safer,\" said poultry keeper Mathieu Koffi. Intestinal parasites account for 50% of all poultry deaths, according to ITRA. They also cause slower growth and significantly lower output levels.ITRA is now pursuing research to assess the efficacy of these seeds in treating other poultry, as well as measuring their long-termIn a bid to empower local women a Surinamese cassava grower has spearheaded a plan to build a factory producing crackers made from the crop. The use of chopped banana stems as mulch has numerous benefits according to Abubaker Matovu, a farmer from Rakai district, south-western Uganda. Matovu says the stems, which are left over from harvesting, improve fertility by retaining soil moisture and preventing erosion. The technique also enables the farmer to cut the amount of time spent weeding since only small quantities of grass manage to push their way up through the soil. effect on chickens. The goal is to make this treatment widely available to small-scale producers. In an effort to reduce dependency on oil and offer an alternative to first-generation biofuels made from sugar, cereals or oleaginous plants, US industries and researchers are working on biodiesel made from algae. These organisms do not compete for valuable food resources and their cells are rich in lipids. Output of oil per unit of area cultivated could be much higher than that obtained from soya. This promising biodiesel is said to be closer to industrial production than bioethanol made from ligno-cellulosic material.The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) has started trading coffee through a new electronic system. Trading is conducted in the afternoon, to tie in with the New York market. Ethiopia has won trademark rights for three of its speciality coffees, Sidamo, Harar and Yirgacheffe, and has signed an agreement with 70 global companies to promote its coffee brands. The country is the largest coffee producer in Africa. Last season, it exported a total of 170,888 t, earning US$525.2 million (€395 million).FAUNAFRI, a centralised geographic database developed by the mapping department of the French Institute of Research for Development (IRD), is drawing up an inventory of all known fresh and salt water species found in Africa. This vast virtual fish pot provides access to every classified species, using a link to the global database Fishbase, together with original data from the IRD. Specialists use maps on the site to analyse and compare the distribution of fish families, genera and species throughout the continent. This environmentallyfriendly invention uses no wood and very little petrol (just enough to light the fire). It uses just 1 l of jatropha or other oil for 3 hours of cooking and can boil 1 l of water in 6 minutes.The cooker, which will cost between FCFA10,000 and 12,500 (€15 and €19), is lit with a piece of cotton or paper soaked in petrol.Once the fire has taken hold, a small tap is turned to release the required flow of oil, which then ignites. As the flames spread inside the cooker, they heat the base of the pot, while the smoke is discharged through the chimney.Contact: Boubacar Zongo Atelier de recherche et de réalisation technologique 01 BP 3306 Ouagadougou 01, Burkina Faso arret_1970@yahoo.frReforesting and tackling desertification are worthy objectives, but not at any price! Studies conducted since 2005 by the French Institute of Research for Development (IRD) and its partners in Burkina Faso and Senegal reveal the negative impact of fast-growing imported tree species (eucalyptus, exotic pines, Australian acacias) on soil fertility.These exotic plants, which are well adapted to the extremely harsh conditons and mineral-deficient soils of tropical regions, have undoubtedly proved their effectiveness in producing biomass and combatting erosion over the past 40 years. But they have also upset the structure of the soil and reduced the diversity of certain mushrooms and bacteria that are crucial to a healthy ecosystem. Eucalyptus camaldulensis, the world's most commonly planted eucalyptus tree, is one such species. In Senegal, Acacia holosericea has reduced the biodiversity of the environment and its resistance to thermal and hydric stress, with the risk of creating a new ecosystem whose characteristics will not necessarily be favourable to recolonisation by local species. Contradictory results were however obtained during the same study in Burkina Faso.These very different scenarios highlight the importance of only introducing exotic species on a case-by-case basis after extensive studies, and taking into account their potential impact and the nature of the soils they will colonise. According to an FAO study published in 2000, soils in Africa lose an annual average of 48 kg/ha of nutrients, the equivalent of 100 kg/year of fertiliser. To compensate for this loss, they receive an average of just 10 kg of mineral fertiliser, compared with a global average of 90 kg. Today, it is here in Africa that soil degradation presents the most serious problems. In the Caribbean, productivity is also hampered by inadequate natural fertility and shallow soils, erosion due to steep slopes, poor drainage and high levels of salinity.When they are used for intense cultivation, soils quickly become degraded, especially in mountain or highland areas where they are subject to severe erosion. In the most serious cases, the land becomes unfit for farming. Lower productivity levels prompt farmers to look further afield and use land that is ill-suited to crop growing… which produces even lower yields. Faced with poor harvests, producers opt not to buy fertiliser. And failure to offset losses in soil fertility leads to lower agricultural output or to insufficient increases in production levels to feed a growing population.The food crisis has led to renewed efforts to intensify crop cultivation. A number of major programmes aimed at restoring soil fertility have been launched recently. These include Terrafrica -a partnership between the main UN agencies, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), the EU and a wide range of regional and international organisations -and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) which has set the goal of regenerating 6.3 million ha of agricultural land.Less fallow land, or none at all in the most highly populated areas, intensive deforestation, erosion, overgrazing and pollution -these are the main causes of land degradation. The effects vary depending on the soils and climate: deterioration of soil's chemical and physical properties, lower levels of organic matter and biological activity, degradation of soil structure and fewer principal soil nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium -NPK). The remedies are therefore as numerous and varied as the causes. It is important that they be adapted not just to the ecological conditions, but also to the agro-economic context of each region.Supporters of heavy use of mineral fertiliser and those who propose organic or sustainable farming methods have long been divided. But there is now widespread agreement that the best way to maintain soil fertility is through an integrated approach adapted to local conditions.Chemical fertiliser generally remains an essential ingredient for achieving significant growth in output. But in Africa, where most of the land is farmed soil fertilityRestoring and maintaining soil fertility is a vital prerequisite for increasing output, especially given the current food crisis. Chemical fertiliser remains essential, in spite of soaring prices. But its use must be combined with other techniques for conserving and improving land and these must be adapted to the ecological and economic conditions of each region.New archeological finds reveal that the ancient Amazonian Indians used charcoal mixed with compost to increase the fertility of their soil. The discovery has sparked fresh interest in using this timehonoured method, especially in areas where soil is poor or scarce.Charcoal improves the capacity of soil to absorb nutrients, which is particularly beneficial when it comes to growing food crops.In Belize, a project launched by the Taiwanese Mission at Central Farm in the Cayo District is using layers of charcoal and compost to grow vegetables, just as the ancient Indians did thousands of years ago.Another method being studied is to combine charcoal with waste from rice cultivation and fish farming, together with composted organic food matter.This technique can only be applied on a large scale if existing forestry resources are managed sustainably, especially for charcoal production.by small-scale producers, its use is limited to cash crops. Very little fertiliser is applied to subsistence crops, which are unprofitable to grow or difficult to sell. Now sold by private traders, these inputs are not available everywhere and their quality is not always guaranteed or adapted to producers' needs. The cost of fertiliser has soared in recent years, as a result of rising oil prices, strong global demand and export taxes imposed by some exporting countries such as China. Small-scale producers find it increasingly difficult to afford them and are caught up in an endless spiral: less fertiliser, poorer harvests, even less fertiliser… Burundi is a case in point. In the north, the high population density means there is no more fallow land. Farmers can no longer afford to buy fertiliser and make do with rice bran to enrich their soils. Recurrent food shortages are the result. The same problem can be seen in western Cameroon, where the price of fertiliser tripled between November 2007 and May 2008. For the past 12 years or so, overworked soils impoverished by the practice of burn-beating (plants are burned in the ridges) can no longer produce crops without fertiliser. Manure is rare, especially in the wake of recent outbreaks of pig and poultry disease, and farmers still have little experience in using compost and planting fertiliser trees such as Calliandra and Pygeum africana.Some countries have opted to review policies in order to enourage greater use of fertiliser. In 2006, during the Nourish the soil, feed the continent summit held in Abuja, Nigeria, African governments pledged to increase fertiliser use from 9 to 50 kg by 2015. Malawi was one of the first to take action by introducing substantial subsidies for fertiliser and distributing vouchers to farmers to help them buy it. This policy was certainly a costly one in the short term, but it managed to double agricultural output in the space of two years. In 2008, Malawi began exporting maize, while in 2004, 35% of its population had been under-nourished. This success, achieved in spite of advice to the contrary from international donors, has prompted others to follow suit -this year, Ghana introduced a 50% subsidy on fertiliser for smallholder farmers.To contain costs, local phosphates can be used in some regions such as Togo, or imported fertiliser can be packaged locally. Microdosing (see box), which involves applying small amounts of fertiliser in the seed pocket during planting, is an effective low-cost solution for boosting output.The food crisis and rise in fertiliser prices make this a good time to put into general practice soil conservation and improvement techniques that have long been developed but are still not widely used. \"Fertilisers alone do not make soils fertile. Fertiliser is a highly carbon-intensive, acidic nutrient source especially on less organic sandy soils,\" said Dr S Apiiga, a scientist at Ghana's Ministry of Food and Agriculture. \"In addition to short-term subsidies we need to educate farmers on good agricultural practices such as intercropping legumes (beans, groundnuts, pigeon pea) with cereals (maize, millet, sorghum)... motivating and encouraging smallholder farmers to use manure, crop residues and compost to enrich their fields.\"The basic principles of conservation agriculture (CA) are well known. The first is to ensure permanent cover for the soil. Crop residues left after harvest, straw, compost, waste from wood or other products can all help protect precious soils from wind, extreme heat and heavy rainfall, which leach nutrients and compact the soil. Secondly, it is crucial not to disturb the top layer of the soil by working it too vigorously; a light forking of the earth is sufficient. The third principle is crop rotation. This enables farmers to alternate leguminous plants, which enrich the soil with nitrogen, with more intensive crops such as cereals.Soils conserved in this way can be further improved by spreading manure and compost -both highly recommended -as well as mineral fertiliser. Farmers from the Ugandan producers' association Nangabo, near Kampala, do just that. They have also introduced mulching and crop rotation, a strategy that has helped them increase the productivity of their banana trees, which had fallen sharply.Some producers go even further and practise direct sowing (see Spore 112). In Madagascar, almost 10,000 farmers from the island's south and central regions have virtually tripled their output of rice (from 1.5 to 4 t/ha) without any chemical fertiliser, using only plant cover that also acts as green fertiliser.In the Cook and Solomon Islands, Niue, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu, the use of cover plants such as Mucuna and Dolichos lablab, Tropical soils are generally very poor and require different combinations of primary nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) and secondary ones (calcium, magnesium, sulphur and others) to make them more fertile. However, for an effective production system that respects the environment, the composition of fertiliser should reflect the chemical properties of local soils, as well as the crops planned and the output required. Imported ready-made fertilisers that have been formulated for other regions are not recommended. Farmers need special mixtures carefully designed to address the deficiencies of their particular soil.Bulk blending is a promising technology for many ACP countries. It enables mixed fertiliser to be produced more cheaply using local materials or the least expensive fertilisers available on the international market. Phosphates, which are present in many countries, are an excellent and inexpensive source of phosphorus for crops. Put simply, bulk blending allows small-scale units to produce mixes of effective fertiliser, but these must be made up by experts so as to provide the right type of input to address specific soil fertility problems. If local materials are available, this strategy can do away with the need for costly imports or the sometimes unnecessary heavy investments involved in building traditional fertiliser factories.The microdosing technique, which was developed by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and its partners, enables farmers to obtain good yields without spending a fortune on fertiliser. Using an empty bottle, producers simply apply a pinch of suitable fertiliser during sowing, or alternatively, three weeks later. This system has proved successful in Zimbabwe, where cereal yields have risen by 30 to 40%, and in West Africa, where millet and sorghum output has increased by between 44 and 120%. In an effort to promote the use of microdosing, ICRISAT has persuaded fertiliser manufacturers to package the product in small quantities for distribution in villages, together with advice on how to apply it. as well as multi-purpose tree species such as Gliricidia sepium, have improved soils in the space of a year and increased cassava yields while reducing the need for purchasing fertiliser.Alley cropping, between rows of fertiliser trees, enriches soils and improves their structure. It has proved a successful technique, especially in Kenya, but it only works in humid regions. In dry areas, the trees will not flourish and will absorb some of the water needed by the crops. In the Sudano-Sahelian region, farmers are advised to work organic matter into the soil and spread fertiliser on top. A soil conservation and agroforestry programme in Tanzania promotes ridge cultivation and the planting of trees or elephant grass (Miscanthus giganteus) to reduce erosion, which is the main challenge facing farmers in this country.An agricultural, ecological and economic diagnosis is essential for determining the best strategies for improving soil fertility in a given region. But though often vaunted as inexpensive miracle cures, these techniques are not always suitable for small-scale farmers. They generally involve considerable amounts of labour to plant shrubs, transport manure or crop residues and scythe plant cover, and sometimes require a financial outlay if a mineral fertiliser has to be added. The biomass needed for most of these methods is not always available, especially in the most densely populated regions. Grasses or crop resides are often used for purposes such as feeding livestock.Only farmers who have secure long-term land rights (see Spore 138, Land tenure) and are convinced of the advantages of these techniques will be inclined to try their hand at putting them into practice.Jean Baptiste Kanyankore and his wife are proud and happy -at last they are digging potatoes from their plot of terraced land. Behind them their 12 year-old daughter is busy putting the harvest into sacks. Here in the Rulindo district's remote Rukozo mountains, these farmers, like those throughout northern Rwanda, have watched their soil become increasingly barren over the years, due to erosion and lack of fertiliser. \"The most I could harvest from a 3-are plot (ed note: 1 are = 100 m 2 ) was 50 kg of potatoes\", recalls Marie Goretti, who is in her early thirties. \"And I hardly got any wheat or pulses either.\"To counter constant food shortages, the couple first decided to tackle the problem of erosion which, in the Land of a Thousand Hills, carries the fertile soil down into the valleys. With help from the World Food Programme (WFP), which supplied food in return for their labour, they developed 100 ha of 'radical terraces'. Armed with picks and shovels, the husband-and-wife team gradually reshaped the slopes, carving them into a giant staircase with wide steps that would be easier to cultivate.Having defined the area they wanted to develop, they had to remove the layer of humus and place it to one side before banking up the earth to form terraces and levelling out the surface with fertile soil. \"I'm convinced that with my 3 ares, I'll be able to buy two sheep this season and a cow next season\", says Jean-Baptiste determinedly, as he digs up his potatoes. In this region, a sheep is worth 20,000 Rwandan francs (€27) and a cow costs 10 times as much. Building these terraces disturbs the topsoil in places, reducing the amount of productive land in the process. So at a later stage, the farmers joined forces to restore their soil's fertility. They clubbed together to buy a dozen cows, in addition to the ones they already owned, and decided to raise livestock together, keeping them in on the terraced land. \"At the time, children were having to leave school so that they could transport manure needed for cultivating peas. Each week, they would carry it in baskets for distances of up to 10 km. Never again!\", swears Cyprien Nteziryimana. He now looks after the cows on the terraces and estimates the quantity of manure distributed naturally by these animals to be about 2 t/month. None of this means there is no longer any need to use chemical fertiliser to improve output. FAO supplies the inputs, but the 300 producers who farm the terraces have grouped together to hire vehicles to transport them to their plots. Each farmer continues to work his own piece of land and pays according to the area he needs to fertilise.The executive secretary of the Rukozo sector is delighted to see the land becoming more fertile and notes that hygiene is also improving. In the stables, which are close to human dwellings, there is no more manure -a positive development since this attracted flies and mosquitoes which served as vectors for disease.Jean de la Croix Tabaro They may not recognise the technical term -praedial larceny -but many producers in ACP countries are all too familiar with the devastating effects of theft from their farms or fishing boats. Crops, livestock, fish, tools are all targeted, causing serious damage for smallholder producers who have neither the means to set up security measures nor the resources to weather the losses. Nowhere is this more so than in the Caribbean where growing numbers of farmers are giving up as a result. Others are taking the law into their own hands, fuelling a dangerous spiral of violence.Praedial larceny has been identified in Trinidad and Tobago as the most serious problem facing farmers. In Barbados, thieves are proving a greater obstacle to farming than bad weather, according to James Paul of the Barbados Agricultural Society. Officials investigating agricultural crime in the Caribbean estimate that farmers and fishers lose millions of dollars worth of revenue each year. Shortages caused by the withdrawal of producers pushes up local food prices. As well as direct losses, producers suffer indirect losses when thieves damage crops that are not yet ready for harvesting. \"I can say with confidence that over 80% of all farmers in Jamaica have experienced praedial larceny at one time or another,\" said Alvin Murray, general manager of Jamaica's Christiana Potato Growers Association. \"Just last Friday night, our greenhouses were broken into and about 200 lb of tomatoes stolen. Another farmer, Glen Mason of Devon, Manchester recently lost seven cows.\" A Trinidadian farmer with a herd of 120 cows invested in a milking parlour and a dairy processing plant. Within 2 years every animal had been stolen. Today, the farm has been cut up into building lots.No sector is immune from agricultural theft, which is sometimes driven by poverty but is increasingly the work of highly organised gangs, many of them armed. As well as farmers, smallscale fishers are also victims, with catches stolen from their boats, nets or ponds. In South Africa, thieves are targeting diesel stored in tanks kept in farmyards. Livestock theft is a major source of conflict among African pastoral tribes. Sometimes it is fuelled by cultural traditions; in Guinea and Madagascar, youths have to steal cattle as a rite of passage.Many farmers are critical of the police and some have taken the law into their own hands. Delays in judicial systems compound the problem. In Antigua, a case involving the theft of 19 pigs has still not been concluded, 6 years after the event. The owner died 2 years ago. Another case involving a stolen goat is unresolved after 5 years, and the goat itself, which lived at the police station in Parham, is long dead.Exasperated producers have devised a range of strategies to protect their produce. In many rural communities, farmers sleep near their crops or granaries at harvest time. In Zimbabwe's Matabeleland, a group of farmers are rearing puppies alongside goats to make the dogs more protective of their herds. In parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), meanwhile, some producers surround their plots with geese, which can be just as fierce as dogs with the added advantage that they can later be eaten.Technology offers some solutions. In Lubumbashi, south-east DRC, farmers club together to pay guards to watch over their horticultural crops, supplying them with mobile phones to raise the alarm. In Guinea, an ID card for livestock (see Spore 124, p.6) has helped curb cattle theft. An innovative livestock tracking programme on the Kenya-Somalia border is using electronic tagging and iris scanning to halt cattle rustling.Computer databases, with details of bonafide farmers and the products they trade in, can help detect crime. In Trinidad and Tobago, the National Agricultural Marketing and Development Corporation (NAMDEVCO) launched its NAMISTT (National Agricultural Marketing Information System of Trinidad and Tobago) database system in January 2007. In Jamaica, a computerised farmers' register -the Rural Agricultural Development Authority Agribusiness Information System (ABIS) -is being used to tackle crime, together with official Jamaica Agricultural Society farmer receipt books. In Papua New Guinea, where theft of cherry is a serious threat to the coffee industry, new regulations introduced by the Coffee Industry Corporation (CIC) are restricting the sale and purchase to licensed operators and monitoring its transport. Since the launch of the campaign in early 2008, a number of arrests have been made, stolen cherry seized and growers are returning to their neglected coffee gardens.In the Pacific islands, theft of high value cash crops such as vanilla or cocoa has long been a problem and in Tonga, farmers have an individual vanilla identification number which they prick into the growing beans with a pin. But this technique will clearly not work for lower value crops and more recently, thieves have begun targeting fruit, vegetables and even taro. One farmer in Tonga who grew seedlings of special gourds, beans and other vegetables in his backyard nursery woke up one morning to find every single plant had gone.Agricultural theft is a serious problem for many ACp producers, causing massive losses and prompting some farmers to give up altogether. Technology can offer some solutions, but other producers have developed their own tactics for battling crime.Dr George Matete from Italian NGO Terra Nuova tags an animal with an electronic chip in order to monitor its movements.An anti-theft electronic chip that relays information to a central station is tagged onto cattle ears.In much of tropical Africa, Voacanga angolensis, a small-fruited wild frangipani, is well known for its medicinal properties. It is variously used to treat skin conditions, heart problems, rheumatic afflictions, eye disorders and relieve post-partum pain. Since the 1980s, there has also been a steady international trade, with seeds exported from Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, DR Congo and Ghana to pharmaceutical companies in France and Germany where it is used in medicines for geriatric patients and to treat heart diseases, high blood pressure and even cancer. This plant is one of several hundred to be profiled in the first volume of four books on medicinal plants in the Plant Resources of Tropical Africa (PROTA) series. The book describes the wild and sometimes cultivated plant species of tropical Africa that are traditionally used in local medicine. Some of these plants are also used in veterinary medicine, or, in the case of poisonous plants, are used as pesticides or dart poisons.For each plant, there is a detailed description of its geographic distribution, local uses, properties and botany. Where possible, information is also given about plant management, pests and diseases, harvesting and prospects for further development. Maps and drawings of the plants complete this valuable compendium, which comes with an optional CD-ROM. Recent decades have seen a great many changes in systems used for development inquiry. Author Robert Chambers, who has worked in the field of development for more than 40 years, traces the dramatic shifts in methodologies, from the multi-subject questionnaire surveys of years gone by to the modern day techniques based on participatory approaches. He examines and explains the explosive proliferation of recent systems, with their often confusing acronyms -rapid rural appraisal (RRA), participatory rural appraisal (PRA) and participatory geographic information systems (PGIS).The main conclusion is that a participatory approach holds exciting potential for gaining real insight into the needs of communities. But he cautions against being caught up in the rush to invent new systems, while ignoring the value of more traditional methods of inquiry.\"The frenetic search for new fashions abandons and buries a lot that has lasting value,\" he observes. Around the world, ICT enthusiasts are developing innovative new solutions to bring access one step closer to communities, but these pioneering efforts are currently scattered and largely unavailable in the public domain. To address this issue, the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) has launched a series on equitable access to ICT infrastructure. It offers papers and commentaries on the themes of business models, policy and regulation, tools and technologies, networks and capabilities. One of the most recent, Capacity Building for Equitable Access, examines concrete steps that can be taken to make ICTS more widely available.All the documents can be downloaded free on-line: www.apc.org/en/pubs/briefs/ openaccess/all/equitable-accesspapers-and-commentariesAgriculture is the main cause of wetland degradation and loss. A new report examines 90 cases from all over the world to assess the character of agriculture wetlands interactions (AWIs) and their impacts on ecosystems and socio-economic conditions. The study, based on a method known as drivers, pressures, state changes, impacts and responses (DPSIR), is designed as a technical framework to measure the relevance and nature of AWIs, identify responses and set out guidelines. An accompanying CD-ROM contains the DPSIR database and tutors. Beneath the earth, a wide range of organisms including insects, earthworms, nematodes, fungi and bacteria are busy working to ensure soil biodiversity. Earthworms improve soil nutrients by ingesting mineral and organic matter. Termites, ants and beetles influence soil porosity and texture through tunnelling, soil ingestion and transport and gallery construction. Other macrofauna such as woodlice, millipedes and some types of insect larvae act as litter transformers, performing an important shredding action on dead plant tissue. Certain types of fungi associate with plant roots, improving nutrient availability and reducing attacks by plant pathogens as well as improving tolerance to environmental stresses.This practical manual unlocks the secrets of the rich tropical soil biota beneath our feet. It describes sampling and laboratory assessment methods for the biodiversity of a number of key groups of soil organisms, using a standardised system developed for characterising soil biodiversity and land uses in tropical settings. The aim is to assess soil biodiversity against current and historic land use practices and to identify opportunities for improved land management through the introduction or improved management of soil biota. The result should be a healthier soil, with less need for external inputs such as chemical fertilisers and pesticides. On a global scale, the impact of disasters is steadily rising. More than 250 million people have been directly affected each year by emergencies such as floods, droughts, earthquakes or wars since 2000, according to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. The international response to such crises can be pivotal in determining how local communities cope with them, and indiscriminate aid, though wellmeaning, is not always the answer. Massive strides have been made in recent years in improving our understanding of the effects of emergency seed programmes. Just as with emergency food aid programmes, it is crucial to make sure that the assistance is appropriate. Seed is at the heart of agricultural production, so badly designed seed aid can harm farmers, making them even more vulnerable to uncertainties. Supplying them with unsuitable crop species or varieties can lead to low yields and waste precious land and labour. Unnecessary seed deliveries suppress regional economies and undermine emerging seed markets. And since part of the harvest is often saved to be sown in subsequent seasons, even shortterm interventions in the seed system may have significant impacts for years to come.A new manual presents a seven-step method for assessing the security of farmers' seed systems after disasters. The Seed System Security Assessment (SSSA) is designed to help managers and field staff decide whether interventions are needed, and if so, which type of seed would best help put farmers back on their feet. Case studies illustrate how well-targeted seed aid can help producers to weather the effects of disasters.Another manual from FAO introduces the Rapid Agricultural Disaster Assessment Routine (RADAR), a tool designed to rapidly assess both the short-and long-term damage to agricultural systems caused by natural disasters. Successful implementation of RADAR could improve disaster preparedness, facilitate timely relief operations and integrate risk and hazard awareness into longer term agricultural development planning.Mushrooms are a good cash crop, ideally suited to small-scale farmers. They are easy to grow, full of protein, vitamin and minerals, and have a very short span between spawning and harvesting. Mushroom cultivation is also perfect for producers seeking sustainable farming methods. It uses agricultural waste products and makes good use of limited surface areas. And after picking, the spent substrate can be recycled as a valuable soil conditioner.This guide, the first of the popular Agrodok series to be made available in Swahili, offers advice on cultivating oyster, shiitake and wood ear mushrooms. The manual takes readers through the life cycle of fungi before going on to explain in easy-to-follow terms how to lay out a small mushroom farm, set up a starter culture, grow mushrooms and handle them after harvest. A separate chapter is dedicated to each of the three varieties, with practical details on what to do to ensure a good crop. Although natural ecosystems perform many services, their values have often been ignored. One theory rapidly gaining ground is that communities would take better care of their environments if there was financial recompense for doing so. One of the main difficulties to such an approach lies in assigning an economic value for these goods and services. Two new publications explore the still largely uncharted territory of payments for ecosystem services (PES). The PES Primer explains markets and mechanisms with the goal of providing guidance for developing PES deals. It offers information about the opportunities available to poor communities as well as some of the risks entailed in such schemes before setting out a stepby-step approach for the development of PES deals and the identification of potential buyers.Valuing Ecosystem Services provides guidance on the valuation of ecosystem services, using the case of multi-functional wetlands to illustrate the techniques that can be used for ecosystem management options. Although the focus is wetlands, the approaches provide a framework for assessing the values of other ecosystem assets. Soaring energy consumption coupled with concerns over greenhouse gas emissions are fuelling a growing interest in alternative power sources. In most countries of the South, where wood remains the primary source of energy, there is pressure for the forestry sector to find the means to mobilise 'clean' energy, mitigate climate change and support economic development that is environmentally sustainable.This study reveals that in natural forests, up to 70% of total volume may be available for energy generation. It outlines the probable impacts of developing solid and liquid biofuels from forests and looks towards the long term goal of gradually phasing out fossil fuels, an objective that can only be reached if governments adopt adequate policies, creating opportunities for real technology transfer to take place. You can now order the Spore special issue on climate change, published in August 2008. This edition, which covers the topic from a wide range of angles, can also be consulted on the CTA website, or downloaded free of charge.Spore special issue, 2008, 24 pp. CTA nº 1478 2 credit points http://spore.cta.int/climatechange/fr/ index.htmlAn essential prerequisite for the successful development of aquaculture is a language that everyone understands, together with a standardised terminology for technical aspects. This publication, which comes with an accompanying CD-ROM, contains more than 2,500 definitions, information sources, synonyms and related terms. In Senegal, as in most developing countries, livestock keeping is mainly carried out at the household level, with very little done on an industrial scale. Nearly one in three families keeps livestock. They generally practise pastoral livestock production, which relies on the mobility of herds and families. Herders are found virtually everywhere in the country. They have little in the way of formal organisation and most of them are illiterate. They live on the margins of society and generally lack information about programmes run by central or local government, including those relating to their own sector. All this makes it very difficult to involve them in national animal health programmes. For that reason, we have had to find other ways of reaching them, to overcome these difficult circumstances.First and foremost, we have helped them to join forces amongst themselves. We took as our starting point the few organisations that already existed in pastoral communities. We offered them support so they could open up and expand their networks to take on new members. We encouraged them to become more legitimate and representative in the eyes of livestock keepers so as to have a better chance of being recognised and accepted.The second phase of our task was to promote grassroots veterinary care. The problem is that there are very few vets in Senegal -about 150 of them for 3 million livestock keepers. This is on a par with the average for the developing world, where the mean figure is 140 vets per country. Most of them practise close to the big cities, with very few working in rural areas. To be honest, there are not many incentives for vets to set up private practices in rural areas. So we opted to train veterinary auxiliaries, also known as community animal health workers (CAHW), who are themselves livestock keepers.We have drawn up a range of criteria for selecting herders to receive this training and become veterinary auxiliaries. Key prerequisites include a basic level of literacy and that they be dynamic individuals and have the trust of their peers, so that their authority and position will be recognised and accepted. It seemed to us that the best way of ensuring this was to ask officials of livestock organisations to appoint them, since in theory their authority is undisputed and these auxiliaries would remain under their control. That is why we began by strengthening these organisations, which also enabled the auxiliaries to gain recognition from the government.We then went on to define what we saw as the two main tasks they needed to perform. The first is to serve as a focal point for early warning signals relating to epidemics in their community. This role is already being carried out. A study presented at the 76 th general assembly of the OIE, in May 2008 in Paris, France, indicated that in developing countries, small-scale livestock keepers are the main source of information for monitoring diseases and found that they are able to diagnose common animal diseases. The second role of veterinary auxiliaries is to be active in providing basic care, such as pest control, treating superficial wounds and even some of the simpler vaccinations that use inactive bacteria and are heat resistant, given the lack of cold chain facilities in rural areas.The same study showed that 72% of the world's veterinary services believe that small-scale livestock keepers should be authorised to carry out worming procedures. On the other hand, they are divided about allowing them to give injections or administer vaccinations. But the vast majority of veterinarians agree that livestock keepers should play a greater role in animal health.However, one problem quickly emerged, due to the fact that some auxiliaries overstepped their powers. A tendency emerged for some to pass themelves off as actual vets and, for example, to start selling medicines. So we decided to set up a system to supervise auxiliaries. To do this we linked each auxiliary to a private veterinary surgeon, who undertook to train and monitor them. It is the vet who gives the auxiliary veterinary products and who explains how to administer them.The issue of monitoring still needs to be regulated and we believe it would be in the best interests of all concerned for the OIE to draw up supervision guidelines for institutions to develop their own animal health system. mfaye@refer.sn In this capacity he served as Senegal's delegate to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and as a member of the Veterinary Committee for the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA). He now works as an independent consultant.","tokenCount":"9587"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9c1a8c582e5e3344401e24a4c6554fa6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/1b917ea4-8916-4561-b51b-ec7082552cb3/retrieve","id":"-1400770736"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0f196e6c-c71b-4739-bf04-07aa09681684","pagecount":"7","content":"The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is not responsible for the quality and validity of results obtained using the FEAST methodology.The Feed Assessment Tool (FEAST) was used to characterize the livestock production system and in particular, the feed-related aspect of the Ol-Kalaou division, Kieni West district in Kenya. The assessment was carried out through structured group discussions and completion of short questionnaires by three key farmers/stakeholders on the 20 th of May 2010. The following are the findings of the assessment and conclusions for further action.The farming system is primarily a subsistence based, mixed crop/livestock system. Farm sizes in the area are an average size of 2-3 hectares, of which, 1 hectare is used from cropping whilst the remaining area is used as grazing land. Households in the area grow a wide variety of food crops including; potatoes (Solanum tuberosum), maize (Zea mays), beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), bananas (Musa acuminate), sweet potatoes (Ipomea batatas), cabbages (Brassica oleracea var. capitata), tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum), kales (Brassica oleracea), macadamia nuts (Macadamia integrifolia), snow peas (Pisum sativum var. saccharatum), carrots (Daucus carota sativus) and beetroot (Beta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris.). Many farmers also grow forage crops, such as; Lucerne (Medicago sativa), Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum), and Desdemonium spp. The average area of land used for production of these crops is shown in Figure 1.Households in the area raise a variety of livestock species for various purposes. On average every household has two or three milking cows. However, many households have 5 or more. The cows are milked on a twice daily basis to fulfil household milk requirements. Excesses are sold to the local milk co-operative. Local zebu type cattle are not popular with farmers due to their low milk production capabilities. Holstein Friesian and Ayrshire are the breeds of preference for all farmers. Sheep and goats are also raised by many families for quick sale when funds are required to cover large expenses such as school fees or medical treatment. Indigenous chickens are kept by households to meet household meat and egg requirements. Many children in the area also raise rabbits to ensure they have a means of income generation independent of their parents. Labour is generally available during times of peak need such as April-June at approximately 200 Kenyan shillings (USD$2.20) per day. This price is considered very expensive. Rainfall levels are generally adequate to ensure cropping operations can be carried out, however, the area is prone to droughts which can severely affect crop yields and many livestock can perish. There is not enough water in the area to warrant large scale irrigation. Irrigation is very small scale for domestic household and kitchen garden use.Milk sales are the primary contributor to household income as shown in Figure 2. An average of 65% of all household income comes from the sale of milk. Crops, mainly potatoes also make an important contribution to household income, contributing approximately 25%. Cash crops such as; macadamia nuts, and coffee (Coffee arabica) also make a contribution to household income. The contribution made by these crops is considered relatively minor at 10% collectively. Some households also sell fodder material, particularly Napier grass. The contribution these sales make to household income is restricted to a small number of households and varies substantially throughout the year based on climatic conditions. During the dry season, fodder is generally more marketable and profitable. Income received from the regular sale of livestock is uncommon in the area. Sale of animals generally occurs in an ad-hoc manner when funds are required quickly or undesirable animals such as bull calves and unproductive old cows are placing a strain on feed resources. However, many farmers with larger land holdings will keep bull calves for a period of fattening prior to sale.  The livestock system is focused on milk production. Improved dairy breeds, namely Holstein Friesians and Ayrshires, dominate livestock holdings as shown in Figure 3. Friesians are the most numerous breed and compose approximately 60% of cattle holdings in the area due to their high milk production capabilities. Milk produced on the farm is sold to a local co-operative at prices ranging from 18-20 Kenyan shillings (USD$0.20-USD$0.22) per litre. Income earnt from milk sales is used to pay for necessary household expenses such as hired labour and children's school fees. Management of the cows varies between households. Some households with larger land holdings allow cows to graze household lands during daylight hours and confine them at night for supplementary feeding. Households with smaller land holdings confine their cows in a small fenced area (sometimes with a cattle shed) and provide supplementary feed. Artificial Insemination (AI) services are readily accessible for all farmers in the area and AI is the preferred method of reproduction. Bull services are only used in very exceptional circumstances and are considered a last resort. The price of semen varies significantly. Locally produced semen can range from 700 to 1200 Kenyan shillings (USD$ 7.77-USD$13.32) per straw. Imported semen is worth over 2500 Kenyan shillings (USD$ 27.75) per straw. Veterinary services are also easily accessed. The price of veterinary treatments depends largely on the nature of the problem. However, many farmers have not been happy with the service as many of the treatments have been non-effective. Veterinary treatments and AI services can be paid for with a loan from the milk co-operative against milk sales should the farmers not have enough money to pay at that point in time. The diet is primarily composed of green forages, concentrates, and crop residues as shown in Figure 4. The contribution made by these feed sources to the diet varies throughout the year. During the main part of the wet season (May-July), green forages compose the largest part of the diet. During the dry season (December-February) conserved feeds such as crop residues, legume residues and purchased concentrated can be found in the diet in larger quantities. The majority of this feed is produced on farm with many households designating over 50% of their land to fodder production. This on-farm fodder production is particularly important as it is the primary source of metabolizable energy (ME) and crude protein (CP) for livestock in this area as shown in Figure 5. Interestingly, purchased feeds make comparatively minor contributions to the ME and CP of the diet, contributing 36% of the total ME and 38% of the total CP found in the diet, despite being the primary source of dry matter. The main feeds purchased by farmers are shown in Figure 6. The price of purchased feeds varies throughout the year based on seasonal availability. Supplements such as; field hay, Napier grass, sweet potato vine and maize stover can be purchased for 250 shillings (USD$2.75) per bale, 1000 shillings (USD$ 10.99) per tonne, 150 shillings (USD$1.65) per vine, and 1000 shillings (USD$ 10.99) per tonne respectively. The main constraint to production in this area is insufficient feed. This constraint is a particular concern for many farmers during the dry season when they are forced to purchase concentrate feeds. Concentrate feeds are considered to be very expensive and significantly increase the cost of milk production. A lack of information pertaining to appropriate feeding strategies and technologies further exaggerates issues of poor feed availability as farmers are unable to comprehend concepts of quality and quantity and tend to feed whatever is available at any one time. AI services are also considered to be a constraint by farmers. Though AI services in the area are readily accessible, the price of semen is considered to be too expensive, particularly when semen from the bull they desire is unavailable. Furthermore, in the event that the cow fails to conceive the farmer is expected to pay full price for a repeat service. This makes the AI process very expensive as multiple services are often necessary due to poor conception rates in the area. There are also problems around ensuring that farmers are receiving the type of semen they are promised. The price received for milk products is also viewed as a constraint to production. At present, there is significant seasonal variation in milk prices. During the wet season milk prices are at their lowest (approximately 18 shillings (USD$0.20) per litre), and dry season milk prices are at their highest (approximately 20 shillings (USD$0.22) per litre). However, even the higher prices received during the dry season are believed to be too low, especially when considering the increased cost of production due to the need for purchased concentrates and the time spent collecting green forages.To mitigate the effects of feed constraints, it will be necessary to produce more feed biomass per hectare, improve the quality of existing feed sources, improve feed storage methods, or potentially increase the use of purchased feeds. As the majority of farmers have already dedicated large portions of their holdings to fodder crop production it is unlikely that substantially larger quantities of biomass can be produced per hectare as they are already utilising highly productive fodder species such as Napier grass, and green maize. However, the integration of fodder trees such as Sesbania spp. and Leucaena spp. around paddock edges will increase biomass production, particularly during the dry season, as their large root system will allow them to remain productive during periods of low rainfall. To improve the quality of feed currently available, the introduction of simple feed processing technologies such as chopping (or chaffing) would be advantageous. Care must be made when introducing such technologies. The cutting of forage material will effectively increase the surface area to volume ratio of the material, making it more available for microbial decomposition in the rumen. This is advantageous as it ensures larger proportions of the feed source can be utilised by the animal, however, it also means the animal will consume more. Therefore, unless excesses occur, feed processing may not be the most appropriate intervention. In this particular situation, it appears that excesses may occur in many households during the wet season as fodder species will be experiencing maximum growth rates during this time. Thus, simple feed processing techniques may be advantageous for some producers. Attempts should also be made to conserve the excesses that occur during the wet season. Simple on farm methods of silage production should be considered. The use of polythene bags or small scale silage pits may be viable options. Additional concentrate feeds can also be purchased. However, as the price received per litre of milk is relatively low, the extra expense of additional concentrate feeds is unlikely to be off-set by the potential increases in milk yields that may be achieved with higher levels of concentrate feeding.Improvement of AI services will required a top down approach as it is unlikely the farmers can instigate the necessary changes themselves on-farm. However, farmers can undertake steps to improve the chance of conception to decrease the need and expense associated with repeat services. Farmer training in; heat detection methodology, improved hygiene conditions during birthing to prevent uterine infections and the use of flush feeding may all help to improve conception rates. Care should also be taken when selecting bulls, particularly given the preference of farmers in the area for Holstein Friesians. Many of the more modern genotypes of this breed demonstrate very poor conception rates. Introduction of such genotypes will further compound farmer's frustrations with expensive AI services.The variation in price received for milk indicates an oversupply of fresh milk in the area, particularly during the wet season. Improved feeding strategies (as previously mentioned) to ensure greater feed efficiency and utilisation will make producers more competitive in the marketplace as it will ensure more milk can be produced per kilogram of feed intake. Alternatively, farmers can attempt to value add their milk products through the production of cheese or butter. Farmers can also consider diversifying their system away from a reliance on milk production and into other more stable livestock commodities such a sheep and goat production that demonstrate high market demand throughout the year.Dairying is the main income generating activity for farmers in this subsistence based mixed/crop livestock system. Every household has at least 2-3 milking cows. The primary crops of importance are potatoes and maize. The main constraint to the further intensification and development of dairying in the area is a lack of feed. Many farmers have commenced cropping of fodder species in an attempt to mitigate these feed shortages. However, shortages during the dry season remain a problem. The introduction of fodder trees, simple feed processing strategies and methods for conserving fodder will help to alleviate dry season feed shortages. AI services are also considered a constraint due to the general expense associated with the procedure. Improved farmer training in areas important to successful AI procedures will minimise the cost of AI procedures through reducing the need for repeat services. Milk prices are generally unstable and vary throughout the year due to an oversupply in the marketplace. To overcome this constraint, farmers will need to improve production efficiency to decrease the cost of production through improved feeding practices. Value-adding of milk products and diversification of the farming system away from milk production may also help to prevent oversupplies in the marketplace. However, to introduce all these interventions in a sustainable way, it will be necessary to improve farmer training. Without improved farmer training and ensuring farmers have access to information it will be impossible for farmers to undertake the necessary steps to mitigate the effects of these constraints. Farmers need to gain a clear understanding of key concepts to ensure the effective introduction of; improved feeding strategies, methods to improve conception rates, methods of value-adding milk products and potential diversification of their livestock system.-Lack of feed sources and information pertaining to appropriate feeding strategies and technologies. -AI services are considered expensive, have a limited selection of bulls and are unreliable in terms of conception rates. -The price received for milk is low and variable throughout the year. heat detection, hygiene standards during birthing, flush feeding and bull selection.","tokenCount":"2322"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fef7363270ad0fb2ebdf8abac3a365c7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/35e0c9e9-ec9d-4258-9a52-55d521391829/retrieve","id":"-1831580335"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"20837527-1b55-4080-8911-e59a189d694b","pagecount":"1","content":"This is a tool that was developed by ICRAF and UNEP in 2005 where singular and multi-criteria analysis are carried out using engineering and agronomic tenets in GIS environment as shown in the figure below.Greenwater partitioning takes cognizance of consumptive water uses by trees, grasslands, wetlands and croplands. Empirically, greenwater constitute 65% of precipitation -with trees taking up 50% of this given their bio-pump efficiency owing to their lateral / deep rooting system. Grasslands, wetlands and croplands take up 25%, 15% and 10% respectively.The DryDev program recognizes the technical strengths of all partners involved and creates a platform where they are able to jointly carry out implementation plans.Land degradation continues to ravage the drylands of rural Africa, driven by an overuse of timber fueled by firewood production, charcoal burning, pottery, and brick and furniture making. The result is lands that are exposed to massive sheet, rill and gulley erosion, including landslides and solifluction (or the gradual movement of wet soil down a slope). The problem is exacerbated by poor farm husbandry practices that compound the negative effects of the hydrologic functions within the watershed.The ","tokenCount":"184"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"eec84ecb84eaee8fd32b5865ecbac345","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f64f0002-477b-4bab-8e15-0e7739429634/retrieve","id":"494692148"},"keywords":["oiseaux: poulet","canard","dinde","oie (4/9","000 espèces) poissons: salmonidés","thon","morue","carpe (~9/+18","000) mammifères: vache","zébu","porc","mouton","chèvre","cheval","âne","buffle","lama","chameau","dromadaire","renne","lapin","cobaye (~14/4","000 graminées: riz","blé","maïs","orge","seigle","avoine","sorgho","canne","mil","millet (~15/10","000) composées: tournesol","topinambour","laitue (~3/25","000) orquidées: vanille (1/+20","000 espèces) légumineuses: pois","fève","pois chiche","lentille","gesse","lupin","haricot","haricot de Lima","arachide","tarwi","niébé","pois cajan","mungo","soja","azuki (~25/19","000) solanées: pomme de terre","tomate","piment","aubergine (~10/3","000)"],"sieverID":"d6853129-c5a8-4ec2-88a7-f6250b35b1ba","pagecount":"43","content":"urbanisation rapide en Amérique Latine (1950Latine ( -2015)   )    596 millions d' habitants: 472 vivent en villes (79%), 113 en taudis (19%) 21% de la population en zone rurale fuente: Zwingle 2002 phénomène nouveau, surtout l' accélération il n'y a pas un plan de référence 4/43 D'où vient notre alimentation?0 20,000 40,000 60,000 80,000 100,000 1,000 10,000 100,000 1,000,000 10,000,000 100,000,000 1,000,000,000 10,000,000,000      ","tokenCount":"63"}
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..5c1f99da13d0d414ada71f50e2ec059d87dacef8
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b346c0e2619fe9499cc37dc7b05b27fc","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/144db0f1-2206-4c44-81e3-0037e24a4467/retrieve","id":"-896287310"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"947dc3b1-6686-41b9-a01b-0b7f04dd4d75","pagecount":"9","content":"Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above.The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used.Cover photo-Women beneficiaries make savings at the cooperative supported by the United Nations Joint Program (photo: UNWomen/Fikerte Abebe).The International Food Policy Research Institute received a second round of funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to adapt and validate measures of women's empowerment that agricultural development projects can use to diagnose key areas of women's (and men's) disempowerment, design appropriate strategies to address deficiencies, and monitor project outcomes related to women's empowerment. This second round-the Gender, Agriculture and Assets Project (GAAP2), runs for five years (2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020), building on the experience of GAAP1 that took place between 2010 and 2014. GAAP1 worked with a set of agricultural development projects to incorporate gender into their monitoring and evaluation frameworks and evaluate their impacts on women's assets. GAAP2 expands the focus of GAAP1 to examine not only assets, but also other aspects of women's empowerment, including activities to work with projects to develop and test tools to measure women's empowerment within agricultural development projects and to enable projects to use these tools to design, modify, and assess their activities to empower women.Over the past two years (2016-17), GAAP2 has been testing and validating the project level-Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI) to make it suitable for individual projects in the agricultural sector and beyond. As a CGIAR research fellow, attached to the United Nations Joint Program on \"Accelerating progress towards Rural Women's Economic Empowerment (UNJP-RWEE), my role has been to support development of qualitative tools and the quantitative livestock add-on module of the pro-WEAI. I have also provided technical support on 'gender and livestock' and synthesized women's empowerment issues in livestock projects in the GAAP2 portfolio.Over these years I have participated in different activities/events and expanded my knowledge and professional network. I herewith share my learnings captured in the table 1 below, in fulfilment of one of my deliverables. Most of the projects in the portfolio had not finalized their qualitative studies including the UNJP and this meeting motivated us to give it a go, particularly to further understand the local meaning and perceptions of empowerment? The major challenge that I observed was how to get the local definition of empowerment without NGO speak. It became clear that empowerment is conditioned by intersectionality: household type (nuclear and joint or extended household, social location of the woman in a household, cases, ethnicity (social norms), asset (and assets brought to marriage as dowry, migration of husbands or in joint family of 'sons\", occupational status. It also became apparent that there was need for a more systematic method to collect qualitative data. During this meeting, it also became clear to me that pro-WEAI can be used to develop strategies to adapt and improve the projects to increase their impact on women's empowerment. However, it was not so clear whether pro-WEAI can be used as a monitoring tool, and this issue has been discussed on other events.This meeting also provided a platform to try using Slack and motivated participants to share information on Slack. Many people are slow to join virtual networks and one has to be innovative to sell the idea and get people's buy in. I noted that having researchers try using the application while in the workshops worked out well. But the challenge of sustaining participation on the virtual network still creeps in.3 Mid-term review and Launching of pro-WEAI in Rome, Italy (April 24-27, 2018) This meeting brought together multiple partners and donors who shared their thoughts about the current trends in Agriculture and how pro-WEAI can be scaled up at national, regional or international levels. The emphasis placed on how our work contributes to policy and the SDGs informed my future research agenda. The weak ties among CGIAR centers was expressed and this needed strengthening. One of the ways to do this is to conduct collaborative research on novel areas that contribute to the global agenda. I have embarked on this agenda, working with multiple CGIAR centers and national research organizations to develop gender capacities for agricultural research.Current trends such as commitment to international policies, challenges that urbanization and increased incomes present in empowering women were key in this debate. How can international policies be integrated into national policies? How can we improve women's participation in decision making, partnerships, descent employment, and access to markets?These are in line with the WEAI and the CGIAR can play a role in using the pro-WEAI to advance the political agenda. Current instruments can be used to inform policy -national and international policies. As researchers, we ought to be thinking about the policy implications for this tool and vice versa? How can we build synergies between the work done by the CGIAR and this tool both at national and international policy level? There is need to focus on generating evidence to inform policies and programs and make more effort to strengthen national data systems.GAAP2 developed tools to measure women's empowerment which can also be used to determine if the project is empowering women? Pro-WEAI captures more diverse aspects and context matters a lot. Strategies need to be in place to help women empower themselves, using the opportunities provided by government and other institutions and structures. It was interesting to note that Pro-WEAI does not measure power-over. I also highly welcomed the idea of creating a mini version of Pro-WEAI as this might motivate researchers to apply it as a monitoring tool.Being a research fellow on this project was a rewarding experience. I supported the project in developing qualitative tools, data collection, analysis and report writing. The qualitative study was conducted in Adami Tulu and Yaya Gulele Woredas (districts), Oromia region, Ethiopia. Throughout this project, I came to learn several things:• There is no single term in the local languages to express the term empowerment. In Ethiopia, women and men used terms to refer to 'empowerment' but it was mostly attributed to 'being capable\". Its very important to solicit the local terms from community members and make it clear to all participants. The questions used to capture the local understanding of empowerment required in-depth probing, drawing community members away from what they defined as an ideal woman or man and begin thinking outside the box.• From this study, it became apparent that women's empowerment is complex and subjected to local standards. Women's empowerment is manifested in broader patterns and definitions, some of which can be quantified, and others can't be quantified.• A clear research guide was prepared in advance to provide a roadmap for the qualitative study -with relevant tools and questions for the study.• Training of the research team and conducting a pilot study in Addis Ababa (July 26-30, 2017) was helpful in providing clarity and understanding the tools, questions, testing and refining these after the pilot study. The pre-test also helped testing important field aspects such as translations, activity timing, note taking and group control, including procedures for on-spot analysis. As a result, the methodology and tools were made \"fit for purpose\" and there was a very clear roadmap.• Use of local language was helpful to better capture the issues and meanings from the community members, and helped mitigate challenges related to misunderstanding of questions, concepts and terms. Finding the local term for 'empowerment', together with the participants was very helpful in streamlining the discussion on the meaning of empowerment.• Daily debriefing with enumerators was a useful activity because: i) it helped to capture main events and findings during the day, while still fresh in the mind and ii) enhanced sharing and learning among enumerators for quality data collection; iii) it was also helpful in creating a harmonized understanding of the widely used terms such as: empowerment and joint-ness in decision making after discussing with participants iv) helped identify gaps that needed to be addressed and mechanisms to do so.• Plenary discussions with both men and women participants after the separate group discussions: After the separate discussions with men and women, there was a plenary session, where men and women came together to discuss the emerging findings, thereby identifying similarities and differences. The plenary sessions were helpful to validate findings.• Data collection went well with team members that were trained and equipped to facilitate group discussions and collect in-depth and relevant findings. There was need for flexibility based on the nature of participants, variables to be scored, and number of beans to use when scoring among others. We also noted that additional 'direct observation' tools would help triangulate some of the claims especially on women' role in field activities. It's important to pay attention to the time of the study. Our study was conducted during the peak season and farmers barely had time to sit for 2 hours. Getting female participants on market days was a challenge. We used the men and women's definitions of an empowered/disempowered woman/man to select the case studies. There were some inconsistences with the criteria and people who were interviewed. Conducting individual interviews at the homestead helped validate the indicators/claims of empowerment.• Data analysis: This was done during and after data collection -during fieldwork, participants were given an opportunity to comment on the emerging findings during the plenary sessions, held at the end of each group discussion. This helped to validate findings and provide more clarity to some of the emerging ideas. More analysis continued after fieldwork for deeper understanding and meaning, including generation of themes that informed the report. Another lesson learned is that qualitative analysis and report writing needs time to think through the data in a systematic manner, including triangulation. Context plays a key role in understanding the meaning of empowerment and indicators of empowerment.• The results revealed that development project can empower women. To secure men's support for the project, it is crucial for the project to work on enhancing women's ability to decide together with their husbands rather than focusing on promoting women's individual choices. Emphasis on joint decision-making aligns with the locally accepted behavioral norms and fosters progressive and culturally acceptable social transformations, although some of the women were happy to be able to decide alone.• Strengthening the contextual understanding of the existing gender relations by carrying out gender analysis can aid identification of the root causes of gender inequalities in the project area, so that interventions are tailored towards addressing the identified issues. Such knowledge should be used to shift institutional structures that shape women's choice and voice and ultimately their lives and future. Additionally, gender analysis should be used to understand how gender inequalities and power inequalities intersect with other demographic characteristics such as age, wealth, marital status etc.5 Slack This was part of a Community of Practice on measuring women's empowerment in agricultural development projects. The training received on how to facilitate virtual meetings was very insightful as I got to learn how to do so. The major challenge has been sustaining active participation on Slack. I do appreciate that it's one way to minimize physical meetings and save time without compromising the quality of work.6 Synthesizing qualitative livestock project reportsAs indicated above, one of my roles was to synthesize qualitative findings of the livestock projects in the GAAP2 portfolio. It's been very challenging to deliver on this output because it depended on the pace of the individual projects. Most of the projects delayed and the reports came in late. Practically reports from two out of four livestock projects were archived in 2018 and available for review, yet in draft form. The reports had no systematic structure to report on the impact of livestock projects and extracting information from these reports was time consuming. My suggestion is that in future, the GAAP2 should provide a well-structured template that all projects can use to document including the context, empowerment processes, empowerment outcomes, intersectionality, learnings/challenges, etc. Projects can then add to this template to meet their own interests. The template should aim at capturing the most pertinent issues that researchers should not miss out to aid comparison across cross projects and trace patterns of empowerment. The research questions need to be clear. Well-structured reports will make it easier to extract information and draw comparisons across projects-their approaches and outcomes.There will be important to also systematize data collection methods across projects (to a greater extent possible) during the testing phase. Some projects had controls while others did not. GAAP2 PIs might want to look into the different methods used by the projects and assess the value they add to the qual protocol.I also suggest that projects should have separate qual and quant reports before integrating the two. This will probably help projects capture more detail for qualitative analysis. The research teams might also need training on how to analyze qualitative data, and how to integrate qual and quant in a more systematic manner.7 Integrating qualitative and quantitative dataOur project (RWEE) did not get to this point. It would have been great to integrate the two and establish how the qualitative findings nuance or contradict the pro-WEAI indicators.","tokenCount":"2193"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d10c879c5193dbeb800ec13375d95476","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/168457fc-9999-426e-aa23-bcb6f97cbb82/content","id":"-110961573"},"keywords":["Wheats","plant breeding","agricultural policies","models","analysis","development aid","analysis costs","production costs","decision making AGRIS category codes: E14","F30","E10 Dewey decimal classification: 338.162"],"sieverID":"6e8033f0-31cc-43c4-b934-e70774144f2e","pagecount":"39","content":"CIMMYT is an internationally funded, nonprofit scientific research and training organization. Headquartered in Mexico, the Center is engaged in a worldwide research program for maize, wheat, and triticale, with emphasis on improving the productivity of agricultural resources in developing countries. It is one of 17 nonprofit international agricultural research and training centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which is sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization (F AO) of the United Nations, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The CGIAR consists of some 40 donor countries, international and regional organizations, and private foundations.CIMMYT receives core support through the CGIAR from a number of sources, including the international aid agencies of Australia,Summary of model results at two production levels Table 2. Estimated requirements for levels of research capability Table 3.Parameters used in the analysis Table 4.Threshold production levels for different wheat breeding programs Table 5.Sensitivity of threshold production levels to parameter changes Table 6.Sensitivity of threshold production levels to relative rates of gain Table 7.Countries in CIMMYT's wheat mega-environments below threshold production levels Table B.l. Real price trends for wheat, 1960 to 2020 Table c.l. Total research expenditures per agricultural researcher, Figures Figure 1.Time pattern of costs and returns from a plant breeding program of the issues involved with a wide range of people, whose contribution to the final product remains somewhat undefined but was certainly substantial. In particular, Derek Byerlee of the CIMMYT Economics Program suggested the original idea of the study, made many useful and important contributions during the analysis and drafting of the paper, and was very encouraging throughout. Other colleagues of the CIMMYT Economics Program, particularly Michael Morris and Laura Saad, assisted with comments or data. Valuable comments were also received from colleagues in the CIMMYT Wheat Program. I also benefited from discussions with various people during a visit to the International Service for National Agricultural Research in the Netherlands. I would like to thank Rocio Vargas for secretarial assistance, Kelly Cassaday for editing the paper and preparing it for production, and Jose Luis Delgado for handling the layout.v Executive SummaryAs smaller developing countries aim to raise agricultural productivity, an important issue for them is the appropriate size and organization for their national agricultural research system. Research administrators have to determine when a particular country or ecological region within a country can finance its own adaptive research program rather than use technology imported from elsewhere.The aim of this study was to determine the economic relationships between costs and expected returns from a plant breeding program in order to identify the minimum size of production environment necessary to justify economically the establishment of a plant breeding program. Breeding programs may be established for reasons associated with self-sufficiency, national security, and regional development, but there is an economic cost if the program is not economically justified.Not only small developing countries have an interest in such issues. Larger developing and developed countries with established research systems also face questions of how to determine the allocation of research resources to breeding programs for small environments, specialty crops, or particular crop types. Administrators faced with reductions in research budgets must also determine the criteria for maintaining existing breeding programs. In addition, international agricultural research centers have an interest in the questions of criteria for establishing regional breeding programs or in determining the allocation of their resources among major agroecological crop production environments.This paper develops a general model of annual costs and lagged annual returns from a wheat breeding program. Returns are specified as a function of the size of the crop production industry, research and adoption lags, the expected rate of yield gain from the program, and the expected price of the crop. Costs are a product of the number of scientists and the costs per scientist.The analytical framework enables estimation of the threshold sizes of a crop industry at which different breeding programs could be economically justified, or alternatively the threshold rate of yield improvement needed to justify a given level of breeding expenditure. The critical level of production from a target environment at which it is economically worthwhile for a given country to switch from importing varieties to developing a full breeding program varies from country to country. However, based on average parameter values, the critical level of production needed from a target environment needed to economically justify a full breeding program was 322,000 t, somewhat larger than expected, given the number of breeding programs based on smaller production environments in both developing and developed countries. The production level at which a crossing program became more profitable than a selection program was even larger, over 1.5 million tons for average parameter values.However, the results were found to be extremely sensitive to several parameter values, notably the discount rate and the rate of production improvement under each program. Therefore, it is inappropriate to generalize the results, as they will vary widely for each particular country or environment examined.Given the difficulty in obtaining empirical data on the relative rates of improvement from different programs, the model was also used to determine the threshold rate of production improvement that would be required to justify a given expenditure on a breeding program. Examination of these threshold rates of production improvement indicated that high rates of yield improvement were likely to be required to justify the expenditure on wheat breeding for some regions and countries.The results emphasize the need for many of the countries with small wheat industries to establish cooperative regional breeding programs or to seek input from the international centers, as many countries cannot justify even a testing program. By saving scarce agricultural research resources for many resourcepoor countries, regional programs can offer substantial economic benefits.Resources are always scarce for agricultural research, particularly in developing countries, where alternative uses for the resources and the need for investments to stimulate economic growth are crucial to the economic welfare of individual nations. As smaller developing countries aim to raise agricultural productivity, an important issue for them is the appropriate size and organization for their national agricultural research system to be sustainable (Moseman 1970;Ruttan 1982Ruttan , 1986;;Box 1985;Lele and Goldsmith 1989). Trigo and Pineiro (1984) argued that the appropriate focus is the minimum, rather than the optimum, size of a research system. They considered the minimum scale of operations of a research system to depend upon technical and institutional considerations, the type of problem to be researched, as well as the possibility of using information generated by other research systems. They noted that the capacity to apply research findings from elsewhere is closely related to the capability for performing original research. Boyce and Evenson (1975, p.1l1) noted that: \"If research activity were costless, each environmental niche would have a unique technology in use.\" However, since research is not without cost, research administrators have to determine when a particular country or ecological region within a country should have its own research program and when it should merely use technology imported from elsewhere. Ruttan (1982, p. 177) argued that, in view of the limited knowledge available about smaller agricultural systems, \" a reasonable amount of analytical effort [should be devoted] to attempts to understand the problem of developing and sustaining effective agricultural research in the smaller national research systems.\" This paper examines that problem with respect to one particular form of agricultural research, namely plant breeding. The aim is to identify the costs and expected returns from a plant breeding program in order to determine the economic criteria for establishing breeding programs that are profitable from the point of view of society. It is recognized that countries may establish breeding programs for other reasons, associated with self-sufficiency, national security, and regional development. This analysis will identify the economic costs of such decisions.Of course, not only small developing countries have an interest in these issues. Larger developing and developed countries with established research systems also face questions of how to determine the breeding resources to allocate to small environments, specialty crops, or crop types. Administrators faced with reduced research budgets must also determine the economic criteria for maintaining existing breeding programs. In addition, international research centers have an interest in the economic criteria for establishing regional research programs or determining the allocation of their resources between the major (\" mega-\") environments.In the following section, a simplified model of the costs and returns of a plant breeding program is developed and explained. Some empirical analyses are then carried out using the model. The model developed is used to identify 1) the threshold size of an industry to justify different levels of breeding activity and 2) the rate of production increase necessary to justify spending given amounts on breeding. The implications of the results for national and international agricultural research centers are discussed and some conclusions are presented.Evaluation of Plant Breeding Programs Plant breeding is one of the major components of agricultural research. Studies such as Blakeslee and Sargent (1982), Zentner and Peterson (1984), Nagy (1984), Gardiner, Sanders, and Baker (1986), and Brennan (1989) have identified high average rates of return on investment in breeding and varietal development.Because the resources available to plant breeding programs are less than the resources needed to address all breeding problems, choices have to be made between competing uses of breeding resources. However, few objective guides are available for those who face decisions on resource allocation within and between breeding programs. To assist in that decision process, this paper develops a means of objectively comparing different plant breeding programs. Sensitivity analysis on the variables in this simple model provides some insights into the need to further refine some aspects of the data and analytical processes involved.In examining a particular wheat breeding program in detail, Brennan (1989) developed a model of the returns from a new wheat variety. The (undiscounted) return from the variety in a given year t was determined by the yield and area of the target region for the breeding program, the proportion of the target area sown to the new variety in that year, the percentage gain in yield and quality from the new variety, and the value of unit gains in yield and quality (see Appendix A).In a study of farmers' demand for replacement seed, Heisey and Brennan (1991) developed a model for estimating the gross benefits from new varieties, which allowed for the breakdown in resistance of varieties as pests and diseases evolve (see Appendix A for further details).From these two models, a simplified estimate of the gross returns from a breeding program can be derived, if we abstract from quality and biological decay of varieties at this stage: [1] where R t is the (undiscounted) return from the new variety in year t ($); gl is the expected proportional gain in production (whether yield or area) through varietal improvement in year t; PI is the value of the grain at the farm ($/ t) in year t; and Q I is the expected production (tons) in the target region without any contribution from the program in year t. The gain in production in year t, gt' can be estimated as an average or expected gain per year through the stream of varieties created by the breeding program over time. The other parameters can readily be defined for any particular breeding program. This specification of returns from a breeding program overlooks the maintenance aspect of plant breeding, which is the research devoted toward maintaining genetic resistance to mutable pathogens or pests. Generally, the value of gt used will relate to the rate of yield improvement through time, and will not take full account of the decline in yield that would be expected if no further varieties were developed. Additional research is required to enable the specification of returns from maintenance breeding.The relative rate of progress in a breeding program will depend, inter alia, on the resources devoted to the program. That is, gt = fCC), [2] where C is the total cost and fO is an increasing function. If C = 0, gt will still be positive because varieties can diffuse across borders.The costs of plant breeding programs will vary markedly depending on factors such as: 1) the degree of mechanization and the labor intensity of the program, 2) unit labor and capital costs, 3) the degree of crossing compared to selection and evaluation of imported materials, 4) the structure of the program's operations, 5) the amount of quality testing incorporated in the program, and 6) the extension/ advisory activities associated with the program.The cost function of a plant breeding program can be specified as: [3] where C k is the annual capital and overhead cost; C 1 is the annual labor cost; and Cois the annual operating cost.Unfortunately, few data are available on the breakdown of costs of a wheat breeding program into components of capital, labor, and other operating costs. 1 Thus this cost function is difficult to apply to different situations, particularly in developing countries.Given that more data are available on the total costs per scientist-year in plant breeding programs and agricultural research generally, a modified cost function can be estimated:where C s is the average total cost per scientist-year and S is the number of scientist-years in the program.The average total cost per scientist-year will be determined by the structure of the program, the prevailing salary package rates, and the degree of technical and other support provided to the research scientists involved. The number of scientist-years in the program will be determined by the size and scope of the program being analyzed.There will be differences in the marginal cost of an additional scientist to a breeding program at different sizes of the program, and therefore average costs may not capture the marginal costs accurately. Additional data are needed to clarify this issue, but the analysis presented in this paper assumes that the marginal cost is closely approximated by the average cost.Plant breeding is a continuing process, characterized by a flow of annual expenditures and a subsequent flow of annual returns. In analyzing plant breeding programs, a long-term period can be defined (as in Zentner andPeterson 1984 andGardiner, Sanders, andBaker 1986) and costs and returns 1In a detailed study of the costs of operating a relatively small (single-breeder) wheat breeding program in Australia, Brennan (1988) and Brennan and Khan (1989) found that less than 20% of the total costs of a wheat breeding program were accounted for by capital and overhead costs, and almost 70% was direct labor costs.aggregated over the whole period. That approach involves using an arbitrary cut-off point for expenditures and returns. An alternative approach is to assume a steady annual flow of real expenditures and returns, so that a fixed relationship is implied between one year's expected returns and the expenditure for another (suitably lagged) year. The assumption that real expenditures and returns are constant over time enables the investment criteria to be applied to these annual returns. The assumption is a restrictive one, since it could be argued that returns per unit effort are diminishing but that effort per dollar spent is increasing because of computers, mechanization, etc. Nevertheless, this assumption allows some comparative analysis to be carried out relatively simply using investment decision criteria.The expected pattern of costs and returns is illustrated in Figure 1, which shows the assumption that all breeding costs are located in the year of maximum costs, and returns are located in the year of maximum returns. The simplification assumes that the annual costs can be related to the (suitably lagged) annual returns as a summary of the true underlying relationship between breeding expenditures and returns.Using the years of maximum costs and benefits can lead to errors in the calculation of discounted costs and benefits, depending on the true shape of their distribution through time. The costs of a particular breeding cycle relate to a flow of benefits with a distributed lag. However, the assumption is useful in enabling the analysis to remain simple, and the errors are likely to be slight unless the distributions of costs or benefits are highly unsymmetrical.The assumption that real returns and costs are constant over time, with a fixed relationship between returns and lagged costs, makes the estimated time lag between costs and returns, n, a critical aspect of the relative value of discounted costs and returns. The time lag between expenditures and returns will vary for different breeding programs and breeding strategies.The total expenditure-to-returns lag contains two separate components: 1) the research lag between the expenditure and the release of the commercial cultivar (nJ and 2) the adoption lag between the commercial release and the widespread use of that cultivar (nJ The total lag between costs and returns (n) is:Criteria of Profitability A number of criteria are commonly used to compare the profitability of different investment decisions. Three criteria are used in this study:1) Net Present Value (NPV): the difference between discounted returns and discounted costs.2) Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR): the ratio of discounted returns to discounted costs.3) Internal Rate of Return (IRR): the estimated discount rate that equates discounted returns and discounted costs.On the basis of the foregoing assumption about the constant flow of expenditures and returns over time, where the estimated annual returns arethe estimated annual costs are C t , the mean lag between costs and returns is n years, and r is the discount rate, the decision criteria are calculated as follows:[6][7]andThe threshold level of any of the parameters of the model can be determined by setting benefits equal to costs (NPV = 0, or Be = 1, or IRR = r) and solving the equation. From equations 6, 7, or 8, benefits equal costs when:Substitution from equations 1 and 4 reduces equation 9 to:[10]There are a number of ways of expressing this equation to enable different analyses to be carried out. For example, to determine the threshold quantity of production, Q', that can justify a given level of breeding expenditure, we have:Q. = e S (l+rt/(gl P ).g y +n y+n[11]The threshold rate of production improvement, gt+n', required to make a given level of expenditure economically justified for a region can be determined as:[12] Some empirical analyses using the model for wheat breeding are presented in the next section.To analyze a breeding program, the parameters of equations 5 and 10 have to be estimated, namely gl ,PI ' Q l ' e ,S ,r, n , and n . In this section, an analysis +n +n +n s y r a is carried out using average parameter values, in 1989 prices, for a wheat breeding program. Before the analysis can be made, estimates must be determined for each of those parameters.For the market price of wheat, the long-term trend price was determined (Appendix B). The trend price in 1989 was US$190/t, in 1989 dollars. Between 1960 and1988, the real price (in constant 1989 US dollars) declined at approximately 1.5% per year. If that trend is continued into the future, by the year 2003, the year in which the output of the expenditure on breeding in 1989 will be produced (see below), the expected trend price will be US$ 152/ t (in 1989 dollars).In estimating the expected rate of increase in production as a result of wheat breeding, CIMMYT (1989) provides support for an estimate of yield improvement of approximately 1.0% per year from a breeding program in a well-watered environment and from 0.3% to 0.6% per year for a dryland production region over a long-term period. If this analysis is carried out for a well-watered environment, gt+n can be estimated as 1.0% per annum, if all the increase in production is brought about through yield increases. If the area sown could increase as well as yield as a result of the breeding/ testing program, a faster rate of production increase could occur. For the purposes of the analysis, no area increase is assumed, so that gt+n is estimated at 1.0% per annum from a full crossing program.There are a number of estimates of the cost per scientist-year in wheat breeding programs in developed countries (e.g., Zentner andPeterson 1984, andGardiner, Sanders, andBaker 1986). Some estimates of the cost per scientist-year in developing countries for all agricultural research are provided by Judd, Boyce, and Evenson (1983) and Rocheteau et al. (1988). Estimates are examined in Appendix C, where an average cost (in 1989 US dollars) of a scientist-year in a developing country is estimated at US$ 50,000.For this analysis, 2.0 scientist-years are assumed to be required to carry out a full breeding program. This assumption is discussed further below.In assessing the NPV and the BCR, an appropriate real discount rate has to be selected. Gittinger (1982) argued that the appropriate social discount rate to use for economic analysis is the opportunity cost of capital, and suggested that, \"in most developing countries, (the opportunity cost of capital] is assumed to be somewhere between 8 and 15 percent in real terms. A common choice is 12 percent\" (p. 314). The real discount rate used in this study is 12% per annum, although other rates are examined in the sensitivity analysis presented below.During the 13 years required on average to produce a new wheat variety in Australia (Brennan 1989), the peak expenditure was in the sixth year, and there was a lag of seven years between peak expenditure and the release of the variety (n r =7). The maximum returns from the program were obtained in the seventh year after release (n a = 7). On this basis, an initial assumption used in this study is a lag of 14 years between the costs being incurred and the relevant returns for a full breeding program. Although many studies of research lags have used shorter lags, Pardey and Craig (1989) found support for mean lags of this length or longer for general agricultural research expenditures in the US. Brennan and Byerlee (1991) found an overall weighted average age of varieties of 7.2 years across several developed and developing countries, implying an average lag before maximum adoption of seven to eight years. Different breeding strategies, particularly those involving off-season nurseries, can reduce the research lag (n), whereas the adoption lag (n) can be influenced by the extension services available, the seed distribution systems, and the superiority of the varieties.On the basis of these estimated parameters, an initial analysis of a full wheat breeding program is made for two levels of potential production, 200,000 t and 2,000,000 t(Table 1). These levels are approximately equivalent to average wheat production in countries in Eastern Africa and North Africa, respectively, although there is a great deal of variation within those regions. At a production level of 200,000 t, the program is unprofitable, while at 2,000,000 t annual production, the program is highly profitable.Analysis of Threshold Size of Industry An important issue for many developing countries is whether to import crop varieties from other countries or to establish their own breeding programs. Douglas (1980) identified six major factors affecting the decision whether to breed new varieties or to concentrate only on testing varieties introduced from outside the country: 1) the economic and political importance of the crop and the need for improved varieties; 2) the uniqueness of the growing conditions; 3) the future potential of the crop; 4) the public and private institutional resources available; 5) the human, financial, and physical resources available; and 6) the availability of good varieties and seed supplies.In deciding between breeding and testing, the cost and likely economic returns of testing available varieties versus breeding new varieties needs evaluation (Douglas 1980). The time taken to develop improved varieties is important in deciding whether to concentrate on breeding or testing. Using crop varieties already available may give an earlier payoff and hence perhaps higher returns for a country than will be obtained by breeding new varieties. Because of the diversity of material from the international agricultural research centers, some countries concentrate on testing and selecting promising material from segregating lines without initially breeding their own varieties. Douglas (1980) points out that non-technical factors such as political implications, internal development factors, and the prestige of a breeding program can override the other considerations, but it is important for those making the decision to be aware of the economic aspects of that decision.The decision will depend on the size of the potential crop industry in the country or region and the rate of production improvement that is likely under each alternative. Hanson, Borlaug, and Anderson (1982, p. 86) argued that\" any country that has 200,000 hectares of rainfed wheat or 100,000 hectares of irrigated wheat can justify supporting one or more research stations for adaptive wheat trials. Such areas should produce a wheat crop of at least 200,000 tons.\"Developing countries with small crop industries can afford only a limited agricultural research budget. Hanson, Borlaug, and Anderson (1982) noted that for those countries it may be appropriate to make use of the breeding services of the international agricultural research centers. This issue of the threshold production level required in a given environment to make it economic for a country to undertake a full breeding program can be addressed by the model developed in this paper. Trigo and Pineiro (1984) estimated that a minimum research module for one product requires a team of four research scientists, with materials, equipment, and technical and administrative support. For a plant breeding program, the alternatives are not as clearly delineated. A country can initially use, say, one technical officer with few resources to screen imported varieties from other programs. As the program expands, broader testing can be done, leading to testing of earlier generation material from other programs and ultimately to a full crossing and evaluation program. At different stages of the development of the breeding program, other facilities such as disease and pest screening nurseries and cereal chemistry facilities can be developed. Javier (1987) introduced the concept of a \"planned level of capability\" in research. The planned level of capability implies that a country determines in advance (at the time of research resource allocation) the desired extent of research into a commodity. Following Javier (1987) and Dagg (1988), the levels of capability in research can be considered as: 1) capability to monitor technological developments elsewhere, to keep up with world knowledge; 2) capability to introduce and test a technology under local conditions; 3) capability to carry out adaptive research to adapt technologies to local conditions; 4) capability to carry out applied research to generate new technology; and 5) capability to conduct basic and strategic research on agricultural problems. Dagg (1988) made a useful first attempt at quantifying the research resources required at each level of capability (Table 2).Adapting these estimates to plant breeding gives the following levels of capability for each particular environment: 1) capability to introduce and test a crop under local conditions, using international nurseries: 0.4 scientist-years; 2) capability to carry out adaptive breeding, involving selection of earlier generation material provided by international or other national programs under local conditions: 0.8 scientist-years; and 3) capability to carry out a full crossing and breeding program to generate new local varieties: 2.0 scientist-years. 2 It should be noted that a country can contain several identifiable breeding environments.The threshold wheat production level for each level of capability in a wheat breeding program is established from equation 11. The parameters used in the analysis are the same as in the above analysis, except for the number of scientistyears for each level of capability, the rate of production improvement expected from each level of capability, and the research lags involved. For the purposes of the analysis, gt is estimated at 1.0% per annum from a full crossing program, at 0.7% per annum from a selection program, and 0.5% per annum for a testing program (see below for further discussion of this issue). The differences between the rates of gain from testing, selection, and crossing are highly sensitive to the differences between the production environment and the environment of varietal origin. These values are only indicative and would need to be carefully determined in analyzing a particular region or country. In this analysis, a lag of 14 years between the costs being incurred and the relevant returns is used for a full breeding program. Lags for selection programs are 12 years and, for testing  programs, 10 years, on the basis that the research lag is shorter for those programs but that the adoption lag is the same length of time. The parameter estimates for the different levels of wheat breeding program are shown in Table 3.On the basis of these parameter estimates, the critical production level needed to justify investment in a full wheat breeding program (i.e., the level at which benefits equal costs) is found to be 322,000 t. For production environments generating less than 322,000 t, a full crossing program would not be economically justified. The threshold production level at which a testing program becomes economic is 82,000 t, and for a selection program it is 146,000 t.Decisions on efficient allocation of breeding resources need information not only on the production levels at which different programs become profitable, but also information on which program is the most profitable at different production levels. On the basis of the parameter values used, the critical wheat production level to make it economically worthwhile to test imported varieties is 82,000 t.Testing imported varieties remains the option with the highest NPV until the level of production reaches 704,000 t, when the selection program becomes more profitable (Table 4).3 The selection program remains the most profitable option until production reaches 1,582,000 t, when the full crossing program becomes the most profitable. where gthand gl2 refer to the rate of gain in programs 1 and 2, respectively; and n1 and n2 refer to t e lags in programs 1 and 2, respectively.The threshold levels of production needed to justify economically the different levels of breeding capability will vary for different countries / regions with the level of costs, expected rates of production increase, lags, and prices. However, all results depend critically on the relative rates of gain for each type of program and the environment to which it relates, an arbitrary estimate in this analysis.The sensitivity of the results to different relative rates of gain are examined below.The results of the above analysis depend critically on the relationship between gt and the level of capability of each program. There is very little direct empirical evidence on this relationship, and it is likely to vary widely between regions and countries; arbitrary estimates were used in the previous analysis for illustrative purposes. To avoid too great an emphasis on arbitrary estimates, an alternative analysis can be carried out to determine the threshold rate of production improvement.The threshold rate of production improvement necessary to make a given level of investment in a breeding program profitable can be determined from equation 12, provided data are available on the total expenditure on wheat breeding programs for the country/region under study. Data for Australia have been used to illustrate the method of calculating the threshold rate of production improvement, and estimates can be obtained in a similar manner for other countries / regions for which data are available.With average production of 14.9 million tons, price of US$152/t, total lags of 14 years, a discount rate of 12% per annum, and annual expenditures on wheat breeding of US$ 4.5 million (Brennan 1986), the threshold rate of production improvement needed in Australia is 0.97% per year (from equation 12). Between 1965-76 and 1985-87, Australia's average annual growth rates were 1.2% for ). Therefore the average rate of yield improvement has been marginally above the threshold rate, based on parameter values specified. A critical element of the threshold rate of yield improvement is the discount rate used. For a discount rate of 6% per annum (which would more accurately reflect the historical average real cost of capital in Australia over that period), the threshold rate of production improvement is 0.45% per year. On the other hand, if a high discount rate of 18% is used, the threshold rate is 2.02%, so that much of the area increase in Australia would need to be attributable to breeding to justify the amount of the breeding resources involved.Since many of the parameters of the above analysis have been determined arbitrarily, it is important to identify the sensitivity of the findings to changes in the levels of those parameters. The results of some sensitivity analyses (using values of +50% and -50% for each parameter) of the threshold size of an industry for a full breeding program are shown in Table 5. The threshold size is very sensitive to the values used for each parameter, with the rate of production improvement being particularly important. Similarly, because of the long lags used in the model, the discount rate also has a critical impact on the profitability and threshold levels. At a discount rate of 6%, the critical production level to justify a breeding program is 149,000 t, while at 18% it is 668,000 t.The results of the comparative analysis for different breeding programs (Table 4) are also sensitive to the rates of production gain between programs, relative costs, and the length of the lags for each program. Proportional changes in gt or C t and equal absolute changes in n have a proportional effect on the thresholds. All thresholds from Table 4 are reduced in equal proportions when there is a given percentage increase in gt for each program, or a given proportional change in total costs, or an equal absolute reduction in lags (as if the adoption lags were reduced). However, proportional changes in n (which could occur, for example, if off-season nurseries allow a proportional reduction in research lags) or equal absolute changes in gt (where new material becomes available for all programs) or C (where registration procedures are modified for all new varieties) for each program change the relative threshold values.Because of the uncertainty in each of the parameters, the overall result of the analysis is extremely uncertain. However, much of the uncertainty for many of the parameters relates to the general nature of the analysis carried out here. When the analysis is being undertaken for a specific region or country in a specific period, uncertainty in the time lags, prices, discount rates, scientist costs, and resources needed is markedly reduced, so that the overall level of uncertainty of the results is likely to be sufficiently small to make the analysis a useful tool for decision making. The sensitivity of the results to the values of the parameters, and their relation to each other, emphasize the need to use data specific to a particular region or country. The analysis described above was done using global average data to illustrate the potential usefulness of the analysis rather than to produce results applicable over a wide range of situations.The critical assumption for the comparative analysis of different breeding programs is the rates of production gain under different programs (i.e., the relative sizes of gt for each program). The analysis above used essentially arbitrary values, as there are no empirical data. Several possible cases can be examined in more detail, however. For example, in the Punjab of Pakistan, which is agroclimatically very similar to northwestern Mexico where CIMMYf's major wheat breeding program is located, the difference in the rate of gain from a full breeding program and a testing program is likely to be small. If the relative g/s were 0.7% for testing, 0.8% for selecting, and 1.0% for crossing, the threshold production levels would be lower for testing and selecting and the same as the base case (Table 4) for crossing. However, because of the higher rates of improvement from testing and selecting, crossing is not the most economic program at any production level (Table 6).Alternatively, when a particular agroclimatic environment in one country is not found outside that country, such as the dryland wheat areas of central and southern India, the difference between a full breeding program and a testing program might be large. If the relative gl's were 0.3% for testing, 0.5% for selecting, and 0.8% for crossing, the threshold production levels for testing and selecting are higher than for the base program, but crossing becomes the most economic program at a lower production level, because material specific to the environment must be developed to obtain the higher rates of production increase.The results obtained from this analysis indicate that it is possible to estimate the threshold sizes of an industry at which different breeding programs can be economically justified or, alternatively, the threshold rate of production improvement needed to justify a given level of breeding expenditure. The critical production level to justify a full wheat breeding program (322,000 t) is somewhat larger than initially expected, given the number of breeding programs for environments with smaller production levels in both developing and developed countries. However, the sensitivity of the critical size to the estimates of the parameters means that it is difficult to generalize on the implications for the respective roles of international agricultural research centers and national agricultural research systems. For example, the critical size for a wheat program for Southeast Asia (based on a cost per scientist-year of US$ 25,000) is 161,000 t, whereas the critical size for a region such as West Africa (with a scientist-year Table 6. Sensitivity of threshold production levels to relative rates of gain  3. b gt = 0.7%, 0.8%, and 1.0% for testing, selecting, and crossing programs, respectively. c gt = 0.3%, 0.5%, and 0.8% for testing, selecting, and crossing programs, respectively. d Crossing not the most profitable at any prod uction level (see footnote 3). cost of US$ 83,000) is 534,000 t. The findings of the model are meaningful only when they relate to a specific region.An important question for many countries is what proportion of the gross value of a commodity's production to devote to research. The results of the threshold analysis provide an indication of the level at which the resources invested in research can be expected to provide an economic return. At the threshold level of production for a full wheat breeding program of 322,000 t, the gross value of wheat produced is US$ 49 million, so that the cost of the breeding program represents 0.20% of the value of production. At the threshold levels for a testing program and a selection program, the costs represent 0.16% and 0.18% of the gross value of wheat produced, respectively. Spillover Effects from Other Programs These results are modified if spillover effects from other breeding programs in similar environments or to other countries are taken into account. Whether or not it has its own research program, a country may be able to obtain benefits from importing technology from a similar agroclimatic region. Davis, Oram, and Ryan (1987) incorporated such spillover effects into an analysis of research benefits. The potential for the cost-saving impact of research in one country to spill over to another country was determined by the comparability of agroclimatic characteristics of the countries. Coefficients of spillover between each of the ecological regions were estimated. A country with agroclimatic characteristics identical to those of the country where the research is undertaken would have a potential spillover coefficient of one (so that benefits in one country would have the same potential cost-reducing impact in the other). Countries with substantially different agroclimatic characteristics would have potential spillover effects close to zero. Davis, Oram, and Ryan (1987) then modified their calculations to account for differences in the potential of research systems to adapt research from elsewhere to produce spillover effects. Spillover effects can be incorporated into the model developed in this study, although no attempt has been made to introduce spillover effects formally into the analysis above. The rate of production progress expected from the breeding/ testing program can be adjusted to take into account whether there is a program in a similar agroclimatic region that could have spillover effects. However, spillover effects can be double-sided. If a neighboring agroclimatically similar region has a breeding program, the material available for testing and/ or crossing for the target region is likely to be well adapted, and breeding progress can be expected to be more rapid than if there were no neighboring program. On the other hand, if there is a neighboring program, progress in the target region in the absence of its own program is likely to be higher as well. Thus the net effect on the rate of progress as a result of establishing the program-that is, the difference between progress with and without the program-is difficult to determine.It is apparent from the results of the analysis that the smallest countries need to face the issue of a system of regional research collaboration. Ruttan (1982, p. 178) concludes that\" there is no way that a small country can avoid being dependent on others--on the international agricultural research system, on the research systems of large countries in the same region, on multinational firms-for much of its agricultural technology.\" Ruttan (1982) suggested that research in the smaller research systems must directly support programs of applied research and technology development such as plant breeding. However, for a breeding program to be warranted in a region, its agroclimatic variation from other regions and the area devoted to the crop in that region need to be sufficient for the gains that might be realized to offset the costs of the program (Ruttan 1982). Jarrett (1982) discussed the conditions for successful regional (or international) groupings of countries which cannot justify separate research programs. The key requirements were a commonality of interest and an acceptable distribution of the benefits. If these conditions can be met, potential exists for groupings of smaller countries to establish profitable breeding programs. In the case of wheat breeding, this analysis indicates that there is a commonality of interest for small countries to join regional programs. It remains to be established whether an acceptable distribution of benefits can result.An important question related to the potential for regional collaboration is the role that international centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research can play in assisting small countries to overcome the problems associated with uneconomic breeding programs. International centers can assist small countries to overcome these problems when a number of similar environments are found across several such countries. In that case, the international centers are likely to be justified in making a major commitment of breeding resources to a particular\" shared\" environment.An examination of the mega-environments (or major target wheat growing environments) which CIM:MYT uses in its planning decisions revealed marked differences between them in the relative importance of small countries! regions. Table 7 shows the number of countries in each mega-environment falling below two of the key threshold production levels (322,000 t, when crossing programs become profitable, on average, and 1,582,000 t, when crossing programs become the most profitable option, on average). About three-quarters of the countries in mega-environments 2 (high rainfall) and 5B (hot, dry) are too small to justify a crossing program. Several other mega-environments also encompass few countries for which a crossing program appears to be the most profitable option.International centers such as CI\"M:MYT can play an important role in developing germplasm for those areas or in guiding the establishment of regional programs where national programs cannot be justified. If more precise analysis using specific data relating to each country / region showed the same result, there would be a prima facie case for CIMMYT, in allocating its resources across megaenvironments, to assign additional weights to those mega-environments with a large proportion of small countries where a crossing program would be unprofitable.The model developed in this paper is capable of addressing questions of resource allocation for plant breeding programs and possibly for other types of agricultural research programs, and of providing important information to research administrators. The results of the analyses emphasize the need to consider establishing regional cooperative breeding programs or to provide input from the international centers for many countries with small wheat industries, as many cannot justify even a testing program. Regional programs can generate substantial economic benefits by saving scarce agricultural research resources for many resource-poor countries.It is not possible to draw precise conclusions about the appropriate breeding program for any particular country/region from the analyses presented here.Only when the data applicable to that country/ region are used can conclusions be drawn that will be useful for decision-makers. The following data are required for such an analysis: 1) the expected number of scientist-years tor each program; 2) the expected costs (including support staff and equipment) per scientist; 3) the expected research and adoption lags for each breeding program; 4) the appropriate price; 5) the appropriate discount rate; and 6) the expected rate of increase in production from each program, given the existence of breeding programs in similar environments and the degree to which easily achievable breeding gains have already been achieved. With these data, the threshold levels of production can be established for the different breeding programs and compared to production in the region.Alternatively, it is possible to determine the threshold rate of production improvement necessary to justify given levels of breeding expenditure. The data requirements are similar, except that total breeding expenditure replaces the other cost data and the current production level is inserted in the analysis in place of the expected rates of gain. Any country/ region can then establish whether its breeding sector can achieve the level of production improvement required for the breeding program to be profitable.Whichever analysis is used, the results, when based on data applicable to a particular country/region, can provide important and useful information to decision makers, either in smaller countries needing to decide the path of development of their research system or in larger countries having small production environments or shrinking research budgets. International research centers can also use the results of the analysis in determining what level of resources to allocate to each of their target environments in view of the profitability of resources provided by the individual countries that constitute those environments. The analysis can also provide indications as to the likely impact of policies to improve the efficiency of the research system, such as policies designed to reduce research and/ or adoption lags. Use of economic analysis, even based on essentially simple models such as that presented here, can lead to more efficient allocation of agricultural research resources, and therefore more effective and productive agricultural systems. ","tokenCount":"7741"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2924976c6e18eada182925dd8b44427c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186%2Fs12889-016-3961-5.pdf","id":"-599446735"},"keywords":["Suicide","Pesticides","Sri Lanka","Spatial","Temporal","Regional","Socioeconomic","Poisoning","Epidemiology"],"sieverID":"0f17627b-461c-4e7c-b667-79124ea572ed","pagecount":"14","content":"Background: Between 1955 and 2011 there were marked fluctuations in suicide rates in Sri Lanka; incidence increased six-fold between 1955 and the 1980s, and halved in the early 21st century. Changes in access to highly toxic pesticides are thought to have influenced this pattern. This study investigates variation in suicide rates across Sri Lanka's 25 districts between 1955 and 2011. We hypothesised that changes in the incidence of suicide would be most marked in rural areas due to the variation in availability of highly toxic pesticides in these locations during this time period. Methods: We mapped district-level suicide rates in 1955, 1972, 1980 and 2011. These periods preceded, included and postdated the rapid rise in Sri Lanka's suicide rates. We investigated the associations between district-level variations in suicide rates and census-derived measures of rurality (population density), unemployment, migration and ethnicity using Spearman's rank correlation and negative binomial models. Results: The rise and fall in suicide rates was concentrated in more rural areas. In 1980, when suicide rates were at their highest, population density was inversely associated with area variation in suicide rates (r = −0.65; p < 0.001), i.e. incidence was highest in rural areas. In contrast the association was weakest in 1950, prior to the rise in pesticide suicides (r = −0.10; p = 0.697). There was no strong evidence that levels of migration or ethnicity were associated with area variations in suicide rates. The relative rates of suicide in the most rural compared to the most urban districts before (1955), during (1980)  and after (2011) the rise in highly toxic pesticide availability were 1.1 (95% CI 0.5 to 2.4), 3.7 (2.0 to 6.9) and 2.1 (1.6 to 2.7) respectively. Conclusions: The findings provide some support for the hypothesis that changes in access to pesticides contributed to the marked fluctuations in Sri Lanka's suicide rate, but the impact of other factors cannot be ruled out.Suicide is a significant cause of mortality worldwide resulting in approximately 800,000 deaths per year [1]. Low-and middle-income countries in the WHO's South-East Asian region account for 39.1% of suicides around the world despite only making up 25.9% of the population [1]. Globally, at least one third of suicides are attributable to pesticide self-poisoning; this proportion is higher in many parts of Asia [2].Case fatality from pesticide self-poisoning is approximately 10-20% [3]; this is over ten times higher than following self-poisoning in industrialised countries, where medicines are the most commonly ingested poisons [4]. Despite this, many acts of self-poisoning with pesticides are carried out with low suicidal intent [5,6]. The high case-fatality associated with pesticide self-poisoning combined with the observation that a large proportion of cases have low intent, underpins the importance of pesticides as a major public health issue [7].Sri Lanka, a middle-income country in South Asia where pesticides account for a high proportion of suicides, has experienced marked fluctuations in its suicide rate over the last 50 years. The highest suicide rate (47 per 100,000) was observed in 1995 [8]. During some of this time period Sri Lanka was involved in a civil war. Analyses however suggest that the fluctuations in suicide rates were driven by changes to the availability of pesticides within the country rather than the conflict [8,9]. The main changes to the availability of pesticides in Sri Lanka were the result of regulatory activity by the Registrar of Pesticides [10]. More recently the Presidential Committee's National Suicide Prevention Strategy (1997) included a focus on reducing pesticide accessibility through research, education and legislation.Research to date has however only investigated fluctuations in suicide rates at a national level. Previous work suggests that internal migration within Sri Lanka may have contributed to the rise and regional differences in suicide rates [11]. Furthermore international literature highlights unemployment [12] and low socioeconomic position [13] as other contributors to suicide trends and area differences in rates.We hypothesise that if ease of access to pesticides was the main driver for the high suicide rate, the rise and fall in suicide rates would be greatest in agricultural (rural/ low population density) areas because of the high levels of pesticide use (ease of access) in these locations. In addition the largest area differences in suicide rates would occur in the 1980s, around the time when high toxicity pesticides were most readily available and selfpoisoning accounted for almost 80% of suicides in Sri Lanka [9].Sri Lanka is an island nation situated in the Indian Ocean, off the South-East coast of India. It has a population of 20.3 million people, 77% of whom live in rural areas [14]. Following a number of boundary changes over the last few decades, the country is composed of 25 districts.The Sri Lankan civil war  largely took place in the northern and eastern provinces, which include the districts of Jaffna, Mannar, Kilinochchi, Vavuniya, Mullativu, Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampara. The capital city of Colombo is situated on the west coast of Sri Lanka. It has the highest population density in the country, followed by its neighboring districts. Agriculture forms the second largest industry in Sri Lanka, employing 28.5% of the working population in 2014 [15].Population data were obtained using the Sri Lankan censuses carried out in 1953, 1971, 1981 and 2011 [14, 16-18]. The first year for our analysis, 1953, was selected as it preceded the year on year rises in suicide that occurred over the subsequent 40 years (Fig. 1) [8]. Data from two censuses (1961 and 2001) were excluded from our analyses because district-level data on suicide risk factors or suicide (see below) were not available for all districts; the 1963 census did not include data broken down by district-level, and the 2001 census omitted data from a number of north-eastern districts. District-level data on the incidence of suicide by pesticide poisoning was not available, so all analyses were based on overall suicide rates. Data for 2011 were obtained from the Department of Police, Division of Statistics, Sri Lanka. The number of suicides was initially reported according to 43 police divisions. Suicide rates for each of the 25 districts have been calculated by dividing the total number of suicides for the police divisions that make up each district, by the district population according to the 2011 census (see Appendix 1). Some districts included more than one police division. Where this was the case the division's boundaries fell entirely within the district; no police division straddled district boundaries. District-level suicide data collected by the Police department for 1955, 1972 and 1980 were obtained from publications by Kearney andMiller (1985, 1988)  [6,7]. For 1955For , 1972For and 1980, data were only available on suicide rates; it was not possible to obtain the suicide counts for each district from the Sri Lankan Police Department. We translated these rates into counts by multiplying the district population recorded in the census for each year by the suicide rate for that district.Potential area-level risk factors for suicide were included in the analysis if: a) there was previous evidence or speculation regarding their association with suicide rates and b) comparable district-level data were available in at least three of the four censuses included in our analysis. This limited the factors available for inclusion.Where available, data on the following factors were extracted for each district from censuses in 1953 [16], 1971 [17], 1981 [18] and 2011 [14]: a) population density in persons per square mile: a commonly used measure of rurality and hence farming and access to/use of pesticides [19,20]; b) migration as indexed by the percentage of inmigrants to each district; c) unemployment in terms of the percentage of people over 10 years old in 1971 and 1981, and over 15 years in 2011, who were unemployed but available for work; d) ethnicity with regards to the percentage of Tamils living in each district. In Sri Lanka the main ethnic group, Sinhala, make up 74.9% of the population, whilst Tamils make up 15.3% [9]. Given Sri Lanka's recent history of civil war involving the Tamil population mainly situated in the northern and eastern provinces, we were interested in investigating whether any changes in the geographical distribution of suicide were associated with the geographical distribution of the Tamil population. Differences in suicide risk between ethnicities have been hypothesised in Sri Lanka but have not been studied [21].District-level data on religion were also available in each of the four censuses; the main religion in Sri Lanka is Buddhism, accounting for 70% of the population [9]. We note however that the percentage of Buddhists in each district was strongly inversely correlated with the percentage of Tamils at every time point, as Buddhists tend to be Sinhala (all r > −0.66, all p < 0.01). We have therefore not investigated religion separately.District-level relative rates of suicide, using the overall national suicide rate as the denominator, were calculated for each time point. These were transposed onto thematic maps created using ArcGIS. We chose standard cut-offs that have been used in previous literature: <0.67, 0.67-0.90, 0.91-1.10, 1.11-1.50, >1.50 [22]. We used the administrative boundary layer package in order to create these maps [23].The following administrative boundaries for Sri Lanka have changed over the time period investigated, with the formation of: We used the most recent administrative boundaries to create thematic maps for each time point and assumed that for the earlier time points, suicide rates in newly formed districts were the same as for districts from which they were formed. For example for the 1953, 1971 and 1981 data we have assumed that Kilinochchi had the same suicide rate as Jaffna, the district which it was part of until 1984. We compared the rates of newly formed districts with the original district definition in order to check our assumption (see Appendix 2). The differences in suicide rates between newly formed and original districts were slight (<15%) for all districts except Ampara and Batticaloa (40%).The ecological associations between socioeconomic indicators and suicide rates at each point in time were investigated using Spearman's rank correlation coefficients. Suicide rates were then stratified by population density to explore the relative risk of suicide according to this proxy indicator of pesticide availability. The following categories were chosen >2000, 500-2000 and <500 persons per square mile. Colombo and Gampaha (combined population in 1981: 3,090,103) were the only two districts with a population density greater than 2000 persons per square mile. Eleven districts (population: 8,105,251) had a population density between 500 and 2000 persons per square mile. Twelve districts (population: 3,651,396) had a population density of <500 persons per square mile. The first cut point was chosen due to the large difference between population densities of Gampaha and Kandy (the third most densely populated district). The second cut point was based on the distinction between dry and wet zones, as this is commonly used to differentiate between intermediate and rural districts in Sri Lanka [24]. We categorised each district at each time point into the 3 population density categories based on the 1981 population density as there was a very strong correlation between the population density in each census year compared with the population density in 1981 (all r > 0.98; all p < 0.001), indicating that there were no major changes in the relative rurality of the different areas over the course of our analysis.We estimated the association between the area level suicide rate and population density (as a categorical covariate) as rate ratios, whilst controlling for any confounding by area level unemployment (as a continuous covariate) using negative binomial regression models. Negative binomial regression is an extension of log-linear or Poisson regression (i.e. log transformed rates are included in the model), which accommodates variation between areas in the rate of suicide (using a gamma distributed random effect).Figure 2 illustrates the distribution of Sri Lanka's population by district in 1981, using population density as an indicator of rurality or agricultural activity.There were four fold differences in overall suicide rates in Sri Lanka across the four periods forming the basis of this analysis. The incidence of suicide ranged from 6.9 per 100,000 in 1955 to 29.0 per 100,000 in 1980 (Table 1); male rates were two to three times higher than the female rates. Population density more than doubled between 1955 and 2011; unemployment and the proportion of Tamils in the population fell substantially over the study period.Overall suicide rates by district Figure 3 illustrates the geographic distribution of relative suicide rates at the four time points. Crude suicide rates by district and maps which illustrate the data disaggregated by sex can be found in Appendix 3 and 4. The lowest rates appear concentrated in and around Sri Lanka's capital city Colombo throughout the period. The areas with the highest rates are generally in northern and central Sri Lanka, with the exception of 1955.The district-level trends correspond with those observed nationally, with suicide rates reaching their peak in the majority of districts in 1980 (Appendix 3). In contrast the absolute suicide rates in the urban districts of Colombo and Gampaha remain relatively stable throughout the time period studied.Suicide rates stratified by population density are summarised in Table 2. In all time periods suicide rates are higher in low population density areas. Suicide rates were similar in all three strata in 1955. The biggest difference in suicide rates between population density strata occurred in 1980. The highest relative rate, 3.7, is observed in this year in the most sparsely populated strata, declining to 1.9 in 2011 when overall suicide rates had fallen substantially. The peak in suicide rates in the most populated strata occurs in 1972 in contrast to the peaks in the other two strata, which occur in 1980.Correlations between suicide rates and various censusderived factors are summarised in Table 3. There was no statistical evidence of an association between ethnicity (%Tamil) or migration, and suicide rates. Population density and unemployment were the only factors for which there was statistical evidence of a correlation with suicide rates at some of the time points investigated. Suicide rates were most strongly correlated with both population density and unemployment in the 1980s.We note a strong positive correlation between population density and unemployment (0.82 (p < 0.001)) i.e. unemployment is low in rural areas. As an additional posthoc analysis we investigated the association between district level suicide and population density using negative binomial models controlling for district levels of unemployment. Table 2 presents both the unadjusted and adjusted models for the years for which we had data on unemployment. Adjusting for unemployment resulted in District-level suicide rates in Sri Lanka have markedly changed over the last 50 years, with evidence that the largest changes are concentrated in the most rural (sparsely populated) areas. The strongest correlation between suicide rates and population density occurred in the 1980s prior to pesticide bans, at a time when access to the most toxic pesticides was at its highest. The stratification of suicide rates by population density elucidates this further; the relative suicide rates in the most rural districts in comparison to the most urban districts before (1955), during (1980) and after (2011) the rise in highly toxic pesticide availability were 1.1 (95% CI 0.5, 2.4), 3.7 (95% CI 2.0, 6.9) and 1.9 (95% CI 1.4, 2.5) respectively. The findings provide some support for the hypothesis that changes in access to pesticides, as indexed by residence in a rural (low population density) area may have contributed to the marked fluctuations in Sri Lanka's suicide rate [8,9].District-level unemployment data were negatively correlated with suicide rates in 1971-2 and 1980-1. This surprising incidental finding is in contrast to a previous study of a single district of Sri Lanka which investigated the geographical patterning of suicide attempts in small communities (median population 1416) [25,26]. Yet the finding has been noted previously in relation to suicide at district-level [12]. Researchers have speculated about the cause of this negative correlation, suggesting suicides in areas of low unemployment may be the result of people moving from areas of high unemployment in search of work and subsequently experiencing loneliness and isolation [12]. However, districts with low levels of unemployment are also the most sparsely populated (correlation 0.82 (p < 0.001)), and this may influence the associations we observed. In models controlling for district levels of unemployment there was still evidence in 1981 and 2011 of a greater rate of suicide in rural areas. The results of these multivariable analyses should, however, be interpreted with caution due to the small sample size (n = 25 districts) of this ecological analysis and the strong correlation between area levels of unemployment and population density [27].This paper also provides support for previous findings that the temporal changes in suicide rates do not correlate with the civil war [8]. The greatest increase in suicide rates in all population density strata occurred in 1972, prior to the war commencing. The peak in suicide rates in the most densely populated strata also occurred in 1972. Furthermore the district-level maps show high suicide rates in a number of central and southern districts that were less affected by the war than areas in the North of the country.This study is the first to assess the district-level variation in suicide rates in Sri Lanka over the time period during which there were marked changes in suicide rates, and to correlate these changes with secular variations in important social factors. Our use of maps enables the changing spatial distribution of suicide to be easily visualised.The findings in this study should however be considered in the context of the following limitations. Firstly, in our analysis we were unable to obtain a direct measure of access to pesticides. We therefore used population density as a proxy indicator for rurality and thereby pesticide access. Population density is a frequently used measure of rurality [19,20] and pesticide poisonings have been shown to occur more commonly in rural areas [28,29]. It has been argued that population density may not always be the most appropriate measure of rurality [30]. This is especially the case in large districts where the majority of people reside in an urban centre; when population density is used to classify the population in these districts, they would be incorrectly categorised as rural residents. Nevertheless, based on our knowledge of Sri Lanka, a review of the way each district was categorised in our study reassures us that this was not the case in our study. To explore the use of population density as a proxy indicator further, we investigated the correlation between population density and percentage of agricultural workers per district in 2011. The high correlation provided additional support for this approach (−0.58; p = 0.025) [15].Secondly, method-specific district-level suicide mortality data were unavailable. National data however suggest since their introduction in Sri Lanka, pesticides have been the most common method of suicide [8] for example accounting for 55% of suicides in 2005 [31]. Furthermore the percentage of pesticide suicides varies over time and previous analyses have indicated that most of the temporal trends in suicide in Sri Lanka are driven by changes in pesticide self-poisoning [8,9].Thirdly, we were unable to investigate the relationship between mental illness and suicide rates in each time period, as district-level data on mental illness were only available for 2012 [32]. Compared to the West, mental illness in Asia appears to contribute to a relatively smaller proportion of suicides [21,33]. Data from Sri Lanka suggest that only 48% of suicide deaths [34] and 52% of self-poisoning attempts screened positive for depression [35].Fourthly, there may be area variations in the quality of the recording of suicide due to differences in recording processes and stigma. These errors however are most likely to lead to under-estimation of the strength of associations. Fifthly, there were a number of changes in definitions and administrative boundaries for data collection over time. As described earlier, we assumed suicide rates for new districts were the same as for the districts from which they were formed. With the exception of one district, the 2011 suicide rates were generally similar between the new districts and the old ones from which they were formed (see Appendix 2). Ethnicity is an example of a potential risk factor for which there have been changes in definition over time. In 1953, Tamil ethnicity was recorded as a single category, whereas in later censuses Tamils were divided into Sri Lankans and Indians. It is also possible that there are more subtle changes in data collection that are not apparent in the census reports. It may therefore be more appropriate to interpret the risk factor data as stand-alone years, rather than over time. Finally, it is important to emphasise that these results may be subject to ecological fallacy, therefore causal inferences are limited.This research lends support to previous studies, which have suggested that suicide rates are influenced by access to pesticides in Sri Lanka. The findings can to some extent be extrapolated to other populous middle-income countries in Asia, most notably India and China. These two countries are the biggest manufacturers of pesticides globally [36] and have a large agricultural sector, heavy pesticide use and high levels of pesticide self-poisoning [2,37,38]. Yet neither country has enforced as many bans on the most toxic pesticides as Sri Lanka and neither country has achieved the same level of reduction in suicide rates during the time period studied [39,40]. Since 2006 a downturn in the incidence of suicides in China has been observed. However this is thought to be largely due to economic prosperity and population shifts from rural to urban areas [29]. Consequently the findings of this study indicate that the World Health Organisation's call to restrict the most toxic pesticides globally, could also have a major impact on suicide levels elsewhere in Asia [41].Bearing in mind the limitations of this study, districtlevel variation in suicide rates provides some support for the hypothesis that the fall in suicide rates was driven by reductions in access to lethal pesticides.   ","tokenCount":"3640"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"be63f466d34044245c83f821138abe71","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a188011f-369c-4665-9b9b-9eddddc1c579/retrieve","id":"-740106775"},"keywords":["Gender","climate variability","adaptation","participatory action research","climate analogues, weather information, climate smart agriculture, Bangladesh","Ghana","Uganda"],"sieverID":"1e97ea81-6572-42d7-8fdb-4d1a4a9511c1","pagecount":"30","content":"Titles in this Working Paper series aim to disseminate interim climate change, agriculture and food security research and practices and stimulate feedback from the scientific community. Published by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).CCAFS research teams have developed an adaptation tool called 'climate analogues', an approach aimed at helping people visualize what their climate and environment is likely to look like in the future. The idea behind the analogue tool is to connect a particular location with places that have climates similar (analogous) to what climate scientists predict the climate will be like in 2030 and beyond in that location. The climate analogue approach can enable farmers to better visualize and understand what their agricultural future might look like and what kinds of changes and options they need to be considering now. The results of the pilot studies in three regions suggest that farmer-to-farmer visits to analogue sites will be more challenging and problematic for women than for men, and for the elderly. For men and women who are unable to travel, more innovative means of communicating the ideas behind climate analogues and what information can be gained from them could be explored, such as through mobile phones or films. The findings also suggest that information on climate change adaptation strategies could be effectively shared in central locations that are already commonly visited by both men and women, such as in market places, hospitals, schools and water collection points.The pilot studies also explored if, how, and what weather-related information is being accessed by different groups. Although listening to the radio is a popular way to receive formal weather forecasts, the tendency is for most adult men and both younger and adult women to rely primarily on indigenous knowledge of weather patterns. This trend seems to be slowly changing among young men, especially in the Bangladesh and Uganda sites, who rely on a combination of radio and cell phones for weather-related information and forecasts. Although seasonal forecasts can inform improved risk management and longer-run adaptation practices, none of the study participants, male or female, were yet accessing or using seasonal weather forecasts.Moushumi Chaudhury is a social scientist and science officer with the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (www.ccafs.cgiar.org). Her research focuses on developing approaches, tools and strategies aimed at enhancing linkages between the knowledge co-produced by researchers, farmers, community organizations, development practitioners and others, and actions that lead to sustainable agricultural practices that enhance livelihoods and resilience to a changing climate. Her expertise and experience includes conducting research and policy analysis on climate change adaptation and mitigation, early warning systems, renewable energy, ecosystem services, gender, and the MDGs for various international research institutes and UN agencies. She can be contacted at: M.Chaudhury@cgiar.org.Patti Kristjanson is an agricultural economist and research leader of CCAFS, based at the World Agroforestry Centre in Nairobi. Her expertise includes poverty and livelihood analyses, impact assessment, agricultural system analyses and innovative research approaches for linking knowledge with action. She has 25 years of experience leading and managing multidisciplinary teams from international and national agricultural research centres, in collaboration with universities, donors, private and public sectors across Africa and Asia (p.kristjanson@cgiar.org).Florence Birungi Kyazze is a lecturer in the Department of Extension and Innovation Studies, Makerere University. She is charged with the responsibilities of teaching and supervising students on statistical methodologies, social research methods, program development, gender and evaluation. Florence has also worked with the National Cereals Program as a senior social scientist to conduct extensive social research in gender, value chain analysis, curriculum development, community mobilization, and participatory approaches. She is also a senior advisor and researcher for Women's Initiative in Development and Para-legal Activities Association and a member for the Association for International Agricultural and Extension Education (fbirungikyazze@agric.mak.ac.ug).Jesse B. Naab is a Senior Research Scientist at Savanna Agricultural Research Institute in Ghana. His areas of specialty include agriculture and soil science. He has wide experience in farming systems research using participatory technology development approaches and in the use of the Decision Support System for Agro-technology Transfer (DSSAT) model to assess carbon sequestration by cropping systems, yield gaps and risks associated with biotic and abiotic stresses. He is currently the leader of the Farming Systems Research Team in North Western Ghana (jessenaab@gmail.com).Sharmind Neelormi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh. She is engaged in research and advocacy on various issues such as sustainable socio-economic development, climate change vulnerability, impacts assessments and adaptation with a special focus on communitybased activities and disaster risk reduction. She is also engaged in one of the pioneering mitigation efforts in Bangladesh. Her major focus has been gender and she has played an active role in climate change negotiations of UNFCCC bringing gender to the forefront. She is a focal point for the Gender CC-Women for Climate Justice for Asia (neelormi1@yahoo.com).  Current climate variability and future climate change does and will impact men and women differently, due to differences in social positioning and the various roles men and women play. This relates to the fact that their responses to the impacts of climate variability and change also differ, especially when it comes to safeguarding their food security and livelihoods. To date, however, there has been little focus on how men and women manage risks and adapt to challenges brought about by a changing climate. Much research into agricultural and farming systems has looked at soil, water and land management strategies and technologies that can improve productivity. Very little emphasis has been placed on understanding the different adaptive strategies men and women apply in order to secure their livelihoods in the face of climate change. If climate change research and development interventions are to be targeted to men and women, we need to understand both men and women's adaptation strategies. Research teams from Bangladesh, Ghana, and Uganda helped select and further develop a range of participatory approaches along with the CCAFS and FAO researcher/trainer team. Particular attention was paid to the sampling frame and training to help ensure the guiding questions were asked in the same way, and reported in the same format, in order to allow cross-site comparison of results. The teams tested the approaches in a pilot study that covered one CCAFS site within each of the three countries, and came together again shortly afterwards to report on the results of the field test and further improve and refine the training materials based upon their experiences.This paper reports on the results and lessons learned from this pilot test in the villages of Chandipur in Bangladesh, Kyengeza in Uganda, and Doggoh in Ghana. We are particularly interested in using the findings to inform the design of further 'action research' aimed at benefiting rural men and women in terms of enhancing food security and adaptation to a changing climate.Section 2 describes the importance and need for conducting research on gender, climate change, agriculture, and food security. Section 3 identifies lessons learned from the pilot studies, focusing on developing gender-sensitive climate analogue approaches, equitable dissemination and use of weather information, and sustainable climate smart agriculture practices. This section will provide key lessons that inform the design of further participatory action research with implementing partners that work closely with agricultural communities on the ground, such as NGOs, development organizations and government agencies. Section 4 suggests remaining research needs aimed at closing the gender gap.Gender refers to socially constructed roles and identities associated with men and women and the relationship between men and women (UNDP 2010). Gender roles are shaped by ideological, religious, ethnic, economic, and cultural factors but can change depending on circumstances (Quisumbing 1996). The context-specific relationship between men and women can affect the distribution of resources, wealth, work, decision-making, political power, and rights and entitlements (UN 1999). Many research for development efforts focusing on climate change issues do not take gender considerations into account. This is due to many reasons (Terry 2009). One reason is that the scientific exploration for solutions to climate change has been largely based on searching for technical fixes, such as new crop varieties or energy-saving technologies, without paying attention to social dimensions of climate change, including gender. Another reason is because gender is a complex issue, and a challenging area to research.Source: FAO 2010-2011We know that rural women often face higher levels of poverty and have less education than men do, and may be socially and physically restricted due to cultural norms as well. This means they are likely to be less resilient to a changing climate alongside all the other huge and rapid economic, social and environmental changes they have been facing. Even though women contribute significantly to agriculture, (see Figure 1) where they make up almost 50% of the workforce, their relative lack of access to land, information and extension services, credit, improved agricultural technologies (FAO 2010-11;Quisumbing and Pandolfell 2009) and skills (Rao 2005) limits their access to the physical, natural, human, and financial capital assets that help enhance livelihood resilience (Scoones 2005). Although evidence exists that there is a gender gap, this gap persists, alongside a belief by many decision-makers across the developing world that women are merely home producers or \"assistants\" in the farm household, and not farmers in their own right and key economic agents (Merha and Rojas 2008).There is also evidence from many developing countries that climate-related shocks have had much greater negative impacts on women than men, and on asset-poor households.For example, in Ethiopia, droughts were found to have a more severe effect on femaleheaded and poorer households (Dercon et al. 2005). In the Philippines, droughts had the greatest adverse impact on households with less land and assets (Quisumbing and McNiven 2010).FAO argues for serious efforts towards closing the gender gap, arguing 'if women had the same access to productive resources as men, they could increase yields on their farms by 20-30 percent. This could raise total agricultural output in developing countries by 2.5-4 percent, which could in turn reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 12-17 percent (FAO 2010-11 p. 5).' Research shows that when women start to have decision-making power, access and some control over earnings from agriculture, a greater proportion of the income is allocated to food, child nutrition and education (Bhagowalia et al. 2010;Hazarika and Guha-Khasnobis 2008;Smith et al. 2003).It is important to note, however, that although most of the literature on gender and climate change in relation to agricultural development states that women are more vulnerable than men because of their lack of resources and entitlements, not all men and women are equally vulnerable to climate change (Arora-Jonsson 2011). In many instances, women can be more resilient to climate change depending on their status with regards to income and access to social networks. Women are also not necessarily victims of climate change but can contribute to finding solutions on how to cope with climate change (Nelson and Stathers 2011). Therefore, gender roles and abilities should not be homogenized. Generalizing about women's and men's roles and responsibilities is also not advised because it does not allow for nuanced understanding of vulnerabilities to climate variability and change by different types of men and women. And gender identities are dynamic as identity is based on interplay with other factors such as class and ethnicity (Carr 2008).Data in the pilot research studies in the three sites was collected primarily through focus group discussions. Men, women and in some cases, youths, were part of separate discussion/focus groups. A total of 348 respondents across the three sites participated in the study (see Appendix 1 for sample size details).'Climate analogues' is an approach that can help people visualize what their climate and environment is likely to look like in the future. The idea behind the analogue tool is to connect a particular location with places that have climates similar (analogous) to what climate scientists predict the climate will be like in 2030 and beyond in that location. The climate analogue approach can be used to help rural communities adapt to their changing climate by enabling farmers to better visualize and understand what their agricultural future might look like and what kinds of changes and options they need to be considering now. This approach could be used to initiate farmer-to-farmer exchanges of knowledge, for example, by encouraging farmers to visit climate analogue sites, or share knowledge with those in climate analogue areas through the use of videos or other information and communication technologies (ICTs).The main objective on the session on climate analogues was to field test the methods jointly developed with experts from CCAFS, FAO, and the local implementing partners to assess how well they address the questions surrounding how best to go about facilitating and organizing farmer to farmer exchanges between climate analogue sites and designing the complementary research. This entailed understanding the conditions under which men and women are mobile enough to visit neighbouring analogous sites, for a start. This information will be used to inform the development of appropriate adaptation interventions and actions making use of the new scientific approaches on climate analogues.In order to assess the relative mobility of different groups and better understand the reasons behind that movement, gender-disaggregated focus groups and village resource maps were the participatory research tools used. There were a total of 103 respondents across the three sites. Most respondents were adult women (48) and adult men ( 23). In all cases, non-technical language was used to discuss issues such as transportation, weather conditions, distance to villages, and barriers and opportunities to travelling that would hinder or help the flow of information by visiting an analogous village. It should be noted that when communicating to respondents about climate analogues, actual analogue sites were not used. Instead, those conducting the research explained the concept of farmerto-farmer exchanges and climate analogues in a hypothetical manner. For instance, in the case of Ghana, discussions revolved around a hypothetical visit to a neighbouring village that is currently drier than the one the respondents resided in. This approach raised an unanticipated issue, however, in Bangladesh, where the hypothetical analogue village that the researchers chose to discuss was actually a real village that the respondents were hesitant to visit and learn from, since it was known to have poor shrimp farming practices that led to high salinity levels. In other words, people prefer to learn from successes than failures, and expressed a desire to see situations where local communities are successfully dealing with their potential climate, rather than suffering from it. So how farmer-to-farmer exchanges to climate analogue sites are promoted and communicated, along with the criteria used in selecting such sites, are all critical.In terms of communicating the new and somewhat abstract concept of a climate analogue location to farmers, the pilot studies found that the use of non-technical language to communicate and discuss concepts of climate analogue locations is critical. The potential for farmer-to-farmer exchanges to such sites are best communicated as a good learning opportunity for farmers. The issue of potentially visiting sites where people are worse off (e.g. due to hotter, drier conditions), is a sensitive one. Giving examples of how farmers in the worse off analogue sites are successfully adapting to difficult conditions will help when designing research approaches that focus on exchanging adaptation strategies.Reasons for travelling. Table 1 below shows the findings regarding the major reasons behind traveling for men and women in these pilot villages of Bangladesh, Uganda and Ghana villages. In Bangladesh, the reasons why men travel and the reasons why women travel are very different. Men travel to look for employment, learn about agricultural techniques, and to socialize. Women travel to collect water, drop off their children to school, and to shop. Our results suggest that around 40% of men in Chandipur, Bangladesh here actively seek to learn about agricultural practices, especially regarding strategies for protecting crops during a cyclone, and they travel once or twice a year for this reason. Although the men actively seek to learn about agricultural practices being pursued elsewhere, women in Chandipur, Bangladesh also reported being keen to travel to learn about agricultural practices.In Doggoh, Ghana and Kyengeza, Uganda both men and women reported being interested in learning about agriculture from a nearby village, and travelling for that purpose. However, across all three sites, we found that the primary reasons that women travel outside their communities are to collect water, visit a doctor, trade, and accompany their children to school (Table 1). Information sharing. In all three sites, information collected on agricultural practices from a neighbouring village by adult men and women is informally shared with family members. In the Ugandan case, however, the male youth group reported sharing more information and actively seeking to learn about agricultural practices from other places compared to the group of older men who were more hesitant to share information and travel.Sharing of information was linked to changes in practices, according to study participants. For instance, women in Ghana stated that from visits they learned about and then adopted practices such as composting and forming social groups to boost their social networks and economic activity. The men in Ghana have started to plant more trees after visiting another village. In the case of Uganda, women have established clonal coffee nurseries and men have adopted mulching. In Bangladesh, men have become more aware of alternative crop varieties.Although being able to travel to other villages can have positive impacts such as the adoption of climate-smart practices, there are several factors that can deter mobility. These are outlined in Table 2. Constraints to mobility that are frequently mentioned by both men and women include lack of money to spend on travel, poor weather conditions (typically heavy rains), and large distances to cover. Table 2 shows that men cite limited financial resources for accessing a bicycle or a bus as a means of transport as a key mobility constraint. When men travel in Kyengeza, Uganda, it is mostly during harvesting periods of the year (i.e. June, July, December and January). Interestingly, mobile phones give men in Doggoh, Ghana the choice not to travel, as they are beginning to receive market price information on their phones. Some men are, however, unable to benefit from phone text messages since they are not written in the local language.Women face more travel barriers compared to men,. Not only is distance to a neighbouring village a factor, but cultural barriers, such as not being able to ride a bicycle in Kyengeza, Uganda or go outside as an unmarried girl in Chandipur, Bangladesh, restricts travelling. For women who do travel, the frequency of their travels is difficult to generalize since the extent to which they travel typically depends on their need to trade, weather conditions, and/or need for water.The case studies suggest that farmer-to-farmer visits will be more challenging and problematic for women than for men, and for the elderly compared to younger people. For men and women who are unable to travel, more innovative means of communicating the ideas behind climate analogues and what information can be gained from them (e.g. learning about potential farming options that will enhance food security and resilience to a changing climate) could be explored. Exchange of some types of information may be possible through mobile phones, but which types of information can be effectively communicated and used, how information should be communicated, and by whom, remains research questions. Another possibility that could to be explored is the use of films (e.g. short you-tube videos if internet connections exist or through a public viewing of a film projected through a laptop), which may be a more powerful communication medium since farmers will be able to visually understand different strategies their analogue neighbours use. The pilot study findings also suggest that information on climate change adaptation strategies could be provided in certain central locations that are already commonly visited by both men and women, such as in market places, hospitals, schools and water collection points.Farmers everywhere are very aware of the weather, watching it and the environment around them closely, and using their experience to adapt their agricultural practices accordingly. Differential access to this information could play a role in their ability to adapt to the increasing variability in weather conditions already occurring in many places. Therefore, it is important to document and address any gender-or age-based differences in access to and use of weather information, as well as to understand different information needs. Thus in order to address the research objective to better understand approaches and strategies for making weather information more useful and equitably accessible to rural women and men, we explored which types of weather information are currently available to women, men and youths in the Bangladesh, Uganda and Ghana sites, how they receive this information, if they are using it (and for what), and if not, what information they would like to receive.Gender and age-disaggregated focus group discussions and seasonal calendars were used to explore these issues. In order to test the usefulness of existing weather information, daily and seasonal forecasts, available from the national meteorological offices in their countries, were shared and discussed with the different groups. Among the 160 participants in this exercise across the three sites, broken into four groups, there were 41 adult women, 38 adult men, 48 young men and 33 young women. Youth groups were a focus because of the assumption that they are more likely to be (or become) users of newer technologies to receive weather information, such as cell phones and computers.Before testing the relevance of formal daily and seasonal forecasts to the lives of different groups of farmers, it was important to first discuss weather information without the use of formal forecasts generated by meteorological offices. In many cases, we found weather information is based largely upon informal indigenous knowledge (IK), for both men and women as shown in Table 3 below.When the formal forecasts were presented and discussed, many group participants struggled to understand them. In many cases, farmers were not familiar with the various symbols depicting weather conditions such as rainfall or sunshine, for example. Many do not have access to television or newspapers where they would see such visual symbols and become familiar with them. Thus communication challenges loom large if improved weather information is to reach, be perceived as useful, and used by both men and women farmers. The different groups were asked what the most important communication channels were for receiving formal daily and seasonal weather forecast information. Table 3 shows that indigenous knowledge (IK) is relied upon heavily by both men and women, as well as by young people, although boys in Chandipur, Bangladesh and Kyengeza, Uganda did not mention it. Reliance on radios is widespread. Newspapers were mentioned by boys in Chandipur, and cell phones were cited by boys and girls in Kyengeza.In Chandipur, Bangladesh, women and girls make use of the daily weather forecast information they receive on the radio or hear from their friends primarily to determine when it is possible to collect water, especially during the monsoon when the rains make it more difficult to do so. They also rely on indigenous knowledge.Among men in Chandipur, 60% use daily forecasts, especially during planting seasons. Only 50% of the male youth, however, use the daily forecasts since many are not involved in agriculture. Nevertheless, they prefer receiving daily forecasts by mobile phones and in the local language. Among the male youth who use daily forecasts, they have found forecasts particularly useful to learn about extreme weather events.Turning to Doggoh, Ghana, we also see that IK plays an important role, and radios are a key source of weather information. Women primarily rely on IK, but also get weather information when discussing farming activities with their husbands, since most women do not own radios.Both male and female youths in Doggoh receive weather-related information on the radio, but they too also rely on IK. They, however, have more trust in forecasts heard on the radio than do the adults.In the case of Kyengeza, Uganda, everyone has access to daily weather forecasts, but not everyone makes use of them. Apparently only around 20% of men actually use daily weather forecasts to help them decide whether to cultivate or not, since many find such forecasts not location-specific enough. Eighty percent of men listen to weather forecasts on the radio. Both men and women reported finding the forecasts unreliable, however. Eighty percent of women said they rely primarily on IK for indications of what is likely to happen with the weather.The male youth group in Kyengeza said they are more likely to use the daily forecasts. According to them, 50% of households use daily forecasts and 80% rely on the radio to help them plan agricultural activities. For the 20% of young men who use cell phones, they reported that these weather forecasts were not useful, as they are not reported in the local language.Young women in Kyengeza also rely on the radio and cell phone for information in general. Although they say that the weather information received through the SMS format is too general to be very useful to them, they feel it is from a \"trusted source\" since it is coming from the \"Prime Minister's Office\". However, in practice, most still rely on IK and not formal weather forecasts.Most seasonal weather forecasts developed by national meteorological departments include forecast information beyond seasonal rainfall totals, such as the start and duration of the rainfall season, rainfall frequency or distribution, and temperature. We found that few farmers across the three sites included in the pilot study are yet to receive such formal seasonal weather forecasts, with the exception of Chandipur, Bangladesh, where the men's group said that they are receiving seasonal forecasts via the radio as well as television, and these forecasts are useful to both farmers and fishermen.In Kyengeza, Uganda, when an example of a seasonal forecast was presented to the groups, women, and particularly young women, did not understand the meaning or potential use of it, even after some prompting from the focus group facilitators. They did not seem to know how to interpret it, nor use it to plan for their agricultural activities. Although the female youth groups did not fully grasp the potential usefulness of the seasonal forecasts, they were asked if they would trust such information if provided on the radio. Seventy percent of them claimed they would not because weather forecasts are unreliable in general.The adult men's groups, and the young men's groups, however, were able to interpret the example seasonal forecasts and their implications regarding agricultural activities (they also generally had higher education levels than the women and female youths). Many adult as well as young men in Kyengeza reported deriving and using seasonal forecasts based upon indigenous knowledge (e.g. the wind direction or timing of flowering of certain trees). For example, they plan when to plant early maturing varieties when such signs (or local people that interpret these weather signals) are indicating the likely timing of the start of the short rains. Those that were using irrigation (to produce tomatoes) were less interested in the prospect of receiving seasonal forecasts.No-one in Doggoh, Ghana had ever come across formal seasonal forecasts. When asked if and how they might use such information, however, all groups felt that it would be helpful for them, particularly for deciding when to plant. Radio was the preferred way of getting this information for all the groups.One of the aims of the pilot studies was to inform the design of inclusive targeting of climate information products and services for rural communities. Although the findings indicate that most do not use formal daily or seasonal forecasts, each group was asked what types of information they would like to have access to, and received through what channels (Table 4).In Chandipur, Bangladesh, information on rainfall is important for both men and women. The most effective channel for communication for both men and women are radios and announcements in public areas. This could be tea stalls for men and water collection points for women. Female youth, however, will still be at a disadvantage if forecasts are provided in public areas, since girls do not have the freedom to be as mobile as boys to go to public areas. In Doggoh, Ghana, however, the type of information that both men and women are interested in is advice on when to plan farming activities and protect property. Unlike in Chandipur where radio is important, in Doggoh, men and women prefer to receive information through public announcements at church, through extension agents, and/or village assemblymen. Interestingly, the youth in Doggoh would also like to information on how to interpret weather information. In the case of Kyengeza, men, women, and the youth would like information and advice on when to plan farming activities, especially for post-harvest time period. Information on when to travel for water and fuelwood collection is also important. The channels of information, however, differ between men and male youth, and women and female youth. Men and male youth prefer the radio, whereas women and female youth prefer many more mediums. This includes public announcements (through the use of megaphones, village leaders, farm groups) in places such as schools and during religious gathers. Individual letters and print media were also mentioned. A critical aspect of communicating weather information highlighted by all groups in all sites is the need to provide climate information in the local language or dialect. For all sites, use the radio and announcements in public places are key ways of communicating weather information.Focus groups discussions were held with women's and men's groups, and interviews with individuals from development projects were carried out to address these questions. Venn diagrams were used to map organizations and their institutional relationships.A particular tool was also developed called 'Changing Farming Practices'. This was designed to document how a change in a farming practices, such as planting trees or modifying soil management, affects the activities of men and women. The tool also helped to foster discussion on how the change in the farming practice occurred, roles in decision-making and access to any benefits created by the change. In Doggoh, Ghana, using this tool proved to be a challenge because even though farmers make changes in their farming practices, they often did not mention these changes until prompted. For instance the Ghana research team observed new crops such as improved maize, groundnut, cowpea and soybean varieties. However, the respondents maintained that there had been no changes, until prompted by these observations. Therefore, filling in the \"Changing Farming Practices\" table was not straightforward and researchers had to also use guiding questions provided in the training guide to prompt answers to be able to fill in the table. The importance of using the guiding questions provided in the training guide was also stressed by the Uganda research team. The Uganda team additionally suggested mapping changing practices over a timeline to understand trends. Overall, the combination of these research tools and methods helped identify opportunities for further action-oriented research to catalyse more widespread adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices, particularly by women.There are numerous types of agricultural practices in the three sites that can be considered 'climate smart'. Table 5 below lists the current and most popular practices described by participants for each site and identifies whether men or women are involved. Farmers described using such agricultural practices primarily in order to address issues of adaptation and food security, and did not mention mitigation objectives, although many of these practices also help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.In most cases, both men and women contribute equally to agricultural work but have different gender roles. For instance, in the case of Chandipur, Bangladesh, women conduct agricultural work near their homes, tending to vegetable gardens and poultry. Women in Kyengeza, Uganda are responsible for setting traps to reduce pests. Compared to Chandipur and Kyengeza, in Doggoh, Ghana, most practices are carried out equally by men and women. In Bangladesh, we see some differences in why and when men or women chose to adopt new agricultural practices. For example, men prepare and apply organic fertilizer to crops in the main fields, and women apply it to their kitchen vegetable gardens. National campaigns have helped promote education about land degradation and awareness about the importance of using organic fertilizers. These campaigns have led both men and women to abandon old ways of burning crop residues and spreading the ashes on the topsoil. They now leave the crop residues on the topsoil after harvest, allowing for richer biomass as organic fertilizer. Planting of trees near ponds and roadsides is also practised by both men and women in Chandipur, Bangladesh because fruits from the trees bring income. Men collect seedlings and women plant them. Women are, however, interested in maintaining the trees as long as possible as insurance in case they need to sell the tree in a time of crisis. Men are not interested in long-term growth of the trees, preferring to cut them down and sell them for timber or other uses as soon as they can obtain cash for them.To enrich organic matter in the soil, another relatively new practice that women in Chandipur have taken up is vermi-compost (composting with worms) with the help of local NGOs. Once women have prepared the compost, men apply it in their fields and women in their homestead gardens. Women are also involved in raising poultry but it is the men who sell the poultry and poultry products in the market.Uptake of practices that can be considered 'climate smart' were not reported to differ much across men and women in Kyengeza, Uganda. Reduction in soil fertility has been a major driver behind the adoption of mulching, crop rotations, and planting of improved crop varieties in Kyengeza. Mulching is a traditional farming practice to conserve water in coffee and banana plantations, practised primarily by men (60-70% of cases), because mulching material has to be purchased. Women in Kyengeza also practise mulching, but on a smaller scale and not on cash crops such as coffee and banana. Intercropping and crop rotation practices are being adopted by both men and women in part due to population pressure, which has created a shortage of land. This practice has helped reduce pests and protect soil moisture. Changes in land tenure have also influenced agricultural practices. Access to public lands to graze animals, which is practised by men, has minimized over the years as land is now leased to individuals. This has led to a reduction in herd sizes and the adoption of zero grazing practices in some places. Our findings show that both men and women are involved in planting drought-resistant crops. This practice was reported as becoming increasingly popular due to the inability of farmers to predict the weather as well as they could previously.In Doggoh, Ghana, changing rainfall patterns, declining soil fertility, and labour migration to urban areas are key driving forces that have led men and women to start practicing methods listed in Table 5. Interestingly, men and women were perceived to participate equally, although often taking different roles in CSA practices. For instance, when it comes to planting trees on farms (agroforestry), men acquire the seedlings and plant the trees, while women care for and water them. With regards to composting, men prepare it but women apply it in the farm. When planting improved crop varieties, men till the land and women sow.In all three very different sites, common factors influencing uptake of climate smart agricultural practices has been a recognition that soil fertility has been declining. The desire to diversify and increase income levels was also expressed by both men and women across all sites. Seeing positive changes in others' farms had a large influence on some with respect to thinking about new potential CSA practices on their own farms.Organizations. Government extension agents and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are key drivers of change with respect to adoption of new agricultural practices in Bangladesh. According to female farmers in Chandipur, Bangladesh, these types of organizations have both introduced new methods and taught farmers how to improve their existing farming techniques. For men, however, NGOs and media campaigns on certain farming technologies were described as being the most influential. In the case of Doggoh, Ghana, extension agents and NGOs had the biggest influence in changing agricultural practices among women farmers. Men, however, stated that it was the Ministry of Forests and Agriculture, as well as NGOs that had influenced their decisions regarding agricultural practices and options.The three cases show that the government, either through extension agents or an advisory body, has significant influence over what practices male farmers adopt. Nongovernmental organizations appear to be more important for women.Although farmers are willing and able to make changes to improve farm productivity, women in Chandipur, Bangladesh, with no rights to land, stated that decision-making primarily rests with male members of the household where agriculture in the main fields is concerned. However, women are able to make decisions when it comes to agriculture in their homestead gardens.In Kyengeza, Uganda, insecure land tenure also prevents women from making decisions regarding agricultural practices, especially with regard to cash crops, such as coffee and banana.In the case of Doggoh, Ghana, even though women face insecure land tenure, men and women can both make decisions over agricultural practices. Men make decisions with respect to staple food crops, such as cereals and legumes, as well as where and to what extent to plant them. Men stated that women made decisions regarding use of improved crop varieties, because women focus more on securing food availability in times of climate variability in order to prevent hunger.Benefit sharing. Benefit sharing is highly dependent on the nature of the agricultural practice. In the case of Chandipur, Bangladesh, according to women, men control economic benefits derived from selling vegetables from home gardens and poultry, which are products that women are in charge of. Because many women are not able to visit markets regularly, men sell these products on behalf of women. Financial benefits are, however, redistributed since money earned by selling vegetable and poultry helps to purchase food that the family shares.In Kyengeza, Uganda, it is the men who receive direct economic benefits from selling cash crops, such as coffee and banana. The women may sell other products that they grow, and do play an active role in trade in food crops. Women also receive non-financial benefits that are redistributed in the household, such as food that is purchased when a cash crop is sold by a male member of the household.While it is unclear how often women in Doggoh, Ghana directly financially benefit from the sale of cash crops, women are able to at least indirectly benefit as assets are redistributed in the family after the sale of farm products.Farmers are already involved in many climate smart agriculture practices aimed at enhancing resilience and improving land productivity. The major driving factors cited were a desire to improve soil conditions and diversify their income sources. Men and women both contribute to improving productivity, but labour is differentiated by gender in most cases, so the labour demands of the various practices/options needs to be taken into consideration for new practices to be adopted and for women as well as men to benefit from them. In terms of catalysing CSA practices, non-governmental organizations and government extension agents play a key role in providing agricultural information and advice to both men and women. Thus strengthening their capacities and knowledge base regarding appropriate adaptation and mitigation strategies in different circumstances will be key for enhancing adoption of CSA practices.This paper highlights some of the key strategies needed to build upon new science that includes climate analogues, improved weather forecasts, and climate smart agriculture practices, and link it actions on the ground that lead to enhanced food security and equitable benefits. There is, however, much room for more action-oriented research on the complex issues surrounding the nexus of gender, climate change, agriculture, and food security issues.As discussed in Section 2, not all women and men are vulnerable in the same way. There may even be cases where women are more resilient compared to men in the face of climate change. This paper does not highlight the strategies required to address gender disparities based on the level and type of vulnerability to climate change. For instance, men and women's level of poverty, power and exposure to climate risks is not accounted for here, and is an area where further research is needed.Findings throughout the testing of the training guide indicate that research is needed on how best to communicate climate adaptation information and strategies. Although the findings regarding climate analogues suggested alternatives to farmer-to-farmer exchanges through the use of films, for example, other mechanisms to transfer ideas and knowledge on adaptation need to be examined. Use of cell phones may be the answer. However, questions on who has access to cell phones, what language is used, and if such information would be trusted are issues that researchers, communicators, and service providers will need to focus on. ","tokenCount":"6849"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"85d72b622d1d72aaa5bb74f145e48933","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/2d052b98-a6a8-4780-bf83-81bc12eaec43/retrieve","id":"2118933461"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"ca4cd2c0-c764-454d-9163-a09e455ee5d3","pagecount":"108","content":"and also acknowledge the detailed review, proofing, copy editing final edits, and reference checking and organization by Deborah K. Kirby, Tezira Lore, Susan MacMillan and George Shouha and infographics by Annabel Slater.The authors would like to thank the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany (BMZ), who provided financing for this report through One Health Education and Research Center in Africa (OHRECA) as well as the CGIAR Initiative on One Health -'Protecting human health through a One Health approach'. The authors would like to thank all funders who supported this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund: https://www.cgiar.org/funders. This report depends heavily on several strategic review reports and studies on practices of the wild meat industry and communities, their zoonotic implications, and potential policies and strategies for mitigating harmful practices. The two major sources were an earlier ILRI report on wildmeat value chains and zoonotic risks in Africa (Staal et al., 2021)   and an ongoing systematic literature review of zoonotic risks from wildlife in Southeastern Asia (Nguyen et al., in review). These reports provided many of the sources and some text used in developing this report (where original documents were not obtained, the citing reports are indicated). Other key reports used are Bowen-Value of the wild meat industry in parts of Africa and Asia Table 2. Quantity of wild meat extracted in parts of Africa and Asia Table 3. Share of households consuming wild meat and frequency of consumption    This new report led by researchers at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) addresses one of the most pressing issues of our time-balancing the benefits and risks of wild meat consumption in a way that protects human health, wildlife welfare, and our environment.Wild meat plays a crucial role in the livelihoods and diets of many communities, particularly in regions of Africa and Asia, where it often serves as both a critical food source and a vital part of the local economy. However, the complex relationship between wild meat consumption and broader health, environmental, and animal welfare concerns requires careful consideration.This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the benefits and risks associated with the wild meat value chain. At its core is the One Health approach, which highlights the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health. The findings underscore the need for sustainable practices that protect not only human health but also the welfare of wild animals and the ecosystems they inhabit. The report highlights the importance of integrated conservation strategies and preserving critical habitats through the establishment of protected areas to combat habitat fragmentation and enhance biodiversity. Key recommendations from this report include the importance of regulating wild meat markets, raising awareness of zoonotic disease risks, and fostering community engagement in wildlife management. It also calls for innovative approaches to ensure that wild animal welfare is protected, while promoting alternative protein sources to alleviate pressure on wildlife populations. I am glad to see this consolidation of the work of ILRI and our partners on wild meat and the timely launch at the 8 th World One Health Congress. The important topic of One Health and wildlife will be further strengthened in the CGIAR science portfolio 2025-2030 which will contribute to improved understanding of the role of wildlife in food systems and how to better manage the benefits and risks.It is my sincere hope that this report will prove useful to policymakers, researchers, and development practitioners, as we collectively work to ensure a healthier, more sustainable future for people, animals, and the planet.Professor Appolinaire Djikeng Director General, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) Senior Director, CGIAR Livestock-Based Systems Managing Director, CGIAR Resilient AgriFood Systems (RAFS)Informal food markets: Markets that are part of the informal economy and refer to all food-related economic activities by workers and economic units that are-in law or in practice-not covered or insufficiently covered by formal arrangements. While informal food markets are neither taxed nor effectively monitored by governments, actors in these markets may pay fees to authorities. Informal markets include open, public markets; small shops, kiosks and dukas; street, door-to-door or itinerant vendors; small eateries, restaurants and public houses. The terms 'traditional market', 'wet market' and 'territorial market' are synonymous or overlapping.One Health: A framework that aims to foster the health of humans, animals and their shared environments through transdisciplinary collaboration (Gruetzmacher et al. 2021). One Health is an integrated, unifying approach that aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems (OHHLEP 2023).Pathogen of zoonotic origin: A pathogen that, following a spillover event, becomes naturally maintained in the new human host. Human infection is therefore sustained directly by humans (with no or little zoonotic contribution). These pathogens may be endemic in the human population or may have newly emerged.Southeast Asia: This report focuses largely on uses of wild meat in the developing countries of Southeast Asia-Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam-as well as those of East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.Spillover: The transmission of a pathogen maintained in a 'natural' or 'traditional' host species to a novel host species. Often referring to the first transmission event from a non-human vertebrate host to a human host.Sub-Saharan Africa: This report focuses largely on uses of wild meat in the developing countries of sub-Saharan Africa-those in Central, East, Southern and West Africa and in the Horn of Africa-as well as in the developing countries of East Asia and Southeast Asia. The term 'Africa' in this report refers to sub-Saharan Africa.Wet markets: See 'informal food markets' above.The term this report uses to refer to wild harvested terrestrial animal species used for food and nonfood purposes, including medicinal uses (see 'bush meat' above).Zoonoses: Diseases caused by a pathogen maintained in a non-human vertebrate host that is naturally transmissible to humans and where the reservoir non-human host is a continuous source of human infection. Most zoonoses have limited human-to-human spread after their transmission from the non-human host (Haider et al. 2020).• Zooanthroponosis or reverse zoonoses: A pathogen maintained in human hosts capable of being transmitted to non-human vertebrates. • Panzootics: an (epizootic) outbreak of an infectious disease of animals that spreads across a large region (such as a continent) or even worldwide. The equivalent in human populations is called a pandemic.Zootherapy: The use of therapeutic drugs derived from animals.During the COVID-19 pandemic, prominent calls were made in the Global North to end the hunting, selling and eating of meat from wild animals. This report is a partial response to such calls, arguing that such a ban would be both impossible and arguably immoral to enforce due to the benefits wild meat provides for many millions of mostly poor communities. It also acknowledges the risks inherent in eating wild meat and recommends reshaping the wild meat trade in ways that 1) ensure it is sustainable and fair to poor and under-nourished populations of the Global South; 2) do not harm biodiversity or put endangered species at increased risk; 3) are safer for human, animal and environment health; and 4) are more humane.The importance of meat from wild animals to human diets has long been studied as has the human health risks from consuming it. Based on literature reviews, this report seeks to understand wild meat consumption by people and the value chains that supply it-including hunting, harvesting, marketing and consumption-and the implications of consuming wild meat for both human nutrition and zoonotic risks in Africa and East and Southeast Asia regions where wildlife is an abundant especially abundant renewable resource and widely consumed and where ILRI has been researching use of wild meat for many decades. The report synthesises the available evidence on wild meat and recommends practices and research priorities to mitigate the biodiversity conservation and zoonotic risks related to its consumption, particularly for use by organisations working in the health, veterinary, environment and wildlife sectors.Value extracted: The value of wild meat in Africa and East and Southeast Asia includes domestic consumption in rural communities, rural-to-urban marketing and a considerable high-value, and largely illicit, export trade, such as trade from Africa to diasporic African communities and to East Asia and largely into the European Markets from South Africa In Africa, wild meat is most important for its high protein content and human sustenance: estimates of its value for countries range from 5 million United States dollars (USD) per year in Gabon to over USD 200 million per year in Ghana, and these may not even include the value of rural consumption. Overall, the value of the wild meat trade alone is likely to exceed USD 1 billion per year in Africa and possibly several times that amount. In Southeast Asia, wild meat is also important for conferring high status and as a health food, and medicine. The annual value of traded wild meat has been estimated at USD 1 billion for Indonesia and USD 66.5 million for Vietnam.The annual value of the illegal trade in wildlife in Southeast Asia has been estimated at USD 8-11 billion and likely exceeds that. The annual wildlife farming industry in China was valued at USD 74 billion. This trade in wild meat from the African continent can only make Africa as being seen as an equal trading partner on the global platform rather than a continent as one of handouts .It has wild animals, a renewable resource, a population of young educated women, versatile in technological skills to take this market of wild meat to another level with appropriate resource allocation.Volume extracted: Across Africa, the volume of wild meat extracted is also very large, estimated at between 1 and 5 million metric tonnes (mt) per year. That compares to the volume of Africa's livestock production of about 14 million mt per year and so represents a significant share of meat availability on the continent. In some African countries, the amount of wild meat harvested is of the same scale as the supply of livestock meat. There is less information on extraction rates in Southeast Asia, but in countries with some data (Indonesia, Japan, Vietnam), thousands of tonnes are extracted each year, which is much less than the amounts of meat that livestock or fish supply in those countries.Challenges in measuring wild meat use: Accurate estimates of the volume and scale of wild meat extraction are hindered by the clandestine or subsistence nature of the trade and its absence from official relevant statistical databases such as Food and Agriculture Organisation Statistics (FAOSTAT), maintained by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).Most statistical methods are likely to under-estimate true amounts. Bats, pangolins and other animals consumed locally are especially likely to be under-estimated. Airport and border control seizures, criminal records and • Eating wild animals: Rewards, risks and recommendations deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) tests offer new insights into the wild meat global trade.Growth trends: Although some authors suggest that the overall wild meat industry is growing in volume, the available data are unable to clearly support that view, or even to confirm with any accuracy the scale of the industry, other than to indicate that it is significant and widespread. There is, however, some evidence of declining rather than increasing extraction rates as the result of overhunting (resulting in 'empty forests'). Unsurprisingly, lifting restrictions on hunting and consuming wild meat increases demand for it. More surprisingly, zoonotic pandemics appear to have had mixed effects on wild meat consumption, with countries reporting an increase, a decrease or no change in wild meat consumption. There is some evidence that climate change may increase extraction rates by reducing the available sources of alternative protein for people.Prevalence and frequency: Surveys suggest that in West and Central Africa around half the population eat wild meat: in rural areas this is two-thirds or more of the population but in urban areas it is often less than half. A smaller proportion (a quarter or less) eat wild meat regularly. The links between wild meat consumption and household income and wealth are weak, so increased disposable income may or may not increase wild meat consumption. There is a tendency for women to eat less wild meat than men and younger people to eat less than older people. There are fewer studies in East and Southeast Asia, and these suggest around half of the general population consume wild meat, while in rural areas and those with greater access, three-quarters of people or more consume wild meat. Again, there is a tendency for men and older people to eat more wild meat than women and younger people. Across sub-Saharan Africa and East and Southeast Asia, around 80 million rural households (nearly 400 million people) depend on hunting-46% of rural households in sub-Saharan Africa and 6% of rural households in East and Southeast Asia.Quantity consumed: In Africa, the quantities of wild meat consumed are significant, often much higher than livestock meat consumption. Overall, foragers consume on average 38 kg a year and farmers 16 kg of wild meat compared to 19 kg of meat from domestic animals. There is some evidence that extreme poverty is protective of wild animals, as the poorest people cannot afford to buy wild meat or the equipment needed to hunt. In Southeast Asia, where quantitative studies are mainly from rural areas with access to hunting, consumption is around 20 kg per year.Rural versus urban consumption: In Africa, wild meat consumption is still predominantly associated with rural areas, with no strong overall preference for wild meat in urban areas. In East and Southeast Asia, wild meat is often considered a luxury item and a status symbol by urban dwellers as well as a healthy food and one eaten during special occasions. In urban areas where demand from higher income consumers for traditional meats is high, wild meat may often cost more per unit of weight than livestock meat alternatives. The situation is often reversed, however, in rural areas, particularly in countries where livestock keeping is not a traditional practice.Contribution to nutrition and food security: Wild meat is often rich in protein and micronutrients and some species have high energy density. In at least 62 countries, wildlife and wild-caught fish contribute at least 20% of the animal protein in rural household diets, providing calories, essential proteins, fats and micronutrients. In some African countries, wild meat provides up to 90% of animal protein consumption. In East and Southeast Asia, relative contributions are smaller but absolute contributions can be significant: for example, 1,711 tonnes of protein are obtained from wild meat each year in China. At least 15 countries, mostly in Africa, would risk food insecurity if wild meat were excluded from diets. In Central Africa, the low availability of wild meat has been linked to childhood stunting.Consumption for medicinal use: More than 2,000 zootherapeutic practices-the use of therapeutic drugs derived from animals-have been documented in Africa, with around 521 mammalian species being used to treat 371 ailments. Zootherapy often but not always involves consuming wild animals. This practice is also widespread in East and Southeast Asia, with, for example, around 30% of urban households and 70% of rural households in China consuming wild meat for medicinal purposes.Species: Ungulates (hooved animals) tend to be the most frequently hunted animals and are sometimes the most important in terms of overall biomass extracted. These tend to be followed in importance by large rodents and primates but in varying order. Near human settlements, where hunting pressure is greater, larger bodied animals have over time tended to be 'hunted out' and replaced by smaller species (such as duikers and large rodents), which reproduce at faster rates and thus are more sustainably hunted. The species extraction data available, however, rely heavily on market surveys, which may not closely reflect actual hunting levels or species composition, as much of wild meat is consumed locally and never appears in markets. Much of the data available comes from Central and West Africa, East and Southeast Asia, with less from Southern and East Africa and Central Asia. Primates, rodents, bats and carnivores are the wildlife reservoirs with the highest proportion of zoonotic pathogens.Pathogens of most concern: Historically, most spillover events have been attributed to bacterial pathogens in ungulates or armadillos, to parasitic pathogens in ungulates, to viral pathogens in rodents and non-human primates, and to undetermined sources. Microbes of most concern for their high risk are those with proven ability to a) cause human pandemics, b) lead to panzootics-large outbreaks of infectious diseases of animals-and c) mutate at high rates and recombine with other similar or dissimilar microbes. Ribonucleic (RNA) viruses are of special concern, with key viruses including Ebola and Marburg filoviruses, hepatitis viruses, herpes viruses, human T-cell lymphotropic virus, monkeypox virus, paramyxoviruses, simian foamy virus and simian immunodeficiency virus.Transmission pathways: Between 1940 and 2021, a total of 91 spillover events from wild meat consumption have been documented, leading to 25 zoonotic diseases from 10 viral pathogens, 10 bacterial pathogens and 5 parasites. Spillover from consumption was notably higher in Africa than other regions. However, consumption of wild meat may be less of a pathway for disease spillover than exposure to animal body fluids and faeces during the handling and butchering of wild animals.The direct or proximate risks identified by this review include selective hunting of high-value species; the presence of domestic animal 'bridges' or 'amplifier hosts' and insect vectors and contact zones; wildlife transport and sales; the age and sex of the wild animals hunted and consumed; and human characteristics and behaviours. Some of the distal or underlying drivers include globalisation, high human population density, increasing transport infrastructure, market demand, human managed landscapes, corruption and climate change.Awareness of zoonotic risks: Most studies in Africa find a relatively low awareness among people of the zoonotic risks of hunting and consuming wild meat, except during outbreaks of dreaded diseases such as Ebola. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), for example, hunters considered wild animals as 'pure' and disease more likely to result from contact with domestic animals.There is also significant misunderstanding both of which diseases present risks (e.g. misperception of malaria risk from animals) and of which species of wildlife are most risky to handle and eat. Even when awareness of risk is high, very few take measures to mitigate the risk. In Asia, differences have been found between rural areas (low awareness) and urban (higher awareness).Regulation and enforcement: Control and command (or detect, inspect and punish) penalise was the traditional way of limiting the hunting and marketing of wild meat. Most regulation focuses on establishing reserves and banning hunting and sales of wild meat from some or all species. Protective areas cover 15% of global land and the Global Biodiversity Framework (2022) has the ambitious target of '30 × 30'-protecting 30% of land and water in a representative way by 2030. However, most African and Asian protected areas lack adequate budgets and staff, and while protected areas slow human incursion they do not halt it. Anti-poaching patrols can be effective, and, in some countries, protected species are hunted less than non-protected species. In many countries, there is lack of both awareness and enforcement of wildlife trade regulations. In others, corruption limits implementation of wildlife regulations. And in any case, many communities living close to wildlife do not accept the legitimacy of these regulations.Market incentives: Natural experiments show the importance of incentives in shaping the wild meat sector. When African swine fever led to mass culling of pigs and shortages of pork, there was increased demand for wild meat. In Tanzania's Serengeti region, arrested wildlife poachers were mainly poor and those with livelihood alternatives were less likely to hunt. Increasing the price of wild meat, or reducing the price of livestock meat, is likely to be effective in reducing poor communities used of wild meat for subsistence, but there are few examples of interventions that rely on market incentives. Commercial wildlife ranches are common in Southern Africa (e.g. they comprise 17% of the land area in South Africa) and have been economically and socially sustainable while also increasing wildlife populations, but they require large and abundant land areas with low human population density as well as high levels of management and legal change to give landowners rights over wildlife.Community involvement in hunting bans: Bans on wildlife hunting have been promoted since the 1970s with some successes, but widespread adoption is limited to a few countries in Africa, notably Kenya and Namibia. In Kenya, local community-run conservancies protect 11% of the country's land area compared to the government's State Protected Areas, which cover 10% of the land. Conservancies can be successful where marginal land is abundant, tourism revenue high, community management supported, and legal frameworks exist. Outside these contexts, community involvement has had limited success as it is constrained by high transaction costs of engagement and limited awareness and enforcement. Nonetheless, there is widespread agreement that communities need to be central rather than peripheral to conservation efforts, given their proximity to wildlife populations, knowledge of local wildlife, and wildlife use practices.There is some evidence that raising awareness of the risks of wild meat trade and consumption is difficult to achieve, especially among the most relevant actors, such as hard-to-reach wildlife hunters and butchers in rural areas. During health crises associated with wild meat, such as Ebola outbreaks, consumption of wild meat typically declines sharply, although whether this is due to public campaigns or other communication channels is difficult to determine. Disgust and 'neophobia'-the fear of anything new-are easily triggered by meat products and developing ways of creating these are promising channels for changing consumption behaviour.Livestock as an alternative food source: In Africa, domesticated livestock and farmed fish are two of the fastest growing sectors in agriculture. Africa's livestock population between 2010 and 2020 grew by 27%, from approximately 331 to 434 billion livestock units, with pigs and poultry being the fastest growing subsectors. However, demand is growing more rapidly than supply, with the shortfall increasingly met by imports. It is likely that domestic and imported livestock will be increasingly price competitive with wild meat, removing a major incentive for hunting. But in East and Southeast Asia, where wild meat consumption is not driven by protein or meat scarcity outside of some poor remote areas, such pricing is unlikely to be an important consideration.Farmed wild animal species as an alternative to hunting: With shrinking wildlife habitats and increasing human populations, it seems inevitable that in Africa wildlife will provide an increasingly smaller proportion of human diets, even for rural families living close to wildlife. Despite decades of promotion, most farmed wildlife (e.g. cane rats and giant African snails) are still caught in the wild. In East and Southeast Asia, in contrast, wildlife farming has seen continuous growth driven by the high value of the products, high demand, and local skills in farming wild animals. However, this growth has given rise to several concerns: a) wildlife farming allows the laundering of wild-caught animals, b) farming wildlife products rather than domesticated stock may stimulate demand for wild-sourced products, and c) farmed wildlife may be especially risky sources of zoonotic pathogens.People and practices: The participatory risk analysis (Grace et al;2008) allowed for the inclusion of opinions of interdisciplinary personnel, whereby unskilled individuals in the Pongola area of South Africa were included in the estimation of risks of consuming wild meat. However, there were no experts to consult, so risk is based on observations and opinions of role players. To date there have been no reported fatalities from foodborne diseases from the consumption of wild meat either from the formal or informal markets in South Africa. Wild meat value chains have low entry barriers and many diverse participants operating in complex and shifting networks. In Africa, participants often operate in the informal economy, have multiple livelihood strategies, and their occupation is considered of low status. In East and Southeast Asia, wildlife farming was formerly encouraged but, following the COVID-19 pandemic, is often now discouraged. The main actors are: • Hunters: Wild meat hunting is common and widespread in the tropics, especially in Africa, where participation varied from a low of 3% in Ethiopia to 97% in Cameroon. Wild animals are typically killed if encountered, even if they are rare or protected by law. Snaring is most common, but other types of capture are found (e.g. shooting, netting, hunting with dogs). In South Africa, most private game reserves and nature conservation areas enlist professional registered game hunters for the seasonal off take of wild game to maintain the ecological balance. The local community is employed on these game farms, and they too are trained as hunters and enlisted as part of the harvesting team. In the informal sector when hunting rifles are unavailable greyhounds canines are used to hunt down wild animals in the rural areas. • Farmers: Wildlife farming remains niche or rare in Africa but has been adopted at scale in East and Southeast Asia driven by the high demand for wildlife products, including meat, skins, medicinal products and exotic pets. However, the COVID-19 pandemic as well as efforts by national governments to discourage wildlife farming led to declines in demand in some places.• Traders: Traders buy wild meat from hunters and farmers often at relatively low prices and sell it to urban consumers or export it, often at significant markups. Exceptions occur where there are commercial hunters, high levels of trade and large species, and where wild meat consumption carries unique cultural importance.• Remoteness: Hunting is most prevalent in more remote and rural areas, where alternative proteins are few and hunting is largely for household or community consumption. Non-forest lands, such as agricultural land and savannahs, are often as important as forests for wild meat supply. There is some evidence that the presence of livestock keeping, and the availability of low-cost livestock meat is associated with less hunting. • Ecosystem: On average in Africa, 51% of wild meat was derived from forests compared to agricultural and fallow land, grassland and swamps. However, the proportion of household wild meat income in cash was higher from forest than non-forest areas, which suggests that forest hunting is more commercialized and may be associated with larger bodied and more marketable animals. • Livelihood strategies: A 24-country study found statistically strong evidence that reliance on livestock meat was associated with less reliance on wild meat. • Household wealth: Larger and wealthier households often hunt more frequently and successfully due to their easier access to labour and equipment. Meat consumption needs appear to be the main driver of wild meat hunting by most rural households, and even those that sell wild meat retain a significant share for subsistence or community consumption. In settings where wild meat hunting is prevalent, such as forest margins in Africa and Asia, alternative protein sources can reduce the demand for wild meat. Cane rats, found in West and Central Africa, are robust rodents whose farming is well established. They offer economic benefits due to their high reproductive rates and low-cost maintenance, with meat preferred by those accustomed to wild meat. Despite challenges in management practices and health, selective breeding efforts continue to improve the productivity of cane rats. Bamboo rats in Southeast Asia are valued for their lean meat and ease of farming, but poor sustainability and animal welfare are concerns. Civet cats, although farmed for meat in some regions, raise significant ethical and biosecurity issues due to their poor living conditions and zoonotic disease risks. Given the interdependencies of people's livelihoods, food security, markets and zoonotic risks, an integrated strategy is needed that recognizes several objectives at once: a) conserving wildlife populations and biodiversity, with attention to valuable and vulnerable species; b) sustaining livelihoods ,animal welfare and environmental impact, associated with wild meat value chains, at least in a transitional manner; c) maintaining food safety and security for people's access to animal protein and micronutrients, specifically in rural hunting communities; and d) identifying zoonotic risks, species and practices that affect those risks and that pose the greatest health hazards. Implementing such an integrated approach is urgent now given the changing climate, the shifting demands for use of wildlife products, the encroachment on wildlife habitats, and the fact that the wildlife meat sector is unlikely to disappear. Elements of such an integrated approach could include the following.• Take a community-based approach. Although a community-based approach to wildlife hunting and wild meat marketing and consumption faces resource constraints among other barriers, because these practices are primarily locally driven, local communities need to be part of decision-making and given authority and responsibility for managing wildlife practices. A further reason for local authority is that most zoonotic risks are likely to occur at the community level, where most hunting and butchering of wild animals happens. The specific type of communitybased authority that is feasible and effective will depend in part on the legislative framework available.A very workable strategy was developed (in Northern KwaZulu-Natal in an area called Pongola,and Nkandla, which is a part of South Africa) whereby established livestock associations are given awareness talks and demonstrations of hygienic handling and safe procedures and processes to be adopted during hunting of wildlife be it for either own consumption or trade in the rural areas for informal trade. In one area known as Jozini,(which is on the south side of the Mozambique border ) there is a trained animal health technician well versed and trained in Veterinary Public Health, who is notified prior to hunting so that he does the meat inspection of the wild meat before it is sold by the informal traders. This in addition to traceability not only ensures the safety of the wild meat for public health but direct contact with the community in the case of any foodborne or zoonotic disease outbreak as early warning systems are in place via the correct channels of communication. The tribal chief is in control of all community-based activities including the hunting of wild animals in the rural areas. His instructions are adhered to rigidly by the livestock association.• Differentiate local from commercial hunting. The evidence is relatively clear that the hunting of small robust species (e.g. rodents, duikers) can be sustainable, even in partly degraded forests, and that what Kurpiers et al. (2016) refer to as the 'farmbush' can provide a significant supply of protein, the demand for which has been shown clearly to be the main driver of hunting. With support from local communities, attention and monitoring should be on controlling commercial-scale hunting and the hunting of vulnerable (slow-reproducing) species, both at source and in markets. This would allow continuation of both the supply of needed meat to rural communities and some degree of local livelihoods in wild meat value chains. • Raise awareness. Engagement with local hunting communities should take the same integrated approach, highlighting the importance of limiting hunting to certain robust species, to obtaining alternative or supplementary sources of protein wherever possible and, importantly, to understanding the zoonotic hazards of wildlife handling and how to mitigate the risks. This would include information on which species pose the greatest risk and the best practices for butchering, handling and cooking wild animals (Friant et al. 2015). Following formative research to understand local practices, this could take the form of social marketing (Drury 2009), with specific attention paid to women, who are mainly responsible for food preparation and whose role in wildlife hunting is often neglected - (Lowassa et al. 2012). Information campaigns in urban areas could similarly highlight conservation, the importance of transitioning to livestock meat, and the zoonotic risks of wild meat handling and consumption. • Better enforce wildlife laws. Adequate resources should be provided to protected areas and investments made in new technologies such as drone surveillance while improving the saliency and governance of wildlife crime. • Support successful wildlife management strategies.The evidence from multiple sources is clear that game ranching in Southern Africa and community-based conservancies in Kenya and Namibia have been successful in reducing poaching, increasing wildlife numbers, and generating benefits for communities (although their contribution to food production on a national scale is minimal and even on marginal land they produce less meat than livestock farming). Where conditions for game ranching and conservancies are enabling, these should be supported by national governments, NGOs and donor agencies.Asia. Support livestock and fish farming and facilitate livestock and fish trade within and between countries to reduce both their costs and the demand for wild meat. The following are some research ideas emerging from the review.• Past studies of zoonotic spillover events have given most attention to viruses. In future, aim more research at the less-studied spillovers caused by bacterial and other non-viral pathogens.  (Lâm et al., (accepted). • Conduct further research into the links between livestock keeping and reduced wild meat hunting and how these patterns differ across production systems and settings. For example, do livestock constitute a direct consumption effect on wild meat or a wealth effect? A spatial econometric approach could be employed where data are available. • Elicit accurate information on wild meat activities and consumption that respondents may consider illegal and also on associated zoonotic risk-related activity.Assess and improve the specialized survey and monitoring tools needed to do this, particularly where integrated information is gathered and forms part of community-based management.Zoonotic pathogens, originating in animals and transmitted to people, cause most of an estimated 70-75% of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases in humans (these are diseases newly appearing in a population or rapidly expanding in terms of their incidence, host or geographic range). Of these emerging zoonotic diseases, approximately 70% have a nondomesticated (wild) animal origin, although many disease 'spillovers' and the vast majority of recurring as opposed to emerging, zoonoses originate from domestic animals (Taylor et al. 2001;Wolfe et al. 2005b;Falk et al. 2013;Paige 2014). A comprehensive review of human pathogens by Taylor et al. (2001) found that over 60% of all human pathogens were zoonotic. Jones et al. (2008) conducted an analysis of 335 emerging infectious disease events between 1940 and 2004. Although they found a peak of incidence in the 1980s related to the HIV-AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus-acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) pandemic, they found that these events are increasing significantly over time. Their review showed that emerging infectious disease events arose largely by zoonoses (60.3% of emerging infectious diseases) and, of those, 71.8% had a wildlife origin.The recent emergence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the resulting COVID-19 pandemic, apparently from an animal source (Holmes et al. 2021) and possibly from wild animals, has dramatically demonstrated the enormous potential threat of emerging infectious diseases. In a recent review by Moloney et al. (2023), out of 114 genera of zoonotic pathogens associated with wild meat, 14 viral, 4 bacterial and 1 parasite genus were reported in humans, indicating possible spillover events.It has also been widely recognized that the form of contact between people and wild animals most likely to give rise to new emerging infectious diseases is use of their meat and other products (Wolfe et al. 2007;Coad et al. 2019;Tumelty et al. 2023). Although humans have long relied on wild meat for an important share of their nutritional needs, as agricultural systems have evolved, those needs have largely been supplied by domesticated livestock. In many communities and developing economies of Asia, Africa and Latin America, however, the hunting of wild animals remains an important source of food, ethnomedicine and income. This largely unregulated activity comprises 'wild meat value chains', which include all the systems for sourcing and delivering meat and parts derived from wild animals for human consumption and other uses. As will be described in detail, wild meat can be sourced from a wide range of hunted or gathered animals, such as invertebrates, amphibians, insects, fish, reptiles, birds and, most importantly, mammals, including as many as 500 species in sub-Saharan Africa (Kurpiers et al. 2016). The wild meat industry has myriad livelihood and economic aspects, with implications not just for local communities but also for nations and the whole world, all aspects of which underlie the incentives for its continued activity.This report does not attempt to conduct a thorough systematic review of wild meat and associated zoonotic risks. Rather, given a limited timeframe and resources, this report aims to inventory and synthesise the key evidence needed to provide guidance on research priorities. It also makes no attempt to explore to any extent the epidemiological aspects of zoonotic diseases in wild animals. The focus is on the actors and communities involved in the wild meat trade, their behaviours, and the factors driving wild meat practices. Other studies cover the epidemiology of wild meat more comprehensively.The earliest hominins, like their close relatives the chimpanzees, were probably omnivores, but around three million years ago some hominins living around the Rift Valley in East Africa underwent a remarkable change and began incorporating much more meat and bone marrow in their diets (Domínguez-Rodrigo et al. 2005). This shift to meat consumption likely made it possible for humans to evolve larger brains and to develop more complex societies (Leroy and Praet 2015). A second dietary transition took place with the domestication of livestock starting in southwest Asia in the Neolithic period. Goats and then sheep were domesticated in the Zagros mountains beginning around 9,000 BC, followed by cattle and pigs from around 7,000 BC (Groen et al. 2023). Pigs (and probably dogs) were domesticated independently in Asia and cattle domesticated a second time in the Indus Valley (Peters et al. 2022). Horses, camels, buffaloes and donkeys were domesticated around the fourth to second millennium BC, with birds still later (turkey and Barbary duck in America, hen in Southeast Asia). Guinea fowl are the only food animal domesticated in Africa (Shen et al. 2020).Box 1: Changing consumption of wildlife in England from the Neolithic to modern timesIn pre-Neolithic England, where dogs were the only domesticated animals, wild animals were necessarily the main source of animal protein. Many species of wild animals were eaten, from deer to badgers to shellfish (although there is some evidence of avoidance of some abundant animals, possibly for cultural reasons). However, during the Neolithic period, there is strong evidence of a cultural taboo against eating wild animals, including mammals, birds and fish. This taboo persisted until the Roman Empire, where the elite culture included the exploitation of wild animals. In the medieval period, starting around the 9th century AD, the consumption of wild animals resumed, peaking between the 12th and 16th centuries. Venison in particular became central to building social relations through horizontal gifting. Elite efforts to encourage and essentially farm game led to greater availability of game meat among the rural and urban poor. This led to a decline in the status of game meat among elites, a change in preference that spread to lower classes through cultural diffusion, and a trend that has continued to the present. Modern English attitudes reflect a return to viewing wild animals as sacred 'icons of the wilderness' and not for consumption, similar to Neolithic and Iron Age perspectives (Sykes 2017).In Neolithic Europe, livestock domestication was accompanied by dramatic declines in consumption of wild animals (Box 1) and their replacement with domesticated animals (except dogs, consumed only rarely, perhaps in periods of famine). In early Neolithic China, meat was mainly sourced from wildlife, shifting to pigs and dogs, and then to herbivores (sheep, goats, cattle, horses), but wildlife and dogs remained a common food source into the Bronze Age (Zhang et al. 2023). Domestic herbivores spread into eastern Africa by 3,000 BC, reaching Southern Africa around 2,000 years ago. Wild meat consumption was less common or even taboo among pastoralist people in Africa (Fernández-Llamazares et al. 2020). However, while the Bantu peoples, who expanded from West Africa to populate much of sub-Saharan Africa, adopted livestock from the pastoralists they encountered, they continued to rely on agriculture and wild meat for most of their diet (Bleasdale et al. 2020). In most local languages of West Africa, the etymological origin of 'wildlife' is 'bushmeat' (Soewu 2020).The arrival of Europeans in Africa in the 17 th century, along with their guns and transport, brought about the slaughter of wild animals on an unprecedented scale. European hunters were mainly motivated by recreation, ivory, trophies and scientific collections, but it was the hunters and local communities that consumed some or all of the meat of hunted animals (Bollig and Olwage 2016). From the start of the 20th century, African hunting safaris also became popular, with many of these safaris centred in Kenya through the 1930s (Herne 1999). In addition to this, millions of trade guns were sold to Africans, which were used primarily for hunting as well as crop protection, with subsequent increases in African consumption of wild meat (White 1971).The decline in wildlife due to this slaughter intensified interest in establishing formal protection for African biodiversity starting in the 19th century in South Africa, a policy that was continued by many African countries after achieving their independence. This wildlife conservation movement led to the establishment of game reserves and an increasing prohibition of hunting by indigenous Africans, which reduced the legality if not the practice of consuming wild meat. As Africa's population grew, so did pressure on game reserves, with increasing depletion of their wildlife populations. In the later 20th century, it became widely accepted that poor communities around protected areas should receive economic benefits from the wildlife, both to meet their needs and to incentivize their support for wildlife conservation (Sachadina and Nelson 2010). In Southern Africa, legislative changes during the 1960s to 1970s gave user rights over wildlife to landlords, leading to a large expansion in wildlife ranching for ecotourism, meat, hides and trophy hunting (Lindsey et al. 2013), although the latter remains controversial (Sas-Rolfes 2017). Currently in Africa, while birds and smaller species remain common, and some (often pest) species are increasing, larger mammals are increasingly restricted to Public and Private Protection Areas (national parks, wildlife ranches and conservancies) in response to unlicensed hunting and expansion of human use of land driven by population growth.East Asian cultures have a long history of consumptive wild animal use, reflecting an instrumentalist and anthropocentric approach to wildlife (Swan and Conrad 2014;Zhu and Zhu 2020). For some rural communities, wild meat serves as a vital source of protein, particularly in areas with limited access to alternative food sources (Mulhern 2020). Additionally, some cultures have incorporated wild meat into traditional medical practices (Lee et al. 2014;Hall et al. 2019;Tierra et al. 2020). There is often no clear distinction between medicine and food; everything ingested is believed to impact one's health. As such, the consumption of exotic, wild species is primarily driven by health and wellness practices, rather than for sustenance.In China, there are historical accounts of hunting being limited to certain parts of the year and government officials being appointed to oversee this, but conservation was not actively pursued (Jing 1989). The first half of the 20th century saw rapid industrialization, modernization and civil wars leading to the dramatic destruction of ecosystems and unsustainable exploitation of wildlife. Modern nature conservation in China, beginning in 1956 with the establishment of the Dinghu Mountain National Nature Reserve, has established laws and regulations that have reduced the threat of extinction for more than one hundred mammalian species (Huang et al. 2021). In other parts of Southeast Asia, such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, conservationist thinking among the colonial rulers developed in the late 19th century in response to observed depletion of wildlife and natural resources. As in Africa, reserves (often with licensed hunting permits for elites) were seen as ways to protect hydrological reserves on which cities depended for water as well as to prevent unsustainable hunting (Boomgaard 1999).As East and Southeast Asian economies develop and people's incomes rise, there is a greater demand for luxury medicines and foods derived from animal products, thereby creating a significant demand for wildlife (Drury 2011). In China, for instance, wildlife consumption has shifted from fulfilling food needs to fulfilling food preferences, with wild meat being a delicacy favoured by middle-class consumers (Roe and Lee 2021). Rising incomes had a strong positive effect on wildlife purchasing in Vietnam and future wildlife consumption in Hong Kong (Special Administrative Region of China) (Naidoo et al. 2021). Consumption of wildlife has increased with the opening of international trade, with several countries in this region becoming key players in the global wildlife trade due to their strategic geographical locations. Vietnam, for instance, has been involved in international wildlife trading since 1986; its extensive land borders and numerous deep water ports facilitate the circulation of both international and regional goods, gradually making it one of the largest markets in this trade (Nguyen et al. 2021). Because traditional medicines in Africa and Asia are often consumed, this aspect is covered in this review. Wild animals and wild animal parts also have spiritual or metaphysical significance, being used both to bring good fortune on the possessor and to bring bad fortune on others. Wild animal derivatives have many other, nonconsumptive, uses (tools, clothing, musical instruments etc.) that are not considered in this review.Although all the evidence available indicates that the scale of the wild meat industry is very large, it is nevertheless not easily measured, in part because some of its activities are illegal. Even though livestock production has grown and is largely industrialised across the world, approximately 150 million people across Asia, Africa and Latin America still rely on meat from wild animals for protein, energy and micronutrients as well as for the many forms of livelihoods associated with the hunting and marketing of wild animal products (Nielsen et al. 2018). The industry supplies consumers both within and out of the countries where animals are hunted. The globalisation of trade and migration of people from the Global South has led to a trade in wild meat estimated to be worth USD 50-150 billion per year (UNEP 2014). All illegal trade in species considered under threat of extinction by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which includes exotic pets, is estimated at USD 20 billion per year (Challender and Macmillan 2014), with the value from the illegal trade estimated to be 25% of the legal trade (World Bank 2019).For comparison, the value of total livestock meat exports in 2018 from across Africa (East, Central, Southern and West) was only USD 718 million (FAOSTAT). Some studies at European airports found as much as 5 tonnes per week of wild meat in the luggage of arriving passengers (Chaber et al. 2010), with annual estimates of up to 80 tonnes of wild meat confiscated in Swiss airports (Wood et al. 2014). Morrison-Lanjouw et al. (2023) recently reported an average of 4 kg of wild meat seized in each confiscation in Brussels, and it is estimated that about 3.9 tonnes of wild meat is smuggled through Brussels each month (Chaber et al. 2023).In African countries where wild meat plays an important role, the annual value of the wild meat trade has been estimated from USD 5 million per year in Gabon (Antsy 1991), or USD 21 million per year when rural consumption is included (Colchester 1994), to USD 205 million per year in Ghana in 2002 (Davies and Brown 2008), although more recent estimates are not readily available (Table 1). Individual wild meat traders have reported profits of more than 50%, with an estimated benefit-cost ratio of 1.95 and a 0.95 return on investment (Soaga et al. 2014;Adebowale et al. 2021). In Cameroon, it is estimated that income from sales of wild meat average Euros 32.2 million per year, while consumers draw benefits of more than Euros 42 million per year from wild meat (Lescuyer et al. 2015).These numbers of the value of wild meat are impressive when compared to the value of livestock production. In 2018, livestock production was estimated to be worth USD 112 million in Gabon and USD 826 million in Ghana. Across East, Central, Southern and West Africa, total livestock meat production was about 14 million mt in 2018 (FAOSTAT), suggesting that the wild meat harvest comprised at least 10% of livestock production. In Central Africa alone, where most livestock production is not highly developed, total livestock production in 2018 was 2 million mt, about the same scale as the wild meat offtake according to some estimates, such as that by Fa et al. (2003).The wild meat trade in Southeast Asia is estimated to be worth many billions of dollars each year, making up roughly a quarter of the global trade (Lin 2005), though precise estimates are challenging due to its largely illegal and unregulated nature (OECD 2019). This trade involves the hunting, captive farming, sale and consumption of wild animals and is primarily driven by cultural practices, subsistence needs, market demands, and medicinal beliefs, although these driving factors vary among countries.According to geospatial models on wild meat activities and drivers (Jagadesh et al. 2023), Central Africa emerged as the largest region with wild meat activities, covering an area of 216,863 km², followed by Southeast Asia, particularly Laos and Vietnam, with an area of 205,367 km². In Southeast Asia illegal wildlife trade has been estimated to account for up to 25% of the global illicit market in wildlife products, acting as both a source and a transit hub for international wildlife trading (OECD 2019).  What cannot be measured will not be efficiently managed. But accurate information on the volume and scale of wild meat consumption is difficult to obtain for several reasons: a) much of the trade is clandestine or illegal and hence escapes observation; b) legal hunting is often small in scale, ad hoc and for subsistence rather than an occupation and hence not recorded; c) wild meat is often not included in official reporting; d) definitions of wild meat, bushmeat, and game are inconsistent; e) where wild meat is not legal it may be passed off as domestic livestock meat (Box 2).Box 2: Wild meat or not?Sales of wild meat misrepresented as other types of meat is a growing concern. This deceptive practice involves selling wild meat-often from protected or endangered species-under the guise of more commonly accepted meats such as beef and goat. Food fraud in the form of meat substitution is not a risk only in low-and middleincome countries. The 'horse meat scandal' of 2013 in Europe illustrates that food fraud is a global and pervasive issue; this was one of 413 fraud reports in the global beef supply chain in a 20-year period between 1997 and 2017 (Robson et al. 2020). While the (undisclosed) substitution of one meat product for another always has ethical and economic implications, the implications are even more significant when the substitution product is wild meat, which can harm both wildlife conservation efforts and public health.• Eating wild animals: Rewards, risks and recommendationsThe clandestine nature of the wild meat trade in much of the world makes it difficult to both regulate and monitor it. We do know, however, that a significant portion of wild meat enters urban markets, where it is often intentionally mislabelled and sold to unsuspecting consumers, who believe they are purchasing legally sanctioned meats (Njaramba et al. 2021;D'Amato et al. 2013).A major challenge in addressing this issue is lack of robust systems for verifying meat origins. DNA barcoding has been proposed and utilised in some studies to identify the true species origin of meat products. Use of DNA sequencing methods to test the authenticity of meat labelled as 'game meat' in South Africa indicated a high level of substitution, with meat from wild species not commonly regarded as game often sold as meat from more expected species (D'Amato et al. 2013). More economical high-resolution melt techniques have been deployed to support wildlife forensics by scientists in Kenya (Ouso et al. 2020), who found a 10% substitution rate in meat sold to consumers in Nairobi (Njaramba et al. 2021).The implications of this practice are far-reaching. As well as undermining wildlife conservation efforts and exposing consumers to significant public health risks, this practice has significant public trust implications, severely undermining consumer confidence in food systems, health authorities and regulatory bodies. When consumers discover that they have been misled about the nature of the food they are purchasing, with wild meat sold under the guise of safer, regulated meats like beef or pork, the erosion of consumer confidence can cause consumers to question the integrity of all food products, not just those in meat substitution scandals. And if consumers feel that their health is being jeopardised by inadequate food regulation and inspection, their trust in public health institutions can decline (D'Amato et al. 2013).Surveys of wild meat value chain actors, including consumers, remain the most common way of assessing the rates in which the wild meat is being extracted, but these surveys typically are conducted only in a few areas and are not nationally representative. Moreover, because of a dearth of census information in many countries, most surveys are not random and hence may not be representative of the population from which they are drawn. In addition, because many actors in the wild meat business operate informally and do not keep records, their responses to surveys may be inaccurate-and where wildlife hunting and trade is illegal, their responses may not be truthful.Much data on the volume of wild meat come from market studies because collecting market data is easier than collecting data on rural hunting and consumption of wild meats. The species reported in market studies may not reflect the species composition in the forest, or the species or levels actually hunted and consumed within hunting communities, which are likely to be driven in part by non-market objectives. Birds, reptiles and invertebrates are likely to be underrepresented since they may not be marketed much or may be caught by women and youth and inadvertently missed by surveys (Taylor et al. 2015). A wild meat literature review by Mickleburgh et al. (2009) found that 31 comprehensive studies of wild meat hunting and trade did not mention bats. The same study, however, found evidence that consumption of bats was widespread, both of larger fruit bats and of insectivorous species, particularly in West Africa, although the greatest prevalence was found in Madagascar, Asia and the Pacific. Moreover, a study in Ghana estimated that at least 128,000 bats were sold in markets, reaching distances of up to 400 km away from where they were captured (Kamins et al. 2011). These and other small animals often caught by women and youth may not feature in market studies. This bias in species reports from market studies is reflected in a study in Gabon that found that only 19 of the species in the original catch were represented in the animals destined for market, with three species accounting for 90% of the individual animals sold, the rest being consumed locally, which shows that marketed offtake is selective (Coad 2007). In Akwa Ibom State, in Nigeria, only six species of wild meat were observed traded, with the cane rat comprising the largest volume of wild meat on the market (Jacob et al. 2018).While pangolins are of interest because they may host zoonotic pathogens, their presence in Africa's wild meat markets is not clearly reflected in the above studies. Boakye et al. (2016) indicate that although pangolins are apparently frequently hunted in Ghana, for example, they do not appear in some major wild meat market surveys. A market study Boakye et al. conducted over 15 months (2013Boakye et al. conducted over 15 months ( -2014) ) reported only 341 pangolins traded by 153 respondents. Most of the pangolins were observed close to the protected forests where they were caught, suggesting that pangolins fail to enter longer distance supply chains. The authors suggest that market surveys thus underestimate what is anecdotally known to be a species preferred by wild meat consumers for its dark meat. Furthermore, some recent studies point to an increasing trade in the scales of pangolins sourced in Africa and exported to Asia, where they are used in decorations and traditional medicines. This increase is reflected in confiscations of shipments of pangolin scales in Zimbabwe reported by Shepherd et al. (2017) and reported more generally by Soewu and Sodeinde (2015).While seizures of wild meat by law enforcement agencies sometimes report large volumes, law enforcement in much of Asia and Africa is not systematically enforced. Airport seizures provide additional insights. A two-year, statistically representative, study of airports in Belgium (2017-2018) estimated that 47 tonnes of wild meat were smuggled into Belgium every year. Nearly all of the passengers smuggling the wild meat originated on flights from West Africa, with those from the DRC most likely to carry it (7% of all passengers were searched). Porcupines, cane rats and pangolins made up nearly half of the seizures (Chaber et al. 2023). Other studies have found similar results (Chaber et al. 2010;Wood et al. 2014).A systematic analysis was conducted in China of 9,256 convictions for illegal hunting from a nationwide database of trial verdicts in China spanning January 2014 to March 2020 (Liang et al. 2023). Most hunting was for commercial purposes (usually sales for wild meat or medicine) and some of the seizures were very large (up to half a million birds in one case).The quality and type of data presented above underline the fact that accurate information on the scale and scope of the wild meat industry is generally unavailable. As a consequence, it is unclear to what extent the industry is growing. Cawthorn and Hoffman (2015) make the case that Africa's increasing population growth and urbanization are increasing demand for high-value wild meat which, combined with the high demand value of the international wild meat trade, will combine to cause steady growth in the industry. A survey in Gabon found that wealthier households consumed more wild meat along with more livestock meat (Wilkie et al. 2005). The urban population in the DRC consumes wild meat for its taste, perceived health benefits and as a rare luxury but is willing to replace wild meat with non-frozen livestock meat (Chausson et al. 2019). Some recent studies have pointed to lower interest in wild meat consumption among urban African youth (Chausson et al. 2019;Luiselli et al. 2018), and the same urbanization trend may reduce the largest source of demand and consumption, which are populations in rural hunting communities. An opposite driver is increased urbanization coupled with rises in disposable income, leading to demand for wild meat as a status and luxury good (Brashares et al. 2011;Cawthorn and Hoffmann 2015). There is some evidence that consumption of wild meat is declining as a result of unsustainable extraction practices, known as 'empty forests'. One estimate for Gabon found that about 25% of meat came from wild sources (Ritchie et al. 2017), a decline from about 70% in the early 1960s.In many countries, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a large reduction in urban wild meat consumption while its rural use increased (Kamogne et al. 2022;McNamara et al. 2020). Post-COVID-19 studies in urban China show a significant decline in wild meat consumption due to heightened awareness of its health risks (Si et al. 2021). However, the impact of COVID-19 is mixed, with countries reporting reduced (Sainge et al. 2023;Funk et al. 2022) or increased (Emogor et al. 2024;Enns et al. 2023) consumption of wild meat or no impact at all (Simo et al. 2024;Patel et al. 2023;Morcatty et al. 2021). A study in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam found that trade in wildlife decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic but hunting wildlife increased as urban workers returned to their villages and, driven by rising food prices, sought food in forests (Davis et al. 2023). Pandemics and wild-meatrelated infections thus may have mixed effects on the wild meat industry, as demonstrated by links between the SARS-COV-2 shocks and wild meat trade reported in McNamara et al. (2020).Wild meat extraction and trade have also been reported to increase in the dry seasons (Sackey et al. 2023;Sonhaye-Ouyé et al. 2022), indicating how prolonged droughts, often due to climate change, impact the dynamics of the wild meat industry. Lifting bans on the trade and consumption of wild meat, as noted in Tanzania, can also lead to the expansion of the industry (Foya et al. 2023) and it's unsustainable use. Many wildlife conservationoriented studies point out that current rates of extraction of wild meat are unsustainable except for some small and fast-reproducing species such as rodents (Fa et al. 2005). It is thus not clear that the extraction and marketing of wild meat is growing in volume, although changes in hunting and information technology as well as increasing urban wealth may change the nature and value of the demand for wild meat.Value extracted: The value of wild meat in Africa and Southeast Asia includes domestic consumption in rural communities, rural-to-urban marketing and a considerable and high-value, largely illicit, export trade such as to diasporic African communities and to East Asia.In Africa, wild meat is most important for human sustenance, with estimates of its value for countries range from 5 million United States dollars (USD) per year in Gabon to over USD 200 million per year in Ghana, and these estimations may not even include the value of rural consumption. Overall, the value of the wild meat trade alone is likely to exceed USD 1 billion per year in Africa and possibly several times that amount. In Southeast Asia, wild meat is most important as a high status, health or medicinal food. The annual value of traded wild meat has been estimated at USD 1 billion for Indonesia and USD 66.5 million for Vietnam. Illegal wildlife trade in Southeast Asia has been estimated at USD8-11 billion per year and likely exceeds that. The wildlife farming industry in China was valued at USD 74 billion.Volume extracted: Across Africa, the volume of wild meat extracted is also very large, estimated at 1-5 million mt per year. That compares to livestock production of about 14 million mt per year, thus representing a significant share of meat availability. In some African countries, the size of the wild meat harvest is comparable to that of the livestock meat supply. There is less information on wild meat extraction rates in Southeast Asia, but for countries with some data (e.g. Indonesia, Japan, Vietnam), thousands of tonnes are extracted each year, which is much less than that of livestock or fish supplies.Measurement challenges: Accurate estimates of the volume and scale of wild meat extraction are hindered by the clandestine or subsistence nature of the trade and its absence from official statistical databases. Most methods likely under-estimate true amounts, particularly for bats, pangolins and animals consumed locally. Airport seizures, criminal records and DNA testing offer new insights into the volume and nature of the wild meat trade.Growth trends: Although some authors suggest that the overall wild meat industry is growing in volume, the available data are unable to clearly support that view or even to confirm with any accuracy the scale of the industry other than to indicate that it is significant and widespread, although there is some evidence of declining extraction rates due to over-hunting ('empty forests'). Unsurprisingly, lifting bans on wild meat increases demand. More surprisingly, the occurrence of zoonotic pandemics has mixed effects on the wild meat trade, with some countries reporting an increase, others a decrease, and still others no change in wild meat consumption. On the other hand, there is some evidence that climate change may increase wild meat extraction by reducing the availability of alternative sources of protein.Some studies have estimated the overall importance of wild meat for consumption in Africa and Asia, focusing particularly on rural households, for which wild meat is often a staple source of protein and a few studies have made urban estimates as well. As has been emphasized, wild meat is an important food source for many rural communities in Africa that have few meat alternatives. Some studies from rural West Africa show that nearly all respondents have consumed wild meat, e.g. 98% of respondents in Delta State, Nigeria (Ebewore et al. 2015) and 97% of rural households in Gabon (Forester et al. 2013). There is, however, considerable variation among African countries and surveys (Table 7). In general, rural inhabitants, men and older people are more likely to consume wild meat frequently than are urban dwellers, women and younger people.A taste test among consumers in Gabon by Schenck et al. (2006) found only a weak preference for wild meat and only rural consumers consistently preferred wild meat over alternatives. Respondents interviewed in market centres in Ghana by Kuukyi et al. (2014) were a mix of hunters, traders and consumers, 29% of whom indicated a preference for wild meat, 51% expressed no preference and 20% preferred domestic meat. A larger study across seven countries in West Africa found rural location was the most important determinant of wild meat eating: 67% of rural people consumed wild meat but only 42% of urban (Luiselli et al. 2018). In the same study young people and women tended to eat wild meat less.In Equatorial Guinea, Fa, Juste et al. (2002) found that age and sex of the respondents did not affect their wild meat consumption, but different ethnic groups reported statistically different preferences for species. The study concluded that consumption was driven mostly by availability (as did Ebewore et al. 2015) and that the price of the meat did not appear to be a determinant.In the Manyara-Tangire ecosystem of Tanzania, which is close to wildlife conservation areas, the low price of readily available wild meat compared to livestock meat resulted in no wealth effect on consumption (Kiffner et al. 2015). In rural Gabon, Foerster et al. (2012) found that wild meat consumption per household member was higher in wealthier households and lower in households more removed from the park boundaries. The level of consumption at the village level was lower in villages where wild meat was more valuable on average across species. Again, the indication is that a lack of alternative protein leads to higher wild meat consumption independent of household wealth.Wild meat consumption varies widely across East and Southeast Asian countries. A study in Vietnam found that 50% of residents surveyed had used wild animal products at some point, and a substantial majority (75%) of that consumption involved wild meat (Shairp et al. 2016). Another study conducted by Drury (2011) in Vietnam found that around 60% of rural households consume wild meat regularly, while urban consumption is lower, around 10-15%. Johnson et al. (2016) estimated that more than 80% of households in rural areas in Laos consume wild meat regularly. A recent study in China published in 2022 indicated that approximately 31% of respondents continued to consume wild animals despite the COVID-19 pandemic (Rizzolo et al. 2023). A study in major urban markets in Cambodia found most of those surveyed consumed wild meat several times a week. Richer and older people were more likely to consume wild meat than poorer and younger people (Nguyen 2023).In rural areas with access to wildlife, wild meat consumption is more frequent. A survey of households in Cambodia's Eastern Plains revealed that 84% reported consuming wild meat (Ibbett et al. 2021). Bennett and Robinson (2000) found that in Sarawak, wild meat is the main source of protein; 67% of the meals of Kelabits contain wild meat. In Indonesia, Pangau-Adam et al. (2012) found that 51% of respondents reported that their meals contained wild meat. In South Asia, Banerjee (2016) found that about 75% of households in Nagaland, India (a tribal area with a strong tradition of hunting), engage in hunting and consume wild meat regularly. In China's Yunnan Province, approximately 30% of rural households consume wild meat (Zhang et al. 2008).A global cross-country study estimated 40 million rural households in sub-Saharan (46% of all rural households or 268 million people) and 64 million rural households (11% of all rural households or 123 million people) in Southeast Asia depend in hunting (Nielsen et al., 1918). In terms of quantity consumed, estimates of wild meat consumption, which are not included in the FAOSTAT data as a specific category, compared to livestock meat consumption, are remarkably high (Table 8). (FAOSTAT has a category for 'game meat' but this included both farmed and captured meat and is inadequately reported).Wilkie and Carpenter (1999) carried out a review of studies in Central Africa that found that rural people consumed about 10 times as much wild meat as urban consumers but across the population the average was some 35 kg/ capita per year, much higher than the average level of livestock meat consumption in the same countries and across nearly all of Africa. Other estimates for the DRC and Liberia found consumption as high as 100 kg/capita per year. As reviewed in Booth et al. (2021b), Botswana, Congo and Côte d'Ivoire are Africa's leading wild meat consumers at 9.72 g, 8.08 g and 6.1 g per person, per day, respectively. It should be noted that some of these studies are based on hunting extraction rates and may reflect body weight rather than butchered meat, so may exaggerate the amounts actually consumed. Nevertheless, the general levels of consumption, which are apparently confirmed by a number of studies, emphasize the enormous importance of wild meat as a source of food for many rural people in Africa.In Asia, despite extensive searching, due to a lack of available data on wild meat consumption, we were unable to find specific data for most of the countries such as Cambodia, China, Malaysia and Myanmar. A recent review conducted by Pruvot et al. (2019) estimated that Laotians consumed 32 kg/per capita per year, representing 1.5 times the average per capita yearly meat consumption.Other estimates for Indonesia and Vietnam found the quantities of wild meat consumed per capita each year were 14 kg and 14¬-16 kg, respectively. Some studies suggest that wild meat behaves as a 'luxury good' in that demand may increase with a rise in price (particularly for primate meat), reported by Brashares et al. (2011) among diasporic communities in Europe, by Wilkie and Godoy (2001) in Central and South America, and by Drury (2011) in Vietnam, Sainge et al. (2023) in Sierra Leone and Chausson et al. (2019) in the DRC. As in the description of wild meat value chains later in this report, urban African markets provide relatively high-value markets for preferred species of wild meat, often in the context of specialty restaurants.In Africa, wild meat consumption is still predominantly associated with rural areas. Van Vliet et al. (2015) found in the DRC that poorer urban households consumed wild meat more often than wealthier ones but overall consumed less meat in general. Those poor urban households consumed common wild meat species more frequently, presumably due to price, while wealthier households more often ate larger, threatened species. In contrast, East et al. (2005) found no evidence in Equatorial Guinea of a luxury wild meat market based on rare species. A consumption study in Cameroon showed that wild meat is important in the diets of the poor and is not a luxury product eaten mainly by the rich. The study found that the poorest two quantiles in terms of income spent 16% and 17%, respectively, of their meat budgets on wild meat, versus 7% for the richest quartile and 9% overall (IITA, unpublished data, cited by Wolfe et al. 2005a).Meat budgets of the rich are likely to be significantly larger overall, but these data demonstrate the relative importance of wild meat for the poor. In Delta State, Nigeria, Ebewore et al. (2015) found that increased levels of education and income were associated with somewhat lower wild meat consumption. Across a mix of rural and urban households in Madagascar, Jenkins et al. (2011) found that livestock meat was preferred over wild meat.In urban Southeast Asia, wild meat is often considered a luxury item and a status symbol. Wild meat is sought after for its exotic appeal and perceived health benefits. A study in Hanoi, Vietnam, found that high-income men were most likely to consume wild meat, often associating it with masculinity and social status (Biller-Sandalj et al. 2015). Zhang et al. (2008) also found similar findings in urban China, where wild meat such as bear paws and pangolin scales are considered luxury items and are consumed by wealthy individuals to showcase their status. Moreover, there is a tendency to consume wild meat during special occasions and festivals, where it is perceived as a delicacy.In Vietnam, wealthier urban populations consume wild meat during (Lunar New Year) and other significant cultural events, reflecting its role as a festive delicacy (Drury 2011). In urban settings, it is theoretically easier to enforce regulations against wild meat, but black markets exist (Nijman and Shepherd 2015). A recent investigation conducted by Luong (2022) in urban markets in Vietnam revealed ongoing illegal sales of wild meat, indicating persistent demand despite strict wildlife trade laws.On average, per capita meat consumption globally has increased by approximately 20 kg since 1961, much of it in developing countries. The average person globally consumed around 43 kg of meat in 2021. Consumption trends across Africa and Asia are varied; in some countries, people consume as little as 10 kg of meat per year, around half of the continental average (Ritchie et al. 2017).FAOSTAT data indicate that daily (and annual) per capita livestock meat supply in Africa (in 2013, the most recent available data) was on average 5.2 g/day (19 kg/year), ranging from lows of 3 g/day (11 kg/year) in East Africa, 3.5 g/day (12.8 kg/year) in West Africa, and 6.6 g/day (24 kg/year) in Central Africa to 16.4 g/day (60 kg/year) in Southern Africa, where average incomes tend to be higher than in much of the rest of the continent. In Asia, the average daily (and annual) meat consumption was 7.3 g/day (26.7 kg/year) (in 2016), ranging from 2.2 g/day (8 kg/year) in South Asia, 9.9 g/day (26 kg/year) in Central Asia, 11 g/day (40 kg/year) in Southeast Asia, 12.1 g/day (44 kg/year) in Western Asia, and 14.2 g/day (52 kg/year) in East Asia.The evidence available suggests that in urban areas where demand from higher income consumers for traditional meats is high, wild meat may often cost more per unit of weight than livestock meat alternatives (Table 5).The situation is often reversed, however, in rural areas, particularly in countries where livestock keeping is not a traditional practice. Alternative proteins may be rare in rural villages with rudimentary livestock production, unless close to coastal regions supplying fish. In Gabon, Abernethy and Obiang (2010) found that in forested areas, livestock meat alternatives were limited and sold at over twice the price of wild meat, whereas in the capitol, Libreville, wild meat was six times the price of the cheapest livestock meat.  Wild meat is a nutritious food. One estimate found that the average protein content of wild meat is around 30% (Ntiamoa-Baidu 1997). Cawthorn and Hoffman (2015) assembled nutritional composition data for meat from a range of wild meat species and found protein values of 17-26% among African antelopes and a high of 45% in porcupines. In terms of energy, while some species are low in fat (e.g. monkeys), others, such as rodents, have a high energy density (Cawthorn and Hoffman 2015). Nasi et al. (2008) reviewed the literature on wild meat contributions to diet and found that in at least 62 countries, wildlife and fish contribute at least 20% of the animal protein in rural household diets, providing calories, essential proteins, fats and micronutrients. De Mérode et al. ( 2004), however, suggest that wild meat does not make a major contribution to nutrition in forest households suffering from extreme poverty due to remoteness and political instability. Wild meat comprised just 3.1% of household consumption (as a percentage of the total consumption in USD equivalent) but 25% of household sales. The authors suggested that the relatively low consumption was due to the extreme poverty of most people which meant they could not afford the equipment to hunt wild meat or the money to purchase it. While the few who could afford hunting, sold wild meat as it was one of the few ways of earning money. A recent study by Booth et al. (2021b) reported that wild meat provided households with up to 73% of protein in Côte d'Ivoire, 61% of protein in Botswana, and 47% of protein in the Republic of the Congo. Fa et al. (2003) suggest that up to 90% of animal protein consumption comes from wild meat in some West and Central African countries, with smaller but still important shares observed across all countries in the region. Bennet (2000) estimated that in West Africa, 25% of protein consumption was of wild meat, and in Liberia the figure was as high as 75%. One estimate for the Congo Basin found that 30-80% of protein in rural communities was sourced from wild meat (Blaney 2008).Estimates provided by Booth et al. (2021b) give insights on eight sub-Saharan countries at risk of protein deficiencies if wild meat is excluded from their diets: Botswana, Central African Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Madagascar, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.Interestingly, this list excludes some of the West African countries like Nigeria and Ghana where wild meat consumption and trade have been frequently reported. Also, in Gabon, Abernethy and Obiang (2010) estimated that wild meat comprised up to 90% of the protein in the diet of some remote rural households. Specific localities can also be heavily reliant on wild meat, both in rural areas and nearby towns. In rural areas near Cameroon's Dja Faunal Reserve, 98% of meat consumption was wild meat and 80% of meat consumption was wild meat in the nearest town (Muchaal and Ngandjui 1995). In Uganda, 55.3% of hunters hunted to obtain animal protein for their diets (Namusisi et al. 2021).In rural areas, about 2/3 or more Infographic 5.Wild meat is a significant source of protein and income for many rural communities in West Africa. This case study explores the role of wild meat in the diets of West African communities, its nutritional contributions, and the associated public health challenges.West Africa is a region rich in biodiversity, with extensive forests home to a variety of wildlife species. Countries such as Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone have vast forested areas where wild meat hunting is prevalent. Wild meat is a traditional food source and vital source of protein and micronutrients in many West African diets. Studies have shown that in rural areas, wild meat can provide a significant portion of daily protein intake (Fa et al. 2015) and that in parts of rural West Africa, wild meat accounts for up to 80% of the animal protein consumed by local communities (Pearce 2005). The most common species consumed in this region include grasscutter rats and duikers (Petrozzi et al. 2016).It is generally accepted that the outbreak of Ebola virus disease in West Africa from 2013 to 2016 originated from a wildlife source (Spengler et al. 2016). Consequently, governments imposed bans on the hunting and consumption of wild meat (Bonwitt et al. 2018). Wild meat consumption in the region reduced during the outbreak, particularly for species implicated in the outbreak, such as bats and chimpanzees, but consumption of other species such as ungulates and rodents increased following the outbreak (Funk et al. 2021;Onyekuru et al. 2020;Ordaz-Németh et al. 2017;Duonamou et al. 2020). Women were more likely to consume wild meat during the outbreak (Onyekuru et al. 2020).The reduction in wild meat consumption during the outbreak was likely related to public health messaging (Funk et al. 2021), but the messages did not reflect the experience of people and so caused unintended consequences: distrust of public health actors and their messages and promotion of more under-ground (hidden) value chains for the wild meat trade (Bonwitt et al. 2018).The long-term impact of the wild meat ban in Côte d'Ivoire was a reduction in wild meat consumption and a shift to alternative sources such as mushrooms and fish. However, it was noted that the limited or inconsistent availability of alternative proteins may have resulted in deficiencies (Dinde et al. 2017). People's reliance on wild meat for protein is greater during the lean agricultural seasons and wildlife depletion is likely to further exacerbate protein deficiencies (Schulte-Herbrüggen et al. 2017).When determining interventions to manage the conservation and public health impacts of wild meat consumption, authorities need to consider the socioeconomic, gender and food security contexts of the local communities (Duonamou et al. 2020). Efforts to balance wild meat consumption with wildlife conservation and to reduce public health risks should include promoting alternative livelihoods and protein sources, such as agriculture and aquaculture, and implementing wildlife management plans and sustainable hunting practices where appropriate. Importantly, communities should be educated about the health risks associated with wild meat and engaged in work to monitor both disease outbreaks and wildlife populations.As noted, loss of wild meat from diets could also lead to food insecurity (Booth et al., 2021b). Seasonal food security may also depend on wild meat, with several studies showing that hunting and reliance on wild meat increases during the dry or lean seasons when other food sources are scarce (Lindsey et al. 2011 in Zimbabwe; Alade and Onadeko 2017 in Nigeria; Sackey et al. 2023 in Ghana). Wild meat can provide a general consumption safety net in times of economic hardship and community emergency or shock situations or for migrant workers without the time to plant and grow food crops (Cawthorn and Hoffman 2015;McNamara et al. 2020;Kamogne et al. 2022). In Nigeria's Cross River National Park, wild meat consumption was significantly associated with higher household food security status, with rodents playing a particularly important role (Friant et al. 2020). One study looking closely at stunting among children in rural areas across Central Africa found that households located close to dense and species-diverse forest settings, remote from urban areas, exhibited lower levels of stunting. Households located in less forested and animaldiverse settings exhibited more stunting (Fa et al. 2015), suggesting that the availability of wild meat plays a role in reducing child stunting.In East and Southeast Asia, although wild meat is less important as a source of protein than it is in Africa, the region's highly dense populations mean that the contributions of wild meat to total quantities of protein consumed can be significant: for example, wild meat supplies 1,711 tonnes of food annually in China (Booth et al. 2021b). More important than the actual contribution is the common perception in this region that wild meat provides more nutritious protein than domestic meat.Wild meat consumption also plays a significant role in the nutrition and food security of some populations in Asia (often minority, rural and relatively isolated and impoverished). Drury (2011), Shepherd et al. (2010), Clark et al. (2006), Madhusudan et al. (2003) and Alvard et al. (2000) found that wild meat, including that of deer, wild pigs, and various birds, is rich in protein and provides a crucial source of protein and essential micronutrients, particularly in rural areas where access to conventional meat sources may be limited. Wild meat thus helps to ensure food security during times of scarcity and regular hunting practices help to supplement diets with necessary nutrients. A study conducted by Lee et al. (2015) indicated that wild meat consumed in traditional medicines, such as deer antlers and bear bile, not only serves medicinal purposes but also provides high-quality protein and essential amino acids. Evidence from Laos shows that some rural communities in remote areas source a significant portion of their food from wild meat (Pruvot et al. 2019;Davis and Glikman 2020), and wild meat is considered important for the food security of ethnic groups in rural areas (Pathumphone et al. 2016;Singh 2010).While the preponderance of evidence suggests that rural consumption of wild meat in Asia is less significant than in the Amazon or Congo basin, unequal research efforts between continents hinders meaningful comparisons (Nielsen et al., 2017;Coad et al., 2019). In Asia and particularly in biodiversity-rich areas such as primary forests, the scarcity of site-level hunting data and regional meta-analyses on wild meat consumption constitutes an important research gap (Lee et al. 2014). The level of rural communities' dependence on wild meat, or the extent to which a person's nutritional, economic, or socio-cultural wellbeing would be diminished if access to wild meat declined when a substitute is not available, remains poorly understood in the Asia-Pacific region (Ingram et al. 2021).Wild meat and wild animals more generally are used in many communities for medical purposes (Coals et al. 2024). Van Vliet et al. (2017) conducted a systematic review of evidence on the zootherapeutic uses of wild meat to either treat or prevent illnesses and identified studies conducted in Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, India and Nigeria indicating the use of a total of 76 wild meat species. A recent review documented over 2,000 zootherapeutic practices in Africa, with extensive documentation in Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania (Fourchault et al. 2024). Around 521 mammalian species (the most common being: 25% ungulates, 23% carnivores, 14% primates, 13% bats and 12% rodents) are used to treat 371 ailments, including infectious and parasitic diseases (38), unclassified symptoms and signs (32) and those without any specific symptoms (64) (Alves et al. 2021). Among the 521 species reported by Alves et al. (2021), 155 are threatened and a further 46 are near threatened. Zootherapy has also been documented as frequent in Brazil, China, India, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan and Vietnam, with amphibians-e.g. frogs, reptiles such as snakes, lizards, turtles, crocodiles and geckos-used for treatments, even for cancer (Inatimi et al. 2022). In Uganda, wild meat is given to women following childbirth for its perceived benefit in speeding post-partum recovery (Namusisi et al. 2021). In Nigeria, 44 wild animal species (python, tortoise, squirrel, water chevrotain, elephant and potto) were used for 272 zootherapeutic purposes as influenced by gender and age (common for maternal and paediatric care) and seasonal patterns of illness (Friant et al. 2022). Injuries, epilepsy, burns, mental illness and poisoning were among the ailments reported by Friant et al. (2022). In Ethiopia, 20 vertebrates (70% mammals, 20% birds) were used for zootherapy, with hyenas and porcupines being common (Biru et al. 2022). In Ghana's Kumasi market, wild species from 20 families, over 50% considered threatened, were traded for zootherapy with chameleons commonly sold (Dery et al. 2022). In Tanzania, out of 28 animals harvested, 10 were used to treat burns, ear pains and muscle pain and to knead pregnant women during delivery. These studies reported that many different parts of the animals were used: the entire animal, the meat, various organs and inedible parts such as bird bills. Prepared with other ingredients from plants or other animal products, they were used to create medicinal products to treat a range of ailments and diseases. The fat from hippos (harvested in some rural conservation nature reserves in South Africa) is highly sought after for its apparent aphrodisiacial properties, and is sold to the local surrounding communities whilst wild meat is affordable and sold for its protein value in an area were it is a scarce commodity.In East and Southeast Asia, ingestion of wild meat for medicinal purposes has a long history. Different regions developed their own unique medicinal systems, incorporating a variety of locally available wild animals for various treatments (Ashwell 2008). In Vietnam, certain animals are believed to have medicinal properties that can treat various ailments. Cobras and other snakes are believed to improve male virility and able to treat ailments such as arthritis and asthma (Drury 2011). Additionally, bear bile is used in traditional medicine for its supposed anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties (Shairp et al. 2016). Research by Alvard (2000) indicated that in rural Indonesia, tiger bones and parts are believed to possess strong healing powers and are used in traditional medicines to treat a variety of illnesses, while bat meat is consumed for its supposed ability to treat asthma and respiratory issues. A report by Shepherd (2010) highlighted that in Malaysia, wild animal parts are incorporated into traditional medicine. Sun bear parts are used for their perceived medicinal properties, including treating burns and joint pain, and wild boar meat is consumed to boost energy and treat various internal ailments. According to Lee and Kang (2015), wild meat and animal parts play a crucial role in traditional Chinese medicine, driven by the belief that they have unique properties that can balance the body's energy (Qi) and treat illnesses. Tiger bones are used to make wine believed to strengthen bones and treat arthritis, and pangolin scales are believed to stimulate lactation, reduce swelling, and improve blood circulation (Still 2003). Deer antlers are used in powders and tinctures to boost vitality, improve kidney function, and treat impotence (Lee and Kang 2015), while seahorses are utilized for their supposed ability to treat infertility, asthma and arthritis (Still 2003). In urban China, wild meat used for medicinal purposes is often sold at high prices in traditional medicine shops and specialty restaurants. Despite regulations, illegal trade and consumption of wild meat for medicinal purposes continue, driven by high demand and traditional beliefs. Approximately 30% of urban households in China consume wild meat for medicinal purposes, compared to around 70% in rural areas (Still 2003). In South Asia, a study by Madhusudan and Mishra (2003) found that in rural India, particularly among tribal communities, wild meat is an essential part of traditional medicinal practices. About 65% of tribal households rely on wild meat for treating various ailments. For example, porcupine meat is consumed for its supposed ability to heal wounds and treat kidney stones. In urban areas, the consumption of wild meat for medicinal purposes is much lower, around 5-10%, due to legal restrictions and cultural preferences for domesticated meat. While the use of wild meat for medicinal purposes is not as widespread in Japan as in other parts of Asia, certain traditional practices still exist. According to a report by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (2018), about 15% of rural households in certain regions consume wild boar meat, which is believed to enhance physical strength and vitality. In urban areas, this practice is rare and largely confined to traditional culinary festivals. In Central Asia, traditional medicine incorporates the use of wild meat, with a significant percentage of rural households relying on it for medicinal purposes. A study by Clark et al. (2006) in Mongolia found that approximately 40% of rural households consume wild meat, such as marmot and deer, believed to treat a range of ailments from respiratory issues to joint pain.Prevalence and frequency: Surveys suggest that in West and Central Africa around half the population eat wild meat: in rural areas this is two-thirds or more of the population but in urban areas it is often less than half. A smaller proportion (a quarter or less) eat wild meat regularly. The links between wild meat consumption and household income and wealth are tenuous, so increased disposable income may or may not increase wild meat consumption. For many in more remote rural areas, wild meat is the lowest cost form of animal protein, but for some urban consumers it is a relatively expensive luxury item. There is a tendency for women to eat less wild meat than men and younger people to eat less than older. There are fewer studies in Southeast Asia, which suggest that around half of the general population consume wild meat, while in rural areas and those areas with greater access to wild meat, three-quarters or more of the population consume wild meat. Again, there is a tendency for men and older people to eat more of it than women and younger people.Quantity consumed: In Africa, the quantities of wild meat consumed are significant, often much higher than livestock meat consumption. Overall, foragers consume on average 38 kg a year and farmers 16 kg of wild meat compared to 19 kg of meat from domestic animals. There is some evidence that extreme poverty is protective to wild animals, as the poorest cannot afford wild meat to purchase or equipment to hunt. In Southeast Asia, where quantitative studies are mainly from rural areas with access to hunting, consumption is around 20 kg per year.Rural versus urban consumption: In Africa, wild meat consumption is still predominantly associated with rural areas, and there is no strong overall preference for wild meat in urban areas. In East and Southeast Asia, wild meat is often considered a luxury item and status symbol by urban dwellers as well as a healthy food and one that is eaten during special occasions. In urban areas where demand from higher income consumers for traditional meats is high, wild meat may often cost more per unit of weight than livestock meat alternatives. The situation is often reversed, however, in rural areas, particularly in countries where livestock keeping is not a traditional practice.Contribution to nutrition and food security: Wild meat is often rich in proteins and micronutrients and some species have high energy density. In at least 62 countries, wildlife and wild-caught fish contribute at least 20% of the animal protein in rural household diets, providing calories, essential proteins, fats and micronutrients. In some African countries, wild meat provides up to 90% of animal protein consumption. In East and Southeast Asia, the relative contributions are smaller but the absolute contributions can be significant: for example, 1,711 tonnes of protein are obtained from wild meat each year in China. At least 15 countries, mostly in Africa, would risk food insecurity if wild meat were excluded from human diets. In Central Africa, the low availability of wild meat has been linked to childhood stunting.Consumption for medicinal use: Over 2,000 zootherapeutic practices have been documented in Africa with around 521 mammalian species being used to treat 371 ailments. Zootherapy often, although not always, involves consumption of wild animals. . This practice is also widespread in East and Southeast Asia, with, for example, around 30% of urban households and 70% of rural households in China consuming wild meat for medicinal purposes.A wide variety of species of mammals, birds and reptiles are hunted or caught for wild meat. In Africa, the three taxa most important for human consumption are largebodied ungulates (such as antelopes, bovines, pigs), primates and rodents. Monitor lizards and snakes follow (Brown et al. 2007). In their review of 36 studies from seven Central African countries, Fa et al. (2005) found that 71 mammal species from 8 orders and 22 families were reported hunted. Ungulates (46.6%) and rodents (37.0%) were the most frequently hunted taxonomic groups in terms of number of animals. In terms of weight, for the combined studies, ungulates contributed 73.2% in weight (Fa et al. 2005), and rodents and primates contributed 12.2% and 12.0%, respectively. Large-bodied species (those animals weighing 15-100 kg) represented over half (54.4%) of the total hunted biomass.Increasing demand for wild meat and wildlife products, both domestically and internationally, drives unsustainable levels of illegal hunting across East and Southeast Asia countries (Corlett et al. 2007;Hughes et al. 2017). Forest ungulates are popular for their meat as a source of protein for local communities and can be sold commercially (CIFOR 2008). Some parts of ungulates, such as horns and antlers, are used in traditional medicine practices (Lee et al. 2014). The horns and antlers of some ungulate species are prized as trophies by hunters, endangering the survival of populations by illegal hunting throughout the region (Ripple et al. 2016;Nijman et al. 2015).From a zoonotic risk perspective, all wild meat species are not equal. Several systematic reviews exist that try to answer the question of which wild hosts of zoonotic pathogens pose the greatest risk of transmitting zoonotic disease to humans or of hosting a pathogen with high pandemic potential (Box 4).Our recent systematic literature review of 273 studies on wildlife zoonoses in Southeast Asia revealed that primates, rodents, bats, and carnivores are the wildlife reservoirs with a higher proportion of zoonotic pathogens than other mammals (Nguyen et al. 2024). This finding supports the broader observation that mammals (around 80%) are the primary hosts for zoonotic diseases, followed by avian hosts (Morse et al. 2012). Woolhouse and Gowtage-Sequeria (2005) indicated that of 816 human pathogen species known to be zoonotic, the most important hosts in terms of diversity of zoonotic pathogens supported were ungulates, followed by carnivores, rodents, non-mammalian species, non-human primates, other mammals and then bats. This is partly mirrored by a recent review by Moloney et al. (2023) rating wild meat from ungulates, followed by rodents and primates, topmost in harbouring pathogens despite primates, rodents and bats having been more researched with regards to spillover potential (Tumelty et al. 2023). Interestingly, a recent systematic review study examined the role of wild animals on impacting public health. Cupertino et al. (2020) found 245 studies that addressed zoonotic disease and wild animals. Bats and (non-human) primates were the most frequent species among those documented as leading to confirmed zoonotic disease in people, followed by wild rodents and, less frequently, buffalo and wild pigs.The large number of zoonotic pathogens hosted by ungulates and the high frequency of human contact with ungulates (both domestic and wild) and their products is probably responsible for many events of zoonotic disease transmission from these species. Many of these zoonotic diseases, however, are likely to be 'classic' endemic zoonoses, where the constant source of infection remains in the ungulate host with little or no onward human-to-human transmission. Analysis of emerging zoonoses indicates that the vast majority of zoonotic pathogens have originated in wildlife rather than domestic livestock (Jones et al. 2008). However, some of the most important zoonoses of recent decades have involved domestic or farmed animals as the original or an intermediary host (e.g. highly pathogenic avian influenza, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, Middle East respiratory virus, Rift Valley fever).The potential risk posed by specific wildlife species is a product of the number of pathogens for which that species can be host, the likelihood of any one of those pathogens being sufficiently well adapted to transmit to humans, and the number of potential exposure events occurring between humans and that particular non-human host. When it comes to non-human primates, the high degree of primate genetic similarity with humans means the pathogens, although smaller in number, may be more highly adapted for a human host, with a corresponding increase in likelihood of sustained human-to-human transmission after a spillover event. Morse et al. (2012) indicated that pathogens that reached sustained human-to-human transmission were more likely to originate in non-human primates than in other hosts of zoonotic pathogens.Birds, rats and bats, although hosts with potentially lower zoonotic pathogen diversity, are highly adapted to living within human-dominated environments in large numbers. Species within these orders known to host potential zoonotic pathogens have been seen to increase within humandominated landscapes more than species that do not host zoonotic pathogens (Gibb et al. 2020). In these environments there is a high potential for transmission events to occur due to environmental contamination with the excreta of the birds, rats and bats and the relative ease of hunting for their meat. In addition to providing potential opportunities for transmitting zoonotic pathogens, bats have been demonstrated to host a high degree of viral pathogen richness, with viruses over-represented among the pathogens with spillover potential, probably due to their ability to rapidly mutate and evolve (Luis et al. 2013).All the groups of potential zoonotic disease hosts appear in wild meat market studies, but, as indicated above, perhaps in proportions that differ from those that are hunted and consumed in communities.Primates Grace et al. 2024 Infographic 6.In an earlier review of 13 previous studies, Wilkie and Carpenter (1999) found that duikers, pigs, primates and rodents are the most commonly hunted forest animals, duikers being the most important both in numbers and biomass. Again, ungulates were the most common species (34-95% across the studies), followed by primates (1-40%) and rodents (1-31%). Rodents were observed to be more important in areas close to urban markets, presumably because duikers were depleted in the forests nearby. Wilkie and Carpenter (1999) suggest that in these forest settings, the ratio of duikers to rodents found in urban markets may provide a rough indication of wild meat overexploitation or diminishing hunter access to dense forests.Bowen- Jones et al. (2003)   (Kaschula and Shackleton 2009).In the largest such study, by Taylor et al. (2015), a systematic review of 67 primary sources of the West and Central African wild meat literature, including market, offtake and consumption surveys, documented 177 species from 25 orders that were harvested for wild meat, comprising 134 (76%) mammalian species, 24 (14%) bird species, 18 (10%) reptile species and 1 (<1%) amphibian species. Among mammals, the largest number of species were primates (48 species), including western lowland gorillas, bonobos (related to chimpanzees) and common chimpanzees; followed by ungulates (34 species); carnivores (22 species); and rodents (16 species). Only one species of bat is listed, likely to be the straw-coloured fruit bat, which is commonly eaten, and no relative market share is indicated. The sources identified were biased towards Central Africa in part because the authors suggest that West Africa may largely be in 'post-depletion phase', since the numbers of many large-bodied species have been significantly reduced there.Hunting poses the greatest threat to wildlife populations in Asia, particularly in Southeast Asia (Ripple et al. 2016).Most common taxa or species hunted in Southeast Asia are rodents (squirrels, gerbils, bamboo rats), carnivores (civet cats, ferret badgers, dholes [wild dogs], golden jackals, raccoon dogs and occasionally cats), wild boars, birds, deer and bats (Engel and Ziegler 2020). There are differences between countries; a study by McEvoy et al. (2019) identified muntjacs (barking deer), Malayan porcupines, wild boar, three pangolin species (Sunda, Chinese, and Indian) and bamboo rat as the most commonly hunted wildlife in Myanmar. Pangolins and bamboo rats were particularly widespread targets, hunted for consumption throughout their range in the country. The study also found hunting of common palm civet, Asiatic black bear, gaur (wild oxen), and small jungle cats, but these were reported less frequently than pangolins. Even less frequent mentions included clouded leopards, sun bears, and spotted linsangs (tree-dwelling carnivores).A 2012 study in India by Gubbi et al. (2012) revealed that mammals were the primary target for hunters, with 90% of respondents hunting them. This was significantly higher than birds (66.7%) and reptiles (45%). Among mammals, ungulates were the most popular, accounting for 31.5% of hunting activity. Sambar deer (56.7%) and wild pig (45.0%) were the most sought-after ungulate species (Gubbi et al. 2012) Alade and Onadeko (2017) found that mammals brought the highest profits among wild meat traders in Lagos State, Nigeria. In Gabon, it was found that the top five species numerically provided over 70% of the biomass hunted, and that blue duikers and red forest duikers and porcupines are always among these (Abernethy and Obiang 2010). It is unclear whether any novelty among buyers and consumers associated with rarity of a species drives demand, at least in Africa. Wild meat confiscated from airports presumably represents more valued species.In 2012, out of 179 samples of meat confiscated at a Swiss airport, 92% of the samples were identified as from mammals, 4% were from reptiles and 1% were from birds (Wood et al. 2014). Meat from rodents (40%), duikers (18.9%) and pangolins (11.2%) were confiscated the most (Wood et al. 2014). In Equatorial Guinea, East et al. (2005) found no evidence of specific demand for rare animals. In contrast, in parts of Asia, the rarity of a wild species can raise the market value of its meat (Volpato et al. 2020).Although a wide variety of pathogens pose zoonotic risks, including bacteria and various parasites, much of the attention on risks of wild meat focuses on viruses. The Ebola virus has garnered global attention due to its disturbingly high mortality outcomes. Outbreaks of the disease in humans have repeatedly been linked to the handling and, potentially, the consumption of infected apes (Leroy et al. 2004). A recent study (Onyekuru et al. 2020) examined risk perceptions and practices associated with the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which they describe as one of the longest, deadliest and most complex epidemics ever documented.Consumption of wild meat from primates was believed to have played a central role, although fruit bats have been indicated as the primary host, with the disease transmitted to primates through bat droppings, among other pathways (FAO 2018). The authors surveyed wild meat sellers and consumers in Nigeria for practices and risk perceptions during and after the Ebola outbreak. They found a significant decrease in the levels of sales and consumption of wild meat during the outbreak, including zero sales or zero consumption reported in some cases. Women were 25% more likely than men to consume wild meat during the outbreak, for reasons that were not identified. Before the outbreak, about a quarter of respondents did not perceive that eating wild meat posed an Ebola disease risk, this decreased slightly during the outbreak, but returned to baseline after the outbreak. Risk was associated instead as primarily due to touching an infected person. Respondents were aware of some practices that help to prevent Ebola transmission, but these related almost entirely to mitigating risks through human contact, and there was little to no awareness of risk avoidance practices related to wild meat, and respondents reportedly did not practice them to any significant extent.These results suggest a relatively low level of awareness of zoonotic risks, in addition to even less frequency of changes in behaviour, if any, to mitigate risks among those with some awareness. There is some evidence, however, that information campaigns by radio, for example, could create greater awareness, if only at a superficial level. Similar to the risk mitigation strategies employed for foodborne zoonoses in general, an approach consisting of both educational and infrastructural improvements is likely to be required to empower actors to take risk mitigation steps (GAIN 2020).COVID-19, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, has had a profound global impact due to its rapid spread and large mortality and morbidity rates. Understanding the zoonotic origins and transmission pathways of SARS-CoV-2 is crucial for preventing future pandemics. Initial outbreaks of COVID-19 were linked to wildlife markets in Wuhan, China, where various species, including bats and pangolins, were sold. These markets provided an environment conducive to the interspecies transmission of coronaviruses (Nga et al. 2022;Huong et al. 2020). Huong et al. (2020) found that sites of close human-wildlife interactions, such as bat farms and the field rat trade in Southeast Asia, have shown high percentages of coronaviruses in bats (74.8%) and rodents (34.0%). These interactions significantly increase the risk of zoonotic spillover events. Nga et al. (2022) suggested that confined conditions in wildlife farms and markets can act as breeding grounds for viral amplification and recombination, potentially leading to more dangerous virus strains. This risk is not limited to bats and rodents but extends to other animals such as civets and pangolins. A review by Cipolletta et al. (2022) examining risk perceptions and practices associated with the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic revealed mixed levels of awareness about zoonotic transmission risks among the public. While some people recognized the risks associated with wildlife consumption, others were unaware of this or did not change their behaviours significantly. Honying et al. ( 2021) indicated that the pandemic led to a decrease in the sales and consumption of wildlife products in some areas, reflecting increased awareness of zoonotic risks (and increased enforcement). However, this change was not uniform across all demographics.The main avenues by which zoonotic diseases are transmitted, or 'spilled', between animals and humans are also described by Wolfe et al. (2005b) and other more recent studies (Javed et al. 2023;Mohamed and Wali 2023;Tumelty et al. 2023). These avenues are a) through shared disease vectors, such as mosquitoes in the case of malaria; b) through indirect contact in a shared humanwildlife environment, such as exposure to rodent faeces; and c) through direct human contact with animals through their consumption, through animal bites and scratches, or through contact with animal body fluids, tissues or excrement.• Butchering: Kurpiers et al. (2016) suggest that the greatest risk of disease transmission occurs during the butchering of animals, which may include skinning, removing organs and cutting up meat. More people butcher (83%) than hunt (42%) animals in Cameroon (LeBreton et al. 2006), and since butchering involves the use of sharp tools, cuts to practitioners may occur during the process, increasing their disease risks.In Sierra Leone, a survey by Subramanian (2012) of rural wild meat hunters and traders found that 38% of respondents cut themselves on a regular basis during butchering and that women are especially at risk of disease transmission since they more often undertake butchering and food preparation than men, although in other settings men are more likely to undertake initial dismembering of wild animals. In CameroonInfographic 7.processing. This creates a high risk of exposure to pathogens that can be present in these tissues (Lee et al. 2015). Many Asian regions have informal markets where wild animals are sold and butchered without regulatory oversight, increasing the risk of zoonotic disease transmission (Wolfe et al. 2005). Moreover, improper hygiene practices during butchering can contaminate the butchering area and surrounding environment with infected blood, tissues and fluids. This can then spread pathogens to humans and other animals through contact with contaminated surfaces, tools or water (Karesh et al. 2005) The starting point of safe, hygienic and humane slaughter/butcher/ shooting of wild game is for the initial shot to render it the animal dead instantaneously. Time, technique and temperature are the parameters that determine the safety of the wild meat suitability for consumption and ultimately public health, free from food borne and zoonotic diseases. In keeping with this mantra, the carcass needs to be suspended within a short time of being shot humanely, to allow for sufficient bleeding. Insufficient exsanguination results in the multiplication of bacteria in the tissues especially in the hot humid climatic conditions of Africa. The evisceration of the carcass is of paramount importance and if this is delayed then the gut bacteria multiply, causing the bloating of the carcass and bacteria enters the tissues (Veary1991; Paulsen et al.2011). This then reduces the shelf life of the product. This applies to all wild game products be it for local consumption or export. Once exsanguination has been achieved the carcass, for informal traders, can then be skinned with sterile knives, using just boiling water over a fire to sterilize the cutting knives thereby achieving the universal two knife system for slaughter/ butchering for food safety and cross contamination is avoided. Banana leaves that are washed with potable water, can be used to place the butchered portions of the carcass to avoid dust contamination. This method can be used in the absence of sterile receptacles for the informal trader. These butchered portions can be covered by washed and cleaned banana leaves to prevent flies and other insects from settling onto the meat portions, thereby reducing the likelihood of food borne diseases. The butchered portions can then be transported in large cooler boxes to point of sale, cooked and sold as a stew or to butcheries where a portion of the wild meat maybe displayed in a fly screen proofed glass window. The edible by-products viz; head hooves, red and rough offal can provide job creation and poverty alleviation for women and youth. It can also be used as a renewable source of protein, but the only challenge is that there is no recognised food value chain in the informal markets, therefore highlighting food safety concerns amidst the storage for physical, biological and chemical hazards. All inedible portions should be discarded such as blood and bones can be buried and stones piled onto the burial site to avoid any transmission of disease. The export market for wild game meat in South Arica isButchering wildlife presents significant risks for zoonotic disease transmission 38% cut themselves regularly when butchering women most o en undertake butchering and food preparation Subramanian 2012 In Sierra Leone Infographic 8.supported by draft regulations enabling traceability and regulated to some extent due to lack of resources. This method of harvesting/ butchering/slaughtering minimises the risk of poaching. In some areas where wild game harvesting is done on a regular basis to maintain the ecological balance, trained teams with registered professional game hunters and trained staff from the local rural communities all work within the parameters of best practices for food safety, food security, public health safety and the preservation of the environment. The entire team must be medically fit, free from zoonotic disease and adhere to all hygienic practice. In South Africa the incidence of cysticercosis is a matter of concern in the rural areas where most livestock are free roaming and wild game too. The absence of ablution blocks or malfunction of those present leave no option for the community but to use the fields as areas to relieve themselves. It is on these same fields that animals and wild game graze. This zoonotic transmission can be overcome by practising better sanitary practices and by proper cooking of the wild meat. Scarcity of water in most rural areas compounded by climatic changes and severe drought hampers the washing of hands as frequently as desired thereby being a potential risk for food borne diseases. • Smoking meat: A large proportion of wild meat is smoked shortly after harvest, including entire carcasses, mainly to increase its shelf like to preserve the product against decay. Whether or not these practices reduce the hazards or risks from viruses is not clear, and at least one study suggests that there is no reliable data on the issue (European Food Safety Authority 2014). Other studies have reported the presence of microbial contaminants and zoonotic pathogen signatures in processed meat, including those that are smoked (Katani et al. 2021;Moloney et al. 2023). Hanging and Drying wild meat after being mixed with condiments and salt is a very popular practice in South Africa for the production of Biltong, which is a sought after protein snack that replaces fried chips/ potato crisps. Biltong has a very long shelf life. The product is not suitable for pathogenic growth as the meat is dried completely most times, however some biltong is preferred slightly wet and this does not exclude the possibility of food borne diseases. • Consuming wild meat: In a review of spillover events documented between 1940 to 2021, Milbanks et al. ( 2022) reported a total of 91 suspected spillover events from wild meat consumption leading to 25 zoonotic diseases from 10 viral pathogens (41 spillover events), 10 bacterial pathogens (23 spillover events), and 5 parasites (27 spillover events). These, however, could underestimate the actual extent of spillover events because inadequate reporting and diagnostic abilities usually hinder spillover documentation. Spillovers from wild meat consumption were notably higher in Africa (n=38), commonly from viruses, and lowest in Oceania pathogens were frequently reported in North America, while Asia recorded the highest spillover events from parasites. The reported spillover events rarely cause large-scale outbreaks, with only two cases leading to outbreaks of 1,000 or more cases. Men were likely the cause of the first cases, and this could be attributable to men dominating the harvesting node. Some diseases such as mpox (formerly called monkeypox) reported that children younger than 18 were likely the first cases while adults of over 40 years were likely cases for hepatitis E. Ungulates were frequently reported as the source of spillover events and bats the sources least reported. Spillovers from viral pathogens were frequently associated with rodents, non-human primates or undiscerned sources. However, some analysis suggests that consumption of wild meat is less of a pathway for disease spillover than exposure to animal body fluids and faeces during the handling and butchering of wild animals (Kilonzo et al. 2014).While butchering animals and processing and consuming wild meat provide direct exposure to zoonotic pathogens, these activities can also lead to contamination of water, food and soils, which then also become means for zoonotic diseases to spread to humans and animals (Latifah et al. 2012;Koizumi et al. 2015;Gloriani et al. 2016;Wacharapluesadee et al. 2018;Kudo et al. 2018;Janwan et al. 2020;Heng et al. 2021;Lekko et al. 2021).Recent outbreaks of zoonotic human epidemics and pandemics have centred attention on the role of the direct and proximate risks associated with the hunting and handling of wild animals either for wild meat or for medicine. This review distinguishes the disease risks and their causes, the underlying and distal drivers of these diseases, and the actions and multiple channels leading to greater animal-human contacts (IPBES 2019).Selective hunting: Extraction of high-value species (e.g. trophy hunting) may sustain greater diversity of wildlife (di Minin et al. 2016) and hence the diversity of zoonotic pathogens (Wolfe et al. 2005a). Di Minin et al. ( 2016) argue that trophy hunting aids biodiversity through a) generating resources used for conservation, b) requiring less infrastructure and fewer personnel and c) taking hunting pressure off less desired species. Hunting that alters the wildlife species mix may also change zoonotic hazards. For example, a reduction in large species may lead to more hunting, and even population growth, of rodents, which are more likely to represent zoonotic disease risks given that the order Rodentia includes the largest number of zoonotic hosts (Ripple et al. 2016;Johnson et al. 2020). A study of a database of 58 studies in 8 countries found that rodent reservoirs became significantly abundant in human-modified habitats (Mendoza et al. 2019). Tumelty et al. (2023) reported in a recent review that 18 mammalian orders have zoonotic links with humans.Domestic animals: Although most emerging human diseases spillover from wildlife, many of the most important pandemics of recent decades have involved domestic or farmed animal amplifiers or 'bridges' (Liverani et al. 2013). These include highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).The presence of large numbers of domestic animals kept in close proximity and often genetically similar and immune-suppressed can provide excellent material for novel pathogens to adapt and promulgate. Studies by Takakuwa et al. (2013) and Mohamed et al. (2022) found that migratory birds can spread viruses such as H5N1 avian influenza by coming into contact with poultry farms and human settlements. This emphasizes the role of animal movements in disease transmission. Companion animals are increasingly kept, especially in Asia, and may become increasingly important.Vectors: The presence of disease-carrying insects such as mosquitoes (Akter et al. 2015;Fungfuang et al. 2020;Novianto et al. 2022) and ticks (Mohd-Qawiem et al. 2022) in human habitats can also act as bridges for zoonotic transmission between wild animals and humans.Contact zones: Animal-related attractions such as zoos and wildlife parks can also be transmission zones due to the increased opportunities they present for contact between wild animals and people. Three respiratory disease outbreaks among habituated chimpanzee populations in Côte D'Ivoire were traced back to two common human paramyxoviruses, and human illnesses transmitted to gorillas have been repeatedly documented in gorilla tourism sites in Uganda (Weber et al. 2020). COVID-19 has been documented in tigers in several zoos, including in India, Indonesia and the USA (McAloose et al. 2020).Wildlife transport and sale: The wildlife trade and socalled 'wet markets' where wild animals and wild meat are often sold are conducive to disease emergence as well. Animals typically experience high levels of stress when transported and kept in small, unhygienic cages next to many different animal species, which decreases their ability to fight infections and increases their opportunities to transmit infectious agents. A study showed that civets in markets were disproportionately positive for SARS-CoV-1 compared to civets on the supplying farms (Kan et al. 2005). Another study found isolates of severe acute respiratory virus 1 (SARS-CoV-1) from a civet and a racoon dog at the same market but from different regions of China and with an identical S-gene sequence, which differed from that of the other civet isolates, indicating that crossspecies transmission had occurred at the market (Guan et al. 2003).International trade in wildlife can cause viruses and other pathogens to emerge in areas far outside of their natural range (Karesh et al. 2005). This was demonstrated when retroviruses and herpesviruses were found in confiscated primates at American airports (Smith et al. 2012).Contributing to this risk is the fact that carcasses can carry viable pathogens for an extended period. Prescott et al. (2015) demonstrated that the Ebola virus remains viable on monkey carcasses for at least seven days.Globalisation is among the main drivers of more than 100 infectious disease threat events detected in Europe as millions of animals and animal products are moved across international borders with little disease surveillance and control measures (Semenza et al. 2016).Animal age and sex: Some studies suggest animal age might be a factor in susceptibility to certain viruses. For example, younger bats might be less likely to carry astroviruses (Mendenhall et al. 2017) and coronaviruses (Wacharapluesadee et al. 2018). Additionally, Kaewchot et al. (2022) found a higher prevalence of simian foamy virus in non-human primate males than in females.Human characteristics and behaviours: A review by Nguyen et al. (in press) suggested that factors such as people's age, income and gender might play roles in zoonotic disease transmission, but only a few studies have explored such links. One study linked being older than 30 to a higher risk of contracting tuberculosis (Yakubu et al. 2016), while another found that men with lower incomes were more susceptible than higher-income men to leptospirosis, a bacterial illness associated with water or soil contaminated with animal urine (Suwannarong et al. 2022). Fourchault et al. (2024) reported that children and lactating and pregnant mothers were at higher risk of spillover events from zootherapy following exposure to infectious fluids and tissues during treatment.Among human behaviours that increase the risk of contracting a zoonotic disease are consuming raw or undercooked wild meat, handling infected animals and the fluids be it in abattoirs or whilst harvesting/ slaughtering animals, disposing of condemned material after slaughter without appropriate protective clothing, eating contaminated food or vegetables, and lacking awareness about local zoonotic diseases.Handling of animals that are infected with a virus eg Rabies or Rift Valley Fever in endemic areas but not displaying many visible symptoms increases the risk of exposure to zoonotic diseases. People working with wild animals, such as Veterinarians, animal health personnel, zoo keepers, farmers, hunters and wildlife traders are also at risk. In addition, activities such as wildlife farming, feeding wild animals, trading wild animals, handling wildlife carcasses, and consuming wild meat can all increase the risk of zoonotic disease transmission.While understanding the direct and proximal risk factors can help predict where zoonotic transmission is most likely to occur and can help identify interventions, the roots of the problem are the distal, or underlying, drivers of zoonotic disease transmission.Globalization and the interconnectedness of markets and the freer movements of people driven by increased South-South investments and businesses, such as between China and Africa, all lead to increased movements of animals and thus increased opportunities for disease spillovers (Brashares et al. 2011;Kurpiers et al. 2016).Human population density: Jones et al. (2008) found a connection between high population density and emerging infectious diseases. Southeast Asia covers only 3% of the Earth's land surface but is home to more than 9% of the world's population, which has increased from 214 million in 1980 to nearly 670 million in 2020.Rapid urbanization is transforming social structures and increasing human mobility (Coker et al. 2011), potentially creating new pathways for disease transmission. Along with population growth, East and Southeast Asia has seen a significant rise in meat consumption per person over the past 40 years (UNEP and ILRI 2020). This increase in animal protein consumption, along with a taste for wild meat, leads to more frequent contact between humans and wild animals, creating opportunities for diseases to spread at this 'human-wildlife interface'.Increased infrastructure for logging and general rural development in previously remote areas leads to greater rural-urban movements of people and animals as well as to environmental degradation and the intrusion of human habitation into wildlife-rich zones, increasing humananimal contacts (Hassel et al. 2023;Mohamed and Wali 2023;Hassel et al. 2017).Human altered landscapes: Kurpiers et al. ( 2016) cite several studies that provide evidence of the links between infectious diseases and land-use changes and associated fragmentation of habitats (Gottdenker et al. 2014;Maganga et al. 2014). A recent study found that increases in outbreaks of zoonotic and vector-borne diseases in tropical countries between 1990 and 2016 were linked to deforestation (Morand and Lajaunie 2021).Human-managed landscapes appear to harbour greater zoonotic risk than undisturbed natural environments. Gibb et al. (2020) found that known wildlife hosts of zoonotic diseases were more abundant in secondary forests and agricultural systems than in undisturbed habitats and that that effect is most strongly associated with the presence of rodent, bat and passerine bird species. Anthropological activities, including replacing wildlife habitats with livestock enterprises and crop farming, reduces original host reservoir habitats and increases contacts between natural and modified environments, leading to the emergence or re-emergence of pathogens in naïve environments (Mahajan et al. 2021;Moreno et al. 2023;Lindahl and Grace et al. 2015).Corruption: Nielsen (2017) looked at the association between a national corruption perception index and wild meat hunting and trade and found positive correlations.Corruption-here defined as any public official or private individual who abuses their position to benefit themselves, people in their network, their community or their organization-has emerged as a key driver of wildlife trade (TRAFFIC 2008). Corrupt acts fall within the broad categories of bribery, patronage, diplomatic cover and permit abuse (Wyatt and Cao 2015). One of the biggest challenges to preventing wildlife trafficking is the existence of already corrupt structures in the criminal justice system and political environment (Wyatt et al. 2018).Compounding corruption is global neglect, with wildlife crimes often not seen as priorities for law enforcement or criminal justice (Hall and Wyatt 2017).Climate change: Climate change affects the population and distribution of arthropod vectors (insects and spiders) and their interactions with viral pathogens that could jump to new vectors (Gale et al. 2009). Temperature changes leading to warmer habitats and deforestation increase the presence of rodents in human environments (Naicker et al. 2011). In addition, Prompiram et al. (2022), Low et al. (2022) and Lau et al. (2020) found that global warming, changes in weather patterns, and the spread of ticks can create ideal conditions for pathogens to thrive and increase the risk of zoonotic transmissions. Human displacements and overcrowding due to unfavourable climatic conditions could dramatically lead to rapid and sustained disease outbreaks due to increased humanhuman and human-animal contacts (Filho et al. 2022;WHO 2022).In a survey of wild meat hunters and women cooks in Uganda, both types of respondents indicated that primates were the most likely to carry diseases that pose risks to people. However, neither group took precautions while handling wild meat and regarded gastrointestinal disease as the greatest risk. Most women cooks did not believe that hunters and traders disguised primate meat as something else, but most hunters indicated that they usually disguised primate meat, thus increasing disease risks from those pathogens that are more common in primates (Dell et al. 2020). Similar results by Subramaniam (2012) in Sierra Leone found that 24% of wild meat hunters and traders had some knowledge of disease risk to people from animals, a level of awareness that did not vary according to levels of formal education. A study by Kamins et al. (2015) of hunters, sellers and consumers of strawcoloured fruit bats found little perception of disease risk, except among those who did not consume them.Most actors in the wild meat value chain in the DRC did not consider hunting as risky, and as a consequence were little concerned about having direct contact with animal blood and tissues during butchering, even when they had open wounds (Lucas et al. 2022). The potential risks were habitually downplayed by actors who took solace in being raised in a culture of hunting, butchering and consuming wild meat. As reported in the same study, actors believed that they were more likely to get infections from domestic than wild animals, the latter of which were deemed pure and sacred creations of God. Actors believed that Ebola was a mystic disease that could result from spells cast on animals stolen from traps. Similarly, van Vliet et al. ( 2022) reported a low level of concern in the DRC about potential zoonotic exposures to actors along the wild meat supply chains, from villages to urban markets. Priority was given to ensure that meat remains well preserved for traders and end users who were more concerned about food safety (78% and 90% of traders and consumers, respectively). Kamins et al. (2015) found that respondents who participated in butchering associated less risk from wild animal contact and consumption than those who did not, suggesting some rationalization of their practices. Interestingly, a study in Guyana found that indigenous hunters did not regard cuts during animal butchering as injuries, further reducing the perception of disease transmission risk (Milstein et al. 2021). In the DRC, Lucas et al. ( 2022) also reported that injuries from cuts were only considered slightly dangerous. In Uganda, hunters reported frequent injuries during butchering and cooks noted that it is the butchering and cutting processes that present the highest risk of exposure to health risks from wild meat (Dell et al. 2020).At market centres in Ghana, a survey of wild meat hunters, traders and consumers found that just over 50% were aware of the possibility of contracting zoonotic diseases from wild meat consumption, but 33% were not aware. Of those aware, Ebola was cited most commonly, with a few citing anthrax. Nearly one-half had obtained information from radio programs on zoonotic disease risks from wild meat, but one-third had not received such information from any source (Kuukyi et al. 2014). These findings are nearly consistent with a recent study (Abukari et al. 2024) reporting that 62% of respondents from hunting communities were aware that they could contract zoonotic diseases from wild animals, with a majority (91%) having heard about COVID-19 from radio and television. This study by Abukari et al. (2024) reported that declines in wild meat consumption during the pandemics were due to economic shocks and fewer animals but not from fear of the disease.In a study in western Uganda, Paige et al. (2014) examined both general injuries from animals and contacts with primates. Most animal injuries were dog bites. Among those reporting physical contact with primates (mostly red colobus monkeys), 77% involved touching a carcass, 20% butchering, 10% hunting and 10% touching a live primate. Statistical analysis indicated that men who lived adjacent to forest fragments were at higher risk of primate contact.In Tanzania, about 57% of local communities were unaware that wild meat is a source of zoonosis through handling and consumption despite brucellosis and anthrax being commonly reported in the villages (Foya et al. 2023). Of 2,965 study responses in 5 geo-ecological zones in Tanzania, 70.6% were unaware of zoonotic viral haemorrhagic fevers, with knowledge levels significantly influenced by one's occupation and education status (Rugarabamu et al. 2023). Radio played an important role in creating awareness among 79% of respondents who were aware of viral haemorrhagic fevers. Along the borderland settlements of Kenya and Tanzania, 50% of communities recognized that wild meat consumption could lead to foodborne illness despite COVID-19 having had no impact on their wild meat consumption habits.Brucellosis and anthrax were recognized as disease risks that could result from poor wild meat handling practices (Patel et al. 2023).A survey of both hunters and non-hunters among rural communities in eastern Nigeria near forest reserves found 55% of respondents (both hunters and non-hunters) indicated awareness of wildlife zoonoses via broadcast news, forestry/conservation workers or word of mouth.Of those who indicated awareness, however, only 26% reported taking measures to mitigate risks, including avoiding eating wild meat, touching blood, or eating fruit from trees where monkeys had been feeding. Only 5% of respondents reported use of safer meat handling practices, such as cleaning or cooking meat well before eating it. A few indicated the use of additional clothing or gloves when in contact with animals. About one-third reported using traditional and/or commercial medicines as treatments or prophylaxis. Illnesses that respondents believed animals posed included HIV-AIDS as the most cited (over half), followed by cough and malaria. The species they believed posed most risk were monkeys (55% of respondents), pythons and pigs among others, with only 7% indicating chimpanzees. Box 5: Impact of COVID-19 on wild meat consumption and disease risk perception in Kenya-Tanzania border settlementsA study examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on wild meat consumption and perceptions of zoonotic disease risks among rural settlements along the Kenya-Tanzania border. The primary aim was to understand how education, media and economic factors influence these perceptions. Specifically, the study sought to assess the impact of COVID-19 on wild meat consumption, analyse perceptions of disease risks within the wild meat value chain, and identify the demographic factors that influence these perceptions. The findings show how various social, economic and informational factors shape local attitudes and behaviours regarding wild meat consumption and associated health risks.Wild meat hunting and trade are common practices in African savannahs. This study was conducted in six villages in Taita Taveta County, Kenya, and Rombo District, Tanzania, where 299 people were interviewed about their wild meat consumption, knowledge of COVID-19 and perceptions of disease risks. The interviews highlighted differences between the two countries in terms of legislation, economic impact and public awareness.We found that 76% of respondents learned about COVID-19 from the media. Most recognized its origin in China, but fewer believed it originated in wild animals. Regarding wild meat consumption, 70% reported no impact of COVID-19 on consumption, with some even noting an increase. Over half of the respondents believed that wild meat consumption could lead to foodborne illnesses, identifying hyenas, monkeys and snakes as high-risk species. Education significantly influenced disease risk perceptions, and country-specific legislation also played a role, with respondents in Tanzania, where hunting wildlife is allowed, more accepting of the wild meat trade than respondents in Kenya, where hunting wildlife is illegal. In 2020, Tanzanian authorities approved the sale of wild meat under special rules that require licensed operators to slaughter wild animals at special abattoirs.The study underscores the complexity of wild meat consumption and disease risk perception in rural African communities. Although COVID-19 heightened awareness of zoonotic diseases, economic pressures and cultural practices continued to drive wild meat consumption. Education and media were identified as critical factors in shaping public perception. Those with more education were more aware than those with little education that hand washing reduced disease transmission and that contact with wildlife posed a disease risk. The impact of COVID-19 on wild meat consumption varied between Kenya and Tanzania. Education and effective communication strategies are essential in promoting awareness of zoonotic diseases, and policy interventions must consider local economic and cultural contexts to be effective.The study found that economic pressures in these rural communities often override health concerns regarding wild meat consumption. Country-specific legislation impacts public attitudes towards wild meat trade, highlighting the need for a better understanding of the difference between official regulations and their practical implementation.Species: Ungulates generally tend to be the most frequently hunted animals and are sometimes the most important in terms of overall biomass extracted. These tend to be followed in importance by large rodents and primates. Near human settlements, where hunting pressure is greater, larger bodied animals have over time tended to be 'hunted out' and replaced by smaller species (such as duikers and large rodents), which are faster reproducing and thus more sustainably hunted. The species extraction data available, however, rely heavily on market surveys, which may not closely reflect actual hunting levels or species composition, much of which is consumed locally and so does not appear in markets. Much of the data available come from Central and West Africa and East and Southeast Asia, with fewer data from Southern and East Africa and Central Asia. Primates, rodents, bats and carnivores are the wildlife reservoirs with the highest proportion of zoonotic pathogens.Pathogens of most concern: Historically, zoonotic spillover events have mostly been attributed to bacterial, parasitic and viral pathogens from ungulates, followed by viral pathogens of undetermined sources, and those from rodents and non-human primates other than great apes. Other major sources of spillover events include armadillos (bacterial) and carnivores (parasitic), while bats have contributed the least to previous spillovers. Microbes of most concern are those that have proven ability to a) lead to human pandemics, b) lead to panzootics in (non-human) animal populations, and c) mutate at high rates and recombine with other similar or dissimilar microbes, with RNA viruses of special concern. Key viruses of concern include Ebola and Marburg filoviruses, hepatitis viruses, herpes viruses, human T-cell lymphotropic virus, mpox virus, paramyxoviruses, simian immunodeficiency virus and simian foamy virus.Transmission pathways: Between 1940 and 2021 a total of 91 spillover events from wild meat consumption have been documented, leading to 25 zoonotic diseases from 10 viral pathogens, 10 bacterial pathogens, and 5 parasites. Spillovers from consumption were notably higher in Africa than in Asia. However, consumption of wild meat may be less of a pathway for disease spillover than exposure to animal body fluids and faeces during the handling and butchering of wild animals.The direct or proximate risks identified include selective hunting of high-value species; the presence of domestic animal 'bridges' or amplifier hosts, insect vectors and contact zones; wildlife transport and sales; wild animal age and sex; and human characteristics and behaviours. Some of the distal or underlying drivers include globalization, high human population density, increasing infrastructure and human-managed landscapes, corruption and climate change.Awareness of zoonotic risks: Most studies in Africa find a relatively low awareness of zoonotic risks, except during outbreaks of dreaded diseases such as Ebola. In the DRC, for example, hunters considered wild animals as 'pure' and disease more likely to result from contact with domestic animals. There is also significant misunderstanding of both which diseases present risks (e.g. misperception of malaria risk from animals) and which species of wildlife are most risky to handle and eat. Even when awareness of risk is high, very few take measures to mitigate risk. In Asia, risk awareness has been found to differ between rural areas, where it is generally low, and urban areas, where it is higher.This section addresses strategies developed and implemented to ban, limit or control the hunting of wild meat, with a focus on Africa and East and Southeast Asia.Most of these strategies aim to conserve wildlife to retain biodiversity, to support tourism, and/or to comply with international agreements restricting trade in endangered species under CITES. Some strategies-such as banning the hunting of primates, especially apes-also aim to restrict the spread of zoonotic diseases.Reviews of wildlife legislation, including implications for wild meat, find that the objective of conservation of important or vulnerable wildlife species is typically approached through the designation of protected areas or through species-specific regulations against hunting and marketing (Brown and Egbe 2003;Ly and Bello 2002). This sort of 'fortress conservation' was typical of the 20th century (Noutcha et al. 2016b) and has been characterized by some as addressing the symptoms of the problem, which include wild meat hunting, but not the root causes (Rentsch and Damon 2013). Other studies find that any legal use of endangered species will act as cover for their illegal use. This is referred to as 'wildlife laundering' and has been well documented for high-value products such as reptile skins and ivory: around half of all legally traded python skins are believed to come from wild-sourced animals (UNODC 2016).Protected areas, covering around 15% of the world's land area, are key elements of most conservation policies; however, most protected areas in the Afro-tropics and IndoMalay lack adequate budgets or staff (Coad et al. 2019). Protected areas slow but do not halt human pressures on wildlife (Maxwell et al. 2020). The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, which was adopted at the UN Biodiversity Conference (CBD COP15) in 2022, has the ambitious target of '30 × 30'-of protecting 30% of land, freshwater, coastal and high-seas in a representative way by 2030. Reaching agreement proved contentious and attaining the target will require both new mechanisms and new funding streams not yet identified (Hughes 2023).Wildlife protection legislation typically does not include a regulatory framework for managing sustainable harvesting or trade in those wild animals that may not be among the most vulnerable. Enforcement of these policies and regulations is severely limited by a dearth of public resources and political will, particularly where species conservation is viewed as an internationally imposed goal lacking strong national support, and particularly in locally affected communities, especially those that may suffer from wildlife attacks on their livestock that are not compensated for (Wilkie et al. 2001). Although such regulations may make wildlife hunting illegal in formal terms, most of the local population may not perceive the bans as legitimate.Some studies have investigated the extent to which wildlife laws and regulations are effective in protecting the target species. One study looked at species found in wild meat markets and hunters' catches in eight countries in West and Central Africa and compared them to a list of protected species. Only in two countries was the influence of species-specific laws apparent in the harvest of wild meat (Rowcliffe et al. 2004). In Tanzania, where hunting is often of large game animals, anti-poaching patrols were found to reduce wild meat consumption near national reserves, and the proximity to and the protection level of the nearest protected area had the most significant negative effect on consumption (Ceppi and Nielsen 2014).It is illegal to hunt lemurs in Madagascar but not fruit bats.A survey of a large number of rural and urban households found much more common consumption of fruit bats, which suggested that the illegality of hunting lemurs has helped to reduce their consumption (Jenkins et al. 2011).Recognizing the importance of wild meat for local livelihoods, some approaches differentiate local hunting for community consumption from commercial hunting. In Gabon, 'village hunting' laws allow year-round subsistence hunting using traditional methods. Hunting with shotguns and wire snares is legal only in certain seasons for village hunters with licenses, the numbers of animals caught are limited and certain species are protected, as are some female and juvenile animals. Surveys found, however, that in and around protected areas, the laws are generally not respected (Abernethy and Obiang 2010). Among bat hunters in Ghana, Kamins et al. (2015) found that most did not have accurate awareness of the dates of the legal hunting season, suggesting the limited usefulness of imposing seasonal limits.Some have suggested the use of schemes to legalize and then tax trade in wild meat, which would allow hunters and value chain actors to maintain their livelihoods, make wild meat available for consumption and also generate tax revenue. Selective rules on species would allow conservation of vulnerable species. However, an analysis by Wilkie et al. (2006) using wild meat prices and volumes in Gabon and Cameroon found that the tax revenue generated by such an approach would not even cover the costs of tax collection, much less the additional costs of enforcing the laws.There are many constraints to the enforcement of wildlife laws beyond limited public resources. Nielsen et al. (2016) conducted a study of the value chain for wild meat in the Kilombero Valley of Tanzania, where illegal hunting is widespread, often of large animals. Limited access to firearms creates an entry barrier but also raises wild meat prices and allows those with access to capture above-normal profits, which also incentivizes rent-seeking by officials. Decentralization of management rights and responsibilities to communities, supplemented by improved firearms control, appears the most realistic option for regulating the trade and preventing further declines of wildlife. In Nigeria, Enianget al. ( 2008) found that operations to protect parks were constrained by a lack of staffing, equipment (including communications equipment), vehicles and arms and ammunition. Operations often ran into physical confrontations with rural communities that objected to the rules and restrictions. Some researchers suggest that within the more controlled environment of logging concessions, enforcement of hunting rules may be more effective (Wilkie and Carpenter 1999).All countries in East and Southeast Asia legislate uses of wildlife, with nuances among them (OIE 2020). The key topics covered in most such legislation include: wildlife protection and conservation and infectious disease control (including domestic animal infectious diseases). Some legislations also include quarantine procedures for specific wildlife species (Japan) and prevention of damage to agriculture by wildlife (Japan). China and Laos specifically mention protection of aquatic wild animals.In line with these differing topics, various ministries have different responsibilities. The ministries commonly involved include agriculture, livestock, environment and forestry (Pruvot et al. 2019). For example, animal and zoonotic disease control policies usually fall within the mandate of the agriculture and livestock ministries, which conduct selected disease surveillance (e.g. for HPAI and African swine fever) (OIE 2020), while the wildlife sector is generally the responsibility of environment or forestry ministries, with a level of collaboration in wildlife disease surveillance with veterinary and laboratory services.Recognizing that COVID-19 may have emerged from the wildlife trade, governments have enacted new or updated regulations to control its trade. For example, China adopted legislation banning the consumption of any field-harvested or captive-bred wildlife, closing the markets for domestic wildlife trade (Rizzolo et al. 2023).In Vietnam, a new directive (No. 29/CT-TTg) banned the sale of protected wildlife at wildlife markets (MARD 2020). These recent actions support both disease prevention and also wildlife conservation.Generally, attempts to curb illegal trade are sometimes hampered by low enforcement rates and weak wildlife trade laws that can have loopholes. For example, while China banned pangolin trade, there is no legal procedure to prevent the production of medicines that contain pangolin scales, so the trade in pangolin scales continues (Borzée et al. 2020). Some regulations call for more nuanced approaches, since many rural communities rely on wildlife for sustenance and poverty alleviation, as well concerns that bans could lead to further unregulated harvesting of wild animals (Eskew and Carlson 2020).In terms of economic incentives, the livelihood implications of wild meat hunting and marketing have already been well demonstrated, as well as the implications of wild meat price and availability on consumption decisions. A number of studies have thus explored the use of market and economic incentives to manage or at least influence the hunting of wild animals and the consumption of wild meat. An interesting and potentially important example of how market behaviour can impact wild meat consumption and zoonotic risks is addressed in a recent preprint by Xia et al. (2021). They analyze the effects of culling pigs in China in 2019 in response to an outbreak of African swine fever that led to shortages of pork and, consequently, to unusual movements of animals and meat to substitute for pork, including wild animals, in southern China. They suggest that the increased demand for wild meat might be linked to the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2.In a simulation analysis of incentives affecting hunting behaviour using data from the Ashanti Region of southern Ghana, Damania et al. (2005) found that an increase in wild meat prices due to demand would lead to more efficient hunting (and greater, perhaps unsustainable, depletion of wildlife) as hunters switched to using guns rather than snares, suggesting that improving farm prices for agricultural products could shift labour effort from hunting to agricultural production.Several studies examined wild meat hunting around the Serengeti National Park, in Tanzania. One found that hunters arrested by authorities were mostly subsistence farmers who sold wild meat to generate an income. Individuals with greater wealth (more sheep and goats) and those with alternative sources of income or protein were less likely to participate in illegal hunting, suggesting that hunting was not a preferred activity if alternatives were available. However, illegal hunting was not reduced by participation in community-based conservation programmes (Loibooki et al. 2002). Another study in the same region also confirmed that the higher numbers of livestock kept by people was associated with lower levels of hunting (Mfunda and Roskaft 2010).Substitutability of other livestock meat with wild meat has been examined as a market-based avenue to influence demand for hunting. Using a stated preference analysis in northern Tanzania, Moro et al. (2015) found that if other protein alternatives, such as fish and poultry, were cheaper, then demand for wild meat would decline but only slightly. However, a 10% increase in wild meat prices would reduce demand more significantly, by 6-7%, suggesting that restricting hunting and access to wild meat could have a larger effect. Another study of protein alternatives used 30 years of data from Ghana to examine the impact of spatial and temporal availability of fish on wild meat hunting (Brashares et al. 2004). They found that years of poor fish supply were associated with increased wild meat hunting, indicating that hunting is in part driven by demand for protein. Rentsch and Damon (2013), using detailed household food consumption and price data from the Serengeti region of Tanzania, estimated that a rise in the price of wild meat associated with curbs on hunting would have a direct and large effect in reducing wild meat consumption.Wildlife ranches are privately owned land (or Private Protection Areas) that use wildlife-based activities for income generation. Unlike Public Protection Areas that are subsidised by the state, Private Protection Areas need to be profitable. Over the last 50 years, the South African wildlife ranching sector has grown substantially, mostly through the conversion of marginal land previously used for livestock production, and now encompasses an area of 17-20.5 million hectares, or 17% of the land area. These Private Protected Areas have been shown to be financially and socially sustainable and to increase wildlife abundance (Taylor et al. 2021). An alternative, marketoriented approach to Public or Private Protected Areas and private land conservation is the commercial use of wildlife on land not declared as Public or Private Protected Areas, where the primary goal of keeping wildlife is often profit, but where conservation gains may be an outcome.Under the hypothesis that external markets can be key drivers of wild meat hunting, de Mérode et al. (2003) suggest that banning external market sales and restricting consumption to local communities may have limited impact, since the evidence is that external markets are not the key drivers of hunting.Examples of market incentive efforts in East and Southeast Asia include the following.• In 2009, a local social enterprise in Cambodia, an NGO called Sansom Mlup Prey, enabled farmers to achieve a premium price for their rice in exchange for complying with conservation-friendly practices; these practices include the maintenance of land-use boundaries, a zero-wildlife hunting policy and organic farming (IIED 2022).Asia countries, such as Vietnam, include promoting wildlife-based tourism as an alternative, legitimate form of income generation (Roe and Booker 2019).Community-based wildlife programs have been a pervasive paradigm since the 1970s. Local communities are given ownership rights or custodianship and management responsibilities over wildlife, from which they gain social and economic benefits from the conservation of those resources. By the 1990s these programs were being widely promoted (Noutcha et al. 2016b) in line with broader community-based resource management strategies, such as for fisheries (Bissonette and Krausman 1995;Dietz et al. 2003). Top-down regulatory approaches to wildlife conservation cannot easily resist the economic and consumption drivers of hunting and poaching; in many settings, increasing relative poverty in rural supply areas coupled with growing demand for wild meat in urban centres can lead to more organized hunting and marketing. Challender and MacMillan (2014) call for mechanisms to incentivize and build capacity within local communities to conserve and manage wildlife. In theory, community-based approaches would better tailor implementation approaches to specific community needs, could leverage the roles of traditional authorities, and also reduce alienation of traditional hunters who, under the regulatory approach, are often regarded as poachers. Booth et al. (2021a) highlight the importance of participatory processes in managing wildlife in terms of improved data and information gathering, better valuation of trade-offs among community members and market actors, co-learning, and increasing the legitimacy of policy strategy decisions.Some of the advantages of community involvement in wildlife management are the same as those for forest management and, more broadly, for shared community landscapes and resources. As immediate custodians of wildlife resources dependent on wildlife for multiple livelihood strategies, local populations are key stakeholders land and natural resource management. The typical understaffing and distance of governmental officials provide strong rationales to strengthen the agency and capacity of local residents, and to make better use of their intimate knowledge of wildlife (Bowen- Jones et al. 2003).A study in the DRC demonstrated the effectiveness of involving local authorities in wild meat markets near protected parks (de Mérode and Cowlishaw 2006).During periods of conflict, when protective military forces fled an area, urban wild meat markets were observed to significantly increase trade in protected species (including elephant), a change that was not observed in rural village markets, which remained stable. The difference apparently resulted from the fact that the latter were administered by traditional chiefs, who discouraged use of automatic weapons.In one of many examples, an integrated community-based approach met with some success. In a part of northern Kenya where giraffe meat consumption was threatening the giraffe populations, a community-based program for giraffe conservation used ecological monitoring, community outreach and education, and collaboration with wildlife security teams to successfully reduce giraffe meat consumption (Ruppert et al. 2020).Community conservancies are one such model. They give rural communities rights over local wildlife, which are typically managed in joint venture agreements to generate profits for the communities. They are most extensive in Namibia and Kenya but are also important in South Africa and emerging in other countries such as Mozambique and Tanzania. In Kenya, conservancies (both private and community) cover 11% of the land area compared to 10% covered by state Protected Areas (KWCA 2021). Over 90% of the global population of Grevy's zebra and hirola (Hunter's hartebeest) populations are maintained in conservancies. Conservancies have also been shown to generate large incomes for local households, and to reduce conflict and insecurity, but have equity challenges as the poor and marginalized tend not to share in the benefits (Oduor 2020). These conservancies can be sustainable and prevent poaching when management and ecology allow the generation of significant and transparently distributed revenues and jobs; when the conservancies receive substantial support from donors, NGOs or private investors; and when they are integrated into national policy and legal frameworks (Wenborn et al. 2022).But rarely do the necessary legislative frameworks exist to support such conservancies. Such frameworks would need to identify the relevant 'community', provide it with some recognized authority and address competing claims by other agencies and actors over land, forest and other resources. The same scarce resources and remoteness factors that impede regulatory approaches also constrain more participatory approaches, leading to high transaction costs of engagement and management (Bowen- Jones et al. 2003).Attempts have been made to adopt a two-pronged approach to differentiate commercial hunting from village-level hunting for local consumption, or to focus on protecting vulnerable or important species, which may allow more robust species to provide a potentially sustainable harvest and trade (Cowlishaw et al. 2005).For communities that depend significantly on wild meat for local consumption, the sustainability of some level of wild meat harvest could be critical for any management strategy. One study in Ghana tested that hypothesis based on analysis of wild meat market profiles and hunter reports (Cowlishaw et al. 2005). The study confirmed that largebodied, slow reproducing species are mostly depleted and that smaller and faster reproducing species such as rodents and small antelopes (e.g. duikers), sourced largely from agricultural areas, were those now mostly traded. Biological assessments indicated that these more robust smaller species were being hunted sustainably, confirming the potential viability of the two-pronged approach.That type of approach has been implemented in Gabon, but Abernethy and Obiang (2010) report mixed results. The use of guns and wire snares are not allowed in village hunting, except under limited and licensed circumstances.Villages therefore have instead to rely on traditional methods such as snares made from plant material. Village hunting is also officially limited by restrictions regarding catch sizes and the age and sex of the animals. While animals hunted according to these rules can be legally marketed, these restrictions are unpopular and so are often ignored, and a lack of measures to implement the legislation makes it almost impossible to enforce.Despite the constraints and shortcomings of decentralizing some wildlife management rights and responsibilities to local communities, Nielsen et al. (2016)   (Lam et al. 2019). The core principle is that communities need to be central-not peripheralto conservation efforts, given their proximity to wildlife populations, their knowledge of local wildlife, and their wildlife use practices (Pruvot et al. 2019).A review of community-based approaches to tackling illegal wildlife trade found examples of communitybased initiatives more in Africa (25) than in other regions such as Asia ( 19) and Latin America (6) (Roe and Booker 2019). The review identified four pathways to community engagement: 1) increase the costs of participating in illegal wildlife trade, 2) increase incentives for wildlife stewardship, 3) decrease the costs of living with wildlife and 4) support livelihoods that are not related to wildlife. Detailed case studies from Southeast Asia can be found in a global database called 'People not Poaching' (IIED 2022).Box 6: A global effort to support community-based, sustainable wildlife managementThe merits of community-based approaches to manage wild meat use and associated risks are well known and documented, yet the reality is that rights-holders rarely possess access and management rights over the land they live on and its natural resources, including wildlife. Efforts to devolve these rights in some countries or localities (e.g. under Namibia's and Kenya's community conservancies) have shown some promise, but these successes came following decades of testing and adapting suitable, acceptable and sustainable management models. In an effort to develop robust and adaptable community-based sustainable wildlife management (CBSWM) systems that can be scaled, the Sustainable Wildlife Management (SWM) programme (https://swm-programme.info/ fr/homepage) has been developing and testing various CBSWM models across Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.*The SWM programme recognizes six complementary, interdependent components to achieve robust CBSWM: 1. Understanding the environment and its use: Communities need to know the abundance of wildlife in their environment, if and how they are currently used and if wildlife populations are stable or declining. 2. Devolution of exclusionary rights: Stewardship is predicated on the recognition and respect of communities' rights to their resources. 3. Local-level management by a competent authority: Empowered communities are the most appropriate level of organization for managing wildlife locally. 4. Social cohesion to manage as a community: Community members should share a common vision to manage wildlife and take collective action together to ensure long-term success. 5. Effective governance systems: Communities need recognized governance groups equipped with the technical knowledge and capacity to make informed wildlife management decisions and ensure compliance with their rules. 6. Sustainable solutions for growth and increasing aspirations: Producing alternative sources of food and income to prevent overexploitation and ensure wildlife populations persist at ecologically functional densities.Each CBSWM model promoted by the SWM programme contains these six basic ingredients, but the recipe (the model) is adapted to suit local and national contexts. In Gabon, wildlife exploitation significantly contributes to the food and economic security of many rural populations but hunting pressure is moderate (due to low human population densities). The CBSWM model, piloted by the SWM programme in partnership with 10 communities in the Mulundu Department, revolves around the sustainable management of village-level hunting and the local wild meat trade. Supporting the creation of village hunting associations, participatory gazettement of sustainable management units, and creating a system for monitoring hunting activities and wild meat trade are some of this model's key interventions. More information on the SWM project in Gabon can be found here: https://swmprogramme.info/fr/web/guest/gabon. Some of the studies reported so far have suggested that public information efforts can influence levels of awareness within rural and urban communities of issues around the wild meat trade, including its implications for both wildlife conservation and zoonotic risks. Relatively few studies on this topic, however, were located for this review.Verissimo et al. ( 2018) tested the effectiveness of a public information effort aimed at reducing demand for wild meat in northern Tanzania. The intervention comprised multiple short awareness-raising episodes on a local radio show followed by interactive call-in discussions. The beforeafter evaluation of volunteers, including a control group, revealed no different outcomes, probably due to relatively low listening frequency to the radio program containing the messages. The researchers inferred from this failure that more careful behaviour change analysis is required to guide such mass media interventions.In contrast, in a situation where people are confronted with stark risks, the effects of raising awareness are more visible. In Nigeria in 2014 following the Ebola outbreak, Akani et al. (2015) linked the sharp decline in the wild meat trade, including the disappearance in markets of the species most closely associated with the disease (monkeys and fruit bats), to the strong public information campaign carried out by Nigerian authorities on the risks of the wild meat trade on the spread of the virus.In Brazil's Central Amazon, a region where wild meat hunting is deeply ingrained, Chaves et al. ( 2018) also used a before-after control intervention designed to assess the effects of social marketing with and without an economic incentive (discount coupons for chicken) to reduce wild meat consumption. The social marketing included both an information campaign and direct community engagement, the emphasis being on wildlife conservation and the advantages of livestock meat rather than on any zoonotic risks. Including coupons increased chicken consumption, as expected, but did not reduce wild meat consumption, since apparently consumers did not regard chicken meat as a substitute for wild meat. However, the social marketing without the coupon incentive reduced wild meat consumption by some 62%, suggesting that social marketing alone may be effective. This study demonstrates that social marketing, which in this case was carefully designed and multifaceted, may be effective in reducing demand for wild meat, even when zoonotic risks are not emphasized. Wilkie and Carpenter (1999) suggest that consumer education, particularly on issues of conservation and zoonotic safety, is likely to work better among more educated and diasporic communities due to their greater ability to absorb information and their tendency to give greater weight to social objectives like conservation, especially with regards to primates. But given that the greatest zoonotic risks have been demonstrated to occur among those hunting and butchering wild animals, interventions to reach those actors still need to be designed and demonstrated to be effective.A number of awareness campaigns have been conducted in East and Southeast Asia to reduce demand for wild meat, including the following. Negative attitudes towards food are influenced by two factors, food neophobia and-what is often related-food disgust. Food disgust is a basic and universal emotion that evolved to protect humans from pathogens. Core disgust is elicited by foods and especially foods of animal origin (e.g. spoiled milk), bodily wastes (e.g. faeces) and small animals, particularly those associated with garbage and waste (e.g. rats and cockroaches) (Rozin et al. 2000). Disgust is a powerful emotion and difficult to overcome. Younger people and women have higher food disgust sensitivity than older people and men (Curtis et al. 2004;Sabbagh et al. 2023); interestingly, youths and women are also less likely to consume wild meat than older people and men.Food neophobia, the tendency to avoid unfamiliar food, is universal, but what is unfamiliar is culturally dependent. Among cultures or people who avoid wild meat, neophobia and/or disgust may be more powerful motivating factors than concerns over possible zoonotic transmission or wildlife conservation, suggesting that creating or eliciting instinctual disgust may be more effective in reducing wild meat consumption than informing about zoonotic risks or the benefits of wildlife conservation.In many cultures, including some in Africa and Asia, wild meat is not consumed. Some religions have prohibitions on certain foods, including wild meat. Cultures often have taboos around certain foods for certain people.Not eating wild meat can be difficult where, as is often the case in sub-Saharan Africa and East and Southeast Asia, there are strong positive emotions and a high cultural value associated with eating it. But meat can also elicit disgust: almost all disgusting foods are from animals or animal products. The disgust response does reduce people's willingness to eat meat, such as when roasted meat is presented with an animal's head attached (Kunst and Hohle 2016) or when meat images are paired with disgust stimuli (e.g. an infected boil or a pile of vomit) (Tybur et al. 2016).Disgust can also develop after meat is rejected for other reasons. A study of vegetarians found that 53% found meat disgusting but only 14% said disgust was an initial reason to follow a vegetarian diet (moral and health reasons predominated) (Rozin et al. 1997). It has been recently argued that meat is fundamentally a disgust elicitor and meat consumption is made possible only by suppressing disgust for certain types of meat, possibly by social learning, something that requires cognitive effort and can be easily lifted if meat is no longer consumed (Becker 2023). This would explain why disgust can be created relatively easily following interventions or individual decisions to avoid meat.Food disgust is not only amenable to change through interventions but liable to change over relatively short periods of time. In the UK, offal was traditionally associated with the poor, before becoming an esteemed fashion-food for the English gentry during the early modern period.After falling out of favour in the early 20th century, it was promoted after the Second World War, when it was one of the only animal products widely available during rationing. When meat became more readily available, offal was yet again rejected by many. More recent efforts to promote offal on the grounds of its sustainability (e.g. in 'nose to tail' eating) and animal welfare benefits have met with little success. Box 5 describes a very recent rapid and unexpected fall in the acceptability of eating dog meat in South Korea.Box 7: Case study: From 'appealing food' to 'appalling food'In early 2024, South Korea's lawmakers legislated against the breeding, slaughter and sale of dogs for human consumption, a practice deeply rooted in Korean history but now deemed unpopular and rare. Historically, dog meat consumption was more prevalent, especially in the post-Korean War era, when the nation faced severe poverty and meat scarcity. This meat was traditionally used in a well-known dish called 'bosintang', meaning 'soup good for your body'. However, as South Korea's economy developed and incomes rose in the late 20th century, there was a steady increase in pet ownership and a heightened concern for animal welfare, leading to a decline in the practice.Currently, a significant portion of the South Korean population, particularly the younger demographic, finds the consumption of dog meat appalling. A survey conducted last year by Aware, an animal welfare organization based in Seoul, revealed that approximately 93% of South Korean adults had no intention of consuming dog meat in the future, and 82% supported the ban.The passage of this ban marks a significant shift in societal attitudes, with Chae Jung-ah, the director of the Humane Society International Korea, noting, 'This is history in the making I never thought I would see in my lifetime.' She emphasized that societal attitudes had reached a tipping point, with most Korean citizens now rejecting the consumption of dog meat.This legislative change aligns South Korea with other regions and countries that have already prohibited the trade of dog meat, such as Hong Kong, India, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. However, the practice remains prevalent in countries like Cambodia, Indonesia and Vietnam, where millions of dogs are still slaughtered annually for their meat, according to Four Paws, an animal welfare organization based in Austria.The enforcement of South Korea's new ban is anticipated to be officially enacted by President Yoon Suk Yeol's cabinet. President Yoon, alongside the first lady Kim Keon-Hee, both pet owners, have been vocal advocates for the ban. Previous administrations had failed to garner sufficient support to terminate the practice, but President Yoon's administration succeeded where others had not.The newly passed law, which received broad support in Korea's National Assembly, stipulates that individuals who butcher dogs for human consumption could face up to three years in prison or a fine of 30 million South Korean won (approximately USD 23,000) following a three-year grace period. Furthermore, breeding and selling dogs for this purpose would be punishable by up to two years in prison or a fine of 20 million won.To support the transition away from dog meat consumption, the law includes financial incentives for dog farmers and restaurant owners who serve dog meat, requiring them to submit phaseout plans to local governments.As of 2022, there were approximately 520,000 dogs being raised in South Korea for human consumption across 1,150 farms, with about 1,600 restaurants nationwide selling dog meat, according to lawmakers-figures considerably lower than in previous years.Adapted from 'South Korea bans dog meat, a now-unpopular food', by John Yoon, New York Times, 9 January 2024Once disgust is associated with a meat product, there is extreme unwillingness to eat it and even anger and distress at it being sold and eaten by others. When consumers in Europe were unknowingly sold beef adulterated with horse meat in 2013, many had a powerful, visceral reaction of disgust and moral offence. The resulting scandal resulted in substantial changes to industry, with adoption of routine testing and surveillance and the establishment of the National Food Crime Unit in the UK, with the explicit movement to a 'zero tolerance regime' (Brooks et al. 2017). Once 'strange meat' becomes no longer acceptable and is considered disgusting, the following lack of exposure to it also triggers neophobia, which further reduces any propensity to consume the meat.However, although disgust and neophobia are powerful emotions, and have been involved in radical dietary transitions as illustrated by the case study (Box 6), theyhave not yet been investigated for their potential to reduce consumption of wild meat.In Africa, livestock and fish farming are two of the fastest-growing subsectors in agriculture, presenting opportunities for economic growth and poverty reduction in rural areas (Herrero et al. 2014), as well providing alternatives to the unsustainable use of wildlife as food. Africa's livestock population between 2010 and 2020 grew by 27%, from approximately 331 to 434 billion livestock units, with pig and poultry as the fastest growing subsectors. However, demand for livestock meat on the continent is growing more rapidly than supply and the shortfall is increasingly being met by imports (Ndue et al. 2022).'Mini livestock', such as rabbits, are typically characterized by a high reproduction rate and so can provide at least some meat in a relatively short period. They may also complement and integrate well into agricultural and household systems by consuming household and farm waste and providing manure for vegetable plots, etc. Keeping rabbits has been demonstrated effectively in Cameroon, especially in areas where wild meat is already scarce (HPI 1996). Since such species have a long history of domestication, they also offer the advantage that methods of husbandry and veterinary care are well established. In addition, many small stock are kept and managed largely by women and youth, offering potential benefits to them. Mini livestock also have the advantage of resembling in some ways the wild meat species they are meant to replace in terms of size and morphology, which means that they fit well within traditional dishes and cooking practices. Where they suit local systems, tastes and practices, the promotion of mini livestock may, however, still require some change in mindset among public officials, investors and veterinarians away from traditional livestock species, which have typically been the basis of their training and experience. Appendix 2 provides information on mini livestock recommended for Africa and Southeast Asia.Promoting alternative protein sources: Farmed wildlife The evidence that has been presented regarding the key factors driving the continued hunting of wild animals for meat shows clearly that, especially in Africa, the limited availability of alternative sources of meat and protein are among the most important reasons for hunting. This implies that making alternative meat sources available would reduce the demand for wild meat. Over the last 12,000 years, domesticated livestock have replaced hunted wild meat in most parts of the world. But much of Africa's forest and forest margins are environments conducive to animal diseases, especially for ruminant animals, due largely to the presence of African animal trypanosomiasis, an economically devastating disease of cattle and other ruminants that is transmitted by the tsetse fly, and also to other diseases of ruminants such as lumpy skin disease and East Coast fever, as well as to frequent and lethal outbreaks of African swine fever in pigs and Newcastle disease in chickens. The presence of these diseases makes it difficult to introduce conventional livestock in many regions of Africa, a fact that has led to numerous calls over the last half century to promote the farming of wild species (Stelfox et al. 1983;Cooper 1995;Cawthorn and Hoffman 2014;Brittain et al. 2022).The best-known example of farmed wild animals are cane rats (Thryonomys spp), also called grasscutters, but giant African snails (Achatina spp) and even porcupines and duikers are also farmed in West and Central Africa (Steel 1994), with many initiatives started to introduce the farming of these species, without widespread uptake as of yet.Others consider that with shrinking habitats and increasing human populations, wildlife will provide an increasingly small proportion of the diets for even rural families living in close proximity to wildlife (Wilkie 2016). The evidence available indicates that the inefficient feed-conversion ratios of wild animals and their long time to reach market weight make wildlife farming uncompetitive compared to domesticated livestock farming (Mockrin et al. 2005).Over the millennia, only a few wild animals have been fully domesticated and bred for their food; the 20 or so selected species were chosen for their docility; a tolerance of handling, crowding, and husbandry practices; and an ability to maximize their feed-conversion efficiency (the ratio of feed consumed to meat produced) and to minimize the time to reach market weight, all traits unobtainable in most wild animal species. Feer (1993) asserts that in terms of meat productivity, pigs are more productive than local cattle, which are in turn more productive than cane rats or duikers.The limited uptake of wildlife farming for subsistence and local sale in West Africa contrasts with the success (albeit niche) of commercial ostrich and crocodile farming.Commercial ostrich farming began in the mid-19 th century in South Africa, originally for feathers (for decorating hats and clothes), much later for leather, and only recently for meat (Huchzermeyer 2002). Ostrich farming became popular in many other, mainly European, countries from the early 2000s, but the only African and Asian countries to have substantial populations are South Africa (130,000 birds) and China (500,000 birds) (Kistner 2019).Commercial production of crocodiles for skins and meat started in the late 1960s, again in South Africa (Hoffman et al. 2000). By the 1980s, programs were being developed in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Crocodile meat is sold mainly to restaurants as an exotic delicacy or used as unprocessed feed on farms. While this shows how some wild species can be profitably farmed, the contribution of farmed wildlife to local and national nutrition remains negligible.As described previously, game ranching and conservancies have been successful in Eastern and Southern Africa. This is made possible where there is abundant land of low quality that is unsuitable for other uses and where there is high potential for tourism, good management capacity, and legal frameworks giving ownership (or legal use) of land and livestock to individuals, groups or companies. Some farmed species of wildlife are raised for high-end specialty restaurants or for high-value non-food uses (e.g. trophies, reptile skins, lions for zoos and private owners). Game ranching as a separate enterprise is, however, often uneconomic unless premium prices are available from tourist outlets, as in Kenya (Wilkie and Carpenter 1999), or where there are alternative commercialization opportunities, such as ecotourism, trophy hunting or live animal sales, as in South Africa (Musengezi 2010). A recent study found that profits were derived mainly from intensive breeding and ecotourism, followed by trophy hunting, and with culling the least important (Taylor et al. 2020). In all biomes, game animals produce less meat per hectare than domestic livestock, suggesting that game ranching is uncompetitive with livestock ranching if meat is the only product being produced. (Wild meat obtained in trophy hunting and culling is essentially a low-value by-product, typically sold to local butchers or ranch workers, although biltong is a high-value product).In contrast to Africa, the high demand and high value of wildlife for food and medicine in East and Southeast Asia has led to a rapid expansion of commercial wildlife farming in that region, with year-on-year increases in the number of wildlife farms, in species diversity and in larger scale operations (Taylor et al. 2001;Cutler et al. 2010). China started to officially promote wildlife farming in the 1970s as part of the country's agricultural modernization and diversification, and its success in this was followed by other countries in the region. A 2014 survey in southern Vietnam exemplifies this trend, with nearly one million wild animals being farmed across 4,099 active sites (FAO 2015). These farms often raise a mix of species, from rodents, civet cats, pangolins, deer and primates to wild boar and reptiles, which frequently are co-raised with domestic animals.As noted, the farming of wild species in Southeast Asia and China is driven by a high demand for exotic meats and traditional medicines. Species such as bamboo rats, crocodiles, deer, snakes and turtles are farmed extensively. The perceived medicinal properties and luxury status these animals provide contribute significantly to their continued farming (Engel and Ziegler 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic, believed to have originated in wildlife, has caused millions of deaths and disruptions globally. In response, a 2021 study titled 'Dynamics of wildlife trade and wildlife policy implementation in Vietnam', funded by the CGIAR COVID-19 Hub, aimed to explore the locations of the country's wildlife trade, the people involved, their economic and cultural motivations, and potential ways to bring about change.The study concentrated on legal wildlife value chains, specifically those involving wildlife from captive breeding facilities in Vietnam's Dong Thap Province. This area was chosen due to its extensive captive breeding operations, variety of wildlife species traded, and strong local partnerships. Data were collected in November 2021 through an online survey with 24 local experts, key informant interviews with 28 value chain actors, and a workshop with 28 stakeholders to confirm the findings.The study found that wildlife farming facilities operated in almost all districts of Dong Thap Province, with the highest concentrations in Tam Nong, Cao Lanh and Hong Ngu City. These areas have abundant wildlife meat sources, a long tradition of wildlife farming, and are close to markets.The province is home to a diverse range of wildlife, including over 192,394 animals. The main species farmed are civets, crocodiles, snakes and tortoises. Most farms focus on one or two species and trade locally or with neighbouring provinces such as Dak Lak, Dong Nai and Ho Chi Minh City.Three primary wildlife value chains were identified in Dong Thap:• Export species (e.g. crocodiles and pythons): This chain is straightforward and contract-based.• High-value species (e.g. civets and porcupines): This chain involves more actors and operates on a smaller scale with verbal agreements. • Popular species (e.g. snakes and wild pigs): Similar to the high-value chain, this chain involves more actors and relies on verbal agreements.The people involved in these wildlife value chains are motivated by a combination of factors. Many participate to generate an income, especially those without alternative livelihoods. Some have inherited businesses or receive support from experienced relatives or friends. Access to infrastructure, feed and other resources also encourages wildlife farming. The high market demand for wildlife further motivates people to participate in these markets.The challenges faced by local authorities in managing wildlife-related activities include scarce resources, illegal operations and low awareness of wildlife regulations among the actors in these value chains. To address these issues, the study recommends introducing alternative livelihoods, enhancing public awareness, and improving cross-sectoral cooperation. Importantly, involving NGOs and private-sector actors can also lead to more effective wildlife management. The success of wildlife farming in Southeast Asia has, however, given rise to other concerns. Farming wildlife species that are targeted for conservation creates a risk that the markets for farmed animals are infiltrated by wildcaught animals and their products sold as farm sourced.The development of markets for farmed wild animals could thus contribute to increased hunting of the same or related species, threatening the conservation of the latter and potentially increasing zoonotic risks. Similarly, expanding a previously small market for a particular species may increase overall demand for that species.A review by Nguyen et al. (in press) indicated that the growth of wildlife farming, marketing and consumption systems in Southeast Asia raises concerns about the potential spread of zoonotic diseases (Taylor et al. 2001;Li et al. 2021b). Research showed the wildlife trade to be a significant factor in disease outbreaks within the region. A study by Huong et al. (2020) conducted in wildlife farms from 2013 to 2014 detected coronaviruses of bat origins in porcupines, bamboo rats and field rats in the trade chain, indicating the viral transmission risk among different animal species in wildlife trade and farms.Another study in Vietnam found that farming wild species was not an effective way to reduce demand for illegal wildlife products (including, in this case, bear bile) and may instead stimulate greater demand for wild-sourced products (Drury 2009). The complex nature of the trade, combined with challenges in maintaining its sustainability and enforcing its regulations, enable the movement of potentially infected animals and their products across borders. This movement increases the possibility of introducing new pathogens, potentially leading to disease outbreaks beyond the region (Sarma 2017).While wildlife farming can offer economic opportunities and provide a source of food for some communities (TRAFFIC 2008;Huong et al. 2020), it's important to carefully consider these benefits alongside the potential health risks. Implementing disease preventive measures that are tailored to the needs of local communities is crucial to reducing the risk of zoonotic diseases spreading from the wildlife trade.Transitioning away from wildlife farming in East and Southeast Asia presents a complex challenge. A significant factor is the limited availability of affordable, alternate protein sources (Nasi et al. 2008). Many communities in rural areas rely heavily on farmed wildlife for meat and income (FAO 2018). Replacing this protein source with commercially raised livestock such as chicken or pork can be prohibitively expensive for low-income households. Furthermore, widespread livestock diseases in the region pose another hurdle. Foot-and-mouth disease, classical swine fever, and avian influenza are just a few examples that can devastate domestic animal populations (WOAH 2023). These threats discourage investment in traditional livestock farming, leaving some communities to view wildlife farming as a less risky option, despite the zoonotic disease risks it poses (Nasi et al. 2008).Regulation and enforcement: Control and command (or detect, inspect and punish) was the traditional way of limiting hunting and marketing wild meat. Most regulation focuses on establishing wildlife reserves and banning the hunting and sales of wild meat from some or all species. Protective Areas cover 15% of global land and the Global Biodiversity Framework (2022) has the ambitious target of '30 × 30'-of protecting 30% of land and water in a representative way by 2030. However, most African and Asian Protected Areas lack adequate budgets and staff and while Protected Areas slow human incursion, they do not halt it. Anti-poaching patrols can be effective, and, in some countries, protected species are hunted less than non-protected species. In many countries, there is lack of awareness and enforcement of wildlife regulations. In others, corruption limits the implementation of wildlife regulations. In addition, many communities living close to wildlife do not accept the legitimacy of such regulations.Natural experiments show the importance of incentives in shaping the wild meat sector in Africa and Asia. When African swine fever led to a mass culling of pigs and consequent shortages of pork, there was increased demand for wild meat. In the Serengeti, arrested poachers were mainly poor and those with alternative livelihoods were less likely to hunt. Increasing the price of wild meat is more likely to be effective in poor communities using wild meat for subsistence but there are few examples of interventions that rely on market incentives. Commercial wildlife ranches are common in Southern Africa (they comprise 17% of the land area in South Africa, for example), where they have been economically and socially sustainable and have increased wildlife numbers, but these ranches require large, abundant and lowpopulation density land, high levels of management expertise, and legal changes to\\hat give landowners rights over wildlife.Community involvement in hunting bans: Locally run wildlife conservancies have been promoted since the 1970s with some successes but widespread adoption is limited to a few countries in Africa, notably Kenya and Namibia. In Kenya, conservancies protect 11% of the land area compared to 10% in state Protected Areas. Conservancies can be successful where marginal land is abundant, tourism revenue high, community management supported, and relevant legal frameworks exist. Outside these contexts, community involvement has had limited success as it is constrained by high transaction costs of engagement and limited awareness and enforcement. Nonetheless, there is widespread agreement that local communities need to be central-not peripheral-to wildlife conservation efforts, given their proximity to wildlife populations, their intimate knowledge of local wildlife, and their wildlife use practices.Education and awareness raising: Raising awareness of wildlife trade issues is difficult to achieve, especially among the most relevant actors-hard-to-reach hunters and butchers in rural areas. During health crises associated with wild meat, such as Ebola outbreaks, there are typically sharp declines in the consumption of wild meat, although it is difficult to attribute this to public awareness campaigns as opposed to other kinds of communications. Disgust and neophobia are easily triggered by meat products and these are promising channels for changing consumption behaviour.Livestock as an alternative food source: In Africa, livestock and farmed fish are two of the fastest growing sectors in agriculture. Africa's livestock population between 2010 and 2020 grew by 27% from approximately 331 to 434 billion livestock units: pig and poultry are the fastest growing subsectors. However, demand is growing more rapidly than supply and the shortfall is increasingly met by imports.It is likely that domestic and imported livestock will be increasingly price competitive with wild meat, removing a major incentive for hunting. In East and Southeast Asia, however, wild meat consumption is not driven by protein or meat scarcity, outside of some poor, remote areas, so this is unlikely to be an important consideration there.Farmed wild animal species as an alternative to hunting: In a context of shrinking wild habitats and increasing human populations, it seems inevitable that wildlife will provide an increasingly smaller proportion of the diets even of rural families living close to wildlife in Africa. Despite decades of promotion, most farmed wildlife (e.g. cane rats and giant African snails) are still caught in the wild. In Southeast Asia, in contrast, wildlife farming has seen continuous growth driven by high-value wildlife products, high demand, and skills in farming wild animals. However, this has given rise to further concerns: a) wildlife farming allows the laundering of wild-caught animals, b) farming wildlife may stimulate increased demand for wild-sourced wildlife products, and c) farmed wildlife may be especially risky as sources of zoonotic pathogens.There is little consensus on what are likely to be the most effective means of managing wild meat hunting while addressing the needs of rural communities. The starting point would be a blueprint of how to safely butcher/ slaughter wild animals depending on the species and category. An ideal gold standard would be the following method used for both export as well as informal wild game meat value chains. Firstly, identification of a healthy animal that is shot humanely for compliance with animal welfare protocols. The throat is severed on site to enable speedy exsanguination into the surrounding field. The carcass is then loaded for transportation in an open truck ideally but can be carried to a spot where it is offloaded and hung at an approved mobile abattoir or alternatively to a spot nearby without a structure or at a registered abattoir. The primary meat inspection is then conducted using the parameters of best practices. First the head is removed followed by the legs and feet. These are examined for zoonotic diseases before being discarded or entering the informal market for trade. The next step is the evisceration of the carcass, here the pluck, rumen and intestines are examined before being removed and transported to be included into the informal chain for the markets. The stomach content can be emptied and used to make compost or sent to the vulture restaurants where the vultures feed. Most often the stomach and intestines are given to the helpers and staff or alternately it enters the markets via informal traders to be cooked into a stew and sold to passing traders and truck drivers. The carcass is then ready after inspection for weighing, labelling and loading into a refrigerated truck fitted with a thermo logger to record maintenance of the temperature and any fluctuations that could compromise the shelf life and safety of the product, during transportation to the export registered abattoir. If the carcass is for local and informal trade and consumption then it is not loaded, and the skin is removed on site and sent for drying to be used as traditional attire or sold to traders as rugs and wall hangings. The rest of the carcass is then cut into quarters and sold immediately or refrigerated and sold daily to be cooked on open fires for rural trade and markets. On the other hand the carcass intended for export is off loaded at the export abattoir, refrigerated immediately and skinning takes place when scheduled. The trimming of the exposed edges is first undertaken followed by the skinning of the entire carcass done hygienically within a controlled environment thereby rendering it safe for public health. The secondary meat inspection for wild game is unlike that for livestock whereby the wild game carcass is only skinned after being received at the export abattoir. The skin is then taken to the tannery and the condemned portions are incinerated. The carcass is then deboned, and prime cuts are packaged for export with compliance to country of destination requirements. If sold locally it is packaged and distributed to wholesalers and retailers for sale in supermarkets, butcheries and other food outlets like restaurants and sports bars. The off cuts are used for processing of other wild meat products especially biltong, a dried meat snack very popular in South Africa that can be considered a protein substitute for potato chips or crisps. The local sale of wild meat products is closely monitored by the environmental health personnel for compliance with hygienic standards of food safety especially for public health. Until recently most authors have focused on biodiversity and conservation, with little attention to zoonotic risks. For example, a major report to the British government on research recommendations for wild meat does not mention zoonotic risks (Brown et al. 2007). Recent analysis by Booth et al. (2021a) shows the importance of wildlife hunting and trade generally for meeting several of the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals in diverse ways, including by facilitating synergies among them. Thelimited benefits in terms of reduced zoonotic risk. For example, increased livestock production to replace the loss of wild meat could significantly increase deforestation and require some 124,000 km 2 of additional agricultural land (Booth et al. 2021b).Overall, given the interdependencies of livelihoods, food security, markets and zoonotic risks, it appears that an integrated strategy is needed (Box 9), one that specifically recognizes the objectives of: a) wildlife conservation and biodiversity, with attention to valuable and vulnerable species; b) livelihoods associated with wild meat value chains, at least in a transitional period; c) food security and access to animal protein and micronutrients, specifically in rural hunting and vulnerable communities; and d) zoonotic risks, awareness and the practices that affect them and those species that pose the greatest hazards. Nevertheless, the feasibility of implementing such an integrated strategy-in terms of obtaining the necessary resources, stakeholder interests, political will and legislative frameworks-needs to be assessed (Booth et al. 2021a).Box 9: Towards an integrated strategy for wild meat use: ecological, epidemiological, human well-being and animal welfare considerationsWhen prioritising wildlife three paradigms have dominated. The first is ecological, which categorises wildlife according to aspects relevant to biodiversity and role in the ecosystem. Ecological categories include indicator, keystone, umbrella and flagship defined as follows:• Indicator species: act as proxy for, the state of an ecosystem or of a certain process within that ecosystem e.g. crayfish as indicators of freshwater quality. • Keystone species: play an essential role in the structure, functioning or productivity of a habitat e.g. elephants in maintaining savannah habitats. • Flagship species: selected to act as an ambassador, icon or symbol for a defined habitat, issue, campaign or environmental cause. Flagship species are often \"charismatic megafauna\" that is large terrestrial mammals whose preservation elicits strong public support (e.g., pandas, lions, elephants). • Umbrella species: chosen because when protected this indirectly protects other species which share the same habitat e.g. wide-ranging species such as the Amur tiger. Umbrella species are often keystone or flagship species.A second, but much less prominent approach, is centred on human well-being and considers the benefits of wild meat especially to vulnerable communities. From this perspective, wildlife species are prioritised according to their contribution to livelihoods and nutrition, with an emphasis on sustainability and safeguarding long-term benefits.As described in this report, this aspect has been neglected and there is often a disconnect between the ecological and conservation communities on the one hand and development researchers and practitioners on the other.In recent years, following major outbreaks of avian influenza, Ebola virus disease, COVID-19 and mPox, disease considerations have become more important. From an epidemiology perspective, species prioritisation focuses on the role of animal as a reservoir host for known, endemic zoonoses (such as brucellosis or rabies), or its potential as a source of new pathogens that could spillover from wild animals, or its ability to act as a \"bridge\" or secondary host which can act as stepping stone in the transmission from animals to people.Animal welfare is not usually a direct consideration in wildlife prioritisation, although it is a major concern of the public, especially in high income countries but increasingly in low-and middle-income countries. Animal welfare concerns are based on the number of animals experiencing negative emotions and the level of negative emotion experienced. A common ethical framework, originating in research is the 3Rs which aims to Reduce the numbers of animals used, Refine how animals are used to keep any pain and suffering to a minimum, and Replace where possible more sentient animals with less sentient or non-sentient alternatives. Applying this to wild meat, it is preferable to obtain meat from larger animals as this requires fewer animals to experience negative emotions, for example, an eland produces about 400 times as much meat as a guinea fowl so producing the same amount of meat requires keeping and killing far few individuals. Similarly, all else being equal, larger and longer-lived animals should have higher priority, because they animals tend to have more complex nervous systems, and thus be more likely to be sentient and to have the capacity for more happiness and suffering. Likewise, animals with longer lifespans will tend to be able to experience more happiness and suffering across time. Priority is also influenced by social networks of animals and the consequent disruption caused by culling of individuals. In many wildlife species, culling can lead to changes in behaviour, immunological response, movement frequency and dispersal propensity, which have long-term implications for health and welfare. In highly social and highly sentient animals such as elephants such culling-related perturbations have been shown to persist for decades (Shannon et al., 2013).We recommend an Eco-Epi-Well-Wel approach which integrates all four goals including trade-offs and synergies (Ecological betterment, reducing Epidemiological risk for people and animals, improving Wellbeing of people, and Welfare of wild and domestic animals). One Health, with its emphasis on system thinking and collaboration across sectors and integration of social economic and environmental factors, provides an ideal implementation framework for this new approach.Elements of such an integrated approach could include the following.• Adopt a community-based approach. Although a community-based approach faces resource constraints, among other barriers, because wild meat hunting is primarily locally driven, local communities need to be part of decision-making and given authority and responsibility for managing the wild meat trade.In addition, zoonotic risks are likely to occur mostly at the community level, where hunting and butchering mostly happens. The type of community-based authority that is feasible and effective may depend in part on the legislative frameworks available. • Differentiate local from commercial hunting. The evidence is relatively clear that hunting small robust species (e.g. duikers and rodents) can be sustained, even in partly degraded forests, and that what Kurpiers et al. (2016) refer to as the 'farmbush' can provide a significant supply of protein, the demand for which has been shown clearly to be the main driver of hunting.With support from local communities, attention and monitoring should be on controlling commercialscale hunting and the hunting of vulnerable (slowreproducing) species, both at source and in markets. This would provide a continued supply of meat to rural communities and some degree of local livelihoods in wild meat value chains. • Raise awareness. Engagement with local hunting communities should take the same integrated approach, highlighting the importance of limiting hunting to certain robust species, to obtaining alternative or supplementary sources of protein wherever possible, and, importantly, to understanding the zoonotic hazards of the wild meat trade and how to mitigate the resulting risks. That could include information on which species pose the greatest zoonotic risk and the best practices for butchering, handling and cooking wild meat (Friant et al. 2015). Following formative research to understand local practices, this communication could take the form of social marketing (Drury 2009), with specific attention paid to women, who are typically responsible for household food preparation and whose role in wildlife hunting is often neglected (Lowassa et al. 2012). Information campaigns in urban areas could similarly highlight the importance of transitioning to livestock meat to help conserve wildlife and to reduce the zoonotic risks of wild meat handling and consumption. The following are some research ideas emerging from this review.• Within studies on zoonotic spillover events, viruses have received the most attention; direct more research at spillovers from bacterial or other non-viral pathogens. People and practices in the wild meat value chain Brown et al. (2007) note the following characteristics of the wild meat value chain system.• Generally high social inclusivity due to few barriers to entry such as capital costs, relatively low risk and the fact that skills can be obtained through familial and community ties. Kinship networks can be important for market entry and access to credit and to low-cost family labour. • Wild meat value chains comprise many actors: hunters and traders (including long-distance traders), restauranteurs and traditional 'chop bar' owners, and venders, retailers and exporters. • When smoked, as it often is, wild meat can be stored for relatively long periods, is easily transported and has a high value-to-weight ratio.Wild meat value chains as described in the literature vary widely by region, market and environmental setting (Table 6). Participation in wild meat supply chains can be widespread. Abernethy and Obiang (2010) found that around 11% of all Gabonese families make some money from the wild meat trade in some way. In the many locations where wild meat is consumed, mostly by hunting households and their communities, the chain is very short. Longer and more complex chains of three to four steps occur where there is market demand and/ or access to urban markets. Commercial or farmer rural hunters may supply traders, who are often women (Green et al. 2024;Jenkins et al. 2024) operating along roads to urban centres, or wholesalers using vehicles to serve restaurants (either chop bars and other simple roadside eateries or higher end specialty restaurants) or retailers, also typically women, who sell foods in open air markets or market stalls (Gideon 2014;Saylors et al. 2021;van Vliet et al. 2022). Supply can also be across international borders (Morrison-Lanjouw et al. 2023;Wood et al. 2014). Ethnomedicine sellers also play a role, and in Nigeria, Soaga et al. (2014) found that they outnumbered wild meat retailers. The importance of chop bars at the end of the value chain is highlighted in several studies in West and Central Africa (Cowlishaw et al. 2005;East et al. 2005;Brown et al. 2007;Ebersole et al. 2023).Commercial group hunters may deliver in bulk directly to middlemen (Eniang et al. 2008;Tagg et al. 2018), and in South Africa, Martins and Shackleton (2019) reported no visible wild meat markets, with hunting occurring instead with orders from customers. Typically, market activities are largely unregulated, although sellers may pay local market licenses. In Cross River State, Nigeria, Eniang et al. (2008) found that market actors took steps to avoid authorities where wild meat trade was banned or restricted by relying on early morning and weekend sales by hunters to traders. However, these supply linkages are flexible and opportunistic and may not include all links in the chain. For example, in Lagos State, 74% of hunters sold exclusively to wholesalers or traders, but the rest sold directly to end consumers (Alade and Onadeko 2017). In Gabon, around half the catch was found to be commercialized, with a smaller share (18%) entering a recognized market chain-being sold at fixed wild meat markets. Much of it is sold by commission-order hunters or opportunistically on roadsides or to restaurants (Abernethy and Obiang 2010).In a study in Taraba State, Nigeria, which the author suggests is typical of many parts of West Africa, wholesalers comprise the smallest group of market actors but handle the largest per capita market share, with chop bars being the most numerous group, accounting for 85% of retail sales (nearly all of the proprietors being women) (Gideon 2014). Kin support networks play important roles, such as with market entry; almost half of all wild meat traders inherit their business, use low-cost family labour and share knowledge and credit. In an example of the estimated returns along the supply chain, Gally and Jeanmart (1996) traced the profits from the sale of three monkeys killed: the hunter made 30% profit, the trader 19% and the restaurant 21%. This demonstrates that, as is typical in rural supply chains, a relatively small share accrues to the primary source, in this case the hunter. In Gabon, it was found that carcasses of wild meat may double in value between initial sales by the hunters and the price paid by retailers in the capital (Abernethy and Obiang 2010). In the DRC, van Vliet et al. (2022) reported that hunters deliver part of their meat to transporters who in turn transport the meat to traders in Yangambi. The hunters use what has not been sold for family consumption and these mostly consist of small animals, cooked viscera, and the heads and legs of the hunted animals. In Togo, great apes are hunted for consumption and sale (61%) or specifically for profit by 25% of the hunters, who deliver the wild meat to traders via porters and are facilitated by middlemen, including forestry administration personnel (Tagg et al. 2018). In Nigeria, 66.7% of hunters sold their meat directly to wholesalers, while 13.3% and 20% sold directly to consumers and retailers, respectively (Babalola et al. 2023). In Côte d'Ivoire wild meat was mainly supplied to restaurants and households by commercial hunters (84.8%), wild meat traders (12%) and subsistence hunters (3.25%), indicating the vital role wild meat plays in income generation among commercial hunters (Kouassi et al. 2023). In Ghana, 60% of the total biomass transiting through local markets was intended for other locations, with up to 98% of local traders selling exclusively to distant market traders (Sackey et al. 2022).Some of these occupations are sidelines to other sources of incomes, including salaried jobs. In Nigeria, Alade and Onadeko (2017) found that most traders had other occupations, such as working as civil servants, teachers or clothing merchants. This extends to hunters as well. Noutcha et al. (2016a) found that in Rivers State, Nigeria, nearly 70% of hunters were involved in other occupations and only 30% were unemployed before taking up hunting. More than 35% of vendors were civil servants. In Togo, 66.7% of hunters were engaged in farming and 7.8% in fishing; 6% were gatherers, domestic farmers and healers, and 13.7% were employed (Tagg et al. 2018). Traders reported by Tagg et al. also had other sources of income, including agriculture (82%), small enterprises (9.1%) and beekeeping and poultry keeping (each 4.5%). A study of determinants of income among wild meat traders in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, found that better educated men generated higher wild meat incomes than other traders (Jacob et al. 2018).Wild meat trading, at least for domestic markets, may nevertheless be regarded as a low status occupation, as Gideon ( 2014) points out it is in Nigeria, but one that may depend on the level of individual achievement. The author also suggests that there is little evidence of market power by individuals or groups of market actors through collusion.Similarly, in Asia the wild meat value chain is a complex network involving various actors, each with distinct roles, livelihoods and practices. These actors range from hunters and farmers to traders, middlemen, butchers and consumers, both local and international (Song 2008;Campbell et al. 2022). Hunters are primarily rural inhabitants who depend on wild meat for subsistence and income. They typically live in or near forests and other wildlife-rich areas. In regions such as Southeast Asia and parts of India, hunting is integral to the livelihoods of indigenous and local communities, which have limited access to alternative sources of protein and income (Rao et al. 2011). The income from selling wild meat can be substantial, often surpassing earnings from agriculture or other local employment options (Bennett and Rao 2002). Hunters generally see higher profits than traders due to the latter's additional costs for transportation, fines and bribes (Nasi 2021). Hunting methods vary widely, from traditional techniques including traps and snares to more modern practices involving firearms. The intensity and methods of hunting can significantly impact local wildlife populations.In some areas, organized hunting expeditions are common, targeting specific species for their high market value (Rao et al. 2011). Pangolins and wild pigs were targeted due to their high market value, prized as meat, pets or ingredients in traditional medicine (MacMillan and Nguyen 2013). In rural areas, particularly those with high childhood malnutrition rates (Pruvot et al. 2019), hunting remains a vital source of subsistence and food security for many communities. In urban settings, consuming wild meat is often associated with luxury and prestige, seen as a healthier alternative to farmed animal products or simply more 'natural'. Wildlife is hunted for sale to urban markets, particularly in China and Vietnam, but also across Southeast Asia (Lee et al. 2014;Greatorex et al. 2016;Sandalj et al. 2016;Haffner 2020).The overall evidence available, however, suggests that local consumption and nutrition needs are also important (Thomas-Walters et al. 2021;Zyambo et al. 2022) and that incentives for hunting are complex and vary significantly by location. There is evidence to indicate that in some settings, particularly in those parts of forested Africa that have little to no tradition of livestock keeping, wild meat is often the most readily available and least-cost meat. The large investment costs needed to establish some types of livestock production may also be a barrier to supply when wild meat is relatively available. Other studies (Nasi et al. 2008;Takforyan 2001;de Mérode et al. 2003) show that most people in tropical forests hunt and that meat sales within the community can be significant (30% in Cameroon, up to 90% in the DRC), suggesting that external markets may not uniformly be a key incentive for hunting but that intra-community transactions also play a role. The wild meat value chains start with hunting. The multicountry and multi-continent analysis by Nielsen et al. (2017) shows that wild meat hunting is widespread and common in the tropics but varies significantly by location and is more prevalent in Latin America and Africacorresponding to larger forest zone populations-than in Asia. For Africa overall, among sampled households in their dataset, there was 44% prevalence of hunting, from a low of 3% of sampled households in Ethiopia to a high of 97% in Cameroon (Nielsen et al., 2017). Another study by Nielsen et al. (2018) based on a survey of some 8,000 households across 24 countries in the Global South found that 39% of households consumed wild meat, representing 150 million households. The type of hunting employed influences the types of species hunted, but is also driven by species availability, although not all hunting methods may be locally available (e.g. guns). Greater importance of land species means easier hunting via snares. Hunting with guns facilitates more selective and efficient hunting of large-bodied and arboreal animals, particularly daytime hunting of primates.Nocturnal hunting with shotguns is practiced commonly when hunting duikers.Animals are often killed in proportion to their presence and not necessarily targeted. This creates some degree of 'by-catch' since all animals are killed if encountered, even if rare and/or protected by law, although in many cultural settings, any animal caught can typically be eaten or sold for meat (in the Fang language of southern Cameroon and northern Gabon, the same word is used interchangeably for meat and animal). Snaring, using wire cables, local plant fibres or tough plastic snares is regarded as the most widespread method but may be wasteful and is non-selective of species. Some 27% of snared animals are reported in one study to be lost to decomposition and scavenging due to the inadequate frequency of monitoring of snares (Noutcha et al. 2016b).In Nigeria there are reports of groups of hunters using trained hunting dogs and hunting for several days at a time, with the meat products being preserved along the way (Eniang et al. 2008). Across several sites in South Africa, a review by Martins and Shackleton (2019) reported the use of wire snares, but the favoured method (up to 80%) was hunting by groups of men and boys with dogs and clubbing the cornered animals. Guns were reported used less frequently: 11% of the time. Similarly, a study by Ibbett et al. (2019) revealed that dogs were the primary hunting method employed by hunters in Cambodia, with 87% of the 60 surveyed individuals using them. Other commonly reported methods included slingshots (47%), snares (13%) and crossbows (3%). Notably, 35% of current hunting households utilized several methods to capture wildlife. The study also found that respondents generally perceived guns as being used by outsiders or authorities, such as police or military personnel. Several participants reported witnessing soldiers using guns to hunt primates. Additionally, one respondent described seeing men with rifles in four-wheel-drive vehicles equipped with coolers to transport the hunted meat. In one instance, a participant even admitted to borrowing a gun from the police to shoot a black-shanked douc langur (P. nigripes). In India, Gubbi et al. (2012) found a diverse range of hunting methods employed in the area. Notably, traditional techniques dominated, with 85% of respondents using methods including snares, scavenging kills from predators like dholes, hunting dogs, and smoking animals out of hiding spots. However, a significant portion (36.7%) of respondents also acknowledged using modern methods for hunting, such as firearms, explosive baits, and blinding prey with bright lights, methods that are typically used to target larger animals that yield more meat, such as gaur, sambar deer, wild pigs, langur monkeys, mouse-deer, barking deer and sloth bears.The non-selectivity of many hunting methods implies that efforts to reduce hunting of certain species for either conservation or zoonotic risk mitigation reasons are unlikely to be effective. On the other hand, the association of certain hunting methods with some species may also provide opportunities: reducing access to guns and ammunition may reduce the hunting of some primates and large-bodied species.The choice of hunting method is likely driven by the return to effort, material and labour. Blake (1994) compared estimated rates of return to alternative types of shotgun hunting in a logging concession in northern Congo.The estimated rates of return for hunters travelling into the forest by vehicle was higher than those for hunts conducted on foot from settlements because animal densities increased with distance from settlements. In addition, night-time flashlight hunting was more efficient than daytime shotgun hunting due to reduced fear/ awareness of game. They found that in these settings, rates of return to shotgun hunting are 7 to 25 times higher than those for hunts using traditional weapons such as bows and nets, results also found by Wilkie and Curran (1991). Hunters' access to guns may be increasing in part as a by-product of civil strife and in part because of the increase in the supply of ammunition and shotguns by professional wild meat traders (Gadsby 1990). In rural sites in Cameroon, Lebreton et al. (2006) found that most hunters used wire snares (81%) and 31% used guns.In Asia, the earliest method involved teams of hunters strategically positioning large rocks to crush animals in vulnerable areas, like narrow trails (August and Burian 1963). This method likely targeted ibexes along with other techniques, such as ambushing animals or forcing them into deep snow. As technology development progressed, hunters utilized more sophisticated tools such as spears, darts with stone or bone tips, batons, slings and daggers crafted from animal bones. Hunters also employed more elaborate techniques and used nets, traps and other tools for hunting. They dug and concealed deep pits, or herded animals into marshes, swamps or dead-end canyons to secure large kills (Derevianko 2011). A study by Johnson et al. (2003) in Laos found that guns were the most common method reported for capturing most wildlife, followed by snares. The availability of firearms significantly influences hunting methods. In regions with widespread gun ownership, firearms become the preferred tool. Conversely, stricter gun control regulations, as seen in some parts of Southeast Asia, such as in Indonesia and Vietnam, can lead to a rise in alternative methods such as snares (Harrion et al. 2016).Wild meat hunting is often associated with logging concessions and the new roads that are inevitably built to support them. These have become significant drivers of wild meat extraction. The new roads increase hunters' access to deeper parts of the forest, typically in gun hunting, lowering transport costs to markets, including on returning logging trucks, and the logging settlements increase the demand for wild meat (Wilkie and Carpenter 1999;Wilkie et al. 2000;Bowen-Jones et al. 2003). Blake (1994) found that rates of return to hunting were higher outside of logging concession areas, where hunting pressure was still low, but also declined quickly with time (25% over a three-week period). The expansion of logging is closely intertwined with the dynamics of wild meat hunting in those parts of Central Africa and Southeast Asia where logging of new forest remains important. A study by Johnson et al. (2003) in Laos found that logging activities can fragment and degrade wildlife habitats, impacting animal behaviour and food sources. This can force animals into smaller areas, making them easier targets for hunters.Other studies also found associations of remoter forest with better hunting. In Gabon, an analysis found that snare catch rates for larger bodied, commercial species were highest in traps furthest from the village, in good quality forest, with low hunting pressure (Coad 2007).In East and Southeast Asia, although not in Africa, there has been widespread adoption of wildlife farming for meat and other products. Wildlife farmers in Asia come from both rural and urban backgrounds. In rural areas, wildlife farming often serves as an additional income source alongside traditional agriculture. In urban settings, wildlife farms can be more commercialized and integrated into broader economic activities, such as tourism and trade (Dutton et al. 2011). While wild species such as civets, softshell turtles, deer and porcupines are commonly raised for food (Bell et al. 2004;Zhang et al. 2008), other animals are farmed for medicinal or other purposes. These include crocodiles, peafowl, Asiatic black bears (Ursus thibetanus), cobras (Naja sp.) and even tigers (Panthera tigris) (Harrison et al. 2016). The primary motivation for engaging in wildlife farming is economic. Farmers are driven by the high market demand for wildlife products, including meat, skins, medicinal products and exotic pets. This demand is particularly strong in countries such as China, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, where wildlife products are highly valued in traditional medicine and luxury markets (Nijman 2010). In many regions, wildlife farming is influenced by traditional practices and cultural beliefs. For example, in China, bear bile farming is rooted in traditional Chinese medicine, where bear bile is believed to have medicinal properties (Feng et al. 2009). Similarly, farming certain bird species for songbird competitions and religious ceremonies is common in Indonesia (Robinson et al. 2016). In Vietnam, the government promotes captive breeding of wildlife to reduce pressure on wild populations, though captive-wildlife farming does not necessarily reduce demand for wildlife products (Elves-Powell et al. 2023). A policy framework regulates the growing number of commercial wildlife farms, which raise various animals, many for meat consumption (WCS 2008).The COVID-19 pandemic raised concerns about the risk of wildlife farming in Asia leading to disease spillover and as a result both declines in demand in some places as well as efforts by national governments to discourage wildlife farming. A study in two provinces in Vietnam found that the numbers of wildlife farms and farmed wildlife animals have declined since the pandemic, mainly as a result of declining market demand and wildlife farm owners experiencing difficulties accessing markets due to travel restrictions (Pham et al. 2022).Middlemen and traders act as links between hunters and farmers and the market. They purchase wild meat from hunters and farmers at relatively low prices and sell it to urban consumers or export it, often at significant markups. These actors are crucial in the distribution network, ensuring that wild meat reaches broader markets (Biller-Sandalj et al. 2016). Small rodents, bats and other species such as palm civets that are not subject to wildlife trade restrictions are openly sold in physical markets throughout China and Southeast Asia. In Laos, wildlife meat is on sale in hundreds of small-scale markets in villages (Greatorex et al. 2016). Vendors' livelihoods are closely tied to the fluctuations in demand and supply of wild meat (Challender and MacMillan 2014). Traders and middlemen use various methods to transport wild meat and proper storage and preservation techniques are employed to maintain the meat's quality during transport (Drury 2011). The illegal wildlife trade operates through a diverse network of channels. In established physical markets, such as Mong La, in Myanmar (Nijman et al. 2016), sales are often covert and made under the counter. However, the trend is shifting towards online platforms. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, particularly through their group chats, are becoming the primary channels for illegal wildlife trade, reflecting the increasing internationalization of the crime (Krishnasamy and Zavagli 2020;Siriwat and Nijman 2020).On the other hand, upscale restaurants cater to a specific clientele, with urban consumers viewing the consumption of exotic wildlife as a prestigious social event (Song 2008). These establishments offer a wide range of species, from commonly available palm civets and wild pigs to strictly protected animals such as leopards and pangolins.Nijman (2010) found that in rural areas, butchers often operate within close-knit communities where hunting and wildlife consumption are part of traditional livelihoods. In urban areas, they may cater to a broader market, including restaurants, traditional medicine shops and exotic pet markets. Wildlife butchers process a wide range of species, including mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. The choice of species often depends on regional availability and market demand.Commonly butchered animals include deer, wild boar, pangolins, snakes, and various bird species (Challender and MacMillan 2014). The methods and tools used by wildlife butchers vary. Traditional tools such as knives and machetes are common in rural settings, while more advanced equipment might be used in urban butcheries.The butchering process involves skilled techniques to ensure minimal waste and maximum economic return.The practices may also include smoking, drying and other preservation methods to extend the shelf life of the products (Corlett 2007). According to a TRAFFIC 2008 report, the processing facilities for wildlife products used in traditional medicine are typically small-scale, familyowned businesses. This is especially true in Vietnam, where processors and retailers are often the same entity. However, in countries such as Indonesia, where tigerbased medicine is uncommon, the raw materials are exported after some basic processing (e.g. skinning or bone removal) for further processing elsewhere.In some countries, much or most wild meat is sold locally to rural consumers who are mainly attracted by the availability and low prices of the wild meat. Urban consumers of wild meat, especially in East and Southeast Asia, typically come from middle-to high-income brackets.In some countries, such as Vietnam, this consumption is further associated with high-ranking government officials and the business community (TRAFFIC 2008). These consumers are often from affluent backgrounds and drive the demand for wild meat in cities. They purchase wild meat as a luxury item, seeking it out in specialty restaurants and markets. Wild meat is often perceived as healthier and more natural than farmed meat. This belief drives consumption among those who seek organic or less processed food options. Consumers believe that wild meat is free from antibiotics and hormones commonly used in livestock farming (Corlett 2007). In China and Vietnam, consuming wild meat is linked to traditional medicine beliefs and is thought to possess various health benefits (Drury 2011). This consumer base includes locals as well as international tourists looking for exotic culinary experiences. Their willingness to pay high prices makes the wild meat trade lucrative (Shairp et al. 2016). Consumption of wild meat in urban areas is often associated with social status and cultural prestige. It is typically served in upscale restaurants and during special occasions, symbolizing wealth and sophistication. This demand incentivizes the continuous supply chain from rural areas to urban centres (Zhang et al. 2008).In many ways, wild meat hunting and value chains can be seen to offer important positive opportunities for women, with women and men typically having different roles along different points of the value chain, although they vary by locale and system (Table 6). In all zones, men are reported to do the bulk of the hunting, particularly the more commercial forms such as with guns. However, it is clear that women often play an important role in trapping small animals such as birds (Ceppi and Nielsen 2014;Taylor et al. 2015), in cooking (Dell et al. 2020) and in gathering other wild animal foods such as snails and insects.Among rural hunting households, although women's roles in hunting may be smaller, the access to wild meat has consequences for women and their children, the most obvious being the nutritional benefits (discussed in detail below). In a study in central Gabon, Coad et al. (2010) looked at the relationship between hunting, wealth and spending patterns and found that most purchases by women were of (non-wild meat) food but those purchases were lower in absolute terms and as a share of total purchases in households that hunted more. This reduced dependence on food purchases by women confirms the importance of the availability of wild meat, even if hunted by men, and that important benefits accrue to women.The largest economic role of women, however, is seen along the downstream parts of the value chain: as wholesale or retail vendors and processors, all of which comprise important value addition roles and livelihood opportunities. In a survey of community members in rural southern Cameroon, men reported being 39 times more likely to hunt than women and women were 2 times more likely to butcher than men, highlighting the latter's role post-harvest (LeBreton et al. 2006). In East and Southeast Asia, wildlife butchering is predominantly a male-dominated activity, though women also participate, particularly in the preparation and sale of wildlife products in markets (Golden et al. 2013). As seen in Table 6, women typically comprise 50-100% of venders and sellers of wild meat, aged 30-50 years, with mixed educational levels.The relatively low barriers to entry to these enterprises in terms of capital requirements and women's access to social and kinship networks to make contacts and gain skills, along with the fact that food preparation and selling are often associated with women in many settings, means that wild meat value chains may offer better opportunities for women than other available enterprises.The low cost of hunting equipment and the high value of wild meat create favourable profit margins for hunters and traders. In many cases, the returns from hunting wild animals are substantially higher compared to other forms of livelihood for a subset of the rural populations. This economic rationale is a powerful motivator, encouraging individuals and communities to engage in hunting activities despite the risks of legal penalties or the longterm depletion of wildlife resources (Rao et al. 2011).Market price formation may be relatively competitive, with little evidence of information asymmetry. A market study in Cross River State, Nigeria, found that for common species such as cane rats and porcupines, transactions followed somewhat standard prices, and negotiation only affected prices if demand was unusually high (Eniang et al. 2008). The evidence on household returns to hunting are mixed at best: Table 9 shows some of the studies available that measure returns to hunting. Household benefits include monetary income as well as food security provided by wild meat as a source of diet diversity and a cheaper source of alternative proteins (Janssen et al. 2024). In a study in Gabon, Abernethy and Obiang (2010) found that successful hunters can make up to USD 5 a day, but only around 5% of households that hunt achieve these sorts of returns. Instead, 90% of hunters make less than USD 2 a day for all sales averaged over the year. With relatively few wealthy households hunting most of the meat, and given that the average rural household income in Gabon (an upper-middle-income country) is around USD 12 a day from all activities, wild meat hunting may be regarded as not a major economic activity at the level of hunting households (Abernethy and Obiang 2010), although value addition along the supply chain is more concentrated and so important for participating market actors. In general, however, they estimate that wild meat is a significant part of the rural economy, with nearly 80% of rural families dependent, in part at least, on the benefits. Higher returns have been documented in the last couples of years in Ghana, as traders made up to USD 7.82 per carcass of wild meat (Sackey et al. 2023) In spite of the case studies indicating relatively high economic importance to households in selected sites, the wider data does not confirm that level of importance more broadly. In a wide-ranging study using data from forest margin sites across Africa, Asia and Latin America, Nielsen et al. (2017) found that for those African households that reported hunting, overall wild meat income, including consumption, was about USD 55 per adult equivalent per year, although it was much higher in Latin America. That result meant that household reliance on hunting for total income was very low-about 1.9% on average of total household income in African sites, although the average was 4.3% for those households that generate cash from hunting versus those that only consume the meat. This cash versus consumption difference underlies the important differences in hunting for market versus hunting for home and community consumption. Nielsen et al. (2017) further found that among the African households sampled, the cash income was only 10.7% of total wild meat value, with the largest share by far being the consumption value of the meat. The authors suggest that some other studies of returns to hunting fail to estimate the subsistence value of hunting, thus inflating the cash returns in relative importance (e.g. Kümpel et al. 2010;Golden et al. 2014), even though the Nielsen et al. (2017) sample showed that some 40% of income for rural agricultural households is derived from consumption of their own products.Based on studies such as Nielsen et al. (2017), the evidence suggests that wild meat is not essential to rural households generally as an income source, although exceptions can be seen in specific settings (East Africa, Nigeria, Indonesia) where there are high levels of trade, large species are available and wild meat consumption has unique cultural importance. However, wild meat appears to remain important to rural households, particularly the more remote, as a source of protein and micronutrients, particularly where livestock production is constrained by disease or not traditionally practiced.Similarly, a study by Nielsen et al. (2018) across 24 countries found that wild meat comprised only 2%, on average, of household income, nearly all in the form of consumption. Along the same lines, Abernethy and Obiang (2010) found that hunters in Gabon sold about 40% of the animals they catch, comprising about 50% of the caught biomass, reflecting the market value of larger animals and the importance of household consumption.The same study estimated that wild meat supplied up to 90% of the protein consumed by more remote rural households and that other non-market hunting objectives were also important, including the traditional use of wild meat in ceremonies, which can increase hunting by up to 30% during certain seasons. In a study in one community in Congo that appears to be an outlier, de Mérode et al. (2004) found that wild meat and wild foods play a small role in household consumption but an important role in household income, with over 90% of both sold to the market. In a set of rural villages in Gabon, income from hunting was 15-72% of total household income, the highest found in the more remote communities (Starkey 2004).Household demand for wild meat is a significant driver of hunting activities in various parts of East and Southeast Asia. This demand is particularly pronounced in rural areas where wild meat is a critical component of local diets and livelihoods, as well as in urban areas where it is seen as a luxury item. In many rural regions of Asia, wild meat serves as a vital source of protein and other nutrients. Agricultural productivity in these areas is often low, and access to affordable domesticated meat can be limited. As a result, households turn to hunting wild animals to meet their dietary needs. This is especially true in remote areas where market access is restricted, making wild meat an essential part of the local food security strategy. Studies have shown that in parts of Indonesia and Malaysia, wild meat constitutes a significant portion of the diet, providing crucial sustenance for rural populations (Bennett and Rao 2002).For many East and Southeast Asian rural households, wild meat also represents an economic resource. The sale of wild meat can provide significant income, which is crucial in regions where other economic opportunities are scarce. Hunters often sell surplus meat in local markets or to intermediaries who transport it to urban areas, where it fetches higher prices. This trade can be a critical source of cash for families, supporting other household expenses such as education, healthcare and housing. The economic reliance on wild meat hunting is a major driver of continued hunting practices, despite the potential negative impacts on wildlife populations (Nasi et al. 2008). In Southeast Asia, pangolin meat is considered a luxury item in Vietnam, often served in high-end restaurants. Prices can reach up to USD 250 per kilogram (Newton et al. 2008). Wild boar meat is commonly available and fetches around USD10-20 per kilogram, depending on the region and quality (Drury 2009). In regions like Kalimantan and Papua in Indonesia, deer and wild pig meat are common. Prices for wild pig meat range from USD 5-10 per kilogram, while deer meat can be priced at around USD 10-15 per kilogram (Wadley and Colfer 2004). Or in Malaysia, wild meat such as deer, wild boar and small mammals can be found in local markets, with prices ranging from USD 8-15 per kilogram.The price varies widely based on the species and region (Bennett 2002). In Hong Kong, in 1970 one kilo of bear gall bladder cost around USD 200, but by 1990 the price had risen to between USD 3,000 and USD 5,000 per kilo (Gabriel 1999). Feng et al. (2009) found that the more recent market price with legal certification has risen to between USD 30,000 and USD 50,000 per kilo, with the data collected from a legal market.In regions where employment opportunities are limited, the revenue generated from selling wild meat can significantly support household economies. This is particularly evident in forested areas of Southeast Asia, where local communities rely heavily on hunting to supplement their income. Ibbett et al. (2019) found the majority of households (68%) reported hunting solely for subsistence purposes, with about (28%) engaged in hunting for both food and income and one household relying exclusively on hunting income. In one wildliferich area, hunters reported earning USD 250-500 per month from selling meat to villagers or external traders, a considerable increase compared to the average monthly earnings (USD 80-150) of a casual labourer in the area. The commercialization of wild meat provides a financial lifeline, enabling households to afford necessities such as food, education, healthcare and housing (Nasi et al. 2011). This economic dependence on hunting poses a significant challenge to conservation efforts, as the immediate financial benefits often outweigh the long-term ecological costs.Some studies in East and Southern Africa have shown a more market-driven wild meat hunting system. For example, in Zimbabwe, Lindsey et al. (2011) found that wild meat hunting of large animals is conducted in or near protected wildlife areas, mainly by unemployed young men using dogs and/or snares. The wild meat was sold in nearby population centres, with the cash-accruing to USD 0.2 million and up to more than Euros 40 million annually in Tanzania (Nielsen et al. 2016)-used mostly to purchase food, apparently reflecting the higher value of wild meat versus domestic meat alternatives. They found the key drivers of that wild meat trade to be poverty, unemployment and scarcity of food, but also weak disincentives for poaching and relatively good access to animals. These incentives have also been documented in other recent reviews (Janssen et al. 2024;Zyambo et al. 2022). Similarly, in Tanzania, Nielsen et al. (2016) found that wild meat hunting, again of large animals, including buffalo and hippo, was commercialized and constituted a year-round economic activity. Cost-benefit ratios for hunters were estimated at less than 0.5, somewhat higher for traders and retailers along the supply chain. Inadequate or ineffective enforcement was a factor in access to large valuable animals, with the meat of some species, such as bush pigs and warthogs, obtaining premium prices. These cases illustrate that in settings where large valuable animals are accessible and market demand exists, largely commercial wild meat hunting can be the norm.The Nielsen et al. (2017) study is apparently the widest and most comprehensive examination across countries of wild meat hunting practices and the factors driving them, or at least associated with them, as well as the observed outcomes. They used a dataset from the Poverty Environment Network that was aimed at proximity to forests and forest margins. Greater importance of wild meat hunting in terms of prevalence and incomes was found to be associated with:• smaller and more remote communities (distance to district market and lower population density) • places with higher rainfall • communities in the middle of the cash income distribution • communities with few domestic animals • countries characterized by poor governance • countries with rising costs of living.Hunting varies by ecosystem. On average in Africa, 51% of wild meat was derived from forests compared to agricultural and fallow land, grassland and swamps. However, the proportion of household wild meat income in cash was higher from forest than non-forest areas, which suggests that forest hunting is more commercialized and may be associated with larger-bodied and more marketable animals. However, the authors found only a weak correlation between wild meat income, including consumption, and wild meat trade. Greater use of wild meat for subsistence in non-forest areas may be associated with hunting for both pest control and consumption. The numbers of livestock kept was significantly and negatively correlated with both the prevalence of hunting and wild meat income at the community level, although Africaspecific results were not presented. This mirrors the data showing the importance of wild meat for subsistence, which apparently declines when livestock protein alternatives are more available.A study across 10 ecoregions of Tanzania, however, found that livestock-keeping was not significantly associated with wild meat consumption either way, although cattlekeeping and the availability of sheep and goats were weakly associated with less frequent wild meat, and it is important to note that results differed by ethnic community (Ceppi and Nielsen 2014).Another study across 24 countries by Nielsen et al. (2018), however, found statistically strong evidence that reliance on livestock meat was associated with less reliance on wild meat. The presence of crop cultivation was not associated with reduced hunting, again suggesting the importance of animal-sourced portions for consumption even when staple crops are more available.Distance from the community to the district market was associated with an increase in prevalence of wild meat hunting and in total wild meat income. However, distance to market was not associated with differences in the level of wild meat trade (cash share of income). This suggests that in relatively remote rural areas, wild animals may be more available, but also that alternative rural enterprises may be less remunerative due to lower market access. Increased human population density was associated with lower levels of wild meat hunting and importance but did increase the cash share of wild meat income, suggesting that the presence of more people locally offered a better market for that wild meat that was caught. The authors found evidence that older settlements have depleted neighbouring wildlife populations, a long-term negative effect of increased human populations.In some sites there were controls or bans on wild meat hunting and trade, and generally natural resource management strategies that included forest lands. The authors (Nielsen et al. 2017) looked at the association between a national corruption perception index and wild meat hunting and trade and found positive correlations. The immediate inference may be that corruption reduces the effectiveness of enforcement of any control or management strategy, but in addition poor governance is also likely to be associated with weak services and poor rural infrastructure, hampering alternative enterprises and increasing the reliance on natural resources, including wild meat.Commercial economic drivers for wild meat hunting in Asia are pivotal in understanding the extensive and often unsustainable exploitation of wildlife. These drivers are multifaceted, involving market demands, economic incentives, and the interplay of local and international trade dynamics. The high market demand for wild meat, both within Asia and globally, significantly drives commercial hunting activities. Wild meat is often perceived as a luxury item, especially in urban centres and among affluent consumers (Shairp et al. 2016). This perception elevates its market value, making it a lucrative commodity for hunters and traders. In countries like China and Vietnam, wild meat is marketed as an exotic delicacy. The premium prices that wild meat commands in these markets providing strong economic incentives for hunters to supply these products, often leading to overexploitation of wildlife populations (Drury 2011).The international trade in wild meat and wildlife products further exacerbates hunting pressures. Thousands of tonnes of wild meat are estimated to be smuggled into Europe each year by diasporic African populations, both for personal use and for commercial trade. While legal goods are usually carried in iceboxes, wild meat is often concealed in suitcases, hermetically sealed in plastic to prevent leakage of juices and odours, suggesting passengers are aware that wild meat imports are illegal (Chaber et al. 2023). Asia is both a major supplier and a major consumer of wild meat, with extensive networks facilitating the trade across borders (Engel and Ziegler 2020;Nijman 2010;TRAFFIC 2008). Wildlife products, including meat, are often smuggled to meet demand in countries where exotic wildlife is highly prized. The illegal trade routes span several countries, involving complex supply chains that connect hunters in rural areas to consumers in distant urban markets and even internationally (Challender and MacMillan 2014). This international demand amplifies local hunting pressures, as wildlife is harvested not only to meet local needs but also to supply global markets.The links between household wealth and the importance of wild meat are complex. Nielsen et al. (2017) found that wealth in terms of land owned was correlated with increased wild meat income. Other studies have found a positive association between household size and assets and wild meat hunting and income, such as Coad (2007), who found that hunters were predominantly from the top half of households in terms of wealth. In a related study, Coad et al. (2010) found that hunting households were significantly wealthier than non-hunting households. Wealthier households, typically those with more land and in some cases more wives, may have access to better hunting equipment and may also have more labour and time available for specialized hunting. Nielsen et al. (2017) also found a weak positive relationship between total income and wild meat income but also point out that, like other environmental sources of income, wild meat income was unreliable. In the DRC, Bakkegaard et al. (2017) found evidence that larger households with greater assets showed greater risk-taking capacity associated with hunting. In one community in the DRC, de Mérode et al. ( 2004) found that households with a higher wealth index had better access to more and higher value wild meat. It is probably in this regard that Chausson et al. (2018) discussed that wild meat in the DRC is sometimes a reserve for those 'who can afford', associating it with important or respected individuals and ceremonies. Contrasting results have been reported in parts of Tanzania (Rentsch and Damon 2013). Nielsen et al. (2017) hypothesized that wild meat hunting and trade were likely to increase in times of economic stress, such as during periods of inflation in food prices.Their dataset was not able to address that issue specifically but, based on other studies (e.g. Coad et al. 2010), they found evidence of a positive correlation between increased hunting and trade when food prices increase. The inference could be that during those periods the relative value of wild meat as a substitute to higher price domestic meat increased, thus providing new incentives for both additional hunting and for sales of wild meat.Similarly, household wealth can be a complex driver for wildlife hunting, with the relationship varying depending on context. In many rural and low-income households in East and Southeast Asia, wild meat is a crucial component of food security. These households often have limited access to affordable domesticated meat and other protein sources, making wild meat an essential part of their diet. Hunting provides a reliable source of protein and other nutrients that might otherwise be inaccessible. This reliance is particularly pronounced in remote areas where agricultural productivity is low and markets are distant or poorly developed. For example, in the forests of Indonesia and Malaysia, wild meat is a significant dietary staple for many rural communities, directly contributing to their nutritional needs (Bennett and Rao 2002).The market dynamics of the wild meat trade also reflect the links between household wealth and wild meat consumption. Challender et al. (2015) found that wealthier households may engage in commercial hunting, targeting high-value species for trade. The income from these activities can be substantial, contributing significantly to the household economy. Wadley and Colfer (2004) found that in Indonesia, larger households with more labour often engage in extensive hunting to meet their nutritional needs. Asset-poor households rely heavily on wild meat, with limited alternative livelihoods available. A study by Madhusudan and Karanth (2000) in India revealed similar findings. Drury (2009) found a direct link between household assets and hunting practices. In Vietnam and Laos, asset-rich households can invest in efficient hunting tools, increasing their capacity to hunt commercially. In contrast, asset-poor households depend on hunting as a subsistence strategy.Wild meat value chains are composed of a wide variety of actors pursuing several different livelihood opportunities, from rural hunters and traders to urban venders, retailers, processors and roadside restaurant owners. These opportunities are often available to resource-poor individuals given the typically low costs of entry, but they often depend on kinship and other social networks to gain access and skills and to be economically viable. For many, these roles are sideline occupations and are sometimes seen as relatively low status except for more successful agents. Hunters are generally men, at least for the main larger species hunted, and are relatively young. Traders are both men and women and traditional processors (e.g. for smoking of animals), retailers and chop bar sellers tend to be women, depending on local cultural and social norms. The specifics of value chain interactions vary widely by location, by proximity to supply and demand areas and by types of species available. In many if not most value chains, the bulk of wild meat supply does not enter recognized market chains but comprises direct sales to consumers and rural households and to travellers along roadsides. For wild meat that travels along the value chain to an urban area and is finally sold as a prepared meal, a third of the end value of the wild meat may accrue to the hunter, with the rest distributed along the value chain.Two species of cane rats are found in the rainforest and savannah zones of West and Central Africa. These are strongly built rodents that feed on the roots and stems of grasses and on valuable crops such as sugarcane, rice, maize and cassava. In the wild they can reach up to 60 inches in length and 10 kg in weight, although farmed animals are typically smaller when harvested. Controlling their pest behaviour, in addition to sourcing meat, has long been an incentive for hunting cane rats through trapping, shooting, etc. (Fayenuwo and Akande 2002). Even before systems were developed for farming cane rats, they played an important wild meat role. Somewhat dated estimates suggest that the annual hunting of cane rats in Benin amounted to 500 mt, and in Ghana 70% of the estimated wild meat revenue of USD 247 million in 1997 was thought to be derived from cane rats (Fayenuwo and Akande 2002). Now, with the addition of small-scale and even commercialized cane rat farming, the species has increased in value and importance.Cane rat farming has been well established in parts of West Africa, building on previous traditions of sometimes capturing and fattening the wild animals. They can be reared with relatively low capital outlay or intensively in cages and fed Napier grass and agricultural scraps and food wastes (Wilkie and Carpenter 1999). They are prolific, reaching sexual maturity at six months, with females producing at least one litter per year of three to six young (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cane_ rat). The meat has higher protein and lower fat content than livestock meat, and the taste suits those consumers with a tradition of eating wild meat. An analysis by Chardonnet et al. (2002) of cane rat farming shows it generated higher returns than poultry or rabbit production and was comparable to the most profitable cropping enterprises. The promotion of cane rat production by extension services has been observed in Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and the DRC (https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Cane_rat).Studies of commercial cane rat 'colonies' in Ghana and Nigeria, each of which raised up to and over 90 animals at a time, found a number of constraints as well as relatively high farmer dropout rates. The difficulties encountered included lack of training in management practices and housing design, feeding and health management, sex determination and the acquisition of initial stock (Adu et al. 1999;Anamayi et al. 2018). Considerable investment has been made in improving the stock through selective breeding (Jori et al. 1995), particularly in Benin in collaboration with Germany (https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Cane_rat), but it is recognized that continued research is needed in all aspects of the productivity of captive cane rats (Adu et al. 1999).Bamboo rats, also called bamboo bandicoots, are rodents native to Southeast Asia prized for their lean meat. Farming them has gained popularity in some regions, particularly southern China and Vietnam. Bamboo rat farming is not legal or widespread in all parts of Asia. In addition to their lean meat, bamboo rats are known for being a good source of protein (FAO 2018). They adapt well to captivity and can be raised relatively easily compared to other livestock (Vu et al. 2017). Farming bamboo rats offers a potential source of income for rural communities (TRAFFIC 2018). A recent report from Vietnam (https://www.selinawamucii.com/insights/) suggests profitability, with farmers raising 200 bamboo rats and selling them for a good price per kilogram (Nguyen et al. 2024); in Vietnam, the price of bamboo rat meat is about USD 30-32/kg. However, large-scale farming raises concerns about the sustainability of wild bamboo rat populations, potentially leading to their overexploitation (TRAFFIC 2018). The close proximity of farmed animals to humans and domestic animals increases the risk of zoonotic disease transmission (WOAH 2023). In addition, questions exist about the welfare of bamboo rats in farming operations, especially regarding cage size and hygiene (World Animal Protection 2024). While bamboo rats offer potential economic benefits, developing more sustainable and humane farming practices for them is crucial (Do Linh et al. 2017).Civet cats, also known as civets, are small, nocturnal mammals native to Asia and Africa. They are most commonly associated with the production in Southeast Asia of kopi luwak, a coffee consisting of coffee cherries that have been eaten and defecated by the Asian palm civet. A lesser known but growing trend is raising civet cats for meat, which is considered a delicacy in certain regions. Farming civet cats has gained some popularity in parts of China and Vietnam. However, civet cat farming is not legal or widespread in all parts of Asia.The meat of civet cats is known for its distinctive flavour, which is prized in some traditional cuisines and considered a luxury item in some areas (Thi et al. 2022). Civet cats can be kept in captivity, but the conditions are often poor, leading to significant animal welfare concerns. They are typically housed in small cages and provided minimal care, which results in stress and health issues for the animals (Nijman et al. 2024).Farming civet cats can be a potential source of income for rural communities. It offers economic benefits, especially in regions where traditional livestock farming is not viable. However, the practice raises several ethical and conservation issues. Additionally, civet cats have been implicated in the transmission of zoonotic diseases, such as SARS, raising public health concerns. A review by Whitfort (2021) indicated that two studies investigating SARS-CoV in civets at a market found extremely high infection rates (78% and 100%), with one study suggesting a link between infection and the length of time spent at the market due to increased stress and viral load. Overall, civet cat meat farming in Asia raises significant concerns about sustainability, biosecurity, animal welfare and zoonotic diseases. More research is needed to understand the full scale of this practice.Cavies, also known as guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus), are rodents native to South America. They are welldocumented as an established mini livestock species in parts of Africa where wild meat has otherwise been a source of protein. They are well established in the eastern parts of the DRC, where more than two million of them are estimated to be regularly kept by hundreds of thousands of households in both rural and urban areas, and possibly by as many as half of all farmers (Maass et al. 2014;Klapwijk et al. 2020). About half a million cavies are also raised in Cameroon (Odenthal 2019), and in both regions were apparently introduced some decades ago through NGO and development agency efforts, in some cases as part of 'rehabilitation kits' in conflict-affected areas. Those conflicts also contributed to livestock destocking and deforestation, reducing the supplies of both domestic and wild meat, so providing further incentives for raising cavies (Draulans and Van Krunkelsven 2002;Klapwijk et al. 2020). The suitability of cavies as a replacement for wild meat in the local diet is demonstrated by adaptations of traditional DRC recipes, such as 'smoked cavy in groundnut sauce' and 'cavy in tomato sauce' (Celtnet 2013). Home consumption is reported as the main incentive for keeping cavies, but they are also sold, and sometimes raised by youth for income generation or, more generally, by women in the households (Niba et al. 2012;Klapwijk et al. 2020). A study in the DRC found that poorer households in particular marketed cavies more than wealthier households, suggesting both protein consumption and income-generating objectives. Cavy manure, which is relatively dry and rich in nitrogen, is valued by some for horticulture, and there are beliefs of medicinal benefits associated with their consumption (Mugisho 1995). In a study of cavy production among smallholders in the western highlands of Cameroon, Manjeli et al. (1998) documented reproduction rates of just over nine kids per doe per year, and average weight at 15 weeks of more than 400 g, with males being larger. Cavies are easily fed since they eat a range of grasses and vegetation, as well as kitchen and farm waste. They are often raised in a semi-scavenging manner as they remain close to the homestead. There remain considerable constraints to sustainable production. Mortality rates among young animals are high if birth weights are low due to inadequate feeding of pregnant females. Large, higher productivity breeds imported from South America to Cameroon were apparently not observed within the target communities a few years later, suggesting that there was inadequate local expertise in managing the improved breeds (Niba et al. 2012). In South Kivu, farmers reported constraints due to lack of knowledge of breeding and feeding, as well as predation and theft, which the use of cages by some farmers was able to mitigate (Klapwijk et al. 2020).Although constraints exist, the significant presence of cavy culture in several parts of Africa suggests that for some vulnerable households, raising these mini livestock may be an affordable way to mitigate malnutrition and provide income for rural women and their families while potentially reducing demand for wild meat. The significant experience and wealth of research on commercial cavy production in South America is a resource that could be applied in more African settings.As an alternative protein source to wild meat, some mention should be made of the potential for aquaculture, more specifically fish raised by smallholders in stream-fed ponds in a semi-intensive manner. In the relatively moist tropics where wild meat hunting is important, the relative abundance of surface water not only makes aquaculture generally feasible but also guarantees that consumption of fish is a cultural tradition. The most common aquaculture species across Central Africa is Nile tilapia, although often raised in combination with higher-market-value African catfish (Clarius), sometimes inadvertently due to the latter's ability to migrate to ponds across land. Feeding is generally a combination of fertilizing ponds with compost to create an algal bloom, supplemented with brewers' waste, cassava leaves, rice bran and even wild termites. Tilapia reproduce prolifically, often leading to overstocking, which is controlled by regularly draining ponds and by the presence of catfish. Smallholder aquaculture development programs are found across a number of African countries and could be considered wherever protein alternatives to wild meat are viewed as part of the effort to mitigate hunting (Gupta and Acosta 2004;Toguyeni 2004).The farming of capybara, a large rodent native to semiaquatic settings in hot and humid lowlands in Latin America, is well established. Breeding programs started in the 1970s have generated foundation stock of suitable genotypes for farming. When domesticated they are easily handled and can be raised on a variety of vegetation, including grasses such as Napier grass supplemented with concentrates. They thrive in high-temperature settings where some livestock species are constrained. Their annual productivity may exceed that of cattle in their native range. The white meat produced contains only 4.5% fat but 25% crude protein. Females reach sexual maturity at about 1.5 years, and offspring can reach a live weight of more than 40 kg in about 18 months. However, limitations include aggression and disease among animals housed together and the need for access to a semiaquatic environment. They are also susceptible to disease (brucellosis and surra) and may harbour foot and mouth disease. There is no clear evidence that farming capybara has been established to any extent in Africa, but it may remain an option to be explored (Moreira et al. 2012).Farming giant African snails is a relatively well-established enterprise in parts of Africa. Growing to over a foot in length, they have long been part of the harvested meat supply in relatively moist areas of the continent. They require little capital investment or space requirements, and labour requirements are minimal, so the enterprise is suitable to the resource poor and even those with disabilities (Agbogidi and Okonta 2011). They can subsist and grow on a wide variety of household food waste, crop residues, vegetables and fruits. In many settings, such as in Nigeria, they are regarded as a nutritious delicacy and are ascribed a number of medicinal and cultural/social values (Abdogigi and Okonta 2011).","tokenCount":"43045"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2e3c3d54a35385c85415350d34e9e5fd","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f26fb67b-43c1-4dc3-a4c4-5fe347c012d4/retrieve","id":"902386869"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d82440a0-5bd9-4c83-95a0-f8fe9a09bce4","pagecount":"48","content":"Relationship between runoff (Q) and rainfall (I) for various values of catchment storage (S) using the Curve-Number method 8 2. Grid layout for soil survey 9 3. Soil auger types 9 4. Laying out soil samples during augering 9 5. Areal variation of annual PE rates in Ethiopia 6. Cross-section of a pond 7. Design of an oxen-drawn scoop 8. Scraping and lifting soil with the scoop 9. Dragging a full scoop to the dumping area 10. Emptying the scoop 1 1 . Righting the scoop after dumping 12. Circuit taken by work oxen 20 13. Sketch of a completed pond D. l. Manual soil-texture test E. 1 . Inversed auger-hole method to determine soil hydraulic conductivity (K) E. 2. Graph of h(ti) + r/2 versus ti in the calculation of K F. 1 . A home-made, slow sand filter for water treatment v PREFACE A safe, adequate and accessible water supply is a pre requisite for socio-economic development. The fact that the United Nations has designated the period 1981-1990 as the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade highlights the grow ing awareness throughout the world of the need for improved water supplies. The current drought and famine throughout much ofAfrica also emphasise the need for immediate and widespread water conserva tion.Many people in Ethiopia and throughout the Third World lack access to adequate water supplies for household consumption or for livestock. Water shortages are particularly acute for small communities in rural areas which depend on the natural recharge of springs and wells. Frequently such supplies are in adequate during the dry season. In locations that have suitable topography and rainfall characteristics the problem can be alleviated by building ponds to trap surface runoff during the rainy season for use later in the year.An appropriate method of excavating such ponds in rural areas of Ethiopia is through the use of draught animals. Suitable equipment and tech niques for pond excavation using draught oxen have been designed and tested by ILCA. Preliminary re sults have shown that there are no major technical constraints, but organisation of the participating farmers is critical in ensuring the success of such work.This manual provides information and guidance to assist those in Ethiopia involved in the excavation of ponds using animal power. It is based on ILCA's experience in pond construction at its Debre Berhan research station, and on the experiences of two Peasant Associations (PAs) in the area. This first edition is intended to test the usefulness of the man ual under field conditions. Comments from users would be appreciated. The manual will be updated as more experience is gained.It is written for development agents (DAs) ap pointed by the Ministry of Agriculture to provide technical assistance and guidance to the Peasant Associations. Theoretical explanations are kept to a minimum. Appendices and references are included to give more detailed practical information. Water is a scarce resource in many parts of rural Ethiopia. Both people and their livestock commonly travel long distances daily to obtain the water they need. Much time and energy is expended during daily trekking to distant water supplies. As a result animals lose condition and their productivity is reduced. Existing water supplies can be supplemented by improving water collection at spring sites, by con structing wells to tap groundwater supplies, or bv harvesting runoffwater in excavated ponds or dams . Constructing ponds or dams using either manual labour or heavy earth-moving machinery may not be appropriate in rural areas because these methods are either too labour intensive or very expensive. How ever, a technique has recently been developed for ex cavating ponds using ox-drawn scoops. Harvesting runoffwater may now be a viable means ofimproving water supplies in rural areas of Ethiopia, as this is a low-cost technique within the means of the local population.The pond technology should be readily accepted by farming communities for many reasons. First, 1 A pond is an excavated hole in the ground in which water is stored, whereas a dam implies the storage of water above ground behind an embankment.and most importantly, it is directed towards solving a problem of primary concern to rural dwellers; second, it requires little capital expenditure and makes minimal demands on the labour ofindividuals (since the work load can be shared by all the members of a Peasant Association); and third, the manufac ture of scoops and the extension skills necessary to design and supervise pond excavation are well within the capacity of Ethiopia at this stage of its develop ment.The use of draught animals for constructing ponds could be an effective way of improving water supplies in large areas of Ethiopia. The provision of ponds for water storage could contribute substantially to agri cultural development by saving time and energy in the collection of water, by reducing the incidence of water-related diseases and by increasing livestock productivity.The major contribution of cattle to agricultural production in the Ethiopian highlands (where 70% of the country's cattle are found) is through the draught power provided by oxen. A typical farmer uses oxen for 450 pair hours per year for cultivation and threshing (Gryseels and Anderson, 1983). Culti vation is carried out at some stage between April and July, while threshing takes place between November and January. Animal-drawn scoops could thus be used for pond excavation during periods when oxen are underutilised. Draught power for pulling the scoops could be provided by camels or equines in 1 areas where work oxen are not available. However, the scoop and harness would have to be modified ac cording to the type of animal used. Satisfactory transfer of this technology will require full participation by the Peasant Associations. The ability of a PA to excavate enough ponds of adequate capacity to supply users' needs will depend on the number of working animals that can be used, the amount of feed available, and the suitability of the working schedule in both social and technical terms. The selection of pond sites and the management of completed ponds are also ofparamount importance if technology transfer is to be successful.The use of animal-drawn scoops for excavating ponds of the desired capacities will encounter problems unless certain conditions are fulfilled. The prime consideration is careful selection of the pond site, which is critical for the success of the project. It is also important that the work oxen are well organised to ensure that the maximum output is achieved with the minimum expenditure of human and animal labour. Poor organisation of the participants, or loss of inter est in the project, will have a major negative impact on the progress of pond excavation.The availability of work oxen in the area may be a limitation while a scarcity of feed resources will also hinder the work. If the^animals lose condition due to inadequate feeding, the farmers will be reluctant to use them for excavation work. It is also important that sufficient oxen are available to allow work rota tion to be followed. In this way the frequency ofwork by each oxen pair can be limited and the effect on the existing farming system will be minimal.Before commencing excavation with the scoops proper training of participants and their oxen is es sential in order to attain high work efficiency. Exca-vation should start as soon as possible after the rains when the soil moisture content is optimal for such work. If it is started at a later date when the soil is al ready dry and difficult to break, the rate of exca vation will be dramatically reduced. Similarly, if work is attempted when the soil is very wet, progress will be slow.Another important consideration is the immediate maintenance of any scoops that are damaged during the working period. If repairs are delayed, the number of operational scoops will be reduced and consequently the overall work rate will decrease.Provided that all these considerations are taken into account in the design and execution of pond ex cavation, no major problems are expected.When the need for an improved water supply has been expressed by a PA, a preliminary survey should be conducted. Information regarding the existing water supply must be collected to establish the extent of water shortages, and to ensure that the PA is suf ficiently interested to participate fully in pond con struction. The potential use of the stored water must be clearly established before selecting the pond site.The amount of available labour and the water re quirements of the community must also be known in order to determine a suitable pond size. Information required from the PA is outlined below:-Whether there is sufficient water for domestic purposes and/or for watering livestock in the area. -The frequency, degree and duration of water shortages.-The main problem in obtaining water (distance to source, water quality or other factors). -Whether the PA is willing to make land avail able for a pond (and a protected enclosure immediately upstream of the pond) and to par ticipate fully in pond construction. -The number of households, the average number of people per household, and the number and type of animals per household within the PA. This will give the number of potential users of the pond(s) and hence the required capacity. -The amount of labour -both human and ani mal -that will be available to participate in pond construction. This will be used to deter mine the number of oxen-pairs working each day and hence the size of the pond that can be excavated in a given time. -The purposes for which the stored water will be used -for domestic purposes or for livestock watering, or both. Where the water is to be used for household purposes and/or livestock water ing the pond should be located as near as poss ible to the majority of households and grazing areas.The required capacity of ponds to be constructed depends on the water requirements of potential users (maximum demand and fluctuations in demand during the year), and the expected water losses by evaporation and seepage. The amount of loss by evaporation is directly related to the local climate while seepage losses are related to soil type and, to a lesser extent, to pond design. The pond size required depends on the anticipated use of the stored waterfor instance for both domestic purposes and livestock watering. Required pond capacity is also influenced by the period of time for which the water is to be made available. Finally, the number of ponds to be made in an area will determine the required capacity of each pond.A good estimate of required pond dimensions and capacities must be made to ensure that the amount of water needed by the community is conserved with the minimum expenditure of human and animal labour. Estimation of the water requirement ' of a community can be based directly on the number of people and their livestock. The number of people in an area is generally fairly stable and will increase only slowly over time, whereas the number of ani mals may fluctuate more sharply. Environmental factors, such as the occurrence of drought, may have a significant effect on both human and livestock numbers. However, such changes are unpredictable.Human water consumption varies considerably according to the availability of water and the stan dard ofliving of the people. Depending on the climate and work load, between 3 and 10 litres of water per day are essential to meet a person's basic drinking and food preparation requirements. The amount of water used for other purposes varies widely, but much larger quantities are needed for personal hygiene, cleaning of cooking utensils and laundry. A good water supply, combined with proper sanitation, helps to reduce the incidence of diseases.In Ethiopia, human water consumption varies widely. It ranges from a low of 5 litres per caput per day (1/c/d) for some rural communities, to a high of 120 1/c/d for urban dwellers with more sophisticated water facilities (Teka, 1982). Average rural con sumption in Ethiopia in 1973 was estimated as 15 1/c/d (Ministry of the Interior, 1973). This figure is un likely to be exceeded where water has to be carried.The calculation of future human demand should take into account population growth and the in creased per caput use which will result from improved supplies. A suitable design consumption for the human population in rural areas of Ethiopia is 25 1/c/d.Livestock require 20-30 litres per tropical live stock unit (TLU2) per day (EWRA, 1976;Hofkes, 1983). Further details of human and livestock water requirements are given in Table 1 . These values are indicative but, as each rural community will differ in use patterns, where possible a field survey should be made to assess water use. Per caput daily water use data can be used to make a rough estimate of a com munity's water demand, although per household water use may be more accurate since much of the water is shared by members of a family.  Teka (1982).One TLU is equivalent to 250 kg liveweight. Mature cattle, donkeys, horses and mules can be considered as 1 TLU each, while small rumi nants (sheep and goats) and calves can be taken as 0.2 TLU.To estimate future water demand of a community, a rule of thumb is to increase the actual water re quirement by 50% to allow for the anticipated popu lation growth and increased per caput use.Depending on the estimated water consumption figures for people and livestock in a certain area, the water requirement for a month or year can be esti mated using the following formula (Astatke, 1984): R = (1 + E) . D . X (Y . y + Z . z) where: R = domestic and livestock water require ment in litres per year. E = extra allowance for population growth and increased consumption, usually taken as a 50% increase or 0.5 in the equation. D = number of days for which the stored water supply is needed. X = number of households using the water. Y = average number of people in a house hold. y = average daily water consumption per person in the area. Z = average number of livestock units (TLU) per household, z = average daily water consumption per livestock unit (TLU).Once a pond excavation project has been justified in terms of the need for an improved water supply and the availability of sufficient labour to carry out the work, then suitable pond sites must be selected. Suit able pond sites are those that are accessible to consumers; where the soils are friable, easy to work and have a low permeability to minimise seepage losses; and where the catchment area is large enough to provide sufficient runoff to recharge the pond dur ing the main rainy season. In some locations it may also be possible to have some recharge during the short rains, in years when they occur. The area must also offer a suitable location for an outlet to discharge surplus water safely when the pond is full. Aerial photographs (if available) and field visits to the area should be the basis of preliminary site selection. It is essential that members of the PA are in volved in selecting their pond site(s).Aerial photographs at a scale greater than 1:20 000 (such as 1 : 1 5 000) are sufficiently detailed to be ofuse in the preliminary selection of pond sites. They pro vide information regarding the distribution and number of households and the location of existing watering points. They can be used to identify likely catchments for pond construction in terms of catch ment area, topography and vegetation.It is not possible to obtain information regarding soil characteristics from aerial photographs, so field visits are essential to determine whether the soils are suitable for pond excavation. In many instances up-to-date aerial photographs will not be available and site selection will have to be based entirely on field visits. Ground surveys should be used to verify any information obtained from aerial photographs, and to provide supplementary data about the catch ment and the soils.The following criteria should be used for the pre liminary selection of pond sites based on aerial photo graphs or field visits: Proximity to the households. As the pond is to be used for domestic purposes and livestock watering, it should be located within easy reach of the consumers (both human and animal). The majority of house holds should ideally be within a 2-km radius of the pond. Where possible, the distance to the pond should be less than the distance to existing water sources for most users. Site topography. The pond site should be on gently sloping ground (less than 2%, or 1 :50 slope) to simplify construction and minimise erosion. Also, the storage ratio -the volume of water stored to the volume of earth excavated -is more favourable for ponds con structed on gentle rather than steep slopes. The land above the pond should not be level but should slope gently, otherwise runoff will not flow into the pond. The site should be at least 30 m away from the nearest stream, so that it does not interfere with the natural drainage of the valley and to avoid erosion. Catchment size. The catchment area should be large enough to provide sufficient runoff to fill the pond each year. On the other hand, it should not be too large otherwise the risk of erosion will be very high as a result of concentrating a large volume of runoff in the grassed outlet. (See Section 3.2 for more details). Vegetation of the area. The area above the pond should be grassed to minimise the rate of siltation of the pond. Grass acts as an efficient silt trap by reduc ing the rate of runoff and causing deposition of the sediment load before the water reaches the pond. The site itself should be on grazing rather than on arable land, since the latter is more valuable and limited in extent, and is less likely to be assigned by the PA for pond construction. Severely eroded areas should be avoided, as a pond in such a site would quickly fill with sediment and would need frequent desilting. The site should also be free of surface hindrances such as tree roots, boulders or a large number of stones. Outlet location. When the pond is full, excess water will overflow at the lowest point in the rim. The site should be an evenly sloping, grassed area so that ex cess water will spread out and flow safely downhill into a natural drainageway. During excavation an embankment ofdumped soil will go up on the downhill side of the pond. This may prevent excess water from flowing directly downhill, but there should be a natu ral overflow in a depression to one side of the pond. If the natural depression forming the overflow is dis turbed during excavation, it must be planted with suitable grass species to protect it from erosion.Grass species suitable for medium altitudes include Chloris gayana (Rhodes grass), Cynodon dactylon (Star grass), and Panicum coloratura (Guinea grass). For higher altitudes (above 2200 m) Pennisetum clandestinum (Kikuyu grass) , Dactylis glomerata (Cocksfoot) or Lolium species may be more suitable. It is always preferable to use the seeds or shoots from grasses that grow well locally rather than importing exotic species which may not be suited to the environment.In addition to the data obtained from aerial photo graphs and field visits, further information is re quired on the hydrological characteristics of poten tial sites. The amount of rainfall and its distribution, runoff characteristics, incidence of waterlogging and other relevant data about the site should be deter mined. The amount of rain falling directly into the pond and the runoff volume (water yield from the catchment) should be estimated to ensure that there will be sufficient water to fill a pond of the required capacity.Part of the rain falling in a catchment is im mediately lost by evapotranspiration, part infiltrates into the soil, part is held in depressions in the ground, and the remainder becomes runoff. In estimating the volume of runoff from a catchment it is necessary to determine the frequency and duration of rainfall and to estimate how much of the rain becomes runoff. The rainfall-runoff relationship is influenced by rainfall characteristics (intensity, duration and dis tribution), catchment characteristics (size, shape, drainage density and topography), soil characteristics (infiltration capacity, permeability, texture and depth), and by land use and vegetation cover.The total volume ofrunoffis needed when estimat ing the catchment size required to provide sufficient runoff to fill a pond. Total annual runoffis referred to as water yield. The minimum water yield (least flow over a number of years) should be used to determine the catchment area needed to ensure that the pond fills even in a dry year. Ifwater needs equal the pond capacity, then shortages ofwater will occur when the annual water yield is not sufficient to fill the pond. If storage is greater than water needs, then some water can be carried over to a dry year.The following equation can be used to estimate the amount of runoff: Q = P-L where Q is runoff, P is rainfall, and L are losses caused by evapotranspiration and infiltration through the soil.The losses will vary for each storm according to the amount of rainfall and the amount of moisture which can be absorbed by the soil. Infiltration is the entry of water into the soil. It may be limited by any restric tion to the flow of water through the soil profile, such as an impermeable layer. Infiltration rate depends on soil type and its moisture content, the vegetation cover and rainfall intensity. Initially during a rainstorm the infiltration rate equals the rainfall rate and there is no runoff. The soil becomes progressively saturated and surface sealing occurs. Consequently the rate of infiltration decreases. As the infiltration capacity of the soil falls, the rainfall rate exceeds the infiltration rate and runoff is generated. The infiltra tion capacity reaches a constant value when the soil becomes saturated. This value is related to the tex ture of the soil.Estimates of runoff depend on the availability of rainfall and streamflow records, and the longer and more reliable the records the more reliable will be the estimates. Detailed records will often not be avail able, in which case the following method can be used to estimate the required catchment size (assuming that the area above the pond is grassed and has clay or clay loam soils with a low infiltration rate).Assume that during the first month of the rainy season runoff will be negligible (until the soil becomes saturated), and that during the rest of the rainy season an average of 30% of the rain will form runoff. If, for example, the rainfall during the remaining 2 months of the rains is 450 mm, then 150 mm (30%) of this will form runoff. If the desired pond capacity is 9000 m , the catchment area required (that which contributes runoff directly into the pond) will be 6 hectares (60 000 m2 x 0.15 m = 9000 m3). Even when the soil is saturated the amount of runoff will vary (20-80%) for each storm according to its inten sity and duration. The value of 30% is arbitrary, and if more information is known about the proportion of rainfall forming runoff, then such data should be used instead.In Ethiopia the rainy season is characterised by high-intensity rainstorms, and once the soil is satu rated the pond is likely to be filled to capacity by the next heavy storm.If the catchment area that contributes runoff di rectly into the pond is found to be too small, diver sions can be made to direct more runoff into the pond to supplement that which flows in naturally. On the other hand, the catchment area must not be too large so that the outlet for excess water can be kept to a reasonable size. A maximum catchment area of 50 hectares is suggested.Where more detailed rainfall records are available, more accurate methods of estimating runoff volumes can be used. The US Soil Conservation Service de veloped a formula for calculating runoff from indi vidual storms, known as the Curve-Number method. This formula can be used to estimate runoff from either an average storm or the daily rainfall, though it should be used cautiously as it was developed for different environmental conditions. It does, however, give an idea of the total runoff that can be expected.  2, where an allowance is made for the different storage capacities of different soils and it is assumed that if storms occur in quick succession, the soil will not have time to dry out in between. Intermediate values of S can be used. Source: Hudson ( 1975).The relationship between runoff and rainfall is il lustrated in Figure 1 for various values of catchment storage.The preliminary surveys described above should have identified one or more potentially suitable pond sites. A more detailed soil survey is now required of each pond site, in order ofpreference by the PA, until a suitable site is confirmed. A technician with a reasonable knowledge ofsoil science plus two assistants will be needed for the soil survey. The equipment re quired for soil survey is listed in Appendix C.The soil survey should determine whether the soil textures at the selected site are suitable (clay, silty clay or sandy clay) and have a low permeability and a friable nature to a depth of at least 3 m. A hardened layer, or soil with a very high clay content (more than 60%), will reduce the workability of the soil and sig nificantly reduce the excavation rate of the oxen. On the other hand, if the soil has a clay content of less than 30%, especially below the top 1 m, it will have high permeability and the site should be rejected be cause water losses by seepage will be excessive.A 20-m grid (smaller spacing if the soils are very variable) should be laid out over the pond site and soil samples taken from each grid point using a soil auger (Figure 2). A soil auger with extension rods should be used to permit sampling to a depth of 4 m or more -at least 1 m below the desired pond depth. Any changes in consistency and texture, and the depth at which they occur, must be recorded.There are several types of soil auger, as illustrated in Figure 3, but all are designed for use by one person only. The auger should be turned three times while pushing it into the soil to ensure that a clean sample is obtained from a certain depth and is not mixed with other soil layers. The auger should then be pulled out of the ground; if it is very difficult to ex tract, it can be turned round twice in the other direc- tion to loosen it. Soil samples should be laid out neatly in the order in which they are removed from the auger hole (Figure 4) . The soil sample should be taken from the bottom third of the auger mouth, as the rest will be mixed with soil originating from higher soil layers.The soil texture should be determined using handtexturing. Where survey staff are not familiar with this procedure, samples should also be taken. They should be collected, clearly labelled (site, location on the grid and depth) and sent to a soil laboratory for textural analysis. The hand-texturing method is des cribed in Appendix D.Laboratory results should be compared with field assessments until the staff are confident of making reliable estimates of texture in the field. The soil tex ture is important in selecting a site, as it influences both the feasibility ofpond excavation and the waterholding ability of the completed pond.If a 3-m depth of clay, silty clay or sandy clay soil has been confirmed throughout the site with no hin drances such as stone layers or hardpans, the site should be suitable for pond construction. If the clay content is thought to be rather low (less than 30%) but the site is otherwise ideal for a pond, a soil per meability test should be conducted to determine Pesthole auger Screw auger whether or not a pond in such soils would hold water satisfactorily. If the hydraulic conductivity (K) -a numerical measure of soil permeability -is sufficiently low (K = 0.01 -0.001 m/day), then seepage losses will not be excessive.In the Ethiopian highlands high groundwater tables are exceptional (or only present during the rains), so field measurements of soil permeability should be those for use in non-saturated soils. The simplest and most appropriate test used to assess per meability is \"the inversed auger-hole method\". If a water table is present (in the top 4 m) and the ground is saturated, then the auger-hole method should be used. Further details about the determination of soil permeability are given in Appendix E.An indicative time schedule for selecting pond sites is given in Table 3.Water losses from a pond include evaporation and seepage through the soil. Evaporative losses from an open water surface depend on the surface area of the water, daily temperature, relative humidity and wind velocity. Seepage losses vary according to soil type (texture and structure), the surface area in con tact with the water and the depth to the water table. Deep ponds are preferable to shallow ones as they offer less evaporation area for a given volume of stored water. The minimum recommended depth of water for the full pond is 3 m. Evaporative losses will be greatest when the pond is full, as the surface area of the pond is greatest at this time.Satisfactory estimates of expected evaporative and seepage losses can usually be made using unsophisti cated techniques. The following should be used as guidelines for determining minimum pond capacities where more information is not available. For ponds excavated in soils with a relatively low permeability ) the total annual requirement should be increased by 40-60% to allow for seepage, evap oration and non-usable water . For ponds con structed on clay loam soils at low altitudes where am bient temperatures are relatively high, an allowance of 60% of total annual needs should be made for these losses. For ponds constructed on clay soils where temperatures are lower, an allowance of 40% extra will be sufficient. A sample calculation to determine re quired pond capacity is given in Appendix A.There are several methods for calculating evapora tive losses, but not all of them can be applied in Ethi opia because the necessary data are not recorded at most meteorological stations. An outline of the methods available and their suitability is given in Table 4. A satisfactory indication of evaporative losses can be obtained from open-pan evaporation measurements.3 Non-usable water is that which is not available for use: for instance, the final 30 cm or so ofwater at the bottom ofa pond which has a very high silt content, or the bottom metre of water where the pond is stocked with fish. Monthly average potential evapotranspiration (PE)4 values and other climatic data for 40 stations in Ethiopia are presented in Appendix G. The areal variation of average anrnjal PE rates in Ethiopia is shown in Figure 5. The figure was drawn up from PE rates calculated using Thornthwaite's method for 67 meteorological stations. The PE rates are seen to be closely related to altitude and air temperature.Seepage losses are between 1 mm/day and 10 mm/ day for soils with a high clay content. At ILCA's pond in Debre Berhan seepage losses through the clay soil were 2.2 mm/day in the first year. This value is ex pected to decrease as siltation occurs. The inversed auger-hole method for calculating the hydraulic con ductivity of soils that are suspected to have rather high seepage rates is described in Appendix E.4 Potential evapotranspiration is the amount of water theoretically lost to the atmosphere through evaporation and transpiration if moisture supply is not a limiting factor.By estimating total water requirements and adding total water losses (evaporation, seepage and nonusable water), the amount of soil to be excavated for a pond can be calculated using the following formula: Q_R(1 + S.E.) 15 ~N where: S = soil excavation required at each pond (m3) R = total water requirement (m ) S.E. = a factor in the range 0.4 to 0.6 to ac count for seepage, evaporative losses and non-usable water (dead storage) N = number of ponds to be constructed. The water balance of a pond can be calculated to illustrate the rate of depletion of the stored water and the period of time for which the given supply will last. The water balance at a given time can be illustrated by a simple equation:( A monthly water budget can be produced in the form of a table showing the initial storage, the re charge through rainfall and runoff, the losses through evaporation and seepage, and the anticipated consumption by the users and their animals. The usefulness of such a budget will depend on the re- liability of rainfall, evaporation and seepage data used in the calculations.In most parts of Ethiopia rainfall occurs in a dis tinct rainy season of 3 to 4 months' duration, so a pond will only be replenished during this period. A budget will be of less use in such areas than in those where rainfall is either bimodal or more evenly distri buted.If the amount of water required by the community is very large, several smaller ^>onds can be built (capacities of 5000 -10 000 m are recommended) rather than one pond oflarger capacity over the same period. Likewise if the number of oxen is limited, it is preferable to excavate several small ponds in succes sion (perhaps over several years) rather than one large pond, since fewer oxen will be used each day and hence the interval for resting the working ani mals will be longer. If possible, a farmer should use his animals for excavating only once a week or less frequently, in order to minimise extra feeding re quirements. Also, when completed, the management of smaller ponds will be easier, since each pond will be used by fewer people and livestock.The distribution of ponds will be influenced by the settlement pattern in the area and the number ofsuit able sites to choose from. By increasing the number of ponds the average trekking distance for users can be reduced. Furthermore, desilting can be done in rota tion without affecting the pond users. If there was only one pond in the area it would have to be emptied every 4 or 5 years, well before the rains to allow suf ficient time for desilting.As noted in Section 3.1, the pond should be located on relatively flat ground to maximise water storage and to facilitate excavation work. The length of the pond (downslope) should be 100 m at the most (and preferably less), since this is the maximum distance the oxen can be expected to pull a loaded scoop without resting. The width of the pond (across slope) should preferably be similar to the length, but will depend on the number ofanimals to be involved daily in the work.The pond entry and exit slopes (upper and lower ends respectively) should be limited to a gradient of 1 :3 or less, as steeper slopes impede the movement of oxen. The entry slope for the oxen (upper end) should also be at a low gradient because of the erosion risk. Though the oxen will not be moving across the sideslopes, they should be at a gradient of 1 :2 or less as the soils will be saturated and hence unstable when the pond is full of water (see Figure 6). Water should not be allowed to enter the pond from the sides (be cause their steeper slopes are more prone to erosion), so diversions must be made to ensure that all runoff enters the pond at the upper end.Normally, runoff should enter the pond along the full width of the excavation. If, however, runoff is concentrated in a natural depression leading into the pond, care must be taken to prevent erosion. Scouring of the sideslope at the entry point should be pre vented by riprapping.A riprap is a pavement ofstones laid to prevent the erosion of soil by scouring. Stones of various sizes are placed over the area to be protected in such a way that they interlock and resist movement. The stones should be angular blocks ofa dense material resistant to weathering. The riprap should continue below the site at risk to prevent the removal of the bottom stone and thus the failure of the entire section. At the ends of the pavement the stones must be well entrenched in the soil to prevent undermining.Excavated soil f rom the pond area will be dumped along the lower end of the pond to build up an em bankment. Where possible, the bank should extend for some distance up the sides of the pond (towards the upper end) so that some water is held above the Figure 6. Cross-section of a pond.Dumped soil ground surface during the rains. Even though seepage losses through the bank will be very high, the extra storage obtained above ground level will significantly offset evaporation losses in the dry period immediately after the rains.The area to be excavated should be marked out with corner pegs. Additional pegs will be needed to mark the area in which the excavated soil will be dumped. Furrows can be dug with the maresha be tween the corner pegs prior to ploughing the entire pond area. those without an ox. It will also take action to penal ise members who are absent from or late for work and those who do not work efficiently.Supervision is essential as the work is laborious and time consuming. Unless the maximum possible excavation rate is maintained, progress will be very slow and the farmers will lose enthusiasm. The number of men and oxen employed should be maximised at all times (see Section 6.5) and the number of holidays reduced to a minimum.Two implements are used in pond construction: the traditional cultivation implement, the maresha, and the animal-drawn scoop. The maresha is used to break up the compacted soil and the scoops to move the loosened soil to the dumping site. The amount of time spent on breaking up the ground with the maresha rel ative to the time spent scooping will vary according to the friability of the soil and its moisture content. If the soil is a light clay loam it will be easy to excavate without much breaking, whereas if it is a dry clay soil it will require a lot of cultivation. At Debre Berhan, approximately 10 hours of cultivation with the maresha were required for each 100 m of earth removed.The final cultivation pass with the maresha should be in the same direction as the scooping (lengthwise) so as to minimise the cutting ofunloosened soil by the scoops, and hence the load on the animals. To obtain gentle slopes of 1:3 along the ends where the oxen enter and leave the pond, ploughing should start ap proximately 30 cm closer to the middle of the pond for every 10 cm depth attained. Similarly, for the sideslopes (1:2) ploughing should be reduced to wards the centre by 20 cm for every 10 cm increase in depth.To ensure that gentle slopes are made, soil break ing and scooping should be first concentrated in the central third of the pond. When the design depth is reached in the centre, more soil can be excavated from the sides as necessary to attain the desired slopes.The metal scoops are designed to suit local oxen with an average liveweight of 250-300 kg. They are made of welded sheet steel, weigh approximately, 40 kg each and have a nominal capacity of 0. 1 5 m of soil (Figure 7). The scoop is attached to the yoke by a 3-m length of chain or rope and is guided by the operator using two wooden handles. The scoops can be made at local workshops, where both sheet metal and welding equipment are available. The cost ranges from EB 200-300 per scoop.The scoop is a robust implement requiring little maintenance and repair provided it is used correctly. From the experience gained in using scoops at Debre Berhan, most breakages occur either on the pivot points or through loosening of the welding on the edge of the drawbar or by breakage of the wooden handles (Figure 7). The handles can easily be re placed by farmers, but when welding is required the scoop must be taken to a workshop with welding equipment. When any damage is observed, the scoop should be taken out of use immediately and repairs made before more serious damage occurs.Training of the farmers and their oxen is essential to ensure efficient and successful pond construction. Demonstrations and visits to sites where pond con struction is in progress will be beneficial. On-site training should be scheduled when excavation work is first started. Farmers can learn very quickly to handle the scoops: within 2 or 3 hours, provided the oxen are familiar with voice commands.The handler controls the scoop by raising the handles to fill it with loose soil and by lowering them to ease the drag on the oxen once the scoop is filled (Figures 8 and 9). This technique can be learnt within four or five circuits. Scoop emptying is a more difficult skill to acquire. To dump the soil farmers have to raise the handles of the scoop and tip it forwards using the leverage of the cutting blade while the oxen are mov ing. If this is done correctly, the soil is spread uni formly in a thin layer on the embankment. If not, it is deposited in a heap which subsequently hinders animal movement and reduces the chances of proper compaction. Compaction is more important for dams than for ponds. After emptying, the handles should first be pulled down sideways so as to move the scoop onto its side, and then pulled towards the operator so that the scoop returns to its normal working position (Figures 10 and 11). The whole procedure can be done while the oxen are still walking, but for inex perienced handlers it is better if the animals stop be fore the scoop is righted.   Most oxen are familiar with voice commands when ploughing with the maresha, and they can be used for scooping without any problem. Some oxen, however, have been directed only through manipulation of the implement and are not used to vocal orders. For ex ample, to stop their animals some farmers simply push the tine deep into the soil, while to turn theyjust pull the handle in one direction to force the animals round. These oxen will need to be trained to respond to voice commands while scooping, since it is not pos sible to use the scoop in the same way as the maresha. When first using scoops some oxen may be frightened by the noise the scoop makes as it runs over the ground. These animals may be nervous and more dif ficult to handle; they should be managed with the help of an extra person walking in front to calm the oxen until they are\" used to the sound. There must be no shouting or beating of the animals as this will make them more frightened and will cause confusion.The rains occur at different times of the year in dif ferent parts of Ethiopia. In the southern part of the country, from latitude 3°to 5°, the main rainy season is in April and May, while in the rest of the country the main rains occur in June, July and August.Pond construction should generally be started just after the rains, when the soil is friable and animal feed is relatively plentiful. Another advantage of starting at this time is that work oxen are not required for field cultivation. The construction of new ponds at a latitude of 3°to 5°should therefore be started by the end ofJune at the latest, and finished by the end of October. For the rest of the country excavation should be started by early October at the latest and, if possible, finished by the end of February, before the small belg rains.Occasionally, ponds will need desilting. This may be once in 4 or 5 years but depends on the rate of siltation. Desilting with scoops should be carried out towards the end of the dry season, when all the water in the ponds has been used. At a latitude of 3°to 5°it should take place in November to February while for the rest of the country desilting should be done in April, May and early June. If there is some water left in the ponds, it should be pumped out by portable pumps sufficiently early in the dry season to allow time to remove all the silt before the rains. If there are fish in the pond they should be harvested before the pond is emptied, or if another pond is available they can be transferred.The maximum number of working pairs that can be employed in the construction of a pond depends on the width of the pond. ILCA found in Debre Berhan that an oxen-pair can work a strip 5 m wide without hindering other working pairs. The width of a pond depends on the size of the area available, the work able soil depth that can be excavated in relation to the quantity ofwater required, and the topography of the area. It is advisable to keep the width of the pond less than its length, so that the longest full circuit of the pond will not exceed three times its length ( 100 m maximum). In this case an oxen-pair will drag soil for 1/3 of the circuit distance, while for 2/3 of the dis tance the scoop will be empty.The number of work oxen available in an area can limit the number of oxen-pairs used on a pond site each day. In a PA where farmers will construct ponds, the number of working animals to be used should be determined and the capacity of ponds lim ited in accordance with that number. A maximum of 1 day of work per week for each pair of oxen should be maintained. This can be used to calculate the number ofoxen-pairs to be used each day (number of oxen-pairs divided by number of working days per week). If 80 working pairs of oxen are found in a PA, the maximum number of animals that can be used per day will be 16 pairs, assuming that no work will be carried out on Saturdays and Sundays. If oxen work only once a week, their owners should be satis fied that they are not subjected to undue stress. As each member of the PA will be expected to work only every seventh day, pond construction should have minimal effect on the routine tasks of weeding, har vesting and threshing, and on social activities.The number of ponds that can be constructed at any one time by a PA will be limited by the number of working animals and people available (labour is not usually a limitation in rural areas). If most of the working animals (more than 70%) can be utilised effectively on one pond site, it would be advisable to work on one pond at a time, but if the number of working animals is large enough for two ponds, then both should be excavated at the same time. The size of pond that can be excavated over a certain time pe riod depends primarily on the number of oxen available for the work. Based on ILGA's experience in pond construction in Debre Berhan, an oxen-pair can be expected to excavate between 8 and 10 m of soil per day, depending on the soil type and its mois ture content (Astatke, 1984;Bunning, 1984).Oxen must work in a systematic routine so as not to interfere with other pairs. The circuit to be followed is illustrated in Figure 12. The ground should first be broken with mareshas and the loose soil then picked up with the scoops and moved downslope to be dumped beyond the lower edge of the pond. After dumping the soil the oxen should walk around the pond area to return to the entry point along the upper end of the pond. They must not walk back over the pond area as this would compact loosened soil. The length of the circuit should be minimised so as to reduce the time and effort expended for each scoop load of soil moved, and to maximise the work achieved per oxenpair per day.The amount of time the oxen are expected to work on a pond has an important influence on their feed re quirements. When oxen work on pond excavation for only 1 day a week outside the cultivation season, most of their energy needs should be met by grazing, with some extra straw or hay. On the other hand, if oxen work on the pond for more than 2 or 3 days per week, they will require regular supplementary feeding to maintain condition. From experience at Debre Berhan an extra 2 kg of hay and 3 kg of concentrate per working day, with an average metabolisable energy of 6.5 and 8.2 MJ/kg of dry matter, respect ively, should be fed to each working ox. The dry matter content of the hay used by ILGA was approxi mately 90% while that of concentrate was 80% (Astatke, 1984).If excavation takes place late in the dry season when grazing is very poor and farmers have finished their stored animal feed, it will be difficult to maintain the condition of the animals. When feed intake is limited, the work output of the animals will be seriously reduced. If the oxen are seen to be losing condition, they should either be worked less frequently or exca vation work should be postponed until the next sea son when sufficient feed is available. The problems related to adequate animal feeding highlight the im portance of beginning work as early in the dry season as possible. Once a pond has been completed there are certain precautions that have to be taken by the PA to pre-vent pollution of the water and minimise the health risks associated with water-related diseases. Some of the possible risks include liver fluke infestation of animals, bilharzia (schistosomiasis) which can infect both people and animals, as well as malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.Liver fluke (Fasciola hepatica or F. gigantica) is a parasite of cattle and small ruminants and is spread via the faeces of infested animals. It requires an inter mediate water snail host (Lymnaea) for part of its life cycle. Control of this parasitic disease is very dif ficult because of the prolific breeding habits of the snail and the resistance of the cyst stage of the fluke's life cycle. Control methods include chemical treat ment with molluscicides, the introduction offish (e.g. Tilapia) or ducks which eat the snails, and fencing of the ponds to prevent animals from ingesting the cysts. The ponds should be fenced as soon as they are com pleted to minimise the risk of liver fluke infestation.Bilharzia, or schistosomiasis, is another parasitic disease which infects both people and livestock but is more serious for people. Water is contaminated by the excreta ofinfected humans or animals which con tain eggs. The life cycle of the schistosome trematode is similar to that of the liver fluke, with an intermediate snail host. However, besides being taken in by mouth when drinking, the worms can enter the host through the skin. Control of the snail is an obvious way of eliminating the schistosome fluke and can be im plemented by preventing the growth of aquatic vege tation -the habitat of the snail. Vegetation should be removed by cutting or by introducing weed-eating fish. The spread of the disease can also be restricted by fencing off the area immediately above the pond, thereby preventing contamination of the water with excreta.Shallow water bodies with emerging vegetation are an ideal breeding habitat for insects such as mos quitoes and tsetse flies. Anopheles mosquitoes, which carry malaria, a serious and debilitating human dis ease, breed in and around water sites. To reduce the risk of such diseases the pond should be located at some distance from households and should be kept free of vegetation.It is advisable to fence the ponds to keep out graz ing animals which would contaminate the water. Fencing materials such as barbed wire and wooden poles are expensive. An alternative is to grow hedges of animal-proof vegetation such as sisal, or to use stone walls ifstones are in plentiful supply around the site. The stone wall can be built along the sides and the lower end of the pond, but a fence must be used along the upper end and across the spillway to allow water to flow unimpeded into or out of the pond.Where possible animals and people should be pre vented from taking water directly from the pond to ensure that it does not become polluted. Livestock should be watered by lifting water (using buckets, siphons or pumps) from the pond into a drinking trough beyond the fenced area. Direct use ofthe pond water by people can also be prevented by installing hand pumps or siphons to lift the water. Watering points should be at least 20 m downhill of the pond to prevent dirty water from seeping back into the pond. Washing or swimming in the pond should be pro hibited. Figure 13 shows the plan of a completed pond.Even if the above precautions are taken, the water will not be pure because of the way it collects in the ponds. Ponds are filled with runoff water; as it flows over the surface this water picks up organic matter (debris from vegetation or of animal origin), soil par ticles, micro-organisms and maybe also mineral compounds from fertilizers.There is some self-purification and improvement of water quality over time in a pond as a result of aeration and the settling of suspended matter. Sedimentation of suspended solids reduces the tur bidity of the water, biochemical processes degrade organic matter and many bacteria die off because of lack of food. Nevertheless there will still be some pathogenic organisms, such as Escherichia coli, in the pond water; so where possible, the water should be treated for human consumption.Where there is a plentiful supply of fuel for burn ing, water should be boiled for 15-20 minutes to dis infect it for drinking. Boiling is a very reliable, prac tical and effective method of treating water, as all forms of micro-organisms are destroyed. The disad vantages of boiling are the resulting flat taste of the water which many people do not like, and the need for fuelwood, charcoal or dung cakes for burning, which may be in short supply.If funds are available, a slow sand filtration system may be installed at the pond site. This is a reliable low-cost method for the biological treatment of drinking water. A design for a small-scale system using locally available materials is outlined in Ap pendix F. Slow sand filtration is a purification pro cess in which the water is treated by passing it through a porous bed of a filter medium. During the process the water quality is improved considerably by the removal of suspended and colloidal materials and the reduction of micro-organisms. A well de-Figure 13. Sketch of a completed pond.Embankment of trough (outside fence) dumped soil grassed for protection signed and well maintained sand filter will remove the majority of bacteria and the cysts and ova of parasites, as well as most of the substances that cause turbidity, bad taste and odour. The system will not, however, remove all forms of pathogenic organisms, particularly the viruses and very small-sized bac teria. It could be more effective in purifying water if used in combination with chlorination.Manual texture test Each sample should be hand-textured to determine the textural class -proportion of clay, silt and sand. A ball of soil about 2.5 cm in diameter should be taken and moistened with a few drops of water until it just begins to stick to the hand. The soil is then manipulated as described below; the extent to which the moist soil can be shaped is indicative of its texture. Besides hand-texturing, which is detailed in E -clay loam -as for loam, the soil can be bent into a U but no further without being broken. F -light clay -the soil can be bent into a circle that shows cracks. G -heavy clay -the soil can be bent into a circle without showing cracks, except for vertic clays. Other features of textural classes: 1 . Loam or silt, when dry, gives off a fine powdery dust ifscratched or blown upon, but a clay soil will not. 2. Loam, when wet, feels soapy and more or less plastic; when rubbed between the fingers until dry it leaves dust on the skin; clays do not. 3. Clay, when augered, displays shining faces if it has a slightly moist condition; a loam does not.Shaking test 1 . Moisten a pat of clay/inorganic silt slowly until it is saturated. 2. Shake the pat of soil in the palm of the hand; ifit is inorganic silt, the pat expels enough water to make its surface appear glossy. 3. If the pat of organic silt is bent between the fingers, its surface becomes dull again. 4. After the pat of inorganic silt has dried, it is brittle and dust can be detached by rubbing it between the fingers.   Small-scale sand filtration is a method of treating water for consumption, which can be adopted in rural areas using locally available materials. As water slowly percolates through a bed of carefully ar ranged sand medium, almost all the suspended and colloidal material is trapped by the top layers ofsand. Clear, filtered water is collected at the bottom of the filter medium. Besides sedimentation there is also some biological activity in a slow sand filter, with the growth of micro-organisms in the top layers of the sand. This microbial growth forms a sticky, gelatin ous coat which increases the efficiency of the filter medium, provided that the filter is operated continu ously. At a certain point the rate of filtration will be come very low due to clogging, and the upper layer of sand should be removed for cleaning and then re placed.A design of a simple sand filter for use in rural areas is shown in Figure F. 1 . The container should be at least 1 .3 m high and 0.5 m in diameter, and it can be made from oil drums, concrete rings or other avail able materials. A 20-cm layer of clean, round gravel of between 1 .5 mm and 5.0 cm in diameter should be placed at the bottom of the container and covered by a 20-cm layer of clean coarse sand. The best sand has hard, round, durable grains free from dirt. Above the coarse sand should be at least 60 cm of fine sand with a grain size of 0.2-0.4 mm. Raw water should filter through the sand at a maximum rate of 1 .5 litres per minute. This rate will be exceeded for the first couple of days, until the microbial activity becomes effec tive.The filter requires periodic maintenance at an in terval varying from a few weeks to several months, depending on the water quality. The topmost layers of sand (5-10 cm) should be removed for cleaning, washed several times and then replaced to maintain the sand depth. Such a device will remove 97% of the bacteria, but it will not remove some of the smaller pathogens such as viruses. Water quality will none theless be significantly improved and the water will be much safer for human consumption. ","tokenCount":"10007"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f0890a3fdedd1bc19afc8a3c8f6169fd","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/61a48a1b-fd14-4497-a89c-37d05d96b87c/retrieve","id":"-889745155"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"66100528-ca22-4500-898a-2c2f428fe66d","pagecount":"30","content":"The CGIAR Research Program (CRP) on Livestock and Fish is seeking to develop a process of monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) to enable the gathering of evidence along its Theory of Change (ToC) and Impact Pathways over time.The purpose is to assess how its ToC is emerging in practice through its various research processes and engagement with stakeholders, in order to provide information for management and accountability objectives.Two consultants, Isabel Vogel and Maureen O'Flynn have been appointed to provide support to the design, development and piloting of the necessary frameworks and tools required to operationalize the emerging approach. This Approach Paper lays out an approach to developing this through 2015. It also lays out some key principles which underlie the consultants' recommended approach, and provides some illustrative tools. It is based on the scoping report produced in July 2014, and meetings with the CRP management team.Monitoring and evaluation systems are like any other system, made up of 'hard' technical aspects: the tools and data; and 'soft' aspects: the attitudes, understanding and behaviours of the people implementing them. So the new system requires both the design of the technical tools but also the facilitation and engagement of the organization's stakeholders, and a degree of training to build understanding of the relevance to people's work.This insight informs the approach we will set out in this paper.There are a number of features of the Livestock and Fish Program and insights from work on research for developmental impact more broadly that our approach needs to take into account. These are discussed below.The Livestock and Fish CRP is a research-driven program, combining research of multiple types with value chain stimulation in a range of countries in order to support the wide-scale uptake, application and adoption of research products and innovations by small farmers and market actors.The development outcomes that are being targeted are: enhanced productivity, employment and income, to support improved quantity and quality of food products from livestock and fish, thus contributing to improved nutrition and food security for people affected by poverty in developing countries.The program is at the start of a new phase. Programs and projects have been reorganised into a structured and targeted portfolio of research plus development initiatives which combine:  a stronger focus on a theory of change that delivers IDO level impact in value chains  a theory of change that generates International Public Goods (IPGs) for enabling wider delivery of IDOs  a restructuring from themes into flagship programs and development projects  the use of product lines to bundle diverse yet connected work and use these as a means to measure performance (Livestock and Fish Extension Proposal 2014). (where research programs have increasingly indirect influence), through to the 'sphere of interest' where development outcomes emerge from the impact of the research (see Figure 1). The Livestock and Fish Program aims to produce research that that will extend well into the sphere of use and influence as described below.   The MEL system will need to build a systematic approach to develop impact pathways, identify appropriate indicators/areas of interest for gathering data on indicators, impact monitoring of changes for stakeholders and beneficiaries, testing assumptions and revising pathways on a regular basis.Existing tools, practices and mind-sets for MEL in the CRPThe CRP is still in its early stages as a program and has a lot of diversity amongst its partners and portfolio. Therefore, there is not yet a unifying 'mindset' for M&E and learning about the research process and its impact. We have been toldthat M&E data collection and reporting is regarded as a more of a compliance activity rather than something that could support the research activity.There are existing log-frames and indicators that CF projects are reporting against in their annual reports these appear to include indictors that are more geared to outputs -research products, rather than changes for stakeholders.Theories of change and log-frames help to strengthen each other through the project cycle.Theory of change helps to create a 'big picture' of change and the program's or organisation's contribution to it. The log-frame picks out the key elements of this for management and project control. Therefore, visualising and testing the 'use' and application of the information generated by the MEL system is an integral part of our approach.To operationalize this and integrate it into people's day-to-day work requires a process of facilitation and engagement to explore the relevance and merit of outcome-oriented MEL approaches and how this could support the Flagship's science and research. This requires a 'soft systems' approach as well as looking ahead to what the 'hard system' needs will be.The CRP MEL team has identified the need for a data management system -the 'hard system'. However, this is not the consultants' area of expertise (although in our team we have experience in designing various knowledge management systems) and is therefore outside the scope of the consultancy.The data and evidence to address the Evaluation Questions will also come from multiple sources -presumably, some primary data collection, plus secondary data harvesting from other studies, for example formative evaluations. So there is a synthesis challenge, as well as a knowledge management challenge. We propose that the design of the data system be held back until we have trialled the MEL approach and have a better understanding of the types of data that will be collected, how the analysis will be captured and how staff are likely to use the MEL information.The CRP is a long-term, complex and evolving program. The consultants will be able to provide support only through the first year to two VC programs. So it is necessary to build the capacity of the MEL team to continue to engage and support Flagship teams in the MEL systems as Best Bets are identified and programs move to the full ToC-based approach.The Scoping Report made a series of recommendations, which provide the framework for our proposed approach:The first recommendation is to develop the approach based on the principles of Contribution Analysis (CA), a program theory -based evaluation approach first developed by John Mayne and colleagues. CA is predominantly qualitative and interpretative, but tests the program theory through a systematic and evidence-based set of steps. It is an appropriate approach for a complex, multi-intervention program like the Livestock and Fish Program, where effectiveness is driven by the synergies between multiple program strategies, stakeholders and external contributing factors.CA is considered by mainstream evaluators and donors to offer a robust approach to understand whether the intended outcome has been achieved, and if so, what has been the importance of the intervention's contribution, relative to that of other contributing alternative causes. As CA is an over-arching analytical frame, various sources of evidence, both quantitative and qualitative, can potentially form the evidence base for the analysis and judgements (although there are extensive methodological and data collection challenges involved in synthesis, depending on the degree of rigour required).This report suggests how the steps of a CA process can be adapted for an annual monitoring and critical review/learning process, and a tri-annual validation process (CRP milestone years seem to be 3, 6, 9, 12).The Livestock and Fish CGIAR Research Program already has a strong set of frameworks that describe its ToC and program model. The current formulation of the generic ToC describes the CRP change process with a good degree of clarity and nuance without being overwhelming.To work with a theory-based approach, some additional conceptual refinements are required to clarify the causal linkages and assumptions in the ToC and to strengthen the specificity of changes being described, for particular groups of stakeholders.The report outlines what the Livestock and Fish Program already has in place and highlights areas where these could be improved. Two key points to note: Although the outputs of CRP are described in the ToC, the new CRP research model itself does not feature in the current ToC. The restructured model has been invested in as a key driver for impact and so should form part of the annual MEL process. There is an illustration of how to do this. The 'Behaviour Change' research outcome is the critical causal link to the IDOs, but these changes have not yet been sufficiently specified in the documents reviewed. The Results Frame highlights the importance of this outcome: \"The research outcome consists of the intervention design, the evidence base to support its ability to attract development funding, and the research and development capacity that will have been strengthened to support its implementation. The intermediate development outcomes are then achieved only if the intervention is successfully funded and implemented by the development partners and others.\"The Intermediate Development Outcomes have been the focus of the MEL thinking and design up to now. This has been driven by the wider reforms in the CGIAR as a whole. This has been an important process to make explicit the development outcomes to which the CGIAR Research Program is expected to make a significant contribution. The program has some evolving IDO indicators in place to track what is changing at this level; presumably baseline collection will shortly commence against these.However, the measurement of IDOs will not commence until Year 9 of the CRP timeframe. In the meantime, the entire research process within CRPs will be developed and implemented. This significant research investment should be monitored and evaluated to understand if, how and why it is enhancing the conditions for achieving the IDOs.The key features of the proposed approach are: the generic ToC and Impact Pathways  a set of shared indicators for each research outcome area -reach/reaction, capacity changes, behaviour changes  Evaluation Learning Questions that focus on mini-program theories relevant to the respective Flagships, for analysis and evidence-generation, mapped to the years and phases of the CRP process.We propose to pilot the MEL approach over a period of 12 months, to allow time for data collection to be meaningful.We are proposing a two-track pilot approach: Track 1: full ToC approach with the VCs in Tanzania and Ethiopia  Track2: 'Research Phase' pilot of ToC-based indicators.This section describes the stages in the piloting process that we foresee.Pilot 1 in Tanzania and Ethiopia  Follow-up workshops with the Value Chain teams to design the pilots and pilot implementation plans.Stage 2: Using the tools to take a Baseline  The consultants and CRP MEL team will refine the tools following the feedback and outputs produced at the workshops. Piloting teams and the CRP MEL team will collect a baseline using the tools  Piloting teams produce a baseline report  Consultants and CRP MEL team will provide mentoring and support through the baseline period.Stage 3: First Quarter Reporting  Three months after the baseline, the pilot teams will collect the first round of data and analyze change against the baseline  This will include impact monitoring of changes for stakeholders and a critical reflection on the theory of change and key assumptions.Throughout Stages 1 -3, the CRP MEL team will be shadowing the consultants and having specific sessions to build their understanding and skills in designing and applying the approach.After Stage 3, the consultants and the CRP MEL team will review progress so far, and take a decision on whether to start the Track Two pilots with the research phase Flagships. This pilot will run in parallel to the Track 1.Pilot 2: Research Flagship Indicators We have developed a timeline (overleaf) that maps these processes to the 12 month pilot period. This details the activities during each time period.In terms of the consultants' inputs, the matrix below indicates the number of days by month, against each activity/deliverable.Annex 1: Illustrative Tools (from Scoping Report)The proposed ToC MEL approach is focused on the impact pathways from 'Program Outputs' to 'Behaviour Changes in the target systems'.The key features of the proposed approach are: the generic ToC and Impact Pathways  a set of shared indicators for each research outcome area -reach/reaction, capacity changes, behaviour changes  Evaluation Learning Questions for analysis and evidence-generation, mapped to the years and phases of the CRP process.Figure 3 below gives an overview of the main elements and suggested process. The proposed approach adapts the steps of Contribution Analysis for an annual and tri-annual cycle, as follows.Step 1: Set out the attribution problem to be addressedThe 'Attribution problem' is the CRP's contribution to the research outcomes that are expected to emerge in a given phase/years of the program, framed within the higher-level conditions that support movement towards the IDOs.Step 2: Develop a theory of change and risks to itThe Generic ToC provides the theory of change, with causal links and assumptions, and the risks to those.Step 3: Gather the existing evidence on the theory of change Evidence gathering will take place on a 1-3 cycle, mapped to the CRP milestones years - Year 3,6,9,12 (15,18,20).Evidence gathering and analysis will be structured around the Evaluation Learning Questions set for that period.Step 4: Assemble and assess the contribution story, and challenges to itThe elements of the 'contribution story' are assembled on an annual basis through the annual reflection and reporting process, at a Flagship level (tbc).At the 3 year milestone, the previous annual reports and evidence base are reviewed to assemble the story of CRP contributions to the research outcomes observed in that period, the challenges to it and other contributing factors.This can be independently assessed through commissioned evaluations.From Year 9, the 'attribution problem' focuses on the IDOs and CRP contributions to causal pathwaysStep 5: Seek out additional evidence Additional evidence can be gathered through a 3 year milestone external evaluation process.Step 6: Revise and strengthen the contribution storyAt the 3 year milestones, an overall judgment can be made of the contributions to outcomes. This can be independently challenged/validated through appropriate evaluation or quality review processes.The next sections outline some of the component tools to illustrate how the approach could work, as follows: ToC overview (from products and outputs up to IDO-level), with mapping of Flagships and their intended progression along the ToC and timelines -3, 6, 9, 12 years  Illustrative Monitoring Framework indicators for data collection for Outputs, Reach and Reaction, Capacities in target systems, Behaviour Changes  Illustrative Evaluation and Learning Questions around assumptions, according to research phase  Overview of planning, implementation, learning and reporting cycle, annually but also around triyearly cycles. Annual reporting template -illustrative.   The following is an illustrative example of an impact monitoring report that could be developed and used on a 6 or 12 monthly basis to track progress against the impact pathway, combining data on indicators, and evaluative research (e.g formative evaluations) on the Evaluation Questions for that period/year/research stage. This reporting process brings together into one analysis the evidence from indicator data collection and Evaluation Questions.  Impact monitoring should be conducted internally and/or with partners either once or twice per year.  The monitoring would be the responsibility of a small team, at the Cluster or Flagship level -to be determined.  Results of the analysis would be discussed and used to adapt/sharpen program plans.  The form will be accompanied by further guidance in terms of completing, sharing and storing information.  Information collected should be stored and then used as part of impact assessment at the end of the project phase  If used from the outset of the project, the first report will serve as the baseline for future impact monitoring reports  This is designed to be an internally led process so that it encourages honest and useful analysis. 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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b459fa6611dee2b0d02baca22f6429e7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/dd7599c3-84a2-4a40-b7f4-65d749bd82bb/retrieve","id":"-1785628155"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b5c50b5a-c09f-4543-a2e9-b0fdf318c2b6","pagecount":"15","content":"Throughout the course of the program, CCAFS reassessed its priorities and focus as a result of changing circumstances, opportunities, and challenges. Notable adjustments and pivots included the following:• Developing partnerships with financial institutions given the recognition that innovative finance and new business models are needed to achieve adoption at scale.• Removing a project in 2017 on avoiding deforestation and livestock production because of budget cuts. Increasing focus on climate-related finance.• Increasing focus on business planning in response to growing interest in scaling up low-emissions development by the private sector and financial community.• Reducing focus on policy enactment to emphasize policy implementation.• Focusing more on food systems and food nutrition security, rather than simply on agriculture.• Shifting the work on emissions factors to developing effective measurement, reporting, and verification systems.• Including research on peacebuilding and integrating how climate change is affecting food systems and natural resources with thinking around conflict management, fragility, resilience, livelihoods, and the prevention of conflict, with CGIAR FOCUS Climate Security launched in 2020.• Developing a research area on plant-based meat.In 2021, 12 CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs) and four CGIAR Platforms came to a close. This summary report presents an overview of the work of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) between 2017 and 2021 and highlights its key achievements over this five-year period.ccaFS brought together the science and expertise of cgiar and its partners to catalyze positive change for climate-smart agriculture (cSa). it addressed the increasing challenge of global warming and declining food security through strategic, broad-based global partnerships and supported adopting climate-smart agricultural policies, practices, and services that alleviate poverty, increase gender equity, and support sustainable landscapes. cSa has three pillars: (1) Sustainably increasing agricultural productivity to support equitable increases in incomes, food security, and development; (2) adapting and building resilience to climate change from farm to national levels; and (3) reducing greenhouse gas emissions and sequestering carbon, where possible. Embedded in CSA are efforts to close the gender gap and engage youth.While the cSa approach is closely aligned with on-farm practices related to sustainable intensification and agroecological approaches, ccaFS extended cSa to landscape-level interventions (such as the management of farm-forest boundaries), services (particularly information and finance), institutions (including those related to market governance and incentives for adoption), and the food system (particularly consumption patterns and wider climate-informed safety nets).1. Priorities and policies for CSA, which acknowledged that the challenges posed by climate change will not only require technological changes on the part of many actors but also major behavioral shifts at various levels to help communities increase their adaptive capacity.2. Climate-smart technologies and practices, which addressed the challenge of how to transition to cSa at a large scale to enable agricultural systems to be transformed and reoriented to support food security under the new realities of climate change.  Achievements Cont'd harvesting, and conservation decisions, with this leading to increases in crop income of 10% to 25%.• Assisting people to exit poverty: a 2020 impact assessment of national policy engagement in Kenya on the uptake of climate-smart agriculture technologies and practices suggested that 1.2 million farming households had adopted cSa, and because of these practices, these farming households were assisted in exiting poverty.• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions: ccaFS reported in 2019 that the adoption of no-burn, no-till agriculture in rice and wheat systems in northwest India by approximately 500,000 farm households on 1.3 million hectares resulted in less air pollution (with 5 million potential beneficiaries) and emission reductions of approximately 4 million cO2e.in 2021, an evaluation of low-emission development activities concluded that approximately 196 million tons of cO2e will be mitigated because of ccaFS work over 10 years.Gender 2ccaFS gender research included analysis and monitoring of gender outcomes in cSa, toolkits and manuals to integrate gender and social inclusion in research, and analysis of gender equality in climate services, climate policy, value chains, and scaling of cSa. Some examples are presented below.• In 2017, policy research and support were undertaken at the regional and national levels. For example, CCAFS provided research support to gender and climate policy in africa and to the Kenyan Dairy Nationally appropriate Mitigation action.• In 2018, research in 45 countries showed how information and communications technology-facilitated climate advisories can be better tailored to meet gender objectives, while gender outcomes of cSa adoption were monitored in nine climate-smart village sites in eight countries.• In 2018, work with women in Niger to restore degraded land resulted in increased empowerment through improved food security and increased participation in community environmental management.• In 2019, research on crop and seed selection found the role of women in local informal seed networks and conservation of genetic resources is connected to cultural diversity and local knowledge. community-based seed systems increase access to high-quality seeds, with significant benefits for women.• In 2020, a synthesis of CCAFS gender research identified four critical ingredients of gender equality in climate-resilient agriculture: decision-making at household and community levels; access to and control of resources such as information, technology, credit, and land; decreased workloads; and collective action for agency and voice.• In 2021, research on Radio Listening Clubs (RLCs) in Rwanda showed that club membership removed gender disparities in smallholder farmers' awareness as well as access to and use of climate information. Participation in rLcs was associated with greater use of weather and climate information to improve agricultural decisions -particularly by women.• Centers not allocating bilateral funds to CCAFS. To mitigate this, CCAFS incentivized bilateral fundraising by including the bilateral Window 1 (W1)/W2 ratio as one of the variables in performance-based management.• Funding instability. CCAFS set aside a large contingency fund in 2017 to smooth implementation.The key mitigation strategy was to ensure strategic focus and not be spread too thinly over topics or countries.In response, CCAFS worked to maintain its global campaigns on the impact of climate change, drawing on the latest research.• COVID-19-related risks. Planned activities were executed, if necessary, through virtual platforms or postponed.In response, CCAFS implemented a set of learning platforms across CRPs to provide coherence.  The rwanda climate Services for africa project is working with national partners to integrate climate services into the country's Twigire Muhinzi agricultural extension service by training extension staff and volunteer farmers in a process known as Participatory Integrated Climate Services for Agriculture (PICSA). Developed by University of reading in partnership with ccaFS, PicSa is a structured participatory process to enable smallholder farmers to understand and incorporate local climate information into their decision-making.By 2018, the project trained 1,612 trained government staff and volunteer Farmer Promoters in the PicSa process. in turn, they trained and facilitated 106,541 rwandan farmers in 27 of rwanda's 30 districts to understand climate information and incorporate it into their decision-making. climate service delivery was deepened through the launch of 225 radio Listening clubs that convened PicSa participant farmers to listen to and discuss biweekly climate services radio broadcasts, take turns participating in call-in shows, and provide input to future programming content.in Senegal, an evaluation that covered 2017-2019 found that 75% of farmers interviewed used climate information services (ciS). access to multidisciplinary working groups (MWgs), in combination with ciS, increased incomes by about 10% to 25%.The results of the evaluation showed that a household that had access to the MWg and used any of the ciS forecasts to inform farm management decisions experienced a 10.6% increase in crop income compared to a household that did not use ciS or had no access to an MWg. When taking into account rainfall and temperature data, the impact of seasonal forecasts with MWg almost doubled (20.7%). With ccaFS contributions, climate-smart rice production was introduced to 75,800 farmers, 60% of whom are female. Key contributions included the out-scaling of alternate wetting and drying (aWD) in the Mekong river Delta through the an giang province extension service, as well as the World Bank Program \"Vietnam -Sustainable agricultural Transformation (VnSaT),\" which in 2020 resulted in an additional 1.5MtcO2e/year saved compared to 2019.Latin american farmers and stakeholders are highly exposed and often highly sensitive to climate variability. However, they have limited access to information to plan their crops, or, when they have access to such information, are unable to understand or use it for their decision-making. in response, ccaFS scientists codeveloped, tested, and scaled the Local Technical Agroclimatic Committees (LTAC) climate services approach to help assess, produce, translate, and transfer climate information. Through LTac, users were able to access information about climate variations at multiple timescales, understand how these can affect crops, and design measures to reduce crop loss. This approach enabled agricultural decision-making by more than 420 institutions in chile, colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, and Peru. LTac reached 501,000 farmers in a comprehensive national crM from the local level to the national and regional levels. it also facilitated the generation of a powerful governance structure for rural development and community-level resilience.The complete list of reported ccaFS impacts can be found on the CGIAR Results Dashboard.   4).The crP's top funders include the cgiar Trust Fund, the United States of america, germany and iFaD (Figure 5). ccaFS was primarily implemented by ciaT as the lead center, with participation from other cgiar centers as represented in Figure 6. CCAFS benefited from high-quality inputs from its research leaders and research teams. Through its network of partners, the skill base was diverse in terms of countries of origin and affiliation (lead authors of ccaFS articles were based in 48 countries), which enhanced ccaFS' legitimacy. ccaFS' processes and partnerships ensured that its research was relevant to a variety of next users and was both credible and legitimate. Bibliometric and direct assessment of research outputs showed a wide range of high-quality and original research. ccaFS articles were published in a wide and generally appropriate range of high-quality journals. Technical publications and communication products also showed high quality and high relevance to users.caS assessed ccaFS' planned outputs and outcomes as effective. In terms of progress against the theory of change, some challenges were encountered with the quality and synthesis of evidence. Based on the available assessment, caS concluded that ccaFS was producing important global public goods on climate, agriculture, and food security. ccaFFS successfully balanced strategic research with the facilitation of sustained science-policy interactions across scales. By 2019, ccaFS had delivered 58 policy contributions and had influenced policies and investments at different scales, contributed to raising climate and agriculture up the international agenda, helped to strengthen relevant actors' capacity, and improved policies and investments. additionally, it produced 74 innovations in research and communications methodologies and tools.ccaFS' approach enabled it to develop and test cSa technologies and facilitate science-policy interactions, achieving an array of significant outcomes in terms of both cSa implementation and policy and institutional change.High-quality science is crucial for the increasingly urgent global response to climate change. Sustained interactions with decision-makers are critical to ensure the relevance of research, enable capacity-strengthening support to be provided, and support uptake of scientific research by policy and investment decision-makers. ccaFS demonstrated the importance of building awareness and capacity among decision-makers (public, private, and civic) on the relationship between climate and agriculture. ccaFS' agility in working across scales enabled it to effectively draw up lessons and perspectives from the field and catalyze opportunities that open at one level (such as global, regional, national, or subnational) for improving the use of evidence in decision-making at other levels.Sustained interactions with decision-makers, agile cross-scale work, and strong scientific and science-policy engagement expertise, combined with a focus on climate change and strong communications, can deliver a global presence for cgiar and amplify research impact in policy and practice.More transformative approaches rely upon engagement with diverse actors and root causes of challenges: diversifying partners and skills, such as drawing in sustainable finance expertise or engaging with the humanitarian sector.The caS evaluation made the following recommendations to cgiar:• Continue to fund targeted research and sciencepolicy engagement on climate-smart agriculture, possibly as part of a broader, integrating effort on transforming food systems, rather than tackling climate change solely through mainstreaming in cgiar.• Integrate the climate change and nutrition agendas more closely.• Significantly strengthen the incorporation of theory-based work into planning, monitoring, evaluation, and learning.","tokenCount":"2018"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7aab8e0a00248e3c9f00c5a7ad0b18d6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/478062b5-91ed-4229-9492-03e87e7c28db/retrieve","id":"268913927"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7a7dbba8-8918-417c-8ef4-1ada78594d6e","pagecount":"68","content":"CGIAR is a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for a food-secure future. CGIAR research is dedicated to reducing rural poverty, strengthening food security, improving human health and nutrition, and sustainably managing natural resources. It is carried out by the 15 Consortium Research Centers in collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations, including national and regional research institutes, civil society, academia, and the private sector. For more information, visit www.cgiar.org.In 2013, CGIAR's progress was marked by significant programmatic success, financial milestones and systemic developments to improve the efficiency, efficacy and impact of its research. The section of this report entitled \"Scientific Progress\" highlights some of the steps forward in scientific research for development from our CGIAR Research Programs, and provides links to more detailed reports as necessary. This year's annual report focuses on climate change and features work on climate-smart agriculture, which contributes to the \"triple win\" of increased productivity, improved resilience and greater mitigation through reduced greenhouse gas emissions and increased carbon storage. Climate change threatens to undo years of economic growth, with the most severe consequences falling on developing countries and the poor. To meet the complex global challenges posed by the unprecedented effects of climate change and the growing demand for food, CGIAR is scaling up research on climatesmart agriculture with a comprehensive and integrated landscapes approach, factoring in both geographic and socioeconomic aspects of managing land, water and forest resources. A special climate change section of this report showcases how research-for-development is helping rural communities to achieve a triple win. Included in this section are case studies about \"climate-smart villages\"; conservation agriculture; climate-smart gender initiatives; and climate-smart crops.2013 also marked significant financial and operational progress. CGIAR reached a historic milestone in 2013 as its total revenue surpassed $1 billion, having risen by 14% over 2012, thanks to the financial commitments made by valued investors. The benefits of this growth are far-reaching and will allow CGIAR to lead the global effort to enhance food and nutrition security in the face of climate change, and to continue to demonstrate value for money.A number of improvements made within CGIAR over the past year are strengthening the impact of its work. The CGIAR Open Access and Data Management Policy was approved, committing the system to make all of its data and knowledge accessible for public use. The Independent Evaluation Arrangement completed its first year of operation, working to keep CGIAR accountable to its investors and reinforcing an impact-oriented culture. A set of measureable indicators and intermediary targets were defined for CGIAR Research Programs to document how effectively their research yields tangible results in line with the institutional mission to reduce poverty, improve food security and nutrition, and sustainably manage natural resources.CGIAR is committed to accelerating the momentum achieved in 2013, so that with its partners it can continue to achieve critical advances toward sustainable, resilient agricultural systems and a food-secure future.Smallholder farmers, fishers, foresters and herders in developing countries face a multitude of constraints, including environmental degradation, limited access to new technologies and knowledge, prohibitively costly inputs, and the everincreasing effects of climate change, which trap them in a vicious cycle of poverty and hunger. In response, CGIAR's ambitious and comprehensive research agenda was developed to tackle these challenges holistically and to sustainably meet the needs of poor smallholders and protect the ecosystems in which they live and work. Its 16 global research programs are designed to advance four critical development outcomes: reduced rural poverty, strengthened food security, improved nutrition and health, and sustainably managed natural resources.The evolving partnerships and scientific discoveries developed through these research programs were vital to generating innovative solutions to improve the lives of the poor. This report selects examples that demonstrate the breadth of CGIAR's work in 2013. For a comprehensive report on the whole research portfolio, as well as individual annual reports of the CGIAR Research Programs, please visit www.cgiar.org/AR2013.\"One global challenge is to feed a growing population. The Sida support to CGIAR is an efficient way to ensure more relevant research in agriculture with a specific focus on food security and poverty reduction in developing countries. This is an innovative way to increase cooperation with other relevant international research funding partners, and allows for an increase of the knowledge base in this field. The global research programs define various scientific issues of importance, targeting the goals for poverty alleviation, access to and conservation of natural resources, food security, improved nutrition and health, and economic development.\" Building upon decades of previous work, CGIAR and its partners expanded their portfolio of improved crop varieties to increase farmers' harvests, incomes and household food security. Many crops were bred for higher yield; resistance to pests and disease; tolerance of heat, flooding, salinity and other environmental stresses; and improved nutrition. As of December 2013, staple food crops that were bred to rich in the key micronutrients iron, zinc and vitamin A had reached half a million farmers worldwide, helping to combat malnutrition among the poor. As a global research partnership, CGIAR is well positioned to deliver benefits to poor farmers and consumers by strengthening the ability of basic staple crops to flourish under a variety of challenging circumstances, including the negative effects of climate change.For example, the 44 new rice varieties released in 2013 included 9 salt-tolerant varieties in the Philippines (of 29 varieties released in Southeast Asia), 3 flood-tolerant varieties in South Asia (of 8 varieties released), and 7 varieties in Sub-Saharan Africa. As part of this work, a milestone was reached with the launch of a new brand: Advanced Rice Varieties for Africa (ARICA). Researchers hope ARICA will repeat in Africa the successful experience in South Asia with Sahbhagi dhan, a drought-tolerant variety that has earned the name Wonder Rice since its release in India in 2009. Last year saw the continued spread of Sahbhagi dhan to create what have been dubbed \"rice oases\" in drought-stricken areas. The improved variety yields 4-5 tons per hectare under normal conditions in which traditional varieties yield only 2.5 tons. Under drought so severe that most varieties yield nothing, Sahbhagi dhan can still yield 1-2 tons per hectare -a huge advantage as drought becomes more frequent and acute under climate change, especially in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Underpinning CGIAR's vital crop improvement programs are its genebanks, which safeguard the world's largest and most diverse seed collections of crops, their wild relatives and other plant genetic resources. Containing genes for various desirable traits such as tolerance to heat or pests, the seeds in the genebanks are freely available to plant breeders, researchers and farmers worldwide to help breed more productive, resilient and nutritious crops.Using modern genomic tools such as markerassisted selection, which helps scientists identify genes for desired traits, it is now possible to more fully exploit the potential of the genebanks' vast genetic diversity. Genomics research, bioinformatics and advanced phenotyping provide the bases for innovations over the long term. Precise and efficient phenotyping that applies modern automated methods to characterize plant structure and performance has the potential to accelerate breeding progress and is essential to meeting future challenges posed by climate change, rising demand for food and degraded natural resources.An initiative with India's National Food Security Mission to breed improved heat tolerance into chickpea refined screening techniques to\"The world is currently facing the huge challenge of achieving sustainable food and nutrition security for a growing population with more diverse consumption patterns in the face of increasingly scarce natural resources and the impacts of climate change. This challenge is most severe in developing countries where rates of poverty remain high and 170 million children still suffer from stunting. Public investment in agricultural research is an essential part of the solution. As the major international public research institution focused on developing countries, CGIAR is well positioned to develop the key new technologies and approaches that are needed. We welcome the adoption of poverty reduction, food security, nutrition and sustainable natural resource management as overarching goals for the reformed CGIAR, noting that these closely correspond to our development priorities in the European Union. CGIAR needs to work with partners to ensure the public goods are appropriate and are accessible to the farmers and decision makers so that genuine sustainable impacts can be realized. Running this last mile is often the most challenging part.\" Klaus Rudischhauser, Deputy Director General, Development and Cooperation Directorate-General -EuropeAid, European Commission identify heat-tolerant genotypes, studied the genetics and physiological mechanisms of heat tolerance, accelerated breeding for improving heat tolerance, and evaluated heat-tolerant varieties and breeding lines in farmers' fields. Progress was also made in improving sorghum varieties grown after the rainy season to meet expanding demand there for sorghum grain and fodder, the latter product equal to fully two-thirds of the value of the grain. Scientists began to breed into six popular sorghum varieties so-called \"stay-green\" droughttolerance genes, demonstrating that they can improve in predictable ways grain and fodder yield, as well as fodder quality traits, with no tradeoffs among these traits. Improved varieties showed exciting synergy between fodder productivity and fodder quality, which researchers are pursuing in the second phase of the project.Research was launched to increase the productivity of direct-seeded rice by incorporating genes that allow rice to germinate under water. Whereas traditional rice cultivation depends on seedlings sprouted in a nursery and then transplanted into standing water that inhibits weed germination, direct seeding features rice seed sown and sprouted in the field, eliminating the laborious transplanting of seedlings by hand.Another initiative aims to identify crop varieties that are better suited to existing or projected conditions and to strengthen local seed systems, so that they provide farmers with information about varieties and access to seeds that meet their changing needs. Adopting a crowdsourcing approach developed by CGIAR and its partners, it recruited 6,000 smallholder farmers in Cambodia, Ethiopia, Honduras, India, Kenya, Laos, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda to act as local scientists by testing, observing and comparing different crop varieties. Participants also try new farming techniques and experiment with different crop rotations before reporting their results to project researchers. The project has used modern geographic information systems to develop an atlas identifying genebank accessions that have high potential for adaptation under current and future climate conditions.CGIAR scientists are helping to draw molecular atlases that capture the genetic diversity of maize and wheat and help identify novel sources of variability. In wheat, researchers characterized more than 20,000 genebank accessions for morphology and grainquality traits, 27,000 for responses under drought and high temperature, and 4,500 for disease resistance. In maize, researchers characterized 20,000 accessions. They further analyzed the world's most comprehensive mapping panel for discovering new genes and identified novel markers potentially valuable to breeders. The initiative has produced the most comprehensive dataset to date on maize genetic resources and has set up several populations of maize for marker-assisted breeding and pre-breeding for genomic selection.To ensure that the outcomes of research get into the hands of those who need them most, CGIAR engages in diverse partnerships to disseminate new technologies and knowledge at greater speed and scale. In fact, partnership is fundamental to the success of CGIAR Research Programs, which bring together hundreds of partners, such as public development partners and private companies, to tackle global development challenges, including constraints on the delivery and adoption of research.One example of an important public-private partnership is the African Orphan Crops Consortium (AOCC), which launched the African Plant Breeding Academy to help improve the livelihoods and food security of Africa's smallholder farm families and boost the continent's food supply. Using the latest scientific equipment and techniques, the partnership aims to genetically sequence, assemble and annotate the genomes of 100 traditional African food crops that do not attract international attention because they are not economically important on the global market. Its purpose is to guide the development of more robust and nutritious produce.Another public-private consortium launched a new vaccine initiative to tackle East Coast fever, a deadly cattle disease in Africa. In parallel with this consortium, which builds on earlier collaboration with research institutions in Malawi, the United Kingdom, Belgium and the United States, CGIAR is facilitating a global public-private partnership for scaling up vaccine production and launching vaccination campaigns. So far, it has provided vaccine to distributors in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda. The current vaccine campaign released over 1 million doses in the region, benefiting 50,000 households.Another fruitful initiative in the region is Drought-Tolerant Maize for Africa, which continued to make impressive progress toward its goal of reaching more than 30 million farmers by the end of 2016. In 2013 alone, the project produced 30,000 tons of droughttolerant maize seed, including 17,000 tons from new varieties, with yield advantages of 20-30% over farmers' traditional varieties.©Riccardo Gangale/ILRI ©Isagani Serrano/IRRI It did so in 13 African countries: Angola, Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. As a result, some 3 million households planted over 1 million hectares with drought-tolerant varieties. Much of this success can be attributed to the project's partnership with African seed companies, 110 of which have adopted the improved varieties for production and sale to farmers.A joint working group with the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa was established to ensure that seed companies and agricultural dealerships are able to stock enough seed and build good distribution networks to reach farmers across the continent. Other such networks include the Wheat Yield Consortium, Sustainable Modernization of Traditional Agriculture, and hybrid rice consortia in Latin America and Asia. These partnerships facilitate 1 million smallholders' testing of novel varieties and adoption of improved agronomic practices.\"Agricultural research investment has high economic and social rates of return. Greater investments in agricultural research will help to boost global food production, build resilience in the food supply system, protect the environment, and assure household and national food security. Focusing on agriculture as a business and powering this with a market-driven research system are crucial for lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty into wealth, while creating jobs for millions of youths. Nigeria is proud to partner with CGIAR and invest in our shared mission to boost food production in Africa and turn Africa into a food basket for the world.\" Researchers worked with various governments and the Codex Alimentarius Commission to improve national food safety regulations and nutrition plans. In particular, they achieved significant results toward controlling aflatoxin, a deadly contaminant of stored grain. Research partnerships for biocontrol are advancing in nine African countries; a workshop identified research gaps and opportunities, paving the way for greater scientific synergy and efficiency, as well as greater impact; and a set of related policy briefs was produced. While much of the focus of this work is currently on aflatoxin in Africa, a scoping study on public health risk was initiated in South Asia and scheduled for completion in early 2014.CGIAR scientists developed training manuals and new protocols for food products that are bred to be rich in key vitamins or minerals, and contributed papers to The Lancet's second seminal series on maternal and child nutrition. The papers show that the critical underlying determinants of malnutritionincluding income, food security, women's time, empowerment, and access to nutritious food and diet quality -need to be addressed simultaneously, taking into account the diverse dimensions of the agriculture-malnutritionnutrition nexus.One of the newly released nutrient-rich food crops is the pearl millet Dhanashakti, which boasts, in addition to an 11% increase in yield, a 9% increase in iron content in grain, as well as greater zinc content. The nutritional benefits of Dhanashakti are potentially most significant in countries with endemic anemia. In India, for example, where the new variety was released, 52% of women, 80% of pregnant women and 74% of children under the age of 3 suffer from anemia induced by iron deficiency. Product diffusion, marketing and processing are also addressed to effectively reach consumers.©AS Rao/ICRISAT In Bangladesh, small freshwater fish that live in rice paddies are typically consumed whole, greatly enriching local diets with animal protein, calcium for bones, and highly bioavailable forms of vitamin A, iron and zinc. Researchers are working to enhance the productivity and diversity of fish in flooded paddies by improving and catalyzing local techniques to equip them with microhabitats in which fish can shelter during short periods of low water. Farmers dig into their paddies concrete rings that create low-water sanctuaries some 75 centimeters in diameter and a meter deep, from which fish emerge when rainfall restores paddy flooding. More than 180 rings have been set in Bangladesh to test the strategy, which contributes to improved nutrition and health, the sustainable management of natural resources, and poverty reduction.As fruit plays an important role in nutrition, efforts have been made to conserve fruit tree diversity in Central Asia, the center of origin for many temperate fruit species. Extreme climatic variability has helped Central Asian farmers produce strains of apple, apricot, peach, pear, plum, grape, almond, pistachio, pomegranate and fig that tolerate drought and other environmental stresses.As threats to this rich agricultural biodiversity became evident in the 1990s, CGIAR led a project that analyzed legislation and policy toward strengthening legal and policy frameworks to conserve the genetic diversity of horticultural and wild fruit, culminating in the landmark publication Conservation of fruit tree diversity in Central Asia: Policy options and challenges. The project renewed farmers' interest in planting local fruit varieties to replace aging trees and expand their orchards into degraded areas. As a bonus, landscapes thus restored provide improved grazing for animals, whose meat and dairy products further enrich diets.Knowing that it will not achieve lasting impact unless it takes gender disparities into account in all aspects of its work, CGIAR mainstreams gender research and analysis throughout its portfolio and is committed to closing the gender gap in agriculture. Researchers continued to roll out training on the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index to over 1,000 participants, undertook participatory technology evaluation and gender audits to establish benchmarks and assess new tools and technologies for likely gender implications, promoted sex-disaggregation in surveys, published findings on strategies that narrow the gender gap in productive assets for agriculture, and studied gender-related constraints.The Gender, Agriculture and Climate Change Research Network was established to strengthen research on the gender aspects of climate change adaptation and mitigation. Scientists in the network explore how their research can help address the different needs and interests of men and women. One of the network's main strategies is to strengthen the ability of national and local partners to conduct gender-sensitive research. With this in mind, 50 professionals took part in a gender training and strategizing workshop to learn how to design studies that capture the different perspectives of male and female stakeholders.A survey analysis found that women receive significantly less information about climatesmart agriculture than do men but, once informed, are equally likely to adopt these responses to climate change. The analysis identified institutional and policy constraints that limit the benefits for women from climaterelated finance and used this information to guide low-emissions development. Researchers integrated gender into the design of innovation platforms on water management, identifying crosscutting gender constraints on women's participation in income generation and using this result to benchmark and identify targets for future work.©Hamish John Appleby/IWMI ©Milo Mitchell/IFPRI Studies analyzed how to facilitate the sustainable scaling up of results through innovation platforms or hubs, with the goal of reaching significant numbers of farmers in a manner that promotes gender equity. In the polder zone of Bangladesh, for example, progress was made to improve system productivity by helping households produce vegetables, providing higher-quality fish seed at scale, and training men and women on aquaculture. These improved practices reached half a million farmers, including 48,000 men and 52,000 women trained to manage disease-resistant shrimp. Farmer field days expanded these numbers by fostering learning within and across communities.Related research showed that volunteer farmer trainers (VFTs) offer a very effective way to reach farmers, women and men alike, with new knowledge. VFTs have deep knowledge of local conditions, live in the community and instill confidence in other farmers. They train on average 20 other farmers per month, with the backing of trained extension agents and specialists on subject matter. Using the results of this research, a project implemented by Heifer International is using the VFT approach to reach 315,000 dairy farmers in four countries in East Africa. The proportion of women VFTs in the region was 33% in 2011, when fewer than 10% of professional trainers and extension staff in the project were female. The study showed that female trainers were as effective as their male counterparts.In contrast, a review of gender relevance across various research projects found that seed multiplication training in Malawi disadvantaged women, enabling men to dominate profitable sweet potato vine multiplication even in communities where sweet potato had previously been produced by women. Results will inform the development of seed systems frameworks and projects under development. Meanwhile, an assessment of 20 value chains and their contributions to consumer health and nutrition concluded that gender roles were more important determinants of health risk than were biological constraints.Just as gender equity leads to greater impact, better agricultural practices and resource management can improve productivity, incomes and livelihoods. In Indonesia, for example, an initiative works directly with farmers to improve their livelihoods through better forest management. Halfway into the 5-year project, it had taught more than 8,000 farmers and local government staff about sustainable natural resource management, established 78 community tree nurseries benefiting 9,000 farmers, trained nearly 1,000 farmers and other stakeholders on how to get agroforestry products to market more efficiently and with better returns for farmers, and worked with villagers, farmers and local government staff to develop better ways of governing the landscape to sustainably improve productivity.In Jepara District of Central Java, a project aiming to improve livelihoods helped smallscale local furniture makers overcome short supplies of high-quality teak and mahogany, poor cash flow and other constraints. The project founded a furniture producers association, 78% of whose members improved production, sales and income, increased timber use efficiency by 10-15%, and helped some producers attain national certification for green furniture, improving their access to European markets. Fastgrowing teak trees were planted, increasing carbon storage, improving sustainable natural resource management and increasing climate change mitigation. Fifteen innovation platforms were set up in arid areas of Africa and Asia to identify priority entry points for system improvement: land degradation, crop-livestock integration, maintaining system productivity while shrinking the environmental footprint of agriculture, and improving access to markets. This new \"integrated agro-ecosystem and livelihoods approach\" aims to sustainably intensify agriculture in arid areas, as articulated in a paper published in the journal Food Security.In India, more than 185,000 farmers have adopted sustainable intensification technologies through an initiative implemented throughout South Asia. The initiative has developed information and communication technology tools for sitespecific nutrient management that are expected to significantly improve profitability for farmers while shrinking the environmental footprint of fertilizer use in South Asia. The Nutrient Expert® decision-support tool for maize and wheat, for example, will help farmers apply just enough fertilizer to ensure high productivity while minimizing costly waste, water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.In East and Southern Africa, a CGIAR-led partnership provided farmers with high-quality chickpea seed for planting on approximately 660,000 hectares. As chickpea -a key source of protein for the poor -fixes more than 50 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare, by conservative calculation, and as the average price of urea fertilizer that is 50% nitrogen is $340/ton, chickpea provided by the partnership would contribute through nitrogen fixation alone some $23 million in benefits to famers along with significant environmental benefits.After reviewing the investment monitoring needs of African stakeholders, researchers started using Hubbard's Decision Research tools to assess the risks and returns from large investments in natural resource management. The framework was applied to eight cases, and the results are being used to develop a model to guide intervention decisions globally. The analyses have had signifi cant impact on recommendations for interventions, assessing some to be marginal or negative and others to be positive. The Routledge publication Wetland management and sustainable livelihoods in Africa demonstrates how sustainable wetland agriculture and fisheries can contribute to livelihoods without threatening wetlands, as is widely feared.CGIAR is also bringing together scientists to address the challenge of seed degeneration in environments afflicted by pathogen buildup. In partnership with Kansas State University, they developed a new model that integrates different options for managing the problem, builds upon existing knowledge of virus ecology and evolution, and incorporates variability in environmental and biological systems. Initial results indicate that seed degeneration in banana, potato, sweetpotato, yam and cassava can be arrested using onfarm management and host plant resistance. This integrated approach appears to be far more effective than the usual wholesale replacement of planting material. Field studies to confirm preliminary results are now under way in 11 countries: Burundi, Cameroon, China, Colombia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Peru, Tanzania and Uganda.As this report shows, in 2013 CGIAR and its partners achieved significant scientific progress that brought real impact on the ground and positive change in people's lives. Building on this work, the research-for-development agenda is firmly on track to contribute further to reducing poverty, hunger and malnutrition while promoting gender equity and climate change mitigation and adaptation. The portfolio also has the potential to shrink the environmental footprint of agriculture, forestry, livestock and fisheries, as well as to strengthen productive systems' resilience and sustainability.To date, most research on sustainable intensification focuses on one or another dimension of sustainability, such as agronomy, rather than exploring the tradeoffs between the ecological, social, economic and agronomic dimensions of sustainability in different biophysical and socioeconomic environments. In 2014 and beyond, recently launched programs that take a systems or landscapes approach to research are expected to contribute interesting and significant results, adding value to outputs from the rest of the CGIAR portfolio by applying them in their target agro-ecosystems for the benefit of the poor and the planet. There is an urgent need to develop and disseminate locally appropriate technologies and knowledge to support climate change adaptation and mitigation through climate-smart agriculture, the topic to which this report now turns. ©V.Reddy (ViDocs)/CCAFS method of accounting and monitoring carbon sequestration in grasslands. Currently, carbon markets ignore grasslands and the carbon they sequester. The method, which meets rigorous double-verification requirements, promises to give herders access to carbon financing in exchange for culling their herds to allow overgrazed grassland to recover and to improve livestock productivity.A complementary initiative in East Africa aims to quantify GHG emissions and identify farmers' mitigation options at both the farm and the landscape scale. Recognizing that efforts to curtail emissions are best guided by knowledge of their causes, a study found that beef and dairy cattle account for 77% of all GHG emissions from livestock globally. As most livestock in Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, graze on marginal land and crop residues, they typically exhibit low feed efficiency and high emission intensity. Cattle foraging in arid areas can release the equivalent of 1,000 kilograms of carbon for every kilogram of protein they produce, or 100 times the emission intensity recorded in parts of the developed world. Animals in the developing world require more food to produce a kilogram of protein than do animals in wealthy countries, and ruminants require up to 5 times more feed to produce a kilogram of protein as meat than as milk. This new data will help to assess the sustainability of livestock production systems.In Uganda, research showed that intercropping two of the country's most important cash crops, coffee (which earnsCGIAR and its partners have achieved farreaching outcomes that address climate change. Armed with more extensive and accurate climate data and analytical tools, innovative communication methods, and increased capacity, agricultural researchers, policymakers and extension personnel are better equipped to promote more effective policy and practices to accelerate climate change adaptation and mitigation.One noteworthy breakthrough is the successful breeding of tropical grass hybrids that provide highly productive forage for cattle while curbing GHG emissions. The breeding program uses the grass Brachiaria humidicola, whose roots suppress nitrification, the chemical process that generates the extremely potent GHG nitrous oxide and leaches nitrates into the water table. After breeding B. humidicola for biological nitrification inhibition, scientists measured the hybrids' GHG benefits in a subsequent maize crop, finding higher grain yield achieved with less fertilizer. These results, published in the journal Nature, show the potential to limit GHG emissions and water pollution while improving livestock and crop productivity. A further advantage of Brachiaria and other superior forage grasses is their ability -second only to that of tropical forests -to sequester large amounts of carbon in their deep root systems.In northwest China, researchers worked with herders and partners in government and the private sector to develop a cost-effective©Aulia Erlangga/CIFOR 20% of national export revenues) and banana, can earn farmers half again more income than growing either crop alone. A study found that the practice may also help farmers cope with climate change. Average temperatures in Uganda are expected to rise by 2°C in the coming decades. Shade from the taller banana trees can cool the coffee plants by at least this much, and banana's permanent canopy, roots and mulch prevent soil erosion and degradation in Uganda's hilly landscape. Moreover, banana captures atmospheric carbon dioxide, enriching soil carbon stocks while mitigating climate change.Strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change must be communicated to stakeholders, especially in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, the regions deemed to be most at risk. Several initiatives are extending the information age to farmers in these regions to compensate for overstretched agricultural extension services. In Kenya, a partnership with Shamba Shape-Up, a weekly reality TV show on farm makeovers that reaches over 3 million viewers, is bringing science into the makeovers and supporting the scale out of gender-sensitive climate-smart practices.In South Asia, a collaboration with the Nepal Development Research Institute produced radio jingles and public service announcements to reach 1 million farmers with advice on how to adapt to climate change. As 90% of households have mobile phones, researchers disseminated 20 text messages on climate change and climatesmart practices for rice, wheat and maize to thousands of farmers in 11 districts. Farmers found the text messages and agro-advisories so useful that 84% of those interviewed said they would pay 10-20 US cents a month to subscribe to such a messaging service. This initiative demonstrates that innovative communication partnerships can indeed help reach deep into rural areas. However, information technology cannot entirely replace face-to-face capacity building, and recognition is growing that special efforts are required to reach women stakeholders. Restricted access to land, other productive resources and information leaves many women in low-income countries disproportionately vulnerable to climate change. Moreover, policy makers have long overlooked the potential of engaging rural women usefully in adaption and mitigation initiatives. To address these issues, 15,000 ©Felix Clay/Duckrabbit /WorldFish local women leaders were trained on climatesmart agriculture in Nepal and the neighboring Indian state of Bihar through a training-oftrainers program. Another project in Haryana State, also in northern India, first interacted in person with women farmers, elected heads of villages (some of them women) and educated women in male-headed households, eventually involving more than 1,200 female and male farmers in eight villages. Each farmer in the project now receives two voice messages daily (along with detailed text messages when required) that provide weather forecasts, information about pests and their control, and details of climate-smart technologies.To help smallholder farmers cope with increasingly variable and extreme weather, national meteorological services need to improve their forecasts and deliver them more effectively to end users. Research and capacity investment have helped national meteorological services in developing countries produce climate information at a resolution high enough to be useful to rural communities. At least four such services have changed their policies and practices in light of improved understanding of farmers' perceptions and information needs, adopting newly designed and disseminated methods of delivering climate information services that better meet those needs.In Senegal, the results of participatory research revealed what kinds of seasonal weather forecasts farmers wanted and in what format. Researchers then worked with an association of community radio stations to get these new kinds of forecasts to farmers, reaching an estimated 2 million of them. It further collaborated with the national meteorological agency and agricultural extension department, and with local farmers' associations, to help farmers learn how to interpret the data so that they could decide what to grow and when to perform critical farming tasks.The CGIAR-sponsored climate portal progressed its goal of becoming the go-to source for open access climate data that is properly scaled and coupled with crop models to make it useful for understanding the effects of climate change on agriculture. Last year, over 65,000 files were uploaded to the portal, to which users in nearly 700 institutions in 163 countries made over 14,500 unique visits. Some 5,000 users downloaded 135,000 files containing 125 terabytes of data.  Better community water management enables the operation of vertical drainage systems in India to protect standing crops from floods while recharging aquifers.India, better community water management enables, for example, the operation of vertical drainage systems to protect standing crops from floods while recharging aquifers depleted by excessive groundwater withdrawal. Laser land leveling distributes irrigation evenly over a field to nourish a uniform crop and prevent soil waterlogging. Pumping less irrigation water, and doing so with fuel-efficient engines, reduces costs and greenhouse gas emissions, as does curtailed plowing under conservation tillage and improved residue management. Biogas obtained from manure can meet some fuel needs.what to expect and hedging risk. Climatesmart villages partner with government departments and others to link farmers with weather news, agro-advisories and market information through newspapers, radio, television and cellphone messaging. Program partners include private firms that offer cost-effective crop insurance indexed to local rainfall and temperatures, sometimes supported by government subsidies. Climate analogue visits take farmers from one climate-smart village to another to see how their counterparts cope today with climate conditions predicted for their own village tomorrow.Community seed banks have inspired an innovative approach to crowdsourcing seed and variety evaluation that promotes farmerto-farmer exchange and provides feedback to crop breeders. In India, women-empowering local partners Alternative Futures and Bihar Mahila Samakhya trained a core group of women trainers who reached 1,500 other farmwomen with songs they composed to convey easy-to-remember messages in the traditional way. Success story and testimonial videos shot in climate-smart villages are screened in nearby villages, and word is further spread through local, national and international media. Climate analogue visits take farmers from one climatesmart village to another to see how their counterparts cope today with climate conditions predicted for their own village tomorrow.Sorghum and pearl millet are hardy, climatesmart grain crops ideal for environments prone to drought and extreme heat. CGIAR is breeding sorghum and millet varieties that thrive on soils low in phosphorus, which constrains their cultivation in West and Central Africa.Settled communities in the Sahel struggle to eke a living out of this band of marginally arable land that stretches across Africa from Senegal to Eritrea. This is the zone of transition from savanna to the Sahara Desert, which sprawls across the northern third of the continent. The two most widely grown crops, sorghum and pearl millet, are nutritious and well adapted to heat and water stress. Yet the 120 million people who live in the western and central portions of the Sahel -a population forecast to double by 2050 -are among the poorest and most food insecure in the world. One leading cause is the prevalence on smallholder farms of soils deficient in phosphorus (P), an abiotic constraint that holds sorghum and millet yields below their potential.Amending soil with P fertilizer is not practical for most farmers in the Sahel because they cannot afford these inputs, which are all the more expensive after being trucked long distances over bad roads. Further, mineral P is, like petroleum, a limited resource worldwide. Maritime guano deposits have long since been exhausted, and global production from phosphate rock is expected to peak in about 2030 as reserves of this nonrenewable resource dwindle.Climate change is tightening the squeeze on food security caused by rapid population growth and worsening mineral P shortage and will likely make the Sahel depend even more on drought-tolerant crops such as sorghum and pearl millet, both of which originated here. One option for addressing food security in the region is to make them more productive under limited soil P.A project on abiotic production constraints in pearl millet and sorghum-based agricultural systems of the West African Sahel conducted crop trials from 2010 to 2013 in multiple locations in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Senegal. After establishing research protocols, scientists evaluated some 300 sorghum and millet genotypes for their performance under P-sufficient and P-deficient conditions.Working One option for tackling food insecurity in the Sahel is to make sorghum and pearl millet more productive on the phosphorus-deficient soils prevalent in the region.©International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)Alternative crop management techniques, such as fertilizer microdosing with a capful for each plant, were also explored. This innovation boosted millet yield by 55% in experimental fields in Niger while using only a sixth of the fertilizer expended in conventional application.The project was the first effort to integrate conventional and marker-assisted breeding with improved natural resource management to enhance sorghum and millet productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa. The relative impact on millet productivity from drought, low-P soil and their interaction was assessed, with the aim of developing varieties that tolerate multiple abiotic stresses in the Sahel.Any increase in sorghum and millet yield promises many benefits, as these crops provide not only food for people but also fodder for livestock and, with processing that adds value within As these dryland crops require little or no irrigation or fertilizer, their cultivation generates only modest greenhouse gas emissions, mitigating climate change.Heat and drought tolerance make sorghum and pearl millet resilient and wellsuited for continued use in the Sahel and for adoption in other climate-vulnerable areas.the local economy, beverages and biofuel.A highly significant research achievement in dryland cereals was the introduction of hybrid sorghum, which boosted yields and simultaneously supported the development of seed cooperatives and small seed enterprises.In a single year, Mali tripled its production of hybrid sorghum seed to 30 tons, which helped supply the 10,000 farmers in the region who have adopted hybrid sorghum.Heat and drought tolerance make sorghum and pearl millet resilient and well-suited for continued use in the Sahel and for adoption in other climate-vulnerable areas in future. They allow the production of highly nutritious grain to be sustainably increased, thereby bolstering food security. And they better enable farmers to cope with the more frequent and severe droughts expected under climate change, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Improved tolerance of P-deficient soils, which addresses the key factor that constrains their productivity, promises to make sorghum and pearl millet even better options for future farm environments increasingly challenged by climate change.Zero tillage, crop residue retention, and other components of conservation agriculture cut costs, boost yields, strengthen resilience and mitigate climate change. CGIAR experts joined with multiple partners to make Kazakhstan, the world's sixth-largest wheat exporter, its second-fastest adaptor of this often climatefriendly practice.Drought and high temperatures in 2012 helped underscore the advantages of these agricultural practices to many wheat farmers on the steppes of northern Kazakhstan. While production in this Central Asian breadbasket plunged from 24 million tons in 2011 to only 11 million, its 2 million hectares of zero-tillage wheat produced up to 3 times as much grain per hectare as those that had been plowed in the conventional way. The 700,000 tons of wheat protected from drought was worth $220 million freight on board. well as to starve wheat pathogens and pests. This has constrained adoption in northern Kazakhstan, where many farmers see no commercial alternative to wheat. Because the full benefits start to be realized only after 5-7 years, farmers must take the long view.Wheat farmers in Kazakhstan and elsewhere are switching to conservation agriculture because it boosts yields and profits in good years, salvages bad years, and makes agriculture more sustainable over the long term by minimizing wind and water erosion while restoring and maintaining soil health.Meanwhile, everyone in Kazakhstan can benefit as conservation agriculture mitigates the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. It does so by using much less fuel to operate farm machinery, especially tractors for plowing but also pumps for irrigation. The practice uses less mineral fertilizer and so cuts carbon emissions associated with its shipment and application.In addition, higher crop production and residue retention sequesters the carbon that contributes to global warming if released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. It is estimated that conservation agriculture as currently practiced in Kazakhstan locks up 1.3 million tons of carbon dioxide. This equates to taking 270,000 cars off the road.Women have little say in managing local forests relative to their extensive use and knowledge of these communal resources, or relative to men. CGIAR studies ways to facilitate women's participation in forest user groups in Nicaragua and Uganda, toward strengthening their tenure rights.Responsibility for managing forests has shifted in recent decades away from remote state authorities into the hands of the local communities that depend directly on forests and therefore care the most about their sustainable use and conservation. However, this favorable global trend has not translated into forest management that fully engages women, as traditional community power structures often marginalize them.Forest communities need better gender balance in their resource management to improve their prospects for sustainable development and poverty reduction. Climate change lends urgency to this need, as few communities can hope to cope with its unique challenges without the strong participation of women. The whole community must pitch in to regulate forest use so that it reduces poverty now and in a future increasingly affected by climate change, without undermining the role of woodlands as carbon sinks to mitigate climate change.In this regard, an initiative in Uganda has changed attitudes toward women planting trees on land they do not own. Before the project, a woman could not plant trees on her husband's land without his consent or on community land, because tree-planting signified landownership. Training under the initiative, which reached 596 men and 562 women in Uganda, has changed people's minds such that both customary restrictions have loosened. Today, women in project areas have more freedom to plant trees that support livelihoods, restore forest environments and sequester greenhouse gases.Another project set out in 2010 to understand the dynamics of forest user groups in Nicaragua and Uganda. It aimed to apply this knowledge toward formulating strategies to make user groups more receptive to women's participation and leadership and, ultimately, to strengthen women's forest tenure rights.Nicaragua and Uganda have signed international treaties on women's rights and empowerment. Both embrace gender equity in their legal frameworks, including forestry law and policy, but have not realized equity in forest communities. The project investigated whether negotiation and facilitation by trusted intermediaries could fill the void and strengthen women's forest rights. This approach is premised on the observation that land and resource rights are generally allocated in customary systems through negotiation between the authorities and resource users.Climate change demands gender balance in forest resource management, as few communities can hope to cope with its unique challenges without the strong participation of women.©Ricky Martin/CIFOR Working with academic and other partners in both countries and from the United States, researchers trained local stakeholders at 15 of 36 project sites in the problem-solving and learning process called adaptive collaborative management (ACM). Baseline surveys conducted in 2011 will allow comparison with follow-up surveys in 2015 to compare results achieved with and without ACM.Preliminary findings show better results at ACM sites in both Nicaragua and Uganda. In some communities, women participate more actively, confidently and assertively in group discussions. They fill more leadership roles in forest user groups; in Uganda, the forest user groups at four of six ACM sites are now chaired by women, Improvements in gender equity stemmed from actively encouraging women's participation, but not to the exclusion of men, while ensuring that all stakeholders contribute and share benefits equitably.People's attitudes have begun to change in Uganda such that customary restrictions against women planting trees on land they do not own have been relaxed, facilitating carbon sequestration.up from zero before ACM, and women now fill about half of all leadership roles, up from 16%. Coordination has improved with forestry agencies, research organizations and nongovernmental organizations.Communities in each country have received up to 10,000 seedlings for reforestation, and those in Uganda have further been trained on establishing tree nurseries and beekeeping.Having successfully solicited this assistance, the communities now plant more of the tree species preferred by men and women alike.These positive results appear to stem from actively encouraging women's participation, but not to the exclusion of men, while developing rules to ensure that all stakeholders contribute and share benefits equitably, as well as mechanisms to manage conflicts.Building on the success achieved with local stakeholders in the first phase of the project, the partners launched in October 2013 the second phase to extend gender sensitivity training to policy makers in national government.©Olivier Girard/CIFOR enhancing policies on risk management and conflict of interest, improving strategic leadership, and refining CGIAR's brand and image. As a first step, the Fund Council established a Resource Group, which will collaborate with Consortium counterparts to coordinate fundraising across the system, develop best practices and make donor investments more efficient. To expand on the earlier governance review, the Fund Council commissioned a comprehensive midterm review of the CGIAR reform to assess progress and recommend course corrections and improvements.Another key decision was to extend the current CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs) to the end of 2016 so that lessons learned from the first round of CRPs can be fed into the development of the second generation of research programs, along with recommendations emerging from the midterm review and the evaluation of each CRP. The new portfolio of CRPs is expected to be more robust, relevant and results-oriented, as well as better aligned with the CGIAR Strategy and Results Framework, which is also under revision along with its Action Plan -a roadmap to improve the quality, coherence and integration of the research agenda. To provide input and background information for the Action Plan, the Independent Science and Partnership Council (ISPC) commissioned the foresight study Trends in urbanization and farm size in developing countries: Implications for agricultural research.Strategic partnerships, committed investors, streamlined business processes, enhanced accountability, expanded access to knowledge and stronger orientation for impact -these are some of the assets and ideals that enable CGIAR to generate and deliver research that yields real results on the ground.CGIAR has long been one of the best investments for sustainably reducing poverty, hunger and malnutrition. As the Scientific Progress section of this report highlights, it continues to provide solutions to some of the world's most pressing development challenges. Recognizing how important good governance, strong financial systems and effective business practices are to producing world-class research, CGIAR took a number of steps toward more efficient operations to put it in an even better position to deliver science and technology that benefits the poor.The second 3-year term of the Fund Council, the decision-making body of CGIAR's multilateral trust fund, began in 2013. The new Fund Council includes four \"recognition seats,\" which were created to guarantee that donors who contributed most to pooled funding -the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United Stateshave a direct voice in the governance of the CGIAR Fund.Following a thorough assessment of the numerous recommendations emerging from a review of CGIAR governance, the Fund Council decided to focus on developing a system-wide resource mobilization strategy,Significant efforts were made toward developing an improved accountability framework. Leaders of the CRPs met for the first time en masse with donors, implementing partners and colleagues from other parts of the CGIAR system to review the CRPs' theories of change, activities and priorities.In conjunction with the fall Fund Council meeting, the CGIAR Knowledge Day was convened to provide another opportunity for donors and scientists to engage in dialogue. CRP leaders presented their achievements to date, with particular attention to gender equity and value for money. Participants assessed CRPs' progress and plans in terms of expected impacts on four broad outcomes critical to development: reduced poverty, strengthened food security, improved nutrition and health, and sustainably managed natural resources.Science leaders in the CRPs and Centers collaborated with experts in the ISPC to identify measurable contributions to largescale development impact. They agreed on 11 common intermediate development outcomes -including improved productivity, stronger emphasis on gender and empowerment, mitigated climate change and improved nutrition for vulnerable populations, especially women and children -to fill in the \"missing middle\" between research on the ground and the four broad outcomes mentioned above.Monitoring and evaluation are vital at all levels of operation, from the front lines to system management, and to reinforcing a results-based culture, keeping CGIAR accountable to its donors and stakeholders, and demonstrating value for money. The Independent Evaluation Arrangement made good progress in its first full year of operation. Open access is gathering pace in agriculture, and the reformed CGIAR has the means and the will to lead the way. Building on the 2012 Principles on the Management of Intellectual Assets, the first Open Access Policy was developed in a groundbreaking effort to address open access system-wide.The policy commits CGIAR to provide open access within the next 5 years to its wealth of data, information and knowledge -including spatial, crop, socioeconomic and genomic datasets. All 15 Research Centers adopted the policy, which is now mandatory.This clear commitment to open access will improve the efficiency, efficacy and impact of CGIAR research; aid interdisciplinary studies; and allow the public to further benefit from research outcomes. For example, in response to a call from the Group of Eight, collaboration is underway with the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa and its partner organizations on the African Agricultural Technology Platform to develop a platform \"It has been a great privilege to serve as the inaugural ISPC Chair. Over the past 3 years, I believe all players in the CGIAR system have learned a great deal, providing a strong foundation for moving ahead. I look forward to watching the continued evolution of CGIAR and believe all the pieces are in place for continued success if underpinned by good faith, good leadership, good science and good partners.\"toward scaling up African smallholders' use of agricultural technologies. The platform includes a virtual space from which data and information will be freely accessible to decision-makers and other stakeholders to use in addressing development challenges.CGIAR explored the feasibility and desirability of scaling up shared services to improve efficiency and reduce costs across the Consortium. In addition to putting existing shared services on a fee-for-service basis, the Consortium pursued establishing field office \"hubs,\" undertaking a Consortium-wide approach to staff security and instituting joint procurement in a number of areas. Efforts will continue to identify additional ways to work more efficiently and cost-effectively. \"For more than 3 decades, China has benefited greatly from its scientific collaboration with CGIAR and the global public goods that CGIAR uniquely provides, making tremendous progress in reducing poverty, hunger and malnutrition through the tangible impacts of agricultural research, such as improved crop varieties. Going forward, China is committed to strengthening and expanding its strategic partnership with CGIAR so that together we can achieve global food security while contributing to the good of the planet.\"CGIAR achieved an historic milestone in 2013, with total system revenue surpassing the $1 billion mark. This is an exceptional achievement and one in which all partners can find a lot of satisfaction.     ","tokenCount":"8620"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4774618ebc337837a01bed9015d5bf1f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/7ef8296b-4e9c-42c0-833b-c701e3fb38aa/content","id":"-583932226"},"keywords":["phenotypic selection","genomic selection","genetic gain","maize","well-watered and water stress environments"],"sieverID":"ebe0f3d2-5b73-4869-b3db-9cbe586d48e9","pagecount":"11","content":"Genomic selection predicts the genomic estimated breeding values (GEBVs) of individuals not previously phenotyped. Several studies have investigated the accuracy of genomic predictions in maize but there is little empirical evidence on the practical performance of lines selected based on phenotype in comparison with those selected solely on GEBVs in advanced testcross yield trials. The main objectives of this study were to (1) empirically compare the performance of tropical maize hybrids selected through phenotypic selection (PS) and genomic selection (GS) under well-watered (WW) and managed drought stress (WS) conditions in Kenya, and (2) compare the cost-benefit analysis of GS and PS. For this study, we used two experimental maize data sets (stage I and stage II yield trials). The stage I data set consisted of 1492 doubled haploid (DH) lines genotyped with rAmpSeq SNPs. A subset of these lines (855) representing various DH populations within the stage I cohort was crossed with an individual single-cross tester chosen to complement each population. These testcross hybrids were evaluated in replicated trials under WW and WS conditions for grain yield and other agronomic traits, while the remaining 637 DH lines were predicted using the 855 lines as a training set. The second data set (stage II) consists of 348 DH lines from the first data set. Among these 348 best DH lines, 172 lines selected were solely based on GEBVs, and 176 lines were selected based on phenotypic performance. Each of the 348 DH lines were crossed with three common testers from complementary heterotic groups, and the resulting 1042 testcross hybrids and six commercial checks were evaluated in four to five WW locations and one WS condition in Kenya. For stage I trials, the cross-validated prediction accuracy for grain yield was 0.67 and 0.65 under WW and WS conditions, respectively. We found similar responses to selection using PS and GS for grain yield other agronomic traits under WW and WS conditions. The top 15% of hybrids advanced through GS and PS gave 21%-23% higher grain yield under WW and 51%-52% more grain yield under WS than the mean of the checks. The GS reduced the cost by 32% over the PS with similar selection gains. We concluded that the use of GS for yield under WW and WS conditions in maize can produce selection candidates with similar performance as those generated With more than 35 million ha harvested each year, maize is the most important staple food crop in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In SSA countries, maize is commonly grown by resource-poor farmers and covers large areas with very low average grain yield (1.4 ton/ha) (Smale et al., 2011). The low productivity of maize in SSA is due to several factors including drought and low soil nitrogen stress, foliar diseases, and insect pests among others. The ability to quickly develop germplasm with resistance to important abiotic and biotic stresses will be critical for the resilience of Africa's maize-based cropping systems in the face of climate change. Breeding for drought tolerance and yield stability is an important objective of maize breeding programs in SSA, and a high priority for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) (Bänziger et al., 2006;Beyene et al., 2017;Cairns and Prasanna, 2018). Over the past decades, CIMMYT and its partners have made significant progress developing maize germplasm that is tolerant to drought, low soil nitrogen, and diseases including maize lethal necrosis (Beyene et al., 2017;Cairns and Prasanna, 2018). To accelerate breeding for drought tolerance, CIMMYT and its partners adopted several breeding approaches including pedigree selection, markerassisted recurrent selection (MARS), and genomic selection (GS) combined with high-throughput phenotyping, doubled haploids (DH), and year-round nurseries (Beyene et al., 2016;Cairns and Prasanna, 2018).Genomic prediction is an approach that uses molecular marker data to predict the genetic value of complex traits in progeny for selection and breeding (Meuwissen et al., 2001). When genomic predictions are used to make selections, the process is referred to as GS. The primary difference between GS and traditional forms of marker-assisted selection (MAS) is the simultaneous use of many markers distributed genome-wide, as opposed to a small set of markers linked to quantitative trait loci (Heffner et al., 2009). The objective of GS is to determine the genetic potential of an individual instead of identifying the specific quantitative trait loci. GS could be used in plant breeding programs in rapid recombination cycles and predict the breeding value of untested parents (genomic estimated breeding value, GEBV). Another way of using GS is with sparse testing where some lines are tested in some environments but predicted in others. Implementing genomic prediction and selection requires development of appropriate training sets consisting of individuals that have been both phenotyped and genotyped, followed by model calibration. Bernardo and Yu (2007) were the first to report the use of GS in maize breeding using simulation data. Massman et al. (2013) used real data to compare GS and MARS in a bi-parental maize population derived from temperate lines and reported that GS gave a 14 to 50% advantage over MARS for grain yield and stover quality. Beyene et al. (2015) reported genetic gains through GS in eight CIMMYT tropical bi-parental maize populations evaluated under managed drought conditions in SSA. The authors showed that (i) the average gain per cycle from GS was 0.086 t/ha under managed drought conditions, (ii) the average grain yield of cycle 3-GS-derived hybrids was significantly higher than that of hybrids derived from C 0 , and (iii) three GS cycles can be achieved in one year. On the other hand, the average gain per cycle using MARS across 10 populations was 0.051 t/ha per cycle under managed drought stress (Beyene et al., 2016). Vivek et al. (2017) reported that the realized genetic gain per year was higher for GS than for phenotypic selection (PS) in two bi-parental populations.As pointed out by Crossa et al. (2017), the main advantages of GS as compared to phenotype-based selection in breeding are: (i) GS reduces the cost per cycle, and (ii) it increases time efficiency of variety development. For example, in terms of cost reduction in maize breeding, the breeder can testcross 50% of all available lines, evaluate them in first-stage multi-location trials, and then use the phenotypic data to predict the remaining 50% by GS. The time efficiency advantage over PS could come from the second selection cycle, which uses the training population from the previous cycle to predict the new inbred lines, thus excluding testcross formation and first-stage multi-location evaluation trials. As more robust, multi-year training sets are developed, GS can be used to advance the best selection candidates directly to the second stage of multi-location evaluations. This significantly reduces the cost of testcross formation and evaluation in the earliest stage of multi-location multi-year evaluation.Although testing predictive ability is critical for gathering information for GS, there is a large gap between the findings of these studies and their application in breeding programs (Bernardo, 2016). In maize breeding, the potential of GS was empirically evaluated (Crossa et al., 2010;Windhausen et al., 2012;Massman et al., 2013;Beyene et al., 2015). CIMMYT maize breeding programs have evaluated several GS-related methods with varying levels of success over the past 8 years (Crossa et al., 2010;Burgueño et al., 2012;Windhausen et al., 2012;Beyene et al., 2015;Edriss et al., 2017;Zhang et al., 2017). More recently, some authors have considered using genomic models for predicting hybrid performance (Kadam et al., 2016;Cantelmo et al., 2017;Acosta-Pech et al., 2017;Vélez Torres et al., 2018); these studies have shown that genomic models can give reasonably accurate predictions of the agronomic performance of hybrids. Several of those studies have investigated the accuracy of genomic predictions but there is little empirical evidence on the practical performance of lines selected based on phenotype and GS (untested lines selected solely based on GEBV) in advanced yield trials.The current study compares the performance of maize DH line testcrosses selected based on GS versus PS in second stage multi-location yield trials of the CIMMYT maize breeding program in SSA. For this study, we used two experimental maize data sets: first-stage multi-location yield trials (hereafter referred to as stage I) and second-stage multi-location yield trials (hereafter referred to as stage II). The stage I data set consisted of 1492 DH lines genotyped with rAmpSeq (epeat lification uencing) dominant sequence tag markers (https://doi. org/10.1101/096628). A subset of these lines (855) was crossed with an individual single-cross tester chosen to complement each specific population and evaluated in replicated trials under optimum and drought conditions for grain yield and other agronomic traits, while the remaining 637 DH lines were predicted using the 855 lines as a training set. The second data set (stage II) consisted of 348 DH lines from the first data set (stage I), of which 172 lines were selected solely based on GEBVs, and 176 lines were selected based on phenotypic performance. In this second data set, each of the 348 DH lines was crossed with three common testers from complementary heterotic groups, and the resulting 1042 testcross hybrids and six commercial checks were evaluated in 4-5 optimum locations and one location with managed drought conditions in Kenya. The objectives of this research were to (1) empirically compare the performance of tropical maize hybrids selected through PS and GS under stress and non-stress conditions, and (2) compare the cost-benefit of genomic and PS in tropical maize.The first data set (stage I) comprised a total of 1492 DH lines derived from 12 bi-parental DH populations developed at CIMMYT's Maize DH facility in Kiboko, Kenya. The 12 source populations were obtained by crossing elite CIMMYT maize lines (CMLs) with La Posta Seq C7, a drought tolerant population developed at CIMMYT, Mexico, through recurrent selection among full sib/S1 families (Edmeades et al., 1999). The selected CMLs were drought tolerant lines that have good combining abilities and are adapted across several environments in SSA (Beyene et al., 2013). The DH lines were grown at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization Kiboko Research Station during the 2015/16 short rainy season. Based on the results of per se evaluation (germination and good stand establishment, plant type, low ear placement, and well-filled ears), 1492 DH lines were selected for stage I multi-location yield trials (Table 1). The smallest DH family comprised 34 lines, while the largest had 240 lines.To implement GS in CIMMYT's maize breeding program, nearly half (855) of 1492 selected DH lines were crossed with a single-cross tester from complementary heterotic group and phenotyped across locations. The 855 hybrids were divided into 14 trials connected by common checks. In each trial, three to six commercial checks were included and planted in an alpha-lattice design with two replications and phenotyped in three wellwatered (WW) environments and one managed drought stress (WS) environment in Kenya during the 2017 growing season. The WS experiment was conducted during the dry (rain-free) season by suspending irrigation starting 2 weeks before flowering until harvest, whereas the WW experiments were conducted during the rainy season, applying supplemental irrigation as needed. Entries were planted in two-row plots, 5 m long, with 0.75 m spacing between rows and 0.25 m between hills. Two seeds per hill were initially planted and then thinned down to one plant per hill three weeks after emergence to obtain a final plant population density of 53,333 plants per hectare. Fertilizers were applied at the rate of 60 kg N and 60 kg P 2 O 5 per ha, as recommended for the area. Nitrogen was applied twice: at planting and 6 weeks after emergence. Fields were kept free of weeds by hand weeding. The following traits were measured: grain yield (GY, tons ha − 1 ), anthesis date (AD, days), plant height (PH, cm), grain moisture (MOI, %), gray leaf spot (GLS, 1-5 rating score), and turcicum leaf blight (TLB, 1-5 rating score). Plots were manually harvested and GY was corrected to 12.5% moisture. AD was measured from planting to when 50% of the plants shed pollen, and PH was measured from the soil surface to the flag leaf collar on five representative plants within each plot.Leaf samples were taken from each of the 1492 DH lines and sent to Intertek, Sweden, for DNA extraction. The DNA sample plates were forwarded to the Institute for Genomic Diversity, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA, for genotyping with repetitive sequences (rAmpSeq markers) as per the procedure described by Buckler et al. (2016). Each sample was first amplified with PCR, and DNAs within each batch were pooled and multiplexed for rAmpSeq sequencing, a new genotyping technology which is used to amplify repetitive (LTR/retroelements) regions of the genome. A K-mer based approach was used to design the primer pairs which range between 150-bp to 200-bp in length and target ~1,500-2,000 loci in the genome (Buckler et al., 2016, http  availability of thousands of adaptors, this technology makes it possible to genotype 3,000 samples in a single sequencing run and dramatically reduces the genotyping cost per sample. A total of 4657 markers that passed quality control were used for GS.From stage I analyses, the top performing 348 (23%) DH lines were chosen for stage II evaluation. Among these 348 DH lines, 172 lines represented selection from the 637 genomic predicted lines that had above average GEBVs and 176 lines were selected from the 855 phenotyped lines that had above average Best Linear Unbiased Estimates (BLUE). Each of these DH lines were crossed with three common testers from complementary heterotic groups. The resultant 1042 testcross hybrids were evaluated in eight connected trials. Six commercial checks were included in each trial and planted in an alpha-lattice design with two replications and phenotyped in 4-5 WW environments and one WS environment in Kenya in 2018. The WS experiment was conducted during the dry (rain-free) season by suspending irrigation starting 2 weeks before flowering until harvest, whereas the WW experiments were conducted during the rainy season, applying supplemental irrigation as needed. Planting and agronomic managements were similar as explained for stage I trials. The following traits were measured: grain yield (GY, tons ha −1 ), anthesis date (AD, days), plant height (PH, cm), grain moisture (MOI, %), gray leaf spot (GLS, 1-5 rating score), and turcicum leaf blight (TLB, 1-5 rating score). Plots were manually harvested and GY was corrected to 12.5% moisture.There were two sets of phenotypic field trials; the first set included 855 hybrids used to predict the performance of unobserved 637 lines (stage I), and the second set (stage II) was made up of 1042 hybrids from 348 DH lines (172 lines selected from GEBV alone and 176 lines selected based on phenotypic data) crossed with three testers. Note that the second set of field trials was used to compare the performance of the GS vs PS of hybrids. All the phenotypic analyses were done to obtain the variance components and BLUEs for the lines under WW and WS. All testcrosses were evaluated in different trials but adjacent to each other and connected by common checks in the same field. Phenotypic data was analyzed first within trials and then across trials. The BLUEs across WW and WS locations for each trial and each trait were generated using the following linear mixed model carried out using the META-R software (Alvarado et al., 2017):where Y ijrk is the grain yield of genotype i at location j in replicate r within block k; µ is the general mean; L j is the fixed effect of location j; R r (L j ) is the fixed effect of replicate r within location jis the random effect of incomplete block k within replicate r and location j is assumed to be independently and identically normal distributed with mean zero and variance σ ( ) B RL;G i is the effect of line i; GL ij is the effect of the line × location interaction; and  ijrk is the random residual error assumed independent and identically normal distributed with mean zero and variance σ  2 . The variance components and heritability across locations for WW and WS sites were computed. The BLUE of each trait for the single WS location are obtained from the following modelThe analysis across trials was also performed using similar model as those shown above but including the trial as fixed effect.The BLUE of the entries within and across testers were used for genome-based predictions. GEBVs were calculated for GY, AD, MOI and PH using the BGLR statistical R-package (Pérez-Rodríguez and de los Campos, 2014) within and across testers for WW and WS sites. For genome-enabled prediction, a total of 4657 markers that passed quality control were selected. For GS, the Genomic Best Linear Unbiased Predictor (G-BLUP) model was employed. Further, to understand the effect of testers on prediction accuracy, GS was applied to predict unobserved lines within and across testers.The models described below were used with two purposes: one was to use the 855 lines as a training set to predict the GEBV of 637 lines (testing set) and use the observed and predicted values to select top performing lines. The other objective of the models described below was to study the genome-based prediction accuracy of the 855 lines with phenotypic and genotypic data and determine the prediction accuracy using main effects and main effects plus interaction models for each tester and across testers.This model can be expressed asWhere y ij is the response trait for the j th hybrid in the i th environment, μ is the overall mean, and E i is the fixed effect of the site (either WW or WS). Here, g j corresponds to the genomic breeding value of the j th line defined as a linear combination of marker codes and the corresponding marker effects, such that where G is the genomic relationship matrix computed aswhere X is the standardized genotype matrix (by columns), p is the number of markers, and σ σ Note that this model was used for the genomic prediction computed for the WW sites. The predictions for the unique managed sites had only the G + e component because these trials were established in only one managed drought site.This is the same as the previous model but includes the interaction term based on marker and environment interaction data. The model (Jarquín et al., 2014) is written as:Where gE ij is the component representing the interactions between molecular markers of the j th line and the i th environment. The distributional assumption for this term is suchis the variance component of the random interaction component gE. The other terms were already defined in the previously defined E + G + e model. As already mentioned, this model was used for the genomic prediction computed for the WW sites. The prediction for the unique managed sites includes only the G + e component.The performance of the models when predicting the five traits was evaluated using the average Pearson's correlation coefficient between observed and predicted values. The random cross-validation scheme mimics real plant breeding situations and is a scheme where the performance of 20% of the maize testcrosses was not observed in any of the environments and the rest of the lines (80%) were already observed in the same target environments. For this scheme, a five-fold random partitioning (80% of the data used as the training set, and the remaining 20% as the testing set) was employed. Four folds were used for training the models and for predicting the remaining fold. This procedure was repeated over the five folds and the predictions from the testing fold were joined in a single vector. Then, Pearson's correlations between predicted and observed values within the same environment were computed. The partitioning was repeated 100 times. The cost benefits of PS vs GS were analyzed using spreadsheet-based budgeting tools.For stage I, mean GY averaged across WW locations ranged from 3.49 to 9.14 t/ha with an overall mean of 6.03 t/ha, whereas at stage II it improved further, ranging from 5.1 to 11.6 t/ha with an average of 7.59 t/ha (Table 2). Under WS, GY ranged from 1.08 to 5.76 t/ ha with an overall mean of 3.25 t/ha at stage I, whereas at stage II, the range varied from 0.77 to 6.33 t/ha with an average of 3.23 t/ ha. The average GY, PH, AD, and MOI were higher under WW conditions than under WS in stage I trials (Table 2). Interestingly, the average performance of hybrids at stage II was also higher for GY, AD, PH, and MOI compared to stage I trials. The magnitude of genotypic variances was higher than the genotype by environment interaction variances for all traits at stage I and only for GY and AD at stage II under WW conditions. For stage I trials, the heritability under WW conditions varied from 0.31 to 0.77, while under WS, it ranged from 0.84 to 0.95. Whereas at Stage II, the heritability under WW conditions varied from 0.18 to 0.82, while under WS it ranged from 0.32 to 0.61. A total 176 lines that had above average phenotypic value for grain yield and other agronomic traits were advanced to stage II evaluation (Supplementary Table S1). These superior lines were derived from all 12 populations, suggesting that the donor parents used to develop the DH lines are excellent sources of germplasm for combining ability with good adaptation to eastern Africa.The cross-validation analyses yielded moderately high prediction correlations among optimum and drought conditions for GY and other agronomic traits. The prediction correlations ranged from 0.65-0.67 for GY, 0.57-0.65 for MOI, 0.67-0.75 for AD, and 0.70-0.72 for PH (Table 3). In general, trait-tester combination with higher training set (CML395/CML444) had a higher predication accuracy than the other two testers (CML312/CML395 and CML312/CML442) that had lower training set (Table 3). The predication accuracy was lowest for testers CML312/CML442 and CML312/CML395 for all traits and highest for tester CML395/CML444 both under WW and WS conditions.A total 172 lines that had above average GEBVs were advanced to stage II evaluations (Supplementary Table S1).At stage II, 1042 hybrids were evaluated among them 526 were developed from lines selected based on PS and the remaining were derived from lines selected based on GEBVs. The GY of 526 testcross hybrids advanced through PS evaluated across five WW locations (hereafter referred to as PS-WW) ranged from 5.54 to 11.67 t /ha (Supplementary Table S2). In the PS-WW, the top 15% of hybrids produced an average grain yield of 9.4 t ha −1 , which represents an increase of 1.0 t ha −1 compared to the best commercial check, which produced 8.4 t ha −1 . The best hybrid advanced through PS yielded 39% and 63% more than the best commercial check and the mean of commercial checks, respectively (Table 4).A total of 516 hybrids advanced through GS and evaluated at the same five WW locations (hereafter referred to as GS-WW) produced GY ranging from 5.1 to 10.44 t/ha (Supplementary Table S2). The top 15% of hybrids advanced through GS had a mean GY of 9.1 t/ha, which represents a 0.7 t/ha increase over the yield of the best commercial check. The top 15% of hybrids had an average yield advantage of 8 and 21% over the best check and the mean of the checks, respectively (Table 4). The best TaBlE 2 | Mean, range, genetic variance, and broad-sense heritability estimates for grain yield (GY, t/ha) anthesis date (AD, days), plant height (PH, cm), moisture (MOI, %), gray leaf spot (GLS, 1-5 rating score), and turcicum leaf blight (TLB, 1-5 rating score) for stage I and stage II testcrosses evaluated under optimum and managed drought stress conditions in Kenya.Managed  hybrid advanced through GS had 24 and 46% higher GY than the best commercial check and the mean of the commercial checks, respectively. The top 15% of hybrids advanced through PS on average had an increase of 8.5 cm in PH and 4.7 days in AD and a 1% increase in grain moisture content compared to the mean of the commercial checks (Supplementary Table S2). However, there was no difference between the top 15% of hybrids and the commercial checks in their responses to the two main foliar diseases, GLS and TLB (Supplementary Table S2). The top 15% of hybrids advanced through GS had a 6 cm increase in PH and 4.7 days in flowering and a 1% increase in grain moisture content compared to the mean of the commercial checks (Supplementary Table S2). There was no difference among the top 15% of hybrids advanced through PS and GS for AD, MOI and their responses to the two main foliar diseases, GLS and TLB (Supplementary Table S2).A total of 526 hybrids advanced through PS were also evaluated under managed drought stress (hereafter referred to as PS-WS); their mean GY ranged from 0.99 to 6.19 t ha −1 (Supplementary Table S3). The top 15% of hybrids (79 hybrids) produced 42% and 51% higher mean GY than the mean GY of the best commercial check and the mean of the checks, respectively (Table 4). The best hybrid advanced through PS produced 88% and 169% higher GY than the best check and the mean of the commercial checks, respectively, while for 516 hybrids that were advanced through GS, their GY performance under WS ranged from 1.14 to 6.33 t/ ha (Supplementary Table S3). The top 15% of hybrids produced 47% and 52% higher mean GY than the best commercial check and the mean of checks, respectively (Table 4).The best hybrid advanced through GS produced 92% and 175% higher GY than the best check and mean of commercial checks, respectively (Table 4). Compared to the mean of commercial checks, the top 15% of hybrids advanced through PS and GS had a 3% increase in MOI, 2.8 days in AD, and a 10 cm increase in PH (Supplementary Table S3).An additional metric of interest when considering the overall efficacy of GS as a substitute for conventional PS only schemes is the advancement rate of the GS stage II cohort compared with the advancement rate of the PS stage II cohort. The actual advancement rate of the two methods is a useful means of comparing the overall value of the two groups of advanced lines since it captures all information that the breeder uses to make the decision whether or not to move a given DH line/s into advanced testing (Figures 1  and 2). Under WW condition the top 15% (157 of 1042 hybrids) advanced to stage III trials, 93 hybrids were developed through PS, and 64 hybrids were advanced thought GS (Figure 1).While under WS condition the top 15% (157 of 1042 hybrids) advanced to stage III trials, 91 hybrids were developed through GS, and 66 hybrids were advanced through PS. There was no significant difference among the top 15% of hybrids advanced through PS and GS for grain yield, AD, and PH (Figure 2). The overall advancement rate of GS stage II candidates was 41% and 58% compared with an advancement rate of 59% and 42% for PS stage II candidates under WW and WS condition, respectively, indicating that the two groups of selection candidates had functionally equivalent potential in terms of producing new stage III candidates.We compared the costs involved in PS and GS using spreadsheetbased budgeting tools (Table 5). At present, for a single entry to make testcross and conduct two row plot yield trial costs US$ 15 in Kenya. This value represented lower boundary cost because it was mainly based on operational costs excluding personnel and other costs. The cost of genotyping an entry is US$ 10. Based on this rough estimate, developing and evaluating 1492 testcrosses in stage I trials at four locations with two replications per location would have cost US$ 134,480, while it costs US$ 91,870 using a combination of phenotypic and GS. Therefore, using the current method (phenotyping half of the materials and predicting the remaining half), the same outcome was achieved with 68% of the phenotyping costs (Table 5). These costs are likely to vary in different breeding programs (primarily due to differences in labor costs), but the results indicated that GS was relatively cheaper than PS.With the advent of DH technology, thousands of fixed lines are generated each year in maize. However, identifying the best genotypes requires extensive field evaluations with several hybrid combinations, and all DH lines cannot be evaluated because of limited space and resources. One method  for reducing the number of hybrids for field evaluation is crossing all DH lines with a common tester in the early stages of a breeding cycle. Another method is to use a genetic similarity matrix derived from pedigree or molecular markers for predicting performance of untested crosses (Kadam et al., 2016;Cantelmo et al., 2017). GS can be used in plant breeding to improve selection in the early stages of a breeding program without testing all available lines in yield trials. Recently several genomic prediction models (reviewed by Crossa et al., 2017) were used to predict the performance of tested and untested hybrids, and those predictions can be used to decide which hybrids should be selected for further evaluation in field trials.In this study, we compared the performance of maize DH lines selected from stage I multi-location yield trials based on BLUEs and GEBVs by evaluating the hybrids in common stage II multi-location yield trials of the CIMMYT maize breeding program. We evaluated a total of 855 hybrids under optimum and drought conditions and used BLUEs data to predict the remaining 637 hybrids which were genotyped but have never been phenotyped. In our study, the prediction accuracy for GY under WW conditions was 0.67, and under WS, it was 0.65 (Table 3). Our results agree with previous maize studies by Crossa et al. (2010) and Zhang et al. (2017), who reported medium to high prediction accuracy. In our study, higher marker density, higher heritabilities, and similarity in training and prediction data sets gave higher accuracies of estimated breeding values. Lorenz and Smith (2015) reported that prediction accuracies for GS decreased as the similarity of individuals in the training and test populations decreased. In our case, the training populations used for GS are highly related and purposefully designed (genotyping all and phenotyping half) for reducing field phenotyping, which is costly and logistically complex. Our results agree with those of previous studies by Riedelsheimer et al. (2012) and Lariepe et al. (2017), who concluded that prediction accuracies are enough to make GS more efficient than PS.Identification of optimum size as training and prediction set is crucial for implementing GS in maize breeding program. Cao et al. (2017) reported that high predication accuracy was observed when 50% of the total genotypes were used as a training population. Zhang et al. (2019) obtained moderate-to high predication accuracy trait-environment combinations, when half of the population is used to build the prediction model. In this study we have implemented genotyping all and phenotyping half prediction scheme to reduce the cost of phenotyping all DH line generated each year in stage I yield trials. The ultimate objective is to select untested lines based on GEBV from previous years that improve accuracy and go directly to Stage II yield trials by skipping stage I yield trials. This will require to build multiyear estimation set for specific germplasm groups and targeted growing regions.The mean GY of hybrids advanced through GS and PS methods was significantly higher than the mean of the commercial checks (Figure 1). The top 15% of hybrids advanced through PS were slightly better than hybrids advanced through GS. The top 79 hybrids (15% SI) advanced through PS had mean GY of 9.4 t/ha, while the top 15% of hybrids (77 hybrids) advanced through GS had mean GY of 9.1 t/ha under WW conditions. When historical data from the same breeding program is available, there is the potential to bypass stage I trial evaluation and move material directly into stage II. This approach would reduce both the costs and cycle time but will require accurate predictions from training sets composed of historical data. GS has the potential for increasing the genetic gain per year by accelerating the breeding cycles (Crossa et al., 2017). Beyene et al. (2015) reported that GS can save the time over PS because three rapid cycles of recombination were possible to complete in a year. Gaynor et al. (2016) using simulation data proposed a two-part strategy for GS in plant breeding: namely, population improvement and product development. The population improvement strategy uses GS to perform rapid cycles of recurrent selection to minimize breeding cycle time and maximize the genetic gain per year, while the product development component focuses on developing inbred lines as hybrid parents. The authors concluded that implementing GS in breeding programs increases breeding program efficiency by reducing the cost of achieving a similar outcome. Comparison of hybrids advanced through PS and GS under drought stress conditions revealed that GS did slightly better (4.68 t/ha was the mean of the top 15% of hybrids) than PS (4.48 t/ha, mean of the top 15% of hybrids). There was no significant difference among the top 15% of hybrids advanced through PS and GS for other traits. Longin et al. (2015) found an increased genetic gain when selecting parents based entirely on GEBV for highly heritable traits in wheat. The ultimate objective is to select untested lines based on GEBV from previous years that improve accuracy and go directly to advanced yield trials by skipping preliminary stage I yield trials. In CIMMYT maize breeding program, GS could be implemented to predict untested lines at the early stage of testing by selecting DH with good GEBV and going directly to stage II trials. This could reduce each breeding cycle to less than 2 years. The greatest benefit of GS for achieving genetic gains in crops will come from decreased cycle time (Heffner et al., 2009), as has been predicted and observed in GS of dairy cattle (Schaeffer, 2006;García-Ruiz et al., 2016).Cost-Benefit analysis of GS vs. PS GS was found to outperform MAS using the same financial investment, even at low prediction accuracies (Bernardo and Yu, 2007;Heffner et al., 2010). GS can be used to identify promising lines much sooner than PS, thereby reducing cycle time and increasing the genetic gain per year (Heffner et al., 2009). Several studies considered the economic aspects of plant breeding while comparing the evaluation of selection strategies. Abalo et al. (2009) found that compared to PS, MAS had 26% lower total operating costs for maize streak virus resistance. For GS, Heffner et al. (2010) found similar results in maize and winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Comparison of the genetic gain per unit time and per unit cost for oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) breeding under PS and GS also revealed higher genetic gain per unit cost for GS (Wong and Bernardo, 2008). In our study, GS reduced the cost by 32% over PS with similar selection gains. Currently, we are testing another set of lines with the aim of using historical data to predict new lines and bypass the first stage of testing, and also using both pedigree and marker data to improve the prediction accuracy, which significantly reduces costs and shortens the breeding cycle.The largest potential advantage of GS is predicting the breeding value of genotyped parents that were never phenotyped. We found similar responses to selection using PS and GS for grain yield under WW and WS conditions. The top 15% of hybrids advanced through GS and PS produced 21% to 23% higher GY under WW and 52% to 51% under WS than the mean of the commercial checks. The GS reduced the cost by 32% over the PS with similar selection gains. We conclude that the use of GS for yield under optimum and drought conditions in tropical maize can produce selection candidates with similar performance as those generated from conventional PS, but at a lower cost; therefore, this strategy should be effectively incorporated into maize breeding pipelines to enhance breeding program efficiency.","tokenCount":"5985"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c5e409d95ed83632bb9a9a7588f418eb","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e4c41e10-0145-4f07-b1d3-51d6a7bdb6fb/retrieve","id":"1031861885"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2f96d0c1-c43a-44d9-9c40-0a9fc82ce6bf","pagecount":"35","content":"▪ Line entering Stage 1 TC are pre-selected for disease resistance (e.g., MSV, MLN) using markers. ▪ GEBV of the line analyzed ▪ Hybrid performance (yield under optimal, and abiotic and biotic stresses) ▪ Selection intensity of 10-15% applied ▪ Independent culling/selection index ▪ Number of lines used in Stage 1 varies from 1000 to 1500.-Integration of DH technology into our breeding -Mainstreaming and GS in breeding pipelines -Use of CIMMYT and partners wide trial networking system -Use of decision support tools (META-R, AGD-R, GEA-R)  Genetic gain from conventional breeding in Africa 32 kg ha -1 yr -1 (B. Masuka, 2017) Genetic gain from GS is 2 times higher than the gains from conventional breeding reported in sub-Saharan Africa.Overall gain in GY : 70. Management Hybrids in commercial production derived from germplasm from ex-PVP lines:Farmer identified a hybrid (male parent had 25% ex-pvp) as best hybrid in her demo field at KitaleRefining and strengthening heterotic groups  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------t/ha------------------------------------------------------------------------------%     Expected changes in mean between the full population of lines versus a selected top 20% the lines using index.","tokenCount":"176"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"0eb2aa30614dbb3d33128caa40784611","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e53bea64-3c83-404c-ab86-8eef3d9b3087/retrieve","id":"1129901377"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8eea9baf-f7c8-490a-a212-f90bfd3b879f","pagecount":"41","content":"Objectives of the moduleThe core objectives of the module include:• To identify and examine the main features and characteristics of complex agricultural problems • To explore innovative solutions to address complex agricultural problems • To examine the circumstances under which innovative solutions emerge• In one way or another, agriculture is integral to the physical and economic survival of every human being. • Agricultural problems are multidimensional and multilevel involving many actors. • The causes of agricultural problems are also complex• Agricultural sustainability is a must if we want to be able to produce food for the generations ahead • Agricultural sustainability is complex and needs to cover the whole food chain, from production to consumption • Contemporary agriculture = managing land in ways that conflict with the healthy functioning of ecosystems (level fields, reductions of biodiversity, no rest period, use of toxic chemicals, etc.) Yet agriculture depends on the healthy functioning of ecosystems (Hollander,2004) Complex agricultural problemsThe Status of the Agricultural Production Base; characterized by disconnects, both the in developed and developing world:• Disconnects between agriculture and the environment; • Disconnects between producers and consumers or land and cities; • Disconnects between policies and expectations. (Peter, 2012) Disconnects between agriculture and the environment The Challenge: Sustainable Agriculture in a Changing Climate• Perpetual low prices that consumers are generally willing to pay for food (making farming a precarious business),is now compounded by a crisis of trust amongst consumers, fueled by food scares (Mad Cow, Bird Flu) and a sense that many supermarket foods are low on nutritional value, high on price. (Peter, 2012) Disconnects between policies and expectations.• Almost every country in the world cherishes its agricultural roots, in song, picture and mythology.  • Explaining complex agricultural problems, and examining and designing and applying remedies will not be fruitful if these dimensions, levels and stakeholder needs and interests are examined and addressed separately.Factors Behind complexity• The principal reasons that make agricultural problems complex can be can be grouped under four main categories. Define agricultural innovation • Technology, practice or product handling that will bring increased yield and income to the farmer • Modern/ improved or superior production technique used to improve production or quality and quantity required at a given time. • Novel idea, process, tool, or solution to facilitate healthy and sustainable agriculture that is tailored to a specific context.• Combined hardware (technologies -e.g. seeds) and software (social-organisational -e.g. seed systems) to enhance development and business objectives, change for the better • Tool that can guide analysis of complex agricultural problems, and the identification of entry points that enhance the innovation capacity of the agricultural system in which the complex agricultural problem is embedded. No detailed blueprint exists for making agricultural innovation happen at a given time, in a given place, for a given result.  Actors in an agricultural innovation system (AIS) innovate not in isolation, but through interacting with other actors  Valuable insights are gained from working with all kinds of groups to develop and achieve shared objectives","tokenCount":"501"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1eecfe9bc6b8ec6d6f35ced769b61bb2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/60e6188d-c93c-421d-b577-289bc4bda0b6/retrieve","id":"-1623680764"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f937c91c-3653-4813-b2df-331682ebd12e","pagecount":"6","content":"Titles in this series aim to disseminate interim research on the scaling of climate services and climatesmart agriculture in Africa, in order to stimulate feedback from the scientific community.To cite this report Faniriantsoa, R., List, G. (2023). Advanced training on CDT/ADT for MALI-METEO and KMD. Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA)The International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) conducted an advanced training on Climate Data Tool (CDT) and Automatic Weather Station Data Tool (ADT) at Lamont Campus, New York, from September 5 to September 22, 2023. The training was given to National Meteorological Agency of Mali (L'Agence Nationale de la Météorologie du Mali, MALI-METEO) and the Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD) staff. One staff from MALI-METEO and one staff from KMD were trained (see Appendix).CDT is an open-source, R-based software package with an easy-to-use a graphical user interface (GUI). It allows to download and manipulate climate data from various sources; carry out an advanced quality control of station data; combine station observations with a gridded data (satellite rainfall estimates and reanalysis products); evaluate the performance of different gridded data products; and perform various analysis and visualization of station and gridded datasets.ADT is Automatic Weather Station (AWS) data integration, comes with an integrated database, data standardization and automatic quality control of AWS data. It is designed to address challenges in accessing and processing AWS data collected by different systems and networks, which are on different servers and in different formats. ADT has a web-based application component that provides the capability to visualize, download data, and perform limited processing tasks.The main objective of the training was to strengthen the capacity of the participants to use these tools, make the use of the tools more convenient to accomplish their daily task at the national meteorological services, and receive their feedback and suggestions on how to improve the tools.The program of the three-week training is described below.During the first week, the training was structured around the following sessions: • Assessing the performance of the merging methods and the accuracy of datasets from various sources: Hold-out and cross-validation methods The maintenance and analysis of the data using the tools must be completed by national meteorological services staff. Upon the training by IRI staff, MALI-METEO and KMD staff who had received the training are recommended to practice their skills as well as train their colleagues as necessary.CDT and ADT are useful tools for management and general analysis of climate data. This training is part of the effort to support a greater landscape of climate analysis, monitoring, and predictions in order to generate useful and applicable climate information and services for the beneficiary countries. IRI will proceed with additional steps in capacity building for national meteorological services and regional meteorological organizations through the ongoing implementation of AICCRA and other projects in the region.","tokenCount":"469"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e1b0d48d331971a35403bddac2c2446d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/19e8e117-71dd-4c6c-a0b9-be9cdf3e9edc/retrieve","id":"1874368810"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"27e28b12-65cb-4f9a-a464-76afa9497f6a","pagecount":"2","content":"As the agriculture sector represents 70% of water withdrawals, relevant agricultural water management and planning decisions must be based on good quality information and a sound understanding of the local context.It is often assumed that (i) investments in irrigation modernization will save large quantities of water that can be released for other uses including the environment, and (ii) water savings lead to increased productivity. This assumptionProject Brief underpins many of the existing lending programs by multilateral agencies. However, current studies into the validity of these assumptions are inconclusive, and there is a lack of evaluation of the impacts of high-efficiency irrigation systems at field and basin scales. Water accounting fills this knowledge gap by providing quantitative estimates of the water balance (sources, diversions, withdrawals, consumption, return flows, changes to storage) and quantifies biophysical changes that result from different irrigation interventions.A farmer using a light-duty tube well (minor irrigation scheme) in Kayetpur village, state of West Bengal, India (photo: Tanmoy Bhaduri/IWMI).Technical Brief • Adaptive scaling to achieve system transformation in One CGIAR The Water Accounting in Practice: From Basin to Field-level Applications and Training project aims to achieve the following specific objectives:1. Promote the use of multi-scale water accounting tools (from field to basin) to demonstrate their usefulness in supporting project investment, designing policy interventions, their appropriateness in understanding experiences of water insecurity, and bringing water use, access and consumption within sustainable limits through pilot applications.2. Use water accounting and productivity (WAP) approaches and socioeconomic data to develop and implement a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework to inform the impact of irrigation investments.3. Build local and national capacity on water accounting concepts, approaches and tools, and the interpretation of data and outputs for improved irrigation water management.4. Develop a detailed technical report on water accounting approaches and tools used in the pilot study to guide international and national partners to adopt, implement and practice water account modelling and enable users to easily apply, interpret and analyze water accounts at various scales.The development of approaches and tools to enable consistent and efficient data analysis is integral to the preparation of water accounts. These must be scalable to suit regions of varying sizes and data availability.Funded by the Australian Water Partnership, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) will conduct multi-scale water accounting and productivity analysis to establish a baseline for water use and agricultural productivity (Figure 1). The Australian partner, Alluvium, will bring Australian experience to monitoring and evaluating irrigation investments, contributing to field data collection, conducting socioeconomic evaluation, and contributing to training and capacity building. The IWMI-Alluvium partnership will bring added value through (i) demonstration of the multi-scale application of WAP analysis in the pilot areas; (ii) combining remotesensing approaches and socioeconomic data for M&E of the selected irrigation projects; (iii) impact of gender equity and social inclusion on the management of water resources; and (iv) provision of all necessary tools and techniques for capacity building of stakeholder groups (farmers, water user association groups, irrigation scheme managers, and state and central government departments).IWMI has identified the West Bengal Accelerated Development of Minor Irrigation Project (WBADMIP), Government of West Bengal in India as the vehicle to pilot, validate and showcase water accounting approaches. The aim of the WBADMIP project is to increase agricultural production for at least 100,000 farmers, particularly small and marginal farmers in rainfed single cropped areas of West Bengal. This will be done by providing assured irrigation facilities to cover an area of 75,000 ha.From the irrigation schemes (minor, medium and major) built under WBADMIP and irrigation and waterways department, IWMI has selected some schemes for detailed monitoring and evaluation study under this project. The water accounting and productivity analysis will identify changes in hydrological (water use and availability, water use efficiency), biophysical (water productivity, biomass production, yield) and socioeconomic (income, livelihood, property values) for pre-investment and post-investment time periods.The multi-scale water accounting and productivity tools developed in this study provides a rapid and cost effective approach to understanding the impact of irrigation investments.Alok Sikka, Country Representative -India, IWMI, New Delhi India (a.sikka@cgiar.org) Naga Velpuri, Senior Researcher -Water Accounting and Productivity, IWMI, Sri Lanka (n.velpuri@cgiar.org) Karthikeyan Matheswaran, Researcher -Water Productivity, IWMI, Sri Lanka (k.matheswaran@cgiar.org) Smaranika Mahapatra, Research Officer -Water Resources Management, IWMI, New Delhi India (s.mahapatra@cgiar.org) ","tokenCount":"706"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"57f276ea6a9d6610718b58c8f97c401e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9b389f3f-f253-4676-a952-00878b12273c/retrieve","id":"-58476720"},"keywords":["meso-catchment","Rainfall variability","semi-arid","yield"],"sieverID":"7abba0dc-3387-433e-adad-029db182f2c4","pagecount":"77","content":"Poverty, hunger and malnutrition amongst rural people in semi-arid areas where small scale farming is dominant are widely recognized as major problems. The fact that rural communities of southern Africa reside in marginalized areas which are characterized by low and highly variable rainfall that is poorly distributed exacerbates these problems. Most of their attempts at farming activities result in yields that are way below the expectation of farmers. Sometimes these dryland farmers experience complete crop failure leaving them with nothing to live on, or let alone sell and earn the much needed income. So how then, can a growing community whose main means of survival is at the mercy of nature feed itself? The challenge at hand is to determine how crop productivity can be improved in semi arid areas in the wake of erratic and low rainfall. This research is in line with both the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) number 1, which is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger and the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) which aim to increase national food security. Also the fight against the negative impacts of HIV/Aids cannot be won without the necessary basic nutrition. This investigation tried to investigate the effect of rainfall variability on crop yield under semi-arid conditions at meso-catchment level.Ten portable raingauges were installed at ten locations within Zhulube meso-catchment based on direction of prevailing wind and soil type. In addition to this, seven 10m*10m experimental maize plots were cultivated and a household survey was carried out to assess the farming practices that prevail in the area in order to understand their possible impacts on crop yield.Results have revealed that while there was temporal variability of rainfall in the study area, it was significant in the long-term and insignificant in the short-term. Spatial variation of rainfall was significant in Zhulube meso-catchment in the short-term. It was however not significant enough to cause significant differences in yield. Results from the household survey indicated that despite the villages cultivating common crops with maize being the most common, they exhibited variation in most of the critical farming practices.The majority of the worlds hungry are found in the rainfed regions of the developing world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) (Ngigi, 2003). Despite major investment in irrigation throughout the world over the last 40 to 50 years, only 20% of the total agricultural land worldwide is irrigated (Ngigi, 2003). In Africa, this figure drops to between 2 to 5% depending upon the region (Ngigi, 2003). This means that over ninetyfive percent of the food producing land in SSA is rainfed. Majority of the ninety five percent of the world's 1.1billion farmers live in developing countries of which the majority are smallholder farmers who depend on rainfed agriculture. Their share of global agriculture is very large, amounting to 60% of world currently practiced agriculture (Savenije, et. al, 2003). However, it is still in these developing countries where hunger and poverty are the order of the day in most cases.Of the surface of the earth used for agriculture, two thirds are in the tropics and subtropics. Almost 4 billion people live in these regions accounting for three quarters of the world's population (Sigmund and Gustav, 1991). Most of Southern Africa has a tropical climate which is semi-arid in nature making it prone to prolonged dry spells and drought. Suffice to say that rainfed agriculture is the source of the bulk of world food, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future (Ngigi, 2003).Unfortunately, rainfall variability has a significant impact on crop production, making it risky with high chances of crop failure in the semi-arid areas of the continent that are already marginal for crop production. Drought is a common feature of most agroecosystems, both within and between seasons, and contributes to food insecurity and rural poverty. It is therefore essential that proactive approach to managing rainfall variability is promoted within rural communities most at risk; a step in the right direction as far as achieving the Millennium Development Goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger is concerned.Inspite of the shortcomings highlighted above, agriculture is still and will continue to be the backbone of most African economies. The challenge, therefore, is for researchers to find ways and means of making it a reality. One way of doing this is to make the ordinary small scale farmer living in a marginalized area which is prone to drought self reliant in terms of food production. This study is aimed at determining the extent of rainfall variability and its potential impact on crop yield at meso-catchment level in an effort to identify portions within the meso-catchment (15-45km 2 ) with a relatively high potential for crop production where crop production can be intensified.Rainfed agriculture accounts for more than 95% of the land used for staple food production in Sub-Saharan Africa (FAO, 1995). In semi-arid regions, erratic rainfall pattern is regarded as the most limiting factor to dry-land crop production. It is actually regarded as the main determinant of agricultural activities (Duckham and Masefield, 1985). These areas experience low rainfall which is highly variable and yet people still want to grow staple food crops. Other factors such as soil type, temperature, lack of agricultural inputs and management practice also contribute to a reduction in crop yield.Various improvements for these other factors have been developed, but can only be effective if the required minimum moisture is available to the soil. Although it is known that rainfall variability in semi-arid areas is high, the extent of variability at mesocatchment scale is hardly understood. At catchment level, the main challenge therefore, is to identify meso-catchments which have minimum rainfall variability where water can be conserved for maximum crop production.The agriculture sector highlights perhaps more clearly than any other the extent and severity of potential impacts of rainfall variability on food production, food security and lost livelihoods. One of the great achievements of the 20 th century was the successful expansion of food production to keep pace with the growing demand caused by growing populations. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) estimates that as these two factors continue to push demand upwards, the world will require about 50% more food by 2030, compared to 1998(FAO 2005a)). Rainfall variability will be an important factor in determining whether this can be achieved. This variability, along with the uncertainties of very long -term weather forecasting, especially at the regional level, makes discussions of effects of rainfall variability on crop production tentative at best.Changes in precipitation coupled with characteristic high rates of evapotranspiration exhibited by semi-arid areas may lead to further water shortages and affect soil moisture in some regions of the world. Access to water is a key factor to ensuring food security (UNEP, 2006) The problem of rainfall variability is worsened in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) which is a semi-arid area characterized by erratic and low rainfall. SSA is the only region in the world where average food production per capita has been declining over the last 40 years; yet agriculture continues to be the dominant economic activity, accounting for 70% of total employment, 40% of total exports and 34% of the gross domestic product (GDP) (Ngigi, 2003). Despite the technological advances in agricultural research in recent years, poverty, food insecurity and mal-nutrition still remain major challenges in sub-Saharan Africa (Sanchez and Swaminathan, 2005).It is estimated that at least 25% of the population will be undernourished and living in the dryland areas of sub-Saharan Africa, which already accommodate 70% of the world's poorest communities (Ryan and Spencer, 2001).The alternate hypotheses (H u ):• Significant rainfall variability exists within the meso-catchment • Rainfall variability affects crop yield at meso-catchment scale.• Rainfall variability results in significant differences in crop practices at household level and consequently yield.• There is no significant rainfall variability within the meso-catchment.• Rainfall variability does not affect crop yield at meso-catchment scale.• Rainfall variability does not result in significant differences in crop practices at household level and consequently yield.The overall objective of the study is to show the extent of rainfall variability in the catchment and assess whether this variability gives rise to differences in crop yield at meso-catchment level in a semi-arid area.To show the extent or degree of rainfall variability at meso catchment level and establish whether the difference in rainfall is significant.To show whether rainfall variability is significant enough to cause significant differences in crop yield.To establish whether farmer practice is influenced by rainfall variability.The report is divided into seven chapters.• Chapter one gives a description of the problems addressed by the study, the justification for undertaking the research, the objectives of the study, the activities undertaken in addressing the problems and an outline of the report. • Chapter two presents a review of available literature on rainfall variability, hydro climatic challenges faced by semi-arid areas relating to rainfall, crop yield, farmer practice and livelihoods. • Chapter three gives a description of the study area.• Chapter four presents methods, materials and parameters being investigated • Chapter five presents an analysis of results.• Chapter six discusses the results and gives a highlight of gaps not covered by this study.2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction.Rainfall variability refers to a range of values of rainfall between a particular maximum and minimum over a certain time period. Risk from rainfall is a major limiting factor to agricultural production in Sub-Saharan Africa. This problem is exacerbated in the semiarid regions where rainfall extremes like droughts can lead to famine and result in acute food insecurity for millions of people. The probability of occurrence of unfavorable rainfall events affecting crop performance is the risk associated with rainfall variability (Rotter, 1993). For the resource poor farmer in SSA, the implications of outstandingly good or bad years can be profound thus, for these farmers; the impact of extreme rainfall conditions far outweighs its apparent probability of occurrence (Amissah-Arthur, 2000). Increasingly, adaptation to climate (rainfall) change and variability has become a focus for research and policy in Africa. By using weather forecasts of expected seasonal rainfall, it is possible to determine if the season would be a low, normal or high rainfall season (Rotter, 1993) thus, enabling assessment of the cropping potential of the period or area and risks of yield variability. Such information could also enable tactical intraseasonal crop management planning, decision making and increase the capacity to adapt to climatic variability by reducing vulnerability to rainfall risks. Thus, climate forecasts can support farmers in reducing risk by allowing them to alter their production strategies by taking advantage of opportunities in good years and reduce losses in poor years. However, the abilities to use climate forecasts could be constrained by the options (e.g., draft power, sources of income, crop types/cultivars, fertilizer use etc) available to the farmers.The number of kilograms per hectare that can be obtained through crop production may increase or decrease due to crop responses to rainfall variations. Similarly, the amount of food a household can purchase is influenced by affordability. Affordability is influenced by price fluctuations created by rainfall related variations in production and therefore of food supply.Rainfall variations can affect livelihoods through impacts on trade, such as in the case of livestock trade bans imposed by Middle Eastern countries on the Greater Horn of Africa due to rainfall-related outbreaks of Rift Valley fever, a mosquito-borne virus. Epidemic malaria triggered by climate.A household with a high dependence on rain-fed subsistence crop production is vulnerable to drought (agricultural drought). If that same household is in a region of high rainfall variability, the combination of probable exposure to drought with the household's vulnerability to drought from dependence on rain-fed crops creates risks of the household becoming food insecure. A household with a high dependence on income from mining is not vulnerable to drought. In this latter case, however, fluctuations in the prices of mineral commodities on international markets could constitute a food security hazard. In many parts of the semi-arid tropics climate is highly variable, fluctuating according to quasi-periodic changes in global sea surface temperatures and atmospheric patterns, such as El Niño and the Southern Oscillation. In Africa, areas of highly variable rainfall include the Sahel, the Greater Horn and Southern Africa. All of these areas have been at risk, or have realized the risks, of widespread, prolonged famine associated with drought in combination with the vulnerabilities of household and national economies (Hansen, et. al., 2004) The rapidly increasing population in the tropics and sub-tropics has resulted in increased land use pressures. Agriculture is the major economic activity for the countries of the SSA, engaging between 75% and 85% of the people of those countries. A survey of 277 societies in SSA by Hunt-Davis (1986) showed that approximately 86% depended primarily on agriculture. Thus the livelihood in this region is based on small holder rural agriculture, which in most cases is dominated by resource poor farmers, with low levels of productivity and simple tools, making them over-dependent on the status of the natural environment.With land supply being inelastic, farmers are being faced with the problem of inadequate land on which to grow their crops and feed their families. This has called for researchers and farmers alike to find better ways of intensifying crop production, increase yields and improve household food security and incomes. The challenge facing Africa today is to clearly find a way of achieving these especially for farmers in marginal areas if Africa is to meet the target set by millennium goal number one which states that the proportion of people who suffer from hunger should be halved by 2015.The aim in the past has been on developing new technology, on the assumption that this will lead directly to improvements in crop productivity, food security, and rural welfare. This has not occurred for various reasons; hence the need (goal) to develop and promote practical methods by which resource poor smallholder farmers can improve crop productivity in areas with limited rainfall and poor soils. Technological approach must aim to incorporate agronomic and germplasm approaches and must aim to lead to better agronomic practices that suit the rainfall patterns and soil types of specific areas to ensure sustainability of the cropping system (Rusike and Heinrich, 2001).The term climate refers to long-term weather statistics. Climate is how weather acts over many years. Several methods of grouping areas with similar climatic conditions exist. One method uses the factors that in addition to the sun shape the climate of a region and hence describes climatic regions as being polar, temperate, tropical, and marine among others.In view of the above, most of the Southern African climate is described as being tropical in nature and is either arid or semi-arid. It is characterized by two distinct seasons: the hot wet season (rainy season) from mid-October/November to mid-March and a dry cold season in the winter with countries near the Indian Ocean receiving higher rainfall than those on the Atlantic Ocean. Hence, rainfall in the region is not uniform and is highly variable in both space and time and erratic at the same time (Twomlow, et. al., 2006). Seasonal Precipitation patterns hence the climate in Southern and Eastern Africa are predominantly controlled by the following:• Regional circulation patterns and the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).• Latitude which affects the timing of rainfall minima and maxima.• Topography and aspect, which influence the intensity of the ITCZ and the amount of rainfall; and • Inland lakes such as Lakes Malawi and Tanzania which provide local sources of moisture (Parry, et. al., 1989;Buckle, 1996). Rainfall is a function of climate. It follows then that any change in climatic patterns results in a change in rainfall patterns. For many tropical zones, the overall effect of climate change looks more negative as there maybe increased rainfall variability, increased incidence of extreme weather events, and reduced crop yields. Improvements in crops, techniques of cultivation, and soil and water management may be able to compensate, but increasing food production in these zones will be made much harder (FAO, 2002).Most of the countries in SSA are characterized by a semi-arid climate and important to note is the fact that in the dry areas, water, not land, is the limiting factor in improving agricultural production (Pala and Studer, 1999). It is a well known fact that semi-arid areas tend to experience lower rainfall and high annual rainfall variability resulting in reduced amounts of reliable rainfall between years. Under rainfed conditions, crop growth is subject to the random variability of rainfall in both space (spatial) and time (temporal). As a rule of thumb, the variability of rainfall over time increases with decreasing annual and seasonal rainfall levels. Rainfall variability has an impact on crop production as it is strongly related to crop yields in rainfed agriculture, particularly in semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas where water is a major constraint in food production (Hansen, et. al., 2004).Rainfall is one of the climatic variables that is most critical to measure with regard to crop production. However, it is important to note that there are other agronomic factors like: soil type, temperature, length of growing period, availability of inputs and management (farmer) practices like type of tillage practice, time of planting, variety of crop, plant density, weeding, pest control, fertilizer application; that affect the environment of a crop.Hydro-climatic challenges are considered to be the most limiting in terms of crop production in semi-arid areas because they reduce the amount of water available to the crop in order for it to reach maturity and are in most cases very difficult and expensive to manipulate. They are essentially responsible for setting the boundary conditions of potential yields (Savenije, et. al., 2003).Hydro-climatic challenges are the water-related problems in rain-fed agriculture in the water-scarce tropics that often relate to high-intensity rainfall with large spatial and temporal variability, rather than to low cumulative volumes of rainfall (Wallace and Batchelor, 1997;Rockström, 2000;Hatibu, et. al., 2003). Coefficients of variation range from 20 to 40%, increasing as seasonal rainfall averages decrease. The overall result of unpredictable spatial and temporal rainfall patterns indicates a very high risk for meteorological droughts and intra seasonal dry spells. The annual (seasonal) variation in rainfall can typically range from a low of one-third of the long-term average to a high of approximately double the average; meaning that a high-rainfall year can have some six times higher rainfall than a dry year. Generally, the hydro-climatic focus in semi-arid and dry sub-humid tropics is on the occurrence of meteorological droughts. Meteorological droughts are defined on the basis of the degree of inadequacy of precipitation, in comparison to a normal or average amount and the duration of the dry period. Their impact on rain-fed agriculture is complete crop failure, which statistically, for semi-arid lands, occurs about once every 10 years (Stewart, 1988).However research from several semi-arid tropical regions show that the occurrence of dry spells, i.e. short periods of 2-4 weeks with no rainfall, by far exceeds that of droughts. Stewart (1988), based on research in East Africa, indicated that severe yield reductions due to dry spells occur once or twice in 5 years, and Sivakumar (1993) showed that the frequency of seasonal dry spells lasting 10-15 days was independent of long-term seasonal averages, which range from 200 to 1200 mm in West Africa. Rockstrom, et. al., (2003), studying the frequency of dry spells in semi-arid locations in Kenya and Tanzania, showed a minimum probability (based on statistical rainfall analysis) of 0.2-0.3 for a dry spell lasting more than 10 days at any time of the growing season of a crop, and a probability of 0.7 for such a dry spell to occur during the sensitive flowering stage for maize.Occurrence of dry spells can be categorized depending on the threshold value being used to define a period which can either be a day, week or months depending on parameters being investigated.Mitigation of intra-seasonal dry spells is a key to improving water productivity in rainfed agriculture in semi-arid and dry sub-humid tropical environments. Rockström, et. al., identified three major avenues to achieve this:Maximize plant water availability (maximize infiltration of rainfall, minimize unproductive water losses(evaporation), increase soil water-holding capacity and maximize root depth)Maximize water uptake capacity of plants (timeliness of operations, crop management and soil fertility management). Dry spell mitigation using supplemental irrigation.Although water may be primarily limiting for agricultural production and crop growth (Zingore, et. al., 2006), the instant soil water is available nutrient deficiency will be the limiting factor. Obviously the two states will alternate during crop season and in the end determine the final yields (Gregory, et. al., 2000). Lack of available soil nutrients and low input of fertilizer in small holder farmers have been thoroughly researched upon and discussed in studies by Zingore, et. al., 2006 andPool, 2001) Several studies have showed the interaction of soil water and nutrients for semi-arid farming conditions (Klaij and Vachaud, 1992;Boumar, et. al., 1982;Rockstrom, et. al., 1999;Fox and Rockstrom, 2000) which emphasize the need to secure water availability in order to improve crop nutrient uptake.The size, shape, and arrangement of the soil particles and the associated voids (pores) determine the ability of a soil to retain water. It is important to realize that large pores in the soil can conduct more water more rapidly than fine pores. In addition, removing water from large pores is easier and requires less energy than removing water from smaller pores. Soil texture is one of the most important properties of soil that helps to determine the nutrient-supplying ability of soil solids and the supply of water and air that support plant life. Silt and clay soils are finely textured and sustain slow water and air movement.They have a high water-holding capacity because they consist of a high percentage of pores. Silt and clay soils are referred to as heavy soils, with clay being the heavier of the two. Soil compaction on the other hand reduces the size of pores that hold air and water resulting in significantly reduced plant growth. Another important factor that tends to have a bearing on availability of water to plants is the soil organic fraction which serves as a nutrient source and helps to maintain soil moisture (Miller, 1971). The proportions of clay, silt and organic matter are different depending on soil type.Soil pH is one of the most important characteristics of soil fertility because it has a direct impact on nutrient availability and growth. It also affects the adaptability of plants to a given soil. Although there are exceptions, the preferred pH range for most plants is between 5.5 and 7.5. Legumes prefer higher pH (pH values of 6.2 -7.0) than do grasses (pH values of 5.8 -6.5) (Bandel and John, 2002). Phosphorous tends to be available between pH 6.0 and 7.5. Elements such as iron; aluminium and manganese are especially soluble in acid soils. Above pH 7.0, calcium, magnesium and sodium are increasingly soluble (Miller, 1971).The range of water available to plants is between field capacity (FC) and the permanent wilting point (PWP). The soil is at field capacity when all the gravitational water has been drained and a vertical movement of water due to gravity is negligible. Further water removal for most of the soils will require at least 7 kPa tensions. The PWP is defined as the point where there is no more water available to the plant and depends on plant variety, but is usually around 1500 kPa (15 bars). This means that in order for plants to remove water from the soil, it must exert a tension of more than 1500 kPa (15 bars). This is the limit for most plants and beyond this they experience permanent wilting. Therefore, soils which hold significant amounts of water at tension in the range plants are able to exert (up to 1500 kPa (15 bars) of tension) will provide better water supply for plant growth.Water, soil and plant deficiencies affect two main crop processes which determine crop yield and growth. These are: Crop water availability Crop water uptake capacity. It is therefore very important to address these processes as we attempt to improve crop yield, assess water required in crop production and in estimating what water management options to adopt. Water availability is a function of the interaction between amount of rainfall received and potential evapotranspiration (PET). Potential evapotranspiration rates that are two to four times the annual mean rainfall makes an area vulnerable to prolonged droughts. On the other hand, lower evaporation and transpiration rates tend to increase the effectiveness of the rain received; although this may not be enough to recharge the soil moisture reserves in the rooting zone. Crop water availability is the amount of plant available soil moisture in the root zone at any given moment in time during crop growth. It is determined by the following factors:Rainfall depths (mm) and distribution Amount of rainfall that infiltrates the soil Amount of rainfall that has infiltrated that can be held in the soil and made available to the plant.Crop water uptake is defined as the capacity of the crop to take up water and is determined by factors such as: Crop variety Soil fertility management Soil structureCrop water availability should be secured during the entire period of the crop growing cycle and crop water uptake kept at a maximum if full potential of crop in terms of yield is to be achieved. Frequency and depth of rain and irrigation have a pronounced effect on grain yield. Maize appears relatively tolerant to water deficits during the vegetative (1) and ripening (4) periods. Greatest decrease in grain yields is caused by water deficits during the flowering period (2) including tasselling and silking and pollination, due mainly to a reduction in grain number per cob. This effect is less pronounced when in the preceding vegetative period (1) the plant has suffered water deficits. Severe water deficits during the flowering period (2), particularly at the time of silking and pollination, may result in little or no grain yield due to silk drying. Water deficits during the yield formation period (3) may lead to reduced yield due to a reduction in grain size. Water deficit during the ripening period (4) has little effect on grain yield (Al-Kaisi, et. al., 2005) When evaporative conditions correspond to ET m of 5 to 6 mm/day, soil water depletion up to about 55 percent of available soil water (Sa) has a small effect on yield (p = 0.55).To enhance rapid and deep root growth a somewhat greater depletion during early growth periods can be advantageous. Depletion of 80 percent or more may be allowed during the ripening period.Although in deep soils the roots may reach a depth of 2 m, the highly branched system is located in the upper 0.8 to 1 m and about 80 percent of the soil water uptake occurs from this depth. Normally 100 percent of the water is taken up from the first 1 to 1.7 m soil depth (D = 1 to 1.7 m). Depth and rate of root growth is, however, greatly affected by rainfall pattern and irrigation practices adopted. In addition to soil water and nutrient status, root development is strongly influenced by textural and structural stratification, salts and water table.Many dry-area soils are inherently low in fertility, as was pointed out before, and the correct application of fertilizers is therefore essential. Extensive work in Syria (Pala, et. al., 1996) demonstrated the benefits of appropriate fertilization for Water Productivity (WP) and therefore for production and yield stability. Water plays a significant role in fertilizer-use efficiency. Improved fertility improves WP and can therefore stabilize production and enable crops to exploit favorable rainfall in good years. Given the inherent low fertility of many dry-area soils, judicious use of fertilizer is particularly important. Under rainfed conditions, the application rate of N fertilizer is not high. In northern Syria, 50 kg N ha_ -1 was sufficient under rain-fed conditions. However, with water applied by supplementary irrigation, the crop responded to nitrogen up to 100 kg N ha -1 after which no benefit was obtained. This rate of N greatly improves WP.There are 16 identified elements that are essential to plant growth. Three of these elements are obtained mostly from air and water: they are carbon (C), hydrogen (H), and oxygen (O). The other 13 essential elements come from soil solids and are the elements we tend to focus on in plant fertility management. The 13 essential plant nutrients are divided into three categories based on the amount of the element required for plant growth. The nutrients and their categories are as indicated in the table below: Plants require primary nutrients in high amounts, secondary nutrients in lesser amounts, and micronutrients in only small amounts. Whether a nutrient is primary, secondary, or a micronutrient, it is essential to plant growth. A deficiency in any one of the essential nutrients will restrict plant growth.Yield is usually measured in kilograms per hectare and can either be biological or Economical. Biological yield refers to the total biomass produced by a plant where as economic yield refers to the component of the plant which is of economic value to the producer or consumer. Yield may be measured using the following methods:• Biomass analysis-which measures how a crop accumulates dry matter and • Harvest Index (H.I)-which is the ratio of economic yield to the biological yield and is always a fraction. Where only certain part of the plant is harvested the H.I will be less than one. In the case of forages the H.I is one (100%).The literature above shows that it is a well known fact that Southern Africa in which the study area is located is characterized by low and erratic rainfall which exhibits high spatial and temporal variation; and that this impacts negatively on crop production. However, this literature only gives a general picture of the whole concept of rainfall variability. It is not site specific and has been silent on the degree of the variability or the degree of its associated impacts regarding crop yield and failure to specific areas; previous studies on rainfall variability involved long term weather focusing usually at a global or regional level. Such studies makes discussions of rainfall variability at a local scale not be conclusive. Thus this study aims to address the degree of rainfall variability, the degree of its effect on crop yield and the resulting effects arising from these at a smaller scale (meso-catchment).3.0 STUDY AREAMzingwane catchment is one of the seven catchment areas as demarcated by the new water legislation that was promulgated in 1998. It is located in the semi arid region of Zimbabwe and is divided into four sub-catchments. Mzingwane is part of the Limpopo basin, located in South-eastern Africa. The Limpopo basin covers 1.3% of the continent and spreads over four countries: Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe.  which are of poor quality as they are infertile and deficient in nitrates, phosphates and sulphur (Burt. et .al., 2001).This, coupled with rising populations have placed an increasing burden on the already poor soils (Moyo, 2004).In addition to the above, these soils are referred to as light soils as opposed to being heavier soils and have lower water holding capacities because they consist of a low percentage of pores. Soils in this area also tend to exhibit low proportions of clay and silt further exacerbating their ability to hold water. In view of the above, chances of residual moisture at planting are negligible and even if there was any it would be in quantities that would not even be available for use by the plant and would be outside the root zone. The root zone is considered to be the 2mm depth from soil surface.The types of farmers found in SSA are mostly the small-scale farmers (rainfed) and smallholder irrigation scheme farmers. The majority of farmers are the small holder farmers who depend on rainfall which is rather erratic and highly variable and unpredictable. In addition, agro-climatic information for smallholder farmers to enhance their productivity is not just limited but mostly unknown by the people Therefore, food production is low and household food insecurity is common (IIRR 1998).The main crops grown during the wet season are maize, groundnut and beans. Wheat and vegetables are grown during the dry season under irrigation.The five major crops grown by both commercial and small holder farmers in southern Africa in 1998 were groundnuts (Arachis hypogaea L), maize(Zea-mays), sorghum (Sorghum bicolour L), pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum L) and cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) (FAO, 1999a). Maize is by far the most dominant crop, favored by both large and small scale farmers alike, with more than 13million hectares in 1998, 70% of the total area cropped. Despite the inadequacies of the rainfall and a marginal resource base, maize continues to be the dominant crop and accounts for the caloric intake of most urban and rural populations in the region. This is so due to the following reasons:• Many households, both urban and rural prefer the taste of maize over their traditional small grain crops; • In many countries maize is given out in drought relief programs, both as food and seed( Rohrbach and Kiala,2002) • Current pricing policies in much of sub-Saharan Africa and underdeveloped rural grain markets make maize more economically attractive (Tripp and Rohrback,2001) • Traditional small grain crops, particularly sorghum are attacked by birds;• Maize is less labor intensive than other crops, a major consideration for many households with labor shortages, and last but not least.Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and their partners in Africa consistently out yield other cereals (Johnson,1992 andTwomlow et al., 2006) • Maize can be eaten greenThe study area (Zhulube meso-catchment) is located in the upper Mzingwane Catchment in Insiza District which is one of the six districts in Matebeleland South Province. It is in southern rural Zimbabwe where water is a vital and scarce commodity. Insiza district comprises 18 wards. Eleven of these including ward one where the study area is located within the Mzingwane Catchment. The area can be classified as being semi-warm, sub-humid, with a summer rainfall regime occurring in convectional storms of short duration and high intensity. Mean annual rainfall is around 550 mm and mean annual temperatures range between 12 o C and 29 o C (meteorological records of Filabusi: 1931Filabusi: -2001)). Temperatures are minimum and maximum in June-July and October respectively. Summer temperatures can be as high as 40 o C.The principal river of the catchment is the Zhulube River whose source is in a seasonal wetland in granite terrain around Mahole village, in the southeast of the catchment, and flows westwards, then southwest to the Mzingwane River. It is fed by one major right bank tributary (variously designated Geneva or Tshazi River), which flows from the  The study area has a small dam built for irrigation purposes by World Vision in 2003, but used as a multi-purpose reservoir by the local community. It is downstream of an older dam, which is now completely silted up. It is typical for such structures to fulfil various uses like drinking water, domestic use, livestock watering and irrigation (Sawunyama, et. al., 2005) The soils in the area are predominantly sandy in nature. These soils are classified as being light soils as opposed to being heavy soils and generally have low water holding capacities. In view of the above, chances of residual moisture at planting are negligible and even if there was any it would be in quantities that would not even be available for use by the plant and would be outside the root zone.The area comprises a mixed land use system consisting of cropland, pastureland and woodland (Hearn, et. al., 2001).Small scale rainfed agriculture is the most prevalent type of cropping. Irrigation farming facilitated by the presence of irrigation schemes such as the Zhulube irrigation scheme is also practiced.The parameters being investigated and the tools used to investigate them including statistical software packages are outlined in this section.This study involved the study of rainfall using existing rainfall data collected over a period of at least 25 years so as to show whether it is variable or not. This data was important for the establishment of trends which could then be incorporated in to the planning processes for agricultural related activities. Since Zhulube had no long term data required for such a study, a nearby station was used.Existing daily rainfall data from 1965 to 1994(source: meteorological department of Zimbabwe) for the neighbouring area of Filabusi was used to study the long term rainfall trends of Zhulube meso-catchment. This station was selected on the basis of proximity to the study area and data availability.Rainfall data was analyzed for trends in variability and occurrence of dry spells in two parts: firstly for the entire 30 year period and secondly at five year intervals. The analysis was partitioned in this way in order to allow for comparison based on the duration of the datasets.Effective rainfall was used as a threshold for determination of rain days and / or dry days in order to allow for the estimation of dry spells. A dryday was described as a day with zero or negative effective rainfall and a spell was defined as a specified period with zero or negative rainfall. For the purpose of this study only dry spells lasting 10 days or more were considered as dryspells because these are the ones that tend to have a profound effect on the survival of most crops including maize.Effective rainfall is defined as that part of rainfall which can be used for crop growth including rainfall intercepted by plant foliage, rainfall that can enter and be stored in the root zone. It is generally the only water source for rainfed crops (Moyo, 2005). Effective rainfall was calculated using equations 1 and 2 (Brouwer and Heibloem, 1986) considering that not all the received rainfall is available to plants.Effective rainfall = 0.8* P-25 if rain > 75mm/month Equation 1Effective rainfall = 0.6* P-10 if rain < 75mm/month Equation 2where P = total rainfall per month First recommended planting dates were identified using the AREX criterion (Raes, et. al., 2004). Two criteria are currently in use in Zimbabwe, the AREX criterion of the Agricultural Research Extension (25mm rainfall in 7 days) and the MET criterion of the department of Meteorological Services (40mm in 15 days). The AREX criterion was found to be appropriate for this study because of the amount of rainfall that it receives and the distribution pattern. Following this a threshold of 25mm rainfall over a period of seven days was used to determine the earliest planting dates (Raes, et. al., 2004).Data handling and processing was done using micro-soft excel in which t-tests and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were carried out. Descriptive statistics was also employed using instat version 3.33 statistical software package (Instat Plus v 3.33, 2005).This involved field work in which daily rainfall data was recorded in a record book and later analyzed for trends in that particular season. A comparison was also done in which this data was compared with data for the previous season which was collected in a similar way.Initially 10 raingauges were to be stationed in the catchment and the criteria for choosing the location of these was based on the following: Geographic location of the catchment in terms of direction of prevailing wind. In view of this the following sites were identified as being suitable: Windward side-Mahole business center, Zhulube Clinic, Tshazi Secondary School and Tshazi Primary School; Midveld -Nkomo, N'cube, Mlalazi and Moyo; Leeward side Khumalo, St. Matthews Primary School and Mafu. However, two of these sites namely Nkomo and Ncube were found to be in possession of rain gauges which were installed by another researcher earlier.The soil type was another factor that was considered and as such gauges were placed in such a way that they would cover the principle soil types of the catchment which were identified as sand, sandy loam and loamy sand. In addition to these, security was also identified as an important aspect of the sampling protocol. The raingauges had to be at a place which was not isolated so as to reduce on chances of them being vandalized; and for a place to be secure it had to have people around and enclosed to avoid both human and livestock interference. Based on this, public places such as schools, business centers, clinic and private places such as people's homesteads were identified as being relatively secure; thereafter, the final decision was now based on willingness of people occupying the so called secure area to allow the researcher to put up a rain gauge, willingness and ability to read rain gauge and distance and ease of access to area. The above mentioned locations were then identified as being suitable.The raingauges were placed well away from buildings, trees, shrubs and other obstruction on level or nearly level ground at a height of between 0.7m and 1.2m above the ground (Manual of the Department of Meteorological Services of Zimbabwe, 1974).Daily rainfall readings were taken and recorded in a record book by the researcher with the help of field assistants. Results of the recordings are as indicated in appendix A. The readings were taken before eight o'clock in the morning of each day. Readings had to be read in the morning when the effect of evaporation was considered to be minimum or negligible.Missing data for some stations was calculated using nearby stations. This was done using Microsoft excel data analysis tools in which correlation analysis was done to establish if two stations were related. Correlation involves comparing two stations (an independent and dependent). The dependent station refers to the station with missing data. If a correlation exists then missing data is calculated using regression analysis function in excel. After regression analysis, an x-variable is obtained and used to calculate the missing values. A correlation of greater than 70% between two stations is sufficient.A form of quality control check was performed on the observed rainfall data in which inhomogeneities (particularly jumps) in the time series were investigated using the principle of double mass analysis in which accumulated values of the station under investigation were plotted against accumulated values of another station, or accumulated values of the average of other stations, over the same time period. A monthly time series spanning over a period of seven months (October to April) was used. Inhomogeneities were indicated by inflections in the straight line of a curve of a double mass plot.Daily rainfall data was analyzed for trends in variability and occurrence of dryspells. Seasonal comparison was done between 2004/05 and the 2006/07 cropping seasons. Spatial and temporal variability of rainfall was shown graphically and statistically.Data handling and processing was done using excel in which t-tests and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA were carried out. Descriptive statistics was also employed using instat version 3.33 statistical software package.Maize being the widely grown crop was used in the establishment of crop yield. Both as food for man and feed for animals, maize is one of the most important crop in world agricultural economy. It has yield potential far higher than any other cereal. Maize performance was assessed in terms of the biomass produced. Biomass measures how a crop accumulates dry matter and was determined using bio-mass analysis based on total dry weight. The main purpose of evaluating maize performance was in order to relate it to rainfall trends in the area so as to show whether rainfall variability results in significant differences in yield.A seeding rate of 3 maize seeds (SC 403) per station was employed and the other requirements were as indicated below: Thinning of the weaker plants was done during the second weeding at six weeks so as to achieve a population of one plant per station. The reason for a uniform cropping calendar for all maize plots was in order to have all the above as constants so as to be able to investigate the effects of rainfall and soil on the yield. Monitoring for germination dates and percentages was done. Plant height was also measured 30 days after planting (refer to table)Seven experimental plots were cultivated using conventional tillage methods. These experimental plots were located within the areas where seven of the raingauges were placed and were chosen based on amount of rainfall received, soil type and willingness of farmers to have them on their fields, seriousness of farmer in terms of ability to follow instructions and also ability to implement these instructions and easiness of monitoring. The plots were being monitored by farmers themselves under the supervision of the researcher.Sampling for height was done as part of field monitoring by randomly selecting 20 plants per plot. An average was calculated to give the average height per plot Sampling for biomass was done twice; at flowering and grain filling stages respectively. It involved a random selection of five plants per plot. The sample was weighed to determine the fresh weight. Thereafter it was oven dried in an oven at sixty degrees Celsius for 48 hours. Biomass was then determined by weighing the dried sample to give a crop biomass based on its dry weight (Table 5.8). The difference between the fresh and dry weights is the moisture contained in the plant.Sampling for soil involved sampling randomly at five locations per maize plot at a depth of 0.30m.After sampling the soils from the different points on the plot were mixed to give one sample per plot. The samples were then taken to University of Zimbabwe soil science laboratory for testing and analysis (refer to appendix E).The effects of rainfall, soil type and soil type and rainfall on maize yield were investigated. In order to determine the influence of rainfall on biomass, a comparison was done in which areas with similar soil type were grouped and their biomass plotted against rainfall received. This was done in order to standardize soil type and sampling time so that the biomass could be investigated on the basis of rainfall alone. An assumption that rainfall prior to planting had no effect on amount of biomass produced was made.Secondly, the role of soil type in crop yield was looked at. In this analysis, biomass and rainfall were the variate and covariate respectively where as soil type was the factor being investigated.Lastly, the effect of the interaction of soil type and rainfall on biomass was investigated. This analysis incorporated location as well as the day of sampling within a location (as a random term) bearing in mind that location and date of sampling can bring about variability in terms of biomass.Data handling and processing was done in excel to illustrate the relationship that exists between rainfall and biomass. In the second and third instances, data was managed and processed using an analysis of covariant (ANCOVA) and the residual maximum likelihood (REML) variance components analysis statistical model respectively. These two were facilitated by Genstat Release 9.1 statistical software package.Interviews were held with farmers by use of household questionnaires. The major purpose was to assess the farming practices that prevail in the area in order to understand their possible impacts on crop yield.The catchment of interest comprises six villages namely Siyapambili, Asibambanani, Mpumelelo, Thuthuka, Thandanani and Masiyepambili. The villages were being considered for the study based on their spatial location and expected differences in soil type, total rainfall received and farming techniques. Following this, ten small scale farmers were interviewed per village resulting in a total of sixty cases. The individual farmers who were interviewed were randomly selected.Variables were formulated from survey questions. The variables and responses from variables were then coded and subjected to Statistical Package Social Scientists (SPSS) for analysis and narrative information was directly transcribed. Frequencies were performed on cases to see if there were any significant differences between the cases or villages. Thereafter, cross tabulations (two-way tables) were run to view frequencies of cases at different levels. This was followed by the use of descriptive statistics which was employed to give a comparison of means, standard deviations and sums.Filabusi station located in a semi-arid area close to Zhulube meso-catchment was undertaken to assess long-term trends and changes in rainfall characteristics. The historical rainfall data gave an indication of variability in annual rainfall for the different years as indicated below (Figure 5.1). The rainfall varied around a mean of 533mm between 1965 and 1994. The longest low rainfall period was observed between 1983 -1983 and 1987-and 1989. A similar cluster of low rainfall years was reported between 1992 -1994. There was a continuous three year period of rainfall below the long term annual mean of 533mm (Figure 5.2) 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1 9 6 5 1 9 6 7 1 9 6 9 1 9 7 1 1 9 7 3 1 9 7 5 1 9 7 7 1 9 7 9 1 9 8 1 1 9 8 3 1 9 8 5 1 9 8 7 1 9 8 9 1 9 9 1 1 9 9 3 1 9 9 5 Year Annual rainfall(mm) The coefficient of variation of 34% for the entire period of 30 years indicated highly variable rainfall for the station (table 5.1). A t-test for significance revealed that p = 4.36E-28(< 0.01), two tailed at 95% confidence level meaning that the means of rainfall for the different years of interest were highly significantly different from each other and the difference could not be attributed to chance alone ( see table 5.2). In this relationship, the association of variables is very weak and yet it is strongly significant; this usually happens in large samples where even weak associations maybe found to be significant. Also two variables maybe strongly ,but not significantly associated; this may happen in small samples .It is important to note that significant coefficients not only reflect the strength of association, but also sample size. This is why researchers should report measures of both significance and association. The historical data shows that 17 years out of 31years had rainfall below the long term average of 533mm/annum. Annual rainfall figures were subtracted from the long term mean so as to show their degrees of departure from it and consequently the rainfall variability (figure 5.2 below). In this analysis the x-axis represented the annual mean.Thirteen years had rainfall above the long term average. The lowest and highest annual rainfall was 251mm in 1970 and 1083mm in1977, respectively. Results showed a high variation in rainfall at five year intervals. This was indicated by the CV which was found to be 24% as shown in the table below. The calculated F value of 1.26 was less than the critical F of 2.62 value meaning that there were significant differences in rainfall received among the five year intervals ( see table 5.4) Above results of long term rainfall trends indicated a generally very high temporal variation both over the entire 30 year period and at five year intervals respectively for the area. The annual (seasonal) variation ranged from a low of approximately 0.3 of the long term average to a high of approximately double the average. This means that a high rainfall year can have approximately seven times rainfall higher than a dry year. The year 1977 shows that the area exhibited an annual rainfall way above the normal for the area probably due to the presence of cyclone Emilie which passed through Bulawayo in January of that year. Other cyclone months and years include Jan, 1976;January, 1986;February, 1997;February, 2000 andFebruary, 2003. These years received rainfall of 79mm, 176mm, 63mm, 153mm and 204mm during the specified months. Cyclones can cause above normal rainfall or a drought depending on their nature. An example of a drought causing cyclone is the elnino (year) which hit most parts of Southern Africa. Consecutive low rainfall years are observed in 1983 -1986, 1987-1989 and 1992-1994.Annual rainfall oscillated between a high and a low value every 2-3 years. The high temporal variability and lack of a clearly defined rainfall cycle illustrate the unpredictability of the rainfall.Planting dates varied between the months of October, November and December respectively during the entire 30 year period and the specific earliest planting dates as described by the AREX criterion were as indicated in table 5.5 below. The frequency and duration of dryspells before and after planting are also indicated in the same table. The cropping season was described as being good, fair or bad based on the frequency of dryspells and number of drydays after planting. These two factors are very important because they give an indication of the duration of dryspells and specific number of drydays. Generally a maize plant requires a minimum of 90 days as growing period. Currently there certain maize varieties which have been bred and improved so much that they can have a minimum of less than 90 days as growing period; but for the purpose of this research 90 days will be considered as the minimum requirement. It was therefore, used as the basis for defining an acceptable number of drydays in a growing season which were then used to characterise a season as being good or bad in as far as growing of maize was concerned. The following bands were used: Good: Less than 45 drydays Fair: 45 -60 drydays Bad: Greater than 60 drydays.The periods from 1965 -1969, 1970-1974, 1975 -1979, 1980 -1984 and 1990 -1994 had one good year each with the exception of the period 1985 -1989 which had no record of a good season at all. However, the 1970s in addition to having two good years also had four fair seasons unlike the eighties which had only one good season and no fair season at all. From this it can be seen that the 1970s were better than the 1980s. Bad seasons occur characteristically in runs of 2-5 seasons rather than singly. This results in severe food shortages.observer, raingauge type or a disturbance in the position of the raingauge or taking of wrong readings by the observer.  Spatial rainfall variability in terms of total rainfall on location during the cropping season existed in the catchment and its extent was depicted in the CV which was greater than 20% (see table 5.6). The spatial variation ranged from a low of 0.4 of the long term annual average to a high of approximately equal to the long term average. This means that a relatively high rainfall area can have approximately two times rainfall higher than a relatively dry area. The variation in rainfall was mainly due to location of areas in terms of direction of prevailing wind and topography. Areas located in the wind ward direction tended to experience relatively higher rainfall than those on the leeward side. Also an area bound by mountains may experience more rain since as the air attempts to pass through them, it is forced to rise upward as its path gradually narrows down forcing it to release warm air resulting in a rainfall event. The area therefore oscillates from semi-arid to arid conditions.The farmers are, however, unable to take advantage of the wetter areas owing to their unpredictability in terms of temporal variation. Resource-poor farmers have no choice but to invest in low input production systems to minimize their losses in bad years. Hence low and erratic rainfall is one of the main factors influencing the type and amount of farmers' investments in these semi-arid conditions.   The graph below indicates temporal rainfall variability within the study area during the 2006/2007 cropping season. This was indicated by the CV which was greater than 20%. However, this variability was found to be insignificant. Highest rainfall was received in the month of December while the lowest was in October (figure 5 The variability depicted above however, proved not to be significant statistically since the p=0.03 ( > 0.01), two tailed at 95% confidence level meaning that the means of rainfall for the different months were not different from each other and the observed differences were due to chance alone. Monthly totals of rainfall were plotted against cropping season to show the intraseasonal (temporal) variation and the results were as indicated in the graph below. Descriptive statistics for inter-seasonal rainfall variation were performed for the 2005/06 and 2006/07 cropping seasons and the results showed a high variation of rainfall between the two seasons (see table 5.9). The resulting CV of 40% showed that inter-seasonal rainfall variation was high but insignificant at p=0.17( > 0.01), two tailed at 95% confidence level meaning that the means of rainfall for the two seasons were not statistically different from each other. The earliest planting dates basically varied between the third week of November and the first week of January within Zhulube meso-catchment. The approximate earliest planting dates for Mlalazi, Moyo, Clinic, Nkomo, Ncube and Khumalo were as indicated in the table below. During the study planting took place on 31 st December, 2006. This was rather late for Mlalazi, Moyo, Clinic and Ncube. The late planting could have contributed to the poor yield that was obtained in these areas. Planting at Nkomo and Khumalo was, however, within the calculated range for earliest planting dates. These dates (estimated planting dates) were followed by dryspells in excess of 25 days resulting in poor establishment of crop and consequently in yields below the normal for the area. Generally all sites were characterized by dryspells in all months and at all stages of plant growth. The duration of the majority of these dryspells was above 20 days which is unacceptable for most food crops. It is such things that make farmers in this area not take farming seriously and not bother to invest in it. They would rather engage themselves in informal businesses or gold panning activities for income generation. The criteria used to describe the cropping season is similar to the one used in the long term rainfall data above. The results indicated in the table below are typical for the area as indicated by the results of the long-term rainfall data. Generally, the frequency of dryspells ranged between 4 and 5. But for the purpose of this study dryspells that occurred after planting and lasting two weeks or more were considered because these are the ones that had a profound impact on biological yield and consequently the economical yield. In view of this the following results were established: Mlalazi, Moyo, Clinic and Khumalo had 3 dryspells whereas Nkomo and Ncube had 2 dryspells each. Nkomo recorded the least number of drydays after planting. This partly explains why Nkomo also recorded the highest amount of biomass for the area. The frequency and duration of dryspells had a profound effect on crop yield. The crop was exposed to conditions of water stress at flowering at all sites. This negatively affected the plant and consequently the yield.Biomass (dry weight) produced per location ranged between 0.16 kg/m 2 to 0.75kg/m 2 (see table 5.12). The highest amount of biomass produced was recorded at Nkomo's field where as the least was recorded at the Khumalos. The clinic site and Moyo both had a biomass of 0.75kg/m 2 and yet the former had relatively higher rainfall; this was due to the differences in soil type. The soil at Moyo had a relatively higher water holding capacity which compensated for the lower rainfall that it received at time of sampling in relation to the clinic site. Another interesting result involved Mlalazi and Khumalo where the two had biomass amount which was almost similar at 0.48kg/m2 and 0.47kg/m2 respectively. This was inspite of Mlalazi having a relatively higher amount of rainfall. This also was as a result of differences in soil type and characteristics which related to pH, water holding capacities, organic matter and silt contents( see appendix E) Maize requires fertile, deep and well-drained soils. Although, it can be grown on any type of soil, ranging from deep heavy clays to light-sandy ones, it is best adapted to well drained sandy loam to silty loam soils. It is, however, necessary that the pH of the soil does not deviate from the range of 7.5 to 8.5. Laboratory tests revealed that all plots had soils with pH below the stated range (see appendix E). This negatively affected availability of nutrients to the plant resulting in an overall low yield for the area during the 2006/2007 growing season. This coupled with the fact that all soils are light -sandy soils(see appendix E) which greatly facilitate drainage, but have a relatively poor water-holding capacity and the high frequency of prolonged dryspells made it impossible for the study to obtain any data on economic yield and consequently the harvest index could not be calculated. The graphical representation of the relationship between rainfall and biomass was done based on the available data sets. In addition to this, the effect of rainfall on biomass was determined firstly across all the available soil types (figure 5.9) and secondly on sites with similar soil type so as to rule out the effect of soil interaction (figures 5.10-5.12).The comparison of yield among the six fields was based on the first sampling alone because in the second sampling, two of the fields were damaged by livestock resulting in an incomplete data set.Within the life cycle of an organ, a plant or crop, the total crop growth duration can be divided in to three sub-phases; an early accelerating phase; a linear phase; and a saturation phase for ripening (Goudriaan and van Laar, 1994). Therefore, the growth pattern typically follows a sigmoid curve, and the growth rate a bell shaped curve. However, the bell shaped curve could not be depicted in this case due to the fact that the plants which were being looked at in this case were at the same stage of growth. In addition to this, there was lack of frequent sampling per plot due to logistical problems. Frequent sampling per plot could have captured plant growth at different stages and would have thus made it possible to show the typical bell shaped curve. What can be seen, however is the maize plant at the same stage of growth responding differently depending on amount of rainfall received and soil type(see figure 5 .9). It is also quite clear from the graphs (Figures 5.9-5.12) that there is a direct relationship between biomass and rainfall. The table below (Table 5.13) shows that p=0.02 (> 0.01), two tailed meaning that there were no significant differences in yield. Earlier results have indicated that there is the presence of significant spatial variability in the catchment. This spatial variability was, however, not significant enough to cause significant differences in yield. The effect of soil on biomass was found to be relatively highly significant with an Fprobability of less than 0.001.Therefore Fpr = <0.001(<0.05) meaning the amount of biomass is a function of soil type. The F-pr. for the covariate (rainfall) was 0.004 and since it was less than 0.05, it was concluded that the effect of rainfall was also significant in this case. The chi pr = 0.001(<0.05) for both soil type and rainfall. This indicated a high significant influence of the interaction of the two variables on biomass. The frequency and duration of dryspells had a profound effect on crop yield. The 2006/07 cropping season was not a good season for cropping maize in Zhulube meso-catchment because all the areas experienced rainfall below the normal for the area. This situation was exacerbated by the long duration of dryspells. All areas experienced at least two long dryspells after planting which resulted in three quarters of the growing season having no rainfall events at all. Thus, the crop was negatively affected at all stages of growth. This was probably the reason for the crop not having any economic yield.The observed differences in yield could have been as a result of differences in soil type, slopes of fields and rainfall intensity because they influence the infiltration of water in to the soil. In addition to this, yield is also affected by farming practices employed by the farmer and timeliness of these practices. Also, high rainfall may not necessarily be synonymous with high yield because of the above mentioned factors.Of the people interviewed 33.3% were female while 66.7% were male. Assuming that the numbers of people who can provide labour were in the age groups of 7 -17 and 18-40 respectively, the total number of people who were able to work in the fields were 40, 45, 52, 62, 63 and 65 for Masiyepambili, Siyapambili, Asibambanani, Mpumelelo, Thandanani and Thuthuka respectively. The percentages of female headed households per village were 10,20,40,50 and 60% respectively for Masiyepambili, Thuthuka and Mpumelelo, Siyapambili and Asibambanani respectively. Eighty percent of the people in Insiza district ward one regard number of livestock owned as a major indicator of wealth followed by farm equipment at. The frequencies of people owning livestock and other physical assets per village were as indicated in the table below: There were significant differences in terms of formal training whereas with respect to informal training the villages were at the same level as indicated by the values of the Pearson chi-square probability. It was discovered there had been targeted efforts to provide formal training to the community.There were no significant differences in terms of formal training whereas with respect to informal, there were significant differences as indicated by the values of the Pearson chisquare probability. This means that there had been targeted efforts to provide formal training to the community.A wide variety of crops were grown during the 2005/06 cropping season. These included maize, sorghum, cowpea, pumpkins, groundnuts, round nuts, beans, and millet and water The perceptions that people have regarding amount of rainfall received were the same across the villages. They classified rainfall as being medium or low. The whole community thought that rainfall varied in the area. This was indicated by the within village response which was an overwhelming 100%.Of the total number of villages interviewed, 96.7% thought that maize was the commonest crop grown in the catchment while 16.7%, 5%, 3.3% and 1.8% regarded sorghum, beans, cowpea and groundnuts respectively as being their choice of common crop.There were variations in responses to the question regarding the basis of intercropping within the villages. These responses were however not significant across villages. The responses in descending order were 60%, 11.7%, 5%, 1.7%, 1.7%, 1.7% and 1.7% for land shortages, shortage of rainfall, land shortage and rainfall, shortage of farm equipment, flooding, security reasons and to safeguard against entire loss of field in times of severe heat stress respectively. A proportion of 16.7% did not seem to know the reasons behind intercropping. All the villages need to be taught major reasons for intercropping. Intercropped plants ripen at different times and therefore allow for staggered harvesting through out the year. The main crop is usually a food crop and is intercropped with a lot of secondary crops, vegetables and fruits (sweet potato, beans, watermelons, pumpkins, etc).Intercropping also increases water use efficiency. This is made possible by intercropping crops with different root systems ( that is, shallow versus deep root systems) such that they are able to tap water at different depths of the soil profile thereby maximizing on available water use and consequently land productivity.Seventy percent of the villages interviewed were familiar with water management techniques and 90% thought there was a positive change in crop growth after employing these techniques. Amount of rainfall and its variability and was regarded as the most limiting factor to crop production followed by soil fertility and unavailability or lack of recommended varieties for the area.The main survival strategies were agricultural based which included selling of vegetables.Other survival strategies included gold panning, cross border trading and brick moulding.Ninety eight percent of the villages said that they had experienced three food shortages in the past five years and 100% received help in form of food aid from non-governmental organizations.Generally, the above results indicate that people need to be educated on the importance of farming practices in relation to correctness and timeliness of application because lack of this may result in reduced crop yield even if other factors are met. Most people lack the proper knowledge on important agronomic practices and they don't seem to understand why they are there or why they practice them. A case in point is the fact that the community of Zhulube considers maize as the most important and common crop and yet rainfall received during this season was way below the long term annual average to support maize production. Notwithstanding the rigid nature of rural communities, there is need for deliberate efforts to try and change the perceptions that people have regarding the cultivation of smaller grains and other drought resistant crops like cassava which when mixed with millet can act as a substitute for maize meal and help improve the nutritional status of people and general well-being.From the findings there was evidence of temporal rainfall variation in the study area. This temporal variation was significant in the long-term, but insignificant in the short-term.Spatial variability of rainfall existed in Zhulube meso catchment and it proved to be significant in the short-term. It was however not significant enough to cause significant differences in yield. Also spatial variability gave rise to differences in some farming practices.In view of the above, Zhulube meso-catchment can be classified as a heterogeneous unit based on the existence of spatial variability.• Investment in real-time climate data.• Investment in small scale irrigation schemes and water management techniques as way of bridging dry spells. • Farmers need to be educated on the importance of employing necessary farming practices correctly and timely • The data set for biomass could be improved by increasing the frequency of sampling i.e., more sampling times (e.g. fortnightly after planting) so as to obtain a more representative relationship between rainfall and biomass. Secondly, measuring of soil moisture at planting and probably fortnightly or monthly thereafter as a way of monitoring soil moisture trends at the different locations would have added more value to this research. Also future research in this area of study should include on site measurement of slope as this would give an indication of infiltration capacity of site (the steeper the slope, the higher the proportion of rain that ends up as runoff and consequently the infiltration is reduced (the opposite is also true). These could not be done in totality during this study due to logistical problems. • Farmers should opt for drought resistance crops like cassava which in addition to being drought resistance can also perform relatively well on marginal soils like the ones found in Zhulube. Also maybe farmers in this area should try to concentrate on smaller grains like millet and sorghum as opposed to maize. • Encourage planting of Jatropha trees as a hedge around fields to safeguard against livestock damage instead of the thorny shrubs that are currently used. Soil is exposed to wind and water erosion as people clear land leaving it bare as they cut these thorny shrubs. Jatropha plant is not edible to livestock. This would act as a form of wind break for the field and can also be used as a land reclamation measure. Jatropha can do well on degraded lands. It has a long lifespan after establishment. Other beneficial effects of jatropha are as follows: Oil from jatropha seed can be used as a lubricant for farm machinery and implements; the resulting cake after extraction of the oil has an NPK value that is equivalent to chicken manure and can therefore be used as organic fertilizer when growing vegetables for example. Oil from jatropha seed can also be used for lighting. It's smoke free and is odorless. Jatropha oil has a high saponification value which can be taken advantage of by small scale farmers; they can easily make soap for personal use and also for sale to earn an income. • Lastly, but not the least, political will is needed so that amount of investment in agriculture is increased in the face of climate change and consequently precipitation patterns.   ","tokenCount":"11983"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"80f13920079d0c0793cd3780ab7c179d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/bb811cee-50c1-47ff-ac64-d494ea45bae1/retrieve","id":"1953094215"},"keywords":["Reproductive performance","viability","growth","Djallonke sheep","N'Dama cattle","Senegal","productivity index"],"sieverID":"5673b7a0-6f3a-472c-b27b-fd59af3bc0ba","pagecount":"59","content":"Responsibility for ILCA publications rests solely with the centre and with such other parties as may be cited as joint authors. Until 1982, the centre's two main series of scientific publications were Systems Studies and Monographs. These two series have now been superceded by the present series of Research Reports.The centre de recherches zootechniques, Kolda Introduction Since its establishment in 1972, the \"Centre de Recherches Zootechniques\" (C.R.Z.) has maintained herds of N'Dama cattle and flocks of Djallonke sheep both of which are trypanotolerant. The two species are kept for meat production. Improved management practices include supplementary feeding and veterinary care, with selection programmes aiming at genetic improvement. Information has been collected on traits relating to reproductive performance, body weight and mortality.The centre at Kolda is situated in Casamance, Southern Senegal, and covers an area of 2600 ha, which is subdivided into 18 plots. Kolda is situated at a height of 23 m with a climate characterized by a wet season lasting 5 months from June to October, and a dry season from November to May. Table 1 shows the monthly rainfall from 1974 to 1980.The average annual temperature is 27.7°C with a maximum of 34.9°C (April, May and October) and a minimum of 20.4°C (January and August). The average annual relative humidity is 88% with a maximum of 97% (September) and minimum of 21% (February and March).There are three main types of vegetation on the centre: clear forests and dry bushlands with no underground water, fallow land and dry cultivation, and swamp areas (river beds, rice fields and wet pastures of Cyperaceae or Vetiveria nigritana). The most important grasses are Andropogon gayanus, A. pseudapricus, Anadelphia arrecta and Penicetum subangustum. Meadows of Vetiveria sp. Cyperaceae and Anadelphia sp. have a low fodder yield but stay green for a considerable time during the dry season. The presence of leguminous plants, e. g. Stylosanthes gracilis and S. humilis help to improve the natural grazing available. The trypanosomiasis risk is subjectively considered as light to medium. The N'Dama breed is medium-sized and compact, with a fairly light skeleton. The usual coat colour on the centre is fawn. The foundation herd was made up of 123 heifers and 8 bulls bought from traditional breeders from Casamance and Oriental Senegal. This herd was established between March 1972 and October 1974. By the 31st December 1980, the total stock was 362 head: 18 bulls, 5 oxen, 63 bull calves, 145 cows, 85 heifers, 28 male calves and 18 female calves.The Djallonke has short hair, a thin tail and measures 40 -50 cms. The coat colour varies between white, white and black or white and red. Rams have a mane covering the neck, withers, shoulders and chest. The foundation herd was made up between November 1974 and September 1975 and consisted of 91 ewes, 30 ewe-lambs, 2 lambs and 2 rams. On the 31st December the total stock was 248 head: 12 rams, 57 lambs, 104 ewes and 75 female lambs.The general organization of the herd is shown in Figure 1. There are five single bull breeding herds (1)(2)(3)(4)(5). When cows are in the last months of pregnancy they are gathered into one herd in the paddocks near the cowsheds. After calving, cows are moved into a dam and calf herd in the cowsheds with calves receiving all the milk from their dams. At weaning (6 months), the male and female calves are placed in two separate herds. The calves are branded at weaning, females remaining in the heifer herd until 18 -23 months of age when they then move into a breeding herd other than that of their sire. Heifers that are too small or weak are culled. Bull calves go into a collective preselection herd until they are 18 months. At this age the best bull calves, chosen by growth and conformation, are put into separate stalls where their growth is carefully recorded. The rest of the bull calves are castrated and either used as draught oxen or fattened. At 24 months the best 1-2 bulls from the individual preselection group (selected on growth, conformation and spermology) are kept to go into the breeding herds. The remainder are sold to improve stock outside the Centre.Breeding flocks each have one ram and lambing occurs within these flocks. When lambs are 4 months they are weaned into separate male and female flocks and ear-tagged. At 9 months, ewes are put into the breeding flock if they have reached a weight of 16 kg. Those that do not reach 16 kg at 12 months are culled. Until 1979 rams were selected at 2 years on growth and conformation, the best kept as sires and the remainder castrated, fattened and sold. Since 1979 males have been selected at 6 months, the best going into a second pre-selection flock, the remainder castrated, fattened and sold. At 12 months rams are selected on weight, daily gain, conformation and coat colour, the best going into the breeding flocks. The remainder are either fattened or sold as rams to improve stock outside the Centre.The animals graze on natural grasslands. The quality and quantity of available fodder is optimal during the rainy season but the pastures deteriorate during the dry season, with fodder being least available in May and June. Supplementation varies throughout the year and according to the class of animal. Table 2 shows the basic quantities of oil cake and cotton seed concentrates fed during the dry season (April to June). Animals are allowed to feed off peanut haulm when available and salt mineral licks are distributed.Animals receiving special supplementation are cows with calves, ewes with lambs, pregnant cows and ewes, and bull calves in the pre-selection groups, especially the individual pre-selection group. There have in the past been many problems of feed availability, etc. so that supplementary feeding has on occasion been interrupted.Cattle are routinely vaccinated against pasteurellosis, rinderpest, pleuropneumonia and anthrax.Sheep are vaccinated against ovine pasteurellosis, sheep pox and \"peste de petits ruminants\".Periodic action is taken against external and internal parasites of all animals. Individual records were built up for each ewe related to each parturition. These gave number, date of birth, origin and type of birth (single or twin), of the ewe herself, and the current parturition date, previous parturition date, type of birth, sex of lamb(s), viability of lamb(s) over 4 stages to 12 months of age, lamb weights and three linear measurements at birth, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 months, and ewe's own weight and three linear measurements at parturition and 4 months after parturition. From these data, the age at first lambing, lambing interval, ewe mean weight and three productivity indices were additionally computed. Information on sires and dams of ewes and sires of progeny were noted whenever available. Eventual disposal or death of the ewe was recorded. All available causes of death were obtained from periodical reports and treatment records.Individual records were built up for each cow related to each parturition. These gave number, date of birth and origin of the cow herself and the current parturition date, previous parturition date, sex of calf, viability of calf over 4 stages to 12 months, calf weight and three linear measurements at birth, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24 and 30 months, and cow's own weight and three linear measurements at parturition and 6 months after parturition. From these data the age at first calving, calving interval cow mean weight and three productivity indices were additionally computed. Information on sires and dams of cows and sires of calves were noted when available. Eventual disposal or death of the cow was recorded. All available causes of death were obtained from periodical reports and treatment sheets.All characters were analysed by least-squares procedures (Harvey, 1972) using both fixed and mixed models. In the analyses, some parameters were measured for further study in their own right and some were measured to account for variation arising, in order that less biased estimates of other parameters could be obtained. Unequal and disproportionate subclass numbers gave unbalanced factorial designs for which conventional analyses of variance techniques were not applicable.With both sheep and cattle, a considerable number of foundation animals had no sire or dam records. In addition the use of individual sires was often confounded with month and year of use, so use could not be made of sire group in analyses at this stage in time.Typical models used included the fixed effects of origin (purchased or born on station); parturition number within origin; year of birth or parturition; month of birth or parturition; sex of calf; type of birth (single or twin); and the random effects of individual cow or ewe, nestedReproductive performance is a trait of outstanding importance in sheep production enterprises, especially when meat production from young animals is the chief aim. In general the more intensive the meat production system, the more desirable the production of large numbers of young per breeding female. Under harsher conditions optimal production levels are achieved by maintaining reasonable levels of performance in the young, while limiting the drain on the resources of the breeding female. The most important components of reproductive performance in sheep are age at first lambing, length of lambing interval, litter size, and length of ewe productive life.The mean age at first lambing for 115 females born on the station from 1974 to 1980 was 18.8 ± 0.8 months. The significance of environmental influences on age at first lambing over this period is indicated in Table 3. The distribution of 663 conceptions calculated from the recorded lambing dates from 1975 to 1980 are indicated in Figure 2. The mean monthly rainfall over these 6 years is also shown. 55% of conceptions, or 11% per month, occurred during the main five month wet season from June to October, the remaining 45% or 6. 5% per month during the other seven months of the year.The mean lambing interval for 663 records from 1975 to 1980 was 307 ± 14 days. The significance of environmental and genetic influences on lambing interval over this 6 year period is indicated in Table 5.The effects of origin of ewe, individual ewes, month of lambing and in the case of foundation ewes only, the lambing number, were significant. The estimated least squares means for lambing interval are laid out in Table 6. The effects of year of lambing were not important, but month of lambing had a significant effect on lambing interval. Females lambing in December, January, February and March had longer than average lambing intervals, while those lambing in all other months had shorter than average lambing intervals.The monthly rainfall from 1975 to 1980 is illustrated in Table 1, the period December to April constituting the major dry season. The correlation between lambing interval and rainfall from one month before previous lambing date to one month before conception was -0.51, while there was a 0.04 day decrease in lambing interval for each additional 1 mm rainfall.In the case of foundation purchased ewes whose age was unknown, lambing intervals following their first four parturitions on the station were significantly shorter than those following their fifth and subsequent parturitions. In the case of ewes born on the centre the effect of parturition number was not significant.The repeatability of lambing interval (i. e. the correlation between an individual's successive records) was obtained from the between and within ewes components of variance. The value of 0.11 ± 0.04 is within the range usually reported for this trait. Table 6 shows that the 663 parturitions recorded from 1975 to 1980 were made up of 583 singles and 80 twins, the mean litter size being 1.12.The annual reproduction rate is calculated as the mean litter size × 365 ÷ lambing interval. Overall this was 1.33 lambs per breeding ewe per year.As the first records of ewes produced on the station start with animals born in November 1974, it is yet too early to assess this trait. In August 1981, the first 40 ewes born between November 1974 and January 1977 had completed an average of 3.7 parturitions, with 17 or 42% still in production. The remaining 23 or 58% had died, been culled or lost. Thus until more information is collected it might be tentatively suggested with the present information that an average of 5 parturitions would be achieved per ewe. Using the mean lambing interval of 307 days, ewes would thus remain for an average of 4.2 years in productive life. This complete replacement of the ewe flock each 4. 2 years would represent a turnover of 24%. When age at first lambing is added to the productive life, the average ewe age on completion of productive life would be 5.8 years.Mortality rates in relation to genetic improvement Breeding ewe mortality Causes of deathMortality data based on 897 lambs born over a six year period were available. The significance of environmental and genetic influences on pre-weaning mortality, (subdivided into two periods, birth to 3 days and 3 days to 4 months) and post-weaning mortality (4 months to 12 months of age) are indicated in Table 7. The estimated least squares means for mortalities over these periods are laid out in Table 8.Pre-weaning mortality. The mean mortality rate from birth to weaning at 4 months was 33%. The effects of year of birth, month of birth, single or twin, and parturition number of dam were significant (Table 7). Month of birth had a significant effect, lambs born in March, June, July, August, September, October and November having above-average mortality rates, those born in the remaining five months below-average rates. The correlation between pre-weaning mortality and rainfall over the relevant 4 months was 0.42, there being a 0.014% increase in mortality for each additional 1 mm of rainfall.Mortality in twin lambs was 38.5%, compared to 27.7% in singles.There was a 54.5% mortality rate in lambs from first parturition dams, 34.1% from second parturition dams and 19.3% from third and later parturition dams.When pre-weaning mortality was separated into that occurring from birth to 3 days and from 3 days to weaning, a very contrasting picture emerged. Table 7 indicates that year and month of birth had no effect on mortality from birth to 3 days, but major effects from 3 days to weaning. Single or twin status had major effects on mortality in the first 3 days, but no effect from 3 days to weaning. Parturition number of dam had no effect on mortality from birth to 3 days, but major effects from 3 days to weaning. Finally there were highly significant differences between individual ewes in lamb mortality from birth to 3 days, but not from 3 days to weaning.Thus lamb mortality in the first three days of life (mean 5.1%) was affected by single or twin status, 2% of single lambs dying compared with 8% of twins. The significant difference between individual ewes gave a repeatability estimate for this early mortality of 0.18 ± 0.04. The parturition number of the dam, reflecting its age, and the year and month of lamb birth, reflecting environmental and climatic conditions, had no effect.In contrast lamb mortality from 3 days to weaning (mean 28.1%) was not significantly affected by single or twin status and there was no significant repeatability estimate for this trait (0.02 ± 0.10). The parturition number of ewes born on the centre had a major effect; 51.6% mortality in lambs from first parturition ewes, 27.6% from second and 14.8% from third or later. Both year and month of birth had major effects, lambs born in the wet season months of June to November all having above mortality rates (mean 36%), those born in the drier season December to May having below average mortality rates (mean 20%). The correlation between mortality from 3 days to weaning and the rainfall over the relevant 4 months was 0.40, there being a 0.013% increase in mortality for each additional 1 mm of rainfall.Post-weaning mortality. The mean mortality rate from 4 months to 12 months of age was 19.4%. Year and month of birth, reflecting environmental and climatic conditions, had highly significant effects. The very low post-weaning mortality for 1980 was biased in that when the data were prepared for analysis a proportion of the animals born in late 1980 had not yet reached 12 months of age. Males had a significantly higher (P<.05) mortality than females. The maternally associated influences such as single or twin status, ewe parturition number and individual ewe had, as expected, no effects on post-weaning mortality.An appropriate definition of mortality rate in the context of genetic progress is the percentage of females that die before lambing. Here, taking account of the actual proportion of singles and twins, it is approximately 51% (43% to 12 months, 8% from 12 months to 18.8 months). The rearing proportion is the proportion of births that produce a female that survives and is fertile. The rearing proportion here is about 0.27. This means that only once in 3.6 lambings does a ewe produce a female lamb that will reproduce in the flock. The average length of reproductive life is tentatively taken as 5 lambings: therefore, approximately 72% of the females born are required as replacements to maintain flock size. High mortality rates are inconsistent with genetic progress, and when they can be reduced, a higher intensity of selection can be achieved.Genetic improvement per unit of time is more important than per animal generation, and high mortality rates have a marked effect on generation interval. The average age at first lambing is 18. 8 months, and the average lambing interval 10 months. To replace herself, a ewe must lamb about 3.6 times; thus, the average generation interval is 54.8 months or 4.5 years.Data on ewe mortality over the 6 years from 1975 to 1980 are presented in Table 9. The overall mortality rate was 14.8% per year. The causes of mortality have been grouped into five classes: -diseases of the alimentary tract; diseases of the respiratory system; other diseases (e.g. nutritional, reproductive); accidents, abscesses, etc; and unidentified.The percentages of animals dying were examined within the two age groups recorded; young (0-8 months) and adult (over 8 months). The mortality rates related to each of the five classes are shown in Table 10.Thus 30.5% of mortality is due to problems connected with the alimentary tract; 27.5% to respiratory problems, 12% to other diseases; 6.3% to accidents, abcesses and skin diseases; and the remaining 23.7% undiagnosed. Tables 11 and 12 show the total numbers of animals, the numbers treated and the percentage of animals treated for each of the disease classes within the two different age groups, by year and month. Environmental and genetic effects on lamb weights at seven different ages Ewe body weightsWeights at birth, 2 and 4 months were available for 360 lambs, at 4, 6 and 8 months for 298 lambs and at 8, 10 and 12 months for 209 lambs, born in the years 1977 -1980. Analyses of variance, laid out in Table 13, showed origin, year and month of birth, type of birth, sex, age of dam and individual dams to have significant effects on lamb body weight at different stages.The estimated least squares means for body weight at seven different ages are shown in Table 14. Table 13 indicates that significant year effects existed for weights at all ages. Lambs born in 1980 were significantly heavier at all ages from 2 months to 12 months than those born in the three other years, while lambs born in 1978 were significantly lighter. The weight differences between lambs born in these two extreme years at 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 months were 25%, 53%, 59%, 62%, 77% and 71% respectively of the mean weights.Causes of variation between years in this environment can be annual rainfall affecting pasture availability, and the disease situation, changes in management techniques, genetic progress, etc. Correlations and regressions between the 4 year means for weight at each stage from 2 months to 12 months and the 4 year means for rainfall from birth to each stage are indicated in Table 15 (Mean birth date taken as July 1). Table 15 indicates strong negative correlations between weight at all stages and rainfall over the corresponding periods, ranging from 0.66 to 0.91. The regressions of weight on rainfall showed a reduction in weight of 3, 9, 11, 14, 17 and 18 gm for each additional 1 mm rainfall from birth to 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 months respectively. Table 8 shows the mortality rates from birth to weaning and weaning to 12 months for these four years. The correlation between mortality rate to weaning and weaning weight of survivors was -0.91; and between mortality rate to 12 months and weight at 12 months, -0.92. The weights of survivors at 4 months and 12 months were 142 gm and 237 gm less respectively for each addition-all 1% mortality that had occurred during these periods.Table 13 indicates that the effects associated with month of birth were significant at all ages except 2 and 12 months. Figure 4 shows the weights of animals in each of the month of birth groups, corrected for all other effects evaluated. The effects of month of birth on later body weights are usually related to the stage in the wet and dry weather cycle at which an animal reaches a given age; and relative rankings of month of birth groups might be expected to change from stage to stage.Correlations and regressions between the 12 monthly means for weight and the 12 monthly means for rainfall from birth are given in Table 16 for the four ages 4, 6, 8 and 10 months where month of birth effect is significant. Table 16 indicates that the correlations and regressions between rainfall and weight at the 4, 6, 8 and 10 month stages were all negative but small.Table 13 indicates that type of lambing, single or twin, had a significant effect on all weights from birth to 8 months, twin lambs being 21%, 27%, 23%, 21%, 16%, 8% and 5% lighter than singles at birth, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 months of age respectively.Table 13 indicates that the effect of sex was significant at all ages except 2 months. At birth, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 months, males were 9%, 5%, 8%, 18%, 20%, 13% and 17% heavier than females.Table 13 indicates that the effect associated with dam parturition number was significant at the birth and 2-month stages only. At birth, lambs from second parturition dams were 30% heavier and lambs from third and later parturition dams 41% heavier, than lambs from first parturition dams. At 2-months of age the respective differences were 13% and 34%.The repeatabilities of lamb birth, 2 month and 4 month weights considered as a characteristic of the ewe are indicated in Table 17. Data are from 360 lambs born to 146 ewes. The phenotypic correlations available between lamb weights are shown in Table 18. These were all positive, with correlations between birth and early weights being lower than those between all other later ages. Weights, at lambing and when lamb weaned at 4 months of age, were available for 144 ewes, together with the birth and 4 month weights of their 360 lambs, produced in 316 parturitions. In order to facilitate analyses and obtain correlations between ewe and lamb weights, the ewe weights in the 44 lambings producing twins, were used twice in the analyses. The data referred to lambings over the four years 1977 -1980. Analyses of variance laid out in Table 19, showed origin, year of lambing and individual ewes to have significant effects on weights at lambing, lamb weaning and their mean. Additionally, month of lambing had a significant effect on weight at lamb weaning and mean weight. The estimated least squares means for the three measures of ewe body weight are shown in Table 20.The mean ewe body weight at lambing was 23.8 kg, and at weaning of lamb 23.3 kg, thus an average of 0.5 kg was lost during the 4 months suckling period.The repeatabilities of ewe weights at parturition, at weaning of lambs 4 months later and the mean of the two, are indicated in Table 21. These repeatability estimates were within the range normally reported for ewe body weights.The phenotypic correlations between ewe weights and lamb preweaning weights are shown in Table 22. The correlation of ewe weight with lamb pre-weaning weights was about double that between ewe weight and lamb birth weight.Environmental and genetic effects on lambs from birth to 12 months of age Correlations between weight and linear measurements Repeatability of early lamb measurementsThree linear measurements, height at withers, scapulo-ischial length, and heart girth, together with body weight were available for 360 lambs at birth, 2 and 4 months; 298 at 4, 6 and 8 months; and 209 at 8, 10 and 12 months. Analyses of variance laid out in Table 23 show the significance of environmental and genetic effects on the linear measurements and weight from birth to 12 months. The general situation is that these effects on linear measurements fairly closely resembled their effects on body weight.The estimated least squares means for height, length, girth and weight at birth 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 months are given in Table 24. Figure 5 illustrates the mean changes in linear measurements and weights from birth to 12 months of age. The coefficient of variation of each of the three linear measurements at all stages was about 8%, while that of weight was around 20%.Table 24. Estimated least squares means for weights and linear measurements at seven different ages.Table 25 presents the correlations between weight and height, length and girth. All were significant. The repeatabilities of lamb linear measurements at birth, 2 and 4 months considered as a characteristic of the ewe are indicated in Table 26. Indices of ewe productivity Flock productivityThe characters of reproductive performance, lamb viability, lamb weaning weight and ewe weight were combined to build three productivity indices. Index 1, the total weight of weaned lamb per ewe per year, was computed for each ewe parturition as the product of total weight of weaned lamb × 365 ÷ interval to next lambing. Index 2, the total weight of weaned lamb per kg of ewe per year, was computed as index 1 ÷ ewe average weight. Index 3, the total weight of weaned lamb per kg of metabolic weight of ewe per year, was computed as Index 1 ÷ ewe average weight .73 . Data on 397 ewe parturitions were available from 1977 to 1980.The significance of environmental influences on the three productivity indices is indicated in Table 27. Year of lambing had very significant effects on productivity. This would be expected, following the major year effects previously found on the different performance traits making up the productivity indices.Type of lambing had an effect on productivity, ewes producing twins being 34%, 26% and 28% superior to those producing singles, for indices 1, 2 and 3 respectively. This was in spite of the lower individual weaning weights and higher mortality in twin lambs compared with singles.The effect of parturition number of ewes born on the centre was highly significant, ewes with 3 or more parturitions being 84%, and ewes with 2 parturitions being 30% superior to first parturition females for index 1. Corresponding figures for index 2 were 71% and 22%, and for index 3, 75% and 24%.Reproductive performance is the trait of outstanding importance in beef cattle enterprises, where if there is no calf, then there is no economic return. The best cows are clearly those that have their first calf at an early age, have minimum calving intervals, and live a long time.Thus the most important measures of reproductive performance in the female are age at first calving, length of calving interval, and length of cow productive life.The mean age at first calving for 101 females born on the station from 1973 to 1978 was 39.8 ± 0.8 months with a coefficient of variation of 14.1%.The significance of environmental influences on age at first calving are indicated in Table 29, where year of birth had a major effect. The distribution of 357 conceptions calculated from the recorded calving dates from 1974 to 1979 are indicated in Figure 6. The mean monthly rainfall over the 6 years is also shown.48% of conceptions, or 9.6% per month, occurred during the major five month wet season from June to October, the remaining 52% or 7.4% per month during the other 7 months of the year. The mean calving interval for 357 records from 1974 to 1979 was 495 ± 16 days, with a coefficient of variation of 26%. The significance of environmental and genetic influences on calving interval are indicated in Table 31. The effects of origin of cow, year of calving and the parturition number were significant. The estimated least squares means for calving interval are laid out in Table 32. Year of calving had a significant effect on calving interval. Cows calving in 1974, 1977 and 1979 had a shorter-than-average calving interval, those calving in 1975, 1976 and 1978 had a longer-than-average. There was a positive correlation of 0.56 between calving interval and annual rainfall, with calving interval increasing by 0.2 days for each 1 mm increase in annual rainfall.Parturition number had an important effect on calving interval. Calving interval decreased from 547 days between the first and second parturitions to 449 between the third and fourth and then increased slightly to 458 days for subsequent parturitions.Overall, foundation purchased heifers had a significantly longer calving interval (540 days) than those born on the centre (450 days).As the oldest records refer to heifers purchased in 1972-73, it is too early to completely assess this trait. However in August 1981, the first 40 heifers purchased had averaged 4.3 parturitions, with 23 or 57% still in production. The remaining 17 or 43% had died or been culled. Thus until more information is available it is tentatively suggested that an average of 5.5 parturitions would be achieved per cow. Using the mean calving interval of 495 days, cows would thus remain for an average of 7.5 years in productive life. This complete replacement of the cow herd each 7.5 years would represent a turnover of 13.4%. When age at first calving is added to the productive life, the average cow age on completion of productive life would be 10.8 years.Mortality rates in relation to genetic improvement Cow mortality Causes of deathMortality data based on 516 calves born over a seven year period were available. The significance environmental influences on pre-weaning mortality (subdivided into two periods, birth to 3 days and 3 days to 6 months) and post-weaning mortality from 6 months to 12 months of age are indicated in Table 33. The estimated least squares means for mortalities over these periods are laid out in Table 34.Pre-weaning mortality. The mean mortality from birth to weaning at 6 months was 9.6%, with 2.9% occurring in the first 3 days of life and 6.7% from 3 days to 6 months. The only significant effect was that of year of calving on deaths from 3 days to 6 months. The effect of parturition number approached significance, calves born to heifers having a higher mortality rate than those born to subsequent parturitions. Post-weaning mortality. The mean mortality from 6 months to 12 months of age was 1.3%. There were no significant influences found in the analysis.An appropriate definition of mortality rate in the context of genetic progress is the percentage of females that die before calving. Here applying the post-weaning mortality rate of 1.3% per 6 months, to the period to first calving, it is approximately 17%. The rearing proportion is the proportion of births that produce a heifer that survives and is fertile. The rearing proportion here is about 0.40. This means that once in 2.5 calvings a cow produces a heifer calf that will reach lactation in the herd. The average length of reproductive life is 5.5 calvings: therefore, approximately 45% of the females born are required as replacements to maintain herd size. High mortality rates are inconsistent with genetic progress, and when they can be reduced, a higher intensity of selection can be achieved.Genetic improvement per unit of time is more important than per animal generation, and high mortality rates have a marked effect on generation interval. The average age at first calving is 39.8 months, and the average calving interval 16.2 months. To replace herself, a cow must calve 2.5 times; thus, the average generation interval is 80.3 months or 6.7 years, within the normally reported range for tropical indigenous breeds.Data on cow mortality over the 6 years from 1975 to 1980 are presented in Table 35. The overall mortality rate was 3% per year. The main causes of mortality in cattle have been grouped into four classes: -diseases of the alimentary tract; other diseases; accidents; and unidentified causes and snake bites. Diseases of the alimentary tract includes all digestive problems such as gastrointestinal parasitism, \"other diseases\" includes skin problems, nutritional problems, trypanosomiasis and diseases of the respiratory systems. Over the period from birth to 2½ years, the proportions of deaths falling into each group are shown in Table 36. Weights at birth, 3, 6 and 9 months were available for 403 calves; at 9, 12, 15 and 18 months for 306 calves; and at 18, 21, 24 and 30 months for 189 calves, born in the years 1974 -1980, 1974 -1979 and 1974 -1978 respectively. Analysis of variance laid out in Table 37 show the significance of effects on calf weight at these different stages.The estimated least squares means for body weight at the different stages are shown in Table 38. Figure 7 illustrates mean growth of all calves from birth to 30 months of age. The coefficients of variation of weights at birth, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24 and 30 months were 15%, 17%, 16%, 16%, 19%, 17%, 18%, 17%, 19% and 17% respectively. Table 37 indicates that significant year effects existed for weights at all ages except 15 months. The weight differences between extreme years at birth, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24 and 30 months was 15%, 12%, 26%, 17%, 14%, 13%, 15%, 21%, 28% and 17% respectively of the mean weights.Causes of variation between years in this environment can be annual rainfall affecting pasture availability, annual rainfall affecting the disease situation, changes in management techniques, genetic progress etc. Correlations and regressions between the 7 year means for weight at each stage from 3 months to 30 months and the 7 year means for rainfall from birth to each stage were all negative and non-significant.To determine any linear trends in body weights from 1974 to 1978 for 21, 24 and 30 month weights; from 1974 to 1979 for 12, 15 and 18 month weights and from 1974 to 1980 for birth, 3, 6 and 9 month weights; the regression of the least squares constants on year of birth (represented as 1 -5, 1 -6 and 1 -7) were calculated (Table 39). Table 37 indicates that significant month of birth effects existed for weights at all ages except 12 and 24 months. Figure 8 shows the weights of animals in each of the month of birth groups, corrected for all other effects evaluated.The effects of month of birth on later body weights are usually related to the stage in the wet and dry weather cycle at which an animal reaches a given age; and relative rankings of month of birth groups might be expected to change from stage to stage. This situation is clearly illustrated in Figure 8.Correlations and regressions between the 12 monthly means for weight and the 12 monthly means for rainfall from birth are given in Table 40 for the seven ages, 3, 6, 9, 15, 18, 21 and 30 months when the effect of month was significant. Table 40 indicates that the correlations and regressions were all positive and significant at these stages.Table 37 indicates that the effect associated with dam parturition number was significant at all ages from 3 months to 18 months. Table 38 shows that at 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18 months calves from first parturition cows were 12%, 7%, 6%, 12%, 10% and 9% lighter than the mean weight of calves from the three other parturition groups.Table 37 indicates that the effect of sex was significant at all ages from birth to 30 months. At birth, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24 and 30 months males were 5%, 4%, 7%, 11%, 10%, 11%, 14%, 15%, 12% and 8% heavier than females.The repeatabilities of calf birth, 3 month and 6 month weights considered as a characteristic of the cow are indicated in Table 41. Data are from 403 calves born to 158 cows. The phenotypic correlations available between calf weights are shown in Table 42. These were all positive with correlations between birth and early weights being lower than those between all other later ages.Weights, at calving and when calf weaned at 6 months, were available for 103 individual cows over 165 parturitions. Only cows that had complete data on their linear measurements were used in this analysis so numbers were rather small. Analysis of variance laid out in Table 43 show the significance of effects on cow weight at the two stages. The mean cow weight at parturition was 232 kg and at weaning of calf, 235 kg, thus an average of 3 kg was gained during the 6 months suckling period.The repeatability of cow weight at parturition was 0.78 ± 0.06 and at calf weaning 0.67 ± 0.08. The phenotypic correlation between cow weight at parturition and calf birth weight was 0.37.Environmental and genetic effects on calf linear measurements Correlations between weight and linear measurementsThree linear measurements, height at withers, scapulo-ischial length, and heart girth, together with body weight were available for 403 calves at birth, 3 and 6 months; 306 at 9, 12 and 15 months; and 189 at 18, 21, 24 and 30 months. Analysis of variance laid out in Table 45 show the significance of effects on the linear measurements and weight from birth to 30 months.The estimated least squares means for girth, height and length from birth to 30 months are given in Tables 46, 47 and 48. Table 38 lays out the corresponding least squares means for weight. Figure 9 illustrates the mean changes in linear measurements and weight from birth to 30 months of age. The coefficient of variation of each of the three linear measurements at all stages was about 7%, while that of weight was around 17%. The mean productivity indices were: Index 1. 70.1 kg of 9 month old calf per cow per year Index 2. 29.1 kg of 9 month old calf per 100 kg of cow per year Index 3. 127 kg of 9 month old calf per 100 kg .73 of cow per year.Year and month of calving had very significant effects on productivity. This would be expected, following the major year and month effects previously found on the different performance traits making up the productivity indices.The effect of calving number was significant on index 1 only, cows with three or more calvings being 15% more productive than second calvers and 27% more productive than first carvers.Adjustment of the three cow productivity indices to account for cow viability (97.1%) give the most accurate estimates of overall herd productivity. These are: Index 1: 67.6 kg of 9 month old calf per cow per year Index 2: 28.1 kg of 9 month old calf per 100 kg of cow per year Index 3: 123 kg of 9 month old calf per 100 kg .73 of cow per year.","tokenCount":"6629"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"dac968f13f23f05b2b2d4601c5de6816","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/b0d2289a-a02c-488f-9d17-c2cf0757d245/content","id":"199468726"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"be1cc678-94ad-49a0-86fb-303b2d5982a8","pagecount":"28","content":"This paper discusses alternatives for improving the maize plant. While maize hybrids dominate in the developed world, open-pollinated varieties mostly are grown in the developing countries. The importance of population improvement in maize has been emphasized. Population improvement procedures not only improve the population for developing superior varieties but also increase the chances of extracting superior lines that will result in better hybrid combinations. The accomplishments in the development of population improvement methods in maize are discussed. Some of the important population improvement schemes, such as mass selection, modified ear-to-row selection, and several recurrent selection schemes, are briefly discussed. In addition, mating design-1 and some family selection schemes such as full-sib, half-sib, and S1 have been mentioned.CIMMYT's maize improvement program, including the research activities of the Advanced Unit, Back-Up Unit, Quality Protein, and Special Projects, is discussed. The structure and function of these units are presented. The Back-Up Unit handles the germplasm bank and the gene pools. A total of 29 gene pools are being improved continuously by the half-sib selection procedure. The handling of gene pools is discussed along with information on population size, selection in male and female rows before and after flowering, among-and within-family selection intensity, stresses to diseases and insects, adaptation, and introgression of new germplasm in the pools.The various operations in the Advanced Unit are described both with normal and quality protein maize (OPM) populations. The full-sib system of family improvement is used in each population. Various stages in population improvement, such as progeny regeneration, progeny evaluation, and within-family improvement during the intervening cycles, are discussed. In addition to population improvement, site-specific and across-site experimental varieties are developed using approximately 10 top-performing families. The experimental varieties are evaluated in experimental variety trials (EVTs). The top performing EVs are designated as elites for further testing in elite experimental variety trials (EL VTs).The breeding effort concentrating on special attributes such as earliness and resistance to downy mildew, stunt, and streak is described. Breeding for resistance to fall armyworm, borers, and earworm also is being practiced in the gene pools and populations. The technique utilizing larvae instead of egg masses has been presented and the field execution of insect resistance work is briefly described.The problems encountered in OPM and the breeding strategy used in the accumulation and exploitation of genetic modifiers are discussed. The germplasm development effort and the breeding methodology used in breeding OPM has been presented. The salient features of the conversion process are given. The objective of OPM pools and their formation and handling have been discussed. The experimental evidence showing progress in pools and the performance of OPM materials in the international tests has been presented. contrary, there has been remarkable progress, even without the use of classical population improvement schemes (Duvik, 1977). It is reported that much of the gain in the presently grown hybrids has been obtained from the improvement of established inbred lines through the pedigree method of inbred improvement, and that the gains from recurrent selection schemes in some synthetics from Iowa have been similar. Several other methods of inbred improvement also have been used, and these are reviewed in a paper by Bauman (1977).Irrespective of objectives, population improvement in maize can play two important roles. Improvements made in populations through intrapopulation schemes (1) enhance the value of the population for direct and immediate use, and (2) increase their usefulness in developing new lines as potential parents of hybrids. There is sufficient data available to substantiate the idea that population improvement increases the expected performance of hybrids to a greater degree than repeated sampling of the same base population in the classical inbreeding and hybridization approach. Many breeders are aware of this; hopefully, there will be an increased realization that a balanced maize improvement program should place emphasis on the development and improvement of maize populations or source germplasm, in addition to development and improvement of inbred lines.The development and improvement of maize populations have generated considerable interest over the last two decades. Although earlier attempts to improve maize materials through mass selection had little success, there has been considerable progress in recent years. The failure to realize significant progress from earlier mass selection studies can perhaps be attributed to insufficient genetic control and inadequate field plot techniques.An interest in quantitative genetics developed in the 1940s and voluminous data have been accumulated since then. Much of this renewed interest in improving populations stems from quantitative genetic studies in maize. Several empirical studies have indicated that there is a great amount of additive genetic variance for grain yield and other traits in heterozygous maize populations. Such findings indicate the effectiveness of various forms of intrapopulation breeding schemes in improving the performance of maize populations. The developments in quantitative genetics also have helped maize breeders to understand the types of gene action involved in the expression of different maize characters that are under polygenic control. This type of information is of considerable importance to the breeder when making a choice among alternative breeding schemes.The quantitative geneticist also has helped the breeder in predicting genetic gains from various types of selection schemes. Several studies have been conducted using different selection schemes, and good agreement generally has been found between predicted and realized gains. The results of those studies have been reviewed by Gardner (1976) and Eberhart (1976).Only a cursory review can be given of developments in population improvement methods. One of the simplest and oldest methods is mass selection. It exploits additive gene effects and epistatic interactions involving only additive genetic effects. Several researchers have used this method successfully (Johnson, 1963;Gardner, 1961Gardner, , 1973Gardner, , 1976)). Mass selection can be effective for those characters that are highly heritable and can be identified before flowering, such as plant height, flowering, and susceptibility to northern corn leaf blight, thrips, and fall armyworm. The effectiveness of mass selection in changing ear number (Paterniani, 1978) and leaf angle (Ariyanayagam et al. 1974) also has been reported. Gardner (1961) is an improvement over simple mass selection.The modified ear-to-row selection scheme suggested by Lonnquist ( 1964) has been used quite widely and effectively in many programs (Webel and Lonnquist, 1967;Paterniani, 1967). This scheme involves selection among rows based on yield trial data, followed by selection within selected rows in the crossing block. It permits completion of one cycle of selection per year.A modification of this scheme, using two seasons instead of one, also has been suggested. In the first season, only half-sib progenies are yield evaluated. In the second season, selected half sibs are recombined using remnant seed in a crossing block. For male rows, only the bulk of selected half-sib families is used. The prediction equation for estimating gains for this modified scheme has been given by Compton and Comstock (1976). Two generations per cycle are required to complete this scheme and may result in genetic gains of about one and one-half times more than the one generation per cycle scheme. An obvious advantage of this scheme involves the planting of fewer rows in the recombination block, allowing larger samples of each family to be grown. This results in an increase in the within-row selection intensity. The gains from within-family selection can thus be increased.Several recurrent selection schemes have been suggested as a result of quantitative genetic studies. These include recurrent selection for general combining ability (Jenkins, 1940), recurrent selection for specific combining ability (Hull, 1945), and reciprocal recurrent selection for both general and specific combining ability (Comstock et al. 1949). These recurrent selection schemes differ in the type of tester and the ultimate use of the developed material. The critical differences in the schemes are based on the nature of gene action involved in the populations under selection. These schemes are similar in that they have successive cycles of selection and use only the selected portion of the population for recombination. When the only aim is to improve populations, the use of these schemes may not be highly efficient. It is probable that many of the yield increases that have been reported with these methods are primarily results of additive effects (Sprague, 1967). If this is so, it is more appropriate to exploit additive genetic effects through phenotypic recurrent selection or through various forms of family selection schemes without the use of the tester.Various types of mating designs have been suggested by Comstock and Robinson (1952); three of their suggested genetic designs are useful in estimating additive dominance, and average degree of dominance effects. Design I is particularly effective for maize and has been used quite frequently, not only to work out genetic variances but also to identify best families for recombination and improvement in a practical maize breeding program. Also, the data can be used more efficiently in selection, taking advantage of information on both half sibs and full sibs.Several family selection schemes have become quite popular in recent years, including full-sib, half-sib, and S1 selection schemes. A combination of S1 and half-sib systems also can be used for improvement of some traits, but cannot be recommended as a general breeding method.CIMMYT's maize improvement program is a multi-stage process with a continuous, systematic flow of germplasm (Ortega et al. 1980;Paliwal and Sprague, 1981 ). CIMMYT strongly believes in the interdisciplinary approach, where scientists from various disciplines can work together. The maize pyramid (Figure 1) illustrates the management of the germplasm flow at different stages of maize improvement, from initial research until it reaches the hands of the farmers. CIMMYT's maize improvement program, for management and reporting purposes, is comprised of two main stages called the Back-Up and Advanced Units. Quality protein versions of most materials have been and continue to be developed through a side-car approach as a parallel integral part of the process. Special Projects Unit has the responsibility of exploring and testing new research hypotheses, and the resulting useful information and products are incorporated in the main research activities of the program.  The Back-Up Unit serves as a support unit to provide superior genotypes or families to the Advanced Unit on a continuous basis (Figure 1) so that improvements in Advanced Unit materials can be obtained from cycle to cycle. In this way, reduction of genetic variability in Advanced Unit materials can be minimized. A similar approach was suggested by Harrison (1967), who recommended the use of back-up pools with only mild selection intensity to support the population undergoing improvement at a high selection intensity.The Back-Up Unit handles the maize germplasm bank, new introductions, and 29 gene pools that have specified climatic adaptation, maturity, grain color, and texture.The maize germplasm bank now has over 13,000 accessions representing 46 countries. It is a service unit, for resident and collaborating scientists, which maintains and catalogs the germplasm collection and renews stock as needed. Periodically, approximately 300 collections are evaluated systematically at two or more locations with appropriate pools as checks. The best performers are grouped according to their adaptation, maturity, grain color, and texture. In the following season, the selected bank collections are incorporated into the appropriate pools as female rows only. Observations can be made for the combining ability of the pools x collections and, if needed, this can be carried to F2. Based on the performance of topcrosses, the families from these crosses are later merged with the main body of the pool.CIMMYT requests and receives seed samples of maize materials from various programs around the world. These are grown in observation nurseries at one or more locations. The promising entries are identified and then systematically incorporated into the appropriate gene pools.Gene pools are mass reservoirs of genes and have a broad genetic constitution. They are formed by genetic mixing of several diverse varieties, variety crosses, and hybrids with similar climatic adaptation, maturity, grain color, and texture.CIMMYT gene pools meet the climatic requirements of tropical highland, tropical lowland, and subtropical zones. The pools within each climatic adaptation are further classified on the basis of maturity (early, intermediate, and late), grain color (white and yellow), and grain texture (flint, dent, and floury). Of the 29 gene pools, 9 are meant for tropical highland, 12 for tropical lowland, and 8 for subtropical zones. In addition, 4 new pools have been developed for temperate maize-growing areas (Table 1 ).Each gene pool is handled separately in isolation in a half-sib recombination system similar to a modified ear-to-row crossing block (Figure 2). Several modifications to the commonly used half-sib system are used, however, depending on the priorities and objectives that have been set for each pool. Two cycles of recombination and selection are completed each year in all the pools except the late highland gene pools.The population size of each pool is kept fairly large; families within each pool range in number from 400-500. Each family has 16 plants in a 5-meter row, providing a total number of 6,400 to 8,000 female plants. Another 3,,000 plants are males in the pollinator rows. In total, there is an effective population of 9,600 to 12,000 plants within each pool. The ratio of females to males in the pools is kept at 2:1 in the recombination block. Male and female rows are planted at the same time and, if necessary, the male row planting dates can be staggered to permit thorough mixing within the pool. In some pools the males are planted at double the density of the females in order to permit better expression of such traits as interval between pollen shed and silking, or in pools subjected to some stress conditions (infestation by fall armyworms), so that all undesirable plants can be eliminated before pollen shed without adversely affecting plant stand.Once each year, the h'alf-sib families from each pool are planted at two or more locations in Mexico in order to select for broader adaptation and to build up resistance to certain foliar diseases. Selection is made in both male and female rows. In male rows, all tall, diseased, and undesirable plants are detasseled before pollen shed. In this way, selection pressure can be exerted in male rows for those characters that can be visually evaluated before or at the time of flowering. Detasseling undesirable plants in male rows prevents inferior plants from pollinating plants in female rows.Between-and within-family selection is made within each pool at different stages of development. Undesirable families (female rows) are rejected on the basis of visual performance. In desirable or selected families, the superior plants within each family can be marked at different stages of development, depending upon special objectives in the pools. Two or three weeks prior to harvest, promising plants are rechecked and marked within each selected family in all pools. In all early pools, when the objective is earlier maturity, tassels from the male rows are removed following 60-70 percent silking in female rows. This effective procedure permits self-elimination of all late families within the pool.  Depending on their use in various locations, the pools are subjected to different stress pressures. These include sugarcane borer (Diatraea saccharalis), Pools 19 and 21; Southwestern corn borer (D. grandiose/la), Pool 32; fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda), Pools 24 and 26; corn earworm (Heliothis zea), Pools 1 and 3; ear rots, Pools 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 with Fusarium roseum; Pools 20,25,29,33,and 34 with F. moniliforme;stalk rots,Pools 15,16,17,18,22,23,and 30 with F. moniliforme.In addition to serving as pollinator for the female rows, the male rows of each pool are used for improving resistance to both ear and stalk rots. This is done by selecting 500 agronomically desirable plants around flowering time. The selected plants are artificially inoculated with stalk and ear rots. In ear rots, the spore concentration is five times greater than the one used in the normal inoculation. The ears saved at harvest are included in the same pool to further upgrade the level of ear and stalk rot resistance.Mild selection is applied within each pool to prevent depletion of attributes or genes necessary for further advancement at a later stage. Lower selection intensity also provides better chances and opportunities for recombination among linked genes that with higher selection intensity would probably be discarded much earlier. Among-family selection pressure is about 50 to 60 percent and within-family selection in selected families is about 6 to 18 percent. At harvest, the selected ears are classified as male (pollen source for the following cycle) and female ears. The male ears are selected from the promising families and plants. Approximately 70 percent of the selected ears fall in this group. Then, in the following cycle, all selected ears (both male and female) enter as separate female families in the half.:-Sib crossing block. The male rows are planted with a balanced male composite made up only of selected male ears.Promising accessions from the bank or the introduction nursery can be added as female rows in the pool. The families from the cross can be planted again as female rows and then rejected or integrated into the main pool body, depending on their performance. New additions permit continuous broadening and improvement of the pool.Improvements or changes in each pool from cycle to cycle can be effectively monitored by planting two or more rows of each cycle of selection, with or without replications, at the end of each pool. While gene pools are being improved for stress traits, all possible care is taken to maintain genetic diversity within each pool. This would require that families or plants that are not suitable for stress traits, but otherwise show promising agronomic traits, be saved and used in the next cycle of recombination.Bulks from various pools also are sent to C IMMYT staff members stationed in various regions. Ears saved from each location are brought back to Mexico to be included in the pools. Thus, the potential influences of othe.r environments are introduced into the pools. This helps to further improve their adaptation.Corresponding Advanced Unit populations are planted periodically as check entries within each pool to identify superior families for further evaluation and incorporation in the Advanced Unit populations. To obtain a quality protein version of a pool, a bulk of stable hard endosperm QPM families can be planted as female rows in the pool, with back crosses made every three or four cycles.In summation, gene pools are recombined, improved continuously, and broadened regularly with the addition of new introductions from the national programs and with superior matching entries from the maize germplasm bank. The progress made in different pools for important agronomic traits is given in Table 2. The latest cycles are significantly higher yielding, earlier, and shorter in plant height. The Advanced Unit deals with normal maize and quality protein maize populations. Presently the unit is handling 27 populations, three of which carry the opaque-2 gene (Table 3). These populations are divided into two groups: group 1 consists of 13 populations, group 2 has 14 populations. Each population is sent out for International Progeny Testing Trials ( IPTTs) every other year. The group 1 populations are tested in even years and group 2 populations in odd years. All populations are handled directly from CIMMYT, except Population 43 (La Posta), in cooperation with llTA, Nigeria, for streak virus resistance; Populations 22 (Mezcla Tropical Blanca), 28 (Amarillo Dentado), and 31 (Amarillo Cristalino-2), with the Thai National Maize Program, for downy mildew resistance; and Population 48 (Compuesto de Hungda), with the Turkish National Maize Program, for stalk rot resistance. These populations have been improved for yield, plant height, maturity, diseases, and other traits over two to three cycles using international progeny testing. Before a given material is considered for the international testing program, several criteria are examined. First, populations are evaluated in variety tests in different countries; then, depending on their performance, they are sent to locations having the most potential for that material. In some cases, previous experience is used in the decision-making process, depending upon the type of germplasm involved and the genetic constitution of the population. For many populations, it is possible to make fairly accurate predictions about the areas or regions of their adaptation.The full-sib family selectfon scheme is used for improvement of Advanced Unit populations. In each population, 250 reciprocal full sibs are developed and evaluated in international progeny tests both in the northern and southern hemispheres. Approximately 80-100 full-sibfamilies are selected on the basis of across location data for the next improvement cycle. Since the retrieval of data takes about one year, one cycle of selection is completed in two years. The intervening period between the two cycles is utilized to improve the population for the most deficient trait.The full-sib family selection method involves the following steps (Figures 3 and 4):(1) Progeny Regeneration: 250 full sibs are developed from each population through reciprocal plant-to-plant crosses among families. This provides sufficient seed for use in progeny evaluation, initiating the nex(cycle of improvement, and development of experimental varieties. In quality protein populations, only those pairs are saved in which both members are well modified with respect to endosperm hardness.(2) International Progeny Testing Trials: A total of 250 full sibs plus six checks are tested at six different sites, preferably in different countries, using a 16 x 16 simple lattice with two replications.(3) Within-Family Improvement: All 250 families are planted in the following season. Within-family selection is made for the deficient characteristics. Should data be available from sufficient locations before pollination, a preliminary selection can be made to save about 50 percent of the families. In such cases, within-family selection is restricted to the selected families.Selfs or plant-to-plant sibs are made within each family to maintain the identity of the family. Within-family sibs are usually made for characteristics that can be observed before or at flowering time. For other characteristics, where the trait expression can be judged best at harvest time, either selfs or reciprocal plant-to-plant crosses are made within each family. In quality protein maize populations, when the aim is selection of better modifiers, reciprocal plant-to-plant crosses are made within each family. At harvest, an average of three sibs or three selfs is selected from each family.(4) Family Improvement and Recombination: The sibs or selfs from each family are planted in the next season. A full record is kept of all sub-families originating from each parental family. Before pollination, data usually arrive from various locations and it is possible to identify superior families on the basis of across-location data.Selection for the same traits is again made, both among and within sub-families of a given parental family. The better individuals within the set of selected sub-families of each parental family are marked and bulk-pollinated in a hand-pollinated halfsib fashion. An average of two or three half-sib ears are selected from the progeny of each original parental full-sib family that has been selected according to acrosslocation performance.The selected half-sib ears are planted on an ear-to-row basis. A record is kept of all half sibs originating from the parental full-sib families  Table 4 shows the selection gains in seven populations for three important agronomic attributes. The gains per cycle vary from 0.75 percent to 4.05 percent with an average gain of 2.60 percent. All populations registered height reduction with an average gain of 2.5 ems per cycle. The average maturity was lowered by approximately half a day. A selection intensity of four percent is used in the development of experimental varieties. The varieties are developed on the basis of site-specific and across-site progeny test data. Thus, each population has a potential of producing seven experimental varieties (six site-specific and one across-site). Since the superior fraction of each population is sampled to form the experimental variety, it is expected that these varieties will show considerably higher performance as compared to the population mean, and have increased potential for immediate use and exploitation. In the formation of experimental varieties, the approximately ten superior high-yielding families with relatively uniform agronomic attributes are recombined so that the variety will be uniform in appearance.In the formation of experimental varieties, diallel matings are made among the selected families. Uniformity among families and plants should be emphasized in recombination at this stage. At harvest the ears from each family, resulting from crosses with the other families, are saved and shelled as a bulk. A pre-calculated quantity is taken from each family bulk to make the F1 bulk. This is advanced next season to form a random mating variety to reduce the heterotic effects and to provide seed increase for experimental variety trials (EVTs) and elite experimental variety trials (ELVTs).The experimental varieties are named so that cooperators from different national programs who conduct the progeny tests will receive full recognition. Variety names are derived from the name of the station where the progeny test was conducted, followed by two digits indicating the year of test. The last two figures show the population number (e.g. Tocumen 7428).As noted, the site-specific and across-site experimental varieties are developed on the basis of progeny trial data. The experimental varieties so formed from different populations are grouped into experimental varrety trials 11 through 17. EVT 15 is reserved for experimental varieties derived .from Advanced Unit OPM populations. Each EVT is tested internationally in 30 to 40 locations. Table 5 shows the superiority of experimental varieties over their parental population. The superior experimental varieties across locations are evaluated in the elite experimental variety trials. These elite experimental variety trials carry trial numbers from 18 through 20. ELVT 18 is reserved for tropical lowland, ELVT 19 for OPM, and ELVT 20 for subtropical materials. These ELVTs are sent to more than 50 locations around the world.Promising elite experimental varieties can be tested in off-station trials by the national programs. After verification on larger plots, the variety then can be made available to the farmer. There must be a simultaneous seed increase of superior varieties so that enough seed is available at the time of the release.The following describes the ongoing program for maize improvement for special characteristics. These include (1) breeding for earliness, (2) breeding for resistance to downy mildew, stunt, and streak virus, (3) breeding for insect resistance, and (4) breeding for quality protein maize.Early maize varieties are needed in many parts of the world to fit more readily into the cropping pattern or to make full use of the growing season because of a particular rainfall pattern. In general, very early materials are susceptible to foliar diseases and have low yield potential, even under reasonably high plant population densities. Over the past four years, Cl MM YT has placed major emphasis on developing earlier genotypes for tropical, sub-tropical, and highland areas. Four approaches are being used to develop early materials:( 1)Recurrent selection for' earliness in a mid-to full-season maize population.(2) Crossing early types with midto full-season materials, followed by recombination and selection for earliness along with other desirable agronomic characteristics.(3) lntercrossing among early types, followed by recombination and selection for yield and resistance to foliar diseases without sacrificing earliness.(4) lntercrossing early tropical maize with US Corn Belt maize with the objective of combining yield, earliness, and resistance to foliar diseases.In approach 1, about 400-500 families are being t'landled in an early composite using a half-sib selection program. Early plants are marked in the families and when 60 to 70 percent of the plants have silked, tassels are removed from the male rows to eliminate the later maturing fraction of the population. The material then is harvested relatively early to aid in visual separation of the drier ears. Only the best relatively drier ears from superior early plants are selected for continuation in the next cycle.The same approach is being used in some pools, except that the experimental material has been derived from the crosses of early composites with full-to mid-season Advanced Unit maize populations. Findings from approaches I and 2 indicate that it is possible to produce materials half-to-one-day earlier each cycle, while maintaining about the same yield level. The last two approaches also have been tried, but results have not been encouraging.Three maize diseases have become increasingly important in recent years. These pose potential danger to many maize-growing areas of the world: stunt in Central America and Mexico, streak virus in Africa, and downy mildew, mainly in Asia, although it also has been reported in Central and South America and Africa. In •1974 a collaborative research project was initiated between CIMMYT and six national programs to develop maize germplasm resistant to these diseases. Initially three genetically broadbased agronomically superior maize populations were chosen for this work. They had different grain colors and textures and could be grown satisfactorily in many parts of the world.In improving genetic resistance to these diseases, a shuttle breeding approach was followed. The collaborating countries were Thailand and the Philippines for downy mildew, El Salvador and Nicaragua for corn stunt, and Tanzania and Zaire for streak virus. Alternate cycles of selection were carried out in 'hot-spot' areas of the collaborating countries to select agronomically desirable disease-resistant plants. The resistant selections then were recombined and further selected for agronomic characters in the following season in Mexico.By 1980, four cycles of selection had been completed in each population and it was becoming apparent that an adequate level of field resistance had been attained for corn stunt and downy mildew diseases. A systematic population improvement program was intro-duced at this point. Full sibs were developed from downy mildew and corn stunt resistant populations and the progeny trials were sent for evaluation to countries where these diseases had a good chance of expression under natural conditions. Based on the test data, stunt and downy mildew resistant experimental varieties were developed in Mexico. These experimental varieties have been tested in special downy mildew and corn stunt trials and used by various national programs.With the relocation of the Asian regional program to Thailand, and establishment of the West African regional program at I ITA, Nigeria, the responsibility for the development of resistance to downy mildew and streak virus was shifted to these programs, respectively. The work on downy mildew now involves three Advanced Unit populations-Mezcla Tropical Blanca (Pop. 22), Amarillo Dentado (Pop. 28), and Amarillo Cristalino-2 (Pop. 31 ). The distribution of international nurseries and further improvement of these populations is carried out in cooperation with the Thai National Maize Program with major emphasis on downy mildew resistance. Similarly, the work on developing resistance to streak virus is now carried out .in collaboration with I IT A, Nigeria in population La Posta (Pop. 43).Breeding insect resistant materials requires mass rearing and artificial infestation facilities. To meet this need, an insect-rearing facility was developed at CIMMYT in 1974. Four insect species currently are being reared: fall armyworm, sugarcane borer, Southwestern corn borer, and corn earworm. Techniques for insect rearing and larva production and collection have been improved, and sufficient numbers can be produced to artificially infest several back-up pools and advanced maize populations with larvae.The artificial infestation technique needs special mention as it is a remarkable improvement over what entomologists have used in the past (Ortega et al. 1980). The new technique uses newly hatched larvae, instead of egg masses, mixed with ground corn cobs. This mixture is applied in the whorls with the help of a larval dispenser (bazooka) in the case of fall armyworm and borers, and on fresh silks, for earworms. The technique has considerably speeded up the insect resistance work at CIMMYT and has many advantages: active larvae begin to feed immediately and are less exposed to predators; speed and uniformity of infestation are enhanced; timeliness of infestation can be better regulated, and plants escaping infestation are reduced considerably.For improving the level of resistance in Pools 24 and 26, eight plants in each family (female rows) are infested at the three to four extended leaf stage, depositing in the whorl two precalibrated discharges of about 20 first instar fall armyworm larvae. Three discharges of about 10 first instar larvae of the sugarcane borer in Pools 19 and 21 and of Southwestern corn borer in Pool 32 are applied when the plants reach the six to eight extended leaf stage. Split application of larvae reduces the variation in the number of larvae that each plant receives. The remaining eight plants of each family (female rows) are protected with granular insecticides. The relative yield differences between protected and infested portions together with leaf feeding ratings are used to identify families that possess both antibiosis and tolerance.In Pools 24 and 26, all plants in the pollinator rows (male rows) are infested at seedling stage (16 hills, two plants each). At thinning, the most damaged plant in each hill is removed. At flowering, about 30 percent of the more damaged plants are detasseled before pollen shed. In Pools 19, 21, and 32, infestations of all plants in the pollinator rows are done after thinning, and 30 percent of the most damaged plants are detasseled before pollen shed.The highland pools (1 and 3) are infested with corn earworm when a full silk brush is present. About ten first instar larvae are discharged twice on the silks. Damage is estimated by measuring the larval penetration in centimeters at harvest time.All breeding nurseries are established with insecticide-fungicide coated seed. This seed treatment ceases to be effective by the time the plantlets are to be artificially infested. When necessary (because of weather conditions or availability of insect material for artificial infestation), additional insecticide protection may be provided to prevent natural insect infestation.When the availability of insect larvae permits, two to three infestations may be done to maintain the pressure up to the preflowering stage and select the plants that have the least amount of damage to first and second insect generations.To determine plant reaction to larval leaf feeding in maize pools and populations, a rating scale of 1 (no damage) to 5, or 1 to 9 (severe damage), is used. Preference is for the 1 to 9 scale, where 1-3 includes the resistant types, 4-6 the intermediate, and 7-9 the susceptible ones. Two to four ratings may be conducted before flowering to finally select the least damaged families and plants.In addition to the maize pools indicated above, Populations 21 (Tuxpefio 1) and 24 (Antigua Veracruz 181) are being improved for resistance to fall armyworm; Populations 23 (Blanco Cristalino-1) and 27 (Amarillo Cristalino-1) for resistance to sugarcane borer; and 47 (Templado Blanco Dentado) for resistance to Southwe_stern corn borer. Two cycles of S2 recurrent selection in Tuxpefio 1 have generated a synthetic with an intermediate level of resistance.In these populations, 8-16 plants in each family are infested in replicated or unreplicated nurseries and evaluated and selected as described for the pools.In developing quality protein maize (OPM), the opaque-2 gene has been used most extensively. Unfortunately most OPM materials have problems of reduced grain yield, unacceptable soft, chalky endosperm, slower drying following physiological maturity of the grain, and more vulnerability to ear rots and stored grain pests. These problems are fairly complex in nature and have acted as the major hurdle. in the promotion and acceptance of OPM materials by the farmers. In order to develop commercially acceptable OPM materials with improved nutritional and biological value, it is extremely important that the major research thrust be placed on solving the above-mentioned problems. Though various research ideas and breeding approaches were explored and tried in order to remedy problems confronting OPM materials, the breeding strategy based on the accumulation and exploitation of genetic modifiers of the opaque-2 locus was found the most appropriate alternative (see Vasal et al. 1979Vasal et al. , 1980;;Paliwal and Sprague, 1981 ). Before this approach could be used effectively, however, there was a need to develop the donor stocks carrying the opaque-2 gene with modified endosperm. Though variation did exist in soft opaque-2 materials for kernel modification, a selection process had to be independently initiated in several genetic backgrounds. The partial modified types developed through the selection process were intermated ta permit pyramiding of these modifying genes. This then produced an altered phenotype almost indistinguishable from the normal endosperm. During the selection process, the protein quality was continuously monitored through laboratory analysis to maintain it at a desirable level.The development of suitable donor stocks with completely normal kernel phenotype was a genetic breakthrough which inspired new hopes and optimism and laid the foundation for the current QPM breeding effort. In 1974, a complete switch-over was made to the breeding strategy involving the use of genetic modifiers. Concerted research efforts were initiated at this time to develop a wide array of OPM germplasm using normal maize populations and gene pools available in the advanced and back-up stages of the maize program. Two main breeding approaches were used in developing OPM germ plasm: development of OPM versions of normal maize genotypes through the conversion process, and development of hard endosperm OPM gene pools. Both approaches are discussed below.To develop OPM versions with modified kernel appearance, the normal maize genotypes are crossed with one or more appropriate QPM donor stocks with vitreous endosperm. Since the incorporation process involves the introduction of the opaque-2 gene and also the favorable genetic modifiers from the donor stocks, the conventional backcross program cannot be used effectively to handle both the simple and complex genetic systems involved in the conversion program. It is important that, following each backcross, the frequency of genetic modifiers be raised adequately before actually making the ensuing backcross. A combination of backcross and recurrent selection breeding approaches has been designed to develop acceptable types of OPM materials and to capitalize on the improvements made in the recurrent parent. The breeding scheme used in the conversion process (Figure 5) has the following unique features:1.An improved version of the recurrent parent is used in each backcross. Thus the improvements made in the recurrent parent are passed on to the OPM version.The procedure is fairly flexible. The degree of kernel modification plays an important role in determining the timing of the next backcross. It is often necessary to advance the OPM segregates to F3 or even F4 to sufficiently increase the frequency of genetic modifiers before the backcrosses are made.The scheme is so designed that a portion of the OPM version can be handled generation after generation in a homozygous opague-2 genetic background. This permits continuous accumulation of favorable genetic modifiers through the recurrent selection process. Also, this portion is continuously monitored for protein quality.Following each backcross, the accumulated modifiers as well as the protein quality are maintained.Systematic and more rigorous selection is exercised against such characters as presence of open spaces between kernel rows on the ear, dull modifiers, popped kernels, and slower drying, both at family and individual plant levels.Selection for stable modifiers over environments is practiced. The advanced OPM families are screened for stability of modifiers at different locations in the same season, followed by recombination of the most stable ones in the next season.7.The products of the conversion process can be used easily at any stage, either as a whole population or as a recombined bulk of superior families.At CIMMYT, the hard endosperm QPM versions of advanced populations and back-up gene pools have been developed using the aforementioned scheme. The performance of QPM versions as against their normal conterparts is given in Table 6. The kernel phenotype of these QPM versions has approached normal appearance. Plant height and ear height are similar to that of normal counterparts. The ear rot incidence has been reduced substantially; however, some OPM materials still show somewhat higher incidence. Major emphasis over the next few years will be given to the merging of genetically similar types to develop advanced QPM populations and the appropriate OPM gene pools. In addition to being excellent gene reservoirs, the OPM gene pools bring together in a given source material with homozygous opaque-2 background the genetic modifiers from several genetically diverse maize materials. Following the genetic mixing, the frequency of favorable modifiers is increased, which in turn remedies several undesirable attributes affecting OPM materiais. The OPM gene pools developed with modified endosperm can be used in several ways: 1) as donor stocks for use in the conversion program, 2) as back-up support to the ongoing population improvement program for continuous improvement, 3) a superior fraction can be extracted to develop new OPM populations for improvement through systematic progeny testing, and 4) as source materials for initiating the improvement process in the national programs.Gene pools with modified endosperm have been formed in different ways, depending largely on the stage of development of OPM materials in the program and also on the availability of such materials from the other national programs. Three approaches have been used in the formation of such OPM pools:1.Recombination of QPM families with partially modified phenotype originating independently from different genetic backgrounds. This approach was used in the initial stages of the program. Modified OPM families or lines which by themselves had no use were successfully used in the formation of OPM pools.Use OPM materials obtained either through the conversion process or from the population improvement• programs. Either bulks of QPM materials or the superior families from each QPM material was used in the formation of OPM pools.Cross normal populations with QPM donor stocks. The F 1 crosses were advanced to F2 in a half-sib crossing block. OPM segregates with better kernel modification were selected from the segregating F2 generation. The selected OPM segregates were then used for further genetic mixing in the following cycles.During the process of genetic mixing, the major emphasis is placed on accumulating favorable alleles for altering and improving the kernel phenotype at every possible stage in the selection process without sacrificing protein quality.Although the management and improvement of OPM pools is similar to that of normal gene pools, their handling requires special emphasis on the following points:• Isolation of OPM pools from normal materials is essential.• Quality protein and kernel modification are so important in the development of QPM gene pools that these two traits play an overriding role in the selection of the families. The selected ears from each cycle are subjected to laboratory analyses and the families are selected on the basis of protein content and quality.• Selection for improved kernel modification is practiced at every possible step, both at ear and kernel level, and only modified kernels are used in planting the halfsib crossing block.• Only selected ears with good protein quality are used to make up the balanced male composite.• In addition to selecting for better agronomic traits, selection is practiced against such traits as open spaces between kernel rows, dull modified kernels, popped kernels, and slower drying following physiolqgical maturity of the grain.• Selection for resistance to ear rots, both under natural and artificial conditions, receives major emphasis.• Partial contamination of QPM gene pools by normal pollen is done to facilitate selection of modifiers for better kernel weight and density. White gene pools can be contaminated with pollen from yellow normal materials, and for yellow materials it is necessary to develop colored seed markers to exhibit xenia effect.At CIMMYT, a total of seven OPM gene pools are being maintained and continuously improved. Four are tropical lowland and three are subtropical in adaptation. Several cycles of selection have been completed in these pools. The latest cycles are earlier and shorter and have better modified ears (Table 7). The mean endosperm modification score of kernels in different cycles has improved progressively over the cycles without adversely affecting the quality of the protein.Improvement of OPM populations in the Advanced Unit Three OPM Populations, 39 (Yellow OPM), 40 (White OPM), and 41 (Templado Amarillo OPM), are undergoing population improvement. These are handled in the same fashion as any other normal Advanced Unit population. In addition to important agronomic attributes, the QPM populations receive special emphasis for such characters as modification of kernel phenotype, stability of genetic modifiers, resistance to ear rots, maintenance of protein quality, and other direct and indirect criteria which can facilitate the improvement of OPM populations.Table 8 gives the performance of some of the EVs derived from OPM populations. In several countries, QPM materials are giving yields comparable to or better than normal materials. ","tokenCount":"7313"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2e89721e5052b13344642ffbbc9c8c82","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/467f39c3-2e51-47a3-8e1d-a147b9ffc82f/retrieve","id":"-1933211777"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1d7700ff-225c-4b88-844d-7382194be1e0","pagecount":"10","content":"A Management Response is a formal response to evaluation recommendations. Management Responses help ensure that evaluations are used and contribute to organizational effectiveness, learning and accountability, and set out time-bound commitments from management to implement evaluation recommendations. The systematic follow-up to evaluation recommendations is recognized in the CGIAR Evaluation Policy as an integral part of the evaluative process. 1   Formal tracking of Management Response actions and reporting on their status started in the 2022 Technical Report and included all System-level evaluations completed since 2021. This 2023 report contains five evaluations completed during 2021-2023 (also available on the Management Response Tracker), containing a total of 189 recommendations and sub-recommendations: Evaluation title Date completed Date of Management Response No. of recomm. No. of actions Max. completion date for actions Links to Evaluation Reports and Management Responses 2021 Synthesis of Learning from a Decade of CGIAR Research Programsҿ The Portfolio Narrative draws on the Type 1 and Type 3 reports and the CGIAR Results Dashboard, to provide a broader view on Portfolio coherence, including results, partnerships, country and regional engagement, and synergies among the Portfolio's constituent parts.The CGIAR Annual Report is a comprehensive overview of CGIAR's collective achievements, impact and strategic outlook, which draws significantly from the Technical Report products above. For 2023, the Annual Report and Technical Report will be presented online as an integrated product.   CGIAR Technical Reporting relies on the following key components to function:ҿ The CGIAR Results Framework and Standard Indicator Description Sheets: These provide a common set of result levels and result types that the vast majority of reported results fit within. The Standard Indicator Description Sheets provide further detail to guide the monitoring and reporting of results.ҿ The CGIAR Theory of Change (TOC) tool: All reporting entities use a common digital TOC tool with standard TOC rules, bringing more consistency among the different reporting entities.ҿ Innovation Packages and Scaling Readiness (IPSR): This provides a common, data-driven protocol to profile, package, and manage innovations to scale. IPSR underpins CGIAR's Innovation Portfolio Management (IPM).ҿ Adaptive Management: A Report -Reflect -Re-plan adaptive management process has been baked into the delivery of Initiatives, Impact Platforms, and SGPs. This critical step allows teams to reflect on planned versus achieved progress, and propose adjustments for the following year's delivery. The proposed adjustments and rationale are included in their respective Type 1 reports.ҿ Quality assurance: A team of Quality Assessors reviews key data points in the reported results against criteria to ensure quality. To facilitate the production of the 2023 Technical Report and ensure the effective dissemination of the reported results via the CGIAR Results Dashboard, several information and training sessions were conducted. Over 1,100 participants attended these sessions, receiving comprehensive guidance and support on the use of the PRMS Reporting Tool, the QA process, the Type 1 report template, and Key Result Stories (KRS). These sessions served as both a refresher and integral components of the onboarding process for new Impact Platforms and SGPs.SGPs: In June 2022, the CGIAR Senior Leadership Team (SLT) agreed on empowering the Global Science Groups with the effective implementation of Window 3 and bilateral work, aligning with funder preferences. Following alignment with the System Board (SB24) and the System Council (SC17), the SGP pilot was launched for 2023-2024. This initiative led to the inclusion of Centre-specific Window 3 SGP Awards as a reporting category within CGIAR common systems, alongside Window 1 budgeting and the Technical Reporting Arrangement.In 2023, project design support was provided to participatory CGIAR Centers engaged in the pilot of the SGPs, ensuring integration of the projects into the PRMF through the utilization of the SGP Project Alignment Checklist and Project Charter. The onboarding process involved the adoption of the standard CGIAR Type 1 reporting template and PRMS, along with the development of SGP budgets adhering to CGIAR's standard budget format, facilitating the integration of project financial data into financial reporting dashboards.By the conclusion of 2023, three out of five SGP pilot projects were approved for Window 3 funding securing a total of USD 57 million. Implementation of two SGPs -AVISA and RTB -commenced in the second quarter of 2023, with both projects submitting their first-year results using the PRMS Reporting Tool and Type 1 reports in accordance with CGIAR's Technical Reporting Arrangement.Impact Platforms: Three Impact Platforms -: (i) Nutrition, Health and Food Security; (ii) Climate Adaptation and Mitigation; and (iii) Environmental Health and Biodiversity commenced implementation in Q2 of 2023 and were provided onboarding support including development of the Platforms' TOCs and results frameworks that culminated in their submission to their first-year results using the PRMS Reporting Tool and Type 1 reports in accordance with CGIAR's Technical Reporting Arrangement.3.3. Report/Reflect/Replan The Reflect process is primarily intended to empower Initiative/Impact Platform/SGP leaders by providing them with a clear, light touch process and mandate to recommend reallocation of resources between and within Work Packages for the year ahead, and to modify agreed plans within specified guardrails, to maximize their contribution to impact. This iterative process also offers several other benefits, such as providing funders and partners with evidence that Initiatives/Impact Platforms/SGPs are learning during delivery and using collective insights and intelligence to update plans and provide Science Group Managing Directors with a process to steer, review, and approve teams' key recommendations for change, contributing to Portfolio coherence. Through these partnerships, CGIAR participates in thousands of innovation and scaling projects, collectively known as its innovation portfolio. The practice of using data and analytics to guide strategic decision-making and resource allocation is referred to as Innovation Portfolio Management (IPM).The adoption of IPM approaches by public research and development organizations remains limited according to the OECD. However, CGIAR is pioneering in this space, adopting a unique IPM approach grounded in Scaling Readiness principles. The CGIAR IPM approach has been detailed in a publication within Elsevier's Agricultural Systems journal, highlighting its distinctiveness and applicability.Moreover, an assessment by the Global Scaling Community of Practice, focusing on the integration of scaling practices within public sector funding and implementation bodies, noted CGIAR's unparalleled commitment to embedding scaling within the innovation process. This commitment is notable even though it currently applies to the \"pooled\" portion of CGIAR's research and innovation portfolio (nearly 40 percent of CGIAR's 2023 funding), although some early adoption by large bilateral projects such as the African Development Bank funded Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) is taking place.The findings and recommendations presented in both the journal article and case study offer valuable insights for other public sector organizations. Additionally, they underscore critical steps CGIAR must take to maximize the advantages of IPM, thereby advancing its mission to deliver sustainable and impactful research outcomes.CGIAR's approach to IPM balances enhancing internal organizational innovation and scaling capabilities with fostering connections to a diverse range of external partners in the agricultural innovation ecosystem. This strategy is not only about internal optimization; but also about creating meaningful engagements with governmental, public, and private sector innovators and scalers.At the heart of managing its internal innovation and scaling activities is the PRMF. A standout feature of the PRMF is the Innovation Packages and Scaling Readiness (IPSR) approach which introduces an evidence-based method for monitoring innovations and curating innovation packages along an impact pathway. This provides standardized methodologies and metrics that facilitate the aggregation of data to effectively manage an innovation portfolio.To complement its internal efforts, CGIAR launched the Accelerate for Impact Platform (A4IP) -a strategic investment (powered by the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT) that rethinks the business-as-usual paradigm of scientific research by adopting innovative models to bridge research products with the greatest potential from lab to market. As a delivery mechanism, A4IP accompanies talented teams in transferring their early-stage solutions from prototypes into market-viable products throughout the development, deployment, and adoption continuum, ensuring that solutions reach their full potential and significantly contribute to sustainable agricultural transformation. A4IP fosters a risk-taking and entrepreneurial culture among CGIAR scientists and connects them with the external agritech innovation ecosystem. See: A4IP 2023 Year in Review.In the journey toward refining Adaptive Management for CGIAR, we have seen significant progress, including its rapid adoption and positive feedback from Initiatives/Impact Platforms/SGPs on its contribution to enhancing their strategic agility.Ukama Ustawi hosted our second annual Plan & Reflect workshop. We invited 100 partners, our Community of Spirit, for a week in South Africa and Ethiopia. The opportunity to meet as a team and our closest partners has been incredibly beneficial to create a real value proposition in the region. It has allowed us to break down silos between Work Packages and countries as partners and teams met.The replanning process allowed us to take stock -of what has worked and what we need to adjustand actually make the required changes.Ukama Ustawi Initiative (CGIAR Research Initiative on Diversification in East and Southern Africa)We were able to assemble over 80 colleagues involved in various aspects of the Initiative for a detailed reporting, reflection and forecasting exercise in Viet Nam, one of our use case sites. We got valuable feedback from external parties (our External Advisory Committee, the Viet Nam government, and colleagues from the University of Wageningen's Science of Scaling team), consultants, and team members. This informed changes on how we transition from our current use case model to a localized innovation ecosystem approach, strengthen our ability to validate innovations, and build greater accountability among Initiative members.To provide the best possible assistance to Initiatives/Impact Platforms/SGPs, CGIAR has enriched its support through updated Adaptive Management guidelines, refresher sessions for reporting entities, and robust peer-to-peer exchange forums, witnessing first-hand the different context-relevant strategies employed in Reflect sessions. These sessions, led by Initiatives/Impact Platforms/SGPs, allowed deep dives into the lessons learned in 2023 and are crucial for distilling collective wisdom and insights, directly contributing to the strategic depth of CGIAR's Portfolio. Moreover, the year saw 157 instances where innovations were adopted and utilized, benefiting an extensive number of farmers and other stakeholders.ҿ By the end of 2023, A4IP had profiled 3,000+ innovations developed by external partners adopting the same set of innovation and scaling indicators used by CGIAR through the standardization of data collection. This will allow better linkages between CGIAR and partner innovation efforts.ҿ Mandatory annual updates on innovation development and use progress were activated, and new data was collected on innovation and scaling, anticipated gendered/aged innovation users, USD investment in innovation and scaling, and private sector engagement and Intellectual Property Rights.ҿ The IPSR outcome-level module that supports CGIAR and partners in defining realistic scaling ambitions, mapping context-specific enabling conditions, and providing a starting point for developing strategies to overcome bottlenecks for scaling was launched. In 2023, 27 Innovation Packages were reported. Achievement 2: Strengthened capacity and communityIPM is new and disruptive, both in driving strategic partnerships and in catalyzing organizational change toward a more demand-driven impact culture. A concerted investment in building capabilities and nurturing a community is crucial for the widespread adoption and impact of IPM.ҿ A series of four workshops were conducted, leading to the training of 100 facilitators specializing in innovation and scaling. These sessions took place in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mexico and Thailand, drawing participants from 28 of the 32 CGIAR Initiatives and various partner organizations. Post-training, all facilitators were given the opportunity to be listed in a dedicated scaling directory, intended as a platform for networking, sharing expertise, and finding innovation and scaling readiness experts.ҿ The second annual \"Week of Scaling\" held in Nairobi, Kenya, highlighted the vital roles of inclusivity and sustainability in the process of scaling agricultural innovations. The event brought together 98 participants, representing 10 CGIAR Centers and 16 external organizations and partners, including the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA), the World Bank, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ), and the New Zealand Ministry for Foreign Affairs (MFAT). The event facilitated several dialogues, including on responsible innovation and scaling and private sector engagement.ҿ A4IP launched \"Venture-Out: Bridging Science and Entrepreneurship\" -a series of interactive webinars where leading science-based ventures and tech transfer experts showcased their success stories of bringing research ideas from lab to market. With 75 percent of viewership in 2023 comprising CGIAR staff, the series encouraged learning and partnerships amongst innovators, highlighting synergies and pathways for value creation between participating experts and Alliance/CGIAR scientists.ҿ A suite of masterclasses was offered as part of the curricula of A4IP's Innovation Challenges (AgriTech4Uzbekistan, Sustainable Cocoa Innovation Challenge, UNDP Youth4Climate) covering a broad variety of topics such scaling innovations, human-centered design, and gender-sensitive and socially responsible scaling practices.Achievement 3: Novel modalities to nurture innovation and scalingCGIAR has seized the opportunity to explore modalities and approaches that are specifically designed to nurture innovation and scaling trajectories. Some of these modalities and approaches include: ҿ Scaling Fund: CGIAR's Regional Integrated Initiative, Ukama Ustawi (CGIAR Research Initiative on Diversification in East and Southern Africa), has inaugurated its Scaling Fund, designed to propel high-impact CGIAR innovations into wider markets, reaching more consumers, and catalyzing significant change. In its inaugural round, after an intensive selection process, three innovations were chosen.Example of an A4IP-led innovation challenge that brings together CGIAR Centers and external ecosystem players to tackle specific agrifood system challenges. Photo credit: StartupFactory CGIAR has the ability and ambition to expand innovation management beyond its own organizational boundaries. Funder organizations such as the World Bank, BMGF and GIZ, and partner organizations such as CIRAD and FAO have initiated exchanges with CGIAR to learn and potentially integrate key elements into their respective innovation management approaches. To crowd in partner innovations, the development of opensource software is essential and will facilitate streamlined reporting, quality assurance, and global visibility, supporting CGIAR partners in accessing and using best-in-class IPM tools and practices. CGIAR has started a due diligence process to explore how to best achieve that objective. ","tokenCount":"2291"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"61369454c4ec0be4db99982ebc9dd48c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/4b7842ff-10c8-4472-8353-2df38e20f51e/content","id":"409189929"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6fb4d1a1-c360-41c1-acff-35bda3aa0873","pagecount":"27","content":"This study presents the development and mapping of simple sequence repeat (SSR) and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers in chickpea. The mapping population is based on an inter-speciWc cross between domesticated and non-domesticated genotypes of chickpea (Cicer arietinum ICC 4958 £ C. reticulatum PI 489777). This same population has been the focus of previous studies, permitting integration of new and legacy genetic markers into a single genetic map. We report a set of 311 novel SSR markers (designated ICCM-ICRISAT chickpea microsatellite), obtained from an SSR-enriched genomic library of ICC 4958. Screening of these SSR markers on a diverse panel of 48 chickpea accessions provided 147 polymorphic markers with 2-21 alleles and polymorphic information content value 0.04-0.92. Fifty-two of these markers were polymorphic between parental genotypes of the inter-speciWc population. We also analyzed 233 previously published (H-series) SSR markers that provided another set of 52 polymorphic markers. An additional 71 gene-based SNP markers were developed from transcript sequences that are Communicated by H. T. Nguyen.Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an annual, self-pollinated diploid (2n = 2x = 16) species with a relatively small genome of 740 Mbp (Arumuganathan and Earle 1991). Chickpea is also the World's third most widely grown food legume. Over 95% of chickpea production area and consumption occur in developing countries, with India contributing the largest share (65%), followed by Pakistan (9%), Iran (7%), and Turkey (4%) (FAOSTAT database http:// faostat.fao.org/site/567/default.aspx#ancor, 2007). Cytogenetic and seed protein analyses are consistent with C. reticulatum as the wild progenitor of domesticated C. arietinum, with southeastern Turkey as the presumed center of origin (Ladizinsky and Adler 1976). Cultivated chickpea is composed of two genetically distinct sub-types that are readily distinguished based on seed size and color: Desi, composed of small, brown seeded varieties, and Kabuli, composed of large, cream seeded varieties. Due to relatively low rates of polymorphism between cultivated chickpea accessions, inter-speciWc crosses between C. arietinum and C. reticulatum have been the primary focus for genetic studies of agronomic traits (see Singh et al. 2008).A diverse array of technologies is available to identify and monitor DNA polymorphism and as a consequence molecular markers are now routinely used in the breeding programs of several crop species (Varshney et al. 2006(Varshney et al. , 2007)). In the case of chickpea, molecular markers reported in the literature are almost entirely simple sequence repeat (SSR) loci (Choudhary et al. 2006;Hüttel et al. 1999;Lichtenzveig et al. 2005;Sethy et al. 2003Sethy et al. , 2006a, b;, b;Winter et al. 1999). Despite considerable eVort, low rates of both intra-and inter-speciWc polymorphism have limited the number of these SSR markers that have been integrated into chickpea genetic maps. A primary goal of the current study was to screen additional molecular markers and thereby enhance the marker density of chickpea genetic maps.Chickpea is a close relative of the model legume system Medicago truncatula (Fig. 1, reproduced according to Choi et al. 2004b), and thus should beneWt from the increasingly detailed description of the structure and function of the M. truncatula genome (Cannon et al. 2006). A pressing task for chickpea researchers is to use knowledge gained from the study of reference legumes, such as M. truncatula, Lotus japonicus, and soybean, to advance genetic improvement of chickpea. Comparative genomics based on orthologous genetic markers oVers means to bridge model and crop legumes. Alignment of linkage maps and sequenced orthologous regions between several legume species has revealed an extensive network of macro-and micro-synteny between legume species; importantly, genomic and genetic comparisons of orthologous nodulation genes in several legumes suggests that comparison of genome structure and function may have practical applications to crossspecies gene prediction and isolation (see Zhu et al. 2005). The lack of infrastructure (knowledge and physical capacity) in chickpea, however, has limited the potential for cross-genome comparisons and has hampered progress in the area of genomics-assisted breeding (Varshney et al. 2009a).In view of the above, we sought to enhance marker repertoire and density of genetic maps in chickpea using a combination of several molecular marker sets. We developed two novel sets of molecular markers based on an SSR-enriched genomic DNA library and gene-based single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers derived from comparison of Medicago and chickpea ESTs. These novel genetic markers were analyzed together with published genetic markers to develop a dense genetic map of chickpea. We anticipate that these resources will serve as tools for genomics-assisted breeding in chickpea, and enhance prospects for transfer of knowledge about the structure and function of the Medicago genome to chickpea with a Wnal objective of chickpea improvement.The cultivated chickpea germplasm line ICC 4958, belonging to Desi type and a parent line of inter-speciWc reference mapping population (C. arietinum ICC 4958 £ C. reticulatum PI 489777) was used to construct microsatelliteenriched library. While two genotypes of chickpea (ICC 4958 and ICC 1882) were used to optimize the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) conditions for newly developed SSR markers, an array of 48 genotypes which includes 33 genotypes from cultivated chickpea (C. arietinum) and 15 from wild species of chickpea (7 genotypes from C. reticulatum, 2 genotypes from C. echinospermum and one each from C. bijugum, C. cuneatum, C. judaicum, C. microphyllum, C. pinnatiWdum, and C. yamashitae) was used to assess the polymorphism potential of new set of SSR markers (Table 1).For integrating the markers into the genetic map, the inter-speciWc reference mapping population ICC 4958 £ PI 489777 comprising of a total of 131 RILs was used. While all 131 RILs were used to score genotyping data for the SSR markers isolated in this study as well as reported by Lichtenzveig et al. (2005), a subset of 94 RILs was used with gene-based markers.Total genomic DNA was extracted by employing the standardized high throughput mini DNA extraction protocol (as mentioned in Cuc et al. 2008). The quality and quantiWcation of extracted DNA was checked on 1.2% agarose. The DNA was normalized to 5 ng/ l for further use.To construct a size-fractioned chickpea genomic DNA library, puriWed genomic DNA (100 g) of ICC 4958 was completely digested with MboI or Sau3AI in combination with TaqI enzyme. The restricted fragments were separated on low-melting agarose gels, and the gel zone containing For enriching the genomic DNA library, synthetic oligos (GA) 10 and (TAA) 10 were enzymatically 3Ј end-labeled with digoxigenated oligonucleotides (DIG Oligonucleotide 3Ј-End Labeling Kit; Roche, Mannheim, Germany). Subsequently, macroarrays/Wlters were hybridized with abovementioned oligo-probes in Roti-Hybri-Quick buVer (Carl Roth GmbH, Karlsruhe, Germany) including 10 g/ml sheared, denatured E. coli DNA to minimize non-speciWc binding. Filters were hybridized at 55°C overnight and washed three times each for 10 min in 1:2, 1:5, and 1:10 dilutions of the hybridization buVer at 60°C. The digoxigen was detected in a \"direct detection assay\" performed with the DIG Wash and Block buVer set, and DIG Luminescent detection Kit (Roche, Mannheim, Germany) for chemiluminescent detection with a monospeciWc antibody coupled to alkaline phosphatase in the presence of CSPD. Filters were exposed to X-ray Wlms (Amersham, Buckinghamshire, UK) with intensifying screens for 4 h or overnight, and the colonies giving strong signals were scraped from the master plates; re-grown; spotted on Hybond N membranes (Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England) to Wx the DNA by lysis. Hybridization and chemiluminescent detection was done repeatedly to pick the clones with positive signals. These clones were grown on LB agar plates with ampicillin (100 g/ml) overnight at 37°C. Aliquots of these colonies were used for colony PCR.The colonies with high level of signal were used to isolate plasmid DNA using standard alkaline lysis method (Sambrook and Russell 2001). After checking the quality of the plasmid DNA on 0.8% agarose gel, the clones were sequenced using the BigDye Terminator cycle sequencing kit on an ABI3700/ABI3730XL (Applied Biosystems Inc., Foster City, CA, USA). 288 clones were sequenced in both directions using standard T7 promoter and SP6 primers and 19 clones in one direction by using M13-forward sequencing primer at Macrogen (www.macrogen.com) and ICRI-SAT.The sequences generated were subjected to CAP3, a contig assembly program (http://pbil.univ-lyon1.fr/ cap3.php) in order to deWne unigenes. These unigenes were subjected to MIcroSAtellite (MISA, Varshney et al. 2002) tool to search microsatellites considering minimum ten repeat units of mono-(N), and four repeats of di-(NN), tri-(NNN), tetra-(NNNN), penta-(NNNNN) and hexa-(NNNNNN) nucleotides and compound microsatellites present within a distance of 100 bp. Primer pairs for SSRs were designed using Primer3 program (http://frodo. wi.mit.edu/) in batch Wle, and the SSR markers developed were designated as ICCM (ICRISAT Chickpea Microsatellite) markers (Table 2).PCR primers derived from Medicago ESTs (expressed sequence tags), Medicago BAC (bacterial artiWcial chromosome)-end sequences, and M. sativa cDNA sequences have been described in previous studies (Choi et al. 2004a(Choi et al. , b, 2006)). To design PCR primers based on chickpea ESTs (Buhariwalla et al. 2005), candidate chickpea transcripts were compared to sequenced Medicago BAC clones (http:// www.medicago.org/genome), and transcripts with high nucleotide identity and low copy representation to the Medicago genome were selected for primer designing. Primers were designed from highly conserved coding sequences, to amplify across intron regions (Choi et al. 2004a), using the Lasergene PrimerSelect software package (DNAStar Inc., Madison, WI, USA). Details of these primer pairs are given in Table 3.The polymorphic gene-based markers between the parents of mapping population were identiWed essentially as mentioned in Choi et al. (2004a). Each pair of corresponding sequences from genotypes ICC 4958 and PI 489777 was aligned using Sequencher software (Gene Codes, Ann Arbor, MI, USA) to detect SNPs. The sequences with SNPs were transferred to DNA Strider 1.2 (Douglas 2008) to identify restriction site that is coincident with SNPs and cleavable ampliWed polymorphic sequence (CAPS) assay for genotyping the corresponding SNPs were developed. In cases where a suitable restriction enzyme site was not identiWed, oligonucleotide primers were designed immediately adjacent to the SNP position, which allows for a single base extension of the SNP site using ABI SNaPshot Multiplexing Kits (Applied Biosystems Inc., Foster City, CA, USA).For both ICCM as well as H-series SSR markers, the forward primers were anchored with M13 tail (CACG ACGTTGTAAAACGAC). PCR amplicons generated by SSR markers were analyzed on capillary electrophoresis, while for gene-based SNP markers the CAPS or SNaPshot assays were used for genotyping. For SSR genotyping,    PCR was carried out in 5 l reaction volume in GeneAmp ® PCR System 9700 thermal cycler (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA). The reaction mixture contained Wnal concentration of 5 ng/ l of template DNA, 0.5 mM dNTPs, 0.5 M of M13 tailed forward, 1 M of reverse primer, 1 M of M13 labeled primer, 0.75 mM of MgCl 2 , 0.1 U of Taq DNA polymerase (AmpliTaq Gold), and 1£ PCR buVer (AmpliTaq Gold). An initial denaturation was given for 15 min at 94°C. Subsequently, ten touch-down PCR cycles comprising of 94°C for 20 s, 61/60/55°C (depending on the marker as given in Table 2, ESM  Table 1) for 20 s, and 72°C for 30 s were performed. These cycles were followed by 35 cycles of 94°C for 10 s with constant annealing temperature of 54/56/48°C (depending on marker and touch-down proWles as given in Table 2, ESM Table 1) for 20 s, and 72°C for 30 s, and a Wnal extension was carried out at 72°C for 20 min. The ampliWed products were separated by capillary electrophoresis using ABI PRISM ® 3700 DNA analyzer, and allele calling was carried out as given in Varshney et al. (2009b).For SNP genotyping, in CAPS assay, 1.5 l PCR product of 94 RILs was digested with the corresponding restriction enzymes. Each digestion reaction contained 2-5 U of the corresponding restriction enzyme and 1£ compatible buVer in a total volume of 10 l. Enzyme digestions were incubated at the appropriate temperature for at least 4 h. Digestion products were separated and scored as mentioned in Choi et al. (2004a). In case of SNaPshot assay, the ABI SNaPshot Multiplexing Kits was used following the same protocol as suggested by the manufacturer, except that 0.5 l SNaPshot mix for a single marker was used (see Choi et al. 2004a).While ICCM-series markers were screened on the panel of 48 diverse genotypes including the parents of the inter-spe-ciWc mapping population (Table 1), the H-series markers were screened on only two parental genotypes (ICC 4958 and PI 489777). Allelic data obtained for the SSR markers were subjected to AlleloBin program (http://www.icrisat. org/gt-bt/download_allelobin.htm) for allele calling based on the repeat units of SSR motif for corresponding markers. In case of ICCM markers, the binned allelic data were used to calculate polymorphic information content (PIC) value of the markers by using the PowerMarker V3.25 program (http://statgen.ncsu.edu/powermarker/).Genotyping data for both ICCM-and H-series polymorphic markers were generated on 131 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) of the mapping population and for 94 RILs in case  of gene-based SNP markers. In addition, marker genotyping data for 407 marker loci were compiled (Huettel et al. 2002;PfaV and Kahl 2003;Tekeoglu et al. 2000;Winter et al. 1999Winter et al. , 2000)).Marker genotyping data were analyzed using the 2 test to assess the goodness-of-Wt to the expected 1:1 segregation ratio for each marker. Subsequently, genotyping data for all the markers, including those with distorted segregation, were used for linkage analysis using MAPMAKER/EXP 3.0 (Lander et al. 1987). Marker loci were Wrst divided into linkage groups at a LOD score of 16 and a recombination fraction of 0.37 by two-point analysis using the 'group' command. Marker order in the linkage groups was determined using the multi-point analysis 'try' command of the program. Most likely order of the loci within the group was determined using multipoint 'compare' command. The ungrouped marker loci were also attempted to integrate into genetic map at a smaller LOD value (up to 6). The map distances were calculated by applying the 'Kosambi' mapping function (Kosambi 1944) as per MAPMAKER/EXP 3.0 program. Residual heterozygosity was not considered in linkage mapping.A genomic DNA library composed of ca. 400,000 clones was constructed from the ICC 4958 genotype. Hybridization of this library with GA and TAA oligo probes yielded 359 clones that were sequenced and assembled into a set of 115 contig and 342 singleton DNA sequences, which we refer to as genome survey sequences (GSS). These sequences were submitted to National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and respective GenBank accessions are mentioned in Table 2.Two hundred and ninety-nine of the 457 GSSs were determined to contain a total of 643 SSRs, with 165 GSSs containing more than one SSR. As depicted in Fig. 2, diand tri-nucleotide repeats were the most abundant (39 and 40%, respectively), with mono-nucleotide and tetra-nucleotide repeats representing 16 and 3% of cases, respectively. Other types of SSRs had <1% representation. In terms of repeat motifs, the tri-nucleotide repeat motif TAA/ATT was most common, accounting 36.8% of all repeat, followed by the di-nucleotide repeat GA/CT at 19.2%.These SSR loci were categorized into two groups based on the length of their SSR tracts: Class I SSRs (>20 nucleotides in length) and Class II containing SSRs (>12 but <20 nucleotides in length) (Fig. 3). Considering only perfect SSRs, which is the set of SSRs that contain a single motif (e.g., TAA), we observed uneven distribution between Classes I and II. In particular, the longer Class I SSRs were substantially enriched for tri-nucleotide repeats, which represented 77% of all Class I repeats. A similar uneven distribution was noted for other repeats, but most notably the penta-nucleotide repeats, which comprised 55% of all Class II repeats and less than 2% of all Class I repeats.Similarity analysis was performed for all 457 GSSs using BLASTN and BLASTX algorithms, and signiWcant similarity was determined at an Expect value threshold of •1E-05 (Table 4). Relatively few of the GSS sequences had E values that surpassed this score, irrespective of the species data set under analysis. This is consistent with the expectation that randomly selected short genomic sequences only occasionally correspond to gene coding regions that will match EST data sets. Nevertheless, in cases where BLAST hits with e-value lower than 1E-05 threshold were recorded, the degree of similarity, expressed as either nucleotide identity of deduced protein similarity, was highest for phylogenetically related species, decreasing in rank order of phylogenetic distance (i.e., Medicago > lotus > soybean = cowpea = common bean > poplar > Arabidopsis > rice). Among these sequences, 40 were iden-tiWed as related sequences in all three analyzed cool season legumes, i.e., chickpea, Medicago, and Lotus (Hologalegina clade; see Fig. 1), while 29 sequences had similarity with all three analyzed warm season legumes, i.e., soybean, common bean, and cowpea (Phaseoleae clade). Only 21 sequences were identiWed as similar sequences in both Hologalegina and Phaseoleae species. Two of these GSSs (FI856609 and FI856659) showed signiWcant similarity with sequences of all the plant species analyzed in the present study (see ESM Table 2).With the objective of annotating these newly isolated GSSs, all 457 GSSs were analyzed for BLASTX analysis using UniProt database. 137 of these GSSs (29.9%) showed homology to the UniProt database at a relatively relaxed cutoV value of • 1E-05. Among these, 84 unique protein sequences were used for deriving respective gene ontology (GO) (see ESM Table 3). The GO studies permitted assignment of 64 sequences to biological process, 64 to cellular component, and 67 to molecular function ontologies. According to the GO schema, single proteins typically have more than one Ontology assignment.All SSR containing GSSs (299) were analyzed by means of Primer3, yielding a list of potential oligonucleotide primers from which 311 primer pairs were selected and synthesized. Where feasible primer pairs were designed for more than one SSR in a single GSS with the goal of increasing the conversion of GSSs into useable genetic markers.Primer pairs were screened for ampliWcation of DNA from two chickpea genotypes, i.e., ICC 4958 and ICC 1882 (Table 2). This analysis provided a set of 234 markers (75%) with scorable amplicons. Screening of these 234 markers on 48 genotypes of chickpea further deWned a subset of 147 polymorphic markers (62.82%), with allele content ranging from 2 to 21 and an average of Wve alleles per marker. Among these 147 polymorphic sites, 56 were polymorphic exclusively in wild species, 8 were polymorphic exclusively in cultivated and 83 of them were polymorphic across wild and cultivated species of chickpea.We refer to these new polymorphic SSR markers as ICCM (ICRISAT Chickpea Microsatellite) markers. Allelic data obtained from 48 genotypes were used to calculate the PIC value of each ICCM marker, and thus infer the discriminatory power of these ICCM markers. PIC values ranged from 0.04 to 0.92 with an average of 0.26. Twentysix markers displayed the minimum PIC value of 0.04 each, while marker ICCM0160 had both the highest PIC value (0.92) and the highest number of alleles (21), followed by marker ICCM0022 with 18 alleles and a PIC value of 0.89 (Table 2). As has been observed in previous studies of SSRs from plant species (Temnykh et al. 2001), Class I SSRs (41 of 57) were on average more polymorphic that Class II SSRs (106 of 177), with mean PIC values of 0.38 and 0.22, respectively. Nevertheless, a higher fraction of the polymorphic SSRs identiWed in this study were from Class II (106) compared to Class I (41), owing to the increased abundance of Class II SSRs in our data set. Consistent with their overall abundance in Class I SSRs (Fig. 3), tri-nucleotide repeats (20) constituted major part of the Class I polymorphic sites, with compound repeats (18) comprising the next largest fraction of Class I ICCM markers. In contrast, di-nucleotide repeats were relatively rare in the total Class II data set, but comprised the largest fraction of polymorphic Class II ICCM markers (47); similar to Class I markers, compound repeats (30) constituted of the second most common fraction of Class II polymorphic sites.In addition to the ICCM markers developed in this study, we also analyzed a set of 233 markers developed primarily by Lichtenzveig et al. (2005); these are the so-called \"Hseries\" SSR markers. One-hundred Wfty-three H-series markers yielded scorable amplicons in two PCR proWles (ESM Table 1). Both the ICCM and H-series SSR markers were tested for polymorphism between chickpea ICC 4958 and PI 489777, the parents of the inter-speciWc mapping population. From this analysis we identiWed 104 SSRs (52 ICCM and 52 H-series) that were suitable as genetic markers in the inter-speciWc cross, with polymorphism rates of 33.9 and 22.2% for the H-series and ICCM SSR markers, respectively.A set of 246 gene-speciWc primers, developed earlier by Choi et al. (2004a) based on gene sequences of M. truncatula and M. sativa, were used to amplify DNA of the parental genotypes of the inter-speciWc mapping population of chickpea. One-hundred four (»42%) of these primer pairs showed strong single fragments on 1% agarose gels; these amplicons were re-sequenced in both mapping parents of the inter-speciWc cross (ICC 4958 and PI 489777), qualityscored, and trimmed to yield 96 pairs of high quality sequences. Additional 25 primer pairs were designed based on chickpea EST sequences that possessed high similarity to previously mapped Medicago genes, yielding 18 additional high-quality sequence pairs. Alignment of the 114 ICC 4958 and PI 489777 sequence pairs revealed SNPs in 80 (»70%) genes. Seventy-one of these genes contained SNPs that could be converted to reliable genotyping assays using either CAPS or SNaPshot protocols (Table 3). Two additional gene-based markers, P40 and chitinase II, were also used for genetic analysis; these genes were previously mapped in chickpea by PfaV and Kahl (2003), while their putative orthologs have been mapped in M. truncatula by Choi et al. (2004a).The inter-speciWc cross between ICC 4958 £ PI 489777 is maintained as an advanced recombinant inbred population that has been used in numerous genetic studies (Huettel et al. 2002;PfaV and Kahl 2003;Winter et al. 2000). Although the number of markers previously analyzed in this population is relatively large (407 loci), a high percentage of the markers are anonymous sequences (e.g., RFLP) and/or exhibit dominant patterns of inheritance (e.g., AFLP). Thus, in many cases, these legacy genetic maps are based on molecular markers that are either diYcult to apply or to reproduce. With the intent of extending this genetic map, and enhancing the number of easily scorable markers, we genotyped the 123 new molecular markers (52 ICCM SSR loci and 71 gene-based SNP loci) and 52 previously published H-series SSR loci described above, and combined the genotype data with that of the 407 previously published loci. Linkage relationships were evaluated using MAPMAKER/EXP 3.0.As shown in Fig. 4, 47 (90.3%) of 52 ICCM marker loci, 46 (88.4%) of 52 H-series SSR loci, all (100%) of 71 genebased marker loci, and 357 (87.7%) of 407 legacy marker loci coalesced to yield eight linkage groups, in agreement with eight chickpea chromosomes. The linkage groups were numbered according to Winter et al. (2000), using marker loci that were common to both studies. This revised genetic map contains 521 marker loci, with an average inter-marker distance of 4.99 cM and spanning 2,602.1 cM. Considering the 740-Mbp physical size of the chickpea genome (Arumuganathan and Earle 1991), and ignoring the fact that rates can vary widely within the genome, 1 cM distance in the present map equates to roughly 285 kbp. With the exception of linkage group (LG) 8, which has relatively few genetic markers (25 markers), the average number of markers per linkage group was 71 § 8.9. LG 8 was also the shortest linkage group based on genetic distance, spanning 124.7 cM; however, in general LG size was not well correlated with the number of markers. As described below, comparative mapping with Medicago truncatula revealed that the entirety of chickpea LG8 corresponds to one arm of Medicago Chr5, adding further credibility to its assignment as a physically short linkage group.As shown in Fig. 5, the 71 gene-based SNP markers are distributed among eight major linkage groups of chickpea, facilitating comparison of genome structure between M. truncatula and chickpea. The respective M. truncatula and chickpea LGs are numbered according to Choi et al. (2004a) and Winter et al. (2000). Alignment of conserved genes between the two genetic maps reveals a high level of synteny between the two genomes. In particular, the M. truncatula linkage groups 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, and 8 correspond to chickpea linkage groups 4, 1, 5, 6, 3, and 7, respectively. Despite the overall high level of synteny between these six pairs of linkage groups, intra-chromosomal segment rearrangements reduce co-linearity (but not synteny) between M. truncatula LG1 (MtLG1) and chickpea LG4 (CaLG4). In contrast to the conserved synteny noted for Mt-Ca linkage group pairs 1-4, 2-1, 3-5, 4-6, 7-3, and 8-7, one-to-one relationships do not hold true for M. truncatula linkage groups 5 and 6 and chickpea linkage groups 2 and 8. In particular, M. truncatula LG5 can be aligned with both chickpea LG2 and LG8. We note that CaLG8 appears to be derived entirely from one arm of MtLG5, consistent with its short genetic distance and small number of genetic markers, described above. In several cases, conserved markers mapped to non-syntenic positions between the two genomes (e.g., CDC2 and TC88727 on MtLG1, DNABP on MtLG4, and TCMO on MtLG5), which may reXect translocation or duplication events involving single genes or small chromosomal segments, or the mapped loci may correspond to paralogous genes. Mt-LG6 could not be eVectively aligned to any of the chickpea linkage groups (Fig. 5), Newly developed SSR markers developed from microsatellite-enriched library (ICCM-series) are bold and italicized; SSR markers taken from Lichtenzveig et al. (2005) are bold, italicized, and underlined; SNP markers which were used as the anchor markers in comparative mapping of chickpea and Medicago were depicted as bold and underlined. Linkage groups (LGs) are designated according to the map of Winter et al. (2000) LG1LG2LG3LG4consistent previous reports describing Mt LG6 as rich in heterochromatin (Kulikova et al. 2001) and having a relatively low content of transcribed genes (Choi et al. 2004a).The majority of functionally characterized disease resistance (R) genes encode a nucleotide-binding site (NBS) and a leucine-rich repeat (LRR) region (Hulbert et al. 2001). NBS-LRR genes have been deeply surveyed and characterized in M. truncatula (Zhu et al. 2002;Ameline-Torregrosa et al. 2008), with >330 NBS-LRR genes having known genetic positions. In contrast, chickpea RGHs are not thoroughly surveyed, and only a limited number of sequences from degenerate PCR are available in the public databases (Meyers et al. 1999;Huettel et al. 2002). Nevertheless, several phylogenetically distinct RGH classes have been placed on the genetic map of chickpea (Huettel et al. 2002), thus facilitating the comparative genome analysis presented here.Comparative phylogenetic analysis of RGH sequences from M. truncatula with those from chickpea is illustrated in Fig. 6. To highlight the comparison, only those M. truncatula sequences that are relevant to the mapped chickpea sequences are shown. In the TIR-NBS-LRR subfamily, chickpea RGH-G (CAC86496 on CaLG6; Huettel et al. 2002) is highly similar to several M. truncatula TIR-NBS-LRR genes located on MtLG4, in a region syntenic to Cicer LG6 that also contains chickpea RGH-G (Huettel et al. 2002). Similarly, chickpea RGH-B (CAC86491; Huettel et al. 2002) is a CC-NBS-LRR gene that is closely related to several CC-NBS-LRR genes located in a cluster at the top of MtLG3, in a region of the Medicago genome syntenic with the terminus of CaLG5 that contains RGH-B (Huettel et al. 2002). A lack of synteny was observed for chickpea RGH-D (TIR-NBS-LRRs represented by sequences CAC86454, CAC86455, CAC86493, AF186626, and AF186629; Huettel et al. 2002), which is located at the top of CaLG2; the closest homologs of RGH-D in M. truncatula (i.e., BAC AC144658) are localized to the distal region of MtLG4. We note that the bottom of CaLG2 harbors numerous active resistance genes against two of the most important diseases of chickpea (Fusarium wilt and Ascochyta blight). At present, no RGHs have been reported mapped close to these resistance phenotypes (Winter et al.   Sharma et al. 2004). Moreover, the low frequency of comparative molecular markers around these R gene regions in both M. truncatula and chickpea complicate precise statements regarding the relationship of these genome regions.SSR markers have become common place for plant genetics and breeding applications. Despite the fact that hundreds of SSR markers have been identiWed and tested in chickpea (Hüttel et al. 1999;Sethy et al. 2006aSethy et al. , 2006b;;Winter et al. 1999;Lichtenzveig et al. 2005), the narrow genetic background of cultivated chickpea germplasm has limited their application, and thus there exists a need to develop a larger set of novel genetic markers. With the objective of enriching the marker repertoire of chickpea, we have contributed novel SSR markers derived from a genomic library enriched for GA and TAA repeat motifs and a set of gene-based SNP markers. The basis of our marker discovery work was C. arietinum genotype ICC 4958, which is being used as a reference genotype for genomic and genetic resource by the chickpea community.In the present study, 65.4% of hybridizing genomic clones in our SSR-enriched library yielded 643 SSRs. This rate of SSR recovery is comparable with previous studies, for example in peanut where 68% of hybridizing clones yielded SSRs (Cuc et al. 2008). Moreover, the relatively high abundance of tri-and di-nucleotide repeats that we observed is consistent with previous studies in chickpea (Hüttel et al. 1999;Lichtenzveig et al. 2005;Winter et al. 1999). Among the SSRs identiWed here, the most common SSR motifs were TAA/ATT repeats and GA/CT repeats. This result reXects the fact that our enrichment targeted TAA and GA motifs, and it is consistent with previous Fig. 6 Comparison of RGH sequences in Medicago and chickpea. To highlight the comparison between the chickpea and Medicago RGHs, only those Medicago sequences that are relevant to the mapped chickpea sequences have been shown in this Wgure. In the TIR-NBS-LRR subfamily, chickpea RGH-G (CAC86496 on Ca-LG6) was found highly similar to several Medicago TIR-NBS-LRR genes (a) located on BAC clones AC144502 and AC135160. AC144502 and AC135160 were closely linked on Mt-LG4, in a region syntenic to Ca-LG6 that also contained chickpea RGH-G. In the CC-NBS-LRR (b) subfamily (Ca-LG5), chickpea RGH-B (CAC86491) was closely related to several CC-NBS-LRR genes located on Medicago BAC clones AC145027, AC142396, AC130810, AC146744, and AC131249 studies in chickpea (Hüttel et al. 1999;Lichtenzveig et al. 2005;Winter et al. 1999), other legume species (Akkaya et al. 1992;Cregan et al. 1994;Mun et al. 2006), and even in cereal species (Varshney et al. 2002;Jayashree et al. 2006). Temnykh et al. (2001) developed a scheme to classify SSRs according to length, in which Class I and Class II SSRs are greater than or less than 20 bp, respectively. This division based on sequence length has practical utility, because Class I SSRs are generally more polymorphic and thus more desirable as genetic markers. The majority of SSRs isolated from our SSR-enriched library belong to Class II, though as expected the Class I SSRs had higher rates of polymorphism.A useful measure of polymorphic potential for any genetic marker is its polymorphism information content value, or PIC value. PIC values provide information on the probability that a given marker will be polymorphic between any two individuals in a population, and thus are a function both of allele frequencies and allele number. Screening of the ICCMseries markers on 48 genotypes revealed that average PIC value of SSR markers having Class I repeats (0.38) was higher than that of Class II repeats (0.22). The majority of the Class I repeats were tri-nucleotide repeats, consistent with the known utility of tri-nucleotide repeats as genetic markers in plants (Varshney et al. 2005).Polymorphic information content value was also analyzed in relation to repeat unit type and length. Among di-, tri-, and tetra-nucleotide repeats, tri-nucleotide repeats showed higher polymorphism (average PIC = 0.33) with average allele number of 5.7 per marker. Markers with mono-nucleotide repeats showed the least polymorphism (average PIC = 0.197). Relatively longer repeats appear to have contributed to the higher level of polymorphism as compared to di-nucleotide repeats (Gupta and Varshney 2000). It was also observed that among tri-nucleotide SSRs, the SSR markers based on (TAA/TTA) repeat motifs displayed higher polymorphism (average PIC = 0.35) with an average allele number of 6.12 per marker. Similarly, among di-nucleotide repeats SSR markers based on TA/AT repeat motifs had a higher average PIC value (0.27) compared to others with an average of 6.1 alleles. In fact, the earlier studies in chickpea also revealed the abundance of TAA/ TTA (tri-nucleotide) and TA/GA (di-nucleotide) SSR motifs and the extensive polymorphism found with markers containing these repeat motifs (Hüttel et al. 1999;Lichtenzveig et al. 2005). PIC values of compound SSRs (average PIC = 0.29) were comparable with tri-nucleotide repeats with 5.68 alleles per marker. This can be attributed to the fact that the markers with compound SSRs have more than one SSR motif, which increases their chances to be polymorphic markers.We assessed the potential identity of SSR-related sequences by performing BLAST analyses versus plant EST data sets, and based on GeneOntology analysis through UniProt. Less than one-third of the SSR-associated GSS sequences had signiWcant hits in these databases, though were hits were recorded the derived annotations add a potentially useful data type to the marker metadata. Not surprisingly, chickpea GSS sequences (from which the SSRs were derived) had higher similarity to ESTs from other legume species, and overall higher similarity to dicot outgroups (i.e., poplar and Arabidopsis) than to monocot (i.e., rice) data sets.Comprehensive genetic map of chickpea An inter-speciWc mapping population derived from ICC 4958 (C. arietinum) and PI 489777 (C. reticulatum) was used to incorporate novel microsatellite and gene based markers. This mapping population has been widely used in past by chickpea community in order to incorporate several hundred microsatellite markers (Winter et al. 2000) and gene-based markers (PfaV and Kahl 2003). The diverse genetic background of the parents provides for higher rates of polymorphism not only at the genetic level but also at phenotypic levels such as resistance to Fusarium wilt (Winter et al. 2000) and Ascochyta blight (Rakshit et al. 2003), facilitating trait mapping. Therefore, this population is generally considered as the international reference mapping population.The present genetic map of chickpea represents 521 marker loci, spanning 2,602 cM with an average intermarker distance of 4.99 cM. The order of common marker loci deWned in present map agrees with earlier reports from Winter et al. (2000). However, the current map diVers considerably from that of Winter et al. (2000) in having eight linkage groups, in agreement with eight chromosomes, whereas the Winter et al. (2000) map was composed of 16 linkage groups. There are probably at least two factors that contribute to this condensation of linkage groups: Wrst, the new markers identiWed in the present study act as bridge points between the Winter et al. linkage groups, and second, essentially all of the markers mapped in the current study behave a co-dominant genetic features, which adds considerable power to the genetic evaluation compared to a high fraction of dominant markers in earlier studies. Importantly, the comparative analyses to Medicago support a simple assignment of eight chickpea linkage groups to eight chromosomes.Mappig of the gene-based markers from Medicago in the genetic map of chickpea showed not only a high level of macrosynteny but also revealed features of structural divergence between the two genomes. Six of the eight linkage groups display a one-to-one correspondence between the Medicago and chickpea, suggesting that these linkage groups reXect the genome of the common Galegoid clade legume ancestor. Medicago LG5 and LG6, and chickpea LG2 and LG4, appear to have a more complicated ancestry, consisting of a minimum of several chromosomal translocation events. Thus, Mt-LG 5 is essentially a composite of portions of LG2 and LG8 of chickpea. Several research groups have compared genome structure between Medicago and various crop legumes (see Zhu et al. 2005). Our current results extend the comparative network to include chickpea, by demonstrating broad conservation of genome macrostructure between chickpea and Medicago.One goal of comparative genetic analyses is to transfer information from well-characterized reference species to less well-characterized crops with an eye toward crop improvement. Among the agronomic targets in chickpea is resistance to several economically important pathogens; candidate genes for disease resistance are the conserved family of NBS-LRR resistance gene homologs (RGH). Several phylogenetically distinct RGH classes have been placed on the genetic map of chickpea (Huettel et al. 2002), thus facilitating the comparative genome analysis between chickpea and Medicago. In particular, we have documented two cases of syntenic NBS-LRR clusters that contain co-phyletic genes in each species. Interestingly, Ca-LG2 is known to harbor active resistance genes against Fusarium wilt and Ascochyta blight. At present, no RGHs have been reported mapped close to these resistance phenotypes. Nevertheless, the facts that a single conserved gene (TC87369) maps to the top terminal region of both Mt-LG6 and Ca-LG2, and that both linkage groups are rich in NBS-LRR genes and/or active disease resistance genes (Sharma et al. 2004;Zhu et al. 2002), may suggest shared ancestry of Mt-LG6 and Ca-LG2, though such speculation needs to be veriWed by more detailed study of the respective genome regions.Similar observations of NBS-LRR synteny have been made for resistance gene homologs within the Solanaceae (Grube et al. 2000) and between Medicago and pea (Pisum sativum) (Zhu et al. 2002). However, the limited numbers of comparative molecular markers (gene-based SNPs) around these R gene regions in both Medicago and chickpea precludes precise statements regarding the relationship of these genome regions. Although the current analysis is based on a relatively small number of comparative markers, the potential of more detailed analyses to predict gene content and chromosomal structure in chickpea by reference to Medicago seems clear.A set of 311 novel microsatellite markers were developed from microsatellite-enriched library in order to increase the genomic resources in chickpea. In total 147 potential SSR marker loci were found based on diversity pattern of SSR loci on a panel of 48 diverse chickpea genotypes. These markers should have utility for genetic analysis of a range of chickpea mapping populations and as anchor markers in comparative mapping to other legumes.","tokenCount":"6307"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"697e589d099a14865d1c1ac6552b76f7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8002d20e-7d2b-43e5-b489-ef32cd50e8b0/retrieve","id":"1861726886"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"53180585-dd8e-40fa-b7bf-db1e1d0a7772","pagecount":"32","content":"T hree-quarters of the world's poorest billion people live in rural areas, and the vast majority depend on agriculture for their livelihoods and survival. Encouraging the growth of the agricultural sector is therefore one of the most effective ways of tackling poverty and reducing hunger and malnutrition. Smallholder farmers, fisherfolk and livestock keepers produce 50-80 per cent of the staple foods consumed in developing countries, but many are inadequately served by research, extension and advisory services. These rural producers need support so that they can improve their knowledge and skills and take advantage of new technologies, policies and market opportunities. Revitalising extension and advisory services was the focus of a landmark conference held in Nairobi in November 2011. The International Conference on Innovations in Extension and Advisory Services attracted over 450 delegates from 85 countries. It brought together farmers, extension agents, scientists, politicians, policymakers and representatives of development In search of a brighter future INTRODUCTION 4 Efficient extension and advisory services can help small-scale farmers, such as this woman in Iganga, Uganda, to increase their crop yields. © J. lyell/alamy Michael Hailu, Director, Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA), The Netherlands A plant pathologist examines a diseased leaf at a plant health clinic in the Kenyan village of Wangigi. Clinics like these are organised by the Centre for Agricultural Bioscience International.organizations. Their aim was to share knowledge and experiences, and identify ways of transforming extension and advisory services for the benefit of smallholder farmers. a time for change \"This conference couldn't have come at a better time,\" Kareke Mbiuki, Kenya's Assistant Minister of Agriculture, told delegates in his feature address. \"One of the root causes of low productivity in Africa is the poor performance of the extension and advisory services, and the lack of financial support they receive.\"These, he explained, were critical times for Kenya and its neighbours. Most obviously, there was the 5 continuing crisis in the Horn of Africa. A combination of drought and conflict meant that during the closing months of 2011, 13 million people required emergency food aid. Pastoralists had lost over 60 per cent of their livestock, and hundreds of thousands of refugees were crammed into overcrowded camps near the Somali border. Humanitarian disasters attract worldwide attention; less newsworthy -but just as significant for our future welfare -are the perennial challenges faced by farmers and consumers. To give just one example, food prices rose dramatically during 2010. A variety of factors were to blame. Most obviously, poor harvests, caused by droughts, floods and unpredictable weather in grain-exporting countries, led to a reduction in supply. As a result, the food import bill for low-income, food-deficit countries rose by 20 per cent. The price increases added tens of millions to the billion or so people already suffering from hunger. A year later, global food prices were 19 per cent higher than at the same time the previous year. The result: a further increase in hunger and malnutrition in many developing countries.The challenge of tackling hunger is made all the greater by population growth. Today's 7 billion is expected to become 9 billion by 2050. To keep pace with population growth, food production must increase by at least 70 per cent over the next four decades. There are other challenges too, such as climate change, which threatens to reduce crop yields, high post-harvest crop losses, environmental degradation and soaring levels of rural unemployment.After decades of under-investment in agriculture, governments and donors now accept that accelerating agricultural growth requires the right sort of policies and institutions, as well as an increase in financial support, access to new knowledge, skills and markets, and improvements in communications. The reform of extension services should be part of a package of measures that help smallholders to increase productivity, earn more money and contribute to food security. \"It's about reforming the way they work, and making sure that the reforms that are underway are cost effective and sustainable\", said Michael Hailu, Director of CTA, in his introductory remarks.In many countries, extension systems have undergone profound change during the last 20 years, from a centrally-controlled, top-down approach to one that encourages many different organizations to interact with farmers as equal partners. This conference provided an opportunity to reflect on the lessons learned from a wide range of experiences.This was no ordinary conference, with experts talking to one another and everyone else politely listening. There were plenary sessions, attended by all delegates, but much of the time was devoted to more intimate and participatory thematic discussions on policy, capacity development, tools and approaches, and learning networks. Prior to the conference, the international steering committee's call for papers elicited some 400 abstracts. Of these, around 100were chosen for presentation during the thematic discussions. During the months leading up to the conference, over 70 people actively participated in e-discussions on the four main themes. The conference also included panel discussions, small group discussions, field visits to sites in and around Nairobi, and a prize-giving ceremony for the winning journalists who had participated in a pre-conference competition.During the course of the week, delegates were able to take stock of promising initiatives and opportunities, define and promote mechanisms to scale up successful models, and explore the sort of extension policies and practices that could increase agricultural productivity, reduce hunger and improve the livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers. The conference findings are enshrined in the Nairobi Declaration, which  \"We who are working in extension and research have failed our people\", says Monty Jones, executive director of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA). He points out that the proportion of the population suffering from malnutrition in sub-Saharan Africa has fallen by just 1 per cent in the last two decades. \"Africa is falling behind in innovation\", he says. Jones points out that extension has been integrated within the highest framework of the African Union, the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). \"We believe that with greater coordination of extension, it will be easier to build synergies with research and education to provide the relevant knowledge base for transforming agriculture\", he says.Food production must increase by this amount by 2050 to keep pace with population growth.The big picture  Hohenheim University, Germany, governments should not be directly engaged in the provision of extension services, which can be more efficiently managed by private legal entities. Government extension services continue to suffer from a number of shortcomings. They tend to be bureaucratic and inefficient. Instead of consulting farmers about their needs, government extension agents generally decide what is best for them. Furthermore, there is often a conflict of roles, with government extension agents acting as advisers, policemen, and arbiters about whether or not farmers should receive subsidies or other assistance. This inevitably leads to a lack of trust between extension agents and farmers.\"There is a very strong argument in favour of creating a pluralistic system of delivery, which is participatory and demand-led\", says Hoffmann. Two rules should be followed: \"avoid role conflict\" and \"no extension without content\". Hoffmann suggests that the state should continue to determine policy, regulate how extension services operate and ensure that farmers receive good advice. However, it should reduce its direct engagement in providing services or inputs to farmers. This could be left to other service providers, such as private companies and non-governmental organizations. \"This should be a gradual process\", he says. \"It cannot be achieved overnight.\"At the Nairobi conference it was broadly agreed that extension services should be provided free of charge for smallholder farmers. \"Emerging\" and fully commercial farmers, in contrast, should pay for services. Clearly, these two groups have different needs. Commercial farmers will require entrepreneurial training and advice that will help them to move up the value chain, for example by processing cocoa into chocolate or providing pre-packaged fresh vegetables for the hospitality industry. Smallholder farmers, in contrast, require technical as well as financial and marketing information, and assistance to help them make the shift from subsistence production to a more commercial type of enterprise.Indeed, this was one of the constant refrains at the Nairobi conference: subsistence farming should only be a temporary phenomenon. However, for the transition to happen, the rural poor require more than just high-quality agricultural advice. They also need access to education, health services, transport, communications, credit and remunerative markets. In other words, agricultural extension needs to be part of a wider programme designed to stimulate the growth of both the agricultural sector and the non-farm rural economy. CHAPTER 1 / The big picture the adoption of new crops and improvements in livelihoods and incomes. The farmer-first approach has also given them the confidence to make their views known to government and policymakers.It is now widely accepted that the move towards more pluralistic, demand-driven, innovative, cost-effective systems of delivery, in which advisory services are combined with better access to credit, farm inputs and the market, has the potential to improve the welfare of smallholder farmers, reduce rural poverty and increase food production. The next chapter provides a more detailed reflection on the strengths and weaknesses of the reforms, and the measures required to make them work more effectively for the benefit of smallholder farmers. n \"Gone are the days when there was one extension agent for every 300 farmers. Today we're lucky if it is one for every 3 000. There is a job to be done, so let's focus on how we can get the job done with the limited resources we have. One of the ways we can do that is by making intelligent use of radio, cell phones and other media.\" Doug Ward, Chair, Farm Radio International, Canadauring the months leading up to the Innovations in Extension and Advisory Services conference, CTA and its partners held a series of e-consultations on the four main themes: policy issues, capacity development, tools and approaches, and learning networks. The e-consultations provided an overview of current thinking and helped to shape discussions in Nairobi.In the course of the conference, more than 60 papers were presented during the thematic sessions, covering every conceivable topic related to assessing the current state of extension and advisory services, and the measures being piloted or considered to improve them. Some of the participants attended all six sessions on one particular theme; others moved among the different groups. All, in one way or another, were able to contribute to the elaboration of the key messages that were presented in the final plenary. These are described below.Two questions shaped the policy sessions. First, can improvements in extension and advisory services really help to reduce poverty and improve food and nutrition security? And second, what are the policy lessons learned from the last two decades of reform?The policy group responded \"yes\" to the first question, but noted that these services must conform to a set of guiding principles, and respect the role of small-scale farmers, fisherfolk and livestock keepers. The group concluded that the reforms 16The Nairobi conference explored the future of extension and advisory services by focusing on four main themes, with all participants having the opportunity to contribute to the deliberations.\"The conference identified success stories which showed that the right blend of policies can help to improve the livelihoods of farmers. This requires a policy framework that encourages pluralism, cooperation and competition.\"have largely failed, as there has not been any significant increase in accountability, efficiency, empowerment or impact. Furthermore, the privatization of extension services has been to the detriment of smallholder farmers and public extension agencies.Nevertheless, a number of the papers presented at the conference identified success stories which showed that the right blend of policies can help to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. This requires a policy framework that encourages pluralism, cooperation and competition. Brazil provides a compelling example of the benefits that can flow from well-designed policies. Here, the government took the strategic decision to introduce measures that directly benefit family farms. The pluralistic approach, backed by significant finance, helped to increase agricultural productivity and farm incomes. The Brazilian government also recognized the need to involve farmers in the formulation of agricultural policies.In short, it put the notion of \"farmer first\" into practice.The policy group concluded that government extension agencies should not be involved in the provision of agricultural inputs, such as seeds and fertilizers. The state has a key role to play in the coordination and regulation of extension and advisory services. It also has an important role to play in designing policies that encourage a broad range of different groups -including the private sector, NGOs and farmers' groups -to deliver integrated services. Cooperation is important, as is healthy competition, which should lead to greater efficiency.Extension and advisory services should focus on improving the welfare of smallholder farmers. Larger, commercial enterprises can generally afford to pay the market rate for whatever advisory services they require. Government policies, and national extension and advisory services, should also recognize that farming is not simply a matter of producing food, fibre and fuel. Farmers are the guardians of natural resources, and national policies should encourage sustainable resource management as well as more efficient food production.A study presented at the Nairobi conference found that just three out of 27 sub-Saharan African countries examined have introduced legally bin-ding extension policies. This suggests that policy and institutional changes are urgently needed to create realistic and remunerative opportunities for smallholders. It is imperative that all countries formulate policies that guide the provision of extension and advisory services. The Brazilian experience, with its strong focus on designing policies to improve the welfare and performance of family farmers, provides important lessons for other countries.The renewed interest and commitments for increasing investment in agriculture provides a timely opportunity to deliver extension and advisory services that are farmer-centred, participatory, well-funded, demand-driven and performanceoriented.19Farmers visiting the Nyaani Soil Conservation and Water Catchment Project in Kenya.© foods Resource bank/J.patricoA number of factors are responsible for low agricultural productivity, including a lack of technical knowledge, poor entrepreneurial skills, and meagre access to communication technologies that could help farmers, extension workers and others share information. Overcoming these problems, and improving access to markets, could help to increase farm productivity and incomes. This is why capacity building is so important.\"In the past, when people talked about capacity development, they were largely referring to providing technical knowledge and information to farmers,\" says Kristin Davis, conference cochair and thematic leader for the capacity development group. \"Nowadays, the focus has begun to change, and at the conference we looked more broadly at capacity building using an 'innovation systems perspective'.\"This assumes that the extension agents of the future -or the \"new extension agents\" -will have a responsibility that goes beyond providing farmers with technical information, such as which varieties of seeds to use and how to control pests and diseases or make better compost. They will also require \"soft skills\" that enable them to generate and promote innovations, improve the management of farmer organizations and agribusinesses, and build alliances and networks of different groups and individuals along the value chain.Developing and strengthening capacity -or the ability of the human system to produce results, maintain itself and self-renew -is important at many levels. Farmers, public and private sector extension agents, researchers and journalists all need to improve their knowledge and skills. Besides providing advice and the skills and knowledge to increase productivity, capacity development can help farmers take advantage of market opportunities, adapt to climate change, forge new partnerships and learn how to make the best use of information and communication technologies (ICTs).It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of innovation. Farmers and others involved in the food chain need to promote innovations in production, processing, marketing and distribution. These should lead to an increase in agricultural output, higher incomes and more sustainable management of natural resources. This will require new ways of thinking and doing business, and a willingness to embrace change.The third thematic group, chaired by Myra Wopereis-Pura, addressed two questions of fundamental importance. First, which approaches and tools are proving most effective when it comes to delivering extension and advisory services to smallholder farmers? And second, how can the \"islands of success\" become the rule rather than the exception?In other words, how can we capture and promote best practice?\"We need to improve capacity at every level. We need to improve the level of training for farmers. We need to invest more in the training of extension workers. And we need to strengthen the capacity of agricultural colleges and universities.\"Kahijoro Kahuure, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health and Social Services, NamibiaCHAPTER 2 / Reshaping the reform agenda \"Tools\" refers to the technologies used to transmit knowledge and information, such as radio, podcasts, mobile phones and video programmes. \"Approaches\" refers to the ways in which new knowledge and skills are shared with farmers. This could involve the use of champion or model farmers, farmer field schools, village information centres or questionand-answer services -to name but a few of the approaches that have been used.The most successful approaches achieve the following: they help to empower farmers and communities; they take into account local culture and tradition; and they frequently target specific groups such as women and young people. The best approaches tend to be participatory and demand-led; in other words, they respond to the individual needs of farmers and communities. They also involve a constant dialogue between clientele and service deliverers, and a process of continuous learning. Successful approaches help farmers to adopt practices that make the most of a changing world. This could involve, for example, introducing new varieties or techniques that enable farmers to adapt to a more variable climate or changes in consumer behaviour.During the past two decades, there has been a revolution in ICTs, with mobile phones becoming a key tool for transmitting knowledge and market information to farmers. At the same time, we have seen a dramatic shift in the way radio and television are used. The proliferation of privately-owned and community radio stations is providing farmers with high-quality material in local languages and the opportunity to participate in the two-way flow of information in ways undreamt of a generation ago. Radio services are particularly important for farmers who live in remote areas where extension agents seldom or never venture and where there is little or no access to the Internet. They are also highly cost-effective.Each tool has its own niche, advantages and disadvantages. Successful ICT initiatives tend to recognize and build on the existing capacities and knowledge of farmers and entrepreneurs. Frequently, different tools can be combined to good effect. For example, some extension projects have successfully blended the use of SMS services, the Internet and ra-dio. However, there are too many examples of ICT-based projects that have worked well, only to collapse once the funding ceases. They should therefore be designed with sustainability in mind.It is important to ensure that the benefits of ICTs do not flow exclusively to enlightened and better-off farmers. ICT-based extension services should target the poor and women, and there should be a strong emphasis on ensuring their sustainability when managed by local communities.Innovation results from collective action, learning by doing and the sharing of knowledge and experience. Indeed, a learning network can be loosely defined as a diverse group of people and organizations who willingly share their experiences and knowledge. These networks can take many forms, from communities of practice to arrangements that bring together farmers, extension workers and others involved in the production and sale of agricultural goods and services.Most extension and advisory services -whether state agencies or private -tend to focus on providing knowledge and technical information to farmers. Most lack the skills needed to promote the sort of interactive learning processes that foster and encourage innovation. Furthermore, extension and advisory services often decide what sort of information and help farmers need. This top-down approach is a serious weakness and has been widely discredited.Extension and advisory services should recognize that continuous innovation requiresThe number of mobile phones in Africa today. In 1998, there were fewer than 4 million.CHAPTER 2 / Reshaping the reform agenda collective action and knowledge sharing. For example, a group of farmers might decide to grow a new variety of tomato or eggplant in response to a market opportunity. This may involve new production techniques. The success of the new venture will also depend on a range of other groups involved in the food businesstransporters, processors, traders -acquiring new equipment, designing new labels, finding new markets and so forth. In short, success will hinge on organizations and individuals cooperating together and learning collectively as part of an \"agribusiness cluster\" or \"innovation platform\".The discussions in Nairobi highlighted the fact that we need greater understanding of how to promote and facilitate interactive learning in a cost-effective way. This may involve the setting up of public-private partnerships; it certainly requires good documentation and the sharing of the lessons learned by existing networks.the leaning networks group came up with four main recommendations. 1. Extension and advisory services should devise mechanisms that enable producers and other clients to reflect on the value of the services provided and articulate their needs.Greater effort should be made to improve the advisory services' capacity to support interactive learning along value chains and within agribusiness clusters.Extension and advisory services should not attempt to replace existing innovation initiatives; instead, they should do all in their power to support them and respond to their needs. 4. Finally, much greater effort should be made to link local-level learning networks to networks at the district, national and regional levels. CHAPTER 3Small-scale farming will continue to play a vital role in most developing countries. However, if farmers are to fulfil their potential, they require the best possible access to knowledge and information. The Nairobi Declaration -the key text for the conference -defines and describes the sort of extension services which are needed in these challenging times.The conference delegates had the opportunity to shape the Nairobi Declaration T he Nairobi conference was an event of considerable importance and the largest of its kind ever held. \"This was certainly no ordinary conference,\" said Ibrahim Mayaki, Chief Executive Officer of the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency, in his closing speech. \"One of the aims of the conference was to establish a coalition of different interests, and in this it was successful.\"During the course of the conference, the organizing committee oversaw the drafting of the Nai-robi Declaration on Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services, which was presented in plenary during the closing ceremony. All those who attended the conference were given the opportunity to offer advice and opinions as the document was being finalized. The Nairobi Declaration provides a succinct summary of the current state of thinking about extension and advisory services, and the measures needed to improve their performance. importance in most developing countries. Furthermore, extension and advisory services can and should play an important role in increasing access to knowledge, credit, inputs and markets for farmers and entrepreneurs along the value chain, and they have the potential to help farmers increase their productivity and incomes. There is an urgent need for a coalition of public, private and civil society groups to campaign for the revitalization of agricultural extension and advisory services.During recent decades, farmers' groups, researchers, extension agencies and others have generated a wave of imaginative attempts to revive extension services, but with mixed results. Many of the policies, strategies and approaches to extension have failed to increase agricultural production and improve rural livelihoods. There is an urgent need for policy and institutional reform, an increase in investment, and the creation of participatory, demand-driven, performanceoriented extension services.The Nairobi Declaration calls on all those involved in extension and advisory services, from national governments to extension agents, farmers' organizations to international donors, to work together to achieve a number of objectives.First, they need to develop clear policies and strategies for extension in a participatory manner. Second, they should press for increases in the funding of extension and advisory services, and promote mechanisms that ensure sustainability and the efficient provision of high-quality inter-linked services. Third, the coalition partners should promote and facilitate a continuous process of capacity building and learning, as well as greater use of ICTs and the media. Fourth, the partners should develop and implement participatory processes for monitoring and evaluating extension and advisory services.Will the Nairobi Declaration be worth any more than the paper it is written on? The conference organizers believe it will. \"My organization, the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), and others such as the African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS) will use the Declaration to promote reforms,\" says Myra Wopereis-Pura. \"The Declaration provides clear guidance, and a common approach, about what needs to be done to improve extension services.\"Kristin Davis, Executive Secretary of the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS), also believes that the Nairobi Declaration will prove to be a valuable document. \"We can send the Declaration to policymakers and say, 'Look, this is an important issue, and these are the sort of measures that need to be introduced if we're going to improve the welfare and productivity of smallholder farmers and their families.'\"In his closing speech, Michael Hailu, CTA Director, pointed out that there has been a tendency for those involved in extension and advisory services to operate within their own small circles of interest, with researchers talking among \"Le client est roi -the client is king -in the business world, but when it comes to farmers, the client is a subject to be manipulated. There needs to be much greater respect for farmers and their families and we need to recognize their importance as food producers and private-sector wealth creators.\"Mamadou Cissokho, Member of the Comité de la Sécurité Alimentaire Mondiale (CFS), SenegalThe number of farmers per extension agent in many developing countries today. The figure used to be closer to 300.themselves, extension agents communicating with extension workers, and politicians and policymakers doing likewise. \"What we have tried to create through this conference is an environment where everybody, no matter what their interest or profession, communicates openly with everybody else,\" he said. \"That is why it has been so important to establish this coalition.\"Over the coming years, the conference partners will continue to provide a platform to discuss the measures and reforms needed to improve and revitalize the world's extension and advisory services. n \"Extension and advisory services now embrace rural issues that go beyond agriculture alone. This calls for well-equipped advisors, who are networked at national, regional and international levels and can facilitate learning and innovation.\" recogniZing:• That smallholder agriculture and family farming is the core contributor to agricultural production in most developing countries, and therefore vital for achieving food and nutritional security goals, for reducing poverty and improving livelihoods and for responding to climate change;• That within dynamic innovation systems, extension plays an indispensible role as facilitator, knowledge broker and matchmaker between service providers and support agencies on the one hand and smallholder farmers and other entrepreneurs especially women and youth on the other;• That efficient agricultural extension and advisory services strengthen the capabilities of smallholder farmers to take advantage of realistic and remunerative opportunities through access to knowledge, credit, markets and related services;• That a coalition of public, private and civil society actors at national, regional and international levels is needed to revitalize and modernize agricultural extension and advisory systems in support of agricultural innovation.• That the conference generated significant interest, mobilized multiple stakeholders and demonstrated a need for greater emphasis on extension and advisory services within the global agricultural development agenda;• That in response to the disarray caused by underinvestment in extension and advisory services; extension practitioners, farmers' groups, researchers, policymakers and development partners are generating a wave of imaginative attempts to revive extension;• That a plethora of demand-led, situation-and context-specific, gender sensitive and climate-smart policies, strategies and initiatives are being implemented;• That this multitude of policies, strategies and approaches has yet to achieve the desired impact on the agricultural and rural sectors;• That policy and institutional changes are urgently needed to create realistic and remunerative opportunities for smallholders;• That national funding for agricultural extension and advisory services remains at a low and variable level;• That the renewed national, continental and global interest and commitments for increasing investment in agriculture provides a momentous opportunity to deliver extension and advisory services that are farmer-centred, participatory, well funded, demand-driven and performance oriented.• The need for national agricultural and extension policies, strategies and approaches that are inclusive, context-specific and contribute to national, continental and international development goals; • The need for capacity building, greater coordination and professionalism in the provision of extension and advisory services;• The need for enhanced use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), both old and new, and engagement of the media in expanding the reach and impact of extension and advisory services.Being concerned that:• Failure to clarify the roles and responsibilities of the various stakeholders and service providers and develop mechanisms for working together could result in further erosion of extension and advisory services, with negative consequences for agriculture, rural areas, family farming and smallholder farmers, especially women and youth.we hereBy caLL upon all key stakeholders including governments, extension professionals, farmers', organizations, regional and global bodies, the private sector, civil society, development partners and donors to work together to:• Develop clear policies and strategies for extension and advisory services in a participatory manner and put coordination and quality assurance mechanisms in place;• Advocate for increased funding within national budgets and develop and implement public, private and donor funding mechanisms that ensure sustainability, risk sharing and efficient use of funds to provide high-quality demand-led services;• Promote and facilitate continuous capacity building, learning and foresighting as well as greater use of ICTs and the media which take into account culture and gender in the provision of advisory and extension services so that millions of smallholder farmers can move up the value chain;• Develop and implement participatory processes for monitoring, evaluation and impact assessments and for conducting research on extension to facilitate learning, accountability, efficiency and empowerment.The coalition of partners established through this conference remains committed to advocating and implementing effective extension and advisory services for agricultural and rural development.Therefore, the participants call upon the conference organizers to continue to provide platforms at different levels for extension professionals and researchers and farmers to meet, exchange and improve their capacity to mobilize smallholders' knowledge, labour, land, water and genetic resources for global food security. 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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"21973fafe85e6a431fc41fef53db437f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/67921c60-b14c-41a3-80f5-2c138394f5ad/retrieve","id":"392231732"},"keywords":["lumbricid communities","non-productive landscape elements","cultivated fields","environmental filtering","soil properties","land management","surrounding landscape"],"sieverID":"5776383f-dacd-439c-b926-a835362251fd","pagecount":"36","content":"Earthworm communities in arable fields and restored field margins, as related to management practices and surrounding landscape diversityThe International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) believes that open access contributes to its mission of reducing hunger and poverty, and improving human nutrition in the tropics through research aimed at increasing the eco-efficiency of agriculture.CIAT is committed to creating and sharing knowledge and information openly and globally. We do this through collaborative research as well as through the open sharing of our data, tools, and publications.Earthworms play important roles in arable cropping systems, contributing to nutrient cycling, organic matter formation and decomposition, soil structure formation, and water infiltration (Edwards, 2004;Keith and Robinson, 2012). Their presence in agroecosystems can increase crop yields by 25% (van Groenigen et al., 2014). It is well known that earthworms are affected by several environmental filters, which constrain the earthworm species pool found in particular habitats (Decaëns et al., 2008). Examples of environmental filters acting on earthworm communities are soil properties (e.g., soil moisture, organic matter, texture and pH (Curry, 2004)) and agricultural management practices (e.g., tillage (Chan, 2001), pesticide application (Pelosi et al., 2014) and organic matter management (Curry and Schmidt, 2007)).In general, agricultural intensification negatively affects earthworm communities (Postma-Blaauw et al., 2010). Although agricultural intensification occurs across spatial scales from the field to the landscape (Ettema and Wardle, 2002), landscape effects on earthworm communities have hardly been studied. Landscape-scale agro-intensification refers to the ongoing loss of (semi-) natural area, the increasing surface area for agricultural production, and consequently the homogenization of landscapes. In an attempt to reverse the effects of intensification, agro-environment measures are being implemented in Europe (EU-Commission, 2005). These measures are partly focussed on enhancing biodiversity in agricultural landscapes, and partly on promoting alternative management practices at the field and farm scale, e.g., crop diversification and restoration of non-productive landscape elements on farm, such as field margins (EU-Commission, 2005). To better understand the effects of (de)intensification of agriculture, both farm management practices and landscape characteristics need to be considered (e.g., Tscharntke et al., 2005). Most studies that considered landscape effects on earthworm communities in arable fields focussed on the relevance of (semi-)permanent field margins as potential sources for earthworm colonization of arable fields (e.g., Smith et al., 2008;Roarty and Schmidt, 2013;Crittenden et al., 2015, but see Flohre et al., 2011 andLüscher et al., 2014 for larger scale effects). Semi-permanent field margins are edges of arable fields that have been converted and restored to non-crop area, e.g. strips sown with grass(-herb) mixtures. They are subject to a lower frequency and intensity of soil disturbance. To our knowledge, environmental filters, such as soil properties, management practices and surrounding landscape, affecting earthworm communities of arable fields and field margins have scarcely been studied collectively. Given the fact that fields and margins neighbour each other spatially, but strongly differ in frequency, type and intensity of disturbance, quantifying effects of environmental filters on earthworm communities of these habitats may help to support management and spatial planning at farm and landscape scales to enhance soil biodiversity (Bianchi et al., 2013).The objectives of this study were two-fold. First, earthworm communities were compared between arable fields (hereafter named \"fields\") and semi-permanent field margins (hereafter named \"margins\") with different spatial configurations (fields had margins present or not).Second, the relative contribution of the environmental filters, soil properties (hereafter named \"soil\"), management practices (hereafter named \"management\") and composition of the surrounding landscape up to 500 m radius (hereafter named \"landscape\"), on earthworm communities of fields and margins was quantified. We hypothesized that earthworm density, species richness, and biomass would be lower in fields than margins, but not between fields with and without a margin. Furthermore, we hypothesized that earthworm communities would differ between margins and fields, but not between fields with and without a margin. We did not expect differences between fields with and without margins, because previous studies only showed limited spill-over effects of earthworms from margins to fields (e.g. Smith et al., 2008;Roarty and Schmidt, 2013;Crittenden et al., 2015). Our third hypothesis was that a higher proportion of nearby non-arable surface area would contribute to more diverse earthworm communities in margins, and not in fields. It was thus hypothesized that for fields, landscape effects would be overshadowed by management practices, because of an expected large effect of management-associated periodic disturbance (physical, chemical and biological) on earthworms.Our study was carried out in the Hoeksche Waard, in the southwestern part of The Netherlands. The region, with a surface area of about 324 km 2 comprises a set of polders, progressively reclaimed from the sea since the 15 th century, and is dominated by prime agricultural soils for arable cropping, mostly potato, sugar beet and wheat (Crittenden et al., 2015). Soils are hydromorphic calcareous sandy loam to clay formed in marine sediments (de Bakker and Schelling, 1966). Daily average temperature is 10.8 °C and annual precipitation is 883 mm (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute). The region is also characterized by a large network of margins (> 400 km) including annual flower strips and semi-permanent grass or grass-herb mixtures.Farm selection was aimed at an even geographic representation over the Hoeksche Waard, and was dependent on farmers' willingness to participate in the project. Twenty-six fields and 15 margins were sampled across a total of 15 farms. All fields had been under crop production for at least 25 years, and had been cultivated to winter wheat in the year of sampling. Thirteen of the 26 fields had margins, in which sampling was conducted. In addition, there were two margins sampled where the associated field was not sampled because they did not have winter wheat at the time. Sampling was done in September and October 2012, after harvest and before tillage in the arable fields. At the time of sampling, fields were covered with either wheat stubble and residue, or with a green manure of Lolium grasses or radish (Raphanus sativus subsp. oleiferus). Sampled margins had been sown with perennial grasses or mixtures of herbs and grasses between 2000 and 2010 and did not undergo soil disturbance since then. Grass(-herb) margins established later than 2010 were excluded from this study, as the time between the last ploughing event and our sampling campaign was considered too short; additionally, margins sown with annual flowers were also excluded from this study because they are ploughed and re-sown every year.In each field, six earthworm samples were taken within a 10 m radius. The center of the circle was at about 40 m from the edge of the field or the margin, when present. In the margins, four earthworm samples were taken along the margin, 20 m apart. The center of the sampling areas was georeferenced to allow for further spatial analyses.Earthworm sampling was done using the methodology described by van Vliet and de Goede (2006): a soil monolith of 20 x 20 x 20 cm was dug out and hand-sorted for earthworms, followed by the application of 0.5 l of 0.2 % formaldehyde solution onto the bottom of the pit, to expel burrowing anecic earthworms. Each sample of earthworms was weighed the same day upon extraction, and subsequently stored in 70% alcohol until identification.Biomass was measured taking into account not only whole individuals, but also pieces, heads and tails. However, only intact individuals or heads were considered for identification, and consequent quantifications of species richness, density and composition. Adult and juvenile individuals were identified using Sims and Gerard (1999) and Stöp-Bowitz (1969), respectively; 0.2% of the intact individuals could not be identified and were therefore excluded from data analysis.Around each earthworm sampling pit, five soil cores were taken to a depth of 20 cm and pooled into one composite soil sample per sampling location. Samples were analysed for pH-uses\"): arable land, deciduous forests, productive and semi-natural grasslands, orchards, unpaved infrastructures, cemeteries, grass and flower field margins. Landscape was characterized in terms of relative surface area and diversity of land use types. Relative surface area was calculated based on the proportion of arable land within each radius, whereas diversity was quantified using the Shannon diversity index of the inhabitable land-uses excluding arable land surface (Tables A1 to A3 of Appendix A in Supplementary material).Arable land was excluded when computing the Shannon diversity index to eliminate the high correlations between the surface area and landscape diversity metrics (Fischer et al., 2011).Official PDOK-TOP10 topographic maps (scale of 1:10000), were complemented by GIS maps of grass and flower margins, provided by the Waterboard \"Hollandse Delta\". After transforming linear elements of the TOP10 maps to polygons, each land-use surface area was quantified for the four considered radii. Analysis was done using the BUFFER tool in ArcGIS 10.2.1 (ESRI Inc. Redlands, California). Margins were manually transformed to polygons a posteriori by multiplying their length by 3 m, which is the usual width of margins in the region. Subsequently, the estimated surface area of margins was subtracted from the surface of arable land.To compare species richness among margins and fields with and without margins, sampleand individual-based rarefaction curves (Figure B1 of Appendix B in Supplementary material) were computed. Species richness among different habitats is only meaningfully comparable when a clear asymptote for each curve is reached (Gotelli and Colwell, 2001). Furthermore, because species richness increases with sample size, it can only be compared when the sample size among the habitats is equal. Rarefying species richness removes the effects of varying sample size by standardizing richness through interpolation of a sample to a smaller number of individuals, usually the total abundance of the least abundant site (Gotelli and Colwell, 2001). We rarefied earthworms to 25 individuals, which was the lowest total number of individuals collected in any of the habitats considered in this dataset. Differences in earthworm density, biomass and rarefied species richness (RFSR) among margins and fields with and without margins were analysed with linear models. Observed species richness (SR), based on true counts, was analysed with generalized linear models (GLM), with a Poisson distribution and a log link function. Density and biomass were expressed as number of individuals or biomass per meter square, while SR was calculated on a margin or field basis (i.e., the four or six subsamples taken in margins or fields, respectively, were pooled per site). Differences between margins and fields with and without margins were assessed with Ftests for the linear models and X 2 -tests for the GLM. Pairwise comparisons were computed when the overall models were statistically significant, but due to the low number of comparisons (three, in total), p-value adjustments to avoid inflation of type I error were considered unnecessary. Model residuals were inspected visually to validate distribution and variance assumptions (Zuur et al., 2009), and when the assumption of variance homogeneity was violated among treatments, a variance structure was used to allow different variance in each habitat type (Zuur et al., 2009).Earthworm community composition differences between fields with and without margins, and between fields and margins were tested by redundancy analysis (RDA), after log(x+1) transformation of the abundance data per unit of area (m 2 ) (ter Braak and Šmilauer, 2014) where margins and fields with and without margins were used as nominal explanatory variables. Pairwise comparisons among fields with and without margins, and margins were computed and model significance was assessed by Monte Carlo permutation tests (999 permutations, p< 0.05).Further statistical analysis considering the relationships between environmental filters (soil, management and landscape) and earthworm community composition was conducted separately for fields and margins, because their management-related explanatory variables were different (Tables A2 and A3 of Appendix A in Supplementary material). Furthermore, fields with and without margins were pooled, since no significant differences were found in earthworm community composition between the differently configured fields (see section 3.1). The effects of the three environmental filters on earthworm community composition were tested using a 2-step approach. First, we estimated the most parsimonious model explaining earthworm community composition for each individual filter resulting in three models per habitat, hereafter named \"separate RDA's\". Second, we constructed an RDA model combining the \"separate RDA's\" resulting in one overall model per habitat, hereafter named \"combined RDA\". Explanatory variables showing strong collinearity in each of the separate RDA's were identified by calculating variance inflation factors (VIF). One by one, variables with VIF> 10 were withdrawn from the model, starting with the variable with the highest VIF (Zuur et al., 2009;Borcard et al., 2011) (Tables A2 and A3 of Appendix A in Supplementary material). Forward selection was then used to obtain the most parsimonious separate RDA's for each filter. Parsimony was achieved by applying the double-stopping criterion (Blanchet et al., 2008), i.e. alpha significance level and adjusted r 2 of the separate RDA's. In the second step of the approach, to obtain the combined RDA for each habitat, the forward selection procedure was applied on all explanatory variables that were included in the parsimonious separate RDA's, which were subsequently tested for significance with 999 Monte Carlo permutation tests (p< 0.05). To quantify the relative contribution of each filter to earthworm community composition of fields and margins, variation partitioning was computed. The proportion of variation of earthworm community composition due to each of the filters was quantified with adjusted r 2 and tested for statistical significance using Monte Carlo permutation tests (999 permutations, p< 0.05) (Borcard et al., 2011). All analyses were performed with R 3.2.2 (R Core Team, 2014), using packages nlme 3.1-128, vegan 2.3-2, biodiversityR 2.7.1 and packfor 0.0-8.In total eleven species of earthworms were found. Fields hosted a total of nine and margins harboured ten species (Table 1). Neither earthworm total density (F= 1.172, p= 0.193), biomass (F= 1.172, p= 0.321), nor SR-species richness (X 2 = 2.607, p= 0.272) showed statistically significant differences between fields and margins, irrespective of the presence of a margin. The RFSR-species richness overall model, on the other hand, revealed significant differences (F= 4.8685, p= 0.013), where RFSR was higher in margins than in fields both with and without margins (p< 0.05) (Table 1). RDA of earthworm composition constrained by habitat (i.e. margins and fields with and without margins) separated margins from fields along the first RDA axis (overall model: adjusted r 2 = 9.5%, p= 0.001, Fig. 1). The presence of margins adjacent to the fields did not affect earthworm species composition in fields (p= 0.104), whereas there was a significant difference in earthworm composition between margins and fields (p< 0.05). In fields, the most abundant species were Aporrectodea caliginosa (Savigny, 1826), Aporrectodea rosea (Savigny, 1826), Lumbricus rubellus (Hoffmeister, 1843) and Allolobophora chlorotica (Savigny, 1826). In margins A. caliginosa, Lumbricus castaneus (Savigny, 1826) and A. rosea were dominant, whereas Aporrectodea limicola (Michaelsen, 1900), L. rubellus, A. chlorotica and Lumbricus terrestris (Linné, 1758) occurred relatively frequently. The least abundant species in fields were Murchieona minuscula (Rosa, 1906), L. terrestris, Eiseniella tetraedra (Savigny, 1826), A. limicola and L. castaneus (all less than 10 individuals m -2 ), and Aporrectodea longa (Ude, 1885) and Satchellius mammalis (Savigny, 1826) were not found in this habitat. In margins, the least abundant species were M. minuscula, S. mammalis and A. longa (all less than 10 individuals m -2 ), and from the pool of sampled species only E. tetraedra was not detected in this habitat (Table 1).In fields, only the variables representing the environmental filters management and soil explained a statistically significant part of the variation in community composition when considering RDA models for each filter separately (separate RDA models; Table 2). The management related variables, i.e. applications of herbicides (adjusted r 2 = 12%, p= 0.001), fungicides (adjusted r 2 = 8%, p= 0.002), and insecticides (adjusted r 2 = 6%, p= 0.012), cumulatively explained 26% (p= 0.001) of the variation in species composition. For soil (cumulative adjusted r 2 = 4%, p= 0.042) only clay content was selected (Table 2). In the subsequent RDA model that combined the separate models of all previously selected variables (combined RDA model), the variation explained by clay content became negligible (Table 2).Most earthworm species were at least weakly negatively associated with the number of applications of insecticides and/or herbicides in 2012 (Fig. 2). The only positive association found was an increase in density of L. rubellus with fungicide application rate. In particular, A. chlorotica, E. tetraedra and L. castaneus showed strong negative correlations with the number of herbicide applications, and A. limicola and L. castaneus with the number of insecticide applications.The variables representing the three environmental filters (landscape, management and soil) significantly explained part of the variation in community composition of the margins (Table 3). Within the separate RDA model for management, age of margin (adjusted r 2 = 14%, p= 0.004) and mowing frequency (adjusted r 2 = 10%, p= 0.017) were selected (cumulative adjusted r 2 = 24%, p= 0.001). The separate RDA model for the filter soil included pH (adjusted r 2 = 17%, p= 0.002). In contrast to the fields, variables representing the filter landscape were selected in the separate RDA model: the proportion of arable area within a radius of 500 m explained 17% (p= 0.003) of the variation in earthworm community composition (Table 3). All the variables in the separate RDA models for the three filters appeared also in the RDA model that combined all filters (Table 3). This combined RDA model explained 45% (p= 0.001) of the variation in the earthworm community composition.The earthworm species A. limicola, L. terrestris, A. chorotica, A. longa and S. mammalis were positively associated with the age of the field margin (Fig. 3) and negatively correlated with pH and surface area occupied by arable fields within a radius of 500 m. The species L. castaneus, L. rubellus, A. rosea, A. caliginosa, and to a smaller extent M. minuscula, correlated negatively to mowing frequency of the margins.Since the combined RDA model for the fields only comprised variables related to management (Table 2), variation partitioning among environmental filters was not necessary.In the case of margins, all three environmental filters were included in the combined RDA model (Table 3). Variation partitioning for the three environmental filters disclosed that the earthworm community variation in margins that could be uniquely attributed to the filter management (18%, p= 0.001) was almost twice as large as the variation attributed to the filters soil or landscape (10% and 11%, respectively, p< 0.05) (Table 4). Only about 6% of the variation in earthworm community composition was shared between the three filters.The earthworm species pool found during this study was comparable to that of other studies in Dutch polders (Crittenden et al., 2014;2015), as well as in other countries of north-western Europe (Ernst and Emmerling, 2009;Ernst et al., 2009;Nieminen et al., 2011). However, earthworm density, biomass and species richness were generally higher than reported in those studies, both in fields and in margins. In accordance with Nieminen et al. (2011); de Oliveira et al. (2012); Crittenden et al. (2015), the endogeic species A. caliginosa was the dominant species, accounting for 46% of the total density in margins and 57% and 65% in fields with and without margins, respectively. Anecic species (L. terrestris and A. longa) were mostly found in the margins. Their densities in fields were considerably lower, probably due to mechanical soil disturbance and limited food availability (Chan, 2001;van Capelle et al., 2012). Also epigeic species were mostly found in margins, with the exception of L. rubellus, which occurred at comparable densities in margins and fields. Anecic and epigeic earthworms feed on organic matter at the soil surface (Bouché, 1977), which is likely more available in margins than in fields (Chan, 2001;van Capelle et al., 2012), and additionally, soil disturbance is lower in margins than in the annually ploughed fields. Of all encountered epigeic species, L. rubellus has the highest fecundity (up to 106 cocoons produced per year (Edwards and Bohlen, 1996)), and the resulting potential for population recovery may account for its similar densities across fields and margins. Despite dissimilarities in species distribution among the different habitats, we could not detect significant differences in earthworm total density, biomass and SR-species richness, which partially contradicted our first hypothesis. However, earthworm RFSR-species richness was higher in margins than in fields, and no differences were found between fields with and without margins, which is in partial agreement with our first hypothesis. This indicates that fields have a lower richness than margins. On the other hand, the steeper rarefaction curves of the fields compared to the ones of the margins indicate that earthworm communities of the fields are more even than those of the margins (Olszewski, 2004). Considering this, it is very relevant, though unfortunately rare in earthworm ecology studies, to include rarefaction computations when evaluating land-use and management effects on earthworm communities. Our finding of differences in earthworm community composition between margins and fields, but not between fields with and without margins, agrees with previous findings. Smith et al. (2008) also studied earthworm densities in margins and fields with and without margins and concluded that the presence of margins, whilst harbouring higher densities, had no spill-over effect to the adjacent field. Likewise, Crittenden et al. (2015) and Roarty and Schmidt (2013) observed no increase in earthworm density in conventionally tilled fields with decreasing distance to the margin. The latter study, however, did show that the establishment of new, uncultivated margins in between the arable fields and the already existing permanent margins resulted in similar earthworm populations in old and new margins within three years. This indicates either a spill-over effect from the permanent to the newly created margins, or that the local earthworm populations did have the chance to develop to abundances comparable to the ones in the existing permanent margins. Evidence so far suggests that margins contribute to increased earthworm biodiversity in arable landscapes, but have little influence on earthworm communities in the fields as long as these are intensively cultivated.Variation partitioning allowed testing for the relative contribution of the three environmental filters, i.e. soil, management and landscape, on earthworm communities in margins and fields.Overall our results suggested that earthworm communities were affected by environmental filters operating at different spatial scales and that the effects depended on habitat disturbance. These findings are in line with those of Decaëns et al. (2008), who acknowledged that the earthworm species pool found in a particular habitat is constrained by a set of abiotic factors inherent to the land-use under focus (broad habitat and land-use constraints as referred by Decaëns et al., 2008). For fields, management was the most important filter, and neither soil nor the landscape at any radius played a substantial role in earthworm species sorting (Table 4). Our results are partly in line with those of Lüscher et al. (2014) who did not find any effects of the surrounding landscape on earthworm composition of fields. However, in contrast to our findings, those authors could not demonstrate any relationship between earthworm community composition and management-related variables, either.With respect to the margins, earthworm community composition was influenced by all three filters, where management-related variables were the most important in constraining earthworm species assemblages, followed ex aequo by the composition of the landscape within a radius of 500 m, and soil properties.Although soil texture, organic matter, moisture and pH are well known to affect earthworms (Curry, 2004), these soil properties did not contribute to the explained variation between earthworm communities in the fields of this study area. Our research area is rather homogeneous in terms of soil texture, has dominantly been managed for crop production, and the sampled arable fields differed little in soil properties. The limited variation in soil properties was therefore likely to have only a small influence on earthworm community variation. However, in margins, pH contributed significantly to explaining variation in earthworm community composition (Table 3), even though variation in pH was relatively small. All species abundances in the margins decreased with increasing pH, which in turn decreased with margin age (Fig. 3). The effect on earthworms was not necessarily caused by differences in pH per se, but rather by margin ageing, since time without disturbance would allow the establishment and development of earthworm communities.With respect to management of fields, we found that variables associated with the use of pesticides (fungicides, herbicides and insecticides) explained a large part of the variation (26%) in earthworm community composition (Tables 2, 4). Not unexpectedly, increased application frequencies had a negative effect on the abundance of most species in fields (Fig. 2) (Baveco and de Roos, 1996). Pelosi et al. (2013;2014) found these three groups of pesticides to negatively affect earthworms, particularly for species living at the soil surface.For most of the species in the current research the results are in line with the observations of those authors. Only L. rubellus showed a positive correlation to the number of fungicide applications, possibly due to a competitive advantage for example for available food, combined with its relatively high population recovery rate (Edwards and Bohlen, 1996). It is also well known that earthworms are hampered by soil disturbance like tillage (Chan, 2001), or decreased food availability due to crop residue removal (Edwards and Bohlen, 1996), but that this effect is species dependent. Furthermore, the use of tuber crops within the crop rotation has been identified as negatively affecting earthworms, again due to the intensive soil disturbances during soil preparation and harvesting (Marinissen, 1994;Curry et al., 2002).However, in a study aiming at understanding how fast earthworm populations would recover from autumn ploughing, Crittenden et al. (2014) found populations to be similar to before ploughing by the following Spring. In our study, neither tillage, removal of crop residues, nor the use of tuber crops in the past were found to play a role in explaining the variation of earthworm composition in our data. In fact, the variation in crop rotations and crop management practices was relatively small across the farms in our research area, posing some limitations in terms of testing which crops or management practices could favour earthworm diversity in arable fields.Among the management-related variables that explained variation in earthworm community composition in margins, age of margins (Fig. 3) positively affected long-lived species with low fecundity. For example L. terrestris, a species highly associated to older margins, can only produce up to 38 cocoons per year, reaching maturity after as much as 50 weeks (de Lange et al., 2013). Mowing frequency negatively affected the epigeic species found in margins (L. rubellus and L. castaneus), but had little influence on anecics (L. terrestris and A. longa). Both groups feed at the soil surface (Bouché, 1977), but the burrower L. terrestris is apparently less sensitive than the topsoil-dwelling L. rubellus and L. castaneus.In our study area, the landscape within a radius of 500 m proved to be the second most important filter in explaining earthworm community variation in margins (Table 4). So far, most studies have focussed on margins as a source for earthworm colonization into the fields (e.g., Roarty and Schmidt, 2013;Crittenden et al., 2015). The current study is, to our knowledge, the first attempt to quantify the relationships between the earthworm community composition of margins and soil properties, management practices and surrounding landscape together. The increase in proportion of arable area within a radius of 500 m revealed a negative effect on earthworm community composition in margins (Fig. 3), suggesting that inhabitable land-uses other than arable land could provide a source for more diverse earthworm communities, particularly for species like A. limicola, L. terrestris, A. chorotica, A. longa and S. mammalis. Earthworm mobility and dispersal ability is considered to be limited. In earthworm-free arable land of young polders in the Netherlands, after introduction, L. rubellus and A. caliginosa dispersed only at rates of 14 and 7 m yr -1 , respectively (Marinissen and van den Bosch, 1992). Although slow, dispersal and therefore colonization can take place over the years (Eijsackers, 2011). Furthermore, passive dispersal by, e.g., tires of (agricultural) vehicles (Marinissen and van den Bosch, 1992;Cameron and Bayne, 2014), waterways and animals (e.g. birds) (Schwert, 1980) plays a role in earthworm movement.Although we can only speculate whether earthworm populations in the margins are a product of facilitated population development after the restoration of margins, colonization from inhabitable land-uses, or both, our data suggests that dispersal from inhabitable land-uses plays a role to some extent. As we do not have information about species composition in the surrounding habitats, their role as potential sources of earthworms into the margins remains to be investigated.In accordance with our second hypothesis, the landscape did not explain variation in earthworm community composition in the fields at any of the studied radii. This is in agreement with the findings of Lüscher et al. (2014) who found no significant relationships between earthworm community composition of fields and characteristics of the surrounding landscape, although these authors only considered a radius of 250 m. A plausible explanation for the lack of such effects of the surrounding landscape on earthworm communities in the case of fields could be the dominance of harsh management practices, e.g. disruption of earthworm burrows, soil compaction and water logging, pesticide application and removal or displacement of food through tillage, hampering the development of earthworm populations.Our study clearly illustrated that although arable fields and field margins neighbour each other spatially, earthworm community composition of the two habitats was affected differently by the considered environmental filters (soil properties, management practices, and surrounding landscape). Regarding earthworm composition of arable fields, only management-related variables played a significant role, whereas for earthworm communities of field margins, all three filters were relevant. This suggests that management practices of arable fields overrule potential positive effects of the surrounding landscape and of soil properties on earthworm community diversity. The current growing awareness and policysupport for recovering a mosaic-like structure of arable landscapes includes restoration of semi-natural landscape elements, such as field margins. Although such elements could help promoting earthworm (re)colonization of arable fields, their re-establishment in arable landscapes will not be sufficient for restoring earthworm communities of arable fields, unless the impact of arable management practices is reduced.We are thankful to the farmers who allowed us to sample their land and to the Foundation HWodKa (http://hwodka.nl/), which provided farmers contact information. We further thank students, student-assistants and technicians who helped in the field and in the lab, and in particular Tamas Salanki who identified the earthworms. This work is part of the research programme Biodiversiteit Werkt! with project number 841.11.003, financed by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Zuur, A., Ieno, E.N., Walker, N., Saveliev, A.A., Smith, G.M., 2009. Mixed effects models and extensions in ecology with R. Springer, New York. Letters indicate significant habitat type differences at p< 0.05, NS: not significant. Figure 1 -Biplot of RDA of total earthworm species density using the sampled habitats as constraints (p= 0.001, 999 Monte Carlo permutations). Adjusted r 2 is 9.5%, the first RDA axis explains 11.6% of the constrained variance (p= 0.001) and the second axis 2.5% (p= 0.364).The first PCA axis explains 22.8% of the variance. Species whose variation explained by the constraints was smaller than 10% were excluded from the plot. Scaling based on species correlations.  Species whose variation explained by the constraints was smaller than 10% were excluded from the plot. Scaling based on species correlations. ","tokenCount":"5179"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3283b27d34dcc6ea8fac1f8dbd37aa2a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/49c625e3-d275-43ae-8ff6-441620e30415/retrieve","id":"2127908644"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8be3d298-291e-41d7-af5d-238ce3f56333","pagecount":"19","content":"Debemos reunirnos para identificar problemas de producción. Esa reunión se llama diagnóstico participativo. Planeamos actividades con la comunidad.Después preparamos la chagra, quemando la empalizada.Escogemos clases de yuca de buena producción y que no se pudran.Hacemos un ensayo en la chagra.Echamos hojas secas y ceniza a la tierra y así la yuca crece más sana y produce más.Hay que mantener limpia la chagra.No se siembra en los bajos o chucuas para que no se pudra la yuca.Las mujeres evaluamos el ensayo así: cuáles matas tienen más raíces sanas; cuáles tienen más y mejor semilla.Después de evaluar el ensayo, arrancamos la yuca para el casabe.Cuando terminamos el ensayo, nos reunimos con varias comunidades para informar los resultados de la investigación participativa en la chagra.Cuando se arranque la chagra, debemos dejar crecer el monte para que descanse y sirva de abono a otra chagra, Nosotros mismos podemos investigar para solucionar los problemas de nuestros cultivos en las chagras.mun","tokenCount":"155"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ce50eadec32cddcb4b9555e10167c99c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5c731800-f1c9-4c96-843a-f20bbf207f9a/retrieve","id":"-1554763850"},"keywords":["Meya, A.I.","Swennen, R.","Ndakidemi, P.A.","Mtei, K.M.","Merckx, R. Better Nitrogen Fertilizer land productivity","economic return","soil fertility management","banana fruit yield","volcanic soils","Tanzania"],"sieverID":"8c07b2d3-2911-4431-9d99-d5d14e0212e1","pagecount":"16","content":"Declining land productivity is a major problem constraining banana (Musa spp.) production in Tanzania. Banana fruit yield consequently reaches only 15% of the potential, primarily due to inadequate soil nutrient replenishment. Improving farmers' soil nutrient replenishment strategy in banana home gardens, which relies on applications of cattle manure only, by mixing with inorganic fertilizer resources can increase land productivity and can improve the overall profitability of banana production in the country. Experiments were conducted at Tarakea, Lyamungo, and Tengeru to determine the effects of organic fertilizer resources (animal manure and crop residue) and their combination with inorganic fertilizer resources on the productivity and profitability of Mchare banana production. Banana fruit yield differed significantly among the experimental sites, with drier areas of Tengeru recording, on average, 19.6 t ha −1 year −1 , while the more humid areas of Lyamungo recorded, on average, 39.3 ha −1 year −1 . Mchare banana plants grown under sole inorganic fertilizer produced significantly low yields (33.0 t ha −1 year −1 ) compared with those fertilized with cattle manure only, which lifted the yields to 38.8 t ha −1 year −1 , but the latter required more labor input. Soil nitrogen (N) fertilization via cattle manure + mineral fertilizer gave the highest average banana fruit yield (43.0 t ha −1 year −1 ) across the sites, and reduced fertilization costs by 32%. Subsequently, this integrated fertilization technique generated the highest average net benefits in all sites and both cropping cycles. Thus, the findings of this study form a basis to improve land productivity and profitability in banana-based home gardens in the study area by directing more labor input to good soil N management.Banana-based farming, most specifically the banana/coffee/common bean/smallholder dairy cattle system, has played a significant role in sustaining smallholder farmers' livelihoods in the humid highlands of Tanzania [1][2][3]. For a long period, bananas have served as a staple food, whereas coffee was a major cash earner [2,3]. Apart from serving as a source of animal protein for subsistence, dairy cattle in the system provided organic fertilizer for banana-based agroforestry home gardens [1,4,5]. Conversely, the increasing demand for bananas in the local market forces smallholder farmers to plant more bananas in their home gardens to replace coffee to generate additional income to support their livelihood [2,3,6].Bananas can feed up to 30% of the entire human population in Tanzania [7]. In the principle banana growing areas (e.g., Arusha, Kagera, Kilimanjaro, and Mbeya regions), the traditional highlands East African cooking banana (Mchare and Matooke) feeds up to 95% of the population [8] and contributes to around 70% of the household income through the sales of surplus banana bunches [2,3]. Regrettably, farmland fragmentation resulting from the large population pressure in the humid highlands has caused most of the farmers to derive their livelihoods on farmsteads that hardly reach 0.5 ha [1][2][3]. As a result, marginal lands that were allocated for fodder production have been converted to croplands [4,5] to produce food to feed more people. This, in turn, reduced the amounts of animal fodder [2][3][4] and, hence, the number of dairy cattle that can be kept in a farmstead [1,5,9,10]. Logically, quantities of animal manure dwindled down to only 25% of the total requirement [11], precluding acceptable productivity figures due to the declining land productivity, a result of inadequate soil nutrient replenishment [1,10,12].The acquisition of additional animal manure is hardly possible for resourceless endowed smallholder farmers [2,3,5]. In this view, supplementation with mineral fertilizers is crucial to enhance banana productivity output [11]. Combined use of organic and inorganic fertilizer resources significantly improved land productivity in comparison to using animal manure or inorganic fertilizers alone [13][14][15]. However, the economic profitability of such an approach will finally determine its adoption. Therefore, this study aimed to demonstrate the agronomic and economic benefits of N fertilization in Mchare banana production by analyzing data from two crop cycles for three experimental sites. The objectives of the study were to (i) evaluate the productivity, and (ii) assess the profitability of soil N replenishment techniques in Mchare banana production in the study area.The study was conducted in newly established fields at three sites from November 2015 to December 2019 on the volcanic slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru in the central-northern highlands of Tanzania. The experimental sites included (i) Tarakea, at the farm of Tarakea secondary school (latitude 03 • 02 17.0 S, longitude 037 • 35 24.9 E; 1608 meters (m) above sea level (a.s.l) in the Rombo district, Kilimanjaro region, (ii) Lyamungo, at the farm of Tanzania Coffee Research Institute (latitude 03 • 13 49.6 S, longitude 037 • 14 55.9 E; 1346 m a.s.l in the Hai district, Kilimanjaro region, and (iii) Tengeru, in the land of the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (latitude 03 • 23 58 S, longitude 037 • 35 24.9 E; 1106 m a.s.l in the Arumeru district, Arusha region. The first field was established in the Upper zone, the second field in the Mid zone, and the third in the interflow zone between the Mid and Lower zones. This arbitrary zoning led to three different climatic conditions. Lyamungo was the more humid site (Figure S1), with annual precipitation exceeding 1300 mm year −1 , which is considered optimal for banana production [16]. Likewise, Tarakea and Tengeru were drier sites (Figures S2 and S3, respectively), and rains were less than optimal with annual precipitation below 1000 mm. Soil types are classified as Cambic Chermic Phaeozem (Gravelly Clayic, Colluvic, Novic, Vitric) at Tarakea; Eutric Luvic Mollic Nitisol (Humic) at Lyamungo; and Chermic Phaeozem (Geoabruptic, Clayic, Pachic) over Eutric Cambisol (Clayic, Humic, Protovertic) at Tengeru [17]. Except for total N and C levels that were below the established critical limits for crop production in all experimental fields, other soil properties were generally acceptable for the production of bananas [18].Hole measurements for planting bananas were 0.9 m in length, 0.9 m wide, and 0.7 m deep. Each treatment plot measured 150 m 2 (15 m long by 10 m wide) and had five rows spaced 3 m apart and five plants within a row spaced 2 m apart. The Crop Bio-Science tissue culture laboratory in Arusha provided the banana plant materials (Mchare-Huti Green Bell AA) for the experiment, which were about 0.3 m tall. Banana planting was carried out during the long rainy season and the corresponding planting density was 1666 plants ha −1 . In the respective treatment plots, common bean (variety Lyamungo 90, bush type) inoculated with Rhizobium leguminosarum (manufactured by Legume Technology Ltd. Batch: CIAT 300813-1, Nairobi, Kenya) was grown in association with banana in four rows spaced 0.2 m by 0.5 m, with a corresponding planting density of 100,000 plants ha −1 . Legume intercrop was grown in two cropping seasons each year. Common bean seeds were outsourced from the Tanzania Agriculture Research Institute (TARI), Selian station located in Arusha region, northern Tanzania.The field experiment consisted of eight N fertilization treatments arranged in a randomized complete block design and was repeated three times. All N fertilization treatments were applied each year in all three experimental sites. Treatments 3, 5, and 6 were designed to equalize the total N contents derived from different amounts of urea and cattle manure. This was calculated based on equal N amounts (153.4 kg N ha −1 year −1 equivalent to 92 g N mat −1 year −1 determined according to the amount of organic N traditionally applied by resource-endowed farmers). Fertilization treatments included (N rates expressed in kg ha −1 year −1 ): T1 = 0 N (control); T2 = 76.7 kg N (derived from urea, 50% below the N dose applied by resource-endowed farmers); T3 = 153.4 kg N (derived from urea, corresponding to the traditional N rate derived from cattle manure applied by resourceendowed farmers); T4 = 230 kg N (derived from urea, 50% above the traditional N rate); T5 = 50% urea (providing 76.7 kg mineral N) + 50% cattle manure (providing 76.7 kg organic N); T6 = 100% cattle manure (providing 153.4 kg organic N); T7 = 50% urea (providing 76.7 kg mineral N) + common bean haulms (providing, on average, 52 kg organic N); and T8 = 100% common bean haulms (providing, on average, 52 kg organic N) (Table S1) [17]. As a first step toward improving the traditional soil fertility management practices in the banana-based farming systems of northern Tanzania, we aimed to estimate the ideal N fertilization rate in T1 through T4. In this study, we tested the concept while we chose the cattle manure dose (T6) applied by the resource-endowed farmers as a reference, well aware that such is beyond the doses used by the average smallholder farmers.Dry cattle manure about six months old was locally sourced from the Kilari sisters' dairy farm each year and contained, on average, 2-3-12 g kg −1 N-P-K (Table 1) [11]. It was not possible to perform a full chemical analysis of the manure because of financial constraints. Although the manure's moisture content was not measured, it was estimated to be between 87 and 90%. The moisture content of the cattle manure given to the crop was, hence, not considered when calculating the required manure dose. Even yet, it is likely that the levels of N delivered by cattle manure did not depart greatly from the planned annual rate. Each banana mat in T5 received 23 kg of dry cattle manure (equivalent to 38 t ha −1 ) + 100 g of urea (46% N) (equivalent to 167 kg ha −1 ) year −1 [17]. As for 100% cattle manure treatment (T6), each mat was amended with 46 kg dry manure (equivalent to 76 t ha −1 ) year −1 [17]. Common bean haulms were produced in situ in T7-T8 during the course of two seasons each year and contained, on average, 31-3-24 g kg −1 N-P-K (Table 1) [11]. Each banana mat in T8 received between 0.9 and 1.1 kg of dry common bean haulms (equivalent to 1.6 t ha −1 on average) year −1 , while in T7, each banana mat received this amount in combination with the lowest dose of urea (Tables S1 and S2). Each banana mat in T1-T4 received 20.1 g P (46 g P 2 O 5 ) and 276 g K (334 g K 2 O) year -1 , which is equivalent to 33.5 kg P (76.6 kg P 2 O 5 ) and 459.8 kg K (556.4 kg K 2 O) ha -1 year -1 , respectively, from triple superphosphate (TSP, 46% P 2 O 5 ) and muriate of potash (MOP, 60% K 2 O). Likewise, each banana mat in T7 and T8 received the same amounts as in T1-T4 plus, on average, 3 g P and 24 g K mat −1 year −1 , equivalent to 5 kg P and 40 kg K ha −1 year −1 derived from common bean haulms (Table S2). Each banana mat in T5 received 69 g P and 276 g K year −1 , which is equal to 115 kg P and 459.8 kg K ha −1 year −1 , whereas those in T6 received 138 g P and 552 g K mat −1 year −1 , which is equal to 230 kg P and 916.9 kg K ha −1 year −1 , both from cattle manure (Table S2). Source: [11].While T3, T5, and T6 were designed to receive equal quantities of the total N derived from various amounts of urea and cattle manure, this was not the case for P and K in T5 and T6. Mchare banana plants in T6 always received double amounts of P and K compared with T5 and six times more than T1-T4 caused by the larger quantities of cattle manure applied in this treatment. Cattle manure and TSP were applied once each year at the onset of the short rainy season. Common bean haulms were retained in the respective N fertilization treatment plots to recycle nutrients. To reduce leaching losses, urea and MOP, on the other hand, were administered in three splits each year: the first split at the beginning of the short wet season, the second split at the beginning of the long rainy season, and the third split near the end of the long rainy season (Table S3).Yield data were collected from two consecutive cycles between April 2017 and December 2019 on nine central banana plants in each treatment plot. Yield-related parameters included (i) harvested bunches and (ii) bunch size. Using the formula shown in Equation (1) below, yield (t ha −1 year −1 ) was then computed based on the bunch weight and collected bunches ha −1 in a year related to crop duration. Crop duration refers to the number of days between planting and harvesting for each cropping cycle.with BW bunch weight in kg, n • number of harvested bunches ha −1 , and CD crop duration.A partial budget analysis of the costs and benefits related to each treatment on the yield data was carried out as described in [19] in order to evaluate the profitability of N fertilizer utilization. The analysis was carried out using the farm gate price of banana bunches, common bean grains harvested from intercropped treatment plots, opportunity costs of common bean haulms, prevailing retail prices of mineral fertilizers, transport cost of cattle manure, and labor costs associated with each fertilization treatment. Calculations were made on a hectare basis per year in Tanzania shilling (TZS). Then, monetary values were translated from TZS at the average exchange rate near the end of the experimental period, which was 2309 TZS to 1 USD. The closest agro-dealers were contacted for prices on mineral fertilizers, common bean seeds, and Rhizobium inoculants. Costs related to cattle manure utilization were obtained from banana growers and were checked against those provided by extension staff in each site. Labor costs for fertilizer application, planting, weeding, and harvesting of the bean intercrop were collected from the neighboring farmers (Tables S3-S5). Conversely, labor costs related to banana harvesting and local transport were not included in the analysis because bunches for family consumption are harvested piecemeal and those for sale are often harvested by the merchants.The average farm gate price of banana bunches was obtained from the merchants at the nearest market centers during peak season when prices are customarily low. The same was carried out for common bean grains harvested from the intercropped N fertilization treatment plots. The opportunity cost of common bean haulms was obtained from the nearest smallholder dairy cattle keepers, who normally use them as fodder. Because banana bunches were harvested after fingers have reached full horticultural maturity, which is not a normal practice by most smallholder farmers, the average yield (t ha −1 year −1 ) was reduced by 10%. The average farm gate prices of Mchare banana (USD 0.23 kg −1 ), common bean grains (USD 1.3 kg −1 ), and common bean haulms (USD 86 ha −1 ) were used to determine the harvest value referred to herein as gross benefits (GB) from the respective N fertilization treatment plots.Total variable costs (TVC) were the sum of costs of fertilizers, common bean seed, and labor for fertilizers application, planting, weeding, and harvesting of the intercropped common bean. Net benefits (NB) were calculated by subtracting the TVC from GB. Then, prospective profitable N fertilization treatments were chosen using a dominance analysis. Treatments were deemed to be dominated and, as a result, were excluded from the marginal analysis if they provided NB that was lower or equal to that of a treatment with lower TVC. The non-dominated N fertilization treatments were sorted in ascending order of their costs, and a marginal (extra) cost (MC) and benefit (MB) were computed for each adjacent pair of treatments. The MC was then the difference in TVC between the lower costly treatment and the subsequent higher costly treatment. The MB was calculated in the same way, but using the NB values. Then, using the formula shown in Equation ( 2) below, the marginal rate of return (MRR), which measures the level of returns to the investment costs, was computed. The MRR for the respective sites was computed from the average values of the nondominated N fertilization treatments (T2, T3, T4, and T5). Sensitivity analysis was performed by recalculating the MRR based on the projected future price (50% price inflation) of mineral fertilizers and Rhizobium inoculants to understand the degree of risk involved in making the proposed change as described by [20].with change in NB calculated relative to treatment with smaller net benefits and the subsequent treatment with larger net benefits: (for mineral N fertilization treatments: T1-T4) and T2 for the integrated N fertilization treatment (T5). The TVC was calculated relative to the treatment with lower N fertilization costs and the subsequent treatment with higher costs (for mineral N fertilization treatments: T1-T4) and T2 for the integrated N fertilization treatment (T5).We performed a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) using Equation (3) to assess the effects of N fertilization treatments on yield and economic-related parameters for each site separately but using cycle as a repeated measure in light of the strong interaction between sites and fertilization treatments in both cropping cycles. In every instance, a p-value of 0.05 or less was regarded as significant, and a 95% probability Tukey HSD test was used for multiple mean comparisons. Treatments with MRR above USD 1.18 $ −1 were deemed profitable [19,21] in terms of the viability of the evaluated N fertilization strategies [21]. All statistical analyses were performed using the STATISTICA statistical package version 8.0 [22].with Y ij banana yield, µ overall mean, Ti the ith N fertilization treatment effect, βj the jth blocking effect, and εij the ijth random error.In general, the results indicate that the Mchare banana grown in the most humid site of Lyamungo had more heavy bunches (Figure 1), and, thus, higher banana fruit yields than in the drier sites of Tarakea and Tengeru in both cropping cycles (Table 2). The Mchare banana bunch weight and total fruit yield varied from 12.0 to 35.0 kg (Figure 1) and 11.5 to 42.9 t ha −1 year −1 in cycle one (Table 2), respectively. In cycle two, bunch weight varied from 11.0 to 40.0 kg (Figure 1) and total yield from 10.9 to 82.5 t ha −1 year −1 (Table 2), with an average output of 45 t ha −1 year −1 . The Mchare banana's yields were significantly (p < 0.001) and favorably increased in response to both organic and mineral N fertilization treatments (Table 2). Nevertheless, cattle manure only (T6) or in combination with urea at 50% each (T5) resulted in the highest yield, and were similar to each other in cycle one in Lyamungo and Tengeru, while T5 was higher than T6 in Tarakea (Table 2). On the other hand, cattle manure only (T6) in cycle two produced smaller yield than the integrated approach (T5), except in Tengeru (Table 2). The results further indicate that yields in the control (T1) and common bean haulms only (T8) were quite similar within respective cropping cycles, except in cycle two where T8 demonstrated superior performance compared with T1 in Lyamungo (Table 2).cycle one in Lyamungo and Tengeru, while T5 was higher than T6 in Tarakea (Table 2). On the other hand, cattle manure only (T6) in cycle two produced smaller yield than the integrated approach (T5), except in Tengeru (Table 2). The results further indicate that yields in the control (T1) and common bean haulms only (T8) were quite similar within respective cropping cycles, except in cycle two where T8 demonstrated superior performance compared with T1 in Lyamungo (Table 2).Furthermore, the results reveal that Mchare banana finger yield was higher in cycle two than in cycle one, except for the control (T1) (Table 2). Mchare banana finger yield in the control decreased by 2.6 t ha −1 year −1 between cycle one and cycle two. When N fertilization treatments were compared within the respective cropping cycle, sole urea (T2-T4) resulted in substantial and significant yield responses up to T3 (Figures 2-4). It is interesting to note that after one cycle, sole urea (T2-T4) and cattle manure only (T6) fertilization treatments became more clearly distinct from one another (Figures 2-4). However, common bean haulms alone (T8) as an alternative organic treatment did not result in a similar yield increase, with the yield only slightly above the control treatment (T1) (Figures 2-4). Similarly, the combination of urea and common bean haulms (T7) did not lift the yield much above that obtained with the smallest N dose derived from urea only (T2) (Figures 2-4).  Furthermore, the results reveal that Mchare banana finger yield was higher in cycle two than in cycle one, except for the control (T1) (Table 2). Mchare banana finger yield in the control decreased by 2.6 t ha −1 year −1 between cycle one and cycle two. When N fertilization treatments were compared within the respective cropping cycle, sole urea (T2-T4) resulted in substantial and significant yield responses up to T3 (Figures 2-4). It is interesting to note that after one cycle, sole urea (T2-T4) and cattle manure only (T6) fertilization treatments became more clearly distinct from one another (Figures 2-4). However, common bean haulms alone (T8) as an alternative organic treatment did not result in a similar yield increase, with the yield only slightly above the control treatment (T1) (Figures 2-4). Similarly, the combination of urea and common bean haulms (T7) did not lift the yield much above that obtained with the smallest N dose derived from urea only (T2) (Figures 2-4).      Nitrogen fertilization costs were higher at Tarakea than Lyamungo and Tengeru sites (Tables 3-5). This was due to higher retail prices of mineral fertilizer because Tarakea is The relationship between the predictor (N fertilization rate) and the response variable (banana yield) was significant (p = 0.001). The difference between cattle manure (T6) or in combination with urea (T5) and other N fertilization treatments (T2-T8) was distinct and increased in cycle two. Source: [17].Nitrogen fertilization costs were higher at Tarakea than Lyamungo and Tengeru sites (Tables 3-5). This was due to higher retail prices of mineral fertilizer because Tarakea is far (80 km) from Moshi, a regional business center. Since Lyamungo and Tengeru locations are just 25 km from Moshi town and Arusha city, respectively, the retail price of a 50 kg bag of mineral fertilizer sold at Tarakea includes substantial transport costs in comparison with those two sites. The farm gate price of Mchare banana was similar in all three sites, with a mean of USD 0.23 kg −1 . Therefore, large values of NB recorded in the moist areas of Lyamungo were, to a large extent, due to the large production quantity of the tested Mchare banana cultivar. The MRR appeared to increase in cycle two (Tables 3-5). The use of urea alone (T2-T4) or in combination with cattle manure at 50% each (T5) was less costly than cattle manure only (T6) and common bean haulms (T7-T8) (Tables 3-5). Combined use of urea and cattle manure (T5) reduced N fertilization costs by 41% at Tarakea and Tengeru (Tables 3 and 5) and 23% at Lyamungo (Table 4) compared with that of cattle manure only (T6). The NB did not differ significantly (except for Tarakea, p < 0.001) between N fertilization treatments, but the values were relatively larger in cycle two than in cycle one at each site. With the exception of Tengeru, sole urea applications at 153.4 kg N ha −1 year −1 (T3) produced greater NB than the other mineral N fertilization treatments (T2 and T4). However, the largest NB value was obtained when using urea in combination with cattle manure, each contributing 50% of the annual N rate (T5) (Tables 3-5). Common bean haulms alone (T8) produced the smallest NB relative to the other N fertilization treatments (Tables 3-5). The results further reveal that T4 (except for Tengeru), T6, T7, and T8 were dominated (Tables 3-5) and, thus were excluded from the marginal analysis. In general, the MRR of the mineral N fertilization treatments (T2, T3, and T4) decreased with utilization costs reflected in N dose and was lowest in T4 (Tables 3-5). Inflating prices of mineral fertilizer and the labor costs for application resulted in further reduction of the MRR to the investment capital (Tables 3-5). The obtained values, however, exceeded the estimated minimum acceptable MRR in our analysis, which was USD 1.18 $ −1 .  Key: T1-no N (control); T2-76.7 kg N (urea); T3-153.4 kg N (urea); T4-230 kg N (urea); T5-76.7 kg N (urea) + 76.7 kg N (cattle manure); T6-153.4 kg N (cattle manure); T7-76.7 kg N (urea) + 52 kg N (common bean haulms); T8-52 kg N (common bean haulms) [17]; D = dominated treatments, thus, were eliminated from marginal analysis; a = product of the average yield of the respective experimental treatment and farm gate price; b = sum of retail/farm gate cost to purchase mineral fertilizer, inoculant and bean seed, cattle manure, and labor for application of fertilizer, sowing, weeding and harvesting of the bean intercrop; c = difference between gross benefits and total variable costs; d = change in total variable costs calculated relative to treatment with lower fertilization costs and the subsequent treatment with higher costs (for mineral N fertilization treatments: T1-T4) and T2 for the integrated N fertilization treatment (T5); e = change in net benefits calculated relative to treatment with smaller net benefits and the subsequent treatment with larger net benefits (for mineral N fertilization treatments: T1-T4) and T2 for the integrated N fertilization treatment (T5); f and g = marginal benefit (change in net benefits) over marginal cost (change in total variable costs) calculated at actual and projected future fertilizer price relative to the smallest N dose (T2) for all nondominated treatments; MRR = marginal rate of return; LSD = least significant difference.    Key: T1-no N (control); T2-76.7 kg N (urea); T3-153.4 kg N (urea); T4-230 kg N (urea); T5-76.7 kg N (urea) + 76.7 kg N (cattle manure); T6-153.4 kg N (cattle manure); T7-76.7 kg N (urea) + 52 kg N (common bean haulms); T8-52 kg N (common bean haulms) [17]; D = dominated treatments thus, were eliminated from marginal analysis; a = product of the average yield of the respective experimental treatment and farm gate price; b = sum of retail/farm gate cost to purchase mineral fertilizer, inoculant and bean seed, cattle manure, and labor for application of fertilizer, sowing, weeding and harvesting of the bean intercrop; c = difference between gross benefits and total variable costs; d = change in total variable costs calculated relative to treatment with lower fertilization costs and the subsequent treatment with higher costs (for mineral N fertilization treatments: T1-T4) and T2 for the integrated N fertilization treatment (T5); e = change in net benefits calculated relative to treatment with smaller net benefits and the subsequent treatment with larger net benefits (for mineral N fertilization treatments: T1-T4) and T2 for the integrated N fertilization treatment (T5); f and g = marginal benefit (change in net benefits) over marginal cost (change in total variable costs) calculated at actual and projected future fertilizer price relative to the smallest N dose (T2) for all nondominated treatments; MRR = marginal rate of return; LSD = least significant difference.  Key: T1-no N (control); T2-76.7 kg N (urea); T3-153.4 kg N (urea); T4-230 kg N (urea); T5-76.7 kg N (urea) + 76.7 kg N (cattle manure); T6-153.4 kg N (cattle manure); T7-76.7 kg N (urea) + 52 kg N (common bean haulms); T8-52 kg N (common bean haulms) [17]; D = dominated treatments thus, were eliminated from marginal analysis; a = product of the average yield of the respective experimental treatment and farm gate price; b = sum of retail/farm gate cost to purchase mineral fertilizer, inoculant and bean seed, cattle manure, and labor for application of fertilizer, sowing, weeding and harvesting of the bean intercrop; c = difference between gross benefits and total variable costs; d = change in total variable costs calculated relative to treatment with lower fertilization costs and the subsequent treatment with higher costs (for mineral N fertilization treatments: T1-T4) and T2 for the integrated N fertilization treatment (T5); e = change in net benefits calculated relative to treatment with smaller net benefits and the subsequent treatment with larger net benefits (for mineral N fertilization treatments: T1-T4) and T2 for the integrated N fertilization treatment (T5); f and g = marginal benefit (change in net benefits) over marginal cost (change in total variable costs) calculated at actual and projected future fertilizer price relative to the smallest N dose (T2) for all nondominated treatments; MRR = marginal rate of return; LSD = least significant difference.The yield at Lyamungo increased to 35.1 t ha −1 year −1 in cycle one and 53.4 t ha −1 year −1 in cycle two under 153.4 kg mineral N ha −1 year −1 (T3), which is higher than that achieved under 230 kg mineral N ha −1 year −1 (T4), according to fertilization response curves (Figures 2-4). Nevertheless, when the same quantity of N is derived from a 50% mixture of urea and cattle manure (T5), yield increases of up to 28.0 t ha −1 year −1 or 34.4% can be reached. Our findings further revealed that the integrated approach (T5) in cycle one improved Mchare banana productivity equally well as cattle manure only (T6), which mimics the standard farmers' practice in the country. Then, yields in the integrated approach (T5) were significantly higher than that attained in the conventional mode of production (T6) in cycle two (except for Tengeru, where these two treatments performed the same). This is in line with earlier studies, e.g., by [11,[13][14][15][23][24][25][26][27], where the usage of both organic and inorganic fertilizers produced higher yields than using either organic or inorganic fertilizers alone. Therefore, this shows that the integrated approach (T5) can be used to replenish nutrients and manage soil N in farmsteads with inadequate quantities of cattle manure while improving banana productivity and maintaining environmental sustainability.In comparison to the control (T1), retaining common bean haulms as the only source of organic N fertilizer (T8) increased production significantly (Figures 2-4), but compared to the control treatment (T1), this increment was only 1.4 t ha −1 year −1 in cycle one and 12.5 t ha −1 year −1 in cycle two, or 6.8 and 43.8%, respectively. A slowly building residual effect of the inoculated common bean intercrop, which adds organic N to the soil through the decomposing roots and haulms, may be responsible for the significant yield increase shown in cycle two. Legume intercropping has been reported to increase yield in earlier studies, e.g., [28] in plantain, [29] in robusta coffee (Coffea robusta), and [30] in banana cv. 'Prata Anã'. Therefore, for the peasant farmer who has limited access to animal manure and/or mineral fertilizers, an inoculated legume intercrop can be utilized as an alternate package to improve soil N. In the intercrop treatment plots, the amount of N derived from common bean haulms only hardly reached 52 kg ha −1 year −1 (Tables S1 and S2), which was insufficient to meet the N needs of the tested Mchare banana cultivar. This could be explained by the small quantity of common bean haulms produced in situ in the corresponding intercrop treatment plots, probably as a result of the study's high banana planting density, which prevented each mat from receiving enough haulms. Still, an inoculated common bean intercrop can be a viable option in households with inadequate amounts of animal manure, especially when banana mats are more widely spaced. This is in agreement with earlier recommendations published in [31,32].The response curves (Figures 2-4) further indicate a higher yield variability in cycle one than in cycle two. As a rule, crop plants established with in vitro plants should have a lower yield variability, and yield and yield variability increase gradually in the subsequent cycles. Higher yield variations observed in cycle one can be ascribed to two events that occurred in the course of our research. First, mole rat infestation in the first 4 months after planting at Lyamungo and Tarakea trial sites destroyed almost 2/3 of the plants. As such, there were several rounds of replanting depending on the time of destruction. Second, heavy loss of the banana plants occurred due to a strong windstorm at the Tengeru trial site almost 10 months after planting. Toppled plants were cut just above the soil level to allow regrowth. Unusual lower yield variations observed in cycle two at Lyamungo and Tarakea trial sites could be attributed to the challenges in estimating harvesting dates of the individual plants because they were 80 and 150 km from Arusha where the researcher was based. As a result, some bunches were harvested a little earlier to reduce field visit frequencies and minimize travel costs. This seemed to have caused some inaccuracies in estimating the cycle duration of individual plants, an important component when calculating yield per year.The large MRR of the non-dominated N fertilization treatments (T2-T5) recorded at all three sites indicates that these treatments were profitable in the study area. Sensitivity analysis revealed that MRR decreased with price inflation (projected future price) of mineral fertilizers, Rhizobium inoculants, and the associated labor costs for the application. Nonetheless, the MRR of investment continued to exceed USD 1.18 $ −1 , which was estimated as the minimum acceptable level in our study. This suggests that non-dominated N fertilization treatments can still be acceptable to farmers in the study area even if mineral N fertilizer utilization cost would inflate by 50%. The combined use of urea and cattle manure at 50% each of the annual N budget (T5) appears to lower the requirements for animal manure and fertilization costs, on average, by 50 and 32% respectively, compared with the use of cattle manure exclusively (T6), while it is possible that this difference depends on the site. This was due to reduced transportation costs of additional manure from the nomadic cattle herds roaming in the drier lowlands, and the labor to apply.In terms of economic performance, fertilization at a rate of 153.4 kg N ha −1 year −1 using a mixture of urea and cattle manure at 50% each (T5) increased NB up to USD 1640 (21%) in cycle one and USD 2983 (30%) in cycle two in comparison with the same rate derived from mineral N alone (T3). Likewise, the integrated approach (T5) gave NB increments of up to USD 1130 (18%) in cycle one and USD 1808 (18%) in cycle two relative to that obtained in cattle manure only (T6). This difference was mainly due to (i) lower production costs of the integrated application (T5) than the use of cattle manure alone (T6), of which the latter had higher transportation and application costs, and (ii) higher yields than in the traditional mode of production (T6). Compared with the control (T1), NB increment in common bean haulms (T8) was smaller than those attained with other N fertilization techniques. This could be explained by the low productivity of the system, which corroborates previous findings e.g., by [11,31,32] when bush and climbing beans were grown in association with bananas.The MRR in non-dominated N fertilization treatments was greater in cycle two than in cycle one and appeared to decrease with the N fertilization rate. The MRR in treatments involving mineral N alone (T2-T4) recorded significant MRRs in comparison to the treatment comprising cattle manure plus urea at 50% each (T5). A similar decreasing trend in the MRR was published in [15] for P fertilization in maize, with a mean of USD 8.4, 6.1, and 3.5 $ −1 under 13, 26, and 52 kg mineral P ha −1 , respectively. In addition, [25] recorded higher returns of up to USD 9.4 $ −1 in highland bananas grown under pure mineral fertilization. Even though the integrated N fertilization treatment (T5) had the lowest value of MRR among the non-dominated treatments, the value still exceeded the projected minimum acceptable rate of USD 1.18 $ −1 in our study, demonstrating the profitability of this novel strategy in addressing Mchare banana nutrient requirements in the study area. Due to this, the integrated approach (T5) is the best alternative N fertilization option for farmsteads in the research area that do not have enough animal manure. The integrated strategy increases nutrient uptake and, thus, the utilization efficiency of the applied mineral N fertilizer [11,15], which in turn increases the cropping system's sustainability.These findings further revealed that the tested Mchare banana cultivar in the integrated approach (T5) provided the best yields, approximately 29.8% of the yield reached in the control (T1), the latter mimicking smallholder farmer conditions. Earlier, the studies by [3,6,8] estimated that 60-70% of the harvested banana bunches in the study area are used for family consumption, and the remaining 30-40% of the banana bunches are sold mainly in the fresh local market. This means that the integrated approach (T5) can produce surpluses of up to 13.5 t ha −1 year −1 (with a planting density of 1666 plants ha -1 ), which can generate about USD 3105 ha −1 year −1 from surplus sales of banana bunches. Translating these figures to a 0.5 ha well-fertilized plot in the uplands [3], with 417 plants and an average bunch weight of 31.5 kg, one would conclude that a banana-based home garden in the central-northern highlands of Tanzania can generate up to USD 905 year −1 by surplus sales of banana bunches only. Annual household income of a smallholder farmer is around USD 321, generated by surplus sales of all crops cultivated in a 0.5 ha banana-based home garden in the uplands and 0.4 ha maize-based fields in the drier lowlands of the northern highlands, Tanzania. Hence, it could be argued that better N fertilization could significantly improve banana-based home gardens' productivity and boost household income from banana sales alone by 36% compared with the current figures obtained under the existing smallholder conditions.Banana fruit yields increased substantially and significantly as the crop stayed for a longer time in the field, with the N fertilization treatments producing more in cycle two than in cycle one. Banana plants grown in the integrated approach (T5) produced the same yield as those in cattle manure only (T6) in cycle one, while land productivity became significantly higher in cycle two in all three sites. This infers that it is critical to draw conclusions regarding the best-performing N fertilization technique based on crop productivity of two cropping cycles. The decrease in land productivity observed in low-nutrient-input treatment plots (T1) in the subsequent cropping cycle depicts the actual scenario in the majority of farmsteads that are unable to produce enough animal manure.According to a partial budget of the costs and benefits, using cattle manure alone (T6) was the most expensive N fertilization technique. In contrast, the integrated approach (T5) reduced N fertilization costs, on average, by 32% related to 50% less cattle manure requirements and, thus, transportation costs of additional manure and labor to apply. Furthermore, this approach generated a household income of about USD 905 year −1 by surplus sales of banana bunches, which is substantial for a smallholder farmer. This income allows for covering annual health insurance for all household's family members, education expenses for the children, and electricity and water bills. Therefore, a potential and costeffective alternative strategy for replenishing soil nutrients in farmsteads with insufficient amounts of animal manure appears to be the combined use of cattle manure and mineral N, each supplying 50% of the annual N budget.","tokenCount":"6598"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c97381a8902a176efcb3589532a2f70f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/280b1f7f-d4a9-465f-801c-ca8f8dc8ccfe/retrieve","id":"-1550206378"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0330c742-2722-478d-a651-a8b08c02fc69","pagecount":"22","content":"The central importance of livestock to broad-based development is under-represented in global fora, particularly in the development community.As the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) reports, demand for meat, milk, and eggs is skyrocketing around the globe and the increasing demand for beef, pork, poultry and milk will continue to rise.According to FAO, animal-source foods in 2014 comprise 5 of the 6 highest value global commodities. This reflects a significant increase in meat consumption in the developing world (albeit a concomitant decrease in consumption in the developed world) over the past 35 years, with this trend expected to continue. Some 750 million smallholder farmers and herders depend on livestock for their food, livelihood and income. Many of these are women and youth, for whom livestock serve as a pathway out of poverty. This sector provides an average of 40% of the GDP of the global south ; globally, milk, meat and eggs are among the most valuable of agricultural commodities.The foregoing notwithstanding, animal agriculture has not garnered the visibility and attention it deserves, as clearly demonstrated by official development assistance (ODA) allocations over the past ten years. The following graph and table are indicative of how the livestock sector has been largely ignored in development financing in the past, a dire situation as the international community embarks on work to meet the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/ over the next 15 years, with sights set on eliminating poverty, ending hunger and malnutrition and leaving no one behind.The work of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and other actors in the sustainable livestock sector are essential inputs to discussions and decisions to ensure food security and to eradicate poverty around the world while providing healthy and nutritious diets.There exist large opportunities for this community to help raise awareness of the importance of animal agriculture, particularly in the international arena where development policy issues are discussed and important decisions are made that can influence policies at every other levelregional, national and community/local. This strategy outlines ways for ILRI and other actors in sustainable livestock development to build stronger engagement with the United Nations System.The broad objective of this work is to enhance the position of the livestock sector as an enabling instrument of change in international fora and developing nations alike. This strategy identifies issues to focus on and partners to work with.The specific objective of this strategy of engagement is, through positive examples and messaging, to raise the international profile and position of the developing world's agriculture livestock subsector by:• Increasing understanding of small-scale livestock enterprises as indispensable to: (1) For the above reasons, negative perceptions of livestock systems persist in the North, even among international and UN entities, despite efforts to address them.Significant opportunities exist to promote sustainable and responsible smallholder livestock systems by focusing on the following.• Livestock nourish people: Livestock play large roles in delivering vital nutrients to people around the world, a fact of particular importance in the first 1000 days of life, when nutritionally balanced diets are needed to ensure that children fulfil their cognitive and physical potential. • Livestock provide livelihoods: Livestock remain central to 750 million of the most disadvantaged people in the world, including many women with few means other than livestock keeping of earning a living and providing for their families. • Livestock provide pathways out of poverty: People depend on livestock for income and jobs generated along livestock value chains (e.g., producing, processing and selling livestock feed or milk, meat and eggs and products derived from them) and as means for improving their agricultural productivity and securing their assets. • Livestock-derived foods are in high demand: The livestock subsector contributes an average of 40% of agricultural GDP across the developing world, where the subsetor is growing rapidly to meet rising demands for milk, meat and eggs. • Livestock help preserve biodiversity: Livestock keeping helps to maintain vast grazing areas that they share with wildlife-areas that, due to low or errative rainfall, cannot be used to grow crops.• Livestock can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions: Poor livestock keepers, who are among the most vulnerable of the world's people to climate change, can significantly reduce their livestock-generated greenhouse gas emissions by adopting improved practices such as rangeland management systems that store more carbon in soils and feeding systems that improve the efficiency of converting feeds to foods.The target audience for engagement will be the United Nations Systems, including key:Based on the power maps and a prioritization exercise, bodies and processes to target are identified below. In achieving these objectives, the strategy will also call on partnerships with organizations outside the UN system. For these a similar power map is presented leading to a set of target partners.Any development strategy must address the challenges not only of economic development but also of adequate nutrition, gender equity, and environmental sustainability, particularly in the context of climate change.The strategy identifies four global issues that are significantly impacted by smallholder livestock systems and that are of large concern to the UN and where the agenda is most tractable to sustaimable livestock advocacy efforts -Economic development, balanced nutrition, gender equity and sustainable food production in the face of climate change. These issues will be the priorities for engaging with the UN.Other issues high on the sustainable livestock agenda, such as animal and human health are recognized as important but are less suitable for UN advocacy at this time. They are likely to be advocacy target through other strategies developed by ILRI with the wider livestock development sector.The strategy proposes to focus most effort and resources (40%) on the issue of economic development and 20% of resources each on the gender, nutrition and sustainability issues.It is believed that significant positioning gains can be made for livestock with innovative messaging on livestock's many impacts on economic development, particularly as this development intersects with balanced nutrition, gender equity and sustainable food systems, and their many components such as rural, smallholder and pastoral livelihoods; market access; jobs for youth; and training and talent development. Among the larger matters at risk if sufficient funding is not in place for livestock development are social inclusion and peaceful societies.Informed issues management will be essential to minimizing exposure to risk within the multilateral policy context while raising the positive profile of livestock, particularly as this sector affects women and other vulnerable groups and is indispensable to many people's well-being and to sustainable food systems. The broad issue of \"sustainable development\" has now been placed within the purview of the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) which reports to the UN General Assembly through the UN's Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Traditionally, the sustainability of farming and food systems has not been a priority area for the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and overlaps significantly with FAO's mandate. The recent HLPF session in July 2017 focused on the following Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 1: 'End poverty'; SDG 2: 'End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture'; SDG 3: 'Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages'; and SDG 5: 'Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls'. SDG 17: 'Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development' will also be treated at this meeting.The UN system takes action on development and other issues confronting humanity. Most of the UN agencies support developing countries in their fight against poverty and conflict.The UN Development Programme (UNDP) leads in issues relating to broad social, economic and human development. In conjunction with the OECD, UNDP coordinates the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC), which is an inclusive multi-stakeholder partnership that brings together the full range of development actors to ensure that finance, knowledge and policy have maximum impact on development results. Participation in the high-level meetings (HLM) of the GPEDC is important as this Global Partnership considers development issues relating to agriculture, food security, nutrition and livestock.Messages to be highlighted in this context include the following:• Animal agriculture helps smallholder family farmers and herders to increase their incomes.• Animal agriculture has the potential to reinvigorate rural economies, providing smallholders with sustainable livelihoods and a resilient source of economic growth. Livestock generate marketable products that are generally of a higher value and less vulnerable to harvest timing than many crops and that can be produced by small-scale household production systems. • Judicious development of the livestock sector could make a substantial contribution to raising nutrition levels, increasing agricultural productivity, improving the lives of rural people, contributing to growth of the world economy and achieving Sustainable Development Goals 1 and 2. • Livestock enterprises are a readily available means for young people to make a living.The issue of nutrition is germane to SDGs 2 and 3, which, as noted above, was also the focus of the HLPF 2017. The crucial role of livestock in delivering vital nutrients for a healthy and nutritious diet around the world should be promoted, underscoring that a healthy, diverse, nutrient-dense diet, being key to the learning capacities of children, has far-reaching effects for the development of society as a whole.In addition, the UN has declared an International Decade of Nutrition and activities will be scaling up over the next 9 years. This provides an ideal opportunity to apprise the international community of the fact that, among other benefits, animal agriculture can be a source of better nutrition:• Given its nutrient-rich package, dairy has the ability to provide the world's population not just with basic nutrition but with better nutrition.• In general, plant proteins are of lower quality than animal proteins due to lack of certain essential amino acids and the presence of components (such as fibre-rich plant cell walls or other \"anti-nutritionals\") that impair absorption by the human body. • High-quality proteins, such as those found in milk and eggs, have essential amino acids that are both easy to digest and in proportions that meet human needs.Because of the importance and cross-cutting nature of gender equity in achieving the quest for sustainable development, this issue is addressed in SDG 5: \"Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls\". Achieving gender equity is at the crux of overall sustainable development and therefore inextricably linked to every other SDG. Gender issues are central to livestock development for the following reasons.• Women comprise a significant portion of the 750 million smallholders depending on livestock livelihoods. • In developing countries, livestock are a readily available means for women to earn a living and provide food and other essentials for their families. • In many developing countries, women have limited access to resources such as land and capital but are able to own or manage livestock.Sustainability is the essence of all the SDGs. In the case of small-scale livestock keepers in low-and middle-income countries, this sustainability is affected by many factors, not the least of which is climate change. A key target for the climate change SDG is to strengthen the resilience and adaptive capacity of poor communities to climate-related hazards and natural disasters. In addition, there is great potential for small-scale livestock keepers to mitigate (as well as cope with) climate change through by adopting practices such as improved rangeland management to store greater amounts of carbon in soils. Livestock also help to sustain ecosystem functioning by preserving soils and biodiversity:• Livestock play important roles in preserving and restoring soil fertility and the biodiversity of plants and wildlife; • Moving herds of animals is critical to preventing and reversing desertification; and • Keeping ruminant animals that graze lands too dry or marginal for cropping provides food and incomes to local people and helps can reduce global warming by stopping or reversing land degradation.The UN and international organization environment is tentacular, complex and siloed. Many organizations, agencies, and programs are involved in issues of interest to the livestock sector, and the number of these organizations has proliferated since the food crisis of 2007, leading to a diversion of resources and leadership.Officially, the three Rome-based agencies have the mandate to cover the issues of agriculture and food:• The renewed emphasis on agriculture in the SDGs as a pathway to sustainable development will probably lead to even more initiatives emerging in the next months and years. This multiplicity of venues and objectives makes engagement challenging to coordinate.An effective plan of engagement must identify precisely which bodies will be important to achieve the objectives of enhanced positioning, relationships and partnerships. Most UN organizations have a specific role within the UN structure. Their legal status and reporting structure influence their activities and approach to non-Member States. The box below clarifies the different terms used by the UN system to distinguish the various reporting structures of UN bodies.• Specialized agencies: Autonomous organizations working with the UN and reporting to ECOSOC. • Funds and Programs, Research and Training Institutes: Address particular humanitarian and development concerns. These bodies usually report to the General Assembly through an executive board. • Initiatives: Project undertaken under the auspices of a UN body or of the UN Secretary GeneralThere are a great many organizations and processes dealing with agriculture, food security, nutrition, livestock and sustainability. While it is fundamental to have a good knowledge of the political landscape and understanding of where influence and opportunities lie, it is not necessary to develop a relationship with all groups, but to be aware of their existence and smartly engage when appropriate.This strategy distinguishes UN and associated organizations according to several criteria:• Are the organizations mostly involved in technical work (standards, programs)?• Does the work of the organization potentially impact the positioning of the livestock subsector? • What is the degree of engagement of each organization in agriculture and food issues?• What is the potential impact of the organizations on livestock-related policy and on the livestock subsector's operating environment?In the map below, the UN organizations above the line are potentially the most influential on livestock issues and should be the targets for advocacy efforts in this strategy.The strategy proposes to focus on three levels of prioritization for UN engagement.Priority 1:• High degree of engagement on key issues of relevance to the livestock subsector • High impact on policies that have an intersection with Liverstock.• Easier access to state actors • Opportunities for partnerships and relationship-building Priority 2:• High degree of engagement on key issues of relevance to the livestock subsector • High impact on Agriculture and Food polices • More difficult access to non-state actors • Opportunity to supplement livestock profile with new partnerships and relationships Priority 3:• Lower degree of engagement on key issues of relevance to the livestock subsector • Lower impact on policies that may intersect indirectly with Liverstock.• More difficult access to non-state actors • Low opportunities for partnerships and relation-buildingThe top priorities for UN processes would be:1) Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals 2) UNFCCC -Climate Change Negotiations 3) ICN2 follow up -including Decade of Action on NutritionInteraction with UN member statesThe UN system is funded and governed by the countries that constitute its membership. The United Nations has 193 member countries. All UN Member States are represented in the General Assembly -a \"parliament of nations\" which meets regularly and in special sessions to consider the world's most pressing problems. Each Member State has one vote. Decisions on such key issues as international peace and security, the admission of new members and the UN budget are decided by a two-thirds majority. Other matters are decided by simple majority. In recent years, a special effort has been made to reach decisions through consensus, rather than by taking a formal vote. The Assembly cannot force action by any State, but its recommendations are an important indication of world opinion and represent the moral authority of the community of nations.The regular session of the General Assembly takes place from mid-September of one year to mid-September of the following year. The main part of each session occurs between the opening of the session in September and the end of December in a given year. Its work is carried out by its six Main Committees and other subsidiary bodies, with technical and substantive support being provided by the UN Secretariat.Following the priorities above, this strategy proposes the following priority countries for interaction. The countries below are selected based on criteria including their relationship with ILRI, diversity of regional interests, roles with the UN, and importance as donors : The African Union is a special case and will also be prioritized. The AU co-ordinates 54 votes inside the UN and has some of the most affected regions.Elements for proactive engagement with the UNThe strategy has five elements for proactive engagement:1. Raise the influence of livestock-for-development organizations on key UN agencies and individuals.3. Develop strategic partnerships with key UN agencies and individuals.4. Mobilize knowledge.Leverage partners outside the UN to influence specific events and agencies.Actions to deliver these elements will include: 1) Improving the understanding of the UN and its key processes by livestock-fordevelopment organizations and leaders; 2) Developing, translating and comminicating key evidence of livestock roles and benefits into actionable knowledge for use by UN agencies and individuals; 3) Improving and widening coverage of livestock-for-development issues in media likely to influence UN processes and actors; 4) Developing joint livestock advocacy products, events and campaigns involving several livestock-for-development organizations targeted to specific UN events, processes, agencies and staff; 5) Proactively participating in UN events and processes; 6) Catalyzing improved communications and concerted actions among a core set of livestockfor-development actors.In addition to these actions targeted to each of the core elements, a set of general 'principles of engagement' will be followed:• Expose the UN to livestock-for-development leadership: Deploy leaders from across different organziations carefully-that is, in strategic settings and with proper preparation. In many UN settings, participation is expected to comprise high-level staff (often defined as CEO/director general strictly or sometimes open to vice-presidents) and these individuals must be well-briefed and understand how the particular UN agency or process works. They may sometimes bring an assistant who needs similar briefings.• Make links with 'farm' and other less visible groups: Farmers (herders) and other close to the ground community or sector actors are often excluded from international policy debates on agriculture and food. Engaging with coalitions of farm and producer groups is important, particularly given the current livestock debates in many European countries.The chairs of many of co-operatives or their equivalents for livestock are farmers and producers and could serve as powerful allies in UN fora, where they have an official seat in most consultative mechanisms arising from the Rio processes in 2012. It is particularly valuabe for these groups to actually participate in UN activities, as farmers, herders, smallholders, women, youth or entrepreneurs.• Be physically present at key UN events: Raising the public profile livestock issues impinging on the poor involves active participation by livestock-for-development representatives in events bringing together key influencers and policymakers in the agrifood community. As the UN is so particular, working with specialists to help arrange speaking slots, networking and conference side-events can deliver the right levels and forms of engagement (see Annex 1 for a typology of UN events).• Understand the UN calendar: The UN calendar consists of milestone events, such as UN outreach missions, which are organized well in advance, and ad hoc events responding to UN developments. Livestock-for-development actors should deploy resources, in particular key people, to make use of both kinds of influencing opportunities. Annex 2 lists some particularly relevant events in 2017 (as an example; it is desirable that such a calendar is maintained for future years).• Mobilize Knowledge: Mobilizing knowledge and expertise is a core value of the CGIAR system, ILRI and the livestock community. Livestock are at the forefront of many social and environmental challenges. The Livestock sector needs to increase its capacity to intersect with emerging challenges and provide the expertise to help decision makers address these challenges.Annex 2: UN 'livestock' calendarWhile each year's focus is different, some key UN events take place every year and offer opportunities for the livestock-for-development community. Other events follow different timetables and may be one-offs to be targeted for a specific issue. SSuch a calendar should be maintained and shared with key partners in livestock-for-development advocacy as a device to plan, monitor and influence the UN. Note there are thousancds of UN meetings held across the UN each year -more information is at http://www.un.org/en/sections/general/meetings-andevents/ Many occur every two years: ","tokenCount":"3395"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"15150172d8d04f2b79654a3405774d39","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4f303b75-3802-4133-8496-f9d22d11d9c6/retrieve","id":"-595252853"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a33fcf73-bdac-4cf2-92e9-f07e1b6ce94b","pagecount":"11","content":"As part of the Livestock and Climate initiative, we have been working together with MediaE to improve the advisories related to climate and financial aspects of agriculture. For instance, we have been developing content on Shamba Shape-Up (SSU) television episodes which is one of the products of MediaE. However, one of the key learnings from developing content is whether the episodes are actionable or not.In this research activity, we want to understand through a survey whether the content of SSU episodes have been useful or not and understand the drivers of what makes the content actionable.The survey will be conducted through the iShamba platform, consisting of interviews with farmers who have active iShamba accounts and have watched SSU Series 13 episodes.Responses will be collected by completing a Google Form-based survey. The questionnaire will explore the impact of SSU Series 13 on various aspects of farmers' activities, including farming practices, income, risk management, application of agricultural information, and perceptions.The participating population corresponds to 1000 farmers -both men and women across counties and wards in Kenya. Participants will be selected through the randomized selection of IDs through the iShamba platform database across space and time. The survey will not collect any personal identifiable information and respondents will be given the opportunity to select whether they want to participate in the survey. The survey will take on average 15-20 minutes.1. Section A in the survey will cover questions to collect demographic information such as age, gender, location -county and ward, and farming activity.2. Section B will assess the effect of SSU/iShamba farming information on the respondent's farming activity. This section will focus on asking if the respondents have watched SSU13 episodes, whether they found the information useful, advisories sent by iShamba are useful, and if they have observed improved livestock production from both SSU13 episodes and iShamba advisories.3. Section C focuses on how often the respondents seek information from SSU/iShamba and what would their preferred topics/areas be to receive farming information from both the platforms.4. Section D will cover risk profiling in terms of assessing risk factors in farming and how averse respondents are to shock or risks. This section will focus on what kind of shocks has 5. affected the community, to what extent was the respondent household able to recover from the event, and whether the involvement of SSU/iShamba.. Section E will assess the impact and perceptions of farming information from the SSU/iShamba on respondent's income. Questions in this section will focus on finding out whether any change in the respondents farming activities, total production, and increase in income from information from SSU/iShamba.7. Section F will be assessing the personality profiles of the respondents. Using the Big 5 personality traits (OCEAN) covering a range of aspects related to the individual's attitudes and behaviors in response to the content and practices from the SSU episodes.The survey design has been completed with the above sections and an application has been submitted to the Alliance's Institutional Review Board (IRB) for approval. It should be noted that IRB takes approximately 2-4 weeks to approve the application. Once the application is approved -iShamba will start with the interviews and collecting the data. A clearance letter from IRB was received on November 17 th giving the green light to start the implementation of the survey.The implementation of the survey started on November 21, 2023. Farmers were sent consent SMSs two days before the survey started to ask them if they were willing to be part of it. From the iShamba database, 61,641 farmers have sent queries in the year 2023 when SSU 13 premiered. Out of these, 14,000 sent very specific questions to the iShamba platform during the SSU S13 season (tagged as questions). Consent SMSs were sent to the 14,000 farmers out of which around 2,300 farmers have sent a consent of 'Yes' to be part of the survey.Respondents are then further filtered by asking them over the phone if they were willing to take this survey; what were their farming activities; and did they watch the SSU episodes last season. If respondents replied that they were no longer interested in taking the survey, their farming activities was 'crop' only and did not watch the SSU episodes last season, the interviewee ended the survey.Currently, the survey is on going and the targeted number of farmers to be surveyed is 1000 randomly selected. The following preliminary results include those farmers who took part in the 60-decibel survey. The sample size for this is 188 observations but after data cleaning, the sample size came to 164 observations.From the sample size of 164 observations, male farmers represent the majority at 85%. The largest age group among the farmers is 36-45 years, constituting 32.32%, followed by the 46-55 age group at 25.61%. A significant portion of the farmers, 98.17%, are engaged in mixed farming, involving both crop and livestock activities. Notably, the sample covers farmers from 35 counties, with Baringo standing out at 6.10%, followed by Kericho at 5.49%. Additionally, Bomet, Kiambu, Meru, and Trans-Nzoia each contribute 4.88% to the diverse distribution across the surveyed counties.This survey section aimed to evaluate the impact of SSU/iShamba farming information on farmers' activities. Of the respondents, 52.44% reported watching SSU episodes once a week, typically on Saturday or Sunday. Notably, 86.59% found both SSU 13 episodes and iShamba SMS advisories 'very useful.' Furthermore, 52.45% indicated a 'high improvement' in livestock production attributed to SSU 13 episodes and iShamba SMS advisories over the past 12 months.Farmers were asked how often they sought information from iShamba platform, 28.05% responded asking every season. As the chart below shows, approximately 12.54% of the total responses across all options indicated a preference or need for information related to livestock health management, including aspects such as parasite control, disease management, and vaccination. About 12.29% of the total responses across all options expressed interest in information related to livestock feeding practices.When farmers were asked about in the past year, what were some shocks/stressors that affected their community/village, about 32.2% total responses across all options expressed interest in significant pests/diseases on crops; 28.78% total responses across all options expressed interest in Flooding/irregular weather patterns/drought leading to crop loss. Surprisingly, there was a high percentage of 19.51% total responses across all options that said they did not experience any shocks/stressors that affected the community/village. To gain deeper insights into the impact of shocks or stressors on the community, farmers were queried about the extent to which their households were able to recover from such events. Interestingly, there was uniformity in responses, with 24.44% stating they were not affected, and an equivalent percentage expressing that they recovered to the same level as before the shock. Notably, a substantial 37.80% of respondents reported a significant positive effect on their households in the last 12 months due to their engagement with iShamba and SSU. In contrast, 25.61% mentioned no discernible effect from this engagement.In this survey section, which delves into the impact and perceptions of farming information from SSU/iShamba on income, respondents were questioned about changes in their farming methods due to the information received. A notable finding is that 61.59% reported a substantial improvement. Importantly, it's worth highlighting that none of the respondents indicated a perceived worsening of their farming practices in response to the information received.For respondents who reported an increase in income in response to question 13, a subsequent follow-up question was posed to understand the reasons behind this positive change. Remarkably, a significant majority, constituting 75% of the total responses across various options, attributed the increase in income to a higher volume of goods sold. Within this category, 49.40% expressed that this upturn in income had a very significant impact on the overall well-being of their households.Furthermore, when participants were asked about the percentage of their household's total income derived from farming activities in the past 12 months, around 40% of respondents indicated a range between 75-100%. Notably, this response was tied with another group indicating that more than half, specifically between 50-75%, contributed to their household's total income. The last section of the survey aimed to assess the personality profiles of respondents using the Big Five personality traits (OCEAN), focusing on various aspects related to individuals' attitudes and behaviors in response to the content and practices from Shamba Shape Up (SSU) episodes. Respondents were prompted to reflect on the SSU episodes they had watched and the practices they had learned and applied to their farms, answering questions about their feelings.1. \"I am willing to follow/apply the recommendations provided by iShamba and SSU? (Openness)\" -A significant majority (98.78%) of respondents' express agreement (Agree or Strongly Agree) with their willingness to follow or apply recommendations from iShamba and SSU. This suggests a high level of openness to trying new farming practices based on the information from SSU episodes.2. \"I am willing to apply, but I need more information? (Conscientiousness)\"-The majority of respondents (89.02%) are inclined to apply recommendations, with a substantial portion (73.78%) strongly agreeing. This indicates a positive inclination toward applying practices, especially when more information is provided, which aligns with conscientiousness traits.3. \"My willingness and decision to apply is independent of any coercion from SSU / I have applied but there was no coercion from SSU (Agreeableness)\" -The vast majority (96.95%) of respondents strongly agree or agree that their willingness to apply recommendations is independent of any coercion from SSU. This suggests a voluntary and positive adoption of practices, reflecting agreeable traits related to cooperation and independence.4. \"I tend to apply the recommendations, but I should rethink before I do the same / I applied but thinking if I should keep continuing it (Neuroticism)\" -A significant majority (79.88%) express a strong willingness to apply recommendations, with 72.56% strongly agreeing. This indicates a generally positive attitude toward continuing the application of learned practices. The mention of rethinking might align with cautious tendencies associated with neuroticism.5. \"I am generally happy with the recommendations from iShamba/SSU? (Extraversion)\" -The overwhelming majority (93.90%) of respondents strongly agree that they are generally happy with the recommendations from iShamba/SSU. While happiness is not a direct measure of extraversion, this positive sentiment suggests satisfaction and openness to the information presented in SSU episodes.In summary, these results indicate a positive impact of SSU episodes on respondents' attitudes and behaviours, showcasing a strong willingness to apply learned practices, independence from external coercion, and general satisfaction with the recommendations provided by iShamba and SSU.The provided statistics represent preliminary data, and it's important to note that the survey is still ongoing, with anticipated changes in data points as more responses are collected until mid-December. Despite this ongoing nature, certain observations have emerged:1. Gender Distribution: There is a notable imbalance in the gender distribution, with a higher number of male respondents compared to female respondents.Farmers show a distinct focus on livestock-related issues and concerns about diseases/pests affecting crops. This highlights the significance of livestock management and crop health in the agricultural practices of the surveyed individuals.3. Application of Recommendations: Farmers exhibit a proactive approach to adopting and expressing willingness to apply the recommendations presented in Shamba Shape Up (SSU) episodes. This suggests a positive impact of the SSU content on farming practices.4. Engagement with iShamba: Farmers are actively engaged with iShamba, not hesitating to reach out with their farming questions. This indicates a positive interaction between farmers and the platform, reflecting a willingness to seek guidance and information.While these preliminary findings provide valuable insights, it's essential to acknowledge that the data is subject to change as the survey progresses. The final analysis, expected in mid-December, will offer a more comprehensive understanding of the surveyed population's perspectives and behaviors in relation to farming practices, gender distribution, and engagement with agricultural resources such as SSU and iShamba.","tokenCount":"1952"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"496da4fe2dba4b88bc2394cec9726f90","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/Books/GLADS_Kenya_Case-Study.pdf","id":"627977469"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a5994e00-d84b-47da-b0fd-56bcbbd86dbd","pagecount":"23","content":"Refugee influxes and their dependence on natural resources for construction materials, fuelwood and livelihood activities frequently exceed the carrying capacity of the natural ecosystem. This can lead to forest, land and soil degradation, and biodiversity losses, which can cause tensions with host communities. With refugees often staying for long periods, long-term support to livelihoods for both refugees and host communities has increasingly been considered critical during humanitarian interventions (Schure et al. 2022).GLADS is a European Union-funded initiative, led by CIFOR-ICRAF in partnership with key stakeholders, to develop guidelines for implementing an integrated landscape approach (ILA) in displacement settings. Despite its relevance, ILA has not been systematically applied or adapted to a refugee-hosting or displacement setting (Schure et al. 2022) Assessments of environmental impacts and options for environmental and land management in displacement settings do often address landscape scale. This includes, for example, planning of sites and settlements and certain services like water supply. However, most documented cases integrate the wider socio-ecological context and engage with stakeholders.The targeted interventions aim to improve living conditions of refugees in the short term. At the same time, they also help address longer-term sustainability of livelihood options of both refugees and host communities, and the resilience of natural ecosystems. However, the five principles of the landscape approach could strengthen interventions by targeting key economic, social and environmental sustainability outcomes in displacement settings:• Complexity of socio-ecological systems is coming to the fore in many refugee-hosting landscapes. The influx of people in a certain area puts pressures on ecological services and creates new social relations and renegotiation of claims with host communities and other stakeholders.• The need for interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity approaches in planning and management across various sectors is acknowledged for addressing longer-term needs and sustainability in displacement settings.• The multiple functions and trade-offs principle is illustrated through the reported multiple livelihood activities, and socioeconomic dynamics between refugees and host communities.• Participation and stakeholder engagement appear crucial in most cases, with many different stakeholders identified: refugees; local population; local, subnational and national governments; humanitarian, international, donor and research organizations; nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); universities; and the private sector. Effectiveness of this participation and engagement contributes to management and monitoring and requires capacity enhancement and understanding of stakeholder perceptions.A review of tools and guidelines identified relevant instruments, most of which are targeted to environmental planning and management. Two separate frameworks focus on overall governance and coordination for multisectoral planning and stakeholder engagement. Figure 1.1 summarizes core elements from the review that proposed guidelines should reflect. This framework offers guidance on elements to be further conceptualized when codeveloping guidelines with key stakeholders on how to apply the approach for sustainable development and resilience at landscape level. Access to income generating activities from diversified livelihood activities or employment markets.Equitable access to markets and capital.Engaging stakeholders within and outside landscapeApproaches that transcend disciplines (e.g. multisector approach, mixed methodology, system approach).   • coordinating all environmental issues in the camp and settlement areas, including establishing a community policing and protection team for environmental monitoring;• partnering with key stakeholders and government institutions such as the National Environment Management Authority for environmental impact assessment in the camp and settlement;• advocating for environmental conservation and management within the camp and adjacent host communities;• encouraging refugees to practice efficient waste management practices;• resolving conflict arising from natural resources management and use. Turkana County is the second largest of the 47 counties of the Republic of Kenya. It covers an area of 71,597.6 km 2 , accounting for 13.5% of total land area (CIDP 2018(CIDP -2022)). The topography of Turkana varies between semi-arid and arid landscapes, consisting of low-lying plains and isolated hills and mountain ranges (Opiyo et al. 2015). Turkana has a hot, dry climate with temperatures ranging between 20°C -41°C and with a mean of 30.5°C (Opiyo et al. 2015).. The area receives two distinct rainfall patterns with short rains experienced between October and November and long rains in April and July (Opiyo et al. 2015) The main economic activity of the host community within these landscapes is pastoralism, with residents living semi-nomadic lifestyles (Vemuru 2016). Most refugees (70.8%) in Kakuma practice crop husbandry; the host community's main economic activity is livestock farming, practiced by 90.5% of the population. Only 19.4% and 18.8% of residents practice commercial farming as a source of income in Kakuma Refugee Camp and the host community area, respectively (UN-HABITAT 2017).Agricultural expansion and practices within the Kakuma-Kalobeyei landscape are impeded by lack of improved access to water and arable land. This explains the poor food security and lack of diversity in diets (Betts et al. 2018). Coping mechanisms for drought, climate change and environmental degradation include reliance on food aid, remittances, payment in kind, crops and wild foods.Other alternative livelihood opportunities include trade, especially for women; crop production (particularly using irrigation); firewood collection and charcoal production and sale; manufacture and sale of handicrafts; honey production and sale; sale of other nature-based products; and casual labour.Both refugee and host communities in Kakuma camp are also involved in formal, self and casual employment of construction workers, watchmen, drivers and unskilled labour; women are engaged in providing daily labour in the camp, such as washing dishes and clothes and distributing food to refugees (Vemuru et al. 2016). Additionally, host communities have started small and medium-to-large businesses. However, cartels with better access to capital and networks control most of these businesses (Vemuru et al. 2016).Limited access to markets and formal credit and saving institutions, especially among refugees, are further constrained by the remoteness and distance from Kenya's major markets (Betts et al. 2018). Yet a 2016 survey found refugees to be largely better off than the host community (UN-HABITAT 2017). This is attributed to better access to basic services, through the support of various humanitarian organizations.The review also revealed that refugees in this landscape have better access to public goods and aid such as education and healthcare compared to their country of origin (Betts et al. 2018).The There is a gap in the county government's involvement in the local governance of the Kakuma Refugee Camp (personal communication with Turkana County staff in Kakuma). This is changing under Kenya's CRRF, the new Refugee Act of 2021 and KISEDP whereby wider and meaningful consultation and collaboration with the host county have been documented.The refugee leadership structure offers the community a system for engagement in issues such as cohesion and peace building within and across each level of community organization and across ethnic groups. It supports conflict resolution, community assistance and protection, especially for vulnerable people. Further, it allows for information sharing between community and stakeholders such as researchers, NGOs and liaison with the DRS. The refugee leadership structure is governed under a constitution in each of the two areas.Firewood is the main source of energy for cooking among refugee and host communities, followed by charcoal. In Kakuma, for example, 83.6% of households used firewood on open fires, 15.6% used charcoal and 0.8% used solar (Kaburu et al. 2019). Adoption of solar for cooking is slow and shaped by social norms, family size and education. There is greater uptake among households with higher levels of education and lower uptake among larger families (Kaburu et al. 2019). Woodfuel (firewood and charcoal) is acquired through firewood collection, mostly by women and children. It is also purchased from vendors, exchanged for food rations and donated by aid agencies like Lotus Kenya Action for Development Organization (LOKADO), which supplies 15% of Prosopis julifora spp (Prosopsis) firewood (Kaburu et al. 2019).Access to fuel in Kakuma has, however, been met with challenges. For instance, the need for fuel has intensified animosity between refugees and the host over access to and depletion of natural resources. Those collecting firewood, mostly women and children, are potentially exposed to aggression and sexual violence when venturing outside of the camp and settlement (Kaburu et al. 2019).Unsustainable cutting down of trees for woodfuel (mostly charcoal and commercial firewood), results in land degradation and deforestation. Given the rise in refugee population and scarce vegetation, use of the invasive Prosopis presents a source of biomass for cooking and heating energy. Its harvesting and use require good management that controls its spread. This is already happening as those contracted to supply firewood are required to harvest 70% Prosopis and 30% dead wood. Assessment of biomass in 2014-2018 showed no major losses, while Prosopis expansion was the prevailing biomass stock change in the 25 km buffer (FAO et al. 2018). This was mostly along rivers, though its loss was also detected in some areas. In the 50-100 km buffer, there were major losses of indigenous species, especially on the Uganda side (FAO et al. 2018).The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) applies Safe Access to Fuel and Energy (SAFE) in crisis-affected populations. These include refugees, internally displaced and host communities to address energy needs for cooking, heating, lighting and powering in a safe and sustainable way. SAFE has been applied in 14 countries to build resilient livelihoods (FAO and Practical Action 2020). SAFE considers the interdependence and linkages between energy and the environment, nutrition, health, gender, protection and livelihoods. FAO's SAFE approach comprises three interlinked pillars. These are: (i) guaranteeing sustainable energy supply, (ii) addressing energy demand and (iii) promoting sustainable livelihoods (FAO 2018b)The approach recognizes that consultation and participation of local populations is essential for safe programming to achieve long-term social sustainability (FAO 2018a). FAO applies the SAFE  The SAFE approach has enhanced access to energy and management of the environment where biomass is sourced, reduced demand and cost of energy, increased income and enhanced interdependence of refugees and host communities. Some of the challenges facing the approach include short project periods, limiting chances of achieving sustainability; ineffective infrastructure such as supply chain infrastructure; and a low willingness to pay due to reliance on aid. Recommendations for application of SAFE include effective government policies to scale up private sector investment and integration of the water-energy-food nexus (FAO and Practical Action 2020).There are four landscape interventions under the Resource recovery and reuse (RRR) approach. Firstly, refugee and host community work together to promote cohesion through an innovation supported by a gender and inclusion expert. Secondly, integrating innovation under the KISEDP entails working in both refugee and host community settlements while focusing on long-term change development. Thirdly, another intervention aims to reduce pressure on natural resources and waste management from a variety of sources, including institutions, restaurants, markets and households. Finally, a transdisciplinary team of researchers, development practitioners and UN systems will be involved in the project's development and implementation.RRR aims at increasing the scale and viability of the productive reuse of water, nutrients, organic matter and energy from domestic and agro-industrial waste streams. To that end, it analyses, promotes and implements economically, environmentally and socially viable business models. This approach was developed by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) research group on circular economy and water pollutions (Njenga et al. 2019).3 https://www.unhcr.org/protection/environment/61b85fc84/summary-operational-strategy-climate-resilience-environmental-In a pilot project in the Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement and host community, women recovered organic wastes to produce briquettes for cleaner and affordable cooking energy (Njenga et al. 2019). This pilot work was a collaboration between ICRAF, UN-HABITAT and Pennsylvania State University as part of Water Land and Ecosystems (the CGIAR research programme's contribution to KISEDP).The community-based briquette innovation aimed to address the needs for cooking energy alongside waste management from households, institutions, markets and restaurants, among others. The programme empowered 40 women (20 refugees and 20 host community members), creating opportunity for self-sustaining communities. Additionally, bringing the refugee and host community together gave them an opportunity to view each other as friends and as members of one community, creating potential for building and enhancing social cohesion. The women produced briquettes and used them at home (preferred for low smoke and a long burning period). However, sourcing raw materials and developing a value chain were identified as key limiting factors.To address these challenges and scale out the innovation, a project on RRR in Refugee Settlements in Africa was developed in 2019. It entailed recovery of grey wastewater for irrigation, plant nutrients in compost, biochar and agroforestry on and off farms (Njenga et al. 2020). Working with the Danish Refugee Council, the project aims to reach 1,200 people directly and 67,000 indirectly.UNHCR is implementing an operational strategy for climate resilience and environmental sustainability 2022-2025 3 . As part of the strategy, the UNHCR seeks to implement programs and activities on climate change mitigation and environmental degradation in displacement settings targeting both the refugees and host communities. This is aimed at enhancing resilience to climate-related and other environmental risks by preserving and restoring the natural environment. It is envisaged that the strategy will help minimize the environmental footprints of humanitarian assistance. To achieve this objective, UNHCR will strive for stronger collaboration and sharing of knowledge with stakeholders.The landscape approach embraces continual learning and adaptive management with the expectation that actions take place at multiple scales. The landscape of Kakuma Refugee Camp andThis section presents the critical review and stakeholders' perspectives on relevant landscape approaches and tools, as well as landscape interventions they seek to address. Three tools, two strategies and one policy instrument that incorporate and or attempt to address landscape approaches were identified. They are mostly related to environmental management, water and sanitation, food, energy and entrepreneurship. These are discussed below in detail.The concept of socio-ecological systems entails identification of a range of different processes occurring at different scales. This process identifies all actors (state and non-state), individuals and groups and establishes their complex interaction with different sectors in the ecosystem. It also identifies governance structures at all levels and how they shape resource use with both desired and undesired outcomes.The Kakuma-Kalobeyei landscape is a complex socio-ecological system with a diverse range of actors deriving benefits from its ecosystem goods and services. The landscape is multifunctional in that it provides ecological, social and economic functions to refugees and host communities. However, natural resources such as forests, woodlands, water and land face threats of overexploitation. This is due both to the influx of refugees and to the response of the host community in providing the necessary goods and services to accommodate them. During landscape-level consultations, most stakeholders were aligned to sectoral approaches that considered one or two ILA principles. For instance, SNV's main area of intervention was increasing energy access to refugees in collaboration with private sector actors using a market-based model. LOKADO was more prominent on landscape restoration in partnership with UNHCR and FAO. The County Government of Turkana focused more on the formulation and enforcement of policies and laws, while the KISEDP approach contained all 5 ILA principles. Figure 3.1 shows the complex socio-ecological interaction within Kakuma-Kalobeyei landscape.  UN agencies and humanitarian organizations in refugee landscapes aim to save and protect lives. Some interventions include sourcing and distribution of woodfuel to meet the energy needs of refugees for cooking and heating. Kakuma and Kalobeyei are in dry landscapes with erratic rainfall and poor soils. A growing host and refugee population increasingly cannot find enough wood for fuel. This leads to accelerated land degradation and deforestation in areas surrounding the refugee camps and settlements. This creates an imbalance of supply and demand for ecosystem services. The agencies recently introduced a cash-based model known as 'bamba kuni', which provides refugee households with cash equivalent of forty Kenya shillings (approx. $ 0.33) for each household member every month to buy firewood. However, stakeholders at the landscape level revealed that some refugee households keep the money and continue to source fuelwood on their own to cover other livelihood needs. This fund also cannot cover the woodfuel needs of the households. This escalates tension and conflict over natural resources with the host community.Other interventions at the sectoral level include adoption of renewable energy such as solar power, tree planting and agroforestry to enhance ecosystem resilience. The adoption rate of renewable energy is linked to cultural norms where most host communities and refugees prefer to cook food on open fires. Some restoration approaches such as establishment of greenbelts by UNHCR in partnership with FAO, LOKADO and communities (refugees and host communities) have taken off well. However, the reality of harsh environmental conditions of Kakuma-Kalobeyei landscapes is detrimental to the survival rates of planted trees.Laws and policies at the national and county level steer refugee landscapes towards environmental sustainability. For instance, participants mentioned the presence of the Forest Conservation and Management Act of 2016. This promotes conservation and sustainable use of all forests in Kenya, including areas inhabited by refugees. At the county level, several policies exist. These include an environmental management bill and policy, policies for energy and NRM, the Climate Change Act of 2021 and the Turkana CIDP. These policies apply to refugees and host communities. However, inadequate enforcement of the legal environment conservation framework at all levels was identified as a limitation. The hybrid system of governance in the Kakuma-Kalobeyei landscapes also means the county government has limited enforcement powers within camp boundaries. Collaboration with UN agencies and DRS, refugee leadership and other humanitarian actors within the KISEDP approach is key to unlocking the complexities created by legal pluralism. At the same time, the connectivity of socio-ecological systems as demonstrated above promotes resilience through synergies built from different sectors, actors and enhances benefits from ecosystem goods and services.Multifunctionality is considered within the context of ecological, social and economic functions provided by the refugee ecosystems. These include natural resources near refugee settlements & interactions between refugees and communities in the planning, management and national policies targeting tradeoffs.Kakuma-Kalobeyei landscape is multifunctional, providing diverse ecosystem services. These include timber for construction, woodfuel, foraging sites for local agro-pastoralists, food and other non-timber forest products such as gums and resins. Natural resources in Kakuma and Kalobeyei landscapes include woodlands dominated by Acacia and Prosopis tree species. There are also underground aquifers and seasonal rivers such as Tarach, Kalobeyei and Napek. There is socioeconomic integration, especially in market areas where both refugees and host communities interact and trade with each other.Refugees in Kalobeyei also intermarry with host community members. This practice has enabled cultural diversity and acceptance, knowledge and skill exchange. The landscape provides ecosystem and social functions for different communities with various needs and interests (host communities and refugees, pastoralists and agriculturalists, conservation and demand for firewood). Nonetheless, the multifunctionality comes with a set of trade-offs that require recognition of synergies for sustainability.• Deforestation and forest degradation occur, especially next to camps, leading to conflicts over competing claims, gender-based violence (GBV), loss of biodiversity and loss of livelihoods.• The natural resource base is overstretched, leading to conflict over limited resources.For instance, the frequent drying up of the main water source (River Tarach) for the Kakuma residents causes tensions between the refugees and host communities.• Taps within the refugee camp sometimes dry up, forcing the refugees to dig shallow wells on dry riverbeds of Tarach and Kalobeyei which they share with host communities. This sometimes leads to clashes as everyone fights for the limited water sources. Some shallow wells dug in the rivers have also been polluted with human waste with potential for disease outbreak.• KISEDP provides resources for NRM interventions on climate smart agriculture spearheaded by WFP/FAO and GIZ.• The kitchen gardening programme and distribution of tree seedlings for boundary planting relieves pressure on natural forests/ woodlands in Kalobeyei.• The County Government of Turkana and local NGOs such as LOKADO advocate for sustainable harvesting and use of Prosopis as a source of woodfuel as opposed to cutting down indigenous trees.• Environmental monitoring committees comprise both refugees and host communities. They are coordinated by the DRS and other partners to monitor harvesting of firewood in refugee/host community forest areas.Interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinary approaches within the context of ILA encompasses interlinking sectors and stakeholders engaged within and outside the landscape. In addition, planning, implementation and evaluation of interventions adopt mixed methods and systems approaches.In Kakuma and Kalobeyei, KISEDP 2018-2022 brought in diverse stakeholders working in different disciplines beyond the usual humanitarian agencies. These included private sector organizations and companies (UNHCR 2018). At the camp level, humanitarian actors have partnered in projects that target gender responsive innovation for soil rehabilitation to enhance livelihood opportunities. For instance, the Danish Refugee Council, in partnership with the IWMI, is implementing alternative fuel and agriculture to build resilience in refugee settlements and host communities. The main activities include training women in camps to produce nutritious food via low-space farming. This focuses on a regenerative approach, integrating waste composting, collection of grey water and planting of trees. Other activities include training of women, men and youth in refugee settlements and host communities on business skills, financial literacy, production and use of safe energy efficient stoves and safe fuel production. These trainings have increased access to fresh nutritional vegetables at the household level, diversified livelihoods and improved biodiversity.In addition, UNHCR and partners have rehabilitated 290 ha of land in Kakuma and Kalobeyei through establishment of greenbelts in the past six years. Indigenous trees produced in six tree nurseries in Kakuma and Kalobeyei have also been planted in and around refugee settlements and their long-term maintenance ensured to reduce deforestation. Generally, income-generating opportunities are limited in refugee settings, and access to various resources remains a challenge. Several private sector organizations have been increasingly engaging in Kakuma and Kalobeyei to improve entrepreneurship and income generation. To that end, they provide job opportunities for both the host and refugees in private companies. The economic activities will eventually reduce pressure on natural resources for recovery. Adoption of clean and renewable energy will reduce deforestation and increase tree cover in the landscape. For instance, Usafi Energy Limited Company has been producing 'Usafi silver bora stoves.' These stoves are fuel-efficient and use less charcoal. The company has also integrated the production of charcoal briquettes from Prosopis, an invasive tree species, thereby helping in its sustainable management. The charcoal briquettes also have other advantages such as production of less smoke and fewer ashes. In addition, they emit no smell and burn longer when cooking. All these qualities reduce pollution and enhance health benefits.Social cohesion has been enhanced in this area because both hosts communities and refugees can access various services without discrimination. Conflicts in the refugee camp have been reduced through meetings held by the government and development agencies to promote peaceful co-existence and social cohesion. In addition, intermarriages between refugees and the host communities have increased, reducing hostilities and enhancing cohesion.Kakuma-Kalobeyei landscape is a complex socio-ecological system with a diverse population of people deriving benefits from its ecosystems. However, natural resources such as forests, woodlands, water and land face threats of overexploitation due to the influx of refugees and the demands from the host community. Consultations, suggested that most stakeholders used sectoral approaches although most often they integrated one or two ILA principles. For instance, SNV's main area of intervention was increasing energy access for refugees using a market-based model in collaboration with private sector actors. LOKADO was more prominent in landscape restoration working in partnership with UNHCR and FAO. The County Government of Turkana focused more on the formulation and enforcement of policies and regulations. Stakeholders suggested that inclusive governance and participatory monitoring and evaluation of the landscape could be incorporated as stand-alone ILA guidance notes. The national stakeholder consultation presented the five ILA principles relevant for displacement settings. Group discussions gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss four identified areas that contribute to the five guidance notes and the information generated. Highlights are presented in the following section.To address sustainability and resilience, it is important to identify appropriate landscape scales. In addition, the main sectors and their interlinkages should be known; synergies and trade-offs identified. Hybrid governance structures and socio-ecological and socioeconomic systems should also be understood. Finally, the needs of stakeholders should also be considered.The guidelines would require engagement of all stakeholders to interventions together in order to address various needs in displacement landscapesDisplacement settings comprise social, environmental and economic dimensions that inform sustainability outcomes in refugeehosting landscapes. Therefore, it is important that there is understanding of gender and inclusivity by communities and efforts to promote circular bioeconomy activities for livelihood improvementMonitoring entails systematic data gathering and analysis to know if established baseline conditions have changed or if interventions have caused changes or trends within the context of refugee landscapes. Promote participatory monitoring and evaluation methods through establishment of a landscape evaluation monitoring tool. Incorporating monitoring and evaluation activities will increase learning and reduce uncertainties; manage risks and informs decision making.The stakeholders recommended including gender equity and social inclusion (GESI) as a key component or principle rather than as a cross-cutting issue. It is important not to generalize issues across diverse populations. The needs, perspectives and opportunities of refugees and host communities are influenced by age, religion, ethnicity, marginalization, being members of minority groups and people living with disabilities (PWDs). Gender mainstreaming in ILA aims at making the concerns and experiences of both women and men an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all socioeconomic and environmental spheres. In this way, women and men can benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. For this to happen, gender must be integrated into the various components of GLADS.The stakeholders found the various components of the five ILA principles -complexity of socio-ecological systems, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinary approaches, multiple functionality and trade-offs, participation and stakeholder engagement, and sustainability -to have meaningful application in displacement settlements for enhanced livelihood and landscape resilience. They observed that the most tools, apply some parts of the principles because there is limited guidance on how to apply to all, of them together in a more synchronized way. This, they noted, limits realization of the intended impact. The stakeholders further identified the following recommendations towards finalization and communication of the GLADS for their enhanced application:• Incorporate participatory monitoring and evaluation as stand-alone ILA principles.• Mainstream the guidance notes into existing county/national government policies.• Provide leverage on partnerships.• Build capacity through awareness raising, education and advocacy.• Research unclear areas and ensure development process is well understood.• Obtain feedback from actors, host communities and refugees.• Improve GLADS continuously based on lessons from application.• Pursue resource allocation and financing of landscape approaches.• Obtain goodwill from relevant authorities, validation and approvals by relevant stakeholders before publishing for implementation.• Make GLADS easily accessible to all.• Develop GESI as a distinct component or principle. GESI when considered as a crosscutting issue is often overlooked in planning and implementation of interventions and then is unfortunately lost.• Consider applying GLADS in urban settings to help refugees thrive in displacement settings.• Establish climate and environmental committees comprising both refugees and host community to discuss how to address environment degradation and climate change.• Propose ways for stakeholders to work enhance collaboration where each offer advice in their areas of expertise in ways that promote co-learning.","tokenCount":"4469"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e4358d46a1c6cf34725d71120f37426c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0a734c1f-0c05-4925-91eb-afdc19202c61/retrieve","id":"-599837923"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c9758618-0869-4997-8df1-c31cd94fc032","pagecount":"17","content":"Introducción 84 Factores climáticos que más afectan el arroz 84 Temperatura 84 Radiación solar 91 Agua 94 Viento 96 Humedad relativa 96 Referencias bibliográficas 97El arroz es un alimento básico en la dieta de más de la mitad de la población mundial. El arroz se cultiva en condiciones ambientales tan diversas que ha suscitado, a su vez, una diversidad de criterios entre los investigadores y especialistas de este cereal. Algunos autores sostienen que es un cultivo especial de las zonas húmedas del trópico o de los climas de temperatura alta; otros informan que florece en diversas condiciones ambientales entre los 45° de latitud norte y los 40° de latitud sur respecto al ecuador. Se ha informado también que el arroz puede cultivarse desde el nivel del mar hasta los 2500 metros de altitud, una extensión que le permite crecer en áreas donde la temperatura, la longitud del día y la disponibilidad del agua son muy diversas.El análisis de los factores que regulan el crecimiento de la planta de arroz ha revelado a los investigadores las limitantes relacionadas con el desarrollo del arroz y con su adaptabilidad al medio que lo rodea.En las zonas tropical y subtropical de baja altitud, las temperaturas media y extrema son, prácticamente, las adecuadas para este cultivo; ahora bien, la temperatura disminuye con la altitud y esta condición puede convertirse en los trópicos en una limitante para el cultivo del arroz, en dos situaciones: cuando se suaviza la temperatura al principio y al final de la temporada de cultivo, y cuando existe la posibilidad de un descenso de temperatura durante el período vegetativo de la planta.Los valores medios mensuales de la temperatura y de la duración del día durante el período de crecimiento del arroz permiten hacer una valoración aproximada de la evapotranspiración de las plantas de arroz durante este mismo período; por consiguiente, permiten conocer la necesidad absoluta de agua del cultivo para compensar por esa evapotranspiración.En esta sección se analizarán separadamente los distintos factores ambientales que influyen en la producción de grano del cultivo de arroz.La temperatura afecta el crecimiento y el desarrollo de la planta de arroz. Durante las distintas fases del desarrollo, la planta no responde a iguales rangos de temperatura; podría decirse que hay un rango favorable para cada fase. Los fitomejoradores desarrollan variedades que pueden adaptarse bien a diferentes rangos de temperatura para que puedan expresar libremente su potencial genético, no sólo en rendimiento sino también respecto a su respuesta a las plagas y enfermedades que limitan el cultivo.El efecto de las temperaturas bajas (incluyendo la de congelación del agua) en la planta de arroz se ha estudiado bien; por ejemplo, los cambios bioquímicos ocurridos en ella entre 0 y 4 °C están bien determinados. Los resultados de este estudio permiten planear adecuadamente una explotación arrocera; sin embargo, la bioquímica de la planta en el rango de 10 a 21 °C no ha sido bien estudiada.Las plántulas de arroz expuestas a temperaturas bajas pueden sufrir un estancamiento en su crecimiento porque se retardan o cesan sus reacciones químicas y sus procesos físicos; no obstante, el fenómeno puede revertirse y la planta se recupera cuando la temperatura del medio es favorable. Las hojas que se formen durante el tiempo de exposición a la temperatura baja experimentan una elongación.Las plantas más desarrolladas expuestas a temperaturas bajas pueden sufrir un daño irreversible o un colapso de sus funciones -y, en ocasiones, la muerte. Son ejemplos, respectivamente, las plantas que sufren un vaneamiento total de los granos, y las que mueren a consecuencia del intenso amarillamiento de las hojas-debido, posiblemente, a la impotencia de las raíces para absorber los nutrientes del suelo helado.Las temperaturas bajas (de 15 a 19 °C) que afectan las plantas durante el estado de meiosis de las células madre del polen, o sea, de 10 a 11 días antes de la floración, causan una alta esterilidad en las plantas (Satake, 1969). Nakayama (1974) considera el efecto de la temperatura alta como un factor adverso a la producción de arroz, inclusive en algunas regiones frías de Japón. La combinación de temperaturas altas y baja radiación solar durante la maduración del grano acorta esa etapa y es una causa importante de los rendimientos bajos.En condiciones controladas, Moriya y Nara (1971) observaron un alto porcentaje de esterilidad y de granos parcialmente llenos cuando las plantas de arroz fueron expuestas durante la floración a una temperatura promedio de 31.5 °C (máxima de 36 °C y mínima de 27 °C). Resultados similares obtuvieron Sato et al. (1973) y Kusanagi y Washio (1973) en experimentos en que la temperatura máxima oscilaba entre 35 y 30 °C y la mínima entre 35 y 25 °C.Las temperaturas extremas causan serias perturbaciones en el desarrollo de la planta de arroz y, por ello, no favorecen el ambiente en que puede completarse el ciclo de vida de la planta. Las temperaturas críticas para la planta de arroz están, generalmente, por debajo de 20 °C y por encima de 30 °C, y varían según el estado de desarrollo de la planta. Varían también según la variedad de arroz, la duración del efecto de esa temperatura, el cambio de condiciones diurnas a nocturnas, y el estado fisiológico de la planta. El Cuadro 1 muestra la variación de la temperatura crítica frente a las distintas fases de desarrollo de la planta.Cuando se somete la planta a una temperatura inferior a 20 °C durante el estado de reducción en la división de las células madre del polen, se induce en los granos un alto porcentaje de esterilidad (Satake, 1969). Sin embargo, temperaturas de 12 °C (y un poco menores) no causarán esa esterilidad si el tiempo de exposición a ellas no sobrepasa los 2 días, pero causarán hasta un 100% de esterilidad si la exposición se prolonga durante 6 días.La esterilidad debida a las temperaturas bajas se atribuye, generalmente, al efecto de la temperatura nocturna, porque la temperatura diurna alta puede contrarrestar el efecto de la temperatura baja de la noche. Este fenómeno se demostró cuando se expusieron plantas de arroz en estado de reducción celular a una temperatura constante de 14 °C, de día y de noche, durante 9 días: la esterilidad registrada en los granos fue de 41%; en cambio, cuando las plantas pasaron de la temperatura nocturna de 14 °C a una diurna de 26 °C, el porcentaje de esterilidad se redujo a 12%. Matsushima (1976) indicaron que, en el período de desarrollo anterior a la floración, la temperatura óptima diurna era de 31 a 32 °C, mientras que la óptima nocturna variaba entre 21 y 22 °C. En cambio, para un período de desarrollo 15 días después de la floración, dicha temperatura era de 29 °C en el día y 19 °C en la noche. Finalmente, para el período de desarrollo 30 días después de la floración, esas temperaturas eran de 26 °C en el día y 16 °C en la noche.El mismo autor concluyó que el rango de temperaturas durante la etapa de maduración del grano no era, necesariamente, el rango de temperaturas óptimas del día y de la noche, y que la maduración del grano estaba fuertemente influenciada por la temperatura nocturna. Esta conclusión se sustenta en dos hechos: por un lado, la pérdida de carbohidratos debida a la respiración de la planta aumenta cuando la temperatura nocturna es alta y, por otro lado, la temperatura nocturna baja afecta otras actividades fisiológicas. En otras palabras, las temperaturas nocturnas muy altas o muy bajas no favorecen la maduración del grano y hay, ciertamente, una temperatura óptima para esta maduración.Las temperaturas críticas altas pueden afectar el rendimiento de la planta porque tienen influencia en el macollamiento, en la formación de las espiguillas y en la maduración de éstas, efectos que varían también según la variedad.Experimentos realizados por Yoshida (1973) demuestran que la tasa de crecimiento de la planta de arroz aumenta linealmente con la temperatura, en el rango de 22 a 31 ºC (Figura 1). Durante el período inicial de crecimiento, la temperatura afecta muy levemente el macollamiento y la tasa de crecimiento relativo, excepto la temperatura más baja estudiada en los experimentos (22 ºC).El mismo autor encontró que el efecto de la temperatura en el macollamiento está regulado por el nivel de radiación solar. Sus resultados indican básicamente que, a temperatura alta, Cuadro 1. Correspondencia entre las principales etapas de desarrollo de la planta de arroz y las diversas temperaturas (crítica y óptima) que pueden afectar esas etapas.Etapas Tomado de Yoshida (1977).Tasa de crecimiento (0-1 semana) aumenta la tasa de emergencia de hojas y aparecen más yemas (de macollas) que las producidas a menor temperatura; cuando la iluminación es baja, algunas de las yemas no se desarrollan hasta convertirse en macollas, porque faltan los carbohidratos necesarios para su crecimiento.El mismo experimento mostró que, durante la fase reproductiva de la planta, el número de espiguillas por 22 25 28 31planta aumentó cuando disminuyó la temperatura; esto indica que, a diferencia del resultado anterior, la temperatura óptima cambia de alta a baja a medida que avanza el crecimiento de la planta, es decir, de la fase vegetativa a la reproductiva.La temperatura media óptima para la maduración de las variedades japónicas está en un rango de 20 a 22 °C, según varios informes (Matsushima y Tsunoda, 1957;Matsushima et al., 1957;Airni et al., 1959). Los resultados de los experimentos de Murata en 1976 mostraron que el peso de 1000 granos de una misma variedad varía de 24 a 21 g cuando la planta se expone, durante 21 días a partir de la floración, a un cambio de temperatura de 22 a 28 °C (Figura 2).En el trópico, una temperatura diurna de 29 °C, en promedio, no resulta muy perjudicial (respecto a la producción de macollas y granos) cuando hay suficiente radiación solar. Por eso, las variedades de tipo índica se adaptan mejor a las temperaturas altas, mientras que las de tipo japónica necesitan temperaturas bajas para lograr una adecuada madurez del grano. Yoshida y Hara (1977) encontraron, en experimentos hechos bajo condiciones controladas, que la temperatura diaria promedio que requiere el llenado del grano del arroz de tipo índica (Fujisaka 5) está entre 20 y 27 °C, mientras que la requerida por el arroz de tipo japónica (IR20) está entre 16 y 25 °C (Figura 3).La temperatura afecta directamente el desarrollo de la planta de arroz que se cultive en condiciones de inundación y bajo láminas de agua de diferente espesor. La intensidad de ese efecto depende de la posición de los puntos de crecimiento de la planta respecto a la superficie del agua (Tsunoda y Matsushima, 1962). Desde los primeros estados de crecimiento hasta la iniciación de la panícula, las yemas responsables de las hojas, las macollas y la panícula permanecen bajo el agua; su Figura 2. Efecto de la temperatura en el peso de 1000 granos de arroz en la etapa de maduración de la planta (21 días después de la floración). (Tomada de Murata, 1976.) desarrollo, por tanto, recibe el influjo de la temperatura del agua. Ahora bien, el crecimiento y la elongación de toda la planta reciben la influencia de dos temperaturas, la del agua y la del aire, dado que el ciclo de vida se desarrolla, principalmente, en un medio aéreo.A medida que la panícula se desarrolla y sobresale del nivel del agua, la influencia de la temperatura del agua en el crecimiento y en la madurez de la panícula disminuye, y estos fenómenos empiezan a depender cada vez más de la temperatura del aire (Tsunoda y Matsushima, 1962;Matsushima et al., 1964). Se puede concluir, por tanto, que el efecto de las temperaturas del aire y del agua varía según el estado de crecimiento de la planta. De este modo, como indican Matsushima et al. (1964), durante los estados iniciales del desarrollo de la planta la temperatura del agua afecta el rendimiento porque influye en el número de panículas por planta, en el número de granos por panícula, y en el porcentaje de granos maduros que se pueden obtener. En estados más avanzados del desarrollo, la temperatura del aire puede afectar el rendimiento, porque influye directamente en el porcentaje de granos llenos y en su peso.El efecto de la temperatura del agua depende de la magnitud de ésta y de la profundidad de la lámina aplicada. En la mayoría de los casos, la temperatura del agua es mayor que la del aire; a medida que aumenta la profundidad de la lámina de agua, el crecimiento de la panícula depende más de la temperatura del aire. Cuando la planta se encuentra en el estado de reducción celular (en la división de las células del polen), y si la temperatura del aire desciende por debajo de su nivel critico, se puede proteger la planta contra la esterilidad causada por esa temperatura baja aumentando la profundidad del agua hasta 15 ó 20 cm (Nishiyama et al., 1969).Según su estado de desarrollo, la planta puede sufrir daños cuando la temperatura desciende cada día, en promedio, por debajo de 20 ºC. Este daño por frío puede ocurrir no sólo en las zonas templadas, sino en el trópico y en el subtrópico durante las noches de la época seca o de verano. Los daños causados por el frío a los cultivos de arroz se han reportado en Australia, Bangladesh, China, Colombia, Corea, Cuba, Estados Unidos de América, India, Indonesia, Irán, Japón, Nepal, Pakistán, Perú, Sri Lanka, en la antigua Unión Soviética y en otros países. Los principales daños observados son los siguientes: la semilla no germina, la emergencia de la plántula se retrasa, y aparecen las siguientes condiciones negativas: enanismo, amarillamiento de las hojas, esterilidad apical, emergencia parcial de la panícula, retraso en la floración, alto porcentaje de granos vanos y maduración no uniforme (Yoshida, 1978).Los estudios realizados por Sasaki y Wada (1973) indican que la máxima susceptibilidad del arroz a las temperaturas bajas ocurre durante la época del 'embuchamiento', es decir, de 14 a 17 días antes de la emergencia de la panícula; después de esta época, la 'floración' es la etapa en que el arroz es muy susceptible al frío. No obstante, Shibata et al. (1970) encontró que la planta de arroz sometida a una temperatura baja durante 3 días era más sensible al frío en la floración, y que esa sensibilidad era igual, o incluso mayor, que la manifestada en el 'embuchamiento'.Cuando la temperatura sobrepasa los 35 °C, en la antesis del arroz, y esta exposición al calor pasa de 1 hora, se observa en las plantas un alto porcentaje de esterilidad. Yoshida (1978) informa que las plantas de arroz expuestas a temperaturas superiores a 35 °C sufren daños que dependen de su estado de desarrollo. Por ejemplo, durante la fase vegetativa se observan los siguientes síntomas: la punta blanca de la hoja, las bandas cloróticas, una reducción del macollamiento y una disminución de la altura de la planta. Durante la fase reproductiva aparecen síntomas como la panícula blanca, una reducción del número de granos y una mayor esterilidad; en la etapa de maduración se reduce el número de granos llenos por panícula.El mismo autor concluye que el estado de desarrollo del arroz más sensible a las temperaturas altas es la floración; siguen a ésta los 9 días anteriores a la salida de la panícula en la etapa de 'embuchamiento'. Durante la antesis, 1 ó 2 horas de temperatura alta aumenta definitivamente el porcentaje de esterilidad.En la mayoría de los casos, lo que determina el rendimiento es el número de granos por unidad de área. Yoshida (1978) informa que existe una alta correlación positiva entre el número de granos por unidad de área y el total de nitrógeno tomado por la planta al momento de la floración. Él observó que el número de granos era mayor a medida que aumentaba la cantidad de nitrógeno (N) suministrado. Por otro lado, en un ensayo similar realizado bajo condiciones controladas, se encontró que el número de granos aumentaba a medida que la temperatura disminuía bajo un determinado nivel de N, siendo más evidente este resultado cuando el nivel de N era más alto. Sin embargo, la eficiencia del N para producir granos llegaba a su nivel máximo cuando la temperatura y el nivel de N eran los más bajos (Cuadro 2).Los experimentos realizados por Sasaki et al. (1973) demostraron que el N puede hacer variar el porcentaje de esterilidad que causan las temperaturas bajas cuando las células reproductivas se hallan en la etapa de reducción de la división celular. Cuando la temperatura baja está por encima, o muy por debajo, de la temperatura crítica, el suministro de N tiene muy poco efecto en la esterilidad; en cambio, cuando la temperatura es moderada (16 ºC), el porcentaje de esterilidad aumenta si hay un incremento en el nivel del N aplicado. Otros experimentos reportados por Sasaki y Wada (1975)  Tomado de IRRI (1979).cuando la temperatura es baja, puede contrarrestarse con un aumento del nivel del fósforo aplicado (Figura 4).La mayor parte de la energía radiante proveniente del sol tiene una longitud de onda comprendida entre 0.3 y 3.0 micras (o unidad μ = 1 millonésima parte del metro) y por ello se considera, generalmente, como radiación de onda corta. La tierra emite, por su parte, una radiación de onda larga que mide de 3 a 50 micrones.El tejido verde de las hojas utiliza en la fotosíntesis la energía solar cuya longitud de onda tenga de 0.4 a 0.7 micrones;esta energía se denomina en biología 'radiación fotosintética activa' (PAR, del inglés) o, simplemente, radiación solar o luz solar. El total de radiación solar es de 0.50 micrones, aproximadamente, tanto en la zona intertropical (el trópico) como en la zona templada (Monteith, 1972).La unidad de radiación solar que ha resultado más útil para la agricultura es la cal/cm 2 por día, aunque un buen número de físicos y científicos emplean otras unidades. Yoshida (1978) observó que la radiación solar media en 26 sitios de 15 países arroceros variaba, por ejemplo, de 50 cal/cm 2 por día en Milán (Italia) a 700 cal/cm 2 por día o más (en junio-julio) en Lisboa (Portugal) y en Davis (California, EE.UU.). Sin embargo, la mayoría de los sitios mencionados por Yoshida recibe, en promedio, 300 cal/cm 2 por día o un poco más durante el período de maduración del arroz.La radiación solar requerida para el cultivo del arroz varía según los diferentes estados de desarrollo de la planta. Una radiación solar baja afecta muy ligeramente los rendimientos y sus componentes durante la fase vegetativa, mientras que en la fase reproductiva causa una notoria disminución en el número de granos. Por otra parte, durante el período que va del llenado del grano a su maduración, baja drásticamente el rendimiento de la planta cuando se reduce (si se presenta un nivel bajo de radiación solar) el porcentaje de granos llenos.Una relación cuantitativa entre el rendimiento y la radiación solar se puede observar en el Cuadro 3, elaborado por Yoshida y Parao (1976). El cuadro muestra que la radiación solar influye mucho en el rendimiento durante la fase reproductiva de la planta; influye también, aunque menos, en la fase de Figura 4. Efecto de la aplicación de fósforo (P 2 O 5 ) en el porcentaje de esterilidad causado por las temperaturas bajas durante la etapa de reducción de la división de las células reproductivas (Sasaki y Wada, 1975). Partiendo de muchas investigaciones realizadas en diferentes años, se ha concluido que la radiación solar influye en el rendimiento de la planta de arroz, principalmente durante la etapa de maduración del grano, ya que ejerce un notorio efecto en el número de granos llenos de la panícula. Esta conclusión permite afirmar que la traslocación de carbohidratos al grano de arroz ocurre principalmente durante el día, y que alrededor de ¾ del total de los carbohidratos producidos por la planta se elaboran en el día. Bonner y Galston (1952) encontraron que, en general, la traslocación de carbohidratos desde la hoja hacia otros tejidos es inducida por el proceso fotosintético de acumulación específica de azúcar en la lámina foliar. Se puede afirmar entonces que la radiación solar es necesaria no solamente para la asimilación del carbono, sino también para desempeñar un papel importante en la traslocación al grano de los carbohidratos cuya síntesis sigue a la asimilación.En la Figura 6 se observa que el porcentaje de granos llenos aumenta con la intensidad de la luz hasta un valor de ésta de 250 cal/cm 2 por día, y que se incrementa ligeramente cuando esa intensidad es mayor (entre 300 y 450 cal/cm 2 por día). El autor de este trabajo buscó una explicación de dicho resultado y encontró (Figura 7) lo siguiente: hay una relación similar entre la tasa de asimilación del carbono y la intensidad solar, y la intensidad solar superior a 0.6 cal/cm 2 por min no tiene casi influencia en la tasa de asimilación del carbono.De las Figuras 6 y 7 se puede deducir que la relación entre el porcentaje de granos llenos y la intensidad de la luz se puede considerar dependiente de la relación entre la tasa de asimilación de carbono y la intensidad de la luz solar.Cuadro 3. Efecto del descenso de la radiación solar (medida en tres fases del desarrollo de la planta) en el rendimiento y en los componentes del rendimiento de la variedad de arroz IR-747B2-6.   Radiación solar (cal/cm 2 por día) Se puede afirmar finalmente que, cuando la intensidad de la luz es baja, el porcentaje de granos llenos puede aumentar si se incrementa la luz solar; en cambio, si la intensidad de la luz supera cierto nivel establecido como crítico, el porcentaje de granos llenos no aumentará al incrementar la luz solar en la forma en que lo hizo en el caso anterior.La fotosíntesis es el proceso en que la energía solar es atrapada por el tejido verde de las plantas y convertida en energía química, que es almacenada en forma de carbohidratos. De 80% a 90% (en peso) de la materia seca de las plantas verdes proviene de la fotosíntesis; el resto viene, normalmente, del suelo en los minerales absorbidos por las raíces de las plantas.En un cultivo de arroz, la fotosíntesis depende, principalmente, de la incidencia (cantidad y ángulo) de la radiación solar, de su relación con el área foliar (tasa/ unidad de área), del índice de área foliar y de la orientación de las hojas. Si la radiación solar es baja, la tasa de fotosíntesis también será baja (Tsunoda, 1972;Tsunoda et al., 1968).El agua es indispensable para la planta de arroz. El contenido de agua de la planta varía según la estructura considerada (hoja, tallo) y el estado de desarrollo de la planta. La planta absorbe por las raíces la mayor parte del agua que necesita; emplea menos del 15% del agua absorbida y transpira el resto a través de los estomas de las hojas. El adecuado suministro de agua es uno de los factores más importantes de la producción de arroz. Muchas áreas productoras de arroz sufren por exceso de agua o por sequía, ya sea porque las lluvias son irregulares o porque falla el suministro de riego.La principal razón para inundar un cultivo de arroz es que la mayoría de las variedades de arroz crecen mejor y dan mayor rendimiento cuando se cultivan en un suelo inundado. Esta agua cumple tres funciones esenciales:• Modificar las características físicas de la planta.• Cambiar las características físicoquímicas y el estado nutricional y físico de los suelos. En un cultivo de arroz con riego se pierde agua por la transpiración de las plantas, por la evaporación en la superficie del agua y por percolación a través del suelo. Las pérdidas por percolación son las más variables y dependen de condiciones del suelo como la textura, la topografía y el nivel freático.La cantidad de agua requerida por el arroz en diferentes funciones y etapas del sistema con riego se presenta en el Cuadro 4. Las cifras son promedios de un rango de valores reportado por más de 40 países cultivadores de arroz.El arroz se cultiva no sólo con sistemas de riego, sino en zonas bajas con alta precipitación, en láminas de agua profunda y en condiciones de secano (lluvia estacional y suelo bien drenado). En las tierras bajas, las plantas de arroz están expuestas a daños debidos a la sumersión en los sistemas de inundación; en las zonas altas, en cambio, pueden sufrir los efectos de la sequía, que se presenta con frecuencia.Se ha informado también que la precipitación fuerte puede agravar el volcamiento de las plantas, porque las hojas largas y cargadas de humedad son pesadas y, cuando tienden a juntarse, hacen volcar la planta (Kung, 1971).Cuando se cultiva arroz con agua de lluvias y la temperatura está en el rango de los niveles críticos, la precipitación es el factor limitativo del desarrollo. Cuando se cultiva arroz con riego, el crecimiento y el rendimiento de las plantas están determinados, en gran parte, por la temperatura y por la radiación solar.La transpiración es la pérdida de agua en forma de vapor a través de la superficie total de la planta. La planta se marchitará o morirá, a menos que se le suministre agua para sustituir la que pierde por transpiración. Este fenómeno ocurre principalmente a través de los estomas de las hojas y, en pequeña proporción, por la cutícula foliar y la de otros tejidos.La pérdida de agua por transpiración está directamente relacionada con la tasa de crecimiento absoluto (TCA), de manera que la transpiración puede considerarse Cuadro 4. Agua requerida por el arroz cultivado con riego.Por pérdida en plantas (uso fisiológico) y en suelo (agua subterránea) (mm/día) Tomado de Kung (1971).como los gramos de agua transpirada por cada gramo de materia seca producida. Esta relación varía según la humedad del suelo, el clima, la variedad, el estado de desarrollo de la planta y el momento del cultivo. Según Matsushima et al. (1964) y Yoshida (1978), esta relación está entre 250 y 350 g de agua por gramo de materia seca producida.Los suelos en que puede desarrollarse el arroz son tan variados como el rango de climas a que se expone el cultivo. Su textura varía de arenosa a arcillosa; su pH oscila entre extremos de 3.0 y 10.0; su contenido de materia orgánica puede estar entre 1% y 50%; su concentración de sales entre 0 y 1%; y su disponibilidad de nutrientes puede ir desde la deficiencia notoria hasta el exceso. Dos factores determinan, en gran parte, la productividad de la tierra en que se siembra arroz: las condiciones del suelo y el agua disponible.El arroz es la única especie comercial que se cultiva en suelos saturados de agua (en algunos sistemas, las plantas se mantienen sumergidas) durante una parte (o la totalidad) del ciclo de vida de las plantas; por tal razón, las propiedades físicas del suelo tienen menor importancia relativa que el suministro adecuado de agua.La textura del suelo tiene un papel muy importante en el manejo del agua de riego y de la fertilización. Si la textura es fina, el tamaño pequeño de los poros del suelo sólo permite un movimiento lento del agua; en cambio, si la textura del suelo es liviana, el excesivo suministro de agua y de fertilizantes aumenta las pérdidas de ambos recursos por causa del lavado y de la percolación.El arroz soporta bien los suelos cuyo pH esté entre 4.0 y 8.4; sin embargo, se desarrolla mejor cuando la acidez de éstos no baja del pH 5.0 ni sobrepasa el pH 6.5. El arroz tolera bastante bien la salinidad y se obtienen buenas producciones de grano en suelos salinos; estos suelos, a su vez, son lavados por los continuos riegos que se dan a las plantas en el sistema con riego.El viento desempeña un papel importante en la vida de la planta de arroz. Se ha informado que, cuando el viento sopla con poca velocidad, el rendimiento de la planta aumenta gracias a la turbulencia que se crea en medio de la comunidad de plantas. En los años 70, algunos investigadores japoneses hallaron que la tasa de fotosíntesis era mayor cuando aumentaba suavemente la velocidad del viento, ya que la turbulencia incrementaba el suministro de gas carbónico (CO 2 ); este resultado confirmaba el obtenido en los 60 por un investigador australiano de que una velocidad del viento mayor que el rango de 0.3 a 0.9 m/seg causaba un pequeño efecto en la fotosíntesis de la planta.Por otro lado, los vientos fuertes con características de vendaval son perjudiciales para las plantas de arroz, puesto que incrementan el fenómeno del volcamiento. Los vientos muy secos han causado secamiento en las hojas, que es grave para los cultivos de secano. Los vientos secos y calientes han producido laceraciones en las hojas y en los granos y, en muchos casos, han hecho abortar las flores.La evaporación es un fenómeno inverso de la humedad relativa, que se puede definir como el vapor de agua ya contenido en el aire. Se ha demostrado que, manteniendo los demás factores constantes, un aumento de la humedad relativa reduce la intensidad de la evapotranspiración, puesto que el gradiente de presión de vapor de agua entre la atmósfera y una superficie húmeda es alto. La capacidad del aire para retener vapor de agua aumenta rápidamente con la temperatura: por tanto, el aire caliente del trópico contiene más vapor de agua que el aire frío de otras zonas.","tokenCount":"4899"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e1c1fb3f5a1844ecdb41f218accf6710","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d4432eb8-15c4-4989-a0f3-98ded1282c1b/retrieve","id":"1232400509"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7afa9297-0b41-4e9a-a141-9b6439ae37ae","pagecount":"12","content":"Use of manufactured feeds in aquaculture in Bangladesh has grown rapidly over the last five years. More than 1 million tonnes of commercially formulated feeds and 0.3-0.4 million tonnes of farm-made feeds were produced in 2012, and sectoral growth is projected to increase substantially over the medium term. This working paper summarizes findings from a study, conducted as part of the WorldFish/USAID \"Feed the Future-Aquaculture\" project in 2012, assessing the current status of the aquaculture feed sector in Bangladesh. Fish feed value chains, market trends, ingredients and formulation systems, farm feeding practices, ancillary services and feed regulations were investigated. The study identifies a number of entry points for interventions in the sector, and investments which would improve feed quality and farmer access to better feeds and support the growth of sustainable aquaculture.The use of aquaculture feeds in Bangladesh has grown substantially in the past few years, and now over 1 million tonnes of commercial pelleted feed are being formulated for use by aquaculture farmers. An estimated further 0.4 million tonnes of locally-formulated and processed diets are also being prepared by small village-based feed-making enterprises. Rapid growth in use of formulated feeds has helped many aquaculture farmers intensify production, but at the same time has raised a number of issues including feed quality, feed management efficiency and environmental sustainability.A study conducted during 2012 within the context of the WorldFish/USAID \"Feed the Future-Aquaculture\" project was specifically intended to provide guidance and direction on investments required in the feed sector of Bangladesh to support sustainable growth of aquaculture. Its main objectives were to understand:• value chains for fish feeds in Bangladesh, and the roles and interactions amongst various actors within the chains; • quality of feed ingredients and ways to improve this quality; • fish feed production methods and demand for aquaculture feeds; • fish feeding practices and ways to reduce feed wastage and improve feeding efficiencies; • research and development needs for better fish feed formulation and utilization.The research team used various assessment tools-including FGD (focus group discussion), in-depth interviews, individual and key informant interviews with semi-structured questionnaires-to collect information from different stakeholders along the value chain. Information from each actor was validated by other actors relative to backward and forward value chain linkages. Secondary information from various sources was collected and reviewed. Life cycle analysis was conducted to understand the environmental dimensions of feed production within the country.Findings from the research were presented to a workshop of more than 50 participants, representing a range of stakeholders involved in aquaculture feeds throughout Bangladesh. WorldFish hosted the workshop on April 4 2013 at the Hotel Lake Castle in Dhaka; feedback and suggestions from workshop participants were incorporated into this paper.Fish feed value chains Fish feed production and use in Bangladesh aquaculture has increased dramatically in the past 5 years, with an estimated 1 million tonnes of commercially formulated pelleted feed produced, and between 0.3 and 0.4 million tonnes of feeds produced by micro-and small-enterprises at village level. Feeding of fish with formulated diets has contributed to increasing intensity of production of major fish species such as Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), Pangas (Pangasianodon hypophthalmus), climbing perch (Anabas testudineus), major carps and others.Value chains have developed in association with the growth of the formulated feed industry and now widely connect feed suppliers with farmers, though more remote farmers still lack access to formulated feed. Figure 1 shows the major actors and linkages in the fish feed value chain from ingredients to farmers. Bangladesh produces 50-55% of fish feed ingredients, with the remainder imported. These products flow from producers or importers via feed processors to reach farmers through various channels. Some raw materials such as rice bran require processing in mills before incorporation into formulated aquaculture feeds.Various suppliers and traders deliver ingredients to feed formulators, although large and medium feed mills import directly, accounting for about 10-15% of total raw materials used. Feed additives are imported, and traded through various channels. Machines used for feed processing are directly imported by feed mills with assistance of marketing agents from manufacturing companies. Feed dealers that distribute 96-98% of feed from feed mills to farmers typically earn a commission of 6-7% on buying price. The dealers distribute around 5-10% of total feed to remote areas, or to small farmers, through other traders.Major service providers include the Department of Fisheries (DoF), Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute (BFRI), packaging industries, private and government laboratories, the Feed Industries Association of Bangladesh (FIAB), transport agencies, the Animal Health Companies Association of Bangladesh (AHCAB), customs, and clearing and forwarding (C&F) agents.Figure 2 shows the proportion of the end price paid for feed by farmers according to each stage in the value chain, based on the average cost of raw materials, raw material processing costs, transport costs, other costs and profit margins for feed millers and dealers.The main ingredients used for fish feed production are rice bran (20-50% inclusion), maize (5-20% inclusion), soybean meal (10-30% inclusion), mustard oil cake (10-25% inclusion), fish meal (5-15% inclusion) and meat and bone meal (10-20% inclusion).Rice bran is mainly produced locally, and is derived from rice milling. It accounts for 7-8% of unmilled paddy grain by weight. Three types of rice bran are used: de-oiled rice bran (DORB), grade A rice bran (comprising 85-90% bran and 15-10% husk), and grade B rice bran (comprising 60-50% bran and 40-50% husk).The protein content of DORB and grade A rice bran is approximately 12-17% and 10-13%, respectively. Only 30% of total rice bran production of Bangladesh is used for commercial animal feed production. Three main factories produce approximately 0.13 million tonnes of DORB per year during production of rice bran oil.   Soybean is mainly imported from South America, although around 150,000 tonnes of soybean was locally grown in Bangladesh (mainly Noakhali region) in 2012. The seed variety, price, and culture technology influence local production. Beans are used primarily for the extraction of soy oil. Soybean meal or cake, which is used in feed, is the byproduct of this process, accounting for 75% of the unmilled bean by weight. There are currently three solvent extraction plants in Bangladesh which provide 34-38% of the country's total supply of soy meal/cake. The remaining 62-66% is imported, mainly from India. Soybean meal/cake is typically included in sinking and floating fish feeds at rates of around 10-20% and 20-30%, respectively. The market is mainly controlled by two processing mills and Indian exporters.Mustard and rapeseed belong to the same genus Brassica. The amount of erucic acid in mustard/rape seed determines the quality, and varies depending on species and variety. 'Canola' is a particularly high quality variety of genetically altered rapeseed which is a registered trade mark of the Canadian Oil Association and is increasingly available in Bangladesh. The meal/cake which used in feed is the byproduct of oil processing, accounting for 57-62% of the unmilled seed by weight. The local production of mustard oil cake is 0.23 million tonnes, but the demand by the animal feed industry is almost 0.33 million tonnes. The same two soybean crushing mills import rapeseed (or canola) to meet the demand.Local fish meal, which is manufactured from a variety of trash fish, crabs and other aquatic animals, is very variable in nutritional composition. During the drying process, large quantities of salt are added to aid long-term preservation. This has the effect of increasing the weight of dried fish by up to 20%, which contributes profit to dried fish processors but undermines feed quality. More salt may be added intentionally for the purposes of adulteration, further compounding the quality problem. The crude protein content of meal derived from local dried fish varies from 35 to 45%. The domestic source of better quality fish meal (44-52% crude protein content) is the chewa (Pseudapocryptes elongates), supplied in southern Bangladesh in Kuakata and the islands of Hatia and Bohala, but amounts available are insufficient to meet the demand of the feed sector.An approximate calculation indicates that the annual catch of fresh trash fish is close to 0.15 million tonnes; equal to approximately 0.0375 million tonnes of fish meal. Considering that most feed producers aim for at least 5% inclusion of fish meal, this quantity of supply is insufficient to meet demand. As a result, fish meal is not included in all feeds, and imported analogue fish meal (a mixture of 50% fishmeal and other protein meals such as blood meal, feather meal and meat and bone meal) is often used as an alternative ingredient. Possible competition between the use of marine fish for human consumption and in aquafeeds is a concern, given Bangladesh's human nutrition challenges, but remains to be explored.Meat and bone meal is utilized as a source of cheap protein (48-52% crude protein) and is imported, particularly through Australia and Paraguay. There are two grades of meat and bone meal. Generally fertilizer grade is cheaper than feed grade, partly because it is subject to less strict custom regulations.Imported raw materials contribute more than 50% to the total cost of feed production in Bangladesh. Variations in the price of imported feed ingredients are linked with fluctuations in international markets, changing import policies, and external relations with exporting countries. Raw materials are generally supplied to feed mills by a number of distributors, but large feed mills open letters of credit which allow them to reduce costs by importing ingredients directly. There are almost 150 feed additive importers, suppliers, and traders; ten of those are representing different multinational feed additive companies. There are also five human medicine manufacturing companies that customize vitamin premix for local feed companies, but the raw materials required to manufacture these additives are imported. Sixty per cent of feed mills use growth promoters (antibiotic growth promoter and non-antibiotic growth promoter); among these only 24% of feed mills use non-antibiotic growth promoters, indicating antibiotic contamination as a significant feed quality and food safety concern.Use of formulated feeds for fish farming is increasing in Bangladesh, associated with growth and intensification and commercialization of aquaculture. It seems that commercial pelleted feeds are starting to replace 'farm-made' and 'raw' unformulated feeds.As indicated by Figure 3, production of commercial feeds has increased at an average rate of 32% per year over the period 2008-2012, and has reached an estimated total of almost 1.07 million tonnes in 2012. Sinking feeds, which accounted for 81% of total manufactured output, still dominate over extruded floating feed (19%), but growth in the production of floating fish feed has been fastest, averaging 89% over the last four years. Three types of floating feeds are available: oil coated, non oil-coated, and vegetable protein based. Non-oil coated feeds account for 95% of total sales. Feed prices increased at a rate of between 9 and 15% per year from 2008 to 2012, due to increases in the price of major raw materials and unavailability. The retail price of 3-4 mm grower feed is currently 35-42 BDT/kg for sinking pellet feed, and 48-54 BDT/kg for extruded floating feed, depending on the species. Using least square demand forecasting and Delphi methods, total feed production is projected to increase to nearly 1.8 million tonnes in 2015 (Figure 3). Around 100 commercial mills produce aquaculture feeds in Bangladesh. Among these, 8-10 large operators account for 60-70% of market share. During the last two years, horizontal growth (expansion) of feed mill capacity was comparatively higher than in previous years. During the last two years, around 20 companies extended their capacities from 5 to 10 tonnes/hour, and 10 companies have installed extruders for floating fish feed production.The number of farm-made pellet feed mills is difficult to estimate, but it can be safely assumed that they number more than 1,000. Feed mill machines can be easily manufactured in local workshops at a cost of BDT 100,000-250,000 (USD1250-3125), and produce 50-300 kg feed/hour. Operators of these types of machines often face difficulties with adequate pellet binding and drying, and lack the knowledge and awareness required to formulate feeds that provide sufficient nutritive value to fish at various growth stages.Around 20 commercial feed mills in Bangladesh manufacture feed on a rental basis. These mills are most commonly used by large farmers to produce feed to meet their own requirements, and by feed traders who brand and sell this feed in the local area at relatively low cost. They customize their formulation and pricing depending on local farmers' buying capacity. The rental or processing cost for use of these mills is 2-3 BDT/kg (USD0.03-0.04/kg) for sinking feed. Few extruders are available for rent, although there are 2-3 mills with extruders which charge 8-10 BDT/kg (USD0.103-0.128/kg) for producing floating fish feed. Low quality poorly performing feed from such facilities is a concern, due to limited knowledge on formulation.Increasing vertical integration has recently been observed in the sector, with feed companies expanding the range of support services and inputs they provide to farmers and dealers in order to capture greater market share. Eight feed companies currently supply customers with feed and mono-sex tilapia fingerlings from their own hatcheries (a marketing concept which originated in the poultry industry). Two large industrial groups have already established vertically integrated operations encompassing hatchery, feed manufacture, grow out, and processing, although processing capacity is not fully met from fish produced by their own operations.Due to temperatures and water availability, the main season for commercial fish culture generally starts from March and continues until November, so the greatest volumes of feed are produced from April to September. Feeds are formulated and/or branded for specific species in the following proportions: Pangas 60-65%; tilapia 35-45%; climbing perch 10-15%; carp and other finfish 2-5%; shrimp and prawn 2-3%. Of these feeds, nursery feeds (<1.5 mm size) comprise 2-3%, starter feeds (2.0-2.5 mm size) 20-30%, and grower/finisher feeds (>2.5 mm size) 60-70% of the total. Extrusion technology is mainly used for producing floating feed for tilapia, which accounts for around 40-50% of total tilapia feed production and retails for 7-10 BDT/kg (USD0.09-0.128/kg) more than sinking feed. The production rate of grower feed is 1-2 tonnes/hour greater than that of starter feed, while energy consumption in machine operation and protein inclusion costs are higher for starter feed than for grower.The average price of 1% protein in feed is 1.24 ±0.12 BDT. Processing losses in the factory vary from 0.7 to 1.0%. Fuel costs for production of extruded floating feed are higher than those for sinking feed-at 2.14 BDT/kg and 0.71 BDT/kg feed, respectively.Large feed companies partner with around 450-500 dealers, medium-sized companies work with 200-300, and mills with only regional coverage typically work with 20-100. Some dealers work exclusively for a single company, but most sell feed from several. Most companies provide credit to feed dealers, but small feed companies provide comparatively more credit than larger ones.Farmers may also receive feed on credit from dealers, and the total quantity of credit extended from dealers to farmers is much higher than the amount received by dealers from feed manufacturers. When dealers extend credit to their customers they typically add an extra 1-3% to the retail price, depending on the duration over which the credit is extended and the characteristics of the customer.Use of commercial pelleted feed is now very common among farmers practicing commercial fish farming, with feed costs commonly accounting for 70-75% of farm operating costs. Farmers commonly feed their fish twice daily by broadcast feeding, but feed requirements are rarely measured properly (according to body weight) through timely sampling. Floating feed users are better able to measure feed requirements through observation of fish behavior, and feeding to satiation. Feed conversion ratios (FCRs) for floating pelleted feed are comparatively lower than for sinking pellet feed: approximately 1.5 vs 1.85 for tilapia and 1.6 vs 2.0 for pangas, though both could be improved by reducing wastage.Feed value chains incorporate a range of service providers, including those involved in transport, packaging, machinery, quality control and information services.Transport: Feeds and feed ingredients are transported over long distances by truck, both within Bangladesh and from India. Transport agencies provide services with the cost of truck transport for feed, raw materials etc. ranging from 0.006 to 0.012 BDT/kg/km. Sufficient transport is available to support the feed sector.Packaging: Packaging is crucial for distribution of formulated feed as it protects from moisture, insect infestation and related problems. The standard bag for 25 kg of feed weighs 75 g, and retails for BDT 17.48 per piece. The price of the bag mainly depends on imported raw material polypropylene. Thirty-five companies in Bangladesh produce such feed bags; among these there are four companies involved in exporting feed bags, an activity that is increasing due to low production cost in Bangladesh and the maintenance of quality standards.Machinery: More than 20 machinery and equipment supply companies are working as representatives of foreign manufacturers. These agents do not invest any money of their own for purchasing equipment, but earn a commission for brokering sales of equipment. Feed mills procure all this machinery (pellet mills, extruders, conditioners, dryers, pulverizers, hammer mills, boilers, screens, etc.) by letter of credit. The most commonly used brands of pellet and extrusion machine are Chia Tung, Muyang, Andritz, Ideah, Awila, Bowler and Jiangsu Zhengchang. Machine suppliers provide maintenance services during the warrantee period, which is generally for a period of only one year. There are 2-3 local machine service providers that assist the industry in solving common mechanical problems.Quality control laboratories: Ten to 12 commercial feed companies own proximate analysis facilities, among which 2-3 have near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) technology facilities which can perform proximate analysis very rapidly. A small number of private service providers also offer proximate analysis. Some government organizations such as Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute (BFRI), Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute (BLRI) and some public universities also provide this service at a lower charge. However, analysis of mycotoxins, amino acid profiles and antibiotic testing is still unavailable to feed mill operators. Department of Fisheries sometimes carries out random checks on feed quality with dealerships and factories, but these activities are limited due to resource constraints.Information services: Feed dealers, retailers and the technical representatives of commercial feed companies provide some embedded services to farmers. Leaflets and booklets are provided, and group discussions and technical advice organized for farmers and dealers. Feed mills also receive embedded services from feed additive suppliers. However, although private information and service provision channels are strong with respect to feeds, services supplied by government and development projects in this area are usually limited or weak.The Feed Act. This Act focuses on a number of key areas, which include: ensuring registration and licensing for all feed producers; making the proximate analysis of feed and accurate labeling of packaging mandatory; regulating feed packaging and storage; ensuring that the macronutrient content of different categories of feed and raw materials is maintained at optimum levels; specifying procedures for macronutrient analysis and record keeping; preventing banned antibiotics and chemicals including pesticides, dyes, mycotoxins and other harmful substances in feeds; stipulating approved feed additives and binders; providing quality monitoring through periodic feed sampling; and inspection in feed mills for compliance with standards.Breaching these rules is punishable by fines. From 2011 the government moved to register feed mills, and this process has been successfully completed for almost 30% of mills. However, many feed companies are not fully aware of all provisions in the Feed Act. The study found that 20% of feed mills are aware of the Act's restrictions on antibiotic and chemical use, but are unfamiliar with its other requirements. Importers and suppliers of raw materials and additives for feed are obliged to comply with the Feed Act. They are often unaware of this, but already comply with parts of the Act because of their compliance with customs regulations, many of which are similar. Feed dealers are also frequently unaware of Feed Act regulations, but feed mills require them to comply with registration requirements which are also part of the Feed Act.Customs regulations. Almost all products imported for use in feeds are exempted from pre-shipment inspection, and almost all raw feed ingredients are duty-and VAT-free. However, before they can be imported, fishmeal and meat and bone meal (MBM) need a certificate indicating that they are free from BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) and TSE (Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy). Fishmeal, MBM and all types of feed additives also require radioactive and health certificates from the exporting country. A no-objection certificate (NOC) must also be issued by the Department of Fisheries (DoF) or Department of Livestock Services (DLS) before ingredients can be imported. Although government regulations regarding feeds are strong, there is little implementation of these rules except with respect to customs regulations for product importation.Almost 10,000 people are estimated to be directly involved in raw material and additive trading, feed production and feed trading. Very few women are involved in the commercial feed production (estimated at less than 3% of the total workforce).The access of small farmers (pond size 0.08-0.1 ha) to feeds is very limited because of unavailable initial investment capacity and credit facilities for purchasing feeds.Feed production and transport also has environmental implications. Life cycle analysis was used to characterize feed ingredients and the value chain activities according to three impact categories:1. global warming potential; 2. acidification potential; 3. freshwater and marine eutrophication potential.This analysis showed higher impacts associated with floating feed production, while lower impacts were associated with locally-produced aquaculture feeds. Production of feed ingredients contributes most significantly to all impacts, with transport and processing less significant. These preliminary results indicate that decisions over feed ingredients govern the larger environmental impacts of feed production, and that possibilities exist to manage ingredients to reduce future impacts. The costs and benefits in the use of agriculture land for production of feed ingredients versus use for human food production remains to be investigated.Fifty stakeholders met in Dhaka on April 4 2013 to review the major findings and recommendations from the research. Participants in the workshop provided feedback covering a wide range of issues. Farmers stressed the need for better access to credit for feed purchase and the need for improved knowledge of different feeding and culture practices.Feed producers identified a range of problems, including:• the need to find alternative power sources to reduce high fuel costs for feed mill operation; • the need for methods to control ingredient adulteration and maintain feed quality; • the fluctuation of feed ingredient availability and prices resulting in the use of lower quality alternative raw materials; • lack of knowledge among feed mill nutritionists on balanced feed formulations and the need to improve feed quality and efficiency; • the need for training for feed mill engineers to increase machine operation efficiency, and enable them to troubleshoot and select good quality machines; • the need for quality control labs for testing feeds and raw materials for adulterants such as melamine or antibiotics.Stakeholders also requested that government legislation of feed raw material and additive imports should be relaxed. They claimed payment of Advanced Income Tax (AIT) on imported raw materials was burdensome, and called for proper monitoring of raw material and feed prices by government and guidelines for maintaining quality.Pangasius farmer drying farm-made feedThe growth of both commercial aquaculture and commercial fish feed production in Bangladesh over the past 10 years has been significant, and there is considerable room for further expansion of both sectors over the medium to long term, given a growing population with rising incomes and strong cultural preferences for fish consumption. This represents a major strength and opportunity for the feed sector. However, the industry is also confronted by a number of weaknesses and threats. These include the volatile political situation, lack of knowledge on raw material quality, feed formulation, machine operation and selection, a high dependency on imported raw materials, limited implementation of legislation on feeds, and ongoing market consolidation likely to reduce competitiveness in the long run.The rate of expansion in the production and uptake of manufactured feeds has been so rapid that the industry has yet to mature. It is likely that considerable consolidation will take place over the coming years as farmers become more sophisticated in their feed management and preferences and the benefits of higher quality feeds become more readily apparent-forcing those companies producing inferior products to raise the bar or exit the industry. In the meantime, help is needed to support the aquaculture industry as it continues to expand and modernize. This will entail education for farmers on good quality, guidance for feed manufacturers on manufacturing practices, establishment of proper feed management practices, and enforcement of existing legislation designed to ensure the quality of manufactured feed.The study has identified various research, development and policy actions that can be taken to improve the quality of ingredients, together with better formulation and utilization of fish feeds by farmers. The key recommendations are organized around six main areas: 1. Better feed ingredients i. Improving quality and sustainability of local protein ingredients Improvement in ingredient quality and sustainability of local protein requirements is required, specifically:• Sustainability of locally-available animal protein sources needs more in-depth understanding, and supplies identified that are sustainable and consistently available. • Protein digestibility should be understood for different local fish species to allow feed manufacturers to better match dietary ingredients with fish requirements. • Adulteration in feed value chains and processing should be assessed, and control points identified. • Improved methods for protein and other chemical measurements should be adopted to detect and avoid adulteration.Responsibilities for implementation: Research institutes (international and local), universities, DoF, BFRI, and development organizations. Private and government laboratories would be the main actors involved in detecting adulteration, and government in improving regulations around adulteration in feed value chains.ii. Increasing production and supply of local raw materials Increasing production of local raw materials has potential to help reduce feed costs, minimize environmental impacts and provide income for local farmers, specifically:• Undertake an in-depth study of potential locally-available raw materials to identify sustainable supplies. • Identify technologies for processing and preservation that ensure maximum utilization of raw materials.• Collaborate with international research organizations (e.g. CIMMYT, IRRI) to develop local varieties (maize, soybean) and cultivation methods to boost yields. Responsibilities for implementation: FIAB, AHCAB, DoF, BFRI, Development partners (like AIP).The Feed Act provides an important basis for regulation of aquaculture feeds, but requires stronger implementation, specifically:• Complete review of Feed Act.• Complete review of custom regulations for raw material importation and export. • Support implementation based on these reviews. The CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish aims to increase the productivity of small-scale livestock and fish systems in sustainable ways, making meat, milk and fish more available and affordable to poor consumers across the developing world. http://livestockfish.cgiar.org/.Design and layout: Eight Seconds Sdn Bhd.Printed on 100% recycled paper.Photo credits: Front cover, Md. Masudur Rahaman; page 4, Mamum Ur-Rashid; page 8, Ben Belton; page 9 & page 10, Balaram Mahalder; back cover, Anisur Rahman.","tokenCount":"4455"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"81801b20250f4bd095679abe149ad69d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c1f5fe23-8c08-4a97-b18d-50ddcae77f95/retrieve","id":"-1117547985"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"06a60ec8-451c-43ae-a4ef-fed0f79a4983","pagecount":"1","content":"Plantains are an important staple food and cash crop in Latin America and West Africa with growing market demand. In recent decades, new production technologies and varieties have become available and are being tested in major producing countries. However, uptake has been uneven among countries and by segments of growers within countries.As a basis for improving productivity and profitabilty among smallholder plantain growers, we studied plantain farmers' use of new technologies and the accompanying context of innovation for the plantain sectors in Nicaragua, Panama, Dominican Republic and Ghana.• What new technologies are being used by different groups of plantain growers?Who are main actors in plantain sectors and which factors stimulate or block innovation?• What are entry points to accelerate technological and organizational change to improve viability of small-scale plantain producers?Structured interviews with plantain growersSemi-structured interviews were carried out with actors of the plantain sector to map the innovation systems: public institutions and research, extension services, farmer organizations, financing institutes, input dealers, plantain buyers and intermediaries.In each country, stakeholder workshops using the methodology from Rapid Appraisal of Agricultural Knowledge Systems were held to:• Discuss the maps of the innovation system • Characterize the roles of actors ","tokenCount":"195"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cc0d854bfdfa8c8d3921659df6307bbc","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/528f2fe6-4b64-4036-89d7-bfc836e224df/retrieve","id":"-540126269"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"65202427-a9d7-4171-82fc-e3fb6f2f93c2","pagecount":"90","content":"Celeiros 2.1 Origem/Historial 2.2 Celeiros modernos: um novo tipo de cooperação 2.3 O problema cerealífero 2.4 San: um exemplo de uma área equilibrada 2.5 Bougouni: um exemplo de uma área excedentária Agrodok 25 Celeiros reserva de cereais diminuía e o celeiro não podia cumprir a sua função essencial -fornecer alimentação barata.Este livrinho faz parte da série Agrodok, publicada pelo CTA e a Fundação Agromisa, em Wageningen. Os Agrodoks são publicações que fornecem informações práticas sobre agricultura sustentável de pequena escala nas regiões tropicais. São escritos por técnicos especialistas que estudaram questões ligadas à agricultura tropical ou por pessoas que possuem uma larga experiência de trabalho de campo neste domínio. Até ao presente a série Agrodok debruçou-se, de um modo geral, sobre assuntos ligados directamente com o cultivo, produção, transformação, armazenagem e uso dos solos de diversos produtos agrícolas (culturas alimentares, gado, animais de pequeno porte, produtos lácteos). Contudo, a Agromisa constatou, recentemente, a necessidade crescente de informação mais orientada para a organização e gestão destes produtos. Este livrinho sobre celeiros tenta responder, em parte, a estas necessidades.As informações contidas neste Agrodok foram compiladas de relatórios e contactos com pessoas que trabalham no campo e que participaram durante largos anos na formação e funcionamento de celeiros. O texto fundamenta-se, sempre que possível, na experiência prática. Os autores gostariam de agradecer todos aqueles que lhes transmitiram os seus conhecimentos práticos e, em particular, Erik van Altena da SNV dos Países Baixos, assim como à Compagnie Malienne pour le Développement de Textiles (CMDT) que quiseram partilhar connosco as suas preciosas experiências.Visto que o material publicado sobre este assunto é bastante escasso, foi preciso recolher informações a partir de diversas fontes. Este livrinho nunca poderia ter sido publicado sem o valioso trabalho de Martien Hoogland, que conseguiu coligir as informações e redigi-las. Os autores também gostariam de agradecer os outros colaboradores da Agromisa pelo seu entusiasmo e as contribuições fornecidas a este projecto. Gostaríamos, em particular, de estender os nossos agradecimentos a Barbara Oranje pela realização dos desenhos e a Martin le Fèvre pelo trabalho efectuado com a maquetização final deste livrinho.Martien Hoogland e Peter Holen A maioria da população do mundo depende, essencialmente, de cereais como o arroz, o milho, o sorgo e a cevada para a sua alimentação. Devido a essa dependência e às variações de quantidades de cereais disponíveis, existem numerosas famílias de produtores que experienciam déficits periódicos ou se encontram confrontados regularmente com relações sócio-económicas desiguais, no seio da sua aldeia ou da sua região. Para atenuar os efeitos negativos desta dependência, nas últimas décadas foram formados celeiros pelos governos, as missões ou pelas organizações não-governamentais (ONG), em diversas regiões de África. As experiências e os resultados destas iniciativas são muito diversos. Ao apresentarmos uma sinopse destas experiências, esperamos fornecer aos indivíduos, grupos e organizações implicados na instalação e na gestão de um celeiro, uma fonte de informações e de orientação que apoiará um bom funcionamento do seu celeiro. 1 Fig. 1a: Devido à quantidade de cereais disponíveis ser irregular, muitas pessoas experienciam situações deficitárias e de fome.Celeiro é um termo genérico que designa uma forma de cooperativa na qual se armazena um stock de cereais, a fim de os poder distribuir, numa outra altura. As razões para se formar uma cooperativa deste género são diversas, segundo as características da região. Trataremos em pormenor deste aspecto no capítulo 1. De um modo geral pode-se dizer que o celeiro permite aos agregados familiares de poderem dispor mais facilmente de cereais, rendendo-os menos dependentes das flutuações do preço da colheita (devido a um excedente ou a um déficit de cereais).Um celeiro que funciona devidamente melhora a auto-suficiência de uma aldeia ou comunidade visto que os cereais permanecem na aldeia.A segurança alimentar das famílias aumenta e, por vezes, também é possível pôr de parte cereais ou angariar dinheiro através da venda da reserva. Isto permite às famílias necessitadas de obterem um empréstimo a uma taxa baixa de juros e, desse modo, comprar os cereais a um preço baixo. Os grandes agricultores, que produzem mais do que as suas necessidades podem fazer lucros vendendo o seu excedente a um preço elevado. Os celeiros são geridos por conselhos da aldeia ou por grupos individuais de agricultores que são responsáveis pelo bom funcionamento da cooperação. As famílias que participam num celeiro podem pedir emprestado cereais ao celeiro que deverão reembolsar mais tarde. O empréstimo de cereais faz-se, geralmente, a uma taxa relativamente baixa, suficiente para cobrir os custos do celeiro.Este livrinho tenta apresentar, de uma maneira concisa, os princípios gerais e as concepções que estão na origem destes celeiros. Sempre que possível tentaremos evidenciar esses princípios e concepções através de exemplos recolhidos em diversas regiões de África. Esses exemplos, tanto de práticas correctas como de práticas incorrectas, ajudarão o leitor a obter respostas para as seguintes questões:➤ Quais são as situações em que vale a pena formar um celeiro? ➤ Como é que se instala um celeiro? ➤ Quais são os aspectos importantes referentes à instalação e ao funcionamento do celeiro? ➤ Quais são os requisitos que têm que ser satisfeitos para o mesmo funcionar bem, a longo prazo?Numa tentativa de fazer com que este livrinho se mantenha conciso e fácil de utilizar, limitámo-nos à apresentação das ideias de base que estão na origem dos celeiros e aos factores mais importantes que influenciam o seu funcionamento. Dado que a informação aqui apresentada não poderá ser completa, agregámos, por esse motivo, uma bibliografia a fim que os leitores possam encontrar respostas para as suas questões específicas. Também foi propositadamente que não abordámos aspectos que tenham a ver com características físicas e com o processamento dos cereais, visto que tais questões já foram tratadas em pormenor noutras publicações da série Agrodok (nomeadamente nos números 13 e 18).Originalmente os celeiros foram criados para fornecer uma solução às secas que assolaram a região do Sahel, na África ocidental no decorrer dos anos '70. As precipitações foram muito escassas daí que as colheitas fossem muito pobres e as populações sofreram fome. Por toda a África ocidental organizações estrangeiras doaram cereais como ajuda de emergência a milhares de aldeias. Estas organizações humanitárias distribuíram os cereais às aldeias e aos agregados familiares com a ajuda de comités de aldeia constituídos à pressa. As populações consumiram estes cereais até esgotarem os seus stocks, sendo necessário recomeçar de novo todo o processo no ano seguinte.Durante os anos de seca no Sahel já tinham sido tomadas iniciativas com vista a melhorar estruturalmente a situação do aprovisionamento alimentar. A população começou a organizar-se e a criar celeiros, tendo como objectivo oferecer uma solução a longo prazo para o problema cerealífero. Os primeiros celeiros foram constituídos em 1974 em Burkina Faso. Posteriormente, o conceito difundiu-se numa grande parte da África ocidental e, mais tarde, na África austral.Todavia, nem todos estes celeiros foram coroados de êxito, sendo o principal problema enfrentado, em muitos dos casos, a debilidade da estrutura organizacional. Para que o sistema funcionasse era necessário que os membros cumprissem as suas responsabilidades, o que, muitas das vezes, era neglicenciado. Por exemplo, uma das situações enfrentada era a incapacidade dos agregados familiares para reembolsarem os seus empréstimos. Outra das situações deparada era o uso das rendas provenientes dos celeiros para fins que não tinham sido acordados pelos membros do grupo. O dinheiro era investido em actividades ou bens que não estavam directamente relacionados com o celeiro. Desta maneira a 2Os agregados familiares produzem estruturalmente, por períodos longos, de muitos anos seguidos, quantidades insuficientes para satisfazerem as suas necessidades básicas.Esta situação tem, normalmente, as seguintes consequências: ➤ Um déficit estrutural de cereais que obriga os agregados familiares, após terem consumido a sua própria colheita, a comprarem cereais no mercado local ou nos mercados regionais. Eles compram aos pequenos comerciantes que vendem nesses mercados. Estes vendedores compram os seus cereais a grandes comerciantes ou a agricultores que só produziram nas áreas excedentárias. Claro que os pequenos comerciantes querem tirar benefício da venda dos seus cereais e tal torna-se, relativamente, caro para as famílias que os compram. O perigo desta situação reside no facto dos agregados familiares correrem o risco de se encontrarem encurralados num ciclo de pobreza (a este respeito, ver a caixa 1). ➤ Os agregados familiares compram pequenas quantidades de cereais, no máximo alguns sacos de uma vez. Um membro de cada agregado familiar deve-se deslocar ao mercado para comprar os cereais. Tal leva muito tempo e torna-se caro. ➤ Ademais, o preço dos cereais aumenta com o decorrer da época e torna-se cada vez mais difícil encontrá-los. A melhor solução consiste, pois, em comprar os cereais e armazená-los no início da época, logo após a colheita. A potencialidade de formação de um celeiro numa região deficitária Os agregados familiares podem comprar os cereais colectivamente. Para tal, organizam-se entre si para constituírem um celeiro, que compra os cereais em várias etapas para todos os membros do agregado familiar. Alugam um camião a fim de os poder comprar fora da sua região. Isto permite-lhes pouparem muito tempo e dinheiro.Os agricultores não têm mais necessidade de comprarem os seus cereais aos vendedores, que devem tirar suficiente lucro da venda, de forma a cobrir os seus próprios custos. Os celeiros compram os cereais logo após a colheita. Nas áreas excedentárias, o seu preço, nessa altura, ainda é relativamente baixo. Mais tarde não cessará de aumentar.Numa área deficitária, os celeiros têm a vantagem de oferecerem aos agregados familiares uma maneira de comprarem ou de emprestarem cereais a preços relativamente baixos. Não necessitam mais de se deslocarem ao mercado para os comprar. Por esta razão dispõem de mais tempo para trabalhar nos seus próprios campos, o que, por sua vez, também aumenta a quantidade de cereais disponível na aldeia. Os aldeões poupam tempo, assim como dinheiro, quando compram os cereais ao celeiro da aldeia.Na África ocidental e austral, a maioria dos camponeses depende da produção agrícola de cereais para a sua subsistência. As culturas de mercado, como sejam o amendoim e o algodão não são praticáveis na maior parte destas regiões devido a serem assoladas por longos períodos de seca ou de precipitações irregulares. Como consequência, existe um risco muito maior de estes agregados familiares serem armadilhados num ciclo de pobreza. Uma tal pauperização torna-se, então, num problema estrutural para uma grande parte da população.O problema cerealífero é causado por uma abundância do produto no mercado, imediatamente após a colheita. Todos os camponeses vendem a sua produção na mesma época, o que baixa consideravelmente o preço do produto. Nos meses que se seguem à colheita, os camponeses começam a cultivar para a campanha seguinte. Durante todo este período, e até a colheita seguinte, as reservas de cereais tornam-se menores porque o celeiro não recebe novos aprovisionamentos. Por esta razão, à medida que o produto escasseia os preços sobem (quanto menor é a quantidade de cereais em stock tanto mais elevado é o preço dos cereais). Os preços são, então, muito mais elevados que imediatamente após a colheita.Os camponeses são obrigados a comprarem os seus cereais a um preço superior àquele a que venderam, imediatamente após a colheita. Esta situação causa um problema real de cash flow (fluxo de caixa) para estes agregados familiares, situação conhecida por ciclo rural de pobreza. Como consequência, são feitos poucos investimentos na cultura cerealífera. O rendimento da produção e as rendas provenientes da venda dos cereais são baixos, enquanto o preço de compra é muito elevado. Com o objectivo de permitir aos camponeses de investirem na produção, este ciclo vicioso deverá ser quebrado. Por isso, a organização de um celeiro nestas aldeias constitui uma boa oportunidade de melhorar o quotidiano dessas famílias.As características de uma área equilibrada situam-se entre as de uma área deficitária e as de área excedentária. Durante um ano médio, os agregados familiares de uma região equilibrada conseguem produzir cereais suficientes para auto-consumo. Por vezes, até se verifica um pequeno excedente, que pode ser comercializado.Contudo, pode acontecer que se verifique um déficit de cereais.Existem duas razões que provocam esta situação: ➤ Venda excessiva: alguns agregados familiares vendem quantidades excessivas de cereais depois da colheita, o que significa que nos finais da época se encontram perante um déficit. Nessa altura são obrigados a comprarem os cereais no mercado, a preços relativamente elevados ou a irem trabalhar para outros agricultores. ➤ Seca: de tempos a tempos, as áreas equilibradas são confrontadas com um nível de precipitações irregular e imprevisível. Tal pode conduzir a um déficit de cereais nessa área. Os agregados familiares deverão, pois, comprá-los no mercado, para complementar a sua própria produção. São muitos os camponeses que se devem assalariar a outros camponeses a fim de conseguirem obter uma renda. Esta circunstância causa uma redução do tempo que eles consagram ao seu próprio cultivo dos cereais, o que provoca um impacto negativo na colheita seguinte.A potencialidade de formação de um celeiro numa área equilibrada De forma a compensar os efeitos negativos de uma venda excessiva, o celeiro compra o excedente aos membros dos agregados familiares, imediatamente após a colheita. Antes da colheita seguinte, estes cereais são dados por empréstimo, de novo, aos agregados familiares, o que pode ser feito ao preço de custo. Desta forma o preço de venda da produção do agricultor não necessita de ser muito mais baixo do que o preço que o agricultor é obrigado a pagar para comprar os cereais adicionais, necessários à sua sobrevivência até a colheita seguinte. Tal reduz o cash flow negativo dos agregados familiares.Para atenuar os problemas relacionados com a seca, o celeiro compra os cereais nos anos de boa produção a um preço baixo. Procede-se, então, ao seu armazenamento com vista aos anos de seca. Nessa altura os cereais são emprestados aos agregados familiares ao preço de custo, ou vendidos noutro local ao preço de mercado. A vantagem reside no facto dos agricultores poderem adquirir os cereais a um baixo preço, ficando, portanto, com mais dinheiro para fazerem face a outras necessidades. Também podem investir mais tempo no trabalho dos seus próprios campos, o que aumenta a produção e as quantidades de cereais disponíveis na aldeia. A tal respeito ver o exemplo apresentado no parágrafo 2.4. De um modo geral nas regiões excedentárias a queda pluviométrica é suficiente para permitir aos agricultores cultivarem quantidades suficientes de cereais para a subsistência das suas famílias. Na maior parte dos anos, a colheita de cereais é sobejamente suficiente para alimentar os agregados familiares.Esta situação tem, normalmente, as seguintes consequências: ➤ Após a colheita, assiste-se a um excedente de cereais. Na medida em que a oferta é abundante, o preço dos cereais é baixo e os agricultores têm a tendência de venderem mais do que deviam.  Uma vez que se encontram organizados, os agricultores podem transportar e armazenar mais eficazmente os cereais e manter um stock de parte da colheita, aguardando o aumento dos preços. O celeiro tem a vantagem de poder oferecer uma grande quantidade de cereais ao mesmo tempo, o que permite aos agricultores de alugarem um camião e de transportarem os cereais para mercados distantes. Deste modo podem beneficiar dos preços elevados dos cereais, praticados noutras regiões.O celeiro aumenta, portanto, as receitas que podem ser obtidas a partir da produção dos cereais o que, por sua vez, permite aos agricultores de consagrarem mais tempo e meios ao trabalho dos seus campos, aumentando, desse modo, a produção na campanha agrícola seguinte.Agrodok 25 CeleirosNeste parágrafo apresentaremos um estudo de caso de uma área tipicamente equilibrada. A área pode conhecer, todavia, épocas de escassez: ➤ No período que precede a colheita, a que se chama soudure, durante os meses de Agosto e Setembro. São apenas os pequenos agricultores e alguns agricultores médios que experienciam um déficit, porque o seu aprovisionamento de cereais não é suficientemente grande para aguentar até à próxima colheita. ➤ Nos anos de fraca queda pluviométrica, o que sucede, mais ou menos, cada sete anos. A falta de cereais faz-se sentir em Abril ou Maio, durante a época das chuvas, quando se prepara a terra para a campanha agrícola seguinte.No caso da produção ser insuficiente para alimentar as suas famílias, os agricultores de San dispõem de poucas outras fontes de rendimento nas quais se podem apoiar. A cultura do amendoim ou do algodão já não é mais possível pois a região tornou-se cada vez mais árida a partir dos anos ´70. As outras opções disponíveis diminuem quer os rendimentos do agregado familiar, quer os investimentos que podem ser feitos para a campanha seguinte.As opções que se colocam ao agricultor são: ➤ vender o seu gado a um preço irrisório.➤ pedir um empréstimo de cereais aos seus vizinhos ou a um comerciante a um preço elevado. ➤ trabalhar para outros agricultores ou na cidade, a fim de conseguir obter rendimentos com os quais o agricultor poderá comprar cereais para a sua família.Depois da colheita seguinte, deverá vender os cereais a baixo preço, de modo a poder suportar a sua família. Em última instância, apenas os comerciantes ou os consumidores urbanos tirarão um benefício máximo dos cereais.Desta forma, os períodos de escassez de cereais forçam muitos agregados familiares a entrarem num ciclo de pobreza, tal como foi descrito na Caixa 1. Os agricultores investem menos tempo e energia no cultivo de cereais, o que resulta num fraco rendimento das culturas. Contudo, deve-se realçar que, na prática, todos os factores supramencionados não ocorrem simultaneamente e que nem todos os agregados familiares são afectados da mesma maneira. Tal significa que a utilidade de um celeiro pode ser menor na realidade do que em teoria!Os primeiros celeiros de San foram criados em 1985, pelos serviços estatais de extensão rural e pela missão, por ocasião de um período de seca. Originalmente o celeiro destinava-se a combater o ciclo de pobreza. A esse tipo de celeiros foi dado o nome de previdência. A reserva de cereais acumulada era posta à disposição dos agregados familiares para que os mesmos contassem com alimentação suficiente. Deste modo não tinham necessidade de ir comprar os cereais noutro local, a um preço relativamente elevado ou a procurar outras fontes de rendimento. Este sistema faz economizar muito tempo e dinheiro, o que permite aos agricultores cultivarem as suas terras. Deste modo os rendimentos de produção da próxima campanha agrícola da aldeia aumentam, e toda a gente, de um modo geral, beneficia.A situação no que concerne aos cereais em Bougouni é distinta da da região de San. Bougouni encontra-se situado numa região mais meridional do Mali, em que chove mais. Numa parte das terras procede-se à produção do algodão. Também existe mais terra disponível que em San. Trata-se de uma área excedentária, com potencial para produzir um excedente de cereais.dirigido a outras regiões e, portanto, estar na posse de informações sobre mercados, comerciantes, possibilidades de transporte, etc., de modo a se assegurar que os cereais irão ser vendidos.A potencialidade de criação de um celeiro em Bougouni De um modo geral necessitam-se das seguintes etapas para se passar do conceito à implementação: ➤ o conceito de celeiro: o ponto de partida ➤ uma aldeia ou grupo de agregados familiares solicita o celeiro ou efectua ele mesmo os preparativos necessários ➤ determinação do problema cerealífero característico da região. ➤ preparação da comunidade ➤ nomeação dos membros e do comité de direcção do celeiro ➤ o serviço de extensão agrícola fornece um apoio suplementar com vista à formação do celeiro➤ constituição da primeira reserva de cereais a partir dos depósitos pessoais efectuados pelos agricultores ou de uma doação dos serviços de extensão ➤ gestão quotidiana efectuada pelo comité de direcção.\"Cada viagem começa pelo primeiro passo\" (velho provérbio oriental).Tal também se aplica aos celeiros. Num determinado momento um grupo de agricultores tem a ideia de formar um tipo de celeiro. Tal iniciativa pode advir puramente de uma necessidade ou do desejo de se trabalhar mais eficazmente e de fazer reservas de alimentação. A ideia parte, muitas das vezes, dos serviços de extensão rural, que pode discutir essa ideia com os chefes da aldeia, mas ainda é melhor se os próprios aldeões se dirigirem às aldeias vizinhas para verem, por si mesmos, como funciona um celeiro. Desta maneira podem escutar as experiências das outras aldeias e aprender sobre as vantagens e desvantagens de um celeiro. A organização do celeiro Capítulo 3Caso a ideia pareça plausível, o grupo de agricultores começa a formar um celeiro. Ou, ainda mais provavelmente, entra em contacto com os serviços de extensão ou uma ONG, na medida que têm mais experiência e os meios para implementar a ideia. A iniciativa deve partir, claramente, de um grupo de agricultores ou de uma aldeia pois tal constitui um sinal de empenhamento colectivo, necessário para a criação de um celeiro. Os serviços de extensão ou a ONG fornecem, muitas vezes, a primeira reserva de cereais, fazem uma avaliação do pedido, em função dos seus próprios critérios e procedem à formação do comité de direcção.Quando uma aldeia ou comunidade entra em contacto com os serviços de extensão, estes começam por estudar a situação da aldeia ou da comunidade, para determinar se é favorável a formação do celeiro. Os extensionistas conhecem, normalmente, a aldeia, o que lhes permite, de um modo geral, apreciar bem a situação. Isto seria quando impossível para alguém de fora.São os seguintes os pontos mais importantes que os serviços de extensão devem tomar em conta:O nível educacional da comunidade É necessário que na aldeia existam, pelo menos, algumas pessoas que saibam ler e escrever e que poderão, desse modo, ocupar-se da administração do celeiro.Os aldeões devem ser capazes de cooperar entre si. Não devem existir conflitos entre os agregados familiares, as famílias alargadas ou os grupos étnicos. A aldeia não deve ser composta de um número elevado quer de grandes quer de pequenos agricultores. O grupo dominante deve ser constituído por agricultores médios. Um celeiro também requer um sentimento de solidariedade entre os agregados familiares -e todos os agregados devem poder assistir às reuniões. É lá que são tomadas as decisões respeitantes ao celeiro. Caso não haja muitos participantes na Quer a criação do celeiro seja uma iniciativa da comunidade, dos próprios agricultores ou parta do exterior, de uma ONG, o primeiro passo consiste em determinar qual é o problema cerealífero predominante na área (para uma informação mais pormenorizada, ver o parágrafo 2.3).Tal baseia-se no tipo de área, quer dizer se é: ➤ uma área deficitária ➤ uma área equilibrada ou ➤ uma área excedentária. A base de um celeiro é constituída pela reserva de cereais, que provém de origens variadas e também, por vezes, de uma combinação de origens distintas. A reserva pode ser constituída (ou reconstituída) através de compras efectuadas no mercado ou, também, em parte, pelos juros recebidos de empréstimos efectuados previamente, pelo resultado da última colheita ou um donativo recebido, por exemplo dos serviços de extensão.O problema é de saber quem vai fornecer o excedente de cereais? Os agregados familiares são muitas vezes pobres, sobretudo nas áreas deficitárias, sendo para eles impossível. O celeiro ainda não existe. A solução consiste em ir buscar os cereais fora da área. Os cereais podem ser oferecidos por diversas fontes, a saber: ➤ serviços de extensão ➤ missão ➤ organizações ou serviços nacionais de desenvolvimento ➤ organizações internacionais de desenvolvimentoOs membros do celeiro devem começar por decidir qual é o volume da reserva que o celeiro vai conter. Isso depende do objectivo do celeiro (a intenção é de garantir a segurança alimentar ou de fazer lucro?), do resultado da última colheita, do número de membros representados no celeiro e da quantidade de cereais disponível depois da colheita. Para determinar a quantidade a armazenar, a FAO utiliza o seguinte cálculo -estima que a necessidade média de cereais por pessoa, por ano é de 200 a 250 quilos. Caso o objectivo do celeiro seja de garantir a segurança alimentar, multiplicase o número de quilos necessários por cada pessoa, por ano, pelo número de membros, subtraindo a quantidade de cereais de que os membros dispõem. Também vale a pena informar-se junto de outras cooperativas ou celeiros na área para saber como é que determinam as suas reservas.Se se traduzir este cálculo numa fórmula, obtém-se a seguinte equação: O volume da reserva de cereais desejada (em quilos) = 250 Kg de cereais divididos por 12 meses, multiplicados pelo número de pessoas que sofrem de escassez de cereais e o número de meses com déficit.Ou, se calcularmos numa base semanal, dará: A quantidade da reserva desejada (em quilos) = 250 Kg divididos por 52 semanas multiplicado pelo número de pessoas que experienciam uma escassez e o número de semanas em que se sentirá o déficit.O volume da reserva de cereais:250 Kg/ 12 meses X número de pessoas X número de meses com déficit O volume da reserva de cereais:250Kg/ 52 semanas X número de pessoas X número de semanas com déficit O volume da reserva de cereais transforma-se ao longo do tempo e depende do resultado de colheitas precedentes, que determinam a quantidade disponível de alimentação e, portanto, de cereais, numa área específica.Os cereais começam a rarear antes de se ter efectuado a nova colheita. Muitos dos agregados familiares pediram cereais emprestados. Se a segunda colheita também der maus resultados, os agricultores não terão nenhuma reserva de cereais e, no ano seguinte, será difícil de conseguir tomá-los emprestados.O celeiro apenas poderá comprar cereais se tiver dinheiro em caixa. Se a procura é grande, os preços são altos, não se podendo, pois, comprar uma grande quantidade de cereais. E embora o celeiro tenha que reconstituir a sua reserva, apenas poderá comprar pequenas quantidades de cereais aos agregados familiares. Por seu lado, os agregados familiares também enfrentam uma escassez. O comité também não deverá emprestar muito, porque muitos dos agregados familiares não se encontram numa situação de reembolsar os empréstimos. Os celeiros debatem-se com a mesma situação, caso tenham pedido emprestados cereais aos serviços de extensão no decorrer de um mau ano. O preço dos cereais é elevado e são poucos os agregados familiares que dispõem de meios para pedi-los emprestados, mas o celeiro terá que reembolsar os serviços de extensão, por vezes com juros. Caso se sucedam vários anos de más colheitas, corre-se um maior risco de que alguns agregados familiares não sejam capazes de devolver os empréstimos contraídos ou os juros sobre os empréstimos efectuados e terão, como consequência, de ser excluídos do celeiro. Estes agregados familiares terão que saldar as suas dívidas antes de poderem, de novo, participar no celeiro.Felizmente que após a tempestade vem a bonança, quer dizer, que após um ou vários anos maus haverá um bom ano. Isto tem consequências para a reserva de cereais. O primeiro ano bom permite a um certo número de agregados familiares de reembolsarem uma parte das dívidas que têm com o celeiro e de pagarem também os juros correspondentes. A reserva de cereais pode ser, assim, restaurada no seu nível inicial. O segundo ano de boa colheita permite à maior parte dos agregados familiares de saldarem por completo as dívidas incorridas e pagarem todos os juros. A reserva ultrapassa, pois, o seu nível original. O comité pode, então, decidir vender uma parte dos cereais aos membros do agregado familiar ou nos mercados locais ou regionais. O celeiro ganha dinheiro, que poderá depositar num banco.Na teoria, a reserva de cereais de um celeiro bem gerido deveria crescer regularmente. No entanto, na prática, por vezes acontece que a reserva de cereais ou o montante de dinheiro que o celeiro tem na sua conta no banco diminui pouco a pouco. Esta diminuição da reserva de cereais provém, por vezes, da utilização do dinheiro do celeiro para outros fins, por exemplo para a compra de equipamento agrícola, destinado a uso colectivo. Também pode acontecer que o problema cerealífero não seja demasiado grave para justificar uma grande reserva.4 Gestão e actividades do celeiroPara que um celeiro funcione bem tem que ser bem administrado. Alguém tem que se ocupar do abastecimento do celeiro e dos créditos.Os membros têm sempre que poder ver qual a quantidade de cereais que o celeiro tem de reserva, quais são os membros que têm dívidas para com o celeiro e de quanto, etc. Esta informação é necessária para se poderem tomar as decisões acertadas, nos momentos oportunos. Por exemplo, se é possível vender parte da reserva no mercado ou qual é a parte da reserva que está disponível para ser vendida e qual é o preço mínimo a que se tem que vender para se obter lucros?A administração do celeiro é feita pelo secretário que pode ser assistido por um contabilista. Estas pessoas não são pagas por esse trabalho. Contudo, são incorridos custos como, por exemplo, para a compra de livros de registo e para a formação dos membros do comité. Estes custos são cobertos pelo celeiro ou por donativos recebidos de uma organização de desenvolvimento ou de serviços de extensão. quantidade suficiente de cereais na reserva do celeiro para se poderem efectuar empréstimos e isso requer um planeamento prévio. Uma das tarefas do secretário consiste em avaliar os pedidos de empréstimo. O critério mais importante a considerar é se o agricultor possui meios para poder restituir o empréstimo solicitado. Também se pode fixar um dia para se proceder ao reembolso dos empréstimos. Os reembolsos são feitos em espécie, o que reabastece a reserva do celeiro.A taxa de reembolso depende da organização do celeiro. Os membros de um celeiro bem organizado partilham um sentimento de solidariedade, têm todos como objectivo comum o bom funcionamento do celeiro. A pressão social obriga os membros a reembolsarem os seus empréstimos, caso tal seja possível. Caso um agregado familiar não restitua o seu empréstimo, isso tornar-se-á o assunto de má língua na aldeia e o agregado familiar pode ser admoestado pelo secretário ou pelo presidente, em nome de todo o grupo.Os membros de um celeiro que se encontra mal organizado não têm qualquer sentimento de solidariedade, visto que não estão tão envolvidos no projecto. Os membros tentam escapar ao reembolso dos empréstimos que lhes foram concedidos ou esperam para ver se os outros os vão pagar. No caso de um membro recusar a pagar, os outros também se recusarão. Podem, então, inventar desculpas para não se apresentarem no dia do pagamento. Para facilitar a tarefa de se conseguir obter os reembolsos, numa tal situação, o comité pode, eventualmente, propor que os pagamentos se efectuem em qualquer dia, em dinheiro e não em espécie, porque tal será muito mais fácil, não se dependendo do calendário agrícola. Para além do mais, não se tomará em consideração nem o peso nem a qualidade dos cereais. Caso necessário, o comité também pode aceitar receber os pagamentos em vários locais e não só num único local específico, para o efeito.Num ano bom, os agregados familiares reembolsam, geralmente, os empréstimos pedidos. Para além disso ainda pagam taxas de juros que podem variar entre entre os 20% e os 50%. Uma taxa de juros de 50%, o que corresponde a um aumento de 1 1/2 vezes da reserva no final do ano, quase nunca se verifica. Isto normalmente apenas se aplica em casos de celeiros que se debatem com dívidas devido a numerosos empréstimos concedidos.A taxa de reembolso depende igualmente do modo em que a comunidade ou o grupo se encontra organizado e das formas de autoridade em vigor. O reembolso, de um modo geral, normalmente é mais problemático em comunidades igualitárias do que em comunidades que tem uma autoridade central, largamente aceite, por exemplo um chefe ou uma instituição governamental. O celeiro apenas retira lucro da venda dos cereais nos anos médios. Após a colheita, dispõe de um fraco excedente que vende a um preço elevado alguns meses mais tarde, no mercado.O objectivo de um celeiro é de disponibilizar alimentação para os agregados familiares, a um preço inferior ao praticado pelos comerciantes de cereais, no mercado. O celeiro compra cereais a um baixo custo, podendo teoricamente vendê-los a um preço inferior ao praticado pelos comerciantes intermediários ou a qualquer vendedor decidido a tirar lucro.No entanto, o celeiro também tem despesas. Os agregados familiares têm que pagar as despesas incorridas pelo celeiro. É esta a razão pela qual têm que pagar juros sobre os empréstimos efectuados. Um celeiro bem organizado cobra uma taxa de juro de 15%. Um celeiro que se debate com dificuldades cobra uma taxa de juros de 50%. Para além de cobrir as despesas, este juro pode ser utilizado para aumentar a reserva de cereais. É impossível, no entanto, ao celeiro financiar outras actividades.  Os cereais são armazenados em depósitos que é necessário construir e manter, disso dependendo a conservação da qualidade dos cereais. É por isso que se deve prestar muita atenção à qualidade das infraestruras de armazenagem.Os cereais podem ser comidos por ratos, insectos (como a tristemente célebre broca grande do milho) ou pode apodrecer devido a ter apanhado humidade. Tal acontece caso as condições de armazenagem no depósito para o efeito sejam precárias. É preciso, pois, prestar muita atenção em que circunstâncias se procede à armazenagem. O Agrodok 31, Armazenagem de produtos agrícolas nas regiões tropicais, indica a melhor maneira de armazenar os cereais. É importante que os cereais sejam mantidos secos e a uma temperatura constante (adequada). Pode-se, também, seguir outros métodos, geralmente tradicionais, para proteger os cereais. Estes métodos são descritos no Agrodok 18, Protection of stored cereal grains and pulses/la prtotection des céréales et des légumineuses stockées (ainda não está publicada a versão portuguesa). Não utilize, nunca, pesticidas nos cereais que se destinam ao consumo humano, pois tal pode provocar uma intoxicação alimentar.Também pode acontecer que apenas uma parte dos agregados familiares reembolsa os seus empréstimos. Este é o custo de maior monta que um celeiro tem que suportar. Os reembolsos não efectuados ocorrem, muitas vezes, em anos em que a colheita se perdeu. Os membros de um celeiro \"bem organizado\" reembolsarão os seus empréstimos depois de uma boa colheita. O único problema é que o celeiro apenas dispõe de uma reserva limitada durante os anos maus. De facto, os celeiros deveriam completar a sua reserva nesses anos, mas tal é difícil. Nessa altura os cereais escasseiam e são caros. Têm que ser comprados fora da aldeia. Ademais, o celeiro não recebe nenhuma taxa de juros durante todo o ano e teoricamente, portanto, deverá pedir juros duplicados no ano seguinte. Isto tem que ser explicado aos membros.Os reembolsos em falta são muitas das vezes por parte dos pequenos agricultores. São eles que necessitam mais de cereais e, por esta razão, pedem emprestados cereais praticamente todos os anos. No entanto, eles também são os que têm menos capacidade de reembolsarem os empréstimos efectuados. Visto que não restituirão os cereais correm o risco de serem excluídos do celeiro ficando, de novo, dependentes do mercado. Reembolsos em falta também ocorrem quando os membros não têm um sentimento de solidariedade. Eles só reembolsam os seus empréstimos caso outros também já o terem feito. O facto de existirem reembolsos em falta enfraquece a capacidade do celeiro podendo, eventualmente, até causar o seu encerramento. Tratase de um problema difícil de resolver. É absolutamente impossível para os pequenos agricultores de reembolsarem os seus empréstimos. A falta de solidariedade numa aldeia é difícil de controlar, mas pode limitar-se através do incremento da participação dos membros no celeiro. Por exemplo, pedindo aos membros para ajudar a construir o depósito de armazenagem do cereal, dando a cada membro tarefas bem definidas, fazendo-os recordar amiúde que é em seu comum interesse fazer com que o celeiro funcione bem e envolvendo todos, o mais possível, na tomada de decisão do celeiro.O termo marketing refere-se a actividades que visam a venda de um produto com lucro, aos clientes, os consumidores. As actividades de marketing de um celeiro revestem-se de particular relevância numa área excedentária.A estratégia de marketing numa área excedentária pode ser direccionada para a venda no mercado de parte da reserva do celeiro. As actividades de marketing não têm a mesma relevância para celeiros situados em áreas equilibradas ou deficitárias. Estes celeiros existem, principalmente, para garantir a segurança alimentar aos seus membros. A venda dos seus excedentes (temporários) poderá resultar mais tarde num déficit.O objectivo dos celeiros baseados num excedente, e dos seus membros, claro, é de vender os seus cereais ao preço mais alto possível. Este tipo de celeiro funciona como uma empresa de comercialização. O valor adicional deste celeiro é de permitir aos produtores de comercializarem os seus cereais colectivamente. Esta organização de produtores de cereais reforça a posição dos seus membros no mercado e permite-lhes vender os seus cereais a preços mais elevados (competitivos).A obtenção de um bom preço para os cereais depende de um certo número de factores:➤ oferta e procura/ local de venda ➤ quantidade/qualidade ➤ comprador de cereais/posição na negociação Iremos examinar sucintamente estes pontos.A Uma outra solução consiste em armazenar os cereais. Os cereais conservar-se-ão bem e os preços talvez aumentem, uma vez que a oferta, devido a uma boa colheita, diminuirá de novo. De qualquer maneira, deve-se ponderar quais são os custos da armazenagem em relação a um possível aumento do preço dos cereais. A armazenagem dos cereais não é isenta de alguns riscos. Custa dinheiro e os cereais podem ser danificados devido a humidade ou a pragas. Ademais não existe nenhuma garantia que os preços aumentarão. Estes factores têm que ser levados em consideração antes de se tomarem decisões no que concerne ao armazenamento dos cereais.A quantidade e a qualidade Na medida que os agricultores trabalham conjuntamente no celeiro, a quantidade comercializável de cereais aumenta. Um produto em grandes quantidades vende-se geralmente a um melhor preço e a um menor custo. Também é mais interessante para o comprador, pois isso evita-lhe ter que negociar com um grande número de pequenos vendedores. Para mais, o custo total da venda dos cereais é menor devido ao facto que um certo número de custos fixos são repartidos sobre um volume maior do produto (economias de escala).O comprador / a posição na negociação Um celeiro detém uma posição de negociação mais forte que um agricultor individual. Por vezes os comerciantes intermediários pressionam os agricultores a venderem a um preço baixo. Uma organização de agricultores encontra-se numa posição de eliminar estas diferenças de poder. Graças ao seu tamanho, o celeiro resiste mais facilmente às pressões dos comerciantes intermediários, obtendo, muitas vezes, preços atractivos. Na sua qualidade de colectivo, o celeiro também se encontra numa posição de se dirigir directamente a um comprador maior (por exemplo, uma padaria ou uma destiladora) e fazer um acordo de fornecimento de cereais a um preço fixo (agricultura contratual).Tal como já vimos, a organização num celeiro, capacita os produtores de cereais com meios para venderem os seus cereais a um preço mais elevado. O poder do celeiro reside na força da sua organização. A sustentabilidade da organização e o engajamento dos seus membros, revestem-se pois, da maior importância. Os celeiros não funcionam da mesma maneira para toda a gente. Existem diferenças entre o modo de instalar um celeiro assim como no que respeita à participação da população. A criação e o funcionamento de um celeiro dependem do nível de organização e da autoridade que lhe será atribuída. Faz-se uma distinção aqui entre os grupos tribais e os grupos pertencentes a um Estado-nação.Tradicionalmente os grupos ou comunidades tribais não pertencem a um Estado. Estas aldeias ou grupos de concessões muitas vezes não são tributáveis de nenhum imposto ao chefe. Os agregados familiares onde se encontram as pessoas mais idosas determinam por si mesmas o que elas fazem. Como consequência, o chefe da aldeia não usufrui de muita autoridade. No entanto, estes grupos têm uma tradição democrática.Os serviços de extensão deparam com mais dificuldades para introduzirem um celeiro numa aldeia deste tipo. Têm dificuldade em encontrar pessoas que possam chefiar e que contem com uma base ampla de apoio por parte da população de forma a se organizar um conselho de aldeia e a conseguir fazer os habitantes trabalharem em conjunto. O comité dos cereais tem pouca autoridade.Por esta razão podem surgir problemas com o reembolso dos empréstimos e com a participação: ➤ o comité tem pouca autoridade sobre os anciãos ➤ os anciãos têm pouca autoridade sobre os jovens ➤ os jovens adultos formam os seus agregados familiares imediatamente após o matrimónio pois isso lhes garante uma maior segurança no futuro ➤ os agregados familiares são mais pequenos e, portanto, mais numerosos ➤ por isso é mais difícil controlar os reembolsos ➤ os anciãos não têm o controlo central sobre os cereais.Quando se cria um celeiro nas áreas tribais tem que se tomar em consideração os seguintes pontos: ➤ o início é difícil; ➤ as faltas nos reembolsos ocorrem frequentemente; ➤ os custos são elevados; ➤ a taxa de juros é elevada; ➤ existe o risco de se recusar empréstimos adicionais a muitos agregados familiares devido a estes não satisfazerem as condições.Contudo tal conduz, a longo prazo, a um processo de selecção que reforça o celeiro. São numerosos os agricultores que deixam de participar mas os que continuam participam activamente e comprometem-se verdadeiramente com o celeiro. É necessário tempo para que a ideia de um celeiro crie raízes. Para começar é preciso que apareçam chefes e que estes tomem a iniciativa. Caso apareça alguém evidenciando capacidade de chefia e que inspira confiança, os outros membros participarão mais activamente, quer sejam jovens ou velhos. A participação no celeiro expande-se sobre uma base de igualdade.Nesta situação, o celeiro muitas das vezes passa de uma função de previdência para a de um banco cujo objectivo é fazer lucro. A reserva serve para a compra e venda de cereais. O dinheiro desempenha um papel cada vez mais importante. Esta ascensão apenas poderá dar-se caso as aldeias receberem os conselhos dos serviços de extensão. Caso contrário, a organização geralmente permanece fraca sendo os resultados medíocres. A participação é importante porque as pessoas são \"seres aprendizes\". A aprendizagem constitui uma componente essencial de mudança e de actividades de desenvolvimento. A base de qualquer aprendizagem reside na interacção de uma pessoa com o ambiente que o rodeia. Os processos de modernização e de desenvolvimento são processos em que se aprende a viver em conjunto com as pessoas e o mundo que nos rodeia. Se as pessoas aprenderem a viver em harmonia, estará então, estabelecida a base para a expressão de um potencial humano e para a realização geral do bem-estar entre a população. É por isso que o desenvolvimento apenas se poderá efectuar se as pessoas participarem activamente no processo.Apesar das evidentes vantagens das abordagens baseadas sobre a participação e os seus resultados positivos, ainda se trata de um objectivo difícil de realizar na prática. Os principais obstáculos à abordagem baseada na participação dividem-se em duas categorias:Obstáculos internos: dimensões sócio-culturais ➤ São numerosos os países que no passado foram colonizados e apresentam uma orientação visível para o Ocidente. Como resultado disso, são muitas as pessoas que denotam pouca confiança nas suas próprias capacidades e potencialidades e se tornaram extremamente dependentes do mundo ocidental. Os governos e as organizações internacionais reforçam, muitas das vezes, esta tendência. ➤ A estrutura repousa, por vezes, sobre uma elite tradicional ou sobre uma estrutura dominante que impede a participação de grupos importantes da comunidade. Trata-se, geralmente, das mulheres, dos jovens e das camadas sociais mais pobres. ➤ Muitas das vezes não existem as competências de gestão e de direcção necessárias para uma nova organização ou actividade. ➤ O conhecimento, poder, acesso à ajuda, estatuto e saúde encontramse divididos de forma desigual e contrariam as tentativas de democratização e de participação.➤ A participação pode ser difícil ou até mesmo perigosa, caso o clima político não permita uma abertura, expressão de críticas ou a formação de grupos de interesse. ➤ Para um governo central a participação pode ser encarada como perigosa, na medida em que o poder e a tomada de decisões são delegados da autoridade central para margens exteriores ao sistema.Os sistemas políticos e administrativos destinados a manter o poder e a tomada de decisão no centro, contrariam, pois, a participação e a democratização.Para que um celeiro funcione bem, é preciso que conte com o apoio da aldeia. Os aldeões têm que estar convencidos da sua importância. O envolvimento no celeiro é difícil de medir. Pode-se pedir aos aldeões para fazerem uma contribuição pessoal, por exemplo: ➤ construindo um local destinado ao armazenamento dos cereais; os aldeões ajudarão a construir um telheiro. ➤ contribuindo para a reserva dos cereais; a aldeia fornecerá uma parte da reserva de cereais.A contribuição para a reserva de cereais pode ser proveniente tanto de agregados familiares individuais como de um campo comunitário:Uma grande parte dos agregados familiares têm reservas muito diminutas de cereais, nomeadamente, durante um mau ano. Para além disso, os agregados familiares são diferentes uns dos outros. Alguns têm muitas bocas a alimentar e pouca terra. Outros têm muitos cereais e poucas bocas a alimentar. É pois, difícil, de determinar qual a quantidade com que cada agregado familiar deve contribuir. Na prática, pede-se aos agregados familiares de decidirem eles mesmos sobre a sua contribuição. Os agregados deverão dar um excedente de cereais, como \"solidariedade\" para com a aldeia. Tal constitui uma base fraca. Na prática apenas os agregados mais prósperos dão um excedente de cereais tratando-se, mesmo assim, de uma quantidade limitada.As contribuições também podem ser provenientes de um campo comunitário. Geralmente, apenas os grupos comunitários possuem um campo deste tipo. São os jovens da aldeia que o trabalham quando terminam de se ocupar dos seus próprios campos.Na prática a colheita deste campo não é utilizada pelo celeiro. Os jovens usam esses cereais para uma cerimónia ou celebração sendo, portanto, utilizados para fazer cerveja. É difícil de guardar estes cereais.Outro factor é que os jovens não têm influência suficiente no celeiro. Elas podem fornecer os cereais mas o controlo sobre a sua utilização cabe aos anciãos.As contribuições pessoais na prática são, portanto, limitadas. Consistem em algumas centenas de quilos de cereais ou, no máximo, uma tonelada. Esta reticência manifesta-se particularmente nas regiões onde a população, por costume, recebe cereais dos serviços de extensão ou da missão. É difícil de quebrar esta política de donativos, mas existem métodos que visam o aumento das contribuições pessoais. Os serviços de extensão devem começar por não conceder mais créditos. Podem decidir, por exemplo, duplicar a contribuição das aldeias. Se uma aldeia recusar, não receberá mais cereais.Se o celeiro é criado a partir de fora, corre-se o risco de ter sempre uma organização medíocre. O que se pede à população é apenas de fornecer um pequena contribuição e desse modo, tem pouco a perder caso o celeiro não funcione bem. Os agregados familiares não se sentem suficientemente envolvidos no celeiro. Ademais, as contribuições sendo fracas, os habitantes não sentem a necessidade de se organizarem. Não há nenhum chefe que se imponha, não há nenhuma decisão a tomar a propósito da gestão dos cereais, etc. Em vez disso, os agregados familiares esperam que se lhes forneça cereais e não trabalham em conjunto.Tal cabe, muitas das vezes, aos serviços de extensão, às missões ou às organizações de desenvolvimento que criam os celeiros. A iniciativa vem, pois, do exterior, mas a ideia é que os agregados familiares continuem com o projecto. Os serviços de extensão tentam envolver os aldeões no celeiro e de os ajudar a fazerem o seu \"próprio\" projecto.Com este fim, serve-se de chamados métodos participativos -o extensionista deverá adoptar uma atitude 'participativa\". Deverá dar aos aldeões a responsabilidade do projecto. É necessário que sigam uma formação adicional, devido que até ao presente os serviços de extensão apenas efectuavam trocas num sentido -determinavam as necessidades do agricultor, sendo a iniciativa deste muito restrita. Os serviços de extensão, em princípio, fornecem informações sobre assuntos técnicos como, por exemplo, a quantidade de adubos a utilizar. É fácil de fornecer este tipo de informação a partir do exterior. Mas na maioria dos países, os governos e os organismos estrangeiros compreenderam, felizmente, que não se tratava necessariamente da maneira mais eficaz de fornecer ajuda.A experiência mostrou que um celeiro tem probabilidades de ser bem sucedido caso os serviços de extensão transfiram a responsabilidade do celeiro para os próprios aldeões. Eles têm, então, a possibilidade de expressar a sua opinião e de serem escutados, de tomarem as suas próprias decisões e de, finalmente, fazerem funcionar o celeiro. Tal exige uma mudança de orientação do extensionista, do governo e das organizações estrangeiras de ajuda.Este capítulo apresenta algumas experiências e exemplos concretos. Os exemplos são classificados segundo o problema cerealífero da região que determina em grande parte o funcionamento do celeiro (ver igualmente o capítulo 1). A apresentação destas experiências segue, tanto quanto possível, a mesma ordem das etapas de organização apresentadas no capítulo 2: ➤ o conceito de celeiro: o ponto de partida ➤ uma aldeia ou grupo de agregados familiares solicita o celeiro ou efectua ele mesmo os preparativos necessários. ➤ determinação do problema cerealífero característico da região. ➤ preparação da comunidade. ➤ nomeação dos membros e do comité de direcção do celeiro.➤ apoio e formação adicionais organizados pelo serviço de extensão. ➤ constituição da primeira reserva de cereais. ➤ gestão quotidiana.Não descreveremos cada etapa em detalhe, por duas razões: os autores não viveram eles mesmos estas experiências, não dispondo, portanto, de informações concernentes a cada etapa; para reduzir o tamanho deste livrinho optaram por fazer uma selecção das informações mais interessantes. Nos quatro parágrafos seguintes apresentamos um relatório das experiências em quatro regiões diferentes, a saber: 6.1 A região de San (Mali) exemplo de uma área equilibrada. 6.2 A região de Bougouni (Mali), exemplo de uma área excedentária. 6.3 A região de Monze (Zâmbia), exemplo de uma área equilibrada. 6.4 A região de Sesheke (Zâmbia), exemplo de uma área deficitária.Determinação do nível de produção de cereais Nos anos normais, a colheita é suficiente para alimentar a população e os agregados familiares encontram-se, muitas das vezes, numa posição de poder vender uma pequena quantidade excedentária dos seus produtos no mercado. Contudo, esta região conhece por vezes períodos de déficit, em anos em que a precipitação foi demasiado baixa, ou em que a produção foi muito diminuta, não sendo suficiente para satisfazer as necessidades da família até à colheita seguinte. San, constitui, pois, um exemplo de área equilibrada.Para uma descrição mais aprofundada dos diversos problemas cerealíferos e a forma de os determinar, ver parágrafo 2.4.Os primeiros celeiros de San foram criados em 1985, durante um período de seca. Tratava-se, pois, de se encontrar uma solução para minimizar a pobreza originada pela seca e de proporcionar comida suficiente para alimentar os agregados familiares na área.A única função dos celeiros era de servir de bancos de previdência.A iniciativa da criação dos celeiros partiu da missão católica e do governo. Cada uma dessas organizações tinha os seus próprios métodos de estabelecer um celeiro. O primeiro celeiro foi criado pela missão, pois tinha mais contactos com os habitantes da região do que o governo e trabalhava mais de perto com eles.A missão católica em San tem o nome de Acção Social e desenvolve trabalho nas mesmas áreas que os serviços de extensão, sendo, deste modo, confrontada com os mesmos problemas cerealíferos. A partir de 1985 a missão ocupou-se de cerca de 30 celeiros que transferiu para os serviços de extensão em 1989. Em 1999, um ano de seca, a missão recomeçou a instalar os seus próprios celeiros. Em 1998, supervisou cerca de 30 celeiros, que tinham tanto uma função de previdência, cujo objectivo principal era de garantir a segurança alimentar, como de bancos, com o objectivo de fazer lucro.A missão dispõe de menos meios e pessoal para fazer funcionar um celeiro que os serviços de extensão. A condição imposta para criar os celeiros era que a aldeia constituísse o seu próprio comité. A missão não podia fazer parte dos comités. Na prática, os membros do comité eram, frequentemente, antigos estudantes da escola agrícola. A missão organizou cursos para os membros do comité. Ao princípio estes cursos eram grátis, mas mais tarde foi cobrada uma taxa de modo a incentivar os participantes. A missão também organizou reuniões para os dirigentes dos celeiros, para lhes proporcionar a oportunidade de discutirem a evolução dos seus celeiros. Estas reuniões estimulavam uma participação activa no seio dos celeiros.Os serviços de extensão do governo do Mali têm uma estrutura hierárquica, funcionando numa abordagem \"topo-base\". Os celeiros estabelecidos pelo governo geralmente tem um carácter de previdência. Em 1989 os serviços de extensão receberam a ajuda de uma organização não-governamental holandesa, a SNV -Stichting Nederlandse Vrijwilligers (Fundação de Voluntários Holandeses). A SNV enviou um cooperante a quem foram atribuídas três tarefas importantes: ➤ ensinar métodos participativos aos extensionistas ➤ apoiar a elaboração de materiais de informação ➤ dar assistência à gestão administrativa central dos celeiros.A aldeia tinha que solicitar a criação de um celeiro junto dos serviços de extensão. A iniciativa tinha, pois, que partir da aldeia. O princípio de base era que sem um empenhamento real dos habitantes da aldeia, o celeiro não poderia ter sucesso. Normalmente é o chefe da aldeia a pessoa que apresenta o pedido por escrito aos serviços de extensão. Esses, por seu turno, decidem se a aldeia em questão satisfaz as condições necessárias para a criação de um celeiro.O conselho da aldeia reúne-se algumas vezes para dar uma imagem mais precisa sobre o que é um celeiro. Explica aos seus habitantes como funciona um celeiro, as razões da sua criação, os direitos e as responsabilidades dos que aí participam e quem o dirige.Cabem ao conselho da aldeia as seguintes tarefas: ➤ a nomeação do comité do celeiro (tal como explicaremos no próximo parágrafo) ➤ a tomada de decisões importantes respeitantes ao celeiro.As decisões são tomadas aquando dos períodos decisivos da campanha agrícola. Durante períodos de escassez, que no Mali se chamam períodos de soudure, devem-se tomar decisões respeitantes a: ➤ o volume da reserva de cereais, ➤ as faltas previstas nos agregados familiares, ➤ a avaliação dos agregados familiares que têm dívidas para com o celeiro, ➤ o volume dos empréstimos a serem contraídos pelos agregados familiares, ➤ os acordos respeitantes às datas de empréstimos.Logo após a colheita, têm que se tomar decisões sobre: ➤ o volume real da colheita fornecida, ➤ eventuais reembolsos dos agregados familiares, ➤ as datas dos reembolsos.Depois dos reembolsos terem sido pagos, têm que ser tomadas decisões sobre: ➤ a determinação do volume da reserva de cereais do celeiro; ➤ a determinação da necessidade de comprar ou de vender os cereais.No caso de o celeiro ter um excedente de cereais, os mesmos serão vendidos. É preciso, pois, decidir sobre: ➤ a quem se irá vender os cereais, aos agregados familiares membros ou no mercado. ➤ o preço de venda dos cereais.No caso de o celeiro ter um déficit de cereais, têm que se tomar decisões sobre aonde vender os cereais e a que preço.O comité é escolhido pelo conselho da aldeia.  Contudo, era difícil para o governo de trabalhar \"em espécie\". Isso obriga a comprar os cereais no mercado e depois transportá-los para a aldeia. Os reembolsos em espécie também colocavam problemas de gestão. Os serviços de extensão deviam vir buscar os cereais e verifi-car a sua qualidade. Decidiram, então, conceder créditos monetários e os celeiros podiam, pois, comprar os cereais no mercado. Os créditos monetários apresentam também uma outra vantagem: o celeiro aprende, assim, a gerir o dinheiro.A obtenção de uma reserva disponibilizada pelo intermediário da missão: do donativo às contribuições equivalentes A missão começou a formar os celeiros em 1985, como resposta à fome, que se expandiu largamente nessa época. As primeiras reservas de cereais eram constituídas pelos donativos da missão. Mas foi difícil assegurar a sobrevivência desses primeiros celeiros.Em 199l, um ano de seca, a missão recomeçou a formar celeiros. Criou-os em 60 aldeias num total de cerca de l20 paróquias. Com o decorrer do tempo, cerca de 40 continuaram a funcionar. Em 199l utilizavam-se ainda métodos tradicionais, nomeadamente, créditos na forma de espécie ou de dinheiro. Um aspecto novo era que os celeiros podiam comprar cereais a um preço de 50 f CFA por quilo e tinham que o reembolsar à missão ao preço de 62,5 f CFA/Kg. A missão parou de conceder créditos em 1992. A partir de então, as aldeias deviam assegurar as suas próprias reservas. A missão duplicava, então, a quantidade. A missão duplicava, também, as reservas adicionais. O seu volume era, normalmente, pequeno, na ordem de algumas centenas de quilos até um máximo de mil quilos.A determinação do volume da reserva de cereais Em San, o volume das reservas de cereais baseia-se nas normas da FAO (ver capítulo 3), que considera que as necessidades em cereais por pessoa se situam entre 200 e 250 quilos por ano. No período que precede à colheita, considera-se que 1/3 da população sofre de uma escassez durante 4 meses do ano. Se cada pessoa tem uma necessidade de 200 a 250 quilos de cereais por ano e se existe um déficit durante 4 meses do ano, o celeiro deverá, pois, ter uma reserva de 1/3 da quantidade da necessidade anual de que cada pessoa que experiencia um período de déficit.O capítulo 3 propôs a seguinte fórmula, a fim de determinar o volume das reservas: 250 Kg de cereais, divididos por 12 meses, multiplicados pelo número de pessoas sofrendo da falta de cereais, multiplicados pelo número de meses que dura a falta de cereais.Segundo estes cálculos, são as seguintes as reservas necessárias em San: se se considera que cada pessoa tem uma necessidade de 240 Kg de cereais ao ano, então durante um período de falta de 4 meses, as necessidades de cada pessoa que sofre uma falta será de 60 Kg. Partese, pois, do princípio que terá que se manter uma reserva de 20 Kg adicionais de cereais por pessoa, tomando em conta toda a população da aldeia servida pelo celeiro. A ideia subjacente é que 1/3 dos agregados familiares são pequenos agricultores que não possuem terra suficiente para se alimentarem ao longo de todo o ano.O volume das reservas de cereais diminui com o decorrer do tempo. Em San, por exemplo, todos os celeiros arrancaram com 10 toneladas de cereais. Em 1996 constatou-se que a reserva média dos celeiros tinha descido para 6 toneladas. Estes celeiros reembolsaram os seus empréstimos aos serviços de extensão. Mas eles utilizaram os restantes cereais para outros fins, como por exemplo para reparar o tecto da mesquita, ou para instalar outros serviços comunitários. O comité também se serviu do dinheiro do celeiro para financiar as suas próprias despesas de transporte, as visitas dos seus convidados, etc. Desta maneira as reservas diminuíram pouco a pouco.A redução dos stocks do celeiro constitui um perigo: corre-se o risco de não se dispor de mais reservas para cobrir as faltas durante os anos de seca. Alguns dos agregados familiares serão, de novo, constrangidos a comprar os cereais no mercado, ou de ir trabalhar para agricultores ricos.A primeira razão é que a população não considera o celeiro como uma prioridade absoluta. Um buraco no tecto da mesquita ou da igreja, ou num poço têm mais importância, pelo menos para uma parte da população. No decorrer da primeira fase da formação do celeiro, a população apenas tem uma escolha a fazer, ter ou não o celeiro. Quase não se consideram as outras prioridades eventuais.O \"problema\" cerealífero se calhar é menos grave do que os serviços de extensão pensam. A teoria diverge, muitas vezes, da realidade: numa área deficitária ou numa área equilibrada, aquando de um ano normal, o nível de produção de cereais não é igual para todos os agregados familiares. Os agregados médios não têm necessidade de um celeiro durante esses anos. Eles têm cereais suficientes nos seus próprios celeiros, ou possuem dinheiro para os comprar no mercado. Aquando de um ano normal, apenas os pequenos agricultores se debatem com falta de cereais e, necessitam, pois, do celeiro. Trata-se, frequentemente, de jovens agricultores que ainda não estabeleceram a sua propriedade, ou pessoas vítimas de enfermidades ou de algum infortúnio.Apenas num ano de seca todos os agregados familiares têm necessidade do celeiro. No entanto, tal apenas acontece uma vez em cada sete anos. Durante o restante período os agregados familiares médios realmente não necessitam do celeiro. Por isso, têm menos razões para consagrarem muito tempo ao celeiro.Por outro lado, os estabelecimentos agrícolas de tamanho médio encontram-se, normalmente, nas mãos de agricultores de meia-idade. Eles encontram-se ligados à ideia tradicional que lhes cabe a responsabilidade pela segurança, a longo prazo, do agregado familiar. O acesso a um armazém/telheiro cheio acrescenta-lhes prestígio.Os jovens pensam mais em termos de curto prazo. Ainda não desenvolveram a ideia de investirem no futuro. Eles também querem que o seu trabalho seja remunerado imediatamente. Tal não está em con-cordância com o princípio do celeiro segundo o qual se troca trabalho voluntário por cereais baratos. É por esta razão que os jovens se encontram sub-representados nos comités dos celeiros.Teoricamente é o conselho da aldeia que gere o celeiro e deve reunir-se em períodos cruciais durante a campanha agrícola de modo a se tomarem decisões importantes. O comité faz um relatório ao conselho da aldeia que deve estar ao corrente da situação do celeiro. Os membros também são informados.Contudo, a realidade é diferente. O conselho da aldeia muitas das vezes não é muito activo e a participação é limitada. Os membros não estão bem informados sobre o estatuto do celeiro. O comité convoca o conselho da aldeia e faz propostas. O conselho aprova quase sempre as propostas do comité.Os membros do comité desempenham o seu trabalho numa base de voluntariado. Tal constitui, simultaneamente, a força e a fraqueza do celeiro. Os membros do comité desempenham o seu trabalho por sentido de dever. Eles não querem trair a confiança dos membros. No entanto, a administração do celeiro deixa muitas vezes a desejar devido ao facto que os membros do comité nem sempre efectuam as suas tarefas como deveria ser. Casos há em que os livros de registo desaparecem ou não se encontram devidamente preenchidos. Também faltam dados de base sobre os celeiros.Quer dizer, quando os aldeões têm: ➤ boas relações entre eles; ➤ um comité activo; ➤ não integrem demasiados agregados familiares pobres.Um outro elemento importante em San, é que o serviço de extensão funciona bem, contribuindo para o desenvolvimento dos membros do celeiro. Também supervisa os reembolsos. Os extensionistas verificam as contas e o comité é responsável perante eles.A maioria dos celeiros na região de San funciona bastante bem, reembolsando os seus empréstimos aos serviços de extensão. Alguns funcionam mesmo muito bem. São os celeiros previdência que têm uma taxa de juros relativamente baixa -30% para os seus empréstimos que vendem os seus excedentes aos agregados familiares a um baixo preço.Um pequeno número destes celeiros transformou-se em \"bancos\". A venda do seu excedente de cereais ocupa um lugar importante. Eles compram e vendem com o objectivo de obterem lucro. O que é surpreendente é que estes bancos se desenvolveram nas aldeias onde os celeiros não funcionavam bem, no início. Havia muitas pessoas nessas aldeias que não reembolsavam os seus empréstimos e perderam, deste modo, o direito a receber um empréstimo. O celeiro teve, pois, que encontrar uma outra forma de utilizar o seu excedente de cereais.Existe uma segunda razão para esta transformação: os celeiros que funcionavam mal recebiam créditos financeiros para assegurar a sua sobrevivência e serviam-se deles para ganhar dinheiro. Paralelamente, os serviços de extensão governamentais começaram a conceder créditos sob a forma de cereais. De início, o governo fornecia a reserva em espécie, mas tal colocava problemas práticos (ver o parágrafo intitulado \"a reserva de cereais\", anteriormente neste capítulo). O governo decidiu rapidamente distribuir os créditos em dinheiro, o que permitiu aos celeiros de se desenvolverem em formas de cooperação, que podiam realizar um pequeno lucro.Celeiros criados pelas missões Aquando da criação dos celeiros, a missão depositava metade das reservas totais colectadas. Este sistema estimulava os celeiros a tomarem mais iniciativas. Constata-se que estes celeiros se encontram melhor organizados do que os que trabalham a partir de donativos.É preciso tempo para que um celeiro deste tipo crie raízes. Apenas após um período de um ano alguns dos celeiros são bem sucedidos. Também há alguns celeiros que fracassam. Este começo relativamente difícil advém, em grande parte, do facto de que eles recebem um apoio mais limitado ao início. A missão não tem um extensionista pronto a consagrar muito do seu tempo a formar o conselho da aldeia ou a ajudar a eleger os membros do comité, etc.O aumento da reserva de cereais para cerca de 10 toneladas por celeiro demonstra o sucesso deste método. Vários celeiros começaram a fazer comércio a fim de obterem um lucro. O comité transformou uma parte das reservas em dinheiro e depois serviu-se desta quantia para fazer comércio. Os membros do comité compraram os cereais a um baixo preço e revenderam-nos a um preço elevado. Procederam da mesma forma em relação a outros produtos, embora não disponhamos de dados referentes a esses produtos. Não se sabe também exactamente como se procedeu à repartição dos lucros entre os membros individuais.Este desenvolvimento segundo o qual os celeiros se enfocam mais em obter um lucro começou por volta de 1995. Isto não é fácil de explicar. Em parte a transformação é estimulada pelos jovens. Eles querem ver o seu trabalho recompensado monetariamente. Eles não vêem o valor de uma reserva de cereais \"adormecidos\". Um pré-requisito para que um celeiro evolua num banco é que a própria missão possua um banco no qual os celeiros possam depositar o seu dinheiro. Este dinheiro pode ser retirado facilmente. O banco da missão é um lugar seguro para guardar o dinheiro. A evidência do sucesso dos celeiros é dada pelo facto que uma grande parte do capital do banco da missão (cerca da metade), provém dos celeiros.Não se sabe exactamente quais são os celeiros que continuam a dar prioridade ao seu papel de previdência e quais os que evoluem num banco. Tal encontra-se relacionado, possivelmente, com a quantia de dinheiro que circula na região. Nas regiões auto-suficientes, situadas longe do mercado, o celeiro terá, predominantemente, uma função de previdência. Os celeiros que se encontrem em aldeias localizadas cerca de um mercado evoluirão, mais provavelmente, em bancos. A missão foi a primeira instância a criar celeiros. Tem laços mais estreitos com a população e trabalha mais com uma abordagem a partir da base. É por esta razão que um celeiro criado por uma missão terá mais tendência para se direccionar para a obtenção de lucro. Na medida em que um celeiro foi iniciado e organizado em cooperação com os seus utentes, eles têm um interesse manifesto no funcionamento e nos resultados do celeiro. Encontram-se preparados para investir nele sem que recebam algo de volta para além da segurança que podem dirigir-se ao celeiro para ajuda, caso necessitem. Os agregados familiares que pedem emprestado ao celeiro também se sentem mais responsáveis por reembolsarem os seus empréstimos. Caso os membros do celeiro sigam consistentemente as suas regras, este poderá funcionar com êxito, a longo prazo.Em 1996 o governo começou a criar celeiros ao sul de San, na região de Bougouni. Estes celeiros não se destinavam, realmente, a garantir a segurança alimentar e funcionavam mais como bancos.A região de Bougouni possui características diferentes da região de San. Encontra-se situada numa zona mais meridional do Mali, onde chove mais. Parte da terra é utilizada para o cultivo do algodão, uma cultura que depende de um suficiente acesso à água. A terra é menos escassa que em San. Trata-se de uma área excedentária, com o potencial de cultivar um excedente de cereais. Para uma descrição mais pormenorizada sobre a área e a problemática cerealífera, consultar o parágrafo 2.3.  A obtenção de uma reserva de cereais Tal como já vimos anteriormente, os celeiros da região de Bougouni destinavam-se a fazer lucro, contrariamente aos celeiros da região de San. Foram os serviços de extensão governamentais que tomaram a iniciativa de os criar, mas deviam decidir qual seria a origem da primeira reserva de cereais. Caberia aos membros fornecer, eles mesmos, a reserva, ou tal seria uma tarefa dos serviços de extensão? O governo optou pela segunda hipótese. Uma das razões apontadas era que a maioria dos membros eram pequenos agricultores, muitos dos quais tinham falta de cereais e que, portanto, não poderiam contribuir para a reserva. A reserva teria que provir de um pequeno número de agricultores de grande escala que também seriam os únicos a tirar benefício do celeiro. Este não era o objectivo do governo. A segunda razão era que o governo desejava libertar Bougouni de um espiral negativo de rendimentos insuficientes das culturas cerealíferas devido a uma insuficiência de investimentos. O donativo de uma reserva de cereais permitia aos agricultores de melhor trabalharem os seus próprios campos e de obter um excedente no ano seguinte, tendo como condição reembolsar a reserva dentro de um período de um ano.Foi dada a grupos cuidadosamente seleccionados, uma reserva de 10 a 15 quilos de cereais. Foi escolhida esta quantidade pois trata-se de um volume comercializável que cabe num camião. Caso a reserva fosse constituída apenas por alguns sacos, não teria valido a pena comercializá-la. Gestão financeira O celeiro tem um certo número de despesas: ➤ é preciso fazer-se uma sondagem dos diferentes mercados de modo a se determinar o local onde se venderão os cereais ao preço mais vantajoso. Tem, pois, que se identificar os vários comerciantes. ➤ é preciso inventariar-se os vários meios de transporte. Quem possui um camião? Quanto custará o transporte dos cereais? ➤ depois do grupo ter decidido vender os cereais, é necessário tomar as disposições necessárias. É preciso alugar um carro; carregar um camião; um representante do grupo deverá deslocar-se ao mercado; e, finalmente, é preciso vender os cereais. ➤ é preciso repartir os rendimentos auferidos das vendas entre lucros e despesas. O que resta como lucro tem que ser dividido de acordo com os investimentos efectuados pelos membros. Em 1997 as missões e as ONG concluíram que esta zona rural da Zâmbia não era propícia para a criação de um celeiro. Os agregados familiares encontravam-se demasiado distanciados uns dos outros. Não havia aldeias que se dispusessem a construir um telheiro para armazenagem ou para supervisar a reserva. Também não existia um conselho da aldeia para gerir a reserva de cereais. Para além disso, os serviços de extensão eram demasiado fracos para dirigir grupos ou para os supervisar. A situação era muito diferente da do Mali.Sesheke encontra-se situada no sudoeste da Zâmbia. A qualidade do solo é má. A densidade populacional é fraca e os agregados familiares estão muito espalhados uns dos outros. Existem poucas estradas em bom estado e poucos mercados.Sesheke é, em grande parte, uma área deficitária e as precipitações médias são de 500 mm. Apenas na zona nordeste a queda pluviométrica é superior. Nesta área estão situadas grandes explorações agrícolas que produzem bens para o mercado.Alguns agricultores ainda estão a erigir as suas explorações agrícolas, enquanto outros já são completamente auto-suficientes. Os rendimentos da produção dependem muitas das chuvas caídas. Em anos normais o preço dos cereais aumenta até 50% numa campanha. Durante os anos de seca, a falta de cereais instala-se pouco a pouco no decorrer da campanha agrícola. O preço dos cereais aumenta, então, por vezes até 250% do preço praticado imediamente depois da colheita. Os camponeses pobres são obrigados a trabalhar para os agricultores ricos, estabelecendo-se, assim, uma relação de dependência.Em 1996, uma ONG estrangeira tentou resolver o problema cerealífero de uma forma que, parece, continua a funcionar bem. Seleccionaram-se grupos de agricultores para gerirem o celeiro. Estes agricultores receberam uma formação de forma a serem eles mesmos a se ocuparem do celeiro. Foi utilizado um método específico que pode ser descrito como \"poupar em vez de dar\".Os grupos não receberam reservas como doadas, mas eles mesmos eram responsáveis por as obter, o que foi realizado de duas maneiras: ➤ cultivando o campo em conjunto. O campo tinha uma superfície de um hectare. A colheita deste campo era armazenada num telheiro comunitário. A reserva tinha um volume de cerca de 1000 quilos de cereais. ➤ armazenando conjuntamente os cereais provenientes das reservas dos agricultores individuais.Vende-se esta reserva aos comerciantes ao preço mais alto possível. Os cereais são armazenados até que possam ser vendidos pelo melhor preço. Os agricultores podem vender os cereais logo após a colheita ou pode-se aguardar e vender os cereais num período mais avançado da campanha agrícola por um preço mais elevado.A Neste parágrafo iremos fazer uma resenha das lições mais importantes tiradas das experiências na Zâmbia e no Mali, que poderão ajudar o leitor para se preparar para eventuais consequências imprevistas e a encontrar novas ideias para fazer funcionar um celeiro.Existem diversas maneiras de encorajar um maior empenhamento por parte da população. Dá-se atenção, normalmente, às seguintes possibilidades:➤ o pedido do celeiro terá que partir da própria população, a ideia não deve vir de fora. O projecto parte, assim, das necessidades da população. ➤ é preciso que a aldeia, a região ou as pessoas que habitam na proximidade do local onde o celeiro será criado, estejam bem informadas sobre o projecto e que saibam como o celeiro funciona. Também é necessário trocar ideias sobre maneiras de criar um celeiro. Tal pode exigir mais reuniões na aldeia, o que leva tempo. Mas isso proporcionará, também, uma ocasião para os habitantes expressarem a sua opinião e, caso tudo se passe bem, de encontrar uma resposta para as suas objecções, o que, consequentemente, assegurará um apoio mais amplo por parte da população. ➤ pode-se pedir aos responsáveis ou aos membros de comités de outros celeiros de vir trocar ideias e experiências sobre a evolução do seu próprio celeiro. ➤ os membros têm várias maneiras de investir no celeiro: depositando (uma parte da) reserva de cereais necessária, ajudando a construir ou a manter as instalações para a armazenagem ou juntando o equipamento necessário.Para que o celeiro possa funcionar independentemente, os seus membros assim como a população abrangida pelo celeiro, devem sentir-se implicados no projecto. São muitas as iniciativas em que os membros ou a população não estavam verdadeiramente envolvidos e o resultado foi uma perda de tempo e de boa vontade.A prática mostrou que são muitos os celeiros que apenas funcionam durante um ou dois anos. Muitas vezes foram criados muito precipitadamente. Não se prestou uma suficiente atenção à selecção de aldeias ou comunidades, à estrutura organizacional da população e ao comité da aldeia. Foram criados, muitas das vezes, durante épocas de seca em que era preciso encontrar imediatamente alimentação de emergência, para impedir o alastramento de uma fome generalizada. Também aconteceu que, dado a preparativos apressados, ninguém apontou os nomes dos agregados familiares nem a quantidade de cereais que receberam. Nem todos os agregados familiares reembolsaram os seus empréstimos, mas não se dispunham de quaisquer dados sobre este assunto.Também é muito importante que o tipo de celeiro se adapte à região onde será instalado. Numa área em que os agricultores produzem muitas vezes um excedente, têm necessidade sobretudo de métodos que Lição 2: A escolha do tipo de celeiro deve ser fruto de uma decisão tomada conscientemente A população circundante e todos aqueles envolvidos no celeiro devem estar bem informados e conscientes no que consiste a escolha de um determinado tipo de celeiro. Senão, corre-se o risco de se investir muito tempo, energia e dinheiro num projecto que não representa uma prioridade para a população. Isso provoca, geralmente, uma decepção. No decorrer da primeira fase da criação de um celeiro, a população não se deverá limitar a decidir sobre a criação ou não de um celeiro. É preciso, também, considerar outras alternativas e discutir bem as possíveis consequências de um celeiro.lhes permita tirar um lucro do seu excedente, enquanto que nas zonas que encaram regularmente períodos de escassez, se necessita de maneiras de desdobrar os riscos. A criação de um celeiro responde a estes dois objectivos, mas é preciso uma abordagem diferente para cada caso. O resultado é que o comité por vezes não se encontra à altura de vender os cereais (não dispõe de tempo para recolher informações ou falta-lhe experiência comercial), e existem fortes probabilidades que a reserva de cereais esteja \"adormecida\" por que os membros do comité não têm tempo suficiente durante um determinado período para vender os cereais ou para os distribuir entre os membros.Portanto é importante que cada um compreenda as tarefas atribuídas aos membros do comité e que estas sejam claramente definidas. Deste modo, todos os membros do comité sabem o que estão a fazer, conhecem o seu papel respectivo, o que lhes permite estimularem-se uns aos outros de forma a que cumpram as suas tarefas. Também é essencial que as pessoas que desempenham uma tarefa no comité sejam aceites como tal pelos outros membros. Em caso contrário, alguns dos membros desinteressar-se-ão do celeiro, a confiança mútua dos membros do comité será posta em causa e será difícil, se não impossível, continuar a fazer funcionar o celeiro. É portanto importante que os membros do celeiro estejam ao corrente da situação do mesmo: o volume da reserva, os reembolsos, as vendas de cereais, etc. Antes de se escolher os membros do comité é preciso ter em mente que as tarefas a efectuar geralmente não são remuneradas e que elas se fazem por sentido de responsabilidade para com os membros. Numa situação ideal, os membros do comité fazem parte do grupo ou da aldeia que podem desempenhar esta responsabilidade e que podem contar com a boa vontade dos membros. Se o comité foi bem escolhido, os membros apoiá-lo-ão, mas também é possível que a administração, por exemplo, não seja bem mantida, que haja pessoas que não cumpram os seus compromissos ou que o comité não invista tempo na organização do celeiro. Uma tal situação é o resultado de uma falta de empenhamento dos membros para assegurar um bom funcionamento do celeiro.Para se determinar as tarefas dos membros e para se controlar regularmente a evolução do celeiro, é muitíssimo importante que se faça uma contabilidade correcta: que se conheça o volume da reserva, quais os membros que pagaram juros, etc. Os membros têm que ter acesso a estes registos a fim de se garantir uma confiança mútua. Um celeiro também tem um número de custos fixos que têm que ser cobertos.Estes podem ser financiados pelos membros individuais ou com o dinheiro obtido através da venda de uma parte da reserva. Os membros terão que concordar antecipadamente com isto. Trata-se muitas vezes de despesas de transporte e de manutenção devidas a reparações imprevistas, etc.Lição 5: É preciso ter em conta as \"perdas\" da reserva para determinar o seu volume Acontece muitas vezes que se vende uma parte da reserva para outros fins que não sejam o funcionamento do celeiro. Pode tratarse, por exemplo para a reparação ou substituição de bens de uso comunitário, de despesas de viagem ou de custos ocasionados por visitas imprevistas. Estas despesas têm que ser controladas cuidadosamente, para que os membros possam ser informados. Segundo a taxa de \"perdas\" da reserva, poderá ser necessário reconstitui-la periodicamente.O objectivo do celeiro, quer o mesmo se destine a garantir a segurança alimentar ou a realizar lucro, deve ser clara para os membros, pois tal terá influência na sua organização. Se o objectivo principal é de realizar lucro, é o comité e os membros que têm a responsabilidade pelo bom funcionamento do celeiro. O conselho da aldeia ou a comunidade circundante não desempenham um papel importante. Se o objectivo principal é de garantir a segurança alimentar, a participação no celeiro da comunidade circundante toma uma importância muito maior, pois tem uma maior influência em toda a região.O que também diferencia um celeiro que realiza lucro é que ele deve encontrar um meio de transformar o lucro em pagamento directo aos seus membros. Existem várias maneiras de fazer isso, mas os membros têm que concordar antecipadamente sobre este ponto. Pode tratar-se, por exemplo, da compra de equipamento para a utilização geral dos membros, financiamento de outras provisões, com as quais toda a gente pode aproveitar ou poupança de dinheiro para ser repartido entre os membros.Um celeiro que realiza lucro utiliza igualmente um outro sistema de tomada de decisões. Os membros tomam decisões colectivas sobre pontos que não dizem respeito a um celeiro destinado a garantir a segurança alimentar, como por exemplo a data e o preço da venda de cereais, a nomeação de uma pessoa encarregada de estudar o mercado e de vender os cereais e a escolha do comerciante a quem irá vendê-los.Anexo 3: Glossário ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤ Cash flow (fluxo de caixa): situação ao longo da qual, durante uma determinada época ou campanha agrícola, as despesas de um agregado familiar ultrapassam as entradas (provenientes, por exemplo da venda dos produtos agrícolas ou de outras actividades geradoras de rendimentos).➤ ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤ Celeiro: termo genérico que designa uma estrutura cooperativa ou uma construção na qual se armazena os cereais de modo a poderem ser posteriormente distribuídos.➤ ➤ Economias de escala: refere-se à vantagem de preço quando se compra mercadorias, materiais, etc., por atacado (grosso). O preço individual de um produto é mais baixo quando se compra o mesmo em grandes quantidades, em vez de se comprar em separado. Por exemplo, os custos da armazenagem ou do transporte podem ser partilhados por um grande número de pessoas quando elas utilizam as mesmas instalações de armazenagem ou o mesmo veículo.➤ ➤ Excedente: excesso de produção de uma cultura, quando a quantidade necessária para sustentar o agregado familiar ou a família é deduzida do total. Este excedente é geralmente armazenado para períodos de escassez ou vendido no mercado.➤ ➤ Marketing/comercialização: actividades que visam vender um produto aos clientes, os consumidores, de modo a se tirar lucro. Em vez de utilizarem os produtos, as mercadorias, etc. directamente no agregado familiar ou família, as actividades são consagradas a vender o produto ou as mercadorias a um preço rentável.➤ ➤ Previdência: significa, literalmente, auto-sustento. Termo utilizado para celeiros que foram criados com o objectivo principal de fornecer alimentação para as famílias rurais em épocas de escassez.➤ ➤ ➤ ➤ ➤ Problema cerealífero: a tensão sentida pelas comunidades ou os agregados familiares entre a quantidade de cereais disponíveis e o preço praticado no mercado. Uma disponibilidade baixa de cereais desencadeia um preço elevado, a alimentação tornando-se cara; uma grande quantidade de cereais no mercado origina um preço de venda baixo e, consequentemente, um baixo rendimento para o estabelecimento agrícola. As causas deste problema variam segundo as características da região (ver o capítulo sobre o problema cerealífero).➤ ➤ Soudure: é o período que precede a colheita no Mali. Nesta altura a quantidade de cereais disponíveis é pouca e os preços no mercado são elevados.➤ ➤ Venda excessiva: situação na qual os agregados familiares vendem uma quantidade demasiado grande da sua produção de cereais, imediatamente após a colheita, de maneira que não podem sustentar o agregado familiar com a sua própria produção até à próxima colheita. Normalmente estes agregados familiares têm que comprar cereais adicionais para superar a falta de alimentação da família, num momento em que há escassez, ainda que tenham que pagar um preço elevado.","tokenCount":"13827"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e45687fc5d5d8682df7563572b934d4a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/df8e5208-7c23-4dac-9703-1b2851c81e10/retrieve","id":"-2013765396"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"933fa47f-a116-405d-8c25-1b0a5ad3a359","pagecount":"79","content":"Qualifying the climate security nexus in the CADC countries -an impact pathway analysis .Climate Variability is defined as variations in the mean state and other statistics of the climate on all temporal and spatial scales, beyond individual weather events. The term \"Climate Variability\" is often used to denote deviations of climatic statistics over a given period of time (e.g. a month, season or year) when compared to long-term statistics for the same calendar period. Climate variability is measured by these deviations, which are usually termed anomalies. Variability may be due to natural internal processes within the climate system (internal variability), or to variations in natural or anthropogenic external factors (external variability). (Extracted from https://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/ccl/faqs.php)Conflicts are defined as any type of violence, conflict, tensions, and related socio-political covariate insecurities affecting a group of individuals in certain geographical area. Empirically, we measure conflicts using the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data. ACLED defined conflicts as political violence, which is \"the use of force by a group with a political purpose or motivation\", including battles, protests, explosions/remote violence, violence against civilians, riots and non-violent conflicts, called \"strategic developments\", including looting/property destruction, disrupted weapon use, arrests, etc. (ACLED n.d.)Following the UN Committee on World Food Security, we define food security a situation in which \"all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life.\" Food security has four dimensions: availability of sufficient quantities of food of appropriate quality, supplied through domestic production or imports; access by households and individuals to adequate resources to acquire appropriate foods for a nutritious diet; utilization of food through adequate diet, water, sanitation, and health care; stability is about being food secure at all times (Extracted from Timmer, 2012).Climate does not directly affect conflict and peace. Instead, it exacerbates existing risks and insecurities that can increase grievances and tensions and ultimately affect peace and insecurity in a given area, country, region, or continent. The climate security nexus describes these relationships and dynamics across three main systems: the ecological systems (including climate variability and natural resource access and quality), the economic system (including agricultural productivity, food and nutrition security, poverty, inequality, migration, etc.) and the socio-political systems (including social structures, identities, institutions, governance, stability, peace, etc.).We live in a world of increasingly unpredictable, more frequent, and more extreme climate impacts, where the most vulnerable are also the most exposed to climate shocks and stressors and are less able to improve their resilience capacity against those. In conflict settings, the impact of climate on food security, poverty, inequality and other existing threats and vulnerabilities may push the poorest and the most vulnerable into a spiral of further risks, insecurities, and social exclusion. Similarly, in fragile contexts, additional deprivations generated by the inability of the poorest households to cope with the climate impacts, can significantly increase competition over essential resources and exacerbate grievances, tensions, and conflicts. Thus, acknowledging the role of climate on peace and security has become a priority for many national and international policy makers.The objective of this report is to present the results of the WFP -CGIAR project \"Action on Climate Change and food security to improve the prospect for peace\" started in October 2020.The project is part of thematic deep dive on climate change of the broader, multi-year SIPRI-WFP knowledge partnership on understanding WFP's contributions to improving the prospects for peace. In this study, we investigate the climate-food security-conflict nexus in Ethiopia and the Central American Dry Corridor (CADC). Both Ethiopia and the CADC are hotspots of high climate variabilities, high political insecurity, and conflicts and widespread food and nutrition insecurities across their populations. Therefore, the main research questions that this study aims to answer for the CADC countries (Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras) and Ethiopia are:• Is climate exacerbating existing threats that could increase the risk of conflict in the CADC countries and in Ethiopia?• Do areas of high climate variability co-occur with high socio-political insecurity in the CADC countries and in Ethiopia?• How can WFP programming become more climate security sensitive?The results of this study are intended to inform WFP's understanding of the climate and conflict nexus and support the organization in addressing these through future WFP's Country Strategic Plans in the CADC and Ethiopia. In addition, this research fits into the wider WFP-SIPRI-CGIAR joint research framework whose objective is to qualify and quantify the climate security nexus and to assess if, and how, WFP's programming is mitigating conflict risk, including both the challenge of conflict-sensitive programming and WFP's role in longer-term peacebuilding efforts against the backdrop of negative climate trends 1 .The following paragraphs summarise the results of this study.• Is climate exacerbating existing threats that could increase the risk of conflict in Ethiopia?Climate exacerbates food insecurity and poverty that can lead to more frequent conflicts. With a high proportion of the Ethiopian population relying on rain fed agriculture and pastoralism, climate variability exacerbates existing household level insecurities that are correlated with a higher likelihood and intensity of conflict. Climate is a threat multiplier. Drought and high temperature extremes are the main drivers hindering crop and livestock productivity, increasing household level food and nutrition insecurity, poverty and inequality and decreasing agricultural employment, which in turn are correlated with a higher likelihood and intensity of conflicts. For example, we find that an increase of ten days in the year with high temperature (>37 degree Celsius) increases the number of food insecure households, on average, by 3% and that the increase of one food insecure household is correlated with a 3% increase of the likelihood of future conflicts at woreda level. Similarly, high temperatures are positively correlated with the number of poor people in the woreda and that an additional household falling into poverty is positively correlated with the likelihood of conflict (on average +2%) and insurgence of more battles (on average an increase by fifty of the number of poor households is correlated with an additional local battle) in the woreda.The impact of climate on food insecurity can cascade in multiple, wider security risks.Our analyses also show that the impact of the climate on food security and poverty will result in the increase of multiple additional socio-economic risks that are connected to food insecurity and poverty. Using network analysis we are able to show that that there exists a clear interconnection between several key socio-economic dimensions, climate and conflicts.Our findings show that the strongest nodes are between aridity (ecological system), food and nutrition insecurity, high population pressure, lack of education, agricultural productivity, number of people in a crisis and intensity (events and fatalities) and diversity (richness) of conflicts. This suggests that an increase exposure to climate impacts of a part of this system, such as food security and poverty, can generate in increasing risks and insecurities across multiple dimensions of the network, such as inequality, agricultural productivity, and crisis exposure.• Do areas of high climate variability co-occur with high socio-political insecurity in Ethiopia?Afar, Somali and Tigray regions are currently the most exposed to climate security risks. Climate security risks are not the same everywhere in Ethiopia. Using spatial analysis, we can identify hot spots of climate insecurities. In Ethiopia, areas where persistent dry-hot climate conditions, chronic food insecurity and different socio-economic vulnerabilities converge present a moderate to severe conflict incidence. These areas encompassed the woredas of Elidar, Dubti, Mile, and Afambo in the north-eastern part of the Afar region. In Somali, affected areas included the northern woredas of Ayisha and Shinile, eastern woredas of Danot, Warder, Shilabo, Kebridehar, Denan, Shekosh, Gunagado, Aware, and Gashamo, and southern woredas of Dolo Odo, Filtu, and Moyale. Additional climate-security hotspots include border regions with Eritrea in the woredas of Gulomekeda and Erob in the Tigray region. In addition, for the period 1980 -2020, there exist a number of hotspots where harsh climate conditions and conflicts co-occurred with other insecurities, such as high prevalence of malnourished children, low education levels, and low agricultural productivity. These hotspots cover the regions of Amhara, Benshangul -Gumuz, Gambela and SNNP in areas bordering Sudan and South Sudan and areas in the Oromia region bordering north-east Kenya.In the harshest climate conditions (dry-hot weather), there exist highly localized hotspots for each of these insecurities. For instance, hotspots of dry-hot climate, moderate conflict intensity and highest rates of stunting, wasting and underweight are mostly located in the Afar zone 2 and in the Gode and Degehabur woredas in the Somali region. On the other hand, hotspots of climate security risks and inequality are in the coastal areas of Degehabur and Warder woredas in the Somali region, in the Borena and Bale woredas in the Oromia region and in the centra parts of the Afar. Finally, hotspots of climate security risks and low agricultural productivity in the dry-hot climate areas are in the Shinile Dire Dawa, Karahe, Worder, Liben and After woredas in the Somali region.• Is climate exacerbating existing threats that could increase the risk of conflict in the CADC countries and in Ethiopia?Climate exacerbates food insecurity, poverty and inequality that can lead to more frequent conflicts. Our analysis shows that, in El Salvador 2 , climate exacerbates household level food insecurity, poverty and inequality; it reduced income and increases agricultural production costs, which in turn increase the likelihood and intensity of conflicts. At national level, we find that precipitation anomalies and temperature extremes exacerbate food insecurity, poverty, increase agricultural costs and reduce agricultural income which in turn increase the likelihood and the intensity of conflicts at municipal level. Higher poverty and agricultural costs also increase the intensity of battles. In areas with high conflict intensity and diversity the main climate drivers are lack of precipitation, intensity, and magnitude of the mid-summer drought. These climate extremes increase food insecurity, poverty, and inequality which in turn increase the likelihood of conflict.The impact of climate on food insecurity can cascade in multiple, wider security risks.Our analyses also show that the impact of the climate on food security and poverty will result in the increase of multiple additional socio-economic risks that are connected to food insecurity and poverty. In El Salvador, for instance, in area of high conflict diversity, food security and poverty are connected, through household income and the wealth status, to extreme climate events (ENSO and mid-summer drought) and conflicts. Household income is also strongly linked with the type of employment of household members and with youth unemployment. While wealth in general is strongly connected with agricultural income and employment as well as to access to safe water for drinking. This suggests that increased exposure to climate impacts of a part of this system, such as food security and poverty, can generate in increasing risks and insecurities across multiple dimensions of the network, such as employment, agricultural productivity, and access to essential services.• Do areas of high climate variability co-occur with high socio-political insecurity in the CADC countries and in Ethiopia?There exist \"climate insecurity hotspots\" at sub-national levels where high levels of climate variability, conflict intensity and diversity co-occur with other existing socioeconomic insecurities. Using spatial analysis, we can identify hot spots of climate insecurities. In Guatemala, particular attention should be given to the rural and peri-urban areas around Guatemala City, which show high conflict occurrence while at the same time being socially vulnerable. We also highlight the subsistence farming areas in Huehuetenango, Quiché, and Baja Verapaz, where social vulnerability is high and climate conditions can exacerbate this vulnerability. While these areas are classified as having only limited conflict.In Honduras, the southern areas (Choluteca department) show significant social and biophysical vulnerability, while also showing moderate to high conflict. In these areas, we find occurrence of poorly productive staple crop systems, combined with high accessibility to mining concessions and some presence of cash crops (cotton, coffee). We also highlight the areas of western Honduras (Copán, Intibucá, Lempira) where nutritional insecurity is high, but conflict has low intensity and diversity. In El Salvador, vulnerability hotspots tend to cover border areas (with both Honduras and Guatemala), and though these areas do not show high conflict, they show high prevalence of stunting. High conflict areas of El Salvador tend to be associated with access to opportunities for deforestation, whereas the moderate conflict cluster shows low agricultural productivity for staple crops, high density of cash crops, and to a lesser degree access to deforestation spots.• How can WFP programming become more climate security sensitive?Combining the results of our analysis with a series of key informant interviews carried out with representatives of different WFP divisions and teams we have identified a set of priority areas to increase WFP programming sensitiveness to climate security concerns, that can be summarized as follows:i.A monitoring and decision support tool will be key to guide and inform WFP targeting and programming at national and sub-national level in a real time fashion. A \"Climate Security Observatory\", using the methods used in this study, could be designed to link to on-going decision-making processes, e.g. for the Country Strategic Planning, and should help future initiatives and projects in accounting for climate security risks. A proposal for such an Observatory can be found in the Appendix.ii.Strengthening the adoption of shock responsiveness of national and international interventions and policies, that aim to increase the flexibility of social protection policies to cope with crisis in a timely fashion and use early warning systems and protocols to prevent crisis and not only to prepare for upcoming ones. An example of this can be found in the Caribbean, and especially in Jamaica, Dominica, British Virgin Islands, and the Bahamas, where national cash transfer and/or voucher programmes were effectively leveraged to provide relief support during shocks (Barca et al. 2019). Linking these programmes with school feeding interventions will ensure that schools are kept open where possible and that children, households and local producers can increase their hazard resilience in the short to medium term. iii.Addressing the root causes of conflict while maintaining neutrality and improving climate resilience, via separating humanitarian and development needs from the causes of conflicts, keeping the advocacy focus with the national and local governments on human rights and provision of technical assistance to governments and local decision makers and enhancing active participation of communities in the design of interventions.Addressing root causes of conflicts can be done using for example the complaint mechanisms. These effective tools are critical for EME to understand where local grievances are building and can be used to start the discussions on those with local governments. Active presence in the field is also important. In Tigray for example WFP EME has deployed two staff to improve WFP programming sensitivity to conflict via directly engaging with local communities in the region to understand their needs during periods of crisis. Finally, in Tanzania, using the findings of an impact analysis in refugee camps, EME has been able to advocate for the withdrawal of restrictions imposed by the government on the refugee population, which had a significant impact on the role of women in the communities. Strengthening the field presence and the real time monitoring of risks, grievances and tensions will be critical for changing and saving lives of people in climate insecure areas. iv.Adopting truly integrated programming within WFP interventions, which accounts for the complexity and interconnectedness of the climate security nexus and that accurately defines and assess risks and insecurities in fragile and non-fragile settings across multiple dimensions. For example, in areas where there exist high nutrition insecurities, and following the three-pronged approach, FFA should collaborate with the humanitarian and emergency teams to improve immediate food security needs of the targeted population. This will ensure that FFA beneficiaries are healthy and able to contribute to FFA related activities and at the same time continue improving their food security. Other important complementary activities are those that improve energy access and access to alternative fuels. v.Making women the agents of change, by tailoring interventions to reduce inequalities, counteracting existing social norms, and fostering women's leadership roles to decrease tensions at community level. For example, in Libya, WFP has implemented activities to rebuild livelihoods along the Tunisia and Libya border, working specifically with women, who are now recognised as acting leaders in their communities, have increased livelihood opportunities and improved their education. Also in Nicaragua, WFP has provided a \"degranadora\" machine, that has reduced drastically the time that women used for maize processing, allowing them to produce outputs of higher quality and freed time for women to attend community meetings.Challenges and limitations of the analyses 3Using a data driven approach presents some limitations. One is the availability of data. Some of the analyses were not carried out due to the lack of secondary socio-economic data. This is an important limitation that constrained mostly the estimation of the household level drivers of the climate security nexus in Guatemala and Honduras. In the case of Guatemala, the household level analysis was not feasible as a critical identification variable was missing from the available datasets: the \"Encuesta National de Condiciones de Vida\". Honduras has a wealth of socio-economic datasets, collected each year since 2012, via the \"Encuesta Permanente de Hogares de Propósitos Múltiples\". Unfortunately, these data are not publicly available.Furthermore, data driven approaches require validation from qualitative analysis (stakeholders' interviews and focus group discussions). Field work in the main hotspots of climate insecurities could help testing which of the mechanisms identified in the quantitative analyses explain the climate security nexus better. Finally, directly engaging with local communities will help identify those, if any, traditional and non-traditional mitigating factors, and systems that could alter the climate security nexus identified in this analysis 4 .3 As highlighted by SIPRI, ACLED data provide a limited coverage of homicide events as they mostly focus on violence, conflict, tensions, and related socio-political co-variate insecurities affecting a group of individuals in certain geographical areas. This limitation might be important in the context of the CADC countries where homicide rates are higher. Nonetheless, when we compare the \"security proxy\" constructed using official police department social media data on any criminal events we find an extremely high correlation between what ACLED data capture and our security proxy, which gives us confidence on the ability of the former to capture the overall level of insecurity in the counties under analysis. 4 Another major limitation of the analyses presented in this report regards the access to and systematization of WFP data. Linking WFP operations data with our analyses was particularly important for the assessment of the sensitivity of WFP targeting and programming to the climate security nexus. During this project, we were only able to access SCOPE data for Ethiopia. SCOPE data has allowed us to map WFP interventions across the country and to have a general understanding of the type of activities implemented and for whom. However, these data are not comprehensive and are very limited in scope, width and length which has severely affected our ability to evaluate the climate security sensitivity of WFP interventions. This part of the analyses was indeed removed from this report and added to the Appendix. We acknowledge that there exists a wealth of WFP data that is underutilized across the organization and much more could be done for this and related analyses if some adjustments in terms of data cleaning and accessibility are put in place.The changing climate has shown to have a negative impact on livelihoods in developing countries. The main reason is that most economic and labour opportunities depend on the agricultural sector, which is increasingly influenced by strong climate variability around equatorial areas of the world (Beg et al. 2002;Campbell et al. 2016;Vermeulen, Campbell, and Ingram 2012). Some regions are more prone to extreme climate events, amongst them the Central American Dry Corridor (CADC) and the Horn of Africa. Specifically Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua are projected to be affected more frequently by strong precipitation variability and intense droughts (Stocker et al. 2013). Similarly, in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia is one of the world's most drought-prone countries (USAID 2016). Since the 1970s, drought occurrence has increased in magnitude, frequency, and impact, leaving millions of people in need of food assistance each year (GFDRR 2016) 5 . The more frequently occurring droughts and floods in these regions are increasingly posing a threat to internal food security (Imbach et al. 2017). In the words of the UN Secretary General, \"The fallout of the assault on our planet\" -(cfr increasing climate impacts) -\"is impeding our efforts to eliminate our poverty and imperilling food security\" 6 . Without peace, there is no end to hunger. Without food security, peace cannot last. And without climate sensitive actions for peace and security, none of these efforts will succeed.Multiple pathways of the climate security nexus can be identified. Scheffran et al. (2012), for instance, argue that climate indirectly affects the likelihood of conflict outbreaks through multiple channels such as water shortage, crop failures, human migration, and institutional effectiveness. Specifically, in agricultural households, climate variability and extreme weather events are likely to affect incomes through reduced agricultural outputs. Opportunity costs theory implies the existence of a strong inverse relationship between rebellion and incomes from agricultural activity (Dal Bó and Dal Bó 2011). Hence, the loss of agricultural income due to the negative impact of climatic impacts could trigger conflict events. Additionally, climateinduced migration can burden competition over resources such as land, employment, education, health care and social service and possibly cause ethnic tensions (Brzoska and Fröhlich 2016;Reuveny 2007).The current literature does not display an exact consensus on the interface of climate and peace. Many authors have attempted to estimate the causal effect of climate on conflict 7 .These studies mostly look at the longer-term effects of climate change. The increasing impacts of irregular weather and seasonal patterns, the increasing intensity and frequency of climate hazards such as drought, floods, landslides significantly impact the livelihoods of millions across the world, but in a relatively shorter-term scale. Therefore, a significant part of the climate security literature has increasingly shifted the focus from larger and longer-term changes in climatic conditions to almost current and near current climate hazards -otherwise related as climate variability (Buhaug, 2010, Theisen et al., 2012, Wischnath & Buhaug, 2014, Gartzke, 2012, Chen et al., 2016). These authors argue that climate does not have a direct effect of peace and security but, rather, it acts as a \"threat multiplier\", exacerbating existing socio-economic risks and insecurities such as agricultural losses, food insecurity or forced migration, which can increase the risk, duration and intensity of political insecurity and conflicts and therefore impact peace and security (Causevic, 2017;Gilmore, 2017;Hsiang et al., 2013;Scheffran et al., 2014;Koubi, 2019). This is what is called the \"climate security nexus\". Food insecurity can lead to violent conflict on a national and international scale when exacerbated by climate impacts and associated with further insecurities, such as poverty, inequality and overall socio-political fragility (Martin-Shields and Stojetz 2018; Koren and Bagozzi 2016). Conflicts such as gang violence, homicides, robberies and increasing participation in recruitment of armed groups are endangering food and human security (Fogelbach 2011;Tellman et al. 2014). The main underlying forces can be attributable to economic instability and loss of job opportunities, loss of agricultural land and money for education. The last especially is affecting local youth, leading them to be drawn into illegal groups and violent activities, often as the last resort (Olate, Salas-Wright, and Vaughn 2012;Williams and Castellanos 2020).Several scholars confirm that with droughts, strong rainfall variability and the past presence of civil wars, communities are more susceptible to acts of violence (O'Loughlin et al. 2012;Raleigh, Jin, and Kniveton 2015). These conditions, i.e. high climate variabilities, high political insecurity, and conflicts and widespread food and nutrition insecurities across their populations, have been strongly present in the CADC and Ethiopia. However, evidence from current research focusing specifically on the climate-food security-conflict nexus in these geographical area are scarce (Adams et al. 2018). Since several years many studies have focused on food security as one of the main drivers of conflict (Fjelde and von Uexkull 2012;Hendrix and Brinkman 2013;Martin-Shields and Stojetz 2019;Nordkvelle, Rustad, and Salmivalli 2017;Raleigh, Jin, and Kniveton 2015), leaving the question on the linkage between climate induced food insecurity and conflict unanswered. The opportunity is great to take the numerous insights from climate change literature and food security studies and place it in relation to the wider climate security nexus.In this study we use a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods and data to enrich our knowledge of the complex, context specific and dynamic pathways through which climate affects the risk of conflict. We specifically assess the links between climate-induced food insecurity and conflict. The main research questions are:• Is climate exacerbating existing threats that could increase the risk of conflict in the CADC countries and in Ethiopia? • Do areas of high climate variability co-occur with high socio-political insecurity in the CADC countries and in Ethiopia? • How can WFP programming become more climate security sensitive?The results of this study are intended to inform WFP's understanding of the climate and conflict nexus and support the organization in addressing these through future WFP's Country Strategic Plans in the CADC and Ethiopia. In addition, this research fits into the wider WFP-SIPRI-CGIAR joint research framework whose objective is to qualify and quantify the climate security nexus and to assess if, and how, WFP's programming is mitigating conflict risk, including both the challenge of conflict-sensitive programming and WFP's role in longer-term peacebuilding efforts against the backdrop of negative climate trends 8 .Figure 1 summarizes the analysis steps with corresponding methods, study scales, purposes, and analysis-specific questions, in relation to the overall research questions of the study 9 . The impact pathway analyses \"qualify the climate security nexus\" by giving national context on the CS-nexus from both, scientific and policy perspective. The impact pathway analyses develop clear and coherent narratives that describe any known links between peace, security, conflict, climate, and other existing insecurities.These impact pathways (IPs) are base for selecting variables (or proxies) to be used in the quantitative analysis, and for defining a set of empirical hypotheses to be tested in the subsequent econometric and network analysis. The purpose of the econometric and network analysis is to quantify the indirect impact of climate variability on existing risks and insecurities based on household and larger scale level data, respectively. These analyses are run at national level and by conflict clusters, i.e. geographic areas where reported conflict events share certain characteristics 10 . The purpose of the spatial analysis is to map the climate the country in a set of conflict clusters. We define 'conflict clusters' as geographic areas where reported conflict events share certain characteristics. These clusters are developed through statistical analysis of conflict data aggregated at the municipality (CADC) and woreda (Ethiopia) level, respectively. The variables included aim at characterizing conflict in three dimensions, namely, intensity, geographic coverage, and diversity. For each country, we estimated three main clusters representing level of high, moderate, or limited conflict intensity and richness. Clustering was performed following (Chavent et al. 2018) incorporating geospatial constraints into the conflict data. More details on the method can be found in the Appendix. security nexus across different conflict drivers, i.e. to show where climate, conflict and other insecurities co-occur. Key Informant Interviews (KII) were also conducted to identify priority areas to increase climate security sensitiveness of WFP programming. The climate security nexus in Ethiopia Summary of findings 1) Two main impact pathways explain the potential linkages between climate and conflict in Ethiopia: the natural resources pathway and the weak governance and maladaptation pathway. 2) Climate exacerbates existing household level risks and insecurities that can increase the likelihood and intensity of conflict. In other words, we find evidence that climate is a threat multiplier. We find that climate exacerbates household level food and nutrition insecurity and reduces agricultural employment, which in turn increase the likelihood and intensity of conflicts. 3) In addition to climate induced insecurities, there exist other important household level predictors of conflict, such as age, education, and gender of the head of the household, ethnicity, access to electricity and location. 4) The climate security nexus -the way climate, socio-economic and political risks and insecurities are linked to each other -differs across the country and conflict clusters. The climate security nexus is characterized by the combination of aridity (ecological system), nutrition insecurity, high population pressure, lack of education and higher number of people in a crisis (socio-economic system) and intensity and diversity of conflicts (political system) at national level and across conflict clusters. 5) There exist \"climate insecurity hotspots\" at sub-national level where high level of climate variability, conflict intensity and diversity co-occur with other existing socio-economic insecurities. We find the following areas where harsh climate conditions, conflict, food insecurity co-occur with a number of other socio-economic drivers in a time period of 1980-2020: 1. The north-eastern part of the Afar region, encompassing the woredas of Elidar, Dubti, Mile, and Afambo. 2. The north (Ayisha and Shinile woredas), eastern (Danot, Warder, Shilabo, Kebridehar, Denan, Shekosh, Gunagado, Aware, Gashamo), and southern (Dolo Odo, Filtu, Moyale) parts of the Somali region.In these areas, we find:• high (>25%) prevalence of stunting, wasting and underweight children,• low levels (< 3 years of schooling) of education for men and large gaps (>1.5 years of schooling) between men and women, • low levels of agricultural productivity Net Primary Product (NPP < 2,500 kg-C/ha/year), high NPP variability (coefficient of variation > 15%), and high (up to 75% or more) shares of pasture areaQualifying the climate security nexus in the CADC countries -an impact pathway analysisEthiopia is extremely vulnerable to changing climatic conditions (Germanwatch). Extensive periods of droughts have become more frequent in the past decade and caused significant economic losses, primarily through their impact on agricultural productivity. Studies on Ethiopia and on East Africa more broadly principally agree that there are observable relationships between climate variability, agriculture, resource availability and management, and conflict events (Detges, 2017;Fjelde & von Uexkull, 2012;Hendrix & Salehyan, 2012;Landis, 2014;Megerssa & Bekere, 2019;Nordkvelle et al., 2017;O'Loughlin et al., 2012;Theisen et al., 2012). Based on an exhaustive literature review 11 , Figure 2 visualises the climate security nexus for Ethiopia that will inform the analysis in this report. We highlight two important paths:1. Natural resources pathway: climate-induced scarcity can heighten inter-household and inter-group competition over access to and usage of scarce resources, potentially leading to tensions and violence, particularly when migration is not an option. Climate-induced migration may also, however, both directly and indirectly contribute to conflict by producing inter-group tensions or putting increasing pressure on resources in destination areas. 2. Weak governance and maladaptation pathway: weak governance and a lack of institutional support for adaptation can cause households and communities to pursue maladaptive practices or fail to adapt altogether, leading to an inequitable distribution of climate vulnerability based on hierarchy and potentially negative downstream effects for other households or communities. This can serve as a pathway towards intra-and intergroup grievances and tensions.Climate variability, characterised by irregular seasons and weather patterns, floods, droughts and heatwaves, and an increased prevalence of pests and disease can cause resource scarcity if households are unable to adapt. This scarcity can be exacerbated by contextual social and institutional factors which impact household and community choice and access to scarce resources, intra-community inequality, knowledge of and ability to apply adaptive and absorptive practices, limited formal and informal support services, insufficient agricultural extension services, and a lack of economic opportunities. Whilst scarcity may cause some populations to become 'trapped' in scarce contexts, others may turn to migration strategies.There exists a great deal of variation in terms of both the exact nature and impact of climate migration. Generally speaking, however, climate migration can (given the presence of appropriate auxiliary conditions) lead to conflict both directly due to socio-economic or cultural tensions between new and host populations (or at an international scale between distrustful governments) or indirectly by increasing pressure on scarce natural resources, labour markets, and support services, thereby potentially threatening existing livelihoods in host communities and causing a loss of prosperity. A loss of prosperity, increased poverty, food and nutrition insecurity, and inequality, can instigate adaptation strategies that may increase insecurity and tension, especially when households are highly reliant on agriculture. Rural-urban migration, for instance, has put pressure on social services and labour markets, pushing many into informal, low-wage, insecure, and sometimes dangerous employment. These risks are often exacerbated for women. Poor job quality and security, coupled with high vertical or horizontal inequality, can lower the opportunity cost for engaging in criminal activity or give rise to group-based grievances and inter-group tensions.More generally, the climate security nexus creates specific and unique challenges for men and women. Whilst drought-induced economic hardships have forced men to migrate into urban areas to find new job opportunities or join armed groups to earn money, and adolescent boys face the prospect of being taken out of school to help with household labour and water collection (Le Masson et al. 2016), women and girls have become disproportionately more vulnerable and exposed to violations of their rights. Water stress and scarcity have placed women and girls at higher risk of exploitation, harassment, and violence (Swarup et al. 2011), visible for instance in the increasing number of families selling girls for early marriage in exchange for livestock.Furthermore, the nature and type of adaptation is largely influenced by the financial capacity a household possesses, as well as the degree to which adaptive practices are culturally and communally accepted. For instance, climate change has disproportionately affected women and girls as a result of gender norms and practices that have constrained their adaptive capacities (Wossen 2016). Women have experienced domestic violence as a spill-over effect of frustrated masculinities and anxieties over household insecurity, as well as rape and sexual abuse when walking long distances to collect water (Sommer et al. 2015). In Lalibela, adolescent girls have been documented to miss school during periods of drought because of poor sanitation and time dedicated to fetching water (Swarup et al. 2011). Combined climate shocks, gender-based violence and discriminatory practices have compromised the productivity and adaptive capacity of women who rely on rain-fed agriculture and natural resources for their livelihoods. In several areas of rural Ethiopia, women have limited access to farmland, water and agricultural credits compared to men, and this structural condition has been further aggravated by climate-induced scarcity that has caused women to lose their traditional control over resources (Wossen 2016). Low access to agricultural market and restricted access to alternative livelihood options have led women to experience widespread poverty and severe food insecurity, making them particularly susceptible to trafficking, sexual abuse and forcing them to migrate into local towns or enter prostitution to earn money (Swarup et al. 2011).There equally exists a relationship between the nature of adaptation and the institutional and governance frameworks and capacities within which communities live, such as the degree of success and scope of social support efforts or extension services. A lack of or weak governance can, for example, lead to maladaptive strategies being deployed by communities that have negative downstream effects on their households and other communities. The loss in productivity can lead to income loss and the selling of productive assets such as livestock to secure short-term survival, thereby eroding purchasing power and contributing to further food insecurity and malnutrition. Conversely, productivity gain and therefore food abundance has been linked with more intra-community disruptions due to intra-community inequalities, including gender inequality and rent-seeking behaviour. Such intra-communal inequality, and the kind of behaviours it enables, can also be conceptualised as facilitating the adoption of maladaptive strategies centred around an unequal distribution of resources, evidencing the indirect causal pathways through which climate factors interact with local social, political, and institutional factors.A lack of access to the market (formal sources of credit and investment) and support in the form of extension service and adequate weather and climate information further prevents adaptation, further contributes to food insecurity, and increases the risk of conflict. The significance of this must be seen in the context of Ethiopia-Somalia border disputes and the presence of armed groups in the region, for which joining can have a comparatively low opportunity cost in some of these circumstances. Quantifying the climate security nexus in Ethiopia ACLED reports conflict events of six different types, namely, battles, violence against civilians, explosions / remote violence, riots, protests, and strategic developments. For the period 1997-present, ACLED data included 5,666 individual events in total and 46,733 fatalities, distributed as shown in Figure 3 below.Across the whole country, as well as on a cluster-specific basis (see Figure 4), battles and protests are the dominant type of conflict observed, followed by protests. A large number of battles also leads to a large number of deaths, whereas the converse is true for the protests. Consistent with this, armed clashes are the most frequent type of battle, whereas the most common type of protest is 'peaceful protest'. Armed clashes can take many forms, but the most common is a clash between the Military Forces of Ethiopia (involved as one of the actors in 1,381 out of the 1,870-armed clashes reported) and different types of non-state armed (guerrilla) groups. Two common non-state groups which often clash with the Ethiopian Military are the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF, 291 battles reported) and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF, 512 battles reported). In the rest of the country, our analysis identifies classifies conflict in three groups:• Limited conflict cluster (LCC): This group occurs primarily across rural areas in which cash crops are an important source of income. LCC shows the lowest average diversity of conflict types and subtypes, actors, as well as the lowest number of events and fatalities.This group also occurs throughout rural areas, but is typically associated with pastoral and agropastoral areas across the Afar and the Somali regions. Average conflict intensity, diversity and geographic coverage are moderate in this cluster. • High conflict cluster (HCC): This group occurs in localized spots within Ethiopia, showing a substantially larger average intensity, diversity and geographic coverage of conflict. HCC includes the western part of Addis Ababa, and two woredas on the border with Eritrea (Erob, Gulomekeda -Tigray area) which have a large number of fatalities owing to specific events related to the Ethiopian-Eritrean war (1998)(1999)(2000).In fact, in 1999 alone, the Ethiopian-Eritrean war reportedly led to 10,153 fatalities (3,692 in Erob and 6,461 in Gulomekeda). HCC also includes Jijiga (Somali region); Gonder Zuria and Bahir Dar Zuria (Amhara); and Moyale, Chinaksen, and Gursum (Oromia). These woredas have been subject of constant struggle between the The climate security nexus at household level Drawing on the impact pathway analysis, we test whether climate induced food and nutrition insecurity, poverty and inequality have an impact on conflict at household level. Poverty, inequality, food, and nutrition security, especially when linked to agricultural losses due to the climate impacts have all been identified as major drivers that when exacerbated by climate risks could lead to increased socio-political insecurities, both within the \"natural resource\" and \"weak governance\" pathways. In line with these pathways, we also test whether reliance on agriculture (farm employment and livestock farming) increases the likelihood and intensity of conflicts when impacted by adverse climatic conditions.The results of the analyses are summarised and presented in Figure 5. They confirm our hypothesis that climate exacerbates existing insecurities and increases the risks of conflicts in Ethiopia. The estimates show that climate induced 12 food and nutrition insecurities, poverty and inequality increase the likelihood of the occurrence of conflicts at woreda level. These results differ significantly depending on the type and intensity of conflicts. The role of climate induced food security as a driver of conflict is particularly evident at national level and in the HCC and MCC, while it is not significant in the LCC. Even though the relationship among violent conflict and food insecurity has attracted large attention in the past years, there is a general lack of quantitative studies that try to assess the causality between food insecurity and the occurrence of conflicts. Until the past decade, most of the analysis that consider the correlation among these two aspects are principally focused on estimating the impact of conflict on food insecurity rather that the other way around (Martin-Shields and Stojetz 2019).More recently, scholars have also increased their interest in quantifying the impact of food insecurities on conflicts and social unrest and find that, indeed, food insecurity can increase the likelihood and intensity of conflicts (Bellemare 2015;Koren and Bagozzi 2016;Maystadt and Ecker 2014). Similarly, Humphreys & Weinstein, 2008 find evidence that food insecurity can increase the likelihood of joining armed groups. Finally, Berazneva & Lee (2013) show that higher food prices and riots are correlated with an increasing political repression. Our results are in line with this literature in showing that higher climate induced food insecurity can lead to an increased risk of conflict.Our analyses also show that poverty, when impacted by climate, increases the likelihood of conflicts and the number of battles at woreda level. There is a vast literature that posit a relationship between poverty and conflict (Collier et al. 2003;Collier, Bank, and Hoeffler 2002;Fearon and Laitin 2003;Hess and Orphanides 1995;Sambanis 2004). A growing literature also explicitly investigates the role of poverty in increasing the risk of conflicts (Collier et al. 2003;Collier, Bank, and Hoeffler 2002;Djankov and Reynal-Querol 2010;Fearon and Laitin 2003;T. Gurr 1970;Jakobsen, de Soysa, and Jakobsen 2013;Muller and Seligson 1987). Conflicts are often seen as a consequence the \"failure of economic development\" (Collier et al. 2003) or a \"problem of the poor\" (Sambanis 2002) 13 . These studies find that recruitment in rebel groups constitutes a common coping strategy for the poorest, especially in presence of weak states and institutions (Fearon and Laitin 2003). In the case of Ethiopia, we observe this effect at national level only. The impact of climate induced poverty on conflict becomes insignificant in the cluster level results.Interestingly, inequality, measured as the ratio of poorest to the richest at woreda level, significantly increases the likelihood and intensity of conflicts (battles) in those woredas in the low intensity conflict clusters. Economic inequality has often been found as an important predictor of conflict and overall political instability (Alesina and Perotti 1996;J. A. Booth 1991;Boyce 1996;Cramer 2003;T. R. Gurr 2015;Nafziger and Auvinen 1997a;Wickam-Crowley 1992). More recently, some authors have challenged these views claiming that high inequality does not necessarily translates into political instability. Instead, it is important to unveil those mechanisms that \"enable a relatively peaceable durable inequality to turn into a violent conflict\" (Cramer 2003). There is quite strong evidence that climate impacts could be exacerbate these mechanisms, as it is found to significantly exacerbate economic inequality (Pacillo et al. 2020). In line with these studies, our findings suggest that adverse climatic conditions can exacerbate economic inequality which in turn can increase the likelihood of conflicts and instability in those areas in Ethiopia historically less affected by conflict events.Finally, our results show that reliance on agricultural activities has a limited and nonconsistent role in explaining conflicts in Ethiopia. As proxy for the reliance on agriculture, we use agricultural employment and number of cattle in the woreda. Past literature suggests that that lower demand of agricultural labour, due to a decrease of agricultural productivity, is associated with higher conflict density (Barnett and Adger 2007;Guardado and Pennings 2020;Kelley et al. 2015;Raleigh, Jin, and Kniveton 2015). Similarly, natural resource scarcity as aggravated by adverse climatic conditions is expected to increase pastoral conflicts and therefore, we would expect that the higher density of livestock the higher the number of conflicts (Hagmann and Mulugeta 2008). Our results do not confirm these hypotheses. Farm employment is not significant in any of the specifications, while livestock density is only significant at national level and not consistent throughout the conflict clusters. Thus, we find that higher livestock density increases the likelihood of conflicts and the number of battles, but it reduces the number of overall conflicts and riots. The lack of significance of agriculture and livestock production in the estimation of the climate security nexus can be explained by the fact that these two variables do not necessarily represent insecurities per se.Among other drivers of conflicts, ethnicity consistently increases the risk and intensity of conflicts at national level and in the HCC and MCC. Ethiopia is historically involved in ethnic base conflicts. Consistently with Yusuf (2019), who depicted the history of ethnic base conflict, we found that all the selected ethnic groups (Amhara, Oromo, Tigrinya, Somalie) are positively and significantly correlated with the likelihood of conflict and its intensity (number of conflict events, number of battles). Similarly, access to electricity is highly significant and consistently positively associated with the higher likelihood of conflicts, especially in the high intensity conflict cluster. This could be explained by the urban nature of protests and riots and similar conflict events. Yusuf (2019) for instance argues that ethnic marginalisation and weak governance in support of the most marginalised have caused the insurgences of grievances and tensions that often results in riots and protests in towns and cities across Ethiopia.Growing urbanisations and the use of social media are some of the key factors that facilitated the organisations of such events in urban areas.Finally, lack of education is also an important driver of conflicts. Previous studies have found evidence that inequality of educational opportunities can increase grievances and lead to conflict (Kett and Rowson 2007;McLean Hilker 2011). Our results show that lack of education, of women in particular, significantly increases the risk of any conflict, the number of conflict and the number of battles. The large-scale climate security nexus: cascading risks in the climate security nexusThe analyses presented thus far show how the climate security nexus occur across low scale drivers that are estimated at household level. However, there exist some important drivers that can only be observed at larger scale, at municipality or district level.We run network analyses at country level and across the conflict clusters. For network analysis to be robust we need sufficient data points. For this reason, the HCC, which is the smallest cluster of the Ethiopia dataset, was removed from the analysis. Figures 6 show the networks at country level, where the purple nodes represent climate variables, whilst the green nodes represent socio-economic variables. Conflict is represented in yellow.Table 1 summarises the results of the analyses at country and conflict cluster level, listing the main large drivers and their relationship with climate and security in Ethiopia.The findings show that there exist clear relationships between several key socio-economic variables (nodes), climate and conflicts. For instance, the strongest links (thickest edges) between ecological and social/economic systems can be observed between climate and prevalence of insufficient food (FCS) and aridity. Conflicts, on the other hand (represented by four key variables -fatalities, events, richness, and subtype richness), have the strongest relationship with education, stunting (childhood stunting) and population per district.Moreover, there exists a strong relationship between three education nodes, upper net primary productivity (upper npp) and percentage of people in crisis (rCSI). We also see that the variables resulting in conflict do not act in isolation. Population per district which has the thickest line to conflict is itself connected to percentage of people in a crisis (rCSI) and aridity. By following pathways of connectivity, we can gain a greater understanding of the complex nature of conflict, and how management interventions must consider multiple factors at play.At conflict cluster level (Table 1 and Figure S3 in the Appendix) education variables still maintain the strongest links in the network in both MCC and LCC as well as the overall network. Education has the greatest influence and power in the system largely due to educations link to a suite of other socioeconomic variables. In the MCC, all conflict variables are also linked to population per district. The population per district in turn has a strong relationship with aridity index. This cluster is situated largely in pastoral area and so conflict outbreaks are likely to be more strongly associated with climate drivers most closely linked to atmospheric demand (aridity). When we look at the LCC, we can see how although conflict is still largely driven by population per district as in MCC the nodes to population per district have now shifted to rCSI (percentage of people in a crisis) and education i.e., from more climate to socioeconomic driven conflict.  Mapping the climate security nexus Climate, conflict, and food security hotspotsIn Ethiopia, our analysis identified four distinct groups of climate conditions (Figure 7a).To ease interpretation, these groups are named 'dry-hot', 'dry-warm', 'dry-cool', and 'humid' (see the Appendix for more details on the methods). An overlay of these climate groups with the conflict clusters shows the climate groups occur in different frequencies and locations within the three conflict clusters (Figure 7b).We also determined food insecurity groups (three groups, as shown in Figure 7c), and then intersected these with the climate and conflict areas of Figure 7b. In grouping the spatial variation of food insecurity, we also include migration. This is because the spatial scale of the migration data available at the time of this analysis did not allow for a more detailed analysis. The findings of the analysis can be summarised as follows (see Figure 7d):• Conflict-climate spatial associations are diverse and complex. Climate conditions vary widely across conflict clusters, and likewise conflict levels vary widely across climate conditions. The moderate and limited conflict clusters experience the entire range of climate conditions, whereas the HCC does not occur in the 'dry-hot' climate. • Extreme and severe food insecurity (as defined by the groups established here) are experienced throughout virtually the entire conflict -climate space. This means that, in each existing combination of conflict cluster and climate, it is always possible to identify the areas with greatest food insecurity (darkest areas per colour type in Figure 7d).• The dry-hot and food insecure areas are often in border regions with other countries (e.g., Somalia, Eritrea, Kenya, Djibouti). We highlight areas of severe food insecurity in the dry-hot environments of the Somali region within the moderate conflict cluster. These areas warrant attention for addressing food insecurity and climate resilience.At this point, we refrain from sub-selecting or classifying woredas as hotspots of conflictclimate-food insecurity, since our data analysis shows that even those areas classified as having 'moderate' food insecurity can have relatively high rCSI (percentage of people using crisis or above crisis food-based coping), FCS (prevalence of insufficient food -the sum of 'poor' and 'borderline' consumption in the FCS), as well as prevalence of stunting, underweight, and wasting. We thus concentrate on assessing the spatial dimension of some of the other key drivers, as identified in the network analysis: nutrition security, inequality -measured by unequal access to education, and agricultural productivity. These are described in the subsections below. Nutritional outcomes within climate, conflict, and food security hotspotsWe characterise nutrition using the prevalence of stunting, underweight and wasting as derived from the Local Burden of Disease. Figure 8 shows the hotspots (dark brown areas in the map on the right) of high prevalence (75% percentile across Ethiopia or greater) of nutritional problems across the climate-conflict-food insecurity nexus (map on the left in Figure 8).While the maps show the entirety of Ethiopia, it is also possible to visualize these results for specific conflict-climate-food insecurity combinations. Therefore, combining the results of the hotspot analysis of the climate-conflict-food security nexus (small map on the left) with the analysis of nutrition insecurity hotspots (map on the right), we can identify three areas which possess severe nutritional problems, while also showing significant levels of conflict, being located in harsh climate conditions, and also experiencing high levels of food insecurity:• The north-eastern part of the Afar department, encompassing the woredas of Elidar, Dubti, Mile, and Afambo. • The north (Ayisha and Shinile woredas), eastern (Danot, Warder, Shilabo, Kebridehar, Denan, Shekosh, Gunagado, Aware, Gashamo), and southern (Dolo Odo, Filtu, Moyale) parts of the Somali region. • The Gulomekeda and Erob woredas in Tigray -both bordering with Eritrea We also identify several instances in which poor nutritional outcomes co-occur with low conflict and favourable climate conditions, such as the west of Ethiopia (Benshangul-Gumaz region).Inequality within climate, conflict, and food security hotspots We characterise inequality using two variables: (i) the average number of education years for men, and (ii) the gap in education years between men and women. Lack of education is one of the key drivers of conflict identified by the network analysis and household level analysis. The average education years for men allows analysing the equality in access to education as a potential way out of poverty. The gap in education between men and women highlights gender inequalitiesThe results suggest that the hotspots of low education and gender differences do generally coincide with the areas of poor food security outcomes (e.g., north-eastern Afar, and many parts of the Somali region). Notably, we find that education is generally higher for men in areas where conflict is limited within the Somali region (Figure 9). In some of these areas, however, the gender gap is substantial, with women having on average at least 1.5 years of education less than men. These areas, coloured in dark red, indicate specific spots where investment toward improving education with an explicit gender lens could help mitigating the impact of the climate security nexus.The dry-hot and food insecure areas within conflict areas tend to occur in border regions with other countries (e.g., Somalia, Eritrea, Kenya, Djibouti). We highlight the following areas where • The Gulomekeda and Erob woredas in Tigray -both bordering with EritreaIn these areas, we find (i) high (>25%) prevalence of stunting, wasting and underweight children, (ii) low levels (< 3 years) of education for men and large gaps (>1.5 years) between men and women, (iii) low levels of agricultural productivity (NPP < 2,500 kg-C/ha/year), high NPP variability (coefficient of variation > 15%), and high (up to 75% or more) shares of pasture area. and mid-summer drought intensity (ecological system), higher household dependency ratio, youth unemployment, agricultural income, accessibility, inability to meet basic needs, wealth (socio-economic system) and diversity of conflicts (political system) at national level.In Guatemala 15 , the climate security nexus is characterized by the ENSO effect and MSD duration (ecological system), food security, ability to meet basic needs, lack of education and limited access to alternative sources of income (socio-economic system) and number of conflicts (political system). In Honduras, the climate security nexus is characterized by MSD magnitude duration and ENSO effect (ecological system), cropping area and access to alternative sources of income (socio-economic system) and number of conflicts and diversity of conflict actors (political system).(5) There exist \"climate insecurity hotspots\" at sub-national level where high level of climate variability, conflict intensity and diversity co-occur with other existing socioeconomic insecurities. In El Salvador, vulnerability hotspots tend to cover border areas (with both Honduras and Guatemala), and though these areas do not show high conflict, they show high prevalence of stunting. In Guatemala, particular attention should be given to the rural and peri-urban areas around Guatemala City, which show high conflict occurrence while at the same time being socially vulnerable. We also highlight the subsistence farming areas in Huehuetenango, Quiché, and Baja Verapaz, where social vulnerability is high and climate conditions can exacerbate this vulnerability. In Honduras, the southern areas (Choluteca department) show significant social and biophysical vulnerability, while also showing moderate to high conflict. In these areas, we find occurrence of poorly productive staple crop systems, combined with high accessibility to mining concessions and some presence of cash crops (cotton, coffee). We also highlight the areas of western Honduras (Copán, Intibucá, Lempira) where nutritional insecurity is high, but conflict has low intensity and diversity.Qualifying the climate security nexus in the CADC countries -an impact pathway analysisTo reveal the linkages between climate, food security and conflict in the CADC, we identify potential impact pathways through which climate can exacerbate security risks. Sociopolitical instability is driven by a complex web of interactions linking many different actors and aspects of society which can be looked at from different hierarchical levels, such as the community, regional, national, and international levels. Previous literature has found that climate variability (irregular seasons and precipitation events) have increasingly occurred in the CADC countries. Similarly, extreme events, such as floods and droughts, have significantly increased and are expected to further increase in the near future. Climate can remarkably affect agricultural productivity, increase incidence of pests and diseases (such as coffee rust) and exacerbate insecurities when major staple and cash crops, such as maize and coffee, respectively are affected. These impacts could translate in reduced income, increased food insecurity and poverty (FAO 2017; Magrin et al. 2014).Climate variability also negatively influences job availability in the agricultural sector, as the demand for on-farm labour decreases, and negatively impacts the profits of off-farm workers (e.g., street sellers, retailers). The combination of decreased agricultural productivity with a lack of access to markets can lead to unfair pricing of the affected production output. The negative impacts of climate variability include reduced agricultural livelihood conditions and food insecurity, which may push people to migrate and become more susceptible to the recruitment into organized crime groups. This dynamic has been found in CADC countries, where extended climate variability and extreme events coupled with the lack of economic opportunities has been found to facilitate the recruitment of young people to criminal organizations (Delgado 2020).The gender dimensions of these climate-related security risks have been poorly explored Finally, natural resource scarcity is a widely recognized source of conflict, although under debate in its impact on political security when taken in isolation from important socioeconomic and political factors (Hauge and Ellingsen 1998;Homer-Dixon 1994;Theisen 2008). However, the link between climate, natural resource scarcity and conflict in CADC countries is not fully investigated in the environmental security literature (Delgado 2020;O'Toole 2017). Existing evidence shows that climate impacts can exacerbate soil degradation, water scarcity and induce deforestation in CADC, and that increasing competition over resources, exacerbated by the increasing acquisition of land affecting the indigenous population in Central America are important factors in the prediction of conflicts in the CADC (Myers et al., 1987;Yagenova & Garcia, 2009, Castro-Nunez et al., 2017). Quantifying the climate security nexus in the CADC countries Three countries were analysed in the CADC, namely, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.Over the period for which data were available (2018-2020) in the ACLED database, we find that conflict intensity (measured by the total number of events) is generally greater in Honduras, followed by Guatemala and finally by El Salvador (Figure 13).In the three countries gangs and non-state armed groups are by far the leading violent actors, as they are responsible for virtually all the battles (consisting solely of armed clashes) and violence against civilians (mostly attacks). In the vast majority of cases, armed clashes occur between two different gangs or armed groups, whereas only seldom the military or police are involved. Both armed clashes and attacks against civilians take place in different areas of the countries, though they tend to have a greater concentration around the major cities (especially for Honduras and Guatemala). The average number of fatalities per events for these two conflict types (battles, and violence against civilians) ranges between 1 (Guatemala) and 1.3 (Honduras).Protests are also very frequently reported in the ACLED database for the CADC. Protests are primarily peaceful, and hardly lead to deaths. Overall, protests are more common in Honduras, followed by Guatemala, and finally by El Salvador. We identify 4 clusters for Guatemala, 3 for Honduras, and 3 for El Salvador (Figure 14). In Guatemala, the four clusters are formed primarily by intensity (Extreme, High, Moderate and Limited), whereas in El Salvador the clusters are formed by diversity of event types and actors (high, moderate and low diversity). For Honduras, the three identified clusters structure the country in terms of both intensity and diversity (low diversity -low intensity; moderate diversity -low intensity; and high diversity -high intensity). Country-specific results can be summarised as follows:• In Guatemala, the \"extreme\" violence cluster is composed by a single municipality (San José, in the Peten department). While the total number of events and fatalities in San José is not the highest of Guatemala, the intensity of conflict per total population is by far greater than the rest of the country. Apart from San José, the entire Peten department experiences significant violence. Peten is mostly classified in the \"Moderate\" violence cluster. The characteristics of the Peten department make it very prone to violence, as (i) it largely lacks government presence; (ii) has large natural areas which armed groups and gangs can use as shelter from police and other gangs; (iii) has a border with Mexico which make it attractive for narcotraffic routes; and (iv) it has substantial ethnic diversity and has historically suffered from colonization and violence towards ethnic groups (Hurtado Paz Y Paz, 2010).The high violence cluster of Guatemala encompasses the areas immediately surrounding Guatemala City, whereas the limited violence cluster extends through most of the productive highlands.• In Honduras, the high diversity and high intensity cluster encompasses the main cities (Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, and their surroundings) in addition to the western part of the Gracias a Dios department (Brus Laguna municipality). This area in general experiences a similar situation to San José in Guatemala, whereby lack of government presence and low accessibility and infrastructure allow for gangs and narcotraffic groups to establish operations. Consistent with this, strategic developments by either the Honduras police and military against gangs (or vice versa) are the main sources of both conflict events and deaths. The low intensity but moderate diversity covers important areas of the dry corridor of Honduras (e.g., Choluteca department), whereas the low diversity -low intensity cluster covers is large and covers most of the rural areas of the country. • In El Salvador, violence is distributed relatively uniformly in terms of intensity, but varies substantially in terms of the diversity of conflict types and actors involved. Since gangs and illegal armed groups are the main actors, this means that the low diversity cluster is dominated by specific gangs, which fight between themselves and against government forces (police and military). These areas are widespread across El Salvador, and cover many rural areas where poverty is high. By contrast, high diversity areas are located around San Salvador, but also occupy the Ahuachapan and Sonsonate departments. In these areas, many gangs and armed groups are present, fighting for survival and territory between themselves, but also with significant push back from the Salvadorian military and police. Moderate diversity areas are generally in between high and low diversity areas, and likely represent transitional areas where conflict diversity is likely to intensify towards the future.The results of the analyses are summarised and presented in Figure 15. They confirm our hypothesis that climate does exacerbate existing insecurities and increases the risks of conflicts in El Salvador. Conflicts are defined as any type of violence, conflict, tensions, and related socio-political co-variate insecurities affecting a group of individuals in certain geographical area. More specifically, our estimates show that climate induced 17 food insecurities, inequality, poverty, and increased agricultural costs increase the likelihood of the occurrence of conflicts at municipality level. But these results differ significantly depending on the type and diversity of conflicts (Figure 15).First, we find that climate induced food insecurity exacerbates the occurrence and intensity of conflicts at national level and across conflict clusters. Following Moltedo et al., (2014), an 17 Here we use the term induced in a very loose way, as we acknowledge that there are many other factors that drive food insecurity. Our assumption, which is validated by our statistical tests is, however, that climate variability is effective in capturing the degree and extent of food insecurity patterns and trends in the woredas in Ethiopia. increase in the proportion of income allocated to food is a signal of decreased food security.We find that an increase of food insecurity, as affected by climate, has a positive effect on our conflict dependent variables. This result in line with previous literature (Berazneva and Lee 2013; Humphreys and Weinstein 2008; Koren and Bagozzi 2016) who find robust evidence that food insecurity is associated with the presence of violent conflicts, the likelihood of joining armed groups and increased political repression. In our analysis we find strong evidence that the climate-food insecurity-conflict nexus exists, and that the strongest and more consistent effect of climate induced food insecurity is observed in the moderate conflict cluster (purple areas in the map in Figure 14). This cluster includes municipalities where conflict diversity is likely to intensify towards the future. Here we find that food insecurity increases the likelihood of the occurrence of any conflict event and the intensity of battles, riots, and overall conflict events at municipality level.Our results also show that inequality is a strong predictor of climate induced conflicts. Inequality has historically been a major risk in El Salvador. Despite a recent improvement, El Salvador remains the second most unequal country in Latin America and the Caribbean(The World Bank 2021) . Economic inequality has often been found as an important predictor of conflict and overall political instability (Alesina & Perotti, 1996;Boyce, 1996;T. Gurr, 1970 on El Salvador; and also on Latin America, K. Booth, 1991;Nafziger & Auvinen, 1997b;Wickham-Crowley, 2018)). More recently, some authors have challenged these views claiming that high inequality does not necessarily translates into political instability. Instead, it is important to unveil those mechanisms that \"enable a relatively peaceable durable inequality to turn into a violent conflict\" (Cramer 2003). There is quite strong evidence that climate impacts could exacerbated these mechanisms, as it is found to significantly exacerbate economic inequality (Pacillo et al. 2020). In El Salvador, we also find robust evidence that inequality is exacerbated by climate and that this influences the risk and intensity of conflict events at municipality level in high, moderate and limited conflict clusters. The high conflict cluster is mainly located around San Salvador, but also occupy the Ahuachapan and Sonsonate departments. In these areas, many gangs and armed groups are present, fighting for the control over territories between themselves, with significant push back from the Salvadorian military and police. On the other hand, the low diversity cluster is dominated by specific gangs, which fight between themselves and against government forces (police and military). These areas are widespread across El Salvador, and cover many rural areas where poverty is high. The moderate conflict cluster is somehow in between and are areas where most likely conflicts could intensify in the future. Across all the conflict clusters, we find that climate induced inequality strongly increases the likelihood of any conflicts, number of overall conflicts events, numbers of battles and riots.Another important climate security risk for El Salvador is agriculture, more specifically the costs associated with the agricultural activities. We find that the increase of agricultural costs, as affected by climate, is positively and strongly associated with the likelihood and intensity of conflicts. Past suggests that climate has had a strong negative impact on agriculture in El Salvador. For instance, due to a long drought period in 2014 and in 2018, El Salvador lost 90% and 55% of its bean harvest, respectively, largely increasing prices of the staple crop driving many households into severe food and nutrition insecurity (Calvo-Solano et al. 2018). Other studies also suggest that a decrease of agricultural productivity, and a consequent, lower demand of agricultural labour, is associated with higher conflict density (Barnett and Adger 2007; Guardado and Pennings 2020; Kelley et al. 2015;Raleigh and Kniveton 2012).Finally, our impact pathway analysis suggests that a reduced agricultural productivity can push people out of rural areas in search for better economic opportunities and lowers their opportunity costs to join criminal groups. Our results overall confirm this hypothesis in the national level analysis. At cluster level, we observe non-consistent results, as agricultural costs and income are not significant or negatively correlated with the risk and intensity of conflicts.A negative correlation can be explained by the fact that this variable might be capturing the value of the land. A land that required high expenses on inputs (fertilizers, soil conservation practices, etc.) might not be regarded as valuable compared to land which requires less inputs (i.e. not so degraded or eroded) and therefore not competed for among gangs. On the other hand, higher costs and incomes are also associate to larger agricultural lands, therefore potentially capturing the economic status of the household. If so, the higher the cost the higher the land size and, consequently, the higher the wealth of the farmer. If this is the case, past literature and our impact pathway analysis suggest that the increase in costs and incomes could lead to a reduction of the likelihood and intensity of conflicts.There is a wealth of literature that show the link between poverty and conflicts (Collier et al. 2003;Collier, Bank, and Hoeffler 2002;Djankov and Reynal-Querol 2010;Fearon and Laitin 2003;T. Gurr 1970;Jakobsen, de Soysa, and Jakobsen 2013;Muller and Seligson 1987;Sambanis 2004). Conflicts are often seen as a consequence the \"failure of economic development\" (Collier et al. 2003) or a \"problem of the poor\" (Sambanis 2002) 18 . These studies find that recruitment in rebel groups constitutes a common coping strategy for the poorest, especially in presence of weak states and institutions (Fearon and Laitin 2003)  19 . Our results show that an increase in poverty, as affected by climate, increases the likelihood and intensity of conflicts, including battles and riots, at national and conflict cluster level. Some authors suggests that governance can effectively mitigate, offset and potential reverse the link between poverty and insecurity (Ross, Ross, and L. 2004;Thies 2010). We find that poverty has a deterrent effect in the moderate cluster level. Also, comparing this cluster to the multidimensional poverty distribution map (Figure 16) shows that most of the municipalities have a much higher level of poverty that the rest of the country, suggesting a higher level of structural deprivation in this cluster. Some authors suggest (e.g. Goodhand, 2001) that \"it is more likely to be the transiently poor, rather than the chronically poor who rebel\". People who experience high level of multidimensional deprivation might not be able to organize protests, or look for better opportunities in criminal activities, as they tend to be the most passive group in the society.Finally, among other drivers of conflicts our results show that land tenure, age, sex and education of the household head, household size and rurality have a significant correlation with the type and intensity of conflicts. These results suggest that the risk and intensity of conflicts increases in those municipalities where household are headed by younger, female 20 and less educated heads; where households size is above average, and they located in the urban areas. Land tenure is also found to be a strong deterrent of conflict. Our results show that land ownership significantly and strongly reduces the risk and intensity of conflicts. These results are almost exclusively observed in the national level analysis, but they are not consistent across the conflict clusters, apart from land ownership, which is strongly significant also in moderate conflict clusters. Interestingly, none of these drivers are significant in the limited conflict clusters, suggesting that the interaction of effect of these household demographics is less relevant in relatively peaceful municipalities.  The large-scale climate security nexus: cascading risks in the climate security nexusThe analyses presented thus far show how the climate security nexus occur across low scale drivers that are estimated at household level. However, there exist some important drivers that can only be observed at larger scale, at municipality or district level.We run network analyses for El Salvador, at country and conflict cluster level, and for Guatemala and Honduras at country level only 21 . The results for El Salvador are presented in Figure 17 where the purple nodes represent climate variables, whilst the green nodes represent socio-economic variables. Conflict is represented in yellow 22 . Table 2 summarises the results of the analyses for all the countries, listing the main large drivers and their relationship with climate and security.In El Salvador, the results for the country level analysis show that the strong prevalence of high youth unemployment and lack of economic opportunities is central to the socioeconomic status (poverty, wealth index, food security ratio) in El Salvador (Figure 17). Midsummer drought intensity and ENSO events are key factors which determine the food security status (high prevalence of food insecurity) and wealth index, through employment in the agricultural sectors (agricultural income and household members' occupation). Accessibility (time required to travel to healthcare facilities) is strongly linked with affected area which in turn are closely associated with conflict (specifically fatalities). This analysis therefore suggests that agricultural related indicators (income from agriculture) as well as the number of unemployed youth, form the interface between climate (El Niño Southern Oscillation-ENSO and mid-summer drought) and conflict events, represented by four key variables -fatalities, type richness, subtype richness and actor1 richness. In the high conflict diversity cluster (Table 2 and Figure S4 in the Appendix), forming one of the most densely clustered networks, conflict is linked to socio-economic vulnerability or status (wealth index, household income, food security ratio) and directly to sources of income from agriculture. These in turn are both tightly connected to extreme climate events (ENSO and mid-summer drought). Accessibility (time required to travel to healthcare facilities) is strongly linked with affected area as well as nightlights which in turn are strongly associated with conflict (specifically fatalities). In the moderate conflict diversity cluster, FSR (high prevalence of food insecurity) is linked strongly to household income (hh_income). Household income is central to wealth and poverty indicators (WI-wealth index, poverty, unemployed youth). Accessibility (time required to travel to healthcare facilities) is strongly linked with conflict (specifically fatalities). Finally, in the low conflict diversity cluster, FSR (high prevalence of food insecurity) is linked strongly to household income (hh_income).Accessibility (time required to travel to healthcare facilities) is strongly linked with affected area which is strongly associated with conflict (specifically fatalities and actor1_richness). Household income is central to wealth and poverty indicators (WI-wealth index, poverty). These are driven by an array of other socioeconomic variables which are linked to conflict.The results of the network analysis at country level for Guatemala show that conflicts are a product of a vulnerable socio-economic situation (FCS -high prevalence of food insecurity), exacerbated by extreme climate cases (ENSO and mid-summer drought) on staple crops (rice, maize). The socioeconomic vulnerability in this pathway is further emphasized with strong links to alternate illegal or seasonal work (deforestation which may indicate illegal logging in Guatemala and/or agricultural expansion and mining concessions). Conflicts in this analysis are represented by six key variables -fatalities, events, type richness, subtype richness, actor1 richness and actor2 richness. In this network, conflict is heavily influenced by the prevalence of unmet basic social needs (prevalence of insufficient food consumption-FCS, safe drinking water-SDWater, availability of healthcare per capita-Phealth). Participatory involvement of people in the decision-making process of policies that will affect basic needs is a priority as to address conflict we need to address the lack of basic necessities that are driving these outbreaks. These indicators have the greatest strength or centrality in the network and are therefore very strongly linked to climate pressures (ENSO, Mid-summer drought duration), valuable natural resources (crop yields) and conflict. The network flow indicates that large scale climate events, i.e., the duration of mid-summer drought and strong anomalies in temperature and precipitation from ENSO events are directly impactful on valuable natural resources (rice and maize production). These natural resources are then linked to prevalence of insufficient food and the distance to mining and deforestation concessions. This may indicate that once food security has been compromised by extreme climate events, vulnerable groups may turn to other sources of income and be more exposed or inclined to conflict events.Finally, in Honduras the analysis shows that FCS -high prevalence of food insecurity is linked directly to net flow (migration) and msd_mag (midsummer drought magnitude). Conflict is revolved around areas with large population density (population) which in turn has a confirmatory connection to the prevalence of nightlights and housing. Conflict is represented by six key variables -fatalities, events, type richness, subtype richness, actor1 richness, and actor2 richness. Subtype richness shows a direct link to Enso effect. Enso effect largely influences an array of other socioeconomic variables. The remaining conflict variables are linked to population size. The population resulting in conflict outbreaks are in more densely populated areas indicated by a large number of nightlights as well as housing (rural dwellings built with long-lasting material) and access to safe drinking water (SDwater).  The Central American Mid-Summer Drought (MSD) is likely the most important driver of agricultural productivity and food insecurity in the CADC. The MSD is a dry period with a duration of approximately two weeks which typically occurs in the 'postrera' season (August-November). In extremely dry seasons (e.g., when ENSO is in a positive phase) the MSD can last for longer than two weeks, severely hindering crop and livestock productivity, and often leading to food insecurity. The MSD is characterised using three different metrics: (i) intensity or the average daily rainfall during the period, (ii) duration, and (iii) magnitude or the minimum 30-day running mean precipitation. We use the long-term (1981-2019) means of these three indicators and the influence of ENSO in the local precipitation to develop climate groups within the three CADC countries of interest (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador).Our analysis identified six distinct climate groups in the CADC, which arise as a combination of the duration, intensity, and magnitude of the MSD (Figure 18). Four groups show short duration of the MSD with different levels of drought (ranging from not significant to extreme), and two other groups show a longer MSD with either moderate or extreme drought. These groups occur in different frequencies in the region, with the 'long MSD with extreme drought' occurring only in Honduras, and the rest occurring both in Honduras and Guatemala. In El Salvador, we find only two groups, namely, 'short MSD with mild drought' and 'long MSD with moderate drought'.When intersecting these climate groups with the conflict clusters, the following findings become apparent:• In Guatemala, climates with short MSD dominate, but they vary widely in intensity across the country and within conflict clusters. The extreme and high conflict clusters are both dominated (100 and 82% of municipalities, respectively) by climates with short MSD but extreme drought. In the moderate conflict cluster, conversely, these short MSD and extreme drought conditions occur only in 5% of the municipalities, but short MSD with mild or insignificant drought are more dominant (32.5% in each case). The limited conflict cluster, on the other hand, shows 39% of municipalities in the short MSD with extreme drought, followed by short MSD with mild drought (27%).• In Honduras, long and extremely dry MSD conditions dominate in all conflict clusters, but especially so in the high diversity -high intensity cluster (75% municipalities). As conflict intensity and diversity reduce, so does the dominance of this type of climate, with 43.3% municipalities having long and extremely dry MSD in the moderate diversity -low intensity conflict cluster, and 27.7% municipalities in the low diversity -low intensity conflict cluster.• El Salvador shows the most favourable climate conditions. Across the conflict clusters, short MSD with mild drought occur in 95% of the municipalities with moderate conflict diversity, in 86% of the municipalities with high conflict diversity, and in 62% of the municipalities with low conflict diversity.Food insecurity groups (Figure 19) were developed by spatial clustering of five variables, namely, the food consumption score (FCS), prevalence of stunting, prevalence of underweight, and prevalence of wasting. Due to the spatial scale of the migration data, we also include migration in the food insecurity groupings. These groups are developed to provide a general overview of the food insecurity situation in these countries. Contrary to Ethiopia, in the case of the CADC, we refrain from overlaying these groups with the conflict and climate groups due to the size of the countries and the spatial scale of the food insecurity data. In Guatemala and Honduras, the food insecurity groups are formed as a result of the spatial variation in the FCS as well as in the nutritional indicators, whereas in El Salvador all indicators except the prevalence of stunting present only limited spatial variation. Generally speaking, the areas of highest conflict in Guatemala (surroundings of Guatemala City) have the lowest food insecurity. By contrast, many of the areas of the biophysical dry corridor, where conflict is limited but the MSD is short and intense, show high food insecurity conditions. Virtually all areas of moderate conflict show high food insecurity. For Honduras, high food insecurity occurs in areas of high and moderate conflict diversity and intensity, and to a lesser degree in areas of low conflict diversity and intensity. It is noteworthy that in Honduras the most extreme food insecurity conditions occur in areas of low conflict and relatively favorable climate conditions (short MSD with mild or moderate drought). Finally, for El Salvador, we note that the highest rates of stunting occur primarily in the low conflict diversity cluster, and within these in areas of more favorable climates.To analyse nutritional outcomes within conflict areas we determine hotspot areas for wasting, stunting and underweight prevalence through spatial analysis. Figure 20 shows the results of this process for undernutrition and Figure 21 for inequality. The results identified the following hotspots (dark brown municipalities in Figure 20 and blue, orange and purple in Figure 21): • In Guatemala, the departments of Baja Verapaz, Huehuetenango and Quiché show the greatest nutritional insecurity problems. • In Honduras, high nutritional insecurity is found in the west towards the departments of departments of Copán, Intibucá, Lempira and Ocotepeque. Undernutrition is also a significant problem in specific pockets within the department of Madre de Dios (eastern Honduras). • In El Salvador, nutritional insecurity problems are concentrated toward the borders with both Honduras and Guatemala, suggesting a likely relationship between these and migration.• In many of the areas in which undernutrition hotspots are identified, we also see inequality being a problem (Figure 21). Particular attention should be given to western Guatemala, western Honduras, and south-western El Salvador due to significant occurrence of gender gaps in access to education. Agricultural and natural ecosystem productivity within climate, conflict and food security hotspotsHotspots where low agricultural or ecosystem productivity exist are determined based on the hypothesis that where these agricultural or ecosystem resources are limited, it is more likely that competition for resources will lead to migration and conflict.Agricultural and natural ecosystem productivity is assessed using six different variables: (i) the upper bound of net primary productivity (NPP); (ii) the stability of NPP (coefficient of variation); (iii) the total harvested area for staple crops (bean, maize, and rice); and (iv) the yield gaps of these staple crops (bean, maize, rice). Areas of low NPP, low NPP stability, high cultivation density of staple crops and high yield gaps of these crops are flagged as hotspots. Individual variable hotpots were aggregated to produce a map of combined (count) of productivity issues (Figure 22). We use the count given the relatively number of hotspot combinations between the variables that arise across the geography of the CADC. The analysis shows that:• In Guatemala, low productivity hotspots are mainly concentrated across the subsistence farming area (south of Quiche, Huehuetenango, and departments of Chimaltenango, Totonicapan, Solola and Quetzaltenango), and to a lesser extent in the south.• In Honduras, we find hotspots toward the south (Fonseca Gulf) but also in the west, where undernutrition and inequality are also problematic.• Finally, in El Salvador, low productivity is concentrated towards the west of the country, in the border with Guatemala.Access to other valuable resources within climate, conflict, and food security hotspotsValuable resources can also represent a source of conflict if groups with different interests fight for such resources (Figure 23). Here we analysed three key resources known to have significant impact on conflict in the CADC. These were (i) the accessibility (travel time) to mining concessions; (ii) the accessibility to deforestation; and (iii) the density of cash crops (coffee and cotton). We hypothesise that areas with greater access to mining and forest resources, as well as high density of cash crop cultivation are more likely leading to conflict since these areas are desired by many competing groups. Our results indicate that:• In Guatemala, high conflict areas are associated with high accessibility to mining concessions, and to a lesser extent the combination of mining and cash crops, and the combination of those with deforestation areas. In moderate conflict areas, we note more prevalence of deforestation access spots (Peten department) and cash crop presence (south).• A similar pattern is identified for Honduras, where high conflict and moderate conflict co-occur with mining and/or mining -cash crop density areas. • In El Salvador, high diversity conflict tends to co-occur near deforestation areas, whereas moderate conflict is more likely in areas of high cash crop cultivation.We analysed the climate security nexus and its co-occurrence with food insecurity, undernutrition, inequality, agricultural productivity, and valuable resource access. Combining all these dimensions reveals overall hotspot areas (Figure 24) in different locations of the conflict-climate nexus. Here we use the count of dimensions given that the number of hotspot combinations arising from the four dimensions is relatively large (16 in total). We specifically highlight the following,• In Guatemala, particular attention should be given to the rural and peri-urban areas around Guatemala City, which show high conflict occurrence while at the same time being socially vulnerable. We also highlight the subsistence farming areas in Huehuetenango, Quiché, and Baja Verapaz, where social vulnerability is high and climate conditions can exacerbate this vulnerability. While these areas are classified as having only limited conflict, conflict is still prevalent.• In Honduras, the southern areas (Choluteca department) show significant social and biophysical vulnerability, while also showing moderate to high conflict. In these areas, we find occurrence of poorly productive staple crop systems, combined with high accessibility to mining concessions and some presence of cash crops (cotton, coffee). We also highlight the areas of western Honduras (Copán, Intibucá, Lempira) where nutritional insecurity is high, but conflict has low intensity and diversity. • In El Salvador, vulnerability hotspots tend to cover border areas (with both Honduras and Guatemala), and though these areas do not show high conflict, they show high prevalence of stunting. High conflict areas of El Salvador tend to be associated with access to deforestation, defined as the opportunity for groups to carry out deforestation activities outside the control of the authorities, whereas the moderate conflict cluster shows low agricultural productivity for staple crops, high density of cash crops, and to a lesser degree access to deforestation spots How can WFP programming become more climate security sensitive?We have carried out a series of key informant interviews with representatives of different WFP divisions and teams to identify a set of priority areas needed to increase WFP programming sensitiveness to climate security concerns. The following sub-sections discuss the priority areas for the following WFP teams: Social protection, Nutrition, SAMS, School Feeding, Emergency operations, FFA and gender. Social Protection programming Social protection interventions are crucial in the mitigation of those existing risks and insecurities that climate and conflict can exacerbate. WFP work on social protection is strictly linked to national governments' work. Its main role is in supporting national governments in creating or improving existing systems and schemes, such as safety nets, working on the government's behalf only when directly invited on schemes that the government will take up in the near future. Therefore, WFP social protection programming in climate insecure setting should focus on three main priorities:1. Ensure equality and equity of access to food assistance and social protection schemes to the entire population. In area with high intensity of conflict, this can be done by: 1) separating humanitarian and development needs from the causes of conflicts; 2) keeping the advocacy focus on human rights and provision of technical assistance.In highly insecure area, WFP social protection interventions are difficult to implement. This is because WFP cannot take sides or decide to work in areas that are mostly populated by the opposition parties or by rebel organisations. Nonetheless, food assistance, humanitarian aid and equal access can be granted to the whole population if the discussion with the national government keeps a human rights angle, and it clearly focuses on the provision of specialised technical assistance. In highly unstable and conflict affected area, it is therefore important to separate between the humanitarian and development needs from the root cause of conflict. This approach proved highly successful in Sri Lanka, where despite a major conflict between the central government and the rebel groups, WFP has been able to provide food assistance effectively across the entire population. Furthermore, despite its limited role on root causes of conflict during emergencies, WFP plays an active role in post-conflict settings. Social protection advocacy efforts by WFP have been successful in addressing the main divide created by conflicts. For instance, in Myanmar, WFP has provided significant relief and built bridges across the different parties through humanitarian interventions.2. Ensure that social protection schemes are flexible enough to take into account the impact of the climate crisis by supporting the government in the adoption of a \"Shock Responsive Social Protection\" policy that includes the development of an effective early warning system and SOPs.WFP can work with government in making social protection schemes flexible and adaptable to the changing needs of the population. An example of the so called \"Shock-Responsive SocialProtection\" can be found in Burkina Faso, where WFP has advocated for the inclusion of food security in the national policy as well as for the development of a scheme that is responsive to climate change impacts. Within this scheme, households are provided with a monthly cash transfer that becomes higher during those months that are known to be regularly hit by severe droughts, ensuring that their level of food security is kept constant throughout the year, despite the impact of climate on local productive assets. Furthermore, in areas where climate impacts are high, it is crucial to also advocate and strengthen early warning systems that trigger social protection schemes effectively throughout the year. Successful examples of this are the Dominican Republic, Madagascar and Uganda. In these countries, WFP has been working with the national governments for the adoption of the Standard Operation Protocols for a Shock Responsive Social Protection policy. The Dominican Republic and Madagascar have already been able to institutionalise them and also active them during the COVID19 pandemic.3. Support national governments in unpacking the multi-dimensionalities and complexity of poverty and its linkages with the impacts of the climate crisis.WFP supports governments in mainstreaming climate issues in the national social protection policies. However, these advocacy efforts are often quite challenging as policies often focus on poverty, and usually without accounting for its multi-dimensionality or for its linkages with the climate crisis.Our analysis also shows that nutrition insecurity can be exacerbated by climate and, in turn, increases the likelihood and intensity of conflicts. Acknowledging and mitigating the link between climate security and nutrition is critical to ensure that people living in harsher climatic and insecure areas can have regular and systematic access to nutritious food and diets. In WFP, nutrition interventions are cross-cutting, intersecting with multiple programmes, including gender. In climate insecure areas, WFP nutrition programming should focus on the following priorities:1. To effectively address nutritional needs of people living in climate insecure areas, integrated climate and nutrition analysis should be carried out during the design stage of both climate and nutrition interventions.An example of the type of nutrition analysis that could be used is the \"Fill the nutrition gap\" analysis, which uses qualitative and quantitative methods to understand the nutritional context, estimate food affordability in local settings and identify suitable interventions. Linking this with climate activities will be critical for building resilience of the most vulnerable. Although a fully-fledged integrated approach is not yet developed within WFP, in Tanzania Social Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) approaches are used to ensure that the communities are aware of good nutrition principles but also that climate smart approaches are adopted. Similarly, WFP should ensure that nutrition is effective integrated into the peace and security programming. This tripartite dialogue between nutrition, climate and conflict should be initiated and institutionalised.2. In areas highly political insecure areas and/or with active conflicts, food assistance should be prioritised, while in presence of localised and low intensity conflict nutrition activities should be coupled with FFA interventions that strengthen dialogue across groups and help defusing tensions.In highly fragile and conflict setting, nutrition activities focus on addressing immediate needs of the population via food assistance activities. Nonetheless, in presence of localised and low intensity conflicts, such as farmers -herders' conflicts, WFP also helps increasing the dialogue across groups in the community, via the community-based planning and FFA interventions aiming to build social cohesion. These activities ensure that both farmers and herders have access to productive assets and can reach their essential needs in terms of food and nutrition security. An example of this approach can be found in Chad, where WFP supported the creation of fencing to protect crops from animals and producing a diverse set of crops, increasing climate resilience, among other activities. In the targeted communities, nutrition has improved significantly especially for young people.3. In areas most exposed and vulnerable to extreme climate conditions, nutrition activities should be coupled with those FFA activities that aim to strengthen resilience capacities (e.g. landscape restoration, adoption of climate smart practices).In harshest climatic condition, as in the case of some parts of the Sahel, WFP implements integrated programmes which combines asset creation to food assistance and school meals.FFA activities, such as landscape restoration, adoption of climate smart practices, nutrition sensitive agricultural production and technical assistance are carried out to ensure that agricultural activities become resilient to climate impacts and that at the same time households can meet their nutrition needs. On the other hand, home-grown school feeding activities are more suitable in area less vulnerable to climate impacts.4. In areas with protracted conflict and high exposure to extreme climatic conditions, a diverse set of integrated WFP nutrition interventions should be carried out to improve the entire set of resilience capacities.Where protracted conflicts are present in addition to adverse climatic conditions, WFP also works to enhance peace and development and create an enabling environment to increase resilience to climate shocks and stressors of the targeted communities, including climate and political shocks. This includes activities:-To improve the capacity to absorb shocks and stressors, such as food assistance.-To adapt to the climate crisis, including linking nutrition activities to the FFA approach, making sure that households can grow their own crops, have access to right type of resources and information to understand climate impacts.-To transform behaviours and systems in light of the increasing climate impacts, including capacity building activities, working with government in strengthening preparedness, establishing early warning systems that are sensitive to nutritional needs.Small Agriculture Market Support (SAMS) programming When possible, value chain relationships should be kept within the same region. Specific activities include cash-based transfers, increasing capacity in governance, post-harvest management, training. The focus on these activities should be to keep and strengthen social cohesion, trusts and relationships across value chain actors, different groups in the same community, refugees, and host communities. In fact, value chain activities, if fair transactions and contractual arrangements are set up, might even create incentives across groups to cooperate for the common economic growth despite social and cultural differences, and therefore reduce the likelihood of future tensions and conflicts. For SAMS to be successful in unstable and fragile contexts, it is critical to build on those traditional systems that relay on collective work. In Liberia, for example, linking the traditional value of kuus, communal actions to prepare fields, to the establishment of future purchase commitments allowed the rehabilitation of community relationships in the aftermath of the civil war that destroyed infrastructure and caused overgrown land.3. In areas with high climate variability and extremes it is crucial to provide training and capacity building activities to increase knowledge and adoption of climate resilience crops, facilitate access to markets and reduce the risk of grievances.An integrated programming, linking PRO-C activities, such as insurance, risk reduction and savings schemes, and SAMS activities would require the alignment of objectives that move beyond the production stage, possible via the support of climate smart agricultural practices and adoption of energy efficient practices that would ensure stable production and returns also during period of crisis.4. In areas of high gender inequality, SAMS activities should prioritise value chains where women play a significant role and support women's leadership roles across these.Climate security concerns related to high gender inequality and nutrition insecurity can be addressed via a better integrated programming at different levels. To address gender inequality at farmers level, SAMS focuses on value chains where women play a significant role, provides training and equipment directly to women and increase their access to resources and decision making across the entire value chain. At aggregator level, SAMS should work to increase women's representations in decision making process and at market level it supports the government and advocates for development of gender sensitive policies.5. In areas with high nutrition insecurities, SAMS should focus on shorter value chains while strengthening longer supply chains to increase local offer of highly nutritious food.To address issues related to nutrition security, SAMS should work with shorter value chains, linking producers to local schools and retailers. It should also strengthen longer supply chains for the process of fortification and other nutrition enhancing activities to increase availability of bio-fortified crops. Additionally, it carries our nutrition awareness activities, grants access to markets and supports the development and enforcement of fair contractual arrangements. Not all conflicts are of large scale and active. In many countries where WFP operates, there exists low intensity tensions and conflicts that could still significantly affect food and nutrition security. In these cases, the role of WFP EME is in enforcing the implementation of humanitarian principles, building on years of interactions and relationships between WFP overall and the local government. EME work throughout the year focus on building and increasing awareness and knowledge across local stakeholders and beneficiaries. This has, for instance, ensured access to Tigray with the support of both Ethiopian and Eritrean forces.5. Regularly monitor the insurgence on grievances and insecurities at community level to address root causes of insecurities.The complaint mechanisms are effective tools for EME to understand where local grievances are building and can be used to start the discussions on those with local governments. Active presence in the field is also important. In Tigray for example WFP EME has deployed two staff to improve WFP programming sensitivity to conflict via directly engaging with local communities in the region to understand their needs during periods of crisis. Finally, in Tanzania, using the findings of an impact analysis in refugee camps, EME has been able to advocate for the withdrawal of restrictions imposed by the government on the refugee population, which had a significant impact on the role of women in the communities.Strengthening the field presence and the real time monitoring of risks, grievances and tensions will be critical for changing and saving lives of people in climate insecure areas.Although FFA interventions are not suitable in areas with highly climate insecure areas, there exists some critical entry points that would ensure stability and sustainability needed for asset creation:1. Create a FFA enabling environment even in more insecure areas.In countries affected by active conflicts, such as Yemen, it is crucial to identify those more stable settings within which FFA can be implemented. In these areas as well as those countries affected by localised and moderate or limited intensity conflicts, such as the ones between farmers and herders, FFA interventions should aim to increase access to natural resources, such as water, including building and/or strengthening institutional arrangements that take into account transhumance movement and proper use and access to important assets for both farming and pastoralists neighbouring communities.2. Ensure an equal access to assets, such as land, and strengthen trust across to different groups in the community.In presence of refugees-hosts communities' tensions, FFA could be working on strengthening and broadening of land rights and other related policies to ensure that refugees and host communities are equally able to benefit from WFP interventions. An example is the case of Zimbabwe, where as a consequence of a land reform, entire communities where displaced across the country, increasing tensions and instabilities. WFP, in collaboration with a local NGO, worked to improve the relationship, trust and communication across displaced and resident communities, which in turn created the enabling environment for effective and sustainable FFA asset creation, with shared benefits and improved livelihood across all the communities, displaced and resident.3. Address access to essential resources in the aftermath of climate events, first, and then improve climate resilience capacities.In area highly exposed to climate variability and extremes, FFA interventions can contribute to easing immediate impacts of such climatic conditions and events. In this scenario, FFA activities would aim to, first, address water scarcity, via the construction, for example, of water storages, reduce desertification trends, by landscape restoration and other soil interventions to improve ground water recharge, decrease erosion, and overall increase water availability. Once these immediate needs are addressed, FFA could also work to improve local capacity in adopting and using climate smart agricultural practices. Among these practices, FFA focuses mostly on water availability and soil rehabilitation and not so much on climate resilient crops and crops' related technologies. This is somehow beyond WFP's scope.4. Strengthen collaboration between FFA and emergency response teams to ensure food and nutrition security in emergencies.To address the multitude of climate security concerns, an integrated programming, linking FFA with other WFP units will be needed. For example, in areas where there exist high nutrition insecurities, and following the three-pronged approach, FFA should collaborates with the humanitarian and emergency teams to improve immediate food security needs of the targeted population. This will ensure that FFA beneficiaries are healthy and able to contribute to FFA related activities and at the same time continue improving their food security. Other important complementary activities are those that improve energy access and access to alternative fuels.5. Explicitly address gender inequalities.Among other climate security concerns, such as gender inequality, FFA interventions should be implemented to achieve an equal distribution of benefits across women, men and other vulnerable groups. For instance, interventions aiming to reduce the time used particularly by women in accessing water should be prioritised in areas with higher gender inequality. It will also be important to work on social norms that constrain women's diversity of livelihoods. For instance, in Zimbabwe, WFP interventions influenced the role of women and men in washing clothes, a chore traditionally carried out by women and now undertaken by both men and women in the community. Changing social norms related to traditional roles in the community is critical to increase climate security resilience among women and other most vulnerable groups.6 Our analysis shows that one important driver of the climate security nexus in Ethiopia is gender inequality, especially related to education. The role of women as agents of peace and rebuilders after conflicts has been widely recognized and the importance of including women in peace talks and reconstructions strongly recommended also by the UN Resolution 3025 (S/RES/1325) on Women, Peace and Security (The UN Security Council 2010). This resolution clearly argues that women are better in keeping peace in the communities, in building trust. WFP recognises that improving inequality and power relations in the community will increase the ability of women to improve their resilience capacities and to contribute to keeping peace and stability in the communities. Therefore, reducing inequality could contribute to addressing both climate and security vulnerability.As of now, gender is not effectively mainstreamed in the WFP climate and conflict programming, despite some donor interest in the topic. To make WFP gender programming more climate security sensitive the following priorities should be pursued:1. Ensure that girls are kept in school also during emergencies to avoid child marriages and multiplier effects on food and nutrition securities, which are key drivers of further tensions and conflict.There exists evidence that climate can increase inequality and that this in turn can increase food and nutrition insecurities, and lead to further tensions and conflicts, especially in emergency settings. Women are particularly vulnerable during emergencies. Child/forced marriage increases significantly during conflicts and wars. Early marriage has a substantial multiplier effect on the nutrition of the children, reducing with every year of missed education by the mother. Therefore, WFP should ensure that girls continue going to school and are well nourished, for instance via combining Social Behaviour Communication Change interventions and school feeding. Moreover, in fragile and climate vulnerable areas, providing incentives to families and not only to women might help in reduce inequality. For instance, the take-home rations as part of the School Feeding WFP programme in Mozambique and Zambia have been found to increase women's participation to education, even in times of difficulties.women's leadership roles to decrease tensions at community level.In certain occasions WFP activities, for example climate solutions, might not be able to reach women effectively as women do not have access to the right assets. For instance, insurance interventions might end up excluding women as they often do not own mobiles used for insurance transactions. Similarly, for climate information services it is essential that assets, such as radio, are accessible by women, men and most vulnerable groups equally. WFP should tailor its interventions to the needs of the women and define selection criteria for its activities accordingly. The Adaptation Fund project \"Building adaptive capacity through food and nutrition security and peacebuilding actions in vulnerable Afro and indigenous communities in the Colombia-Ecuador border area (Colombia, Ecuador)\" is one of the few examples where WFP has been able to address issues of climate, security, and gender effectively. In this project, for instance, after realising that women were not effectively involved in the community decision making process, despite being the most knowledgeable on how to respond to climatic crisis, WFP changed their operations drastically to increase women participation and voice.Another example of interventions that link climate security issues with gender is in Mauritania, where FFA activities have been carried out specifically targeting women with the main objective of both improving climate change resilience and creating a culture of peace in two communities. In Libya, WFP has implemented activities to rebuild livelihoods along the Tunisia and Libya border, working specifically with women, who are now recognised as acting leaders in their communities, have increased livelihood opportunities and improved their education. Also in Nicaragua, WFP has provided a \"degranadora\" machine, that has reduced drastically the time that women used for maize processing, allowing them to produce outputs of higher quality and freed time for women to attend community meetings.Moreover, to effectively address inequality, WFP ought to become gender transformative, changing the power relations in communities and directly intervening on those social norms that for instance force women to eat last, do not allow them to own land and other important agricultural assets or to access training. WFP must promote interventions that improve the position of women and most vulnerable in the places of power in the community. WFP has worked on this on few occasions, supporting gathering of men, women and other people in the communities and giving women a leading role in certain activities.3. Always making sure that women are safe, healthy, and well nourished, first.It remains that essential needs of girls and women must be addressed first. Increasing their food, health and nutrition security and safety are a pre-requisite for women to become agents of positive change, re-builders and peacekeeping actors in the community. Aside from food assistance, WFP also provides shelter to the victims of violence. Improving safety and overall wellbeing is critical for women to contribute to increasing climate resilience and the prospect of peace in the community.4. Ensure that a gender sensitive and transformative approach does not generate further tensions and conflicts in the community via a thorough integrated monitoring system.In certain contexts, targeting women might also generate tensions, conflicts withing communities and cause domestic violence. Therefore, a thorough monitoring of interventions that disproportionately target women must be implemented to ensure that peace and stability is kept within the households and communities. 2. Qualitative analysis (stakeholders' interviews and focus group discussions) will be essential to validate the results of these analyses. More specifically, a. SIPRI field work could target the climate insecure hotspots that have been identified and explore how socio-economic risks and insecurities have recently been exacerbated by climate and how these then affected the insurgence of grievances and conflict at local level. b. It will be essential to engage with local communities to identify those, if any, traditional and non-traditional mitigating factors, and systems that could alter the climate security nexus identified in this analysis. c. And related to this, a map of on-going national and international interventions that are contributing to the climate security nexus at community level could be useful.3. Any further quantitative analysis in assessing WFP sensitivity to climate security would require a substantial improvement in WFP data on operations. More specifically, a. The accessibility and interoperability of WFP intervention data is very limited, partly because it is being collected using different standards and stored in different formats without the use of ontologies or metadata. SCOPE data are not representative of WFP's operations at country level. Nonetheless, it is the only source of information that we were able to access with detailed information on the specific location of WFP interventions. We thus suggest that project / WFP intervention data be made FAIR (Findable Accessible Interoperable and Reusable) and be stored with appropriate metadata.","tokenCount":"18291"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8a240891890d5ba09896fa1d6d1f0b7e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f9957d6f-e3d6-4d3b-8090-11abf6589b9b/retrieve","id":"1798127709"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0510c44f-683b-47ac-9805-c6aea68c64fe","pagecount":"48","content":"rincipal employeur au monde et gagne-pain de 40 % de la population mondiale actuelle, le secteur agricole est reconnu depuis l'adoption des Objectifs de développement durable (ODD) par les Nations unies, en 2015, comme un élément central de progrès social et économique.L'agriculture est évidemment concernée par l'objectif 2, qui vise la \"Faim zéro\". Mais le secteur agricole l'est aussi par les objectifs 12 (consommation et production durables), 13 (lutte contre les changements climatiques), 14 et 15 (relatifs à la vie aquatique et la vie terrestre), de même que par l'objectif 5, qui comprend la promotion du droit à la propriété foncière des femmes. D'après le réseau Farming First, le secteur agricole est \"le facteur commun qui lie les 17 ODD\".Pourtant, l'agriculture est en échec : d'après un rapport de l'organisation internationale The Sustainable Development Goals Center for Africa, \"près de 70 % des pays\" d'Afrique régressent ainsi dans les domaines de la sécurité alimentaire et l'agriculture durable (ODD 2), de l'accès à l'énergie (ODD 7) et des écosystèmes marins (ODD 14) en 2018. \"C'est la troisième année consécutive que les progrès en matière de lutte contre la faim sont bloqués et ont même régressé\", alertait le directeur général de la FAO, José Graziano da Silva, lors d'une conférence sur la faim et la malnutrition coorganisée avec l'IFPRI à Bangkok, fin novembre 2018.Dans ce contexte, comment transformer les systèmes agroalimentaires mondiaux et s'assurer que les producteurs des pays ACP bénéficient des changements ? La FAO a listé les facteurs influant sur l'avenir de l'agriculture et des systèmes agroalimentaires : croissance démographique, urbanisation, changement climatique, progrès technologiques, choix alimentaires, partage des richesses, état des ressources naturelles, conflits et paix… Autant de facteurs dont il est difficile de prédire l'évolution. Seule certitude : les agriculteurs devront produire plus avec moins de ressources disponibles, tout en préservant l'environnement, afin de satisfaire les besoins d'une population mondiale qui devrait atteindre 10 milliards d'individus en 2050. D'après le World Resources Institute, nourrir la population mondiale de façon durable à cet horizon, par rapport à 2010, requerra de combler trois \"fossés\" : il faudra produire 56 % de calories de plus ; consacrer 593 millions d'hectares supplémentaires à l'agriculture (soit deux fois la taille de l'Inde) ; éviter l'émission de 11 gigatonnes de gaz à effet de serre pour maintenir l'élévation de la température globale sous les 2 °C. Impossible, prévient l'institut, sans agir collectivement avec les 700 millions de petits producteurs mondiaux afin de transformer durablement les systèmes agroalimentaires et les chaînes de valeur.En effet, d'après le dernier rapport onusien sur La sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition dans le monde, si rien ne change, on comptera encore 653 millions de personnes mal nourries en 2030.Pour atteindre les Objectifs de développement durable en 2030, les petits producteurs des pays en développement doivent être impliqués dans la transformation des systèmes agroalimentaires.A G E N D A 2 0 3 0Une approche plus holistique Les progrès à accomplir sont énormes, mais pas impossibles. Premier changement remarquable : en plaçant l'agriculture au centre des ODD, la communauté internationale a fait évoluer l'approche du secteur. \"Il y a une tendance vers une approche holistique des systèmes agroalimentaires, plaçant l'agriculture au centre de multiples résultats de développement, interconnectée avec des problèmes majeurs comme la pauvreté, le changement climatique et la santé\", explique à Spore le directeur général de l'IFPRI, Shenggen Fan. \"Alors qu'auparavant les politiques et programmes se concentraient principalement sur l'urbanisation rapide et les zones urbaines, il est désormais davantage question de revitaliser les zones rurales en même temps.\"Cette nouvelle approche vise surtout à contrebalancer le poids que l'urbanisation et la croissance des classes moyennes font porter sur les systèmes agroalimentaires. Elle permettrait aussi de stimuler la demande nationale et de réduire la dépendance aux exportations vers d'autres pays, souligne le représentant de l'IFPRI.Au Kenya, par exemple, l'entreprise Bio Food Products Ltd, soutenue par l'USAID, a aidé les producteurs à accéder à des financements, des équipements et des formations pour produire du lait de qualité. Résultat : les éleveurs ont de bien meilleurs revenus, les citadins ont accès à des produits laitiers de qualité et l'entreprise fait des bénéfices (lire notre article Agri-investissement : Les produits laitiers kényans ont la cote).Les propositions d'action pour parvenir à la transformation de l'agriculture ne manquent pas. La FAO a par exempleSans données fiables et mises à jour, comment définir les politiques permettant d'atteindre les Objectifs de développement durable (ODD) ? \"Il existe des inégalités considérables et croissantes d'accès aux données et aux informations ainsi que de capacité à les utiliser\", notait, en 2014, le Groupe consultatif d'experts indépendants du Secrétaire général (des Nations unies) sur la révolution des données pour le développement durable (IEAG). Leur rapport A world that counts appelait à une \"révolution de l'information\". Ils pointent deux défis : l'invisibilité (ce que nous ne savons pas, faute de données) et les inégalités (entre ceux qui possèdent des informations et ceux qui en sont privés, ainsi que ce à quoi servent ces informations). Pour répondre à ces défis -c'est l'objectif des Briefings de Bruxelles organisés par le CTA, fin février 2019 -les initiatives sont nombreuses. Parmi celles-ci, l'organisation GODAN (Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition) propose la mise en place d'un portail accessible par les gouvernements, les Nations unies, la société civile et le secteur privé afin de créer une responsabilisation et une transparence des progrès réalisés et du chemin à parcourir pour atteindre les ODD (lire Les données sont très précieuses pour la chaîne de valeur, https://tinyurl.com/y7tle4z4). Pour l'heure, note GODAN, \"le manque criant de données ouvertes sur les contributions dans les domaines de l'agriculture, la sécurité alimentaire et la nutrition ne permet pas à la communauté mondiale de savoir si l'ODD 2 sera atteint en 2030\".établi une liste de \"20 actions\", \"intégrées et interdépendantes\", censées \"mettre en relation les nombreuses facettes de l'agriculture et du développement rural avec le programme de développement global d'un pays donné, jetant ainsi les bases de sociétés résilientes et durables\". Cela va de la facilitation de l'accès au financement et aux marchés jusqu'à la lutte contre le changement climatique et la réforme du cadre institutionnel.Dans une note récente, le Programme de recherche du CGIAR sur le changement climatique, l'agriculture et la sécurité (CCAFS) propose un plan en six étapes pour transformer les systèmes alimentaires dans un contexte de changement climatique. Ces étapes consistent à renforcer les organisations d'agriculteurs et de consommateurs, qui doivent jouer un rôle central dans la transformation agricole ; faire entrer les systèmes alimentaires dans l'ère digitale ; changer l'échelle des pratiques et des technologies résilientes face au climat ; favoriser le financement innovant pour mobiliser les investissements publics et privés ; repenser les chaînes de valeur, la distribution alimentaire et l'approvisionnement ; enfin, soutenir l'égalité des sexes, les compétences et les politiques. De son côté, l'IFPRI classe les \"accélérateurs\" de changement pour éradiquer la faim et la malnutrition en trois catégories : les stratégies nationales ; les politiques, programmes et institutions ; les technologies. En pratique, cela peut se faire via des réformes axées sur les marchés et l'investissement public, des programmes de protection sociale en faveur de la nutrition ou l'utilisation des technologies de big data et de communication dans les chaînes de valeur.Dans tous les cas, la clé est l'innovation. L'accent est chaque fois mis sur le besoin de définir de nouveaux modèles commerciaux et agricoles. De manière générale, Shenggen Fan souligne que \"l'adoption de stratégies climato-intelligentes avec des bénéfices multiples peut aider les petits producteurs à renforcer leur résilience climatique et améliorer la productivité d'une manière durable et respectueuse de l'environnement\". Le CTA, par exemple, concentre ses interventions sur l'accès à des solutions intelligentes face au climat, les politiques pour la lutte contre le changement climatique, l'assurance météorologique indexée, les semences et cultures résilientes à la sécheresse, enfin l'adoption de solutions intelligentes face au climat.Comme la plupart des experts, le directeur général de l'IFPRI insiste sur l'importance des \"technologies agricoles innovantes\". Parmi ces innovations, les technologies digitales ont le vent en poupe et ont montré leur utilité pour offrir des services de financement -surtout pour les femmes -, un accès aux informations météorologiques ou des conseils agricoles, un accès aux intrants, ou encore en promouvant l'agriculture de précision.\"Nous avons fait l'expérience que les technologies mobiles aident les agriculteurs en Ouganda et au Kenya à accéder aux marchés de manière juste et transparente, ce qui aurait été impossible sans l'utilisation de technologies\", témoigne Ray Jordan, PDG de Self Help Africa et porte-parole du réseau Farming First. Il cite ainsi l'exemple de TruTrade, une entreprise sociale qui connecte les producteurs aux marchés. \"Cette plateforme commerciale met en évidence la chaîne de valeur et offre aux agriculteurs une visibilité de tous les coûts associés à l'accès de leurs produits aux marchés.\"Lors de la conférence du Forum global pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture, à Berlin, en janvier 2019, les ministres de l'agriculture de 74 États ont ainsi appelé à \"utiliser le potentiel de la digitalisation pour augmenter la production et la productivité agricoles, tout en améliorant la durabilité, l'usage efficace des ressources, l'emploi et les opportunités entrepreneuriales et les conditions de vie, surtout dans les zones rurales\".Pour que les technologies jouent leur rôle de disruption ou de transformation, deux autres ingrédients sont nécessaires : un cadre politique adéquat et des investissements publics et privés suffisants. \"Pour une véritable transformation au sein des systèmes alimentaires -qui permet une sécurité alimentaire et nutritive pour tous, aujourd'hui et demain -la politique doit créer des incitations, permettre l'égalité des chances, assurer le soutien aux laissés-pour-compte, et catalyser les investissements et l'action au sein des systèmes alimentaires qui atteignent les ODD et les objectifs de l'Accord de Paris\", analyse le CCAFS. Qui financera la transformation des systèmes agroalimentaires mondiaux ? Lors de la COP24 en Pologne, en décembre 2018, Martien van Nieuwkoop, de la Banque mondiale, a estimé que \"les gouvernements partout dans le monde allouent un demi-milliard de dollars par an en aides directes ou indirectes à l'agriculture, mais celles-ci ne génèrent pas toujours les meilleurs résultats environnementaux\". Selon lui, rediriger ces aides vers l'agriculture climato-intelligente serait plus efficace. D'autres experts appellent, dans un contexte de diminution des aides au développement, à combiner les sources de financement entre le public et le privé. Le rapport SDG Reporting Challenge 2018 de la société de conseil PricewaterhouseCoopers estime ainsi que seuls 27 % des 700 entreprises étudiées ont inclus les ODD dans leur stratégie commerciale. Pour remédier à ce manque d'investissements, la Banque mondiale a lancé le Fonds de partenariat pour les Objectifs de développement durable (SDG Fund) qui vise à lever plusieurs billions d'euros à travers des partenariats avec le secteur privé. Par ailleurs, la Business Commission -des PDG et leaders de la société civileestime les opportunités potentiellement générées par les ODD à 10,5 billions d'euros.L'Éthiopie, par exemple, fait preuve depuis deux décennies d'une politique volontariste en la matière. Les ODD sont partie intégrante des plans nationaux de développement -Plan de croissance et de transformation (GTP) -qui déterminent, secteur par secteur, les objectifs à atteindre. À ce titre, l'Agence de transformation de l'agriculture (ATA) chapeaute 25 projets d'envergure nationale autour des axes \"production et productivité\" et \"agribusiness et marchés\". Ces projets concernent la mise au point et la distribution de semences améliorées, la cartographie de la qualité des sols, la formation de coopératives d'agriculteurs, l'aide à l'accès aux marchés, le développement de services agricoles ruraux… D'après le PNUD, la production agricole éthiopienne est en forte croissance depuis plus d'une décennie, les producteurs reçoivent des formations et davantage d'intrants, et la sécurité alimentaire s'améliore malgré des sécheresses récurrentes.Autre facteur de transformation important : le financement. Le directeur général de la FAO Graziano da Silva relevait, lors de la conférence de Bangkok, que quelque 265 milliards de dollars (231 millions d'euros) par an seront nécessaires pour éradiquer la faim et la pauvreté dans le monde d'ici 2030. Le secteur privé est appelé à la rescousse, dans un contexte où le secteur public se retire : les aides à l'agriculture dans les pays en développement ont atteint 12,5 milliards de dollars (11 milliards d'euros) en 2016, soit 6 % des sommes débloquées par les donateurs, contre 20 % dans les années 1980.Au-delà de la seule question financière, des partenariats avec le secteur privé -entrepreneurs, organisations d'agriculteurs, coopératives, PME et multinationales -permettent de mettre au service du développement des savoirfaire, des technologies, des transferts de connaissances, mais aussi de stimuler les innovations, de créer des emplois et des sources de revenus diversifiées.\"Les entreprises doivent jouer un rôle\", plaide aussi Paolo Barilla, vice-président du Centre Barilla pour l'alimentation et la nutrition. Cela consiste, pour l'entreprise, à s'associer \"avec les producteurs autour de notre matière première la plus pertinente : le blé dur nécessaire à nos pâtes. Ensemble, nous combinons la sagesse de nos ancêtres, en alternant les cultures, avec des outils modernes tels que des technologies avancées de prévision météo. Les agriculteurs diminuent ainsi leur usage de fertilisants et leurs terres restent fertiles. C'est une situation triplement gagnante : les agriculteurs diminuent leurs dépenses, Barilla obtient une meilleure matière première et les sols sont en meilleure santé\".Enfin, les changements doivent aussi se faire dans l'assiette. La FAO estime qu'\"environ un tiers des aliments produits dans le monde pour la consommation humaine chaque année -soit 1,3 milliard de tonnes -est perdu ou gaspillé\". Mi-janvier, une commission d'experts proposait, dans The Lancet, une \"grande transformation alimentaire\". Estimant que l'apport nutritionnel journalier adéquat est de 2 500 calories -les pays riches affichent une moyenne de 3 700 calories, contre 2 200 calories pour les pays en développement -les experts recommandent de \"doubler la consommation mondiale de fruits, de légumes, de noix et de légumineuses\" et de \"réduire de plus de 50 % celle de viande rouge et de sucres\". De quoi ouvrir de nombreuses opportunités de développement pour les petits producteurs du monde entier. ■ D'abord vendus dans une chaîne de supermarchés à Lekki, dans l'État de Lagos, les six produits de la gamme d'en-cas de ReelFruit sont à présent disponibles dans plus de 250 magasins du Nigeria. Parmi ses clients, ReelFruit compte aussi des compagnies aériennes locales et internationales, des écoles, des hôtels et des restaurants. La gamme se compose de sachets -40 g, 50 g et 1 kg -de bananes, de noix de cajou, de noix de coco, de mangue et d'ananas, mais aussi de mélanges de fruits et de noix. La cible : les consommateurs soucieux de leur santé. L'entreprise a vendu plus de 500 000 sachets en 2016, puis 700 000 en 2017. En 2018, ReelFruit a lancé Frootie Tooties, des rouleaux 100 % mangue pour les enfants.Affiong Williams veut créer plus d'un millier d'emplois d'ici dix ans. \"Au moment de choisir le secteur d'activités de ma future entreprise, le potentiel de création d'emplois a été mon critère numéro 1. J'ai donc opté pour le secteur agroalimentaire\", explique-t-elle. Avec ReelFruit, la jeune femme espère aussi promouvoir au Nigeria des activités tournées vers l'exportation. \"Le Nigeria ne compte pas beaucoup d'entreprises exportatrices de produits finis. Je veux montrer que notre pays peut exporter ce type de produits. Nos produits font désormais partie du catalogue d'Amazon.com, ce qui prouve la faisabilité de ce nouveau modèle d'affaires pour le Nigeria.\" À Lagos, le siège social emploie 42 personnes. Pour ses en-cas à base de mangues, ReelFruit s'approvisionne auprès d'une équipe de 45 femmes qui cultivent des fruits de qualité \"exportation\" à Kaduna, au nord-est du Nigeria. Pour se démarquer, Mihanta Malala Randriantsoa a misé sur les compétences de ses 250 employés -dont 230 femmes -à qui elle offre une trentaine de formations chaque année. Ces formations sont aussi dispensées aux 3 500 producteurs qui fournissent Jacarandas en matières premières. Ces formations visent en priorité à compenser le bas niveau d'instruction des employés, dont 80 % ont à peine franchi l'école primaire. Une qualiticienne initie les employés à compter, additionner, faire la moyenne, calculer le rendement, utiliser les machines à calculer, ainsi qu'à respecter les règles d'hygiène et les techniques de collecte, triage, séchage et de conditionnement. \"Les employés doivent par exemple savoir calculer combien de temps et d'ouvriers sont nécessaires pour produire telle quantité de produits\", explique Mihanta Malala Randriantsoa. Quatre ingénieurs agronomes forment également les paysans à optimiser leur production : quelle quantité de semences et d'engrais, quelle superficie pour obtenir tel rendement ?Chaque produit est soumis à une analyse microbienne, selon des normes internationales. La qualité des produits a ainsi permis de gagner la confiance de plus d'une quarantaine de clients européens et sud-américains, dont le groupe français de produits cosmétiques L'Oréal et les maisons de parfumerie de la ville de Grasse.Chaque année, 700 tonnes de produits sont exportées -600 tonnes d'épices et 100 tonnes d'huiles essentielles : de la cannelle, du poivre sauvage de Madagascar, des baies roses, du girofle, des feuilles de géranium, du gingembre et du curcuma.Par ailleurs, en 2015, l'entreprise a construit une distillerie d'huile essentielle aux normes internationales. Trois alambics et un extracteur tournent un mois par trimestre, ce qui suffit à satisfaire les commandes. \"C'est très prometteur car cela nous permet de contrôler davantage la qualité de nos produits\", affirme Mihanta Malala Randriantsoa.En 2017, la cheffe d'entreprise a décroché le trophée de jeune entrepreneur de moins de 40 ans décerné par la Banque nationale de l'industrie (BNI). Selon le jury, \"l'évolution de Jacarandas depuis 13 ans est à l'image du dynamisme, de l'ambition et de l'esprit d'innovation de sa jeune directrice\". Les agriculteurs peuvent aussi recueillir des images de leurs cultures au moyen du système \"Yield\" de Zenvus : une caméra d'imagerie hyperspectrale repère les problèmes potentiels, comme les maladies des cultures, les ravageurs et les sécheresses. Les petits exploitants prennent des photos de leurs cultures, les envoient via l'application SmartFarm et reçoivent des conseils. \"Notre entreprise a pour but de supprimer les stratégies agricoles basées sur des conjectures en favorisant la mise en place de processus et de systèmes agricoles fondés sur des données dans le cadre d'une agriculture moderne englobant différents aspects, notamment le crédit, l'irrigation, la plantation et la récolte\", explique le professeur Ndubuisi Ekekwe, fondateur de Zenvus.Les fournisseurs de services financiers ont accès aux données agricoles recueillies -sous réserve d'avoir l'accord des producteurs -pour octroyer des assurances, des prêts et/ ou des investissements. Les investisseurs peuvent examiner les données relatives aux délimitations des exploitations et à la superficie des terrains pour, en les combinant avec les informations sur le type de plantes cultivées, estimer les rendements et les profits potentiels. Zenvus analyse et vérifie les données recueillies de façon indépendante et les prêteurs paient une cotisation pour visualiser ces informations sur une autre plateforme, baptisée \"ZCapital\".Un autre service offert par Zenvus, \"ZInsure\", permet aux agriculteurs de demander une assurance en mettant en ligne des informations sur leur exploitation, elles aussi vérifiées par l'entreprise. Les compagnies d'assurance ont ainsi accès à des renseignements standardisés et vérifiables, mais les agriculteurs peuvent aussi souscrire des assurances sur mesure, ce qui contribue à faire baisser les primes. \"Zenvus a mis à profit la technologie pour remédier à l'asymétrie de l'information. En donnant aux prêteurs des informations sur les projets qu'ils financent, on renforce leur confiance, ce qui les incite à accorder des crédits\", souligne Ndubuisi Ekekwe.La technologie SmartFarm, dont le coût varie entre 175 € et 525 €, offre également des services destinés à différents clients. Les fabricants d'engrais, par exemple, peuvent exploiter les données pour déterminer quels engrais produire pour répondre aux besoins des agriculteurs de différentes régions.Lancée en 2014 dans l'est du Nigeria, SmartFarm a été étendue à 500 000 entités agricoles et est utilisée à l'échelle nationale au Nigeria, ainsi qu'au Botswana, au Ghana et au Rwanda. ■ © ZENVUSDes capteurs permettent aux petits agriculteurs d'obtenir des informations sur l'état de santé de leurs sols et contribuent ainsi à réduire les imprévus dans les activités agricoles. u Zimbabwe, plus de 3 000 petits agriculteurs bénéficient d'un système de \"gestion des producteurs\" qui améliore leur accès aux intrants et au financement agricoles. Développée en 2015, l'appli mobile Agro Axess stocke les informations agricoles des petits exploitants qui souhaitent travailler avec des entrepreneurs. Les données -taille de l'exploitation, type de produits cultivés, niveaux de rendement… -sont encodées dans l'application par des travailleurs de terrain pour le compte des entreprises contractantes. Un module de notation de crédit, qui enregistre les données relatives à l'accès de l'agriculteur aux intrants et/ ou au crédit des contractants agricoles, ainsi que les remboursements ultérieurs, est intégré dans l'appli. Ces informations sont compilées et les profils de crédit ainsi établis peuvent être utilisés par les fournisseurs de services financiers et autres contractants pour suivre les activités d'un agriculteur et sa solvabilité.À l'origine de l'appli, Expert Decision Systems (XDS) est la première société de gestion des risques agricoles du Zimbabwe. \"Dans notre pays, des contractants ont consenti des prêts à des petits agriculteurs, en argent ou en intrants. Or, il n'existait aucun système efficace et pratique pour suivre les activités des agriculteurs, vérifier leur productivité et déterminer leur capacité de remboursement. Nous avons décidé d'exploiter ce marché potentiel\", explique Oleen Maponga, directrice de XDS.Cette application avertit les contractants agricoles en cas de \"double rémunération\" pour l'agriculteur -lorsqu'il reçoit des intrants de deux contractants pour une même parcelle -ou de ventes parallèles. Une fois l'agriculteur enregistré, l'appli procède à une vérification de crédit afin de déterminer s'il a des dettes auprès d'autres contractants, détaillants ou institutions financières. Selon Farayi Dyirakumunda, lui aussi directeur de XDS, l'appli a beaucoup de succès auprès des contractants de la filière du tabac et du coton, ainsi qu'auprès des institutions de microfinance.Chez les agriculteurs enregistrés, le taux de défaut de remboursement est passé de 17 % en 2016 à 9 % pour la saison 2017-2018. Cette évolution s'explique probablement par le suivi des remboursements via l'appli, qui avertit les fournisseurs de crédit en cas de non-remboursement.  Des petits agriculteurs obtiennent des financements plus facilement grâce à une appli de notation de crédit qui suit leurs activités et leur capacité à rembourser leurs emprunts.L'appli Agro Axess enregistre les données agricoles et l'historique de crédit des agriculteurs.Des infrastructures agricoles résistantes au changement climatique renforcent la productivité et la sécurité alimentaire des petits producteurs. Dans sa parcelle de 0,3 hectare du comté de Machakos, Urbanus Mutune a creusé des terrasses pour recueillir l'eau de pluie ainsi qu'un bassin de collecte d'une capacité d'environ 500 000 litres. L'eau collectée sert au petit producteur à irriguer ses plants de tomates. \"Je peux désormais faire pousser mes récoltes en fonction de la demande du marché, sans dépendre des précipitations\", expliquet-il. Ses rendements ont augmenté d'environ 80 %.Ces pratiques ont également changé la vie de Magdalene Kimeu, de Machakos. Avant le projet, elle ne pouvait cultiver que du maïs et des haricots pendant la saison des pluies. Elle produit désormais des papayes, des choux verts, des choux chinois, du poivre, des fruits de la passion et des oignons. Les papayers fournissent de l'ombre à ses cultures maraîchères et limitent l'évaporation de l'eau après l'irrigation. \"Mes voisins me demandent à présent des conseils.\" Avec la vente de ses produits maraîchers et de ses fruits, Magdalene Kimeu gagne au moins 13 € par jour. ■Au Kenya, les agriculteurs sont formés aux techniques de restauration des terres pour accroître le couvert végétal dans les exploitations.Un programme de développement intégré met en oeuvre, dans cinq pays d'Afrique subsaharienne, une bonne gestion des terres et des eaux qui renforce la productivité agricole et la sécurité alimentaire.  Nous sommes réellement très fiers de toutes les entreprises qui ont relevé le défi de l'intégration des questions de genre dans les plans de croissance de leurs activités, avec l'appui de notre initiative sur le genre dans les investissements dans l'agrobusiness pour l'Afrique. Cowtribe, au Ghana, s'efforce par exemple de développer l'accès aux services vétérinaires dans les zones rurales. Après avoir participé au défi de l'innovation AgTech, l'entreprise a commencé à réfléchir à l'importance de la prise en compte des petits mammifères et volailles, en se fondant sur le fait que les femmes élèvent et investissent davantage dans les animaux plus petits. Cowtribe considère qu'en fournissant des services vétérinaires pour ces animaux elle peut développer son activité en favorisant l'égalité hommes-femmes.Fresh Direct, une entreprise nigériane qui cultive des légumes dans les espaces urbains, s'est fait mondialement connaître. L'accès aux terres constituant souvent un problème majeur pour les femmes, il a été passionnant d'observer comment l'entreprise a réagi en encourageant les femmes à cultiver dans des conteneurs de transport.Pitch AgriHack est un élément extrêmement important de l'écosystème de l'entrepreneuriat agricole africain. Nous devons travailler dur pour garantir que les femmes créent des agroentreprises et ont tous les atouts nécessaires pour rester dans cet écosystème et continuent à développer leurs activités. Il reste encore beaucoup à faire pour créer un écosystème plus sain où les femmes peuvent recevoir l'appui dont elles ont besoin pour développer leurs activités.Les femmes ont l'ambition, l'énergie et la volonté de créer leurs entreprises et de les faire fonctionner, mais nos systèmes d'appui ne favorisent pas la durabilité. Par appui, j'entends les conseils de ceux qui ont de l'expérience dans un domaine particulier, qui est crucial pour le développement d'un modèle d'entreprise durable. L'appui se présente aussi sous la forme de l'accès aux financements.Nous sommes particulièrement fiers du fait que le programme de bourses d'AWARD a favorisé l'avancement des carrières de scientifiques africaines. D'ici la fin 2019, plus de 1 300 scientifiques de 40 pays en auront directement bénéficié (en tant que boursiers, mentors et encadrés). Parmi les bénéfices avérés de ce programme, en particulier pour les femmes scientifiques que nous soutenons, figurent une meilleure force intérieure, confiance, motivation, connaissance de soi et conception de carrière. Les boursiers ont aussi considérablement amélioré leurs compétences en leadership et en recherche scientifique et bénéficient d'une meilleure reconnaissance et visibilité professionnelle.Par ailleurs, 1 500 scientifiques et directeurs de recherche ont bénéficié des partenariats d'AWARD avec 46 institutions de recherche du monde entier, \"Investir dans le leadership des femmes\" Directrice de Femmes africaines dans la recherche et le développement agricole (AWARD), le Dr Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg souligne l'importance de renforcer les compétences des femmes dans le secteur agricole.qui ont investi leurs propres ressources pour permettre à leur personnel de participer à nos formations.AWARD a contribué à mettre en avant le genre et la recherche agricole dans les débats impliquant des acteurs influents tels que l'Union africaine, le Forum pour la recherche agricole en Afrique (FARA) et le Forum régional des universités pour le renforcement des capacités en agriculture (RUFORUM). Par l'effet des travaux d'AWARD, des organisations oeuvrant au financement de la recherche agricole -des organisations philanthropiques privées aux organismes donateurs bilatéraux -ont aussi davantage pris conscience de l'importance du financement d'une recherche agricole sensible aux questions de genre sur tout le continent.Nous devons aller plus loin que la reconnaissance des problèmes concernant la sous-représentation des femmes dans la recherche et agir véritablement Ce n'est pas une question de choix entre l'un ou l'autre. L'analyse de l'ensemble du secteur montre que les hommes sont surreprésentés dans les postes de direction et de décision. Il n'est donc pas possible de faire avancer la représentation des femmes sans engager les hommes à participer au rééquilibrage. Bien sûr, les femmes doivent avoir la confiance et les compétences nécessaires pour prendre en charge les postes de direction.AWARD a collaboré très étroitement avec le Dr Mandefro Nigussie, directeur général de l'Institut éthiopien de recherche agricole (EIAR), qui, selon moi, se pose clairement comme le grand défenseur masculin de la promotion du leadership des femmes à l'EIAR. Il a soutenu l'initiative d'AWARD pour un développement et une recherche agricoles tenant compte de la problématique hommes-femmes, qui aide les institutions de recherche agricole à mieux intégrer le genre dans leur fonctionnement. Je tiens aussi à féliciter les responsables du RUFORUM et du FARA, qui ont collaboré avec AWARD pour développer nos efforts en faveur de l'intégration des questions de genre.Je pense que le premier et le plus important des enseignements est probablement qu'il est absolument indispensable d'investir dans le développement de compétences de leadership pour les femmes scientifiques. Cela n'est toutefois pas suffisant pour susciter le type de transformation systémique nécessaire pour équilibrer la représentation hommes-femmes dans la recherche agricole. Pour aller de l'avant, nous devons aider les institutions à devenir les lieux où les femmes et les hommes, en plus de survivre, peuvent innover et prospérer. ■Ce mentorat m'a aidée à fixer des objectifs réalisables et à m'y tenir jusqu'à leur réalisation. La formation d'AWARD m'a fait découvrir le plan d'action qui, avec le soutien de mon mentor, m'a aidée à décomposer ces objectifs en étapes faisables. Trois ans plus tard, je maintiens toujours le cap ! Le Dr Gikungu a continué de me conseiller. Je vais obtenir mon doctorat en fin d'année. Les recherches que j'ai entreprises ont été inspirées par l'expérience acquise durant le programme de bourses d'AWARD.Les Ogiek, dernière communauté autochtone du Kenya habitant la forêt, possèdent des connaissances autochtones très riches. Celles-ci sont extrêmement importantes pour la résilience au changement climatique parce qu'elles relèvent d'une approche holistique. Les savoirs autochtones ne fonctionnent pas en vase clos, mais suivent une approche écosystémique : ils s'intéressent aux personnes, plantes, animaux et à leurs interactions. La résolution des problèmes est localisée et fondée sur ce qui a fonctionné dans le passé.Les communautés rurales sont souvent marginalisées. Pour les Ogiek, cela s'explique probablement par leurs choix de vie excluant l'éducation formelle. Pour responsabiliser ces communautés et améliorer leurs moyens d'existence, je dois prendre en compte les facteurs marginalisants qui touchent leur mode de vie.Avec le programme de bourses d'AWARD, j'ai développé une meilleure compréhension du concept de prise en compte des questions de genre, ce qui a été très utile dans mon travail avec les communautés rurales. Je m'assure maintenant que chacune de mes interventions tient compte des questions de genre. Je veille à ce que les femmes participent autant aux formations que les hommes, qui assistent naturellement à ce type de réunions.Oui, et avec plaisir. J'ai organisé un événement dans mon ancien lycée dans le cadre du programme d'AWARD. Cela m'a permis de démarrer un programme de mentorat que je gère maintenant avec quelques anciennes camarades de classe. Nous animons à l'école des réunions annuelles pour discuter avec les jeunes filles des divers facteurs susceptibles d'améliorer leurs études, leur vie sociale et leurs plans de carrière. J'ai parrainé deux collègues en appliquant les directives de mentorat d'AWARD et je suis fière de les voir suivre les plans d'action par étapes qu'elles se sont tracés.Dans les communautés avec lesquelles j'ai travaillé, les femmes sont les principaux moteurs de l'agriculture. Elles supportent la charge des travaux agricoles, nourrissent les familles et plus généralement la nation et assurent la production alimentaire. Malheureusement, elles interviennent surtout au sein des exploitations et ne sont pas en position de prendre des décisions. Étant donné leur rôle dans l'agriculture en Afrique subsaharienne, il faudrait leur fournir les outils permettant d'accéder à davantage d'informations. Elles pourraient ainsi prendre des décisions éclairées.Nous devons encourager les filles à choisir des carrières basées sur l'agriculture dès l'école et les attirer vers les sciences agronomiques avec du mentorat sur le long terme. Des centres de recherche pourraient aussi offrir des postes de formation à de jeunes diplômées, comme des stages qui les aideraient à acquérir de l'expérience et dynamiser leurs projets de carrière. ■ Rendre l'agriculture \"sensible au genre\" Chercheuse senior, Faith Milkah Muniale évoque son engagement auprès de Femmes africaines dans la recherche et le développement agricole (AWARD). L'utilisation de capteurs, de la robotique, de l'impression 3D, de l'informatique en nuage et de l'intelligence artificielle se normalise dans le secteur agricole. Les drones et machines connectées deviennent plus abordables, ce qui favorise la création de dispositifs Tiana Cline L'AgTech au service de l'autonomisation des femmes intelligents pour les fournisseurs agricoles et prestataires de services et permet l'échange de grandes quantités de données. Face à des aléas tels que les mauvaises conditions météorologiques, les maladies végétales et animales et les fluctuations des cours des produits de base, l'analyse prévisionnelle et celle des données massives permettent des simulations en temps réel qui peuvent guider des stratégies d'atténuation des risques susceptibles de gérer ces conditions.Le développement technologique ne se produit pas seul et, dans les communautés rurales, la numérisation ne fait pas toujours progresser l'agribusiness au rythme souhaité. Les pays émergents ne disposent souvent que d'une capacité scientifique minimale pour mettre en oeuvre des solutions digitales. \"Ce serait une demi-vérité de dire que la technologie s'est déployée partout en Afrique, particulièrement en agriculture. Une grande partie des technologies ne sont toujours pas comprises et leur adoption se heurte à une barrière culturelle chez les femmes\", tempère Fatima Alimohamed, PDG d'African Brand Warrior, une entreprise kényane de marketing. \"Cela dit, à chaque fois que des technologies ont été introduites ou appliquées, cela s'est traduit par des améliorations considérables : en plus d'avoir des informations à portée de main, les femmes ont pu intégrer la chaîne de valeur [agricole] et même recevoir des paiements liés à leur production.\"La numérisation a permis aux femmes de montrer que, lorsqu'elles ont accès à la technologie, elles se mettent à l'utiliser et en plus à soutenir et défendre d'autres femmes (lire notre reportage Des avocates et des agricultrices communiquent par SMS, p26). Parmi les nombreux cas d'une introduction réussie de la technologie dans l'agrobusiness figure celui des productrices de karité du nord du Ghana.Dans ce pays d'Afrique de l'Ouest, où le beurre de karité est très demandé, beaucoup de femmes dépendent de la cueillette et de la transformation des noix de karité pour gagner leur vie. Ce processus est long, fastidieux et requiert beaucoup de labeur. Au Ghana, les femmes travaillant dans la transformation informelle du karité sont souvent les moins rémunérées de la chaîne de valeur, à cause des multiples intermédiaires qui font grimper les coûts finaux.Tout a changé avec l'introduction de la technologie par une initiative de démonstration du concept lancée par SAP et une ONG basée au Ghana. \"La technologie numérique a contribué à éliminer certains obstacles en permettant l'accès aux prix du marché, réduisant ainsi la dépendance par rapport aux intermédiaires. En accédant à un nouveau marché international d'acheteurs, les femmes ont vu leurs profits augmenter de 82 % et elles peuvent maintenant obtenir l'engagement des acheteurs à l'avance\", explique Isabel Papadakis.Les productrices de karité sont désormais connectées à l'économie formelle grâce à l'organisation Shea Network Ghana (SNG, Réseau karité du Ghana), qui donne instantanément les prix du marché et permet aux femmes de vendre leur production en utilisant leurs appareils mobiles. \"[SNG] rationalise la chaîne d'approvisionnement alimentaire et partage des renseignements intéressants pour les consommateurs finaux, comme l'origine des aliments et les processus productifs suivis\", précise Isabel Papadakis.Autre réussite, celui mis en lumière dans notre reportage Avec Cowtribe, des vaccins pour le bétail livrés à la demande (p24) : des éleveuses ghanéennes bénéficient de la numérisation avec l'application de fourniture de vaccins de Cowtribe.La digitalisation de l'agriculture a permis à de nombreuses agripreneuses de toute l'Afrique de tirer parti de solutions fondées sur la technologie, mais l'infrastructure et l'accessibilité des technologies restent des défis majeurs et continuent de creuser l'écart entre hommes et femmes. Selon une étude mondiale sur l'importance des femmes dans le secteur et la place des agricultrices dans la chaîne de valeur agricole, les femmes interrogées ont déclaré avoir besoin de davantage de formation. L'entreprise Corteva Agriscience a constaté que la formation est essentielle pour tirer profit de la technologie agricole.› Les dispositifs de l'Internet des objets, l'accès aux informations sur les marchés et les services de paiement et de facturation numériques sont des aspects essentiels de l'AgTech qui moduleront et numériseront l'activité des petits agriculteurs. \"Plus de 500 millions de petits agriculteurs produisent plus de 70 % de l'alimentation mondiale, mais souvent ils ne sont pas connectés à l'Internet et disposent de  Au Sénégal, où la majorité des transformateurs de poisson sont des femmes, une application assure la sécurité des pêcheurs en mer et améliore l'avantage comparatif de toute la filière du poisson. L'appli a été conçue dans le cadre du projet WISE (Wireless Solutions for Fisheries in Senegal, Solutions de réseau sans fil pour la pêche au Sénégal), avec de multiples usages pour les différents acteurs de la chaîne de valeur. L'appli fournit aux femmes des vidéos sur l'hygiène et de bonnes pratiques de transformation du poisson pour améliorer la qualité des produits et en obtenir de meilleurs prix. Transformatrice de poisson à Mballing, Anta Diouf fait partie des 5 000 utilisateurs de l'application. \"WISE nous aide à communiquer avec les pêcheurs alors qu'ils sont encore en mer\", indique-t-elle. \"Leurs prix sont envoyés sur un serveur qui nous les transmet en temps réel. Cela nous permet de négocier en avance et ainsi d'être plus efficaces et productives.\" L'application permet aussi de contracter des microcrédits à taux d'intérêt bas (entre 3 % et 5 %), ce qui est souvent compliqué pour les femmes. Le projet WISE est mis en oeuvre au Sénégal depuis 2014 par l'organisation à but non lucratif FHI360, l'opérateur téléphonique Tigo et l'ONG Inter-Mondes, avec l'appui du gouvernement sénégalais. Selon FHI360, depuis le lancement du programme, la plupart des transformatrices auraient plus que doublé leur revenu, passant de 100 kg de poisson transformé par mois à 1 000 kg. WISE cherche aussi à assurer la sécurité des pêcheurs, dont 90 % travaillent de façon artisanale. Ces dernières années, nombre d'entre eux ont été perdus en mer sans pouvoir signaler leur emplacement. D'autres ont été tués par les gardes-côtes des pays voisins après avoir franchi la frontière sans autorisation. L'appli comprend un outil de navigation qui utilise le GPS du smartphone pour trouver des lieux de pêche autorisés. \"Si les pêcheurs s'approchent trop près des frontières, une alerte sonne sur le téléphone\", explique Berhane Gebru, directeur de WISE chez FHI360. Une fonctionnalité SOS permet d'envoyer rapidement ses coordonnées aux secours en cas de perte en mer. L'application fournit aussi des données météorologiques telles la hauteur des vagues, la visibilité, la vitesse et la direction des vents à différentes heures de la journée. Les pêcheurs ont indiqué avoir augmenté leurs prises de 50 %.   Lorsque nous parlons de digitalisation en agriculture et des opportunités, la première responsabilité des gouvernements est de garantir que ces opportunités soient accessibles aux femmes. Il faut instruire celles-ci et leur faire prendre conscience des opportunités dont elles peuvent tirer profit, sur le plan numérique, pour créer une entreprise. Les gouvernements doivent investir dans des infrastructures et programmes de formation de TIC pour que les femmes bénéficient des technologies digitales. Un appui financier est aussi important. En veillant à la mise en oeuvre de politiques intégrant la dimension de genre pour améliorer l'accessibilité des technologies digitales et l'utilisation des financements, les responsables politiques peuvent aussi agir pour garantir que les femmes bénéficient véritablement et équitablement de la digitalisation du secteur agricole. ans les régions du nord du Ghana, comme ailleurs en Afrique, les femmes ont la responsabilité de s'occuper de leurs foyers et de subvenir à leurs besoins. L'élevage étant la principale source de revenus, elles prennent soin de chèvres, moutons et volailles. Pour aider les agriculteurs à lutter contre la forte prévalence des maladies animales, l'entreprise sociale Cowtribe a développé un service numérique qui livre, sur abonnement ou à la demande, aux agriculteurs ruraux des vaccins pour le bétail.Le projet Lamisi de Cowtribe vise à offrir aux femmes et aux hommes un accès égal aux services vétérinaires grâce à un système unique de gestion logistique basé sur l'informatique en nuage, qui rend possible la livraison de vaccins aux agriculteurs où et quand ils en ont besoin. Ce système permet aussi aux éleveurs de suivre la santé de chaque animal et leur rappelle quand leurs animaux ont besoin d'être vaccinés.\"En numérisant les données, nous pouvons déterminer où les services sont insuffisants et nous nous arrangeons pour les offrir aux éleveurs de manière pratique et abordable\", indique Alima Bawah, cofondatrice de Cowtribe en 2016. Les souscriptions au service se faisant par téléphone portable, Cowtribe peut recueillir des informations pertinentes sur les éleveurs et leurs animaux pour mieux comprendre leurs besoins.Lorsqu'elle était enfant et grandissait auprès de sa grand-mère dans la région Nord du Ghana, Alima Bawah n'a jamais vu un vétérinaire. La volaille du foyer mourait souvent de la maladie Avec Cowtribe, des vaccins pour le bétail livrés à la demandeSPORE 192 | 25 de Newcastle parce que la famille n'avait pas accès aux vaccins. \"Le fait de trouver ce genre de solution pour des ruraux vivant comme ma grand-mère et moi-même m'apporte une grande satisfaction intérieure\", se réjouit-elle.Cowtribe cible des communautés en se fondant sur la densité démographique, les effectifs animaux, la principale source de revenus et d'autres informations pertinentes. Une réunion est organisée par les agents de terrain pour susciter l'intérêt dans la communauté et informer les agriculteurs sur la valeur des vaccins et la manière dont Cowtribe peut les aider à accéder aux services vétérinaires. Les éleveurs peuvent s'inscrire à Cowtribe contre 4,50 euros par an.La connectivité Internet étant souvent limitée, le système Cowtribe est développé sur mesure pour que l'accès à l'Internet ne soit pas une contrainte. \"Notre plateforme fonctionnant en mode hors ligne, les agents qui utilisent notre application sur le terrain pour inscrire les agriculteurs n'ont pas besoin d'avoir l'Internet pour se servir de la plateforme\", explique Alima Bawah.Les commandes de vaccins d'une communauté sont regroupées pour permettre une livraison en gros -certains vaccins sont donnés gratuitement et d'autres fournis à des prix subventionnés. Les femmes inscrites reçoivent aussi des messages vocaux dans leur langue locale sur leurs téléphones portables, à propos de la disponibilité des vaccins et avec des conseils sur les meilleures pratiques agricoles et de gestion du bétail.L'accès aux vaccins proposé par Cowtribe a contribué à réduire les taux élevés de mortalité du bétail et à augmenter les revenus des agriculteurs. Depuis qu'elle y a adhéré, Latif Yapaga, une mère de quatre enfants âgée de 34 ans, de la communauté de Gbugli dans le district de Kumbungu, a augmenté sa basse-cour de 7 à 21 oiseaux sans subir la moindre épidémie. Avec davantage de revenus, elle a pu acheter des uniformes scolaires pour ses enfants. \"Avant, nos animaux mouraient subitement, mais maintenant nous avons des vaccins pour les garder en bonne santé. Nous sommes en train de multiplier notre cheptel et j'espère que l'avenir de ma famille sera meilleur\", déclare-t-elle.\"Nous ne visons pas juste des revenus commerciaux, mais aussi un impact social\", précise Alima Bawah. Pour promouvoir l'autonomisation économique des femmes, Cowtribe travaille avec des groupes de femmes pour faciliter le processus de partage des informations et les aide aussi à se soutenir mutuellement. Chaque femme du groupe reçoit deux oiseaux gratuitement de la part de Cowtribe. Les femmes font en sorte d'en produire vingt, puis offrent à leur tour deux oiseaux à une autre femme en un cercle vertueux.Depuis sa création, Cowtribe a élargi ses services à environ 120 communautés et 29 000 agriculteurs des régions du Nord, du Haut Ghana oriental et du Haut Ghana occidental. D'ici la fin de 2019, l'objectif est de toucher 100 000 agriculteurs -de 10 communautés dans chacune des 10 régions du pays. Les femmes représentent au moins 60 % des personnes ciblées.En mars 2019, une nouvelle application appelée Benefy sera lancée pour permettre à des demandeurs tiers d'acheter des vaccins pour remise à un bénéficiaire à un endroit donné. Par exemple, un fils vivant dans la région du Grand Accra peut utiliser l'application pour acheter un vaccin pour sa mère vivant dans la région Nord. \"Notre vison de l'avenir est celle où chaque agriculteur aurait accès à des vaccins animaux… où il n'y aurait plus de maladies décimant le bétail qui aurait pu payer des frais de scolarité\", confie Alima Bawah.Cowtribe espère aussi connecter les éleveurs aux marchés pour les aider à vendre leurs produits. \"Maintenant qu'ils ont accès à des vaccins quand ils en ont besoin et qu'il n'y a plus de mortalité due aux maladies dans leurs cheptels, les éleveurs peuvent vendre leurs surplus pour répondre à leurs besoins\", observe Alima Bawah.Cowtribe a été sélectionnée parmi les 26 finalistes du concours de start-up Pitch AgriHack 2018 du CTA, qui lui a offert une formation commerciale et un mentorat, ainsi que la possibilité de présenter sa solution numérique à des investisseurs potentiels. Cowtribe a aussi gagné en visibilité en remportant le \"British Council Innovation Challenge\" en décembre 2016 et en arrivant en seconde position du concours \"Gender in Agribusiness Investments for Africa AgTech West Africa Challenge\", en avril 2017. ■ Des vaccins fournis par Cowtribe ont aidé à réduire les taux élevés de mortalité du bétail et à augmenter les revenus des femmes.L' équipe d' avocates dirigée par Hellen Mukasa aide les agricultrices ougandaises à exercer et défendre leurs droits, en particulier concernant la propriété foncière, grâce à un service SMS.epuis le lancement, en 2017, d'un service SMS, 3 000 agricultrices du centre et du nord de l'Ouganda bénéficient de conseils juridiques sur leurs portables, en langue locale. La plateforme numérique de la start-up L4F (Lawyers 4 Farmers, \"Des avocats pour les agriculteurs\") permet aux agricultrices d'accéder à des services juridiques et de mieux connaître leurs droits pour moins d'un euro (coût d'envoi d'un SMS). Au besoin, les avocates peuvent organiser un suivi téléphonique ou prendre rendez-vous avec les agricultrices pour s'assurer que leurs difficultés sont résolues.En Ouganda, malgré le droit constitutionnel des femmes à posséder la terre et à en hériter, les pratiques coutumières qui gardent la propriété des terres entre les mains des hommes priment souvent sur le droit, généralement par ignorance de la loi constitutionnelle. Sans surprise, la majorité des requêtes adressées à L4F portent sur la propriété foncière et l'héritage de la terre, et plus de 70 % des bénéficiaires de la plateforme sont des femmes.Ainsi, Nakazibwe Resty exploite une kibanja (parcelle) de 0,4 hectare à Kasana, dans le district de Luwero, où elle s'est installée en 2007 avec l'accord du propriétaire. Pendant 10 ans elle a payé un loyer foncier annuel -busuulu -pour la terre qu'elle cultive et où elle vit avec ses trois enfants. Toutefois, en 2017, le propriétaire l'a obligée à évacuer les terres en laissant ses cultures dans les champs. N'ayant nulle part où aller, l'agricultrice a contacté L4F, qui lui a expliqué qu'en tant qu'exploitante de kibanja elle pouvait faire une offre d'achat des terres à son propriétaire. Une autre solution était que celui-ci lui trouve une autre kibanja à exploiter ou lui offre un dédommagement. \"Quand mon propriétaire a remarqué que je connaissais mes droits, il m'a permis d'acheter la kibanja\", explique Nakazibwe Resty. \"Je détiens un contrat de vente prouvant mes droits de propriété.\" Elle est aujourd'hui l'une des rares agricultrices propriétaires de terres en Ouganda.\"Dans le contexte juridique, l'agriculture est un terrain miné plus difficile pour les agricultrices que pour leurs homologues masculins\", observe Hellen Mukasa, cofondatrice et directrice exécutive de L4F, dont l'équipe est entièrement féminine. \"La chaîne de valeur agricole est longue et commence à la production, ce qui rend indispensable l'accès à la terre. C'est là que commence le défi pour les femmes africaines.\"Publiée en 2018, l'étude Perspectives régionales sur le genre et les systèmes agro-alimentaires, de la FAO et la Commission de l'Union africaine, souligne un écart considérable entre hommes et femmes concernant l'accès et le contrôle des ressources productives comme la terre. En Ouganda, L4F travaille avec des groupes formels d'agriculteurs, composés essentiellement de femmes, pour leur offrir des services juridiques, par exemple sur la marche à suivre pour formaliser une exploitation agricole. \"En plus de conseils et d'une sensibilisation juridiques, nous proposons aux groupes d'agriculteurs des services juridiques subventionnés, par exemple des micro-assurances juridiques, dans le cadre desquels chaque membre s'acquitte d'un petit montant mis en commun pour payer une couverture juridique\", explique Hellen Mukasa. L4F organise des réunions pour atteindre les communautés et attirer l'attention sur son travail. Parmi ses activités de sensibilisation figurent les questions liées à la propriété foncière, à l'égalité entre les sexes et aux droits des femmes. L'entreprise travaille avec des groupes d'agriculteurs pour diffuser des informations juridiques et assurer une sensibilisation au droit foncier et aux types d'accords pratiqués dans les transactions agricoles. La start-up a constaté que les femmes sont plus réceptives que les hommes aux informations fournies sur leurs droits dans le cadre d'activités de sensibilisation en face-à-face. Dans la plupart des communautés où intervient L4F, les familles délèguent les femmes pour suivre les formations, sous prétexte que les hommes sont trop occupés.Namata Teo, elle aussi agricultrice à Kasana, cultive et fournit du maïs en grains à plusieurs acheteurs de sa ville. Ayant de bons rapports avec des clients fidèles, elle a commencé à leur vendre ses produits à crédit, sans tenir de registre des quantités fournies. Jusqu'au jour où certains ont refusé de rembourser. Namata Teo a entendu parler de L4F lors d'un programme de sensibilisation proposé dans sa communauté. \"L4F m'a aidée à récupérer certaines sommes, mais vu l'absence de registres je n'ai pas pu tout recouvrer. L4F m'a donné des modèles de contrats de vente simples, que j'utilise maintenant avec mes acheteurs pour me protéger de ce type de pertes\", témoigne Namata Teo.Outre les SMS permettant de répondre aux demandes des agricultrices, l'équipe d'avocates partage aussi des informations sur les plateformes de médias sociaux comme WhatsApp et Facebook. \"Sur le plan des services juridiques dans notre domaine, 60 % de nos agricultrices vivent dans des zones rurales alors que 90 % des prestataires de services se trouvent dans les zones urbaines. Cela pose un réel problème aux agricultrices rurales qui doivent payer leurs trajets en ville pour obtenir des conseils ou informations juridiques\", explique Hellen Mukasa. \"Tout cela change avec la numérisation et la plateforme mobile de L4F permet aux agricultrices d'accéder à des services juridiques sans quitter leurs foyers.\"À l'origine avocate d'affaires, Hellen Mukasa a fondé L4F suite à un litige foncier familial. \"Un plan d'expropriation obligatoire du gouvernement a ôté deux miles carrés sur cinq [517 hectares sur 1 294] à notre exploitation, mais ma famille n'a jamais été dédommagée pour les terres confisquées. Mon père ne savait pas comment surmonter la complexité du droit pour obtenir compensation, alors je m'en suis occupée.\" L'avocate a gagné après avoir obtenu que le Procureur général de l'Ouganda convienne d'un accord extrajudiciaire avec plusieurs autres propriétaires fonciers. \"En découvrant les problèmes de ma famille sur la propriété et en travaillant avec elle pour les résoudre, j'ai soudainement pris conscience du nombre d'agriculteurs confrontés à des situations semblables\", confie Hellen Mukasa.Elle a reçu l'aide du CTA et de l'entreprise sociale The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (Institut de La Haye pour les innovations en droit) pour perfectionner ses compétences en entrepreneuriat social, y compris pour créer un modèle d'entreprise durable. En tant que finaliste du concours Pitch AgriHack 2018 du CTA, axé l'an dernier sur le soutien aux femmes entrepreneurs innovatrices, Hellen Mukasa a participé à une session de formation de deux jours pour l'aider à gérer le volet financier de L4F et améliorer la capacité de l'entreprise à mobiliser les capitaux d'investisseurs. Pendant la finale du concours, au cours du Forum pour une révolution verte en Afrique de Kigali, au Rwanda, l'avocate a pu présenter L4F à des investisseurs potentiels et experts industriels. \"Pitch AgriHack nous a offert une grande visibilité, surtout dans le secteur agricole. Cela nous a beaucoup aidées avec certains partenariats, comme avec la communauté du café en Ouganda\", a déclaré Hellen Mukasa.Depuis le lancement de la start-up, plus de 9 000 SMS ont été échangés avec 1 965 utilisateurs actifs. En 2018, L4F a réussi à régler 264 dossiers juridiques. Avec l'appui de partenaires tels que l'Africa Agribusiness Academy, présente au Burundi, au Kenya et au Rwanda, L4F prévoit d'élargir ses services en Afrique de l'Est et de toucher 15 000 agricultrices d'ici 2020. ■Pendant 30 ans, Sarah Nangendo et son mari ont cultivé 0,4 hectare de terres familiales. En octobre 2017, au décès de celui-ci, elle a été obligée de les abandonner. Ces terres n'étaient pas enregistrées au nom de l'agricultrice et, comme il est rare en Ouganda que les femmes possèdent ou héritent les terres familiales, la famille de son mari lui a pris ses parcelles. \"La condition d'agricultrice s'accompagne souvent de craintes et d'une certaine stigmatisation\", explique Hellen Mukasa de la start-up de conseils juridiques L4F. C'est particulièrement vrai lorsque l'agricultrice n'a ni mari ni père pour assumer la propriété des terres. Déterminée à ne pas perdre la terre qu'elle avait travaillée la plus grande partie de sa vie, Sarah Nangendo s'est opposée à la décision de sa belle-famille. Le processus lui permettant de mettre la terre à son nom a été long et a nécessité de fréquentes comparutions devant le tribunal qui l'ont obligée à quitter tôt sa ferme du village d'Agwata, dans le district de Dokolo. Elle a néanmoins persévéré jusqu'à obtenir les documents administratifs lui permettant de gérer la propriété de son mari et d'inscrire son nom sur le titre foncier au ministère responsable de la gestion foncière. Une nuit, après la réception du titre foncier, la maison de Sarah Nangendo a entièrement brûlé et tous ses documents légaux ont été détruits. Réticente à l'idée de refaire tout le processus, l'agricultrice a envoyé un SMS à L4F en avril 2018 après avoir vu une affiche présentant leur activité dans le local de réunion de son groupe d'agriculteurs. L4F l'a aidée à obtenir un certificat de remplacement sans avoir à reprendre les mêmes longues démarches. L'Ouganda possède de bonnes politiques de protection des droits fonciers pour tous. La difficulté réside dans l'échec d'une mise en oeuvre efficace de ces politiques et l'ignorance des communautés de l'existence de ces lois. \"Nous devons impliquer les hommes dans la protection des droits des femmes à posséder des terres et à en hériter\", souligne Hellen Mukasa.\"60 % de nos agriculteurs se trouvent dans des zones rurales, et pourtant 90 % des fournisseurs de services juridiques vivent des les zones urbaines.\"Au Kenya, de la ferme au marché, via une plateforme mobileLes produits laitiers kényans ont la cote\"Nous voulons servir de modèles de gestion d'entreprise\"La construction de centres de conditionnement des fruits a permis aux grossistes locaux d'accéder à des marchés internationaux et de réduire les importantes pertes postrécolte.Vincent Defait et Soumaila Diarra P armi les principaux producteurs de mangues d'Afrique de l'Ouest, le Mali a multiplié par trois ses exportations de mangues ces dix dernières années après la construction de centres de conditionnement et de stockage.Fragiles, les mangues pourrissent en 7 jours après récolte à température ambiante. En 2007, le PLAZA (Périmètre de logistique aménagé en zone aéroportuaire) de Bamako a donc ouvert ses portes aux professionnels de la filière. Financé par la coopération néerlandaise, la Banque mondiale et le gouvernement du Mali, le centre comprend six salles de conditionnement, une zone logistique de mise en froid avec une chambre de pré-refroidissement, deux chambres froides de stockage et une zone de chargement réfrigérée. Le PLAZA est équipé pour qu'en sorte chaque mois une cinquantaine de conteneurs, soit 3 000 à 3 500 tonnes de mangues pour une campagne de 3 mois.La possibilité de stocker de plus grandes quantités de mangues permet d'exporter davantage. \"Avant, on ne pouvait faire que des expéditions par avion. On n'exportait que 200 à 300 tonnes par campagne\", explique Mahamadou Yaffa, directeur commercial de Yaffa et Frères, l'un des principaux exportateurs du pays. Le centre de conditionnement de Bamako a contribué à tripler les exportations de mangues maliennes.SPORE 192 | 31 A u Kenya, une plateforme mobile offre à plus de 17 000 agriculteurs un accès à des marchés garantis et des prix à la production plus élevés, tout en réduisant les coûts pour les grossistes en fruits et légumes. Fondé par la start-up Twiga Foods, ce système business-to-business met en relation plus de 6 000 détaillants urbains et des petits exploitants, améliorant ainsi la chaîne d'approvisionnement de la ferme au marché et réduisant les pertes agricoles.Twiga Foods a développé sa plateforme en 2014, alors que les intermédiaires, la surproduction et des pertes postrécolte réduisaient les bénéfices des agriculteurs et faisaient grimper les prix pour les consommateurs.\"Nous avons réalisé que la chaîne d'approvisionnement des produits, de la ferme au marché, était très décousue\", explique Grant Brooke, PDG de Twiga Foods. \"Notre idée de départ était que, si nous pouvions garantir des commandes de la part d'une masse critique de détaillants tous les jours, cela stabiliserait la demande et nous permettrait d'offrir aux producteurs des marchés garantis.\"Avec sa plateforme, Twiga Foods se passe des intermédiaires. Cela permet d'offrir des prix plus élevés aux agriculteurs, tout en proposant des prix plus bas et un approvisionnement fiable et de qualité aux vendeurs. Les agriculteurs font livrer leurs produits dans le centre de collecte le plus proche de Twiga Foods (centres répartis dans 20 pays) et reçoivent un SMS de confirmation à la réception de la marchandise. Ils sont payés dans les 24 heures, via le service bancaire mobile M-Pesa. \"Ils paient bien, je suis certain de recevoir mon argent et il n'y a pas trop de conditions\", affirme Alvan Muriithi, qui a presque doublé ses bénéfices depuis qu'il vend ses papayes via Twiga Foods.Les produits sont transformés et conditionnés dans un entrepôt à Nakuru, au Kenya, avant d'être distribués aux 6 000 vendeurs de rue de la ville. Pour garantir le respect des normes de sécurité alimentaire, l'entreprise élabore avec des experts internationaux des réglementations postrécolte qui reflètent les pratiques internationales, comme le nettoyage des produits au moment de la récolte pour réduire le développement de champignons, ou l'utilisation de chambres froides pour gérer la température et l'humidité. Twiga Foods travaille aussi avec l'entité étatique Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service pour garantir que les produits soient conformes aux exigences requises.Avec un nombre d'utilisateurs en hausse et des bénéfices évidents pour les agriculteurs et les vendeurs, Twiga Foods cherche à déployer ses services en Afrique de l'Est. L'entreprise a aussi étendu son portefeuille à 17 produits différents. En 2018, la start-up a mobilisé plus de 8 millions d'euros d'investissements, en particulier de la Société financière internationale (IFC), pour ajouter des denrées transformées et des biens de consommation courante à sa gamme de produits. \"L'investissement de l'IFC nous permettra d'atteindre davantage d'agriculteurs, d'améliorer l'efficacité de la fourniture de services et d'accroître l'accès des vendeurs aux produits et denrées de qualité\", indique Grant Brooke. ■Au Kenya, une plateforme mobile business-to-business met en relation des détaillants urbains avec des petits producteurs ruraux.Une plateforme mobile créée par une start-up kényane approvisionne les vendeurs en fruits et légumes frais, tout en garantissant un marché stable aux petits producteurs.© TWIGA FOODSDans le district de Toledo, les agriculteurs reçoivent d'une entreprise locale trois fois le prix du marché pour leur curcuma. Les racines sont ensuite transformées en une pâte de curcuma \"sauvage\".Natalie Dookie A u Belize, plus de 350 cultivateurs de curcuma se sont enregistrés auprès de l'entreprise agricole sociale Naledo Belize Ltd, à qui ils fournissent des racines de curcuma entières, qui sont transformées en pâte Truly Turmeric.Le curcuma pousse à l'état sauvage et est cultivé dans des forêts ou avec d'autres espèces. Ce modèle de production favorisant la biodiversité permet aussi une culture durable et une agriculture régénératrice. Pour optimiser la production, les cultivateurs ont été formés par l'entreprise à replanter les petits rhizomes (des tiges souterraines), à réduire la contamination par les herbicides et pesticides, à nettoyer les racines et à récolter la partie principale de la racine. Le rendement du curcuma s'élève à plus de 4 500 kg par demi-hectare et la plante présente un cycle de croissance rapide de neuf mois. Elle était autrefois produite en petite quantité dans le pays, avant d'être transformée manuellement en poudre pour la consommation locale. Désormais, les agriculteurs enregistrés chez Naledo en produisent plus de 9 000 kg par mois.En 2014, Umeeda Switlo, PDG de Naledo, a découvert que les racines du curcuma bélizien -Curcuma longaétaient plus grandes que celles d'autres espèces. Après avoir vérifié qu'elles ne contenaient aucun agent pathogène ou métal lourd, elle a commencé à les transformer en pâte de curcuma dans sa cuisine, au Canada. Umeeda Switlo a aussi découvert que le curcuma bélizien possédait d'autres bienfaits nutritifs : alors que la plupart des espèces ne contiennent que 2 % de curcuminoïdes -un composant avec de puissantes vertus anti-inflammatoires -, la variété bélizienne en contient 7,6 %.La pâte Truly Turmeric contient du jus de citron vert fraîchement pressé, de l'huile de coco pressée à froid et du sel marin. \"Ce produit est unique sur le marché. Avec ce produit 'sauvage', nous sommes une étape au-dessus de l'agriculture bio puisque les racines poussent dans la nature sans aucun intrant agricole\", explique Umeeda Switlo, très attachée à la réduction de l'impact environnemental. \"Nous produisons très peu de déchets car nous transformons la racine avec sa peau et replantons les plus petits rhizomes. Nous travaillons aussi avec les agriculteurs pour nous assurer que les résidus ne soient pas rejetés dans les rivières lorsqu'ils nettoient les racines.\"C'est dans l'usine de Naledo, située à Punta Gorda, la capitale du district, qu'ont lieu toutes les activités de valorisation, de la mise en pot à l'étiquetage. L'usine emploie dix personnes de 18 à 31 ans, y compris des cadres, qui gagnent au moins le double du salaire minimum du Belize. Les employés de Naledo sont aussi formés aux affaires commerciales, à la comptabilité, à la sécurité alimentaire et à l'entrepreneuriat.Vendue 9 000 kg de curcuma sont produits par Naledo chaque mois.Les agriculteurs du Belize ont recours à un modèle de production favorisant la biodiversité pour cultiver des racines de curcuma.u Kenya, l'accroissement des investissements privés dans le secteur laitier rend de plus en plus disponibles des produits laitiers nourrissants et de haute qualité. La société Bio Food Products Ltd, soutenue par le Centre pour le commerce et l'investissement en Afrique de l'Est de l'USAID, travaille avec des dizaines d'agriculteurs locaux pour produire et vendre une gamme de produits laitiers -yaourts, crèmes et laits aromatisés -à des détaillants, des hôtels et des restaurants aux quatre coins de l'Afrique de l'Est. L'entreprise achète les produits des éleveurs à des prix supérieurs à ceux du marché et leur propose des prêts pour investir dans des équipements, comme des trayeuses mécaniques, des réservoirs, des systèmes de refroidissement et d'autres dispositifs permettant d'élargir leurs activités.Dans la vallée du Rift du Kenya, Christopher Joroge, 39 ans, est passé de la production végétale à la production laitière il y a une dizaine d'années, après une succession de mauvaises récoltes. À ses débuts, avec seulement deux vaches et sans aucun moyen de stocker le lait, il était contraint de le vendre sur place et à bas prix (30 à 35 KSh par litre, soit 0,26 à 0,30 €). En 2015, un prêt de Bio Food lui a permis d'acheter un réservoir de refroidissement du lait d'une capacité de 1 000 litres. Il a ainsi étendu son activité en vendant son lait à Bio Food pour 45 KSh au litre (0,38 €). De plus, cet équipement technologique lui permet de recueillir et de stocker le lait des petits agriculteurs voisins, agissant ainsi comme un point de collecte pour Bio Food. \"Ce prêt m'a aidé à stabiliser mon activité et à mettre fin aux pertes financières\", explique l'agriculteur. Désormais à la tête d'un cheptel de 50 vaches, Christopher collecte et vend 350 litres de lait par jour.Bio Food achète aux agriculteurs locaux 1,2 million de litres de lait par an, soit 100 000 litres par mois. Les produits de l'entreprise sont vendus dans plus de 800 commerces de détail et sont également exportés au Rwanda, en Tanzanie et en Ouganda. Par ailleurs, Bio Food apporte une assistance technique aux agriculteurs pour l'obtention de produits de meilleure qualité. Ces formations privilégient des mesures efficaces, à technologie simple et faible coût, pour augmenter la qualité de l'alimentation du bétail ainsi que le traitement hygiénique du lait par le nettoyage des équipements. \"Nos produits laitiers sont maintenant de meilleure qualité [grâce à la réfrigération faite à la ferme qui allonge la durée de conservation], ce qui explique pourquoi les consommateurs n'hésitent pas à payer plus cher pour les acheter\", souligne Gerald Mwangi, directeur de production chez Bio Food.es contrats intelligents reposant sur la blockchain peuvent transformer le commerce des produits agricoles de base en instaurant un climat de confiance entre les acheteurs et les vendeurs, en encourageant les banques à financer les transactions et en donnant aux agriculteurs les moyens d'obtenir un prix équitable pour leurs produits. Les entreprises de technologie, les banques et les bourses de produits de base ont déjà investi dans une multitude de plateformes et de projets agricoles pilotes dans les pays ACP.La technologie des registres distribués (voir encadré) trouve de nombreuses applications théoriques dans le domaine du commerce et du financement des produits agricoles de base, explique Max Mattern, auteur d'un récent document du CGAP (https://tinyurl.com/y9t3ssjd). En permettant à plusieurs parties de visualiser les actifs agricoles, cette technologie introduit de la transparence dans le commerce des produits de base. Elle permet de convertir les transactions portant sur ces actifs au format numérique, de sorte que ces transactions puissent être utilisées à titre de garantie pour les prêteurs. Les contrats intelligents permettent également de transférer automatiquement la propriété des actifs en cas de défaillance. Les registres peuvent par ailleurs être utilisés pour suivre et tracer l'origine et l'expédition des produits, de même que pour générer et stocker les données des acheteurs et des vendeurs relatives au crédit et améliorer ainsi l'accès au financement, souligne Max Mattern.En 2018, la start-up nigériane Binkabi s'est associée à Afex, la bourse locale de produits de base, et à la Sterling Bank afin de créer un système de négociation automatisé et basé sur la blockchain. Après avoir déposé leurs récoltes dans les entrepôts d'Afex, les agriculteurs reçoivent un récépissé attestant leur propriété. Ce \"reçu\" est converti en un jeton numérique qui permet aux agriculteurs de vendre, sur la plateforme de Binkabi, leurs produits à un groupe élargi d'acheteurs qui effectuent les paiements auprès de la Sterling Bank. La banque accepte aussi les jetons à titre de garantie pour des prêts d'un montant entre 50 et 70 % de la valeur de la production des agriculteurs.La Sterling Bank s'est engagée à dégager au moins 10 milliards de nairas (24,1 millions d'euros) pour financer des cultures telles que le maïs, le riz et le soja via la plateforme Binkabi. C'est la première fois que la banque accepte de consentir des prêts sur la seule base de récépissés d'entrepôt. Ceci s'explique en partie par la certitude offerte par les contrats intelligents basés sur la blockchain, qui sont automatiquement annulés en cas de défaillance d'une partie, le jeton étant restitué au vendeur.Comme l'explique Quan Le, fondateur et PDG de Binkabi, après la récolte, les agriculteurs, qui sont dans l'obligation de rembourser le financement reçu pour les intrants, cherchent souvent à vendre au plus vite. Les vendeurs sont alors plus nombreux que les acheteurs, ce qui tire les prix à la baisse. Avec un accès à un financement initial, les agriculteurs peuvent attendre que le prix de leurs produits entreposés remonte.Les nouvelles plateformes basées sur la blockchain mettent les agriculteurs en contact avec un grand nombre d'acheteurs. Elles leur assurent un paiement automatique et un meilleur accès au financement.Si les courtiers perçoivent souvent une commission de plus de 5 % de la valeur de la vente, le taux de lancement de Binkabi est de 1,25 %, supporté de manière égale par l'acheteur et le vendeur. Grâce au récépissé électronique, les acheteurs et les prêteurs sont certains de ne faire aucun paiement et de ne consentir aucun prêt sur des produits déjà vendus.Plus de 100 agriculteurs ont rejoint la plateforme Binkabi depuis le lancement du projet pilote avec Afex, en décembre 2018. Binkabi s'est aussi associée à la société locale d'engrais TAK Agro pour l'aider à acquérir une licence pour une autre bourse de produits agricoles qui sera gérée sur la même plateforme. Selon Quan Le, le montant total des transactions sur la plateforme atteindra entre 4,4 et 8,8 millions d'euros cette année. La phase de déploiement prendra toutefois un certain temps.Des contrats intelligents sont aussi utilisés par le fournisseur de paiements numériques Cellulant, grâce à sa plateforme Agrikore. Cofondateur et PDG de Cellulant, Bojaji Akinboro explique : les acheteurs rédigent des contrats à l'aide d'un contrat-type Agrikore et s'engagent à payer un certain montant pour une quantité déterminée d'un produit agricole donné. Ces contrats sont ensuite publiés et portés à la connaissance des agriculteurs qui peuvent alors s'engager par SMS à honorer les contrats de leur choix. Comme les acheteurs financent les contrats à l'avance, les vendeurs sont automatiquement payés une fois la livraison effectuée. Les entreprises de logistique, les entrepôts, les assureurs et les banques peuvent s'engager au titre du même contrat intelligent.Lors des deux premiers mois suivant son lancement à l'échelle pilote, en novembre 2017, la plateforme Agrikore a facilité les échanges agricoles à hauteur de 1,7 million d'euros. Ce chiffre a grimpé à près de 17,5 millions d'euros en 2018, car les agriculteurs et les acheteurs clés, comme Olam Nigeria, se sont rapidement familiarisés avec cette technologie. Agrikore veut franchir le cap des 262 millions d'euros en 2020. D'ici là, d'autres banques auront rejoint la plateforme. Deux banques en sont déjà aux négociations finales.Toutefois, il convient de ne pas se laisser aveugler par l'effet de mode et d'identifier aussi les limites de l'utilisation de la blockchain dans le commerce des produits de base, met en garde Max Mattern. Les litiges concernant la qualité des produits livrés nécessiteront toujours un règlement externe. Cependant, la technologie va évoluer et permettre de s'attaquer à des problèmes plus \"concrets\" à mesure que les gouvernements mettront en place des cadres juridiques et réglementaires dans ce domaine. Ce n'est qu'alors que le potentiel de la blockchain dans le commerce des produits agricoles de base pourra être pleinement exploité, conclut-il. ■ © AGRIKORELes transactions économiques à l'échelle mondiale ont toujours nécessité des registres qui enregistrent les contrats, les paiements ou la propriété des actifs. Jusqu'il y a peu, ces données étaient consignées sur papier. Elles pouvaient être volées, disparaître ou être enregistrées plusieurs fois. La technologie de la blockchain permet de distribuer un registre ou une base de données décentralisée entre plusieurs participants qui ont accès aux données enregistrées et en possèdent une copie identique. Toutes les modifications apportées au registre sont copiées en temps quasi réel, ce qui accélère les transactions, la signature ou le règlement des contrats. Les données sont stockées avec précision et en toute sécurité à l'aide de la cryptographie, ce qui réduit le risque de cyberattaque ou qu'une entité modifie les données à l'insu des autres participants. Le registre distribué ne peut être modifié qu'avec l'accord de tous les participants. Les actifs peuvent donc être enregistrés, certifiés et transférés sans que l'intervention d'une autorité centrale soit nécessaire. Auparavant, à la frontière entre la Tanzanie et le Burundi, il arrivait que les commerçants fassent la queue pendant douze heures pour déclarer leurs marchandises auprès des douaniers, qui devaient ensuite procéder à une inspection physique de leur cargaison du côté tanzanien de la frontière. Les commerçants devaient ensuite se plier aux procédures d'immigration, avant de se soumettre à nouveau à l'ensemble du processus pour entrer au Burundi. \"Avant, il fallait deux jours pour traverser la frontière. Aujourd'hui, une à deux heures suffisent\", indique Celestin Nzeyimana, responsable du poste-frontière de Kobero au Burundi.Chaque OSBP dispose de bureaux pour le personnel douanier et les agents de dédouanement, de parkings, du département de vérification des cargaisons, d'entrepôts pour les scanners et les passagers, et de réseaux TIC intégrés. Les réseaux TIC des OSBP sont centralisés afin que les agences gouvernementales, organisations et autres organismes de régulation accèdent aux systèmes opérationnels et de gestion. Ces systèmes visent à remplacer les transactions sur papier par des services numérisés afin de rendre la circulation des biens et des personnes plus efficace aux frontières. Depuis 2015, chacune des 24 agences gouvernementales impliquées dans les opérations de dédouanement des marchandises dans les ports et aux postes-frontières kényans utilise ainsi le Système de guichet unique électronique (Single Window System -SWS) pour traiter numériquement les transactions commerciales.Le SWS facilite le commerce international au port de Mombasa (en plus des autres systèmes numériques mis en place) qui, en plus d'assurer les importations et exportations nationales,Des systèmes numériques permettent aux autorités de suivre le parcours des marchandises et de s'assurer que la documentation est en règle. Le commerce transfrontalier en sort renforcé.  Les réseaux que nous avons constitués dans nos vies professionnelles et notre capacité à en tirer parti nous ont beaucoup aidées. J'ai travaillé dans le secteur privé \"Nous voulons servir de modèles de gestion d'entreprise\"Exotic EPZ développe des chaînes de valeur durables et inclusives pour le café et les noix en Afrique. Jane Maigua et Charity Ndegwa, deux des trois fondatrices de l'entreprise, expliquent la singularité de leur travail avec les petits agriculteurs et les femmes rurales.Les fondatrices d'Exotic EPZ mettent leur longue expérience du secteur au service des agriculteurs africains afin de les mettre en contact avec les marchés de l'export à haute valeur.et collaboré avec des instances publiques, des experts financiers, des donateurs, des communautés et des petits agriculteurs. Ces acteurs ont constitué une ressource fantastique pour créer notre entreprise. Nous avons pu nouer des liens avec les autorités publiques, par exemple, pour obtenir des licences pour l'entreprise, ainsi qu'avec des experts financiers pour établir les mécanismes de financement, et nous avons pu convaincre les agriculteurs de nous fournir leur production grâce aux interactions que nous avions eues auparavant.La plus grande force de notre entreprise, c'est le fait de ne rien jeter. En adoptant des énergies renouvelables, nous réduisons les dépenses énergétiques et nous respectons la devise de l'entreprise, qui est de préserver l'environnement et de diminuer les émissions de carbone.Nous sommes également en mesure de vendre tous les cerneaux refusés à des entreprises qui en extraient de l'huile, ce qui génère des revenus pour notre entreprise.En réalité, cette part est maintenant d'environ 90 %. De nombreuses études montrent que près de 80 % des travailleurs du secteur de l'agriculture sont des femmes. La question est alors de savoir dans quelle mesure elles tirent profit de leurs activités. En menant des recherches pour identifier les cultures à privilégier, nous avons réalisé que les macadamiers étaient traditionnellement considérés comme des plantes de peu de valeur par rapport au café et au thé, mais que les femmes et les enfants vendaient les noix de macadamia sur les marchés. Aujourd'hui, les noix de macadamia sont devenues une culture de plus en plus lucrative, mais les hommes se sont appropriés les macadamiers. Nous avons donc commencé à explorer comment pousser les femmes à abandonner leurs tâches traditionnelles de récolte et de décorticage des noix de macadamia, par exemple, au profit d'activités plus rentables, comme la commercialisation et la transformation des noix.Notre modèle de création d'emplois, qui consiste à fournir aux hommes et aux femmes un moyen d'assurer leur propre subsistance et celle de leur famille, est la clé de notre succès. Les volumes significatifs de noix que nous avons reçus de nos fournisseurs depuis le lancement de l'entreprise -environ 700 000 kg -signifient que tous les acteurs de la chaîne de valeur, des agriculteurs eux-mêmes aux ouvriers des centres de collecte en passant par les travailleurs de notre EPZ, ont une source de revenus. C'est un autre aspect de notre réussite commerciale. Pour stimuler l'agriculture africaine, le secteur privé et les gouvernements doivent agir sur une série de facteurs clés. La priorité doit être donnée à l'irrigation afin d'intensifier la croissance agricole, en faisant de l'agriculture un secteur inclusif et durable. Actuellement, seulement 6 % des terres cultivées sont irriguées sur le continent africain. En Asie, 37 % des terres cultivées sont équipées pour l'irrigation.Des précipitations irrégulières et insuffisantes, des périodes de sécheresse prolongées et l'impact négatif du changement climatique sont d'autres défis à relever, en particulier pour répondre à une demande alimentaire qui ne cesse d'augmenter. Des politiques d'irrigation efficaces et à faible coût, qui tiennent compte du fait que les ressources en eau sont de plus en plus rares -alors que la demande augmente -, sont donc nécessaires pour réussir la transformation structurelle des économies africaines.Le rapport présente plusieurs pays d'Afrique qui ont réalisé d'importantes avancées dans la mise en oeuvre de stratégies d'irrigation efficaces, la construction d'infrastructures à grande échelle et la mise en place de cadres institutionnels innovants. Le partage de ces expériences avec d'autres pays du continent encouragera le développement de nouvelles stratégies d'irrigation adaptées aux problèmes locaux. Le Maroc et le Mali, par exemple, ont investi dans le développement d'infrastructures d'irrigation visant à mobiliser des ressources en eau pour l'agriculture. L'irrigation s'y est développée plus rapidement que dans les autres pays du continent.Une initiative différente, mais tout aussi efficace, est en cours en Éthiopie, où le gouvernement a encouragé les systèmes d'irrigation à petite et moyenne échelle et lancé un programme de développement de l'irrigation qui vise à assurer l'autosuffisance alimentaire en améliorant l'efficacité de la gestion des ressources en eau. Le gouvernement envisage la construction de micro-barrages pour capter l'eau des rivières et encourage l'exploitation de puits peu profonds à l'aide de pompes manuelles. De nombreuses initiatives peuvent désormais aider les pays africains à mettre en place des politiques d'irrigation appropriées, mais il faut s'assurer de bien connaître le contexte local.  Depuis l'adoption des ODD par les Nations unies, l'agriculture doit répondre à une série élargie de priorités : préservation des ressources et des écosystèmes, emploi des jeunes, adaptation au changement clima-tique… L'agroécologie est l'une des solutions pour répondre à ces défis. Forts de plus de dix ans d'expérience de terrain, 130 scientifiques du Cirad, de l'Agence française de développement (AFD) et leurs partenaires partagent leurs réflexions sur les conditions de la réussite de cette transformation des agricultures du Sud. L'ouvrage décrit d'abord neuf cas d'étude : polyculture-élevage au Burkina Faso, cultures vivrières à Madagascar, cacao en agroforesterie en Afrique subsaharienne ou les filets de protection des cultures maraîchères africaines. La seconde partie réunit huit articles sur les conditions de la mise en oeuvre de cette transition, des processus de régulation naturelle à mobiliser ou bien encore de l'innovation collaborative et des dynamiques marchandes. L'agroécologie impose une réorganisation du système dans son ensemble, qui repose sur des changements individuels et collectifs coordonnés s'appuyant sur des ressources territoriales spécifiques. Cela ne pourra se faire sans les femmes, qui produisent de 60 % à 80 % des aliments et assurent au moins 50 % de leur transformation. La recherche de solutions impose aussi de s'allier avec tous les acteurs clés : des agriculteurs aux autorités publiques locales, en passant par les acteurs de la formation, du conseil agricole et des services techniques et financiers. Enfin, les consommateurs et les citoyens devront aussi changer leurs habitudes de consommation. ■ L'idée que l'Afrique assure sa propre subsistance alimentaire n'est pourtant pas farfelue : le continent possède environ 65 % des terres cultivables non cultivées du monde ; il présente une grande diversité de zones agroécologiques ; l'agriculture y représente environ 60 % des emplois ; et seuls 2 % de ses ressources en eau renouvelables sont exploités, contre 5 % à l'échelle mondiale. Le problème est que les petits agriculteurs, âgés de 60 ans et plus, assurent plus de 80 % de la production agroalimentaire, alors que la moitié de la population africaine a moins de 25 ans.D'ici 2025, 330 millions de jeunes Africains devraient entrer sur le marché du travail. Les jeunes redoutent la pénibilité du travail agricole et considèrent l'agriculture comme un secteur d'emploi à faibles revenus. La digitalisation et les technologies agricoles ont toutefois amélioré la manière dont les denrées alimentaires sont produites. L'agriculture fondée sur les TIC fait progressivement évoluer les mentalités des jeunes et favorise l'émergence de jeunes entrepreneurs qui sont prêts à prendre des risques et à investir dans l'agriculture.Les solutions et plateformes digitalesles applications mobiles intelligentes, la technologie de télédétection, les big data, les cartes numériques des sols, les réseaux sociaux, la technologie de la blockchain, les drones, la technologie de précision et l'informatique dématérialisée (cloud computing) -tendent à accroître la production alimentaire et l'efficacité des marchés, mais aussi à renforcer la participation des jeunes au secteur agricole. Ces dernières années, les entreprises du secteur privé et les organismes donateurs ont pris conscience du rôle que l'agriculture digitale peut jouer pour stimuler la croissance agricole au profit des petits exploitants et des jeunes actifs. Des applications mobiles et des solutions peu techniques ont été développées par différents acteurs, y compris des jeunes entrepreneurs, pour remédier aux problèmes liés à la production, à l'approvisionnement en intrants, au financement, à la transformation, à la logistique et à la commercialisation. Il reste à savoir si l'agriculture digitale suffira pour alimenter la croissance et assurer un engagement durable des jeunes dans l'agriculture.Dans l'ensemble des chaînes de valeur agricoles, l'agriculture digitale s'est avérée être un moyen opportun d'attirer les jeunes vers l'agriculture, mais cette évolution doit encore faire ses preuves. Il est nécessaire d'offrir aux jeunes impliqués dans l'agriculture digitale une inclusion financière substantielle, des aides à l'investissement provenant des secteurs privé et public, ainsi que des formations agricoles adaptées.Selon Akinwumi Adesina, président de la Banque africaine de développement (BAD), \"l'agriculteur du futur ne sera probablement pas en salopette, mais jouera plutôt le rôle de facilitateur de l'agriculture -un agriculteur qui ne sera pas impliqué physiquement dans l'agriculture. Ces agriculteurs feront passer l'agriculture à un niveau supérieur, un niveau façonné par les innovations\".Lors de la convention du réseau d'organisations de recherche CGIAR sur les big data organisée en octobre 2018, j'ai interviewé le Dr Debisi Araba, directeur régional pour l'Afrique du Centre international d'agriculture tropicale (CIAT). Selon lui, \"une approche de prospérité doit prendre le pas sur l'approche de réduction de la pauvreté actuelle, afin d'encourager les jeunes à faire carrière dans le secteur agro-industriel. L'avenir de l'Afrique n'est pas d'intégrer davantage les jeunes dans les exploitations agricoles, mais plutôt au sommet de la pyramide de la chaîne de valeur, où l'agriculture digitale crée de nombreux points d'entrée pour les jeunes qui cherchent à s'engager dans l'agribusiness\". ■ La digitalisation n'éradiquera pas le stigmate associé à l'agriculture sans investissements importants dans l'éducation sur les opportunités dans le secteur.Visitez les pages Opinion sur le site de Spore pour lire l'avis d'un troisième spécialiste sur le sujet. Un nouveau débat est mis en ligne tous les mois. Les TIC sont des outils très efficaces qui peuvent changer la façon dont nous faisons des affaires et moderniser l'agriculture en Afrique. Pour un jeune, piloter un drone au-dessus de son exploitation pour contrôler la présence de nuisibles ou de maladies et répandre des pesticides, suivre la croissance de ses cultures à l'aide d'une tablette, ainsi qu'utiliser une application mobile pour obtenir des informations sur le marché, est plus palpitant que de manier une houe sous un soleil de plomb et de vendre ses produits à un prix de misère. Toutefois, la digitalisation est coûteuse et les technologies ne sont pas toujours abordables pour les jeunes agriculteurs. De plus, elles requièrent des infrastructures et une expertise pas toujours disponibles.En 2016, j'ai cofondé le site Agribusiness TV pour faire évoluer l'image de l'agriculture. Le premier objectif de cette web TV est d'encourager les jeunes à se lancer dans le secteur. En deux ans, nous avons réalisé plus de 100 vidéos, visionnées plus de 8 millions de fois. La visibilité ainsi générée a permis aux entrepreneurs de nouer de nouveaux contacts, de trouver des partenaires et d'augmenter leurs ventes et leurs revenus. Les jeunes ont été nombreux à partager leur intérêt pour une carrière dans l'agribusiness et certains se sont lancés après avoir regardé nos vidéos. En ce sens, la digitalisation peut être utilisée pour attirer des jeunes dans le secteur.De nombreuses applications web et mobiles ont été développées par des jeunes pour résoudre des défis agricoles spécifiques. La plupart du temps, les solutions numériques voient le jour grâce à des compétitions et des subventions. Mais il est souvent difficile d'assurer la pérennité des start-up agro-industrielles fondées sur les TIC. Un jeune peut développer une solution numérique qui dispense des informations sur les prix du marché et la météo aux agriculteurs d'une région donnée. Mais qui payera pour ce service ? C'est l'un des principaux problèmes : pour qu'une telle solution soit rentable, des centaines de milliers de personnes doivent s'abonner au service. Il faut du temps pour sensibiliser les agriculteurs et les convaincre qu'une solution numérique constitue un investissement précieux. À ce jour, il n'existe que très peu de preuves qui montrent que la digitalisation dans l'agriculture soit réellement une activité durable.La digitalisation n'est qu'une partie de la solution pour attirer les jeunes dans l'agriculture. En fait, il faudrait commencer par identifier ce qui les incite à se lancer dans ce secteur. La composante numérique joue un rôle important, mais le premier élément qui les y retient est leur passion pour ce qu'ils font. Certains sont aussi attirés par le potentiel économique qu'offre l'agriculture. Il est donc important de trouver un juste équilibre et d'identifier comment la digitalisation peut s'intégrer dans ce contexte. ■ Nawsheen Hosenally, cofondatrice d'Agribusiness TV","tokenCount":"14197"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9ae3f44e41eab9f6ec72aa260331e9da","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/7c04c149-5d98-4b80-8e34-ffd56fdd9bed/retrieve","id":"1966365129"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0066cd0a-b9be-4b72-91af-79eb5d225ca9","pagecount":"5","content":"From soil-conservation measures and solar-powered irrigation, to index-based weather insurance and microfinance, many innovations exist that have potential to strengthen the resilience of smallholder farmers to climate change. This is important for food security, as households farming less than two hectares contribute up to 31% of global food production. They are also particularly vulnerable to climate shocks, while often having few assets to fall back on in emergencies. However, many potentially valuable interventions have only been piloted at the scale of a few hundred or a few thousand farmers. If they are to have a truly transformative impact they must be scaled up and made available to many millions of farmers. The question is how.At IWMI, we believe such transformation calls for four shifts in approach (Figure 1). First, we must change the narrative by connecting the top-down goals of globally binding international agreements with local communities. This calls for communication highlighting the benefits of locally led transformative change, the provision of local policy-making spaces, and vehicles through which community voices -including those of the marginalized, women and youth -can contribute views and knowledge. Taking this approach can help to avoid 'maladaptation' from imposed, inappropriate top-down interventions. Second, we need to deepen the analysis by undertaking research that unpacks the current constraints to transformative progress, and captures and shares this knowledge. This strengthened research and evidence can help to inform policy and practice going forward.It can also feed into the third shift of strengthening alliances -with knowledge-sharing taking place through participatory processes, and collaboration fostered across scales. This shift also requires multiscale governance and increased awareness of the multiple co-benefits that taking climate action can engender.Finally, the process of change must incorporate lessons learned so that the narrative of bottom-up international climate action becomes firmly established, along with co-developed policy pathways. This virtuous circle will result in transformative win-win narratives for diverse domains of climate mitigation and adaptation, at multiple scales across society. We believe this to be true based on knowledge we've gained at IWMI from piloting innovations such as index-based flood insurance (IBFI) and satellite-based flood and drought early warning systems. This experience has also enabled us to shape a framework -the G4R Framework -for securing the outlined shifts in approach.Under the framework, governance institutions hold participatory cross-sectoral dialogues that feed into consensus building at local level -ultimately linking top-down climate action goals with individuals in communities. Once communities have come to a consensus on what action is appropriate for local change, joint action is taken between communities and facilitating entities such as CSOs and NGOs. During this process, policy filtering takes place whereby top-level strategies are informed by bottom-up needs and activities, helping to strengthen governance at all levels (Figure 2). Broadly speaking, this framework unites governance and participation, information and learning, infrastructure and technology, and system diversity and connectivity. For example, a farming community in India that is beset by floods and droughts might feel it needs to know when climate shocks are forecast, so it can take action to avoid the worst impacts. It receives information from institutions on potential ways to achieve this and comes to a consensus that a satellite-based early warning system would be appropriate, so that farmers are better informed on when to sow or harvest crops. Local NGOs, institutes and extension workers might be involved in helping farmers gain access to the technology required. Then, lessons learned from the process are fed into policy so that different communities choosing to take similar action can learn from each other's experiences and avoid making the same mistakes.Or, in Zambia, farmers might be opposed to government aims for the nation to become carbon neutral by 2050, which, in turn, are driven by the global climate agenda. A dialogue is established to provide information on why the action is needed and the potential benefits it might bring to farmers. A consensus is reached on a particular action to take -perhaps the provision of funding, technology or infrastructure that could support farmers to decarbonise their operations. Then local organizations contribute to make the action happen. Once implemented, lessons learned are fed into policy making at local and national levels.We are currently putting this framework into practise at IWMI in our leadership of the 'governance for resilience' arm of the program Building Systematic Resilience Against Climate Variability and Extremes (ClimBeR), which is applying science and innovation to support smallholders in Kenya, Morocco, Senegal, Zambia, Guatemala and the Philippines. We are following the process outlined above with a view to improving coordination, enhancing responsiveness to climate shocks, facilitating long-term planning for adaptation and nurturing champions of change across society to achieve transformative impact (A-D on Figure 2). Specifically, we are building capacity for policies that match local needs with available tools, with the aim of developing governance systems that operate effectively across multiple levels and scales. As part of the work, IWMI is supporting nations to develop an 'awareness platform' -AWARE -to facilitate coordination across ministries to trigger action ahead of extreme climate events. Meanwhile, to help build long-term resilience, a dashboard -ClimaAdapt-Gov -is being developed in each country to guide national, subnational and non-state actors to shape, rollout, monitor and evaluate a national adaptation strategy for their country. Along the way, we are supporting communities and institutions to identify suitable climateadaptation champions.While our focus at IWMI is on water, we believe that the G4R Framework can also underpin other transformative programmes on climate adaptation, from strengthening food security, biodiversity and land productivity, to enhancing human health and promoting peace.","tokenCount":"923"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c4cb467b1a9a57ead99bd03ec442a9e5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a3126128-d0c2-4028-9cd9-5e1fa92816e1/retrieve","id":"2069804143"},"keywords":["CIMMYT","IFPRI","SP -PRGA","all CIAT projects, but particularly, cassava, rice, forages, IPM, hillsides, land use, and agroenterprises. CGIAR system linkages: Improving Policies (100%). CIAT project linkages: All CIAT projects"],"sieverID":"ef30d5fd-c9ec-40ab-868c-824af9025ef2","pagecount":"65","content":"1. Expected impact of future research estimated. 2. Impact of selected past CIAT research monitored. 3. Tools developed to assess the impact of research, both ex ante and ex post. 4. Institutional capacity for estimating, monitoring, and evaluating research impacts improved.Gains: Improved allocation of resources can increase the rate of return on investment in agricultural research. Project target is 2%.Over the past several decades, the process of agro-industrialization 4 has transformed agriculture and rural communities in many parts of Latin America, more so than in any other part of the world (FAO, 1997). As a result of demographic change, increasing incomes, and structural adjustment/market liberalization programs, agro-industrialization has expanded far beyond the traditional agro-export crops (Reardon et al, 1999). Promoting agro-industrial development is a policy goal for many governments in both developing and developed countries, in large part because it is believed that agroindustrialization can contribute not only to economic but also to social development in rural areas. In Colombia, spillovers from agroenterprise development efforts are expected to \"promote social cohesion in rural communities.\" (Lafourcade, 2002, p. A ).The principal hypothesis of this study is that while strengthened social organization may be an outcome of agro-industrialization, social capital is also likely to be a key input into the process. Individuals and groups that can work collaboratively and establish and maintain both trust-based relationships and networks of contacts will have an advantage over their competitors who cannot. The reason is that agro-enterprise firms compete in complex supply chains that are technically demanding, information intensive and require coordination among different actors and different stages of the process. Where markets fail and transactions costs are high, social capital can make a significant contribution to firm perfo rmance by providing access to information and reducing the costs of contracting and coordination. Failure to recognize and explicitly incorporate the concept of social capital as an input into agro-industrialization may limit the effectiveness of programs and projects designed to promote and support agroenterprises.This study addresses two main questions: 1) how is social capital important to rural agroenterprises? and 2) how important is social capital to firm performance? The first question is addressed through a primarily qualitative analysis of the functions that social capital performs within individual enterprises. The second question is tackled with quantitative methods to estimate firm-level returns to inputs, including social capital. Using multiple methods is important because a limitation of much of the quantitative social capital literature is that while it identifies interesting and statistically significant relationships between variables, the causality and the policy implications are often not clear (Wong Kwok-fu, 2001). By integrating qualitative analysis of the functions of social capital with quantitative analysis of the how social capital affects firms' structure and performance, we can better interpret results and arrive at conclusions with clear development implications.Coleman formulated the concept of social capital as way to bridge the gap between the sociologists' explanation of human behavior as determined by social factors-norms and social obligations-and the economists' assumption of rational self-interest. According to Coleman, \"the function identified by the concept of social capital is the value of these aspects of the social structure to actors as resources that they can use to achieve their interests\" (Coleman, 1993, p. s101). While many studies focus on community level outcomes and define social capital as a public-good (Putnam, 1993;Helliwell and Putnam, 1995;Helliwell, 1996;Krishna and Uphoff, 1998), Coleman conceived of social capital as something used by individuals to further their own personal objectives. Social capital may not be evenly distributed within the community, and that while it should generally have positive benefits for those who have access to and use it, the consequences maybe different for society as a whole (Sandefur and Laumann, 1998;Edwards and Foley, 1998). Coleman and others also distinguish between the form that social capital takes and the function that it performs. The former will depend on the specific social structure and context, while the latter is more generalizable.In one of the few empirical analyses of social capital in the context of agro-enterprises, Fafchamps and Minten, in a study of agricultural traders, conclude that in a world with transactions costs, the returns to social capital may be as high or higher than the returns to labor or to physical or human capital. Their definition of social capital is essentially social networks. Barr (2000a), in a study of small-scale manufacturing entrepreneurs in Ghana, looks at the contribution of networks of business-related contacts to firm performance in the context of endogenous growth theory. She finds support for her hypothesis that contacts contribute to technical information flows among enterprises, and that these flows not only make a positive contribution to individual firm performance but generate spillovers to other firms as well. Barr (2000b) also finds that networks of contacts can provide the basis for other types of firm-level benefits such as reducing search and contract enforcement costs through information sharing. Networks can also be the basis of collective action, though this was not common and usually only involved a subset of network members. For this reason she hesitates to call networks groups because they operate in a very decentralized way.The data for the analysis come from a sample of 50 firms in five regions of Colombia. 5  The zones were identified because they are all centers of agro-industrial activity; yet differ in their historical/cultural dynamics and institutional contexts. The sample was selected to represent small and medium-sized enterprises 6 . Some general characteristics of the agro-enterprises are presented in Table 1.For each firm, in-depth, open-ended interviews were conducted with the owner/manager and other key informants about firm history, business practices, decision-making and conflict resolution processes, relations with other individuals and organizations, and important influences, challenges and opportunities facing the firm. In addition, quantitative data on a range of demographic and economic characteristics of firms and their owner/managers were also collected (Table 1). Venn Diagrams were used to identify and evaluate the firm's relationships with other agents in the supply chain.Social capital was expected to perform three general functions within firms. The first was to help forms obtain information via broad networks of personal contacts maintained by firm owner/managers. The second expected function of social capital was to reduce monitoring and enforcement costs in contracting by transacting with trusted individuals and organizations. Finally, we expected that social capital would influence whether firms were able to generate and sustain collective action. Following is a brief summary of specific ways in which social capital was observed to perform functions in each of these three general categories.Firms used their information networks for four main purposes: 1) to identify and contact clients; 2) to access market information, mainly through other actors in the supply chain, 3) to access inputs, especially agricultural products, and 4) to obtain technical and financial assistance. Trust was observed to help firms 1) maintain relationships with clients, especially in cases of involuntary non compliance on the part of firms 2) reduce the cost of assuring producer compliance; 3) manage crises; and 4) obtain credit. A close relationships was observed between the network and trust functions of social capital. Networks of contacts opened doors for firms, however, unless firms were able to consolidate the new relationships and build trust, the benefits of the new relationship were generally small and short lived.In the 50 case study enterprises, collective action contributed to firm performance in eight different ways: 1) collective commercialization, 2) collective provision of inputs, 3) collective monitoring and enforcement, 4) collective production/processing, 5) collective financing, 6) collective management of common property, 7) price fixing, and 8) collective action in related services such as infrastructure provision. This is more than double the number of functions performed by either networks or trust. The majority of collective action takes place among producers, either in their capacity as members of a cooperative or as associated producers 7 of an agro-enterprise. As expected, collective action is more common in cooperatives and associations, however it is also found among private firms.To facilitate comparative analysis, we constructed indices of the use of different functions of social capital. Each firm was ranked on a scale of 1 (lowest) to three (highest) according to how frequently it appeared to use each of the three functions. Use of individual functions was correlated within firms, which means that firms that used one function of social capital tended also to use others. The results of a cluster analysis confirm the high correlation among use of different functions of social capital. Three of the four clusters reveal a hierarchical order across the three component functions of social capital (Table 2). These findings are also consistent with complementarities (actual or potential) identified in the qualitative analysis.How important is social capital? Quantitative analysis of impact of social capital on firm structure and incomeThe previous section described ways in which firms used social capital to achieve specific objectives. The results show that firms no indeed use social capital, however they does do not tell us how important social capital's contributions are to the firm's bottom line, especially relative to those of other inputs. Until we know this we cannot say whether firms would benefit by increasing their investments in social capital. The contribution of social capital to firm performance can be measured empirically with appropriate quantitative data.The social capital literature and the examples provided in the previous section suggest that social capital is located in personal relationships. Therefore, an empirical measure of a firm's use of social capital might be developed based on information about the relationships that a firm maintains. The firms in the sample maintain relationships with a variety of actors. The most basic relationships are those with employees, agricultural producers, non-ag input suppliers and clients. Many firms also report relationships with a variety of other actors such as federal, state and local government agencies, NGOs, banks and other financial institutions, universities, industry organizations, intermediaries, public employees, politicians, and community organizations. The average firm has 12.5 relationships, ranging from four to 23. Relationships can also vary by quality. Of the 12.5 relations that the average firm maintains, half are considered to be strong.To test the accuracy of number and strength of relationships as indicators of social capital, we can use the results of the cluster analysis in the preceding section which grouped firms into high, medium, and low users of social capital. Firms that were observed to use high levels of social capital have more and stronger relationships that firms that were observed to use less social capital (Table 3). This findings support the use of relationship-based variables as measures of social capital.If the number and strength of a firm's relationships reflect its use of social capital, then in theory, we should be able to include these variables directly in a production or profit function. However theory underlying this econometric analysis assumes that markets are perfect and that demand for an input is determined entirely by relative prices and the technology parameters. In this paper, we hypothesize that use of social capital by firms is due to the existence of market imperfections, specifically information problems and transactions costs. Therefore we cannot expect the demand for social capital to be independent of supply. In fact, an analysis of the determinants of the number and strength of a firm's relationships shows that the number of groups that a firm owner belongs to in his or her personal life is significantly and positively associated with the total number of relationships that his/her firm maintains, controlling for regional and firm-level characteristics (Table 4). We would not expect such group membership to influence firm productivity directly, but it could be expected to do so indirectly via facilitating social contacts.To measure the contribution of social capital to firm performance, we estimate a productivity equation in which revenue per employee is estimated as a function of labor, physical, human and social capital, firm-level characteristics and regional dummy variables. Because, as shown above, some of these same predictors also influence social capital, a two-stage estimation procedure is required. In the first stage, the endogenous social capital variable (number of relationships or number of strong relationships) is regressed on the independent variables plus the instrument \"number of groups to which the owner belongs\". In the second stage, the predicted values of social capital are used to estimate the productivity equation.According to the results, the total number of relationships and the number of strong relationships that a firm maintains contribute positively and significantly to revenue per employee (Table 5). The elasticity of social capital is higher than that of physical capital, meaning that an increase in number of relationships has a higher impact on revenue/worker than a proportional increase in machinery. The difference is even greater when the increase is in strong relationships. Returns to labor were negative, meaning that labor productivity is higher in smaller firms. Human capital, as measured by the owner/manager's education level, does not appear to influence firm productivity directly but rather indirectly through its influence on social capital (Table 4).This paper documented how rural agro-enterprises use social relationships to further their economic objectives. Firms used social capital in a variety of ways to gain access to information, reduce contracting costs via trust, and support collective action. Social capital, as measured by the number of relationships that a firm maintains, contributes positively and significantly to its economic performance, as measured by revenue per worker. Econometric analysis shows that increasing investment in social capital yields higher returns than in physical capital, human capital or labor.Several policy implications arise from these results. According to the econometric results, firms can benefit from broadening their networks and by strengthening their existing relationships with other actors in the supply chain. The qualitative analysis cites many examples of how this might be done, for example by improving communication and seeking feedback from clients, or by absorbing transactions costs in maintaining collective action 8 .While building and strengthening firm-level relationships can improve individual firm performance, the fact that firms are using personal relationships for professional objectives is a sign of market failure. In theory, social welfare could be improved by ameliorating these failures so that firms compete on the basis of productivity. In reality, personal relationships will always play a role in economic activity because information is never perfect, contracts are never complete and transactions costs are never zero. However to the extent that technological or institutio nal innovations can decrease reliance on personal relationships by promoting the emergence of alternative suppliers and markets for the services that are currently provided by social capital, both efficiency and equity are likely to increase. This is essentially the objective of the growing field of business development services (BDS). The results of this study suggest that careful analysis of which types of services are currently being provided by which types of relationships and why, would be a good place to start an effort to design or implement alternative service provision scheme.     Se reconoce que el capital social es un componente clave para el desarrollo sostenible (Bebbington, 1999). Por un lado, puede ser un insumo en el proceso de desarrollo que facilita la actividad económica a través de mecanismos de coordinación y de confianza.Por otro el capital social puede ser un producto en si, algo que contribuye directamente al bienestar individual y social. El capital social puede ser especialmente importante para pequeñas agro empresas rurales porque la organización y coordinación social a lo largo de la cadena productiva es un elemento importante tanto del desempeño como de su impacto (Reardon and Berdegue, 2002).Varios estudios de capital social en pequeñas y medianas empresas han tomado la empresa como unidad básica y han analizado las relaciones que esta mantiene con otros individuos y entidades (Barr, 2001;Johnson et al, 2002). Estos estudios han mostrado que los lazos sociales pueden afectar la actividad y desempeño económico. Sin embargo, al estudiar la firma como si fuera un solo tomador de decisiones, algunas relaciones importantes como las que surgen entre los socios, se pueden quedar por fuera del análisis. Como consecuencia, la importancia del capital social y su contribución al desempeño e impacto de la empresa puede ser subestimada.El propósito de este estudio es entender mejor la importancia del capital social, dentro de su forma organizativa, para el desempeño e impacto de la empresa. Se enfoca en la forma organizativa, por ejemplo cooperativa, sociedad de hecho, sociedad anónima, porque esta refleja dos aspectos importantes del capital social de sus socios, principalmente las relaciones entre ellos mismos y entre los socios y la comunidad. Estos vínculos no se captan totalmente en el análisis de relaciones que llevan las empresas con otros actores.Con base en la teoría económica y legal, se desarrolla una tipología de formas organizativas según los objetivos de los socios y sus aportes a la empresa, dos factores estrechamente relacionados con el capital social. La validación empírica de la tipología y sus implicaciones para el desempeño e impacto se hacen con datos de 50 agroempresas rurales colombianas. Se espera que los resultados del análisis sirvan tanto a los empresarios como a las entidades que los apoyen para escoger una estructura organizativa apropiada dado sus objetivos y recursos, entre ellos su capital social.Los derechos, responsabilidades y obligaciones de los socios de una empresa se definen en gran parte por su forma organizativa. 9 En términos económicos, la importancia de la 9 No se empleó el término figura legal porque no todas en las unidades del estudio son formales La \"formalidad\" depende si están o no inscritas en la Cámara de Comercio, que es una entidad que tienen como función llevar el registro o inscripción de cualquier tipo de entidad privada y sus actos de comercio.forma organizativa tiene que ver con los incentivos que les ofrece a los socios para aportar capital. La división principal entre empresas suele presentarse como empresas cuyos duenos son miembros versus empresas cuyos duenos sean inversionistas 10 , figuras que pueden ser vistas como los dos extremos de un continuo de derechos de propiedad (Chaddad and Cook, 2002). Sin embargo, la razón detrás de la diferencia en estructura de la propiedad radica en una diferencia de objetivo, la empresa asociativa se funda con fines sociales y económicos y la otra con fines netamente económicos.La creciente literatura sobre capital social argumenta que el capital financiero no es el único aporte que pueden hacer los socios (Fukuyama, 1995). Su capital social en forma de los vínculos entre ellos también puede ser un activo importante para la organización, que reduce costos de transacción y aumenta su flexibilidad. De hecho, la ley reconoce intuitivamente que hay empresas en las cuales uno de los principales aportes es capital social.Relación entre empresa y comunidad: Entidades con y sin animo de lucro La idea de asociarse en comunidades surge desde tiempos inmemorables, pero es desde los albores del siglo XX que los doctrinantes tuvieron en cuenta como parámetro de diferenciación entre las diversas organizaciones que se conformaban, el tener o no un ánimo lucrativo: si la forma asociativa perseguía un fin económico, vale decir, la explotación de una empresa, sería una entidad con ánimo de lucro; cuando la finalidad era de naturaleza ideal (cultural, científica, filantrópica, de beneficencia, etc.) sería propia de las entidades sin ánimo de lucro.Las entidades con ánimo de lucro pueden ser o no personas jurídicas 11 , cuyo carácter lucrativo se manifiesta a través de conductas tales como (1) el desarrollo de una actividad mercantil o comercial 12 , (2) la vinculación de un capital con intención de obtener un rédito o producto para ser repartido entre quienes lo aportaron;(3) la posibilidad, cuando se liquide totalmente la unidad, de recibir el reembolso de la inversión una ve z se hayan cubierto los pasivos existentes entre otras conductas.A este grupo pertenecen todos los tipos de sociedades que consagra la legislación mercantil colombiana (sociedades colectivas, en comanditas simples y por acciones, limitadas, anónimas, sociedades de hecho y sociedades de economía mixta), las corporaciones con ánimo de lucro, las empresas asociativas de trabajo y las empresas unipersonales. Igualmente las personas naturales 13 que tienen la posibilidad de inscribirse como comerciantes en la Cámara de Comercio sin constituir una persona jurídica diferente.Las entidades sin ánimo de lucro son personas jurídicas que nacen por voluntad de sus asociados para la realización de fines altruistas o de beneficio comunitario ante la imposibilidad del Estado para atender plenamente las necesidades de interés general en una comunidad; de allí que este las haya dotado de una base jurídica que se acoplara con los fines de las personas que desarrollan actividades de esta índole. En todo caso no se puede descartar que en el desarrollo de su actividad obtengan un rendimiento o beneficio apreciable en dinero. Entre este tipo de organización se encuentran entre otras las cooperativas, asociaciones y fundaciones.En términos prácticos esta característica se ve reflejada en algunas reglas prácticas que hacen referencia sobretodo al control interno de la organización, por ejemplo, (a) al realizar la cesión total o parcial de parte del capital de un socio se deberá tener la autorización expresa de sus consocios; (b) la administración corresponde a todos y cada uno de los socios, quienes podrán delegarla en sus consocios o en extraños; (c) No es necesario nombrar un revisor fiscal 14 y (d) este tipo de organizaciones no están obligadas a constituir una reserva legal (con excepción de las cooperativas). En teoría, esta sería una herramienta de utilización de capital social, que supondría la disminución de los costos de transacción, al ser reemplazados por las relaciones de confianza entre los miembros.A este grupo pertenecen las sociedades colectivas, las en comanditas simples, la persona natural, las empresas unipersonales, las sociedades de hecho, las asociaciones y las cooperativas.En las entidades de capital formadas intuitu rei (factor cosa) 15 los atributos y condiciones personales de los accionistas carecen de importancia, una vez realizado el aporte los socios pasan a la penumbra y son inadvertidos; los accionistas de hoy pueden ser distintos de los de ayer o los de mañana. Los terceros tienen como garantía el capital de la sociedad, de allí que el Estado ejerza un mayor control este tipo de figura. Al igual que en las entidades de personas, el hecho de ser entidades de capital tiene algunas connotaciones entre ellas (a) libertad de negociación de las acciones (con algunas excepciones dependiendo del tipo de acción); (b) la responsabilidad de los socios tan solo va hasta el monto de sus aportes; (c) La administración ya no está a cargo de todos los socios, sino de quien ellos elijan en la Asamblea respectiva (a excepción de la limitada y el en comandita por acciones donde los socios colectivos son los administradores); (d) es necesario constituir una reserva legal obligatoria y nombrar revisor fiscal. A esta categoría pertenecen las sociedades en comandita por acciones, las sociedades anónimas y las sociedades de economía mixta (cuando asuman la misma estructura de las sociedades anónimas).Es importante aclarar que existen figuras que se consideran mixtas, por ejemplo las sociedades limitadas ya que los dos elementos tienen igual importancia, si se tienen en cuenta que para la constitución de la sociedad los socios generalmente se conocen, pero al mismo tiempo frente a terceros la sociedad figura como de capital y solo se responde con el capital societario.Con base en los dos factores identificados en las secciones anteriores (objetivo de la actividad y aporte principal de los socios), se clasifican las formas organizativas en cuatro categorías: 1) entidades de personas con animo de lucro 2) ent idades de capital con animo de lucro, 3) entidades de personas sin animo de lucro y 4) entidades de capital sin animo de lucro. La tabla 1 resume las características generales de cada categoría con respeto al capital social, y la tabla 2 ubica las formas organizativas especificas en sus respetivas categorías.Las características de las categorías tienen implicaciones para las empresas, principalmente en la selección de socios, los costos de transacción administrativos, y los incentivos a la inversión (tabla 3). En general se pueden caracterizar asi:, Categoría 1 (Entidades de personas con animo de lucro ) -Son empresas con pocos socios con fuertes lazos personales. Debido a esta confianza, los costos de transacción internos son bajos. Sin embargo las empresas de esta forma pueden tener dificultad en conseguir financiamiento porque es difícil incorporar nuevos socios y porque la falta de separación entre patrimonio empresarial y personal desincentiva la adquisición de crédito.Como consecuencia, tienden a ser empresas pequeñas en términos de numero de empleados y valor de capital.Categoría 2 (entidades de capital con animo de lucro) -La confianza entre socios no tiene que ser alta, y por eso es fácil la salida o entrada de socios. Existen garantías que estimulan inversión por parte de los socios. Los costos de transacción pueden ser altos debido a la regulación legal asociadas con estas garantías. Generalmente solo se justifican con empresas relativamente grandes Categoría 3 (entidades de personas sin animo de lucro) -Con esta categoría no es fácil hacer predicciones teóricas. La suposición de altos niveles de confianza no es explicito, se supone que los socios compartan objetivos sociales y que estén dispuestos a trabajar colectivamente. Como sus misiones sociales dependen de acción colectiva, generalmente tienen un gran numero de socios. Sin embargo, por las restricciones sobre repartición de utilidades, los incentivos para invertir no son muy claros y pueden variar bastante entre los socios. Existen incentivos fiscales y administrativos para estimular la formación y capitalización de estas empresas, pero sostener el compromiso colectivo y los incentivos individuales a la vez es un reto gerencial muy grande. En la ausencia de altos niveles o de compromiso social entre socios y/o capacidad gerencial, estas empresas terminan siendo de muchos socios y poco capital.Categoría 4 (entidades de capital sin animo de lucro) -Al igual que la categoría anterior, es difícil hacer suposiciones. Su objetivo es desarrollar una actividad social a través de la afectación de un patrimonio. Este capital puede provenir de una o varias personas, y una vez formalizada la decisión de destinarlo a determinado fin, se separa por completo y de forma irrevocable de los patrimonios individuales. De allí que sean entidades que estimulan poco la inversión, ya que no existe una retribución de índole económica por el capital cedido. Se ha llegado a afirmar que estas entidades no son propias del derecho de asociación, sino que son resultado del ejercicio del derecho de propiedad, aunque puedan estar administradas por una colectividad de individuos.Las figuras en las diferentes categorías ofrecen o no distintos incentivos, y como ya ha sido explicado, las normas legales asociadas con cada forma organizativa buscan aprovechar parte de las ventajas que puede traer el capital social (ej. reducción de costos de transacción) y al mismo tiempo minimizar posibles problemas asociados con su ausencia (mas regulación Estatal sobre el ma nejo administrativo y financiero). De esta observación salen dos hipótesis:1. Aunque puede haber diferencias entre categorías en cuanto a características estructurales, no debe haber diferencias sistemáticas en su desempeño económico. Esto quiere decir que ninguna forma es siempre mejor que otra. 2. Las empresas de la categoría 3 y 4 (entidades de personas sin ánimo de lucro) tienen mas impacto social que las de otras categorías. Esto porque este tipo de impacto es parte de su razón de ser.La tipología y las hipótesis sobre las relaciones entre estructura, desempeño e impacto se pueden evaluar empíricamente. En esta sección, las examinamos para el caso de agroempresas rurales colombianas. El fomento de estas organizaciones es una parte importante de la estrategia colombiana de desarrollo rural (Lafourcade, 2002), y como el apoyo a las empresas muchas veces requiere que la empresa se constituya legalmente, la cuestión de forma organizativa también se vuelve importante (EL Pais 13 de agosto).Los datos vienen de una muestra de 50 pequeñas y medianas agroempresas rurales en cinco regiones de Colombia-la Costa Caribe, el Oriente Antioqueño, Velez, Santander; Ubaté, Cundinamarca y la región de Manizales en la Zona Cafetera 16 . Las zonas fueron seleccionadas porque son centros de actividad industrial pero varían en términos de sus contextos históricos, culturales e institucionales. Algunas características generales de las empresas se presentan en la tabla 4.Para cada empresa, se hizo una entrevista semi-abierta con la persona que maneja la empresa (el dueño o el gerente) sobre la historia de la empresa, sus practicas empresariales, la toma de decisiones, resolución de conflictos, relaciones con otros individuos y organizaciones; y los importantes retos y oportunidad que enfrenta. El propósito de las preguntas era entender el contexto especifico de la empresa, y documentar como el capital social puede usarse para lograr sus objetivos económicos. Además, se recolectaron datos cuantitativos sobre un rango de variables demográficas y económicas de las empresas y sus dueños. En entrevista con informantes claves se preguntó sobre los impactos que han tenido las empresas en sus comunidades.Dentro de la muestra de 50 empresas se encontraron 10 formas organizativas. Considerando las formas individualmente, se encontró que la sociedad limitada es la figura que más se utiliza (28%), seguida por la sociedad de hecho (24%); las cooperativas (12%), empresas unipersonales (12%) y sociedades anónimas (6%). el 18% restante se reparte entre asociaciones, sociedades en comandita, empresas mixta, sociedades colectivas y personas naturales.Tanta diversidad organizacional fue inesperada y destaca que la cuestión de estructura no es solo tema de empresas grandes. Sin embargo, según los datos, parece que a veces la decisión sobre forma organizativa no la toman de manera informada. En la muestra se observó el uso de figuras como la sociedad colectiva que pueden resultar obsoletas para el desarrollo de una actividad empresarial en la actual situación, por ser una figura que genera pocos incentivos en terceros inversionistas, no solo por el tipo de responsabilidad que maneja, la cual es solidaria e ilimitada, además por los diversos trámites que se deben cumplir para que sea posible una inversión de capital a través de un nuevo socio.Por los análisis realizados es posible observar que no existen diferencias significativas entre las categorías 1 y 2 según el tipo de actividad que desarrollan; mientras que en la categoría 3 las empresas se dedican a elaboración de otro tipo de productos (principalmente yuca y panela). En todo caso, es importante resaltar que esta última categoría no está presente en las zonas de Ubaté y Velez, por lo tanto su comparación con la muestra entera pierde sentido por que las diferencias pueden ser debidas a zona y no a categoría organizativa.Para validar la tipología, podemos comparar las características de los casos de la muestra con las descripciones que se presentaron en la sección 2.3 y la tabla 3.Como se esperaba, las empresas de la categoría 1 son las mas pequenas en términos de numero de empleados, con un promedio de 6.5 comparado con 12 en la categoría 3 y 22 en categoría 2 (tabla 6). Con respeto a planta física, el valor de la maquinaria de las empresas de la categoría 2 es significativamente mas alto que las otras categorías (tabla 6). Hay diferencias grandes en valor de ventas, pero debido a la gran variabilidad dentro de las mismas categorías, no son significativas estadísticamente.Se esperaría que las empresas de la categoría 1 tuvieran su origen en lazos familiares o de amistad fuertes; además por el tipo de responsabilidad que tienen 17 se supone que son empresas con un número reducido de socios. Finalmente, por el alto nivel de confianza que se presume hay entre las personas que las conforman, debe ser difícil su entrada o salida. En las categorías 2 y 3 se espera un número mayor de socios y en especial en la categoría 2 se espera bastante rotación de los socios.En cuanto al numero de socios, por los resultados obtenidos, tales hipótesis resultaron ciertas; las categorías 2 y 3 tienen en promedio 30 y 94 socios respectivamente (tabla 6) mientras que la categoría 1 tiene en promedio 5 socios. Los datos obtenidos muestran que en la categoría 1 existen empresas pequeñas, con socios que se reducen al núcleo familiar, y que generalmente también son la mano de obra que labora en esas empresas.De allí que en estas exista un nivel de confianza significativo y poca rotación de sus miembros]Muchas de estas empresas se formaron porque el padre de familia con ayuda de su esposa la fundaron y en la medida que los hijos iban creciendo y adquiriendo conocimientos pasaron a ayudar en su funcionamiento sin importar si tenían otro tipo de actividad. Claramente es posible observar esta conducta por ejemplo en la zona de Vélez, en las seis (6) sociedades de hecho. También es importante destacar que se presenta la misma situación en el caso de las personas naturales-comerciantes que se legalizaron como tal, aunque se encuentren registrados legalmente como un solo individuo la familia continua siendo la principal estructura.En teoría, en las empresas que pertenecen a la categoría 2, las cualidades de los socios no son importantes, inclusive en la mayoría de los casos puede que nunca exista una interacción entre ellos, tal presupuesto es válido en el caso de las sociedades anónima, la en comandita por acciones (socios comanditarios) y la sociedad de economía mixta, donde el papel de los socios se reduce a las decisiones de capital y estos están separados de las actividades administrativas y de operación de la empresa, las cuales están en cabeza del gerente o administrador y es a través de él que se tejen las redes sociales externas. Hay ejemplos de socios/inversionistas que ayudan en adelantar las actividades de empresas de esta categoría, pero no son comunes.En cuanto al número de socios de la categoría 2, en promedio los resultados concuerdan con la hipótesis, se destacan dos casos que no cumplen tal supuesto; en primer lugar hay una sociedad de Economía Mixta que solo tiene tres (3) socios, pero es claro que los lazos entre ellos son de índole comercial, situación que es reforzada por la naturaleza de las personas que la conforman (instituciones públicas), que son personas jurídicas cuya representación está a cargo de personas naturales que pueden cambiar en el tiempo. El segundo caso es una sociedad anónima conformada por 7 personas; en principio tenía una estructura familiar pero en los últimos años ha recibido inversión externa, hecho que ha originado una ruptura de este tipo de esquema (familiar) y ha dado paso a una sociedad de capital en todo el sentido de su definición.Aunque pertenecen a la misma categoría (2) las sociedades limitadas tienen otra estructura, en su mayoría las personas que las conforman son miembros de una misma familia, se exceptúa un caso de la zona cafetera y uno de la Costa Costa Caribe, cuyos socios son inversionistas o instituciones, donde no existe necesariamente un lazo de parentesco o amistad entre ellos.En la categoría 3 las relaciones entre los socios son fuertes y difíciles de reemplazar según la opinión de los empresarios consultados en el estudio; tanto en las asociaciones como en las cooperativas se manejan relaciones estables y duraderas, con sentido de pertenencia. Sin embrago no parece ser válida en todos los casos esta afirmació n, por ejemplo una cooperativa al momento de iniciar tenía 22 socios y actualmente solo cuentan con 9. De la misma manera una asociación dependía del técnico, él cual canalizaba sus esfuerzos en capacitación tecnológica pero no en la consolidación de una base social. Muchos de los casos de esta categoría tienen en sus historias ejemplos de desacuerdos entre socios, salidas masivas y/o re-estructuraciones. Si la organización logra sobrevivir el problema, muchas veces sale fortalecida con los socios que quedan, algo que puede explicar sus actitudes actuales en cuanto al sentido de pertenencia.Organizaciones que no sobrevivieron estos proceso no estarían en la muestra.Se estimula la creación de este sentido de pertenencia a través de la prestación de servicios a los socios (además de ser una función propia de la naturaleza de este tipo de figuras jurídicas). Es importante resaltar la labor de algunas empresas, aunque no son muy grandes (en términos de número de socios ni capital ) desarrollan instrumentos para consolidar el tejido social interno, a través de capacitaciones a sus socios y asesoría en el manejo de sus cultivos, además de trabajar en la concientización y práctica de herramientas que estimulan el manejo de producción limpia. También existen proyectos de prestación de servicios en preparación de suelos, tractor y equipos; y un proyecto que se denomina \"Fondo para el pago anticipado de la cosecha\" dirigido a los asociados (dado que el capital disponible no alcanza para cubrir a particulares de la localidad).Se debe destacar también el papel de las empresas de esta categoría que aglutinan un número significativo de personas, es el caso de una asociación multiproposito y una cooperativa de frutas. La primera ha sido un gran ejemplo de superación y trabajo comunitario, los habitantes de la vereda se asociaron por iniciativa propia y han conseguido no solo la generación de mayores ingresos para ellos, sino también la consolidación de servicios y excedentes; la segunda ha trabajado en el fortalecimiento de la base social tratando de elevar el nivel de vida de los productores, con producción limpia, a través de herramientas como asegurar la compra y un buen precio y estable durante 1 año.En todo caso no todos los resultados son positivos y depende en gran medida del líder o persona que este dirigiendo la entidad, además en los casos donde los socios son a su vez proveedores el hecho de generar sentido de pertenencia tiene una doble función si se tiene en cuenta que la empresa necesita asegurar la materia prima. Finalmente también fue posible constatar que este tipo de organizaciones dependen o en determinado momento han recibido ayuda de entidades estatales y ONG para su constitución y consolidación, sobre todo en el caso de las cooperativas.No se puede decir con anticipación qué relaciones se esperan ver entre las categorías dado que a veces hay incentivo y desincentivos dentro de la misma categoría. Niveles específicos de inversión también dependerán de otros factores como las características especificas de los socios, negocios, y contextos económicos. Sin embargo, se espera que en general el acceso a crédito y el estimulo a la inversión tienda a ser mayor en las empresas de categoría 2.Según los varios indicadores usados para medir acceso a crédito y nivel de inversión, no se encontraron diferencias significativas entre las categorías (tabla 6). Es mas común que las empresas de la categoría 2 tengan crédito formal (de bancos o otros instituciones financieras), pero la diferencia no es significativa. En términos de valor de capital por socio y valor de capital por empleado, medidas de intensidad de inversión, los promedios de la categoría 3 están muy por debajo de las otras categorías, sin embargo, la variación dentro de las mismas categorías es tan grande que las diferencias no son significativas. A través de un análisis de varianza se probó que la variable categoría jurídica no tiene efecto significativo sobre capital/socio.La falta de diferencia significativa entre categorías puede ser debido a que algunas empresas consiguieron apoyo financiero de parte de ONGs y programas gubernamentales para la compra de equipos que por si mismas nunca habrían podido comprar. El hecho de que a veces estos equipos estén subutilizados, contribuye a una tasa de capital/empleado bastante alta.Según el análisis anterior, en general la tipología parece ser valida para caracterizar las empresas en términos de la influencia de capital social sobre su estructura. Las principales excepciones son dadas por altos niveles de liderazgo dentro de una empresa y al apoyo de ONGs y otros programas externos que facilitan el acceso a capital y otros recursos. En esta sección, se examinan las hipótesis sobre las relaciones entre categoría y objetivo, desempeño e impacto.Como se mencionó, las figuras con ánimo de lucro se crean teniendo como fin principal la ejecución de actividades mercantiles, y las entidades sin ánimo de lucro teniendo como móvil principal el bienestar comunitario (sin que esto signifique que no deban ser sostenibles). En la mayoría de los casos esto es verdad, pero hay ejemplos en las categorías 1&2, que son empresas con objetivo social y casos de categoría 3 con fines netamente económicos. En un caso la empresa está considerando tener una figura jurídica que se encuentra clasificada en la categoría 3, sin embargo el motivo principal para realizar esta conversión es acceder a créditos disponibles únicamente para esa clase de organización. Este caso no es el único, y el hecho que una empresa exitosa económica y socialmente busque cambiar su estructura puede reflejar un problema de los programas financieros que favorecen las empresas, sacrificándose el verdadero sentido de la figura por los resultados.Un factor que influye sobre la forma organizativa son los costos asociados con la figura jurídica. Muchas veces, puede ser un factor determinante por encima de los factores que verdaderamente deben definir la forma organizativa en una empresa exitosa. Esta característica es reforzada por resultados de otros estudios que se realizaron en el departamento del Cauca (González C, 2001), en estos se observa que en el caso de las Asociaciones que asumieron esta figura no tuvieron en cuenta que esta forma organizativa no contempla un ánimo de lucro, sino que es la que tiene menos requisitos para su constitución, además que ofrecen ventajas tributarias. Esta situación refleja que en algunos casos los empresarios están más interesados en cumplir con la obligación de la formalización o conseguir algún beneficio inmediato sin importar el sentido real de las normas; de allí que en algunas ocasiones las figuras legales se tornan un obstáculo para el adecuado desarrollo de la empresa a largo plazo.Como medida de desempeño tenemos ingreso anual por empleado. Aunque hay diferencias grandes entre los promedios por categoría, no son significativos debido a la gran variabilidad entre las mismas categorías (Table 6). En el análisis de varianza se observó que la categoría jurídica no tiene relación significativa con el ingreso/empleado, a niveles convencionales (sig=0.134).A través de los datos recogidos es posible explicar esa gran variabilidad si se tiene en cuenta que dentro de una misma categoría existen empresa con índices muy pequeños y otras con índices bastante relevantes, por ejemplo, en la categoría 1 existen unidades que registran los valores más bajos con relación a la muestra, 2 sociedades colectivas. De la misma manera existen datos sobre empresas que presentan un alto índice de ventas/empleado, por ejemplo una empresa unipersonal de Antioquia o de dos sociedades de hecho que producen lácteos en la zona de Ubaté.En el caso de la categoría 2 es aún más notoria la diferencia, la empresa con el indicador más pequeño es una sociedad limitada que registra 673,4 ventas (US)/empleado y el mayor valor de toda la muestra la tiene una sociedad anónima que por empleado ve nde US 106.066,00 por año; en esta categoría es importante resaltar que las empresas con mejores indicadores son las sociedades en comanditas y las anónimas.La categoría 3 se caracteriza por tener en promedio el menor ingreso por empleado, solo se resalta el caso de una cooperativa ubicada en la zona cafetera; las unidades restantes presentan indicadores poco relevantes e inclusive en esta categoría se encuentra el menor valor de ventas (426,67 ventas(US)/empleado) en una asociación de la Costa Caribe.Se supone que los casos de categoría 3 tendrían mas impacto social. En la encuesta se preguntó a informantes clave sobre los diferentes tipos de impactos de las empresas: económicos, sociales, políticas y de infraestructura. De hecho, esta hipótesis esta apoyada por los datos que muestran que en los casos de la categoría 3, el 63% tenían impacto social comparado con 25% de la categoría 2 y 18% en la categoría 1 (Tabla 7).No hubo diferencias significativas entre las otras clases de impactos, aunque era mas probable que las empresas de la categoría 2 tuvieran impacto económico comparado con las otras categorías.Los resultados cualitativos muestran que en la Categoría 1, para la mayoría de los casos su impacto se reduce la círculo productivo y comercial que manejan. Se destaca un caso importante que se han consolidado como empresa exportadora, la cual invierte más de la mitad de sus utilidades en la comunidad, por ejemplo, cuenta con un grupo de 20 a 30 productores inscritos en un fondo de pensiones para cuando llegan a la vejez puedan disfrutarla, y no solo en términos económicos, el dueño es un líder que ha generado un cambio en el pensamiento de los productores propiciando espacios de participación y concientización, además ha desarrollado la mentalidad de producir con calidad (producción limpia) diferenciándolos así de otros productores de la región.Las empresas de la categoría 2 generan gran impacto económico e indirectamente social. En su mayoría aglutinan un número significativo de proveedores o productores los cuales reciben capacitación para mejorar la calidad de sus productos; de igual manera ocurre con los trabajadores de las empresas que se ven beneficiados por incentivos laborales, tales medidas se pueden observar en todas las sociedades anónimas.En esta categoría existen dos casos excepcionales: el primero, es la sociedad de economía mixta, si bien es una fuente importante de generación de empleo y una herramienta para tratar de mantener un buen precio a los productores; no genera un impacto más allá, ni ha logrado la consolidación de un tejido social en su zona de influencia. El segundo caso es una sociedad en comandita la cual tiene como objetivo, además de sus intereses económicos, el desarrollo comunitario, característica que no es propia de la categoría en que se encuentra clasificada.Todas las empresas en las diferentes categorías son unidades productivas ya consolidadas con por lo menos 4 años de operación; que generan impacto económico algunos más significativos que otros. Este es el caso de las empresas de la categoría 3 por ser las que menos producen este tipo de efecto (impacto económico). Una razón puede ser el mismo objeto por el cual fueron creadas; solo 3 tienen un impacto importante, además si se tienen en cuenta que manejan un gran número de socios y son organizaciones que a nivel local logran mantener el precio de sus productos, conseguir mejores condiciones para negociar, además de contar con la ayuda de organismo públicos y privados.Las secciones anteriores buscaron comprobar hipótesis a través del análisis de diferencias en las características de las distintas categorías jurídicas. En esta sección, se hace el análisis otra manera, buscando grupos de empresas parecidas para ver si categoría jurídica sea un factor determinante. El objetivo un análisis de conglomerados es identificar y caracterizar grupos de empresas con base en las variables que muestran mayor poder discriminatorio y que se relacionan con la categoría jurídica. Según los resultados, los tres grupos definidos coinciden con los grupos definidos por la tipología (Tabla 8). En términos generales se caracterizan asi:Grupo 1. Se observa, al analizar la relación con categoría jurídica que la categoría 3 se presenta con mayor frecuencia en la zona Caribe y el Oriente Antioqueño, en empresas con alto número de socios con bajos ingresos, una cantidad media de empleados con respecto a la muestra y que preferiblemente producen almidón de yuca y panela.Grupo 2. En este grupo se presentan unidades productivas pertenecientes en su mayoría a la categoría 1, están ubicadas en las zonas de Ubaté y Velez, producen principalmente bocadillos y lácteos; tienen relativamente pocos socios y su ingreso es medio; cuentan con pocos empleados con salarios medios.Grupo 3. Son agroindustrias ubicadas en las zonas del Oriente Antioqueño y zona Cafetera; el principal producto son los lácteos; pertenecen a la categoría 2, tienen muchos empleados con altos ingresos con respecto a la muestra y pocos socios, con un buen nivel de ingresos.La elección de la figura en la que se debe constituir una agroindustria depende en primer lugar de los recursos con los que cuentan los posibles dueños y el objeto o fin para el cual va a ser creada la organización. El elemento capital social juega un papel importante en cada aspecto. El capital social entre los dueños puede ser el aporte principal a la empresa. El compromiso social compartido entre los socios debe ser la base de una organización con fines tantos sociales como económicos. Las figuras organizativas se pueden clasificar según estos aspectos en una tipología que ayuda escoger una forma apropiada dado los objetivos y recursos de la empresa.Una validación empírica de la tipología con datos de agroempresas pequeñas colombianas mostró que en general las características de las empresas como tamaño, número de socios y manejo administrativo generalmente varían según la categoría de la tipología, de acuerdo con las hipótesis formuladas con base en los incentivos económicos de cada figura. Sin embargo, no hay diferencias significativas en intensidad de inversión o desempeño. Este resultado dice que no es la forma que determina el éxito sino la combinación apropiada entre recursos, objetivos y forma.En cuanto al impacto, se encontró que en general las empresas sin animo de lucro tuvieron mayor incidencia de impacto social que las empresas con animo de lucro. No hubo diferencias en incidencia de otros tipos de impacto, aunque parece que las empresas sin animo de lucro tuvieron impactos económicos de menor magnitud.Algo clave que incide sobre éxito e impacto es liderazgo de los dueños/gerentes de las empresas. Tal es el caso de la empresa unipersona l que en teoría es una figura jurídica indicada para pequeñas empresas y las fuentes para conseguir inversión se reducen a la gestión del dueño y por lo tanto se espera que generen poco impacto; pero el estudio encontró casos de empresas que tienen importantes repercusiones en la comunidad. La lección para las organizaciones que buscan fortalecer comunidades es que pueden hacerlo apoyando a empresas de estas categorías si tienen el liderazgo adecuado. Con respeto a las empresas sin animo de lucro (categoría 3), el sentido de pertenencia y el compromiso social son factores claves, sin los cuales las empresas difícilmente pueden tener impacto, sea económico o social.Otra implicación del estudio es que es importante facilitar los trámites de legalizació n de las unidades productivas sobre todo para aquellas que cuentan con muy poco capital de trabajo, esto les traería algunos beneficios tales como acceder a mercados formales, a créditos institucionales, contar con un respaldo jurídico , tener claros sus derechos de propiedad lo que podría generar mayores inversiones, aumentaría su credibilidad en el sector en que desarrolla su actividad entre otras ventajas.El Estado debe flexibilizar la legislación en este tema: Sería prudente que se abriera el espacio a otras figuras organizativas que no necesariamente están consagradas en los códigos, y eliminar aquellas que por su estructura resultan muchas veces obsoletas, como es el caso de las sociedades colectivas, las cuales tienen un tipo de responsabilidad que va en detrimento no solo del patrimonio de los socios, sino del mismo desarrollo de la empresa si se tiene en cuenta que no propician la inversión. Aunque no es la figura jurídica en si el determinante para el crecimiento o no de una empresa estas pueden por sus características individuales generar o no incentivos y por los resultados del estudio es necesario trabajar en capacitar a los empresarios y las organizaciones que los apoyan en este tema, sobre cuáles son las ventajas o desventajas de elegir determinada figura jurídica.En este sentido hay ciertas recomendaciones sobre políticas o acciones de apoyo para las diversas categorías de empresas que se puede sacar del presente estudio. Para empresas en la categoría 1, opciones incluyen: (a) iniciativas para establecer o fortalecer redes de intercambio, innovación y apoyo entre las empresas; (b) mejorar el acceso de estas firmas a fuentes de capital no familiares por medio de esquemas de riesgo compartido o fondos rotatorios de ahorro y crédito, y; (c) aplicar lecciones aprendidas de ejemplos exitosos de firmas familiares o unipersonales que han logrado crecer usando este formato organizativo.Para apoyar empresas que se encuentran en la categoría 2 las opciones son más limitadas ya que su mayor activo no es capital social sino el capital financiero. En estos casos se puede buscar maneras para reducir los costos transaccionales para firmas que quieren pasar de la categoría 1 a la 2 tiene que enfrentar. Acciones concretas pueden la difusión de información actualizada y confiable sobre los pasos a seguir para lograr este transito o acceso a asesoría especializada en el tema a costos razonables.En el caso de empresas en la categoría 3, surgen varias recomendaciones claras. Primero, si no existe un nivel elevado de confianza entre los socios potenciales de la empresa, este formato organizativo no es recomendable. Segundo, firmas que se organizan de esta manera necesitan hacer inversiones periódicas o, en algunos casos, permanentes para mantener sus niveles de capital social y, por ende, la cohesión de la empresa (Johnson et al, 2002). En términos concretos esta recomendación se convierte en acciones como velar por un buen flujo de información entre los socios, lograr mantener transparencia en la toma de decisiones y establecer y mantener reglas claras de juego entendidos por y aplicados a todos los socios. El hecho que cooperativas tienden a tener limitantes en capital no es necesariamente un factor negativo siempre y cuando esta carencia sea suplida por un uso intensivo de capital social.Para entidades que apoyan procesos empresariales rurales, la mayoría de sus acciones tendrán lugar con empresas de categorías 1 y 3. En estos casos, el presente documento ha indicado algunas maneras de fortalecer estas empresas con base en su situación actual de capital social o, por lo menos, identificado algunos obstáculos comunes que deben ser tomados en cuenta para mejorar el funcionamiento de estas firmas.Tabla 1. Características de las categorías.Entidades con ánimo de lucro• Objetivo : desarrollar actividades mercantiles y obtener utilidades. • La solvencia de los socios tiene rela ción directa con la facilidad de credito. • La ley permite cierta flexibilidad en la organización administrativa de la empresa.• Objetivo: desarrollar actividades mercantiles y obtener utilidades. • La solvencia de la empresa está relacionada directamente con la capacidad de acceder a los créditos. • Fuerte regulación y supervisión estatal sobre el funcionamiento administrativo de la empresa.• Objetivo: es un grupo de personas que tienen como fin mejorar el bienestar de la comunidad; exceptuando el caso de las cooperativas, donde combina el carácter empresarial con el servicio comunitario. • Las relaciones de los socios no suponen lazos de confianza pero es implícito que compartan objetivos sociales y disposición a la acción colectiva.• Objetivo: es un patrimonio destinado a mejorar el bienestar de la comunidad. Abstract: This thesis assesses the economic and non-economic impact of the Integrated Productive Projects (PPI) methodology developed by the Agroenterprses Project (SN1) to strengthen rural agro-enterprises and their participation in value-added chains. The analysis was carried out in Caldono, Cauca among producers of anturios. The results of the analysis show that producers have realized economic benefits, mainly in the form of a price increased negotiated with buyers, and that non-economic impacts related to strengthening social capital have also been observed. Ex ante analysis of economic benefits over the next 10 years show that economic returns to anturio production in the region are high, ranging from 53 to over 100%.La Orientación Territorial para el Desarrollo Empresarial Rural es un juego de metodologías que se compone de tres elementos perfectamente complementarios que son: Aplicación del Proceso de Identificación y Evaluación Participativa de Opciones de Mercado IDOP, Proyectos Productivos Integrados PPIs y Sistema Local de Apoyo SLA desarrollados por el proyecto Agroempresas Rurales (SN1) del CIAT. Esta metodología se pensó con el fin de dar al pequeño productor rural de una región determinada las herramientas adecuadas para responder a las condiciones actuales del mercado. En la aldea global de hoy, de libre mercado y sin proteccionismo es necesario darle al productor rural la posibilidad de producir mercancías con potencialidad agronómica y de mercado, a las cuales puedan añadir gran valor agregado y que además sean compatibles con la sostenibilidad ecológica. Para ello se realiza un trabajo conjunto entre las entidades gubernamentales y no gubernamentales (CIAT, ONGs, Gobierno, Empresas, etc.), consultores y productores.En este documento se analizará el proceso de aplicación del Proyecto Productivo Integrado PPI, realizado durante el período Junio 2000 -Junio 2001 (Table 1), en la línea productiva anturios, los talleres que se llevaron a cabo, su orden y su relevancia para los productores que participaron. Se evaluarán los beneficios económicos y sociales que se obtuvieron de la aplicación de ésta metodología y se harán sugerencias para mejorar este proceso en el futuro. El análisis se realizará con los productores de la línea productiva de los Anturios en la zona de Caldono, microcuenca del Río Cabuyal Cauca, participantes del proyecto PPI, Proyectos Productivos Integrados PPI con el fin de crear una metodología de evaluación que pueda aplicarse a otros casos.Conectado con los talleres de diagnóstico se realizó una ronda de negocios, en la cual los productores tuvieron la primera oportunidad en su vida de negociar con sus clientes (las floristerías) el precio y las cantidades que transarían en el futuro. Este proceso de negociación, ya ejecutada la fase de estudio de mercado, que servía para tener una clara visión del mercado y actuar de una manera acorde con esas necesidades identificadas. Además le permite a los productores proyectar su actividad a un futuro menos inmediato. Algunos clientes resultantes del proceso de negociación aún continúan transando con las señoras, además se consiguió que los productores comprendieran la importancia de clasificar la flor y hacer un buen manejo poscosecha. Este proceso de negociación fue el momento cumbre de los Proyectos Productivos Integrados PPIs al servir de excusa para que se sentaran en una misma mesa compradores y vendedores y que el pequeño productor rural se aproximara a mercados más exigentes. Para el cálculo de los beneficios económicos de la actividad productiva anturios en el municipio de Caldono se han aplicado flujos de caja en los cuales se manejan los costos que reportaron los productores y el técnico de Corpotunía. Por su falta de conocimientos y la inexistencia de contabilidad se hizo un poco difícil esta tarea, pues fue necesario sentarse a charlar con las personas y preguntarles cada una de las cosas que usan en el manejo del cultivo, y cuanto les cuestan o donde las compran, de este modo se colectaron uno a uno los datos de sus insumos productivos. La información que proporcionó Corpotunía aunque es lo más cercano a una tabla de costos tiene algunos inconvenientes técnicos, de cualquier manera el objetivo de ésta tabla es interno y sirvió para encontrar valores más aproximados a los reales. Haciendo un parangón entre los grupos, vistos como empresas independientes que actúan buscando su beneficio particular, las cifras nos muestran que los grupos más grandes tienen un mayor capital y unos beneficios muy importantes, pero también tienen la relación B/C más baja, esto se debe a que tienen unos costos de mano de obra más altos y una inversión más elevada. Sin embargo, su proceso de comercialización ha sido mejor y han aprendido más de la propuesta del PPI, pues han logrado mantener los clientes de la Ronda de Negocios o han conseguido nuevos. Como estas cifras no corresponden a los beneficios obtenidos en la actualidad sino a los esperados en los próximos 10 años, los grupos más capacitados para mantener la dinámica de crecimiento, son los que han comprendido la importancia de participar activamente del mercado.Los grupos pequeños por su parte tienen varias ventajas, con respecto a sus vecinos más grandes, y es que tienen unos costos más bajos, por ejemplo, la mano de obra es más barata en estas veredas, la inversión que han hecho es menor por el bajo costo de la tierra y de otros insumos, también tienen algunos subsidios institucionales y de los otros grupos que deben ser aprovechadas. La debilidad de estos grupos está en que les falta mejorar el manejo poscosecha de la flor, situación que se discutió en los talleres y que los clientes potenciales consideraron en las exigencias del producto.En términos generales, cada grupo tiene ventajas comparativas por sus costos, su tamaño o su situación geográfica que les facilitan la consecución de clientes y la obtención de beneficios. Los grupos grandes deben seguir fortaleciendo su proceso de comercialización, mientras los grupos pequeños deben además mejorar la calidad de la flor para tener un producto que se adapte a las necesidades del mercado.Uno de los factores que se consideran preponderantes en la ejecución de la metodología es el concepto de Capital Social, una de las tareas importantes del enfoque es aprovechar todo el capital social que genera un grupo, y los mecanismos para incentivarlo y reproducirlo. En la sección de beneficios no-económicos se propuso un modelo de capital social, éste se aplica al caso particular del Grupo de Productores de Anturios de Caldono con el fin de conocer el capital social con que cuenta en la actualidad este grupo. En esta seccion, solo se resume la información obtenida sobre impacto social.Las externalidades positivas que se obtuvieron de las respuestas de los productores a las entrevistas son: 1) Actividades de dotación en infraestructura, 2) Integración de la comunidad, 3) Gestión de proyectos, 4) Conciencia de género (mejora de la condición femenina en la comunidad), 5) Mejora en la comunicación con las autoridades, 6) Actividades pro-comunidad (mingas), 7) Amistad y acciones altruistas. Entre las externalidades negativas se cuentan: 1) Sobre-uso de agua y 2)Conflictos personales trascienden al nivel grupal. Entonces las externalidades positivas son 7 y las negativas son 2.Uno de los hallazgos de la esta investigación es que en los grupos donde hay más capital social se han obtenido mejores resultados y el proceso ha sido más exitoso 19 . La línea productiva ant urios comparada con otras líneas como lácteos o pollos campesinos, que cuenta mayor capital social, obtuvo unos resultados bastantes satisfactorios, esto se puede explicar porque en los grupos donde hay mayor confianza y cohesión interna el proceso 19 Información obtenida de forma verbal de funcionarios de Corpotunía.de aprendizaje en la comercialización es más efectivo, también se dinamiza la interacción con el mercado, en otros términos, se consigue disminuir los costos de transacción cuando hay más confianza en las instituciones (entiéndase como las reglas por las cuales se rige una sociedad) formales e informales, en el prójimo. Así, se encontró que el capital social es un insumo de los Proyectos Productivos Integrados.Si bien el capital social es un factor dinamizador de los PPIs, el proceso también se da en el otro sentido, pues los PPIs desarrollan el Capital social al mejorar las relaciones de los productores con las instituciones del mercado y con los demás socios, al reconocer las fortalezas y debilidades del grupo y de la empresa se enfrentan con situaciones nueva s que los unen como grupo y les permiten visualizar nuevas opciones a su actividad productiva; creándose un circulo virtuoso de capital social, acciones encaminadas al mercado (PPIs) y más capital social. Por su parte el PPI ha entrado a mejorar o fortalecer el proceso de desarrollo de este Capital social al brindar al grupo unas mayores perspectivas al futuro y también poner al grupo a trabajar en acciones específicas con objetivos bien definidos. Las ganancias en capital social obtenidas de este proceso son muy difíciles de calcular en un tiempo de un año a partir de la ejecución del proyecto, pero el dato actual servirá para hacer una medición más apropiada en el futuro.Otros de los beneficios que se han encontrado con la metodología es el desarrollo de capacidades empresariales como llevar contabilidad (aunque es poco elaborada, pues solo contabilizan los egresos efectivos sin detallarlos), comercializar su producto en mercados terminales, comercializan un producto con valor agregado (ramos y no la flor cortada), gestionan proyectos de desarrollo regional y mejora de la infraestructura educativa. Ellos se han unido mucho más y han encontrado muchos beneficios en el trabajo en grupo por lo que están bastante interesados en unir a todos los grupos, por lo menos en la comercialización. Como se ha mencionado ya, con las intervenciones pasadas que garantizaron la producción de anturios y desarrolló un interés por alternativas productivas se complementa esta estrategia metodológica que permitió al grupo tomar acciones propias de una empresa fortalecida, como buscar sus debilidades y fortalezas y con ello realizar actividades para eliminar las primeras y potenciar las segundas. Así los problemas se volvieron objetivos y se plantearon estrategias para solucionarlos con acciones específicas.Pero la ganancia más importante del Grupo de Productores de Anturios de Caldono con los Proyectos Productivos Integrados es la capacidad de negociación que hace la diferencia entre una producción rural tradicional y el estado actual de los Anturios en Caldono. Con la Ronda de negocios se ganó además de una nueva capacidad, un precio de venta más alto, pues los productores pasaron de vender la docena a $3.000 en promedio a vender a $7.000 la docena. Además debían garantizar una oferta constante de flor cortada lo que les obliga a cumplir y preocuparse por la calidad del producto que venden. Las actividades previas a los PPIs hicieron posible producir anturios, pero ello no es suficiente para que tal producto participe en un mercado, con este aprendizaje los productores han desarrollado capacidades que se adquieren con la acción, es decir solo se aprende a ser empresario negociando, entendiendo el mercado, comercializando, buscando clientes, evaluando la empresa. Y esto fue lo que hicieron los productores de anturios en el marco de la metodología de lo PPIs.Con los talleres los productores se plantearon objetivos específicos que se han cumplido en el tiempo apropiado y los objetivos se han conseguido eficientemente, por ejemplo: se planeó conseguir un empaque apropiado y desde este año se están usando cajas que se mandaron a fabricar especialmente para los anturios; el proceso de poscosecha, que asegura que la flor salga en buen estado del invernadero y tenga una buena presentación al llegar al cliente, se mejoró ostensiblemente; el proceso de comercialización se fortaleció y los grupos buscan clientes y espacios nuevos de comercialización. Algunos objetivos como tener un punto de venta de arreglos florales y estar legalizados y produciendo juntos como un solo grupo, son de mediano plazo pero la existencia de estas ambiciones entre los socios indican una visión más completa del mercado y una perspectiva empresarial, los productores ya saben que un punto de venta en la ciudad es una mayor garantía de ventas, reconocen la importancia del lugar donde se comercializa la flor, y saben que el producto debe ser llevado al cliente y no esperar que el cliente venga al productor. La necesidad de ampliar la producción también se incluye dentro de las acciones de mediano plazo y ya se ven avances, como las plantas adquiridas en Diciembre del 2001.Por último, las ganancias en términos de institucionalidad son enormes. Uno de los intereses de los PPIs era que los grupos se legalizaran pues las cadenas de almacenes y los grandes clientes, exigen la mayoría de las veces, el soporte legal que dan los documentos de una empresa constituida y el respaldo que da la inscripción del producto en la Cámara de Comercio, con la estrategia usada en la ronda de negocios los productores reconocieron la necesidad de participar de estos procesos legales y de insertarse en la dinámica de empresas respetuosas de las reglas de la sociedad en que viven. Pero además estos grupos con ayuda de las instituciones acompañantes han conseguido mejorar las relaciones dentro la comunidad o sea que han fortalecido las instituciones informales, pero también están haciendo parte de los gobiernos de la vereda, pues la mayoría participan de la Junta de Acción Comunal y de otros grupos que trabajan por la región.Uno de los mayores problemas que aquejan a los productores de anturios es la escasa comunicación que hay entre ellos y la Corporación, que es la que les da el apoyo, esta preocupación nace de su necesidad de contar con apoyo técnico constante por el desconocimiento que tienen de las plantas y porque creen que los recursos de los proyectos deben manejarse de manera conjunta entre la Corporación y el grupo. Su necesidad de manejar los recursos externos para hacer un uso más efectivo y ellos es un signo de madurez que no debe ignorarse, los socios se sienten capaces de manejar los fondos de las donaciones y lo han hecho anteriormente.Los Proyectos Productivos Integrados han permitido, en una primera instancia, fortalecer el sentido empresarial en los Productores de Anturios del municipio de Caldono en el Cauca desarrollando la visión de cadena productiva e integrándolos a ella. A través de los talleres ha encaminado a éstos a producir de forma engranada con el mercado y les ha dado una perspectiva competitiva. Los talleres le dieron al productor la oportunidad de hablar de su problemática y sus necesidades de apoyo en la producción, se les brindaron las suficientes herramientas para que éste en un futuro pueda identificar sus problemas de forma seria y sistemática, y él mismo pueda ofrecer propuestas de solución. Esto puede parecer pequeño para quienes hacen políticas de desarrollo que \"prefieren entregar las herramientas que enseñar a pescar\", pero cuando lo que se busca es una verdadera alternativa de desarrollo sostenible, lo que se debe procurar es que sea el productor el que dé solución a sus problemas.Los talleres de los PPIs permitieron a los productores identificar sus fallas y sus debilidades en el manejo de las flores y su participación en el mercado, reconocieron sus problemas en la producción, el manejo de la flor y la comercialización. Además escucharon las necesidades de los demandantes, cuales son las características deseables e indeseables en una flor. Todas estas actividades de interacción con instituciones y otros productores hacen que ellos estén más seguros de si mismos y comprendan que las exigencias del mundo de mercado en el que viven. Gracias a los PPIs los productores se propusieron un plan de acción con actividades específicas que les permitirán, en un futuro próximo, competir con otros productores en calidad y precio. Entre estas actividades se encuentra aumentar el número de plantas, mejorar el manejo poscosecha de la flor, poner un punto de venta y contactar nuevos clientes. Todas estas son ambiciones altas para ellos, pues no cuentan con recursos para hacerlo, saben que deberán buscar apoyo externo y que tendrán que hacer muchos esfuerzos conjuntos, pero también saben que la realización de este sueño les abrirá las puertas de un mercado más exigente a sus flores.La fase del estudio de mercados permitió reconocer y aprovechar un mercado que apenas está naciendo en nuestro país, el de las flores exóticas. Les dio pautas a los productores sobre la situación actual de la demanda y los demandantes potenciales de anturios. Los planes de los productores están basados en la información obtenida por este estudio, pues descubrieron que hay un mercado que aún no ha sido explotado en el Norte del Cauca pues no hay productores que ofrezcan las cantidades que se demandan. Los actores que participaron de la ronda de negocios, entre los que estaban los representantes de las floristerías, explicaron a los productores las condiciones de calidad de la flor que exigen los clientes y el precio que pagarían. De este proceso de negociación se concertaron unos precios en la Ronda que mejoraron 2,3 veces con respecto a los que recibían anteriormente, pues pasaron de vender a $3.000 la docena en promedio a $7.000 la docena.El Grupo de Productores de anturios de Caldono actualmente es una organización estable y con muchas posibilidades de seguir creciendo, además de su disciplina y entusiasmo, ahora cuentan con mejores herramientas para convertir su producción en una empresa competitiva, que ofrece flores de excelente calidad, su creciente preocupación por los mecanismos de comercialización y por el manejo pos-cosecha de la flor hacen que este proceso siga en aume nto. Estas empresas rurales, vistas independientemente (por vereda) aún no generan beneficios económicos pero la evaluación económica concluyó que todos los grupos están en capacidad de conseguir beneficios futuros y son empresas rentables si se conservan las condiciones ahí consideradas, como los costos actuales o las cantidades vendidas. Esto de mantener los costos es bastante importante, pues un aumento de ellos podría hacer que la empresa sea inviable e incurra en pérdidas, algunos costos como el del capital o los insumos son asuntos que a veces desalientan a los productores que cuentan con poco capital de trabajo y acceso a crédito, pero tales obstáculos son superados siempre de manera exitosa.Los grupos aún necesitan mucho apoyo de Corpotunía y en ocasiones no se sienten autónomos para tomar decisiones o continuar solos con la empresa de anturios, esto puede parecer una debilidad del grupo, pero en realidad es el reflejo de la ausencia de un sistema de apoyo que les brinde los servicios que requieren, este sistema es el que les garantiza los insumos, bienes y servicios para el mantenimiento de su producción. Una de las falencias más visibles que tiene la región es el acceso a crédito, pues los productores que quieren dedicarse a cultivos de mediano y largo plazo no desean poner todo su capital en algo que es tan riesgoso, así que preferirán diluir sus costos a varios años, en el caso de los anturios sucede esto, al ser un cultivo con un promedio de 10 años los productores deben hacer una gran inversión inicial que tardará en promedio 2 años en empezar a retribuir. A los productores les falta desarrollar el sentido de la inversión y el riesgo pues, temen mucho dedicar su capital a estos cultivos de largo plazo.Una característica particular de los grupos de productores es que los más pequeños tienen beneficios relativos más altos, esto se debe tal vez, a que tienen unos costos de mano de obra y una inversión inicial más bajos, por lo que su remuneración al capital es menor. Otra situación característica es que los grupos más grandes, por la cantidad de plantas, están más cercanos a las vías de acceso, y en zonas de mayor densidad poblacional, no significa que las personas de la partes bajas participen más que las de las partes altas del municipio, sino que en los lugares más poblados y con mejor estado de sus carreteras se han formado grupos más grandes.En la parte institucional los productores tienen una gran necesidad de capacitación en aspectos como contabilidad y manejo de plagas; y requieren apoyo en la asistencia técnica, transporte, administración, comercialización, comunicaciones. Los productores reconocen abiertamente que necesitan de ellos pero no existe un individuo o una empresa privada, o pública interesada en brindarlos aunque ellos podría n tener una alta disponibilidad a pagar por ellos. Lo grave es que solamente unos servicios al productor de buena calidad pueden garantizar que el producto que se obtiene sea de buenas características y competitivo en precios.Una de las debilidades de la implementación de la metodología fue que no todos los socios de los grupos participaron y quienes participaron no socializaron los resultados y conclusiones de los talleres, por lo que no todos los entrevistados sabían explicar en que consistió el PPI, aunque el objetivo no es que los productores sean especialistas en la metodología si es una buena experiencia interactuar con el grupo y entre todos reconocer los aspectos del grupo que deben mejorar.El Grupo de Productores de Anturios de Caldono aporta un stock de capital social que es muy importante para la comunidad, por esta razón apoyar a estos grupos significa no solo mejorar y dar herramientas y medios de vida a los beneficiarios directos sino también mejorar la calidad de vida de la comunidad en general. En el caso particular de este grupo ya existía un precedente importante de trabajo en grupo y esto aseguraba que había terreno abonado para las actividades del PPI. De esta manera se fortaleció un proceso que había empezado con anterioridad dando herramientas de trabajo a personas con muchas ganas de salir avante.Aunque no se hizo una evaluación directa del efecto distribución del ingreso sobre la comunidad, creemos que este no es muy fuerte pues las personas que decidieron participar en el enfoque, en particular, y en el grupo de anturios, en general, son personas con mayor sentido de compromiso con la comunidad y más antecedentes de participación previa, que en muchos casos está asociado con acceso a la información y a ciertos recursos como radio, televisión, teléfono o Internet. En este caso, de los anturios, los participantes (socios) son personas con mucho capital social, niveles de confianza grandes hacia dentro de su organización y mucho sentido de las instituciones de apoyo.Los proyectos productivos integrados son una herramienta que aporta mucho al desarrollo de la región, no sólo mejorando los ingresos de los beneficiarios sino porque genera muchos beneficios a las relaciones de estos con las autoridades y permite a las mujeres participar en actividades donde aportan a la economía familiar. En el caso particular de los anturios hay un fuerte efecto positivo de género porque la mayoría de los socios del grupo son mujeres dependientes económicamente que nunca habían realizado una actividad diferente a sus responsabilidades del hogar.La importancia de los Proyectos Productivos Integrados, no es que generen beneficios económicos inmediatos sino que dan al pequeño productor rural nuevas posibilidades, ciertas libertades que les permiten acceder al mercado global o en términos de Sen, los PPIs brindan capacidades, potencialidades, que el productor puede explotar o no. Ahora, la libertad de ellos es crear una empresa de anturios o seguir vendiendo anturios al detal, y han elegido el camino del trabajo, montar un punto de venta en Popayán.Los Proyecto Productivos Integrados no son una metodología estática de causalidad, se realizan unas actividades entonces se obtienen unos resultados, sino un proceso dinámico en el cual hay un aprendizaje constante y unas respuestas adecuadas a cada interrogante que se presenta, por lo que le PPI no se debe considerar algo finalizado sino una búsqueda constante que se resuelve con el trabajo arduo. El objetivo final es obtener empresas productivas integradas de principio a fin, desde la planta hasta el cliente final.En términos de pobreza el Enfoque Territorial y específicamente los PPIs consiguieron que el pequeño productor rural de anturios de Caldono se sienta comprometido con su progreso, pues, aunque tiene un sentido más amplio de las instituciones, también sabe que es su esfuerzo y sus acciones las que van a permitir que él venda a mejor precio sus productos y por tanto mejore sus ingresos. Además los PPIs se enfocan en la visión de cadena y en la comercialización, que es uno de los puntos débiles de los productores rurales.Con las actividades llevadas a cabo en el Norte del cauca por las entidades antecesoras al CIAT con anturios se logró garantizar una producción estable y sana de la flor, con la metodología del PPI de CIAT se fortaleció este proceso incentivando al empresario rural a sacar la mirada de su predio y fijarla en el mercado.Ahora, cuando los productores tienen una visión empresarial, producen flores con las características que exige el mercado y tienen una organización estable y en crecimiento, se ven en la necesidad de ampliar los cultivos y recibir una asistencia técnica permanente para seguir garantizando a sus clientes un producto de excelente calidad. Los Proyectos Productivos integrados de la línea productiva anturios en sus 2 años desde que la metodología se implementó los productores han conseguido mejorar sus beneficios económicos al conseguir un aumento de los precios de la flor, diversificación de sus ingresos, capacitación en el área, y además perspectiva empresarial. Esperamos que su proceso continúe con éxito.Las actividades realizadas hasta el momento, en el marco del Enfoque Territorial para el Desarrollo de Agroempresas Rurales y específicamente de Los Proyectos Productivos Integrados, deben continuarse; lo que se consiguió con la primera fase es muy importante, pero es necesario fortalecer las bases que se dieron allí con actividades que le recuerden al productor los objetivos que se planteó en los talleres anteriores, cuales actividades ha realizado y cuales problemas ha resuelto, desde el momento en que finalizó la ejecución de los PPIs.Los productores que asistieron tienen una idea muy clara de su futuro, de hacia donde deben dirigirse, pero aquellos que no asistieron no tienen esa claridad que es tan necesaria para emprender y enriquecer estas empresas. Una de las fallas es que las conclusiones de los talleres no se socializaron dentro de los grupos, por lo que no todos los socios saben que se hizo ahí. Es necesario que todos los socios tengan el mismo nivel de información sobre el mercado, sobre las conclusiones de los talleres. La socialización del producto de los talleres dentro de los grupos, cuando no es posible la participación de todos los socios, es esencial, así que deben implementarse políticas de difusión de la información al interior de los grupos, tal vez formando a un miembro que sea el vocal y asuma la responsabilidad de informar a sus compañeros. Otra recomendacion puede ser realizar los talleres con todos los productores o la mayoría, de éste modo el plan de acción del grupo se convierte en un objetivo claro y se incrementa el nivel de compromiso de los socios.El enfoque territorial más que un conjunto de metodologías, es una en va rias fases que son perfectamente complementarias, por ello es estrictamente necesario realizarlas en un período de tiempo razonable, primero identificación de opciones de mercado (IDOP), luego Proyectos Productivos Integrados (PPIs) enfocados al mercado e integrales hacia el interior y cuando se han descubierto las falencias e identificado las acciones necesarias para mejorar, se afianza el Servicio Local de Apoyo (SLA) que es la parte (en opinión del autor) más importante, pues hace sostenible cualquier actividad productiva. En mercados perfectos donde hay suficientes oferentes y demandantes de servicios no es necesario preocuparse demasiado por este aspecto, pero en las zonas rurales es de vital importancia generar las condiciones para que los productores obtengan servicios de buena calidad a un precio que ellos puedan pagar. Por ello es necesario continuar rápidamente con la fase siguiente de la metodología, un sistema de servicios de apoyo fuerte y congruente es necesario para desarrollar no sólo la actividad de los anturios, sino otras. Sin servicios de buena calidad y a bajo costo es posible que los productores se vean desincentivados y renuncien a invertir su tiempo en la actividad.Entre los servicios más urgentes que requieren los productores son: crédito, transporte frecuente y seguro, asistencia técnica, comunicaciones, etc. Estos servicios son muy importantes para cualquier productor que desee competir y, realmente va a ser imposible hacerlo sin ello. Es imperante que los productores aprendan a llevar una contabilidad organizada y estricta que les permita visualizar sus costos y sus ingresos, y tomar decisiones basadas en la información real. Los registros contables son los que darán al productor la situación actual de la empresa y las perspectivas futuras. Nuevas inversiones en plantas, eficiencia de la mano de obra o nivel de ventas, son datos claves para que el empresario pueda garantizar un buen funcionamiento de su empresa.Los productores reconocen claramente sus necesidades y desean resolverlas, pero el hecho de no ser ellos quienes manejan los recursos les dificulta su gestión, esto no significa que debe dejárseles la responsabilidad de los recursos de proyectos específicos, sino que debe discutirse con ellos sus necesidades reales y no las que puede ver la entidad de apoyo, llámese Ministerio de Agricultura, CETEC o Corpotunía. Se debe revaluar la visión paternalista del mundo y pasar a ser entes facilitadores que contribuyan y faciliten, más que dirijan, los procesos de desarrollo rural.Es necesario reforzar las actividades que se realizaron con los PPIs. No es suficiente la información que produjeron los participantes a los talleres, hay que recordarles constantemente el producto de esas discusiones e incentivarlos a que ejecuten sus planes de acción y que ellos mismos evalúen sus procesos. Es necesario que la Corporación haga una evaluación conjuntamente con ellos en la que se planteen nuevos objetivos y se valore el progreso del grupo a partir de los talleres.Como recomendación final, sería bueno que la Organización de Apoyo haga un seguimiento constante del proceso seguido por los grupos y lo documente ampliamente, de este modo el proceso de evaluación se puede facilitar enormemente y será más veráz.Referencias §ANTUVENT. Historia del Proyecto de Anturios. Asociación Productores Anturios de Ventanas. Rodrigo Hernán Vivas, Representante Legal.Urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) is an increasingly important phenomenon throughout Africa. The vast majority of urban farmers are women and most live in lowincome households. Urban farming is typically a survival strategy to improve household food security and in some cases, increase incomes. Yet, urban farmers throughout the developing world benefit little from agricultural research generally. The lack of attention to urban agriculture by agricultural researchers is also reflected in the focus of the growing literature on the subject. While many studies have been conducted on the social and economic benefits of UPA (Sawio, 1993;Mougeot, 1994;Maxwell, 1995;Sawio, 1998), access to land, legal and policy aspects (Maxwell, 1995), health aspects, use of urban waste and waste water (Rose, 1999) and gender related issues (Hovorka, 1998;Hasna, 1998), relatively less attention has been given to a diagnosis of technical constraints and generating agricultural technologies appropriate to urban farmers.In 1999-2000, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the Ugandan National Bean Program (UNBP) undertook action research to disseminate and promote new bean varieties in Kampala, Uganda's capital city. The project promoted seed marketing activities and investigated modalities for introducing climbing beans as a new technology (David et al., 2000b). The common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) plays a paramount role in human nutrition and market economies throughout rural and urban areas of Eastern Africa. Eastern Africa has the highest bean production in sub-Saharan Africa at 1,297,000 t per annum (Wortmann et al., 1999). The largest producing countries include Kenya, Uganda, D.R. Congo, Burundi, Tanzania, Rwanda and Ethiopia. While in Eastern Africa beans (and pulses in general) are considered a low status food, the \"meat of the poor\", due to their low cost relative to animal products, they provide the second most important source of protein after maize and the third most important source of calories after maize and cassava (Pachico, 1993). Several studies show the important contribution bean research has made to rural poverty alleviation in Eastern Africa (Odendo et al., 2002, David et al., 2000a), yet little is know about bean production and consumption in urban areas and the potential impact of agricultural research.A key question asked by donors, researchers and policy makers: is why are urban farmers important when the vast majority of East Africans live in the rural areas? The answer to this question is complex and requires an understanding of recent demographic trends in sub-Saharan Africa. Against the backdrop of high rates of urbanization (4%+ per annum) and the urbanization of poverty caused by lagging employment and income levels, one study forecast that by 2020, 35-40 million people (40% of the urban population) in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe will be dependent upon urban food production for at least part of their needs (Denninger et al, 1998). For African countries seeking new economic opportunities for small-scale agricultural producers, the proximity of urban and peri-urban farmers to markets and their higher intensity of output is a compelling rationale for supporting this activity. Finally, with the recent emphasis on market driven agricultural research and development agenda, agricultural researchers must pay more attention to the needs and preferences of urban consumers, many of whom are farmers.The objective of the present study was to provide descriptive information on bean production activities in Kampala to serve as a baseline for future interventions and to guide agricultural researchers in making appropriate technical interventions on this important crop. The study situates bean production within the wider farming system context by investigating the range of agricultural activities in which bean farmers are involved, input use, general farming constraints and soil fertility management practices. The focus on beans allowed for collection of detailed crop specific information. Throughout the paper, variation in the farming and production system will be explored by analyzing differences between study areas that are classified into three categories: \"urban new\", peri-urban to urban transition and peri-urban. This classification system takes into account the prevalence of agricultural activities and its history, population density and land availability, among other factors. A historical perspective is introduced into the discussion by comparing results with earlier studies, notably Maxwell and Zziwa (1990) and Maxwell (1995).Kampala City, the capital of Uganda, has a population of close to 1 million inhabitants (890,800 in 1999), with a population density of 4128 persons per square kilometer. The city falls within the Lake Victoria Basin and receives an average of 1180 millimeters of rainfall annually. Administratively, Kampala District is divided into five divisions: Central, Makindye, Nakawa, Kawempe and Rubaga. The city is built on a number of hills interspersed by wetland valleys into which run sewage, domestic and industrial waste and which are commonly exploited for farming. Kampala in the 21 century is the showcase of Uganda's economic, political and social transformation from the civil war and economic decay of the late 1970s and 1980s. Urban agriculture is widely practiced both within the municipal boundaries and peri-urban areas. A 1993 survey of 3 neighborhoods found that 35% of households engaged in agriculture, mainly crop cultivation (Maxwell, 1995). In 1992, 56% of land in the city was used for agriculture (Maxwell, 1995). An estimated 70% of all poultry products consumed in Kampala are produced in the city (Maxwell, 1995).The results presented in this paper are derived from a formal survey of 160 randomly selected bean farmers conducted in November-December 2000. The farmers lived in 4 of the city's 5 divisions and were sampled from eight parishes 20 (Table 1). Naguru 1 and 2 and Kansanga Parishes were the sites of the CIAT/UNBP bean dissemination project. The other five parishes were randomly selected from a list of parishes where urban agriculture was practiced. Women were the principal respondents (72%).The study investigated farming objectives, bean production and general farming constraints, farmers' access to extension services and information, amounts of beans planted, sold and consumed, varieties grown, seed sources, adoption of new varieties, and marketing issues. No quantitative information was obtained on area planted to beans, yields or on the wealth status of surveyed households due to methodological difficulties.The total population of the 160 households surveyed was ?? On average, households consisted of 7.2 members. Nakawa, a middle-low income neighborhood, had the smallest households (6.6 members) and Kawempe the largest (7.7 members). A resident male headed the majority of surveyed households (76%). Women headed households constituted 22% of the overall sample and were more prevalent in the predominantly lowincome neighborhoods of Nakawa (33%) and Kawempe (25%). There were five cases of men living on their own. The mean age of heads of households was 44. Respondents were well educated, which suggests that the sample was biased toward the middle and upper income wealth groups. Forty nine percent had secondary education, 31% had primary education, 19% had tertiary education and only 1% had no formal schooling.Respondents represented 10 ethnic groups; the majority were Baganda (72%) and most were born in the central region (76%), where Kampala is located. A minority of respondents were born in the western (14%), eastern (7%) and northern regions (4%).Respondents had lived in Kampala for an average of 26 years (standard deviation: 17.2).The main occupations of respondents were: housekeeping (25%), farming (23%), petty trade (22%), civil service workers (9%) and teaching (6%), although this information does not adequately reflect the multiplicity of occupations urban people typically engage in. On average, 1.3 household members worked outside the home.Nearly half of the respondents started farming in Kampala during the economically depressed 1970s (14%) and 1980s (42%), but a significant proportion began farming during the 1990s (31%) and in 2000. These results confirm the three significant periods identified by Maxwell (1995) when large numbers of people began farming in the city.The first period was the 1970s when many households were pushed into farming by the harsh economic circumstances. The second period, which began after 1986 (after the NRM government came to power), corresponds to a time when people felt secure enough to engage in agricultural production away from their home compounds. In the 1990s Ugandans began experiencing the impacts of structural adjustment policies and at the same time, urban farmers were able to take advantage of the greatly improved secur ity situation.About half of survey respondents said they engaged in agricultural activities solely to meet their household subsistence needs, and therefore regarded this activity as an important survival strategy (Table 2). When compared with the 69% of subsistence oriented farmers recorded by Maxwell and Zziwa in 1989, these results suggest an increase in the number of farmers producing for the market, a change possibly related to improvement in the economy and increased market opportunities. While a significant proportion of farmers had a mixture of subsistence and commercial farming objectives, none mentioned a strictly commercial motive. Farmers in Kawempe and Rubaga, the more peri-urban areas, tended to be more commercially oriented, possibly because of better access to land for cultivation and space for livestock production (Table 2).For the most part, urban agriculture is a part-time occupation mainly done by women; men and children are rarely involved (Tables 3 and 4). Interestingly, while few respondents considered farming a full-time activity, 23% reported it as their main occupation. Although farming is mainly practiced to meet subsistence needs, most households experience labour shortages with the result that nearly ha lf (49%) of those surveyed hired labour for doing agricultural work, mainly for digging (90%), weeding (64%) and land clearing (44%). Intensification of agricultural activities may explain why the proportion of households hiring labour in 2000 was higher than the 30% of households reported by Maxwell and Zziwa's in 1989. Hired labour worked on the main staple crops, namely, beans (79%), sweet potatoes (69%), maize (62%), bananas (44%), cassava (33%) and cocoyam (26%). Only 2 households hired labour for taking care of livestock. A slightly higher proportion of households in Makindye and Kawempe hired labour compared to the other two divisions. Although the present study did not investigate who provides hired labour, Maxwell and Zziwa (1990: 33) note that casual workers engage in this type of work as a last resort because it is considered arduous and less lucrative compared with other forms of informal wage labour (e.g. transporting water and hawking).Common farming tools owned by bean farmers include hoes (100%), machetes (81%) and slashers (28%). Few households owned rakes (16%), spades (10%), wheel barrows (5%) or spray pumps (0.6%). Compared with results from Maxwell and Zziwa's study, households surveyed in 2000 appear to own more tools (e.g. on average 3 hoes compared with 2), possibly reflecting an improvement in household resources since the late 1980s or a greater willingness to invest in agriculture inputs.A minority of surveyed used pesticide (18%) and fertilizers (5%), a situation that did not change significantly from the late 1980s (Maxwell and Zziwa, 1990). Pesticides were mainly used on bananas and horticultural crops (cabbage, tomatoes), while fertilizers were applied to staple food crops (maize, beans, bananas, cabbage). A more detailed discussion of inputs and pest and diseases in bean production follows.Bean farmers in Kampala grow a wide variety of crops to meet their diverse farming objectives (Table 5). The most commonly grown crops include maize, bananas, cassava, sweet potatoes and indigenous leafy vegetables. While these crops constitute the most important staples in the Ugandan diet, the first three are also the major bean intercrops. Horticultural crops were also an important component of the farming system in contrast to Maxwell's 1993 findings. A significant percentage of households in the present survey grew fruits, mainly jackfruit (53%), mangoes (50%), avocado (35%), oranges (18%) and passion fruit (13%). Half of the bean growing households surveyed (54%) kept livestock, with a significant percent being commercially oriented (Table 6). Livestock keeping was more common in the peri-urban areas i.e., Kawempe (65%) and Rubaga (63%), although 55% of respondents in Makindye and 33% in Nakawa reared animals. Chickens were the most common type of animals kept and relatively few households owned other types of livestock.Although no farmer indicated strictly commercial objectives for farming, crop specific responses revealed more information about commercial production. In contrast with livestock production, few farmers grew crops for sale, the main ones being maize (sold as a street food, roasted or boiled), sweet potatoes, cocoyam (locally known as mayuni), cabbage and tomatoes (Table 5).During the first season of 2000, surveyed households cultivated a mean of 1.4 plots, with a maximum of 5 plots. The higher mean number of plots reported by Maxwell and Zziwa in 1989 (i.e. 2), possibly indicates increased land pressure. Farmers in Nakawa and Rubaga had the highest mean number of plots (1.6), followed by Makindye (1.5) and Kawempe (1.3). The higher number of plots in Nakawa could be attributed to high land pressure resulting in more scattered plots, while the same phenomenon in Rubaga may be explained by the relatively high proportion of households cultivating in the wetlands (Table 7). As Table 7 shows, across divisions, the most common location of plots was within or adjacent to the compound which corroborates the findings of other studies (Maxwell and Zziwa, 1990;Maxwell, 1995). It took some farmers up to 1 hour to reach their furthest plots. Households in all divisions cultivated crops in the wetlands, regardless of proximity (see Table 1). Wetland cultivation was most common in Rubaga. Roadside cultivation, an indicator of acute land shortage, was relatively uncommon in the overall sample, but was most prevalent in Naguru, a densely populated area. For unknown reasons, a significant number of households in Makindye, an area of moderate land pressure, cultivated plots outside of the city. Makindye was also the only area where farmers grew crops in containers, possibly reflecting the presence of Environmental Alert, an NGO promoting that technology.The majority of farmers (81%) felt that the land available to them for farming was insufficient, with 66% mentioned insufficient land as an important constraint. Insufficient land was mentioned in order of importance by farmers in Nakawa (95%), Makindye (83%), Rubaga (80%) and Kawempe (68%).Land tenure arrangements in Kampala are complex and how farmers access land does not necessarily correspond to existing land tenure categories. Nearly half of surveyed households (49%) \"owned\" the land they cultivated (Table 8), a situation, which had not changed from the late 1980s (Maxwell and Zziwa, 1990). Twenty five percent cultivated rented land, 16% borrowed land for farming and 11% were squatters, that is, cultivated land without permission of the owner. However, because the unit of analysis for questions pertaining to land access and tenure was not the land parcel, this information does not adequately reflect the complexity of the situation. Although no information was collected on farmers' security of land tenure, some farmers reported problems with maint aining access to land they were farming on. Thirty two percent of households (those who had borrowed or purchased use rights) had been stopped from farming, mainly because the owner of the land they had been cultivating sold the plot. Only eight households had been stopped from farming by Kampala City Council, which supports Maxwell's observation that harassment by city authorities was on the decline (1994: 142-143).Farmers face numerous problems and constraints in farming (Table 9). Farmers surveyed in the present study perceived lack of and the high price of inputs, shortage of land and pests and diseases as very serious constraints. Notably, constraints in livestock production were not mentioned, possibly due to the study's bias toward crops. The proportion of farmers who mentioned technical problems, namely pests and diseases and inputs shortages, was also unexpectedly high. Pests ranked as the fourth most important constraint in Maxwell and Zziwa's study, after lack of capital, access to land and theft.One explanation for the frequent reporting of technical constraints in the present study is Maxwell and Zziwa's observation that technical problems and high production costs are a major concern of high and middle-income farmers. Their survey showed that low-income farmers are more concerned with labour shortages and lack of security of land tenure. In the absence of data on household wealth or income status, it is possible that the sample of the present survey was biased toward the high and middle-income groups.Soil fertility management deserves more detailed discussion. Although a significant proportion of respondents indicated soil fertility as a major constraint, the majority felt that their soils were moderately fertile (Table 10). Soil fertility appears to be poorer in Nakawa and Makindye. Despite the difficulties urban bean farmers experience in accessing land, they nevertheless make effort to manage soil fertility, especially for areas planted to bananas, maize, beans, root crops and leafy vegetables. Seventy seven percent used crop residues for improving soil fertility (on bananas, maize, beans), 58% used manure (on bananas, maize, beans, root crops and leafy vegetables), 26% left land to fallow (a mean of 1.8 seasons), and 17% used compost (on bananas, beans, maize, leafy vegetables). The proportion of farmers who practiced fallowing is similar to reports by Maxwell and Zziwa (1990) and is surprising given the intensity of farming in Kampala.Beans have several advantages as an urban crop: they grow quickly and are versatile as a food and cash crop since they can eaten with many foods or on its own, the grain is eaten dry or fresh, the leaves are eaten as relish and they can be sold dried or fresh. Random sample surveys conducted in Kampala suggest that bean cultivation has increased in importance in the past decade and may be more important in some parts of the city. Maxwell found that 63% of households were growing beans in 1993 (Maxwell, 1995) compared with 39% in 1989 (Maxwell and Zziwa, 1990). All households surveyed in peri-urban areas (Eresu, 2000), but only 20% of households in Makindye Division, grew beans (Kakitahi and Zimbe, 2000).Surveyed households grew beans primarily for subsistence (84%), 13% grew the crop mainly for food but sell surpluses, while 3% of households grew the crop primarily for sale. Over half (59%) of surveyed households planted beans in both the first (March to June) and second season (September to December), but a third grew beans continuously, that is, did not follow a particular seasonal pattern for cultivation. Beans are mainly grown in home compounds (Table 11) and are intercropped with maize (82%), cassava (17%) and bananas (15%). Only 4% of farmers grew beans pure stand.On average, farmers sowed 4.6 kg of beans in the first season of 2000: the highest mean amounts planted was in Makindye (7 kg), while the lowest mean amount was sown in Rubaga (3.3 kg). While half of the farmers surveyed had not changed the amount of beans they planted since 1995, a third (34%) were planting less beans than in the past, mainly due to land scarcity (83%). Thirteen percent reported planting more beans than in the past.The major production constraints experienced by urban bean farmers can be grouped into six categories: diseases and pests, land shortage, poor soil fertility, lack of varieties resistant to major diseases and pests, poor climate, poor seed quality and theft (Table 12). Only two of these constraints, land shortage and theft, are characteristic of urban settings and are unamenable to technical interventions. Three constraints, varieties, seed related issues and diseases and pests, are discussed below in more detail.Kampala farmers grew a total of 9 bean landraces, two of which (K20 and Kanyebwa) were widely grown (Table 13) On average, farmers sowed 1.6 bean varieties in the first season of 2000, commonly sowing 2 or more varieties on the same plot. An insignificant number of farmers were growing modern bush and climbing varieties. Makindye, one of the sites of the CIAT/UNBP bean project, had the highest number of farmers growing modern varieties.Urban bean farmers tend to be seed insecure due to two major factors: small harvests caused by planting small areas to low yielding landraces and the practice of eating beans fresh to avoid theft, reduce cooking time and avoid the problem of lack of space for drying and threshing. In contrast with rural farmers in Uganda who mainly depend on farm saved seed (David and Sperling, 1999), the most important seed source for Kampala farmers is the commercial grain market. Farm-saved seed is the third most important source and seed sharing is rare (Table 14). Other reasons given for obtaining seed from off-farm seed sources include the desire to obtain new varieties (8%) and storage losses (1%).Farmers reported a number of disease related symptoms on bean plants, particularly foliar symptoms (Table 15). While these symptoms do not allow for a precise identification of diseases, they suggest the prevalence of a number of diseases likely to occur in the climatic conditions prevalent in mid altitude locations such as Kampala. These diseases include common bacterial blight (CBB) (yellowing leaves, stunting), bean common mosaic virus (BCMV) (curled, mottled leaves) and root rots (wilting/drying, yellowing of leaves). Significantly, these three diseases were identified during field visits by bean pathologists working with the CIAT/UNBP bean project (per. comm. Fina Opio, 2000). Three factors, the use of local varieties susceptible to these diseases, farmers' high dependence on off-farm grain markets for seed and continuous cropping, resulting in poor soil fertility, might contribute to the prevalence of these diseases. More information is needed on farmers' seed selection practices to determine their ability to reduce the incidence of seed borne diseases such as CBB and BCMV. Root rots, a soil borne disease exacerbated by poor soil fertility, is characteristic of areas with high land pressure. Farmers mainly identified field insect pests (Table 16). The number of urban farmers who mentioned bean weevils as a constraint is low compared with rural farmers due to the short storage period for the small amounts harvested and the common practice of eating fresh beans.A small number of surveyed farmers sold beans in the first and second season of 1999: 18% and 15%. Due to low yields and small cultivation areas, farmers typically sell a relatively small proportion of the total harvest. Of the 29 farmers who reported usually selling beans, 19 sell 40% or less of their harvest, while only 2 sell over half of the amount produced. On average, farmers sold 72 kg of beans (range: 5-700 kg) in the first season of 1999 and 56 kg (range: 5-300) in the season. In most cases, women make the decision to sell beans and how to spend the income. Farmers who sold beans in 1999 mainly sold directly to consumers in their neighborhood, but a minority sold to market sellers (both retailers and wholesalers) and traders. These results are similar to the findings of Maxwell and Zziwa. Bean farmers mentioned three common marketing problems: low prices, inadequate storage and lack of transport. Beans were taken to the place of sale on head or by bicycle.Beans feature predominantly in the diet of Kampala residents and are preferred because of their high protein content and low price (Mugisha-Mutetikka et al., 1999). Other protein rich foods commonly eaten by Kampala households include, in order of importance, meat, groundnuts and fish (Mugisha-Mutetikka et al., 1999). The main staples eaten by surveyed households were: matoke (cooking bananas) (96%), sweet potatoes (91%), maize meal (locally called posho) (87%), rice (86%) and cassava (76%). The majority of households (79%) ate both fresh and dried beans and slightly over half (58%) ate bean leaves harvested from their gardens. Twenty one percent of respondents however only ate fresh beans. Fresh beans are a delicacy due to their preferred flavour, quicker cooking time and higher price due to their seasonality. The vast majority of surveyed households typically ate dried beans 1-6 times a week, but consumed fresh beans less frequently for the reasons given above (Table 17). Urban bean farmers are not self-sufficient in the crop, mainly in their view because of low harvests and insufficient land, and consequently the vast majority purchased beans fo r household consumption both in dried (99%) and fresh (94%) form.Bean producing households typically purchased 3 kg of beans several times a month (Table 18) and cooked about 1 kg at a time, with no significant difference between the food scarcity period (March-April) and the period around the bean harvest (Table 19). The most commonly purchased varieties for home consumption were the same as those widely grown: K20 (74%), Kanyebwa (67%) and Kahura (59%), which corroborates the findings of Mugisha-Mutetikka et al (1999). On average, each person consumed 191 grams of beans per meal during the scarcity period, when bean prices are high and farmers are planting the crop (Table 20). This figure is higher than the average per capita bean consumption per meal recorded in two rural communities Uganda in 1994 during the scarcity period: 176-186 g/person (David, 1999). Per capita bean consumption increases significantly to 218 grams per person per meal right after the main bean harvest, close to the 201-215 g/person recorded in rural communities (David, 1999). These results suggest that, on average per capita, urban bean consumption is slightly higher than rural bean consumption. Several factors might explain this difference, including the possible bias in the urban sample toward better off households. A comparison of rural and urban bean consumption patterns requires further analysis.Sixty three percent of surveyed farmers had acquired new agricultural information in the past three years and 75% had used a new technology or knowledge in the past year. Urban farmers were mainly exposed to agronomic information (Table 21), with little or no attention to livestock, tree and fish production. The major sources of agricultural information were: radio (96%), other farmers (83% from farmers in the same neighborhood, 41% from farmers from elsewhere), local councilors (44%), television (20%), extension agents (19%) and newspapers (18%). The relative ineffectiveness of the extension system in Kampala District is further highlighted by the small number of farmers who were aware of an agricultural extension officer operating in their area (23%) and who had ever been visited by an officer (46% of n=37). More farmers in Nakawa were aware of an agricultural extension agent than in any other division. Maxwell (1994) notes that NGOs in Kampala shy away from supporting UPA activities due the illegality of the practice. In 2000, numerous organizations in Kampala provide agricultural extension information and services to urban farmers. These can be grouped into four categories: development oriented NGOs (Plan International, VEDCO, Mothers' Union, BUGADEV, Environmental Alert, YWCA), micro-credit institutions (FINCA, Faulu, Pride Africa), NGOs promoting livestock production (Land O'Lake, Send-a-Cow, Heifer Project), farmers' associations (UNAFA) and the national research organization, NARO. The major extension services provided are in the area of agronomy, credit, input supply and livestock production.  ","tokenCount":"18422"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1b3e2ff45a0ff2d4ba0afa8f4dc67232","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/439dbb72-488e-4a67-83bc-37ba3747ce47/retrieve","id":"1968893898"},"keywords":["Maize chlorotic mottle virus","maize lethal necrosis","seed transmission"],"sieverID":"5d830f03-efec-42d9-a602-6d060e01b50e","pagecount":"18","content":"Influence of genotypes and crop growth stage at time of infection on seed transmission of Maize chlorotic mottle virus, Archives of Phytopathology and Plant Protection,Maize is a major source of food in subsaharan Africa, leading to expansion of production over the years (Santpoort 2020). The crop is a main staple food in the eastern Africa region, in particular Kenya, with an estimated consumption of 67.3 kg/person in 2019 (KNBS 2020). Maize lethal necrosis (MLN) is a devastating disease that causes high losses in maize yields (De Groote et al.2016;Kagoda et al.2016) in both farmers and seed production fields (De Groote et al.2016;Eunice et al.2021). The disease is caused by Maize chlorotic mottle virus (MCMV) when in synergistic interaction with a cereal potyvirus, with the Sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV), as the most common potyvirus in the eastern Africa region (Mahuku et al.2015;Redinbaugh and Stewart 2018). The disease increases production challenges, ultimately causing food shortage. In the eastern African region, MCMV was first reported in 2011 (Wangai et al.2012) while SCMV was reported since 1930s (Storey 1936). The recent MLN outbreak in the region has therefore been mainly attributed to MCMV.Maize chlorotic mottle virus belongs to the family Tombusviridae and genus Machlomovirus (Nutter et al.1989). There is 96-99% similarities of the complete genome of the virus in different countries where it has been reported (Adams et al.2014;Braidwood et al.2018;Wamaitha et al.2018;Kiruwa et al.2020;Mwatuni et al.2020). Prior to the identification in eastern Africa, MCMV had been reported in Peru, Kansas, Nebraska, Hawaii and China and later in Taiwan and Ecuador (Niblett and Claflin 1978;Jiang et al.1992;Xie et al.2011;Deng et al.2014;Quito-Avila et al.2016). Infection of maize by MCMV causes leaf mosaic with fine chlorotic and longitudinal yellow streaks, which lead to chlorotic mottling. The symptoms deteriorate to leaf necrosis, yield reduction, stunting and death of the plant in severe infections (Nelson et al.2011).Research efforts have been geared towards understanding MLN disease, the epidemiology of the causative viruses, how to manage the viruses and transmitting insect vectors, and development of maize resistant varieties (Prasanna et al.2020). The transmission of MCMV is by insect vectors, through seed and mechanical means e.g. farm implements that have been contaminated with MCMV-infected crop or soil residues (Nelson et al.2011). Corn thrips (Frankliniella williamsi) (Wangai et al.2012;Cabanas et al.2013;Mahuku et al.2015;Kiruwa et al.2020), the southern corn rootworm (Diabrotica undecimpunctata), the northern corn rootworm (D. longicornis), western corn rootworm (D. virgifera), cereal leaf beetle (Oulema melanopa), corn flea beetle (Chaetocnema pulicaria) and flea beetle (Systena frontalis) (Nault et al.1978) are vectors that transmit MCMV in maize. Evidence of seed transmission of MCMV is reported at low rates (Jensen et al.1991;Kitira 2018;Kimani et al.2021). Factors that contribute to transmission of MCMV include the host variety, environmental factors, virus isolate and crop/plant growth stage at the time of infection (Maule and Wang 1996;Albrechtsen 2006). The danger of seed transmitted viruses is that they introduce virus inoculum into new fields, or new locations. The virus is then spread by insect vectors where present causing epidemic (Sastry 2013a).In this study the transmission of MCMV through seed of various maize genotypes was screened for commercial and breeders' hybrids in Kenya. The study also evaluated the effect of crop stage at time of infection in transmission of MCMV from seeds obtained from infected plants to seedlings. Development of resistant varieties against the causative viruses and management of transmission of the vector-transmitting MCMV are a sustainable way in the management of MCMV. Thus, identifying the crop stage that is risky for infection of the seed is important in development of management strategies against MLN especially in seed production fields.Two experiments were carried out in this study. The first experiment was conducted to screen the effect of genotypes on seed transmission of MCMV. In this experiment, MCMV-free seeds (certified by Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services)of ten varieties (commercial hybrids) were obtained from local agrovet shops and five breeders' hybrids developed by Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research organization (KALRO) and International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) (Table 1). Most of the commercial hybrids are susceptible to MCMV (Gowda et al.2015;Sitta et al.2017) while the breeders' maize hybrids have varying tolerance levels to MLN disease. The second experiment was conducted to determine the effect of crop growth stage at time of infection on seed transmission of MCMV to the subsequent crop using commercial hybrids H614, Duma 43 and DK777. DK777 is tolerant to MLN (KEPHIS 2020) while H614 and Duma 43 are susceptible varieties.MCMV-infected plants are maintained at KALRO Biosafety level II greenhouse and were used for preparation of virus inoculum for development of infected maize plants by experimental inoculation.In order to generate MCMV-infected seeds to be tested in experiment one, seeds from the genotypes listed in Table 1 were sowed at the KALRO Njoro quarantine field in the year 2017 and 2018. KALRO Njoro is situated at an altitude of 2120 m above sea level, in Nakuru County (0.3409° S, 35.9435° E) in Kenya. Planting was during the long rainy season that lasted from March to late May with average annual rainfall of 960 mm, and average temperatures ranging from 9.7 °C (night) to 24 °C (noon). The seeds were sown in 2.5 m long plots with 5 rows per plot, and 25 cm spacing between holes. Di-ammonium phosphate (DAP 18:46:0) was applied at planting at a rate of 60kgP 2 O 5 /ha while calcium ammonium nitrate was applied at 60kgN/ha at eight weeks after planting. Three guard rows of a commercial variety, PH30G19 were planted around the experimental trial area. The experiment was laid out in a randomised complete block design.Virus inoculum was prepared by grinding MCMV-infected leaves in 0.1 M phosphate buffer in the ratio of 1:10. The mixture was then passed through a muslin cloth to filter out the debris. The resulting inoculum was transported to the field site in a cool box. Carborundum (0.6% of 22 µm grit) was added to the mixture prior to inoculation. The inoculum was applied to the plants at four leaf stage using a motorized sprayer and the process was repeated after one week.The field was kept weed free throughout the growth period and sprayed weekly with insecticides to control MCMV and SCMV vectors and fall army worm. The insecticides used included 50 g/liter lufenuron (Match 050EC, Syngenta), 45 g/litre Chlorantraniliprole and 18 g/litre Abamectin (Voliam targo® 063SC, Syngenta) and 19 g/liter emamectin benzoate (Escort 19EC, Greenlife Crop Protection). The plants were visually inspected once a week and the symptom severity of MCMV infection was scored using a scale of 1 to 5 (Karanja et al., 2018) where 1 = no MCMV symptoms, 2 = fine chlorotic streaks on leaves, 3 = chlorotic mottling throughout plant, 4 = excessive chlorotic mottling, necrosis on leaves and in some cases dead heart and 5 = complete plant necrosis.At maturity, the maize seed was harvested from the middle three rows threshed and winnowed by hand to avoid cross contamination between the different plots. The seed was then sun-dried to a moisture content of 13%, before storage at room temperature. Testing for MCMV transmission from the harvested seeds was then done as described in Section 2.4 below. The maize stalks were removed from the field, allowed to dry in a pit before burning to ashes. No maize was sowed in the field where the experiment was laid for one year after harvest.Seeds of commercial varieties, Duma 43, H614 and DK777, were sowed in KALRO Njoro quarantine field, in similar spacing, plot sizes and field management practices as described in the above experiment. The experiment was laid out in a randomised complete block design with three replicates. The treatments comprised of the crops stages at time of inoculation which were: four-leaf (V4), eight-leaf (V8), 15-leaf (V15), tasselling (VT) stages and a control that was not inoculated. Three guard rows were planted in between the plots to separate the crops inoculated at different crop stages. Disease severity was scored using the scale described above once a week. Harvesting, threshing and storage were done as in the previous experiment. The seeds obtained were tested for the rates of MCMV transmission together with those obtained from experiment one.The seeds obtained from the MCMV-infected plants from the two field experiments above were sown in separate trays that were filled with a mixture of sterile soil and vermiculite (2:1) and placed in an insect-free seed laboratory at KALRO Kabete, at average day temperature of 21 °C with 12 light and night hours. On each tray, 20 or 50 seeds were sown. MCMV-free certified seed purchased from an agrovet was planted on a separate tray and used as healthy negative control. The seeds were handled with clean gloves to avoid contamination between seeds from different sources.Ten days after planting (at two-leaf stage), the germinated seedlings were counted and recorded, and a leaf from each germinated seedling on a tray was sampled and placed in one bag. These were analysed as pooled samples in the laboratory (Shango et al.2019). The pools consisted of a range of 18-50 seedling leaves samples, depending on how many seeds were sown and those that germinated. Twenty to thirty pooled samples were tested for presence of MCMV using double antibody sandwich enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (DAS-ELISA) while pooled samples tested using real time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (real time RT-PCR) were fewer (18 pooled samples) due to limitation of reagents for this method Polyclonal MCMV antiserum for DAS-ELISA was developed at the University of Minnesota. A brief procedure of DAS-ELISA involved coating 96-well plates with coating antibody diluted in carbonate buffer (1:1000). The plates were incubated for one hour at 37 °C, then washed using phosphate buffered saline with tween solution (PBST). Hundred microlitres of the samples were then added to the coated wells. Each sample was duplicated on the plate. After one hour incubation and a washing step, the secondary antibody (1:4000) conjugated to the enzyme alkaline phosphatase was added to the wells. Enzyme alkaline phosphatase substrate, para-nitrophenyl phosphate, was added to the wells after incubation and washing. The absorbance value at 405 nm (A 405nm ) from the DAS-ELISA was recorded using a microplate reader (Elx808 BioTek Instruments) after the plates were incubated at room temperature for one hour. A sample was considered positive when the mean of the duplicates A 405nm readings was twice that of the healthy control.RNA was extracted from leaf samples using CTAB modified method (Monger et al. 2001). Real-time RT-PCR was carried out using SensiFAST Probe Hi-Rox one-step kit (BIO 77001, Bioline USA, Taunton, MA). Five microliters of SensiFAST probe Hi-Rox one-step buffer was mixed with forward and reverse MCMV primers (0.5 μl) (forward primer 5′-GAGTCCTGCCAATCCAAAGTG-3′, reverse primer 5′-TGGGTGG GTCAAGGCTTACTA-3′) and 0.3 μl fluorescent-labelled probe (5′-FAM-AGCCGCCGCCCACTCTCCAG-BHQ-3′) (Liu et al. 2016), 0.2 μl RNase inhibitor, 0.1 μl of reverse transcriptase, 2 μl of RNA template and 1.4 μl of diethyl pyrocarbonate-treated water. A real-time PCR equipment was used to run the reactions at 50 °C for 10 min, 95 °C for 1 min, and then 40 cycles of 94 °C for 10 s and 60 °C for 1 min (Kimani et al. 2021). Data collected from real time RT-PCR was the cycle threshold (Ct) values determined by the automatic threshold and baseline setting of the StepOne plus software. Samples with average Ct values that were less than those of the healthy and negative controls (Ct value higher than 30) were assigned as positive for MCMV.Statistical analysis on the MCMV severity ordinal data was assessed for differences using the Kruskal-Wallis test using the base packages in R (R Core Team 2021). The severity scores observed for the genotypes evaluated were compared using the Dunns test in the rstatix package (R Core Team 2021).Ordinal logistic regression was used for the analysis of the non-parametric data on the severity of MCMV observed when three maize varieties were inoculated at various crops stages. The severity scores were categorized into three groups of no symptoms, below 2.5 and above 2.5 and their association with the crops stage and variety, determined. The proportional odds logistic regression from the MASS package was used (Venables and Ripley 2002) for determination of the odds ratio and significant differences on the overall data and at 63 days post inoculation separately. Descriptive statistics were included to show the importance of the crop stages at time of infection and the varieties on MCMV severity.Seed transmission rates were determined by subjecting the data on number of sample pools with the positive virus detection, and total number of pools tested using DAS-ELISA and real time RT-PCR assays, to variable pool sizes and perfect test on the Epitools Epidemiological calculators (Sergeant 2018). The data was analysed depending on number of seedling samples per pool. Pearson correlation of the severity scores of the genotypes to the seed transmission rates; and for the crops stage at time of infection to the seed transmission rate was determined in R software.The range of the mean severity score of the genotypes ranged from 1.35 to 2.88 as the disease progressed differently in the genotypes analysed, and was significantly different for the 15 maize genotypes (p = 0.001, Kruskal Wallis test) at 63 days post inoculation. The severity of MCMV also differed significantly (p < 0.001) between the two years with higher mean severity scores of 2.39 recorded in 2017 compared to severity score of 2.12 in 2018. The genotypes WE5139, WE5140, WE5138, KATEH 16-01, KATEH 16-02 and DK777 had significantly (p < 0.05) low MCMV symptoms severity as compared to PH30G19, that had the highest severity score (Table 2).When transmission of MCMV from seeds to seedling grow-outs were tested using DAS-ELISA, most of the pooled samples had absorbance values (A 405nm ) that were less than twice that of the healthy controls which ranged from 0.118-0.175. Fifteen samples had values higher than twice the healthy controls ranging from 0.288 to 0.52. Only in one sample was MCMV detected and this was from the 2018 harvest the other  14 were from the samples harvested in 2017. The samples were from varieties -Duma 43, KH500-33A, WE5138, DK8031 and DH02 with transmission rates ranging from 0.08 to 0.48% (Table 3). Real time RT-PCR was used to detect MCMV in 1,642 seedlings that were harvested in 2018. Fourteen pooled samples from genotypes DK8031, H6213, H625, KATEH 16-01, KATEH 16-02, PH30G19, PHB3253, WE5138 and WE5140 had average Ct values that were lower than that of the healthy negative controls. The average Ct values for the negative controls ranged from 31.04 to 34.40. This was the criteria used to identify the positive samples. The seed transmission rates when the samples were tested using real time RT-PCR were 1.04 and below (Table 4). The correlation between the severity of MCMV from the genotypes evaluated and seed transmission rates of MCMV was not significant (r = 0.02, p = 0.878).The mean MCMV severity score in this study ranged from 1.22 for plants of DK777 inoculated at V15 stage to 2.88 for Duma 43 plants inoculated at V4 stage. Crop stage at time of infection for the three varieties contributed to significant differences in severity of MCMV, with the overall severity at V4 and V8 stages being significantly different from the control (Table 5). The three varieties also presented significant differences of the severity scores (p < 0.001). DK777 had the lowest mean severity scores as compared to Duma 43 that had the highest mean severity score. At 63 days after the first inoculation at four-leaf stage, the mean severity for plants inoculated at four-leaf and eight-leaf stages were significantly higher (p < 0.0001) as compared to those inoculated at fifteen-leaf and tasselling stages and the control (Table 5). Duma 43 plants inoculated at four-leaf stage had the highest disease severityi, while the severity on DK777 on plants inoculated at all the crops stages and control were below 2 (Figure 1). However, contamination with MCMV of the control plots was observed for all the three varieties.  The seeds harvested from the plants inoculated at V4 and V8 stages in 2017 and 2018 were grown out, and transmission of MCMV tested using DAS-ELISA. The transmission rate was 0.1% for V4 stage (Kimani et al.2021) with two positive samples from DK777 and one from H614 seeds. While the transmission rate from seed from the plants inoculated at V8 stage was 0.04%, with only one positive sample from the 1142 seedlings tested in 24 groups. There was no positive detection of MCMV from the samples obtained from the 2018 seed.When samples from seed harvested in 2018 from the plants inoculated at V4 and V8 stages were tested using real-time RT-PCR, one pooled samples of variety DK777 inoculated at V8 stage was positive for MCMV (Table 6). Pearson correlation of the severity of the MCMV inoculated at different crops stages to the seed transmission rates of MCMV was not significant (r = 0.265, p = 0.339).Maize chlorotic mottle virus, one of the viruses involved in the development of maize lethal necrosis disease, is transmitted through seed to seedlings (Jensen et al.1991;Kimani et al. 2021). Many factors contribute to the transmission of viruses through seed, however, in this study the effect of genotypes and crop growth stage at time of infection on the seed to seedling transmission of MCMV was assessed.The study demonstrated that there was no correlation of severity of symptoms caused by MCMV infection due to the genotypes to transmission rate of the virus via seed. This was so despite there being significant differences (p ≤ 0.001) in the symptoms severity in the genotypes assessed. Similarly, there was no correlation of severity of symptoms caused by infection of MCMV due to time at which the plants were infected to seed transmission of the virus.The results indicate that maize plants with varying severity of symptoms caused by MCMV infection can yield seeds that have the virus and this can be transmitted to seedlings at a rate of 0 to 1%. Use of resistant varieties is the most economical method for the management of maize lethal necrosis disease (Prasanna et al.2020), and the study displayed evidence of transmission rate of 0 to 0.67% from seeds of MLN tolerant genotypes. Similar findings were reported for hybrids that have tolerance to MCMV, with cultivar WE5138 and WE5139 having seed transmission rates of 0.6% and 2.1%, respectively (Mwatuni 2021). Seed transmission of viruses is suggested to be controlled by genes that regulate the invasion of gametes prior to fertilization and those that control the direct invasion of the embryos (Maule and Wang 1996). Varietal effect on the transmission of Barley stripe mosaic virus have been reported with rates ranging from 0-75%, conditioned by the presence of a single recessive gene (Caroll et al.1978). Similar effect of genotypes in the transmission of Pea seed-borne mosaic virus via seed varied with different pea cultivars despite plants showing symptoms (Stevenson and Hagedorn 1973), while transmission of Bean common mosaic virus strains in 12 bean cultivars varied (Morales and Castaño 1987).The results in this study showed significantly higher MCMV severity at four leaf and eight-leaf stages as compared to the other stages (p < 0.001). Virus transmission via seed is higher when plants are infected in early growth stages (Sastry 2013b). The speed of movement of viruses in the host and ability to multiply in the plant inflorescence have been reported as the best estimators for seed transmission (Cobos et al.2019). Once the virus is in the embryo, it's transmission is at a higher rate. Legumes have been shown to have higher seed transmitted viruses at higher rates (Sastry 2013b). These is facilitated by the presence of more cytoplasmic structures (Sastry 2013b) that enable faster movement of viruses into the embryo, within the limited window that virus can invade (Cobos et al.2019).The transmission rate via seed for all the evaluated categories in the study was 1% and below. This was despite the knowledge of the location of the virus in the seed. This low rate is similar to the previous reports of MCMV transmission via seed from Hawaii (Jensen et al.1991), Kansas and Nebraska (Bockelman et al.1982) and Kenya (Kitira 2018;Kimani et al.2021). Seed transmission of other viruses infecting maize has also been low, ranging from 0-4.8% (Mikel et al.1984;Forster et al.2001;Li et al.2007).Transmission of viruses through seed is affected by other factors (Sastry 2013c;Simmons and Munkvold 2014). The effect of strain in the transmission of the virus (Simmons and Munkvold 2014) is a key factor. However, MCMV isolates globally have high nucleotide sequence similarity of 96-100% (Braidwood et al.2018), and the different isolates have shown equally low seed transmission of the virus. The rate of transmission is also low when the seeds were obtained from plants infected with both MCMV and a cereal potyvirus (MLN infection) (Kitira 2018).Seed transmission of viruses is complicated where virus is spread by vectors. MCMV is spread by corn thrips and chrysomelid beetles (Nelson et al.2011;Cabanas et al.2013). Not only are the corn thrips present in most maize growing regions in Kenya (Mahuku et al.2015), but they are also attracted to MCMV-infected plants by volatiles emitted (Mwando et al.2018). Increase in the number of thrips leads to further spread of MCMV to other parts in the fields and surrounding maize fields. Since vectors are the main problem in secondary transmission of viruses (Sastry 2013a), efforts should be taken to understand the ecology of the vectors transmitting MCMV in the region, factors affecting the populations and management methods against the vectors (Redinbaugh and Stewart 2018).The development of maize lethal necrosis is heightened when MCMV is present in plants before infection with a potyvirus (Kiambi et al.2019). This emphasizes the need to control the introduction of MCMV through seed. Cereal potyviruses are common in Kenya and other maize growing areas and will lead to the development of MLN disease and increase in MCMV (Wang et al.2017). The effect of the strains to transmission of MCMV and SCMV through seed would increase the understanding of this topic as well as assist in further development of methods for seed certification.The effect of environment on seed transmission of MCMV was not factored in this study, however, there was higher MCMV transmission observed from seed harvested in 2017 as compared to 2018 with significant differences in the MCMV disease severity in the field recorded in the two years. The effect of environment on MCMV severity is not clear (Redinbaugh and Stewart 2018) as well as the effect of environmental factors to seed to seedling transmission.The study concluded that seed transmission of MCMV was not significantly correlated to the maize genotypes studied nor to the crop stage at time of infection. The low rates of seed transmission detected are achieved by using both ELISA and real time RT-PCR. Despite the low rates of seed transmission detected, seed certification for MCMV is important and should be sustained for all maize genotypes. Low infection of MCMV in seedlings are of concern as these lead to attraction of corn thrips through volatile compounds released from MCMV-infected plants. This leads to secondary transmission through the insect vectors that causes wider and faster spread of the virus in the infected field.","tokenCount":"3855"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f14224091cc1dc1be99cc22dd336725b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/134b8012-cb36-4f08-a376-34a7b61ee7e4/retrieve","id":"-205445233"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"40da4e61-1319-4357-a352-b7b2905e2f90","pagecount":"13","content":"Forage accessibility and availability are a concern in crop-livestock systems; however, alleviating these concerns can generate trade-offs.• We tested with farmers in Northern Ghana how maize leaf stripping in a maize monocrop affected maize and sheep productivity and labour requirements.• Maize leaf stripping had no statistical effect on maize grain yield and had a statistically positive effect on average daily liveweight gain for sheep. • Maize leaf stripping led to substantial changes in productivity and had knockon effects within the farm system for labour and pen feeding. • We show it is important to examine the effect of changes in crop management beyond the crop's field.Understanding the dynamics in farm systems that produce and alter the nature of trade-offs (defined as exchanges that occur as compromises) is central to achieving a sustainable and food-secure future (Klapwijk et al., 2014;Kanter et al., 2018). These trade-offs typically occur because a change in farm management influences what must be done in one cropping field or grazing area and may also involve compromises and situational decisions with other activities from which farmers generate their livelihood. These trade-offs become particularly acute if resources are constrained and if farmers have multiple goals (Patrick et al., 1983;Giller et al., 2008). Crop-livestock systems are one type of system where trade-offs and synergies are ubiquitous between systems, i.e., between crops and livestock (van Keulen and Schiere, 2004;Garrett et al., 2020). One management practice relevant to sustainable intensification within crop-livestock systems is maize (Zea mays L.) leaf stripping. Maize leaf stripping involves removing lower, almost senesced, leaves from the maize plant typically below the cob level around silking. Grain yields largely depend on the amount of assimilates that are captured and stored during the vegetative stage of crop growth as well as the onset of the senescence process itself (Thomas and Ougham, 2014;Schippers et al., 2015). One hypothesis is that maize leaf stripping increases maize grain yield when the removed leaves are becoming senescent and consequently have low photosynthetic capacity. These leaves, when they remain on the plant under low incident Photosynthetically Active Radiation, would conceivably become net importers of assimilates in competition with the developing cob. This hypothesis has been supported in Zimbabwe (Mashingaidze et al., 2012).Maize leaf stripping involves at least three changes in farm system management at different hierarchical levels. First, maize leaf stripping can alter grain and stover (crop residue) yield. The yield effect of maize leaf stripping is dependent on many factors, such as the growth stage of maize and the physiologically-active leaves that remain after the almost senesced leaves are stripped. These factors affect the availability of assimilate to the active leaves through a reduced sink demand. This consequently increases the amount of available assimilate for the growth of the remaining plant parts, which in turn affects grain yield. Second, maize leaf stripping can increase the quantity of green forage available in the maize growing season, which can be a time of reduced forage accessibility due to farmers restricting livestock movement and access to grazing land in order to prevent damage to crops. This increase in green forage quantity may increase livestock production. Third, at the farm system scale, maize leaf stripping can change the demand for labour as maize leaf stripping requires time and feeding leaves is typically done in pens or through tethering and this may reduce time demands for supervised grazing but increase feed preparation time.Concerns about the quality, accessibility, and availability of forages have implications for the goals of livestock farmers in West Africa, where livestock farmers typically aim to achieve an acceptable survival rate rather than maximum productivity (Sumberg, 2002). Maize leaf stripping has been described as most suitable when (a) farmers operate intensive mixed crop-livestock systems for the fattening of ruminants, (b) forage quality is poor, and (c) forage accessibility and availability is low (Lukuyu, 2015). Existing studies have reported a positive or neutral effect of maize leaf stripping on maize grain yields in both maize monocropping (Hoyt and Bradfield, 1962;Remison, 1978;Dzowela, 1987;Tanaka et al., 2010;Mashingaidze et al., 2012) and maize-legume intercropping (Subedi, 1996;Katsaruware and Manyanhaire, 2009;Raza et al., 2019). In the cropping system, the effect of maize leaf stripping extends beyond changing maize grain yields as it provides a forage resource through providing leaf and alters stover yields. Maize leaf stripping therefore affects forage availability and addresses forage accessibility concerns that then influence livestock productivity and labour requirements. Forage accessibility and availability are important in crop-livestock systems, where a limited supply of quality forages has consequences on the livelihoods of farmers in developing countries (Balehegn et al., 2020). Existing studies have analysed in crop-livestock systems the trade-offs associated with crop residue management (Klapwijk et al., 2014;Valbuena et al., 2015) and forage production (Tian et al., 2012;Komarek et al., 2015;Paul et al., 2020a;Paul et al., 2020b). Studies where livestock are an important part of the farm system may be more holistic if trade-offs are assessed (Salmon et al., 2018). Within farm systems, especially low-input systems in sub-Saharan Africa, labour requirements are a critical factor in assessing the fate of farm management options (Dahlin and Rusinamhodzi, 2019). In West Africa, a need exists to identify farm management options that are both yield enhancing and labour saving (Aune et al., 2017).The objective of our study was to test how maize leaf stripping in a maize monocrop affects productivity, production, and labour requirements in the farm system (and its components of maize and sheep, i.e., a maize-sheep system) using data from the Northern Region of Ghana. Maize leaf stripping was examined using two treatments: (1) a control treatment of no leaves removed during the maize growing season, and (2) a maize leaf stripping treatment that involved removing all leaves at 50% silking that were below the cob level. Our study asked three questions: how does maize leaf stripping affect (1) maize yields of grain, leaf, and stover and total maize production over the maize growing season, (2) weaner sheep liveweight over a 72-day period, and (3) labour requirements for maize production? Recognizing that tradeoffs in farm systems can be countless, we provide insights into how an option (maize leaf stripping) to increase forage availability affected the farm system, and the interactions among the maize and sheep components of the farm system. In our study, the word \"forage\" refers to the edible parts of plants (other than separated grain) that can provide feed for livestock.To quantify how maize leaf stripping affected maize-sheep systems in the Northern Region of Ghana we collected data from two types of onfarm trials: (1) maize trials that measured maize yields for grain, stover, and leaf biomass with and without maize leaf stripping, and (2) sheep feeding trials that measured the growth performance of weaner West African Dwarf sheep (Djallonke) with an average initial liveweight of 15.11 kg. These sheep are mainly raised for meat production. The sheep were either kept on a control diet of natural pasture only or on a diet of maize leaves and natural pasture. We also collected farm household survey data to provide the structural features of croplivestock farm households, including households that grew maize and owned sheep and participated in the on-farm maize trials. The on-farm trials and surveys were conducted as part of the Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation (Africa RISING) Program.The on-farm maize trials, on-farm sheep feeding trials, and household surveys were conducted in four communities in the Northern Region of Ghana (Table 1). These communities are located in the Guinea Savannah agro-ecological zone with unimodal rainfall, an annual precipitation of 800-1200 mm (FAO, 2005), and a tropical savannah Köppen-Geiger climate with a dry winter (Peel et al., 2007). The most common soils in the communities are either Gleysols, Lixisols, or Luvisols (Table 1). In the Northern Region, soils contain iron pan boulders, low to moderate amounts of total nitrogen, and low amounts of organic matter (Tetteh et al., 2016). Farm systems in the four communities are typically rainfed mixed crop-livestock systems. In our study, the \"farm system\" transforms land, capital, and labour into products that can be consumed or sold, and this system comprises the farm household, cropping system(s), and livestock system(s) (Fresco and Westphal, 1988). Maize and small ruminants (sheep and goats) are a major source of livelihoods in the four communities and across the Northern Region (Zaibet et al., 2011;Amankwah et al., 2012;Kuivanen et al., 2016;Michalscheck et al., 2018;Mellon-Bedi et al., 2020). Maize is typically planted, commonly as a monocrop, in July or August and harvested in November. Vegetables are grown throughout the year with off-season irrigation.Forage accessibility and availability concerns are common constraints for small ruminant production, and these constraints are typically seasonal. In the wet season from May to October, the main cropping season, compound and homestead farming that includes the tethering of livestock, can limit forage accessibility as farmers aim to restrict livestock movement to prevent damage to cultivated crops (Duku et al., 2010;Konlan et al., 2016;Konlan et al., 2018). Therefore, forage produced during the wet season, when maize is grown, could be an important source of livestock nutrition during this time of forage accessibility concerns. In the dry season from November to April a concern is declining forage availability, particularly natural pastures (Konlan et al., 2018), which are highly lignified and dried and eventually are burnt off by wild bushfires. Other constraints for small ruminant production include water shortages during the dry season and a lack of veterinary services to control diseases (Amankwah et al., 2012). Supplementary Information Section 2 provides additional details on the sheep system, including management and marketing. The graphical abstract includes an overview of the farm system studied.On-farm maize trials were conducted in the 2017 and 2018 maize growing seasons in the Northern Region of Ghana. A key objective of the on-farm maize trials was to measure grain, leaf, and stover yields in a maize monocrop with and without maize leaf stripping. In our study, the term \"maize leaf\" refers to the (almost fully) senesced leaf that is removed (stripped) from the maize plant below the cob at silking during the maize growing season. Silking is the start of the reproductive stage of maize growth. The experimental design for the on-farm maize trials was a Randomized Complete Block Design replicated with 28 farmers that were spread across the four study communities. There were 9 farmers in Duko, 6 farmers in Tibali, 6 farmers in Cheyohi No. 2, and 7 farmers in Tingoli. Farmers preferred to strip at silking and not at tasselling (Hoeschle-Zeledon, 2019). This preference was attributed to the selfreported ease of farmers to identify almost senesced leaves below the maize cob level at silking with a substantial biomass build-up of almost senesced leaves. At silking, maize silk can be easily seen at the tip of a growing ear; hence, farmers can easily see when it emerges from the ear. In addition, the farmers were trained on how to determine when the maize field reached 50% silking and where to strip the maize leaves from. The maize leaf stripping was done by the farmers under the supervision of field technicians. The on-farm maize trials had two treatments for a maize monocrop:(1) a \"control treatment\" with no maize leaf stripping.(2) a maize leaf \"stripping treatment\". The stripping of maize leaves was done once 50% of plants reached silking. The stripping involved the removal (stripping) of all almost senesced leaves below the cob level to ground surface. At 50% silking, most leaves under the cob will have senesced and are marginally photosynthetically active.In the on-farm maize trials, farmers planted one of three open pollinated maize varieties of different maturity lengths: (1) Abontem (extra-early), (2) Omankwa (early), and (3) Obatanpa (medium). Days to maturity were 80 days for Abontem, 90 days for Omankwa, and 105 days for Obatanpa (Adu et al., 2014). The specific maize variety planted by each farmer was related to the time when the farmer's field was ready. Therefore, as each variety has a different maturity length, farmers who were ready to plant earlier were provided Obatanpa followed by Omankwa and then Abontem. This was done to avoid planting the Obatanpa variety (a longer duration variety) during the latter part of the maize growing season, which might have resulted in higher yield loss and may have discouraged farmers from participating in the onfarm maize trials. Each farmer planted the same variety in each  (Hengl et al., 2017).season-treatment, 7 planted Abontem, 12 planted Obatanpa, and 9 planted Omankwa (Table SI.1 reports the distribution by community). All varieties were Quality Protein Maize varieties (Adu et al., 2014), i.e., they were bio-fortified with protein.The on-farm maize trials were conducted in a field of each of the 28 farmers with the land area of each field being 4000 m 2 . Each treatment was an even-sized plot within the field. Land preparation involved the use of tractor tillage and the planting of maize seeds was done manually with a garden line and dibblers. Stover was retained in each plot, but livestock could graze the stover. Maize was planted with a 75 cm spacing between rows and 40 cm in-row spacing. Three seeds were sown per hill and later thinned to 2 plants per stand at 14 days after sowing to attain a target maize population of 66,667 plants ha − 1 . A uniform rate of mineral fertilizer was applied to all treatment plots at 5-8 cm from the plants for all farmers. This included a compound fertilizer of N-P 2 O 5 -K 2 O-MgO-S-Zn (23-10-10-2-3-0.3%) applied at 29-13-13-2-4-4 × 10 − 2 kg ha − 1 among all maize plants at 10-14 days after sowing. A top dressing of Sulphate of Ammonia was applied at 21 kg ha − 1 N evenly among maize plants at 4-5 weeks after sowing. Plots were hand weeded at 3 weeks and 5 weeks after sowing or weeded when necessary. Maize was planted from 20 June to 7 August in the 2017 maize growing season and from 20 June to 19 July in the 2018 maize growing season (Table SI.2 reports the reports the distribution by community).All yield data are reported as dry matter. The grain, stover, and leaf yield was measured from the two middle rows of each treatment plot in each maize growing season. The leaves below the cob level of maize plants in the harvest area of the stripping treatment plot were harvested to the ground level, oven dried at 65 • C to a constant weight and measured as leaf yield. The cobs from the plants in the two middle rows of each treatment plot were harvested, dehusked, shelled and oven dried at 65 • C to moisture content of 13% and measured as grain yield. After harvesting the cobs, the remaining plants (stalks and leaves) in the harvest area of each treatment plot were cut to ground level, oven dried at 65 • C to constant weight and measured as stover yield. Stover was measured as the weight of stalks and leaves at grain harvest.Labour data for the time taken to strip maize leaves was collected from technology parks in 2018 (Hoeschle-Zeledon, 2019) from northern Ghana. The labour data included the time taken to strip green maize leaves at silking over a land area of 22.5 m 2 from three separate farmers (two male and one female). The recording of time started when the farmer was in the plot and ended when the maize leaves were stripped (i. e., harvested off the plant). Technology parks are community-based experimental stations consisting of a series of experiments (Supplementary Information Section 1).On-farm sheep feeding trials were conducted from 25 September 2019 to 10 December 2019 to measure the effect of feeding stripped maize leaves on the growth performance of West African Dwarf weaner sheep. The on-farm sheep feeding trials were an experiment and contained two treatments:1. A \"control treatment\" where weaner sheep grazed natural pasture each day from 8:00 AM until 5:00 PM. These sheep grazed on natural pasture as the sole source of nutrition and were not offered stripped maize leaves. 2. A maize leaf \"stripping treatment\" where weaner sheep were kept in a pen from 8:00 AM until 1:00 PM and offered stripped maize leaves. These maize leaves were generally provided in plastic troughs. The quantity of maize leaves offered in dry matter each day was ~2.5% of the sheep's liveweight. At 1:00 PM the sheep were released from the pen and joined the sheep in the control treatment to graze natural pasture until 5:00 PM.In both treatments shepherd boys supervised the grazing of sheep on natural pastures along the main roads in the communities and other land that was not under crop cultivation. A total of 80 Djallonke sheep (8-12 months of age) were provided by farmers in the four communities. In total, 16 farmers provided five sheep each. These 16 farmers were a subset of the farmers who participated in the on-farm maize trials. Four farmers in each community participated in the experiment. The experiment was replicated twice in each community, therefore as the experiment had two treatments each individual farmer only conducted one of the two treatments. Sheep were selected and identified with coloured nylon ropes around their necks. Farmer pens (~5 m × 8 m) that were damaged were repaired, pens were cleaned, and rice chaffs were use as litter. Ivermectin and oxytetracycline was administered as a prophylactic treatment prior to commencement of the on-farm sheep feeding trials. The sheep were weighed consecutively for two days at the beginning and end of the onfarm sheep feeding trials. The averages of these weights were used as the initial and final liveweights, respectively. Thereafter, the sheep were weighed every 14 days until the end of the 72-day on-farm sheep feeding trials.Measurements were taken to determine (1) pasture species at the grazing locations (2) the nutrient composition of the natural pasture and maize leaves including their crude protein, neutral detergent fibre, ash, and acid detergent fibre, and (3) the in vitro organic matter digestibility of the sheep diets in both treatments. Supplementary Information Section 2 provides details on the methods used for the above three measurements. In the stripping treatment, measured quantities of the stripped leaves were offered, and the leftovers were weighed every morning and sampled every 14 days until the end of the on-farm sheep feeding trials. Collected forage and leftover samples were used for the determination of dry matter intake.We analysed the data from the maize trials and sheep feeding trials using linear mixed-effects models. We preformed the statistical analyses using the 'lmer' function in the 'lme4' package (Bates et al., 2015) in R version 4.0.2 (R Core Team, 2020). We used Restricted Maximum Likelihood to estimate the models. Parametric bootstrapping procedures with the 'bootMer' function were used to generate 95% confidence intervals for estimated coefficients using 599 iterations (Wilcox, 2010). Estimated coefficients were considered significant if the 95% confidence intervals did not overlap with zero and if the P value was <0.05 using the Kenward-Roger approximation of the degrees of freedom (Kenward and Roger, 1997). For model assumptions, we inspected the normality of residuals with quantile-quantile plots and inspected residual versus predicted values for the homogeneity assumption (Zuur et al., 2009). We used the 'emmeans' package to report the estimated marginal means for each treatment. For variance explained, Nakagawa et al. (2017) conditional R 2 and marginal R 2 were used.Eq. ( 1) lists the model structure that was used to estimate how maize leaf stripping affected maize yield. Our observational unit was a plot.In Eq. ( 1), yld = the dependent variable of annual maize yield and is a numerical variable (Ln = natural logarithm), tmnt = fixed effect for treatment and is a nominal categorical variable with two classes (control and stripping), mzVar = fixed effect for maize variety planted (nominal categorical variable), community = name of community (nominal categorical variable), farmer = farmer identification number (nominal categorical variable), and season = season the maize crop was grown (2017 maize growing season or 2018 maize growing season). We specified a random effect for each community and the effect of farmer was nested in community. We also included a random effect for maize growing season. We transformed the yield variable in Eq. ( 1), which had a positive skewness (Fig. SI.1), using a natural logarithm to avert issues of non-symmetric distributions of variables (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2007). Estimated marginal means for the coefficients for the treatment variable were back transformed from the natural logarithm scale they were estimate in into their measurement units (kilograms). This backtransformation was done using the 'emmeans' package. Results for comparisons of the estimated marginal means between treatments are given on the natural logarithm scale and these results are averaged over the levels of variety.We estimated three models separately and each model had a different dependent variable: (1) grain yield in kg ha − 1 , (2) stover yield in kg ha − 1 , and (3) forage protein yield defined as the sum of stover yield and leaf yield in kg crude protein ha − 1 . The protein content of maize leaf was taken from the measurements conducted in Section 2.2.2. The crude protein content of maize stover was set at 39 g kg − 1 (i.e., dry matter maize stover was 3.9% crude protein) (INRA et al., 2020). The descriptive statistics and the statistical analysis contained 112 observations: 28 farmers (each farmer was a replicate) with two plots each (one per treatment) in two maize growing seasons.Eq. ( 2) lists the model structure that was used to estimate how maize leaf stripping affected average daily liveweight gain. Our observational unit was an individual sheep in a pen. The pen was the experimental unit.In Eq. ( 2), ADG = the dependent variable of average daily liveweight gain (g day − 1 ) and was calculated as final weight (g) minus initial weight (g) divided by 72 and is a continuous numerical variable, tmnt = fixed effect for treatment and is a nominal categorical variable with two classes (control and stripping), ILW = initial weight (kg) and is an independent continuous variable used as a covariate in the model, community = name of community (nominal categorical variable). We specified a random effect for each community. Each community was considered as a random factor (block) in the statistical analysis. Because initial liveweights varied among the sheep, we tested for the significance of an interaction term between the explanatory variables using ANOVA:(1) tmnt + ILW, and (2) tmnt × ILW. The on-farm sheep feeding trials were designed to have 80 weaner sheep (80 observations) in total: four communities with two replicates per community.Farm household survey data was obtained from the Ghana Africa RISING Evaluation Survey (IFPRI, 2015;Tinonin et al., 2016). Survey interviews were conducted between May and July 2014 that covered the main cropping season of 2013. In total 117 farm households were interviewed in the four communities. From these 117 households, seven were involved in the on-farm maize trials for both seasons and reported owning sheep in the survey. The difference in sample size of 117 versus seven was because most of the 28 farmers in the on-farm maize trials joined the Africa RISING program after the household survey was conducted and two households did not own sheep. From the seven households, one was in Cheyohi No. 2, one was in Tingoli, two were in Duko, and two were in Tibali. From the 117 households, 31 were in Cheyohi No. 2, 22 were in Tingoli, 34 were in Duko, and 30 were in Tibali. These farm household data were used in the household maize-sheep system analysis (Section 2.5).We calculated indicators for production and labour within the maizesheep system for two groups of households by combining the data from the on-farm trials with the household survey data:1. The seven sheep-owning households that were in the household survey and on-farm maize trials. We used individual household structural features, individual maize yields from the on-farm maize trials and estimated marginal means from the on-farm sheep feeding trials. 2. We also explored the effect of maize leaf stripping on maize-sheep system indicators for the 117 households based on the structural features of each individual household and estimated marginal means in the on-farm trials for maize and sheep feeding.The estimated marginal means were taken from the statistical analysis using the full sample of on-farm trial data for maize and sheep feeding. The households we calculated indicators for were not representative (statistically or otherwise) of any underlying population and were not used for any statistical inference at the farm system scale. We calculated for each household using the household survey data: (1) area of maize planted (ha), (2) maize labour requirement (hours ha − 1 ) excluding maize leaf stripping time, (3) number of weaner sheep, and (4) number of weaner sheep equivalents. The question about livestock numbers in the household survey was for the total number of livestock owned per species across all classes of animal within the species. There was no breakdown of sheep numbers by class, for example no data on the number of weaners or number of ewes. To calculate total weaners, we assumed that 50% of the total sheep numbers were weaners. To calculate weaner sheep equivalents we converted all reported sheep, goats, and cattle into sheep equivalents using Tropical Livestock Unit conversion factors of 0.1 for sheep, 0.1 for goats, and 0.7 for cattle (Jahnke, 1982).For the seven households we calculated the following indicators with and without maize leaf stripping on all maize land in the maize-sheep system:• Total annual maize grain, leaf, and stover production based on the annual yields (kg ha − 1 ) recorded in the on-farm maize trials and the area of maize planted (ha) by the household from the household survey. Yields were from individual farmers in the 2017 and maize growing seasons. Maize area planted was from the household survey.• Total annual forage protein production from maize leaf and stover available as a livestock forage, based on maize leaf and stover yields (kg ha − 1 ) and their crude protein contents (g kg − 1 dry matter) from Section 2.3, and the area of maize planted (ha). Yields were from individual farmers. Maize area planted was from the household survey. • Total liveweight gain for weaner sheep over the 72-day on-farm sheep feeding trial, based on the estimated marginal means in the trial, number of days in the trial, and the total number of weaners owned by each household from the 2014 household survey. The same estimated average daily liveweight gain was applied to all seven households. Weaner numbers were specific to individual farmers. • Total labour demand per maize growing season for maize production, based on household survey data for the area of maize planted and maize labour requirements, and data on maize leaf stripping time from the technology park. Supplementary Information Section describes how labour data was reported in the survey.For the 117 households we calculated the following indicators with and without maize leaf stripping on all maize land in the maize-sheep system:1. Total maize grain production based on individual household area of maize and the estimated marginal means from the on-farm maize trials.2. Total weaner sheep liveweight gain based on individual household total weaner sheep equivalents and the estimated marginal means from the on-farm sheep feeding trials. 3. Total labour requirement for maize, computed using the same methods as for the seven households.Although our quantitative data were for crop yields and liveweights from the on-farm trials and from the household survey, we also describe qualitative data that was gleaned during visits to the farmers involved in the current study.Across both seasons, summary (non-inferential) statistics suggested that maize leaf stripping reduced average maize grain yields by 3% and average maize stover yields by 15% (Table 2). Across both maize growing seasons, leaf stripping provided an average 1040 kg ha − 1 (range 303-2137) of forage as maize leaves (Table 2). Total forage protein yield (sum of leaves stripped and stover) was greater if leaves were stripped. Substantial variation in yield levels and treatment effects existed for individual farmer-season combinations (Fig. 1 The grain yield effect of maize leaf stripping was negative for 35 out of 56 farmer-season combinations (56 = 28 farmers × 2 seasons). The stover yield effect of maize leaf stripping was negative for 45 out of 56 farmer-season combinations. Maize leaf stripping increased forage protein yield for 54 out of 56 farmer-season combinations (Fig. 1). Maize grain yields were lower in 2018 than in 2017 (Table 2), possibly due to the distribution of precipitation during the maize growing season (Fig. SI.3) and its potential consequences on nitrate leaching (Supplementary Information Section 4).Statistical analysis suggested that maize leaf stripping had no significant effect on grain yield, had a significant negative effect on stover, and had a significant positive effect on forage protein yield (Table 3). The estimated marginal mean for grain yield in the control treatment was 1826 kg ha − 1 and in the stripping treatment maize yield was 176 kg ha − 1 less at 1650 kg ha − 1 (P = .195). Maize leaf stripping reduced maize stover yield by 530 kg ha − 1 with the estimated marginal mean in the control treatment of 2471 kg ha − 1 versus 1941 kg ha − 1 in the stripping treatment (P < .01). Maize leaf stripping increased forage protein yield from leaf and stover by 81.7 kg ha − 1 with an estimated marginal mean in the control treatment of 96.9 kg ha − 1 versus 178.6 kg ha − 1 in the stripping treatment (P < .01).The proportion of variance explained by the fixed effects (marginal R 2 ) and random effects (conditional R 2 − marginal R 2 ) was 0.016 and 0.694 for grain, 0.043 and 0.755 for stover, 0.175 and 0.53 for forage protein yield. Supplementary Information Section 4 provide details on the season random effects. We had no a priori reason to suspect an interaction between treatment and season.Summary (non-inferential) descriptive statistics suggested that sheep in the control treatment lost liveweight with an average daily liveweight loss of 11.4 g and that sheep in the stripping treatment gained liveweight with an average daily liveweight gain of 29.6 g (Table 4). These averages mask substantial variation between sheep (Fig. 2 Given the initial liveweights, each sheep was offered on average 375 g of maize leaves each day, with an average 121 g being consumed per sheep (Table 4).From the statistical model, average daily liveweight gain was on average an estimated 40.30 g more in the stripping treatment than in the control treatment (estimated coefficient = 40.30, standard error = 4.09, 95% confidence interval [32.10, 48.40]). The estimated marginal mean for average daily liveweight gain was − 10.9 g for the control treatment (standard error = 3.56, 95% confidence interval [− 19.5, − 2.37]) and was 29.3 g for the stripping treatment (standard error = 3.53, 95% confidence interval [20.8, 37.86]). In estimating these marginal means the covariate initial liveweight (ILW in Eq. ( 2)) was set to its average value. The proportion of variance explained by the fixed effects was 0.718 and by the random effects was 0.014. A likelihood ratio test indicated that the model with no interaction term (tmnt + ILW) was not significantly different from the model with an interaction term (tmnt × ILW) (χ 2 = 2.30, P = .12). We therefore retained the model that had no interaction (Eq. ( 2)). Figs. SI.7-SI.8 are plots for normality of residuals and homogeneity.Compared to maize leaves, the natural pasture had less crude protein content and higher neutral detergent fibre, ash, and acid detergent fibre (Table SI.4), with the density of natural pastures in plants per m 2 reported in Supplementary Information Section 5. These differences in nutritive value (Table SI.4) resulted in sheep in the stripping treatment (offered maize leaves and natural pasture) having a more digestible diet than sheep in the control treatment (offered natural pasture only). The in vitro organic matter digestibility (48 h; % dry matter) was 44.4% in the control treatment and 48.1% in the stripping treatment.Heterogeneity existed in household family size, maize area and labour requirements, and livestock numbers (Table 5). Here we focus on the descriptive summary of the seven sheep-owning households also in the on-farm maize trials. Households had a median 9 family members with 5 members aged 15 to 64 years old and 4 members aged less than 15 years old. They cultivated on average 1.6 ha of maize (range 0.6-4). Households reported requiring 589 h ha − 1 for maize production. Because no farmers reported stripping maize leaves in the survey, the 589 h excluded labour time for maize leaf stripping (Table 5). Harvesting, planting, and weeding consumed the most labour time. The time to strip one hectare of maize leaves was 33.66 h (range 26.79-42.22) and the time to strip 1000 kg was 33.73 h (range 29. 05-38.15). Therefore, maize production with maize leaf stripping used 5.6% more labour hours per hectare than maize production without maize leaf  stripping. Households owned on average 7 sheep, 8 goats, and 3.6 cattle.For the seven households over the 12 months prior to the survey in 2014, grazing was the only reported source of feed for ruminants and no household reported feeding green forages to ruminants. From the entire sample of 117 households, grazing was the only reported source of feed for sheep and goats in 98 of the 115 households and for cattle in 17 out of 18 households, with feeding crop residues and green forages sparingly reported (Table SI.5). Labour data on livestock for the seven households suggested that ruminants were managed with supervised grazing for between 9 and 12 h every day of the year. Cattle numbers had a positive skew with a median of zero and one household owning 25 cattle. For the maize-sheep system, maize leaf stripping (compared to no maize leaf stripping) reduced average total grain production, reduced average total stover production, increased average total forage available, and increased average liveweight gains for weaner sheep. These differences in maize area and labour requirements and numbers of livestock influenced the effect of maize leaf stripping at the farm system scale (Table 6 and Fig. 3). At the farm system scale, based on Table 5 and experiment-wide estimated marginal means, maize leaf stripping reduced total maize grain production, but generated extra forage (Table 6). On average, maize leaf stripping required 6% more labour time for maize field operations (Table 6). Variation among individual farmers in their maize area and labour required, and number of livestock owned existed (Table 5). The variation resulted in a range of effects of maize leaf stripping on total maize grain production, total maize labour required, and total change in liveweight gain (Fig. 3). Assuming all maize land was managed using maize leaf stripping, the median household had 214 kg less maize grain produced on their farm, but because of the variation in maize area planted the range was − 1523 kg to − 36 kg (Fig. 3). Total liveweight gain was more for skewed than grain production, with a median of 14 kg more liveweight gain under maize leaf stripping and a range of 1.5 kg to 389 kg. This range highlights the scope to tailor maize leaf stripping to farmer livestock numbers and individual circumstances (Section 4).Four qualitative results also emerged from the analysis of the maizesheep system. First, maize leaf stripping altered labour requirements. Practicing maize leaf stripping allowed the shepherd boy to attend school in the morning and then attend to the sheep in the afternoon after school while improving growth performance of sheep from the nutritive forage at a time of limited forage accessibility. Second, the confinement of sheep in the pens in the stripping treatment for part of the day provided the possibility for the more efficient collection of livestock manure (relative to the control treatment). Third, farmers believed that confinement of sheep in pens also had the benefit of reducing the exposure of sheep to pests and disease. Fourth, farmers felt that keeping sheep in pens may reduce the risks of livestock theft.Our study quantified the direct effect of maize leaf stripping on maize yields and sheep liveweights, changes in maize and sheep production quantities, and some of the labour requirements within maize-sheep systems in northern Ghana. We discuss three themes in this section. First, the reasons underlying why maize leaf stripping had a negative effect on grain yields and had a positive effect on forage protein yields and average daily liveweight gain for weaner sheep. Second, the implications of maize leaf stripping on farm system production and labour. Third, the importance of trade-offs and farmer heterogeneity in assessing the suitability of maize leaf stripping for farmers.First, although the descriptive statistics showed average maize grain yields being lower if maize leaves were stripped, the effect of maize leaf stripping was not statistically significant. Maize leaves below the ear have been shown to make little contribution to grain dry matter  Notes: Maize offered and maize leftover was measured in dry matter. Maize leaf intake equalled maize leaf offered minus maize leaf leftover. Control (column 3) stands for no maize leaf stripping and a diet of natural pasture only. Stripping (column 4) stands for maize leaf stripping and a diet of natural pasture and stripped maize leaves. Source: authors' calculations. accumulation for maize (Hoyt and Bradfield, 1962;Tanaka and Yamaguchi, 1972;Remison, 1978). In Zimbabwe, leaf stripping at anthesis (50% silking) increased yields by 16.6-28%, whereas leaf stripping at three to four weeks before or after anthesis had no significant effect on yield (Mashingaidze et al., 2012). In Nepal, defoliation of maize by removal of leaves below and above the ear, or by topping 30 days after 50% silking, had no effect on maize grain yield (Subedi, 1996). However, despite these neutral to positive grain yield effects in previous studies, it is possible that maize leaf stripping may reduce maize grain yields.One reason for the grain yield penalty (in the descriptive statistics) was that maize leaf stripping could have included the removal of physiologically-active leaves. These leaves may not have deteriorated enough, and this may have resulted in less photosynthesis and substrate transmission for grain filling, compared with the control treatment.Although not directly examined in our study, the role of chlorophyll sensors to identify the stage of leaf senescence may be worthwhile exploring as this could assist with decisions about what leaves to strip to reduce possible grain yield penalties. In the stripping treatment the removal of maize leaves at silking meant that stover yields at the end of the growing season were lower than in the treatment without maize leaf stripping. Forage protein yield (leaves stripped at silking plus stover at harvest) was greater in the stripping treatment as the cumulative benefit of stripped leaves towards forage protein yield exceeded the negative effect of reduced stover yields over the season. The leaves were stripped at a time when they were still undergoing some photosynthesis and farmers generally collected leaves that had lodged. At the time of maize leaf stripping, photosynthesis rates for the leaves had started to slow, but at least maximum leaf yield had been reached. The greater nutritive value of the stripped leaves led to increased sheep liveweight gains in the on-farm sheep feeding trials. The trade-off between forage production and grain production would be relevant for the management of crop-livestock systems.Second, farm systems in West Africa face labour constraints and options for changes in farm management should be sensitivity to labour burdens in addition to changes in production (Aune et al., 2017;Dahlin and Rusinamhodzi, 2019). Maize leaf stripping increased labour requirements for maize production by 5.6% per hecatre. Although not directly examined in our study, a possible labour-saving approach to explore further includes using secateurs to remove the maize leaves rather than a knife. The labour time required for maize production (excluding maize leaf stripping) in our study was similar to existing studies in Ghana (Franke et al., 2010;Awunyo-Vitor et al., 2016;Kermah et al., 2017). However, maize leaf stripping has implications for the farm system beyond the cropping system. Feeding maize leaves to livestock produced a synergy as it reduced labour requirements for supervised grazing as sheep were pen fed the stripped maize leaves. Pen feeding the sheep in the morning required less labour time than supervising sheep grazing. Labour time is both related to harvesting the stripped leaves and processing the leaves so that they can be fed to sheep. Quantifying all the time required in each treatment is complex as pen feeding also needs intermittent supervision and time to prepare the leaves. Children who were part of managing sheep in the control treatment supervised sheep grazing in the morning, and children who were part of managing sheep in the stripping treatment provided the stripped maize leaves to sheep in a pen in the morning and then the children went to school. The design of the on-farm sheep feeding trials allowed children to attend school in the morning. Our calculation for change in sheep liveweight provides an indication of some of the benefits of maize leaf stripping but it may understate the full benefit of maize leaf stripping. This is because we only considered change in weaner sheep liveweights over the 72-day feeding trial.Third, our data showed the heterogeneity among farmers in how maize leaf stripping affected their maize yields and sheep liveweights and subsequent production based on the heterogeneity among household maize area planted and number of sheep owned. Our data also  revealed a number of trade-offs and synergies including maize leaf stripping resulting in a (from the descriptive statistics) grain yield penalty but extra forage available and therefore more sheep liveweight, with an uncertain effect on total labour requirements. And although substantial heterogeneity existed in the yield effect of maize leaf stripping, maize leaf stripping typically improved total forage supply. Recommendations for changes in farm management based on averages can be misleading (Vanlauwe et al., 2019). We also show that recommendations for changes in farm management based on how it affects one component of the farm system may be misleading if the farm management practice has repercussions among other components of the farm system. Related to heterogeneity is the adoption potential of maize leave stripping. An approach to consider adoption is through the diffusion of innovation theory (Rogers, 2003), where five perceived attributes of an innovation influence the innovation's adoption: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability. Our study focused on relative advantage considering changes in maize grain yield and liveweight gain, and labour requirements. We then examined the implications of these changes for seven sheep-owning households, the use of sheep provided consistency between the livestock species used in the on-farm feeding trials and the scaling of results for change in liveweight using the household data. Feeding maize leaves to only weaner sheep would most likely generate an excess of maize leaves if all maize land was stripped; however, farmers could also feed the maize leaves to their goats and cattle (Table 5). Maize leaf stripping has a divisibility dimension as the proportion of land stripped could be varied without likely large changes in costs or benefits per unit of land area. Maize leaf stripping also has a tactical dimension as it could be practiced on a season-by-season basis without substantial temporal productivity dependencies. These divisible and tactical dimensions increase compatibility and trialability attributes. For example, farmers could vary the area of maize leaves stripped based on the number of livestock owned, especially fattening livestock (Lukuyu, 2015), to better match maize leaf supply and demand at the farm system scale, also considering leaf storage potential (Supplementary Information Section 2). Overall, maize leaf stripping has several attributes making it an option to consider for farmers in the four communities, especially as maize leaf stripping has some relative advantages, is trialable, and can be observed through the technology parks. Compatibility within local crop-livestock systems could be tailored based on livestock numbers, especially fattening livestock, and the proportion of total maize area stripped to meet livestock feed demand. The quantity stripped would need to be compatible with leaf storage capacity and drying feasibility, especially during the wet season. The heterogeneity among household structural features and the productivity effects of the maize leaf stripping would mean any advice for farmers would require tailoring to their individual circumstances.Maize leaf stripping also had four repercussions beyond the direct change in productivity. One of these repercussions was related to labour for grazing supervision and maize leaf stripping allowing the shepherd boy to attend school in the morning and possible implications for education. The net effect of maize leaf stripping on sheep labour requirements would also be related to several factors beyond grazing supervision. Some of these factors include time required to move leaves from the field to the feeding location, and time for pen feeding related to chopping, drying and storage, daily preparation of rations, and cleaning pens. Three other repercussions related to sheep in the stripping treatment being pen fed for part of the day. First, the confinement in pens could make manure collection more efficient (relative to the control treatment) as animals are in a more confined space. The absolute gains from more efficient manure collection would be related to total sheep numbers and how the sheep manure is recycled within the production system. With the benefits of more efficient manure collection contingent on its efficient handling, storage, and transport (Rufino et al., 2006). Farmers in different contexts have repeatedly mentioned that manure improves soil organic matter content (Adams, 2015;Castellanos-Navarrete et al., 2015). Although legume residues generally have higher nutritive value than maize residues (Palm et al., 2001), maize leaves stripped at silking can also be a high-protein source. Especially when the maize varieties planted, such as in our study, are Quality Protein Maize varieties. This suggests that the stripping treatment may possibly also produce higher quality manure. Second, the confinement in pens reduced the perceived risk of sheep being exposed to pests and diseases, as also noted in existing studies in the Northern Region (Adams, 2015). Third, the confinement in pens reduced the perceived risk of sheep theft. This is because the pens are typically located around the homestead and this is considered a safe place, also noted elsewhere (Adams, 2015). In Kenya, cattle farmers also prefer to keep cattle in stalls to avoid theft, especially at night (Castellanos-Navarrete et al., 2015). We were unable to directly quantify these repercussions and they were based primarily on qualitative data gleaned from visiting farmers involved in the current study. Nevertheless, these repercussions would influence the overall performance of the farm system. We studied the effect of maize leaf stripping on productivity, production, and labour requirements within farm systems in the Northern Region of Ghana. Overall, our analysis showed that maize leaf stripping tended to have more positive interactions than negative interactions with the performance of the farm system. This was because maize leaf stripping had no statistical effect on maize grain yield and had a positive statistical effect on forage protein yield and sheep liveweight gain. Although maize leaf stripping increased labour requirements for maize production field activities, feeding sheep maize leaves in pens released labour time for children to attend school. Beyond how maize leaf stripping directly affected maize yield and sheep liveweights, it would be important to further quantify the co-benefits of maize leaf stripping that offer further dividends on farm system performance such as livestock forage needs over the lifetime a sheep flock. Although not quantified directly in our study, important qualitative observations were made, some included labour allocation and schooling for children, how increased time pen feeding may affect the susceptibility of livestock to pests and diseases, risk of theft, and the efficiency of manure collection. Overall, our analysis suggested that maize leaf stripping is a farm management option that could be further canvassed when examining sustainable intensification options in crop-livestock systems.","tokenCount":"8009"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"03e885ced6d564a40a45c85e2c1f5798","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/84c928c6-7b5b-4885-9841-f1179be345b2/retrieve","id":"1175160462"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"fd8c646c-14ea-4a5e-88e7-457ac9db68ee","pagecount":"2","content":"come together to investigate a new model for upscaling the adoption of climate-smart agriculture practices (CSA) practices by small-scale farmers in developing countries. CSA practices increase agricultural productivity, enhance the resilience of farmers to climate change, and, where possible, mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. It is, however, challenging to upscale the adoption of CSA practices by small-scale farmers in developing countries. Farmers often lack agricultural and agri-business knowledge and finance to invest in CSA practices. Many of them are socially disadvantaged, extremely poor, women, and young. They are usually excluded from efforts to improve access to finance and knowledge about CSA practices. We, therefore, need new rural development models that will enhance agricultural and agri-business knowledge, provide access to finance and empower socially disadvantaged groups at the same time to upscale the adoption of CSA practices. The new model implemented by CARE in Iringa, Tanzania, and tested by the CSA-SuPER project bundles villages savings and loan associations (VSLAs), which provide agricultural finance with farmer field business schools (FFBSs), which deliver agricultural knowledge to groups of small-scale women farmers. The model also follows sustainable, productive, profitable, equitable and resilient, so-called SuPER, farming principles. These principles guarantee that women are not excluded and receive equal opportunities to adopt those practices.Preliminary findings from the research so far are as follows:• Climate change impacts are felt along the entire agricultural value chain in Iringa; input acquisition, on-farm activities, post-harvest handling, and marketing. Of these, on-farm production is the most vulnerable to climate variability. • Adoption rates of CSA practices among small-scale rural farmers are low, particularly among women farmers, mainly due to 3 factors: (i) lack of financial resources, (ii) lack of (information about) markets, and (iii) poor access to reliable information about the cost and benefits of the practices. • Significant opportunity exists for greater collaboration among institutions and formation of synergies across projects. This has potential to reduce duplicative efforts and increase impact. • Farmers do not adopt the CSA practices that involve the adoption of new cash crops (e.g., soybean) unless they are confident that there are markets to sell their new produce. • There is limited involvement of both Tanzanian governmental and non-governmental organizations along the entire value chain, particularly in regards to provision of inputs, training on use of agricultural inputs, access to credit, value addition, and marketing.In 2018 CSA-SUPER research revealed only few farmers from FFBSs in Iringa adopted soybean.Farmers considered soybean as a cash crop and believed that there were no markets to sell soybean in Tanzania. CARE took action and had implemented a market study to identify potential","tokenCount":"433"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"55eea4ebfc7b6f471d0b3193d727792e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e38eb59f-90dd-4d89-a290-64fd9ce44f8f/retrieve","id":"-1223901283"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e399fd6c-c830-4d63-8c0a-a04c8dd3dd2f","pagecount":"36","content":"Smallholder irrigation has been shown to have a transformative capacity on livelihoods in Ghana. Yet, new technologies and new practices demand farmer learning as well as incentives to be scalable. Farmers need to have market information for their produce and labor requirements for the technologies in use. This paper reports on the social and economic constraints and opportunities facing the introduction of drip irrigation and pump, tank, and hose systems smallholder sustainable intensification through dry season irrigation. The studies were carried out in five sites under Africa RISING and ILSSI in the northern Ghana agricultural growth corridor. It used farmer surveys, farmer focus groups, and market price assessment of key commodities which were tested with multiple technologies with farmers' in-field trials during the dry season 2015 ̶ 2016 (November to March).Preliminary findings from year 1 show that there are real opportunities for farmers to be made by timely dry-season harvesting, due to local and regional price fluctuations. Firstly, results from four major markets in northern Ghana at Navrongo, Bolgatanga, Gushiegu, and Tamale showed that the prices of onion peaked between November and February when production is fairly low and starts declining in March when onion supply on the market is high from northern Ghana, and neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. Pepper prices start peaking around November and decline around February in Bolgatanga, while fairly constant prices were observed around Navrongo, Tamale, and Gushiegu markets. The trends in tomato prices at all the markets, except Gushiegu, mirrored those of onion. Secondly, there are still multiple considerations such as credit, input access, water management practices, and technology design and costs, to enable dry season irrigation opportunities at a larger scale. For successful scaling up of dry season irrigation technologies, farmers need better access to inputs and technologies appropriate to their context. Thirdly, a profitability analysis indicates net returns using pump, tank, and hose systems are high for corchorus production (US$3251/ha) but low for onion production (US$489/ha).Water as a resource is an input that restricts dry season farming opportunities in the northern regions of Ghana, which usually runs for seven months, from October to March. Farming is the main income generating activity in this area, with farmers cultivating mostly cereals in the rainy season (Callo-Concha et al. 2013). In the Upper East Region of Ghana, 70% of the farms vary from 0.5 to 2 ha; the average size of a compound farm in the region is 1.3 ha for a family of eight persons (Laube 2007). Farmers who have access to a water source, practice dry season farming, cultivating, as cash crops, vegetables, such as tomato, pepper, onion, okra, and leafy vegetables. Some farmers manage their small-scale irrigation system by themselves, whereas others depend on projects from the government and/or other private organizations to supply these systems for use (Namara et al. 2011). Irrigation systems are generally categorized based on source of water, lift, and application technologies.In Ghana, well-targeted interventions in water have significant potential to contribute to rapid improvements in livelihoods of rural people (Santini 2010). The potential to overcome the limitations of rainfed agricultural production in the arid and semi-arid areas of the country through irrigated agriculture is high (Namara et. al. 2011). However, the low profitability of food production (US$658 to US$1638/ha for vegetables depending on the type of crop cultivated and the irrigation system and US$1346 ̶ 1384/ha for rice systems) is often noted by farmers as the main constraint to private investment on small-scale irrigation (SSI). In Ghana, irrigated farming tends to be limited to vegetable and rice production, because those are the only crops that appear to be profitable given the high costs of irrigation development and operation (US$166 to US$655/ha for groundwater systems and US$836/ha on average for surface-water pump-based systems). In addition, constraints remain in relation to limited access to equipment, high operational and maintenance costs, lack of access to finance, output market risks, and inadequate government support and extension services (Namara et. al. 2012).This report contributes to the evidence based on the profitability of SSI technologies in Ghana by analyzing, for one season, the financial costs and benefits of alternative low-cost SSI systems used for vegetable farming in five communities of the Northern and Upper East Regions of Ghana. First, we compare the economic returns of investments on existing and improved irrigation technologies (drip irrigation and pump, tank, and hose systems). Second, we assess how the variability of vegetable prices throughout the season and irrigation labor costs determines economic returns, thus providing incentives/disincentives to SSI investments.The report is organized as follows: the next section provides an overview of the sites where SSI technologies were piloted. Section three lists the data and sources used for the study, while section four presents farmer perceptions on SSI and SSI technologies. Section five presents the results of the analysis on the economics of the improved technologies piloted and analyzes the effects of price variability throughout the season on economic returns of SSI investments. Section six concludes.In Northern Ghana, farmers are increasing the use of small reservoirs and shallow wells to extend the use of rainwater into the dry season for vegetable production (Namara et al. 2012). The ILSSI (http://ilssi.tamu.edu/countries/ghana/) and Africa Rising (https://africarising.net/category/countries/ghana/) projects, funded by USAID, pilot small scale irrigation (SSI) technologies for small-scale farmers. In Ghana, ILSSI aims to improve water lifting, conveyance, storage, application, and water use efficiency for dry season irrigation using shallow wells for dry season irrigation using shallow wells. Africa Rising aims to test smallscale irrigation options for dry season vegetable production and explore the potential for forage irrigation. The ILSSI and Africa Rising project locations in Ghana for the 2015 ̶ 2016 season are depicted in Figure 1 and the technologies tested and analyzed in this report are outlined in Table 1.  Bihinaayili is a site near Tamale, the capital of Ghana's Northern Region. A small group of farmers are practicing irrigation using shallow wells and a dam. Fields are irrigated by watering can and surface irrigation methods and water is lifted using buckets and motorized pumps. The main crops are tomato and leafy vegetables such as corchorus. Occasionally, women help their husbands in managing the irrigated plots (e.g., weeding), but do not take responsibility for irrigation activities. As men have the primary land use rights, women lack access to irrigated land, but are actively involved in harvesting and usually responsible for the marketing of the produce.In Zanlerigu there is a dugout that feeds multiple shallow wells. Famers mainly apply water by watering cans for onion, cabbage, tomato, and hibiscus. These wells are temporary and closed at the end of the dry season when the land is returned to the chief(s) or primary land holder. Similarly to Bihinaayili, women are not involved in irrigation farming due to land allocation practices and the labor involved in irrigation; women's main activities are related to quarrying, dawadawa/shea butter extraction, and animal rearing.Dimbasinia has a larger reservoir/dugout (compared to Zanlerigu) for multipurpose use (domestic, livestock, and irrigation), but it is not operational due to siltation. The community dug canals fed by the dugout, irrigating their fields during the dry season. When insufficient water is available, they use shallow to deep wells recharged by the dugout to irrigate their fields. Farmers tend to over irrigate; they use motor pumps in combination with furrow and flooded beds. The main irrigated crops are onion, pepper, garden egg, lettuce, tomato, and cabbage. Some women grow vegetables within the plot that is managed by their husband; the majority, if involved, support their spouses with agronomic practices like weeding.In Nyangua and Tekuru, permanent shallow wells are used throughout the year to water crops in the area. Farmers prefer cement-lined wells but some do not have the financial means to acquire the materials, therefore, they line the upper parts and leave all other portions of the well unlined. In the wet season farmers cultivate maize, pepper, millet, groundnut, beans, rice, and soybean, usually for sale and consumption. In the dry season, water from the permanent wells is used to grow pepper, tomato, and okro, which are mainly produced for sale. The farmers use a bucket tied to a rope to draw water out of these wells and they also use the buckets to water their crops. Some farmers also have petrol pumps which are used to pump water from the wells into furrows on the field.Women are usually responsible for the sale of farm produce and are mostly engaged in sowing, while men do the weeding (ILSSI Ghana protocol). During harvesting, men cut the crops down while women collect the produce and carry it home or wait for transport to the market. Bolga and Navorongo markets are the main places where farm produce from Nyangua is sold. The produce is usually transported to the market centers on bicycles and tricycles (motor King). Two of the ILSSI sites-Zanlerigu and Bihinaayili-were visited by the project team to exchange ideas and identify challenges farmers faced using the various technologies being tested. Twenty-four farmers participated in Zanlerigu (total population 1,383) and 11 in Bihinaayili.Farmers were asked about their awareness and perception of SSI technologies. In the two Africa Rising sites, Nyangua and Tekuru, six farmers were asked to select from a list, the five most important constraints to dry season irrigation and rank them from 1 (most pressing) to 5 (least pressing). Table 2 shows the various constraints ranked by the farmers. The quantitative data for this report was obtained from postharvest agronomic and socioeconomic surveys of the farmers who tested the technologies 1 . These were 15 farmers in Bihinaayili (eight men and seven women), 16 farmers in Dimbasinia (eight men and eight women, total population is 476), 16 farmers in Zanlerigu (eight men and eight women), and 20 farmers in Nyangua (who tested the technologies on the fields of three \"lead\" farmers).In Dimbasinia and Nyangua, a baseline pre-planting survey was also conducted to assess the results of the 2014/2015 growing dry season before the installation of the drip kits. This survey could not be conducted in Tekuru as the site was added to the project at a later stage.Secondary data on conversion weights for different types of containers used by farmers was obtained from various sources (Table 3). Due to the large variation in the selling prices reported by farmers (for instance farmers in Bihinaayili quoted prices from US$4 to US$93 per bag of corchorus), an external price was used in the calculations (Table 4). For onions and tomato, prices were sourced from monthly market information collected by MoFA (Ministry of Food and Agriculture Ghana), while the prices for pepper and okra were supplied by Esoko 2 . The price of corchorus (ayoyo) was calculated as the average selling price of all farmers, since neither MoFA nor Esoko collect market price information on this vegetable. To analyze variation of prices throughout the season, weekly prices of onion and 1 Please refer to the Annex for the pre-and post-harvest questionnaires used. 2 Esoko is a private company that provides smallholders with access to inputs and finance through a virtual marketplace, while driving business for input dealers and financial service providers (https://www.esoko.com/).tomato in the Bolgatanga market were sourced from Esoko, a Ghanaian private company that provides technology solutions to collect and share market prices via SMS (Esoko 2016). On the cost side, information on the cost of the technologies (capital cost) was obtained from the projects, while data on input costs and labor costs was obtained from the postharvest agronomic and socioeconomic surveys of the farmers who tested the technologies.The results of the ranking of constraints to dry season irrigation are listed in Table 5. Credit was identified as the most pressing constraint with a mean score of 1.50 while lack of land for irrigation was ranked as the least severe with a mean score of 5.00. Farmers stated they need credit to purchase inputs like fertilizer, agrochemicals, and labor. The agrochemicals needed for production are mostly unavailable and are also costly, thus making it difficult for the farmers to acquire them. Limited access to water and limited supply of water for dry season irrigation were also quite severe constraints. The farmers thought that permanent shallow wells had lower volumes of water in them during the dry season because they were not very deep and also the water was used for household purposes.Lack of inputs, lack of markets for produce, and lack of skills for irrigation and use of irrigation equipment were identified as moderate constraints to dry season irrigation. Availability of land and labor for irrigation were identified as the least severe constraints. In the area, pressure on land is not high and labor is readily available. However, farmers do not have enough money to pay for hired labor and so they resort to family labor for almost all their activities.Regarding conveyance and application of water, farmers who draw water with ropes and buckets, use the same bucket to water their crops. Farmers who use pumps also flood their beds with water directly. Although farmers are aware of canals and hoses, only a few of the farmers have their wells outside the farms and need to convey water from wells or dams with hoses or tubes. Farmers were aware of flooding, drip, and sprinkler systems, but still use the bucket/calabash since it is less expensive. Some of the farmers did not understand how the drip system works, because they are of the view that the water provided by the drips is not enough for plant growth. They believe that you have to flood the entire bed with water for the crops to have enough water. Some of the farmers were of the view that they would like to acquire the necessary skills to use the drip through education and training, but stated that they were financially constrained to purchase the drip system by themselves.In terms of water lifting technologies, farmers in the study sites were aware of both humanoperated (treadle) and motorized equipment (fuel pumps). They preferred to use petrol pumps because they are readily available on the market and they can also rent them and only buy the fuel for operation. However, most of them still draw water out of the wells manually with buckets and ropes, which is labor intensive and tedious.The common water storage method used is hand dug shallow wells and permanent wells which were either lined or unlined. Farmers also sourced water from small dams, though these dry up quickly and are silted according to the farmers.The farmers raised a number of concerns about the irrigation technologies of the pump, tank, and hose systems piloted by the project. First, too much time is needed to water with the hose as compared to the watering can/bucket. With their old practice (bucket), the farmer would just fetch the water from source and apply directly onto the beds, but with the new technology, one would have to first pump water from the source into a storage tank (smaller tank sizes require several periods of pumping) before using the hose as a means to get the water onto the crops in the field. Second, sharing of pump among farmers was a challenge because different farmers have different maintenance cultures. The mishandling by individual farmers resulted in one of the pumps eventually breaking down. They added that some of the farmers did not have the skills necessary to operate the pumps provided to them. Third, the intake tube of the pump is too short, hence making it difficult and time consuming in conveying water from the source into the tanks. Finally, farmers mentioned the water hose may destroy seedlings and had concerns about its quality. Dragging the hose when watering destroys young plants as a farmer moves through the farm and the hose can be easily perforated.The farmers raised the following concerns about the irrigation technologies piloted by the project (pump, tank, and hose systems). First, they thought the water tanks provided were too small. Second, the pressure from the hose for watering was too low which makes watering time consuming. They would therefore like to pump water directly from the water source onto the beds. They added that the hose helps when the crops are younger but when they grow and the water requirements are higher, hoses with a wider diameter would be more appropriate.Total cost of irrigation per hectare was US$788 for onion and US$446 for corchorus under traditional shallow well and watering can systems, respectively. Annualized capital costs represent less than 1% of total costs for both crops, while labor costs account for the largest proportion of costs (66% for onion and 51% for corchorus) with irrigation labor accounting for more than 80% of labor costs for onion production and 60% for corchorus production (see Tables 6 and 7). A profitability analysis indicates that corchorus is comparatively more profitable than onions under the traditional irrigation system of rope, bucket, and watering cans (US$926/ha vs. US$2216/ha). Since gross income is substantially higher than total labor costs, assuming zero opportunity cost of labor only increases the calculated gross margins by 7 ̶ 10%. As shown in Table 8, the fixed costs of the traditional system are a minor part of the overall costs. The consideration of fixed costs has little bearing on the expected benefit values. Total cost of irrigation per hectare was US$810 and US$453 for onion and corchorus production, respectively, under improved pump, tank and hose systems. As with the traditional system of rope and bucket, annualized capital costs represent less than 2% of total costs in both systems. Labor costs account for the largest proportion of costs only for onion production (69%), while input costs for corchorus production almost double labor costs for this crop (Tables 9 and 10). The profitability analysis (Table 11) indicates that corchorus production is comparatively more profitable than onions under the pump, tank, and hose irrigation systems (US$3,266/ha vs. US$504/ha). This difference in margins is reduced when labor is taken at zero opportunity cost, since labor costs are substantially higher for onion than for corchorus production. The consideration of fixed costs again has little bearing on the net returns.Table 11. Profitability analysis (US$/ha). Tables 12 and 13 present information on the capital, labor, and input costs of drip irrigated tomato production using the iDE and UDS kits available locally. Labor and input costs were calculated as the average of the participant farmers. Unfortunately, we were not able to collect information on the cost of production under the WIENCO kits used in the Africa RISING site because the crops failed at a very early stage. Total cost of irrigation per hectare was US$3,475 for the iDE system and US$2,635 for the UDS system. Annualized capital costs represent more than half of total costs in the iDE system but just 30% in the UDS system. Labor costs account for a significant proportion of costs, with the UDS system being more labor intensive than the iDE one (24% in the iDE system and 48% in the UDS system). Irrigation labor per ha is significantly higher under the UDS system, almost double that of the iDE system. It also accounts for the largest proportion of labor costs in both systems, but this proportion is higher for the UDS system (58% of total labor costs vs. 46% under the iDE system).An analysis of weekly prices during the dry season (September to March) of tomato, pepper, okro, and onion in four markets in the Northern Region suggest that prices of onion peaked between November and February when production is fairly low and starts declining in February when onion supply on the market is high from northern Ghana, and neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger (Fig. 2). Pepper prices start peaking around November and decline around February in Bolgatanga, but stay constantly high at Navrongo and Tamale markets. The trends in tomato prices at all the markets, except Gushiegu, mirrored those of onion. In Bolgatanga and Navrongo, where the farmers of this study sell most of their produce, prices peak between late November and early January, and decrease dramatically thereafter by 20̶ 75% (especially in Bolgatanga). As most farmers usually harvest between January and March (vegetables are highly perishable), prices fall. If farmers planned to start vegetable production at the end of the rainy season and harvest before prices plummet at the end of January, they could attract better prices on the market.In terms of investments on improved systems of pump, tank, and hose for onion production, actual yields recorded during the project are significantly higher than the minimum yields required to break even throughout the dry season (Fig. 4). As the difference between breakeven and actual yields is higher during December and January, this indicates that this is the best period for farmers to harvest and sell their produce at high prices in the Bolgatanga market. It is also worth noting that the gap between break-even and actual yields is wider when farmers use the improved irrigation system. This is because this improved system does not increase costs significantly but has a considerable effect on yields (and revenues). The improved irrigation system of pump, tank, and hose seemed to be particularly successful for corchorus production in Bihinaayili, but evidence from field visits suggests that farmers did not fully utilize the system in this site. Instead, they chose to irrigate straight from the pump onto the field. So the irrigation system actually used was just pumps and straight application, without tanks and hoses. This combination saved time (labor demands) in comparison to watering cans and had a considerable effect on average corchorus yields.Both the level of irrigation labor costs was reduced by more than half (from US$139/ha to US$57/ha), but also the proportion of irrigation of labor costs as a percentage of total costs decreased from 31% to 13%. However, concerns remain in regards to the consequences of flooding in terms of lower yields due to overwatering and sustainability of the water sources.Further studies on the costs of flooding in terms of the sustainability of water reserves and lower yields due to overwatering vs. the benefits of flooding in terms of irrigation labor costs saved are needed.By contrast, in Zanlerigu, farmers used the tanks and hoses provided, thus investing much more time and effort in irrigation. The combination of tank and hose did not yield the expected results for a number of reasons raised in focus group discussions. First, both tanks and hoses were too small for the size of the fields so farmers had to fill the tanks several times in one irrigation to water their whole field and spend a lot of time applying the water because the hose were too small. Second, farmers thought that pumping water straight onto the fields would save time and effort, as compared to pumping the water up to the tanks to then empty them straight away with the hose. Third, tanks seem to be more suitable when a need for water storage or slow water application is in place, for example if the water is being used for drip kits. Although onion yields under the improved irrigation system increased slightly, these are considerably higher than break-even yields throughout the dry season. However, the difference between actual and break-even yields starts to narrow from the start of February onwards, suggesting that earlier harvesting of onions also has a significant impact on the returns of investments on improved irrigation systems, as with drip-irrigated tomato production.Availability and cost of credit and farm inputs were regarded as the most pressing constraints to dry season irrigation in the study areas. Although the availability of labor was not presented as a key constraint, the time and effort required to use the irrigation systems tested was a main concern to farmers.Key recommendations of this study are as follows: First, the choice and design of the technologies used in the irrigation system should be informed by water availability in the area and water requirements of the crops planted vis-à-vis the opportunity cost of time spent in irrigation activities. Second, a human-centered design assessment identifying motivations, barriers, pain points, influences, and triggers for vegetable production should be conducted before testing irrigation technologies. Third, facilitating farmer groups' purchase of drip kits through a loan system may provide incentives to plant early to maximize the benefits obtained from higher prices early in the dry season. ","tokenCount":"4059"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a54cbb7e8e61370d3f7760cb68bf8ca9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/77eb984b-b911-452d-80a8-96c774869dd7/retrieve","id":"899523870"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"ecfdd295-5723-47f7-aeea-c1e6bd07e7bc","pagecount":"12","content":"El Salvador es uno de los países con mayor vulnerabilidad ante los efectos del cambio climático en América Central; es por esto que el Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadería (MAG) en colaboración con el Programa de Investigación CGIAR en Cambio Climático, Agricultura y Seguridad Alimentaria (CCAFS) en América Latina y con apoyo del Consejo Agropecuario Centroamericano (CAC) presentan el \"Estado del Arte en Cambio Climático, Agricultura y Seguridad Alimentaria en El Salvador\", así como el marco gubernamental y actores involucrados en torno a esta temática.En el documento se evidencia que a nivel nacional se realizan diferentes iniciativas para enfrentar los efectos del cambio climático en el sector agropecuario, que se han agravado debido al deterioro ambiental del territorio nacional, así como por la alta vulnerabilidad ante eventos climáticos extremos y el nivel de pobreza de las comunidades.Estas iniciativas promueven el desarrollo integral de los productores de cultivos de subsistencia y comerciales, mediante un abordaje transversal de los temas de cambio climático y seguridad alimentaria con la intervención de actores tanto del sector público como privado, y con un marco de políticas e instrumentos que fomentan las acciones colaborativas a nivel regional y nacional hacia el desarrollo sostenible. Sin embargo es necesario fomentar y fortalecer las investigaciones a nivel nacional, así como las capacidades de los productores para adaptarse a los efectos del cambio climático.El cambio climático es una realidad para América Central, considerada un \"Punto Caliente\" en términos de afectaciones por la variabilidad climática (Magrin et al., 2007). En los últimos años ha sido constantemente asediada por múltiples eventos climáticos intensos y extremos, como sequías y huracanes (CCAD-SICA, 2010), ocasionando mayores retos y problemáticas en la región agravados por patrones insostenibles de producción, un inadecuado uso de la tierra y por la deforestación (CAC, CCAD y Comisca, 2008).FIGURA 1. El Salvador -mapa preliminar de síntesis de sequía meteorológica (MARN, 2014) El sector agropecuario es extremadamente vulnerable a la variabilidad climática. Algunos de los impactos más relevantes son las alteraciones en la precipitación, que modifican los periodos de cosecha y siembra, así como aumentos en la temperatura, que propician la propagación de plagas y enfermedades en los cultivos (Nelson et al., 2009).Esta situación pone en riesgo la seguridad alimentaria del 52% de la población rural de la región que depende de cultivos como el maíz y el frijol, en su mayoría sistemas en secano y por lo tanto que son altamente sensibles a la variabilidad climática (Baumeister, 2010;RUTA et al., 2012). En El Salvador, las áreas críticas sujetas a procesos de degradación y sequía se encuentran particularmente en la zona oriental , como se observa en la Figura 1.El CAC (conformado por representantes de los Ministerios de Agricultura de la región) y CCAFS desarrollan una agenda conjunta en la que buscan el fortalecimiento de la región en términos institucionales, científicos y de gestión del riesgo climático en el sector agrícola, con miras a la reducción de la inseguridad alimentaria de la población centroamericana.A su vez, el Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) suscribió en el año 2013 un convenio de cooperación con el CAC 1 , el cual CCAFS ha apoyado desde sus inicios. En el marco de este convenio, se desarrolló una iniciativa con el fin de identificar el estado de los países centroamericanos en términos de investigación en cambio climático, agricultura y seguridad alimentaria, el marco gubernamental y actores involucrados en torno a esta temática, así como la revisión de los principales impactos de la variabilidad climática en el sector agropecuario y sus consecuencias en la seguridad alimentaria.Este documento es producto de esta iniciativa, el cual fue realizado en conjunto con el enlace técnico del CAC de el Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadería (MAG), científicos de CCAFS y CIAT.La metodología utilizada para llevar a cabo la construcción de este documento se basó en la revisión de literatura y de información secundaria, así como en la realización de entrevistas a algunos de los actores clave del país sobre esta temática.Además del documento como resultado de este proceso, uno de los logros más significativos fue el afianzamiento de los lazos con el MAG, el Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (MARN), así como con varias instituciones del sector privado, academia y sociedad civil.El Salvador está localizado en América Central; limita al norte con la República de Honduras, al sur con el Océano Pacífico, al este con las Repúblicas de Honduras y Nicaragua, y al oeste con la República de Guatemala. Cuenta con una superficie de 20,742 Km 2 , su división política administrativa consta de 14 departamentos y 262 municipios, agrupados en 3 zonas geográficas: Zona Occidental, Zona Central y Zona Oriental (MINEC, 2013).El país se encuentra dentro del cinturón tropical, caracterizado típicamente por una estación seca (de noviembre a abril) y una estación lluviosa (de mayo a octubre) (MARN, 2013), aunque durante los últimos años este comportamiento ha sido muy variable.La superficie del país en su mayoría está constituida por volcanes, montañas y valles; la sierra madre centroamericana al norte y la cadena costera al sur, determinan las características geográficas del país, oscilando entre ellas valles y la meseta central (MAG, 2003).En términos de cobertura forestal entre los años de 1978 al 2000, ésta ha fluctuado entre 5,8% y 8,7% del territorio nacional, en la que se incluyen bosques de coníferas, latífoliadas, manglares y plantaciones forestales. El porcentaje aumenta entre 13,7 y 18% al incluir al café bajo sombra (MAG, 2012).El 45% del territorio nacional tiene vocación forestal, lo que indica que casi la mitad del país presenta restricciones para realizar actividades distintas (MAG, 2012). Sin embargo, El Salvador es considerado el país más deforestado de América Central: los factores de la disminución del área boscosa han sido ocasionados por los ciclos históricos de producción agrícola y el alto crecimiento poblacional, procesos que se han visto magnificados debido a la incidencia de fenómenos naturales (MAG, 2012).Alrededor de 1.970 km² del territorio nacional están expuestos a impactos severos y moderados por inundaciones; 4.040 km² están expuestos a diversos tipos de deslizamientos y más de 10.000 km² tienen posibilidades de ser afectados por sequías graves, moderadas o débiles (MAG, 2012).El país se encuentra entre las quince naciones más afectadas a nivel mundial por fenómenos hidrometeorológicos extremos durante los últimos veinte años, según el Índice de Riesgo Climático Global, el cual indica el nivel de exposición y vulnerabilidad a eventos extremos. Es importante hacer notar que durante el periodo 1993-2012 El Salvador fue el décimo tercer país más afectado a nivel mundial (Kreft y Eckstein, 2013).El sector agropecuario representa el 12% del producto interno bruto (PIB), de acuerdo con datos del Banco Central de Reserva de El Salvador (2013). Según las Estadísticas de Producción del Sector Agropecuario, de la superficie total dedicada a cultivos el 55% está ocupada por granos básicos, el 42% dedicada a productos agroindustriales y el 2 y 1% a frutas y hortalizas, respectivamente (MAG, 2013). La participación del sector agropecuario se divide en los rubros de agricultura (café oro, granos básicos, caña de azúcar y otras producciones agrícolas) con el 61%, las actividades pecuarias participan con el 31%, la pesca y caza con el 3% y la silvicultura con el 5% (BCR, 2012).Los granos básicos que se producen son maíz, frijol, maicillo (sorgo) y arroz, mientras que los cultivos agroindustriales que más aportan al PIB son el café y la caña de azúcar; en el caso de las hortalizas se encuentran el tomate, la yuca, el loroco, el chile, el ayote y la jícama, principalmente, y en cuestión de frutas se hallan el aguacate, el coco, la guayaba y el nance (MAG, 2013).Las principales actividades pecuarias son ganado bovino, porcino, aves y apicultura. La ganadería en El Salvador se caracteriza por ser una actividad a pequeña escala, en• Población: 6.249.262 habitantes (MINEC, 2013).• Densidad poblacional de 297 habitantes por km 2 (MINEC, 2013)• El 62,6% de la población total se ubica en el área urbana, mientras que el 37,4% en el área rural (MINEC, 2013).• La población que se dedica a la agricultura es el 26,2% (FAO, 2013).• El 34,5% de los hogares se encuentran en pobreza: 8,9% se encuentran en pobreza extrema y el 25,6% en pobreza relativa (MINEC, 2013).el caso de la ganadería bovina en su mayoría es de doble propósito (RUTA, 2012) La variabilidad climática en El Salvador se manifiesta en el cambio de la frecuencia, duración e intensidad de las lluvias, además de cambios en su distribución espacial (MAG, 2012). Sumado a esto, el país tiene un alto nivel de vulnerabilidad a eventos climáticos extremos por la pobreza en las comunidades rurales, impactando de manera creciente al sector agropecuario (Ordaz et al, 2010).En los últimos años, las lluvias han sido inusualmente intensas y se ha modificado su origen, desarrollándose cerca de la costa del Pacífico del país (MARN, 2013).Las tormentas tropicales Ida (2009) y Ágatha (2010), más la depresión tropical \"12E\" (2011) provocaron daños y pérdidas calculadas por $1.300 millones de dólares, equivalente al 6% del PIB del año 2011 (MARN, 2013). En contraste, durante el año 2012, el oriente del país sufrió un prolongado período de sequías que generó pérdidas para el sector agropecuario calculadas en más de $38 millones de dólares (MAG, 2012).La agricultura de subsistencia en El Salvador se enfoca mayoritariamente en dos cultivos básicos: el maíz y el frijol (Baltodano, 2012). Los cuales son los principales cultivos afectados como consecuencia de la sensibilidad de éstos a las alteraciones climáticas, lo que compromete la seguridad alimentaria de los salvadoreños.El país experimenta una reducción constante en su cobertura boscosa, causada por diversos factores como son la tala inmoderada de árboles debido a la expansión de la frontera agrícola, el crecimiento urbano y el uso intensivo de la leña (PNUD, 2007).La pérdida de cobertura arbórea en tierras de vocación forestal, especialmente las localizadas en cuencas medias y altas, ocasiona la erosión estimada del 75% del territorio nacional, con una pérdida de suelo calculada en 59 millones de toneladas métricas anuales (MAG, 2012). Sin embargo, es de destacar que los sistemas agroforestales cafetaleros son importantes generadores de servicios ambientales a nivel nacional, mitigando los efectos del cambio climático, regulando el ciclo hidrológico y conservando la biodiversidad (Procafé, 2009).Pese a esto, el cultivo de café es impactado por los efectos de la variabilidad climática, haciéndolo más propenso a plagas y enfermedades, como la Roya (Hemileia vastatrix), que afectan su rendimiento y consecuentemente la situación económica de los productores, lo cual disminuye su capacidad adaptativa.De acuerdo con la Dirección General de Sanidad Vegetal citada por la Dirección General de Ordenamiento Forestal, Cuencas y Riego (ambas entidades pertenecientes al MAG), se estima que han aparecido nuevas plagas cuarentenarias en los países miembros del Organismo Internacional Regional de Sanidad Agropecuaria (OIRSA), siendo la cochinilla rosada (Maconellicoccus hirsutus) y la leprosis de los cítricos (Citrus leprosis virus) de reciente aparición en El Salvador, las que están ocasionando graves daños a la citricultura nacional y a muchos otros cultivos.Posiblemente estos incrementos en las poblaciones de plagas y sus altos índices de ataque se deban en gran medida a los efectos de la variabilidad climática producto del cambio climático, teniendo un impacto económico importante en la agricultura 2 .Las áreas más vulnerables 3 a la variabilidad climática del país son la zona oriente, formada por los departamentos de La Unión, Morazán, San Miguel y Usulután, así como el departamento de Cabañas, en la zona paracentral; la zona costera, particularmente los departamentos pertenecientes a la cuenca del Río Lempa, la cual es altamente vulnerable a inundaciones, y son los mismos departamentos que identificados por el Fondo de Inversión Social para el Desarrollo Local (FISDL) como los departamentos y municipios con pobreza extrema.Esta sección presenta de manera general las tendencias en investigación que se están desarrollando en El Salvador. De igual forma, se presentan las instituciones que están llevando a cabo estos estudios y proyectos relacionados con cambio climático, agricultura y seguridad alimentaria.De los proyectos revisados, se percibe una tendencia a realizar investigaciones en temas de adaptación al cambio climático, debido a que varios proyectos e investigaciones trabajan en la transferencia de tecnologías y en el desarrollo de capacidades para disminuir la vulnerabilidad de las comunidades.Cabe mencionar que al finalizar la guerra civil en 1992, y durante un periodo aproximado de veinte años, el sector agropecuario de El Salvador sufrió de una drástica reducción en las actividades de investigación, extensión y asistencia técnica (MARN, 2013). Su abandono durante esos años ha resultado en el rezago del desarrollo del sector, por lo que los múltiples esfuerzos públicos y privados son de primordial atención para fortalecer las capacidades del país.En los centros de investigación y en el sector académico, como el Centro Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria y Forestal \"Enrique Álvarez Córdova\" (CENTA) y la Universidad de El Salvador (UES), han dirigido los esfuerzos hacia el área de fitomejoramiento de granos básicos, en los cultivos de maíz, frijol, arroz y sorgo, con diversos propósitos como el incremento de su tolerancia a la variabilidad climática para contribuir a la Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutricional (SAN) del país, en colaboración La mayor contribución de GEI proviene del sector de energía con un aporte del 39,1%, seguido por el cambio de uso de la tierra con el 30,7%, y el de agricultura, con el 18%. En agricultura las principales fuentes de emisiones corresponden a fermentación entérica 9 con un 48% y suelos agrícolas con el 46% (MARN, 2013).En el país, el seguimiento, análisis histórico y prospección futura de las modificaciones generadas por el incremento de los GEI en el sistema climático se ha enfocado en Muchas de las investigaciones que se han realizado, han contado con el apoyo de organismos internacionales que financian los diferentes proyectos como una forma de ayudar a los países en vías de desarrollo. Dentro de los principales financiadores se encuentran: USAID, el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, la Agencia Alemana de Cooperación Técnica (GIZ), la Agencia de Cooperación Internacional de Japón, la Agencia de Cooperación Internacional de Corea, la Unión Europea, la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), entre otros.Este apartado identifica la normatividad y las estrategias sobre cambio climático, agricultura y SAN, que evidencian el interés y compromiso de El Salvador en los temas de vulnerabilidad y gestión de riesgo ante el cambio climático.A nivel internacional, El Salvador es partícipe de diversos tratados y convenios multilaterales en la temática de cambio climático. En 1995, ratificó su compromiso con la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre Cambio Climático (CMNUCC) así como el Protocolo de Kioto en 1998. A nivel regional, es un importante actor dentro de los Convenios Centroamericanos sobre Cambio Climático (1996) y la Declaración de San Pedro Sula (2008) que han derivado en el trabajo conjunto regional en la implementación de medidas coordinadas en atención a vulnerabilidades compartidas y fenómenos climáticos.En el ámbito del CAC, El Salvador por medio del MAG participa en el grupo técnico de cambio climático y gestión integral del riesgo. También participa por medio de sus Ministerios de Ambiente y Hacienda en la iniciativa de la economía del cambio climático en Centroamérica, que genera análisis multisectoriales con un enfoque de adaptación incluyente y sostenible, con el apoyo de CEPAL y equipos técnicos especializados.También forma parte de el Programa Estratégico Regional para el Manejo de Ecosistemas Forestales (Perfor) 2008-2012, el cual es una iniciativa de la Comisión Centroamericana de Ambiente y Desarrollo (CCAD) y del CAC. En el marco de la Estrategia Forestal de Centroamérica (EFCA) dentro del Plan Ambiental para la Región Centroamericana (Parca) y la Estrategia Regional de Biodiversidad (ERB). Teniendo como propósito mejorar la gestión y buena gobernanza de los ecosistemas forestales de la región centroamericana (CCAD, 2010). El Perfor para Centroamérica y República Dominicana, se encuentra en un proceso de actualización 2008-2023, faltando solo la etapa final de aprobación y publicación.Así mismo, debido a que la región Trifinio es considerada estratégica por su riqueza en recursos naturales compartidos por las naciones de El Salvador, Guatemala y Honduras, y para contribuir a la integración de la región, en el año de 1986 nace el \"Plan Trifinio\" para promover el desarrollo de la cuenca la región fronteriza trinacional, colaborando en diversas iniciativas y proyectos en conjunto para el beneficio de las comunidades y así también salvaguardar los recursos de la región (SICA, 2009).En cuanto a normatividad, El Salvador se encuentra en un proceso de reestructuración e implementación en políticas públicas relacionadas con la temática de cambio climático, agricultura y seguridad alimentaria (Prisma, 2013). El plan de acción dirigen los esfuerzos hacia el desarrollo de capacidades, fortalecimiento institucional, reducción del riesgo y vulnerabilidad en la población mediante el fomento de mecanismos de adaptación. Sin embargo, aún existe un desafío financiero para fortalecer e implementar adecuadamente estos procesos (Prisma, 2013).Política Forestal 2011-2030 que tiene como propósito recuperar la cobertura forestal del país y fomentar la restauración de paisajes, y la Política de Riego y Avenamiento que orienta las líneas estratégicas para promover la agricultura bajo riego y fomentar la seguridad alimentaria del país.La Política Nacional de Medio Ambiente (PNMA) surgió en el 2012 como respuesta a un contexto de riesgo ambiental generalizado y propone como objetivo general revertir la degradación ambiental y reducir la vulnerabilidad del país frente al cambio climático, fundamentada en la Ley de Medio Ambiente, donde se afirma el derecho de la población \"a un medio ambiente sano y ecológicamente equilibrado\".Un instrumento de la PNMA es la Estrategia Nacional del Medio Ambiente integrada por cuatro estrategias nacionales presentadas durante el 2013: i) Cambio Climático (Estrategia Nacional de Cambio Climático -ENCC), ii) Biodiversidad, iii) Recursos Hídricos, iv) Saneamiento Ambiental. Su ejecución se encuentra en una etapa preliminar.De manera particular, la ENCC busca poner en operación el Sistema Nacional de Medio Ambiente (Sinama), fortalecer las instituciones gubernamentales así como la gobernanza local y modelos de gestión; desarrollar y adoptar sistemas de monitoreo, reporte y verificación; y finalmente transversalizar la temática de cambio climático en leyes, normativas y regulaciones del país 10 .El país cuenta con una estrategia y plan estratégico de seguridad alimentaria, y actualmente, está en proceso de aprobación la Ley de Soberanía y Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutricional. Liderada por el Consejo Nacional de Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutricional (Conasan), se coordinó la participación de diferentes actores políticos, incluyendo recomendaciones del Consejo Económico Social (CES) 11 para su elaboración. La propuesta de Ley contempla el tema de cambio climático e incluye el enfoque de género y la alimentación escolar.Convención Es notable la carencia de una política vigente sobre la gestión integral de riesgo que coordine y de seguimiento a la agenda nacional de prevención de riesgos y atención a desastres en el país. Mientras tanto, en el sector hídrico la iniciativa de Ley General de Agua se encuentra aún en discusión para su aprobación. El desarrollo de la normatividad y marco de atención integral tanto en el recurso hídrico como para la gestión de riesgos es un área que se necesita fortalecer para contribuir a la disminución de la vulnerabilidad de la población salvadoreña.Los compromisos internacionales que El Salvador ha adquirido a lo largo de los años han impulsado el fortalecimiento de la normatividad nacional y el desarrollo de sus estrategias. En la Figura 4 se representa una línea de tiempo donde se visualiza el proceso normativo y estratégico del país en el tema. Por su parte, el PAF busca reducir la pobreza rural e incrementar la producción agrícola para reactivar la economía en el campo. Un segmento de las actividades del programa se dedica al apoyo de agricultores con la entrega de semillas, insumos, herramientas, entre otros. Es necesario fortalecer su control y monitoreo, para evitar la deforestación y prácticas no sustentables como la agricultura en laderas que incrementan la vulnerabilidad de las comunidades ante los efectos de la variabilidad climática 12 .Recientemente, se planteó la preparación de la propuesta estratégica nacional REDD+ El Salvador en la cual se prioriza el incremento de las reservas forestales de carbono, por medio de la transformación de prácticas agrícolas y la reducción de las tasas de deforestación y degradación de los ecosistemas forestales del país 13 .El Programa Nacional de Restauración de Ecosistemas y Paisajes (PREP) ha buscado la rehabilitación del paisaje por medio de la protección del bosque cafetalero y el fomento de la agrosilvicultura 14 . Siendo instrumento clave en las actividades de mitigación de los GEI en el país, ya que asegura los servicios ecosistémicos y la conservación de la biodiversidad como estrategia para adaptarse a los impactos del cambio climático, incluyendo la variabilidad climática. Es la primera estrategia a nivel internacional en plantear una orientación de \"mitigación basada en la adaptación\", promoviendo acciones conjuntas entre los ministerios, como el MARN, Obras Públicas (MOP), MAG y Hacienda (MARN, 2012) En El Salvador es necesario aprovechar las posibles sinergias entre las áreas de mitigación y adaptación al cambio climático con el tema de seguridad alimentaria. Asimismo, es posible crear y fortalecer mecanismos de participación ciudadana en el diseño, implementación y evaluación de las políticas públicas y programas para poder obtener colaboración ciudadana en los procesos y mejores resultados.Esta sección busca presentar de manera general la estructura nacional del sector gubernamental para cambio climático, agricultura y seguridad alimentaria e identifica brevemente algunos de los mecanismos de participación ciudadana en estos procesos.El La vinculación inter-institucional es un área que se necesita fortalecer en el país. Por ejemplo, las estructuras relacionadas con cambio climático deberían vincularse con el área de gestión de riesgos, el establecimiento de estrategias en conjunto de monitoreo para la alerta temprana de riesgos climáticos generaría grandes beneficios para la población así como reducción de costos.El Salvador es uno de los países con mayor deterioro ambiental en la región, lo cual incrementa su vulnerabilidad ante los efectos del cambio climático.Recientemente, el gobierno ha impulsado esfuerzos para fortalecer a los sectores más vulnerables, promoviendo el desarrollo integral de los productores de autoconsumo y productores comerciales, incidiendo en el abordaje transversal sobre cambio climático y seguridad alimentaria.La Estrategia Sectorial Ambiental de Adaptación y Mitigación al Cambio Climático en el contexto de la región de América Central es uno de los esfuerzos para involucrar al sector agropecuario en la temática como lo han venido trabajando otros países en la región, pudiendo mencionar a Nicaragua y Costa Rica.Finalmente, la vinculación interinstitucional es un eje fundamental que se debe fortalecer en la temática de cambio climático, agricultura y seguridad alimentaria. Para ello, es pieza clave de este proceso la construcción capacidades y estructuras basado en la Estrategia Nacional del Medio Ambiente.En la temática de cambio climático, agricultura y seguridad alimentaria en El Salvador se identifican diferentes necesidades como:• Activar el Comité Nacional de Cambio Climático con participación pública y privada.• Capacitar a funcionarios del MAG en la tranversalización de la temática de cambio climático y seguridad alimentaria y empoderar la División de Cambio Climático.• Promover prácticas agrícolas sostenibles para frenar la expansión de la frontera agrícola y disminuir el uso de agroquímicos.• Fortalecer e incentivar la investigación en temas de cambio climático, agricultura y seguridad alimentaria a nivel público y privado.• Realizar evaluaciones actualizadas de los impactos del cambio climático y análisis de vulnerabilidad a nivel sectorial.• Incrementar la investigación y fortalecimiento de sistemas sostenibles para el sector ganadero.• Incidir en el diseño y aplicación de una política integral de gestión de riesgos para el país.GLOSARIO 16• Adaptación: Ajuste de los sistemas humanos o naturales frente a entornos nuevos o cambiantes.• Cambio climático: Importante variación estadística en el estado medio del clima o en su variabilidad, que persiste durante un período prolongado (normalmente decenios o incluso más).• Gases de Efecto Invernadero: Gases integrantes de la atmósfera, de origen natural y antropogénico, que absorben y emiten radiación en determinadas longitudes de ondas del espectro de radiación infrarroja emitido por la superficie de la Tierra, la atmósfera, y las nubes.• Inseguridad Alimentaria: Situación que existe cuando las personas carecen de acceso seguro a cantidades suficientes de alimentos nutritivos para el crecimiento y desarrollo normal y para una vida sana y activa.• Mitigación: Intervención antropogénica para reducir las fuentes o mejorar los sumideros de gases de efecto invernadero.• Variabilidad climática: La variabilidad del clima se refiere a las variaciones en el estado medio y otros datos estadísticos del clima en todas las escalas temporales y espaciales, más allá de fenómenos meteorológicos determinados. 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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"82bae50033300e0b127f50a6ab1b0bea","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/07fdd928-040c-4acb-bae4-1860b72bad71/retrieve","id":"-1393234219"},"keywords":["Ammonia volatilization","CERES-Maize","DSSAT","Nitrate leaching","Zero tillage"],"sieverID":"b8a7e46d-7924-49a4-b366-e71de767dedf","pagecount":"18","content":"Agricultural field experiments are costly and time-consuming, and often struggling to capture spatial and temporal variability. Mechanistic crop growth models offer a solution to understand intricate crop-soil-weather system, aiding farm-level management decisions throughout the growing season. The objective of this study was to calibrate and the Crop Environment Resource Synthesis CERES-Maize (DSSAT v 4.8) model to simulate crop growth, yield, and nitrogen dynamics in a long-term conservation agriculture (CA) based maize system. The model was also used to investigate the relationship between, temperature, nitrate and ammoniacal concentration in soil, and nitrogen uptake by the crop. Additionally, the study explored the impact of contrasting tillage practices and fertilizer nitrogen management options on maize yields. Using field data from 2019 and 2020, the DSSAT-CERES-Maize model was calibrated for plant growth stages, leaf area index-LAI, biomass, and yield. Data from 2021 were used to evaluate the model's performance. The treatments consisted of four nitrogen management options, viz., N0 (without nitrogen), N150 (150 kg N/ha through urea), GS (Green seeker-based urea application) and USG (urea super granules @150kg N/ha) in two contrasting tillage systems, i.e., CA-based zero tillage-ZT and conventional tillage-CT. The model accurately simulated maize cultivar's anthesis and physiological maturity, with observed value falling within 5% of the model's predictions range. LAI predictions by the model aligned well with measured values (RMSE 0.57 and nRMSE 10.33%), with a 14.6% prediction error at 60 days. The simulated grain yields generally matched with measured values (with prediction error ranging from 0 to 3%), except for plots without nitrogen application, where the model overestimated yields by 9-16%. The study also demonstrated the model's ability to accurately capture soil nitrate-N levels (RMSE 12.63 kg/ha and nRMSE 12.84%). The study concludes that the DSSAT-CERES-Maize model accurately assessed theEfficient use of agricultural inputs, particularly fertilizers, is crucial for modern agriculture. Among the agricultural inputs, nitrogen (N) fertilizers play a crucial role in increasing the soil supply of N to crops, particularly cereal crops, which are highly responsive to N 1 . The use of nitrogen fertilizers in the production of food and fibre crops has grown significantly in recent decades, but the nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) remains low in cereal-based agro-ecosystems, with cereals typically taking up only 40-60% of applied nitrogen [2][3][4] . To maintain or increase grain yield, farmers often apply more N, leading to its excessive losses and resulting in negative environmental and socio-economic impacts such as groundwater contamination and greenhouse gas emissions 5,6 . Therefore, use of the slow-release N fertilizer source and urea deep placement (UDP) technology may be effective for reducing N losses and improving NUE in field crops. The UDP technology involves using large-sized fertilizer particles, known as urea supergranules or briquettes, which are placed at a depth of 7-10 cm near the root zone of the crop 7 . Previous studies have shown that these technologies can lead to higher crop yields and lower fertilizer use under conventional crop management conditions 8 including the traditional intensive tillage etc., but for conservation agriculture (CA) based farming systems, the performance of these technologies need to be investigated.In recent years the increasing demand for food and the need to reduce environmental impact has led to a growing interest in identifying economical and environmentally-friendly N management practices which increase the NUE while ensuring sustainable crop production 1 . Conservation agriculture, which includes three basic principle i.e., minimal soil disturbance, efficient residue cover/retention, and crop diversification 9,10 , has been shown to improve soil health and increased crop productivity. The past research evidences describe CA as a more sustainable form of agriculture in cereal-based cropping systems, in terms of resource use efficiency (water, fertilizers, and energy, etc.), profitability, soil quality, and agri-ecosystem resilience to climate change 11,12 . One potential alternative to diversify the traditional rice-wheat (RW) systems in North-West India is the integration of C 4 crops like maize in this system 9,12 . The maize-wheat (MW) system is the third most important cropping system in the region and has the potential to expand in the face of emerging water crisis in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) 9,12 . Adopting CA-based practices in the MW system can provide dual benefits of superior food and fodder supply as well as improved soil health and crop productivity. The addition of crop residues has been shown to have improved soil quality by increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) content 13 , cation exchange capacity, aggregate stability 14 , and N mineralization 15,16 . However, the short-term immobilization of N by crop residues must be considered in the long-term strategy to enhance nutrient availability 17 . Therefore, determining the most appropriate way to manage N in these systems can be challenging due to the complexity of the soil N cycle and the influence of weather. One way to gain insight about these mechanisms is to use of simulation models, such as the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT). These models have the potential to provide valuable insights into N management in CA systems by simulating the effects of weather variables on soil N transformations, crop growth, and development 18 . Accurate simulation models are integral for resource management in agriculture, guiding judicious resource use by simulating growth and yield parameters. These models offer real-time decision-making insights, aiding in optimal choices for fertilizers, irrigation, and other inputs. Moreover, they facilitate comprehensive agricultural planning by considering soil conditions, weather variations, and input factors. Through this, simulation models contribute to a more efficient and sustainable farming approach, ensuring the judicious allocation of resources and enhancing productivity in harmony with environmental variables. Previous studies have evaluated the performance of the DSSAT-CSM and CENTURYbased soil module using data from cropping system experiments. For example, researchers have used these models to predict long-term trends in rice and wheat yields 19 , the effects of different N application rates on corn production 20 and crop yields and N dynamics in a 50-year continuous maize production experiment 21 . These studies have shown that the DSSAT models can provide accurate predictions under a variety of conditions. In addition to their use in predicting crop yields, DSSAT models have also been used for yield forecasting [22][23][24] . These forecasts can be conducted prior to planting or during the growing season and can be used by farmers to manage expected crop production or by governments for agricultural planning 25 . However, it is important to note that the CERES-Maize model has not yet been well studied under contrasting tillage (CA vs CT) and N management options. Against this background, the present study was carried out with the following objectives:(1) To evaluate the CERES-Maize model for simulating the growth behavior of maize and soil nitrogen dynamics under emerging CA practices and application of novel fertilizer products such as urea supergranules (USG);(2) To assess the capabilities of DSSAT in evaluating the N application options and doses under different soil conditions (CA vs CT), and (3) To understand the effects of N management on crop growth and soil N dynamics under long-term CA-based maize-wheat system. This research will contribute to the ongoing effort to identify economical and environment-friendly nitrogen management practices that increases nutrient use efficiency (NUE) while ensuring sustainable crop production under CA-based systems.The amount of rainfall received during kharif 2019-2021 were 512.5, 587.5 and 1288.7 mm, respectively. The graphical representation of daily rainfall distribution, minimum and maximum temperature and solar radiation during simulation period have been presented in Fig. 1. The rainfall distribution during the experiment seasons i.e., in 2019 (512.3 mm) and 2020 (587.5 mm) were almost comparable with distribution pattern almost similar, whereas 2021 (1288.7 mm) had higher rainfall, with higher amount of rainfall occurred during active growth stage of the cropping season. The six critical genetic coefficients for the model have been finally calibrated as presented in Table 1.The performance statistics and goodness of fit are illustrated in Figs. 2a and 3a, c, and e. In the calibration years (2019 and 2020), the model showed strong performance with lower values of RMSE (293 and 1439 kg per hectare for grain and biomass, respectively) and nRMSE (5.83   The genetic coefficients calibrated were used to simulate the yield and biomass of year 2021. The DSSAT-CERES-Maize model simulated maize cultivar anthesis, and physiological maturity at 54-57 and 90-92 DAP, respectively in all 3-years. (2019, 2020, 2021). The observed days to maturity and anthesis are given in Fig. 4 in which simulated days of the phenological stages lie within the 5% of those observed. Measured leaf area, nitrogen fluxes such as observations on nitrogen uptake and residual soil nitrate were also compared with those from simulation using DSSAT for all three years and statistical indicators suggest a good fit with acceptable RMSE and nRMSE (Fig. 3b, d and f).The results indicate that the model accurately predicted the time to anthesis of the crop, with an error of only 1-2 days (Fig. 4a), demonstrating good agreement between observed and simulated values (Fig. 4b). It's evident from the model that the timing of anthesis and physiological maturity is mostly determined by the variety of the crop, as treatments had minimal effect on these growth stages. However, under field conditions, slight variations were observed, particularly between treatments without nitrogen and those with nitrogen application. Treatments without nitrogen tended to delay anthesis but accelerated physiological maturity, supporting the idea that stress  before flowering prolongs the period before anthesis but shortens it after. The simulated values for anthesis and physiological maturity closely matched the observed values, indicating the model's effectiveness. Treatments with nitrogen application required a longer time to reach physiological maturity, primarily due to the extended availability of nitrogen, which prolonged the post-anthesis duration of the crop.The plant leaf area index (LAI) at any growth stage indicates the extent of the assimilatory system, which contributes to dry matter accumulation and partitioning. To validate the model using the LAI, we used data from the year 2021 tillage and nitrogen treatments in maize crop. Simulated LAI ranged from 3.0 to 6.0 across different treatments. During the first few days of the growing season, the simulation of LAI was nearly identical to the observed LAI for all the treatments except for the CT-N0 where model over-predicted the leaf area. At 60 days, the stage which corresponds to the crop's maximum leaf area index, the model slightly under-predicted the LAI. Except for CT-N0, there were no significant differences in observed leaf area among treatments. The model accurately simulated the trend of LAI for all treatments, showing a rise in leaf area until grain formation, followed by a decrease as the plant transferred photosynthates to sink. The model closely simulated this trend for all treatments in 2021, with an RMSE of 0.57 and nRMSE of 10.3% (4b). In the evaluation year (2021), the root mean square error (RMSE) for grain and biomass yield was 233 and 1755 kg/ha, respectively (Fig. 2b). The nRMSE for measured and simulated grain yield and biomass yield were 4.69 and 10.60%, respectively. Maize yields varied significantly depending on tillage practices and fertilizer N levels (see Figs. 2b and 5). Generally, the simulated grain yields of maize closely matched the measured values across most treatments, with prediction errors ranging from 0 to 3 percent (Table 2). However, for N0 treatments in both conventional tillage (CT) and zero tillage (ZT), the model tended to over-predict grain yield, with prediction errors ranging from 9 to 16 percent (Table 2). Despite this discrepancy, the model performed well in predicting grain and biomass yields for the majority of treatments, demonstrating its effectiveness in simulating maize crop productivity.Both ammonium N and nitrate N are major forms of mineral N in soil. However, compared to ammonium N, nitrate N is generally available in principal form. In both the CT and ZT conditions, simulations showed that NH 4 + -N concentrations were similar and increased after adding fertilizer. However, it converted quickly to nitrate, and after a while, its concentration was very low (1-4 kg/ha). Model suggested that ammonia volatilization increased just after the fertilizer N application.Unlike NH 4 + -N, not only nitrate-N rapidly diffused in soil but also steadily transported toward roots through mass flow via plant transpiration. The model accurately predicted soil nitrate levels, with RMSE and nRMSE values of 12.63 and 12.84%, respectively (Fig. 3f). The soil NO 3 − -N concentration varied significantly with fertilizer application and crop growth stages and constantly rose with fertilizer application. Consistently rising with nitrogen fertilization. Overall, nitrate levels increased notably with fertilizer use, especially in warmer conditions  where nitrifying bacteria activity and nitrification rates are higher (Fig. 6). Warmer temperatures increased nitrate levels as they stimulate nitrifying bacteria and nitrification rates (Fig. 6). Generally, zero tillage (ZT) plots had more nitrate than conventional tillage (CT) plots. Among nitrogen management options, soil nitrate was highest in USG plots, followed by GS and 150N, while plots without nitrogen (N0) had the lowest levels. In 2021, all fertilizer application scenarios showed an extended period of nitrate stress.The observed and simulated nitrogen uptake showed a good match for evaluation year (2021), with an RMSE = 16.21 kg/ha and nRMSE = 10.82% (Fig. 3d). Nitrate-N concentration during active plant growth was low and highly dynamic, indicating rapid consumption matching supply rates. At 37 DAP and 65 DAP, despite fertilizer application, soil nitrate levels didn't accumulate much, as nitrate availability synchronized with peak crop growth and nitrogen demand (Fig. 6). The N uptake sharply increased after fertilizer application across all treatments. In this regard model's prediction was in harmony with the findings of Jackson et al. 26,27 . It's also notable that higher nitrogen accumulation after basal nitrogen application was due to initial crop uptake absence. Nitrogen uptake patterns remained similar across three years, with maximum uptake in ZT-USG and lowest in CT-N0, despite higher rainfall in 2021 compared to 2019 and 2020 (Fig. 7). But clustered behavior was observed among nitrogen management options; for instance, CT-USG/ ZT-USG behaved similarly, as did CT-GS, CT-150N, ZT-GS, ZT-150N showed similar characteristics in the N uptake pattern. CT-N0 and ZT-N0 showed the similar N uptake capacity. However, on average ZT consistently outperformed CT across all N application options. www.nature.com/scientificreports/In this and following section, we only looked at simulated data and the discussion is based on comparing it with previous findings. The model showed that ammonia volatilization increased when NH 4 + -N levels rose after applying fertilizer, as NH 4 + -N acts as substrate for ammonia volatilization (Fig. 8). Ammonia volatilization depends on temperature and precipitation, increasing with higher temperatures. Heavy rainfall right after the basal nitrogen application in 2021 led to a big increase in volatilization across all N application options. However, the USG and zero tillage (ZT) reduced volatilization compared to conventional tillage (CT) and other N management options. USG fertilizer helped offset volatilization better in 2019 and 2020 compared to other nitrogen management options. The high temperatures in 2020 worsened ammonia loss through volatilization, especially with late heavy rainfall.Leaching in three crop seasons was mainly influenced by rainfall amount and its distribution throughout the cropping season. The model showed that leaching was highest in 2021, followed by 2019, and lowest in 2020. In 2019, consistent but not very heavy rainfall led to steady leaching, causing more leaching compared to 2020 (Fig. 9). However, in 2021, frequent rainfall events continuously wetted the soil, resulting in higher leaching rates. Zero tillage (ZT) systems across all nitrogen application categories showed high nitrogen loss due to the soil's high porosity. High rainfall at the late stage of the crop triggered faster leaching. The peak NO 3 − -N leaching coincided with precipitation and a fair conclusion can be drawn that rainfall triggers leaching and loss of nitrate into the deeper soil layers depended on water flux during each drainage event as stated by Godwin and Jones 28 . However, considering grain yield, nitrate leaching didn't seem to have much effect. The reason lies in the fact that leached nitrate can rise again with the capillary action to the root zone as it is water soluble, and model also takes into account this fact considering the water flux going upward with capillary action 29 . The information is important for improving our understanding of the crop-soil N dynamic processes.The distinct behavior of soil and crop residue decomposition in conventional and conservation agriculture (CA) significantly impact crop growth and nitrogen dynamics. The successful understanding of these complex dynamics and underlying processes has been achieved through the effective utilization of simulation models [30][31][32] .Understanding the different growth stages of maize, like when it flowers and when it's fully grown, is really important for how much corn we can harvest 33 . In this study, the DSSAT-CERES-Maize model successfully simulated the phenological stages of maize cultivars, showing good agreement with observed values. The model also demonstrated the impact of nitrogen treatments on anthesis and physiological maturity, with no nitrogen delaying anthesis but advancing physiological maturity (Fig. 4). Additionally, the model effectively simulated the leaf area index (LAI) and grain yield (Figs. 3a, b and 5). This effectiveness of the model was also observed by Chisanga et al. 34 , DeJonge et al. 35 and Timsina and Humphreys 19 . In our study, the LAI simulation closely matched the observed values, indicating the model's ability to capture the assimilatory system's contribution to dry matter accumulation and partitioning 18 .Although the model slightly over-predicted grain yield in treatments without nitrogen (N0), it generally matched the measured values well, particularly in treatments with fertilizer nitrogen application. Similar DSSAT simulation findings were reported by Timsina and Humphreys 18 , Liu et al. 21 and Yang et al. 36 which showed a poor response of DSSAT for N0 treatment than the treatments with fertilizer N and they attributed this to the higher sensitivity of model to the fertilizer N application. Jones and Kiniry 37 also demonstrated the sensitivity of the DSSAT model to the accurate specification of initial mineral N to the simulation response to yield and found to have reported a similar outcome. If initial mineral N is not measured accurately, then the reliability of the simulated response to N must be questioned. Thus, the DSSAT model demonstrated \"good to excellent\" agreements in simulating the maize yield for the treatments with fertilizer N application. In all the ZT treatments, increase in the grain yield was fairly captured by the model and it was primarily due to higher nitrogen availability and uptake due to more favourable soil conditions in terms of higher organic carbon content, lower bulk density, high water retention and moderation of the soil temperature 38 .Ammonium and nitrate are the two major forms of mineral nitrogen in soil, with nitrate being the more readily available form. Ammonium is quickly nitrified to nitrate upon addition to the soil. The diffusion rate of nitrate and ammonium in the rhizosphere differs significantly, with ammonium being adsorbed to the soil solid phase and having a much lower effective diffusion coefficient than nitrate 39 . Our model simulations showed that NH 4 + -N concentrations increased following fertilizer application but quickly nitrified into nitrate, becoming negligible. Previous studies have shown that soil ammonium N has no correlation with wheat yield 40,41 . Consistent with experimental results of Li et al. 42 and Zhao et al. 43 , our simulations revealed higher nitrate content in zero tillage plots compared to conventional tillage plots, attributed largely to initial nitrate content and favorable nitrification conditions. Nitrate content was highest in plots with USG nitrogen management and lowest in N0 plots. Despite excessive leaching and volatilization in 2021 causing extended period of nitrate stress, the USG nitrogen application helped alleviate this stress. Nitrate accumulation in maize had multiple benefits, including ensuring smooth & consistent nitrogen nutrition, promoting vigorous growth, and increasing yield. Our DSSAT model provided dynamic soil nitrogen data and indicated a minor influence of nitrogen dose on native nitrogen release and leaching loss of nitrate. The model's ability to simulate NO 3 − -N dynamics and estimate leaching loss and soil N balance under various management practices and weather conditions improves our understanding of crop-soil nitrogen dynamics. Further, our simulations showed that the ammonia volatilization and aboveground biomass nitrogen uptake were 21 and 67 percent of the total nitrogen available to the crops (applied fertilizer nitrogen and mineralized nitrogen). Assimilation of nitrate in plant tissues, especially when soil nitrate levels are high, is common across all plants and doesn't show usually any detrimental effect 44,45 . In fact, nitrate serves as a safe nitrogen source, unlike ammonium, which showed inhibited/poor vegetable growth 44,45 . Such high accumulation of nitrate-N in maize can offer multiple beneficial effects. Firstly, it ensures a smooth N nutrition and when the external N falls short of supply, the nitrate stored in vacuoles can be released to cytoplasm for plant, contributing to prolonged growth periods and increased photosynthesis 46,47 . Secondly, a high accumulation of nitrate-N in plants promotes vigorous growth. With continuous growth, the stored nitrate-N decreases significantly, and at flowering stage, plants with high nitrate-N accumulation still contain nitrate, while those with low nitrate accumulation have nearly all nitrate utilized. Consequently, plants with higher nitrate-N accumulation have a longer growth period and can produce more photosynthetic products. This likely explains why maize plants with higher soil nitrate and fertilizer application took longer to reach physiological maturity compared to those with lower soil nitrate and less/no fertilizer application (Fig. 3). Thus, nitrate accumulation in plants ensures abundant growth and higher yields 46,47 .Financial and time constraints coupled with drudgery in field experiments can be alleviated with use of crop models such as DSSAT in field crop investigations. The goal of using DSSAT is simulation of crop growth and nutrient dynamics in a wide range of environmental conditions. In our study, we calibrated the genetic coefficients of a maize cultivar (PMH1) using CSM-CERES-Maize model and demonstrated how its calibrations brought about a close simulation of crop growth and dynamic processes involving the fate of nitrogen. The Model satisfactorily simulated grain yield (RMSE = 233 kg/ha) and biomass yield (RMSE = 1755 kg/ha). The simulated LAI at 60 DAP was in accordance with the measured leaf area index, with an nRMSE of 10.3%. Simulated maximum LAI ranged from 3.0 to 6.0 across different treatments. All nitrogen levels in ZT treatments recorded higher LAI and grain yield than CT treatments. The model also successfully simulated different nitrogen levels in zero tillage (ZT) and conventional tillage (CT) plots, demonstrating higher LAI and grain yield in ZT treatments. It effectively simulated nitrogen dynamics, including inorganic nitrogen application, native nitrogen mineralization, crop nitrogen uptake, nitrate leaching, and ammonia volatilization losses under varying nitrogen levels. Given the importance of maize and the cultivar used in our study, generated genetic coefficients of cultivar in combination with the validated model will help growers/producers and researchers in making site specific and real time decisions. Additionally, it can also help understand complex interactions between genotype, environment, and management (G × E × M) and predict optimal tillage and nitrogen strategies for maximizing maize yield under different climatic conditions, facilitating the timely transfer of agricultural technology.The experimental data was collected from maize in a long-term ongoing conservation agriculture-based maizewheat system experiment (started since kharif 2012) for a period from 2019 to 2021. The field site (block '9B') is located in the research farm premises of ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi (28° 40′N latitude, 77° 11′E longitude and an altitude of 228 m above sea level), representing Indian Trans-Gangetic Plains Zone (Agro Climatic Zone-VI) with a sub-tropical and semi-arid climate. The average annual rainfall of the site is 735 mm with hot dry summer, wet monsoon and cold winters. The site receives about 80% of its total rainfall during the monsoon season (July-September). At the start of the experiment, physico-chemical soil properties were determined using standard procedure as outlined by Parihar et al. 11 . The detailed initial soil properties are as presented in Supplementary Table 1.In this study, we investigated the growth behavior of maize crops and soil nitrogen dynamics under different tillage and nitrogen management practices. The experiment involved a split plot design with three replications. We compared four different nitrogen sources/method and nitrogen rates in sub plots viz., N0 (no nitrogen), N150 (150 kg N/ha through urea), GS (Green seeker-based urea application) and USG (urea super granules @150kg N/ha). These were tested in two different tillage methods in main plots: CA based zero tillage (ZT) and conventional tillage (CT). The resulting eight treatments are described in detail in Table 3.In all CT plots, 2.91-2.94 ton/ha crop residue of preceding crop was incorporated into the soil during the study years (2019-2021). Conversely, in the ZT plots, the preceding crop residue was retained on the soil surface. ZT plots were prepared in June 2012 and remained undisturbed throughout the years. During the experimentation period (2019-2021), maize variety PMH1 was manually sown in the first week of July during the rainy season and was harvested in the second week of October. A recommended dose of 60 kg P 2 O 5 , 40 kg K 2 O/ha was applied as basal directly at the time of seeding. The control plot (without N applied plot) received only P 2 O 5 and K 2 O, while the recommended dose of N (RDN) plots received 150 kg N/ha with 50 kg/ha as a basal dose and the remaining N was split into two equal portions and point-placed at 7-10 cm depth near the root zone at 36 days after planting (DAP) and 61 DAP. Irrigation was applied at critical stages according to the crop water requirement. The water application and measurement procedures followed those outlined by Parihar et al. 48 .In the present study, crop yields and nitrogen dynamics were measured to evaluate the impact of different tillage and nitrogen management practices. Leaf area was measured periodically at 25 days interval using a leaf area meter (Model LI-COR-3100). In this paper, LAI at 60 DAP is discussed which corresponds to the stage at which the crop attains its maximum LAI values. The leaf area index (LAI) was calculated as follows:Biomass and yields of the maize crop were recorded at harvest as per the standard protocol 11 . Crop harvesting was done manually, and maize grain samples were collected at harvest, oven-dried at 65-70 °C for 48 h and weighed. The nitrogen (N) content in both grain and stover samples was determined using a CHNS analyzer, which employs the \"Dumas method\" involving dry, rapid and complete sample combustion. N uptake was then calculated using the formula:(1) Leaf area index (LAI) = Total leaf area Ground area accupied (2) N uptake (kg/ha) in grain/stover = % N in grain/stover × grain/stover yield kg/ha has been extensively tested for different soil types, climatic conditions, and maize hybrids 53,54 . Crop growth in the CSM-CERES-Maize model is controlled by phenologically defined growth stages driven by energy input in the form of growing degree-days (GDD) 55 . The CERES-Maize model uses growing degree days (GDD) to calculate the developmental stage of the crop, with GDD being a measure of heat accumulation during the growing season. The model also simulates the uptake of nitrogen by the crop, taking into account factors such as soil properties, weather conditions, and management practices 55 . The DSSAT model is a collection of independent programs, including crop, weather, soil, and water modules, which are closely coupled with the cropping system model as the core, simplifying the simulation of crop rotations. The model simulates crop growth and development from planting to maturity on a time step based on physiological processes describing the response of a crop to soil and aerial environmental conditions. Potential growth is dependent on photosynthetically active radiation and its interception, whereas actual biomass production on any day is constrained by suboptimal temperatures, soil water deficits, and nitrogen deficiencies. The input data required for the DSSAT models include daily weather data, soil characterization data, cultivar coefficients, and crop management information (Fig. 10). The soil water balance is determined on a daily basis as a function of precipitation, irrigation, transpiration, soil evaporation, runoff, and drainage from the bottom of the profile.To ensure accurate simulations in DSSAT, cultivar coefficients tailored to local conditions and crop varieties must be calibrated under optimum conditions 21,59 . Six cultivar coefficients (P1, P2, P5, G2, G3, and PHINT) 55 , three representing crop duration (P1, P2 and P5), two representing grain filling (i.e., G2 and G3), and one representing leaf area and leaf area duration by phylochron interval between successive leaf tip appearances (PHINT), were used in the CSM-CERES-Maize model, and these were calibrated for the PMH1 cultivar using the DSSAT-GLUE tool to match simulated and measured biometric variables and phenological stages. When the day length is less than 14 h, the silking rate is governed by P1 as the second variable P2 has no role in governing the phenology of the maize. P2 is used when the day length is more than 14 h. The P1 was adjusted till the simulated value matched with observed value. Similarly, P5 was adjusted to calibrate the duration between silking to physiological maturity. In a nut shell, first three variables (P1, P2 and P5) govern the crop duration; the other two (G2 and G3) control the grain yield and the last one (PHINT) controls the leaf area and leaf area duration. For calibration, average values of key crop parameter such as days to 50% anthesis, and physiological maturity, maximum LAI, soil nitrate content, nitrogen uptake and, grain and biomass yield was obtained from nitrogen and water stress free plots in the 2019 and 2020 growing seasons. Subsequently, the calibrated coefficients' performance was validated against an independent dataset from a 2021 field experiment exploring tillage and nitrogen interactions, utilizing the same parameters as in calibration.Comprehensive evaluation of the DSSAT model performance was carried out by comparing the observed and model-simulated data using deviation statistics, such as prediction error (PE), root mean square error (RMSE), normalized RMSE (nRMSE), and coefficient of determination (R 2 ). Additionally, regression analysis was performed to compare the simulated and measured grain yields. The prediction error, PE is defined as follows:where P i is predicted/simulated value, O i is observed value. Prediction is considered to be excellent if PE value is close to zero. The root mean square error (RMSE) 60 was used to calculate the fitness between the simulated and measured results. The RMSE summarizes the average difference between observed and predicted values and is expressed as follows:The normalized RMSE is expressed as RMSE as percent over the mean observed value.where P i is predicted/simulated value, O i is observed value, Ō is observed mean and n is the number of samples. The nRMSE (%) shows the relative difference between the predicted/simulated and observed data. The prediction is considered excellent, good, fair and poor for the nRMSE < 10%, 10-20%, 20-30% and > 30%, respectively 60,61 .This study was conducted at IARI, and the authorship and acknowledgements have been appropriately attributed to each contributor based on their respective contributions.The Experimental research and field studies on maize plants (cultivated), including the collection of plant material, were complied with relevant institutional, national, and international guidelines and legislation.  ","tokenCount":"5207"}
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%@@$*) dGtJo k| s[ ltsf] ;[ li6 / ;+ /rgfdf h} ljs ljljwtfsf] cfˆg} ljlzi6 :yfg /x] sf] 5 . g] kfnsf] k| fs[ lts ;Dkbfdf s[ lif h} ljs ljljwtfsf] If] qn] cu| :yfg cf] u6] sf] 5 . ;fwf/0f efiffdf h} ljs ljljwtf eg] sf] k [ YjLdf k| s[ ltk| bQ s[ lif,jg,kz' kG5L, hnr/ tyf cfF vfn] b] lvg] gb] lvg] ;\" Id hLjx¿sf] ljljwtf;DaGwL 1fg / ;| f] tx¿nfO{ hgfpF 5 . dfgj;dfhsf] ljsf;df h} ljs ljljwtfsf] cgGt ;DaGw /x] / klg k' Vof} { nL / df} lns 1fg qmdzM cf] e] mndf kb} { uPsf] 5 . gLltzf:qdf elgPsf] 5, aecfTdjt\\ ;j{ e\" t] if' oM kZolt ; kl08tMAE ToxL dfgj ljj] sL lj1 / 1ftf x' G5 h;n] k[ YjLdf /x] sf k| f0fL tyf jg:kltx¿ cyf{ t\\ h} ljs ljljwtfnfO{ ;+ /If0f / ;b' kof] u ug{ hfGb5 . ljut s] xL bzsotf lzIffsfIf] qdf b' | tultn] ljsf; xF 'b} cfPsf] 5 . oBlk sd Jofjxfl/s lzIffsf df} lns kIfdf ePsf sdLsdhf] /Lx¿n] ubf{ vf; u/L o' jfju{ df s[ lifk| lt ljsif{ 0f x' gfsf ;fy} cfˆgf] df} lns 1fg / s[ lif If] qsf] j:t' ut hfgsf/L 36\\ b} uO/x] sf] oyfy{ nfO{ gsfg{ ldNb} g . cfhsf ljBfyL{ / o' jfx¿ g} ef] lnsf b] zlgdf{ 0fsf alnof :tDe x' g\\ . k| s[ ltk| bQ xfd| f] cyfx h} ljs ljljwtf / k' vf{ sf] 1fgnfO{ ef] lnsf ;Gtltdf x:tfGt/0f ub} { xfd| f] df} lns 1fgnfO{ j} 1flgs oyfy{ tf;F u plrt ;+ of] hg ug{ ;Sof+ } eg] dfq xfd| f] cl:tTj, ;Eotf, hLljsf] kfh{ g / /f] huf/Lsf If] qsf] bfo/f a9\\ g] lglZrt 5 . o;} dd{ nfO{ dgg u/L nL-a8{ (LI-BIRD), g] kfn s[ lif cg' ;Gwfg kl/ifb\\ (NARC), cGt/f{ li6« o jg:klt cfg' j+ flzs ;| f] ] t ;+ :yfg (IPGRI) / cGt/f{ li6« o ljsf; tyf cg' ;Gwfg s] Gb| (IDRC) Sofg8fsf] ;+ o' Qm k| of;af6 dfWolds ljBfnosf dflyNnf sIffx¿df s[ lif h} ljs ljljwtf;DaGwL 1fg lbg] p2] Zon] cltl/Qm kf7oqmdsf ¿kdf of] 's[ lif h} ljs ljljwtf M ljBfyL{ sf nflu kl/rofTds ;xof] uL k' l:tsf' t} of/ kfl/Psf] 5 . s[ lif h} ljs ljljwtf nf] k ePdf s] x' G5 t eGg] k| Zg ljBfyL{ n] ug{ yfn] eg] o; k' l:tsfn] ;kmntf kfPsf] 7fGg] 5' . of] k' l:tsf klxnf] k| of; ePsf] xF ' bf o;df w] /} sdLshf] /Lx¿ x' g ;S5g\\ . of] ] g} ;Dk\" 0f{ gx' g ;S5 . k| of] u / cEof; ub} { hfF bf cg' ej / ;' emfpsf cfwf/df qmdzM kl/dfh{ g ub} { hfg] ;f] r /flvPsf] 5 . of] k' l:tsf t} of/ u/L k| sfzg ug] { cleef/f ;DkGg ug' { ePsf sfo{ bnsf ;fyLx¿ / ;DalGwt ;a} df wGojfb lb+ b} p2] Zodf ;kmntf ldnf] ;\\ egL xflb{ s z' esfdgf JoSt ub{ 5' .  ………… !( -v_ :j-:yfgLo ;+ /If0f (In-situ conservation) …………………… @@ -u_ oyf:yfg ;+ /If0f (On-farm conservation) …………………… @@ %= s[ lif h} ljs ljljwtfsf] :j-:yfg ;+ /If0f …………………………………… @# ^= :j-:yfg s[ lif h} ljs ljljwtf ;+ /If0fsf nflu ePsf k| of;x¿ ……………… @ -s_ s[ lif h} ljs ljljwtf k| bz{ gL (Agricultural Biodiversity Fair) ……… @ -v_ ;fd' bflos h} ljs ljljwtf clen] v (Community Biodiversity Register) ……………………………… @-u_ u| fdL0f sljtfofqf (Rural poetry journey) ………………………… @-3_ ;+ :s[ lt / h} ljs ljljwtf (Culture and Biodiversity) ……………… @& &= h} ljs ljljwtf;DaGwL cGt/f{ li6« o dxf;lGw (CBD) ………………………… #) *= h} ljs rf] /L (Bio-piracy) ……………………………………………………… #@ (= ;fGble{ s zAbfjnL …………………………………………………………… # !)= ;Gbe{ ;fdu| L ………………………………………………………………… #ŝ  ) @ @= 9' ;L (Fungi)  !*@@ @= k' tnL (Butterflies) ^# #= e\\ mofp (Lichen)$&! #= :jR5kfgLdf kfOg] df5f            -s_ k/-:yfgLo ;+ /Ô0f    cEof; & != ltd| f] ufp\" df kfOg] :yfgLo cGgafnLx¿sf] gfd n] v . @= ltdLn] cfk\\ mgf cfdf-a' af÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷xh' /a' af, xh' /cfdf;\" u ;f] w] / 3/df ePsF aLp dfu clg ;fyLefOl;t sDtLdf klg kf\" r y/Lsf aLp ;f6f;f6 u/ . To;kl5 tn lbOPsf a\" ' bfx¿afnLsf] aLp / ;fyLnfO{ lbPsf afnLsf] ;\" rL tof/ u/ . X ltdLn] slthgf ;fyLnfO{ aLp lbof} / s:tf] 7fp\" df nufpg] ;Nnfx lbof} < n] v .X ltdLn] lbPsf aLpsf s] -s] u' 0fx¿ 5g\\ , ltgsf af/] df ;fyLnfO{ atfpm .X ltdLn] sf] -sf] ;fyL;\" u aLp lnof} / s' g-s' g afnLsf] aLp lnof} < n] v .X ltdLn] lnPsf] aLpsf] s] pkof] u 5 / To;nfO{ s;/L /f] Kg] ljrf/ u/] sf 5f} < ;lj:tf/ n] v .ca, xfdL :j-:yfgLo (In-situ conservation) ;+ /If0faf/] cln lj:t[ t ¿kdf 5nkmn u/f+ } .-v_ :j-:yfgLo ;+ /If0f (In-situ conservation)         cEof; !@ != h} ljs rf] /L eg] sf] s] xf] < :ki6 kf/ . @= h} ljs rf] /L ePdf JolQm, ;d' bfo / /fi6« nfO{ x' g] a] kmfObfx¿ s] -s] x' g\\ < n] v .","tokenCount":"1141"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/6830447117.json b/data/part_1/6830447117.json
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"65dd7b169824d43a9a0de8378fef0218","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/01794702-718d-4332-860d-eb40a94ad28d/retrieve","id":"959744025"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"97d4a005-722e-4947-84e8-7eb543e7dc02","pagecount":"4","content":"Effective interfaces of knowledge and policy are critical for food system transformation. Here, an expert group assembled to explore research needs towards a safe and just food system put forward principles to guide relations between society, science, knowledge, policy and politics.T ransformations towards sustainable food systems are required as part of the pressing challenge to keep humanity within a safe and just operating space 1 . Research and innovation policies are key to such transformations insofar as effectiveness and the legitimacy of policies are linked to the quality of the knowledge they use. Research and innovation have the power to drive knowledge production and its application to well-defined pathways with the narratives, priorities, rules, organizational patterns and financial resources that related policies provide. Towards this end, we argue that one key modality of engagement remains the science-policy interface. However, recent calls for new science-policy interfaces for food systems, as well as the integration of 'stakeholders' across the policy cycle, have raised important questions and concerns about the role of science and scientists, while illuminating some of the politics and power involved 2,3 .To respond to the challenges ahead, there is need for deeper reflection not only on the challenges that transformations demand but also on principles to guide relations between society, science, knowledge, policy and politics. On the basis of our experiences as experts in a science-policy process that feeds research and advice related to agriculture, food, biodiversity and the wider bioeconomy to the European Commission, we reflect here on the processes of translating research to policy. In so doing, we aim to move the conversation away from specific mechanisms and technocratic solutions 4 , by calling for a new democratic directionality; laying out a set of related principles, applicable across different scales and contexts; and, placing knowledgepolicy-action interfaces at the heart of food system transformations.In 2019, we started the 5th Foresight exercise of the European Commission's Standing Committee on Agricultural Research (SCAR), a 'think thank' composed by European Union (EU) member states and associated countries that provides advice on EU research policies and promotes coordination between the research and innovation policies of member states. We were tasked with exploring research needs related to triggering and enabling transitions towards \"a safe and just food system\" 1 , with the aim of providing a frame of reference for national research strategies, EU-level priorities and joint programming initiatives.The United Nations Agenda 2030, with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the Paris Agreement provided the normative framework for our work. Our qualitative foresight exercise started with a discussion of the targets and objectives of these important commitments, with a view towards making them more operational to agriculture and food at the European level. These served as a starting point for stakeholder discussions, as described below. Our final report 1 was published in December 2020.Beyond the COVID-19 crisis, the political context within which we operated proved to be highly dynamic, with the European Parliament voting to support a European Green Deal and Europe's Farm to Fork (F2F) and Biodiversity strategies; and negotiations on the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy with European Parliament discussion for matters such as the 'green financial taxonomy' , the threshold indicators for banning pesticides harmful to pollinators, and the classification of forestry products for energy production as 'renewable energies' . In this way, our process reflects the evolving dynamics of transformative research and innovation policy, providing insights into the roles of scientific knowledge production in the process of transformation 5 .Transformation, as the term is used here, implies a change of mental modes, social practices and even the development of new values 6 . It is characterized by the destabilization of existing behaviours, social practices, infrastructures, technological systems, and business and administration models, while rebuilding new ones. Transformative change implies dismissing obsolete knowledge and ceasing obsolete action while developing new paradigms, assumptions, models, methods and practices. It also links knowledge and action, rejecting a separation between knowledge generation and its application 7 . Commitment to transformational change requires researchers to 'engage seriously with the critical question of how to contribute to making transformative change happen' 8 . In turn, transformative policies demand new relational patterns between society, science, action and policy (including policy levels and sectors), based on shared goals, mutual learning, co-construction and openness. In short, transformations demand knowledgepolicy-action interfaces operating at multiple scales 9 .As food is deeply embedded in culture and daily routines, even when there is political will, transformation of food systems is likely to be resisted and thus slow, contested and delayed. Different problem framing based on alternative paradigms and mechanisms of change, the severity of the outcomes, the distribution of their costs comment and benefits, trade-offs, entrenched political economies, and fear of perverse system dynamics can generate legitimate (but also illegitimate) resistance to change, even more so when knowledge is uncertain, good examples are lacking and multiple interests are at stake.Widespread adoption of transformative narratives can challenge business-as-usual narratives 1 . For several decades, food system challenges have been framed by a 'feed the world' narrative, centred on the long-term gap between supply and demand -the response to which would be productivity growth. Alternative narratives have been advanced in important institutional settings, from the High Level Panel of Experts (HLPE) of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), the European Commission's F2F Strategy, the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition, and by the EAT-Lancet Commission 2,9 . They give priority to quality over quantity, acknowledge the role of economic, physical and legal access to food as determinant of food insecurity, consider the importance of nutrition patterns, and place attention on the link between food system activities and the pressure on natural resources. They recognize that climate, environment, livelihood and nutritional security can no longer be pitted against food security. However, existing science policy interfaces either struggle to integrate food (for example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services), struggle with legitimacy (the United Nations Food Systems Summit) or lack authority to effect change (CFS and its HLPE). To address systemic food system challenges, multiple science-policy interfaces (rather than a single), coupled with political capacity and will, are needed to ensure legitimacy and address the urgency that food system change requires 2,9 .Building and affirming transformative narratives demands strong commitment, time and meaningful deliberation between a wide range of actors 1 . In the SCAR foresight exercise, the main interlocutors were research officers of member states, representatives of businesses and civil society, and researchers -all have a stake in research and innovation policies. Our experience has reinforced how conversations with stakeholders can be very influential for developing a new research agenda. In our process, three interconnected pathways were identified in a 'safe and just operating space' narrative: sustainable diets, full circularity of food systems and diversity for resilience. Stakeholders were then encouraged to develop research questions and identify innovative solutions consistent with them.Through this process, we found that reaching consensus on the principles of a safe and just operating space was a relatively easy task. Focusing on possible futures helps participants to detach from existing thinking routines, fosters imagination, brings in cross-fertilization of ideas and invites them to identify obstacles to change. We found that this also supports a move away from techno-centric research priorities, towards a greater awareness of the role of social processes on demand-driven pathways for change. Encouraging participants to make their values and interests explicit further encourages communication between disciplines and with society, moving away from the constraints that sectors and disciplines often impose. We observed that generic objectives such as 'reducing the level of chemical inputs in agriculture' were not sufficient to give research policies a clear future direction. On the contrary, giving more precise targets left less space for interpretation of the goals, while also acting as a catalyst for collective commitments. In turn, we put forward a set of quantitative targets linked to our normative framework, broken down at the European level. We invited stakeholders to discuss how research and innovation could be mobilized to achieve them. This process illustrated the importance of stakeholders coming together to define and link to diverse context-specific transformation pathways towards safe and just food systems. It also reinforced the key contribution of science in providing guardrails for these diverse pathways.After we reached consensus on the goals and targets, we faced a wide range of divergent interpretations on the implications. In practice, there is often a confounding idea that alignment on goals implies a uniform trajectory, which is not the case. Policy frameworks, and indeed the political economy of food, consistently fail to recognize multiple pathways within the safe and just operating space 1,10 . By establishing multi-stakeholder conversations, and by iteratively translating knowledge, experiences and values between actors, we argue that a higher-level research-policyaction synthesis, based on shared benefits and compensations of costs, can be achieved and that these are compatible with shared goals (that is, the SDGs), while allowing for a diversity of approaches.Research for transformation assumes that science and innovation can be oriented towards achieving shared goals. There are also risks when research is subordinated to policy and mainly serves direction-oriented policy goals. We argue that directionality should emerge from deliberation and debate, with procedures that ensure space for dissenting positions, and that a diversity of directions is coherent with negotiated, and largely shared, goals.Towards this end, and based on our experiences, we put forward four principles for transformative research and innovation for food system policy (Fig. 1). These principles are aligned with more specific efforts to articulate a research and action agenda centred on a collective task of revitalizing biodiversity and ecosystem services to transform towards healthy, circular, safe and just food systems 7,11 . The principles rely on a comprehensive democratic directionality framework to identify shared goals and also to avoid pathways of unsustainable directionality 12 .The first principle is responsibility 13 . Research for transformation presupposes an ethical commitment of researchers 6 and funders to shared goals, and to the intended  Responsibility also means recognizing limits of claims to (scientific) objectivity and neutrality.Will responsibility limit the independence of researchers? What about curiosity-driven research? This may be an open issue, as the freedom of individuals can be limited by overarching social norms. Scientists have a responsibility to clarify the possible impacts of plausible food system transformation pathways ('identifying the guardrails'), while also being as concrete as they can about trade-offs and systemic risks. Moreover, scientists are needed to contribute to the co-development of new framings for transformative policy. Thus, we argue that scientists have the responsibility to support the evidence base for evaluating transformative pathways and their impacts. The responsibility of stakeholders is to define plausible narratives of change, which is all too often taken on by research community without adequate consultation or engagement. We contend that across science-policy-action interfaces, researchers are well positioned -due in part to methodologies, theories and credibility -to facilitate open, transparent and democratic processes of agenda setting, in which affected stakeholders have a voice, and independence and freedom of expression are ensured. We also note this work requires training, support, sensitivity, reflexivity and the capacity to seek out understanding.This brings us to the second principle: plurality. Plurality recognizes that food system transformations include multiple and often competing visions and accepts the viability of a plurality of these visions. Pluralization comes with the recognition that there are no one-size fits all solutions, neither in the way future priorities are identified, nor in the composition of stakeholders, and that transformations will take on distinct characteristics depending on the time, local environment, territory and other contexts. Exposure to diversity can be a powerful driver of change, but directionality in plurality is needed. To achieve plurality, there is an urgent need to address uneven relations of power, by identifying and giving voice to people marginalized by food systems, and making space for disagreement and controversy 12 . This diversity is hard to achieve and can slow, or even stall, processes, but it has value when it is aligned to overarching objectives. However, in line with our directionality framework, science-policy-action interfaces have a responsibility to provide clear assessments of the different positions (including those of the most-affected stakeholders), and their potential impacts.The third principle is collaboration -a key component to ensuring effective democratic directionality for food system transformations and the application of principles of responsibility and plurality. Such collaboration, in turn, requires institutional support 7 . Transdisciplinary research designs need the allocation of adequate time and resources for interaction, communication and knowledge management, also to ensure the application of principles of responsibility and plurality. Overcoming obstacles that stem from different visions, languages and working styles requires specific strategies, tools and skills that should be fostered, funded, recognized and rewarded.Fourth, transformation requires openness 14 . Openness implies freedom of access to research outputs, data and tools that can multiply collaborative opportunities between researchers and citizens. It distributes resources, contributing to a level playing field. It also means comprehensibility and translation efforts. Researchers should be able to use language that, without simplifying the complexity, allows scientists from other disciplines and practitioners to engage and understand. Communication to a broader public should be a routine component of the research process, based on awareness of the impact of communication on public opinion. For example, our foresight report was brought together by a journalist, skilled in writing for research impact. Openness should also prevent powerful economic interests from skewing priorities in research funding programmes towards the goals of incumbents and away from new entrants, thereby limiting transformational potential.The ongoing task of transforming food systems will take many forms and will face several hurdles. The four principles for research and innovation for transformative food system policy and action outlined above are not meant to be prescriptive. They are put forward with a view towards sharing our learning and to contribute to ongoing discussions around the sciencepolicy interfaces for food systems. They are intended as an initial resource that offers a renewed vision of 'the what' and 'the how' of future just and sustainable transdisciplinary research and action.Research is only one of the components of transformative change. Transformations will depend on the commitment of social and political systems, as well as on external conditions. For this, science-policy-action interfaces are needed, wherein knowledges, values and interests interact to assess areas of certainty and of uncertainty, of consent and dissent, and to develop knowledge around policy options and their implications 2 . Investments in strategic research agendas, strategic management, organized links between research policy and other policy areas, coordination of research efforts, and governance tools that multiply the impact of research are also needed 15 .The experiences of our foresight exercise have reinforced the importance and the peculiarity of policy-related research and innovation with a long-term view. This is aligned with the problem-solving approach embodied in the mission-oriented research and innovation policies advanced by the European Commission.We found that a deep understanding of policy regimes is a precondition to support policy implementation strategies that can address opponents and inertia. Working in transdisciplinary teams that include policymakers can facilitate this. In our own work 1 , we have articulated our vision for how research and innovation can support and affect policy at different stages of the policy cycle, recognizing that knowledge serves different purposes at different levels and times. For example, new scientific paradigms can help to redefine policy problems and policy goals: framing obesity or new diets as outcomes of the 'food environment' instead of individual responsibility can bring forward radically different policy solutions. Updated evidence on the links between trade and environmental outcomes can support new approaches to trade policy. Refined methods of analysis can contribute to monitoring and evaluation, which in turn can feed research.Finally, we recognize that there are fields where science, policy and politics are inseparable and have indeed always depended on each other. For science, a transition from linear processes of knowledge to action would benefit from greater integration and iteration: knowledge and action. We further recognize that food system transformations require more joined-up, inclusive, just and radical approaches. Reflecting on our foresight process, and the resulting principles for research and innovation for transformative","tokenCount":"2705"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d135090d1bc889f7859b1785e3e95082","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://dataverse.harvard.edu/api/access/datafile/:persistentId/?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/ZA5F4P/2BCBGO","id":"1409228575"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"ef12a196-b41b-4311-883a-597ac78c16ba","pagecount":"44","content":"Good morning/afternoon. I am ________ from the Data Analysis and Technical Assistance Limited (DATA), a Research organization based in Dhaka. Together with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), we are conducting an evaluation of a BRAC's A&T project in this area. We want to talk with you about the health status of mother & child of your area. We will ask you some questions related to your job, IYCF and nutrition knowledge, training exposure and socioeconomic information. The information that you will provide us will be used to set up a good health program in this community and in similar settings in other parts of the world.We are inviting you to be a participant in this study. We value your opinion. You will only be identified through code numbers. Your identity will not be stored with other information we collect about you. Your responses will be assigned a code number, and the list connecting your name with this number will be kept in a locked room and will be destroyed once all the data has been collected and analyzed. Any information we obtain from you during the research will be kept strictly confidential. We will use approximately 1 hour of your time to collect all the information.There will be no cost to you other than your time. Your participation in this research is completely voluntary. You are free to withdraw your consent and discontinue participation in this study at any time.You also have the right to refuse to answer specific questions. There will be no risk as a result of your participating in the study.The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and DATA are jointly conducting this survey. Your participation will be highly appreciated. The answers you give will help provide better information to policy-makers, practitioners and program managers so that they can plan for better services that will respond to your needs.The researcher read to me orally the consent form and explained to me the purpose of this survey. I agreed to take part in this research voluntarily. I understand that all information given by me will not be disclosed,that I am free to discontinue participation at any time if I so choose, and that the investigator will gladly answer any question that arise during the course of the research. B.1 Today we would like to ask you some questions about your job and about child nutrition. First, we'd like to talk about your job itself. We would like to know some things about the kinds of activities you do, and the amount of time it takes for you to do them. Please be ensured that all this information will be kept confidential. C.3.3 How many times per day should a child \"______\" old eat a meal (without including breastmilk as a meal)?7-8.9 month 9-11.9 month 13-23.9 month Times Times Times C.3.4 At meal times, how much food should a child be offered/served each time you feed him/her? Can you please show me using this baati?(instruction; show the respondent the food bowl/baati (250 ml) and ask her to indicate how much to offer/serve at each feed)  ","tokenCount":"518"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9fd90cff776302675d15f6f01c582b3e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a94ff746-60a0-4f5d-9cbe-dcf9381f7440/retrieve","id":"1607405906"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2a501b82-d61f-477b-85ff-095639772d56","pagecount":"53","content":"SA.8 Resistencia a la penetración en suelos de la Altillanura plana según su uso y textura. Oeste. El área abarca los paisajes de Altillanura plana, ondulada y disectada.La precipitación media anual en el área de influencia de Pto López es de 2649 mm con una desviación de 340 mm y en el área de influencia de Pto Gaitán es de 2158 rrun con una desviación de 282 mm. La altitud varía entre los 100 y 200 m.s.n .m. La temperatura media anual de 26 0 C con una humedad relativa del 80%. Durante el período lluvioso (Abril a Noviembre) la evapotranspiración potencial es de 112 mm/mes (con una desviación de 3.4 mm) y una radiación solar de 4.47 Kw-h/m 2 (desviación 0.21). Hoyos et al. (1992) realizaron la caracterización química de los suelos de la Altillanura plana de O a 10 cm de profundidad para diferentes categorías texturales (Cuadro 1). Como se puede observar los suelos son ácidos con bajos concenidos de mate ria orgánIca, calcio, magnesio, potasio y fósforo y con altos niveles de saturac ión de aluminio que limitan el creci miento vegetal. Los suelos de textura livian a muestran en genera l mayores limitaciones nutricionales que los suelos pesados, pero presentan la ventaja de tener un menor porcentaje de saturación de aluminio y una mayor disponibilidad de fósforo. Los suelos de la Altillanura son suelos muy antiguos, en sus áreas plano-convexas se encuentran Oxis oles (Haplustox , Haplortox, Acrorthox) en las áreas concavas que han acumulado materiales de las partes más altas se encuentran Inceptisoles (Andaquepts, Plinthaquepts, Tropaquepts) y en algunas áreas Ultisoles (Umbraquults).Determinar relaciones causales entre variables químicas, físicas y biológicas de los suelos de la Altillanura que permitan conocer el grado de impacto de diferentes usos del suelo en relación a los suelos no di sturbados.Un total de 16 fincas fueron seleccionadas distribuidas en tres paIsaJes: Altillanura plana, ondulada y disectada. En cada finca se seleccionaron los sitios de muestreo en función de uso del suelo con su respectivo control (suelo sin disturbar). Algunas fincas fueron seleccionadas para estudiar con más detalle los suelos sin disturbar en función del paisaje y pendiente. En total se seleccionaron 70 sitios que incluyeron sabanas de los diferentes paisajes y en diferentes pendiente dentro de un paisaje especifico, así como diferentes usos del suelo como pasturas establecidas Ó renovadas en forma tradicional (uso de rocas fosfóricas ó calfos como única fuente de fertilizante en dosis muy bajas y alta intensidad de uso de rastras) , pasturas establecidas ó renovadas con un cultivo (arroz, maíz), rotación de cultivos , monocultivos anuales y cultivos permanentes (Palma africana, caucho, pino, mango, marañón, cítricos) .En cada sitio se realizaron los respectivos muestreos entre los meses de Septiembre a Noviembre en un radio de 10 metros del punto seleccionado. Durante la estación seca se realizaron mediciones para determinar el punto de marchitez permanente (PMP) bajo condiciones de campo y pruebas de aceptancia de lluvias en suelos de sabana.Es importante aclarar que todos los sitios seleccionados no presentaban ningún impedimento físico para labores de labranza relacionados con profundidad efectiva, pedregosidad, alta saturación de humedad ó relieve de poco acceso a maquinaria. Para las variables químicas, de textura y microbiológicas se tomaron 12 mlOOtre~: tRjI;I~~!J1 1 no en cada sitio ó punto de muestreo en las respectivas profundidades y se enviaron muestras compuestas por profundidad para los respectivos análisis de laboratorio. Para la determinación de la densidad aparente y real se tomaron 4 anillos (5cmx5cm) por profundidad de muestreo.Para las mediciones de infiltración se utilizaron tres parejas de anillos infiltrómetros localizados en forma de triángulo equilátero en cada punto de muestreo, tomando mediciones en los siguientes tiempos : 1,2,3,4,5, I O, 15,20,30,45,60,90 Y 120 minutos.Las infiltraciones se tomaron en todos los casos cuando habían transcurrido como mínimo 2 días secos, Para evaluar la resistencia a la penetración (RP) y la resistencia tangencial vertical (RTV) se tomaron seis lecturas de cada variable bajo condiciones de capacidad de campo, Para lograr simular la condición de capacidad de campo en cada sitio se enterraron 3 anillos de 30 cm de diámetro saturados con agua y tapados con plástico y hierba, a los 2 días se regresaba al sitio para realizar dos mediciones de resistencia en cada anillo, Para medir la resistencia a la penetración se utilizó un penetró grafo de cono con capacidad máxima de lectura de 25 kg/cm 2 Para medir la resistencia vertical se utilizó un TURV ANE metálico de 1.9 cm de diámetro y 3 cm de largo con capacidad máxima de lectura de 140 Kpa, Para el conteo microbiológico se utilizaron tres diluciones, haciendo tres lecturas por dilución siguiendo la metodología establecida por el Programa de Biología y Fertilidad para Suelos Tropicales (TSBF), Para determinar la composición florística y disponibilidad de forraje en suelos de sabana, se evaluaron 20 marcos en dos transectos que se cruzaban en el centro del punto señalado utilizando la metodología de BOTANAL,Dentro de los sitios de muestreo en las fincas se incluyeron algunos que formaban parte de experimentos conducidos por el ClA T, con el propósito de integrar y complementar la información relativa a la productividad de los cultivos y comportamiento animal estacional en diferentes texturas de suelo.Durante el avance del proyecto se realizaron las siguientes mediciones ó trabajos adicionales:Implementación de un ensayo sa télite para probar los efectos de incorporar diferentes dosis de cal a diferentes profundidades ut ilizando co mo materiales de respuesta Maíz Sikuani v-JI O y Panicwl1 maxímun.Distribución y frecuencia semanal de las lluvi as en el área de estudio Estudio de Micorrizas Vesícula Arbusculares (Tesis Unillanos) Determinación de la capacidad de campo y punto de marchitez permanente a nivel de campo. Prueba de humedecimiento y secamiento del suelo en la época seca.Materia orgánica, aluminio, fósforo, calcio, magnesio, potasio.Arena, Limo, Arcilla, tasa de infiltración, conductividad hidráulica, densidad aparente, densidad de partículas, porosidad total, distribución de tamaño de agregados, distribución de tamaño de arenas, resistencia a la penetración, resistencia tangencial vertical, capacidad de campo, y punto de marchitez permanente.Población de bacterias, población hongos, población de actinomicetos y número de esporas de micorrizas vesiculo arbusculares.Composición f10rística en sabanas, aporte forrajero de las especies y frecuencia de aparición de las especies, disponibilidad de forraje y altura promedio de la vegetación.Rendimiento de cultivos y producción de carne por hectárea en suelos con diferentes texturas.Distribución de días lluviosos y secos continuos durante el período de lluvias, distribución de la precipitación.La base de datos fue almacenada y organizada en archivos externos del paquete SAS (System Analyses Statistical). Para el análisis de varianza se tomaron las fincas como repeticiones para cada uno de los paisajes, utilizando el procedimiento PROC GLM y la prueba de rango múltiple de Duncan para la separación de medias. Para algunas variables se realizaron análisis descriptivos de frecuencias, medias y desviación estándar. Se realizaron análisis de correlación lineal de Pearson para todas las variables y aquellas que mostraron altas correlaciones y significancias con distribución de puntos bien definida se les aplicó modelos de ajuste a través del programa \"curve expert\".V. RESULTADOS Y DISCUSIONUn análisis de distribución semanal de días lluvioso y secos fue realizado en una finca representativa del área de estudio como complemento a la información del proyecto, El análisis incluye 10 años de registros consecutivos tomados por el ClA T de 1989 a 1998 , El análisis preliminar de la información indicó que el período real de lluvias está comprendido entre la semana 14 y la 46 (del 2 de Abril al 19 de Noviembre), También se determinó por muestreos de campo que precipitaciones inferiores a 4 mm no producen efecto de humedecimiento en el suelo, esto concuerda con los datos de evapotranspiración potencial reportados por el HIMAT (112.5 mm/mes) por más de 30 años para este mismo período, equivalente a 3.75 mm/día. Con este criterio se consideraron días lluviosos aquellos con precipitaciones superiores a 4 mm.En la Figura 1 se muestra la distribución semanal de días lluviosos consecutivos y días secos consecutivos entre el 2 de Abril y el 19 de Noviembre. Las semanas 16 y 43 marcan los puntos críticos de inicio y final de lluvias respectivamente, esto coincide con lo encontrado por Amézquita et al. (1995) con datos de 20 años en Carimagua en donde se estimó en este mismo período una probabilidad del 100% de que se presente por lo menos una lluvia semanal. Entre las semanas 17 a la 29 la frecuencia de días Uuviosos consecutivos se mantiene por encima de 3 y los días secos consecutivos por debajo de 2, después viene un período de transición entre la semana 30 a 36 en donde los días secos y lluviosos consecutivos están alrededor de 2.5 días, dentro de este lapso ocurre el veranillo de Agosto que se presenta con mayor frecuencia en la semana 31. A partir de la semana 37 (16 Septiembre) la frecuencia de días secos consecutivos es mayor que la de días lluviosos consecutivos llegando a su punto crítico en la semana 43, cuando los días secos consecutivos son superiores a 4 días por semana.La distribución de los días lluviosos y secos continuos permite establecer que los límites del manejo de la labranza temprana debe iniciarse dentro de los primeros 20 días de Noviembre y completarse en el mes de Abril, para no afectar las características físicas y biológicas del suelo.Ha sido documentado a través de varios estudios los múltiples efectos de la preparación temprana en el control de malezas, aumento en la porosidad e infiltración, mineralización de nutrientes, sin embargo poca referencia se hace al efecto biológico de la labranza temprana. Estudios realizados por el ClAT indican que con labranzas tempranas (Noviembre-Diciembre) a una profundidad igualo superior a 20 cm de profundidad puede controlar hasta un 80% de las colonias de hormigas CClA T, 1989), estudios más recientes indican además que labranzas tempranas realizada en Noviembre y Abril no afectan la población de lombrices ya que más del 90% de su población se inactiva en horizontes profundos en estos meses, en contraste cuando se realiza preparación tardía en Mayo el 100% de la población se encuentra en los primeros 20 cm de profundidad donde se puede producir un alto daño físico de los individuos (Decaens et al., 1995), especialmente cuando se utilizan rastras.   ------------------------------------------- En el Cuadro 3, se presenta los cambios químicos de los suelos de sabana y con diferentes usos en dos niveles de profundidad. En el caso de los suelos de sabana, se observa como las En las Figuras 1 y 2 se presentan los contenidos de calcio y magnesio bajo diferentes usos del suelo en tres niveles de profundidad. Los niveles calcio y magnesio en el suelo muestran relación con los requerimientos de los cultivos siendo mayores en cultivos permanentes como el caucho, pino y palma africana, un poco menor en rotación de cultivos y relativamente bajos en pasturas. Cu!t. Permanentes 3.9 a 3.17 a 26.2 a 37 2.7 a 1.20 a 13.1 a 59Resalta de nuevo lo poco unifonne de la distribución de bases a través del perfil del suelo, lo que conduce a limitaciones nutricionaJes después de los primeros 5 cm especialmente en el caso de praderas que constituyen el germoplasma base de mejoramiento del suelo a través de sus raíces. En ningún caso se alcanzó una suma de bases igual a 2 meq/l 00 g como promedio en los primeros 20 cm de suelo También se observa una alta relación de Ca!Mg en la rotación de cultivos quizás porque se depende más de la cal dolomítica como fuente de estos elementos, mientras en pasturas especialmente las que se han sembrado con leguminosas o se han utilizado como semilleros y los cultivos de palma y caucho utilizan el sulpomag como fuente de magnesio además del aporte de potasio y azufre. 25 r-----------------------------------------,. 20 040  • Acumulación de biomasa de Panicum en 60 días de crecimiento partiendo de un corte de uniformización a 15 cm de altura en todos los tratamientos.Las mayores respuestas con labranza superficial (O a 15 cm) tanto en Maíz como en Panicum pueden estar afectadas por el grado de disturbación del suelo en función de la profundidad.Cuando se usa cincel a mayor profundidad disminuye el grado de disturbación del suelo y se forman terrones grandes que pueden limitar la oportunidad de desarrollar mayor volumen de raíces pequeñas. La respuesta de la cal con el uso de rastras mostró en el suelo efectos importantes hasta los 10 cm de profundidad; mientras el cincel tuvo efecto hasta los 15 y 20 cm; por esta razón; se hará referencia a los tratamientos con cincel en las siguientes figuras.En las Figuras 5 y 6, se presenta el efecto de aplicar diferentes dosis de cal dolomítica con el uso del cincel rígido en la disponibilidad de calcio y magnesio. Las dosis de 1000 Y 2000 kglha de cal se incorporaron a 15 cm de profundidad, mientras las dos is de 3000 y 5000 kg/ha se incorporaron a 30 y 45 cm de profundidad respectivamente. Como se puede observar la disponibilidad residual de calcio y magnesio post-cosecha de maíz muestra un contenido desuniforme de los cationes hasta los 20 cm en todas las dosis . Es ta desuniforrnidad puede estar asociada con limitaciones técnicas para incorporación de la cal Y lenta reactividad de la cal dolomítica como lo reporta la literatura. Es importante notar que en los primeros 10 cm las relación CalMg está alrededor de 2, mientras a los 15 y 20 cm pasa a ser l . En términos de eficiencia las dosis de 2000 y 3000 kg/ha muestran buen comportamiento.En la Figura 7, se presenta la disponibilidad de potasio con la aplicación de 200 kg/ha de cloruro de potasio bajo las diferentes dosis de cal. Es interesante observar la dinámica de este elemento a través del perfil en todas las dosis, gracias a su mayor movilidad y a la solubilidad de la fuente utilizada. Lo anterior indica que se debe tener precaución de esta fuente en cultivos permanentes de raíz superficial como la palma africana para evitar pérdidas por lixiviación.En la Figura 8, se muestra el efecto de las dosis de cal en el porcentaje da saturación de aluminio (SAL). Los niveles de SAL disminuyen proporcionalmente y en forma irregular con las dosis de cal. La curvas de SAL sugieren que la dosis de cal más eficiente es la de 3000 kg/ha con un comportamiento muy similar a la de 5000 kg/ha. Las dosis de 1000 y 2000 kg/ha se igualan a 20 cm de profundidad con más de un 80 % de SAL.Los resultados anteriores sugieren la necesidad de mejorar los métodos de incorporar la cal, la necesidad de investigar otras fuentes de mayor solubilidad y reactividad que permitan lograr niveles de saturación de aluminio más homogéneos a través del perfil.  En la Figura 4 se observa como el potasio a diferencia del calcio y el magnesio presenta diferencias menos marcadas entre profundidades debido a la mayor movilidad de este elemento en el suelo. Por otro lado en el caso de los cultivos permanentes se ve una menor disponibilidad de este elemento, el cual puede estar asociado a pérdidas por lixiviación de este elemento como consecuencia de las mayores tasas de infiltración observadas en estos cultivos como se verá más adelante. Durante el segundo año del avance del proyecto se inplementó un experimento para probar el efecto combinado de utilizar diferentes profundidades de labranza y dosis de cal dolomítica en la respuesta del suelo al encalado a diferentes profundidades, tasas de infiltración de agua en el suelo y resistencia del suelo a la penetración al momento de la cosecha. Para medir la respuesta en productividad se utilizaron como indicadores, maíz Sikuani V -110 Y Panicum maximun. Para la incorporación de la cal a diferentes profundidades se utilizó el cincel rígido, usando como testigo la incorporación con rastra. Se tomaron muestras de suelo a las siguientes profundidades: 0-5, 5-10,10-15,15-20,20-30 Y 30-40 cm. Un total de 10 tralamíentos con tres repeticiones fueron utilizados en un diseño de BCA.El mayor rendimiento de maíz se logró con el uso de rastra y dosis de 3000 kg de cal, no lográndose aumentos con mayores profundidades ó dosis de cal. Los resultados parecen indicar que el Maíz Sikuani tiene su limíte genético de rendimiento alrededor 5000 kglha, por su grado de adaptación a suelos ácidos hasta 60 % de saturación de aluminio; por esta razón, se obtuvo rendimientos altos con la dosis baja de cal (4800 kglha), las respuestas en rendimíento sugieren que este material parece tener mayor habilidad para desarrollar raíces superficiales. Para el caso de la producción forrajera del Panicum marimum se presentó mayor respuesta con el uso del cincel rígido que con la rastra en las dosis de 3000 y 5000 de cal con promedios de 3309 y 1460 kg de materia secalha respectivamente. Su mejor respuesta se logré con el cincel a 15 cm de profundidad y dosis de 2000 de cal; disminuyendo su biornasa con profundidades mayores con la mísma dosis de cal. Debido a que las dosis de cal no afectaron las tasas de infiltración de agua en el suelo, ni la resistencia a la penetración; se promediaron las dosis de 1000, 3000 Y 5000 kg de cal para comparar el comportamiento global del cincel y la rastra tomando como testigo suelo de sabana sin disturbar.En la Figura 9, se presenta el efecto de la labranza en las curvas de infiltración de agua acumulada en 2 horas. El uso del cincel mostró infiltraciones acumuladas de 212 mm, las cuales se consideran aceptables; mientras con las rastras y la sabana se presentaron bajas infiltraciones (80 y 46 mm respectivamente). Estos datos muestran relación con los valores de resistencia a la penetración medidos a capacidad de campo de la Figura 10. La sabana muestra una resistencia alta, superior a 15 kglcm2 a través de todo el perfil lo cual explica su baja infiltración. Tomando como punto cótico de resistem:ia el valor de 10 kglcm2, la rastra logró valores bajos de resistencia hasta 7.5 cm y el cincel hasta 22.5 cm, lo que explica las diferencias encontradas con las infiltraciones.  En el Cuadro 5 se presentan los cambios de infiltración de agua en el suelo por sistema de tierra y uso del suelo y algunas variables relacionadas con este fenómeno, medidas durante el último tercio del período lluvioso. Las infiltraciones de agua en el suelo (INFI) fueron moderadamente rápidas en la Altillanura ondulada (109 mrnlhora) mientras la Altillanura plana y disectada fueron moderas (60 y 51 mrnlhora respectivamente). La mayor infiltración de Altillanura ondulada puede estar asociada con un mayor porcentaje de arena y una menor resistencia tangencial vertical (RTV) con respecto a los otros sistemas. La menor porosidad total (PT) de la altillanura ondulada es consecuencia de la mayor densidad aparente (DA) de los suelos de textura liviana, explicada por los menores contenidos de materia orgánica en estas texturas , corno se verá más adelante.   ------------------------------------------------------ En relación a los usos del suelo, se encontró que los cultivos permanentes e n general mostraron mayor velocidad de infiltración (153 mrnlhora) debido a la gran protección aérea de estos cultivos contra el impacto de las lluvias y a la presencia de raíces gruesas ; en contraste el uso de monocultivos anuales en forma co ntinua mostró valores muy bajos de infiltración (6.5 mm/hora) por el uso intensivo de rastras. De la misma manera las pasturas viejas renovadas tradicionalmente con rastras y las establecidas con cultivos pero manejadas con alta intensidad de carga animal muestran infi Itraciones más bajas que las sabanas.La infiltración acumulada en suelos de sabana sin disturbar mostró una relación exponencial y positiva con el porcentaje de arena (r=0.97) como se observa en la Figura 11. En general suelos con menos de 20% de arena mostraron infiltraciones lentas, los de 50% moderadas, los de 65% moderadamente rápidas y los mayores a 70% rápidas. Por otro lado la dureza superficial del suelo a 3 cm de profundidad medido como resistencia tangencial vertical (RTV) afectó en forma exponencial negativa (r=-0.86) la infiltración acumulada; valores superiores a 45 Kpa reducen notoriamente la infiltración y valores por debajo de 20 Kpa la favorecen (Figura 12).A través de los muestreos estacionales (mitad de la estación lluviosa y final de la estación seca) se evaluó la humedad volumétrica de suelos sin disturbar por textura y profundidad y se detenninó la capacidad de campo (CC) y el punto de marchitez pennanente (PPM) bajo condiciones reales de campo y no de laboratorio. En la Figura 13, se resumen los resultados para dos niveles de profundidad (de O a 20 y de 20 a 40 cm) y para tres texturas de suelo. Los suelos mostraron diferencias significativas (P<O.OOl) en la humedad volumétrica tanto por textura corno por profundidad para CC y PMP. La CC y el PMP disminuyeron a medida que los suelos pasaron de textura arcillosa a textura Franco arenosas en los dos niveles de profundidad, sin embargo la diferencia entre CC y PMP que representa el agua disponible para las plantas es proporcionalmente mayor en texturas pesadas que las livianas. Para la profundidad de O a 20 cm el porcentaje de agua disponible fue de 16, 14 Y 9 para las texturas Arcillosa, F. Arcillosa y F. Arenosa; lo cual está asociado a los valores encontrados de conductividad hidráulica de 1.0, 1.4 Y 9.0 crnlhora respectivamente. A la profundidad de 20 a 40 cm los valores de agua disponible disminuyeron a 9, 9 y 7% respectivamente; lo que indica que la mayor dinámica de agua ocurre en los primeros 20 cm de profundidad. Estos resultados son relevantes para establecer estrategias de manejo del suelo tendientes a elevar la capacidad de almacenaje de agua disponible en el suelo a la mayor profundidad posible.Los cambios en densidad aparente (DA) y materia orgánica (MO) en función de textura y profundidad de muestreo se presentan en la Figura 14. La DA mostró diferencia entre las texturas (P<O.O 1) pero no por profundidad. Las textura F. Arenosa mostró valores más al tos de DA (1.65 g/cc) comparada con la textura F. Arcillosa (1.5 cc) y arcillosa (1.2 g/cc); en contraste los suelos arcillosos mostraron valores más altos de materia orgánica en todas las profundidades que las texturas F. Arcillosa y F. Arenosa; lo que determina mayor capacidad de almacenaje de agua de las texturas pesadas mencionadas anterionnente.     --------------------3+--------------, 2. 5 +-----------------i  2+---------------- Al analizar la distribución porcentual de arenas por tamaño de partículas (Figura 1 S), se observa que en estos suelos de sabanas ahas de la altillanura predominan las arenas finas en todas las texturas y profundidades en un rango de 60 a 80%; sin embargo es importante resaltar que las texturas F. Arenosas muestran una proporción mayor de arenas medias y gruesas que las texturas arcillosas, lo que asociado a un bajo contenido de MO puede ser una desventaja para estas texturas por la tendencia al reempaquetamiento de las partículas produciendo compactación y alta resistencia del suelo a la penetración como se verá más adelante. Una prueba exploratoria para determinar el efecto del humedecimiento y secamiento del suelo en el tiempo (15 días) se realizó durante la estación seca de 1998 en dos suelos de sabana con diferente textura a diferentes niveles de profundidad (0-5, 5-10, 10-20, 20-30 Y 30-40 cm). En cada textura se utilizaron tres marcos de I m 2 como repeticiones y tres marcos testigos para determinar la humedad inicial (día cero). En cada marco se tomaron tres muestras por profundidad para determinar la humedad gravimétrica y densidad aparente como estimadores de la humedad volumétrica. En cada marco experimental fueron aplicadas cuatro dosis de 15 litroslm 2 de agua (equivalente a cuatro lluvias de 15 mm) espaciadas cada 30 minutos;utilizando un minisimulador de lluvias (regadera) acondicionado a una intensidad de salida de 1 litro/minuto. La comparación de las medias de humedad volumétrica por día de evaluación en cada profundidad fueron altamente significativas (P<0.0001) siendo en todos los casos mayor en la sabana de textura F. arcillo-arenosa. En la Figura 16 se muestra únicamente las medias de humedad de O a 20 y de 20 a 40 cm de profundídad para los días 1, 4, 8 Y 15 postaplicación del agua contados a partir del dla cero. El día 26 cayó una lluvia natural de 51 mm (equivalente a 51 litroslm 1 ) y se aprovechó esta oportunidad para evaluar la humedad del suelo al día siguiente (día 27) para ser comparada con la del día 1. Fue interesante observar que la sabana F.arenosa mostró rechazó del agua durante su aplicación produciéndose escorrentía;igualmente el movimiento de agua en el suelo fue más lento logrando la máxima humedad el día 4 mientras la textura F.Arc-Ar logró su máximo humedecimiento el día 1. El nivel de secamiento del suelo de O a 20 cm se logró a los 15 días en ambas texturas, pero de 20 a 40 cm hay una reserva de humedad que es lo que permite en ambos suelos con una lluvia de 51 mmm (51 litroslm 1 ) el día 26 alcanzar valores cercanos o superiores a los del día 1 con 90 Iitroslm 2 .El rechazo del agua en la textura F Ar en la estación seca explica por niveles de humedad tres veces menor que la textura F. Ac-Ar (día cero) lo que genera una gran presión de vacío impidiendo la entrada del agua y su movimiento en el suelo. Una vez que el suelo arenoso genera una reserva de humedad en el subsuelo la presión de vacio disminuye y se logra alta infiltración pero baja capacidad de almacenamiento de agua. Los macroagregados del sue lo (> I mm de diámetro) en los primeros 5 cm de profundidad, estuvieron estrechamente asociados (r=0.96) con los contenidos de materia orgánica (MO) en suelos de sabana sin disturbar. Como se ilustra en la Figura 17, suelos con bajos contenidos de MO muestran un bajo porcentaje de macroagregados (MAG) y son los más susceptibles a degradación y pérdida estructural. Cuando la MO supera el 3.5% los MAG empiezan a estabilizarse lográndose el máximo nivel con el 5% de MO, cifra que de por si marca una meta de mínima de mejoramiento orgánico para estos suelos.La relación entre los MAG y el porcentaje de arena se presenta en la Figura 18. Como se puede apreciar suelos con contenidos de arena superiores al 50% son potencialmente vulnerables a la degradación y pérdida de estructura.Para medir el grado de destrucción de macroagregados por la labranza, se agruparon los datos en dos texturas (Franco arcillosa y Franco arenosa), tomando sabanas sin disturbar, pasturas de Brachiaria renovadas cada año con rastras y praderas establecidas o renovadas con cultivos utilizando el cincel rígido como implemento de labranza. En el Cuadro 6, se observa como en texturas livianas se presentó una pérdida de materia orgánica en relación a la sabana de 63 y 41 % por el uso de rastras y cincel respectivamente; lo que se tradujo igualmente en una pérdida significativa de los macroagregados (MAG). En texturas pesadas el impacto de la labranza en la destrucción de MAG fue bajo (JI y 3% por el uso de rastra y cincel respectivamente) asociado con una mayor conservación del nivel de materia orgánica.Las curvas de resistencia que se presentan a continuación fueron realizadas a capacidad de campo para reducir efectos de humedad en su respuesta. En la Figura 19 se comparan curvas de resistencia de diferentes sabanas de la altillanura plana agrupada por textura. En general la textura franco arenosa muestra unos valores relativamente bajos en los primeros 20 cm de profundidad (inferiores a 10 kg/cm 2 ) mientras la textura arcillosa después de los 5 cm supera estos valores llegando a valores de resistencia de 15 kg/cm 2 a los 20 cm de profundidad; que impiden un adecuado desarrollo radicular. La condición natural de menor resistencia de los suelos arenosos podría ser aprovechada para cultivos permanentes de raíz profunda sembrados in situ y uso de coberturas para retener humedad.  --------------------------------------------------------------------- En la Figura 20, se presenta las curvas de resistencia a la penetración (REPE) en sabanas de la a1tillanura disectada y ondulada. Las mediciones de REPE en la a1tillanura disectada fueron tomadas en depresiones con pendientes entre el 20 a 30\"10 en partes altas, medias y bajas de la pendiente; de igual manera en la a1tillanura ondulada se realizaron mediciones en sitios altos, medios y bajos con pendientes entre el 5 al 10%.En las sabanas disectadas se presentaron valores de REPE inferiores a 10 kg/cm 1 en todos los sitios hasta los 32,5 cm; registrándose los menores valores en las partes bajas «lkg/cm 1 );asociado a altos contenidos de materia orgánica y una humedad más estable a través del año. En los sitios altos después de los 30 cm se aumenta la REPE por encontrarse subsuelo lateritico como influencia de la cercanía a monticulos pedregosos. En contraste a las sabanas disectadas, las sabanas de la altillanura ondulada muestran valores de REPE superiores a 10 kg/cm l en todo el perfil y en todos los sitios. Los mayores valores de REPE en la a1tiUanura ondulada pueden estar asociados a cambios texturales a través del perfil y la mayor posibilidad de encontrar horizontes lateríticos con respecto a las sabanas de la altillanura plana que mantienen un perfil más homogéneo y más profundo.Flg 20. RESISTENCIA A LA PENETRACIÓN EN SABANAS DE LA AL TIUANURA DISECTADA(ArrIba )V ONDULADA (AbaJo) El uso del suelo en cu ltivo de piña, caucho y rotación de cultivos anuales en texturas Franco arcillosas permitió disminuir los valores de resistencia de la penetración (REPE) respecto al promedio de las sabanas utilizadas como testigo como se observa en la Figura 21. En todos los usos se presentan valores inferiores a 10 kg/cm 2 en los primeros 22 cm de profundidad. Se destaca el caucho por mantener valores de REPE bajos hasta 37 cm de profundidad.Los usos del suelo en cultivos de palma africana, tabaco rubio y pasturas de Brachiaria dictyoneura en texturas Franco arenosas mostraron en promedio valores superiores a los 15 kglcm 2 en los primeros 25 cm, mientras el cultivo de pino mantuvo un promedio de 10 kg/cm 2 con valores cercanos a 1 as sabanas franco arenosas de la Figura 19. Es importante señalar que algunos de estos valores de resistencia posiblemente estén afectados por el sistema radicular que en el caso de la palma africana es abundante y extendido.Los datos anteriores confirman lo discutido en puntos anteriores de la mayor fragilidad de los suelos arenosos a la pérdida de estructura superficial y la compactación a través del perfil.Los cambios de la población de bacterias, hongos y actinomicetos (expresadas como unidades formadoras de colonia por 100 gramos de suelo seco) en función del paisaje y la profundidad de muestreo se presentan en el Cuadro 7. En general los suelos muestran muy bajas poblaciones de microorganismos tanto por paisaje como en los sistemas de uso estudiados especialmente de bacterias y hongos. La mayor población de actinomicetos es indicativo de que la materia orgánica está compuesta principalmente por compuestos lignificados de alto peso molecular de lenta descomposición. Adicionalmente se encontró que la población de hongos y actinomicetos fue más abundante en los primeros 5 cm mientras las bacterias fueron más abundantes en la profundidad de 5 a 20 cm. La menor presencia de bacterias en la superficie puede ser debida al hecho de que tanto los actinomicetos como hongos sintetizan y excretan sustancias antibióticas que inhiben el crecimiento de bacterias. Entre los hongos que excretan antibióticos se encuentran el Penicillium, Trichoderma, Aspergillus y Fusarium que son los de mayor dominancia en la altiHanura (Cuadro 10). Por otro lado se encontró una dominancia de bacterias Pseudo monas que son facultativas y tienen la capacidad para reducir nitratos.Al analizar los microorganismos en sabanas y bajo diferentes usos del suelo (Cuadro 8), se encontró mayores poblaciones de bacterias y actinomicetos en sabanas bajas que en las altas. Las sabanas en pendientes bajas tienen contenidos relativamente altos de materia orgánica como se observó inicialmente en el Cuadro 3 y una mayor humedad que puede favorecer las Pseudomonas por una menor disponibilidad de oxigeno no limitan te aparentemente para los actinomicetos pero si para los hongos. --- Es interesante resaltar que con ninguno de los usos actuales del suelo se ha logrado un mejoramiento signifi cativo de las poblaciones microbiológicas del suelo con respecto a la sabana alta; lo que hace necesario iniciar in vestigaciones más detalladas i/1 silLl en este campo y conocer las interacciones entre micro meso y macrofauna, plantas, nutrientes, suelo y clima.En el Cuadro 9, se muestra la población de hongos micorrícicos (MV Al en función del paisaje y uso del suelo bajo dos profundidades de muestreo. En general el número de esporas por 100 gramos de suelo no mostró diferencia ni por paisaje ni por uso del suelo, encontrándose una mayor concentración de esporas en la profundidad superior (O a 5 cm).El número de esporas encontrado como promedio en los paisajes de 376 y 303 esporas/ 100 g de suelo en las profundidades 0-5 y 5-20 cm están dentro de las concentraciones normales de esporas reportadas en la literatura; sin embargo con los diferentes usos del suelo no se observa aumento en el número de esporas, posiblemente porque las plantas hospederas dependen menos de las micorrizas por tener sistemas radiculares más desarrollados y ramificados que los de las sabanas . Aeaulospora dentieulataEntrophosra spLa importanc ia de hacer esfuerzos en el estudio de la micorrizas vesiculo-arbuscul ares radica e n el papel que juega la asoc iación simbióti ca, mutuali sta, entre la raíz de la planta y el hongo endotrófico a través del s istema interconectado de mice lios internos y externos sumini strando nutrientes para la planta sobre todo los de lenta difusión como es el caso del fósforo. Por otro lad o se es tim a que las MVA están presentes e n e l 80% de las plantas superiores y en genera l no hay especificidad para la penetración del endófi to, lo que con trasta con las ectomicorrizas.La composición florística de las sabanas fue evaluada en base a dos criterios: 1) Teniendo en cuenta la contribución ó aporte forrajero C AF) de cada especie dentro de la biomasa total disponible estimada por botan al y 2) la frecuencia de aparición de la especie en cada uno de los marcos evaluados CFAM). Sólo se tuvieron en cuenta las especies de gramíneas y ciperáceas por ser las que contribuyen con la mayor parte de la biomasa. En el Cuadro 11, se presenta ellistado de todas las especies encontradas y el código de identificación que se utiliza como referencia en los cuadros sucesi vos. En el Cuadro 12 se presenta la composición n orís ti ca en dos texturas de la altillanura plana. La biomasa total estimada para suelo arcilloso fu e superior (2429 kg MS/ha) que en el F.Arenoso (1732 kg MS/ha) asociada posibleme nte a sus mayores contenidos de MO. Las especies de mayor AF en el suelo arcilloso fueron en su orden la 1, 13 Y 34 con el 68.5 , 18 .5 y 6% respectivamente, mientras en la F. Arenosa fueron las especies 1, 2 y 30 con 35.5, 34.5 Y 9% en el mismo orden. Es evidente que en las texturas pesadas hay una gran dominancia de la especie No I cuya FAM es del 100% y produce buen forraje, mientras en la textura arenosa las especies 1 y 2 aparecen con un AF similar pero con F AM diferentes (90 y 60% respectivamente) lo que sugiere que la disponibilidad de la especie I es afectada por la textura y MO. Por otro lado la alta infiltración de la textura arenosa parece mantener un mejor equilibrio de las especies en su AF y FAM.  -----------------------.---------  AF: Aporte forrajero de cada especie en porcentaje FAM: Frecuencia de aparición de cada especie en el total de los marcos evaluados La distribuci ón de las especies en un plano inclinado de la altillanura ondulada se presenta en el Cuadro 13 . El forraje total en oferta aumentó con el sen tid o de la pendiente, con biomasas de 836, 1095 Y 1440 kg de MS/ha para los si tios alto, medio y bajo respectivameme; de la misma manera aumentaron las tasas de infiltrac ión posiblemente asociada a que se presentaron cambios de textura entre sitios. Las partes altas y medias de estas sabanas son generalmente secas durante la estación lluviosa. Los valores de forraje en general so n más bajos y con menor cobertura que los de la altillanura plana. Es interesante resaltar que la especie 1 es la responsable del mayor AF en todos los sitios y aumentó su disponibilidad en el sentido de la pendiente posiblemente como respuesta a un mayor contenido de MO y humedad. La especie la es importante en su AF en los sitios alto y medio pero es sustituida por la especie 3 en el sitio bajo. Las mayores FAM fueron las especies 1 y 10 en los si tios alto y medio y las especies I y 3 en la parte baja.  -----------------------_.---------------- AF: Aporte forrajero de cada especie en porcentaje FAM: Frecuencia de aparición de cada especie en el total de los marcos e valuados Para el c aso de la sabanas localizadas en las depresiones de la altillanura disectada se encontró la mayor ofert a forrajera. variando desde 3382 kg MS/ha en los sitios altos hasta 4494 kg MS/ha en sitios bajos y con una cobertura vegetal del 100% en todos los casos. Los bajos valores de infiltración de estas sabanas se ex.plica por una alta retención de humedad asociada a los mayores contenidos de MO y baja pérdida de humedad dada la alta cobertura. La especie 1 nuevamente es la de mayor AF en los sitios alto y medio (68.5 y 84%) pero con mínimo AF en el sitio bajo (3 .5%) donde el nivel de humedad parece limitarla y pasa ha ser sustituida por las especies 13,35,34 Y 12, las cuales muestran también buena FAM.Cuadro  ------------------_ ---0.5 5 AF: Aporte forrajero de cada especie en porcentaje FAM: Frecuencia de aparición de cada especie en el total de los marcos evaluados 5.7 PRODUCTIVIDAD DEL SISTEMA AGROPASTORIL y PASTORIL TRADICIONAL EN SUELOS CON DIFERENTE TEXTURA Parte de los sitios muestreados co rresponden a experimentos de pastoreo en fincas donde se ha venido evaluando el comportamiento animal y de los cuales se presentó información en el punto relacionado al efecto de la labranza en los macroagregados y materia orgánica del suelo (Cuadro 6).En el Cuadro 15, se observa como la producción de arroz y carne es mayor en texturas pesadas que en texturas livianas, como respuesta a calidad de suelo, mejor agregación y retención de humedad como se observó en capítulos anteriores. Por otro lado, la respuesta del suelo a manejo es particularmente importante en texturas pesadas en donde la producción de carne con el sistema Arroz+pastos+leguminosas es de casi cuatro veces mayor que con pasturas establecidas en forma tradicional durante tres años de evaluación. Por otro lado, se estima que con producciones de 2600 kglha de arroz se cubren todos los costos de establecimiento de la pradera; rendimientos que se logran aún en texturas livianas. Con el sistema arroz+pastos se pueden hacer renovaciones cada tres años para evitar efectos de compactación en los primeros 10 cm de profundidad por la mayor presión de pastoreo sobre el sistema. Con arroz+pastos se puede reducir en tres veces la frecuencia de pases y aumentar en tres veces los niveles de infiltración y producir aumentos en la materia orgánica, mientras con la renovación tradicional con rastra cada año se producen los efectos opuestos. Los establecimientos a través de arroz garantizan un buen establecimiento de la pradera evitando barrido de semilla, fertilizante y erosión de suelo lo que no ocurre con las siembras al voleo. La renovación de praderas a través de cultivos es otra estrategia fundamental no só lo para recuperar las especies forrajeras sino para recuperar la capacidad productiva del suelo. En el Cuadro 16, se presenta el caso de una pradera de Brachiaria decumbens con 15 años de uso altamente degradada y recuperada a través de diferentes métodos: Rastra más fertilización, a través de arroz y a través de maíz. La mayor productividad se logró en la renovación con arroz alcanzando 387 y 298 kg de carne/ha en invierno y verano respectivamente la cual fue en total cinco veces superior a la renovación con rastra + fertilización fosfórica (124 y 9 kg de carne/ha). La renovación con maíz fue inferior en productividad de carne a la del arroz debido a que el mayor nivel de cal utilizado en el maíz, indujo un vigoroso desarrollo del Arachis pintoi que no permitió un adecuado desarrollo de la gramínea. Como productos adicionales se tienen las producciones de grano con los dos cultivos los cuales financian totalmente el costo de renovación a corto plazo y mejoran el status nutricional del suelo en contenido de bases y materia orgánica como se aprecia en el Cuadro16. En general se requiere aumentar los niveles de materia orgánica tanto en cantidad como en calidad, disminuir la densidad aparente , aumentar la infiltración y capacidad de campo para obtener un mayor porcentaje de agua disponible para las plantas, disminuir la resi stencia tangencial al corte de O a 3 cm de profundidad «45 Kpa) para lograr aumentar la infiltración y di sminuir la resistencia a la penetración de las raíces.Desde el punto de vista microbiológico es necesario incrementar las poblaciones de bacterias (> lO6), hongos (>10 4 ) y micorrizas (>10 3 ) y mantener las poblaciones de actinomicetos a través de un manejo integral del suelo (labranzas, fertilización , manejo de residuos y biomasas forrajeras). El mejoramiento biológico y físico-químico del suelo inicia con el tipo y época de labranza. Cuando se realiza labranza temprana (Noviembre y Abril) y se utili zan cinceles a 30 cm de profundidad se destruye el 95% de las hormigas y se protege el 77% de la población de lombrices las cuales permanecen inmovilizadas durante el verano en estratos profundos del suelo; en contraste cuando se realiza labranza tardía (Mayo-Junio) el 100% de las lombrices se encuentra en los primeros 20 cm del suelo, la posibilidad de destrucción física con el uso de rastras es alto, agravado con un bajo control de hormigas y destrucción de la estructura física del suelo por tener humedades cercanas a capacidad de campo.El potencial de mejoramiento biológico de suelo se puede lograr incorporando al suelo una mayor cantidad y calidad de la materia orgánica que pennita incrementar significativamente las poblaciones de lombrices (>140000 ind/ha). las cuales a su vez permiten activar la cadena microbiológica a través del sustrato de suelo y hojarasca consumida y transformada por las lombrices. Entre las lombrices nativas se destaca la especie Martiodrilus carimaguensis_por su alto incremento en población (65 veces) y consumo (27 veces) en praderas de Brachiaria decumbens + kudzú con relación a la sabana nativa como se aprecia en el Cuadro 18. En la parte química del suelo es importante lograr unos niveles mínimos de Calcio y Magnesio en forma balanceada y homogénea a través del perfil (c orno se indi ca en el Cuadro 17, para aumentar las posibilidades de uso de germopl asma con diferentes ni veles de adaptación y capacidad producti va y poder construir capas arabl es . Para lograr bal ances adecuados de calc io y magnesio se pueden utilizar mezclas de bajo costo como la cal dolomítica y fosfórica huila incorporadas con cincel hasta 30 cm de profundidad; de esta manera se hace un uso más eficiente de estas dos fuentes de baja solubilidad y una mejor oferta nutricional de Ca, Mg y P a las raíces de las plantas. El resto de nutrientes deben aplicarse en forma soluble durante el cultivo. En el Cuadro 19 se presenta una guia de las cantidades de cal dolomítica y fosforita huila necesarias para lograr un mejor balance de Ca y Mg en el suelo y satisfacer los requerimientos de algunos cultivos en texturas medias. L Desde el punto de vista de requerimientos hídricos de pastos y cultivos las lluvias inician a partir de la semana 16 (22 de Abril) y terminan en la semana 46 (19 Noviembre) equivalente a un período de lluvias de 7 meses válido en el área de influencia de Puerto López hasta Carimagua.2. Esta distribución de lluvias implica que las prácticas de preparación temprana de suelos deben iniciarse a mediados de Noviembre y complementarse en el mes de Abril para no afectar la condición física del suelo, controlar hormigas y malezas y reducir al mínimo la destrucción de la población de lombrices.3. Si se usa bien la distribución de las lluvias, es posible hacer rotación de cultivos aprovechando el veranillo de Agosto para hacer la labranza del segundo cultivo; sin embargo, en la Altillanura del Departamento del Vichada entre La Primavera y los límites con Venezuela dónde la precipitación es 56% inferior a la de Puerto López y no se conoce la distribución semanal de las lluvias la rotación de cultivos es más limitada.QUIMICA DEL SUELO l. Los suelos de sabana presentan diferencias químicas por pendiente y por profundidad. Las sabanas bajas muestran en el perfil del suelo niveles de MO, P Y bases totales superiores a las de las sabanas altas, en un 70, 68 Y 24% respecti vamente. Los nutrientes se concentran principalmente en la profundidad de O a 5 cm.2. Los usos del suelo con cultivos permanentes (palma africana, caucho, pino y cítricos) y rotación de cultivos mostraron mayor contenido de nutrientes que con pasturas mejoradas y monocultivos anuales.3. El contenido de nutrientes, en el del perfil del suelo fue desuniforme en todos los usos del suelo, concentrándose la mayor cantidad de nutrientes en la profundidad de O a 5 cm, especialmente el fósforo y el calcio y en menor grado el potasio.4. La labranza entre O a 15 cm de profundidad con dosis de 2000 y 3000 kglha de cal dolomítica mostraron los máximos rendimientos en Panicum maximun y Maíz Sikuani v-110; sin embargo, la máxima eficiencia en reducir el porcentaje de saturación de aluminio ocurrió en la profundidad de 30 cm y con 3000 kglha de cal dolomítica.5. El contenido de potasio a través del perfil no fue afectado por las dosis de cal y profundidad de labranza, con una distribución mas uniforme que el calcio y el magnesio indicando mayor movilidad que estos elementos.10. El uso de rastras en renovación de praderas en suelos de textura liviana causó mayor pérdida de materia orgánica (630/0) y de macroagregados (110/0) que con el uso de cinceles (41 y 30/0 respectivamente). En texturas pesadas el uso de cincel mantiene estable los macro agregados y aumenta la materia orgánica, mientras las rastras reducen la MO y MAG en un 12 y 140/0 respectivamente en la profundidad de O a 5 cm.11. La resistencia a la penetración (REPE) en suelos de sabana alta sin disturbar fueron más bajos en texturas franco arenosas que en texturas arcillosas.12. La REPE etre O a 30 cm de ~rofundidad en las depresiones de la Altillanura disectada fueron inferiores a 10 kglcm , mientras en la Altillanura ondulada fue superior a 10 kg/cm 2 en todos los sitios.13. El uso del suelo en texturas franco arcillosas de la Altillanura lana con piña, rotación de cultivos, y caucho produjeron valores bajos de re pe «10 kg/cm 2 ) en los primeros 22 cm de profundidad; mientras en texturas franco arenosas el tabaco rubio, la palma africana y el B. dicryoneura mostraron valores superiores a 10 kglcm 2 excepto el cultivo de pino.MICROBIOLOGIA DEL SUELO 1. Los suelos en general, independientemente del uso y paisaje, mostraron bajas poblaciones de bacterias y hongos y poblaciones aceptables de actinomicetos y micorrizas vesiculo arbusculares (MVA). La mayor presencia de actinomicetos es indicativo de la baja calidad y lenta descomposición de la MO de estos suelos.2. Entre los hongos se encontraron dominantes el Género Penicillium (76.80/0) y Trichoderrna (13.20/0); en las bacterias el Género Pseudomona (42.70/0) y entre los hongos micorrícicos los Géneros Glomus y Acaulospora.3. La población de hongos y actinomicetos fue superior entre O a 5 cm de profundidad, mientras las bacterias lo fueron entre 5 a 20 cm, posiblemente asociado a la capacidad de producción de antibióticos del Penicillium y actinomicetos como inhibidores del desarrollo bacteria!.COMPOSICION FLORISTICA y BIOMASA FORRAJERA DE LAS SABANAS 1. En la Altillanura plana las texturas arcillosas mostraron mayor biomasa forrajera (2429 kg MSlha) que las texturas franco arenosas (1732 kg MSlha) asociado a un mayor aporte forrajero (AF) de las especies Trachypogoll vestitus (68.50/0) y Schizachyrium hirtiflorum (18.50/0), mientras el AF en texturas F. arenosas estuvo asociado a las especiesTrachypogoll veslilus (35.5%), Paspa/um peclinalllm (34.50/0) y Thrasya petrosa (90/0).2. La biomasa forrajera y composición fl orística en la Altillanura ondulada cambió con la pendiente. Los sitios bajos mostraron mayor biomasa forrajera (1440 kg MSlha) que los sitios altos (836 kg MS/ha). Las especi es de mayor AF en los sitios bajos fueron Trac/zvpogon ves/itus (80%) y Paspa!um parviflorwn (17 ) Y en los sitios altos y medios el TrachvpoRon ves/itus di sminuyó a 56 y 66% Y apareció la es pecie RVllchospora podoesperma con AF de 11.5 y 16% respectivamente.3. La biomasa forrajera en la Altillanura disec tada fue superior en partes bajas (4494 kg MS/ha) que en las partes altas (3382 kg MS/ha) asociado a cambios texturales, en MO y composición florística. En sitios bajos las especies de mayor AF fueron Schizachl'rium hirtiflorum (44%) y Andropogon selloanus ( 18.5%) y en las partes altas y medias el Trachypogon vestilus fue el más importante con AF de 68.5 y 84% respec tivamente.4. Las mayores biomasas forrajeras se encontraron en las depresiones de la Altillanura disectada y las menores en la Altillanura ondulada. Los cambios en general se asocian a la dinámica de la humedad del suelo y contenidos de MO.PRODUCTIVIDAD AGRÍCOLA Y GANADERA l. Praderas establecidas con arroz en suelos de textura pesada y liviana produjeron en tres años 4.5 y 1.8 veces más carne por hectárea que praderas establecidas en forma tradicional (l2l kg carnelha); adicionalmente se lograron producciones de arroz de sabana de 3400 y 2700 kg/ha que cubrieron el 100 por ciento de los costos de establecimiento de las praderas.2. La recuperación de praderas degradadas de Brachiaria decwnb ens a través de arroz y de maíz permitió incrementar la producci ón de carne por hectárea en la estación lluviosa en tres y dos veces más yen la estación seca en 33 y cuatro veces más en comparación con la recuperación tradicional con rastras más fertilización fosfóri ca que produjo j 24 Y 9 kg de carne/ha en la estación lluviosa y seca respectivamente.1) Para efectos de poder diseñar estrategias de manejo y uso de los suelos de la Altillanura del Departamento del Vichada, se recomienda hacer análisis de la distribución semanal de las lluvias, probabilidades de días secos y lluviosos continuos.2) Igualmente se requiere conocer la capacidad de almacenamiento de agua de los suelos de la Altillanura del Vichada, la densidad aparente y distribución del tamaño de las arenas y su relación con la dinámica de humedecimiento y secamiento del suelo.3) Se recomienda hacer estudios sobre manejo de residuos de sabanas, pastos y de cosecha, sistemas de incorporación en función de la edad de corte, calidad, longitud o tamaño de desbrozado y sus efectos en las características químicas, físicas y biológicas del suelo para diferentes texturas y profundidades.4) Se deben realizar estudios con diferentes tipos de fertilizante simples y compuestos con diferente grado de concentración, solubilidad y finura, para evaluar su manejo y dinámica en el perfil del suelo con diferentes dosis para conocer su respuesta en la producción de raíces, biomasa forrajera, rendimientos de cosecha y en las características químicas y físicas del suelo por textura y profundidad.5) Estudios para evaluar el balance hídrico de los suelos de sabana de la altillanura y bajo diferentes usos relacionando precipitación, intensidad de lluvias, días acumulados de lluvia, días acumulados secos con la cantidad de agua volumétrica retenida en el perfil, agua perdida por escorrentía para determinar modelos de eficiencia hidrológica para diferentes texturas y pendientes.6) Iniciar estrategias de investigación para implementar otros usos potenciales para los suelos de la Altillanura plana que le brinden a los productores e inversionistas nuevas alternativas para diversificar la producción, mejorar los ingresos y generar empleo regional.El proyecto alcanzó los objetivos es pecíficos planteados, logrando además mediciones adicionales que permitieron en su conjunto una mayor comprensión de las características de los suelos de la Altillanura por texrura y la determinación de niveles críticos en una primera aproximación. Este conocimiento junto con la investigación instirucional permitirá generar nuevos conceptos para la elaboración de arboles de decisiones en relación al uso y manejo de los suelos, que servirán como herramientas de apoyo para los entes de planeación, transferencia y extensión.Fue fundamental para el logro de los objetivos propuestos los recursos de cofinanciación del PRONATTA y el trabajo coordinado interinstitucional e interdisci plinario durante la ejecución y desarrollo del proyecto.Los resultados del proyecto fueron socializados en tres eventos:1. Dos articulos cientificos presentados en el IX Congreso Colombiano De La Ciencia Del Suelo celebrado en Paipa (Boyacá) el 23 de Octubre de 1998Relaciones entre la infiltración de agua en el suelo y algunas propiedades físicas en las sabanas de la AltiJlanura Colombiana.Phanor Hoyos, Edgar Amézquita, Richard 1. Thamas, Raúl R. Vera, Diego L. Molina y Edgar F. Almanza.Efecto del sistema y uso de la tierra en la distribución de los agregados en suelos de la AltiJlanura Colombiana. Phanor Hoyos, Edgar Amézquila, Richard J. Thomas, Raúl R. Vera y Diego L. Malina.2. Se realizó una presentación de resultados en las instalaciones del ICA en Pto López, el dia 31 de Julio de 1999 dirigida a productores, asistentes técnicos particulares, gremios e instituciones.3. Se presentó un seminario en las instalaciones del CrA Ten Palmira el dia 9 de Septiembre de 1999 dirigido al personal cienti fico, asociados y asistentes de investigación, estudiantes de pregrado y pos grado y personal técnico.","tokenCount":"9019"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9e6efb85f1e78e6e7ab0db9f56c296c9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f4d8ec39-a801-41c5-b888-aedd05721943/retrieve","id":"2001516269"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"074caf93-a174-40ff-8d26-51a61a0c97e7","pagecount":"1","content":"Strengthen sustainable community-based farmer organizations in the target regions • Assist in human resource development through technical training • Test and demonstrate the strategic hill application of fertilizer (micro-dosing technology) for improving productivity • Conduct monitoring and evaluation for increasing impact • Identify policy and investment options that ensure optimal use of natural resources at the landscape scale Strategic Application of Fertilizers (Micro dose) for Small Farmer Prosperity in the Sahel Growth rate (3%/year, double every 25 years); consequence is pressure on the land Harsh environment; low and erratic rainfall : 350-700 mm/year; Inter and intra yearly rainfall fl uctuations Recurrent drought Inherent poor soil fertility and increasing land degradation Socio-economic constraints ( high costs of inputs and labour, etc.) Main staple foods/cereals: sorghum and millet in an unfavourable environment (productivity decreased from 450-500 kg/ha in 1960 to 350-400 kg/ha in 1990 ADAF GalléOverall , grain yields of millet and sorghum were greater (43 to 120 %) when using the strategic hill application of fertilizer than with the earlier recommended and the farmers practices.Preliminary results indicate that the income of farmers using the technology increased by 52 to 134 % Signifi cant net profi ts were obtained by the farmers using the « Warrantage\" or inventory credit system -Niger: 4 plots with the following treatments: Control ; 6 g NPK (15:15:15) per hill; 2 g DAP per hill; and 2 g DAP per hill + 1 g urea per hill 3 to 4 weeks after sowing.The technology of strategic application of fertilizer consists of applying small quantities of fertilizer in the hill of plants. This technology enables a substantial increase in crop yields with little investment in mineral fertilizer.Training Training is a key element in ensuring the sustainability of the technology and the dynamics initiated in this project. Training is done through:• Interactions with the rural communities, farmers organizations, demonstrations and workshops.• Exchange visits among the farmers organizations and NGOs from the three participating countriesTraining on warrantage, Tissala, MaliFarmers from Burkina Faso visiting service center, Bokki, Niger.NGOs and farmers from Burkina Faso visiting a grain storage store, Dantchandou, Niger. ","tokenCount":"349"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/6882532594.json b/data/part_1/6882532594.json
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3fa39a72c6df8cc9dcd431f92e54d3f4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/2f1888a6-e5d0-4a0c-91ec-d5295541dbfa/retrieve","id":"-2024578445"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7f73e3f6-da3e-4f3c-a723-45e3ce923a7b","pagecount":"2","content":"Peter Läderach Theme Long term adaptation Geographic focus Latin America Summary CIAT's research showed that coffee production is highly sensitive to climate change and that by 2050 coffee growing areas will move approximately 300 meters up the altitudinal gradient and push farmers at lower altitudes out of coffee production, increase pressure on forests and natural resources in higher altitudes and jeopardize the actors along the coffee supply chain. For cocoa the picture is not as dramatic as coffee but shifts in production areas are also likely to happen by 2050. Recognising these impacts, the Nicaraguan Government in their National Adaptation Plan for agriculture prioritized the adaptation of smallholder coffee farmers' livelihoods, and market--based diversification of coffee--based income at the national level. The National Policy led the government of Nicaragua to request IFAD support in developing climate change adaptation actions within in the coffee and cocoa supply chain. IFAD has committed USD 24.12 million to facilitate productive investments and provide technical assistance to improve productivity and increase adaptation capacities to climate change of poor smallholder producers of cacao and coffee in Nicaragua. These efforts will be complemented by the strengthening of relevant public institutions and policies oriented at providing improved climate--proofed inputs to production, improved information systems on weather events, as well as a general strengthening of the public sector to formulate incentive--based public policies for smallholder farmers. In addition to these investments, private sector investments were also leveraged based on CIAT's research. In 2012, Green Mountain Coffee pledged more than USD 5.3 million in grants to support food security efforts by NGO partners throughout their supply chain, leading to direct benefits to smallholder farmers.","tokenCount":"274"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/6905572946.json b/data/part_1/6905572946.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..adde02e193e4f63c3b54280d518aa401c3da85a5
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"95673dfc7dcb2fd18034cde2f5ea3707","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d07f8f70-e082-486f-9913-5a8dadaf783b/retrieve","id":"715644352"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0ff75f6b-ba34-4cb0-94b7-3c28d28073a5","pagecount":"35","content":"Islands of Peace (IDP) is a Belgian NGO created in the 1960's. It is a pluralist association, with no religious, philosophical, ideological or political ties. Currently IDP works in Benin, Burkina Faso, Peru, Uganda and Tanzania. IDP also conducts activities in Belgium such as advocacy and development education. The intervention of IDP in Africa's overall objective is to enable people to pursue their own sustainable development process independently and with dignity. In its countries of operation, Islands of Peace facilitates local, reproducible and sustainable development led by disadvantaged populations with their representatives and local authorities. Islands of Peace is an NGO specialized in the support for local development. Its interventions target vulnerable rural communities for whom the IDP programs tackle food insecurity.The Africa RISING partnership with Iles de Paix (IDP) seeks to deliver to farmers postharvest technology packages that improve the productive social, human, and economic conditions of smallholders in Karatu District. The goal is to contribute to sustainable family farming and responsible food systems. The partnership involves a Research in Development model for innovation delivery and scaling. This has two components: (i) introduction of the technologies in IDP's action villages using a mother-baby demonstration (demo) approach whereby learners (farmers) train their peers in a cascading model backstopped by Africa RISING; and (ii) joint research activities by Africa RISING and IDP to (a) address specific technology challenges and (b) build the capacity of partner staff and farmers. At postharvest level, the objective is to contribute to food and nutrition security through improved practices for the handling, processing, and storage of harvested produce. The aim is to transfer to farmers, processors, and other stakeholders validated technologies for improved postharvest management to reduce food losses, increase food safety, enhance nutrition, and raise the quality of produce by the following methods:• demonstrating improved harvesting, handling (drying), processing, and storage techniques for maize and legumes, • providing technical backstopping for identification and deployment of varieties with superior postharvest characteristics, and • identifying postharvest challenges within local farmer contexts and recommending best practices.During the current reporting period, the following activities were undertaken; the action sites are shown in Figure 1.• Varieties for better nutrition: Assessment was completed of nutritionally safe processing (aflatoxin contamination) and utilization properties of maize and common bean varieties popularly cultivated by farmers in Karatu. • Mechanization for time and labor efficiency: Learning sessions and knowledge exchanges were held for village-based providers of maize threshing services, staff from Kilimo Endelevu, and local fabricators, in an exercise aimed at enhancing the usefulness and integration of postharvest mechanization. • Crop storage for food security: Two follow-up visits were undertaken to assess the performance of demos and to strengthen the capacity of farmers and staff from Kilimo Endelevu to undertake monitoring. The follow-ups coincided with the sampling collection of other data. Ceremonies (field days) on opening storage devices were conducted in 8 villages, where farmers got the opportunity to evaluate the technologies.Staff from Kilimo Endelvu spearheaded the events. A total of 224 farmers (33% women) and 4 extension workers attended the ceremonies. There was evidence of technology diffusion. Farmers hosting the demos and other farmers belonging to target groups interacted and relayed information to at least 350 farmers (52% women) who did not belong to target groups. • Information for resilience: Deployment of mobile phone SMS was commenced to communicate supportive information and boost the preparedness of farmers for specific postharvest operations. In the approach, farmers are offered timely tips and reminders on when and how to undertake impending postharvest activities in line with the local postharvest calendar. Food utilization is one of the four pillars of food security. It relates to adequacy of diets and a key aspect is nutritional quality as influenced by the way food is selected, processed, prepared, and served within households. Maize (Zea mays L.) and common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) are widely consumed in Tanzania. The two crops may be cultivated as an intercrop in maize-based systems. This kind of intercropping is attractive because it improves soil fertility and also enhances productivity, economic viability, and nutrition in the system. Maize is mainly a source of calories, whereas beans complement the protein and micro-nutrient requirements. For these crops, varieties may show differences in their technological and nutritional qualities. Characteristics, such as size, color, and processing and cooking quality, define consumer acceptance because they relate directly to foods of the kind they would customarily like to consume.Thirteen maize varieties obtained from farmers in the action sites displayed notable differences in contents of protein, fat, and total minerals. These are visualized in Figure 1. The difference between varieties with the highest and lowest protein content was 3.5%, meaning that farmers who cultivated the low protein variety produced 35 kg/t less grain protein. Similarly, production of crude fat was lower by 15 kg/t and minerals by 4 kg/t of grain for the farmers who cultivated varieties containing low levels of fat and minerals. Meru H513 was superior on the basis of protein and mineral content. In general, a choice to grow Meru H513 would result in 3.5 -42 kg/ha more protein (average 14.3 kg/ha) representing an increase of 4 -49% in protein production (av. 15.9%) and 0.4 -4.3 kg/ha more minerals (average 2.3 kg/ha) representing an increase of 3 -33.6% in micronutrient production, (average 17.6%) under average levels of farmers' yields. The varieties exhibited differences with regard to processing. Dehulling is a popular processing operation among the local community. The traditional method involves placing the maize grains in a mortar, moistening them, and then pounding them with a wooden pestle until the pericarp peels off. Thereafter the product is dried in the sun and the by-products are separated by manual winnowing. Modern operations use mechanical hullers that achieve the polishing of grits and separation of by-products in one operation. The maize kernels are applied with a minimal amount of water, enough to just wet the pericarp. They are then passed through a rotary huller that removes the pericarp, tip cap, and germ by attrition or frictional force. Farmers identify ease of dehulling, less breakage during dehulling, and less dry matter extraction, as preferable attributes. Figure 3 shows that dehulling may result in the loss of 19 -28% dry matter depending on the maize variety. This could be attributed to kernel characteristics -size, shape and hardness -and the relative proportion of endosperm. Dehulling losses constitute edible matter but also key nutrients including amino acids, essential oils, and micronutrients that are concentrated in the germ. Good choice of variety should minimize such losses. Often the by-products of dehulling are left behind with the processor for disposal. An integration training on feed processing would recycle the by-products into high-value animal feed and contribute to the better nutrition of households. Also, to be considered is the fact that dehulling is known to reduce mycotoxins and residual pesticides on grains 1 . It thus improves the safety of the portion intended for human consumption but concentrates these contaminants on the by-products. For this reason, their use for feed should be taken with caution in mycotoxinprone zones to avoid the risk of re-entry into the food chains through animal products. The results for aflatoxin contamination of maize samples obtained from Karatu were negative. Three popular varieties of common bean were identified (Fig. 4). There were differences in preference and characteristics in the varieties as reported by farmers. The differences are related to productivity, postharvest and nutrition, and economic reasons (Table 1). From literature (Selian Agricultural Research Institute, Tanzania), the yield potential of bean varieties recommended for the northern highland region of Tanzania, including Karatu, varies substantially. The yield potential of the purple speckled bean (PS) is 800 -1400 kg/acre, whereas that of the yellow round bean (YR) is 500 -900 kg/acre. The maturity periods also differ; PS has a shorter maturity period of 80 days compared to YR that has an average maturity period of 90 days. Postharvest and nutritional considerations predominate the list that farmers and bean consumers choose as preferable attributes -physical appearance of grain, color stability under storage conditions, cooking properties, as well as organoleptic quality of the cooked product. However, there is also a balance among productivity, nutrition, and economic value, and this complex would be likely to influence farmers' adoption decisions around new bean varieties.  -Less yielding (500-900 kg/acre).-Higher yield than YR but lower than PS. -Performs well even under low soil fertility.-Performs poorly under low soil fertility compared to PS.-Performs better than YR but worse than PS.-Matures earlier than YR and YO (80 days).-Takes longer in the field than PS (90 days).--Harder; does not break easily during threshing.-Breaks more readily during threshing than PS.-Breaks less than YR but more than PS.-Less susceptible to insect attack during storage.-More susceptible to insect attack during storage than PS.-More resistant to insect damage than YR but less than PS. -Color is more stable during storage.-Color changes to yellowbrown during storage.-Colour more stable than YR. -Takes longer to cook (60-80 min).-Cooks faster (40 min); saves on fuel for cooking.-Longer cooking time than YR but shorter than PS (50-60 min). -More stable cooked quality; good gravy quality.-Cooked beans develop unpleasant smell when left overnight.-Cooked beans develop bad smell when left overnight just like YR. -Causes flatulence.-Causes less flatulence than PS.-Less flatulence just like YR. -Superior taste.-Less tasty than PS.-Less tasty than YR.-Lower prices in the market.- Comparative visualization of the nutritional composition of bean varieties is depicted in Figure 5.Total mineral content and crude fiber varied. Protein levels ranged from 17.1 to 24.6 g/100 g dmb. Crude fat contents were in the range of 1.3 to 2.2 g/100 g; ash contents ranged between 3.4 and 4.9 g/100 g dmb. Chemical composition of beans especially mineral content varies depending on variety 2 and locality 3 or the interaction of these factors 4Figure 5: Visualization diagram for key nutrient loading of popular common bean varieties on normalized scale. The yellow round variety (YR) is superior in minerals, whereas the yellow oval variety (YO) is superior in protein but also has higher levels of phytate (antinutrient) as well as fiber. The purple variety (PS) was found to have lowest nutritional value particularly on the basis of total mineral content.Cooking properties were considered. The whole grain flours had similar gelatinization, pasting, and retrogradation properties (Table 2). However, isolated starches did show differences. Starch isolated from YO had significantly lower peak viscosity, breakdown, final viscosity, and setback viscosity, suggesting that it was less stable during continuous heating and shearing, and also had a lower tendency to harden after cooking. However, the YR starch had significantly higher setback and final viscosity which implies superior after-cooking hardening. This hardening is primarily the result of re-association of the amylose fraction of starch. Thus, the YR variety contained starch with higher levels of amylose and the starch was also less crystalline. This property is significant in that it contributes to production of a viscous sauce which is a desirable characteristic among bean consumers. In addition, bean varieties that harden well upon cooking are preferred for canning or the processing of pre-cooked products. This observation may explain the high demand for the variety YR by traders, especially when combined with the quickto-cook property. Values down the same column followed by the same letters are not significantly different (P > 0.05). The cooking character of the whole beans may not differ while the cooking behavior of the extracted starch shows differences that could become more pronounced during long storage.Agro-processing provides a pathway for generating income by adding value to harvested crops. It enables rural farmers to be more efficient and productive in their activities while generating income which can be reinvested to make families and communities more resilient to external shocks. There are several types of low-cost mechanized maize shellers including those that are small petrol/diesel engine-powered, tractor powered, and electric powered, all designed to offer alternatives to manual means of removing maize grains from the cobs. In previous years, Africa RISING has identified and validated a small maize sheller with a diesel engine (4hp) under smallholder community arrangements. In Karatu, however, the experience has been different.Farmers have had greater exposure to mechanization, especially with respect to maize shelling.The scaling and research focus thus changed to addressing the unsatisfied needs: how to add value to the maize shellers -to perform additional tasks in a manner that integrates 2 or more postharvest operations, characteristic of the local farming system (mixed crop (maize/legume/oil crop) -livestock (cattle/poultry) system). This improvement has the potential to reduce the idling life, reduce net investment cost, and increase productivity. Four levels of mechanization for maize shelling were identified, representing different farm typologies in Karatu District. Figure 6 shows the 4 levels: (a) a small motorized sheller that is portable on motorcycles is used to provide services across villages where the terrain is difficult to navigate, usually serving small producers;  We examined the service providers and perception of the shellers (Fig. 7) and solicited responses to suggestions for improvement (Fig. 8). About 40% of the service providers are concerned about grain scattering, and over 25% are concerned about incomplete stripping of grains from cobs. Scattering and incomplete separation of the grains mean additional labor for the service users (farmers) and constitute significant losses if manual stripping or collection is not done. We measured scattering and stripping losses for different types of shellers. Scattering losses were 2.1 -23.4% (average 9.1%); losses from incomplete cob stripping were 0 -7.9% (mean 1.5%). Frequent breakdowns dampen profitability for service providers (results not shown). The small portable threshers were more prone to breakdowns, probably because they were made of light gauge metal for portability. Other challenges reported by at least 1 in every 5 service providers were too much breakage of grain and cob, poor separation of chaff (poor winnowing capability), and difficult feeding into the hopper. Cob breakage of the machines was 30 -91% (mean 62.8%). This is undesirable for farmers who use the cobs for fuel but desirable for those who would use the cobs as a filler for animal feed or manure. Nonetheless, excessive cob breakage means additional need for winnowing, which coincides with the suggestion by over 60% of the service providers that the winnowing capability of the threshers requires to be improved (Fig. 8). About 20% of service providers wanted modifications to allow easy feeding, durability, and ability to perform multiple functions. To this end, research initiatives are underway.  The greatest desire relates to capability to improve grain quality by removing non-grain matter (winnowing is an arduous task usually performed by women). There is also a desire for diversification, durability (reduced maintenance costs), and improved efficiency (easy feeding).During the current reporting period, mid-line follow-up assessments of demos were accomplished (at 3.5 months) and at end-line (7 months). Also, device opening ceremonies (field days) were implemented and organized at village level for farmers to witness their performance.The strength of such ceremonies is that they allow visual appreciation, and farmers can discuss amongst themselves and with extension staff what works or does not work and why, making it possible to explain abstract concepts and underlying principles. Moreover, farmers remember more of what they see than of what they hear.Some observations relevant for the successful performance of air-tight storage structures were made during follow-up visits (Fig. 9). At the end-line visit, two air-tight bags (2.4% of bags installed for the demos) had been damaged by rodents. This suggests that the locally made nonchemical intervention applied to capture rodents (Fig. 10) performed well, and should be encouraged since proper rodent control is necessary for farmers who choose to adopt the bags. Another two (both PICS bags; maize = 1; bean =1) were completely damaged by insects. The larger grain borer (LGB) was identified in the particular farmer's store (Fig. 11). In fact, the average LGB incidence on the harvested maize before storage across the villages was found to be 4.7% (Changarawe village 12.5%; Bashay 10%; Slahhmo 12.5%; 0% in the other villages) and reached 8.2% spread in all villages except G/Lambo at mid-line sampling. On the other hand, incidence of the common grain weevil was 76% on harvested maize before storage and 62% during midline sampling. Compared to the PICS bag, the Agro Z bag seemed to withstand LGB damage better. Further investigations are, however, under way to validate this observation. TheLGB is considered the greatest threat to stored maize, especially in the warm humid regions.Moreover, it can tolerate drier conditions better than other storage pests 5 . Successful grain storage devices must therefore indicate the capability to control and supress this pest.   With respect to beans, high infestation from the field may have supported the survival of bean bruchids in the bags. The common bean weevil (Acanthoscelides obtectus Say), and the Mexican bean weevil (Zabrotes subfasciatus Boheman) are the bruchids known to attack beans. The two pests are thought to co-exist 6 but A. obtectus appears to be more widely distributed in Eastern and Southern Africa 7 and is distinguished from Z. subfasciatus by the ability to oviposit on maturing pods in the field, whereas the latter rarely does so. Incidence of infestation by adult bean weevil was 58% at the time of storage. It remains to be established whether these bruchids were able to perforate the devices installed for demos and to what extent. Collection of these data is underway. In trials with cowpea 8 , the cowpea bruchid (Callosobruchus maculatus) was found to perforate PICS bags when sealing was delayed or inadequately done.Finally, the fact that some farmers allowed domestic animals to reside in areas designated for grain storage or tolerated dirty/dusty stores and roof leaks suggests that proper communication of storage hygiene practices should receive due attention while scaling out the technologies.Mobile telephone technology presents an opportunity to expand extension services to many farmers at low cost. It helps to standardize technical information for accurate transmission and is an effective way to reinforce knowledge acquired through practical demos, especially with regard to the recommended good practices accompanying a given technology. Traditionally, agricultural extension training is delivered through rigid channels such as print media and wordof-mouth using extension officers. These channels have limitations: They do not allow timely updating of content with new knowledge; they are slow, meaning that information may reach farmers outside the intended time bounds, and limited in scaling since extension officers can reach only a specific number of farmers per season. They are also resource-and time-intensive.   The collaboration of Africa RISING with Iles de Paix is supposed to build the capacity of staff in Kilimo Endelevu to enable them to scale out validated postharvest technologies to their target farmers. The specific research activities by Africa RISING proceeded in a manner that allowed these staff to learn and interact with the technologies in various ways, by participating in setting-up demos and field days for farmers and service providers as well as monitoring progress and collecting technical data. A summary photo report is presented . Actual numbers of farmers, extension staff, and service providers who have received training through the partnership are given in Table 3. The numbers attributed to field days and farmer-to-farmer spread are illustrated in Figures 21 and 22.           Partnership/linkages with other projects• Kilimo Endelevu provided the expected field support including travel to the villages, purchasing of postharvest management tools, and organizing/mobilizing farmers for field demos.• Kilimo Endelevu partnered with Worldveg to demonstrate vegetable technologies. As a way of enhancing nutrition integration, postharvest partners of Africa-RISING (including IITA) have partnered with Wordveg to demonstrate good postharvest handling and processing techniques for staple foods, segregating damaged, diseased, and moldy produce, and identifying good-quality grain for the preparation of nutritious meals.• The partnership with Iles de Paix improved the ability of Africa RISING to reach out to farmers and extension staff. The partnership also improved our research and scaling efforts by providing baseline data on the characteristics of farmers as well as the postharvest challenges which the farmers need to have addressed. • Scaling efforts would be boosted by making use of modern communication technology.It is therefore important that Kilimo Endelevu continues to update the telephone contacts of their farmers and extension workers, distinguishing those devices that are video enabled from those that are SMS-only. • Videos can be used for disseminating information, training, and encouraging innovation.These could be explored in addition to communicating short messages. • Open-device ceremonies are organized for farmers to witness results of demos in onsite extension events. They improve the cost-effectiveness of extension by enabling more people to benefit from a single demo. Furthermore, they provide the opportunity for farmers to learn and ask questions and encourage them to try new ideas in their own circumstances (baby demos). Although such events are cheap to organize, effective campaigns to mobilize farmers, e.g., through Village Heads, would be needed because the culture of field days is seemingly not yet deep-seated in almost all the action villages. • Strategies to boost farmer-to-farmer spreading need to be put in place, e.g., by increasing outreach campaigns in action villages. Linda chakulachako! kagua ghala mara kwa mara; Fyeka maeneo yanayozunguka ghala. Chukua hatua za kudhibiti panya na wadudu.Week 1, November   Harvesting of vegetables and data collection in the demo plots are ongoing (Fig. 5). An overview of the trainings held is given in Table 1.   7). The theme of the field day was \"Grow and eat more vegetables for improved income and nutrition\". In Swahili \" Lima, Kula mboga kwa afya na uchumi endelevu\". https://africa-rising.net/events/ The objectives of the field day were:(1) To learn good agricultural practices for producing vegetables from the host farmer group.(2) To generate discussion and find solutions to the challenges that farmers face in production and marketing of vegetables in Karatu District.A total of 215 farmers participated (117 males, 98 females) and 13 representatives from MVIWATA, RECODA, district agriculture office and local government.  The villages were identified for a baseline survey to assess the impact of nutritional messaging embedded in agricultural trainings and the communities were informed about the study. The baseline study protocol and the questionnaire were completed and submitted to the WorldVeg Institutional Biosafety and Research Ethics Committee (IBREC) for approval. The control villages for the baseline survey were also identified and informed about the study. The implementation of the survey was delayed because of the heavy rains (in March-May) in Karatu. Collecting information at this period would have been risky and visits to some areas would have been limited owing to floods. The survey will begin from 18 July 2019. Materials for training on nutrition have been prepared. ","tokenCount":"3758"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ff1de9bd4cc041fa2f76510ee22a3173","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/26fcbbd8-1bf8-48da-b9f2-401613c522ef/retrieve","id":"-741730503"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"39aab25e-b8d2-4670-94b0-9dbf8a4e34a4","pagecount":"23","content":"Challenge and Opportunity Analysis for an Innovations Hub for coordinative surveillance and early warning for sustainable management of Transboundary Plant Pests (TPPs) in Asia and the Pacific (FAO).Establishing sustainable solutions to cassava diseases in mainland South-East Asia (ACIAR) andOutbreaks of new and re-emerging plant pests and diseases increasingly threaten global food production systems [1]. They indirectly impact national security, human health and the livelihoods of millions of people, especially in developing countries [1,2]. Plant pests and diseases that can spread between landscapes and countries will be referred to as transboundary plant pests (TPPs) throughout this study. TPPs are all organisms that cause disease and can spread into new agro-ecologies or host plants, change pathogenicity or evolve to cause completely new infections in cultivated or wild plants [3,4]. Lately, the problem of TPPs in agriculture has been exacerbated by climate change, land use changes, and increased continental movement of agricultural commodities and people [1 and references therein]. Introductions (most likely through global trade and germplasm exchange) and changing weather are the primary drivers of TPPs evolution and geospatial distribution [5,1]. Introductions account for 56% of emerging TPPs [3,5,6]. Recent data suggest a strong correlation between trade and pathogen movement [7]. For instance, the annual arrival rate of plant fungal pathogens in New Zealand increased with import volumes and air passenger arrivals [7]. Also, the overuse of agrochemicals to control old pests and diseases in many farming systems in developing countries, including South and South-East Asia [8], deepens the plant disease crisis by triggering the emergence of new and resistant pests and diseases. The annual economic impact of invasive TPPs is estimated at $540bn [9], and this figure will continue to increase if pathogens associated with TPPs remain unexplored.Taxonomically, TPP causal agents cluster around fungi, bacteria, viruses, phytoplasma, and nematodes. On a global scale, plant viruses cause 47% of emerging pandemics, followed by fungi (30%), bacteria (16%), phytoplasma (4%), nematodes (1%) and others such as (2%) [3]. Unfortunately, up-to-date, country-level data on the status of economically important TPPs is not well documented in most SEA & P countries. The lack of such data greatly hinders global TPPs management efforts. In this study, we analysed the status of TPPs (using First reports [FR] of a TPPs as a concise and structured source of information), institutional capacity, public spending on agricultural research and some of the interventions (if any) deployed to manage TPPs in SEA & P countries. We used scholarly sites such as Google Scholar and online databases such as IFPRI's Agriculture, Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) to obtain peer-reviewed reports and long-term data on agricultural research and development indicators. We validated findings from secondary data sources through online polls, focused group discussions and physical observation partners in a few countries, i.e. Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. During the survey and physical group discussions, we also collected information on existing institutional capacities, infrastructure, and innovative strategies in force to manage TPPs in Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Finally, partnerships in the region were mapped using network analysis tools.Using a collection of peer-reviewed articles on first disease and pest reports in Asia published between 2000-2021 in Plant Disease, New Disease Reports, Virus Research and Australasian Disease Notes were analysed to understand the status of TPPs at a continental level (Supplementary data S1). We then narrowed the analysis to SEA & P following the selection described in Fig. 1. A total of 118 first reports (FR) published from 10 countries were selected (Supplementary data S2). Information on host plants, pathogen type (i.e., fungi, bacteria, viruses, phytoplasma, viruses and nematodes) and pathogen identification methods was extracted. Host species affected by specific TPPs were many and highly diverse. To ensure adequate sample sizes to quantify the level of reporting across different pathogen classifications, we pooled host plant species into five groups: 1) staple crops (all cereals, roots and tubers, and pulses); 2) oil crops and other cash crops (sugarcane, coffee, cocoa, rubber); 3) fruit and vegetables; 4) cultivated ornamental crops and 5) weeds. Insect pests FR were not considered in this study. Based on analytical tools (i.e., physical observations, biochemical, serological and molecular) reported by authors in the selected articles, we developed a tier-based proficiency scale (Table 1) to estimate available country-level expertise in TPPs identification. Data processing and exploratory analyses were performed in Microsoft Excel 2010.To explore factors that may affect TPPs reporting in SEA & P, we obtained numeric data (for the period 2000-2021, where available) from the ASTI database (https://www.asti.cgiar.org/) on public expenditure, human resource investment estimated as full-time equivalents (FTEs) per 100,000 farmers. FTEs estimate the proportion of time researchers spend on R&D compared with other non-research activities such as administration and teaching [10]. FTEs data by qualifications (Supplementary data S3) was used to generate PhD to BSc ratio. This was used to estimate the quality of human resource investment in TPPs research. Public spending and human resources data were compared with the number of reports per country to check for possible trends. All comparisons were performed in R statistical software.To further understand awareness of TPPs, country-level data on available human resources, infrastructure, existing TPPs management options and collaborative linkages, we focused on three countries, i.e. Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Local scientists were interviewed through a poll (Appendix A1) coupled with virtual and focused group discussions. Information collected included the most essential TPPs by crop, staffing for field, laboratory, and data analysis, and existing infrastructure, i.e., laboratories and screen houses. We also collected information on the use of visual, digital, and molecular tools to analyse TPPs and innovative strategies deployed by different countries to control TPPs effects. Interviewees were also asked to list all partners they have collaborated with in the last five years. For each player, respondents were asked to define the nature of collaboration: financing, exchange of information and germplasm sharing, or co-authorship of publications. Some partners played multiple roles. In the end, a network matrix was created.Using FR as unit of measurement, it was found that the level of TPPs reporting in the SEA & P region is lower compared to neighbour China. Between 2000-2021, 94% of total reports in Asia came from China (Fig. 2A, Fig. 2B; Supplementary data S1). We found that most SEA & P region countries expect Malaysia and Vietnam to publish less than 15 reports between 2000 and 2021. Malaysia has the most significant number of reports (49) followed by Vietnam and Thailand (Fig. 2C). However, in comparison with the number of reports made by China (1801) and Korea (418) (Supplementary data S1), during the same period, each country in SEA & P published less than 10 reports in the last two decades.One hundred and eighteen FR published between 2000 and 2021 from 10 countries in the SEA & P region were analysed. Our findings showed that the most reported TPPs were fungi (56.7%), followed by viruses (19.5%), bacteria (16.1%), viroids (3.4%), phytoplasma (3.4%) and nematodes (0.8%). Diseases caused by Fungal pathogens ranked highest, followed by viruses and bacteria. Limited studies reported TPPs caused by viroids, phytoplasma and nematodes. The reports varied between countries and host affected (Fig. 3). At country levels, three out of ten countries, i.e., Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand, dominated in TPPs research and reporting (Fig. 3A). Though the level of reporting was generally low in the region except China, these three countries published more than ten reports on TPPs between 2000 and 2021. The level of reporting also varied by host species affected (Fig. 3B). In decreasing order, the bulk of reports came from fruits and vegetables, cultivated ornamentals, oil crops and other cash crops, staple crops and weeds.Further analysis of tools used to identify TPPs, which formed an expertise scale (see Table 1), we noted glaring technical differences in expertise depending on the pathogen. Proficiency in using advanced molecular tools singly or in combination was limited, except for culturable bacterial pathogens (Fig. 4). This observation was corroborated by key regional partners from Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia during the poll and discussions. They confirmed that the number of technical staff with expertise in advanced diagnostic and analytical methods is still relatively low. Respondents also indicated inadequacy in laboratory tools and physical infrastructure for timely detection of plant TPPs and other routine pests and diseases (see Table 2).Institutional capacity to collect, identify, analyse and report TPPs is inadequate in most SEA & P countries. The total number of FTEs allocated by agricultural researchers per 100,000 farmers in all evaluated countries except Malaysia has remained lower than 20 and static since 2000 (Fig. 5A). For Malaysia, it steadily increased from about 60 in 2000 to more than 100 FTEs in 2017. We further analysed the FTEs by qualifications in each country. It was found that a large proportion of agricultural research is generated by BSC degree holders than PhD holders than BSc degree holders (Fig. 5B). Previous studies suggest that a high FTEs associated with PhD holders in a research system is critical for research conceptualisation, implementation, analysis and reporting [10]. In SEA and the Pacific, only Malaysia had the highest FTEs by PhD staff. No significant change was noticeable when research intensity (public spending expressed as a share of agricultural GDP) was compared between nations. Still, Malaysia had the highest and most stable research intensity over the study period compared to other countries.Although the number of FR published is not directly related to the actual number of TPPs affecting a country, it informs on the capacities available to detect, identify and report on a new disease and pathogen. We noted interesting trends when comparing relative reporting per country with the total number of researchers, and researchers' quality and agricultural research intensity using linear models (Fig. 6; Supplementary data S4). Relative reporting per country between 2000 and 2017 was estimated. The regional average number of researchers per 100,000 farmers was 17.9.There was a strong linear positive association between TPPs reporting and average research intensity (p< 0.05; r 2 = 0.66). Countries with a high average research intensity published more FR than those with low research intensity (Fig. 6A). Countries with low research intensity and corresponding low reports equivalent were Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Similarly, report equivalents per country strongly correlated with average FTEs per 100,000 farmers per year (Fig. 6B). The reporting rate increased with researcher FTEs, suggesting that public spending on recruiting more technical agricultural personnel may directly and positively impact TPPs detection, identification, and reporting. Further dissociation of researcher's FTEs by the level of education confirmed that countries with a high PhD to BSc ratio reported more on TPPs compared to those with a low ratio (Fig. 6C).Remarkably, import volume did not influence the TPPs reporting levels in the region (Fig. S1). Yet importation of plant-based products is known to enhance the arrival rate of specific pathogens. For instance, increased crop import volumes are strongly correlated with the arrival of fungal pathogens in New Zealand [7]. It is thus plausible that aggregation of host data regarding pathogens detected may have masked the effect of harvested areas and import volume on reporting of specific pathogens. Alternatively, it may be true that crop production and importation parameters may not be a key determinant of TPPs reporting in SEA & P countries. The absence of correlation between import volumes and TPPs reporting should not be celebrated. It may imply that a high proportion of emerging TPPs species go undetectable in the region and may complicate future predictions of crop disease epidemics. Similar observations were made against low detection levels of global invasive species [11].Cassava, rice, banana, and citrus were reported to be the essential crops across the three countries (Table 3). In cassava, partners ranked witches broom disease (CWBD) and CMD as the most critical TPPs. In rice, farmers in Laos are grappling with Tungro Virus Disease, thought to be transmitted by unknown planthopper. In Vietnam, citrus production is affected by citrus greening disease, a bacterial infection and aphid-transmitted Citrus Tristeza Virus.Analysis of secondary data previously showed that research staffing in the region is low (see Section 3.3). Through an online poll administered to different NPPOs, information on the current number of field, laboratory and data analysis staff were recorded. Preliminary results confirm that staffing in public research institutions is generally low (Table 3). For instance, the total number of laboratory staff in Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos was below 10. Furthermore, a census of physical infrastructure at the four public agricultural research institutions in Cambodia (1), Vietnam (1) and Laos (2) was carried out. Similar to staffing, there are limited facilities to conduct research on TPPs, except in Vietnam, which has 10 research facilities (Table 3).Network analysis was used to understand the nature of collaboration between national research institutions and other organisations within and beyond SEA & P. Data on partnerships in monitoring and diagnosing economically important TPPs in the past five years was collected via the poll. Respondents listed their collaborators and the nature of the partnership, which ranged from provision of funding, sharing and exchanging plant germplasm and protocols to exchanging research results and co-authorship of research articles.Preliminary results show that four major networks exist so far. These networks are represented by four distinct colours in the network matrix shown in Figure 7A. The partnerships are rooted in four NPPOs, indicated in the matrix by the large nodes, i.e. PPRI, PPC, GDA and NAFRI-RRI. We noted strong linkages between NPPOs and different development agencies, e.g., FAO and JICA and universities. Exchanging results, samples and technical support ranked highest among the components of partnerships NPPOs benefit from the existing collaborative network (Fig. 7B). Fifty six percent of the respondents showed that they received technical support to identify and combat TPPs in cassava, rice and citrus. Six partners, i.e. FAO, JIRCAS, AFACI, JICA, TTDI and the CGIAR (especially CIAT) provided funding. Noticeably, TTDI (an indigenous Thai entity ) is the second-largest donor after CGIAR-associated financing, suggesting that the potential to garner local and regional funding exists.In the poll and discussions, we solicited information on technologies used to monitor and study TPPs in Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Partners were also followed up via WhatsApp and telephone exchanges, where little information was provided. China, which was included in the analysis as a control. There was limited use of most reliable, high-resolution and rapid tools in the region compared to China (Table 4). For instance, respondents in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam were unfamiliar with using advanced aerial and underground imaging platforms, GPS-enabled tracking systems and latest molecular tools, such as Nanopore in routine monitoring of TPPs. This was expected as these technologies are costly and require highly skilled operators, which both call for substantial public investments, which is currently short in these developing countries. Limited use of advanced tools is likely impeding rapid management of TPPs in the region. Partners were further interviewed on approaches they have developed or adopted to manage existing and emerging TPPs in their farming systems. Where possible, physical assessments of available innovations were done. We found that Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia exchange surveillance information via an online database, share germplasm and use robust breeding/seed multiplication channels to mitigate the effects of TPPs (Table 5).The vicious impact of emerging plant diseases, most of which are TPPs, occurs where crop health management systems are poor or underdeveloped [15]. Inadequate investments in fundamental research on disease-causing TPPs largely characterise poor plant health systems. Analysis of peer-reviewed first disease reports in SEA & P in the past two decades revealed inadequacy in basic TPPs research and communication. Out of 2919 FR published in ASIA, only 119 originated from the SEA & P region. It was found that TPPs associated with fungi, and viruses accounted for 77% of the TPPs reported, and the use of advanced TPP identification methods is still at its lowest. The study further shows that poor public investments in required human resources and enabling physical infrastructure such as laboratories, highprecision equipment and tools affected the capacity of NPPOs to monitor, identify and communicate TPPs. This study is the first detailed scoping analysis of TPPs research in the region.Most SEA &P countries have limited institutional capacity to identify, characterise and report TPPs. Using first disease reports as a proxy indicator for power to investigate and report TPPs, we found that agricultural scientists in most SEA & P countries published less than two reports per year compared to their peers in China between 2000-2021. This is contrary to the predictions in 2014, which hypothesised that over 200 new TPPs would emerge in most SEA countries [16], which may imply that a high number of TPPs might be inconspicuously spreading in the region. Underdiagnosis of TPPs may be due to shortfalls in staffing qualified personnel and lack of required surveillance, diagnostic and prediction tools as recorded in most countries. It requires a functional integrated research agenda to combat the present gap in monitoring, rapid detection, and characterisation of TPPs. Ristaino and others proposed a similar mechanism integrating disease surveillance, improved diagnostics such as pathogen sensors, mechanistic modelling and big data analytics to mitigate future plant disease outbreaks [1].There is a need to increase FTEs ratio of PhD to BSC in SEA & P. In six out of eight countries surveyed in SEA & P, the PhD to BSC ratio was below 0.5, which may suggest a low number of PhD holders recruited or retained by NPPOs. A considerable proportion of PhD-qualified scientists is generally believed to be critical for conceptualising, executing, and managing high-quality research. It is also vital for effective communication with policymakers, donors, and other stakeholders at local and international meetings. A high proportion of PhDs may also increase the probability of winning competitive funding grants. Our interactions with local scientists in Laos and Cambodia revealed that public sector salaries are generally low, making recruitment and retention of highly competent technical staff difficult. Our findings agree with the most recent report on agricultural research indicators in SEA & P [10]. These observations suggest that several local governments should establish policies that create training opportunities for local staff with basic degrees to attain higher degrees. Staff salary enhancement strategies should also be considered to attract young skilled personnel and foster staff retention rates.Limited use of modern biophysical tools to monitor and predict their spread was observed. Timely understanding of pathogens in terms of environmental conditions, transmission routes, and evolution biology enhance forecasting disease spread at plot, field, and landscape levels [17,18]. Several multi-scale experiments using sensor systems, feature extraction and algorithms multiple scales have yielded significant results in remote monitoring of plant diseases and pests [19,20,21]. For instance, drone technology [22] and spectral image analysis [23,24] has proved effective in spatial monitoring of emerging diseases. Yin and others recently demonstrated that phenotypic fluorescent probes could be used to monitor plant metabolic changes such as hydrogen peroxide, which are part of the defence signalling cascade induced by infection [21]. Such fluorescent probes, which can function without a skilled operator, could act as early predictors of disease-associated stress in plants. Machine learning has been used to predict cassava diseases associated with fungi, viruses, and bacteria [25]. These predictive tools could help accelerate surveillance of emerging TPPs in the region. However, they are costly and thus require decisive public investment in equipment and expertise. Governments in SEA and P must increase their annual agricultural spending to procure radiodiagnostic equipment and capacity building.Existing infrastructure in the region is either ill-equipped or dilapidated. Stads and colleagues made similar observations in 2020 [10]. Dysfunction infrastructure stifles agricultural research innovations, and this problem is linked to low public expenditure on agriculture in SEA. For instance, several SEA countries have had trouble characterising Fusarium wilt (tropical race 4) in bananas, greening disease in citrus and witches broom disease in cassava due to lack of necessary laboratory infrastructure. These diseases and many more continue to spread unabatedly between borders. There is a need to galvanise donors in the region and beyond to fund improving and resourcing local facilities with tools, equipment and trained human resource to run them. For the sustainability of such country-level facilities, establishing a state-ofthe diagnostic laboratory to complement national diagnostic facilities is critical.Finally, access to TPPs surveillance data should be increased. We observed gaps in the TPPs lists. In all countries surveyed, information on symptomology, incidence, severity, and impact of economically important Data on TPPs of major food and cash crops such as cassava, rice, and citrus was scanty or unavailable. There's a need to harmonise existing TPPs profiling protocols or develop them where they don't exist. Such efforts would result in a comprehensive TTP list to boost regional-level surveillance. TPPs lists can be validated periodically through surveys and focused group discussions with country surveillance teams. It is thus important to facilitate the formation of country-and regional-level surveillance task forces to champion this cause. Representatives from farming communities, private agribusinesses, departments of agriculture, border inspectorates, NPPOs and international research centres may constitute the task force. We further noted limited utilisation of available digital resources on invasive plant pathogens. Such a gap may limit effective TPP containment between countries. There is a need to engage with location institutions charged with TPP surveillance to utilise existing integrated and well-curated databases such as CABI, PestDisPlace curated by CIAT, The Global Pest and Disease database, and EPPO. This will enhance awareness of imminent biosecurity threats to crop production.         ","tokenCount":"3556"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"76524dfdea677629b3819537a10e1625","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9144642c-6323-4160-bfd5-cc79f8c36a46/retrieve","id":"1093220963"},"keywords":["tannins","saponins","essential oils","flavonoids","methane","ruminants"],"sieverID":"ade2d855-0c41-40bc-9c79-a3c57f96c298","pagecount":"14","content":"The rumen microbiome plays a fundamental role in all ruminant species, it is involved in health, nutrient utilization, detoxification, and methane emissions. Methane is a greenhouse gas which is eructated in large volumes by ruminants grazing extensive grasslands in the tropical regions of the world. Enteric methane is the largest contributor to the emissions of greenhouse gases originating from animal agriculture. A large variety of plants containing secondary metabolites [essential oils (terpenoids), tannins, saponins, and flavonoids] have been evaluated as cattle feedstuffs and changes in volatile fatty acid proportions and methane synthesis in the rumen have been assessed. Alterations to the rumen microbiome may lead to changes in diversity, composition, and structure of the methanogen community. Legumes containing condensed tannins such as Leucaena leucocephala have shown a good methane mitigating effect when fed at levels of up to 30-35% of ration dry matter in cattle as a result of the effect of condensed tannins on rumen bacteria and methanogens. It has been shown that saponins disrupt the membrane of rumen protozoa, thus decreasing the numbers of both protozoa and methanogenic archaea. Trials carried out with cattle housed in respiration chambers have demonstrated the enteric methane mitigation effect in cattle and sheep of tropical legumes such as Enterolobium cyclocarpum and Samanea saman which contain saponins. Essential oils are volatile constituents of terpenoid or non-terpenoid origin which impair energy metabolism of archaea and have shown reductions of up to 26% in enteric methane emissions in ruminants. There is emerging evidence showing the potential of flavonoids as methane mitigating compounds, but more work is required in vivo to confirm preliminary findings. From the information hereby presented, it is clear that plant secondary metabolites can be a rational approach to modulate the rumen microbiome and modify its function, some species of rumen microbes improve protein and fiber degradation and reduce feed energy loss as methane in ruminants fed tropical plant species.A rise in the demand of beef and milk in a time horizon to the year 2050 has been predicted due to increasing population, urbanization and the rise in income by some strata of society (1). In the forthcoming years, ruminant production systems will be affected by occasional shocks such as emerging diseases, trade wars, but more regularly by climate change (causing droughts, floods, etc.), which results from the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) methane (CH 4 ) and nitrous oxide (N 2 O) among other gases in the atmosphere. Ruminant production systems contribute significantly to the emissions of enteric CH 4 (2) to the atmosphere. Considerable research efforts are being invested in the attempt to mitigate this potent greenhouse gas which is 28 times a higher global warming potential compared to that of CO 2 (3).Tropical pastures are characterized by a high concentration of structural carbohydrates (cellulose, hemicellulose) and low concentrations of crude protein (N x 6.25). A fact which constrains anaerobic fermentation of organic matter and induces long retention times of digesta in the reticulo-rumen (4), leading to high emissions of enteric CH 4 (5). Under those circumstances, it has been claimed that secondary metabolites contained in a wide variety of plants may mitigate CH 4 emissions through a variety of mechanisms involving the rumen microbiome (6)(7)(8). Although secondary metabolites may be usually considered beneficial, the concentration of certain ergot alkaloids such as ergosine and ergocristine in pastures may lead to toxicity under certain circumstances in grazing animals such as sheep and horses (9). Maximal anaerobic fermentation of structural carbohydrates in the rumen is paramount in the transit toward sustainable intensification of tropical animal agriculture by extracting the largest possible amount of useful energy from the rumen which is limited thermodynamically (only 4-5 ATP/mol glucose fermented), for productive purposes. Rumen anaerobiosis dictates that only a limited amount of ATP can be generated from glucose fermentation to volatile fatty acids, heat, CO 2 , and CH 4 (10). The rumen microbiome is strongly associated to economically and environmental variables which affect feed efficiency and sustainability of ruminant production (11,12). Increasing the flow of H 2 in the rumen away from CH 4 formation toward propionic acid synthesis increase the efficiency of metabolisable energy utilization at the whole animal level while reducing the environmental impact of animal production. It has been recently demonstrated that propionic acid bacteria increase feed degradability and decrease methane production under in vitro conditions thus shifting the H 2 flow away from CH 4 synthesis toward propionate formation (13), a gluconeogenic precursor.Other rumen microorganisms are the anaerobic fungal communities, eighteen species from six genera, including monocentric Neocallimastix, Caecomyces, Piromyces, and the polycentric Anaeromyces, Orpinomyces, and Cyllamyces. These groups of microorganisms serve to expose cellulosic components to bacteria to synthesize VFA, but the relationship of fungal abundance with methane emission is still uncertain (14,15). Rumen metagenome sequencing studies reveal that the higher abundance of Bacteroidetes in the rumen improves feed efficiency, combined with a lower abundance of Firmicutes and methanogenic archaea (16). It has been shown that the reduction of genera such as Methanobrevibacter and Acetobacter are potential targets for the reduction of CH 4 , on the other hand, an increase in the abundance of the genera Methanosphaera and Eubacterium led to reductions in CH 4 emissions in heifers (17). The diversity of the rumen microbiome is related to a myriad of factors such as breed, age, rumen volume and passage rate, geographical location, physiological stage, but essentially to the chemical composition of the ration consumed which is reflected in the resulting pattern of fermentation (15,18). It is in this context, that plant secondary metabolites (PSM) such as tannins, saponins, essential oils, and flavonoids play an important role in the efforts to mitigate the emissions of CH 4 from ruminant species. There is a large number of shrub and trees, both legume and non-legume species with great potential for ruminant production in the tropics (19)(20)(21) among them, Leucaena leucocephala is one of the most promising (22), which contain a wide variety of secondary compounds (23)(24)(25)(26)(27) with potential methane-suppressing properties. Secondary metabolites display different mechanisms of action either direct or indirect on the ruminal fermentation and rumen microbiome which decreases CH 4 synthesis, but an important factor to consider is the persistency of the effect. The aim of the present review is to critically examine the mechanisms of action of secondary compounds contained in a number of tropical plant species on CH 4 mitigation in ruminants.Ruminants are herbivorous that maintain a symbiotic relationship with a large consortium of microorganisms which inhabit the reticulo-rumen. The rumen microbial ecosystem has not been fully studied; therefore, it is difficult to understand all the mechanisms of its functioning, complexity, and interaction among the microbes (28). In the rumen, protozoa, bacteria, and fungi communities ferment enzymatically structural carbohydrates, starch, and proteins. During the fermentation process, volatile fatty acids (VFA), CO 2 , and metabolic H 2 are produced and used by methanogenic archaea for the synthesis of CH 4 (7). Methanogenic archaea fluctuate between 10 7 and 10 9 cells per milliliter of rumen fluid (29) and approximately two thirds belong to the genus Methanobrevibacter and Methanosarcina (30) representing 1-4% of the microbial biomass. Protozoa use starch, cellulose, hemicellulose, pectin, and soluble sugars to produce VFA and metabolic H 2 that is used by the archaea that are attached to its surface to produce CH 4 (31); thus, there is an association between archaea and the protozoa in the rumen (26,32). Archaea produce CH 4 as a metabolic strategy to obtain the energy necessary for their growth (33). Rumen methanogens use the H 2 resulting from the fermentation of carbohydrates to reduce CO 2 to CH 4 in a series of biochemical reactions coupled to ATP synthesis, where CO 2 is used as a carbon source and H 2 as the main donor of electrons. In this process, 4 moles of H 2 are used to produce one mole of CH 4 (34). The chemical reaction for methane synthesis is COMethanogenesis is the main biochemical pathway for the removal of metabolic hydrogen released from fermentation of carbohydrates in the rumen. A decrease in CH 4 synthesis would be achieved by inhibiting H 2 -releasing reactions or promoting alternative pathways, where H 2 is removed during fermentation. The rate of methane production in the rumen depends particularly on the composition of the ration, being the type carbohydrate (cellulose vs. starch), protein and lipids, the components that most influence exert (26,35), but also on physiological factors such as retention time of digesta in the rumen. The main factor from the ration determining methane synthesis in the rumen is the type of carbohydrate fermented, either structural (cellulose, hemicellulose) typical of forage rations or non-structural (starch, soluble sugars) characteristic of grain (concentrate) rations. The type of carbohydrate being fermented in the rumen also dominates the composition of the rumen microbiome (cellulolytic, amylolytic, pectinolytic, types of bacteria).Methane is a gas produced in the rumen and is continuously emitted throughout the day; mostly eructated to the atmosphere by the mouth and to a lesser extent by the nostrils (and the anus). CH 4 has a heat of combustion of 892.6 kJ/mol (i.e., 55.65 MJ/kg) (36) and represents an energy loss (3-12% of gross energy intake) for the animal. There is considerable potential to manipulate the fate of metabolic hydrogen in the rumen, away from methane synthesis toward propionic acid formation which consumes the hydrogen available, by feeding plants containing secondary metabolites to ruminants. Methanogenesis is the main molecular H 2 sink in the rumen and the partial pressure of H 2 thermodynamically controls the oxidation-reduction state in this organ for fermentation to proceed for the synthesis of volatile fatty acids, heat, and microbial matter (37). Propionic acid is the only gluconeogenic volatile fatty acid with potential to improve the efficiency of utilization of metabolisable energy in the whole animal for productive purposes (38). The challenge ahead for the development of low-emission animal production systems lies in inducing changes in the rumen microbiome by feeding plants containing secondary metabolites, which will induce alterations in rumen fermentation, rechannelling H 2 into more energetically efficient biochemical pathways (i.e., VFA synthesis: propionate) which will concomitantly decrease CH 4 formation.PSM have long been considered important for their protective role against plant predators, their synthesis is regulated by environmental, seasonal, or external stimuli. For years, secondary metabolites have been considered toxic to animals and they were termed anti-nutritional factors (39). However, in the last few decades those metabolites have gained growing interest in animal nutrition due to their beneficial effect for the control of parasites, rumen fermentation, and methane synthesis reduction.PSM possess ample biological activity in ruminal fermentation processes involved in herbivory and also by their potential to affect growth rate of the rumen microbial population so as to provoke changes that induce mitigation of enteric CH 4 emissions in ruminants (27). Tannins (8,40), saponins (25,41) essential oils (24,42), and flavonoids (41,43) have all been evaluated in their potential for enteric CH 4 mitigation in ruminants. Frequently, their effects on the rumen microbial population are indirect rather than direct. Plants may have a wide variety of secondary metabolites in large or small quantities which may determine their effect on rumen microorganisms. Table 1 describes the effect of PSM on methane production and Table 2 show the effect of secondary metabolites on the microbial population.Tannins belong a subclass of plant polyphenols (8). Tannins can be divided in hydrolysable and condensed tannins which have different chemical structures (66). Hydrolysable tannins usually contain a polyol core molecule, usually glucose, but also other core molecules such as: glucitol, hammamelose, shikimic acid, quinic acid, and quercitol. On the other hand, condensed tannins distinguish themselves from other polyphenols by their capacity to form complexes and precipitate proteins. They are proanthocyanidins consist of oligomers or polymers of flavan-3-ol subunits (67). Condensed tannins are the secondary metabolites more studied in terms of methane mitigation compared to hydrolysable tannins. Figure 1 illustrates the chemical structure of common condensed and hydrolysable tannins.Tannins have the capacity to reduce methane synthesis in the rumen directly or indirectly by either inhibiting methanogens or protozoal population, respectively. There are several possible hypotheses to explain the mechanisms of action of tannins on enteric CH 4 mitigation (40). One of them suggest a direct effect of condensed tannins on rumen methanogenic archaea by binding the proteinaceous adhesin or parts of the cell envelope, thus impairing the establishment of the methanogenprotozoa complex and decreasing interspecies hydrogen transfer and inhibition of methanogen growth (68). Another possible explanation is by indirect inhibition by reducing the availability of nutrients (i.e., carbohydrates, amino acids) to rumen microorganisms, tannin-protein complexes are formed at in the rumen and that postruminal pH shifts in the abomasum (pH <3.5) and the small intestine (pH >7) release protein from these complexes, thus making it available for gastric digestion (69), thus reducing digestibility of feed, and impairing the rumen microbial population. A last theory proposes that condensed tannins act as hydrogen sink themselves diminishing their availability for carbon dioxide reduction to methane, implying that 1.2 mol methane is reduced per mol of catechin (i.e., 6 H 2 atoms per molecule of catechin) (40).Crossbred cows fed a mixture of a low-quality tropical grass (Megathhyrsus maximus) and increasing levels of chopped legume leaves of Leucaena leucocephala, and housed in opencircuit respirations chambers decreased methane production (44) as the level of leucaena intake was increased from 0 to 36% of ration DM. Leucaena leucocephala is a legume species widely distributed in Latin America and The Caribbean regions, which is commonly fed to cattle by farmers (70). The reduction up to 20% in methane emissions, agrees with previous work carried out with cows fed Leucaena leucocephala in Colombia (48) and in grazing cows consuming leucaena pastures in Australia (71).It is likely that under those conditions, condensed tannins in the legume had an effect on the rumen microbial population reflected in methane reduction. It has been considered that high molecular weight CT fractions of Leucaena leucocephala have higher protein-binding affinities compared to low molecular weight fractions, therefore the effect may be associated to the binding ability to cell membranes, resulting in the prevention of nutrient transport into the cell and inhibition of microbial growth (72).Other tropical legumes such as Desmanthus spp. have also induced a reduction in enteric CH 4 emissions in cattle grazing tropical pastures (73). In India, Pal et al. (74) studied a range of tree leaves containing different concentrations of condensed tannins, demonstrating the strong relationship between tannin content in leaves and methane mitigation under in vitro conditions. Condensed tannins (17.2%) and saponins (10.9%) from mangonsteen peel offered at 100 g/head/day to swamp buffaloes increased total bacteria population and R. flavefaciens while methanogens were decreased (p < 0.05) (51). Another study reported a reduction in methane production of up to 25% with mangosteen peel and garlic pellet (75). Acacia cyanophylla in an in vitro study supplemented at 60 and 30% reduced 37.5 and 56.2% CH 4 production, respectively due to the high content of condensed tannins that reduced archaea (76).Saponins are high molecular weight glycosides, with a sugar linked to a hydrophobic aglycone (Figure 2). They usually occur as glycosides of steroids or as polycyclic triterpenes. Saponins can be generally classified as steroidal and triterpenoid (77). Saponins are present in a wide variety of tropical trees and shrubs and ruminant species eagerly consume their foliage or pods while browsing. It is generally considered that their main biological effect is on cell membranes. Saponins have been described to be toxic to protozoa (25) and it has been suggested that methanogenic archaea are symbiotically associated to rumen protozoa.Saponins have the capacity to form complexes with the lipid membrane of bacteria, which increases their permeability, generating an imbalance, and consequently lysis of the microorganism, most of the saponins have an effect on protozoa (78). Wallace et al. (79) proposed that saponins may disrupt protozoa by forming complexes with sterols in the protozoal membrane surface which then becomes impaired and disintegrate. In addition, some saponins have influence on different types of membrane proteins such as Ca 2+ channels and Na + -K + ATPases (80). Ramos-Morales et al. (81) proposed that the effect of saponins on protozoa is temporary due to the fact that bacteria may degrade saponins into sapogenins, a compound that cannot affect protozoa. Wina et al. (82) suggested that protozoa are able to produce extracellular polysaccharides around the membrane to avoid its degradation. In addition, protozoa, depending on the dose and type of the saponin fed, can be reduced in the long term or adapt to the metabolite in the short term (82).Samanea saman (rain tree, in Spanish: algarrobo, genízaro) is a tropical legume present in Mexico, Central America and northern countries of South America as well as Asia and Africa. It contains crude protein and fermentable sugars, the pods fall during the dry season and they are directly consumed by cattle (83). Anantasook et al. (52) supplemented ground pods of Samanea saman (rain tree) containing tannins and saponins to rumen-cannulated dairy steers fed a basal ration of urea-treated rice straw and found a reduction in methane emissions also  50% and an increase in propionic acid in rumen liquor, although no effect on the rumen protozoal population was recorded. In this experiment the rechannelling of H 2 toward propionate synthesis in the rumen, was the most plausible explanation for the decrease in methane emissions. Foliage and pods (45) of Samanea saman show good potential to mitigate enteric methane emissions under practical conditions in farms as part of the ration of grazing ruminants, particularly during the dry season. Similarly, Enterolobium cyclocarpum (in Spanish: guanacaste, parota) is a tropical tree which produce foliage and pods which can be employed in ruminant feeding. It is widespread in Central and northern South America and also in Africa (Nigeria). The seeds contain starch (84) and the ground pods of Enterolobium cyclocarpum can be readily incorporated in the rations of sheep at levels of 32% (85) and up to 50% (86) with good results in terms of liveweight gain. It has been studied in Canada (87, 88), in Switzerland (89, 90) and in the United Kingdom (91) because of its methane-suppressing properties. It seems the saponins contained in the foliage of Enterolobium cyclocarpum affect rumen protozoa population in a selective form (87, 88). The foliage is readily consumed by goats (92). Albores-Moreno et al. (93) found that supplementation of hair sheep with ground pods of Enterolobium cyclocarpum (36% DM) decreased enteric methane emissions (estimated by fermentation balance stoichiometry) and the protozoa population, probably as a result of the effect of saponins on the membrane of some protozoa species.Essential oils (EO) are aromatic compounds (Figure 3) largely volatile, which can be found in edible, medicinal, and herbal plants. They are produced in special cells in different parts of the plants, including roots, seeds, fruit, leaves, flowers, bark, petals, and stems (94).The potential of EO for enteric CH 4 mitigation has been revised (24,91). The beneficial effects of EO on the animal such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, immune status, and antimicrobial have been shown against a wide variety of microorganisms either Gram-positive or Gram-negative bacteria, fungi, viruses, and protozoa, but more effective against the Gram positive, because most active compounds present in essential oils are lipophilic. In the Gram-negative type, the aromatic hydrocarbons destroy the external membrane (94, 95). This antimicrobial activity is believed to be due to certain terpenoids;  (15,000 described in the literature) and phenolic compounds but also to other chemical constituents and functional groups contained in essential oils, 20-60 chemical substances such as acids, alcohols, aldehydes, hydrocarbons, ketones, esters, coumarins, and ethers in trace amounts have been identified (96). EO present a high affinity for the membrane cell of bacteria due to their hydrophobic nature and their affinity for lipids which can disrupt the cytoplasmic membrane either directly or by damaging the membrane proteins, provoking increased membrane permeability, conformational changes, leakage of cytoplasmic components, interfering with bacterial growth and activity, causing changes in the rumen population and fermentation profile (97, 98).The antimicrobial action has been related to electron transport, ion gradient, protein translocations, phosphorylation, and enzyme reactions (99). It has been proposed that the phenolics thymol and carvacrol inhibit Gram-negative bacteria by disrupting the outer cell membrane and decreasing the concentration gradient (42). EO may cause changes in the archaeal community structure, decreasing methanogen abundance, some protozoa species, and methane production up to 37%, the challenge is finding the appropriate essential oil which minimize the decrease in feed degradation (98).In vitro experiments have been encouraging using thymol, carvacrol, cinnamaldehyde, and allicin, limonene and in vivo Xtract Citrus by-products are widely used as energy supplements during the dry season in many tropical countries with good results in animal performance (106, 107). It is of special attention that some essential oils elicit feed consumption due to the aroma they add to the ration and in some other cases negatively affect palatability, as in the case of garlic oil (108). Further trials are needed, to consider the use of essential oils as a commercial option at farm level, learn about the interactions of the active compounds with the ingredients of the ration and their capacity against specific methanogens should be identified without affecting other groups of microorganisms in the rumen, so as not to alter fermentation pattern and rumen degradability, as well as the different doses for each essential oil, the persistence of the enteric CH 4 mitigating, the possible increase in production and its economic benefits.Flavonoids are polyphenols with the C6-C3-C6 skeleton, derivatives of benzo-L-pyrone (109,110) which are found in seeds and vegetables and display anti-inflammatory, antioxidative, and antimicrobial properties and interfere with different bactericidal factors, including enzymes, toxins, and signal receptors (111) and potential to improve animal welfare. Flavonoids can be generally classified on the basis of their molecular structure and are grouped into eight different flavonoid groups: flavanol, flavandiol, flavanone, dihydroflavonol, flavone, flavonol, isoflavone, and anthocyanidin [(112); Figure 4].Flavonoids are well-known to be beneficial during periods of animal stress, balance rumen pH in subacute acidosis, reduce the inflammatory state of high grain diets, and for their antibacterial activity which depends on their chemical structure particularly on the substitutions on the aromatic rings (41). Flavonoids exert their effect against Gram-positive microorganisms by inhibiting the function of the cytoplasmic membrane, inhibiting the synthesis of the bacterial cell wall, or by inhibition of nucleic acid synthesis. Flavonoids have been proposed for incorporation in ruminant rations to improve productivity through an increase in the production of propionate relative to acetate (41). Oskoueian et al. (56) reported that the flavonoid naringin and quercetin reduced methane production, ciliate protozoa, and hydrogenotrophic methanogens in vitro.Seradj et al. (53) found that a commercial citrus extract of flavonoids blend (Bioflavex R ) reduced methane production, the population of hydrogenotrophic methanogenic archaea and increased the concentration of propionate and the population of Megasphaera elsdenii in vitro. Stoldt et al. (47) found that rutin (glucrohamnoside of quercetin) had no effect on methane production or energy metabolism of Holstein cows housed in respiration chambers. Cui et al. (113) reported that the addition of 3.0 mg rutin/kg to diets on multiparous Chinese Holstein cows increased milk yield (10.06 %) in the long term and improved metabolism and digestibility of dairy cows. Other experiments using Holstein cows and supplementation of 60 mg/kg body weight of alfalfa flavonoid extract increased the valeric acid:total volatile fatty acid ratio, the composition of milk, nutrient digestion, and had a tendency to increase the population of Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens (114). Recently, Sinz et al. (55) under in vitro conditions found that the flavonoid luteolin-7-glucoside did reduce methane. It seems from the data available that flavonoids show potential for methane mitigation but further research in trials carried out in vivo are necessary.The results found with the use of secondary metabolites for the reduction in methane synthesis are variable and dependent on the type of the metabolite, its characteristics and the ration. It is also necessary to verify their effect on methane production in long-term in vivo trials due to the possible adaptation of rumen microorganisms to the metabolite and the differences presented between in vitro and in vivo trials.There are considerable challenges ahead for small livestock keepers in the way toward sustainable intensification of animal agriculture in developing countries (115)(116)(117). Enteric CH 4 emissions originating from ruminant species have been accumulating in the atmosphere from decades ago, with the greatest increase originating from cattle in developing countries, probably because of the rise in animal numbers (118). In the present review, the potential of tropical trees and shrubs (21) to lead the way toward sustainable intensification of ruminant production has been emphasized with data from experiments carried out in developing countries. Some of the important issues to move one step ahead from laboratory experiments to on-farm application of results, are: fair access to markets for smallholders, organization of smallholders (i.e., cooperatives), access to credits and financing, technical support, incorporation of added value to products, development of sustainable value chains (119,120). Small livestock keepers in developing countries actually use a range of tropical plants (i.e., legumes) to feed their animals on a daily basis, particularly in the dry season and therefore, they are mitigating enteric CH 4 emissions at present without actually being aware of it. It is responsibility of those in office at agricultural ministries, international agencies (119,120) or in universities (121) to make this clear to the general public and to decision makers in their areas of influence. It is also important to eliminate the distortions in agricultural policy which unfairly favor economies of scale (large producers) against small livestock keepers. There is great potential to mitigate enteric CH 4 emissions in the cattle sector in developing countries with a concomitant improvement in productivity and livelihoods of the poor (122)(123)(124). Novel approaches in public policies through incentives (tax and trading schemes) for producers applying CH 4 mitigation practices at farms, may be worth testing in developing countries for widespread adoption (125). Although, it is also highly advisable to improve on the methane inventories of regions or indeed countries from Tier I, to higher levels (i.e., Tier II) of accuracy (126) before any CH 4 mitigation strategy is put into effect on the field.Ruminant production systems will face tremendous challenges in the next forthcoming years due to the increasing demand for beef and milk by the burgeoning population. Climate change (floods, droughts, hail storms) and disease (Covid-19) are imposing a severe negative impact on the health status and economic wellbeing of millions of smallholders in developing countries. Undernutrition is growing rampant in many Latin American countries, particularly in rural areas. Sustainable intensification of ruminant production is a prerequisite to accomplish the ambitious GHG mitigation goals set by national governments to comply with international agreements. There is a need to reduce emissions of greenhouses gases from ruminant production systems while increasing energetic efficiency of protein and fat synthesis in the whole body and in the mammary gland. The ample array of plant secondary metabolites with methanesuppressing potential will have a role to play regarding mitigation of enteric CH 4 under practical farming conditions in tropical countries with smallholders. Usually, PSM such as tannins, saponins, essential oils, and flavonoids act either by affecting directly methanogenic archaea or indirectly by disrupting the membrane of rumen protozoa. Some secondary metabolites also increase molar proportions of propionic acid in the rumen, thus rechannelling H 2 away from methanogenesis toward synthesis of propionic acid. In the tropics, supplementation with foliage, pods, tubers, seeds of a range of tropical species seems a rational, and practical approach for enteric methane mitigation under the conditions of small-scale ruminant production systems. Browses and pods of tropical plant species supply rumen fermentable nitrogen for the microbial population, thus improving microbial protein synthesis and degradation of fermentable organic matter in the rumen, a main driver for productivity in ruminant species. As we advance in our understanding of the mechanisms by which secondary metabolites alter rumen fermentation, it is of paramount importance to understand the interplay between the supply of those metabolites, the rumen microbiome and methanogenesis so as to maximize feed efficiency, one of the most important features of financial profitability in ruminant production. ","tokenCount":"4703"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"57f52931f9500f44bd2ce82da69352d8","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c9807a56-b4c2-4779-92ac-e22a1c8ccf96/retrieve","id":"-1520109596"},"keywords":["Atkinson, R.J.","Thomas, E.","Roscioli, F.","Cornelius, J.P.","Zamora-Cristales, R.","Franco Chuaire, M.","Alcázar, C.","Mesén, F.","Lopez, H.","Ipinza, R.","et al. Seeding Resilient Restoration: An Indicator System for the Analysis of Tree Seed Systems Argentina","Chile","Colombia","Costa Rica","Guatemala","Mexico","Peru","diversity","climate change","seed system","forest genetic resources"],"sieverID":"14ec8be4-a564-4730-8d4b-0ab2cae851b4","pagecount":"13","content":"Achieving multi-million-hectare commitments from countries around the world to restore degraded lands in resilient and sustainable ways requires, among other things, huge volumes of tree planting material. Seed systems encompassing all forest reproductive material (e.g., seeds, cuttings, stakes, and wildings), are key to ensuring that sufficient planting material with a diverse range of suitable species, adapted to local conditions and capable of persisting under a changing climate, is available for restoration projects. The ideal structure of a seed system integrates five components: seed selection and innovation, seed harvesting and production, market access, supply and demand, quality control, and an enabling environment. We propose 15 indicators to evaluate these key components and trial them by assessing national seed systems in 7 Latin American countries. We conclude that the indicators enable a straightforward assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of national seed systems, thus assisting governments to identify key areas for improvement and opportunities for horizontal learning.The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) calls for the protection and revival of ecosystems around the world, for the benefit of people and nature. This proclamation was made in response to the global biodiversity and climate crises, and countries around the world have already committed to the restoration of millions of hectares of degraded land [1]. A significant share of these commitments will be achieved through active tree planting [2,3]. With the goal to regain ecological functionality and enhance human well-being across deforested or degraded landscapes [4,5], not only are the quantity and availability of planting material important, but also the quality. High quality material enables provision of the desired ecosystem services and the necessary genetic diversity to persist into the future [6]. The genetic quality of planting material has three main dimensions: (i) ensuring adaptedness to the current and future environmental conditions of a given planting site; (ii) promoting the long-term viability and resilience of restored populations; and (iii) favoring genetically based desirable traits (e.g., straight stems for timber production). The desired quality of planting material will ultimately depend on the objectives and time scales of restoration projects.At present, the limited availability and accessibility of quality planting material is a constraining factor in restoration programs [7,8]. Thus, there is a global need to strengthen seed production and supply systems at the national, regional, and local level. This will ensure that material with a diverse range of suitable species, adapted both to local conditions and capable of persisting over generations under a changing climate, is available. Functional seed systems need to integrate five interlinked components: (i) seed selection and innovation; (ii) seed harvesting and production; (iii) market access, supply, and demand; (iv) quality control; and (v) a favorable enabling environment. The word \"seed\" is hereby used to refer to seeds, cuttings, stakes, wildlings, and any other form of forest reproductive material (FRM).Seed selection and innovation. Restoration projects that involve active tree planting should choose species and seed sources that can survive and grow under site-specific conditions in the short term and persist under a changing climate in the longer term [9,10]. The species choice should also be aligned with restoration objectives defined by stakeholders and with local people's preferences and needs [11][12][13]. Generating and sharing knowledge on the most suitable species and seed sources for different planting conditions and restoration objectives is key. This requires the integration of information that includes traditional and local knowledge [14,15], species ecology and functional traits [16,17], climate modeling, genetics and genomics, pilot plantings, and provenance or progeny trials [6,18], etc.Seed harvesting and production. FRM can be procured from the wild (in situ harvesting of seeds and wildings from natural vegetation, farmland, and managed forests), or from selected material (seed orchards, clonal gardens, and via in vitro propagation) [19]. The material can be used directly in nurseries or stored in seedbanks [20]. Nurseries can play a key role in linking FRM from diverse seed sources to the end user, as well as providing and managing information to enable an informed choice of appropriate FRM. This includes the origin of the material, predicted suitability for a restoration site, and its genetic diversity [19,21]. Seed harvesting and production can involve a wide variety of stakeholders, including indigenous and local communities, farmers, private landowners, protected areas, and public and private sector actors [22].Market access, supply, and demand. In contrast to systems for commercial timber tree species that have existed for 40-50 years in the tropics [23][24][25], the demand for and supply of native species for restoration are still in their infancy. While FRM for restoration is often produced by projects for their own use [7], the challenge for seed systems lies in establishing the cost-effective collection of FRM from different provenances into a nationwide distribution system. This ensures that buyers can have access to FRM that is locally adapted and suitable for future climate conditions [23,25]. Seed supply systems for forest restoration include government-centralized models, community-level production with supply facilitated by NGOs, and commercial seed supply (often established with public funding) [25,26]. The optimal supply system will depend on political preferences, existing infrastructure and institutional arrangements, as well as available investment.Ultimately, what is available in a seed supply system will be driven by demand [27]. Demand can be created in multiple ways, but public authorities in particular can play an important role in disseminating knowledge and generating incentives (or disincentives) to align the supply chain to restoration objectives. For example, when restoration is carried out as an obligatory compensation measure for large-scale infrastructure projects, or for carbon credits, via government programs, or privately led initiatives, there is scope for ensuring the optimal selection of FRM. There could also be additional incentives for including species endangered by overharvesting, or habitat destruction.Quality control. Ensuring the quality of FRM in a seed system is critical for building trust and ensuring that restoration projects are able to meet their objectives [28]. Quality control can be organized in different ways, ranging from regulatory approaches, such as the certification of seeds and other material, to due diligence approaches whereby all actors in the system respect best practice guidelines. Seed characteristics typically considered in quality control relate to germination rates, purity, and phytosanitary standards. For commercially valuable species, a guarantee that the germplasm is from selected or improved FRM is also often included [29]. Other important aspects that are less often included relate to the accurate identification of species and the genetic diversity needed long-term success [30].Enabling environment. Aside from the technical components outlined above, a suitable enabling environment encompassing political will, legal support and adequate investment in capacity building and research is key to success.Based on the above criteria, we developed a set of indicators that enables assessment of national tree seed systems for restoration against a model system with the elements needed to provide suitable FRM to projects at scale. We trialed the indicators by evaluating the tree seed systems in seven Latin American countries (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru) whose joint restoration pledges amount to 16.4 M ha (https://initiative20x20.org/ accessed on 20 June 2021). We show how the indicator system enables a straightforward assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the components that are currently in place, assisting governments in the identification of key areas for improvement as well as opportunities for horizontal learning.The development of the indicator system was based on information collected from 2 sources: interviews with experts and revision of available information. This allowed us to ascertain both how national seed systems are working and collate opinion and information on an idealized system. Interviews containing 40 questions were carried out with 115 experts from key institutions and organizations in the 7 countries of focus. They included members of the Latin American Forest Genetic Resources Network (LAFORGEN): Argentina (n = 8), Chile (n = 10), Colombia (n = 36), Costa Rica (n = 12), Guatemala (n = 19), Mexico (n = 14), and Peru (n = 16). Information from the interviews was enriched with a thorough literature review of published and unpublished work, as well as governmental and other websites in both English and Spanish. All of this information, including the questionnaire, is synthesized in Alcazar et al. [31] and Atkinson et al. [32]. The respondents are acknowledged at the end of this paper and a summary of the seed system in each country is provided in Supplementary Information 1.Based on an analysis of this information and using the 5 themes described in the introduction as an underlying structure, we developed a streamlined set of indicators that covers the key attributes of a national system needed to provide FRM for tree-based restoration and meets the objectives and needs of stakeholders under climate change scenarios. The 5 indicator groups can be summarized as follows: i.Selection of FRM (indicators 1-4): evaluates the availability of information to ensure that the most appropriate diversity of FRM in terms of species, origin, and intraspecific genetic diversity can be selected; ii. Harvesting and production (indicators 5-7): evaluates the systems in place for the collection and production of suitable FRM; iii. Supply and demand (indicators 8-9): evaluates the supply and demand for suitable FRM, iv. Quality control (indicators 10-12): evaluates whether there are systems in place to ensure that the FRM available for restoration planting meets expected quality standards, v.Enabling environment (indicators 13-15): evaluates whether the production, supply, and use of suitable FRM for restoration are supported by sufficient human capital, financial mechanisms, and an appropriate legal framework.Each of the above groups is composed of 2 to 4 indicators, giving a total of 15 indicators. A score is given to each indicator by responding to questions that cover the most important aspects of that indicator (Table 1). Each question has a multiple option answer, with 4 possible answers (0-3). These are presented in Supplementary Information 1. The scores resulting from each question are standardized using a percentage scale and averaged to give an overall score per indicator. Quality control measures function as an integrated system Do these components function as a system? The seed system is underpinned by appropriate legislation and regulations applied to native species and implemented Are adequate regulations being implemented that support the use of material suitable for climate change? Are adequate regulations being implemented to define seed transfer zones? Are adequate regulations being implemented to protect seed sources? Are adequate regulations being implemented that provide incentives for the use of native species? Are adequate regulations being implemented for a certification system for native species? There is appropriate capacity to support a seed system Is there sufficient capacity building for decision makers? Is there sufficient capacity building for technicians? Is there sufficient capacity building for communities? Is there sufficient capacity building for the general public? Is there sufficient capacity building for students? There is sufficient financial support for key research needed for seed systems Is there sufficient financial support for baseline information on priority native species & key ecosystems and climate change? Is there sufficient financial support for seed source identification?Is there sufficient financial support for research on material production? An initial version of the indicators was presented to over 30 regional experts from Latin America via a webinar organized by the World Resources Institute (WRI) in 2017 (Seminario Web sobre Sistemas de Producción y Suministro de Semilla para la Restauración). The system presented here represents an improved version that incorporates the feedback received.The indicator set was used to score the state of the national seed systems for forest restoration in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru. Initial scoring was carried out by the first author based on the information presented in Alcazar et al. [31] and Atkinson et al. [32]. The scores were then revised by experts from each of the seven countries who are coauthors on this paper.The scores from the set of 15 indicators are presented in Figure 1 and Supplementary Information 1. The countries show marked differences in current seed systems and strategies, and the following sections highlight the key findings. Further details and references can be found in the country case studies in Supplementary Information 2.There is sufficient financial support for key research needed for seed systems mation on priority native species & key ecosystems and climate change? Is there sufficient financial support for seed source identification? Is there sufficient financial support for research on material production?An initial version of the indicators was presented to over 30 regional experts from Latin America via a webinar organized by the World Resources Institute (WRI) in 2017 (Seminario Web sobre Sistemas de Producción y Suministro de Semilla para la Restauración). The system presented here represents an improved version that incorporates the feedback received.The indicator set was used to score the state of the national seed systems for forest restoration in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru. Initial scoring was carried out by the first author based on the information presented in Alcazar et al. [31] and Atkinson et al. [32]. The scores were then revised by experts from each of the seven countries who are coauthors on this paper.The scores from the set of 15 indicators are presented in Figure 1 and Supplementary Information 1. The countries show marked differences in current seed systems and strategies, and the following sections highlight the key findings. Further details and references can be found in the country case studies in Supplementary Information 2.  While there is a wealth of knowledge on each country's native tree species (indicator 1), this information is often not readily available to restoration practitioners and decision makers, although Mexico, Colombia and Costa Rica have made advances in compiling the information into user-friendly formats (indicator 4).It is well understood that climate change will significantly alter the distribution of different forest ecosystems and that better connectivity between forest fragments can help species survival. However, countries show an incipient realization that genetic considerations need to be considered if the restored forests are to survive into the future under new climatic conditions. Exceptions include Mexico's official guidelines for restoration and Chile's ambitious program to monitor the effect of climate change on different genotypes (indicator 2).Field trials can help identify species' genotypes that are likely to be suited to future conditions. Mexico and Chile (and to a lesser extent Argentina) have comprehensive networks of actively managed multispecies trials, while Costa Rica, Colombia, and Peru have established trials, but are not maintaining them. These trials concentrate on commercially valuable native species, for which some genetic characterization is usually available. Combined with data from field trials and maps of environmental variables, this information could be used to define seed transfer zones. Mexico, Argentina, and Chile have developed methodologies for defining these zones and have used them for a handful of species. To date, only Mexico has incorporated the concept of seed transfer zones into legislation, and a climate-based seed transfer zoning has been proposed but not yet adopted (indicator 3).While several countries have identified priority areas for sourcing seed, conservation of tree genetic resources usually relies on the network of state-owned protected areas and private reserves. Exceptions to this include: Guatemala, with an incentives program for people who wish to protect their land as a seed source; Mexico, with a mechanism to ensure the protection of flora and fauna outside of protected areas; and Chile, where seed source protection is integral to the conservation of threatened valuable tree species. Private forestry businesses, seed suppliers, and nurseries may also manage their own seed sources, in situ (indicator 5).A complementary approach to ensure that FRM is easily available is via establishment of seed orchards from selected wild trees. Mexico has state-funded seed orchards for key native tree species. Other countries have a more fragmented approach with diverse stakeholders managing seed orchards for priority species. Additionally, seed banks can play an important role in the storage and distribution of FRM. In Mexico, the state-run network of seed banks is distributed across the country. In Argentina, seed banks focus on specific genera (mostly native), while in Costa Rica the focus is on commercially valuable (exotic) species.The identification of superior genotypes has been carried out for commercially valuable native species in Mexico, culminating in the creation of seed orchards. In other countries, superior genotypes have been identified for a handful of native and introduced species, often by the private sector for their own use (indicator 6).It is a challenge to determine the distribution, abundance, or capacity of nurseries in each country for FRM production, since many are temporary or informal and thus go undocumented. For example, in 2017, Chile had 161 registered nurseries producing native tree species; Colombia and Peru on the other hand have no official register, but both have large-scale commercial nurseries producing native species, as well as plenty of restoration projects producing their own material. In Argentina, there is a network of government-run nurseries with at least one central nursery in each province able to produce up to 1 million plants per year for restoration projects. Mexico also has a network of registered nurseries that are established in tandem with government incentives for restoration (indicator 7).There appears to be little demand for native tree species FRM in restoration plantings. While most countries have some sort of incentives mechanism in place to promote the use of native species in production forestry, there are only few examples in place for restoration activities with other aims. An exception is FONAFIFO, an incentive mechanism based on payments for ecosystem services established in Costa Rica. We did not find any incentives that stipulate the use of site-adapted or climate-proof FRM in restoration programs (indicator 8).The lack of adequate seed supply in Chile is considered as a major bottleneck for effective ecosystem restoration [33]. This is likely to be true in other countries too. Even for commercially valuable species, there is often little selected or improved FRM available at a commercial scale, and demand is often met through importation, while selected native seed is produced by companies for their own use.Although integrated supply networks do exist for some commercial species, there are only a few examples for native tree species. Exceptions are government-run networks in Argentina and Mexico, and localized examples run by the private sector in Guatemala and Colombia. In Costa Rica seed storage is centralized and small-scale restoration projects are self-sufficient using their own nurseries (indicator 9).Many of the countries included here have a government registration system in place for seed collection that requires information about collection locality, type of material, and tree ownership. In Costa Rica, seed certification for commercially valuable tree species includes verification at the seed source before and during harvesting to reduce fraud (indicator 10).Regulations to ensure seed purity and germination ability are common but are normally only enforced when seed is for export. Argentina ensures that verified improved seed cannot be falsified by sealing containers with a hologram. Elsewhere, improved seed is available from one or a few accredited suppliers, providing quality assurance. All countries studied have registration systems in place for tree nurseries, but they are not all enforced, and only some of the registration processes require a site inspection. It is even rarer to find any quality control at the planting site, except for commercially valuable species. To date, there are only a few cases where FRM can be traced to its origin, and this occurs de facto in project-specific nurseries that source FRM locally (indicator 11).The two most complete quality control systems that encompass seed sourcing, nursery production, and delivery of FRM to the planting site are in Mexico (law n • AA-169-SCFI-2014) and Costa Rica (law n • 6289). Although the latter is at present only used for commercially valuable exotic timber species, it can be applied to native species (indicator 12).While the regulatory aspect of seed supply systems is well developed in most countries (particularly in Costa Rica and Argentina), it is applied to production forestry only. In Guatemala, a successful government incentives program including seed production and distribution is focused on native pines for commercial use. In Chile, many of the key regulatory documents for supporting a seed supply system are awaiting approval and implementation.In all countries, the most notable weakness in the enabling environment is the limited availability of human capital and capacity at all stages of the seed supply system. For example, in Peru, despite the availability of funds for small scale projects, they are often begun and then abandoned (indicator 14). The research capacity in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Costa Rica is however well developed, though scientists are often not sufficiently funded to allow for their full potential to be met (indicator 15).The use of suitable FRM is the backbone for successful active restoration, and a system that links knowledge with production and supply, increasing demand, and quality control can help ensure its use. The set of indicators presented here provides an operational framework through which to determine the readiness of national systems to support successful active restoration projects. It can also be used as a tool to identify gaps and priority areas for strengthening.We note that the structure and management of tree seed systems for restoration differs among the seven countries studied. In Mexico and Argentina, the systems are underpinned by regulatory frameworks and implemented by public institutions at the state or regional level, while in Guatemala the availability of FRM has to date been driven by government incentives provided to individuals. The availability of native species for restoration in Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, and Chile is fragmented with individuals, companies, or institutions producing FRM for their own use (although activities are often motivated by governmentled initiatives). This contrasts with effective systems for commercial forestry with exotic species in both Costa Rica and Chile, with a focus on high-quality seed production for national use and export in the former, while in the latter forestry from seed to timber is managed by private companies.While we note that all seven countries had at least some aspects of a functional tree seed system in place, two important gaps were common to all: (i) the limited use of native species diversity in restoration; and (ii) the lack of consideration of the genetic diversity of the FRM used. These aspects have been highlighted as critical for the resilience of restoration plantings under climate change [15,17].Latin America has an exceptionally high diversity of native tree species [34], and most of the countries studied here are considered as megadiverse [35]. Despite this, very few native species are used in restoration or even in forestry. While the reason may be linked to a lack of knowledge on species propagation or the availability of FRM, these obstacles are not insurmountable. Species diversity is integral to Brazil's Atlantic Rainforest Restoration Pact. The mandatory use of at least 80 species per ha in restoration activities in São Paolo state (Brazil) resulted in an increase in species availability in nurseries, as well as development of a complex network of seed collectors [8] (although it should be noted that a few species dominated plantings [36]). This success story was due to the active involvement of many stakeholders; public and private institutions, governments, companies, the scientific community, and landowners [37]. While use of such a high number of species is highly contextual to the location, ecotone, and restoration intervention, this case study indicates that it is possible to achieve in the region. It should be noted that our analysis did not include information on unregistered temporary nurseries, which are often important and may contain a high diversity of species, especially for conservation-related restoration projects.Increasing the number of species used in restoration projects requires a concomitant increase in knowledge relating to the sourcing of FRM, propagation and growth requirements, ecology, and ecosystem service provision. As observed in this study, information on species is often widely dispersed and thus not easily accessible to those who require it. There have been some important steps to collate information and make it available online (www.especiesrestauracion-uicn.org (accessed on 22 June 2021), https: //www.diversityforrestoration.org/ (accessed on 22 June 2021), and www.orton.catie. ac.cr/repdoc/a11445e/a11445e.pdf (accessed on 22 June 2021)). The platform www. diversityforrestoration.org (accessed on 23 June 2021) integrates climate modeling, functional trait data, local ecological knowledge, genetics, and information on propagation protocols to assist decision makers and practitioners with the choice of appropriate tree species and seed sources [17]. The knowledge and requirements of local stakeholders is key here, as they are not only directly affected by restoration activities but can also help to identify the most useful and valued species for different purposes [38]. Failure to deliver a broad range of native tree species at scale also undermines not only resilience of restoration efforts to pest and disease outbreaks, but also the potential to deliver multiple societal benefits.The availability of appropriate FRM has been found to be a limiting factor for many restoration projects across the world [7,8,33,39]. This is compounded by the current political climate to meet area or number-based tree planting targets (https://www.plant-for-theplanet.org/en/home (accessed on 23 June 2021), https://www.12tree.de/ (accessed on 23 June 2021)), which may result in the use of whatever material is available [6]. The key to breaking this chain is creating demand for diversity [27]. This will feed back to production and thus strengthen the entire supply system. While demand can be stimulated e.g. through stipulating conditions in incentive mechanisms and regulations, or making access to mitigation funds contingent upon the use of native species and good quality FRM, demand from the end user may be more desirable. For this to be achieved, the benefits and know-how of using suitable FRM need to be embraced by practitioners and planners. This will require communicators who can translate scientific concepts to reforestation practitioners, investors, and decision makers. Additionally, business models need to be developed based on native species. Once the demand is there, the commercial forestry sector is often ideally placed to scale up seed supply systems for native species, having already developed efficient, high volume systems of seed sourcing, storage, and production and nationwide networks.The indicator system illustrated here can be used to monitor the development of country tree seed supply systems, helping to guide the strengthening of key components to ensure that the recent interest and momentum in tree planting results in restoration that can withstand future conditions and provide the ecosystem services we all require. Building on successful experiences and initiatives in the seven countries considered here, we suggest that the following actions could help to increase the use of appropriate FRM in restoration projects, and thus strengthen seed supply systems for restoration:Collate information already generated on tree species distribution, ecology, use, and propagation. In every country there is already a wealth of information about tree species that can be very useful for establishing priority species lists for restoration.Use practitioner, local and indigenous community knowledge to understand species traits useful for restoration and help identify species that stakeholders value.Integrate genetic diversity considerations into plans for forest resilience and adaptation to climate change. The discord between the scale of tree planting actions for climate change and the quality of the planting material needs to be addressed to help ensure that the forests being planted today can adapt to future conditions.Strengthen and link research to the main information gaps identified by restoration practitioners and ensure that restoration-relevant information is available in appropriate formats.Use information from progeny and provenance trials for seed source selection. Many of the countries have had extensive projects in the past that set up trials for many species across wide areas. To the extent possible past trials should be revived, and new ones established for other native species.Spur the development of improved varieties for key commercially important native species.Strengthen existing and develop novel approaches to protect in situ seed sources by considering them as valuable economic resources to help motivate their conservation.Determine the most effective and socially inclusive ways of scaling up seed collection and propagation of FRM that build on success stories. The commercial forestry sector has experience with this and the lessons learned may help the rapid scaling up of seed supply systems for native species.Consider the most cost-effective approach to controlling the quality of FRM of native tree species. Registration and certification methods focus on seed collection and production of selected or improved varieties of commercially valuable species. In contrast, the collection and production of native FRM are often unregulated.Stimulate stakeholder demand for appropriate FRM by stipulating conditions in restoration project funding mechanisms. Once the demand is there it will feed back through the production network and thus strengthen the entire seed supply system.The following are available online at https://www.mdpi.com/article/10 .3390/d13080367/s1, Supporting Information 1a: Indicator scores by country expressed as percentage of the total possible score, Supporting Information 1a: Indicator point scores per question by country, Supporting information 2: Case studies of the state of seed systems from seven countries in Latin America.","tokenCount":"4799"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e40cff37d53cb71eff6fb70918748022","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/71a1af64-b717-4db3-81c8-db25f2755d5c/retrieve","id":"-2044245806"},"keywords":["Ongom, P.O.","Togola, A.","Fatokun, C.","Boukar, O. A Genome-Wide Scan Divulges Key Loci aphid resistance","candidate gene","cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp.)","genome-wide association study (GWAS)","mini-core","single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)"],"sieverID":"c9dd010d-1649-4ffa-9c91-4a69f7efdda3","pagecount":"17","content":"Cowpea aphids (Aphis craccivora Koch) double as a direct damaging pest and a virus vector to cowpea, threatening the economic yield of the crop. Given the multiple ecotypes, different alleles have been implicated in aphid resistance, necessitating the identification of key genes involved. The present study implemented a genome-wide scan using 365 cowpea mini-core accessions to decipher loci involved in resistance to aphid ecotype from Kano, Nigeria. Accessions were artificially inoculated with A. craccivora in insect-proof cages and damage severity assessed at 21 days after infestation. Significant phenotypic differences based on aphid damage severity were registered among the accessions. Skewed phenotypic distributions were depicted in the population, suggesting the involvement of major genes in the control of resistance. A genome-wide scan identified three major regions on chromosomes Vu10, Vu08 and Vu02, and two minor ones on chromosomes Vu01 and Vu06, that were significantly associated with aphid resistance. These regions harbored several genes, out of which, five viz Vigun01g233100.1, Vigun02g088900.1, Vigun06g224900.1, Vigun08g030200.1 and Vigun10g031100.1 were the most proximal to the peak single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) positions. These genes are expressed under stress signaling, mechanical wounding and insect feeding. The uncovered loci contribute towards establishing a marker-assisted breeding platform and building durable resistance against aphids in cowpea.Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp), a diploid (2n = 22) with genome size of 640.6 Mbp [1], is a key legume in the dry and hot regions of the world, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, where it is a prime source of protein. The bulk of world cowpea production and consumption is in the savanna regions of West Africa [2], where Nigeria leads with an annual production of about 3.65 million metric tons [3]. Productivity of cowpea in this region and other parts of the world is hindered by numerous insect pests, cowpea aphids, A. craccivora Koch (Homoptera: Aphididae), being one of the most important pests, causing severe economic damage during the vegetative phase of the crop [4][5][6][7]. Like many sap-sucking insects, aphids cause damage in susceptible cowpea cultivars directly by altering plant metabolism and feeding on plant nutrients and indirectly by transmitting plant-pathogenic viruses, especially the aphid-borne cowpea mosaic viruses [6,8]. Cowpea aphids are known to release a honeydew substance that blocks plant respiration and stimulates the development of a black mold which curtails photosynthesis [9]. The adult insect produces eggs internally, giving live birth to nymphs that quickly mature into reproductive adults within 2 to 3 days [10]. It has been noted that aphids can wipe out the entire cowpea crop when the attack coincides with drought occurrence at seedling stage [2]. Aphid control measures on cowpea include the use of insecticides and other cultural, physical, and biological methods [11]. These control approaches are inefficient and not Genes 2022, 13,2002 2 of 17 environmentally friendly or cost effective [11,12]. The use of resistant cultivars is the best control method which can also easily be combined with other methods to achieve holistic integrated pest management (IPM) strategies [12]. Consequently, there has been increased effort in the search for sources of resistance to cowpea aphids and better understanding of the nature and mechanism of resistance. Several sources of resistance to aphids have been identified in different breeding programs [5,[13][14][15][16]. Aphid resistance is a priority trait in the cowpea breeding program of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). Some improved resistant lines have been developed and distributed to farmers in many countries [9][10][11][12][17][18][19]. The identified resistant sources have been used in many studies to elucidate the mechanism of resistance to A. craccivora. These studies revealed slow growth and multiplication rates of aphids and, therefore, lower damage to resistant lines, indicative of strong antibiosis [6,20,21]. However, disruption of aphid stylet penetration activities followed by a non-preference of the host plant (antixenosis) or a combination of both antibiosis and antixenosis mechanisms have also been reported [4,6]. Further investigations have implicated tolerance as a third mechanism, which is exhibited by plants surviving beyond 21 days under high aphid infestation [12]. These observations, coupled with studies using model plant Arabidopsis, have reinforced our understanding of the basal defense mechanisms against aphid feeding [22], although the molecular basis of the gene mediated aphid resistance remains elusive. Some insights into resistance gene-mediated defense to aphids have been shown in tomato [23], soybean [24] and the model legume Medicago truncatula Gaertn [25], with evidence that specific defense signaling pathways are elicited in resistant but not susceptible plants.Genetic studies postulated single, dominant genes as the main control of resistance to aphids in cowpea [5,15,26]. This has been backed by allelism tests which indicated that some of the identified sources of resistance displayed independent genes, each segregating in a dominant model [10,14]. Reported quantitative trait loci (QTL) for aphid resistance in cowpea have supported the notion of single, dominant gene actions. For instance, in an F 2 population involving a resistant cultivar IT84S-2246-4, a restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) marker linked to a major effect resistance to cowpea aphids was identified on linkage group 1 [27]. Additionally, in a bi-parental population involving a resistant line IT97K-556-6, [16] identified one major and one minor aphid resistance QTLs on chromosomes Vu02 and Vu05, respectively, and the major QTL segregated in a 3:1 ratio model in a related F 2 population. Single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers flanking these two QTLs have been deployed in marker-assisted breeding for aphid resistance [5,18]. Recently, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) conducted with a low-density marker system (1047 SNPs) on 338 cowpea accessions obtained from USDA-GRIN germplasm database highlighted some association signals for aphid resistance on two contigs of the cowpea genome [28]. A detailed genome-wide scan with high density markers would provide a clearer picture of the aphid resistance landscape in cowpea, opening doors for the development of durable resistance marker systems.Recently, existing novel cowpea genetic and genomic resources are making it possible to discover useful molecular markers for deployment in breeding [2]. Among the resources so far developed, [29] designed an Illumina iSelect Consortium Array consisting of 55,496 SNPs, creating an excellent and highly dense SNP genotyping platform for cowpea. In addition, IITA constituted 365 cowpea accessions from a collection of over 15,000 world cowpeas to form a sub-set panel commonly referred to as the mini-core population [2,30]. These resources offer a great opportunity for QTL discovery and marker development for use in breeding for aphid resistance and other key traits desired in cowpea. The quest to locate new alleles for aphid resistance in cowpea is backed by the observations that previously identified major resistance genes have broken down and are no longer effective [2,12,16]. In addition, multiple ecotypes of A. craccivora have been reported [5,11,14,31,32], adding complexity to the management of this insect pest. Dependence on single resistance genes is therefore not helpful since it can often be quickly circumvented by the pest. Efforts toward validation of previously mapped alleles and discovery of loci involved in aphid resistance are needed as these would aid the pyramiding of genes for durable resistance to this pest. The present study exploited the diversity in the IITA cowpea mini-core collection coupled with high-density SNP marker system to expose new loci involved in resistance to A. craccivora across the entire cowpea genome. The study used phenotyping data from the diverse accessions grown under artificial aphid infestation in screening cages at IITA, Kano station (Nigeria). Resistance to A. craccivora was assessed based on severity of damage on cowpea leaves. High density SNPs were deployed in GWAS followed by blast search for candidate gene functions. The study contributes to the efforts of establishing a marker-aided selection platform for aphid resistance in cowpea and eventual development of cultivars that are resistant to aphids.The present study used a set of 365 mini-core accessions, constituted from a world collection maintained by IITA [2,30]. The mini-core accessions have been genotyped with high density SNPs and were carefully sampled to represent the diversity in global cowpea collections maintained at IITA gene bank [2,30]. These were exploited in the present study in order to understand the link between phenotypic and DNA variations for aphid resistance in cowpea. The IITA mini-core population contains diverse collections of cowpea landraces originating from more than 50 different countries across the world [30,[33][34][35].Aphid ecotype from Kano, Nigeria was used in this study. The aphids were collected from cowpea fields at the IITA Minjibir Research Farm, Latitude 12 • 14 35.30\" N and Longitude 8 • 66 62.10\" E located at about 45 km from Kano City (Kano State, Nigeria) [7]. Aphids were multiplied on susceptible cowpea variety TVx3236 to raise sufficient inoculum. Details of aphid culturing procedure has been described by [36].Three sets of the same experiment were established over time to phenotype the minicore accessions for reaction to cowpea aphid infestation. The accessions were evaluated in screening cages at the IITA, Kano station, Nigeria. The accessions which included resistant and susceptible checks, namely TVu-801 and TVx3236 were planted in wooden trays measuring 1 m width × 1 m length, 0.11 m height, filled with topsoil and covered with insect-proof nets (Supplementary Figure S1). Each experimental set was laid out in an augmented design where each wooden tray was considered as a block, planted with 12 entries (that is 10 mini-core accessions and 2 checks). The resistant and susceptible checks were repeated in each block, creating 36 pseudo-replications. Ten seeds per accession were planted in a row at a spacing of 8 cm within the row and 8 cm between rows.Artificial aphid infestations were accomplished using the aphid ecotype from Kano, Nigeria. Responses of accessions to aphid infestation in all experiments were rated based on aphid damage severity at 21 days after infestation as described by [36]. Aphid damage severity was scored on a scale of 1-5, where 1 = no damage or symptoms on the leaves, 2 = fewer symptoms (one or two leaves showing aphid feeding symptoms), 3 = seedling leaves are partially yellow, 4 = seedling leaves totally yellow, and 5 = seedling plants are dead (Figure 1). Adjusted mean values of phenotypic data collected from cowpea accessions were obtained by conducting augmented analysis of variance using 'augmentedRCBD' package in R [37,38]. The model accounts for the effects of the block, test entry and check entry. Treating the check entry as fixed while the block and the test entry random, the augmented model estimates variance components based on the following expected mean square expressions [37,38]: where \uD835\uDF0E \uD835\uDF00 is the error variance, \uD835\uDF0E \uD835\uDF0F is the test entry variance, \uD835\uDF0E \uD835\uDEFD is the block variance, \uD835\uDF07\uD835\uDC58 is the mean of the checks and k is the number of check entries used. The variance components were utilized to estimate several genetic variability statistics for aphid damage severity including phenotypic variation, genotypic variation, broad sense heritability, expected genetic advance among other measures. The analysis also generated frequency distributions that were used to describe the phenotypic distribution of the accessions based on aphid damage severity on cowpea leaves.The IITA mini-core accessions used in the present study were genotyped using the Cowpea iSelect Consortium Array containing 51,128 SNPs [35,39]. Genotyping was conducted at the University of Southern California Molecular Genomics Core facility (Los Angeles, CA, USA). SNPs were called using GenomeStudio software V.2011.1 (Illumina, Inc., San Diego, CA, USA) after alignment to the IT97K-499-35 reference genome developed and assembled by [1]. SNP data were filtered for downstream analyses using TAS-SEL for windows version 5.2.50 [40], allowing 20% missing data and minor allele frequency (MAF) less than 5%, leaving a total of 40,405 SNPs for downstream analyses. After filtering the SNP data for quality control, the distributions of 40,405 SNPs on the 11 chromosomes of cowpea were examined by generating an SNP density plot using memoryefficient, visualization-enhanced, and parallel-accelerated R package \"rMVP\" [41], with a window size of 1 Mb.Genome-wide association study was implemented in rMVP package [41]. Four different models were tested: (i) general linear model (GLM) accounting for population Adjusted mean values of phenotypic data collected from cowpea accessions were obtained by conducting augmented analysis of variance using 'augmentedRCBD' package in R [37,38]. The model accounts for the effects of the block, test entry and check entry. Treating the check entry as fixed while the block and the test entry random, the augmented model estimates variance components based on the following expected mean square expressions [37,38]:Check entry :where σ 2 ε is the error variance, σ 2 τ is the test entry variance, σ 2 β is the block variance, µk is the mean of the checks and k is the number of check entries used. The variance components were utilized to estimate several genetic variability statistics for aphid damage severity including phenotypic variation, genotypic variation, broad sense heritability, expected genetic advance among other measures. The analysis also generated frequency distributions that were used to describe the phenotypic distribution of the accessions based on aphid damage severity on cowpea leaves.The IITA mini-core accessions used in the present study were genotyped using the Cowpea iSelect Consortium Array containing 51,128 SNPs [35,39]. Genotyping was conducted at the University of Southern California Molecular Genomics Core facility (Los Angeles, CA, USA). SNPs were called using GenomeStudio software V.2011.1 (Illumina, Inc., San Diego, CA, USA) after alignment to the IT97K-499-35 reference genome developed and assembled by [1]. SNP data were filtered for downstream analyses using TASSEL for windows version 5.2.50 [40], allowing 20% missing data and minor allele frequency (MAF) less than 5%, leaving a total of 40,405 SNPs for downstream analyses. After filtering the SNP data for quality control, the distributions of 40,405 SNPs on the 11 chromosomes of cowpea were examined by generating an SNP density plot using memory-efficient, visualization-enhanced, and parallel-accelerated R package \"rMVP\" [41], with a window size of 1 Mb.Genome-wide association study was implemented in rMVP package [41]. Four different models were tested: (i) general linear model (GLM) accounting for population structure (Q) [42]; (ii) mixed linear model (MLM) accounting for population structure (Q) and kinship (K) [43]; and (iii) fixed and random models circulating probability unification (FarmCPU), accounting for population structure (Q) and kinship (K) [44], all accomplished with rMVP package. Each model tested the same hypothess-Ho: There is no association between SNP and trait; Ha: There is an association between SNP and trait. For verification purpose, similar models with exception of FarmCPU were also fitted using TASSEL version 5.2.50. To authenticate the association signals, the accessions were sorted by the two alleles at each peak SNP and boxplots were generated using the R program to examine the difference in traits mean and dispersion within the allelic groups. A traditional two-tailed t-test (at alpha α = 0.05) was conducted for each peak SNP to verify if the two alleles of an SNP significantly differentiated between the group's traits' means of the accessions.The GWAS significance threshold used in this study was determined by correcting for multiple testing through control of false discovery rate (FDR) [45]. The FDR approach aims at controlling the proportion of significant results that are in fact type I errors, and it has been praised to be more powerful in controlling the proportion of falsely rejected hypothesis than the conservative Bonferroni procedure [45][46][47]. We implemented FDR in R environment using the p.adjust() function, with the method set to \"fdr\", which adjusts the GWAS p-values based on Benjamini and Hochberg (\"BH\") procedure [45]. An average FDR threshold was then computed from the adjusted p-values at 5% probability level as follows:where FDR is the false discovery rate threshold, α is the acceptable level of type I error which was set at 0.05 in the present study, 1 ∑ i p.adjust is the sum of adjusted p-values for each SNP extracted from the R output; that is, 1 ∑ i p.adjust = 39,880.05 in our case. The −log10 (FDR) was then taken to establish the significant threshold for the GWAS results. Consequently, the FDR threshold in the present study was computed as: FDR = [(0.05 × 100/39,880.05) = 1.25 × 10 −4 ; hence, −log10 (FDR) = 3.9To explore the likely genes responsible for the detected association signals, the positions of peak SNPs were searched along the annotated genome (v1.1) of elite IITA cowpea variety IT97K-499-35 [1] using the genome browser (JBrowse) in Phytozome 13 (https://phytozome-next.jgi.doe.gov/info/Vunguiculata_v1_1, accessed on 15 September 2022). Predicted genes within the peak SNP regions were further explored for their annotated biological functions in relation to homologs in other crops, especially common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), soybean (Glycine max), barrelclover (M. truncatula) and Arabidopsis thaliana, via both Phytozome and the V. unguiculata Gene expression atlas developed by [48].Cowpea mini-core accessions exhibited significant variability (p < 0.001) in aphid damage severity rated 21 days after infestation across all the three experiments conducted (Table 1). The observed differences among accessions were displayed as a range of phenotypes from resistant plants with minimal aphid damage to complete susceptibility indicated by severe damage symptoms on cowpea leaves. These differences were supported by the observed significant difference (p < 0.001) between the resistant and susceptible checks that were included in the study (Table 1). The extent of phenotypic variation for aphid resistance among accessions based on damage severity is displayed by the frequency distributions (Figure 2). The distributions were fairly skewed, with the left tail carrying resistant accessions that were identifiable by the positions of the resistant and susceptible checks. Aphid damage severity was seemingly higher in experiment I compared to experiments II and III. This is reflected in the left tails of frequency distributions where no accession was better than the resistant check in experiment I, while the reverse was true in experiments II and III. Dissection of the observed variation into its component sources revealed that genetic variances among accessions based on aphid damage severity were higher than the environmental variances in all the three experiments (Table 2). Similar statistical patterns were obtained from combined experimental data. Consequently, moderate to high estimates for genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV), broad sense heritability (H 2 BS ) and genetic advance (GA) based on aphid damage severity were recorded across the experiments. Dissection of the observed variation into its component sources revealed that genetic variances among accessions based on aphid damage severity were higher than the environmental variances in all the three experiments (Table 2). Similar statistical patterns were obtained from combined experimental data. Consequently, moderate to high estimates for genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV), broad sense heritability (H 2 BS) and genetic advance (GA) based on aphid damage severity were recorded across the experiments.   , where b is the number of blocks and EMS is the error mean square; GCV = genotypic coefficient of variation; PCV = phenotypic coefficient of variation; H 2 BS = broad sense heritability; GA = genetic advance; GAM = genetic advance as percent of mean.The distribution of 40,405 polymorphic SNP markers on the 11 chromosomes of cowpea is graphically presented in Figure 3, and the SNP genotype data is available in Supplementary Materials Table S1. The SNPs were spread over the 640.6 Mb of the cowpea genome, with each SNP occurring at an approximate interval of 0.016 Mb. The total number of SNPs per chromosome ranged from 2933 on Chromosome Vu02 to 6265 on Chromosome Vu03. The high-density of SNPs in this panel offers opportunity for high resolution QTL mapping. A genome-wide linkage disequilibrium was examined by calculating pairwise squared correlations (r 2 ) between SNPs. LD in this cowpea population was found to decay to r 2 = 0.2 at a physical distance of ~200 kb (Supplementary Materials Figure S2). This value was considered as the average extent of LD for this cowpea collection. The relatively fast LD decay observed in this panel is indicative of its advantageous potential for reducing QTL intervals and fine mapping of candidate genes for aphid resistance. typic coefficient of variation; H 2 BS = broad sense heritability; GA = genetic advance; GAM = genetic advance as percent of mean.The distribution of 40,405 polymorphic SNP markers on the 11 chromosomes of cowpea is graphically presented in Figure 3, and the SNP genotype data is available in Supplementary Materials Table S1. The SNPs were spread over the 640.6 Mb of the cowpea genome, with each SNP occurring at an approximate interval of 0.016 Mb. The total number of SNPs per chromosome ranged from 2933 on Chromosome Vu02 to 6265 on Chromosome Vu03. The high-density of SNPs in this panel offers opportunity for high resolution QTL mapping. A genome-wide linkage disequilibrium was examined by calculating pairwise squared correlations (r 2 ) between SNPs. LD in this cowpea population was found to decay to r 2 = 0.2 at a physical distance of ~200 kb (Supplementary Materials Figure S2). This value was considered as the average extent of LD for this cowpea collection. The relatively fast LD decay observed in this panel is indicative of its advantageous potential for reducing QTL intervals and fine mapping of candidate genes for aphid resistance. A genome-wide scan based on adjusted means for aphid damage severity depicted three major association signals on chromosomes Vu02, Vu08 and Vu10 and two minor ones on chromosomes Vu01 and Vu06 (Figure 4). These five signals were consistently identified using at least two individual data sets in addition to the combined data. There were, however, some peaks on chromosomes Vu03, Vu04, Vu05 and Vu07 that were significant but consistent. When a more conservative Bonferroni GWAS threshold was considered, the three major signals on Vu02, Vu08 and Vu10 persisted while the others that had met the FDR threshold became insignificant (Supplementary Materials Figure S3). A genome-wide scan based on adjusted means for aphid damage severity depicted three major association signals on chromosomes Vu02, Vu08 and Vu10 and two minor ones on chromosomes Vu01 and Vu06 (Figure 4). These five signals were consistently identified using at least two individual data sets in addition to the combined data. There were, however, some peaks on chromosomes Vu03, Vu04, Vu05 and Vu07 that were significant but consistent. When a more conservative Bonferroni GWAS threshold was considered, the three major signals on Vu02, Vu08 and Vu10 persisted while the others that had met the FDR threshold became insignificant (Supplementary Materials Figure S3). The three major effect regions on chromosomes Vu02, Vu08 and Vu10 that displayed highly significant associations for aphid resistance were represented by peak SNPs 2_24304 [−log (p)   3, Supplementary Materials Table S2). Overall, a total of 20 SNPs were found to contribute significantly to aphid resistance variation in the cowpea mini-core population. These SNPs are being validated in bi-parental populations to ascertain their consistencies in different genetic backgrounds.The three major effect regions on chromosomes Vu02, Vu08 and Vu10 that displayed highly significant associations for aphid resistance were represented by peak SNPs 2_24304 [−log (p) = 6.19], 2_22525 [−log (p) = 10.37] and 2_43876 [−log (p) = 13.19, respectively (Table 3, Supplementary Materials Table S2). Overall, a total of 20 SNPs were found to contribute significantly to aphid resistance variation in the cowpea mini-core population. These SNPs are being validated in bi-parental populations to ascertain their consistencies in different genetic backgrounds.  SNPs labeled with the same letters a, b, c, d, e, f, g were significant in more than one instance of experimental analysis and were therefore consistent across experiments. R 2 value expressed as percentage of phenotypic variance explained; −Log10(p) is a measure of significance level alternative to LOD (logarithm of odds) score.To assess how the alleles at the candidate loci influenced variations among accessions for resistance to aphids, we categorized the accessions based on the two alleles of each peak SNP of the three major regions and tested the differences in phenotype means between the allelic groups. Single-marker analysis based on student t-test revealed highly significant (p < 0.001) differences between the allelic group means for the three peak SNPs (Figure 5). Alleles responsible for resistance to aphid at the mapped regions had lower mean aphid damage severity relative to the alternative alleles. Overall, the accessions carrying favorable alleles at each peak SNP were identified as being more resistant than those carrying the alternative alleles. The significant differentiation between accessions based on alleles at each candidate locus supported the significant associations signals detected by GWAS.mean aphid damage severity relative to the alternative alleles. Overall, the accessions carrying favorable alleles at each peak SNP were identified as being more resistant than those carrying the alternative alleles. The significant differentiation between accessions based on alleles at each candidate locus supported the significant associations signals detected by GWAS.  A summary of the proximal genes to the peak SNPs positions and the annotated gene functions are presented in Table 4. A Phytozome gene search identified five genes that were proximal to the position of representative peak SNPs. The genes uncovered within the three major regions that were associated with resistance to aphid on chromosomes Vu10, Vu08 and Vu02 included Vigun10g031100.1 (Leucine-Rich Repeat-containing Protein), Vigun08g030200.1 (solute carrier family 45) and Vigun02g088900.1 (Cysteine-rich TM module stress tolerance (CYSTM)), respectively. SNP Variants 2_43876 and 2_22525 were located at 2639 bp and 346 bp respectively upstream from the start position of the associated genes on chromosomes Vu10 and Vu08, while variant 2_24304 on chromosome Vu02 was positioned at 3123 bp upstream. The other minor regions on chromosomes Vu01 and Vu06 harbored Vigun01g233100.1 and Vigun06g224900.1 genes, respectively. The SNP variant 2_28582 on chromosome (Vu01) was situated at 2184 bp downstream of gene, while 2_30711 on chromosome Vu06 was 107 bp upstream from the start position of the gene in question. A search for homology via Phytozome and BLAST hits from the V. unguiculata gene expression atlas (VuGEA) revealed that these candidate genes had homologs in common bean (P. vulgaris), soybean (G. max), barrelclover (M. truncatula) and A. thaliana. A. craccivora is a widespread insect pest of cowpea in Africa and other parts of the world. The devastating impact of this insect on cowpea has over time attracted research attention towards understanding the mechanisms of resistance to the pest and effective control strategies. Deployment of molecular markers has been emphasized as the best approach to enhance breeding for resistance to this economically important insect pest [5,10,16,18,28]. The success of the molecular breeding approach, however, requires explorations and discovery of markers closely tagging the resistance loci. The present study has added to the body of knowledge by uncovering new genomic regions involved in resistance to aphids in cowpea. The study achieved this objective by mining the diversity in 365 cowpea mini-core accessions maintained by the IITA. The 365 accessions used in the present study came from more than 50 countries, the rich diversity and structure of which were previously described based on GBS data [30,34]. This mini-core panel is, therefore, suitable for exploration of genetic control of key traits in cowpea given the broad diversity it encompasses. The reactions of the cowpea accessions to artificial infestation using A. craccivora from Kano, Nigeria showed considerable ranges in aphid damage severity. Frequency distributions of accessions based on aphid damage severity were skewed, which is suggestive of few major QTLs or genes driving the observed pattern [49,50]. Consequently, the genotypic differences among accessions in the present study were discernable, allowing extraction of aphid-resistant accessions and a feasible downstream investigation of underlying genetics. Previous field-based studies exhibited clear differences among cowpea lines in their responses to aphid infestations, and these allowed identification of some resistance sources [5,7,10,12,13,16,51,52]. Genetic studies on aphid resistance have put forward a monogenic inheritance theory [14,15,26]; however, resistance sources such as TVu-3000, which has been popularly used as a parent in breeding for aphid resistance, have become ineffective due to resistance breakdown [2,51]. In addition, it has been reported that there is considerable variability within the cowpea aphid species resulting in existence of different ecotypes or biotypes [11,14,32,53]. These observations, coupled with the fact that resistance genes from different sources are non-allelic and independent [5,15], suggest the need to discover the key genes involved in aphid resistance and pyramid them in the same background for a robust and durable resistance.The scanning of the entire cowpea genome in the present study, made possible by a highly dense SNP marker system, in addition to high genetic diversity among the accessions, allowed us to uncover five loci underlying resistance to cowpea aphid ecotype from Kano, Nigeria. Some of the loci identified in the present study were proximal to the chromosomal regions previously mapped [5,16]. The first genetic linkage mapping for aphid resistance in cowpea used restriction fragment length polymorphism (RLFP) marker technology and identified a marker, bg4D9b, linked to the aphid resistance gene (Rac1) in cowpea line IT84S-2246-4 on linkage group 1 [27]. However, this single dominant gene has since become ineffective against aphids [2]. Given the recent developments in cowpea genomics, 1536 EST-derived SNPs were utilized in linkage analysis to identify two QTLs for aphid resistance, QAc-vu1.1 and QAc-vu7.1, on chromosomes Vu05 and Vu02, respectively, using 92 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) from a cross between susceptible CB27 line from UCR and resistant IT97K-556-6 line from the IITA [16]. HarvEST BLAST search of the source sequences of flanking SNPs from [16] against the cowpea reference genome sequence (IT97K-499-35 v1.0) at http://harvest-web.org/hweb/mainmenu.wc (accessed on 15 September 2022), mapped the two QTLs QAc-vu1.1 and QAc-vu7.1 on chromosomes Vu05 (37.483 Mb) and Vu02 (25.345 Mb), respectively. In the present study, a significant association for resistance to the Kano, Nigeria aphid ecotype was detected on chromosome Vu02, flagged by SNP marker 2_24304 at position 24.352 Mb; hence, it was just 0.99 Mb away from QAc-vu7.1. Recently, using 169 F 2 plants from a cross of Apagbaala' (Local susceptible) × SARC 1-57-2 (Resistant) and validation in the CB27 × IT97K-556-6 population, a novel locus for aphid resistance tagged with codominant SSR marker CP 171F/172R was identified [5]. The physical position of the SSR marker was mapped at 30.514 Mb on Vu10 of the cowpea genome. This locus was independent of other mapped loci, and the authors asserted that the aphid resistant sources SARC 1-57-2 and IT97K-556-6 carry different resistance genes. The present study, based on a genome-wide scan with high density SNPs, identified a distant association on the same chromosome (Vu10) at position 4.094 Mb, which is 26.42 Mb away from the CP 171F/172R locus, suggesting that this is a novel locus. Additionally, ref. [28] reported detection of some two aphid resistance loci on the contigs of the 'Assembled Cowpea WGS Sequences v0.03 [39], using 338 cowpea accessions, genotyped with 1047 SNPs from genotyping by sequencing (GBS) platform. The loci were tagged by SNP markers C35011941_894 and Scaffold30061_3363 [28]. A BLAST search of these scaffolds/contigs sequences through HarvEST server placed both loci on chromosome Vu03 at positions 56.942 Mb (C35011941_894) and 16.443 Mb (Scaffold30061_3363). Although not consistent, our study detected a locus Vu03 flagged by SNP variant 2_06664 at position 40.68 Mb, approximately 16 Mb away from the C35011941 locus reported [28]. Moreover, the present study identified other loci on chromosomes Vu08 (Pos 27.78 Mb), Vu06 (Pos 33.32 Mb) and Vu01 (Pos 40.5 Mb) that were independent of previously reported QTLs and are therefore novel.We also explored the candidate genes in the vicinity of regions that were detected by GWAS to be contributing to aphid resistance. The study exploited the publicly available cowpea genomic resources such as the whole-genome shotgun (WGS) assembly [39], available through HarvEST:Web (http://harvest-web.org/, accessed on 15 September 2022); the genome assembly of cowpea IT97K-499-35 [1], accessible through Phytozome (phytozome.jgi.doe.gov, accessed on 15 September 2022); HarvEST BLAST Server [54], also accessible via HarvEST:Web; and cowpea gene expression atlas [48], to elucidate the candidate genes. Five genes were identified at the mapped regions that were associated with aphid resistance. The functional annotations of these genes were consistent with their homologs from Arabidopsis, common bean, soybean and medicago. Different studies have implicated expression of these genes under array of conditions including salinity [55], mechanical wounding, insect feeding [56], pathogens and stress signaling [57] and resistance to insects in different plants [58][59][60]. The evidence presented here regarding the identified genes suggests their significant roles in plant defense systems and particularly resistance to insects. Validation studies to confirm the mapped loci and gene expression analysis under aphid infestation would enhance confidence in deploying these loci in marker-assisted breeding for aphid resistance in cowpea. The 20 significant SNPs identified in this study are being validated in different genetic backgrounds for potential deployment in marker-aided breeding for aphid resistance in cowpea.Our study revealed sufficient genetic variation for aphid resistance in the IITA minicore population. Variation for aphid resistance in this population was found to be under the control of three major genomic regions on chromosomes Vu10, Vu08 and Vu02 in addition to two other minor regions. The mapped regions harbored several genes, including Vigun01g233100.1, Vigun02g088900.1, Vigun06g224900.1, Vigun08g030200.1 and Vigun10g031100.1, which were proximal to the peak regions, the functional annotations of which relate to plant defense system. Our study uncovered new loci for aphid resistance thereby contributing towards a better understanding of the genetic control of this insect pest in cowpea. The SNP markers that were associated with aphid resistance are being tested in our program for consistent associations in different genetic backgrounds. Once validated, these SNP markers will be deployed in marker-aided breeding programs for accelerated development of aphid resistant lines.","tokenCount":"5522"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d68e84b050a0ea2d6db1759a3898df1c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/2d537964-6f98-4d46-a611-e12378cd2c96/content","id":"-723960708"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"95a794f1-e742-4a34-b340-4ea10f527218","pagecount":"3","content":"Wheat is one of the world's most important food crops and a major constituent of daily calorie and protein intake in humans, thus maintaining sustainable development of wheat production is a globally important issue, particularly for less developed countries. Producing more wheat with better nutrition using less inputs, has become a common objective both for producers and consumers. However, wheat production is facing great challenges such as increasing climate variation and occurrence of various diseases and pests, as well as shortage of water and other resources. For example, Chinese wheat production is limited by four factors, including extreme weather events such as the cold temperature on 5 April 2018 resulting over 10% yield reduction in major wheat-growing regions, spread of Fusarium head blight or scab from Yangtze region to the Yellow and Huai Valleys, shortage of irrigated water in northern China and strong demand for better quality products. Therefore, development and integration of new technology with existing technology, as well as international collaboration, are expected to contribute significantly to wheat improvement. This special issue on wheat genetics and breeding presents global progress in wheat genomics, breeding for disease resistance, as well as quality improvement, with an excellent collection of nine review articles and one research article. It shows the significance of utilizing new technology including both genotyping and phenotyping in developing new cultivars, as well as the importance of global collaboration which is the basis for CIMMYT's daily operation.Advances in genomics of wheat has been behind rice and maize for over 10 years, however, the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC) released IWGSC RefSeq ver1.0 wheat genome in August 2018, marking a milestone progress of wheat genomics. Wheat research and breeding in the new era of a high-quality reference genome authored by Appels (https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2019265), highlights the potential use of IWGSC RefSeq ver1.0 in research, such as developing new markers for choosing parents and tracking progeny, understanding the variation in the number of genes in a family, fine-scale modification of gene structures and predicting new targets for complex traits. However, it will need tremendous effort and much longer time to transfer scientific progress into practically useful new technology such as gene-specific molecular markers and improved genomic selection approach. Experience and lessons from the rice genome and its application in breeding programs should be a particularly useful reference for the international wheat community.Integration of new technology into established breeding schemes can accelerate the breeding of new cultivars with better disease resistance. The contribution of Bhavani et al. (https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2019268) on progress in breeding for resistance to Ug99 and other races of stem rust fungus in CIMMYT wheat germplasm presents an excellent example of combining multiple adult plant resistance (APR) genes in high yielding backgrounds and discovery of new quantitative trait loci conferring stem rust resistance, enhancing the durability of resistance. Actually, APR is not an new approach, but only a few breeding programs including CIMMYT wheat breeding program in Mexico have used APR as a routine approach for developing new cultivars over the last 40 years. Three pleiotropic APR genes in addition to Sr2 (= Yr30) locus, viz. Sr55 (= Lr67/Yr46/Pm46), Sr57 (= Lr34/ Yr18/Pm38/Sb1/Bdv1) and Sr58 (= Lr46/Yr29/Pm39), conferring multi-pathogen resistance were identified inCIMMYT wheat germplasm and used in marker assisted selection. Progress in gene cloning over the last decade has confirmed pleiotropic resistance to several diseases. Importantly, the phenotyping platforms in Kenya and Ethiopia have greatly facilitated disease screening and breeding for stem rust resistance. The successful development of cultivars with stem rust resistance also indicates the crucial importance of a multidisciplinary approach and international collaboration in generating benefits in the field through scientific innovation. The contribution of He et al. (https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2019254) on China-CIMMYT collaboration enhancing wheat improvement in China also shows that resistance to yellow rust, leaf rust and powdery mildew can be achieved through pyramiding several pleiotropic APR genes. The contribution of Morgounov (https://doi.org/ 10.15302/J-FASE-2019261) on the International Winter Wheat Improvement Program covering its history, activities, impact and future reviews the progress in developing winter and facultative wheat germplasm in Central and Western Asia through international collaboration. The contribution of Liu et al. (https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2019269) on spectral reflectance indices used as proxies for yield potential and heat stress tolerance in spring wheat considering their heritability estimates and marker-trait associations indicates the potential use of high throughput phenotyping technology in improving yield potential and stress resistance.The contribution of Ma et al. (https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2019262) on breeding wheat for resistance to Fusarium head blight in China gives an excellent review on the progress made by Chinese breeders over the last 50 years. Yangmai 5 and Yangmai 158 were the leading cultivars in 1980s and 1990s in Yangtze region, although Fhb1 gene was not employed since other parents with excellent agronomic performance and acceptable disease resistance were used in breeding program. Shortage of gene specific markers for Fhb1 and its linkage with poor agronomic traits have been the major limiting factors in deploying this gene in breeding programs. However, the development and validation of gene specific makers based on the progress in gene cloning over the last 2 years has made it possible to better use this gene in the Yellow and Huai Valleys of China and other parts of the world. The combination of a large population size in segregation generations, speeding breeding through several generations per year, excellent phenotype screening and molecular marker confirmation is likely to allow significant progress in the development of cultivars with acceptable level of scab resistance.Both nutritional and processing qualities have become important objectives in breeding programs. The contribution of Guzmán et al. (https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2019260) on genetic improvement of wheat grain quality at CIMMYT describes CIMMYT's efficient phenotyping platform for quality testing and the approach of combining processing quality and nutritional traits into elite high yielding germplasm. The valuable review article of Morris (https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2019259) on development of soft kernel durum wheat is another key contribution to this issue. The new soft durum wheats provide several advantages in processing quality, and were developed by the author over many years of research on grain hardness and puroindoline genes. It shows that focused long-term basic research can change our modes of thinking and develop novel products for improving human livelihoods. The contribution of He et al. (https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2019254) on the enhancement of wheat improvement in China through the China-CIMMYT collaboration also presents the development and validation of molecular markers for improving noodle quality. Also, the contribution of Ma et al. (https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2019267) on wheat gluten protein and its impacts on wheat processing quality recommends that in the postwheat genomic era, new high molecular weight glutenins identified from wheat relatives and landraces with long central repetitive domains that contain high number of consensus hexapeptide and nonapeptide motifs as well as high content of cysteine and glutamine residues should be targeted.The history of the origin and utilization of wheat in China is not fully known. The brief history for wheat utilization in China prepared by Lu et al. (https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FASE-2019266) provides an excellent review on this subject. Based on the most recent results of taxonomic, genetic, archaeological and textual studies on the wheat in prehistory, wheat was introduced into China about 5000 years ago. In the subsequent centuries, this exotic crop was soon utilized as staple food in northwest China. In contrast, it was adopted as a staple in central north China only in the Han Dynasty (202 BCE-220 CE), which was mainly as a consequence of living environments, population and the innovation of stone milling and flour fermentation technology.Finally, as the guest editors, we would like to thank the authors and reviewers who have given their time, energy and expertise to this special issue, as well as the FASE editorial team for their valuable inputs and support.","tokenCount":"1281"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"bc7e0995ad0b81ace2aae8ce7b04fdac","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/167dd207-f778-4d55-ab5a-88905d74d5de/retrieve","id":"2065781138"},"keywords":["Acutifolii Freytag acutifolius","montanus Coriacei Freytag maculatus","novoleonensis","reticulatus","ritensis","venosus Falcati Freytag leptostachyus","macvaughii","micranthus"],"sieverID":"7257fec7-0e6a-4970-aa3b-9f8d01d9ff8e","pagecount":"33","content":"Species total clade A (8 sections) 42 species (4 with wide range, 11 with intermediate range, 27 endemics) ---glabellus ---microcarpus ---oaxacanus Bracteati Freytag macrolepis, talamancensis Brevilegumeni Freytag albicarminus, angucianae, campanulatus, hygrophilus, oligospermus, tuerckheimii Chiapasana A. Delgado chiapasanus Digitati Freytag albiflorus, albiviolaceus, altimontanus, neglectus, trifidus Minkelersia (Martens & Galeotti) Maréchal, Mascherpa & Stainier amabilis, amblyosepalus, anisophyllus, nelsonii, parvulus, pauciflorus, perplexus, plagiocylix, pluriflorus, tenellus 10 Pedicellati (Benth.) Freytag dasycarpus, esperanzae, grayanus, laxiflorus, pedicellatus, polymorphus, purpusii, texensis Revoluti Freytag leptophyllus Xanthotricha A. Delgado esquincensis, gladiolatus, hintonii, magnilobatus, xanthotrichus, zimapanensis clade B (6 sections) 39 species (12 with wide range, 7 with intermediate range, 20 endemics)Phaseoli DC emend. Freytag albescens, coccineus, costaricensis, debouckii, dumosus, persistentus ¿Which Phaseolus species can be found in Chiapas-Panama? (1)  ¿Which Phaseolus species can be found in Chiapas-Panama? (2)Is Phaseolus an exceptional case about endemics?No, for example Zea: (~ 10 taxa): number of populations and year of publication About 6 years later, on January 14, 2024Houses of Santa Eduviges 14/33Why not using terraces? No, therefore an in situ conservation action could be considered \"There is not currently much awareness of this species in Bermuda, so programmes to increase its knowledge to the general public and advocate for its planting should be carried out. Additionally, seeds from this species should be send to the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and to Meise Botanic Gardens, which hold the world's Phaseolus collections, in order to make this species available for further studies\".\"It is estimated that there are now a total of 29 mature individuals surviving in the wild\". Is this realistic, doable and sustainable?It is likely that the proposed scenario will have to purchase land ✓ the priority is now to increase the biological coverage and relevance of national parks ✓ but in many cases in Central America the ANCs face a critical shortage of resources ✓ the annual income will 'anchor' the areas through purchase of critical land for CWRs ✓ farmers on a volunteering basis and through $ contracts will be compensated","tokenCount":"332"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c2cc6c073fe83923291c1ba39b8b2b36","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/64247c7f-c298-46a8-93d5-73a55aa4c7b7/retrieve","id":"-567111508"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"034b3984-ef5f-437a-96f2-70d5bdadc144","pagecount":"124","content":"The vision for the Platform is set, broad, inclusive and, at the same time, really hard to use to frame a defined and prioritized research agenda.We'll drill down to the Purpose of the Gender Platform Research Agenda which …Gets a little more specific...The GENDER Platform research agenda exists to identify 4-6 key research areas and develop a strategic portfolio of 6-10 cross-center research activities that GENDER will seek funding for and which will build toward the GENDER vision over the next 3-6 years.• We'll know we're making immediate progress when we can prioritize 4-6 research areas and can get buy-in from our key constituencies (researchers, centers, donors)• We will know we are making longer term progress when the portfolio of meaningful and funded multi-center activities brings the power of a gender perspective on CGIAR research towards two self-reinforcing outcomes: better food systems and greater gender equality RESEARCH AREAS are key categories of research that would advance the vision focused on the next 3-6 year period and targeted to system needs and opportunities.RESEARCH AREAS for this conversation are always within the context of multi-center work. The center specific research may fall under these areas, but we are focusing on MULTI-CENTER work.Based on day 1, we are offering some revised CRITERIA for the research areas and we hope to come away with a filled in statement for each research area that looks something like:1. One clear, accessible research question headlines each research area 2. Short text describing the nature and scope of the research area 3. Short text to identify how answering this question will lead to impact on the groundbetter lives for women and men smallholders 4. Identification of how researchers, centers and donors will find value in this research priority 5. Describes how the CGIAR is uniquely placed to answer this question How can we design a research agenda that will totally fail In groups of 4, share your missing links and prioritise amongst your suggestions. Be cautious of \"lumping\" at this point.Bring your missing links and we'll look at them together and decide if we want to evaluate any new research areas after break. Break!!!! !!We started to build on an initial draft of a CG Gender agenda and we seemed to be having old conversations anew…Something was still a little stuck...Our Story so far….And then we zoomed out to see the larger context, how the dots connected...Our Story so far….We reflected on some old habits we might want to break to really push this research agenda forward and achieve the vision... ","tokenCount":"423"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"88e96c6f2a6d858f9ebb82ba8b0e75fb","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/3f4f17a2-84ea-41b9-a976-1c4138103722/content","id":"-1415177511"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"efc3343b-48b0-40b0-96d1-2402daccd80e","pagecount":"30","content":"The genus Heterodera has long been divided into three groups (Schachtii, Goettingiana, and Avenae) based upon a set of fundamental differences in structural components of the cyst vulval cone (Fig. 3). More recently, the number of groups was expanded to seven and someSmall grain cereals have served as the basis for staple foods, beverages, and animal feed for thousands of years (Breiman and Graur 1995;Gustafson et al. 2009;Newman and Newman 2008). Wheat, barley, oats, rye, triticale, rice, and others are rich in calories, proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals. These cereals supply 20% of the calories consumed by people worldwide and are therefore a primary source of energy for humans and play a vital role in global food and nutrition security. Global production of small grains increased linearly from 1960 to 2005, and then began to decline (Alexandratos and Bruinsma 2012). Further decline in production is projected to continue through 2050 (OECD-FAO 2016) while global demand for these grains is projected to increase by 1% per annum (Alexandratos and Bruinsma 2012). Currently, wheat, barley, and oat production exceeds consumption in developed countries, while in developing countries the consumption rate is higher than production (OECD-FAO 2016). An increasing demand for meat and livestock products is likely to compound the demand for cereals in developing countries. Current production levels and trends will not be sufficient to fulfill the projected global demand generated by increased populations (Ray et al. 2013). For wheat, global production will need to be increased by 60% to fulfill the estimated demand in 2050 (Ackerman and Stanton 2008). Until recently, global wheat production increased mostly in response to development of improved cultivars and farming practices and technologies. Production is now limited by biotic and abiotic constraints, including diseases, nematodes, insect pests, weeds, and climate. Among these constraints, plant-parasitic nematodes alone are estimated to reduce production of all world crops by 10% (Whitehead 1998).Cereal cyst nematodes (CCNs) are among the most important nematode pests that limit production of small grain cereals. Heavily invaded young plants are stunted and their lower leaves are often chlorotic, forming pale green patches in the field (Fig. 1A-C). Mature plants are also stunted (Fig. 1D-F), have a reduced number of tillers, and the roots are shallow and have a \"bushy-knotted\" appearance (Fig. 1G-J) (Nicol et al. 2011;Smiley and Nicol 2009). CCNs comprise a number of closely-related species and are found in most regions where cereals are produced (Fig. 2) (Dababat et al. 2014(Dababat et al. , 2015b(Dababat et al. , 2017;;Nicol and Rivoal 2008;Smiley and Nicol 2009;Subbotin et al. 2010a).  species within the original groups were moved, based upon combined evidence from features in the vulval cone, number of incisures in the juvenile's lateral field (Fig. 4), and molecular analyses (Subbotin et al. 2010b).Several nematodes of the genus Heterodera parasitize cereals and grasses. Extensive molecular and morphological studies of these nematodes have revealed the presence of several distinct species. Twelve species belong to the Avenae group (Table 1), which at present includes 10 species from the H. avenae species complex (H. arenaria, H. avenae, H. aucklandica, H. australis, H. filipjevi, H. mani, H. pratensis, H. riparia, H. sturhani, and H. ustinovi) as well as H. latipons and H. hordecalis. Three species were previously considered as members of the Avenae group but are not related to it (Subbotin et al. 2010b) and have been transferred to other cyst nematode groups; Heterodera bifenestra Cooper, 1955, H. spinicauda Wouts, Shoemaker, Sturhan & Burrows, 1995, and H. turcomanica Kirjanova & Shagalina, 1965. From 12 species of the Avenae group, six species only parasitize grasses and six species are considered as agricultural pests of cereal crops (H. australis, H. avenae, H. filipjevi, H. hordecalis, H. latipons, and H. sturhani) and are the focus of this report. Thus, under the common name of \"the cereal cyst nematode,\" at present there are five species with that common name and one with the common name of \"the barley cyst nematode.\" The ability of nematodes to parasitise cereals might have appeared independently in several evolutionary lineages of the H. avenae species complex. Nematodes belonging to these lineages also show differences in their virulence and pathogenicity for cereal crops.Although morphological characters can fail to differentiate species of the CCNs from each other or from sibling species parasitising grasses, molecular markers, such as those based on the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of the ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene and, especially, the cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene (Fig. 5), now provide reliable differentiation of this complex. Acceptance of the multiple species concept of the CCN raises an important question about reconsidering the present quarantine regulations and other measures (Subbotin 2015), which prevent dispersal to new areas of CCN species that are currently present only in geographically isolated regions (Fig. 2).Names of features that are important for defining differences in cyst morphology are used in the following section but a description of those terms is beyond the scope of this paper. Features such as vulval underbridge, fenestra, semifenestrae, bullae, vulval slit, stylet, hyaline tail tip, and lateral field are well described in treatises by Baldwin and Mundo-Ocampo (1991) and Subbotin et al. (2010a) and are illustrated in Figures 3 and 4.Further intraspecies diversity occurs as pathotypes (biological races) with different inheritable capacities for reproducing on specific genotypes of a host plant species, and as ecotypes with specific heritable adaptation to the different climates in which they evolved. The pathotype scheme for CCNs is based on the capacity of a local CCN population to reproduce on barley cultivars with different resistance genes as given in the International Cereal Cyst Nematode Test Assortment, which consists of 12 barley, six oat, and five wheat lines, proposed by Andersen and Andersen (1982). Gene designations for cultivars in the assortment were presented by Smiley et al. (2011b). Two distinct ecotypes of H. avenae were characterized by Rivoal (1986), who found that populations of H. avenae collected from northern or southern France had different thermal requirements for induction of juvenile emergence from cysts, and that those differences were retained when cysts of each population were moved to geographic regions with climates other than that in the area where the population evolved.European cereal cyst nematode -H. avenae. This species was first found as a parasite of cereals in 1874 in Germany. It is widespread throughout Europe, the Mediterranean region of Africa, Asia, and North America. H. avenae includes several pathotypes and ecotypes. Pathotypes of H. avenae belong to groups 1 (Ha11-Ha71) and 2 (Ha12) (Subbotin et al. 2010a). Ecotypic variability will be discussed later.H. avenae is distinguished from several other species by morphology and morphometrics, except from H. australis (Subbotin et al. 2002), with which it shares most characters. Several biochemical and molecular methods distinguish the populations of CCN found in Australia: iso-electric focusing (IEF) (Gäbler et al. 2000;Rumpenhorst 1985;Sturhan and Rumpenhorst 1996), restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP), and sequences of the ITS rRNA gene, except from H. arenaria (Bekal et al. 1997;Rivoal et al. 2003;Subbotin et al. 1999Subbotin et al. , 2001Subbotin et al. , 2003)). Two genotypes of the European CCN based on the ITS and COI gene sequences are now distinguished: types A and B. Type A is found widely across Europe and North America and type B is distributed in Asia and North Africa.There are many reports and publications of cyst nematodes named as H. avenae in Russia, China, and Australia, but new evidence Fig. 3. Drawing depicting structures of the terminal region of cyst nematode females, including a box showing the location of the terminal region (A) that is expanded in the ventrolateral 3-dimensional drawing of internal structures (B); after Fig. 15 in Subbotin et al. 2010a. Some features that that may be exclusive to either female or cyst stages are combined to show a more complete range of possible structures. Several features of importance for distinguishing cysts of the Avenae group include cyst shape and length, fenestrae shape and length, underbridge presence and shape, bullae presence and arrangement, separation of vulval lips, and length and depth of the vulval slit.suggests that these should be considered as belonging not to H. avenae, but to H. filipjevi, H. sturhani, or H. australis, respectively. However, the validity of taxonomic redesignations for the latter two species is not accepted by some researchers (D. L. Peng et al. 2016;Riley and McKay 2009;Vanstone et al. 2008). Therefore, in later sections of this paper we will use the species designation (H. avenae) as it was stated in the original papers from Australia (Australian population of 'H. avenae') and China (Chinese population of 'H. avenae'). Since the validity of H. filipjevi is not a subject of dispute, we have used that designation for reports of that specie even when older literature reported it under a name such as \"Gotland strain\" of H. avenae.Australian cereal cyst nematode. The Australian population of 'H. avenae' was thought to have been introduced to South Australia from Europe during the late 19th century (Brown 1984;McLeod 1992;Meagher 1977) and has long been studied as H. avenae. In 1930, it was described as a pest of cereals in South Australia (Davidson 1930) and by 1938 it was recognized as a pest in the Wimmera district of Victoria (Millikan 1938). The nematode was found in New South Wales (McLeod 1968), and more widely in Victoria and in Western Australia (Parkin and Goss 1968). This process was considered to represent long distance spread within Australia rather than new introductions (Riley and McKay 2009). It was suggested that this CCN was further distributed by wind-borne dust, farm machinery containing soil or soil residues, and even by transport of sheep between states (McLeod 1992).The Australian CCN populations are considered as a different pathotype from European populations. This pathotype belongs to the Ha3 group, Ha13. The most interesting results have been obtained from biochemical and molecular studies. Rumpenhorst (1988) found that Australian populations, which had been morphologically identified as H. avenae, differed in their protein pattern compared with populations from Europe and Israel and that these should probably be considered as a separate species. Ferris et al. (1994) also showed that the 2-D PAGE of Australian isolates differed from those of a Swedish H. avenae isolate and isolates from the U.S. states of Oregon and Idaho. After detailed molecular (PCR-RAPD, PCR-ITS-RFLP, ITS-rRNA sequences), biochemical (IEF of proteins), and morphological analysis of second-stage juveniles (J2s) and cysts for several Australian, European, and Asian populations, Subbotin et al. (2002Subbotin et al. ( , 2003) ) showed that Australian populations of CCN have clear biochemical and molecular differences from all known European H. avenae populations and also from other species of the H. avenae complex. As a result, this nematode was described as a new species, H. australis, although there were no reliable morphological and morphometric characters distinguishing it from H. avenae. It has also been proposed that H. australis is a species native to Australia, although recent records of this species in China confirmed by PCR-ITS-RFLP (Fu et al. 2011) and ITS-rRNA gene sequence analysis suggest a wider distribution. Recent analysis of the COI gene sequences of the H. avenae species complex revealed that this gene can be used reliably to differentiate H. australis from all other species (Subbotin 2015). However, several scientists (Riley and McKay 2009;Vanstone et al. 2008) do not recognize this species as valid and consider that the CCN in Australia is an introduced species from Europe, although that conclusion may be at odds with available biochemical and molecular data (Subbotin et al. 2010b).Over the last 30 years, population densities of Australian CCN populations have declined strongly as a result of deployment of resistant cultivars, and populations in New South Wales and Western Australia have so far not developed to more than a localized problem (Riley and McKay 2009).Filipjev cereal cyst nematode -H. filipjevi. This species was first found in 1964 in cereal fields near Dushanbe, Tajikistan. It was first identified as H. avenae (Kirjanova and Krall 1971) and was only later described as a new species by Madzhidov (1981) on the presence of a characteristic vulval underbridge in the cysts and differences in morphometrics of juveniles and cysts from other species. Madzhidov (1991) reported the presence of H. filipjevi from many regions of Tajikistan. Subbotin et al. (1996) compared several populations of cereal cyst nematodes from Russia, Ukraine, and Germany with H. filipjevi collected in Tajikistan with the help of Dr. A. Madzhidov in respect to morphology, morphometrics, and IEF of proteins. It was concluded that H. filipjevi is clearly distinct by protein patterns from H. avenae and all samples of H. avenae studied from the former U.S.S.R. should now be considered to be H. filipjevi. Sturhan and Rumpenhorst (1996) compared this sample from Tajikistan morphologically and biochemically with other H. avenae and related populations from various geographical origins and found that the British \"pathotype 3\" and the \"Gotland strain\", previously identified as H. mani infecting cereals in Germany and Spain, and concluded that they were indeed H. filipjevi. Presently, H. filipjevi is found in many countries of Europe and Asia (Dababat et al. 2015b(Dababat et al. , 2017;;Riley et al. 2009), and in three northwestern states of the U.S. (Smiley 2016). Hosts include wheat, rye, barley, corn, and many grass species. At least two pathotypes (Ha22 and Ha33) from the Ha3 group can be differentiated using the International Cereal Cyst Nematode Test Assortment (Subbotin et al. 2010a). The species differs from other CCNs of the H. avenae complex by the presence of an underbridge and from H. ustinovi by the shorter tail and shorter hyaline region lengths for the J2s. PCR-ITS-RFLP profiles, especially as generated by PstI, sequences of ITS rRNA, and COI genes clearly differentiated H. filipjevi from other members of the Avenae group. In several regions, H. filipjevi occurs in a mixture with H. avenae in cereal fields.Chinese or sturhan cereal cyst nematode. The Chinese population of 'H. avenae' was identified as a distinct species during the last decade, when special attention was devoted to studies of CCNs in China (Riley and Qi 2015). In 1989, CCN was first reported in wheat fields of Hubei Province, China (P. S. Chen et al. 1991). Subsequent surveys revealed that this nematode is widely distributed in provinces, autonomous regions, and cities in China, including Hubei, Shanxi, Henan, Hebei, Beijing, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Anhui, Shandong, Shaanxi, Gansu, Jiangsu, Tianjin, Tibet, and Xinjiang Ustinov's CN x x a The genus Heterodera is currently divided into seven groups of species on the basis of fundamental differences in structural components of the cyst vulval cone, number of incisures in the juvenile's lateral field, and molecular analyses (Subbotin et al. 2010b). The Avenae group consists of 12 species. b The species authority in nematological literature includes the year of publication. These are not references cited in this paper. c Common names are as designated in Subbotin (2015) and Subbotin et al. (2010b); CCN = cereal cyst nematode and CN = cyst nematode. d Two species in the Avenae group, H. hordecalis and H. latipons, are morphologically and molecularly distinct from the 10 species in the H. avenae species complex (Subbotin et al. 2010b). e H. sturhani was designated as the \"Heterodera 'avenae' from China\" in Subbotin et al. (2010b). Those populations were then redescribed as a distinct species (Subbotin 2015). ( Cui et al. 2015;D. L. Peng et al. 2009). Molecular and morphological analysis of samples of the CCNs in China revealed the presence of three species: H. avenae, H. filipjevi, and H. australis (Fu et al. 2011;H. L. Li et al. 2010;D. L. Peng et al. 2010). However, Subbotin et al. (2003Subbotin et al. ( , 2010b) ) noticed that nematode samples identified as H. avenae from China appeared to form a distinct group within the H. avenae complex. Sturhan and Rumpenhorst (1996)   (Subbotin et al. 2010b).Mediterranean cereal cyst nematode -H. latipons. This nematode was detected in the Mediterranean region early in the 1960s on the roots of stunted wheat plants and described as a new species based on morphological characteristics of the population in Israel (Franklin 1969). Presently, the species is found from several Asian, North African, and European countries, including Russia (Subbotin et al. 2010b;Subbotin, unpublished data). The highest frequency of reports are from western Asia. Host plants include wheat, barley, oat, rye, and several species of Phalaris and Elytrigia repens. Morphologically, H. latipons closely resembles H. hordecalis. These nematodes share similar vulval plate structure with circular semifenestrae separated by wide vulval bridge. The underbridge shows a pronounced thickening in the middle. The most important differentiating character between H. latipons and H. hordecalis is the vulval slit, which in H. latipons is much shorter (5 to 11 vs. 15 to 25.5 µm). Moreover, the J2 stylet knobs are anteriorly more concave in H. hordecalis than in H. latipons (Subbotin et al. 2010b). The PCR-ITS-RFLP, ITS rRNA, and COI gene sequences clearly distinguish H. latipons from other species (Subbotin et al. 2010b;Tanha Maafi et al. 2003). The sequence divergence of the ITS-rRNA gene is rather high and can reach 1.8% between some European and Asian populations. Two pathotypes of H. latipons appear to have been distinguished in Israel (Oka et al. 2009). In several regions, H. latipons occurs in a mixture with H. avenae in cereal fields. An unconfirmed report of H. latipons being present in North America, on Prince Edward Island in Canada, is now thought to be a misidentification of H. hordecalis (Sullivan and Mackesy 2010).Barley cyst nematode -H. hordecalis. This species was found in a barley field in Halland Province, Sweden, in 1967 and later was described by Andersson (1975) as a new species. H. hordecalis is presently reported from several European and central and western Asian countries, mainly from grasslands, forests, and coastal areas, preferably from sandy soil, and also from cereal fields. Host plants also include rye, wheat, Ammophila arenaria, Leymus arenarius, Bromus inermis, and other grasses. The species is most similar to H. latipons and differs from all other species by a long vulval slit. PCR-ITS-RFLP, sequences of ITS rRNA, and COI genes clearly differentiated H. hordecalis from other members of the Avenae group (Subbotin et al. 2010b). Several pathotypes of H. hordecalis have been distinguished in Sweden (Ireholm 1994).Marram grass cyst nematode -H. arenaria. This species was first recorded from marram grass, Ammophila arenaria, by Triffitt (1929). Cooper (1955) included a marram root eelworm, H. major var. arenaria, in his key to British species of Heterodera. H. arenaria was subsequently raised to species level by Kirjanova and Krall (1971) and redescribed by Robinson et al. (1996). The species is distributed along the coast of the North Sea in England, Scotland, Germany, Denmark, France, and the Netherlands, and is also found from coastal dunes in Italy (Subbotin et al. 2010b). The list of host plants of this species also includes Agropyron pungens and Elymus farctus. From most species of the H. avenae complex, this species differs by longer mean body and mean tail lengths of J2s. The analysis studies did not reveal any differences in the ITS-rRNA gene sequences between H. arenaria and H. avenae type A (Clapp et al. 2000;Subbotin et al. 2001Subbotin et al. , 2003)). However, H. arenaria differs from other species by IEF (Gäbler et al. 2000) and sequences of COI gene (Subbotin et al. unpublished).Auckland cyst nematode -H. aucklandica. This nematode was first isolated in 1975 in turf samples from Auckland, New Zealand. It was found on the native grass Microlaena stipoides and was described as a distinct species by Wouts and Sturhan (1995). In Europe, H. aucklandica was found in natural grasslands on a stream bank at Zarren, Belgium (Subbotin et al. 1999) and on a river bank at St. Albans, U.K. (Subbotin et al. 2003). Auckland cyst nematode differs from H. avenae, H. australis, H. pratensis, H. sturhani, and H. riparia by a longer mean tail length in the J2s (Subbotin et al. 2003;Wouts and Sturhan 1995). It can also be differentiated from other species of the H. avenae complex by IEF (Gäbler et al. 2000;Sturhan and Rumpenhorst 1996), PCR-ITS-RFLP, and sequence of the ITS-rRNA gene (Subbotin et al. 1999(Subbotin et al. , 2001(Subbotin et al. , 2003)). Restriction of PCR-ITS-rDNA products by several enzymes (CfoI, HinfI, PstI, and TaqI) distinguishes H. aucklandica from other species of the H. avenae complex (Subbotin et al. 2003). The COI gene sequences also clearly differentiate this species from all others (Subbotin et al. unpublished).Meadow cyst nematode -H. pratensis. This species was collected from grasslands from a number of localities in Europe (Rumpenhorst 1994;Sturhan and Rumpenhorst 1996;Subbotin et al. 1996Subbotin et al. , 1999)). The nematode showed some minor morphological and morphometric differences and a different profile of IEF of proteins and PCR-RFLP from H. avenae and some other species and later was described as H. pratensis by Gäbler et al. (2000). Presently, H. pratensis is known from several locations with grassy vegetation in Germany, the European part of Russia, Estonia (Gäbler et al. 2000), the Netherlands (Subbotin et al. 2003), Belgium (Subbotin 2015), and Iran (Tanha Maafi et al. 2003;Subbotin et al. unpublished). Host plants include Poa annua, Festuca pratensis, Dactylis glomerata, Lolium perenne, Elymus repens, Fig. 6. An illustrated drawing of the life cycle of a cereal cyst nematode; cyst filled with eggs overwintering in soil (A), egg containing second stage juvenile (J2) (B), J2 free in soil (C), emerged plant roots host J2 (D), young roots attacked by J2 developing to various stages (E), male free in soil (F), mature female and formation of syncytium (G), mature female and cyst still attached to root (H).Agrostis stolonifera, and Cynosurus cristatus. Attempts to rear the species on barley and wheat failed (Gäbler et al. 2000;Subbotin et al. 2010b). Morphologically and molecularly, H. pratensis is very similar with H. sturhani and can be distinguished by the COI gene sequence from this and all other species (Subbotin 2015).Riverbank cyst nematode -H. riparia. This nematode was described by Kazachenko (1993) from roots of false wheat Elytrigia repens and Phragmites australis along the coast of the Olga Bay, Okhot Sea, Kamchatka, Russia. It most resembles H. pratensis and H. sturhani in morphometrics; however, its relationships with these species are unclear. Biochemical and molecular studies are still lacking (Subbotin et al. 2003(Subbotin et al. , 2010b)).Rye grass cyst nematode -H. mani. This nematode was described as H. mani by Mathews (1971) from an infested grass in Northern Ireland. The species is presently reported from pastures and grasslands in several European countries, South Africa, and the U.S.A. (California and Washington). Host plants include Lolium perenne, Dactylis glomerata, Festuca pratensis, and several other grass species, but not Agrostis spp., wheat, oats, or barley. H. mani differs from other species of the H. avenae complex by the J2s having strongly developed and deeply concave stylet knobs as well as a combination of morphometric and morphological characters (Subbotin et al. 2010b).Ustinov cyst nematode -H. ustinovi. This nematode was described from the roots of Agrostis capillaries from the Beskids, eastern part of the Eastern Carpathians, Ukraine (Kirjanova 1969). Because of the inadequate description, the taxonomic status of H. ustinovi has long been controversial. Sturhan and Krall (2002) re-examined paratypes and studied original material collected from places close to the type locality and concluded that H. iri described by Mathews (1971) from Northern Ireland was a junior synonym of H. ustinovi. Presently, the species has been found from grasslands of several European countries and several states in the U.S.A. (Subbotin et al. 2010b). It parasitizes several species of Agrostis and Glyceria fluitans. H. ustinovi is distinguished from other species of this complex by longer tail and hyaline region lengths of J2s (Mathews 1971), IEF of proteins (Gäbler et al. 2000), RFLP and sequence of the ITS rRNA gene (Subbotin et al. 1999(Subbotin et al. , 2001(Subbotin et al. , 2003)), and sequence of COI gene (Subbotin et al., unpublished).CCNs coevolved with their host plants, resulting in a coincidence of nematode and host life cycles that promoted survival and reproduction of the nematode. Reviews of the life cycle of CCNs have been published (Baldwin and Mundo-Ocampo 1991;Hajihasani et al. 2010a;Rivoal 1986;Rivoal and Cook 1993;Schölz and Sikora 2004;Sikora 1988;Subbotin et al. 2010a;Turner and Subbotin 2013;Wu et al. 2014).Life cycle. The ontogeny of all species of cyst nematodes is similar. CCNs are sexually dimorphic species. The life cycle starts from the egg stage and ends with additional eggs being produced by a gravid female (Fig. 6). The eggs of all species of CCNs are cylindrical, similar in size, and without visible marking on their surface. Once fertilization takes place, the eggs pass through embryogenesis, with the four cells resulting from the first cleavage aligning in tandem. The final stage of embryogenesis, morphogenesis, produces a first-stage juvenile (J1). The J1 is retained in the egg and molts into the second stage juvenile (J2), also within the egg (Fig. 7A). Depending on the cyst nematode species and environmental conditions, the J2 may either hatch from the egg or enter into a dormant state inside Fig. 7. Life stages of cyst nematodes; eggs showing outlines of the J2 folded within the egg (A), second-stage juvenile (J2) emerging through the fenestra of a cyst (B), J2 extracted from in soil (C), J2 probing a root (D), J2 stylet used to penetrate root cells (E), J2 migrating through root cortex (F), third-stage juvenile 10 days after invading root (G), fourth-stage juvenile feeding from syncitium (H), swollen egg-filled white female lodged in root tissue (I), young encysted females dislodged from roots (J), old cysts extracted from soil (K), and cysts crushed to expose eggs and J2s (L). Images by Guiping Yan (A, C, I), John Lewis (B), Hugh Wallwork (D, E, F), Hai Yan Wu (G, H), Shree Pariyar and Abdelfattah Dababat (J), Richard Smiley (K), and Najoua Namouchi-Kachouri (L).the cyst (Koenning and Sipes 1998). The J2 is the dormant stage of the life cycle of cyst nematodes.The hatching process is generally divided into three steps; changes in eggshell permeability, activation of the J2, and hatching of the J2 from the egg. The J2 emerges from the egg and migrates out of the cyst, either through the fenestration of the vulval plate (Fig. 7B) or the opening made at the neck after the cyst separates from the root. After emerging from the cyst, the J2 becomes free living in the soil (Fig. 7C). Generally, the emerged J2 seeks a host root and once it reaches a root it explores the surface by pressing its lips on to the surface to detect an optimal point for invasion (Fig. 7D). The J2 invades the root by penetrating the root tip using its strong stylet (Fig. 7E). The root tip region is very active metabolically at the region of vascular cell differentiation and elongation. The other sites where lateral roots emerge can also be priority sites for invasion by J2s (Wyss and Zunke 1986). After penetration, the J2 migrates through cortical cells (Fig. 7F) and reaches the differentiating vascular cylinder where it selects a competent cell to initiate an induced feeding site, the syncytium. Syncytium development is induced when pharyngeal gland secretions are injected through the stylet. The syncytium provides a food resource for the developing nematode.After establishing the syncytium and beginning the feeding process, the J2 immediately becomes swollen and loses its mobility. Then it undergoes three additional molts to complete its life cycle. The genital primordium is developed and elongated during growth and molting to the third stage juvenile (J3; Fig. 7G). The sex of juveniles becomes distinguishable in J3s. Juveniles with a single unbranched genitalia develop as males and those with branched genital primordium become females. Generally the feeding of J3s that will become males continues until the end of the J3 stage. At the fourth molt the juvenile is still wrapped in the third-stage cuticle. The adult male is vermiform and motile, and develops within the cuticle of the J4. Adult males emerge from the J4 cuticle, exit the root, and seek adult females. Males are attracted to females through sex pheromones exuded by the females.The J3-stage female continues to feed and becomes swollen inside the root. It changes to the fourth stage (J4) and develops into an adult lemon-shaped female after a final molt (Fig. 7H). As the mature female becomes swollen, the posterior end of its body ruptures the root cortex, exposing the vulva to the rhizosphere for mating by the male. At this time, the white color of mature swollen females becomes visible on the surface of the roots without the aid of magnification; they appear similar in size to the head of a pin (Fig. 7I). Soon after mating, eggs begin to develop within the female body and the embryos start to develop. The number of eggs inside white females varies among CCNs, depending on the species, host plant variety, soil type, and environmental factors. As many as 600 eggs have been reported, although the more typical number is in the range of 100 to 400.All eggs remain inside the body of CCNs. This differs from some other cyst nematode species such as the beet cyst nematode, H. schachtii, and soybean cyst nematode, H. glycines, in which eggs are laid also in an egg-sac at the posterior end of the body. After eggs are produced, the CCN female dies and the cuticle becomes tanned to form a tough, protective cyst wall. The cysts vary in color from cream to light to dark brown (Fig. 7J and K). The cyst wall protects the eggs from desiccation and predation by soil organisms. Eggs inside cysts (Fig. 7L) may remain viable for many years. Phenolic compounds found in the cyst wall might be responsible for the tanning of the female's cuticle, as was found in Globodera rostochiensis (Vlachopoulos and Smith 1993).CCNs have only one generation per year but the time required to complete the life cycle varies with environmental conditions. Generally, the H. avenae life cycle is between 3 and 4 months under optimum temperature conditions. The life cycle of the Chinese population of 'H. avenae' in Shandong Province was completed on winter wheat in 99 and 83 days during the 2010 and 2011 growing seasons, respectively (Wu et al. 2014). In the Slovak Republic, the duration of the H. avenae life cycle on spring oat was 56 days, while on winter wheat it took 84 and 63 days in 1981 and 1982, respectively (Sabová et al. 1985a, b).Response to root diffusates. Hatching of H. avenae and H. latipons does not depend on diffusates from host roots and these species hatch in a large numbers in the absence of a stimulus (Al Abed et al. 2009;Perry 2002;Perry and Gaur 1996;Schölz and Sikora 2004;J. W. Zheng et al. 1997a). The cyst nematodes are classified into three categories on the basis of hatching rate in water; low, moderate, and high. H. avenae and H. latipons are considered to exhibit a high water hatching ability (Schölz and Sikora 2004;Turner and Subbotin 2013). Most studies on the effects of root diffusates on hatching of juveniles of H. avenae suggest that root exudates do not increase the emergence of J2s from eggs. Banyer and Fisher (1971b) and Fisher and Hancock (1991) found little or no evidence that wheat root exudates were effective to overcome the suppression of hatch induced by a temperature of 20°C after 8 weeks at 7°C on a population of 'H. avenae' from South Australia. Hatching rates of the Chinese population of 'H. avenae' in Shanxi Province showed that leachates of five plants, including wheat, barley, oats, maize, and tomato, did not stimulate the hatching of cysts pretreated at 5°C (J. W. Zheng et al. 1997a). In contrast, the English population of H. avenae has responded to root exudates of host plants. In outdoor and indoor pot tests, hatching of H. avenae was affected by the cereal species grown, providing evidence that root exudates stimulated hatching of the English population at prevailing soil temperatures (5 to 15°C) during spring (Kerry and Jenkinson 1976;T. D. Williams and J. Beane 1980).The general absence of a hatching stimulus for CCNs is in contrast to many other species of cyst nematodes that hatch in large numbers in the presence of host root diffusates. This is best exemplified by the potato cyst nematodes, G. rostochiensis and G. pallida. These species are almost completely dependent on host root diffusates that contain hatch-stimulating chemicals to induce hatching of J2s. However, about 10% of the J2s can hatch without a stimulation from the host plant, an ability that is probably genetically controlled (Evans 1979).Survival. CCNs are an exception among the cyst nematodes that possess narrow host ranges. Generally, cyst nematode species with a limited host range are responsive to host root exudates, resulting in greater longevity in the absence of a host (Winslow and Willis 1972). While CCNs have narrow host ranges within the Poaceae, hatching does not normally depend on host root diffusates. Kerry and Jenkinson (1976) showed that 73% of hatching of H. avenae in England occurred in fallow soil, of which 26% was during the autumn and 47% in the spring. A hatch of 85% was measured in the presence of host plants such as winter and spring barley, wheat, and oats. The fact that eggs hatch successfully in the absence of host plants indicates that the persistance of eggs and J2s inside the cysts is compromised and these nematodes have a reduced ability to survive long periods in the absence of a host plant. The advantage of this specificity provides the basis for implementing management strategies involving crop rotations.Lack of dependency of CCNs on root diffusates for hatching results in a diminished survival during fallow, crop rotation, and planting of resistant cultivars. Andersson (1982) reported a 70 to 80% annual decline of H. avenae population in the absence of a favorable host. Maximum annual decrease of populations in southern France was 42% on a nonhost crop (Rivoal and Cook 1993). Moreover, Rivoal (1986) observed 57 to 74% annual declines of H. avenae populations in the presence of resistant hosts. These results indicate that with proper crop rotation most of the encysted eggs hatch within 1 year and the population densities decline sharply.Diapause. Some nematodes are able to suspend their development (dormant state) during unfavorable conditions, a tactic that helps them to survive in the absence of a host plant. This suspension is removed and the nematodes are reactivated when favorable conditions return. Female cyst nematodes change into the cyst stage and can enter a dormancy phase in which the unhatched J2s remain dormant for many years. The dormant encysted J2s exhibit minimum metabolism leading to a marked reduction in metabolising vital energy reserves. Not all cyst nematode species exhibit dormancy, but some have a dormant state in their life cycle, a state that is subdivided into two types, diapause and quiescence. The difference between these two types of arrested development is that the strategy of dormancy in quiescence is reversible when favorable conditions return, while in the diapause state the development does not continue until specific requirements have been satisfied, even if favorable conditions return. There are two types of diapause; obligatory, which is programmed into the life cycle, and facultative, which is triggered by environmental stimuli such as day length (Perry 2002).Population dynamics of CCNs have been studied extensively. Most studies were on nematodes initially identified as H. avenae. There are fewer studies of other species, particularly as some of the studied populations of H. avenae have been redescribed recently as other species. These investigations indicate the presence of diapause in the life cycle of H. avenae and once the diapause ends, the emergence of J2s and further development of the life cycle is affected by environmental factors. A minimum period of 8 weeks at low temperature is needed for substantial hatching by H. avenae (Fushtey and Johnson 1966). Occurrence of diapause has been reported in Australian populations of 'H. avenae' (Banyer and Fisher 1971a, b) and for two French H. avenae populations (Fr1 and Fr4) under in vitro and field conditions (Rivoal 1978(Rivoal , 1979(Rivoal , 1983)). Obligate diapause of H. avenae in its first season of development has also been observed (Rivoal and Cook 1993). Obligate diapause is also present in the life cycle of the Chinese population of 'H. avenae' in Shandong Province, China (Wu et al. 2014). Summer diapause similar to that found in populations in Australia and in southern France was also observed in the Shandong population, indicating that hatching processes do not continue until the soil temperature increases to 5 to 10°C during the spring.Existence of diapause has also been reported in H. latipons populations. The population of H. latipons from the dry zone of Syria appeared to exhibit a facultative quiescence, which was related to metabolic processes rather than to developmental inhibition (Schölz and Sikora 2004). The breaking of quiescence was facilitated by cold temperatures, as with other species of CCNs.In contrast, the Haymana population of H. filipjevi in Turkey does not appear to exhibit a diapause in that there was no apparent requirement of an incubation temperature of 5°C for hatching of J2s in that population (S xahin et al. 2010). The J2s emerged from cysts at 10 and 15°C.Effects of environmental factors on emergence of J2s. Temperature plays a key role in the hatching process. Cotten (1962) was the first to suggest that a period of low temperature was essential for subsequent hatching of H. avenae cysts in England. Additional studies demonstrated that temperature requirements differ within species and among species (Rivoal and Cook 1993).H. avenae. Fushtey and Johnson (1966) confirmed Cotten's finding that a prehatching incubation at low temperature (0 to 7°C) for a minimum period of 8 weeks was required to initiate the hatching of H. avenae J2s in Canada. The optimum temperature requirement for hatching after the cold incubation was at 10 to 15°C, and the maximum temperature for hatching was between 25 and 30°C (Fushtey and Johnson 1966). Subsequently it was demonstrated that a low temperature of about 10°C influences hatching of most populations of H. avenae, and activates the juveniles inside the eggshell to initiate transformation to a hatchable condition (Banyer andFisher 1971b, 1980;T. D. Williams and J. Beane 1980).The optimum temperature requirement for hatching juveniles may vary with population of the nematode. Infestations of Australian populations of 'H. avenae' are present in cereal-growing regions of South Australia, Victoria, and Western Australia. Each region has a Mediterranean climate with hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters. In South Australia, hatching takes place in two phases. The first phase consists of larval development, which occurs optimally at 10°C. That phase is a prerequisite for the second phase in which juveniles emerge, a process for which the optimum temperature is 20°C (Banyer and Fisher 1971b). The hatching pattern of the Western Australian population differs slightly, with the optimum temperature for larval development also being 10°C, while the optimum for phase 2 is about 15°C (Stanton and Eyres 1994). The egg hatching rate for Chinese populations of 'H. avenae' is higher at 15°C than at 5, 10, or 20°C (Fisher 1981; M. Wang and J. Yan 1993).Two French populations of H. avenae also displayed a shift in the hatching process when they were moved from their origin to a region with a different climate. The southern population present in a Mediterranean-type climate (Mediterranean ecotype), hatched during winter. In contrast, the northern population present in a continental climate (oceanic-or temperate-type ecotypes) hatched in spring. These population traits were not altered by reciprocal transfers of populations or by transferring the populations to an intermediate location; however, the timing of the onset of hatching and the peak emergence of juveniles were each modified slightly, depending upon the population's origin and the location where it was incubated for hatching (Rivoal 1986). Two Spanish CCN populations (pathotypes Ha81 and Ha22) also hatched at different rates after 1 and 5 months of incubation at 20 and 10°C, respectively, indicating a difference in their temperature requirements (Zancada and Sanchez 1988).These findings suggest that CCN populations in different regions adapt to local conditions and environments to synchronize the hatching process with favorable conditions for invasion of host plants and nematode reproduction. The lowest density of J2s in soil is generally found during growth of young seedlings and the peak density occurs at the tillering and stem elongation stages. The maximum population density of J2s is present in wheat roots during the booting stage when the soil temperature ranged from 12 to 14°C. Cysts were formed after the booting stage (X. H. Li et al. 2012b;Wu et al. 2014).The relationship between developmental stages of the Chinese population of 'H. avenae' in Shandong Province, phenology of winter wheat, and accumulation of daily heat units (degree days; DD) was studied by X. H. Li et al. (2012b) and Wu et al. (2014). The DD calculation involves subtraction of the daily low temperature from the daily high temperature, and dividing the difference by two. The calculation also assumes that there are no DDs accumulated below a certain temperature threshold for biological activities. That threshold differs for each type of organism or each stage in the life cycle of certain organisms. The number of DD required for development of different morphologic stages assumed a minimum temperature of 2°C for eggs to hatch (Fushtey and Johnson 1966) and a minimum temperature of 14°C for development of the J2 stage (X. H. Li et al. 2012b). The optimum temperature for penetration of roots was 16°C for a Chinese population of 'H. avenae,' and the optimum range of temperatures for juveniles to go through molts as they develop into gravid females was 18 to 22°C (X. H. Li et al. 2012b). Therefore, under Shandong conditions, molting from the J2 to J4 stages required more than two continuous DD above the minimum 14°C (Wu et al. 2014). In a cold semicontinental climate of eastern Oregon, the J2s of H. avenae emerged from cysts very rapidly when weekly mean air temperatures rose to between 2 and 5°C, and the maximum J2 densities were observed in March and April (Fig. 8) when soil temperatures ranged from 10 to 15°C (Smiley et al. 2005). Similar observations for H. avenae in England were reported by Kerry and Jenkinson (1976). H. latipons. The influence of temperature on hatching of H. latipons was studied in the eastern Mediterranean. The optimum temperature for hatching in Syria was 10°C and the peak densities of hatched J2s in soil were in January and February in the dry and wet agro-ecological zones. Hatching decreased further and stopped in March or April in the wet and dry zone, respectively. It was concluded that hatching would not commence unless the soil temperature was below 15°C in the wet zone or below 10°C in the dry zone. In vitro tests showed that incubations at 2 and 5°C for 16 days initiated the hatching cycle (Schölz and Sikora 2004). Populations of H. latipons, like H. avenae, therefore appear to require a preincubation of low temperature to stimulate hatching. In Jordan, the optimal rate of invasion of roots by H. latipons was between 15 and 20°C (Al Abed et al. 2009).Studies of the life cycle of H. latipons show that this species completed only one generation per growing season in Cyprus under field conditions on barley (Philis 1999) and in Syria on wheat and barley in both dry and wet agro-ecological zones of the Mediterranean-type climate (Schölz and Sikora 2004). This also occurred in Markazi Province of Iran with winter wheat under outdoor microplot conditions, where winters had minimum temperatures below -15°C (Hajihasani et al. 2011). The life cycle of H. latipons in Iran was 145 to 150 days on winter wheat under microplot conditions (Hajihasani et al. 2011). In Cyprus, it took 70 days on spring barley from the time when juveniles invaded the roots until eggs began to appear, and 98 days from invasion until development of embryonated eggs (Philis 1999).Difference in life cycle lengths is a response to varying requirements for accumulation of DD to activate hatching and the additional molts to higher developmental stages. The time required for each developmental stage is directly related to the soil temperature and development of the host plant. The DD required for completion of a young female and a mature female containing developed eggs of H. latipons was 190 and 375 DD, respectively, using a base temperature of 8°C for that calculation (Hajihasani et al. 2011). The accumulated heat units above 7°C for development of a young female and a mature female containing embryos of H. latipons on barley were 215 and 386 DD in Cyprus (Philis 1999). It can be concluded that the hatching process of H. latipons is similar to that of H. avenae in that it hatches readily in tap water and host root diffusates do not enhance the rate of hatching (Al Abed et al. 2009;Schölz and Sikora 2004).H. filipjevi. The life cycle of H. filipjevi has been studied in Iran, Russia, and Turkey (Hajihasani et al. 2010a;S xahin et al. 2010;Seifi et al. 2013;Tikhonova 1971). Like H. avenae and H. latipons, this species has only one generation on wheat per growing season and the mature cyst appears simultaneously with maturity of wheat grain. In Iran, the accumulated DD above 8°C, the minimal temperature requirement for development of white females and of embryonated eggs of H. filipjevi, was 209 and 358 DD, respectively (Hajihasani et al. 2010a). These values are higher than those needed for development of H. latipons (Philis 1999;Schölz and Sikora 2004), suggesting that H. filipjevi might need more energy for development and completion of its life cycle (Hajihasani et al. 2010a).Hatching of H. filipjevi is significantly greater at lower temperatures (5, 10, and 15°C) than at higher temperatures of 20 and 25°C. As for H. avenae, the cysts of H. filipjevi require a preincubation at lower initial temperatures of 10 or 15°C for 58 days to obtain the highest initial hatching rates 1 week after exposure to the final temperature of 25°C (S xahin et al. 2010). Tikhonova (1971) found that H. filipjevi (reported as H. avenae) J2s in the continental climate of the Bashkir region of central Russia emerged from cysts at temperatures of 5°C and above. In Iran, H. filipjevi began hatching when soil temperatures warmed into the range of 2 to 6°C and the J2s were observed inside roots when the temperature reached 13°C (Seifi et al. 2013).In microplot experiments with winter wheat, there were two peaks in egg hatching and presence of juveniles in soil, with the first following the emergence of seedlings and initial growth of the root system, and the second taking place after the melting of snow in winter, when winter wheat resumes active growth (Hajihasani et al. 2010a). Similar results were found in the cool-temperate climate of the Central Anatolian Plateau in Turkey, where there were two peak periods of J2 hatching, the first in October and the second in February (S xahin et al. 2010). The primary hatching of H. filipjevi under natural conditions in the Central Anatolian Plateau and in Markazi Province of Iran begins when the soil temperatures rise to between 5 and 15°C, with the most rapid emergence being at 10 and 15°C (Hajihasani et al. 2010a;S xahin et al. 2010). In Fars Province of Iran, under microplot conditions, hatching of H. filipjevi eggs began between 2 and 6°C, and J2s were found in roots when the soil temperature was 13°C (Seifi et al. 2013) with completion of its life cycle requiring 197 calendar days after winter wheat was planted.Root invasion and induction of feeding sites. Motile J2s of H. avenae survive in the soil for 1 to 2 months under the influence of increasing temperatures during spring in England (Kerry and Jenkinson 1976) and are capable of invading roots for at least 3 weeks after they emerge from cysts in Australia (Davies and Fisher 1976). The J2s of H. avenae and H. filipjevi seek a host plant root and only invade at the root tip. Once in contact with the root tip, the J2 penetrates by using its strong stylet (Fig. 7E). After penetration, it migrates through cortical cells (Fig. 7F) and reaches the differentiating vascular cylinder and initiates the establishment of the feeding site, the syncytium. The protoplasts of the initial syncytial cell and the neighboring cells fuse together and the syncytium continues to expand by incorporating many adjacent cells, with wall dissolution occurring at pit fields (Bleve-Zacheo et al. 1995;Gheysen and Jones 2006;Jones 1981).The histopathology of the syncytia induced by Australian populations of 'H. avenae' in resistant and susceptible cultivars revealed that a syncytium was induced in both susceptible and resistant cultivars, but became evident 4 days after inoculation in susceptible plants and 14 days after inoculation in resistant plants (Grymaszewska and Golinowski 1991). In an earlier study of two susceptible (susceptible near-isogenic lines, Prins) and resistant (AUS 10894 × Prins) cultivars, it was found that males completed their life cycle in both susceptible and resistant cultivars but the female development was suppressed in the resistant cultivar at the J4 stage (K. J. Williams and J. M. Fisher 1993). The initiation and development of syncytia was similar in both cultivars until day 15, at which time in the resistant cultivar the syncytium started to degenerate, exhibiting coalescing large vacuoles and a reduction of cytoplasm, and complete degeneration by day 33 (K. J. Williams and J. M. Fisher 1993). Exit of J2s from roots of resistant hosts and repenetration into the root in search for a favorable host has also been reported (Koenning and Sipes 1998).Whereas H. avenae and H. filipjevi invade only at the root apex, the site of invasion by H. latipons can be more distant from the root apex (Mor et al. 1992). Likewise, the tissue in which the syncytium is induced by H. latipons in wheat and barley roots differs from syncytia formed by H. avenae (Mor et al. 2008). H. latipons starts induction of a syncytium in a root cortical cell, and so the developing syncytium incorporates cells both of the cortex and the vascular cylinder. In contrast, H. avenae initially targets a vascular parenchyma cell and development of the syncytium then begins within the vascular cylinder. The development of H. latipons in resistant plants is similar to that of H. avenae, in that development is suppressed before the adult female becomes formed. In Lolium rigidium, which is resistant to H. latipons, the J2 penetrates to an endodermal cell or a cortical cell near the endodermis to initiate syncytial development, with changes including the density of cytoplasm and cell incorpation by 20 days after inoculation, after which the nematode stops developing at the J3 stage (Mor et al. 2008).Disease symptoms. Symptoms of H. avenae and H. filipjevi invasion of cereal roots are usually a knotted appearance without necrosis or brown lesion. When the J2 enters the root tip, the growth of the tip stops and the root produces adventitious roots and root proliferation, which gives roots a bushy or knotted appearance (Fig. 1G to J). This is where syncytia are present and therefore also the location of most maturing white females. The young maturing females are initially white (Fig. 7I) and gradually become cream colored and then light to dark brown (Fig. 7J and K), at which time they die and become cysts. However the symptoms of root infection varies in different cereal hosts.Heavy invasion of roots leads to above-ground symptoms that include stunting, reduced tillering, and smaller heads with shriveled grain kernels. CCNs may also cause a pale green discoloration of the leaves or even result in senescence of lower leaves. In severe infections of crops with a lax head type, when the heads contain small grains, the heads may remain upright compared with drooped heads of the healthy plants which contain heavier fully-ripened and developed seeds.In contrast, because H. latipons invades roots at points more distant from the root apex, this species does not produce clearly visible root symptoms in the early seedling stage (Mor et al. 1992). Inhibition of foliar growth by H. latipons is also less severe than that caused by H. avenae, and it is possible that invasion of wheat by H. latipons may only become recognizable when cysts appear on the roots (Mor et al. 1992).Evidence for the presence of CCNs may not be noticed in most infested soils and in plant roots with low nematode numbers. Detecting and identifying nematodes in soil and plant tissues is therefore important to be able to determine their presence, to monitor their movement or introduction, to estimate population densities, and to make a correct identification, all of which are important in developing appropriate management schemes. While CCN species are often found as single infections in most fields, it is not uncommon to identify two species in the same field (Abidou et al. 2005;Holgado et al. 2009;Smiley and Yan 2015;Yan and Smiley 2010).Sampling is the first step in detection. Soil samples are usually taken soon after harvest because the population densities are near their maximum levels and the analysis will provide timely information for the next season. However, sampling just before planting provides a better estimate of the initial nematode density and their possible impact on the crop that will be planted. Samples may also be taken at any time during the growing season because low, nondetectable population densities increase over time to levels at which damage to crops becomes visible. During that period, not only cysts with eggs and juveniles inside, but also other life stages can be found free in the soil and inside the roots. In this case, to have a proper idea of nematode densities, both a soil and a root sample should be taken (Barker and Campbell 1981).Soil samples. Sampling can be accomplished using a variety of tools, ranging from a spade to special soil samplers or augers. In each case, soil samples are collected to a depth of 30 cm because most cysts or free-living nematodes are located in the upper 10 to 15 cm of soil (X. H. Li et al. 2014;Smiley 2016;Xiang et al. 2013). Different methods of sampling are recommended depending on the purpose of the investigation, the costs, and the available time. For a qualitative study (e.g., detection of CCN to determine presence or absence, but not quantity), the required accuracy can be relatively low and thus requires only a simple sampling plan. For this purpose, it is sufficient to collect a composite sample of 20 soil cores taken from the area surrounding patches of stunted plants, with or without some of the infected plants themselves. When the quantity of the population needs to be determined, as for precise advice regarding control measures or the selection of a crop or a cultivar, a higher degree of sampling intensity is required to achieve the intended level of accuracy. In this case, it is recommended that three samples per hectare are collected with up to 60 or 70 soil cores per sample, following a systematic sampling pattern. Random sampling is another option but it does not account for the patchy nature of nematode distribution and thus it is only representative if the sampling area is small. A systematic grid-like sampling pattern gives more reliable results. Accuracy increases by taking more samples and a larger volume of soil and/or more plant samples. However, the aim is to find the best balance characterized by a combination of highest possible accuracy and lowest possible cost and time (van Bezooijen 2006).Soil samples are usually put in labeled, plastic sampling bags to retain the field level of moisture. This is particularly important when the samples contain life stages other than cysts. Temperature and direct sunlight are two critical factors affecting the survival of nematodes. Therefore, plastic bags should be stored in a cool, dark place (Elmiligy 1971).After collecting samples, the nematodes should be separated from the soil ('mineral' fraction) or plant tissue ('organic' fraction) using a coarse sieve. The latter can be roots cut from plants or root pieces collected from the soil. In most cases, each fraction is analyzed separately. However, if a sample cannot be processed completely, a representative subsample should be taken. When this is done properly, analysis of one subsample per sample is sufficient (Carbonell and Angulo 1979).Many extraction methods exist but all indirectly use one or a combination of the following principles: (i) the specific density of nematodes makes it possible to decant them from particles that settle faster while the nematodes remain floating in the water, whether or not the extraction is made with the aid of an undercurrent (elutriation), or with a liquid having a specific gravity higher than that of water and combined with a centrifugal force (flotation/centrifugation); (ii) the size and shape of the nematodes makes it possible to separate them from other particles by using a set of sieves with different mesh size (sieving); (iii) the motility of the nematodes makes it possible for them to migrate out of the matrix into a clear suspension through a filter positioned in a shallow water-filled tray or funnel (Baermann funnel), with or without the aid of a preceding maceration step (to make plant pieces smaller) and/or a fine mist sprayed onto the matrix (mistifier). The first two principles are usually applied for extracting infective juveniles and males from soil, while extraction methods for plant tissue are usually based on nematode mobility. The only exception on the latter is the blender flotation/centrifugation method which does not make use of nematode mobility as the nematodes are liberated from the plant tissue by blending first. This technique makes it possible to extract the swollen endo-parasitic stages of CCN from plants. There are some excellent reviews that provide an overview of the different extraction methods, their principles, procedure, materials needed, advantages, and disadvantages (Hooper et al. 2005;Seinhorst 1988;Southey 1986;van Bezooijen 2006).For CCNs, specialized extraction methods exist for cysts because their size, shape, and weight differ significantly from life stages of other nematodes. These extraction methods can be subdivided into methods using dry soil and those using dry or wet soil. Cyst extraction methods using dried soil are based on the fact that cysts usually contain some air and therefore float on water. However, it should be noted that the viability of the eggs and juveniles inside the cyst will decrease drastically if the soil is dried for several days at temperatures above 35°C. Another disadvantage is the fact that young, egg-filled cysts do not float as well as older cysts with fewer eggs, and the young full cysts can therefore be lost. As a consequence, more empty or half-empty cysts are isolated, which results in an underestimation of the population. Therefore, when it is intended to use CCN cysts for further multiplication or inoculation, or when densities should be determined precisely, a 'wet' extraction method should be selected. Such methods apply an undercurrent or a solution with a higher density than the cysts to keep them afloat in the suspension or on top of the solution respectively, while allowing soil particles to settle (van Bezooijen 2006).Plant samples. Plant samples, gently rinsed in water to remove soil and other particles, can also be examined directly after sampling. Young, rounded white females or encysted brown females full of eggs and juveniles break through the surface of roots and thus can be detected by eye or using a magnifying glass. The presence of other life stages in plant tissues can be determined by microscopy after staining with cotton blue or acid fuchsin, which stain the nematodes while plant tissue remains relatively clear (Southey 1986). For further processing, cysts and young females or other life stages can be isolated by dissection.Morphology-based identification methods. After extraction, a nematode suspension or a mix of cysts and organic matter (the 'float') are retained from samples. The nematode suspension can be stored at 4°C, but should be processed within a few days as fungal and bacterial growth can reduce the quality and quantity of the nematodes (van Bezooijen 2006). A subsample is taken and all CCN, still alive, are counted using a dissecting microscope (10 to 50×). This can be repeated several times to increase accuracy. The total number of nematodes in the sample is calculated by multiplying the mean number of nematodes in the subsamples with the number of subsamples that can be taken to complete the sample. The nematode suspension can also be preserved using a fixative for later evaluation (Hooper 1986). Identification of J2s (Fig. 9) usually requires a combination of the following morphological characteristics: body length, stylet length, tail length, length of hyaline part of the tail, stylet knob shape, and shape of tail terminus (Sturhan 1982;Subbotin et al. 2010b).Cysts present in the 'float' are also counted. The organic matter is spread on a counting plate under a dissecting microscope. To investigate the cyst contents, they need to be separated from the 'float,' usually using forceps, a small paint brush, or a more robust hair (e.g., an eyebrow hair or a pig hair in a holder). The cysts are then crushed manually with a scalpel, or a 'cyst squasher,' by gently rubbing them between two glass slides. Pieces of the cyst shell should be removed before counting eggs and juveniles (van Bezooijen 2006). Identification can be done as described for J2s. Alternatively, a vulval cone, consisting of the terminal region of the cyst, can be prepared and examined (Cooper 1955;Subbotin et al. 2010a). Four morphometrical characters of the vulval cone (Fig. 10) are diagnostically valid: fenestra length, mean semifenestral width, vulval bridge width, and vulval slit length. Also useful are the presence of an underbridge and size and shape of bullae (Handoo 2002). However, morphological analysis requires a trained scientist because these nematode species do not show a broad anatomical variation. Sometimes only small but consistent differences are important for distinguishing certain species. In addition, environmental factors and the fixation process can affect nematode dimensions. Because of these issues, nematologists are increasingly turning to molecular methods for identification.Nematode vitality. It is easy to determine whether nematodes in a suspension are alive or dead. Living plant parasitic nematodes actively move and exhibit gentle, sinusoidal, dorsoventral waves along their entire body (Wallace 1968). It is more difficult to determine whether eggs and juveniles inside cysts are alive. Various methods have been used but none are entirely satisfactory. Stains like phloxine B (Fenner 1962) or Meldola blue (Ogiga and Estey 1975) can differentiate between living and dead nematodes because the dye only enters a dead nematode if internal membranes are damaged. Many samples can be examined with relative ease and speed by staining; however, this may not indicate true viability as, for example, nematodes treated with nematicides may appear viable, but eventually die.Another method for assessing viability is measurement of ATP, which is present only in living tissue (H. J. Atkinson and A. J. Ballantyne 1977). However, this method requires specialized equipment and nematodes that are not contaminated by microorganisms, since ATP from the microbes will influence the results. Two more recent methods include measuring the trehalose content of the cysts (Perry et al. 1983;Yen et al. 1996), or using reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) (Christoforou et al. 2014). Trehalose, which acts as a protectant, is converted into glucose just before hatching, leaving behind an empty cyst without trehalose. Alternatively, due to a change in the permeability of the membrane of dead eggs and juveniles, the trehalose leaks out leaving behind a full 'dead' cyst without trehalose. The RT-qPCR is designed to detect mRNA of a certain gene indicating gene expression and thus activity of the nematode. In dead organisms, mRNA degenerates quickly, resulting in a negative signal. Unfortunately, neither of these methods can currently substitute for the visual inspection because the variance of the RT-qPCR is too high and the density range of the trehalose assay is too small (Beniers et al. 2014).DNA-based identification methods. Molecular techniques are becoming the most important tools to detect and identify nematodes, including CCN. General protein and specific enzyme banding patterns obtained after iso-electric focusing (IEF), an electrophoretic method capable of separating amphoteric molecules like proteins, has been applied to distinguish Heterodera species. An extensive evaluation of five different isozymes within species of the CCN complex confirmed previous morphological characterizations that separated H. avenae, H. filipjevi, H. latipons, and H. mani (Andrés et al. 2001b). For many years, IEF was considered to be a simple and efficient method for nematode diagnostics (Gäbler et al. 2000;Rumpenhorst 1985;Sturhan and Rumpenhorst 1996;Subbotin et al. 1996). Nevertheless, it was evident that results could be influenced by sample preparation, storage, and the developmental stage of the nematode. This approach has now been replaced by more sensitive DNA-based methods (Subbotin et al. 2010a;Waeyenberge and Viaene 2015). Initially, PCR-RFLP profiling and DNA-barcoding based on the rDNA cistron were applied. These techniques only required DNA extracted from few to one isolated juvenile or cyst. PCR-ITS-RFLP diagnostics profiles have been developed for most Avenae group species (Bekal et al. 1997;Gäbler et al. 2000;Madani et al. 2004;Rivoal et al. 2003;Subbotin et al. 1999Subbotin et al. , 2002Subbotin et al. , 2003;;Tanha Maafi et al. 2003;and others). However, other molecular techniques were needed to speed up acquisition of results and to reduce costs. This has led to the development of species-specific primers for end-point PCR and DNA-probes for quantitative PCR. These assays are currently available for several CCN species such as H. avenae, H. latipons, and H. filipjevi (H. Peng et al. 2013;Qi et al. 2012;Toumi et al. 2013aToumi et al. , 2013bToumi et al. , 2015;;Yan and Smiley 2010;Yan et al. 2013). The assays can detect and, in case of qPCR, quantify (Fig. 11) one or two different CCN species simultaneously in a nematode suspension. This means that these methods can eliminate the need to isolate and, in case of qPCR, count these species. service has been used for research in several countries, including the U.S. A. (Smiley et al. 2016), and prompted the development of species-specific DNA-based assays to detect and distinguish between H. avenae and H. filipjevi in the U.S.A. (Figs. 12 and 13; Yan and Smiley 2010; Yan et al. 2013). Those tests are now available as a commmercial service to farmers and scientists at several nematode testing laboratories in the U.S.A. (Smiley 2016).Estimates of crop damage caused by CCNs were published in recent workshops of the International Cereal Nematodes Initiative (Dababat et al. 2015b(Dababat et al. , 2017;;Riley et al. 2009). Other reports were summarized in Dababat et al. (2014), McDonald and Nicol (2005), Nicol and Rivoal (2008), Rivoal and Cook (1993), Smiley and Nicol (2009), Vanstone et al. (2008), and others.Magnitude of yield reduction. CCNs have reduced yields in individual research trials or fields by as much as 20% in Pakistan, 50% in Australia, 50% in Turkey, and 90% in Saudi Arabia (Dababat et al. 2015b;Riley et al. 2009). More than half the fields are reported to be infested by CCNs in selected cereal-producing regions of Turkey (Abidou et al. 2005;Elekçioglu et al. 2009), Iran (Tanha Maafi et al. 2009), the U.S.A. (Smiley et al. 1994), and Europe (Rivoal and Cook 1993). All wheat fields are infested by CCNs in several provinces of China (D. L. Peng et al. 2009). A bibliography of 123 CCN publications relating to all aspects of CCN biology and management in China, from 1991 to 2014, was published by Riley and Qi (2015).Reports of crop losses at the magnitudes shown above do not accurately depict the magnitude of economic losses at the regional or national level because documentation was based mostly on research plots located in infested areas of fields. Since the nematode density varies greatly across most fields, published estimates nearly always fail to represent field-wide yield reductions, which are rarely documented. A further complication is that some reports initially attributed to yield reduction by 'H. avenae' are now known or assumed to have been attributable to species recently reclassified as H. australis, H. filipjevi, H. latipons, or H. sturhani. Nevertheless, several reports of regional or national crop losses caused by CCNs are available. In Australia, annual yield losses due to Australian populations of 'H. avenae' were estimated at 300 kt (Murray and Brennan 2009). Losses in Australia were at one time much higher but have been reduced greatly by deploying resistant varieties because only one biotype is present (Lewis et al. 2009;Riley and McKay 2009). Yield losses in three provinces of China, caused by 'H. avenae,' were estimated at 1.2 Mt, assuming that 22% of the production area was infested and that the overall yield reduction was 10% in those areas (D. L. Peng et al. 2009). National production of cereals in Norway was estimated to be reduced by 1 to 5% by multiple CCN species (Holgado et al. 2003). Losses from H. avenae and H. filipjevi in four northwestern states of the U.S.A. are estimated at 22 kt, assuming that 0.04% of the wheat and barley fields are infested and the average field-wide yield reduction in infested fields is 10% (Smiley 2009;Smiley, unreported data). Economic losses in other infested regions of the western U.S.A. and globally are poorly documented (Dababat et al. 2015b(Dababat et al. , 2017;;Riley et al. 2009).Yield reduction relative to population density. A definite relationship between the number of nematodes and either the magnitude of yield suppression or an economic threshold is difficult to generalize because yield responses are strongly influenced by interactions between climate, crop variety, management practice, nematode distribution and density within the field, and chemical, biological, and physical properties of soil. For instance, the importance of a given density of nematodes at the time of planting will become greater if affected plants are later subjected to drought, inadequate nutrition, impediment to root penetration into soil, or adverse temperature. The potential for damage may also differ among varieties if, for example, those varieties have different abilities to replace damaged roots. Nevertheless, associations have been made throughout the history of CCN research to demonstrate a generally linear relationship between initial population density and potential for reduced grain yield and reductions of other growth and yield components.As an example of the relationship between CCN density and grain yield, H. filipjevi in Iran reduced the yield of rainfed winter wheat at all densities ranging from 2.5 to 20 eggs plus J2s/g of soil, with the lowest and highest densities causing 11 and 48% reductions in yield, respectively (Hajihasani et al. 2010b). In the northwestern U.S.A., rainfed wheat yields are generally reduced when the number of H. avenae eggs plus J2s from extracted cysts, plus J2s present within the soil matrix, exceeds 3/g of soil (Smiley, unpublished). Densities of five H. avenae or H. filipjevi J2s/g of soil are capable of causing economic damage to irrigated wheat in India (Singh et al. 2009). Andersen (1961) reported that the numbers of H. avenae cysts produced on barley were 12, 24, 26, and 33 cysts/plant at initial densities of 1, 2.5, 5, and 10 eggs plus J2s/g of soil.Influence of edaphic factors. Effects of temperature, precipitation, soil texture, soil microbiota, and other edaphic factors on the life cycle and crop damage caused by CCNs have been reported in papers shown in Dababat et al. (2015bDababat et al. ( , 2017)), Riley et al. (2009), and Riley and Qi (2015). Other reports were summarized in Andersson (1982), Dababat et al. (2014), McDonald and Nicol (2005), Nicol and Rivoal (2008), Rivoal and Cook (1993), Smiley and Nicol (2009), and others. Complex interactions among edaphic factors are thought to be largely responsible for observations that, in many areas, multiyear periods of high CCN densities and crop damage appear to alternate with multiyear periods of low CCN densities and little crop damage. Andersson (1982) stated that this phenomenon appears to represent a dynamic balance between the pathogen and its parasites and predators.  Temperature. It is important to recognize that temperature and, to a lesser extent, moisture drive the hatching process and that it can therefore vary greatly in chronological time during different seasons (Andersen 1961). Hatching patterns for CCN populations in representative countries were reviewed in the previous section on effects of environmental factors on emergence of J2s. In short, peak hatching of these nematodes occurs in synchrony with planting and growth of cereals in each region of the world (Rivoal and Cook 1993), including different climate types within comparatively small geographic regions (Fig. 8).Precipitation. Moisture is almost always present when small grains are planted, and the moisture films in soil are essential for mobility of these nematodes. Excessively thick films of moisture can impede nematode mobility and the ability of J2s to invade root tips.Grain yield losses due to CCN species are often more economically important in rainfed wheat production systems than in irrigated systems (Nicol and Rivoal 2008). For instance, damage to wheat by H. filipjevi was greater when wheat was irrigated only four times rather than the seven times considered to be agronomically optimal in Isfahan Province of Iran (Fard et al. 2015).Soil physical factors. CCNs may be present in soils with textures ranging from sand to clay. Production of cysts and eggs/cyst are generally greatest in sandy soils and least in clay loams (Al Abed et al. 2009;Andersson 1982;X. H. Li et al. 2012a). Likewise, the number of new cysts formed can become much greater after soil from a no-till field is cultivated than when it remains undisturbed (Al Abed et al. 2009). This may take place because soil structure is important for hatching in fine-textured soils. The greatest number of cysts are formed when most soil pores are in the range of 30 to 100 µm, which coincides with the porosity that is most favorable for movement of J2s (Andersson 1982).Soil chemical factors. CCNs are not limited within the range of chemical characteristics required to produce their hosts. However, more cysts are often produced on roots of plants in soils with more favorable nutrition, which is thought to be an indirect effect of such plants producing larger root systems, providing more sites for invasion by J2s (Andersson 1982). While adequate supplies of nitrogen may promote production of more cysts, it is also true that higher levels of nutrition often are used to mask some of the deleterious effects of root destruction. Plants are better able to generate additional roots if they have adequate nutrition and water. Grain yield and CCN population dynamics can therefore be complex and not always directly related.Soil microbiological factors. Many members of the soil microflora and soil microfauna have been implicated as parasites or predators of CCN eggs or juveniles (Kerry 1987;Kerry and Crump 1998). All stages of the CCN life cycle have been evaluated for possible exploitation of interactions between the pathogen and one or multiple parasites. Eggs within cysts appear to be particularly susceptible to parasitism by fungi and bacteria (Ismail et al. 2001). Studies of interactions between CCNs (H. avenae, H. filipjevi, and H. latipons) and parasitic fungi and bacteria were recently reviewed by Dababat et al. (2014). High levels of nematode mortality have been reported in numerous studies. Of particular interest was a field study in Tunisia, which showed that the presence of both a fungal parasite (Pochonia chlamydosporia; = Verticillium chlamydosporium) and a bacterium (Rhizobium radiobacter) led to the greatest parasitism of H. avenae eggs, and that suppressive soils characterized by high rates of egg mortality were correlated with the highest densities of the fungal parasite (Mensi et al. 2011). Many more reports of research on interactions between CCNs and bacteria, mychorrizae, and other soil fungi in China are reported in Riley and Qi (2015). Effects of abiotic edaphic factors on the efficiency of interactions between fungal parasites and CCNs were reviewed by Andersson (1982).Influence of cereal growth habit. In general, in regions having cold winters, invasion of roots by a given density of CCN will have a greater impact on the yield of a spring-planted cereal than of an autumn-planted cereal. This occurs because winter wheat already has a well-established root system at the time when most J2s emerge from cysts during the spring. Juveniles are already present in soil when spring grains are planted, and continue to emerge from cysts when roots of spring grains are at their most vulnerable stage of development. This relationship is exemplified by comparisons of damage relationships for spring wheat and winter wheat in eastern Oregon (Fig. 14). However, it is also true that higher rates of J2 invasion are often measured in the seminal roots than in the nodal roots of spring cereals (Kerry and Hague 1974) because the seminal roots are developing at the time of highest J2 density in soil, whereas the nodal roots of spring cereals often develop mostly after the J2 density in soil has diminished. While nodal and seminal root branches are each developing on winter cereals when densities of J2 in soil are highest, leading to high rates of invasion of each component of the root system, the main axis of seminal roots and of many coronal roots of winter cereals have grown well below the zone of highest J2 concentration (the 20 cm nearest the surface) by the time the J2 density is highest during the spring.Interactions of CCNs with other plant-parasitic nematodes and plant-pathogenic fungi. The ability of plant-parasitic nematodes to interact with other plant pathogens has long been recognized (Pitcher 1978;Powell 1971). Invasion of roots by a nematode can increase, decrease, or have no affect on the other pathogen. Interactions of the two pathogens is usually indirect, being affected by changes they each cause on the root substrate upon which they both depend. This differs from relationships discussed previously, regarding direct  influences on the parasitic nematode by other components of the soil microbiota and microfauna.While interactions among pathogens are well known, very little research has been focused upon interactions involving CCNs. Rivoal et al. (1995) reported that Pratylenchus neglectus numbers in soil became elevated after a H. avenae-resistant oat variety was released, suggesting that H. avenae suppressed multiplication of P. neglectus. However, Nombela andRomero (1999, 2001) found no relationship between H. avenae and P. thornei on wheat. Cook (1970) reported that severe instances of take-all, caused by Gaeumannomyces graminis var. tritici, were always associated with low densities of H. avenae in England (Cook 1970). That association in the field was then confirmed in pot experiments. Smiley et al. (1994) used regression analyses to determine that the greatest amount of yield reduction for winter wheat in field trials was associated with combined damage from H. avenae and G. graminis var. tritici, although the nematode was individually responsible for more damage than the fungal pathogen. They also reported that the greatest negative effect on numbers of roots was associated with a combination of H. avenae and Pythium spp. When effects of the nematode were reduced through application of a nematicide, there was a corresponding increase in root damage by Rhizoctonia solani and Pythium spp., resulting in no yield improvement. In Australia, Meagher and Chambers (1971) demonstrated that a reduction of wheat tillering, plant height and weight, and number and length of roots were greater when plants were inoculated with R. solani AG-8 and an Australian population of 'H. avenae' than when inoculated with either pathogen alone. The dual influence of these pathogens was synergistic for plant height and for number and length of roots. Subsequent research under field conditions confirmed these relationships (Meagher et al. 1978).Potential mechanisms of synergism between nematode and fungal pathogens were discussed by Back et al. (2002). Schölz et al. (1998) demonstrated in pot cultures that yields of barley were decreased more by a combination of H. latipons and Cochliobolus sativus than by either pathogen alone. The presence of both pathogens reduced the reproductive rate (final density divided by initial density) of the nematode by 50%, as compared with the presence of the nematode alone. The fungal pathogen caused a greater severity of infections to the crown, subcrown internode, and seminal and nodal roots when the fungus was in the presence of the nematode, as compared with infection by the fungus alone. Hajihasani et al. (2013) showed that dual inoculations of H. filipjevi and Fusarium culmorum caused a greater reduction in rainfed winter wheat growth and yield parameters than inoculation with either pathogen alone. Reductions were measured for plant height, shoot weight, root weight, and grain weight (Fig. 15) of wheat grown in terra cotta pots in an outdoor nursery in Iran. The effects of these pathogens on plants were additive rather than synergistic. In the same study, coinoculation of H. filipjevi with C. sativus did not cause additive deleterious effects on growth of wheat. Wheat is known to be more tolerant than barley to C. sativus, which may explain the differences between results of Schölz et al. (1998) and Hajihasani et al. (2013). But both F. culmorum and C. sativus, when coinoculated with H. filipjevi, reduced the reproductive capacity of the nematode (Hajihasani et al. 2013).Damage from CCNs can be most efficiently managed using an integration of multiple strategies, as reviewed by Andersson (1982), Brown (1987), Dababat et al. (2014, 2015a, b, 2017), McDonald and Nicol (2005), Nicol and Rivoal (2008), Riley and Qi (2015), Rivoal and Cook (1993), Sikora (1988), Smiley and Nicol (2009), Vanstone et al. (2008), Whitehead (1998), and others.First, it is important to protect noninfested fields from becoming infested, because it is seldom possible to eradicate CCNs. After fields are infested, the management objective is to reduce the pathogen density to a level lower than the threshold that causes economic damage. Since that threshold varies widely depending on climate, soil and crop variables, and nematode species and virulence characteristics, integrations of several simultaneous management strategies provides the most stable and reliable protection. Practices that may potentially be integrated involve components of the following strategies.Sanitation. Phytosanitary quarantines are effective at the country and state or provincial levels. Sanitary procedures can be helpful at the local level, but prevention of localized spread is very difficult or impractical. These nematodes become disseminated by all processes that move soil (Dawabah and Al-Hazmi 2007;Smiley et al. 1994); as on equipment, animals, plant products, water, or wind. Many years are typically required before the nematode becomes apparent or detectable in infested fields, allowing much time for additional spread before the problem is realized.Crop rotation and host frequency. To achieve effective control of CCNs, it is necessary to reduce the population below the economic threshold for damage. This requires definitive studies on population dynamics and yield losses on representative local cultivars under natural field conditions. Cultural practices based on rotational combinations of nonhosts (noncereals), resistant cultivars, and clean fallow can effectively suppress densities of CCNs in soil. Rotation of cereal crop hosts with two years of nonhost broadleaf crop species or fallow have long been recommended to reduce the density of CCNs on highly infested fields (Andersson 1982;Fisher and Hancock 1991;Rivoal and Sarr 1987;Smiley et al. 1994;Tikhonova et al. 1975). However, the 3-year rotation for this purpose alone is often not profitable in regions where cereals are the main or the only adapted and profitable crop.Resistance and tolerance. The use of host-plant resistance plus tolerance is one of the most effective methods of controlling CCNs (Trudgill 1991). Multiple plantings of resistant wheat or barley crops have successfully reduced CCN densities to very low levels in many countries (Andersen and Andersen 1970;Lewis et al. 2009;Rathjen et al. 1998;Riley and McKay 2009;Rivoal et al. 1991). Resistance is characterized by cultivars that suppress or prevent reproduction of the nematode (Cook and Evans 1987). Sources of resistance to CCN populations worldwide have been collated and reviewed and, where possible, have had their genetic location and gene designation reported (McDonald and Nicol 2005;Nicol 2002;Nicol et al. 2003;Nicol and Rivoal 2008;Rivoal et al. 2001;Smiley and Nicol 2009). All resistances reported against CCNs in commercial cultivars have been based on introgressions of single dominant genes.Resistance. Resistance to H. avenae in barley was first discovered in 1920 in Sweden and was characterized in 1961 (Andersen 1961). Resistance of barley to the CCN has been a specific crop improvement objective in many countries for more than five decades (Andersen 1961;Andersen and Andersen 1973;Cook 1974;Cotten 1967;Holgado et al. 2009;Nielsen 1982;O'Brien and Fisher 1974;Smiley et al. 2011b;Valocká et al. 1994;T. D. Williams 1970;Yavuzaslanoglu et al. 2016).The best currently characterized sources of resistance to 'H. avenae' in barley are the genes mapped to the Ha2 locus on chromosome 2H (Kretschmer et al. 1997) and to the Ha4 locus mapped on chromosome 5H (Barr et al. 1998). According to the gene nomenclature system of Moseman (1972), these gene loci are designated as Rha2 and Rha4, respectively.Six Cre genes for H. avenae resistance in wheat (Cre2 to Cre7) and the Rkn2 gene for resistance to both H. avenae and Meloidogyne naasi (Jahier et al. 1998) were derived from Aegilops species. Other resistance genes were derived from Triticum aestivum (Cre1 and Cre8) and Secale cereale (CreR). Several other sources of resistance (CreX and CreY) are also reported, but their genetic control and gene designation are still unknown. Most of these resistance genes have been introgressed into hexaploid wheat. The Cre1 gene is highly effective against populations of H. avenae from Europe, North Africa, and North America and moderately effective or ineffective to populations of CCNs in Australia and Asia (Mokabli et al. 2002;Rivoal et al. 2001). Populations of H. filipjevi in India and H. latipons in Syria differ in virulence to the Cre1 gene, compared with H. avenae (Mokabli et al. 2002). In Turkey, the Cre1 gene appears partially affective against H. filipjevi, but Cre3 is not. The Cre3 gene is effective against Australian populations of 'H. avenae' (Vanstone et al. 2008) but not European populations of H. avenae (de Majnik et al. 2003;Safari et al. 2005) or H. filipjevi in Turkey. The Cre2 and Cre4 resistance genes from Aegilops and an unidentified resistance gene from the wheat line AUS4930 offer promise against an array of Heterodera species and pathotypes (Nicol et al. 2001). An international root disease resistance nursery containing seven of the known Cre genes is coordinated by CIMMYT to establish the value of these genes in different regions of the world. CCN resistance QTLs for entries in the nursery were also mapped to chromosomes 1A, 1D, 4D, 5A, 5B, 5D, 6A, 6B, 7A, and 7D (Dababat et al. 2016;Mulki et al. 2013). Eleven DArT markers were also reported (Dababat et al. 2016). These resources identified new resistance loci and tools that may soon become useful in wheat breeding programs.Wheat, barley, or oat cultivars resistant to Heterodera populations in one region may be fully susceptible to populations in other regions. This was shown for Australian wheat cultivars evaluated in Israel (Bonfil et al. 2004) and for the cultivar Raj MR1 in India, which is effective in Rajasthan but not in Punjab. Oat cultivars exhibiting resistance and tolerance to 'H. avenae' in Australia were susceptible and intolerant to H. avenae in Britain (Cook and York 1988). The use of resistance requires a sound knowledge of the virulence spectrum for the targeted species and pathotypes present in each region. Also, although not frequently reported, repeated plantings of wheat, barley, and oat cultivars with a single gene for resistance to H. avenae have led to selection of new virulent pathotypes over prolonged time periods, overcoming host plant resistance (Cook and Noel 2002;Lasserre et al. 1996).Molecular markers have been developed to identify genes for resistance to H. avenae complex in barley and wheat (Barloy et al. 2007;Barr et al. 1998;Eagles et al. 2001;Eastwood et al. 1994;Kretschmer et al. 1997;Martin et al. 2004;Ogbonnaya et al. 2001aOgbonnaya et al. , 2001b;;Paull et al. 1998;K. J. Williams et al. 1994K. J. Williams et al. , 2006)). Some of these markers have been used in marker-assisted selection and for pyramiding genes for resistance.Marker-assisted breeding to improve genetic resistance is being applied, but effective resistance genes for CCNs are not yet available for all crops and are not effective against all pathotypes. Large scale tube, pot, or field test screening to identify lines of wheat, barley, oats, and triticale resistant to Australian populations of 'H. avenae' have been undertaken in Australia for more than 30 years (Lewis et al. 2009). Initially, the pot test was the method of choice, with resistance determined by white cysts counted on the surface of root balls enabling up to 600 pots to be evaluated each day. Up to 130,000 plants per annum have been screened in this way, resulting in the release of many cultivars resistant or moderately resistant to the Australian populations (Lewis et al. 2009). However, this approach is labor intensive and time consuming, taking a full growing season to complete. With the development and validation of codominant molecular markers for resistance to the Australian populations of 'H. avenae,' these can be applied to leaf samples from small seedlings, and the tests can be automated to determine presence of resistance genes in 1 to 2 days, with substantial savings in costs and time. As a result, marker-assisted selection for resistance to CCNs in wheat is now used routinely in Australia to identify resistant germplasm in breeding programs.The combination of pot tests and marker-assisted breeding has been used very successfully to reduce infestation levels and losses caused by the CCN in Australia (Ogbonnaya et al. 2009). The strategy followed for marker-assisted selection involves two phases: prebreeding, to identify and characterize resistance sources and the development of linked markers, followed by their incorporation by backcrossing into advanced breeding lines used in breeding programs, including pyramiding of resistance genes from different sources (e.g., Cre1 on chromosome 2BL, Cre3 on chromosome 2DL, and Cre8 on chromosome 6B), using specific linked PCR markers to follow each gene (Ogbonnaya et al. 2009). Deployment of resistant cultivars, starting in about 1975, was also responsible for a strong decrease in damage caused by H. avenae in Sweden (Andersson 1982).Tolerance. Resistance must be combined with tolerance to attain optimal yield performance and stability while simultaneously reducing the risk to subsequent plantings of intolerant cultivars or crops (Andersen 1961;Brown 1987;Cook and Evans 1987;Fisher 1982). Tolerant cultivars are characterized as having an ability to withstand or recover from nematode invasion and to yield well in comparison with noninvaded plants (Cook and Evans 1987;Fisher 1982). Tolerance is usually estimated in the field by comparing the yield of a specific plant cultivar in a naturally infested soil that is either left untreated or is treated with a nematicide such as aldicarb to reduce the impact of the existing nematode population (Brown 1987;Meagher et al. 1978;Smiley 2009;Smiley and Marshall 2016).Roots of both resistant and susceptible cultivars are initially invaded by J2s, which may result in an intolerant reaction prior to the expression of resistance in a resistant cultivar (Andersson 1982;O'Brien and Fisher 1977;Ogbonnaya et al. 2001a;Oka et al. 1997). The tolerance trait has been attributed to characteristics of root growth and physiological response to invasion (Stanton and Fisher 1988;Volkmar 1990). The intolerant reaction is characterized by a closely grouped proliferation of adventitious roots at locations where female nematodes have established a feeding syncytium, resulting in a bushy or knotted appearance to the root. Invaded roots often fail to continue growing deeply into the soil. Some resistant cultivars are unable to produce competitive grain yields when compared with susceptible cultivars that are grown without nematode pressure (Wilson et al. 1983). Growers are often reluctant to plant resistant cultivars that produce lower yield than will susceptible cultivars in noninfested soils (Rivoal and Cook 1993).Barley is generally more tolerant of H. avenae than wheat or oats. Andersen (1961) reported comparative damage thresholds 5, 1, and 0.2 eggs plus J2s per gram of soil for these crops, respectively. Because barley is more tolerant than wheat, it was predicted that there would be a greater potential in barley than in other cereal species to identify cultivars that are both resistant and tolerant of these nematodes (Andersson 1982;O'Brien and Fisher 1977). This expectation was confirmed in selections of barley and wheat cultivars in the U.S.A. (Marshall and Smiley 2016;Smiley and Marshall 2016). The mechanism whereby barley is generally more tolerant than wheat was postulated to be the production of crown roots earlier in barley seedlings than in wheat seedlings, which enables the crown roots to compensate more rapidly and more completely for early damage on seminal roots (T. D. Williams and G. A. Salt 1970).It is also possible to manage damage by rotating resistant cereals with susceptible crop species. However, local knowledge of resistance reactions is essential for effective use of this practice. For instance, rye (Secale cereale L.) and certain cultivars of triticale (Triticosecale rimpaui Wittm.) are resistant. Oat is resistant to Australian populations of 'H. avenae' and to CCNs in several Mediterranean countries, but it is susceptible to H. avenae in northern Europe (McDonald and Nicol 2005). Moreover, resistant cultivars from one region may be exposed to mixtures of species in other regions, as exemplified in Israel by oat cultivars that are resistant to H. avenae and susceptible to H. latipons (Mor et al. 1992).Resistance plus tolerance. Additional production efficiency and profitability will be attained by improving the combined level of nematode resistance plus tolerance in small grain cultivars produced on highly infested fields. However, most wheat breeding programs in states or regions harboring CCNs are not yet breeding for resistance or selecting for tolerace to CCNs. Reasons include a lack of understanding of the importance of the issue, limited financial, technical, or institutional support for this demanding disciplinary research, lack of field test sites with adequate uniformity of infestation, or lack of field sites that do not also subject plants to significant impacts by other parasitic nematode species or soilborne fungal pathogens. Development of additional and improved molecular markers will allow more rapid integration of resistance into tolerant cultivars. Genetic transformations may also aid in the development of nematode-resistant germplasm. Molecular techniques will also facilitate greater precision in studies of resistance mechanisms (Andrés et al. 2001a;Montes et al. 2003Montes et al. , 2004;;Seah et al. 2000).Nematicides. Application of a chemical nematicide has repeatedly been shown to be capable of providing effective control of CCNs in wheat (Brown 1987;Dababat et al. 2014;Fard et al. 2015;King et al. 1982;Riley and Qi 2015;Singh et al. 2009;Smiley et al. 1994Smiley et al. , 2012;;Wu et al. 2007). Aldicarb is a preplant applied nematicide that has been very effective and used most frequently. However, after a period of repeated use to control H. avenae in irrigated wheat in Saudi Arabia, aldicarb became ineffective as it became subjected to an enhanced rate of microbial deactivation (Dawabah et al. 2015). In the region where aldicarb had become compromised, multiple foliar applications of oxymyl were successful in reducing the density of H. avenae and increasing the yield of wheat. However, the yield response to oxyml was not superior to that from growing wheat after two crops of alfalfa (Dawabah et al. 2015). Oxamyl was therefore recommended for periodic use only as a component of a well-defined integrated CCN management system that included crop rotation, management of soil fertility and field sanitation, and rotating the chemistry of nematicides. Economic constraints and environmental and safety concerns associated with early generation nematicides have eliminated them as a viable alternative for use by most farmers. In rainfed agricultural systems, effective and economical chemical or biological nematicides are not currently available to manage CCNs.Efforts to develop nematicides that may provide effective control are continuing. Abamectin (mixture of avermectin B 1a and avermectin B 1b ) was evaluated as a seed treatment to manage CCNs but benefits were negligible to marginal in wheat fields infested with H. avenae in Israel (Oka et al. 2009) and the U.S.A. (Smiley et al. 2012). However, grain yields were significantly increased when a higher rate of abamectin was applied in furrows below the seed in China (Zhang et al. 2017). A formulation of Bacillus firmus spores applied as a biological seed treatment in the U.S.A. also had negligible effect on grain yield and postharvest density of H. avenae (Smiley et al. 2012). Foliar applications of spirotetramat, a broad-spectrum insecticide/nematicide with both phloem and xylem mobility (Safferling 2008), reduced the postharvest density of H. avenae by up to 78% but did not reduce the amount of knotting on roots or improve the yield of spring wheat (Smiley et al. 2011a). Cui et al. (2017) found that treating winter wheat seed with a mixture of either methylene (bis)thiocyanate plus thiamethoxam, or of fipronil plus chlorpyrifos, increased wheat yield and reduced the number of cysts in soils that were infested by Chinese populations of either 'H. avenae' or H. filipjevi. Different formulations of these and other modern nematicides warrant further evaluations in fields infested with CCNs.Natural biological suppression. Dababat et al. (2014) and Tian et al. (2007) reviewed reports in which CCN populations were reduced to nondamaging densities by fungal and bacterial parasites of eggs and J2s. These organisms reduced the number of cysts formed, the capacity of eggs to molt, and the vitality of J2s. At present, however, it has not been demonstrated that this phenomenon can be effectively manipulated as a practical management strategy in most regions of the world. There have apparently been no successful commercial applications of biological suppression of CCNs.Avoidance. It is typically not possible to adjust planting times of crops so that fewer J2s are in soil when the crop is planted. However, a management option that can be effective in cool, temperate regions, where the hatch occurs mostly during the spring, is to plant winter cereals during the autumn to provide deeply penetrating roots before the peak rate of hatching. While less efficient than crop rotation or genetic resistance, this strategy can be a useful component of an integrated pest management approach to CCN control.Masking. The greatest crop loss from CCNs is measured when nutrients or water become limiting for maximum plant growth potential at any point during the growing season. Crop damage is therefore minimized by supplying optimal plant nutrition and, where possible, supplemental water during intervals of drought (Fard et al. 2015;Singh et al. 2009).Trap crops. Heterodera populations can also be reduced by planting a susceptible host as a trap crop prior to the major hatching period, thereby encouraging invasion of roots in plants that are then killed before newly developing white females can produce viable eggs (Stone 1961).Adoption of molecular methods by commercial nematode diagnostic labs. Just as marker-assisted selection can speed up identification of resistance genes in germplasm, commercial diagnostic labs have moved from conventional soil sampling tests for nematode identification and population estimates to molecular testing methods. Similarly, these can be more cost-effective when many samples have to be processed. Molecular diagnostics can be used to identify different species present in a single sample faster than using conventional morphometric identification of nematodes, and this can also help in planning and deploying appropriate control strategies for effective nematode control.PreDicta B, discussed previously, is one such commercial DNAbased soil testing service developed to detect and quantify Australian populations of 'H. avenae' for growers in cropping regions in southern Australia by the Molecular Diagnostic Centre (MDC) of the South Australia Research and Development Institute (SARDI). The MDC offers commercial diagnostic services to the grain and potato industries through the PreDictaB and PreDictaPt tests. These services report on detection and quantification of a range of plant-parasitic nematodes and plant-pathogenic fungi relevant to the respective industries. The commercial assays are done by qPCR and most are species-specific. For nematodes, eight commercial assays are provided for growers. These include assays for 'H. avenae,' root lesion nematodes P. neglectus, P. thornei, P. quasitereoides, and P. penetrans, and root knot nematodes M. fallax, M. hapla, and the M. javanica complex (M. javanica, M. incognita, and M. arenaria). Additional assays for other plant-parasitic and free-living nematode species are under development and are currently in use for research only, but with the potential for commercial development. The results are provided on a risk-level basis (high, medium, low levels of infestation), with advice on what control methods need to be undertaken depending on the levels found (McKay et al. 2008;Kathy Ophel-Keller, DMC-SARDI, personal communication, 2016).At least two commercial nematode diagnotic laboratories in the western U.S.A. now also provide molecular services to distinguish between the two species (H. avenae and H. filipjevi) known to be present in wheat and barley fields of the northwestern states (Smiley 2016;Smiley, personal communication). As in Australia, these labs also identify locally important species of Pratylenchus and of soilborne fungal pathogens of wheat and other crops.Effectors. The term \"effector\" can be defined as a protein, peptide, or other small molecule that can modify host cell structure or function (Hogenhout et al. 2009). Effectors or the genes encoding them are required for successful nematode parasitism and are the foci of major studies in which the aim is to understand their mechanism of action and whether they could be targets for nematode control. Most nematode effector genes are expressed and translated in the dorsal or subventral gland cells of the nematode and are delivered through the stylet into host plant cells. Effectors can also be secreted from the amphids or possibly via the cuticle. Effectors of cyst nematodes generally fall into the categories of cell wall modifying enzymes, those that help the nematode to evade or avoid host defenses, and those that are required for the induction or maintenance of syncytia (or similar feeding cells for other sedentary endoparasites) (Jones 1981;Jones and Dropkin 1975;Jones and Goto 2011). Although cyst nematode J2s migrate intracellularly using their stylet to cut through cell walls, cell wall modifying enzymes may also be employed at this stage, and they may also be involved in softening or modifying cell walls during the induction of syncytia (Yang et al. 2017).Plants can recognize and initiate defense mechanisms against invading pathogens at various levels. Signals that plant cells can respond to include damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPS), such as cell wall oligosaccharides generated by cell wall modifying enzymes, or specific nematode effectors (pathogen associated molecular patterns, or PAMPS). The nematode must counteract host defense responses, and in some cases there is good evidence that effectors secreted by nematodes can counteract plant defense mechanisms by suppressing or even mimicking plant proteins or peptides to bypass or negate the recognition step (Gheysen and Mitchum 2011).Identification of nematode effectors has usually involved either making an EST library from gland cells (Gao et al. 2003;Huang et al. 2003), or next generation sequencing and bioinformatic analyses that identify proteins or peptides with features such as a signal peptide for secretion, but no transmembrane domain (Fosu-Nyarko et al. 2016;Kumar et al. 2014). This provides a list of potential effectors, and further evidence that they may be secreted can be obtained by in situ hybridization showing that expression is limited to the gland cells. In a comparison of transcripts sequenced from secretory glands, unique sequences were identified in potato cyst nematode (G. rostochiensis) and soybean cyst nematode (H. glycines), which indicate a different repertoire of effector proteins when compared with migratory nematodes (Gao et al. 2003;Maier et al. 2012).In a recent detailed genomic study on the cyst nematode G. rostochiensis pathotype R01, Eves-van den Akker et al. (2016) found that horizontal gene transfer appeared to have contributed 3.5% of the predicted genes of this species, of which about 8.5% were thought to function as effectors. More than a third of the effector genes were clustered in 'effector islands' in the genome. Upstream of the genes encoding the majority of effector 'families,' they identified a dorsal gland promoter element motif termed a 'DOG box,' and this sequence could be used to predict novel effectors. We can predict that future in-depth genomic studies of CCNs will generate similar data on effector repertoires and functions, but also highlight specific differences between the cyst nematode genera that will relate factors such as host range and specific lifestyles.Since there has been less research undertaken on effectors of CCNs, to a certain extent, it is necessary to extrapolate from findings for other cyst nematodes such as that for G. rostochiensis (Eves-van den Akker et al. 2016). Many effectors are likely to be common to other cyst nematodes, whereas others may be unique to CCN species. For example, genes encoding cell wall modifying enzymes include b-1,4-endoglucanases, pectate lyases, expansins, and cellulose-binding protein have been identified in a range of cyst nematodes (Cotton et al. 2014;Fosu-Nyarko et al. 2016;G. Wang et al. 2014).Thus far, effectors identified and characterized in cyst nematodes, which modify host physiology and defense mechanisms, include CLAVATA3/ESR (CLE)-like proteins, which affect meristem differentiation, and HgGLAND18, which suppresses plant innate immunity  (Noon et al. 2016;J. Wang et al. 2011;X. Wang et al. 2005). These mimic plant CLE-like peptides and interact with the plasma membrane to form and maintain feeding cells (Y. Guo et al. 2011). Effectors like Hs 19C07 and chorismate mutase modify host hormonal balance (Doyle and Lambert 2003;Lee et al. 2011). Recently, C-terminally encoded peptides (CEPs) secreted by Rotylenchulus reniformis have been demonstrated to upregulate nitrate transporters and limit the size of syncytial feeding sites as an adaptation to obligate parasitism (Eves-van den Akker et al. 2016). The SPRYSEC (SPRY-domain containing) effectors initially identified in potato cyst nematode are proposed to be involved in suppression of plant innate immunity by interacting with plant protein complexes (Cotton et al. 2014;Diaz-Granados et al. 2016). Although bioinformatics analyses indicate the presence of a set of effectors in CCNs similar to those in other phytonematodes, limited functional analysis has been undertaken for CCN species, except for effectors such as b-1,4-endoglucanases, cathepsin S-like cysteine proteinase, expansin, and annexin (C. Chen et al. 2015;Liu et al. 2016;Long et al. 2012Long et al. , 2013;;Thakur et al. 2014).HATdb: transcriptomic repository for CCN. Transcriptome data for J2s and adult stage H. avenae is now publically available (HATdb; http://insilico.iari.res.in) and this is a useful genetic resource available for this species complex that will help contribute to future molecular studies and functional analysis of genes and the mechanisms involved in host interactions (Kumar et al. 2014). Transcriptomic analysis of the available CCN data identified 39 candidate secreted effectors, of which 12 were unique to CCNs (Liu et al. 2016). RNA-seq analysis of a Chinese population of 'H. avenae' during plant infection identified 122 unigenes with signal peptides, and included effectors similar to flp and clp. Up to 85% mortality of treated nematodes occurred when flp and clp were targeted by RNAi with 24 h soaking in siRNAs homologous to target genes (M. Zheng et al. 2015). Advances in understanding molecular processes in CCNs will accelerate as the technologies of next generation sequencing advance. RNA-seq and deep sequencing of small RNAs can provide data on populations of siRNAs generated in transgenic plants, and whether there is a correlation with effectiveness of target gene down-regulation with specific siRNA sequences and amounts. Such data will help in designing the most effective sequences to silence target genes.Gene silencing. Plant-parasitic nematodes can take up macromolecules from the plant cell cytoplasm when feeding, but initially it was thought that J2s would not ingest external solution when outside a host plant. It is now evident that J2s can take up external solutions containing dsRNA when they are 'soaked' or incubated in a solution containing dsRNA (Urwin et al. 2002), with some studies showing that the addition of neurostimulants like octopamine to the soaking solution can enhance the uptake of solution and thus dsRNA by plant nematodes. This finding enabled study of gene silencing through in vitro soaking or feeding of dsRNA. As a result, many effectors and other genes involved in biochemical and developmental processes have been targeted in functional studies to determine how their down-regulation can affect nematode parasitism and viability. In general, in vitro studies involve soaking of motile nematodes in dsRNA solutions for up to 24 h, followed by determining phenotypic effects (e.g., reduced motility or rigidity, aberrant behavior, reduced attraction to roots, reduction in migration in roots), measuring changes in the expression of the targeted gene, and quantifying the reduction in reproduction when treated nematodes are used to infect host plants (Fosu-Nyarko and Jones 2016; Tan et al. 2013). Such studies target genes involved in parasitism, development, locomotion, and important biological pathways. Table 2 summarizes some gene silencing studies that have been undertaken for cyst nematodes, with the main focus initially on the soybean cyst nematode, but now with major studies on the potato cyst nematode G. rostochiensis. This table includes data from experiments of dsRNA soaking of nematodes and those of host-induced gene silencing (HIGS) where dsRNA is delivered to target genes in the nematode through transgenic plants.To date, there have been relatively few studies on gene silencing for CCNs, partly because these species are relatively difficult to handle and culture, and because genomic or transcriptomic data were rather limited.Host-induced gene silencing (HIGS). Conventional breeding for pest resistance either requires large scale screening of genotypes to identify suitable resistance genes and multiple generations of plants to incorporate the resistance, or more recently, the application of marker-assisted selection to combine validated resistance genes. Transgenic plants provide an attractive alternative strategy to develop new forms of resistance, by transfer of functional resistance genes directly, or by developing 'synthetic' resistance genes that interfere with vital processes in the nematode-plant interaction. Studies in which transgenic plants have been generated with various forms of synthetic resistance indicate that varying but significant levels of reduction in nematode cyst development can be achieved (e.g., Table 2). Many such studies have focused on root knot nematodes because of their broad host range and relative amenability to culture, but data are now emerging on applying this approach to cyst and root lesion nematodes (Samac and Smigocki 2003;Sindhu et al. 2009;Tan et al. 2013;Walawage et al. 2013), and to a range of other species such as Rotylenchulus reniformis, Radopholus similis, and Bursaphelenchus xylophilus (H. J. Atkinson et al. 2004;Tripathi et al. 2015;Urwin et al. 2000).In most of these studies, the aim has been to achieve in planta knockdown of vital genes in nematodes to reduce their ability to parasitize the plant, by interfering with attraction to host roots, migration, development, or reproduction (reviewed by Dutta et al. 2015). For example, some data indicates that more than a 90% reduction can be achieved in cyst development for H. schachtii on Arabidopsis (Fosu-Nyarko and Jones, unpublished), and a reduction in cyst formation of up to 94% was found after silencing the synaptobrevin (snb-1) gene in soybean cyst nematode through transgenic roots (Klink et al. 2009). An important consideration in the choice of target gene sequences to use is to undertake bioinformatic analyses to choose sequences with no off-target effects. In addition, this approach can be used to silence genes in plants that respond to nematode-secreted effectors. For example, the CLE-like nematode effectors are recognized by plant CLE receptors that are required for syncytium development in plants (Replogle et al. 2011(Replogle et al. , 2012)). Knockdown of these receptors in soybean roots resulted in reduced soybean cyst nematode infestation (X. Guo et al. 2015). However, reducing expression of plant genes involved in the nematode-plant interaction is likely to be detrimental to plant crops, since the plant genes will have a functional role in the plant, and interfering with this could reduce field performance.Transgenic resistance from expression of cystatins and peptides that interfere with root invasion. RNAi is not the only transgenic approach to confer resistance to nematode pests. Other well-documented approaches include expression of an antifeedant cysteine proteinase inhibitor in plants to interfere with nematode digestion, and an antiroot invasion nonlethal synthetic peptide (H. J. Atkinson et al. 2004;Tripathi et al. 2015). Cysteine proteinases are major digestive enzymes of many nematodes and small protein inhibitors (cystatins) from plants have mediated nematode resistance when expressed in several crops (e.g., tomato, rice, potato, banana, plantain). Cystatin is a normal part of the human diet, is not allergenic, and is rapidly degraded by gastric juices, indicating there is no biosafety issue: the peptide is too small to be allergenic and is degraded in the human small intestine. Similarly, there is no evidence for environmental safety concerns (Tripathi et al. 2015).Combining different resistance strategies. It is normally the case that HIGS for nematode resistance using RNAi does not confer 100% resistance to nematodes. There are a number of possible explanations for this. The first is the specific target gene chosen; is its expression vital, is it unique, or does it belong to a multigene family? Other factors that affect the extent of gene silencing include where and when the target gene is expressed, the specific dsRNA sequence chosen, the stability of target mRNA or encoded protein, the presence of a 'recovery' phenomenon, and experimental variables such as the vigor of the nematodes treated, and differences in the RNAi machinery (e.g., for systemic spread of the silencing signal) between genera or species (Jones and Fosu-Nyarko 2014). One way to improve transgenic resistance to nematodes is to combine two different modes of resistance, such as a cystatin and anti-invasion peptide as described above (Tripathi et al. 2015), and a combination of RNAi and one of the latter approaches may both give more effective and more durable transgenic resistance. Durability of resistance to pests and diseases is an important consideration, and where RNAi-based traits have already been deployed commercially, the expression of the trait seems to be consistent in following generations (Waltz 2015a, b).Commercialization of transgenic nematode resistance traits. The general approach to commercializing a transgenic nematode resistance trait has been discussed by Fosu-Nyarko and Jones ( 2015). An overview is presented in Figure 16. Basic discovery research is undertaken, and if that is promising the technology moves from the discovery phase to proof-of-concept, early and advanced stages of product development, to a prelaunch phase, and finally to commercial release to growers. The activities to be undertaken in each phase are indicated in Figure 16, with time scales and probability of success. The discovery or trait moves along the pipeline often via a 'start-up' or 'expansion stage' company, until the trait is either licensed to a large corporation or multinational company or the company is bought by such companies for advanced development, prelaunch, and commercial release to growers.The added value of a nematode resistance trait will be a major determinant on whether it will be deployed commercially. However, for CCN resistance, this decision will also be influenced by international factors, such as the acceptance of transgenic wheat or barley locally or in importing countries: thus both national regulations and acceptance of genetically modified crops will also influence commercial decisions to develop transgenic CCN resistant wheat or barley.Nontransgenic delivery of gene silencing triggers for nematode control. Although at present about 10% of the world's crops are transgenic, the costs and issues that must be overcome to deploy any form of transgenic crop resistance to nematodes, and to CCN in particular, are not insubstantial. Hence there is current research aimed at delivering dsRNA in spray form ('ectopic delivery') rather than by transgenic plants. This strategy requires low cost production of dsRNA sequences, methods to stabilize them for field delivery, uptake of dsRNA by leaves, its systemic basipetal movement through plants to roots, and uptake by nematode on feeding (Fosu-Nyarko and Jones 2015;Naz et al. 2016).If the technical aspects of ectopic delivery of dsRNA can be overcome in a cost-effective manner, this could bypass the issues of RNAibased transgenic nematode control. In addition to ectopic delivery of RNAi, gene silencing technology can be used to determine targets for new nematicides; this direction, called genome-enabled novel chemical nematicides (Fosu-Nyarko and Jones 2015), is being followed by Danchin et al. (2013).Genome editing. Genome editing is an exciting and powerful new alternative to RNAi for gene silencing. It is essentially targeted mutagenesis, in which mutations can be induced in target genes in a nontransgenic manner termed nonhomologous end joining (NHEJ). Alternatively, by insertion of oligonucleotide sequences with ends homologous to each side of the cut site, specific additions to a sequence can be made, termed homologous end joining (HEJ). The technology has passed through a number of iterations, with the use of a 'guide' RNA sequence directing a dsDNAse enzyme (CRISPR-Cas9) to cut a target sequence at a specific site now most widely used (Lozano-Juste and Cutler 2014). In NHEJ, the cell repair enzymes frequently make a mistake in joining the ends, resulting in a targeted mutation or total inactivation of the gene. When a cassette consisting of a selectable marker gene with CRISPR and Cas 9 is used to select edited cells for regeneration to plants, the site of gene editing will be elsewhere in the genome from the editing cassette. Hence, for cereals, it is possible to generate edited genotypes that no longer contain an editing cassette. This can be achieved by making a cross with the original (or another) genotype, and identifying genotypes with the edited gene but without the introduced cassette.A plant with a targeted mutation but lacking any introduced DNA may well be regulated as non-GM. However, whereas in HIGS the silencing trigger is delivered from the plant to the pest, it is not possible to deliver a (nontransgenic) genome editing signal in this way. To apply this technology to nematode control reverses some of the current strategies, in that it will be necessary to find a nonvital host plant gene whose expression is needed for nematode parasitism, and edit it to be nonfunctional. The recent availability of genome sequences for hosts of CCNs could well lead to the development of nontransgenic cereals genome edited for resistance (Mayer et al. 2014;International Barley Genome Sequencing Consortium 2012).Abidou, H., El-Ahmed, A., Nicol, J. M., Bolat, N., Rivoal, R., and Yahyaoui, A. 2005. Occurrence and distribution of species of the Heterodera avenae group in Syria and Turkey. Nematol. Mediterr. 33:195-201. ) and their control using gene silencing technology. She undertook an in-depth study of the RNAi pathway of root knot nematodes, and applied this knowledge to study the effects of gene silencing on the ability of nematodes to reproduce in transgenic plants expressing dsRNA. She is now employed as a postdoctoral research fellow at Murdoch University working on an Australian Research Council industry 'Linkage' project using genome editing (CRISPR/Cas9) technology to improve the dietary quality of potato. Email: s.iqbal@murdoch.edu.au Michael G. K. Jones has a degree in natural sciences/ biochemistry and a PhD degree in plant biochemistry from Cambridge University, U.K. His dissertation focused on hostpathogen interactions of the potato cyst nematode (Heterodera rostochiensis) and root knot nematodes. He held postdoctoral positions in the U.S.A., Australia, and the U.K., in which he worked on nematode-plant interactions at the ultrastructural and biochemical levels. He was then employed for 3 years as a senior scientific officer at the Welsh Plant Breeding Station (now IBER) in Aberystwyth to establish their genetic manipulation program and for 8 years as principal scientific officer at Rothamsted Research (Biochemistry Department) where he led the Cell Biology and Genetic Manipulation Progam. In 1990, he was appointed as head of Plant Sciences at Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia, which allowed him to study the molecular basis of plant-nematode interactions. He is now professor of Agricultural Biotechnology, and foundation director of the Western Australian State Agricultural Biotechnology Centre (SABC) at Murdoch University. He was appointed to the Australian Commonwealth Government's Agricultural Biotechnology Advisory Council (ABAC) for 5 years, which advised the Ministers responsible for national biotechnology policy, and is currently a member of the Agricultural Biotechnology Council of Australia (ABCA), AusBiotech, and Australasian Association of Nematologists. He was awarded the Murdoch University Research Medal in 2006. He has supervised/co-supervised more than 50 PhD students, published 265 scientific papers and books, and gained $35 million in research funding. He was also co-founder of the nematode trait development company 'Nemgenix.' His current work focuses on nematode pests of wheat, particularly genomics, transcriptomics, and effectors of root lesion and cyst nematodes, and the application of biotechnology to control nematode and aphid pests of crop plants. Email: m.jones@murdoch.edu.au Zahra Tanha Maafi obtained a BSc degree in agricultural sciences at the University of Mazandaran, Islamic Republic of Iran. She worked as an agricultural expert in the former Plant Pests Research Institute-Branch Hormozgan, Bandar-Abbas, southern Iran for almost 3 years. She then earned the MSc degree in plant pathology with emphasis in nematology at the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tehran. She was then a nematology researcher at the headquarters of the Iranian Research Institute of Plant Protection, also in Tehran. Professor Tanha Maafi was then awarded a scholarship from the Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization, in Tehran, and earned her PhD degree at the University of Ghent, with a thesis entitled Morphological and Molecular Identification of Cyst Forming Nematodes in Iran. Since then, she has been working as a scientist in the Nematology Department at the Iranian Research Institute of Plant Protection. The main subjects which she has focused upon are cereal cyst nematodes, soybean cyst nematodes, potato cyst nematodes, citrus nematodes, and other plant-parasitic nematodes. She has supervised several MSc and PhD students in collaboration with the universities. Email: tanhamaafi@iripp.ir Deliang Peng received his PhD degree from China Agricultural University in 2001. He received a scholarship for studies at the Istituto di Nematologia Agraria in Bari, Italy, and a Darwin Fellowship for study at the International Institute of Parasitology, CAB International, U.K. He visited and collaborated frequently with nematologists at ILVO, the Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, at Merelbeke, Belgium. Professor Peng has conducted research on plant nematodes for more than three decades and is now the laboratory leader for the Nematology Innovation Team of the Institute of Plant Protection (IPP) at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) in Beijing. He is the lead scientist conducting research on cyst-forming nematodes in China. His research has included disease diagnosis, nematode identification and biology, and crop management through strategies of genetic resistance, biocontrol, biofumigation, chemical fumigation, nematacide application, and integrated management. Professor Peng has also conducted research on root-knot nematodes and root-lesion nematodes on soybean, sugarbeet, potato, vegetables, rice, peanut, and sweet potato. He developed integrated nematology management programs for cereal cyst nematodes and for root-knot nematodes on potato, sweet potato, and vegetable crops. He developed rapid molecular diagnostic tests and LAMP detections of Meloidogyne incognita, M. enterobii, M. hapla, Heterodera glycines, H. avenae, H. filipjevi, and H. elechista. Professor Peng is President of Chinese Society of Plant Nematology and is a Councilor of the International Federation of Nematology Societies. He published more than 100 technical papers and received 16 patents. E-mail: dlpeng@ippcaas.cn Sergei A. Subbotin obtained an MSc degree in plant protection in 1981 from the Moscow Agricultural Academy in Russia. In 1987, he was awarded the PhD degree in helminthology (nematology) from the K. I. Skrjabin Institute of Helminthology (VGIS), also in Moscow. He has worked as a researcher in labs of the Center of Parasitology of the A. N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution (Moscow), IACR-Rothamsted (U.K.), Agricultural Research Centre (Merelbeke, Belgium), Institut f ür Nematologie und Wirbeltierkunde (M ünster, Germany), and Department of Nematology, University of California-Riverside. Presently he serves as senior nematologist in the Plant Pest Diagnostic Center, California Department of Food and Agriculture, and has affiliation positions as scientist in the Center of Parasitology, Russia, and as visiting professor in Gent University, Belgium. He has published more than 150 scientific articles in peerreviewed journals on different aspects of molecular systematics and diagnostics of nematodes. Dr. Subbotin is the author of two books, one of them in co-authorship with J. Baldwin and M. Mundo-Ocampo titled Systematics of Cyst Nematodes (Nematoda: Heteroderinae), Nematology Monographs and Perspectives (two volumes). His research studies have been focussed on resolving taxonomic and molecular diagnostics issues of the Avenae group species for many years. Dr. Subbotin has a wide range of collaborative projects with nematologists across the world. Email: sergei.a.subbotin@gmail.com Lieven Waeyenberge obtained an MSc degree in science, group zoology, section biotechnology at the University of Ghent in Belgium. He also earned an MSc degree in molecular biology and biotechnology at the University of Brussels, also in Belgium. Since 1995, he has worked in Merelbeke, Belgium as a research associate at ILVO (Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food), Plant Sciences Unit, Crop Protection Research Area, Section Nematology. During that time he developed expertise in molecular diagnostics of plant-parasitic nematodes. The evolution of the methods used is reflected in his posters and presentations in national and international symposia and in his articles that were mainly published in international peer-reviewed journals. During the last five years, he cooperated with several international research groups to aid in resolving diagnostic problems and to contribute to national and international survey programs. His knowledge is being widely distributed as he supervised and/ or trained more than 40 MSc students, PhD students, and research colleagues around the world. The focus of his current research is on characterizing nematode communities in soil using a DNA metabarcoding approach. The aim of this topic is to develop a high-throughput, reliable tool to assess soil health, biodiversity, and pathogen suppressiveness through the use of nematodes as bio-indicators. Email: lieven.waeyenberge@ilvo. vlaanderen.be","tokenCount":"20851"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"07297e3879afcc939765c1a1533ae499","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ac305c22-5795-44e3-8f3b-c8846996b509/retrieve","id":"-243205262"},"keywords":["Baseline","Kenya","village study","participatory mapping","organisations","access to information Community resourcesparticipatory satellite imagery interpretation and"],"sieverID":"54e24785-5055-4f28-a9aa-b65c3573736e","pagecount":"39","content":"The tools and guidelines used for implementation of the village baseline study across all CCAFS sites, as well as the mapping outputs at a higher resolution can be accessed on our website (http://ccafs.cgiar.org/resources/baseline-surveys).The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) is a strategic ten-year partnership between the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) to help the developing world overcome the threats posed by a changing climate, to achieving food security, enhancing livelihoods and improving environmental management. In 2010, CCAFS embarked on a major baseline effort at household, village and organisation levels across its three target regions, namely East Africa, West Africa and South Asia (more information about CCAFS sites is available on our website http://ccafs.cgiar.org/where-we-work). CCAFS trained survey teams from partner organisations in the three regions to conduct the baseline.The baseline effort consists of three componentsa household survey, village study and organisational survey. The household baseline survey, a quantitative questionnaire on basic indicators of welfare, information sources, livelihood/agriculture/natural resource management strategies, needs and uses of climate and agricultural-related information and current risk management, mitigation and adaptation practices, was implemented by CCAFS partners in 15 sites (105 villages) with nearly 2,100 households in 12 countries to date. CCAFS partners are implementing village baseline studies (VBS) and organisational surveys in one out of the seven villages within each CCAFS site where the household survey was implemented. The plan is to revisit these villages in roughly 5 years, and again in 10 years, to monitor what changes have occurred since the baseline was carried out. The goal is not to attribute these changes to the program, but to be able to assess what kinds of changes have occurred and whether these changes are helping villages adapt to, and mitigate, climate change.The focus of this site analysis report is the village baseline study (VBS). To date, fifteen VBS were conducted in the three CCAFS regions. The VBS aims to provide baseline information at the village level about some basic indicators of natural resource utilisation, organisational landscapes, information networks for weather and agricultural information, as well as mitigation baseline information, which can be compared across sites and monitored over time.The objectives of the village baseline study are to: Provide indicators to allow us to monitor changes in these villages over time. In particular, changes that allow people to o Manage current climate risks, o Adapt to long-run climate change, and o Reduce/mitigate greenhouse gas emissions  Understand the enabling environment that mediates certain practices and behaviours and creates constraints and opportunities (policies, institutions, infrastructure, information and services) for communities to respond to change  Explore social differentiation: o Perceptions of women and men will be gathered separately to be able to present different gender perspectives. o Focus group participants will be selected to present perceptions of groups differentiated by age.The detailed tools and guidelines used for the implementation of the village baseline study across all CCAFS sites, as well as the manuals, data and analysis reports can be accessed on our website (http://ccafs.cgiar.org/resources/baseline-surveys).This report presents the results of the Village Baseline Study (VBS) conducted on June 11 th -14 th , 2012 in the village of Kithoni, Kenya (Map 1). The village's geocoordinates are -1.836; 37.671. Kithoni was chosen for the baseline survey because of its relative central location in the block, among other criteria. There is reasonable accessibility to the village although the roads can be difficult to navigate in the event of heavy rain. The survey team arranged a visit to the village to prepare for the fieldwork. The team was composed of two facilitators, two note takers, two translators and one site coordinator. Each pair was male and female. The team consulted with the village authorities concerning the time and place of meeting. It selected the Mulaani shopping centre for both meetings.The site coordinator sent out invitations to sets of participants who were chosen using random sampling. Each group was composed of 15 participants, men and women respectively. Three consecutive days were selected for the survey and on each day only one set of participants were expected to participate in the survey. On the first day of the survey the whole community was invited to participate in an introductory session where the team explained the survey to them and shared with them the results of an earlier household survey. After the introductory session the rest of the community was set free and only the invited group of 15 men and 15 women remained to carry on with the survey. The whole community was again invited at the end of the third day to attend a debriefing session where a summary of the findings was shared.The survey used participatory methods of data collection. Throughout the data collection process groups of male and female members of the community worked separately. The team used a satellite image of the block and worked with each group to identify and map/sketch resources that are important to the community, their current state, past state and what caused the changes. The outputs were maps and sketches. The process of working with the community to identify the resources that are important to them depended entirely on how well they are able to understand and interpret the image.The task on day 2 was to work with each group to understand the organisational landscape and the links that exist in relation to food security in a normal year, in a year of crisis, and in relation to natural resource management. The outputs were diagrams showing the organisational landscape. Information on each organisation was also captured in cards.There were two main tasks on day 3. The first task was to work with each group to understand information networks in relation to weather issues and farming activities. The outputs were diagrams.The second task was to bring the male and female groups together and generate a vision of what the community would like their village to be in the future. The output was a map/sketch showing \"the vision of the community.\"Information generated from the survey was captured on sketches, maps, flip charts, information cards and notes. All these needed to be brought together in one debriefing report from which this final report is written. The debriefing report was prepared in the field so that it could benefit from the presence of the site team. The photographed sketches and maps were inserted in the debriefing report.In this site analysis report proper maps and diagrams derived from the field outputs replaced them.Topic 1: Community resourcesparticipatory satellite imagery interpretation and visioningCommunity infrastructure and resources and gender-differentiated access and utilisation of those resources have been analysed, based on a process of participatory visual interpretation of high resolution satellite imagery (RapidEye). The aim was to create a basic understanding of existing community resources, as well as of community dynamics in relation to its environment. The participants discussed the current state of those resources, in terms of quality, access, management, history and potential drivers of change. Later on, a mixed group developed a vision of village resources and human well-being into 2030 to understand opportunities, constraints and aspirations for the future. The detailed approach to this exercise is outlined in the CCAFS Village Baseline Study Implementation Manual (follow the link to the baseline study from our website http://ccafs.cgiar.org/resources/baseline-surveys).Men's and women's groups met separately to discuss the current resources in the community. The groups were provided with a satellite image of the area and asked to locate the various resources and identify the current land uses. An example of the current resources as traced onto the satellite image can be seen in Photo 1.Photo 1. Current conditions mentioned by women regarding natural resources and infrastructureFarmland: All households own a piece of land which is cultivated. The average family size is 6 and the average land holding is 3-4 acres. Part of the land is cultivated and part used for pasture. Crops cultivated include maize, cow peas, pigeon peas, green grams, mangoes, citrus and pawpaw (papaya). Crop residue is used as fodder for livestock. The incidence of crop failure is very high in relation to maize production. In every 10 years, the crops fail 8 times due to inadequate rainfall. The community indicated that their farm produce can only feed them for 2 months in a year. The rest of the year the community depends on relief food which comes after 4 months. In between, the community has to purchase food. They get money for purchasing food from selling ropes, eggs and hens. They also get money from remittances. Inadequate rainfall was identified by both men's and women's groups as the main challenge to agriculture and not soil fertility.The choice of crops is changing. The community has stopped growing some crops because of less land, less labour and less rainfall. The preferred crop is maize but it performs poorly. There is also a move to cultivate horticultural crops, as promoted by the Machakos Integrated Development Programme (MIDP) that started 20 years ago and established cooperatives such as the Makueni Farmers Cooperative Society, which is still operational. Horticulture was also promoted by the Makueni Agricultural Programme (MAP), a 10 year program by the government of Kenya and the Danish foreign development agency, DANIDA. In terms of marketing, there are cartels within the market that hinder sales. The cooperative is not operating efficiently, and farmers do not have confidence in cooperatives. There is a marketing cooperative in Makueni for the sale of mangoes but the middlemen/brokers are the main beneficiaries. Farmers breech contracts with the cooperatives when the middlemen offer a better deal. Marketing groups are structures that are in closer contact with the farmer. They meet only when they need to market and all farmers are free to register with them. Livestock keeping is becoming less prominent due to inadequate water and pasture. Family labour is reduced because most children go to school. Most of the men have gone to the cities to look for work since the households cannot subsist from the food they produce on the farm and need additional income.Bush lands: There are no forests in Kithoni village; however there are scattered bushes from which the women obtain fuel wood. The bushes are punctuated by occasional trees which are not very large. The bush areas are not expansive and are in between cultivated fields. There is very little evidence of tree planting. The women report that they rarely cut down the whole tree but obtain fuel wood from trimming the branches of the trees.The community keeps goats and cattle which graze in the open. The pasture is limited and is improved through bush clearing. There is no communal pasture. Every household provides pasture for its livestock on the family land holding. Crop residue is also used as animal feed. There have been efforts to train the community on improving pasture, hay making and pasture establishment through the Ministry of Livestock and its programmes but very few households have invested in improving pasture. Dairy farming was introduced in the area and is being practiced by a few farmers. The region is able to meet its needs for dairy products during the rainy season. The community has access to improved livestock breeds such as the zebu and white goats. Chicken keeping is on the increase while other forms of livestock keeping are on the decrease. Sorghum is planted for chicken. Most people do not like keeping sheep and pigs however. They say this is because sheep and pigs eat a great deal and interfere with the practice of witchcraft. Their market is also poor since many people do not eat mutton or pork. Livestock keeping is constrained by the inadequate supply of water. Farmers are discouraged because they lose large numbers of livestock during dry spells, which are very common.Rivers: There are no permanent rivers in the site; however there are a few seasonal streams which only exist immediately after the rains. The women identified two rivers located outside the site: River Kwa Vita and River Thwake. River Kwa Vita is a seasonal river and water from this source is mainly used for domestic purposes. The river valley supports more vegetation than the rest of the landscape. River Kwa Vita is seasonal because it gets very limited recharge from rainfall. River Thwake is a permanent river but it is far from the village and takes 4 hours walking to walk there. It was a source of water for the community when they first settled the area in the 1950s. Kithoni is connected with its hinterlands by an elaborate network of roads. Not all the roads, however, are in good condition. Road transport is the main mode of transport in the area. The road to Makindu (nearest large town) is tarmacked and is in good condition. There are smaller roads which are not in very good condition, for example the roads to Kikumini, Kwa Kavisi, Kasambani and Musini. The roads provide employment through Kazi kwa Vijana (Work for Youth programme), and they also ease the transportation of goods and services. However there are some roads that are impassable during the rainy season and cause breakdowns of vehicles, bicycles and motorcycles.Schools: There are several schools in the area which the children from the village attend. Kambi Mawe Secondary has adequate classrooms and enough staff and is 1 hour away from the village. Kambi Mawe primary has adequate classrooms, a good playground, and is 1 hour away. Kingutheni Primary has poor infrastructure and has old buildings with classrooms that lack doors and window shutters. It is 30 minutes away from the village. This set of schools is managed by the community and owned by government. St. Emanuel Academy is a boarding school. It has enough facilities and teachers and is 1 hour away from Kithoni. It is owned and managed privately.The women identified additional schools such as Chamusoyi Primary, West Ngosini, Makueni Boys, and Makueni Youth Polytechnic, many of which were farther away. Women in the community visit children in school more often than the men.The schools provide easier access to education due to their close proximity to the community. They also create local employment and a market for goods and services.However many of them have only basic infrastructure and too many students. This leads to congestion of facilities. Most of the schools do not have enough teaching staff, and this compromises the quality of service delivery. The private schools have better infrastructure but cost more. They can be accessed only by those who have enough money to pay the relatively higher school fees.Churches: Churches in the area include Kambi Mawe Catholic church which has a large seating capacity and is an hour and a half away from the village. There is a Salvation Army church which is not so large but is very old and about an hour's walk from the village. Churches are associated with the provision of social services such as education and health services. They also support orphans and vulnerable children especially in paying school fees. Other churches include the African Inland Church and Seventh Day Adventists. They reduce incidences and fear of witchcraft.There are many markets used by the community. Mulaani market, which was the venue for the village baseline study meetings, is small with only a handful of shops offering very basic supplies. Kwa Kathoka and Kyemole markets are about 45 minutes by foot from the village. West Ngosini is further away. Markets supply the community with goods and services but the community is very superstitious and this scares away investors. There is a strong belief in witchcraft. Kambi Mawe market is like a ghost market, closed and abandoned due to some local superstition.Dispensaries: Kambi Mawe Community dispensary is the closest health facility. It is an hour's walk from the village and has adequate staff and affordable charges. It is managed and owned by the community. It provides employment and health care services. The population is too large for its limited resources.Maps 2 and 3 are digitized versions of what was drawn by the men's and women's groups and represent the current conditions in the community regarding natural resources (water, forest, grazing, farmland, and degraded land) and infrastructure (roads, markets, education, and health) according to, respectively, male and female participants. The maps lay out information prepared by the community participants super-imposed on a satellite image. Male and female participants had differing views of their community's resources. Men viewed the low rainfall totals as the main limitation on farmland while women viewed the small land holding as the main limiting factor. The women were concerned about the depletion of vegetation cover on the farm holdings because this was their man source of wood fuel. The small size of the farm holdings also limited their ability to increase the tree population on the land. Men identified beekeeping as an opportunity presented by the bush land. The women brought out the link between business and witch craft and the role played by the church to reduce the negative impacts of local superstitions.Map 4. Overlay of current conditions, comparing men's and women's mapsParticipants were asked to consider the resources they had in their community, to discuss the history of land use, and to identify major changes that had occurred in the landscape. In addition, participants were to examine how the resources got to the current condition and the major drivers of those changes, as well as the opportunities and constraints for the future.The men reported that this area was initially a wildlife reserve before people settled here in the 1950s.In the past there were fewer people living here, however there has been a steady population growth causing pressure on the land resources. The women noted that natural sources of water were initially further away from the people when the area was first settled. Both groups indicated that there were more trees in the area in the past. Animals such as monkeys and birds inhabited the forests and woodlots that previously existed. Women noted that land holdings used to be larger and farm production was better. The rivers used to have more water that was cleaner than it is today. Less rainfall was cited as the reason for reduction in the amount of water in the rivers. Hospitals and churches were smaller in the past, but with more resources they have grown.Maps 5 and 6 compare past and present resource conditions for men and women, respectively. Table 2 summarizes the information provided during the discussion. With a mixed group of men and women, the goal was to develop an image of village resources and human wellbeing into 2030 to understand the opportunity and constraints, as well as aspiration for the future. This exercise built upon all the work completed in the previous sessions. In addition, the exercise took into account the photographs of the landscape, including things they are proud of and things that need to be improved upon in the future, that a group of young people had produced following instructions given on day 1. In the section below we include the map that encapsulates Kithoni village's vision of the future (Map 7).Map 7. Future map of the communityThe community indicated that the condition of roads was very important for the areas development. They had a vision of tarmac on the Kwa Kathoka to Kavisi road with a bridge over River Thwake. They also envision the Makindu road as a super highway with dual carriage way. They would also like to see the Mulaani -Wote road that starts from Kithoni Village tarmacked and complete with bridges at Rivers Kivesi and Kamunyolo. Opportunities presented by construction of this infrastructure are employment creation for the local population and markets for food and other products of agriculture. Transport will be improved and the area will be opened up for trade with other parts of the country. Road construction will require murram (gravel) which will be excavated and sold to them by the locals and the resulting pits will store water. A constraints presented by the infrastructure development will be that people from other areas will be attracted to come to this area.The community suffers perennial water shortages so they had a vision of all dams enlarged and desilted regularly to improve water availability and quality. The increased supply of water would allow irrigation of crops and the establishment of tree nurseries.The community values education because it provides them with hope for improving their lot. They had a vision of more schools built in the area including both primary and secondary schools. This will present opportunities, as education of their children will allow them to get employment and build a better future.Human settlements: The community did not believe in moving out to settle in other areas even with an ever increasing population. They had a vision of an increase in the number of houses built within the community. There is an opportunity to improve living standards as result of better housing. A major constraint is the reduction in the size of land holdings and farmland for all households. Cultivated fields: Since the community did not plan to move out to settle in other areas they saw a vision of reduced farmland area and increased human settlement. This causes a constraint because fragmentation of land is a result of the increasing population.The community anticipates that the area under woodlots/ bushes will reduce in size because of competition between farmland and human settlements and continuous harvesting of trees for firewood and charcoal production.The community has a vision of improvement in surface water availability in the seasonal stream. This will create an opportunity for the water to be used for domestic use and irrigation. It can be channelled into dams. Constraints are inadequate rainfall and clearing of woodlots and bushes. This topic aims to show evidence of organisational capacities that help address food security and manage resources. This will inform CCAFS about how prepared the village is to respond to the challenges envisaged as a consequence of climate change or other future challenges and to engage with CCAFS partners at a collective level.Specifically, this section presents the different formal and informal organisations involved in the community in general terms, as well as with respect to food security in different situations (i.e. average and crisis conditions), and natural resources management (NRM). It also elaborates on what types of activities the organisations are engaged in, who their members are, whether the organisations are useful, etc.Participants, separated into male and female groups, were asked to draw three large concentric circles on the ground. The inner circle would represent the community, the middle circle the locality and the outer circle beyond the locality. Participants were then asked to name organisations working in the area, whose names were written on cards, and then place the cards in the appropriate circle. Thus, the groups placed in the inner circle the cards of organisations that worked in the community, in the middle circle the cards of organisations operating in the locality, and in the outer circle those that operated beyond the locality. See Photo 2 for an example of the activity as carried out with the study participants. The results are shown in the diagrams that follow. Throughout the activity, the men identified 17 organisations operating within the village while the women identified 27.In Table 4, more detailed information is provided on the five most important organisations as they were ranked by the men's and women's groups.Photo 2. The organisational landscape activity in progress Figure 1. Organisational landscape of the men's group  The goal of this exercise was to get an improved understanding of how the organisational landscape contributes to the food security of the group. Food security is mostly measured at the household level.Nonetheless, community-level organisations and interactions influence the food security of different groups within the community differently. Male and female participants were asked to discuss the concepts of food availability, access and utilization, and then review each organisation they had previously identified by asking which of them had activities that fell under these categories.The area is generally food insecure due to its perennial water problems. Out of the total 38 organisations identified by both the men's and women's discussion groups, in food security. Out of the 17 groups identified by men, 18% were engaged in addressing food security and of the 27 identified by women, 48% were involved. Only three organisations address food crisis in the community. They are the provincial administration, World Food Program and World Vision, making up 8% of the groups identified. These figures are relatively low considering the fact that this is a highly food insecure area. One would expect a higher percentage of groups to be involved in addressing food security and crisis. However it can be explained in part by the fact that over the years the government has been providing relief food and the people have become complacent and developed a high level of dependency on government food. The difference between the male and female outcomes can be explained by the fact that it is traditionally the role of the women to procure food for the family therefore they are likely to have deeper knowledge of the groups that contribute to their doing so.The score card in terms of how many organisations were involved in the various aspects of food security reads as follows: Production: 46% Distribution: 23% Exchange: 8%  Affordability: 38% Allocation: 8%  Preference: 8% Nutritional value: 15%  Food safety: 23%There were very few linkages in the organisational landscape. Most organisations do link with others in their operations. The men identified only one linkage between World Food Program, who provides World Vision with food to distribute in times of food crisis. The women identified links. One in which Amiran supplied Jasho with greenhouses and supervised their use and another in which Africa Harvest provided Kanini Kaseo with goats. In general, most groups address the production aspects of food security. Most of the groups addressing food security operate beyond the locality (77%) while 23% operate at the community level. World Vision scores highest in terms of involvement with food security, and it is followed by Jasho.Figures 3  and  4 show the men's and women's organisational landscapes for food security, respectively.Figure 3. Organisational landscape of food securitymen The purpose of this exercise was to understand how organisations help people to cope in times of food crisis. Participants identified a food crisis situation that they all remembered (e.g. a bad year or the lean season), and discussed how the organisational landscape of food security operated in that situation.The participants were asked to define a time when there was a food crisis in the community, identify the organisations that were involved in providing support during that period, and indicate their role in the diagram. The men's group defined food crisis as \"food shortage, no rains, no hope of harvesting\". The most memorable food crisis occurred in 1997 and was called Ng'ethya Ukwehaving no hope, waiting to die. Many people died of malnutrition especially the elderly and children. In Kitui (an area nearby) people ate dogs while within the community people ate snakes. The men based their diagram on this crisis, although during the discussion it became apparent that there was another food crisis in 2009 due to a prolonged drought which had severe consequences on the community such as death of livestock, starvation and death of persons particularly the old and children. However this crisis could not compare to Ngethya Ukwe of 1997. The women described food crisis as a situation where food, specifically maize, is lacking in a household, rains have failed, food prices have escalated and crops have failed in the whole region.The village falls in a region where crop failure is very common and the government has to come in with relief food on a very regular basis. This has created a serious dependency syndrome. It is part of the government's recurrent budget and therefore other organisations do not see the need to address the food crisis. It is generally viewed as the work of the government, although the men identified World Vision and the World Food Program as the two nongovernmental organisations that are involved during food crisis situations.  In this section, the organisational landscape in relation to natural resource management (NRM) is discussed. Specifically, what organisations were actively working to protect the environment, manage natural resources, etc.? The process entailed asking the group to highlight what organisations are involved in the management of natural resources in the community; developing a list of natural resources important to the livelihoods of the community; and asking the group to decide on a symbol for each type of natural resource listed.Kithoni village is located in an area that can be described as marginal. These are areas with fragile ecosystems of low carrying capacity and can easily degrade. Of the 17 organisations identified by men, only 18% were involved with natural resource management and for the women's discussion it was 15%. In general, 18% of the groups identified by both the men and the women were involved in natural resource management. This seems to imply that conservation is not high on the list of community priorities.Figures 7 and 8 depict the organisational landscape as drawn by the men's and women's groups for natural resource management activities.Table 6 below summarizes information on all the organisations identified separately by male and female participants. The organisations are classified according to their role in supporting food availability, access and/or utilization, as well as the provision of relief in times of food crisis, and the management of natural resources. Table 6. Information on highlighted organisations of men and women (unless otherwise noted, 1=yes, 0=no)The aim of this exercise was to understand the diversity of options people use for accessing information on agriculture and weather, how people take advantage of sources of information available, and if some sources are not used and why. We want to describe networks of how people access and share information within the community.The men's discussion group identified the following as the topics for which a farmer seeks information to help him make decisions related to his farming activities: A summary of the information networks as described by the study participants is provided in Table 7.Local radio stations and organisations emerged as the most significant sources of information for farmers. Friends are the most significant in the category of individuals.Radio: Syokimau and Musyi FM radio stations are very popular within the community. The FM stations provide the community with information on the following issues: seed varieties available in the market and their suitability; post crop handling; information on effective preservatives released into the market; weather reports indicating the start of drought and updates; programmes with information concerning causes of drought; information about the start of the rains; advice to farmers to reduce their livestock during drought; information on when drought is likely to be experienced; advice to farmers on what to plant, where, how and when; and the prices of different crops in different markets on a daily basis. The radio is widely used because it relatively cheap and is readily available in the markets. The FM stations use local language which the local communities easily identify with. As a result the community trusts the radio stations and their broadcasts.The Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) has a centre not far from the village. It provides reliable and trusted agricultural information such as post harvesting handling, seed types and seed prices. Farmers observe when fields in the KARI station are being planted and know it is time for planting. The Ministry of Agriculture educates farmers on various farming methods and provides farmers with market intelligence.Individuals: Farmers get information from their friends and neighbours. Farmers share information on prices of produce as they move from one market to the next. Farmers often contact grain stockists and store keepers in various towns to provide them with reliable information regarding prevailing prices of various farm produce. This information is shared among neighbours and fellow farmers. Individual fellow farmers play a significant role in sharing information regarding post harvest handling. This is a source of reliable indigenous knowledge such as use of wood ash and hot pepper to control weevils in cereals. Individual farmers also have knowledge on the start of planting; there are farmers who can predict the cycle of seasons by counting of the seasons. TotalCommunity Resources: The main constraint to crop production and livestock keeping is inadequate water supply. The government interventions in the area have yielded good results and the community is able to obtain a range of agricultural products in spite of the ecological challenges. The range of crop options that can do well in the area needs to be expanded. There are crops that have been introduced but are not adopted so there is a need to investigate the barriers to adoption of these crops. Soil and water conservation needs to be enhanced since water is the main constraint to farming. Rain water harvesting for crop and livestock production should be further developed.There are no forests in Kithoni village. The natural vegetation of the area can be described as scrub. the women obtain wood fuel. Although wood fuel is the only source of domestic fuel in the community, there is very little evidence of efforts to increase the tree population in the area. The women report that they rarely cut down whole trees but obtain wood fuel from trimming the branches of the trees. Increasing the tree population is constrained by the small size of the farm holdings and the absence of public land to plant forests. In view of the above the better option is to increase the range of agroforestry trees available and promote adoption. Termites are also a challenge to tree planting in the area therefore termite-resistant trees such as acacia albida should be promoted.The community is moving away from keeping larger livestock to keeping smaller stock to adapt to the problem of inadequate pasture, water and labour. Capacity building in relation to livestock should therefore focus on expanding options related to zero grazing goats, expanding poultry and use of the crop residue especially from the legumes to produce animal feed.Inadequate water for domestic use and agricultural production is the main problem in the area. There are no permanent rivers in the site and dams are the main sources of domestic water in the community. Dams are used for both livestock and households needs and are managed by committees. However most of the dams are not able to retain water throughout the year. The use of these dams is also not regulated and there are serious issues of hygiene and water quality since people and livestock use the same watering points. There are new dam designs which have a separate watering point for livestock. Such designs should be made the accepted standard design for dam development to improve water quality and hygiene. The dam committees need capacity building on water management. Hydrological surveys to identify ideal spots for dam construction can be done to ensure optimal locations so that the dams have water all year round and not just part of the year. There are a few boreholes which are piped to supply market centres through kiosks. The supply network needs to be expanded to households. There is no irrigation practiced in the area. A few farmers are using an innovative approach that waters fruit trees using bottles to conserve the little water available. Irrigation potential in the area has not been exploited. This can be done by increasing the numbers of dams to harvest and store surface runoff for use in irrigation. Roof catchment for clean water has not been adequately developed especially in schools and households.In terms of infrastructure, the road network is good but the condition of the earth roads not good. Bridges and culverts need to be constructed on sections of the loose surface to improve connectivity of the network. The schools are overcrowded and many of the buildings are old. There is a general need to improve infrastructure in the schools. There is a need to increase the number of health facilities.Organisational landscape: The area is generally food insecure due to its perennial water problems and 37% of the groups identified are involved in addressing food security. Only three organisations (8%) address food crisis in the community. These figures are relatively low considering the fact that this is a food insecure area. However it can be explained in part by the fact that over the years the government has been providing relief food and the people have become complacent and developed a high level of dependency on government food. This dependency needs to be reduced and it can be done by sensitizing the many groups on the landscape and building their capacity in the relevant areas.There were very few linkages in the organisational landscape. This needs to be improved to develop and make use of synergy especially at the community level. Most of the groups addressing food security operate beyond the locality (77%) while 23% operate at the community level. There is need to increase involvement at the community level.Kithoni village is located in an area that can be described as marginal but only 18% of the groups identified were involved with natural resource management. This seems to imply that conservation is not high on the list of community priorities. This situation needs to be changed and conservation given more attention especially in the light of an increasing population. The existence of many groups is already an advantage. Sensitization, facilitation and mechanisms to sustain the gains should be undertaken.Information networks: Local radio stations and organisations emerged as the most significant sources of information for farmers. However all the organisations mentioned are those that operate beyond the locality. It is important to link these organisations with community groups and individuals especially to develop a feedback mechanism so that the flow of information is two-way and not one-way as is the case at present.The FM stations which are currently doing a good job can also be supplied with a wider range of information to disseminate. However this must be in line with the community needs which should be established beforehand. This has so far not been done.Soil and water conservation needs to be enhanced since water is the main constraint to farming. Rain water harvesting for crop and livestock production should be further developed. The range of crop options that can do well in the area needs to be expanded. CCAFS can partner with other organisations to address this challenge especially building on the work that has been done by the Makueni Agricultural Programme (MAP).Due to the lack of forests in Kithoni village, wood fuel is the only source of domestic fuel in the community. There is very little evidence of efforts to increase the tree population in the area, however. Agro forestry trees are the best option to increase the tree population in the area. Women are very directly affected and would be the easiest to bring on board. CCAFS can work with the many women's groups that exist in the community towards this end.Capacity building in relation to livestock should focus on expanding options related to zero grazing goats, expanding poultry and use of the crop residue especially from the legumes to produce animal feed. CCAFS can collaborate with others to build capacity in this sector.Dams, which are the main source of water, are not able to retain water throughout the year. CCAFS can participate in hydrological surveys to identify ideal spots for dam construction so that future dams are strategically located to ensure they have water all year round. CCAFS can also participate in developing dam designs that have a separate watering point for livestock to promote water quality and contribute to building capacity of dam management committees CCAFS can collaborate with relevant organisations/groups and local radio stations to identify and disseminate information needed by the community. ","tokenCount":"6669"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"dafa8793f810b77ce59e7dfa445d7c40","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9154e52b-e846-4beb-a5bc-5fb298bedbc1/retrieve","id":"-1325117480"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"82c3f9fe-6f97-4e8b-b0b6-9f3eec5e709f","pagecount":"12","content":"• The Nile Basin covers 10 countries: Burundi, D.R.Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, North Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.• Within the Nile Basin, each country confronts specific sets of water challenges and opportunities:• in Egypt, sustaining the productivity of irrigated crops in a context of growing water demands • in Sudan, residue management and livestock as well as improving the productivity of irrigated agriculture, and improving rainfed agriculture • in Uganda, constraints and opportunities for fisheries • in the highlands of Ethiopia, rainwater management and land degradation as well as irrigated agriculture and growing competition for water. Ethiopia's policies and programs on sustainable land and water management have evolved over several decades and have had important positive impacts on land management and livelihoods. We believe these policies and programs can be further transformed and integrated into a new paradigm. The goal is to enable poor small holder farmers to sustainably and equitably improve their food security, livelihoods and incomes while conserving the natural resource base.Further strengthening the Sustainable Land Management Program is urgently needed to achieve its full promise and to maximize the benefits from the large investments currently being implemented or planned. Radical changes in policy or implementation are not required. The existing program includes many elements of the new paradigm but they need to be scaled up and made more effective.The NBDC has made significant contributions to strengthening the scientific foundations of landscape management, improving learning and sharing of lessons from experience, enhancing the capacity of local officials and rural people to plan and implement integrated watershed level investments and to apply new participatory planning tools at the district level, development and use of new modelling and spatial analysis tools at watershed and national levels, and raising policy makers' awareness of options to improve the outcomes of the government's Sustainable Land Management Program.Implementation of the eight core elements of this emerging paradigm, if implemented in an integrated fashion, will greatly improve the long-term benefits of the Sustainable Land Management Program. At local levels it will enable rural women and men to improve their incomes and livelihoods. At national level it will help raise the rate of agricultural growth while conserving precious natural resources.A landscape approach to research is based on the recognition that people living in complex agro-ecosystems have multiple objectives and priorities. Interventions may have many intended and unintended consequences. Therefore, a participatory learning-oriented systems approach to identifying, testing and scaling up interventions is required to achieve balanced and sustainable outcomes.High population pressure and increasing use of marginal land combine to cause land and ecosystem degradation in many parts of the Blue Nile Basin. High sediment loads result in heavy costs for irrigation canal cleaning and reservoir dredging in the downstream countries of Sudan and Egypt. Ecosystem degradation also results in a downward spiral of poverty and food insecurity for millions of people in Ethiopia and downstream countries. Much of the earlier growth in food production came from land expansion in upstream countries and irrigated agriculture in downstream countries. The challenge now is to increase the productivity of rainfed and irrigated agriculture while reversing degradation and sustaining ecosystem services. Given the potential of rainfed agriculture, the time and resources available, and cognizant of various institutional and political constraints, the CPWF Nile Basin Development Challenge (NBDC) decided to focus on the causes and consequences of low rainwater productivity in the Ethiopian highlands.The aim of the NBDC was to improve the resilience of rural livelihoods in the highlands through a landscape approach to rainwater management. It was implemented by international and national partners working closely with the Ethiopian government following a broad research for development (R4D) approach. R4D involves carrying out scientific research in a participatory and shared learning mode. The major outcome was identification of the critical elements of an approach referred to as a \"new integrated watershed rainwater management paradigm\". The NBDC was implemented through five projects; the first was a commissioned review of past experiences while the others each had a specific focus as described below.Official guidelines emphasize that land and water management interventions should be planned and implemented through a participatory process at community and sub-district levels. Local plans are intended to be inputs used to finalize annual implementation plans. However, based on detailed research in the three NBDC field sites, we found that final plans handed from the top-down were not consistent with the locally proposed plans. The final plans are largely based on standardized technology packages and are imposed from the top. Extension agents are given quotas that they must fulfill as their own performance assessments are based on achieving these quotas. To move towards a more participatory program, the study made six recommendations:1. Shift the focus of targets from outputs to outcomes; 2. Enhance monitoring and evidence collection on rain water management with a focus on impact and sustainability; 3. Revitalize and capitalize on the development agent system; 4. Strengthen local institutions' roles in natural resource management; 5. Move towards more meaningful participation; and 6. Open lines of communication to foster innovation capacity.Learn more at: http://nilebdc.org/?s=rhetoricLocal community empowerment and leadership is critically important to achieve long-term benefits and sustainable outcomes of rainwater management programs, especially where collective action is based on demand, equity and inclusiveness.Ethiopia's Sustainable Land Management Program has evolved to include a greater emphasis on local participation. The evidence is clear that supporting the trend to focus on empowering local communities, including a stronger emphasis on gender equity and inclusiveness, will increase the sustainability and benefits of NBDC interventions. However, current social and institutional arrangements make the process of largescale community empowerment extremely challenging.Photos from top: ILRI/Apollo Habtamu; ILRI/Beth Cullen Community members watch information films followed by comment sessions Building on recent results of the N4 project, the Nile team invited representatives from Nile Basin Authority, the Ministry of Water and Energy and the Nile Basin Initiative Decision Support System Office to map their existing modelling work and identify priorities for water resource and agricultural water management modelling in the Blue Nile Basin.Presentations from the Nile Basin Tana and Beles sub-basin authorities, the Ministry of Water and Energy, Bahir Dar University and the Ethiopian Institute of Water Resources highlighted a number of common challenges: obstacles preventing modelling from being more fully exploited or useful in agricultural water management and water resource modelling initiatives; the diversity of modelling tools and their inconsistent use, the lack of good quality data, the insufficient capacity to use existing modelling tools; and the lack of integration of modelling outcomes in planning and implementation strategies.Key priorities for agricultural water and water resource modelling in the basin relate to scaling issues (integrating small scale practices and large-scale impacts in planning and management), data needs, and uptake and acceptance of model outputs.To improve uptake of modelling outputs, the participants highlighted several strategies: tailor modelling output messages to different audience categories, develop capacities (both of modellers to communicate their outputs and of end users to use them), and use policy briefs and face-to-face sensitization to engage with intended audiences throughout the process. This symposium was the first of its kind and will, we hope, lead the way to a community of practice among wateragriculture modellers.Read the full story -See presentations from the event   The remarkable progress made in Ethiopia as a result of its investments in human resources and strengthening institutional capacities is strong evidence in favor of these investments. Well-supervised post-graduate students can play important roles in obtaining feedback on intervention programs as well as contributing to their personal capacity as researchers and practitioners. Capacity development extends beyond more classic but vital support to students to enabling capacities of local community members, Development Agents, regional institutions, and others. Local innovation platforms were established in three sites in the Blue Nile: Diga and Jeldu Districts in the Oromia Region, and Fogera District in the Amhara Region. Platforms were established following research that found that natural resource planning and implementation at district level was driven by top-down targets, and that local governments struggled achieve farmer involvement and cross-sectoral integration -both essential ingredients for sustainable land and water management. The platforms aimed to bring stakeholders together (government offices, NGOs, researchers and community representatives) to identify joint solutions to pressing rainwater management challenges.But what incentives will lead to actions on the ground when the returns on investment in natural resource management are so long-term? To overcome this obstacle, the NBDC team decided to test the use of small grants to kick start activities and encourage people to work together. In 2012, a small grant was provided to each platform on the basis of proposals developed by members to pilot new approaches to rainwater management. In all three sites, platform members decided to work on fodder planting and control of free grazing. Uncontrolled free grazing was recognized as contributing to soil erosion, while many farmers faced fodder shortages for their livestock. In all sites, government soil and water conservation activities were ongoing, and platform members saw the potential for synergies by controlling grazing to prevent bunds from being trampled and planting bunds with improved fodder varieties to stabilize structures and increase fodder availability. Fodder was planted across a range of land types to determine the best approach: communal lands, private fields and backyards. In addition, the process of developing by-laws for grazing control has begun in all three sites. ILRI and its national partners have provided ongoing training and technical support to these interventions.Platforms are monitoring the success of interventions, sharing their experiences through farmer field days and planning scaling-up activities for the next year. Although it is too early to identify impacts on soil and water conditions, participating farmers are pleased with the interventions and other farmers have expressed interest in taking up the new fodder varieties. In Fogera, nine tons of fodder have already been harvested, enabling eleven cattle to be fattened for market. Some farmers now see the potential to develop dairy markets.Transforming longstanding ways of working, particularly fostering participation, is a long-term and politicized process. Over the year, monitoring and research efforts centered on better understanding how political relations play out within an innovation platform and between platform members and farmers. These experiences help us to better understand the incentives for different actors, why they continue to participate in the platform (or not), and draw lessons for the future use of start-up funds for innovation platforms.1 https://waterandfood.org/2013/07/16/seed-funds-to-oil-the-wheels-of-innovation-in-rwm-what-have-we-learned/The current incentive system for extension workers is based on achieving physical targets set at higher levels, often leading to inappropriate interventions. Incentives should be understood in a broad sense, to include formal and informal rewards, for example, public recognition and social networking, opportunities for training, and encouraging innovation while also using risk management mechanisms as poor farmers are highly vulnerable if an innovation fails.Among other factors, appropriate economic incentives enable a technology to make a meaningful impact at the farm level. Incentives for innovation are important, but more difficult to design. Seed funds to local innovation platforms is one example of an incentive for innovation that NBDC found effective. In December 2012, researchers from AfroMaison and the Nile Basin Development Challenge co-organized a workshop in Fogera to develop landscape scale strategies for improved rainwater management. The aim of the workshop was to use WAT-A-GAME, a participatory planning tool, as the starting point for looking at rainwater management issues at a landscape scale.WAT-A-GAME is an open toolkit developed by IRSTEA and CIRAD. It enables participants to design and run simulations for water management, policy design and education. It aims to show how water moves within a landscape, and how it is used, polluted, transformed and shared by actors. Using WAT-A-GAME, participants can simulate various actions or strategies and the resulting impacts on their household economy, their well-being, labor, and the surrounding ecosystem. New policies can also be invented and tested. In this workshop, WAG was used to model the Fogera catchment and simulate important rainwater management issues, including water availability, run-off, soil erosion and the impact of different land use practices.Photos from top: ILRI/Beth Cullen; ILRI/Zerihun Sewunet Aberra Adie (ILRI) introduces the WAT-A-GAME to farmers Research conducted by NBDC scientists highlighted a disconnect between farmers and decision makers in terms of perceptions about natural resource management problems and ideas for solutions, which is compounded by a lack of communication and understanding between the different actors.The role-playing exercises and subsequent discussions helped raise awareness about upstream and downstream connections and landscape interconnectedness. Regional and district staff learned about farmers' knowledge and priorities, and vice versa.As a starting point, Nile Basin Development Challenge researchers set out to capture the diverse water and land related livelihoods of the farming communities in upstream and downstream parts of the Blue Nile Basin and their impacts on local environments. The research defined and characterized major production systems and associated subsystems, specifically small grain cerealsbased mixed crop-livestock and maize-sorghumperennials systems and their associated subsystems. Researchers then examined water management practices in rainfed and irrigated systems. We also synthesized impacts of these production systems on the environment and upstream-downstream linkages using erosion, sedimentation, livestock and crop water productivity, and soil nutrient balances as indicators.The evidence suggested that natural ecosystem services such as nutrient recycling and redistribution are severely threatened in the basin. On-site and off-site effects of processes like sediment removal, transportation, redistribution and attendant environmental impacts are highly correlated with the dominant farming practices and human interventions. Also strongly related to farmers' resources are indicators such as water productivity and soil nutrient depletion; farmers' activities to replenish the lost nutrients are often insufficient.2 http://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/25546Fogera District is endowed with diverse natural resources. It has huge potential water sources which are suitable for irrigation during the dry season to produce horticultural crops, mainly vegetables. However, there is a serious market problem in the area associated with the perishability and seasonality of horticultural crops. The role of brokerage activity in the area to address this problem was previously little known.A Nile Basin Development Challenge team investigated the economic roles played by brokerage institutions in smallholder market links to market outlets in horticultural marketing and what factors determine decisions on whether to use brokerage institutions or not. The focus of this study was on onions and tomatoes.Researchers found that the brokerage institutions could be characterized as urban, peri-urban and farmer-brokers. There was significant brokerage activity only for onion marketing; in the case of tomato marketing the brokers act as rural assemblers. Most horticultural trading in the area is undertaken through credit and there is much reliance on trust. Brokerage institutions play an important role in linking smallholder farmers to market outlets.Smallholder farmers using brokerage institutions earn about 4,393 Ethiopian Birr (USD 331) higher net income and market about 14 percent more of their surplus than smallholders who do not use brokerage institutions. These results suggest that it would be helpful to formalize brokerage institutions through licensing, training and continuous follow-up.3 http://nilebdc.org/2013/12/15/a-glimpse-at-the-nbdcscience-impacts-of-brokerage-institutions-on-themarketing-of-horticultural-crops-in-fogera-districtEthiopia has a long history of promoting single interventions, for example stone terraces, bunds, and below-ground tanks, but there is strong evidence these often do not produce good results. Far greater benefits over a longer period will accrue if an integrated approach at watershed level is used, identifying an appropriate mix of interventions for different zones. NBDC experience with participatory planning tools has shown that this multiple intervention strategy is feasible. Private on-site benefits by themselves may not provide sufficient incentives for farmers to invest in rainwater interventions. Where the benefits accrue elsewhere, an appropriate incentive strategy is critical to align benefits and costs.There is very strong evidence that we can increase the likelihood of success using market-driven (value-chain) approaches that optimize the benefits for all stakeholders while reducing and sharing costs equitably. For example, stronger multi-stakeholder rural institutions can enhance rural women's and men's share of agricultural profits.In many cases, the greatest benefits of an upstream intervention go to downstream stakeholders and not to the upstream farmer. Indeed, some research shows that the costs often exceed the benefits to the implementing upstream farmer. Therefore, where the benefits of sustainable land management investments are a broad public good, then private upstream investors need appropriate motivation. Where public benefits are higher than private benefits, there is a role for government action. More research is needed to quantify the distribution of benefits as a means to identify fair costsharing approaches. The government's Sustainable Land Management Program is likely to generate substantial benefits downstream but this needs to be documented carefully, as a basis for identifying possible funding mechanisms (for example Payment for Ecosystem Services, found in other regions). This also highlights the critical importance of developing a strong scientific foundation for rainwater management investments.In July 2013, the Nile Basin Development Challenge hosted a science meeting to share its research results. Sixty participants met and reviewed findings organized around four main themes:• Livestock and irrigation • Water productivity, hydrological and erosion modelling • Rainwater, land and water resources management • Institutions, adoption and marketing Some important lessons were drawn from the meeting:• NBDC has produced important new insights into a wide variety of challenges and opportunities facing the Blue Nile Basin; and most of the basic field research and modelling was done by Ethiopian students cosupervised by the national and international NBDC team members. • Innovative technical, institutional and communication solutions and tools have been identified and tested. These include new approaches to reducing termite damage, innovation platforms, participatory planning tools, new GIS data sets which are publicly available, and new user-friendly open-source higher level planning models. • The research for development approach adopted by the NBDC and other basins in the Challenge Program for Water and Food is valuable, but has not gone as far as planned, especially in terms of getting beyond research outputs towards development outcomes.• NBDC research has tended to focus on individual or household benefits of certain rainwater management interventions, but more attention must be given to collective benefits and tradeoffs between upstream and downstream communities. The debate about onsite and off-site benefits and the links with ecosystem services at landscape level remains open. • Competition for water resources brings into focus a new phenomenon: it is traditionally easier to promote individual technologies rather than collectively managed schemes with high transaction costs.The participants also highlighted a series of research gaps that ought to be taken up by future initiatives focusing on land and rainwater management. These include: appropriate land use planning, strengthening local agencies to deal with rainwater management and plan land use, identifying suitable scalable solutions that are appropriate for a given context or focusing on scalable practices and methods or approaches; and improving biomass production.Read the full story -View presentations and posters -Download proceedingsPay more attention to the downstream and off-site benefits of rainwater management in addition to upstream or on-farm benefits and costs.Photo: IWMI/Valentine Gandhi Participatory approaches to tackling power and representation in innovation platformsFrom livestock-water towards consolidated rainwater management solutions 4 The NBDC stakeholders have learned lessons and changed in terms of methodology development, and working approaches, particularly in terms of moving from discipline-based research towards integrated landscape management. Partner national and regional research institutes have started to develop projects and programs in rainwater management and to invite NBDC for closer interactions. The rainwater management concept is bringing together non-traditional partners and also strengthens the links between CGIAR centers operating in the region. For example, ILRI and IWMI started with one joint appointee and have now more than eight national and international joint appointees working on these same initiatives. The ILRI-led LIVES project aims to further strengthen water-centered research in crop-livestock systems in the region. Following careful analysis and consultation with stakeholders, the Nile Basin Development Challenge team organized a workshop in 2011 to initiate a national platform along with key national players to facilitate innovation and link research with action. We brought on board more than 80 people from 55 organizations and institutes, representing politics, government, research, NGO, CBOs, the private sector and donors. The establishment of a national platform was widely supported, especially by the Minister for Natural Resources Management in the Ministry of Agriculture. He indicated they had been waiting for such an initiative for more than 10 years. There was overwhelming agreement that a well-designed national platform can be a mechanism to minimize duplication of effort and enhance communication among and between actors and across sectors for improved land and water management in the Nile Basin and beyond. Regional research centers have since initiated their own platforms bringing universities, research institutions, bureau heads and local policy makers together. Discussion is now moving towards integration with the government's Sustainable Land Management Program, which will effectively institutionalize the national platform beyond the project. Within the Basin, we used an 'open wiki' accessible to all project staff and visible to all (http://nilebdc.wikispaces. com/). The wiki proved to be a highly successful platform for sharing plans and information needed to coordinate NBDC. As of early December, 2013, there were over 250,000 views, 2,500 unique visitors per year, and 2,000 edits over the past three years. The significant changes in researchers' perceptions and behavior have resulted in the adoption of new tools by most staff and the gradual willingness to share on these platforms instead of the traditional email conversations. Stakeholders have a richer knowledge base on which to draw and everyone can contribute to ongoing project activities.The project's theory of change and tools (outcome logic models, monitoring and evaluation) must be clearly communicated and internalizedIn our case, insufficient effort was made to use these tools in program management and there was insufficient ownership by the partners. R4D only became the foundation of a theory of change as the project evolved.In most cases the NBDC experience has partnerships and adapted well in terms of incorporating new partners where relevant. National partners especially appreciated the support for postgraduate students. It is important to involve national partners from the earliest stages of project or program design, sort out financial issues in a timely manner, and provide space for national researchers and partner institutions to play leadership roles.It's easy to make promises at the beginning of a project but the project will lose credibility if it fails to fulfill all those promises in the limited time period of a program. Remember that most things always take longer than planned.It requires researchers to play new roles, cede considerable control of the research to the partners, and requires new skills. In order for R4D to succeed, it is necessary to articulate a clear understanding of what it is, how it should be implemented, and the roles of partners. Partners must come to a shared understanding of R4D; otherwise it will have different meanings for different people, based on their own disciplines, experience, and institutional homes.Project structure can either lead to teams working in silos with insufficient collaboration and communication across projects or working as a multidisciplinary team. Regular monthly project meetings can help. Synthesizing research findings and lessons learned into main messages also fosters a sense of working together towards a common goal.We made a distinction between the innovations that characterized the NBDC process itself, and the specific rainwater management innovations that emerged from the program. NBDC produced promising innovations and useful knowledge with future potential. The potential impacts of integrating R4D with implementation processes is one of the most promising, as are the participatory planning tools, user-friendly GIS tools, and integrated modelling. Implementing the R4D process itself in a context characterized largely by traditional research for development has been an important innovation in the sense that it has changed knowledge and attitudes and may be leading to new behaviors.It is worth spending time to strengthen internal program communication and the knowledge sharing culture that supports effective communication. This requires strong leadership and clear management support as changing the behavior of researchers is critical.Gender is a salient dimension of power relationships in any society. Achieving greater gender equity is an important policy goal and takes considerable investment in time and effort to effect changes. There tends to be powerful subconscious as well as conscious biases among implementing agencies (including researchers) as well as stakeholders and partners. A well-rounded team will have gender specialists in senior positions. The CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food was launched in 2002. CPWF aims to increase the resilience of social and ecological systems through better water management for food production (crops, fisheries and livestock). We do this through an innovative research and development approach that brings together a broad range of scientists, development specialists, policy makers and communities, in six river basins, to address the challenges of food security, poverty and water scarcity.The CPWF is part of the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems. WLE combines the resources of 11 CGIAR centers and numerous international, regional and national partners to provide an integrated approach to natural resource management research. The program goal is to reduce poverty and improve food security through the development of agriculture within nature. This program is led by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI).  ","tokenCount":"4164"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d1e9dcf341a5ba47f0554d627e851655","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f112ac0d-3cf2-4880-964f-c18c1cfcdcba/retrieve","id":"1201474534"},"keywords":["Koda Traoré","Giacomo Rambaldi Recherchiste : Cédric Jeanneret Correction : Sharon Montgomery (anglais)","Jacques Bodichon (français) Réalisation graphique : Anita Toebosch Traduction : Patrice Deladrier"],"sieverID":"abbce35d-9c65-4133-81be-00679e3d9557","pagecount":"16","content":"Logiciels et textos d'actualité pour des productrices ghanéennes de karité Sites web et code à barres font le lien entre producteurs et consommateurs GPS et smartphones améliorent la production de cacao dans les Caraïbes Connexions avec les marchés Numéro 61 Août 2011 Un bulletin d'alerte pour l'agriculture ACP 2 Éditorial La technologie favorise le commerce Connexions avec les marchés 3 Perspectives SIMenter la sécurité alimentaire Pierre Traore 4 Réseau d'appuiA lors que les cours mondiaux des denrées demeurent volatils, les paysans des ACP tentent de stabiliser et d'améliorer leurs revenus en cherchant de nouveaux débouchés pour écouler leurs produits. Les marchés spécialisés, à l'exportation ou exigeant la certification bio ou commerce équitable, sont potentiellement plus fiables et plus lucratifs. Ils imposent toutefois des normes strictes et une documentation décrivant chaque étape de la chaîne de valeur. Pour répondre à ces exigences, les paysans utilisent les TIC pour apprendre de nouvelles techniques de culture et de transformation et créer de nouveaux points de connexion avec le marché.Le CFCF (Caribbean Fine Cocoa Forum) utilise des récepteurs GPS pour cartographier les exploitations de cacao de toute la région et aider les petits exploitants à se positionner sur le marché du chocolat de luxe. Les informations recueillies donnent aux paysans une idée précise de la surface de leurs parcelles, ce qui leur permet d'estimer le volume de semences, d'engrais et de pesticides dont ils auront besoin en cours d'année. Les données de localisation exactes permettent aux sociétés de transformation de choisir l'itinéraire le plus efficace pour aller chercher les fèves de cacao. Autant de mesures synonymes de gain de temps, d'argent et d'approvisionnement plus efficace.Le projet a formé les paysans au maniement du GPS et leur a fourni des smartphones avec lesquels ils communiquent avec les bureaux du CFCF via des groupes d'utilisateurs fermés, une fonction qui permet de téléphoner gratuitement aux autres membres du groupe. Avec leurs smartphones, les paysans peuvent aussi poster des vidéos, textes et photos didactiques pris sur des réseaux sociaux comme Facebook. Ce faisant, l'équipe a réuni un précieux matériel éducatif auprès des producteurs de toute la région.Au Ghana, une initiative similaire, le projet TIPCEE (Trade and Investment Programme for Competitive Export Economy), utilise le GPS pour rationaliser des filières de fruits et légumes. Un logiciel SIG consigne le parcours des marchandises, du producteur jusqu'aux marchés, ce qui permet aux paysans de répondre aux normes de traçabilité nécessaires pour exporter vers les marchés d'Europe et du Moyen-Orient.Par l'entremise des agents de vulgarisation, le projet a également formé les producteurs à de bonnes pratiques agricoles, et avec le Ghana Standards Board il a créé des affiches d'information afin de promouvoir les normes et les standards internationaux de production agricole.Il ne suffit toutefois pas de respecter les normes commerciales pour être sûr de vendre son produit, encore faut-il qu'il réponde à un besoin du consommateur. Le projet de recherche Fair Tracing a travaillé avec des caféiculteurs indiens et des viticulteurs chiliens pour évaluer leurs filières. L'équipe s'est également demandé ce que les clients attendaient des produits du commerce équitable : la plupart disent vouloir en savoir plus sur les producteurs.Fair Tracing a développé un site web de démonstration où producteurs et consommateurs peuvent mieux appréhender tout le processus d'acheminement des produits vers leur destination finale. Les producteurs ont pu identifier les carences en cours de route et adapter leurs stratégies de marketing en fonction du feed-back des consommateurs. Les marchands, de leur côté, ont visité le site web pour visualiser les étapes de la chaîne d'approvisionnement, se renseigner sur la vie des producteurs et visionner des vidéos expliquant les différentes étapes de la production.Diverses TIC aident les paysans à prendre mieux conscience de leur filière, à l'améliorer et à se conformer aux normes imposées par les marchés mondiaux, régionaux et par les consommateurs. Ces projets, et d'autres du même type, prouvent que l'accès aux technologies ouvre de nouveaux horizons commerciaux aux producteurs, et leur permet de stabiliser leurs revenus et de pourvoir aux besoins de leurs familles et de leurs communautés. ◀ L a libéralisation du commerce des produits agricoles entamée en Afrique de l'Ouest au début de la décennie 80 a favorisé un peu partout l'émergence de systèmes d'information de marché (SIM) comme mesure d'accompagnement à ces programmes de privatisation. Ces SIM ont tenté d'apporter des réponses appropriées aux exigences d'information sur les prix des produits agricoles. Très tôt cependant, l'intégration économique et le volume important des échanges intra-régionaux ont fait apparaître la nécessité d'intégrer plus d'analyses et d'informations commerciales dans les SIM afin d'affiner les informations, d'améliorer la communication entre les opérateurs économiques, de promouvoir les opportunités L'utilisation du téléphone mobile comme mode de diffusion suppose la mise en place d'un modèle de gestion durable permettant aux SIM de générer suffisamment de revenus pour couvrir les frais de communication auprès des opérateurs mobiles. Au Niger, par exemple, un accord a été signé avec Orange pour partager les informations sur les prix des marchés. Des accords similaires ont été passés dans d'autres pays avec d'autres opérateurs.Le RESIMAO a toujours considéré l'analyse prospective et rétrospective comme un moyen d'améliorer la qualité de l'information sur les prix. Ces considérations sont à l'origine du Réseau des systèmes d'information de marché de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (RESIMAO). Créé en avril 2000, en Guinée, ce projet s'inspire largement de l'Observatoire du marché agricole (OMA) malien, qui a notamment organisé des conférences régionales sur les perspectives agricoles et les opportunités d'affaires en Afrique de l'Ouest.Le RESIMAO couvre déjà 10 des 16 pays de la Communauté économique des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (CEDEAO). Les informations sont collectées dans 390 marchés ruraux et urbains et 39 marchés d'intérêt sousrégional ciblés. Les produits suivis sont céréaliers, maraîchers, halieutiques, le bétail, les intrants et matériels agricoles, les tubercules et les féculents.Le caractère perpétuellement évolutif de l'information commerciale sur un marché libre nous a amenés à utiliser les TIC afin de dématérialiser et d'accélérer la collecte, l'analyse et la diffusion des informations commerciales pour améliorer la compétitivité des économies régionales. L'intégration des TIC dans les SIM n'est toutefois pas chose aisée. Par le passé, de nombreux projets SIM ont privilégié une approche purement technologique et ont échoué parce qu'ils n'avaient su ni fédérer les parties prenantes ni développer des modèles de gestion suffisamment solides pour garantir leur pérennité financière.Fort de ces expériences, le RESIMAO a décidé de conduire d'abord une série de consultations auprès de l'ensemble des acteurs des pays membres afin de les associer à la conception du système. Au-delà de la technologie, il importait de concevoir un système adapté aux réalités du marché et de s'assurer de son appropriation par l'ensemble des structures associatives, civiles et du secteur public. Avec une base aussi large, le réseau pourrait répondre aux besoins de ses utilisateurs en recourant à diverses technologies, dont une application SIG et des outils de diffusion mobiles (SMS et radio). Les agents de changement utilisent aussi le GPS pour consigner l'emplacement exact de l'entrée des exploitations et entrent ces coordonnées dans une base de données centralisée. Le Forum les utilise pour identifier les fermiers. Dans des pays comme le Belize, la Dominique et la Jamaïque, les transformateurs viennent chercher les fèves de cacao non séchées à la ferme. La base de données les aide à planifier l'itinéraire des camions collecteurs et à informer le fermier de leur heure de passage. Cette base de données est une première pour l'industrie cacaoyère de la région et un outil précieux pour inventorier les ressources foncières des pays participants.Les agents de changement profitent de leurs déplacements non seulement pour relever les coordonnées des fermes, mais aussi celles d'autres sites qui intéressent les fermiers, comme le marché, le fermenteur, le bureau local du projet, les lieux de vente de plantes de pépinière, d'engrais ou de pesticides.Au final, l'équipe du projet compte beaucoup sur les données GPS pour améliorer la traçabilité des fèves de cacao : itinéraire d'acheminement, lieu et moment de leur récolte, sous oublier des données de rendement, de qualité et d'arôme pour chaque emplacement.Le vieillissement de la population et l'exode des jeunes vers les centres urbains, voire à l'étranger, font que laÀ l'aide de GPS, de smartphones, de vidéos et du web, le CFCF recueille des données sur la production de cacao, et les diffuse à un réseau de paysans, de chercheurs et d'entreprises de transformation afin d'améliorer la qualité des produits et de créer de nouveaux marchés.Sandeep Jagger (sandeep@ipi.tc) est consultant chez International Partnership Initiatives, un des membres du CFCF, et chercheur à la University of Newcastle (UK) et à l'École de management de Grenoble (France). Vernon Barrett (vernonbarrett@hotmail.com)  Comme la plupart de ses congénères, cet smartphone intègre un dispositif de prise de photos et de courtes vidéos. Les images peuvent être envoyées par courriel ou via la messagerie Blackberry à un membre du projet ou à d'autres personnes associées au Forum via des réseaux sociaux comme Facebook. Les fermiers se servent aussi du courriel pour rester en contact avec les dirigeants du projet ou avec des amis et membres de la famille éloignés.La photographie vient en complément du matériel didactique audiovisuel ; elle peut aussi servir à suivre et à combattre la propagation des maladies dans les champs de cacao des Caraïbes. À tout moment, le fermier peut visionner de petites vidéos (de deux à quatre minutes) pré-chargées dans la mémoire de le smartphone. Ces vidéos abordent divers sujets, comme les techniques de greffage d'un cacaoyer, la bonne maintenance des sols, l'application des engrais, la lutte intégrée, le maniement des outils électriques.Les dates clés du projet sont programmées dans le calendrier de le smartphone, de même que des rappels quotidiens et pour les moments de l'année où les divers plants requièrent l'attention du fermier. Grâce à la connexion Internet, celui-ci peut chercher et se former à des techniques agricoles et accéder à toute une série d'informations sur la toile.L'application mobile Google Maps est une autre fonctionnalité intéressante que l'on peut facilement installer sur le smartphone. Les fermiers s'en servent pour se situer sur la carte, estimer la distance jusqu'à d'autres exploitations, par exemple, ou jusqu'au marché le plus proche. La vue satellite leur permet de voir des éléments tels que les lacs, les rivières, les routes et d'autres points de repère. Certains fermiers utilisent une autre application, Google Latitude, pour communiquer les coordonnées de leur emplacement à d'autres fermiers et aux leaders du projet.En Jamaïque, les fermiers ont pu suivre des cours de formation aux TIC dispensés par l'organisation HEADSpace dans des églises et des centres communautaires locaux équipés d'ordinateurs connectés à Internet. Les formateurs résidents avaient suivi une formation spéciale pour répondre aux besoins spécifiques du projet. Leur travail s'inscrit désormais en complément de celui des agents de changement.Le CFCF doit encore relever plusieurs défis, mais l'équipe du projet planche déjà sur quelques solutions. Les priorités des instituts de recherche cacaoyère ne sont pas forcément celles des fermiers caraïbes, par exemple. On note aussi un manque de partage des ressources et des informations dans le secteur.L'équipe du projet a noué d'excellentes relations avec les départements de recherche des ministères de la production alimentaire, les agences des ressources terrestres et marines, l'unité de recherche cacaoyère de la University of West Indies, le département de l'entrepreneuriat de la University of Trinidad and Tobago, qui contribuent toutes à évaluer et à consigner les besoins de toutes les parties concernées.Le CFCF accueille sans cesse de nouveaux membres et diffuse les résultats des recherches et des projets via ses magazines d'information, des réunions de formation et une conférence annuelle. Ces activités devraient améliorer la communication et la représentation des producteurs de cacao des Caraïbes à l'échelon international. Pour résoudre le problème de sousutilisation des technologies, des activités de développement et de formation sont déployées dans toute la région.Dans un proche avenir, le CFCF espère trouver des fonds pour identifier des arbres-mères super-productifs au moyen d'une puce électronique indiquant leur emplacement. Des tiges de ces arbres super-productifs seront greffées sur des plants résistants aux maladies afin de produire une variété de cacaoyer robuste et productive. PlaNet Finance s'est associée à deux organisations de microcrédit de la région, Grameen Ghana et Maata-N-Tudu, pour apporter un soutien financier aux membres de SSN. Grâce aux microfinancements qu'elles contractent, les femmes peuvent désormais s'acheter des gants et des lunettes de protection pour la cueillette des noix et investir dans du matériel de transformation (broyeurs et appareils de conditionnement) pour renforcer leur activité.Les deux organismes financiers utilisent un autre progiciel développé par Qualité du karité SAP, Microloan Management. Ce sont les responsables locaux des prêts ruraux qui l'utilisent pour tenir à jour les dossiers des emprunteurs, des remboursements et des sources financières disponibles.PlaNet Finance travaille aussi avec de gros acheteurs de produits à base de karité afin de déterminer leurs besoins et d'élaborer une formation qui aide les membres du SSN à proposer des produits de meilleure qualité. Au départ, seul un petit nombre de femmes a été formé, mais pour atteindre le plus de membres possibles, PlaNet Finance a réalisé une vidéo qui présente des techniques de transformation standardisées et plus efficaces. Elle a aussi formé les membres de SSN à la gestion des revenus, à l'élaboration d'un budget et à la coordination des activités de groupe.Une récente étude de la Stanford University montre que certains membres de SSN ont augmenté leurs revenus jusqu'à 82 % et que PlaNet Finance a récemment obtenu des fonds pour travailler avec 1 500 femmes de plus. Avec une production plus efficace et plus importante, SSN est devenu un opérateur concurrentiel du marché ghanéen du karité.Comme SSN continue de s'étendre et de fabriquer des produits de haute qualité à base de karité, il va probablement attirer de nouveaux acheteurs, surtout sur les marchés de niche du beurre de karité. SSN essaie d'obtenir la certification bio de ses produits pour les marchés qui la demandent. L'étude Stanford note que, vu les progrès réalisés jusqu'ici, SSN pourrait changer la vie des productrices de karité et devenir une entreprise financièrement indépendante s'il continue de s'améliorer et de relever les défis commerciaux. ◀ un réseau ghanéen utilise des téléphones portables et des logiciels spécialisés pour donner de la formation et un appui micro financier et commercial à des productrices de karité.Heino Kantimm (heino.kantimm@sap.com) est directeur de la durabilité sociale chez SAP (www.sap.com) Maxwell Kuunyem (mkuunyem@planetfinance.org) est chargé de projet chez PlaNet Finance, faubourgs de Tamale, Ghana Une multitude de petits fermiers assurent l'essentiel de la production agricole ghanéenne, ce qui ne facilite pas la traçabilité. Ces petits fermiers sont souvent très éloignés du marché et des consommateurs finaux et méconnaissent parfois les rouages de laGrâce à un projet GPS, des fermiers ghanéens trouvent de nouveaux acheteurs et marchés d'exportation et améliorent la chaîne de valeurs de divers produits de base du pays.  Le projet a analysé qui cultivait quoi, quelles recherches universitaires ou autres existaient déjà, quelles sociétés pouvaient écouler la production et quelles étaient les évolutions du marché. Certaines cultures ont affaire à une concurrence bien établie, tandis que d'autres pourraient remplacer des importations de pays voisins. L'équipe s'est demandé quels produits de base répondaient spécifiquement à la demande du marché et dans quels domaines les produits ghanéens pourraient avoir un avantage concurrentiel.Au bout du compte, le projet s'est concentré sur six produits destinés à l'exportation et cinq aux marchés régionaux et intérieur. Chaque chaîne de valeur est différente, et toutes ne sont pas au même stade de développement. Il a donc fallu examiner chaque maillon et trouver le meilleur moyen de le renforcer. Toutes les actions ont visé à améliorer la compétitivité des petits exploitants et des entreprises adjacentes et à les intégrer dans les chaînes de valeur.TIPCEE a travaillé avec des fermiers de certains sous-secteurs et leur a expliqué chaque maillon de la filière de leur produit, du choix des semences au consommateur national ou étranger. Le projet a formé plus de 100 000 fermiers à des techniques de culture conçues pour améliorer leur production spécifique et leurs possibilités de commercialisation.L'amélioration des pratiques couvre l'ensemble du cycle de production, de la sélection des semences au stockage à court terme en passant par la préparation du site, la création d'une pépinière, le plantage, la lutte intégrée et la maniement des pesticides, l'application des engrais, le contrôle des mauvaises herbes, l'élagage (cultures arbustives), la récolte, le conditionnement et le transport. Une fois formés, des fermiers chefs de file ont organisé des journées portes ouvertes pour expliquer leurs pratiques et montrer des parcelles de démonstration à leurs voisins fermiers.Avec le Ghana Standards Board, TIPCEE a également édicté des normes pour trois variétés d'ananas et de mangue, deux variétés de papaye, deux types de plantes médicinales, l'anacardier, l'orange et l'okra. Le projet a réalisé des affiches pour illustrer les normes requises et les a distribuées aux fermiers et placardées dans les entrepôts et autres lieux de rencontre habituels.Afin d'améliorer les normes de toutes les mangues ghanéennes, ITFC, TIPCEE et Ghana Standards Board se sont associés pour parrainer l'impression d'affiches sur les normes. L'équipe de TIPCEE a aussi aidé ITFC à préparer du matériel de formation pour la production de fruits bio et équitables, un de ses acheteurs ayant besoin de cette certification.En introduisant un SIG dans le secteur agricole ghanéen et en cartographiant les fermes, TIPCEE a fait mieux connaître les producteurs des établissements d'intrants agricoles et de services de crédit et leur a fourni de précieuses informations pour le développement de leurs infrastructures. Les services gouvernementaux utilisent ces données lorsqu'ils envisagent la construction de routes, le développement de réseaux de télèphonie mobile ou l'installation de systèmes d'irrigation.Les évaluations du projet faites après cinq ans montrent que les chaînes de valeur choisies ont été consolidées, que les fermiers connaissent mieux les marchés et que le cadre juridique et réglementaire est plus ouvert aux besoins du secteur privé.En améliorant les communications d'un bout à l'autre de la chaîne de valeur, les petits fermiers se sont aperçu qu'ils pouvaient considérablement augmenter leurs récoltes pour gagner plus d'argent, voire s'orienter à l'exportation, et qu'ils avaient un rôle à jouer dans le développement de l'agro-industrie ghanéenne. De leur côté, les transformateurs et les exportateurs savent désormais qu'ils peuvent faire confiance aux fermiers pour répondre à leurs attentes. Les producteurs et les entreprises qui ont pris part au projet savent aussi que les produits agricoles ghanéens ne craignent pas la concurrence sur les marchés régionaux et internationaux. ◀Grâce aux données du SIG, les fermiers peuvent élaborer un plan de travail, calculer leurs coûts, et donc être plus compétitifs sur les marchés.prime sociale intégrée dans le prix de vente du produit équitable.« À la base, le projet voulait aider les producteurs et les consommateurs à se faire une idée plus exacte de la filière », dit Dorothea Kleine, professeur à la Royal Holloway, University of London, directrice du projet et membre de l'équipe de recherche Fair Tracing.La première tâche de l'équipe a consisté à effectuer une recherche sur l'ensemble de la filière et à mettre ces informations à la disposition des producteurs et des consommateurs via Internet. Avec l'aide des producteurs, l'équipe a réalisé et mis sur la toile des petits « romans-photos » expliquant le processus de production au consommateur. Avec les viticulteurs chiliens, elle a réalisé une série de vidéos : sur le carménère, principal cépage chilien, sur l'usage de la prime sociale au profit de la communauté, et sur la façon de goûter et d'apprécier ce vin, toutes trois pour mieux expliquer au consommateur les différentes facettes du produit.« Nous avons dû développer une interface conviviale et compatible avec les téléphones portables », dit Kleine. Le projet a développé des sites de démonstration du système. Sur la toile, le consommateur tape le numéro de code à barres du produit et voit s'afficher son parcours dans Google Maps. Il peut aussi recevoir des informations sur la certification bio et commerce équitable du produit, sa notation par des programmes éthiques et des liens vers des photos et des vidéos.Muni d'un smartphone équipé de l'application de lecture de code à barres, le consommateur n'a qu'à scanner le produit pour être automatiquement dirigé vers le site. L'équipe a voulu lui donner l'occasion de vérifier avant d'acheter, pour choisir en toute connaissance de cause Le simple fait de pouvoir communiquer avec les consommateurs, ne serait-ce qu'en ligne, permet aux producteurs de jeter les fondements d'une marque, de soutenir sa reconnaissance, et aux consommateurs de créer un lien avec le produit. Les producteurs peuvent aussi se faire une idée du profil de leur client type et de ce qui peut le fidéliser ou de ce qui doit figurer sur l'étiquette d'une bouteille de vin pour l'inciter à l'acheter.La technologie devient aussi une carte de visite du producteur, ajoute Kleine. « Les producteurs du commerce équitable tiennent à apparaître comme des professionnels et non comme des assistés. Mais pour travailler de manière professionnelle, ils ont besoin d'un certain nombre d'informations. Ce système de communication peut largement les aider à bâtir une relation avec leur clientèle, autour des formes équitables du commerce et non de l'assistance. » Bien que le projet se soit officiellement achevé en 2009, l'équipe a repris tous les résultats dans un blogue public qu'elle gère et qui l'a aidée à faire connaître son travail et à nouer des contacts avec des personnes qui ont participé à des initiatives similaires ou qui souhaitent utiliser la même technologie. Cela a donné lieu à une conférence et à une série de réunions virtuelles avec des projets analogues, généralement à but non lucratif, pour discuter de l'avenir de projets comme Fair Tracing. Une des idées avancées serait de rendre le système commercialement viable en travaillant avec le service de notation éthique par abonnement du magazine britannique Ethical Consumer. Les consommateurs pourraient utiliser cette application lorsqu'ils sont au supermarché pour se renseigner sur le fabricant du produit avant de l'acheter. ◀ Avec le lecteur de code à barres de son smartphone, le consommateur peut se renseigner sur le fabricant du produit avant de l'acheter.kACtuS Foto / GAmmA TraceFood est un wiki qui aide les producteurs à concevoir et à mettre en oeuvre un système de traçabilité pour des filières alimentaires. Il permet à des petits exploitants et à leurs associations de créer un système de traçage de la production, de la transformation et du transport de denrées. Il les guide et les conseille à chaque étape de la conception et de l'utilisation de formulaires électroniques destinés soit à l'ensemble de la filière, soit aux producteurs.Un wiki est une sorte de base de données en ligne ; les internautes peuvent facilement y éditer les articles existants ou ajouter leurs propres informations. TraceFood Wiki est une émanation des projets TraceFish et SeaFoodPlus de la Commission européenne, mais n'importe qui peut s'enregistrer comme utilisateur et enrichir le contenu ou rejoindre les forums de discussion en ligne pour en savoir plus sur la traçabilité et la création d'un système de traçage des aliments.Allez sur le site www.tracefood.org. La page d'accueil affiche les derniers changements apportés au wiki, l'adresse courriel où vous inscrire comme nouvel utilisateur, quelques mots sur la raison d'être et le financement de cette initiative, et quelques astuces de navigation pour débuter. À gauche, cinq menus verticaux et un champ de recherche aiguillent le visiteur vers des pages thématiques. Avoir accès à l'information est une chose ; savoir comment en tirer parti en est une autre. Un texto apprendra au fermier que le prix d'une denrée est plus élevé en ville que là où il habite, mais ne lui dira pas où trouver un transporteur, quel en sera le coût, ni qui sera l'acheteur. Le prix n'est qu'une pièce du puzzle. Le connaître vous aide à négocier de meilleures conditions, à vous donner un point de comparaison, mais pas à l'obtenir. Très souvent, les fermiers finissent par apprendre que leur acheteur habituel les gruge.Un meilleur accès à l'information rend le marché plus transparent. La technologie permet au fermier d'élargir le cercle de ses acheteurs potentiels, mais ne lui garantit pas une bonne transaction.➜ Lorsqu'on introduit un système d'information sur les marchés (SIM), il faut prendre garde à prévenir les utilisateurs qu'il ne résoudra pas tous leurs problèmes de commercialisation. Les fermiers ont besoin de formation, d'un accès au transport et, dans de nombreuses zones rurales, de meilleures infrastructures.La formation est cruciale parce que le fermier doit savoir précisément que faire des informations qu'il reçoit. Beaucoup d'entre eux ont pour habitude de vendre leur produit au sac ou au régime dans le cas de la banane. Ils n'obtiennent pas toujours un prix au poids. Or les prix qu'on leur communique sont généralement au kilo : ils doivent donc savoir exactement ce que cela signifie pour eux, c.-à-d. déterminer le poids du sac ou du régime et en calculer la valeur en fonction du prix au kilo.Ce qu'un SIM ne fait pas non plus, c'est évaluer la qualité. Les prix communiqués concernent généralement des denrées de qualité normale. Le fermier n'est donc pas plus avancé s'il veut écouler une production de qualité supérieure ou inférieure.Il convient par ailleurs de noter qu'un SIM ne sert à rien si le fermier a déjà du mal à produire suffisamment pour nourrir sa famille. Le fermier de subsistance n'a que faire d'un SIM ; il a besoin d'informations qui l'aident à assurer sa sécurité alimentaire. Un SIM n'est utile que pour améliorer l'activité des fermiers qui produisent uniquement pour la vente ou qui disposent de surplus.Un SIM peut-il apporter aux fermiers toutes les informations dont ils ont besoin pour faire une bonne transaction ? ➜ C'est ce que s'efforcent de faire la plupart des SIM, mais regrouper toutes les données n'est pas évident. Les fermiers doivent tenir compte des informations en provenance de plusieurs sources avant de prendre la bonne décision. Les données du marché ne sont qu'un aspect parmi d'autres. Les négociants, les acheteurs, les amis et la famille peuvent tous influencer la décision qu'il prendra finalement. Aucun SIM ne donnera jamais toutes les informations sur tous les produits de la ferme.Certains systèmes fournissent une large gamme d'informations pour un produit spécifique, en suivant sa filière. D'autres sont dédiés aux marchés haut de gamme, comme le commerce équitable et les produits bio. Le producteur de coton Dunavant et le brasseur Guinness, par exemple, ont mis au point un système de traçage et de suivi de leurs fournisseurs, d'un bout à l'autre de la saison. Ils disent aux fermiers quand et comment planter, quel type de semences utiliser, comment protéger leurs cultures jusqu'aux moissons, combien ils seront payés et quand le camion passera prendre la marchandise. Toutes ces informations sont envoyées directement sur leurs téléphones portables. Le gain d'efficacité de la filière a permis à ces sociétés de récupérer rapidement leur investissement.➜ Le téléphone portable est incontestablement l'outil de prédilection pour communiquer les informations sur les marchés dans les pays ACP. Beaucoup de systèmes envoient leurs informations par SMS ou via des messages vocaux, et je suis certain que de plus en plus de fermiers utiliseront bientôt leur portable pour aller chercher ces informations sur Internet, vu la baisse des prix des smartphones et des connexions. Les développeurs l'ont bien compris : ils créent des sites web adaptés aux téléphones portables, et surtout aux smartphones ; ils écrivent aussi des apps dans les principales langues africaines comme le swahili.Il faut bien se dire que l'information sur les prix était disponible depuis longtemps ; elle n'est pas née avec la technologie. Celle-ci n'est qu'un moyen de transférer du contenu qui existe déjà, sauf qu'elle le rapproche du premier maillon de la chaîne de valeur, le fermier. ◀ ","tokenCount":"4589"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b349981bd0235110de606e4163212f11","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/62a2a4ea-0e34-4488-a30f-8cb3c9e4b250/retrieve","id":"-1076917291"},"keywords":["~a Uyole Agr1eUlt,Ü' M:,-.,.LI?i:m1t","re----_1 >h' J. Sa1d1 1'rop1cal. Pest","l1Bsearch Institnte. lJ.tersture , '--~"],"sieverID":"6129dc10-679e-42ad-b18d-d402f3f35fd3","pagecount":"42","content":"Karol A.K. In presa. Yield (,)ossea from ami cantro\"TOr bean pod bOrerB, Maruca test-lllalis and Heliothis armigera. J. &:an. EiltOl!lo Karel A.K. and Rtle;yemamu C.L. In press. Reaistanee to the follar beetle Ootheca bl3llll1gseni in CO!lJDOll beana. l2Jviranmer:ltal. l2JtoIlIology Vo. 14. Karel A.K. ami l~o R.!!.K. In press. TIle eflact al insectJcides ami plant popul.atians on the insect pests and yields ol common bean (Pbaseolu.s vul.garj.!) J. Ecan. lihtollll)l. Karel A.K. and Rtle;yamamu C.L. 1984. Y1eld 10sses in tield beans follOld.nB follar damaBe by Ootheca bermigseni J. Eeon. 1liltolllo1. 77. 762-765. Soko:Ine I1n1vers1ty. &ro&oro, Dr Kare].•s current wrkBean fly resistance 500 linea trere tested and 24 were found with enou¡¡¡b resISt8ñce to be used in crosses. A few of these ve:re crossed at( ~.CIAl' 'Hith 'l'anzanian and cm variet1ea. The progEmy carne back in Sept.19S4 ami has now been plantad in two seasona. Progrese 18 elOl!l bsca:u.se 118UEil.l3 t.here 18 strong bean fl,y pressure 0IÜ3' in the sbort wst season, al&o tbe material 18 stUl segregating. 9 parametera are measured the ma:in. anea being no. ol ovipuncturee, lsrval counte ami stem damage.A papar en t11e aeleet1an lor :resistance 1B due to come out ehort:.l,y in the J. Eeon. Ebtomol. Vol 'lS 1+ or 5. beetle resi6tance. Local and cm lines we:re testad. Both we:re found ami croases vere lIIIlde nt CIAf witb ltaban.ima and other accepteble var1st1es. The prog~ llave bean testad in J seesona at~. (ve17 Ilaa;vy attack at ~&IlIIl!l&U t.h1s year lIIIlde reo-planting nacessa:q). See literature tar papel\" an the 1dent1ticat1an 01 :resistance. faen1a tbrips :resistance. Reports 01 :f'loI;fer losa due to these thr1ps !lave COlle espec~ from parta el central 'l'enz.enia and Ka¡era reg1on. Ilama&e 18 h1ghes Hhen El dr;¡r perlod co-inc1des with f.1.owering. .3, linee are being testad, many ol tdd.c:h are al.read¡y Im.otm to have resistance to bean f'J3 and Ootbeca. Hothing publ1 ehad. Assessment 01' crop loeses (a~ bean f'J3not wr1tten IIp t~) ~~, . . . . Hel.iothis spp MañiCa teatualla } Losase to es.ch psst ran¡;e from .30-50% E.f1'ect 01 plant P2pU!.atiane on insect peets ese literatura lor art:i.c1ee.Previous experimente ehowed the best populatian to be bst_ 200,000 _ .300.000 pLante per hectare, (ese lit.ersture). In 1984 and 198; .fUrther 1IIOrk 18 tr;¡ring to p1n po1nt the optimum with:in th1s ranga, 'Ifhen cover spn¡,ys ol fung1cida are usad. 1\"i.ma 01' ~ting. Prev.t.ous experimente found insect damage least with PLíñtJiíg\\lro weeks att.er the atart 01' the reina. (eee boon b1bllograpb;y). Thl.s yoar, 198;, the I1lOrlc 18 being repeated with Kabanima in additi.an to the Selian ¡'¡ander usad befora.(7) (S) Intereropping. Th.ere are 4 plant populationB and 4 combmations 01 iííaiZe and beans; puro maiJle} ' !.lM ~ us1ng a replacem6nt ser1es mere liM iB 1M .. 3B pare beans \"' ?In 1993 lJ3,OOO bean planta + 40,000 maise planta per ha gaw the bigbast. L.&.a. and also the lowest inBeCt populations of llIOSt 1nsect species.Ditlume U/¡.' vas apph.ed to control fungal oieeases. Th.ere were no resulta in 1984. and the exper1ment 18 being repeated this year. Notbina pubJi abad so faro _ated control.. An experiment. vas 1\"Ut'l lor three years ~ Kabenima has some reeista:nee to Ootheca and bsan ~}, Bacilllls thurin.!d.ensis aga:I.nat pod borers and insecticidas ilihere neceseary. A paper on tlí!S WOl'k tfaS eo-authored by van Schoonboven. Indigeneous inseet1c1des. EKt.raets from tomatoe leaves, cbn 11 e seede end neem were compared and naem vas fo1md mst. eftect1w. Fol:' too J.ast two years va.r1ous lol'!llUlations from neem have been eompared 'ld.th insecticida. a~us ext.1:'aet from neem l.eal aqneous ext.raet from neem kemel alcohol. ext.1:'aet from neem leal alcohol. ext.raet from neem kernel neem dust Th.e aqueous ext.raets have been too most eftect1ve. Nothing publ1ahed so tSl:'. Brucbids. Va.r:I.oua oils incl.ud:l,ng thst 01 neem were compared at 1$ and 3pC':l concentrat1an. The,y controlled bruehida lar about tliO montbs. '1'b1s will be publiahed in the B.I.C. annual reporto Tropical Pest1eides Rseeareh Institut.e. MI-J. Sa1d1(2) wect ~ rs~ore. 1995 18 the f1ret ;vear 01 cOlllparin& d1fluobenzuron 8ñd fenO.iijC) ld. endOsuU'en for control ol HeUoth1s armigera and aphids, tha ma1n insect pests in this regLon.1O;Yeer8 ego the seed bean erea was 60,000 ha to 70,000 ha and ñOliQii4. 2~,000 ha. '1'his big drop 18 due to the pool' infrastructure oí Tanzania and ita overvalued cUl'l\"Cl1CY. 1'00 Dutcb c\"\"i'GIlies are expand:ing in t.he U.S.A. and to a leaser extent in 1I:enya and ZiIlbabllle. 'l'.be erea in TanzEllll.a has increased tbia year bece.use 01 low stocks alter last year-s poor harveet, but the long term trend 1s etlll prooab~ dcnlnward.At present ldaho can undercut 'l'anzania. for price, out ita product has poorer germinatlon due to mechanical harvesting¡'tbresh1ns/sorting. 'lan'W'hn Beed .lS sometimes used. to :IJnp:rove the germination percentage of t.he ldaho producto I.f oean handling macb.inel7' in U.S.A. was l.lllproved t.hen the market for ased from 'l'anzania. would drop dramaticaJ.q. COl'ltract. growere Most produet1on 18 on large estatea, often leased d1rect4r b;y the Dutch aeed. compan1es. In t.he ear4r 19708 tha companies tried, and abamiOlled., t\\lQrld.ng uith Sl!IS.llholdere, but largar contract. grouere rema:ined, planting betwan 2O--SOO ha. 'l'here 1a curren~ a sbift a:rAl1Y 1'rom the use 01 out-growel'8 to produetion be1ng cOIlcentrated more on COlllpany estates. The companies ateta that th1s 18 due to the h.1gber qua1.1ty of the1r oun produetian ~h must be preservad in t.he l.ang term althaugh outgrower p:roduetion can be more profitabla in the ehort termo A cOll.Ip8I'l;f normalq grows its protected varietiea 0Il 1ts O1fl'li( ea1:.ates. ZS ~es. 'l'he COIltract. gI\"OWel'8 are heav14r financed. by t.ge c\"\"i'8\"ies seed, chem1eals and often land preparat1on, sorting and cash loan8. lt 18 th1s financ1ng ~h attra.ets out-growers e1nce the pr:u:e they are pa.1d is often well below the local msrket price tor toed beans. '1'his year the export price tlil.l be about 5b 12 per kg, with contract growers paid about 5b S per kg.  Pi'''ÜáiJw:i trLí1 j. 'l'he material 1.s pl.anted in two seasona at U.A.C., inc.lJul1ng en extra ear~ planting st the sta.rt. ol the l'a1na. 'l'bia trial 1.s l.l8ed 1f someth:1ng iB thought 1'.0 have good enthracnoae rea1.stance.'l'he decision on which prellm:fnar;y trial to use depende on maturity time end other characters, and eeed quentity. Thsy are than eovered w1th e011, by splitting the r1dgee, and 1eft lar a furthar 1-2 weeks before plant:1n.g the beene. Usual~ 2 rowa par furrow are planted, sometimes .'.h Problema LiBht lor ths re1a.y been crop ~en the area was v.Laited, in ear~ March, moat been crops lIere showing some etiolat1on in spite of maize 'leal removal. A ver¡ tew tarmers avoided this prob1em by cutt:1ng the maize atalk above ths cob, 1eaving only ths cob 1teelf.Splitt:1n.g the :r&dges, eepecialqif not done with great cara, trequent~ cauees ths maize to lodge.All the bea:n plante seen, of whatever age, looked chlorotic. No fertilizer 1s normally used on maize/beans, on~ on ~ maize 1Ihieh ie usua.l.lJ' planted as a pura atando Northem Reg1on.(1) stal! st Mpbompba farmers train:1ng cantre. A11 sources 8greed tbat beens 1e a problem crop, w1th~elds and even area planted having declined since the 1970's.('l'hs little data available from sampl.e surveye ie copiad below).Henga 2!::!:. Ra1na beg:ln but maize la not planted er lt would mature in wet weather • .!!!l.!:. Ma1ze and beana planted together. usual.q in the sama holea, on ri.dges. Mar-AprU Beans harvested. A tew í'a:rmers split the rid8es and p1ant a rela;v bean crop, but this ls rareo ~1oJhen practiced the 10wer 1eavas oí' maize may not be removed and even ir removed they are not burried in the new ridges. Beans may be planted on the maize ri.dgea.In the Hanga vaUey, and parts ot Mphompha, lt le more normal ter the April sown bean crop to be planted on 1and which la newly cleared. OOving been unClerf'tallow. (tlroad r1dgea are made, at least 300m vide, to cover the cleared vagetation. Beans are planted randomq scross the ri.dge. 'l'h1s land 1r.Lll be used fer maize er a maize/bean m:lxture the follow1ng December.Relativaq tew beans are planted in too 2nd sesean as can be sean from the data on tbls\"]lage::¡where lt 18 all included as 'sola crop'. Possible reasons ter the 10warea planted can be suggesteda (1) Seed shortage. AlthOU8ll the crop .1uat harveated could be reo-planted this ls the asasan just before maize harveat wen beana may be bad..q needed ter food or ter sale.( This eeasone resulte are expected te show a regresion CUl\"Ve f'or ea.eh variety. Deep pH testing (belOW 1; eme), 'llhere pH can be much b1sber, ~ show 1Ihet.ber different root1ng pattems could expl sin the var1eta diftereneas. Soil cbaracter1st1C8 in larmers fields.Uost beane come from the northem region 'llhere aoU pH 16 ~ below 4.0 and therefore they are normaJ.l,v grm¡n in the chitemene (asIl cUlture) eystem. pH of bean soils in tbis eystem have bean measured by R.J. Chaatle ranging from 4-0 -9.0, normall,y at the lower end. depending largel;v on the stage in the cyel.e. The pH of ths Mba1'a tr.:l.al sitas at around 4.2 16 therefore not ~al. tb,ougb 1t was obtai.:ned by l.im1ng up from 3.9 rather than by asIl.All informante atetad that active nodUles are rarel;y sean on beans in Zambia. '!'he pr:f..mary unit la the standard annumeration area (SEA) beeed on ceneus ennurnerattón areas. In each province either 1.0% \",2.0% ot the SEA's are selected (SJStemat1c circular w1th rsndom start), then 10% 01 the households in the selected SEA are used. 20% 01 SEA o e are S' U.I\"V\\!IYed in the main maizs provincas only which does not. includa 1iI0000ham Province, the ma1n bean ares. In fUture a mastel.\" sampling treme wUl be used, as in I!'enya.Oet -Nov.Ifar Apto -July SpeCitic bean problema houaehold l1eting, se1ect1on ol lO% aamp1e crop torecast, by questionaire and in-tie14 aub-samp!e re-estimate lOl'ecaat. urea measurement snd maize cutting (only maize 1ielda are sampled) post-harvest quest1.on ai re. i'he survey 1a alwa;ys in Deo/Jan ;ret in the north, 'tIhere most beane are gl'OIIII'1, tha main eaason is Feb-Ma;y. Beans may thel.\"efore be under-estimated.In tha 19rfJ/94 l3Ul\"VeY an intercropped lield ot 1 ha 1s recO!.\"ded as 1 ha -maize plus 1 ha -beans. In 1994/85 the aystem was changed to estimating the equivalent ares under aole crop.     The expansion for the Europeen market ls at the expense of Tenzanian and French producers.Most productlon is with:ln 100 Jan of Harare, for ease of supervisian by the agente. Areae below 1,200 1.e. Chegutu and Mazowe are preferred because of their freedom from froste.For eouthem Africa sugar beans are preferred and the main variety grown ia Bonus. becauee good seed NaS available from S. Afrlca. For Europe all the basic sead la importad.Canning types (30% of tha market :In Europa) -2.5 t/ha. Green types (70% of the market :In Europe) -1.8 t/ha Coste/prlcea Costa are about Z $ 700/ha and the farmer 1a pa1d about 'Z $ 1,OOO/tonne. The crop la attractlve.u~ aldr:ln or die1dr:ln aead dress:lng le used aga:lnst bean f1y. If thia is not done then 4 apray¡¡ of diazonal ~ be needed. If apbida or red apider mite build up dimethoate la usad.  A1l eourcee agree tbat for ihe 10\\<1 veld no potash :La needed end all fertil1zer can be applied at [plBnt:ing whi1e lor b1gh altitude arese potash 1a needed and some of the nitrogen should be topdreased.The 1nnoculum factory 1a a semi-commarc1al unit within the ííiini.stry af a.gdcul.ture. In 1te yeer of maximum product1on 1981-'$2 (alight decline since than) output waa 85,000 m1ts 01 wb1ch 00,000 were tor soya, 2,000 for grounclnuta and 1,000 for beene. In the current aasson ovar 1,000 units for bSans hava been eold. ~1 unit traste 42 kg ot bean seed. Most i'armera do not know what innoculum dose, tbinldng'ita sometbing to do with germination l . Its 4\"::-::::;;:' probabq bougbt becausa the soya innoculum is drsmaticalq etlactiva and bScauee .. te chasp, • 0.75 1 unit.Onq 1 Rhillob1um atrain is uaed, ca 1141, from Australia, called 1300 M/IB. !ii Ziíilbilblre. No field~triala bave bean done. II:. was chosen an greanhouse performance and atorege Sl.nce the other atrains tor beans d1d not keep at all well. '!'he problem ~ be the bagasillo med1um usad, 1t kept batter on agar. '!'he microbi010gist dic1ded againat doing field triaJ.s saying tbat heans are not a crop 01 euffic1anl:. importance.There are some indications that 1nnoculation ~ have en effect. Dr P. Grant 01 the Zimbabwe fertilizar company sa1d in har genaral observal:.ian mnoculated heans nodulate bettar. She suggeats tbat lailure to nodulate can be due to ploughing in crop reaidue :llJI!!IeIliateq before plant:ing which 1mmobilises soU nitrogen. A f1eld e.xperiment by the bean breeder, O. Vange, in 1994 showed ai¡¡;n1f1cantq more nodules end higher y1elds on mnoculated plantal but this work has not yet bean Tliriten up.   ","tokenCount":"2111"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3010067408dce41fc5f6c7d70fe30ec3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/98f07fa7-7079-43e8-9e34-660124ce9820/content","id":"1669033275"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"eb47b8d2-9bee-4d8a-96ca-4f25a683b06a","pagecount":"18","content":"Actualmente existe una tremenda variación en los maíces mexicanos. Esta variación incluye desde las formas primitivas y mantenidas por los indígenas para propósitos ceremoniales, hasta las modernas variedades de origen complejo y altamente productivas. Algunas variedades son precoces, alcanzando su madurez en más o menos 80 días. Otras son tardías, requiriendo un período de 11 meses o más para completar su ciclo. Algunos son chaparras o bajas, otras son altas; algunas tienen mazorcas y granos pequeños, otras poseen mazorcas y granos muy grandes. Algunas son resistentes a la sequía, mientras que otras no lo son; algunas son resistentes a ciertas enfermedades, otras no; y así es posible enumerar una gran lista de características diferenciales. Hay, pues, una enorme variación en lo caracteres del maíz, no solamente en cuanto a su constitución química o morfológica, sino también en cuanto se refiere a su reacción fisiológica de acuerdo con el clima, enfermedades y ataque de insectos. Un análisis cuerdo de cómo se ocasionó esta variación deberá revelar claramente algunos de los primeros pasos del mejoramiento del maíz.Se han colectado muestras en todas las principales regiones maiceras de México, América Central, El Caribe y América del Sur. Hasta hoy existen más de 5 000 muestras viables conservadas en el banco de maíz en México, más o menos el mismo número en el banco de Medellín, Colombia, y cerca de 3 000 en el banco en Piracicaba, Brasil. Muchas de estas muestras ya han sido estudiadas y clasificadas en variedades y razas. 2,3,5,17,19,[21][22] Aún cuando no podemos estar completamente seguros de cómo los diferentes tipos modernos fueron formados antes de que los genetistas y mejoradores actuales entraran en escena, mediante los esfuerzos hechos en los programas de investigación hemos acumulado, en muchos casos, suficiente evidencia que nos permite hacer postulados muy aproximados con respecto a su origen.años. En las cuevas de Honduras y Guatemala examinadas por él no se encontró nada de especial interés en el sentido de residuos vegetales, debido a la humedad del clima. En una cueva llamada Santa Marta en Chiapas, encontró una buena secuencia de polen de maíz, pero no siendo éste de una antigüedad mayor de 5 500 años. Muy recientemente, al final de 1959 y principios de 1960, examinó una serie de cuevas en el sur de Puebla y norte de Oaxaca y encontró una que parece ser muy interesante. En una cueva del sur de Puebla se encontraron endebles olotes de maíz de una antigüedad calculada de 5 000 A. C., o sean 7 000 años. Estos olotes le fueron enviados al Dr. Mangelsdorf, quien cree que son pertenecientes al \"maíz silvestre y/o a un maíz en sus primeras etapas de domesticación\". Obviamente esto necesita más estudio, pero cada vez parece más seguro, como varios investigadores lo han postulado antes, 14, 20, 23 que el maíz fue domesticado en México o en la América Central, hace como 7 000 años, de un ancestro considerado como maíz silvestre. En ningún lugar se han encontrado restos de maíz más antiguos que éste.Aún más, de acuerdo con la edad del polen fósil tomado de la tierra extraída por un taladro a una profundidad de 200 pies bajo la superficie, durante la construcción de la Torre Latino-Americana en la Ciudad de México, e identificado por el Dr. Barghoorn de la Universidad de Harvard 1 como polen de maíz, es muy probable que el maíz silvestre existía en México mucho antes de que el hombre apareciera en escena. Se determinó que ese polen fósil pertenece al último período interglacial y se estima su edad en 80 000 años. Debe entonces, haber ocurrido que el maíz silvestre existió en el Valle de México. Aún cuando no podemos hace una aseveración estrictamente positiva, por los datos obtenidos parece ser que el maíz silvestre estuvo presente en las regiones de la Mesa Central de México hace muchos, pero muchos años, y el hombre empezó a domesticarlo y a usarlo como uno de sus alimentos básicos hace unos 7 000 años. Cómo era este maíz silvestre a la hora de su domesticación y cómo se desarrolló a través de 7 000 años de evolución para venir a ser uno de los cereales más productivos en el mundo es realmente una historia fascinante. Para desentrañar completamente esta historia, se requerirá también una investigación mucho más fascinante que la que hasta ahora se ha logrado llevar a cabo, pero cuando menos una parte de la historia de los maíces mexicanos puede ser articulada.Mangelsdorf 12 ha tratado de reconstruir el ancestro silvestre del maíz tal y como pudo haber existido en México hace de 5 000 a 7 000 años. Su reconstrucción la ha basado en parte en los restos fósiles y arqueológicos encontrados y en parte sobre recombinaciones genéticas de algunos de los caracteres primitivos que aún existen en variedades modernas. Aun cuando no ha logrado todavía reproducir las características de algunos de los especímenes arqueológicos primitivos, ha tenido éxito en desarrollar lo que tal vez pudiera llamarse el maíz más improductivo del mundo. De acuerdo con Mangelsdorf  12 el maíz primitivo en un suelo pobre o entre una fuerte competencia con otra vegetación, tuvo un tallo corto y delgado con una altura no mayor de 60 a 70 cms., llevando unos pocos granos en la base de la espiga y una mazorca diminuta con una inflorescencia estaminada inmediatamente abajo de la espiga. Era un maíz precoz reventador o palomero. La pequeña mazorca estaba encerrada en una envoltura con totomoxtles relativamente largos, que se abrían a la madurez. Los granos individuales estaban encerrados por glumas largas, pero las mazorcas no eran tunicadas como los tipos tunicados extremos que se conocen actualmente. 15 Esta planta primitiva era extremadamente flexible, respondiendo de una manera espectacular a su liberación de la competencia con otra vegetación y altos niveles de fertilidad. Bajo condiciones favorables ahijaba profusamente en cada tallo, produciendo varias mazorcas pequeñas. Esta habilidad de tomar buen provecho de un ambiente mejorado pudo ser una de las características principales que ocasionaron su domesticación. La variedad de maíz realmente más semejante, y la cual pudiera ser una reliquia de la forma más primitiva, es una de maíz palomero que forma múltiples tallos con muchas mazorcas pequeñas, encontrada en Argentina y que se conoce en la literatura con el nombre de \"Strawberry popcorn of Argentina\". Mangelsdorf 12 declara que su maíz reconstruido \"podría ser clasificado fácilmente como una forma anual de tripsacum, o inversamente, ya que el maíz fue el primero de ambos al que se le tuvo que dar un nombre científico en Latín; Tripsacum pudo ser clasificado como una forma perenne del género Zea al cual pertenece el maíz y el cual hasta últimamente ha sido representado como una sola especie: Zea mays.\"Una vez que este maíz primitivo pudo ser producido bajo condiciones de domesticación, liberado de las presiones de selección para autopropagación y competencia con otra vegetación natural, muchos cambios tuvo que sufrir, indudablemente, mediante mutaciones Mangelsdorf 12, 15 acentúa el hecho de que una de las primeras y más importantes mutaciones pudo ocurrir en locus pod corn sobre el cromosoma cuarto. Esta mutación simple, según Mangelsdorf con efectos múltiples, probablemente tuvo mayor influencia en la iniciación de la forma actual de la planta, que ningún otro factor. Redujo las glumas que en el maíz silvestre cubrían totalmente los granos. Bajó la posición de la mazorca y provocó una separación más completa de las inflorescencias masculina y femenina, abriendo el camino para la formación de una mazorca con mayor número de granos y cubierta completamente por un totomoxtle, imposibilitándola para dispersar sus semillas, y así hizo a la planta menos apta para sobrevivir por sí sola en la naturaleza.Existe muy poca duda sobre el hecho de que estos tipos primitivos de maíz domesticado se desplazaron amplia y rápidamente hacia el sur y hacia el norte mediante las peregrinaciones eventuales de los indígenas. En cada área nueva en que fueron sembrados bajo domesticación, evolucionaron aún más a través de mutaciones y selección natural, con la ayuda consciente o inconsciente de sus cultivadores. En esta forma, a través de mutaciones directas y selecciones, es casi seguro que se desarrollaran en forma relativamente rápida muchos diferentes tipos en todo el Continente Americano. Las mutaciones ocurrieron al azar y las frecuencias de sus genes para cada área no pudieron ser las mismas. Esas primeras variedades domésticas prehistóricas que evolucionaron en regiones geográficas diferentes, a su vez fueron accidentalmente sembradas juntas y se hibridaron para criar tipos nuevos más productivos que reemplazaron o absorbieron las variedades previas.Los descendientes más directos o copias de esas formas primitivas que se encuentran en México, son las razas primitivas descritas por Wellhausen et al 21 como Nal-Tel, Chapalote, Arrocillo Amarillo y Palomero Toluqueño. Todas ellas tienen muchas características en común, aun cuando se encuentran en ambientes muy diferentes. Son, en general, maíces palomeros con mazorcas cortas y precoces. Con la única posible excepción del Palomero Toluqueño, se adaptan a un amplio rango de condiciones. Se consideran como los tipos más primitivos que existen ahora en México y en cierta época fueron las variedades predominantes. Todas pudieron ser descendientes de una forma única del maíz domesticado original.En México, como en cualquiera otra parte, las variedades más primitivas se desarrollaron lentamente a través de mutaciones directas y aislamiento. La topografía accidentada del país, con su multitud de valles aislados, de climas diferentes, ciertamente pudo conducir al desarrollo de muchas variedades. Sin lugar a dudas, el hombre durante sus viajes llevó semilla de uno a otro valle induciendo así la hibridación que trajo como consecuencia mejoramiento adicional en rendimiento a través de la adición de nuevos genes con sus efectos heteróticos y epistáticos. No podemos estar seguros de cuánto tiempo ocurrió esto en la evaluación del maíz en México, pero sí sabemos que últimamente en su historia evolucionaria, otros factores de evolución entraron en operación los cuáles aceleraron la velocidad de los cambios.El cambio en la velocidad de evolución fue ocasionando, en parte, por la intervención de teosinte. La evidencia arqueológica indica que el maíz original era un \"maíz puro\", sin contaminación de teosinte. Las primeras indicaciones de la intervención de teosinte según Galinat et al 4 y Mangelsdorf y Lister 10 se obtuvieron en las capas superiores de la cueva de la \"Cebollita\" en Nuevo México, de dos cuevas en Arizona, varias en Chihuahua, México y una (Swallow Cave) en el Noroeste de México. Los primeros restos de olotes en las capas más bajas en estas cuevas son de \"maíz puro\", mientras que las de las capas superiores revelaron distinto grado de contaminación con teosinte. La fecha exacta en que el teosinte apareció en escena no se conoce, pero todo hace indicar que debe haber sido cuando menos hace 2 500 años. Tampoco se sabe con exactitud cómo ocurrió esto. Sin embargo, no hay duda 16, 21 que desde entonces hasta ahora el teosinte se ha cruzado libremente con el maíz. El teosinte ha contribuido directamente en las nuevas variedades o razas, derivándose de esa interhibridación tipos con varios caracteres nuevos tales como resistencia a la sequía y al ataque de enfermedades e insectos. Si Mangelsdorf y Reeves 7, 18 son exactos en su teoría de que el teosinte resultó de una cruza de maíz y Tripsacum entonces se puede decir que los caracteres contribuidos por teosinte realmente vinieron de Tripsacum.Aún más, recientemente Mangelsdorf  13 ha demostrado que el teosinte en cruza con maíz afecta las dosis de mutación y de acuerdo con la evidencia presentada por el, un cromosoma de teosinte apareado con uno de maíz aumentará grandemente la dosis de mutación de ciertos genes en el cromosoma de maíz en contacto con el de teosinte. Este cambio en la mutabilidad, provocado mediante la intervención del teosinte en las primeras variedades de maíz pudo tener más efecto en la rápida evolución del maíz que la contribución directa de ciertos nuevos caracteres.Otro factor muy importante de evolución que ha tenido un gran efecto en la rapidez con que el maíz ha evolucionado en México, es aún más reciente y se refiere al influjo de variedades exóticas del sur del continente.No podemos todavía tener la seguridad de si los tipos con granos suaves y grandes de América del Sur se derivaron de las formas primitivas mexicanas que se transportaron hacia el Sur, o de si allá existió otro centro de domesticación. Como una regla, los maíces de grano grande y harinoso de la región Andina son mucho más homocigotos ahora que los maíces de México y Centro América y parece que aquéllos se han desarrollado principalmente por mutación y selección.No sabemos cómo se desarrollaron muchos de los tipos de la América del Sur, pero sí sabemos que hubo en México y en Centro América un influjo de variedades completamente distintas a las de estos países que vinieron procedentes del sur. Por interhibridación al azar de esos tipos exóticos con variedades locales se produjo un tremendo aumento en la capacidad productora de las variedades nuevas resultantes. La mayoría de las razas incipientes muy productivos de México muestran una fuerte influencia de germoplasma exótico. Fig. 1. En la evolución del maíz desde su forma más primitiva (izquierda) hasta las más avanzadas como las variedades modernas de Tuxpeño (derecha), han intervenido cuando menos cinco factores principales en México: Mutaciones, interhibridación, intervención de teosinte, influencia de variedades exóticas de la América del Sur y la extrema variación climática debido a la accidentada topografía.Por supuesto que la extremada variabilidad del maíz no podría haber sido inducida sin los diferentes mecanismos de aislamiento que operan en México. La topografía montañosa y la extremada variación climatológica aportaron la mayoría de los nichos ecológicos de aislamiento para el desarrollo y mantenimiento de las diferentes variedades.En resumen, se puede concluir entonces, que los principales factores responsables del continuo mejoramiento del maíz desde su domesticación hasta que los genetistas modernos iniciaron sus primeros intentos para mejorarlo aún más, son los siguientes:1._ Los primeros avances fueron principalmente a través de mutación y selección natural con la ayuda consciente o inconsciente del hombre.2._ Una vez que se desarrollaron un gran número de variedades en esa forma, algunas de ellas por casualidad ocurrieron en la misma región y otras nuevas variedades aún más productivas resultaron de su interhibridación.3._ Más tarde apareció el teosinte y al cruzarse libremente con el maíz, introdujo nuevos caracteres adicionales y estimuló la mutabilidad.4._ Aún más tarde hubo un influjo de variedades exóticas procedentes de la América del Sur, con las cuales las variedades nativas de México y América Central nunca antes habían estado en contacto. Muchas de esas variedades ya estaban altamente desarrolladas y muy diferentes de las locales. A través de interhibridación al azar de material exótico por local, fueron producidas las variedades altamente productivas que existen actualmente.5._ Un quinto factor fue la accidentada topografía y la consecuente variación climática existente, proporcionando los nichos de aislamiento necesarios para el desarrollo y mantenimiento del gran número de variedades diferentes.Todos esos factores combinados causaron un verdadero grado explosivo de evolución. No hay ninguna evidencia de que el hombre haya llevado a cabo un plan preconcebido a largo plazo para hace selección artificial en los tiempos prehistóricos. Su intervención fue más o menos accidental, creando oportunidades para la hibridación mediante sus peregrinaciones no dirigidas y también al crear mejores microambientes para el crecimiento de su maíz, aportó inconscientemente los medios para una mejor expresión de los nuevos genes de rendimiento y para su selección en la propagación anual de las variedades.Con el propósito de satisfacer cuando menos parcialmente la aguda demanda por semilla mejorada en una forma rápida, la Oficina desvió un poco los procedimientos de los métodos ortodoxos de mejoramiento, para la producción de maíces híbridos. Las variedades de polinización libre mejor adaptadas en cada área, fueron autofecundadas y las líneas endocriadas evaluadas inmediatamente después de un sola generación de endocría. Las mejores de esas líneas \"A 1 \" fueron puestas en uso inmediato de varias maneras: fueron combinadas con las mejores variedades de la Mesa Central o El Bajío para la formación de mestizos múltiples (cruzas línea x variedad). Algunos de estos mestizos múltiples (línea A x Variedad X) (línea B x Variedad Y) fueron los primeros híbridos distribuidos por la Comisión Nacional del Maíz y pertenecieron a la serie 300 para maíces de ciclo intermedio en El Bajío.Esos primeros híbridos mestizos múltiples muy pronto fueron reemplazados con cruzas dobles formadas totalmente con líneas ''A 1 ''. Algunos de los primeros híbridos del tipo disponible para producción y distribución por la Comisión Nacional del Maíz en El Bajío en 1950, fueron H-215, H-307, H-309 y H-310. H-309 aún se produce. En la Mesa Central el famoso híbrido H-1 fue una cruza de tres líneas \"A 1 \". Fig. 2. Hay mucha variación en el maíz de México. En la presente foto cada mazorca es de una variedad diferente.El Instituto de Investigaciones Agrícolas también organizó un programa para el mejoramiento de variedades de polinización libre. Muchas de ellas fueron puestas a disposición del agricultor con el nombre de \"Híbridos Estabilizados\". También se concentraron en la producción de híbridos obteniendo algunos verdaderamente notables para El Bajío y trópicos, como el H-22 y el H-52.Una buena idea del comportamiento relativo de híbridos, sintéticos, híbridos estabilizados y variedades criollas disponibles ahora en las diferentes áreas de México, puede obtenerse al consultar los Ensayos Uniformes de Rendimiento efectuados durante los últimos años por la Comisión Nacional del Maíz en colaboración con el Instituto y la Oficina. Los datos aún no se han publicado, pero están disponibles para cualquier interesado en las oficinas de la Comisión Nacional del Maíz.Estos datos indican claramente que ya se dispone de variedades híbridas mejoradas para las principales áreas productoras de maíz en México. Sin embargo, aún hay mucho que hace, especialmente para aquellas áreas de cultivo marginales en donde el maíz se siembra principalmente bajo condiciones de temporal. Lo que se ha logrado hasta ahora se indica en términos generales en la Tabla No. En esta tabla el rendimiento de las variedades seleccionadas de polinización libre de cada zona fue considerado como un rendimiento de 100 por ciento y sobre esta base las otras se comparan con éstas. Las zonas indicadas comprenden las siguientes áreas: Mediante una combinación de buena semilla y fertilizantes, así como buenas prácticas culturales, se han logrado producir más de 15 000 kilos/ha. de maíz, utilizando los mejores de estos híbridos. Las variedades mejoradas necesitan estar mejor alimentadas, mejor protegidas y mejor cuidadas si se quiere aprovechar su máxima potencialidad. Prácticamente no se obtiene ventaja alguna sembrando una semilla mejorada en un suelo pobre. Bajo condiciones de fertilidad deficiente los maíces híbridos no rendirán más que los criollos y podrán aún rendir menos. Las mejores variedades para suelos pobres son las criollas que han sido desarrolladas en esta clase de suelos a través de muchos años de selección artificial y natural. La reacción de un criollo y de una variedad mejoradas a los fertilizantes se puede ilustrar claramente como lo muestra la Tabla No. Este experimento sufrió algo por sequía debido a una mala distribución de la lluvia, pero a menudo la variedad mejorada rinde hasta dos veces más que las criollas en un suelo fértil.A pesar de que aún es muy bajo el porcentaje del área en que año con año se siembra en México con semilla híbrida, la distribución de esta semilla ha tenido un considerable efecto en superar las variedades criollas. En el Bajío y en Jalisco la mayoría de las variedades de polinización libre que se siembran ahora han sido derivadas de las generaciones avanzadas de un híbrido o del cruzamiento de un maíz híbrido con las variedades criollas. Las variedades sintéticas o \"híbridas estabilizadas\" distribuidas antes, también han tenido sus efectos para aumentar la calidad de la semilla sembrada por el campesino.El incremento del uso de semillas mejoradas y fertilizantes combinados con un mejor control de hierbas y mejores prácticas de cultivo realizados por los agricultores de más experiencia, está trayendo un aumento firme en la producción anual de maíz. En años con una precipitación pluvial normal se puede decir que por hoy, México es autosuficiente en el abasto de grano, pero en años como el de 1959, con una precipitación mayor que la normal, se produjeron aproximadamente 5 600 000 toneladas de maíz, o sea alrededor de 600 000 toneladas en exceso sobre las necesidades ordinarias de consumo humano directo.Si la tasa anual de incremento de la población continúa como hasta hoy, la población del país se duplicará durante los próximos 30 años, lo cual significa que habrá necesidad de una cantidad doble de alimentos según los niveles actuales de nutrición, pero se necesitará más del doble si la gente se va a alimentar al nivel recomendado por los especialistas en dietética. Un período de 30 años es, en realidad, muy corto en la historia agrícola de México y si es necesario duplicar la producción agrícola, las bases para alcanzar tal meta deben definirse ya. Esto requerirá desde luego, un pensamiento profundo y gran clarividencia de los hombres en los que descanse el futuro desarrollo del país.Se puede lograr aún mucho inmediatamente en la producción de maíz mediante la aplicación bien dirigida de los resultados obtenidos por la investigación; por ejemplo, si las variedades e híbridos mejorados de que se dispone, se sembraran en todas las áreas en que se adaptan bien y si nuestros conocimientos sobre el uso económico de los fertilizantes químicos y prácticas culturales avanzadas se aplicaran en forma razonable, la producción en años de buena precipitación pluvial como los de 1958 y 1959, sería mucho más de las 5 600 000 toneladas estimadas para 1959. Existe aún un gran retraso entre el tiempo de obtención de resultados de la investigación y la aplicación de esos resultados. Es necesario, entonces, realizar más investigación sobre los métodos de extensión que se ajusten más y el tipo de organización más eficiente para hacer llegar al agricultor en forma rápida los resultados positivos de la investigación agrícola.EL PROBLEMA DEL TEMPORAL México es un país en el que la cantidad y distribución de las lluvias varía de año en año. Años malos siguen a años buenos. La única manera de evitar una repetición de los problemas como los ocasionados por la desbordante cosecha de 1959, es proveer espacio suficiente y adecuado para almacenaje y dar facilidades de acceso a esos lugares, de tal manera que los excesos de producción sean guardados para ser utilizados en los años malos que necesariamente ocurren, especialmente en un país como éste, en donde el mayor volumen de la producción maicera es obtenido bajo condiciones de temporal.El año pasado (1959) en mucho lugares hubo humedad suficiente para producir una cosechas más abundante que lo que realmente se obtuvo. El factor limitante fue fertilidad, principalmente insuficiencia de Nitrógeno. Un terreno en el que la fertilidad es exactamente suficiente para producir 500 u 800 kilos de maíz, no producirá más de eso aún cuando se le proporcione el agua suficiente, la fertilidad es muy baja en la mayoría de los terrenos de temporal. Debe encontrarse alguna manera de proporcionar fertilidad para una potencialidad de unas 6 toneladas de maíz por hectárea a esos terrenos que actualmente producen solamente una tonelada por hectárea en años buenos. Es necesario, entonces, recabar más información sobre el uso económico de los fertilizantes químicos aplicados en terrenos de temporal. Probablemente unos fertilizantes orgánicos que requieren un alto contenido de humedad en el suelo para su descomposición podrían ser la respuesta, si los nutrientes son mantenidos durante los años secos y puestos a disposición de las plantas en los años húmedos. Una discusión más detallada de este importante problema puede mejor dejarse en manos de personas más enteradas del asunto que el autor de este artículo. También es necesario planear programas de investigación para averiguar las formas de incrementar la absorción de agua por el suelo, para retener tanto como sea posible el agua de lluvia.Los genetistas también tienen una gran responsabilidad en la solución del problema de temporal. Muy a menudo el problema no se concreta en la cantidad total de lluvia, sino que también es importante su distribución. Se necesitan, entonces, variedades que resistan períodos más o menos largos de sequía durante su desarrollo. Desafortunadamente tanto la Oficina como el Instituto han puesto muy poca atención durante los últimos años a este problema.Se ha estimado que aproximadamente una hectárea de cada 8 susceptibles de cultivo puede ser irrigada en México. Sobre esta área irrigada, el maíz tiene que competir con otros cultivos como trigo, algodón y hortalizas. El terreno irrigado disponible para maíz tiene que ser entonces muy limitado. Esto hace sumamente importante que la producción por unidad de área se explote a su mayor potencialidad. Ya se ha mencionado previamente que mediante un buen control de las condiciones de humedad, un agricultor obtuvo 15 000 kilos por hectárea en el Valle de México. En el futuro necesitamos pensar en términos de producir 20 toneladas o más en cada hectárea de maíz bajo condiciones de riego.En mi opinión, los problemas más importantes que deberían recibir atención inmediata para poder continuar el ritmo creciente de la producción maicera y suplir las futuras demandas eliminando la tremenda variación de la oferta son los siguientes:1.-Establecimiento de facilidades de almacenamiento para poder conservar la producción de años buenos y suplementar así la producción de años malos. Los precios que el agricultor recibe por su producto en los años buenos, cuando su producción es alta, no deberían ser muy diferentes de aquellos de los años malos, en los que la producción es baja.2.-Utilizar métodos más eficientes para divulgar los resultados de la investigación y hace que los agricultores adapten las nuevas técnicas que les traerán mayores beneficios de las tierras bajo su control.3.-Mejoramiento de las condiciones de fertilidad en los terrenos de temporal. Más investigación sobre el mejoramiento de la fertilidad del suelo y los factores que afectan la absorción del agua y la capacidad del suelo y los factores que afectan la absorción del agua y la capacidad de campo en condiciones de temporal. También se necesita más investigación sobre los métodos de aplicación de fertilizantes y agua en los terrenos irrigados.4.-Continuar mejorando las variedades para proporcionarles mayores potenciales productivos, tanto bajo condiciones de riego, como de temporal, con especial atención en su eficiencia para aprovechar el agua y resistencia a enfermedades y plagas de insectos.Una discusión más amplia de los tres primeros puntos no ajusta dentro de la proyección de esta plática y las posibilidades de mejoramiento genético las discutiremos en seguida:En realidad hasta ahora sólo hemos removido someramente las posibilidades de mejoramiento futuro del maíz en México. Nuestros primeros intentos de mejoramiento se concentraron en el mejoramiento de variedades adaptadas en cada una de las principales áreas maiceras mediante la obtención de líneas autofecundadas y su recombinación en híbridos. El principal objetivo fue lograr un mejoramiento inmediato con un mínimo de pruebas. Utilizando las variedades mejor adaptadas en cada área como base de los programas, se minimizaron los problemas de susceptibilidad a enfermedades y adaptación climática. Como ya ha sido demostrado, fue relativamente fácil obtener híbridos adaptados que rindieran de 20 a 30 por ciento más que las variedades de las cuales fueron derivados Sin embargo, siguiendo el uso de este método con los mismos materiales, ya estamos a un nivel en donde los progresos que se puedan lograr no compensan el esfuerzo realizado. Como resultado de nuestra experiencia actual, es un hecho comprobado que se puede aumentar la capacidad de rendimiento de cualquier raza de maíz por el método de la formación de líneas autofecundadas y sus combinaciones híbridas en un 20 ó 30 % pero una vez que este nivel se alcanza, el progreso es lento si se continúa trabajando con la misma base de germoplasma.La experiencia con el método de los híbridos ha sido similar en muchos otros lugares en donde ha estado en uso activo. El progreso es rápido al principio y después muy lento. En la faja maicera de los E.U. en donde se produce más maíz que en el resto del mundo, el mayor progreso para aumentar la capacidad productiva de las variedades locales fue logrado en los primeros 10 a 15 años por medio del método de los híbridos.Durante los últimos 20 años se ha logrado poco progreso en rendimiento a pesar de que se han probado miles de líneas autofecundadas y se han intentado varios métodos para aumentar la habilidad combinatoria de esas líneas. El progreso logrado últimamente ha sido principalmente en resistencia al acame, resistencia a enfermedades e insectos y mejor aspecto de las plantas, pero el aumento en rendimientos ha sido desalentador.En Brasil han obtenido algunos híbridos muy sobresalientes, derivándolos del germoplasma local cateto en combinación con línea endocrinadas de una variedad de Tuxpeño amarilla llevada de Texas hace algunos años; pero que también han alcanzado ya el punto de progreso lento.En cualquier lugar en donde el método de los híbridos ha estado en práctica durante algunos años, los mejoradores han empezado a discernir la forma por medio de la cual se logre el próximo incremento fuerte en rendimientos o, aún más, de cómo sería posible continuar con el método de los híbridos rompiendo la barrera actual.La respuesta a este problema, cuando menos en parte, nos la están dando un grupo de genetistas brillantes, quienes han concentrado sus estudios sobre la naturaleza del \"vigor híbrido\" o heterosis y los tipos de acción de genes en la herencia cuantitativa. Los estudios sobre los tipos de acción de genes en la herencia cuantitativa han acumulado la suficiente convicción como para indicarnos que antes de lograr el siguiente salto en rendimientos por medio de los híbridos, es necesario incrementar el rendimiento de las variedades de polinización libre básicas, de las cuales se desarrollarán nuevos híbridos. En otras palabras, según hemos experimentado muchas veces en México, hay una alta correlación entre el nivel de producción de una variedad de polinización libre y el nivel de rendimiento que puede ser alcanzado de los híbridos obtenidos de ella.La relación entre el rendimiento de los híbridos de maíz y las variedades de polinización libre puede ser explicada teóricamente sobre bases de acción de genes. Cuando mejoramos el rendimiento de las variedades de polinización libre, logramos esto, principalmente aumentando la frecuencia de genes que actúan aditivamente o agregando genes adicionales por rendimiento que no estaban presentes. La capacidad de rendimiento adicional en los híbridos es causada en gran parte por las acciones de genes que actúan en forma dominante, superdominante o epistática. El método de los híbridos hace factible explotar en una forma más completa cualquier aumento en rendimiento adicional que pudiera obtenerse cuando el heterocigoto Aa es mejor que cualquier homocigoto AA o aa y/u otros tipos de acción de genes responsables del vigor híbrido; pero el nivel de rendimiento alanzado con un material dado, debe ser determinado en gran parte por el número y tipos de genes aditivos en la población. Parece entonces que si queremos continuar haciendo un progreso constante en el potencial de rendimiento, es extremadamente importante ampliar nuestras bases genéticas y dedicar especial atención al mejoramiento de las variedades de polinización libre, de las cuales se obtendrán los híbridos futuros.Al principio de este artículo se hizo notar cómo la naturaleza ha desarrollado durante los últimos 7000 años algunas variedades verdaderamente notables mediante mutaciones, interhibridación al azar y selección natural con la ayuda consciente o inconsciente del hombre. Esas variedades son solamente el resultado de la utilización genética de una pequeña parte de la variación total existente. Si los resultados preliminares obtenidos pueden ser tomados como una indicación, el potencial productivo de las variedades modernas podrá ser incrementado tremendamente mediante la subsecuente hibridación o mezcla de razas. El Ing. Ramón Covarrubias recientemente probó las cruzas posibles entre 9 variedades de maíz diferentes en el Bajío, cerca de Celaya. El origen de esas variedades se muestra en la Tabla No. Ver. 9Tuxpeño \"V-520-C Tuxpeño \"Las mejores 10 cruzas que rindieron igual o mejor que el testigo están tabuladas en la tabla No. 4. Como es evidente en esta tabla, la cruza más productiva: C. de Ixtac. x V-520C (Raza Chalqueño x Raza Tuxpeño) rindió 27% más que el testigo H-353, que es actualmente el mejor híbrido para el Bajío en condiciones de riego. Esto ilustra claramente que aún se puede lograr mucho en el mejoramiento subsecuente de las variedades mediante la interhibridación de algunas de las variedades criollas.Tenemos aún más ejemplos de extremo vigor híbrido en cruzas intervarietales o interraciales. Una de las cruzas interraciales más rendidoras en Veracruz ha sido una cruza entre Tuxpeño y Harinoso de Ocho. Esta cruza rindió tan bien como H-503 en cada uno de los dos ensayos hechos. Similarmente en América Central algunos, entre un gran número de híbridos intervarietales hechos por el Dr. Mario Gutiérrez del Instituto Interamericano de Ciencias Agrícolas, y probados en los países Centroamericanos, rindieron igual o más que el híbrido H-503. Cuánto de esta extrema expresión del vigor híbrido se debe a dominancia y cuánto a acción aditiva de genes, no lo podemos decir todavía sin hacer más pruebas, pero con razón podemos suponer, con base en la historia evolutiva del maíz, que gran parte de esto se debe a acción aditiva o a la adición de nuevos genes y bien podríamos; esperar que el rendimiento de las generaciones avanzadas de tales cruzas permaneciera arriba del promedio de sus padres. Para elevar los rendimientos de las variedades de polinización libre mediante la hibridación con materiales exóticos, debemos utilizar las variedades que adicionan algo nuevo al rendimiento. Fig. 4. Mazorcas del Híbrido H-503. El genetista ha aumentado en un 30% el rendimiento de las mejores variedades criollas mediante el uso de las técnicas modernas de mejoramiento.Los resultados de cruzamientos entre ciertas líneas autofecundadas de razas diferentes son igualmente sorprendentes. El año pasado el Ing. Gilberto Palacios de la Rosa de la O.E.E. probó una serie de híbridos hechos con líneas de una cruza de Tuxpeño x Celaya en combinaciones con líneas derivadas de una cruza simple, Mex. 37-5 x Urq. 54, constituida por líneas de la raza Chalqueño y Cónico Norteño, respectivamente y que es la cruza simple hembra del híbrido H-125. Algunas de esas cruzas sembradas en Chapingo en terrenos irrigados rindieron desde 29% hasta 33% más que H-125, el híbrido muy sobresaliente que se distribuye ahora en la Mesa Central para riego. La Tabla No. 5 indica claramente las posibilidades de mejoramiento en rendimiento mediante la combinación de líneas autofecundadas de razas diferentes. Pero al explotar este tipo de ataque al problema, será necesario mantener una constante vigilancia de la reacción a enfermedades. No habría tal dificultad si se trabajara con razas resistentes a las enfermedades por naturaleza, tales como Tuxpeño y Celaya, especialmente cuando se llevan a lugares más altos, pero al tratar de superar los rendimientos de híbridos como H-503 o H-504 en Veracruz, al sustituir algunas de las líneas de esos híbridos con líneas de Chalqueño, Cónico o Pepitilla, lo más probable es que esto resultaría en un significativo aumento en la susceptibilidad a las enfermedades. Sin embargo, el procedimiento garantiza provecho futuro en donde pueda ser utilizado. No existe duda alguna en mi mente de que podamos continuar elevando el rendimiento total por hectárea de maíz en México bajo condiciones de irrigación (o donde la humedad no es un factor limitante) mediante la obtención de variedades con capacidad de rendimiento cada vez mayor. ¿Pero, qué hay acerca de las variedades para las condiciones de temporal donde muchas veces la humedad sí es un factor limitante? Necesitamos variedades que puedan rendir cuando menos 300-500 kilos por hectárea en años muy secos y hasta como 7 a 8 toneladas por hectárea en años húmedos. Podría pensarse que estamos queriendo demasiado, pero no es posible obtener tales variedades.Se ha encontrado que variedades de la raza Bolita, nativas del Estado de Oaxaca, son extremadamente resistentes a la sequía y tienen la capacidad de concentrar en una forma consistente todas las fuerzas fisiológicas en la producción de cuando menos unos pocos granos (20 ó 30) por planta en años de extremada sequía. En años húmedos esas mismas variedades pueden producir más de 400 granos por tallo o más de 3 toneladas por hectárea. Este germoplasma se utilizó en la formación del híbrido H-220 (Celita) para el Bajío, hace más o menos 12 años. En el año de 1950, que fue para el Bajío extremadamente seco, se había enviado a esta zona al principio de las siembras un camión con las primeras tres toneladas de semilla de este híbrido. La semilla se distribuyó (principalmente en ejidos) en pequeñas bolsas de manta amarilla con más o menos 3 kilos cada una y cada bolsa llevaba además una etiqueta identificando la variedad y con el nombre de \"Comisión Nacional del Maíz\" inscrito en la manta. En 1951, un año después de la sequía extrema, la \"Comisión\" fue inundada con un gran número de peticiones de demanda por semilla de la variedad distribuida en la \"bolsita amarilla\" el año anterior. Los agricultores no pusieron mucha atención en el nombre de la variedad que iba en la etiqueta, pero la identificaron como \"la semilla de la bolsita amarilla\". La razón por la demanda fue, como los mismos ejidatarios lo hicieron saber, debido a que en ese año fue la única semilla que produjo algo en terrenos de temporal. Este suceso fue realmente fantástico, considerando que los ejidatarios generalmente siembran sus variedades criollas, las cuales siempre han estado sujetas a las rigurosas variaciones climáticas del Bajío.El híbrido H-220, como todos esos agricultores que lo han estado sembrando desde 1950 la saben, producirá aunque sea poco en un año seco, pero también fácilmente producirá 4 toneladas por hectárea de maíz en un buen suelo y en un año húmedo. El H-220 aún cuando ahora es bastante plástico, podría, con cierta seguridad, ser mejorado más con respecto a esa característica y sin lugar a dudas se podría desarrollar otras variedades semejantes para otros lugares con problemas de sequía severa, mediante la hibridización apropiada de las variedades resistentes que la naturaleza ha formado. Paralela al mejoramiento de los rendimientos y resistencia a la sequía, se debe poner mayor atención también a la resistencia a enfermedades e insectos. Las variedades mejoradas no sólo necesitan alimentarse mejor, sino también ser protegidas, si se requiere estimular su potencial máximo. A medida que se aumenta el rendimiento de las variedades mediante la interhibridación y selección, mayor resistencia a las enfermedades e insectos deberán proporcionárseles.De acuerdo con la edad de los restos de plantas encontrados en las cuevas habitadas por los primeros pobladores de México, el maíz estuvo en sus primeras etapas de domesticación del maíz silvestre hace 7 000 años. Como evolucionó de una planta capaz de producir solamente unos pocos kilos por hectárea, a una planta capaz de producir de 15 000 a 18 000 Kgs. por hectárea bajo condiciones modernas de cultivo, es una historia realmente fantástica. Aún cuando algunos detalles de esta historia pueden ser ignorados por algún tiempo todavía, es muy cierto que los primeros cambios fueron relativamente lentos y dependientes en gran parte de mutaciones ocasionales y selección natural con la ayuda inconsciente del hombre. Este proceso tal vez ocurrió en los primeros 3 ó 4 000 años de su domesticación. Gradualmente y mediante las peregrinaciones naturales del hombre, los tipos primitivos se distribuyeron ampliamente a través de México y de otras partes de Norte y Sur América. En diferentes áreas se desarrollaron diferentes variedades, las que más tarde fueron reunidas por el azar, hibridándose entre ellas. Las primeras variedades que verdaderamente fueron desarrolladas por aislamiento en México y tal vez en Guatemala, se reunieron por el azar y de la interhibridación resultante se lograron variedades nuevas más productivas. Más tarde hubo un influjo de variedades altamente desarrolladas en Sudamérica, lo que motivó un grado verdaderamente explosivo de evolución. Mediante la interhibridación de las variedades exóticas sureñas con las criollas locales, se obtuvieron nuevas variedades sobresalientes altamente productivas. Superpuesta en este proceso estuvo la infiltración de teosinte en maíz, el que, además de agregar nuevas características, aumentó la mutabilidad de ciertos genes del maíz, proveyendo variación adicional en la que pudieron actuar las diferentes fuerzas de la selección.En 1940 el Gobierno de México organizó sus primeros Programas de Mejoramiento de Maíz. Estos programas fueron diseñados para mejorar subsecuentemente lo que la naturaleza, tal vez con la ayuda de algunos agricultores, había proveído hasta entonces. Se seleccionaron variedades de toda la República, las cuales fueron probadas en las principales áreas maiceras. Algunas variedades sobresalientes muy productivas fueron encontradas, las que fueron aumentadas inmediatamente y distribuidas ampliamente entre los agricultores. Estas variedades sobresalientes fueron también seleccionadas para constituir la base de un programa genético diseñado o dado para mejorarlas aun más. El programa genético produjo algunas variedades mejoradas de polinización libre, pero su avance más considerable se hizo en la producción de algunos híbridos sobresalientes, mediante la recombinación de líneas autofecundadas. Estos híbridos rindieron de 20 a 30% más que las mejores variedades de polinización libre de las que fueron hechas y casi el doble de muchas de las variedades criollas bajo buenas condiciones de fertilidad.Mediante el uso de esta semilla mejorada y en combinación con fertilizantes comerciales y mejores prácticas culturales, México no solamente ha llegado a ser autosuficiente en la producción de maíz, pero el año pasado (1959) produjo una cosecha más grande estimada en 5 600 000 toneladas. Esto no fue logrado dedicando tierras nuevas al cultivo del maíz, sino principalmente en tierras que habían sido sembradas con maíz por muchos años en el pasado. Fig. 5. El uso de semilla mejorada, además del empleo de fertilizantes químicos, en combinación con humedad adecuada y buenas prácticas culturales, ha resultado en rendimientos hasta de 15 toneladas por hectárea.En un corto período de 20 años se han obtenido híbridos de alta producción para todas las áreas de México productoras de maíz más importantes, desde el nivel del mar hasta los 2 600 mts. de altura. Lo que en realidad nos preocupa ahora es cómo vamos a atacar los retos del futuro. Si la población continúa su incremento al ritmo actual, en los próximos 30 años habrá el doble de bocas que alimentar. Además habrá menos tierra que la actualmente disponible. A medida que la población aumenta, se necesita más y más tierra para la expansión de ciudades, nuevas ciudades industriales, nuevos caminos, nuevos aeropuertos, etc. ... Esto significa menos tierra para la agricultura y enfatiza la necesidad de mayor producción por unidad de área.Nuestro trabajo como genetistas es el de tratar de atacar ese reto en parte por medio de la obtención continua de variedades de mayor productividad. Actualmente las variedades de la primera etapa de mejoramiento están siendo distribuidas ampliamente. Las variedades que sean obtenidas en la siguiente etapa deben ser mejores que aquellas de la primera y así sucesivamente en cada etapa.Esto puede ser realizado, pero para eso necesitamos cambiar algo nuestros procedimientos. Simultáneamente con el desarrollo del primer grupo de híbridos para México, dedicamos considerable tiempo al estudio de la variación producida en los 7 000 años de evolución natural. Las numerosas muestras de maíz colectadas los primeros años del programa de mejoramiento fueron estudiadas y clasificadas en raza. Con base en estos estudios fue posible conseguir una idea bastante clara de los factores que jugaron una parte importante en su evolución. Nosotros no tuvimos este conocimiento de 1940 ó 1944, cuando el mayor esfuerzo fue dedicado al mejoramiento subsecuente del maíz. Ahora, con nuestro actual conocimiento de las necesidades presentes, junto con un mejor entendimiento del origen y parentesco de la rica diversidad de germoplasma existente en las diferentes razas de maíz de México y de otras partes del Hemisferio Occidental y con todas esas diferentes fuentes de germoplasma a nuestra disposición, debemos estar capacitados para producir en el futuro algunas variedades muy superiores.Las variedades de las cuales fueron derivados los primeros híbridos representan sólo una pequeña fracción de la variación total existente. Para montar el escenario para el desarrollo de los superhíbridos del futuro, necesitamos regresar y mezclar germoplasma de variedades no emparentadas que la naturaleza ha construido en el pasado, pero debemos nosotros hacerlo de una manera sistemática. Esto requerirá estudios más adelantados sobre el origen y parentesco de las razas de toda América, la identificación y separación del germoplasma superior para cada grupo de condiciones diferentes y un estudio de los problemas inherentes con la aislación e incorporación de nuevos genes de tipos exóticos que puedan añadir nuevos caracteres que resulten en un mejor comportamiento, sin perder lo que ya se tiene.Necesitamos métodos de mejoramiento más eficientes, pero antes de que esperemos diseñarlos, es necesario un mejor entendimiento del vigor híbrido y de otros tipos de acción cuantitativa de genes. Una revelación de los secretos que la naturaleza ha encerrado en la formación de algunas de las razas modernas incipientes sobresalientes en México, tales como Chalqueño, Tuxpeño y Celaya, con respecto a los tipos de acción cuantitativa de genes, nos proporcionaría una gran riqueza de información útil sobre la naturaleza de la herencia cuantitativa, información esencial para el desarrollo de métodos de mejoramiento más eficientes. Debemos descubrir el porqué esas razas son buenas; qué es lo que poseen para ser buenas; en dónde podemos conseguir lo que las hace mejores y cómo lo podemos manejar donde nosotros lo deseamos, una vez que sabemos de dónde conseguirlo.El método de \"maíz híbrido\" ha aportado una forma de conseguir un incremento sustancial preferentemente rápido de la producción, casi con cualquier variedad. El mundo espera ahora que alguien muestre cómo puede ser logrado el siguiente salto en los rendimientos. Los secretos de esto están embrollados en la evolución del maíz en Latino América. La investigación requerida para revelarlos puede ser llevada a cabo mejor que en algún otro lugar en Latino América y representan un verdadero reto a los científicos latinoamericanos. BIBLIOGRAFÍA","tokenCount":"7658"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f6402aa19872e8e1593f5da8839600a0","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/10bc9b1c-1dae-4297-b1de-bfbfce7e5be5/retrieve","id":"1478722330"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"9ce2b5ae-b854-46b4-8131-d2adb44c43a0","pagecount":"4","content":"Dear Editor, Asian rice (Oryza sativa) is the staple food for half the world and is a model crop that has been extensively studied. It contributes $20% of calories to the human diet (Stein et al., 2018). With the increase in global population and rapid changes in climate, rice breeders need to develop new and sustainable cultivars with higher yields, healthier grains, and reduced environmental footprints (Wing et al., 2018). Since the first gold-standard reference genome of rice variety Nipponbare was published (International Rice Genome Sequencing Project, 2005), an increasing number of rice accessions have been sequenced, assembled, and annotated with global efforts. Nowadays, a single reference genome is obviously insufficient to perform the genetic difference analysis for rice accessions. Therefore, the pan-genome has been proposed as a solution, which allows the discovery of more presence-absence variants compared with single-reference genome-based studies (Zhao et al., 2018). Over the past years, several databases, such as RAP-db (https://rapdb.dna.affrc.go.jp), RGAP (http://rice.uga.edu), and Gramene (https://www.gramene.org), have long-term served rice genomic research by providing information based on one or a series of individual reference genomes. To integrate and utilize the genomic information of multiple accessions, we performed comparative analyses and established the user-friendly Rice Gene Index (RGI; https://riceome.hzau.edu.cn) platform. RGI is the first gene-based pan-genome database for rice.To set up a solid foundation for this database, we selected 16 platinum standard reference genomes of rice accessions that represent the major Asian rice subpopulations when K = 15 (Zhou et al., 2020;Song et al., 2021;Stein et al., 2018), (Figure 1A). Starting with a set of unified de novo annotations performed by Gramene (Zhou et al., 2023) of 14 genomes and 4 published annotations including Minghui 63 (MH63), Zhenshan 97, and Nipponbare (RGAP and RAP-db) (Kawahara et al., 2013;Sakai et al., 2013), we incrementally integrated the genes and transcripts identified by newly sequenced isoform sequencing (Iso-Seq) data into the Gramene annotation results as the basics to build homology relationships between 18 annotations (Supplemental Table 1). In addition, a series of Iso-Seq and RNA-Seq data of multiple tissues from selected accessions (Supplemental Tables 2 and 3) were collected and fully presented as baseline information in RGI, which included gene expression, full-length transcripts, and alternative splicing (AS) events. Details on data processing are described in the supplemental methods. As the primary datasets in RGI, the genome annotations of 16 rice accessions contained an average of 41 346 genes, of which an average of 1178 genes are supplemented by Iso-Seq data (Supplemental Table 4). The GeneTribe pipeline (Chen et al., 2020) identified an average of 33 350 gene pairs between annotations (Supplemental Figure 2), which classified ''reciprocal best hits,'' ''single-side best hits,'' ''one-to-many hits,'' or ''singleton hits.'' By counting unique homolog gene groups, a total of 119 783 non-redundant gene groups were determined to represent the whole Asian rice gene set. To further unify the gene groups in Oryza sativa, we defined a unified and sustainable number-Ortholog Gene Index (OGI), which is a homolog group clustered by connected graph methods based on reciprocal best hit relationships, with an updatable score that indicates its representativeness in all accessions. Of the 112 658 OGIs, we classified them into 21 418 OGI core genes (19.01% of OGI) appearing in all rice accessions, 40 141 OGI dispensable genes, and 51 099 OGI accession-specific genes (Supplemental Figure 1A). And we found that the specific genes are younger and shorter (t-test, p = 2eÀ16) than core genes (supplemental information 1).The first objective of RGI is to logically organize and scientifically index all genes among rice accessions. RGI provides ''GeneCard'' pages to show comprehensive information for individual genes with convenient links to other modules and outside databases on one page (Figure 1C). By entering a gene ID of rice, through the search box on the homepage, users may browse the ''GeneCard'' page on three sections: 1) basic information includes sequence, gene function, gene expression, links for accessing various modules and other databases, etc. (Supplemental Figure 4A). 2) ''Transcripts'' exhibits graph and table of transcript structures. In addition to the baseline expression analysis of all genes, 116 640 AS events at the transcriptome level were extensively revealed by the analysis of different groups (Supplemental Figure 4B; Supplemental Table 5). For example, two AS events were detected for OsNiR (OsNip_01g0357100), a critical gene that encodes nitrite reductase in nitrogen assimilation (Yu et al., 2021) (Figure 1D). Additionally, ''Homologues'' lists all associated homologs of a gene across annotations through a link graph and a table. This section also shows the phylogenetic tree. Furthermore, RGI provides informative pages to show the association graph of genes in each OGI (Supplemental Figure 4C).Second, RGI provides three ways to search for relationships and comprehensive information for genes. (legend continued on next page)1) Through keyword-based searches, users can easily search OGI#, gene ID, gene symbol, Gene Ontology, or functional terms in the query box. If users search the famous gene SD1 in RGI, 306 items will be returned with basic information, which could link to other modules or databases. 2) In the way of sequence-based searches, the classical ''BLAST'' tool allows users to query amino acid or nucleotide sequences in sequence databases of the whole genome and protein. To easily access other modules, the tool returns gene ID linking to ''GeneCard'' or chromosome location linking to ''JBrowse'' when using the protein or nucleotide database, respectively. 3) For association-based searches, the ''Homologues'' module allows users to query and connect the homologous genes through a given gene ID, which may obtain the homology relationship among annotations. By using TreePlot, users could build the phylogenetic tree with gene structures (Figure 1F) and view multiple sequence alignments of interested genes, as well as the detailed information of each gene. For example, OsTPP7 (LOC_Os09g20390), an anaerobic germination tolerance gene, was found to be absent in IR64 but present in other accessions by ''Homologues'' (Supplemental Table 6), and the results were manually verified. This indicates that IR64 has less tolerance to anaerobic germination (Yang et al., 2019).Third, RGI can visualize the relationship of these annotated genes across accessions at local and global scales corresponding to two modules as follows.1) At the local scale, the ''MicroCollinearity'' module enables users to demonstrate genomic collinearities of a gene and its flanking genes in selected accessions (Figure 1E). The homologous relations among genomes help to investigate gene-based variations in the local regions of multiple accessions. Many genes encoding nucleotidebinding site leucine-rich repeat proteins are found in the region close to the end of rice chromosome 11 long arm (Supplemental Figure 5) (Song et al., 2021), and the collinearity comparison results detected by this module show that these nucleotide-binding site leucine-rich repeat genes are significantly more abundant in MH63 than in other accessions, which potentially contribute to MH63's superior resistance to rice diseases. 2) At the global scale, ''MacroCollinearity'' helps users to explore collinearity between accessions and study rearrangements of rice genome at the whole-chromosome level. With this module, structure variations may be easily detected, and the interactive tool ''Dot Plot'' was embedded to show the collinearity details and links to associated genome loci on ''JBrowse'' (Figure 1G). A useful module, ''GenePair,'' is provided to visualize collinearity comparisons of ortholog gene pairs between two accessions on both global and local scales.All information mentioned above is logically organized and seamlessly integrated by modules and tools in RGI. Four extra modules (''JBrowse'' [Figure 1I], ''GOEnrichment'' [Figure 1H], ''GeneDescription,'' and ''Download'') were additionally integrated to enhance RGI's serviceability (supplemental information 2). The technical details on RGI construction of RGI are described in supplemental information 3.Although more than 100 chromosomal-level genomes of Asian rice have been published, most of the relevant databases focus on single genomes for specific domains (e.g., long non-coding RNA, epigenomic, etc. ","tokenCount":"1285"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"42a29681909d84c9aa115de997388234","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/62f3b229-388d-4d4a-b9a6-8c0b9ed9822e/retrieve","id":"-1538788396"},"keywords":["Rainfall","Growing season","Rice","Brazil","Crop modeling"],"sieverID":"22c7cc0e-4eec-47e4-bd1f-fe7d436d1e6f","pagecount":"50","content":"The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) believes that open access contributes to its mission of reducing hunger and poverty, and improving human nutrition in the tropics through research aimed at increasing the eco-efficiency of agriculture.CIAT is committed to creating and sharing knowledge and information openly and globally. We do this through collaborative research as well as through the open sharing of our data, tools, and publications.In the 2017/2018 production season, Brazil produced an estimated 229.7 million tons (8.64% of the world's production) of grains across a total area of 61.6 million hectares (CONAB, 2018). The primary region of grain (mainly soybean and maize) production in the country is Central Brazil, and agricultural expansion in this region over the last three decades was driven largely by the international commodity market (Verburg et al., 2014a, b). The states of Mato Grosso, Goiás, Rondônia, and Tocantins, located in this region, harbor 37 % of the country's total grain cropped area (39% of the grain production) (CONAB, 2018). Mato Grosso has the largest cropped area and grain production, followed by Goiás, Tocantins, and Rondônia. Regional farming and production is highly dependent on the rainy season. Therefore, precipitation variability significantly affects the socio-economic well-being of the region's population, as their livelihoods and food security are dependent on these rainfed crop systems (PBMC, 2014;Abrahão and Costa, 2018).The relationships between tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures (SSTs), the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and regional climate variability across the world are well established (Coelho et al., 2002;Grimm and Tedeschi, 2009;Carvalho et al., 2011). In particular, a number of studies have demonstrated a link between ENSO and regional climate variability of northeastern (Liu and Juárez, 2001;Rodrigues et al., 2011;Moura et al., 2019), southeastern (Carvalho et al., 2004), and southern (Grimm and Pscheidt, 2001;Gelcer et al., 2013) regions of Brazil, in which the likelihood of abnormal flooding in the south and intense droughts in the north/northeast were found to be significantly higher during El Niño (warm ENSO phase) events. The opposite was observed during La Niña (cold ENSO phase) events, while Central Brazil was classified as a transitional region (Grimm, 2003;Penalba and Rivera, 2016;Moura et al., 2019;Nóia Júnior and Sentelhas, 2019a). Many studies have also assessed the impacts of ENSO on climate and crop productivity during the growing season on global and regional scales (Fraisse et al., 2008;Iizumi et al., 2014;Liu et al., 2014;Battisti et al., 2018a, b;Nóia Júnior and Sentelhas, 2019a).However, there is a lack of studies on the impacts of ENSO on precipitation during the crop-growing season in Central Brazil, despite the region's high crop production.Moreover, the links between within-season precipitation variability and agricultural activities have not been considered in previous investigations (e.g., Marengo et al., 2001;Liebmann et al., 2007;Debortoli et al., 2015). Local characteristics of withinseason rainfall variability (e.g., amount of rainfall, onset and cessation of rainfall, number of rainy days, the length of the growing season, and optimal sowing windows), their relationship with ENSO, and its effects on the seasonal distribution of water are crucial toward understanding crop yield variations in rainfed systems (e.g., Delerce et al., 2016;Iizumi et al., 2014). Information on these variables helps to improve upon existing cropping calendars and develop new cropping systems and strategic sowing management options (Nóia Júnior and Sentelhas, 2019b). Understanding within-season precipitation variability can also indicate the climatic suitability for a given crop (Araya et al., 2010;Zabel et al., 2014;Rippke et al., 2016), or help to determine geographic domains for yield gap assessments and agronomic management (van Wart et al., 2015). This can also further address the issue of food security by more adequately assessing seasonal and geographic variations in grain supply to mitigate shortages at certain times of the year (Mishra et al., 2008;Paeth et al., 2008;Simelton, 2011). Moreover, determining the onset, cessation, and length of the growing season and their links to ENSO are useful for quantifying the potential risks of abiotic and biotic stresses during the cropping season. This information can be applied in breeding programs to develop new varieties for a specified target environment.The main objective of this study was to examine the interannual variability in the onset and cessation of the rainy and growing seasons in response to ENSO across Brazil's primary grain production region. We proposed a mean optimal crop sowing calendar based on an assessment of water availability across the region. The specific objectives are as follows:(i) to determine the mean onset, cessation, length, number of dry and wet days, and amount of precipitation during the rainfall and growing seasons, (ii) to assess the effect of ENSO on the abovementioned rainy and growing season variables, (iii) to analyze the dynamics of crop water utilization during the growing season. We propose a mean optimal sowing windows based on the ratios of actual to potential transpiration using a crop model simulation.Finally, we discuss our findings in the context of taking pre-emptive measures to reduce climate risks on crop production in Brazil's highest grain production region.The study area covers part of the Cerrado biome (the states of Goiás, south of Mato Grosso, and Tocantins) and the transition zone between the Amazon and the Cerrado biomes (states of Rondônia, north of Mato Grosso, and Tocantins). The region has a surface area of ca. 1.76 million km 2 , with an altitude, latitude, and longitude range of 300-900 m above mean sea level, 20º (S) to 5º (S), and 61º (W) to 46º (W) (Figure 1), respectively. The predominant climate in the region is tropical savanna (Aw), which represents 100%, 94%, and 52.8% of the total area of Tocantins, Goiás, and Mato Grosso, respectively (Alvares et al., 2013). Rondônia (100%) and the north of Mato Grosso (47.2%) have tropical monsoon (Am) climates. The region's rainfall regime shows strong seasonality (monomodal pattern) with only two seasons (wet and dry).More than 80 % of the total annual rainfall occurs in the wet season, between October and March, with highest rainfall from January to March. In contrast to the equatorial northern part of the Amazon basin, which has a relatively short dry season (Marengo, 2006), the dry period in the study region typically lasts from April to September (e.g., Funatsu et al., 2012). The annual rainfall in the study region ranges from 1,300 (Aw) to 2,300 mm (Am climate, Rondônia and north of Mato Grosso).We used time series datasets of daily rainfall obtained from the Brazilian Institute of Meteorology (INMET). Fifty meteorological stations were selected to represent the entire study region (Figure 1). We obtained continuous meteorological records spanning 1980-2013 (33 years) from each station. These datasets were quality controlled, checked for homogeneity, and gap-filled to address missing data and possible outliers due to human-induced error or faulty measuring equipment (Ramirez-Villegas and Challinor, 2012;Van Wart et al., 2015). To fill the gaps in the dataset, we gathered data from two databases: the Agência Nacional de Águas, Brazil (ANA, https://www.ana.gov.br/gestao-da-agua/sistema-de-gerenciamento-de-recursoshidricos/agencias-de-agua) and the Climate Prediction Center (CPC, https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/). ANA is a database of weather station data, whereas CPC provides gridded data. We used the ANA data to the maximum extent and only used the CPC data to fill in missing ANA entries. We ran visual checks of the final time series dataset  to ensure the data was free of implausible characteristics.The \"gap-filling\" method is described in detail in Ramirez-Villegas et al. (2018) and Heinemann et al. (2019). Missing rainfall data at most stations occurred in approximately 20% of the total number of days.ENSO conditions are typically defined by sea surface temperature (SST) variations and their persistence along the equatorial Pacific Ocean (NOAA, 2019). The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) defines El Niño and La Niña events based on a threshold temperature anomaly of ± 0.5 ºC on the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI), which in turn is computed as the 3-month running mean of SST anomalies across the Eastern Equatorial Pacific (Bhuvaneswari et al., 2013). As the rainfall season occurs between September and March in the study region, we averaged the ONI values from September, October, and November (SON) to February, March, and April (FMA).For the purpose of our analysis, values lower than -0.5 ºC are considered La Niña years, values higher than 0.5 ºC are considered El Niño years, and -0.5-0.5 ºC are considered Neutral (NOAA, 2019).To assess within-season precipitation variations for the study region, we first determined the onset and cessation of the rainy season. We employed the method described by Liebmann et al. (2007Liebmann et al. ( , 2012) ) to produce a precipitation climatology for the entire study region. This method has been previously used on observational datasets over northern Brazil (Liebmann et al., 2007), Mato Grosso (Arvor et al., 2014), the southern Amazon (Debortoli et al., 2015), and Africa (Dunning et al., 2016). A cumulative daily precipitation anomaly (AA, mm) over time was defined for each weather station (Table 1) following Equation 1:, eq. 1where R(n) is the daily precipitation (mm day -1 ) on day n from 1980 to 2013, \uD835\uDC45 ̅ is the climatological mean daily rainfall (mm) for the year as a whole. In the entire study region, the 1st of July is always within the first half of the dry period, so we started the calculation on this date (Funatsu et al., 2012), as there are no ENSO influences on the rainy period during this time. Large-scale precipitation in the region occurs exclusively with the passage of cold fronts (Li and Fu, 2006).The onset (RSSTART) and cessation (RSEND) dates are determined by identifying the minima and maxima in the cumulative daily precipitation anomaly, respectively, which increases when the daily precipitation is above the climatological mean daily rainfall and decreases when it is below the climatological mean daily rainfall (Supplementary Figure S1). An advantage of this method is that it does not incorporate external parameters, such as the pentads method, which can be highly sensitive to the chosen threshold (see Liebmann and Marengo, 2001;Marengo et al., 2001). The total precipitation amount (RSTPA) during the rainy season was calculated by the precipitation sum between RSSTART and RSEND. The length of the rainy season (RSL) was calculated by the difference (in days) between the cessation (RSEND) and onset (RSSTART) dates of the rainfall season. Finally, the number of dry (RSNDD) and wet days (RSNWD) were calculated based on the number of days above (wet) or below (dry) 0.1 mm day -1 of rainfall between RSSTART and RSEND. Days with exactly 0.1 mm day -1 were considered dry. We selected a threshold of 0.1 mm day -1 , as it is the typical precision of rain gauge measurements (Mathugama and Peiris, 2011). Algorithms were written for automatically determining the RSSTART, RSEND, RSTPA, RSL, RSNDD, and RSNWD for each year and for each weather station.For a descriptive analysis, the RSSTART, RSEND, RSTPA, RSL, RSNDD, and RSNWD values were averaged for each weather station. Before averaging, we eliminated all potential outliers, which were defined as values >1.5 times the interquartile range. The mean values of the variables were interpolated and rasterized in the study region to show the geographic variation of each variable. For interpolation, we applied the Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) method with the \"Shepherd\" algorithm and a power parameter setting of two. The IDW was selected because it is a deterministic method for multivariate interpolation with a known scattered set of points. The IDW spatial interannual variability (expressed as the standard deviation) and accuracy (expressed as the root mean square error, RMSE) are shown in the Supplementary Information (Figures S2, S3and Table S2). We rasterized the IDW output following interpolation, assuming that x, y are the centers of the cells with a spatial resolution equal to the minimum distance between any pair of weather stations. For rasterization, we used the \"idw\" and \"rasterFromXYZ\" functions from the gstat (Gräler et al., 2016) and raster (Hijmans and van Etten, 2012) R packages.We determined the crop-growing season following the establishment of RSSTART and RSEND. The growing season onset (GSSTART) is defined as the period during the rainy season when rainfall is sufficient for crop sowing, germination, establishment, and full development (Odekunle, 2004). There are several methods for determining GSSTART (Marteau et al., 2011;Ngetich et al., 2014;Oguntunde et al., 2014), the criteria of which depend on subjective thresholds, such as the amount of accumulated rainfall.According to the American soil classification (texture), the most relevant soil types in our study region are Oxisols with sandy loam texture, followed by sandy clay loam and clay textured Oxisols (Heinemann et al., 2015). For these soil types, a total rainfall amount of 33 mm in four consecutive days is sufficient to bring the first layer (~17 cm) of soil to field capacity for sowing. These parameters may vary with factors such as management practices and plant drought tolerance. However, the values used in this study are considered conservative for common soils, and management practices in Brazil. To avoid determining false growing season onsets due to drought spells at the beginning of the rainy season, GSSTART is only defined when a total rainfall amount of 33 mm occur in four consecutive days and when at least 10 mm of rainfall occur in the first 10 days after this period, with 5 mm distributed in the first 5 days and the other 5 mm distributed in the following 5 days. The criteria for defining GSSTART are summarized below: a) occurring within the rainfall season; b) a total rainfall of 33 mm between the first and fourth day; c) 5 mm of rainfall from the fifth to the ninth day; and, d) 5 mm of rainfall from the tenth to the fourteenth day.Thus, a growing season is defined if a total of 43 mm of accumulated rainfall has occurred over 14 consecutive days. In this study, we considered the cessation of the growing season (GSEND) to be the same as the cessation of the rainfall season (GSEND = RSEND). The number of dry (GSNDD) and wet days (GSNWD) in the growing season were computed as the number of days above (wet) or below (dry) a rainfall amount of 0.1 mm between GSSTART and GSEND (also see Sect. 2.3). The values of GSSTART, GSNDD, and GSNWD were then averaged per station and subsequently interpolated to produce geographic maps following the method described in Sect. 2.4.In this study, we assessed the relationship between ENSO (La Niña/El Niño years) and the characteristics of the rainy and growing seasons. For discrete variables (RSSTART; RSEND; RSL; RSNDD; RSNWD; GSSTART; GSNWD; and GSNDD), we applied generalized linear models (GLM) with four discrete family distributions: 1) Poisson regression, 2)negative binomial regression, 3) Poisson regression (longitudinal dataset), and 4) negative binomial regression (longitudinal dataset). For the continuous variable RSTPA, we applied three statistical models: 1) multiple linear regression, 2) a mixed linear model, and 3) a longitudinal random effects model (intercept model). For all models, ENSO (anomalies El Niño/La Niña/Neutral; Sect. 2.3), the state, and their interaction (ENSO*state) were considered as a qualitative fixed effect. When the respective model framework allowed it, weather station identification (Figure 1 and Table 1) were tested as random effects (with random intercepts and fixed predictors at the individual level).We considered the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) as the criterion for best fit. All statistical analyses were conducted using STATA v.13 software.We produced a sowing window calendar for each state and weather station based on the ENSO influence on GSSTART (Sect. 2.5). The multi-year (1980-2013) mean GSSTART was defined as the mean optimal sowing date, and the starting (end) of the sowing window was defined as the mean GSSTART minus (plus) the standard deviation. To verify the viability of the sowing window calendar (starting, optimal, and end), we applied the ORYZA v3 (Li et al., 2017) crop model to assess the crop water use dynamics of upland rice. Upland rice cultivar BRS Primavera was specifically chosen, as the crop is drought sensitive and cultivated in the study region (Heinemann et al., 2019). Water use dynamics were assessed using the temporal variability of the ratios of the five-day moving averages of actual to potential transpiration (PCEW, daily crop model output). In the model, this acts as a daily photosynthesis reduction factor-from crop emergence to 30 days after emergence (DAE)-for each weather station and year in the period 1980-2013. We also determined the accumulated rainfall at 15 and 30 days after sowing for starting, optimal, and end dates for each weather station and each year.For each weather station and year , the ORYZA v3 model was used to simulate the starting, mean optimal, and end sowing dates throughout the first 30 days of upland rice development and growth. We used historical daily weather data from 1980-2013 (precipitation, maximum and minimum temperature, and downward shortwave solar radiation) as the input to the crop model. The gap-filling procedure for precipitation is described in Sect. 2.2. The daily solar radiation for all weather stations, except for the station in Santo Antônio de Goiás (Lat: -16.47; Long: -49.28, ID 2, Table 1), was estimated according to the method by Richardson and Wright (1984). The maximum and minimum temperatures were averaged when the data gap was less than or equal to 2 days. The CPC dataset was used for data gaps of >2 days. We conducted visual checks of the finalized time series  to ensure that the data was free of errors or implausible characteristics.The ORYZA v3 model parametrization (see Supplementary Figure S4) and evaluation of BRS Primavera upland rice cultivar are described in Heinemann et al. (2015) (also see Ramirez-Villegas et al., 2018;Heinemann et al., 2019). The ORYZA v3 crop model performance (simulated vs. measured for flowering; physiological maturation and yield for parameterization processes and panicle initiation; flowering and physiological maturation for evaluation processes of the BRS Primavera upland rice cultivar) is shown in the Supplementary Information (Figure S4). We used sandy loam for all simulations, as it is the most representative (Heinemann et al., 2015) soil texture in the region (see Supplementary Table 1 for soil profile properties). We simulated water dynamics using the 'PADDY' soil water balance module. This is a one-dimensional multi-layer (up to 10) model that simulates the soil water balance for a variety of growing conditions (e.g., puddled or non-puddled), incorporating free or impeded drainage at particular depths in the soil profile. All simulations were rainfed, without biotic constraints and nitrogen limitations. All model runs were initiated in February, regardless of the sowing date, in order to establish realistic soil water profiles based on the rainfall patterns prior to the actual sowing date. Potential transpiration and evaporation rates were calculated based on the Priestley-Taylor method. The analysis of PCEW across the sowing dates and weather stations allowed us to verify the viability of the crop sowing calendar of the study region in response to ENSO.The climatological mean daily rainfall (\uD835\uDC45 ̅ ; Eq. 1) ranged from 3.45 to 5.59 mm, with an average value of 4.21 mm across all weather stations. \uD835\uDC45 ̅ showed an increasing trend toward the equator (Figure 2) and was weakly positively correlated with latitude (Spearman's rho of 0.37) and weakly negatively correlated with longitude (Spearman's rho of -0.28) (also see Sect. 3.2).For the descriptive analysis, only RSSTART, RSL, RSNDD and RSNWD variables presented outliers. The outliers represent only 5% for each variable.In the study region, RSSTART ranged from late September (272 day of the year (DOY))to early November (310 DOY), with an average onset date of October 25 (298 DOY, standard deviation (sd) = 7.4 DOY). We observed early onset dates (<280 DOY) in Mato Grosso, except in the south, and later onset dates (~300 DOY and later) in Rondônia, Tocantins, and Goiás (Figure 3A). Earlier onsets and late cessations were predominantly observed in forested regions, which is expected in Mato Grosso, despite continuous deforestation (Debortoli et al., 2015). The onset orientation is related to the presence of the South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ) in spring, which is influenced by the interactions between tropical convection systems and mid-latitude frontal systems (Gan et al., 2004). The mean onset in Mato Grosso occurred around mid-October (18/10, 291 DOY, sd = 10.6 DOY). In agreement, satellite (Arvor et al., 2014) and weather station data (Debortoli et al., 2015) in Mato Grosso inferred a mean onset date of 18/10 (291 DOY) and 14/10 (288 DOY), respectively. The onset of the rainy season occurred at the end of October for Goiás, Rondônia, and Tocantins (298, 300, and 301 DOY, respectively).In contrast to the 6-week duration of the onset period, RSEND only lasted 3 weeks across the entire region from late March (85 DOY) to mid-April (109 DOY), with an average end date at the beginning of April (96 DOY, sd = 5.9 DOY) (Figure 3B). In agreement, the standard deviation of the onset was greater than that of the cessation (Supplementary of Mato Grosso and 90 DOY for the entire state of Mato Grosso, respectively.The RSL ranged from 149 to 196 days across the study region, with an average of 164 days (sd = 10.8 days). The spatial variability of RSL showed a northwest to southeast orientation (Figure 3C). The longest seasonal durations were observed within the central northern region to the south (within Mato Grosso), and decreased toward the southeast (Goiás). The highest average seasonal length was observed in Mato Grosso at 175 days (sd = 13.7 days), followed by Tocantins (168, sd = 8.2 days), Rondônia (164, sd = 11.1 days), and Goiás (159, sd = 6.7 days). In comparison, Arvor et al. (2014) inferred a mean value of 162 days for Mato Grosso. We observed lowest RSL durations in Goiás.RSL was found to strongly correlate with the onset (negatively) and cessation (positively) of the rainy season due to its northwest to southeast orientation (Figure 3C; see Sect. 3.2).RSTPA ranged from 1,038 to 1,723 mm across the study region, with an average value of 1,328 mm (sd = 165.6 mm). These conditions are considered suitable for agricultural production. In agreement with the RSL data, we observed highest RSTPA in Mato Grosso(1,507 mm, sd = 99.9 mm), followed by Tocantins (1,420 mm, sd = 132.6 mm),Rondônia (1,295 mm, sd = 160.0 mm), and Goiás (1,254 mm, sd = 99.9 mm). Notably, the spatial variability of precipitation followed the spatial distribution of natural vegetation, with savannas located in the drier southeastern regions and rainforests located in the wetter northwestern regions (Figure 3D). Highest precipitation was observed in the central northern region of Mato Grosso within the Serra do Cachimbo (Figure 3D). A similar rainfall distribution was observed by Arvor et al. (2014). The spatial standard deviations for RSL and RSTPA indicate regions of high variability in southeast Rondônia and north Tocantins, respectively (Supplementary Figure S2, C, and   D).RSNDD ranged from 39 to 133 days across the study region, with an average of 69 days (sd = 14.8 days). The highest number of dry days were observed in the north and central eastern regions of Mato Grosso (Figure 3E). The state showed significant spatial and temporal RSNDD variability (also see Supplementary Fig. S2A), with an average of 82 days (sd = 21.5 days). Highest average RSNDD values observed in Mato Grosso may be explained by the state's highest RSL (Figure 5). In contrast, fewer dry days were observed in the states of Rondônia, Goiás, and Tocantins, with average RSNDD values of 72, 69, and 51 days (sd = 10.3; 9.6; 4.6 days), respectively. Highest RSNWD values were observed in the northeast region (mainly in Tocantins) and decreased southwards (Figure 3F), which is consistent with the spatial variability of RSNDD. This suggests that rainfall is well distributed during the growing season in Tocantins. Highest average RSNDD was observed in Tocantins at 117 (sd = 8.2) days, followed by Mato Grosso (94 days, sd = 16.0 days), Rondônia (94 days, sd = 9.89 days), and Goiás (92 days, sd = 13.1 days).Average GSSTART across the region varied by 35 days, occurring from the beginning of October (277 DOY) to the beginning of November (312 DOY). The average GSSTART across the study region was at the end of October (301 DOY, sd = 7.1). Earliest seasonal onsets occurred across central and northern regions of Mato Grosso, followed by Goiás, Tocantins, and Rondônia (Figure 4A). The mean seasonal onset in Mato Grosso occurred in mid-October (295 DOY, sd = 10.4 DOY), while that of Rondônia, Tocantins, and Goiás occurred at the end of October (300, 302, and 303 DOY, sd = 9.0; 4.1; and 4.8 DOY, respectively). Figure 5 illustrates the GSSTART variability among the different states. The number of wet (GSNDD) and dry days (GSNWD) during the growing season were consistent with the number of wet and dry days during the rainy season (Figure 4C and D). The state of Tocantins had the highest number of wet days during the growing season (118 days, sd = 7.7 days), followed by Rondônia (94, sd = 9.9), Mato Grosso (93, sd = 16), and Goiás (90, sd = 12.6). We observed significant temporal variability in the number of wet and dry days, particularly in the states of Mato Grosso and Goiás (Supplementary Figure S3B, C), which is consistent with the rainy season characteristics.All climatological variables (RSSTART, RSEND, RSL, RSTPA, RSNDD, RSNWD, GSSTART, GSNDD, GSNDD, and GSNWD) were weakly (Spearman's rho < = 0.19 in absolute value) correlated with longitude. Similarly, only two rainy season variables (RSTPA and RSEND)were weakly positively correlated with latitude (Spearman rho = 0.21, Figure 6).Interestingly, we observed no correlation between RSSTART and RSEND, inferring different controlling physical processes on the begin and end dates of the rainy season (Spearman's rho = -0.02).As expected, we identified a very strong correlations (Spearman's rho > 0.80 of absolute values) between RSSTART and GSSTART; RSNWD and GSNWD; and RSNDD and GSNDD. Strong correlations (Spearman's rho from 0.60 to 0.79 in absolute value) were also observed between RSL and RSSTART, GSSTART, RSEND, and RSTPA. The strong linear relationship between RSL and RSSTART is particularly crucial, since early detection of RSSTART in a particular year and a particular location can help to predict the duration of the upcoming season. This estimation can thus adequately define which crops or crop varieties may be suitable for cultivation. As expected, we also identified a strong correlation between RSTPA and RSNWD and GSNWD (Figure 6).The effect of ENSO (El Niño, Neutral, La Niña) on rainfall and growing season characteristics in each state is shown in Table 2 and Figure 5. La Niña and El Niño were shown to influence RSSTART only in Mato Grosso, in which the quartile distribution of La Niña and El Niño suggests to be different to that of Neutral years (Figure 5). In contrast, RSEND was not affected by ENSO, but the RSEND was highly variable among the different states (Table 2 and Figure 5). El Niño was shown to influence RSL only in Mato Grosso and Tocantins (Table 2), as the RSL quartile distribution of El Niño years suggest to be different from that of Neutral and La Niña years in both states (Figure 5).RSNDD seems to be reduced during La Niña years throughout the entire region; however, we did not observe obvious state-specific impacts (Table 2). Figure 5 also shows the quartile difference for RSNDD between La Niña, Neutral, and El Niño phases. We found La Niña to influence RSNWD in Rondônia, and El Niño to influence RSNWD in Tocantins (Table 2). We observed a positive increment for the interaction between La Niña and Rondônia and a negative increment for the interaction between El Niño and Tocantins.We identified a trend toward increasing wet days in Rondônia during La Niña years and a trend toward decreasing dry days in Tocantins during El Niño years (Table 2). RSTPA in Mato Grosso tends to be positively affected by La Niña years, and RSTPA in Rondônia and Tocantins tends to be positively affected by El Niño years (Table 2). Our findings suggest that while La Niña phases increase precipitation in Mato Grosso, El Niño phases increase precipitation in Rondônia and Tocantins.The onset of the growing season was influenced by both La Niña and El Niño in Mato Grosso, while only La Niña was shown to influence the growing season onset in the remaining states (Table 2). GSNDD was positively affected by La Niña in Rondônia and negatively influenced by El Niño in Tocantins (Table 2). GSNDD was positively affected by La Niña in Mato Grosso and negatively influenced by El Niño in Tocantins (Table 2).GSSTART was affected by La Niña and El Niño in Mato Grosso (Table 2). We conducted crop model simulations to determine the beginning (average GSSTARTstandard deviation), mean optimal (average GSSTART), and end (average GSSTART + standard deviation) dates of the growth season for Neutral, La Niña, and El Niño years at each weather station in Mato Grosso.In general, we found a broad range of sowing dates in Mato Grosso, which were suitable for the production of upland rice and a number of other crops across the study region (Figure 7). Within this sowing window (see sowing calendar in Figure 7), the sowing date with greatest water availability (mean optimal sowing date) corresponds to the mean value of GSSTART (white checked circles in Figure 7). Upland rice does not experience water stress during the sensitive initial growth stage (the first 30 days after sowing) when it is sown at or very close to mean value of GSSTART. For early sowing dates, we find that the mean accumulated precipitation in the first 15 and 30 days after sowing was consistently lower under early sowing dates relative to later and mean optimal sowing dates (Supplementary Figure S5 and S6). In addition, the mean PCEW (ratio of actual to potential transpiration, crop model output) in the first 30 days after sowing was consistently near 1 (no water stress) under later and mean optimal sowing dates relative to early sowing dates (Supplementary Figure S9 and S10).We identified longer range in sowing periods during Neutral years (top panel, Figure 7)for most weather stations in Mato Grosso relative to El Niño (middle panel, Figure 7)and La Niña years (bottom panel, Figure 7). The mean optimal sowing date was generally delayed in La Niña years.GSSTART in Goiás, Tocantins, and Rondônia was affected only during La Niña years (Table 2). For these states, we conducted crop model simulations for Neutral, El Niño, and La Niña years to determine the start (average GSSTARTstandard deviation), mean optimal (average GSSTART), and end (average GSSTART + standard deviation) dates for each weather station. We identified a broad range of sowing dates for Goiás, Rondônia, and Tocantins, which are considered suitable for the production of upland rice and a number of other crops across the study region (Figure 8 and 9). On average, the sowing period was shorter and the mean optimal date was delayed during La Niña years (Figure 8 and 9) in Goiás. For all states, sowing earlier or later than the mean optimal sowing date leads to increased water stress; however, the season is still suitable for upland rice and other crop production across Central Brazil. Previous studies using crop model simulations showed that early sowing can increase the risk of drought for upland rice (Heinemann et al., 2015), though this effect was only limited to some weather stations.Earlier sowing was also linked to lowest accumulated precipitation in the first 15 and 30 days after sowing (Supplementary Fig. S7 and S8). In addition, the mean PCEW (ratio of actual to potential transpiration, crop model output) in the first 30 days after sowing was consistently near 1 (no water stress) under later and mean optimal sowing dates relative to early sowing dates (Supplementary Figure S11, S12 and S13). Early soybean sowing in Central Brazil was also found to increase the risk of crop loss due to water deficits (Nóia Júnior and Sentelhas, 2019b).Of the four states in Central Brazil, we observed the longest rainy seasons in Mato Grosso and Tocantins, with earlier rainfall onsets and later rainfall cessations.However, Tocantins showed greater suitability for crop production, as the number of dry days during the rainfall season was significantly lower than that of Mato Grosso.This result for Tocantins is in contrast to the weak positive correlation between rainy season duration and the number of dry days observed in all other states. Our results demonstrate that a negative ENSO phase (La Niña) significantly decreases the number of dry days in the rainy season and growing season across the entire region. La Niña was also found to delay the start of the growing season (p < 0.05). Tocantins experiences the most significant ENSO effects, particularly during warm ENSO phases (El Niño), leading to higher but infrequent rainfall events. El Niño phases also impact Mato Grosso, leading to slightly earlier rainfall onsets and a longer seasonal duration. In contrast, cold ENSO (La Niña) phases predominantly affect Rondônia, leading to an increased frequency of high total rainfall. As is expected, the cooler surface waters in the eastern Pacific during La Niña years cause a reduction in the number of dry days during the growing season compared to Neutral and El Niño years. The typical El Niño rainfall anomaly pattern is most evident over the northern/northeastern regions of South America, with drier conditions over southern/southeastern regions (Grimm, 2003;Andreoli et al., 2017).Our results indicate that ENSO has no impact on the yield of primary crops sown at the end of October/beginning of November (which represents the main rainy season of crop production), but influences the yield of secondary crops sown after February, such as maize (also referred to as \"safrinha\"), as observed by Anderson et al.(2017) and Arvor et al. (2012). Double cropping-particularly soybean-maize rotations-is common in Mato Grosso, Rondônia, and regions of Goiás. Low secondary crop yield can be attributed to La Niña due to lowered soil water content. We found a reduction in the length of the sowing window by 23%, 22%, and 13% during La Niña years (Figure 7, 8, and 9) in Goiás, Tocantins, and Rondônia, respectively, relative to Neutral and El Niño years. In Mato Grosso, we observed an 18% decrease relative to Neutral years. We also observed a delay in the mean optimal sowing date during LaNiña years for all states and during El Niño years for Mato Grosso. A narrower sowing window and a delayed in the mean optimal sowing date is unlikely to be a limitation in regions with only a single cropping season. Sowing soybean in late October/start of November (which includes the estimated mean optimal sowing date (Figure 7 and 8))would result in the sowing of the secondary crop in late February/early March.However, further delays in the sowing of the secondary crop would increase the risk of water deficits (Soler et al., 2007a, b). From the results of this study, we can infer that a delay of 15 days, in addition to the duration of the sowing operation (2-4 weeks), would lead to the sowing of secondary crops after February, which increases the risk of a water deficit. For double cropping, we therefore recommend that different strategies be adopted by farmers for both La Niña (all states) and El Niño years (Mato Grosso), such as avoiding the sowing of secondary crops, selecting a secondary crop that is less susceptible to water deficits (e.g., sorghum instead of maize), or selecting shorter cycle genotypes for soybean and maize, particularly in Goiás. Our results are useful for improved decision making of farmers, governments, insurance companies, input industries, and other sectors involved in agriculture production.The sowing dates identified in this study are based on rice model simulations.However, we believe the established sowing windows are transferable to other annual and drought tolerant crops, such as maize and soybean. The onset dates of the growing season obtained in this study (shown in Figure 7, 8, and 9) can be used to assist farmers and government agencies to develop adaptation strategies that will maximize productivity and reduce climate-induced risks to crop production. Our model simulations also indicate that earlier and later sowing dates are possible but less optimal relative to sowing at the long-term  average growing season start date compared to fixed earlier or later long-term (1980-2013) sowing date. Our findings also indicate that the length of the sowing period is not a limitation for single crop seasons.However, under crop rotation, early sowing in Central Brazil would have a negative impact on the primary crop yield (Figures 7-9) due to the increased risk of water deficits during the vegetative phase of crop growth. In contrast, late sowing will increase the risk of crop loss by water deficit during the grain filling phase of secondary crop growth. Importantly, we find no need to adjust the sowing windows for one crop season depending on ENSO conditions.Here, we have used the best available data to address the question of whether ENSO has a significant impact on the rainy and growing season dynamics in central Brazil. While our findings are robust and generally complement with existing studies, several limitations become apparent. Notably, the quality and geographical distribution of the weather stations is not perfect and can introduce errors to the estimation of the rainy and growing season characteristics and their interpolation across the region. We deem errors introduced by gaps in the weather station time series small or negligible, since gaps tend to be randomly spread across the time series (rather than occurring in continuous period), are in general less than 20% of the total length of the time series, and are filled using reliable alternative sources (ANA and CPC). Likewise, the distribution of weather stations is not uniform, and likely to affect spatial interpolation results. However, we note that IDW interpolations are performed here as a way of assessing spatial trends in the characteristics of the growing season, rather than predicting such characteristics in specific locations.. These trends are consistent with prior knowledge and literature, and are found to adequately represent the study region, which gives confidence that the distribution of weather stations is unlikely to hinder our conclusions. Future work could extend our analysis to be performed with gridded datasets (Xavier et al., 2016;Battisti et al., 2019) to verify the robustness of the spatial trends found here. Similarly, future work can extend our analysis to other crops, both confirming that findings for rice are indeed extensible to other annual crops but also creating reliable crop calendars for crops that are less likely to be represented by rice (e.g. cassava, potato, wheat, barley).Finally, we believe our work can also be extended to other cropping regions of Brazil, and, in the future connected to farmer advisory systems for supporting decision making on planting dates, if a denser and more evenly distributed network of weather stations was established. The latter can be done through linking our modeling approach to existing weather, sub-seasonal and/or seasonal forecasting systems (Chou et al., 2000;Coelho et al., 2006;Martins et al., 2018).       ","tokenCount":"6457"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c3c606bbd2fae7648d6341ec5880f6fa","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0b6de600-0349-4a13-b41b-aab1b8ae777d/retrieve","id":"-1438184876"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0c1449be-031b-4ba8-9a7f-7047e961ee5b","pagecount":"8","content":"The CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems was established in February 2012. It comprises a complex mix of implementing partners (11 CGIAR Centers and FAO), research themes and regions.The overall objective of the first meeting was to reach a shared vision of the program for the next two years in order for WLE partner activities to align with and contribute to the vision and objectives of WLE. The meeting focused on supporting WLE researchers to better understand WLE, and in turn, enable them to contribute to the vision for the program, through• Discussing and creating a basis for a common understanding of how WLE activities are providing a \"new approach\" to CG-activities.• Providing updates on decisions made on program structure for the next two years • Inviting researchers to contribute their ideas on development challenges and research needed to address these challenges• Fostering understanding by researchers of how their own current research fits into the WLE bigger picture; enabling Science Focal points to be 'champions' of WLE within their own centersInformation on the conference (Full agenda, participants list, presentations and supporting material) can be found of the WLE Wiki.This was the first meeting of the WLE Science Focal points, which in fact extended beyond the Focal Points themselves, with most Centers sending several WLE scientists to participate. It allowed for the first time a fruitful two way exchange of information between SRP leaders and researchers, with researchers better able to understand the overall objectives of the research portfolios and the SRP leaders given the opportunity to find out more on the details of the activities within their portfolio. The input given by researchers into the development of priority areas of work for the focal regions was also highly valuable.A Community of Practice on Fundraising was developed by the Fundraising group which met during parallel meetings and this is seen as a positive step for WLE.Overall it was agreed that this was a useful step towards alignment of all research activities with the goals of the program. There was also a general consensus that more can be done to encourage and improve alignment, with WLE to take responsibility for developing impact pathways at the global level and providing guidance to researchers to find their place within these pathways.Day 1: Introductory presentations Mahmoud Solh, Director General of ICARDA opened the meeting and expressed his appreciation for the progress that WLE has made in the last two years and its inclusive approach. He also explained that WLE is an important program for ICARDA as it hits on some of the main areas related to sustainable intensification that ICARDA is working on particularly in Central Asia and the Middle East.Peter McCornick, Deputy Director General -Research of IWMI expressed his gratitude to ICARDA for hosting WLE's first Science Focal Points meeting in Amman, reflecting that the challenges of water and land management in Jordan serve as a reminder of the importance of the principles of WLE.Andrew Noble provided an overview presentation of WLE, its progress to date and current set up. This year's main challenge was related to funding cuts which has impacted on operations for this year, however there is a clear indication now that funding will be increased next year and the program needs to look to the future. WLE is one of the critical CRPs for the CGIAR because it focuses on how we manage our environment for food production; if we don't get this right we won't be able to feed the world. WLE's vision encapsulates everything we are trying to do in terms of using the environment to improve food production and address poverty reduction, using an ecosystem services based approach.The subsequent discussion centered on three main issues. The first dealt with the issue of translating WLE theory into practical activities. WLE works at scale and is providing more than just technical solutions to farmers which are already there. One focus of WLE will be to look at the suite of technologies and how they can be integrated at a social and institutional level. WLE projects look at impacts at a wider scale and how ecosystems can be an entry point for enhancing poverty alleviation, sustainable intensification and natural resource management. A WLE project focuses on engaging in policy and investment processes in order to improve their social and ecological sustainability.The second issue revolved around impact pathways and WLE Intermediate Development Outcomes. It has to be recognized that IDOs relating to WLE and natural resource programs are different than productivity IDOs, as these kinds of programs can take a longer time to evolve. In addition, the impact pathways of WLE are embedded in the work of others, such as working through donor or government programs which have entry points that have wider impacts. WLE should engage groups and bring our modest research to initiatives that are on a much bigger scale.The final issue related to moving beyond traditional entry points. Some participants brought up the need to engage the youth; others focused on the issues related to feminization of agriculture and outmigration. Likewise, there are new investors in developing countries such as China, large scale private sector and others who are having a greater impact and ways to engage these groups need to be identified.In preparation for the discussions on the integration of WLE's core themes into partner activities, presentations were made by the leaders of the two WLE working groups: Ecosystems Services and Resilience (ESS&R); and Gender, Poverty and Institutions. The WLE Gender Strategy is now in place, with the next stage now to be to move beyond understanding and strategic thinking and into action. For example, so far 1% of the portfolio is mapped to gender activities, whereas a minimum of 10% of the program should be dedicated to ender related research and analysis. Within ESS&R, highlights were provided of the achievements so far particularly in terms of engagement with partners at the global level.Each Strategic Research Portfolio Manager presented an overview of their work and priorities for the coming year. Participants were then asked to discuss specific activities and their integration into WLE. This was done for most of the afternoon. A short reflection from each group is provided: Weakness -even when inter-center collaboration is possible, there is still a tendency to work alone --Weakness -gender integration into this SRP is a challenge --Sometimes reticence to scale up, concern over whether we can really to do this --Basins is seen as an integrator across SRPs but so far there is no specific activity on this RRR --Discussion beyond expectations -very rich --ICARDA will revise activity to be more in line with RRR --3 outputs jointly identified --What was missing? ICRISATThere is a lot going on but it is not necessarily clear on paper --Ecosystem Services and Resilience --Impacts on ecosystems services (land use change) -how to improve irrigation but reduce these impacts? --Overall ESS values/ benefits should be greater than the costs --How to turn problems into opportunities, e.g. making use of salt. Potential new ecosystem service, in salt resistant tree species for the rehabilitation of environment and acting as cash crops --Interlinkage between irrigated and rainfed landscapes. Whatever interventions that are done in irrigated landscapes are either beneficial or detrimental --Within the group, some centers consider ESS more strongly than others. If those that do not have this well integrated were to improve this, it would help the coherence of the program and the would clarify the impact pathway --How to strategically link with current initiatives e.g. ongoing project on supply of water to cities from upper Tana River basin. The partners involved would like to provide data to some of the tools, we could incorporate into capacity building --We are mainstreaming ESS but we also need to position this with stakeholders that are interested and improve on our impact pathways --ESS research goes beyond biophysical assessments. Going beyond that (social, institutions…) needs to be looked at together with partners.Some of the general issues that arose from the discussions include:• There is a need to develop a global impact pathway beyond the regional and SRP-related pathways. Overall, the Impact Pathways process needs review -it would have been useful for WLE partners to have received guidelines on how to develop these. WLE should also consider setting program level impact pathway(s) so that activities can then nest within these.• There was interest to set up a community of practice, particularly on modelling, building upon the previous CPWF group. Other possible COPs include on business modelling, etc.• There is a need to improve access to information on what activities are going on as it is difficult for individual researchers to grasp what is happening in different activities. Is there a better way to report and plan across centers?• How is WLE going to interact and collaborate with other CRPs? This is particularly important in terms of avoiding 'stakeholder fatigue'. An example was given of the Ganges Delta, in which the CGIAR has set up an advisory committee under the Agricultural Research center that covers all 6 CRPs operational in the region.• How will WLE work with FAO? Currently FAO is working with RRR, Ecosystem Services and on the Agricultural Water program with IWMI. FAO has access to the high level government officials; WLE could tap into their convening power Day 2Jeremy Bird, Director General, IWMI, provided an update from the strategic management perspective, highlighting that the Steering Committee of WLE is taking an active role in the program and will be briefed on this meeting next week. He shared the positive news that funding issue that has constrained the program since 2012 is now resolved and additional funds have been officially confirmed to be allocated to WLE to cover the shortfall.There will be a review of WLE commissioned by the Independent Evaluation Arrangement (IEA) in 2015 and the proposal preparation for Phase II is also imminent; for both of these, we need to be ready to show outcomes and impact. It is important that we build on existing work, e.g. CPWF, and at the same time we do also need to set ourselves on the right track to something new and be aware that getting away from 'business as usual' takes time.Andrew Noble made a presentation on the progress toward developing the WLE Focal Region programs which is a key new element within WLE and represents an opportunity to really show the WLE paradigm shift in action. The focal regions will focus on influencing large scale investments as well as identifying key ecosystems services to maintain.The 'storyline' coming out of this meeting will comprise a development challenge and research questions for each region. Beginning with these basic questions, these programs for each region will be developed over the coming months. A process for commissioning research will then follow. A key element within this process will be including gender and ESS as genuine integrated components.Each focal region made a presentation on progress that has been made by teams so far in defining the development challenge, and there followed a productive day of discussions to refine the challenges for the above regions, with smaller groups also formed to consider how to potential priority areas for the Andes/Central America, Tigris/Euphrates and Central Asia.Here the focus is on investment with possible research areas including: Volta / Niger presentation (Pay Drecshel/ Fabrice DeClerck)The 'storyline' of this region is to 'better managing demands in the south' by managing demands and co-directing and designing interventions. Key elements include:! Connectedness between migration trajectory, including gender aspects, e.g. women becoming primary stakeholders in the north ! WLE brings the capacity to look at large scales and larger temporal scale and it can bring people together in a neutral space ! Capitalize on strengths of the many centers in this region. This is not currently done through other means. ! First focus countries will be Ghana, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria ! Target groups will be donors and decision makers Next steps -the draft will go back to design group, then review by stakeholders and key donorsStoryline -improving access to quality and productivity of land and water resources and reducing environmental risks. A follow up development challenge note on the Ganges produced based on these discussions is available here.Storyline -can the resilience of the Indus basin irrigation system be assured for years to come? There followed a recommendation that the storyline needs adjusting to better reflect research questions and go beyond irrigation systems Marcela Quintero summarized potential priority areas for Latin America / Andes, noting that this region has strong examples of the Benefit Sharing Mechanisms that could be adapted and applied to other regions. The Nile Basin countries presentation was given by Simon Langan, outlining key development challenges identified. Richard Soppe summarized priority challenges for Central Asia and Tigris/Euphrates.Given the lengthy discussions on focal region priority setting and additional time set aside for Project leaders of individual activities to discuss alignment with SRP Leaders, a brief summary only was given on Communications. It was highlighted that CG Space now has around 300 journals/ reports from WLE, including 77 journal articles from 2012. A request was made for output and outcome stories.A brief explanation was provided on the planning and reporting process, with a reminder given to the group that Annual reports are due at the end of January.The fundraising group, consisting of representatives from seven Centers which had been meeting in parallel sessions, re-joined the main meeting. Mireille Perrin presented their key outcomes. These included --Setting up an informal community of practice --A framework for collective fundraising --Identification of joint fundraising opportunities --Identification of communications and marketing requirements Annex 1: Agenda ","tokenCount":"2274"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"0a9cf238c8d1b8b21d346a480a5df2e5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://dataverse.harvard.edu/api/access/datafile/:persistentId/?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/TZKTCK/KADSAF","id":"2016022223"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2611143f-443c-4069-b1b5-c59c4075baa9","pagecount":"2","content":"We will focus only on the original research locations, with the intention to conduct a thorough baseline survey of the next phase locations at some point in the near future (2019-2020?).• Location -Want to do all 4 Woredas, because they are quite different, but we think (hope) that all data could still be pooled for analysis. Woreda would be a source of variation, in terms of outcomes, climate, infrastructure, language, and actual technologies implemented.• Engagement with Africa Rising.• Engaged households in kebeles where AR did have a presence • Non-engaged households in kebeles where AR did have a presence • Non-engaged households in kebeles where AR did not have a presenceWe decided to focus only on engaged AR households. It is better to focus on the question of the 'adoption gradient' and effects on SI more completely, and not to spread our efforts also trying to evaluate scaling/dissemination or program impact against counter-factual.However, we will include some brief questions on dissemination in the Rhomis questionnaire, which will help target follow up study on dissemination. And we will interview ~70 households who were also interviewed with the Impact Lite tool in 2013 in the hope of finding some project impact or interesting panel survey findings.• Number of promoted technologies engaged farmers have taken up. This can range from 0 to 8 or 9; with many households having taken up 3 to 5.• Kindu and Peter are assembling a list of all engaged household (~2000 in total), per kebele, and the number of technologies they have purportedly taken up.The key next step is getting the list of technologies adopted by households is, before the sample frame calculations can be performed. The list should also include an indication of the duration of time the technologies have been used, and a rough classification of farm types (poor/medium/wealthy)? --Or did I make that bit up Nils ?Repeat the same sampling strategy in each Woreda. Growing season begins in early June. This survey must be completed by end of May.","tokenCount":"334"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/7074326449.json b/data/part_1/7074326449.json
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6d7af9cb441413264f293f9f69a82317","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/923249ca-a1b9-478f-ba19-8219e1fc3f0e/retrieve","id":"-1949179122"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"54ec0947-4c6b-4f67-b697-931317795d25","pagecount":"2","content":"To complement the various interventions predicted in the project, seven innovation platforms (IP's) were established in the districts of Magude in the province of Maputo; Manhiça in the province of Massingir; and Guija, Chókwe, Mabalane, Mapai and Chicualacuala districts in the province of Gaza. The aim of these platforms is to improve the performance of the red meat value chain through greater participation of small producers. They also take into consideration gender aspects and factors surrounding climate change.An innovation platform is a forum that brings together key players in a value chain, such as breeders, cattle traders, butchers, local governments, community leadership and input providers, among others. Based on their mutual interests, they define roles and institutional commitments clearly. Problems, opportunities and solutions to address efficiency of livestock production and marketing are identified on the innovation platforms and then implemented.The Massingir innovation platform was established in July 2016 and has 30 members (21 men and 9 women).The main problems identified on the Massingir IP include: The Massingir IP involved the government before executing identified solutions. The implementation of decisions and solutions was, therefore, supported by the district government. Direct involvement of the government in sensitizing value chain actors on application of animal health regulations created a favorable environment for commercialization of livestock.Value chain actors were encouraged to change their ways of thinking and working. As a result, the cattle sales by farmers at trade fairs increased. In addition, breeders have started to gradually adopt improved livestock production technologies and the quality of animals produced is improving.Coordinator, PROSUL project s.dube@cgiar.org Iddo Dror, Program leader, Impact at Scale i.dror@cgiar.org Here are some of the changes brought about by this process.a. The fees charged for transit licenses were standardized. b. Weighing of marketed cattle is mandatory. c. The sale of cattle and issuing of transit licenses are made only at the fair. d. Prices for the sale of livestock are adjusted regularly according to the market price. e. The use of funds from fees charged at the fair is authorized by IP members.The project has been hailed for bringing about significant changes in the lives of the local population. Many breeders are now benefitting from reasonable prices at the trade fair. Innovation platforms have also created a basis for project sustainability, given the involvement of key actors. Having as partners the District Services for Economic Activities and the District Services for Planning and Infrastructure guarantees continued support to communities to access improved technologies, capacity building for infrastructure management and a sense of project ownership.• Innovation platforms are very important in solving problems affecting livestock production and marketing in the district. • The local government has substantial influence on implementation of development policies in the district and it is vital to involve them. • The success level in implementing decisions made during the innovation platform meetings depends to a large extent on the direct involvement of government officials.Thanks to the collaboration of the District Government, in 2018 almost 74% of the cattle that left the district passed through the trade fair.-Samuel Chissico, President of the trade fair management committee.Photo credit: ILRI","tokenCount":"517"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fdf5c13e8bbe64c468feabb091500232","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/2c91f021-6a9c-45b4-99b3-3af4a93e286c/retrieve","id":"2111256903"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6fed85e9-3b05-4e63-87c4-9985497a299a","pagecount":"21","content":"In the highlands of Ethiopia, community grazing land management can contribute to sustainable use of grazing lands and alleviation of feed shortage problems.In the project of the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock (Livestock CRP) Environment Flagship), International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI's) work focuses on community-based natural resource management particularly on communal grassland management. In one of the study areas, Menz, characterisation was done on 11 communal grasslands to know the general gaps of knowledge around planned grazing, access, and other management strategies in communal grasslands and where this can further determine opportunities for restoration/planned grazing to support livelihoods and incomes in the area.The communal grasslands have many important uses (e.g. grazing, stone extraction and water sources) but they face challenges such as lack of rest, lack of certification of ownership for some grasslands, expansion of cultivation at the expense of communal grasslands, and lack of use and management plans.Though the resources were accessed by all members of the community (men, women and youth), we found there was no established governance/management body and rules/law at almost all communal grasslands assessed. There are few traditional associations that have tried to manage the communal grasslands, for example to protect them from not privatization and cultivation of communal grasslands.Both crop and livestock are strategy for livelihood of the community around all communal grasslands, but there are communities around some communal grasslands that prioritize livestock first as their main livelihood strategy. This was in areas where people perceived livestock as more important, especially sheep that are used as 'cash' because they can be sold to meet urgent monetary needs. Around some communal grasslands, the youth who have no private land can use breed sheep as their main livelihood strategy. Though these all use communal grasslands, there is no management or use plan which may hinder their improvement.Though these grasslands are important resources for farmers livelihoods, they face challenges related to their improvement/management and governance, which provides opportunities for their better and sustainable utilization.Tables Table 1: Communal grassland units sampled in Menz The grasslands of Ethiopia, which are mostly found in Afro-monotone and Afro-alpine grasslands regions cover about 490,000 km 2 of the country (Mengistu and Mengistu 2015). Communal grassland is one of the different types grasslands that serve as livestock grazing areas in the highlands of Ethiopia (Zewdu 2005;Haileselassie et al. 2012) and it is integral to the maintenance of the environment. But these resources are one of the most threatened ecosystems, due to heavy grazing, competition, conversion of land to other land uses, such as cropland and tree plantations, and lack of responsibilities for improvement of communal grasslands by the community (Yadessa 2015).In the mixed crop-livestock production system, farmers practicing both livestock production and crop cultivation in the highlands of Ethiopia where this both production system predominates, need efficient utilization of grasslands is critical. Understanding how existing communal grassland can be managed and governed with evolving opportunities in land management is therefore important. Research shows that the communal grasslands contribute important livestock feed resources in highlands of Ethiopia (Haileselassie et al. 2012). Issues in communal grasslands are loosely associated with feed quality, temporal and spatial dynamics and most often do not recognize livestock as system elements but rather convert the land to other uses (Mekoya et al. 2009). In the presence of communal action, institutional and organizational development is more likely to have a positive impact on communal resources. However, devolving rights to local communities to manage resources, establish use rules and regulations and enforce the rules is a necessary condition for successful community resource management in these grasslands. This study aimed to characterize the communal grasslands resources management/governance, importance, and access across grasslands in Menz, Ethiopia.The study was conducted in North Shewa Zone of Menz area of Amhara region. The area is in the Central Highlands (1,669-3,563 metres above sea level) where agriculture is characterized mainly by mixed crop-livestock production systems (Gebre 2009). The mean temperature ranges from 6.7-17°C and mean annual rainfall is 896mm. In the higher altitude zones, despite enduring efforts, intensive crop production is constrained by frost, poor soil fertility and unreliable rainfall (Gebre 2009). This, in fact, has shaped the degree of dependency on livestock and crop enterprises.In the study area, farmers are limited to barley production and sheep farming. Sheep is the major component of livestock herd composition in the Menz Gera and Menz Mama regions. The research unit was 'communal grassland' 1 and users. 2 There were 11 communal grasslands selected namely, communal grassland in 07 kebele (CG-07), communal grassland in 021 kebele (CG-021), communal grassland in 021 kebele village Gerar Gebriel (CG-021g), communal grassland in 08k kebele (CG-08k), communal grassland in 08g kebele (CG-08g), communal grassland in 05 kebele (CG-05), communal grassland in 016 kebele (CG-016), communal grassland in 02 kebele (CG-02), communal grassland in 011w kebele (CG-011w),Communal grassland in 011t kebele (CG-011t) and communal grassland in 04 kebele (CG-04) (see Table 1). Data was collected through Focus group discussion, key informant interview and observation around each communal grassland. The resources in the communal grassland are herbaceous and woody species, stone, dung and spices plants. The grassland is grazed by all livestock species (cattle, sheep, goat and equines) throughout the year without any rest, but the intensity of grazing differs throughout the year. The communal grassland was used for 12 months, but frequency of grazing was from June to October. This is because of during rainy season the productivity of communal grassland increases, and other land uses, like crop and private grazing land are prevented from interfering with livestock-related uses in the grasslands. Around all communal grasslands the important livestock and crop production as livelihood strategies was assessed. But the number of respondents ranking the livelihood strategy of crop and livestock varied across the communal grasslands (Table 2). Livestock species found around communal grassland were cattle, sheep, goats and equines. Except in one communal grassland, sheep was the dominant livestock species in terms of number around the most communal grasslands. About eight focus group respondents ranked sheep first in terms of importance among livestock species, whereas three focus group respondents ranked cattle first in terms of importance among livestock species. This is because of sheep can be used for immediate income when there are unseen problems through selling, they consume less feed, are reared in smaller spaces and have rapid reproduction, whereas cattle can be used for ploughing, threshing, to produce milk and meat, and to produce dung for fuel and compost for fertilizers. There was credit access for the community across the communal grasslands, but not specifically for communal grassland improvement. The community used the credit services for inputs, like fertilizer and seed, and for buying livestock such as cows, sheep and poultry. These livestock are grazed in the communal grasslands. There were almost no extension services particularly for communal grassland improvement, but in one communal grassland there was specific extension services such as advice to not graze the communal grassland at all times. This advice was given through the agriculture office during their general meetings with livestock keepers. The estimated communal grassland ranges from 2-200 ha, and households that use them are between 15 and 800 (see Table 3). The numbers of users of the grassland has increased over time in tandem with the increasing number of users. The communal grassland contributes to feed sources on average around 13% (ranges 10-20%) (see Table 4). About 40% of feed resources is from crop residues whereas hay and private grazing contribute about 38%. This may indicate that the communal grazing land is decreasing in terms of productivity or/and size. Access, uses and users responsibilities in communal grasslandsMost of communal grassland was used for grazing, stone extraction, collection of dung and, in few communal grasslands, wood collection for fuel, water sources, spices plants. The communal grassland also provides important local livelihood resources such as stones for house construction and clay soil for making pottery. A few communal grasslands, had salt licks and were sources of grasses for thatching and making household equipment. All community members including women and youth used these resources. In areas where the communal grasslands were large and used by people in many villages, their resources were shared with neighbours who were not members of the community. But where the area of communal grassland was small and used by a single village, there was no sharing of grazing resources with neighbours outside the immediate village community. In one communal grassland that was assessed, there was sharing of fuel wood, stone extraction and clay soil with neighbouring communities.Most of the communities who used their respective communal grassland have no responsibility apart from using it for grazing and collection of dung for fuel and selling it to the market. All interested members of the community can collect and sell the dung. Quarrying of stones and collection of dung were done by individuals at the household level.Where available, clay soil was used for making pottery for sale by women. There were no difference on the usage and access of communal grassland resources among the user groups and there were no special benefits for women and youth in using most communal grasslands resources. Also there was no difference in terms of gender and age in participation in the management of communal grasslands, where it existed.However, in some communal grasslands, some land was given to youth for cultivation of crops, and some youth who had no land at all were using the communal grasslands for livestock breeding and fattening. Areas in communal grassland that have minerals/stones were given to youth who benefited from them. In some communal grasslands, especially the small ones, the users have the responsibility of protecting them from outsiders especially to make sure outsiders do not graze their animals on them when the pasture is in good conditions. The situation was, however, different during dry seasons when access was not restricted. Most of the time, when the land was covered by crops and the private grazing land was protected from livestock interference, the livestock keepers used their respective communal grasslands to support their livestock. In few communal grasslands, the users are responsible for protecting the areas by ensuring trees are not planted, preventing privatization, expansion of cultivation and settlement. In other cases, users prevent outsiders soil and stone harvesting in communal grasslands. One woreda expert said that 'near one communal grassland, there was a communal grassland developed for watershed. In this watershed, trees like eucalyptus were planted that through time suppress the herbaceous vegetation.' Such a case, however, calls into question how the feed base is considered when planting browses trees as a way of improving communal grasslands. The average distance from communal grasslands to the users' villages ranged from five minutes to 45 minutes on foot in nearly all the communal grasslands that were assessed. Institution/organization responsible for communal grassland managementAccording to respondents, there was no established management/governance body that was responsible for managing access and uses of the communal grassland resources that were assessed. No one gave or refuse permission to use the communal grassland by users.In one communal grassland, there was an established management of communal grassland through a traditional association known as 'edir' at the village level. Though this established body helped members in different social events (e.g. death and weddings) the community also used the edir for communal grassland management. The community selected two persons from the members of the edir who were charged with protecting the communal grassland from destruction and privatization. The two people have priority in representing the community in managing the communal grassland though this responsibility is shared by all users and most of the decisions on communal grassland are made through users groups. This communal grassland management was not formally established at woreda but known by users group within 'edir' and the respondents indicated that the framework of rules registered at kebele level was done through the edir . There was penalty when somebody attempted privatize the communal grassland. The violators were first refereed to the edir and if the problem was not solved then they were referred to the kebele administration. The penalty at the edir level can be providing some food and drink for the community, but in severe cases, the violator may be banned from using the communal grassland resources.In all the assessed communal grasslands, there was no controlling individual or entity and permission to use and access of all resources among users, was by mutual agreement that involved all users, such as when government needed land for other uses (e.g. giving land to the youth).There was no management planning for communal grassland resources to ensure sustainable use of the resources in all areas, but there were efforts to improve the communal grasslands through tree planting and starting watershed management programs. Especially in Menz Mama woreda, where one communal grassland was assessed, most of the communal grasslands were under watershed management programs and their users had planted trees. In Menz Mama, the community had a certificate of ownership for the communal grassland that given by the woreda administration. However, in Menz Gera, 90% of the communal grasslands assessed had no certificate for communal grasslands.In one communal grassland in Menz Gera Woreda, the community had a certificate from the kebele administration with names of two representatives of 42 users of the grazing land. But in case somebody married among the users, they retained the right to use this communal grassland. The process of getting a certificate was through discussions among the users followed by discussions with kebele administration. The respondents indicated that once the community received a certificate, users gained a sense of ownership and could start improvement programs for the grasslands because they gained confidence that the land would not be put to other uses (e.g. crop cultivation).Most of the communal grasslands were owned commonly within the user groups at the village level, but the security was poor because of they have no certificate to show the ownership that the kebele leader claimed they had.All the respondents indicated that the communal grassland can be improved if the government gives support by introducing improved management, controlling unwanted weed plants, creating proper use plans and management plan. So far, no interventions have been done to improve the productivity and quality of the pasture in the assessed communal grasslands.Rules/by-laws for communal grassland managementThe respondents stated that there was no rules/law established to enforce the management of communal grassland among users. There was only mutual understanding among users that the communal grassland be kept safe and not convert to cultivated land for private ownership, but government can use it for any purpose, including giving part of the land to youth for cultivation of crops as employment creation. Anyone among the user groups can graze their animals in the grassland at any time and no payment is made to use all of its resources. The users are not allowed to cultivate the communal grassland and violators are referred to the kebele land administration and are ordered to leave any cultivated land. The communal grasslands where violations were common lacked any rules to guide the use of the communal grasslands at the users' level.The communal grassland ownership can be village(s) based among users' group, but most of them have no certificate of ownership of the communal grasslands. In such situation's users have not started the process of getting a certificate because of the many steps and many people involved in the process of acquiring a certificate. In all assessed community grasslands, there was no conflict between community members on access and use among users of the grassland resources.In all the communal grassland assessed, the area was predefined, but the size of most communal grasslands has decreased over time due to land pressure and the youth being some of the land for cultivation and tree planting. In very few cases has the size of grasslands remained the same over the last 10 years. The respondents indicated that the vegetation regeneration ability, availability and quality on communal grassland has decreased significantly in the last 10 years. This is because of an increase in the livestock population, overgrazing, lack of monitoring and proper management and improvement of the grassland, and stone excavation. Due to these, the respondents said the communal grasslands were of poor quality. The condition of erosion was placed at moderate, but they said there was high biophysical degradation.The respondents indicated that the livestock productivity, such as milk yield had decreased, but the condition of livestock, especially for sheep had improved because of improved livestock management practices, such as fattening practices. Generally, the livestock population has increased in the area, with sheep numbers rising the most around all communal grasslands. The respondents indicated that around all communal grasslands, the current livestock number was not balanced with the available communal grassland for grazing throughout the year. This could indicate that the proper management is needed for the sustainable management of these resources.The challenges vary across the grasslands. The most cited challenges of communal grasslands were high degradation of grazing land, no rest of grassland, lack of rapid-regeneration vegetation, lack of full ownership, no rules/laws, lack of water around grazing land, reduction in grassland size, less fertility because of degradation, lack of use plan, lack of management plan, Illegal use of the resources, crop production expansion at expense of grasslands, planting trees on communal grassland and poor land security. In all the grasslands assessed; respondents did not propose solutions for these problems.For many years, communal grassland have been one of the most important feed sources for livestock in Ethiopia but they now faces many challenges that have resulted in their degradation. The communal grasslands resources in Menz are herbaceous and woody species, stone, dung, and spices plants. These grasslands are grazed throughout the year by all livestock species without rest. The livelihood strategy around all communal grasslands is both livestock and crop, but their priority differs across communal grasslands. Sheep is the most prioritized livestock species by livestock keepers in the communal grasslands, because sheep can be easily sold to meet for immediate needs because they provide 'cash in the pocket' and have fast reproduction.Most of the resources of communal grasslands are accessed by all members (men, women and youth) of the community who can use it. The users of the communal grassland have no responsibility beyond using it. In some cases attempts have been made to protect the communal grasslands from privatization and exploitation by outsiders.Through the agreement of the users, some part of the communal grasslands have been set aside for cultivation by the youth to provide employment.Around the assessed communal grasslands, there is good market access at woreda-level but it is limited at the kebele level. The market status for livestock and livestock products around the communal grasslands assessed can classified as moderate. This is fluctuating demand for these products in the market. There is no disease related to use of the communal grasslands and no area of communal grasslands is avoided for grazing due to diseases.Important grasses in these grasslands include Andropogon dactylon, and harmful plants there include 'Gudigni' and 'setlib'. There is no established management/governance body that is responsible for managing access and use of most communal grasslands and their resources. But there are few traditional associations, such as edir that are attempting to fill this grasslands management gap., Certification of ownership does not exist in most of the assessed communal grasslands.There are no rules/laws established to enforce the management of communal grassland among users. There is only mutual understanding among users that the communal grassland should not be cultivated or privately owned. The respondents also indicted the biophysical vegetation has decreased over last 10 years in most of the communal grasslands. Though milk production has decreased over the past years, fattening of livestock, especially sheep has seen improvement due to adoption of improved practices such as fattening and better feeding in many communal grasslands.Challenges of communal grasslands include lack of rest for the pasture, lack of governance rules among users, absence of use and management plans, and expansion of crop cultivation in these areas. These finding show the need to improve the management/governance of these important communal resources with available opportunities through engagement and participation of the community and stakeholders.","tokenCount":"3374"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"10b95e4a62c83b8149efd9fff9e48ce0","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/579b0e94-062f-4baa-aa91-2b6fcd406949/retrieve","id":"-1584663357"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f9cf847f-1919-4e64-8d1b-0ca97b035848","pagecount":"1","content":"1. Introduction 4. FindingsThe initial scaling years of Africa RISING faced critical constraints in seed supply. As a result, the project resorted to supplying the initial seeds and encouraged local seed production. The locally produced seed is then shared among other farmers in the area. This created direct and spill over beneficiaries.Assess how Africa RISINING promoted crop and forage innovations diffused through farmer to farmer exchange approach.1 Gebreyes, M., 3 Assefa, H., 1 Mekonnen, K., 2 Kemal, S., 2 Bishaw, Z., 2 Aynewa, Y., 1 Alene, T., 1 Dubale, W. and 1 Seifu, H.The study was conducted in Africa RISING operational areas, namely North Shewa (Amhara), Bale (Oromia) and Hadiya (SNNP). Data was collected using personal and institutional surveys. Data was collected from direct and spillover farmers. Spillover beneficiaries were identified using snowball sampling method. A total of 351 personal and 13 institutional interviews were conducted.3. Methods/ approaches• Seed exchange among farmers happened mostly at a level of 1 st generation. Afterwards, the seeds either lose their vigor or are considered too local. We acknowledge the financial support from USAID in Washington to Africa RISING project, and funders for Mixed Farming Systems Initiative (SI-MFS). We also thank all partners who assisted the field study.","tokenCount":"204"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fd0d4b46bfbb9a8be1f90149581a9103","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H042800.pdf","id":"1612293506"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"76bed6c3-7c8e-481e-9f4c-ccbcdee35c62","pagecount":"11","content":"This is the third volume of the proceedings of the national conference on 'Water for Food and Environment', which was held from June 9 -11, 2009 at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall (BMICH). The volumes 1 and 2 have been produced as separate documents of this report series. In response to a call for abstracts, 81 abstracts were received from government institutes dealing with water resources and agriculture development, Universities, other freelance researchers and researchers from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI). Forty seven of the eighty-one abstracts that wereIn the past couple of years the sharp increase in food prices worldwide has raised serious concerns about food security, especially in developing countries. To effectively address these concerns a holistic approach is required that encompasses improved agricultural water productivity, adaptation to climate change, targeted and appropriate institutional and financial measures, and a consideration of environmental issues. The main purpose of the conference is to share experiences in these areas and to find opportunities to improve farmers' incomes and food production, and to promote environmentally sustainable practices in Sri Lanka in the face of growing water scarcity and the challenges of climate change. The conference brought together researchers, policymakers and practitioners to address these key issues.The conference had several inter-linked objectives, which were to:• provide a level platform for participants to share experiences and lessons learned;• develop practical approaches for sustainable development;• promote partnerships among disciplines and organizations on land and water management for food security; and• identify future directions on key issues such as water scarcity, food security and climate change in Sri Lanka.The conference was structured so as to focus on three main themes for presentations and discussions.The role of irrigation in the progress towards food and environmental security in Sri Lanka cannot be overemphasized. The following sub-themes were focused on, at the conference under this main theme: The sub-themes that were discussed under this theme were: Ten papers on the different aspects of policy adaptation and institutional mechanisms for water resources and agriculture system management were presented at the conference. This introductory paper includes a synthesis of the key issues highlighted in the 10 papers that were presented at the conference (one of the 10 papers is written in Sinhala -the local language).The following main areas have been highlighted in these papers:• Policy issues on water resources management• Participatory irrigation management, capacity building of farmer organizations and also irrigation infrastructure systems managed by public institutions• Groundwater use in conjunction of irrigation water• Economic valuation of irrigation water• Spatial variation of water supply and demand in Sri Lanka and also the need for national level water resources assessment/audit in the country.The issues surrounding the adoption of policies on water resources development and management were discussed by Nanayakkara in the paper he presented at the conference titled 'Sri Lanka's Water Policy: Themes and Issues'. Other papers that were presented at the conference also discussed certain policy-related issues such as policies relating to participatory irrigation management, groundwater development, economic values of water and also water resources assessment/audit etc. Nanayakkara's paper exclusively focused on the water resources policy of the country and included his opinions and views on the issue. The author argues that in the case of water, the question of 'ownership' is not as important as determining and regulating its use, given that user rights of this common property resource is always in a state of flux. According to Nanayakkara, abstraction of bulk water from its natural state in a regulated manner that is left to the will of individuals and agencies, virtually results in the creation of a 'free for all' situation. Commenting on the existing institutional mechanisms of water resources management, he points out that the domain of water is characterized by over 50 legislative enactments and a plethora of agencies numbering over 40, but lacks a single neutral agency to determine the appropriate balance between the demands for off stream consumption and the volume of water flows needed by the river system. Water rights are linked to land ownership and, as such, in Sri Lanka, a landowner is regarded as owning the water underneath his land and has the right to pump all the water from the common aquifer, lowering the water table. Furthermore, he may use or abuse all the rain which falls on his land. In Sri Lanka, all the streams that flow across a private land fall within the public domain.The lack of a clear policy on water allocation is another issue raised by Nanayakkara. He says that there is no proper bulk allocation system. Some large consumptive users allocate water to themselves. The agency that operates the water abstraction structures also controls the water allocation. The most serious deficiency observed in water allocation has been the tendency by large water users to allocate water to themselves regardless of the needs of others.He refers to the proposal made by the water resources secretariat once established under an ADB funded project, and points out that the challenge for the national water resources authority proposed under the ADB project is to establish a set of allocation principles that are rational and that can accommodate long-term demands. The share of water used by the urban population in Sri Lanka is projected to increase to 45 % by 2015 and 65 % by 2030. Such expanding water requirements in the growing urban populations will aggravate the institutional conflicts in re-allocation of water that were previously devoted to agricultural use, particularly in the dry zone. According to Nanayakkara, the absence of any principles for sharing water between the upper and lower riparian as well as between drinking and irrigation purposes has hindered the developmental planning efforts of both the Irrigation Department and the National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWSDB).Policies on groundwater use are another area on which Nanayakkara expressed his views. A water policy should address both surface water and groundwater resources. Currently, a doctrine of territorial sovereignty is applied in groundwater extraction, which means that 'what is beneath our feet is ours to use'. Groundwater use is rapidly increasing, intensifying smallholder cultivation and improving the standards of living of poor farmers in the dry zone. Nanayakkara mentions that a survey conducted by IWMI revealed that \"…in Sri Lanka, some aquifers are already being pumped dry by the end of the dry season, and some communities have been left without drinking water. The implications of streamaquifer connectivity and the need for a conjunctive management approach are the most underappreciated issues in Sri Lanka. A management policy should stipulate that groundwater should not be regarded as a resource separate from surface water. The policy should recognize that both surface and groundwater are hydrologically connected and are complementary components of a larger single system.\"In his final analyses of the paper, Nanayakkara suggests that there is a need for an institutional arrangement at the national level, such as a proposed National Water Resources Authority (NWRA), capable of defining the overall directions when devising water policies, and adjudicating disputes. He points out that water resources planning and management frequently fails to consider the river basin as the natural unit for hydrologic management, resulting in the inefficient use of water and inadequate concern for stream and ecosystem values. Therefore, it is imperative to recognize the environment as a legitimate user of water.Jinapala et al., in their paper on '…Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM) in Sri Lanka' argue that institutions/policymakers need to lend careful attention to enhancing the effectiveness of institutional mechanisms used for participatory irrigation management in the country. The major conclusion in their paper is that, despite its partial failure to achieve some of the main goals, participatory management has clear benefits and should be continued and supported. The study team suggests that the government should have an effective way of keeping track of the progress of Farmer Organizations (FOs), Joint Management Committees (JMCs) and the turnover of irrigation management that they generate.Jinapala et al. summarized/synthesized the results of a national level study on the 'Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM)' approach in the country. The analyses of their paper represent the current situation of PIM and its relevance and impact as an institutional mechanism in managing irrigation systems.This paper aims to review participatory irrigation management (PIM) approaches adopted in medium and major irrigation systems in Sri Lanka with a view to identifying past and present trends and future directions of such management. The authors point out that the need for pursuing irrigation development and management has become more important in the country in the face of rapid population growth and increasing food prices in the world market. In this context, managing irrigation schemes for productivity improvement is becoming increasingly important.The results of the study indicate that farmer involvement is much more relevant and essential in irrigation schemes where water is a scarce resource. A participatory management policy has clearly succeeded in getting farmers much more involved in system management than they were in the past, except in the case of some of the MANIS ( Medium Irrigation Systems Managed by the Irrigation Department ) systems that were studied, which had been somewhat neglected by the irrigation agencies. Improving the turnover of irrigation management (operation and maintenance or O&M) below the distrbutory canal was one of the main objectives of the PIM policies in the country. However, turnover has not progressed as expected for two major reasons:• On the one hand, the agreements reached in all programs are fewer than the expected number. Only the Integrated Management of Agricultural System INMAS program has progressed in achieving some form of turnover, although the Sri Lanka Mahaweli Authority MASLprogram is now seriously trying to improve turnover. There has been very little progress in the MANIS schemes, although the National Irrigation Rehabilitation Project (NIRP) mandated improved turnover in its post rehabilitation phase.• On the other hand, full turnover has not occurred in any of the three systems and progress has stopped at a joint management stage. In particular, both agencies and farmers are reluctant to bear the full responsibilities for maintenance turned over to the FOs. Payments continue to be made by agencies for operation and maintenance (O&M) activities to FOs that have taken over responsibilities, either informally or formally.The major conclusion of the study is that, despite its partial failure to achieve some of the main goals, participatory management has clear benefits and should be continued and supported. The study team suggested that the government should have an effective way of keeping track of the progress of FOs, Joint Management Committees (JMCs) and the turnover for irrigation management that they can generate.Badra Kamaladasa, in her paper on' Interventions Necessary in Capacity Building in Existing Water Organizations to Improve Productivity and Access to Water', points out that institutions need to play a critical role in managing water in the irrigation systems of the country in order to enhance the productive capacities of these systems. She highlights the role of individual and institutional capacities in determining the quality of water management and service delivery. The paper emphasizes the need for addressing poor capacities by devising more project proposals to effectively meet today's water sector challenges. She makes the point that good sector performance is also the responsibility of civil society and can be promoted in terms of individuals' water use practices, and that capacity can be increased by improving the public's awareness on water conservation and use. This would entail not only awareness in the personal use of water but public participation in decision-making processes for the management of water as a resource. Finally she observes that this process highlights the importance of having policy and institutional frameworks that enable public participation in decision-making.The paper of S. Thiruchelvam (Enhancement of Capacity of Farmer Organizations for Sustainable Irrigation Systems in Anuradhapura and Kurunegala Districts) focuses on the same aspects as mentioned above, and highlights the need for enhancing the capacity of farmer organizations (FOs) in order to ensure sustainable irrigations systems. He has studied irrigation schemes in the Anuradhapura and Kurunegala districts to provide evidences for his arguments in the paper. A stratified random sample of 48 FOs selected from major, medium and minor irrigation systems in the Anuradhapura and Kurunegala districts were studied during 2008.The author argues that over the past decades public investment in major, medium and minor irrigation systems has not yielded the expected results. The solution to the growing water crisis lies in the institutional changes of social systems established to manage the demand for water. Poor participation of farmers in FO activities is common and the paper reports that about 38 % of farmers participate in FO activities in both districts. The most common causes for such low participation were the lack of accountability and transparency of the FOs functions.The author recommends that FOs need a lot of capacity-building on technical and institutional aspects to sustain irrigation systems. There is a need to establish strong linkages between the FOs and the Irrigation Department for successful irrigation management.Thiruchelvam highlights in his paper, one problem common to all the irrigation rehabilitation projects of Sri Lanka. Irrigation development funds were initially used to provide physical structures to the irrigation systems, but little attention was extended to the efficiency of the investments in economic terms. As a result, the return of investments in this sector has fallen below expectations. Very few attempts have been made to develop the management capacities of FO leaders, their members, and village extension workers. Community organizations and facilitation skills are not part of staff training programs. Most of the services and resources were usurped by the elite of the rural communities, while the poor and women were left out or received little benefit.Another area contributing to the poor irrigation management capacity of FOs is the lack of clear understanding of the Agrarian Development Act of 2000 and the registration process. There is, therefore, an urgent need to give more attention to the formalization of the registration process.Thiruchelvam also found that women's participation in FOs was low in both districts. The presence and behavior of drunken men in the FOs, the lack of benefits attached to FO membership and the overall malfunctioning of the FOs are some of the existing problems in FOs. . Even when women attended FO meetings, their participation was limited to listening only.There was a lack of accountability and transparency of the functions of FOs, which had led to only 34 % and 25 % of the farmers being satisfied with FOs in the Anuradhapura and Kurunegala districts, respectively. There was no real networking of Community Based Organizations (CBOs), which would have helped in sharing and exchanging information and ideas on water management.Although FOs had been established in all irrigation schemes, they are hampered by various problems such as lack of maintenance activities for irrigation facilities, low member participation in FO activities, lack of good leadership and poor communication.The weak status of FOs in minor tanks schemes in both districts was reflected in the inadequacy of infrastructure facilities and extent of undeveloped land for cultivation in both districts. Membership fee and money earned through various contractual activities was low and the accounts of such details were not available in the majority (78 %) of FOs, indicating the lack of accountability and transparency.The analysis shows that small and homogeneous FOs had better methods of conflict resolution in O&M.Comparing the head and tail-enders of the irrigation canals shows a higher degree of disparity in income in the tail end of the irrigation canal. Inequitable distribution of irrigation water was the major cause of the disparity.The difference in water productivity between major and medium irrigation schemes was insignificant but was considerably lower in minor systems.The Irrigation Department (ID) plays a significant role in managing the irrigation infrastructure of medium and major irrigation schemes in the country. Namalee Madawalagama and Badra Kamaladasa describe the degree of importance of the ID's role in irrigation scheme maintenance in their paper on 'Irrigation Infrastructure Management by Public Funds -How it Can be Made Justifiable'. This paper aims to compare the actual annual fund requirements and the available funds to operate and maintain (O&M) an irrigation scheme. The Hurulu Wewa Irrigation Scheme was selected as the study area. The study shows that the labor input from farmers and their families in O&M is enormous, but suggests that this labor input is frequently ignored in the financial analysis due to difficulties in accounting. By comparing actual needs against funds available for repair and improvements to the system, the authors show that due to inadequate funds, general improvements and immediate repairs cannot be attended to when needed. Delays in attending to repairs and improvements eventually lead to a self-sustaining cycle of more damages and an increased demand for funds for maintenance, which undermines the guaranteed life span of the systems. The authors also argue that further contributions from farmers for improvements and repairs cannot be expected as their income is marginal. The study also shows that when compared with government expenditure on O&M activities, the value of production of the scheme is very high. However, inclusion of the fertilizer subsidy amounting to Rs. 122 million (the hidden cost) in the calculations, significantly reduces the value of production in Huruluwewa. The authors thus argue for an increase in the government's input for O&M to reduce the rehabilitation costs and improve system performance. Further justification for this is provided by showing that the contribution to the national economy by an irrigation scheme is much higher than the investment in O&M by the government. They also suggest that this scenario may apply to a large percentage of the paddy production area in the country as 80 % of paddy production occurs under major and medium irrigation schemes.Use of groundwater in conjunction with irrigation water is becoming popular in countries like India. Sivakumar in his paper on 'Policy Alternatives for the Management of Minor and Medium Irrigation Schemes to Develop Groundwater Systems in Restricted Catchments for the Improvement in Food Productivity in the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka' discusses the possibilities existing in the country. Recent studies reveal that in some irrigation systems, less than 50 % of the family income is derived from irrigated agriculture and a greater part of the family income is derived from non-agricultural activities. Furthermore, it was revealed that, 10 acres of irrigated agriculture has to ensure at least 250 person-days of employment to be the major source of income for farmers. In order to overcome this situation, the availability of irrigation water must be increased economically.Probably the most profound challenge facing world agriculture today, and in the foreseeable future, is producing more food with less water. Over 90 % of liquid fresh water that is available at any given moment, lies beneath the land surface. Groundwater, unlike surface water, is available in some quantity in almost every place that man can settle in, and is a more dependable source of water than surface water during periods of drought.Sri Lanka is the world's second highest user in terms of the percentage of the overall population, in utilizing fresh water withdrawals for agriculture. The combination of the surface irrigation water and groundwater is the best alternative for improved water productivity. It was observed that the water table will reduce by 60 % to 70 % in between two consecutive seasons in 95 % of the catchment area under study. This implies that the boundary treatment combined with changing the operational policy of minor and medium irrigation schemes by foregoing a part of the cultivation is an economically feasible policy alternative with certain limitations such as a minimum project life period of 20 years and a maximum borrowing rate of 7.5 %. After completion of the project investment, the average cost of irrigation water will reduce considerably due to lower energy costs and this in turn will increase the extent of cultivation per unit of irrigation water.Minor/medium irrigation schemes conserve surface runoff and convey the most part of it to recharge groundwater and, as such, serve as a recharge shed for the wells situated in the zone of influence. It is an insurance against water scarcity, as the yield increases considerably for every unit of rainfall. The minor/medium irrigation schemes prevent soil erosion and depletion of soil fertility. In the context of impending and looming water deficiency, the construction of minor/medium irrigation schemes will be a dependable infrastructure in the development of water potential in any catchment. Acknowledgement of the remarkable role played by the minor/medium irrigation schemes on replenishment of groundwater and its spread over a large area would be a great asset in planning and execution of settlement and crop production projects.This research leads to the conclusion that a change in the operational policy of minor/ medium irrigation schemes by foregoing one-third of the cultivation under minor/medium irrigation schemes. Retaining one-fourth of the storage of these irrigation schemes at any season will gain an average of 45 % to 65 % of the loss of water table. Construction of new or reconstruction of abundant minor /medium irrigation schemes, reserving 25 % of the storage exclusively for recharging groundwater, and changing the operational policy to retain 25 % of the present storage of existing minor/medium irrigation schemes to recharge groundwater. The sill of the sluice can be raised to store 25 % of the total capacity of the scheme as dead storage, which in turn will reduce considerably the average cost of irrigation water for Other field Crops (OFC) cultivation, given the lower energy costs, and thus increase the extent of cultivation per unit of irrigation water and lead to an overall increase in water productivity.Hence, the authors recommend constructing new irrigation schemes, which can accommodate a dead storage of 25 % of the full capacity. Furthermore, during any reconstruction of existing sluices, the sill has to be raised to retain 25 % as dead storage in the future.The paper by P.Sivarajah and A.N. Ahamad titled 'Economic Valuation of Irrigation Water under a Major Irrigation Scheme (Gal Oya) in Eastern Sri Lanka' deals with the economic valuation of irrigation water. The authors attempt to highlight the value of water used for producing food with irrigation water. The study estimated the value of irrigation water using the principle of 'Marginal Value Product in a Linear Programming Approach' that maximizes net returns for a specific farm plan. The analyses are based on a survey carried out at the Right Bank System in the Gal Oya Irrigation Project using a sample of 30 farmers.The 'Shadow' or 'Dual Price' of water was used to estimate the economic value of irrigation water for paddy and chili cultivation. It was found that the farmer can obtain a maximum profit of Rs. 59,127.88 per season by cultivating paddy and chilies on 2 acres of land. The water constraint had a Shadow/ Dual Price of Rs. 6,159.76, which implies that the farmer can increase his net profits by this amount by using additional acre-feet of irrigation water in his optimal farm plan. This suggests that it is profitable for the farmer in the area to purchase water at a price close to or less than Rs. 6,159.75 per two acre-feet. Water has such a high Shadow/Dual Price because of its limited availability.Upali Amarasinghe of IWMI in his paper titled 'Spatial Variation of Water Supply and Demand in Sri Lanka' analyzes the spatial variation of water supply and demand based on time series socioeconomic data. His analyses at macro-level conditions are useful in generating an understanding of water supply and demand in the country as whole. This paper discusses spatial variation of water supply and the increased demand situation in Sri Lanka in recent years and assesses regional and seasonal water stresses.Amarasinghe shows that renewable fresh-water resources of Sri Lanka vary significantly across river basins and seasons. For example, water availability varies significantly even within some water-rich basins, most significantly in the Mahaweli River. Of the 103 river basins, 12 river basins with 46 % of the geographical area generate 72 % of the total renewable water resource (TRWR) in the country.The TRWR of 75 basins including Mahaweli and Gal Oya has significant seasonal variation where rainfall in the maha season contributes to two-thirds of the runoff. Intra-annual variation in water availability is the major constraint for productive agriculture in these basins. Thus, storing water for irrigation in the yala season (April to September) is essential in many river basins.Water storage is even more important due to inter-annual variation of TRWR. The 75 % probability dependable runoff is only 83 % of the average TRWR. Thus, in the presence of increasing intra-and inter-annual variability of rainfall due to climate change, water storage in these basins becomes very important. In spite of large intra-and inter-annual variation of rainfall, Sri Lanka's storage capacity is very low at present. By 1996, Sri Lanka had developed about 6 bcm of storage capacity. This translates to a per capita storage of only 291 m 3 in 2005. However, this capacity is very low.Water security through higher storage was a crucial base for early economic development in many developed countries. However, many of the potential sites for large surface storage in Sri Lanka are already exploited. Moreover, social and environmental concerns for new large storage structures are also increasing. Thus, increasing natural groundwater recharge by exploiting the resource in the non-rainy seasons, or through artificial groundwater structures in the rainy seasons could increase the storage capacity much more.Most of the water-scarce basins are located in the dry zone. A large part of irrigation withdrawals recharges groundwater. However, in Sri Lanka reuse of this water in terms of groundwater withdrawals is negligible at present. Many river basins are already physically waterscarce, where even irrigation water withdrawals are a significant part of the TRWR. Physical scarcity will exacerbate the situation in many basins if domestic and industrial water withdrawals (10 -15 %) are also taken into account. This situation is very severe in water-scarce basins in the dry zone, and can be further aggravated if estimates of utilizable water resources exclude environmental water needs. The environmental water demand of many river basins in Sri Lanka could be about 15 -30 % of the TRWR and, if this amount is subtracted from TRWR for estimating productive use of Water Resources (PUWR) , many of the basins in the dry zone could fall into the physically water-scarce category.In this context Amarasinghe attempts at answering the question of what options are available for Sri Lanka in meeting future water demand? At the present rate of growth, Sri Lanka's population will peak in the early 2040s, with an increase of 15 % from the current population (UN 2006). If the present self-sufficiency levels of different crops are to be maintained and the present level of crop productivity persists, the irrigation demand for meeting food demand for this maximum population could increase by, at most, 15 %.Given the high level of water development for irrigation, increasing irrigation efficiency is one of the feasible options available for meeting future water demands. If irrigation efficiency is increased to 45 % from the currently assumed level of 35 %, the irrigation demand shall decrease by 22 %. If irrigation efficiency is increased to 55 %, irrigation demand will decrease by 35 %.The paper presented by Matin et al. at the conference highlights the need for 'Development of a Water Resources Assessment and Audit Framework for Sri Lanka' The authors point out that to meet the growing problems of water resources, it is necessary to carefully assess the existing water stocks and future trends in a country. The accuracy of such an assessment highly depends on the quality of data and information used for it. In most developing countries, the lack of readily accessible and quality controlled data is the major obstacle for scientifically-based water resources assessments, water development planning and evaluating the status and trends of water resources. Sri Lanka is in a similar position. Sri Lanka experiences high seasonal and spatial variations in rainfall due to the bi-monsoonal climatic pattern (north-east monsoon from October to March and south-west monsoon from April to September) - (Amarasinghe et al. 1999). Large tracks of the country are drought-prone. Therefore, a better understanding of the national water situation is critically important. The IWMI researchers are in the process of developing this framework, taking Sri Lanka as a case study in the hope of extending the application of methodology to the situations in other countries.To improve the accessibility, productivity and sustainability of water services, capacity-building of existing organizations and stakeholders has become a priority requirement in the water sector. Installation of physical infrastructure and implementation of direct training sessions alone will not fully consolidate the social and economic benefits of the water services unless proper interventions are made to improve the legal, regulatory and institutional environments. The dynamic nature of the water sector, demands that institutions handling water management also be dynamic institutions that can adapt to changing demands and circumstances. It is possible to transform the existing institutions into more responsive and accountable entities by enhancing their capacity without undermining their current position within the sector. Sustainability of the physical infrastructure depends entirely on the capacity of the institutions, organizations and individuals. Proper social behavior is also needed to complement the improved institutional and organizational capacities. It is time to identify the requirements of capacity development referred to as the 'software component' in the current water sector investments that would address the current needs of the country. The objective of this theme paper is to discuss gaps apparent in the current system and interventions necessary for capacity-building in the Sri Lankan water sector to fill these gaps.The knowledge of an individual relates to the individual's ability to identify and describe issues, challenges or problems confronted and to articulate effective solutions to them. At the same time, the individual must possess the skills to communicate and share relevant information and ideas with other experts, peers and decision-makers before any action is taken (Alaerts and Kaspesma 2009).Capacity can be defined as the capability of an individual, institution or society/ community to identify and understand its development issues; to act to address and learn","tokenCount":"5033"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e4ca2b591c92835d347c1b6a749c1748","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9ef570d9-3942-4e9d-b9dc-2bf5fdeb7d82/retrieve","id":"-1536773645"},"keywords":["Front cover","Md Masudur Rahaman/WorldFish Photo credit: Back cover","Anna Fawcus/WorldFish"],"sieverID":"95370dcc-873d-43b4-95f7-7b6e688ce912","pagecount":"41","content":"The accompanying financial statements of WorldFish, for the years ended December 31, 2015 and December 31, 2014 is the responsibility of management and have been prepared in accordance with the CGIAR Accounting Policies and Reporting Practices Manual -Financial Guideline Series No. 2 (supplemented by advisories issued from time to time). WorldFish is responsible for the substance and objectivity of the information contained therein.Our financial reporting practices follow the Accounting Policies and Reporting Practices Manual -Financial Guidelines Series No. 2 (supplemented by latest Advisory Note -Issued by the CGIAR Consortium Office on Application of CGIAR Financial Guidelines for Centers ' 2015Financial Statements in December 2015) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. WorldFish maintains a system of internal control designed to provide reasonable assurance that assets are safeguarded and transactions are properly recorded and executed in accordance with management's authorization.A system of reporting within WorldFish presents management with an accurate view of the operations, enabling us to discern risk and at the same time providing a reliable basis for the financial statements and management reports.The Board of Trustees exercises its responsibility for these financial statements through its Audit Committee. The Committee meets regularly with management and representatives of the internal and external auditors to review matters relating to financial reporting, internal control and auditing.Director of Finance and Operations The accompanying notes are an integral part of this statement.An International Non-Profit Organization On April 22, 1993, an international agreement was signed by a number of countries, recognizing the Center as an international organization. The Center's focus is to promote sustainable development and use of living aquatic resources based on environmentally sound management. The Center has research sites and/or offices in thirteen countries including the headquarters in Penang, Malaysia.On January 17, 2000, the Center signed a Headquarters Agreement with the Malaysian Government for establishing WorldFish (also known as ICLARM) headquarters in Batu Maung, Penang, Malaysia. The headquarters agreement granted the Center immunities and privileges that are normally granted to diplomatic and international organizations operating in Malaysia to facilitate the Center's global activities. A Headquarters Lease Agreement was also signed as a supplement to the Headquarters Agreement, making available to the Center a research site of 5.4 hectare at nominal annual rent for a period of 30 years with an option for renewal for another 30 years and thereafter by agreement of both parties. In the event of termination or expiration of the agreement, the land and facilities (buildings and fixtures) shall revert to the Malaysian Government. The agreement remains in force for 25 years, and shall be renewed by mutual consent of the parties for another 25 years. In the event of termination or expiration of the agreement or its extensions, land and facilities thereupon as upgraded shall revert to the Arab Republic of Egypt.The properties in the regional center include among others, the tract of land of approximately 1,480 feddans (6,216,000 square meters), administration and laboratory buildings, 12 villas, two residential buildings, workshops and stores, as well as the different types of research ponds.WorldFish operates under agreements entered into with the governments of the respective host countries. Under these agreements, the Center and its assets are not subject to any direct or indirect taxation.As a result of CGIAR reforms, a new programmatic based approach of doing business was introduced in 2011. CGIAR donors represented by the CGIAR Fund Council approved creation of fifteen CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs), each to be led by a designated Center (Lead Center). The Lead Center, through a Program Implementation Agreement (PIA), is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the CRP by program participants and for all payments to and reporting from program participants. Program participants include other Centers who are subcontracted by the Lead Center via a Program Participant Agreement (PPA) or other suitable contracting arrangement.CGIAR Fund donors can designate their contribution to one or more of three funding \"Windows\". For Window 1 funds, the Fund Council sets the overall priorities and makes specific decisions about the use of the fund such as allocation to CRP's, payment of System Costs and/or any other use required to achieve the CGIAR mission. Window 2 funds are contributions designated by Fund Donors to one or more specific CRPs. Window 3 funds are contributions designated by the Fund Donors to individual centers. WorldFish is the Lead Center for the CRP 1.3 on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS), which started in July 2011. As a Lead Center, WorldFish entered into an agreement with the Consortium Board for the overall performance of the CRP. WorldFish also entered into agreement with International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and Bioversity for program participation in this CRP.Notes to Financial Statements December 31, 2015 and 2014 (all figures expressed in thousands of US dollars) 7 WorldFish, though Program Participant Agreements (PPA), is participating into the implementation of CRP2 (Policies, Institutions and Markets), CRP3.7 (Livestock and Fish), CRP 4 (Agriculture for Nutrition and Health), CRP 5 (Water, Land and Ecosystem) and CRP 7 (Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security).The accompanying financial statements, expressed in US dollar, have been prepared in accordance with the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) financial guideline series No. 2 -Accounting Policies and Reporting Practices Manual (February 2006) (supplemented by latest Advisory Note -Issued by the CGIAR Consortium Office on Application of CGIAR Financial Guidelines for Centers' 2015 Financial Statements in December 2015). These statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention and on an accrual basis.The preparation of financial statements requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosures of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the period. Although these estimates are based on management's best knowledge of current events and actions, actual results could differ from those estimates. These estimates and their underlying assumptions are reviewed on an ongoing basis and as adjustments become necessary, they are recognized in the financial statements in the period they have become known.Significant estimates include assumptions used in estimating the recoverability of project expenditures and the determination of the allowance for doubtful contribution receivable from donors, the useful lives of capital assets and the amount of accrued liabilities.Managing financial risk is one aspect of the risk management practice of WorldFish. The Center's activities expose it to a variety of financial risks, including funding risk, foreign exchange risk, investment risk and inflation risk. Management of these financial risks is carried out by management and supported by the Internal Audit Unit under the guidance of the Board of Trustees. A key element of the Center's risk management program is minimizing potential adverse effects on its financial performance. This requires the finance function to identify, evaluate and hedge financial risks where appropriate.The significant accounting policies are summarised belowNotes to Financial Statements December 31, 2015 and 2014 (all figures expressed in thousands of US dollars)A. Cash and cash equivalents comprises cash in hand, petty cash funds, currencies awaiting deposit and local or foreign currency deposits in banks which can be added to or withdrawn without limitation and are immediately available for use in the current operations. Also included are any short-term, highly liquid investments that are both readily convertible to known amounts of cash and so near their maturity date that they present insignificant risk of changes in value.B. Accounts receivable from donors, employees and other entities are carried at anticipated realizable value. An allowance is made for doubtful receivables based on a review of all outstanding amounts. Bad debts are written off during the year they are identified as irrecoverable. The write off of receivables is carried out after all efforts to collect have been exhausted.C. Capital assets are stated at historical cost less accumulated amortization and consist of those assets with an estimated useful life beyond one year and having costs in excess of US$1,500. Amortization of assets is provided from the month of capitalization and is computed on the straight-line method over its estimated term of useful life as follows:Estimated useful life in years Buildings 25 -60 Heavy duty equipment 7 -10 Furniture, fixtures, and equipment 5 -10 Laboratory and scientific equipment 5 -10 Computer equipment (hardware) 3 -5 Software 2 -3 Vehicles 4 -7Capital assets acquired for direct use in donor-funded projects are fully amortized in the year of purchase. These are recorded as assets in custody and remain the property of the respective donors until the expiration of the agreement or contract. Assets are monitored by the Center until such time that the donor in consultation with the Center decides on the disposition of the property and equipment.Immovable assets (including buildings and site development) which have been made available to WorldFish by the host country have not been capitalized nor amortized. In the event of termination or expiration of the respective host country agreement, all immovable assets will revert to the host country.Gains and losses on disposal of capital assets are determined in reference to their carrying value and are accounted for in the statement of activities. In the ordinary course of business, WorldFish becomes involved in various legal actions.While the ultimate effect of such actions cannot be ascertained at this time, management believes that their resolution will not have a material adverse effect on the financial statements.  --------------------CRP ---------------------|  |------Restricted -Other----  --------------------CRP ---------------------|  |------Restricted -Other---- ","tokenCount":"1555"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c73f083fdc809836dd4edce612c993c6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f69384c1-a300-4444-a4c3-b0ee3a86ef88/retrieve","id":"936846629"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0af0dced-3f87-4227-bc99-f37f2d2184b5","pagecount":"5","content":"• The control of peste des petits ruminants (PPR)-a highly contagious and potentially lethal viral disease among sheep and goats-is essential to safeguard the livelihoods of millions in Africa who depend on these animals.• FAO and World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) jointly developed a coordinated PPR Global Control and Eradication Strategy (GCES), endorsed by more than 200 countries worldwide, aiming to achieve a PPR-free world by 2030.• The ECo-PPR project contributes to global PPR eradication efforts by generating evidence on disease epidemiology, social networks and gendered disease impact to support surveillance and control actions within its six targeted countries in Africa.• The project toolbox contains interdisciplinary, trilingual tools for digital administration.• The tools address research gaps in socio economic impact and epidemiology to improve PPR control and eradication strategies.• The project has been instrumental in the creation of strong partnerships with national partners, governments, and scientists to execute research and disease control activities in six targeted countries.There are an estimated 2.3 billion small ruminants (SRs) globally, with 40% in Africa (FAOSTAT 2021). For millions of smallholder herders and farmers across the continent, keeping livestock is the cornerstone of their livelihoods, contributing to household food and nutritional security and providing readily available cash income (De Haan et al. 2015). Women hold more control over SRs, compared to other livestock species such as cattle, relying on them economically but also to fulfill various socioeconomics functions, such as dowries for weddings, charity, and inheritances (Wodajo et al. 2020).Animal disease outbreaks create a significant threat to the livestock sector, negatively impacting livestock keepers. Consequently, control of major disease threats, such as peste des petits ruminants (PPR), would protect and enhance the ability of livestock keepers to benefit from their livestock. PPR is a highly contagious and viral disease, characterized by high mortality and morbidity rates, that predominantly affects sheep and goats (OIE 2021). It is endemic in most areas in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, where it was first reported and described in 1942 (Zhao et al. 2021). The control of PPR in these endemic settings presents challenges that need to be systematically addressed to ease the burden of disease on herders and farmers who are dependent on SRs for food and income. The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have developed a coordinated PPR Global Control and Eradication Strategy (GCES), endorsed by more than 200 countries worldwide, aiming to achieve a PPR-free world by 2030 (OIE and FAO 2015)  The ECo-PPR project contributes to the global PPR eradication efforts, especially in the endemic settings, by generating evidence on disease epidemiology, social networks, and gendered disease impact to support surveillance and control actions within its targeted countries. It emphasizes high-risk areas that are difficult to reach with vaccination campaigns which could potentially become pockets of further infection, jeopardizing control efforts elsewhere (ILRI 2019b).Specifically, it will provide a deeper understanding of the socioeconomic impact of PPR and the challenges to control it using an interdisciplinary approach that bridges socioeconomics, epidemiology and biosciences. The immediate beneficiaries of the ECo-PPR project are livestock keepers, public and private veterinary professionals, animal health practitioners such as the field delivery agents and the respective countries' governments.The project is organized into four components: 1. Epidemiology and socioeconomic impact to fill existing knowledge gaps 2. Modelling PPR control to assess the effectiveness of different control scenarios 3. Vaccine delivery and diagnostics to improve access of vaccines to the livestock keepers 4. Capacity development and surveillance to provide an adequate enabling environment for control efforts (ILRI 2019a).The ECo-PPR project is executed with innovative approaches and methods to capture these components and harmonize data collection across all countries and among partners by developing a data collection framework (Figure 1). Some boxes in the framework correspond directly to research tools, such as the key informant interviews, community meetings, household surveys and market surveys; while other boxes, such as gender and socioeconomic studies, are integrated throughout multiple tools. All the baseline studies tools are interdisciplinary, capturing both the epidemiological and socioeconomic dimensions to support the integrated studies. For example, the household questionnaire which captures SRs husbandry, animal movement to understand disease spread and disease management practices was structured as an intra-household survey i.e. it is administered to both a man and a woman within each household. This structure takes advantage of the different knowledge men and women have due to different gender roles in SRs production and gives gender disaggregated data to better understand women's contributions in disease management and control.All the tools were used in the six project countries and a selection of tools were modified for use in Uganda as part of the 'Boosting Uganda's Investment in Livestock Development' (BUILD) (Roesel 2020) project. All baseline tools are available in three languages i.e. English, French, and Swahili. Harmonized data collection tools enables comparative and regional analyses (Wieland et al. 2020). Lastly, in response to COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions, the project developed online training materials in French and English to support national partners in implementing field activities which are publicly available on the ECo-PPR YouTube channel (ILRI 2020).The ECo-PPR project is still ongoing but there have already been some significant milestones including data collection for the baseline studies, regional cross-border risk mapping meetings, a macro-economic assessment of PPR impact in Ethiopia and Burkina Faso and participatory disease modelling activities in Senegal. As part of the baseline studies, the intrahousehold survey was administered to men and women from 7,330 households in five project countries. However, research activities were delayed in Ethiopia due to security concerns (Figure 2). The market survey activities were launched in West Africa with more than 200 actors (e.g sellers, buyers, or traders) surveyed in each country in that region.To promote regional coordination of PPR control activities in West Africa, the project supported cross-border risk mapping analyses with representatives from neighbouring countries. In December 2020, a virtual meeting was held with representatives from Tanzania, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya to identify areas of PPR risk, animal movement and control activities in East Africa. A regional risk mapping workshop was organized in Dakar, Senegal in June 2021 to optimize surveillance and control of PPR. The meeting brought together veterinary services of Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso.A macroeconomic impact assessment of PPR was also implemented in Burkina Faso and Ethiopia to show how the disease may affect the livestock sector and overall economic activities of countries in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), sectoral GDP, employment and household income (Kotchofa et al. 2021). In addition, two participatory disease modelling research activities are ongoing in Senegal to generate evidence in support of the socioeconomic impact of the disease and plans for vaccination as the primary strategy for PPR control in the Sahel. One is led by ILRI, implemented using Spatial Group Model Building (SGMB) approach (Kotchofa et al. 2020), and the other is led by the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) using a companion modelling approach.Innovation brief / ECo-PPR Project -3 The baseline tools are programmed for digital administration in Open Data Kit (ODK) and available in English, French and Swahili. By administering the tools in six project countries and encouraging their use in partner projects, the project aims to provide harmonized results that can assist with policy decisions at the regional and global level.As data collection and analyses are ongoing, many of the lessons and benefits of the ECo-PPR project are not yet finalised. The challenge of implementing fieldwork during a global pandemic highlighted the necessity of strong partnerships between national governments and research institutions and the value of flexibility in training and research implementation.The ECo-PPR project has already improved awareness about PPR control and eradication to the international community by winning an award at the 2021 World Food Forum Transformative Research Challenge (WFF TRC) for its risk-based approach to prioritize vaccination in endemic settings where PPR vaccines shortage remains a critical issue (Kotchofa 2021). Even more lessons and benefits of the project are expected in the future once all the ongoing studies are completed. ","tokenCount":"1352"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"067898ec11fcfef5db6685a2a16a404a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/754c7146-fcb5-4f34-8e8f-53ea15f0a424/retrieve","id":"547492881"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b4721abc-1810-4357-bebc-858def0405b4","pagecount":"29","content":"Tables Table 1. Descriptions of the study sites in Ethiopia Table 2. Number of participants by their gender and resource endowments for the application of LC tool at Digga and Sinana woredas Table 3. List of legume species grown and their functions at Arjo Qonnan Bula kebele, Digga woreda Table 4. Legume species which scored high following application of the LC tool at Arjo Qonnan Bula kebele, Digga woreda Table 5. List of legume species grown and their functions at Jirata kebele, Digga woreda Table 6. Legume species which scored high following application of the LC tool at Jirata kebele, Digga woreda Table 7. List of legume species grown and their functions at Aman Laman kebele, Sinana woreda Table 8. Legume species which scored high following application of the LC tool at Aman Laman kebele, Sinana woreda Table 9. List of legume species grown and their functions at Shallo kebele, Sinana woreda Table 10. Legume species which scored high following application of the LC tool at Shallo kebele, Sinana woreda Focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with smallholder farmers in Digga woreda and Sinana woredas of Ethiopia to identify the existing legume species grown by smallholder farmers, assess legume production constraints, and the benefits of legumes and seek niches for new usage of legumes. The Legume CHOICE (LC) tool was used to support decision making on suitable legume species that can be grown in participatory consultation with farmers in the targeted kebeles. The Legume CHOICE tool focuses on six key functions of legumes, which are provision of food, income, livestock feed, fuel, soil erosion control and soil fertility improvement, and contextualizes the key production constraints based on the dialogue with farmers. Farmers were selected ensuring representation across gender and resource endowments. Three farmer resource types (high, medium and low) were determined based on farmers' land size, livestock holdings and other factors, i.e. fertilizer use.In general, we observed that the participating farmers have limited formal understanding of the types of legumes across the four sites. Their knowledge mainly related to the annual grain legumes used for rotation with their common cereals. However, herbaceous and tree legumes could not be immediately identified as legumes by most farmers and their benefits were not recognized beyond livestock feed, live fencing and fuel. The FGDs and application of LC tool exercises demonstrated that preferences for legume functions vary among the farmer resource types, gender and sites. However, we observed that the preferences for food and income functions were consistently scored highest, the other functions (feed, fuel, erosion control and soil fertility improvement) were demanded with variable degrees or ranks across sites, gender and farmer resource types. The common constraints faced by farmers in legume production include lack of improved legume varieties, lack of legume production knowledge and skills, high weed burden, disease and pest incidence, high costs of inputs (i.e. pesticides, fertilizer), lack of inputs and services, and soil erosion. These findings were also supported by the output of the LC tool application. The top three constraints across the four sites were the shortage of improved seeds, lack of inputs and services, and knowledge and skills on the improved production techniques of legumes. These constraints also varied across sites, gender, and farmer resource types.The results from the LC tool \"hit list\" offered a range of suitable annual, herbaceous and tree legume species with the consideration of agroecology, context and community needs. Some legume species were not found in the LC top-ranked legume species lists even though they are well known for their adaptation and functions in the sites. These results were presented for farmers and in consultation with them, 2-3 annual grain legumes were selected per site for demonstration trials. The establishment of on-farm demonstration trials were aimed to increase the awareness of farmers for legume production management, access for planting materials of the improved varieties in particular to address the prioritized legume functions, i.e. food and income; and to collect supplemental information for the further development of the LC tool. The exercises gave us multi-dimensional observations and understanding on expressed needs for the various legume functions, production constraints and lists of top ranked legumes variations for specific sites; gender and farmer resource types. The work also stimulated extension officers to deepen their knowledge and skills on different types of legumes in the farming system. Accordingly, the outputs presented in this report provide preliminary information for further refinement of the LC tool for better decision support in legume selection for specific sites by addressing the functional needs and widely varying farming contexts.Growth in agricultural productivity lags behind population growth in sub-Saharan Africa making the region increasingly food and nutrition insecure. More than 80% of the Ethiopian population is dependent on agriculture, which accounts for about 50% of gross domestic product (GDP), 90% of the exports, and 85% of the employment (Tamene et al. 2017). Smallholder farmers in Ethiopia practice mixed crop-livestock farming under rainfed conditions. They contribute significantly to the country's economy although their productivity is low. This is due to several challenges faced by farmers which include erratic rainfall patterns, limited access to inputs and low soil fertility. Legumes have strong potential to deal with many of the constraints to improved smallholder livelihoods and natural resource status, either in the form of grains for home consumption or sale, fodder for livestock feed, protein for health and nutrition, available soil nutrients, or fuel wood (Vanlauwe et al. 2019 andYirga et al. 2010).Most farmers in Ethiopia grow maize, wheat, barley or teff often with limited resources hence the yield gaps are wide. Legumes including faba bean, common bean, chickpea, etc. are usually grown in smallholder farms as intercrops and rotations with cereal crops. Legumes have a range of functions which include provision of food, feed, income, soil fertility improvement, soil erosion control and provision of fuel. Grain legumes are more common in smallholder farms than herbaceous and tree legumes because most farmers are interested in food and income provision from among the various benefits legumes offer (Muoni 2019 andVanlauwe et al. 2019).Finding niches for multipurpose legumes could help alleviate poverty, increase food security, improve nutrition and enhance natural resource status. However, despite several decades of agricultural research for development, so far there has been only limited uptake of legumes by the poorest farming households (Vanlauwe et al. 2019). This could relate to high variation in resource endowment, climatic conditions and soil types in smallholder farms which influences decision making and spread of information (Muoni 2019 andTittonell et al. 2015). Challenges faced by farmers in use of legumes could be addressed by improved extension services supported with decision support tools (Duncan et al. 2019;Muoni 2019;Wambugu et al. 2011). Decision support tools aim at providing clear decision stages and helping visualize the likelihood of various outcomes which helps in making evidence-based decisions (Rose et al. 2016).To improve use of legumes in smallholder farms, efforts to improve decision making on suitable species has been made through decision support tools such as the Legume CHOICE (LC) tool which was developed in the LegumeCHOICE project (2014)(2015)(2016)(2017). The tool is currently being tested in the Legume SELECT project in smallholder farms. The Legume SELECT project aims at improving use of legumes in smallholder farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) through improved decision making on suitable legumes for different locations depending on biophysical and social conditions. The project includes research trials which will facilitate better understanding of the relationship between legume traits (water use efficiency, nutrient use efficiency and N-fixation), and farmer needs in a range of biophysical and socioeconomic contexts. This will help to refine a more robust Legume CHOICE tool. Legume CHOICE is designed to be a rapid approach to identifying promising legume options and interventions based on community dialogue and expert knowledge (Duncan et al. 2019). It consists of a series of components (Figure 1). The logic of the Legume CHOICE tool is as follows.• Qualitative diagnosis: is a simple checklist of questions designed to construct a broad overview of the farming context focusing in particular on those elements of relevance to legume use.• Context assessment: goes deeper by specifically considering a series of key constraints to legume use and assigning a score to each key constraint for the particular context or community being studied.• Community needs: assessment involves a series of participatory exercises with a community to gather an understanding of their needs in relation to what legumes might offer. Each of a series of \"legume functions\" is given a score representing the extent to which a particular community demands a given function.• Agroecological filter: that scores legume options according to their suitability to the agroecological conditions (altitude, rainfall, soil quality etc.) of the target site.• Legume option attributes: the final component is a long list of legume options each pre-scored by experts on (1) their sensitivity to the various legume use constraints (from the Context Assessment) (2) how well they supply various predefined legume functions (from the Community Needs Assessment) and ( 3) their agroecological requirements.The scores in legume option list are compared against (1), ( 2) and (3) to give an overall score for each legume option on their suitability for the given context in relation to use constraints, legume function supply and agroecological match. Description of study sitesThe study was conducted between July and September 2019 in Digga woreda, western Ethiopia and Sinana woreda, southeastern Ethiopia. Arjo Qonnan Bula and Jirata kebeles (=sites) were selected from Digga woreda; and Aman Laman and Shallo kebeles were chosen from Sinana woreda based on their access to market, mainly their distance from the main road to the central marketplace (Table 1).Digga woreda is located around 350 km west of Addis Ababa. Digga has an altitude ranging from 1200-2300 m; mean total annual rainfall of 2080 mm (Daba 2018)and mean temperatures 21 0 C (Sparks 2018). The second target woreda, Sinana woreda is located around 450 km southeast of Addis Ababa. Sinana has an altitude ranging from 1700-3100 m; mean total rainfall of 930 mm (SDAO 2006) and mean temperature 18 0 C (Sparks 2018). The farming system in Digga is dominated by maize, teff, finger millet-based crop-livestock production but at Sinana is dominated by wheat, barley, field pea, faba beanbased crop-livestock production. The soil pH of Digga and Sinana can be categorized as from moderately to strongly acidic; and from slightly acidic to neutral, respectively (Hengl et al. 2015 andLeenaars et al. 2014). Refresher training was given for the Legume SELECT country team, then consecutive practical trainings were provided for the extension staff and researchers to acquaint them on the nature and application of the Legume CHOICE tool. Extension officers from the two woredas facilitated the identification of farmers to participate in the FGDs and application of the LC tool. One FGD was conducted per kebele and multiple farmers participated in each FGD. A total of 122 farmers (29 women and 93 men) participated in the FGDs in the four sites. Of these, 72 farmers were picked for further application of LC tool, i.e. participatory matrix scoring based on their resource endowment and gender (Table 2). Although more women farmers were invited for the FGDs, they could not attend due to multiple socioeconomic factors.The resource endowment classes were determined based on farmers' land size, livestock holdings and other factors including fertilizer use and proportions of farm produce sold to the market (Duncan et al. 2019). Based on these the information gathered from the key informants and farmers, the following three resource endowment classes were used.i. High resource (wealthy class): comprised of farmers owning more than 3 ha of land which could be certified or noncertified; with 4 or more oxen and who apply recommended amount of mineral fertilizer on the farms ii. Medium resource (middle class): comprised of farmers owning between 1 and 3 ha of land which could be certified or non-certified; with 2-4 oxen and who apply below recommended rate of mineral fertilizer on the farms iii. Low resource (poor class): comprised of farmers owning less than 1 ha of land; with 1 or no oxen and who do not use mineral fertilizer or apply low amount relative to the recommended rate on their farms Application of the LC toolThis exercise provided a qualitative assessment of the farming system in relation to possible legume niches. It also helped to assess farmers' knowledge about legumes and the challenges they face to produce them. Also, this exercise identified the legume species grown by farmers in different villages.The context assessment exercise took account of resource endowment classes where farmers scored different factors which limit production of legumes. The scored constraints were land availability, labour, seed availability, market access, input availability, knowledge and skills, and water availability. The scores were from zero to four where zero indicates that the factor is not a limiting factor.The exercise involved presenting the six key legume functions incorporated in the LC tool (food, feed, soil erosion control, soil fertility improvement, fuel and income) and asked the farmers to prioritize among pairs of functions. The exercise was conducted separately for men and women.This exercise was conducted to assess what individual farmers of different gender and resource endowments would look for in any new intervention involving legumes. Farmers were given 20 beans and asked to allocate them according to the importance of the various functions for their future aspirations. This helps to triangulate the results of the previous exercise.Qualitative and quantitative data were collected, summarized and combined. The results of the context assessment, pairwise ranking and participatory matrix scoring with the agroecological parameters were used to come up with a list of legume options for each site. Local names of legumes listed in the FGDs were referred and translated into English or scientific names (Bekele-Tesemma 2007).A summary of the scores for each category (agroecological, socioeconomic and farmer aspiration fits) was also generated against each legume species. The output of the LC tool was a list of potential legumes that would fulfil the priority needs of the farming communities, were compatible with the biophysical and socioeconomic conditions.Subsequent discussions were undertaken on which legumes would be selected for on-farm demonstrations in the targeted kebeles. Mainly grain legumes were targeted for on-farm demonstration trials because of the urgency of the growing season and availability of planting materials. These demonstration trials were also set up to increase the awareness of farmers on the management of legumes and increase the access to improved seeds of legume varieties which can adapt the area and fulfil the functional needs of farmers. southeastern EthiopiaWe referred the following legume definition and concepts to communicate with farmers participating in the FGDs. Plants belonging to the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae) are characterized by their ability to form a symbiotic relationship with soil bacteria called rhizobia contained within root nodules which fix atmospheric nitrogen which can be used by the host plant (although not all legumes fix nitrogen). This nitrogen-fixing ability presents considerable benefits to plants growing in nitrogen-constrained environments and lends them various functions of potential benefit to humans who utilize them for various livelihood purposes. Legumes as a plant family are diverse in structure ranging from herbaceous plants through to woody shrubs and trees. This diversity of form and function presents multiple opportunities for beneficial human use but also complexity in terms of how different legume species fit within different farming systems (Duncan et al. 2019).In general, we observed that the participating farmers had limited formal understanding of the technical definitions of legumes across the four sites. Their understanding was mostly limited to the annual grain legumes used for rotation with their common cereals. The farmers indicated the grain legumes as root nodule producers and to some extent as pod producers. These grain legumes are known by their source of food, income, and soil fertility improvement. However, herbaceous and tree legumes could not be immediately identified as legumes by most farmers and were not recognized for their benefits beyond livestock feed, live fencing and fuel.After warm up discussions and briefing about the definition and types of legumes, the farmers were able to identify multiple legume species and several livelihood functions of legumes including provision of food, feed, income, soil improvement, medicine, fuel, fencing, construction materials, coffee shade, and erosion control.Site 1: Arjo Qonnan Bula kebeleMajor legumes produced and objectives of production A total of 20 farmers participated (9 women and 11 men) in the FGD at Arjo Qonnan Bula kebele. The farmers in the kebele produce legume crops including groundnut, common bean (bush type), climbing bean (annual type), soybean, cowpea, and fodder/ tree legumes, i.e. Lablab, Sesbania, Leucaena, and Acacia species (Table 3). According to the respondents, farmers grow legumes for income, food, soil fertility improvement and livestock feed (Table 3).Using the Legume CHOICE tool to support legume use on smallholder farms at Digga and Sinana woredas in western and southeastern Ethiopia The results of pairwise ranking exercise show that there were some differences between men and women farmers in their preferences for legume functions (Figure 2). Food, income source and soil fertility improvement were the demanded legume functions by both men and women. But women farmers had higher preference for the fuel function and a higher preference for soil fertility than men farmers. The results of participatory matrix scoring exercise show that there were differences in preferences for legume functions between gender and among farm types (Figure 3). Accordingly, men farmers demand the legumes mainly for food and income generation while women farmers prefer the legumes for fuel and food in addition income generation. Legumes for soil fertility function was the last function for women but fourth for men. The preferences for legume functions among the farm types are almost the same for high and medium resource farmers. Food and income generation came foremost but high resource farmers' demand for feed function was lower than the other two types. Low resource farmers on the other hand wanted feed as a priority function from legumes followed by food and income generation. Constraints to legume production in Arjo Qonnan Bula kebeleParticipants of the FGD identified several challenges limiting legume production which included lack of improved legume varieties, soil fertility degradation over time, lack of legume production knowledge (to implement improved practices), high disease and insect pest incidences, high costs of inputs (fertilizer) and soil erosion.The results of the context scoring exercise show that lack of improved legume seeds, lack of knowledge and skills, high input and service costs (i.e. herbicides fertilizers) are the key constraints limiting legume production in Arjo Qonnan Bula kebele (Figure 4). These constraints varied across the resource endowments of farmers. Medium and low resource farmers were highly constrained by access and shortage of improved seeds, but high resource farmers were limited by shortage of inputs and services delivery (i.e. herbicides and fertilizer). Lack of proper knowledge and skills on the management of legumes came as the second most constraint for all farmer types. Based on the result of legume options score section of Legume CHOICE tool, a total of 11 legume species from different types came out as potential candidates taking into account the various functional attributes, context suitability, and agroecological suitability for growing in Arjo Qonnan Bula kebele (Table 4). These were 5 grain legumes (Pigeon pea, Climbing beans, Dolichos lablab, French beans, Groundnuts); 1 herbaceous legume (lablab) and 5 tree legumes (Calliandra calothyrus, Gliricidia sepium, Leucaena diversifolia, Leucaena trichandra, Sesbania sesban).Common bean (bush type), groundnut and soybean were selected for on-farm demonstrations in the 2019 cropping season at Arjo Qonnan Bula in consultation with lead farmers. Soybean, however, was excluded by agroecological filter due to the large amount of rainfall in the area but farmers wanted to test it on their farms. The participatory scoring above showed that the farmers in Arjo Qonnan Bula kebele demand legumes mainly for food and income generation. In addition, their key constraints were lack of improved seeds and lack of knowledge/awareness of production. So, these issues would be demonstrated through the establishment of on-farm demonstration trials using bush bean, groundnut and soybean as entry point in the 2019 cropping season with better management practices and wider adaptable varieties.  Note: P=perennial; S=seasonal/annual; Herb=herbaceous; C=coppicing; NC=non-coppicing. The colors indicate that suitability of a range of different legume options score well on each criteria (green is good, red is bad). Blue color indicates the top ranked legumes.Using the Legume CHOICE tool to support legume use on smallholder farms at Digga and Sinana woredas in western and southeastern EthiopiaSite 2: Jirata kebeleMajor legumes produced and objectives of production At Jirata 29 farmers participated (11 women and 18 men) in the FGD and they mentioned that Faba bean, Field pea, Common bean (bush type), Climbing bean (annual type), Chickpea, Lentil, Sweet Lupine, Cowpea, Lablab, Sesbania, Leucaena, and Acacia species are among the legume species grown in the community (Table 5). Farmers identified several benefits of growing legumes and these include provision of food, soil fertility improvement, income and provision of livestock feed (Table 5). Although the functions of the legume species were common among participants, the results of pairwise ranking exercise show that there were some differences on preferences for legume functions between men and women farmers. Food, income and soil fertility improvement were demanded by both men and women (Figure 5). But women farmers had higher demand for fuel than men farmers who scored zero for this function. The results of participatory matrix scoring exercise showed that there were differences in preferences for legume functions between gender and among farm types at Jirata kebele (Figure 6). Accordingly, men farmers demand the legumes mainly for food and income generation while the women prefer legumes for fuel and erosion control next to food. The preferences for legume functions among the farm types are almost the same but the low resource farmers' demand for erosion control function is slightly higher than the other two types.   4 0 4 1 0 1 2 3 4 4 3 4 4 35  1  1 2 Field Pea (Pisum sativum L) Grain S 4 3 4 2 0 2 3 2 2 1 2 3 1 12 30  1 3 Faba bean (Vicia faba L.) Grain S 4 2 4 1 0 3 2 3 4 3 2 2 2  9 Sesbania sesban Tree NC 0 4 2 4 3 3 1 2 1 2 2 2 3 3 23 1 10 Acacia angustissima Tree NC 0 2 3 3 4 3 2 2 1 2 2 1 3 12 30 1Note: P=perennial; S=seasonal/annual; Herb=herbaceous; C=coppicing; NC=non-coppicing;.The colors indicate that suitability of a range of different legume options score well on each criteria (green is good, red is bad). Blue color indicates the top ranked legumes.Site 3: Aman Laman kebeleMajor legumes produced and objectives of production A total for forty (40) farmers (5 women and 35 men) participated in the FGDs at Aman Laman kebele. Results show that faba bean, field pea, chickpea, lentil, grass pea, fenugreek, and climbing bean (annual type) were the major food and cash legume crops grown (Table 7). Farmers grow legumes for food, income, soil fertility improvement and livestock feed among other benefits. The pairwise ranking exercise showed that most of the legume function preferences were commonly shared between men and women farmers. However, the women farmers expressed higher demand for legumes that provide feed for their livestock than men (Figure 8). The participatory matrix scoring exercise indicated there were differences in demand for legume functions among the three farm types and between men and women farmers. Both men and women demand the legumes mainly for food and income generation, however, women farmers had higher demand for legumes that provide soil fertility improvement, feed for livestock, and fuel than men farmers. All the three farm types had preferences for legumes that provide food and income, but the demand for legume functions as food and income generation were higher for low and medium resource farmers, respectively (Figure 9). Constraints to legume production in Aman Laman kebele Participants of the FGD identified the following challenges that they are facing for production of legumes; lack of improved legume varieties, lack of knowledge (to implement improved practices), soil fertility degradation over time, disease and insect pests attack, high costs of inputs (fertilizer), unavailability of pesticides and soil erosion.Context scoring results show that lack of improved seeds, water, inputs and services, and knowledge are the key constraints to legume production in Aman Laman kebele (Figure 10). Land, labour and markets were the least scored factors limiting productivity of legumes in this area. These constraints vary across farmer resource types. High resource farmers were highly constrained by shortage of improved seeds and access to irrigation water. Medium resource farmers were also relatively constrained by access to improved seeds and knowledge and skills on the management of legumes. Low resource farmers were highly constrained by shortage of land, followed by access to improved seeds and knowledge and skills on the management of legumes. Based on the result of legume options score section of the Legume CHOICE tool, a total of 13 legume species from different types came out as potential candidates for various functional plus context fulfilments, and agroecological suitability for growing in Aman Laman kebele (Table 8). These were 6 grain legumes (French beans, Faba bean, Lentils, Field Pea, Sweet lupin, Grass pea); 5 herbaceous legumes (Alfalfa/lucerne, silverleaf Desmodium, White clover, Hairy Vetch, Crotolaria juncea) and 2 tree legumes (Tree lucerne, Faidherbia albida).Faba bean and field pea were selected in consultation with lead farmers for on-farm demonstrations for the 2019 cropping season at Aman Laman kebele.The participatory scoring exercise above showed that farmers in Aman Laman kebele demand legumes mainly for income generation and food. In addition, their key constraints were lack of improved seeds and lack of knowledge/awareness of production. So, these issues would be demonstrated through the establishment of on-farm demonstration trials using faba bean and field pea as entry points in the 2019 cropping season with better management practices and disease resistant varieties.  13 Faidherbia albida Tree NC 0 3 2 3 3 4 2 2 1 2 2 1 3 12 30 1 Major legumes produced and objectives of production A total of 33 participants (4 women and 29 men) participated in the FGDs at Shallo kebele. The results show that the community produces various legume species including faba bean, field pea, common bean, chickpea, lentil, fenugreek, alfalfa, vetch, Sesbania, and Acacia species (Table 9). These legumes are grown for food, income, livestock feed and soil fertility improvement depending on the legume type. The results of the pairwise ranking exercise show that there were differences between men and women farmers' perceptions on legume functions (Figure 11). Income and soil fertility were scored higher by men than women while food and soil erosion control were scored higher by women than men. Both genders had a similar score for provision of the fuel function. The participatory matrix scoring exercise showed that there were small differences between genders and among farm types on farmers' preferences for legume functions (Figure 12). Men farmers demanded food and income generation functions while women preferred fuel and erosion control in addition to food and income generation. The preferences for legume functions among the farm types are almost the same but, the medium resource farmers' demand for food function was slightly higher than the other two types (Figure 12). Participants of the FGD identified several challenges/constraints that limit legume production in their area and these challenges include; lack of improved legume varieties, soil fertility degradation over time, weed problem or lack of herbicide for weed management in legume crops, lack of legume production knowledge (to implement improved practices), high diseases and insect pests incidences, and high costs of inputs (fertilizer and herbicides).The context scoring exercise showed that lack of improved legume seeds, land availability, inputs and services and knowledge are the key constraints limiting legume production in Shallo kebele (Figure 13). Among other factors limiting legume production markets, labour and water are the other least constraining factors for the production of legumes in Shallo kebele. These constraints differ across the resource endowments of farmers. High and low resource farmers were highly constrained by shortage of improved seeds and land availability. Medium resources were highly constrained by shortage of inputs and services delivery and followed by knowledge and skills on the management of legumes. Based on the result of legume options score section of Legume CHOICE tool, a total of 11 legume species from different types came out as potential candidates for various functional plus context fulfilments, and agroecological suitability for growing in Aman Laman kebele (Table 10). These were 5 grain legumes (Faba bean, French beans, Lentils, Field Pea, Grass pea); 4 herbaceous legume (Alfalfa/lucerne, White clover, Hairy Vetch, Crotolaria juncea) and 2 tree legumes (Tree lucerne, Faidherbia albida).Faba bean and field pea were selected in consultation with lead farmers for on-farm demonstrations for the 2019 cropping season at Shallo kebele. The participatory scoring above showed that the farmers in Shallo kebele demand legumes mainly for income generation and food. In addition, their key constraints were lack of improved seeds and lack of knowledge/awareness of production. So, these issues would be demonstrated through the establishment of on-farm demonstration trials using faba bean and field pea as entry point in the 2019 cropping season with better management practices and disease resistant varieties.  Note: P=perennial; S=seasonal/ annual; Herb=herbaceous; C=coppicing; NC=non-coppicing. The colors indicate that suitability of a range of different legume options score well on each criteria (green is good, red is bad). Blue color indicates the top ranked legumes.Using the Legume CHOICE tool to support legume use on smallholder farms at Digga and Sinana woredas in western and southeastern EthiopiaThe FGDs and application of LC tool exercises demonstrated that preferences for legume functions vary among the farmer resource types, gender and sites. However, we observed that the preferences for food and income functions were consistently scored highest, while the other functions (feed, fuel, erosion control and soil fertility improvement) were demanded to variable degrees across sites, gender and farmer resource types. The common constraints faced by farmers in legume production include lack of improved legume varieties, lack of legume production knowledge and skills, high weed burdens, disease and pest incidences, high costs of inputs (i.e. pesticides, fertilizer), lack of inputs and services, and soil erosion. These findings were also supported by the output of the LC tool applications. The top three constraints across the four sites were the shortage of improved seeds, lack of inputs and services, and knowledge and skills on the improved production techniques of legumes. These constraints also vary across sites, gender, and farmer resource types.These exercises gave us multidimensional observations, and also triggered extension officers to increase the depth of knowledge and skills required to bring different types of legumes into the farming system, and also most farmers had limited understanding of the multiple benefits of legumes. These issues would be improved through the following interventions:• Establishment of on-farm demonstration trials: 2-3 annual grain legumes were selected per site and established for demonstration trials which mainly aimed to increase the awareness of farmers for legumes production managements, access for planting materials of the improve varieties; and to collect supplemental information for the further development of the LC tool.• Introduction of multipurpose legume trees: the top selected multipurpose leguminous trees will be provided for farmers to test them around their homestead for their multiple functions.• Organization of capacity development sessions, i.e. in-house trainings, discussions among farmers, field visits for better understandings on legume types, benefits and their wider functions and managements.The applications of the LC tool were implemented within a compressed period and we were in hurry not to miss the 2019 cropping season. The exercises were practiced in LC V2.0 earlier and then adapted into the latest version, V2.2. We observed some output differences due to additional agroecology filter information updates from the EcoCrop database which was previously blank. In addition, we observed that slight variation of agroecology filter inputs (i.e. soil pH, altitude) affect the output of the LC tool. So reliable data sources have to be sought for consistent use of the LC tool. When primary sources of data are not available, we like to recommend use of AfSIS database for the soil pH and NASA Power point data for climate data.It is wise to include more multipurpose legumes in the LC database. For instance, fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) is well known for its food and medicinal values besides the soil improvement in the south eastern Ethiopia. In addition, LC tool could be improved by not ignoring legumes which are widely adapted within the sites and grown by many farmers. Consequently, the outputs presented in this report shall be taken as early practices for further refinement of the LC tool for better decision support tool in legume selection for specific sites by addressing the functional needs and widely varying farming contexts. ","tokenCount":"5484"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"27f0102c2764b214210a70b0c75b4230","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/74030af0-f4f5-47f4-ae7e-279f64b5da33/retrieve","id":"-2129995390"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8fc623a5-52e2-4de2-9e8a-91f93c398f30","pagecount":"19","content":"Sustainable intensification aims to increase production and improve livelihoods of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Many farmers, however, are caught in a vicious cycle of low productivity and lack of incentives to invest in agricultural inputs. Moving towards sustainable intensification therefore requires support such as input subsidies and learning about new options through, for instance, co-learning approaches. Yet such support is not straightforward as agricultural developments often diverge from the envisaged pathways: extensification may occur instead of intensification and specialization instead of diversification. Understanding of farmers' responses to incentives such as input subsidies and new knowledge is lacking. Our overarching aim was to improve this understanding, in order to better support future pathways for agricultural development in smallholder farming. Over five seasons, we compared the responses of farmers in western Kenya taking part in a novel co-learning program we developed, which included provision of an input voucher, with the responses of farmers who only received a voucher. We also assessed the differences before and during the program. We used diverse indicators that were related to the different agricultural development pathways. Farmer responses were mainly a result of the input voucher. Farmers increased maize yields (intensification) and maize area (specialization) for maize self-sufficiency. Increased farm and maize areas in combination with relatively low N application rates also pointed to extensification coupled with the risk of soil N mining. Diversification by increasing the soybean and groundnut area share was facilitated by the integrated co-learning approach, which thereby supported relatively complex farm management changes. Our results highlight the difficulty of enabling yield and production increases, while also meeting environmental and economic goals. The diversity of farmer responses and constraints beyond the farm level underlined the importance of wider socio-economic developments in addition to support of sustainable intensification at farm level.Livelihoods of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are under pressure. Many are caught in a poverty trap, a vicious cycle of low productivity and lack of opportunities and incentives to invest in agricultural inputs (Tittonell and Giller 2013;Koning 2017). Additionally, constraints such as small farm sizes, limited market access, and a changing climate require considerable changes in current farming systems (Giller 2020). Sustainable intensification of farming is seen as a key strategy to enhance rural livelihoods in SSA (Vanlauwe et al. 2014;Jayne and Sanchez 2021). Sustainable intensification aims to enhance production per unit land, nutrient, and labor input, while reducing environmental damage, building resilience, and natural capital, as well as securing environmental services (e.g., Pretty et al. 2011;The Montpellier Panel 2013). Struik and Kuyper (2017) argue that the concept of sustainable intensification can be used as a \"process of inquiry and analysis\" and discuss how the social and economic dimensions of sustainability can be included. Such a broad view enables identification of trade-offs that arise when agricultural systems intensify.Using a diverse set of indicators to describe these tradeoffs, can inform decision-making by society and policy makers (Struik et al. 2014;Struik and Kuyper 2017).However, increasing yields through sustainable intensification is challenging in SSA (Schut and Giller 2020) and alternative pathways are often more apparent. For instance, extensification is currently more common than intensification in many regions of SSA (Baudron et al. 2012;Ollenburger et al. 2016). Continued extensification is associated with soil nutrient mining, and this trend could be reversed by strongly increasing nutrient inputs (Giller et al. 2021). However, this is constrained by widespread poverty traps (Tittonell and Giller 2013;Koning 2017) and the relatively low economic benefits of staple crop intensification in practice (Bonilla-Cedrez et al. 2021). Indeed, current trends show an increase in the area under maize cultivation in SSA (van Loon et al. 2019;Santpoort 2020), which historically has been linked to an increasing population, increasing food requirements and urbanization (Smale and Jayne 2003), and hence increasing land pressure (Crowley and Carter 2000). Although specialization towards maize favors the production of sufficient energy, diversified cropping systems would be more sustainable in terms of income, nutrition, crop yields, and risk spreading (Vanlauwe et al. 2019). Hence, identification of constraints and opportunities is essential to support desired pathways such as diversification and intensification.Setting sustainable intensification as an overall goal for smallholder farming systems results in multiple subsidiary goals, e.g., increased yields, desired N use efficiencies, and food self-sufficiency at household and national level. Attaining all goals simultaneously is virtually impossible as tradeoffs exist (Klapwijk et al. 2014;Vanlauwe and Dobermann 2020). Moreover, farmers follow their own objectives and prioritize some goals over others. Some goals also require time before they can be attained (Vanlauwe et al. 2010) and outcomes may differ between seasons, requiring assessment over multiple seasons, which is rarely done (Smith et al. 2017). Measuring progress towards the multiple goals of sustainable intensification requires a multi-criteria assessment of indicators associated with the principles of sustainability. Using a framework of principles and criteria warrants transparency and a justified selection of indicators (Florin et al. 2012). According to Florin et al. (2012, p.109), \"Principles are the overarching ('universal') attributes of a system. Criteria are the rules that govern judgement on outcomes from the system and indicators are variables that assess or measure compliance with criteria.\" Criteria can also help to decide upon benchmarks to judge whether a goal is reached (Schut et al. 2014). Within sustainable intensification of smallholder farming systems, criteria, indicators, and benchmarks need to address the field, farm, and household level. At national level, increasing yields to a certain threshold is required to attain food self-sufficiency, while at farm level cereal self-sufficiency is an important indicator that fits with farmers' objectives.Yield-increasing inputs required for sustainable intensification are beyond the reach of most smallholder farmers (Vanlauwe et al. 2010) and need incentives such as input subsidies. In the past 15 years, several fertilizer and seed subsidy programs were (re-)initiated by African governments (Jayne and Rashid 2013;Jayne et al. 2018), after their virtual absence during the 1990s and early 2000s (Martin and Anderson 2008). In addition, social enterprises, such as One Acre Fund (www. oneac refund. org), provide inputs though credit schemes to smallholder farmers. Increased input use, however, also requires new knowledge (Jayne et al. 2019;Jayne and Sanchez 2021). In a large-scale subsidy scheme in Malawi, the limited extension provided by the government was seen as a possible cause for N use efficiencies to remain low (Dorward et al. 2008). In addition, fertilizers can be scarce and farmers may mistrust their quality (Michelson et al. 2021). Co-learning, an iterative learning framework involving farmers and researchers or extension workers, has proven to be successful in developing contextualized knowledge (Descheemaeker et al. 2019).We developed an integrated co-learning approach (Marinus et al. 2021), which aimed to sustainably increase farm level production by fostering increased input use through the provision of a voucher, in combination with knowledge co-creation (Fig. 1). In this paper, we apply a multi-criteria assessment over five seasons to analyze the outcomes of Our overarching aim was to improve the understanding of farmer responses to input subsidies and new knowledge, in order to better support desired agricultural development pathways in smallholder farming. This materialized in the following objectives to (1) assess the effect of co-learning supported by a voucher for inputs on farmers' decisions and management outcomes, by comparing it with a voucher-only approach; (2) analyze the above effects in terms of criteria and indicators that relate to agricultural development pathways; and (3) reflect on the pathways of intensification, extensification, specialization, and/or diversification resulting from the co-learning and voucher program.We applied an integrated co-learning approach from August 2016 until July 2018, as described in detail by Marinus et al. (2021). The approach combined four complementary elements: input vouchers, an iterative learning process, common grounds for communication, and complementary knowledge. An input voucher of US$ 100 was provided each season to 47 farming households which aimed to alleviate resource constraints and increase input use. Inputs for maize, groundnut, soybean, common bean, and sorghum production and for dairy were made available. Most inputs were offered from the first season on, while groundnut and (short duration) common bean seed and Imazapyr-treated maize seed against striga were added later during the program in response to feedback from the co-learning farmers. The feedback was central to an iterative learning process in which a co-learning workshop prior to each cropping season played a pivotal role. The focus of the workshops evolved over time based both on questions and on feedback from farmers during the season as well as topics identified by the researchers. Discussion topics during the workshops included the judicious use of mineral fertilizers and the cultivation of alternative crops such as legumes. Researchers monitored the farmers' responses through a mid-season field survey, yield data collection, and an individual evaluation interview at the end of each season (see Marinus et al. 2021 for further details).The integrated co-learning approach was applied in two locations, Vihiga and Busia County in western Kenya. Vihiga is one of the most densely populated rural areas in SSA with 1050 people km −2 , with small farm sizes of <0.5 ha.Busia is less densely populated with 530 people km −2 , and somewhat larger farms of about 1.0 ha (Jaetzold et al. 2005;KNBS 2019). Both locations receive a rainfall of 1800-2000 mm year −1 and a have a bi-modal rainfall pattern (Jaetzold et al. 2005), with the long-rain (LR) cropping season from March until June and the short-rain (SR) cropping season from September until November. Activities started in the SR season of 2016 and continued for five seasons until the SR season of 2018. Vihiga was selected as a location for its high population density, which commonly occurs in highlands areas of East Africa. Busia was selected for its comparably larger farm sizes than Vihiga, which could lead to more opportunities for increasing household income from farming.In each county, Vihiga and Busia, two sub-locations were selected and in each of these locations 11-12 farmers were chosen. Farmers in one sub-location formed the co-learning group while a comparison group was formed in the other sub-location. The sub-locations were selected to have similar farming systems, yet be sufficiently far apart to avoid spillover effects. All farmers in the co-learning group received a voucher and took part in the co-learning activities. Those in the comparison group received only the input voucher. When inputs were added to the voucher based on feedback from the co-learning groups, these were added for the comparison group as well. A mid-season field monitoring survey included a visit by researchers to each field including fields that were newly added during the program, to record the crops cultivated and the percentage intercropping. The farmer was asked about input use, planting dates, and other crop management practices. Field sizes were measured using a hand-held GPS before the start of the program in June 2016. Small fields with sides less than 20 m were measured by hand. Yield measurements were done in two 4 × 4 m (16 m 2 ) quadrats in all fields containing maize, groundnut, soybean, and/or common bean. These crops together made up about 60-70% of the total cultivated area per farm. Fresh cob (maize) and pod (legumes) yields were measured in the field, with one sub-sample per quadrat was taken to determine dry weight by oven drying. Dry weights were calculated back to a standardized moisture content of 14%, and the grain yield (kg ha −1 ) per field was calculated based on the average of the two quadrats. The detailed monitoring and measurement campaign during five seasons ensured a comprehensive assessment of changes in farm management over time. However, the limited number of farmers per sublocation precluded a formal statistical analysis. Additionally, we compared the situation during the program with a baseline study from the two seasons before the program. The baseline study was held in the dry season, June 2016, before the start of the program. It used the detailed farm characterization survey methodology (Giller et al. 2011) to ask many questions relating to the household characteristics and the production system, including estimates of crop yields and input use in the previous two seasons. Field sizes for all fields in the farm were measured and farmer reported data was used to derive crop production and input use. During the program, however, crop yields were measured, and farmerreported input use was triangulated by comparing field and farm level application. Hence, the accuracy of the baseline study and the detailed monitoring during the program differs and this needs to be considered in the comparison.We used a multi-criteria assessment to analyze farmers' decisions and management outcomes of the integrated colearning program. Indicators were selected using principles and criteria (Table 1). We identified four principles of sustainable intensification of smallholder systems: productivity, food self-sufficiency, environmental protection, and economic viability. For each principle, one to four criteria and indicators were identified. The yield-related indicators and food self-sufficiency focused on maize, which was the most important crop in terms of food and sale with nearly all households cultivating maize every season.We present the indicator values at the start and the end of the program in a spider web diagram, to assess possible pathways related to agricultural development. Indicators that were identified for intensification and extensification and for diversification and specialization, indicated with a * in Table 1, were included in the spider web diagram. In Sections 2.3.1-2.3.4, we describe the link for each of the indicators with their respective pathway. Those indicators were scaled using a 0 to 10 score based on specific benchmarks (described in Sections 2.3.1-2.3.4), with a larger score indicating a more sustainable situation. Linear interpolation was applied to the indicator values to score them between 0 and 10.Reducing yield gaps Maize grain yield (kg ha −1 ) was measured in all maize fields, both monocropped and intercropped. A farm-level, weighted average maize grain yield was calculated based on the area of each maize field. The yield benchmark (score 10) was 50% of the season-specific, water-limited yield potential in western Kenya, a yield target required to attain national or regional food self-sufficiency (van Ittersum et al. 2016). The average water-limited yield potentials were calculated with a crop growth simulation  model (hybrid-maize) using long-term weather data. They were 12.5 Mg ha −1 and 8.0 Mg ha −1 for the long-and the short-rain cropping seasons respectively (GYGA 2020).The score was set to zero at a maize yield of 0 kg ha −1 . In addition, the water-limited yield potential of 80% was used as a benchmark for the maximum attainable yield and 15% was used as the low baseline found for current yields in SSA (van Ittersum et al. 2016). Using these seasonal average yield potentials is a simplification of what is possible in the region, on average, as the water-limited yield potential varies from season to season and from farm to farm. This should be considered when evaluating the results against the benchmarks. Yield can be increased by using improved varieties. All varieties that were not local open-pollinated varieties (OPVs) were classified as \"improved\" varieties. These include hybrid varieties and improved OPVs. The benchmark score was 0 at no use of improved varieties and 10 if 100% of the maize area was sown with improved varieties. Mineral N application rates on maize were scored at 0 if no N fertilizer was applied and 10 if the mineral N application rate on maize was 120 kg N ha −1 or more. The above three indicators, associated with reducing the yield gap, were used as indicators for the pathway of intensification.Maize is representative of the food produced at farm level and in principle available for home consumption. The total maize production at farm level (kg) was calculated from maize yield and maize area for each season.Maize self-sufficiency Maize self-sufficiency was considered an indicator for food production, as maize self-sufficiency was reported to be an important production objective by participating farmers (Marinus et al. 2021). Maize selfsufficiency may also be a prerequisite before farmers start to consider other changes in their farm towards sustainable intensification, e.g., diversification into legumes. Maize selfsufficiency at household level (−) was calculated as the total maize production at farm level per season (kg) divided by the maize requirements per household per season (kg). The seasonal maize requirement was calculated from the annual requirement multiplied with the proportional contribution of seasonal maize production to the annual production. The annual household requirements were calculated from the number of adult male equivalents (AMEs) per household and the energy requirements of an active male, 2500 kcal/ day (FAO/WHO/UNU 2001). The number of AMEs per household was based on the family composition during the 2018SR, whereby a female was equivalent to 0.82 AME and children (0-18 years) 0.75 AME (FAO/WHO/UNU 2001). The maize requirements were 260 kg AME −1 year −1 , based on an energy content of maize grain of 3500 kcal kg −1 (Lukmanji et al. 2008).Nitrogen use efficiency and N surplus Nitrogen (N) use efficiency of maize was calculated per season: the total N outputs in maize grain (kg N ha −1 ) divided by the N inputs on all fields with maize (kg N ha −1 ). N output was calculated using the farm-level weighted average maize grain yield and a fixed N content in maize grain of 1.54% (Njoroge 2019). A farm level weighted average for N inputs was calculated based on the mineral fertilizer used per field, as reported in the monitoring survey. N use efficiency was analyzed using the framework developed by the EU Nitrogen Expert Panel (2015), with a minimum and a maximum N use efficiency of 50% and 90% respectively and a maximum N surplus of 80 kg N ha −1 . A N use efficiency below 50% or a N surplus above 80 kg N ha −1 indicated a high risk of N losses to the environment, while N use efficiencies above 90% indicated a high risk of soil mining. The framework also includes a general benchmark for a desired output of 80 kg N ha −1 . We adjusted this benchmark to the N output at 50% of the water-limited yield potential, equivalent to 83 and 53 kg N ha −1 for the long-rain and the short-rain cropping seasons.Assessing area per crop in smallholder farming is not straightforward as crops are commonly intercropped: e.g., maize is often intercropped with legumes such as common bean or soybean. Cultivated area per crop (ha) was calculated as the sum of the areas of all fields containing that crop and was used to calculate yields. The percentage farm area per crop (%) was calculated using the estimated percentage intercropping and the field area when comparing percentage areas of different crops. When analyzing maize alone, the percentage intercropping was not considered as, in most common maize-legume intercropping systems used by farmers in western Kenya, intercropping does not influence maize yield (Ojiem et al. 2014). The percentage farm area covered by maize was an indicator of specialization and by legumes of diversification. If the percentage maize was above 75% of the farm area, the score was 0 and if it was 25% or less it was 10. For legumes, the score was 0 if no legumes were present and 10 if they occupied more than 30% of the farm area.Value of produce Value of produce per crop was calculated for maize, common bean, groundnut, and soybean based on the total production per crop per season and the median crop price for 2018. Median prices were obtained through a weekly market survey after pooling the data from both locations as there were limited differences. Value of produce was expressed per adult equivalent per day based on the household composition in 2018 and season length. Input costs were not considered as these were largely covered by the voucher. The value of produce therefore paints a relatively optimistic picture and does not reflect farm profitability. In addition, seasonal and within season price fluctuations were not considered, as this was not feasible for all crops and inputs. We used the poverty line for Kenya (World Bank 2015) and the living income for rural Kenya (Anker and Anker 2017) as benchmarks. Both were corrected for inflation, using 2018 as reference year, which was the same year as for the crop prices. Both the poverty line and the living income were expressed in $ purchasing power parity ($PPP) per adult equivalent per day, following OECD (2011) and Van de Ven et al. (2020). The value of produce per hectare of all crops combined was expressed per hectare of farm land for each season. It was scored at 0 if the value of produce was 0 $PPP ha −1 . The score of 10 was assigned to the 75% percentile of the value of produce obtained by all farmers in the short-and the long-rain cropping seasons, so it was a relative score based on the current production values. Value of produce was considered an indicator for intensification.Risk spreading Economic viability is improved if risk is spread by growing a variety of crops and not focusing solely on maize. We calculated the relative contribution of legumes (common bean, groundnut, and soybean) to the combined value of produce at farm level as an indicator for risk spreading. It was scored 0 if legumes did not contribute to the value of produce and 10 if legumes contributed 50% or more to the value of produce. The degree of risk spreading was considered an indicator of diversification.Farm area Farm area often limits the income that can be attained from farming (Marinus et al. 2022). We assessed the total farm area per farm based on measured field sizes of all fields in the farm and monitored this over time during the seasonal monitoring survey. Farm area was score 0 if the farm area was 0 ha. The score of 10 was assigned to the 75% percentile of the farm areas observed for all farmers, so it was a relative score based on the current farm areas. An increase in farm area was considered an indicator for extensification.There were few differences between the two groups of farmers, the co-learning and the comparison group, except for the expansion of legumes. Therefore, in the results section, no distinction is made between the two groups of farmers, except where relevant differences arose. We first assess the indicators of Table 1 and subsequently analyze the different pathways for sustainable intensification.Median yields were about 15% of the seasonal-average waterlimited yield potential before the program (Table 2) and strongly increased to almost 50% of the seasonal-average water-limited yield potential for most households from the first season of the program onwards. Some farms even reached 80% of the seasonal-average water-limited yield potential in some seasons. Those good yields were maintained during all five seasons of the program (Fig. 2). During the program, farmers planted nearly all of their maize area with improved varieties (96%) in both locations, while before the program this was only 46% in Vihiga and 63% in Busia.The maize production per household before the program was about 15% of that during the program, due to both a yield increase and the increase in maize area (Table 2). During the program, the maize area remained relatively large and some farmers even increased it over time (Supplementary materials 2, Fig. 2). This trend was observed irrespective of the initial cultivated area of maize (Supplementary materials 2).Maize self-sufficiency before the program in Vihiga was on average one-third of the required amount of maize per household and in Busia this was half. During the program most households became maize self-sufficient. On average, in Vihiga, households were producing 1.62 times what they needed and in Busia 3.28 times (Fig. 3). Increases in maize area from the second season onwards resulted in an improvement in maize self-sufficiency for those households in Vihiga which were not yet maize self-sufficient in the first season. In Busia, larger maize self-sufficiency was associated with a smaller fraction of the farm area dedicated to maize (Fig. 3). These relatively larger farms cultivated a larger absolute area with maize than smaller farms of less than 0.5 ha, who tended to plant maize in most of their fields (Fig. 4). This critical area of 0.5 ha was roughly what was needed to produce twice the amount of maize required by typical households, indicating farmers' priority to attain food self-sufficiency. Maize self-sufficiency and the good market for maize, albeit at low price, were named by farmers as reasons to grow maize during the evaluation interviews.Before the program, farmers in Vihiga applied a similar rate of mineral N fertilizer on maize as during the program (Table 2). The total amount of N applied on maize however nearly doubled, but due to the increase in maize area, the rate remained similar. The N application rate in Busia increased by nearly 50% during the program as compared to before the program. P application rates increased in both sites during the program as compared to before the program (Table 2).There was a clear negative relationship between N application rate and maize area in both Vihiga and Busia during the program (Fig. 5). High N application rates (> 120 kg N ha −1 ) were applied on farms with a small maize area (<0.2 ha) and the rates were largest in the first season (2016SR). Especially the farmers in Vihiga applied high rates, which was attributed to their extremely small cultivated areas. With an increased maize area from the second season onwards, the N application rates reduced. The other seasons showed a similar pattern as 2017LR. Farmers with a large maize area tended to distribute the fertilizers over the whole area, resulting in lower application rates per hectare (40-50 kg N ha −1 ). This relation between N application rate and farm area seemed partly related to the size of the input voucher, which limited total N use per farm.A common choice was to use 60% of the voucher to buy a 50 kg bag of DAP (di-ammonium phosphate) and a 50 kg bag of CAN (calcium ammonium nitrate), adding up to 23 kg of N which was the common maximum N use per farm across the maize fields (Supplementary materials 3). Some farmers with a larger maize area, mainly in Busia, bought small amounts of additional mineral fertilizer with their own money, resulting in moderate fertilizer N application rates of around 50 kg N ha −1 .Only few farms across sites and seasons were within the desired range of N use efficiency (white area in Fig. 6). Too high N use efficiencies (>90%), indicating soil mining, were found for many of the farms in Busia, during all five seasons, and for about half of the farms in Vihiga from the second season onwards. Too low N use efficiencies (<50%) and too large N surpluses (>80 kg N ha −1 ) were mainly found in Vihiga (Fig. 6), especially in the first season, where large amounts of N-based fertilizers were applied on small maize areas (<0.2 ha). This problem reduced from the second season onwards when the cultivated area of maize increased (Fig. 5). Before the program, the relative crop area for both maize and legumes was smaller than during the program (Table 2).The share of maize increased by 10 to 25% and the share of legumes doubled. However, the area in common bean decreased, the area in groundnut increased, and soybean was newly introduced to 6% of the farm area (Table 2). The fraction of the farm area cropped with maize increased in the first two seasons, whereas that with legumes increased in later seasons. Co-learning farmers planted a larger fraction of their farm area with groundnut and soybean in the last two seasons (2018LR and 2018SR) than the comparison farmers (Fig. 7), although this seemed to be at the cost of common bean. Groundnut and soybean were two focus crops of the co-learning program, for rotational benefits and high value of produce per hectare, with specific attention to intercropping arrangements. The difference between comparison and co-learning groups was larger during the long-rain cropping season (Supplementary materials 4), which is locally seen as the main season for maize. Some households cultivated legumes mainly during the long rains and others mainly during the short rains. Small farms tended to grow a larger fraction of the farm area with legumes than larger farms, but mostly in intercropping with maize. In evaluation interviews, farmers with larger farms noted labor constraints for cultivating legumes as their main reason for dedicating only a limited area to legumes. In Vihiga, legumes were mainly intercropped with maize.After increasing in the first seasons, the fraction of farm area with maize decreased in the last season on the larger farms (2018SR, Supplementary materials 5). The initial increases were realized both by replacing other crops (cassava, sorghum) and by using additional land, e.g., by renting in land and using land that was previously fallow (not shown). Most farmers who decreased their maize area had a relatively large maize area. They reported ample maize self-sufficiency and low maize prices as main reasons for the decrease. Maize was replaced by groundnut and by leaving land fallow.The value of combined crop produce per hectare more than doubled during the program when compared to before (Table 2). This was the result of yield increases of most   Maize contributed most to the total value of produce for most households (Fig. 8), because of the large fraction of farm area on which it was grown. The contribution of maize to the total value of produce was more or less the same before and during the program and increased only slightly. As a consequence, the contribution of legumes slightly decreased. However, the share of common beans strongly decreased (low yields, smaller fraction of farm area) and groundnut and soybean took over (Table 2). For some individual households, legumes contributed two to three times more to the total value of produce than maize, because of their larger legume area fraction combined with relatively good legume yields (not shown). The expanding area of groundnut (Fig. 7) also explains why the value of produce of legumes became more important for co-learning farmers than comparison farmers in the last two seasons (Fig. 8). In particular, groundnut became important, contributing 14% and 8% to total value of produce for co-learning farmers in Vihiga and Busia, respectively, in 2018LR. For comparison farmers, the value of produce of legumes was 1% in Vihiga and 0% in Busia in 2018LR due to low yields and small areas with soybean. Soybean was mainly valued as an option to reduce striga infestation and less important for its selling value.Only one household in Vihiga obtained a value of produce that was equivalent to the living income in two of the seasons (Fig. 8). In Busia, slightly more households in both groups obtained a living income, which was mainly related to the larger farm area compared with Vihiga. The total value of produce was equivalent to the poverty line for a few households per group in Vihiga and for about one-third of the households in Busia. Farm area appeared to be an important characteristic for explaining the indicator values, especially in Busia. Based on Fig. 4, a cutoff point of 0.5 ha was determined to group farmers with a smaller farm area (<0.5 ha), denoted \"small farms\", and farmers with a larger farm area (>0.5 ha), denoted \"larger farms\", even though these farms are still very small. Above an area of 0.5 ha, no farmers cultivated maize on all of their land, with one exception in Busia. In Vihiga, very few farms were larger than 0.5 ha, too few to consider as a separate category, so we excluded these from the analysis. In Vihiga, most intensification happened at the beginning of the program, while hardly any further intensification was observed in subsequent years (Fig. 9). This was the case for all indicators related to intensification: value of produce per hectare of all crops, maize yield, and the use of improved varieties remained the same. N application rate even slightly decreased. The relative maize area showed a slight specialization towards maize over time during the program, but at the same time the trends in relative legume area and the legume contribution to the value of produce pointed at diversification and spreading of risk. Farm area slightly increased over time, pointing towards extensification.In Busia the small farms showed a similar pattern: a large positive change in intensification only at the start of the program and a decreasing N application rate during the program due to an increase in maize and total farm area (Fig. 9). The specialization in maize (low score for maize area) was even more pronounced than in Vihiga and coincided with a slight decrease in the relative legume area. However, the contribution of legumes to the value of produce slightly increased, pointing at risk spreading through diversification. Similar to the small farms, the larger farms in Busia showed most   intensification at the start of the program and hardly any further intensification, except for a slight increase in maize yield. The other indicators for intensification remained the same during the program. The farms diversified as shown by both the relative maize area and the relative legume area and a large increase in the contribution of legumes to the value of produce, leading to spreading of risk. Farm area for both groups in Busia slightly increased over time, pointing towards extensification.Comparing the larger and the small farms in Busia showed a slightly higher degree of intensification on the larger farms by a larger value of produce per hectare and a higher maize yield during the program (Fig. 9). However, the differences were small. During the program, small farms were more diversified in terms of legume area and legume contribution to value of produce, than larger farms. At the end of the program, however, the contribution of legumes to the total value of produce was larger for larger farms due to higher yields of legumes, contributing to diversification for risk spreading.In this study, we used a diverse set of indicators to analyze five seasons of detailed farm level data, which was gathered as part of a co-learning program with 47 farmers in western Kenya. We also compared the outcomes during the program (measured) with farmer-reported data, collected during a baseline study held before the program. We compared the integrated co-learning approach (Marinus et al. 2021), which included an input voucher, with a voucher-only approach. We assessed whether the integrated co-learning approach and/or the input voucher-only would lead to pathways of intensification or extensification and pathways of diversification or specialization. We did not observe a difference between farmers only receiving a voucher and those also taking part in the co-learning program, so we analyzed them as one group. The only exception was the adoption of legumes, which were included more substantially by the co-learning farmers. Soybean was newly introduced and groundnut substantially expanded, which led to a more diversified cropping system. All farmers in our sample increased maize yields (intensification) compared to the situation before the program, although an increase in farm and maize areas in combination with relatively low N application rates (risk of soil N mining) also pointed to extensification and specialization. The value of produce remained below a living income for most households in our sample due to the small farm areas. This was more prominent in Vihiga than in Busia. The larger farms in our sample scored better in terms of diversification than the small farms, especially related to fraction of the area in maize and contribution of legumes to the value of produce. Our results are in line with the well-described difficulty of enabling an increase in yields and agricultural production, while at the same time fulfilling other environmental and economic goals that are important for sustainable intensification of smallholder agriculture.The voucher seems to have resulted in changes in input use, yields, maize area, and farm area, independent of the colearning workshops (Table 2). Although maize yields and input use prior to the program were based on farmer-reported data, they were in line with current yields (MoALF 2015) and input use (Sheahan et al. 2013;Valbuena et al. 2015) reported in the literature for western Kenya. The measured maize yields and subsequent increased farm level production allowed most households to achieve maize self-sufficiency during the program. This is most likely due to the provision of the US$ 100 input voucher, as most farms in western Kenya only produce enough maize to feed the household for half of the year (Valbuena et al. 2015). Although the voucher alleviated capital constraints for agriculture at household level, co-learning helped to facilitate more complex changes such as diversification into (new) legumes such as soybean and groundnut (Fig. 7). Although taking time, the iterative learning process facilitated learning on new intercropping arrangements of maize and legumes and identified specific objectives for soybean (e.g., reducing striga incidence) and groundnut (e.g., high value of produce ha −1 ), as described in more detail in Marinus et al. (2021). Co-learning can thus be used to contextualize knowledge for the breadth of options that is needed for sustainable intensification (Descheemaeker et al. 2019;Ronner et al. 2021).Initially, all households in our sample, irrespective of farm area, specialized in maize both in Vihiga and in Busia. Larger farms, however, reduced their maize area again in the last season (2018SR), while small farms maintained their increased maize area. Similar increases in maize area after the introduction of an input voucher or subsidy have been described before for western Kenya (Sanchez et al. 2007) and Malawi (Holden and Lunduka 2010;Chibwana et al. 2012), based on farmer-reported maize areas. In these studies, however, an increase in maize area often resulted in a decrease in legume area (Holden and Lunduka 2010;Chibwana et al. 2012). For small farms, maintaining the large maize area was associated with farmers' objectives to be maize self-sufficient (Marinus et al. 2021).The financial benefits of diversification into groundnut and soybean that we observed were in line with the findings of Franke et al. (2014), who simulated benefits of diversification with legumes for different farm types in Malawi. Diversification is important for spreading risks (crop failure, low prices), and for nutritional and rotational benefits (Vanlauwe et al. 2019). On the small farms, legumes were mainly intercropped with maize resulting in limited benefits due to land constraints. However, on larger farms, labor constraints were limiting the expansion of legumes, similar to the findings of Franke et al. (2014). This would imply that developing and promoting legumespecific, small-scale mechanization, such as groundnut diggers for harvesting and shellers (Tsusaka et al. 2017), may be required to enable diversification for households with a larger farm area.The maize yields obtained during the program point at the pathway of intensification as yields were two to three times greater than the yields reported by participating farmers before the program, and close to the seasonal-average benchmark of 50% of the water-limited yield potential. However, as the corresponding N application rates were both above and below the desirable range, it appeared to be difficult to enhance N use efficiency, which is a typical challenge pertaining to sustainable intensification (Zhang et al. 2015).Intensified mineral fertilizer use resulted in extremely high N application rates in Vihiga (>200 kg N ha −1 in the first season, ~100 kg N ha −1 in later seasons) due to the small farm areas in our sample there, resulting in N use efficiencies below 50%. These farms of less than 0.2 ha were not able to allocate all inputs from the voucher in a useful manner, even with an increased farm or maize area in later seasons. Maize yields were not negatively related to farm area, and in some seasons even positively related to farm area, while for a small sample, this seems to go against the inverse farm size-productivity relationship (Larson et al. 2014). Our finding however is in line with Desiere and Jolliffe (2018) and Gourlay et al. (2017) who also found no negative relation between farm area and yield. Notwithstanding higher N application rates, smaller farms did not seem to produce better yields than larger farms, which may be explained by reliance on off-farm work requiring farmers' attention (Leonardo et al. 2015) and the presence of poorer soils (Franke et al. 2019), requiring longer term investments in soil fertility (Vanlauwe et al. 2010).Extensification was observed on larger farms, who increased their farm and/or maize areas and hence distributed N over larger areas. This was most notable in Busia, as also discussed in Marinus et al. (2023), where population pressure is lower and fallow land is available. We hypothesize that the expansion in farm area was enabled by the voucher (Marinus et al. 2023). The preference of the farmers in our sample for extensification over intensification goes against one of the key objectives of sustainable intensification, namely to increase agricultural production on existing farmland (Cassman et al. 2003;Struik and Kuyper 2017). The preference for land expansion among African smallholders to increase production, however, seems to be a general trend for crop area (Baudron et al. 2012;Ollenburger et al. 2016;Jayne and Sanchez 2021;Giller et al. 2021). At farm level, however, extensification may be less expensive than increasing input rates with the associated larger risks of financial losses (Tittonell et al. 2007;Burke et al. 2019;Jindo et al. 2020), which can help to explain the observed farmers' preference. The additional fields that farmers rented in were either previously fallow, or already in active use for agriculture. Expanding into fallow land or nature areas, on the one hand, can result in environmental concerns as it can jeopardize current ecosystem services such as providing natural habitats or erosion control. On the other hand, using fallow land more frequently, can also be seen as intensification and therefore desirable. Increasing farm area by some farmers, by renting in land that was ready in active use, meant that farm area decreased for other farmers. If this would happen on a larger scale, increasing farm areas could push others out of agriculture, requiring alternative employment for those going out of agriculture (Giller 2020).Except for the first season, the N application rates were remarkably similar for the small and larger farmers in our sample at about 50 kg N ha −1 . This was partly limited by the fixed voucher size of US$ 100. Farmers with a relatively large maize area, who bought additional fertilizers still applied N at a maximum of 50 kg N ha −1 , despite the advice in the co-learning workshops to apply more. This may be partly due to the active presence of One Acre Fund in the area who, as a credit provider, advises farmers to use this conservative rate of 50 kg N ha −1 . One Acre Fund was already present in the program locations before the start of the program and did not change the intensity of their activities during the program. The relatively good yields and low N fertilizer application rates are probably not sustainable as they will likely result in soil N mining. Soil N mining is common in SSA, but usually at lower yields and lower input levels than in our study (Sheahan and Barrett 2017). We diagnosed negative N balances over multiple seasons, which suggest that soil mining will occur on the long term. This may have been enabled by the increased application of P through the mineral fertilizers. In the P-fixing soils of the study area, P limits mineralization and strong yield responses to P can be found (Kihara and Njoroge 2013). Another reason may be that we did not account for N inputs from manure and N 2 -fixation, although these were small (<14 kg N ha −1 for manure on average, with large variation in rates due to likely recall error). When good yields in combination with soil N mining are continued, N and other nutrients (e.g., K) may become limiting (Njoroge 2019) and fertilizer rates will need to be adjusted.We combined indicators that farmers indicated to be important from their perspective (e.g., maize self-sufficiency, value of produce) with indicators that are important for local or national food self-sufficiency (e.g., yield and production) and environmental protection (e.g., N use efficiency, N surplus) in an integrated assessment. This analysis, in combination with the discussions with the colearning farmers, identified potential constraints and tradeoffs at farm level. Achieving and even surpassing maize self-sufficiency was a first priority for farmers, because of the importance of having surplus food as a buffer for later seasons and the reliable market for maize (Marinus et al. 2021). This priority could stimulate specialization. The limited observed diversification goes against a common assumption in modeling studies that farmers are likely to diversify into other crops once they are maize self-sufficient (e.g., Hengsdijk et al. 2014;Leonardo et al. 2018).Increasing the value of produce obtained from farming was a second objective for farmers. However, despite the good yields, farm area and in Busia also, labor availability seemed to be overriding constraints for reaching the income benchmarks. At best, one-third of the households in our sample obtained a living income and half of the households reached the poverty line in Busia. In Vihiga, only one out of twenty-three households obtained a living income in two seasons, while at best one-fourth of the sample reached the poverty line. Increasing farm area per household or extensification may thus be needed to increase income from farming to a living income. New employment opportunities will then be needed for those who choose to leave farming (Giller 2020), if no additional land is available or if an increase of agricultural land is not desired (e.g., Godfray et al. 2010;The Montpellier Panel 2013). Following area expansion, in Busia, mechanization could alleviate the labor constraints for cultivation of profitable crops such as legumes, of which the further expansion during the program seemed to be limited by labor constraints. Mechanization could thereby facilitate further diversification into more profitable crops for economic viability. Apart from changing to more profitable crops and increasing farm area, selling products at times of high prices can also be a way to increase income. This strategy is not within reach of all farmers, as it depends on their short-term needs for cash. We did not consider seasonal price fluctuations, although maize prices can differ more than a factor two between the scarce lean season and just after harvest, when maize is abundant (Burke et al. 2017).A more extensive analysis of each individual household and price fluctuations would be required to assess this. Disaggregating the analysis per household showed that farm area limited outcomes for both small and larger farms in specific ways. For example, N use efficiencies were below (for about one-third of farms in Vihiga) or above the desired range (for about half of the farms in both sites), respectively, while outputs (yield) were in the desired range. Another methodological lesson learned is that assessing adoption of new crops or varieties in programs on diversification needs multi-season studies (Glover et al. 2019) as our results showed that the legume area per farm differed per season and not necessarily according to the season when legumes were known to be most commonly cultivated. Finally, the principles, criteria, and indicator framework, following Florin et al. (2012), was useful in being explicit on the underlying assumptions, i.e., criteria, on when an indicator contributes to sustainability. Some of these assumptions, e.g., on crop area, can be subjective and thereby require transparency on why they were chosen and which benchmarks were used (Marinus et al. 2018).We analyzed whether farmer responses to a voucher and co-learning were indicative of different pathways for agricultural development over a period of five seasons by applying an indicator framework. Our overarching aim was to improve the understanding of farmer responses to input subsidies and new knowledge, in order to better support desired agricultural development pathways in smallholder farming. Although we focused on a limited number of farmers, 47 in total, we believe that based on the detailed data collection over multiple seasons, some conclusions can be drawn. The novel integrated co-learning approach which we developed facilitated more complex changes in farm management, such as diversification through an increase in legume area and legume contribution to the value of produce. Other responses were mainly related to the input voucher itself.Increased input use through the voucher seemed to increase yields and production, indicating a pathway of intensification that allowed households to achieve maize self-sufficiency. As a result of increases in maize and farm area on larger farms, N application rates remained constant, despite larger inputs. Accompanied by too low N use efficiencies, this pointed at extensification and a risk of not reaching environmental protection objectives. Most small farms were only just maize self-sufficient and their value of produce remained below the poverty line. Obtaining a living income was only possible on large farm areas. It should be noted, however, that we based this on the product prices of 2018. Different prices would give a somewhat different picture, but it is clear that prices would have to increase several-fold to lift the majority of the farmers out of poverty. Our multi-criteria analysis highlighted the difficulty of supporting diversification as a pathway towards sustainable intensification. Improving livelihoods requires changes that go far beyond the farm level. Smallholder farmers in western Kenya and in many rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa are essentially parttime farmers who depend on many sources of income. To increase income from farming, farm areas need to increase, which requires off-farm employment opportunities for those who choose to leave farming. Whether sustainable intensification of smallholder agriculture will actually happen may therefore depend on how changes in farm structure-that is, capital, land and labor-are facilitated at farm level and as part of the wider socioeconomic developments within a country.","tokenCount":"8294"}
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Murkherjee","I. and T.N. Khoshoo. 1971. Genetic-evolutionary studies on cultivated Canna. V: Intraspecific polyploidy in starch yielding Canna edulis. Genet. Iber. 23:35-42. Keyword: Achira","origin","evolution Seeds","development","cytology","ornamental plants","ornamental herbaceous plants Maps","tuberous species","taxonomy","genetic resources","plant genetic resources Ananas","Canna","Dioscorea","Maranta","Manihot","Solanum","Polymnia","wild relatives","crop origin","Argentina Polymnia sonchifolia","yacon","Pachyrhizus ahipa","use","ethnobotany","ajipa","jicama","Xanthosoma","Canna","Maranta","Dioscorea","Ullucus","Oxalis","Tropaeolum","Manihot","Arracacia","Solanum","Ipomoea","geographic distribution","crop history","Colombia","Ecuador Archaeology","plant domestication","crop origin","Pachyrhizus","Ipomoea","Ullucus","Ethnobotany","geographic distribution","Lepidium","use Provenance","geographical distribution","roots","tubers Taxonomy","yams Polymnia sonchifolia","Pachyrhizus erosus","Venezuela","Ananas","Phaseolus vulgaris","Lunatus coccineus","Psidium","use","ethnobotany","Eugenia","Manihot","Annona","Passiflora","Sapotaceae","Achras","cassava","Arracacia xanthorrhiza Breadfruit","taro","use","nutrition","Colocasia esculenta","crop origin","agronomy","geographic distribution","Xanthosoma","Dioscorea","Ipomoea","Manihot","sweet potato","cassava","crop origin Pachyrhizus tuberosus","Pachyrhizus erosus","Pachyrhizus ahipa","crop origin","use","crop husbandry","nutritional value Taxonomy","nomenclature Irrigation","responses","variety trials","sugar crops Tropaeolum tuberosum","Lepidium meyenii","uses","cultivation Cultivars","cooking quality","sugar crops Uses","cultivation Leaves","colour","tubers","root crops Flowering","seed production","induction","cultivars","root crops Phytotoxicity","herbicides","weed control","chemical control","crop yield","crop plants as weeds","root crops Inflorescences","pruning","staking","metabolism","chlorophyll Storage disorders","chilling injury","cold storage","cultivars","texture","respiration Zea mays","Canavalia","Canna edulis","archaeology","achira","maize","crop history","Ecuador Root vegetables","genetic differences","seed production","growth regulators","yield components","root crops","growth retardants Root vegetables","biotechnology","polymorphism","malate dehydrogenase","aspartate aminotransferase","sexual reproduction","apomixis","isoenzymes","root crops Root vegetables","reproduction","plant embryos","sexual reproduction","ovules","embryo sac","abnormal development","fertility","embryology","root crops Seed set","pollination","requirements","hybrid seed production","outcrossing","root crops Cultural methods","ecotypes","plant morphology","vegetables Soil fertility","responses","root crops","starch crops","soil water regimes","tropics Flavour","cherimoyas","tamarillos","production possibilities","Arracacia xanthorrhiza","Ullucus tuberosus","fruit vegetables","subtropical crops Nutritive value","characteristics","cultivars","quality","yields","landraces","protein content","variety trials","evaluation","characterization Cultivars","Pachyrhizus"],"sieverID":"ee908b70-a113-478f-b7a8-8c95cf87feeb","pagecount":"31","content":"Roots and tubers crops are present in the diet of people almost all over the world, the best known being the potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) and cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz), both of which are of South American origin but are now widely distributed. The potato was domesticated in the Andean region, but there are several species of roots and tubers which originated there and which are still of importance to Andean people, such as yacon (Polymnia sonchifolia Poeppig & Endlicher), white carrot (Arracacia xanthorrhyza Brancrof.), mauka (Mirabilis expansa Ruiz & Pavón), maca (Lepidium meyenii Walp.), achira (Canna edulis Ker Grawler), oca (Oxalis tuberosus Molina), mashua (Tropaeolum tuberosum R. & P.) and ulluco (Ullucus tuberosus Lozano). These species are little known to farmers and investigators outside the Andean region, and even to some within the region. They are species that have perhaps not been fully exploited or whose potential has not been fully taken advantage of, possibly because their cultivation is restricted and their use localized. Some of these species have a nutritive value and other characteristics that make them very promising candidates for more extensive use. For example, oca and mashua have a high energy value, maca and white carrot contain high levels of iron and calcium, and the sugar content of yacón is so high that it has potential for agroindustrial alcohol production.The results of the relatively limited research that has been carried out on these underutilized species by national and international agricultural research institutions, non-governmental organizations and universities is the starting point for future research. This bibliography is a compilation of such results, reflecting the state of knowledge on diverse research subjects and also what still needs to be done, for example in areas such as entomology and pathology. The bibliography contains 451 references, with citation and Agrovoc descriptors. Records are organized in 8 subjects, that is taxonomy and evolution (102), chemical composition (50), crop management and production (66), plant propagation (50), plant pathology (32), plant physiology (41), entomology (7) and plant breeding (103).We hope this bibliography will be a valuable tool for researchers and other professionals working with Andean root and tube crops. For further contributions and updates, please contact Ms. Dimary Libreros, Information Assistant, IPGRI-Americas Group, d.libreros@cgiar.org. ","tokenCount":"371"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7786c58cf81fa189d13b7f71aa8c5207","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/2c2ca5eb-1cfd-443a-934f-49b9d5c42138/retrieve","id":"-1123076968"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a56f1776-6af1-47da-bf7a-f46725aa09aa","pagecount":"2","content":"The disease was detected in Cote d'Ivoire in 2022 on cultivated rice in Gagnoa. Although it is unknown whether the disease has ever been found elsewhere, its presence in Gagnoa raises the possibility of extensive rice damage in farmer's fields when favourable environmental conditions occur. Rice plants infected with bakanae typically exhibit abnormal plant growth, including elongated and thin stems and leaves, pale green flag leaves, dried-up leaves, and sterile panicles (Ou 1985; Mew and Gonzales 2002). Bakanae can reduce crop yields by up to 70% in heavily infected fields (Gupta et al., 2015).Over the last two decades, bakanae has received attention, and population genetics, analysis of fungal metabolites responsible for bakanae symptoms and sequence analysis for diagnostics have all been investigated. Despite the evident advances stemming from global efforts to understand the importance of this pathogen, relatively little is known about the genome and basic biology of F. fujikuroi in SSA. To date, only a limited number of F. fujikuroi isolates have been genetically characterized in the region, predominantly using internal transcribed spacer region (ITS), which can only detect a small amount of diversity (Wulff et al., 2009). The lack of genome information limits research on evolution and epidemiology of this pathogen, as well as the development of measures to limit its impact on rice production in the region.Methodology: With the guidance of the agricultural officers, we visited the infected field in Gagnoa and we collected infected plants from all the infected plots. Plant samples were placed in paper bags, labeled with details including field number, location and date of collection. The rest of the details of farmer name, variety, GPS coordinates, etc. were recorded in the book. Also, samples showing clear symptoms were collected in RNA later solution and shipped to Novogene UK for bioinformatics analysis.Fusarium fujikuroi was isolated from infected anomalously elongated plants collected from the rice fields and carried to the lab. Infected plant stems were cut in 0.3 cm cross-sections and placed in a 70% ethanol, 10% NaOCl for 2-3 minutes to kill saprophytic fungal and bacterial contaminants. Disinfected tissues were washed in sterile distilled water (dH2O), dried on sterilized filter paper (Whatman® No 1), transferred to petri dishes containing ½ strength potato dextrose agar (PDA) and placed in the dark at 24 o C until mycelia growth was observed. Mycelia from the samples were subcultured onto PDA.Key Results: 10 isolates were recovered (initial isolation picture, Figure 2) and have been preserved in paper discs at -20 o C. Pathogenicity assays are ongoing on a susceptible rice cultivar that was taken from the farmers field. The genetic diversity of positive Cote d'voire F. fujikuroi isolates will be evaluated. If genetic variation is found, efforts will be made to ascertain the origin of Cote d'Ivoire isolates, design tools for quick diagnosis and determine whether phenotypic variation exists with respect to virulence on rice cultivars.  ","tokenCount":"478"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"35c24ed5e8ccb8b382b3e828654dd241","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/7b47b71c-23d1-4b97-9427-bdfe05435eed/retrieve","id":"1108883896"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a7f7f1ac-3c65-483c-952c-0685ac8c4de7","pagecount":"35","content":"Manihot esculenta Crantz, known commonly as cassava, manioc, mandioca, yuca or tapioca, te Olle of the most lmportant food crops ol the tropics. It is claimed to be the major source of carbohydrates for more than 300 million persons. Cassava ls an American crop, probably orlginating in northem 80uth Ameriea (Brazil, The Guyanas). with a secOlldary eenter of origin in Meso-Ameriea (Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras). Its present-day distribution ls worldwide in frost-free regiOllS, between 30• north and south latitudes at elevations ranging from sea level to more than 6,000 feet.Origln and Distribution Production and Econornic Importance utilization and Limitations Yields and Nutritional Value 3.have been reported from individual plantings. 1t must be recognizad, bowever, that cassava lB a long-term crop ranging from 6 to 18 months or longer from planting .to harvest.Generally, caBsava varieties are not outstanding nutrttiona11y, except as a sourea of energy. The roots contain about 30 to 40 par cent dry matter. This consists largaly of carbohydrates, relatively small amounts of protetn (usually 0.5 to 1.5 par cent) and fractlonal parceutages of fats, vitamina, and minarals.Of 3!f.> cultivars collected 1:0 Colombia, several contain 7.25 par cent cruda , protein (basa on N x 6.25 calculations with O par cent moistura content). But, it is probable that as much as 50 per cant of the total nitrogen preseut in cassava may be non-protein nitrogeu and of unknown value for single-stomach animals.Preliminary amino acíd analyses of cassava lndicate a distrtbution similar to that of corn, with low levels of meihionine. Threonlne lavels are twice as hlgh as in corn.Cassava laavas are usad to some mant in vartons tropical arcas for human consumption and animal feed. Analyses of tha leaves of soma varleiies show high levels of protein, ranging from 3.7 to 10.7 per cent on a fresh weight basis and 21 to 36 par cent on a dry weight basis. Of the assantíal amino acids, only methionine i8 deficlent; excellent levels of lysine (5.6 to 8.0 par cent) have heen found.Cassava is an important element in the diet of rural and urban populations throughout the tropips. It ia a valuahla energy source for animal feed, and it la an acceptabla source of industrial starch and flour.Population ls increasing rapidly in the tropics. This additional population will require food. Cassava is well adapted to a wide range of ecological conditions througbout the tropícs. ReBearch to improve the yield potential, to increase the total production and to improve the nutritional quality will help to meet food demands, will lacilitate an expansion in the production ol high-protein animal producta, and will contribute to more emclent industrial processlng.Limited knowledge ls available on response oi varietal types to improved cultural practices. caasava appeara to res.ponil tOP20S and K 2 0, but tbis may be related more to native so11 fertility than to lI. fertilizer-by-variety interaction.High levels ol teclmology have rarely been investigated with either improved varieties or non-improved types. Some information exists, ,chis being derived from research with non-improved varieties and low levela oi inpu.ta.Apparently the research cu planting methods has defined the type of planting stock most suitable for propagation. However, variable resulta have bcen obtained from systems of placement of stakes in the ground.Research in agronomic practices has been locatlon-limited. Extended agronomic reaearch ia required to develop too production systems that will increase cassava yields and production in tha tropics. This applies not on1y to non-tmproved varieties but also improved materials as they become avallable, under high levels of ieclmology and in coordination with other diSciplines, such as agricultural engineering and agricultural economics. This research must seek to determine the range of adaptation and productivity of improved cultivars by putting them into international tests with difierent ecological stresses.Although varieties differ in yielding ability and in many other desirable characteristics, relativaly little work has been done in breeding cassava.The genus Manthot is said to have some 128 species, a11 native to the new world. The majority of these probably are cultivar s rather tban distinct species.lt ia possible tbst cassava has hybridized naturally with wild relatives, giving rise to new types that might eaaily be considered new specles. Tbere la a need to establ1sh a sound basis for breeding improved cassava by studying too cultivated and wild relatOO species. This requires thorO\\l~hcollection, introduction, and evaluatlon of cassava cultivars and related species.Fair1y large collections of the cultivatOO species M. esculenta Crantz are locatOO in Brazil, Malagasy, Uganda, Congo, Puerto Rico, Colombia and India.A comprehensive living collection oí too near and diatantly relatOO spectes in tbe genera Manibot does not exist anywhere.Past breOOing effort¡¡ have relied mostly on selection procedures, with workers evaluating tbeir collections and distributing planting stocks of the better ones. Limited breeding, by hybridization within the cultivated apecles and by inter-speciftc croases, has been acbieved ln Brazil, Instia, Indonesia, Malagasy and East Africa.During too period 1932 to 1942, attempts were made in Indonesia to increase root protein content through intra-spOOific croases in M. esculenta and ínter-specific croases with M. saxicola. Some resultíng clones initially contatned more than 2 per cant protein but regressed to normal levels (0.8 to 1.5 per cent) after continued propagation. It was concluded tbat l1ttle chance exists to increase protein content through selection followiug hybridization. In view of too signifioantly higher protein content found in some cassava 001100tions, it would seem worthwhile to repeat tbis work. Some of tbe wild types may have a relatívely high protein content and would possibly be useful in a breedíng programo A more successful breOOing project has been conducted in Malagasy wbere breeders sougbt resistanoe to mosaic, a serious virus disease. Numerous partially controllOO pollinizattons resulted in 15,000 to 20,000 seed1ings per year.These were soreened for mosaic resistance and starcb contento Tbe resulting varietles were resistant to mosaic, had an increased adaptability to infertile soUs, and yielded from 12 to 30 tons/ha more than tbe original varieties.Three wild apacles from Brazn, .M.. gIazlqvii, M.: catingae and M.dichotoma, have been crossed with cultivated varieties in attempts to develop more productive and more disease-resistant varietiea. The resulta of theae efforts sbow that, although certain difficulties have been encountered, it is pos-sibIe to achieve progresa in the form of higher yield potential, virus toleran ce, content and quality of stareh, and adaptation to particular soil types and 10\\\\' rainfall.About a dozen speales are apparentIy closely related to M. esculenta.These inelude .M: carthaginensis, .M: aesculifolia, M.: palmata, !!: tweedians and M. saxicola, but litUe is known of the inheritance patterns and heritability of the most eeonomieally important characteristics. Sorne of these have shown continuous variation when studied for breeding purposes.The hybridization efforts for improving specific oharacteristios of oassava have depended heavily on the few wild species available to the breeders.The potential of the wild apecies of Manihot to contribute to the development of superior cultivar s has not been evaIuated. Thls pointa to the need to colloot and evaluate the interrelationships of the species by morphoIogical, oytologioal and bioohemioal approaches.Cassava has reoeived sorne attention in aspeots of ita utilization as a food for humans, feed for animals, and as a product for industrial processing of starob, flour (tapioc~, protein-enriohed foodstúffs, adhesives, and glucose.As food for humans, cassava is used in fried, boiled or fermented forms.Gari 18 a popular foed made of dry granular caasava in Nigeria, and methods have OOen improved for commercial industrial preparation. In Brazil, roasted mandioca flour 18 popular, and sorne efforts have been made to improve too prooessing •Recent industrial research in cassava utilization shows that tbis starchy root can be used efficiently as a substratum for the production oí proteinenriched cassava by such single-celled mioro-organisrns as Candida utilis, f J íRhodotorula gracUis and Hansenula saturnus. Protein-enriched cassava may contain 15 to 35 per cent crude protein (dry basis and determined by Kjeldahl analysls). These findings could be applied in commercial scale operatioos as partlcularly complicated or expensive equipment 1s not required.Cassava has been fed fresh-chopped, dried, as silJlge and as flour to swine, poultry, and beef and dairy cattle with good resulta. Feeding trials 7.at CIAT have demonstrated that casaava roots can be used as the major source of carbohydrates íor sWine throughout the life-cycle which includes the growingfinishing period (20-90 Kg) gestation and lactation.Cassava in the form of fresh-chopped roots, dried meal or silage can supply up te 60 per cent oí the daily ration for the pig. These levela are much higher tban tbose reported in Europe which normally vary from 3 te 10 per cent oí too diet, although levela of up to 25 per cent have been usad. ffigher levela of use depreaa gaJn, feed consumption and efficiency of converaíoo. TOOae effects may be related to such factors as poor digeatibility and energy utilization, hydrocyanic acid toxicity, poor utilizatíon of the protein fractioo, or possibly a deficiency oí easential fatty acids.Preliminary digestioo and metabolism atudíes indicate that, in general, too dry matter digestibility oí sun-dried cassava meal ia similar te that of corn or soybean meal.As the varieties used in these swine-feeding trials contained ooly low levels of bydrocyanic acid and as boiled and dried cassava meal led te chicks did not affect their response, the depr~saion noted in the CIAT studies dooa not appear to result from HCN texicfty.WOOn 60 per cent cassava meal from the variety llanera ia uaed in pig dieta, there ia a amall depreaaion in gain even when the protein of casaava is calculated at 2.5 per cent (not 5.5 or 6.0 per cent¡ crude protein. Thfa depressioo can be overcome by supplementing too diet with eitOOr methionine or 10 per cent animal fato The methiooine deficíency of too diet may exist far two reasons: first, soybean meal, which was used to supplement the diet, la low in methionlne and, second, cassava contains little, if any,methion~ne. Thia la a simple methionine deficiency. On the other band, there may be a more complex methionine deficiency related to non-toxic levela of HCN. (Clark in 1935 reported that methionine would combine with hydrocyantc acid to forro thiocynatea, making the methionine unavallable to the animal.) The studies using cooked cassava in chick diets provide evidence in favor of a simple methionine defitliency.Available data indicate that cassava lS a good source of energy for piga during al! pbases of the life cyele. ClAT ia attempting to develop simplified diets based on various forms of cassava, including sun-dried meal and sUage.When 45 per cent sun-dried cassava meal was used in the diets of 4-to 9-week old chicks, a depression in growth and feed conversion occurred even when the diets were supplemented with methtonine. There was an improvement when 6 per cent fat was inc1uded.In a second experiment with chicks 1 day to 9 weeks old, cooked and raw cassava meal were compared, with and without methionine, molasses and fatoCooking did not improve either gaina or faed conversion. TOOse results support those of the pig diet studies as well as the assumption tbat tbe HCN level does not affect gains in diets using the Llanera variety.None of the treatments (methionine, fat or molas ses) alone were effective in improving gains. When raw meals plus both methionine and fat were used, gains obtained were equal to those of the control in which corn was used in too diet instead of cassava llE al.In summary, research with chicks indicates that HCN in the llanera variety 18 not a limiting factor, and that efther energy or protein (amino acid) deficiencies, or both, are involved in growth depressions when high levels of cassava are used.Incre¡¡¡,¡es in popu}ation are creating additional demands for foods, not only for fresh consumptiOll but also for meals or flour. Addltional research 113 required to develop new cassava products witb prolonged shelf life and that can be easily prepared. Food mixes are needed, tbat basically contain derivatives of cassava, but in which the nutritive vaIue 18 balanced with protein from other foods.Fermentation methods to enrich the proteln content of cassava products will probably offer a quick, practical and economical breakthrough to help overcome the protein deficiencies present In fue tropics.Research ia alao needed in methods of extraction and production techniques for starches with the apecific qualities demanded by lndustry.The lcaves of cassava are richer than the roots in protein content and quality.The possibillty of using cassava foliage as foad or in feed rations requires more study.Adverse effects have been reported in humana whose main energy source 18 cassava. Several heaUh problems, such as poliomyelitis, nervous and pellagroid dlseases, have been associated with the poaaibility of cumulative or chronic polsoning due to the HCN content of casaava. Alao. sun-dried cassava may become contaminated during the drying procesa with harrnful fungi and bacteria.The encouraging results obtained in uaing cassava in feeding rations indicate the great potential for providing high quality protein at reasonable costa. Research on using cassava as a feedstuff requires continued effort to develop efficient systems for cassava uttlization by livestock.  To explore the possibilities for improving the levels of high quality protein in cassava through plant improvement.To survey, identify, evaluate and develop eeonomie control methods for major diseases, pasts and weeds of eassava.To serve as an internationa! resource eenter for germ plasm and as an information center for integration oí information on disease, insect and weed problems, as well as for production and utilization systems.e.To provide practical training in cassava varietal improvement and testing, erop produetion methodology. plani proteetion techniques and cassava utllization for young scientists and agriculturists from major cassava\"1lroducing nations.To aehieve these objectives, a multi-disciplinary team research and training effort will be developed.The Common Market countries oí Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium are the main importers of cassava for animal feed, altbough other EEC countriea do import small amounts for the same purpose. This market has developed in the EEC as a result of high internal feed-grain prieea which are protected by high tariffs. At the same time, tariff rates on dried cassilva chips are relatively low. As a consequence, cassava chips or pellets are imported as a Iow-cost substitute for feed-grains, par- This market must, bowever, be examined carefully before concluding that it • offers a significant long terro market for new producers. Although this market has recenUy shown phenomenal growth rates, it representa only a small fracUon of the total feedstuff ingredients for the EEC taken as a whole. Consequently, its downward pressure on feed-grain prices lnslde the EEC may be expected to be slight. lf 1t achieved a substantial sizc, it would be expected to affect strongly feed-grain prices. This, in turn, would be likely to induce feed-grain producing reglons in both France and Germany 10 lcok lor higher levels of tariff protection against cassava. Sorne small tariff increases have already been put into effect. These higher tariffs (or perhaps import quotas) would have the effect 01 reducing interl'Íational cassava trade.Cassava atarches and tapioca have been facing a stagnant market in the EEC countries and a declining market in the U. S.A •• which is tbe world's largest caasava starch and tapioca importer. This appears to result trom strong competition, in most areas, trom corn and/or potato stareh. This strong competition may be expected to continue as world suppliea of rice and wheat increase. Both will tend to exert a strong downward pressure on world grain prices and hence on starch priees.Although some limited markets for cassava starch may be maintained or developed beeause of ita apecial qualities, the prospect of large inereases in demand is both limited and uncertain.Penetration oi these markets, if it ls to be achieved at all, may be expected to be based almost exclusively on low cost production and effieient marketing of eassava and its derivatives. In any event, these markets appear to be too limited and uncertain to serve as the prime focus of CIAT's cassava programo Cassava as a human food is of great importance throughout Latin America and parts of Africa, although it is of lesser importance in most Far Eastern countries. Two needs are apparent in most tropicallowland diets-a shortage of good quality protein and a defieieney in total caloric ¡ntake. Cassava can be instrumental in solving these problems in two ways. Both require that eassava yields be increased in order to reduce priees and hence permit greater eonsumption. The one method would involve an increase in the quantity and quality of cassava protein for direct human eonsumption. The ciher would be the development of economieally viable eassava-swine production systems based on this erop and other plant protein.Attaining the goal of eitOOr program would require a reduction in the cost oí eassava to the user. This can only be achieved by developing more efficlent production systems which implies increasing yields to reduce costs for cassava. For example, cassava is still more expensive tban corn as a source of energy in animal rations, at present prices in Colombia.An overall direction or focus for CIAT's cassava program ls to lncrease yields and to reduce costs. This ls essential whether increased exports or increased human consumption, or the development of a cassava-swine belt comparable to the corn balt in the U. S., is to be on~ of too aima of CIAT's cassava programo 14.Literature Evaluation and Collection CIAT ls beginning a compreOOnsive evaluation and eollection of the world's cassava literature. This project will ohtain the most important materials pertinent to the improvement programo Preference will be given to tbe purchase of materiaIs in microform. since, by using a reader-printer, the high cost of purchasing materials in hard copy 18 greatly reduced.This general area of aetivities includes too research that must be eonducted by the various professional groups that direct1y contribute to the integration of practical recommendations for achieving a rapid inerease in yields of eassava.The professional groups whose action will be discussed here are: Agronomy and soils, plant protection, and agricultural engineering.Agronomyand Sons. Cassava ls widely grown in subsistence level \"baiJk yard\" types of agriculture and as a plantation erop but avatlable data do not permit an assessment of the relative importance of tOOse. Both methods of production suffer from a lack of applied research directed toward increased yields per unít of time and per unít of area.To increase productivity on small holdings designed for local consumption, as well as on plantations for feed and indnstrial production, work with the improved clones developed by efforts of the plant breeder-crop physiologist team will be conducted on: planting distances, fertilizer levels and timing on a wide range of soils, weed control methods, and planting and harvesting scheduling.The multi -cropping nature of tropical agriculture demands applied research to improve the efficiency of different crop comblnations, both in time as well as space. Data from a preliminary multiple cropping study started in 1969 at elAT, in which cassava, corn and SQybeans were interplanted, indicated tbat cassava may be economically included in certain multiple cropping combinations.Although cassava yields were reduced in proportion to the competition offered by the companion crop, the total economic yield may be more advantageous to too farmer. Tbese results indicate the need to determins the best crop combtuations, timing and other variables so as to maximize too income tor the cassava grower. Cassava ls considered a potentially important foad crop for swine to convert carbobydrates.into:a highly acceptable:form o~ protein. As the roots cannot be harvested and stored fresh for more tban a few days, and as drying requires vast quantities of power, production systems scientists, in cooperation with swine nutritionist will investigate the possibility of continuous planting and harvesting. This work will include tbe cooperation of agricultura! engineers and plant breeders in developing plants with roats more suited to etther mechanized or manual harvesting.Another important use of cassava is in commercial starch production. Processing plants in Bolivia and Brazil have been constructed and later abandoned because local farmers were unable to provide an adequate continuous supply of cassava Production schemes are needed which will provide adequate root volumes throughout the year and solve pro~ma related to efficient harvesting and transporting to prooessing planta.Large scale CaSsava production for swine feeding or starch proeessing will benefit from applied research on planting methods and spacing, fertllizers, weed co~ol, water requirements, harvesting techniques, handling and related areas.Plant Protection. The lack of attention to OaseaVa disease ls illustrated by the observation that in 1966 The R:eview 01 Applied Mycology had onIy two referenoes to oassava diseases. In general, the literature implies that diseases and pesta are not important in cassava produetion although information on disease and pest los ses is searee. Mosaie, one of the three or four known virus diseases of oassava, was estimated in 1956 to havo resulted in an 11 par cent loas in the British African colonies where fields with 100 per eent mosaie infeetion yielded one ton or less per hectare. This suggests that major losses resulting from diseases and pests are occurring. The importanoe of pathogens and insecta will probably lucrease as areas of caSSava production are expanded and yield levela raised.An objective evaluation of available information on cassava diseases and pests indicates that, with the possible exception of eassava mosaie in eertain eountries.  plank1). In addition, there is a group of potentially important pests. Activities will continue to define the potemiaI insect problems of cassava.Cultivars from the Colombian collection are being screened for resistance to horn worm and to shoot fly. This screening will be extended to CIAT's international coHection.An important area for study ls 10 determine the lnseet population levels tbat may result in economic damage in cassava-growing areas. In areas where lnsectdamage is below the level of economic importance, it has been found that parasites, predaters and fungi-damaging insects are effective in reducing damage to cassava plants. Identification and biologicaI studies of these insects will be included in the work.The program will try to find cultural practices that require mínimum investments for inse9t control and attempt to apply lntegrated pest control concepts., WEEDS Weed control takes on spectaI importance in cassava because of the long period between planting and the time wben plants form a complete shade or cover. No data exist at present on los ses from weed competition. however, they can be assumed to be at least 20 per cent, which is the observed yield loss on most tropicaI crops with current control methods., Varietiea will be tested for their competitive ability with weeda, and herbicide triaIs are needed to determine saíe and effective chemicaIs and applicationtlmes ane rates. Emphasis will be given to integrating weed control into casaava production systems.AgriculturaI production la most ecqnomicaI at present in are as where agriculturaI engineers have collaborated ln the development of agricultural systems. Examples include cotten, corn, wheat, sugar cane, pineapple, bananas, rubber, soybeans and grain sorghums. The major engineering contribution has usually been in the consideration of the entire production system with special emphasis on harvesting and p/:,ocesaing.AgriculturaI engineering efforta in cassava wiIl coucentrate on systems for low-cost production, harvesting, handling and procesBing of fresh roots for human food or animal feed. Attention wiIl aIBO be given te the harvesting and utilization of leaves for animal feed.In addition, agricultural engineering ls required tu supplement breeding-crop physiology efforts toward identification or development oí plant types best suited for production involving more efflcient use of labor and machinery. Root distribution in row beda, effect of poor drainage on root rot, leaí harvest potentiaI, etc.are important considerations. Cassava, as many other largely unimproved species, has evolved and perpetuated an interrelated series of morphologtcal and physiologtcal characters in response to primitive selectíon pressure and cultural conditions. These traits affordmaximum adaptability to existing unimproved environments (poor soíl preparation, wide spacing, weed competition, inferiile solls, water stress, etc.), and thus maximum productivity may not be feasible with currently available plant types.A greatly increased yield potential wiIl be obtained on1y by deliberare designing of plant types responsive to improved agronomic practices. The first step, therefore, is to understand the baslc phys1010gy of thls crop in order to design the ideal plant type, and to attempt to construct 1t through breeding if 1t cannot be 1dentified within the range of present variability in the germ plasm collection.This will be done through cooperative efforts of the plant breeder and the crop physiologist. Essential steps will be to (1) select varieties that represent the range of morpholngicsl snd maturity variability;(2) derive rapld methods of propagating these types;(3) plant them under simple nitrogen level and spacing variables; (4) observe leal and stem traits in relation to the rate of development of leal area-the optimum or criticalleal area index for dry matter production and relation to lealrarrangement and light penetration, the relationship between photosynthesis, and the efficiency of translocation of carbohydrates to the root.Research will also be underiaken to investigate the stimuli affecting root 1nitiation (photoperiod, thermoperiod, water stress, etc.) and their relation to time oí root formation and differences in daya from planting to harvest.Once an underatanding of the most efficient and productive plant type ls reached, the breeder will attempt to create this ideal type through clona! selecti()n, as cassava is highly heterozygous, and intra-specific hybridization.Despite reporis of sterility barriers, a hybridization program should not be difficult. Immediate testing of hybrid materials tbrough clona! propagations will permit rapid identification of superior types.Laboratory determinatlons of starch, protein quantity and quality, as well as HCN content, are be1ng made for all materials nowavailable. Strong selection pressure will be exeried when wide variation in these factors 1s encwntered in new germ plasm accessions or in materials derived from hybridization •Breeding for resistance will be initiated as specific pathogen-disease interactions are clearly identified and their economic importance determined.Some of the diseases reported are suspected to be phystological in nature and are probably reactions to minor element deficiences. T'hese wiil be lnvestigated.Baslc studies on heritabIlity, genetics, cytogeneties, and inheritance patterns will be undertaken only if needed to solve problems related to breeding methodology.Local and International Testing.Local and international testing are Research on utilization of cassava needs to be oriented to defining the potential of the root as a food for humans or in industrially processed products.At the same time, work must continue in connection with developíng effieient swine leeding systems in which cassava is a major component in the dieto The potential of cassava in heef feeding rations might also be explored.While no specific eIA T research wiIl he aimed at developing new industrial uses for cassava, the nutrition biochemist wiIl try to stimulate a participation of otber international, national and privaie entitíes in research programs whieh wiIl rnternational Center: Resources, Germ Plasm, InformationOne of the dynamic aspects of an international institute or center, such as CrAT, is that the research, training, and development activities serve to complement each other. rn addition, the institution focuses attention worldwide on the specific crop, its problems, and the efforts being made throughout the world to improve its productivity and production. rt attracts visitors who come to discuss problems and progress; and its staff, as it travels to the various countries, not only becomes acquainted with national problems and programs, but is able to offer counsel on research and training methodologies, and to serve as a direct, informal communication link among cassava specialists in manY countries.Other activities of too center directIy support the research, developmentand training activities in the various countries-too Germ Plasm Bank by collecting, evaluating, multiplying, and distributing plant materials to assist natlonal breeding and introducing programa, and the Library by collecting, evaluating, and making available background information on cassava as wellas current data on research acti vities.Schedule of Activities and Scientific and Support Personnel RequiredLimited economic analyses of significance have been made oi cassava, with the exception oí a study of the market prospects for cassava in the EEC.studies are needed aOO wiIl be coOOucted in the following areas:1.Economics of cassava production to determine how costs can be reduced. The cost-re<h1cing effects of increases in yields and modified production systems for both small and large farms will he empbasized.Economic disease and inaeet control.Present and future demand, domestic and international iorcassava and deri vatives.Employment aOO earning potentials ol an expanded cassava production.Prohlems oí marketing íresh and processed eassava.Competitive position of large and small producers 01 cassava under various produetion systems.Competiti ve position of cassava and substitute products.Economic consequence of the adoption of improved varieties and teehnology.These areas 01 activity will provide valuable information lor orienting and providing priorities for other research activities in too cassava improvement programo 'Ibis effort wiIl require the full attention of an economiat with at least two research associates beginning with the firat year. It ls possible tbat a major thrust will be required durlng the first three years, alter wbich probably only balf a man/year of an agricultural economist will be needed, as long as tbe supporting personnel is continued.The task of reviewing, selecting and collecting the world literature on cassava occupies a high priorlty and is already underway. Some initial efforts This effort wiIl require the continued service of at least two research associates during the first five years of the project.Agronomy.An agronomist at too leve! of one man/year wiIl play an important and continuous role in the program, requiring bis services not only for the five years anticipated in the program, but for an indefinite perlod tOOreafier. Bis specific activities can be projected as follows:First year: Study existing production systems; seleet and multiply varieties for study; design new agronomic systems for testing; work with agricultura! engineers for mechanization syBtems.Second and third years: Test the new systems in seve1'allocations.Fourth year: Refine syatems and incorporate new and improved varleties in the testing schemes; help initiate international tests.Fifth year: Continue tests of new varieties and systems; continue Inte1'national tests.The agronomist needs the support of one research assistant.The production systems development will 1'equire too input from a soH scientist at the level oí one-half man/year, durlng the five years of the program, togetber with one research aasistant., 25.Agricultura! Engineering. Tbe inputs from agricultural engtneering are important for the development of effielent produetion systems and will be elosely coordinated wlth the work of the agronomist, soil sclenttst and plant protectlon spectalist.Tbe program wiIl require one-half man/year during tbe first year and wiIl increase to tbe fuIl time of an agricultural engineer for the second and tbird years, wOOn major emphasis wiIl be placed in tbe development of low-cost production systems, including planting, application of protective cOOmicals. metbods of barvesting rocts and foliage, and drying.After tbe third year, the emphasis probably can be reduced to tbe level of one-half man/year, if a research assistant is provided írom the beginning oí the program and continued through the fifth year.Plant Protection. Needed work in pathology, entomology, and weed control lB outllned in too following paragrapbs:PATHOLOGY.Research will be started or strengtbened in too iollowing areas, as oi tbe first year oí tbe program and continued during the anticipated five years duration:1.Survey, identification and economíc evaluation of easSava diseases.Definition of plant quarantine treatments for planting stocks for international programs and excbange.Control methods of economíc diseases.Screen for specific-disease reslstanee, in eoIlaboration wlth too erop improvement scientists.The contribution of ane man/year, starting tbe first year, wiil he required and it 18 eXpected tbat tbis sclentist will devote bis full time to too program for its duratlon. He wiil require a research assistant.ENTOMOLOGY, Tbe entomologist will conduct research in too iollowing arealil:1.Survey. identifleation and economíc evaluatian oi insect pests.Screen ior specific-insect resiatance in cIose colIaboration with the crop improvement Bcientiats.3. Define control metbods for tbe economícally important insect pests.One-halí man/year wiIl be an adequate input in tbis area, atarting tbe first year and continuing tbrOllgb tbe fiftb year, witb one reaearcb aasistant.The weed specialist oí CIA T will survey and assess the importance oí weeds in cassava production and wUl investigate tbe value oí integrated metbods oí weed control to provide practica! recommendations that wiil form part of the cassava production systems. A concentrated efiort during tbe tirst two yeara of too program with a continued program at a reduced level will be adequate for this activity. One-half man/year during two years, witb two-tentbs man/year afier' the tbird year, will be required, plus one research assistant.Collection and Introduction.The botanist assigned to plant collection will be needed for a mínimum of four years, at wbich time too plant collection will be considered complete. This program has just completed two years and the activities proposed for tbe following two years ls to explore, colleet and introduee Manihot germ plasm, with particular emphasis in wild apecies, from tbe eastern ranges oí Peru and Bolivia; Paraguay, Argentina, Central Ameriea and the CaribOOan countries. Introduction from Brazil wiIl not be pursued until a safe method or prooedure la eatablished to prevent the possibility oí introducing lnto Colombia tbs cofiee rust diaease. Cooperation ls belng 80ught with programs in countries where cofiee is not an economic crop.Physiolo gy • The activities of the plant phystologist will be directly related to tbe plant-breeding programo He will study sucb aspects as rapid methods oí propagation, stimulation oí rooting, photoperiodic responses, tbermoperiod effects, starcb syntOOsls, translocation and storage, water stress, and otber phenomena pertaining to tbe hasic understanding oC the phY8tology oí tbe cassava planto The plant breeder will use tbis data in making selecfions and in attempts to design eífieient pbenotype8, 1f tOOy are not ava1lable witbin the range oí natural variability in the species.The importance of the physiologist to the program win thus decline with time although possibly bis fun time activity will he required lor the five years' anticipated duration of the programo However, on tha basis of tha progress developed by the fourth year, bis input could be reduced to a lower level. As no experienoe exists to guide tbis decision. it ia suggested tbat the physiologist be identified during the first year, to participate at fuII time durlng five yeara.D.Iring the first year, too physiologist will study the effects ol baste environmental variables on cassava; seleet and multiply dístinctive types; become acquainted with normal growth cycles; wiIl start laboratory aOO propagation studíes.D.Iring the second year. he will intensify lahoratory and field studíes oí effects of water stress and the relation of yield to plant structure, and will termínate propagation studíes.The tbird year will be devoted to complete studíes of environmental effects, with the design aOO initiation of any addítional studíes tbat may be felt necessary and will continue atudíes oí effects of morpho10gy on yield.Too fourth and fifth years wiIl be devoted to termínating a11 major studíes and to design and begin specific research projects that may require the backing• oí one research associate and one research assistant.Breedíng. The activities of too plant breeder wi11 be close1y related to those oí the physiologist and the botanist involved with plant collection and the maintenance and evaIuation of the germ plasm colIected.In the early phases. varieties wiIl be seleeted from among the introduetions and widely evaIuated for possible release to national programs. Later, as desirable eharacters are identified among tha introduetlons seleeted, cross-poIlination, selfing and progeny testing will be initiated.The work of the plant breeder wiIl intensify and addítional OOlp may be required after the tbird year. It is anticipated tbat too full time of a breeder wiIl he required and expected to continue several years heyond the five years planned here. TOO speeifie aetivities during the first five years would follow along these lines.First year.Devise and conduct a screening system; learn crossing techniques of other aspects of flower biology; identlfy desirable characteristics and make preliminary selections to plant small scale field trials in varied environments.Second and third years.Continue screening of all introductions and continue small scale evaluation t:rials; release selected varieties for intensive agronomic research; initiate crossing program among varieties, for genetics and breeding purposes; establish procedures for starting seedlings and study possibilities of botanical seed propagation methods; continue studies of floral biology.Fourth and fifth years. lDtenslfy hybridization and evaluation program for seedings; release second generation of selections.The breeder wiIl require the backing of a research associate and one research as si stant.One-half of a man/year wiil be required in the field of biometrics, as of the second year of the program, and this effort should continue during the remainder of the five year projection, at the same level described. One research assistant wiIl be required.An accelerated program to screen cultivars for high protein content and quality, low HCN (based on rapid tests that must be developed by research) is justified for a per.od of the two initial years at the level of input of one-half man/year, with a reduction of scientific time input to a level of 0.25 man/year as of the third year.A research associate will be needed from the second year of this project. The specific activities during the following years will be to coIlaborate with the swine studies, and to study the possibility of utilization for beef feeding.The cassava program provides limited opportunities for in-service training activities during the first year and \\\\111 rapidly increase its capability for this important area of the program from the beginning of the second year onward.  ","tokenCount":"6134"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3e523ccdb3b03c129dd7957b822a405e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/18a50127-6f75-47cd-90df-85b0c96b556c/retrieve","id":"1171526247"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"491a846e-c5ce-47cf-b2d8-5daaa7bbeca8","pagecount":"23","content":"CGIAR Technical Reporting has been developed in alignment with the CGIAR Technical Reporting Arrangement. This Initiative report is a Type 1 report and constitutes part of the broader CGIAR Technical Report. Each CGIAR Initiative submits an annual Type 1 report, which provides assurance on Initiative-level progress towards End of Initiative outcomes. The CGIAR Technical Report comprises:• Type 1 Initiative and Impact Area Platform reports, with quality assured results reported by Initiatives and Platforms available on the CGIAR Results Dashboard.• The Type 3 Portfolio Performance and Project Coordination Practice Change report, which focuses on internal practice change.• The Portfolio Narrative, which draws on the Type 1 and Type 3 reports, and the CGIAR Results Dashboard, to provide a broader view on portfolio coherence, including results, partnerships, country and regional engagement, and synergies among the portfolio's constituent parts.The CGIAR Technical Report constitutes a key component of the CGIAR Annual Performance Report (APR).EOI-O 1: CGIAR breeders and researchers more precisely identify germplasm of value to their work, facilitated by trait-specific subsets and populations, and added value information.External diverse users increasingly access and use crop diversity, in perpetuity, benefiting from added value information and long-term conservation of in-trust collections.EOI-O 3: National and international genebanks conserve and distribute plant genetic resources for food and agriculture more efficiently and reliably in a strengthened global system, through capacity development and implementing enabling policies.Score 2: Principal: The activity is principally about meeting any of the three CGIAR climate-related strategy objectives -namely, climate mitigation, climate adaptation, and climate policy, and would not have been undertaken without this objective.Score 1: Significant: The activity contributes in a significant way to any of the three CGIAR climate-related strategy objectives -namely, climate mitigation, climate adaptation, and climate policy, even though it is not the principal focus of the activity.Score 0: Not targeted: The Initiative/project has not been found to target gender equality. However, as a minimum requirement for all Initiatives/projects: (i) a gender analysis was conducted; (ii) its findings should be used to ensure that at a minimum, the Initiative activities/interventions do no harm and do not reinforce gender inequalities; and (iii) data that is collected is gender disaggregated.https://www.cgiar.org/initiative/03-conservation-and-use-of-genetic-resourcesgenebanks/ *The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) markers refer to the OECD DAC Rio Markers for Climate and the gender equality policy marker. For climate adaptation and mitigation, scores are: 0 = Not targeted; 1 = Significant; and 2 = Principal.The CGIAR GENDER Impact Platform has adapted the OECD gender marker, splitting the 1 score into 1A and 1B. For gender equality, scores are: 0 = Not targeted; 1A = Gender accommodative/aware; 1B = Gender responsive; and 2 = Principal. These scores are derived from Initiative proposals, and refer to the score given to the Initiative overall based on their proposal.as to North American and European countries.A similar number of samples were shipped to commercial sector users in 29 countries. CGIAR breeders and researchers received 40% of the disseminated germplasm for research and breeding. Every germplasm import and export, including from breeding programs, passed through CGIAR germplasm health units (GHUs), which carried out more than 930,000 diagnostic assays and prevented the movement of 9,000 diseased or contaminated samples, ensuring compliance with national phytosanitary regulations. With the support of the Genebanks Initiative Policy Team, all CGIAR acquisitions and distributions are compliant with national and international policies and laws. CGIAR genebanks scaled up operations and research projects to pre-pandemic levels over the course of 2022. Out of nine CGIAR genebanks (excluding ICRISAT and CIFOR-ICRAF which did not receive funding under the Initiative), three have seed collections that attained performance targets for availability, safety duplication, documentation, Section 2 Initiative progress on science and towards End of Initiative outcomes and quality management in 2022. These high standards were agreed in 2014 after a quantitative assessment of the collections' status and recommendations from external reviewers. The significance of these genebanks reaching targets is multifaceted. The collections are in a better state of health and security than ever before, which not only means that the genebanks are more resilient but that there are fewer backlogs and materials requiring urgent attention, facilitating planning and a steadier rate of operations. Genebank staff will have more scope to focus on enriching data resources, carrying out research, developing partnerships, and investing in new approaches and tools. Tribute is due to the staff who worked incessantly during the difficult conditions of the past three years and to the consistent, invaluable support of CGIAR Window 1 and bilateral funders.If further reflection on the value of genetic diversity were needed, it was provided in 2022 by the opening of two new facilities. Morocco's Minister for Agriculture ceremoniously opened the new Seeds for Life genebank in Rabat, Morocco. This building houses the collections of barley, wheat, lentil, and chickpea reconstituted from safety duplicated samples stored at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV). After the exit of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) from Syria in 2013, nearly 150,000 duplicated samples were retrieved in batches from the Arctic, regenerated at an accelerated rate in Morocco and Lebanon and processed for long-term storage in both locations. In parallel, ICARDA continued to respond to requests and distribute materials and built new facilities. In 2022, as the new collections found their long-term home in Rabat, duplicate samples were returned to SGSV for safety. ICARDA-Morocco is now on course to reach performance targets in the next two years.In Colombia, the iconic Future Seeds building was opened by the President of Colombia, but not before Jeff Bezos as well as other dignitaries paid personal visits. Future Seeds has attracted attention not only because of the recognized value of its objectives but because of its contemporary design. Its high-vaulted, bright yellow, steel framework and shaded atrium lend the genebank the air of an art gallery, while reaching platinum level Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. Thanks to Future Seeds, CGIAR leads a worthy race in realizing the vision of a resilient, highcapacity, carbon-zero 21st century genebank and digital resource center.The governing body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (Plant Treaty) met in 2022 in India and provided a public venue to air disappointment about the perceived divergence of ICRISAT and CIFOR-ICRAF from the rest of the CGIAR Centers undergoing reform. The Genebanks' Policy Team managed CGIAR's submissions and responses to criticisms, ensuring that no additional monitoring or reporting requirements were imposed and that trust in CGIAR and its genebanks is retained as much as possible. Plans are under development to strengthen partnerships with NARS and to build complementary roles in the global community of international and national genebanks. CGIAR also contributed to other international policy outcomes. Negotiations were re-launched to enhance the multilateral system for access and benefit sharing under the Plant Treaty and the Convention on Biological Diversity's Global Biodiversity Characterising wheat diversity in CIMMYT.Framework, which was formally agreed in December 2022, favored a multilateral solution to sharing digital sequence information.Cutting across all nine genebanks, existing communities of practice on seed quality management, clonal crop conservation and cryopreservation, diversity gap analysis, GHUs, policy, and genebank data management continued activities under new workplans in Work Packages 2-4. GRIN-Global Community Edition (GGCE) was chosen in 2020 as the genebank inventory management system of choice. GGCE is developed by the Global Crop Diversity Trust (Crop Trust), based on software used by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) National Plant Germplasm System. The data system is partially adopted by seven of the nine CGIAR genebanks. Several decades of growth in collection size and data resources, punctuated by moments of poor funding or decision-making, have led to presentday accession data being less useful than it should be. The reform gives a greater incentive to pool resources and commit to a more reliable, shared information management system. Much work and investment have already been committed to this objective, but a successful system is intrinsically linked with workflows, quality controls, and tools such as mobile devices and barcoding. Putting in place a shared system not only involves software development but also changes in operating procedures, sometimes involving sacrifices as well as steps forward.The Genebanks Initiative's Work Package 3 aims to make substantial progress on shared approaches for generating, managing, analyzing, and making available accession data, and to put in place standards and interfaces to facilitate communication with the Enterprise Breeding System and other breeding information management systems. Multiple approaches were taken in 2022 to enhance, combine, and analyze accession georeferenced, characterization, genotypic, and trait data. A unique subsetting tool was developed and made available online for public use as a means to customize accession subsets according to environmental variables. Subsets were also developed for specific target traits. Systems will be strengthened to improve the response to and management of users' requests for germplasm across CGIAR and to trace the use of genebank materials in research and breeding. Tailored approaches will also be developed to work on collections of crop species that are not the focus of Accelerated Breeding.To strengthen the global system of genebanks, directly addressing UN Sustainable Development Goal 2.5 in 2022, more than 50 NARS partners were engaged in capacity-building and collaboration under Work Package 4, covering a range of genebank operations and activities from cryopreservation to the use of genomic tools for collection management and use. Six NARS partners benefited from project funding to develop capacity in international policy implementation. CGIAR genebanks will continue to engage NARS partners through a phased process involving, at first, a regionalized assessment of needs and generic training through shared-language workshops followed by more intensive, one-on-one projects in which the NARS partners receive financial and technical support to implement the training received. Partners for intensive follow up are prioritized through gap analyses showing a lack of representation of crop diversity from their countries in genebanks worldwide.The Genebanks Initiative is built upon a strong foundation of collaboration among CGIAR and other genebanks over several decades. The current Initiative is shaped most particularly by the Genebanks CGIAR Research Program (CRP) and Platform coordinated by the Crop Trust between 2012 and 2021. In 2022, this role was transferred to interim co-leaders at CGIAR and then to an appointed Senior Director under Genetic Innovation. New management administrative teams will be established in 2023.  Good progress is made against the goal to secure collections under CGIAR management in long-term conservation for availability to diverse users in perpetuity.Nine CGIAR genebanks fully recovered from lockdown measures. Four now have collections at performance targets and are eligible for in-perpetuity funding from the Crop Trust. The idea of developing a centralized portal for germplasm request management is being explored. One of the aims will be to improve our knowledge of users and trends in requests for germplasm, including to develop a gendersensitive approach to promoting requests and use of genebanks.National and international genebanks conserve and distribute plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) more efficiently and reliably.More than 50 NARS partners have been engaged, their needs assessed, and capacity-building activities tailored and undertaken to strengthen the global system for plant genetic resources conservation and use and to address SDG target 2.5.Capacity strengthening activities have been wide-ranging, including gap analysis, genebank operations, cryopreservation, using genomics methods to manage and study the collection, managing phyotsanitary health and implementation of international policy. CGIAR genebanks and scientists have also supported the CGIAR genebanks continued routine operations to ensure that crop collections are conserved and made available upon request. Seed lots and tissue culture samples were regenerated and multiplied in the field, screenhouse, and laboratory (120,000 accessions in 2022), viability tested (76,000), health tested (48,000), and disease cleaned (21,000). Acquisitions (792) were received from Guinea, Mali, Peru, South Sudan, Togo, and French Polynesia. 57,518 germplasm samples were distributed to 87 countries. Overall, 60% were sent in response to 679 requests from users outside CGIAR, mostly NARS, advanced research institutes, and universities (87%), as well as the commercial sector (6%), farmers, NGOs, and farmer organizations (6%). The rest went to CGIAR users (see Annex 1).Four genebanks have reached performance targets for all or part of their collections. Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) negotiated long-term partnership agreements (LPA) with the Crop Trust. From 2023, a large part of the running costs to maintain CIAT, IITA, and International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) seed collections will be financed in perpetuity. Notable in 2022, was the safety duplication of 41,000 accessions in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault and other institutes -a 17% increase on 2021. Overall, 78% of the collections are physically and legally available and 83% are safety duplicated (target is 90%). The Crop Trust provided US$4.6 million to CGIAR genebanks in 2022 in long-term funding.Germplasm health units (GHUs) in nine CGIAR Centers processed 253,752 accessions and 169,751 samples to facilitate 1379 import/export events with 136 countries, of which 56% were for CGIAR breeders and the rest for genebanks.In 2022, 49 newly drafted or improved procedures were mainstreamed as a result of research and optimization undertaken in Work Package 2. In 2022, 567 accessions of banana, cassava, potato, and sweetpotato were cryobanked. Cryopreservation protocols were tested or optimized for taro, cassava, coconut, sweetpotato, yam, and ulluco. Seed conservation methods for wild species of banana and potato were trialed.Clonal accessions continue to be genetically verified on a systematic basis, contributing to diversity studies, quality control, and rationalization of the collections.More than eight new phytosanitary cleaning and 20 diagnostic protocols were mainstreamed by GHUs. The Alliance Bioversity International and CIAT, CIP, and IITA jointly worked on therapy procedures and policies to manage cryptic viruses in clonal crops.CGIAR made submissions to the governing body of the Plant Treaty to ensure that CGIAR is compliant with legal obligations and responds to policy advice and published criticisms concerning CGIAR's restrictive licenses and the reform process. Efforts to advocate for strengthening the multilateral system for access and benefit sharing paid off with the re-launch of negotiations under the Plant Treaty and recognition for the need of such mechanisms in CBD's conference of the parties. CGIAR genebanks are developing richer digital resources for diversity analyses and germplasm selection. More than 30 crops and 3,000 species are conserved. Approaches to enriching data are tailored to crops and their potential uses. In 2022, these included:• Digitized seed and plant images, georeferences, and characterization data were generated, refined, and made available.• Diversity subsets of Oryza glaberrima, banana, potato, barley, cassava, cowpea, yam, and Rhodes grass were evaluated for abiotic, biotic, and nutritional traits in partnership with NARS and CGIAR breeders (e.g. for iron toxicity, salinity, drought and heat tolerance, anaerobic germination and submergence, pro-Vitamin A content, NIR profiling, and resistance to numerous diseases: rice blast, Fusarium wilt Tropical Race 4, tomato-potato psyllid, etc.);• Subsets of Oryza glaberrima, banana, common beans, tepary beans, Brachiaria spp, wheat, potato and rice crop wild relatives, oca and ulluco, and cowpea were genotyped for diversity analyses.• New subsets or core collections were developed of African Oryza sativa, potato for cyst nematode resistance, sweetpotato for virus disease resistance, Andean roots and tubers -oca, ulluco, mashua, and yacon.• Tools to analyze and visualize accession data were developed in GIGWA and Germinate for banana, barley, wheat, and grasspea.• EnvGWAS analyses for climate-related traits in cassava, cowpea, rice, wheat, and barley were initiated in partnership with ABI-WP4 and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.ICARDA and CIAT launched the first edition of a subsetting tool to enable users to select accessions based on environmental parameters determined by their geographical origins and WorldClim data. Genebanks co-developed approaches to capacity building within their regions. In 2022, a total of 38 training events took place in genebanks and 19 in GHUs involving 625 people from more than 50 countries, including capacity-building in:• GWAS, genebank data management, seed quality management, in vitro conservation, gap analyses, and subsetting with West and Central Africa (WCA) NARS partners.• Genomics tools for genebanks, cryobanking, and other conservation techniques with Latin America NARS partners.• Conservation and use of plant genetic resources with Central and West Asia and North Africa (CWANA) partners.• PGR policy training with NARS partners in East and Southern Africa.• Virus indexing at the Center for Pacific Crops and Trees in Fiji.In addition, genebanks continue to provide assistance on demand to numerous NARS partners through regenerating, processing, health testing, and safety duplicating seed on their behalf. In total, 72 PhD, MSc and BSc students were hosted by genebanks, nearly 5,000 visitors received guided tours around genebank facilities, and genebank staff acted as resource people in 29 events. 3Genebanks are generating data to enrich collection information to promote use of crop diversity. Plans are being refined and unrolled to create more system-wide approaches and tools. A subsetting tool is available on Genesys and plans are made to share genotypic data in GIGWA and to create a common genebank instance in Germinate. Collaboration with the Accelerated Breeding Initiative will aim to develop systems for tracking the use of genebank materials in the breeding pipeline.An active year for partnership and capacity-building with NARS in Latin America, CWANA, and sub-Saharan Africa. Online training tools also proving effective in sharing the unique skills and experience of CGIAR genebanks, GHUs, and the policy team. This section provides an overview of 2022 results reported by Genebanks. These results align with the CGIAR Results Framework and Genebanks' theory of change. Further information on these results is available through the CGIAR Results Dashboard. • Genebank users and beneficiaries.• Partners in generating data and evaluating germplasm.• Peers in the genebank community who benefit from sharing capacity or learning from each other's experience.In 2022, the genebanks responded to 679 users requesting germplasm from a range of public and private institutions in 87 countries, as well as from colleagues working on Initiatives in CGIAR. Further services were provided to NARS and CGIAR colleagues in the form of providing data, supporting accession selection, advising and backstopping, hosting safety duplicates, etc.Universities, NARS, and CGIAR researchers are partners in generating data and evaluating germplasm in Work Package 3. NARS partners in prioritized low-and middle-income countries are the primary audience for capacity-building in Work Package 4.  CGIAR is responsible for the conservation and availability of crop diversity managed under the framework of various legal agreements, including: (i) agreements with germplasm providers (e.g. Standard Material Transfer Agreement); (ii) \"in trust\" agreements signed in 1994 with the UN FAO; and (iii) Article 15 agreements signed in 2006 with the Plant Treaty. In addition, the genebanks are subject to international standards as defined by FAO and by CGIAR's Ethical Principles Relating to Genetic Resources. All reinforce that CGIAR genebanks will conserve agreed materials through the regular implementation of essential operations, such as viability and health monitoring, regeneration, characterization, and safety backup, and make these materials available freely to requestors in perpetuity. The full curation of accessions is, therefore, the default to meet these commitments.However, past acquisition and germplasm sharing have resulted in many collections of considerable size having a high degree of genetic similarity among accessions and/or with other collections. Furthermore, with the advances of genomics research, there is a demand to make available large numbers of well-researched materials that may be purposely genetically similar and have little long-term conservation value. With no reliable basis for deciding whether one accession is more or less \"important\" than another, the approach has been to treat every accession as equal in importance and therefore to conserve them Section 7 Key result story all in the same way. New methods to characterize accessions and analyze diversity encourages more critical thinking about collection structure and composition. Plus, genebanks need to control costs while carrying out more operations and dealing with more sophisticated germplasm requests. Curating a collection, now more than ever, needs informed decision-making to determine conservation and research priorities. A more refined, stratified, and policy-compliant to curation is called for to facilitate and rationalize collection management.\" Proactive management is critical for ensuring that germplasm is efficiently conserved and made timely available and in adequate quantity for further use by plant breeders, farmers, researchers, and other users. It emphasizes the importance of securing and sharing material as well as the related information, and sets in place a functional strategy for management of human and financial resources for a rational system. \"In 2018, the Genebank Platform embarked on a consultation process among genebank managers and partners to establish a detailed, standard framework for applying categories to accessions: fully curated, partially curated, archived, and historical. The framework was developed by a small drafting team and involved a series of discussions and fact-checking, culminating in a process of consultation with and incorporating advice from the Plant Treaty Secretariat and Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The final document provides detailed policy and technical guidance to support decision-making in curating collections and categorizing accessions, ensuring that stakeholders, as well as the international community, are appropriately informed regarding the status of accessions donated to CGIAR by a vast number of countries and communities in the belief that they will be available in the future when needed. The final version was reviewed and approved by Center Directors General and the System Executive Board. Now that it is in place, the dynamic curation policy provides the basis by which genebanks may modernize the management and composition of collections and provide genebank services to a growing body of researchers who need access to well genotyped and phenotyped germplasm. Already, 36,205 accessions have been archived and 39,456 assigned to partial curation. While it may remain a point of contention deciding which stocks are a priority to conserve and fund, the policy framework is now in place to safely implement a more dynamic form of curation that will allow genebanks to stay relevant to users who are working ever more urgently in a race against climate change to achieve a wide range of objectives in breeding and research.","tokenCount":"3647"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"60edfae0aef204e4a3779ee9247e1e26","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/cbf08dad-0333-47a5-9605-bdddf4b4fd81/retrieve","id":"-1671526756"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d6dcd748-8dfd-47fd-b6e9-bcb50aabeb3a","pagecount":"54","content":"El Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CiAt) agradece a los actores de la cadena productiva de la mora del Valle del Cauca por sus aportes realizados para la construcción participativa del presente documento, el cual parte de la descripción del estado del arte de la cadena y de sus principales brechas, para concluir en una estrategia de competitividad sectorial.Como parte de una acción de reconocimiento de quienes han asumido la labor de construir un mejor territorio por intermedio de la cadena agrícola enunciada, en esta investigación, se ha otorgado especial relevancia a las contribuciones brindadas por sus actores, entre ellos, productores de mora, representantes de organizaciones sociales de base, proveedores de insumos, empresarios de industrias procesadoras y comercializadoras; además de académicos, investigadores y demás profesionales vinculados a las entidades públicas y privadas que promueven y apoyan el desarrollo regional de esta línea productiva.De forma especial, expresamos nuestra gratitud con la Universidad Nacional de Colombia, sede Palmira, por habernos permitido liderar este proceso, y con la Gobernación del Valle del Cauca y el Sistema General de Regalías por ser financiadores del proyecto. Así mismo, agradecemos a los actores de la cadena de la mora y a los profesionales de la Secretaría de Ambiente, Agricultura y Pesca del Valle del Cauca, de la Universidad del Valle, de la Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria (Agrosavia), de la Asociación Hortofrutícola de Colombia (Asohofrucol), del Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario (iCA) y del Parque Biopacífico, por su constante compromiso y por la contribución con sus saberes, conocimientos y experiencias.Por último, extendemos un especial agradecimiento a: Alberto Díaz, Alejandro Fernández, Alfredo Ayala, Carlos Vélez y Claudia Ochoa (Univalle) Andrés Jinés, Erika Mosquera, Mark Lundy y Natalia Gutiérrez (CiAt) Erika Becerra (Listo & Fresco Ltda.) Fabián Lozano (Nutrium SAS) Florencia Satizabal, Herney Darío Vásquez, Jesús Zuleta y Pedro Zapata (Unal) Jenny Lorena Parra Olarte (Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural) Olmer Sánchez (Asofamora) Shirley Saenz (Natural Foods Enterprise SAS) Vicente Triana (Secretaría de Ambiente, Agricultura y Pesca del Valle del Cauca) En el marco del proyecto \"Incremento de la competitividad sostenible en la agricultura de ladera en todo el departamento, Valle del Cauca, Occidente\", financiado por el Sistema General de Regalías (Sgr) y operado por la Universidad Nacional de Colombia, sede Palmira, se priorizaron tres cadenas productivas 1 del sector frutícola con potencial de producción y comercialización, en coherencia con los planes sectoriales y las apuestas departamentales. En este sentido, la Universidad encomendó al Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CiAt), el desarrollo de las actividades concernientes con la construcción del estado del arte y la identificación de las brechas tecnológicas 2 de las cadenas productivas del aguacate, la mora y la piña en el departamento del Valle del Cauca, lo que requería llevar a cabo un proceso de investigación documental y entrevistas con los principales actores involucrados.• Conocer el estado del arte de la cadena productiva de la mora en el departamento del Valle del Cauca contextualizando el panorama en cada eslabón o fase de la misma. • Identificar las brechas tecnológicas que afectan la competitividad de la cadena productiva regional de la mora.La construcción del presente documento sigue una ruta metodológica compuesta por los siguientes pasos: 1) revisión y síntesis de información secundaria, 2) identificación y convocatoria de actores (recopilación de información primaria), 3) identificación y análisis de brechas tecnológicas y no tecnológicas, 4) análisis de costos y márgenes de utilidad a lo largo de la cadena, 5) revisión de oportunidades de mercado y 6) validación de la información concluyente de la investigación.resultantes de la investigación (estado del arte y cuellos de botella 3 ), conocer los costos del cultivo, la dinámica comercial y los márgenes de intermediación en las principales zonas de producción, discutir acerca del comportamiento del mercado, realizar análisis Foda para cada eslabón de la cadena y estructurar de forma consensuada la realidad de la misma.Finalmente, fue posible representar de forma gráfica, a través de un mapeo, el relacionamiento entre las organizaciones de base, las empresas comercializadoras y las entidades que prestan servicios en la cadena, así como la información estadística que los caracteriza y el flujo del valor entre cada eslabón. De esta forma, se construyó el presente documento que, además de describir el estado del arte de la cadena de la mora en el Valle del Cauca, cuenta con observaciones de los actores claves y expertos para concluir en la definición de los principales cuellos de botella y brechas presentes a lo largo de la cadena.Dentro de la familia de las bayas, la mora de Castilla (Rubus Glaucus Benth) es la especie más cultivada en Colombia debido a su adaptabilidad y desempeño. La planta logra adaptarse a una amplia variedad de alturas en un rango entre los 1200 y 3500 m s. n. m.; sin embargo, esta presenta un mejor desarrollo al encontrarse entre los 1800 y 2400 m s. n. m., en zonas con temperaturas entre 16 a 18 °C, humedad del ambiente del 70 al 80 %, alto brillo solar y precipitaciones anuales bien distribuidas entre 1200 y 1700 mm (Sipsa, 2013). La mora no tolera suelos mal drenados, prefiere los sueltos bien permeables de textura franca, profundos, con buen contenido de materia orgánica (5 a 10 %) y con pH de 5,5 a 7 (Sioc, 2011).La planta inicia su etapa productiva al cumplir entre 8 y 9 meses, y comienza a estabilizar su producción cerca del mes 18. Al ser un cultivo perenne, el rendimiento varía a lo largo de su vida útil rentable, que oscila entre 8 a 15 años, aunque en el país se reportan cultivos de más de 20 años con producciones notablemente inferiores (Betancur et al., 2014). Empleando prácticas adecuadas con poblaciones de 2500 plantas por hectárea, se registran rendimientos de 15 a 20 t/ha/año; y en cultivos altamente tecnificados se reportan rendimientos de hasta 30 t/ha/año (Betancur et al., 2014;CCB, 2015;Leiva, 2011;erS, 2009).El cultivo de mora tiene presencia en 19 departamentos del país, donde anualmente se cosechan 12.440 ha, produciendo cerca de 110.000 t del fruto (Agronet, 2017). Las plantaciones se concentran en Cundinamarca, Santander y Antioquia, que en el 2016 representaron el 51 % del área cosechada y el 58 % de la producción (ver figura 1); a su vez, se estima que la producción de mora a nivel nacional genera más de 31 mil empleos directos y 9 mil empleos indirectos cada año (Escobar, 2014). Durante el periodo 2006-2016, la producción nacional ha incrementado en promedio un 2,1 % anual, principalmente como resultado del aumento en áreas sembradas. Sin embargo, el país no ha observado ganancias significativas en productividad, manteniendo un rendimiento anual promedio en el rango de 8,5 t/ha (ver tabla 1). Cabe anotar que, en el mismo periodo, los departamentos de Caldas y Antioquia han logrado incrementos sustanciales de productividad, alcanzando 18 t/ha y 12 t/ha, respectivamente, mientras que en Putumayo y Cundinamarca el rendimiento medio ha disminuido (Agronet, 2017), posiblemente debido al envejecimiento de los cultivos. La mora presenta fructificación continua, con dos periodos de alta producción al año que obedecen al régimen de lluvias de las diferentes regiones donde se cultiva. A nivel nacional, la mayor producción ocurre en los meses de junio y diciembre, donde se concentra el 30 % del total anual, mientras que en el Valle del Cauca, la mayor producción ocurre en el periodo marzo/abril y agosto/septiembre (ver figura 2; Dane, 2016). Esta es una ventaja para el departamento debido a su condición productiva en tiempos de escases nacional. El Valle del Cauca es uno de los principales centros hortifrutícolas del país y, a través de numerosos proyectos públicos y privados (ver sección 3.2.6), el sector ha venido presenciando un creciente dinamismo. Se estima que el departamento produce cerca del 15 % de los alimentos del país y contribuye con el 7,6 % del piB agropecuario colombiano (ver tabla 2). En el caso de la mora, en el año 2016 el departamento produjo 5102 t a partir de 791 ha cosechadas, lo que representa el 3,4 % de la producción nacional. Al tomar los precios del año 2016 se calcula que la mora contribuye con el 0,34 % del piB agropecuario y el 0,53 % del piB agrícola del departamento (Secretaría de Ambiente, Agricultura y Pesca del Valle del Cauca, 2016; Dane, 2017). Fuente: elaboración propia a partir de fuentes mencionadas en el cuadro.Desde el 2012 se ha venido observando una recuperación en la producción de mora en el departamento, tras revertir una tendencia de decrecimiento que tuvo inicios en el año 2003 (ver figura 3). Actualmente, los cultivos de mora se desarrollan en 24 de los 42 municipios del Valle del Cauca. La producción se concentra en los municipios de Ginebra, Tuluá, Trujillo, Florida y Versalles, con más del 70 % del volumen total (ver figura 4). Durante los últimos 5 años, los municipios de Ginebra, El Cairo, Darién, Florida, San Pedro, Sevilla y Versalles han registrado aumentos importantes en áreas sembradas y producción, mientras que en Tuluá y Trujillo se ha registrado un decrecimiento en áreas sembradas. El rendimiento medio de las plantaciones del departamento en el 2016 fue de 7,2 t/ha/año y, aunque este ha aumentado marginalmente en los últimos 10 años, aún se mantiene por debajo de la media nacional (Secretaría de Ambiente, Agricultura y Pesca del Valle del Cauca, 2016). Los objetivos del análisis de las cadenas de valor son preparar una estrategia para su fomento y crear las bases para su monitoreo (por ejemplo, el cálculo de mayores ingresos, los reducción de costos, la distribución de los beneficios entre eslabones, etc.), al igual que iniciar un proceso de cambio y proveer información del sector a empresas y organismos públicos (Springer-Heinze, 2007). Así, se han diferenciado tres tareas básicas que comprenden el análisis de la cadena:1. Mapeo de la cadena de valor. 2. Cuantificación y descripción detallada de las cadenas de valor.3. Análisis económico de cadenas de valor y benchmarking.El análisis de la cadena de valor no es un fin en sí mismo: sus resultados alimentan las decisiones de los promotores, tanto públicos como privados, en el desarrollo de la cadena. De este modo, las empresas privadas usan los resultados del análisis para establecer una visión y una estrategia de mejoramiento propio, al igual que los organismos públicos y los proyectos de desarrollo para implementar los proyectos de fomento de la cadena y planificar las acciones de apoyo. A su vez, estos análisis pueden ser utilizados para la formulación de los indicadores de impacto y para el monitoreo de los proyectos de fomento de la misma. El análisis de la cadena de valor está estrechamente ligado a su proceso de mejoramiento y de promoción; por lo tanto, es indispensable que la información empleada para su análisis refleje la situación actual de la forma más precisa posible (Springer-Heinze, 2007). En consecuencia, el proceso de construcción y validación participativa con los actores regionales no solo asegura una mayor calidad en la información, sino que permite detectar factores que, de otro modo, pasarían desapercibidos; además, incentiva el compromiso de los actores en la ejecución y seguimiento de las estrategias de mejora.Esta sección pretende describir cada eslabón de la cadena de valor de la mora en el Valle del Cauca y concluir en la representación del relacionamiento o conexiones existentes entre las organizaciones o empresas participantes en un mapa de la cadena.A continuación, se presenta el mapeo de la cadena productiva de la mora del Valle del Cauca, el cual traza una representación visual del sistema de la cadena de valor, identifica las operaciones comerciales (funciones), los operadores y sus vínculos, y los prestadores de servicios de apoyo dentro de la misma. Los mapas de la cadena son el núcleo de cualquier análisis y, por lo tanto, son indispensables al ser referentes para los estudios detallados subsecuentes.En este ámbito, los actores de la cadena de valor se pueden agrupar en tres niveles. En el primer nivel, o nivel micro, se encuentran los actores directos, estos realizan actividades directamente relacionadas con la producción, la transformación, la distribución y el consumo de la mora y sus subproductos. En un segundo nivel, o nivel meso, están aquellos que prestan servicios y apoyan de forma directa la ejecución de las actividades de los actores del nivel micro; entre estos servicios los más comunes son la asistencia técnica, financiación, transporte, capacitación, investigación, provisión de insumos y apoyo para la puesta en marcha de iniciativas o proyectos de desarrollo. Finalmente, en el tercer nivel, o nivel macro, se encuentran los actores que participan en el diseño y la implementación de políticas y fortalecimiento institucional. En este nivel se ubican los ministerios, gobiernos locales y regionales, y demás instituciones estatales y supraestatales (Jäger et al., 2013). Es común que algunos actores participen en varios eslabones de la cadena y en distintos niveles, como es el caso de las asociaciones de productores o empresas de la agroindustria, quienes, además de acopiar y comercializar la mora, brindan servicios de asistencia técnica, acceso a capital y capacitación a productores. En la cadena de la mora del Valle del Cauca se identificaron los siguientes eslabones en el nivel micro:(a) Insumos y material vegetal: incluye todas las actividades y actores de la cadena relacionada con la producción y comercialización de material vegetal e insumos y maquinaria agrícola. (b) Producción primaria: hace referencia a las actividades, en finca, realizadas por los productores, desde el establecimiento, el sostenimiento y la administración del cultivo, hasta las actividades de cosecha y poscosecha en finca. (c) Comercialización primaria (fresco): incluye las actividades y actores que participan en la compra y venta de la mora en fresco, partiendo desde la finca, hasta los consumidores finales o intermedios del producto en fresco. En el eslabón se destacan las organizaciones de productores y los comerciantes independientes que acopian el producto para distribuirlo o comercializarlo a través de distintos canales. (d) Transformación: incluye la transformación del fruto en distintos productos que se comercializan hacia otras industrias, el mercado internacional o el consumidor final a través de distribuidores mayoristas y minoristas. La transformación puede tomar varios niveles de sofisticación en este eslabón, desde congelación y despitonado, hasta la producción y empaque de pulpas, mermeladas, jugos y otros productos finales. (e) Comercialización mayorista y minorista en mercados nacionales e internacionales: incluye los actores y actividades cuya principal actividad consiste en la venta al por mayor y al por menor del fruto y sus derivados.Finalmente, se considera como actor directo al consumidor final, el cual varía dependiendo del producto y los canales de distribución. Dentro de esta sección, se anexa al mapeo básico información adicional como el número de actores, el volumen de producción y la participación en el mercado de segmentos específicos de la cadena.Según el interés, el análisis de la cadena se centra en aspectos particulares como las características de los actores, las actividades desarrolladas, los servicios, las condiciones políticas, institucionales y del marco legal que posibilitan u obstaculizan el desarrollo de la cadena.Las metodologías de fomento de cadena parten del análisis de la demanda y de la identificación de los mercados potenciales para definir las estrategias y acciones a llevar a cabo. En consecuencia, a continuación, presentamos el análisis de la cadena de la mora. Partimos del mercado nacional e internacional y sus características y, luego, analizamos cada uno de los eslabones identificados, discutiendo como sus particularidades pueden limitar o favorecer la competitividad en estos mercados.• 3.2.1. Comercialización mayorista y minorista. Mercado internacionalActualmente sobresalen varias tendencias en el consumo de frutas a nivel global. El consumo de frutas y hortalizas frescas y procesadas ha incrementado debido a una mayor consciencia de los beneficios de estos alimentos, la proliferación de dietas con bajo contenido de carbohidratos, las campañas que promueven un consumo mínimo diario de frutas y verduras y, en general, la creciente preocupación por lograr una dieta más equilibrada (Procolombia, 2017a). Las tendencias se centran en varios aspectos, como conveniencia (que sean fáciles de preparar o estén listos para comer), productos naturales, orgánicos, diferenciación en empaques y presentaciones, aporte nutricional, trazabilidad, certificaciones y responsabilidad social en la producción y comercialización (Galindo, 2015;Procolombia, 2017b). En particular, las certificaciones Comercio Justo y GlobalG. A. P. funcionan como referencia al momento de compra.El comercio internacional de berries (moras, frambuesas, zarzamoras y moras-frambuesas) se registra bajo los códigos 081020, para frutos en fresco, y 081120, para frutos congelados. Las partidas arancelarias 081020 y 081120 registran el comercio internacional de diversas berries; no obstante, la producción colombiana se concentra en la mora de Castilla, por lo que las cifras de exportaciones corresponden, principalmente, a este fruto. Solo una pequeña parte de la producción nacional se destina a exportación (0,14 %), la cual se ha mantenido en niveles constantes durante los últimos 5 años (cercanos a 120 t). Existen varias limitantes que inhiben el incremento de las exportaciones del fruto: 1) su sabor ácido (reflejado en el bajo registro de grados Brix) no se adapta al gusto de la demanda internacional, 2) el mercado estadounidense solo permite el ingreso de mora fresca producida en La Sabana de Bogotá, debido a la presencia nacional de la mosca de la fruta (erS, 2009), y 3) se han incrementado las trazas de insumos agrícolas no permitidos por los mercados internacionales (mAdr, 2015). A pesar de ello, los principales destinos de la mora en los últimos 5 años han sido Estados Unidos, España y Alemania (ver figura 7). De acuerdo con entrevistas con empresas de la agroindustria exportadora, Estados Unidos posee un nicho de mercado para el consumo de las moras de Castilla, que corresponde a la población latina y colombiana en este país; no obstante, la mayor participación del mercado de berries en Estados Unidos y Europa corresponde a moras más dulces y de mayor tamaño.Como fruto fresco, la exportación a Estados Unidos cuenta con una serie de requerimientos, que incluyen:fruta de una misma variedad, coloración oscura uniforme y brillante, drupas bien desarrolladas, oblongas, de 2 a 3 cm de largo por 1 cm de diámetro, sin quemaduras por sol, moho o pudrición, libres de cálices y daños por polvo u otra materia extraña, marchitez, humedad, enfermedades, insectos o daños mecánicos, sin residuos tóxicos por plaguicidas, empacadas en clamshells de 6, 12 o 18 onzas. Se requiere que no más del 10 % de la fruta incumpla estas características y que se tenga el Certificado Fitosanitario Internacional. (Fira, 2014, pp. 52-53) Además de la exigencia del certificado Global G. A. P., requerido por empresas comercializadoras (Fira, 2014).La mora como producto procesado se exporta en forma de jugo, de concentrado y de pulpa congelada. El jugo de mora se comercializa clarificado (con un contenido de sólidos solubles de 65 a 68 °Bx) y turbio (con un contenido de sólidos solubles de 40 a 45 °Bx), los cuales se almacenan en tambores de acero o plástico, con capacidad para 55 y 60 galones. El concentrado de mora corresponde a un producto de 10 a 14 °Bx y la pulpa de mora se exporta con un contenido de sólidos solubles superior a 8 °Bx, la cual se empaca en bolsas plásticas de 14 y 28 oz y se congelan en bloques de 28 libras (Universidad de Antioquia, s.f.). De igual manera, las importaciones de mora en el país son mínimas en comparación con la producción local; no obstante, estas han incrementado de manera importante en los últimos años (ver tabla 6). El principal exportador de moras a Colombia es Chile, quien ha provisto el 75 % del fruto en el periodo 2012-2016, seguido por Estados Unidos, quien contribuye con el 21 % durante el mismo periodo. En Latinoamérica, el principal productor y exportador de berries es México, quien exporta la mayoría de su producción al mercado estadounidense, especialmente en contratemporada, compitiendo con Chile y Nueva Zelanda (Fondo de Fomento Agropecuario del Estado de Michoacán [ffAm], s.f.). La principal variedad de exportación del país es \"Tupi\" (Rubus ulmifolius), pero también se pueden encontrar otras variedades como Choctaw, Shawnee y Kiowa, entre otras (Rivas Cancino, s.f.).El 94,5 % de la producción de mora en México se concentra en la localidad de Los Reyes de Salgado del estado de Michoacán, que cuenta con más de 17 empresas, 1200 productores y 6400 ha, y produce cerca de 330 t diarias. A pesar de su experiencia y trayectoria en el mercado, el 70 % de la superficie no está certificada en BpA, se utilizan agroquímicos en dosis inadecuadas y la región carece de prácticas de manejo y tecnologías importantes como coberturas para control de maleza, macrotúneles para protección de la fruta frente a eventos climáticos adversos, hidroponía, aplicación de fitohormonas y, debido a una insuficiente frecuencia en análisis foliares y de suelos, la fertilización realizada es deficiente, afectando la productividad regional (11.4 t/ha/año). No obstante, en plantaciones con macrotúneles y fertirriego la producción media asciende a 17 t/ha/año y se registran regiones con productividades superiores a 20 t/ha/año (Fira, 2014;ffAm, s.f.;Ibarra Morales et al., 2013).Existen varios factores que afectan la producción de mora en el estado de Michoacán, entre los que se incluyen: 1) los cambios extremos en el clima que generan daños al fruto y enfermedades como la Botrytis, 2) riesgos fitosanitarios debido a la densidad de los cultivos que propician la aparición de Peronospora sparsa, 3) el exceso de residuos químicos no permitidos por la Agencia de Protección Ambiental estadounidense, 4) la dependencia de material genético externo, debido a la falta de mejoramiento local, y 5) los riesgos de mercado que incluyen posibles cambios en barreras no arancelarias, el aumento de la competencia y la baja industrialización y consumo local.De acuerdo con el estudio del Fondo de Fomento Agropecuario de Michoacán (s.f.) y el proyecto zarzamora 2009, el costo de producción por kg de mora para exportación en México puede oscilar entre 12,4 a 24,1 mxN, equivalentes a 1900 Cop a 3800 Cop, dependiendo del uso de tecnologías y el valor de la tierra. Actualmente, el fruto se vende en el mercado local en cajas de 2,2 kg o 4 kg, a un precio de 17,5 mxN/kg (2788 Cop), mientras que el precio para el mercado de exportación se encuentra alrededor de 20 mxN/kg (3187 Cop) (SNiim, 2017).Figura 8. Precio promedio de mora fresca en plazas de mercado de Cali (cop/kg) Fuente: Agronet, 2017.Aunque la mayor parte del consumo se dirija al mercado en fresco, la comercialización del producto congelado, pulpa y productos procesados ha venido incrementando a lo largo del país. En el canal moderno se puede observar una multiplicidad de productos procesados a base de mora con diversas presentaciones, empaques y precios (ver tabla 7). Adicionalmente, se ha observado un incremento en la comercialización de moras y de otras berries importadas (ver sección 3.2.2.), que corresponden a variedades de mayor nivel de grados Brix.Tabla 7. Precio de venta en el mercado nacional de mora congelada, pulpa y productos terminadosPulpa de mora (500 g) 3750 PulpifreshPulpa de mora (500 g) 2750 FruticorberaPulpa de mora (500 g) 4000 La Berraquera Pulpa de mora (160 g) 2150 PulpifrutaMora congelada entera (500 g) 3800 PulpifreshMora congelada (500 g) 3800 AgroyáMora a granel congelada (500 g) 4000 FrucongsaMermelada en sachet (200 g) 2800 Respin, San Jorge Barra de cereal (23 g) 1000 Tosh Nutresa Fuente: elaboración propia.La comercialización en el canal moderno se realiza en algunos supermercados regionales como La 14, Super Inter y Supermercados Cañaveral, entre otros, este último reporta un requerimiento de mora de 4 ton quincenales para sus 9 sedes alrededor del departamento. Solo un 14 % de la mora comercializada en sus sedes es vallecaucana (de Ginebra y Tuluá), el resto es procedente del departamento de Nariño, la cual es preferida por los consumidores por algunos parámetros de calidad, como presentación (congelada iqf), tamaño, grados Brix y sanidad. Los proveedores de mora en el Valle del Cauca son principalmente intermediarios, ya que la empresa no trabaja con ninguna organización de productores porque encuentran dificultad en la fidelización e incumplimiento de los volúmenes y precios pactados, además de la fluctuación del precio de venta que depende de la oferta, la cual se basa principalmente en el precio de los principales mercados de abastecimiento (Cavasa y Santa Helena) del departamento. El pago se realiza cada 15 días y se maneja un porcentaje de pérdida poscosecha del 4 %, el cual es asumido por el productor. La mora se comercializa, principalmente, en fresco, iqf y congelada, en presentaciones de 500 gr y a granel.Por otro lado, los supermercados Super Inter del Grupo Éxito comercializan mora en fresco proveniente en un 80 % del municipio de San José de Isnos (Huila) y el 20 % del municipio de Ipiales (Nariño); la empresa comercializa mensualmente cerca de 15 t en sus 30 sedes del Valle del Cauca. Para el suministro de frutas y verduras frescas, Super Inter cuenta con varios proveedores que en su mayoría son intermediarios, quienes se encargan de entregar los productos en cada una de las sedes.Para fijar el precio de pago al proveedor, la empresa se basa en el Sistema de Información de Precios (Sipsa), con un precio actual de 3000 Cop, a 3200 Cop/kg. Por otro lado, el supermercado maneja dos gamas de mora medianamente procesada para venta al público: la primera, a granel iqf, la cual tiene un precio de 6500 Cop/kg; y la mora congelada empacada por 6000 Cop/kg.Con respecto a la pulpa de mora, el supermercado cuenta con varios proveedores, uno de los principales es la empresa Listo y Fresco, ubicada en la ciudad de Cali. El precio pagado a este proveedor por 1 kg de pulpa de mora es aproximadamente 1750 Cop y el precio de venta al público oscila alrededor de los 5000 Cop/kg.El género Rubus cuenta con aproximadamente 400 especies. En Colombia la más común es la especie Rubus glaucus o mora de Castilla (Correa, 2002) originaria de las zonas altas tropicales de América (Franco y Giraldo, 1998). Además de esta especie, es posible encontrar otras de origen silvestre, variedades e híbridos con y sin espinas, comercialmente diferenciadas por su tamaño y contenido de sólidos solubles (dulces > 12 °Bx) (CCi, 1999).Se calcula que en el país existen alrededor de 44 especies de Rubus y una variedad de ecotipos (ver tabla 8), pero solo nueve son comestibles, las otras son consideradas malezas. Entre las cultivadas se encuentran: R. bogotensis, R. nubigenus, R. megalococus, R. floribundus y R. giganteus, R. alpinus, entre otras (Asohofrucol, 2014).Tabla 8. Ecotipos comerciales de mora de Castilla en ColombiaMora hartona Se caracteriza por tener frutos grandes y ciclo de vida corto.Mora ranchona Son plantas de frutos pequeños, con alta producción, pero estacionaria.Mora de Castilla con espina Plantas con alta producción, de frutos medianos.Mora de Castilla sin espina Alta producción, frutos medianos a grandes.Plantas arbustivas, frutos grandes de alta calidad y durabilidad.Fuente: Asohofrucol, 2014.Benth. es la variedad más cultivada en Colombia especialmente el ecotipo que no posee espinas, tiene frutos más grandes y presenta una mayor capacidad de producción, ya que cuenta con un número mayor de tallos o ramas productivas y un macollamiento entre 15 % y 20 % superior a la mora tradicional con espinas (Bernal y Díaz, 2006). Se encuentra distribuida en el país desde El Putumayo hasta El Magdalena, sembrada entre los 2000-3200 m s. n. m. Adicionalmente, la ausencia de espinas facilita de manera importante la cosecha y, por ello, es preferida por los agricultores; sin embargo, estos declaran que el ecotipo sin espinas es menos robusto, exigiendo mayores frecuencias de cosecha y un control de plagas y enfermedades más intensivo.Rubus alpinus esta es una especie que puede ser encontrada en algunas zonas productoras de R. glaucus, son arbustos semierectos y poseen ramas de 6 m o más de longitud en las cuales pueden distribuir cerca de 20 panículas, situación que implica dificultad en el manejo técnico especialmente en labores como podas determinantes para esta especie (Gómez et al., 2010;Moreno-Medina y Deaquiz, 2016), se caracteriza, además, por la forma de sus frutos redondeados 1 cm de diámetro (Cancino et al.) y por presentar un valor promedio de 8.18 °Bx, con un alto potencial comercial como fruta fresca y agroincomo fruta procesada.Rubus bogotensis es una de las especies de moras silvestres comestibles, se encuentra sembrada en Antioquia, Valle, Santander, Boyacá y Cundinamarca, dentro de los rangos de altitud de 1700 a 3200 m s. n. m. Los frutos son racimos muy apretados y con poco jugo, se caracteriza por poseer ramas largas de hasta 5 m, con pocas espinas, flores de color rosado tenue y frutos con cáliz persistente (Cancino et al.).Rubus gigante Benth. se encuentra principalmente en el departamento de Cundinamarca, sembrada en altitudes entre los 2600 a 3400 m s. n. m. Se caracteriza porque el receptáculo interno del fruto es hueco y los frutos son grandes, con aproximadamente 7 cm de largo.La variedad Rubus megalococus se encuentra principalmente en Cundinamarca, sembrada entre los 2300 y los 2700 m s. n. m. Es una planta rústica cuyos frutos se caracterizan por ser pequeños.El tipo de mora Rubus nubigenus se encuentra sembrada principalmente en los departamentos de Caldas, Cundinamarca y Cauca, a alturas comprendidas entre los 2600 y 3100 m s. n. m. Se caracteriza por presentar frutos grandes.Rubus robustus, o mora uva, se encuentra distribuida principalmente en Boyacá, Cundinamarca y Norte de Santander.Dentro de este eslabón se incluyen todos los actores involucrados en la provisión de insumos y material vegetal. A diferencia de otras cadenas frutícolas, en el departamento no existen viveros o proveedores de semillas certificadas; por esta razón, los encargados de reproducir la semilla de mora son los mismos productores, quienes, a través del método de acodo aéreo, producen la semilla necesaria para la ampliación de los cultivos propios, de sus vecinos y para proveer semillas a los proyectos públicos de fomento del cultivo en el departamento y otras regiones.Con la reproducción en finca, los actores comercializan la semilla de mora en el departamento por valores entre 1000 y 2100 Cop. Aunque ciertamente se logra reducir el costo de establecimiento de los cultivos como consecuencia de un menor costo en el material vegetal, los actores reconocen que la carencia de semillas certificadas y de vigilancia para la verificación de procesos de inocuidad en la producción de las mismas ha posibilitado la diseminación de enfermedades entre distintas regiones y representa un riesgo importante para la ampliación de los cultivos.En el caso de los agroinsumos, uno de los principales cuellos de botella de la cadena ha sido el incremento en el uso de insumos químicos en los cultivos, que impiden la comercialización de la fruta en la agroindustria y los mercados de exportación, ya que estos son los canales que presentan mayores controles. Debido a lo anterior, algunas asociaciones de productores han recibido capacitaciones en la producción de abonos y controladores orgánicos (compost, bokashi, caldo orgánico, sulfocalcio) y los asistentes técnicos de la región han venido promocionando la aplicación de insumos limpios, lo que ha permitido popularizar la producción y aplicación de estos en las fincas. Adicionalmente, es común que los productores realicen aplicaciones de otros insumos orgánicos como las algas marinas y biocontroladores (micorrizas), siempre y cuando estos hayan sido proporcionados por algún proyecto de desarrollo.A pesar del incremento en el uso de productos biológicos, el sector sigue presentando un uso intensivo de agroquímicos nocivos, debido principalmente al incremento en la incidencia de plagas y enfermedades y a la falta de implementación de un manejo integrado de plagas y enfermedades (mip) adecuado. Para facilitar el manejo y reducir la incidencia de enfermedades, los productores han reducido las densidades de siembra (pasando de 1111 plantas por hectárea a cerca de 700); sin embargo, el efecto en la productividad y rentabilidad de los cultivos de estos nuevos modelos aún no ha sido adecuadamente registrado y evaluado.En cuanto a los insumos sintéticos, estos son adquiridos principalmente en las casas agrícolas municipales como Café Occidente, Caficentro, Agrocentro, Jota Agro y Vertte. Cabe resaltar que una proporción importante de los insumos empleados en las fincas es proporcionada a través de proyectos de desarrollo estatales y de cooperación internacional.• 3.La producción de mora en el Valle se concentra en manos de pequeños productores. Al 2014, el departamento contaba con 555 predios registrados con cultivo de mora, en los que el área mediana por predio era de 1 ha y tan solo el 6,5 % de los predios tenían más de 10 ha (Gobernación del Valle del Cauca, 2014). Según los actores encuestados, el productor promedio del departamento cuenta con 500 plantas de mora (cerca de media hectárea), y destina el resto del área de su predio a otras actividades, entre las que se destacan otros frutales (lulo, granadilla, aguacate), hortalizas y producción animal.Las asociaciones de productores que están vinculadas actualmente con el cultivo de la mora en el Valle del Cauca son 18, una de ellas (Asofamora) es de segundo nivel. Las asociaciones se encuentran ubicadas en varios municipios, especialmente en las zonas de ladera del departamento (ver tabla 9). Fuente: elaboración propia.La participación de los miembros de la familia es fundamental para la realización de las diferentes labores del cultivo, en la actualidad la mano de obra particular es escasa y se ha encarecido. El cultivo de la mora genera 2,6 empleos directos y 0,8 empleos indirectos para un promedio de 3,4 empleos directos (Sioc, 2011).Con respecto a la comercialización, la mayoría de las asociaciones y productores independientes comercializan la fruta a través de intermediarios que llegan directamente a las fincas de los productores o a las sedes de acopio de las asociaciones. Otro grupo de productores vende su producto a granel en la galería y algunos han logrado establecer alianzas con supermercados.• 3.2.5. TransformaciónDentro de las principales empresas transformadoras de mora fresca se encuentra la empresa Nutrium SAS (filial de Postobón S. A.). Esta se encuentra ubicada en el municipio de Tuluá (Valle), se dedica al procesamiento de pulpa de frutas tropicales y es el principal proveedor de materia prima de Postobón para la producción de jugos. En términos de responsabilidad social corporativa, desde el año 1997, Nutrium SAS y Postobón S. A., a través de la Fundación Postobón, cuentan con un programa denominado \"Hit Social\" que busca generar relaciones inclusivas, de valor compartido y de largo plazo con los proveedores de mango, mora y lulo. En este sentido, ofrece apoyo técnico y acompañamiento durante la ejecución de proyectos en los que la empresa pueda participar.En la actualidad Nutrium SAS es el mayor comprador industrial de mora fresca y trabaja de la mano de asociaciones y productores independientes ubicados en los departamentos de Nariño, Huila, Tolima, Caldas, Risaralda y Valle del Cauca. Algunas asociaciones del departamento como Praman, Asofrumo, Asorepi (Tuluá) y Asofructeros (Trujillo) han tenido vínculos comerciales con la empresa; sin embargo, solo la Fundación Banco Diocesano hace parte del programa Hit Social de la Fundación Postobón.La principal dificultad de integrar las asociaciones al programa es que las entregas no son frecuentes, y se basan en precios del mercado para establecer la negociación. Las asociaciones de mora que hacen parte del programa han establecido acuerdos comerciales con la empresa, pactando un precio estable durante todo el año sin importar las oscilaciones del mercado (2100 Cop/kg).Nutrium SAS recibe la mora empacada en canastillas (con bolsa plástica) o en canecas (con capacidad de 20 kg, 50 kg o 200 kg), la cual es comúnmente transportada por los productores en camiones. No se realizan clasificaciones por calibres o calidades, siempre y cuando la fruta se encuentre madura y sana al momento de la entrega. Solo el 5 % del total de la mora que la empresa compra en el país (3000 t/año en promedio) proviene de cultivos ubicados en el Valle del Cauca, en parte porque la mora producida en el departamento del Valle del Cauca presenta bajos °Bx, comparados con la fruta cultivada en los departamentos de Nariño y Tolima (ver tabla 10). Para el procesamiento industrial, la mora que presenta mejores características es la proveniente del departamento de Nariño. Fuente: elaboración propia.Otra empresa importante en el departamento es Listo y Fresco, la cual desde el año 2005 ha incluido la mora de Castilla en su portafolio. Actualmente, la mayoría de la fruta es adquirida en el municipio de Sotará (Cauca). La empresa tiene un requerimiento promedio de 4 t a la semana y proyectan ampliar su mercado, de tal manera que requerirán un aumento en la materia prima para cubrir la demanda.Listo y Fresco comercializa sus productos a nivel nacional e internacional. A nivel nacional tiene presencia en varios supermercados como Cañaveral, Jumbo, Alkosto y D1, en los que se comercializan aproximadamente 105.000 kg de la fruta (mora entera iqf y pulpa de mora 397 o 250 gr). Hoy en día, la empresa exporta alrededor de 16.260 kg de mora (entera iqf y pulpa, 3 o 12 oz) especialmente a los EE. UU. (New York, Miami y Los Ángeles). La comercialización se hace a través de un intermediario.Para cumplir con los estándares de calidad, se manejan 2 rangos en los requisitos de madurez de la fruta:• Para la mora entera congelada por iqf, la mora debe estar en la escala 4 y 5 de la tabla de color que indica los cambios en la maduración. • Para la pulpa de mora, la escala puede ser 5 o 6 en la tabla de color que indica los cambios en la maduración.La mora de Castilla ha sido exportada a otros mercados como Austria y Japón, donde es requerida como ingrediente complementario para la mezcla de jugos y otros productos industriales. Algunas iniciativas de exportación a otros países se han dificultado, debido a la presencia de trazas de agroquímicos no permitidos en la mora, por esta razón la empresa tuvo que suspender un acuerdo comercial que existía con un proveedor de fruta proveniente del municipio de Tuluá en el Valle del Cauca.Otra empresa transformadora importante ubicada en el departamento es Natural Foods. La empresa se dedica a la producción y comercialización de pulpas de fruta (pasteurizadas, congeladas y azucaradas), frutas en trozos y entera, entre las que se encuentran la mora, la piña y el lulo, atendiendo principalmente el mercado de los latinos ubicados en los Estados Unidos y Europa. El 10 % de la producción se destina al mercado nacional y entre sus principales clientes se encuentra la franquicia de jugos Cosechas y las tiendas Ara. La mora es comprada directamente a algunas asociaciones del departamento, entre las que se encuentran la organización Asocfructeros del municipio de Trujillo. En la actualidad, transforman mensualmente entre 10 y 20 t de mora.Algunas dificultades con los proveedores de esta fruta es la variación en los grados Brix, los cuales bajan especialmente cuando se incrementan las lluvias. Otro inconveniente que presenta la empresa en la comercialización de la pulpa de mora es la presencia de trazas de agroquímicos. Por lo anterior, existe una restricción que ha llevado a las autoridades de inspección, como la agencia fdA del Gobierno de los Estados Unidos, responsable de la regulación de alimentos, a revisar de forma más exhaustiva la pulpa de mora y de lulo procedente de Colombia elevando los costos de comercialización y el riesgo.• 3.2.6. Servicios ofrecidos a la cadenaEn Colombia el sector productivo cuenta con los servicios del Fondo para el Financiamiento del Sector Agropecuario (Finagro), que ha sido instituido por el Estado con el objeto de promover el desarrollo rural del país a través de diversas líneas o instrumentos de financiamiento que se ofrecen en calidad de crédito al agricultor a través de las entidades bancarias. Entre los programas o incentivos se citan los siguientes: 1) fondo agropecuario de garantías (fAg), 2) líneas especiales de crédito leC, 3) líneas de microfinanzas rurales, 4) programa de coberturas para procesos de exportación, 5) incentivo a la capitalización rural iCr, 6) incentivo al seguro agropecuario (iSA), y 7) fondo de solidaridad agropecuaria (Fonsa) (ver tabla 11). El mAdr también apoya al financiamiento del sector agropecuario por medio de programas como el Proyecto Apoyo a Alianzas Productivas, que contribuye con recursos para el desarrollo de proyectos agropecuarios en el que se vinculan asociaciones de productores con aliados comerciales formales. A continuación, describimos los principales instrumentos y programas.Tabla 11. Incentivos financieros del sector productivo en ColombiaFondo agropecuario de garantías (fAg)El objetivo del fondo es respaldar los créditos que, bajo las condiciones establecidas por Finagro, se otorguen a personas naturales o jurídicas para financiar proyectos del sector agropecuario, que sean técnica, financiera y ambientalmente viables y que se otorguen a productores que no puedan ofrecer las garantías exigidas por las entidades financieras.Líneas de crédito transitorias que ofrecen recursos con tasas de interés subsidiadas mediante aportes del Estado. Son dirigidas a un determinado segmento de productores o de actividades agropecuarias que requieren especial atención. Por ejemplo, el leC Colombia siembra 2017 tiene las siguientes características de crédito: a) Hasta 24 meses para la siembra de maíz amarillo tecnificado, arroz, soya y cebada, y para el sostenimiento de la acuicultura y el cultivo del camarón. b) Hasta 60 meses para el cultivo de granadilla, maracuyá, banano, uchuva, piña y gulupa, y para la retención de vientres de ganado bovino y bufalino.Finagro busca aumentar los niveles de inclusión financiera de la población que reside en las áreas rurales del país a través de los siguientes componentes: a) Fondo de microfinanzas rurales (Ley 1731 de 2014): recursos concedidos a instituciones financieras, cooperativas y asociaciones elegibles que operan en zonas rurales del país, con población que no accede a financiamiento por otras vías (pequeños productores agropecuarios y micro, pequeñas y medianas empresas).b) Línea de microfinanzas que se otorga a través del sistema financiero convencional.Se fundamenta en la Ley 101 de 1993. El Minagricultura otorga a los subsectores agrícola, pecuario y acuícola exportadores un incentivo en la compra de opciones put europeas, para mitigar la incertidumbre cambiaria a causa de la tasa de cambio.Dirigido a proyectos de inversión de pequeños o medianos productores para la modernización, competitividad y sostenibilidad de la producción agropecuaria.El incentivo consiste en un abono que realiza Finagro al saldo del crédito contraído por el beneficiario para financiar las actividades de inversión. Las inversiones realizadas por pequeños productores acceden a una condonación del capital de hasta el 40 % del valor del proyecto, mientras que los medianos y grandes productores se benefician con una condonación de hasta el 20 % del valor del capital.El seguro agropecuario es una herramienta de gestión de riesgos que permite al productor agropecuario proteger su inversión ante eventos adversos de la naturaleza (ej., exceso o déficit de lluvia, vientos fuertes, inundaciones, heladas, granizadas, deslizamientos, avalanchas, plagas y enfermedades).Para acceder al beneficio, el productor agropecuario debe acercarse a alguna de las entidades aseguradoras que ofrecen el seguro agropecuario (Mapfre, Sura, La Previsora, Seguros Bolívar y Allianz).Fondo de solidaridad agropecuaria (Fonsa)Creado por la Ley 302 de 1996 y administrado por Finagro, el fondo tiene por objeto suministrar apoyo económico a pequeños productores agropecuarios y pesqueros, para la atención y alivio parcial o total de sus deudas, cuando en el desarrollo de dichas actividades se presenten situaciones de índole climatológica, catástrofes naturales, problemas fitosanitarios o notorias alteraciones del orden público. A través del fondo, se pueden comprar total o parcialmente créditos otorgados por establecimientos de crédito y convenir con los deudores los plazos y condiciones financieras de las obligaciones adquiridas.Fuente: basado en información del mAdr y Finagro. paap: el proyecto pAAp del Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural (mAdr) busca incrementar de manera sostenible, la competitividad y el desarrollo empresarial de los pequeños y medianos productores de sector agropecuario colombiano, a través de alianzas entre productores y aliados comerciales con experiencia y penetración en ese mercado. Desde su concepción en el año 2003, el pAAp ha apoyado asociaciones del sector de mora con alianzas que suman más de 2.900.000.000 Cop en los municipios de Tuluá, Guacarí, Ginebra, Buga, El Cerrito, Trujillo y Florida. A través de los proyectos se han beneficiado más de 500 productores y establecido más de 280 ha. Las alianzas más recientes corresponden a las ejecutadas en el 2011 con la asociación Asomora de Trujillo y la asociación Asofrumo de Tuluá (dNp, 2015), mientras que en el 2016 se incluyó a la comunidad Nasa Kwues Kiwe del municipio de Florida, por medio de la priorización de municipios por posconflicto.En 1989 el Estado creó el Sistema Nacional de Transferencia de Tecnología Agropecuaria (Sintap) dando origen a las Unidades Municipales de Asistencia Técnica Agropecuaria (Umata), con el objeto de prestar el servicio de asistencia técnica de forma gratuita a los pequeños productores rurales. Con esto, a las secretarías de agricultura se les asignó la responsabilidad de velar por la capacitación continua de los asistentes técnicos en coordinación con las entidades de investigación y transferencia de tecnología. Sin embargo, a partir de la segunda mitad de la década de los noventa el Sintap empezó a desarticularse (Corpoica, 2015).Posteriormente, la Ley 607 de 2000 reglamentó la asistencia técnica directa rural (Atdr) como un servicio público a cargo de los municipios en coordinación con los entes departamentales y nacionales. La norma establece como mandato, la prestación del servicio por parte de los entes municipales quienes deben asegurarse de llevar a cabo las respectivas labores con un enfoque agropecuario y medioambiental. De igual manera, son responsables de realizar acciones de seguimiento a la calidad y cobertura del servicio, y garantizar el acceso equitativo a los servicios estatales y a los beneficios de la ciencia y la tecnología, lo anterior, en consonancia con el Sistema Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología Agroindustrial. Así, es deber de las entidades municipales, articularse con otras instituciones públicas, privadas o de carácter mixto que orienten proyectos o programas en los que se incluyan acciones de asistencia técnica.Luego, el Decreto 2980 de 2004 incentivó el surgimiento de los Centros Provinciales de Gestión Agroempresarial (CpgA) que deberían asegurarse de prestar asistencia técnica integral a núcleos de productores agrupados en provincias a través de Empresas Prestadoras de Servicios de Asistencia Técnica Agroempresarial (Epsagro), lo que ocasionó el debilitamiento y desaparición de algunas Umata (Corpoica, 2015). Finalmente, el 29 de diciembre del 2017 el congreso expide la Ley 1876, por medio de la cual se crea el Sistema Nacional de Innovación Agropecuaria (SNiA) y el Subsistema de Extensión Agropecuaria, que a su vez establece a las Entidades Prestadoras del Servicio de Extensión Agropecuario (Epsea) como las encargadas de la prestación de servicios de extensión rural. El servicio se presta de manera voluntaria y, para ser beneficiarios, los productores deberán inscribirse o permitir ser inscritos.Actualmente, el servicio en el departamento es prestado por una diversidad de entidades que incluyen Epsagros, Umatas, Asohofrucol, oNg, empresas del sector agroindustrial y profesionales particulares que trabajan con empresas y almacenes comercializadores de insumos agrícolas o que son contratados de forma particular por uno o varios agricultores. Los productores encuestados en este proyecto reconocen a Asohofrucol como el principal prestador del servicio dentro de la cadena; sin embargo, algunos reconocen no haber recibido el servicio en varios meses y declaran que estarían dispuestos a pagar montos moderados por la prestación del servicio durante momentos en los que se presentan plagas o enfermedades desconocidas, siempre que se garantice la calidad e idoneidad del técnico.A continuación, se presenta un listado de algunas de las principales entidades que operan en el nivel meso y macro de la cadena, ofreciendo servicios de apoyo, capacitación, asistencia técnica, transferencia de tecnologías, investigación, representación, soporte institucional, regulación, vigilancia y control a lo largo de la cadena (ver tabla 14).Tabla 14. Entidades y servicios de la cadena de la mora en el Valle del CaucaAgronet Información Red de información y comunicación del sector agropecuario de Colombia.Capacitación, asistencia técnica, transferencia y construcción de soporte institucional Responsables de la administración del fondo nacional de fomento hortofrutícola. Estructura y ejecuta planes, programas y proyectos en pro del fortalecimiento del sector de frutas y hortalizas.Capacitación, información y construcción de soporte institucionalInstituciones privadas sin fines de lucro que se encargan de administrar los registros mercantiles de las empresas y sociedades.Ofrece servicios de inspección y certificación de estándares orgánicos y ambientales a diversas actividades agropecuarias.Apoya a los países en desarrollo en la búsqueda de una agricultura competitiva, rentable, resiliente y sostenible. En su labor de investigación, brinda apoyo a formuladores de políticas, científicos y agricultores, en aspectos de inseguridad alimentaria y malnutrición, cambio climático y degradación ambiental.Es una entidad pública descentralizada de participación mixta.Se encarga de generar conocimiento científico y soluciones tecnológicas a través de actividades de investigación, innovación, transferencia de tecnología y formación de investigadores.Vigilancia y control Entidad encargada de la administración pública de los recursos ambientales y su protección en su jurisdicción.iCA Vigilancia y control Diseña y ejecuta estrategias para prevenir, controlar y reducir riesgos sanitarios, biológicos y químicos en las especies animales y vegetales. Se encarga de la inspección y el control de productos agropecuarios, animales y vegetales. Además, tiene la obligación de garantizar la calidad de los insumos agrícolas y las semillas que se usan en Colombia y de reglamentar y controlar el uso de organismos vivos modificados por ingeniería genética para el sector agropecuario.Presta servicios de normalización, educación, servicios de evaluación de la conformidad, certificación, evaluación para el cambio climático, acreditación en salud, metrología y consulta y venta de normas y publicaciones.Entidad creada por los sectores público y privado de la región, que coordina el Comité de Inversión Extranjera, con el objeto de promocionar la inversión nacional e internacional en el departamento del Valle del Cauca.Entidad adscrita al Ministerio de Salud, con el objeto de ejecutar políticas en materia de vigilancia sanitaria y control de calidad de medicamentos, productos biológicos, alimentos, bebidas, cosméticos, dispositivos y elementos medicoquirúrgicos, odontológicos, productos naturales homeopáticos y generados por biotecnología, reactivos de diagnóstico y otros que puedan tener impacto en la salud individual y colectiva de los colombianos.Máxima entidad estatal encargada de fomentar el desarrollo rural y el sector agropecuario y pesquero a través de la formulación de políticas, la coordinación en la estructuración de planes, programas y proyectos que se requieran, la presentación de planes y programas que serán incorporados al Plan Nacional de Desarrollo, la participación en la negociación de convenios internacionales del sector y la presentación de los proyectos de ley ante el Congreso de la República.oNg Entidad encargada de promover el turismo, la inversión extranjera en Colombia, las exportaciones y la imagen del país. Identifica oportunidades, diseña estrategias, apoya a las empresas, promueve el intercambio y presta servicios especializados a interesados, relacionados con la inversión extranjera y el comercio exterior.Organización que en su papel representativo del gremio: a) promueve el desarrollo agropecuario nacional, b) participa de la formulación y ejecución de la política agropecuaria, c) coopera con el Estado en los procesos de integración económica y comercio internacional, d) sistematiza y comunica la información estadística agropecuaria, e) promueve la investigación y estudios sectoriales, g) fomenta la asociatividad y el cooperativismo, f) vela por la conservación de los recursos naturales, y g) participa de la organización de escenarios de capacitación para el sector.Es representante del gremio a nivel departamental. Participa en la definición de la política agropecuaria regional y nacional. Entre sus servicios se encuentra la asistencia técnica agropecuaria y el acompañamiento en la formulación, gestión y administración de proyectos.Es la entidad departamental encargada de direccionar el desarrollo del sector agropecuario y pesquero del Valle del Cauca, para lo cual, asesora y acompaña la implementación de programas productivos rurales, promueve la asociatividad, facilita el desarrollo de encadenamientos productivos a través de alianzas estratégicas, fomenta los sistemas de producción limpia y de seguridad alimentaria y promueve programas de gestión de recursos para el sector.Entidad encargada de implementar procesos de formación de técnicos, tecnólogos y trabajadores especializados, con el propósito de capacitar a los colombianos para su participación en el sistema laboral.Empresa que ofrece servicios de operación logística (almacenamiento, cargue y descargue de mercancías y transporte), principalmente para facilitar procesos de exportación desde, y hacia, el puerto de Buenaventura.Investigación, formación y capacitación Institución educativa de educación superior de reconocimiento nacional por su calidad académica. Participa en la articulación de proyectos nacionales y regionales y lleva a cabo procesos de investigación con la participación de los sectores productivos, sociales y gubernamentales.Investigación, formación y capacitación La entidad pública de educación superior tiene el compromiso de formar profesionales competentes y socialmente responsables. Además del importante rol formativo a través de estudios de pregrado y posgrado reconocidos por su alta calidad, participa en la articulación de proyectos nacionales y regionales, y lleva a cabo procesos de investigación con la participación de los sectores productivos, sociales y gubernamentales.Fuente: elaboración propia.El análisis económico de las cadenas de valor es la evaluación de su desempeño referido a la eficiencia económica. Esto incluye determinar el valor agregado a lo largo de los eslabones de la cadena de valor, el costo de producción y, en la medida de lo posible, el ingreso de los operadores (Springer-Heinze, 2007). Los costos de transacción son un aspecto adicional que incluyen los costos para hacer negocios, recabar información e implementar contratos. El desempeño económico de una cadena de valor puede ser sometido a benchmark; es decir, los valores de los parámetros principales pueden ser comparados con aquellos de las cadenas rivales en otros países o industrias similares para establecer su eficacia y eficiencia.• 3.Para hablar de los costos de producción de mora a lo largo del departamento es necesario tener en cuenta que estos varían sustancialmente según las prácticas, insumos y actividades implementadas en la finca. Adicionalmente, cabe resaltar que el costo de producción unitario depende de la productividad de la plantación. Debido a lo anterior, es difícil consolidar un valor medio que se ajuste a las distintas experiencias productivas de la región. Sin embargo, para ofrecer una aproximación al costo de producción departamental, presentamos un análisis basado en información facilitada por Asohofrucol la cual ha sido ajustada y actualizada de acuerdo al contexto local. En la tabla 15 se observan los costos de producción de un modelo productivo estándar (modelo base), el cual presenta los ingresos y egresos estimados de 1 ha de mora por un periodo de 5 años con una densidad de 1111 plantas, con suficiente fertilización e implementación de BpA. El modelo base presupone una productividad de 20,2 t/ha/año (18,2 kg/planta/año), que corresponden a un rendimiento moderado para un cultivo con estas características.Los costos presentados se clasifican por etapas en: 1) establecimiento y 2) cosecha; y por categorías en: 1) costos directos (insumos, transporte, mano de obra, análisis de suelos y foliares) y 2) costos indirectos (costo de oportunidad o alquiler de la tierra, servicios, asistencia técnica y administración).Tabla 15. Estructura de costos de producción para 1 ha de mora Fuente: elaboración propia con datos de Asohofrucol, Dane y entrevistas a expertos.La principal fuente de costos del modelo es la mano de obra, ya que el cultivo demanda altas cantidades de trabajo para la cosecha y manejo, seguido por el costo de los insumos, en el que los fertilizantes orgánicos (compost) y los sintéticos representan más del 70 % del valor total de los mismos. Los costos de transporte se estiman en 1300 Cop por arroba (12,5 kg) y son la tercera fuente más importante de egresos. Por otro lado, los costos de los insumos, materiales e infraestructura para el establecimiento, aunque sustanciales durante el primer año, solo representan el 6,9 % del costo total. Figura 9. Ingresos, costos y utilidades anuales de 1 ha de mora en 5 años Fuente: elaboración propia.En la figura 9 se puede observar el flujo de caja a lo largo de 5 años, contemplando un precio de venta constante de 1480 Cop/kg que incluye el pago de la cuota del recaudo parafiscal. Según los parámetros iniciales, el cultivo se muestra rentable; sin embargo, los costos de producción unitarios y la rentabilidad del cultivo son aspectos altamente sensibles al rendimiento de las plantas; por ello, en la tabla 16 presentamos algunos indicadores financieros que reflejan esta dinámica. Teniendo en cuenta que el costo de los insumos y mano de obra en el modelo base (para actividades distintas a la cosecha) es constante sin importar el nivel de producción, un cultivo de mora bajo las condiciones definidas se muestra económicamente atractivo siempre que produzca rendimientos superiores a 17 t/ha/año o alrededor 300 g por planta, semanalmente.Tabla 16. Indicadores de desempeño de producción de mora para distintos rendimientos La tabla 17 presenta los resultados consolidados en un ciclo de 5 años. En este periodo, la producción deja una utilidad neta de 21.600.000 Cop, equivalente a 361.000 Cop por mes. En caso de emplear únicamente mano de obra familiar, el ingreso técnico mensual familiar para la producción de mora alcanzaría a sumar 1.070.000 Cop, descontando una reserva de 126.000 Cop mensuales para la renovación del cultivo al terminar los 5 años del proyecto. Teniendo en cuenta los lineamientos en aspectos de seguridad alimentaria, el área frutícola mínima rentable (Afmr) se define como el área requerida para generar 2 salarios mínimos legales vigentes (Smlv) para una familia de 5 personas (1.470.000 Cop). En el caso de la mora, bajo los supuestos anteriores se necesitarían 1,4 ha para cubrir este requisito, área que debería ser superior en la práctica ya que para lograr esta rentabilidad se deben alcanzar productividades altas y minimizar las pérdidas poscosecha, y la familia productora debe poder contar con el capital de trabajo necesario para cubrir las inversiones de establecimiento y los altos gastos durante el periodo no productivo. De lo contrario, el productor debe incluir en su modelo los costoS financieros de un crédito agropecuario, incrementando los costos de producción y el Afmr. Para comparar los resultados del modelo base con los costos regionales en campo, se recolectó información sobre los sistemas productivos y los costos de producción de cuatro familias del departamento, para quienes la mora es la principal actividad económica. Con la colaboración de los representantes de las asociaciones de productores Asocfruteros y Asofrunidos de Trujillo y Ginebra, respectivamente, se seleccionaron productores de manera que representaran diversos sistemas productivos (convencional, limpio y orgánico). Cabe aclarar que, debido al alcance del proyecto, la recolección de información no se realizó mediante un ejercicio estadísticamente representativo, por lo que los resultados obtenidos no son generalizables para la región; sin embargo, estos nos permiten realizar una primera aproximación a las características económicas de los sistemas productivos del departamento (resultados en el anexo).En todos los sistemas productivos se registró un alto uso de mano de obra, con una intensidad de mano de obra por planta mayor a la registrada en el modelo base, mientras que la aplicación de insumos reportada fue sustancialmente menor, representó solo un 6 % de sus costos totales. Los productores reportan que casi la totalidad de los insumos sintéticos utilizados han sido aportados o subsidiados por programas de desarrollo, lo que les permite ahorrar una parte sustancial de este rubro (excluyendo el costo de los insumos orgánicos, los cuales son producidos en finca). No obstante, debido a la baja participación de los insumos en los costos totales, el impacto de estos subsidios en el bienestar de los hogares parece ser bajo. Por otro lado, los costos de transporte en la región son particularmente altos, ya que las fincas se encuentran dispersas, alejadas de los principales centros urbanos y las vías de acceso se encuentran en muy mal estado.En todos los casos, las diferencias entre los sistemas en términos de rendimientos y costos fueron altas debido a la edad de los cultivos, el número de plantas y las prácticas de manejo realizadas. Así mismo, los precios de venta y volúmenes de comercialización pueden variar sustancialmente dependiendo del cliente y del mercado objetivo, en un rango desde 1700 Cop a 5000 Cop por kg. Se logró observar que mientras algunos productores logran una rentabilidad importante, otros están produciendo a pérdidas, y esto depende en gran medida del número de plantas, el manejo realizado, la productividad del sistema y el nivel de pérdidas relacionado con fenómenos climáticos, plagas, enfermedades, manejo del cultivo y poscosecha.• 3.El valor agregado a lo largo de la cadena es un indicador esencial para calcular la distribución del valor total generado entre los actores. Sin embargo, este indicador solo no es suficiente: es necesario revisar los volúmenes de producto que pasan por los distintos eslabones para determinar la estructura de gobernanza, es decir, el grado de poder e influencia que el actor tiene en la cadena para estimar la captura total de valor.Debido a la falta de información sobre los costos de transformación, flujos y volúmenes de producto de diversos actores (por motivos de confidencialidad, propiedad intelectual, secreto industrial, entre otros), en esta sección presentamos una aproximación al valor agregado para los eslabones identificados (ver tabla 18). A partir de los valores reflejados y obtenidos para el primer semestre del 2018, se observa que el eslabón de comercialización realizada por minoristas (supermercados) genera y captura el mayor valor del producto, mientras que el eslabón de producción de mora fresca es el que menos agrega valor al producto y, por tanto, el que genera una menor utilidad unitaria.Teniendo en cuenta la revisión de la información secundaria disponible del sector, las entrevistas realizadas a expertos y a diferentes actores de la cadena de la mora, y las actividades grupales realizadas con los mismos, se identificaron los principales aspectos que inciden de forma negativa en la competitividad de la cadena haciendo especial énfasis en el contexto regional.De acuerdo con su naturaleza, los cuellos de botella han sido clasificados como brechas tecnológicas (Bt) y brechas no tecnológicas (BNt). Las primeras requieren intervención de la ciencia a través de la investigación, las segundas hacen referencia a problemas que demandan procesos de intervención estatal, inversión en infraestructura pública, legislación, transferencia tecnológica, mercadeo, acompañamiento institucional, gestión de proyectos, entre otros. Es preciso aclarar que algunas de las brechas presentadas han sido clasificadas en ambas categorías, dado que pueden ser afrontadas desde diferentes perspectivas o requieren diversos abordajes.Las brechas identificadas en este eslabón hacen referencia a los siguientes aspectos: 1) en el momento en el que los productores requieren renovar sus cultivos, hacen uso principalmente de material vegetal extraído de sus unidades productivas; sin embargo, no garantizan la calidad de la semilla. 2) Escasos estudios de caracterización que permitan reconocer los ecotipos con mayor potencial reproductivo, de adaptación y de mercado. 3) Los métodos de propagación actuales no garantizan la inocuidad del proceso de multiplicación. Y 4) baja oferta de agroquímicos registrados y autorizados para el manejo del cultivo de mora (ver tabla 19). Actualmente no existen viveros registrados con comercialización de material de siembra. La propagación es llevada a cabo principalmente por los productores, sin tener en cuenta las especificaciones técnicas exigidas por el iCA, lo que dificulta la trazabilidad del cultivo e identificación de la procedencia del material de siembra.A pesar de que existan técnicas de multiplicación de semilla documentadas (acodo aéreo, estacas y microestacas), es preciso definir métodos apropiados de reproducción o multiplicación y transferir esta información ya que los productores no cuentan con el conocimiento adecuado para seleccionar el material de siembra.Finalmente, la obtención de semillas de las mismas fincas no garantiza el tratamiento adecuado al material vegetal y facilita el traslado de enfermedades. Aunque el método tradicional de propagación por acodo de punta terminal ofrece beneficios en cuanto al vigor de la planta y menor tiempo en la formación de raíces, no garantiza la inocuidad del material de propagación.Necesidad de ampliar estudios de caracterización de la biodiversidad genética y análisis de la biodiversidad de la mora cultivada en el departamentoExisten algunos estudios de caracterización (ej. morfológica) que han permitido reconocer aspectos agronómicos de los ecotipos del género Rubus cultivado en el departamento; sin embargo, no se han desarrollado procesos de identificación del material genético disponible en el departamento que permitan obtener insumos para el mejoramiento de las variedades en aspectos de productividad, de resistencia a las plagas y enfermedades y de calidad, entre otros. Aunque se han iniciado proyectos que buscan el mejoramiento genético, los resultados no han superado la etapa experimental.Insuficiencia en el mejoramiento de material vegetal adaptado al departamento, para lograr características valiosas en aspectos comerciales y productivos A excepción de los ecotipos sin tuna, en el país no existen variedades comerciales mejoradas que permitan un mayor rendimiento, calidad o rentabilidad de los cultivos. Por otro lado, para iniciar procesos de mejoramiento entre los productores, hace falta la definición y transferencia de protocolos de selección masal y mejoramiento de aquellas que podrían tener mayor potencial debido a su adaptabilidad, resistencia, productividad y otras características comercialmente valiosas (grados Brix). Adicionalmente, la mora producida en el departamento del Valle presenta menores registros de grados Brix en comparación con la fruta de los departamentos de Nariño y Tolima.La oferta de agroquímicos permitidos o registrados para el cultivo es reducida y se desconocen los límites máximos de residuos (lmr) de los agroinsumos utilizados. En Colombia, la norma que establece los lmr (mg/kg) para alimentos de consumo humano es la resolución 2906 de 2007; sin embargo, esta reglamentación especifica solamente el lmr para 7 plaguicidas (moléculas químicas) específicas para el cultivo de la mora. Por otra parte, el Codex Alimentarius detalla el lmr para 12 pesticidas de uso común en el cultivo de la fruta. En ambas reglamentaciones quedan por fuera varios elementos utilizados durante la fase productiva.Fuente: elaboración propia.En el eslabón de producción se concentra la mayor parte de las brechas de la cadena de la mora, la cual se relaciona principalmente con las inadecuadas prácticas de manejo del cultivo, los bajos rendimientos, los altos costos de producción y las bajas capacidades empresariales de los productores (ver tabla 20). Alta incidencia de plagas y enfermedades, y dificultad de identificación de las mismas La mora de Castilla, especialmente los ecotipos sin tuna, es susceptible a varias plagas y enfermedades como la perla de tierra, Antracnosis y Botritis. Los productores no diferencian adecuadamente los síntomas de las enfermedades, realizan aplicaciones de agroquímicos inadecuadas y disminuyen densidades de siembra, afectando la rentabilidad, seguridad y calidad del cultivo.Mayor fragilidad de las variedades de mora sin tuna Los productores declaran lograr mayores producciones con las variedades sin tuna y resaltan que su cosecha es más fácil; sin embargo, el manejo productivo es más exigente debido a que presenta una menor resistencia a las enfermedades y a cambios climáticos fuertes, por lo que requiere mayores cuidados y frecuencias de cosecha.El uso de tecnologías para incrementar la productividad y disminuir el costo de mano de obra, como el fertirriego o los macrotúneles, no es adoptado debido a los costos o por desconocimiento en el manejo y sus beneficios. Actualmente, no se ha validado la factibilidad económica de estas tecnologías bajo las condiciones de las zonas productoras del departamento.El mal uso de pesticidas limita la entrada a mercados formales. El uso de insumos biológicos y la implementación de sistemas de producción limpia son aún incipientes debido a la falta de conocimiento y confianza en estos para el manejo de plagas y enfermedades.Las podas (de formación, mantenimiento y producción) son importantes en el manejo sanitario del cultivo, en la formación de la planta, en el rendimiento productivo y en el control vegetativo. Sin embargo, existe desconocimiento del manejo adecuado de las podas, según los tipos de ramas.A nivel nacional, el cultivo de mora tiene un rendimiento bajo que oscila entre las 6 y 8 t/ha al año, restándole rentabilidad al cultivo. Esto puede deberse al manejo inadecuado de los cultivos, a las edades de los mismos y a la falta de materiales mejorados.Débil adopción de BpA Falta de implementación de las buenas prácticas agrícolas (BpA), inclusive en cultivos certificados. Adicionalmente, se desconoce con certeza el nivel de adopción de BpA entre los productores del departamento.Manejo de cultivos desconociendo la necesidad de nutrientes del suelo Los productores no realizan análisis de suelos y foliares en sus cultivos, por lo que se desconocen los requisitos nutricionales; por ende, implementan planes de manejo inadecuados.No se implementan planes de renovación de cultivos. Gran parte de los mismos tienen avanzada edad. XNo existen estudios de zonificación para el cultivo de mora en el Valle del Cauca Desconocimiento de las zonas óptimas para la producción de mora, teniendo en cuenta aspectos como el cambio climático y otros factores (ej. logística, impacto hídrico e incidencia de plagas y enfermedades, entre otros).El precio del fruto no se ha incrementado significativamente durante los últimos años, mientras que los costos de jornales, insumos y servicios han aumentado, ocasionando una disminución en la rentabilidad del cultivo.X X Falta de capital entre las asociaciones de productoresLas asociaciones de productores no cuentan con suficiente capital para comprar la producción de sus miembros a lo largo del año y son frágiles frente a cambios fuertes del mercado y demoras en los pagos por parte de sus clientes. Los requerimientos de los créditos asociativos formales son muy restrictivos y empujan a las organizaciones a financiarse en el mercado informal a tasas muy altas.X XEl cultivo presenta una demanda alta de mano de obra que resta competitividad al sistema productivo. Además, el precio de los agroquímicos, la inversión inicial y los requerimientos de capital de trabajo (para el establecimiento y mantenimiento del cultivo) son relativamente altos, considerando el acceso a capital de los pequeños productores lo que dificulta el establecimiento de nuevas áreas.X XBajo alcance y calidad de la asistencia técnicaLa asistencia técnica calificada es insuficiente, escasa e inconstante. Adicionalmente, el sistema de evaluación prioriza el alcance del servicio sobre la calidad y no hay continuidad en el personal que ha sido capacitado específicamente en el cultivo. El modelo de asistencia técnica personalizado es costoso y de alcance limitado y la alta dispersión de los cultivos (lejanos entre sí y alejados de los cascos urbanos) dificulta la prestación de servicios de capacitación y asistencia técnica.Los productores y el personal de extensión rural desconocen los estudios llevados a cabo y las tecnologías desarrolladas por las distintas entidades de investigación en relación con el manejo del cultivo.No se implementan técnicas para tutorar amigables con el medioambiente (los sistemas actuales ocasionan deforestación), ni practicas adecuadas de manejo de suelo, recurso hídrico y residuos.Los requerimientos del mercado dictan que el Estado y las entidades de cooperación modifiquen la manera de acompañar al productor, dejando de lado el asistencialismo. Los pequeños productores deben ser preparados para ser empresarios del campo. Actualmente, numerosos productores no llevan registros de sus costos de producción y, por ende, no pueden calcular la rentabilidad de su ejercicio y optimizar sus recursos.Algunas asociaciones del departamento carecen de conocimientos empresariales que les permitan incrementar la rentabilidad de sus modelos de negocio. Algunas asociaciones carecen de modelos de negocio rentables y su sostenibilidad depende principalmente del apoyo estatal o de proyectos de cooperación.Algunos productores no cuentan con la documentación que acredita la tenencia de los predios donde se ejercen actividades productivas. Esto desincentiva la inversión en la tecnificación de los predios debido a la incertidumbre generada.X Escases de mano de obraEn el eslabón de transformación y poscosecha, las brechas se concentran en la baja innovación de los procesos agroindustriales, la baja adaptación de tecnologías de conservación de la fruta en estado fresco, y la dificultad de mercadeo especialmente en el exterior, debido a la presencia de trazas de agroquímicos por encima de los valores permitidos (ver tabla 21).Tabla 21. Brechas en la etapa de transformación en la cadena productiva de la mora del Valle del Cauca Brecha Descripción de la brecha Tipo bt bntBajo aprovechamiento agroindustrial y escaza innovación en el desarrollo de productos La comercialización de la fruta se lleva a cabo, principalmente, en estado fresco o en pulpa para ser consumida en forma de jugo. No se utilizan los subproductos ni se identifica innovación en la transformación de la fruta.Aunque se reconoce que la mora tiene propiedades nutracéuticas que pueden ser comercialmente valiosas, se desconocen los posibles usos y mercados de productos procesados innovadores, subproductos y residuos industriales de la mora (ej. Semillas, aceites, etc.).Alta concentración de químicos en la fruta La alta concentración de agroquímicos en la mora limita la aceptación de productos desarrollados a partir de esta materia prima en el mercado exterior y la agroindustria nacional.X Fuente: elaboración propia.Las principales brechas en el eslabón de comercialización se encuentran en el alto grado de intermediación, el estancamiento del precio pagado al productor y la falta de conocimiento para acceder a mercados existentes y nuevos que ofrezcan mejores condiciones comerciales, lo cual afecta la economía campesina y el desarrollo del sector (ver tabla 22).Tabla 22. Brechas en la etapa de comercialización en la cadena productiva de la mora del Valle del Cauca Brecha Descripción de la brecha Tipo bt bntBajos incrementos del precio al productor que pueden generar cambios estructurales en el sector y dificultades económicas en los hogaresEl precio del fruto no se ha incrementado significativamente durante los últimos años, mientras que los costos de jornales, insumos y servicios han aumentado, ocasionando una disminución en la rentabilidad del cultivo.El mal estado de las vías terciarias y el tipo de transporte que afecta la calidad de la fruta Los cultivos de mora se ubican en zonas de ladera, por cuanto es necesario transportar la fruta por vías terciarias en mal estado que maltratan la misma, lo que genera pérdidas para el productor. Sumado a lo anterior, los medios de transporte y embalajes utilizados no siempre son los adecuados para conservar la calidad de la mora.Falta de conocimiento y desarrollo de nuevos nichos de mercado basados en las propiedades de la mora de Castilla Se piensa que existen nichos del mercado potenciales que demandan frutas con bajos niveles de grados Brix, como el caso de los diabéticos o de quienes prefieren llevar dietas bajas en azúcares. Hace falta conocer las dinámicas y tamaño de estos mercados, y estimular la demanda del fruto y sus productos derivados.Pocas alternativas de comercialización para el pequeño productorNo se han identificado nuevos canales de distribución. La mora se ofrece principalmente a la industria de jugos, plazas de mercado y supermercados. Por desconocimiento o falta de capital, muchos productores dependen de los intermediarios para hacer llegar sus productos al mercado.Baja aceptación de la mora de Castilla en estado fresco como producto de exportación La mora que se produce en Colombia no se adapta a la demanda internacional (a excepción de nichos de mercados latinos) debido a los bajos niveles de grados Brix, y a las trazas químicas que superan los límites permitidos por el mercado internacional.X X Falta de información sobre la demanda de otras variedades de mora a nivel nacional e internacional Se desconoce el potencial en el mercado nacional y de exportación de otras variedades de mora, además de los requerimientos agronómicos para su producción.Competencia en el mercado regional La mora producida en el departamento del Valle del Cauca enfrenta una fuerte competencia con la fruta proveniente de Nariño y Huila. X Fuente: elaboración propia.En este estudio presentamos el análisis del estado del arte de la cadena de la mora en el departamento del Valle del Cauca, en el que se resaltan sus principales características y se ofrece un contexto que permite analizar de manera integral las limitantes y brechas presentes en cada uno de los eslabones.En el eslabón de insumos y material vegetal, encontramos que la falta de mejoramiento de las variedades de acuerdo con las características agroclimáticas y demás requerimientos de la región y la ausencia viveros para la producción de material vegetal certificado representan amenazas críticas a la productividad, rentabilidad y sanidad de los cultivos en el mediano y largo plazo, ya que a las pérdidas asociadas al mayor potencial de transmisión de plagas y enfermedades se suman las pérdidas relacionadas con el efecto de la mayor variabilidad climática, lo que aumenta el riesgo inherente del cultivo. Ante un mayor potencial de pérdidas durante la cosecha y poscosecha se suma el incremento continuo del precio de los insumos y la mano de obra que, en conjunto, pueden amenazar la rentabilidad del cultivo en el futuro, si no se toman las medidas necesarias.A nivel de producción y comercialización primaria, encontramos numerosas brechas que repercuten en toda la cadena. Estas son, en parte, consecuencia de la falta de desarrollo de tecnologías adaptadas a las características de los productores y del mercado, como es el caso de la falta de material vegetal mejorado, paquetes tecnológicos limpios, y tecnologías accesibles y asequibles para irrigación, cosecha de agua, protección de cultivos y herramientas para facilitar la cosecha y poscosecha; pero especialmente son consecuencia de la falta de transferencia, capacitación y acompañamiento que permitan la adopción e implementación sostenida de las tecnologías que ya se han desarrollado.Por otro lado, resalta el alto uso de agroquímicos en algunas fincas, lo que representa una amenaza inmediata a la salud de los consumidores, de los productores y del medioambiente y limita el acceso a mercados industriales o de mayor valor. Entre los aspectos ambientales también resalta la tala de árboles para el tutorado de nuevos cultivos y los efectos del cambio climático que empujan la producción a zonas más elevadas.en nuevos nichos y con nuevos productos derivados. Sin embargo, actualmente se necesita generar más información sobre estos mercados potenciales para tomar decisiones acertadas.La información presentada en este documento es la primer herramienta que alimenta el estudio \"Plan de Investigación y Desarrollo de la cadena de la mora en el Valle del Cauca\" en el que se desarrollan de manera participativa: 1) una agenda de investigación a ser ejecutada parcialmente por los socios de este proyecto (Universidad Nacional y Universidad del Valle), y 2) una estrategia sectorial, que se espera sea un insumo clave para la creación del Comité de cadena de la mora del Valle del Cauca y su posterior registro ante el mAdr. A través de este comité, se espera que se dé continuidad y seguimiento a las acciones necesarias para el mejoramiento integral de la competitividad de la cadena de la mora del departamento y al bienestar de los actores que la comprenden.A continuación, se presenta la información de 4 sistemas productivos del Valle del Cauca. Estos corresponden a cultivos tradicionales en ladera bajo producción limpia, convencional y orgánica en los municipios de Trujillo y Ginebra. Los sistemas presentan edades, densidades de siembra, intensidad de manejo y rendimientos distintos, lo que impide una comparación directa. No obstante, se resaltan varios elementos comunes entre los sistemas. El primer factor que sobresale tiene relación con el costo de establecimiento reportado, el cual es considerablemente menor al estimado en el modelo de costos de Asohofrucol (modelo base). Dicha diferencia de costos puede tener varias explicaciones. Primero, se observa una diferencia importante en el uso de mano de obra y, en este caso, es posible que los productores estén optimizando actividades o subestimando sus costos al no contemplar todas las actividades efectuadas en la finca. Por otro lado, se observa que la aplicación de agroinsumos e inversión en infraestructura y equipos es sustancialmente menor, debido a una fertilización mucho más baja, a la no inclusión del costo de producción de la materia orgánica y a la obtención de los tutores por medio de la tala de árboles locales, entre otros. Adicionalmente, los productores no incluyen en su presupuesto el costo de la dotación necesaria para la certificación en BpA, equipos y herramientas de poscosecha (báscula, gramera, estibas plásticas), y excluyen el costo de análisis de suelos y foliar, ya que rara vez son efectuados y solo suelen realizarse bajo el marco de proyectos de desarrollo.Durante la etapa productiva, las diferencias entre los costos del modelo base y aquellos reportados por los productores también sobresalen. Resalta, por ejemplo, un mayor uso de mano de obra en frente al reportado en el modelo base, el cual representa cerca del 80 % de los costos totales de los 4 sistemas productivos analizados. Por otro lado, el uso de insumos es considerablemente menor y solo representa en promedio el 6 % de los costos totales, mientras que el costo de transporte es considerablemente mayor y obedece al difícil acceso a las fincas y al estado de las vías terciarias.Finalmente, encontramos que los precios de venta reportados varían sustancialmente dependiendo del mercado final. Los productores de sistemas limpios venden principalmente a empresas agroindustriales y reportan que pueden obtener precios de 1700 Cop/kg en promedio, el productor convencional vende el fruto directamente al consumidor local por 3000 Cop/kg y el productor orgánico reporta que espera lograr precios de venta de 5000 Cop/kg con sus contactos comerciales preestablecidos.Aunque los costos varían sustancialmente, se calculó que, para alcanzar el punto de equilibrio con un precio al productor de 1700 Cop/kg, los cultivos deben lograr rendimientos entre 9 y 14,2 kg/ planta/año. Aunque algunos productores logran superar estos niveles, otros presentan costos de producción por encima del precio de venta, lo que finalmente representa un subsidio al precio del consumidor por parte de los productores menos eficientes, que a su vez son los más vulnerables.","tokenCount":"13439"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a149a8006f92ed387e84967b8faaa556","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f3db15d7-5f48-40ec-8339-936bbf809880/retrieve","id":"372920384"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a789abc2-5e7f-4302-bb20-006cdb8a6da0","pagecount":"12","content":"In the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, there is a wide range of public, private and community media organizations whose employees constitute an important, but disparate, set of actors. These organisations can facilitate awareness, learning and action to address the major agricultural and rural development (ARD) challenges of the 21st century including food security and climate change.Without this wide range of media, key policy commitments to the agricultural sector can be left unaccounted for, knowledge remains undocumented or not widely shared, and information remains in the hands of the few. Therefore, the media is a strategic link in the chain of information dissemination and communication that brings many stakeholders together.Even though it is acknowledged in ACP nations that an adequate flow of information is indispensable for development, media treatment of crucial issues such as food security, post-harvest technology and water management often tends to be insufficient.Millions of people rely on their local radio stations, mobile phones and cyber-cafes to access information in ACP nations. However, the relevance, quality and quantity of information they need are not always guaranteed in current media coverage. The media faces many constraints including lack of skills and specialisation, poor levels of pay that lead to 'rent-seeking' behaviour, lack of equipment and transport and little to no affordable access to internet and reliable information networks.The goal of strengthening the role of the media in ARD addresses these constraints and builds new and improved communication with knowledge partners such as farmers, extension workers, agribusiness organisations and scientists. As an \"essential service\" in the development of ACP countries, the media plays a key role and assumes its share of responsibility for enabling interaction with resource-poor farmers and rural communities who face vast challenges in food production, nutrition and climate change adaptation.The focus on the role of the media in this year's Seminar emerged from calls from the ACP regions during events such as the Caribbean Week of Agriculturewhich since 2007 has become a major event in the calendar of regional agricultural policy -in addition to the West African journalist study visit on sensitive problems associated with the livestock trade. The 2009 Seminar also received input from many collaborating institutions. Its international steering committee responsible for advising on the themes of the seminar included representatives from ACP, European and North American media organisations.The Seminar agenda addressed several challenges including the emergence of community media alongside public and private sector media, the growing need for capacity building to enable media to engage in ARD issues, including climate change and gender equality and the rapid development and use of digital media in the agricultural and rural development sectors.The objectives of the Seminar were: 1) to contribute to the formulation of strategies to improve the media's ability to access and disseminate information on the core issues affecting the ACP agricultural sector and strengthen communication with and within the media and 2) to contribute to identifying media support programmes.The seminar brought together -in person and via the Internet -thousands of participants representing experts and major public, private and community players in national, regional and international media and ARD. They included a range of journalists from media institutions such as newspapers and magazines, radio and television, webcasters, agricultural researchers, representatives of a range of development media organisations, communication specialists working for public service and in NGO development projects, policy makers from the six ACP regions (Central, Eastern, Southern and West Africa, Caribbean and Pacific) as well as representatives from national research and development institutions in EU countries and regional and international organizations.The annual seminar was announced in late May 2009 and a call for proposals received over 225 abstract submissions. In total, 57 presentations were selected and organized into 10 thematic plenary and parallel panel sessions as well as interactive poster sessions. by june 2009, an electronic discussion group was underway that helped to generate ideas on four specific themes. The 4-week discussion, held simultaneously in English and French, covered four themes. Over 2,000 people were invited to share their opinions and experiences.A full summary report is available for the e-discussion. Key points are as follows:1. Constraints faced by the media Multiple constraints limit the media from realizing its full potential in ARD. The reality in ACP nations is that the media operates with poor infrastructure, low salaries, lack of timely and appropriate information for their audiences, lack of equipment, a lack of specialized knowledge and training in ARD and more widely, development issues and processes. Key recommendation: Provide greater capacity strengthening to the mediaDifferent expectations of the role of the media exist among ARD stakeholders. For media houses, agriculture is not seen as newsworthy and it is difficult to interpret scientific jargon for their audiences. Amongst researchers and others there is often a mistrust of the media; they wish to share their stories without cost and they lack the skills to package information for use by the media. Key recommendation: More efforts needed to bridge the gap between media and other ARD partners if agriculture is to have a higher profile amongst target audiences. TheMe 1: Media and aRd issues ACP agriculture and rural development are characterized by complex problems such as poverty, food insecurity, natural resource degradation and adaptation to climate change. The media plays a key role in advancing innovative learning strategies to sort through these problems. More video production is possible, largely shared through accessible equipment and webcasting on YouTube or blogs and a national campaign for agriculture using video, film and television could be very valuable for revisualizing ARD and its primary importance to ACP nations.Farmers and rural communities should be active in any media development that portrays or affects them. However, while many video and film productions may opt for participation, farmers may not necessarily have opportunities for learning and action that benefits them in terms of improved development strategies and shared knowledge that helps stimulate farmer innovation. Video must be a mutual exchange of knowledge and not just a \"marriage of convenience\" between media professionals, resource-poor farmers and other stakeholders. A good case in point is Story Workshop's mobile video van service to rural areas of Malawi where farmers discuss what they have learned from the videos.Discussion called for more funding in video and filmmaking contingent on efforts that support farmers' role and image in society so media make a difference in farmers' lives and livelihoods. journalistic ethics are often avoided because there is no mandate or incentive. Editors or supervising producers play an important role and they are influential in ensuring that the principle of informed consent is followed in all journalistic activity. The best relationship between journalist and respondent(s) is one between equal partners with equal voices.Developing media and ICT content requires information that is not always easily sourced by journalists.Recommendations include offering government sources awareness-building opportunities that would enable them to improve information sharing with media professionals. building trust with viewing audiences is also a key aspect of using video and film in local languages and enabling farmer feedback. While many journalists in resource-poor nations lack access to new ICTs that would help them improve their content development, the use of mobile phones and access to phone credit, for example, could make journalism more efficient and responsive to farmers' needs by ensuring pre/post broadcast feedback.Media can bridge the difference between \"the lab and the field\". Despite the shrinkage of public extension services across ACP nations, the need for scientists and farmers to interact and collaborate in agricultural innovation has not diminished. Radio can enable a more efficient, demand-driven model of rural extension that ensures that farmers have a \"direct line\" into extension services. Through a focused \"participatory rural campaign\" approach, the African Farm Radio Research Initiative's (AFFRI) broadcasts trigger farmer discussion and identification of demands for access to agricultural inputs that are communicated through chiefs' councils to the Department of Agricultural Extension which then feedback information through the same channel showed that agriculture ranks highly among the priorities for journalists. However, whereas 85% of the 400 journalists from 20 African countries surveyed cover agricultural topics, only 6% actually specialize in agricultural topics. Moreover, few journalists source information from international agricultural research institutes and national research institutes, opting to contact university sources perhaps because university teachers may be either more accessible or more used to explaining scientific issues. In the study, the important drivers of coverage were that the story was of interest to the audience and the journalist had knowledge of the subject area.Climate change is a broad and multidimensional topic with varied direct and indirect impacts on rural and urban households and livelihoods at a range of geographic scales. For more than four decades, policies and programmes to assist women farmers have been underway in ACP nations. However, in many ACP nations, women are still less likely to have access to agricultural inputs, including agricultural information and ICTs that would enable them to improve productivity and generate higher incomes that would benefit their families and their own well-being. Planners still hold the perception that farmers are male and that women do not face gender barriers in accessing agricultural inputs, especially agricultural information and communication for development. Furthermore, the relative scarcity of women as editors, agricultural journalists and extension workers in ACP nations has hindered efforts to address issues of gender equality in ARD.Recommendations included creating enabling environments by involving the media in community outreach on sustainable agriculture and gender equality; connecting women and the media and organising multimedia resource kits used by radio broadcasters to help provide women with information to develop and manage their own micro-enterprises.  The demise of public agricultural extension in ACP nations has created challenges and opportunities for new media partnerships in ARD. Opportunities include the establishment of Community Knowledge Centres and ICT-mediated farmer advisory services using a web platform of audio files. Getting stakeholders to the table to collaborate training and information support to a network of radio journalists in the Pacific to strengthen media specialization on agricultural topics was recommended. Madior Fall highlighted the important role that donors can play in new media partnerships such as the case of USAID in Senegal which aids a communication component for natural resource management projects which it supports nationally. WRENmedia is working with scientists to improve their dissemination of research through presentations to international conferences and through partnerships with media to explain their work in simple lay terms that may use news and feature writing, digital reporting or photography.The challenge in ACP regions of increasing media pluralism whereby many small media actors acting locally lack the opportunity to network more widely to facilitate farmer input into science or policy processes was identified. The enabling environment for ARD requires partnerships between media and other ARD players that are clear about the difference between dissemination of information and communication. Dissemination requires quality standards for information gathering and reporting that include a balance of local and scientific content. While many participants discussed the need for more regional programs of capacity building, the experience of the BBC World Service Trust's (BBCWST) African Media Development Initiative recommended that entirely new approaches to capacity building are needed because most ACP media houses recognize now that \"off-the-job per diem training does not work.\" bbCWST has moved into new areas that develop master trainers and use mentoring approaches to workplace learning. This type of capacity building is based on long term commitments between trainer and trainees including the involvement of all staff and specific outputs. Online distance learning modules in national languages for self-learning using the bbCWST tool, iLearn, have also been used.In Africa, the experience in capacity building for partnerships in the Ghana Agricultural Information Networks (GAINS) project has demonstrated the importance of ensuring that upstream agricultural information produced by research institutes and distributed through agricultural libraries is available to local extension workers and non-literate farmers via media such as radio. In Ghana the success of community radio stations and their networking across the country has created an enabling environment for knowledge sharing to which national research and library system can easily connect. AMARC assists community radio stations networking within ACP regions and globally.TheMe 5: Media, emerging New MediaThe role of media should top national and local ARD policy agendas because food production, agricultural markets/production chains and rural health and education services are improved by getting information from and to farmers more efficiently through the use of new ICTs such as voice and text via mobile phones or combinations of ICTs such as radio and mobile phones. The African Farm Radio Research Initiative of Farm Radio International has tested creative ways to improve the interactivity of farm radio programming through the use of low-cost recording devices, SMS and phone-out/ phone-in shows. MP3 'radio on demand' has enabled women farmers to access agricultural programmes at more convenient times.In resource-poor communities in southern Africa, Connect Africa works with local municipalities to establish a 'fit for purpose' technology based on what is needed (no more, no less) that works with government, business and community to avoid duplicating WiFi/WiMax/ cellular services and save costs for logistics and maintenance. Overcoming barriers to access has made a difference for many rural ACP communities, for example, farmers' transition to 'citizen journalists' by using ICTs to bring issues to the attention of the media and the wider public. In Haiti, mobile and email networking has been the only way of ensuring that agricultural news features in the press.In the first generation of e-agriculture the impetus was largely twofold: get agricultural information on-line, and help farmers access ICTs. The need for 'second generation e-agriculture' was highlighted. It is time that multiple ICTs, a range of community, private and government media stakeholders and individuals from both the fields of journalism as well as communication and development commit to, engage in and contribute to ARD. Increasing media effectiveness is possible through facilitating interaction among agricultural actors, experts and institutions, and in turn, demand for media will not only stimulate the use of new ICTs but inspire ARD innovations that are integral to the wellbeing of ACP nations.During the seminar week, participants were invited to attend a live recording of the special CTA television programme Media and Agriculture: a marriage of necessity? This programme airs on ACP television stations from November 2009 through 2010. It will also be adapted and available in English or French for radio broadcast and podcasting.Regular and rapid additions to the Seminar's website were synchronously produced while presentations and discussions continued through the week. The blog continued to compile thoughts from ACP journalists and development-oriented communications specialists, disseminate press releases on the seminar and post interviews with journalists and other participants to address the themes of the seminar. Articles or case studies related to agricultural activities and projects presented in the seminar were also posted to the site and available as resource material for journalists and communicators.On the final day of the Seminar, the Brussels Declaration was drafted to summarize recommendations from the on-line activities, seminar presentations and deliberations through the week. Specific action-oriented working groups also contributed detailed action items specific to radio, television and video, print and community media.Proposed action items for all Participants, Collaborating Partners and CTa Radio  • Involve communities in the planning, operation and evaluation of community media • Use a participatory approach and be inclusive of all members in the community • Set up multi-stakeholder platforms to support community media including expertise that are not present in the community • Address institutional constraints such as easing the licensing procedure for community radio stations and making it more affordable • Develop and adopt the use of agreed principles, ethics and guidelines for community media governance;• Document the required policy and regulatory environment for community media In light of the many discussions and recommendations generated in the Seminar process, CTA, together with ACP partners and collaborating institutions will respond to the following priorities:• By September 2010, develop a media capacity strengthening strategy which takes into account suggestions from the proposed list of actions as well as regional variations on issues that are essential for agricultural development in ACP countries;• Within the next strategic plan, collaborate with national and international institutions to involve the media more closely in the ACP development policy process and ARD programming and respond to action items regarding annual conferences, small grants, awards and recognition efforts;• Develop guidelines for media roles, responsibilities and relations with national and international research, education and extension agencies;• Use all of its existing programmes to increase awareness amongst funding agencies about the support needed to act on suggested action plans for radio, television/video/film and community media in the agricultural and rural sectors of ACP;• Direct increased support to community media in ARD;• Insofar as possible, ensure gender equality in capacity building;• Promote information exchange throughout non-ARD media networks on successful practices and experiences in dealing with key ACP agricultural and rural issues including climate change and food security.CTA will strive to ensure that these targets are communicated widely, monitored and reported on regularly. All participants and collaborating institutions are urged to advocate and contribute to the recommendations of the 2009 Seminar. CTA is financed by the European Union.CTA : 2,8,11 K. Hackshaw: 1,4,6,10 G. Rambaldi: 1,5,7,8,11 GRET: 1 T. Murray: 3 R. Faidutti, R. Benefeldt: 9Published by: The ACP EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation -Author: Dr Helen Hambly Odame -Edited by: CTA -Printing:Wilmart & Gilles -Design: www.acg-bxl.be","tokenCount":"2898"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fcd90c6942ba1eca117c9cc9f65fbb1e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/bcf04423-61c1-4149-ab23-19a78f44c5da/retrieve","id":"1326128769"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"17a6c830-c3b3-404b-902b-02a6cb2b07a7","pagecount":"8","content":"Data from May indicates a persistent trend of modest price increases in Nepal. Year-on-year inflation for food and beverage prices was recorded at 5.5 percent, which, though lower compared to 6.9 percent in the previous month and significantly less than in April and May 2022, still denotes an escalation in food prices from an already elevated base. While the high inflation rate impacts all consumers, it is likely to disproportionately strain the finances of the poor, potentially jeopardizing food security. Moreover, the inflation rates for non-food items and services surged to 8.9 percent. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) experienced a somewhat milder increase compared to the Wage Rate Index, registering a 7.4 percent growth as opposed to 7.6 percent.Key messages: Year-on-year inflation in Nepal remained high, though it saw a slight dip from 7.8 percent in March and April 2023 to 7.4 percent in May 2023. This inflation impacted a broad spectrum of commodities, with food prices climbing by 5.5 percent and non-food prices by 8.9 percent. The elevated prices of cereals, cereal products, milk, milk products, eggs, and spices persistently contributed to and were affected by the inflation. Notably, the price hikes roughly paralleled changes in wage rates (Figure 1). However, as highlighted in prior reports, the growth in wage indices was not evenly distributed across various economic sectors and worker categories. Remittance inflows: Between mid-July 2022 and mid-May 2023, Nepal saw a remarkable 23.4 percent increase in remittance inflow, totaling NPR 1005.18 billion, compared to a mere 0.5 percent rise during the same period the previous year. In US dollars, the remittance inflow grew by 13.4 percent, reaching USD7.70 billion. This surge coincided with a significant increase in Nepali workers seeking foreign employment or renewing work permits as COVID-19 migration restrictions eased. During the first ten months of 2022-23, this number doubled from the previous year, reaching 0.66 million. The substantial growth in remittance inflows positively impacts Nepal's balance of payments, alleviating deficits and serving as an economic lifeline for households, cushioning them against the slowing economy.Rice: In April 2023, the national average price of coarse rice increased by 3.5 percent compared to the previous month and was 3.1 percent higher than the same month in the previous year. The price hike was even higher for the medium quality of rice (Table 1). Rice price trends showed regional variability in Nepal as the extent and direction of price movement were not uniform across provinces (Table 2). Wheat: In March 2023, the price of wheat flour experienced a significant increase, which continued into April 2023. By April, the national average price of wheat flour was 6.5 percent higher compared to the previous month and exhibited a substantial 37.0 percent increase relative to April 2022. Concurrently, Western Nepal observed a comparable surge in wheat flour prices.Key messages: After a slight increase in March/April of 2023, vegetable prices remained stable in April/May. On a year-to-year basis, there was about 1.9 percent decline. However, price trends exhibited a significant variation across different types of vegetables (Annex 1).Vegetables constitute a crucial component of the food basket in Nepal, representing around 5.5 percent of the average household's expenditure and 12.6 percent of the expenditure on food. Consequently, fluctuations in the prices of vegetables are poised to substantially affect the dietary quality of poor households in the country.Fruits: Compared to the previous month, the average price of fruits witnessed a 1.1 percent uptick.Additionally, there was a 1.5 percent increase relative to the same period in 2022. Among fruits, the price of apples surged notably by 5.5 percent from the previous month, while bananas also experienced a significant price increase of 3.1 percent. Nonetheless, since fruits account for a smaller portion of the average household's food expenditure, the impact of these price increases on the family budget is expected to be less pronounced compared to that of vegetables.Price changes nationally and regionally: In April 2023, the national average price of bananas continued its upward trajectory. Prices were 3.0 percent higher than in the previous month and 13.5 percent higher compared to the same month in the previous year. Among the provinces, five of them, namely Koshi, Bagmati, Gandaki, Lumbini, and Sudurpaschim, experienced an increase in banana prices, while a decline was observed in the remaining two provinces, Madhesh and Karnali. Bananas are a vital source of micronutrients. The escalation in banana prices may curtail their consumption, particularly among households that do not produce bananas. This could potentially lead to micronutrient deficiencies, especially within economically disadvantaged households.National prices: In Nepal, potatoes are a vital staple for poor households, as they are an affordable and nutritious source of energy, contributing to food security. Between March and April 2023, the national average price of potatoes remained relatively stable, with a marginal decrease of 0.4 percent in April 2023 compared to the same period in the previous year. Nonetheless, there were pronounced variations in price movements across the different provinces of Nepal (Table 2).National prices: Tomatoes bolster Nepal's agricultural economy by diversifying farmers' income sources and generating employment through cultivation and value-added processing. Additionally, they have the potential for export and stimulate related industries, while also contributing nutritionally.Nationally, tomato prices experienced a slight increase of 0.1 percent between March and April 2023, while witnessing a decline of 10.2 percent in April 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. Similar to potatoes, tomato prices exhibited stark variations across different provinces in Nepal. For instance, in April 2023, tomato prices soared in Bagmati Province by 38.0 percent, followed by increases of 28.0 percent in Koshi, 19.0 percent in Sudur Paschim, and 7.0 percent in Gandaki. Conversely, other provinces registered a decline in tomato prices, with reductions of 26.0 percent, 12.0 percent, and 10.0 percent in Madhesh, Karnali, and Lumbini provinces, respectively. Consequently, some producers, frustrated by the low prices their produce fetched, were seen discarding tomatoes onto public roads in front of the Kalimati Vegetable and Fruit Market. These substantial disparities in price trends across different provinces suggest a lack of market integration in Nepal. This underscores the need for increased investment in market infrastructure, cold storage facilities, transportation, and postharvest technologies, such as the use of plastic crates, to enhance efficiency within the tomato value chains in Nepal.Key messages: Animal fats and edible oils, including mustard and soybean oil, are vital to human diet and well-being as they supply essential fatty acids and fat-soluble vitamins. In Nepal, April 2023 saw a continuation of the declining trend in edible oil prices, with the national average price of mustard and soybean oil dropping by 2.0 percent between March and April 2023, and 18.0 percent lower compared to April 2022. Furthermore, public data reveals that the price index for animal fats and edible oils fell by 14.4 percent from April/May 2022 to April/May 2023, indicating a consistent downward trend. This decrease in prices is likely to enhance the affordability of these essential food products for impoverished households, supporting a diets when oils are consumed at recommended dietary intake levels.Key messages: The availability and prices of fertilizers remain a pressing issue for farmers and input dealers in Nepal. Measures to control inflation, such as the implementation of rising interest rates, have resulted in higher borrowing costs and a subsequent decline in credit flow to farmers and small businesses. As of mid-May 2023, the overall credit availability slightly dipped from NPR 4,889 billion (USD 37.16 billion) in mid-April 2023 to NPR 4,879 billion (USD 27.08 billion). However, credit allocated to agriculture and its allied sectors saw a slight uptick during the same period, rising from NPR 368 billion (USD 2.80 billion) to NPR 370 billion (USD 2.81 billion).Fertilizers: Paddy sowing has commenced in various regions of Nepal. Through interactions with stakeholders in Western Nepal, particularly in the Banke district, it has been observed that Urea, DAP, and MoP fertilizers are either scarcely or only partially available, signaling a deficiency in fertilizer supplies in the area. Additionally, Urea, which is regulated to be sold at NPR 14 (USD 0.11) per kg, is currently being traded at elevated prices ranging from NPR 23-34 (USD 0.17-0.25) per kg. Although the Government of Nepal resolved to import additional fertilizer stocks, there is an apparent discrepancy between the proposed importation measures and the actual availability of fertilizers, as farmers and cooperatives in regions like the Banke district continue to grapple with a shortage.The Government of Nepal recently rescinded its decision to cut subsidies on Urea, DAP, and Potash fertilizers, resulting in the official retail prices of these fertilizers remaining unchanged. While this reversal is expected to alleviate the hardships faced by impoverished farmers, it is also predicted to escalate government expenditure on fertilizer subsidies and put pressure on foreign currency reserves, in contrast to the initial plan. In the new budget presented to the parliament in June 2023, the Government of Nepal unveiled measures to curb the misuse of subsidies allocated for agricultural inputs. The impact of these measures however remains to be seen, as the action plan is still in the development phase.Key messages: The price of diesel in Nepal saw a substantial decrease, from NPR 175 (USD 1.31) per liter in February 2023 to NPR 165 (USD 1.25) per liter in March and April. In May and June, diesel prices dropped even further to NPR 155 (USD 1.17) per liter. Additionally, the price of crude oil in the international market declined by 33.5 percent to USD 74.5 per barrel in mid-May, compared to USD 112.12 per barrel a year earlier. This steep decline in diesel prices, especially during the paddy season, is likely to provide respite to farmers. The lower diesel prices could potentially result in decreased rental rates for machinery used in land preparation and irrigation, easing financial pressures on farmers and making these services more affordable for the upcoming summer rice season.","tokenCount":"1636"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c93c71fe442f0496ae3609de3fa1fac3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9e7af829-4330-4191-b3d7-265b8a35ad73/retrieve","id":"1945367776"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"33b51829-44c8-4b51-ba64-3d94ad4f1936","pagecount":"14","content":"ILRI works with partners worldwide to help poor people keep their farm animals alive and productive, increase and sustain their livestock and farm productivity, and find profitable markets for their animal products. ILRI's headquarters are in Nairobi, Kenya; we have a principal campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and 14 offices in other regions of Africa and Asia. ILRI is part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (www.cgiar.org), which works to reduce hunger, poverty and environmental degradation in developing countries by generating and sharing relevant agricultural knowledge, technologies and policies.In Central America, dairy products are an important dietary component for consumers from all social strata. The potential to increase the consumption of dairy products is high, with domestic consumption growth rates in Honduras and Nicaragua of 6.7 and 11.7%, respectively. Average per capita consumption in Latin America is currently 100 kg Litres of Milk Equivalent (LME) per year versus 265 kg LME for USA (FEPALE 2006). In lower income strata in Central America-representing the majority of the population-the per capita consumption is far below the Latin American average.Population growth and on-going urbanization create favourable conditions for expanding markets. In 2030, the Central American population will be 56 million, compared to 35 million in 2005. Moreover, 65% of the population will live in cities of more than 50,000 inhabitants, compared to the current 40%. Most urban consumers have access to electricity and hence refrigeration facilities. Population expansion will be accompanied by a growing diversity of consumer preferences for a great variety of dairy products. Strengthening small industries to enter market niches for products with higher added value would change the business panorama of the value chain for small producers.The majority of the poor in Latin America live in tropical lowlands or hillsides. About 50% of this population, mostly rural dwellers, is still considered poor (UNDP 2003). Within the rural sector, dual-purpose livestock systems (meat and milk) constitute a principal economic activity of small producers. About 400,000 small-scale producers in Central America own livestock, with more than 75% of income being generated by milk sales. Nicaragua and Honduras, with more than 200,000 poor smallholder livestock producers, are key players for developing the dairy sector in the region.After the poultry sector, milk production and marketing, and the dairy-products industry constitute the fastest growing livestock subsector in the region and continue offering valuable opportunities for small producers. Interventions to increase small-farm productivity should therefore be based on milk production, the creation of value-added products in the dairy industry and the improvement of linkages along this increasingly dynamic value chain.However, several factors limit the participation of small-scale farmers in dairy value chains. The quality of milk produced by small farmers is usually poor, due to a lack of adequate on-farm infrastructure, inappropriate milking practices, and collective investment in cooling systems on the farm and for transportation. In addition, links of individual farmers to associations and from these to buyers remain weak. The lack of strong links along the value chain inhibits not only the flow of information on what constitutes product quality and how to achieve it but also the establishment of quality-based incentive systems that benefit both producers and buyers. This suggests a need for tools to improve small-scale producer efficiency, links between actors in the value chain and increasing the level of added value generated by the dairy sector overall.Constraints include low and unstable productivity, poor milking hygiene and bulk milk collection. They are related to low productivity and poor quality milk, and often to high production costs. Some producers receive low prices because of a lack of storage capacity, especially in times of high production (rainy season). In addition, milk quality is often low due to long periods between milking and cooling, which takes place in large milk collection centres in nearby towns. Usually cooling starts after 2-3 hours, but during the rainy season when roads deteriorate this can take up to 5 hours, further increasing bacterial count and acidity.In spite of an annual average growth rate of 4.2%, second only to poultry as a source of animal protein (FAOStat 2009), milk production is not sufficient to meet growing domestic demand. This situation is further exacerbated by high seasonal fluctuations in milk availability with markedly reduced production levels during the dry period (Fujisaka et al. 2005).Initiatives are needed to improve productivity, hygiene and general quality in milk producing farms, particularly among the smaller producers. Improved forage-based systems are key (Peters et al. 2003), providing yearround sufficient quantities of high quality feed based on a combination of high quality grasses and legumes in a diversified resilient landscape often including shrubs and trees, and combined with conservation technologies (hay, silage). Genetic improvement of animals and improved herd and farm management are also essential.Constraints to the marketing of raw milk largely explain the wide presence of micro-processors, some on the farms themselves, to produce fresh cheese and cream sold in local markets. This contrasts with the increasingly stringent food safety standards which demand differential responses of milk producers especially to reach more profitable formal markets in urban centres. An analysis of the value chain (e.g. the case of informal cheese exports from Nicaragua to El Salvador) is needed to determine which proportions of the revenues are going to the different actors (farmers, intermediaries, retailers), to be able to focus interventions on improving the economic situation and thus conditions at producers' level, improving overall quality, hygiene and profitability.In milk collection, solutions are needed to improve milk collection processes and food safety measurements in collaboration with industry partners and to improve quality control and food safety standards from production to local and regional markets.Criteria RationaleNicaragua: import: USD 17.7 million Honduras: import USD 58 millionIn Central America the dairy sector generates more than 540,000 direct jobs, usually with higher wages than in other livestock activities (FECALAC 2006). The sector also generates about 1,600,000 indirect jobs in the area of supplies, equipment, and services that form part of the dairy cluster. Pomareda ( 2005) estimates total jobs created by dairy production, industry and distribution in Central America (five countries) at about 11 million, with more than half of them are in rural areas.The distribution of dairy products follows different channels depending on the scale, type and quality of products. The most extended market represents 60% of total milk production (mainly by smallholder farmers) and consists mainly of raw milk and fresh white cheese with a short shelf life due to low (hygienic) quality. About 20% of these fresh cheeses produced in Nicaragua is exported to El Salvador. Pasteurized milk (including UHT), white and matured cheeses of several varieties and cream, all requiring refrigeration, are marketed in the larger cities and represent about 40% of total regional production. Supermarkets and local stores are the main channel for delivery. They all have access to distribution services from industries or collectors of industrial products. In Honduras, a network of small dairy processing units (CRELs) guarantees storage capacity and good hygienic conditions and at the same time provides services to dairy farmers (e.g. veterinary products, feed supplements).The main dairy product traded is white fresh or semidry cheese, followed by pasteurized milk, including some long-life presentations. They account for 65% of total dairy exports, primarily within the region. Most dairy exports from Nicaragua are destined to Guatemala and El Salvador. The poorest 50% of the population (CEPAL 2004) consume small amounts of dairy products (in fluid milk equivalents), primarily fresh raw milk and white of local origin. The higher value dairy products are consumed primarily by the urban middle and higher and rural middle class. There are therefore two challenges: to supply low cost, high quality dairy products for the poor, while at the same time capturing the market for high value added dairy products consumed by a smaller segment of the population with higher income (Pomareda 2005).Local markets. Largest increases in demand will come from urban consumers, however, the rural population itself comprises a relevant market, with the basic dairy products (raw milk, fresh cheese, and cream) being an important part of the diet. Social programs such as the 'Vaso de Leche' (a glass of milk for every student attending public schools) in Honduras is an example of this and helps to boost local demand.Regional marketsThe regional market consists specifically of the urban population of the Caribbean Basin countries obtaining products from small retailers and supermarkets, and to food industries that use milk, cheese, cream, and other dairy products, and is estimated to represent a population of 150 million consumers.Trade agreements also create opportunities for high value dairy products entering high income niche markets, where differentiated products can be sold successfully, for instance, Central American dairy exports to the US markets are essentially fresh and semi-mature cheeses targeted at the Central American immigrant market in major US cities. To obtain sustained access to these markets, however, significant changes in both policies and public and private institutions will be needed.Dairy (milk, cheese) is the most important source of animal protein in both Honduras en Nicaragua including the poorest category. The challenge is providing them with nutritious less expensive dairy products, especially for children, while ensuring adequate food safety and product quality.Nicaragua and Honduras have currently 120,000 and 100,000 poor livestock keepers, respectively. Most dairy farms in Central America are small and scattered, although there are some dairy clusters in a selected number of zones. The typical dairy oriented farm carries, on average, 5 to 10 milking cows that produce between 15 and 50 kg of milk per day. Milk production is 3-5 kg per cow per day. Income comes from milk production (75%) and sale of weaned male calves and culled cows (25%), compared to 95% of income coming from milk in specialized dairy systems. This dual-purpose system is more risk averse and allows farmers more flexibility when either the milk or beef price fluctuates by feeding calves more milk when price is low, such as often during the rainy season.Milk production contributes between 5.9% and 9.2% of the agricultural gross domestic product (AGDP) and between 0.9% and 1.9% of the gross domestic product (GDP). When contributions from the dairy-products industry and other activities of the cluster are included, these figures triple. Furthermore, in the 'dairy basins' of each country, the importance of dairy activities is much more significant than what the aggregate figures for each country suggest.Production constraints. As mentioned before, constraints are low and unstable productivity, seasonal feed constraints poor milking hygiene, and bulk milk collection.Supply constraints. In spite of an annual average growth rate of 4.2%, as a source of animal protein only second to poultry (FAOStat 2009), milk production is not sufficient to meet growing domestic demand. Initiatives are needed to improve productivity, quality, hygiene and general quality in milk producing farms, particularly among the smaller producers.Market/institutional constraints. An analysis of the value chain (e.g. the case of informal cheese exports from Nicaragua to El Salvador) is needed to determine which proportions of the revenues are going to the different actors (farmers, intermediaries, retailers), to be able to focus interventions on improving the economic situation and thus conditions at producers' level, improving overall quality, hygiene and profitability.Technological policies for cattle production are provided in four major areas: pasture improvement including use of multipurpose forages and sylvopastoral systems, genetics, reproductive technology and farm management. Integrated pasture systems with sylvopastoral components will also contribute to mitigation to climate change (e.g. carbon sequestration), conservation of biodiversity (including reducing pressure on natural forests) and improve water use.Animal health and food safety policies. The efforts of the national veterinary services have centred on the development of technical capacity and human capital In recent years there has been more interaction with the private sector and attention to market access. There is a need for integrated animal health management-better use of veterinary medicine-to comply with safety standards.Countries in general have agreed to lower tariffs in bilateral trade agreements, particularly with the US. Yet in the case of Central America, one of the greatest problems is the notharmonized external tariffs for dairy products. Bilateral trade between these countries is important, yet it is limited by different tariffs and other regulations regarding extra-regional imports.Environmental policies and ecosystem services. Livestock production has long been an important cause of natural habitat and biodiversity loss in Latin America (Pagiola et al. 2006). In Central America deforestation as a result of the establishment of pastures is expected to continue as a result of growing demands for livestock products and low productivity. Therefore, immediate dissemination of efficient and environmentally friendly, i.e. eco-efficient (CIAT 2009) farm technologies, such as the establishment of improved pastures, legumes and integration of sylvopastoral practices reducing emissions and increasing carbon fixation, is required to improve competitiveness in local and regional economies, while leaving a minimal ecological footprint.Dual-purpose cattle systems constitute a principal economic activity for around 400,000 small producers in Central America, with more than 75% of income generated by milk sales. Significant progress toward poverty alleviation and improved diets for consumers can be made through intensification of these systems. The specific arguments can be summarized as follows:Cash flow for small producers. Dairy is often the most important provider of cash for small producers, utilizing productive systems strongly based on domestic resources (land and labour) and offers a route for capitalization and escape poverty.Potential for high value dairy products. Currently small producers cannot compete in commodity oriented systems due to their inability to take advantage of economies of scale associated with large intensive operations. They must therefore engage in vertical integration aimed at producing and marketing value added products with local identity based on high-quality raw milk (Pomareda 2007).Taking advantage of expanding markets. Population growth and on-going urbanization accompanied by a growing diversity of consumer preferences for a great variety of dairy products create favourable conditions.Gradual trade liberalization. In the trade agreements with the US the participating countries have negotiated between 10 and 15 years of decreasing protection for the dairy sector. The remaining time should be utilized to develop differentiated high value products and to gain market access both locally and with partner countries.Needs and opportunities for private investment. In order to increase competitiveness and to improve productivity and added value, small producers and industry enterprises will need an injection of capital and knowledge.Multiplier effects and scaling up. One important aspect of promoting milk production and smallscale high quality dairy industries is the multiplier effect for local economies, through employment generation and the development of small businesses for input supply and services.There exists a high seasonal variability in production of fresh milk affecting both utilization of production capacities and availability to consumers. The linkage of improved production technologies such as drought adapted forages and forage management connected with milk quality standards and organized collection and support services provide a unique opportunity to improve income generation across the value chain, while enhancing product quality to consumers.Thousands of small processing units generate products based on raw material of limited quality.In contrast, most of the available quality milk is collected in bulk by a few plants, which can then generate products of guaranteed safety. The opportunity lies in identifying, motivating, and supporting a segment of these small-scale industries to grow and become involved in the principles of quality.The three main principles to improve small-scale dairy production across Central America are: (1) a value chain approach from producer to local, national and international markets addressing constraints and capitalizing on opportunities;(2) a focus on specific regions where dairy has an important potential to mobilize the local economy; and (3) a focus emphasizing learning across different biophysical and socio-economic environments and defining specific options for local, national and regional policies and programs.Improved forage, pasture and sylvopastoral systems that are resilient to climate change to increase • productivity (including growth of animals) and assure stable milk production throughout the year, and including improving economic efficiency by reducing production costs Improve milk quality and hygiene through better processing techniques • Strengthen farmers' organizations, at the production, processing and marketing level (including promotion of • niche products and Protected Designation of Origin).Roles of women and men vary according to the different components of the dairy value chain. Whereas in general the crop-livestock sector has a mostly masculine character (10-20% of farms are owned/managed by women), women play an important role especially in processing and management of resources. In small farms (with some dairy cattle) they are sometimes also involved in feeding and milking, but in general they engage mainly in processing of milk (e.g. fresh cheese, cuajada) for household consumption and local/regional markets.In larger dairy farms with more products the men are usually engaged in production and marketing, whereas the women control inputs, do the financial administration and participate in decision processes on production and marketing.Nicaragua and Honduras are among the poorest countries in the region; about 50% of the population live below poverty line. Livestock production and in particular dairy is one of the most important agricultural activities, with the majority in smallholder systems. The main emphasis of the value chain will be Nicaragua, but with potential scaling into Honduras. The systems studied are of relevance to the Central American region and beyond: if successful the research and development efforts will have an impact on national dairy value chains. The major action sites with the highest potential for impact in Nicaragua include the South Pacific Region of Nicaragua (Rivas), Matiguas, Muy Muy, RAAN (Siuna), Las Segovias and Chinandega. For Honduras, Olancho and Yoro have been identified for scaling.With the increasing population, changing demographics and external trade opportunities, there is an increasing internal and external market for dairy products. While direct impacts are expected from improved production and income generation for the 220,000 poor livestock producers in Nicaragua and Honduras, beneficiaries will be much greater including the large number people linked to the dairy chain and rural and urban consumers facing a shortage of dairy products. In Central America the dairy sector generates more than 540,000 direct jobs, usually with higher wages than in other livestock activities (FECALAC 2006). The sector also generates about 1,600,000 indirect jobs in the area of supplies, equipment and services that form part of the dairy cluster. Pomareda (2005) estimates total jobs created by dairy production, industry and distribution in Central America (five countries) at about 11 million, with more than half of them are in rural areas.","tokenCount":"3056"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e85543659d569c4e630f252017629392","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b0eefc13-254b-46f5-8003-b3f1669f7a28/retrieve","id":"597938068"},"keywords":["JF'L-","\"\" /"],"sieverID":"5bec6a1e-8b36-4b89-9389-dc0ca41ef095","pagecount":"141","content":"p e e -e -h p ￡ a -m.\"' .a S E a a s 3 S的 ii| ij   A Colotnhi:m 捕。何御 of 1)\"，\"叫她間霄>.. 但自 ibly a 神州，翩翩牽制 ybrld. 。啪 tmuas 扭 曲。 wpromi總 asa forag蛤 lFig. 11. 1. .dd捕。n 恤啥帥 irablc f()附伊 charac胸 ri s.ti帥. it ismo呵 resi$taol to le.f.eating 附Ilcts than several 甜甜甜 ionli of 0恥帥叫Jium in胸 rtum. This Desmodium will be 呻10.胸d fm regional testing when 甜闖關 te 開甜甜pplies 研制 ail. able訕Th. strongly $t帥。叫旬，也υ， 0個何寫吋旭m  , .~.阱011 ，.4. 加制 gly\"\"開繭，酬 I， dillø帆船融制總 恥刑呻gm﹒ hybrid (F ø ,. L.S.Ð..25''e.54  τ咱酹甜Ip輔蚓r 捕 e 輛終齣 r 呻 e 樹妙峙 e 棚 w總糊 r 防穹 t NS r 愕驚盼 a 輯甜 eω 喃 h甜 g 封i智伊酬 3 甘吋 i 抒純?悔籠岫 a 酬\"附電叩紗研宇呻 'OPO叫。酬 n. α喵Vl恥 nt 總愉 .r 柵冊叫 g 。叫  The major emphasis during the past year has b眉 n on the establishment ot ncw production areas at Palmira and Carimagua. In goneral, Palmira 悶 U聽 d where clo阻 technical supervision and/or high labor inputs are required (Figs. 5 and 6' Carimagua provides a location for _ the larger 但 ale incr帥.. 01 叩 ecies adapted to allic 5O ils. Producti開吋 stems are conducted there along more commercial lines. As seed becomes more 研 ailable. production 啪 11 be initiotcd at other 訓 les with suitable co operators.01 Stylo圓 nthes guyanensis are being increased at Palmira. a wher'l a tol;11 iJ m& nl 1.5 heclar冊 we\" \"個blishcd by !ran筍，Iunling sc1!dling1i illlo the field. At Ca rimagua. 5 hec\\arp.s were established with six introductions hy direct  1973, pp. 20.231 .~ f'HU 槽，間fect of P end K .nd their int.r.ction on growth of S from whicfl thr.. cropl h.d ..n prllviou到yh﹒rvllhld Nn pula!io'õ山 m rcsponSll W lIS mcasu間rI initiill Iy; but after three harvests, K greatly lin甘 ted growth in a greenhouse trial conducted at Palmira with the soil described on page 49 of thc atorementioned report. This striking re sponse 01 S. guya 闖闖 is to P and K is shown ...in Figure 7 The effcct 01 K and P on dry matter vield and forage conlent 01 K al1d P arc shown in Table 3. The K content 01 tissue is much lower and the P/K ratios are much narrowl!r thlln in a 訓 mililr lrial on the 祖 me soil , but in Ihe lield.   SEi 草詰=堅令慰 {3ee 玄 F 拉 豆詰 3 §12i 吾誌菩迢 g ;泣 i 3 ;j;i ;!R 持 5 懿;j 丹: ;F; 許雪;諒:詩 ii 穹為 i 話; i 符 i 持 j ; 如j;i?h 囂守 i iMj; 叭立豆 ;j 旭 宮;J j §i: 一 §豆.吟.巴   但圖訓圳'\"冒叫 t 圳 h th!l ~ppl l.tt.. I linn 叫 G7'J kilOfl' .ml 01 nitroQln. Inc,.. ml!flU worø Inrgor at hlgher Itockl呵 r.tt.\". \"1., fT nhl,. 111.CIAI 岫叫蚵lIoIflön 11\\ 1'.\"\"lr.The grazing trial designcd to m自 5ure the 叫 h~1 01 nitrogun fortilization on hcr.1 c肘\". production continued.Inll!rnol ,otftS 01 return were c.lcul.tId for all treatments using current vllues 0' nitrogen and c 訓tle prico5 wlth the accumulated production of the 酬，個 year.11972 個 咐 111: 7. Av.r呵，耐 'y w. ithl .酬叫 .IM\" grazina Irriaalad p﹒呵曲，圖..哺 IIzad wlm nl....甸回 'c自 AT， 1973.19741 Le~el of nitrogenSlocking rale, ateen/h.  ,.-14:\"2   The manøgement 臨睡，y of 疆、 e 糊枷e 甘~\" v.知鋪c:otretpom:1     The analvsì5 01 耕e \"optimal \"惜綾 d pastur.e 由陣地pmen電 and its implic抄錄。ns for investment 110輛軍r吋 risk 峙甜曲削1制 $wifl be examíned 1n future w嗨，能，   Th c main in棉紡ment durlng 枷@揖穹宙呼 V 帥， (t ,\\ w 鴨蝸幅 ttkl ßI\\h職崢電騙 iHI~wtore brOUyht t() the farm at the 敏婦剖 the prc\\/抽油 v 輔仁 No 1 曲。 'CO 糊地帽 b，糊的前研 rl 甜 甜甜 outla闕;a il ial峙'\"甜呻 iied by 糊但Id fAl' Tl ily 1TM: nll烤得a 導恥 h 間叩﹒回祖學間，聽， 0' capit側，且掛 flo輯地時岫 8n eorr 單純甜的恥 nati嘲 y 妞 r (1)  鞘lcn fi 川 flá 桐 n 臨 e 扭阻'\"吋 rl \"峙 2 均 v 愉.: own 帽 . .吭， thtl 1 均加 a 伽 'm 帆 .悔蚓 ìu 昀\"蚓 in 圳\"叫'\" 1I \"愉 e 閹耐 .1 怕吋。甜 g 哺岫 w 柵s 仇， h 師. n特a ti 恥?憎 w 岫 C 0 呻.，抽 h iI站 ow 絃啦 s @創蝴 i 句白叭 ht V 鴨@紡制瑟 whe'n inì \" ti 咱圳 a 訓l 翩恥蝴 i 誌 sb 講羽智 w 們r 咱。岫 d 何喇 .25 軒}τn 枷?抽總棚。 rnill 鴨\"制問仰 rn 10r a  le i s -i j;!;:;;;;;.:2i  ..!!!i;; ;;;);;;lit. Ca\"ssava\":    Qlal'l of :t髓，倒酬t~咽@也@嚕.....爛，.r. .111'  .，.姆總tl\\l.lIoll11仿制      \":::\"'.\" .. J~~~:J::: :.....0.關輯甜甜騙自 \".j ~ri rJ耐 ;j;j;;i:j\"\"N\"\"... 馳 N\" ，，;:.，;Pi呀-'~\".. ,;\"II\":\\It\"凶，主\"'這\" ... :112 14.. 3. :z.,.,. ,',.布， ,. 自「\"ZS 晶磊@命\"嘛  . ~ .• .  ~于中\"\"\"?\".::::: . ....一λ芸芸高三譜，   \" T棚re was 011Iy__~_~徊，到1 p研It閑時 叫:品tftztzfziJZ: wos 臨 h騏肺 5 時帥r Ct.l nt.wh蝴 inctC酷瞬間 6.12 por 軒\"t with the 鑄就p l1ciltion of 盟o \\cg N/ha.. 2774『 ;nZdifftlt:::1。1:i:::;;t; ;SÕ~200 k(l. ?2 0 ti/l 楠 .W叭，hout P app結 盟在:志，付出告訴fi ktjJE214;其;:U♂ZJ R呻s I秘Id抑 ah酬。 2 抑制恥制制 wllhout P 審ppl 惚aùon.l' 酬，每間. Zinc.曲蜘抬棚里，帥.... 細嫩.In嗨，岫拘--帽'1.lø... contentro wcmlíulc 副秘 ctcd bv lìming. Eatlicr ncgatÏlm re叩 0\"\"\" 抽 limi闕， 相阻隔d 1\" 可P 但是1 Z\" 融 liclency sym伊 Study of tbe i 附eractlcns bctw蟬鳴 W關t toms 作得 urc 62) 磁 ld low 10時Is of Zn CCIl肺結時stems ， plant popolaltoru: and \\l U In thu lu甜酷 11H&ppmwith6 插n1ha riety wa啥時間 tinued. Using a s鴨綠m剖ie den\" of lime) , 0 1' 1 the contra呵，自給 ChirDla 'IIÎtv dnsign. 島倉峙，妞\"制 CMC-39 a 恥\"警d Mø 酬刻 i .酬紡 i 帕\"肘咐'愣吋電可 y ，仰'衍怕\"附建嗨甜濃剖帥\"圳 e 叫閉 11:絨恥 e e loo/lla limf! 1制訓， kt. 11t fmc of w臨融制仙加 rbic滋帥 d研 i呵 It略P帥的曲肘 lhe n嘲百計相時叩開鈴 the 酬的時\"何晴 Irl!l ψ 醋Ul. nQVl! lh\" hinh仔\" 叫 \"\"弓閥V iI 相 hÌtlh l l'v種亂 01 liuw Î5 ywhh 11 ií.. !bl)摺叫\"姆\"\"總卸 IInll yìuld WilS Itwinly dUI! I\" Znd到地叫\"ε:\"1 in C:ui. 叫\"了hc叫前 ilJlI)loximal l! ly 15.<跑。\"妞íllslh a.'\"彼抖 a !.lJil.WEED CDNTAOl 3< n、ercW帥遍關旬 rked 間-sitìve re帽。nsetO K 揮plîcati Of 治 W 油反抗 O. 恤ing: a 甜 P'巾，帥，啦，問叫Appl酬to酬 。1 KCII其uS clem穆的，叫 S warC &Uf祖tmor 峙 KCI alune. 可d眩ðling the ìmport叩醋 。t S fertllitatiol'l.       ..  ,' Z 6'81.\",\".     話說;2;jj品;21313  ,.  .0 嘻 6..   To swdy 站時峙r the influ酬揖 af ..,.時酬 IMn' 開 the gra關 ng 楠 blt 01 b細附， 72 刊的吋個 tlom，瞬時間mpar細加帥削-Palmìra and TUrÎρ間á. Simi.    ..   :; a:.c喝，喔，已0:; a:: \" ar:: 紹說1I:::0:a::0:目前雖攝\"'\" \" .眩.: \" .ι\" .: , \"-vd Iττ\\ \\\"\\ t 品尋~~;其自 S~盟\"?守。.覓 覓;';\"\"\" ..!.;-.:p.;.l-   :hzpifl ;s In thiS la1ter varir. tv. a lárgo proportÎon 01 ncan yicld a們 d to1al tlry matlcr w叫 h.， rrr0 \" thc hlllflchelio, which c飢Jld 帥 ggu叭 alUWUf h(l:l.ln yìeld efficiency 00 thc hrünchfl!>, as cornparGd wilh production 即可 the '\"31n 帥'\"、 圳市制 rìctv lfI剖甜甜甜@開 Iventry 帕封閉w l:I flcgalive bean γicld rc 單間甜甜的. 25 ptal\\1S惘，開u. 時間 lef. Thc hí也 h vle惜剖 NP.p 2 was pro凶 bly it'揭閣制甜甜 lh thc abili t.v組 prod血 e a Isr曹 !>ink and 神仙 枷甜 sinlc cy，也}fl tooυ911 maximum fcaf él:lca W酷似 lly 3.9. As there w缸\"的 d闖闖揖魯智， 加.11 鞘:ighr 師和 2惜扭扭i嗯  2.  . .\" • x \"1'( (1，梅\"也叫間的1 !lQ.織紗帽岫盼。'u.\"， .nOOU( 瓏的uead: pue 姐 n!pø\"睡包 'eulr.l詢問 \"\"甜\"蚓 '0，品毯 'OJltl'J!S 海ueaqr\\'帥 I'UI峙 'U3帥p ~paw J~J 扭曲po!d制制彷蟬 l'隨a叫 彭 L6I ul 帥，抽串訊lIn!hll lIe 伊 '-l u el f 習約時 且多 Puewapiu 剖開備嘗到帥啃ptJe 'e!q 岫軒 .0:)叫，，\" U 甜恥 !>OI 揖，，*;u叫.00 到繼凶n!i O! ^IUO 鈍.p 8ùpa. 甜。 甜翩拉咽. J.'I I:)啊 n' 啼啼掛伊啦liq.. 揖 ua叫品叫\" uow wJJod 淵aA !l 甜甜 ~eilO :l .制 nllU 甜'\"'\"戶噶訝地 1 0 剖開P 純 PlnO :l叫咱制勾當普s esn l'揖 B 祖old 的 11 曲，.嘲闢JØlI，種戶建lal'Ol 微剝削盟餓 ..uod 揖 \"m 閥II! \"41 :u 旬，掛抖 pou 戶自 U喝咖徽jl U! 岫蹄!LL 憑借) ， u飢峙，叫恥!甲 Inw 叩開胡 pðU! 目申 自留喝點開曲路通 過 Z 明創 1 0 • 續1!6J:>dl Pla 抽 管 u p.uetd I!'u 骨 肉可姆，.鴨攝開關心\\Ul !UI腳學JII ISUtl 曲終 @時多喇啼帥蟬凶。帶興叫 B 攝\" po間 。恥0lIU1 制 W 愉織部 1$ 9:l!J P 甜 dol，;!' J~械 制\" 說 if 想Jtr:BAI 啦， LI 品 ãlenbap 酸甜軸線﹒闡明 1\"1:) 6LIl開 P U1 UEIO 組織帥叫』吋咽象Jttt :l l RW 雪嘲!的問郁悶U 帥--凶恥!剖 \"lðlO 還關 P .揖輛警~enJ:ÞlI! PI 糾 A 叫州州朋叭呵呵 U恥，叫 S U鑄胸前\"詞，等秘 u 'u 呻到呻削 P' 帥揖叫喝醉Uo!ld 世nsU03 .關閉叫酬。 uo alqel!e ，蟬明叩 叫\" tIU!甜 leu'C pu雪恥!)O;IIIOO 峙獄..oq 臨姆\" 呢軸.u明開叫OJUl l)增輛。岫峭揖盟蛾 ICt61 a 紛啪 M lenuuv) 有.. '\"部發 10 asodu 揖飢扯 割掉 AJ I!P\\揖輔阱，嘻 'A\"\"，'I 啥叫。 .BI 語 I IlU O!1. &U 興.I8 .lVl!)i 穹培;古! 2 i 詰縫豆誇 ii 議 i 諒i;1 穹 ;;抖 E 詰 2i3ii扭 i 立 3i:;;i i;; 譯 E 哀豆 i j 弓哼可:玄已:二;泣;豆詰 ;2 豆 ;i;i 咨 i 其: 豆 . .  F旬ure 25. 8&輔 V州fdsasir:lftu關切\"by 惱，.. 咽 zzr:7Jrazz:ZL?喇喇啊1，  -; -酬，明W可冒可可F一 午 ，且 1 .. '1 守 己:';:;   ,.-叫 叫 枷 呻 \" ..  iizi;;i;1    .' 11\" ,.\".1 \"\" 'I<I}. ''''1重 1... 1I \"r 生 編 >1 蜘!ll;lll 傲的根治 l)I )l ~lln il 削叫 1ull 枷絨附阱 t 阱 n 啾電 :r?: 士! t?c ::立:::::六 : : r r : t T : ? 1 : : ::t ie r sUYiJ :1: v :叫::11::: utz z iz: :2 . J;; i;:::: 1 JJ T ;: : 1 ;口;盯叮 1 才 i: 古滸淵 ;3 泊站;拉站 t2;J':;: :: z 芯 r:?':t 品;;立泣 B7= 立:且立 ;;:'ti 立芯 ;::4 九 1h 沾 ;:;2 泣 r; ;品:拉;;泣::;:記;:;:泣 lt: 品; :記?立 :zz;f 扎 R 仰九 Y\" 丸 6 酬 g 岫岫 側圳，;伽\"帥岫'筍咄咄 B 捨吋益 .1 緻削1( 1 h 暑 e \" s 抽糊 1 ，lII ，間 π \"， p 申 p 抖i翩1 叫 cω 叫 111 帥 t \" s 伊掛+愉紛呻 p 阱 eω.. ，吋 'i 站 u 蚓 n 。剖 f tht! hydrocy 胡也 ôlcid pf 甜\" 如此JWLLr; 但立諸法院妝品，泣的;負甜 d intake P.. 討 OU 鬼 \"Ifl個\" (1 973 J 、電穹的 uul HI!POf 1)ha\"ηìndicüuut that {or grawing rats 曲 d pi帥， 你 C h! \\lCI 01 h阱 \"，\"y 詔 lÎ& acftl 紗丹Slml in locally gfOW凋晦 $$èlV i'l var 制制 h 甜 Ht 蜘 訴他 ct ()II ';'-i;nal hesltl1 whell {ed i!l ditm ..能否有 Uu1n in prolui , l und iodine. It w 的 計划晰、 lh斜 thr. 1111 抑制 115 W莓 rl!' capahlo of 曲 'ø lf: ifying lhl! HG 份制 form th'oty~na弩之 whìdl W 的時叉， 刊 tllrl j的 rhc IH 馴化總叫 Ihal JTM!!hÎnt\\Íw: YI!)lll 電mk:!l lIllif打電 úid 句 111 im.\"H 滑、 Íf I!1 plHdu 喔:1I!Jl1訓叫告別似 elhm f)t 111 佑你舟..， t 也侈的。\" 。仰哥拉JUnd ThI! hvt! rOl:ytllllc ae:: id 口叭\"叫\"9 輛 g CiWiava If,.IQ Í$ W 的 d 制 mll1 irtll~1. n 裙\"\"、 '.iil'la 5iJ1npÞ: i 電 hy!ltoiili!tI hV lhc .，dcht 的狗 uf a CnI (hl hnmu !l fll1b悅伊4 月)ilra! \"阱。 11 帕俐.a 時間; hvdtor. V 仙 ic: ilCid i\\ ~uh'，l!I lwmtlv 問 \"l;I~NlhV 134.0 31.9Whell the 啪 ms w 習他 α間 tinued 00 thcïr rt!!';抖 ctivrl' (伽M 吋 I It!訓mmH~d圳 ing I ;x:: ta' 恥 n ， a 醉神 rcr r 灣 r'Olman 明臨 wcaningw 蹄 。 b，，，穹駒，' t In 剖 fsptinn of dam 當 on 缸，仙 th 會 fnah 捕\" dritld meal 叫鈍軒\"a die lS刷 th the J lC lllfflSI 1 )r;r! m Jnal 終認問 curd \" I fm .ho 到 Z鴨ttívillg h 穹的制姊帥 ι i\\ tw 臨時 11). !he 給 uft掙川 1 !J lm'\" 11ft 州 I!V品，，，\"乳叭 1111 thìucv 惜的制\" 個 nCl !tIìI肘，酬，\"恤后滋Jditionalá總 mical analv' sis 恥 tiít:awd tlllH the nClivity uf thc rml.vmn 開耐 ma tbiocy a.n.u壘(1tI9I 100 ml) 1.60(11111 thi 申 '.'y;nlil1'1 何 H 自持 F 帥 tl!ln); r.lvl., 21\\.6 1 1 :$1.6}  ' .. a , ,    酬csentedIn Table 23. It w甜甜。Wn that both 曾問W納悶總研討 D臨院糟dium moal has becn used íl'1間tí朋g f時d intø融@間 negatívmv 甜d 畫壇nlfic甜 'IV !珊帥 r cent Cl ude protein) f前 2摺wmg 帥 rrel發言學d wì嶄恤甜甜 Ifur cQnte哨伊= p層剖 10時1$ of 10, 20 and 30 per 臨削.， -.42; r 2 ~質、 54，時申甜伽，1γ). These r啥時甜喃自. d融趴 在甜h 間間a鉛 In 梅啤 1 01 c:orrela ti on s 總仙 Id 略問\"祖 Ind 也...攝制 。翱閥dl詔書'n meal rßul 始d in a proportÎ酬 .1 帥-蟬 do not fulfow tt、e 祖祖師臨冊揖封閉 .r 由pre醋。 n In bodV 啊 ight g8in , feed k間s; fu時峙 rmore， mu峙。f 品εsulfur intake AE1nd e f1 ic悟ncy of f，甜d 帥\"甜甜。詞，\" 聽著加前總臨\"咱刮吋 wi枷!1m p附關問 01 師問間糊I wl臨吶。總開樹e control d副 峙帥 u.jnhihitor 給Kf nut wi 恥，1駕船Ifur nable 24). The給闖關 ts.開除 med 輔帥\". 軒llnoacid conωnt. This differen僻 a 如 rlher men1af duta obtain甜闢 th growing 拇指 翎障。 r Ùld bV the 附!I'l tlv會 cor糟 1.11朋恤許(t 97J Annual Reportl. PrO制n quallty, di-紛悔研個 ..1 阻Hur and m甜\"側的尊 師們 tents. g.; stlblc 傲fcrgV 敵咽 pala捕lllity 申-時      -iL甜苦6￡7::12:3:    thiitc捕\"I'oof oore Conslt1JCtOO. 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I A\"τ) -nt 1)ccer曲cr 31. 1914 and the rcsultR of-its operat: ions lot ch總 Y..當. ln confot:'mity 'W lth &tmerally 驛eeptc~ac缸子unting pdnciplcs ñ!Jl'lI cd nn a bnsiø \"\"閥 istent vitb that cf the p嘗個 .d i，呵 year.Our ox曲linat10n n1so <mco時朋 sed tho 8chcdu1 帥 n f: 鷗 .1，1115 ~í gt'祖 nts and 之前atcd e認pandLtures ， earr.cd lnc~鵬. co哩F parbo位。~approved budge乞 and aetuøl expenditures and datcs~oI tece1pt of grants fot' the year 贅nded Dec 的發，ber 31 , t97~忌 I wht給郭 tlre pl't!盆 .n慰 00 ，會s supplem~組~lI ry Infn電 mntion. ~UJð ， in 叫 Ir ôpînla麓， rhese 8ch鼎1u\\r. s prcsont f.1irly 剖 I~i 1I!('it'mA 主 §帥1 sht棚， I:herc l.n.  i g 2 e a e u h 學 揖 J 倒 叫 \" @ a e m 關 a u a 於 據 認 被        ","tokenCount":"2399"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"5a24acb39701b2656d2d5af38d9cc8c3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/898c0c9b-b1e7-47d4-8734-44973bd9e38c/retrieve","id":"1755861610"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"fba8f4f8-1049-462e-ab18-3c02abb80c8b","pagecount":"157","content":"I am deeply beholden to IPMS/ILRI for giving me the scholarship and covering full tuition fee and funding my research work. In this connection, my thanks goes to the Jimma Agricultural and Rural Development Office and Agarro IPMS project for its provision of the necessary support to join postgraduate studies at Haramaya University. The generous assistance of Gera and Dale Woreda ARDO and staffs during data collection both in the field and in the office. My special thanks are given to my wife, Shewaye Zeleke and our family for their invaluable encouragement throughout the study period. I also appreciate the assistance of Dr Fantahn Assefa from (FAO), Jimma Research Center Pathology Department experts, Awada Research Sub center experts and others who directly or indirectly helped me in making my study successful. My special gratitude goes to enumerators, members of the sample farm respondents, and members of focus group discussions for their valuable cooperation during data collection.ixEthiopia is the home and cradle of biodiversity of Arabica coffee. More genetically diverse cultivars of C. arabica exist in Ethiopia than anywhere else in the world, which has lead botanists and scientists to agree that Ethiopia is the centre of origin, diversification and dissemination of the coffee plant (Fernie,1966;Bayetta,2001). Agriculture is the main stay of Ethiopian economy, and contributes to more than 50% of GDP, 80% of exports and 85% employment opportunities. Coffee is the major agricultural export crop, providing currently 35% of Ethiopia's foreign exchange earnings, down from 65% a decade ago because of slump in coffee price in the mid-1990s.It is an important export commodity which contributes 10% of the gross domestic product of the country. Moreover, greater than 25% of the population of Ethiopia, representing 19.5 million people, are dependent on coffee for their livelihoods, including 10.5 million people directly involved in coffee cultivation and 9 million in the processing, transport, and financial sectors. Coffee plantation grows in different cropping systems including the forest, the semiforest and the garden in the Western and Southern parts of the country (ICO, 2003).The Ethiopian coffee commodity chain faces its own complex set of problems, including various constraints on production, processing and marketing. The constraints most commonly referred to include the high incidence of Coffee Berry Disease (CBD) and Coffee Wilt Disease (CWD), with an estimated 50 -60 % of production potentially at risk; the shortage of improved cultivars adapted to different localities; poor harvest and post-harvest practices reducing coffee quality; and weak linkages between research, extension services and producers. Moreover, the lack of accurate and topical data considerably reduces the scope for informed analysis, the diverse taste profiles of Ethiopian coffees are not fully reflected in the current national classification system, and there are various shortcomings in the marketing system and in the organizational structure at government level (FDRE, 2003).Jimma Research Center has devoted considerable effort and resources and developed several coffee technology packages. A number of coffee cultivars that combine high yield, disease resistance, and quality characters were developed (Bayetta et al., 1998). In addition, recommendations have been developed on pest and disease management. The improved cultivars produce 12-24 and 6-16 Q/ha clean coffee on station and on farmers' fields, respectively (Bayetta et al., 2000). To facilitate the transfer and utilization of these research outputs, Ethiopia has adopted and experimented with different forms and approaches of coffee extension interventions. However, the small holder coffee sector still suffers from lack of effective and efficient support services such as extension, credit, input supply and the likes. In general, the efforts and resources committed to technology development would be of little significance unless and otherwise they are accessed, accepted , and used by intended users. In this aspect, the communication media and public agricultural research extension and advisory services have played a large part in introducing the new technologies and farming practices to farmers. In comparison, there has been little investment in farmer education, both in the narrow sense of offering farmers structured learning opportunities and in the broad sense of expanding their capabilities to understand, innovate, and adapt to the changing context. These days, the emergence of new paradigms and approaches of extension are shifting towards to the empowerment of farmers. FFS is one of the models and approaches widely used in different countries. FFSs were conceptualized between 1970s and 1980s and first implemented in Indonesia in 1989 to deal with the wide spread of pest out breaks in rice that threatened the security of Indonesia's basic food supplies (Potinus, 2002). The FFS is a nonformal training programme for selected farmers within a locality, usually a village. FFS thus have a social goal beyond mere changes in pest management techniques that seek to promote the empowerment of farmers by building human and social capital (Gallagher, 2000).Farmers are no longer positioned as receivers of already developed technological packages, but as field experts, who collaborate with the extension staff to find solutions relevant to the local realities. FFS programs emphasize farmers' ownership, partnership and group collaboration. During the past two decades, FFSs have been held for many crops including cotton, tea, coffee, cacao, pepper, vegetables, small grains and legumes (Potinus et al., 2002).The FFS model has been extended to several other topics such as livestock production, forestry, nutrition and health (HIV prevention) (Tripp et al., 2005). In total, thirty developing countries in the world are currently experimenting with and implementing the FFS approach (Van den Berg, 2004).The FFS approach was first introduced in East Africa in 1995 under the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) special program for food security in Western Kenya (Braun et al., 2006).To date, the FFS networks in Eastern Africa support about 2000 FFSs with close to 50,000 direct beneficiaries. FFS focuses on building farmers' capacity to make well -informed crop management decisions through increased knowledge and understanding of the agro ecosystem. FFS participants make regular field observations and use their findings, combined with their own knowledge and experience, to judge for themselves, what, if any, action needs to be taken (Kolb, 1984).In general the educational philosophy of the FFS rests on foundations of adult non-formal education, and reflects the four elements of 'experiential learning cycle' proposed by Kolb (1984): concrete experience, observation and reflection, generalization and abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. The long term empowerment goals of FFS seek to enable graduates to continue to expand their knowledge and to help others learn and to organize activities within their communities to institutionalize different practices. What differs FFS approach from other extension methods is that, the role of extension worker is very much that of a facilitator rather than a conventional teacher. Once the farmers know what, it is they have to do, and what it is they can observe in the field, the extension worker takes a back seat role, only offering help and guidance when asked to do so (Mutinda et al., 2004).The aim of FFS is to build the farmers' capacity to analyze their production systems, to identify their main constraints, and to test possible solutions, eventually identifying and adopting the practices most suitable to their farming system. Knowledge is one of the most important components of behavior and plays a major role in the covert and overt behavior of human beings. Once knowledge is acquired, it helps to develop favorable attitude towards improved practices and there by motivate an individual to take certain action in accepting an innovation or any practice. The knowledge acquired during the learning process can be used to build on existing knowledge enabling farmers to adapt their existing technologies so that they become more productive, more profitable and more responsive to changing conditions, or to adopt new technologies. In this approach farmers go through a learning process in which they are presented with new technologies, new ideas, and new situations and ways of responding to problems. The knowledge acquired through this learning process is then used to build on the existing knowledge enabling farmers to adopt the technologies to the best advantage of their own situations.In summary, therefore, FFS is a forum where farmers and trainers debate observations, apply their previous experiences and present new information from outside the community. Hence, this study is designed to evaluate the effectiveness of coffee FFS initiatives in the district of Gera (Western part of Jimma Zone) of Oromia and Dale (Southern part of Sidama Zone) of Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples' Region (SNNPR). Moreover, it is designed to fill the gap of knowledge of coffee FFS on the growing areas of the country.In Ethiopia where coffee is grown, majority of the small holder's livelihood depend on coffee cultivation. In spite of its importance the coffee production is characterized by traditional method of production and the low level of technology use. As a result, despite its importance, role in the national economy and the wealth of genetic diversity and climatic suitability, the national average yield is 450-472 kg per hectare of clean coffee (Workafes and Kassu, 2000).Coffee management practices including hoeing, weeding, stumping, mulching, pruning and shade regulation are not seriously considered at the grass root level. In addition, lack of effective extension approach in the farmers' condition also contributes to low productivity of coffee. The decline of coffee production is also attributed due to the prevalence of coffee berry disease (CBD) and coffee wilt disease (CWD) as well.Coffee wilt disease which is caused by the fungal pathogen, Fusarium xylarioides which recently re-emerged as a major constraint of coffee production in the major coffee producing areas of the country. It is frequently encountered in most surveyed fields in various habitats ranging from the very low altitude of Bebeka (1,000 mts) and Teppi (1,200 mts) with hot and wet climate to as high as Gera and Gechi (2,000 mts) districts having wet and cool weather conditions in Ethiopia (Girma, 2001(Girma, , 2004)). The symptoms usually appear as characteristic wilting, and infected coffee trees usually occur singly or in group randomly in the fields. The early symptoms of infection on mature and young coffee trees are epinasty of leaves on some branches in the lower tree canopy that turn brownish or dark brownish within two or more weeks, and finally drop-off the branches. The typical partially wilting symptom accompanied by discolored internal tissues would effectively facilitate diagnosis and recognition of infected coffee trees in the field that can easily be detected and rouged out of the field early in the season before the fungus sporulation at the advanced stage of pathogenesis (Girma and Hindorf, 2001).The dissemination of perithecia and ascospores from a single infected tree to other disease free plots mainly by human activities via slashing and hoeing as well as transporting the infected trees from one field to the other. A common practice in Ethiopia is to cut wilted trees, store them somewhere in the field or near the houses and use for various purposes such as fire wood, fencing around dwelling houses or coffee farms and as a stalk for climbing beans. The socioeconomic survey results estimated that 60% of the farmers in Ethiopia used the wood for fencing, 26% for constructing houses and animal sheds, 10% gave surplus wilted trees to their neighbors for firewood and 2% sold the trees (CABI, 2003).Annual losses attributed to CWD were 3360 tons of coffee amounting to USD # 3,750,976 in Ethiopia (FAO, 2002, andICO, 2003). Initially farmers' awareness about coffee wilt disease (CWD) was 17% in Ethiopia which could be contributing to the spread of the disease (CABI , 2003). In this aspect, the current extension approach had not given special emphasis to combat the disease. More over, the farmers were not recognize the causes and mechanisms of transmission of the disease. As a result, the proportion of income from coffee spent on house hold items decreased from 85.6 % to 81.2 % following the onset of coffee wilt disease (CABI, 2003).Income from coffee was used primarily on food, schooling and health in order of priority, with some farmers depending on it for almost all of their food supply. Thus following the onset of weak coffee management activities and ineffective extension approach, the farmers are shifted their labor to other non-farm activities such as trade, brewing etc. In addition to the above conditions less attention given by the government, lack of awareness of the disease and lack of effective prevention methods are also the major constraints encountered so far.Between the year 2003 and 2007, FFSs have been implemented for coffee management practices in the Southern and South-western parts of the potential coffee growing districts of the country. The participating farmers were selected to meet FFS initiatives for coffee management practices, particularly to coffee wilt disease in the localities. However, there is no clear information whether those FFS participants were selected democratically or not. Moreover, it is important that these FFSs be evaluated so as to check on their relevance and suitability as a learning process for coffee farmers.In addition, there was no evidence about the profile of the selected farmers' and its implementation process. There was no detail information whether they were committed or willing to informally share knowledge and skill with other farmers. But, through time farmers have managed their coffee farm using different disease management practices learning through FFS. However, it is not clear if farmers have managed to do this because of learning at the FFS or not. If the farmers have gained knowledge and change their attitude towards improving coffee management practices at the FFS, it is the aim of this study to find out from the participating farmers what exactly they learnt that influenced the coffee management practices.In general, there was no feedback information and relevant study conducted on how the FFS graduates are applying the knowledge they learn and changes taking places in their attitude and social behavior on coffee management practices. There were also limited perceptions of the FFS approach to all relevant stakeholders in agricultural development from the grass root level both extension and research experts to the policy makers on the use and contribution of FFS methodology. So, this research paper will likely to assist and sensitize all relevant stakeholders by giving information on the FFS approach, towards promoting and empowering farmers in identifying key entry points for relevant development activities in all coffee growing areas of the country.The implementation of FFS asks for a totally different institutional support and policy environment. In this regard, the FFS tradition in our country has not given emphasis in specifying the nature of institutional support and policies required for effective FFS at the field level. Currently, different NGOs are trying to implement and scale up small-scale pilot FFSs with relevant disciplines in the grass root level. However, the search for large scale implementation, for mainstreaming FFS, and for building it in to national budget streams has not given due consideration by the policy makers and institutions involved in development process in the country. This requires clear experiences and studies conducted on FFS to assist information for all stakeholders with respect to administrative and management practices at the district and national levels that are consistent with implementing and promoting FFS on the ground.Hence, this study is designed to make an in-depth analysis of previously established coffee FFSs in the selected districts as well as to identify their effectiveness in promoting coffee management practices as well to fill the knowledge gap.The general objective of this research is to study the effectiveness of Farmer Field School (FFS) initiatives in adopting and promoting coffee production technologies with special reference to coffee wilt disease management practices.• to examine the farmers' selection process, their profile and FFS implementation;• to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of FFS members and non-members regarding coffee management practices with reference to coffee wilt disease; and• to identify factors influencing knowledge, attitude and practice on coffee management practices among FFS participants.• What are the criteria of the farmers' selection, their profile and the process of FFS implementation for coffee management practices?• What are the knowledge level, attitude and practice of FFS members and nonmembers regarding coffee management practices with reference to coffee wilt disease?• What are the factors influencing knowledge, attitude and practice on coffee management practices among FFS participants?In order to increase the living standard of coffee farmers, FFS is the fundamental channel ensuring continued relevancy, establishing greater local involvement in knowledge generation, establishing a means through which more broad based intra and inter-group sharing of knowledge and experience can be achieved.Besides, the current state-run extension system, the FFS approach is capable of being highly responsive to local needs over a wide range of conditions, and with wide range of crops. The approach made has significant strides in providing the opportunity for farmers to acquire an understanding of important 'systems' concepts and relationships (Simpson, 2002). The knowledge gained from FFS activities enable participants to make their own locally specific crop management decisions. This approach represents a radical departure from current agricultural extension programme in which farmers were expected to adopt generalized recommendations that had been formulated by specialists/ experts from outside the community.The coffee FFS have been running for four years from 2003 to 2007. It is important that these FFSs be evaluated so as to check on their relevance and suitability as a learning process for coffee farmers. In this aspect, the study will be useful to policy makers, NGOs, Investors, Coffee processors and traders who may want to improve the coffee sub-sector and the living standard of the people engaged in coffee production and marketing activities. This study will be of particular importance for Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Research centers, State farms, Cooperatives, coffee marketing agencies and others which are responsible for the coffee sector in the country. It is on the basis of this research that these FFS can be spread to other coffee growing areas and can be applied in different situations.This piece of research can be of benefit to policy makers when they are designing extension systems. It is expected to be evident that FFS is a better cost saving approach of extension especially in countries like Ethiopia, which do not have much money to spend on extension.Farmers can be trained to be facilitators of extension and they can do the job with minimum costs. This also saves the problem of extension agents not being able to reach some farmers because of lack of human and financial resources. Researchers can also benefit from this research by learning that farmers can also perform their own creativity that can bring about meaningful change to their lives. Farmers also can benefit from this piece of research as it gives them the confidence that they can make a positive change in their lives, and they themselves are the ones' to determine what kind of change they want.The study is conceived to cover the issue of effectiveness of FFS in promoting coffee management practices in two districts, namely Gera woreda from Jimma Zone of Oromia Region and Dale from Sidama Zone of Southern Region. Assuming the total coffee FFSs established in the above regions of the country, the research work had limitations in terms of area coverage, time and available resources. The study had also some limitations of FFS approach in coffee management practices and other crops in the country as compared to other countries which have rich knowledge and wide experience of FFS in different crops.The main concern of the research is to detect / test the performance / effectiveness of existing FFS initiatives in promoting coffee management practices. However, the research finding could be used to raise FFS awareness among different stakeholders and also serve as background information for others who seek to do further related research and would help serve in formulating and revising agricultural extension strategies and approaches in the coffee growing areas of the country. In this aspect, the scope of the study had limitations to research findings and studies concerning FFS in the country.The meaning of effectiveness explains producing the result that is wanted, or intended for a successful result etc. In this study, 'Effectiveness 'is conceived as the performance of Coffee FFS meeting the goal in promoting and improving knowledge, attitude and practice on coffee management practices, especially with reference to coffee wilt disease.FFS are platforms and \"schools without walls\" for improving decision-making capacity of farming communities and stimulating local innovation for sustainable agriculture (Braun et al, 2000). FFS offers community-based, non formal education to groups of 20-25 farmers through self-discovery and participatory learning principles. Some authors advocate for group sizes of 25-50 ( Matata and Okech, 1998). The learning process is based on agro ecological principles covering a cropping cycle. The school brings together farmers who live in the same village/catchment and thus, are sharing the same ecological settings and socioeconomic and political situation.FFS provides opportunities for learning-by-doing. Extension workers, subject matter specialists or trained farmers facilitate the learning process, encouraging farmers to discover key agro ecological concepts practiced in the field. During the learning, all the stakeholders participate on an equal basis in field observations, discussions and in applying their previous experiences and new information from outside the community to reach management decisions on the appropriate action to take for increased production. Through farmer field schools, farmers learn about, and investigate for themselves, the costs and benefits of alternative management practices for sustaining and enhancing farm productivity (Gallagher et al, 2006).FFS model is a community-based learning system that was introduced in Asia in the eighties as an imaginative response to the overuse of insecticides in irrigated rice fields in Asia in the wake of the Green Revolution. Farmers in the Philippines and Indonesia attended weekly meetings and taught themselves how to control insect damage. The FFS model is an example of group-based experiential learning (or \"learning by-doing\") that encourages farmers in \"informal schools\" to meet once a week in the same farmer's field and analyze and discuss their farming operations and then determine which agricultural interventions should be adopted and evaluated on their own farms. Normally, 20 to 30 neighboring farmers gather for group study on a member's farm once a week for about 14 weeks in a typical growing season.In East Africa, FFS networks, associations and federations have emerged that are farmerowned and financed (Braun, 2006).The overall objectives of FFS is to bring farmers together to carry out collective and collaborative inquiry with the purpose of initiating community action and solving community problems ( Oduori, 2002). The foundation of FFS method is \"farmers first\" philosophy, which is in direct contrast to the transfer of technology approach. \"Farmers first\" concept is essential to empower farmers to learn, experimentation and technology generation and decisionmaking. To date, Farmer Field Schools have turned out about 4 million graduates. The FFS model has facilitated the spread of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practices in Asia over the past 15 years, and more recently in Africa.To summarize, the FFS model is an important institutional and organizational innovation that needs to be studied in depth in different agro-ecological zones, different institutional arrangements and over time. Because of the lack of baseline data and adequate monitoring of ongoing FFS activities at the farmer and community levels, the available evidence suggests that it is premature to promote the FFS model as the \"best model\" for developing countries.Clearly there is a need for an expanded research program on alternative extension model in developing countries, and yet research on extension is chronically under -funded (Anderson, 2007).Field schools and other successful programs had the common characteristics of group interaction among farmers, regular meetings, discovery-based-learning in the field and regular follow up encounters with individual farmers (Paredes, 2001). The FFS methodology is based on farmer participatory environmental education and purposefully seeks to change the paradigm of IPM that often centers on simple rules such as 'economic thresh holds ' and transfer of single element technologies with in a frame work of ongoing use of pesticides (Gallagher, 2000).In contrast, FFS prioritize group learning and organization for the implementation of knowledge and management intensive alternatives such as biological control, insect traps, good agronomy and other means to crop health. FFS were subsequently adapted for other crops such as legumes, fruits, vegetables and tuber crops, and other technical and social themes such as integrated crop management, community forestry, livestock, water conservation, HIV/AIDS, gender, advocacy and democracy (CIP, 2003).Through exercised such as AESA, group session practical exercises and the trial plots the facilitator helps the group make use of actual real life situations, as opposed to simulated experiences. All of these exercises apply Kolb's learning cycle (Kolb, 1984) in the way that farmers use concrete observations to reflect on experiences and from there conceptualize the learning points on which actions are defined. In the case of season, or enterprise-long trials farmers go into active experimentations which in turn will lead to another cycle of experiences and observations. In general the expected outputs of FFS approach are; increased farmers' capacity for research, innovation and informed decision-making. increased responsiveness to farmer-clients demands and needs by organizations in national research and extension and development systems (Ashby et al., 2000).Field schools assume that farmers already have a wealth of experience and knowledge. FFS harnesses this knowledge through the process of participatory agro ecological analysis and learning by doing. The focus is on effective communication at field level and not marketing of extension packages. Field issues are dealt with-in dialogue with farmers. Therefore, the FFS are oriented to providing basic agro ecological knowledge and skills, but in a participatory manner so that farmers' experience is integrated into the programme ( FAO, 2000). One key factor in the success of the FFS has been that there are no lectures -all activities are based on experiential (learning-by-doing), participatory, hands-on work. This builds on adult learning theory and practice. Each activity has a procedure for action, observation, analysis and decision making. The emphasis is not only on \"how\" but also on \"why\".Experience has shown that structured, hands-on activities provide a sound basis for continued innovation and local adaptation, after the FFS itself has been completed. It is also one of the main reasons that farmer facilitators can easily run FFSs-once they know how to facilitate an activity, the outcomes become obvious from the exercise itself (Gallagher, 2003). The group dynamics exercises are part of the non-formal education methods used in the field school to enhance learning and development of capacity for collective action. Khisa (2000) has underscored major non-formal education methods used in farmer field schools as sharing, case study, role play, problem solving exercises, panel discussions, small group and large group discussions, brainstorming and simulation games.Facilitators must have certain competences. Most important is that the facilitator is skilled in the FFS topic. This can mean having skilled of growing the concerned crop (rice, potato, coffee, beans etc.). Besides the technical knowledge and skills, the facilitator must able to manage the group-building process and strengthen and support the education process in the FFS. Facilitating FFS is complex job that requires a wide range of competences. A key objective is to move towards farmer facilitators, because they are often better facilitators than outside extension staff. They know the community and its members, speak a similar language, are recognized by members as colleagues and know the area well (Gallagher, 2003).A facilitator creates conducive environment for farmers to learn by arranging opportunities for farmers to observe, analyze and interpret situations, discuss and to carry out simple exercises. A facilitator according to (Braun et al., 2000): recognizes that there is no monopoly of wisdom or knowledge; listens to farmers and respects their knowledge, experiences and perceptions;gives farmers the confidence to share their knowledge and experiences; creates suitable conditions and activities from, which farmers can learn; responds to farmers' needs and flexibility in organizing the course and increases farmers' knowledge, problem-solving ability and capacity for innovation and skills.FFS are organized for groups of about 25 persons with common interest. The group of participants is roughly the quantity that can comfortably work together with one facilitator.The groups are often divided in smaller sub groups, so that members can better participate in field observations, analysis, and discussion and presentations. The FFS participants can have different backgrounds; sometimes they are merely farmers, but also students, employees etc.Active participation of the FFS-crop, specific topic and curriculum is fundamental for the success of the FFS. Social learning is a process in which action and reflection play an important role in a study on community-based and co-management development. Schusler (2001) found that engaging in social learning process does not only generate information about different frames, problems, opportunities and areas of agreement and disagreement. A constructive learning process also reveals the opportunities for developing alternative actions, strategies, capacity and possibilities for working together. Schusler (2001) found that a social learning process can contribute to both common purpose and collaborative relationships. Besides finding common purposes in dealing with environmental problems, social learning also contributes to the development of appropriate structures, collaborative relationships and supportive policy development.FFS try to focus on basic processes through field observations, season long research studies and hands on activities. The field is the learning environment. In each FFS there are two main learning plots; the conventional plot and the modern plot. In the conventional plot, farmers work based on 'what they always do'. Decisions and actions are based on habits and traditions. In the modern plot the groups work based on analysis.The FFS curriculum follows the natural cycle of its subject, be it crop, animal, etc. The approach allows all aspects of the subject to be covered, in parallel with what is happening in the FFS fields (Sones and Duveskog, 2003). FFS follows a curriculum, where crops, livestock, silviculture, land husbandry, socio-economics and education are integrated to form a holistic approach for addressing farmer's needs. The curriculum is based on local conditions, problems and needs of participating farmers. Although the emphasis on any particular discipline may differ, relationships between and among the various farm components and disciplines should not be ignored. Emphasis is put on agro-ecosystem analysis that helps farmers gain ecological insight and integrated management principles with wider alternatives to choose from (Gallagher, 2003).Several elements of experiential learning are of particular relevance to development and extension including the role of higher order experiences, reflection and dialogue. Those facilitating development processes there by working with farmers to help them step back and analyze their situations and then together identify ways forward through experiential learning (Percy, 2005) In general the corner stone of the FFS approach is the agro ecological system analysis (AESA), which is a field, based analysis of the interactions observed between crop/livestock and other biotic and a biotic factors co-existing in the crop/livestock field. The purpose of using AESA is to learn and make regular field observations, analyze problems and opportunities encountered in the field and to improve decision making skills regarding farm management. The analysis follows a cycle of observation, analysis and action. By carrying out AESA regularly in the FFS, farmers develop a mental check list of indicators to be observed when monitoring their farm practices (Gallagher, 2003). Using the framework of agroecosystem analysis, improved farmers decision-making emerges from an iterative process of analyzing problems and situations from multiple viewpoints, synthesizing the analyses, making decisions and implementing them accordingly. It also involves observing the outcomes of the implemented decisions and evaluating their overall impact.Learning in the field school is experiential and discovery based and agro ecosystem analysis is done in small groups of 4-5 farmers on the activities being carried out in the central plot.Appropriate indicators are used to measure system health during the learning process. The analyses and proposals emanating from the small groups are presented in a plenary for discussion and for reaching a consensus on the next course of action. Since most relationships among agroecosystem components are usually unknown to most farmers, mechanisms for identifying and filling such gaps need to be put in place (Bentley, 1994). Special topics are included in farmer field schools to cover unknown agro ecosystem relationships e.g. through the use of insect zoos. The topics also develop farmer's research capacity by stimulating comparison of treated (IPM plots) and non-treated plots and by providing regular opportunities for data gathering and analysis through the testing, validation and evaluation of technologies (PTD).During the learning cycle, participants' capacity for collective action is stimulated through group dynamics exercises. The exercises help to strengthen teamwork spirit and problem solving skills, promote creativity and awareness on the importance and role of collective action and the need for mutual support. They also help the group members to learn about individual's role and behavior that makes teamwork successful in addition to establishing a conducive climate for learning. Group dynamics is built through a process of problem solving exercises, mental puzzles, brainteasers, simulation games, physical exercises etc. Whatever the exercise, participants should find it fun and also as an opportunity to work towards solving a specific problem (Ibid).In experiential learning concrete experience is the centre; however the experience does not have to be real life experience developed especially for learning situation, such as a case study or a role play, or an exercise involving the leaner in actual experimentation on the skills to be learned. In FFS concrete experience through active hands-on activities form the basis of learning. However, simulated experiences are also applied, especially when the proposed learning topics by farmers relate to issues where it is difficult to set up actual experiments.Such topics include, in the agricultural domain, issues such as pasture or larger water shed management or animal health.The FFS provides a space for people to reflect actively. Participants have the opportunity to conceive solutions to problems with a degree of clarity often difficult to accomplish in the rush and clutter of day-to-day lives. As group members struggle to realize a collective vision/version of their world, they will discover perspectives that reveal new possibilities for resolving their problems (Stringer, 1999).A learning process that banks on the intelligence, creativity and competence of farmers, extension workers and researchers is required for effective change. This condition is met under farmer field schools. Farmers do not become experts by adopting science-based technologies or memorized body of knowledge acquired from others, but by becoming better learners. They internalize underlying principles (pest management, crop interactions, soil productivity improvement etc.) in diverse situations and adapt their activities when circumstances change with new situations. Experiential learning or learning by discovery promoted in farmer field schools empowers farmers to become better learners and to cope with new challenges, a fact which has been demonstrated under IPM based FFS (Deugad, 1998).Research programmes in agriculture drive the extension or education programme that the research should actually be serving. What farmers need to know to be able to operate sustainably, both environmentally and economically, should drive the research programme. In the FFS approach, research is based on training needs or is a part of the training itself.Through their participation in the field schools farmers can become a part of a wider programme of local, district and national research networks investigating agricultural production problems and developing local solutions for improving the sustainability and productivity of the country's farming systems (FAO, 2000.) 2.3. Differences between conventional extension and farmers field schools.The most important differences between the conventional extension and FFS approach was described clearly after analyzing different studies as follows (Gallagher, 2003).Conventional extension: Information flows from the extensionist who has knowledge to farmers who are regarded as ignorant.Farmer field school: FFS create room for farmers to contribute to the learning process through farmer interaction and information sharing.Conventional extension: There is little, if any, follow up by extensionists to the farmers' fields. Should a farmer have a problem then he/she has to go and ask the extensionists.Farmers did not know why extensionists did not follow up. Some farmers said they do not have power to ask for improvement of service from the extensionists because they are answerable to their employer, the government.Farmer field schools: Farmers meet every week and follow up the farmers often. In FFS farmers get advice from the farmers in group (Ibid).Conventional extension: Farmers' innovations do not spread fast because there is little or no opportunity for farmers to share information and ideas. This may take place only once per year at a field day.Farmer field school: Farmers' innovation spread fast to all group members and even to nonmembers because the FFS provides a constant forum for information sharing (Ibid).Conventional extension: There is not enough field support to the farmers. Each extensionist covers a wide area making it difficult to visit all farmers. The extensionists do not have enough resources, which it makes it even more difficult to visit the few farmers more often. Some farmers said that an extensionist has never visited them.Farmer field school: Work with groups who in most cases are neighbors to him/ her. This makes field visits easy and besides farmers meet very often at the FFS (Ibid).Agricultural extension began in Ethiopia in the 1950s, and various approaches have been tried over the decades. An integrated development approach in the 1960s and 1970s was followed by the adoption of the Training and Visit (T&V) system, which became the main extension approach used by the Bureau of Agriculture (BoA), although it was later recognized to be insensitive to the varied requirements of small-scale farmers. The present government extension system agreed upon between central and regional levels is based on the package approach and is called the \"Participatory Demonstration and Training Extension System\" (PADETES). It combines technology transfer and human resource development, and promotes the participation of farmers in the research process (Percy, 1997).However, extension service needs to gradually reduce its direct involvement in input supply and play more of facilitating linkages with input suppliers. If this is done, the extension service could better be placed to focus on the knowledge transfer and skill development (Berhanu et al., 2006).In addition, according to Berhanu et al., (2006) current extension service is almost exclusively funded and provided by the government through its woreda level Offices of Agriculture and Rural Development (OoARD), and with NGOs operating in limited and dispersed areas throughout the country. Full budget allocation from the public is a continuation of the tradition to support extension service from national budget that started in 1995 with the launching of PADETES.However, there are several weaknesses in this approach, such as the promotion of inappropriate technology, insufficient on-farm and adaptive research, continuation of inappropriate promotion criteria for research and extension staff (i.e. based on scientific publications), poor research and extension linkages, and the lack of \"real\" participation of farmers. This has meant that, because of a range of biases (class, gender, literacy and location), most of the small-scale farmers have derived limited benefits from this program (Misgana, 1998). Long (1987) suggested that knowledge can be defined as being constituted by the way in which individual members of a society or social group categorize, code, process and assign meaning to their experiences'. Havelock (1986) strengthen this idea and said that a body of knowledge is, therefore not made up of facts, but rather of the idea and values that govern the assignment of meaning. From these definitions, knowledge appears as the psychological state of an organism, which through processes such as learning, experience and the like has been acquainted to or has mastered some object of its environment.The FFS approach is generally considered to build on the critical theoretical framework of 'knowledge and human interest' (Habermas, 1971). Three cognitive interests are presented that all human motivation for learning. These are work interactions with others and power.The work domain relate to the need among humans to control physical and social environments, and to predict and control reality. The interaction domain related to communicative action and interactions between humans based on norms and consensual agreements. The motive here is connectedness and inclusion and the interest in knowledge relates to understanding of human actions. The domain of power relates to overcoming the internal and environmental factors that inhibits control over ones lives and a feeling of power and control. It is characterized by self reflective action and critical thinking and relates consciousness about one self and its surrounding.The Malian FFS study showed that illiterate female farmers did not learn well when presented with theoretical concepts by way of semi-lectures, while the more educated men found this is a good way of learning, especially those sufficiently literate to take written notes. Indeed, there was a noticeable discrepancy in knowledge acquisition between those functionally literate and the rest, irrespective of sex (Sissoko, 2003). This was accomplished by the fact that the facilitators did not use a teaching process that encouraged the participants to reason through the technological information. Instead it was presented as a given and the participants are simply expected to learn it by heart.Knowledge generation therefore need be seen as a process and emergent questions are how poor, weak and vulnerable groups can be strengthened to experiment, enhance, share and spread their own knowledge and how they better can articulate their needs (Leeuwis, 2004).Though, having considered extension as mainly an act of transforming technologies to farmers there is now a focus on participations of farmers in the innovation process and facilitation of experimentation among communities.Collaborative research with farmers and research driven by farmers ensures such grounding in local needs, but also incorporates local knowledge of conditions, including both knowledge of local ecosystems, weather, etc., and local insight in labor availability, fit with the local farming system, local markets, etc. In this respect, one can say that the FFS has a high potential for taking local needs into account. But such locally driven demand is not automatic.FFS-based investments also can be used to promote practices that farmers are not in need of.A typical example is the attempt to focus IPMFFS on rice in Vietnam because the government is keen to improve rice exports, while farmers feel that rice does not pay and are waiting for government support in the production of fruits, vegetables and other higher value products (Linh, 2001).The building of farmers' management and problem solving capacity requires joint learning through practical FFS work (Hagmann et al, 1998). This requires a shift from previous perceptions where farmers were seen mainly 'adopters' or 'rejecters'' of technologies but as not as providers of knowledge and improved practices (Chambers, 1993). Many studies have shown the ability among farmers to innovate and develop their own solutions to problems through FFSs, there by being part of the innovation system rather than just recipients (Scarborough and Kiloug, 1997). The development of solutions under their circumstances requires a new and more farmer oriented approach to problem solving and decision taking procedures, where farmers are involved in the entire process of searching and applying new solutions which may comprise both social and technical elements (Frias et al., 2005).What is the empirical record of the FFS model? Four recent studies illustrate why FFS is an attractive model and why there is a need for more research on the short-, medium-and longterm impact of the model. The Sri Lanka Department of Agriculture, with support from FAO and a number of donors, ran an IPM program in Sri Lanka from 1995 to 2002 that included 610 FFS projects throughout the country. Tripp etal, (2005) carried out a survey of FFS in southern Sri Lanka and found that FFS farmers growing rice who adopted FFS knowledge derived from IPM practices were able to reduce the number of applications of insecticides by 81 percent. But surprisingly, farmers completing the FFS did not adopt other recommended farm practices and the study provided little evidence of farmer to farmer transmission of the principal practices of the FFS. The authors have called for more rigorous impact assessment because of insufficient assessment of FFS programs (and their alternatives) is a significant part of the problem.The FFS approach makes a very attractive package for donors and NGOs. It offers a welldefined subject introduced through a specific methodology. Courses and participants can be counted. Enthusiastic participants can be relied on to give glowing testimonials. As these experiences accumulate, an impression develops of FFS as a practical and widely applicable strategy, and while donors are unclear about objectives, and hence disorganized in their attempts at evaluation, FFS expands into new areas and makes new claims (Tripp et al., 2005).The Global IPM facility recently commissioned two experienced field researchers, Van den Berg and Jiggins (2007), to prepare a background paper on the state of the art of published and unpublished studies of the impact of FFSs on IPM in Asia. The authors stated their challenge as finding \"a form of adult education that would capacitate the millions of smallholders to become experts in decentralized pest management through practical, fieldbased learning methods\" (Van den Berg and Jiggins, 2007). The authors admitted that the cost effectiveness of the Farmer Field Schools programs is a matter of \"energetic debate\" and that the results of many FFS studies reveal that the methodology for impact evaluation is \"still under development.\" The findings of this valuable survey report by Van den Berg and Jiggings are summarized as follows:• The evaluation of the FFS model combines Integrated pest management (IPM), new technology and farmer education makes it difficult to develop methodologies to study the impact of both of these activities over time.• Most impact studies of FFS have concentrated on measuring immediate impacts, most notably the effects of insecticide use on crop yields. However, this type of methodology is weak for estimating medium-and long-term impacts such as developing social capital to build producer organizations.• The immediate impact of FFS on farmers producing rice in Asian countries is the reduction in pesticide use while the achievement of FFS on other continents \"remains to be established.\"• FFS programs in Asian countries have only covered one to five percent of all farm households (Van den Berg and Jiggins, 2007).Sierra Leone recently launched an ambitious food security program called \"Operation Feed the Nation.\" After a decade of Civil War, the President of Sierra Leone pledged his support for this program so that \"within five years, no Sierra Leonean should go to bed hungry.\" FAO was invited to help oversee a quick study of the 510 Farmer Field Schools. The study was carried out by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and Dunstan Spencer and Associates in early 2006. The study was carried out in three districts over two months and it found that:• The results of the evaluation were positive but the authors concluded that the overall impact of the FFS cannot be known for certain because of the lack of reasonably accurate baseline data for comparison. A recent FAO commissioned study reports that Farmer Field School (FFS) Networks emerged in Western Kenya during 2000 as a result of exchange visits and communication between farmers, facilitators, trainers and project staff (Braun,et al., 2006).Similar networks have subsequently emerged elsewhere in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.These FFS Networks were formed by farmers who graduated from an FFS. FFS networks in Western Kenya have shown how farmers themselves have been able to build bottom-up producer organizations during and after the completion of donor projects. This self-emergence of FFS networks depicts FFS as an effective approach to organize and empower farmers.At farm level, the FFS graduates were making conscious changes in their farming practices and tended to employ more of agro ecosystem analysis than their non-FFS graduate counter parts. They were assessing crop health and natural enemy activity before applying insecticides in addition to applying principles of IPM to other crops. Eighty percent of what was learned on coffee management in the FFS was adopted showing farmers satisfaction with the technical options learned during the FFS sessions. However, while alternative pest control measures represented 52% of the innovations made on vegetables, they accounted for 82% of the practices farmers modified and 90% of those they abandoned (Loevinsohn et al., 2000).The impact of a farmer field school (FFS) on, Peruvian Andes Potato Farmers' knowledge levels on pest management techniques reveals that farmers acquire analytical skills, critical thinking and other knowledge resources to make better and independent judgment. The effectiveness of communication strategies was not explicitly analyzed in the study. However, given the communication components were an integral part of the key operational strategies of the present FFS program, field activities, interactive learning, horizontal knowledge sharing and information dissemination and feedback mechanisms between farmers and extension staff improved. The overall study reflects the effectiveness and efficiency of communication components (Godtland, 2004). This is because of the key factors of success is that there are no lectures. All activities are based on experiential participatory, hands-on work.The emphasis is not only on 'how' but also 'why'.In countries across the world, FFS alumni have been successful in taking greater control over their lives. In Kenya, Farmer net works and associations have emerged as a follow-up effect of FFS and these units have been successful in breaking manipulative relationships with middle men and there by gained access more lucrative markets for sale of their produce (Global IMP, 2003).There are currently several FFS initiatives in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, funded by various development agencies. Preliminary data suggest that FFS initiatives have led to high level of community empowerment and increased emergence of community based extension systems with institutional innovations such as farmers associations with community self-funded extension. FFS is a relatively expensive intervention method that has limited financial sustainability; several solutions have been perused, such as semi-auto-financed FFS. But there are few studies showing whether these types of schools are effective in comparison to regular FFS (Davis, 2006). Gallagher (2006) responds by claiming that FFS can be a steeping-stone towards selfsustained groups in some situations. But that originally the FFS itself was not designed to be sustainable, With regard to the financial sustainability Sherwood (Personal communication) argues that the impact of FFS is likely to be bigger compared to cheaper extension methods such as training and visit or mass communication campaigns. Some studies have revealed that although there were changes in farmer practices at the local level, FFS did not appear to have impact at the broader national level. Farmer to farmer dissemination is essential in up scaling.Farmers may be gaining skills and knowledge. But they are not sharing them with their neighbors (Davis, 2006). Gallagher (2006) responds that FFS have been up-scaled in Asia and Africa. FFS should be seen as one element in up-scaling an appropriate response with in demand driven system. Up-scaling of only the FFS-method is not a goal itself. Pontius et al, (2002) described groups of FFS alumni in Indonesia that have at their own initiative formed multitiered associations with other groups, whereby individuals serve as nodes of a communications network, with the aim of sustaining a local IPM movement among farmers throughout the area. These farmer alumni associations were no isolated islands of success but emerged in almost every sub-district, as evinced by the data presented. FFS graduates were elected to new leadership positions of local organizations, for example, water user associations; others became FFS trainers, or developed themselves as field experimenters disseminating their findings at local forums. Hence, despite being small in number, the empowered and organized FFS alumni significantly influenced policies, funding support, and media, in many cases resulting in amplified impact. A critical mass can be achieved by having several IPM nodes in neighboring villages with clustered FFSs, and supporting some IPM farmers to develop prominent positions (e.g., as FFS trainers).The FFS approach is sometimes promoted aggressively by donors without sufficient monitoring and evaluation. Adopting it simply because it is popular and worked elsewhere should not be done. The FFS methodology cannot be used as a 'trendy' approach to development. Another danger is that of practitioners and policy makers picking and choosing the aspects of FFS-methodology that they think are useful without paying sufficient attention to the necessary basic principles of the FFS. FFS should be implemented because they suit local conditions and needs, not because they are donor driven (Davis, 2006). FFS seems to attract a specific type of participants (Paredes, 2001). It is not clear whether some farmers are unable to join the FFS-groups, and if so, why or whether FFS are able to reach everyone.Food for training arrangements allows joining in development activities including FFS (Gallagher, 2006).The follow up activities of FFS like farmer-to-farmer extension method are believed to be too idealistic and hardly found in practice. To achieve sustainable and enduring impact, training in the FFS has explicitly focused on issues of local institutionalization, both in terms of changes in individual behaviors regarding IPM practices, and in the development of supportive organizational structures. The impact of FFS on local organizational development showed two general, yet very distinct, trends which were dependent upon whether or not the FFS were held in locations with any existing structures (cooperatives, village associators, producers group etc.). For meeting basic economic needs (Simpson, 2001) in contexts where there were no existing local structures, the FFS tended to serve as the spark to mobilize capital and identify income-generating projects among participants. In areas with existing local structures, the FFS tended to play a much more limited technical input role, with any formal FFS group identify quickly and disappearing. Critics (Quizon et al., 2000) have increasingly mentioned the issue of financial burden of implementing FFS programs.Although the calculations of training costs is rife with difficulties, estimates of costs per farmer for FFS training in several East African programs vary depending on whether extension agent or farmers facilitators are used (Dragun, 2001). The value of FFS as an extension methodology has elicited interesting discussions across the globe among skeptics and proponents of the approach.Many have argued that due to its focus on training small groups of 25 to 30 farmers and the fact that the training takes a whole season to complete, then it cannot become an effective extension methodology to reach millions of small scale farmers with new agricultural technologies (Rola et., 2002) and (Feder et al., 2004). But Leeuwis and Rolling(1998) while comparing FFS approach to the training and visits (T&V) in Zanzibar, concluded that FFS has many promising attributes which gives it much higher chances of effectiveness as an extension methodology in Sub-Saharan African than T&V. In a study to assess whether FFS graduates retain and share what they learn in Philippines, Rola and Jamias (2002) reported that FFS graduates had generally higher knowledge scores than their non-counterparts. Feder and Quizon (2004) also reported similar findings and concluded that FFS graduates benefited more from the significantly higher knowledge acquisition of better pest management in Indonesia. Mwagi and Onyango (2003) conducted a similar study to found that the adoption of technology on organic and inorganic fertilizer combinations by FFS farmers was significantly higher than those non-FFS farmers. It is important that FFS graduates accrue much more additional benefits which can be difficult to quantify in monetary forms. For example, Mwagi and Murgai (2003) reported that FFS graduates gained superior leadership skills and become more cohesive as a group than non-FFS farmers.Leewis and Bruin (1998) reported that FFS offers opportunities for developing effective farmer organizations which are key in developing local opportunities like exploring for markets and value adding of their farm produce and again this is an attribute that is difficult to quantify in financial terms. The FFS can motivate farmers to plan collective action, or seek to answer their own research questions through experimentation (Van den Berg and Cahyana,2004). The IPM program in Indonesia responded for post FFS activities to strengthen farmers' skills of experimentation, strategic planning, and organization (Dilts, 2001). In post-FFS educational opportunities, farmers learned to create knowledge, plan actions to solve livelihood problems, and share their knowledge and plans with other farmers and government officials in village. Moreover, farmers learned how to conduct FFS by themselves, and joined farmer facilitator net works.The strong correlation between knowledge level and reduction in pesticide use proved that a skill-oriented, knowledge-intensive and hands-on education approach, as used during FFSs, is an efficient system to deliver the complex IPM principles to farmers. Graduates of IPM FFS significantly gained in ecological knowledge concerning pest and beneficial insects of cotton fields. These were anticipated impacts of the FFSs, where the training is structured around weekly field visits to perform crop ecosystem analysis. Farmers attending the schools learn to sample plants in the field and leaves on the plants according to a cross-transect design, to record the number of insects visible and to predict insect population dynamics looking at the climate conditions and food availability for pests. Ultimately, farmers take joint and informed decisions based on the relations among all these factors. This finding is in agreement with all previous literature on knowledge gains associated with the participation in FFS (Rola et al., 2002). FFSs seem to be an appropriate strategy to overcome constrains to IPM adoption identified in the lack of farmers' biological and ecological knowledge, because it allows farmers to develop a deeper understanding of the crop systems and a stronger confidence in the method. In the case of this study, such a confidence was expressed in the decision to take fewer but likely more targeted pesticide applications. Solanki (2001) also reported that knowledge of FFS beneficiaries about breeding, feeding, health care and management practices of dairy animals was higher than the non-beneficiaries.The process of farmer experimentation and participatory extension is rather limited in Ethiopia. The experience so far of farmer participation in agricultural research and extension is limited to consultation and concept of giving ownership and decision-making power to farmers has not been promoted. The experiences with FFS in Ethiopia are rather a recent Organization for Rehabilitation and Development in Amhara (ORDA) was highly supported by SCF-UK, Woldia office supported FFS in IPM practices. Members of the IPM-FFS are researching different possibilities against the major insect pests of their localities. To mention some of the farmer findings;• Chafer grub is the major insect pest in wheat and barley production areas of Lay-gayent. In this regard farmers in the IPM-FFS identified a solution for the problem. As per the FFS finding farmers are treating the seeds in cow urine for 3 to 4 days prior to the date of sowing reduced pest incidence.• Stalk borer, farmers in Bati are actively involving in controlling the yield loss of Sorghum and Maize and they have seen promising results. Similarly, other IPM-FFS groups of other projects are engaged in solving major problems that they are facing.On top of this, members of the IPM-FFS are developing confidence, which could be utilized for solving other social and agricultural problems of the community.The conceptual framework of this study was based on the above literature review on the assumption that FFS effectiveness on knowledge, attitude and practice in promoting coffee management practices are interrelated. They are much influenced by a number of personal, psychological, communicational and economic variables. Among the personal variables such as age, education, family labor and farmers' experience is assumed to influence the dependent variables knowledge, attitude and practice. The psychological variables management motivation, information seeking behavior, creativity, information sharing behavior, achievement motivation, level of aspiration and interpersonal trust are also hypothesized to influence the dependent variables. Similarly communication variables such as extension participation, cosmopoliteness, social participation and economic variables like wealth status, access to farm tools, access to credit, farm size and intercropping are assumed to be the most important explanatory variables that might influence the dependent variables knowledge, attitude and practice. The major and medium coffee growing areas of the country are illustrated below in the map. is received during kiremt, which lasts from the end of May to early September. The area has a relatively higher temperature of about 25 0 c -30 0 c from January to April, and having a minimum temperature of 7 0 c-12 0 c during the month of October to December.It is one of the potential coffee growing zone second to West Wellega zone in Oromia regional state. Now a days, it is assumed that more than 350,000 people are engaged in coffee cultivation. In general the zone produce 40,000 to 55,000 tons of coffee annually out of which 28,000-35,000 tons of washed and dry coffee had been sent to the central market every year, while the remaining ones are consumed locally (ZARDO, 2008/9).Sidama is also one of the prominent zone in coffee cultivation in the SNNPR. There are about 11 major coffee growing districts in the zone. The total zonal hectarge is estimated to be 721,800 hectares. The total coffee area is about 76,756 hectares of which 49,892 is garden coffee and the remaining 26,864 is plantation. The average production of coffee is estimated to be 537,292 tons of which more than 20,285 tons of coffee is prepared in washed form and the remaining small amount 2,068 tons is sundried (ZARDO, 2008/9). The total population of the zone is estimated to be 2,966,474 of which male 1,498,070 (50.5%) and female 1,468,404 (49.5%). According to 2000/01 data of the zone the total household is assumed to be 519,880 of which male 493,886 (95%) and female 25994 (5%). As far as agroecology of the zone is concerned, Dega 30%, W/dega 60% and Kolla 10% with a maximum temperature of 34 0 c and minimum 10 0 c. The maximum annual rainfall is 1500 mm and the minimum is about 500 mm.  The Study AreaAccording to the 2004 district based census result, the total population of the district is estimated to be 111,535 of which 49% (54,653) is male while the remaining 51 % (56,882) is female population. Of the total population about 96% and 4 % of the population lives in rural and urban areas, respectively. The major ethnic groups of the district are Oromo, Amhara and Keffa. The dominant religions in the area are Islam, Orthodox Christianity, Catholic, protestant Christianity. The number of total household in the districts' population is about 27,093.The farming systemThe farming system in the district is characterized by mixed farming. The agro-climatic condition is favorable for growing diversified types of crops and rear different species of animals. The average farmland size per household was 0.5-1.0 hectares(WARDO, 2008/9).Coffee, maize, wheat, sorghum, Barley, Pea and soya bean are some of the dominant crops frequently grown in the area. Vegetables like cabbage, pepper, potato, tomato and onion are commonly grown in the District. The land size varies from one PA to another due to the differences in the available land resource and the population size among the PAs. Farmers in the study area use their land mainly to produce coffee, cereal crops, and vegetables and to some extent to graze their animals. Coffee is the main source of income generating cash crop in the area. The total area of coffee coverage in the District is a bout 8557.33 hectares of which 572 hectare is owned by private investors and the rest 7985.33 hectare is owned by small holder farmers.In Livestock play a significant role in the mixed farming system of the area. Their main contribution is in providing draft power, cash generation, food (example milk), and for prestige. Livestock types kept by the farmers include cattle, sheep, mules, donkey, horses, goats and poultry. Oxen are kept to provide draft power, cows to provide farm households with milk and butter for consumption and sale, donkeys for transporting goods.Dale district covers a total area of 1,411 sq.km, at about 320 km south of Addis Ababa. The total population of the district is assumed to be 222,068 of which 113,254 females and 108,814 are males. The total household is about 37,027 with an average family size of 6%. As far as agro ecology is concerned 99% of the district is W/dega and the remaining 1% is Dega.The district is subdivided into 76 PAs. The altitude ranges from 1170 masl around Lake Abaya to the west, reaching about 3200 masl in the eastern part of the district. The altitude of Yergalem, which is the district head quarter, is 1765 masl. The mean annual rain fall recorded at Awada research sub-centre in Yirgalem is 1314 mm. Rain fall declines as one move from the high lands in the east to low lands in the west.There are two cropping seasons in the area. Belg (short rainy season) from March to April and Maher (main rainy season) from June to September. Belg rains are mainly used for land preparation and planting long cycle crops such as maize and seedbed preparation for Maher crops. The Maher rains are used for planting of cereal crops like barley, teff, wheat and vegetable crops. Meher rains are also responsible for the growth and development of perennial crops such as enset, coffee and chat. Livestock also plays a major role in crop production in areas of the mid highlands and low lands for cereal production (drought power) in addition to meat and milk; it also denotes prestige and asset to the households.According to IPMS (2005), two main farming systems can be found in Dale district. The garden coffee, enset, and live stock system is found east of the main road transecting Dale from north to south. The terrain is hilly and soils are red (Nitosols). Rainfall is higher and more reliable than in dry mid lands haricot bean/ livestock system. The farming system is composed of garden coffee, enset, and cattle, which are tethered and kept for manure production of dairy products. Other crops in the system are haricot beans (as an intercrop), yam, cereals, fruits mainly avocado and banana. The cereal, enset, haricot beans, garden coffee, and livestock system is the other main farming system in the area. This system is found west of the road transecting Dale from the North to South. Most of the animals are feeding using zero grazing (cut and carry) system, due to shortage of grazing land in the area.The terrain varies from relatively flat to hilly. Black soils (pellic vertisols) are commonly found on the flat areas and red soils on the slopes. Rainfall is lower and more erratic than in the coffee system. According to the available statistics, the area under coffee is 15,375 ha and the estimated production is about 88,487.69 quintal clean coffee. There are 59 PAs where coffee is grown.Garden coffee integrated with enset improvement is being promoted predominantly in the area covering with 61.5% of the total coffee land while the remaining 38.5% is plantation in the coffee/ livestock system. Most of the coffee is open and having minimum shade unlike that of the South-western region. A total of 36 PAs are targeted for coffee specialization. The total population currently engaged in coffee cultivation is assumed to be 20,807. The productivity of garden coffee in the area is about (6)(7) quintal/ha and it is some how better as compared to forest and semi-forest coffee in the South-western region. The total area under maize and horticultural crop is estimated to be 3,503 hectares in the district.The study has employed a descriptive research design. As far as sampling is concerned, based on the pilot learning of coffee FFSs, Gera district from Jimma zone and Dale district from Sidama zone, totally two districts were purposively selected to undertake the study. The main reasons for the selection of these districts were because they are two of the most important coffee growing areas and high severity of coffee wilt disease in the localities. Hence, all two established coffee FFSs from Gera and all two FFSs from Dale totally four FFSs were taken for further investigation. This technique was used to disperse the observation across the study area and provide equal chance for all the participant farmers to be selected for data collection.For the purpose of this study, FFS farmers were those who underwent season long FFS training on coffee management practices with particular reference to coffee wilt disease.Those who did not participate in FFS training on coffee management practices were referred to as non-FFS farmers or respondents and were selected to serve as a control group. In this context, all 103 members who were available in four FFSs were the sampling frame of study.In general within each district, 35 FFS members totally 70 respondents were selected based on the method of probability proportional to size and simple random sampling method was used in selecting the respondents from the sampling frame. From 103 FFS members, a sample of 70 respondents of which all female participants were totally taken across the four FFSs in order to balance the gender dimension in the study. Likewise, within each district, a sample of 35 NFFS members totally 70 respondents were randomly selected across four peasant associations situated far away from FFS communities in order to avoid bias from potential diffusion of knowledge in coffee management practices with reference to coffee wilt disease. a total sample size of 140 across the selected two districts as shown in Table 1. The study on effectiveness of coffee FFS was intended to be carried out in two stages through qualitative and quantitative data collection methods. The primary data were collected using structured and pre tested interview schedule from coffee FFS and NFFS respondents and other professionals ( see appendix, 1). The data were collected totally by two oriented B.Sc and seven Diploma holder enumerators and closely supervised by the researcher in both study areas. The data were also strengthened using semi-structured questionnaire distributed to three extension personnel's of agricultural development offices in the selected districts. Four research personnel from Jimma and Awada Research Centers were also interviewed using semi structured questionnaires. In the second stage, the data were also collected using a variety of tools, methods and techniques; such as key informants and group interviews, focus group discussions, direct observations, transect walk etc.. Secondary information were collected from sources of reports and documents. In addition, supplementary data were collected from Jimma Research Center and agricultural development offices of Gera and Dale districts as well as from Awada Research Centre. The above mentioned institutions have been of vital importance, since they were the main facilitators of these FFS activities in the study areas. Relevant information's and experiences about FFS in Ethiopia were also collected from FAO office from Addis Ababa and included in this study.All the data were computed and analyzed using appropriate statistical tools and soft wares to fulfill the objectives of the study. The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics like frequency, mean, percentage, standard deviation, while chi-square, t-test, Cramer's, correlation and multiple linear regression analysis, was be used to test the magnitude of the relationship and influence among dependent and independent variables. The qualitative data were tape-recorded, described and interpreted to supplement the quantitative data. In this study, data were analyzed using different quantitative and qualitative statistical procedures and methods.The qualitative data were also analyzed on spot during data collection to avoid forgetting and to be able to fill the gaps in the data. Among the measures of correlation, Karl Pearson's Coefficient of Correlation (r) was applied to analyze the data. The degree of association or correlation between two variables X and Y was answered by the use of correlation analysis (Gomez and Gomez, 1984;Kothari, 2003). indicates high degree of correlation between the two variables (Kothari, 2003).The existence of a significantly high correlation between two variables tells us nothing about why the correlation exists. In particular, the correlation does not tell us that one variable is the cause and the other is the effect (Browen and Star, 1983).Multiple linear regression (MLR) analysis was the statistical technique used to analyze the influence among variables (i.e. single dependent variable and single independent variable) with the objective of using the independent variables whose values were known to predict the single dependent variable (Hair, et al 1998). According to Bowen and Star (1982)  The MLR was made categorical only for descriptive statistics; otherwise actual scores were used which are continuous.Following the completion of the data collection, the responses were coded and entered into SPSS version 16.0 for analysis. Before estimating the models, it was necessary to check if multicollinearity exists among the explanatory variables. If multicollinearity turns out to be significant, the simultaneous presence of the two variables will reinforce the individual effects of these variables.According to Gujarati (1995) there are various indicators of multicollinearity and no single diagnostic give us a complete handle over the collinearity problem. For this particular study, Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) and condition index (CI) were used for continues variables.The larger the value of VIF, the more it is troublesome. As a rule of thumb, if the VIF of a variable exceeds 10 (this will happen if R i 2 exceeds 0.95), that variable is said to be highly collinear (Gujarati, 1995). Following Gujarati (1995), the VIF is given as:Where, R i 2 is the coefficient of determination when the variable χ i is regressed on the other explanatory variables.A condition index greater than 15 indicates a possible problem and an index greater than 30 suggests a serious problem with multicollinearity. Similarly, the contingency coefficient, which measures the association between various discrete variables based on the Chi-square, were computed in order to check the degree of association among the discrete explanatory variables or the existence of multicolinearity problem. The decision rule for dummy variables if the value of contingency coefficient is greater than 0.75, the variable is said to be collinear (Healy, 1984as cited in Taha, 2007).Where, C is coefficient of contingency, χ2 is chi-square test and n = total sample size.The important variables investigated in the research are, dependent and independent variables. Dependent variable is a variable that is affected or explained by another variable. An independent variable is a variable that causes change in another (Sarantakos, 1998).The general objective of this study is to assess the effectiveness of coffee FFS in promoting coffee management practices. Any learning activity in group was intended to bring about desirable change in knowledge, attitude and practice leading to better on-the-job performance.For the purpose of this study, three major behavioral dimensions were considered, such as knowledge, attitude and practice to reflect the effectiveness of FFS in promoting coffee management practices. Knowledge, attitude and practice were treated as dependent variables in this study.Knowledge of FFS members and non-members was measured using a \"Teacher-Made Test\".The test items included 10 questions related to coffee management practices with reference to coffee wilt disease under Gera and Dale districts.Out of 10 questions 16 answers were expected. The scoring pattern was assumed 1 score for one answer and 2 score for having a question of two answers and 0 score for wrong reply.The respondents were asked the question and answers were recorded. At last, these answers were evaluated and their total knowledge scores were calculated. Since the score range was 0-16, the respondents were categorized in to three such as Low (0-5), Medium (6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11), and High (12-16) for further analytical purposes using descriptive statistics and total score was used for correlation and regression analyses.Attitude was defined as \"the degree of positive or negative affect associated with psychological objects like symbol, phrase, slogan, person, institution, ideal or ideas towards which people can differ in varying degrees\" (Thurstone, 1946).The focus of this parameter was on the attitude of FFS members and non-members in promoting coffee management practices. Attitude was defined in this study as the degree of positive or negative feeling of FFS members and non-members in promoting coffee management practices in Gera and Dale districts.Effectiveness of FFS members, attitude towards coffee management practices was measured using a Summated Rating (Likert type) scale. The scale was prepared with large number of items initially and subjecting them to editing and screening in the light of pre-testing so as to put only the most important items reflecting both positive and negative effect on a five point continuum. The items covered on all aspects of coffee management practices with special reference to coffee wilt disease. Before administration, the scale was tested for its content validity by a panel discussion with the group of experts in the office level so as to screen the most important items of attitude test.The attitude of a respondent was measured by adding the total scores obtained for ten items in the scale, by attributing 4 score for 'strongly agree' 3 score for 'agree', 2 score for 'undecided', 1 score for 'disagree' and 0 score for 'strongly disagree' responses in the case of positive items. In the case of negative statements the scoring pattern was reversed. The total score was calculated by adding individual scores that each respondent obtained for all statements.The total scores of attitude varied from 0 to 40. For the descriptive analysis, three categories such as low, medium and high were employed. Since the score range was 0-40, the respondents were categorized in to three such as Low (0-13), Medium (14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26) for analysis with the help of descriptive statistics and total score was used for correlation and regression analyses.Coffee is a perennial crop having vegetative and reproductive cyclical stages. It requires year round management practices. In this regard, coffee management practices were assessed among FFS members and non-members responded whether they adopted or not the different coffee management practices especially with reference to coffee wilt disease. In this aspect in the second objective, it was carried out to see the effectiveness of the FFS in promoting coffee management practices.Thus, practice was evaluated as the application of knowledge in the real life situation. To test the practice of FFS members and non-members, the scheduled consists of 13 major coffee management practices with particular reference to coffee wilt disease. These major practice scores were assigned as per the responses received where a score 1 was for adopted practices and a zero score for non-adopted practices depending on the farmers knowledge of each practices. Later the answers were categorized in to three such as Low (0-4), Medium (5-9), and High (10-13) for further analytical purposes.The major criteria for the selection of independent variables were evidences from past researches as well as from published literatures. Some of the studies revealed different independent variables as follows. It was noted that the diffusion of knowledge was strongly divided by gender, men diffusing mostly to men and women mostly to women; thus calling for a need for gender considerations in FFS. Age was another critical dimension in diffusion of knowledge. The evaluation pointed out that the older graduates did not necessarily pass over the knowledge acquired from FFS to the youth. Although, not implicitly assessed in the four farmer field schools, it has been pointed out that wealth is an important factor influencing diffusion of practices in East African Highlands and thus any FFS need to take cognisance of the poor as a criteria in participation in the FFS ( Sperling and Loevinsohn, 1993). Another factor that enhanced diffusion of practices was the use of farmer-farmer diffusion method through organized group visits. The group visits resulted in rapid spread of practices especially those relating to soil and nutrient management.As it was indicated in different empirical investigations of FFS in different crops, in this study the following independent variables were hypothesized to influence effectiveness of FFS in promoting coffee management practices in the study areas.1. Age: Age has an important role in the production process. It is measured in terms of number of years of age of the respondents. Coffee management practice is a knowledge demanding business; particularly it requires modern knowledge of management, production and marketing. Moreover, it also entails risks, but older people are usually risk averters.Because of this, they tend to be reluctant in promoting improved coffee management practices. Therefore, age is hypothesized to negatively influence on the effectiveness of FFS in promoting improved coffee management practices with the dependent variables.The educational level of the individual is one of the most important factors to receive and utilize new idea and approach to be more productive. It represents the level of formal schooling completed by the respondent at the time of the survey. The education level by the respondent will ensure the effectiveness of FFS on coffee management practices.Hence, this categorized variable was hypothesized to influence positively on the dependent variables. Old farmers had less knowledge of different technologies as compared to young farmers. The reason may be due to their less education (Shinde et al, 2000).Measured in number of years since the respondent started coffee cultivation under consideration. Experience of the farmer is likely to have an influence on enhancing new information. Experience will improve the farmers' knowledge in coffee management activities. Legesse (1992) reported that the adoption of wheat technology positively affected by farmer's experience. Therefore in this study also experience of coffee management practice was expected to have a positive relationship with the dependent variables.It is operationally defined as the desire of the farmer to manage in a better way of his coffee farm. Farmers having such behavior will have a tendency to participate in group discussion in FFS sessions. It is measured based on the response of the farmers' total score on different coffee management practices. Therefore this variable was hypothesized to influence effectiveness of FFS in promoting coffee management practices and was assumed to have a positive relationship with the dependent variables.This is defined as the degree to which the respondent is eager to get new and valuable information from FFS and other sources on different roles he/she performs. This is measured in terms of how much information is sought, how frequently and from where the information is sought. This behavior was assumed to have positive relationship with the dependent variables.This is operationally defined as the capacity of the farmer using his indigenous knowledge in combination with modern practices in coffee management activities. Creative people show different patterns of attention from those found in uncreative people, and it has been theorized that the secret of creativity is individual differences in attention (Mendelsohn,1976). It is measured based on the total score of different activities of the farmer's knowledge in preventing coffee wilt disease. This variable was hypothesized to be a positive relationship with the dependent variables..It is the extent to which respondent shared the information with others including family members, friends or neighbors, etc. This variable was also anticipated to have a positive relationship with the dependent variables.This was defined as the need in an individual to perform different roles with some degree of excellence. This variable was measured using the scale suggested by Pareek and Rao (1974), with slight modifications. Achievement motivation was expected to have a positive relationship with dependent variable.This is a strong desire or an ambition something better in the life. This variable will be measured using the scale suggested by Pareek and Rao (1992) with slight modifications. Level of aspiration was expected to have a positive relationship with the dependent variables.Expectancy held by an individual or a group that the word promise verbal or written statement of another individual or group can be relied upon (Rotter, 1967).Trust individuals will be more likely than less trusting individuals to share information each other. Therefore the variable was hypothesized to have a positive relationship with the dependent variables.11. Wealth status: This refers to the economic position of the farmers and is determined by various economic variables such as amount of coffee plantation in hectare, type of housing and other business activities. Wealth status operationally was calculated by asking the respondents to estimate the values of each material possession according to the current price in the market available in the study areas. In general, the approximations were then combined into different categories i.e., poor, medium, moderately wealthy, wealthy and very wealthy ranging from less than Birr 50,000 to more than 201,000 according to the local elders response. This variable was expected to have an effect on the dependent variables.12. Family labor: Family labor is one of the most important factors in coffee management activity. It refers to active labor force of the family who are between the age of 15 and 64 and who can support in doing agricultural production. Hence, this variable would influence the achievement of FFS on coffee management practices. Therefore, it was expected that, family labor supply has a significant and positive impact on the effectiveness of FFS in promoting coffee management practices with the dependent variables.13. Access to farm tools: Access to farm tools is one of the critical factors that facilitate coffee management activities by the small holder farmers. Hence access to farm tools might motivate the FFS participants to make better gains and was expected to have a positive relationship with the dependent variables.It is a dummy variable, which takes the value 1 if the respondent uses credit and 0 otherwise. Coffee management involves more use of inputs which has great cost implication. Credit is very much useful to purchase inputs such as improved seeds and other inputs. Hence, access to credit was expected to influence the effectiveness of FFS in coffee management practices positively on the dependent variables.15. Farm size: It is directly associated with higher probability of coffee management practices. It is assumed that the larger farm size the farmer has, the better he/she is initiated for the effectiveness of coffee management practices. This continuous variable was anticipated to have a positive relationship with the dependent variables.It is a practice of growing two or more crops in a given farm. It is the motivation of the farmer to generate more income and to avoid risk in a given coffee farm.Intercropping compatible crops helps the farmer to improve soil fertility and depress weed growth in a given farm. Hence, this dummy variable was hypothesized to have a positive relationship with the dependent variable.This represents the school member's visit to extension agents and research experts for different services and vise versa. This variable was measured through different answers. Group learning might encourage the FFS members to make better gains from the learning in terms of knowledge and attitude change and hence assumed to have positive relationship with the dependent variables.It is the degree of orientation of the respondents towards outside the social system to which he/she belongs. It is measured in terms of visits to outside village and the purpose of such visits. Cosmopoliteness as a dummy variable was assumed to have a positive relationship with the dependent variables under study.It is the affiliation of the respondent with formal and informal association in terms of membership as well as degree of involvement in the activities. The involvement of a person in any formal or no formal organization will have a higher exposure for different information and perception than those who did not involve. Therefore this continuous variable was assumed to have a positive relationship with the dependent variables.The main objective of this part is to present the results and discussion of the study on the effectiveness of FFS in promoting coffee management practices in Jimma zone Gera District and Sidama zone Dale District. It has analyzed or examined the farmers' selection criteria, their profile and implementation process of FFSs. The study also has evaluated the effectiveness' of FFS in improving farmer's knowledge, attitude and practice on coffee management practices with reference to coffee wilt disease, and identified the factors influencing effectiveness of FFS in terms of knowledge and attitude in promoting coffee management practices. For the purpose of this study, both FFS members and non-members were used as samples.To support the study with qualitative data regarding FFS effectiveness, a group of members' information's and case studies were gathered through key informant discussion and In a community meeting, the objectives, principles and procedures of the farmer field school approach are explained and 20-30 farmers with the same interests and commitment to the learning process are identified and asked to volunteer to form the school on behalf of the community. Depending on the envisaged activities for the field school, appropriate criteria can be used for farm/farmer selection and for selection of the school site. Whatever be the criteria used, the farmer participants need to be active, ready to attend all field school activities and be able to share the knowledge gained with other members of the community (FAO,2000).In this aspect, the community may be involved in developing criteria for selecting participants or present some criteria and ask for feedback. In general, the selection of coffee FFS farmers in the selected districts have considered interest, acceptance among the community, proximity to each other and to the study plot. Researchers and agricultural development experts played a great role in the farmer selection process. The role of local officials and farmers' representatives in farmers selection were some how limited since this kind of FFS experience is new in the locality.Experience in several countries in West Africa suggests that the following criteria are important for selecting FFS participants. These were some of the criteria used in selecting FFS participants for perennial crops, like cacao and coffee in most of the different countries for different management practices. The farmer's selection criteria suggested for perennial crops by different countries and criteria used in selecting coffee FFS participants are illustrated under this page in Table 2. A number of different procedures can be used to select FFS participants. However, it is important to ensure that the process is transparent and democratic and involves community and farmer organization representatives. The FFS selection process and its effectiveness was further elaborated by Ahmed Hashim ( Development agent) of Sedi-loya PA, Gera woreda as follows:Photo 1 : Ahmed Hashim, DA of Sedi-loya PA, Gera woreda, Jimma zoneSelected case study 1.The researcher was asking some questions about the effectiveness of FFS in promoting coffee management practices to the DA, Ahmed Hashim in Sedi-loya PA, Gera woreda.Researcher: What criteria were considered during farmers selection of FFS in your locality?Ahmed:\" Those farmers' farms that are seriously affected by coffee wilt disease, and also those model farmers who are capable of teaching other farmers were selected in participating coffee FFS. More over, the PA leaders have participated in selecting participant farmers in addition to District Agricultural Development and Research offices.Researcher: What were the differences you observed in knowledge, attitude and practice of FFS members and non-members regarding different coffee management practices with reference to gender equity and other issues?Ahmed:,\" Now a days, those FFS members are active in managing their coffee . As far as gender balance is concerned, those female participants were also assigned in different leadership positions after the phase out of FFS. For example, out of three females who were involved in FFS previously, one female is now assigned as a leader in a position of women association at woreda level, and the other female is secretariat member of women association here in sedi-loya kebele. This confirms that knowledge building is effective in FFS as compared to conventional extension approach\".Researcher: What were the FFS contribution on personal and village level in your locality?Ahmed: \" FFS contributed for participant farmers to analyze their traditional way of exercising coffee management activities, and opens the door to start in a scientific way of thinking and problem solving abilities. Moreover, FFS stimulated horizontal flow of information among farmers, sharing of resources and a sense of positive competition in coffee management and other activities in the Sedi-loya PA.\"As it was described by Ahmed, those females who have participated and graduated from coffee FFS were assigned in different leadership roles of the community in the locality. Some FFS graduates were also assigned as a leadership in kebele and village level in Sedi-loya PA.Similar findings were also observed in Kenya by Khisa (2001)  As it is clearly indicated in Table 3, more than 78% of FFS respondents were in the age of 15-50. This assures that since the members were young, they can easily accept the coffee FFS practice better than elders. Most of the FFS members 90% were men. Moreover, majority of the respondents 74% were educated. This confirms that 2/3 of the respondents in both districts were educated and the selection criteria considered education as one of the main component on the process. The data in Table 3, revealed that there was a considerable difference of wealth status in the respected districts. Considering farm size of coffee, in Gera almost half 51.4% (n=18) respondents were having a coffee land between 0.5 to 1.0 hectares while in Dale 65.7% (n=23) respondents were having a coffee land of < 0.5 hectares, respectively. As it had been observed during data collection, the density of population in Dale (Sidama) were three fold greater than Gera (Jimma) in a kebele level. Likewise, the coffee land holding of a person was very minimum in Dale as compared to Gera in Jimma zone.Intercropping coffee with enset and other horticultural crops is a very common practice in Dale as compared to Gera. As it was clearly observed in the data almost 88.6% (n=31) FFS respondents in Dale practiced intercropping. Moreover, more than 67% of the participant farmers had coffee farming experience of 5 to 10 years in both study areas.As it was clearly indicated below in Table 4, most of the participant farmers were selected by research and agricultural development office experts. Moreover, as it was scored by the participant farmers in both study areas, on the average more than 80% of the FFS members were applying their knowledge what they have learned in FFS in their own coffee farm, and were able to control the disease. Their practices were randomly checked by the researcher during data collection period through transect walk in their farm in order to check and compare with NFFS respondents. More than 79% of the FFS respondents share their knowledge with other non-FFS members. Moreover, as it was indicated on the Table more than 93% of the FFS respondents were also socially acceptable by the people in the locality.In general, there was a considerable difference between two districts in some of the items response of farmers selection and their characteristics in Table 4. The probable reason for the difference may be due to information flow, infrastructure development and population density might be some of the contributing factors which facilitates the FFS respondents in applying the knowledge what they have learned and share their knowledge with other non-FFS members in Dale as compared to Gera district.  From focus group discussions and reports, it was indicated that coffee operational calendar and local practices were identified by the trained extension workers and local community. The study field (0.5 ha coffee farm), was provided by a group member voluntarily. The criteria used in field selection was accessibility to most members, proximity to the field trials (to disseminate the results), tree age and uniformity, and the presence of the disease in the area.The study field was divided into two plots which received two types of treatments such as, improved management and traditional practices. The improved crop and pest management practices or treatments were determined jointly by researchers and extensionists while the local practices were identified by farmers in collaboration with the extension workers and researchers. Because of the clear differences in the effects of the improved practices on the incidence of CWD as well as on the performance of the coffees, farmers were convinced to try the improved practices/technologies on their own farms. The most important improved coffee management practices applied/adopted during FFS implementation were:-pruning, stumping and sucker control, Moreover, based on the knowledge and experiences of local farmers, extension workers and researchers, seven management options (treatments) were identified to control CWD. The treatments and their application in both study areas were as follows;• Use of ash: Applying 2 liters per tree once per annum.• Mulch : Applying once per annum at the end of the rainy season preferably in October.• Fungicide (copper sulphate + lime spray) : Applying once per month during the rainy season and once every three month during the dry season.• Fungicide (copper) stem paint: Painting the stem of a coffee tree up to 50 cm above the ground level every month.• Herbicide (Round-Up): Adding 150 ml of Round-Up in 15 liters of water and spraying as needed based on weed condition.• Slashing plus hand-weeding : Weeding with hand around the coffee tree and slashing the other parts as needed based on weed condition.• Slashing (control): Slashing the whole plot as needed.After three years of running the trials, the participants tended to choose mulch, slashing + hand-weeding and ash in the Southern part of the country. Similarly, mulch was ranked first, followed by ash and slashing + hand-weeding in the South Western part in Jimma area.Currently, all the coffee growing farmers are used the recommended technologies in order to combat CWD in their locality. This is one of the prominent result of coffee FFS during implementation process.During interviews with extension experts in both study areas, they replied that FFS is a season long activity with a fortnightly regular meeting. In view of the perennial nature of the coffee crop and its slow response to treatments, the coffee wilt disease FFS were established to run for three years. The groups formed in 2004 held a regular meeting monthly, while the majority of the groups formed later decided to meet fortnightly. More frequent meeting was desired to catch up with the old groups. The FFS groups were facilitated by trained local extension workers and technical research staffs.Although FFS are not permanent associations, experience of other countries show that based on the interest of the group member and the cohesion among them, they can be transformed into a more permanent nature serving various purposes. It was interesting to note that one of the FFS groups formed at Gera district added some other dimension to their function and performed impressing activity. The group submitted application to the local cooperative development office, with the assistance of the facilitator and got registered as a cooperative.Then they obtained a loan and collected members' coffee and directly sold in the central market in Addis Ababa. During the following year, the group has started purchasing other farm produces in addition to coffee. However, further management training and support in business skill is still required by the responsible organization in order to perform better. This finding is in agreement with Leewis and Bruin (1998), who reported that FFS offers opportunities for developing effective farmer organizations which are key in developing local opportunities like exploring for markets and value adding of their farm produce and again this is an attribute that is difficult to quantify in financial terms. Above all, the FFS process produced motivated and committed farmers who have already started making remarkable efforts to inform, teach and change other farmers. This finding is also in agreement with the theory of Stringer (1999), as group members struggle to realize a collective vision/version of their world and they will discover perspectives that reveal new possibilities for resolving their problems. Focus group discussion (1) was conducted with those successful FFS members in Gera district, Genji-chela PA, confirms the above fact and presented as follows: Regular follow-up and technical backstopping were provided to the groups and their facilitators by CABI Africa and JARC staff in both study areas. Special topics (identified by the groups and their facilitators) were also addressed by researchers of JARC. Researchers provided detail information on the identified areas and sometimes introduced various improved coffee production technologies. This particularly helped to enhance farmers' knowledge and boost adoption of improved coffee technologies.Knowledge and technical skills of facilitators were further developed in the course of actual implementation of the FFS activities. Workshops were held for FFS facilitators, some farmers and representatives from districts to enable them share experience and address challenges.Moreover, refresher courses were held for facilitators and FFS hosting farmers. In addition, with the aim of promoting the group activities, dissemination of accepted coffee management practices, field days were organized on FFS sites and different stakeholders took part in the events in both districts.Overall assessment of the implementation process indicates that the participatory, practical and flexible nature of the FFS approach was appreciated by participating farmers and created Most of the participating farmers during group discussions assured that the new modality of FFS approach helps to get frequent advise and knowledge both from the research experts and agricultural extension experts unlike that of the conventional extension approach. This is in agreement with Godtland (2004) who indicated that the communication components were an integral part of the key operational strategies of the present FFS program, field activities, interactive learning, horizontal knowledge sharing and information dissemination and feedback mechanisms between farmers and extension staff improved. Moreover, the system of implementation is conducted with the full agreement of the participating farmers in the nearby farms. The participant farmers themselves were deciding the convenient training day and time. The system of group learning and discussions helps the farmer to follow up their coffee farm frequently and that practice also leads to competition among participating farmers.In general, the farmer's selection process, their profile and implementation of FFS was mainly conducted jointly by researchers, agricultural experts and development agents without considering other relevant actors in the process. Moreover; the establishment of social networks starting from the grass root up to the higher level for FFS sustainability and continuity was not given due attention by the responsible offices and funding organizations.Even though it was a pilot testing, which is pioneer to coffee FFS in the country and donor driven, there is a chance too that the FFS may develop an elite' bias, favoring those who are literate and numerate, and leaving out the often majority of illiterate and poor coffee farmers.To assess the effectiveness of FFS in improving their knowledge, attitude and practice of coffee management 70 FFS and 70 NFFS members were used in the study. From each study district 35 FFS and 35 NFFS members were interviewed for further investigation. In this study, assessment in knowledge, attitude and practice in promoting coffee management practices was performed using frequency and percentage of respondents. The frequency and percentage of respondents ranged from low, medium to high categories. The differences between frequencies of respondents in the low, medium and high ranges were compared by using chi-square. This was to check the significance level of frequency of respondents that were grouped in different categories (low, medium and high) with in FFS and NFFS sample members separately (see appendix 2). Moreover, the significance difference between knowledge, attitude and practice of FFS and NFFS respondents were analyzed using ' t 'test.In general the summaries of output of the analysis are presented in detail below in this section.A ' Teacher-made test' was conducted and administered to look at the knowledge of FFS and NFFS participants, as clearly discussed in the methodology part. The answer of the respondents were evaluated and grouped into three levels such as low (0-5), medium (6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11) and high (12-16) based on the score ranges. The means of the knowledge of FFS and NFFS respondent farmers were compared using paired t-test and are presented below in Table 5. The data reported in Table 5, clearly indicated that there was highly significant difference between mean score of knowledge of FFS and NFFS members with respect to promote coffee management practices in the selected districts. Based on knowledge difference, the FFS members gained more knowledge as compared to NFFS members. About 32.9% and 67.1%of the FFS respondents had acquired medium to high level of knowledge respectively, while 57.1% and 8.6% of the NFFS farmers had acquired medium to high level of knowledge of the same practices, especially with reference to the knowledge of coffee wilt disease. It was interesting to note that none of the FFS respondents in the sample was reported with low level of knowledge about improved coffee management practices (see appendix 2 ). The findings of the study are in line with the findings of Solanki (2001) who reported that knowledge of Dairy cooperative members in breeding, feeding, health care and management practices of dairy animals was higher than the non-members.These findings were also similar with the findings of Bunyatta et al, (2005) who found that about 50% of FFS farmers had acquired high to very high knowledge of the technologies disseminated while more than 80% of the NFFS farmers had acquired moderate to very low level of the technologies. There appeared to be some crucial differences in the level of knowledge acquisition among the technologies.This finding was also in agreement with the findings of Tsion ( 2008) that training kept the trained farmers more informed and updated on extension packages disseminated by Agricultural Research Centers. However, NFFS members also know something about coffee management practices due to different extension activities conducted in the locality, informal discussion with FFS members and from their life experience. But from the result obtained, it could be seen that coffee FFS kept the farmers more knowledgeable in promoting coffee management practices, especially with reference to coffee wilt disease. This result was also supported the findings of Rola and Jamias (2002) in Phillipines who reported that FFS graduates had generally higher knowledge scores than their non-counterparts.The above findings was also confirmed by interviewing Ato Nejib Haji, one of the FFS member in Gera district, about the knowledge of FFS members on coffee management practices during data collection period and presented here.Photo 6: FFS member Ato Nejib Haji, Sadi-loya PA, Gera woreda, Oromia region.Selected case study 2 about the knowledge of FFS members on coffee management practices.The effectiveness of FFS in promoting coffee management practice was best illustrated by a man of FFS member who lives in Sadi-loya peasant association, Gera woreda, Oromia regional state.A man named, Nejib Haji, age 45 married and living with his family told the effectiveness of FFS in the prevention coffee wilt disease and other related coffee management practices.He said, \" Four years back, I was selected as one of the FFS participant in the prevention of coffee wilt disease in the locality. That time was challenging for me in which wilt disease was affected all my coffee farm. At that time, I was actively participated in FFS sessions through group learning; because more than 200 coffee plants in my farm was affected by the disease. Through group learning with the help of the facilitator, I already gain knowledge about the life cycle of the disease, how to manage and prevent it. In this aspect, more than 200 infected coffee stands in my farm had been uprooted and burned for the last three years. Now a days, replanting activities of coffee seedlings is going on and the transmission of the disease becomes declining, because of doing proper sanitation in my farm. In general this is the result of FFS; of which knowledge and better practice was gained from it. As you see,\" I lost my legs in the war front; but now because of working hard in my farm, I have more than five hectares of better managed coffee farm. Hence, in the near future from coffee income I am intending to buy vehicle for my son\".Photo 3: FFS member Ato Nejib Haji, Sadi-loya PA, Gera woreda, Oromia region.Selected case study 2 about the knowledge of FFS members on coffee management practices.The effectiveness of FFS in promoting coffee management practice was best illustrated by one of FFS member who lives in Sadi-loya peasant association, Gera woreda, Oromia regional state.Nejib Haji, a coffee farmer age 45, married and living with his family told about the effectiveness of FFS in the prevention coffee wilt disease and other related coffee management practices.He said, \" Four years back, I was selected as one of the FFS participant in the prevention of coffee wilt disease in the locality. That time was challenging for me in which wilt disease has affected all my coffee farm. I have actively participated in FFS sessions through group learning; because more than 200 coffee plants in my farm were affected by the disease. Through group learning with the help of the facilitator, I already gained knowledge about the life cycle of the disease, how to manage and prevent it. In this aspect, more than 200 infected coffee stands in my farm had been uprooted and burnt for the last three years. This change would never had happened, if I would not have participated in FFS. I have performed practically what I learned in the FFS.\"Now a days, replanting activities of coffee seedlings is going on and the transmission of the disease becomes declining, because of doing proper sanitation in my farm. In general, this is the result of FFS; in which knowledge and better practice were gained from it. As you see,\" I lost my legs in the war front; but now because of working hard in my farm, I have more than five hectares of well managed coffee farm. Hence, in the near future from coffee income I am intending to buy a vehicle for my son\".The attitude of 70 FFS and 70 NFFS respondent farmers was measured using Likert type scale with 10 statements. The scale allows measurement of degree of positive or negative attitude towards promoting coffee management practices under Gera and Dale districts, respectively.The disparities between low, medium and high category of FFS and NFFS farmers' attitude was compared by chi-square test ( see appendix 3 ). In addition, the mean scores of FFS and NFFS members' attitude were analyzed using paired samples t-test. The results are presented below in Table 6. The mean scores of attitude of FFS members of Gera and Dale districts were significant at 1% and 5% level of improvement due to participatory learning in FFS on coffee management practices, especially with reference to the prevention of coffee wilt disease. This shows that FFS participants had more favorable attitude towards coffee management practices as compared to NFFS participants.It is evident from Appendix 3, that FFS respondents 18.6% were from moderate attitude followed by 81.4% with more favorable attitude about coffee management practice. Whereas, 38.6% of the NFFS respondents were found to have moderate attitude followed by 55.7%with more favorable attitude and 5.7% respondents were found less favorable attitude about improved coffee management practice. This was in agreement with the findings of Tsion ( 2008) who stated that trainings that had been conducted by research centers improve the attitude of trained farmers as compared to that of untrained farmers.The reflection of such a strong positive attitude by the FFS participants may be due to Participatory learning and knowledge generation in the FFS geared the farmers towards a more favorable attitude as compared to NFFS respondents. It is suggested that FFS respondents have acquired more knowledge through field school about improved coffee management practice so as to make their attitude highly favorable than NFFS respondents.The attitude of FFS respondents was further elaborated by w/ro Marta Togiso, one of the women who hosted FFS in Awada PA, in selected case study 3 as follows.The practice was evaluated as the application of the knowledge resulted after the FFS graduation as stated by the respondents. The practice of FFS and NFFS members was measured based on their responses on performing and promoting coffee management practices of Gera and Dale districts. The differences between the low, medium and high category of FFS and NFFS members practice was compared using chi-square ( see appendix 4) and the means of practice was analyzed using paired samples t-test. The results of the test are displayed below in Table 7. The practice wise comparison of knowledge among FFS and NFFS members showed that the mean scores of practices of FFS respondents were significantly higher than that of NFFS respondents. This may be due to the fact that FFS respondents might have attended the coffee FFS participatory 'learning by doing' programmes, thereby comparing the traditional and improved coffee management practices resulting higher knowledge about various practices of coffee as compared to NFFS members. This was in agreement with the findings of Mwagi and Onyango (2003) who stated that the adoption of technology on organic and inorganic fertilizer combinations by FFS farmers was significantly higher than those of non-FFS farmers. Majority of FFS respondents 85% had high level of knowledge (adopted) regarding improved coffee management practices with reference to coffee wilt disease. However, almost 81% and 15% of NFFS respondents found in medium and high knowledge category of the same practice respectively. The participants had frequent contacts with facilitators, research and extension experts being the member of FFS resulting in to higher knowledge in promoting various coffee management practices in the locality.In general for further analysis of the effectiveness of FFS in promoting knowledge, attitude and practice in coffee management practices especially with reference to coffee wilt disease, the data were pooled and combined together. The combined data that consists of three dependent variables such as knowledge, attitude and practice of 70 FFS members were analyzed using frequency, percentage, chi-square as well as paired t-test. The results of the test are presented in (appendix 5) . The summary of paired test is shown below in Table 8 . The test above clearly indicated that the mean score of knowledge of FFS members on coffee management practice was significantly higher with probability level of 1% than the mean score of NFFS members. The result of the test confirmed that the FFS approach of coffee was effective in terms of improving knowledge of farmers as compared to the conventional extension approach. In the same way the comparison between attitude of FFS members and NFFS members using paired difference test showed that the attitude of FFS members was significantly improved by the participatory learning of FFS approach as compared to NFFS members. Similarly, the mean score of practice of FFS members on coffee management was found to be significantly improved when compared to NFFS members of the same management practice.In general, this finding is in line with Loevinsohn (2000) who reported that eighty percent (80%) of what was learned on coffee management in the FFS was adopted showing farmers satisfaction with the technical options learned during the FFS sessions than their counterparts.In Gera district, NGOs like JICA scale-up experiences of the previous coffee FFS in the locality. They have exercised the FFS approach to extend their outreach programmes, having found this to be consistent with the principles of community empowerment and locally-driven development that they promote. This idea is in agreement with Tripp et al, (2005) who reported that FFS expands into new areas and makes new claims. In this aspect, the FFSs were involved in different likelihood approaches such as in horticulture and forestry development activities in the locality. The programme has been implemented by 73 DAs' as facilitators of FFS in their PAs. The FFSs were established by the project in 2007/2008. In all the established FFSs the gender dimension has been taken into consideration and equal number of men and women were participated by the project. A joint monthly meeting of all the facilitators was held by JICA at district level to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of FFS activities and measures for improvement using a common group exercise (what was good, what was not good, things need improvement and how to improve) was conducted. The current status of FFS in the district was clearly indicated in Table 9. The photo 5 following this page illustrates one of the FFS session learning and discussing in group about Agro-Ecological system Analysis (AESA) of different horticultural crops. An agro ecosystem can be defined as a geographically and functionally coherent domain of agricultural activity, including all living and non-living components and the interactions among them. It may be an entire region broadly defined by climate, vegetation and other ecological traits. With this basic principle, the participants prepare drawings of their field observations including information on the condition of the seedlings, pests and diseases; natural enemies of insect pests; weather, soil and water conditions in group learning were recorded by farmers each week on a poster using sketches and symbols. The group members were involving together to share knowledge, information and skills on agricultural production and livelihood issues in horticultural development activities.This type of activity in FFS was contradictory with Khisa (2000) who underscored major nonformal education methods used in farmer field schools as sharing, case study, role play, problem solving exercises, panel discussions, small group and large group discussions, brainstorming and simulation games.The methodologies used in the farmer field schools were weekly meetings, agro ecosystem analysis and experimentation. Each group has made a presentation to the whole participants on their findings. After group presentations, participants have discussed the recommendations made by each group and agree on one or two actions to take. These can include learning about a topic to understand it better. Some of the experienced coffee FFS members are involved serving as facilitators of some groups; and sharing their acquired knowledge in coffee FFS as being a model to others. By carrying out AESA regularly in the FFS, farmers develop a mental check list of indicators to be observed when monitoring their farm practices. Here as example, a previous coffee FFS member was a farmer group-facilitator, Kassahun Tadesse, age 35 presents the Agro-Ecosystem Analysis (AESA) lesson in group learning.Photo 5 : One of the JICA FFS session learning in group situation, Genji PA, Gera district, Jimma zoneThis practical example confirms (Gallagher, 2003) that a key objective is to move towards farmer facilitators, because they are often better facilitators than outside extension staff. They know the community and its members, speak similar language, are recognized by members as colleagues and know the area well.The Genji PA, FFS holds about 27 farmer members of whom 11 are females. This was the 3 rd FFS established recently by JICA. The other two schools' participants have graduated earlier and established their own horticultural nursery in their homestead/field. In general, AESA is the process during which participants of the FFS observe and analyze the field situation, based on which they make proper management decisions.In this section, correlation and regression analysis of independent variables, which are hypothesized to have influence on knowledge, attitude and practice of the coffee FFS respondents are presented. Moreover, the selected independent variables were analyzed using a Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) model to identify factors influencing knowledge, attitude and practice of coffee FFS members in the study areas. In general, 19 independent variables were tested on the FFS members' knowledge, attitude and practice. The independent variables were classified as personal, psychological, economical and communication factors.In Table 10, the mean score, standard deviation and t-test of different independent variables which were expected to have influence on knowledge, attitude and practice of farmers were computed. The t-test for personal variables such as age, education, family labor and farmer's experience were significant at 5% and 1% level respectively in both study areas of FFS members. As far as economic variables were concerned, wealth status, farm size and intercropping were significant at 1% where as the variable access to credit was significant at 10% level. The probable reason for the difference may be due to high population density which results shortage of farm size in Dale as compared to Gera district. Moreover, psychological variables such as creativity and information sharing were significant at 1% level where as information seeking, level of aspiration and interpersonal trust were significant at 5% and 10% level, respectively. The disparity especially in creativity and information sharing variables may be due to the difference in infrastructure development and way of living conditions in both study areas. Likewise, social participation was significant at 1% level among communication variables. The profile of FFS members in terms of selected independent variables were clearly presented in pooled data of Table 11, as follows. In general, there were high standard deviation observed especially in variables of age of the respondent, farmers experience, wealth status, access to farm tools, information seeking, information sharing and social participation of the respondents' in both study areas as compared to other independent variables. As indicated in Table 12, the out put of Pearson correlation analysis of pooled data indicated that, out of fifteen independent variables, four variables namely farmers experience in coffee management practice, creativity, information sharing and interpersonal trust were found to be positively and significantly related with knowledge of FFS members in promoting coffee management practice at 5% level of significance. The probable reason for the relation could be when farmers experience, creativity, information sharing and interpersonal trust increases their knowledge in FFS also increase through group learning and hands on exercise in promoting coffee management practices. Regarding the relationship of attitude and independent variables of pooled data, there were no significant relationships; even though some appeared positively and significantly in both separate data of the study areas (see appendix 6 ). As indicated in Table 12, farmers experience, creativity and information sharing were positively and significantly related with practice and knowledge of FFS members towards promoting coffee management practices at 1% and 5% level of significance.The positive and strong relationship of knowledge and practice towards FFS and farmers experience revealed that, the more the knowledge and experience of the farmer the better that the respondent can acquire coffee management practices through FFS. The positive and significant relationship of knowledge and practice of FFS members with creativity of the respondents revealed that when the respondents exposure increase through participatory learning in FFS, their creativity towards coffee wilt disease management also increases, which is in agreement with the creativity of IPM-FFS farmers are treating the seeds in cow urine 3-4 days prior to the date of sowing in Organization for Rehabilitation and Development in Amhara ( ORDA) supported by SCF-UK(2006).Similarly, there was significant and positive relationship for knowledge and practice of FFS members with the independent variable of information sharing. This implies that, FFS favors knowledge and practice through group learning condition by comparing the improved and traditional coffee management practices in the learning plot. Hence, information sharing is one of the main component in FFS among members. The FFS members shared information on an informal note continually with their colleagues outside school and they also shared information with non-member farmers who sought advice and they began incorporating some aspects of the new farming system in their fields. During data collection period, participants acknowledged that sharing information by all farmers helped to enhance the farmers' knowledge base. This led to the improvement of their coffee management system as many ideas were put together.Likewise, for the four categorized and dummy independent variables such as education level, access to credit, cosmopoliteness and intercropping relationship were tested using χCramer's V. The data in Table 13 indicated that the variable education was positively and significantly related with practice at 10% probability level, while the variables intercropping and access to credit were positively and significantly related with knowledge and practice of FFS members at 10% and 1% probability level respectively. Education was positively and significantly correlated with practice of the FFS participants regarding coffee management technologies. This reveals that as the level of education increased their practice of coffee management through FFS also increased.Moreover, the relationship of intercropping and access to credit with the dependent variables of knowledge and practice reveals that diseases and pests may not spread as rapidly in mixtures of coffee fields because of differential susceptibility to the pests and pathogens and because of enhanced abundance of efficiency of natural enemies. Intercrops provide insurance against crop failure in times of risk so that this will be addressed through learning in FFS. The probable reason for the relationship of access to credit with the dependent variables implies as access to credit increased, the participant farmers motivate to buy different farm tools to mange their coffee farm there by the effectiveness of FFS participants in knowledge and practice of coffee management also increased. The selected independent variables were put to Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) model to identify the factors influencing knowledge, attitude and practice among FFS members. In general, a set of 19 independent variables ( 15 continuous 1 categorized and 3 dummy) were included in the study to test in MLR analysis. To determine the best subset of independent variables that are good predictors of the dependent variables, the MLR were estimated.Moreover, the Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) and Condition Index (CI) were used to test the degree of multicollinearity among the continuous and discrete variables. The details of multicollinearity test is attached (see appendix 7 and 8). Likewise, Contingency Coefficient test was computed for dummy and categorized independent variables. To this end, based on the VIF and CI the data had no serious problem of multicolinearity. According to Contingency Coefficient (CC) results, there is a problem of multicolinearity between the independent variables of intercropping and cosmopoliteness. As a result, the most important variable intercropping was selected and entered to the model, because this variable was positively and significantly associated both in knowledge and practice (see appendix 9). Hence, education, intercropping and access to credit those three independent variables were directly taken and entered into MLR analysis. These variables were associated positively with the dependent variables of knowledge and practice previously in pooled data of Cramer's V test.The results of regression function for the influence of independent variables on knowledge of FFS members in promoting coffee management practice result from this analysis are presented in Table 14. Out of six variables considered in the model, only two variables namely; farmer's experience and interpersonal trust were found to be significantly contributing to the knowledge of FFS members in promoting coffee management practices (see appendix, 10). Farmer's experience: The relation between knowledge and farmer's experience was found to be positive and significant at 10% probability level. The out put of regression analysis is in agreement with the hypothesis made in the previous section. One unit increment in the farmer's experience would bring about 0.247 units increment in promoting coffee management practices in coffee FFS. The result revealed that, the farmer's experience and strong interest in coffee management practice is essential in order to improve his knowledge through FFS. Thus, the farmer's experience is one of the driving force to the improvement of knowledge through FFS in promoting coffee management practices to control coffee wilt disease.Interpersonal trust: As it can be seen from the analysis that interpersonal trust of the respondent increases by one unit, the level of knowledge of FFS members in promoting coffee management practices increases by 0.253 units. Therefore, the results of this study conform to the theoretical expectations concerning the effects of interpersonal trust in increasing the expected knowledge of FFS members. This means that other things being constant, interpersonal trust will lead to a greater readiness to take part in promoting coffee management practices. This is because an individual's level of trust in the FFS allows him or her to form expectations about the actions of others.People who are more trusting others in their daily life may experience getting more knowledge than others, because trust gives one the incentive to actually take part in improving knowledge.This study is in agreement with the findings of Derebe ( 2007) who reported that interpersonal trust has significant and positive influence on adoption of dairy packages and its practices. As far as attitude test is concerned, none of the independent variables used for correlation test was found to be significant in the pooled data.The relationship of the independent variables with the practice of FFS members was analyzed and the results are presented below in Table 15. The relationship of independent variables such as farmer's experience, creativity, information sharing, education, intercropping and access to credit with the practice of FFS members in promoting coffee management practice was analyzed using MLR. As it can be indicated in Table 15, only two independent variables such as creativity and intercropping of FFS members were found to be significant at 5% level of significance, respectively. The coefficient of determination (R 2 = 0.406) was also found to be low implying that only 40.6% of the practice variation was attributed or explained by one or more of the independent variables used in the multiple regression test ( see appendix 11). In general there was an indication of the influence of independent variables on the practice of FFS sample respondents as subjected in multiple linear regression test.Creativity: Creativity was one of the only two independent variables that positively and significantly affected practice of FFS respondents in coffee management practice at 5% level of significance. The result confirmed that when creativity of the respondents increased by one unit the practice of respondents increase by 0.256. As it was discussed earlier in the previous section, creativity is the capacity of the farmer using his indigenous knowledge in combination with modern or improved practices through FFS in promoting coffee management activities.Creativity can improve the level of understanding and experimentation of farmers in their coffee plots to improve productivity and preventing coffee wilt disease. Farmer Field Schools (FFS) could thus, lead to the enhancement of farmers creativity and empowerment. Moreover, the diversity of coffee management activities implies a widespread creativity of farmers in FFS. By being active participants, farmers gained facilitation skills that enabled them to teach other nongroup members. FFS participants also gained creativity, for example they were sterilize their bow sow (coffee stumping tool) with fire in order to prevent the dissemination of CWD during coffee stumping and pruning practices. They also used composting of cheap and available organic materials to produce organic fertilizer to overcome the high costs of chemical fertilizers.The coffee management exercises help to strengthen teamwork spirit and problem solving skills, promote creativity and awareness on the importance and role of collective action and the need for mutual support. In general creativity requires insight, and this may be achieved through FFS that leads the participant farmer's to an innovative solution in promoting coffee management practices.The result of the study is in agreement with that creative people show different patterns of attention from those found in uncreative people, and it has been theorized that the secret of creativity is individual differences in attention (Mendelsohn,1976).Intercropping: As it was known, intercropping in coffee provides insurance against crop failure in time of drought or disease and pest damage. The intercrops also enhance opportunities for marketing by ensuring a variety of produce for sale. Moreover, disease and pests may not spread rapidly in mixtures because of differential susceptibility to the pests and pathogens and because of enhanced abundance and efficiency of natural enemies. In this study being intercropped their coffee farm with other crops the farmers' knowledge of practice in coffee management increases by 0.236. The result showed that knowledge of intercropping practice of farmers' plays a vital role in the effectiveness of FFS in promoting coffee management practices.As far as constraints/ challenges of FFS implementation process was concerned, since coffee is a perennial crop, the duration of training given for facilitators was very short (3-4 days) as compared to other countries experience even for annual crops i.e., one year. There should be a season long training given to the facilitators in order to equipped all management practices of coffee and facilitation skill of FFS. Moreover, as it was observed during data collection period, that there was lack of graduation of participants in few FFSs due to limitations of budget and donor driven approach. This issue confirmed that sometimes donor preferences prevailed over the participants' needs. This finding is similar with Davis (2006), FFS should be implemented because they suit local conditions and needs, not because they are donor driven. In addition, there was no replication of FFSs observed so far, because of lack of sustainability and strong social structure that promote the approach. Moreover, there was lack of documentation of the results in the farmers level; but documentation is an important tool for spreading local knowledge and local process of innovation; even though, coffee FFS was a new concept in this country and the experiences presented here will encourage others to further develop these ideas.As it was discussed with research and agricultural development experts, about theFarmer Field Schools, like any other approaches, are tools and their effectiveness depends on both the context and the way in which they are implemented. They are, however, a very special tool. They cultivate a critical, holistic and creative way of thinking. The FFS approach can help farmers to get full insight of their production system and help themselves in controlling plant diseases like coffee wilt and depend less on external technical assistance in the long run. FFS assume that farmers already have a wealth of experience and knowledge unlike that of the conventional extension approach. Once the participant farmers discover the reality they integrate the new knowledge into their system and their agricultural practices accordingly. Therefore, both awareness and technical knowledge on how to manage and control CWD and other related coffee management activities were needed for farmers and other stakeholders in the coffee sector.In accordance with this perspective coffee FFSs were established and conducted between 2003 and 2007 in the major coffee growing areas of the country to combat CWD and raising awareness and knowledge of farmers through participating in the field school. At the end, the participant farmers were acquired knowledge and prevent the disease by indicating that they can benefit from this approach. In view of this, the question that may arise is that how is the effectiveness of FFS approach in promoting coffee management activities particularly with reference to coffee wilt disease in the major coffee growing parts of the country. Therefore, the main objectives of this study were, to examine the farmers' selection process, their profile and implementation process, and also to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of FFS members and non-members regarding coffee management practices. Moreover, to identify important factors influencing knowledge, attitude and practice on coffee management practices among FFS members. The knowledge, attitude and practice level of the sample FFS members and non-members were tested in the study. The result of the survey indicated that the knowledge, attitude and practice of NFFS members were found to be lower as compared to FFS members had acquired. It was clearly indicated in the result that most of the NFFS respondents knowledge, attitude and practice level of coffee management practice were categorized in the medium range in both study areas.As far as influencing factors of knowledge, attitude and practice among FFS members were concerned, the study result showed that farmer's experience and interpersonal trust in coffee management practices were the most important independent variables which had significant influence on the knowledge of FFS members.On the other hand, creativity and intercropping were the only two independent variables which had significant influence on the coffee practice of FFS members. In this study there is no as such significant independent variable observed in the pooled data, which had considerable effect on attitude of FFS members in promoting coffee management practices.This study has shown how participation in FFS can increase understanding of farmers about coffee wilt disease and helped them to improve their controlling practices of the disease. The school also played a vital role in creating interest among farmers for further information and knowledge. However, extensive effort and support should be required to improve facilitation skills of extension workers. Continuous training, coaching and experience sharing are needed to help them change their mind-set and skills from the conventional approach to a real FFS facilitator.Coffee FFS is more than a form of agricultural education and mobilization. It can be seen to represent the practice of new way of looking at equipping farmers' with knowledge about CWD management and helping them to make informed decision. Coffee FFS in this aspect, ensures organizational and institutional innovation to coffee farmers in Ethiopia. This is because group norms and regulations has been formulated by FFS members' themselves to conduct coffee marketing and other different activities in the localities. Hence, integration of FFS-methodology at the basis of formal organization such as local governments and creating social networks for interdisciplinary exchange of knowledge and experience for relevant actors working with coffee should be given priority for long term extension (information) and technology dissemination.On sustainability of FFS, researchers, the extension workers' and district FFS network members should facilitate for the emergence of local-self financing initiatives for coffee small-holders that would help to sustain the FFS beyond NGO funding. Moreover, establishment of group credit and revolving fund for participant farmers would help to sustain FFS in the long run.Institutionalizing and mainstreaming FFS into a regular extension system for the purpose of coffee production, processing and marketing. Besides, incorporate other crops and disciplines on which farmers are facing important problems in the locality should be given due attention by FFS executive government and non-government organizations such as; FFS in watershed management, agro-forestry development , water harvesting activities, health issues, etc.. Another approach to enhance sustainability of FFS based extension is to follow the principle of farmer-trainer. The farmer-trainer concept is to encourage FFS graduates to train other farmers and there by reduce dependence of FFS groups on external funding. Farmer-to-farmer field school training is viewed as a promising method to multiplying FFS coverage, with sustainability and effectiveness of the overall field school approach.Experience has shown that educating farmers will enable the knowledge in the area than training extension workers who eventually leave to work in other areas or look for other jobs elsewhere.Hence, educating and long season training should be given attention to those creative farmers in the locality, so as to make trained facilitators in FFSs other than extension workers.Private investors, exporters and NGOs who are involved in coffee cultivation, marketing and processing would benefit more from coffee as far as they support and make strong linkage to the existing FFSs. This is because facilitation of the coffee management activities including post harvest practice will be improved by educating farmers through FFS so as to achieve the desirable product of coffee production and quality.The FFS model is suitable for group learning process and experimentation in the field. The new modality also provides confidence to develop interpersonal trust among participant farmers.Hence, developing or manipulating interpersonal trust among FFS members ensures favorable conditions for the creation of institutional and organizational innovation in the end.   ","tokenCount":"22980"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fec4b586985f921f67f4615cb3cc2cb0","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8a65447a-2850-4151-8464-ee382fd791f4/retrieve","id":"360666525"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"02fb6b35-f5ff-4482-863f-e0da6765e57e","pagecount":"16","content":"Persistent food insecurity in the global south has triggered calls for sustainable development worldwide. Moreover, more than a quarter of the world's population suffers from micronutrient deficiencies or hidden hunger. The population bulge, declining soil fertility and inadequate/ inappropriate use of farm inputs in Sub-Saharan Africa place it in a precarious position. Multinutrient fertilizer blends have been mooted as a key innovation in closing yield gaps and boosting food and nutrition security. This study assessed the extent of multi-nutrient fertilizer blends utilization and yield response across agroecological zones and their on-farm profitability under Kenyan smallholder farmer conditions. We collected data through a detailed household survey conducted in eight counties in Kenya representative of high, medium, and low productivity zones using a sample of 1094 smallholder farmers. Multi-nutrient fertilizers increased maize yields significantly (P < 0.05), eliciting a 400% yield increase compared to the control and 108% greater maize yield than conventional fertilizers in the high potential zone. Conversely, at 3.7 t/ ha conventional fertilizers elicited a significant (P < 0.05) yield response in Irish potatoes in the high potential areas. Multi-nutrient fertilizers increased on-farm profitability of crops, specifically for potato production systems where a benefit: cost ratio (BCR) of more than 2 was observed. Farmers may break even when they use multi-nutrient fertilizers on maize particularly in the low potential areas. Therefore, there is considerable potential for multi-nutrient fertilizers to increase crop productivity while being economically viable across agroecological zones and cropping systems. However, the uptake of multi-nutrient fertilizers among farmers is quite low across the country, except for small pockets where limited interventions have been carried out. This calls for sustained efforts to scale multi-nutrient fertilizers with a focus on clear messaging that stresses the need to apply appropriate rates of various nutrients including the secondary nutrients and micronutrients.In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), low soil fertility, land degradation, and inadequate/in appropriate use of farm inputs has resulted in sub-optimal crop production [1,2]. In addition, the effects of increased temperature, erratic rainfall, frequent floods, and prolonged droughts due to climate variability and change has negatively impacted on agricultural productivity in the SSA region [3]. Consequently, crop production in the majority of SSA, including Kenya, is characterized by large yield gaps between attainable and actual farm yields [4][5][6][7][8]. Closing these yield gaps is key if food security is to be attained in SSA. Projections indicate that for Africa to feed herself by 2050, the yield level (for cereals) must increase to about 7 t ha − 1 or an average of 136 kg ha − 1 year − 1 [9]. Therefore, a key challenge for researchers and development practitioners in Africa is to design systems that can innovatively and sustainably raise farm-level crop productivity.Crop productivity enhancement interventions targeting the use of multi-nutrient fertilizer blends and other innovations aimed at improving access to favorable input and output markets can tackle the twin challenge of lack of food and hidden hunger [10]. The recent increases in fertilizer prices and other factors including biophysical variability have an important impact on the profitability and efficiency of fertilizer use [11,12], which influences farm level decisions on fertilizer investments. Interventions to increase crop productivity in smallholder farms of the SSA region should therefore recognize local variability in agro-ecological conditions and crop response to fertilizers [13].In this study, multi-nutrient fertilizer blends (henceforth multi-nutrient fertilizers) are defined as those that contain the macronutrients such as Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P) and Potassium(K) as well as secondary nutrients like Sulphur (S), Magnesium (Mg), and/or Calcium (Ca) and micronutrients such as Zinc (Zn), Copper (Cu), Selenium (Se), Manganese (Mg), Boron (B) and Molybdenum (Mo). The application of multi-nutrient fertilizers has the potential of improving crop yields by addressing multiple soil nutrient deficiencies [14,15]. Moreover, micronutrient applications to crops are linked to their improved concentration in the consumable crop products, and the subsequent improved health of consumers of such products [16,17]. Biofortification of crops such as sweet potatoes, cassava, maize, beans, and pearl millet with micronutrients has been used for managing health problems associated with micro-nutrient deficiencies e.g., stunted mental and physical growth, anemia, impaired immunity, and night blindness, particularly in children and women in resource-poor rural areas [18][19][20].However, for such interventions to be sustainable it is crucial to understand the economic and livelihood impacts of multi-nutrient fertilizers on smallholder farmer households [21][22][23]. While studies on the economic impacts of conventional (straight and compound)Some multi-nutrient fertilizers for cereals, legumes, and potatoes available in the open Kenyan market in the year 2020 [6,34]. fertilizers as well as hybrid seeds in SSA farming systems abound [24][25][26][27][28][29][30], there is scant information on on-farm economic impacts of crop-specific multi-nutrient fertilizers, particularly in the Kenyan context. In Kenya, fertilizer supply shocks were experienced in 2020 due to multiple factors including the COVID-19 related supply chain disruptions, high input prices (e.g., natural gas), reduced fertilizer production in Europe, and export restrictions from China [31]. This resulted in 50-60% (2020-2021) fertilizer price increases in Kenya, following global increases in fertilizer prices [32]. Maize production in Kenya (2020-2021) declined by an estimated 550,000 metric tons (MT) because of fertilizer price increases (resulting in lower application rates) and failing rainfall (the most severe drought in 40 years [31]). Therefore, there is need for an investigation of the economic benefits derived from use of multi-nutrient fertilizers at the farm level especially against a backdrop of recent shocks experienced in the fertilizer supply chain.A wide range of multi-nutrient fertilizers, which come in different brands depending on the company of manufacture, are currently available in the Kenyan market. Table 1 highlights the most common multi-nutrient fertilizer products available in the Kenyan market as of 2020. However, the extent of farmer awareness and use of these fertilizers in comparison to conventional fertilizers is not widely known. In addition, the available fertilizer used by small-scale farmers in Kenya is usually not the correct type needed for various crops and soils, and most farmers are not aware of their soil quality, correct application rates, timing for application, and placement in the soil-plant continuum [2,33].The main objective of this study is to furnish evidence about the use, crop yield responses and the profitability of using multinutrient fertilizers at specific rates (kg/ha) under smallholder farmer conditions in Kenya's low, mid, and high potential agroecological zones (AEZs). The distribution of counties along varying climatic gradient and cultures across the Kenyan landscape is key to covering varying input demand levels and performance. Key questions revolve around crop yield responses -for Kenyan smallholder farming systems and the profitability of blended multi-nutrient fertilizers on smallholder Kenyan farms.Data was collected through a detailed household survey conducted in eight counties between the months of December 2020 and February 2021. These counties located in the republic of Kenya include: Makueni, Kitui, Tharaka-Nithi, Siaya, Meru, Uasin Gishu, Kakamega and Bungoma. The eight counties are representative of the low, medium (or mid) and high potential agro-ecozones of Kenya (Fig. 1).The high potential zone includes the counties of Bungoma, Kakamega, Uasin Gishu, and Meru. These counties are generally characterized by high and reliable rainfall, and relatively fertile soils, and are subsequently considered as the breadbasket (or potential Fig. 1. Map of the study counties (Inset: The map of Africa with Kenya highlighted in green). Note: Shapefiles sourced from the database of country administrative areas (GADM). breadbasket) counties of Kenya. A brief characterization of each of these counties is presented below.Bungoma County in western Kenya is home to 1,670,570 people and has a population density of 552 persons per km 2 (https:// kenya.opendataforafrica.org). Agriculture is its economic backbone, with the county being the fourth largest producer of maize (Zea mays) and common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) in Kenya. Bungoma is characterized by relatively fertile soils and receives adequate and well distributed bi-modal rainfall, suitable for small scale agriculture. About 70% of its 183,000 ha is considered arable [35].Kakamega County, also in western Kenya, has a population of 1,867,579 and a population density of 618 persons per km 2 (https:// kenya.opendataforafrica.org). Agriculture in Kakamega county is mainly characterized by mixed farming of maize and legumes such as common beans, although cash crop farming is prevalent in the humid upper midland (Tea; Camellia sinensis) and sub-humid midland (Sugarcane; Saccharum officinarum) agroecological zones. The county has a bi-modal rainfall pattern and receives up to 2000 mm of rainfall per annum with area bordering the Kakamega forest, the last remnant of equatorial forest in Kenya, receiving the highest amounts [36].Uasin Gishu County is situated in the mid-west of Kenya's rift valley. It has a total population of 1,163,186 persons and a population density of 343 persons per km 2 (https://kenya.opendataforafrica.org). The county is a highland plateau with a generally undulating landscape. It has a total land area of 334,500 ha, 90% of which is arable and receives rainfall in the range of 900-1400 mm per annum [36]. Uasin Gishu is a top producer of the staple crop maize as well as wheat and milk. The county is usually referred to as the breadbasket of Kenya because it has relatively high and reliable rainfall, comparatively large farm holdings and highly mechanized farming [37].Meru County is situated on the eastern and northern slopes of Mt. Kenya (Kenya's highest mountain). It has a total population of 1,545,714 persons and a population density of 221 persons per km 2 (https://kenya.opendataforafrica.org). Meru is an agricultural county, which has favorable weather conditions for both cash crop and subsistence farming. Main food crops include maize, common beans, Irish potatoes (Solanum tuberosum), wheat (Tricum sp.), cabbages (Barassica oleracea var. capitata), tomatoes (Solanum lycopersium) and carrots (Daucus carota subsp. Sativus). The county receives a significant amount of rainfall up to 2800 mm per annum, which is bimodally distributed [38].The mid-potential zone was represented by Siaya County located in western Kenya. The county has a smaller population and population density than the previous two western Kenya counties (i.e., Kakamega and Bungoma), standing at 993,183 persons and 393 persons per km 2 . Siaya is an agricultural county with the main activities revolving around fishing, farming, and livestock production. The farming system here is pre-dominated by subsistence crop-livestock systems with maize as the dominant crop. The county receives an average of about 1800 mm of rainfall per annum that is bi-modally distributed. However, uneven rainfall patterns, droughts and degraded low to moderately fertile soils constrain agricultural productivity and food security in the county [39].The low potential zone was represented by Tharaka Nithi, Kitui, and Makueni counties. A brief characterization of each of these counties is presented below.Tharaka Nithi County neighbors Meru County but is much smaller in terms of population at 393,177 persons and has a population density of 153 persons per km 2 . It is also drier, with the semi-arid zone receiving only about 700 mm per annum of rainfall [40]. The upper zone has a higher productivity level of maize, beans, tea, and coffee, whereas in the lower zone green grams, millet, sorghum, and black beans can be grown productively.Kitui County is also in the low potential agricultural zone with the drier ecological zones receiving only 450 mm of rainfall per annum and the subhumid zone about 1000 mm [41]. It is a large county geographically (30,429 km 2 ), with a population of 1,136,187 persons. Thus, its population density of 37 persons per km 2 is much smaller than for the other counties.Makueni county is to the east of Kitui County and has a population of 987,653 and a low population density of 121 persons per km 2 . Makueni is relatively wetter, with the lower midland zone receiving as much as 1200 mm of rainfall per annum [42]. Smallholder mixed farming systems are prevalent in Makueni and Kitui and crops such as maize, beans, green grams (Vigna radiata), pigeon peas (Cajanus cajan), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) and millet (Panicum miliaceum) are commonly grown [43].We employed a multi-stage sampling strategy entailing several stages. First, we purposively selected eight out of the fourteen counties where soil fertility and plant nutrition management interventions were carried out by the African Plant Nutrition Institute (APNI). These interventions entailed establishment of on-farm fertilizer demonstrations and training of farmers, extension officers and other agricultural stakeholders on the use of multi-nutrient fertilizers. The counties selected were representative of the main AEZs across the country. Within the selected eight counties, we purposively selected sub-Counties and wards where soil fertility and plant nutrition management interventions had been implemented. Subsequently, we randomly selected respondents from 2 villages per ward using the skip interval method [44]. To arrive at a balanced sample, we sampled farmers from a village reached with interventions on multi-nutrient fertilizers and improved seeds and a non-participant one not reached with these interventions. Within each farm, data was collected on fertilizer use at plot level.The sample size for the study was 1094 respondents whereby 120 farmers were selected in Kakamega, 120 in Bungoma, 121 farmers in Uasin Gishu, and 151 farmers in Meru for the high potential zone, 121 in Siaya for the mid potential zone, and lastly 149 farmers in Tharaka Nithi, 161 farmers in Makueni and 151 in Kitui for the low potential agro-ecozone. Face to face interviews between respondents and trained enumerators were conducted using a structured questionnaire after consent was given by the respondents (Table 2). In total, there were 512 farmers sampled in the high potential zone, 121 farmers in the mid-potential zone and 461 farmers in the low potential agro-ecological zone. The questionnaire was deployed using the mobile phone-based application, SurveyCTO, for fast, efficient, and accurate data collection. The tool contained several sections to capture data on household socioeconomics and demographics, farm characteristics, crop production, livestock husbandry, social capital, and food and nutrition security. Therefore, the data was collected at plot, household, and farm levels. For instance, crop production data (inputs used and costs, yield) was disaggregated at plot level. This was done because of within-farm variability in soil fertility and crop management. At household level we collected typical demographic data including age, gender of household head, household size, household monthly income, years of schoolingand household assets. At the farm level, data on livestock production and utilization of livestock products was collected. Questions were directed to the respondents so as to measure key dimensions of food security such as food availability and access [45,46]. Therefore, the respondents were queried on whether they were able to get enough food, ate preferable foods, ate smaller portions, skipped meals, or had no food to eat at all. Also, the frequency on how often they experienced these incidences was captured. A reference period of 12 months was used for all economic activities.Inorganic fertilizer inputs for maize, bean, and potato crop enterprises (input quantity [kg] and land application areas [ha]) were recorded in all fields at plot level putting into consideration the fertilizer blend used for each crop and the field sizes for first and second fertilizer applications. The applications were consequently converted into N application rates (kg N ha − 1 ) using nutrient concentrations for each of the fertilizer inputs that were enumerated from farmers (Table 3). The calculation was implemented in an Excel worksheet with the fertilizer data using a VLOOKUP procedure that integrated the fertilizers and their N rates as a link table (Table 3). The nitrogen input contributions from first and second fertilizer applications were summed and divided by field application areas to derive the nitrogen application rate for each field during the cropping season. The VLOOKUP procedure was also used to create the fertilizer N rate factor (Nitrogen rate levels), which classified the total nitrogen applications into 3 categories (0-30 kg Nha − 1 , 30-60 kg Nha − 1 and >60 kg Nha − 1 ). Fertilizers were also classified into 3 categories of fertilizer types using the VLOOKUP procedure including the control, conventional and multi-nutrient fertilizers. The control referred to fields that farmers did not apply any fertilizer inputs. Multi-nutrient fertilizers include mineral fertilizers which contain two or more of the macronutrients N, P and K and small amounts of secondary nutrients (S, Mg or Ca) and micro-nutrients such as B or Zn. In addition, conventional fertilizers include mineral fertilizers with the primary macronutrients but without secondary nutrients and micro-nutrients (see Table 1, Table 3).On average, the field sizes for maize plots were 0.9 ha, potato plots 0.6 ha and beans plots 0.7 ha. Conventional fertilizers were used on 53% of maize fields, multi-nutrient fertilizers were used in 6% of maize fields, and 41% of maize fields were unfertilized (Table 4). Potatoes were more commonly fertilized with conventional (73%) and multi-nutrient fertilizers (18%). Bean crops were rarely fertilized (86% of bean fields), while conventional fertilizers were more commonly applied on beans (12%), compared to multinutrient fertilizers (2%). Maize fields recorded higher N application rates from multi-nutrient fertilizers in both the first and second applications across AEZs (Table 4).The R program (version 4.0.3) was used for statistical analysis, graphics, and generation of maps. The data was subjected to cleaning prior to analysis, during which the EnvStats R package was used to check for outliers using the rosnerTest procedure. To assess statistical differences in yield between fertilizer types and fertilizer application rates, the Levene's test for homogeneity of variance using R procedures was implemented using the leveneTest function (car package), with a threshold value of p = 0.05. Thus, variances were declared homogenous when the significance was p > 0.05 and subjected to the Tukey LSD test (agricolae R package, LSD. Test function). In addition, the Kruskall-Wallis post-hoc test was used when the assumptions of normality and homogeneity of variances were not met (p < 0.05), using the kruskal function, agricolae R package [] [47](Table 5). The Levene's test of homogeneity of variance showed that only maize (mid) and potato yield data (all high potential agro-ecological zone) met the assumptions of homogeneity and thus subjected to the Tukey LSD test, for fertilizer type and fertilizer rate comparisons. In addition, bean yields in the mid and high potential zone and potato yield met the homogeneity assumptions, thus subjected to the Tukey LSD test. The post hoc tests were significant for maize ANOVA (yield x fertilizer type) in the low and high potential zone (Kruskall-Wallis). For the fertilizer rate ANOVA model, maize (all zones, Kruskall-Wallis), and potato (Tukey LSD test) recorded significant results (Table 4). For fertilizer N, only the potato and bean (mid agro-ecological zone) data met the homogeneity assumptions.To assess profitability of fertilizer interventions, we computed the benefits to costs ratios (BCR) for three crops (Maize, Common beans, and Irish potatoes). Various cost items including inputs, labor, and other variable costs (e.g., cost of sacks) were used in the analysis. The ggplot 2 and ggpubr packages were used to plot 2-way means with standard errors. The R base procedures were used to fit and plot linear models between crop yield and fertilizer nitrogen rates. Regression models were also fitted for BCR and fertilizer nitrogen rates and faceted by agro-ecological zone and fertilizer category factors. A polynomial 2 regression model was fitted for potato BCR and nitrogen application rates, due to the non-linear nature of the data using R base regression procedures.Often, the adoption of fertilizers or improved seed is treated as a binomial process where it is either adopted or not adopted. If the binary outcome is adoption, it is denoted as 1 and if it is non-adoption, it is denoted as 0. The models available for analyzing binary  Values in parenthesis are number of fields (plots).choice problems are the linear probability model (LPM), and the probit and logit models. However, with the LPM (uses ordinary least squares as predictors) the assumption is that error terms are normally distributed, which is not feasible given the limited values of a dichotomous, dependent variable [48]. Other problems include the high propensity for the predicted values to lie outside interval 0 to 1 and large prediction errors. Probit and logit models, which use the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to give unbiased and efficient estimates of the probability of the dependent variable assuming a dichotomous value are more suited to such analysis [48,49].The two models have statistical similarities thus the decision to use probit or logit hinges on personal preferences and experiences [48].In our case, a probit model estimated adoption of multi-nutrient fertilizers using variables drawn from key field, farm, socioeconomic, demographic, and institutional indicators. These variables were checked for multi-collinearity using the variance inflection factor (VIF) test (<10). The Stata application (Stata 13) package was used for this analysis.The results of this study emanate from a cross-sectional survey as opposed to on-farm research (OFR) trials as detailed in Ref. [50], hence making it challenging to attribute causal effect of multi-nutrient fertilizer use to outcomes such as crop yields and profitability. However, the detailed coverage of the analysis and the rich socio-economic data provide a solid basis for an experiment-based study based on randomized complete block designs or other OFR trials.Only a very small share of fields cultivated by farmers across the counties can be considered moderate to highly fertile (Table 6). Overall, majority of farmers except for those in low potential areas, use fertilizers but only a small share applies multi-nutrient fertilizers on their fields. Bungoma and Kakamega Counties manifested the highest share of farmers using multi-nutrient fertilizers. This was not entirely surprising as extension activities aimed at driving higher usage of multi-nutrient fertilizers are heavily focused in these two counties. Moreover, the County Government of Kakamega has for the past few years implemented conducive policies for the uptake of these fertilizers. At 2.4%, the share for Uasin Gishu was lower than expected given that it is home to one such fertilizer blending company (Table 6). This result could be attributed to limited extension activities and less conducive policies compared to Kakamega.At the household level, household heads had a similar level of education across-board, and most were male-headed, although about a third of the households in Kakamega and Siaya were headed by females (Table 4). Only about 20-40% of the households could access credit, be members of associations (farming, labor, saving and loans etc.) or had received agricultural training in the last 12 months. As expected, the share of those households that were food secure was lowest in the low potential zones. Nevertheless, only slightly over a half of the households in the high potential zone were food secure. Uasin Gishu, which is characterized by large-scale farms and has the largest average parcel size in the high potential zone (Table 6), recorded exceptionally high shares of respondents that were food secure, quite the opposite of the situation in Kakamega. Coupled with the relatively precarious food security situation, only a few households reported receiving food nutrition information. Yield responses to multi-nutrient fertilizers were positive for the maize crop, particularly in high potential zones where it was significantly highest at P < 0.05 (Fig. 2[a -f]). This represented a 400% increase in maize yield compared to the control and 108% maize yield increase over conventional fertilizers. Maize yield responses were also positive for multi-nutrient and conventional fertilizers in the low AEZs but higher for the latter. There was a positive relationship between N rates and maize yield where higher rates of N application recorded significant maize yield responses (Fig. 2[a -f]). At 3.7 t/ha, Irish potatoes showed significant response (P < 0.05) to conventional fertilizers in the high potential AEZ. The responses to multi-nutrient fertilizers in this case may have been masked by the fact that farmers tend to replace conventional fertilizers with multi-nutrient fertilizers on a bag-to-bag basis, while it was evident that the latter had lower basal N content per bag. While all nutrients are important, the greatest proportion of crop yield is attributed to N and P [51]. Hence, the need to adjust application rates accordingly. These results were not conclusive enough to show fertilizer effects on bean yields as the response of this crop to fertilizer was not clear apart from the low agro-ecological zone. Hence, more data is needed to validate bean yield responses.The benefit-cost ratio analysis showed that farmers who used multi-nutrient fertilizers on maize may break even, but their enterprise cannot be considered profitable (Fig. 3[A -G]). Given the current low use of multi-nutrient fertilizers (Table 4), their profitability on maize may become clearer as more farmers begin to use them. Conversely, the analysis showed that for potato production, multi-nutrient fertilizer use at a rate of 0-30 kg N ha − 1 is profitable with a benefit: cost ratio (BCR) of above 2 (Fig. 3[A -G], Fig. 4[A -G]). A polynomial response in the profitability of potato cropping was observed with diminishing returns at higher levels of fertilizer N rates (>100 kgN ha − 1 ) (Fig. 5 [A -F]). Poor response of fertilizer use on profitability was observed with bean crops although the farmers in the mid agro-ecological zone could break even (Fig. 4[A -G]). Recent increases in global and local fertilizer prices may have affected fertilizer use and profitability, particularly for legume crops.Factors influencing adoption of multi-nutrient fertilizers are summarized in Table 7. Financial resource allocation to farm inputs was a major determinant to the use of multi-nutrient fertilizers as seen in the farmer's monthly expenditures. A higher spending ability increases the likelihood of farmer adoption of multi-nutrient fertilizers. The location of the household is important for the uptake of these fertilizers. Households located in the high potential agro-ecological zones were more likely to use multi-nutrient fertilizers compared to those in the low potential ones. Historically, counties in high potential zones have always been better endowed than others in terms of infrastructure implying increased access to better input/output prices, good roads, and communication facilities. Households that were food secure and had access to nutrition information were likely to use multi-nutrient fertilizers. This points to a correlation between farmer uptake of multi-nutrient fertilizers and food security and nutrition security, and its awareness. Maleheaded households with fewer adult members were also more likely to use these fertilizers than female-headed ones. Owning fewer livestock increases the likelihood of multi-nutrient fertilizer use. From the point of view of intensification this would make sense. Farmers with less access to farmyard manure due to few or no livestock may have opted to intensify by adopting multi-nutrient fertilizers. Institutional factors such as access to credit were also crucial in driving the uptake of multi-nutrient fertilizers.As SSA's population continues to expand rapidly, it is imperative that the continent devices ways of feeding its populace without depending on food aid, imports or depleting valuable foreign exchange reserves. In 2018, Kenya imported 0.57 million tonnes of maize (and maize products), 0.14 million tonnes of sorghum (and sorghum products), and 1.82 million tonnes of wheat (and wheat products; http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBS). Overall, the country spent about 2.3 billion US dollars on food imports, with cereals accounting for 41% of this amount [52].From the preceding analysis, multi-nutrient fertilizers have the potential to increase on-farm crop yields. While the use of multi- nutrient fertilizers on maize boosted productivity in the high potential areas, conventional fertilizers improved potato productivity in those zones. Given the predominant role of maize as the country's staple crop, the use of multi-nutrient fertilizers is a viable means through which food and nutritional security for all households could be achieved. Use of multi-nutrient fertilizers has the potential of alleviating \"hidden hunger\" caused by deficiency of some minerals such as zinc, iron, copper, and manganese in the foods consumed.Globally, the problem of micronutrient deficiencies or 'hidden hunger' is even more perverse than hunger. The prevalence of chronic Probit model estimates of factors influencing the uptake of multi-nutrient fertilizers in Kenya. malnutrition among young children in Kenya is estimated at 30% [53,54]. Diseases associated with malnutrition include stunted mental and physical growth, anaemia, and impaired immunity and night blindness [18][19][20]. Food crops in Africa do not contain adequate micronutrients (e.g., grain Zn) for adequate human nutrition [22] due to soil and geological deficiencies. Agronomic biofortification through micronutrient fertilizer application to food crops has the capacity to not only raise crop productivity but also to improve nutritional quality and reduce micronutrient deficiencies [16,19,22]. The recommended daily intake of zinc, a major limiting micronutrient in human diets, is 15 mg [55]. This implies that closing yield gaps with the appropriate fertilizers, in this case multi-nutrient fertilizers containing Zn, to a large extent reduces malnutrition. However, the likely contribution of agronomically applied micronutrients to human nutritional status requires much more information such as the micronutrient retention after storage, bioconversion, and bioavailability of ingested nutrients, processing, and cooking techniques among others [56]. Given the prevailing situation where only a small fraction of farmers in the study counties use multi-nutrient fertilizers (Table 4), there is still much to be done to raise awareness on the benefits of using such fertilizers if hidden hunger is to be addressed in Kenya and the SSA region. Even so, the formulations of multi-nutrient fertilizers should contain adequate macronutrients (e.g., N, P and K), which are often yield limiting, for optimum results [51]. Appropriate rates of application per unit area of various plant nutrients should therefore be well displayed on the packaging of multi-nutrient fertilizers to enhance application of appropriate fertilizer quantities.The economic viability of multi-nutrient fertilizers is important for their widespread use. Our analysis shows that multi-nutrient fertilizers increased on-farm profitability of crops. While farmers may break even when they use of multi-nutrient fertilizers on maize particularly in the low potential areas, their profitability is more apparent in potato production systems which are important income earners for farmers in high potential areas. Technologies generated from agronomic trials are considered economically viable when they have at least a 100% rate of return i.e., a 2 to 1 benefit: cost ratio [5]. A benefit: cost ratio of 2 is preferred when examining fertilizer profitability as this accounts for risk concerns among farmers and any unobserved costs attached to its use [57]. Benefit: cost ratio is a function of input costs, crop yields and their market prices. Hence, fluctuations in produce market prices and yields determine whether the BCR will meet the threshold of 2. This was corroborated by Ref. [1] in their study on profitability of high input-low input farming systems in the central highlands of Kenya. High BCRs (up to 2.2) were attained with a sharp rise in prices. Nevertheless, biophysical factors such as erratic rainfall and inherent soil infertility and others such as farmer preferences and attitudes, management skills and labor dynamics may preclude this even when prices are high [1,57].Given the low use of multi-nutrient fertilizers countrywide, their on-farm profitability will become clearer with increased intensification, improved uptake of appropriate recommendations and adoption of the 4 R framework for sustainable fertilizer application, i.e., using the right sources and rates of fertilizer that are applied at the right time and place [15]. Therefore, there is scope for these fertilizers to be also profitable in maize systems with higher uptake and upward price movements of the staple crop on the market. There has been a recent steep increase in maize output prices on the Kenyan market (https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/bd/datahub/farmers-reap-from-historic-maize-price-as-crisis-looms-4022366). This is certainly balanced out with the current spike in input prices [58,59], but if fertilizers are applied at reasonable rates (0-30 kg N/ha or 30-60 kg N/ha) it may still be possible to realize some profit. The relatively low share of households that can access credit points to a failure of institutions to play a supporting but crucial role in driving agricultural development in Kenya. Thus, socio-economic, and institutional considerations are important when assessing whether multi-nutrient fertilizers can be used at scale. The location of a household matters from a policy perspective given that policy incentives vary across counties. The county government of Kakamega, for instance, has been supplying subsidized multi-nutrient fertilizers to its farmers since 2017 (https://kakamega.go.ke/county-government-subsidises-farming/). This in effect has not only increased exposure to the fertilizers but also led to their widespread use in the county relative to other counties apart from Bungoma.Amidst the prevailing global food crisis and skyrocketing fertilizer input costs, this study furnishes a unique micro-perspective on the use, response, and profitability of multi-nutrient fertilizers in Kenyan smallholder farms. Our results show that multi-nutrient fertilizers increase crop yields and profitability on Kenyan smallholder farms relative to conventional fertilizers. However, yield response as well as the economic viability of multi-nutrient fertilizer use varies with agro-ecological zones and the crop under production. Multi-nutrient fertilizers are important for improving maize yields in the high potential zones hence considerably improving the country's prospects of becoming food-secure in terms of its major staple crop. Also, multi-nutrient fertilizers when used in potato production systems are profitable and at least smallholder farmers get to break even when they use these fertilizers on maize production systems. The results showed positive bean yield response to application of fertilizers at higher rates in the low potential agroecological zones. However, more research needs to be conducted in legume (common bean) cropping systems as results are not conclusive enough to show fertilizer effects on bean yields as well as the profitability of fertilizer application on this crop. Still, our results point to good bean response to fertilizer at higher rates in the low potential zone. Therefore, more research on bean response to fertilizer application and corresponding yields and BCR need to be directed to the low potential Tharaka Nithi, Makueni and Kitui counties.Currently, the uptake of multi-nutrient fertilizers is low across the country. Hence, there should be concerted efforts to roll out multi-nutrient fertilizers accompanied by extension messages about appropriate rates of application of various soil nutrients including the secondary nutrients (S, Mg, Ca) and micro-nutrients (Zn, B, Mg, Se). Our analysis shows there is considerable potential for multinutrient fertilizers to increase crop productivity while being economically viable across AEZs and cropping systems. Going forward, similar assessments undergirded by farmer-centric experimentation need to be encouraged for in-depth understanding of the underlying factors behind adoption of multi-nutrient and conventional fertilizers and their contributions towards food and nutrition security in Kenya.","tokenCount":"5655"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6041d832d759a25ac4908b0faabacbfa","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/60b68596-142a-474a-b609-4072ae426127/content","id":"193590147"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"54cf3b9f-4bf3-47e7-9e87-4c927164ad00","pagecount":"3","content":"International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), Ankara, Turkey In June 2017, 76 elds were surveyed in the main bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) growing regions of Azerbaijan to identify the fungi causing crown and root rot. Diseased plants were collected at just prior to maturity, at maturity, and/or after harvest. About 20 to 30 tillers of wheat were randomly sampled from each eld (about 5 ha), put in paper bags, and transported to the laboratory. The crown, root, and stem base tissues of each plant were rinsed with tap water to remove soil particles and examined for lesions. Sections (3 cm) of symptomatic tissues were surface disinfested with 1% NaOCl for 1 min, rinsed with sterile distilled water, and air dried on sterilized lter paper in a laminar ow. Dried sections were cut into 1-cm lengths and placed on 1/5  and MK590116). Isolates were white to purplish with aerial mycelial growth on PDA. Microconidia (n = 50) were hyaline, oval to kidney shaped, usually aseptate and rarely with one transverse septum, and measured 2.1 to 3.9 × 4.7 to 10.6 µm, and macroconidia (n = 50) were abundant, hyaline, fusiform, with a foot-shaped basal cell, with two to four septa (generally three), and measured 2.9 to 4.8 × 24.2 to 46.2 µm. To test for pathogenicity of F. hostae on wheat, ve pregerminated seeds of cultivar Seri 82 were placed onto a sterile mixture substrate of peat, vermiculite, and soil(1:1:1, v/v/v) in 9-cm-diameter plastic pots (17 cm long). The inoculation was performed by placing the actively growing mycelial plugs (1-cm diameter) removed from cultures of the reference isolates and covering with the mixture substrate. Sterile agar plugs were used for controls. Inoculated pots were placed in a growth chamber with a 12-h photoperiod at 24°C.The pathogenicity test was repeated two times for each isolate. Six weeks postinoculation, crown browning and necrosis occurred in the inoculated plants, whereas no symptoms were observed in the control plants. The pathogen was reisolated from the crowns of diseased plants and identi ed by the method described above to ful ll Koch's postulates. To our knowledge, this is the rst report of F. hostae causing crown rot on wheat in Azerbaijan.Although F. hostae may still be considered a minor pathogen in Azerbaijan, it is important to include it in the Fusarium species complex that causes crown rot in wheat. This pathogen was isolated from all regions surveyed in Turkey (Shikur Gebremariam et al. 2016), whichindicates that it has the potential to spread to noncontaminated wheat cultivation areas.Further studies are needed to better understand the role of the pathogen in the diseasecausing complex.The author(s) declare no con ict of interest.","tokenCount":"451"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"77c0fb62eac84035240dbec755f77c98","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/9d3263c0-ce18-446f-87dd-cf3b1628ed9c/content","id":"-880607165"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"308a6f0c-4169-48eb-b2c3-0b3f28b72be5","pagecount":"82","content":"By sharing research information in this Wheat Special Report on wheat production and grower practices in Mexico's Yaqui Valley, we hope to contribute to the advancement of wheat production in Mexico and elsewhere and to the importance of shared knowledge. However, the information in this report is shared with the understanding that it is not published in the sense of a refereed journal. Therefore, this report should not be cited in other publications without the specific consent of the authors.This Wheat Special Report provides results of an attempt to understand the factors that limit the yield of irrigated wheat at the farmer level through the use of a diagnostic field survey. Collaborative partners in this survey were CIMMYT's Wheat Crop Management and Physiology Subprogram and Economics Program and Mexico's Northwestern Agricultural Research Center (CIANO).The Yaqui Valley in northwestern Mexico is representative of developing world irrigated areas with very low rainfall--what we call Mega-environment 1. Other major representative areas include the Indus Valley in Pakistan, the Gangetic Valley in India, and the Nile Valley in Egypt. Some 32 million hectares of wheat (producing 42.7% of the total) are grown in this environment in the developing world. The wheat growing periods in these areas are associated with temperate climates, however, sudden rises in temperature after flowering are common occurrences. Salinity problems may occur where drainage is poor.The objective of the diagnostic field survey was to identify production constraints in the valley that might be common to many growers. Several agronomic variables (e.g., phosphorus levels in the plants and the soil) were found to correlate with grain yield and showed considerable differences between the high and low yielding farms. This survey provided a benchmark for future monitoring work in the Yaqui Valley and indications of what areas should be given priority research initiatives (e.g., nitrogen use efficiency) in such high yielding environments.Literature reflects the growing use of on-farm diagnostic techniques to quantify yield-limiting factors in growers' fields throughout the world. The basic framework of on-farm diagnostic research has been described by Hilderbrand (1981). He postulates this research as multi-disciplinary. Wiese (1982) identified the functionality of such surveys for providing appropriate information to be used for crop management research. Others have ensued the concept of recommendation domains to categorize growers into logical associations. The purpose of these logical associations is to make specific socio-economic or agronomic recommendations (Harrington and Tripp, 1984;Tripp, 1986;Tripp and Woolley, 1989). Economists and agronomists at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) have a creditable history of attempting to quantify yield limiting factors in growers' fields throughout the developing world, endeavoring to formulate reproducible methodologies with the purpose of solving growers' problems. More recent publications show the integration of economic and agronomic disciplines to collect more complete information from growers for research decisions or recommendations (Byerlee, et al., 1989;Byerlee, et al., 1990).The Yaqui Valley in Sonora, Mexico is agro-climatically representative of a major ecological zone (a mega-environment) of irrigated wheat. This megaenvironment (MEl) represents 43 % of the wheat grown in the developing world. The Economics section of CIMMYT began studying farmers' wheat production practices and backgrounds in the Yaqui Valley as part of CIMMYT's on-going research and training activities. Through this study of the valley, techniques for onfarm diagnostic research have been developed and published (see Appendix III for these and other references concerning on-farm research). Before the 1990/91 wheat cycle, the CIMMYT Economics section had been conducting on-farm surveys but incorporating little agronomic data in their previously published work. Thus, this year's study was to augment the existing data collected previously in the valley with agronomic data.The Yaqui Valley is situated between 26°45' and 27° 33' longitude north and 109° 30' and 110° 37' latitude west. It is between two rivers, the Rio Yaqui to the north and Rio Mayo to the south, both which have contributed alluvium to the now arid soils of the region. Located on the west coast of Mexico, the valley is 40 m above sea level. There are about 225,000 hectares of land under an irrigation scheme for agricultural use. The irrigation water is delivered in canals from a series of reservoirs for use by growers as flood or furrow irrigation.Yields of the major winter cycle crops within the valley demonstrate CIMMYT's and the Mexican government's efforts toward the improvement of wheat (Fig. 1). Wheat yield gains were restricted before the 1970's due to diseases, mostly Tons/hectare 6 . ----------------------------, rusts. Expansion in yields during the 70's reflect the increasing disease resistance and yield potential coupled with the use of greater agricultural inputs, typical of the \"green revolution\" era. Wheat yield trends in the 80's reflect the post-green revolution with a decline in the rate of yield increase. Maize, cotton, and safflower represent other major crops grown during the winter-spring cycle (Nov. through May) in the valley that may compete with wheat production. Comparing the slopes of the trends in yield, one can see that the \"green revolution\" effects have not embraced crops other than wheat and maize in the valley.Wheat yields have progressed in the valley at a remarkable rate, but the rate of increase in the past 10 years has been small. However, what is perplexing to researchers is the potentially higher yields reachable in the valley as seen from yields on research stations• compared to the lower yields among growers. Over the years, there has been a consistent 3 t ha-1 or more yield difference. Thus, the objectives of this study were:1) To supplement existing on-farm diagnostic surveys completed in 1981, 1982, 1987, and 1989 by CIMMYT economists with more in-depth agronomic diagnoses of possible yield-limiting factors.2) To determine yield-limiting factors from the information gathered throughout the 1990/91 season and, using regression and other statistical analyses, determine their contribution toward limiting yields.3) To determine input use efficiencies for various inputs by the growers within the valley. 4) Based on the results, to conduct with CIANO (Centro de Investigacion Agricola Del Noreste, a research station supported by a cooperative among valley growers and the Mexican government) future on-farm research in the Valley for applications to other wheat producing areas under irrigation (MEl) in the developing world. 5) To develop the methodology of surveys, data collection and data analysis for publication to use as a model for others doing similar onfarm diagnostic research, especially within other irrigated wheat areas in the developing world (MEl).Since economic data had been collected on five occasions from a randomly selected pool of growers in the Yaqui Valley over the past 10 years, 40 growers were randomly sub-sampled from those farms having clay soils and 12 farms from those having alluvial soils with grower-defined salt problems. Previous investigations within the valley had shown that there were 9.6 % of area having salinity problems. In all, 52 sites were chosen to record various agronomic and economic data as defined below. While every attempt was made to select growers from the 1989 study by CIMMYT Economics section, some growers had chosen to grow maize during the 1990/91 season. In these cases, growers surveyed in previous years by CIMMYT Economics Section were selected. One field chosen was later discovered to have half in one variety (Bacanora) and the other half planted to another (Oasis). Thus, this plot was treated as two separate plots, making the total of 53 plots selected in the 1991 study.-Questionnaires for Grower Information Before wheat planting, we had an informal discussion with the growers to secure their permission for the study and to obtain information on land preparation, planting and seeding methods, and other information. Growers were contacted in February and in May to complete the prepared survey questionnaires. We used questionnaires developed over the years by CIMMYT economists, gathering socio-economic and production data from the growers (see Appendix V). Supplemental questionnaires were developed to provide production data and grower-perceptions of their production problems (see Appendix VI).-Plot Size and Location Determination Since it is difficult to make agronomic observations on 52 entire fields, a 20 X 20 m parcel of land within each field was delineated approximately 50 m from a comer of the field and 50 m interior from that point. Wooden and wire stakes with plastic flags designated the plot in each field. Maps were drawn of the precise location of each field and retained for future reference.-Plant Density Determination When the crop was at Zadok-13 stage, number of plants within a defined area was determined (see harvest methodology for how each area was determined for different fields). Three samples were taken within one plot and averaged.In November/December of 1990, soil samples were taken from the 20 X 20 meter plot consisting of 3-5 sub-samples from sites randomly chosen within at 0 to IS, 15 to 30, and 30 to 60, em depths using a 2.5-em diam. soil probe. Each sample from each depth was placed in a labelled paper bag and mixed. A sub-sample was extracted for nematode determinations and placed into a plastic bag within a refrigerator. The rest of the sample was air dried and packaged for transport to El Batao for analysis. Samples were given to the CIMMYT lab for analysis in mid-May.Separate soil samples were taken in the same locations in late December/early January using a shovel and digging pits in three random places within the plots at 0 to 20, 20 to 40, and 40 to 60 em depths. Soil texture, organic matter, and levels of macro-and micro-nutrients were determined among other soil physical characteristics. Thirteen sites were re-sampled in May 1991 due to samples being lost. These samples were analyzed at the CIANO laboratory in Obregon.-Plant Nitrogen Analysis At the first node stage (Zadok 31),40 plants were randomly selected within the plots and the first 5 em of the internode was extracted, dried in an oven at 70°C for 2 days, and nitrogen determined in the ground sample using the Kjeldahl method.-Other Plant Nutrient Analyses Forty flag leaves were randomly excised from random wheat plants in the plots at anthesis, dried and ground for nutrient status using the procedures of the CIMMYT Soil and Plant Laboratory.In each of the categories of data collected below, the date of collection and the Zadok's score were recorded to give references to both calendar time and plant phenology.-Disease A rating of 1 to 4 was given to the plot periodically for wheat disease. If the disease was identifiable, then the name was given. The scale was: 1 = no disease to 4 = significantly affecting yields.-Insects A rating of 1 to 4 was given to the plot periodically for insect infestation. If the insect was seen or damage recognizable, then the insect name was given. The scale was: 1 = no insects to 4 = significantly affecting yields.-Weeds A rating of 1 to 4 was given to the plot periodically for weeds. The scale was: 1 = no weeds to 4 = significantly affecting yields. Notes were taken on the proportion of the weeds identified. Weeds counts were made at Zl3 stage when stand counts were made on wheat. Weed biomass was taken at harvest within the crop cuts to help determine effect of weeds to yields. There were only 20 fields out of the 52 which had significant weeds to determine weed biomass.-Agronomic Score A rating of 1 to 9 was given to the plot periodically on the status of the wheat crop. This rating considered weeds, disease, insects, ground cover, nitrogen status, and tried to rate the overall health of the plant. The scale was: 1 = factors significantly limiting yields to 9 = no visually detectable signs of factors limiting yields.-Ground Cover A subjective rating of 0 to lOO percent was given to the plot periodically to assess the ground cover of the wheat canopy to ground surface taken at a 45° angle. The percentage represents that portion of area which is intercepted by plant material.-Ground Cover Score A subjective rating of good (1), average (2), and poor (3) was given to the plots in mid-March to assess the ground cover of the wheat at that particular stage.-Plant Biomass At Z-l3, 40 plants were randomly extracted from the plot. At Zadok stage 31,71, and harvest, above ground portion of plants were cut from areas and weighed for fresh and dry weight. The harvest area was different depending on the planting method, e.g.,in beds or in basins, broadcast or rows (see harvest for exact determination of harvest areas). The unit was kg ha-' .After an irrigation, when the field was near or at field capacity (estimated when the clay would not slip when walked upon), a ring penetrometer was used to determine the possible compaction of the soil. When wheat was planted in beds, the area on top of the bed was randomly chosen throughout the plot for sampling. Within basins, areas were chosen completely at random. Four readings were randomly taken and averaged throughout each plot at four depths, 0 to 15, 15 to 30,30 to 45, and 45 to 60cm.-Soil Samples for Nematode Analysis Soil samples taken in November/December were given to the CIMMYT nematologist for nematode counts. Extraction techniques included washing the soil sample through various sieves until the nematodes and organic material of similar size remained on top of the sieve. Nematodes remaining on a sieve were washed and centrifuged. The supernatant was discarded. Sucrose solution was then added and the pellet resulting from centrifuging was discarded. Nematodes remaining in the sucrose solution were poured into wells on slides marked with cross-hatch for counting (Cobb, 1918;Jenkins, 1964). Counts were made using a dissecting microscope.-Sampling of Wheat Roots for Nematode Analysis Five to six plants were randomly excavated with soil including roots to a depth of 15 cm from the 52 plots and placed into plastic bags in a refrigerator for nematode determinations later.The 20 X 20 meter plot was divided into two with one person taking crop cuts by zig-zagging within hislher division and the other person doing the same within the other division. If the fields were planted in beds with 2 to 3 rows on top, aim length quadrant was used and the wheat within the 1 m length on the beds was harvested. Thus, the area was then determined by the bed width (center of furrow to center of next furrow) times the 1 meter length. A total of 5 areas were harvested within each of the two divisions and compiled into a bundle. This was to reduce possible variability within the plot. At the same time a loo-culm sample with spikes was taken randomly, selected from each bundle and placed into a bag for fresh and dry weight analysis.Using a different harvest method than explained above, 12 fields were selected, four with average Agronomic scores of 3, 5, and 8, respectively. Divisions within these fields were the same, but one person would cut 2 adjacent samples and compile them into a bundle, taking out a loo-culm sample from each compilation. Thus, 5 bundles of each of two divisions represented each field. The purpose of varying the harvest methodology was to investigate the possible variability within the plots for which the above mentioned method would have corrected.If the fields were planted within beds with rows equidistant apart throughout the field (corrugation method of planting), then aim length quadrant was used. Plants were harvested from four rows within the I m length, including one furrow row but excluding the other furrow row. Harvest area was determined by the width of row times the I meter length of the quadrant times the number of cuts complied into a bundle.If the plots were planted in a basin, then a 25 X 25 em quadrant was placed randomly around the field and cuts made within the quadrant. Ten cuts were incorporated into one bundle from each division making a total of 20 cuts into two bundles for each plot.Harvest and yield determinations were accomplished as per CIMMYT Agronomy handout on harvest and grain yield determinations (Appendix IV).-Economic Analysis Actual prices per rates of fertilizer and pesticides were used in determining the costs reported in Table 4. Other costs such as machinery use and rental, spray application, harvest, and transport were estimated (see Appendix IX for details).Out of the over 400 data recorded as information, variables were delimited which could influence wheat yields. These variables were categorized in logical groupings such as timing (e.g. dates of seeding, irrigation, plant stages), planting (e.g. seed rates, land preparation, etc.), pests, soil physical properties, soil macro-and micronutrients, and yield component variables. Simple statistics such as means, standard deviations, standard errors, frequencies, and correlations with yield were obtained. Statistical approaches reported in the literature with on-farm diagnostic research are diverse. We chose to use linear regression as a descriptive model of variables describing yield. Using PROC STEPWISE, backward elimination, of SAS Version 6.01 ,analysis was performed on each of the above-mentioned groups. PROC STEPWISE forms a linear model based on the contribution of a variable to the model where the average grain yield was the dependent variable. This procedure does not account for collinearity or autocorrelation. PROC REG provides a variance inflation factor (VIF) which is an indicator of collinearity. Any variable in the model which had a VIF > 10 was eliminated, thus providing a more reliable model (Draper and Smith, 1981). The final statistical test was to plot the residuals of the model to determine any collinearity among the residuals. Another approach used to form an overall model was to take only the variables which were highly correlated with grain yield and use those in the statistical procedures described above.The winter climate in Obregon is ideal for wheat growth, development, and yields, thus explaining the high yield potential of 8-9 tons ha-\\ compared to average wheat yields in the rest ~f the world. The macroenvironment is classified as an irrigated wheat area (MEl) having a rather dry climate, high solar radiation, cool nights, and moderate day-time temperatures during the growing season (Fig. 2).Radiation 000 w-hr/m2/d . -----------------------~---,  The weather in 1990/91 was similar to previous years with the exception of overall rainfall and mean temperatures for February (Fig. 3). A heavy rain occurred in late December, hindering many growers in planting, causing them to plant later in the season than usual. February was warmer than normal. The soils in the Yaqui Valley are classified as coarse, sandy-clay, mixed with montmorillonitic clay (a high shrink-swell clay) (typic caliciorthid under the U.S. 7th soil classification scheme). CIANO has a working classification system that provides growers with sufficient information. The two major soil types according to CIANO are clay and alluvial in a 3:2 ratio in the valley, respectively. These are further divided based on their depth, type of clays, and saline content. Soil type affects hydraulic conductivity, phosphorus fixing capability, and potential for compaction among many other factors. Of the soils in the 1990/91 sample, all were below the level in organic matter considered adequate, 2 % (Uvalle, personal communication). The average percent organic matter in the valley was 0.76 % ranging from 0.31 to 1.26% in the top 20 cm.The soils in the Yaqui Valley are mildly alkaline. The average pH for the 1991 sample of fields at soil depths 0 to 20,20 to 40, and 40 to 60 cm was 7.7,7.8, and 7.9, respectively. However, the ranges of pH for the same depths respectively were 7.1 to 8.1,7.4 to 8.8, and 7.4 to 8.6. At a higher pH, the potential for micronutrient unavailability and phosphorus fixation exists.Soil analysis results of the 1990/91 samples indicated that only one field had higher electrical conductivity than 5.0 mmho cm-I in the top 20 cm. Soils with electrical conductivity values higher than 5.0 mmho cm-I begin limiting crop growth and development (Martin, et al., 1976;Russell, 1973). The average electrical conductivity in the top 20 cm of our samples was 1.8 mmho cm-I . However, seven percent of the soils sampled had levels higher than 5.0 mmho cm-I in the lower 40 to 60 cm depths, however. When growers were asked about salt problems in their fields, twenty-two percent of the growers responded that they had salt problems. Yet, there was no correlation in grower-perceived salt problems and laboratorydetermined salt levels in the soils. Thus, salinity appears not to be as limiting to yield as growers may perceive by the 1990/91 sample.Levels of phosphorus (P 2 0 S ) in these soils (Olsen extraction method) ranged from 5.1 to 81. 9 kg ha-I in the top 20 cm. The levels of phosphorus considered 'medium' for these soils (personal communication, X. Uvalle) is approximately 34 kg ha-1 (although the medium level amount will vary depending on the soil type). Thus, 51 % of these soils at the 0 to 20 cm depth were considered below medium levels of phosphorus. Twenty-two percent of the fields in the 0 to 20 cm depth were below 17 kg ha-1 level, considered extremely low.Potassium application is not recommended in the valley due to naturally high levels within the parent material from which these soils originated. Soil test results for the valley validate this recommendation because within the top 40 cm, potassium levels were medium to high for all soils. However, there were 3 fields that had low levels of potassium in the 40 to 60 cm depth. Micronutrient levels in these soils were found to be adequate at most depths, but one must regard their availability as pH-dependent with possible interactions with macronutrient levels (e.g. phosphorus and zinc).Seventy-five percent of the soils had nitrogen levels which were considered low for soils in the valley, i.e. below 150 kg ha-I (Uvalle, personal communication). Considering that 79 % of the total N for wheat in the 1990/91 cycle was pre-plant and that the soil was sampled after planting, these results are perplexing. One would have expected those growers who had applied most or all of the nitrogen at planting to have had high levels of soil nitrogen.While the use of irrigation water from the reservoir represents 88 % of our sample, water from shallow tubewells was used for the remaining fields. During most years, the reservoir is replenished during the summer months, and there is sufficient water for irrigation. However, 68 % of the growers in the 1990/91 sample were not able to plant a crop in the cycle previous to wheat due to lack of water from the reservoir. Thus, 1990/91 wheat cycle was atypical compared to other years due to the large percentage of growers leaving their fields fallow during the summer.The electrical conductivity of the irrigation water from the reservoir averaged over seven years from 1983 to 1990 ranged from 0.6 to 0.7 mmho cm-1 (Baldenegro, 1990). According to Ayers and Westcot (1985), this level has no effect on its use for irrigation, thus, representing high quality water for irrigation.Tubewell water quality was not tested. However, we observed the appearance of salt deposits on the soil surface and the appearance of salt damage on the plants in fields where tubewell water was used. Since there was no correlation between the use of tubewell water and soil electrical conductivity levels, this may require further investigation in the future.Thousand hectares There are two basic crop cycles within the Yaqui Valley, depicted as winter and summer crops (Fig. 4). Maize, although listed as a summer crop, matures in January, thus, competing with wheat within the winter cycle. Similarly, cotton is planted in February and also competes with wheat during the winter cycle. As stated before, when the reservoir has insufficient water for irrigation, it is usually the cultivation of summer crops which is limited as was the case in the 1990 summer cycle. Soybeans are the major summer crop grown in rotation with wheat in the valley.There is a somewhat narrow time span for the planting of summer crops and a Flax ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~a ff!ow8r : . . . .~~~~T--1~Tf-~-ET-I3--H---t:I.J much wider span of time for planting of the winter crops (Fig. 5). One can also see that the wheat-soybean succession fits well within the valley.Wheat represents the largest production area of any crop within the valley (Fig. 6). Although the wheat production area has varied over the years, the maximum area has remained the same since 1955, currently around 140,000 hectares. Current estimates for 1991/92 depict wheat area decreasing and areas devoted to maize increasing. Results from the 1991 survey indicated that 25% of the wheat growers will not sow wheat in 1991/92, providing evidence that wheat cultivation area may continue to decline.Use of farm machinery was more expensive in 1991 compared to previous years, yet the average number of times farm machinery was used for land preparation, 7, remained constant over the past 10 years. However, the types of operations for land preparation have changed from previous years. In 1981In , 1987In , and 1989, the percentage of growers performing subsoiling or deep plowing were 69, 64, and 77%, respectively. In 1991 only 26% performed subsoiling or deep plowing for wheat even though such practices are recommended by CIANO. Anticipating that growers might have used subsoiling or deep plowing for crops in other cycles, growers were questioned about the use of subsoiling or deep plowing within the past four cycles. Growers who practiced subsoiling or deep plowing in 1991 were correlated to growers who performed it in previous cycles (R= 0.68; ex = 0.00(1) indicating that generally those who did not subsoil in 1991 tended not to subsoil previously.In 1990/91, 76 % of the growers used machinery for leveling their fields. Seventy-two percent of the growers plowed their fields using a disk plow. Use of the disk harrow remained heavy with over 70% growers passing their fields with a disk 3 to 5 times.Planting methods have changed over the last decade within the Valley (Table 1). The planting of wheat on beds has doubled in the last two years. Adaptation of this planting method provides a means for mechanical cultivation and tractorspraying of pesticides. Many growers commented that it is also easier to provide irrigation water more uniformly using beds than with flood basins. There is also a potential reduction in seeding rate planting in rows on top of beds compared to other methods (Table 2).Table 1. Proportion of surveyed growers using various planting methods by year (previous years' data from Traxler, 1990) Planting DateThe optimum planting date for most recommended vanetles within the valley is between November 15 and December 15. Seventy-six percent of the growers planted within this period the 1990/91 cycle. However, rains during mid-to late December kept farm machinery out of the fields and caused many growers to plant as late as January 17. Unlike previous years which showed a decline in yields when planted after December 15, results from 1990/91 showed no correlation between planting date and grain yield (Fig. 7). Day temperatures in February were warmer in 1990/91, providing the late-planted wheat better early growth.Dec 15 Jan 15Figure 7. Yields plotted against their corresponding date of planting. The X-axis is disproportional to show data points more clearly (NS=nonsignificant).Seeding rates have changed since 1989, reflecting the increasing number of growers using beds for planting (Table 2). The recommended seeding rate for use of beds is lower than that for border strips/contours. In 1981, 60 % of the growers planted in dry soil and irrigated after planting. Over the years, the use of dry planting has declined with only 17, 18, and 4% of the growers practicing dry planting in 1987, 1989, and 1991, respectively. Thus, pre-irrigation for planting wheat is the currently preferred method by growers.Since much of CIMMYT's wheat breeding has been conducted in the Yaqui Valley over the past 25 years in collaboration with CIANO, the Yaqui Valley growers enjoy a wide selection of varieties with introductions of new varieties being readily adapted. For example, Bacanora was a new variety introduced in 1988, but by 1991, represented 45% of our sampled area growers (Table 3). In 1987 and 1989, the total area planted to durum vanetIes was between 44 and 46%, depending on which survey was used. Data from CIMMYT agronomists indicate that durum wheat consistently out-yield bread wheat in the valley. However, in the past, the price of durum wheat has been lower than bread wheat. In 1991 there were no areas within our sample planted to durum wheats, while the price of durum wheat in 1990/91 was slightly higher than the bread wheats.The number of irrigations for wheat depends on weather conditions; however, that number has not changed much over the past 10 years. The average of 5.2 irrigations during 1990/91 was consistent with previous years. Yet, if we consider the currently accepted use of pre-irrigation compared to 1981, then the actual number of irrigations has dropped by one. Furrow irrigation represented the major irrigation method used this cycle (85 %), reflecting the higher usage of beds and corrugations. The average length of field for furrow irrigation was 417 m, but ranged from 175 to 790 m.Since soils within the Yaqui Valley vary in sand and silt content, the hydraulic conductivity of disturbed soil samples in the top 20 cm of soil also varied from less than 1 to 13 cm hOt, averaging 3.4 cm h-I. This range corresponds from \"slow\"to \"rapid\" water movement illustrating the variability of the soils within the valley.Forty-one percent of the growers did not apply phosphorus this cycle. The percentage of growers applying phosphorus for wheat ranged from 22 to 75 % in the previous 3 surveys conducted in the 1980's. Application of phosphorus averaged 26 kg P20S ha-I in 1990/91 for wheat (including those who applied none) but ranged from 0 to 94 kg P 2 0 S ha•! .. There were two major forms of phosphorus, triple super phosphate (46% P 2 0 S ) used by 53% of the growers and a liquid form having various percentages of P 2 0 S ' used by 6% of the growers. However, phosphorus application in previous years was highly correlated with this cycle's phosphorus application (R = 0.73, a = 0.0001, n=50) indicating that growers who applied phosphorus tended to apply it consistently while those who did not, also did not apply it consistently. Even though some soils were shown to be significantly deficient, phosphorus application both in the past and in this cycle as well as soil phosphorus levels were not highly correlated with yield as one might have expected.In contrast to the generally low soil nitrogen levels, nitrogen application for wheat in the valley averaged from 172 kg ha• 1 in 1981 to 231 kg ha-I in 1991. Since the price of nitrogen fertilizer is subsidized in Mexico, nitrogen fertilizer use remains high. The recommended rates by CIANO, while dependent on soil type, averaged 137 kg N ha-I for the soils within the 1991 sample. Traxler (1990) determined that the rate of 237 kg N ha-! was the rate for optimum economic response to nitrogen in the valley. However, the range of nitrogen rates used in 1991 was from 92 to 368 kg N ha'l, indicating that application of nitrogen fertilizer may not reflect the most efficient use of nitrogen. In order to obtain a rough estimate of nitrogen-use efficiency in the valley, if we assume the average amount of biomass produced for wheat in 1990/91 (5,523 kg ha-1 in straw and 4,338'kg ha-I in grain) to contain 0.5% nitrogen for straw and 2.1 % for grain (a level found consistently on the research station in the valley from data of Ivan Ortiz-Monasterio, personal communication), the amount of nitrogen uptake by the plant would be 28 kg ha• 1 for the straw and 87 kg ha'l for the grain. Thus, the average nitrogen-use efficiency in the valley in 1990/91 would be 51 % of applied nitrogen, indicating that the amount of nitrogen applied was not fully utilized. Note that this figure does not include other sources of nitrogen beside that of applied fertilizer. If the other nitrogen sources were included, an even lower nitrogen-use efficiency would result.Nitrogen application methods varied from injection of gas or liquid into the soil or irrigation water, to broadcasting urea at planting. Over 79% of the total nitrogen was applied before planting with the remaining 19 and 1% applied with the first and second irrigations, respectively. A common practice in the valley of applying nitrogen with irrigation is to bubble ammonia gas in the canal irrigation water applied to the furrows after planting. There is a potential for the nitrogen loss with this method and should be further investigated.No soil micronutrient was found to be below critical levels within the soil nor was correlated with yield. However, zinc levels in the 40 to 60 cm depth did correlate with yield (R=-0.28; a=0.05) and contributed some to a model with other micronutrients describin~ yield (Table 13).Results from plant tissue analysis taken at the first node stage (Zadok 31) indicated that 35% of the fields' samples had N0 3 levels below 3400 ppm N-N0 3 on a dry weight basis, a plausible critical level of nitrogen for wheat at this stage (personal communication, 1. Ortiz-Monasterio). Also, the plant nitrogen content at the first node stage was correlated with the final grain yield (R=0.35;a=0.01). Thus, plant and soil samples indicate a potential deficiency in nitrogen while application rates would indicate otherwise. Certainly more research should be conducted to investigate the potential and historical inefficiency of nitrogen use in the valley. Such research would be consistent with grower-defined needs. When growers were asked where they would prefer more emphasis on research, out of 8 answers consistently given, research with soil fertility was the most highly recommended representing 33 % of the growers. No micronutrient was found to be below critical levels within the plant when sampled at anthesis, nor did any correlate with yield.Since soil phosphorus levels in the top 20 cm were considered low for a large percentage of fields, respective correlations with plant phosphorus levels were significant (r = 0.40; a = 0.002). In addition, plant phosphorus levels were significantly related to grain. yields (r = 0.3-5; a = 0.01). Plant and soil phosphorus levels were negatively related to zinc in the subsoil (40 to 60 cm depth)(r = -0.39; a = 0.004). Further research is warranted on phosphorus application and utilization in the valley coupled with zinc interactions. The above correlations would indicate that there was an affect of weeds on overall wheat biomass, grain yield, and grains/m 2 and vice versa. Poor plant density and an open canopy with less light interception by wheat created this greater potential for weed infestation. Thirteen percent of the growers used the variety Oasis in beds in 1990/91, a variety shown to do well broadcast on flat surfaces or sown in 10 to 15 cm rows using flood irrigation but not providing adequate canopy closure in wide beds due to its short stature (personal communication, 1. Ortiz-Monasterio). Oasis' average height was 64 cm compared to Opata and Bacanora, two major varieties grown this cycle, which had an average plant height of 88 and 78 cm, respectively. Sixty percent of the growers in 1990/91 used no herbicide at all. Over 30% used herbicide for broadleaf control alone. However, fifty-four percent of the growers used at least one cultivation for weed control; 13 %, used more than one.The increasing use of cultivation reflects the increasing percent of growers using the bed system of planting that allows for cultivation.While dependent on insect infestation, overall use of insecticides has decreased over the years. In 1981In , 1982In , 1987In , 1989In , and 1991, the percent of growers who used insecticides were 82,50,29,56, and 27%, respectively. Most growers indicated that they followed an integrated pest management plan for control of diseases and insects.Use of fungicides is not practiced in the valley except for seed producers who use fungicides for control of kamal bunt. Most disease control is through the use of resistant varieties and crop rotation. Disease scores taken throughout the growing season showed disease incidence insignificant early in the season and only minor by anthesis, with leaf rust being the only disease seen on the plants. CIMMYT plant pathologists determined that yield declines due to rust in 1990/91 in the valley were insignificant.Some recently passed Mexican laws and grower decisions may affect both future weed control and soil fertility. In 1990/91, a law was enacted (but not enforced) in the valley against the burning of wheat straw. Seventy-eight percent of the growers in our sample burned their straw residue after harvest in 1990/91. When growers were asked about their future practices, 60% stated they would continue to bum the straw. Thus, if laws are enforced or if growers proceed as planned, over 40% will have to deal with straw incorporation after this next wheat cycle. With the short turn-around time of planting summer crops, particularly soybeans, the growers will need to adjust their management of wheat straw.Twenty-five percent of the sampled growers owned their own harvesters for wheat harvesting, while the remainder rented the use of harvesters. Harvest began in 1990/91 roughly around the first week of May, although a few fields were harvested earlier. Those growers wanting to plant soybeans (ranging from 3 to 81 % of the growers in years past) must harvest, burn or incorporate straw and plant by mid-May for optimum yields. Thus, the duration of time between crops is short (Fig. 5). The incorporation of straw will be time consuming. Thus, further research with straw management would be useful.Just as yields varied widely throughout the valley, so did the economic returns. If costs are placed into 4 categories, Le. land preparation and seeding, fertilizer, weed control, and harvest costs, each incorporating application, transport, in addition to miscellaneous expenses, then a relative gross and net return per hectare can be derived (Table 4). Prices for wheat per ton ranged from $580,000 to 650,000 (Mexican Pesos), depending on discounts due to kamal bunt or weed seed. None of the costs were correlated to yields in the valley, while gross and net return were highly correlated to yield (R = 0.97 and 0.95; a = 0.0001, respectively).Thousand Mx Pesos/Ton (Base 1980-100) 2 0 . ---------------. . . , . . . ---------------  The average cost of using herbicides among herbicide users (including cost of application) was $185,000 (Mexican pesos) ha-1 but ranged from $36,820 to $450,000 ha-I . Sixty-three percent of the growers still used hand labor for weeding purposes. While such a practice is essential for seed producers for rouging atypical plants, only 3 growers who used hand weeding were actually producing for seed and only one grower's seed was accepted at the end of the season for certification. The average cost among all growers for hand weeding was $34,046, while among those who used hand weeding, the average cost was $54,700. The cost of one cultivation this cycle was estimated as $26,671 ha-I . The overall average cost of weed control including herbicide, application and/or cultivations for the valley was $111 ,323 ha-t • Costs, in real terms (100= 1980), have increased about 27% from 1981 to 1991 (Fig. 9). Land preparation and fertilizer costs represent the bulk of those increases. The estimated costs in Figure 9 represent a larger sample than those reported in Table 4, which represent those costs specific to the 52 growers sampled in this study.  ------------------------------, PREP-Land Preparation cOlta SEED-S •• dlng coat. 10 H•ERB~H•8rblcide.• &'A'p~ilic'atioi\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\" The range in yields in 1990/91 was quite varied, ranging from 1.7 to 6.2 t ha-I dry grain. As stated previously, the gap between the growers' average yields and those of the research station is considerable. For 1990/91, average yields of 4.4 t hafor growers and 7.7 t ha-1 for on-farm trials run on the research station illustrates the continuity of this gap.Having collected data on over 400 potential variables in 1990/91 that could explain the limitations in yield makes it difficult to find only those few, major variables. Thus, Table 5 provides a view of those variables which were correlated to grain yield and contrasted between the 10 plots which had the highest yield and the 10 plots which had the lowest yield. From Table 5, one can see that for those selected variables which were correlated with grain yield, the differences between the high and low yielding plots were considerable. Some of the relationships between yield and the variables among the contrasting groups can become more easily noted. For example, since ground coverage scores were highly correlated with yield, those factors which explain that significance would include canopy closure, plant height, plant population, and weed scores. Other factors such as N-N0 3 levels indicate the critically lower levels of N in the low yielding plots. Hydraulic conductivity in the subsoil showed differences and was correlated to yield; the higher the conductivity, the lower the yield.The first method used for regression analysis involved choosing independent variables highly correlated with grain yield and placing them into the model (see Table 5 for a list of those variables). Upon doing so, wheat canopy closure scores in mid-March (R=-0.73; a=O.OI)(1 = good, 2 = fair, 3 = poor), weed scores at physiological maturity (R=-0.50;a=0.01),and soil nematode populations at planting (R=-0.33;a=0.05). These three variable with R 2 values of 0.59,0.12, and 0.05, respectively (a = 0.05), contributed to grain yield in a regression model (R 2 = 0.76; a = 0.01).Since canopy rating contributed so highly, those variables which then contributed to canopy closure were determined. Using linear regression, those variables which were either highly correlated to canopy closure' or logical in their contribution were included in the model. The corresponding model (R 2 =0.59) describing canopy closure contained average spikes m-2 (R=-0.37; a =0.01; R 2 =0.32), seedrate (R=0.21;a = 0.14; R 2 =0.07), and flag leaf width (R=-0.50; a =0.0002; R 2 =0.06).Variable-Groupings: Logical Agronomic Groups Using the statistical strategy outlined in the methodology section, the following groups were formed and analyzed using linear regression as to their contribution to grain yield. Within each group, variables can be seen to be both correlated with and contributing toward yield in the model. Table 6 shows the yield components which were highly correlated to yield and their contribution toward the model for yield with an R 2 nearly equal to one. Harvest biomass, biomass at anthesis, and spikes m-2 were highly correlated with yield. Since we mentioned previously that plant canopy scores contributed to an overall yield model, these variables furnish an explanation for yield in the valley as they contribute also toward canopy closure.Agronomic scoring has the appearance of being subjective. However, in this study we found that these scores correlated well with yield. In this situation, where harvest biomass was highly correlated with yield, agronomic scores are useful predictors of yield. Perhaps in situations where harvest biomass is not correlated with yield, agronomic scoring would also not be well-correlated with yield. There were three agronomists giving agronomic scoring throughout the season and all three scorings were correlated to yield and as well as to each other. Correlations among the pest group show that weeds were the major pest of this season (Table 7). Although nematodes were negatively correlated to yields, there were only a few fields that had significant numbers to limit yields. The correlation with insects and yield was positive and was congruent with observations that the earlier planted locations had the greater biomass at that time when aphid and, to a lesser extent, stem borer, were problems. However, there was no significant damage apart from the brief infestation in February due to insect pests this cycle. Diseases also were not a problem in the valley during 1990/91, with only some late rust appearing on the variety, Bacanora. CIMMYT pathologists stated that the late rusts probably did not reduce yields substantially. Kamal bunt infestation was positively correlated with higher yield, consistent with correlations with other variables (data not shown) that would indicate the. higher the yield, the greater the incidence of kamal bunt. Soil physical and chemical properties contributed to a model explaining yield but some variables were not well related with yields in the valley (Table 8). While the pH at the lower depth being correlated with yield is difficult to explain, the hydraulic conductivity and soil porosity at the lower depths does make some sense. Those soils which may have too much drainage may not be able to retain water, nitrogen, and other nutrients throughout the season compared to other soils with less drainage. Land preparation was named by the largest percentage of growers as being the reason for higher yields on the research station compared to the growers. However, none of their preparations were correlated with yield (Table 9). Use of land leveling or land plane for leveling in addition to the use of a disk plough did contribute to the model. The only variable which was correlated to yield was the usage of water, but being only a two-choice variable (non-discrete), the significance of this correlation can be misleading. We observed that those fields which used tubewell water had symptoms of salt damage and even a few had salt crystals forming on top of some beds. However, electrical conductivity results did not support our observations, though the soil samples were taken before much tubewell water was used as irrigation. Further investigation on the quality and use of tubewell water may be warranted. Previous studies have shown that date of planting had an effect on yields in the valley. However, many of the variables that had to do with optimum timing were not correlated with yield nor contributed much to a model with yield (Table 10). The lack of correlation of planting date with yield (see Fig. 7) can be explained in the unusual weather during this cycle, with greater temperatures in February limiting the growth of the earlier planted material and the cooler March temperatures facilitating the growth of the later planted materials. There were many variables within the group relating to planting (Table 11) that were correlated with yield. As stated previously, since plant canopy coverage scores contributed greatly to the yield model, many of those variables which are correlated to yield in this group were seen to contribute toward the canopy coverage scores. The high R 2 value of the model compared to other groups indicates the greater significance of planting variables. In addition, many of these variables are management-related. Thus, we find within this group significant indicators of yield limiting factors which have the potential for scientific research and grower-initiated change. Given the high levels of nitrogen applied in the valley and the potential phosphorus deficiencies of these soils, the grouping for macronutrients provided a limited model, with the plant N-N0 3 contributing a major portion to the model. Phosphorus levels in the upper soil depths, while not correlated with yield, also contributed to the yield model. Micronutrient levels in the plant and soil and those factors which might influence those levels gave a poor model for yield with an R 2 value of 0.15 (Table 13). Zinc has been shown to be limiting in some soils in the valley only when soil phosphorus levels were high. Perhaps more investigation is needed to see if there is a response to zinc in the valley. Levels of phosphorus in the soil and plant were correlated to the zinc levels in the subsoil (40 to 60 cm depth). Thus, the interaction of these two elements is complex and warrants further investigation.Grower attitudes toward problems in their fields revealed that 51 % thought there were no major problems with their fields. Of the remaining growers who did think they had problems, 19% felt weeds were a major problem, 16% thought land leveling was a problem, and 10 % thought their problems were linked to soil fertility. When growers were asked for the reasons for lower yields within the valley in comparison with the research station's yields of close to 8 t ha-\\, 45 % responded there was a\"difference in land preparation, 17% due to soil fertility, and 14% due to poor grower management. When growers were asked their overall opinion on problems of wheat cultivation within the valley, 22 % thought poor grower management, 17% poor credit sources, 12% poor soil fertility, and 12% poor land preparation. When asked to suggest areas for future agronomic research, 33 % requested more research in soil fertility, 16 % in weed control, 12 % in developing new varieties, and 7 % in disease resistance among other suggestions.Agronomists would prefer for only a few variables to contribute to overall yield limitations so as to be able to accomplish research and make simpler recommendations to growers. Analysis of the 1990/91 data showed that most probably the factors limiting yields in the valley were multiple, possibly confounded and complex. Statistically, only plant canopy closure ratings made in mid-March (heading for most fields) coupled with weed scores and nematode counts, contributed significantly to a model with yield. We described a possible model that characterized plant canopy closure. Variables which were highly correlated with canopy closure ratings were:• average yields (R = -0.73; ex = .000 1).• average biomass (R=-0.71; ex=.OOOI).• plant height (R=-0.52; ex=.oool).• flag leaf area and width (R=-0.52, -0.50; ex=.OOO2).• nitrogen in the wheat at first node stage (R=-0.40, ex =.004) • early and late weed scores (R=0.54, 0.35; ex=.OI).• distance between rows (R=O.36; a=.02).Perhaps just as interesting are those variables one might have expected to be included in the model but weren't and were less significantly correlated with canopy closure. These included:• plants m-2 (R=-O.26,; a=.07).• early biomass determined: i) at the third leaf stage (R=-O.17,; a=.23).ii) at first node stage (R=O.04,; a=.76).iii) at heading (R=-O.29,; a=.04).Another non-statistical approach to understand yield-limiting factors used was to examine differences in management between the research station and the valley in general. Although growers felt that land preparation was the main reason for the greater yields on station, there was less use of the disk on the research station for pulverizing the top soil and more emphasis on deep tillage, such as sub-soiling. Use of precision planters on the station ensures seed placement both in terms of depth and distance between seeds to ensure fewer gaps. However, since plants m-2 averaged 189 in the valley (a respectable amount) and that the first two biomass determinations were not highly correlated with yield, one can assume some of the differences in yields can be explained by the geometry of the placement of seed to fill later the gaps, allowing more rapid early growth, and canopy closure by heading. Based on the observations made in the valley, seed placement was not precise and seed depth was 5 cm deeper than that on station due to the greater use of disk in the valley to obtain a greater soil tilth.The use of green manure crops (sesbania) on station as well as chicken manure has proven beneficial toward increasing yields, but growers may not be able to use such practices easily nor profitably. However, such practices should be further investigated as to their economical use in the valley, especially the use of green manure crops (there is insufficient chicken and other manures in the valley to pursue their use).Although nematodes contributed toward limiting yields in the valley, there were only a few fields that had populations of enough magnitude to affect yield.However, perhaps investigations into the use of soil treatment or the use of rotations on fields with high nematode populations is warranted.While weed scores were negatively correlated with yield and contributed to a model, one cannot say that weeds were necessarily the major problem throughout the valley. Wild oats and Phalarus minor have the potential to become problems. However, 19% of the growers rated weeds as a major problem. Growers stated they also would like more research into the economical use of weed control, including the better use of herbicides.Lastly, there was dissimilarity in nitrogen use between the station and the valley. Rates of nitrogen on the station were 200 kg ha-1 compared to the average in the valley of 223 kg ha-1• More research is needed in determining the nitrogen-use efficiency in the valley and the reasons for this difference in response to nitrogen. Phosphorus levels in the soil and plant were related to yields, indicating that more research into this area for the valley would be useful.Results from this study indicate that factors that adversely affect plant canopy closure may be the major limitation on yields in the valley based on the agronomic data collected the 1990/91 cycle. Such a hypothesis would require testing either through on-farm research or from more thorough diagnostic surveys emphasizing these variables. Secondly, nitrogen-use efficiency in the valley is lower than that of the research station, indicating possible areas for improvement. Thirdly, weeds are the major pest in the valley, much of which can be controlled by improved plant canopy closure and geometry within the field. Many growers are following the currently recommended procedures such as pre-irrigation, planting on beds, and the corresponding greater use of cultivation.              ,...    ..\"  In addition, if the number of days from emergence to physiological maturity (EM) and from anthesis to physiological maturity (AM) are known, two additional aspects of yield can be calculated as listed below:  ","tokenCount":"8884"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"098b3302f25da7250a3b4aa349b31f43","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/42c0a8ce-e9d6-40fc-86bf-6fedf4fcecbd/retrieve","id":"276066192"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f6b99af4-b9ed-48ef-9514-6243d79fb954","pagecount":"31","content":"The Agri-Food System encompasses all activities involved in the production and distribution of food products, vital for ensuring adequate livelihoods and nutrition within society. In the Peruvian highlands, agricultural endeavors primarily occur in dryland conditions, making them particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Tambet and Stopnitzky (2021) found that there is a growing perception that crop productivity is reducing due to poor soils, plant diseases and erosion. Thus, understanding the specific needs and challenges faced by agricultural producers in these regions is crucial. Also, by analyzing the dynamics of the agri-food system, we can pinpoint areas for improvement in competitiveness, especially in improving productivity in this climate change context.This report endeavors to explore the potential for scaling up conservation agriculture (CA), focusing on practices such as vegetative cover and minimum tillage, which are integral for climate change mitigation. This analysis adopts an ex-ante approach, examining a sample of families in the Chugay district of the province of Sánchez Carrión, located within the department of La Libertad in the Northern Peruvian Andes. Some basic information of Chugay can be found in Figure 1, to understand the area of the district, the population, the quality of road infrastructure and the main agro ecological zones that comprises Chugay. The data presented in Figure 1 allows us to have an overview of the total and agricultural area of the district, with 6% of the total area corresponding to agricultural land, and an average of 7,000 m2 of area per rural family (on average, 4 members per household). Most of the land is situated within the Quechua agricultural zone, with the Suny Agricultural Zone following closely behind. In lesser proportion, land is found in the riverine lowlands, nonetheless these areas are poorly connected to bigger cities because of lack of paved roads.Climate change in the mountainous Andean regions is exerting a profound impact on food security by disrupting water sources and crop production dynamics (Carrasco-Torrontegui, 2020). Extreme climatic events such as droughts and frosts are introducing novel hurdles to smallholder livelihoods in the Peruvian highlands, with rural communities in the Andes facing heightened vulnerability to water scarcity exacerbated by climate change impacts (Heikkinen, 2021). Furthermore, Tambet and Stopnitzky (2023) observed a decline in crop productivity among farmers in the Peruvian Andes over a three-year period (2014)(2015)(2016), attributing this trend primarily to soil degradation, followed by plant diseases and erosion.The agricultural systems centered around Andean potatoes thrive in environments where cereals like quinoa, barley, and oats, alongside legumes such as lupins and beans, are traditionally cultivated. This distinctive agricultural setting presents a compelling opportunity for the exploration of Conservation Agriculture (CA), which hinges on three fundamental principles: (1) minimizing mechanical soil disturbance, (2) promoting crop diversity, and (3) incorporating organic matter into the soil. Given these circumstances, it is imperative to devise innovative strategies aimed at equipping farmers with the requisite tools to mitigate and adapt to the adverse repercussions of climate change on their livelihoods.FAO define Conservation agriculture (CA) as a farming system that seeks to optimize agricultural resources by integrating the management of soil, water, and biological assets while minimizing external inputs to ensure continuous organic soil cover. Key components of CA include zero or minimal tillage, mulching, direct seeding, and diverse crop rotations.The CGIAR has identified a number of climate smart practices on several crops (Figure 2) The World Bank, CIAT and CATIE (2014) found that Peruvian farmers are already using several conservation practices such as management of native, crops (mainly potato and maize) and livestock, (llamas and vicuñas) in traditional systems, soil conservation (terraces, platforms), and crop associations; however, new conservation practices have low adoption rates due to sporadic and unsystematic promotion of policies, climate information and extension services and financial incentives.Several studies around the global has been conducted to answer the question about what determinants affect the adoption of certain conservation agricultural practices. In the African context, Arslan et al., (2014) found that in the case of Zambia, minimum soil disturbance and crop rotation adoption was highly influenced by the presence of an extension service and rainfall variability, but labor availability, education and wealth explain better the adoption of crop rotation, while minimum soil disturbance was exclusively influenced by rainfall variability. Teshome et al. (2016) also found that socioeconomic and institutional factors affects adoption in Ethiopian highlands context, such as farm labor, plot size, and ownership of tools, but also relationship with neighbor farmers also affects the adoption, as well as perception of soil erosion; this study also found that to avoid disadoption, the practices should be profitable, and farmers need a technical support, tenure degradation, and tools and labor endowments. Another study in Malawi, found plot size, farmer-to-farmer knowledge sharing, presence of a chronically ill person in the household, active household labor size, wealth and women's autonomy are noteworthy determinants in Malawi (Kasanga et al., 2021).In other continents, in a study conducted in Laos on direct seeding mulch-based systems in Smallholder agriculture (Lestrelin et al., 2012) found that experience and awareness of land degradation, production cost, social cohesion and leadership are key factors explaining adoption of such practices. In a more comprehensive study conducted in Latin American and African countries, found that the variables 'education', 'farm size' seem to show convergence towards a positive and significant influence. While other common variables, such as age and off-farm activities, show an even less convincing pattern (Knowler and Bradshaw, 2006).Over a span of two decades, CIMMYT conducted extensive trials in Mexico, evaluating practices such as minimal or no tillage, crop rotations, and soil residue incorporation. The findings revealed that zero tillage methods employed in corn cultivation led to enhanced carbon sequestration compared to conventional approaches.Notably, residue retention under zero tillage increased soil carbon sequestration potential by 1.5 times within the 0 to 60 cm soil profile. This outcome can be attributed to the improved stability of soil aggregates and reduced decomposition of plant residues facilitated by zero tillage, thereby safeguarding recalcitrant carbon from decomposers. In other studies, Kodzwa et al. (2020) found that mulching is more effective in increasing crop yield than zero tillage and crop rotation in Zimbabwe conditions.Inspired by these findings and experiences with mulching in various CIP projects funded by GIZ across different continents, efforts were initiated to test these practices within Andean contexts, particularly in Peru.This study was conducted in the Chugay district of the Northern Peruvian highlands, characterized by a diverse range of altitudes, spanning from 400 meters above sea level (m.a.s.l.), known as the \"rupa rupa region,\" to elevations up to 4,000 m.a.s.l., referred to as the \"Suni region.\" This district encompasses 2,590 agricultural hectares, with 60% allocated to the Quechua region (ranging from 2,300 to 3,500 m.a.s.l.), 33% to the Suni region, and only 7% to the rupa rupa region. The principal crops cultivated in the Chugay district comprise mainly potatoes, maize, cereals, and in lesser degree legumes and tree crops (Figure 3) .Chugay is not only a district with great agricultural potential, but also one of the districts with the most deficiencies in socio-economic issues (Figure 4). Education indicators paint a concerning picture, with enrollment rates in Sanchez Carrión lagging behind the department average, particularly in rural areas where only 32.1% of students are enrolled. Learning outcomes exacerbate these disparities, with only 17% of fourth-grade students proficient in mathematics and 15.8% in reading in Sanchez Carrión. Secondary education reveals even wider gaps, with a mere 5.3% and 4.2% of students demonstrating proficiency in mathematics and reading, respectively (SINEACE, 2020).Health indicators further underscore the challenges faced by the community, with Chugay grappling with a chronic malnutrition rate of 28.2% among children under 5 years old, escalating to 51.6% across the population.Anemia prevalence is particularly alarming, reaching 69.8% among children under 3 years old in Chugay (CERPLAN-GRLL, 2021a;INS, 2021).The territorial marketing report on the Sanchez Carrión -Pataz corridor in La Libertad sheds light on the historical and socio-economic potential of the region (SIR-OSEL La Libertad, 2012). Identified potential sectors include agriculture, livestock, forestry, mining, and aquaculture, with Chugay being recognized for its agricultural prospects.Notably, a significant portion of the starchy corn production in La Libertad is concentrated between Sanchez Carrión and Pataz, along with half of the olluco and peas production. Collaborative efforts among producers in neighboring districts, such as Cochorcos, have resulted in successful ventures like avocado and organic tea production and processing. Moreover, producer organizations in the vicinity are engaged in technological advancements and have established commercial ties with nearby cities like Huamachuco and Trujillo.  The workshop titled \"Analysis of the Scaling Potential of Regenerative Agriculture Practices: Opportunities for Utilizing Cereal and/or Legume Crop Residues in Potato Cultivation in Chugay\" was held in the city of Huamachuco, located in the Northern Peruvian Highlands, on Wednesday, January 31 st , 2024. A total of 24 producers and stakeholders attended the workshop, including potato producers from various villages in Chugay with diverse crop production systems, as well as stakeholders from NGOs engaged in agricultural development in the region.The objectives of the workshop were: (1) to conduct an economic analysis of potato production costs for Chugay producers, (2) to identify and evaluate the uses of the residues of the different cereals/legumes present in the area, and (3) to estimate the potential adoption of plant cover in potato cultivation in Chugay.The agenda of the workshop is presented in Appendix 2, but in summary, it was a full day workshop. It began with the introduction of what is regenerative agriculture and specifically what is mulching technologies with the case study results from Licame village presented by CIP regenerative agricultural experts. This section of the workshop was crucial as in the preparation of the study we found that very few producers in the selected villages were aware of what regenerative agriculture was all about.Then there was a section for the presentation of the potato agrifood system in Chugay, with the opportunities and challenges related to climate change and other risks. The information presented in this section was leverage from previous information collected in the District with the AgriLAC Initiative back in 2022, but with inputs of the participants to update the agrifood system to recent events.Finally, the workshop, in a participatory manner, divided the participants in three groups, depending on the villages they belong to (Group 1: Licame-La Soledad; Group 2: Pishauri-San Juan-Dos de Mayo; Group 3: San Salvador-Pampa del Condor-San Francisco, to answer three questions: (1) Challenges in how potatoes are produced, processed and sold in Chugay?(2) What area of cereals do you have? What do you do with those cereals?(3) What do you think about adopting this new technology?The results of the workshop complemented the analysis coming from the survey data in order to better understand the households needs and opportunities for improving livelihoods with sustainable practices.In 2023, a survey was conducted involving 110 potato producers to assess the feasibility of adopting mulching technologies in the Andean villages of the Chugay district, situated in one of the most economically disadvantaged areas within the La Libertad Department. However, it became evident that producers vary significantly in resource endowment and perceive the effects of climate change differently. To address this heterogeneity, the present study utilized a classification system based on the number of animal units, a unit expressing the feed requirements of various domestic animals on a standardized scale. For instance, 1 cow is considered equivalent to 10 sheep, 5 goats, 0.33 pigs, and 0.8 bulls and horses. This classification is particularly relevant for our study as major livestock compete with mulching practices for the utilization of cereal residues and serve as a useful proxy for wealth in rural contexts.To implement this classification, we divided the sample into four distinct categories based on the number of animal units owned by farmers:1. The poorest households, possessing less than half of the average value (less than 2.88 AU).2. Poor households, owning between half of the average value and the average value itself (2.88-5.764 AU).3. Medium households, possessing between the average value and the average value plus one standard deviation (5.76 -11.31 AU). 4. Rich households, owning more than the average value plus one standard deviation (> 11.31 AU).The classification results revealed that 33 households were categorized as the poorest, 33 households as poor, 34 households as medium, and 10 households as rich. Analysis further indicated that the villages of Chugay, Licame, and San Juan exhibited the highest proportion of poorest households, while Macullida demonstrated the highest percentage of rich households (see Table 1) The socio-economic characteristics of the four groups identified in the analysis permit to understand the main differences among them (Table 2) Differences in socioeconomic characteristics are evident across groups within Chugay. The poorest groups comprise a higher percentage of female heads, who are slightly younger on average and have similar household sizes compared to other groups. However, they tend to have slightly more children under 15 years old and fewer household members of working age. Education levels also vary, with the poorest group having fewer years of formal education (averaging 3.25 years) compared to groups 2 (poor) and 4 (rich), who possess, on average, one year more of education. While the poorest households have fewer household heads in secondary school compared to the rich group, they have a higher percentage of household heads with secondary school education than the other two better-off groups, indicating relatively similar educational opportunities and support for agricultural production across the groups.Nevertheless, the most significant differences emerge in asset ownership. Wall material serves as a proxy for wealth, with clay bricks, being up to five times more expensive than mud bricks, indicating higher wealth.Additionally, agricultural area and the monetary value of animals are used as proxies of wealth. Results reveal that the poorest households have the smallest percentage of clay brick walls (only 6%), and possess the smallest agricultural area, averaging just 2.25 hectares including fallow lands crucial for crop rotation in Chugay.Conversely, the richest households boast an agricultural area nearly four times larger than the poorest group and possess over 14 times the monetary value of animals. Notably, all groups have a similar number of small animals, mainly chickens and Guinea pigs, suggesting they are primarily kept for household consumption and as a source of liquidity in times of need.When considering the crops cultivated among the different groups, while the selection of crops remains largely similar across all groups, notable differences emerge in the area allocated to each crop (see Table 3). * Excluding Lupines from legumes as residues are not suitable for feeding animalsAs previously discussed, the total agricultural area varies significantly among the four groups. Potato cultivation stands out as the predominant crop across all groups, with relatively minor fluctuations in its allocation, ranging from 21% to 32% of the total agricultural area. This consistency can be attributed to Chugay's agricultural practices, which prioritize crop rotation and employ relatively lengthy periods of fallow lands, thereby aiding in soil restoration and minimizing the dependence on external fertilizers. Notably, the group with the largest fallow area in proportion to potato cultivation is the poorest group, reflecting their limited resources for acquiring external inputs.Cereals and legumes also play crucial roles in Chugay's agricultural landscape, serving as significant sources of residues necessary for mulching. Interestingly, the rich group exhibits the highest proportion of residues relative to potato production, with nearly 85% of the potato area capable of being covered with residues, primarily sourced from Lupinus. In contrast, the poor and poorest groups have approximately one-third of the potato area that could potentially be covered with mulching residues, assuming all available residues are utilized for this purpose. The medium group demonstrates the lowest ratio of cereals and legume residues to potato area.While it may seem logical to prioritize collaboration with the rich group due to their capacity to provide the largest amount of mulching for potato crops, another factor must be considered: the animals that consume cereals and legume residues, primarily cows and sheep. When factoring in the presence of these animals, the landscape shifts. Despite only 20% of rich households expressing a need for cereal residues for mulching, the poorest group possesses more residues of cereals and legumes for animal feed compared to the other groups, owing to their smaller livestock population. This surplus of residues presents an opportunity to not only support mulching practices but also reduce production costs for potato cultivation. Notably, only 30% of households in the poorest category indicated a requirement for cereal residues for mulching purposes.In contrast, the workshop shows a different type of producers with in general more cereals and legumes than the ones surveyed, except for the group with larger potato area that values were similar to the rich group in terms of potato area (Figure 6, Appendix 3a, 3b, and 3c). Potato productivity also exhibits variations across the different socioeconomic groups, with the poorest group demonstrating the lowest levels of production (refer to Table 4). It is important to note that the production of potato slightly differs across the different groups, ranging the median from 10t/ha to 12.2 t/ha, but farmers cultivated by different purposes and it is express in the selection of potato varieties. The rich households have mainly commercial varieties and are market oriented with around 80% of the potato production is sold, while the poorest households has only one fourth of their potato production with commercial varieties, and two third of the production is for household consumption.This varietal selection of the household is also an important consideration when using the mulching technique as productivity is dependent on the potential productivity of the varieties cultivated, being the mixture of local varieties the predominant in poorest households and becoming less dominant in more wealthier households.Farmers in Chugay reported no significant negative impacts from climate shocks on potato production during the 2023-2024 cropping season. There were no notable occurrences of frost, hail, or rain scarcity. However, previous analyses of the agrifood systems in Chugay have identified substantial climate change impacts on crop productivity, highlighting the unpredictable nature of climate events in the Andes, with El Niño and La Niña events becoming more frequent.During the workshop, farmers expressed concerns about late blight attacks and a lack of training in pest and disease management. On a positive note, the Local Government offers some support to local producers such as tractor rental services to producers at a reduced social price of 50 soles, compared to the 80 or 90 soles charged by private tractor rentals. However, despite this initiative, the municipality only possesses two tractors, which are insufficient to meet the needs of all farmers in the area (see Figure 7). Climate change is impacting life of potato producing households in Chugay. The changes affect farmers in different ways the potato production: such as reduction of rain, changes in raining patterns, increase in the incidence and severity of pest and diseases, causing the yield loss (Table 5). Farmers belonging to the poorest groups (groups 1 and 2) reported the highest perceived losses attributable to climate change. Nevertheless, only 18% of households in the poorest group declared being significantly affected by climate change. Interestingly, results from the less affluent groups (groups 1 to 3) exhibited relatively comparable perceptions regarding the impact of climate change on agricultural production and potato yield loss.Conversely, households classified as rich experienced the least impact from climate change.During the workshop focused on scaling mulching technologies in the Chugay District, we collaboratively constructed an average production cost for one hectare of potato cultivation in Chugay. The resulting cost analysis is presented in Table 6. Expected cost/ ha with mulching 9,700While the workshop did not facilitate an exhaustive cost analysis, valuable insights were gleaned from applying a cost-benefit framework. Firstly, it was determined that total production costs in the area typically range from 10,000 to 15,000 soles, depending on the necessity for external inputs or additional labor. Notably, seed costs emerge as the highest expense in potato production, closely followed by manure costs. Small and mid-size farmers commonly employ a cost-saving strategy by utilizing their own seed, thereby ensuring continuity for the next cropping season while also mitigating costs. This saving can help offset the lack of more profitable markets, which currently impact the profitability of potato production in Chugay.Furthermore, the cost-benefit analysis revealed that for potato production in Chugay to be financially viable, farmers must achieve a minimum yield ranging between 10 and 13 tons per hectare, contingent upon production costs averaging 14 soles per arroba or 1.2 soles per kilogram, to cover their expenses. A significant anticipated benefit of mulching is the reduction in investment required for potato production. Table 6 outlines the activities that can be streamlined through the adoption of mulching techniques, with the estimated reduction amounting to approximately 20% of the total cost. This reduction is particularly noteworthy for the poorest farmers, who often lack assets and sufficient income. By embracing mulching practices, farmers in the lowest income bracket stand to achieve a level of profitability, thereby making this transition worthwhile.Several literatures show benefits of mulching in increasing crop yield including potato (Zhao et al., 2014). As we want to be conservative, we are assuming no yield benefit in using mulching.4.5. Perception on using the mulching technology in potato production in Chugay.Vegetative cover is a conservation agriculture practice that covers the soil surface with organic or inorganic material to retain moisture, prevent weed growth, and increase soil fertility, among other benefits. With an incorporation of straw or crop residues between 5 and 10 t/ha, adequate coverage can be achieved, reducing expenses on chemical inputs, labor and improving the quality of potatoes. Most important environmental benefits of mulching Households participating in the workshop emphasized that one of the main benefits of using the mulching technique in potato production is cost savings. This is closely followed by the improved utilization of residues through non-burning practices, as well as setting a positive example of good production practices for neighboring farmers.Farmers in both the survey and workshop indicates that they would like to use the technology because of the benefits it gives, but some of them are less convinced (40% of workshop participants) and they want to see evidence of using such practices before testing in their own field.There are methodologies to measure scaling potential such as the Scaling Readiness 1 and the Scaling Scan 2 approaches. Both methodologies analyze projects or innovations in detail, focusing on scaling strategies through a series of steps: characterizing the innovation, conducting a diagnostic to understand scaling bottlenecks, devising strategic options to overcome these bottlenecks, and fostering agreement on the scaling strategy and action plan among key stakeholders. In this study, our focus was on characterizing potential users and identifying challenges.The mulching technique holds promise as a valuable strategy to combat climate change in the Andes. Despite the 2023-2024 cropping season being less negatively impacted by climate change due to the presence of El Niño, mulching offers opportunities for environmental and economic savings. Farmers in Chugay were categorized into four groups based on a proxy for wealth, the Animal Unit index, which is also relevant for mulching availability.Identified barriers to mulching adoption include the availability of cereals and competition for cereal residues by animals. Cereals and legumes are pivotal for creating vegetative cover, hence the importance of assessing the quantity and current usage of cereal residues among households in Chugay.Data analysis from both surveys and workshops enabled the definition of strategies for scaling the technology:1. Working with the poorest group, which comprises 30% of Chugay's producers. This group, characterized by a higher percentage of female-led households, younger household heads, and fewer resources compared to other groups, exhibits lower potato productivity due to the use of local potato varieties.Despite having a low number of animals, they possess relatively more area dedicated to cereals and legumes, indicating greater potential for utilizing cereal and legume crop residues for mulching.2. Working with the richest group relative to other groups (though they may still be considered poor compared to more commercial regions or urban settings). This group benefits from producing more Lupinus, which can serve as mulch, and generally has a larger absolute area dedicated to cereals. While cereals and legume residues are utilized by animals, only the most edible parts are consumed, leaving a significant amount of residues available for mulching. Additionally, there are environmental benefits as Lupinus residues are predominantly burned.These options highlight the potential for mulching adoption among farmers in Chugay, particularly in the richest and poorest groups, where the richest group will benefit to reduce environmental burden, labor scarcity, and production cost, while generating a healthier potato for market; on the other side, poorest producers will benefit also from reduce production cost and healthier potato mainly for home consumption. However, mulching alone is not sufficient to improve the well-being of potato families. While local varieties are used for home consumption, yielding less, and offering limited commercial potential for poorest potato households, commercial farmers face challenges in potato commercialization, primarily selling to intermediaries with limited processing industry infrastructure for value-added products. Some of those issues, that goes beyond mulching practices, such as promotion of more productive potato varieties, can be part of the technological package; but promotion of value-added strategies will help to reduce poverty and improve opportunities for the longer term.Potato farmers in the Chugay district face a myriad of challenges, which are compounded by the socio-economic conditions of their households. These challenges encompass both production and environmental factors, such as water scarcity, soil degradation, and low productivity, as well as economic and social issues including poverty, education, and health problems. Embracing mulching practices within a minimum tillage production strategy offers a promising solution to mitigate some of these challenges. Mulching not only addresses production and environmental concerns but also holds the potential to create value-added products by reducing reliance on external inputs, thereby yielding healthier produce (albeit still requiring some pesticides to control Late Blight and Andean Potato Weevil while managing other pests and weeds).However, our study underscores the diversity among farmers in terms of resources available for mulching production or benefit. Factors such as land ownership, animal husbandry, access to technology, market access, and overall assets play pivotal roles in determining farmers' capacity to engage with mulching practices. This diversity is particularly significant in Andean contexts, where potato, cereals, and livestock form the foundation of livelihood strategies.Our research identifies four distinct groups of farmers based on a proxy variable that reflects both wealth and resources required for mulching-the number of grazing animals owned by the household. Notably, the poorest households (group 1) stand to benefit from the technology, as their limited number of grazing animals allows for the utilization of excess cereals and legume residues for mulching. This not only helps alleviate financial burdens by reducing labor costs associated with certain agronomic practices but also facilitates land preparation with less labor. However, these households still contend with low-yielding varieties that constrain their production potential.Conversely, the rich group (group 4), characterized by larger land holdings and more animals, also stands to gain from mulching technology. Despite their greater resources, their utilization of Lupinus residues-currently left unused and burned-can be redirected towards mulching, thereby reducing costs and contributing to a healthier product. Nevertheless, the absence of robust markets and a sizable processing industry in Chugay limits the economic impact of these advancements on household income.It is important to highlight that this report was based on ex ante analysis of the potential and further study is needed to have a comprehensive understanding of the cost saving in term of inputs and labor, as well as the perception of producers at harvest in terms of the effort to cultivate using of the mulching as well as the yield in comparison to conventional practices.","tokenCount":"4608"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"45754c8467eaca0eaaf0c8bf2cdc9e7d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5287f7ab-7aa1-482c-9ea2-2871cd983879/retrieve","id":"-1378603796"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"5d11658b-68f6-4c81-b2da-918b4164da97","pagecount":"185","content":"This volwne is a test editian intended ta determine the potential utility of a catalogue of advanced linesand ro elicit cornments on how it may be improved befare mass producing a publication.Only 50 copies will be made.In preparing the catalogue, the compilers encounrered the expected difficulty of trying to strike a useful balance between providing relevant informar ion without either producing a docwnent that was very unwieldy (e. g. printed side-ways on the page and 50% thicker) and not including enough data to be useful.Alternatives which might be considered for future editions are either to expand the evaluation data but eliminate the cross description, or to minimize the evaluation data (e.g. to habit and seed characters) but provide more space for describing the cross. Another possibility would be to provide indices by seed-type, growth habit, or other basic characteristics.Since this is a test volwne, circulation is being limited to the Bean Program and a few national program researchers.While using the catalogue, you may want to consider who might benefit fraro access ta it, bearing in mínd that it costs approximately $4.00 US per book, not including any shipping charges. Table r. Definition of lecter codes for advanced lines. The Breeding Section indicates which CrAT Breeding Program is responsible for the class of lines.This catalog was compiled to provide bean researchers with basic information on advanced lines produced by the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), and which have been evaluated in the VEF (Vivero Equipo de Fríjol -Bean Team Nursery).Information is provided on parents, seed type, growth habit, phenology, and reaction to photoperiod and Empaasca.Data far disease reactions are limited to BCMV, leaf reaction of cornrnon bacterial blight, and susceptibility ta anthracnose since it was the consensus of the researchers who produce certain evaluations that data on resistance were only meaningful within the context of a given season and locatian due to inherent variability in disease pressures.Researchers interested in further information may consult performance of lines in individual trials.To facilitate such consultations, the first year of participation of a line in the VEF, EP and IBYAN are given.All advanced lines are identified by a unique one-or-three-letter plus five-digit code.!he letter part of the code is frequently used by the bean breeders to indica te an intended attribute of the lines (Table I).If selections are made within a line, these are identified by an additional one-letter code (e.g. ABe 12345&).Description of the classifications used for from Standard Evaluations (Schoonhoven and response was evaluated using the system classi.fi... ... _.Lons are surnmarized in Tabie 11.seed color and growth habit are taken Pastor-Corrales, 1987). Photoperiod of White and Laing (1989). TheseRequests for seed of the advanced lines may be addressed Leader, CIAT.For international shipments, phytosanitary indicated.Only lines evaluated in the EP (Preliminary to the Bean Program requirernents must be Trials of the Bean Program) are maintained on a continuous basis, so availabili ty guaranteed.Request for complete nurseries or uniform trials should be directed to Bean Agronomy, CIAT. of seed is not (e. g. IBYAN' s) The data provided were obtained from the CIAT Bean Data Base (White et al., 1990), a relational data base implemented with IDMS/R on an IBM Model 4361 mainframe computer.Users interested in obtaining the data in machine readable format should contact the Data Base Group, Data Services Unit, CIAT.Files can be provided in dBase IV or ASCII formats on 5.25 or 3.5 inch diskettes.Data from individual trials are also available in machine readable formatoThe compilers of this catalogue acknowledge the hard work of their colleagues in the Bean Program and the D.S.A. in producing the lines and data. Our thanks also go to Patricia Zamorano de Montoya for assistance in preparation of the texto                L2 ID HAS Eb--'1I    \"\"-409 (G 11820 X G 4727) X (G 12488 X V 79020)       2/3          PAe 29 X G 5663                      x (V 791. _.; .. 251. .. G 18453 X (G 18453 X (G 18453 X G 4495» G 13920 X (G 13920 X (BAT 76 X G 13920» G 13920 X (G 13920 X (BAT 76 X G 13920» G 13920 X (G 13920 X (BAT 76 X G 13920) 0,13920 X (G 13920 X (BAT 76 X G 13920)G 13920 X (G 13920 X (BAT 76 X G 13920» G 13920 X (G 13920 X (BAT 76 X G 13920» G 13920 X (G 13920 X (BAT 76 X G 13920) G 13920 X (G 13920 X (BAT 76 X G 13920) G 13920 X (G 13920 X (BAT 76 X G 13920) G 13920 X (G 13920 X (BAT 76 X G 13920» O 13920 X (O 13920 X (BAT 76 X G 13920) G 13920 X (G 13920 X (BAT 76 X G 13920)) G 13920 X (G 13920 X (BAT 76 X G 13920») G 13920 X (G 13920 X (BAT 76 X G 13920)) G 13920 X (G 13920 X (BAT 76 X G 13920» G 13920 X (G 13920 X (BAT 76 X G 13920») G 13920 X (G 13920 X (BAT 76 X G 13920)) G 13920 X (G 13920 X (BAT 76 X G 13920) G 13920 X (G 13920 X (BAT 76 X G 13920)) G 13920 X (G 13920 X (BAT 76 X G 13920))OOR 60 X (OOR 60 X (BAr 76 X DaR 60))OOR 60 X (OOR 60 X (BAT 76 X OOR 60))OOR 60 X (OOR 60 X (BAr 76 X OOR 60») OOR 60 X (OOR 60 X (BAT 76 X OOR 60») OOR 60 X (Da¡ 60    ","tokenCount":"919"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4ed2066f0526ad0d964805ab413344b7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ea79cf03-c24c-4fbe-95ca-4caa0a4c3164/retrieve","id":"-1620325869"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"237ffa58-3130-4ccb-8baa-e0f9eed579b8","pagecount":"1","content":"Sinh Dang-Xuan 1 , Hung Nguyen-Viet 1,2,3 , Phuc Pham-Duc 1 , Ngan Tran-Thi 1 , Thanh Nguyen-Tien 4 Fred Unger 2 , Kohei Makita 2,5 , Delia Grace Pork accounts for 75% meat consumed in Vietnam and the most popular protein food. Contamination of food may occur at any stage in the process from food production to consumption (\"farm to fork\").Among many potential food-borne pathogens, Salmonella and E. coli were selected for investigation along the smallholder pig value chain and were assessed at pig farm, pig slaughterhouse and pork market.Thus, this study aimed to assess the hygiene and microbial contamination along the pork value chain in Vietnam with a focus at those three nodes.• We found high levels of Salmonella in the final product (pork at market) implying a potential health risks for the consumers.• We found high values of E. coli along the chain, indicating general poor hygiene. Appropriate hygiene practices and management are required to achieve better pork quality and reduce the risk for the consumer.• These data will serve as inputs for health risk assessments related to pork consumption.Among pork samples, 180/297 (61%) samples exceeded the Vietnamese standard (QCVN 8-3:2012/BYT) on E. coli in fresh meat.","tokenCount":"200"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"363de260b24cdd03f77ad0d6e5bfb504","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/24a5202f-d6d8-4b8c-a4f4-9a9eab84b59e/retrieve","id":"674592469"},"keywords":["• P699 -3","2","3 Linking Smallholders to Dynamic Markets OICR: Outcome Impact Case Report"],"sieverID":"14a4e0b5-9fd2-4fe1-ae7a-e05bca6e0dd3","pagecount":"6","content":"Ethiopia's Direct Seed Marketing (DSM) innovation, scaled up to 290 woredas and 1.5 million smallholder farmers in 2019, improved seed availability for maize, wheat, and teff and led to significantly positive effects on maize productivity (26% increase in yield) and commercialization (5% increase in the share of harvest sold). PIM research had informed the scaling of DSM and a PIM team conducted an ex-post impact assessment of DSM in 2020.Several factors contribute to the low level of improved seed use in Ethiopia. Among those is the limited availability of improved seed. In 2011, to rationalize the use of public resources, the Government of Ethiopia in collaboration with development partners introduced the Direct Seed Marketing (DSM) approach -a novel approach to the distribution of high-quality seed in which private and public seed enterprises working with crop breeders multiply and distribute improved varieties directly to farmers, in contrast to the conventional seed marketing system managed by the government.Past PIM studies [1][2][3] have highlighted the important benefits of DSM in terms of improving high-quality seed availability, increasing famer's satisfaction and reducing public expenditures. These studies have informed the decision of Ethiopia's Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) to scale up the program, from 7 woredas in 2012 to 100 in 2016, 290 in 2019 and 320 in 2020, now covering 10 crops, reaching close to 2 million smallholder farmers and accounting for 67% of the seed used in Ethiopia's four main agricultural regions (Amhara, Oromia, Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' (SNNP), and Tigray). Since inception, DSM has grown both in terms of numbers of private seed producers and individual input dealers participating in the program and in terms of crop coverage (from maize only to maize, wheat, teff, barley, beans, sesame, sorghum, and chickpea).Considering this expansion, a key question was to determine whether DSM had any impact on smallholders' access to seeds, productivity, and commercialization. In 2020, to answer that question, PIM researchers completed a quantitative evaluation of DSM's impact on indicators of a healthy seed system, including access to quality seeds, on-farm productivity, and market participation of smallholder producers [4]. The study finds that DSM has led to improvements in seed availability for all three major cereal crops (maize, wheat and teff). The effects of DSM on productivity and commercialization are mixed across crops: DSM has led to a 26 percent increase in maize yields and 5 percent increase in the share of maize harvest that is marketed, with no significant effects on the productivity and commercialization of wheat and teff.These differences in DSM performance between crops are likely related to the dominance of maize in DSM and to biological differences between hybrid maize and openly pollinated varieties of wheat and teff which incentivize private sector participation in maize seed markets over those of wheat and teff.• Following the expansion of Direct Seed Marketing (DSM) to 290 woredas and over 1.5 million beneficiaries in 2019, a team of PIM researchers undertook an evaluation to look at the effects of the approach on smallholder's access to seeds, crop productivity, and commercialization [4]. They used data from surveys conducted by Ethiopia's Agricultural Transformation Agency and IFPRI in 2012, 2016 and 2019 and a quasi-experimental difference-in-differences econometric approach that allows for a comparison in performance with respect to selected outcomes between smallholder farmers in DSM and non-DSM woredas.First, DSM has led to a significant improvement in maize yields, a 26 percent increase in 2019 compared to 2012. Second, DSM has led to a 5 percent increase in the share of maize harvest sold to the market in 2019. The impacts of DSM on wheat and teff yields and shares of harvest sold are not statistically significant. Third, to understand the mechanisms through which DSM affects yields and commercialization, the analysis looked at the impact of DSM on seed availability, quality, and purchases. DSM led to improvements in seed availability for all three crops in 2019. In addition, DSM led to a 27 kg increase in wheat seed purchased per hectare in 2019 compared to 2012 (no effect for maize and teff). These findings show that improved seed availability is the main mechanism through which DSM improves maize yield and commercialization in Ethiopia. It appears that the improvements in teff seed availability and in wheat seed availability and quantity purchased due to DSM are not large enough to result in improved yields and commercialization for these two crops. These differences in the impacts of DSM between crops are likely related to the dominance of maize in DSM and to biological differences between hybrid maize and openly pollinated varieties (OPVs) of wheat and teff, which incentivize private sector participation in maize seed markets over those of wheat and teff. Maize hybrids require that farmers purchase fresh seed each season to realize productivity gains; this provides profit-maximizing firms a financial incentive to aggressively produce and market them to farmers. OPVs offer limited incentives to the private sector as farmers can reuse improved seeds saved from their own harvest or obtained through farmer-to-farmer exchanges for several years without observable deterioration in yields.","tokenCount":"841"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d0cbeee7c27bc0b7472fe00e4dae1e4f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8c64f8e1-a140-4bdb-8b1f-57c458f65df9/retrieve","id":"55625583"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e5f18f0d-4887-4ffd-aaff-9454f3ce1dba","pagecount":"1","content":"Food-borne disease (FBD) is a major public health issue in low income countries of South East Asia including Vietnam and Laos. The contamination of popular foods can occur along the food value chain. Evidence on the burden of FBD is still limited but the risk is expected to be high due to poor food hygiene practices, missing incentives to change them, risky consumption habits and poor enforcement of existing legislation. We will present two case studies conducted since 2015 for Vietnam and Laos.Food safety is a key concern of people in Vietnam. Pork, mainly produced by smallholders and sold fresh in traditional (wet) markets, is the most popular meat and essential both for consumer nutrition and farmer livelihoods. • Prevalence surveys found smallholder pork is as safe as that from the formal sector.• The annual costs of hospitalization in Vietnam due to FBD diarrhoea amounted to USD2.5-7.6 million annually. • Risk due to chemical hazards is low (heavy metals, grow promoters and antimicrobial residues) • Much of the human health risk comes not from eating pork (often well-cooked), but from crosscontamination at kitchen. • Food safety taskforce established.• Biological contamination is the main cause of health risks, while chemical-associated hazards are less important. Enhancing risk communications is critical to improving the ways that related agencies to inform the public of health risks. • Strengthening hygiene practices along the pig value chain through training and clear guidelines equally important than infrastructure investment. Attention should be given to behavioral change to improve hygienic practices and provision of suitable incentives. • Interventions also need to target consumers to manage the risk of cross-contamination at household level when handling pork.Cysticercosis (1 st ) and trichinellosis (7 th ) are among the 'top ten' food-borne parasites globally and endemic in many parts of Laos. Pork is the most popular meat, mainly produced by small holders and sold in traditional (wet) markets.The distribution of both parasitic zoonoses in southern communities of Laos? Study areas: Savannakhet and Champasak province• One Health approach and interdisciplinary research teams;• Participatory rural appraisal;• Household surveys with serological sampling in pigs for Trichinella;• Multi-level stakeholder engagement;• Evidence on risk for Trichinella, 17% positive tested pigs;• Very limited knowledge and perception on zoonotic FBD;• Nearly 90% agree that raw dishes (pork/fish) can harm humans -in practice they still like to eat because it is delicious. • A One Health official committee of Laos should be established to continue promoting an integrated approach and cross-sectoral collaboration using the capital and experience gained from this study. Its governance details should be defined by joint agreement. • This One Health committee could facilitate and cross link efforts at ministerial and lower administrational levels as well as seed this approach and practice in the academic curriculum to guarantee effective long term One Health management in Laos.The ILRI thanks all donors and organizations which globally support its work through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund.","tokenCount":"488"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"297a9bcff5a19d750e809a636ccabeb2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/60303c2a-5e15-4bc7-b3de-031282b12d52/retrieve","id":"1209232497"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6f725396-350f-42f0-bd9b-3c644fd25a22","pagecount":"4","content":"The digital pipeline and script to automate fisheries analytics has led to Timor-Leste government uptake and utilization of the system to manage fisheries and prioritize fisheries development and extension support to fishers and fish workers.The \"Integrated data pipeline for small-scale fisheries\" was developed in Timor-Leste in response to a need for information. The government of Timor-Leste had only patchy understanding of how many boats were active in the country, where they were fishing and what they were catching. This was partly due to a lack of funding resources, but also due to an historical prioritization of farming practices over fishing. However, fish was highlighted in the National Strategic Development Plan (2012-2030) as a critical resource in combating severe malnutrition in the country. Hence, decisions lacked any scientific or data-driven reasoning, and managers were in the dark about the fishery. WorldFish scientists worked alongside government fisheries officers to develop a digital catch reporting system that could gather fisheries landings information from remote sites around the country in near real time. Through an innovated partnership with US private sector firm Pelagic Data Systems, WorldFish also began to gather high resolution spatial information about the fishery and fishing behaviour, which could be combined with catch data to provide much more accurate measures of relative fish abundance in space and time. The initial extrapolated data from this system allowed for the first calculation of national fisheries production including small-scale fisheries. The Fisheries directorate hired 11 new dedicated fisheries landings enumerators, one for each municipality of the country, and in May 2019, the Government announced the launch of PeskAAS as the official national monitoring system of Timor-Leste. The transparent co-creation of the system with the fisheries directorate was important in building local ownership of the system, and greatly enhances the potential sustainability.Press release: https://www.worldfishcenter.org/content/timor-leste-launches-world-first-monitoring-system-small-sc ale-fisheries News coverage: http://www.tatoli.tl/2019/07/19/timor-leste-lansa-sistema-monitorizasaun-peska-dahuluk-iha-mundu/ Televised news coverage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gma3lPP-w0M ","tokenCount":"307"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"95b720d083a2aeaeedbcaa43084ff4f5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/180056ad-d135-41d1-af3d-9c03846758b6/retrieve","id":"-2033969842"},"keywords":["Adoption","Impact","Food Legume Technologies","Probit","Clog-log","PSM","GPS","Bale Highland","Ethiopia"],"sieverID":"7ff3b008-3129-429d-9a67-3bfc96b6741b","pagecount":"131","content":"Madda Walabu University where she worked as assistant lecturer for 2 years. Then, she joined Haramaya University in 2013 to pursue her MSc studies in Agricultural Economics. vi vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This study is the product of an intensive effort of so many people and it is virtually impossible to list them all in here. Nevertheless, I have to express my genuine gratitude to my advisors Dr. Degye Goshu and Dr. Girma Tesfahun Kassie for their priceless and unreserved effort in advising, encouraging, and in supporting me until the very end of the study. I am also indebted to Ato Mulugeta Yitayih for all his help in the initial stages of the study.My sincere acknowledgements go to ICARDA for their all-rounded support including financial support and providing transportation facilities particularly during data collection. Being a student attachment at ICARDA has been a privilege that I cherish. The project I was attached to at viii viiiiv STATEMENT OF AUTHOR I declare that this thesis is my authentic manuscript and that all sources of materials used have been duly acknowledged. This thesis has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for MSc degree at the Haramaya University and is deposited at the University library to be made available to borrowers under the rules of the library. I solemnly declare that this thesis has not been submitted to any other institution anywhere for the award of academic degree, diploma, or certificate. Brief quotations from this thesis are allowable without special permission provided that accurate acknowledgement of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the School of Graduate Studies of Haramaya University when in his or her judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In Globally, agricultural development is expected to have the potential of helping in trimming down poverty for 75% of the world's poor, who lives in rural areas and work mainly in farming. It can also contribute in raising incomes, improving food security and benefitting the environment.Agriculture accounts for one-third of GDP and three-quarters of employment in Sub-Saharan Africa (WB, 2013).Ethiopian economy is fundamentally agrarian where the performance of the agriculture sector dictates the entire economic performance of the country. Despite the reportedly growing importance of the manufacturing and the industry sectors, agriculture continues to account for nearly 46% of the gross-domestic product (GDP), 73% of labor employment and 80% of foreign export earnings (EATA, 2014).Principal crops of Ethiopian agriculture include coffee, legumes, oilseeds, cereals, potatoes, sugarcane, and vegetables. The major staple foods in Ethiopia are grains (e.g. tef, wheat, barley, corn, sorghum, and millet), legumes, oils, ensete, fruits and vegetables. Grains are the most important field crops and the chief element in the diet of most Ethiopians. Exports are almost entirely from agricultural commodities, and coffee is the largest foreign exchange earner and legumes are estimated to be the third most important export crop in Ethiopia just next to sesame (MoARD, 2008).Legumes are the second most important element in the national diet and a principal protein source. They are consumed as boiled, roasted, or as a stew-like dish known as 'wot' that accompanies the locally made bread called 'injera'. Legumes in Ethiopia cover 12.42% of the total cultivated land and provide 11.89% of the total crop production of the country, which is 2.67 million tons (CSA, 2015).According to Legese (2004), feeding the rapidly growing population of Ethiopia by means of extensive farming is becoming unachievable due to limited opportunities for area expansion.Rather, the option that looks more likely is increasing yield through intensification, which involves adoption of different improved agricultural practices (Million and Belay, 2004). Despite the significant contribution of adoption of agricultural innovations for increasing production and income, adoption rate of modern agricultural technologies in the country is very low (Di Zeng et al., 2014and Berihun et al., 2014). In order to raise the agricultural production and productivity, raise income, reduce poverty and to enhance the food security and children nutrition, on a sustainable basis in the developing countries like Ethiopia, large-scale adoption and diffusion of new technologies is very essential (Tsegaye and Bekele, 2012;Degye et al.,2013 andDi Zeng et al.,2014).Increasing the production and productivity of food legumes provides Ethiopia with an opportunity to change the common trends of low productivity, poverty and food insecurity. This is essentially because legumes are essential for soil fertility, soil health, and the sustainability of production systems while they are intercropped or rotated with cereal crops. Legumes allow more intensive and productive use of land, particularly in areas where land is scarce. Legumes can be grown as a second crop using residual moisture and they can reduce malnutrition and improve human health especially for the poor who cannot afford livestock products. Finally, the growing demand in both the domestic and export markets for legumes could be an opportunity that provides the badly needed cash for smallholder producers (Asfaw et al., 2010).Despite the crucial role of legumes for poverty reduction and improving food security in Ethiopia, lack of technological change and market imperfections have often locked small producers into subsistence production and contributed to stagnation of the sector (Shiferaw and Teklewold, 2007). Even if several research and development efforts have attempted to facilitate productivity growth for small farmers, some of these efforts did not stimulate large-scale technology uptake and diffusion. This is mainly because of the limited understanding of farmlevel constraints, farmer preferences and the challenges related to better coordination of input supply and delivery of new technologies and market linkages for small producers. Therefore, this study aimed at filling the gap on identification of determinants behind lower adoption of improved food legume technologies and evaluating the impacts of adoption and intensity of adoption on the welfare of household.Based on the Multidimensional Poverty Index, Ethiopia ranks the second poorest country in the world just ahead of Niger (OPHI, 2015). Ethiopian economy is highly agriculture-dependent and it is characterized as subsistence-oriented. For several years, the performance of agriculture is poor to the extent that the country could not adequately feed its population from domestic production. Like many developing countries, the key challenge in Ethiopian agriculture is how to increase agricultural productivity to meet food security needs for the growing population and to reduce poverty and malnutrition in a sustainable way. To achieve sustainable growth in agricultural production, increasing area of cultivation is no more a viable option and use of improved agricultural technologies has become virtually the only option farming communities have at their disposal (De Janvry et al., 2001;Evenson, 2003 andWDR, 2008).High-yielding varieties, use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, irrigation and improved planting and weeding practices provide higher productivity and improve the income and food security of farm households than conventional technologies (Adetola, 2009;Mulubrhan et al., 2011;Sosina et al., 2014 andTsegaye andBekele, 2012). In recent years, Ethiopia has shown a sustained increase in the use of improved inputs notably seed varieties, fertilizer, chemical, and farm credit. Yet, improved input use in Ethiopia is still lower than that of many other countries and the adoption is highly and significantly affected by education level, market access, and contact with extension agent, farm size, active family member and access to credit (Alemitu, 2011 andAsfaw et al.,2011).This study was conducted in the third poorest region (OPHI, 2015) of Ethiopia -i.e., Oromia regional state -specifically in Bale highlands. Even if so much has been done in developing improved technologies of food legumes and in disseminating them in different parts of Ethiopia, understanding the drivers of adoption and the structure of the diffusion process is an essential component of any research aimed at tackling the challenges faced by resource poor households.There are in fact many studies on the adoption and impact of agricultural technologies (Asfaw et al., 2011;Tsegaye and Bekele, 2012;Degye et al., 2013 andDi Zeng et al., 2014). However, most of them focused only on identifying determinants of adoption and in analyzing the impact on wellbeing by considering adoption as a binary treatment (Asfaw et al., 2011;Tsegaye and Bekele, 2012). This approach of estimating impact can only show the general tendency and fails to show differentials that happen due to the varying levels of adoption. Studies have shown that level of adoption of improved agricultural technologies varies across households and hence ignoring this heterogeneity in assessing impact could result in misleading information. In addition, most of the studies on the impact of adoption of agricultural technologies are limited to household level analysis (Mulubrhan et al., 2011;Berihun et al., 2014 andAsfaw et al.,2011)while intra-household dynamics is an important aspect of technology adoption and impact. Accordingly, this study analyzes welfare impact of status and intensity of adoption of improved food legume technologies in Bale Highlands of Ethiopia with due emphasis to inter and intra-household dynamics.The study addresses the following major research questions:1. Which factors determine adoption of improved food legume technologies? 2. What are the welfare impacts of status and intensity of adoption of improved food legumes varieties in Bale Highlands and are there any intra-household peculiarities in terms of the welfare impact of status of adoption of improved food legumes?3. What are the challenges and opportunities of adopting food legume technologies for farm household?The overall objective of this study was to assess adoption and welfare impact of improved food legume technologies in Bale Highlands of Ethiopia.The specific objectives of the study were to:1. Identify the determinants of adoption of improved faba bean and field pea technologies;2. Analyze the welfare impact of status and intensity of adoption of improved faba bean and field pea varieties, and 3. Identify the challenges and opportunities of adopting food legume technologiesThe study analyzes the adoption and welfare impact of adoption of improved food legume technologies in Bale Highlands, which is one of the least researched corners of Ethiopia. The study has generated empirical information on challenges and opportunities of adoption of improved food legume technologies, determinants of adoption and its welfare impact by taking into account intra household differences and heterogeneity in intensity of adoption. The information generated is expected to be useful to academia, agricultural and rural development agents, federal and regional states in the farming systems, nongovernment organizations, private agricultural operators, researchers and the sample districts to make relevant decisions and intervene in the different aspects of development and dissemination of food legume technologies.The study was limited to three districts in Bale Zone. It was designed in such a way that the sample was representative of the food legumes production potential of the area and yet it can hardly have sufficient external validity given the size of Bale highlands and heterogeneity of the farming communities within. The study was prepared based on cross-sectional data and hence does not look into the temporal dynamics of adoption of the technologies and the impact thereof.In addition, the impact assessments were limited to improved varieties despite the fact that the remaining technologies are usually recommended as a package.Food legumes are very important elements of many cropping systems and make a significant contribution to diets and are often referred to as 'poor man's meat' and with few exceptions, direct legume consumption tends to drop or at best remain stable with increases in income. In fact, this does not necessarily apply to the use of soybean and other legumes in industrial food products (Robert, 2011). In Ethiopia, legumes are the second most important crop and in 2014/2015'meher' cropping season, legumes covered 12.41% of the total cultivated land that is 1.6 million hectare (ha) and provided 9.8% of the total crop production of the country, which is 2.67 million ton (CSA, 2015).This study focused on the adoption and impact of improved faba bean (Vicia faba) and field pea (Pisum sativum) technologies that are available in Bale Highlands of Ethiopia. Faba bean is an annual legume that grows best under cool, moist conditions. Hot, dry weather is injurious to faba bean but it can tolerate frost. Evenly distributed rainfall of 650 to 1000 mm per annum and medium textured soils with pH ranging from neutral to alkaline (pH of 6.5 to 8.0 is ideal for faba bean (Abdel, 2008;Rajan et al., 2012) Similarly, Field pea is well adapted to cool; semi-arid climates and it can be grown on a wide range of soil types, from light sandy to heavy clay. The ideal soil for field pea production is with pH value ranging from 5.5 to 7.0 (Hartmann et al., 1988). Field pea has moisture requirements similar to those of cereal grains. However, field peas have lower tolerance to saline and waterlogged soil conditions than cereal grains. Field peas most often will die after 24 to 48 hours in a water-logged condition. Poorly drained and saline soils should be avoided when growing field peas (Blaine and Gregory, 2009).Usually in Ethiopia, field pea is sown from mid-June to first week of July when there is sufficient moisture. It is ready for harvesting after 100-150 days at high altitude (2300-3000 m.a.s.l) and 100-126 day at mid-altitude (1800-2300 m.a.s.l) areas; this is when the color of the buds turns from green to yellow. Annual rainfall of 800-1100 mm and 700-900 mm is suitable for high and mid altitude field pea growing areas with maximum temperature of 20 0 -25 0 C. Harvesting carried out manually by cutting the vines from the ground and laying them to dry until the seed moisture approaches 9% for good storage (EEPA, 2012). According to CSA (2015), the national production was around 3.4 million quintal (= 3.4 ton) from an area of 0.23 million ha and most of the produce is consumed locally. Ethiopian export of field peas is very small compared to other pulses due to its high local demand. Field pea (dried) exported in 2010 was only 11.7 tones, which is 0.01% of the total pulse export (EEPA, 2012).In Bale highlands of Ethiopia, there are two faba beans and eight-field pea varieties, which were distributed to farmers by SARC. In Bale Highlands, legume production helps the farmer to fulfill household food requirement and generate cash from sales of marketed surplus. The major role of legume production in Bale highlands is increasing the productivity of next season crop by improving soil fertility (SARC, 2014).In tropical areas, food legumes present an opportunity in reversing the unfavorable trends in productivity, poverty and food insecurity. This is because legumes have the capacity to fix atmospheric nitrogen in soils and thus improve soil fertility and save fertilizer cost. Second, legumes enable more intensive and productive use of land, particularly in areas where land is scarce and the crop can be grown as a secondary crop using residual moisture. Third, legumes reduce malnutrition and improve human health especially for the poor who cannot afford livestock products. Fourth, the growing demand in both the domestic and export markets creates an opportunity for farm households to generate cash income from selling the crop produce. Even if food legumes bring important contribution to crop production and local diets, there are number of factors that hold back the development of productive technology and farmers' interest in pursuing such technology create a considerable challenge (Robert, 2011).According to Feder et al. (1985), adoption is defined as the integration of an innovation into farmers' normal farming activities over an extended period. Similarly, adoption is defined as a decision to apply an innovation and to continue to use it over a reasonably long period of time (Ban and Hawkins, 1996). Adoption can be considered as a variable representing behavioral changes that farmers undergo in accepting new ideas and innovations in agriculture anticipating some positive impacts of those ideas and innovations. It further noted that adoption is not a permanent behavior. An individual may decide to discontinue the use of an innovation for a variety of personal, institutional, or social reasons, one of which might be the availability of an idea or practice that is better in satisfying his/her needs.As noted by Feder et al. (1985), a complete analytical framework for investigating adoption process at the farm level should include farmer's decision-making model. This determines the extent and intensity of use of a new technology at each point throughout the adoption process and a set of equations of motion describing the time pattern of parameters that affect the decision made by farmer. Final adoption at farm level of the individual farmer is defined as the degree of use of a new technology in the long-run equilibrium when the farmer has full information on potentials of a new technology (Feder et al., 1985).In most of the sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture remains large and the bulk of the poor are smallholders who benefit from it directly through increased agricultural profits or indirectly through increase in nominal income from other sources other than own agricultural production (WDR, 2008). Agricultural growth is widely considered as the most effective means of addressing poverty in the developing world. Growth in agricultural production can reduce food insecurity by increasing the amount of food available for consumption. This is particularly important for rural consumers whose food entitlement is mainly based on own production (Adekambi et al., 2009).Agricultural production can be increased through extensive resource use through expansion of farmlands or intensification by using more inputs and technologies per unit of land. However, extensive resource use is not a viable strategy to increase agricultural production in most of the food insecure countries where high population pressure is a critical bottleneck. Where land is scarce, intensification, which entails investments in modern inputs and technologies, is a better option to increase agricultural production and reduce food insecurity. New agricultural technologies and improved practices play a key role in increasing agricultural production (and hence improving national food security) in developing countries. Where successful, adoption of improved agricultural technologies could stimulate overall economic growth through intersectoral linkages while conserving natural resources (Sanchez et al., 2009).Agricultural research can contribute to poverty reduction in three major ways. First, agricultural research helps in developing yield-increasing technologies contributing to an increase in the supply of food on which the poor spend a considerable share of their income. The development of high-yielding varieties, which boost food production both by increasing yields per unit of land per cropping season and by facilitating multiple cropping. Second, agricultural research helps to conserve natural resources since the poor lack alternative means to intensify agriculture except forced to overuse or misuse the natural resource base to meet basic needs. Third, because the poor tend to reside in marginal agricultural areas, research should aim at developing technologies suitable for these. However, it is widely argued that research often neglected the marginal areas, thereby worsening poverty in them by reducing market prices of grains without improving technology (Lipton and Longhurst, 1989).Every human being acts in order to maximize his or her own perceived level of happiness.Welfare can be defined as the potential to create happiness of a given commodity. It is not possible to make people happy, but certain tangible factors can contribute towards the development of an environment, which may increase one's natural inclination towards happiness.Generally, welfare of a household shows the general wellbeing of the household that indicating the household's state or condition with respect to health, safety, happiness or prosperity (Edward, 2009). Therefore, a proper understanding of welfare is critical for any economic analysis, which deals with the human condition (Joshua, 2011). The major indicators of welfare of a given household are income, food security, educational welfare, health welfare and asset holding of the household, which can classified as monetary and non-monetary welfare indicators.The monetary welfare indicators are income and consumption expenditure of the household.Income is the amount of money received over a period as payment for work, either goods, or services, or as profit on capital.This denotes money spent on the purchase of consumable items by the household such as food, drinks, clothes, education, and medication. Consumption expenditure in this study was limited on the expenses spent on foods and drinks due to the fact of lack of privet school and clinic in study area. In addition, expenses on clothing -which happen (rarely) i.e. once or twice a year -were not considered. Previous impact assessment studies have used income and consumption expenditure as welfare indicator to measure household wellbeing (see e.g., Asfaw, 2010 andMulubrhan et al., 2011).Welfare is associated not only to income or consumption expenditure of the household, but also to outcomes related to health, nutrition, literacy, social relations, to insecurity, and to low self-confidence and powerlessness. In some cases, it is feasible to apply the tools developed for monetary welfare measurement to non-monetary indicators of wellbeing (Edward, 2009).Education is a well-known and widely used non-income welfare indicator. One could use the level of literacy as the defining characteristic, and some level judged as the threshold for literacy as the \"poverty line\". In countries where literacy is close to universal, one might opt for specific test scores in schools or for years of education as the relevant indicators.Health is another well-known and widely used non-income welfare indicator. One could focus on the nutritional status of household as a measure of outcome, as well as on the incidence of specific diseases (diarrhea, malaria, respiratory diseases) or life expectancy for different groups within the population.The first welfare indicator under household amenities is source of drinking water and the distance of a household from its main source of drinking water in kilometers. The second type of amenity for which information is available is sanitation source. The third type of amenity for which information is available is lighting source mains which may be electricity, generator, kerosene/gas lamp, and candles/torches.The amount of assets that a household owns is likely to affect its welfare for two reasons.First, the more assets it owns, the higher will be its income-earning potential, which raises welfare. Second, the more assets it owns, the higher will be its ability to smooth its consumption level in response to income shocks. To the extent that households are riskaverse, this also increases household welfare (Edward, 2009).This study uses daily calorie intake as a non-income welfare indicator following Sosina et al. (2014)  The study on role of adoption of agricultural technology on market participation among rural households by Asfaw et al. (2011) suggested that the higher productivity from improved agricultural technologies translates into higher output market integration. This study has employed treatment effect model and propensity score matching techniques to estimate the potential impact of adoption by taking in to account for heterogeneity in the adoption decision and unobservable characteristics of farmers and their farm.Similar studies on welfare impact of maize pigeon pea intensification in Tanzania by Mulubrhan et al. (2011) revealed that positive and significant impact of adoption of improved agricultural technologies. The study estimated the causal impact of technology adoption on household welfare by using propensity score matching and switching regression techniques. Results from both estimations confirm that adoption of improved maize and pigeon pea intensification has a positive impact on consumption expenditure per capita even if the result from PSM is not significant for maize that is suggesting the importance of controlling for unobserved heterogeneities in establishing causality. The result generally confirms the potential role of technology adoption in improving rural household livelihood as higher incomes from improved agricultural technologies translate into lower poverty, higher food security and greater ability to with stand risk.Similarly, Sosina et al. (2014) reported findings of a study that aimed at assessing the impact of improved maize on household welfare in Malawi using panel data of 3 years. The study used household per capita maize available for consumption from own production, household per capita income and household per capita assets holding as welfare indicator. Fixed-effects model was employed to estimate the relationship between adoption of improved maize technology and household welfare. Here instrumental variable was used to control the endogeneity problem. The model output confirms that improved maize planted has positive and significant relation with the welfare of farm households. An increase in improved maize plant was positively correlated with their own maize consumption for both male and female-headed households. Poor and better off households had benefited from improved maize planting with higher elasticity for poorest households.Likewise studies in Nigeria on the impact of improved rice technology (NERICA varieties) on The study by Degye et al. (2013) on the simultaneous interaction between adoption and food security of smallholders in rural Ethiopia also confirmed the positive and strong interdependence between adoption and food security. There were three agricultural technologies and two food security measures analyzed by simulated maximum likelihood multivariate Probit model to measure the link between the adoption of agricultural technology and food security indicators and to identify their underlying determinants. The results generally implies that an intensive effort is required to enhance household food security through the accelerated introduction and dissemination of appropriate agricultural technologies in rural Ethiopia.Similarly, the study by Tsegaye and Bekele (2012) on the impact of adoption of wheat technology on household food consumption in southeastern part of Ethiopia (Lode Hetosa district of Oromia regional state) confirms the positive correlation of adoption of agricultural technologies with food security. Propensity score-matching method of impact evaluation was employed to assess the impact of adoption of improved wheat technology on food consumption of farm households. Adoption of improved wheat varieties planted in spacing positively linked with food consumption level of households. Though the adoption of improved wheat technologies was quite low, those households using the technologies could improve their food consumption levels. Scaling up the best practices of the adopters to other farmers was suggested as one option to enhance food security in the area while introducing new practices and technologies was another option.Di Zeng et al. (2014) undertook similar study in Rural Ethiopia on adoption of improved maize varieties and its impact on child nutrition by using instrumental variables and quantile instrumental variable regressions. The result indicates that the positive impact of adoption of improved technology on the general welfare of rural households children nutrition improvement.The study concludes that child malnutrition can be reduced if the poorest nutrition outcomes were improved so adoption needs to be promoted among the poor.Adoption and impact of agricultural technologies on farm income in southern Tigray of Ethiopia by Berihun et al. (2014) also presented a similar result. The ordinary least square regression results revealed that agricultural technology adoption has an encouraging effect on farm income by which adopters were better off than non-adopters. The study argues that to increase the likelihood of adopting modern agricultural technologies and to achieve the expected impact, it is important to improve credit market failures, irrigation problems by introducing drip and pipe irrigations, securing land ownership of farm households and empower female-headed households.The study in rural Tanzania by Kassie et al. (2014) reported a positive impact of intensity of adoption of maize varieties on the food security of households by using the non-parametric continuous treatment effect estimation model called generalized propensity-score matching.Farm households' own subjective assessment of their food security, in addition to the standard per capita food-consumption was used as measure of food security situation of household. The results from this model indicated that maize technology adoption had a modest but significant positive impact on food security, which varies with the level of adoption. Finally, the study concluded that agricultural technology adoption has contributed positively on reducing rural food insecurity in Tanzania.The aforementioned studies revealed the significant and promising effect of agricultural technologies on the general wellbeing of the farm households. However, most of the studies focus only on politically or financially important crops. Most of the studies also analyzed the impact of adoption of improved technologies regardless of the intensity of adoption. The recent literature on the impact evaluation warns that impact assessment by only considering adoption status (binary treatment) of farm households may not give precise information on the extent to which the technology has actually brought about the impact being assessed. In addition, the above literature does not consider the intra household differences while evaluating the impacts.Therefore, it is important to evaluate the impact of intensity of adoption in addition to adoption status of household and considering the difference with in households.The conceptual framework of adoption and impact of improved food legumes technologies on the welfare of farm households starts with identification of the driving factors for adopting improved agricultural technologies. These factors include external dynamics (environmental factor, for example, like unfavorable weather condition, land degradation, erratic rainfall, and low fertility status of land), demographic characteristics of the household (e.g. age, education level etc.) and other social and institutional factors (availability of new information, availability of new technology, availability of credit etc.).Then after, adoption of improved food legume technologies is expected to have considerable economic advantage in terms of increase in yield, increase in marketable surplus of farm households and ultimately in reducing food security and poverty. • and how measured changes in well-being are attributable to a particular project or policy intervention (Shahidur et al., 2010).Estimating the impact of the participation -in this case adoption of improved food legume technologies -requires separating its effect from participating factors, which may be correlated with the outcomes. This task of \"netting out\" the effect of the program from other factors is facilitating if control groups are introduced. \"Control group\" consists of a comparable group of individuals or households who did not involve in the program, but have similar characteristics as those participating in the program, called the \"treatment group\". In theory, evaluators could follow three main methods in establishing control and treatment groups: randomization/pure experimental design; non-experimental design and quasi-experimental design. In practice, in the social sciences, the choice of a particular approach depends, among other things, on data availability, cost and ethics to experiment. In what follows, brief descriptions of the main impact evaluation methods mentioned above are given.Experimental method is randomized method, where the treatment and control samples are randomly drawn from the same population. In other words, in a randomized experiment, individuals are randomly placed into two groups, namely, those that involve in the program or those that do not involve in the program. This allows the researcher to determine the participation impact by comparing means of outcome variable for the two groups. In the contrary, nonexperimental approach is used in cases where program placement is intentionally located. Nonexperimental methods are frequently used in practice either because program administrators are not too keen to randomly exclude certain parts of the population from an intervention or because a randomized approach is out of context for a rapid-action project with no time to conduct an experiment.Generally, randomized evaluations seek to identify a program's effect by identifying a group of subjects sharing similar observed characteristics (say, across incomes and earning opportunities)and assigning the treatment randomly to a subset of this group. The non-treated subjects then act as a comparison group to mimic counterfactual outcomes. This method avoids the problem of selection bias from unobserved characteristics. However, the quality of impact analysis depends ultimately on how it is designed and implemented. Often the problems of compliance, spillovers, and unobserved sample bias hamper clean identification of program effects from randomization.In such cases, researchers then turn to non-experimental methods. The basic problem with a nonexperimental design is that for the most part individuals are not randomly assigned to programs, and as a result, selection bias occurs in assessing the program impact (Shahidur et al., 2010).The essential idea of the before and after estimator of an impact evaluation approach is to compare the outcome of interest variable for a group of individuals after participating in a program with outcome of the same variable for the same group or a broadly equivalent group before participating in the program and to view the difference between the two outcomes as the estimate of average treatment effect on the treated. Cross-section estimators use non-participants to derive the counterfactual for participants in which case it becomes quasi-experimental method.A quasi-experimental method is the only alternative when neither a baseline survey nor randomizations are feasible options (Jalan and Ravallion, 2003). The main benefit of quasiexperimental designs are that they can draw on existing data sources and are thus often quicker and cheaper to implement, and they can be performed after a project has been implemented, given sufficient existing data. The principal disadvantages of quasi-experimental techniques are that the reliability of the results is often reduced as the methodology is less robust statistically; the methods can be statistically complex and data demanding; and there is a problem of selection bias. PSM is not without its potentially problematic assumptions and implementation challenges. First, PSM requires large amounts of data both on the universe of variables that could potentially confound the relationship between outcome and intervention, and on large numbers of observations to maximize efficiency (Bernard et al., 2010). Second, related to the previous point one can never be entirely sure that it has actually included all relevant covariates in the first stage of the matching model and effectively satisfied the conditional independence assumption (CIA).Furthermore, PSM is non-parametric: that does not make any functional form assumptions regarding the average differences in the outcome. Although the first stage involves specification choices -e.g., functional form like logit and probit, empirical analyses tend to find impact estimates that are reasonably robust to different functional forms. Moreover, if unobservable characteristics also affect the outcomes, PSM approach is unable to address this bias (Ravallion, 2005).Irrespective of its shortcomings, PSM model was employed to evaluate the impact of adoption (as a binary treatment variable) on the welfare of household because it is very appealing to evaluators with time constraints and working without the baseline data that it can be used with a single cross-section of data.Generalized propensity score matching:Currently, propensity score matching methods are extended to be applied in settings with continuous treatments, where the focus is on assessing the heterogeneity of treatment effects arising from different treatment levels, that is, different amount of intensity of adoption of improved food legume varieties. Generalized Propensity Score (GPS) or Dose Response Function is a continuous treatment estimator developed by Hirano and Imbens (2004).The GPS method relies on the assumption that selection into different levels of adoption of improved food legume technologies is random, conditional on observable characteristics (unconfoundedness)which could be important determinants of intensity of adoption. In this study, generalized propensity score matching was employed to assess the impact of intensity of adoption improved food legume varieties (adoption as continues treatment variable) on the adopter households by discarding non-adopter from the model.Bale zone is one of the 18 administrative zones in Oromia regional state in south-eastern Ethiopia   Data were collected on several issues including households' demographic characteristics, asset endowments, importance of food legumes, access and adoption of improved food legume technologies, household income and its source, food consumption and its expenditure, access to market, access to credit and membership in different rural institutions..In this study, three stage sampling technique was employed. First, major food legume producing districts in Bale highlands were identified with the help of key informants. At this stage, three major food legume producing districts were selected purposively. The districts were Agarfa, Goba and Sinana based on relative importance of food legumes in the crop production system.Then, four kebeles were randomly selected from each district. Accordingly, Selka, Gomera, Weltei-Berisa and Alage Kebles were selected from Sinana district. Weltei-Tosha, Wecho-Meshege, Aloshe-Tilo and Weltei-Kubisa Kebeles were selected from Goba district. Similarly, Ali, Asano, Elani and Sabaja kebeles were randomly selected from Agarfa district. Finally, out of total 12 kebles a sample of 600 farm households in total-200, 197 and 203 sample households from Agarfa, Goba and Sinana, respectively-were selected proportionately across kebeles based on their total households. Table 1 shows the distribution of the sample households across the four Kebeles in each of the districts.   ) tests -were used to summarize demographic characteristics of sample respondents and the intra household inequalities. Probit and clog-log econometric models were employed to identify determinants of adoption of improved food legume technologies. To evaluate the impact of adoption of improved food legume varieties on welfare of household, PSM was employed. In addition, GPS (continuous treatment effect) was estimated to quantify impact of intensity of adoption of improved food legume varieties.In this study the adoption of improved food legume varieties were defined as a continuous planting of improved faba bean and field pea varieties. The dependent variable has a binary nature taking the value of \"1\" for adopters of improved food legume varieties and \"0\" for nonadopters. To identify the determinants of adoption of improved food legume varieties, a probit model was employed.The probit model is often used in situation where an individual makes choices between two alternatives, in this case the decision to either adopt or not-adopt improved food legume varieties.Theoretically, an individual makes a decision to adopt if the utility associated with adopting the new technology (β 1J ) is higher than the utility associated with decision not to adopt (β 0J ).Following Koop (2003), the difference in utilities of the two alternative choices is stated asand the econometric specification of the model is given in its latent as:Where * jY is an unobserved (latent) random variable that defines farmer's binary (adoption) choices, j X a matrix of explanatory variables associated with individual j.  is a vector of coefficients associated with the explanatory variables while j e represents the random error terms assumed to be independently and identically distributed; i.e.,. The relationship between the unobserved variable * j Y and the observed outcome j Y can be specified as:The probability of the event occurring is the cumulative density function of j e evaluated at given values of the independent variables.where is the standard normal cumulative distribution function for the probit model. Furthermore, complementary log-log (clog-log) binary model was used to identify the determinants of adoption of fertilizer and pesticide for the production of legumes separately.Clog-log model represent third alternative to logistic regression and probit analysis for binary response variables, which is frequently used when the probability of an event is very small or very large (Cameron and Trivedi, 2009). Probit and logit model are symmetrical and hence weaker when Pr is close to 0 or close to 1 or Pr is around 10 percent or 90 percent (Vijverberg, 2012). In the case of this study, rates of adoption of fertilizer and pesticide were found to be 17% and 7.8%, respectively. Therefore, it is rational to apply clog-log for estimating determinants of adoption of fertilizer and pesticide for legume production. More importantly, the clog-log model assumes that the residuals can be represented by an extreme value distribution (Powers and Xie, 2000), which is crucial when the error term estimate is much closer to such an asymmetric distribution than to a normal or logistic symmetric distribution.In this study, the adopters were coded 1 and non-adopters coded 0. The fitted clog-log model was expressed as:The predicted probability of each household \" i \"can thus be expressed as:where Y i is adoption status of fertilizer or pesticide for production of legume, X i denotes covariates that affect the adoption of fertilizer and pesticide and  the vector of parameters.3.3.2 Welfare impacts of adoption of food legumes varieties 3.3.2.1. Impact of adoption status of improved food legume varieties According to Heckman et al. (1998), the major problem in non-experimental treatment effect estimation methods is the presence of selection bias, which could arise mainly from nonrandom location of the project and the non-random selection of participant households. There are three potential sources of bias. The first one is that participant households may significantly differ from non-participants at community as well as household levels due to observable characteristics (such as geographic remoteness, or a household's physical and human capital stock) that may have a direct effect on outcome of interest. Secondly, the difference arises due to unobservable community level characteristic. For instance, particularly dynamic local leaders at community level may in part drive the existence of a project. At the household level, a household's expected benefits, its entrepreneurial spirit, or its relationship with other program/project may significantly influence behavior. Thirdly, externalities (spillover effect) exerted by project on non-participants are also important (Bernard et al., 2010).Even if PSM controls households' observable characteristics by comparing the outcomes of program participants with those of matched non-participants, differences between adopters and non-adopters may either totally or partially reflect initial differences between the two groups rather than the effects of adoption of improved food legume varieties. Having control households from the same communities as program beneficiaries helps to reduce the risks of such bias.However, disregarding unobservable characteristics remains the main problem of this method.As Ravallion (2005) argues, contamination of the control group can be hard to avoid due to the responses of markets and governments. For instance, Bernard et al. (2010) minimized the effect of spillover effect on comparison group by comparing cooperative members to similar households located in other kebeles where there are no cooperatives. Nevertheless, as argued by Heckman et al. (1998), treatment and comparison households should operate in the same markets and should have come from similar agro-ecology (from sufficiently close locations) and socioeconomic conditions in order to ensure the validity of PSM method.To achieve objective of evaluating impact of adoption of improved food legume varieties on welfare of farm households in Bale highlands, PSM was estimated. It is chosen among other non-experimental methods because it does not require baseline data, the treatment assignment is not random and considered as second-best alternative to experimental design in minimizing selection biases (Baker, 2000).The treatment in this study is the adoption of improved food legume varieties and the expected outcomes are income, consumption expenditure and calorie intake. On the other hand, controls are households that did not adopt improved food legume varieties. Ideally, comparison of the households with the adoption of improved varieties shall be compared with the situation these households would have been without adopting the varieties or vice versa. The households can however be only in one of the two states -either adopting or not adopting.The PSM technique enables us to extract from the sample of non-adopting households a set of matching households that resemble the adopter households in all relevant characteristics. In other words, PSM matches each adopter household with non-adopter household or households that have (almost) the same characteristics. In this case, estimating the effect of household's status of adoption improved food legume varieties on a given outcome (Y) is specified as:Where i T is treatment effect (effect due to adoption of improved varieties), i Y is the outcome on household i, D i is whether household i has adopted improved food legume varieties or not.Because of counterfactual nature of outcome means, households under study cannot be observedat the same time. Therefore, only eitheris unobserved and hence estimating individual treatment effect i T is not possible and one has to shift to estimating the average treatment effect at the population level than individual level. Two treatment effects are most frequently estimated in empirical studies. The first one is the (population) Average Treatment Effect (ATE) that answers the question what would be the effect if households in the population were randomly assigned to treatment, which is simply the difference of the expected outcomes after adoption and nonadoption:However, Heckman et al. (1997) note that this estimate might not be important to policy makers because it includes the effect for whom the intervention was never intended. Therefore, the most important evaluation parameter is the so-called Average Treatment Effect on the Treated (ATT), which concentrates solely on the effects on those who are producing improved food legume varieties. ATT is given by: Both terms in the left hand side are observables and ATT can be identified, if and only ifwhen there is no self-selection bias. This condition can be ensured only in social experiments where treatments are assigned to units randomly (i.e., when there is no self-selection bias). In non-experimental studies, one has to introduce some identifying assumptions to solve the selection problem.The validity of the outputs of the PSM method depends on the satisfaction of two basic assumptions namely: the Conditional Independence Assumption (CIA) and the Common Support Condition (CSC) (Becker and Ichino, 2002). CIA (also known as unconfoundedness assumption) states that the potential outcomes are independent of the treatment status, given X . In other words, after controlling for X , the treatment assignment is \"as good as random\". The CIA is crucial for correctly identifying the impact of the program, since it ensures that, although adopter and non-adopter groups differ, these differences may be accounted for in order to reduce the selection bias. This allows the non-adopter units to construct a counterfactual for the treatment group. The common support condition entails the existence of sufficient overlap in the characteristics of the adopter and non-adopter units to find adequate matches (or a common support). When these two assumptions are satisfied, the treatment assignment is said to be strongly ignorable.First, the samples of adopter and non-adopter should be pooled, and then adoption D should be estimated on all the observed covariates X in the data that are likely to determine adoption.When one is interested only in comparing outcomes for that adoption The adoption status of a farm household is denoted by if the household adopted improved food legume varieties and (d=0)if the farm household did not adopt improved food legume varieties.After the participation equation is estimated, the predicted values of Y can be derived. The predicted outcome represents the estimated probability of participation or propensity score.Every sampled adopter and non-adopter will have an estimated propensity score,As for the relevant covariates, PSM will be biased if covariates that determine participation are excluded from the participation equation for non-specification reasons. These reasons could include, for example, poor-quality data or poor understanding of the local context in which the program is being introduced. Heckman, Ichimura, andTodd (1997, 1998) show that the bias in PSM program estimates can be low, given three broad provisions. First, if possible, the same survey instrument or source of data should be used for participants and nonparticipants. Using the same data source helps ensure that the observed characteristics entering the logit or probit model of participation are measured similarly across the two groups and thereby reflect the same concepts. This study used the same questionnaire both for adopters and non-adopters. Second, a representative sample survey of eligible non-adopters as well as adopters can greatly improve the precision of the propensity score. In addition, the larger the sample of eligible non-adopters is, the better the matching will be. This study has limited number of households adopting the improved food legume varieties accompanied by majority of the households using none of the improved varieties.Nevertheless, including too many explanatory variables in the participation equation should also be avoided as over specification of the model can result in higher standard errors for the estimated propensity score P(X)and may result in perfectly predicting adoption for many households[P(X)=1]. In the latter case, such observations would drop out of the common support.Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983) recommend that standardized bias (SB) and t-test for differences were used to check matching quality. If the covariates X are randomly distributed across adopter and non-adopter groups, the value of the associated pseudo-R 2 should be low and likelihood ratio should be insignificant. A bootstrapping method was used to compute the standard error for the estimate of the adoption impact.After estimation of the propensity scores, seeking an appropriate matching estimator is the major task. The choice of matching method involves a trade-off between matching quality and its variance. Various matching estimators have been suggested in the literature. These include the nearest neighbor matching, caliper and radius matching, stratification and interval matching, kernel and local linear matching (Caliendo and Kopeinig, 2008). The final choice of a matching estimator was guided by different criteria such as equal means test referred to as the balancing test (Dehejia and Wahba, 2002), pseudo-R 2 and matched sample size. Specifically, a matching estimator that balances all explanatory variables (i.e., results in insignificant mean differences between the two groups), bears a low pseudo-R 2 value, lower mean bias and results in large matched sample size is preferable.Although household-level analysis appears to have an intuitive and universal basis, it ignores the realities of interpersonal relations in many cultures and intra-household differences within households. The assumption that there are easily-identifiable entities which can be called 'households' which have the same level of importance in determining peoples' poverty by income and/or other measures across cultures and contexts, or even for individuals in the same locality is misplaced (Mayoux, 2004).Intra-household differences affect the very success and sustainability of interventions because of differing degrees of support and resistance to interventions, which may positively or adversely affect the interests of particular individual (Haddad et al., 1997, cited in Mayoux, 2004).Therefore, impact assessment needed to come across not only at aggregate on household or enterprise level, but also on individuals and relations within the household. Understanding intrahousehold inequalities is important not only for measuring impacts but also to look into poverty: vulnerability, voice and empowerment. These are critical dimensions of longer-term sustainability of any impacts assessment. Moreover, impacts on intra-household relations are often of themselves the subject of impact assessment, not only in terms of gender but also other dimensions of intra-household difference such as age and their role in household (Mayoux, 2004).ATT from PSM model tells only how much adopter of improved varieties were benefited compared with non-adopter households without considering intra-household dynamics. To capture the intra-household impact of adoption of improved varieties, predicted ATT estimates were summarized using t-test between dummies that were generated to denote different age and sex groups of household members contributing labor to farming.Household members were disaggregated principally based on age and gender. The female and male household members were divided in to four classes such that group 1 encompassed those aged less than 5 years, group 2 those aged between 5 and 16, group 3 those aged between 16 and 70 and group 4 those aged above 70 years. The intra-household differences were also taken into account when the participation in household farm activities dimension, which was added onto gender and age. After generating these variables, household with greater or equal to 1 value of each generated intra household dummy variables receive one (1), where the household with 0 values the variable will be zero. Accordingly, each household has dummies of intra-household differentials, which were used to summarize predicted ATT.Currently, propensity Score Matching methods are extended to analyze effects of continuous treatments, where the focus is on assessing the heterogeneity of treatment effects arising from different treatment levels, that is, different amount of adoption (Hirano and Imbens, 2004).Assessing impact of agricultural technology adoption as a binary treatment is more applicable where all adopter of a given technology receive same amount of technology on same plot of land. This is not at all the case in Bale highlands and hence, thereof this study employed continuous treatment effects model (Generalized propensity Score Method) to quantify the impact of intensity of adoption on household welfare in addition to PSM.Generalized Propensity Score (GPS) or Dose Response Function is a continuous treatment estimator developed by Hirano and Imbens (2004).The GPS method relies on the assumption that selection into different intensity of adoption is random, conditional on observable characteristics (unconfoundedness) which have been identified to be important determinants of intensity of adoption. However, it is important to note that unobservable variables may still create mismatching and biased estimators because the GPS does not directly account for the unobservable variables that may affect both the outcome variables and the choice of technology. . Here non-adopter households were excluded from this analysis because including untreated units might lead to misleading results (Guardabascio and Ventura, 2013).Accordingly, in the GPS and dose-response estimation, it is only considered positive observations.GPS methods are designed for analyzing the effect of a treatment intensity; therefore they specifically refer to the subpopulation of treated units in this case adopters of food legume varieties.The key identifying assumption in estimating the dose-response function is the weak unconfoundedness assumption (also known as the assumption of selection on observables), where the treatment assignment mechanism is independent of each potential outcome conditional on the covariates:for all   r . Under unconfoundedness, the average doseresponse function can be obtained by estimating average outcomes in sub populations defined by covariates and different levels of treatment. denote the conditional density of the treatment given the covariates. The GPS is defined as. Hirano and Imbens (2004) indicated that GPS is a balancing score in the sense that, within strata with the same value offor a given individual does not depend on the value ofand demonstrated that if the treatment assignment mechanism is weakly unconfounded given the covariates, then it is also weakly unconfounded given the GPS:for all   r . Therefore, GPS can be used to remove biases associated with differences in the observed covariates. Hirano and Imbens (2004) also illustrates that if assignment to the treatment is weaklyThis result suggests that the dose-response function at a particular treatment level \"r\" can be estimated by using the following three steps:As the first step, the study employed a binomial distribution to model the intensity of adoption ) R ( i given the covariates, and 2 1 0 and ,were estimated by maximum likelihood.Estimating the GPS helps to ensure that the covariates are balanced across treatment categories; so that as long as sufficient covariate balance is achieved, the exact procedure for estimating the GPS is of secondary importance (Kluve et al., 2012). The GPS is estimated based on the parameters estimated in equation ( 14) as:The second step involves estimating the conditional expectation of the outcome as a function of observed treatment ) R ( i and estimated GPS ) Q ( i . As Hirano and Imbens (2004) pointed out, the conditional expectation of the outcome can be estimated as a flexible function of treatment level and estimated GPS, which might also involve some interactions between the two. Quadratic approximation were used here specified as:Here \"g\" is a link function, and it is suggested by the functional form of the relationship between the treatment and the explanatory variables. In our set up, R ∈ [0, 1] showing that the proportion of intensity of adoption lies between 0 and 1. It means that if R is bounded, the effect of any particular covariate in X i cannot be constant over its range. Augmenting the model with nonlinear functions of X i does not overcome the problem as the values from an OLS regression can never be guaranteed to lie in the unit interval (Guardabascio and Ventura, 2013). The common practice of regressing the log-odds ratio, i.e. log [R /(1 − R )] in the linear regression instead of R, generates problems whenever any observation R i takes on the values 0 or 1 with positive probability. As a practice, in this situation when R i are proportions from fixed number of groups with known group size, the extreme values are adjusted before taking the transformation.However, not always the fraction R i is a proportion from a discrete group size. In addition, if a large percentage is at the extremes the adjustment mechanism is at least debatable. Therefore it is suggested by Guardabascio and Ventura (2013) to use logit as a link function and as a result, this study used logit model as link function.The coefficients estimated with the GPS equation do not have a causal interpretation, except that testing whether the joint significance of all coefficients associated with GPS were equal to zero can be used to assess whether the covariates introduce bias (Hirano and Imbens, 2004).Lastly, the average dose-response function at a particular value of the treatment \"r\" was estimated by averaging the (estimated) conditional expectation β(r, q) over the GPS at that level of the treatment as:where  is the vector of parameters estimated in the second stage and ) X , r ( q i is the predicted value of ) X , r ( q i at level \"r\" of the treatment. The entire dose-response function can then be obtained by estimating this average potential outcome for each intensity of the treatment. The average dose-response function indicates how the magnitude and the nature of the causal relationship between the treatment variable and the outcome variable change according to the values of the treatment variable, after controlling for covariate biases. On the other hand, the marginal treatment effect function indicates the marginal effects of changing the treatment variable by a given unit on the outcome variable.Adoption of improved food legumes technologies: as Feder et al. (1985) and Doss (2006) state, adopters of agricultural technologies are the ones who adopt a component or more of technology and continue using it, where non-adopters are those who never tried it. Here the adopting households are the ones who have tried the improved varieties of legume (Faba bean and/or Field pea) and kept on using them in the last five years -and they were coded as 1. The rest of the households were considered as non-adopters and they were coded as 0. The second technology is fertilizer application for the production of faba bean and/or field pea and the users are the ones who applied fertilizer in 2014/2015 production season for the cultivation of faba bean or field pea. The final technology is the pesticide application for the production of faba bean and/or field pea. The adopting households are the ones who used chemical in 2014/2015 production season for cultivation of faba bean and/or field pea.For PSM model: Adoption status of improved food legume varieties -representing households that have been using improved varieties of faba bean and/or field pea continuously for the last five years For GPS model: intensity of adoption of food legume varieties which is continuous variable captured by the current total land in hectare under improved faba bean and/or field pea varieties. OUTCOME VARIABLES: the following welfare indicators were used as outcome variables Total income per adult equivalent: it is the total amount of daily income received by the household in Ethiopian birr per adult equivalent.Consumption expenditure per adult equivalent: it is the total amount of money the household spent on consumables items in Ethiopian birr per day per adult equivalent.Calorie intake per adult equivalent: it is the daily food available for consumption for all household members in kilocalories.The following explanatory variables have been hypothesized to influence the adoption of improved food legume technologies in the study area.Age of household head: this is a continuous variable hypothesized to have a positive effect on adoption of improved food legume technologies as the accumulated experience of older farmers is expected to help them make adoption decision rather ahead of younger farmers. However, as the age of household head increases to the limit where the farmer would be quite old and unable to contribute in farming activities, decisions on adopting improved technologies could be very slow. Therefore, a quadratic relationship was expected between adoption decision and age of the household head.Years of schooling: this variable includes both formal and informal education level of the household head, which indicates the total number of years of education of the individual either from formal or informal school. Here, education is measured as a continuous variable and it is expected to affect adoption positively by improving consciousness of the farmer to obtain, process, and use information relevant to the adoption of technological package (Debelo, 2015).Number of household members involved in farm activities: it is a continuous variable that shows the total number of household members involved in farm activities and it is expected to influence adoption positively (Asfaw et al., 2011). Human labor is an important input for agricultural production especially for the labor-intensive production of legumes. Therefore, a farm household with higher number of workers is expected to adopt improved food legume technologies.Farm size in hectare: it is a continuous variable that indicates the size of land owned by the farm household. Farmers with larger land size can afford the expenses on new agricultural technologies and can bear the risk in case of failure of crop production. This means that farmers who have relatively larger farm size will be more initiated to adopt improved food legume technologies and the reverse is true for farmers with less land.Livestock holding: this variable is measured in terms of Tropical Livestock Units (TLU) (Storck et al., 1999) and is hypothesized that as ownership of livestock increases, adoption of improved food legume technologies increases (Debelo, 2015).Membership in farmers' cooperative: it is a dummy variable referring to whether a household member is an active member of farmers' cooperatives or not and is expected to influence the adoption of improved food legume technologies positively. The positive association is expected because the farmers' cooperatives are expected to provide members with necessary input and help farmers access more rewarding markets (Kassie et al., 2014).Access to credit: Access to credit improves farmers' purchasing power of new production technologies like improved varieties, fertilizer and other agricultural inputs. Access to credit was hypothesized to affect the adoption of improved food legume technologies positively by improving the liquidity status of the farm household (Alemitu, 2011).Frequency of contact with research center: This continuous variable, which measures frequency of contacts the household had with agricultural research centers in the past 12 months.It was expected to affect the adoption of improved food legume technologies positively due to the access to information regarding improved agricultural technologies and better instructions for uses of agronomic practices.Distance from near town: as Maertens and Barrett (2013) suggested it is essential to control all potential source of information in estimation of learning links (adoption of agricultural technologies). Therefore, it is important to include households proximity to town where there is better infrastructure, access to information and good market integration. The higher the value of this variable therefore the less likely it is that households would be able to adopt improved legume varieties. This variable indicates the walking distance in hour from household residence to near town.Distance from agricultural extension office: This variable is continuous and measures the distance in walking hours from the household residence to agricultural extension office and it is expected to affect the adoption decisions negatively (Alemitu, 2011).Distance from main market: this denotes the distance from the output market in walking hours to farmers' residence. It is expected to affect the adoption decisions negatively. The closer farm households to the market are the more that they will receive higher prices for their products at least due to less marketing transaction costs (Alemitu, 2011).Household head participation in off farm activities: this is dummy variable that shows whether the household head participates in off-farm activities or not. It is expected to affect the adoption positively as participating in off-farm activities can solve liquidity problem (Berihun et al., 2014). However, the positive role of off farm activities may not hold true in all cases of deciding to adopt agricultural technologies. Where the production crop is labor intensive, it adversely affects the adoption by taking away the labor from farming.District dummies: there are numerous sources of variation that could possibly happen across locations. Given the size of the districts and the independence of the district offices in planning and implementing agricultural development activities, it was hypothesized that there might be differences across districts in terms of the likelihood of adoption of improved food legume This part of the thesis presents the results of the statistical analyses and the discussions thereof based on the primary data generated through formal and informal survey. This chapter has five main sections. In the first section, the adoption of improved food legume technologies, summary of variables, which characterize the sample households that used in the descriptive and inferential statistical are discussed. The second section describes the results of estimated models of adoption of improved food legume technologies while the third and the fourth sections illustrate the results of treatment effect models of adoption rate and intensity of adoption of improved food legume varieties on welfare of household. The fifth section describes the challenges and opportunities of adoption of improved food legume technologies.This study was based on data generated from 600 randomly selected farm households in three districts of the Bale highlands. The sample comprised 90.7% of male headed and 9.3% of femaleheaded farm households with an average age of 43 years.Figure 3 below presents the adoption rate of improved food legume technologies across the three sample districts of Bale Highlands. Adopter of improved food legume varieties was 127 households (21% of total sample households); adoption rate was highest in Sinana district (50.39%) and lowest in Goba district (21.26%). It was also observed that households who were using fertilizer and pesticide for the production of legumes are 103 (17%) and 47 (7.8%) of the total sample households, respectively. The adoption of both fertilizer and pesticide for the production of legume was high in Agarfa (45% for fertilizer and 72% for pesticide) and lower in Sinana (17% for fertilizer) and Goba (2% for pesticide). Table 3 presents the t-test and chi-square comparison of means of selected variables by adoption of improved food legume technologies for the surveyed 600 households. Some of these characteristics are explanatory variables of the estimated models presented in sections further below. Amongst the 127 adopters of improved varieties, 95% were male headed. Most of the adopters of fertilizer for legume production were female headed households whereas pesticide adopters were male headed even if there is no significant difference between observed frequencies. Household head participation in off-farming activities was significantly lower for adopters of improved varieties -was only 7.2%.Education is an important variable that positively contributes towards the decision to adopt agricultural technologies by improving consciousness of farmers to obtain, process, and use relevant information leading to the adoption of improved technological package (Debelo, 2015).Accordingly, the adopter of improved food legume varieties and fertilizer were found to have significantly higher education level than non-adopters.The average family size of the sample households was 6.5,which is higher than the national average of 4.7 and the dependency ratio within the sample households was computed to be 126.55%, which is again higher than the national average of 83.5% (CSA, 2014).The production of legumes in the study area is highly labor intensive from land preparation to trashing.Therefore, household labor availability is a critical requirement for the farm households to, among others, facilitate the adoption of improved food legume technologies. Thus, family size in AE and number of household member involved in farm activities of the family were higher for adopters compared to non-adopters.In addition, livestock holding and farm size are the most common indicators of household assets that contribute in favor of adoption of agricultural technologies (Debelo, 2015 andAsfaw et al., 2011). The average land holding of sample respondents was 4.66 ha, which was again higher than the national average of 1.37 ha (World Bank, 2013). Farm size was found to be significantly higher for adopters of improved food legume varieties and pesticide. Similarly, livestock wealth measured in TLU was observed to be higher for adopters compared to non-adopters of improved food legume technologies with an average of 7.14.Membership in farmers' cooperatives enhances the likelihood of adopting improved technologies as it provide farmers with necessary inputs at relatively lower prices and assist farmers to access more rewarding markets (Kassie et al., 2014). Hence, about 42.5% of the adopters of improved food legume varieties were members of farmers' cooperatives, which was significantly higher than the case for non-adopters.The chief source of improved varieties and agronomic practices for farmers in study area is Sinana agricultural research center (SARC). Frequency of contact with research center is expected to affect the adoption of improved food legume technologies positively and here the adopters have had significantly higher frequency of contact. On average, adopters of improved legume technologies were closer to agricultural extension office, towns and main market, which are places where the rural farmers get information and undertake marketing. An important purpose of adoption models is identifying the factors that determine the likelihood of adoption of a given technology or set of technologies in a given context. Identification of these factors alone is not enough unless the relative influence of each factor is known for prioritybased intervention. The econometric models employed here to identify determinates of the adoption were used to see the relative influence of different socio-economic, institutional and market access variables on the adoption of improved food legume technologies. This study addresses three food legume technologies, namely improved food legume varieties, application of fertilizer and pesticide for food legume production.Adoption of improved food legume varieties was estimated by using binary Probit model. The specification of the model is significant for the estimation of determinants of adoption of improved food legume varieties implying that the null hypothesis that all slope coefficients are zero does not hold true at 1% statistical error. The estimation result indicates that adoption of improved legume varieties is significantly affected by eight variables out of 15 hypothesized variables. Age square in year, livestock holding in TLU, membership in farmers cooperatives, frequency of contact with agricultural research center, household head's participation in off farm activities, distance from main market and district dummies were found to be significantly affecting the likelihood of adoption of improved food legume varieties in the study area (Table 4).Age square of household head: To capture the quadratic relation of age with adoption of improved food legume varieties, both age and age square of household head were included in the model estimation. Even if age of household head does not have significant effect on the adoption of improved varieties, age square was found to be negatively affecting the likelihood of adoption at 10% statistical error. The negative coefficient of age square indicates the adverse effect of getting older of household head on the likelihood of adoption of varieties. The likelihood of adoption of improved food legume varieties decreases by 0.02% as age square increases in one unit. This indicates that as the household head gets older and older, his/her ability to engage and manage farm activities goes down and hence the tendency to learn about and adopt new technologies will decline. It is also important to note that legume production in the area is entirely human labor dependent contrary to the mechanized cereal production, which is the predominant cropping system. Being member in farmers' cooperative increases the likelihood of adoption of improved food legume varieties by 5.7%. This is in line with the finding reported by Kassie et al. (2014) in relation to adoption of maize varieties in Tanzania.Frequency of contact with agricultural research center: this variable was found to be significantly and positively affecting the adoption of improved food legume varieties at 5% statistical error. When the frequency of contact with agricultural research center increases by one day per year, the likelihood of adoption increases by 3.3%. This is obviously related to the fact that agricultural research centers are the major source of agricultural technologies and reliable source of information for farmers. Mulubrhan et al. (2011) andSalifu et al. (2015) support this finding by reporting the positive role of information for the adoption of agricultural technologies based on their study on adoption of pigeon pea and maize intensification and on the adoption of improved maize varieties in Ghana, respectively.Distance from main market: The model result confirms that distance of farmers' residence from the main market is associated with adoption of improved food legume varieties negatively at 5% statistical error. As walking distance from main market to farmers residence increase by one hour, the likelihood of adoption deceases by 3.4%. This implies that farmers closer to the main markets may have better access to input and output markets and hence access more information about improved technology that could concomitantly enable them to try and use new technologies than those who are in distant areas. The findings by Hassen (2014) and Debelo  Even if the adoption rates of fertilizer and pesticide for the production of legumes are very low in the study area, it is important to identify the underlying factors behind the lower rate of adoption to suggest research and development interventions. To identify the determinants of adoption fertilizer and pesticide for the production of food legume, clog-log model was estimated separately for the two technologies. The specification test shows that the model is significant implying that the null hypothesis that all slope coefficients are zero does not hold true at 1% of statistical error. Four variables were found to be statistically significant in explaining farmer decision to adopt fertilizer for food legume production. The likelihood of adoption of fertilizer for the production of legume was affected by livestock holding in TLU, distance from agricultural extension office, distance from main market and district dummies. In the same way, six variables were found to be statistically significant in explaining farmer likelihood to adopt pesticide for food legume production. These included farm size, livestock holding in TLU, frequency of contact with agricultural research center, distance from main market and district dummies (Table 5).Livestock holding: Livestock was the economic variable that was highly significant in explaining the likelihood of adoption of both fertilizer and pesticide for the production of legume. As livestock holding increases by one unit of TLU, the likelihood of adoption of fertilizer and pesticide increased by 1.1% (1% statistical error) and 0.5%(5% statistical error), respectively.Farm size: Farm size has a positive effect on the likelihood of adoption of pesticide for legume production. If farm size increase in one hectare, the household's likelihood of adoption of pesticide for the production of legumes increases by 0.7% at 1% statistical error. This finding is in line with what Asfaw et al. (2011) reported for determinants of adoption of improved variety of chickpea in Ethiopia. As farm size increases, the disease control and weeding practices become difficult to handle manually which may force the households to use chemicals to address the challenges in their legume production.Frequency of contact with agricultural research center: Results also confirmed that the likelihood of adoption of pesticide was strongly correlated with households' contact with agricultural research center. This may actually prove that the key source of agricultural technologies and reliable source of information is the research center at Sinana. When the Identifying the factors behind adoption of agricultural technologies is not enough for the study that aims to improve the adoption of improved technologies and their welfare impact at scale. This section of the thesis discusses the welfare impacts of adoption of improved food legume varieties, which was estimated by using Propensity score matching (PSM). The welfare indicators that the study focuses on are income per day per AE, consumption expenditure and calorie intake per day per AE.The PSM is one of the non-parametric estimation techniques that do not depend on functional form and distributional assumptions. The method is intuitively attractive as it helps in comparing the observed outcomes of adoption of improved food legume varieties with the outcomes of counterfactual control that is non-adoption (Heckman et al., 1998). The PSM technique enables to extract from the sample of non-adopting households a set of matching households that look like those who adopted in all relevant characteristics. In other words, PSM matches each adopter household with control household/s that has/have (almost) the same characteristics.In the estimation of the propensity score, the focus is not on the effects of covariates on the likelihood of adoption (propensity score) as the intention is developing an index that can be used to match the two groups of sample households -adopters and non-adopters. However, the choice of covariates to be included in the first step (propensity score estimation) is an important issue. Heckman et al. (1997) argue that omitting important variables can increase the bias in the resulting estimation. Here, pre-intervention characteristics that bring variation in outcomes of interest among adopters and non-adopters were used. In other words, variables which are not affected by being adopter or not or those covariates which are fixed throughout are used as explanatory variables. Accordingly, different demographic, socioeconomic, institutional and location factors were considered. The study is going to estimate Average Treatment Effect on the Treated (ATT), which concentrates only on the effects of adoption of improved varieties on the adopters.To estimate propensity score for adopter and non-adopter households, logit regression model was used. The treatment or the dependent variable of the propensity score model is binary; i.e., adopter or non-adopter. The result of p-score estimation shows the estimated model appears to perform well for the intended matching exercise. A low Pseudo R 2 value confirm that adopter households do not have much distinct characteristics overall and as such finding a good match between adopter and non-adopter farm households becomes easier as well, the Pseudo R 2 is 0.10.The results indicate that the propensity to adopt improved food legume varieties was considerably influenced by livestock holding, membership in farmers corporative, distance from town, using fertilizer and pesticide and household head participation in off farm activity (Appendix Table 5).  As Table 6 below illustrates the estimated propensity score varies between 0.024 to 0.823 with mean of 0.212 and standard deviation of 0.13. The average p-score of adopters is 0.29 and ranges from 0.063 to 0.823while that of non-adopters ranges from 0.024 to 0.74 with mean of 0.19.  Dehejia and Wahba, 2002, kernel matching with a bandwidth of 0.1 is the best estimator for the data at hand. The matching was found to be lowest pseudo-R 2 , all sample households on support region are matched and the mean differences for all explanatory variables between adopters and non-adopters were found to be insignificant. Kernel matching is nonparametric matching estimator that compares the outcome of each adopter to a weighted average of the outcomes of all non-adopters; with the highest weight being placed The results of PSM indicate that adoption of improved food legume varieties has positive and significant impact on household income. However, it does not have any significant impact on household consumption expenditure and calorie intake probably because consumption behavior of the household in the short run may not adjust immediately with income (Asfaw et al., 2010).As indicated in Table 9, the daily income of household per AE is relatively higher for adopters (2.89) than non-adopters (2.65). Adopter households receive 25% higher income than nonadopters do which is significant at 1% statistical error. This might be because as the household adopts improved varieties of food legumes, the yield per unit of land increases that possibly boosting the marketable surplus. In order to control for unobservable biases, it is important to undertake sensitivity analysis after PSM. Table 10 below presents the output of Rosenbaum bounding approach to analyze sensitivity. The  e (Gamma) is critical value at which the causal inference of sensitively analysis evaluates. Result from sensitivity analysis indicates that the inference for the impact of the adoption of improved food legume varieties will not be changing even if the adopter and non-adopter households were allowed to differ in their odds of being adopter up to 200% (  e =3) in terms of unobserved covariates. This means for all outcome variables estimated, at various level of critical value  e , the p-critical values are significant which further indicates important covariates that affected both adoption and outcome have been considered. Accordingly, impact estimates here are insensitive to unobserved selection bias and are a pure effect of adoption of improved food legume varieties.As noted by Hujer et al. (2004), sensitivity analysis for insignificant impact is not meaningful and therefore sensitivity analysis for the effect of adoption of improved food legume varieties on consumption expenditure and daily calorie intake of household were not done.  .000 p<0.000 p<0.000 p<0.000 p<0.000 p<0.000 p<0.000 p<0.000 p<0.000Source: Own estimation  e (Gamma)=log odds of differential due to unobserved factors where Wilcoxon significance level for each significant outcome variable is calculated.4.3.7. Intra-household impact of adoption of improved varieties Intra-household impact analysis has practical policy importance given the relevance of the intrahousehold patterns that might influence the welfare outcomes of adoption of improved food legume varieties. Intra-household difference cannot be captured by simple treatment effect model in this case -PSM. The ATT from PSM tells only the estimated impact of adoption on adopters compared to non-adopters without considering the intra-household dynamics.The intra-household impact analysis was captured by using simple mean comparison test (t-test) of predicted ATT merely for the significant welfare impacts of adoption that is daily income per adult equivalent. Predicted ATT was summarized by the dummies generated to capture the age, sex and involvement in farming differences within the household to look into intra-household differentials of impact of adoption of improved food legume varieties.Even if adoption of improved food legume varieties provides the farm households with better income, the treatment effects vary from one household to other as per their intra household differences. The income effect of adoption of improved food legume varieties is significantly lower for the household with female headed by 2.8% while taking all other intra household differences constant (Table 11).As Table 11 indicates, households with females aged less than 5 years and females older than 70 years are considerably disadvantaged in terms of income at 10% and 5% statistical error, respectively, ceteris paribus. However, households with females aged between 5 and16 and 16 to70 years receive significantly better income effect at 5% and 10% statistical error, respectively.Likewise, households with males aged between 5 and 16 years receive better treatment effect on income at 1% statistical error. In addition, households with young and adult (both male and female) members who participate in farming activities obtain significantly better income due to adoption of improved food legume varieties (Table 11). This may be due to the active participation of these members that enhance the adoption of improved varieties, which increases income of adopters. This finding is in line with Hassen et al. (2014) that reported positive role of active labor force in the adoption of improved varieties. However, households with old female members who participate in farming activities receive significantly lower income by 1% at 10% statistical error.Generally, the result of the intra-household analysis indicates that households with economically dependent female household member received significantly lower income from adoption of improved food legume varieties. This finding implies that the impact from adoption of improved food legume varieties vary among households as per their intra-household dynamics.Current literatures indicate that assessing impact of agricultural technologies by taking adoption as a binary treatment is not enough in a context where there is heterogeneous intensity of adoption at household level due to different factors. Thereby, this study estimates the impact of intensity of adoption on welfare indicators besides the impact of status of adoption reported above.This part of the study explains the output of the Generalized Propensity Score (GPS) or continuous treatment effects model that was fit to estimate impacts of intensity of adoption of improved food legume varieties on the welfare of households. The GPS model (dose-response function) estimated for adopters of improved food legume varieties as continuous dependent variable -which is intensity of adoption -takes only positive values. Therefore, the non-adopters were discard from the analysis.GPS is a non-parametric method used to correct for selection bias in a continuous treatment setting by comparing units that are similar in terms of their observable determinants of \"adoption intensity\" within the adoption group. Hence, it does not require control groups (Magrini et al., 2014). The intensity of adoption of improved food legume varieties that is \"adoption intensity\" that indicates proportion of adoption, which ranges from 0 to 1, that was captured by dividing land under improved varieties of food legume of each household to maximum amount of land under improved legume varieties. Here missing important variables may create mismatching and biased estimators because the GPS does not directly account for the unobservable variables that may affect both the welfare of household and intensity of adoption of improved food legume varieties. Therefore, different demographic, socioeconomic, institutional and location factors were included in the analysis. Alike to PSM analysis in previous section, GPS focuses on estimation of welfare impacts by using income, consumption expenditure and daily calorie intake per AE per day as indicator variables.Before estimating the generalized propensity score, it is required to drop non-adopters from the analysis and group the intensity of adoption in to three clusters at 30% and 70% following the procedure suggested by Kluve et al (2007). Three groups of comparable size were formed on the basis of proportion of intensity of adoption, i.e. group one (less than 0.0532); group two (greater than 0.0532 and less than 0.18) and group three (greater than 0.18 to 1). Group one presents the households with relatively lower proportion of adoption that consists of 39 households; the second group indicates the household with medium proportion of adoption which contain 50 households and the third group indicate relatively higher proportion of adopter that consists of 38 sample households.As Table 12 indicates, the estimated GP score varies in the range of 0.0243to 0.659 with mean of 0.148. For group one, the GPS scores was in the range of 0.036 to 0.24with mean of 0.108. For group two, GP score ranged from 0.024 to 0.424 with mean of 0.141 while the last groups GP score vary between 0.030 and 0.659 with mean of 0.198.   Kernel density estimate was done. Finally, strong evidence was found that showed the satisfaction of the balancing property at level lower than 1% statistical error after GPS adjustment.Table 13 presents the result of standard two-sided t-test of covariate balance for each group before and after GPS adjustment. The results point out that the covariate balance has improved by making the adjustment for the GPS. The equality of mean across groups without GPS adjustment indicates as there were 4 covariates with significant mean difference, whereas after GPS correction it was reduced to one significant mean difference variable.    The amount of money spend on the purchase of consumable items by the household (food and drinks) was expected to be enhanced as the production and productivity of farming activities increases. As Table 15 illustrates, at 0.33 proportion of intensity of adoption, the marginal increase in consumption expenditure was estimated to be 6.2%at 10% statistical error. As intensity of adoption increased to 0.7 and 1, the marginal effect of intensity of adoption of improved food legume varieties on consumption expenditure was observed to be statistically insignificant and ended to be negative if the intensity is increased beyond 1. This may due to the nature of the consumption, which set at some specific pick beyond that the household could not consume.   Treatment Effect Function that at 0.33 proportions intensity of adoption, the daily calorie intake improved by 9%, which is significant at 5% statistical error. As intensity of adoption increases to 0.7 and 1, the treatment effect on the daily calorie intake of households increased by 23% and 35%, which is statistical significance at 5% and 10% statistical error, respectively. This result is in line with the findings of Kassie et al. (2014) that reported the positive impact of the intensity of adoption of improved maize varieties on status of food security in rural Tanzania.  Figure 9: Dose response and treatment effect of intensity of adoption on daily calorie intakeThe informal survey done as part of this study that used to summarize the challenges and opportunities of adoption of improved food legume technologies that farm households are facing in the study districts.Bale Highlands are characterized by mixed farming that includes more of crop production and less of livestock rearing activities. Even if the area has the potential for food legume production, the crop production is dominated by mono-cropping system, where wheat is the most dominant crop. Wheat is mainly produced in the meher (main rainy) season mainly using mechanization while farmers produce food legumes in both meher and belg (short rain) seasons using human labor. Faba bean is largely produced in the meher season while field pea is produced in the belg season. This is essentially associated with the susceptibility of faba bean to water logging in the belg season and that of field pea to aphids in the meher season. Adoption of improved food legume technologies provides farmers in Bale Highlands with many opportunities and potential challenges. According to experts at the district offices of agriculture, food legumes are produced for household consumption and to generate cash income due to their higher market values. Moreover, the production of food legumes in rotation with cereals significantly reduces disease and pest infestation in the area. Experts in the districts have also observed that the incidence of diseases is more severe in mono-cropped fields than in rotation of legumes and cereals.Key informants of the informal survey emphasized that shortage of improved food legume technologies, as one of the major challenges farmers are faced with, undermining their effort to improve production and productivity of food legumes. Especially lack of disease resistant and water logging tolerant varieties was indicated as a critical challenge. In some locations, farmers also desist from planting their field due to possible damage caused by frost.It was also learnt that there was limited effort to support farmers to access market information.Experts in the districts indicated that weak market integration is one of the major challenges that affect legume crop production and productivity in the area. Farmers in the districts have limited access to market information. In addition, there is no any functional cooperative or union, which provides market information or facilitates market linkages in the study districts. As a result, food legume farmers are usually affected by market irregularities.In this section, the major findings of the study are summarized, and conclusion and policy implications are drawn based on the key results of the study.Adoption of agricultural technologies is crucially important in order to feed the rapidly growing population of Ethiopia, which has already become almost unachievable by extensive farming due to limited opportunities for farm area expansion. Agriculture in Ethiopia is semi-subsistence oriented in nature. In order to raise the agricultural output and productivity to bring about, albeit in the long run, improvement in household income, reduction of poverty and enhancement of food security on a sustainable basis in developing countries large-scale adoption and diffusion of new technologies is very essential.This study was conducted in Bale highlands of Ethiopia, which are among the sections of the country where there is immense potential and need for production of food legumes. Even if a number of food legume research and extension activities have already been done in many districts of Ethiopia, very little (if any) is known in Bale Highlands about the status and impact of adoption of improved food legume technologies. Therefore, this study was undertaken to fill the glaring gap of data and information about the determinants of adoption of improved food legume technologies, the impact of rate and intensity of adoption of improved food legume varieties on income, consumption expenditure and daily calorie intake. In addition, this study identified the major challenges and opportunities of adoption of improved food legume technologies in Bale highlands of Ethiopia.This study was undertaken in three districts of Bale Highlands, namely Agarfa, Goba and Sinana.Both formal and informal survey was carried out to generate the primary data needed for the study. The formal survey acquired from 600-randomly selected sample farm households. It compromises 90.7% of male headed and 9.3% of female-headed farm households with an average age of 43 years.The result of simple descriptive statistics revealed that 21% of sample households adopted improved food legume varieties, 17% adopted fertilizer while only 7.8% of the sample households adopted pesticides for the production of food legumes. Larger farm size and livestock holding, higher family size and active family member, membership in farmers' cooperatives and contact with agricultural research center, closeness to agricultural extension office and main market characterize the adopters of improved food legume technologies.The study also indicates that adoption of improved food legume technologies can motivate farmers to shift from the mono-cropping system, which increases infestation of disease and pests to a more diverse one. The adoption of improved food legume technologies provides farmers with higher income-as the legumes are grown essentially as cash crop and usually fetch higher prices than common cereals. Furthermore, they are the major source of protein for the household who cannot acquire it from animal products. However, the adoption of improved food legume technologies is highly constrained by labor-intensive nature of the production, lack of improved food legume technologies especially water logging tolerant varieties and market irregularities.The determinants of adoption of improved food legume technologies were identified by using Probit and clog-log models. The results of the estimated limited dependent variable models revealed livestock holding, farm size, membership in farmer's cooperative and frequency of contact with agricultural research center are positively associated with adoption of improved food legume technologies. In contrary, being very old, distance from main market and agricultural extension office, and participation of household head in off farm activity were found to be negatively associated with the likelihood of adoption of the improved legume technologies.In addition, PSM treatment effect model was estimated to evaluate impact of adoption of improved food legume varieties on the welfare of households by considering daily income, consumption expenditure and calorie intake per AE as welfare indicators. The results of PSM revealed the positive effect of improved food legume varieties on household income. This study also looked into intra-household differentials of the impact by developing clusters based on gender, age, and involvement in farming activities of household members. The intra household analysis indicated that households with productive labor force receive better treatment effect while households with economically dependents female members receive considerably lower treatment effects from adoption of improved food legume varieties.Furthermore, to evaluate impact of intensity of adoption of improved food legume varieties on household welfare, this study employed GPS model. The results from GPS confirm the positive and significant impact of intensity of adoption of improved food legume varieties on income, consumption expenditure and daily calorie intake.As the finding of the study indicated, adoption of improved food legume technologies was quite low even if the study area has huge potential for production of food legumes. Thereby, there is a justifiable need to exert a stronger and targeted effort to improve the adoption of improved food legume technologies. Based on the finding of this study, the following recommendations are made.1. The adoption of improved food legume technologies was facilitated by having more livestock. Therefore, stakeholders in the study area should give much emphasis to the improvement of the productivity of the livestock through disseminating improved breeds and improving feeding practice. Finally, this study strongly recommends further studies on the adoption of improved food legume technologies and their impact on household welfare using higher sample size and repeated measures to account for the heterogeneities that are crucial in such studies. Both spatial and temporal aspects of the adoption and impact dynamics need to be looked into to come up with precise and practical recommendations.SECTION 2: Demographic characteristics of the household Let's discuss about each member of your household (all the people living in the same compound, eating from the same \"pot or plate\" and working to sustain the family First name (start with the respondent) ","tokenCount":"15874"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"95dee0ca57b34c4a68db1ea233277830","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/a9f2872c-6f19-4222-99be-cafbd835b2b5/content","id":"-415399797"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"426e31b9-4330-4678-9999-feefb932c9cf","pagecount":"7","content":"Los Valles Altos de México son regiones aptas para el cultivo de trigo y cebada de temporal, pero diversas enfermedades limitan la producción. Métodos de labranza mínima y monocultivo de cereales han favorecido el incremento de los patógenos causantes de manchas foliares, pudriciones de raíces y fusariosis; ésta última, particularmente importante, ya que afecta el rendimiento y produce toxinas en el grano nocivas a la salud humana y animal. El enanismo amarillo de la cebada y el virus del mosaico estriado de la cebada son enfermedades virales de nivel de daño inferior y variable. Bajo condiciones ambientales favorables, se presenta el rayado bacteriano, la pudrición del embuche y mancha de la hoja. En algunos años, la roya amarilla en la cebada ha causado también fuertes pérdidas. Las manchas foliares en trigo, así como en cebada pueden causar pérdidas en rendimiento mayores al 50%. El programa de patologíamejoramiento genético de trigo del Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (CIMMYT), en colaboración con el Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agrícolas y Pecuarias (INIFAP), ha desarrollado estrategias de selección para la búsqueda de resistencia genética. Esto también se ha logrado a través de proyectos con universidades de los Estados Unidos de América, así como el Colegio de Postgraduados en Montecillo, Edo. de México. Para tener éxito en la selección de material con resistencia, se debe utilizar la metodología específica (inoculación y evaluación) para la optimización en la caracterización adecuada de cada genotipo. Otro factor importante en los avances de la resistencia genética, ha sido la utilización de gramíneas silvestres como fuentes de resistencia a diversas enfermedades. El estudio de la variación patogénica a nivel regional, y a través de países y áreas geográficas, es estratégico para el futuro del mejoramiento genético del trigo y la cebada.Palabras clave adicionales: Fusarium spp., Xanthomonas translucens, Pseudomonas fuscovaginae, Pseudomonas syringae pv syringae, Puccinia striiformis f. sp. hordei, Septoria tritici, Septoria nodorum, Pyrenophora triticirepentis, Cochliobolus sativus, Pyrenophora teres, Pyrenophora graminea, Rynchosporium secalis, Fusariosis.Abstract. The high valleys of Mexico are regions conducive for rainfed wheat and barley cultivation, however, various diseases limit production. Minimum till practices and cereal monoculture have favored the increase of pathogens that cause foliar blotches, root rots and head scab. Scab is particularly important since it not only affects yield, but produces toxins on the grain harmful to humans and animals. Barley yellow dwarf virus and barley streak mosaic are virus diseases with low damage and also variable. Under favorable weather conditions, bacterial leaf streak, bacterial brown sheath rot and leaf necrosis can occur. Some years, barley yellow rust has caused severe losses. Wheat and barley leaf blotches can cause yield loss higher than 50%. The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center wheat pathology and genetic breeding program in collaboration with The National Institute for Forestry, Agriculture and Livestock Research, have developed selection strategies to search for genetic resistance. This task has also been achieved through projects with universities from the United States of America and the Postgraduate college in Montecillo, State of Mexico. To be successful in selecting resistant material, specific methodologies (inoculation and evaluation) must be applied to optimize the appropriate characterization of each genotype. Another important factor for genetic (Recibido: Septiembre 11, 2000Aceptado: Noviembre 28, 2000) resistance achievement, has been the use of wild grasses as source of resistance to various diseases. The study of pathogenic variability at the regional level, and through countries and geographical areas is strategic for future genetic breeding of wheat and barley.Additional keywords: Fusarium spp., Xanthomonas translucens, Pseudomonas fuscovaginae, Pseudomonas syringae pv syringae, Puccinia striiformis f. sp. hordei, Septoria tritici, Septoria nodorum, Pyrenophora triticirepentis, Cochliobolus sativus, Pyrenophora teres, Pyrenophora graminea, Rynchosporium secalis, Fusarium head scab.Altos de México se siembran actualmente cerca de 230,000 ha de trigo (Villaseñor, 1991) y 309,290 ha de cebada (SAGDER, 1998); ambos cultivos se siembran bajo condiciones de temporal. El área analizada en este trabajo comprende las regiones de los Altos y Sierra de Jalisco; Valle de Toluca y de Chalco en el Estado de México; Llanos de Apan en Hidalgo; Valles del Estado de Tlaxcala y Puebla; Meseta Tarasca en Michoacán y algunas zonas de la Mixteca en Oaxaca. Climáticamente estas regiones son aptas para la siembra de trigo y cebada, aunque las numerosas enfermedades que se presentan son una fuerte limitante de la producción, especialmente por el alto costo de los fungicidas y de su aplicación. En el caso de la producción de semillas, se debe tener presente que el grano infectado constituye el inóculo primario de la gran mayoría de las enfermedades que se mencionarán más adelante. En general, las manchas foliares han ocupado un lugar prioritario en los Valles Altos, pero hoy día los cambios en los métodos culturales dirigidos hacia la labranza mínima (por ejemplo, retener los residuos de cosecha) han favorecido el incremento de inóculo de las manchas foliares y de las diferentes especies de Fusarium que causan Fusariosis de la espiga. Esto ha provocado una mayor incidencia de esta enfermedad en estas áreas. Dicha enfermedad se ha convertido en un nuevo problema no sólo por su efecto en los rendimientos, sino también por las toxinas que genera en el grano. Las toxinas producidas por Fusarium spp. afectan tanto la salud humana como animal. En un nivel relativamente inferior en importancia, figuran las enfermedades del cuello y la raíz que se han incrementado por el monocultivo de cereales menores y la labranza mínima. Cuando se establece esta práctica, en la etapa inicial los daños aumentan, pero luego se estabilizan debido a que la microflora benigna se incrementa hasta que se logra un equilibrio. Las especies que causan estas enfermedades son varias y generalmente se encuentran en toda la zona descrita, donde constituyen un complejo. Aunque muchas veces son un factor limitante importante, las enfermedades del cuello y raíz son difíciles de diagnosticar y manejar. Existe información al respecto para el Estado de México (Velázquez, 1988;Velázquez y Gilchrist, 1990). Dos enfermedades virales provocan un nivel de daño inferior y variable: el enanismo amarillo de la cebada y el virus del mosaico estriado de la cebada; este último puede llegar a ser importante si no se le controla en forma eficaz durante el proceso de inspección y certificación de semillas, ya que se transmite a través de ellas (Zamora, 1986;Burnett y Gilchrist, 1987). Cuando las condiciones ambientales son muy favorables, también se hacen presentes las enfermedades bacterianas; tres de ellas de cierta importancia: el rayado bacteriano causado por Xanthomonas translucens, la pudricion del embuche causado por Pseudomonas fuscovaginae y la mancha de la hoja causada por Pseudomonas syringae pv syringae (Duveiller et al., 1997). Las royas se soslayan, ya que son menos importantes en esta área, merced a la resistencia eficaz que portan las variedades en uso, en especial de trigo. Sin embargo, no es posible ignorar las fuertes pérdidas ocasionadas en algunos años por la roya estriada o amarilla causada por Puccinia striiformis f. sp. hordei en la cebada. Pese a que no es una enfermedad, por su importancia económica hay que mencionar el áfido ruso Diuraphis noxia (Gilchrist et al., 1983;Gilchrist et al., 1986) que se presenta en los años más secos. Este áfido puede causar daños hasta del 100% en la región cerealícola cercana a Saltillo y un daño considerable en El Bajío durante las siembras de invierno.Las manchas foliares constituyen un complejo de por lo menos cuatro especies importantes de hongos fitopatógenos en trigo: Mycosphaerella graminis (Septoria tritici), Lepthosphaeria nodorum (Septoria nodorum), Pyrenophora tritici-repentis (Helminthosporium tritici-repentis) (Gilchrist et al., 1984a y b) y Cochliobolus sativus (Bipolaris sorokiniana, sin. Helminthosporium sativum) (Gilchrist et al., 1992). En el caso de la cebada se deben considerar otras cuatro especies, coincidiendo con trigo sólo la última mencionada para éste. A la cebada corresponden Pyrenophora teres (Helminthosporium teres), Pyrenophora graminea (Helminthosporium gramineum) (Leyva, 1982) y Rynchosporium secalis. Es frecuente encontrar en una misma hoja lesiones causadas por más de uno de los patógenos mencionados, dependiendo de la susceptibilidad de la variedad y de las condiciones ambientales prevalecientes durante el ciclo. Esta estrecha asociación dificulta el diagnóstico y hace imprecisa la estimación de los patógenos que están presentes con mayor frecuencia y causan el daño más severo. Las pérdidas en algunos agroambientes llegan a ser extremadamente altas (Cuadros 1 y 2). El efecto de la fecha de siembra en la incidencia de las manchas foliares con frecuencia se observa en las primeras lluvias, ya que favorecen la dispersión del inóculo y la infección a partir del inóculo presente en el rastrojo. Por consiguiente, estudiar el efecto de la enfermedad en el rendimiento, de acuerdo con la fecha de siembra, es un paso lógico en el proceso de establecer estrategias que permitan el manejo racional de la enfermedad en cada localidad. En el Cuadro 3 se presenta un ejemplo de como obtener este beneficio. Los programas de patología y el de mejoramiento genético de trigo del CIMMYT en colaboración con los programas del INIFAP, han desarrollado una estrategia de selección para la búsqueda de resistencia a S. tritici, que incluye realizar inoculaciones artificiales en el Valle de Toluca y utilizar ambientes naturales de prueba en Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, y Sierra del Tigre, Jalisco. Estos ambientes son óptimos para la selección de resistencia, ya que las manchas foliares en ocasiones causan pérdidas de más del 50% del rendimiento. Sin duda, aunque se trate de sembrar para evitar las lluvias y se apliquen fungicidas para controlar S. tritici, la forma más segura de proteger el cultivo es el uso de variedades con resistencia genética a la enfermedad (Castrejon et al., 1995). El germoplasma seleccionado de esta manera es de alto valor tanto para el INIFAP, como para los países que lo recibirán después. En esos países, el germoplasma se emplea como introducciones directas que se liberan como variedades, o bien pasa a formar parte de los progenitores en los programas de cruzas. Información extensa acerca del germoplasma resistente a S. tritici puede encontrarse en Mujeeb-Kazi et al., 1998 ;Gilchrist, 1994 y en las Memorias del Quinto Taller Internacional de Septoria llevado cabo en México (Gilchrist et al., 1999a y d). En dicha publicación se consigna el avance en la incorporación de genes de resistencia procedente de germoplasma de diverso origen en líneas avanzadas de alto rendimiento. A partir del germoplasma avanzado, se ha podido identificar un número considerable de genes que confieren resistencia a S. tritici. Esto se ha logrado a través de proyectos de investigación de tesis de Cuadro 1. Severidad de la enfermedad y porcentaje de pérdidas de rendimiento ocasionados por Septoria tritici en siete variedades de trigo en dos ambientes del Estado de Jalisco, México, 1984. Fuente: Gómez y González, 1990.  (Jlibene, 1990;Matus, 1993;Matus et al., 1994;Briceño, 1994). Por otra parte, resistencia a S. tritici y H. sativum proveniente de especies de gramíneas silvestres (Thinopyrum curvifolium y Aegilops squarrosa) que han sido caracterizadas y oficialmente registradas (Mujeeb-Kazi et al., 1996;2000), ha sido incorporada en líneas de trigo de alto rendimiento. La colección de Triticum dicoccon (emmer wheat) del banco de germoplasma del CIMMYT se evaluó para resistencia a Septoria tritici y Puccinia striiformis, encontrándose una pequeña proporción de alta resistencia a ambos patógenos (Gilchrist y Skovmand, 1995). Esta resistencia se transfirió a variedades de alto rendimiento y en un futuro se combinará con las anteriormente mencionadas. En forma complementaria al incremento de la resistencia, se ha estudiado durante 14 años -y se continúa haciéndolo -la variación patogénica que presenta la población de S. tritici a nivel regional (Gilchrist y Velazquez, 1994), y a través de países y áreas geográficas, a fin de conocer la frecuencia de los cambios patogénicos en el tiempo y la relación entre los diferentes lugares donde existe el problema (Gilchrist et al., 1999a y d). Este conocimiento es estratégico para el futuro del mejoramiento genético del trigo y el uso de las diferentes fuentes de resistencia (Eyal, 1999). En algunos años, cuando el clima es un poco más seco de lo normal en Michoacán y el Edo. de México, prevalecen H. tritici-repentis y S. nodorum. Del mismo modo, Oaxaca tiene un ambiente que favorece la prevalencia de H. tritici-repentis y la selección de germoplasma con resistencia a este patógeno puede lograrse en forma natural sobre rastrojo de trigo en el que ha sobrevivido el hongo, o bien con ayuda de inoculaciones artificiales (Gilchrist et al., 1984a y b;Gilchrist, 1992). En consecuencia, se cuenta hoy día con germoplasma que destaca por su resistencia a este patógeno y se complementa con lo anteriormente analizado.Fusariosis de la espiga. Todas las áreas geográficas señaladas presentan sin excepción problemas de Fusariosis de la espiga en trigo harinero, trigo duro, cebada y triticale; sin embargo, son distintas las especies que la causan en cada localidad y en diferentes años en los cuatro cultivos (Ireta, 1986;Ireta y Gilchrist 1994). Se carece de información detallada al respecto, pero se tienen en marcha tesis de licenciatura y maestría que aportarán mucha información pertinente. Respecto a las pérdidas, éstas pueden variar considerablemente; muchas veces no están relacionadas con el rendimiento, pero sí con el contenido de toxinas en el grano. Hoy día las grandes empresas que usan el grano para elaborar alimentos concentrados para animales o cereales en hojuelas, controlan el contenido de toxinas, imponiendo límites en su concentración. El grano infectado se convierte en un problema grave cuando no hay forma de controlar su contenido de toxinas y se consume por las familias rurales. Es altamente recomendable el establecimiento de laboratorios de servicio para controlar los niveles de toxinas en el grano, así como la formulación de normas que restrinjan el uso de grano contaminado. El beneficio de aplicar fungicidas para controlar la Fusariosis no es claro. Si bien es cierto que los fungicidas pueden reducir las pérdidas de rendimiento y el contenido de toxinas en el grano, muchas veces interactúan con el germoplasma y las condiciones ambientales prevalecientes durante el proceso de llenado, estimulando la concentración de toxinas en el grano. Se desconocen muchos eventos que ocurren durante este período y sus interacciones. Por ello, es indispensable y de primera prioridad la investigación en este importante tema. Una vez más, la búsqueda de resistencia genética utilizando métodos convencionales con el apoyo de marcadores obtenidos a partir de la investigación biotecnológica parece ser el pilar fundamental para solucionar el problema. Una vez que se consiga un avance sustancial, se pueden agregar contribuciones de otros factores o vías de control para integrarlos a la solución del problema en su conjunto. La búsqueda de resistencia genética a la Fusariosis es laboriosa, complicada y cara. A la fecha se reconocen con base científica tres tipos de resistencia a esta enfermedad: tipo I, resistencia del hospedante a la penetración del hongo; tipo II, resistencia a la dispersión una vez que ha penetrado (Shoerder y Christensen, 1963); tipo III resistencia a la síntesis de toxina o a la degradación de la misma (Miller y Armison, 1986). La resistencia tipo IV, aunque no es cabalmente discernida, parece estar ligada al llenado de grano (Wang y Miller, 1988;Ma et al., 1997) y es de gran importancia en la calidad final de éste. La mayor dificultad en la selección de material con resistencia, radica en que los programas de mejoramiento genético han pretendido seleccionar todos los mecanismos de resistencia en forma conjunta, utilizando un solo método de inoculación y evaluación. Para tener éxito en la selección de cada tipo de resistencia, el programa de patología del CIMMYT ha creado y adaptado una metodología específica para cada tipo de resistencia (Bekele, 1984;Gilchrist et al., 1997a;Gilchrist et al., 1999b, c y e;Mesterhazy, 1997). Hoy día se tienen avances significativos en la caracterización de los diferentes tipos de resistencia presentes en el germoplasma de trigo y cebada (Dubin et al., 1997;Gilchrist et al., 1997a y b;Vivar et al., 1997;Gilchrist et al., 1999ae;2000). Del mismo modo, el programa de mejoramiento genético ha combinado estos diferentes tipos de resistencia en líneas avanzadas de alto rendimiento. En forma adicional se ha tranferido resistencia a la Fusariosis de especies de gramíneas silvestres [Agropyrum curvifolium y Aegilops squarrosa (sin. Triticum tauschii)] a líneas avanzadas de trigo (Gilchrist et al., 1997a y b;Gilchrist et al., 1999a-e). Esta resistencia se ha transferido a variedades de alto rendimiento y se encuentra en proceso de acumulación con las encontradas en trigos tradicionales procedentes de Brasil, China y Japón. En el futuro, las líneas de investigación enfatizarán la combinación de diferentes tipos de resistencia a la Fusariosis y su caracterización en líneas avanzadas, la búsqueda de metodologías para una detección más exacta 136/ Volumen 18, Número 2, 2000 de los niveles de toxinas y la evaluación de fungicidas que puedan controlar tanto los niveles de enfermedad como los niveles de toxinas en el grano.A nivel general, es indispensable combinar resistencia genética al conjunto de enfermedades que se presenta en cada ambiente y en cada cultivo, lo cual constituye un gran desafío.","tokenCount":"2805"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b493f5781de30c6061f6ca5b1ab69b21","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/300ff2d8-a13e-4817-8792-53a38bbf624c/retrieve","id":"96573939"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"5df505e5-405d-4caa-97f2-a2ebef6321f2","pagecount":"24","content":"Mediterranean : leader of citrus-producing regions ➢ Second biggest citrus producer with 20% of the world's citrus fruit production (Imbert, 2014;Urbaneja et al., 2020) The main citrus-growing regions in the Mediterranean (orange) (Liu et al., 2012) 1) Limitation of irrigation waterOveruse of irrigation water (Chebil et al., 2019;Wright, 2020) Ineffective irrigation systems Cover crop biomassFruit yield was higher in Citrus orchard ACS: Alley cropping system; CO: citrus orchard • Adapt CITRIG for other regions and other fruit species and for other mediterranean agroforestry systems : e.g. olive trees (79 %, and 60% of Arbo areas in Tunisia and Morocco respectively). In Morocco, 75% of olive orchards are combined with annual crops). (Gharbi et al., 2014,El Mouhtadi et al., 2014, Razouk et al., 2016) Sub-objective 2: Next participatory approach: Co-constructing of intercropped citrus orchard => discussion with stakeholders ","tokenCount":"137"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"78c7a8f985e489f5dc81dd5f16edfaf5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/c8c7f89f-4d09-4b45-9a6b-9b95ed8a5c9d/content","id":"594036721"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e5284276-7df2-4d0a-9fcc-ff28099132fa","pagecount":"14","content":"Exploiting genetically diverse lines to identify genes for improving crop performance is needed to ensure global food security. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) was conducted using 46,268 SNP markers on a diverse panel of 143 hexaploid bread and synthetic wheat to identify potential genes/genomic regions controlling agronomic performance (yield and 26 yield-related traits), disease resistance, and grain quality traits. From phenotypic evaluation, we found large genetic variation among the 35 traits and recommended five lines having a high yield, better quality, and multiple disease resistance for direct use in a breeding program. From a GWAS, we identified a total of 243 significant marker-trait associations (MTAs) for 35 traits that explained up to 25% of the phenotypic variance. Of these, 120 MTAs have not been reported in the literature and are potentially novel MTAs. In silico gene annotation analysis identified 116 MTAs within genes and of which, 21 MTAs were annotated as a missense variant. Furthermore, we were able to identify 23 co-located multi-trait MTAs that were also phenotypically correlated to each other, showing the possibility of simultaneous improvement of these traits. Additionally, most of the co-located MTAs were within genes. We have provided genomic fingerprinting for significant markers with favorable and unfavorable alleles in the diverse set of lines for developing elite breeding lines from useful trait-integration. The results from this study provided a further understanding of genetically complex traits and would facilitate the use of diverse wheat accessions for improving multiple traits in an elite wheat breeding program.grain yield and yield-related traits wheat rust grain protein gluten content multiple traits genome-wide association study SNP markersThe spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) production region of Northern Kazakhstan and Western Siberia is approximately 15 million ha, in a belt 600-1000 km wide between the desert of Central Kazakhstan and boreal forests of Siberia (latitude 45-47°north). The crop is grown under continental climatic conditions with long cold winters, short hot summers, and annual rainfall that varies from 280-300 mm in the south to 400-450 mm in the north. Spring wheat is normally planted in mid-May and harvested in mid-September. A detailed description of the production environments, biotic and abiotic stresses, varieties, and breeding challenges was reported previously (Morgounov et al. 2007(Morgounov et al. , 2008(Morgounov et al. , 2010(Morgounov et al. , 2013)). Limited inputs and lack of irrigation result in low average yields of 1.2-1.5 t/ha, but cultivation is profitable for the farmers due to low growing costs and relatively high bread-making quality, which is valued in the market (Morgounov et al. 2008).Both Kazakhstan and Russia are major wheat producers, selfsufficient in wheat grain (http://faostat.fao.org/), and increasingly ambitious in occupying the export markets. Unlike, modern cultivars grown in similar environments of North America, the spring wheat varieties grown in this region are tall and sensitive to day length (Trethowan et al. 2006). Even without the introduction of Rht (reduced height) and Ppd (photo period sensitivity) genes, or the 1B.1R translocation, Siberian varieties have achieved annual genetic gains of 0.7% since 1900 (Morgounov et al. 2010). In the late 1990s, CIMMYT began a collaborative research and breeding program with Northern Kazakhstan and Western Siberia, and by 2000 this had evolved into the Kazakhstan-Siberia Network for Spring Wheat Improvement (KASIB), comprising 18 breeding and research programs. The network focuses on two major activities: KASIB-YT (multi-location cooperative yield trials to evaluate disease resistance, grain yield, quality, and other traits) and shuttle breeding between the region and CIMMYT to incorporate stem rust (incited by Puccinia graminis f.sp. tritici) and leaf rust (incited by P. triticina) resistance while maintaining local adaptation, drought tolerance, and grain quality. However, to achieve these goals require inclusion of diverse novel source of genetic resources, characterization of their genetic diversity and traits, and identification of beneficial genes for their utilization in a wheat breeding program.It is well known that bringing rich source of genetic resources can be used for enhancing the beneficial genes/variation in modern wheat. However, plant breeders relying on a few varieties led to the loss of genetic diversity in modern wheat (Lage et al. 2003;Zhang et al. 2005;Bhatta et al. 2018c), resulting in a genetic bottleneck. Therefore, wheat breeders have been recovering the lost genetic diversity by utilizing landraces, wild relatives such as Aegilops spp., internationally exchanged germplasm, or synthetic hexaploid wheat (Ogbonnaya et al. 2013;Dempewolf et al. 2017;Bhatta et al. 2018c;Morgounov et al. 2018). Among these, synthetic hexaploid wheat (2n = 6x = 42, AABBDD: a cross between cultivated T. turgidum L.: 2n = 4x =28, AABB, and wild Aegilops tauschii Coss.: 2n = 2x = 14, DD) represent a particularly important group of novel genetic resources because of their wide genetic diversity, resistance/tolerance to multiple biotic and abiotic stresses, easy crossing compatibility with wheat, and large number of novel favorable alleles compared to wild relatives (Lage et al. 2003;Zhang et al. 2005;Zegeye et al. 2014;Bhatta et al. 2018cBhatta et al. , 2018dBhatta et al. , 2019a;;Morgounov et al. 2018).Unraveling and mining novel genes from rich genetic resources are possible from a genome-wide association study (GWAS). Several studies have used GWAS to unravel novel loci associated with agronomic performance, disease resistance, and quality traits in bread wheat (Neumann et al. 2011;Edae et al. 2014;Sukumaran et al. 2015;Velu et al. 2017;Sehgal et al. 2017;Lozada et al. 2017) and synthetic hexaploid wheat (Ogbonnaya et al. 2013;Zegeye et al. 2014;Jighly et al. 2016;Das et al. 2016;Morgounov et al. 2018;Bhatta et al. 2018aBhatta et al. , 2018bBhatta et al. , 2018dBhatta et al. , 2019a)). However, there are many genomic regions/genes for these traits yet to be identified using diverse group of wheat germplasm and new wheat genome sequence information. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate phenotypic variation in diverse wheat accessions for agronomic performance, disease resistance, and grain quality; and to identify genomic regions and potential candidate genes from a GWAS. The results from this study provided further insights on genetic characterization of complex traits and assisted in wheat genetic improvement.A total of 143 diverse wheat germplasm used in this study represent four major groups. The first group comprised of 13 spring synthetic lines developed by Kyoto University (Japan) from crosses between Langdon durum (T. turgidum L.) and 13 diverse accessions of Ae. tauschii. The second group comprised of 39 winter synthetics developed by CIMMYT from crosses between five winter durums (Aisberg, Leuc. 84693, Pandur, Ukr-Od. 1530.94, and Ukr-Od. 952.92) and 10 different Ae. tauschii accessions. The third group comprised of 14 bread wheat lines originated from USA breeding programs. The fourth group comprised of 77 bread wheat lines developed by KASIB (Kazakhstan and Siberian) breeding program, where14 lines were from Kazakhstan and 63 from Siberia, Russia (Table S1). Genome-wide diversity analysis conducted in these lines showed considerable genetic diversity among lines from different breeding programs, and the population structure analysis identified that these lines can be divided into three subgroups based on the type of wheat and their geographical origin (Bhatta et al. 2019b). The idea of selecting diverse germplasm from different breeding programs was to assess their adaptation and performance to a new area (Siberia) as well as to better understand the growing region from already adapted lines in the specific region.Two years of field experiments (2017 and 2018) were conducted at the research farm located at Omsk State Agriculture University (55°0 19122$ N, 73°18946$ E) under rainfed conditions. The experimental design used in this study was a randomized complete block design with four replications.Diverse wheat accessions used in this study were evaluated for four diseases [leaf rust, stem rust, powdery mildew (incited by Blumeria graminis f. sp. tritici), and Septoria tritici blotch (sepf; Mycosphaerella graminicola)]; area under disease progress curve (AUDPC) for leaf rust and stem rust; 27 agronomic (grain yield and yield related traits including root traits) and two grain quality (grain protein and gluten content) traits under rainfed conditions. Grain yield related traits were emergence, days to heading, grain length, grain area, grain circularity, grain perimeter, grain weight per plant, grain weight per spike, grains per spike, number of spikes, spike length, spike weight, spike density, and spikelet numbers at maturity, spike harvest index, peduncle length, plant height at maturity, leaf number, number of productive tillers and plants at maturity, harvest index, thousand kernel weight, dry plant weight with roots, root-traits including root diameter, root volume, and total root length. These traits were measured using standard protocol described previously (Bhatta et al. 2017(Bhatta et al. , 2018e, 2018b(Bhatta et al. , 2019a;;Morgounov et al. 2018). Root traits were measured under field conditions 3-4 days after flowering using WinRhizo software (WinRhizo reg. 2009c, Regent Instruments Inc., Quebec City, QC, Canada) as described previously (Bhatta et al. 2018b).An individual analysis of variance for each year was performed due to the significant genotype x year interactions for most of the traits under study (Table 1). Best linear unbiased estimates (BLUEs) were obtained by assuming genotype as a fixed effect and replication as a random effect using PROC MIXED in SAS 9.4 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC). Principal component biplot analysis was performed to understand the association among agronomic, disease resistance, and grain quality traits based on correlation matrix using BLUEs. Variance components were estimated by the restricted maximum likelihood (REML) method assuming a full random model, and entry-mean based broad-sense heritability (H 2 ) was calculated using following model.where s 2 g , s 2 yr , s 2 gxyr , and s 2 e are the variance components for genotype, year, genotype • year, and error, respectively, and y and r are the numbers of years and replications, respectively.Genotyping and SNP discovery procedures for all 143 lines were described previously (Bhatta et al. 2019b). In brief, genomic DNA was extracted from 2-weeks old leaves using Biosprint 96 Plant Kit (Qiagen) protocol. Genotyping was performed at the Wheat Genetics and Germplasm Improvement Center at Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS using genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) method. The GBS libraries were constructed in 96-plex following digestion of DNA with two restriction enzymes (PstI and MsPI), and pooled libraries were sequenced using Illumina HiSeq (Illumina, Inc., San Diego). SNP discovery was performed using TASSEL v.5.2.40 GBS v2 Pipeline (Glaubitz et al. 2014) with a physical alignment to the Chinese spring genome sequence (RefSeq v1.0) (International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium 2018). The identified SNPs with minor allele frequency (MAF) of more than 5% and missing data frequency of less than 20% were retained for the analysis (Bhatta et al. 2018c(Bhatta et al. , 2019b)).The multi-locus mixed linear model using FarmCPU (Fixed and random model Circulating Probability Unification) algorithm implemented in R package (Liu et al. 2016a) was used for the association mapping. Population structure analysis performed in our recent study identified that the 143 lines can be divided into three sub-population (Q 1-3 ) using Bayesian clustering algorithm (Bhatta et al. 2019b). Therefore, the first three Q 1-3 matrices were used for controlling the population structure in GWAS analysis. In the FarmCPU model, Q matrix was used as a fixed effect whereas kinship matrix (K, controlling genetic relatedness) was used as a random effect (Liu et al. 2016a). BLUEs calculated for each trait in each year were taken as phenotype and a AUDPC, area under disease progress curve (AUDPC).b Geno, genotype. c NMTAs, the total number of significant marker-trait associations identified at the 5% level of significance with a P . 1.08 x 10 26 (-log 10 P = 5.97).46,268 GBS-derived SNPs (Table S2) were taken as a genotype for the GWAS. The model fit was tested using the quantile-quantile plot considering the deviation of the observed test statistics values from the expected test statistics values (Figure S1). The identified MTAs were corrected for multiple testing and the MTAs were tested against a Bonferroni correction at the 5% level of significance with a P . 1.08 • 10 26 (-log 10 P = 5.97). The percent of phenotypic variance explained by each significant SNP was estimated using multiple-linear mixed model as described previously (Bhatta et al. 2018d).Linkage disequilibrium (LD) among markers was estimated using the full matrix and sliding window size of 50 in Tassel V5.2.52 (Bradbury et al. 2007), using 46,268 SNPs, for the A, B, D, and entire genomes. LD was calculated as the squared allele frequency correlations (r 2 ). Pairwise LD r 2 values were plotted against the corresponding physical distance, and a non-linear regression model was fitted to estimate the genomewide LD decay (Hill and Weir 1988;Remington et al. 2001). The critical value of r 2 beyond which the LD was likely to be caused by linkage was set at r 2 = 0.2. The average LD decay of the association mapping panel was determined as the point at which LD curve intercepts the critical r 2 .The putative genes underlying the significant SNPs and their annotations were obtained from the IWGSC RefSeq V1.0 annotations provided for the Chinese spring wheat (International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium 2018). The predicted effect of the SNPs on the protein function was obtained from Variant Effect Predictor by EnsemblPlants for wheat (http://plants.ensembl.org/Triticum_aestivum/Tools/VEP/).Supplementary files including genotyping-by-sequencing derived SNP marker data are available in figshare at https://gsajournals.figshare.com/ s/6434bc736b63a242e546. Figure S1 contains Manhattan and quantilequantile (Q-Q) plots for 35 traits in 143 diverse wheat accessions obtained from a genome-wide association study. Figure S2 contains principal component biplot analysis among agronomic, disease resistance, and grain quality traits in 143 diverse wheat accessions. Figure S3 contains the physical distribution of 46,268 genotyping-by-sequencing derived SNPs within a 1-Mb window size on 21 chromosomes (Chr) of 143 diverse accession of wheat. Table S1 contains details of the 143 diverse wheat accessions used in this study. Table S2 contains genotypeby-sequencing derived SNPs identified in 143 diverse wheat lines. Table S3 contains details of significant markers associated with 35 traits in 143 diverse wheat accessions grown in two seasons (2017 and 2018) in Siberia. Table S4 contains details of potential candidate gene functions harboring SNPs affecting agronomic, disease resistance, and grain quality traits from two years (2017 and 2018) of experiments conducted in Siberia using 143 diverse wheat accessions. Table S5. Genomic fingerprinting of 143 diverse accessions of wheat showing the distribution of favorable (1), unfavorable (0) and heterozygote (0.5) alleles of significant marker-trait associations identified in this study. The synthetic and bread wheat seeds are available upon request. Supplemental material available at figshare: https://doi.org/10.25387/g3.9943682.The combined analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed significant cross-over genotype x year interaction for most of the traits under study (Table 1). Therefore, individual ANOVA was performed and it revealed significant genetic variation for all traits (Table 1). Variation for grain yield ranged from 54 to 549 g m -2 with an average of 322 g m -2 in 2017 and it ranged from 77 to 657 g m -2 with an average of 391 g m -2 in 2018. Similarly, variation for grain protein content ranged from 14 to 22% with an average of 18% in 2017 and it ranged from 14 to 21% with an average of 17% in 2018 (Table 1).This study identified several lines with low disease severity scores.. For instance, seven, 10, and three lines had very low disease severity scores against leaf rust (2017ENTRY # 66: RBOT, 69: 'Rollag', 71: Sadin,75: Kelby, 77: Brennan, 82: Advance, and 155: 'Novosibirskaya 16'), stem rust (2017ENTRY # 12: 'AISBERG/AE.SQUARROSA_511', 63: 'LANGDON/KU-2092', 69, 72: 'Tom', 75, 77, 79: 'SY TYRA', 82, 155, and 156: 'Novosibirskaya 41'), and powdery mildew (2017ENTRY # 69, 74: 'Knudson', and 114: 'OmGAU-90'), respectively, in 2017 (Table S1). One line (2017ENTRY # 69) had the lowest severity scores against all these diseases, and five lines (2017ENTRY # 69, 75, 77, 82, and 155) had lower disease severity scores against both leaf and stem rusts. In 2018, we had 14 lines (2017ENTRY # 59, 75, 76, 77, 79, 87, 91, 102, 105, 106, 111, 112, 152, and 153)   S1).Broad sense heritability of the traits ranged from low to high heritability (Table 1). The highest heritability was observed for grain protein content (H 2 = 0.89) and spike density (H 2 = 0.89), followed by leaf rust AUDPC (H 2 = 0.88), gluten content (H 2 = 0.87), leaf rust severity score (H 2 = 0.85), and heading date (H 2 = 0.83) whereas the lowest heritability was observed for root diameter (H 2 = 0.28). The heritability observed for grain yield (H 2 = 0.75) and thousand kernel weight (H 2 = 0.72) in this study were also in the high heritability range (H 2 . 0.70).A principal component analysis (PCA) based on correlation matrix was performed to investigate the relationship among all 35 traits (Figure S2). Approximately, 68.4% of the total variation in 143 lines were explained by the first four PCs. The first two PCs were predominantly associated with agronomic and grain quality traits, and it contributed $54% of the total variation in the data. Wheat rust diseases such as leaf and stem rusts represented the third PC, and it contributed 8.9% of the total variation. Similarly, root traits such as total root length and root volume were associated with the fourth PC, and it contributed 5.5% of the total variation.A total of 192,876 GBS derived SNPs were obtained based on the Chinese Spring RefSeq v1.0. After removing SNPs with MAF ,5% and missing data .20%, 46,268 SNPs were retained for subsequent analysis (Table S2). The marker density for the A, B, and D genome were 20.2, 20.8, and 20.2 Mb per SNPs, respectively (Figure S3).A total of 46,268 markers were used to evaluate LD decay for the A, B, D, and the whole genome. The scatter plot of r 2 against physical distance showed that the LD decay with increasing physical distance. The average LD decayed below r 2 = 0.2 for the entire genome was 1.06 Mb where, the greatest extent of LD was observed on the D genome (3.06 Mb), followed by the B (1.71 Mb) and A (1.06 Mb) genomes (Figure 1).A GWAS identified a total of 243 significant SNPs (P . 1.08 • 10 26 ) that were associated with 35 traits including agronomic, disease resistance, and grain quality traits, (Figure 2, Tables 1 and S3). These significant SNPs were distributed across all 21 chromosomes of wheat, and the phenotypic variance explained (PVE) by these SNPs ranged from 0.3 to 25.0%. The highest number of MTAs were identified on the B genome (85 MTAs) followed by the A (72 MTAs), and the D (62 MTAs) genomes of wheat. Results of specific group of traits will be discussed hereafter.A total of 185 MTAs were identified for the agronomic performance traits evaluated in this study (Figure 2). The MTAs were distributed across all chromosomes with PVE ranging from 0.3 to 25% (Table S3). Of the 185 MTAs, 72, 68, and 45 MTAs were detected on the A, B, and D genome, respectively. The highest number of MTAs were observed for harvest index ( 12) and spikelet number (12), followed by grain length (11), thousand kernel weight (10), spike length (10), and number of plants (10), while the lowest number of MTAs were observed for emergence (2) and grains per spike (2).Agronomic performance traits were divided into five sub-groups which are yield component, grain related, spike productivity, phenological, and root traits. For yield component traits, a total of 27 MTAs were identified on chromosomes 1B, 3A, 3B, 3D, 4A, 4B, 5A, 5B, 5D, 6A, 6B, 6D, 7A, 7B, and 7D (Figure 2) with PVE ranging from 2.5 to 16.5% (Table S3). Of these, five, 10, and 12 MTAs were associated with grain yield, thousand kernel weight, and harvest index, respectively. Similarly, for grain related traits, a total of 38 MTAs were identified on chromosomes 1B, 1D, 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B, 4A, 4B, 4D, 5A, 5B, 5D, 6D, 7A and 7B with PVE ranging from 0.3 to 19.6%. Of these, 11, six, six, six, two, three, and four MTAs were associated with grain length, grain perimeter, grain area, grain weight per spike, grains per spike, grain weight per plant, and grain circularity. For spike productivity traits, a total of 48 MTAs were identified on chromosomes 1A, 1B, 2B, 2D, 3A, 3B, 3D, 4B, 4D, 5A, 5B, 5D, 6A, 6B, 6D, 7A, and 7B with PVE ranging from 2.3 to 21.0%. Of these, eight, 12, 10, seven, eight, and three MTAs were associated with number of spikes, spikelet numbers, spike length, spike weight, spike harvest index, and spike density, respectively. For phenological traits, a total of 54 MTAs were identified on chromosomes 1B, 1D, 2B, 3A, 4A, 5A, 5D, and 7A (Figure 2) with PVE ranging from 1 to 13% (Table S3). Of these, two, nine, four, 10, seven, eight, five, and nine MTAs were associated with emergence, heading date, number of plants, number of productive tillers, peduncle length, plant height, and dry plant weight with roots, respectively (Table S3). A total of 18 MTAs were identified for root traits on chromosomes 2D, 3B, 4A, 4D, 5A, 5D, 6A, 6B, 7A, 7B, and 7D (Figure 2) with PVE ranging from 0.3 to 25.0% (Table S3). Of these, seven, eight, and three MTAs were associated with total root length, root volume, and root diameter, respectively.A total of 42 MTAs were identified for six disease-related traits distributed on all chromosomes except for chromosomes 4B and 5D (Figure 2) with PVE ranging from 1.0 to 14.0% (Table S3). In detail, 12, five, seven, three, eight, and seven MTAs were associated with leaf rust, stem rust, powdery mildew, Septoria, leaf rust AUDPC, and stem rust AUDPC scores, respectively.Grain protein concentration and gluten content are two grain quality traits measured in this study. A total of 16 MTAs were identified for grain quality-related traits on chromosomes 1A, 1D, 2A, 2D, 3A, 3B, 4A, 5A, 5B, and 7D (Figure 2) with PVE ranging from 1.9 to 13.9% (Table S3). Of these, nine and seven MTAs were associated with grain protein and gluten content, respectively.The functional annotation of genes underlying significant SNPs was identified through the IWGSC RefSeq v1.1 annotation and the impact of the genes was identified through variant effect predictor from EnsemblPlants (http://plants.ensembl.org/Tools/VEP). A total of 116 MTAs were found within genes and of these, 21 MTAs were annotated as a missense variant and had a moderate impact (Table S4). Moderate impact genes were found for several traits such as grain length, grain perimeter, heading date, leaf rust AUDPC, number of productive tillers, number of spikes, peduncle length, plant weight with roots, protein content, Septoria, spike length, spike weight, spikelet number, and thousand kernel weight. The detailed annotations of these gene-IDs are provided in Table 2.Multi-trait MTAs are the common genomic regions controlling multiple traits. The present study identified 23 multi-trait (group affects 2-4 traits) MTAs located on chromosomes 1A, 1B, 2A, 2D, 3B, 4A, 4B, 5A, 5B, 5D, 6B, 7A, and 7D (Table 3) and of these 23 MTAs, 18 were within genes. For example, a SNP at S1A_440183259 on chromosome 1A was significantly associated with number of plants and spikes and was present in rhomboid family protein (TraesCS1A01G248200.1) gene. Also, a SNP at S2A_734585818 bp on 2A chromosome was significantly associated with grain area, length, and perimeter and was present in 70 kD heat shock protein (TraesCS2A01G506900.1) gene. Stable markers (marker consistently identified in both years) were identified for thousand kernel weight (S4A_732725628) on chromosome 4A at 733 Mb, powdery mildew (S6D_5824400) on chromosome 6D at 582 Mb, and stem rust AUDPC (S7D_29550951) on chromosome 7D at 296 Mb (Table S3).Genomic fingerprinting and favorable alleles distribution in synthetic and bread wheat accessions Genomic fingerprinting for 243 MTAs with the distribution of favorable, unfavorable, and heterozygote alleles in 143 diverse wheat lines is shown in Figure 3 and Table S5. Favorable alleles in this study were defined as the alleles of MTAs that had an increasing effects on agronomic performance, disease resistance, and grain quality traits in wheat accessions. For grain yield and yield components, 18 out of 27 fingerprinted MTAs had favorable alleles in more than 55% of lines (Figure 3A). Similarly, 15/38, 24/48, 20/54, 5/18, 13/42, and 5/16 fingerprinted MTAs, respectively, for grain related-, spike productivity-, phenological-, root-, disease resistance-, and grain quality-traits, had favorable alleles in more than 50% of lines (Figure 3 and Table S5). Top five lines (2017ENTRY # 91, 94, 112, 158, and 164) recommended in this study had 92 to 102 MTAs with favorable alleles.A wide range of distribution of favorable alleles between synthetic and bread wheat accessions was observed (Figure 4 and Table S5). For example, synthetic wheat originated from CIMMYT and Japan had favorable alleles ranging from 83 to 102 and 86 to 95, respectively. Bread wheat originated from Kazakhstan, Russia, and USA had favorable alleles ranging from 76 to 110. This study identified a total of 62 MTAs on the D genome where 42 of them are novel MTAs. Of these 42 novel MTAs, synthetic wheat originated from CIMMYT and Japan had favorable alleles ranging from 12 to 26 and 20 to 28, respectively (Table S5).Multiple traits such as grain yield and disease related traits are complex and quantitative in nature, and are largely governed by multiple genes and environmental factors . Genetic dissection of these traits is still a challenge, however, the recent advances in sequencing technologies has provided better resolution in deciphering these traits. Furthermore, the utilization of recently published fully annotated wheat reference genome will enhance wheat genetic improvement. The current study used diverse accessions of bread and synthetic wheat to understand the genetic architecture of multiple traits that are collected in most of the breeding programs.In this study, diverse wheat accessions showed significant level of variation for agronomic, disease, and quality traits with low to high heritability. Significant cross-over genotype by year interaction was observed for most of the traits, indicating high influence of environmental variation and trait instability/complexity (meaning the genes are greatly affected by the environment). Previous studies have also identified these traits as complex traits with similar heritability (Ogbonnaya et al. 2013;Bhatta et al. 2017Bhatta et al. , 2018b;;Sehgal et al. 2017). The grain yield heritability ranged from 0.20 to 0.75 (Bhatta et al. 2018b;Sun et al. 2019) in previous studies was also in line with our findings. We have recommended five top performing lines with high yield, multiple disease resistance, and better grain quality for its direct use in a breeding program.A recent study on a diverse panel of 166 wheat lines from China have identified the LD decay at 6 Mb, 4 Mb, 11 Mb, and 8Mb for the A, B, D, and the entire genomes, respectively (Liu et al. 2017b). The LD decay identified in our study was lower than this recent study in wheat (Liu et al. 2017b). However, the highest LD decay on the D genome observed in our study was consistent with many previous reports (Edae et al. 2014;Sukumaran et al. 2015;Liu et al. 2017b), indicating that fewer markers are needed for GWAS on the D genome compared to either A or B genome. Relatively higher LD decay on the D genome may be attributed to the inclusion of diverse accessions of Ae. tauschii primarily from synthetic hexaploid wheat.Genome-wide association study was performed on the 35 traits with the use of $46,000 GBS-derived SNPs based on the multi-locus mixed linear model implemented in FarmCPU algorithm that remove the confounding between testing markers and kinship that results in false negatives, prevents model overfitting, and control false positives simultaneously (Liu et al. 2016a). The present study identified many significant SNPs (on all chromosomes) and related putative candidate genes associated with agronomic, disease resistance, and grain quality traits by employing the GWAS approach.MTAs for agronomic performance traits Previous GWAS and QTL (quantitative trait loci) mapping studies found QTL/MTAs for grain yield on chromosomes 3A (Neumann et al. 2011;Bordes et al. 2014;Hoffstetter et al. 2016;Sehgal et al. 2017;Bhatta et al. 2018b), 3D (Bordes et al. 2014;Bhatta et al. 2018b), 5B (Pinto et al. 2010;Neumann et al. 2011;Bordes et al. 2014;  et al. 2014;Sukumaran et al. 2015), and 6D (Bhusal et al. 2017). However, it is difficult to align our findings with previous studies due to the absence of precise physical location information in published studies, use of different marker systems (90K SNP, short sequence repeat, and diversity arrays technology marker), and different versions of wheat reference genome used than the recent IWGSC RefSeq v1.0 (Liu et al. 2017b;Bhatta et al. 2018b). Despite this fact, the identification of MTAs on the same chromosome as earlier studies could provide confidence on these associations. Since, we cannot directly compare with QTL reported by other previous studies, we have assumed the significant MTAs identified in this study as the novel marker if it was not reported on the same chromosome in previous studies. For example, to the best of our knowledge, an MTA identified for grain yield on chromosome 7D in this study has not been previously reported and it is potentially a novel MTA responsible for controlling grain yield in wheat.Similarly, we identified several QTL for thousand kernel weight, which were reported earlier on chromosomes 3B (Golabadi et al. 2011;Sukumaran et al. 2018;Bhatta et al. 2018b), 3D (Liu et al. 2018), 4A (Bhatta et al. 2018b), 4B (Pinto et al. 2010;Bhatta et al. 2018b), 5A (Sukumaran et al. 2015;Guan et al. 2018), 5D (Liu et al. 2018), 6A (Sukumaran et al. 2015;Guan et al. 2018), and 6B (Assanga et al. 2017), suggesting the important genomic regions governing thousand kernel weight. For harvest index, we identified three novel MTAs for increasing harvest index on chromosomes 4B and 7D. Other MTAs identified for harvest index were reported earlier on chromosomes 1B (Acuña-Galindo et al. 2015;Sukumaran et al. 2015), 5A (Acuña-Galindo et al. 2015), 6A (Golabadi et al. 2011;Assanga et al. 2017), 7A (Acuña-Galindo et al. 2015), and 7B (Neumann et al. 2011;Golabadi et al. 2011;Bhatta et al. 2018b).Understanding the genetic architecture of grain is very important for determining the grain yield of any crop. However, there is limited study on understanding genetic architecture and complexity of grain related traits (Arora et al. 2017). This study evaluated several grain related traits and identified several associated MTAs for grain related traits such as grain length, perimeter, area, grains per spike, grain weight per spike, etc. Specifically, this study identified 17 novel MTAs associated with improving architecture traits in wheat on chromosomes 3A and 6D for grain length, on chromosomes 3A and 4A for grain perimeter, on chromosomes 1D and 3A for grain area, on chromosome 7D for grain weight per spike, on chromosomes 1B, 2A, and 3B for grain weight per plant, and on chromosomes 1B, 2B, 4B, and 5A for grain circularity. Remaining MTAs identified for grain related traits were previously reported on chromosomes 1D (Xiao et al. 2011), 2A (Xiao et al. 2011), 4B (Breseghello and Sorrells 2007;Sun et al. 2008b;Xiao et al. 2011) 5B (Dholakia et al. 2003;Breseghello and Sorrells 2007;Xiao et al. 2011), 7A (Xiao et al. 2011), and 7B (Dholakia et al. 2003) for grain length; on chromosomes 2A (Xiao et al. 2011), 2B (Campbell et al. 1999), and 5B (Xiao et al. 2011) for grain perimeter; on chromosomes 2A (Campbell et al. 1999) and 4A (Xiao et al. 2011) for grain area; on chromosomes 1B (Bhusal et al. 2017), 2A (Bhusal et al. 2017), 4A (Guan et al. 2018), and 7A (Guan et al. 2018) for grain weight per spike; on chromosomes 4D (Zhang et al. 2010) and 5D (Liu et al. 2006;Zhang et al. 2010) for grains per spike. This study provided better understanding of genetic architecture of grain related traits and the results of these traits will be useful in improving grain yield in wheat and related cereal crops.Spike-related traits play an important role in determining the yield potential in wheat (Reynolds et al. 2009). This study evaluated six spikerelated traits to unravel the genetic basis of spike architecture in wheat. We identified 28 novel MTAs for spike-related traits such as number of spikes (3), spikelet numbers (6), spike density (3), spike length (7), spike weight (4), and spike harvest index (5). Remaining identified MTAs for spike productivity traits were previously reported on chromosomes 3D (Liu et al. 2006) and 7A (Guan et al. 2018) for number of spikes; on chromosomes 4D (Chu et al. 2008), 5A (Li et al. 2002), and 7A (Li et al. 2002) for spikelet numbers; on chromosomes 1B (Li et al. 2002) 3D (Chu et al. 2008), and4B (Liu et al. 2006) for spike length; on chromosomes 1B (Golabadi et al. 2011;Acuña-Galindo et al. 2015), 5B (Acuña-Galindo et al. 2015), and 7B (Golabadi et al. 2011) for spike weight; on chromosomes 3B (Golabadi et al. 2011) and 7A (Golabadi et al. 2011) for spike harvest index.Phenological traits such as emergence, number of leaves per plants, number of plants/m 2 , tillers per plant, peduncle length, and dry plant n■ Table 2 List of important genes underlying significant marker-trait associations for several traits under study whose annotation showed moderate impact and consequence as missense variant weight have rarely been studied for QTL study. All the MTAs (40) identified for these traits have not been previously reported and they are potentially novel MTAs controlling these traits. For other phenological traits such as plant height and heading date, most of the QTL identified in this study have been reported previously on chromosomes 1B, 3A, and 5A (Chu et al. 2008;Sukumaran et al. 2015;Guan et al. 2018). However, seven MTAs identified for plant height (chromosomes 1D and 4A) and heading date (chromosomes 1D, 2B, 4A, 5D, and 7A) have not been previously reported, and are potentially novel MTAs governing these traits. Root traits are complex, labor intensive, and expensive traits to measure. Limited studies have been conducted on the field based root traits analysis in wheat (Bhatta et al. 2018b) and a few QTL have been identified (Canè et al. 2014;Maccaferri et al. 2016;Bhatta et al. 2018b). The current study examined the roots traits such as root length, root volume, and root diameter after 3-4 days of flowering. This study identified nine novel MTAs associated with root traits on chromosomes 2D, 3B, 4A, 4D, 5D, 6A, and 7D. However, several MTAs identified in our study have been previously reported for root length on chromosomes 3B (Maccaferri et al. 2016;Bhatta et al. 2018b), 5A (Maccaferri et al. 2016), 6B (Maccaferri et al. 2016), 7A (Maccaferri et al. 2016;Bhatta et al. 2018b), and 7B (Maccaferri et al. 2016), and for root volume on chromosomes 5A and 7A (Maccaferri et al. 2016).Genetic resistance is one of the sustainable approaches for controlling disease. This study have identified several MTAs for leaf rust, stem rust, powdery mildew, and Septoria similar to previous studies, where they have identified QTL/genes for rusts on all 21 chromosomes (Rosewarne et al. 2012;McIntosh et al. 2014;Kertho et al. 2015;Jighly et al. 2016); for powdery mildew QTL on chromosomes 2B (Liu et al. 2001;Mingeot et al. 2002;Bougot et al. 2006;Bai et al. 2012), 2D (Bougot et al. 2006;Bai et al. 2012), 4A (Mingeot et al. 2002;Bougot et al. 2006;Chen et al. 2009), 5B (Bougot et al. 2006;Liu et al. 2017a), and 6D (Chen et al. 2009); and for Septoria QTL on chromosomes 1B (Chartrain et al. 2005;Tabib Ghaffary et al. 2011), 2D (Simón et al. 2004;Tabib Ghaffary et al. 2011), and 7B  ( Simón et al. 2004). However, an MTA identified for powdery mildew on the chromosome 3A has not been previously reported and it is potentially a novel MTA. Area under disease progress curve (AUDPC) for leaf rust and stem rust was measured based on the repetitive disease severity assessments and is used to assess quantitative disease resistance in wheat accessions (Jeger and Viljanen-Rollinson 2001). Two MTAs identified for leaf rust AUDPC were also reported in earlier studies on chromosomes 1B (Schnurbusch et al. 2004) and 3B (Lu et al. 2017). However, six MTAs identified for leaf AUDPC on 1A, 1D, 5A, 6A, 6B, and 6D, and all seven MTAs for stem rust AUDPC have not been reported previously and are potentially novel MTAs controlling these traits.MTAs for grain quality traits Several MTAs identified for grain quality traits such as grain protein and gluten content have been previously reported in the literature. For instance, the previous QTL similar to our study for grain protein concentration were on chromosomes 1A (Li et al. 2013), 1D (Pushpendra et al. 2007;Li et al. 2013), 2A (Pushpendra et al. 2007;Li et al. 2013), 2D (Pushpendra et al. 2007), 3A (Pushpendra et al. 2007), 3B (Sun et al. 2008a;Heo and Sherman 2013), 4A (Pushpendra et al. 2007;Li et al. 2013), and 5B (Heo and Sherman 2013). Similarly, QTL for gluten content on chromosomes 3B (Liu et al. 2016b) and 7D (Li et al. 2013) were identified previously. However, five MTAs identified for gluten content on the chromosomes 2A, 5A, and 5B have not been reported previously and are potentially novel MTAs responsible for gluten content in wheat.The variant effect predictor available on Ensemble was used to determine the functional consequences of the variant within 5 kb of the SNP location. In this study, 116 significant SNPs were identified within genes based on in silico candidate gene analysis. Of which, 21 SNPs were annotated as a missense variant and had moderate impact on genes. These missense variants cause an amino acid change and such changes may alter the function of genes, which makes these annotated gene as a strong candidate gene for future functional characterization studies in wheat. Some of the genes such as NBS-LRR disease resistance protein (Bhatta et al. 2018a(Bhatta et al. , 2018b(Bhatta et al. , 2018d)), Protein DETOXIFICATION (Yokosho et al. 2016;Bhatta et al. 2018b), Zinc finger protein (Ma et al. 2009;Bhatta et al. 2018b), F-box protein (Lechner et al. 2006;Bhatta et al. 2018b), and Kinase family protein (Yan et al. 2017;Bhatta et al. 2018b) were also previously identified as important genes in wheat for agronomic and disease related traits (Bhatta et al. 2018a(Bhatta et al. , 2018b(Bhatta et al. , 2019a)). We have identified MTAs associated with the same or associated traits located within genes whose annotation is exactly same. For example, harvest index, spike harvest index, number of plants, total root length, and grain perimeter were located within genes annotated as F-box family protein. This result indicated that these putative gene families may play an important in controlling these traits.Several multi-trait MTAs identified in this study were also positively associated with each other. This result suggested that multiple traits may have similar genetic basis and simultaneous improvement of multiple traits could be possible. Additionally, most of the co-located MTAs were present in genes. We have identified several favorable alleles that increases the agronomic performance, disease resistance, and quality traits in wheat accessions. Although the number of favorable alleles distribution in different breeding program did not significantly vary from each other, alleles present in each breeding program were different for different traits, which indicates the use of diverse accessions of wheat for different breeding objectives. Genomic fingerprinting for MTAs with favorable and unfavorable allele distribution in 143 diverse accessions could assist in building strategies while integrating the useful traits in an elite breeding lines. This study have recommended top performing five lines with higher number of favorable alleles for multiple traits, indicating the potential use of these lines in a breeding program. The favorable alleles identified for multiple traits in this study could be useful for pyramiding superior alleles in elite wheat germplasm upon validation in an independent population.The present study found considerable useful genetic variation for improving multiple traits and recommended five superior lines for directly use in a breeding program. A total of 243 genomic regions for improving agronomic performance, disease resistance, and grain quality related traits were identified. Of these, 120 favorable genomic regions were found to be novel MTAs, where large numbers were distributed on the D genome, indicating the usefulness of diverse lines in improving the D-genome diversity in elite wheat germplasm. Furthermore, this study identified co-located multi-trait markers within important gene families. The present study fingerprinted 143 diverse wheat lines for trait-associated markers and provided a detailed understanding of genetic architecture of agronomic, disease resistance and quality-related quantitative traits using diverse accessions of synthetic and bread wheat lines. However, further investigation on identified genomic regions could assist multi-trait marker-assisted breeding program.","tokenCount":"6712"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1ac80dcb7e54303e5039b094b16ede79","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/850d8ac1-0eac-409f-b069-b3d967863a7a/retrieve","id":"140132921"},"keywords":["Crossbred","Productive and Reproductive traits","Rural","Peri-urban","Urban","West Shoa Zone"],"sieverID":"a14e957f-4ad2-4889-bf74-d139e313cd07","pagecount":"111","content":"I hereby declare that this thesis is my bona fide work and that all sources of materials used for this thesis have been duly acknowledged. This thesis has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for M.Sc. degree at Jmma University and is deposited at the University Library to be made available to borrowers under the rules of the library. I solemnly declare that this thesis is not submitted to any other institution anywhere for the award of any academic degree, diploma or certificate.Ethiopia is believed to has the largest livestock population in Africa. The subsector contributes about 16.5% of the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 35.6% of the agricultural GDP (Metaferia et al. 2011). It also contributes 15% of export earnings and 30% of agricultural employment (Behnke 2010). The livestock subsector currently support and sustain livelihoods for 80% of all rural population. The GDP of livestock related activities valued at birr 59 billion (Metaferia et al. 2011). The total cattle population for the country is estimated to be about 54 million. Out of this the female cattle constitute 55.5 percent i.e 30 million and the remaining 44.51 percent, i.e 24.036 million are male cattle in number. It is estimated that 98.95 percent of the total cattle in the country are local breeds and remaining are hybrid and exotic breeds that accounted for 0.94 percent and 0.11 percent, respectively (CSA 2012/13). Despite the largest cattle population, reproductive and productive performance is very low. The country's per capita milk consumption is estimated to be about 19.2kg per year, which is far below the average per capita consumption of Africa, 37.2kg per year (FAO, 2000). Livestock productivity in Ethiopia is said to be poor due to a number of reasons among which, the low genetic capacity of the indigenous cattle for milk and meat production is a major one (Shiferaw et al., 2003). In Ethiopia, the poor genetic potential for productive traits, substandard feeding, poor health care and management practices, are the main contributors to low productivity (Zegeye, 2003). Productive and reproductive traits are crucial factors determining the profitability of dairy production (Lobago et al., 2007). In order to improve the low productivity of local cattle, selection as well as cross breeding of indigenous breed with high producing exotic cattle has been considered as a practical solution (Tadesse, 2002). Crossbreeding work in Ethiopia was initiated to cross indigenous zebu with Holstein-Friesian or Jersey cattle to improve milk production in the early 1950s (Aynalem et al., 2011). Unfortunately the activities were not based on clearly defined breeding policy with regard to the level of exotic inheritance and the breed types to be used (Aynalem et al., 2011). Although efforts were made at developing breeding program for various livestock species in the country, all did not materialize due to lack of commitment and consultation with various stakeholders (Aynalem et al., 2011). The success of dairy production in general and crossbreeding programs in particular needs to be monitored regularly by assessing the productive and reproductive performance under the existing management system.Evaluation of reproductive and productive performance of indigenous and crossbred dairy cattle under small holder production systems is essential for the development of appropriate breed improvement strategies (Negussie et al., 1998). Given suitable government recognition, access to market and services, there is great potential for development of smallholder dairy scheme in peri-urban and urban areas (Stall and Shapiro 1996). Reproduction and productivity of crossbred's dairy cattle are believed to be higher than that of local zebu, but the performance status of different exotic blood level crossbred and local dairy cows in different farming system of Ethiopian highland both in production and reproductive traits a little understood. A number of researchs have been conducted to evaluate reproductive and productive performance of indigenous and crossbreds especially for different exotic blood levels crossbred of dairy cows under a relatively controlled condition at research centers, government owned farms and in some urban and peri-urban dairy areas of a country (Shiferaw et al., 2003). However, there are a few of such works conducted in rural areas especially under the small holder dairy farming areas (Shiferaw et al., 2003).Crossbred is an animal that having best reproduction and productive performance compared to indigenous animal, which mainly due to recombination and heterosis effect. Accordingly, enormous efforts have been made to improve the genetic potential of local cattle through cross breeding with exotic breeds. Even though milk yields of crossbreds are believed to be higher than that of local zebu, as well as they have better reproductive and production performance such as; short (age at puberty, age at first calving, days open, calving interval and number of services per conception).1. A number of researchs have been conducted to evaluate reproductive and productive performance of indigenous and crossbreds especially for different exotic blood levels crossbred of dairy cows under a relatively controlled condition at research centers, government owned farms and in some urban and peri-urban dairy areas of a country.2. In current study area reproduction and production performance of crossbred with different exotic blood level even for indigenous dairy cattle under small holder of rural, peri-urban and urban dairy production system is not well characterized.3. Constraints on reproductive and production performance of crossbred with different exotic blood level and local dairy cattle under different production systems are not understood.4. There is a requirement of detection the major challenges to expand crossbred dairy cattle and input delivery, milk and milk product marketing problem under current dairying system.The general objective of this study was to provide baseline information and knowledge on best matching genotype to rural, peri urban and urban setting of highland of Ethiopia; as a basis for designing breeding and management strategy for better utilization of the crossbred genotype in small scale production system of the study area and the county at large.1. To characterize reproductive and productive performance and determinancy factors that affect efficiency of different exotic blood level of crossbred and indigenous dairy cows based on smallholders response perception.2. To evaluate milk production performance of different exotic blood level of crossbred and indigenous dairy cows by monitoring milk productions in selected Villages 3. To assess input delivery and processing and marketing of milk and milk products for rural, peri-urban and urban producers and develop recommendationsEthiopia received its first exotic cattle (Holstein Friesian and Brown Swiss) in the 1950's from the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and since then started commercial liquid milk production on government stations (Ahmed et al., 2004). Crossbreeding itself did not start until 1967/1968 when the Chilalo Agricultural Development Unit (CADU) was formed at Asela station. This project, established jointly by the Ethiopian and SwedishGovernments, made the first steps in introducing crossbreeding at smallholder farm level (Kiwuwa et al., 1983). After recognizing the genetic improvement possibilities, similar dairydevelopment programs were implemented in Ethiopia with assistances from international agencies (MOARD, 2007). The Wolaita Agricultural Development Project (WADU) that was established in 1971 and funded by the World Bank, applied the CADU program (Haile Mariam, 1994)  Since 1995, the Smallholder Dairy Development Project, SDDP, that were considered as the continuation of the pilot project with the same objectives but broader spectrum of activities operated in the different parts of the country. The project had been distributing crossbred dairy cows and purebred Friesian and Jersey breeding bulls and introduced improved methods of fodder production in the project areas (MOA, 1996). According to the 1999 SDDP report of the Oromia Regional Government, the project had distributed 167 in calf heifers and 58 breeding bulls to contact farmers at Selale area. Despite of all these trials, the numbers of crossbred cattle make only 1% of the total cattle population of Ethiopia (Workneh et al., 2002). areas through the regional offices throughout the country. The main objective of the support was to achieve an efficient and reliable artificial insemination service. Initially, service was based on production and use of fresh semen until the liquid nitrogen plant was installed in 1984. Bulls donated by the Cuban Government (25 Holstein and 10 Brahman) and importation of 44,800 doses of Friesian and 2,000 doses of Jersey semen were the source of semen used for frozen semen technology . To date, semen collection was based on exotic and indigenous, as well as crosses of these breeds, namely Friesian, Jersey, Brahman, Boran, Barka, Fogera, Horo, Sheko, and crosses of 50% and 75% Holstein-Friesian indigenous bulls.From the total semen produced, the major share is from Friesian (75.3%), followed by Jersey (10.5%). The NAIC at Kality, is serving as the main semen collection and preservation center;the satellite AI centres to be used for services, and then Holetta bull/dam farm, was the base for nucleus bull-producing, testing and rearing farm (Getachew and Gashaw, 2001). Later production of semen from crossbred animals (Friesian x Fogera, Friesian x Boran, Friesian x Barca, Friesian x Arsi) and from indigenous breeds (Barca, Borana and Fogera) were undertaken since then, from 1981 till 1999 a total of more than 300,000 semen doses were produced and distributed by NAIC. From 1984-2000 a total of 351,037 inseminations and  , 2001;Kelay, 2002).Land is one of important resource in dairy farming. However due to population pressure and urbanization land size per house hold and communal grazing land has been decreasing. In the high land the number of population is more densely; as a result the ratio of farm size to household is small. According to report of (CSA, 2011), the average land size of the high land Ethiopian is 1.18 ha. Across the production system, Land holding higher in rural low land dairy production system, Moderate in rural high land system, but limited to small back yard in Urban Dairy system as Reported by Azage et al. (2013) study under taken in Metema and Mieso districts, Fogora and Bure and peri-Urban shashamene-Dilla milk shead and, Hawasa, Dilla Town and Yirgalem respectively there was a shortage of land reported in urban production system which underlines limitation of land to expand Dairy production in Urban Centers. Also the composition of livestock and preference of livestock species kept by farmers /agro pastoralist based on the agro-ecology, production systems and production objectives (ILCA, 1990)There is a variation in heard size and composition per house hold in different production systems, as reported by Ayenew et al. (2008), a larger number of cattle kept by crop-livestock farmers, like in Peri-Urban and Rural area, than by livestock farmers in urban area. The case of large heard size in peri-urban and in rural than in urban reported by Tesfaye et al. (2001) is stated that in rural area there is large number of oxen which provide draught power which is imperative for cultivation and reflects the importance of cropping in peri-urban and rural area.Total number of crossbred cattle was lower in rural than Urban and peri-urban production system as reported from Bure by Azage et al. (2013) the proportion of crossbred cattle is very low in rural dairy production system, better in peri-urban and higher in urban dairy production system.The reproductive performance of the breeding female is probably the most important factor that is a prerequisite for sustainable dairy production system and influencing herd/flock productivity on, all forms of output, milk, meat, traction, fuel as well as provision of replacement animals. Reproductive performance is influenced by feed, genetics, and diseases and a huge variety of management practices (ILCA, 1990;Perera, 1999).Reproductive performance is one of the major factors other than milk production that affect productivity and profitability of a dairy herd. Reproductive performance is a biologically crucial phenomenon, which determines the efficiency of animal production. The production of milk and reproductive stock is not possible unless the cow reproduces. Poor reproductive performance is caused by failure of the cow to become pregnant primarily due to anoestrus (pre-pubertal or post-partum); failure of the cow to maintain the pregnancy; and calf losses (Mukasa-Mugrwa, 1989;Perera, 1999).This causes delays in age at first calving and long calving interval.First calving makes the beginning of a cow productive life and influences both the production and reproduction life of the female, directly through its effect on her life time calf crop and milk production and indirectly it is influence on the cost invested for up-bringing (Mukasa-Mugerwa, 1989) and it is influenced by the time of conception (Perera, 1999). Acceptable and optimum performance of age at first calving under improved small holder system in the tropics is less than 30 and 36 months, respectively (Perera, 1999). Heritability of age at first calving is generally low, indicating that this trait is highly influenced by environmental factors such as feed and health (Mukasa-Mugerwa, 1989).In Ethiopia the productivity of the indigenous breed is low. Usually cows do not produce their first calve earlier than 35-53 months of age (Mukasa-Mugerwa and Azage 1991). Ages at first calving for local cows in the Oromia regional state were 52 months and for crossbreed were 31.06 months (Kurtu, 2004). Shorter age at first calving for crossbred than indigenes cow was reported by Mureda and Mekuraiw (2007), Ibrahim et al. (2011), and Lemma and Kebede (2011) andDinka, (2012) who reported 36.2, 34.7,33.2, and34.8 months, respectively, for crossbred cows of unknown exotic blood level in different part of Ethiopia.Calving interval refers to the period between two consecutive calving and is a function of a  et al., 1990).In order to maintain optimum economic benefits under modern intensive dairy systems, it is generally accepted that the CI should be around one year. However, under many dairy systems in tropical countries a one-year CI is often difficult or impossible to achieve and, in some situation, even undesirable. In Ethiopia, zebu cattle raised under traditional management in the high lands, calving interval averaged 26 months (Perera, 1999). The overall calving interval of cows in Oromia region is 18.6 months. In pastoral and agro-pastoral areas shorter calving intervals of 15.5 months and 19 months respectively have been reported (Workneh and Rowland, 2004). In Zebu cattle, calving interval is estimated to range from 12 to 22months (Mukasa-Mugerwa, 1989).The relative importances of factors that affect reproductive performance vary in the different smallholder farming systems. For instance, under extensive free grazing system nutritional fluctuation due to seasonal shortage cause delays in puberty and the post-partum cycle (Perera, 1999).Calving interval was shorter in crossbred than indigenes under properly management of animals was practiced, as reported by Yifat et al. (2012)   (Gabriel et al.,1983).As well as crossbred of Borana X HF of 50%, 75% and 87.5% have lactation length of 1740, 2044and 1902L respectively (Million and Tadelle, 2003). As their statements as exotic blood level is increased all reproductive and productive trait performance of crossbred were increased until 75% exotic blood level and then it shows turn down.Reproductive efficiency of indigenous and crossbred dairy cattle is poor in most cattle production systems, mainly because cows either fail to become pregnant primarily due to management problems, shortage of feed and high prevalence rate of reproductive diseases as well as high calf mortality. Sensible year round feeding and herd health plan and adequate AI service are important to improve reproductive efficiency, and hence, economically benefit from the crossbred dairy enterprise (Gillah et al., 2012).Environmental stress and the challenge of high disease risk in cross breed cows contribute for late age at first calving and first service, high number of services per conception, and longer calving interval which are all the major areas of reproductive loss in cattle (Tegegne et al., 1981;Albero, 1983 andMukasa-Mugerewa, 1989). Use of crossbreds is also advised under suitable production system. Most likely, 50% crossbreds were more productive in low input production system than higher level of inheritance. This could be either due to complementary or heterosis effect. The idea also supported the level of management achievable under most smallholder conditions in Ethiopia which has been rather unfavorable to higher exotic inheritance levels than 50% inheritance (Aynalem et al., 2009). Prearranged appropriate administration acknowledgment, access to promote and services, there is huge potential for advance of smallholder dairy system in peri-urban and urban areas (Stall and Shapiro 1996).Study conducted in North Showa zone indicated that local breeds had (273.9 days) shorter lactation length than cross breeds (333.9 days) (Mulugeta and Belayneh 2013).Development master plan also recommends crossbred cattle whose exotic blood level ranging 50 to 62.5% is recommended in avoiding the adaptation problems (EARO 2, 2001). As blood level increased, reduction in their performance was observed, for example, slim difference in milk production was observed between 50 and 75% crosses. Furthermore, mean milk production of 87.5% cross breed was lower than 75% cross breeds. Also longer calving interval was reported in 75 and 87.5% cross breeds respectively. Relatively longer calving interval might be indicative of Environmental factors (poor nutritional status, poor breeding management, diseases and poor management practices (Belay et al., 2012) Any breed improvement program should be designed in accordance with the production system. Since all the components of the environment cannot be changed, particularly in lowinput tropical production systems needs to know which genotypes could be used under such environmental conditions, that is, different types of production environments need different types of animals. Based on management practices, marketing situations, Feed source and feeding system, heard type and size, land use type and objective of keeping animal, dairy production system s catagorzed in three production systems as follows.This system is developed in towns located in the different agro-ecology of Ethiopia. It comprises medium to large sized dairy farms which are capable of keeping improved dairy stock. Cattle are housed in improved shelters made of locally available materials (Desta, 2002). As farmers have limited access to farming or grazing land, they are often based exclusively on livestock under stall feeding conditions (Ayenew et al., 2008). The main feed resources are agro-industrial by-products and purchased roughage. The primary objective of milk production is generating additional cash income (Ketema and Tsehay 1995;Aneteneh et al., 2010 andDesta, 2002). This production system serves as the main milk supplier to the urban market (Ayenew et al., 2008;Ahmed et al., 2004). Milk is either sold to dairy cooperatives, on the local informal market or directly to consumers from the farmers' gates (Tegegne et al., 2007).This system is located around major cities and towns. It comprises of small sized to medium dairy farms which are also capable of keeping improved and local dairy stock. Cattle are housed in improved shelters made of locally available materials (Desta, 2002). The farmers have small size of grazing land; they use semi-grazing systems and also practice under stall feeding conditions for improved animals (Ayenew et al., 2008). The main feed resources are agro-industrial by-products, purchased roughage and in addition they use crop residue and pasture land. The primary objective of milk production is also generating additional cash income (Ketema and Tsehay 1995;Aneteneh et al., 2010;Desta, 2002).Most parts of the highlands are used for both crop and livestock production (mixed farming) within subsistence smallholder farming systems (Ketema and Tsehay 1995;Anteneh et al., 2010). Livestock is mainly grazed on natural pastures of non-arable or fallow land between crop fields and additionally fed crop residues (Desta, 2002;et al., 2001). Improved concentrate feed accounts for only 0.25% (CSA, 2011). During wet season an increase of animal weight and milk production is achieved. There are two types of dairy systems in the highlands: the traditional and the market oriented system. The traditional system is based on indigenous breeds which have low production performance (Ketema and Tsehay 1995;Desta, 2002). The milk produced is mainly used for home consumption and feed requirements are entirely satisfied from native pasture, crop residues, stubble grazing or agricultural byproducts (Falvey and Chantalakhana, 1999). The market oriented system is based on improved crossbred dairy cattle where milk is an important source of additional cash income (Ahmed et al., 2003). Only a very small part of milk is used for processing and home consumption (Desta, 2002;Ketema and Tsehay, 1995). Farmers need to feed their cows additionally with concentrates and agro-industrial by-products such as brewery residues, wheat bran, oil seed cakes, mineral mixtures and molasses (SNV, 2008) and keep their cattle in improved shelters.Literature reports strongly emphasized the need to utilize different breeds under varying production systems. For example, Jersey breed has been suggested as one suitable breed for low-input smallholder conditions because of having smaller body size, fair amount of milk with higher fat content, better reproductive performance and some heat tolerance. In intensive and semi-intensive production systems, however, the Holstein Friesian will remain the choice.This situation also applies to temperate climates (Aynalem et al., 2011).When designing breed improvement program, the level of exotic inheritance to be used in the crossbreds also needs to be decided. Milk production, reproduction performance and milk composition traits were all in favor of the 50% exotic cross (Aynalem et al., 2011). Cunningham and Syrstad (1987) made an extensive analysis of results from crossbreeding in the tropics. They concluded that consistent improvements in most performance traits were achieved in 'upgrading' cattle to as much as 50% with temperate dairy breeds. Beyond that, results were variable. A general conclusion is that crossbreeding to produce animals with up to 50% of the genes from temperate breeds can be recommended where crossbreeding is an option for genetic improvement. Crosses with less than 50% B. Taurus genes have been foundto be poor dairy animals (Syrstad 1989).Development of any genetic improvement strategy requires description of production environment, identifying the availability of infrastructure, setting appropriate breeding objective, selecting traits to be improved based on their influence on returns and costs to the producer and consideration of stockholders (Zewdu, 2004). Thus, designing a breeding program needs decision on a series of such interacting components (Dansh and Jean, 2011).Designing sustainable crossbreeding program is important components to getting better production and fertility from crossbred cattle. Crossbreeding has principally been applied in the tropics aimed to exploit breed complementarities. Specifically, specialized exotic breeds have been crossed with indigenous breeds to combine the high productivity of the former with adaptive attributes of the latter (Kahi, 2002). Exotic animals used in crossbreeding are not naturally adapted to local conditions, so large scale (beyond optimal exotic blood level)crossbreeding should be carried out with caution (FAO, 2009).However, the current crossbreeding work in Ethiopia, unfortunately was not based on a clearly defined breeding policy with regard to the level of exotic inheritance and the breed type to be used. In general, in Ethiopia, crossbreeding is non-systematic and as an uncoordinated (ESAP, 2009).Longevity is one of the economically most important functional traits in dairy cattle populations. Even if so many definition given to the term longevity, in relation to reproduction and production performance dairy cattle it seems to length of productive life (Arthur et al., 1992;Enyew et al., 1999). The general goal of dairy farms is for cows to produce a maximum amount of milk per day of its life. As reported by keffena et al. ( 2013), the overall least squares mean ± s. e. for the entire lifespan of various crossbred dairy cows was 4036 ± 126.3 days, (about 11 years) and also reported 5.3 years for grade Borana cattle in Tanzania (Trail et al., 1985), the 6.02 years for crossbred cows in Ethiopia (Enyew et al 2000), 7.9 years for dairy cows in Cheffa farm in Ethiopia (Goshu, 2005). As reported by (Abebe, 2005), Study of disposal causes for some farm showed that 51.9% cows were sold at early age.For a close observer, however, the entire lifespan of dairy cows is often partitioned in to two major time periods: (i) the costly period from birth to the first calving and; (ii) the following productive period from first calving to disposal from the herd. Productive life is usually defined as the total number of days that dairy cows stay in milking in their entire lifespan. In any dairy cattle production enterprise, the lengths of life of a dairy cow have substantial impact on economic performance. Arthur et al. (1992) reported that longer lifespan in dairy cows allows producers to be more selective in choosing replacement heifers because only a few have to be chosen each year. Higher longevity also reduces the cost of herd replacements, increases the number of animals available for marketing, and increases the proportion of the high-producing, mature animals in the breeding herd (Arthur et al., 1992). Besides, longer average life will lead to a higher proportion of cows in later high-producing lactations and therefore, increase lifetime productivity of dairy cows. Research evidences (Larroque and Ducrocq, 2001;Zavadilova et al., 2009) showed that type and linearly measured body traits as well as some of the dairy characters in dairy cattle poses negative influence on the length of productive life of a cow.To sustain dairy development regularly supplying dairy inputs like feed (concentrate feed, agro industrial by product, improved forage), quality and quantity of feed vary among varies production systems. Cattle largely depend on rangeland grazing or crop residues that are of poor nutritive value. Feed is not uniformly supplied and the quality is poor (Ibrahim and Ololaku, 2000). Seasonal fluctuation in the availability and quality of feed has been a common phenomenon, inflecting serious changed in livestock production (Alemayehu, 1998).The feed shortage mostly happens in dry season of the year (Ibrahim and Ololaku, 2000). In contrast, under normal circumstances in lowlands when there is sufficient feed for cow, milk tends to be adequate for home consumption as well as for market (Beruk and Tafesse, 2000).Since rainfall rather than livestock density determines net primary production and vegetation cover, its variability is the most important climatic factors determining the state of the natural resources base. Hence, rainfall variability and net primarily productivity of the vegetation correspondingly determines livestock production (Sere et al., 1996). Using of improved forages and agro-industrial by products is minimal and most of agro industrial byproducts are concentrated in urban and peri-urban areas (Alemayehu, 2005). In adequate supply of quality feed is the major technical factors limiting the productivity of the dairy sector in Ethiopia.Government veterinary staffs are few in number and cannot cover such a vast area to adequately address the veterinary needs of livestock keepers. Besides government staffs need adequate mobile facilities, for which currently the government does not have the capacity to provide (Tafesse, 2001). Animal health care and improved health management is also one of the major constraints of dairy development in Ethiopia, which caused poor performance across the production system. Many of the problems result from the interaction among the technical and non-technical constraints themselves. For instance, poorly fed animals have low disease resistance, fertility problems, partly because the animal health care system relays heavily on veterinary measures. Moreover, poor grazing management systems continue to cause high mortality and morbidity (e.g. internal parasites), many of the diseases constraints which effect supply are also a consequence of the non-technical constraints, for example, insufficient money to purchase drugs or vaccines (Ibrahim and Olaloku, 2002). Contact of livestock brought from varies localities through the use of communal pastures and watering as well as marketing places play an important role in the transmission of economically significant infectious and parasite diseases. Such livestock movements could be the cause of direct or indirect transmission of varies economically important livestock diseases (Zinash, 2004). The low veterinary service performance in the lowlands is the outcome of the government-monopolized services. Government veterinary staffs are few in number and can not cover such a vast area to adequately address the veterinary needs of livestock keepers.Besides government staffs need adequate mobile facilities, for which currently the government does not have the capacity to provide (Tafesse, 2001).The livestock genetic resources of Ethiopia's have involved largely as a result of natural selection influenced by environmental factors. This has made the stock better addopted to to feed and water shortages, diseases challenges and harsh climates. However the capacity for the high level of production has remained low (IPS, 2000). The consequence of the low genetic potential of indigenous breed for productive traits makes total national milk production to be low (Mukasa-Mugerwa, 1989). The indigenous Zebu breed produces about 400-680 kg of milk/cow per lactation compared to grade animals that have the potential to produce 1120-2500 liters over 279 day lactation. In most of the highlands of Ethiopia, milk production per head is low as compared to the highlands of Kenya due to the wide adoption of upgrading the indigenous breeds through cross breeding (Perera, 1999).Dairy product marketing is limited by the distance of the market from producers, lack of transport facility, and seasonal variation in the volume of milk production which leads to seasonal fluctuation in prices. Enhancing the development of stallholder farmers to reach markets and engage them in marketing activities poses a pressing development challenge.Difficulty in market access restricts opportunities for income generation. Remoteness results in reduced farm gate prices increased input costs and lower returns to labor and capital. This in turn, reduces incentives to participate in economic transaction and results in subsistent rather than market oriented production systems (Ahmed et al., 2003). In general, the development of improved marketing system is pivotal to increase production (Tsehay, 2002).Dairy marketing would generally contribute to the food security of poor households in the lowland areas from the direct effect of providing cash income and indirect effect of delaying sales of animals for some other crisis in the future (Coppock, 1994). The development of market infrastructure and market institution is also very important for inducing efficiency and incentives for market participants on the dairy value chain (Azage et al., 2010).Artificial Insemination (AI) technology has also led to one of the most successful smallholder dairy systems in the developing world (Stall et al., 2008). However, the use of AI has also failed in many situations in developing countries because of the lack of infrastructure and the costs involved, such as for transportation and liquid nitrogen for storage of semen or because the breeding program has not been designed to be sustainable (Mpofu and Rege, 2002;Philipsson et al., 2005;Azage et al., 1995).Improper use of AI for crossbreeding indigenous cattle with exotics may be disastrous when information is needed to maintain the appropriate level of exotic genes in an environment for long-term strategy.The absence of coordinated systems for data collection and record keeping and the maintenance of databases for the livestock sector, including a mechanism for feedback and exchange among the stakeholders for development of livestock-related is a major constraint.Such data recording, even on a limited scale, is critical for genetic improvement. Success in genetic improvement to a larger extent depends, among others, on accurate recording of the farm operations and periodic analysis of the data to design future plans and take corrective measures as appropriate (Aynalem et al 2011). Lack of record keeping and reporting by AI service providers and farmers has adversely affected national data analysis and decision making on progress and it is also highly believed to have increased the incidence of inbreeding in the country (Desalegn 2011)Consumption of processed dairy products was observed even less frequently among the rural low-income households, indicating that the majority of the populations do not consume processed products (butter) to any substantial degree (Coppock, 1994;Lemma et al., 2005).The limited consumption of butter may be due to the higher price associated with it and they need for cash income to buy some necessities. Butter is often consumed on holydays and special occasions in rural low-income households because it fetches routine cash income (Lemma et al., 2005). Butter fetches a higher price compared to other milk products.Marketing of milk in the rural areas of Harari region is mostly of traditional nature. There are also a number of informal milk traders, agents, retailers, and self-help (rural women milk delivery association) milk groups from the farmers that are involved in milk delivery channel.The differences in distance to different milk market places in the Harar milk shed affect the price of milk (Kurtu, 2004). Milk is transported to towns on foot, by donkey, by horse or by public transport, and commands a higher price there than when sold in the neighborhood (Siegefreid and Brhan, 1991).In pastoral areas, the diet is based on fresh or sour milk and left over milk is poorly utilized.The herd size per household is large and hence there is great surplus of milk per person than in the highlands (Tsehay, 2002). Fluid milk production and consumption is limited by seasonal variations and lead to fluctuate in price (IPS, 2000). Milk in the lowlands is primarily used as fresh whole milk for consumption. Surplus milk during the rainy season is fermented and processed in to butter (Siegefreid and Brhan, 1991;Getachew, 2003). When milk supply exceeds daily household demand during and soon after extended rainy periods, secondary products such as butter or long term fermented milk are most likely to be produced for home consumption and for marketing (Coppock, 1994).Well-designed crossbreeding programs may lead to exploit desirable characteristics of the breeds or strains involved, and to take advantage of heterosis for traits of economic relevance (López- Villalobos, 1998). Milk productivity in Ethiopia is low; the indigenous zebu breed produces about 400-680 kg of milk/cow per lactation period compared to grade animals that have the potential to produce 1,120-2,500 liters over 279-day lactation. Moreover, mating of different genotypes increases efficiency in animals, and the improvement of reproductive and fitness traits such as fertility, survival, and calving ease, seems to be an important aspect for implementing crossbreeding in dairy cows (Heins et al., 2006a, b), together with an achievable economic advantage in milk pricing systems where fat and protein are rewarded (Weigel and Barlass, 2003). Crossbreeding has been widely used in order to combine the high milk yield potential of exotic breeds with the adaptability of the local ones. Crossbreeding of Boss taurus dairy breeds with local Boss induces cattle is a well-documented strategy to enhance milk production in the tropics (Cunningham and Syrstad, 1987). Another study conducted in North Showa zone indicates that 50% cross breeds (1511.5 L) produce more amount of milk than local breeds (457.89 L) per lactation (Mulugeta and Belayneh, 2013). Belay et al. (2012) reported that mean milk production per lactation between Horro and Holstein Friesian was 2333.63 L. This could be either due to complementary or heterosis effect to the achievable environment. Crossbreeding was and still is perceived as \"the way forward\" to improve productivity of indigenous livestock under smallholder conditions (ILRI, 1999).Calving interval is a time elapsed between two consecutive successive parturitions. Average calving interval of indigenous cattle breeds and their 50% crosses were 431. and poor management practices (Belay et al., 2012).In order to maintain optimum economic benefits under modern intensive dairy systems, it is generally accepted that the CI should be around one year. However, under many dairy systems in tropical countries a one-year CI is often difficult or impossible to achieve and, in some situation, even undesirable. In Ethiopia, zebu cattle raised under traditional management in the highlands, calving interval averaged 26 months (Perera, 1999). The overall calving interval of cows in Oromia region is 18.6 months. In pastoral and agro-pastoral areas shorter calving intervals of 15.5 months than 19 months, respectively have been reported (Workneh and Rowland, 2004). In Zebu cattle, calving interval is estimated to range from 12 to 22 months with annual calving rate of 50-60% (Mukasa-Mugerwa, 1989).Lactation length of indigenous cattle increased in correspondence of exotic blood level. For example, the average lactation length of indigenous Arsi, Zebu and Boran breeds was 203.75 days while the average lactation length of their 50, 75 and 87.5% cross were 262.25, 284.25, and 294.25 days respectively. Similarly, another study conducted in North Showa zone indicated that local breeds (273.9 days) had shorter lactation length than cross breeds (333.9 days) (Mulugeta and Belayneh, 2013). Even though there was an increment trend in lactation length as blood level increased, they could not reach generally accepted 305 days of lactation length for crossbred. This might be due to the reason of poor nutritional status, poor breeding management, diseases and poor management practices (Belay et al., 2012). Another author also support this idea in which, level of management achievable in Ethiopia is unfavorable to higher exotic inheritance levels than 50% Holstein Friesian inheritance (Aynalem et al., 2009).The participants in this study are located in two Districts (Adaberga and Ejere) of West shoa Zone of the Oromia Regional State Ethiopia. The area lies on an elevated plateau ranging from 1000 to 3500' above sea level, where the largest area lies between 2000 and 2500 above sea level. In West shoa Zone the average annual temperature ranges from 11 o C and 21 o C.Three seasons can be differentiated; the short rainy period (February to May) which receives an average of 91 mm of precipitation/month, the main rainy period (July to October) with 113 mm rainfall/month and the dry period (November to January) with 39 mm of rainfall/ month.June is considered as transition phase between the two rainy seasons with slightly lower rainfall (NMA, 2012). The Zone is located at 120 km to west from Addis Ababa and found in milk shed are as regional and national. There are three main drainage basins in West shoa zone: Abay, Ghibe and Awash. In addition there is high potential for ground water and smaller rivers like Berga and Abay river basin, the largest basin, covers the majority of the districts in the zone (LIVES, 2012)This study was conducted in Oromia Regional State, West shoa Zone of Adaberga and Ejere Districts. Those two districts were purposively selected for this study based on operation in different dairy production system, potential for dairy production and also existence of crossbred dairy cattle beneficiary in the last long years.It district is highly potential for dairy production as well as three dairy production systems (rural, peri-urban and urban) are practiced in district. The major crops grown in the district are wheat, barley, pea, maize, sorghum and minor crop like teff is produced. In addition to these irrigated vegetables: potato, onion, garlic and cabbage also produced in the area. This district has an estimated total population of 86,934 of whom 42,712were females and 44,222 were males (LIVES, 2012).Based on management practices, marketing situations, feed source and feeding system, heard type and size , land use type and objective of keeping animal, with in the study areas. Three dairy production systems were identified as (Tsehay, Redda et al., 2000). The following dairy production systems were taken as the sampling frame for this study.Generally identified three production system in current study area somewhat similar with report of, Tsehay, (2002) state that milk production system can be broadly categorized in to three systems, based on marketing situations, such as urban, peri-urban and rural milk production system; however in current identification more based on management system of dairy animal.The main objectives of dairy farmers in urban dairy production is to sell theiry milk and getting income. All farms found in intra-towns in both Adaberga and Ejere do not have access to grazing land. Hence, mainly depend on purchased hay and agro-industrial byproducts. Hay was purchased immediately after the end of rainy season and stored in hay shed for feeding throughout the year. Also locally prepared concentrate feeds and milling factories, pulse hulls and corn were given to animals. Urban farms were also using concentrates since they become conscious about the advantage of using concentrate feeds for increased milk yield and they use pipe water for their animals. Negusie (2006) who reported that the reason for dependence of almost all of the urban farms on hay which was has no quality and less access to other feeds like natural pasture, improved forages and other crop residues due to less land they can't develop iproved forage.This system was identified around town and they access to infrastructure than the rurals farmers, they supply their milk to milk union easily. They have small sized dairy farms and are also capable of keeping improved and local dairy stock. Cattle are housed in improved shelters. They access to small size of grazing land; they use semi-grazing systems and also practice under stall feeding conditions for improved animals. The main feed resources for their crossbred animal were agro-industrial by-products and purchased concentrate feed and roughage. The primary objective of milk production is generating additional cash income.Under the rural production system two type of dairy farming has been practiced, which areIt is based on indigenous breeds which have low production performance is similar to report of Desta, (2002). The milk produced is mainly used for home consumption and feed requirements are entirely satisfied from native pasture, crop residues, stubble grazing or agricultural by-products.It is based on improved crossbred dairy cattle where milk is an important source of cash income. This is similar to report of Ahmed et al. (2003). In addition to pasture and other crop residues; farmers need to feed their cows concentrates and agro-industrial by-products such as brewery residues, wheat bran, oil seed cakes and molasses which similar to SNV (2008) and keep their crossbred dairy cattle in improved shelters.Based on management practices, marketing situations, feed source and feeding system, herd type and size, and objective of keeping animal, and location with in the study areas production systems are characterized as Table 1 blow. analysis, all house hold character data and input deliver data also have been collected during survey questioner.From West Shoa Zone two Districts (Adaberga and Ejere) and three peasants association /PA were selected. From each district totally six PA namely (Damotu, Chiri, Ejere Twon) fromEjere and, (Maru chobot, Kitto and Inchini Town) from Adaberga were purposively selected based on their crossbred dairy cattle population, ease of access and other characteristics of herd management. In addition, selection of PA also depend on dairy production system which was from rural (Damotu and Kitto), from peri-Urban (Chiri and Maru chobot) and from Urban (Ejere and Hinchini Town) were purposively selected.Hence, a total of crossbred beneficiary sample sizes included in the study are determined according to the formula given by Arsham (2002) who state that to have some notion of the sample size, for example for SE to be 0.01 (i.e. 1%), a sample size of 2500 will be needed; 2%, 625; 3%, 278; 4%, 156, 5%, 100. Note, incidentally, that as long as the sample is a small fraction of the total population, the actual size of the population is entirely irrelevant for the purposes of this calculation.Where, N= Sample size, SE= Standard error Therefore, using the standard error of 0.0373% with 95% confidence level, the total number of household sampled were 180; crossbred and indigenous dairy cow owners under smallholder condition were selected by purposive selection procedure and addressed. From both districts the study was based on smallholder farms mainly found in rural, peri-urban and urban areas. Surveyed farmers had to have dairy cattle before they started crossbreeding and a minimum of five to ten years experience with crossbreeding to be included in sample.The establishment of these criteria was necessary to receive information on differences in where they have been beneficiaries in their own production system. Data was collected during interviews with household heads using a detailed, pre-tested questionnaire, which was previously developed and checked for clarity of the questions prior the interview and respondents were briefed to the objective of the study. For this study the questionnaire was adapted according to prevailing circumstances before data collection. For follow-up study, from the total 180 household, first 40 households that have lactating crossbred or indigenous cows were identified and 30 for crossbred (with different exotic blood level ((1-3)<50%, 50-75% and >75% of crossbred) and 10 for local dairy cows.Whenever the exotic blood level of crossbred animal was identified by looking its certificate that given from the source of crossbred cows/heifers (ranch or agricultural research center and also in some case it can obtained from ear tag of an animal) and asking the bull and dam type it born from. for a period of 6 (six) month from the total 40 dairy cows. In case of crossbred daily milk yield was measured from each exotic blood level of (< 50%, 50-75% and >75% crossbred).The objective of using these criteria was to receive information on differences in milk yield performance of both indigenes and crossbred of different exotic blood level cattle across the defined production systems for comparingThe data was subjected to statistical analysis using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software, version 16.0 (SPSS, 2003). Descriptive statistics such as means, frequency distribution and percentages were used. Furthermore, Turky was used to examine differences between levels of significance of milk yield between lactation stages, breed, and/or different exotic blood level of crossbred and production system. For quantitative data procedure means was used to compute minimum, maximum and means in the general linear model (GLM) used to compute least square means (LSM) were used. Statistical significance between variables was examined using P-values at critical probability of P<0.05 and for rank case Index calculation was used.The following linear models have been used during analysis of quantitative survey data:Model statement regarding the effect of different fixed effects on various performances parameters of crossbred and indigenous dairy cowsY ij is the cows' performance parameters estimate for cow i in rural, peri-urban urban area of j and each exotic blood level of k μ is the overall mean, m i is fixed effect of production system that affects performance of cows (i= rural, peri urban and Urban)and b j = is fixed effect of exotic blood levels that affects performance of cows (l= 0%, <50%, 50-75% and > 75% e) and ε ijk = is the residual error.Monitoring data was also subjected to statistical analysis using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software, version 16.0 (SPSS 2003). To analyze continuous monitoring data procedure means were used to compute minimum, maximum and means, and the general linear model (GLM) to compute least square means (LSM) were used. To examine Milk production significance differences between different stage of lactation, parity, Exotic blood level and production system at critical probability of P<0.05 was used.To analyze monitoring data of cows' milk productivity, the following Model statement about the effect of different fixed factors on cow's milk production was usedWhere Y ijsc = the amount of cow's milk products by i th breed in the j th production system at s th lactation stage and c th parity μ = the overall mean, m i = the fixed effect of exotic breed blood level (i=0%, <50%, 50-75% and >75%), l j = fixed effect of production system of the area (j= rural, peri-urban and urban) k s = fixed effect of lactation stage (s= early, mid and late) P c = parity of the cows (c= parity 1-5)ε ijk = the residual error.In this study there was a significant (p<0.05) difference in family size among production system (Table 3). The mean family size in the studied household was 6.21±.16, which is higher than the mean house hold size of 4.9 person in rural Ethiopia (CSA, 2011). Family size was significantly (p<0.001) higher in rural and peri-urban than in urban production system.Female headed household (24.4%) was lower than male headed household (75.6%). Average total farm size across production system of the study area is 3.038±.208 ha. Which were larger than the Ethiopian average of farm size 1.18 ha (CSA, 2011). Mean values for farm sizes in each production systems listed in (Table 4). The average mean farm size in rural (4.363 ha.) and peri-urban (3.865 ha.) area was significantly (p<0.05) higher than in urban (0.89) area as expected. As the result in urban area most dairy farmers buying animal feed from other areas and used zero grazing system rather than free grazing on garden but in rural and peri-urban production systems farmers release their local and lower exotic inheritance cows to free grazing also they practice stall feeding for higher exotic inheritance.Household participation in dairy management is important in improving dairy animal handling. As shown in Table 6 across the production system large number of total cattle comprise 36.2%, and 34% of the herd in peri-urban and rural production system respectively than in urban 30%. Higher number of cattle in peri-urban and rural were from the higher proportion of local cattle in the herds. This result could be connected to the larger farm sizes occurring within this region and considerable number of oxen present compared to the urban area. These results are comparable with Ayenew et al. (2008) who reported a larger number of cattle kept by crop-livestock farmers, like in peri-urban and rural area, than by livestock farmers in urban area.Total number (%) of crossbred cattle was lower in rural than urban and peri-urban production system. This is in harmony with fiding in rural Bure by Azage et al. (2013) who stated that the proportion of crossbred cattle is very low in rural dairy production system, better in periurban and higher in urban dairy production system.The majority of crossbred cows in production system had 50% to 75% of exotic blood. Across the production system crossbred genotypes of cattle owned by respondents are described in table 7 blow. The proportion of blood from exotic breed of crossbred cattle is increasing up from rural to urban production system, that means in most cases in rural exotic blood level of crossbred was < 50%, in peri-Urban 50-75% and in urban> 75% exotic blood level. In rural and peri-Urban the highest proportion of bulls with exotic blood levels of less than 50% were found which used for traction in rural and per-urban area. In Peri-Urban the majority of crossbred oxen had an exotic inheritance of >75%. They use them for crossbreeding by natural mating.Higher number of crossbred with < 50% exotic blood level found in rural production system than other systems. It may be due to that un controlled breeding system without determine Cleary defined breeding strategy is doing in area, specially AI by estrous synchronization give many calve at one.In this study as presenedt in Table 8 exotic blood level had a significant effect on both productive and reproductive performance. Farmers experienced running of high graded of crossbreds to have higher daily milk yield, earlier age at first calving and short calving interval.Table 8. Exotic blood level preference of cow/heifers across production systems of study siteIndex = [(4 for rank 1) + (3 for rank 2) +(2 for rank 3 ) (1for rank 4 )] divided by sum of all weighed reasons mentioned by respondent In rural production system cow/heifers with an exotic blood level of <50% are preferred by the majority of respondents and ranked at first preference with an index result were 0.46 and they prefer 50-75% exotic blood level of crossbred as 2 nd with an index result 0.21 as well as the 3 rd and 4 th rank > 75% and local (0 %) with an index result 0.2, and 0.14 respectively. In peri-urban production system, farmers prefer crossbred of 50-75% exotic blood levels as 1 st rank with an index result of 0. of 0.16 and 0.13 respectively. In urban production system farmers prefer crossbred of exotic blood level of 50-75% as first rank with an index result 0.5 and > 75% as second with an index of 0.26 . They also prefer <50% and local as 3 rd and 4 th rank with an index of 0.14 and 0.12 respectively. As a whole across the production systems, farmers prefers 50-75% exotic blood level crossbred as first rank with an index result of 0.39 and as 2 nd , 3 rd and 4 th rank < 50%, > 75% and local with an index result of 0.25, 0.22 and 0.15 respectively. This is in agreement with previous reports from Ethiopia by Kiwuwa et al. (1983) ;Abdinasir, (2000); Desta, (2002); Demeke et al. (2004);Bitew et al. (2011) and other developing countries such as Galukande, (2010). They state that high graded crossbred animal were more preferred by the majority of dairy farmers to get the advantage of exotic inheritance.The rural setting farmers had shown an interest in Jersey (84%) breed compared to Holstein Friesian (13%) breed. The majority of respondents stated in all production systems (95%), have commitment to continue crossbreeding with high exotic blood levels in crossbred offspring (Genotype composition). That means they did not keep the initial proportion of exotic genes in their herd constant but they need to improve by increase exotic blood level and also need to use different exotic blood breed types.  In case of crossbred, the current result of AFS for < 50%, 50-75% and >75% exotic blood level has 37.98 , 21.88 and 20.64 months respectively. The average age at service was (26.83) is much higher than 9.58, 11.75, 13.5 and 13.75 months values reported for general crossbred by Tadesse et al. (2010), Shiferaw et al. (2003), Mureda and Mekuriaw (2007) and Ibrahim (2011), respectively. The difference may be due to that previous result was studied under control environment rather than under farmers' condition. Age at first Service and AFC were significant (p < 0.05) between production of study area and among different exotic blood levels. The AFS and AFC decreased as production system is intensified from rural to urban and as exotic blood level was enhanced. The variation in AFS and AFC between different exotic blood level and between production systems is probably due to difference in genetic potential among different exotic blood levels and difference in management and feeding systems among production systems.The overall reported calving interval (day), day open (days) and lactation length (month) of local and theirs crossbred cows performance based upon the response of the farmers from the study area were presented in table 10 blow. Least-squares mean with same superscript in the same column for same variable indicate nonsignificance amoung genotype across the production system.Calving interval is a time elapsed between two consecutive successive parturitions. As presented in (Table 10) the average mean of CI of indigenes zebu cattle and their crossbred of < 50% and 50-75% and >75% exotic blood level were, 738. Calving interval of crossbred cow with exotic blood level of 50-75% and >75% significantly (P ≤ 0.05) shorter in urban than those of peri-urban and rural. It may be due to intensified management of animal in urban area than in peri-urban and rural. In case of crossbred of different exotic blood level in this study, as exotic blood level was increased shorter calving interval was found. Calving interval of 466.8, 429.23 and 417.07 days was obtained for lower to high grade cows respectively (Table 10) and the mean average CI of crossbred was 437.8 days. Current result was different from finding of Gabriel et al., (1983) longer calving interval as exotic blood level increased as 50, 75 and 87.5% have CI of 458 ,475, 525 days respectively. In addition, the current result is disagree with report of Aynalem et al., (2009),who reported that the level of management achievable in Ethiopia is unfavorable to higher exotic inheritance levels more than 50% exotic inheritance. This might be due to relatively advance their knowledge on Crossbred management, and also they launch to make a decision on theirs crossbred exotic blood level and most of them have greater than 50% of exotic inheritance of crossbred animal and they also make Zero grassing/ stall feeding system for their crossbred animal. Consequently relatively, they can get high production and reproduction performance that expected from exotic inheritance.The current finding was confirming the expectation of shorter calving interval in higher inheritance level. This might be indicative of relatively; excellence of crossbred management under smallholder farmers in handling, breeding management, accesses of artificial insemination service, relatively shorter days open, diseases control and relatively good experience of farmers on all management practices.As presented in the previous  (Belay et al., 2012) at Jimma Town Ethiopia. The differences might be indicative of relatively; perfection of crossbred management under smallholder farmers in breeding management, accesses artificial insemination service, diseases control and relatively superior experience of farmers on all management practices in the study area.In other way current study results showed that the mean value for days open of higher exotic blood level of 50-75% and >75% crossbred was 90.82 and 89.3 days respectively which are similar with the findings of Hunduma ( 2012), who reported day open 85.6 days in Asella town, Oromia regional state, Ethiopia and 2.9 months reported in crossbred cattle in and around Gondar, North Western Ethiopia (Moges, 2012).As indicated in the Table 10 the average mean lactation length of indigenous and their cross of 50%, 50-75%, and >75% exotic blood level was 8.23, 8.76, 10 and 10.3 months respectively. with the mean average of lactation length for all crossbred animal was 9.69 month. Current result lactation length for local cows was agrees with the report of Kurtu (2003) who reported that lactation length of local cows in private holdings 212 days in the Harari milk shed. In case of Crossbred the average mean lactation length was 9.69 months.This agrees with the lactation length of, 10.1 reported by Asaminew and Eyasu, (2009) in northwest and central Ethiopia. Lactation length of crossbred exotic blood level of < 50% and 50-75% dairy cow was significantly longer in urban (9.3 and 10.5) month than in rural (8.2 and 9.0) month respectively. The difference may be due to the reason of the farmers in urban area having more experience to control lactation length of their cows than in rural area. That means in study area lactation length of cows depends mostly on the management objective of the herder, the herder may prolong the lactation length for the sake of continues milk production or dry off the dam at early stage for the purpose of breeding the cows. There was an increment trend in lactation length revealed as exotic blood level increased, even if it could not reach generally accepted 305 days of lactation length for crossbred still 10.3 month was perceive for crossbred exotic blood level of >75% . Least-squares mean with same superscript in the same column for same variable indicate nonsignificance amoung genotype across the production system.The general goal of dairy farms is for cows to produce a maximum amount of milk per day of its life. As shown in Table 11 the mean productive age of indigenous and their cross of <50%, 50-75%, and >75% was 13.33, 11.96, 10.43 and 9.17 years respectively with the average mean for all crossbred was 10.52 years. The current result is in line with keffena et al. (2013) Which was statement that the overall least squares mean for the entire lifespan of various crossbred dairy cows was 4036 days, (about 11 years). But the result higher than the 5.3 years for grade Boran cattle in Tanzania reported by (Trail et al 1985), the 6.02 years for crossbred cows in Ethiopia reported by (Enyew et al., 2000) and 7.9 years for dairy cows in Cheffa farm in Ethiopia reported by (Goshu, 2005).There was a declining trend in total lifespan of dairy cows as the level of exotic blood inheritance increased from 50 to 75%. This is may be due to high exotic inheritances give high production in their live which was accelerate decline in performance of animal and the farmers sold their animal at early age. This is similar with Study of disposal causes for the some farms showed that 51.9% cows were sold at early age (Abebe ,2005) also it may be due to that as exotic blood level of crossbred is increased resistance of animal became decrease as a result they attack by disease and other discomfort which make shortness of their live span.The mean number of services required per conception is a simple method of assessing fertility (Payne, 1970). The number of service per conception in the present study for local and theirs crossbred of<50%, 50-75% and >75% was 3.3, 3.13, 1.8 and 1.5 respectively, with the mean average for all crossbred was 2.14. The finding in the present study agree well with the 2.0 services per conception reported for cows at Asella (Negussie et al., 1998). It is, however, slightly higher than 1.62 reported in central highlands of Ethiopia (Bekele et al., 1991 andShiferaw et al., 2003). The variation may be due to the difference in householders' knowledge on proper heat detection and also time of insemination and perfection of AI technician of study area from previous study. The result is state that higher exotic blood level of crossbred have better performance conception rate than indigenous and with lower exotic blood level cross breed.4.1.8.2.7. Amount of Milk to be churned (L) to get 1kg of butterAs shown in Table 11 indigenous animal andcrossbred with lower exotic blood has higher Butter fat content. For example to get 1kg of butter from indigenous animal averagely 18.89 liters of milk was to be churned. However to get 1kg of butter about 24.64 liter of milk shall be churned from all exotic blood level crossbred. As the exotic blood level increased butter fat content of milk was reduced. This maight be due to the nature of an animal that exotic breeds produce high amount of milk than indigenes animal but lower in butter fat content and vice versa. The current result well agree with report of Gabriel et al. (1983) who stated that in Arsi Region local Arsi, Zebu and F1Jersey cross with Arsi breed group have higher butter fat (5.1 to 5.5%) than higher graded Firesians (4.1 to 4.5%). This circumstance show that in remote rural area where the mattering of infrastructure to sell fresh milk the use of lower crossbred exotic inheritance for production of butter could be desirable.Concentrate feed and agro industrial by product is very crucial for dairy animal for their energy balance and giving production. Hoever a as presented on appendix table 5, shortage of inputs delivery and unbalance cost of dairy input like Feed (concentrate feed and mill byproduct, roughage and forage seeds), improved breed (Heifers or bulls), AI facilities (Liquid nitrogen, semen, AI technician) and health facilities (medicine) was reported in study area.Table 12. Ranking reason on shortage of dairy inputs supply across the production systems of study area AIBP = agro industrial byproducts, I= IndexIn the present study even if there was comparatively access of dairy input supply in the area but the farmers in all production systems had a difficulties to acquire concentrates feeds, agro industrial byproducts , medicine and semen as they want in quantity and quality. As listed in As a whole a shortage on feed and improved breed supply which are the first rank problems with index result 0.28 that case hinder dairy development. Also shortage of AI and health care facility are the 2 nd and 3 rd problem in dairy production. These findings was similar to those of Bitew et al. (2011) and Mekonnen et al. (2010) in Amhara regional state that the seriousness of resource, service and input related problems were the main problems on dairy production.In the current study area, before adoption of crossbreeding only few farmers (10%) were participated in selling of milk and about (90%) of them practiced butter churning. After interfering of different NGO like Self help, Land Olaks and Rural Capacity building projects and Government Organization through adoption of crossbreeding, milk consumption and processing at home decreased after long process of awareness creation and implementation of milk marketing, the majority of farmers acquired new market access. This agree with Yigrem et al. (2008) who reported that before few years sales of milk on open market were formerly not common practice; on the contrary in some regions selling was restricted by traditional taboos The mean milk/litter/day produced and sold is presented in (Table 12). There were a significant differences (p< 0.05) in herd milk production, amount of milk sold, milk processed and amount of milk used for home consumption across production systems.In all production systems, higher amounts of whole milk were sold than used for home consumption or processed at home. Out of all milk produced on farm for sell, process and consume at home were 83.8%, 8.98% and 6.58% respectively Demonstrating how adoption of dairy technologies (crossbred cows, improved feed and management practices) enhanced market participation and raised per capita income, expenditure on food and non-food items and nutrient consumption. These results show that smallholders moved from subsistence to market-oriented dairy production (Ahmed et al., 2004). These findings are in line with the present study results.Of the total, 83.8% of respondent sell milk with price of 11.5 ETB/L and used it as source of income generation and only 3% of them are used milk for other purpose like baby consumption, process it and use butter and cheese. An increase in marketing of dairy products could be observed. Of total interviewed farmers (n=180), 95%, 3.8%, 1.2% sell their milk for milk union, rented person and Hotel, respectively. The current result is greater than amount milk sold to milk sell group reported in Mieso District by Kedija Husen (2007) who stated that from the total (n=94) households who sell milk, only 22 (23 %) were involved in the milk seller groups. The difference of current result is maybe due to actively participation of the farmers in organizing dairy cooperative and union and also contribution non Governmental/ NGO organization to empower milk cooperative /Union to solve milk market problem in the area also; due to nearness of study area to central market and access of infrastructure.As shown in Table 14 in present study even if there is a little slight of market problem the results show unlike of report from different source. Off total interviewed farmers 95% stated that lack of market is do not affect as much their milk production. Every moment they have three option to whom they sell their milk namely; Milk Union, Private Milk collector enterprise and Central market, Farmers who have crossbred must be member of DairyCooperative /Union and he/she provide his/her daily produced milk to Cooperative. If he/she not satisfied to cooperative he/she supply to Private dairy product collectors enterprise /Mama or Shola which collect milk from Urban, peri urban in somewhat rural by moving home to. In the current study, production system was comparatively supported by enhanced access to input supply like feed, breed, improved husbandry practices, better health, good market infrastructure and information in which both public and private sectors play a role. Dairy cooperatives and unions will be strengthened/created for increased efficiency in input supply, production and marketing services.This study have shown that intervention of Governmental and different nongovernmental organization and other milk processor partners and also vicinity to central market led to a substantial increase in marketing of milk and milk products. In other way there was a computation between farmers milk Union and other milk processer enterprise like Shola and Mama on milk collection and market. In such condition they play a significant role in ensuring sustainable supply of raw milk to the dairy industry by coordinating the flow of milk from their members and assisting them by supplying the required dairy farm inputs and dairy owners sell their milk to whom they are satisfied. The result is in agreement with ffinging of Emana, (2009) who reported that there are 180 cooperatives engaged in milk production and marketing operating in different parts of the country.The great antagonistic bold problem seen in current study was that, the price of milk not fair when compared to price of dairy input specially feed. About 96.7% stated that the price of milk/L is not reasonable with cost of animal diet; they buy 1kg of concentrate feed by 15.00 ETB birr and sell 1L of milk by 11.50 ETB/Ethiopian birr, thus the price of milk was not fair.This finding disagrees with finding of Gitu et al. (2007) who reported in Kenya the Utilization and cost of concentrates and milling by-products affected the cost of milk production.  (1996), who stated that rural production system was the predominant milk production system for national milk production. Which was higher in urban production system than peri-urban and in rural as well as exotic blood level was increase milk production also increase. The difference in daily milk production of the same exotic blood level of crossbred under different production system also indicate that to receive expected production from exotic inheritance properly designing breeding policy and dissemination method of exotic blood levels for each production system was needed difference in all production systems. The result of monitoring study on milk production per day of dairy cows in study area was similar to the survey study. In both studies productivity of crossbred animal was increase as exotic blood level was increase. The same exotic blood level having different productive performance in different production systems. In all case milk production of cows was higher in urban production system than peri-urban and in rural. The difference may be due to different management practice among production systems and it may be indicate that to receive expected production from exotic inheritance properly designing breeding policy and dissemination method of exotic blood levels for each production system was needed As presented in Table 18, the effect of parity was highly significant (P<0.001) for daily milk yield for both local, and their cross of <50%, 50-75% and >75%. Milk production increased as parity increased until three then decreased with the advance of parity. This result agrees with the finding of Mohamed ( 2004) who demonstrated that milk yield increased with advancing lactation up to 4 th parity in the Sudan.Table19. Milk production per lactation of crossbred with different exotic blood level and local cows across the production systems Mean average milk production per lactation for indigenous 542.27 Liters in 246 days, which was higher than the overall average lactation, 271.4 litters reported in Mieso district by Kedija Hussen, (2007) and 488 liters within 249 days found in Somali region of pastoral areas by (IPS, 2000). The high daily and lactation milk yield of local cows found in the current study may be due to period of monitoring of milk was during availability of feed resource for local cows and relatively longer lactation length shown than the previous study. Milk production per lactation for crossbred of < 50%, 50-75%, and>75% was 1998.76, 4781.25 and 5722 respectively of 4167.33litters. The average milk yield per lactation for all crossbred cows was 4167.33 liters, which was higher than milk production per lactation of 233.63 Liters reported for unknown exotic blood level crossbred cows (Belay et al., 2012) in Jimma town.Generally, the same exotic blood level of crossbred animal have different reproductive and productive performance under different production systems. Accordingly the AFS, AFC, CI, DO and lactation length were best in crossbred of >75% in urban production system, than peri-urban and in rural production system. This result urgue to establish a well-known breeding strategy for each production system in case of placing rights exotic blood level at rights place for dairy improvement. Depending on the nature of production systems, feeding arrangement, milk The current study was conducted to evaluate the productive and reproductive performance of crossbred and indigenous dairy cows at farm level under small scale farmer's management conditions. Accordingly the productive performance traits like daily milk yield and its projected lactation milk yield and lactation length; and reproductive performances traits like (age at puberty and at first calving, calving interval, number of service pre conception) of indigenous and their crossbred with different exotic blood level cows and breed preference of the farmers was studied by analyzing survey and monitoring data captured from 180 household. It was observed that significance difference on production and reproduction performances existed among different blood grade categories (< 50%, 50-75% and above >75%) within three production systems being defined as rural, perri-urban and urban setting.The survey result in this study confirmed that the performance of crossbred cows for production traits had increased as exotic blood level increase cows with exotic blood level <50%, 50-75% and >75% have 7. Reproduction and production performance of crossbred and indigenous dairy cattle are mostly affected by management (feeding, housing, health care and breeding), genetic, and production system. Based on the present study, the following areas need we attention to support dairy production to be developing into a market-oriented business operation in study area. To receive expectation profit from exotic inheritance, it calls for creating strategic breeding systems independently under each production system to allocate right exotic blood level at right place with consideration of adaptation problem, market access and management practice of farmers in each production systems. Dairy union and cooperatives can solve shortage of concentrate feed and seed of improved forage through regularly supplying it, additionally Union can planting feed mixer mill and recycle the budget as revolved fund. Non Governmental Organizations, feed supplying companies be supposed to initiating dairy industries by doing on forage development, genetic improvement, solving market by acting in value chain of milk production. Governmental organization should be performing to solving problems on price of milk by creating foreign chain to realize profitability of dairy producers and supplying crossbred heifers/bulls and other dairy inputs with subside price  As exotic blood level of crossbred animal was increased the reproduction and production performance is increase and it reach obtimum condition so; it's a best making backcross after reaching high production and reproduction of crossbred exotic blood level of greater than 87.5% to re enhance heterosis effect.As a scope for future research work in the study areas, the following points can be considered: The result of the present study on reproductive and productive performance of crossbred of different exotic blood level was collected from the recalling method of the farmers; to realize current result, long term recorded based study will be require to compare the productive and reproductive performance of crossbred with different exotic blood levels. To underline profitability of the dairy farmers from crossbred animals need to study on cost benefit analysis and future study should have to work on cost profit analysis regarding crossbred with different exotic blood level. ","tokenCount":"12301"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"72ac5e0fa8b9caca1748e7cc2d8a57a7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/bfc38d9b-a6a2-4978-849d-9f1d7b149afe/retrieve","id":"1827685224"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e60043ca-2707-4cca-9319-6077e8d0c33b","pagecount":"32","content":"and Tanzania. The authors are immensely grateful to USAID for funding the project and to Irish Aid with the World Food Programme Purchase for Progress (P4P) initiative for gari market linkage support. We would also like to thank all project staff, collaborators, subcontractors, partner organizations and individuals who provided facilities, information, advice and other services used in the production of this guide.The factoryStep 1: Peeling and washingStep 2: Grating roots into mashStep 3: De-watering and fermenting mash into wet cakeStep 4: Sieving wet cake into grits and roasting grits into gariStep 5: Bagging and storing the gariRapid urbanization throughout sub-Saharan Africa is currently being accompanied by a growth in demand for convenience foods. Cassava roots provide an ideal raw material for many of these types of food products, since they are easy to process and have a bland flavour. However, fresh cassava roots are bulky and costly to carry and, in addition, are likely to rot within a few days of harvesting.Cassava roots contain cyanide, which is poisonous. Different varieties of cassava contain different amounts of cyanide. Roots that contain high amounts of cyanide normally taste bitter and should not be eaten raw, while the roots of 'sweet' varieties contain low levels of cyanide and can be eaten raw.Cassava roots can be processed into several different products, which include gari, flour, bread and starch. Processing provides smallholder cassava producers with additional market opportunities, beyond simply selling the fresh roots. Once they have invested in suitable equipment, processing enables smallholders to increase their incomes, since they can demand a higher price for the value-added processed products.Traditional methods of processing cassava roots can result in poor quality products that contain unacceptable levels of cyanide, as well as being contaminated by foreign matter and disease-causing agents. If people eat these kinds of products, they can suffer from acute cyanide poisoning, goiter, and a nerve-damaging disorder that makes them unsteady and unable to walk properly.Proper processing converts fresh cassava roots into safer and more marketable products by: • Reducing cyanide levels in the processed products • Prolonging shelf life • Reducing post-harvest losses of fresh cassava roots • Avoiding contamination of the products and the environment This pictorial guide focuses on building the capacity of smallholder farmers and food processors to produce gari as a business. The guide illustrates the equipment and skills needed to produce good quality gari. By following this guide, smallholder cassava processors will be able to respond to market opportunities and create a loyal customer base. Field agents who support value-added cassava processing will also find the guide useful for training.The guide uses photographs to explain the following topics, in a form that can be readily understood by both literate and illiterate cassava processors:• Design of smallholder cassava processing centres or factories • Selection of appropriate machines to improve the quality of products and expand market potential • Techniques required to produce good quality gari • Good hygiene practices.• Increasing the nutritional value of cassava (e.g., by adding grain legumes during processing) • Increasing the market value of cassava • Reducing transport costs.Gari is one of many different kinds of food products that can be produced from fresh cassava roots. Gari is dry, crispy, creamy-white and granular. It is made from cassava roots that have been crushed into a mash, fermented and sieved into small pieces (known as grits). The grits are then roasted or fried to make the final crispy product. Gari is a popular food in West Africa and is fast becoming a marketable product.The factory Smallholder cassava processing centres or factories play an important role in national food industries and must maintain strict hygiene. This will become increasingly important as the number of cassava factories grows. Cassava processors are therefore advised to maintain good hygiene, not only to protect the health of their customers, but also to protect the reputation and future business of the processing industry. Floor plan for a smallholder cassava processing factory This floor plan illustrates a possible layout for a smallholder cassava processing factory. It can be modified according to the needs of the business: • The size can be larger or smaller • Different cassava processing pathways can be adapted into a single system, enabling the processor to produce a wide range of cassava products • Changing rooms for workers can be located inside or outside the main building, but toilets should be separate • The water source or well should be outside the main buiding • The store should not be too large and only the processed cassava products should be stored there to minimise the risk of contamination.The factory should be located away from the family's living quarters. It should have at least two separate doors, one for the delivery of raw materials and the others through which finished products are taken away. The walls can be made of reinforced mud or clay bricks (e.g., simveram bricks) or cement bricks. The floor should be made of concrete. There should be two separate areas of flooring: wet and dry.The wet area is where fresh cassava roots are made into wet cake or chips. The equipment and machines used for peeling, washing, grating roots into a mash and removing excess water are installed here. The floor and washing trough should be lined with ceramic floor tiles. These are easy to keep clean and will help the processors maintain good hygiene conditions.The dry area is where finished cassava products are made from wet cakes or chips. The dry section houses machines used for breaking and sieving wet cakes, roasting wet cake particles into gari, drying and milling. The final products are packed and stored here too. The dry area can be tiled, but this is not essential.Different machines and types of equipment are used for the different stages and types of processing. Table 1 lists the types and capacity of some machines commonly used to produce gari from cassava. Before buying equipment, the processor should find out about the product qualities required by the market, to ensure they produce the most suitable product. An automatic gari roaster is ideal for producing large volumes of gariThe buyer should check that all cassava processing machines have stainless steel surfaces where they are in direct contact with the cassava roots. If these parts are made from mild steel, they will rust quickly and contaminate the gari.For most cassava varieties, a processor can expect to produce 1 tonne of gari from 4 tonnes of fresh cassava roots. For cassava varieties or clones with a high dry matter content (e.g., variety TME 419), a processor can expect to produce 1 tonne of gari from 3 tonnes of fresh cassava roots. Processing cassava roots into gari takes several steps, and processors need to develop their skills in each of the following:• Peeling and washing cassava roots • Grating cassava roots into mash • De-watering and fermenting mash into wet cake • Sieving wet cake into grits and roasting grits into gari • Bagging and storing the gari • Maintaining good hygiene compliance.Step 1:Freshly harvested cassava roots are covered with soil and dirt and some may be damaged or rotten. Only healthy roots (without rot or other damage) should be transported to the factory. At the factory, the roots are peeled to remove the outer brown skin and inner thick cream layer and washed to remove stains and dirt. The water source should be checked regularly to ensure it is not dirty or contaminated. Step 2: Grating cassava roots into mashCassava roots are traditionally grated into a mash or pulp as part of the process to remove cyanide and make the roots safe to eat. Traditional cassava graters are usually made from perforated metal sheets. These rust quickly and are difficult to keep clean. They are also very slow and labour intensive to use.Mechanized graters are needed to produce a sufficient quantity of cassava mash to meet market demands and standards. Smallholder processors therefore need to learn how to use and maintain these machines.Items needed (continued):A motorised grater with a stainless steel grating drum. Petrol or diesel to power the grater.The grating drum and all food contact areas should be made from stainless steel Do not use grater drums made from mild steel; these will rust and contaminate the processed productClean woven polythene sacks to hold the cassava mash after gratingWash the sacks after use, dry and store them in a clean dry place Wash them again before using the next timeLoad the grater with washed roots while the engine is running to crush the roots into a mash Do not use your bare hands to push the cassava roots against the grating drum as this may cause injuryCollect the mash in a clean bowl and then pour the mash into a clean polythene sackStep 3: De-watering and fermenting mash into wet cakeDe-watering and fermenting complete the process of removing cyanide from the cassava mash. This is done traditionally by using stones or logs as weights to press excess water out of the bags of cassava mash. The bags are then left to drain and ferment for a few days. As with traditional graters, these methods are slow and unhygienic, and are therefore not suitable for a cassava processing business. Several improved methods are available.Bagged cassava mash can be left on the fermentation rack for one or more days before de-watering.Alternatively, the bags of cassava mash can be pressed for the required number of days, during which time the mash will ferment. At the end of the fermentation period, the mash will become a firm, wet cake.Fermentation periods of longer than one or two days will produce very sour products. Consumer tastes and preferences will therefore determine the length of the fermentation period.A fermentation rack A hydraulic press (left) or screw press (right) (here they are on display outside the factory)Always de-water the cassava mash in the wet area of the factory, using one of the following methods:Load the bags of cassava mash on to the fermentation rack and allow the milky water to drain freely from the bags. At the end of the fermentation period, remove the bags of mash from the rack and press them with a hydraulic press or screw press.Load the bags directly on to a hydraulic press. Lift and press the jack handle up and down until it becomes hard to move. Repeat the process several times each day until no more water comes out of the bag to produce a firm wet cake.You can also de-water the mash using a screw press. Turn the handle clockwise to force water from the bag.When a press is used on the bare ground the waste water will not drain away properly and the area will get dirty. The bags of cassava mash could also become contaminated by the dirt.When water stops dripping from the bags and the surface of the bag is still moist, you can remove the firm wet cake from the pressEnsure sufficient water has been removed, otherwise the gari will form into lumps during roasting. But, if too much water is removed, the gari will not cook properly during roasting, becoming floury instead.Step 4:Gari is made by sieving the wet cake into small pieces -known as grits -and then roasting or frying the grits in a hot frying tray or pan to form the final dry and crispy product. Gari is normally white or cream, but will be yellow when made from yellow cassava roots or when fried with palm oil. It is important to make sure the taste and smell is acceptable to local consumers. Yellow cassava roots and palm oil are rich in vitamin A and therefore make nutritious gari.The product should be free from mould, insects (dead or alive), dirt and any other material that could be hazardous to health.Gari is usually classified by its particle size:• Extra-fine: passes through 0.25 mm to 0.5 mm aperture sieve • Fine: passes through 0.5 mm to 1 mm aperture sieve • Coarse: passes through 1 mm to 1.25 mm aperture sieve • Extra coarse: passes through 1.25 mm to 2.0 mm aperture sieve.Items needed:A gari sieve made from stainless steel mesh A gari roasting bay with a shallow stainless steel tray or a moulded aluminium pot. The tray should be mounted on simveram or mud bricks rather than cement bricks, since these are more heat efficient.The tray should have a tiled surround so the area can be kept clean.If the fire is not hot enough, the gari will not cook properly and will become white (bottom of picture). If it is too hot, the gari will burn (top right). The gari at top left was cooked correctly.Traditional gari roasting bays expose processors to direct heat, smoke and fumes. Over the long term, this may affect the health of the processor and their family.Do not use a mild steel tray for roasting gari. This will rust and contaminate the gari.Step 5:Use a grinder to break the large granules into smaller onesRemove the gari from the roasting tray and spread it thinly on a raised platform in the open air to cool and dry. Several batches can be put on the cooling tray.Sieve the gari with a standard size sieve to produce fine granules, which are collected in a plastic bowl Large granules (on the left) should be broken into smaller granules (on the right)Weigh the sack of gari to make sure it is the correct weight, as required by the market: e.g., 25 kg, 50 kg or 65 kg. Seal the sack manually or with a bag sealer (if available) to keep the gari clean and fresh during storage.Pile the sacks on pallets or a raised platform and keep them in a cool, dry place; the gari will keep for up to a year in these conditionsWhen the gari granules are all the same size, pour the gari into a plastic lining inside a woven polythene sackDo not use a woven sack without the plastic lining because the gari will absorb moisture and lose its crispiness; it will also become mouldy and unsaleableClean the grater by pouring water into the hopper while the engine is running for a few minutes Do not leave the grater dirty; always clean it before and after use, otherwise the dirt will contaminate the next batch of gariMaintaining good hygiene is vital for the health of the customers and the processors, as well as to build and maintain the processor's reputation, encourage repeat business and grow sales.All staff must maintain good personal hygiene, especially when handling finished products. This includes cleaning machines thoroughly before and after use.Do not allow people with long or dirty fingernails to work inside the factory Dress in clean clothing, wear a head scarf or cap and remove all jewellery. Wash your hands thoroughly with soap before starting work, after meal breaks and especially after using the toilet.The wet area of the factory should be tiled for easy cleaning. Wash the floor of the factory at the end of every day with plenty of water and ensure the water flows into a soakaway, not straight onto the ground outside the factory. Clean cobwebs and dust from the inside of the roof, windows, walls and corners once a week.Gather all cassava peels. When dried, they can be fed to livestock, e.g., goats and pigs. Cassava peels can also be used as a mulch to control nematodes in vegetable plots and as part of the substrate used to produce edible mushrooms.Do not leave cassava peels and other waste at the processing site as this creates a dirty environment Do not throw cassava peels on waste dumps. They will rot and create a bad smell as well as attracting flies and germs.Do not allow the wastewater to flow straight onto the ground next to the factory; this will make the surroundings dirty and promote the spread of germsCollect the milky wastewater from the fermentation bags in a bowl placed underneath the fermentation rack or by the side of the press. Starch in the milky wastewater will collect at the bottom of the bowl and can be collected, cleaned, then sold as a useful byproduct.Alternatively, channel the water into in a soakaway just outside the factory","tokenCount":"2707"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6c74cb899f3974c5164c7519d40f2796","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/2acb2b78-45ed-4e74-adcb-0e4a0b613ec3/retrieve","id":"436626051"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0872942a-c24c-48e1-9253-af2fd9d079a1","pagecount":"1","content":"Figure 1 : Berge protégée par des plantes épineuses Adaptation aux changements climatiques et agroécologie par les femmes au Burkina Faso -Eveline CompaoreLe Burkina Faso est un pays enclavé d'Afrique occidentale qui couvre environ 274 000 km 2 . L'économie du pays est fortement dépendante de l'agriculture, qui représente près du tiers du produit intérieur brut (PIB). La majorité de la population vit dans des zones rurales où elle pratique une agriculture de subsistance utilisant des techniques agricoles rudimentaires. Ainsi donc au Burkina Faso, les femmes font face aux changements climatiques à différents niveaux. En effet, le climat de ce pays du Sahel se caractérise par une forte variabilité des précipitations, rendant la vie difficile à la majorité des agriculteurs surtout les femmes, car l'accès aux sources d'approvisionnement en eau d'irrigation est limité pour ce groupe vulnérables. Elles utilisent des méthodes qui en général sont d'un atout très important mais non connu. En général les femmesBurkinabès au niveau du plateau central, utilisent la méthode de culture mix pour lutter contre les changements climatiques.Dans leurs petits lopins de terres les femmes utilisent les moyens de bord pour luter contre l'érosion des sols par exemple utilisation des épines pour protéger les berges et leurs cultures maraichères et vivrières.  farmer aged 67 in Bafou).A female farmer aged 62 in Santa also reported: \"Because the soil is too hard and dry, coupled with too much heat, it takes my entire household a week to make ridges on the same farm that use to be done for four days\". Another female farmer aged 52 in Bafou disclose that \"the ground is too dry and strong and grasses are tough, making clearing and tilling too difficult.To cope with these weather stresses, women employed a variety of adaptation strategies to The use of a storage barn is prominent in the North West Region. Farmers from Ntumbaw harvest bean pods and keep in storage barns. They only thresh the pods to get the grains when the need arises as for them storing in the form of grains affects the quality, colour, viability of seeds as well as its market value. For them, the \"construction of storage barn especially for beans is important, if not harvested beans will get rotten.Farmers understand the need to adapt to the changing climate. A female farmer aged 45 in Babessi recounted that \"If I do not adapt to the changes, I will not have any food (maize, haricot beans) to feed my family, sell and earn some money to pay school fees for the children\". For those without any or limited knowledge of adaptation strategies, they rely on God Almighty and ancestors for better harvest\". A female farmer aged 53 in Ntumbaw narrated that \"I do not know how to cope with this new climate, and beside the agricultural extension agents avoid discussions related to this topic\". Access to credits and finance is also another problem. For example, a female farmer aged 67 in Babessi said \"I just manage the farm the way it is because I do not have money to buy \"medicine\" (pesticides) and even fertiliser to increase crop yields as I see in my husband farm\". Another woman said: \"I lack money to buy irrigation equipment for my farm, so we use family labour to water the farm during the dry season\". Insecure land rights reduce the adaptation option. For example, a female farmer aged 49 in Foumbot recounted that \"My landlords told me to plant only beans and corn because I can leave at any time he desires to farm on the land, so there no need to plant a tree as an adaptation measure\". Ensure investment and implementation of a gender-sensitive approach to disaster, awareness, response and recovery activities.Promote gender-responsive approaches to climate financing.Before G2L started on contract farming for common beans, most of the female bean farmers were subsistence farmer for household consumption and not for business. During that time, they did not see the need to adopt most climate change practices as men were responsible for selling surpluses and decided on the use of the money from these proceeds.When G2L started working with women farmers, beans was introduced as a potential business crop. Training on Climate-Smart Agriculture, post-harvest handling techniques and farming as business prioritized women. Aggregation centres were created, and women could easily sell their bean with little logistical challenges. This was after we realised that even though women do all the farming, at the time of selling men were the one who sold the beans, got the money and decided on what it will be used for. G2L in collaboration with district government officials made sure that the one who received the common bean loan is the one who will be responsible for selling and receiving money from the bean sold. Moreover, if she got any retaliating violence from the men, she was encouraged the matter at the gender desk so the action could be taken against the man.During field days, women were trained alongside men on how to adopt climate-smart and practice to their farmers. Above is the picture of a female farmer who already received training and so she was given inputs (improved seeds of common bean uyole 96, fertiliser and pesticides) to grow for the coming season.Eileen Bogweh Nchanji Gender Specialist e.nchanji@cgiar.org Our mailing address is: ","tokenCount":"885"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/7430514043.json b/data/part_1/7430514043.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..79bb2b3453db99e94dd2fefd8d83c3b55f1d17cb
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"0b49f206977f2920abfe75366cf67a7b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/795669db-71ed-4983-8e24-ea558fa60885/retrieve","id":"-1866466977"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b1b176e7-f204-40d7-80de-eed5d7aaafd6","pagecount":"2","content":"P1604 -Digitally integrated approaches for managing climate risk and increasing food security Description of the innovation: With changes in climate, farmers require new skill sets to manage climate information to take actions according to the climate risks. However, our understanding of what behavioral change we want to achieve from agricultural development programs (e.g. training and extension) is still limited. A competency model approach has been developed to define goals for capacity building on CRM (what knowledge, skills, and behaviors farmers need) and use tailored information to implement CSA practices.• Expanded set of development organizations, sub-national initiatives testing climate services and using CCAFS outputs for climate risk management services • Additional institutions or major initiatives mainstream climate risk management services, incorporating CCAFS output. Services developed in prior years will be strengthened, scaled up, evaluated.• 43 -Enhanced institutional capacity of partner research organizations • 29 -Enhanced adaptive capacity to climate risks (More sustainably managed agro-ecosystems)","tokenCount":"153"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"38300eccf105e9afd5f2ff98c7696c61","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/17bb0bea-67f9-4376-8d70-9b64bca1e5e5/retrieve","id":"1780789838"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"53de7524-c05e-46e9-9799-886ff1b32f46","pagecount":"542","content":"Ever-increasing human population and urbanisation are intensifying the demand for agricultural commodities in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). As a result, the traditional balance between people, their habitat and socio-economic systems is fast disappearing. Excessive deforestation, land clearing and cultivation are occurring in an attempt to meet rising food demands. Land degradation and pollution threaten sustainable increases in agricultural productivity and endanger the survival of present and future generations. Changes in agricultural production are needed soon in sub-Saharan Africa to avert large-scale human suffering. Despite the rapidly growing population and enormous production constraints, SSA can become agriculturally self sufficient. This will require imaginative food production techniques and management approaches that protect the environment at unprecedented scales. These changes can only be realised through changes in political will and national attitudes.Achieving sustainable increases in agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa is both a regional and a worldwide concern. High human and animal population densities in some areas have surpassed land-carrying capacities causing environmental degradation and undermining the long-term stability of these production systems. In attempts to meet the increasing food demands of larger populations, farmers are cultivating more land permanently, grazing lands have diminished and many traditional farming practices that formerly allowed land to rejuvenate are disappearing.An efficient cycling of nutrients among crops, animals and soil is crucial to the sustained productivity of low-input mixed farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa. Access to agricultural inputs such as fertiliser and improved seed is limited. Nutrient balances, or the difference between nutrient inputs and harvests, are negative for many production systems. Although animal manures are perhaps the most important fertility amendment that many farmers apply to cropland, livestock can also contribute to these nutrient imbalances. Excessive removal of vegetation by grazing animals or harvesting feeds can deplete soil-nutrient reserves and result in decreases in soil productivity. A major portion of nutrients consumed by livestock may also be unavailable for recycling due to volatilisation, erosion and leaching losses, and uneven deposition of nutrients by animals in the landscape.The climatic and socio-economic changes currently taking place in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa suggest that sustainable increases in agricultural production from an increasingly fragile ecosystem require new and innovative crop, livestock, and soil-management strategies. To further this objective, the International Livestock Centre for Africa (ILCA) and its cosponsors convened this conference to bring together national and international experts in livestock (cattle, sheep and goats) nutrition and management, ecology, agronomy, soil science and socio-economics to address fundamental issues of nutrient balances, agricultural productivity and the well being of the people, livestock and environment of sub-Saharan Africa.The objectives of this conference were to:• review the present state of knowledge on nutrient cycling in mixed crop-livestock systems• identify research methodologies for investigating nutrient cycles in the plant/animal/soil interfaces of mixed farming systems • identify future research priorities and integrated approaches for improving the role of livestock in the nutrient cycles of mixed farming systems.Fifty-six national and international experts attended the conference. A total of 35 presentations from 18 countries reported on various livestock feeding and nutrient-cycling strategies in intensively and extensively managed mixed farming systems. The opening session provided an overview of the demographic and environmental changes and challenges facing sub-Saharan Africa today and the roles of livestock in mixed farming systems. Papers presented at the technical sessions addressed issues related to how animals acquire and utilise nutrients for their productivity, the fate of nutrients excreted by livestock, methods to improve nutrient capture and recycling and the social and economic processes that influence the availability of nutrient sources and flows in mixed farming systems. Issues related to resource management were examined at the field, farm, community and regional levels.Volume I of the conference proceedings summarises the major discussions, findings and recommendations of the conference as gleaned from the rapporteur reports. This volume contains the full texts of the papers presented at the conference.In ancient times people were few and wealthy and without strife. People at present think that five sons are not too many, and each son has five sons also, and before the death of the grandfather there are already 25 descendants. Therefore people are more and wealth is less, they work hard and receive little. The life of a nation depends upon people having enough food, not upon the number of people. Han Fei-Tzu, Chou dynasty, c. 500 BC (cited in Hicks, 1975).Agriculture accounts for a large share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and exports, and employs more than 70% of the work force in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The success or failure of agriculture therefore determines the economic growth of countries in that region, at least in the short term. Many African countries are unable to meet their target food requirements, provide other basic commodities and generate stable incomes because of rapid population growth and accelerated urbanisation. In less than 35 years the population of SSA will increase 2.6 times reaching 1294 million, a figure almost equal to China's projected population for 2025 (Winrock International, 1992). Social, economic and cultural determinants of fertility, mortality and migration are unlikely to change in the immediate future to reverse this trend in population growth.Over the past 25 years, the numbers of all the major domestic animal species in SSA have also increased. Total tropical livestock units (TLUs) rose from 112 million in 1961-63 to 168 million in 1986-88, an average annual growth rate of 1.7% (Table 1). Some species and countries seem to show more rapid growth than others. The combined pressure of human and animal populations on natural resources may lead to excessive deforestation, loss of biological diversity, soil degradation and various forms of pollution and contamination (Table 2).Ecological, economic and social imbalances affect both present and future generations. Therefore, the present living conditions of the African poor that compel them to endanger the natural resource base will have to be changed. New sustainable agricultural systems that not only support increased production but also conserve the natural resource base will have to be found. It is projected that the economies of SSA countries must expand by 4 to 5% annually to provide food security, more employment and better incomes (Winrock International, 1992).Sub-Saharan African countries need to intensify agricultural production but they must avoid the problems of pollution and waste disposal that developed countries encountered in the process of intensification. The choice of production systems, technologies and policies for SSA will therefore have to be guided by knowledge of the potential of the resources at the farm, community, district and regional levels and the consequences of their misuse.The consequences of rapid population growth in SSA cannot be fully assessed without projecting demographic trends and food demands. For example, annual meat and milk production will have to reach 19 and 43 million tonnes, respectively, to meet the demand in 2025. Demand for some other commodities in selected countries is shown in Table 3. Rapid population growth need not necessarily lead to falling per capita income although it is commonly argued that when labour force grows on fixed resources, the additional people will have fewer complementary resources to work with. Production per person therefore decreases and returns to labour diminish. In fact, population growth in 18 th century Europe influenced higher labour productivity and economic growth, even where land seemed relatively scarce. Since other factors changed in that continent, technologies improved, new supplies and methods to re-use natural resources were found, better health, nutrition, education and training improved human skills and economies of scale in production and consumption rose. However, such changes are not occurring in Africa.In SSA the productive population (15 to 64) was about 200 million in 1980 and is growing at a rate of about 3.2% annually. At the same rate of annual increase, by the year 2000 this population will have almost doubled to 378 million and could reach 700 million by 2020. Even under low population projections, the productive population would increase to slightly over 600 million in 2020 (World Bank, 1986). Estimates of the distribution of the human population in SSA by agro-ecological zones suggest that about 25% now live in the semi-arid zone, 25% in the subhumid zone, 20% in the humid zone, 15% in the highlands and about 10% in the arid zone (ILCA, 1987). Population is believed to be growing faster in the subhumid zone than in the arid, semi-arid or humid zones. Of the total population 5% are pastoralists, concentrated in the arid and semi-arid areas of East and West Africa.The distribution of ruminant species is more strongly influenced by agro-ecological conditions than is the distribution of non-ruminants. The arid and semi-arid zones, which together make up 54% of the total land area of SSA, account for 57% of the ruminant livestock (including camels) measured as TLUs (Table 4;Winrock International, 1992). In contrast, the humid zone makes up 19% of the land mass, but accounts for only 6% of ruminant TLUs. The arid zone has the largest share of goats (38%) and sheep (34%). Most cattle are found in the semi-arid (31%) and the subhumid zones (23%).In many SSA countries, rapid population growth combined with a poor initial socio-economic position inherited from colonial powers, and subsequent policy failures have culminated in the present state of decline in per capita income. Therefore, improving productivity at the farm level alone cannot absorb more people. Labour inputs will have to be complemented by policy changes and new investments in roads, seeds, fertilisers, disease eradication, irrigation etc. Without these complementary investments, much of the land will not be economically useful. In effect, the sub-Saharan African population is growing so fast that even investment in complementary resources comparable to that of developed countries during the past 50 years would only marginally improve living standards. Source: Fischer et al (1992).Inappropriate policies alone may not have caused agricultural growth to lag behind population growth. Land potential varies substantially among the different regions of SSA and population densities differ widely, depending on historical circumstances and local farming conditions. For example, at present Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria and to a lesser extent Senegal are experiencing substantial population pressure. As a result land area per person will decline sharply and cultivable land per person will be less than 1 ha (Figure 1). The extent to which rapid population growth exerts pressure on agricultural potential is determined both by the way land is used and by the inherent land potential itself. In many parts of SSA, traditional fallow-field rotation to restore fertility still predominates. Expanding the land area for cultivation means shortening fallow periods; the consequent decline in yields from the same land can only be avoided through improved cultivation methods, e.g. fertilisers or better tools.Population densities are generally low to moderate in areas where forest fallows are common but tends to be higher in savannahs. Renewable resources -land, forests and fisheries -can be continuously used as long as extraction rates do not exceed the rate of (natural or managed) regeneration. The risk of overuse and permanent degradation is greater with a large and rapidly rising population. Population density is clearly the most significant factor influencing the extent of erosion in the peasant farming areas than in large-scale commercial farming areas of Zimbabwe (Table 5; Whitlow, 1988).  African countries, rural andtotal populations, 1985 and2000. Source: Lele and Stone (1989).  Forests are declining in all of Africa's ecological regions except in forested mountain areas where reforestation programmes appear to be marginally off-setting the rate of extraction. As population increases more forests and woodlands are cleared for cultivation and to meet fuelwood demand especially around large urban cities. In Ethiopia, for example, the initial impetus to deforestation came from food requirements for expanding human and animal populations, but at present a major reason for it is to meet fuel requirements. Ethiopia is among the least energy-intensive economies of the world, and 90% of the energy used for household purposes is derived from fuelwood, charcoal, agricultural residues and dung (Biswas et al, 1987).Deforestation can cause a reduction in soil fertility by increasing soil erosion and runoff. Trees are an integral part of nutrient cycling in any ecosystem and diversion of dung and crop residues for use as fuel when wood is scarce could seriously affect the balance of the nutrients required by the production systems.The sharp increase in stock numbers coupled with prolonged drought reduced grassland productivity in the Sahel countries from the mid-1970s. The botanical composition of the herbaceous layer changed considerably from one year to the next depending on the rainfall. Biological recovery of herbaceous grasses and forbs is normally anticipated in the second or third year of normal weather after multi-annual drought. This, however, depends on the seed stock in the ground and the extent of human and animal pressure during the previous dry period. Denudation of rangelands surrounding regular watering points may develop even in normal years because of stock concentration (Le Houérou, 1989;ILCA, 1991).People directly affect the environment by manipulating the soil surface and its plant cover. According to de Leeuw (1992), relative rates of impact are governed by two major interacting factors:• population pressure expressed as the number of persons/km 2 within specified time frames (past, present and future) • \"resilience\" of the local environment, approximated by land quality (rainfall, length of growing period (LGP), land forms, soils and vegetation).A simple matrix of the causes and effects of population density and environmental resilience (as shown in Table 6) can be used to determine the agricultural production systems appropriate to given agroclimatic circumstances. For instance, the plant fraction removed by grazing increases with livestock density but is reduced by increased feed supplies per unit area. The proportion of rangelands within a target region is a function of rural population density and demand for arable land for cropping per inhabitant. Also, the potential of fire as a tool to reduce plant cover for animal feeding, fuelwood and timber extraction increases with longer LGPs and is inversely related to population density and to the intensity of past and current land use. Hence, single or combined pressures of both people and livestock on ecosystems with low resilience means that these systems are likely to suffer the greatest degradation.Feed resources exceed livestock demand in many areas of SSA; animal agriculture may therefore not be the initial cause for degradation. Low biomass and high animal stocking rates and densities may predispose grazing lands to degradation. Such risks occur in the semi-arid zones of Nigeria, Cameroon, The Gambia, Ethiopia and Tanzania (20-35 cattle/km 2 ) and in most of the East African highlands where cattle densities average about 40 head/km 2 but may rise to 85-105 head/km 2 , e.g. in Kenya and Uganda (de Leeuw, 1992). High livestock densities seem to be generally localised, due to seasonal feed availability and land use. They may occur in such areas as flood plains in the dry season, off-farm areas during growing seasons or when livestock are concentrated in a few areas as a precautionary measure to avoid disease etc. Source: de Leeuw (1992).Soil degradation is a formidable obstacle to development. The major causes of soil degradation are deforestation, water and wind erosion, salinisation, sodification, acidification, leaching, toxicity and physical and biological degradation. The final stage of a combination of various forms of soil degradation in any of the ecozones is desertification.Land is the fundamental resource base for all types of agriculture and forestry. Sustainable agricultural production is dependent on soil and crop practices that conserve soil and water. Without these measures, rangelands and cultivated lands become degraded and their productive capacity is impaired. Erosion is most severe on slopes from which ground cover has been removed. For instance, soil loss during the peak of the rainy season from a traditionally cultivated maize field (20% slope) in the Ethiopian highlands was estimated to be 19.5 t/ha as opposed to 0.02 t from a pasture (21% slope) and a four-year-old Juniperus forest (65% slope) -a thousandfold difference between cropped and pasture and forest areas (Prinz, 1986). Restoring degraded lands may take decades, and for severely affected areas effective and economic methods of rebuilding their former productive capabilities are not even known. Soil is a living system. Its structure, composition and biological diversity must be understood and protected for agriculture to be productive and sustainable.The importance of water as an agricultural resource cannot be overemphasised. In common with other natural resources, there seems to be a tendency to regard water as an infinite resource. If water waste and the severe ecological disturbances that can be caused by water (e.g. erosion, salinisation etc) are to be prevented, research is urgently required to better understand and control the complex relations between water, soil and plants in many agro-ecological locations in SSA.Fresh water is a very vital but limited resource. In SSA rain water is available for only part of the year and irrigation water is scarce. Soil may be considered as a bank in which water and essential crop nutrients are stored. Rain water can be harvested and held in tanks or earthworks while runoff can be restrained by maintaining ground cover, ridging and terracing hillsides. However, the way water is replenished, maintained, protected and controlled depends on soil conditions and demographic demands.While most agriculture in SSA is sustained by direct rainfall, potentially rain water can be supplemented by irrigation from surface and ground water, i.e. from rivers, natural and man-made lakes, catchments and subterranean aquifers. At present, less than 5% of the land under cultivation in Africa is irrigated (FAO, 1992). Even though water is the limiting resource throughout the arid and semi-arid zones, surface water from lakes and such perennial rivers as the Zaire, Niger, Senegal, Limpopo and Zambezi is not used for crop irrigation as much as it could be. Sizeable aquifers in sedimentary basins and crystalline basements are believed to exist below near-arid regions. However, utilisation of transboundary rivers and water resources needs to be monitored and managed to the benefit of the regional environment and multistate economies. Given Africa's population growth and uneven, and often uncertain, rainfall it is improbable that the continent can come close to food self-sufficiency without substantial investment in economically designed, efficiently managed irrigation.At present, aquifers recharged by precipitation are overdrawn because of poor planning and management. Damage from siltation, salinity from irrigation schemes and contamination of ground and surface water by industrial effluent and agricultural chemicals are potential hazards to human health and food security and to aquatic resources and wildlife.Land clearing is an agriculture-related activity that has probably made the largest contribution to the greenhouse gas build-up. Forest and crop residue burning is common in traditional farming, contributing substantial amounts of CO2 annually. Rapid deforestation in the tropics may also be a significant source of increased N2O emissions from soils. The increasing concentrations of CO2 and other \"greenhouse gases\" are expected to change temperature, rainfall and cloud patterns. In ecozones where ruminant livestock populations are low due to disease problems, subsistence farmers find it easier to burn crop residues after each harvest than to incorporate them into the soil with their simple tools. Burning communal lands in the subhumid and drier zones is also common in Africa.Cattle contribute 57% of the global methane (Burke and Lashof, 1990). Methane emission from livestock is affected by differences in feed quantity and quality, body weight, age, energy expenditure and enteric ecology. Increased use of draft animal power and highly productive dairy animals to support growing peri-urban milk demand in SSA are potential sources of methane.Infectious diseases cause one-third of all deaths globally (UNEP, 1991). These diseases affect the agricultural labour force and output. In developing countries the higher prevalence of metazoan, protozoan, bacterial and viral diseases is linked to malnutrition, inadequate water supply and poor sanitation and hygiene as a result of overcrowded living conditions. There is a growing concern that a significant proportion of cardiovascular diseases and cancers are directly or indirectly caused by environmental factors. Environmental risk factors include exposure to ionising radiation and carcinogenic chemicals in the air, food and water.The scope for production increases within traditional systems diminishes as land reserves are exhausted and yields per hectare stagnate at a low level. Farmers' needs are generally satisfied by constant or increasing returns to increasing labour inputs, as they change from shifting cultivation to fallow-farming to exploit the naturally regenerated soil fertility. If the rising population continues to use traditional practices to intensify land-use, returns to labour will decrease. Over time, this \"involution\" will create smaller farms, featuring higher-yielding low-quality tubers as the principal crops and poorly nourished and disease-prone people, with no space for expansion (Ruthenberg, 1983).Involution can also affect livestock. Encroachment of arable farming on traditional grazing land, without alternative sources of natural or sown feed, could increase the number of poorly fed livestock, unless they are integrated into mixed farming systems.Land-use systems in SSA are at different stages of the agricultural \"evolution-involution syndrome\". Many areas have reached the \"low-level equilibrium trap\" as a result of rapid population growth and poor economies. Except for out-migration, increasing per-hectare and per-animal productivity by introducing yield-increasing and environmentally sustainable production innovations seems to be the only way out for many SSA countries.Sustainable systems of agriculture and food security have now become major international concerns. Industrialised and relatively prosperous countries subsidised agrochemical use for many years to intensify agricultural production. This practice has contributed to the present levels of environmental pollution. In these countries, survival of people is not at risk if more food and fibre are not produced. The urgency, therefore, is not for technologies to increase production but for those that will disrupt the environment and natural resources less. In contrast, poorer nations in SSA will have to produce more to satisfy their fast-growing populations.Sustainable systems are specific to location and agro-ecological and socio-ecological situation and are therefore different for developing and developed nations. Farmers in SSA need more sophisticated technologies than the low-input technologies they already have to meet changing demands. Food security does not mean equipping farmers with resources to ensure subsistence from their land. As more people move into urban areas, they depend on the rural farmer for their food supplies. Agricultural production in the African countries will therefore have to be integrated with economic and efficient systems of preservation, processing and distribution.Intensification is an alternative to expanded cultivation of marginally productive lands that may be vulnerable to degradation. Livestock seem to provide opportunities for using labour that is not required for other farming operations. A number of studies reveal that farmers engaged in mixed crop-livestock production earn half or more of their cash income from animal products (ILCA, 1987). Gryseels (1988) reports that livestock provide a dominant part of the cash income and gross margin in smallholder cereal-livestock farms in the Ethiopian highlands.According to McIntire et al (1992), livestock are introduced into farming systems when population pressure causes the expansion of land for cultivation and reduces fallow and pasture to the point where farmers seek substitutes to maintain soil fertility. As population increases further, farmers shift from paddocking to systems of collection, processing and incorporating manure on crops. Herders depend more on crop residues as a source of feed, and they also begin to grow crops. The next step is a shift from livestock systems that are based on field grazing of crop residues and pastures to systems in which animals are confined and residues are harvested and preserved. This results in more intensive use of both the residues and animal wastes. Finally, manual labour is replaced by animal traction and mechanisation which become economical because of the high intensity of land use that has been achieved.Possible paths to agricultural intensification in the major ecozones of sub-Saharan Africa are given in Table 7. There are still large areas of thinly settled land in the subhumid zone (SHZ) where human population density is lower than in the arid and semi-arid zones because of human disease pressure. Livestock density is also low, primarily because of trypanosomiasis, but the situation is changing rapidly. In West Africa, pastoralists from the north are moving into the subhumid zone, as are coastal peoples from the south. Population increases and the associated cultivation are altering the zone's ecology, reducing the tsetse population and trypanosomiasis pressure.inputs to sustain productivity. At the very least it is necessary to replace the nutrients removed by harvested crops. Even this basic requirement is not met in many African countries where current mineral fertiliser use is less than 10 kg of nutrients per hectare, implying net removal of nutrients by harvested crops. Much needs to be learnt about how to manage the infertile fragile soils and sensitive vegetation for maximum production. Methods to minimise nutrient losses by maintaining adequate soil protective cover, afforestation practices and recycling of nutrients removed in the non-useful aerial and sub-aerial crop components need to become common farming practice. Crop residue management, rotation and ley farming and techniques to maximise the recovery of plant nutrients from livestock in the crop-livestock systems are research examples in this direction. But how the research results can best be utilised by the small farmer is yet not clear.Besides providing farm power and manure, livestock make other contributions to the agricultural economy. They serve as a reserve, readily convertible to cash, to cushion farm enterprises against a changeable climate and unstable commodity prices. Livestock provide an outlet for damaged grains, root crops, and other crops that are not marketable or needed for human consumption. They are also a means of converting surplus food crops to high-value commodities, providing food grain producers with an alternative source of income. In addition, ruminants can utilise lignocellulosic biomass (which includes crop residues and by-products) that has little other value except as an addition to soil organic matter. The nutrients and value of these products would largely be lost if they were not consumed by livestock. Livestock thus serve to transform feeds into food and marketable products, adding value to farming enterprises, increasing income, and enhancing the biophysical and economic viability of agriculture.It is estimated that feed energy supplies will be barely sufficient in SSA for the ruminant and equine populations of 245 million TLUs projected for 2025. Under normal weather conditions there may be sufficient biomass to carry about 270 million TLUs. However, the situation would be precarious during drought when, as estimated by Penning de Vries and Djiteye (1982), carrying capacities would decline to 42 ha/TLU in the very arid zone, 20 ha/TLU in the arid zone and 15 ha/TLU in the semi-arid zone. This would lower SSA's overall carrying capacity to about 205 million TLU, or 20% below the projected number. Forage production must therefore be significantly increased to support the targeted increase in ruminant production (Winrock International, 1992).Protein supplies are in even shorter supply. Ruminant and equine populations in SSA will require 63 million tonnes of crude protein in 2025, but only 50 million tonnes will be available. The imbalance is, of course, much higher when seasonal variations in the protein supply from natural sources are considered. Also, assuming that 7% is the lowest protein content that will support both maintenance and minimal production, ruminants in all the zones dependent on natural pastures will suffer serious protein deficiencies, except for a few months in the rainy season. Over the last few years there has been a concerted effort to screen forage legumes in SSA through IARC and NARS collaborations. Efforts by the Alley Farming Network (AFNETA), the African Feed Resources Network (AFRNET) and the Agroforestry Research Network (AFRENA) have raised hopes that herbaceous and tree legume species could be integrated into farming systems to improve soil fertility maintenance and animal production.Research is needed to increase the understanding of the interactive effects of grazing, weather and fire on extensively used rangelands. Information is needed on the influences of biotic and abiotic factors on the control of rangeland vegetation and ecology and how management affects vegetative changes. It is also important to understand the dynamics of non-equilibrial systems and, how management of these systems differs from the traditional equilibrial systems upon which most range management strategies are based. Much can be learned about range management by further study of successful pastoral systems.In sub-Saharan African rangelands the number of animals which a herd owner can accumulate is constrained only by the availability of labour. According to Mascarenhas et al (1986) two factors seem important to pastoral economies. One, households must ensure that their herd size is above the minimum number of animals needed to safeguard economic viability. The other is the ecological carrying capacity and the actual aggregate stocking rate on the communal land surrounding the croplands. With a growing population consisting of a multitude of independent households, each trying to convert as much communal wealth (pasture) into individual wealth (animals) as possible, overstocking may become common unless other processes intervene. Relief work, better human and animal disease treatments and other government and non-governmental assistance in many countries have all encouraged stock build-up and overstocking in the rangelands.African pastoralists are helpless and lack the ability to rapidly adjust to oscillations of short-and long-term rangeland productivity. They have therefore adapted \"opportunistic management\" of the rangelands featuring high stocking rates and migratory forage exploitation. Given the erratic rainfall patterns, particularly in the arid and semi-arid ecozones, opportunistic management is probably very efficient. Outright changes to this type of management may therefore not be advisable and blanket recommendations for all rangeland types may be inapplicable. The well known improvements in the pastoral sector such as watering points, dams, veterinary services, improved marketing facilities etc have not been able to solve the basic problem of the constantly increasing number of herds. Appropriate marketing strategies that will cater for or absorb the sudden surplus of animals during bad years may help, as it will provide some redress for the losses to the pastoralists.The apparently conflicting land-use management practices in cropping and grazing lands and forest reserves need to be resolved by better land adjudication that allows safeguards to practise a land-use type. Given the variations in the natural and social environment, any framework developed for land adjudication in SSA must be flexible and allow for variations in tenure, including provision that it will not be a hinderance to livestock mobility. Research on means to prevent expansion of cultivation in the rangelands is also needed.The forest services in many countries in SSA have not evolved concrete land-use programmes to justify keeping large areas of land under forests. Hence, forests have always been viewed as potential agricultural land and farmers do not hesitate to clear a site for cropping if need be.Policies embodying options such as regulatory control incentives by subsidies for afforestation or forest protection, taxation disincentives, property rights regulations which define liability and penalty for damage to forests and land-based resources need to be strengthened.Few governments in SSA have laws to prohibit degradation and destruction of arable land by urban and industrial spread and other non-agricultural uses. Industrial and urban developers can often reap higher returns from good land than farmers. Consequently, farmers sell their land and realise greater immediate profit than if they cultivate it. Since the area of arable land is much smaller than that of land that cannot be cultivated there needs to be a policy to encourage the use of the poor land for urban and industrial exploitation and to protect and preserve arable land for agriculture.In high-income countries, measures to control soil degradation are embedded in the development process. However, African countries have yet to recognise soil degradation as a major threat to human existence in large parts of their national territories.Techniques to prevent and cure soil degradation are known. In most situations of SSA, application of this knowledge has not been effective because there is no combination of technology, organisation and more importantly, structural measures. Therefore, soil degradation and the recovery of soil resources should become a political issue so that legal, organisational, educational and technological aspects can be properly co-ordinated.Under suitable conditions and good management, irrigation can play a significant role to intensify and stabilise agricultural production and in reducing adverse impacts of droughts and facilitating rural development. Legislation and agreements are, however, needed at the country and regional levels to monitor the flow and extraction rates from transboundary resources such as rivers, reservoirs etc. The increasing population is placing an unprecedented demand on water resources. Large differences in water-use priorities in countries sharing the resource necessitate the establishment of a complex management and cooperation mechanism.Agricultural intensification occurs naturally in SSA. Transition from crop and livestock agriculture to mixed crop-livestock farming needs to have new technologies and polices to be capable of maintaining and preserving resources. Autonomous intensification as a result of population growth is by itself unlikely to achieve the expected gains in per capita agricultural production and rural income (Lele and Stone, 1989). Strategies are also needed to assist the shift to high yielding and higher value crops and more productive land and to resolve the land tenure problems facing the areas in SSA where mixed crop-livestock systems are evolving. Spatial implications of agricultural practices have been inadvertently ignored in the past. There is a need for better co-ordination to understand the long-term effects of agricultural practices. Socio-economic and biophysical indicators are therefore needed to guide the policy and management activities to optimise, on a sustainable basis, the goods and services from an agro-ecosystem.Population growth in sub-Saharan Africa is not expected to stabilise until 2050. By that time 1.7 billion people will have to be supported on the same resource base. How this stability will be reached cannot be ascertained. To what extent the natural resource base could contribute to national development depends on its sustainable potential.Sub-Saharan Africa is a mosaic of soils, climate, different lengths of growing period (LGPs), crops, animals, people and civilisations. These differences enable subdivisions of the resource base into:• low-potential areas vulnerable to faster land degradation• high-potential areas for continuous use with relatively low risk of degradation • protected areas, like forests, that are genetic reserves.Vulnerable and low potential areas are unfavourable for accelerated agricultural development.In SSA, human population density and distribution do not correspond to the land potential. For instance, low potential Sahel areas account for approximately 10% of the population and over 50% of the land area. Political boundaries do not follow land potential either. Hence, resources in some countries are inadequate to support the growing populations at the level of existing technologies.The greatest impact of the rapid population growth in the immediate future is expected to be on agricultural resources. Marginal lands, normally avoided because of low fertility are increasingly brought under cultivation as yields decline on more suitable lands. Crop yields therefore have to be improved, but the cost of fossil energy based yield-increasing technologies are prohibitive to SSA farmers.Development in SSA has to be rapid and sustainable and must guarantee the well being of all people. This demands that each member of the society be given access to both resources and the required services. This will mean a reassessment of the present access to and control of wealth.Wherever agricultural intensification has taken place in SSA, especially in areas favourable for cattle, mixed farming has developed. The intensification process has been facilitated by land ownership. Livestock seem to be a viable means of replacing manual labour, replenishing soil fertility and providing cash income for other household needs.Productivity assessments have indicated that sub-Saharan African needs for the growing population can be met from available resources if land productivity can be increased. The potential yields of some land types can be much higher than the current average, but the prevailing prices and marketing strategies in some countries are disincentives for farmers to venture into new forms of land development.Sub-Saharan Africa is ecologically diverse. Very few plants and animals are known and domesticated. There may be many wild species that are biologically more efficient than domestic species and these have to be located, adapted and sustained.The capacity to improvise, imitate and invent has served the human race whenever the need arose. So far Africans have been improvising and emulating others. However, many nations now appreciate the urgency for invention of new methods to utilise available resources. The countries also recognise the importance of regional cooperation for managing the renewable resources. There is therefore a need for political change and cultural adjustments to provide equity and sustenance to all parts of the region.Cattle, sheep and goats represent over 90% of all domestic ruminant livestock in sub-Saharan Africa (Winrock International, 1992). The association of livestock husbandry with cropping benefits both enterprises. Crop residues are important animal feeds while animals provide manure and draft power for cropping. Animals also provide meat and milk for households and cash income for farmers that can be invested in crop production. They are a means of storing capital, buffering food shortages in years of poor crop production and meeting social and religious obligations of farmers.Traditionally in sub-Sahara Africa (SSA), crops and livestock have been operationally separated but functionally linked enterprises. The exchanges between sedentary crop farmers and migratory pastoralists of grain, crop residues and water for manure have linked crop and livestock production for years in many regions (van Raay, 1975;McCown et al, 1979;Toulmin, 1983;Powell, 1986;Mortimore, 1991). But these specialised forms of crop and livestock production by different ethnic groups are under transition. Increasing human populations combined with long-term weather changes are transforming the specialised systems, based on extensive shifting cultivation and grazing, to more intensively managed enterprises. The transformation from specialised to integrated systems is a dynamic and evolutionary process. As livestock husbandry becomes more settled it increasingly incorporates crop production while the specialised, extensive cropping system integrates animals. In the process, many of the traditional exchange relationships between pastoralists and crop farmers are disappearing. Although many crop-livestock interactions continue to be mediated by barter and market transactions between separate crop and livestock producers, they increasingly occur within closely integrated mixed farms.For the purpose of this review, mixed farming is the cultivation of crops and the raising of cattle, sheep and/or goats by the same economic entity, such as a household or a 'concession', with animal inputs (e.g. manure, draft power) being used in crop production and crop inputs (e.g. residues, fodder) being used in livestock production. Although manure use is an important component of mixed farms in SSA, it is only one of various benefits accruing from the integration of crops and livestock. The benefits of mixed farming depends not only on the demands for manure to enhance soil fertility but also on the need for, and benefits gained from animal power, crop-residue feeding and farm diversification.This paper provides an overview of mixed farming systems in SSA. While mixed farming is just one form of crop and livestock production, it occupies an important phase in the evolution of agricultural intensification. The first part of the paper reviews the evolution of specialised and mixed farming systems and their distribution across the agro-ecological zones of SSA. It then proceeds to describe various socio-economic constraints to crop-livestock integration and the biophysical interactions, specifically feed and manure linkages, between crops and livestock on mixed farms. The paper concludes by discussing strategies for attaining long-term gains in crop and livestock production from mixed farming systems in SSA.Interactions between crop and livestock enterprises evolve through four stages in the process of agricultural and overall economic development: (1) pre-intensification phase where crop production and livestock husbandry are operationally separate enterprises; (2) intensification phase where crop J.M. Powell and T.O. Williams and livestock production integrate mostly through animal draft power and manure linkages; (3) income diversification phase when investments are made to improve forage supply and quality; and (4) a return to specialisation through commercialisation (Table 1; Pingali, 1993). The driving force in moving from specialisation to integration and back to specialisation is the opportunity costs of land, labour and urban income growth (McIntire et al, 1992;Pingali, 1993).Phases in evolution of mixed farming systems 1 I I I I I I areas are transformed into irrigated gardens. In many areas of SSA, crop damage by pastoralist herds has resulted in tragic ethnic conflicts. Yet, it is during this initial phase in the evolution of mixed farming that livestock depend on crop residues as feed, especially during long dry seasons when there are few alternatives. As animal pressures increase, free grazing gives way to the harvesting of grasses and crop residues which are bartered, sold or fed to the farmers' own livestock. Manure is used to fertilise the fields of the livestock owners. Further along the shift to intensive mixed farming, although not yet a widespread practice in SSA, is the growing of forage legumes specifically to increase livestock productivity with the additional benefits of increasing soil productivity and crop yields through nitrogen fixation and improved soil physical properties.As markets continue to develop and technical changes increase, a movement away from integration and a return to specialisation may occur (McIntire et al, 1992). This occurs when market conditions and public policies result in fertilisers being used instead of manure, when tractors replace animal power and cultivated forages and diet supplements are used instead of crop residues. At this point, the economic incentive for a mixed farm enterprise to provide its own inputs diminishes and specialisation becomes more profitable.People, cattle, sheep and goats are distinctly distributed across the five agro-ecological zones of sub-Saharan Africa (Table 2). The arid zone stands out for its high livestock per person ratio and low cropping potential. The semi-arid and humid zones have somewhat similar land areas and fairly similar rural population densities. The arid and semi-arid zones occupy 54% of the total land area and account for 57% of the cattle, sheep and goats in SSA. The highlands, comprising only 5% of the total land mass, are the most densely populated of all the agro-ecological zones both in terms of people and animals. The following discussion briefly examines the influence that population densities, animal disease, and economic conditions have had on the evolution of crop-livestock interactions and mixed farming systems in the five agro-ecological zones of SSA.Pure pastoralism, one of the few specialised forms of livestock husbandry still occurring in SSA, is practised in the arid zone and in the more arid parts of the semi-arid zone. Rangeland vegetation in these regions is of high quality and there is a low incidence of livestock pests and diseases. The survival of pastoralism depends on herd mobility to exploit seasonal water and forage supplies.The arid zone does not support crop production to any extent (except in the favourable microclimates of oasis farming) so mixed farming and interactions between crops and livestock within the zone, by definition, are limited. Seasonal transhumance of livestock from the arid into the semi-arid and subhumid zones, however, does allow for interactions between pastoralists and crop farmers along livestock routes or at the dry season site. As the expansion of cropping reduces grazing lands in the semi-arid zone, animal movement becomes more restricted and the viability of pastoralism is reduced. An exception to this is in eastern Africa where pastoralists have their own land rights.In most parts of the semi-arid zone, farmers own animals and pastoralists are increasingly growing crops. Crop residues provide a vital feed source during the 6-to 8-month dry season and animal manure enhances soil fertility for crop production. Manure is obtained either from one's own animals, from the livestock of other farmers or through exchange relationships with pastoralists. Although manuring contracts between farmers and pastoralists are still important in some areas (e.g. along trekking routes), farmers have developed a variety of ways to combine their own smaller herds in order to manure sizable areas of cropland. Feed/manure interactions in mixed farming systemsThe most important biological interactions between cropping and livestock in SSA are the use of animal traction and manures in cropping and the feeding of crop residues and other cropland forages to animals. Whereas forage and manure linkages are common to most mixed farming systems, animal traction is associated mainly with cash cropping, or is practised in high population density areas where markets are readily accessible (McIntire et al, 1992). The following discussion highlights key issues related to feed and manure linkages in the mixed farming systems of SSA.Feeding strategies can be classified into unrestricted grazing, stall feeding, semi-stall feeding and tethering systems. As more land is cultivated, grazing lands diminish. The shift from pasture to cropland has several consequences for feed availability and quality (Sandford, 1990). Not only is there a total reduction in the amount of pasture available, but pastures may become seasonally inaccessible due to fragmented cropping and/or the expansion of dry-season gardening in low-lying areas. This is common in West Africa where cropping is encroaching on traditional dry season pastures, jeopardising the livelihood of pastoralists (Traoré and Breman, 1992).As livestock are confined to smaller grazing areas and tethering becomes necessary, the nutritional constraint facing livestock may shift from the dry to the wet season. The lack of wet-season feed, however, may be accompanied by an increase in the dry season feed supply. Croplands provide more feed of higher quality and animals perform better grazing crop residues than livestock grazing natural pastures (van Raay and de Leeuw, 1974).Cereal stovers and other crop residues are vital livestock feeds during the dry season, especially in semi-arid environments (Sandford, 1990). In these drier areas, however, the competition for crop residues between livestock and soil conservation is most acute. High soil temperatures, wind erosion, and sand blasting of young plants pose severe limitations to crop establishment and production. When left in the field, cereal stovers provide a physical barrier to soil movement, allow soil and organic matter to accumulate and enhance soil chemical properties (Geiger et al, 1992) and crop yield (Bationo and Mokwunye, 1991). Returning crop residues to fields, however, is not a viable strategy for most mixed farmers in SSA given the lack of alternative feeds. In drier areas animals are kept to meet necessary household needs, including their consumption and sale during years of poor rainfall and crop production. Therefore, most biomass in these mixed farming systems is fed to animals. Only later does it become available as a soil amendment in the form of manure (and urine).Under crop-residue grazing, animals remove greater amounts of biomass and nutrients than they return in the form of manure (Powell and Williams, 1993). This nutrient removal by livestock can be attributed to the spatial distribution of animal voidings in the landscape which are usually concentrated around watering points, resting areas and along paths of animal movement. However, excessive removal of biomass from cropland without adequate replenishment rapidly reduces soil-nutrient reserves. As a result, nutrient balances (inputs minus offtakes) have become negative for many farming systems in SSA (Stoorvogel and Smaling, 1990).Many mixed farming systems in SSA continue to rely on organic matter recycling for maintaining soil productivity. Livestock have long played a key role in this process. The cycling of biomass through animals into excreta (manure and urine) that fertilises the soil is an important linkage between livestock and soil productivity in many farming systems of SSA.The types and amount of animal-excreted nutrients available for recycling depend upon the types and numbers of animals kept by farmers, animal diet, watering regime, and the spatial and temporal distribution of livestock and their voidings in the landscape. For example, in semi-arid areas livestock population and species shifts can occur often due to weather changes. It is also clear that although cattle produce more manure than small ruminants, the nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) content of sheep, and especially of goat manure, is higher than that of cattle manure (Williams et al, this volume). Manure capture rates are very different in mixed farming systems based on extensive grazing versus intensive stall-feeding systems (Fernández-Rivera et al, this volume).Affecting manure output is the wide fluctuation in feed availability and quality that characterise most grazing systems of SSA. Animals gain weight during the latter part of the rainy season and early part of the dry season when sufficient good quality pastures and crop residues are available. Animals lose weight during the latter part of the dry season and early wet season as grazing resources diminish. As a consequence of these variations in feed availability, manure output varies. The daily manure output of grazing cattle during the wet season can be twice the manure output during the dry season (Siebert et al, 1978;Omaliko, 1980). The nutrient content in the manure of grazing cattle is up to three times greater during the wet season and crop-residue grazing period than during the dry season (Powell, 1986).Whereas N is voided in both urine and faeces, most P is voided in faeces (CAB, 1984;Ternouth, 1989). The proportion of N voided in faeces and urine and the susceptibility of N to losses in the environment, depends on animal diet. Highly digestible feeds, such as certain legumes and concentrates, pass quickly through ruminants and result in large N excretions in the form of urine. Animals that have diets of lower digestibility excrete relatively higher amounts of N in the form of manure. Urine-N can be readily volatilised and leached through the soil whereas manure-N decomposes slowly in soil and therefore is more available for recycling by plants.There are two principal methods of manuring cropland in SSA: farmers either corral their animals overnight on fields between cropping seasons or manure is gathered from stalls and hand-spread on cropland. Corralling returns both manure and urine to soil and results in greater crop yields than when only manure is applied (Powell and Ikpe, 1992;ILCA, 1993a;Williams et al, this volume, pp. ). Corralling requires no labour for manure handling, storage, and spreading. Since approximately 40 to 60% of the N excreted by ruminants is in the form of urine, the potential for nutrient loss is greater under stall-feeding since only manure can be captured and spread on cropland. The move from extensive livestock management based on grazing, to more intensive stall-feeding (Winrock International, 1992) could increase nutrient losses and jeopardise long-term soil productivity if technologies are not available that capture and recycle the nutrients voided by stationary animals.The amount and frequency of manure being applied to cropland is influenced by rainfall, cropping and livestock densities and the type of livestock being kept. Farmers tend to apply greater amounts of manure and at shorter intervals in areas of higher rainfall where cultivation densities are greater and cattle are more important than small ruminants (Powell and Williams, 1993). In the drier regions, low and erratic rainfall can cause fluctuations in livestock numbers and changes in herd composition resulting in changes in manure availability. Also, farmers tend to apply less manure in drier areas given the risk of \"crop burning\" under dry conditions.In comparing soil properties in manured and non-manured plots, manuring has been found to increase soil pH, soil organic matter, total-N and available-P (Table 3). Of particular interest is the large beneficial effect of manuring on available P in the soil. Soils in semi-arid West Africa are more deficient in P than N (Breman and de Wit, 1983) and manuring appears to greatly offset this deficiency. An accelerated release of P in manure can be of particular importance to soil productivity in savannah soils that are deficient in P (Ruess, 1987). Sources: 1. Bationo and Mokwunye (1991); 2. Powell (1986);3. Powell (unpublished) from 40 farmers fields in Niger; 4. Brouwer (unpublished) from on-station trials in Niger.Sustainable organic matter recycling, and manuring in particular, depend on land and animal management practices that do not deplete the soil nutrient supply in one location in order to maintain or improve soil productivity in another location. The sustainability of nutrient transfers, where livestock graze and gather nutrients during the daytime to be corralled to fertilise cropland at night, or feed is harvested and transported to stalls for feeding, depends on a balance between the feed supply and livestock numbers. While a portion of nutrients voided in corrals at night are from grazed cropland, most of these nutrients come from rangelands, especially from trees and browse (Swift et al, 1989) and during the latter part of the dry season when cropland residues have been exhausted. Sustainable nutrient transfers from rangeland to cropland for various mixed farming systems require from 4 to 40 hectares of rangeland for each hectare of manured cropland (Breman and Troaré, 1986;Swift et al, 1989).A recurring situation in many parts of SSA is periodic and prolonged drought. This can lead to large livestock losses due to limited availability of forage and the weakened state of livestock arising from low body reserves. The loss of animals through death or distress sales reduces the quantity of manure available for recycling (Williams et al, this volume). Reconstructing herds, particularly cattle, may take several years resulting in multiple year reductions in manure availability and cropland productivity.Inadequate livestock holdings due to lack of capital to purchase animals may also hinder crop-livestock integration. Indeed, under open access and common property grazing, the principal constraint to livestock holdings and further integration at the individual household level may not be the shortage of feed, but the liquidity position of the farmer that prevents animal purchase or necessitates the frequent sale of livestock.There is evidence to suggest that beyond certain critical levels of herd sizes and cultivation densities, competition increases between crops and livestock for scarce resources, particularly labour and land (Sandford, 1989;van Keulen and Breman, 1990;Sandford, 1990;McIntire et al, 1992). Land competition varies across the agro-ecological zones. It is lowest in the humid zone where livestock are restricted due to pests and diseases, high in parts of the semi-arid zone, and particularly prominent in the highlands where population density and stocking rates are already high. The competition for land and labour between crops and animals for the production of food and feed continues, even in fully integrated crop-livestock systems such as those found in the highlands and elsewhere in densely settled areas. It has been estimated that cattle numbers in the subhumid zone of Nigeria can continue to expand up to cultivation densities of 20 to 40% (Bourn et al, 1986). It may be expected that when such numbers are reached, the more extensive systems of crop-livestock production will give way to the more intensive, highly integrated mixed farming systems.More intensive, integrated systems are labour-demanding in terms of fodder production, crop-residue harvesting and storage, feeding work oxen and manure spreading. Major bottlenecks may develop, for instance, where labour needs for manuring conflict with labour demands for crop production. Although the point at which labour conflicts appear will differ in land-scarce and land-abundant zones, the potential for conflict between cropping and livestock for labour is nonetheless real in both systems (Delgado, 1989;McIntire et al, 1992). It is also clear that the roles of men, women and children in crop and animal production vary and are highly influenced by ethnicity, religion and stage of agricultural development. Whereas in crop production men may be responsible for the more laborious tasks of land preparation, women are involved in planting, weeding, harvesting, manual threshing and grain processing and marketing. Most of the herding and corralling of animals on cropland for manuring is done by men, while women may be major providers of fodder and water and haul manure from stalls in intensively managed mixed farming systems.While the low literacy rates among SSA producers may be considered a constraint to implementing technological improvements, it is clear that these farmers and herders have vast experience and knowledge of crop and livestock production. Such indigenous knowledge can be a valuable resource in designing appropriate technologies and extension programmes for improving agricultural productivity. Studies of traditional practices have shown that indigenous knowledge pertaining to crop and livestock production is generally scientifically sound. Methods of learning from, and incorporating indigenous knowledge into technology development are needed. For instance, although farmers and pastoralists have no past experience in feed production per se, their indigenous knowledge of natural pastures and feeding systems needs to be understood and incorporated into research aimed at improving animal nutrition (Traoré and Breman, 1992).A recent report on the future of animal agriculture in SSA (Winrock International, 1992) suggests that the greatest opportunity for sustainable increases in agricultural productivity lie in agricultural intensification through the evolution and maturation of mixed crop-livestock farming systems, especially in the subhumid and wetter portions of the semi-arid zones. The evolution and development J.M. Powell and T.O. Williams of mixed farming can be improved by developing high-yielding legumes and other forages; improving the quality of crop residues for feeding through genetic means; increasing animal resistance to disease and parasites; improving the productivity of indigenous livestock; establishing effective input (e.g. fertiliser) and support services (e.g. veterinary delivery systems); establishing infrastructure (e.g. roads, processing and marketing facilities); strengthening government institutions; and developing supportive fiscal, incentive and trade policies for smallholder farming.There is evidence which indicates that, irrespective of the extent of crop-livestock interaction, many of the benefits of closer integration are limited (Sandford, 1989;McIntire et al, 1992). The notable benefits of manuring to improve soil quality (Table 3) and animal traction may not always result in large increases in crop yields. This implies that along with closer crop-livestock interactions, exogenous technical changes involving new seed varieties, fertilisers and improvement in animal nutrition are needed to raise overall agricultural productivity. Lack of recognition of what is appropriate research to promote mixed farming in each agro-ecological zone has contributed to the failure of many intervention efforts in the past.Farmers in SSA keep different types and classes of livestock and practice different management and production strategies as influenced by the ecological base and the varying levels of resources they command. An initial assessment of the constraints to, and opportunities for improving agricultural productivity within existing farming systems needs to be done. Problems common to most producers across all agro-ecological zones include inadequate feed resources, poor reproductive performance and health of livestock, reduced fallow periods (and declining soil fertility), seasonal labour shortages, lack of access to inputs, encroachment of cropping on grazing and marginal lands and inadequate market opportunities (ILCA, 1993b). The relative importance of these constraints varies greatly among mixed farms within a zone.The initial challenge to research and technology development is to identify the predominant production systems and target the key research issues that are likely to have the maximum positive impact on crop and livestock production. This must take into account the indirect contribution of one sector to the other through cash income (McIntire and Gryseels, 1987). Different research strategies exist and the one chosen must depend on the current degree of crop and livestock integration. For example, strategies to improve manure utilisation will be dictated by the stage of farming system evolution. In integrated systems where manure use is already significant, the problem will be how to improve the efficiency of nutrient cycling, while in systems where crop and livestock production are independent and manure is obtained through contracts between farmers and pastoralists, the issue might be how best to ensure that contracts are as efficient as possible.Farming systems research utilising rapid rural appraisal techniques can be used to identify the stage in the evolution of crop-livestock integration, the feasibility of further integration, and the physical, social and economic constraints to sustainable increases in the productivity of the mixed farming system. Furthermore, classification of crop-livestock producers into homogeneous units with similar constraints and characteristics using quantitative techniques such as cluster analysis can be particularly useful in identifying important issues that component biological research should address (Williams, 1994;Monicat et al, 1992).An increase in feed productivity and quality and the development of diet supplementation techniques to overcome the seasonal nutritional constraints are needed in all parts of SSA. A move from extensive livestock management based on grazing to intensive stall-feeding of livestock will require not only more feed of high quality but also improved feed harvesting and storage techniques.The proper use of chemical fertilisers will be crucial in increasing the feed supply and its quality (Breman, 1990;Powell and Fussell, 1993;McIntire and Powell, this volume); however, fertilisers continue to be costly and unavailable to most farmers. The small amounts of fertilisers that are available need to be used judiciously with organic-nutrient sources such as N-fixing legumes, crop residues and manures. The necessary increase in fertiliser use may require loans and/or subsidies to farmers, proper instruction in fertiliser use, the provision of fertiliser-responsive varieties and policies that give farmers timely access to fertiliser, at reasonable costs and attractive prices for their commodities.The integration of grain and forage legumes and browse trees can serve an important role in sustaining the productivity of crops and livestock in SSA. In production systems where fallowing is practised, forages which fix atmospheric N can be more effective than native grasses in restoring soil fertility, thereby reducing fallow period requirements. Forage legumes can improve animal feed, suppress weed growth, accelerate nutrient cycling and improve soil moisture conservation. Wind breaks using leguminous browse and perennial grasses can control soil erosion, enhance soil productivity, and provide food, fodder and wood.The adoption of ley farming instead of utilising natural grasslands depends on its superior soil fertility restoring capacity; ability to support more livestock; more efficient use of farm labour; and large benefit:cost ratio (Ruthenberg, 1980). Land allocation to forage production is positively related to land-tenure security (especially of access rights) and is negatively related to access to communal or other land, and to the ability to acquire additional land. Increased labour requirements to produce forages in relation to the effect of forages on livestock output impedes forage production for most producers (McIntire et al, 1992).Research has shown that the integration of forage legumes with cereal crops (e.g. hedgerow intercropping, undersowing, rotations) can lead to sustainable increases in feed and soil productivity. However, forages are rarely grown, probably because they do not contribute directly to food security (Mohamed-Saleem, 1985). Also, when forage legumes are intercropped with cereals, there may be initial trade-offs in grain and feed output. Forage legume-cereal intercropping often increases the quantity and feeding value of crop residues, but decreases the yield of the companion cereal crop (Mohamed-Saleem, 1985;Kouamé et al, 1993). However, grain yields are improved when cereals are rotated with short-term fallows of forage legumes (Mohamed-Saleem and Otsyina, 1986). Profitable management techniques are still required if forage legumes are to be widely cultivated in SSA. They have to be easy to cultivate and need to regenerate readily and not be a hazard to the succeeding crop. The problem in many tropical regions is the lack of legume persistence when grown in association with grasses.Grain legumes (cowpeas, pigeon peas, groundnuts etc) are already an integral part of many mixed-farming systems. Their residues are valuable diet supplements for livestock and income sources for rural households. Many grain legumes, however, shed their leaves upon grain maturity which greatly reduces their feeding value. Dual-purpose grain legumes that retain their leaves are needed to provide both food and feed. Whereas many forage legumes regenerate from seed, grain legumes have to be replanted.Research is clearly needed on methods to reduce the competition between animals and soil conservation for crop residues. Growing forages to substitute for crop residues, the partial rather than total removal of crop residues (Powell and Fussell, 1993), and an improved balance between feed supplies and animal populations can mitigate the competition between livestock and soil conservation for crop residues (Unger et al, 1991). Long-term trials with producer involvement are needed to assess the feasibility and impact of various forage management techniques on animal and soil productivity (nutrient balances, trampling etc).The current widespread practice of daytime grazing and overnight corralling of animals on cropland recycles a relatively high proportion of nutrients. A move to stall-feeding may increase nutrient losses since only manure-bound nutrients may be available for recycling. Such changes in livestock management will demand new resources and management methods. There is a need to develop improved manure (and urine) handling and storage techniques that capture the maximum amount of nutrients excreted by animals.Strategies are also required that synchronise manure application and its nutrient release with plant nutrient demands. The application of organic amendments to soil such that their decomposition and nutrient release coincide with crop nutrient demands can greatly increase the efficiency of nutrient cycling in low-input farming systems (McGill and Myers, 1987;Ingram and Swift, 1989;Swift et al, 1989). Nutrient release from manure is faster and appears to be more synchronous with crop nutrient demands than the nutrient release patterns of forages applied to soils (Somda et al, this volume). Timely and strategic placement of manure through improved manure handling, storage and land-spreading techniques can enhance nutrient cycling in these mixed farming systems.Although the transfer of nutrients from uncultivated to cultivated areas by animals is a critical component of nutrient cycling in mixed farming systems of SSA, the transfer mechanisms are poorly understood. The capacity of rangelands to support livestock and nutrient harvesting needs to be assessed at various rangeland:cropland ratios. Long-term information is needed on nutrient acquisition and use by animals including grazing behaviour and orbits, and the effects of grazing and browsing on rangeland vegetation and long-term animal and soil productivity. The move from extensive to intensive crop and livestock production not only requires more feed and better feed management but also new methods of manure, urine, feed refusal and land management that enhance nutrient cycling.The range of cultural, technical and socio-economic issues involved in crop-livestock interactions necessitates an interdisciplinary approach to ensure that the development of techniques will be synchronised with the agroclimate and farming system under consideration. An understanding of the key interactions between plants, animals and soils and farmer management practices is needed for developing scientifically sound and socially acceptable technologies that improve resource management. Whole farm and crop-livestock simulation models can be useful tools for evaluating the impact of various resource management practices on long-term crop and livestock productivity. The appropriateness and adoption of improved plant-animal-soil management systems will depend largely on their profitability from the producer's perspective. Therefore, farmers need to be intricately involved in all stages of technology development and assessment.The climatic and socio-economic changes occurring in many areas of SSA have put increased pressure on the natural resource base to produce more food and feed. Traditional practices of shifting cultivation and transhumance continue to give way to more sedentary forms of crop and livestock production. Whereas many mixed farming systems are well developed, many are still in the early stages of evolution. When moving from extensive to more intensive modes of agricultural production, the risk of degradation increases. Intensification of land use without proper inputs and management can lead to widespread environmental degradation and jeopardise the long-term productivity of mixed farming systems.Significant increases in crop and livestock production are possible through increased fertiliser use, genetic improvement, greater integration of legumes into the farming system and improved animal nutrition, especially by ameliorating the quantity and feeding value of crop residues. Research needs to develop management strategies that minimise the competition between crops and livestock, Mixed farming systems in SSA especially the conflicting demands of animal feed and soil conservation for crop residues. Reducing nutrient losses from manure and urine can improve the role of livestock in nutrient cycling and lead to higher crop and forage yields and animal production.An interdisciplinary approach to defining research priorities and strategies is needed for developing ecologically sound, economically viable, and socially acceptable technologies that increase agricultural productivity. The key interactions between plants, animals, and soils need to be understood and farmers' perceptions and priorities factored into the research process. The sustained productivity of these farming systems over the long-term depends on conserving the natural resource base while maintaining a balance between human and animal populations. Le processus de recyclage des éléments nutritifs dans les systèmes mixtes de l'Afrique subsaharienne doit subir d'importantes modifications avant de devenir durable dans les conditions prévalant aujourd'hui dans cette région. L'inefficacité actuelle est en partie due à la faible fertilité des sols de cette région. Toutefois, les principaux obstacles à surmonter sont la forte érosion des sols et l'utilisation d'importantes quantités de résidus de récolte et de fumier à des fins non agricoles (ex. énergie et construction) en lieu et place du recyclage dans la terre. Par ailleurs, d'importantes quantités d'éléments nutritifs sont perdues par lessivage et évaporation et par suite de l'exportation de céréales, de viande et de sous-produits animaux vers des secteurs non agricoles. Selon des estimations préliminaires, les pertes nettes d'éléments nutritifs se chiffrent en moyenne à 49 kg/ha/an, soit 9,3 millions de tonnes par an pour l'ensemble de la région. Cela représente quatre fois la quantité moyenne d'engrais utilisée dans la région et la moitié de celle utilisée dans l'ensemble du monde. Une stratégie a été proposée en vue de réduire de moitié au moins ces pertes et de reconstituer la fertilité des sols pour améliorer le processus de recyclage de ces éléments. Celle-ci préconise, entre autres,Efficient nutrient cycling is an essential component of most crop-livestock systems that are sustainable over the long term. Such systems are characterised by their ability to provide the essential nutrients needed to sustain growth of the desired naturally occurring grasses and legumes and for crop production. The magnitude, type and efficiency of nutrient cycling systems varies not only with the physical and chemical conditions prevailing within a given agro-climatic zone but also with the level of management and a host of economic, social, political and environmental factors. All these have an impact on how farmers and herdsmen use the ingredients that contain the essential nutrients.The need to find ways to improve the efficiency of nutrient cycling by making the system more closed has increased as population pressures and the attendant demand to increase the supplies of food have intensified. As a result, the amount of potentially arable land has diminished in quality and more marginal lands have been brought into production. Two factors that reinforce this need are the growing awareness that land and plant nutrients are non-renewable resources and the increasing concern over the impact traditional agricultural systems have on the overall environment.The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of nutrient cycling in major crop-livestock systems in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), to identify the source and cause of current inefficiencies in nutrient cycling, and to propose strategies for its improvement.The systems of nutrient cycling currently practised by the majority of the farmers and herdsmen to sustain crop-livestock systems were developed over a number of centuries. This was at a time when population pressures were low and supplies of potentially arable land of good quality were plentiful. The time proven method of cropping or grazing land for 2-4 years followed by a period of \"rest\" (fallow) for 7-20 plus years allows the soil to rebuild its fertility. This method proved to be a very satisfactory, low input sustainable agricultural system. As population pressure increased and forced increases in the production of food and fibre, the intervals between fallow were shortened. In addition, marginal land was brought into production. This led to an overall decline in productivity of the various systems and as fertility dropped more soils became degraded and lost their basic chemical and physical coherence. This resulted in the destruction of a major segment of the land resource base in sub-Saharan Africa. The current situation regarding nutrient recycling is different from that practised by farmers and herdsmen as recently as 100 years ago. The fallow system no longer provides a base soil fertility that sustains crop or animal production at a level that will meet the basic needs of an exploding population. Furthermore, farmers lack the financial resources and basic institutions necessary to accept and sustain the modern high inputs oriented technology introduced in some areas from the developed countries. As a result most of the systems are not economically viable. Further complicating the situation is the growing concern by national and international groups about the impact agriculture has on the environment. In a growing number of cases this concern transcends the values and needs of the individual or members of the local village. When placed into law, this concern superimposes a series of social and political values on top of an already complex set of cultural values and economic needs which determine whether or not a system or group of systems are sustainable. Thus farmers and herdsmen alike find themselves in a difficult situation.The present crop and livestock systems are not economically viable. However, the farmers lack the financial resources and/or are culturally not willing to accept the modern alternatives. Furthermore, because of the fragility of most soil systems in SSA and the growing concern over the impact crop-livestock systems have on the environment, there is a growing question as to whether many of the present, much less proposed, nutrient cycling systems are sustainable.Livestock are vital to subsistence and economic development in SSA (Brumby, 1979). They provide a flow of essential food products throughout the year, are a major source of government revenue and export earnings, sustain employment and income of millions of people in rural areas, contribute draft power for crop production and are the only food and cash security to many Africans. The sale of livestock and their products often constitutes the only source of cash income in rural areas (they often provide the only effective avenue of selling surplus food crops or forage). This is often the only way in which subsistence farmers can buy consumer goods and procure the improved seeds, fertilisers and other inputs needed to increase crop yields. Where livestock development has been successfully pursued, a steady increase in productivity of food grains and forage legumes has been noted (Jahnke, 1982).Livestock produce neither nutrients nor organic matter. They are net consumers of each and highly dependent upon adequate supplies of a natural vegetative system and/or specific agricultural crops grown in near proximity for their overall nutrition and sustenance.While there are numerous means of classifying livestock systems, the five categories proposed by Jahnke (1982) fit best when discussing the interaction of nutrient cycling in crop-livestock systems. The five categories are:1. Pastoral range-livestock production systems.2. Crop-livestock production systems in the lowlands.3. Crop-livestock production systems in the highlands.4. Ranching systems.Although efficient nutrient cycling is most interactive in crop-livestock systems (categories 2 and 3) there are also considerable opportunities for improvements in the others as well. The major crops associated with livestock production systems vary significantly. In the semi-arid zone millet, sorghum, chick peas and cowpeas are the principle crops. Maize is dominant in the semi-arid and subhumid zone, while cassava (Figure 1) and sugar-cane predominate in the subhumid and humid zones. Forages (legume and grass) are increasing in presence, particularly in the subhumid and, to a lesser extent, the semi-arid zones.Crop-livestock production systems are land-use systems in which livestock husbandry and cropping are practised in association. This association may be close and complex or livestock husbandry and cropping may be parallel activities without interaction, possibly not even belonging to the same management unit. Pastoral livestock systems are operative in areas where 90 days of good climate and 500 mm of rainfall (mono-model pattern) prevail. This minimal amount of rainfall makes it safe to secure suitable yields of millet and thereby provide pastorlists with suitable supplies of crop residue (forage) during the dry season.Crop-livestock interactions are few in the humid zone because animal diseases and cropping patterns based on root crops discourage animal production. Interactions become more frequent and more intense in the subhumid and semi-arid zones. The interactions are based on using animal traction, manure (in cropping) and crop residues (as livestock feed). Interactions are most frequent in highland zones, where cereals are the major crop grown. Interaction in the highlands involves intensive milk production, animal traction, manure production and sown fodder crops (Jahnke, 1982).West Africa displays the co-existence of arable farming and grazing systems in areas definitely suitable for cropping on the largest scale. There is a long tradition of at least seasonal penetration of pastoral herds into the more humid areas. This has led to the creation of forage banks and, as the crop-livestock system develops, farms that produce forage legumes on a large scale.There are 16 chemical nutrients deemed essential to plant growth. These are carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), sulfur (S), iron (Fe), boron (B), manganese (Mn), copper (Cu), Zinc (Zn), molybdenum (Mo) and chlorine (Cl). All except C, H and O are derived from the soil. The availability of six (N , P, K, Ca, Mg and S) of these in soil solution and soil organic matter (SOM) greatly influences the levels required and therefore are the nutrients most likely to limit crop growth.The nutrients required to sustain animal growth include the 16 elements already mentioned plus cobalt (Co), iodine (I) and selenium (Se). All of these are also found in and supplied by a wide range of sources including soil reserves, crop residues, animal manure, biological nitrogen fixation (BNF), commercial fertilisers, industrial by-products and other sources. For purposes of this discussion, the principle nutrients most likely to be limiting to crop-livestock systems in SSA soils are N, P, K, Ca, Mg and S.The traditional agricultural production systems are no longer capable of producing the current needs of food and fibre for SSA. Changes in the crop and livestock systems in particular are required if the Source: FAO (1978). 0.5 0.7-0.9 0.9-1.7 0.5-0.9 0.5 0.4 0.7-0.9 0.7-10 0.5-0.7 0.3-0.6 region is going to produce the basic needs of future generations and move to a higher economic and social standard. It is important that these new systems are sustainable.The literature contains numerous definitions of sustainable agriculture (TAC, 1988;Edwards, 1990;Harwood, 1990;ILCA, 1992;Rattan, 1992). The definitions presented by TAC (1988) and ILCA (1992) are presented for purposes of discussion in this paper. The definitions are:• \"Sustainable agriculture should involve successful management of resources for agriculture to satisfy changing human needs while maintaining or enhancing the natural resource base and avoiding environmental degradation.\" (TAC, 1988:3). • Sustainable agriculture produces food and fibre while increasing the inherent productive capacity of natural and biological resources earning profits for farmers, providing consumers with wholesome, safe food and minimising adverse impacts on the environment (Benbrook, 1991). • \"A sustainable agricultural system is thus one that maintains or enhances the quality of the environment, meets current and future demands of society and ensures the economic and social welfare of the farming community.\" (ILCA, 1992: ix).Each definition requires an increase in output while calling for the preservation/improvement of the environment. While these may seem to be mutually exclusive goals, both can be achieved through judicious marshalling of resources.Several points of agreement which are relevant to efficient nutrient cycling in the crop-livestock systems of SSA appear common to most groups defining sustainability. The key points are:• crop-livestock systems must be increasingly productive and efficient in using indigenous resources (specifically non-renewable resources) • effects must continue to make the biological processes within the crop-livestock systems much more controlled from within rather than by the use of external inputs such as feed concentrates, commercial fertiliser and various feed additives • nutrient cycles within the farm must be much more closed • crop nutrients must come from management of nutrient flow into and out of the soil organic matter (SOM) fraction, a \"farming of the SOM\" rather than the \"farming of soil nutrient solutions\".The new systems should create sinks of SOM that contain \"nutrient pools\" protected from forces that would otherwise cause them to be immobilised or lost to the system but that are available when needed by crops or livestock. This point is of particular importance in finding ways to improve the efficiency of nutrient cycling in crop-livestock systems in SSA.Historically, sub-Saharan African farmers and herdsmen have derived the nutrients necessary to support crop-livestock systems from soil reserves, crop residues, animal manures and biological nitrogen fixation (BNF). In recent years, commercial fertilisers and industrial waste residues have become increasingly important. However, these still fall far short of levels of usage common in other developing countries and are nowhere near the amounts needed to sustain the crop-livestock systems of the region. In spite of this, the major sources of plant nutrients for most sustainable crop-livestock systems will continue to come from judicious use of the nutrients found in soil, crop residues, animal manure and those supplied through biologically fixed N.The colloidal fraction of the soil consisting of clay minerals and organic residues is the main source of plant nutrients and has a major impact on nutrient availability (intensity) at a specific point in time (Sanchez, 1976). Loss of the organic matter and clay components (usually in the top 10 cm of the profile) from a soil represents a major loss in nutrient availability and overall fertility. These soil constituents also determine the ability of the soil system to sustain the supply of a given level of nutrient over an extended period of time (nutrient capacity).The nutrient supply capability of a given soil for the major cations-its cation exchange capacity (CEC)-is determined by the type and amount of the clay mineral and organic colloids present. For example, soils with a limited clay fraction that are highly weathered and have a preponderance of kaolinitic clay generally have a very low CEC (1-6 meq/100 g or less). The greater the amount of clay minerals with limited surface area such as kaolinite or the absence of even this fine fraction and the preponderance of coarse sands, the lower the CEC. The greater the presence of such clay minerals as illite or montmorillonite as well as decomposed (colloidal) organic residues, the higher the CEC. Mineral soils with a higher percentage of expanding clay minerals (montmorillonite and illite) and organic matter levels of 2-5% or higher have high CECs. Under these conditions, cation exchange capacities of 1-25 meq/100 g of soil are common in many areas of SSA where variable charge clays co-exist with illitic clays.The amount of K, Ca, or Mg present will depend largely on the original composition of the parent material, the previous management of the soil system, and the amount of weathering that has taken place (Sanchez, 1976). Generally, the greater the amount of rainfall the less there are of these bases. The organic fraction is a major source of N, P and S. In addition, this fraction supplies the pH buffering capacity of the soil. The actual amounts of available N, P, K and S are determined in part by the total level of SOM and its rate of decomposition as organic matter is the centre of biotic activity in the soil (IAEA, 1984;Lal, 1990). For example, the availability of phosphate is dictated in part by the type and amount of clay and organic matter present. Where kaolinite is the dominant clay mineral in coarse-textured soils, the capacity to supply native phosphate is limited and retention of added phosphate is minimal. Clay soils rich in sesquioxides of iron or aluminium and containing considerable organic colloids have a significant capacity to supply phosphate to plants. The degree to which this occurs varies with the level of management. Soils high in reactive iron and aluminum also have a high capacity for phosphate retention (Sanchez, 1976). Thus, availability of phosphate (natural or added) in soils with these properties is usually low and is strongly influenced by crop, soil and fertiliser management (Sanchez and Benites, 1987;Fox, 1988). Loss of either the organic or clay mineral fraction of the soil either through cropping, erosion, leaching, or cultivation severely restricts nutrient availability unless manures, crop residues, or commercial fertilisers are added to replenish the system. Organic matter is also the centre of biotic activity in the soil which, in addition to its many other functions, provides the process that governs the availability of essential plant nutrients (Lal, 1990). In the tropical soils of SSA, the SOM fraction constitutes the major portion of total N, P and S reserves (Nye and Greenland, 1960). Typically 95% of the total N and S are in the organic form, while the proportion for P is lower -60-80% (Sanchez, 1976) and 20-75% (Duxbury et al, 1989). A decline in SOM by two-thirds, such as happens when soils are continuously cropped or there are major losses due to soil erosion, represents a serious decrease in both the total reserve and availability of essential plant nutrients.In general, sub-Saharan soils are old (more than 1 million years) and depending upon the climate (temperature and rainfall) and vegetation, are considered highly weathered and infertile, particularly in N, P and S.The soils found in the humid and subhumid zones (rainfall >1500 mm/yr) are located in forests or former forests (derived savannah) and dominated by the acid infertile kaolinitic and low base Oxisols and Ultisols soil groups. Their pH is frequently below 5.0, and they are low in CEC (<5 meq/100 g soil) with expandable clay minerals generally absent. Soil organic matter in these soils is about 1-2% if undistributed but drops very rapidly (<0.5%) once the forest cover is removed and the soils are cultivated.Another group of soils that are also kaolinitic but have high base saturation predominate in the drier forest and subhumid zone of West and East Africa. These are called Alfisols and are coarse-textured and highly erodible. They have low available water, low to medium fertility and, generally, low phosphate retention. Alfisols derived from basement complex rocks have a moderate capacity to supply K, while those derived from sedimentary rocks have a low capacity. Like the Oxisols and Ultisols, the Alfisols are low in available P. Generally Ca and Mg levels are low and while total phosphorus levels may be high (5000-10 000 ppm) available P is very low (5-20 ppm Olsen method;Watanabe and Olsen, 1970). A large proportion of the total nutrient stocks in these soils are in the organic form and exist primarily in the biomass, litter and SOM. Natural forest ecosystems were able to thrive under such fertility systems because of their \"closed\" nutrient cycling systems (Nye and Greenland, 1960) and negligible export of nutrients in the form of biomass. Given these soil constraints the management of organic inputs and SOM is crucial for sustainable productivity of these soils.The entire dry zone (200-1200 mm annual rainfall) to the south of the Sahara is characterised by a long dry season with one short season of rain (monomodal) in West Africa and two short seasons of rain (bimodal) in East Africa. Historically, the balance between soil, climate, vegetation cover and man has generally been in equilibrium. The area contains:1. A dry pastoral zone with natural cover of dry steppe with annual rainfall of 200 mm or below.2. An area of marginal farming with natural vegetation typical of dry savannah. Annual rainfall ranges from 400 to 600 mm making it suitable for growing millet and some sorghum (Figure 1).3. A zone roughly comprising the Sudano-Sahelian, Sudan, and Sudano-Guinean (northern Guinea Savannah) areas carrying a cover of shrubs and trees. Rainfall ranges from 500 to 1200 mm making it suitable for a range of crops including sorghum, maize and a range of forages.The soils in each of these zones are very old, highly weathered and low in fertility. Organic matter is limiting (usually <0.5%), CEC is low (<5 meq/100 g soil), and the colloidal fraction of the soil is very low. Total P is low (<200 ppm) as is available P (8-30 ppm Olsen method; Watanabe and Olsen, 1970). In general, the soils of these zones are very fragile and do not withstand intense pressures from population or cultivation (Bationo and Mokwunye, 1991;Pieri, 1992). An important point to remember about these soils is that almost all the nutrients (N, P and S) are found in the SOM. Loss of this component renders the soil non-productive.There is a significant group of soils, called Vertisols, located in the highlands of East Africa that lend themselves to crop-livestock systems. These soils are comparatively shallow, high in expandable clay minerals (illite and montmorillonite), have a CEC of 30-45 meq/100 g soil, have adequate supplies of Ca, Mg and K and therefore have a pH of 6.5-7.5. The soils are low in available P (<10 ppm Olsen method; Watanabe and Olsen, 1970) and have modest amounts of SOM (<1.5%) and therefore crops grown on these soils respond well to N and P. These soils are usually not very permeable to rain, easily become waterlogged and are very hard when dry. Animal traction is required to till these soils.Crops are grown for a range of reasons. Farmers may use the entire above-ground portion of the crop (grain and stover), as in the case of alfalfa or maize for forage, or they may harvest just the grain or edible portions of the crop, as in the case of wheat, millet, sorghum, maize (for grain), rice and soybeans. Depending on the crop in question, the unused portion of the crop (crop residue) contains major quantities of plant nutrients and in particular, K, Ca and Mg. It is also a major source of organic matter.Crop residues represent a major source of plant nutrients and, if properly processed and returned to the field from which they were grown, they could serve as an effective means of maintaining the organic and nutrient fraction of the soil. However, crop residues do not represent a new source of nutrients and therefore, their addition is not likely to correct nutrient deficiencies that prevailed in the soil from which the crop was grown. Furthermore, there are alternative and competing uses for crop residues, many of which prevent the return of nutrients to the soil of their origin. These uses include animal feed, energy sources, building material etc. The importance of these will be discussed in a later section of this paper.For centuries, animal manure was considered the only major external source of nutrients used to maintain the nutrient level of soils. The type, quality and quantity of available manure depends upon the animal enterprise and the degree to which it is integrated into the farming system. The nutrient composition of animal manure varies significantly with poultry manure being the richest followed by sheep/goats, cattle and swine (Bockman et al, 1990). In addition, there is great variation within a given source of manure as affected by feed management, handling of manures, and mode of application to soils. This is particularly true for the N and K components of the manure.The value of manure is fully recognised by both the farmers and herdsmen of SSA. For example, agropastoralists concentrate their herds for as much time as possible in areas that are to be used for cultivation. If the pastoralists do not themselves cultivate the land, it is common for them, particularly in West Africa, to enter into arrangements with cultivators whereby herds are kept on fields destined for cultivation. Smallholder dairy farmers in the highlands of East Africa generally feed animals in stalls and are careful to collect manure in pits and store it. Also, in West Africa forage banks are being established in increasing numbers, in part, to attract herds for grazing in order to benefit from the animal droppings that result.Like crop residues, animal manure may not represent a new source of nutrients and organic matter to a given soil. Manure merely represents a transfer of nutrients from one point to another. Animal droppings in arid and semi-arid zones are also important for their fuel value. The often scanty production of dry wood is needed for building temporary huts and of night enclosures for animals, while green woody vegetation is left as dry season fodder reserve. In this situation, the droppings may constitute the only available source of fuel (Jahnke, 1982).A major source of N to many crops and natural vegetation is derived from legumes (woody and herbaceous). The quantities fixed from the air vary with the species, the fertility conditions of the soil and overall climatic conditions (La Rue and Patterson, 1981). The quantities fixed range from a high of 212-290 kg N/ha for alfalfa (Medicago sativa), white clover (Trifolium repens) and Egyptian clover (Trifolium indica) to lows of 10-30 kg of N/ha for common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) and English pea (Pisum sativum). Soils low in available P and/or legume seeds that are poorly inoculated and/or planted in very acid soils frequently fix comparatively small quantities of N. Therefore, in many of the region's soils the crop will not fix much N unless the pH and P problems of the soil are corrected.The BNF process requires and consumes considerable amounts of energy to fix N from the atmosphere and is very sensitive to stress conditions in soil (i.e. acidity, water and phosphate availability etc). In cropping systems used in areas extremely short of land and striving for maximum production, the N derived from legumes through the biological fixation process and related energy expended to fix this N must be carefully weighed against other alternative sources of supply.The competition/complementary functions of crop-livestock systems is strongly modified by herbaceous/woody legumes capable of BNF. This is the case in the subhumid/semi-arid savannahs where land can be claimed for both livestock and crop production functions. The production of food and forage legumes (herbaceous or woody) can supply N to current or subsequent non-legume crops, provide forage for livestock, organic material to build SOM as well as fuel and wood to meet local demand for energy and building materials.Throughout the world agriculture has intensified and the export of food, feed, meat and animal products from the farm has increased. It has become necessary to apply increasing amounts of commercial fertiliser to restore the plant nutrient status, and hence productivity, of a given soil. Since 1950 the world's population has more than doubled, increasing from 2.5 billion to just over 5.6 billion in 1993 (Stangel et al, 1993). During that period, world agricultural production more than matched the food and fibre needs of the planet's population. This increase has come primarily through increased yield per land unit area. Nutrients from soil reserves, crop residues, biologically fixed N (BNF), and manures supplied the majority (70%) of the nutrients required for the production of food and fibre before 1950. However, it was primarily the rise in the use of commercial fertiliser that accounted for at least 50% of the increase in production of food and fibre since 1950 and promises to account for the major share of any additional increases between 1992 and 2020 (Baanante et al, 1989;Bockman et al, 1990).Agriculture in SSA has not experienced this rapid increase in production. Over the past three decades, yields per hectare of basic crops, i.e. sorghum, millet and maize, have remained static or actually declined and, because of the rapid increase in population, food production per capita has actually declined (UNDP, 1992).Part of this poor performance is associated with improper agricultural policy. However, much of it is related to failure to recycle available nutrients and use commercial fertiliser (IFDC, 1993). As a result, fertiliser use in SSA lags far behind other regions in the world. In 1990, total fertiliser consumption amounted to 3.6 million tonnes of nutrients or less than 2.5% of the total consumed world-wide in 1990 even though the population of the region represented nearly 12% of the world total. As a result, fertiliser use on arable land for individual countries averaged from 4-50 kg/ha of nutrients and averaged about 12 kg/ha of nutrients for the region as a whole. This is about one-eighth of the 93.3 kg/ha world average (Stangel et al, 1993). Although there are plausible reasons for this poor performance in fertiliser use, it is highly unlikely that agriculture, and particularly crop-livestock systems, can survive in the region without the nutrient cycling systems becoming more closed and efficient and a dramatic increase occurring in the use of commercial fertiliser.There are other sources of nutrients many of which occur in special locations and, where in close proximity to crop-livestock systems, could be used as either feed, bedding or source of crop residue. Examples of these are sugar cane, bagasse, saw-dust, rice hulls, brewers' grain and blood/hoof meal derived from the sugar, lumber, milling, brewery and slaughter industries, respectively (Chaney et al, 1992).Population pressures, absence of basic infrastructure, inappropriate agriculture policies and land tenure practices that prevent individual ownership of land collectively have had a major impact on the types of nutrient-cycling systems operating in the region and on the source and magnitude of nutrient loss within these systems.Four basic systems are advanced as examples of nutrient transport systems to and from a given land area. These vary in complexity and difficulty in effectively cycling nutrients. These systems are nutrient cycling in natural systems, agricultural cropping systems without direct livestock involvement, commercial farming including crop-livestock enterprises and finally those involving a region (several farms, processing plants and one or more urban areas).This system is the simplest and most closed (Figure 2). Nutrients are made available in the soil through normal weathering processes. Plants take up these nutrients which in turn are assimilated into natural vegetation which dies and decomposes. The nutrients are returned to the organic and inorganic pools in the soil. Sources of nutrient loss in this system are limited to those directly related to natural processes operating in the soil due to erosion, leaching (mainly nitrates) and gaseous losses (ammonia volatilisation and denitrification as NOx). Nutrients are added to the system primarily from weathering (physical, chemical and biological) involving the colloidal mineral and organic pools. Nutrient additions (other than the parent material of soil) are from natural means and come from the atmosphere primarily as BNF derived from the native legumes (woody and/or herbaceous) present. While there may be transport of nutrients on and off the location by wildlife this is thought to be random (in and out) resulting in a zero balance from this source. Therefore, net nutrient losses in this system depend upon the degree to which the soil remains covered by natural vegetation.In the humid and subhumid zones of Africa the soil remains covered by significant quantities of natural herbaceous and woody plant species. The quantity of this is controlled by rainfall and the base fertility of the SOM and mineral fractions of the soil. As one moves toward lower rainfall zones the amount of biomass declines and soil cover may become more sparse. The amount of nutrients retained in the SOM becomes critical. As a result, losses due to soil erosion, by wind (in particular) and water, increases. Net nutrient losses in this natural system are likely to range from negligible amounts (1-3 kg/ha) in the humid and subhumid zones to significant (5-20 kg/ha) in the arid and semi-arid zones.This system differs from the previous one regarding nutrient cycling in three basic areas. First, soils must be disturbed (tilled) once or twice a year to plant agricultural crops like millet, sorghum, maize and cowpeas. Second, crops are sold (hence nutrients) and transported off the farm and third, fertiliser from external sources may be added to the soil (Figure 3). Disturbing the soil by various means of tillage dramatically increases the biological activity of the system (IITA, 1992). This results in rapid conversion of the organic pools of nutrients into the inorganic form that is readily available to plants and subject to loss. As a result of this the SOM drops to a new steady state equilibrium, frequently only one half to three-fourths the level that prevailed in the natural system (Stangel et al, 1993). The actual level will be determined by the amount of crop residue returned to the soil. The freshly released nutrients in this soil are vulnerable to potential loss mechanisms such as leaching (NO3N), volatilisation (NH3) and denitrification (NOx). These losses can be minimised depending upon the type of crop that is planted and the percentage of time the soil is covered by an actively growing crop.Soil tillage also exposes the soil to losses due to wind and water erosion. This involves the colloidal component of both the mineral and organic fractions of the soil. Loss via this mechanism can be as little as 5 t and as much as 100 t of soil per hectare per year (Lal, 1990). Major quantities of SOM are lost thus strongly affecting the N, P and S nutrient levels in the soil. Where significant expandable clays are present in the colloidal fraction, major quantities of Ca, Mg and K are also lost.Off-farm transport of agricultural products can result in the movement of anywhere from 25-40 kg/t of grain produce sold (Pieri, 1992) and triple that amount per tonne if the entire above-ground portion of the crop is sold. If crop residue is retained but burned, as much as 60% (Greenland and Nye, 1960) of the N and S are lost to the atmosphere.Nutrient additions from the atmosphere (mainly as BNF) from commercial fertiliser can be substantial. Depending on the crop, amounts anywhere from 10-300 kg/ha of N may be added if a legume is planted as a main crop or included in the crop rotation. Commercial fertiliser is used to make up the deficit required to sustain the desired crop yields. Frequently this is not possible because commercial fertiliser may not be available or is uneconomical to use (IFDC, 1992). If fertiliser is improperly used, considerable losses may occur (Stangel, 1982). For example, urea N if surface applied and not worked into the soil may lose anywhere from 10-60% of the amount of N applied. Similarly, N supplied in the nitrate form is highly subject to leaching losses the magnitude of which are affected by the time and method of application, amount of rainfall and crop grown.There may be net gains or losses of nutrients within this system. These may range from a positive 20-50 kg of nutrients per hectare per year to a loss in excess of 100 kg of nutrients per hectare per year if serious erosion occurs, residues are not returned and fertilisers are not added.This system has a large potential for major gains or losses of nutrients. All the mechanisms of gains or losses described in the natural system and the agricultural crop systems are operative in the commercial crop-livestock system. However, there are three additional variables involving livestock that could tilt the nutrient budget to a net gain or net loss (Figure 4).Linking the crop-livestock enterprises allows the conversion of some of the harvested crop from the farm to be converted to meat and various livestock by-products (milk, eggs and wool). This allows a major portion (40-85%) of the crop that would have otherwise been sold to be returned to the field in the form of animal manure. Therefore the inclusion of livestock in the system provides added value to the feed grain and returns anywhere from 40-80% of the nutrients that would otherwise be exported off the farm as feed grain or food. Additional nutrients are also introduced in the form of feed concentrates and forage that when fed through animals can be returned to the soil in the form of manure. It is therefore possible, if soils, crops, fertiliser and manures are carefully managed, for the input/output of nutrients to be in equilibrium or even surplus. This would depend on the quantities of feed purchased, manure effectively managed and returned to the soil and commercial fertilisers used. Unfortunately the present system of handling manures leads to losses ranging from 30-80% of the N and up to 90% of the K that may have been present. In addition, animal feed purchased in most crop-livestock systems results in a net transfer of plant nutrients (through nomadic pastoral grazing and forage banks) from natural and agricultural cropping systems to the crop-livestock enterprises. As a result the crop-livestock enterprises may show a nutrient balance or even a surplus for the immediate area whereas the other two systems will have an even greater deficit than previously thought if the nutrients contained in the feed transferred were not replaced. The net result is that there may be major distortions in the fertility of soils, causing environmental damage to both systems either because of too much or too little nutrient.Environmental concerns will increasingly force the linkage of nutrient cycling in crop-livestock systems to entire watersheds and the nutrient handling systems contained therein (Stangel et al, 1993). This is important to the discussion for three basic reasons. First, the final destination of food and fibre shipped off the farm is primarily to meet the needs of the urban population (Figure 5). This means many of the nutrients end up in the various processing plants, land fills, sewage treatment plants and rivers in or near the major cities. For sub-Saharan Africa, this could amount to about to about 2-6 kg/ha of nutrients per person per year or 1-3 million tonnes of nutrients that are excreted annually by humans, 50% of whom live in urban areas. In addition to this source, there are other livestock-related processing plants located in or near the major cities that also serve as a source of plant nutrients. Ironically, the region as a whole may show a net surplus in nutrients while individual farms may show a negative balance. Eventually efforts will need to be made to recycle these nutrients back to agriculture. Nutrient losses within this cycle remain unchecked and will become an increasing problem to urban areas if corrective measures are not taken. This will be a major problem for landless livestock enterprises which are usually located in close proximity to cities.Nutrient loss due to soil erosion is perhaps the number one threat to the productivity of crop-livestock systems. Fully 40% of all nutrient losses in SSA is due to soil erosion. This has a devastating effect not only on the mineral content of soil but also on the soil itself. While a soil can be formed in as little as 200 years in the humid tropics, under normal conditions in most parts of SSA it takes anywhere from 100-400 years to produce 1 cm of soil and between 3000 and 12 000 years to build enough soil to form productive land (FAO, 1992). This means that soil is, in effect, a non-renewable resource. Once destroyed, it is gone at least for the foreseeable future.Major erosion occurs in the highlands of Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia and Lesotho where losses of 15-30 t/ha per year are common (Balek, 1977;Brown, 1981;Chaklea, 1981). Some of the highest rates of soil loss occur in Madagascar and Nigeria where between 100 and 250 t/ha per year have been measured (Fournier, 1966;Oyebande, 1981). Severe erosion also occurs in the mountainous and undulating regions of subhumid and semi-arid sub-Saharan Africa. Severity of erosion in all these regions is attributed to high population density, soils that are prone to erosion due to both harsh climate and intensive arable land use, uncontrolled grazing and excessive stocking rates, and soil profile characteristics that render them susceptible to under cutting and gully erosion.The second major loss of nutrients to the soil of SSA is caused by the failure of farmers and herdsmen to recycle crop residues and manures back to the soils. This creates a nutrient deficit in the soil. More importantly this deprives the soil of a major source of organic matter needed to protect existing nutrients from further loss or immobilisation.There is ample, albeit indirect, evidence that there are strong external forces (demand for energy, fodder and building materials) competing for crop residue produced on-farm. As a result, the nutrients available to the crop are frequently diverted to non-farm uses (in the case of forage, non-crop uses) with the net effect that basic soil fertility and overall crop production declines. The reasons for this have been well documented by a number of researchers -most recently in identifying agricultural production constraints in the Sudano-Sahelian zone of sub-Saharan Africa (Pichot et al, 1981;Pieri, 1986;1989;Bationo and Mokwunye, 1991;Pieri, 1992). Mokwunye (1993) states that fully half, and in many cases all, of the crop residues in farmers fields in West Africa are for non-farm use.Nitrogen, when converted and applied as urea, nitrate, ammonia or ammonium form to the surface of most soils, is prone to losses either through leaching or gaseous avenues (denitrification or volatilisation). In addition, S in the sulfate form can be lost through leaching or if burned in crop residues, can be volatilised.Up to 60% of N and S can be lost if crop residues are burned. Anywhere from 10-50% of the N in fertiliser can be lost if surface applied as urea (IFDC, 1993). The availability of N declines as manures age and are composted. As manures are exposed to wetting, drying and microbial activity, the inorganic forms of manure are lost by leaching and volatilisation and the more readily decomposed organic N compounds are converted to more stable forms (Chaney et al, 1992). In general, composts and manures containing less than 1.5% N (dry basis) will supply little or no N to crops in the first few weeks. Moist manure, when exposed to the air, undergoes significant loss of N as volatile ammonia. Losses can reach 15%/day and be especially severe if surface applied on warm windy days when the evaporative potential is high.The major problem constraining the improvement of nutrient cycling in crop-livestock systems is the lack of a proper supply of plant nutrients and the lack of a stable livestock system. Evidence to support this has been advanced by several researchers (Pieri, 1986;1989;Stoorvogel and Smaling, 1990;Bationo and Mokwunye, 1991;Pieri, 1992). They have concluded that phosphate, N and S (in that order) are the nutrients most limiting to crop growth in the Sudano-Sahelian zone, (there is also evidence that these nutrients are the most limiting in other regions of SSA). These workers have recognised that commercial fertiliser is an effective and essential means of increasing yields in arable farming systems without fallows. However, Pieri (1989;1992) cautions that long-term problems may arise, especially in the more arid areas if only chemical fertiliser containing N, NP, or NPK are used. He points out that most of the soils are low in exchangeable Mg and Ca and generally acid. To substantiate this observation, he cites Pichot et al (1981):Application of NP and NPK fertiliser results in increased yields for some years, but in the long run leads to decreasing base saturation, acidification of the soil, and a drop in soil pH. These phenomena, associated with the use of only N fertilisers, are characterized by increasing K deficiency, decreasing pH and occurrence of Al toxicity. Application of organic matter, such as green manures, crop residue, compost or animal manure counteract the negative effects of chemical fertiliser. Pieri (1989) accepted the basic premise of Pichot et al (1981) that soil fertility in intensive arable farming systems in the Sudano-Sahelian zone can only be sustained through efficient recycling of organic material, in combination with effective use of N-fixing leguminous species and chemical fertilisers. However, he took issue regarding the benefits of green manure and crop residues as to their real contribution in building stable levels (humic) of organic carbon in soil. These materials overstimulate microbial activity which results in excessive mineralisation of native SOM and eventually the immobilisation of N during the decomposition process. Crop residues and forages should be composted or preferably recycled through the animal. Stoorvogel and Smaling (1990), Bationo and Mokwunye (1991) and Pieri (1992) further pointed out the difficulty of recycling the crop residue or collecting adequate supplies of animal manure. They felt that until a more stable livestock system was introduced and alternative sources were found for competing off-farm forces (energy and building material) for crop residues and manure, it would be impossible to sustain the base fertility of the soils within the region without heavy reliance on external inputs. They have showed that much of the Sudano-Sahelian zone possesses an abundance of naturally occurring phosphate rock which when finely ground can serve as an effective source of phosphate for the crop (IFDC, 1990).There are several lessons to be learned from the information presented in the previous section. Collectively these lay the foundation for understanding the magnitude and nature of the problem. In addition, they allow one to postulate basic strategies for pilot projects and researchable areas that, if successful will lead to an improvement in the efficiency of nutrient cycling for key crop-livestock systems. Eventually these will allow the orderly development of a sustainable soil fertility programme that will effectively support a series of crop-livestock systems that are not only economically viable but also socially acceptable and environmentally sound. The purpose of this section is to identify this foundation and outline this strategy.The key issues upon which this strategy is designed to address can be summarised in five statements.Nutrient cycling, as currently practised in most crop-livestock systems operating in SSA on the average, is very poorly linked. As a result, major net losses of nutrients occur from soils that produce the feed grain, fibre and forage.The magnitude and type of loss depends on a host of factors including the intensity in the production and management of the crop-livestock systems, the degree to which nutrients in crop residues and manure are returned to the soils of origin; the amount and magnitude of losses caused by leaching, soil erosion, surface runoff and volatilisation; products sold off-farm (meat, milk and grain); and the quantity of external inputs (feed concentrate and chemical fertiliser) that are used and applied to the cultivated soils. While precise estimates are difficult to obtain and few are reported, recent work suggests nutrient losses from the farm region and country levels can be substantial. For example, work by Stoorvogel and Smaling (1990) suggests nutrient losses in 1983 for the SSA region as a whole averaged 49 kg/ha (23 kg N, 7 kg P2O5 and 19 kg K2O) of arable land and represented 9.3 million tonnes of nutrients (N, P2O5 and K2O) for the region as a whole. They further projected annual losses to increase 40% by the year 2000 and will average 60 kg/ha (27 kg N, 8 kg P2O5 and 25 kg K2O) and 13.3 million tonnes of nutrients annually for the region. Losses for individual countries are also significant averaging 350 000 t of nutrients for Zimbabwe (Stoorvogel and Smaling, 1990) and 235 000 t of nutrients for Togo (IFDC-Afrique, 1991).Agriculture as presently practised in SSA cannot be sustained and will eventually collapse if the present rate of nutrient losses is allowed to continue.Most of the soils in the region are old, highly weathered and therefore already low in base fertility (particularly in N, P and S). They are also very fragile and very sensitive to changes in soil chemistry (i.e. low in cation exchange capacity, low in organic matter, and have only a limited supply of expandable clay minerals) and hence become unstable when one or more of these variables is only marginally changed. This is a glaring weakness in the critical natural resource base that supports most agricultural systems in the region. It is this basic weakness coupled with the ever-increasing pressure from an exploding population (animal and human) that will almost certainly push large segments of African agriculture into a state of decline. Once this trend begins to accelerate and if the fertility of the soil resource base is not restored, major soil degradation will occur (in many cases irreversible) and damage to the environment will extend the levels of destruction to areas far beyond the points of origin.Linking the strategy to reduce nutrient losses to improved nutrient cycling in crop-livestock systems is critical to the overall development of agriculture within the region. The region lacks the resources to finance and the infrastructure to distribute large quantities of commercial fertiliser. The region is also locked into a strong communal land tenure system that discourages individual efforts to improve land productivity. This strategy is necessary because demand for meat and animal by-products is increasing at a rate more rapid than that of other major agricultural products (i.e. demand for meat, dairy products, eggs and other by-products for groups experiencing rising incomes, particularly in cities, is relatively inelastic when compared to demand for basic cereals). While increased production of cereals is possible in most parts of SSA, farmers have difficulty in disposing of marketable surplus directly to cities because of limited markets and low prices. Therefore, the increased production and improved quality of cereals and fodder crops are essential ingredients to the success of most livestock systems and an important incentive to many farmers producing agricultural crops. Linking these systems more closely through the sale of cereals and forages in exchange for manure and animals will improve nutrient cycling and result in an increase in the overall fertility and productivity of the soil.There are comparatively few factors under the direct control of the individual or village authorities that are immune to external influences and which will have a direct impact on reducing nutrient losses. Conversely, actions on key factors by the regional or national authorities require strong local and individual support if they are to be adopted by individual farmers or villages. The more significant of these factors are:• strong cultural attitudes toward land ownership (communal grazing lands and land tenure)• scarcity of capital• limited infrastructure (farm to market roads and water access to ports)• lack of basic agricultural institutions • lack of or improper agricultural policies (proper prices and incentives needed for long-term investments) • scarcity of commercial energy supplies • improper monetary policy • under-developed marketing systems for inputs and outputs.A number of these problems are best addressed at the national level. However, because of the diverse set of conditions at the local level (culturally, physically and economically), solutions must be tailored to local conditions. Otherwise, the entire effort will fail.Limitation of capital resources and strong cultural, political and economic influences make it critical that realistic and clear priorities are set and a plan of action agreed upon before strategies are implemented.There are vast differences in the goals of the society, the individual and the various crop-livestock systems operating in SSA. Six goals for crop-livestock systems can be defined: profit, quality of food/feed, accumulation of assets, reduction in nutrient losses, employment and land conservation. The satisfaction of these goals in accordance with producer and societal expectations is central to the successful implementation of any strategy designed to curb nutrient losses and improve nutrient cycling. In dairying, for example, the high capital requirements for this enterprise forces managers to maximise profits, strive for quality of feed/food, implement land conservation policies and put into place practices that will cause a reduction in N, P and K losses. The likelihood of farmers doing this will be determined by the degree of control the farmer has over his land (ownership or at least long-term leases). However, asset accumulation (in the form of cattle numbers) and employment are more important for range systems and of paramount importance in pastoral systems. Thus within this comparison it will be easiest to implement practices to reduce nutrient losses and improve the efficiency of nutrient cycling in crop-dairying systems (assuming the land tenure problem can be solved) and most difficult in pastoral-crop systems. Knowledge of these different goals, their relative importance and the ability to prioritise them at the operational level is crucial if the limited resources available to the system are to be used effectively.In summary, the current system of nutrient cycling in the crop-livestock systems of SSA results in extensive nutrient losses to the soil system, is the root cause of the current decline in soil fertility and productivity and if it continues at the present rate will cause serious and perhaps permanent damage to the region's land resource base. The region lacks the basic infrastructure and the financial resources to be able to correct this through a direct import of chemical fertilisers and feed concentrates. However, the region does possess considerable indigenous sources of phosphate and other potential inputs. Therefore, crop-livestock systems, if better co-ordinated and more interactive, offer a major solution to the nutrient-loss problem through improved efficiency in nutrient cycling by better utilising manures, crop residues and increased use of external inputs (feed concentrates and fertiliser) to stimulate production of crops, livestock or both. Tangible solutions to this problem and implementation of these strategies require input not only at the national and regional levels but more specifically involvment of individuals and institutions at the local level. Furthermore, these solutions must be prioritised in accordance with the economic, cultural and political goals of the crop-livestock system in question. These fundamental principles are central to the basic strategy presented in the next section.The solution to the problems outlined in the previous section must reduce the amount of crop residue and manure that are diverted to non-agricultural uses; reduce by at least three-fourths, the magnitude of soil and plant nutrients lost due to soil erosion; and increase by at least one-half the amount and quality of animal manure and crop residue that is recycled through animals and effectively returned to the soil. To accomplish this, several options are proposed. These come under the headings of \"pilot projects\" (i.e. the basic and applied research has been done but, now must be adopted to specific areas) involving the market testing of specific technologies already proven and \"researchable areas\" where further basic and applied work needs to be done but, targeted specifically to provide solutions to the problems outlined in the previous section.Pilot projects are proposed that address four distinct areas. These include the establishment of:• soil fertility reserves to serve crop-livestock systems• agroforestry zones aimed at serving livestock but, also controlling soil erosion, supplying N to crops and providing at least a partial solution to the energy/building material problem • agricultural input/output centres allowing farmers and herdsmen ready access to basic inputs and opportunities to sell basic outputs • land-use centres that provide a practical solution to the land tenure problem while providing the farmer and herdsman the opportunity to invest in technologies that will reduce soil erosion, build soil fertility and encourage careful use of indigenous resources (land, agromineral, manures and crop residues).In a sense, these already exist as forage banks in West Africa. The concept could be expanded to include the establishment of fertility reserves on communal lands in the arid/semi-arid zones (400-800 mm rainfall per year) where finely ground phosphate rock could be applied to specific zones and drought-tolerant forage legumes planted. The idea is to create a reserve of forage that would be used during periods of shortage. It would hopefully reduce the extent of overgrazing and foster closer linkages between crop-livestock enterprises.These would build on the concept of alley cropping, offset its limitations and provide a basis for good land management. These measures would reduce soil erosion, provide a source of animal feed and also serve as an alternative to crop residues as a source of energy and building materials. By so doing, major strides may be made in reducing the two major causes of nutrient loss.It is highly unlikely that any agricultural production system will be able to intensify to sufficient levels to meet the basic demands of an expanding population without the intensive use of inputs. The creation of the basic institutional framework to supply agricultural inputs (animal feed, seed, fertiliser etc) and, at least initially, to purchase certain outputs to ensure proper cash flow is central to any strategy designed to improve the effectiveness of basic crop-livestock systems. Provision of a limited amount of inputs will help close the nutrient cycle and thereby improve the overall efficiency of recycling nutrients in these systems.Perhaps the greatest impediment to reducing the nutrient losses is the limited amount of individual ownership that is allowed. Strategies need to be developed that allow farmers and herdsman alike to make long-term investments in the land that will reduce erosion, make better use of water and build production and fertility of the soil.A significant amount of basic and applied research needs to be done to backstop the nutrient cycling work done in the pilot areas and at the same time anticipate and address the nutrient cycling problems likely to occur in crop-livestock systems over the next decade. These researchable areas include studies on nutrient balance, SOM management, indigenous based nutrient supply systems, strategies to reduce nutrient losses in animal-based nutrient supply systems, reducing the diversion of crop residues and manures to non-farm uses and identifying the impact landless livestock systems are likely to have on the environment of surrounding urban areas.There is increasing evidence that the nutrient balance studies of the type conducted by Stoorvogel and Smaling (1990) and IFDC-Afrique (1991) need to be done at more locations at the field, watershed and national levels. The crop-livestock interaction needs to be studied more closely and estimates of off-farm transport of animal products and by-products verified and refined. In addition, the estimates of nutrient losses in various storage, handling and application systems need to be refined.Maintaining SOM in equilibrium is extremely important to sustainable land-use management particularly in the arid and semi-arid zones. Efforts must be made to find ways of building SOM back to equilibrium levels feasible in the natural state. The potential for animal manure to counter the effects of soil acidity resulting from the use of fertilisers also need to be investigated. This is particularly true for crop-livestock systems in the Sudano/Sahelian interface. The contribution of root mass distribution also needs investigation and researchers should expand on the work done by Lamotte and Bourliere (1978) and Chopart (1980). These researchers showed that naturally occurring species of shrub and grassy savannah contribute 10-30 times as much root mass as do cultivated crops such as sorghum, pearl millet, groundnut and maize.Considering the serious limitations in infrastructure, the generally weak economies and the limited institutional framework, it is highly unlikely that SSA will be able to finance massive imports of key agricultural inputs. Most of these basic needs will have to be met through the use of indigenous resources. Pieri (1989) and Bationo and Mokwunye (1991) proposed a system whereby legumes (tree and animal crops) should be combined with judicious use of phosphate (mainly from local deposits of phosphate rock) and significant quantities (2-5 t/ha) of manure or crop residue supplemented by the import of some fertiliser. The research in this area should include evaluation of various sources of BNF (trees and annual legumes) to supply N to crops and be fed through livestock; the value of local phosphate rocks as a P source to the system; the ability of the farmers to recycle manure and retain crop residue; and the need for, and the availability of external input (animal feeds and fertiliser).The entire nutrient cycling system in crop-livestock systems is too leaky. Major steps need to be put forth to reduce the nutrient losses particularly in storage/handling and application. In addition, major efforts need to be made to find a means to confine livestock such that some external means of management might be used to reduce losses in paddocks, feedlots and stalls.While several other projects proposed indirectly address this area, it is so important to the success of any effort to improve nutrient cycling that a specific direct effort needs to be made to solve this problem. This research should include the effect ruminants have in decomposing hemicellulose, lignocellulose and other compounds difficult to use as animal roughage and the subsequent value of these products as manure.Most landless livestock systems (poultry and swine) are increasingly located at or near urban areas. This trend is likely to continue as urbanisation accelerates and personal incomes rise. Considering the already poor sanitation facilities in and around urban areas and recognising the limited capacity of many of the soils in SSA it is not too early to examine the potential of this problem and lay the groundwork for research programmes that will recover and possibly recycle nutrients back to the cropland.Efficient nutrient cycling is an essential component of most crop-livestock systems if they are to be sustainable in the long run. The fallow systems of nutrient cycling currently practised by the majority of the farmers and herdsmen in sub-Saharan Africa have been developed over a number of centuries. These systems were developed when population pressures were lower and the opportunities to increase production through expanded land use were substantial. As population pressures have increased expansion to marginal lands has resulted and increases in production have not kept pace with population demand. The fallow component of the crop cycle has been shortened and, in some cases, eliminated. Soil fertility has therefore been reduced and overall productivity levels have declined.There are several sources of plant nutrients that may be used to increase soil fertility. These include soil reserves, crop residues, biologically fixed nitrogen, animal manures, commercial fertilisers and a number of special sources from industrial waste. The soil reserves of nutrients for most of sub-Saharan Africa are low by world standards. This is particularly true for N, P and S. Crop residues grown on these soils frequently reflect these limitations by containing comparatively low levels of these nutrients. There are opportunities to add BNF via the growth of legumes (herbaceous or woody). However, the amount fixed is limited if the low P and acid conditions of the soil are not corrected. This low fertility situation is further aggravated by the diversion of large amounts of crop residue and manure for use as energy and building material. In addition, limited infrastructure and high cost prevent the use of commercial fertiliser. Average rates of application are about 12 kg/ha per year or about one-eighth of the 93.3 kg/ha per year for the world. This low base fertility and inability of the system to return crop residues and manures has led to some very serious soil problems that, if not corrected, threaten the entire crop-livestock system in SSA. Overgrazing and overstocking, failure to build soil fertility and lower amounts of organic matter in soil have caused severe soil erosion in many areas resulting in losses of soil at rates of 15-100 t/ha per year. Collectively this has led to serious drops in soil productivity.Preliminary estimates of net nutrient losses from all sources (and taking into account additions) suggest that an average of 49 kg/ha per year are lost annually. This is expected to increase by 40% by the year 2000 will average at over 60 kg/ha per year. This totals 9.3 million t/yr for 1983 (Figure 6) and is expected to rise to nearly 14 million t/yr by 2000. Approximately 70% of these losses are due to soil erosion and diversion of crop residues and animal manures to non-farm use.A strategy to reduce nutrient losses by at least one-half and build soil fertility to improve nutrient cycling in crop-livestock systems is proposed and includes the development of pilot areas to verify and adapt research findings to local conditions. This includes the establishment of soil fertility reserves (forage banks and commercial grazing areas), creation of agricultural input and output centres, design of agroforestry areas, and development of land-use centres. All of these are designed to test and demonstrate technologies that will curb soil erosion, meet the non-farm energy and building material needs, encourage long-term investment in land conservation and build soil fertility and nutrient crop cycle systems that will sustain the long-term growth of integrated crop-livestock systems.Research areas are also needed. Activities identified include: nutrient balance studies with emphasis on the role of livestock in nutrient cycling, improved management of SOM, identification of ways to curb nutrient losses and investigate the potential environmental problems of landless livestock systems. Source: Stoorvogel and Smaling (1990). When addressing the animal/plant interface, researchers have tended to focus on biological processes and ignore the major agent controlling the interface, Homo sapiens. Furthermore, study of the animal/plant interface must consider the effects of other principal interfaces between soil, water, atmosphere and people. Figure 1 represents the hierarchy of the animal-plant interface within the context of the Soil, Water, Atmosphere, Plant, Animal and Human continuum (SWAPAH) (Stuth, 1991;Carlson, 1993;Welch, 1993). The primary factors driving SWAPAH are climatic. Climate drives plant growth, affects animal intake and nutrient requirements, and creates runoff/erosion and ground water recharge. In turn, actions of animals and the subsequent reaction of plants to herbivory alter how climate has an impact on the SWAPAH continuum. However, it is human activities that have the greatest effect on many of these interactions. For instance, rangeland managers' goals, needs and perception determine decisions concerning numbers and kinds of animals to stock, where and when to graze them, when to remove animals, and husbandry practices used. Moreover, animals are indirectly affected by human manipulation of plant resources (brush management, seeding and land conversion) and spatial arrangement of facilities (wells, windmills, troughs, corrals, mineral stations and feeding sites).Blending Maslow's (1954) concepts of the human hierarchy of psychological needs with Herzberg's (1966) treatment of human needs in the workplace, Stuth and Stafford-Smith (1993) developed a hierarchy of the grazing-land manager's needs. Grazing-land management decisions are thus made subject to individual experiences, level of internalised knowledge, cultural values, social constraints, current needs and stage in life relative to intergenerational transfer of wealth (Stuth et al, 1993). These internalised variables comprise the framework for perceptual filters through which humans view the world and formulate solutions to problems (Stuth and Stafford-Smith, 1993). This paper focuses on those biological attributes of ecosystems that affect nutrient acquisition by ruminants subject to management influences by mankind. The reader should remember that these processes generally occur in managed environments. Individual people have their own \"view of the world\" which can promote or constrain the animal's ability to acquire nutrients. This world view must be clarified through a greater understanding of the processes internalised within the psyche of the grazing land decision maker.Six broad categories of managed grazing environments can be identified and range from extensive environments, where animal diet selection is maximum, to confinement where human control of diet selection is absolute.In extensively grazed environments where animals remain in one pasture people affect nutrient acquisition by selecting the kinds, classes and breeds of animals, and by determining the placement of water sources, mineral stations, fences, roads, access ways and handling facilities. The husbandry practices used determine the extent to which nutrients supplied by forage resources meet animal needs and thus affect both reproductive performance and disease resistance.Nutrient acquisition by livestock can be controlled by regulating the frequency and intensity of grazing among multiple landscapes. This level of control is designated by \"grazing management systems\" which are designed to improve plant resources, improve foraging efficiency on diverse landscapes, and (or) improve animal productivity.Transhumance herding practices involve human control of both livestock access to plant communities within a given landscape and herd movement across landscapes to remote areas with seasonally limited forage supplies. Man exerts control over the nutrient acquisition process in these situations through constant observation of the grazing process coupled with a knowledge of remote forage conditions far beyond the senses of the animal. Pastoral systems in fragile, highly variable ecosystems minimise risk to both livestock and human populations by maintaining access to large areas of diverse landscapes and moving the stock to the best forage conditions throughout the annual forage production cycle.Where human populations gather into permanent villages and physical land-use boundaries are ill-defined, herding is required to prevent crop damage by livestock and to physically control forage utilisation in the surrounding landscape. Decisions concerning intra-landscape plant community access by animals become more critical than in transhumance systems to prevent overuse of the geographically limited forage supply.When human populations increase to densities where most available land area is dedicated to cropping, animals are physically confined (usually by being tethered) to marginal land around fields, along roads, and between dwellings, or on crop residues. Tethered grazing is also extensively used to exploit unallocated forage resources where people are landless or where fields require manuring to sustain soil fertility.Absolute human control of livestock nutrient acquisition occurs when animals are confined to a limited space where feed is brought to them. In this case, diet selection by animals is replaced by human perceptions of animal needs. Amount of forage offered and forage nutrient concentration is influenced by humans. Two extreme examples are high-input livestock feeding in feedlots and under subsistence conditions where landuse for crop production and human shelter is maximised.When an animal grazes an individual plant, a hierarchy of instinctive responses and behavioural actions has taken place that lead to the point of prehension and consumption (Senft et al, 1985;McNaughton, 1987;Senft et al, 1987; Figure 1). Each landscape unit is composed of a complex arrangement of plant communities or habitats which are delineated by plant species present, and their spatial arrangement and structural configuration (Stuth, 1991). Plant communities can be further divided into patches of relatively more homogeneous plant groupings. Once an animal has oriented itself within a patch it selects feeding stations along its grazing path within which it selects its diet among individual plants and plant parts. Diet selection thus has two major components that must be clearly distinguished, spatial choice and species choice.At the landscape level, diet selection is characterised by those physiognomic and thermic factors that influence animal movement patterns. They include boundaries (home range, migration routes and fences), distribution of plant communities (soil, elevation, aspect, community structure and species composition), degree of accessibility (slope, woody plant density, terrain roughness, trails, openings, water courses and gullies) and distribution of water, thermal shelter, supplemental feeding/mineral and loafing and bedding foci.These features affect the extent to which ungulates can meet their physiological needs. Stafford-Smith (1988) proposed that ungulates have a hierarchy of primary physiological needs with thresholds, beyond which activities and subsequent movements of animals within landscapes are affected. These needs were ranked as water, thermal regulation, food acquisition, night-time and rumination/rest. Conflicting needs that can supersede these primary needs, but which are either short lived or random in occurrence, include socialisation, reproduction, predator avoidance and recuperation from disease (NRC, 1987).Water accounts for 50-80% of a ruminant's live weight depending on age and degree of fatness. An animal can lose almost all its fat and almost half its protein yet survive, but the loss of 10% of its body water can be fatal (Standing Committee on Agriculture, 1990). Water consumption is required for waste excretion, regulation of blood osmotic pressure, production of secretions (milk, saliva, digestive fluids), foetal development, growth, and thermoregulation through evaporation. Animals obtain water in three ways: through drinking, ingestion of forage moisture and absorption of metabolic water formed during oxidation of ingested nutrients and body tissues. Consumption of free standing water is influenced by the water content of available forage, level of forage intake, and genetic predisposition for water turnover. There is generally a strong positive correlation between moisture content and forage digestibility and intake. Forages vary from 10% (standing dead) to 90% (lush young growth) moisture content. Although metabolic water is important to the animal's water economy, its contribution from the catabolism of fat, carbohydrates, or protein is relatively small in most ruminants. (Standing Committee on Agriculture, 1990).Under most grazing-land conditions, it is apparent that availability of free-standing water is critical for meeting ruminants' needs (Shirley, 1985). Because daily water requirements and watering frequency set the distance from water that an animal can search for nutrients in a landscape (Louw, 1984), the spatial placement of watering facilities in many cases determines the \"effective foraging area\". For instance, cattle will drink once or twice daily while certain desert goat species can water every 2-5 days and camels may drink at intervals of up to 21 days. If animals require water daily, the biologically optimum grazing radius is considered to be 0.8 km and the practical upper limit about 1.6 km (Valentine, 1947).Total water intake of sheep, goats and cattle has been shown to be positively correlated to dry matter intake. Most of the watering recommendations of ARC (1980) and NRC (1987) are for livestock adapted to temperate conditions up to 25°C, but most extensive grazing lands experience higher temperatures and are frequently stocked with breeds of tropical origin. The Standing Committee on Agriculture (1990) modified standards to account for these differences. For instance, at temperatures of 25°C and 35°C non-pregnant Bos taurus cattle should consume 5.5 and 10 litres of water per kg of ingested forage, respectively. Bos indicus cattle, by contrast, require 4.5 and 8 litres per kg of intake, respectively, under the same conditions. When in the last months of pregnancy, both breeds require 30% more water per day, and during lactation water allowances should be increased by one litre of water per kg of milk production.Ruminant distribution within landscapes is highly regulated by behaviour to maintain homoiothermy (Finch, 1984). For instance, Bos taurus cattle seek shade when their respiration rates exceed 60 breaths/min regardless of hunger level (Loza et al, 1992). Shade location relative to water therefore influences landscape utilisation by grazing ruminants, and when shade and water are co-located, the domain of attraction is strong (Loza et al, 1992). Furthermore, patterns of use of north and south slopes and associated cover of woody plants reflect habitat use for both thermal regulation and food acquisition (Stuth, 1991).Foraging behaviour can be divided into search time, time spent travelling between feeding stations, biting rates within feeding stations, and duration of biting while at a feeding station (Stuth and Searcy, 1987). Ruminants adjust time allocated to grazing (min/d) and intake rate (g/min) in an attempt to maintain daily ingestion of dry matter (kg/d). Generally, ruminants increase grazing time and biting rate as forage supply and associated bite size declines (Alden and Whittaker, 1970;Chacon and Stobbs, 1976;Arnold and Dudzinski, 1978;Arnold, 1981;Forbes et al, 1985;Standing Committee on Agriculture, 1990). Animals tend to forage on plant communities that allow the most energetically efficient manner of harvesting nutrients subject to constraints of water replenishment and thermal regulation. Senft et al (1987) noted that forage quantity and quality were closely related to the ratio of time spent grazing a community and the area of the community within the landscape. Abundance of seasonally preferred plant species has also been shown to influence patterns of plant community use (Senft et al, 1985). The greater the density of high-quality forage species, the slower the grazing velocity and thus the greater residence time and intake level attained relative to other communities available to the animal (Senft et al, 1987). If high-density, high-quality communities lie between or in close proximity to important water and thermal foci, site preference is magnified (Stuth, 1991).Much of the non-grazing period or resting time characterised by loafing and bedding by ruminants is spent ruminating. Only about 20-30 min/d are actually spent sleeping by cattle (Walker and Heitschmidt, 1989). The less a ruminant masticates the forage initially ingested the greater the time spent chewing regurgitated forage. Generally, chewing during rumination occurs at a slower rate than during grazing ( Van Soest, 1982). Increasing intake generally reduces the time spent ruminating, with the upper limit being set by the limits to course particle fill in the rumen.Although Stafford-Smith (1988) placed \"night-time\" in the hierarchy of needs, we perceive it to conflict with food acquisition needs. In sheep, cessation of grazing at night is primarily a predator avoidance response. By contrast, cattle appear to limit night-time grazing due to restricted visual cues since they generally forage only near grazing termination points at dusk (Walker and Heitschmidt, 1989). Night-time grazing seldom exceeds one hour except when animals are subject to extended day time temperatures exceeding their upper critical temperature. Night-time grazing may, however, increase to approximately 2.5 hours during hot summer months (Stuth, 1991). Socialisation related to dominance establishment, libido, parturition, care of offspring and migration results in reduced grazing time and increased time allocated to challenging sexual dominance in a group and to species perpetuation. Animals experiencing infections are incapacitated for periods of time to fight diseases. With some diseases the animal survives but foraging behaviour is suppressed and nutrient acquisition reduced.Herbivores exhibit an evolutionary predisposition to feed on plant species from one or more of their primary food groups -grasses, forbs and browse. The grazing value of plants within each group depends on the animal species in question. Species preference by an animal involves proportionally greater choice of one plant species relative to others on offer (Stuth, 1991). The preference status of a particular plant species is largely dependent upon its inherent abundance, its morphological, phenological, and chemical characteristics, the array of species on offer, and the species of animal in question. Preference constantly changes as abiotic factors alter the nature of the plant community.Plants have been classified into five general selectivity categories: preferred, desirable, undesirable, toxic and non-consumable (Stuth, 1991). Preferred species form a greater proportion of the diet than they occur in the plant community, while desirable species are normally selected in proportion to their availability. Species that are consumed less frequently than they are encountered in the field are designated as undesirable, while species that result in death of the animal when consumed are classified as toxic. Non-consumable species are ingested only under extreme conditions. Stuth (1991) indicated that most species will remain in these broad categories over a wide range of standing crops as measured by a selectivity index.The kinds of plants (grass, forbs and browse) and plant parts (leaf, stem and fruit) selected by ruminants are highly related to anatomical features of the ruminant, especially prehensile morphology and rumeno-reticular architecture relative to body weight and volume (Demment and Van Soest, 1985). As ruminant body size increases, the relative rumen volume and weight of rumen contents increase while rate of passage of ingested forage declines. This results in increased forage demand but a proportional reduction in faecal output expressed as a percentage of body weight with increasing body size and relative rumen capacity.Ruminants and non-ruminant herbivores have been categorised into as many as six groups based on forage types eaten (Langer, 1984). A modified version of the ruminant classification presented by Hofmann and Stewart (1972) which includes bulk/roughage grazers, intermediate feeders and concentrate selectors is used here.Cattle, bison, cape buffalo and yak are examples of bulk/roughage grazers. Huston and Pinchak (1991) indicated that bulk/roughage grazers exhibit relatively low selectivity and ingest herbage by wrapping their tongues around individual clumps of plant tissue and breaking the clump loose with a short jerk of the head. Once in the mouth, material is wetted with salivary secretions, chewed slightly and swallowed. The ingested \"bolus\" is mixed in the rumen and later regurgitated, chewed extensively, then reswallowed (rumination).Goats and many of the medium to large Indian antelopes fall into this category. Intermediate feeders characteristically exhibit high dietary plasticity. They can be separated into two subcategoriesbrowse preferring and grass preferring. For example, goats are considered browse preferring intermediate feeders while sheep are placed in the grass preferring subcategory. Members of the browse-preferring subgroup generally have smaller rumen content-weight to body-weight ratios, greater faecal output as a percentage of fat-corrected body weight and higher net basal metabolism than those of the grass-preferring subgroup. However, intermediate feeders have the ability to switch food groups when the preferred food group is in limited supply. This allows them greater opportunity to survive conditions which restrict forage on offer.White-tailed deer and many of the small African antelopes represent this category of ruminants. Concentrate selectors characteristically have highly manipulative and often split lips, soft muzzles and agile tongues (Huston and Pinchak, 1991) as well as the ability to stand on their hind legs to acquire food from heights greater than their normal standing height. This category of ruminants can thus select plants and plant parts high in cell contents and low in cell wall components. Bite sizes are smaller and more discrete, allowing for greater selectivity of small, younger plant parts. This group of ruminants is generally smaller in body size which means the animals have higher metabolic rates (greater nutrient requirements), lower absolute dry matter requirements, higher intake as a percentage of body weight, and higher faecal output as a percentage of body weight. Therefore, concentrate selectors must select high quality diets but possess prehensile organs and graze a sufficient length of time to select among forage species in their landscape to meet their needs. High rates of passage do not penalize this group of ruminants since plant parts selected are high in readily digestible cell contents and the cell wall can be subjected to a higher proportion of hind-gut fermentation.To further understand nutrient acquisition beyond spatial choice and plant selectivity, one must focus on those factors that affect forage intake. Voluntary intake can be calculated using two primary components, faecal output and the indigestible fraction of the diet, as follows: This voluntary intake equation is described by Ellis et al (1988) as the \"physical-constraints\" model of intake which assumes that faecal output is a constant percentage of the fat-corrected body weight of an animal in stable metabolic and physiological state (Ellis, 1978;Forbes, 1980;Minson, 1982;Launchbaugh, 1990;Stuth and Lyons, 1994). The positive relationship between daily voluntary intake and digestibility and the non-significant relationships between digestibility and faecal output (Figure 2) both suggest that increased intake with increased digestibility is attained by increasing the dry-matter load within the gastro-intestinal tract (Ellis et al, 1988).The indigestible fraction is determined by the reciprocal of the total digestible nutrients (TDN) in the diet selected by the animal. As digestibility increases, intake increases as long as indigestible dry-matter intake limits are not exceeded. Faecal output changes as the size of the gastro-intestinal tract changes due to anatomical differences between species, breeds and individuals as well as physiological stages of the animal. We submit that constant faecal output level within species and within physiological state of an animal can be used as a driving variable to predict potential forage intake. Furthermore, these faecal-output factors can be used as driving variables in simulation and decision-support models.Both NRC (1987) and ARC (1980) define intake based on an animal's energy requirements and assumed feed energy content. As the Standing Committee on Agriculture (1990) stated \"most of the schemes developed in other feeding standard systems are applicable only to housed or other hand-fed animals.\" In other words, these intake formulae estimate what animals need to consume to meet energy requirements not what they will consume ad libitum. Therefore, in many instances, voluntary intake of ruminants in free-ranging conditions exceeds that predicted by NRC (1987) or ARC (1980) intake equations.Under extensive grazing, intake is simultaneously influenced by amount of forage on offer and concentration of critical nutrients (energy, crude protein, minerals). Faecal output is not only sensitive to animal metabolic and physiological state but to diet crude protein concentration, forage availability, environmental conditions, feed supplements/additives, and hormones (NRC, 1987;Fox et al, 1988). Concentration of critical plant nutrients is affected by photosynthetic pathway (C3 vs C4), growth habit (grass, forb, browse), stage of growth, rate of growth at the time of ingestion, and level of leaching from senescent plant tissue.The following aspects affecting ruminant intake must be considered when assessing the level of demand that animals will place on forage resources and the subsequent nutrient balance of the animal.A primary assumption of nutritional requirement systems should be that animal weight is standardised to a given level of fatness. Standard reference weights for cattle should be based on an observable average fatness index or body condition score 5 on a 1-9 system. This corresponds to a body-fat content of 22% in cattle. Too many intake studies have been reported on a per cent of body weight basis without any correction for fatness, leading to a wide array of \"intake relationships\" that cannot be compared or contrasted. The use of a standard reference weight with average fatness allows intake determinations Figure 2. Effect of digestibility of forage consumed on daily intake and faecal output of cattle grazing bermuda grass and rye grass (after Ellis et al, 1988). across a wide array of body fatness, and ensures that intake estimates reflect gastro-intestinal tract size rather than animal weight (Figure 3). Body condition and age relationships in growing animals also present the issue of higher faecal output factors for animals exhibiting \"compensatory gain\" (Koong et al, 1982;Abdalla et al, 1988). For example, with nutritionally stressed, growing animals, failure to correct body weight for fatness would result in underestimates of intake because gastro-intestinal tract capacity in these animals is greater than indicated by body weight alone. This particular example is also age dependent because weight per condition score increases until maturity.As stated earlier, smaller ruminants have proportionally smaller fore stomachs and faster passage rates of digesta, which generally results in increased faecal output as a percentage of body weight (Figure 4). Typical baseline faecal output constants (kg dry-matter intake per kg of fat-corrected body weight)for dry, open female cattle, sheep and goats are 0.01, 0.011 and 0.012, respectively (Ellis et al, 1988;Ranching Systems Group, 1993).Dairy cattle breeds have higher gastro-intestinal capacity relative to body volume than other ruminants, probably due to high milk production levels. This greater capacity results in proportionally higher intake and faecal output for equivalent fat-corrected body weights compared to Bos taurus breeds. Fox et al (1988) indicated that intake would be 8% higher for Holsteins and 4% higher for Holstein crosses.  Body condition scoreSpecial attention needs to be placed on many of the dual purpose breeds to determine the deviation of their faecal output relationships relative to traditional beef breeds. This is because cattle breeds of tropical origin (Bos indicus) have been reported to adjust net basal metabolism and probably faecal-output patterns seasonally in a manner different from those of Bos taurus.The gastro-intestinal capacity and faecal output constants of animals that are not carrying a foetus, or that are in the first two trimesters of pregnancy, are similar. However, at least with cattle, there may be as much as a 10% reduction in faecal output during the last trimester (Figure 5). Although, this reduction has usually been attributed to reduced rumen capacity in relation to the growing foetus, some evidence indicates that increasing oestrogen levels may be at least partly responsible (Forbes, 1984).Given the profound impact of lactation on animal nutrient demand, special emphasis should be placed on greater understanding of faecal output dynamics associated with lactation, especially in gain/loss situations (Standing Committee on Agriculture, 1990). Once lactation begins, the digestive tract expands (hypertrophy) to accommodate increased gut fill. This results in an increased capacity for nutrient absorption and increased nutrient flow into the metabolisable nutrient pool of the dam (Collier, 1985). Increased gastro-intestinal capacity results in greater faecal output per unit of fat-corrected body weight (BW) (Figure 5). Increase in faecal output (% BW) lags behind increase in milk production and attains a peak value approximately 16, 8 and 6 weeks after parturition in cattle, goats and sheep, respectively (Standing Committee on Agriculture, 1990). The degree of nutrient stress during early lactation can reduce peak milk yields and the subsequent linear decline phase of the lactation curve (Collier, 1985). For example, in cattle a decrease in body condition score from 6 to 3 (1-9 system) during the first 20 weeks of lactation can result in a 7% reduction in milk production per unit decline in condition score unit, i.e. 21% reduction from 6 to 3 condition score (Grainger et al, 1982). The thermal neutral zone (TNZ) of ruminants is the range in temperatures within which they are at relative equilibrium with the environment (NRC, 1987). Thermal conditions above and below the TNZ have a major effect on forage intake (Huston and Pinchak, 1991). Generally, beef cattle have a TNZ for voluntary intake of 10-25°C (NRC, 1981;Finch, 1984) (Figure 6). Below the TNZ (cold stress), intake increases in response to heat loss down to -25°C provided fill limitations are not encountered (NRC, 1987). However, animals exposed to sustained temperatures below -25°C may restrict grazing activity and intake to minimise energy expenditures for grazing (Adams et al, 1986;1987;Young, 1986).With animals subjected to muddy conditions or rainy/wet snow conditions, intake is depressed as temperatures decrease (Fox et al, 1988). Moreover, extended periods of rain have been observed to depress intake, regardless of animal thermal status. Intake decreases in response to increasing temperature above the TNZ (heat stress). Furthermore, if high temperatures and high humidity persist during the night, dissipation of daytime heat load is reduced and there is less opportunity for the body to cool before the next day's heat load, resulting in greater intake depression (Collier and Beede, 1985;Fox et al, 1988). Obviously, inherent genetic characteristics of ruminant species and breeds, affect the upper and lower critical temperatures at which the above responses occur. Hide thickness, hair length, body surface area, and water turnover through evaporation (respiration and sweating) are key characteristics affecting voluntary intake response to heat and cold stress (Fox et al, 1988;Loza et al, 1992). Heat stress not only reduces intake but also decreases milk yield (Stephenson et al, 1980;NRC, 1981). Milk yield also decreases when temperatures fall below -5°C even though intake rises (NRC, 1981).In many arid climates, animals walk long distances to water sources resulting in reduced forage intake, particularly as ruminants require daily access to water. Gordon (1965) observed no changes in intake during the first two days of deprivation in Merino sheep but a 46% decrease in intake was observed by the fourth day of deprivation. Weeth et al (1967) similarly noted a 50% reduction of each preceding day's intake during four days of water deprivation in Hereford heifers.An underlying assumption of voluntary intake computations is that quantity of forage on offer does not limit the ability of animals to meet their dry matter fill constraints. However, under most forage conditions, animals are subject to standing crops (kg/ha) that restrict forage intake. An extensive review by Huston and Pinchak (1991) indicated a wide range in threshold levels for restricted voluntary intake. They concluded that the intake of cattle and sheep became restricted when standing crop on temperate grasslands was <1000 kg/ha, but they noted that on improved temperate and tropical pastures, standing crops between 1000 and 4000 kg/ha limit intake. NRC (1987) and the Standing Committee on Agriculture (1990) indicated that intake is restricted below 3000 kg/ha and declines linearly by 15% between 3000 and 1000 kg/ha (Figure 7). As standing crop declines below 1000 kg/ha, the impact on intake becomes exponential.Most standing crop/intake studies confound the effects of forage availability with the effects of not correcting body weight for fatness, one possible source of the large variation reported for intake threshold values across studies. Although the cause of this disparity is not clear, Hendrickson and Minson (1980) suggested the source of this variation may be due to the fact that total herbaceous standing crop is an inappropriate expression of forage availability. With heterogenous pastures, they suggested measurement of leaf and stem yields and composition as appropriate variables for estimating intake. Launchbaugh et al (1990) noted that in shrub lands, faecal output of young cows subjected to \"graze out\" situations did not decline as a percentage of body weight until green herbage standing crop was below 400 kg/ha. In shrub lands, total herbaceous standing crop below 900 kg/ha can moreover, result in a dietary shift to browse by cattle attempting to meet their indigestible dry matter fill constraint (Hanson, 1987;Launchbaugh et al, 1990;Stuth and Lyons, 1994). Recently, we have found that the relative decline in faecal output was similar to those reported in NRC (1987) when herbage standing crop was >1000 kg/ha (Figure 7). However, when herbaceous standing crops were <1000 kg/ha, decreases in faecal output were found to be less than those reported by NRC (Hanson, 1987;Stuth and Lyons, 1994). This deviation resulted from differential effects of concomitant drops in forage availability and digestibility on intake.Intake by the animal is determined not only by gastro-intestinal tract capacity but also by concentration of indigestible dry matter of the diet (Ellis et al, 1988). Forage quality, as it pertains to intake, generally refers to digestibility, crude protein, secondary compounds and mineral content. The level of digestion is generally related to the relative proportion of cell contents and composition of cell wall components (structural carbohydrates). These components are influenced by: (1) their content of specialised tissues of inherently different digestibilities, (2) the intrinsic composition of structural carbohydrates, (3) changes with age in composition of structural carbohydrates and (4) association of potentially digestible entities with indigestible entities (Ellis et al, 1988).Digestibility of forages and its impact on intake by the animal must be viewed in terms of the rate and extent of digestion. The extent of digestion within a given segment of the gastro-intestinal tract is influenced by the composition and indigestibility of each chemical entity within the forage residue and the residence time of the residue within the gastro-intestinal segment.Essential to this process is the health of the microbial population in each segment. Micro-organisms hydrolyse and ferment forage constituents to obtain the nutrients they need for maintenance and growth. Where the rate of nutrient acquisition limits microbial growth, e.g. limited nitrogen and plant crude protein, the rate of digestion slows and, depending on residence time in the gastro-intestinal segment, may decline. Such reduced microbial activity thus results in reduced forage intake. Minson (1982) suggested that the critical forage crude protein concentration below which intake declines is 7%. When dietary crude protein is below 7%, a protein supplement can stimulate dry matter intake (Leng, 1984). At levels above 7% CP, protein supplements can be used to meet protein requirements for a desired level of animal performance. When animals exhibit both a crude protein and net energy imbalance, then energy concentration (NEm and NEg) in the feed must be considered in conjunction with its crude protein content. Combinations of a protein supplement and high energy feed (soluble sugar in molasses or highly fermentable carbohydrate of grains) or high-fat protein supplements, such as whole cottonseed, are often used in these situations. Associative effects can manifest themselves when feeding highly fermentable carbohydrates in two ways: (1) increases in protozoa in the rumen which can reduce microbial protein available to the animal, or (2) reduced digestibility of ingested forage due to lower ruminal pH which inhibits bacterial cellulolytic activity. A general guideline is that grain intake should remain below 0.4% of fat-corrected body weight to minimise negative associative effects.Ionophores such as monensin and lasalocid are feed additives used to improve efficiency of feed/forage conversion to liveweight gain in growing animals. Allocation of these microbial population modifiers, can affect dry matter intake of forage, net energy for maintenance value of the forage ingested, digestibility of forage crude protein, and possibly net basal metabolism of the animal at the tissue level (Byers, 1980;NRC, 1984;Garrett, 1987). Ellis et al (1988) noted that forage digestible organic matter (DOM) was increased by 4% with a quadratic effect on faecal output (% body weight), a negative impact on faecal output below 45% or above 65% DOM, and a peak increase in faecal output at 55% DOM. Greater turnover and escape of ingested forage can also lead to higher propionate levels and more efficient yield of microbial protein synthesis that escapes rumen degradation thereby increasing crude protein availability (NRC, 1984;Garrett, 1987;Ellis et al, 1988).A major limitation to making nutritional management decisions is the inability of managers and advisors to determine diet quality under field conditions. Recent advances in near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) have, however, made it possible to detect faecal by-products of digestion and relate these constituents to dietary crude protein (CP) and digestible organic matter (DOM) (Stuth et al, 1989;Lyons and Stuth, 1991;Stuth et al, 1991;Leite et al, 1992;Lyons and Stuth, 1992;Lyons et al, 1993;Pearce et al, 1993;Leite and Stuth, 1994). Spectral signatures are determined by the types and concentrations of chemical bonds in the faeces. The primary wave lengths of the predictive equations generated by NIRS software for CP and DOM appear to be associated with fibre and possibly microbial and/or alkane concentrations in the faeces, respectively (Lyons and Stuth, 1992).Predictive equations can be developed for a wide array of forage conditions using faecal and oesophageal extrusa samples of animals sharing the same landscape. For instance, Lyons and Stuth (1992) developed cattle faecal NIRS equations that predict dietary CP and DOM at similar levels of accuracy as standard wet chemistry lab analyses. To date, these cattle equations appear to be highly reliable across a broad spectrum of forage types including subtropical shrublands, temperature and tropical pastureland, temperate and sub-tropical grasslands, desert shrublands, desert grasslands, mediterranean annual grasslands, hardwood forests, coniferous forest, marshland, and mountain meadows in the USA. In addition, recent success in NIRS profiling of faecal P and modelling of phosphorus balance in cattle is providing a new set of tools for livestock managers to assess if current supplements are meeting requirements for certain minerals (Stuth, unpublished). NIRS faecal profiling thus offers a mechanism to nutritionally profile free-ranging animals in large, diverse landscapes.Information from NIRS analyses is intended for use in programs such as the Nutritional Balance Analyser (NUTBAL) which models the CP and net energy (NE) status of cattle, sheep, goats and horses (Ranching Systems Group, 1992;1993). This computerised decision aid lets the user define the kind, class and breed of animals to be monitored, characterise their body condition and environmental conditions, establish weight performance targets and enter NIRS results. From this information NUTBAL calculates animal intake from estimated faecal output (adjusted for ambient temperature, standing crop and estimated diet crude protein) and the indigestible fraction of the diet. The program then produces a nutritional balance report for protein and net energy. If energy or protein deficiencies exist for the specified level of animal performance, NUTBAL also estimates the least-cost feeding regime to remedy the deficiencies.In the USA, mature cow weight gains and losses at various physiological stages have been predicted with a high degree of accuracy using NIRS/NUTBAL technology. For example, in College Station, Texas, most of the predicted weight changes fell within the 95% confidence limits of the observed values (Figure 8).Application of the NIRS/NUTBAL decision support system, has identified a major research question concerning characterisation of standing crops (Ranching Systems Group, 1993). When herbaceous standing crops fall below 1000 kg/ha the ability of the decision maker to judge available forage becomes critical to assessing livestock nutritional status. A clearer understanding is needed regarding how various standing crop components are related to faecal output and thus voluntary forage intake. In other words, is effective standing crop green grass, green leaf, green leaf of key species of total grass biomass above mean collar height etc? How does available browse influence this relationship from the perspective of grass-preferring versus browse-preferring animals? Does 1000 kg/ha standing crop in a grazed sward have the same impact on faecal output as 1000 kg/ha in an ungrazed sward? Solutions to these questions and suitable field monitoring techniques need to be derived to better estimate nutrient acquisition by grazing animals.The process of nutrient acquisition by ruminants must be viewed in the context of the system in which the animal is foraging. Human control of the process varies according to the degree of control of animal diet selection. However, it must be recognised that animals make spatial decisions as well as individual plant or feeding station decisions. How nutrients are harvested and redistributed is highly influenced by the spatial configuration of water sources, thermal regulation foci and relative value of forage available to the animal. Therefore, the capacity of the land to support animals is not only related to the productivity of forage resources and the nutrient requirements of the grazing animal but the spatial configuration of animal life support features within a landscape.A major key to understanding nutrient acquisition is knowledge of factors affecting voluntary intake of ruminants. There have been many calls for improved methods to measure intake. However, given the complexity of factors affecting ruminant intake, modelling of intake may provide the only reasonable solution to incorporate this complexity. A major constraint to intake modelling has been our inability to accurately depict diet quality and represent available forage. Recent advances in NIRS technology are addressing the first concern of predicting diet crude protein and digestibility. However, greater effort needs to be expended to determine the relationship between forage availability and faecal output (% fat-corrected body weight). Underpinning this need is a clear definition of how to define and monitor available forage.Feed supply from Sahelian rangelands is highly dependent on annual precipitation and its seasonal distribution, whereby interannual fluctuations of net primary production are even higher than rainfall variability (Le Houérou et al, 1988). Pastoralists are often blamed for overgrazing and thus being mainly responsible for the progressing degradation of natural pastures (Charney et al, 1975;Sinclair and Fryxell, 1985). However, droughts and increasing population pressure put additional stress on the natural resources of the Sahel. Rangelands are increasingly being cultivated. The overall efficiency of grazing animals is often best, albeit low, on marginal arid and semi-arid land (Till, 1981).Using crop residues at certain times and in certain amounts to supplement animals on pasture in order to compensate for the biomass scarcity improves animal production (Penning De Vries and Djitèye, 1982). As there are alternative uses for crop residues, strategic utilisation of this resource in crop production and animal nutrition is an important factor within the sustainable agropastoral system in order to optimise its efficiency (Preston, 1994). It does not only stabilise livestock productivity during the critical period of the late dry season but also has the potential to provide more manure as fertiliser and therefore increase plant production while preventing resource degradation. This paper therefore addresses pasture-livestock interactions as an important factor influencing nutrient cycling in mixed farming systems. It describes the quantitative and qualitative feed intake of cattle grazing natural pasture and how it is influenced by temporary supplementation with crop residues. The grazing animal is characterised as a vector for the carry over of nutrients between natural pasture and cropping areas by quantifying its intake, retention and excretion of nutrients. Organic matter and nitrogen flux between natural pasture and cropping areas are calculated and the influence of crop residues used as supplements on the intensity and direction of the nutrient flow is discussed. From the observed data an example for the nutrient transfer between pasture and cropping area within a sustainable agropastoralist system in semi-arid Mali is presented.The research was conducted at Niono in central Mali in collaboration with the Station du Sahel (SRZ/S), a national research station, and the International Livestock Centre for Africa (ILCA). In 1988 and 1989 smallholder cattle in a village 25 km east of Niono were studied (village herd). From 1990 to 1992, the research continued on the protected rangelands and with cattle from the Station du Sahel (station herd).The study area is located in the southern Sahelian Zone (latitude 14°17' North, longitude 5°08' West, altitude 295 m NN) and has a semi-arid climate with a single rainy season from June to October. During the study daily temperature during the cool dry season (November to February) averaged 24.6°C with maximum around 30°C. During the hot dry season (March to May) the average daily temperature was 31.4°C with a maximum of around 40°C. In the rainy season (June to October) average daily temperature was 29.4°C and the maximum 37°C. Annual rainfall during the preceding 30 years was 487 mm (±134). From 1987 to 1992 the precipitation averaged 480 mm with a minimum of 292 mm in 1990 and a maximum of 659 mm in 1991 (Table 1). Two local breeds of zebu cattle (Bos indicus) were used in the experiments. Both the village and the station herds consisted of 30 bulls each. At the onset of the experiments (1988), the animals of the village herd had an average body mass of 204 kg (±34). When the studies were resumed in July 1990, the average body mass of the bulls of the station herd was 152 kg (±18). Eight castrated zebus of comparable body mass, fitted with oesophagus fistulae (OE-animals) were added to both herds.Herbaceous pasture vegetation was dominated by Schoenfeldia gracilis, Cenchrus biflorus, Panicum laetum, Zornia glochidiata and Tribulus terrestris. Amongst the trees and shrubs, Acacia, Combretum and Grewia species, and Guierra senegalensis, Pterocarpus lucens, Sclerocaria birrea and Commiphora africana contributed to the diet particularly during the dry season.The animals were supplemented with cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) hay and rice-feed-meal. The drought in 1990 led to a shortage in the supply of cowpea hay so it was substituted by cottonseed cake from November 1990 (Table 2). Supplements were always offered in balanced mixtures with the ratio of crude protein to metabolisable energy being 13 g/MJ. Cottonseed expeller 940 46.9 9.9 61 DM = dry matter; ME = metabolisable energy; OM = organic matter; OMD = organic-matter digestibility.According to traditional practice, the cattle were grazing on pasture from 0800 to 1800 hours, with a rest of two to three hours around noon. The village herd grazed on communal rangelands and harvested millet fields while the station herd was only grazed on the protected natural pasture of the research station. To simplify matters the different types of rangelands and the harvested fields are subsumed under \"grazed areas\" while \"pasture\" is used in its proper meaning.Both herds were subdivided into two groups (n = 15 + 4 OE-animals) which underwent different feeding regimes. The control group was exclusively grazed while the animals from the supplement group were additionally fed crop by-products. At night the two groups were kept in separate corrals and supplement mixtures were offered individually. At the village level  supplements were distributed during the second half of the dry season (January to June) with the animals receiving 1 kg/d of cowpea hay during the night and 0.5 kg/d of rice-feed-meal (fresh matter) in the morning before leaving the corral. From 1990 to 1992, the supplement ration was offered throughout the dry season until the establishment of the rainy season (November to mid-July). All the supplement mixture was offered in the evening. Balancing forage supply from pasture and adjusting periodically, the quantities distributed varied from 0.7 kg/d in the early dry season to 1.5 kg/d in the late dry season.Animals were watered once daily and mineral licks were available ad libitum. Regular vaccination and treatment against parasites were carried out. Every two weeks all animals were weighed to the nearest kg; weighing always took place in the early morning.The organic matter intake from pasture (IOM) was calculated from faecal organic matter excretion (FOM) and the average in vitro organic matter digestibility (OMD) of the selected diet (equation 1).According to Mahler (1991) the quantity of faeces was determined with the help of the external marker polyamide (granulated). Daily excretion was calculated from the average marker concentration in faeces (CPA), the administered marker dose (PA) and the recovery rate (R) (equation 2).Intake studies were conducted with the OE-animals at four-to five-week intervals. Every 12 hours a gelatine capsule containing 45 g PA-marker was administered through the oesophagus fistula. After an adaption period of four days, rectal grab-samples of faeces were taken every seven hours for seven days. Samples were analysed for marker concentration. Residual humidity, ash and nitrogen (N) were determined in dried, marker-free faeces according to standard procedures (Naumann et al, 1983). Nitrogen losses due to drying were estimated from a number of samples which were analysed both in fresh and dried form.To determine digestibility and nutritive quality of the selected diet, feed samples were collected by means of the oesophagus fistula on five consecutive days during the period of grab-sampling. Collection times were limited to a maximum of 30 minutes and were spread equally over the day using a Latin-square design to eliminate interactions between animals and collection times. The extrusa was collected into water-tight bags and kept on ice until further processing. Pre-dried samples (49°C) were analysed for residual humidity, ash and nitrogen according to standard procedures. As there is still no conformity in literature about correction of extrusa samples for nitrogen contamination by saliva (Langlands, 1966;Marshall et al, 1967;Little, 1972;Scales et al, 1974;Cohen, 1979), this was not done. Organic matter digestibility and metabolisable energy (ME) content were derived from the in vitro incubation of extrusa with rumen liquor (Menke et al, 1979).Body composition was studied in vivo using the deuterium-dilution technique (Byers, 1979); tracer concentration was determined only after equilibration (Chigaru and Holness, 1983). Measurements took place regularly at the beginning of the rainy and dry seasons. After overnight fasting (12 hours), the animals were weighed to the nearest kg and deuterium oxide (D2O) of 90.4% enrichment was injected intravenously at a dose of 0.45 g/kg of body mass. When D2O had equilibrated after a further fast of eight hours, blood samples (3 x 10 ml) were taken from the jugular vein and stored frozen until analysis. Deuterium concentration was assayed by infrared spectrometry. The body chemical composition was calculated using the regression equations described by Stetter (forthcoming).The statistical analyses were performed using the General Linear Model Procedure in SAS (1987). All differences mentioned in this paper are significant at the P≤0.05 probability level unless otherwise stated.The quality of the diet selected on pasture was characterised by the organic matter digestibility and the content of nitrogen and metabolisable energy of extrusa samples (Table 3). To correct for ash contamination by saliva, all values were expressed on the basis of organic matter (Neel et al, 1985). Figures in the same column with different letters differ at P ≤0.05.Within the observed dry seasons variations in organic matter, organic matter digestibility and metabolisable energy content in extrusa were not significant. Moreover, organic matter digestibility was similar to values of 53-57% OMD reported for the same area by Dicko et al (1983). In contrast to the other quality parameters, dry season nitrogen contents showed significant inter-and intraseasonal variations. Comparing the quality of the extrusa to the nutrient contents of browse and herbaceous vegetation during the dry season (Diagayete, 1981;Göhl 1981;Guerin et al, 1988) it can be concluded that the nitrogen content of the selected diet is related to the ingestion of browse whereas digestibility and metabolisable energy content are initially determined by the ingestion of dry herbaceous vegetation (standing hay). While the chemical composition of standing hay does not undergo remarkable change throughout the whole dry season, the proportion of browse in the selected diet depends on the floristic composition of the grazed area and the precipitation of the previous rainy season. The decrease in availability of herbaceous vegetation towards the end of the dry season increases the time spent browsing trees and shrubs from a maximum of 8% of total grazing time in the early dry season to 14% and sometimes even 56% in the late dry season (Dicko 1985). However, for the dry season of 1991/1992 the exceptional rainfall in January 1992 significantly increased the nitrogen content of the diet selected by provoking germination and growth of herbaceous species in the following month.For rainy seasons inter-and intraseasonal variations in the different quality parameters were higher than for dry seasons. While intraseasonal variations are related to the successive maturity stages of the gramineae, interannual variations are linked to precipitation patterns. For the observed rainy seasons, the digestibility and energy content of extrusa increased by more than 12% as compared to dry season values, and nitrogen content increased by more than 200%.The intake of organic matter (IOM), metabolisable energy (IME) and nitrogen (IN) from pasture and supplements is illustrated in Table 4. Except for 1988 were biomass availability was apparently very low, the average dry season IOM during the studied period was in agreement with the 80 to 100 g OM W -0.75 /day, reported by Oyenuga and Olubajo (1975), Dicko-Touré (1980), Dicko (1985) and Burns et al (1991). Rainy season IOM and IME did not significantly differ from dry-season values. The low intake during summer 1990 was due to late rains (mid-July). As could be expected from extrusa quality, the intake of nitrogen was distinctly higher during rainy seasons than during dry seasons (P≤0.001). The dry season supplementation generally increased total IOM, IME and IN. While in years of poor or average pasture quality (1988 and 1989) supplementation increased intake from pasture per se, the supplementation substituted for pasture vegetation in dry seasons with extraordinary vegetation quality (1991/92). This coincides with the increased substitutional effect of supplements with increasing quality of the roughage ration as described by Menke and Huss (1987). With respect to varying N:E ratios (Table 3), it can be assumed that nitrogen supply from a balanced supplement ration is already sufficient to stimulate IOM and IME. The animal does not need to select for protein, i.e. it can reduce browsing and has more time available to consume herbaceous vegetation. When cattle are only herded during the day time, additional feeding of supplements during the night also increases total eating time, which is extremely limited towards the end of the dry season when ground vegetation becomes scarce and animals have to walk distances of 15 to 24 km per day in search of feed (Dicko, 1985;Mahler, 1991).Over a period of two consecutive dry and rainy seasons (February 1988to September 1989) the supplement group of the village herd gained 95 kg (±30) of body mass compared with a gain of 62 kg (±38) for the control group (Table 5). In a comparable period (July 1990 to May 1992) the weight gain of the supplemented animals within the station herd averaged 187 kg (±25) and that of the control group 141 kg (±21). While the additional gain of supplemented animals during these two-year periods was 53% on the communal grazed areas, it was reduced to 33% on the protected rangelands of the station. This indicates that the beneficial effect of supplementing grazing cattle with a fixed amount of by-products is greater on marginal lands where, over an extended period of the year, the natural vegetation supplies only about 60 to 70% of the animals' maintenance requirements (Dicko et al, 1983). With increasing nutrient supply from the rangelands, the advantage of supplementation progressively decreases. The in vivo measurements of body composition gave no indication of significant differences in the relative proportions of water, protein and fat in the empty body of supplemented and non-supplemented animals. The average daily retention or mobilisation of nitrogen and energy in different periods of the year was calculated from increases and decreases in body protein and fat (Table 6). During the dry season of 1990/91 the animals of both groups had to mobilise body fat and protein to cover the respective expenses of the organism, whereas the dry season of 1991/92 allowed for a moderate retention of nitrogen and energy. While nitrogen retention was comparable for the rainy seasons of 1990 and 1991, energy retention significantly decreased in the second rainy season.When comparing the intake of nitrogen and metabolisable energy to the respective retention, allowance has to be made for non-linear interactions between maintenance requirements and feeding level, protein quality and the ratio of nitrogen to energy in the diet, and age (or weight) of the animal. Moreover, maintenance requirements tend to increase at low levels of fat retention and vice versa. Compensatory growth as expressed by undernourished cattle during a period of re-alimentation also has a distinct and non-linear positive influence on the efficiency of the utilisation of nutrients (Menke and Huss, 1987). As energy requirements for maintenance of body mass include requirements for maintenance and locomotion they vary with respect to the grazing orbit of the animal.The faecal excretion of organic matter (FOM) and nitrogen (FN) was converted to an animal of 250 kg body mass (tropical livestock unit, TLU) (Table 7) for ease of comparison within the system.As the total amount of recycled organic matter from grazed areas and supplements is correlated to IOM times OMD of the total ration, supplementation did not increase FOM significantly because of its higher OMD as compared to pasture vegetation. Moreover, FOM decreased during the wet season because of insignificant differences between dry season and wet season IOM combined with a significantly higher OMD of the wet season vegetation (Tables 3 and 4). Average nitrogen content of excreted faeces during the dry season of 1990/91 was 17.1 g/kg OM (±2.23); it was 19.7 g/kg OM (±2.04) during the 1991/92 dry season. During the 1991 and 1992 wet seasons the nitrogen content increased to 29.5 g/kg OM (±6.15) and 33.1 g/kg OM (±6.02), respectively. The nitrogen content of fresh and dried faecal samples was not significantly different with nitrogen losses due to drying of 1.9 g N/kg OM (±2.31, n = 30). The nitrogen content of dried faeces was therefore not corrected for nitrogen losses.Total N-excretion was estimated from the difference of ingested and retained nitrogen while the approximate urine nitrogen deposit was calculated as the difference between total and faecal nitrogen excretion (Figure 1). As intake was studied with castrated animals and retention figures were derived from entire males, the total nitrogen excretion might have been slightly underestimated. As Figure 1 indicates, the distinct variations of total N excretions are mainly caused by variable urine N excretion while faecal N excretion shows very little variation even between dry and wet seasons. Increased urine N excretion can be partly explained by an N:ME ratio exceeding microbial N-fixing capacity (1.7 N/MJ) (Rohr et al, 1986) and leading to increased ammonia concentrations in the rumen.\"Corralling livestock at night on crop land is perhaps the most efficient traditional animal and manure management practice for maximising nutrient cycling\" (Powell and Williams, 1993: 6). Based on this hypothesis an attempt was made to estimate OM and N transfer from grazed areas (natural pasture and harvested fields) to cropland during the dry season. The calculations were based on observations obtained during the study period and reflect management practices in the region. It was assumed that:• biomass and nitrogen yield of a 1 ha millet field (straw and grain) is totally exported• the exported nutrients are recycled by manure from cattle corralled during the night • corralling takes place from December to June (180 days)• nutrients are imported from grazed areas only (without supplementation)• the stocking rate of grazed areas is 0.07 TLU/ha (15 ha/TLU) (Penning de Vries and Djitèye, 1982).Based on data from Tielkes et al (1992) biomass production (OM) for a 1 ha millet field (grain + straw) is 2800 kg, containing 30 kg of nitrogen. Observations from this study during the dry seasons of 1988 and 1989 showed that defecation in the corral (1830 to 0730 hours) is 43% (±11.2, n = 458) of total daily faecal excretion. With an average dry season faecal excretion of 2.2 kg OM/TLU per day and 35 g N/TLU per day (Table 7), 0.9 kg FOM and 15 g FN are excreted in the corral. In addition, the diurnal patterns of urine deposit were not measured but it was assumed that the proportion excreted during the night was comparable to that of faeces. An additional 17 g of urine-N is therefore recycled  Results of this study indicate that OMD of intake from natural pasture during the dry season can be assumed to be constant even during several consecutive years, whereas rainy season OMD is much more variable. The N content of the selected diet shows high interannual variability and is significantly higher during the wet season. Whereas the nitrogen content of dry season pasture intake is related to browse vegetation, OMD and energy content of the diet depend on the nutrient quality of the herbaceous layer. IOM values for the dry and wet seasons indicate that with a normal annual precipitation biomass availability during the consecutive dry season is sufficient to allow for maximum IOM. Because of comparable IOM and increased OMD, FOM decreases during wet season compared to the dry season whereas N concentration in faeces and total N excretion are significantly higher during the wet season. The increased N excretion is due to an increased urine N excretion, caused by an unbalanced N:ME ratio in intake. Using these data to calculate OM and N transfer between grazed areas and cropland, it can be concluded that recycling of nutrients by manure and urine considerably contributes to maintaining soil fertility in farmers' fields.Supplementation of free-ranging animals has a minor influence on recycling of nutrients to cropland. The ratio of grazed area to cropland largely depends on the system's extraction rate and on the primary production of natural pasture. However, it must be noted that in a sustainable system both productivity of cropland as well as of rangeland should be maintained. Cattle nutrition studies in the Sahel have shown inter-seasonal differences in feed intake and markedly higher nitrogen concentrations in selected feed than in forage on offer, indicating efficient grazing selectivity. In this study, seasonal changes in feeding behaviour by cattle were related to the standing mass, nutrient concentrations and floristic composition of the herbage. Cattle preferences for landscape units were first inferred from differences between the relative extent of units along grazing routes and in the area accessible to the herd. Cattle preferences were further rated using a chi-square test of the relative frequency of the bites recorded in one landscape unit with the relative extent of that unit along the daily grazing route of the herd. Similar preference ratings were calculated for classes of herbage standing mass within landscape units. The relative frequency of plant species recorded as dominant in randomly sampled bites provided an estimate of cattle seasonal preferences for plant species. Early in the wet season, high selectivity was observed between landscape units with herbage mass ranging from 200 to 1500 kg DM/ha, but there were no significant differences in selectivity between mass classes. Later in the wet season, the selectivity was more influenced by herbage mass than by landscape unit. Cattle avoided patches of low and high mass and selected less common species, including forbs and some browses. Early in the dry season, no clear trend was detected in selectivity for landscape unit or herbage mass. As the dry season progressed, herbage mass and quality decreased, the few remaining high-mass patches became increasingly selected and the diet included an increased number of species and a higher proportion of browses. Seasonal changes in foraging, therefore, do not depend only on the standing mass and protein content of the herbage on offer, but are also influenced by the spatial distribution of the vegetation organised in a hierarchy of scales from plant communities down to patches and individual plants. The impact of such foraging behaviour on vegetation and nutrient cycling is discussed. Des études effectuées sur l'alimentation des animaux dans le Sahel ont mis en évidence des variations saisonnières de l'ingestion. Elles ont en outre montré que les teneurs en azote des parties des plantes choisies par les animaux étaient nettement supérieures à celles de l'ensemble du fourrage offert, ce qui atteste l'efficacité de la sélection opérée par les animaux au pâturage. La présente étude met en parallèle les changements saisonniers du comportement alimentaire des bovins et la biomasse fourragère sur pied, sa teneur en éléments nutritifs et sa composition floristique. La préférence des bovins pour certaines unités de paysage a d'abord été déduite des différences entre les étendues relatives de chaque unité de paysage le long des itinéraires de pâturage et dans la zone accessible au bétail. Ces préférences ont en outre été évaluées en testant, par la méthode du khi-carré, l'écart entre la fréquence relative des coups de dents relevés dans une unité de paysage et l'étendue relative de cette unité le long de l'itinéraire quotidien de pâturage du troupeau. Des préférences similaires ont été déterminées pour les diverses classes de végétaux rencontrées dans chaque unité de paysage. La fréquence relative des espèces dominantes dans un échantillon aléatoire de coups de dents fournit une indication des préférences saisonnières du bétail pour certaines espèces végétales. Au début de la saison des pluies, il y avait une forte sélectivité entre les unités de paysage dont la biomasse sur pied allait de 200 à 1 500 kg de MS/ha, mais il n'y avait pas de différence significative de sélectivité entre les classes de végétaux. Au cours de la saison des pluies, la sélection dépendait plus de la biomasse que de la nature de l'unité de paysage: les bovins évitaient les zones à forte ou faible biomasse et choisissaient les espèces moins fréquentes, y compris les dicotylédones et certains ligneux fourragers. Au début de la saison sèche, aucune tendance nette ne se dégageait dans le choix des unités de paysage et des biomasses végétales. Plus avant dans cette saison, la quantité et la qualité de l'herbe diminuaient, les quelques hautes plages restantes étaient de plus en plus sélectionnées et le nombre d'espèces et la proportion de ligneux augmentaient dans la ration. Les changements saisonniers du comportement alimentaire des animaux au pâturage ne dépendent donc pas seulement de la biomasse sur pied et de la teneur en protéines du fourrage disponible; ils dépendent également de la distribution spatiale de la végétation, allant de communautés végétales aux plantes individuelles entières en passant par les plages herbacées. Enfin, l'impact d'un tel comportement sur la végétation et le recyclage des éléments nutritifs a été examiné.Removal of primary production by herbivores contributes to nutrient cycling in natural ecosystems. In this process, part of the nutrients ingested along the daily grazing route are transferred to water points and encampments, where livestock rest. Within grazing areas, removal rates can be estimated from stocking density provided there is sufficient knowledge of appropriate forage consumption (Boudet, 1984;Dicko and Sangaré, 1986;Richard et al, 1989). Intake of grazing cattle has been recently measured in the semi-arid areas of Mali, thus improving the possibilities of assessing the removal of herbage mass and nutrients by individual animals (Mahler, 1990;Maïga, 1992;Rath, 1993;Schlecht et al, this volume). Nutrient intake by ruminant livestock can also be predicted from the requirements for maintenance, growth and lactation (Diarra and Coulibaly, 1990;Reynolds and de Leeuw, this volume). In both approaches, stocking densities expressed in tropical livestock units (TLU/ha) are usually derived from estimates of livestock population within administrative areas (de Leeuw and Tothill, 1991). Indirect estimates of herbage removal can also be derived from the seasonal dynamics of range feed resources after adjusting for wastage caused by trampling, consumption by other herbivores and burning (Hiernaux, 1989a;de Leeuw et al, 1991). These approaches provide overall averages, but do not take into account the selective foraging behaviour of livestock and the resulting differences in nutrient removal in a spatial context (Coughenour et al, 1990).It is therefore of interest to investigate to what extent grazing pressure varies across the landscape in space and time, and to ascertain whether preferential grazing by livestock is significant enough to create large differences in nutrient cycling and in the impact of grazing on the environment. The foraging behaviour of cattle subject to passive herding was studied at four levels: the choice of a grazing orbit 1 in the land potentially accessible to the livestock; choice of landscape units along the daily route 2 L. Diarra et al 1. Defined as the area falling within the boundary that encircles all daily routes of the monitored herd during a given period of time (a year if not specified). 2. Defined as the strip of land that comprises the area covered by all individual treks of animals within the monitored herd during 24 hours.within the grazing orbit; the selection of patch habitats as feeding stations within each landscape unit; and the selection for particular plant species in cattle bites.The research was conducted at Niono (14°17'N; 05°08'W), in the research station of the Institut d'Economie Rurale (IER) of Mali. The climate at Niono is semi-arid tropical, with a single rainy season from June to September and average annual rainfall of 487 mm (± 134). In 1991 and 1992, rainfall was 659 and 350 mm, respectively, with an exceptional 69 mm during January 1992. Mean temperatures vary from 31°C in May to 23°C in January.The grazing orbit of the monitored herd crossed several vegetation types associated with three major landscapes: undulating and flattened fixed sand dunes, fossil alluvial deposits of the Niger flood plain covered with a sandy mantle of various thickness, and shallow depressions that act as drainage lines (Boudet and Leclercq, 1970;Hiernaux et al, 1983;Djitèye, 1984;Breman and de Ridder, 1991). Soil profiles of sand overlying heavier soils (loamy clays) predominate, varying from well to poorly drained. Species composition is influenced by soil texture, drainage, soil surface characteristics (including soil crusting) and the likelihood of temporary flooding in the rainy season. Further heterogeneity is caused by the history of cropping, grazing and firewood extraction. In general, species diversity is poor and a large proportion of the species are found in several vegetation types.Species composition of the herbaceous layer is subject to large changes from year to year (Breman and Cissé, 1977;Hiernaux, 1985;Grouzis, 1988;Guerin et al, 1988). The structure and floristic composition of the woody plants were therefore used to classify and map vegetation types (Hiernaux and Haywood, 1978). The species composition of the herbaceous layer of these vegetation types was then characterised by repeated sampling over nine years . For this study, the vegetation types encountered in the grazing orbit were grouped into five broad landscape units (Table 1).Each month, four classes of herbage standing mass (bare soil, low, medium and high) were identified in each landscape unit by visual estimates of the herbage density over one square metre plots (Hiernaux, 1989b). The relative area covered by each class was estimated by repeating this stratification, every metre, over a 500 m long linear transect within the landscape unit. Out of 500, twelve plots were sampled using random stratification to measure standing herbage mass. The average mass per class was weighted by the relative extent of each class in the landscape unit, and by the relative extent of that landscape unit along the daily route of cattle to assess average forage mass on offer.The monitored herd consisted of 30 zebu bulls with an average weight of 209 kg (±19). Animal performance and nutrition were simultaneously studied (Schlecht et al, this volume). The cattle were corralled at night and released to graze around 0800 hours. They returned to the paddock site around 1300 to rest for about one hour and grazed again in the late afternoon before returning to the paddock around 1800 hours. Herding practices consisted solely of orienting the herd in one direction to start the daily route, and sometimes watching over the herd from a distance. In the wet season, cattle watered freely at small ponds along the grazing route. As these temporary ponds dried off, the herd had access to water once a day, around noon, from a permanent pond located 2 km from the paddock. Despite this seasonal constraint, the grazing orbit changed little from month to month, although the grazing route was shorter during the wet season (7-10 km/d) than the dry season (12-17 km/d). Acacia seyal Acacia nilotica 2 Piliostigma reticulata 1, 2   Panicum laetum Panicum anabaptistum Echinochloa colana Setaria pallide-fusca 1, 2  Eragrostis pilosa 1   Borreria filifolia Aeschynomene sensitiva Ipomoea aquatica Alternanthera nodiflora 2 Cassia tora 1, 2   1. Species indicator of past cropping.2. Species indicator of heavy grazing by livestock.From August 1991 to July 1992, livestock behaviour was observed over five consecutive days at approximately six-week intervals. During the course of the day, a different animal was selected at random every hour, and its activity (grazing, walking, watering and resting-ruminating) was recorded every 10 minutes (i.e. six observations per hour). Thus, about 250 spot-observations were recorded each month. Whenever the animal was found grazing, the grazed landscape unit and the class of herbage mass within this unit were recorded. Five subsequent bites were timed to determine bite rate, registering the main consumed species.Foraging behaviour was studied at four spatial levels of forage selection (Coleman et al, 1989).The relative area covered by each landscape unit along the daily grazing route was determined from a vegetation map of Niono Ranch (Hiernaux, 1985) on which the route was plotted. The composition L. Diarra et al in landscape units of the annual grazing orbit was estimated by averaging the composition of the route observed each month. The orbit composition was compared with the distribution of the landscape units in the area potentially accessible to the herd, defined as the non-cropped area falling within a 2-km radius from the central point between the corral and the pond (Table 2). Every month, the relative frequency of cattle bites recorded in one landscape unit was compared with the relative extent of the same unit in the grazing route, indicating whether the vegetation type was preferred or avoided. The statistical significance of this comparison was determined by a chi-square test for proportions (Dagnelie, 1975).Cattle preference for patches of different forage mass were rated by recording the frequency of cattle bites per class of forage mass within landscape units and comparing these to the relative extent of that class in the route. The statistical significance of this comparison was determined by the same chi-square test used for landscape units.Data on the species contribution to the standing herbage mass offered each month per landscape unit were insufficient as a reference to which the composition of diet selected by cattle could be compared. However, the relative frequency of plant species recorded as dominant in five consecutive bites provided an indication of cattle preferences for plant species. The species contributions to diet were averaged per month and grouped by plant type: grasses, dicotyledons and woody species.The quantity of forage offered was highly seasonal (Table 3). The development of herbaceous vegetation across all landscape units showed high overall above-ground mass from August to November. Highest yields were observed in the drained areas where taller late maturing grasses (Diheteropogon hagerupii, Andropogon pseudapricus and Andropogon gayanus) were dominant.Despite low grazing pressure in the ranch, herbage mass decreased rapidly after it reached a maximum at flowering. The rapid decrease was in part due to the dispersion of the grass seeds and to the shedding of dicotyledon leaves (Diarra, 1983). In November, the mean of herbage standing mass over the grazing orbit was 0.9 t/ha with nitrogen (N) concentration ranging between 1.2 and 0.6%. The degradation of the standing mass usually slows during the first half of the dry season, but exceptional rains in January 1992 (69 mm in two days) modified the normal evolution. The organic decomposition of the straw increased while rains triggered the germination of some annual dicotyledons such as Tribulus terrestris and Zornia glochidiata, and grasses such as Schoenefeldia gracilis and Brachiaria xantholeuca. Thus, in February, herbage consisted of a mix of young green plants and leached straws with 0.5 t/ha average mass and a wide range in N concentration (from 2.5 to 0.6%). Low herbage mass prevailed everywhere from the late dry season (April-May) to the early wet season (June-July).About 15% of the annual grazing orbit was located on undulating dunes, 30% on flattened dunes, 32% on sandy plains, 14% on loamy plains and only 8% on clay depressions (Table 2). These proportions differ little from the relative area covered by the same landscape units in land potentially accessible to the herd (i.e. 22, 25, 22, 15 and 15%, respectively). However, clay depressions were less common in the grazing orbit than in the area, reflecting livestock avoidance of this unit during the year except during the late dry season. Sandy plains were more frequent in the orbit than in the area, but this could be a result of the corral being located within a sandy plain and may not reflect a special preference.Although the grazing orbit was confined to a restricted area of the Niono ranch, slight changes in daily route resulted in significant month to month shifts in the vegetation composition (Table 2). Early in the wet season, large fractions of the route were devoted to sandy upland and to loamy flats where cattle found dense patches of young green grass (Table 3). When upland grass headed this choice shifted to sandy plains and flattened dunes where cattle found more dicotyledons and long cycle grasses which had not yet headed. As the dry season progressed the route included more lowlands but this shift was most likely less than normal due to the exceptional rains in January. Cattle selection among the landscape units along the route was generally weak but reinforced the selection of vegetation units made in the choice of an route. In the wet season, cattle significantly preferred the vegetation of the sandy uplands which comprised 51% of the bites counts for 42% of the daily route (Table 4). Preference for dunes generalised to all upper lying sandy ranges in the early dryseason with 64% of bites counts for 42% of the route in November. The pattern of preferences reversed later in the dry season with a distinct preference for lowlands. For instance, in April 29% of the bites took place in the lowlands although they extended only over 17% of the route. 1. Chi-square test of the differences between proportions in bites and along itinerary. +, ++, +++ significantly preferred by cattle at 0.05, 0.01 and 0.001, respectively. ‡, ‡ ‡, ‡ ‡ ‡ significantly avoided at 0.5, 0.1 and 0.001, respectively. * not significantly different at 0.05.Selection of herbage mass patches within landscape unitsIn September, the bare ground fraction was low (16%) and average standing herbage mass for the entire orbit was 1.2 t/ha. High standing mass patches were circumvented by cattle, which preferred to graze medium standing mass patches on the dune and on the loamy flats (Table 4). The animals also selected low-yielding patches on the sandy plains where the herbaceous layer was dominated by the short cycle dicotyledon, Tribulus terrestris, associated with a small annual grass, Dactyloctenium aegyptiacum. Both species were well adapted to heavy grazing pressure. Early in the dry season, low standing mass patches became the first choice across all landscape units, accounting for 50% of bite counts while covering only 20% of the route. Meanwhile, bare ground patches increased to 30% of the grazing orbit; further increases were recorded (50%) later in the dry season (April). Herbage standing mass became more uniform across landscape units and declined from 0.5 t/ha in April to less than 0.2 t/ha when the first rains occurred in June. As herbage standing mass and quality declined the selection of the cattle for feed stations reversed. Patches with relative high standing mass were increasingly selected, comprising 50% of the bite counts for only 13% of the route in May.Grasses were recorded as the dominant species in 60 to 86% of the sampled bites from the early dry to the mid-wet seasons. The grass fraction decreased to 50% of bites counts at grass flowering late in the wet season (Table 5). Schoenefeldia gracilis, the dominant grass in Niono Ranch, was the most frequent species in the bites throughout the year. Among the other grasses, only Brachiaria species, that grows in small patches either under the crown of a tree or a shrub (B. deflexa, B. ramosa and B. lata) or around ancient termite mounds and ant nests (B. xantholeuca), were significantly present in the cattle diet. Grazing of tall and longer cycle grasses such as Pennisetum pedicellatum, Diheteropogon hagerupii, Andropogon pseudapricus was not recorded. In the dry season, however, the relatively high contribution of grasses to the diet was possibly due to the unusual rain in late January that brought about a temporary greening of the herbaceous layer.  (Cissé, 1986), ranked first among the dicotyledons consumed. In addition, the new growth of Tribulus L. Diarra et al terrestris, another short-cycle dicotyledon adapted to heavy grazing and which is abundant in the range that surrounds the corral, attracted stock from February onwards.The importance in the diet of four Ipomoea species was striking. I. eriocarpa, I. coccinosperma, I. pestigridis and I. vagans dominated in 25% of the bites in September. Although Ipomoea species occurred in most of the landscape units they accounted for a small fraction of the herbage mass, certainly far less than 1%. A few browse species such as Pterocarpus lucens and Commiphora africana were browsed early and late in the dry season. This contribution could have been larger if not for the unusual greening of the herbaceous layer in February which rendered herbs more attractive than browses.The choice of the daily route was only constrained by the location of the corral site during the rainy season. During the dry season, the permanent water site became a second constraint. The orientation given to the herd by the herders in the morning varied little from north-east to north-west and did not significantly influence the route.The overall similarity between the relative extent of each landscape unit in the annual grazing orbit, and their extent in the area that was accessible to the herd, suggests a weak forage selection. However, there were significant seasonal shifts in the landscape units visited by cattle (Table 2) and in the frequency of bites per landscape unit (Table 4), indicating some foraging selectivity at the landscape level. Cattle significantly targeted upper dune and loamy flats during the wet season. They selected dunes and avoided depressions early in the dry season while at the end of the dry season they preferred the depressions and avoided the loamy plains. These choices could in part be explained by cattle avoiding muddy and flooded places during the wet season. These seasonal differences in foraging selection were not as marked as the one reported for communal grazing areas in Zimbabwe (Cousins, 1987;Scoones, 1989).Several factors may have weakened the contrasts between seasons. Low grazing pressure in the Niono ranch, giving unrestricted access to forage all year round probably limited the scope of adaptive behaviour. The usual contrast between foraging behaviour during the wet and the dry season may have been attenuated by the relatively high feeding quality of the herbaceous layer during the 1991-92 dry season. For instance, cattle shifted back to sandy areas in February following grass germination triggered by the January rains (Table 2). The very light herding practices and exclusion of night grazing, may also have reduced seasonal contrast in foraging behaviour especially since the observed animals, bred on the research station, had little experience of free grazing.Differences in soil and vegetation attributes between landscape units may affect forage selection. It is difficult, however, to disentangle the role of different attributes such as soil moisture and texture, density of woody plants, apparent density and patchiness of the herb layer and floristic composition. For some attributes the range of variation between landscape units was not wide enough to strongly influence cattle choice. This could apply to woody plant cover which varies from very open (1-5% cover) to rather dense (25-30% cover); this is not dense enough, however, to hamper cattle movements like the dense thickets in the arid rangelands of southern Ethiopia (Coppock, 1993). There is no evidence for the relative attractiveness of a vegetation type being influenced by the density, size and species composition of woody plants perceived at a distance. Other factors may have contributed to weaken cattle selection between vegetation units. The fine-textured spatial arrangement of the vegetation units in relation to the flatness and alluvial history of the landscape, forced livestock to mix Foraging behaviour of cattle in Mali landscape units on their route, crossing less desired rangelands to move from one desired rangeland to the next. For vegetation attributes such as herbage standing mass, the variation within a landscape unit is greater than inter-type variation. Thus, choices between landscape units are better explained by choices made at the level of the grazing station patches.The herbaceous layer is very heterogenous at a micro-scale and consists of an arrangement of patches varying in size from a few square metres to a few hundred square metres (Grouzis, 1988). Patches differ by the density and standing mass of the herbaceous layer, and sometimes also by their species composition (Vetaas, 1992). As a consequence, they show differences in nutrient concentration at the end of the growing season. As standing mass increases for a given species, N concentration decreases because of higher dilution (Penning de Vries and Djitèye, 1982). Differences in species composition are often due to edaphic factors that are reflected by differences in soil surface features (Casenave and Valentin, 1989). Differences in plant species composition entail differences in nutrient concentration such as higher N concentration in legumes than in grass (Turner, 1992).Selection of feeding stations by cattle on the basis of herbage mass within landscape units was not very clear and changed with seasons (Table 3). Early in the wet season, the choice is limited as standing mass is low and nutritive quality ubiquitously high (Rath, 1993). As the growth progresses, contrasts between patches develop and, in September, cattle targeted low or medium mass patches depending on the vegetation type. Optimisation of energy intake would be favoured by grazing medium mass patches especially when grass is at the heading stage because of the negative impact of large stem/leaf ratios on bite size (Forbes, 1988). Optimisation of protein intake would be favoured by grazing lower mass patches either dominated by dicotyledons such as Zornia glochidiata and Tribulus terrestris or grasses that are regrowing from grazing earlier in the season (McNaughton et al, 1983). Such regrowth grazing is frequent in Brachiaria dominated patches located on higher fertility spots such as under trees or on termite mounds.Low and medium standing mass patches were also targeted by cattle early in the dry season. This preference may be because cattle search for more palatable forage and avoid tall mature grass which most often dominates in the high standing mass patches. The exceptional rains in January were followed by a temporary greening of the herbaceous layer. The cattle adapted to this unusual situation by targeting patches where the young green plants were more dense and accessible, first visiting patches dominated by the fast growing dicotyledons and then these dominated by slower growing grasses. As the dry season progressed, patches with forage on offer became fewer. In May, more than 40% of the grazing orbit did not have any herbaceous cover. Hence, all areas with litter or standing grass attracted cattle although there was a significant bias towards higher yielding patches.The markedly higher digestibility and N concentration in selected feed than in forage on offer, whatever the season, demonstrates the high degree of dietary selectivity by livestock (Diallo, 1978;Schlecht et al, this volume). This selection of individual plants and plant organs involves different prehensive mechanisms specific to the animal species (Owen-Smith and Cooper, 1987) and is guided by the experience of the animal (Provenza and Balph, 1988). Palatability and plant material mass largely determine bite size and bite rate (Marten, 1978;Rath, 1993). Since only the dominant species in the bites were recorded, the estimations of the relative frequency of plant species in the diet are somewhat biased towards the more common and larger plant species. This could have contributed to shorten the list of species found in the diet (30); only three species (Schoenefeldia gracilis, Zornia glochidiata and Tribulus terrestris) made up 75% of all bites recorded (Table 5).The species composition of the diet was not compared with the composition of forage offered each month, and a precise classification of the species into palatability classes such as 'preferred', L. Diarra et al 'secondarily preferred', 'proportionally selected' and 'avoided' (Stuth, nd) was not performed. Conclusions on the palatability status of some species have been drawn, however, from their frequency as dominant in bite counts. Schoenefeldia gracilis, an annual grass adapted to grazing because of its profuse tillering enhanced by defoliation (Hiernaux et al, 1994), was the most selected species (dominant in 56% of bites). Being the dominant species on sandy soils that cover 77% of the grazing orbit, S. gracilis should have contributed about half of the total herbaceous mass. The comparison of the frequency of the species in the bites with its contribution to forage mass would categorises S. gracilis as a 'proportionally selected' species. On average over the year, this categorisation could also apply to Zornia glochidiata, a small legume that dominated in 10.3% of total bite counts. However, Z. glochidiata distribution in the landscape is patchy, and its availability is highly seasonal. Z. glochidiata is probably 'preferred' at seedling stage, as indicated by its high scores in the diet following the unusual January rains (Table 5), and again after senescence despite the low standing mass offered by its defoliated stems (Guerin et al, 1988). Tribulus terrestris, Ipomoea spp and Brachiaria spp could all be classified among the 'preferred' species as their score in the bite counts was significantly higher than their possible contribution to forage mass. Most of the other forbs found in the diet, including plants often rated as unpalatable (Borreria spp, Cassia tora, Achyranthes argentea) could be categorised as 'secondarily preferred' species, although their small score in bite counts could be due to either incidental consumption of generally 'avoided' species, or a reflection of selection done at plant organ level such as for inflorescences of Borreria spp. The same categorisation would also apply to the five species of browse that occur in the diet. The interruption of browsing that followed the greening of the herbaceous layer in February confirms the 'secondary preference' of browse by cattle. Other species that contributed very little, or not al all, to the diet could be classified as 'avoided' species. Among the most commonly selected species are annual grasses such as Diheteropogon hagerupii, Elionurus elegans, Andropogon pseudapricus, Loudetia togoensis and Pennisetum pedicellatum. Legumes such as Indigofera and Crotalaria spp and other dicotyledons such as Heliotropium spp and Monechma ciliatum are also included. Among the avoided species only two, Cienfuegosia digitata and Pancratium trianthum, are known to be toxic to cattle. Both tend to spread in areas subject to heavy grazing during the wet season but they never dominate in the herb layer.In spite of the overall low selectivity by cattle for feeding stations among landscape units, local overgrazing remains a concern in a vegetation largely composed of annual plants whose production is directly affected by wet season grazing. Herbage production falls rapidly when the annual plants are repetitively defoliated during active growth. During the wet season, cattle tend to graze a few preferred species (Table 5) and lower mass herbage found in patches grazed earlier in the season. When grazing pressure is maintained throughout the season flowering and production of seeds by preferred species are impeded. This leads to rapid changes in the floristic composition of the range. These changes, however, are not systematically detrimental to forage production.Decreasing preferred species are often replaced by shorter cycle annuals better adapted to frequent defoliation such as Zornia glochidiata, Tribulus terrestris and Dactyloctenium argyptiacum (Djitèye, 1981;Turner, 1992). These annuals produce less herbage but it is of good nutritional quality and palatability although it remains green for a shorter period than longer cycle grasses. Less palatable and more productive species such as Cassia tora, Acanthospermum hispidum and Chloris prieurii, may also be promoted when heavy grazing is associated with high manure deposition or more fertile soils. The encroachment of such plants entails a loss of fodder resources, but it only occurs in restricted areas where it is difficult to alleviate pressure such as proximity to water points, corral sites and transhumance paths. High production of less palatable forage could help in protecting the soil against erosion and replenishing soil organic matter in spots subjected to high stress. Seasonal changes in the preference for landscape unit, herbage mass and species distributes and diversifies the impact that livestock have on the vegetation and soil across the landscape (Hiernaux, 1992).The second concern is the mining of nutrients from rangelands through grazing and its potential consequences on the long-term range productivity (Breman and Cissé, 1977). This concern is supported by the selection for high protein feed by livestock (Ketelaars and Tolkamp, 1991). Although N content in the forage on offer was not determined in this study, data for the same rangelands from Diallo (1978), Traoré (1978), Penning de Vries and Djitèye (1983) and Breman and de Ridder (1991), show average N concentrations in grasses of 2.0% in July/August, decreasing to 1.2% in September/October, and to 0.6% in May/June. Parallel to this decline, is a decrease in organic matter (OM) digestibility from 0.65% to 0.55%.The diet of the monitored cattle ranged from 4.2% N (in OM) in July to 1.3% in May, averaging 3.37% N from August through October, and 1.72% from November through May (Schlecht et al, this volume, pp. ). The same authors measured N removal using monthly intake data of non-supplemented bulls. N removal rates were highest in August (2.91 g N/kg/W 0.75 per day and lowest in May (0.88 g N/kg/W 0.75 per day. From P to N ratios measured in grab samples, the correspondant extremes in P removal were 0.37 g in August and 0.11 g P/kgW 0.75 per day in May. From these intake data, it can be estimated that over the 100 days of the wet season grazing cattle ingested 15.8 kg of N and 2.3 kg P per TLU. During the dry season, grazing livestock may remove an additional 19.1 kg of N and 2.7 kg of P per TLU. Hence, annual removal of N and P are 34.9 and 5.0 kg per TLU, respectively. Given an average biomass yield of 1.2 t DM/ha containing 1.5% N and 0.125% P or 18 kg N and 1.5 kg P/ha, and maximum possible stocking density of 37.5 kg W/ha (15 TLU/km), maximum removal amounts to 5.2 kg N/ha (30% of N yield) and 0.75 kg P/ha (50% of P yield). Assuming a net annual weight gain of 30 kg per bull N and P retained by the animal could be estimated at 0.75 kg N and 0.24 kg P per bull and per year (ARC, 1980). This corresponds to retention in the animal of 134 g N/ha and 43 g P/ha per year.Nutrient retention by cattle are larger in a reproductive herd when milk and offspring production are taken into account. Assuming 60% mature females in the herd, an average animal live weight of 180 kg and average annual weight gain of 15 kg per animal, calving rates of 0.75, calf weight of 20 kg and milk production of 750 kg per lactation (200 days), and considering concentrations of 25 g N/kg and 8 g P/kg adult body mass, 30 g N/kg and 8 g P/kg calf body mass, 6 g N/kg and 1 g P/kg milk mass (ARC, 1980), the nutrient retention in livestock amounts to 0.55 kg N/ha (about 10% of N removed) and 0.11 kg P/ha (about 15% of P removed). Moreover, assuming that 50% of the urine and faeces are deposited away from the range (corral and around water points) and, of the N returned to the range, 50% is lost to volatilisation, nutrient exports in situations of intense grazing amount to nearly 4 kg N/ha and 0.4 kg P/ha. It appears that even in situations of intense grazing pressure, N and P exports remain lower or equivalent to the nutrient inputs through rainfall and dust deposit (about 3 kg N and 1 kg P/ha, Pieri, 1989;Herrmann et al, 1993), and nitrogen fixation by bacteria, rhizobia and algae (order of magnitude 1 to 3 kg N/ha, Penning de Vries and Djitèye, 1982). Even under heavy grazing, at least a third of the vegetal mass produced returns to the soil and decomposes, returning quantities of N and P that are comparable to maximum possible exports by livestock. This could explain why even a long history of high grazing pressure had no measurable impact on soil and plant uptake of N and only marginally increased soil and plant uptake of P (Turner, 1992).These calculations suggest that the harvesting of nutrients by livestock grazing Sahelian rangelands has a limited impact on N and P cycling in rangeland. These processes might be more affected indirectly through the effects that grazing might have on soil and on vegetation structure and floristic composition than through direct consumption.Résumé L'élevage de ruminants fait partie intégrante du système de la petite exploitation agricole en Indonésie. Toutefois, compte tenu de l'importance et du caractère continu de l'agriculture à Java, une île à très forte densité de population, il ne reste que très peu de terres adaptées aux pâturages. La plupart des animaux sont en permanence parqués derrière les cases et alimentés avec du fourrage provenant des bordures des champs et des routes. L'alimentation à l'auge étant une opération à forte intensité de travail, l'affouragement est généralement l'intrant le plus coûteux de la production animale dans cette région. Et pourtant, les éleveurs amassent d'importantes quantités de fourrage, excédant de loin les besoins de leurs animaux. Au cours d'un essai, des quantités croissantes (25, 50 ou 75 g de MS/kg de PV/j) de fourrage local constitué principalement d'Axonopus compressus ont été distribuées à des moutons. Les résultats montrent que bien que la consommation de MS et les gains de poids augmentent avec les quantités de fourrage ingérées, ces augmentations n'étaient pas significatives entre 50 et 75 g de MS/kg de PV/j (P<0,05) et étaient plus faibles que celles obtenues entre 25 et 50 g de MS/kg de PV/j. Il est peu probable que ces améliorations marginales de productivité justifient la stratégie d'alimentation excédentaire adoptée par les éleveurs. Celle-ci pourrait par contre s'expliquer par la production de fumier-compost. En effet, les paysans recueillent les refus dans des fosses situées sous les étables. Ces refus, mélangés aux fèces et à l'urine passant entre les lattes du plancher, produisent du fumier-compost. Dans cette expérience, la quantité de fumier-compost obtenue à partir des refus et des déjections des moutons augmentait sensiblement avec l'accroissement de la quantité de fourrage proposée. Il est possible que les éleveurs ajustent les quantités de fourrage pour optimiser la production totale, c'est-à-dire fumier-compost inclus, et pas seulement la production des animaux. Celui-ci est considéré comme l'un des produits les plus importants de l'élevage. Dans les régions montagneuses de Java, le fumier-compost représente 90% des engrais utilisés dans les petites exploitations. Il semble donc que les animaux d'élevage sont utilisés pour produire du compost de qualité. Leur intégration dans l'agriculture javanaise est vitale pour la durabilité de certains des systèmes agricoles les plus intensifs du monde.Although Java represents only 7% of the total land area of Indonesia it supports 60% of the country's population (180 million people). Half of Java's population are farmers (Biro Pusat Statistik, 1991) who cultivate small plots of land up to 0.5 ha in size (Booth, 1988). Cropping is continuous. Java is thus not only one of the most densely populated areas of the world with 814 persons/km 2 , but also one of the most intensively cultivated.Ruminant livestock are an integral part of the farming system. However, intensive cultivation on Java leaves little land for grazing. The majority of animals are therefore permanently housed in backyards and fed indigenous grasses and sedges. Fodder is hand-cut each day from roadsides and field margins by the farmer and carried back to the homestead. Forage collection is labour intensive. For example, it has been estimated that sheep farmers spend between 0.8 (Amir et al, 1985) and 2.3 (Thahar and Petheram, 1983) hours/head per day just to supply their animals with fodder. The high labour inputs that are required to supply forage makes it the most expensive cost to small ruminant production.Surprisingly, farmers collect large quantities of grass, often greatly in excess of the appetites of their livestock (Mathius and van Eyes, 1983;Ludgate, 1989;Lowry et al, 1992;Wahyuni et al, 1993). Offer rates for sheep and goats have been estimated at between 50 and 60 g dry matter (DM)/kg live weight (W).day (d) (van Eys et al, 1984;Johnson and Djajanegara, 1989). A large proportion of the grass on offer is rejected by the animals. Some studies suggest that as much as 400 g/kg DM offered may be refused (Little et al, 1988;Subagio, 1991).Despite high levels of feeding, the productivity of small ruminants under village conditions is considered low (Johnson and Djajanegara, 1989). This would imply that there were limited advantages to high levels of feeding under these village conditions. However, several authors have observed that the refused feeds associated with 'excess feeding' are composted with animal manure for subsequent use on surrounding fields (Palte, 1989;Sabrani et al, 1989). Manure-composts are an important output of the livestock system (van Eys et al, 1984;Ludgate, 1989;Levine, 1990). High levels of feeding might thus be employed to optimise both manure-compost production and animal productivity as opposed to animal production per se. This paper covers two trials. The first was a feeding trial that quantified the relationship between forage offer rate, intake and animal growth, forage refusal rate and manure-compost production. The second experiment evaluated the quality of the manure-composts produced as fertiliser for maize. The economic optimum level of feeding was determined for this system in which manure-compost and animal production are both valued as outputs.Experiment I: Effect of quantity of forage offered to sheep on intake and growth, and on compost made from uneaten feed and excretaBoth trials were conducted at the Research Institute for Animal Production, Ciawi, West Java (6°40'S 106°55 'E). The institute is located in an upland site at an altitude of 500 m. The daily range in ambient temperature is 20-31°C with little seasonal variation. The climate is wet monsoonal with an annual rainfall of about 3600 mm. Only three months of the year receive less than 200 mm of rain.Thirty Javanese thin-tailed rams (aged 18 months, mean initial live weight 29.1 kg, s.e. 0.3) were blocked according to initial live weight (W) and then randomly allocated to one of three forage offer rates: 25, 50 or 75 g dry matter (DM)/kg W.d. The forage offer rates were selected to cover the range measured on-farm by van Eys et al (1984).Indigenous forage was hand-cut each morning in the vicinity of the animal house where the trial was conducted. A 2.5 kg sample of the forage on offer was taken each day to determine species composition. Table 1 shows the average proportions of forage species on offer over the last 34 days of the trial. These forage species were similar to those identified as being fed to stock on farms in the area (Little et al, 1988). The forage offered had concentrations of 185 g DM/kg, s.e. 26; 155 g ash/kg DM, s.e. 8.5 and 20.4 g N/kg DM, s.e. 1.4. The rams were individually penned and fed half of their daily forage ration at 0800 and the remaining half at 1200. Refused forage was collected and weighed each morning at 0700. Intake was recorded on a daily basis and representative samples of forage offered and refused were taken for DM, ash and N analysis. The trial lasted a total of 70 days. From day 5 to 25, faeces were collected from three rams per treatment to measure digestibility. Rams were weighed each week following a 12-hour fast. Water and salt (NaCl) blocks were available throughout the experiment.Refused forage, faeces and urine were collected each morning from three rams per treatment penned individually in metabolism crates. The crates were fitted with excreta separators which directed faeces and urine into different containers positioned under each crate. Immediately after weighing, the uneaten forage was bulked by treatment, mixed with the faeces and urine voided by each treatment group over the previous 24-hour period and then placed in slat-sided bins measuring 1.5 m x 1.5 m x 1.0 m. Uneaten forage and excreta were collected in this manner over 50 days and composted in the bins for a further 50 days. The compost was turned every three days to assist aeration. Following the composting period the compost was sacked-up for weighing and samples were taken for analysis of N, phosphorus (P), potassium (K) and organic carbon (C).Table 2 shows that DM intake of forage and growth rate of sheep increased with offer rate but the incremental improvement for 50 to 75 g/kg W.d was not significant (P>0.05) and less than that observed from 25 to 50 g DM/ kg W.d. The quantity of grass refused increased from 109 g DM/kg DM offered at the lower feeding rate to 526 g DM/kg DM offered at the highest feeding rate. Forage digestible organic-matter contents improved with increasing offer rates and the forage refused contained less nitrogen and more ash than the forage offered. It was calculated that the N content of the forage actually consumed (i.e. selected) improved from 21.2 to 22.5 and 23.8 g/kg DM as offer rate increased. As expected, compost yield increased with increasing forage offer rate. Table 3 shows that the contents of N, P, K and organic C also showed slight improvements with increasing offer rate. After composting for 50 days the compost produced from the lowest offer rate contained faecal material still in pelleted form, however, composts produced from the higher offer rates were structureless and more humus-like in appearance.  et al, 1984 andAmir et al, 1985).3. Non-labour costs, in decreasing order of magnitude, include depreciation on the sheep barn, minerals, anthelmintic treatments and miscellaneous expenses on ropes etc.4. On average, a 30-kg sack of manure-compost fetches Rp 1000 (Holden et al, 1993), equivalent to Rp 0.033/g.Assuming a sale price of Rp 3000 per kg live weight (or Rp 3/g) (Biro Pusat Statistik, 1991).Liveweight gain and manure-compost production were greatest at the highest feeding rates (Figure 1). However, these gains must be offset against the extra time required to supply the feed. The most profitable ration would be that which yields the highest returns to labour inputs. In this instance 'returns' are defined as the difference between the value of outputs namely, liveweight gain and manure-compost, and the value of non-labour inputs such as drugs, mineral supplements, depreciation on the animal barn and miscellaneous expenses on items like buckets and ropes. This can be expressed in the following equation:Returns to labour = (Value of outputs) -(Non labour costs)Returns to labour can be thought of as the 'wage' family labour 'earns' from the sheep enterprise.Data from studies elsewhere in Indonesia (Kartamulia et al, 1993) are used to estimate the costs associated with fattening rams (Table 3). These costs are derived from farms that treat their sheep regularly with anthelmintics and thus best mimic on-station experimental conditions. Labour inputs include a component for watering the animals and cleaning the barn. Manure-compost and the liveweight gain associated with each level of feeding are valued using farm gate prices. The purchase and sale price of rams on a per kg liveweight basis is assumed to remain constant. Returns to labour are calculated for (i) the combined value of manure-compost and liveweight gain and (ii) the value of liveweight gain only. The effect of manure-compost production on returns to family labour can thus be examined.Table 4 shows that the most profitable offer rate, i.e. the one that yields the highest returns to family labour was 50 g DM/kg W.d irrespective of whether manure-compost is included as an output. The lowest level of feeding would appear to be unprofitable: the costs of production alone (excluding labour inputs) outweigh the value of growth and compost-manure production. Although feeding at the highest offer-rate yielded a positive return to labour invested in animal production, the computed 'hourly wage rate' was 11% less than that obtained from feeding at 50 g DM/kg W.d where compost is included in the output value, and 25% less where compost is excluded from outputs.Returns to labour are lower if compost production is excluded from the value of outputs. At 25, 50 and 75 g DM/kg W.d offer-rates, returns to labour are, respectively, 36%, 40% and 53% less than returns to labour if manure-compost is included as an output. At the most profitable offer-rate of the three levels studied, i.e. 50 g DM/kg W.d, the production of manure-compost increased the returns to labour by 93% from Rupiah (Rp) 70/hour (without manure-compost) to Rp 135/hour (with manure-compost). The results of the mineral contents of the manure-composts are based on a small sample taken from each compost. An agronomic trial was therefore conducted to evaluate the effect of offer rate on the  overall quality of the manure-composts. The composts were used to fertilise maize grown on an upland soil and compared with similar application of inorganic fertiliser and compost made from plant material only (vegetable-compost).Experiment II: Inorganic fertiliser, manure-composts and compost made from plant material only as fertiliser for maize grown on upland soilThe trial featured five fertiliser treatments: three manure-composts, a vegetable-compost and inorganic fertiliser (NPK). The three manure-composts were produced from the feeding trial described above. Manure-compost 25, manure-compost 50 and manure-compost 75 were produced as a result of mixing excreta and refused forage from sheep offered indigenous forage at 25, 50 or 75 g DM/kg W.d. The vegetable-compost was produced by composting plant material only. Although containing grasses similar to those fed to the sheep during the trial, the vegetable-compost also contained other plant material such as rice straw.The composts and local upland topsoil, Andosol, (Horne, 1988) were sieved individually through a 1 cm x 1 cm screen. The four types of compost were then added to the soil at the rate of 0 (control), 20 or 50% by volume. After mixing thoroughly, the compost-soil mixtures were placed in free-draining plastic pots (total volume 7.7 litres, top diameter 0.3 m). The chemical properties of the soil were as follows: pH 4.8, 18.1 g organic C/kg DM, 1.9 g N/kg DM, 0.2 g K2O/kg DM, P2O5 1.4 ppm (Bray-1) and cation exchange capacity 4.66 meq/100 g. The 20% and 50% compost application rates were estimated to provide, on average, 3.56 g N/pot (sd 0.79 g N) and 9.20 g N/pot (sd 2.65 g N), respectively. The inorganic fertiliser doses were calculated so that the urea provided equivalent quantities of N. Thus, urea (containing 46% N) was applied at 7.74 g or 20.0 g/pot. In accordance with the seed producers' recommendation, the total urea dose was split into three application times; at planting, 21 days and 42 days post-emergence. Therefore, at each of these times either 2.58 g or 6.66 g urea was added to the pots. Triple super phosphate (TSP) and potassium chloride (KCl) were applied to the NPK pots at planting time only in the ratio 2:2:1 (urea : TSP : KCl). In order to relate to the upper and lower compost application rates the equivalent inorganic fertiliser rates will be referred to as \"NPK 50\" and \"NPK 20\" treatments, respectively.The maize used in the trial was a hybrid of varieties F 3228 and M 3228. Three seeds were planted per pot and the pots placed in a greenhouse. The seedlings were visually assessed at three days after emergence and the two weakest were removed. Two litres of water were provided per pot each day of the trial and the pots were allowed to drain freely.A randomised block design was used with five fertiliser treatments (compost 25,compost 50,compost 75,vegetable compost and NPK), three fertiliser application rates (0% [control], 20% or 50% compost by volume [or calculated NPK equivalent]) and three blocks in which each fertiliser treatment was replicated five times (total of 225 pots).Thirty-two days after emergence two plants per treatment in each block were destructively sampled. The height of the plant from soil level to the top node was measured and then the plant was cut at soil level, oven-dried at 85°C for 48 hours and then weighed. The remaining plants (three plants/ treatment/block) were harvested at 60 days post-emergence when the same measurements were made.At the time of writing, statistical analysis had not been carried out. However, Table 5 and Figure 2 reveal some clear trends. Maize plants fertilised with manure-composts out-performed those receiving vegetable-compost or NPK at both levels of application and throughout growth. The most noticeable response was the dramatic improvement in plant height and dry weight caused by increasing the application rate of all three manure-composts from 0 to 20%. Increasing manure-compost application from 20% to 50% showed marginal improvements in plant height but there were large gains in plant dry-weight at 60 days. Application of NPK or vegetable-compost produced small improvements in plant growth and the response to increasing application rate was minimal at both stages of growth. After 32 days' growth maize plants receiving manure-compost 25 at both the 20% and 50% application rates were heavier and taller than those fertilised with manure-composts 50 and 75. At this early stage of growth manure-composts 50 and 75 produced similar plant response.At 60 days the plants fertilised at the 20% rate with manure-compost 25 were slightly taller than those receiving manure-composts 50 or 75. Increasing the application rate to 50% resulted in very little further response in plant height. Plants fertilised with manure-compost 25 at the 20% application rate had lost some of their dry-weight advantage observed over the other manure-composts at 32 days' growth. Raising the application rate to 50% did, however, give a pronounced increase in plant dry weight for all manure-compost treatments.The control plants remained stunted throughout the trial although no plant parasites or symptoms of disease were observed. Whatever adverse soil conditions existed these were not ameliorated by application of NPK or vegetable-compost. The NPK application rates used in this experiment exceed those advised by the local supplier of maize seed and therefore it might be suggested that a deficiency in these macro-nutrients was not the main reason for the stunted growth. Application of the vegetable-compost, whilst possibly improving the physical condition of the soil, lacked the nutrient content of the manure-composts (Table 3). Historically, Java has been one of the most populous areas of the world. However, Raffles (1817) noted that settlements were concentrated only on the fertile lowlands whereas the uplands remained unpopulated. The uplands contain the Ultisol and Oxisol soil orders (Perkins et al, 1986) which are generally of low fertility, exhibit deficiencies in plant nutrients and have poor physical structure (KEPAS, 1985). Furthermore, the topography and heavy rainfall in the uplands can lead to serious erosion problems once these soils are cleared for agricultural use. Cultivators have thus traditionally avoided these areas. However, during the early 19th century, rapidly growing population pressure on Java forced farmers to move into more marginal regions (Palte, 1989).In the 1870's, the colonial government predicted widespread soil erosion, declining crop yields and eventual degradation (Pelzer, 1945). Despite such gloomy prophesies, over 100 years later, upland areas represent 42% of the land used for annual crop production (RePPProT, 1990) and support an average population density of around 600 persons/km 2 (Palte, 1989). Farmers seem therefore to have mitigated some of the worst consequences of continuous cropping on these marginal soils. Palte (1989) suggests a key factor that contributed to the successful colonisation of the uplands was the attention to soil fertility which enabled sequential planting of dry-land crops. It has only been acknowledged comparatively recently that Javanese farmers have well-defined soil management strategies for dry-land cultivation (Colfer, 1991). Farmers produce large quantities of organic fertiliser, in particular manure-based composts, which are incorporated into the soil: around 90% (by weight) of the fertiliser used on these farms is in the form of organic fertiliser (Palte, 1989;Sabrani et al, 1989). A variety of manure-composts are produced to suit particular soil and crop types, and manure-compost applications are often integrated into an overall soil nutrient management strategy that includes application of inorganic fertilisers (Holden et al, 1993).Figure 2 and Table 5 suggest that manure-composts support higher crop production compared to inorganic fertilisers when applied to maize grown in an upland soil. Manure-composts are not only rich in organic matter but may also represent a balanced source of readily available plant nutrients (Parnes, 1990). The improved response of the maize plants to manure-compost application was possibly a direct result of higher organic matter. However, the quality of organic fertiliser is also important. The addition of vegetable-compost gave poor plant response perhaps because this compost had a lower nutrient content compared to the manure-composts (Table 3). Livestock excreta would thus appear to be a vital ingredient of organic fertilisers used on poor quality soils.Livestock ownership in these areas is argued by Palte (1989) to be a reflection of the significance of manure-compost to the sustainability of crop production. Yet livestock do not usually readily co-exist with continuous cropping: the lack of grazing and risk to crops typically necessitates housing and manual feeding of animals (Grigg, 1974;Spedding, 1979). Such systems can have higher costs compared to grazing and are not usually economically viable (Jahnke, 1982). However, in the uplands of Java there exists a somewhat unusual situation where ruminant livestock production has effectively integrated into intensive cropping. We would argue that this is possible because farmers have devised a system for rearing livestock that not only effectively recycles nutrients but is also economically efficient.A feature of upland small ruminant production is high forage offer rates. Survey data show that forage feeding rates in Javanese villages allow livestock to refuse as much as 400 g/kg DM offered (Little et al, 1988;Subagio, 1991). Excess feeding can result in higher rates of growth. Table 2 shows that growth rates improved when the quantity of forage on offer increased from 25 to 75 g DM/kg W.d. Similar responses have been observed elsewhere by Zemmelink (1980) and Wahed et al (1990). It was suggested by these authors that the responses occurred because higher offer rates provided the animals with greater opportunity for selective feeding which in turn led to improvements in the quality of the diet ingested. Under experimental conditions, offer rates of 50 g DM/kg W.d are more profitable compared to offer rates of 25 and 75 g DM/kg W.d. This finding is consistent with village offer-rates that reportedly range between 50 and 60 g DM/kg W.d (Johnson and Djajanegara, 1989). However, farmers do not excess-feed to secure high growth rates alone. The larger quantity of feed refusals associated with higher offer rates are mixed with faeces and urine to produce compost. Increased offer rates not only improve the quality of intake but also result in larger quantities of manure-compost. Significantly, when farmers feed at 50 g DM/kg W.d manure-compost comprises 41% of total output from the production system and the conversion of the high uneaten forage levels into compost increases the returns to labour by 93% at this offer rate (Table 4). Production of high value manure-composts thus enables farmers to offset some of the extra costs associated with rearing livestock in intensively cultivated areas.Several authors point out that under stall-feeding conditions, only faeces can be conserved and transported to cropland, whilst urine is usually lost from the system (Catchpoole, 1988;Powell and Ikpe, 1992). Powell and Ikpe (1992) stated that 40-60% of N excreted by animals is contained in urine and demonstrated that fields fertilised by grazing cattle produced 2.3 times more millet grain than those to which cattle faeces alone were added by hand. They attributed this finding to the fact that the grazed fields gained the added benefit of receiving urine.To maximise the efficiency of nutrient cycling it is therefore important to conserve livestock urine. The Javanese stall-feeding system for small ruminants may go some way to achieving this aim. Sheep and goats are housed in small barns with slatted floors built over pits one to two metres deep. Rejected forage is thrown into the pit and absorbs some of the urine falling through the slats. It might be hypothesised that the proportion of urine captured in this way increases with rising quantities of refused forage.The daily accumulation of layers of faeces and uneaten forage in the pit may also help to limit N loss by reducing the volatilisation of ammonia. Watson and Lapins (1969) estimated that around 50% of N contained in urine voided on to pasture by sheep in south-western Australia was lost through ammonia volatilisation, whilst Gillard (1967, cited by Henzell, 1973) calculated that up to 80% of N contained in faeces dropped on pasture was lost through a similar route. It is therefore important to minimise the exposure of livestock excreta destined for fertiliser from the damaging effects of the climate. The practice of excess feeding would lead to a more rapid formation of these \"protective\" layers of uneaten feed in the pit whilst the roof of a Javanese small-ruminant barn shelters the pit from sun and rain and the depth of the pit reduces exposure to wind.The direct application of fresh faeces and urine on to pasture by grazing animals can lead to significant losses of N not only via ammonia volatilisation but also through denitrification and leaching. An advantage of the Javanese stall-feeding system is that it allows animal excreta and plant material to be composted. If carbon-rich materials, i.e. uneaten forage are mixed and composted with excreta they can intercept and stabilise N (Parnes, 1990). Composting may therefore represent a means of reducing the loss of vital plant nutrients. Also, this stabilising effect on nutrients might allow composted material to be stored without a significant drop in fertiliser quality thus allowing farmers to accumulate compost for more timely application to the growing crop.The experimental data suggest that the quality of manure-composts increased as the proportion made up by rejected forage declined. However, although manure-compost 25 supported better plant growth at day 32 its superiority was diminished at 60 days. Holden et al (1993) found that farmers considered manure-compost with a higher proportion of excreta to be superior to manure-compost with a high content of vegetable matter. Farmers, aware of the trade-off between quantity and quality, prefer to maximise the quantity of manure-compost produced and so opt for high feeding rates which produce grass-rich manure-composts.Despite poor growing conditions, the uplands of Java are continually cropped and support dense human populations. It is argued that the use of manure-composts is the key to sustaining soil productivity (Adiningsih et al, 1991). The intensity of cropping in these areas precludes grazing and farmers house their animals instead. Housing facilitates manure-compost production and farmers are probably able to offset at least some of the extra costs associated with cut-and-carry feeding against the value of manure-composts.Farmers reportedly feed between 50 and 60 g DM/kg W.d (Johnson and Djajanegara, 1989) and under experimental conditions offer rates of 50 g DM/kg W.d yielded greater returns to labour compared to offer rates of 25 g or 75 g DM/kg W.d. Excess feeding increased returns to labour by 200% at the highest offer rate (Rp 120/hour at 75 g DM/kg W.d versus Rp -120/hour at 25 g DM/kg W.d). Raising offer rates from 25 to 75 g DM/kg W.d increases returns to labour because:• the N content of the forage selected and intake of DOM increased by 12.3% and 83.9%, respectively, at the highest offer rate, and growth rates were thus enhanced • uneaten feed is used to produce manure-composts. Under experimental conditions, manure-compost production is increased by 330% at the highest offer rate.Mixed arable-livestock farming systems are characteristic of large areas of Africa (Allan, 1964;UNESCO, 1979;Tothill and Mott, 1985). In many of these areas increased demand for food coupled with decreased availability of labour has resulted in more continuous cultivation of arable lands. Fallow periods that allowed regeneration after cultivation have become shorter, or the practice has been completely abandoned. Similar pressures are being felt on the availability of grazing land for livestock with consequent effects on the ownership of cattle and the quantity and quality of fodder.Continuous cultivation of the land has resulted in accelerated soil nutrient depletion, decline in soil organic matter (SOM) content, loss of physical structure and reduced crop productivity. In many mixed agricultural systems manure from the cattle was traditionally used as a fertiliser to ameliorate many of these problems of soil fertility, either alone, or more recently in combination with inorganic inputs. Thus in nutrient-cycling models of mixed agricultural systems the excreta (manure and urine) of herbivorous mammals is often featured as a key ecosystem component (Frissle, 1978;Powell and Mohamed-Saleem, 1987;Swift et al, 1989) linking the livestock and arable components. However, the very factors that are causing the changes in sustainability and productivity of the system as a whole are also changing the availability and quality of the manure resource. This paper evaluates the importance of manure from herbivores as a key ecosystem resource within this context of agricultural intensification and change. To do so the results of a case study on the use of manure in the communal area farming systems of Zimbabwe are used. Two general aspects are examined: first the value and utility of manure as a source of nutrients under current circumstances; and second the significance of manure as a fertiliser within the whole farming system context. Even though this paper concentrates on a particular case study, many of the issues raised are of relevance to other areas where mixed farming is predominant.A variety of claims have been made about the potential benefits of manure application as a means of sustaining soil fertility (Olsen et al, 1970;McIntosh and Varney, 1972;1973;Mathers and Stewart, 1981;1984). The demonstrated benefits include increase in pH, water-holding capacity, hydraulic conductivity and infiltration rate, and decreased bulk density. Manure is also seen as a potentially important source of nutrients, especially nitrogen (N), phoshorus (P) and potassium (K). In the longer term the recalcitrant component of the manure forms a reserve pool of mineralisable nutrients that will be available for plant uptake in future seasons. Manure also has the long-term effect of raising soil organic matter levels with all the concomitant benefits to soil fertility. These benefits are not invariable, however, and excessive manure application has also been shown to lead to problems of ground water pollution through leaching of nitrate (NO3-N) from the soil (Pratt et al, 1976).Manure fertilisation is a well-established practice in Zimbabwe, particularly as a source of nutrients for low fertility soils. The rational basis for its use has, however, not been fully developed. Most of the claims for its value are based on its use as a source of N and it is on this role that this discussion concentrates. Application rates for manure based on field trials have been recommended by several workers in the Department of Research and Specialist Services (Table 1). Unfortunately, it is difficult to compare the recommended rates because the chemical composition of the manures were not quoted (Mugwira, 1984a) and work carried out in Zimbabwe on manure quality (Tanner and Mugwira, 1984) and on the effectiveness of manure as a plant nutrient source (Mugwira, 1984b;Mugwira and Mukurumbira, 1986) has shown that manures from different Communal Areas are generally of low quality and vary widely in chemical composition, particularly in N and P. Information on decomposition rates and tests on nutrient availability are required for more precise recommendations and for the development of a predictive manure-N management model. The results of Mugwira and Mukurumbira (1986) indicate that the nutrient-supplying power of manure has not been adequately evaluated in this respect. Despite the realisation that manure has a beneficial residual effect (Cackett, 1960;Mugwira, 1984b;Mugwira and Mukurumbira, 1986) there is also a critical lack of quantitative information on the long-term effects of manure. for high yielding maize crops because of its inability to supply continuously large amounts of readily available N (Grant, 1967a;Mugwira, 1985). In a greenhouse study high applications, equivalent to 80 t/ha of low quality manure, depressed plant growth in the first sampling period of four weeks because of immobilisation of N (Tanner and Mugwira, 1984). Better plant growth was observed in subsequent sampling periods. The immediate supply of nutrients to crops from manure may not be as high as from artificial fertilisers because of the organic nature of manure (Beauchamp, 1986). To maximise the benefit of manure to crops under dry-land conditions manure should be applied at the onset of the rains as its slow rate of nutrient release improves synchrony with plant intake and minimises losses through leaching (Singh et al, 1986). Because manures from communal areas are generally of low quality, Grant (1967b) has suggested that the benefits which accrue from fertilising with manure are due more to the amounts of bases released than to the supply of N and P.The beneficial effects of manure on soil fertility, and in particular its role as a source of nutrients, are dependent on the outcome of the biological processes of decomposition. These processes determine the rate of release of carbon and nutrients and the equilibrium between retention and loss from soil (Swift et al, 1979).The majority of studies on manure decomposition have focused on N dynamics. The N-fertiliser value of manure depends on its initial nutrient content and on the rates of mineralisation of nutrients to the inorganic form. The initial content is strongly influenced by the conditions of storage before application. Studies of N mineralisation in soil are useful because efficient management of manure-N requires a knowledge of the time course of N transformation in order to predict availability to the plant. The quantitative contribution of manure to soil N and the interaction between manure N and soil N also need to be known so that any residual effects of the organic input can be quantified. The N from manure may be retained in soil in organic form or released in inorganic form to the soil whence it either accumulates, is taken up by plants, or lost through leaching and gaseous emission. Efficient use of N in a cropping system requires maximisation of uptake and retention in the soil. The former is promoted by synchrony between nutrient release and nutrient uptake. Lack of synchrony increases the potential for nutrient losses (Myers et al, 1994).The decomposition pathways of manures into inorganic nutrients and carbon dioxide are relatively standard, though variations may exist due to the quality of manure. The term 'quality' embraces intrinsic factors that affect the ability to decompose such as lignin, nutrient content and particle size (Swift et al, 1979) which, together with physico-chemical and biological environmental factors, regulate the decomposition process. The rate of mineralisation of N is regulated by the same range of factors, i.e. temperature, moisture, pH, lignin and polyphenol content and C:N ratio. Rates and patterns of decomposition and mineralisation are also influenced by the soil type and interactions with fertilisers and other soil amendments.Higher temperatures generally promote increased mineralisation rates and a rapid turnover of organic N (Sims, 1986). This response to temperature may be described by an Arrhenius' equation (Addiscot, 1983): k = Ae -BT where:k is the mineralisation rate (per day) A and B are constants T the absolute temperature in KelvinsThe moisture content directly regulates the activity of decomposer micro-organisms, with the optimum for N mineralisation being -0.1 cm to -0.5 cm of soil moisture tension (Runge, 1983). Several other investigations have attempted to quantify the effect of moisture on N mineralisation of soil (Myers et al, 1982;Clark and Gilmur, 1983) though little has been done on manure amended soils. Murwira (1993) found a quadratic response of N mineralisation to increase in moisture from 10% of water holding capacity to saturation. The equation had the form: Y = 0.221 + 0.028X -0.00025X 2 where:Y is a moisture response factor X is the water holding capacity Prediction of the mineralisation pattern of organic N in the field is confounded by fluctuations of both inter-and intra-seasonal moisture levels. Intermittent wetting and drying is important in influencing N mineralisation, and can result in an increase in measured inorganic N on rewetting the soil following a period of drying (Birch, 1960). The cumulative effects of multiple drying and rewetting cycles on N release could be critically important to nutrient cycling in a savanna climate with highly erratic and unreliable rainfall.The chemical composition of cattle manure is influenced by the diet of the cattle, and by the conditions under which the manure is stored and handled (van Fassen and van Dijk, 1987). These factors account for some of the variations in manure composition reported from different countries. In a review of the utilisation of N by grazing dairy cows Van Vuuren and Meijs (1987) indicated that intensification of grassland production, including N fertilisation, increased herbage N intake but decreased the efficiency of N utilisation by the animal. This resulted in higher N excretion in faeces and, especially, in urine. During aerobic decomposition organic materials with high stability and containing low amounts of inorganic N are formed (Kirchmann, 1985) reducing, in the short term, the value of the manure as a N fertiliser (Castellanos and Pratt, 1981;Kirchmann, 1989). In contrast, during anaerobic decomposition, compounds of low molecular weight such as volatile fatty acids are formed (Guenzi and Beard, 1981), and high concentrations of NH4-N are found.The decomposition rate of manure is known to be affected by its C:N ratio. Early hypotheses suggested that net mineralisation generally occurs at C:N ratios of less than 23 (Alexander, 1977;Swift et al, 1979). Subsequent studies by a number of authors have shown that the lignin content also controls decomposition and that the lignin:N ratio is often a better predictor of decay rates of litter than C:N (Fogel and Cromack, 1977;Mellilo et al, 1982).The kinetics of C and N mineralisation in soils has generally been found to follow first order kinetics (Stojanovic and Broadbent, 1956;Sinha et al, 1977) where the first order equation is:where:Nt is amount mineralised after time t No is the potential amount that can be mineralised k is the rate constantThe results from a study of decomposition of manures of different origins and qualities subjected to different storage treatments showed that there was no significant difference in the decomposition of aerobically treated manures regardless of whether they were derived from low or high input farming systems (Murwira, 1993). Carbon mineralisation values from composted manures were low and less than 20% of total carbon was released over a period of 60 days (Murwira, 1993). Differences in decomposability between aerobically treated manures probably reflect initial and short-term variations in the content of the readily decomposable fractions.In the same study little or no N was mineralised from the fresh and the aerobically treated manures irrespective of their origin. Fresh, aerobically treated manures may thus be expected to have a low N fertiliser value in the short term. However, other beneficial effects such as supply of other nutrients in the short term (Grant, 1967b) and an increase in the water-holding capacity of the soil may be more important. In spite of partial immobilisation of N, inorganic N contents were highest in soil to which anaerobically treated manure had been added (Murwira, 1993). Of the three manure treatments investigated, only the anaerobically decomposed manure would have a positive N effect on crops in the short term. This is an interesting result and suggests that a different treatment, anaerobic storage, might improve the availability of N from manure by influencing its quality.Soil type is also important in determining mineralisation rates. Generally, the rate of N mineralisation is lower in clay soils because clay particles shield organic matter from decomposition. Annual N mineralisation rates (mineralised N as a percentage of total organic N) of Zimbabwean soils have been found to be about 5% for sandy soils and 2-3% for clay soils (Saunders and Grant, 1962). Little is known about the influence of soil factors on manure decomposition although it may be hypothesised that the same relationship will hold.Most soils found in communal areas in Zimbabwe can be classified as either Alfisols, Oxisols or Ultisols (Asumadu and Weil, 1988), and are typically acid in their reaction. Crops grown on these soils are relatively acid tolerant, but the soils need to be limed to a minimum pH of 5.5 to avoid micronutrient deficiencies or toxicities. The soil pH regulates microbial activity, and hence mineralisation of organic matter, such that the decomposition of organic matter is higher at neutral pH than in acid soils (Foy, 1984). The optimum pH for decomposition in the soil is 5-7, with the lower threshold being more favourable in tropical soils. Rates of N mineralisation have also been found to be increased by liming (Cornfield, 1952;Nyborg and Hoyt, 1978;Edmeads et al, 1981). Liming of manure-amended soil could thus be a means of hastening N release from manure, especially when N is limiting. For moderately acid soils the application of pig slurry or poultry manure was found to increase the soil pH temporarily, probably because of NH4-N formation, which in turn promoted a temporarily rapid rate of nitrification (Cooper, 1975;Crane et al, 1981). In studies carried out in Zimbabwe, liming did not affect N mineralisation, but it increased carbon mineralisation relative to that occurring in unlimed soil. The stimulatory effect of liming on carbon mineralisation, however, lasted only for a few days after adding lime (Murwira, 1993).Fertilisation with various forms of inorganic N is an increasing practice in some areas of communal area farming in Zimbabwe. Previous studies on the decomposition of cattle manures from communal areas showed that they mineralise less than 10% of the total N in the first season of application of manure (Murwira, 1993). This suggests that the high C:N ratio may be delaying the onset of N release. It could therefore be hypothesised that the addition of inorganic-N should promote a faster rate of decomposition by increasing the availability of N to microbes and hence hasten the rate of release of manure-N into inorganic form. In experiments with manure, addition of fertiliser N, however, did not increase the N mineralisation rates of the N-poor cattle manures and indeed depressed the mineralisation of manure carbon (Murwira, 1993).Losses of N occur through denitrification, NH3 volatilisation, nitrate leaching and runoff. Denitrification occurs under anaerobic conditions and requires the presence of denitrifying micro-organisms, NO3-N and an organic energy source. Ammonia volatilisation is pH dependent, occurring at pH values greater than seven. Nitrate formed from mineralisation of manure N is highly mobile and easily leached when there is excessive water movement through the soil profile. Loss of N through runoff can occur as dissolved salts or as components of particles washed away in suspension.Gaseous N losses of 20-76% from soil mixed with manure have been reported under laboratory conditions (Olsen et al, 1970). The higher losses occurred under denitrifying conditions. Adriano et al (1974) found losses of up to 45% N from soil-manure systems. They reported an increase in N loss with increases in both temperature and moisture. Guenzi et al (1978) also reported losses of 8-10% of applied 15 N fertiliser from a soil-plant system without manure. Higher losses, however, were found for soils amended with manure irrespective of whether inorganic fertilisers were also added. The larger losses of N in manure amended soil are thought to be due to denitrification losses occurring in localised sites of high biological oxygen demand in a predominantly aerobic soil (Guenzi et al, 1978). With manure-amended soil, the per cent N losses were lower in a cropped than in a fallow system. In Zimbabwe, denitrification is likely to be insignificant in dry upland areas, but may be an important loss pathway in vlei areas (wetlands). These wetlands constitute about 30% of the area of Zimbabwe and are regarded by farmers as resource areas of high value because of the persistence of moisture for crop and vegetable growth into the dry season. They are thus often primary target areas for application of both organic and inorganic manures (Carter et al, 1993;Campbell et al, 1994) although this practice is currently discouraged by the extension service.Losses of N through NH3 volatilisation occur soon after dung and urine are excreted, during storage, and after application to the field. Despite the importance of potential NH3 losses in the N economy of communal farming systems, NH3 losses from decomposing animal residues have not been extensively measured in tropical cropping systems although there is considerable evidence from studies in temperate areas. Ammonia volatilisation is affected by the physico-chemical environment in which manure is stored, such as pH, temperature and moisture, and the initial quality of the manure (Freney et al, 1981). Higher losses of N through volatilisation have generally been reported from manure alone than from soil-manure systems. Kirchmann (1985) found NH3 losses of up to 40% from manure alone, with a strong inverse correlation between NH3 losses and C:N ratio (i.e. losses increased with decrease in C:N ratio) in aerobic systems. Losses of NH3 from slurries spread on the soil surface at rates of 34-200 t/ha were reported to be as high as 99% of applied NH4-N after 5-25 days but incorporation of manure into soil reduced the loss by as much as 50% (Giddens and Rao, 1975) and in some cases, to less than 1% of added NH4-N (Adamsen and Sabey, 1987).In a study of losses of N through NH3 volatilisation from manure before and after application to soil in Zimbabwe, total ammonia losses from the cattle manures during storage and after application to soil were found to be low, amounting to a maximum of 6% of the total N content. Losses of up to 6% of total N were measured from fresh dung and decomposing manure, but little (less than 1%) or no losses occurred after application of the manure to soil (Table 2). Emissions of NH3 from the surface of crop fields amended with manure were also negligible (Murwira, 1993). This suggests that losses due to ammonia volatisation in the field may be insignificant, perhaps because the N content of communal area manure is so low by the time of application. The more significant losses are those that occur during the pre-application period. Although many communal-area farmers have to rely on organic inputs, especially cattle manure, to fertilise the soil, manure alone is not adequate to sustain yields and additions of inorganic fertiliser are required (Grant, 1981). Several studies (Table 1) have been conducted to determine the optimum manure and fertiliser combinations for maximising crop yields (Mugwira, 1985;Trounce et al, 1985).For the resource-poor communal-area farmers, who lack the capital to purchase substantial quantities of fertiliser, it is crucial to determine the minimum amount of inorganic N that needs to be added to obtain the optimum amount and timing of N release from manure. In this regard, a number of insights can be gained from nutrient cycling and decomposition studies in non-agricultural ecosystems especially forest ecosystems, where productivity and sustained yields can be maintained without substantial fertiliser inputs (Aber et al, 1979;Swift, 1984;Woomer and Swift, 1994).Though it has not been well established, the N use efficiency by plants in sandy soils appears to be low. This could be due to high NO3-N leaching (Swift et al, 1989). In general, recovery of N from fertilisers is about 30-70% of the applied N in the year following application (Bock, 1984). Nitrogen recovery from manure in the classic Broadbalk experiment at Rothamsted was calculated at 40 to 60% (Jenkinson, 1982). Using an in situ incubation technique (Raison et al, 1987;Anderson andIngram, 1989) Murwira (1993) made simultaneous measurements of N mineralisation, uptake and leaching from arable soils to determine N use efficiency (Debosz and Vinther, 1989) at a site at Grasslands Research Station, Marondera, Zimbabwe in the 1990/91 season. Treatments used were a control, manure applied before planting, manure+Nf (N-fertiliser) at planting, manure+Nf (six weeks after planting), Nf at planting and Nf(6WAP). The manure was applied at an equivalent rate of 10 t/ha and the N at 100 kg/ha. The apparent N recovery by the plants as estimated by the difference method were: less than 0% (manure only), 42% (manure + Nf applied pre-planting), 34% (manure + Nf applied six weeks after planting), 64% (Nf applied pre-planting), and 69% (Nf applied six weeks after planting). The low recoveries in the manure treatments were due to N immobilisation when the plant N demand was high. This shows that availability of N to crops in manure is lower throughout than from inorganic N because of the slow release of organically bound N, and the lack of synchrony between crop demand and mineralisation. Release from manure is spread out through time, hence there is never a sharp peak in mineralisation that can be synchronised with plant demand.Total losses through nitrate leaching from the plough layer were between 4% and 42% of applied N. The highest losses were measured in unamended soil, in soil treated with manure only, and in soil receiving an early application of N. The high leaching losses measured in these treatments were due to asynchrony between N release and uptake. Synchrony between N release and uptake was highest in treatments receiving combinations of manure and fertiliser N, especially N applied after planting. Therefore fertilisers are not only a necessary adjunct to manure application in maintaining crop yields, but they also help in coupling N release and uptake.The manure currently available to farmers in the communal areas of Zimbabwe is of low value as a source of N. Despite the deficiencies of available manure as a fertiliser, however, it is likely to remain a key resource for soil fertility management in the mixed livestock-arable farming systems which are such an important component of the agriculture sector in Africa. The challenge for the researcher is thus to increase the efficiency of utilisation of this resource. Most research has been focussed on manure as a source of nutrients in relation to its impact on crop growth and on soil properties. The efficiency of use, however, is influenced by many other factors that can only be appreciated by viewing manure within a system framework. This framework is discussed with reference to the small-scale low-input agropastoral farming that is predominant in large areas of Zimbabwe.Although there is a significant large-scale commercial sector for both arable and cash cropping and livestock production for beef and dairy, the small-scale sector occupies more than 80% of the farming population and is predominantly of a mixed livestock-arable structure. This practice is conducted in the communal areas of Zimbabwe and is therefore referred to as the Communal Area Farming System (CAFS) (Swift et al, 1989). Although there are many variations in farming practice across the country it is a profitable strategy to formulate some generalisations concerning the role of manure as a system resource in order to create the context within which proposals for improved use can be designed.Communal farming areas in Zimbabwe have predominantly sandy soils that are derived from granite. The soils are recognised as inherently infertile and require fertilisation to sustain yields. Land use in the communal areas is dominated by a low input agropastoral farming system in which the croplands are fixed in location and are typically adjacent to areas of savannah that are used communally for grazing livestock. Fertilisation practices are varied (Table 3). Since independence small-scale farmers have had considerably improved access to inorganic fertilisers, through favourable government credit and subsidy policies, so that in some areas the practice of inorganic fertilisation has become almost universal (Table 3). There is evidence that this situation may now be declining, however, since government policies have been altered under the Structural Adjustment Programme. The amount of inorganic fertiliser used is generally small and significantly below the levels recommended for the agro-ecological region. Farmers thus continue to use a whole range of locally derived fertilisers (Table 3;  Campbell et al, 1994). Manure is the most commonly used locally derived fertiliser. Cattle owners graze their livestock in communal grazing areas derived from the local savannah. The cattle are confined overnight in a cattle pen (kraal) close to the household. In most farming practices in Zimbabwe, manure which accumulates throughout the year in the kraal is spread on the fields during the dry season. Cattle are also driven into the fields to feed on remains of harvested crops, and in the process their droppings fertilise the soil. In Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa, cattle farmers of the Fulani tribe set up kraals in the fields. The position of the kraal is rotated throughout the field at regular intervals (Schleich, 1986). Direct manuring of fields through rotation of kraals is not practised widely in Zimbabwe but has been reported in some parts of the country such as Mutoko (Carter et al, 1993). In a small percentage of households manure may be collected from the grazing area and applied directly to the fields. The crop residues, particularly maize, are collected from the crop fields and fed to cattle in the pens and the nutrients returned to the soil through excreta rather than by direct mulching (Figure 1). This practice is very frequent (Table 3). Though the nutritive value of maize stover which is fed to cattle during the dry season is low (Topps and Manson, 1967), the cattle excrete 80-90% of the N, phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) they consume (Mentis, 1981). Thus, nutrient return through excreta from farm animals represents a potentially important pathway in the N cycle of the farming system. Data are amounts in kg/ha transferred between different sources and sinks (from Campbell et al, 1994).For clarity some minor transfers have been omitted. As the data in Table 3 indicate, manure is only one of a range of nutrient sources used by farmers in what amounts to a complex and sophisticated strategy of soil nutrient management. Figure 1 illustrates the major transfers of materials in a sample of farm households in the Mutoko Communal Area of Zimbabwe (Campbell et al, 1994). These farmers almost invariably use inorganic fertiliser (not shown in the diagram) but manure accounts for 57% of the mass and 87% of the N in the local fertiliser used on the crop (predominantly maize) fields. When the total N budget is taken into consideration inorganic fertiliser supplies 64% and manure 32% of the total N used by the farmers. Thus manure makes a significant contribution to the overall N budget even in farms with a high access to inorganic fertilisers. When these fertilisers are not available then it is the only significant source of N. Farmers without access to inorganic fertiliser who do not own cattle have no means of maintaining soil fertility.The amount of usable manure that can be obtained from cattle depends upon factors such as the amount of feed, the method of feeding (pen rearing, kraaling the animals at night, or free range) and the efficiency of collection of the manure. It is estimated that one livestock unit (1 LU = 500 kg live mass) produces about 7 t of recoverable manure per year when stabled all day. This declines to 2-3 t per year of usable manure (i.e. 30-40% recovery), if the animals are stabled only overnight (Schleich, 1986). To produce enough manure requires an extensive land resource base. Swift et al (1989) estimated that for the system to be sustainable, between 14 and 42 ha of grazing land is required to produce enough manure to achieve a yield of 2 t/ha of maize. This is clearly unattainable given the increasing population pressures and the consequent diminishing of the area under grazing.The distribution and return of cattle excreta to the arable subsystem also depends on the movement of cattle within and outside the subsystem when they are left free to graze the stover in the field. The 60-70% of manure which is not recovered in the kraal is not necessarily lost from the arable subsystem as some of the droppings may fall in the fields, although studies in Nigeria (Powell and Mohoamed-Saleem, 1987) indicated that the amount of manure deposited by cattle while grazing in the croplands is negligible; most of the manure is deposited in the pastures. This, however, is an important return to this system (Mentis, 1981;Swift et al, 1989).The nutrient content of the manure obtained from stabling is affected by several factors such as quality of feed, storage and handling conditions in the kraal, ambient temperature and moisture levels, and the length of exposure to the environment. The dung may be contaminated with sand, the initial sand content depending on the amount of soil ingested by cattle during grazing. This initial sand content varies considerably depending on soil type, stocking rate and the season, but is generally less than 10% of dry matter (Healy, 1968). The trampling of manure in the kraal by cattle is more important, however, and can result in exceptionally high sand contents of over 50% through mixing of manure and soil (Mugwira, 1984). The conditions in the kraal under which the manure is stored allow for aeration and result in an aerobically decomposed and dried manure, thence the potential for NH3 losses is high. The return of N through precipitation, estimated to vary between 2 and 5 kg N/ha per year in Zimbabwe, may offset these losses (Weinmann, 1955). When cattle are pen-fed with crop residues in the kraal, dung and urine may be mixed with stover. This produces manure with a high C:N ratio which may be a way of conserving nutrients. Poor grazing, storage, and handling conditions thus combine to produce a manure with low N content, often less than 1.2% total N in dry matter (Tanner and Mugwira, 1984).Three decomposition pathways of manures in storage have been identified, namely anaerobic fermentation, anaerobic-aerobic fermentation and aerobic decomposition (Kirchmann, 1985). The pathways occur under anaerobic, low oxygen supply, and aerobic conditions, respectively. Anaerobic decomposition results in a higher content of humic substances being formed than in aerobically decomposed manures (Siegel, 1936, cited in Kirchmann, 1985) and can decompose up to 40% of the organic carbon which is also higher than for anaerobic-aerobic fermentation (Coker et al, 1987). In Zimbabwe, manures are mostly stored under aerobic conditions.The type of decomposition pathway affects the concentration of mineral N in the manure. During anaerobic fermentation, up to 70% of the organic-N can be converted to the ammoniacal form resulting in concentrations of 800-1800 mg NH4/litre in the liquid phase (Coker et al, 1987). Undigested sewage sludge has only about 5-15% of total N present as ammoniacal-N in the liquid phase. In contrast, little or no ammoniacal-N is formed in aerobic and aerobic-anaerobic fermentation.Studies of the seasonal temperature effect on manure decomposition in Europe have shown that low temperatures during winter (<0°C) retarded decomposition thereby resulting in little loss of dry matter (Kirchmann, 1985). In contrast, dry-matter losses of about 50% were measured in compost stored for five months in summer, when temperatures were higher. These high dry-matter losses resulted in a decrease in C:N ratio as much of the loss represented mineralisation of carbon (Kirchmann, 1985). The latter conditions are much closer to those that prevail throughout the year in Africa.Nitrate levels are generally low in digested sludge or slurries and therefore substantial denitrification is not expected during storage (Loynachan et al, 1976). Generally N losses are lower from anaerobically stored manures than from aerated manures as there is less NH3 volatilisation during anaerobic decomposition. In comparison, ammonia losses from aerated manures can range from 1-60% of total N, with the amount increasing with storage time (Much and Steenhuis, 1982;Dewes et al, 1990).From measurements made to quantify the different processes and assess the relationship between inputs and outputs, a unified picture of N cycling in the arable subsystem can be derived. The findings on pool size and flows over a range of input conditions are presented in Figure 2. This figure depicts a relatively static situation; it is a first step towards developing a general predictive understanding of the functioning of the system as a means to identifying priorities for improving the efficiency of manure use in mixed farming systems.The main losses of N from the system are from ammonia volatilisation in the kraal, and nitrate leaching in the field. From an input of 100 kg/ha of manure N or fertiliser N into soil, NH3-N leaching losses of less than 1% were recorded; NO3-N leaching losses varied between 4 and 42%. The amount of manure N mineralised per year (in the year of application) was about 6% although it could be higher (46%) due to later mineralisation of residual manure N from earlier applications. Less than 1% of total N in maize roots was mineralised in the first season. Nitrogen uptake by maize from manures and fertilisers ranged between 0 and 69%. The partitioning of N within the plant was as follows: 8-10% in roots, 48-66% in above ground stover, and 26-42% in grain.Manure has been, and continues to be, an important source of N and other nutrients in agro-ecosystems throughout the savannah zones of Africa. However, current trends in agricultural intensification are leading to a progressive decrease in the availability and quality of this resource. Cattle ownership is becoming less frequent within the community; the area of land for grazing is decreasing; the quality of fodder is declining and the nutrient stocks of agricultural soils are being depleted. Increase in rural populations coupled with emigration of the young labour intensifies the problem.As reviewed above, the continued use of manure under these conditions confers little benefit as a nutrient fertiliser. Does this mean that the concept of manure as a key resource in African agriculture should be abandoned? In effect this conclusion means the abolition of the mixed farming system, a development with profound social and cultural implications. This paper argues that this conclusion is not justified. There are a number of pathways for intensification of agriculture in which manure may continue to be a resource of significant value in soil management. The main point that underlies this recommendation is one that is not dealt with in any detail in this review -that the long-term benefits of manure, in terms of both chemical and physical properties of soil, probably far outweigh the short-term gains from nutrient supply. This nonetheless only serves to emphasise the need to improve the nutrient use efficiency in the first instance. In view of the low quality of current manures as nutrient sources it is important to examine the optimum strategies for maximising the efficient use of manure N. One strategy that has already been advocated for circumstances where there is some limited access to inorganic fertilisers is joint application of the two sources and manipulation of the relative timing of application to synchronise N release and availability in the soil with demand for, and uptake by, crop plants. While manure is mostly applied before planting, there is some degree of flexibility in the time a farmer can apply fertiliser N. Manure can be supplemented with fertiliser N at pre-planting, or a few weeks after planting. Supplementary fertiliser N has generally been found to produce the best response 4-6 weeks after planting (Rodel et al, 1980). This is already a common practice (Table 3) that farmers are probably experimenting more intensively than scientists. This is only a limited example of the potential that exists for increasing nutrient use efficiency by application of mixed sources of nutrients. The 'average farmer' of Mutoko defined in the study by Campbell et al (1994) utilises four or five different fertilisers and applies them differentially across field types (Table 3; Figure 1). The number of potential combinations and possible outcomes in terms of both long-and short-term effects on soil fertility are sufficient to engage the attention of soil scientists for a considerable period of time. One of the major deficiencies in current research, and more particularly in the recommendations made for fertiliser use is the failure to use indigenous knowledge and practice as a starting point for scientific intervention.Additional increases in efficiency can be gained from modification of the storage stage of the system. Although losses by such pathways as volatilisation from the kraal may seem low, they may be quite significant within the context of low external input agriculture. Losses during storage should be reduced, and the manure should be incorporated into the soil early in the season before planting. One possible way of reducing losses before incorporation into the soil is to protect the manure from adverse weather both inside and outside the kraal. Using crop residues as bedding materials in the kraal may further reduce ammonia losses and conserve nutrients in the manure by absorbing urine and through immobilisation of N. The quality of manure may be improved if the anaerobic pathways are encouraged. This further points to the need to focus more research attention on the conditions of cattle penning.Ultimately, however, no improvements in fertiliser quality can be made if fodder availability for the livestock is insufficient. With increasing pressure on land it is necessary to look beyond the traditional free range communal grazing systems to more intensive alternatives. In this respect moves towards cut-and-carry and zero-grazing practices such as are being adopted in Kenya and other countries in East Africa would seem to be a sensible option. It is nonetheless necessary to also consider the inclusion of alternative sources of fodder nutrients, such as those from N-fixing trees and other legumes (Shepherd et al, this volume) to supplement the savanna vegetation. As pointed out before in relation to sustainable development of mixed farming systems, 'the maintenance of a stable and self-renewable nutrient reservoir in the grazing subsystem' is as important a focus for research for arable crop productivity as is the efficiency of fertiliser use on the arable fields (Swift et al, 1989). The significance of that recommendation lies in the continuing importance of herbivore manure as a resource for soil improvement.for crop production in semi-arid West Africa Livestock manure is an important source of nutrients for crop production in semi-arid West Africa.An assessment of the potential of manure to sustain crop production calls for an estimation of the amounts of manure that could be produced and captured and the feed resources required to maintain livestock used for manuring. This paper presents estimates of the amounts of manure produced by cattle, goats and sheep fed ad libitum under confinement. A model is presented to predict the yearly faecal output by grazing ruminants under fluctuating feed supplies. Statistics on livestock population and cultivated areas are used to evaluate the effects of livestock to cropped area ratios and the spatial location of livestock at manuring time, on the potential amounts of manure available for crop production. The number of cattle, sheep and goats needed to manure different proportions of a 10-ha farm and the amounts of feed required for herds used for manuring are estimated. Model results indicate that the potential of manure to continuously sustain crop production in semi-arid West Africa is limited by livestock population, spatial location of livestock at manuring time, manure excretion per animal, efficiency of manure collection, and the amounts of feed and land resources available. Since the relative importance of these limiting factors and the possibilities for realising this potential vary both spatially and temporally, it is suggested that these technical factors should be taken into consideration when evaluating the potential of manure to support crop production at national, regional, or farm level. Le fumier est une source importante d'éléments nutritifs dans la production agricole dans la zone semi-aride de l'Afrique de l'Ouest. Pour évaluer son potentiel à promouvoir la durabilité de la production agricole, il faut en connaître les quantités qui peuvent être produites et récupérées ainsi que celles du fourrage requis pour nourrir le bétail nécessaire à la production dudit fumier. Cet article présente des estimations des quantités de fumier produites par les bovins, ovins et caprins alimentés ad libitum à l'étable. Un modèle a été utilisé pour prévoir les quantités de fèces éliminées par an et par ruminant élevé sur des pâturages à disponible fourrage variable. Les effectifs animaux et les superficies cultivées ont été utilisés pour évaluer l'effet du rapport population animale/superficies cultivées et de la distribution spatiale des animaux pendant la fumure, sur les quantités potentielles de fumier utiles à la production agricole. Les effectifs de bovins, d'ovins et de caprins nécessaires à la fumure de diverses proportions d'une exploitation de 10 ha et les quantités de fourrage requises pour leur alimentation ont été estimés. Il ressort des résultats de l'application du modèle que la capacité du fumier à assurer la durabilité de la production agricole dans la zone semi-aride de l'Afrique de l'Ouest dépend de la densité de la population animale, de la distribution spatiale des animaux pendant la fumure, de la quantité de matières fécales éliminées par animal, de l'efficacité de la collecte du fumier, du volume d'aliments du bétail et de la superficie des terres disponibles. Etant donné que l'importance relative de ces facteurs limitants et la possibilité de réaliser le potentiel de fumure varient à la fois dans l'espace et dans le temps, il est proposé de tenir compte de ces paramètres techniques dans l'évaluation du potentiel du fumier à promouvoir la production agricole à l'échelle d'un pays, d'une région ou d'une exploitation.The importance of livestock faeces as sources of soil nutrients for crop production in semi-arid West Africa (SAWA) has been widely recognised (Sandford, 1989;McIntire et al, 1992;Powell and Williams, 1993). However, much controversy still exists about whether sufficient livestock, manure and feed resources are available in SAWA to continuously sustain crop production. An assessment of the potential of manure to support crop production in the long term demands an estimation of the amounts of faeces excreted by ruminants as well as those that could be collected. Since the use of manure to maintain soil fertility is based on transferring plant nutrients from rangelands to croplands (Sandford, 1989), estimating the feed and land resources required to maintain livestock used for manuring is also in order.This paper reviews the amounts of manure (faeces) excreted by cattle, goats and sheep fed ad libitum. With the use of a simulation model faecal outputs by ruminants grazing under fluctuating feed supplies and the amounts of manure that could be captured by farmers are predicted. The number of animals and the amount of feed and rangeland needed to manure different proportions of a 10-ha farm are estimated for a wide range of animal and land productivity scenarios.Most published data on faecal excretion by ruminants have been obtained with animals fed ad libitum under confinement. Several authors have assumed that under free access to feed, ruminants excrete a constant amount of faeces per unit of live (W) or metabolic (W 0.75 ) weight. Conrad et al (1964) found that dairy cows excreted 10.7 g DM faeces/kg W and indicated that this output was constant over a wide range of digestibilities. In the model developed by Kahn and Spedding (1984) a constant faecal output of 10.7 g DM/kg W was assumed. Konandreas and Anderson (1982) estimated that the potential faecal dry-matter (DM) output (F, g/day) of cattle could be predicted by the equation: F = f W 0.75 where: f (g DM/kg W 0.75 ) is a constant that depends on the physiological stage of the animals. The same authors estimated values for f of 42, 45 and 49 for dry, pregnant and lactating cows, respectively, and suggested that these estimates could be used for feeds in a range of digestibilities from 42 to 65%. However, some experimental evidence suggests that f decreases as feed digestibility increases (Katelaars, 1986).Since there is a mathematical relationship between apparent digestibility, feed intake and faecal output, the faecal excretion can be estimated from digestion trials data published in the literature. In this study literature data including 251 diets given to cattle, 247 diets given to sheep and 139 diets given to goats were analysed. Feeds used in the studies were primarily crop residues and tropical grasses, with no or low levels of supplementary concentrates or legume hays. A small proportion of feeds were leaves and fruits of fodder trees. Animal breeds from tropical and temperate climates were included in the survey, and in the case of small ruminants, dwarf breeds were also included. Although this literature survey was far from being exhaustive, it included a considerable number of diets with a wide range of digestibilities (Table 1). A great variation in faecal outputs was observed (Table 1). To allow for comparisons with literature data, faecal excretion is expressed in relation to W and W 0.75 . Mean faecal excretion was 8.5, 9.7 and  10.1 g DM per kg W and 34.1, 23.3 and 20.7 g DM/kg W 0.75 for cattle, sheep and goats, respectively. However, a regression analysis of faecal excretion (F, g DM/day) on W (kg), using log transformed data of both F and W, revealed that for a wide range of sizes the amount of faeces is related non-linearly Nutrient cycling in West Africa to W. Since no differences in slope across species were detected, these results suggest that this relationship is similar in the three species. The estimated regression equation (Figure 1) was:1.773 (±0.069) for cattle log F = 1.423 (±0.038) for goats + 0.645 (±0.028) log W 1.505 (±0.044) for sheep (P<0.01, r 2 =0.92) The estimates of faecal excretion coefficients as a function of W would therefore be 59.2±1.2 g DM/kg W 0.645 for cattle, 32.0±1.1 g DM/kg W 0.645 for sheep and 26.5±1.1 g DM/kg W 0.645 for goats. The inclusion of dry-matter digestibility (DMD, g/kg) in the model changed slightly the slope and indicated that the faecal output per unit weight decreases as digestibility increases. According to this analysis, the effect of DMD on faecal output is lowest in cattle, intermediate in sheep and highest in goats. The estimated regression equation was:2.000(±0.082) for cattle -0.0003(±0.00009) DMD for cattle log F = 1.857(±0.071) for goats + -0.0007(±0.00010) DMD for goats 1.825(±0.065) for sheep -0.0005(±0.00009) DMD for sheep + 0.623(±0.027) log W, (P<0.01, r 2 =0.93) The excretion of faeces per kg W 0.645 across digestibilities was highly variable (Figure 2). Similar trends were observed for cattle by Mertens (1973, cited in Katelaars, 1986) and for sheep by Katelaars and Tolkamp (1991). Feed DMD appeared to determine the maximum amount of faeces excreted per kg W 0.645 (Figure 2). When no other terms were included in the model, the linear and quadratic effects of DMD explained only 0.09 of the variation in faecal output per kg W 0.645 in cattle, 0.18 in sheep and 0.30 in goats. Further analysis showed a significant decrease in faeces excreted per kg W 0.645 in the three species as DMD increased above 55%. Intake (linear effect) explained 46% of the variation of faecal output in cattle, 63% in sheep and 37% in goats. In the three animal species, daily faecal output (F', g DM per kg W 0.645 ) increased linearly as daily DM intake (DMI, g per kg W 0.75 ) increased (Figure 3) according to the equations: F' = 21.3(±2.9) + 0.479(±0.033) DMI, (P<0.01, r 2 = 0.46) for cattle F' = 8.1(±2.3) + 0.397(±0.044) DMI, (P<0.01, r 2 = 0.37) for goats F' = 5.6(±1.4) + 0.534(±0.026) DMI, (P<0.01, r 2 = 0.63) for sheep The relationship between intake and faecal output supports the hypothesis that within the range of intakes considered, the capacity of the digestive tract to handle the undigested feed residues does not limit feed intake ( Van Soest, 1982).Predicting faecal output of confined livestock becomes relevant since stall feeding is expected to increase as demographic pressure causes more land to be cultivated and reduces natural grazing land in SAWA (Winrock International, 1992). The relationships presented above could be used, with varying levels of precision, to predict the faecal excretion of confined ruminants fed ad libitum, when feed intake, digestibility or both are unknown. However, intake and digestion studies are usually conducted with males in good body condition. Caution should be exercised when predicting the faecal output of animals in extreme body condition or females in gestation or lactation. In cattle, faecal output per unit of live weight was found to be affected by body condition (Barlow et al, 1990), physiological status (Konandreas and Anderson, 1982) and genotype (Lambourne et al, 1986;Barlow et al, 1990).The influence of anti-nutritional factors, e.g. tannins, on feed intake and digestibility should also not be ignored. In the set of data analysed, intake of and faecal output from diets known to contain such compounds were extremely low.Under traditional practices in SAWA animals used for manuring graze during the day and are corralled overnight for manure collection. Although some authors (e.g. Ellis, 1978) have considered that the maximum faecal output by grazing cattle is constant and similar to that of confined animals, several studies in SAWA have shown that during the wet season the amount of faeces excreted by cattle can be as high as 18 g DM/kg W (Dicko and Sangaré, 1985;Diarra et al, 1993). The discrepancies could be due to the differences in feed digestibility and/or in the body condition of the animals, which would lead to large differences in feed intake per unit weight. Grazing animals in SAWA are also subject to extreme seasonal variations in feed supplies and quality. Although grazing animals have free access to feed, often feed availability may limit intake. For this reason the faecal excretion by grazing ruminants is likely to differ from that of animals fed ad libitum under confinement.Digestibility and amounts of feed consumed by grazing ruminants in SAWA have been reported by Dicko and Sangaré (1985), Guerin (1987), Mahler (1990), Diarra et al (1993) and Schlecht et al (this volume), but the information available on these variables is still very limited.For the objectives of this study, a model was developed to predict the amounts of faeces produced by cattle, sheep and goats grazing under fluctuating feed supplies. The basic model assumes that growth rates reflect feed availability and digestibility. Inputs for the model are W, average daily gain (ADG, g) and feed DMD. In the model, metabolisable energy (ME) required for maintenance (MEm) and growth (MEg) are predicted for cattle and sheep from MAFF (1984) and for goats from NRC (1981). MEm is adjusted to account for ME needs for walking and grazing. Consumption of digestible organic matter (DOMI) is estimated from ME and that of digestible DM (DDMI) from DOMI and concentration of OM. Faecal output and DM intake are then predicted from DMD and DDMI.The sensitivity of the model to variations in ADG and DMD for 300-kg cattle, a 35-kg sheep and a 25-kg goat, when MEm were increased 50% due to grazing is shown in Figure 4. As in the case of animals fed ad libitum (Table 1), for a given DMD value, the predicted amount of faeces per kg W at maintenance was highest in goats and lowest in cattle. Faecal output increased as ADG increased and/or as DMD decreased. Differences among species in their response in faecal excretion to changing ADG and DMD reflect differences in the assumptions made in the prediction of nutrient requirements (NRC, 1981;ARC, 1984). Although lack of experimental data does not allow for proper validation of these model results, in general the predicted faecal outputs are in the range of values observed in grazing studies (Dicko and Sangaré, 1985;Diarra et al, 1993;Schlecht et al, this volume) in SAWA.The model was run under three different scenarios (A, B, and C). In each scenario a yearly cycle was divided into three seasons (wet, from July to September; post-harvest, from October to January; and dry, from February to June). For the three scenarios the initial W was considered to be 175 kg for cattle, 25 kg for sheep, and 20 kg for goats. In scenario A, which emulates a low productivity level, the ADG's were considered to be 400, 50 and -300 g/d for cattle, 50, 25 and -50 g/day for sheep and 30, 20 and -20 g/d for goats, in the wet, post-harvest and dry seasons, respectively. In scenario B, which emulated an average level of productivity, the corresponding weight changes during the three seasons were assumed to be 500 , 200, and -250 g/d for cattle, 70, 40, and -30 g/d for sheep, and 50,  30, and -15 g  were 600, 225, and -150 g/d for cattle, 80, 50 and -20 g/d for sheep, and 60, Nutrient cycling in West Africa 40, and 0 g/d for goats, in the wet, post-harvest and dry season, respectively. With these rates of weight change, in a one-year cycle cattle would gain -2, 33 and 60 kg, sheep would gain 0, 7, and 10 kg, and goats would gain 2.5, 6 and 10.5 kg in scenarios A, B, and C, respectively. These rates of weight change are comparable to those reported in the literature (Wilson, 1986;Mahler, 1990;Schlecht et al, this volume). The seasonal changes in DMD and extra ME required for grazing were also set arbitrarily. Extra ME used for grazing was assumed to be 50, 45 and 40% of MEm for scenarios A, B, and C, respectively. Feed DMD used as input decreased from 60 to 50% from the wet to the dry season in cattle and sheep, but that for goats was kept constant at 58%.The simulated yearly and seasonal amounts of faeces excreted by the reference animals of the three species is given in Table 2. As the level of animal production increased, only small increases in faecal output were predicted. This is explained by the lower digestibility and higher amounts of feed used for maintenance in the lower levels of animal productivity. In scenario B the predicted amount of manure produced by individual animals during the dry season was only about 10% higher than that predicted for scenario A. Similarly, dry season faecal outputs in scenario C were only about 7% higher than those estimated for scenario B. For the three scenarios the predicted daily faecal excretion during the dry season was similar or only slightly lower than that of the wet season. In the model, the higher amount of feed used for growth in the wet season is compensated by the lower feed digestibility in the dry season. Only limited data on seasonal variations in faecal excretion were found in the literature. In Senegal, Guerin (1987) observed a higher faecal excretion by cattle in the dry season than in the wet season. Similar differences were observed in sheep in Ethiopia (Ameha, 1993). However, Dicko and Sangaré (1985) and Diarra et al (1993) observed higher faecal excretions by cattle in the wet season. Model results (Figure 4) suggest that daily faecal output during the dry season would be higher than in the wet season only if feed available in the dry season does not limit intake and is less digestible than the feed available in the wet season. Otherwise, lack of feed in the dry season would lead to decreased faecal outputs.The seasonal variation in daily faecal output predicted by the model was much lower than that reported in the literature. For instance, in scenario B, daily faecal output through the year varied between 10.2 and 12.1 g DM/kg W, whereas Diarra et al (1993) observed variations between 8 and 18 g DM/kg W and Dicko and Sangaré (1985) between 8 and 15 g DM/kg W. The difference could be due to discrepancies between the actual extra ME (feed) needed for grazing and the one used as input in the simulations. In spite of these differences, for the purpose of this study the predicted faecal outputs were used on the basis that the simulated values are within the range of and are similar to experimental data reported in the literature.For reasons inherent in the ways animals are managed in the production systems of SAWA, farmers are unable to collect all the manure excreted by livestock. The manuring season usually extends from October to May, when manure is deposited in fields scheduled for cultivation the following year. The most common way of manure deposition is by corralling or tethering livestock during the night. During the day the animals are allowed to graze rangelands, fallows or crop residue fields.Because of the spatial separation of manured croplands from the areas used for grazing, there is a trade-off between the time used for grazing and the time used for manuring. As animals are tethered longer in the fields for manure deposition, the time available for grazing, the amount of forage consumed and the amount of faeces excreted are expected to decrease. How long livestock can be kept on the cropping fields for manuring, without compromising feed intake, depends primarily on the distance between the fields being manured and the areas used for grazing, and on the consumption rate while grazing. Consumption rate depends, to a large extent, on the amount of forage mass per unit area (SCA, 1991). Under most common situations, it is unlikely that livestock could be used for manuring for more than 12 h/day without adversely affecting forage intake.A second factor that influences the efficiency of manure collection is the variation in the rate of faecal excretion during the day. The rate of defecation (g of faecal DM excreted per hour) during manuring time appears to be lower than the faecal excretion rate while grazing. In a study conducted by ILCA in Niger (unpublished data) faeces were collected from sheep in metabolism crates every four hours for seven days. The rate of excretion was lowest during the night and highest during the day (Table 3). This pattern of lower faecal excretion rate during the night, i.e. when animals are resting and manuring, has also been observed in studies at ILCA-Niger (unpublished data) with grazing small ruminants early in the dry season (November) and with working and non-working oxen (A. Fall, personal communication). In Mali, Schlecht et al (this volume) observed that grazing cattle excreted 43% of the daily faecal output during the night. Source: unpublished data (ILCA-Niger).Since defecation by grazing animals is commonly associated with certain physical activities (e.g. getting up after having laid down, walking, watering), manure concentrates in resting sites, traveling routes and watering points.In the model described above, it was conservatively assumed that 50% of the manure excreted between October and May could be captured during night corralling. The predicted amounts of manure that could be collected per animal are shown in Table 4. Model predictions indicated that under scenario B, 301 kg DM of manure could be collected from a reference cow, 60 kg from a reference sheep and 45 kg from a reference goat. Again, no experimental data are available for validating these predictions. However, the predicted amounts of manure collected from cattle are in the range of the very limited published data on manure collected per animal. For instance, Bosma and Jager (1992) reported that when cattle were used for manuring 14 h/day during four months only between 80 and 190 kg of manure per tropical livestock unit (TLU) were collected. In another study, Khombe et al (1992) reported that 424 kg of manure (with 41% sand) were collected annually from 170-kg steers when they were penned for 14 h/day. In manuring studies at ILCA Niger, less than 1 kg of faecal DM was collected daily from cattle (Powell, unpublished data) during night corralling. Schlecht et al (this volume) found also that less than 1 kg of faecal OM was excreted daily during the night by grazing cattle. Higher estimates of manure collected per animal were given by Berger et al (1987), who assumed levels of collection of 600 kg manure per year for 400-kg cattle, and Landais and Lhoste (1993), who reported the same levels of manure deposition per tropical livestock unit (TLU) per year. The values of manure collected per sheep predicted by the model are also similar to the values of manure excreted per night by rams and ewes (220 to 330 g DM) observed by Ameha (1993) in Ethiopia. The amounts of manure available for crop production in a given region depend on the number of animals, the proportion of animals used for manuring, the amount of faeces excreted per animal and the ability of the farmers to collect it. In addition to the inefficiency in collecting the manure produced by an individual animal, several management practices decrease the number of animals that could be used for manuring. Variable proportions of livestock are taken on short or long transhumance during the dry season (Bourn et al, 1986). Whereas the farmer's livestock may not be available for manuring his/her own fields, he/she may collect manure from transhumant herds. The spatial location of livestock during the manuring season is thus an important factor that influences the amount of manure available for cropping. This is also determined to a large extent by the distance between the cropping fields and the non-cropped areas used for grazing during the dry season. To illustrate this, model results were used with statistics on cultivated areas and livestock population in SAWA countries.Tables 5 and 6 show the cultivated areas, livestock population and livestock to cropped area ratios for Sahelian countries. According to FAO (1990) and ILCA (1993), a high number of animals per cultivated hectare is found only in Mauritania. However, as explained above, if livestock are not located near the cropping fields during the dry season, not all animals are available for manuring. According to these statistics, Burkina Faso, Senegal, and especially Niger have the lowest numbers of livestock per hectare of cultivated land.If all animals were used for manuring, the model predicts that Chad, The Gambia and Mali would have between 1200 and 1600 kg of manure/ha, Senegal and Burkina Faso between 450 and 650 kg/ha,and Niger about 300 kg/ha (Table 6). The weighted mean for all countries would be less than 700 kg of manure/ha. These figures are mean values, i.e. they assume that all cultivated areas are manured every year at a constant rate. In addition, livestock movements across countries occur (Bourn et al, 1986) and validity checks of statistics on cultivated areas and livestock population are not readily available. For these reasons these figures can only be considered as gross aggregated estimates of potential manure availability. Powell and Williams (1993) indicated that farmers in western Niger manure about one third of their fields every year. On the other hand, on-farm trials evidence suggests that between three and seven tonnes of manure are needed per hectare every other year to replenish the nutrients taken up through grain and stover removal (Williams et al, this volume). At a rate of manure application of three tonnes/ha, and with 80% of the livestock population used for manuring, the amounts of manure available would be sufficient for manuring every year 33 to 42% of the cultivated area in Mali, Chad, and The Gambia, 12 to 18% in Burkina Faso and Senegal, and only 8% in Niger. The aggregated value for all countries would be 18%. These estimates decrease as the proportion of livestock taken on transhumance during the dry season, that would not be available for manuring, increases (Figure 5). Sources: FAO (1989) andILCA (1993). Livestock holders of SAWA do not keep animals only for manuring, but for a variety of purposes.Thus the amounts of feed consumed by animals used for manuring cannot be charged solely against manure production. However, since most of the manure nutrients are of feed origin, the amounts of feed consumed during both manuring and non-manuring seasons need to be considered in the nutrient balance. As indicated above, the information on feed consumption by grazing animals in SAWA is quite limited. In the present study, the model used to predict the excretion of faeces by livestock was also used to estimate the amounts of feed consumed in the three scenarios of animal productivity (A, B and C) as described above. The simulated amounts of feed consumed per animal are shown in Table 7. Since as the level of productivity increased, feed digestibility was assumed to be higher and the metabolisable energy needed for grazing was assumed to decrease due to higher feed availability, the amounts of feed consumed per animal increased only slightly as the simulated scenario changed from A to B and from B to C.Assuming a cattle:goat:sheep ratio of 1:2:1 (approximately the ratio in Niger), the amounts of feed consumed by livestock needed to manure one hectare at a rate of 3000 kg/ha were estimated (Table 8). Regardless of the level of animal productivity, the model predicted that about 20 tonnes of feed DM will be consumed by livestock in order to capture three tonnes of manure. The low efficiency is due to the feed consumed during the non-manuring season (June to September) and the inefficiency (50%) of manure collection during the manuring season (October to May).  Experimental data have shown that only small amounts of manure are deposited in croplands during in-situ grazing after grain harvest (ICRISAT, 1993) and that most of the nutrients captured through manuring are transferred from rangelands (Sandford, 1989). Therefore the question of how many hectares of rangeland are needed to sustain one hectare of cultivated land through manuring arises.Because livestock and rangelands are not exploited only for the purpose of manuring, estimating rangeland to cropland ratios (RCR) needed to produce a given amount of manure is only meaningful in the sense that it provides an approach for evaluating the potential of manure to sustain crop production without other external sources of soil nutrients. On this basis, the number of hectares of rangeland needed to manure one hectare of cultivated land were estimated in this study.The RCR required to sustain the long-term productivity of crops has been estimated by several researchers. For instance, Sandford (1989) found that between 16 and 47 ha of grazing are required to sustain maize production at a yield of 1 to 3 tonnes/ha if grazing animals are used and between 2 and 17 if confined animals are used. The large variation in RCR required is not surprising, given the number of factors that influence the RCR required (Turner, this volume). It can be expected that the RCR needed to ensure the long-term productivity of crops vary from region to region, from village to village and from farm to farm. This paper contends that productivity of croplands and rangelands is the single most important factor that influences the RCR needed to sustain crop productivity using manure. Since there is also a large inter-annual variation in primary production of rangelands (Hiernaux, 1993), RCR need to take into account the long-term mean productivity of rangelands. Furthermore, the RCR needed would depend on the amount (kg/ha) of plant mass actually consumed by livestock in the rangelands rather than on the levels of primary production.To illustrate the influence of land productivity on RCR, the model was run under three scenarios (X, Y and Z) covering a wide range of primary production of cultivated and uncultivated land. The levels of land productivity and feed consumed per ha assumed in each scenario are shown in Table 9. The wide range of primary production considered (500, 1500 and 3000 kg DM/ha per year for scenarios X, Y and Z, respectively) is justified by the large spatial and temporal variations observed in the annual production of Sahelian rangelands (Grouzis, 1988;Hiernaux, 1993). During the dry season, standing hay (primarily from annual plants) and litter constitute most of the fodder on offer. However, only a fraction of the standing mass is available to livestock grazing during the dry season because of microbial decomposition, consumption by insects (termites and ants), and other losses. High proportions of the vegetative mass may disappear over the season due to higher rates of degradation early and late in the season (Hiernaux, 1989). When grazing is spread equally over the season, only about 2/3 of the initial vegetation mass may be available to the animals. In addition, there are losses of forage mass due to trampling, which speeds up the decomposition of organic matter and soil erosion. Since these losses increase as the above-ground vegetation mass increases, it was assumed that 0.4, 0.5 and 0.6 of the forage available to the animals would be lost to trampling in the scenarios X, Y and Z, respectively. Thus from initial standing masses of 500, 1500 and 3000 kg D/ha per year, only 200, 500 and 800 kg DM/ha were assumed to be consumed by livestock in the scenarios X, Y and Z, respectively.When livestock graze during the growing season, forage growth is affected. The response of plants to defoliation through grazing is a function of the intensity and the frequency of the defoliation (Hiernaux and Turner, unpublished data). The higher the grazing pressure, the more the subsequentgrowth is affected. The response is also influenced by time of defoliation. For instance, grasses are more sensitive if defoliated at heading time (Oesterheld and McNaughton, 1991).In the model, the impact of wet-season grazing was accounted for by adding to total feed intake a fraction of the potential production (Grazef) of the range calculated with the following function: Grazef = maxef * (1 + (maxef/2) * e (-6 * (TLU*500/PPP)) )where: maxef = maximum rate of reduction of the production TLU = stocking rate (TLU/ha) during the rainy season PPP = potential primary production in kg DM/ha.In the model, maxef varies with the level of primary production and is equal to:0.4 at PPP = 500 kg DM/ha per year 0.5 at PPP = 1500 kg DM/ha per year 0.6 at PPP = 3000 kg DM/ha per yearThe impact of wet-season grazing is assessed in terms of feed production, which is then converted to area of rangeland on the basis of the potential production. This area is added to the area required to provide the dry season feed. In the model, feed resources for the dry season include rangeland and crop residues produced by both manured and non-manured fields (Table 9).The model was run for a 10-ha farm varying the proportion of cultivated land manured. The number of hectares of rangeland required by this farm for dry season grazing, in the three levels of land productivity (X, Y and Z) is shown in Figure 6. As expected the estimated RCR needed by the 10-ha farm are highly variable. However, because of the small differences in the total amount of feed needed under the three scenarios of animal productivity (A, B and C) for manuring one hectare, the estimated RCR for these scenarios are very similar.Clearly, the number of hectares of rangeland required by the 10-ha farm for capturing a given amount of manure depends largely on the productivity of the land and are less affected by livestock productivity. The model also predicted that, relative to the low levels of animal productivity, the same amount of manure could be obtained with a lower number of more productive animals grazing at lower stocking rates.The rangeland areas shown in Figure 6 would provide, with the crop residues (Table 9), the feed needs in the 10-ha farm during the manuring (October to May) season. These areas should be located near the farm, i.e. within walking distance from the cropping land.Additional rangeland areas would be required to sustain livestock during the non-manuring (June to September) season. However, these areas could be located either near the farm, if manuring animals are sedentary, or in other areas, if they leave the farm during the wet season. Animals used for manuring can be owned either by the farmers or by pastoralists. Livestock owned by farmers can be sedentary or leave on short transhumance during the wet season if wet season grazing is not available. Pastoralists' livestock usually return to the dry non-cultivated zones early in the wet season.The estimated rangeland areas needed for wet season grazing are shown in Figure 7. These areas are smaller than those required for the manuring season. As the level of animal productivity decreases (scenario A) more animals would be needed for manuring (Table 8). This would lead to a slightly higher feed demand during the wet season and a higher grazing impact on forage growth. Therefore, in scenario A, more land is needed for wet season grazing than in scenarios B and C. As in the case of rangeland needs for dry season grazing, the higher the land productivity the lower the need for rangeland. In addition to manure, substantial amounts of nutrients are excreted through urine. Gans andMercer (1977, cited in Church, 1975) indicated that cattle excrete 17 to 45 ml of urine per kg live weight daily and that normal excretion rates for sheep and goats are 10 to 40 ml/kg live weight. Senft et al (1987) measured the urine excretion by grazing cattle during a yearly grazing cycle on rangelands. Unfortunately these values are of little applicability for predictive purposes, since the amount of urine produced by animals is highly variable depending on water, salt and nitrogen intake, environmental and body temperature and exercise, among other factors (Church, 1975). The amounts of nutrients excreted through urine seem to be more important and are more amenable for prediction than the amounts or volumes of urine (Thorne, this volume).The nutrients excreted through urine were ignored in the model. This limitation would be of no consequence if phosphorus is the most limiting nutrient for crop production, since phosphorus excretion through urine is negligible. Ignoring the excretion of nitrogen in urine may have only a small effect on estimates of RCR, since most urinary nitrogen appears to volatilise soon after urination. Furthermore, in experiments conducted to evaluate the response of crops to manure, part or all of the urine effect is included in the faecal effect, depending on the way manure was applied. It appears that the positive effect of urine is related more to its influence on soil pH and availability of phosphorus than on its contribution to the nitrogen balance (Powell et al, 1992;Zomda and Powell, unpublished data).Manure is often considered a key element of mixed crop-livestock systems due to its positive influence on crop productivity. The practice of manuring is widespread in SAWA and will most likely continue in the future. This paper shows that the potential of manure to continuously sustain crop production in SAWA is limited by livestock population, spatial location of livestock at manuring time, manure excretion per animal, efficiency of manure collection, and the amounts of feed and land resources available. The relative importance of these limiting factors and the possibilities for realising this potential, vary both spatially and temporally. It is suggested that these technical factors should be taken into consideration when evaluating the potential of manure to support crop production at national, regional, or farm level.Pour un système durable de production au Mali-Sud: accroître le rôle des ruminants dans le maintien de la matière organique des solsDépartement de recherches sur les systèmes de production rurale (DRSPR)/Sikasso B.P. 186, Sikasso (Mali)Le maintien de la matière organique dans les sols agricoles est un problème majeur pour la durabilité du système de production agricole au Mali-Sud, notamment lorsque les jachères se raccourcissent. La croissance démographique, l'extension des superficies emblavées, la fréquence des feux de brousse et l'accroissement des effectifs animaux sont les principaux facteurs responsables de l'inefficacité des jachères naturelles. En fonction des zones, la proportion de terres cultivées varie de 20 à 45%, tandis que le taux de terres arables ne dépasse guère 60% et que la charge animale peut aller de 19 à 30 UBT/km 2 . Dans une modélisation avec les données de trois zones d'études du DRSPR/Sikasso, deux possibilités de maintien du taux de matière organique du sol ont été évaluées. L'intensification de la production de fumier par l'utilisation de la litière pendant toute l'année s'est révélée plus efficace que la mise en jachère améliorée protégée pendant la saison des pluies. Cependant, avec les proportions actuelles de terres cultivées, aucun système de production durable ne semble envisageable sans une augmentation des effectifs de ruminants. Ceux-ci permettront en effet de rentabiliser les investissements dans les jachères améliorées, lesquelles, pâturées pendant la saison sèche, permettront de promouvoir la durabilité du système de production. La mise en stabulation du bétail pendant la saison sèche et chaude et le début de la saison des pluies permet de promouvoir le recyclage des résidus, de valoriser la main-d'oeuvre pendant la saison sèche, de favoriser le démarrage de la végétation naturelle et d'augmenter la charge au-delà de 30 UBT/km 2 . Des mesures socio-économiques aussi bien au niveau de l'exploitation, du terroir que de la région devront être prises pour favoriser un changement radical du système de conduite des animaux.Département de recherches sur les systèmes de production (DRSPR)/Sikasso BP 186, Sikasso, MaliThe maintenance of soil organic matter (SOM) in cultivated soils is a major constraint to sustainable crop production in southern Mali, especially with reduced fallow periods. Population growth, increasing cultivated areas and livestock numbers, and frequent bush fires are the major factors contributing to inefficient natural fallows. In some areas, 20 to 45% of the land is cultivated, about 60% is arable, and stocking rates range from 19 to 30 TLU/km 2 . Two methods for maintaining SOM have been evaluated using a model and data from three studies conducted by DRSPR/Sikasso. Intensification of manure production all year round while using litter was more effective than improved fallows ungrazed during the rainy season. However, given the present land use rate, no sustainableLa zone d'étude du DRSPR/Sikasso au Mali-Sud comprend trois entités agro-écologiques (tableau 1), avec différents systèmes de culture en fonction de la pluviométrie et de la longueur de la saison végétative. Dans le système traditionnel de culture de cette région, les exploitations agricoles se répartissent en champs de case autour des villages et en champs de brousse, plus éloignés des villages. Généralement, les champs de case sont cultivés en permanence grâce à un apport de nutriments par l'homme, les animaux, les arbres, etc. Quant aux champs de brousse, ils sont, après une période de culture (3 à 7 ans), mis en jachère, de préférence pendant des périodes très longues, allant de 15 à 30 ans. Ce système itinérant est viable, à condition que moins de 33% des terres cultivables soient effectivement cultivés et que les jachères remplissent effectivement leur fonction de restauration de la fertilité (Hoefsloot et al., 1993). L'introduction de la culture commerciale du coton, de pair avec la traction animale, a entraîné une modification des plans de culture et une extension des superficies cultivées. Le coton, culture principale, a bénéficié d'un paquet technologique introduit et entretenu par la Compagnie malienne pour le développement des textiles (CMDT), le principal organisme de développement de la zone. Les autres cultures (maïs, sorgho, mil, etc.) bénéficient directement ou indirectement de ce même paquet technologique (techniques culturales et effet résiduel de fertilisation surtout).C'est ainsi qu'on rencontre couramment des rotations culturales de type coton/céréales et coton/céréales/céréales dans les zones humides et subhumides, et céréales/céréales/arachides dans la zone semi-aride. Le système de culture reste principalement extensif en intrants et intensif en main-d'oeuvre, en raison du faible coût-opportunité de la main-d'oeuvre, de la libre disponibilité de la terre, et du faible rapport \"prix produit/prix engrais\" (Berckmoes et al., 1990). Cela est moins prononcé pour le coton que pour les céréales, dont la fertilisation directe ne se justifie pas pour la plupart des paysans. Par conséquent au moins 40% des revenus des paysans sont acquis grâce à l'épuisement des sols au niveau des parcelles agricoles (Pol, 1991).La culture de rente dégage des revenus monétaires et le rôle des bovins a évolué de la fonction de prestige vers un rôle d'épargne, de production de fumier et de force de travail. Cela a entraîné une généralisation de la possession des bovins, et une utilisation extensive des bovins par manque d'investissements alternatifs. Qui plus est, une démographie galopante et l'installation quasi permanente d'importants troupeaux transhumants venant du Nord, ont provoqué une surcharge des parcours dans le Mali-Sud (Leloup et Traoré, 1989et 1991 Source: rapports divers DRSPR/Sikasso.Par conséquent, dans de nombreuses régions du Mali-Sud, les jachères naturelles n'ont qu'une faible capacité naturelle de restauration de la fertilité; ainsi les bilans d'azote (N) et de potassium (K) sont négatifs et sont respectivement de -5 kg/ha/an et de -7 kg/ha/an au coeur de la zone cotonnière du Mali-Sud (Pol, 1992). Le taux de matière organique, crucial pour l'utilisation efficace des éléments nutritifs (Ridder et Keulen, 1990) est menacé par la fréquence des feux de brousse, qui peuvent réduire l'accumulation annuelle de la masse racinaire de 1,9 à 1,2 t/ha/an (UNESCO/PNUE/FAO, 1981).La dégradation des terres cultivées se manifeste à trois niveaux, à savoir le bilan des éléments nutritifs, le pH, et le taux de matière organique. Sous les différents systèmes de culture à base de coton, le bilan des éléments nutritifs est déficitaire pour N et K et s'établit respectivement à 25 et 20 kg/ha/an (Pol, 1992).Ce déficit est encore plus élevé sous les systèmes céréales qui ne bénéficient que rarement de fumure. Des pH compris entre 5 et 4 ont été observés (DRSPR, 1991). Cette acidification des sols semble due à l'utilisation courante des engrais ammoniacaux tels que l'urée (Pieri, 1989). Pour sa neutralisation, l'apport régulier de fumier est aussi efficace que le chaulage (DRSPR, 1993). En ce qui concerne la capacité d'échange des cations (CEC), facteur fortement lié au taux de carbone organique du sol (Ridder et Keulen, 1990), des valeurs proches de 2,4 meq/100 g ont été observées en zone semi-aride et subhumide (Diarra et al., 1992). Ce taux médiocre augmente avec la jachère améliorée, sans toutefois atteindre les valeurs considérées comme acceptables (6 meq/100 g; SRCVO, 1978).Il ne fait aujourd'hui plus aucun doute que seule la mécanisation de l'agriculture peut permettre de produire suffisamment pour subvenir aux besoins d'une population sans cesse plus nombreuse. La motorisation intermédiaire ou même la motorisation tout court ne semble pas une réalité pour les paysans du Mali-Sud compte tenu de son impact sur l'environnement et de sa faible rentabilité. Dansces conditions, la seule forme de mécanisation possible de l'agriculture est la traction animale. Par conséquent, le recyclage efficace des résidus de récolte par l'enfouissement n'est pas applicable au Mali-Sud, et entraînerait par ailleurs une diminution temporaire de la disponibilité des éléments nutritifs (Ganry et al., 1974).Les principales options pour maintenir un taux de matière organique acceptable sont par conséquent l'intensification de la production de fumier et l'amélioration de la jachère. La rentabilité de la jachère améliorée est fortement liée à son exploitation par le bétail (Fomba et Bosma, 1992;Hoefsloot et al., 1993). Cependant, quelles sont les possibilités et les limites de l'utilisation du bétail par rapport au maintien du taux de matière organique? On tentera, à partir d'un modèle, de répondre à cette question par zone agro-écologique. La description dudit modèle sera suivie d'une évaluation des perspectives d'intégration agropastorale.Les données disponibles de DRPSR/Sikasso (tableau 2) ont été utilisées pour une modélisation destinée à apporter des éléments de réponse à la question principale. Cette modélisation exclut la préparation du compost qui est pourtant une option possible dans les exploitations disposant de peu de bétail. On a également supposé que de nouveaux défrichages ne sont autorisés que pour les seules jachères améliorées. Exécutée avec un fichier de calcul lotus 1-2-3, cette modélisation empirique n'est pas dynamique.La première condition du modèle (figure 1) est la restitution suffisante de matière organique en vue d'en maintenir le taux dans les terres cultivées. Du point de vue système, les besoins en matière organique dépendent de la proportion de terres cultivées et peuvent être satisfaits par la jachère et la fumure organique. Dans le modèle (voir annexe A pour le fichier de calcul), le nombre d'UBT nécessaire pour produire suffisamment de fumure organique dépend du niveau de production de fumier, et du pourcentage des terres en culture et en jachère améliorée. Pour vérifier la faisabilité du système, on calcule un bilan de litière, un bilan fourrager ainsi que le taux du fourrage fourni par la pâture. La modélisation est effectuée pour les proportions de terres actuellement cultivées en fonction de quatre taux de jachère améliorée et six niveaux de production de fumier.Pour la restitution de la matière organique, la quantité de fumure organique recommandée, soit 7,5 t/ha/3 ans (Pol, 1991) a été retenue. Selon Ridder et Keulen (1990), cette quantité devrait suffire pour maintenir à niveau acceptable le taux de matière organique dans les sols. Pour le calcul des besoins en fumier, on déduit la quantité fournie par la jachère et le fumier déposé au champ par le bétail. La partie du fumier déposée au champ pendant la vaine pâture (200 kg/UBT/an) est déduite, en supposant une charge animale de 2 UBT/ha de terre cultivée. Conformément aux données publiées (Hoefsloot et al., 1993; UNESCO/PNUE/FAO, 1979) et aux résultats préliminaires obtenus par le projet Production soudano-sahélienne (PSS) (Groot, communication orale), il est considéré que l'apport de matière organique de la jachère améliorée est au moins équivalent à celui de 7, 5 t/ha/3 ans de fumier. La jachère améliorée considérée est une sole de Stylosanthes hamata fertilisée au semis et protégée pendant trois saisons végétatives consécutives (Diarra et al., 1992). Le taux de jachère améliorée est fonction du schéma de rotation, dans lequel trois années de jachère suivies de trois années de culture sont alternées avec plusieurs cycles de trois ans de culture avec à chaque fois application de fumure organique au cours de la première année. Ainsi, quatre taux de mise en jachère améliorée, à savoir 0, 17, 25, et 33% des terres cultivées ont été considérés. Le dernier taux a été utilisé uniquement pour la zone de Koutiala, car un tel taux semble peu réaliste au Mali-Sud.Le niveau de production de fumier est fortement lié aux types de conduite, dont six ont été considérés (tableau 3). Les types A et B sont des types traditionnels, tandis que les types C, D et E sont actuellement en cours de vulgarisation. En ce qui concerne le type F, c'est-à-dire la stabulation saisonnière, il ne cesse de gagner du terrain dans la région de Tominian (Bosma, 1992). 2/ Compte tenu de la généralisation de la possession des bovins, de l'éclatement des exploitations composées et du coût d'opportunité élevé du gardiennage, la divagation est difficilement maîtrisable.Le bilan de litière est déterminé comme la différence entre les besoins et la disponibilité. Le nombre d'UBT, le niveau de production de fumier, et les caractéristiques climatologiques de la zone sont déterminants pour les besoins en litière (tableau 4). La disponibilité est l'ensemble des tiges de coton et des chaumes de céréales non utilisées comme fourrage et restant après le passage du bétail dans les champs (vaine pâture). Source: Bosma et Jager, 1992.Le bilan fourrager est la différence entre le nombre d'UBT qu'on peut alimenter et le nombre d'UBT nécessaire; il est calculé à partir de l'utilisation du fourrage par stockage et de la capacité de charge des pâturages naturels. La disponibilité de ces pâturages est déterminée par le pourcentage d'occupation des terres par les cultures, les jachères améliorées et les infrastructures. En ce qui concerne l'occupation par les infrastructures, le chiffre de 10% par rapport aux terres cultivées a été retenu. En tenant compte des possibilités et des opinions des paysans, on considère quatre options pour le stockage du fourrage, à savoir par ordre de préférence; les fanes et chaumes, le foin de la jachère améliorée, le dolique et les chaumes de maïs cultivés en association, et les cultures pures de fourrages. Comme option alternative, actuellement non vulgarisée, la pâture de la jachère améliorée a été considérée. Celle-ci est difficile à éviter pendant la saison sèche. Une pression de pâture élevée et R. Bosma et al sélective est conseillée pendant la saison humide pour favoriser le développement végétatif de la jachère améliorée.Le taux de fourrage fourni par la pâture a été évalué pour une capacité de charge de pâturages naturels de 6 ha/UBT. Cette charge pourrait augmenter si les animaux sont conduits rationnellement sur le parcours (Lühl, 1992) ou si les parcours ne sont exploités, ni en saison sèche et chaude, ni au début de la saison des pluies (Behnke, 1992;Bosma, 1992). Cependant, pour la faisabilité du système de conduite du troupeau, une quantité importante du fourrage doit être fournie par les parcours (pâturages naturels, vaine pâture ou jachère améliorée pâturée). Cela est dû au fait que pendant la saison des pluies, le temps de travail disponible est limité et que le stockage du fourrage serait trop coûteux dans le cas d'une stabulation durant toute l'année.Dans la zone semi-aride, la limite du système de conduite est atteinte lorsque les animaux passent moins de 60% du temps sur les parcours communs (tableau 5). Dans les zones plus humides, ce taux est de 65 à 70% selon la région. En plus, la charge animale pendant la vaine pâture ne peut être trop élevée en raison du faible taux d'utilisation des chaumes sur pied (Bosma, 1993). La limite de charge pendant cette période varie entre 2 et 3 UBT/ha, en fonction de la différence de productivité des chaumes entre les zones semi-aride et humide. Pour diminuer l'apport des parcours communs, il faut stocker du fourrage ou faire pâturer les jachères améliorées pendant la saison sèche. * En fonction de l'utilisation par période, avec des recoupes; par exemple le pâturage naturel est aussi utilisé pendant la période de vaine pâture en fonction du type de conduite, lorsqu'il n'est pas fortement dégradé comme à Koutiala.D'une manière générale, le nombre d'UBT nécessaire pour maintenir le taux de matière organique est très élevé lorsque le fumier est produit de manière extensive et lorsqu'il n'y a pas de jachère (tableau 6, colonne 1). Aussi le taux de jachère de 17% est-il généralement insuffisant, pour restaurer la matière organique avec un nombre acceptable d'UBT. Il ressort de la comparaison des systèmes (tableau 6) que l'intensification de la production de fumier dans les parcs est plus efficace que la jachère améliorée. Cela concorde avec la pratique paysanne à Fonsébougou où les paysans adoptent rarement la jachère améliorée et mettent plutôt l'accent sur l'utilisation de la litière. La quantité de litière disponible est toujours suffisante. Lorsqu'on utilise uniquement et en grande quantité des chaumes et des fanes, le système de conduite est impraticable, car la quantité de fourrage disponible pour la pâture est insuffisante, bien que le bilan fourrager soit positif (tableau 6, colonne 6).Le système actuel de production de fumier le plus intensif, à savoir la stabulation saisonnière, a été comparé avec le parcage nocturne sur litière pendant toute l'année pour le cas de Tominian (tableau 7). Avec les taux de jachère améliorée appliqués, les besoins en UBT sont toujours supérieurs à la charge actuelle de 19 UBT/km 2 . La disponibilité de la litière peut être problématique lorsqu'il n'y pas de jachère améliorée et que les besoins en UBT sont très élevés (tableau 7). A Tominian une exploitation durable de 20% des terres nécessite 5% de terres en plus en jachère améliorée et une charge animale de 30 UBT/km 2 . L'introduction de ce type de jachère non seulement améliore le bilanfourrager et le bilan litière, mais également et surtout permet de rendre le système de production faisable car la pâture de la jachère améliorée en saison sèche réduit les besoins de stockage et facilite la conduite de l'élevage. Dans la situation actuelle caractérisée par les difficultés d'installation de la jachère améliorée et les coûts élevés de la protection contre les animaux en divagation (Diarra et al., 1992;Fomba et Bosma, 1992), on comprend que les paysans adoptent massivement la stabulation saisonnière dans la zone semi-aride. Le cas de Koutiala (tableau 8) montre bien les limites du taux de terres cultivées. L'intensification de la production de fumier et l'introduction de la jachère améliorée à un taux raisonnable ne suffisent pas pour maintenir la fertilité. L'accent mis par l'organisme de vulgarisation sur l'introduction de la jachère améliorée dans la zone semble tout à fait justifié. Il faut plus de 100 UBT/km 2 pour produire le fumier lorsque 25% des superficies cultivées sont en jachère améliorée (tableau 8). Avec un taux de 33%, on ne pourrait maintenir le taux actuel des terres en culture qu'avec une charge de 56 UBT/km 2 . Dans ce cas, 60% des terres seront exploités, soit la totalité de la superficie cultivable. Bien que le système de conduite ne puisse permettre de maintenir une charge de 56 UBT/km 2 , il est R. Bosma  Le système permettant l'exploitation de telles superficies semble très fragile et il est préférable de mettre l'accent sur l'élevage. A cet effet, la superficie totale cultivée pourra être limitée aux taux actuels (45%) et au fur et à mesure une partie de ces terres sera mise en jachère améliorée. Cela sera possible lorsque l'élevage constituera pour les paysans une source de revenus réguliers et sûrs. La réduction de la superficie cultivée à 35% et la mise en jachère améliorée de 12% des terres en plus, permettront d'alimenter plus de 40 UBT/km 2 .Malgré les efforts actuels de vulgarisation des cultures fourragères pures, le taux d'adoption reste faible pour des raisons diverses. L'association de cultures, telle que celle du dolique (Dolichos niger) et du maïs, a l'avantage de favoriser l'économie de superficie et de travail, le dolique profitant par exemple de la fertilisation du maïs (DRSPR, 1993). La comparaison entre les deux types de culture fourragère, du point de vue bilan fourrager, permet de mieux comprendre l'intérêt des paysans pour l'association dolique/maïs (tableau 9). En effet, la culture fourragère pure fait concurrence du point de vue superficie et doit être fertilisée pour ne pas aggraver le bilan nutritif. Besoins UBT (UBT/km 2 ) 5 9 5 1 5 9 5 1Bilan fourrage (UBT) -14 -4 -10 0Les 10 % de superficie en culture pure du fourrage remplacent le coton et l'association maïs/dolique; 10 p. 100 des terres cultivées.Etant donné la charge actuelle à Tominian et à Fonsébougou, la fertilité pourra être maintenue en augmentant le taux de jachère améliorée au-delà des valeurs acceptables tout en produisant le fumier de façon optimale. Avec un taux de terre cultivée supérieur à 20%, comme autour de Koutiala, il importe absolument d'augmenter le nombre d'UBT pour satisfaire les besoins de fumier. Cela permettra de bien recycler les résidus, de rentabiliser les jachères améliorées et de maintenir le taux élevé de terres cultivées. Comme l'ont souligné Preston et Murgueitio (1992), le système de conduitedes animaux au Mali-Sud doit radicalement changer et les chaumes des céréales constitueront la base de l'alimentation des ruminants en saison sèche. L'adoption de la stabulation saisonnière pendant la saison sèche et le début de la saison des pluies a le double avantage d'augmenter la production de fumier et de diminuer temporairement la charge sur les parcours, permettant ainsi une charge plus élevée pendant la saison des pluies. En outre, certaines exploitations de la région de Tominian ont déjà diminué leur superficie cultivée après l'intensification de la production de fumier. Qui plus est, la stabulation saisonnière des animaux permet de valoriser la main-d'oeuvre disponible, de maximiser le recyclage des résidus et d'augmenter la charge animale au-delà de 30 UBT/km 2 . Avec une telle charge, il est évident que les jachères naturelles ne pourront remplir leur fonction.Dans la partie septentrionale du Mali-Sud, le type de conduite des ruminants domestiques (divagation en saison sèche) est en train de changer car les paysans, compte tenu de la situation fourragère, se voient obligés de stocker, de cultiver ou d'acheter des fourrages. La situation actuelle caractérisée par la dégradation accélérée des pâturages naturels est à cet effet un facteur favorable. Le recyclage efficace de résidus passe cependant par l'existence de moyens de transport et de stockage et la disponibilité de la main-d'oeuvre. Qui plus est, 70% des bovins appartiennent à moins de 20% des paysans et sont concentrés dans des troupeaux de plus de 20 têtes, qu'ils soient des troupeaux collectifs ou individuels. Bien que ce système de conduite réduise l'investissement en main-d'oeuvre au minimum, il ne permet d'optimiser ni la production de fumier (Bosma et al., 1993) ni l'utilisation des résidus (Bosma 1993).L'adoption généralisée du type d'élevage intensif est fonction des conditions socio-économiques. D'abord, cet élevage doit être économiquement plus intéressant pour que les paysans lui accordent la priorité au détriment du coton compte tenu du calendrier agricole (Penelope, 1992). L'adoption de l'intensification sera favorisée par des filières de commercialisation stimulatrices et un système diversifié de droits de pâture (Bosma, 1993). Par ailleurs, la maîtrise de tous les aspects de cet élevage et de son intégration à l'agriculture mérite une attention particulière. Des programmes de formation technique en saison sèche, et la formation agricole au niveau des écoles primaires prépareront les paysans.Le hachage des chaumes de céréales permet de diminuer les refus par les animaux, mais n'est pas toujours nécessaire pour augmenter le disponible fourrager. Cette technique facilite le transport et le stockage du fourrage, permettant aux paysans de maintenir plus de bétail en stabulation pendant la saison sèche (Bosma, 1992). La disponibilité des compléments à base de sous-produits agro-industriels, lesquels stimulent l'utilisation digestive des chaumes, est nécessaire à court terme. A moyen terme, le fourrage des jachères améliorées prendra partiellement la relève. Par ailleurs, l'accent doit être mis sur l'utilisation et la recherche des chaumes de bonne qualité fourragère (Reed et al., 1988) et des systèmes intégrés avec des ligneux fourragers (Kang et Reynolds, 1980). Cela diminuera la dépendance des paysans vis-à-vis des compléments industriels et permettra de disposer de ces derniers pour d'autres secteurs.Etant donné les taux actuels de terres cultivées, aucun système de production durable ne semble envisageable sans une forte production de fumier et la mise en jachère améliorée d'une partie des terres. Pour maintenir le taux de matière organique des sols, il faudrait augmenter les effectifs de ruminants, pour d'une part valoriser la jachère améliorée et d'autre part produire le fumier par transformation des résidus de récolte. Les ruminants constitueront donc la clef de voûte de la durabilité des systèmes de culture et pourront en plus permettre d'offrir aux paysans les autres avantages associés à leur intégration au système de production.Contrairement à la thèse répandue, pour arrêter la dégradation, il faut augmenter et non diminuer les effectifs animaux, et changer radicalement le système de conduite. La stabulation saisonnière des R. Bosma et al ruminants permettra de maintenir une charge animale supérieure à 30 UBT/km 2 . L'alimentation du bétail pourra être garantie par le hachage des chaumes et une complémentation stimulant leur utilisation digestive. Les organismes de développement doivent accorder toute l'attention nécessaire à la production de fumier de bonne qualité et mettre l'accent sur les techniques optimales. La vulgarisation devra faire une place de choix à l'introduction de jachères améliorées et promouvoir l'exploitation sélective de ces jachères par la pâture. En revanche, l'introduction de cultures fourragères pures est déconseillée. Lorsque le taux des terres cultivées est élevé, des associations de cultures telles que le maïs et le dolique amélioreront le bilan fourrager.The climate of developing countries in the Mediterranean region, which comprise countries of North Africa and West Asia, is essentially semi-arid to arid. While irrigation may be important locally in some countries, the region's agriculture is predominantly rainfed; the rain generally ranges from 200 to 600 mm/year and usually falls from November until May, the cropping season. The typical Mediterranean climate is essentially a cool moist season (late autumn, winter and early spring) alternating with a hot dry season. Invariably, the principal constraint to cropping is the limited and inadequately distributed rainfall.Dryland mediterranean farming is characterised by cereals, i.e. bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), durum wheat (T. durum L.) and barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). While the relative proportions of each cereal grown varies from country to country, in general, barley tends to dominate the drier areas and wheat the higher rainfall areas. As farm sizes are smaller than in Europe, virtually all farmers raise livestock, in particular sheep and goats. Fallowing is a common but diminishing feature of the region's farming. Animals are grazed on \"weedy\" fallow and/or range in the cropping season and on cereal stubble later in the dry season; in very dry years, the barley crop is grazed. In some areas dual-purpose barley commonly provides a source of grazing, grain and straw. Recently, continuous barley cultivation by farmers whose holdings have been reduced by population pressure has become a cause for concern. However, growing self-regenerating Medicago species as an alternative to fallowing is seen as having potential benefits for increasing animal feed and reducing the need for fertiliser nitrogen through biological nitrogen (N) fixation.Grazing systems in the region are complex, often with considerable movement of sheep to seek pastures or crop residues. As farmland is unfenced and farm holdings are fragmented, sheep are generally grazed by day under the supervision of a shepherd and driven to an enclosure for the night. The accumulated manure is periodically spread in adjacent fields or sold. An important linkage in the N cycle is the removal and return of nitrogen in the urine and faeces of ruminants. Does the system maintain or deplete soil N and how does it affect the cereal crop? The study reported here is the first attempt at ICARDA (the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas) to address aspects of N in animal excreta. Specific objectives included measuring (1) the amount of N returned to the fields, the form (urine or faeces) it was returned in and how the relative amounts of faecal and urinary N varied with seasonal changes of pasture intake and quantity; (2) the proportion of N which was not returned to the field in night-time urine and faeces, and in milk; and (3) the order of magnitude of volatile losses from urinary urea.To quantify nitrogen flows between pasture and sheep, an experiment was conducted in the 1990/91 season at Tel Hadya, Aleppo, Syria. The area has a mean annual rainfall of 330 mm falling largely in November-April, and an altitude of 300 m. Six plots (0.77 ha each) were fenced on a deep calcareous clay soil (Calcixerollic Xerochrept). Three of the plots were sown to barley while the other three were managed so as to allow regeneration of an annual Medicago spp pasture dominated by Medicago rigidula. Six lactating Awassi ewes per plot grazed the area during the day (0700-1730 hours) and were removed at night and housed, following the local practice.Faecal collection bags, lined with polythene bags which contained 500 g of commercial cat litter (Sanicat TM ), were fitted to the animals to collect the total faeces and urine produced; this mixture was termed \"slops\". The bags were changed when the animals left the field each evening and again when they were put out to graze in the morning. A grab sample of faeces was taken directly from the rectum of each sheep every time the bags were changed.The quantities of N in the urine and faeces were calculated from the total N in the slops, the quantity of acid-detergent fibre (ADF) in the cat litter and slops, and the ADF:N ratio in the grab sample. Each collection period lasted seven days and was repeated monthly, beginning in early April until early July, and once again at the beginning of September. At that time, all plant material in the Medicago spp plots was grazed. After 1 July, energy and N intake were increased to around maintenance levels by feeding sheep a supplement of 200 g/day barley grain on Medicago spp grazing or 100 g/day cottonseed cake on barley grazing.It is assumed that in temperate conditions at least, a large part of the urea deposited on the soil in urine will be converted to ammonia and volatilised before plants can take it up. ICARDA plans to study the fate of N deposited as urine on soil in semi-arid conditions. Soil samples will be kept in natural and controlled environments on which urea solutions or urea will be added in the same manner as female sheep urinate to study retention of ammonia and nitrate N in the soil and the volatile loss of ammonia into the air above. Variables such as soil type, surface crust and organic debris, air and soil temperature, soil moisture, and volume and urea concentration of urine are considered relevant.In the hot, dry summers in the barley zone of Syria, sheep graze cereal stubble and produce 100-400 ml/day of urine containing about 1000 mg N per litre. The concentration of urea in the urine of sheep fed N-limiting diets is less than 100 mg/litre (Cocimano and Leng, 1967). The volume of a single urination by a ewe grazing cereal stubble, measured by digging up wetted soil and comparing its water content with blank soil, is in the order of 50-100 ml. Soil wetted by a urination cohered together, and was shaped like an inverted dome 8-10 cm in diameter and 4-5 cm in depth.A pilot trial on the fate of dilute urea solutions was carried out at Tel Hadya, north-west Syria, on a calcareous clay soil that had been lightly fertilised with urea. The results are presented here as an illustration of the technique and an indication of the kind of results that one may expect, rather than as a conclusive report. A cylindrical stainless steel box 40 cm in diameter and 30 cm tall that could be forced in the soil to a depth of 5 cm was made. It was covered with a perspex lid with a rubber sealing gasket.During the trial of this technique, the air temperature ranged between 18°C at night and 36°C during the day. At 0800 hours a 100-ml dose of water, ammonium or urea solution was poured in a manner imitating a single urination by a ewe. The temperature inside the steel box approached 60°C at mid-day and condensation formed. An aquarium pump, powered by a single lead-acid cell (nominal 2.0 volts), pulled air from the steel box through two conical flasks containing 50 ml of 6% saturated boric acid solution at the rate of one litre/minute. The second boric acid flask was used to detect any escape of ammonia from the first flask. Both flasks were changed at intervals and were electronically titrated with 0.01 N sulphuric acid to pH 5.0 to show the time-course of release of gaseous ammonia from the soil. After 72 hours, the soil wetted by the solution and some surrounding soil was dug up, mixed, weighed and sampled for concentrations of N fractions. Ammonia, nitrate and urea were analyzed using magnesium oxide (MgO), Devarda's alloy, and phosphate-buffered urease/MgO, respectively. Soil was taken from a neighbouring dry area to the same depth (approx 5 cm) to allow an estimate of background N.Herbage N concentration, calculated nutrient intakes and faecal outputs are shown in Table 1. The measured N concentration of Medicago pasture in June was inexplicably low and nitrogen intake appeared to surpass animal nitrogen requirements (ARC, 1980). Faecal output remained relatively constant within pastures at about 700 g/day on Medicago pasture and 500 g/day on barley pasture.The distribution of nutrient output between day (10.5 hours) and night (13.5 hours) is shown in Table 2. Between 47% and 54% of the total urine and faeces was deposited on the field (\"daytime\")Nitrogen intake and losses by sheep in Syria in any period and treatment (Table 2). The sheep spent 44% of their day on the field, implying that the hourly rate of N excretion was 1.3 times as high on the field as it was in the night housing. The quantity of N returned in urine and faeces to the paddocks during the daytime was less than the intake of N except when cottonseed cake was fed as a supplement (barley pasture, last two periods). In the first two periods the 24-hour excretion of N was less than N intake. The N in milk, wool and body weight change sets a limit to the quantity of N that can be returned to the pasture. Even so, the N in milk never exceeded 14% of N intake, N in wool was probably about 1 g/day (ARC, 1980) or 4% of average N intake, and body weight change was unlikely to contain more than 10% of N intake (calculated on the assumption that body weight change was 200, 100, 0, 0 and 0 g/day in the five periods, respectively (ARC, 1980). The largest absolute daily removal of N from the field occurred during the growing season (April and May) when the diet had a higher N concentration and the herbage intake was high. Calculations of N retention (N intake minus N lost in faeces, urine and milk) give figures not significantly different from the N in body weight change, except on Medicago spp pasture in the first period, when the retention appeared to exceed 46 g/day. In that case, urine was voluminous and loss of urine from the bags had been observed.The proportion of the excreted N contained in the urine changed during the experiment. On Medicago spp pasture it decreased from at least 70% in the first two months to just under 50%; on barley grazing it fell from 50% to 10%. The N intake from the supplementary feed in the last two periods was about 5 g/day; for sheep eating low-N barley stubble grazing this represented 50% of the total N consumed. As sheep were not producing anything but wool, urinary and faecal N was presumably increased by an amount almost equal to that fed as supplement. Where diets contain significant amounts of supplementary feed, the nutrients contained in the supplement would have an important role in increasing soil nutrients including N, P and potassium.  Less than one-tenth of applied urea N could be detected in volatilised ammonia in the first 72 hours of application (Table 3). The rate of volatilisation of urea varied between runs and was greatest during the first day. In the soil, about half of the applied urea was recovered as urea, half as ammonium and 0-10% as nitrate (Table 4). Volatilisation was low despite the high calcium carbonate content of soils. One may hypothesise that hot, dry, virtually sterilising conditions reduce the rate of ureolysis, and that the water in the dilute urea solution distributes the urea through a relatively large volume of soil. When ammonia is released, it is already in close contact with clay-rich soil particles, which have a cation exchange capacity exceeding 50 meq/100 g soil. The cohesive surface layer of damp clay which formed may have helped to trap ammonia in the soil.  The findings will be relevant to sheep grazing cereal stubble and probably also to sheep grazing saltbushes (e.g. Atriplex spp). They consume a large proportion of non-protein N which is not all available to the rumen microflora because of a fermentable energy shortage (ARC, 1980), and they need to excrete quantities of water in their urine to dispose of the salt load. The sheep excrete a large volume of urine containing significant quantities of urea at a relatively low concentration; if the results of the pilot trial are valid, one may expect good retention of nitrogen in the soil from this urine.Given the current urgency in dryland agricultural research to address issues of sustainability, it is of crucial importance that all phases in the complicated N cycle be quantified. Thus, it may be possible for researchers to pinpoint ways in which the farmer can optimise N use. Clearly, what happens to N deposited as faeces and urine in the field is a \"grey\" area in our knowledge of livestock-cereal systems in Mediterranean environments. The grazing trial described here at least sets the tone for future work in that area. Although volatile losses from urea solutions were not severe, the range of conditions in the field were not fully simulated.In typical sheep management systems in Syria, urine contains a significant part of nitrogen excreted, and about half of the nitrogen in the urine and faeces of sheep is not deposited on the grazing land. Nitrogen in urine produced whilst grazing alkaline soils in summer, in particular urea N, may be better conserved than is generally thought, and work on that topic should be expanded. New studies need to commence on the fate of nutrients in urine and faeces excreted at night. Although the efficient use of the manure (which crops? what time to apply?) are questions likely to be asked by crop producers, the fertiliser value of the manure used is largely the responsibility of the livestock keeper. Prevention of nutrient loss during storage, and treatments needed to ensure adequate mineralisation of nutrients in the manure such as composting are, in our opinion, topics which should be tackled by broad-sense livestock farming systems research which is within the mandate of ICARDA and other CGIAR centres.Carbon and potassium dynamics in grass/legume grazing systems in the Amazon Pastures in the Amazon are mismanaged. Adapted low-input pastures can, however, be sustainable, productive and ecologically sound. Two separate trials were undertaken to study the effects of grazing on potassium (K) and carbon (C) dynamics on a Brachiaria humidicola x Desmodium ovalifolium mixture in the Amazon region. For K, despite high rainfall conditions, losses (below 100-cm depth) in bare plots were detected only at high application rates of K (300 kg/ha). Losses were minimised by K retention in specific absorption sites in small quantities of 2:1 minerals. Retention mechanisms included high dry-matter production and K luxury consumption; residues were also an efficient recycling mechanism. Without animals K losses appeared to be negligible. The animals modified the amount and composition of returned K, especially in urine. They therefore disrupt rather than enhance K cycling. Uneven and localised spots of high K return (465 kg K/ha) occurred and annual leaching losses of 30 to 94 kg K/ha may occur. For C, under a wide range of grazing conditions, maximum faecal C inputs were 3.9 t/ha per year and compared to leaf litter, were the main source of C above ground. Stocking rates did not affect root-distribution patterns with depth, grazing stage and rainfall patterns. Grazing, however, increased the amount of dead roots which increased the estimate of root productivity (2.4 t/ha per year). Soil physical and biological properties were affected by stocking rate but soil chemical properties were not. Bulk density increased with increasing stocking rates but decreased when the animals were removed, suggesting that trampling is a reversible and temporary effect. Increasing stocking rates did not affect root biomass, suggesting that trampling per se is not detrimental to plant production. However, earthworm biomass dropped precipitously when the pasture was overgrazed. Earthworms may be better indicators of soil damage or degradation than soil physical or chemical properties. Les pâturages d'Amazonie sont mal gérés, alors que les pâturages à faible niveau d'intrants mais adaptés peuvent être viables, productifs et écologiquement durables. Deux études distinctes ont été effectuées afin d'observer l'effet de la pâture sur la dynamique du potassium (K) et du carbone (C) dans un pâturage mixte à Brachiaria humidicola et Desmodium ovalifolium en Amazonie. En ce qui concerne le potassium, malgré une forte pluviométrie, des pertes (au-delà de 100 cm de profondeur) n'ont été décelées dans des parcelles nues qu'à des doses d'application élevées (300 kg de K/ha). CesOf the 630 million hectares originally under forest in Latin America over 50% are still intact, but a 34% reduction in forest cover has already occurred (Myers, 1989). Much of this has been converted into pastures (INPE, 1989), the traditional agricultural system, because the widespread acid soils were not attractive for agriculture (Meirelles de Miranda, 1974). There are 250 million head of cattle in tropical America -10 times as many as in South-East Asia and twice those in Africa (CIAT, 1987). Despite research efforts to broaden agricultural alternatives, the agronomic failure of the traditional pasture species (CIAT, 1987;Hecht et al, 1988;Serro and Toledo, 1990) and the resulting degradation (Uhl et al, 1988), deforestation and pasture development continue because of a host of social, political and agricultural factors that make pastures attractive (Janzen, 1986;Hecht, 1989).Once a forest is cleared, the preservation of the soil resource for eventual forest regeneration or other agricultural activity becomes the main concern. The improvement of degraded pastures with low input pasture systems can have an ecologically acceptable role in the reclamation of degraded landscapes through significant increases in their productivity and thus by reducing the pressure for further deforestation (Sanchez and Salinas, 1981;CIAT, 1990). Fertile lands have already been released to crop production, especially in Brazil and Colombia (CIAT, 1987); Brazil has restored an estimated one million hectares of degraded pasture (Serro, 1990). With the right incentives, there is hope that in the 1990s adoption of technology for improved pastures will be massive, in pastures alone or in combination as agropastoral or silvopastoral systems (CIAT, 1990;Serro and Toledo, 1990).Our research aimed to provide process-oriented data to evaluate the potential effects of improved pastures on soil parametres, specifically under the hot humid conditions of udic isohyperthermic soil moisture and temperature regimes. The results of a long-term grazing experiment under semi-commercial conditions in Yurimaguas, Peru, where, with judicial use of fertilisers and a simple animal rotation, three legume-grass associations, produced satisfactory animal production without additional N application (Ayarza et al, 1989;Castilla et al, 1991) encouraged this study. The general hypothesis that despite the significant increases in the stocking rate, low-input pastures allow long-term sustainable production without deterioration of the soil resource was tested.Two independent processes were studied in detail: 1) potassium dynamics, because of the potential for leaching under high rainfall conditions and acid soils with low cation exchange capacity dominated by 1:1 clays and 2) carbon dynamics, focusing on soil organic matter (SOM) dynamics as a predictor of the system stability. The long-term effects of trampling on the chemical, physical and biological properties of the soil were also monitored because of their importance in pasture productivity.The study was conducted on a 20-year-old abandoned pasture at the Yurimaguas Experiment Station, Peru (5°46'S latitude, 182 m altitude and 26°C mean annual temperature). Annual rainfall (2200 mm) is well distributed through the year, with a drier season from June to September (Figure 1). The soil was classified as a fine loamy siliceous, isohyperthermic Typic Paleudult. The clay fraction consists of 65% kaolinite, 10% interstratified mica, 10% iron and aluminium oxides, 10% interlayered smectites and 5% vermiculite. Less than 10% weatherable minerals are present in the sand fraction. Initial soil characterisation is shown in Table 1. Carbon and potassium dynamics in the Amazon Table 1. Selected chemical and physical characteristics of the Ultisol used in the experiment (mean of three replications). Before the pasture was planted in December 1984 the vegetation was burned and residues incorporated to 15 cm. The improved pasture was a Brachiaria humidicola-Desmodium ovalifolium (BH x DO) mixture. Basal fertilisation was 22 kg/ha of P, 100 kg/ha of Ca, 20 kg/ha of Mg and 20 kg/ha of S, broadcasted and incorporated to 15 cm. Maintenance fertilisation was applied 17 months after planting, with the same levels of nutrients except Ca.For the initial grazing trial (K study) treatments were two stocking rates (the main plot: 3.3 and 6.6 animals/ha) and three K rates applied once ( 0, 50 and 100 kg K/ha) in a split-plot design, with three replications (plot size was approximately 40 x 50 m). For bare plots and clipping trials, an adjacent area (40 x 47 m) was established using a split-plot design with three replications. Main plots were: 1) bare soil, 2) plots with clippings removed and 3) plots with clippings returned. There were seven sub-plots with single K rates of 0, 25, 50, 75, 100, 150 and 300 kg K/ha as KCl, in a randomised complete block.For the second trial (C study) the experiment was modified in 1989. The legume (DO) had declined to less than 5% of total above-ground biomass but the grass (BH) biomass productivity was still adequate. Of the initial treatments, only the four plots fertilised with K were used. To eliminate previous K treatment differences, a blanket application of 50 kg K/ha was applied and was expected to have only minor effects on biomass production. The new stocking rate treatments were four contrasting stocking rates: 0, 3.3, 6.6 and 8.3 animals/ha, equivalent to 0, 2, 4 and 5 animals/plot and referred to as NG (no grazing), LG (low grazing pressure, unchanged from initial trail), AG (adequate grazing pressure, previously the high stocking rate and also unchanged from the initial trial) and OG (overgrazing). Treatments were arranged in a randomised complete block design with three replications.For six years the experiment was managed with a cycle of two weeks of grazing and four to five weeks of rest. During a cycle, animals rotated through the three replications of a treatment. Live weights were taken at the beginning of each grazing cycle after overnight fasting and were not replicated. Animals were One to two-year-old, Cebú-Brown Swiss steers weighing initially 150-200 kg and replaced after approximately seven to eight grazing cycles.Forage biomass was exclusively from BH or DO. For all treatments that included animals total above-ground biomass (TAB) was estimated only in 1989-90, before and after grazing, within 10 random 0.25 x 0.25 m quadrants cut at ground level. Available biomass (AB), the proportion of TAB available for animal intake, was estimated before and after grazing for the K study (before grazing only for the C study) with 10 random 1 m 2 samples. For the K trial, cutting height was 15 cm; for the C trial a differential height was used: 15, 7, 4 cm, above ground for the LG, AG and OG treatments, respectively.Samples were separated into live or dead and grass or legume components. Detached plant parts were collected only for TAB and leaf-litter estimates. Plant parts were dried to constant weights and the results expressed as dry matter per hectare. All plant parts were ground to pass through a 1-mm mesh screen, and analysed for C and N in a Perking-Elmer PE CHN analyser. 1 Lignin (ash-free basis) was indirectly determined by permanganate extraction (Goering and Van Soest, 1970). In vitro dry-matter digestibility (IVDMD) for AB was determined by a modified Tilley and Terry procedure (Burns and Cope, 1974).Faecal output (FO) was calculated with an intraruminal devise (IRD), 2 which constantly releases Cr2O3. Faecal output was estimated in groups of four animals weighing on the average 200, 240 and 280 kg and grazing at 6.6 animals/ha. At different weights, IRD's were not given to the same animals because dosed animals gained weight at different rates. For periods of 20 days after IRD dose, a single faeces collection from each animal was made between 0700 and 0900 hours each day. Faecal Cr2O3 content was determined in 2 g of dry faecal matter by the perchloric acid method (Kimura and Miller, 1957). Internal standards using ground IRD were run to correct for recovery losses.At each sampling date, 15 random subsamples were taken per plot with a 41 mm internal diameter corer. Soil separation was done in a root elutriator the same day (Smucker et al, 1982). Roots were washed for five minutes, trapped in a 500 m mesh and frozen before separation. Root sampling followed three sampling schemes:1) Intensive (short-term) root sampling: samples every seven days over a 42-day grazing cycle during periods of maximum and minimum rainfall in 1989 and 1990 (a total of 5040 samples).2) Extensive (long-term) root sampling: samples were taken every 42-days beginning March 1989 for 14 cycles. This includes the first and last samples of the intensive sampling for an additional 1800 samples.3) Root distribution with depth: additional cores at 10-30 and 30-50 cm were taken at the beginning of each of the intensive sampling periods. A complete characterisation of the root system was done only in the initial sampling. Roots were divided into live and dead, grass and legume, and fine (<1 mm in diameter) and coarse (<2 mm >1 mm in diameter) fractions.Decomposition trials were done in an adjacent BH x DO grazed paddock during peak periods of minimum and maximum precipitation, using plastic 1 mm mesh bags containing 1.5 g of fresh live roots. Roots classes were fine (<0.5 mm diameter) and coarse (<2 mm >0.5 mm diameter) intended to represent differences in lignin content. Bags were buried just below the surface. Sampling times were 0, 4, 7, 14, 28, 60, 120, and 180 days. At all sampling times, half of the replicates (four replications) of each treatment were used to correct for ash content and the rest pooled and ground toCarbon and potassium dynamics in the Amazon pass through a 1 mm mesh screen and analysed for lignin, C and N. All results are expressed on an ash-free basis as per cent of initial mass.Decomposition constants, kd, were calculated by the NLIN procedure (SAS, 1986) using the log form of the single exponential model Y= e -kt , where Y is the proportion of initial mass remaining at each time t in years (Wieder and Lang, 1982). Decomposition constants (k, slopes) were compared statistically by pairwise comparisons.For the K study soil samples were taken on two fixed 50 m transects (five samples per transects) to minimise spatial variability at 2, 12, 32 and 64 weeks after fertiliser application. For the C study samples were taken at random during two periods of maximum and minimum precipitation starting February 1989. Four composite samples were taken at 0-5, 5-20, 20-40, 40-60 and 60-100 cm depth. Samples were extracted with 1M NH4OAC buffered solution at pH 7 for exchangeable K, and for the C trial analysed for C and N as described before. Available P and exchangeable K were extracted by the modified Olsen extractant (Hunter, 1974). Phosphorus was determined colorimetrically by the molybdenum blue method. Potassium was determined by atomic absorption. Exchangeable Ca, Mg and Al were extracted with 1 M/kg KCl (Hunter, 1974) and determined by atomic absorption. Aluminium saturation was obtained as Al/(Sum of exchangeable Al, Ca, Mg, and K).Soil moisture tension (SMT) was monitored during 1989 with a custom made \"miniature\" tensiometer. Surface soil bulk densities (DB) were evaluated in each plot with 10 random, 7.6 cm high by 7.6 cm diameter undisturbed soil cores (Uhland, 1950) during two periods of maximum and minimum precipitation starting February 1989. Texture, determined by the hydrometer method (Gee and Bauder, 1986) was the mean of five subsamples per plot. Sand fractionation was done on a nest of sieves of 1000, 500, 250, 106 and 53 m (Gee and Bauder, 1986).Earthworms were sampled during the peak of the 1990 and 1991 rainy seasons (Lavelle, 1988;Anderson and Ingram, 1989). In each plot, five 25 x 25 x 10 cm blocks of soil were randomly excavated, earthworms were hand-sorted and collected in 4% formalin. Eggs were not included in the biomass.Estimates of microbial biomass C and N were obtained by the fumigation-extraction procedure after Jenkinson and Powlson (1976) as the difference in C or N extracted between a 10-day chloroform-fumigated sample and a control (Vance et al, 1987). Microbial N was estimated as ninhydrin-reactive N from 2M KCl extracts with a ninhydrin reagent and absorbance reading at 570 nm (Amato and Ladd, 1988).Potassium cycling in a humid tropical pasture Potassium dynamics are a special case because well-drained acid soils with a predominance of low-activity clays and low cation retention capacity, under Udic isohyperthermic soil conditions, are considered highly susceptible to leaching. Despite this little quantification has been done on the rate of movement and the magnitude of leaching under field conditions. This study focussed on the evaluation of changes in the soil and plant component of the K cycle as influenced by grazing management and K fertilisation. Further detailed information on the K study is found in Ayarza (1988) and for the C study in Castilla (1992).When K was added to bare uncultivated soils (small plots), it moved from the surface (0-5 cm) and accumulated in the 5-60 cm depth (Figure 2), where clay content was higher (Table 1). This was explained as a function of the K rate applied and the accumulated rainfall. Leaching losses (below 100 cm) were only detected when 300 kg K/ha was applied, suggesting that the leaching potential in these soils was not as high as expected given the soil properties and the rainfall regime.To explain the apparent retention of added K, soil samples collected from check plots were incubated with K rates from 0-300 kg/ha and extracted with either NH4OAC or Mg(OAC)2. Most of the added K was recovered with NH4OAC suggesting the absence of K fixation mechanisms (Table 2).  Carbon and potassium dynamics in the AmazonIn contrast, one-third of the applied K was retained against extraction with Mg(OAC)2. This implied the presence of preferential absorption sites in the exchange complex where K can be exchanged with cations of similar ionic size, like H + and NH4+. Because the K retained against Mg(OAC)2 was easily recovered with NH4OAC further confirmation of the existence of preferential absorption sites was obtained. Although the dominant clay is kaolinite (66% of the clay fraction) in these soils, there are also small amounts of partially interlayered smectites and micas where K adsorption can take place.  When plants and plant residues are added to soil they modify K dynamics by further diminishing the amounts of K susceptible to leaching via root interception and plant uptake. In the presence of plants, exchangeable K levels were consistently lower than in bare plots. After 15 months and 2700 mm of rainfall all of the K added as fertiliser at rates below 150 kg/ha was recovered by the pasture (Table 3) because of a high root and above-ground biomass and a high luxury consumption. When plants were harvested and the clippings removed, K exchangeable levels, plant growth and K uptake decreased over time. Nonetheless, plants were able to recover K quantities higher than those disappearing from the soil. When clippings were returned, plants benefitted from the K in the residues and were able to produce higher biomass. However, the efficiency of added K via residues decreased with the increasing K rates. The effect of animals on K dynamicsCattle play an important role in nutrient cycling because they modify the amount, composition and distribution of plant and animal residues. Despite the high stocking rate used (3.3 and 6.6 animals/ha) available forage was always in excess, due to the high growth rates of the grass and its low quality which resulted in low animal gains. Nonetheless, above-and below-ground litter biomass decreased with increasing stocking rates. The levels of exchangeable K in the 0-5 cm soil layer increased with higher K rates; this effect tended to disappear with time. No significant changes were detected below this layer indicating little if any downward K movement and suggesting, as in the small plots, that plants reduce K losses.Animal excretions had a significant effect on exchangeable K in the surface 0-5 cm. An individual urination added the equivalent of 637 mg K to an average area of 0.12 m 2 . Considering the changes in the exchangeable K in the soil and the area affected by each urination, it was estimated that about 53 kg K/ha was returned through the urine. However, urinations were concentrated (63%) near fences and water sources. Faeces (0.65 + 0.15% K) contributed an estimated 38-75 kg K/ha per year and 86% of the K was released one month after deposition.Potassium pools, fluxes, inputs and outputs calculated for one treatment combination are shown in Figure 3. Potassium inputs were by rain, dust and as fertiliser, while K was removed in animal products and lost via leaching. Measured pools were exchangeable K (0-100 cm), available biomass before and after grazing, above-ground litter (1.1 for low and 1.3 t/ha for high stocking rates with a 2.6% turnover rate), and below-ground litter (1.1 for low and 0.74 t/ha for high stocking rate with a 1.13% turnover rate). Fluxes were decomposition of above-and below-ground litter, urine and faeces. Soil pools are exchangeable K and specifically adsorbed K and did not change with stocking rate fertiliser K addition.Potassium uptake corresponded closely to the amounts returned through the above-and below-ground litter + faeces + effective urine + rain and fertiliser (Figure 3). The standing residual forage constituted the largest sink for K. The major discrepancy was observed in urine spots. Only 40% of the calculated urine flux was accounted for. Due to high K concentrations in the urine spot, as high as 465 kg K/ha, it is plausible to assume that leaching is a major pathway of K loss from the system under study. Leaching losses can be as high as 94 kg K/ha per year. The budget showed that plant K recycling is extraordinarily efficient. However, animals, via urine redistribution, disrupt rather than enhance K recycling. This results in a net K extraction from most of the grazed area.Above-ground C inputs are faecal output (FO) and leaf and stem litter (LL), largely the results of animal management. Below-ground inputs are root exudates and dead roots, and their C contribution is largely unknown. This study concentrated on estimates of root production because this is often reported to contribute more total organic material than above-ground inputs (Coleman, 1976). However, root biomass is difficult to measure and inherently variable (Böhm, 1979). Furthermore, under Udic isohyperthermic soil conditions there are often small or no changes in live and dead biomass, and fluxes cannot be calculated. Thus, with management (stocking rates treatments) the authors expected to create widely different above-ground conditions thereby reducing further uncertainties caused by root variability. The study tests the hypothesis that changes in above-ground C, as a result of management, should have an effect on below-ground C inputs. The effect of stocking rates on C inputs in a pasture assumed to be at or near equilibrium, which had been grazed for four years and did not show signs of degradation was studied.Increasing stocking rate decreased total above-ground biomass (TAB) (Figure 4). This reduction in TAB (95% BH) was due to the animals selecting live biomass. However, there was no difference in the amount of total dead biomass before and after grazing. This result was unexpected as it was thought that differential grazing and trampling would result in differential patterns of leaf litter production. Proportions of live and dead biomass were split fairly even during the experimental period. Available biomass or forage, AB, showed tendencies similar to TAB and closely followed rainfall patterns.The trends in animal liveweight gain varied according to the grazing treatment (Figure 5) and were similar to those obtained earlier (Ayarza, 1988;Ayarza et al, 1989;Castilla et al, 1991). Daily gains   Carbon and potassium dynamics in the Amazon were low and tended to decrease as the grazing season progressed. Animals only lost weight in the overgrazed treatment (8.3 animals/ha). Liveweight gains per hectare were highest with adequate grazing (600 kg/ha) because of the higher number of animals per hectare. On the overgrazed treatment the net gains were attributed to forage carried over from the second trial initiation and will not be repeated in the following years.According to the algorithm of Fairley and Alexander (1985), estimated net pasture production decreased with increasing stocking rates from 13.9 in the LG to 11.2, and 8.5 t/ha per year in the AG and OG, respectively. Similar results have been reported for grasslands and pastures in other tropical locations (Pearson and Ison, 1987).Faecal output for animals between 200 and 280 kg live weight was estimated to be between 3.11 and 4.09 kg DM per animal/day (FO= 0.52+0.01235* body weight, r = 0.84, n = 20). For an average FO of 3.5 kg per animal/day, the estimated yearly faecal output is between 4.2 and 8.4 t/ha for LG and AG treatments and contains approximately 48% C.Estimates of voluntary forage intake (VI) were made from faecal output (Pond et al, 1987) and in vitro dry-matter digestibility (IVDMD) from AB (Burns and Cope, 1974). Estimates were low, not affected by stocking rate, followed rainfall patterns, decreased over time and tended to underestimate true IVDMD because they did not account for animal selection (CIAT, 1986;1987). Assuming that the true IVDMD of B. humidicola is at least 50% (Minson and McDonald, 1987), voluntary intake was twice faecal output, or near 3% of body weight. Similar results have been obtained with low digestibility tropical forages in Colombia (CIAT, 1983) and during summer grazing in North Carolina (Burns et al, 1985).Both estimates of net pasture production are questionable because of the inherent methodological problems. However, to achieve the measured faecal output, pasture productivity would have had to be at least 16 t/ha per year, not including the contribution of leaf litter. Pasture productivity estimated from total above-ground biomass (Fairley and Alexander, 1985) was only 11 t/ha per year and probably an underestimate since it did not take into account growth and decomposition during grazing. For well-managed pastures under humid tropical conditions faecal output was therefore the best estimate of pasture productivity and is the major pathway for C inputs. Faecal output can be estimated at 1.5% of animal body weight per day. Animals use well-managed pastures efficiently, so for modelling purposes faecal output may contribute 3-4 times as much C as leaf litter. Litter dynamics require more research.This study concentrated on obtaining baseline data on the effect of several contrasting stocking rates on root dynamics. The objectives of the root study were to determine: 1) the effect of stocking rate on root distribution; 2) the effects of stocking rate on root dynamics during a grazing cycle in periods of maximum and minimum rainfall; and 3) long-term seasonal trends. The test grass (BH) is particularly well suited since it is well adapted to acid soils, has a high stolon density and the highest root biomass of several introduced grasses planted in the Amazon basin (Cuesta, 1982).For roots, there seems to be a lack of consensus on the best way to estimate productivity, but overand underestimates can be diminished if root samples are taken at sufficiently small intervals to determine \"true\" biomass peaks, and sorted into live and dead fractions (Fairley and Alexander, 1985;Vogt et al, 1986;Long et al, 1989). These factors, as well as the animal effects, were carefully considered when developing sampling patterns.The initial sample (March 1988), taken four years after the trial initiation, showed no significant effects of previous treatments (Ayarza, 1988) on root distribution with depth and remained unchanged during the following two years of this study. Overall, after four years under grazing, total root biomass to 50 cm averaged 5.6 t/ha. Roots were concentrated in the top 10 cm (58%) and decreased with depth. Most of the roots were of BH and only 3% of DO, a similar proportion of above-ground biomass. Dead roots were less than 20% of total biomass in the top 10 cm, but its proportion increased to 25-30% with depth. Fine roots accounted for 90% of the total biomass. These parameters are similar to those reported earlier (Ayarza, 1988).Widely different stocking rates did not appear to affect live root biomass during a grazing cycle (14-day grazing, 28-day rest) during maximum and minimum precipitation. However, the observed trend for increasing dead roots with stocking rate in 1989 became significant in 1990 and was the only consistent response during the two years sampled. Similar tendencies were found for the longer term, 42-day sampling intervals (Figure 6). An earlier root survey using a variable sampling interval found a clear difference between the low and high stocking rates (Ayarza, 1988).The lack of a constant pattern from year to year, and between periods of maximum and minimum precipitation, makes further interpretation of the data difficult. Only during the second sampling period in 1989 (Figure 6) was there a peak in live-root biomass which could not be related to climate or animal effects. In 1989, a dry year, there was a tendency for lower root biomass during the dry period, but this trend was not as evident in the wet year of 1990 suggesting that if a cyclical pattern is present, it can be detected only in dry years (Persson, 1983). Despite extreme stocking rates that had a significant impact on above-ground productivity, the lack of changes in root biomass is the primary observation of this study. These results are surprising; it is not known whether two years are enough to detect changes. For low nutrient content soils, Crick and Grime (1987) suggest that \"long-lived extensive root systems which remain functional throughout Carbon and potassium dynamics in the Amazon the year but have relatively undynamic patterns of development\" are to be expected, and plants may not be able to afford the energy cost of a root system whose biomass actively changes with time. An alternate, but not exclusive explanation is that roots can grow independently of shoot growth because the carbohydrate supply does not normally limit root growth (Persson, 1983).In the absence of distinct peaks in root biomass and with a stable but different proportion of dead and live roots modified by grazing (Figure 6), average yearly root productivity was calculated as a function of the decomposition rates (Table 4) assuming that at steady state production, mortality and decomposition must be equal. As a result of grazing, the effect of an increased dead root biomass was to increase average yearly root productivity, ranging from 1.1 t/ha per year in a dry year, to 2.4 t/ha per year in a wet one.  7). Comparison for maximum and minimum precipitation period is based on equal periods of up to 56 days of incubation, but kd values are reported for 120 days.Letters besides numbers are pairwise comparisons of species above ground and root diameters within species below ground. Letters below numbers are for comparison between periods of maximum and minimum precipitation.Numbers in parenthesis are residual mean square errors.Root-decomposition rates and productivity estimates of this study were lower than those (4.4 to 5.5 t/ha per year) reported earlier (Ayarza, 1988), and those (4.2 t/ha per year) reported for other tropical natural grasslands (Long et al, 1989). For tissues of high lignin content, the maximum decomposition rate (per year) in the Century model was 4.88 (Parton et al, 1987). Root productivity based on decomposition rates is probably an underestimate, because estimates are based on the decomposition rates of arbitrary root diameter classes (Table 4). However, it is not known whether these low decomposition rates were artifacts of the mesh bag itself or due to the chemical or physical properties of the root (Palm and Sanchez, 1990).When compared to above-ground productivity, the root data suggest that the contribution of roots to SOM is overestimated in the literature. For modelling SOM dynamics in managed pastures in a udic isohyperthermic soil moisture regime, therefore, estimates of root productivity should not be higher than those above ground, and can be partitioned uniformly throughout the year.The hypothesis that the increase in stocking rates should not have a detrimental effect on soil properties was tested. This was done because the low-input pasture option targets the recovery of degraded sites, and the increases in productivity are achieved with stocking rates up to five times higher those of the traditional system (CIAT, 1982). Soil moisture conditions at Yurimaguas are ideal for compaction because of near saturated conditions at the surface during most of the year (Figure 1). The soil moisture tension patterns clearly indicated that even in a dry year, as was 1989, there should be enough moisture in the subsoil for plant growth, and adapted plant roots were able to utilise it (Castilla, 1992).After six years of grazing, the soil's chemical characteristics reflected the low rates of fertiliser applications and soil amendments used in this study. Soil pH values did not change greatly with time or depth. Exchangeable cations, total C, and available P were concentrated mainly in the 0-5 cm layer. Only at this soil depth was the soil supplied with enough nutrients to produce the high amounts of biomass. Below this layer the dominant cation is Al, with at least 90% Al saturation.The concentration of nutrients at the surface may be an advantage when the soils are well supplied with water, but not when the soils are dry even for short periods of time (Davies and Zhang, 1991). The combination of moisture deficiency at the surface and high Al contents in the subsoil (where water was available) resulted in a decrease in forage biomass during the dry season (data not shown).Starting with a four-year-old pasture, the effect of increasing the stocking rate was to increase bulk density (DB) and conversely, when the animals were eliminated, to decrease DB to levels found in forested soils (Cassel et al, 1980) (Figure 7). This suggests that the effect of trampling is reversible in relatively short periods of time. Carbon and potassium dynamics in the AmazonDespite the significant increases in bulk density, the higher field values, when corrected for texture (Vepraskas, 1988), are close to the root-limiting DB isolines suggested by Daddow and Warrington (1983) for that texture, but still not high enough to limit root growth. This suggests that after two years of severe overgrazing, under ideal conditions for compaction, the increases in bulk density are still not high enough to restrict root penetration, and, therefore, root biomass. Similar conclusions are reported in the Brazilian Amazon (Correa, 1989).The effect of increasing stocking rate was to decrease total soil-water retention and total porosity. However, effects were significant only from 0 to -10 Kpa, suggesting that only the macropores seem to have been affected by the increased trampling. This suggests that the overall effect of animal trampling was probably of a superficial nature (Cassel et al, 1990).Earthworms and microbial biomass are important features of pastures. Both parameters are closely related to nutrient dynamics and soil physical properties, and, therefore of great importance to soil fertility. At Yurimaguas, earthworm biomass in pastures is higher than any other agricultural system including the forest (Lavelle and Pashanasi, 1989).Extraction estimates of microbial C and N contents were significantly affected by stocking rates during the sampling period (Figure 8). The tendency for extractable microbial C and N was to increase with increasing stocking rates, although there were wide variations from week to week. It is possible that microbial populations were more affected by climatic conditions than by grazing. The increase in extractable C and N with increases in the stocking rate can be explained by the increase in dead roots due to grazing. However, because these changes occurred within a narrow range they may not be enough to have biological significance. This is specially true for microbial N, since the variation over time was greater than the variation due to treatment (Figure 8). * lsd bars are for comparisons of stocking rates over time. The effect of grazing on earthworms is of particular significance. Earthworm population and biomass were high and similar to those reported earlier by Lavelle and Pashanasi (1989) in the same trial. Overall, the effect of increasing stocking rate was to gradually reduce earthworm populations and biomass. However, it was only in the overgrazed treatment that trampling was severe enough to cause a major decrease in earthworm population suggesting that the beneficial effects of earthworms could no longer counteract the negative effects of trampling (Figure 9). With increases in stocking rate, there was also a gradual species replacement from the abundant, soil-dwelling endogeic species, Pontoscolex corethrurus, to the less abundant, surface-dwelling epigeic species, possibly Dichaeta xepe.In the absence of clear differences in soil microbial and chemical parameters, the significant changes in DB can be attributed to the effect of earthworm activity. Earthworms are known to consume significant amounts of soil and can be valuable in assessing \"soil damage\" and in pasture and land reclamation. As an indicator of soil damage, earthworms may be a far more sensitive parameter than the chemical or physical properties studied. This is because earthworms do not respond to increases in DB alone but to the compound effects of such factors as reduced porosity, increased resistance to penetration, lower oxygen diffusion etc.Sustainable livestock production with low-input pastures in humid tropical environments can be achieved with judicial animal management and the eventual use of fertilisers. Nitrogen is supplied by the legume. The changes in soil physical, chemical and biological properties due to increased trampling, even though significant, should not have a negative effect on long-term pasture and animal productivity. A well managed low-input pasture has a very efficient recycling system concentrated in the surface 0-5 cm where most of the roots are. This system allows high biomass production and thus high animal productivity. The effects of earthworms are paramount to effectively neutralise the negative effects of trampling which seem to be of a superficial and reversible nature. It is the uneven distribution of the animal excreta, especially the urine, that makes the system susceptible to nutrient losses. Low-input pastures are very productive: beef production was about 600 kg of live weight per hectare in 300 grazing days. Net pasture productivity was as high as 16 t DM/ha per year (when estimated from faecal output) and the animal returned half of it to the soil as faecal matter. The results indicate that for forages of low digestibility an animal eats nearly 3% of their body weight as available dry matter per day. The contribution of faeces to SOM processes is around 3.9 t C/ha per year. The contribution of leaf litter to SOM is expected to be much smaller, because when pastures are well managed the animals make good use of pasture regrowth. Surprisingly, root distribution patterns did not change with stocking rate, grazing period, or rainfall pattern. Despite high root biomass, the only significant effect of grazing was an increase in the amount of dead roots. Assuming steady state, root productivity estimated from relative decomposition rates was 2.4 DM t/ha per year (48% C) and is low compared to published rates. Better estimates of root decomposition rates are clearly needed. These conclusions do not differ from those found for temperate pastures (Pearson and Ison, 1987). Mismanagement, rather than the pasture option per se, should be blamed for soil degradation. Improved low-input pastures can contribute to a reduction in deforestation pressure by reducing the area required for beef and milk production. In addition, these pastures may release excess land to forest regrowth or for other agricultural systems. Furthermore, well managed pastures may be successfully combined with other agricultural alternatives, either as a pasture-crop rotation or as an intimately mixed silvo-pastoral system. Planners and policy makers in conjunction with farmers must now identify the necessary incentives to assure that low input pastures and good pasture management is implemented.Soil aspects of nutrient cycling in a manure application experiment in Niger Lack of nutrients is one of the main factors limiting crop production in the Sahel. Livestock play an important role in the transfer of nutrients from grazing land to cropping land through deposition of manure and urine. In 1990, a six-year study was initiated in semi-arid Niger, West Africa, to study the effects of application of various amounts of cattle and sheep manure, with and without urine, every one, two or three years, on the efficiency of nutrient use in the production of pearl millet. Intensive soil sampling was only possible during the first 12 months because of the plot size. There were a number of indications from the results of this intensive sampling. Regular sampling of soil, instead of the more usual regular sampling of soil water, can be useful in quantifying components of the soil nutrient balance. Pre-experiment sampling on a plot basis, to determine the spatial variability of soil characteristics, should help reduce the effects of spatial variability on experimental results. Since soil chemical parameters can show seasonal, cyclical fluctuations, temporal comparisons of soil properties should be done over (multiples of) 12-month periods, preferably at the start of the cropping season. Incorporation of organic matter by termites, decomposition in deeper soil layers, and leaching of nutrients continued during the dry season. Application of manure increased crop growth, may have accelerated decomposition of organic matter, increased termite activity, and possibly increased fixation of nitrogen. However, the results also showed that application of high rates of manure can give rise to leaching of organic carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). Within 12 months of application of the equivalent of 13 000 kg/ha of cattle manure, the equivalent of 1070 kg/ha of C, 91 kg/ha of N and 19 kg/ha of P had been translocated to beyond a depth of 1.5 m. It may therefore be more efficient to apply small amounts of manure frequently, than to apply a lot of manure less frequently.J. Brouwer La carence d'éléments minéraux est un des facteurs principaux qui limitent la production agricole dans le Sahel. L'élevage joue un rôle critique dans le transfert par le fumier et l'urine d'éléments minéraux des pâturages aux terres cultivées. En 1990, une étude a été mise en place pour six ans dans le Niger semi-aride, en Afrique de l'Ouest, qui examine l'influence de l'application de différentes quantités de fumier de bovins et d'ovins, avec et sans urine, chaque 1, 2 ou 3 ans, sur l'efficacité de l'emploi d'éléments minéraux par une culture de mil. Au cours des 12 premiers mois, les aspects pédologiques du bilan en éléments minéraux montrent que: échantillonner le sol plutôt que l'eau du sol peut aider à quantifier les composants du bilan des éléments minéraux dans le sol; prélever avant l'expérience des échantillons de sol sur chaque parcelle peut aider à réduire l'influence de la variabilité spatiale sur les résultats expérimentaux; les paramètres chimiques du sol ont des fluctuations saisonnières ou cycliques, les comparaisons de propriétés du sol dans le temps devraient donc être effectuées périodiquement tous les 12 (ou multiples de 12) mois, de préférence au début de la saison de culture; l'enfouissement de matière organique par les termites, la décomposition dans les couches plus profondes du sol et le lessivage des éléments minéraux continuent pendant la saison sèche; l'application de fumier améliore la croissance des cultures, peut accélérer la décomposition de la matière organique, augmenter l'activité des termites et probablement améliorer la fixation de N; l'application de taux élevés de fumure peut occasionner un lessivage des matières organiques C, N et P: en 12 mois d'application de 13 000 kg de fumier de bovins, 1 070 kg de C, 91 kg de N et 19 kg/ha de P ont été entraînés au-delà de 1,5 m de profondeur; donc, il est peut-être préférable d'appliquer de petites quantités de fumure régulièrement plutôt que des quantités plus importantes moins fréquemment.Lack of nutrients is one of the main factors limiting crop production in the Sahel (Bationo and Mokwunye, 1991). As nutrients are removed in harvested grain and by livestock grazing crop residues, crop production can only be maintained using external sources of nutrients. Livestock play an important role in the nutrient cycles of mixed farming systems (Powell and Williams, 1993). The animals transfer nutrients by grazing fallow and bush areas by day, and depositing their manure and urine when camped in cropping areas by night. Alternatively, some animals spend their nights in stalls; manure, minus much of the urine, is then carried from the stalls and spread on the fields. A six-year field experiment was started in 1990 in Niger to evaluate how various methods of manure application affect the efficiency of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) use in the production of pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum [L.] R.Br.). This paper examines soil aspects of the nutrient balance during the first 12 months of this long-term manuring trial. Emphasis is placed on observed seasonal fluctuations in various soil chemical parameters, and on observed effects of addition of manure on these seasonal fluctuations, including on leaching of nutrients.The study was conducted at the ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics) Sahelian Center (ISC) located 40 km south of Niamey, Niger (13°N, 2°E). Annual rainfall in Niamey has averaged 562 mm over the past 80 years (Sivakumar, 1986); the rainy season is from May to September. The soils at ISC are deep, red to orange Psammentic Paleustalfs (Soil Survey Staff, 1975). Textural composition is 850-900 g/kg sand, and 50-100 g/kg clay size particles. The clay particles are made up of roughly equal proportions of very fine quartz and kaolinitic minerals (West et al, 1984). The sands are very poor chemically; small absolute differences in fertility cause large differences in plant growth. Surface (0-0.2 m) soil chemical properties at the onset of the experiment were: pH in water 5.6 ± 0.37; organic carbon 1.6 ± 0.4 g/kg; total-N 135 ± 27 t/kg; total-P 79 ± 5.6 t/kg; and Bray1-P 11.3 ± 1.9 t/kg (determined from two separate samples from each of four pits).The original treatments consisted of a factorial combination of cattle or sheep manure application, the equivalent of one, two or three nights of manure production, with or without urine, every one or two years. These 24 treatments plus the control were arranged in a randomised block design, with 6 lines of 25 plots. Plots measured 4 x 4 m with a 1 m space between plots within a block and 4 m spacing between blocks. After one year it was decided to add a three-year application interval. This necessitated a re-allocation of treatments and a reduction from six to four repetitions.For the application of manure, cattle and sheep grazed natural fallow pastures 10-12 hours daily. At night, 6 cattle or 23 sheep were put into one of two 4 x 4 m portable corrals until all the plots had been manured (+ urine) for the designated number of nights. Manure was hand-gathered daily, weighed, and subsampled for dry matter (DM) and N and P determinations. As soon as all the + urine plots in a block had been treated, the equivalent amounts of manure from animals that had spent their nights in stalls rather than on the plots was spread on the -urine plots in that block.In 1990 millet was sown in late May in pockets 1.0 x 1.0 m apart. Thinning and weeding were carried out according to local practices. Millet grain and stover were harvested mid-September from the central 3 x 3 m of each plot, and analysed for DM, and for N and P contents. For the purpose of carbon (C) balances, an average C content of 40% C derived from various literature sources was used for manure and millet grain and stover.Due to limited plot size, changes in nutrient status in the soil could be monitored intensively only during the first 12 months of the experiment. To assess background levels of soil nutrient contents, soil samples were taken from four pits within the experimental area on 30 May 1990, just after millet was sown. Separate samples were taken from two sides of each pit. Sampling depths (standard for the whole experiment) were 0-0.2, 0.2-0.4, 0.7-0.9, 1.2-1.4 and 1.7-1.9 m. Samples were analysed for pH in water and in KCl (electrometrically); exchangeable H + and Al +++ (potassium chloride method); organic carbon (Walkley and Black); available P (Bray1); total P (perchloric acid method); NH4+-N and NO3--N (2M KCl method); and total Kjeldahl N (methods as described in Page et al, 1982). Four to six samples were taken per depth in each pit to determine bulk densities and soil water contents. The morphology of the soil profiles in the four pits was also described.On 24 July, 30 August and 10 October 1990, and 10 May 1991 (before the start of the next rainy season), soil samples were taken from 4 repetitions of 5 treatments: cattle, 1 or 3 nights, + urine (C1+ and C3+); sheep, 1 or 3 nights, + urine (S1+ 1 and S3+ 1); and the control. The samples were taken by auger (70 mm diameter), at the depths mentioned above. The plots were divided into four quadrants, and on each date five holes were augered in one of the quadrants and the samples bulked for each depth. The resulting 100 samples from each sampling date were analysed for the chemical parameters mentioned above, except that H + and Al +++ were only analysed for in October and May. In July and August samples for determination of gravimetric soil water content were taken as well.Bulk density of the dry soil was high: for depths 0-0.4 and 0.4-2.0 m, respective values of 1570 and 1620 kg/m were subsequently used to convert soil nutrient concentrations in t/kg to soil nutrient storage in kg/ha. Samples from 0.7-0.9 m depth were taken to represent the 0.4-1.05 m layer; those from 1.2-1.4 m the 1.05-1.55 m layer; and those from 1.7-1.9 m the 1.55-2.0 m layer.Differences in nutrient concentrations between treatments and between sampling dates are often not significant because of soil spatial variability (cf Table 1). Trends in nutrient concentrations with time are discussed, as well as trends that are likely to be due to treatments. Relatively little can be said about trends from May to July 1990 because background concentrations at the start of the experiment in May 1990 were not taken on a per-plot basis. In explaining trends in nutrient concentrations, those factors that may have had a major influence on the direction of change are focused on, even though other factors may at the same time have had an opposite effect. At ISC, factors that may contribute to a positive change in nutrient concentrations in a particular form include:• deposition of atmospheric dust and of surface-transported materials (minor in comparison to direct and indirect inputs from manure) • incorporation and/or partial decomposition by termites and micro-organisms of millet stumps, of other residues left on the surface or brought from elsewhere, and of roots left in the soil from previous millet crops • assimilation and transport to the root hairs of atmospheric C, and of N and P taken up elsewhere in the soil • fixation of N and assimilation of C by micro-organisms • direct deposition of manure and incorporation thereof by termites• possible spillover effects of manure transported from adjacent plots by the wind or termites • conversion of total N to mineral N and vice versa• slow conversion of P not detected with the perchloric acid method to P included in 'total' P; conversion of total to available P and vice versa • leaching of decomposition products from overlying soil layers.Factors that may contribute to a negative change in nutrient content include:• plant uptake of N and P • decomposition of finer organic matter followed by leaching to deeper soil layers • decomposition of finer organic matter to C-or N-containing gases that escape to the atmosphere conversion of total N to mineral N and vice versa • slow conversion of total P to P not detected with the perchloric acid method; conversion from total P to Bray1 P and vice versa.In the control plots, SOC contents in the top 0.4 m peaked in August (Figure 1). This peak is most likely related to development and subsequent decomposition and leaching of the millet root system; many millet root hairs are necessarily included in soil samples. Incorporation of organic matter from above the soil (by termites) and decomposition within the soil of the coarser millet roots from the previous year may have also played a role in these accumulations of SOC. During the dry season there is not much change in carbon content at these depths, indicating little activity, or a balance between carbon inputs (incorporation of organic matter) and outputs (leaching and escape to the atmosphere).The peak in organic C concentration at 0.7-0.9 m depth in October, relative to late August, is only partly a variability-related artifact. It is most likely caused by net translocation (by leaching and/or decomposition in situ) of fine organic matter from above. The trend in organic carbon during the dry season is clearly negative. At this depth, decomposition of organic matter, followed by leaching or escape to the atmosphere, seem to predominate during the dry season. The trends at 1.2-1.4 and 1.7-1.9 m depth in the control plots are similar to those at 0.7-0.9 m.The manured plots show the same underlying patterns as the control plots. The August peaks in organic C contents near the surface are higher, however, as manure has been applied at the surface, and as plant growth (and thus root development) was much more vigorous (cf C export in crop in Table 2). The early peak at 0.0-0.2 m in treatment C3+ where manure input averaged 13 t/ha is worth noting. Cattle manure decomposes readily, and much of what was incorporated before late July must have decomposed and been leached or escaped in gaseous form during August and September. That  leaching was important is also supported by relatively late peaks in organic C at greater depth, and by the lack of a decrease during the dry season at 1.7-1.9 m under C3+ and S3+. In the latter treatments leaching additions from above probably compensated leaching losses to lower depths. Treatments S3+ and C1+ received roughly equal amounts of manure (4870 and 3850 kg/ha). That S3+ did, and C1+ did not, maintain carbon levels at 1.7-1.9 m during the dry season, may be related to the fact that sheep manure pellets may decompose more slowly than less dense cattle manure.At 0.0-0.2 m depth in all four manured treatments, carbon contents increased during the dry season. This could be due to a relatively high level of termite activity during the dry season, triggered by the relatively large amounts of millet roots and stumps and undecomposed manure still present there.The total N and mineral N data are presented in Figures 2 and 3. Trends in total N contents under the control plots resemble those for organic C, with a peak at the surface during the middle of the cropping season. There appears to be some increases in total N near the surface during the dry season, probably related to termite activity. At depth (1.2 m) total N levels seem relatively stable during the cropping season (inputs = outputs), with possibly some net leaching and/or escape in gaseous form during the dry season. Transport of N to lower depths (by leaching or via decomposition of roots) is supported by the early peak in mineral N concentration near the surface and the later peaks at depth.Total N data under the manured plots also showed a peak near the surface during the cropping season (the high value for S3+ in October is mostly due to one observation of 265 t/kg, and an increase during the dry season probably related to termite activity. At greater depths there were varying trends during the cropping season. During the dry season total-N concentrations at greater depths generally increased, most likely due to translocation from above, particularly under the high input (C3+) and medium input-slow release (S3+) treatments. Mineral N trends support the conclusions of translocation of N to greater depths during a large part of the year and termite activity near the soil surface during the dry season.Total-P and Bray1-P concentrations are presented in Figures 4 and 5. Under the control plots, total-P at 0.0-0.2 m depth did not change much during the entire year, perhaps reducing slightly during the dry season. At 0.2-0.4 m the decreasing trend in total-P is striking. At greater depths there are peaks in October, and downward trends during the dry season. The peaks may be related to leaching of P made more soluble by the addition of organic matter in the form of manure (cf Stevenson, 1986: 275). The downward trends may be due in part to slowly reversible conversion, as the soil dries out, of total-P to P not caught by the perchloric acid method. It is also possible that the downward trends are related to leaching of total-P. However, that would make the leaching losses of P so large that corroborating evidence is required.Bray1-P trends near the surface of the control plots are more or less neutral. Below 0.7 m, however, there seem to be increases, however small, from May (July) until October, and decreases or neutral trends during the dry season. It is not clear to what extent the increases are due to decomposition of old organic matter in situ, conversion from total P, transfer from above (via the root system or by leaching), or measurement error including spatial variability aspects.Leaching of P is definitely a possibility, as mentioned by Stevenson (1986: 236) and confirmed by data from Bationo and colleagues at ISC (IFDC, 1993: 30). The soils are quite coarse, and leaching of entire organic molecules, containing P, is no doubt easily achieved. In addition, the P-retention capacity of these soils is very low (0-4%, Blakemore et al, 1987); even orthophosphate is leached when supply exceeds retention capacity.Like SOC trends, total P trends near the surface of the manured plots showed peaks during the height of crop development (July), and a slight increase during the dry season. The peaks are due to  the input of P via the manure, and possibly also related to the effect of urine on availability of P. Table 2 shows that, for the lower input treatments (C1+ and S1+), the amount of P applied in the manure is less than the amount of P removed in the crop. A companion study during the 1990 cropping season on adjacent plots examined the effects of urine on soil chemical properties (Powell, unpublished data). Average sheep urine voidings (64 g) applied an equivalent of 202 kg/N ha. This increased surface soil pH (0-0.15 m) from 5.5 to 8.5, and Bray1-P from 11 to 18 t/kg, one week after application. These values remained elevated throughout most of the 120-day millet growth cycle. Very little P is excreted in urine, and the positive effect of urine on Bray1-P must have been due to the elevated pH, which decreased P-fixation and made more P available.The increases in total P near the surface during the dry season become more important when compared to the negative trends lower down in the soils. They are, again, probably related to dry season termite activity (incorporation and partial breakdown of organic matter from the surface). Fluctuations in total P were strongest for the highest manure input treatment (C3+). Below 0.2 m, the trends from July to October varied. During the dry season, particularly for C3+ and to a lesser degree for S3+, total P decreased at 0.2-0.4 and 0.7-0.9 m depth, and remained unchanged at 1.2-1.4 and 1.7-1.9 m depth. These trends, too, point to the translocation of P from shallower to deeper layers of soil.Translocation of nutrients to deeper soil layers mainly takes place in two ways. The first is direct leaching. The second is transfer via the root system to deeper roots, followed by decomposition of those roots and leaching of the decomposition products. A calculation involving root length densities and specific root lengths (S R Gaze, unpublished data), shows that the amounts of P needed to form new roots at depth are too small to explain the maximum increases in total P concentrations found at the 1.7-1.9 m depth (Figure 4). Leaching must play a significant role in the translocation of P to greater depths, and most likely in the translocation of C and N as well. Brouwer et al (1993) found that soil drainage at ISC, and therefore leaching, continue well after the end of the rainy season and that dry season water losses from the top 2.0 m of soil can be as great as 70-100 mm. As long as there is water and organic matter, microbial activity is also likely to continue on these well-aerated soils.The magnitude of translocation of nutrients to greater depths can be estimated in several ways. Firstly, one can look at the change in storage in the 1.5-2.0 m deep soil layer between May 1990 and May 1991 (Figures 1-5). Using a soil dry bulk density of 1.57 t/ha, these increases on a hectare basis are up to 1070 kg for organic C, 91 kg for total N, 11 kg for mineral N, 19 kg for total P and 9 kg for Bray1 P under treatment C3+. This is approximately 20% of the manure C input into C3+, and 34% of the N input. As C and N can be fixed from the atmosphere, these percentages may be somewhat misleading. For total P, the translocation was more than the input of P in the manure. This may be related to the fact that the field had received a considerable amount of P fertiliser in the years before this experiment. After the application of P fertiliser stopped, the soil may have been returning to total-P levels in equilibrium with no input of P fertiliser.A rough water balance and nutrient flux calculation can also be done based on increases in concentrations of nutrients in the soil water due to the addition of manure, and on displacement of that soil water through drainage. Nutrient translocations to below 2.0 m depth thus calculated on a hectare basis were up to 1540 kg for organic C, 55 kg for total N, 19 kg for mineral N, 44 kg for total-P and 6.3 kg for Bray1 P under treatment C3+. This is based on the assumption of 70 mm of drainage during the dry season. As total drainage during the whole cropping season was more like 200 mm (Klaij and Vachaud, 1992) these last figures may still be underestimates. Changes in nutrient storage from May 1990 to May 1991 in the top 2.0 m of soil are given in Table 1.Measurements of various components of the nutrient balance are presented in Table 2. For a layer of soil 2.0 m thick, with an average bulk density of about 1.6 t/ha, 1 t/kg equals 32 kg/ha. The net balances are equal to the soil storage in May 1991, minus the storage in May 1990, minus the input as manure, plus the export via harvesting of the crop.At the beginning of the experiment, the top 2.0 m of soil contained about 19 000 kg C/ha. Under the control plots, the net change in stored SOC over 12 months was negligible. For the manured plots, changes measured between two consecutive sampling dates went as high as 5000 kg/ha, but were generally not significant (Table 1). However, changes in SOC over the 12-month study period showed a clear treatment effect: C3+ plots showed clearly the largest increase in SOC storage (6200 kg/ha), while the other manure treatments did not differ much from each other and showed smaller increases (3200-4100 kg/ha) (Table 1).Table 2 shows that the net carbon balance over 12 months was about zero for the control plots, but highly positive for the manured plots (2800-4100 kg/ha). The probability of a significant treatment effect is, however, only 80%. Some inaccuracy in C (and N and P) balances may be due to incomplete recovery of the manure applied to plots by animals during night-time coralling. Total hand collection of sheep faeces from the soil surface was very difficult, and perhaps incomplete during the first year of study. In subsequent years all animals were fitted with manure collection bags. However, no account is taken of leaching and decomposition losses of C, inclusion of which would make the net carbon balance even more positive.Overall, it appears that the addition of sheep and cattle manure greatly increased millet yields. Above-ground biomass production increased by a factor of 3 (cf treatment effects on C, N and P exported in the crop) (Table 2); below-ground biomass probably increased by a similar factor (not measured). A root:shoot ratio of 2: 2.5, necessary to explain the increase in SOC storage on the basis of formation of new roots alone is much too high to be realistic. Published data for the local millet variety and the most commonly used cultivar CIVT indicate root: shoot ratios of only 0.2: 0.3 (ISC, 1992: 69) while actual ratios are probably about twice that (S R Gaze, ICRISAT Sahelian Centre, personal communication).It appears likely that the addition of manure accelerated the breakdown of coarser organic matter already in the soil from previous crops, thus causing an increase in SOC contents (Stevenson, 1986: 276). It is unlikely that the manure application stimulated the importation by termites of organic matter from elsewhere to such a degree. As there is also evidence of leaching of organic matter below the root zone of the millet, it is unlikely that these increases in SOC will be maintained over the long term.At the start of the experiment, the top 2.0 m of soil contained about 2500 kg N/ha. Under the control plots, there was no significant change in storage of N during the period of observation (Table 2). Any positive effect could only be attributed to accidental external inputs such as spill-over of manure or increased termite activity from neighbouring plots. The probability of a treatment effect over 12 months on storage of N is about 86%. A 320 to 520 kg/ha increase in N storage was measured for the four manured treatments, with C3+ again showing clearly the highest increase and the other three manure treatments being approximately equal. For the manured treatments, N export by millet was less than the N applied via the manure in all cases.As with SOC, the increase in N storage may have been caused by accelerated breakdown of organic matter already present in the soil, triggered by the application of manure. Ignoring losses due to leaching and gaseous losses, the ratios between the net C balances and the net N balances vary from 10-14, roughly what one would expect in well mineralised soil organic matter. It is also possible that the application of manure caused an increase in nitrogen fixation by micro-organisms, including those that live in the guts of certain termite species.At the start of the experiment, the top 2.0 m of soil contained about 2000 kg/ha of total P. Total P initially increased then decreased for most treatments (Figures 4 and 5). The net change over 12 months in stored total P under the control plots was -194 kg/ha (Table 2). Negative changes in total P were also observed for manure treatments C1+, S1+ and S3+. Only the C3+ treatment had a positive P balance. There was a 90% probability that these changes in total P were due to treatment effects.The net negative changes in total P were more or less proportional to the amounts of organic matter added. It is possible that some of the fertiliser P applied during the years before this experiment was undetectable with the perchloric acid method used to determine initial total P in May 1990. When the soil became moist in June and July some of this P was released causing the temporary increase in total and Bray1 P values. As organic matter from the manure was washed into the soil, P complexed with it and was leached. Leaching was probably more or less in proportion to the amount of organic carbon added and greatest under the C3+ treatment.The P input in manure differed very little from P export via the crop (Table 2). The net total P balances therefore showed virtually the same pattern as the changes in storage of total P in the soil from May 1990 to May 1991.First-year results from this manuring trial showed that:1. Frequent sampling of soil can be a useful tool in quantifying soil nutrient balance components.2. Where soil variability may be a problem, pre-experiment background sampling should be done on a plot basis, not a block or treatment basis.3. A number of soil chemical parameters showed marked cyclical fluctuations over the 12-month period. These fluctuations were probably related to rainfall, crop development, soil biological activity and downward movement of water. This should be kept in mind when evaluating the effects of agronomic treatments on soil parameters and yield sustainability. Comparisons in time should probably only be made over periods of (multiples of) 12 months, with sampling perhaps best done just before the rainy season (including the rainy season after the last harvest in an experiment).4. The dry season was by no means static in terms of soil nutrient cycles. Processes important during this season include incorporation of organic matter by termites, decomposition of organic matter (including recent roots) in soil layers that are still moist and leaching of nutrients to beyond the millet root zone.5. Application of manure may give rise to faster decomposition of organic matter already present in the soil; to increased assimilation of C by the millet crop; to increased activity of termites (in particular during the dry season); and possibly to increased fixation of nitrogen by bacteria in the soil (and possibly in the guts of certain termite species).6. Application of high rates of (cattle) manure can give rise to leaching of organic C, N and P. The leaching can be direct; or it can follow downward transport via the root system.7. Increases in nutrient storage in the 1.55-2.0 m soil layer, within a year of application of more than 13 000 kg/ha of cattle manure dry matter, were 1070 kg/ha of organic C, 91 kg/ha of total N (11 kg mineral N), and 19 kg/ha of total P (9 kg Bray-1 P). Actual downward losses of nutrients from the millet root zone may have been larger still.8. Nutrient balances indicated that for the deep sandy soils under study it may be more efficient in terms of nutrient usage to apply small amounts of manure frequently, rather than large amounts at longer intervals.9. Sheep manure appears to decompose more slowly than cattle manure, and as such may constitute a more efficient form of manure application.Feed factors affecting nutrient excretion by ruminants and the fate of nutrients when applied to soil Z .C. Somda, 1 J.M. Powell, 2 S. Fernández-Rivera 1 and J. Reed 3The main constraints to cereal production in semi-arid West Africa are low soil fertility and periodic drought. Soils generally are very low in organic matter (OM), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) contents (Kowal and Kassam, 1978;Breman and de Witt, 1983). Although crop residues left in the field can greatly improve the physical and chemical properties of these soils (Bationo and Mokwunye, 1991), they are most always fed to livestock. Sandford (1989) reported that during the dry season livestock spend 50 to 80% of their grazing time on cereal stovers. When crop residues and natural pastures are in short supply, browse leaves can constitute up to 50% of cattle diet and 70 to 80% of sheep and goats diet (Le Houérou, 1980;Otsyina and McKell, 1984). Many browses are high in tannins and related polyphenolic compounds which affect ruminant livestock nutrition (Reed, 1986;Reed et al, 1990) and the process of nutrient cycling in soils (Palm and Sanchez, 1991). The most common type of tannins found in browse are flavanoid polymers which are more correctly referred to as proanthocyanidins (PAs) (Bate-Smith, 1973;Reed, 1986;Haslan, 1989;Stafford, 1990).Proper management of crop residues, animal feeds, and manure can have a positive impact on the nutrient dynamics of low-input farming systems derived from savanna (Swift et al, 1989). For mixed farming systems in the Sahel of West Africa, an important issue is how to allocate limited amounts of biomass to the various production needs of crops and livestock. Crop residues and other feeds need to satisfy animal nutritional needs during the six-to eight-month dry season and sufficient organic material has to be returned to fields for soil conservation. The timely application of organic amendments to soil is necessary so that their decomposition and nutrient release is synchronous with crop nutrient demands.The decomposition of, and nutrient release from organic residues applied to soils are greatly influenced by an array of abiotic and biotic factors (Parr and Papendrick, 1978). Reports of significant correlations between initial chemical composition of organic soil amendments and mineralisation rates have been published extensively (Knapp et al, 1983;Fox et al, 1990;Palm and Sanchez, 1991;Oglesby and Fownes, 1992). However, comparative data for a wide range of forages and animal manure are unavailable under the semi-arid conditions of the Sahel. The objectives of this paper are to review the relationships between the chemical composition of forages and nutrient excretion by small ruminants, to compare the rates of forage and faeces decomposition in soil and evaluate the tradeoffs in applying plant material directly to soil versus feeding it to animals and applying their excreta to soil.A large proportion of the nutrients ingested by ruminants are excreted through faeces and urine. The amount and nutrient content of faeces are highly variable and depend on feed intake and apparent digestibility. According to their origin, faecal components can be classified into two fractions: metabolic (i.e. microbial and endogenous) and undigested feed (Mason, 1969;Orskov, 1982;Van Soest, 1982). The metabolic faecal OM is the fraction soluble in neutral detergent. This fraction is higher in cattle than sheep faeces, and increases as feed quality decreases and fermentation in the lower tract increases (Orskov, 1982;Van Soest, 1982). The undigested feed fraction is insoluble in neutral detergent and increases as the digestibility of the feed decreases. When faeces are applied to soil, the undigested feed fraction would mineralise at a slower rate than the metabolic fraction.Using relationships established by ARC (1984), the amount of soluble (FSN) and insoluble (FIN) nitrogen in animal faeces can be predicted by the equations: ADIN represents the N in the acid detergent insoluble fraction (g/kg) of the feed (Goering et al, 1972) I is feed intake (kg/d)In addition to manure, substantial amounts of nutrients are excreted through urine. The amount of urine voided is highly influenced by intake of water, salt and N, and environmental conditions (Church, 1975). Cattle excrete 17 to 45 ml of urine per kg live weight daily whereas normal urine excretion rates for sheep and goats are 10 to 40 ml/kg live weight.Urinary-N compounds are urea, ammonia, allantoin, hippuric and uric acids ( Van Soest, 1982). Nitrogen compounds digested in the rumen and absorbed as ammonia are metabolised and converted to urea in the liver. Variable proportions of urea are recycled to the rumen or excreted through urine. Thus, the consumption of N compounds that are ruminally degradable is associated with losses of urinary urea N. When applied to soils, most urine N can be lost by volatilisation and leaching (Russelle, 1992) whereas faecal-N is less susceptible to losses (Ryden et al, 1987).Animal faeces also contain variable amounts of endogenous and unabsorbed feed P depending on the concentration and availability of P in the feed (Little, 1980). Whereas N is voided in both faeces and urine, P is excreted almost exclusively in faeces (Ternouth, 1989). In general, P is not subject to volatile losses.The proportion of N and P excreted in faeces and urine is relevant to nutrient cycling and crop production in the Sahel. When animals are corralled overnight on cropland (Powell and Williams, 1993) both faeces and urine are returned to the soil whereas faeces collected from stall-fed animals and handspread on cropland are mostly devoid of urine. Although most urine-N may be lost when applied to soils, urine increases soil pH and available P levels of the sandy acid soils (Powell et al, 1992).Animal management and feeds highly influence nutrient excretion by ruminant livestock. Under stall-feeding conditions, the greatest faecal-N content was for sheep fed browse leaves followed by sheep fed cowpea and then millet leaves (Table 1). Goats browsing Bauhinia rufescens excreted more faecal insoluble N than goats browsing Ziziphus mauritiana and Combretum aculeatum. However, grazing under low or high stocking rates, sheep and goats excreted similar amounts of faecal N and P.  2. Supplements given at 10 g/kg W 0.75 .3. Digestibility of dry matter = 41%.4. Digestibility of dry matter = 49%.5. SEM = standard error of the mean.Tannins and related phenolic compounds appear to have a major effect on the amount and pathway of N excretion. A feeding trial with sheep in which four tree species (Acacia cyanophylla, A. sieberiana, A. Seyal and Sesbania sesban) were used as protein supplements to teff (Eragrotis abyssinica) straw was conducted by Reed et al (1990). Acacia cyanophylla had the highest content of proanthocyanidins whereas S. sesban had the lowest (Table 2). Proanthocyanidins (PAs) in browse plants are associated with higher amounts of neutral-detergent fibre, acid-detergent fibre, acid-detergent lignin and N that is insoluble in neutral detergent (Reed, 1986). The high content of PAs in A. cyanophylla was associated with high levels of neutral-detergent fibre and acid-detergent lignin. The content of lignin and PAs in A. sieberiana and A. seyal were intermediate between A. cyanophylla and S. sesban. The three acacia species had similar contents of soluble phenolics and were much higher than S. sesban. In addition to PAs, soluble phenolics may include low molecular weight compounds which may not complex with protein and carbohydrate (Reed et al, 1985). Source: Reed et al (1990).The concentrations of lignin and N in faeces from sheep fed Acacia spp were higher than faeces from S. sesban (Table 2). There were also species differences in the solubility of faecal-N in neutral detergent. Sheep fed A. cyanophylla had the highest concentration of neutral-detergent insoluble-N and sheep fed S. sesban had the lowest. There is a high correlation between the concentration of lignin and PAs in browse and the concentration of neutral-detergent insoluble-N in faeces (r 2 = 0.971 for lignin and r 2 = 0.852 for PAs). The increase in N and lignin in the fibre fraction of faeces may result from the formation of insoluble and indigestible complexes of PAs with protein and carbohydrates that originate from the feed, rumen microorganisms or endogenous excretions of the digestive tract. PAs also shift the route of N excretion from urine to faeces. The percentage type of intake N excreted in faeces and urine, respectively, was 89 and 14% for sheep fed A. cyanophylla leaves, 70 and 18% for those fed A. sieberiana, 2 and 14% for A. seyal, and 50 and 36% for sheep fed Sesbania sesban.A feeding trial conducted in Niger (Powell et al, 1994) indicated that feeding browse leaves reduced urine-N excretion and caused a general shift from faecal soluble-to faecal insoluble-N (Table 3). Faeces of sheep fed Acacia trachycarpa (AT) and Guiera senegalensis (GS) had higher insoluble-N content than faeces of sheep fed Combretum glutinosum (CG) and Vigna unguiculata (VU) leaves. Sheep fed CG and GS leaves actually excreted more P than the amounts they consumed. Ternouth (1989) attributed this negative P balance to the excretion of endogenous-P by the sheep.Nitrogen excretion by sheep was better correlated to lignin:N and polyphenol:N ratios in the feed than to either lignin or polyphenol content alone (Table 4). Sheep that consumed diets (AT and GS leaves) having wide lignin:N ratios excreted the highest amounts of total-and faecal insoluble-N (Figure 1) whereas sheep fed diets with wide polyphenol:N ratios (AT, CG, and GS) excreted the lowest amounts of urine-and faecal soluble-N (Figure 2). Feeds with high insoluble PAs contents (AT and GS leaves) also caused a shift from urine-to faecal-N, and from faecal soluble-to insoluble-N. Results from this and other feeding trials (Woodward and Reed, 1989;Reed et al, 1990) show that lignin, tannins and related phenolic compounds shift excretion of N from urine to the faeces, and increase the amount of N associated with the undigested feed component of faeces. Such shifts from urine-to faecal-and from faecal soluble-to insoluble-N may allow more N to be recycled in mixed farming systems. Source: Powell et al (1994).  ---------------------g/animal/day ---------------------------------% DM ---------- Source: Powell et al (1994).   Lignin and polyphenol also affect the decomposition of organic amendments added to soils. The wider the lignin:N and polyphenol:N ratios in organic materials, the slower organic N is mineralised in soil (Fox et al, 1990;Palm and Sanchez, 1991;Oglesby and Fownes, 1992). To evaluate the relative trade-off in applying organic materials directly to soil verses feeding them to animals and applying faeces to soil, a series of trials was carried out to compare organic matter and N and P losses from crop residues and browse leaves to those of sheep faeces derived from diets containing the same crop residue and browse leaves. Leaves and faeces were collected from feeding trials in which seven browse species (Acacia nilotica (AN), Anogeisus leiocarpus (AL), Ficus gnaphalocarpa (FG), Mitragyna inermis (MI), Pterocarpus erinaceus (PE), and Combretum glutinosum (CG), Guiera senegalensis (GS)) and leaves from grain legume Vigna unguiculata (VU) were used as protein supplement to Pennisetum glaucum (PG) straw (Powell et al, 1994). The leaves fed to sheep were higher in organic matter (OM), generally lower in N, and much lower in P and lignin contents than corresponding manure (Table 5).Decomposition and nutrient release were evaluated using litter bags buried in a prominent acid sandy soil in western Niger.  For browse leaves, OM decomposition was more rapid and there were greater OM losses during the wet than the dry and cool seasons (Figure 3). Leaves of VU buried in March (dry season) lost 50% of their initial OM during the first two weeks of decomposition as compared to 15% OM loss for other leaf materials. Based on the percentage of initial OM remaining after 112 days however, the difference between the most resistant (i.e. GS) and the least resistant (i.e. FG) browse leaves to decomposition was about 28%. For FG and PE leaves buried in July (wet season), more than 50% of OM had been lost within 14 days. From the 14 th day onward AL, AN, CG and GS leaves decomposed faster than other browse leaves. Decomposition of browse leaves buried in October (cool season) was strikingly low. Total losses of OM during this period amounted to only 30-40% for browse leaves and 60% for crop residues (PG and VU leaves) 112 days after placement in the field.The amounts of OM lost from manure varied according to the sheep diet and was relatively greater during the dry than the wet and cool seasons. Manure from diets of VU, PE, AL or FG lost about 30% of their initial OM within 14 days after burial in March (Figure 3). Decomposition slowed thereafter, especially for FG manure. After 112 days the OM content of FG manure was greater than that of any other manure type. However, sheep diet had less influence on manure decomposition during the wet season. Sheep manure buried in July lost between 25-60% of their initial OM content during the first 14 days, the largest amount being for PE and the smallest amounts for AN and GS manure. In contrast, decomposition during the cool season was markedly slower for AN and CG manure than for other manure types.These observed OM losses from leaves and manure were consistent with results of studies on the decomposition of plant residues in West Africa (Schroth et al, 1992). Seasonal differences in decomposition appeared to be affected by soil temperature and rainfall, or moisture availability. The drier conditions and lower soil temperatures at the beginning of the dry season appeared to hinder, whereas the moist conditions and high soil temperature during the beginning of the wet season perhaps enhanced leaf and manure decomposition.Crop residue and browse leaves and manures derived from these feeds had distinctly different decomposition patterns in soil (Figure 3). The fairly uniform decomposition and nutrient release patterns of manure versus leaves can be attributed to (1) the narrow ranges of nutrient contents between manure, (2) the presence of endogenous micro-organisms from the digestive tract, (3) and the size of the faecal undigested lignified particles, which remains fairly constant (0.5 to 1 mm) regardless of the forage (Landais and Guerin, 1992). The agronomic implication is that feeding plant materials to animal and applying manure to soil can accelerate the humification processes and nutrient turnover rates.The decomposition of most browse leaves, crop residues and sheep manure exhibited typical decay curves that were best described using a two pool exponential model:High decay rates (K1) in the first pool were indicative of the rapid decomposition of soluble, non-structural carbohydrates and other low C/N ratios compounds. Decay rates (K2) for the second pool can be related to the more recalcitrant structural carbohydrates and other lignified compounds which were more resistant to degradation. During the dry season, nearly all OM in CG leaves and GS, AN and AL manure was in the easily decomposable form compared to 70% for AN and GS leaves and less than 45% for the other leaves (Table 6). Decomposition rates (daily % OM disappeared) of the structural components of OM varied according to manure type and season, ranging from 0.6-2.4%, 0.7-1.8%, and 1.3-2.3% during the dry, wet and cool seasons, respectively.The time required to reach 95% OM decomposition ranged from a low of 198 days for VU to a high of 508 days for GS leaves during the dry season and from 81 days for VU to 370 days for AL leaves during the wet seasons. For manure, these times ranged from 91 days for AL to 336 days for FG manure during the dry season, 157 days for CG to 359 days for FG during the wet season and from 109 days for PE to 218 days for CG during the cool seasons.  There were seasonal differences in the patterns of nutrient release from leaves and manure. Mineralisation/immobilisation patterns varied considerably among the various leaves and manure.When applied to soil, N and P release was faster and greater from manure than from browse leaves (Figures 4 and 5). Whereas browse leaves immobilised nutrients, between 10 and 50% of N and P in manure from sheep fed the same leaves was mineralised within the first four weeks after application to soil. Net N and P mineralisation in manure exhibited decay patterns similar to OM loss (Table 7).The rapid nutrient release from manure may be related to the relative large amounts of soluble-N applied. A second, more recalcitrant pool of nutrient, which is probably composed primarily of insoluble lignoproteins, is represented by the second mineralisation constant of the two-pool exponential model. In comparing the decomposition constants (K1 and K2) of leaves and manure, it is clear that leaf passage through livestock enhances the rate of N and P mineralisation in soil.  Browse and PG leaves immobilised soil N and P during the early part of the dry season followed by a gradual nutrient release during the remainder of this study period (Figures 4 and 5). In contrast, VU leaves and most manure (except for AN and PG) immediately mineralised N and P during all three seasons. After two weeks of immobilisation, AN and PG manure released N and P. These patterns of mineralisation/immobilisation changed during the wet season when large amounts of N from leaves, and especially manure, were rapidly mineralised. Except for AL, AN and MI leaves which immobilised P briefly, leaves and manure immediately released P throughout the wet season incubation period. Patterns of nutrient release from manure were similar during the dry and cool seasons, but were different for browse leaves. For example, immobilisation of P by all browse leaves occurred up to day 56 during the dry season and day 112 during the cool season. All browse leaves immobilised similar amounts of P throughout the cool season.The estimated average application rate of small ruminant manure by farmers in Niger is 1.5 t/ha (Powell and Williams, 1993). Using the double exponential models (Table 7) it is possible to predict the amount of N and P released from 1.5 t/ha of sheep manure incorporated into cropland before the wet season in March. The greatest potential for N release (kg/ha) before millet planting in June would be from AN (34.0), followed by GS (30.0), MI and VU (27.5) and lastly PG (22.5) manure. Since many soils of this region are more P than N deficient (Breman and de Witt, 1983), the 2.1 to 4.6 kg P/ha released from manure would likely provide an important contribution of the total 6.1 kg P/ha required by millet. More than half of the total faecal-N (14.3 to 21.2 kg/ha) and faecal-P (1.3 to 3.1 kg/ha) would be released within the first four weeks after manure application during the early cropping season. The portion of N and P released that would be available for uptake by millet would depend, however, on the rate and magnitude of microbial and chemical immobilisation, losses by volatilisation, leaching and termite removal.Improved management of plant materials for animal feed and soil amendments is necessary in the semi-arid region of West Africa where inorganic fertilisers are largely unavailable and farmers rely on organic matter recycling to sustain cropland productivity. This study showed that there are distinct tradeoffs in feeding crop residues and browse first to sheep and applying manure, versus applying the plant materials directly to soil. The tannins and related polyphenolics in browse appear to enhance nutrient cycling. When fed to sheep browse cause a shift from the excretion of urine-N, which is subject to large volatile losses, to faecal-N, especially recalcitrant-N forms, which can be recycled through soil. Feeding crop residues and browse to animals enhances nutrient cycling: manure-bound N and P mineralised much faster than plant-bound N and P. Seasonal differences in the mineralisation/ immobilisation patterns of leaves and manure highlighted the importance of timing organic residue application so that mineralisation coincides with crop nutrient demand.Nutrient cycling in plant/soil systems can be described as the functioning of biological components within a prescribed area, at a given cost and with acceptable risk that ensures the transformation of solar energy into animal and vegetable biomass to supply the needs of the population (Pierre, 1992). Fertilisers, particularly those containing nitrogen, require much fossil energy in their manufacture; this energy is increasingly expensive and, moreover, is a diminishing resource. The raw materials used to make fertilisers have to be mined, and although supplies are expected to last many decades, the reserves in economically workable concentrations do not have an infinite life. These considerations, plus a greater awareness of the need to protect the environment from the polluting effects of excess fertilisers and to avoid damage to the physical environment and landscape of the planet, emphasise the need to quantify the movement of nutrients from soil to plant to animals and back to the soil. The transfer of minerals among different types of living matter and parts of the physical environment may be described as nutrient cycling.Nutrients which are essential for the growth of plants and animals are recycled continuously in the plant-animal-soil continuum. Nutrient transfers through a series of compartments constitute one of the simplest representations of a nutrient cycle. In most practical situations, whether concerned with natural or man-controlled systems, the sequence is more complex.Many cycles are polycyclic in that an element may cycle through several processes within a compartment (e.g. soil) before being passed to the next compartment (e.g. plant). The time taken for a nutrient to complete a cycle varies from minutes in transfers involving micro-organisms, to months for uptake by, and growth of annual crops, to years for intake and growth of animals and to thousands and million of years for transfers involving the physical environments, e.g. from atmosphere to land and sea and the formation of rocks. Thus, the time scale of any nutrient cycle under study must be carefully defined; any measurement at an instant of time usually neglects some other aspects of the dynamic nature of nutrient cycling.To understand and quantify the cycling of any element it is necessary to design a conceptual model to represent the predominant agricultural systems in each ecological zone in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Such a model would be extremely complex since it would be composed of human (rural and urban populations with their own organisations and dynamics), physical (climate and soils) and technical (farm management) components which interact within variable socio-economic conditions. Nutrient cycling in plant-livestock-soil systems cannot, therefore, be fully understood if the soil and plants and livestock systems are considered in isolation. In this paper agricultural practices in SSA are classified into relatively simple units, a single farm, that are situated in a given agro-ecosystem. It was assumed that an agricultural ecosystem is an organisation of resources, managed to a greater or lesser extent by man with production of human food as one of its main objectives. Pierre (1992) defined an agro-ecosystem as a recognisable part of the biosphere affected or determined to a certain degree by agricultural practices, and deriving its properties and features from those of its structural components, and most typically, from interactions between those components. The main characteristic of an agro-ecosystem is that it is a system which produces food or fibre which is passed through the boundaries of the system per se, and as such, conflicts with the established definition of an ecosystem. The main objectives of this paper are to identify the major agricultural systems in SSA in relation to their nutrient recycling potential and develop models to understand the processes involved in nutrient recycling for each ecological zone.Approximately 54% of the total arable land is already cultivated in SSA (Table 1) and 92 million ha are in fallow. At the onset of cropping when the fallow is opened up, there are varying amounts of nutrients stored in the soil and vegetation for subsequent crop use. The amount of nutrients stored depends on the vegetation which varies by ecosystem and land use (Table 2). If the fallow is burnt, all the nitrogen will be lost. During the cropping period, considerable amounts of nutrients may be harvested from the soil in the form of food and crop residues. Crop residues are usually burnt but some may be incorporated into the soil.The estimated human population in SSA is 640 million; it generates about million tonnes of refuse annually. The human waste potential is about 27 million tonnes per annum. Over 80% of the populace uses firewood for cooking thereby removing vegetation. The ashes are not returned to the source. There are also large amounts of animal waste that can be recycled in SSA (Alexandratos, 1988). Imperata cylindrica -------------------------kg/ha ------------------------ III 10-year old fallow, Ghana.IV Undisturbed savannah for over 20 years, Ghana.V 3-4 year old fallow, Ghana.Source: Nye and Greenland (1960).African agriculture must be productive, competitive and profitable, conserve natural resources, protect the environment, enhance public health, food quality and health. Under the low input technology common to SSA, there must be skilled management in order to achieve these goals (Figure 1). Improved nutrient recycling is one of the soil conservation practices necessary to achieve such goals and also increase soil productivity.  For the purpose of this paper, rangeland is referred to as natural unsown pastures. Rangelands are most common in the semi-arid and subhumid zones which contain approximately 80% of the ruminant livestock of SSA. The free ranging of ruminant livestock is the predominant production practice of the extensive livestock model. Rangelands and crop residues provide most sources of feed. However, crop residue grazing results in a removal of organic matter and macro nutrients from cropping systems that largely rely on organic matter recycling to maintain soil productivity. Although the ideal, perhaps, would be to return crop residues to cropland, the current practice is to burn ungrazed residues to facilitate manual cultivation. Burning results in almost total loss of N, however, the additional labour involved in gathering, storing, respreading and incorporating crop residues into the soil exceeds the capabilities of farmers. Grazing by animals appears to be a viable alternative to burning but requires a more widespread use of chemical fertilisers and organic manures if the soils are to remain productive.In the humid zone, small ruminants are not integrated into the farming system except in some locations like south-eastern Nigeria where they are confined to compound farms. The bulk of nutrient losses are from distant farms, where crops are harvested, and the grains processed by women in compound farms. Crop residues are also occasionally used for cooking and may be burnt in situ at the beginning of the planting season during land preparation.An advantage of extensive livestock production is that it requires little in terms of inputs and management. The tedious work of searching for consumable plants is carried out by the animals. The system also offers the possibility of converting rangelands vegetation and crop residues, that are not suitable for human consumption, into products which are consumable by man. Rangelands that contain legumes can convert atmospheric N into products for human consumption. A disadvantage is that some of the fixed N will be lost via volatilisation of ammonia from animal excrements. In addition to these volatile N losses, N is also lost through annual bush burning, especially in the savannah. Nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) are the essential elements withdrawn from the extensive livestock model. For P and K the system is very efficient since most of these nutrients are returned to the soil in the form of animal faeces; only the P and K present in meat and milk are withdrawn from the system.Although animals deposit manure on the fields during grazing, this recycles negligible amounts of dry matter and nutrients back to cropland. In northern Nigeria, the Fulani herdsmen keep their herds overnight on cropland during the dry season. This practice provides large amounts of manure with minimal labour. Preliminary trials conducted in central Nigeria showed that annual manure applications of 3 t/ha was needed to maintain grain yields (Watson and Goldsworthy, 1964). The Fulani practice of manuring their own fields every other year at 5 to 6 t/ha appears to be a rational strategy (Powell and Mohamed-Saleem, 1987).Nutrient cycling in extensive livestock grazing systems involves nutrient flows among various plant, animal and soil components (Table 5). Nutrient losses in the system are due mostly to burning. Livestock productivity is low because they are not fully integrated into the cropping systems. Livestock can have a negative effect on system productivity by trampling, when herdsmen loop trees excessively for feed, and by overgrazing which can lead to soil degradation.Increasing population pressure is putting a strain on the ecological balance in both semi-arid and subhumid environments. Although land for grazing and cropping is relatively abundant in the subhumid zone a point will come when cattle and cropping will compete for diminishing land resources. When cultivation density reaches 40% in the subhumid zone of Nigeria, it has been projected that cattle numbers will decrease (Bourn and Milligan, 1983). Innovations such as fodder banks which benefit both crop and livestock production have been suggested as a viable alternative to traditional methods of production in the subhumid zone (Mohamed-Saleem, 1986). In the humid zone alley farming has been advocated.The arable crop farm model operates mostly at the distant farm but also at the compound farm. Distant farms, located far from farmers' immediate homesteads, are quite distinct from the compound farms. In humid environments plantation crops such as cocoa, rubber, oil palm and arable crops are cultivated in the distant farms. Animals may or may not be well integrated into these systems. Food crops are harvested and carried to the compound or homestead by the farmers where they are processed and used for food while crop residues may be used for livestock feed. Similarly, cut-and-carry systems may operate in the arable crop model. Forage legumes are harvested for livestock within the vicinity of the distant farm both from cultivated and fallow fields -a practice that represents a loss of nutrients from the system. Farmers rely on organic matter recycling, mainly crop residues, inorganic nutrient sources and fallow to maintain soil productivity.At the end of the fallow the cropping phase starts with the slash and burn system. Most of the vegetation on the soil surface is turned to ashes; nitrogen and sulphur are lost during burning. The nutrients that are stored in fallow depend on the predominant type of fallowland vegetation which varies with agroclimatic zone (Table 2). Although most of the nutrients left in the ashes will be recycled during cropping, some will be blown away by the wind.During cropping nutrients are removed in the form of food (Table 6) and feed. For legumes which fix atmospheric-N, much of the N can be replaced naturally but other nutrients such as P, K Ca and Mg are not returned to the distant farm. The amount of nutrients removed from the farm can be particularly striking. Stangel (1991) estimated that the net annual removal of nutrients in SSA is 49 kg/ha (or a total of 9.3 million t/yr) and that these are projected to increase to 60 kg/ha (or total 13.2 million t/yr) by the year 2000 (Table 7) unless some major shifts in nutrient management occur soon and/or off-farm demand is curtailed. Source: Stangel (1991).In terms of nutrient recycling, the arable crop model has low productivity. Nutrients are wasted due to the slash and burn which is carried out at the onset of cropping phase. Presently about 201.3 thousand hectares of land are still under slash and burn in humid central Africa. Based on the nutrient content of typical fallow land the humid central zone of Africa loses about 2341 million tonnes of N a year to annual burning.Another area of nutrient loss in the arable system is via leaching. Leaching of nutrients can be one of the most serious problems in nutrient recycling and can lead to rapid deterioration of land during the cropping phase. It is known that nitrate adsorption commonly occurs in acid soils throughout the tropics. Therefore, in soils where nitrate adsorption occurs an increase in soil pH can lead to a competition between nitrate and other anions such as chloride, sulphate, phosphate and organic anions, and increase the rate of nitrate leaching.In the forest ecosystem large leaching losses of N and other nutrients have been recorded by Wong (1991) who calculated from crop uptake that only 1.9% of the total soil N content was mineralised over two years, of which 42% was lost by leaching. Furthermore, 65% of labeled 15 N was leached from a field cropped to maize during the first year and uncropped in second year.In both the forest and savannah zones of SSA large amounts of nutrients are removed from the system. Nutrient losses from arable land occur mostly from the plant pool through the removal of grain, roots, tubers etc (Table 8). Another major source of nutrient loss within this system is through the removal of crop residues from the field after each cropping season (Figure 2). There is also heavy soil loss in hilly areas and heavily populated regions.The distant farm model consists of a fallow phase and a cropping phase. This model is prevalent in the humid zone. The total nutrient pool of the fallows include soil nutrients and those locked up in the vegetation. Together these two pools constitute the nutrient capital available for possible use by crops and animals. The role of the fallow phase is to increase this total nutrient capital for the benefit of succeeding crops. The ability of the fallow vegetation to absorb and store nutrients in the \"closed cycle of nutrition\" is a function of the plant species, their ability to grow and develop extensive root systems and to produce large amounts of biomass. The regrowth vegetation consists of the species best able to build up fertility in the shortest possible time. At the onset of the fallow phase the early plant colonies consist of ephemeral and annual weeds. These are followed by perennial weeds, herbaceous shrub and leguminous trees. A long fallow in a humid climate may result in secondary forest which has the ability to accumulate relatively large amounts of nutrients. However, as the vegetation deteriorates due to short fallows and drier climates, its ability to absorb and store nutrients decreases sharply. The establishment of woody perennials in fallow lands usually results in an increase in the number of plant roots in the soil. The roots of trees usually penetrate beyond the rooting zones of annual crops and absorb nutrients that were leached into the subsoil during cropping. Such nutrients are immobilised in plant tissues and are eventually recycled to the topsoil through litterfall and mineralisation of leaf and twig litter (Aweto, 1981). In fact, nutrients are usually transferred from the subsoil to the topsoil during the fallow period (Nye and Greenland, 1960). The woody perennials produce much litter which is converted into soil organic matter upon decomposition. Organic matter increases soil cation-exchange capacity and is mineralised to give a very wide range of nutrients, including N, P and S. The improved top soil thus contains greater qualities of total and available nutrients than it did before being left in fallow (Aweto, 1981).The nutrients that build up in fallow soils are derived from different sources. Nitrogen is of atmospheric origin, having been fixed and incorporated into the soil by nitrogen-fixing micro-organisms. Most other nutrients are derived from the mineralisation of organic matter. Since plants are incapable of synthesising mineral nutrients, the nutrients in organic matter must have been absorbed from the soil by plant roots and later incorporated into plant tissues. Thus, the nutrients that build up in fallow soils are those originally present in the natural ecosystem. Such nutrients are derived mainly from the weathering of rock materials from which the soils are formed. In the final analysis, the extent to which nutrients accumulate in fallow soil would depend on the abundance of minerals in the soil parent material. Nutrients are also derived from atmospheric dust (Kellogg, 1963). In highly weathered soils, reserves of minerals that can be weathered for replenishing soil nutrients are small. Furthermore, since the rate of rock weathering is relatively slow, the chemical decomposition of rock minerals is not likely to make any immediate significant contributions to nutrient accretion in fallow soil. The regeneration of nutrient status under fallow would thus largely depend on recycling nutrients originally present in the soil or those immobilised in the vegetation.Before clearing, the soil and forest have an efficient nutrient cycle in which most nutrients are stored in the biomass and topsoil, and transferred from one to the other via rainwash, litterfall, root decomposition and plant uptake (Figure 3). Losses from this system are usually negligible. When the closed soil-forest nutrient cycle is destroyed by clearing and burning, a series of detrimental changes affects the properties of the exposed soil and nutrients are rapidly lost from the system. During the dry season some animals graze on fallow land. At times farmers harvest browse plants for their animals. Animals also graze and defecate at the edges of old fallow during the raining season.Because of the heavy labour requirement and low productivity of the bush-fallow system, farmers have little scope or incentive to cultivate more land than is absolutely necessary to provide sufficient food for the household. Within its obvious constraints, bush fallow is an efficient system but one that is highly dependent on the availability of sufficient amounts of land to ensure adequate restoration of soil fertility through fallows. Although land in general is still abundant in many parts of SSA, this is no longer the case in a number of areas, including south-east Nigeria and many parts of East and southern Africa. The traditional means of increasing production by simply expanding the area under cultivation is rapidly ceasing to be an option. Rapid rates of population growth during recent decades have increased the demand for food and, therefore, the competition for land. In studies on the effect of population pressure on shifting cultivation in eastern Nigeria, Langemann (1977) found that the land-use factor (which is a ratio of the sum of cultivation and fallow periods to the cultivation period) went from 6 to 2, as population rose from 100 to more than 500 people per square kilometre. Moreover, average farm size decreased, and the role of the compound farm increased in terms of its share of total farm area and contribution to the value of farm production.In general the consequences of increased population pressure have been a decline in the production of perennial crops and more intensive production of food crops, accompanied by a shortening of fallow periods and rapid deforestation. Even where population density is only moderate, the tree component of traditional farming systems has diminished in the humid zone. Compound farms are located within the immediate vicinity of the living area of farmers. A wide variety of trees, shrubs and vegetables are grown on land around the compound. The farmer normally makes maximum use of the land and cultivates numerous crop combinations. Animals are reared, but are tied to stakes during the growing season. They are not fully integrated into the farming system, are often fed with left over foods and precautions are taken to keep them off the cultivated areas. Compound farms are intensively managed and it has been reported that they protect the soil better than distant farms; the occurrence of erosion is rare and leaching of nutrient ions is also much reduced. Farmyard manure is recycled to maintain soil fertility under continuous cropping.Compound farms are common to all areas and are cropped every year. The tree species and the crop types in the forested area are different from those of semi-arid zones. Shrubs and medicinal plants that are needed for daily consumption or frequent use by the farmer and his household may be found within the compound farm. Nutrient removal by the plant and animal pools is minimal in the compound farm model.Mixed farming, or the production of both crops and livestock in the same production unit, is practised extensively in the southern and northern Guinea savannah of West Africa. The major animals reared are cattle, sheep and goats, and the crop component includes millet, sorghum, cowpea, groundnut etc. Major losses of nutrients occur through crop removal. Most plant materials remaining in the field are consumed by cattle, sheep and goats, especially during the dry season. Since the fields are extensively grazed, little manure is returned to the field. Fodder banks are being advocated as a promising intervention for mixed farming in the southern and northern Guinea savannah of Nigeria.In many parts of SSA, free ranging ruminant livestock production is practised especially in the subhumid zone. In this system small and large ruminants graze indigenous pastures during the rainy season and on crop residues during the dry season. Since animals are not intensively managed, the animal stocking rate is not controlled and overgrazing occurs in some locations. This often results in land degradation and pollution of rivers. Furthermore, since nomadic herdsmen often set fire to native pastures during the dry season to stimulate regrowth of grasses, large quantities of nutrients especially N and S are lost in the process. Similarly, crop residue grazing results in the removal of organic matter N and P from the cropping system.Significant quantities of nutrients are transferred from rural to urban areas in the form of farm produce. Urban centres can, therefore, be major drains of on-farm nutrients. Nutrient cycling in urban areas is very inefficient. Virtually nothing is recycled except in some compound farms and home gardens in the lower density areas of urban centres where domestic animals such as sheep, goats, donkeys, horses and poultry are kept.Food such as grains, root and tuber crops, and fruits and forages are brought from farms in semiand fully processed forms for urban dwellers. Animals that have been raised on farms in rural areas are slaughtered and consumed daily in urban areas.Major nutrient losses in urban areas are from: human wastes which consist of garbage, night soil, sludge; animal waste such as manure, litter and spoiled fodder, blood, hoofs and horns etc; wastes from forestry and fishery industries; and crop residues such as weeds, sugar-cane trash, water hyacinth etc.It has been estimated that SSA produces about 28.12 million tonnes of N, 10.25 million tonnes of P and 23.05 million tonnes of K as wastes (Alexandratos, 1988). Whereas the consumption figures for N, P and K for the period 1985/86 was about 6.2 million tonnes (Agboola and Akinnifesi, 1991) this means that only 10% of the nutrients available for recycling are actually recycled. If the potential human and animal waste in the urban areas of SSA were managed more efficiently, there should be little shortage of nutrients. Figure 4 is an idealised urban waste recycling plant. African urban areas should be encouraged to venture into such nutrient recycling enterprises. There is considerable scope to improve the exploitation of crop residues, animal manures and organic wastes from other sources for the maintenance of soil fertility. Research needs to focus on developing practical methods of nutrient recycling on-farm. For the cattle-rich regions, quantitative information is needed on the availability of farmyard manure and on the methods and economics of using it on a large scale in crop production. Presently, compost and farmyard manure are not being used widely and effectively. There are also problems of collection and transport of farmyard manure because of its bulk. Little information is available on the methods and best time to apply organic amendments to soils. The inadequacies of research and extension in providing information to farmers regarding the collection, storage, processing, transportation, utilisation and related economics of organic material recycling are largely due to a lack of sufficient and well-trained personnel to deal with the special needs of organic residue recycling, and lack of extension programmes.A concerted effort is needed to improve nutrient cycling in rural and urban areas of SSA. Agencies need to popularise the production and use of organic manures and biogas among farming communities. There is a need to develop improved methods of preparing and conserving compost, especially of household refuse and other vegetative wastes. Methods are also needed to enrich compost through the application of lime, superphosphate etc.Governments throughout SSA should also evaluate the long-term economic benefits of incorporating organic materials in soils to determine whether government policies that promote organic fertiliser use are justified. Furthermore, governments should identify and survey the availability and nutrient composition of different sources of organic materials such as crop residues, animal droppings, urban wastes and/or factory by-products with a view to exploiting these resources to their maximum for agricultural production.Research should: (i) determine the level of organic matter to be maintained in soils for securing high yields; (ii) evaluate the comparative efficiency of different kinds of organic material on soil health and crop yields; (iii) carry out studies on the recycling of plant nutrients in soils from different sources of organic materials, especially in connection with the balance of N and P; and (iv) characterise humus dynamics in the course of transformation of crop residues, green manuring, cattle manure and of products from urban wastes during the growing season. In the short term, studies should be carried out on the compatibility of different wastes on different soils and the management of crop residues without burning. Expert consultation on the current status of nutrient recycling in sub-Saharan Africa should be organised by international organisations such as the FAO.The role of forage legume fallows in supplying improved feed and recycling nitrogen in subhumid Nigeria En Afrique subsaharienne, les terres se dégradent rapidement et la fertilité des sols diminue, ce qui se traduit par une forte baisse de la productivité agricole totale. L'introduction de rotations à légumineuses fourragères dans les systèmes mixtes agriculture-élevage peut permettre de stabiliser la productivité agricole. Non seulement les légumineuses pourront fournir du fourrage de qualité pour l'alimentation des animaux, mais également ils peuvent améliorer les caractéristiques des sols pour la production agricole. Il ressort de recherches effectuées sur l'effet des légumineuses fourragères sur la productivité du bétail dans la zone subhumide du Nigéria, que les bovins élevés en saison sèche sur des pâturages à base de Stylosanthes produisaient plus de lait, perdaient moins de poids, avaient un intervêlage plus court et un taux de survie des veaux plus élevé par rapport à ceux élevés sur parcours naturels. Par ailleurs, les pertes de poids étaient réduites chez les caprins élevés sur pâturages de légumineuses au cours de la saison des pluies. Ces résultats sont attribués à la valeur nutritive plus élevée des légumineuses fourragères par rapport aux pâturages naturels. Le recyclage de l'azote par les légumineuses en vue des cultures suivantes a été évalué. Il ressort des résultats que la quantité d'azote recyclé par Stylosanthes variait entre 30 et 80 kg de N/ha. Les rendements en grainsSub-Saharan Africa is experiencing substantial land degradation and declining soil fertility leading to decreasing total agricultural productivity (Okigbo, 1985;Lal, 1989). Inherently less fertile soils are increasing due to land pressure resulting from rapid population growth. Traditional grazing lands are acquired for arable cultivation and long fallow periods, crucial for soil fertility regeneration have become unfeasible (Ruthenberg, 1980;Gichuru, 1991). Recycling of materials through grazing and crops etc could contribute to soil amelioration if suitable techniques are developed.The subhumid zone (SHZ) of Nigeria is characterised by 1000 to 1500 mm rainfall and a crop growing period of 180 to 270 days (ILCA, 1979). The low protein content of the natural pasture and crop residue in this zone is a serious constraint to livestock nutrition for up to six months of the year (ILCA, 1979;Mohamed-Saleem, 1986). Animals lose weight, milk production is low, calf mortality is high and conception rates are low (Otchere, 1986;Ockerman and Agboola, 1991). Poor soil fertility limits pasture productivity, quality and crop yields (Jones and Wild, 1975). The integration of grain and forage legumes into cropping systems is considered a promising option for developing economically viable agricultural systems (McCown et al, 1986;Buresh et al, 1993;Mohamed-Saleem and Fisher, 1993). By fixing nitrogen (N), legumes can enhance soil fertility, boost subsequent crop yields (Mohamed-Saleem, 1986;MacColl, 1990;Tarawali, 1991) and provide high quality feed for livestock (Tothill, 1986;Otsyina et al, 1987;Tripathi and Gill, 1991;Kouamé et al, 1992). Legumes also increase soil organic matter, cation exchange capacity (CEC), soil water-holding capacity, microbial activity, and reduce soil surface temperature, disease and pests and manual labour requirement for tilling the soil after growing the legume (Vallis and Gardener, 1984;Mohamed-Saleem et al, 1986;Mulongoy and Kang, 1986;Tarawali et al, 1987). This paper reviews 10 years of research conducted by the International Livestock Centre for Africa (ILCA) in the subhumid zone of Nigeria with respect to quantifying the benefits of legume (ley) fallows to livestock production; the contribution of grazed legume leys to soil N supply for subsequent crops; the changes in soil physical and chemical properties associated with legume leys; and feasible methods of integrating forage legumes into cropping systems.On-farm trials with agropastoral herds demonstrated that cattle with access to Stylosanthes fallow in the dry season produced more milk, lost less weight, had shorter calving intervals and better calf survival (Table 1;  Bayer, 1986) than those in the non-supplemented herds. The average forage production of the 4-ha leguminous fallows recorded at the beginning of the dry season (before grazing) ranged from 4700-6800 kg DM/ha of which about 62% was stylo (Mohamed-Saleem et al, 1986).Feed shortages for goats occur during the wet season in intensively cultivated areas of the subhumid zone. Goats grazing Stylosanthes fallows showed reduced (P<0.05) weight losses of non-pregnant does compared with those on natural pasture (Figure 1). The kids' survival also improved (P<0.05) due to legume supplementation (Ikwuegbu and Ofodile, 1992). During grazing in August (mid-wet season), the legume fallows had produced an average of 2.6±0.1 t/ha dry matter while the natural vegetation produced 2.4 ± 0.3 t/ha dry matter. The leguminous pasture had 30-50% stylo and 40-60% grasses while the rest were forbs. The legume component of this pasture was fairly good (Otsyina et al, 1987) but grasses tend to dominate in leguminous pastures after three years if not well managed. The better animal performance in legume pasture was attributed to the higher quality (in terms of crude protein) of the Stylosanthes fallows (about 12% crude protein, CP) compared to the natural pasture (about 5% CP) at the beginning of the dry season (Tothill, 1986).  Trail and Gregory (1981).Source: Tarawali and Pamo (1992). The role of legumes in NigeriaContribution of grazed legume leys to the soil nitrogen supply for subsequent cropsThe main factor limiting crop production in the African savannahs is low soil nitrogen (N) (Nnadi and Arora, 1985). Legume leys can reduce this deficiency by the N released or recycled from the residue and the N of the manure from the animals that feed on them (MacColl, 1990).To quantify the N recycled by legume leys to subsequent crops, a bioassay technique was adopted which involved applying various levels of N fertiliser to the cereal crops grown in areas previously fallowed with Stylosanthes or native pasture. The test crops were maize (Zea mays), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), millet (Pennisetum typhoides), acha (Digitaria exilis) and soya bean (Glycine max), all of which are extensively grown in the SHZ (Powell, 1984;Okigbo, 1985;Jansen, 1993) for grain, leaving stovers for dry season livestock feed (Bayer and Waters-Bayer, 1989).Earlier evaluations in central Nigeria on the effect of length of fallow period on maize grain yield showed that the N contribution of Stylosanthes pasture to a succeeding maize crop varied (Table 2), depending on the species and the length of time the land had been under the legume. For instance, three years fallow of S. guianensis provided 80 kg/ha more N and produced 1400 kg/ha more grain than the natural fallow. Areas planted with S. hamata cv Verano for three years contributed 60 kg N/ha more than the natural fallow. 1. The amount of N required by the three-year cropped area to attain similar maize grain yields as those obtained by the other land uses.Source: Mohamed-Saleem and Otsyina (1986).Subsequently, similar bioassays were extended to other locations to quantify N benefits from legume fallows on different soil types and lengths of growing period. Maize grain yields planted after Stylosanthes fallows were greater than yields on natural fallow at each level of applied N (Figure 2). Without fertiliser N additions, the average grain yields were 1700 kg/ha in the legume fallow and 800 kg/ha in the natural fallow. In the first year of cropping 45 kg N/ha had to be applied to maize grown in the natural fallow to produce the same grain yield as unfertilised maize following a good Stylosanthes pasture (Figure 2). In the second year of cropping the yields were much lower but the proportional increase in yield due to Stylosanthes was similar to that in the first year. This suggests that there was still some positive residual effects of the legumes but it was insufficient for the optimum growth of maize.Further application of legume fallows through the Nigerian extension service ascertained that maize grown outside Stylosanthes hamata pastures was chlorotic and stunted, especially in the plots not treated with N (Adeoye, 1989). At similar fertiliser rates, maize grain yields were greater inside (1809 kg/ha) than outside (1260 kg/ha) the legume fallows. The N-free plots inside the improved fallow produced higher grain yields (849 kg/ha) than those that received 30 kg N/ha (677 kg/ha) on the natural fallow. This suggests that the legume must have supplied at least a minimum of 30 kg N/ha to the maize crop.In most of the above studies the benefits of the legume to subsequent crops was a function of the legume in the fallow. As N accrues in the soil, grass invades the legume plots (Mohamed Saleem and Otsyina, 1986;Tarawali, 1991). A four-year investigation (1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989) was conducted to determine the effect of grass infestation on N supplied by a three-year old Stylosanthes pasture. Plots with no or minimum grass infestation (<25% of total DM) contributed the equivalent of about 40-50 kg/ha N to the maize crop (Table 3). As the grass density increased to 75% of total DM the N contribution declined to about 30 kg/ha. These findings compared favourably with estimated N accruals from other multi-locational on-farm trials in Nigeria reported by Tarawali (1991; Figure 2), and elsewhere by McCown et al (1986).  Source: Tarawali and Mohamed-Saleem (1994).A study was conducted whereby millet seedlings were sown in the nursery for six weeks and then transplanted into Stylosanthes fallows of at least three years old. Millet yields in four locations were greater in the improved fallow than in the natural pasture. Millet yield was 420 kg/ha without applying fertiliser N from the leguminous area (Figure 3). Averaged across all sites, approximately 20 to 30 kg/ha of fertiliser N had to be applied to millet grown outside leguminous fodder banks to raise its yield to that of millet planted on unfertilised plots inside the stylo pasture (Figure 3). Maximum millet yield in both leguminous and natural pastures was achieved at 45 kg N/ha.In the following year (1991), each of the experimental plots were split into two; fertiliser N was applied on one half only. As in the previous year, the millet yield within the Stylosanthes fallow was greater than yield on natural fallow (Figure 4). There was a great difference in grain yield between millet plots that received additional N fertilisation in 1991 and those that only received N in 1990 (Figure 3). About 45 kg N/ha was required to obtain maximum yields from the Stylosanthes pasture in the second year. This suggests that fertiliser N is necessary in the second year to produce a good millet crop within Stylosanthes hamata cv Verano fallow. About 30-60 kg N/ha were required to sustain yields on natural fallow. Mohamed and Clegg (1993) reported pearl millet grain yield increases of 730 (1st year) and 1480 (2nd year) kg/ha when grown after soya bean, a yield increase equivalent to that with 45 kg/ha of applied N.Acha is an important staple grain, localised to the plateau area in the middle belt of Nigeria. It is grown in rotation with the more nutrient demanding cereals. Acha did not respond to supplementary fertiliser N when grown after the Stylosanthes fallow. The highest acha grain yield (560 kg/ha) was obtained inside the improved fallow with no N application whereas about 40 kg N/ha was required on plots after natural fallow (Figure 5). This shows that maximum acha yield could be obtained if planted after a stylo fallow with no N fertiliser. A decline in acha grain yield with fertiliser N indicated that stylo provided enough N to attain maximum yields; any other fertiliser N addition caused yield to decrease.Intercropping is the most common farming system in northern Nigeria since it reduces the risk of crop failure, maximises production per unit land area and labour utilisation (Okigbo and Greenland, 1976). Three main crops (maize, sorghum and soya bean) were tested inside and outside Stylosanthes fallow in various combinations at different levels of nitrogen.Intercrops sown after the legume fallow outyielded those on the natural fallow (Figure 6). Maize depressed soya bean growth far more than sorghum indicating that soya bean/sorghum is a more  compatible mixture for intercropping. In the maize/sorghum combination, the individual crop yield was reduced, mainly due to a reduction in total plant population and competition between the two plant types. This effect was, however moderate in the crops planted inside the Stylosanthes fallows.Maize was the most responsive crop to the previous legume fallow.In 1989, the experimental plots were split into two parts. The amount of fertiliser applied in 1988 was again applied to one half of each plot; the other half received no nitrogen. Results from fertilised plots were similar to those obtained in 1988. Crops planted within the Stylosanthes fallow produced higher grain yields than those sown on the natural fallow (Figure 7). Yield on unfertilised plots were low, and there was no evidence of a residual effect on the N applied in 1988. However, plants inside fodder banks again yielded more than those outside. The poor yields of the crops that received no fertiliser in 1989 emphasised the need to apply some nitrogenous fertiliser into all soils during each cropping season. However, less fertiliser needs to be applied to soils that have been under stylo (60 kg N/ha compared to 120 kg N/ha recommended for maize).   The higher crop yields in the Stylosanthes fallow were probably due to the positive effects of the forage legume on soil properties. For instance, results of a series of soil measurements showed that Stylosanthes fallows improve soil bulk density, soil moisture retention capacity, CEC, organic carbon and soil N (Table 4). The fact that crop yields within the improved fallow are greater than those outside even at very high levels of N, confirmed that the Stylosanthes fallow contribute more than just N to succeeding crops. An improvement in soil physical properties could be the additional contribution of legume to subsequent cereal crops. Source: Tarawali and Ikwuegbu (1993).Inclusion of a legume into cereal/fallow rotations can lead to more sustainable agricultural systems. Among the methods developed, the undersowing technique has been the most widely used in establishing legume leys in crop rotations (Mohamed-Saleem and Otsyina, 1986). In 4-ha Stylosanthes fallows established by agropastoralists for the dry season diet supplementation of cattle it is recommended that 3 ha of the area be used for forage production and the remaining 1 ha planted with a responsive cereal such as maize. In this way, maize would be rotated into a three-year stylo fallow each year. In a cereal-based enterprise where continuous cropping is practised, it is recommended that a portion of the land (0.1 ha of the usual 2-3 ha used for farming) be devoted to improved forage production and the rest for crop production.Integration of forage legumes into cropping and fallow systems is considered an attractive option for arresting environmental degradation which is a pre-requisite for sustainable food production. The N contribution of forage legumes to subsequent crops varies from 30-80 kg/ha. Legume fallows also improve soil chemical, physical and biological properties. Since maize appeared to be the most responsive to accrued legume N, it is recommended that this crop is used as the first crop after Stylosanthes fallow in crop rotations. In the second cropping season, a less responsive cereal such as sorghum, millet or acha is suggested. Such recommendations need to be confirmed through on-farm trials. Some of the problems in introducing legume ley technology into cropping systems included:1. The technology requires fencing for efficient pasture management but the cost is too high for some farmers; local and cheaper materials are proposed by scientists.2. In intensively cultivated areas, farmers could not leave land on fallow for even a year. Doubling of yield in some of the crops should encourage fallowing and identification of more productive legumes with high biological nitrogen fixing capacity and other cropping practices (intercropping, sequential cropping etc.) should minimise the fallow period.3. Competition between the desired legume, nitrophilous grasses and associated crops tends to reduce benefits. Future research needs to quantify nutrient losses from these legumelivestock-crop systems via crops, weeds, soil erosion and other pathways. Additionally, techniques for safely introducing legumes into crops so as to optimise the performance of subsequent fallows in promoting livestock and crop production need to be sought.4. Legumes which are susceptible to diseases and are potential hosts to diseases could pose problems in the farming system. Future studies should include the identification of adaptable and disease resistant materials at the farm level. Also, the contribution of forage legumes to pest and disease control to boost total farm productivity should be of interest to farmers and scientists.Understanding the biological processes involved in these crop-livestock production systems should facilitate appropriate management practices that will allow the benefits/advantages of nutrient cycling to be better exploited.The benefits of forage legumes for livestock production and nutrient cycling in pasture and agropastoral systems of acid-soil savannahs of Latin AmericaCentro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), Apartado Aereo 6713, Cali, ColombiaAgricultural production must increase to match population growth in Latin America. However, the region is already witnessing a decline in productivity due to soil loss, compaction, overgrazing and inappropriate cropping systems. The vast savannah areas of infertile acid soils offer some hope for sustainable increases in agricultural production. Animal liveweight gains have doubled per head and increased tenfold per hectare with improved grass/legume pastures when compared with managed native savannahs. Similarly, milk production and calving performances can be improved with legumes. Grass/legume pastures combined with acid-soil tolerant upland rice are examples of input-efficient sustainable systems. Inputs of N from different forage legumes via biological nitrogen (N) fixation were quantified using 15 N isotope dilution techniques. The proportion of legume-N derived from fixation was greater than 85%. Thus the amounts of N2 fixed may be calculated from simple estimates of legume biomass. A legume content of at least 20% of the above-ground dry matter was estimated to be sufficient to maintain the N balance in these tropical pastures. Decomposition of legume residues is a key route for the cycling of N and other nutrients in under-utilised tropical pastures. Litter bag studies demonstrated wide variation in rates of nutrient release among forage legumes and grasses (litter half-lives ranging from 26-173 days during the wet season). Apparent transfer of legume-N to a companion grass was rapid during the first year of grass/legume pasture establishment on a sandy Oxisol, and depended on legume persistence under grazing. The ability of forage legumes to improve soil quality was investigated using 13 C measurements of soil organic matter, potential N mineralisation rates, soil physical measurements and yields of upland rice crops after a grass/legume pasture, a grass only pasture, or native savannah.Centro internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), Apartado Aereo 6713, Cali (Colombie)La production agricole en Amérique latine doit augmenter pour contrebalancer la croissance démographique dans cette région. Or, celle-ci connaît aujourd'hui une baisse de la productivité due à la perte et au compactage des sols, au surpâturage et à des systèmes agricoles mal adaptés. Cependant, les vastes régions de savane aux sols acides et pauvres laissent entrevoir des espoirs d'améliorations durables de la production agricole. En effet, les gains de poids des animaux ont doublé par tête et décuplé par hectare sur des pâturages améliorés de graminées/légumineuses par rapport aux parcours naturels. De même, la production de lait et les performances de parturition peuvent s'améliorer avec les légumineuses. Les pâturages de graminées/légumineuses et le riz de montagne adapté aux sols acides constituent des exemples de systèmes viables utilisant efficacement des intrants. Les apports d'azote par fixation biologique de différentes légumineuses fourragères ont été quantifiés par des techniques de dilution à l'isotope 15 N. La proportion d'azote des légumineuses obtenue par fixation était supérieure à 85%. Par conséquent, les quantités d'azote fixées peuvent être déterminées à partir de simples estimations de la biomasse des légumineuses. Il a été calculé qu'une proportion d'au moins 20% de légumineuses dans la matière sèche de la biomasse aérienne pouvait suffire à maintenir le bilan d'azote dans ces pâturages tropicaux. En outre, la décomposition des résidus des légumineuses est un moyen important de recyclage de l'azote et d'autres éléments nutritifs dans les pâturages tropicaux sous-exploités. Des études de décomposition en sac ont mis en évidence d'importantes variations des taux de libération des éléments nutritifs des graminées et légumineuses fourragères (la moitié de la minéralisation s'effectuait en 26 à 173 jours pendant la saison humide). Le transfert apparent de l'azote des légumineuses aux graminées se faisait rapidement au cours de la première année d'installation des pâturages graminées/légumineuses sur un oxisol sablonneux et dépendait de la résistance des légumineuses à la pâture. La capacité des légumineuses fourragères à améliorer la qualité des sols a été étudiée avec des mesures de la matière organique du sol au 13 C, les taux de minéralisation potentiels de l'azote, des mesures des caractéristiques physiques du sol et les rendements de cultures de riz de montagne après un pâturage de graminées/légumineuses, un pâturage de graminées uniquement ou la végétation naturelle de la savane.In Latin America where the majority of the land is used for extensive grazing, beef and milk are staples in the diet of the region's people and account for around 25% of the disposable income (CIAT, 1990a). Contrary to popular belief there is a continuing trend for decreasing self-sufficiency in these food commodities for tropical Latin America (CIAT, 1990a). Thus production levels need to be increased to meet the growing population.In terms of nutrient acquisition and cycling, grazing can be considered to be a process whereby nutrients, which are physically widely dispersed and which are generally at low concentrations, particularly in tropical herbage, are harvested by grazing animals and converted into beef and milk (Hodgson, 1990).The offtake of nutrients via grazing is low compared with cropping mainly as a result of the small amounts of nutrients retained by animals which range from 10-20% (Henzell and Ross, 1973;Wetselaar and Ganry, 1982). Most of the ingested nutrients are returned to the soil via excreta. However, in tropical pastures, which are generally underutilised, the return of nutrients via plant litter can be quantitatively greater than that via excreta (Thomas, 1992). Notwithstanding which route of nutrient return predominates in a particular pasture system, the low levels of nutrient offtake associated with beef and milk production when combined with an input of nitrogen (N) via legume biological fixation have long been exploited in ley farming systems as a means to restore soil organic matter and nutrients which are often depleted by cropping (Tivy, 1990). Such integrated crop-livestock systems are seen to be of increasing importance not only in developing countries where access to credit for purchased inputs is beyond the means of most farmers, but also in developed countries where environmental problems from the excessive use of fertilisers are of increasing concern (Tivy, 1990).The feasibility of the adoption of grass/legume ley farming systems by farmers in the tropics has been discussed by Mohamed-Saleem and Fisher (1993). This paper presents the results of research conducted at CIAT on the beneficial role of tropical forage legumes in production systems of the savannahs of Latin America.Together with the tropical forests savannahs dominate the land in Latin America. Savannahs, or land with a permanent ground cover of mainly herbaceous plants or small shrubs (Eiten, 1982), cover about 45% of the land or 243 million ha in Latin America. They represent some of the last underutilised land suitable for agricultural production on the planet (Thomas et al, 1993a;Vera et al, 1993a). Traditionally the savannahs have been used for extensive grazing and ranching, utilising the unimproved native grasses. Burning has been the only management option ubiquitously used on these vast areas. The inherent low levels of soil fertility result in poor-quality forage and hence low stocking rates of 5-10 ha/animal, low productivity levels of 50-70 kg liveweight gain/animal per year and calving rates of 50% (Lascano, 1991). The main soil constraints are low nutrient reserves, soil acidity and phosphorus fixation (Sanchez and Logan, 1992).There is substantial annual crop production in Latin America mainly of maize, soybean and rice (Thomas et al, 1993a). The major production regions occur in Brazil where integrated crop-pasture systems exist. Pastoralists have been using upland rice as a pioneer crop to establish or recuperate degraded grass-only pastures in Brazil since the mid-1980s (Kluthcouski et al, 1991). Similar systems with a forage legume component are currently under test and adoption in Colombia and Brazil (Zeigler et al, 1993). Generally, however, the savannahs have little true agropastoral sytems.Legumes are known to improve pastures by increasing fodder quality (protein) via biological nitrogen fixation (Whiteman, 1980;Crowder and Chheda, 1982). The N input helps alleviate the frequently limiting supplies of mineral nitrogen in tropical soils. The amounts of minerals in fodder can also be greater with a legume component in the pasture (Whiteman, 1980). This can be particularly important in environments such as the Colombian savannahs or llanos where minerals can limit animal performance (Lascano, 1991).Other benefits from legumes include improved nutrient cycling via increased litter quality and greater amounts of nutrients passing through the animal (Floate, 1981;Vallis et al, 1983). Soil biological activity is also thought to be enhanced by legume residues and exudates, and pests and weeds can be influenced by the presence of legumes in pastures e.g. the control of ticks with Stylosanthes (Sutherst et al, 1982).The major disadvantage of legume use has been the lack of persistence under grazing which, depending on the legume species and its acceptability to animals, can result in the legume being grazed out of the pasture within a few years. Conversely some tropical forage legumes, e.g. Desmodium ovalifolium also contain high amounts of anti-quality factors such as tannins which reduce their acceptability to animals resulting in legume dominance (Orrego, 1990).Estimates of the amounts of N fixed by eight different forage legumes grown in fertilised strips in the savannah ecosystem of Latin America ranged from 51-237 kg N/ha for a 35-week growing season. This range decreased to 23-101 kg N/ha over the same period with the same legumes receiving no P or K fertiliser (Table 1). In a field trial where three legumes were grown in separate mixtures with the grass Brachiaria dictyoneura with either a fertility level used for pasture establishment (kg/ha; 20 P, 20 K, 50 Ca, 20 Mg, 12 S, micronutrients and no N) or a level more appropriate for a crop/pasture system (three times the amounts above), percentage of the plant's N derived from fixation (% Ndfa) did not vary greatly with fertiliser treatment or among legume species (Table 2). Low levels of rates of fixation in kg N/ha shown are mainly the result of the low legume presence in the pastures (Thomas and Asakawa, 1993a). Source: Cadisch et al (1989). Nitrogen fixation measured over two 8-week periods during the wet season using 15 N isotope dilution techniques.% Ndfa = % plant-N derived from fixation. ±SD, n = 6.Low fertility = kg/ha; 20 P, 20 K, 50 Ca, 20 Mg, 12 S, micronutrients and no N. High fertility was three times the above.Source: Thomas and Asakawa (1993a).Under pasture conditions where the root biomass of grasses is much greater than that of the legume and hence where competition for mineral N is much stronger, the percentage of the legume's N derived from fixation (% Ndfa) is generally greater than 85% (Table 2). These results agree with those of Vallis et al (1983) and imply that measurements of legume biomass in pastures will produce reasonable estimates of the amounts of N fixed. However, there is some evidence that where severe deficiencies of P and K occur, the percentage of the legume's N derived from fixation may decline below 70% (Cadisch et al, 1989). Field data indicated that P supply had a greater effect on % Ndfa than K supply (Table 3). Source: Cadisch et al (1993).Using a simple modelling approach it has been estimated that a range of N fixation of 15-158 kg N/ha per year could maintain the N balance in the soil of tropical pastures (Thomas, 1992). The amounts vary with the rate of pasture utilisation and rates of recovery of N via the main recycling processes of litter return and decomposition, plant internal recycling and animal excretion. For example, at 10% pasture utilisation a variation in the recovery of excreta-N by pasture plants of between 20 and 60% will have little effect on the requirement for fixed N to balance the N cycle. The amount required would be between 32-35% of the total herbage N. At 40% utilisation, however, the fixed N requirement would be equivalent to 36-51% of the total herbage N depending on the percentage recoveries from excreta (Thomas, 1992).When the rates of N fixation of 15-158 kg N/ha per year are converted into a range of legume dry matter in the pasture, the model estimates that for tropical pastures, which are underutilised (10-40% utilisation), the legume content in the pasture should be between 20-31%. For higher rates of utilisation a legume content of between 35-45% is required (Thomas, 1992). These ranges of legume contents are similar to the range of 20-40% reported for optimal animal production (Simpson and Stobbs, 1981;Crowder and Chheda, 1982). Thus within the range of pasture utilisation (10-40%) thought to be typical of tropical pastures (Wetselaar and Ganry, 1982), there appears to be little or no trade-off between legume consumption for animal production and legume returns to the soil in terms of balancing the N cycle. Such trade-offs will become important at higher rates of utilisation, i.e. >40%.Table 1 shows that tropical forage legumes have the potential to fix sufficient N to maintain the N balance in a pasture. The emphasis therefore needs to be placed on maintaining a legume content of at least 20% in the pasture (Thomas, 1992).In the Colombian savannahs grass-legume pastures have more than doubled animal liveweight gain per head and increased production on an area basis by tenfold compared with a managed native savannah grassland (Figure 1). The grass/legume pastures increased liveweight gain per head by 50% and per hectare by 20-30% compared with the pure grass pasture. Increases of a similar order were obtained with grass/legume pastures on degraded rainforest lands (Thomas et al, 1992). Recent results obtained with the forage legume Arachis pintoi associated with Brachiaria spp indicate that animal liveweight gains as high as 500 kg/ha per year are possible on infertile Oxisols (Lascano, 1993).Reproductive performance has also been improved with grass/legume pastures compared with a native savannah. The dates of first calving occurred 30% earlier and calving intervals were shortened Benefits of legumes in Latin America by 22% in cows grazing an Andropogon gayanus/Stylosanthes capitata pasture compared with those grazing native grassland (Table 4). Significant increases in milk production in the order of 20% have been obtained on grass/legume pastures compared with improved grass-only pastures (Table 5). These benefits, which can be attributed to the presence of a forage legume in the pasture, have been observed with a range of pastures with different legumes in different ecosystems of the region (CIAT, 1992). Source: Thomas et al (1992). Source: Lascano and Avila (1991).Benefits from the legume have been observed within the first year of grazing in a recent experiment comparing a grass-only pasture of Brachiaria dictyoneura and two grass/legume associations, B. dictyoneura with either C. acutifolium or S. capitata (Fisher et al, 1993). The presence of either legume more than doubled the animal liveweight gains on a sandy Oxisol compared with the grass-only pasture (Table 6). The legume contents of these pastures were 29% for C. acutifolium and 31% for S. capitata. Stocking rate was 1.5 animals/ha. Animals rotated through four paddocks on a 7-day on/21-day rest cycle.All pastures received 20 P, 20 K, 50 Ca, 20 Mg and 125 kg/ha and micronutrients at sowing (Fisher et al, 1993).Potential rates of N mineralisation were greater in soils under 5-or 14-year-old pastures containing legumes compared with similar grass-only pastures (Table 7). Soil organic-matter levels were greater under a long-term improved grass or grass/legume pasture compared with the grazed native savannah but there were no differences between the improved pasture with or without the legume (Thomas et al, 1993a). ± SE, n = 5 Bh, Bh/Ap; n = 10 Bd, Bd/Pp.In the latter long-term pastures the effect of the legume was seen via the increased rates of potential N mineralisation (Table 7), an increased contribution of legume C in the surface soil layers as measured by 13 C isotope analyses (Rao et al, 1992;Thomas et al, 1993a) and also increased yields of a subsequent upland rice crop planted after the long-term pasture (Thomas et al, 1993a). For the first rice crop an extra 1.7 t/ha of rice was obtained after the grass/legume pasture compared with the grass-only pasture when no N fertiliser was applied (Figure 2). A further yield advantage of 0.8 t/ha of rice was obtained with a second successive rice crop (Thomas et al, 1993a).In an experiment on a sandy Oxisol in Colombia the total above-ground biomass-N/m 2 was between 3-3.6 times greater in grass/legume pastures than in a grass-only pasture during the establishment year (Table 8). In addition there was a 14-22% increase in the per cent N concentration of the grass Brachiaria dictyoneura when grown with either Stylosanthes capitata or Centrosema acutifolium (Table 8). The data suggest a rapid transfer of N from the legume to the grass although when root biomass-N was estimated there was little or no difference between the grass or grass/legume pastures in total biomass-N/m 2 . This was a result of a much greater root biomass in the grass-only pasture compared with the grass/legume pastures (Rao et al, 1992). In the same experiment animal liveweight gains were between 1.8 and 2.7 times greater in grass/legume pastures than in grass-only pastures during the first year of grazing (Table 6, wet and dry seasons combined). ± SE, n = 10.In addition to the above observations the amounts of surface plant litter were initially 13-20 times greater in the grass/legume pastures than in the grass-only pasture before grazing (Table 9). Presumably, because the litter in the grass/legume pastures was of a better quality than that of the grass-only pasture in terms of nutrients and lower lignin:N ratios, the rates of litter decomposition and hence recycling, would be greater in the presence of a legume (Thomas et al, 1993b).  Data from litter-bag studies confirmed the higher rates of litter decomposition of legumes compared with grasses and also higher rates of decomposition when the per cent N concentration was higher and when lignin:N ratios were lower (Thomas and Asakawa, 1993b). Of the six legumes studied Arachis pintoi and Stylosanthes capitata decomposed the fastest, Desmodium ovalifolium the slowest, while the other legumes and grasses formed an intermediate group with similar rates of decomposition (Table 10). Source: Thomas and Asakawa (1993b).In general the pattern of \"apparent\" release of nutrients (disappearance from litter) was similar for all forage species with a rapid release of K followed by slower releases of N, P and Ca (e.g. Figure 3). Quantitatively, however, the release of N, K and Ca was generally greater from legume litter than from grasses mainly as a result of higher initial nutrient concentrations in legume litter (Thomas and Asakawa, 1993b).Rates of decomposition were best correlated with the initial lignin:N ratios of the litter. The decomposition data obtained in the field were compared with those predicted by the CENTURY model which utilises per cent lignin and lignin:N as modifiers of plant litter decomposition (Parton et al, 1987). In general, agreement between predicted patterns of decomposition and observed were good (r 2 = 0.92) and examples are shown in Figure 4. Such data are encouraging for the widespread applicability of the CENTURY model for tropical ecosystems.The pattern of root decomposition has rarely been studied in tropical forage species. An initial study comparing the decomposition of root material of grasses and legumes in litter bags demonstrated greater rates of decomposition with legumes than with grasses for above-ground material. Roots of A. pintoi decomposed fastest (Table 11). The initial per cent lignin content and/or the lignin:N ratio were correlated with rates of decomposition (Celis and Thomas, unpublished data).Surprisingly coarse roots of grasses (>2 mm diameter) decomposed at faster rates than fine roots (<2 mm diameter) but the opposite was noted for legume material.The differences in decomposition and nutrient-release patterns among species noted above indicate some potential for the selection of fast or slow nutrient release from forage litter (e.g. legumes versus grasses). However, Thomas and Asakawa (1993b) estimated that the amounts of nutrients released from the litter of forage species would generally only contribute around 15% of the N requirements of a pasture. Similarly Dudal and Deckers (1993) concluded that in terms of crop production, returns of organic residues generally cannot replace the nutrients removed by harvest and therefore additional external nutrient inputs would be required to match demands. This is particularly true in the large areas of acid soils in developing countries where production increases will overide environmental issues at least in the short term, i.e. fertiliser use should increase especially where there is little option for collecting and concentrating animal manures from extensive grazing systems. Observed data are means of three measurement periods during the wet and dry season.Source: Thomas and Asakawa (1993b). The rice-pasture system currently under trial in Colombia and Brazil (Thomas et al, 1993a;Vera et al, 1993b;Zeigler et al, 1993) is an example of an improved input-efficient system needed in regions where removal of government subsidies has resulted in less input use. In this system acid-soil tolerant upland rice is undersown with a grass/legume mixture in previously unopened savannahs or savannahs with degrading sown pastures. The system is more efficient in land preparation and, because a ground cover is established more completely and quickly than either the separate establishment of pasture or rice alone, soil erosion and nutrient losses via leaching are reduced. Data from an experiment with litter bags containing soil incubated under glasshouse conditions.Source: Celis and Thomas (unpublished).Improved nutrient availability via the legume component has been demonstrated by the additional rice yields obtained when rice was monocropped for two successive years after a long-term grass/legume pasture compared with a grass-only pasture (Thomas et al, 1993a). Further research is needed to determine the length of the grass/legume pasture phase required to obtain economically worthwhile increases in yields of a subsequent cereal crop.The system can also contribute to the problem of legume persistence since by having the option to renovate the pasture every three to five years with the original or a different legume, the necessity for a persistent legume is diminished.Forage grasses and legumes selected for tolerance to the acid soils of Latin America have been shown to markedly increase animal performance in terms of liveweight gain, milk production and reproduction.Forage legumes can fix the amounts of N needed to sustain the N economy of pastures provided the legume component constitutes at least 20% of the above-ground dry matter. Transfer of fixed N to grass can occur rapidly and, although the exact routes of transfer have not been elucidated in tropical pastures, cycling via plant litter (shoot and root residues) is likely to be important.Litter decomposition data have been used to validate the use of the CENTURY ecosystem model for predicting decomposition rates and this information together with a knowledge of the nutrient release patterns can be used to match nutrient supplies from residues and other inputs such as manures and fertilisers with plant demand.A review of strategies for increased productivity and sustainability In the Sahel, pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum (L) R. Br.) and cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.) are an integral part of the farming systems and contribute to both human food and livestock feed. The traditional production system relies on the arrangement of these crops in time and space with both having implications for crop and livestock productivity, and sustainability. This paper reviews agronomic research and suggests ways and means of improving the productivity and sustainability of this system. The effects of different agronomic factors and cropping systems on grain and fodder yields and their implications on nutrient cycling and soil productivity are emphasised. Research at the ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics) Sahelian Center on such factors as cultivar choice, soil fertility and water management, crop management and cropping patterns is highlighted. Components of millet production systems found to be promising include application of small amounts of phosphorus (P), improved varieties of pearl millet and cowpea, sowing at higher densities, use of animal traction for ridging and weeding and rotation of millet and cowpea. The role of cowpea and forage legumes such as Stylosanthes in the improvement of soil fertility and the key link of crop residues as a source of livestock feed and soil amendment are stressed. Future research priorities on the integration of livestock into millet/land legume-based production systems are proposed.Le mil et le niébé dans les systèmes de production mixtes du Sahel: un aperçu des stratégies d'amélioration de la productivité et de la durabilité1. Institut international de recherche sur les cultures des zones tropicales semi-arides (ICRISAT) B.P. 12404, Niamey (Niger)2. Institut international de recherche sur les cultures des zones tropicales semi-arides (ICRISAT) Patancheru, A P 502 324 (Inde)Dans le Sahel, le mil (Pennisetum glaucum (L) R.Br.) et le niébé (Vigna unguiculata (L) Walp.) font partie intégrante des systèmes de production et entrent dans l'alimentation humaine et animale. Le système traditionnel de production est basé sur l'association de ces deux cultures dans le temps et dans l'espace, étant entendu qu'elles ont un impact sur la productivité et la durabilité de l'agriculture et de l'élevage. Cet article passe en revue divers travaux de recherche agronomique et propose différents moyens pour améliorer la productivité et la durabilité de ce système. L'accent est mis sur l'influence de différents facteurs agronomiques et de systèmes culturaux sur la production de grains et de fourrages et leurs conséquences sur le recyclage des éléments nutritifs et la productivité des sols.Farming systems in the Sahel are predominantly cereal-based and are practised essentially for domestic consumption. Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) and cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) are the major crops; their grains are used for human food and the residues for livestock feed. In the Sudano-Sahelian zone of West Africa (SSZWA) pearl millet occupies about 13 million ha of arable land. About 6 million ha of cowpea is grown in this zone, mostly intercropped with millet (Ntare et al, 1989). The traditional production system relies on the arrangement of these crops in time and space with both having implications on crop and livestock productivity and sustainability.Livestock are a vital and often necessary part of crop production systems in the SSZWA. They are a key source of protein, fertiliser and financial security and play an important role in crop farming. Crop residues provide an important source of feed for animals during the dry season (Powell and Waters-Bayer, 1985).In the SSZWA, the traditional agricultural systems were mainly based on a delicate balance between annual millet/cowpea production and long-term recycling of nutrients through fallowing, animal manure and crop residues, with very little use of purchased inputs. The rapid increase in human population, however, has disturbed this balance by shortening fallow periods and more rangelands are being cultivated resulting in ecological degradation. Production gains must come from an intensification of crop production on land already under cultivation. There is an urgent need to improve the productivity of the traditional millet/cowpea systems while maintaining or enhancing the quality of the resource base. This paper reviews research conducted at the ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics) Sahelian Center (ISC) to improve the productivity of millet/cowpea systems, and highlights implications on nutrient cycling, livestock and soil productivity.Crop production in the SSZWA is limited by edaphic factors. Most soils have low inherent production potential: they are low in organic matter content, available phosphorus (P), total nitrogen (N) and cation exchange capacity (CEC). The risk of soil degradation by erosion and nutrient mining is common to all soil types in the region.Rainfall in the region is monomodal, the wet season often ends abruptly followed by a 7-to 8-month dry season, and there is strong inter-and intra-annual variability in rainfall resulting in frequent drought spells during the crop cycle (Sivakumar, 1992). The type of cropping system practised by farmers depends on the rainfall gradient. The range of cultivated crop species becomes broader going from the fringes of the Sahara desert in the north to the humid south. Cereal/legume intercropping plays a major role in maintaining soil productivity, providing income to farmers and facilitating crop-livestock integration.The socio-economic conditions of the production systems are variable and complex. There are some common characteristics among production units, such as reliance on family labour in agriculture, the importance of non-agricultural activities on income and lack of monetary income to envisage investments in agriculture.The major yield limiting factors for millet/cowpea production are low crop density, competition for water and nutrients among crops, shading by the cereal, pests and diseases, drought stress and low soil fertility. Research at ISC has been addressing these factors in an effort to develop sustainable improvements in the productivity of these cropping systems.Traditional millet and cowpea cultivars start grain filling during September-October, the end of the rainy season. Both crops can be adversely affected by drought during years of erratic rainfall. With the increasing development of new cultivars with different morphological characteristics and maturity cycles shorter than those of traditional cultivars, more productive and stable cropping systems can be developed. Efforts to improve millet/cowpea cropping systems have been reviewed by Ntare et al (1989) and Fussell et al (1992). Stable intercropping systems through genetic improvement depend on compatible genotypes that produce not only grain for human consumption but also fodder for livestock.Pearl millet is traditionally sown with the first rainfall and cowpea is intercropped from 15 to 30 days later, depending on the evolution of the rains. Cowpea is often dominated by millet. There is potential for increased production in intercrop combinations through modification of the sowing date and spatial arrangement of crops. Research findings at ISC have demonstrated that millet/cowpea cropping systems can be intensified and made more productive by an appropriate choice of cultivars, manipulation of agronomic factors such as row arrangements, dates of sowing, densities of component crops and use of fertilisers (Fussel et al, 1992). Planting and harvest scheduling can also optimise intercrop productivity.It is possible to improve cowpea yields, without negatively affecting the performance of millet, by planting the legume with, or very shortly after the cereal. Planting forage type cowpeas at the same time as millet, and harvesting it before the millet flowers can reduce the negative effects of aggressive high density cowpeas on the cereal yield. This practice can improve the quality of crop residue for livestock feed.Many agronomic trials in the Sahel have clearly shown that the principal factor limiting the productivity of millet-based production systems is soil fertility. Research by the Institut de recherches agronomiques tropicales et des cultures vivrières (IRAT), many national research programmes, and more recently by the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) and ICRISAT have shown that P is the most limiting soil nutrient. Applications of even small amounts of P could improve the fertiliser/grain yield ratio to 1:5 (Bationo and Mokwunye, 1991). At the farm level, 13 kg P/ha increased millet yields threefold compared to no P additions (Bationo and Mokwunye, 1991). Klaij and Vachaud (1992) found that during a season of average rainfall, 13 kg P/ha and 40 kg N/ha increased seasonal evapotranspiration of a millet crop from 211 mm to 268 mm while crop dry matter increased from 1.14 t/ha to 3.85 t/ha.Using legumes in rotation and as intercrops with cereals provides N and is therefore important in SSZWA. In Niger, Senegal and Mali millet-legume rotations increase millet yield (Pieri, 1985). These yield increases were attributed to a combined residual effect of N from the legume and P not used by the legume (Fussell et al, 1987). Strategic management of legumes in the rotation (applying P to the legume) or intercrop (for example, early harvesting) can also increase millet yield. Use of leguminous pastures, such as Stylosanthes (Renard and Garba, 1989) and improved agroforestry systems can provide organic N-sources for millet-based systems (Charreau and Vidal, 1965). Leguminous trees planted in rows can reduce wind erosion and increase millet yields.Recycling crop residues as compost, mulch or manures helps replenish soil nutrients and maintain crop yields. The combined use of fertiliser and organic amendments can increase millet yields (Figure 1). Research to improve the use of crop residues and manure can improve the stability and sustainability of cereal/legume systems in SSZWA.Soils in SSZWA are characterised by low surface porosity, poor structure, and low water-holding capacity. Tillage and soil surface configuration not only enhance the beneficial effects of fertilisers but also moisture conservation (Nicou and Charreau, 1985). Tillage incorporates organic matter, improves weed control, improves moisture conservation, enhances root proliferation and thereby increases fertiliser and water-use efficiency. When tillage is accompanied by other inputs such as added fertiliser, synergistic effects were observed (Table 1). Nicou and Charreau (1985) reported an average yield increase of 22% with tillage from 38 different experiments. Increased rooting and improved crop moisture use due to tillage resulted in a 76% yield increase at ISC (Fussell et al, 1987).  Source: Fussel et al (1989).Among the land-forming methods, ridging as traditionally practised in Nigeria, Mali, Senegal and Niger and hilling or mounding as practised in the Seno plains in Mali are common in the SSZWA. At the ISC, ridging helps control wind erosion, and improves crop establishment by about 50% (Klaij and Hoogmoed, 1993). Where infiltration rates are low, tied ridging is known to reduce surface water runoff and encourage infiltration (Nicou and Charreau, 1985). Ridging also reduces the bulk density, concentrates fertility and organic matter near the seed row and helps improve seedling growth and establishment (Fussell et al, 1987).Presently, the majority of millet farmers perform tillage, planting and weeding by hand. Large-scale adoption of mechanised primary and secondary tillage methods may only be realised through the acceptance of animal traction. Though there are some inherent socio-economic constraints, the use of animal traction is the only practical means to increase the farmers' efficiency.With more grazing land being used for crop production in the southern Sahelian zone, ruminant livestock are becoming more and more dependent on crop residues for dry-season feed. The poor quality of millet stover has prompted a need to improve feeding systems that benefit both the farmer and his livestock. Introducing forage legumes other than cowpea could provide an important protein source for livestock and contribute to the improvement of soil fertility through their nitrogen fixing ability.Studies conducted at ISC indicated that among various perennial forage legumes, Stylosanthes hamata (L.) Taub and S. fruticosa (Retz) Alston are well adapted to the short rainy season (Garba and Renard, 1991). Stylosanthes sown in between millet rows at the seed rate of 4 kg/ha establishes and sets seed before millet is harvested. After harvest, animals are allowed to graze stylo and millet stover. In an average rainfall year, production of 1.7 t/ha of dry matter (DM) can be obtained from well established stylo, and in a year with above average rainfall up to 5 t/ha of dry forage could be harvested.In a millet/stylo association, the water-use efficiency was much higher than in the millet/cowpea system (Garba and Renard, 1991). In a three-year experiment conducted at ISC, different millet/stylo cropping patterns showed that when properly managed, the stylo contributes significantly to total biomass production and increased total crude protein yield (Table 2). Lower crop density resulted in less millet grain production than in pure millet stand. In dry years, the competition for water by Stylosanthes at critical stages adversely affects grain production (Kouamé et al, 1993). Sheep grazing millet stover and supplemented with stylo and cowpea hay gained more weight than sheep grazing millet stover only. Average daily gains at the end of the trial were 12, 48 and 53 g for the unsupplemented, stylo and cowpea-supplemented sheep, respectively (Kouamé et al, 1992).  Source: Kouamé et al (1993).At ISC the component technologies which showed promising results include: application of a small quantity of P (13 kg/ha), improved varieties of pearl millet and cowpea, sowing at higher densities, ridging and weeding using animal traction and crop rotation. A long-term multidisciplinary cropping systems trial combining these individual components was initiated in 1986. Results so far show a significant positive effect of crop rotation, P-fertilisation and ridging (Renard et al, 1987;Fussell et al, 1992;Shetty et al, 1992). Millet yields (stover and grain) were three to four times as high following cowpea as in the continuous millet cropping systems (Figure 2). Similarly the effects of P-fertility and ridging were highly significant in all the years. Animal traction resulted in 40 to 50% reduction in weeding time compared to manual cultivation. Some soil indicators of sustainability of this system are presented in Table 3.Agronomic research on millet/cowpea systems has clearly demonstrated that it is possible to improve the productivity of this traditional system in a sustainable manner. Although most of the past research focused on grain production the results have significant relevance to livestock production. The constraints to improving crop and animal systems are low soil moisture availability, soil nutrients and poor feed quality. Research to alleviate these constraints contribute directly or indirectly to total productivity and sustainability of the mixed crop-livestock systems. Contributions of legumes to soil and forage N, crop residues as fodder and soil amendments, and animal manuring are some common elements which need to be considered in aiming at improving the mixed farming systems of the Sahel. The use of legumes in millet-based cropping systems has been found to be beneficial in supplying both N to soil and higher quality feed to animals. Rotating millet with cowpea and other legumes is highly beneficial in terms of soil fertility. However, the processes contributing to the positive effects of rotation have not yet been clearly understood. In addition to their N contribution, legumes may also improve soil biological and physical properties, solubilise occluded P by root exudate, improve soil conservation through organic matter restoration, and control pests and diseases.Farmers in the Sahel rarely grow sole forage crops. Residues from their food crops are their main source of livestock feed during the long dry seasons. Crop genotypes and appropriate production systems that will meet the dual purpose grain/forage requirements of small-scale farmers need to be developed. Identification and development of dual purpose leguminous varieties which can produce high quality food and fodder are important.Research on introducing alternative forage legumes into the traditional mixed farming system may improve the quality of feed available and promote sustainable improvements in crop yields. At present, studies on forage legumes introduction into crop-livestock production systems are limited to the subhumid zone. These concepts need to be tested under Sahelian conditions. For example, scientists at ISC have demonstrated the positive effects of Stylosanthes on millet yields, forage quality and beneficial effects on the growth rate of livestock.The significance of biological N-fixation by legumes is well known. However, serious consideration has not been given towards the improvement of the nitrogen fixing capacity through selection and breeding. The possible contribution of certain cowpea cultivars to P uptake under low soil P conditions, and improving the utilisation of local rock phosphate also need detailed investigation.Agronomic research to improve millet-based systems has demonstrated that both grain and fodder yields and quality could be increased. Improvement in grain yields need not result in less stover and thus less fodder. The improved and adopted millet varieties in the region are similar to traditional cultivars and plant breeding programmes seek not only to increase grain but also the value of fodder and crop residues. Soil and crop management techniques must improve both food and feed availability. Further, the availability of early maturing, less competitive and shorter statured varieties may provide opportunity for increasing crop intensity thereby producing more total biomass per year.Improved millet residues quality could lead to more sustainable production of both crops and livestock. Studies at ISC have shown that there exists small or no differences in leaf digestibility among varieties (Fernandez, personal communication). However, studies by Powell and Fussell (1993) showed that the fertiliser N increased and fertiliser P decreased the N concentrations of millet stover. The authors concluded that although fertiliser N and P can raise food and feed production, the maintenance of appropriate balances between agricultural supply and human and livestock demands remains a critical factor in the long-term sustainability of mixed farming systems in SSZWA.Preliminary studies by ILCA at ISC have suggested that there are prospects for genetically improving the feeding value of millet stover. It is appropriate to evaluate in detail the quality of a large number of germplasm to determine the effect of variety on the feeding value of cowpea hay and millet stover.The role of improved agroforestry systems in sustainable food production is gaining importance. Windbreaks using multi-purpose perennial grasses and leguminous browse can control erosion, improve soil productivity and provide food, fodder and fuel. Studies conducted at ISC have shown the selective preferences of sheep and goats. Dietary preferences also change depending upon season. Studies related to the protection of young trees against animal damage, management of tree-crop competition, and further understanding positive interaction of trees, livestock and crops are needed. Selection and genetic improvement of multi-purpose tree species that help meet the needs of poor farmers must also be considered. Optimum management of fallow land and fodder banks (planted to leguminous species) can supplement feed during the dry season and also help improve soil productivity.The soils of SSZWA are extremely fragile and poor soil management can lead to serious environmental degradation. Continuous cultivation without external inputs leads to a decrease in organic matter, leaching of bases and subsequent soil acidification (ICRISAT, 1992). Crop residues are used in traditional farming systems as soil amendment although their alternative uses, including animal feed during the long dry season and for construction purposes, fuel etc, have been a constraint for large-scale adoption.A series of long-term experiments at ISC have demonstrated the large positive effects of using millet residue as soil amendment (Bationo et al, 1994, this volume, pp. ). The application of organic amendments had beneficial effects not only on millet yields but also on nutrients cycling due to the intense activity of termites, microbial decomposition and the early root development. The role of soil micro-organisms and termites in decomposing residues and manure needs to be understood. The competitive use of crop residues for soil management, household uses and livestock feed are being addressed by ILCA/ISC. Studies to identify constraints to balanced use of crop residues and the processes involved in crop residue management for optimum crop and livestock productivity need emphasis.Animal manuring is an important management practice for sustainable improvement of crop productivity. It is beyond the scope of this paper to focus on soil-animal-plant interactions in terms of the role of animals and manuring on crop and animal production. Studies to quantify nutrient transfer from range and croplands and on overcoming constraints to more efficient use of animal manure in millet-based cropping systems while conserving natural resource base are being addressed by ILCA at ISC.In parts of the millet growing area of West Africa, animal traction has been promoted for improving soil management, increasing cultivated areas and alleviating labour shortages. Feed supplies during the dry season is a major constraint to the adoption of animal traction in the drier areas. It is appropriate to quantify the tradeoff of crop residues in supporting animals during the dry season and in soil productivity maintenance.Finally, the results reported in this paper substantiate that millet-and cowpea-based systems of the Sahel can be made more productive by better resource management techniques. Improvement of the soil resource base is a prerequisite to meet the food and feed demands of the future. Efforts to improve the biomass production through better agronomic management techniques should lead to both soil fertility restoration and the improvement of the pearl millet-based production system. Research on improving production systems that meet short-term food and feed needs while maintaining or enhancing the ability to maintain or increase long-term productivity should be accompanied by socio-economic and policy studies that will make improved systems more acceptable to producers.A critical review of crop-residue use as soil amendment in the West African semi-arid tropics Poor soil fertility and low use of organic and inorganic fertilisers are the greatest constraints to increasing agricultural productivity of farming systems in the West African semi-arid tropics (WASAT). Results from long-term field experiments showed that the use of mineral fertilisers alone in the long-run leads to decreasing base saturation, decreasing pH and increasing aluminium (Al) toxicity in soils which might be limiting crop yields. The soil fertility in intensified farming in the WASAT can only be maintained through efficient recycling of organic material such as millet crop residues (CR) or manure in combination with mineral fertilisers and using rotations with legumes such as groundnut and cowpea or Stylosanthes. The mechanisms responsible for the positive effects of CR on crop yields are multiple. They include local conditions such as rainfall, wind speed, soil type, and temperature regime. Thus, at some sites an increase in available phosphorus (P) or potassium (K) may be the most important mechanism while at other sites, the protection against sand coverage and water erosion, a loosening of the upper soil layers, soil microbiological effects or a decrease of soil surface temperature and soil resistance may be dominant. In mixed crop-livestock systems, the issue of competing uses for CR needs to be addressed to understand the current mechanisms of resource allocation by farmers and to design economically and ecologically sound alternatives which ensure the sustainability of current farming systems at a higher output level. The complementary effects between livestock and crop production in the Sahel also suggests that research efforts should not only take into account ways to increase crop biomass at the farm level, but also how to increase the quantity and quality of fodder. Les faibles niveaux de fertilité des sols et d'utilisation des engrais organiques et inorganiques constituent les principaux obstacles à l'accroissement de la productivité des systèmes de production agricole dans la zone semi-aride de l'Afrique de l'Ouest.des systèmes actuels à un niveau de production plus élevé. Compte tenu de la complémentarité entre l'élevage et l'agriculture dans le Sahel, les activités de recherche ne devraient pas seulement viser à accroître la production des cultures au niveau de l'exploitation, mais également à accroître la quantité et la qualité du fourrage.Research results from long-term field experiments in the West African semi-arid tropics (WASAT) showed that the use of mineral fertilisers without recycling of organic materials resulted in higher yields, but this increase was not sustainable (Jones, 1976;Bationo and Mokwunye, 1991). With mineral fertiliser application alone, soil organic matter declined. Pichot et al (1981) reported from a ferruginous soil in Burkina Faso that with mineral fertiliser application, 25 to 50% of the indigenous organic matter disappeared during the first two years of cultivation. Bache and Heathcote (1969), Mokwunye (1981) and Pichot et al (1981) observed that continuous cultivation using mineral fertilisers increased nutrient leaching, lowered the base saturation and aggravated soil acidification. Also exchangeable aluminium was increased and crop yields declined.Traditionally, agricultural production in WASAT has been based on shifting cultivation systems. Bush-fallow periods of between 7 and 15 years alternated with 3 to 5 years of continuous cropping. Little research has been done to systematically investigate the mechanisms involved in soil fertility restoration during the fallow period. The main factors involved seem to be the accumulation of nitrogen (N) from natural atmospheric sources and biological N2-fixation and the entrapment of nutrients, mainly potassium (K), by plant biomass in the dust from Harmattan winds. Some deep-rooted trees may additionally pump nutrients from the subsoil to the soil surface and deposit them through litter fall.In recent years, rapid human population growth rates (>3% per annum) and animals have surpassed the carrying capacity of the land in the WASAT. This has resulted in shorter fallow periods and increased environmental degradation thereby undermining the long-term stability of the production systems (Vierich and Stoop, 1990). In Niger for example, grain yields of pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum L.) declined from 480 to approximately 300 kg/ha between 1960 and 1985 (Bationo et al, 1989). In attempts to meet the increasing food demands farmers are cultivating more land permanently and abandoning the traditional fallow system. Overgrazing due to droughts, the construction of deep wells and increasing herd sizes has led to increased ecological degradation.Crop residues (CR), mainly of millet, have various uses in the mixed farming systems of the WASAT. They are used as mulch to maintain soil organic matter and protect the soil surface from water and wind erosion, for animal feed and for construction purposes. The purpose of this paper is to review the latest information generated in the area of crop residues used as a soil amendment and to indicate the gaps in knowledge which call for additional research considering the inter-relationships between soil fertility, crop residues and livestock.Figure 1 gives a schematic representation of the different uses of crop residues in the WASAT. Traditionally, many farmers burn whatever is left of their CR once their needs for fuel, animal feed, or housing and fencing material have been fulfilled. Economic data collected recently show the rationality of this strategy as mulched millet stalks increase weed growth and subsequently labour requirements at weeding (Lamers, unpublished data). However, the same farmers may conscientiously apply CR at a rate of up to 6 t/ha to counteract erosion and build up soil fertility on selected spots of poor millet growth (Lamers and Feil, 1993).In the WASAT grazing animals remove more biomass and nutrients from cropland than they return in the form of manure, an exception being reported from Burkina Faso (Table 1). Therefore, Breman and Traoré (1986) concluded that a sustainable nutrient supply in the southern Sahel based on a net transfer of nutrients from rangelands to croplands required between 4 and 40 ha of rangeland per hectare of cropland.In an inventory of CR availability in the Sudanian zone of central Burkina Faso, Segda (1991) concluded that the production of cereal straw can meet the currently recommended optimum level of 5 t/ha every two years. However, the competition with other uses was not accounted for in this study. Lompo (1983) found that in that zone up to 90% of the CR is burned for cooking or in the fields. This practice results in considerable loss of carbon and nutrients such as nitrogen and sulfur. Charreau and Poulain (1964) reported that 20 to 40 kg N/ha and 5 to 10 kg S/ha are lost by burning crop residues. Other negative effects might be temporal changes in the population of soil micro-organisms in the upper soil layers, particularly rhizobia, by the intense heat (Charreau and Nicou, 1971). Increasing the availability of CR to maintain soil fertility in the WASAT will require enhanced fuel wood production to which agroforestry research might make a contribution by screening locally adapted fast-growing woody species. As early development of such species is often slow, research on the effects of placed application of small quantities of mineral fertilisers, mainly P, or manure is needed.For the Sahelian zone, field experiments in millet showed that from a plant nutritional standpoint the optimum level of CR to be applied to the soil as mulch may be as high as 2 t/ha (Rebafka et al, 1994). However, McIntire and Fussell (1986) reported that on fields of unfertilised local cultivars, grain yields averaged only 236 kg/ha and mean residue barely yields reached 1300 kg/ha. These results imply that unless stover production is increased through the application of fertilisers and/or manure it is unlikely that the recommended levels of CR could be available for use as mulch.In village-level studies on crop residues along a north-south transect in three different agro-ecological zones of Niger, surveys were conducted to assess farm-level stover production, household requirements and residual stover remaining on-farm. The results of these surveys showed that the average amounts of stover removed from the field by a household represented only between 2 to 3.5% of the mean stover production (ICRISAT, 1993). At the onset of the rains the residual stover on-farm was only between 21 and 39% of the mean stover production at harvest time (Table 2). Even if no data have been collected on the amount of CR lost by microbial decomposition and termites, cattle-grazing is likely to be responsible for most of the disappearance of the crop residues. Similar losses were reported by Powell (1985) who found that up to 49% of sorghum and 57% of millet stover disappearance in the subhumid zone of Nigeria was due to livestock grazing. Sandford (1989) reported that in the mixed farming systems, cattle derive up to 45% of their total annual intake from crop residues and up to 80% during periods of fodder shortage. Up to 50% of the total amount of CR and up to 100% of the leaves are eaten by livestock (van Raay and de Leeuw, 1971). Most of the nutrients are voided in the animal excreta but when the animals are not stabled, the nutrients contained in the droppings cannot be effectively utilised in the arable areas (Balasubramanian and Nnadi, 1980; Table 1).  In an on-farm evaluation of CR availability, Bationo et al (1991) showed that the use of fertilisers increased stover yields under on-farm conditions. Despite the many competing uses of CR (Figure 1) the increased production led to significantly more mulch in the subsequent rainy season (Table 3). The complementarity of livestock and crop production in the Sahel suggests the need for research on possibilities to increase nutrient use efficiency for higher CR production and to improve the production of alternative feed supplies. The aim of such research should be to increase both fodder quantity and quality thus conserving more CR for soil application. Fertilisers were applied at 13 kg P/ha and 30 kg N/ha.Source: Bationo et al (1991).Long-term experiments on the sustainability of crop production in the WASAT without fertilisers, with chemical fertilisers and/or organic materials under different rotations were initiated in the early 1960s by the Research Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IRAT). Results of these experiments have been summarised by Pieri (1986;1989) and clearly showed that fertiliser application is an effective means of increasing yield in arable farming systems without fallow. However, Pieri also cautioned that, in the long-run, the use of chemical fertilisers alone may lead to decreasing base saturation, K deficiency, decreasing pH and occurrence of Al toxicity. Application of organic material such as green manures, crop residues, compost or animal manure can counteract the negative effects of chemical fertilisers (de Ridder and van Keulen, 1990). This led Pieri (1986) to conclude that soil fertility in intensive arable farming in the WASAT can only be maintained through efficient recycling of organic material in combination with rotations of N2-fixing leguminous species and chemical fertilisers.In the Sahelian zone with a soil organic matter content of 0.2% in the 0 to 15 cm layer, Bationo et al (1993) reported a large positive and additive effect of CR and fertiliser application on pearl millet yields (Table 4). Over the duration of the study, grain yields in the control plots (no fertiliser nor CR) were low and steadily declined. This indicates that the potential for continuous millet production on these soils is very limited in the absence of soil amendments. Except for the drought year in 1984, fertiliser application resulted in an approximately tenfold yield increase compared to the control. Since the P fixation capacity of the sandy soils of the Sahel is low (Mokwunye et al, 1986) and residual effects of P-fertiliser application are evident even after three years, the use of P-fertilisers has important implications for sustainable soil management in the WASAT. The availability of cheap P fertilisers to small farmers may induce them to cultivate less land more intensively thereby leaving more area under fallow or pasture. This, in turn, would decrease the negative effects of wind and water erosion on the soil productivity. Source: Bationo et al (1993).In a location in the Sudanian zone where soil organic matter content was 0.5%, the application of CR alone failed to increase millet yields (Table 5). For the same Sudanian zone, Sedogo (1981) reported negative effects of CR on pearl millet yield. He attributed this to N immobilisation by CR in the absence of mineral fertiliser application. When effects of mineral fertilisers and crop residues on stover-use efficiency and fertiliser-use efficiency of millet were computed it became clear that at Sadoré CR application increased fertiliser-use efficiency for the drought year 1984 whereas at Tara there was no effect. Effects of fertilisers on stover-use efficiency were similarly positive at both sites except for 1984 and 1986 at Sadoré (Table 6).The contradictory results of yield reductions and increases due to CR indicate that much research needs to be done to investigate the mechanisms of CR effects on crop growth in different zones, and to monitor more closely the dynamics of organic matter in the different soils. A key issue is the C/N ratio of the applied organic material, which tends to be high in cereal straw leading to N immobilisation after initial application. In combination with strategic mapping techniques such as the Geographical Information System (GIS), it may be possible to delineate zones where CR could be applied as surface mulch and others where CR should be recycled through the animal or composted before soil application to avoid negative effects due to nutrient immobilisation. Such zonal differentiation is of practical importance as composting requires water during the dry season, high labour for processing and transport, and contributes to a redistribution of nutrients. Thus, it should only be done in areas where the payoff justifies such efforts. On the other hand even the management of crop residue recycling via manure needs particular attention. Powell et al (1991) reported that millet yields increased by 52% when urine was added to manure compared to manure alone. While corralling animals on croplands is a widespread practice in the farming systems of the Sahel and leads to complicated arrangements between crop farmers and pastoralists, high nutrient losses may occur at manure rates that exceed 10 t/ha (see Brouwer and Powell, this volume).Table 5. Effect of mineral fertilisers and crop residue on pearl millet grain and total dry-matter yields at Tara, Niger. 1990Niger. 1991Niger. 1992 Grain yieldGrain yieldGrain yieldTreatment ------------------------------------------kg/ha ------------------------------------------ Source: Bationo (unpublished data).In the Sahelian zone continuous cultivation can rapidly deplete soil organic matter (SOM) but the addition of CR with fertiliser or of manure alone can maintain SOM close to levels obtained under fallow (Figure 2A). Bationo et al (1991) reported that effective CEC (ECEC) is more related to organic matter than to clay in the WASAT, indicating that a decrease in organic matter will decrease the ECEC and then the nutrient-holding capacity of those soils. De Ridder and Van Keulen (1990) found that a difference of 1 g/kg in organic carbon results in a difference of 4.3 mmol/kg in CEC. Berger et al (1987) reported for the Northern Guinea Zone that crop response to chemical fertilisers ceased below a SOM of 0.6%. In the Sahelian zone, however, even at 0.2% of SOM, a strong positive crop response to chemical fertilisers was found (Bationo et al, 1993). These apparently conflicting results suggest that future research should also study the critical levels of SOM for the different soil types, climate and cropping systems beyond which no further crop response to fertilisers can be expected.Depending on the soil moisture regime and microbial and termite activity CR decomposition may be very rapid in the WASAT. The decomposition of crop residues in the Sahelian zone at Sadoré and the Sudanian zone at Tara is reported in Table 7. Because of the high termite and microbial activities observed (Bationo et al, unpublished data), irrespective of fertility treatment and amounts of crop residues applied, at Tara 99% of the CR was decomposed during the cropping season compared to between only 40 and 50% at Sadoré. Although the rate of decomposition of CR was much higher at Tara no crop response to CR was obtained (Table 5) nor did SOM increase at this more humid site (Bationo, unpublished data). The initial CR quality may play an important role in determining the rate of residue decomposition and nutrient mineralisation. However, at present it is not even clear what physical and chemical characteristics are most important in governing the decomposition of organic amendments in the WASAT. Future research should aim to elucidate the influence of such factors as water soluble minerals, the lignin and polyphenol contents, as well as C/N and lignin/N ratios on the decomposition of organic amendments. Such data together with soil and climate characterisations may allow a better extrapolation of the research results obtained in one location to others in the WASAT.  4 and 5), P at 13 kg P/ha.2. Calculated as (yield CR -yield control)/CR applied.3. Calculated as (yield CR + fertiliser -yield control)/CR applied.4. Calculated as (yield fertiliser -yield control)/P applied.5. Calculated as (yield CR + fertiliser -yield control)/P applied.NA = Not available.Source: Bationo (unpublished data).Table 7. Decomposition of surface applied millet stover with different soil amendments at two locations, Tara and Sadoré, Niger.Crop residue undecomposed at the end of season Treatment 1 --------------------------------------t/ha --------------------------------------Soil acidification associated with continuous cultivation is a common phenomenon in the WASAT and numerous reports show that the application of organic residues is one way to increase pH thereby alleviating aluminium toxicity and molybdenum deficiency (Table 8; Figure 2B). However, the amounts of CR or manure needed to maintain soil pH at a level favourable to sustainable crop production are considerable and future research should investigate to what degree lime application alone or in combination with moderate amounts of organic material could help to achieve this goal. The addition of manure and CR either alone or in combination with inorganic fertilisers frequently resulted in a substantial decrease in the soils' capacity to fix P. The maximum sorption of phosphorus calculated by using the Langmuir equation (Langmuir, 1918) decreased with the application of organic material (Figure 3). This may at least partly explain the demonstrated increase of P-fertiliser use efficiency with CR application (Table 6). In laboratory experiments using the sandy Sahelian soils of the WASAT Kretzschmar et al (1991) found that the addition of CR resulted in an increased P availability which was attributed to the complexation of iron and aluminium by organic acids.For the Sahelian zone Geiger et al (1992) reported that CR application increased the amount of exchangeable bases in the surface soil. CR application resulted in a two-to threefold increase in soil surface calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg) levels. Similar results for the positive effects of CR on SOM, pH, cation exchange capacity, pH, base saturation and exchangeable cations have been reported from the Sudanian zone (Pichot et al, 1981). In millet, up to 90% of the Ca, Mg and K uptake remains in the straw (Balasubramanian and Nnadi, 1980;Bationo et al, 1993). It is thus still unclear to what degree increases in soil exchangeable bases come from minerals carried in dust particles and trapped by mulched residues, or are due to nutrient release from decomposing crop residues. Given the positive response of millet to K application (Rebafka et al, 1994) it is particularly interesting that 30 kg K/ha may be released during the decomposition of 2 t/ha of millet straw whereas up to 20 kg K/ha be deposited in micas and feldspars transported by Harmattan winds (Stahr et al, 1993).Future basic research using labelling techniques should look in a systematic way at the nutrient turnover from organic amendments and mineral fertilisers in combination with the nutrient uptake of the growing crops. This could lead to a better understanding of nutrient cycling processes in natural and improved cropping systems. Such knowledge could help to improve the timing of soil amendment application so that nutrient release coincides with the nutrient demands of crops.Several scientists have reported the beneficial effect of CR application on the activity of various micro-organisms and the first comprehensive survey has also been done in the Sahel (Table 9). However, little has been done to describe cause\\effect relationships of CR application on soil micro-organisms in the Sahel. Hafner et al (1993a) showed that the application of CR increased the total number of bacteria and the N2-fixing bacteria in the bulk soil and rhizosphere soil of millet (Table 10). The N gain from long-term nitrogen balance was positively correlated to the increase in the total bacteria and N2-fixing (diazotrophic) bacteria (Table 11). These data suggest that the long-term gain of N was most likely due to biological nitrogen fixation (BNF).  1. CR = crop residues; F = fertiliser.2. Soil analysis total N 0-60 cm depth.Source: Hafner et al (1993a). Hafner et al (1993b) also reported an increase of root-length density with CR application which led to an increase in total P uptake from 3.4 to 10.6 kg P/ha. Tien et al (1979) showed for other crops that diazotrophic bacteria may produce phytohormones such as auxines or giberellins which stimulate lateral root development and root hair formation of the host plant. However, whether better root growth due to increased microbial populations in the rhizosphere of millet plants is indeed a cause of better millet development with CR application remains unclear. Increased microbial populations might as well be the consequence of better shoot and root development with increased root exudation and better K and P nutrition, or improved soil physical conditions.On the leached sandy soils of the Sahel any increase in root surface area improves P nutrition and enhances millet growth. Thus, root colonisation with Vesicular Arbuscular Mycorrhizae (VAM) leading to greater root surfaces may be important for crop development. However, little is known about the level of VAM infection and speed of root colonisation of field grown crops in the Sahel. Nevertheless, given the large rooting system of millet and its short growing cycle, a contribution from VAM to improved P nutrition may seem less likely in millet than in legumes with less extensive root systems or in trees with longer growing cycles.Negative effects of CR on crop growth have also been observed. Populations of stem borers (Coniesta ignefusalis) may build up and adversely affect millet and sorghum yields. Several researchers also reported phytotoxicity problems due to CR application or continuous cereal cultivation (Burgos-Leon, 1979;Pichot et al, 1981;Pieri, 1986). However, it remains unclear to what degree organic acids, lactones, phenols, alkaloids, and turpenoid compounds isolated from the crop residues and produced during decomposition (Elliot et al, 1979) are responsible for yield depressions after CR application.The application of CR on the stability of soil aggregates could affect soil structure, soil crusting, pore volume and pore size distribution and hence infiltration capacity and soil moisture retention characteristics. However, these parameters are difficult to quantify and few measurements have been done in the WASAT. Cissé and Vachaud (1987) in Senegal reported that soil hydraulic properties such as infiltration capacity and soil moisture retention curve were not affected by an increase of soil organic carbon from 0.15 to 0.30 g/kg. These results seem to be supported by a long-term CR management experiment on a sandy Sahelian soil (Bationo et al, 1993) where the addition of CR had no effect on soil water use or water-holding capacity.The effectiveness of crop residues in reducing runoff, erosion, and transport of sediment to streams in temperate conditions has been summarised by Larson et al (1979). However, little work on this aspect of CR application has been done in the WASAT where rainfall intensities may exceed 150 mm/h. Field studies at the ICRISAT Sahelian Centre have shown that sand blasting and burial of young millet seedlings by sand storms may cause a reduction in millet yield by up to 51%. Michels et al (1993) measured a reduction in horizontal sand transport of 59% with the application of 2 t/ha of CR. Geiger et al (1992) reported that the increase in soil fertility following application of CR was due in part to the entrapment of eolian materials, which generally have better fertility characteristics, and to the protection of the more fertile surface soil from erosive effects of the strong winds common at the onset of the rainy season in the Sahel. Research at ICRISAT also shows that CR applied at a rate of 2 t/ha may lead to a decrease in peak surface soil temperatures (at 1 cm depth) from 48.5 to 39.3°C (Buerkert et al, unpublished) which is likely to reduce the temperature stress for seedlings especially after storms when young millet plants may be partially covered by sand. Also, resistance of the surface soil as determined by penetrometer readings just before the onset of the rainy season have been found to decrease with CR application from 27 to 9 N/cm at 0 cm to 2 cm and from 238 to 148 N/cm at 2 to 5 cm depth (Buerkert et al, unpublished). This may partly explain the higher root length density found by Hafner et al (1993b).In the WASAT, the increasing human and animal population pressure has put stress on the land resource base. Nutrient balances from many cropping systems are negative, with offtake being greater than input, indicating that farmers are mining their soils. Crop residues in the mixed crop-livestock farming systems of the WASAT have multiple competing and some complementary uses but are scarcely available for widespread direct application to soils. The high opportunity costs of CR need to be taken into consideration when alternative management practices with increased use of CR for crop production are investigated and advocated. Future research must aim to quantify the tradeoffs between the different uses of CR and asses the effects of organic and inorganic fertiliser use on higher grain and CR production at the farm-level, on fallow management and fodder quality, and on nutrient cycling.Long-term experiments have indicated that the use of mineral fertilisers leads to decreasing base saturation, decreasing pH, and increasing Al toxicity. Future basic research might focus on investigating the effects of CR application on soil biological and physical properties and on soil conservation with different soil types and cropping systems. This may lead to the development of adapted agricultural techniques for the WASAT with prospects for sustainable soil productivity at higher output levels. ), and fallow. Varying nitrogen (N) levels (0, 30, 60, 90 kg/ha) and intensities of grazing stubble (heavy, moderate, none) were imposed on the wheat phase. Both the wheat and the alternative phase were included each year. While seasonal rainfall, which ranged from 210 to 486 mm, and residual soil moisture after the alternate phase dictated the magnitude of wheat yields, N increased water-use efficiency. Soil N levels (mineral and total) varied with the system and were highest for medic and least for wheat and fallow. Similar differences were evident for organic matter (OM), which also tended to increase with increasing N level. The concentration of N in grain and straw as well as total N uptake varied with the rotation and crop yield. Though the trial needs to continue for several more years, the impact of some crops (i.e. medic) on soil quality is already apparent.Centre international de recherche agricole dans les zones arides (ICARDA) P.O. Box 5466, Alep (Syrie)Les systèmes agricoles de l'Asie de l'Ouest et de l'Afrique du Nord pratiquent des rotations de céréales soit avec des jachères, soit avec des cultures de légumineuses vivrières/fourragères en fonction de la situation géographique et de la pluviosité. L'orge (Hordeum vulgare L.) domine généralement dans les régions sèches tandis que le blé ordinaire (Triticum aestivum)  Concern about providing sufficient food for the world's burgeoning population is an ever-present one. The prospects for the Mediterranean area of West Asia and North Africa (WANA) being able to come close to self-sufficiency are gloomy indeed (Oram, 1988). This region is largely characterised by highly seasonal rainfall, which is low and often erratically distributed. While irrigation has increased in extent, opportunities for further expansion are very limited. The farming systems of the region are, and will remain, predominantly rainfed cropping in association with small ruminants, i.e. sheep and goats. Barley, bread wheat and durum wheat are the principal crops. These are grown in the \"wet\" period (October to May/June), in rotation with fallow and/or food or forage legumes (Cooper and Gregory, 1987) but are increasingly cropped continuously. As rainfall, and therefore soil moisture, is invariably the most limiting factor in crop production (Cooper et al, 1987), the greatest challenge is to improve water-use efficiency. Research in the region has shown that nitrogen (N) (Harmsen, 1984;Ryan and Matar, 1992) and, especially in drier areas, phosphorus (P) can contribute to increased yields and more efficient use of water (Cooper, 1983;Matar et al, 1992).Livestock, principally sheep and goats, are an integral part of the systems, providing a buffer against income fluctuations due to the season-to-season variability in crop yields. They also provide a substantial proportion of the dietary protein of farm families in the form of milk, cheese and yoghurt (Mokbel, 1985). The barley-dominated systems of the drier areas are essentially livestock production systems in which barley, either as a green crop, or stubble, or stored straw and grain, constitutes the major feed source. In the wetter areas, sources of income and feed are more diverse, but wheat residues provide grazing for both resident and transhumant flocks of small ruminants.The systems approach to agricultural research adopted by ICARDA has centred its attention on the potential benefits of integrating common rotations, N fertilisation, and grazing management. Detailed description of the various kinds of rotations in the Mediterranean area are found elsewhere (Harris et al, 1991). To evaluate new or adapted technologies within the farming systems that ICARDA deals with requires long-term trials. Such trials are costly, require relatively large land areas and expert and consistent management, and must be run for many years to detect meaningful differences in soil properties, or validly assess the economic benefits of the system being studied. Few regional institutions can meet such criteria. It is hoped that this long-term trial by the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) will provide some answers on issues of sustainability of relevance to north-west Syria, and serve as a model for the entire Mediterranean region.A two-course rotation trial with seven crop sequences was established in 1983-84 in Tel Hadya on land that had been cropped in cereal-based rotations since 1978. The 23 ha-site is gently sloping, while the depth of the soil, a Calcixerollic Xerochrept, ranges between 1 to 2 m, with a few shallower patches. The cropping sequences were durum wheat following: fallow (W/F), summer crop, i.e. water-melon (W/S), lentil (W/L), chickpea (W/C), vetch (W/V), medic (W/M), and wheat (W/W). These were replicated three times, and both phases of the rotations were included each year. The individual plot size was 0.54 ha; each rotation therefore covered 3.24 ha.In the first two years no inputs were used, but from the 1985-86 season onwards fertiliser was added, weed, pest and disease control measures were applied, and improved cultivars introduced. Two ancillary treatments were superimposed in a split-strip plot design. Four N levels (0, 30, 60, and 90 kg N/ha) are applied to subplots in the wheat phase to assess the long-term reliability of N responses and to evaluate the capability of the legumes to supply N to the systems. The wheat stubble was subjected to three management treatments: heavy grazing, moderate grazing, and no grazing or stubble retention, which formed the sub-sub-plots.Since 1987-88, primary tillage in the wheat phase has been carried out with a tyned cultivator after the first rain of the season and followed by a pass with a spike-toothed harrow for seed-bed preparation. In the first two seasons (1985-86 and 1986-87), the traditional planting method of broadcasting seed on to ridged land and covering it by splitting the ridges was used. However, since 1987, seed has been drilled -wheat with a locally built seed drill at 17.5-cm row spacing following seed-bed preparation as above, and other crops (vetch, lentil, chickpea and wheat in the alternate phase) with a zero-till planter directly into wheat stubble at 30-cm row spacing. Medic seed was broadcast in 1983 and 1984, and now pastures regenerate annually. Water-melon is established as single plants on a 3 x 3 m grid according to local practice. Wheat and the legumes are normally planted in the second half of November and early December, respectively, following the initial rains. Water-melon is sown in mid-April on land that is fallowed to that time, providing the soil is wet to a depth of 1 m. Seed rates are: chickpea and vetch, 120 kg/ha; wheat and lentil, 100 kg/ha; and melon, 1.5 kg/ha.The improved durum wheat, Cham 1, has been used throughout the trial. A cold-tolerant chickpea cultivar, ILC 482, with tolerance for Aschochyta blight (Aschochyta rabiei (Pass.) Lab.), released in Syria as Ghab 1, was selected for early sowing. It was replaced in 1991-92 by Ghab 2. Syrian local small lentil, used for the first two years, was replaced by a newly released cultivar, Idleb, in 1987-88. The vetch and water-melon are both locally used strains. A mixture of medic seed (48 ecotypes of 12 species) was originally sown at 30 kg/ha, with the objective of studying the species population dynamics under grazing. The pastures are now dominated by local ecotypes of M. polymorpha (L.), M. noeana (L.) All., and M. rigidula Boiss., but most species have survived and are represented in the swards (Cocks, 1992).Phosphate fertiliser was broadcast over the whole area in the first two years at 26 and 39 kg P/ha, respectively, to raise the fertility level. It is now drilled with the wheat at 22 kg P/ha. The N is hand-broadcast, half at planting and the remainder at the tillering stage of wheat growth.Weeds are controlled in the crops by the use of appropriate pre-or post-emergence herbicides, while fallows are maintained weed-free by a combination of cultivation and herbicides. Grazing normally provides adequate weed control in the vetch and the medic pastures. Diseases, insects and rodents are controlled by routine seed dressing, and strategic use of chemicals when necessary.As is the practice in the farming systems of the region, the sheep graze from approximately 0700 to 1730 hours each day and are housed overnight. Medic pastures are grazed throughout the year for as long as they will support 8 to 10 ewes (and lambs) per hectare. Vetch is used as a high-quality feed source for weaner lambs in the spring and is grazed at 25-30 head/ha. Wheat stubble is grazed by temporarily fencing subplots and introducing a large flock (400 to 600 head/ha) for one or two days.Approximately 20% of the area of wheat and chickpea is harvested with a plot combine to determine grain yield, usually in early June. The harvest index is estimated from 5 x 1-m row samples per sub-sub-plot and total dry matter and residue yields are estimated from the grain yield and the harvest index. The same proportion of lentil plots is hand-harvested (late April/early May), dried and threshed, and seed and residue yields are measured. The 'yield' of the vetch and of medic pastures is estimated as grazing days per year (number of days x stocking rate) and as animal products, lamb liveweight gain and milk yield.Total season rainfall in the first two years (1985-87) was close to the long-term average (330 mm), i.e. 326 and 333 mm, respectively. The following year, 1987-88, had the highest rainfall (486 mm) while both 1988-89 and 1989-90 were exceptionally dry with only 235 and 221 mm, respectively. The last two years, 1990-92, had 286 and 327 mm, respectively. These seasonal amounts cover a large part of the range shown in the historical record for the area. Most years were characterised by erratic rainfall distribution; 1991-92 was extremely cold with several snowfalls.The soil has been sampled more or less on a yearly basis since 1989. That year, five surface samples (0-20 cm) were taken from each sub-sub-plot, bulked and analysed for nitrate (NO3), mineral N, and total N (Black et al, 1965). In addition, selected plots were sampled in 20-cm increments to 1 m, i.e. heavily grazed plots with 0 and 90 kg N/ha applied in the wheat phase in the W/F, W/C and W/M rotations. Detailed soil moisture measurements were made on these plots; OM was also measured on the soil samples. After harvest, both grain and straw were analysed for N.While this paper focuses on aspects of N and OM associated with the trial, a brief overview of the general trends for yield are pertinent. Details are presented in annual reports (ICARDA, 1990;1991;1993). A dominant feature has been the inter-annual variation in yields due to varying rainfall. For example, mean wheat grain yield ranged from 0.83 t/ha in a dry year (1988/89, 235 mm) to 3.62 t/ha in a wet year (1987/88, 486 mm). In 1987/88 potential yields of 4.5 to 5.0 t/ha were achieved by adequate N fertilisation.Crop sequence has a strong and consistent effect on wheat total biomass and grain yields. The ranking, according to the preceding phase, is wheat ≤ medic ≈ chickpea < vetch ≈ lentil < melon ≈ fallow, which largely reflects residual soil moisture after the preceding phase. This trend is illustrated in Table 1 where grain yields are expressed as a proportion of those after fallow. There is little evidence that legumes contribute significant amounts of N to the cereal phase, except that wheat after medic shows no N deficiency at tillering, whereas deficiency symptoms are usually visible in all other sequences at zero and low N levels. With some exceptions, there is a response to 30 kg N/ha. The exceptions include a response to 90 kg N/ha in the wet year, 1987-88, and to 60 kg/ha in the rotations with fallow, both related to a greater availability of soil moisture, and no response in dry years. Another exception is that after the third cycle of medic pasture the wheat grain yield without N fertiliser has equalled that where 30 kg/ha N was applied.  The productivity of vetch as forage and medic pastures is measured as grazing days and livestock production (Table 2). Over the seven years vetch provided, on average, 1556 grazing days/ha per year (range 860 to 2212) and an average lamb liveweight gain of 293 kg/ha. Medic pastures supported 1230 (range 456 to 2850) ewe grazing days/ha per year plus, in five of the seven years, an average of 504/ha for lambs. Lamb liveweight gains were 143 kg/ha, and the ewes gave 119 kg/ha of milk after the lambs were weaned.  It is difficult to evaluate the role of the grazed systems. Most feed is provided in spring when animals normally graze common or open-access areas, which everywhere are heavily overstocked and degraded. Concentrates are often fed to supplement diets. In Syria, these are comprised of barley grain and subsidised by-products of industrial crops such as cottonseed cake, sugar-beet pulp and bran, but in other countries and economies neither the by-products nor subsidies are necessarily available. An analysis of the economics of rotations based on data from a different trial on Tel Hadya (Nordblom et al, 1992) concluded that, in Syria, it is only when farm size is large (64 ha in the example) and/or labour costs are high that medic pastures become economically viable. However, the pastures in the trial on which that analysis was based supported fewer grazing days than has been recorded in the current trial, so that conclusion may need to be modified. No economic evaluation of the grazed vetch system has yet been done, but this management was used in the current trial because local farmers involved in on-farm testing of barley-legume systems in the drier areas identified fattening of weaner lambs in spring as a potentially valuable innovation (Thomson and Oglah, 1988).A further imponderable in the evaluation of both systems is the potential benefit of reduction of the grazing pressure on open-access areas provided by an alternative feed source. Degradation of vegetation in these areas is leading, we believe, to escalating soil erosion, with long-term consequences that need no emphasis. We see medic and vetch replacing fallow, or being used as break crops in systems where continuous cereal culture is creating serious insect and disease problems. If they can be introduced, they have the potential to provide benefits to the systems of the area to which it is not easy to attach monetary value.It is of relevance to note that during the seven years the soil profile was only fully wetted in 1987/88, and in other years the maximum depth of the wetting front scarcely exceeded 1 m. A small amount of drainage took place from the fallow plots in the wet year, but otherwise no leaching of nutrients beyond the root zone would have occurred.While the two-course, wheat-based rotation has been described in detail before (ICARDA, 1990;1993), reporting of soil and crop N status has been limited to preliminary data obtained for the first time in 1989 (ICARDA, 1991). Since then we have had limited sampling of the plots in 1990 and a complete sampling in 1991. This included determination of mineral N (NO3 + NH4), and total N, i.e. Kjeldahl-N, which accounts mainly for the soil organic N fraction, normally the largest one.Mineral N concentration was consistently greatest in the medic rotation, while wheat after wheat or lentil tended to have the lowest values (Table 3). Few differences were apparent between the other rotations. The same trend was evident when measurements were made after each phase, i.e. wheat or alternative crops (Table 4). The impact of N fertilisation was consistent after the wheat phase, but less obvious after the unfertilised alternative phase (Table 5). The data reflect residual fertiliser N after the wheat phase, but this was apparently used by the alternative phase crops or, more likely, incorporated into soil organic forms.   Table 5. Topsoil (0-20 cm) mineral nitrogen concentration in two rotation phases.Fertiliser N applied (kg/ha) SE n 0 3 0 6 0 9 0 -------------------------------ppm ---------------------------- As organic-N is the dominant N fraction in soils, total soil N is an important observation. Again, the rotation with medics had significantly enriched soil N contents compared with wheat after either fallow, summer crop or wheat, none of which added to soil N (Table 6). Total N values for the other N-fixing crops, vetch, chickpea and lentil, exceeded those where no legume was present, but whether this represents N enrichment or N saving is not yet clear. When the rotation effect was separated into phases, soil N values were consistently higher after the alternative crops. Fertilisation at the 60 and 90 kg N/ha rates tended to increase total N values also. This can be explained in relation to crop yield. The initial increment of N produced a proportionally larger yield response and was completely taken up by the crop; additional increments had less effect on yield and the unused N remained in the soils as residual N. The low rainfall of 1988-89 and 1989-90 exaggerated the effect. Table 6. Topsoil (0-20 cm) total nitrogen concentration with rotations. Data for mineral N from the first sampling (November 1989) indicated that the fertilised plots (90 kg N/ha) had the most residual N in the profile, while values after wheat were higher in the chickpea and medic plots. Wheat in the latter rotations was most severely affected by the prevailing drought and clearly was unable to use available N because of lack of water. In the alternate phase, there was little difference between the rotations, with fallow, as might be expected, having somewhat more than the rest. In all cases, the greatest mineral N concentration was in the top 0-20 cm and decreased with depth. As yet there has been no effect of intensity of stubble grazing on soil N.Top-soil OM contents are presented in Table 7 as a function of the overall effect of the differing rotations and in Table 8 as a function of the mean N effect over all rotations and phases. In theory, the process of inducing OM changes by varying management is relatively slow. However, there was evidence that some differences had arisen since the trial began. Notwithstanding the limited sampling in 1990, there was a general consistency in the available data for the three years under consideration. When the crop rotations were considered, it was clear that the lowest values were associated with wheat after wheat, fallow or summer crop. Among rotations that include legumes, that with medics produced the highest OM content, followed by rotations with vetch, chickpea, and lentil which were similar. Reasons for this pattern are complex. More mineralisation of OM might be expected in the fallow and water-melon phases, due to greater availability of water. Accumulation with medic pasture could arise from inefficient use of dry matter due to trampling and soilage during grazing, deposition of some 400 kg/ha per year of dung (calculated from Tables 1 and 2 in White et al (this volume), and the number of grazing days per year), and an extensive root system which measurements of soil water indicate is a characteristic of medic.Nonetheless, these do not appear to satisfactorily explain the difference between the rotations with medic and the other legumes. The input during grazing of vetch could be expected to be much the same as that from medic, as total grazing days were similar in both rotations. Vetch does, however, have a sparser root system. Chickpea, on the other hand, has an extensive root system and all crop residues are returned during harvest. Lentil resembles vetch in having a small root system and all above-ground biomass is taken at harvest. In the other phase of the rotations, wheat after lentil and vetch produces more above-ground biomass, and thus presumably more roots, than wheat following medic or chickpea. The dynamics of the changes are obviously complex and basic studies of carbon and N cycling are needed to elucidate them. An interesting feature of the data (Table 8) was the apparent increase in OM content with increasing N application rate. This is probably attributable to enhanced root growth from the applied N, an hypothesis supported by data on water use which show greater drying of the soil profile by fertilised crops.  The soil N supply, whether from fertiliser or biological fixation, has an effect on both yield and the N content of the biomass of wheat (Tables 9 and 10). Higher N concentrations indicate higher grain protein contents and nutritional value, and improved straw quality. Inter-seasonal variation in the concentration arises from variations in the rainfall and, in 1989 and 1990 in particular, most crops, except those after fallow and water-melon, were severely drought-stressed. The N concentrations in wheat straw tended to be greatest in the medic and, to a lesser degree, the chickpea and vetch rotations; lower values tended to be associated with the fallow and summer crop rotations (Table 9). The trends were more evident with straw than with grain, which is in part due to moderate to severe drought in the first three of the four years. As the N supply in the soil is diluted in plant biomass, the N concentration and yield tend to be inversely related. The N supply is more clearly seen by an integration of concentration and yield, i.e. N uptake or export (Table 10).If soil N dynamics were not influenced by crop rotation, N uptake values would be inversely proportional to yield. However, this was not the case; the discrepancy between yield and N uptake data indicates a contribution of the legumes in the rotation to the N supply. For example in the 1988-89 season, the highest yield from the fallow rotation exceeded that with medics more than threefold, while N uptake exceeded the value only twofold. Therefore, while N fixation by legumes contributed to N build-up in the soil, the overriding factor dictating crop yield was soil moisture.Table 9. Nitrogen percentage in wheat grain and straw with rotations. In terms of sustainability of the systems it is interesting to examine data from plots where no N was applied (Tables 11 and 12). In both grain and straw, the N concentration was consistently greater after medic, but the trend among the remaining rotations was less clear. In 1991 and 1992, when the total biomass was most similar amongst the rotations (Table 1), uptake of N was at least 25% more from the medic plots than from the other rotations, and was two or three times greater than from wheat monoculture (Table 12). The low input ley system thus appears to provide sufficient N to raise grain protein levels by several percentage points and to enhance straw protein levels, the latter being a significant factor in this environment where straw and stubble are major feed sources for chronically N-deficient livestock. The uncertainty, illustrated by data from the first two years, is whether there will be sufficient rainfall to allow the N provided by the legume to be harvested in the cereal phase.Table 10. Nitrogen in above-ground biomass of wheat with rotations. In the above tables, data for 1989 are based on two of three replicates.1. W = wheat; F = fallow; L = lentil; C = chickpea; S = water-melon; V = vetch; M = medic.An observation in 1989 that sheep grazing wheat stubble appeared to select stubble of wheat grown after medic in preference to the stubble of wheat following fallow, was tested by a small trial in 1990 to observe grazing behaviour (Treacher, 1994). Three plots were established: two in which sheep (67/ha) were confined on either W/F or W/M stubble, and a third where choice of the stubbles was offered. The results, shown in Table 13 as percentages of time for various activities, verified the observation. In the morning grazing period, once the few heads remaining after harvest had been selected, sheep on the W/M plots apparently satisfied their appetites more quickly than those on W/F, while the latter attempted to graze through the fence to the W/M plot. Behaviour was similar in the afternoon period of grazing. Those given the choice of stubbles spent twice as much time grazing the W/M as the W/F area, and within two hours of the start of grazing in the morning all had moved to the W/M part of the plot. These behavioural patterns were expressed too quickly to be due to an influence of the N concentration of the stubbles (Table 8) on rumen activity, so the effect must be one of palatability. In these drought years, the wheat after medic was more severely water stressed than the W/F crop, and may have had elevated concentrations of soluble sugars in the residue.Table 11. Nitrogen percentage in unfertilised wheat grain and straw with rotations.  Table 12. Nitrogen in above-ground biomass of unfertilised wheat with rotations. In the above table, data for 1989 are based on two of three replicates.1. W = wheat; F = fallow; L = lentil; C = chickpea; S = water-melon; V = vetch; M = medic.Nitrogen in Syrian farming systems Flocks in WANA are generally mated while they are grazing stubble. Increased intake of stubble may improve the production of the whole system, as better nutrition before mating can increase the proportion of pregnant ewes and the lambing percentage.As yet, only the most tentative of generalisations can be made regarding the effect of rotations on soil N and OM. Notwithstanding the dominant effect of soil moisture and the positive influence of fallow and short-season crops on subsequent cereal yield, some effects were already evident after the first sampling. Organic matter appeared to have increased with the medic-cereal rotation. These differences were similar at the second sampling. Where there was no legume in the rotation, OM levels were always lower. The maximum or equilibrium level of OM that can be produced by these rotations in this type of environment and to what extent, if any, such levels influence properties such as aggregation and water-holding capacity will become apparent with time. Preliminary work indicates that this is beginning to happen. The increase in soil N from the medic rotation should benefit the companion cereal crop when moisture is not too limiting. Similarly, the increased cereal grain and straw N content after medic, and therefore improved food and feed nutritional quality, are additional factors, the value of which it is not easy to quantify. In the Sahelian rangelands biomass production is constrained by soil moisture in the drier (100-250 mm) parts and by soil nutrients in the wetter parts. Similarly, for a given Sahelian range, nutrient deficiency would be more prominent in good than in poor rainfall years. To test this hypothesis, fertiliser trials were carried out at sites distributed along the bioclimatic gradient in the Gourma (Mali) over contrasting rainfall years between 1988 and 1992. In good rainfall years, adding 100 kg nitrogen (N) and 38 kg phosphorus (P)/ha increased herbage production by approximately 30%, whereas the response to fertiliser was inverted in poor years. Plant uptake of N and P increased with biomass yield, but at a lower rate. Fertiliser N and P increased biomass and nutrient yields but the nutrient content in biomass decreased due to nutrient dilution. In the pastoral context of the Sahel, grazing further influences the interactive effects of moisture and nutrient supply on herbage production and quality.To elucidate these interactions, cutting experiments were conducted with and without fertilisers. The effects of defoliation without fertilisers depended on rainfall and frequency of cuttings. In fair rainfall years early cuttings increased total yield whereas early cutting reduced yield in poor rainfall years. In good rainfall years total yield was reduced by 50 and 25% when repeated cuttings were at 15-and 30-day intervals, respectively. Reductions in yields were less severe in poor rainfall years. N and P uptakes changed little with repeated cuttings due to higher nutrient contents in regrowth. Adding fertilisers increased regrowth yields so that cumulative yields of repeated cuttings equalled or exceeded the control yield, depending on the rainfall conditions. Redistribution of rainfall in the landscape by run-off/run-on, and livestock grazing behaviour diversify the quantity and quality of range resources. Thus, recognising that soil nutrients provide a constraining ceiling for primary and secondary productivity on a regional scale, exploiting the quality gradient on a local scale through range management provides room for production improvement with little risk for this ecosystem. Au cours des années de bonnes pluies, l'apport de 100 kg d'azote (N) et de 38 kg de phosphore (P) par hectare augmentait la production fourragère d'environ 30% alors que la réponse à ces engrais était inverse au cours des années sèches. Les exportations de N et de P par les plantes augmentaient avec la production de biomasse, mais à des taux plus faibles. Les In the Sahelian rangelands, along a gradient of rainfall from 100 to 600 mm, biomass output is constrained by soil moisture in the drier parts (100-300 mm) and by soil nutrients in the wetter parts (Breman and de Ridder, 1991). It is argued that the boundary between moisture and nutrient deficiency constraints varies, and that nutrient deficiency is more prominent in good than in poor rainfall years. Nutrient removal through grazing further influences the interactive effects of nutrient and moisture supply on herbage productivity (Hiernaux and Turner, unpublished). In this paper, the impact of added nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) on herbage yields subjected to different defoliation regimes, and the role played by changes in nutrient uptake are investigated.This research complements another study on the effects of defoliation on the yields and nutrient uptake of unfertilised swards (Hiernaux and Turner, unpublished). The objective of the present study was to elucidate the processes of herbaceous plant adaptation to resource scarcity and variability in the Sahel. Tillering annual grasses appears to be a major mechanism through which plants compensate for the low initial plant densities, caused by low seed stock, or to high seedling mortality during plant establishment (Cissé, 1986;Hiernaux et al, 1994). Together with plant self-thinning, tillering allows a flexible response to changing soil moisture and nutrient availability regimes. These compensatory processes are further elucidated in the controlled environment of pot trials. These trials show the remarkable versatility of Sahelian grasses to counteract set-backs due to defoliation and to exploit opportunities of better growing conditions (Hiernaux et al, unpublished). The implications for livestock feed supply are highlighted within the larger context of the Sahelian plant-livestock ecosystem and plant resilience to drought and grazing.Field trials were conducted at 10 sites in the Gourma region of northern Mali along a south-north longitudinal gradient from 14°30'N to 17°00'N. Four seasons during 1988 to 1990, and 1992 were covered providing a total of 22 site-years. Over sites and years, annual rainfall varied from 90 mm in 1990 to 350 mm in 1992. Changes in rainfall distribution patterns also contributed to variable lengths of growing period. Of the 22 site-years, four were located on clay soils (Vertisols and Fluvisols), with herbaceous vegetation dominated by Panicum laetum and Echinochloa colona. The remainder were situated on undulating or flattened dune landscapes with sandy soils (Arenosols), with a herbaceous layer mostly dominated by Cenchrus biflorus and Tragus bertheronianus. At each site a small enclosure (0.1-0.2 ha) was fenced in a homogeneous part of the predominating rangeland type. To avoid the residual effects from previous years' site disturbance, enclosures were moved each year. A description of site locations, soil and vegetation types, rainfall and yields are given in Table 1.In all trials, 100 kg N/ha as urea and 38 kg P/ha as triple superphosphate were spread on the soil surface at, or soon after, seedling emergence. Defoliation treatments fell into two groups: single and repeated cutting. In 1988 and 1989, uninterrupted growth curves were determined by cutting a protected sward at monthly intervals. Regrowth from each cut was also recorded at the end of the growing season and added to the cut yield to assess cumulative annual yield. Uninterrupted growth and cumulative yields, with and without fertiliser N and P inputs, were therefore compared for six site-years (Table 1). Similar procedures were followed for another seven site-years in 1990 and 1992. Fertilisers were applied to one half of each plot (3 x 5 m) that had been submitted to one of four different treatments during the dry season: grazing, burning, trampling and full protection as the control. Four replicates of the dry-season treatments were arranged in a randomised split-plot design.During all four years in six different sites comprising nine site-years, a second set of defoliation treatment was performed. This involved repeated cuts at intervals of 15 and 30 days, with and without added N (100 kg N/ha) and P (38 kg P/ha). Cutting and fertiliser treatments, with unfertilised controls, were laid out in a complete randomised block with three replicates per site in 1988 and 1989, and four in 1990-92. Full plots were 3 x 2 m in size from which central 1 x 2 m were harvested for yield measurement. In 1988 and 1989, row irrigation was applied to investigate possible effects of moisture stress on plant yield and nutrient uptake. Adequate water was applied weekly to compensate 5 mm daily evapo-transpiration.All harvested plant material was weighed immediately after removal, sun-dried, and thereafter kept in an oven (at 60°C) until constant weight was reached (24-48 hours). For a subset of the sites, total plant N and P concentrations were determined in composite samples for each treatment by date of cutting. Subsamples of plant material were ground to pass through a 1 mm sieve, acid digested (Nelson and Sommers, 1980), and analysed for N and P on a continuous-flow auto-analyser. Nitrogen and phosphorus uptake for each cut was calculated by multiplying the N and P concentrations by respective dry weights.Since plant responses to N and P were strongly influenced by soil moisture, a water balance model was used to classify rainfall conditions into 'good' and 'poor' groups. This model takes into account daily rainfall, run-off vs run-on and soil texture. The model estimates infiltrated rainfall and predicts the potential end-of-season herbage yields for each site-year (Hiernaux, 1984). Rainfall conditions were rated 'poor' when predicted potential dry-matter (DM) production was inferior to a threshold that varied with the latitude of the sites equalling 875, 1250 and 1500 kg DM/ha, respectively, for the northern, central and southern sites (Table 1). These thresholds were based on potential infiltrated rainfall estimated from the long-term rainfall average at each latitude minus one standard error of the mean, which equalled 175, 250 and 300 mm for the northern, central and southern sites, respectively. The biomass thresholds were obtained by multiplying the potential infiltrated rainfall by a rainfall-use efficiency of 5 kg DM/mm (Le Houérou et al, 1988). Out of 22 site-years, only nine are classified as 'good'; they are mostly confined to 1988 on sandy sites and included four out of the five sites on clay soils.  Underlining indicates 'good' rainfall conditions based on estimates of infiltrated rainfall and predictions of potential biomass yields calculated with the \"Anapluie\" water balance model (Hiernaux, 1984).4. Irrigation treatments.  (Gourma region, northern Mali, 1988-92). Stage of development at first cut were grouped as 'early', when cutting was performed before 15 August providing less than 25 g DM/m 2 was removed by the cut, or 'late'. Early cuts were infrequent occurring only in 9 out of 22 site-years and coincided largely with good rainfall years, when there was an early start of the growing season.Analyses of variance were used to identify the treatment and environmental variables that determine plant yield and nutrient uptake, and linear regressions were used to quantify treatment effects on yields and nutrient uptakes.Responses to N and P inputs of monthly yields depended on rainfall distribution and vegetation type (Table 1). When the rains were good, N and P additions increased yields by about 30% (Figure 1a) whereas during poor rainfall seasons, yields were reduced by about 25%. The boundary between soil moisture and nutrient as leading constraints to the two contrasting trends appears to fall at a yield of about 50 g DM/m 2 , where the two regression lines intersect (Figure 1a). The yields on sandy soils were closely clustered below 100 g DM/m 2 , while higher yields were on the heavier clay soils found in topographic depressions.Biomass removal during the growth cycle generally reduced total cumulative yield as compared to the maximum biomass of the uncut sward. When first cut was performed at an early stage of plant development total yields dropped by 20% as compared to 32% at a later stage (Table 2). Fertiliser application did not alleviate the yield losses but reduced the difference between early and late cuts (27% vs 31%). The effects of cutting frequency on total cumulative yield was analysed using a three-way matrix which included cutting frequency, rainfall conditions and fertiliser application. Without fertiliser, repeated cutting reduced total cumulative yield compared to the maximum yield of uncut stands as indicated by the slopes of the linear regressions of cumulative yields on uncut stand yields (Figure 2). In good rainfall seasons, regrowth rates were impeded by soil nutrients, reducing yields by half in 15-day and by a quarter in 30-day cutting intervals. When rains were poor, cutting depressed cumulative yields less. Cumulative yields rarely exceeded 120 g/m 2 at 30-day and 100 g/m 2 at 15-day cutting intervals, which appears to indicate the maximum yield under intense defoliation and at natural levels of soil fertility.Figure 2. Effect of cutting frequency and fertiliser (N and P) on cumulative herbage yields in two types of growing season (Gourma region, northern Mali, 1988-92). (2) Y = 1.12 X + 14.2 (r =0.78)(3) Y = 0.97 X + 9.3 (r =0.78) (4) Y = 1.28 X + 5.8 (r =0.80) (1) (2)(3) (4)Applying fertilisers tended to raise yields above maximum uncut unfertilised yields. Yield increased by as much as 100% due to fertiliser application when 15-day interval cuttings were done under poor rainfall conditions (Figure 2a). However, when cutting at 15-day intervals with good rainfall, fertilisers just compensated for the reduction in yield due to repeated cutting. In 30-day interval cutting, added nutrients were less efficiently utilised giving lower increments above unfertilised cutting treatment (Figure 2b). These trends were confirmed by a direct comparison of the cumulative yields obtained with and without fertilisers. In 15-day interval cuttings, fertilisation increased cumulative yields by about 60% under good rainfall whereas it doubled yields under poor rainfall conditions (Figure 1b). In 30-day interval cutting, the effects of fertiliser application were less with about 30% increase in yields regardless of rainfall conditions. Differences in fertiliser effects on yields were explained by the concentration of the response to fertilisers in the early stages of growth.The effects of irrigation and added nutrients on cumulative yield and N and P uptake by Cenchrus biflorus rangeland are illustrated in Figure 3. Repeated cutting without supplementary irrigation decreased cumulative yield relative to the uncut control by about 20%. With supplementary irrigation repeated cutting resulted in cumulative yield about equal to control. Adding nutrients without irrigation increased yields by 50%; most of this increase was due to rapid plant growth during the first 25 days. Thereafter, soil moisture was probably deficient and little further growth ensued. When this water deficiency was partly remedied by row irrigation, growth continued, reaching a maximum yield of 250 g/m 2 at the end of the growing season.In general, uptake of N increases when stands are frequently defoliated. For seven sites during 1989-92 N uptake in the uncut controls averaged 1.1 g/m 2 with a range of 0.5-1.6 g/m 2 . In monthly cut swards N uptake increased to 1.5 g/m 2 , and to 1.6 g/m 2 in 15-day swards, i.e. a 30-40% increase. Adding fertilisers further increased N and P uptakes; in the 15-day cut swards N uptake doubled to 3.3 g/m 2 , but the rate of increase varied between site-years due to the influence of rainfall. In four sites with poor rainfall (three of which were in 1992) fertilisers had little effect on N uptake which only increased from 1.7 to 2.1 g/m 2 . In three sites with higher rainfall, N uptake in fertilised, frequently cut stands increased more than twofold from 1.5 g to 4.8 g N/m 2 . This converts to a fertilised N uptake efficiency of 33% which falls at the lower end of the range of efficiency measured in the Sahelian rangelands (Penning de Vries and Djiteye, 1982).Adding both water and nutrients to a Cenchrus biflorus rangeland in 1989 increased N yield to 7.9 g/m 2 (3.1% N in the accumulated biomass) as compared to 1.6 g/m 2 (1.9% N) in the rainfed non-fertilised control, and to 4.7 g/m 2 (2.7% N) in the unfertilised repeatedly cut plots (Figure 3b). Thus, adding nutrients and irrigation increases N uptake, resulting in higher yields combined with higher N content in the herbage. Uptake of P in cumulative yield from 15 days cuts for rainfed, irrigated without and with N and P inputs were 0.19, 0.58 and 0.97 g/m 2 , respectively (Figure 3c). The ratio of P to N yields equalled 0.12 regardless of the treatments, a figure closer to the 0.15 maximum ratio than to the 0.04 minimum ratio found in Sahelian annuals (Penning de Vries and Djiteye, 1982). These rather high values of P/N ratio would indicate a higher N than P constraint to production in all treatments.Herbage removal through patchy grazing by ruminants increases the spatial diversity of the standing biomass in terms of both quantity and quality. Removal can occur in previously (same growing season) grazed or in ungrazed stands. N and P concentrations in herbage from 18 Gourma site-years subjected on N and P uptakes of a Cenchrus biflorus rangeland (Gourma region, northern Mali, 1989).  to 15-and 30-day repeated cuts to simulate moderate and heavy grazing were compared with concentrations in uncut control to quantify quality differences caused by defoliation. Early in the wet season, repeatedly cut swards contained mostly high quality herbage as 87-97% of total herbage mass had more than 2.4% N, as compared to only 33% in uncut swards. When the uncut swards were weighted for biomass, 60% contained less than 1.6% N (Table 3). Later in the season, the feed on offer appears to have a more diverse nutritive value. Yield-weighted N content of uncut, monthly and fortnightly defoliated herbage contained 0.9, 1.5 and 1.7% of N respectively. In uncut stands, almost 60% of the herbage was of low quality (<0.8% N), whereas high quality biomass (>1.6% N) comprised 54% of the 15-day and 37% of the 30-day cuts cumulative total, the remainder being of moderate quality (0.8-1.6% N). Early in the wet season, P concentration was over 0.16%, which should be sufficient for livestock maintenance (NRC, 1984), in 79% of the biomass, and the fraction increased to 95% when cut every 15 days. Defoliation had a larger impact later in the season, as the proportion of the herbage containing more than 0.16% P reached 50% in cut plots while it was 15% in the uncut plots.Fertiliser application improved the forage quality somewhat. In the late-growing season, N content in uncut pasture increased by 11 to 20% (Table 3). While N content in the regrowth during the early season improved little, quality retention is pronounced later in the season; N content in the combined 15-days and 30-days cutting regrowth rose from 1.6 to 2.1%. In contrast, differences in P concentration between herbage classes were minor; as a consequence weighted P content changes little with fertilisation.It is generally accepted that in the northern part of the Sahel zone, along the rainfall gradient of 100 to 300 mm, soil moisture exerts the greatest influence on primary productivity (Ellis and Swift, 1989;Wolff et al, 1991;Hiernaux and Turner, unpublished). Rainfall distribution together with seed stocks in soil at the start of the season determine germination rates and initial seedling densities (Carrière, 1989), and thereafter the soil water balance governs the length of the growing cycle (Rambal and Cornet, 1982;Mougin et al, 1993).Across the rainfall gradient, herbage biomass at the end of the season varies considerably: from 15-110 g/m 2 in dry years to 75-200 g/m 2 in average years. On coarse-sand soils, yields were estimated at 15, 110 and 190 g/m 2 for 100, 200 and 300 mm of infiltrated rainfall, respectively, and at 25, 120 and 220 g/m 2 for the same infiltrated rains on loamy-sand soils (Breman and de Ridder, 1991).Despite the strong influence of the soil moisture regime on primary output in the Sahel, soil nutrient supplies (in particular N and P) may limit yields as infiltrated rainfall increases (Penning de Vries and Djiteye, 1982). Nitrogen and possibly P availability may not, however, be independant of soil moisture. Not only do early rains supply about O.65 kg N per 100 mm of rainfall (Krul et al, 1982), but N mineralisation increases with duration and depth of soil wetting in the rooting zone of the profile (Breman and de Ridder, 1991;Wolff et al, 1991).Interactions between soil moisture and nutrient supply explained yields and uptake differences under various rainfall conditions in unfertilised and repeatedly defoliated swards (Hiernaux and Turner, unpublished). When rainfall was favourable, defoliation at 30-and 15-day intervals was found to reduce total cumulative yields by 30% and 52%, respectively. Yield loss was reduced as moisture stress became greater. These contrasting effects of soil moisture and nutrient limitations are confirmed in Figure 2. Although fertiliser additions resulted in yield loss of 23% under good rainfall, it increased yield by 50% when moisture stress was high due to poor rainfall.In a pot trial (Hiernaux, unpublished) the provision of irrigation N and P produced over 700 g DM/m 2 during two months of Cenchrus biflorus and of Schoenefeldia gracilis planted at a density equivalent to 50 plants/m 2 . Planted one month earlier, Cenchrus biflorus adapted vigourously to a longer growing season producing up to 1400 g DM/m 2 in three months, doubling the density of tillers from 40 to 80 per plant. Rapid expansion of single plants by increasing tiller number and size allows plants to maintain yield at variable plant densities (Morris and Myerscough, 1991). Tradeoffs between exploitation of soil resources and inter-plant competition defined optimal ratios between plant and tiller densities (Hiernaux et al, 1993) and, for a given species, these optimal ratios were found to vary with moisture and nutrient availabilities.The biomass production of the above pot-grown grasses cut at 15-day intervals was only half of the production of the uncut control. N and P uptakes were unaffected by cutting and tiller density increased due to cutting, allowing plants to set seed. These results are in agreement with observations of the present field study during good rainfall years. Tragus bertheronianus, an annual grass morphologically smaller and of shorter life-cycle, produced seven times as little in the pot trial as did C. biflorus and S. gracilis (10 g DM/m 2 instead of 72 and 68 g DM/m 2 , respectively). However, T. bertheronianus appeared, however, much less sensitive to intense defoliation; its DM production was reduced by only 3% when cut every 15 days, N and P uptakes increased slightly and cutting had no impact on seed production. These different responses to cutting of C. biflorus, S. gracilis and T. bertheronianus confirm that sensitivity to defoliation increases with yield potential (Oesterheld and McNaughton, 1991). T. bertheronianus and other short-cycle annuals such as Dactyloctenium aegyptiacum, Zornia glochidiata, Tribulus terrestris appear better adapted to heavy grazing during the growing season as they manage to set seed when frequently and severely defoliated. Such adaptation of flora to intense defoliation is restricted to areas where livestock concentrate during the wet season (e.g. night kraal, water points and transhumance tracks). This adaptation preserves vegetation cover stability and, although these short-cycled annuals have overall low biomass yield, they are of relatively high N and P contents. Thus, local heavy grazing further diversifies the quantity and quality of feed on rangelands without endangering the vegetation cover (Hiernaux, 1993).Although soil moisture is a primary constraint to biomass production on a large spatial scale in the Sahel, it may be less so when smaller-scale variability is taken into account. Run-off/run-on ratios create high-moisture niches where shortage of soil nutrients will limit yield. High-yield niches due to run-on are important in ensuring seed production during years of poor rainfall. On the other hand, run-off sites may provide low-yielding high-quality forage in good years, when dilution of nutrients turns most dry season forage into below maintenance feed. In the same manner, light and patchy grazing, as well as locally intense grazing, diversifies resources on offer.It was demonstrated that herbage removal can have a negative impact on cumulative biomass yields, especially in higher rainfall situations and in areas benefiting from large influxes of water run-on. However, since during good rainfall years feed supplies are more plentiful, yield reduction is of little consequence. High yields imply higher nutrient dilution and thus low quality feed that is carried over into the dry season. Patchy grazing is beneficial, therefore, since it improves the quality of the feed by providing higher protein concentrations in grazed patches throughout the season.While soil moisture is extremely variable in time and space, and is further modified by run-on-/run-off ratios at different spatial scales, soil nutrients provide a constraining ceiling above which primary and secondary productivity cannot rise. While in cropping systems external nutrient sources may raise this ceiling, for pastoral areas this avenue is technically disputable because the resulting increase in yield would be in part detrimental to forage quality. Moreover, adding fertilisers to Sahelian rangelands has no chance of becoming economically profitable because of the high cost of fertilisers and transportation to the region and also because of the common land tenure system (Breman and Traoré, 1987). Exploiting the quality gradient in feed on offer at the local scale provides some flexibility while preserving the ecosystem resilience. Most research on nutrient cycling to date has focused on its biological dimensions. However, social and economic processes mediate the volume, pattern, and distribution of different nutrient flows. This paper presents a number of questions which need to be addressed, including: how sustainable are nutrient flows within agropastoral systems? and how can nutrient management be intensified as pressure on resources increases? Case studies are taken from five areas to provide details of how nutrients are managed in practise. These cover Burkina Faso and Senegal, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. The case studies illustrate how important it is to understand the social and economic processes underlying the availability of nutrient sources and flows to different people. For example, access to manure depends on herd size, and the existence of manuring contracts whereby farmers can gain access to water and crop residues in exchange for the manure from visiting herds. Tenure relations will condition rights of access to grazing resources, while access to chemical fertiliser will depend on whether the farmer has market access and cash income. Rising human population density is likely to lead to increasing problems of soil fertility maintenance. However, in some areas, rising populations may provide both an incentive and the means to intensify land use. Political relations between herding and farming populations will determine the terms on which farmers can gain access to manure. Management skills and availability of farm labour will affect the care with which fertility inputs are applied in relation to crop growth in the rainy season. There are currently two basic policy alternatives for nutrient-cycle management within African agropastoral systems. The first involves the more effective management of resources internal to the agro-ecosystem (e.g. mulching, composting and intercropping with leguminous plants), while the second is based on the use of external inputs (e.g. chemical fertilisers). Future research needs to identify the costs and returns of each strategy, and the conditions are likely to include sufficient pressure on resources to prompt intensification, market conditions which bring reasonable returns to investment on-farm and assured access to land and other resources. Nutrient cycling in agropastoral systems has biological, economic and social dimensions. However, most research effort to date has been invested in the biological aspects. Such research has explored the flows of both micro-and macro-nutrients between different nutrient pools in both the crop and livestock components of agropastoral systems (e.g. TSBF, 1991;1992). This biological research has focused on changes in soil chemical properties and contributed to the design of recommendations for more sustainable systems of agriculture, where the balance of nutrients is maintained either through the cycling and regeneration of internal resources, or through external subsidy. The biological processes involved in nutrient pools and flows from these are mediated by social and economic processes. Too often these are ignored in discussion of soil management and prescription of strategies for a more sustainable agriculture in dryland areas.The debate about the future of dryland agropastoral systems offers two alternative, although not mutually exclusive, scenarios. One envisages future sustainability being based on mobilising resources largely internal to the farming system, through the more effective application of labour and skills to improve the efficiency of nutrient cycling, soil conservation and water harvesting. Interventions such as mulching, green manuring and recycling of biomass, kraal manure management and agroforestry options are envisaged in this low external input agriculture (Reijntjes et al, 1992). The other scenario argues that such alternatives are inadequate to keep up with the pace of population growth and environmental change. Instead, external resources, such as chemical fertilisers, mechanised farming and irrigation are required (Breman, 1990a;Borlaug, 1992).A number of policy questions arise from these alternative scenarios which include:• How sustainable are nutrient flows within agropastoral systems? Can the extraction of nutrients from grazing land and their transfer to arable areas be sustained over time? • Which is the most viable option for dryland agropastoral systems: a high input of nutrients from external sources, or regenerative management of nutrients from within the agropastoral system?• How can nutrient management be intensified under conditions of increasing pressure on resources?Before answers can be found to these questions, the interactions between the biological, economic and social processes involved in nutrient cycling must be understood. This paper provides an overview of these processes by reviewing a range of literature from a variety of disciplines and from different parts of Africa. Using a series of case studies, the paper highlights some of the most important socio-economic dimensions of nutrient cycling in agropastoral systems of dryland Africa.Figure 1 presents a simple diagram of nutrient pools (in square boxes) and flows (arrows and circles) in an African agropastoral system (adapted from Swift et al, 1989). This diagram illustrates, in a highly simplified fashion, how nutrients flow between different components of the system.The connections between biological transfers and socio-economic factors can be demonstrated by examining the flow of manure from grazing to arable land via the digestive system of livestock. Grass and browse from grazing lands are consumed by livestock which in turn produce manure. This is deposited both within grazing areas and in livestock pens. The manure is then applied to arable land, either on dry fields (home or outfields) or within irrigated gardens. Application may be direct by placing livestock pens (or kraals) in the fields or through transportation from the pen to the field. In addition to manure derived in this way, some may also be collected directly from the grazing land for transport to the field.Each component of this flow of nutrients, especially the volume and direction, is affected by socio-economic factors. For instance, access to manure will be affected by a range of factors such as size of herd and access to manure exchange contracts. The quantity of manure will depend on access to grazing land which will be affected by tenurial rights, as well as the availability of the fodder resource. Manure quality will depend on the type of fodder resource, the management inputs in the livestock pen and the season. The application of manure to arable areas will depend on its transport from livestock pens to the field or the existence of arrangements whereby herders pen their livestock on farmers' fields. Transport will be reliant on access to carts and transport animals, while access to herders' livestock manure will be dependent on establishing mutually acceptable exchange relationships between herders and farmers. Application of manure on the fields will in turn depend on labour availability, while ensuring the effective use of available nutrients for crop growth will be dependent on careful management and timing of manuring in relation to sowing and weeding the crop.In sum, for any given farmer, access to each nutrient pool and flow is dependent on a range of socio-economic factors. The simple diagram presented in Figure 1 becomes much more complex once these dimensions are taken into account. Issues of resource quality and resource access affect the nutrient stocks within any one of the nutrient pools identified, while issues of labour availability, management skill, access to cash and availability of transportation influence the flows between nutrient pools. These issues are summarised below for five pools and five groups of flows.• Market: access to cash income to pay for inorganic fertiliser; access to markets at which fertiliser is available; economic policy and price support for inputs. • Livestock: access to livestock or exchange relationships with others (such as loaned animals, exchange of manure for grazing, or gifts of manure from relatives). • Grazing land: quality of grazing land; tenure and access to grazing land; population pressure and availability of grazing land. • Arable land: resource quality of arable land; access to garden or crop land.• Household: household size influencing production of waste for composting; access to toilets affecting availability of human excreta for grazing land.This flow may be affected by access to transport and labour if the pen is situated some distance from the fields. In other cases, pens may be located on the fields and the flows can be more directly managed if the livestock are owned by the field owner. In other instances, where manuring contracts are involved, the negotiation of arrangements between herders and farmers is central to the flows (McCown et al, 1979;Toulmin, 1983;McIntire et al, 1992;Toulmin, 1992a;1992b). These flows may also involve exchange of manure between friends and relatives. Manure applied to arable land may in some cases be derived from the livestock pen of a friend or relative who has excess.In intensive agropastoral systems, such as in the highland areas of Rwanda, Cameroon or Ethiopia, pen-feeding may be economical. There is usually a high manure retrieval rate from pen-fed animals which produce high-quality manure if volatilisation is minimised. In such intensive systems, manure application may be very important to overall production (Gryseels and Anderson, 1983;Holtzman, 1986;Jones and Egui, 1987). The reverse of this flow may involve the transfer of crop residues from arable areas to the livestock pen (as pen feed for animals or as biomass additions to the manure). This again requires labour and the degree to which this flows is important will depend on the other demands for crop residues as fodder, fencing, roofing or fuel.The flow of livestock manure is determined by the way in which herders manage the grazing and kraaling patterns of livestock. Kraaling animals overnight is a common practice; this ensures that around 50% of all dung produced by the animals is deposited in the pen. Longer periods of kraaling increase the recovery of manure, although, without pen-feeding, this may constrain the grazing time and feed intake of animals (Bayer, 1986). A certain proportion of the manure produced is deposited directly as the animals pass through arable and grazing lands. Where this is actually deposited will depend on the grazing behaviour of the animals (in free-grazing situations) or the herding practices of the herder. Other fertility inputs may also be important as part of this flow. Termitaria and leaf litter may be collected from the grazing land and added to the livestock pen (or applied directly to the field as part of the grazing to arable land flow). This usually requires a considerable amount of labour investment but is particularly important for farmers with limited access to alternative fertility inputs (Watson, 1977;Carter, 1992).This flow is highly variable depending on access to cash, prices and availability of fertilisers in the market. For example, in many African countries, fertiliser prices have escalated due to the removal of subsidies as part of structural adjustment programmes, greatly reducing the use of this input.The management of all flows requires both labour and skills for fine-tuned management to maximise nutrient use and reduce losses. Efficient nutrient cycling is thus dependent on a range of socio-economic dimensions, which are differentiated within any farming community. How different individual farmers decide to manage the nutrient pools at their disposal and the nutrient flows within their command will depend on a variety of issues related to access to labour, capital assets, disposable cash income, secure rights over land, the resource endowments of the land, management skills and so on. Different farmers will approach the nutrient-cycling challenge in different ways.The dynamics of this differentiated approach to nutrient cycling are examined in a series of case studies.Whether nutrient cycling is a limiting factor in agropastoral production will depend on a variety of ecological and economic factors. These are considered briefly below.The productivity of savannahs is affected by a trade-off between the moisture and nutrients available to plants (Huntley and Walker, 1982;Walker, 1985;Frost et al, 1986). This trade-off can be illustrated schematically with a simple diagram (Figure 2). Soil nutrient availability (the horizontal axis in Figure 2) is influenced by parent geology, and by nutrient transport from weathering and water movement. The overall availability of plant available moisture (the vertical axis in Figure 2) is influenced by total rainfall levels and distribution, soil physical properties (particularly infiltration rates) and topography.An interaction of base geology and rainfall levels thus creates the distinction between arid-eutrophic and moist-dystrophic savannahs (Huntley, 1982), although local conditions of geology, soil form or topography may override this simple distinction. For instance, low-lying areas within zones of nutrient poor soils may be the sink for leached nutrients and high-quality soils transported from elsewhere. Such areas may also act as sinks or transition sites for drainage of water from topland areas. Such \"key resource\" areas exist as high value patches within landscapes dominated by the major forms of savannah type. The major limiting constraints of available soil water or soil nutrients will not apply in such key resource patches (Scoones, 1989). This characterisation of savannah types is important for understanding patterns of nutrient cycling, use and management. The importance of nutrients as a limiting factor in production increases as we move from arid areas of low water availability to subhumid areas with higher water availability for plant growth, as in West Africa from the desert edge, and the Sahelian fringe to the southern savannahs (Penning de Vries and Djiteye, 1982). Nutrient availability also becomes an increasingly important constraint on production as we move from eutrophic environments with nutrient rich heavy clay or volcanic soils to dystrophic environments dominated by poor sandy soils, as in areas of East and southern Africa, where volcanic soils or doleritic intrusions lie in close proximity to poorer sandy soils derived from granite (Bell, 1982;Huntley, 1982). Thus nutrients are the most likely constraint on Source: Frost et al (1986). production in wetter, dystrophic (sandy soil) environments and a much lesser constraint in drier, eutrophic environments.However, landscape and micro-level heterogeneity may override this broader pattern. For instance, within a sandy soil catena in a dystrophic environment (e.g. a miombo area in central-southern Africa) there may be important run-on sites where nutrients are deposited and richer soils develop (e.g. dambo areas in southern Africa). Here the nutrient constraints evident in the rest of the catena are not so tight, allowing the development of higher quality grasses for grazing and crop farming with lower input levels (Ingram, 1991;Scoones, 1992). Spatial heterogeneity at the micro-level may also affect nutrient availability. The effect of a tree canopy in nutrient-poor savannahs may boost production through leaf deposition and reduced moisture loss (Kellman, 1979). A heterogenous pattern at a small scale is also created by selective clearance within closed woodland (Campbell et al, 1988). Similar patterns of micro-level variation may be created by the grazing effects of large herbivores, the deposition of dung and urine, (Putmann, 1986) and through termite activity (Watson, 1977).Thus, the role played by nutrient cycling depends on the farm site, both in a regional sense and at a more local level. It also depends on time period, as the importance and effect of nutrients will vary between both seasons and years.Temporal variation in nutrient availability and the systems through which they are cycled are critical in understanding how farmers are able to manage nutrient cycles in farm landscapes. In savannahs, two interconnected nutrient cycles operate at differing speeds. Nutrients from grasses and annual crops cycle relatively fast through the agro-ecosystem. By contrast, nutrients locked up in trees and perennial crops move more slowly (Frost, 1985). Trees are particularly important in savannah nutrient cycles since they provide a renewable nutrient pool and a less variable pattern of nutrient release than do grasses and annual crops (Prinsley and Swift, 1986). The speed of biomass decomposition and recycling will depend on a variety of factors related to the nature of the biomass material, the soil types and soil fauna. In general, nutrient cycles are faster in wetter savannahs and slower in drier areas (Anderson and Ingram, 1993). Nutrient release follows a pulsed rhythm in savannah systems, with peaks occurring at the onset of the rains when decomposition increases. The greater variety of different materials that are recycled (grasses, crop residues, leaves, twigs etc), the greater the number of different nutrient release pulses occur as the season unfolds.Managing this spatial and temporal variation in nutrient pools and flows within a farm landscape is a major challenge for the farmer. Mechanisms for nutrient conservation and regeneration are key to the efficient management of nutrient cycles in agro-ecosystems. The conditions for successful management are dependent on a variety of socio-economic factors, and are discussed in the next section.Management of the nutrient cycle will depend on farmers' access to and returns from the use of different nutrient pools. These returns will depend not only on ecological but also on socio-economic factors. Socio-economic factors include population trends and resource availability, variable access to production inputs, prices, markets and economic policy, and the social context within which nutrients are managed.As population density increases the marginal productivity of labour will decline at the extensive margin of agricultural production because land of decreasing nutrient quality is put under production. At the intensive margin a similar pattern of decreasing marginal productivity is observed due to diminishing returns to labour. Under conditions of rising demand for land through increasing population pressure, and as marginal returns continue to decline there are two possible options. One is the doomsday scenario of Malthus where populations outstrip resources and food supply. The other option, following Boserup, sees the agricultural production function moving upwards in the long run through technological change, initiated and promoted by population growth (Boserup, 1981). Under the Malthus scenario long-term declines in both per area and per capita food production can be expected with consequent deprivation. Under the Boserup scenario, farmers innovate with different fertility-management options, manipulating and adapting nutrient cycles to sustain food production.Farm households face different constraints to production depending on their own and the wider economic situation (Ellis, 1988). In some cases land may be the limiting factor in production. When this is the case, farmers would be expected to invest labour and capital in securing higher returns per unit area of land through land-intensive measures (e.g. nutrient conservation and harvesting techniques). In other cases labour may be limiting (e.g. through male outmigration, old age or infirmity etc). In these situations, land extensive options with low labour requirements may be a better alternative nutrient management solution (e.g. agroforestry options involving low labour input, extensive application of fertiliser etc).In other instances capital may be the limiting factor. Lack of capital assets, such as livestock, will constrain manuring options, and farmers will need to make alternative arrangements (manuring contracts, exchanges with relatives, or other fertility management techniques). Lack of capital may also constrain options requiring cash expenditures such as the purchase of inorganic fertiliser.Prices and market conditions affect the demand for different fertility-management options, which may be secured through both formal and informal markets. These are in turn affected by prevailing economic policy as determined by national governments and international conditions. For instance, the relative returns (financial benefits minus costs) of different fertility inputs from internal or external sources will clearly affect farmers' choice. In many parts of Africa inorganic fertilisers were heavily subsidised during the 1960s and 1970s, significantly reducing the financial costs to farmers. Since the 1980s, economic polices have shifted and many agricultural subsidies have been removed as a result of structural adjustment programmes. This has swung the balance back towards the management of internal resources, putting a higher premium on manure and locally produced biomass sources of soil nutrients.Choices between the exploitation of different internal nutrient pools and the management of different internal flows will equally depend on the relative costs and benefits of different options. For instance, the growing transaction costs involved in securing manuring contracts between farmers and herders in the Sahelian region provide an increased incentive for farmers to invest in livestock of their own to secure manure and other livestock goods (Toulmin, 1992a;Thébaud, 1993). Equally if labour is employed locally to assist with transportation of manure (e.g. hiring of scotch carts) or collection of termitaria or leaf litter, the local wage labour rates will be a significant factor in choosing between different options.The management of nutrient cycles in highly variable environments requires a great deal of skilled management. Farmers' management must fine-tune applications of a mix of fertility inputs to the spatial variation in soil types and available nutrients, as well as the temporal variation in decomposition processes and the dynamics of nutrient release. To manage available nutrients efficiently, reducing the need for use of external inputs such as inorganic fertiliser, farmers must carefully match inputs with plant needs within different parts of the agro-ecosystem. For instance, spot applications of manure at particular times on particular crops may make the best use of a limited resource, reducing leaching and volatisation effects and maximising yield. Such tasks require farmer knowledge, skills and labour inputs. In many farm settings these may not be available. Skills may be lacking, particularly in instances where a strong reliance on subsidised fertiliser existed in previous decades or where migration to urban areas for employment means there is little skilled male labour available for farming. Incentives for low-input agriculture must include investment in increasing skill levels of farmers and securing economically viable returns from such investment (Pretty et al, 1992). In drier agropastoral areas of Africa, where yields are highly variable due to erratic rainfall and where marketing opportunities are uncertain because of distance from markets and low prices, farmers may have little interest in investing in organic or chemical fertilisers. In addition, the risk of drought will discourage heavy use of nutrient imports because of the damage caused to crops from 'burning', which occurs on well fertilised land when rains are light (Sumberg, 1991).In many dryland regions, farming and livestock keeping are carried out by different ethnic groups. For example, the Fulani are widely known as herders throughout West Africa; they keep their own animals and are hired to look after those of settled farmers. While decades of drought and herd losses have forced many herding groups to settle and farm, a strong element of ethnic and occupational distinctiveness remains between those who are primarily farmers, and those from a pastoral herding background. Such differences lie in terms of language, culture, dress, and ways of life, as well as the particular political and economic interests of the groups involved. Relations between these groups are coloured not merely by complementary and conflicting interests associated with their main activity -cultivation, or livestock-keeping -but also by historical factors which strengthen attitudes of either hostility or friendship.In much of Sahelian West Africa, farming groups have established and maintained control over land, based in part on customary rules, and in part on the emphasis given by national governments to supporting increased agricultural production. The priority given to farming has been at the expense of pastoral groups, who have lost rights to use and manage many water and grazing resources on which they formerly depended. Farmers are thus in a strong position to set the terms for exchanging access to water with herding groups. Were herders to acquire formal rights to settle and dig wells of their own, farmers in this region would lose such easy and low cost means of acquiring access to nutrients (Toulmin, 1992a). Already, many farmers are building up their own cattle herds, partly as a source of wealth, and partly to provide access to sufficient dung to enable them to do without visiting herding groups.Thus, institutional and social relations set the pattern of flow of nutrients between different groups, and the terms of access. The power balance between ethnic groups at a national and local level is important in understanding how and by whom the terms of such exchange relations are set.This section presents five case studies from different agropastoral settings in dryland Africa, illustrating how particular socio-economic dimensions affect options for nutrient cycling. Fertility management options vary between sites and between different people in a given site.The first case, from Burkina Faso and Senegal, highlights the importance of labour availability in the management of soil fertility. Male out-migration results in the redirection of women's work from their own fields to household fields owned by men. The second case, from Kenya, shows how increased population pressure on available resources may result in increased investment of labour and other farm resources in nutrient management as land becomes scarce. The third case, from Zimbabwe, illustrates how the land resource itself is highly heterogenous and how fine-tuned fertility management is essential for maintaining yields with low input levels. The final two cases, from Nigeria and Mali, examine the social and economic context for nutrient flows between agriculturalists and pastoralists and how these are changing over time as different socio-economic circumstances influence the relative costs and benefits of different forms of crop-livestock interaction in agropastoral areas.A series of studies carried out by SOS-Sahel (David and Ruthven, 1993;David et al, 1993) illustrates how changing labour availability alters the ability of people to invest in soil fertility management in the Sahel. In the Burkina Faso study site, migrants' wives have to invest more time in agriculture because of the reduction in family labour. Extra time spent applying household waste and manure on the village plots means that women have less time to invest in their own farm plots. Women's plots thus tend to have low fertility inputs, such as the occasional use of Loudetia grass mulch and karite leaves, but rarely do they have access to manure or to inorganic fertiliser.A similar pattern is seen in some areas of Senegal where 70-80% of the men leave the villages during the dry season for work in the capital, Dakar. In this case, the lack of male labour reduces the ability to transport manure to the fields. The result is poor timing of fertility applications and reduced yields. Manure is applied to family fields close to the village. Women's plots appear to receive little manure and rely on small inputs of household ash or waste.The case studies highlight how effective nutrient management requires considerable labour, both for transportation of manure and for timely application. Complex combinations of organic inputs require high labour inputs and good timing for effective returns. With reductions in labour availability through male-outmigration in the Sahel, low-input fertility management strategies appear to be the only option available to farm households.The population of Machakos District, Kenya, grew at a rate of between 2. 5 and 3.75% annually between 19305 and 3.75% annually between and 19905 and 3.75% annually between (Mortimore, 1991)). This 60-year period has seen a number of major changes in the farming system. Since the 1970s total farm productivity per head of population and per unit area has risen dramatically (Tiffen and Mortimore, 1992). In most years productivity increases through investment in agricultural intensification have more than kept up with district level population increases. Agricultural intensification has occurred through shifts to short season maize varieties, closer management of smaller livestock herds, and diversification of production to include high-value vegetables and non-farm income sources (Mortimore, 1991).Intensification has included investment in soil conservation and nutrient management techniques. Soil and water conservation measures (including terraces) have expanded greatly in the past few decades. The resultant reduction in erosion levels has meant that soil surface nutrients have been retained in the fields rather than being washed away (Thomas, 1991). Nutrient management practices have also changed. Increased amounts of manure, fertiliser and mulches are now applied to arable land. Fertility levels (nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon) are significantly lower on cultivated lands than most grazing and fallow areas (Mbuvi, 1991), reflecting a long-term decline in the fertility of arable areas that has been going on since the 1930s. However, this trend of fertility loss is now being reversed through agricultural intensification. While the volume of fertiliser application is low, it provides a sufficient boost in fertility levels to maintain yields, although the amounts applied will probably not result in complete fertility restoration in the longer term. This will only occur through longer term processes of soil regeneration, assisted by reduced top soil loss, and will be realised through investments in soil and water conservation (Mortimore, 1991).The Machakos case shows how agricultural intensification can occur under conditions of high and rising population pressure, if farmers have access to markets, extension and support services (Tiffen and Mortimore, 1992). Under such conditions farmers invest in effective nutrient management, allowing yield levels to be sustained or increased and long-term declines in land degradation to be reversed.Fertility management is not uniform across farm landscapes. In most instances farmers apply very different amounts and types of fertilisers between plots and crops. In Zimbabwe, most fertility inputs are applied to home fields and gardens. Estimates from the Mutoko communal land area suggest that over 80% of the nitrogen (N) applied to field and garden areas is derived from kraal manure. Leaf litter is another significant source (around 10% of total N applications). N applications are six times as high per unit area in gardens (120 kg N/ha per year) as in fields (20 kg N/ha per year). Manure is used on arable fields and gardens (78% and 22% respectively) while leaf litter is kept for garden use. Within cropland fertility applications are further differentiated, with most fertiliser going to the home fields and maize crop (Campbell et al, unpublished). Clay soils in dry areas receive very little extra fertility input, except in gardens where water is available for irrigation. The mosaic of soil types found both within and between fields means that blanket applications of any fertility input are inappropriate. Instead fine-tuned, spatially differentiated inputs are required (FSRU, 1993).Despite applying only 30% of the recommended levels for inorganic fertiliser and 60% of the recommended levels for manure, farmers achieve yields of around 2 t/ha of maize in Mutoko area when rainfall reaches the expected average (c. 800 mm) (Campbell et al, unpublished). In the drier areas of Chivi communal area (average rainfall c. 500 mm), even lower fertiliser application levels are seen. Returns from inorganic fertiliser are low because of erratic rainfall. Organic fertilisers, such as manure, have higher returns because of their beneficial effects on soil structure, but high application levels cause problems of crop burn when rainfall levels are low. In these dry areas, crop yields are more constrained by rainfall levels than fertility.Maintaining yield levels despite low application rates requires fine-tuned and highly responsive fertility management that focuses on increasing N-use efficiency rather than boosting application levels. Low-input fertility management includes: realising the benefits of the interactive effects of multiple types of fertiliser use, exploiting the residual carry-over effects of certain fertilisers, the careful timing of application in relation to rainfall events, and the focused spatial application of fertilisers in relation to micro-variations in soil type or plant position (Carter, 1992;FSRU, 1993). A combination of these management tactics allows farmers with limited nutrients to continue in agricultural production, even under highly marginal conditions.Manure is an important input into permanently cultivated farm plots close to settlement areas (Hill, 1972;Norman et al, 1982;Mortimore, 1989). These intensively farmed fields tend to be planted with cereals, compared with more distant gona or bush fields where non-food crops, such as cotton, are usually grown (Norman et al, 1982). On the basis of several years' farm production data from the late 1960s, Norman et al (1982: 139-140) calculated that fertility input levels have no effect on gross returns per hectare. Instead total farm production is more directly affected by access to low-lying wetland (fadama) areas and to family and hired labour. However, despite these findings, settled farmers in northern Nigeria continue to invest heavily in securing access to manure. This may be from sales of manure which, although rare, occurred during the droughts of the 1970s and 1980s, when many poorer households sold manure from their own livestock pens or from manure collected on grazing lands (Mortimore, 1989). Manure may also be acquired through arrangements whereby Fulani herders are invited to pen their livestock on farmers' fields in exchange for crop residues or other fodder supplies (Powell, 1986;Powell and Mohamed-Saleem, 1987;McIntire et al, 1992). However, the transaction costs of such arrangements are increasing and so are the incentives for farmers to invest in their own livestock. In areas where resource-use pressures are high, such as the Kano Close Settled Zone, manure is managed most carefully (Mortimore, 1989).On the northern fringe of the farming zone in Mali, Bambara farmers dig wells on the fields surrounding the village to attract livestock during the dry season (Toulmin, 1992a). In this lightly populated region, with less than 20 people per km 2 , a very extensive farming system has developed, following the introduction of light ridging and weeding tools, drawn by oxen. Animal traction allows farming households to sow and weed a large, shifting field in the bush, as well as several heavily manured plots around the village.Manure comes from two main sources: animals owned by the household, and those belonging to visiting herders. In addition, women gain significant quantities from sweeping the compound where sheep, goats, and horses are tethered, as 'payment' for the water they bring daily to these livestock. Women use this nutrient source to fertilise their private plots of grain and vegetables. Inorganic fertiliser has almost never been used by villagers, partly because of the long distance to the nearest market (more than 12 hours' walk on foot and by donkey cart), partly due to the difficulty and cost of fertiliser purchase at the market, and partly because of the damage it can cause to crops in years when rainfall is low and poorly distributed. Individual households benefit from particular nutrient sources, such as those with stands of Faidherbia albida, in whose shade animals wait during the hot dry season, to be watered at the nearby well. This shade resource brings benefits from the dung deposited there, as well as from the Faidherbia leaf litter.Over the past 30 years, most households in the village of Kala have invested in digging a well on their village fields. Until Mali's independence in 1960, only the chef du village was allowed to dig a well. However, legislation immediately following 1960 broke down the traditional prerogative of village chiefs to control access to land and water and, as a result, there has been a boom in well investment. From one private well owned by a household other than the chief's in 1963, there were 27 in 1981 and 46 in 1988.Water from these wells is exchanged for access to dung, with the many transhumant herding groups who move southwards to this farming zone during the long dry season. In return for watering his stock at the farmer's well, the herder must kraal his animals on the farmer's land overnight. Over a period of several months, the kraal will be shifted to allow a more even spread of dung across the land. The advantage to the farmer is the access this provides to supplies of dung far in excess of that produced by his own animals. For the herder, establishing a contract with a well-owner ensures access to water and also to the relatively favourable grazing resources found in this lightly settled region. Many of these northern farming villages, with their extensive sandy soils are also renowned for producing substantial surpluses of millet and, hence, are good sources of cheap grain in the dry season.A small number of farm households have also built up very substantial cattle holdings of their own from cash earned through peanut cultivation during the 1950s and 1960s, when rains were plentiful, and in more recent years from sales of millet from their well-fertilised village fields. Such cattle herds provide the farmer with additional sources of manure, in addition to milk, draft power, young animals, and a source of wealth.Yields of millet from the manured village fields averaged 1000 kg/ha in years receiving 350-400 mm of rainfall, while on the smallest and most heavily fertilised plots, more than 2000 kg/ha was achieved. As a result, the costs of getting a well dug could be recouped in a couple of years.However, not every household has benefitted from investing in a well, since this requires access to either labour or cash -in the first case for actually digging the well, and in the second for hiring someone else to carry out the work. Thus, the larger households, with sufficient labour and cash, were the first to get wells dug and now own three or four wells each, bringing handsome returns for further investment in cattle, oxen plough teams, and marriage expenses.The main physical constraint on the system involves the availability of grazing around the village. In years of good rainfall, sufficient pasture in the neighbourhood of the village allows a substantial number of animals to be maintained through the long dry season. However, when rains have been poor, such as in 1984, by the late dry season in March and April, visiting and village herds may have exhausted easily reached sources of fodder. Visiting herds move elsewhere at this stage, but for village owned stock, such a shift is less easy, and young calves are particularly vulnerable to a shortage of digestible forage. With increasing population density in the region, this extensive system for nutrient cycling will become less viable and farmers will need to invest more time in the careful management and efficient use of smaller quantities of manure.Rights to dig a well remain in the hands of Bambara farming communities. Fulani and Maure herders are usually refused the right to settle and establish a well of their own. As a result, the Bambara can maintain their control over this source of nutrients of such value to their yields of millet. Should further changes in legislation take place, the Bambara's access to this supply of manure would become less assured.A core question that arises from the above analysis of nutrient cycling in agropastoral systems is that of their sustainability. Under conditions of increasing demands for nutrients, can the flows be sustained without depleting the pools from which they come and the consequent loss of productivity? This question is not easy to answer, as it requires a detailed data set for analysing nutrient stocks, flows and balances.Limited data sets to examine this question are only available for a couple of cases in dryland Africa from which divergent conclusions are reached. The first case is based on data from the Sahel (Burkina Faso and Mali) and offers a gloomy prognosis (van Keulen and Breman, 1990;Breman, 1990b). The second case is based on data from southern Africa (Zimbabwe) and is more optimistic (Swift et al, 1989).Within the Sahelian region, nutrients are the major limiting factor to production in areas with over 250 mm annual rainfall. Water appears to be a limiting factor only in shallow soils and in dry years, as demonstrated by fertiliser experiments and models which explore yield limitations (Penning de Vries and Djiteye, 1982;van Keulen and Breman, 1990). Some commentators argue that biomass production in the Sahel is under serious threat as fertility inputs continue to decline. A decline in organic recycling through infrequent fallowing, limited re-incorporation of crop residues, and low manure applications are not being compensated for by inputs of inorganic fertiliser (cf. van Keulen and Breman, 1990). The result has been an extensification of agriculture, a shift to areas of relatively high agricultural potential (wetlands, bas fonds etc), an increase in animals kept by sedentary agriculturalists, and a movement out of dryland agriculture altogether often through male migration to urban areas. This situation is unsustainable and must be rectified by major investments in the use of inorganic fertilisers as external inputs. Alternatives to inorganic fertiliser are inappropriate, because of the limited potential for significant yield increases, the high labour requirements of most options and the high levels of skill and complex management needed to make the most of low-external input alternatives (Breman, 1990;van Keulen and Breman, 1990).Modelling studies from Zimbabwe paint a more optimistic picture, through examining the ratio of grazing to arable land required to maintain adequate fertility levels on land under crops. Assuming manure inputs of 10 t/ha per year of high quality manure 1 to be necessary, Swift et al (1989) estimated that a very large grazing area would have to be maintained to sustain arable production, unless increases in N use efficiency were achieved. This simplified rangeland-cropland ratio model assumed blanket applications of manure in dryland fields; this is not how farmers actually manage nutrient cycles in their farms (Turner, 1993). Instead nutrients are focused in time and space. This increases their effectiveness and thus reduces the need for the high levels assumed in this model. A variety of further measures act to increase N-use efficiency in arable systems:• decreased volatisation of N during cattle pen storage • decreased early season leaching of released nutrients• increased synchronisation of nutrient release and plant demand• improved mixes of fertility inputs with a variety of release times and other properties• raised levels of soil organic matter (SOM) or reduced SOM breakdown.Unfortunately very little agricultural research has been focused to date on such issues in Zimbabwe (or elsewhere). Instead work has concentrated on applications of a single kind of fertiliser (invariably inorganic fertiliser trials) at uniform levels at one time, rather than the management of multiple inputs with fine-tuned application.Overall, the modelling study from Zimbabwe concluded that sustainable production was possible without high levels of external inputs if there was sufficient grazing land to support nutrient transfers to arable areas, if the grazing land could act as a stable and renewable reservoir for nutrients (particularly through slow nutrient cycling by trees), and if there was a high (and increasing) efficiency of nutrient use on arable land (Swift et al, 1989).These cases from the Sahel and Zimbabwe outline two contrasting scenarios for the future. The first argues that current practices are unsustainable and, with increasing resource pressure, this will only get worse. As a consequence, either large-scale external nutrient subsidies to the system are required through fertiliser application, or the region will suffer intensified and widespread land degradation, impoverishment and outmigration. The second case emphasises the importance of improved management of existing nutrient pools and flows and increased efficiency with which internal resources are used, combined with low external inputs.Examples from elsewhere in Africa suggest that opportunities exist for the optimistic scenario, if certain conditions are met. However, it is important to be realistic about what is possible. Farmers will not invest in complex, resource management practices if the right conditions are not met. Many agronomic trials have shown, without dispute, that manure applications result in significant boosts in crop yield (e.g. Jones, 1971;McWalter and Wimble, 1976;Pichot et al, 1981), and extension workers across Africa have long beseeched farmers to adopt manuring and rotation practices. Yet it is only when there are significant and secure returns to the extra labour inputs needed to head-load the manure to fields or transport it in carts (i.e. under conditions of land shortage or severe fertility limitation), that farmers invest in manure use (McIntire et al, 1992).Current economic conditions in much of sub-Saharan Africa (subsidy removal, exchange rate devaluation, high inflation, retrenchment and reduction in remittance flows with real wage levels) are not conducive to high use of external nutrient inputs. Fertiliser prices are currently out of the reach of most farmers in Africa and, if projections of economic trends are to be believed, this is likely to remain the case for some time. The use of inorganic fertilisers in dryland areas of Africa will therefore remain concentrated on limited and carefully timed applications for particular crops.High input options may also have other significant costs. Nitrate pollution of drinking water supplies or eutrophication of lakes have resulted from the high input option in many parts of Europe, as well as in parts of Africa, such as near irrigation schemes (Conway and Pretty, 1991). Such environmental and health costs should be taken into account in any policy assessment of alternative options. In Africa, use of organic fertiliser has rarely produced adverse impacts of this sort on a significant scale.Experience from agropastoral areas of Africa suggests that there are a number of key conditions for sustainable management of nutrient cycles. These include:• sufficient resource pressure (land scarcity and population pressures) to provide incentives for intensification and investment in nutrient conservation measures on farmland • market conditions (prices, market access etc) that bring reasonable returns to increased investment • availability of labour and skills on-farm to permit the careful timing and application of limited nutrient inputs • socio-economic conditions at the local level that allow relatively assured access to different nutrient pools and their flexible management (e.g. secure tenure, access to livestock, stable exchange relationships between herders and farmers etc).To make the most of such indigenous methods of nutrient cycling requires a complementary input from researchers into ways of improving nutrient conservation and nutrient harvesting measures, particularly involving the synchronisation of crop growth and application of fertility input mixes within the highly variable environments of dryland Africa. The potential supply of nutrients from excreta voided by livestock and what is potentially available for transfer to cropland are examined within a West African context. Nutrient output from cattle is derived from a simulation model that predicts nutrient intake in relation to animal performance and monthly feed supplies; it subsequently links intake to excreted output of lactating and dry cows and young growing stock, as well as of entire cattle herds. The supply side of potential nutrient transfers is addressed at several scales, from agro-ecological zones to that of individual farmers, by analysing ratios between livestock and farmed and non-farmed land. At a regional scale, focus is on Nigeria and on the cottonbelt in francophone West Africa. The Nigerian situation elucidates the relationships between livestock and land along the rainfall gradient and brings out the multiple interactions between settled smallholder farmers and more mobile agropastoral and transhumant herders. Farming systems in the cottonbelt demonstrate the importance of animal traction and cash cropping as determinants of nutrient-transfer patterns. At the farm level, three case areas are analysed: two in the cottonbelt of Mali and Côte d'Ivoire and one in the closely settled zone in semi-arid Nigeria. These analyses highlight the variable scenarios of nutrient transfers at the farm and village level, demonstrating that heterogeneity among farmers is as much at play as differences between zones and countries. The implications of these nutrient-transfer scenarios are discussed with emphasis on crop-livestock interactions at increasing levels of population pressure and how they may affect pathways of land-use intensification and soil-fertility maintenance.P.N. de Leeuw Cet article évalue l'élimination d'éléments nutritifs dans les déjections des animaux et le transfert potentiel desdits éléments aux terres arables en Afrique de l'Ouest. L'élimination a été déterminée à l'aide d'un modèle de simulation permettant de prédire l'ingestion d'éléments nutritifs compte tenu des performances des animaux et des quantités d'aliments qui leur sont apportées chaque mois. Le modèle rapproche ensuite l'ingestion et l'excrétion pour les vaches en lactation, les vaches taries et les jeunes en pleine croissance, de même que pour des troupeaux entiers. Le problème de la fourniture d'éléments nutritifs qui peuvent être transférés est abordé à différentes échelles, allant des zones agro-écologiques au niveau du paysan, grâce à l'analyse des rapports entre le cheptel et les terres cultivées ou non. A l'échelle régionale, l'accent a porté sur le Nigéria et la zone cotonnière de l'Afrique de l'Ouest francophone. La situation du Nigéria permet de comprendre les relations entre les effectifs animaux et les terres le long du gradient de pluviosité ainsi que les multiples interactions entre les petits paysans sédentarisés, les éleveurs plus mobiles des systèmes agropastoraux ainsi que les éleveurs transhumants. Les systèmes de production de la zone cotonnière mettent en lumière l'importance de la traction animale et des cultures de rente en tant que déterminants des modes de transfert des éléments nutritifs. Au niveau de l'exploitation, trois études de cas ont été analysées: deux dans la zone cotonnière du Mali et de la Côte d'Ivoire et une dans la zone semi-aride densément peuplée du Nigéria. Ces analyses rendent compte de la variabilité des scénarios de transfert d'éléments nutritifs à l'échelle de l'exploitation et du village, et montrent que l'hétérogénéité des paysans dans un site est aussi importante que les différences entre zones et pays. Les implications de ces scénarios de transfert d'éléments nutritifs sur les interactions élevage-agriculture sont abordées et discutées en rapport avec des densités croissantes de la population et leur effet éventuel sur l'intensité d'utilisation des sols et le maintien de la fertilité du sol.Transfers of nutrients from livestock to cropped land are easy to assess when farmers are fully settled and have control over their own land, including grazing areas. For instance, in semi-arid Kenya, farmers own their land in freehold and therefore can manage and allocate their own feed and manure resources (de Leeuw et al, 1990;Tiffen and Mortimore, 1992). Likewise, in the close-settled zone around Kano in semi-arid Nigeria, up to 85% of all land is under cultivation and most feed for livestock is derived from crop residues, farm by-products or is purchased (Mortimore, 1989;Agyemang et al, 1993). Where population pressure is lower and traditional land tenure institutions prevail, there is less human control over land and livestock; hence nutrient transfers from livestock to land are less transparent and more difficult to quantify.Livestock move on a daily basis from their night enclosures to uncropped land (fallows and natural pastures) and nutrients are lost when excreta are deposited beyond cultivated areas. When livestock are penned or tethered at night, it is assumed that only 60% of the excreta are returned and the remainder is voided on the land grazed during the day (Reynolds and de Leeuw, this volume, pp. ). In many systems, cattle are permanently entrusted to pastoralist herders with several farmers pooling their livestock. Manure accumulates in a common corral, which is emptied once or twice a year (Landais, 1983;Lhoste, 1990). Provided they have labour and transport, farmers may have access to their share of stored nutrients, but their control is diluted by common ownership. Conversely, rich herd owners have their own corrals exerting full control (Bonnet, 1988). In more densely farmed areas, livestock are often kept away from the cropping zone during the growing season for fear of damage to crops. Manure is deposited in distant corrals and may not be transferred to the farmland of the owner; thus, over half the annual nutrient yield from his livestock may be of no benefit to his crops.Exchange of manure for crop residues and stock water is common where pastoral and settled farmers share the same environment (van Raay, 1974;Powell, 1986;Mortimore, 1991). Owning private wells and a surplus of crop residues may be wealth-biased, benefitting mainly the richer segment of the community (Toulmin, 1983). Pastoral and agropastoral cattle owners, many of whom have large herds, remove nutrients from communal grazing lands which are lost when not transferred through manuring contracts. However, when farming themselves, Peuhl (FulBe) herders tether their animals at night on their cropland around the homestead as do farmers in northern Mali (Toulmin, 1983), in The Gambia (Sumberg, 1992;Sumberg and Gilbert, 1992) and Nigeria (van Raay, 1974;Powell, 1986). As a result, there are farmed fields with high fertility contrasting with nutrient depletion of more distant croplands and natural pastures.Other mobility patterns involve short-distance transhumance during the dry season, when dry herds (dry cows, male stock etc) are moved away from more densely cropped areas to less-populated locations where rangelands are more plentiful or stock watering is easier (river basins etc). Finally, there are large herds on long-distance transhumance during the dry season foraging on open-access communal grazing lands and crop residues while on the move. Not only do they deprive farmers of their crop residues, but there is no return of excreted nutrients, unless there is an agreement between farmers and herders to kraal on the land. Thus, quantifying nutrient transfer pathways is near impossible where different production systems co-exist within the same spatial context and are exploiting the same feed resources. 1   This paper commences with a brief review of the potential contribution of ruminant livestock to the nutrient supply of cropland. It summarises the approach and analysis given in Reynolds and de Leeuw (this volume). Thereafter, the supply side of nutrient transfer is addressed at several levels of scale, from the West African subcontinent to the individual farmer. An analysis of the scale of agro-ecological zones within West Africa is deemed necessary to capture the relationships between livestock, farmed and non-farmed land. These ratios determine the potential scope of transfers of nutrients from livestock to crops and provide a framework of limitations and opportunities. On a regional scale, focus will be on Nigeria, and on the 'cotton belt' in francophone West Africa. Nigeria was chosen because a very detailed data set of livestock populations and land use has become available, the analysis of which will bring out the major factors influencing nutrient transfers from livestock to cropland. The selection of the cottonbelt is justified because of the added dimensions of animal traction and cash cropping.At the farm level, three 'case areas' are analysed: two in the cottonbelt and one in the closed-settled zone in semi-arid Nigeria. The analyses are aimed at highlighting variable scenarios of nutrient transfers at the farm and village level, demonstrating that heterogeneity among farmers is as much at play as differences between zones and countries.The simulation model (Reynolds and de Leeuw, this volume) predicts dry-matter (DM) and crude-protein (CP) intake, and cattle performance, based on live weight, age, pasture conditions and supplementary feeding using equations developed by Australian workers (SCA, 1990). Intake data are then used to estimate rumen degradation and post-ruminal digestion, from which nitrogen (N) retention and faecal and urine excretion of N are calculated.The model was first used to examine the effects of on-and off-farm feed supplies and betweenfarm differences in livestock holdings on the on-farm nutrient inputs from livestock in the coastal zone of Kenya. Also, nutrient requirements for the entire zonal livestock population were calculated and matched with feed resources to predict at what level of rural population density feed demand would exceed supply leading to a reduction in the livestock population. For West Africa, the model is used to simulate the relationships between livestock density and excreted nutrient output.Nutrient transfers in West African agriculture 1. In southern Mali, it was estimated that out of the 1.6 million cattle, 25% belonged to transhumant pastoralists. However, in the more densely populated areas only 2% of the cattle were kept in mobile herds, 87% were owned by farmers and 11% by traders and civil servants (Hykoop et al, 1991: 36). In the south-west of Burkina Faso where population density is lower (5% cultivation) pastoralist herds remain important. Some have settled permanently, moving over short distances during the dry season whereas others are long-distance transhumants with permanent homesteads further north (Hellemans and Compere, 1990). In Côte d'Ivoire, 330 000 cattle (or 40% of the total) are classified as transhumant herds owned by Peuhl, although, as in Burkina Faso, many herd owners are in the process of settling. Surprisingly, most Peuhl cattle are found in the better settled areas in the north-west, with densities of 8-15 of rural people/km 2 and a substantial settled cattle population of 3-7 head/km 2 (Landais, 1983: 268). These areas attract Peuhl pastoralists because of potential employment as hired herders, a high demand for milk and low tsetse challenge.Nutrient output is influenced by the production level of the different age/sex groups in the herd, which can be broadly categorised as lactating and dry cows, and growing stock. Based on average herd structures, it is assumed that these three groups represent 26, 26 and 48% of the herd live weight. Maximum and minimum output of nutrients were simulated for the early wet and late dry season as representative of high and low productivity; this was measured as milk yields in lactating cows and weight changes in dry cows and growing stock (Table 1). Seasonal nitrogen output per TLU (of 250 kg live weight) per day varies from 85 to 54 g per day; with a N recovery rate of 45%, a herd of 100 TLU would deposit 2.3 and 1.5 kg of N per day, respectively, assuming that 60% of the total daily excreta are voided on cropped land. Thus, to achieve an equivalent of 20 kg of voided N/ha before planting early in the wet season, 8.7 nights of tethering would be required (Powell, 1986). Given 1 TLU/per ha of cropland (Table 6) and assuming a fully settled production system, potential transfers add up to 6.9 kg N/ha per year. If instead of a 60% recovery of manure, a 90% rate is assumed, deposition of N per TLU can be boosted to 10 kg N/ha. Such efficiency may be achieved where 80% of the land is cultivated and on-farm feed is the foremost source. Maximum and minimum values for P-uptake are 10.8 g and 4.1 g per day per TLU, respectively, assuming herbage P-contents from 0.2 to 0.1% of DM (Peters, 1992).The theoretical nutrient supply from faecal DM output can also be calculated from herbage intake and digestibility (Table 1): wet and dry season levels are 1.4 and 1.7 kg DM per day containing 3.2% and 1.6% of faecal N and 0.77% and 0.24% of faecal P, respectively. Thus, wet season faecal output is superior: 100% higher for N and over 200% for P content (assuming that all P is excreted in the faeces).The framework for the distributional pattern of livestock population in West Africa was derived from Jahnke (1982; Table 2). In his study, numbers of livestock species were listed by agro-ecological zones within countries. Zones were defined by the length of the growing period (LGP): arid, 0-90 days; semi-arid (SA), 90-180 days, subhumid (SH), 180-270 days and humid, >270 days; highlands are defined as land >1500 m asl. The West African analysis included 17 countries as listed in Table 3 and shown in Figure 1. Countries within each of the four zones were subdivided into two groups using the parameters given in Tables 2 and 3. In an analysis for the entire continent, it was found that human and livestock densities and their ratios were sufficient to cluster countries, whereas small ruminant (SR)/cattle ratios were suitable as complementary indicators (de Leeuw and Rey, 1993). Semi-arid Subhumid Humid ------------------------------millions (or %) - ----------------------------- Source: Adapted from Jahnke (1982) and de Leeuw and Rey (1993).West Africa is one of the most important livestock production regions in sub-Saharan Africa, as it harbours 30% of the continents' cattle and 40% of small ruminants on 30% of the total land area (Figure 2). More importantly, 40% of Africa's rural people live in West Africa producing US$ 21 000 million worth of agricultural products (47% of the total; US$ 220/capita) of which close to one-fifth is contributed by livestock products. The share of livestock in the total agricultural product value increases along the aridity gradient: about 50% for countries with much arid land, 20% for those located predominantly in the semi-arid and subhumid zones, and decreasing to 10% in the coastal countries. Not included in these product values are the indirect benefits accruing from livestock such as animal traction and the provision of manure nor are other functions such as store of capital accounted for (Winrock International, 1992: 11).Aggregate relationships between land, people and livestock are set out in Table 2. The rural population density averaged 17.5 people/km 2 , being very low in the arid zone (4) but fairly similar across the other zones (22-25), although intra-zonal heterogeneity is larger (Table 3). The average Nutrient transfers in West African agriculture livestock/land ratio equals 7 TLU/km 2 (14 ha/TLU) varying from 2.7 in the humid to 11.1 TLU/km 2 in the semi-arid zone. The zonal distribution also shows that the semi-arid zone contains half the cattle, whereas small ruminants (SR) are more equally distributed; SR/cattle ratios are higher in the arid zone (3.1) and the humid zone (7.3) than in the two other zones. The importance of livestock decreases inversely with rainfall amount, as shown by the decline of TLU/caput from 1.5 in the arid to 0.1 in the humid zone. These trends will be further examined in an analysis of the individual zones.Distribution patterns have changed substantially over time; between 1980 and 1989, cattle populations rose by 10% and sheep and goats by 27% and 13%, respectively (Winrock International, 1992: 9). While cattle numbers in the drier countries (Mali, Chad and Mauritania) dropped or stagnated, increases of 15-50% were recorded in Nigeria and in several subhumid countries (Cameroon, Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire). In several countries sheep and goats doubled in number; whether these trends represent real increments or reflect more accurate census data remains an open question.The main group (Table 3) comprises four Sahelian countries, whose territories extend northwards into the Sahara desert. Human and livestock populations are low whereas livestock wealth is high (1.7 TLU/caput) and similar to that in other arid regions in East and southern Africa (de Leeuw and Rey, 1993). The second group consists of four countries with small strips of arid land along their northern borders. Cross-border livestock trade and transhumance accounts for the high livestock density. Also, the Senegal river and its floodplain forming the border with Mauritania attracts high stocking densities especially during the dry season.  1. Benin, Chad, Mali, Mauritania 2. Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Gambia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal   Subhumid:1. Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Guinea Bissao, Ghana, Guinea 2. Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Togo Humid:1. Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Togo 2. Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, Sierra Leone Source: Adapted from Jahnke (1982) and de Leeuw and Rey (1993). The semi-arid zoneTwo major groupings emerge based on differences in human and livestock population densities which appear closely linked. The low-density cluster (1) comprises four francophone countries, two of which are landlocked. In the high-density group (2), Nigeria has the major share and, like the other contributing countries, has a well-developed mixed farming economy often with important cash cropping (groundnuts in Senegal and The Gambia; cotton in Burkina Faso and Cameroon).Two clusters emerged: low-density countries (group 1) of which Ghana and Guinea are the most important in terms of size and livestock population, and high-density countries of which Nigeria and Côte d'Ivoire are prominent (group 2). While in the semi-arid zone there is often a close correspondence between population pressure and livestock numbers, this is less so further south. At the southern end of the zone (LGP>210 days) livestock are less important and small-scale farmers keep mainly small ruminants as they do in the humid zone. Due to southward migratory movements and settlement of pastoralists, and increased agricultural development during the last two decades, this zone has gained greater importance, often at the expense of the drier zones.The eight countries making up the humid zone fall into two distinct groups due to contrasting human population densities, which are closely linked with that of cattle, SR and overall livestock mass.Countries in group 1 are thinly populated and densely forested, making them rather unsuitable for livestock. While group 2 represents about 40% of the total land, it contains 84% of all zonal cattle and SR, most of which are found in the highly populated coastal areas of Nigeria and Ghana (Table 2).In the zonal analysis shown in Tables 2 and 3 the overall livestock in Nigeria was estimated at 11.7 million TLU consisting of 12 million cattle, 8.5 million sheep and 24.2 million goats which correspond with the estimates of FAO for 1979FAO for -1980. Of this mass, 65% was believed to be in the arid and semi-arid zone, 20% in the subhumid and 13% in the humid zone, giving equivalent densities of 23, 6 and 9 TLU/km 2 , respectively. 2These trends can be compared with new estimates and distribution patterns of livestock derived from aerial surveys carried out in the dry and wet seasons of 1990 (RIM, 1992). A preliminary analysis established the following trends using the data of 1979-81, from the zonal analysis as a baseline (Tables 4 and 5):• Total cattle, sheep and goat numbers increased by 15, 160 and 42%, respectively, contributing to an overall rise in the total livestock mass of 37%. • Changes in cattle density by zone amounted to a reduction of 15% in the semi-arid and an increase of 270% in the subhumid zone as numbers rose from 1.8 to 6.8 million. • Small ruminants density increased by 80% in the semi-arid, by 65% in the subhumid and by 55% in the humid zone. • In the semi-arid zone overall TLU density remained almost unchanged (25 TLU/km 2 ), increased from 6 to 14 TLU/km 2 (+ 145%) in the subhumid, but remained at 9 TLU/km 2 in the humid zone.These aerial surveys confirm earlier evidence of a large permanent influx of cattle into the subhumid zone, but refuted the hypothesis that this shift has reduced the grazing pressure in the semi-arid zone. Even though cattle numbers dropped somewhat, small ruminants rose concomitantly, undoubtedly because in the more densely farmed areas, there has been a switch from cattle to small stock (Table 5) causing the overall grazing pressure to increase to 33 TLU/km 2 (Table 4).Other changes are also evident: as there was little difference between zonal populations in the wet and dry season, it appears that long-distance transhumance has declined (Table 4). Even at the State level, seasonal changes were minor, but south-bound shifts within states during the dry season remained important.  Source: Adapted from RIM (1992). Source: Adapted from RIM (1992).A distinction can be made between livestock belonging to settled farmers (i.e. village-based) and pastoral livestock belonging to and managed by mostly FulBe herd owners. 3   Although transfers of nutrients from FulBe herds to non-FulBe farmland are common, they are less transparent in space and time than those from settled livestock, due to herd mobility and the individual nature of manuring contracts.Zonal differences are also important. Whereas in the semi-arid zone, there is a high level of integration between pastoral and settled farming systems, this linkage is weaker further south. In the north, most FulBe are assimilated into the settled population through culture and religion and the majority are agropastoralists (van Raay, 1974;Norman, 1978). In the subhumid middle belt on the contrary, there is a large diversity of tribes, differing in culture, farming practices and attitudes to livestock husbandry. Some tribes own hardly any livestock, whereas others concentrate on cut-and-carry fattening of a few cattle, on large-scale milk production competing with FulBe herd owners, or keep cattle for animal traction (Blench et al, 1985).Since interactions are mostly based on exchange of manure for residues from cereal and grain legume crops, the predominance of root crops in small-holder farms in the southern subhumid zone, is an impediment.To estimate the potential levels of manure deposits on farmed land, the TLU density per ha of farmland is used as a proxy. TLU mass was divided into pastoral and village/urban, because on-farm livestock are likely to transfer a larger proportion of their voided nutrients to cropland than do pastoral herds. Across states, TLU per ha of cropped land ranged from 1.4 ha in states where the fraction of cultivated land was low, to where either livestock population was low or cropping density was high. In the aggregate, this on-farm livestock mass consisted of 64% SR, 27% cattle and 9% equines (Table 6). This distribution shows the importance of small ruminants for the farmer-controlled nutrient supply and explains the importance of incorporating pastoral cattle into nutrient transfer transactions as they constitute 57% of the overall livestock biomass.Patterns of SR ownership by village-based farmers varied. In the densely populated semi-arid zone, farmers owned 14-24 head, as compared to 8-11 head in the drier parts, declining to 4-7 head in the wetter parts of the subhumid zone. In 1983, a survey around Abuja showed that only 56% of the farmers kept SR, each owning on average 13 sheep and 12 goats (von Kaufmann and Blench, 1986: 54). Since average farm size in the wetter SH zone was 2.0-2.5 ha, there are about 10 head/ha of farmed land.In the humid zone, SR densities are high ranging from 75-150 head/km 2 (Table 5). However, within-state differences are large: in Anambra State, 30% of the Local Government Areas had <50 head/km 2 and 35% had >100 head/km 2 giving a mean density of 100 SR/km 2 (RIM, 1989: 20). Due to the high population density and small farm size, ownership per household is low, averaging about three head. Nonetheless, given that about 20% of the land is cropped, there are five head/ha of farmed land. Livestock are mainly kept in the compound farms with intensive cropping of food crops combined with multi-purpose trees. Most of these home gardens are <0.5 ha in size and SR play a major role in fertility maintenance (Okafor and Fernandes, 1987: 414).One of the most pertinent trends emerging from a decade of aerial surveys in Nigeria, is the close association between cropping and livestock density. These linkages operate at two levels. As the majority of farmers keep several livestock species, their density is likely to increase with a rising rural population and the proportion of cropped land (Blench et al, 1986;RIM, 1992). However, trends were less evident for the more mobile herds of (agro) pastoral FulBe, consequently regression equations of percentages of cropped land on cattle and SR densities, combining village and pastoral P.N. de Leeuw et al stock were not significant whether data for states or data from previous smaller-scale aerial surveys were aggregated.The association between cropped land and livestock points to two concurrent trends: to a strengthening of crop-livestock interactions in the more densely settled farming communities, and to the continuing penetration of FulBe herders into the less populated space of the subhumid zone. However, as in the cotton belt, spatial patterns of livestock ownerships have become very complex not only because different tribal groups are using the same space but also because each group uses different movement patterns for their herds. As a result, balances between nutrients removed and returned by livestock to land are difficult to quantify. Source;: RIM (1989;1992).Cotton lint production in West and central Africa reached a total of 428 000 t in 1989/90, equivalent to 1 million t of seed cotton. Mali and Côte d'Ivoire are the major producers, accounting for about half of the total output. Land cropped to cotton was close to 1 million ha indicating an average yield of 1 t of seed cotton per ha. Average yields reached 1.2 t/ha in Mali, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal and Cameroon but were lower (0.6-1.0 t/ha) in the other countries, probably due to lower levels of mechanisation, and of fertiliser, manure and insecticide applications (Table 7).Cotton production became an important cash crop in the early 1960s when total seed cotton production reached 120 000 t, 80% of which was produced in central Africa. Ten years later overall output had tripled with the West and central African region producing equal shares. Between 1971-72 and 1987-88, West African output rose from 180 000 to 720 000 t, an increase of 450% as compared to a rise of only 67% in central Africa.Nutrient transfers in West African agriculture Source: Afrique Agriculture (1991).Cotton growing has had a major impact on the spatial distribution of cattle. In 1987-88, the areas of intensive cotton production in southern Mali, the south-western part of Burkina Faso and northern Côte d'Ivoire harboured some 3.3 million cattle. Livestock densities varied from more than 20 TLU/km 2 in the high-intensity areas to as low as 1 TLU/km 2 where cotton production was introduced only recently; however, most of the cattle are found in areas with growing periods of 120 to 210 days (Table 8). LGP = Length of growing period.2. North-central.3. North-west.Source: Lhoste (1990: 41).Ratios of oxen owned per ha of cotton cultivated with traction vary. The greatest portions of cotton areas cultivated by oxen are in Mali and Burkina Faso and lowest in Côte d'Ivoire (Table 7). In Mali, in the 1980s the number of oxen increased by 11% and cotton production by 15% per annum. Output per ox owned rose due to the intensification of land use, increased mechanisation and use of manure and inorganic fertilisers (Adesina, 1992).It was estimated that in Mali about 30% of all cropped land received manure. Manure management was improved by adding bedding (of maize straw and cotton stalks) in corrals, while the increased availability of transport equipment facilitated manure transfer to the field (Traoré, 1990). Chemical fertiliser use on cotton has become widespread although it is not clear how much is applied and to what extent other crops are fertilised (Table 7). Intensification of mechanisation and transport has occurred as shown by the rising number of animal-drawn seeders, harrows and donkey and ox-carts, the latter increasing by 14% per year. Whereas cotton-growing encouraged animal traction use, mechanisation including row-seeding and weeding is spreading to other crops, in particular maize, but less to sorghum and millet.The cultivation of leguminous forage crops has been promoted both for fertility maintenance and production of livestock feed. In Mali, 20 000 ha are devoted to forage crops with dual-purpose cowpeas varieties, Dolichos and Stylosanthes spp as the main species (Hykoop et al, 1991;Traoré, 1990). In Côte d'Ivoire, pigeon pea and multi-purpose trees are used for both improved fallows and hedges. To assist in the extension of forage growing on fallow land, large-scale seed production on 840 ha produced 24 t of seed, mostly of S. hamata, Aeschynomene histrix and Panicum maximum (Soh, 1990).While nutrient transfers can be viewed within the context of individual farms, a wider spatial perspective is needed when analysing transfers between ecosystem components. These involve two levels: actual or potential exchanges of feed and manure between farmers and transfers from fallows and communally owned natural pastures. These complex interactions arise from the intermingling of what in essence are different farming systems. This will be illustrated by two examples in the cotton belt: one from northern Mali where there has been a long tradition of intensive cash cropping, and the other from northern Côte d'Ivoire, where ox-drawn cropping of cotton was introduced more recently.The example from Mali shows the large diversity of farmers in terms of land, oxen, other livestock they own and the use of inputs. There are two wealthy groups: long-established Bambara farmers growing cotton with ample animal power and equipment to till, sow and weed crops, and to transport manure from, and crop residues and bush grass to, the homestead. They receive income from sales of cotton, surplus grain and livestock. Similarly, more recently settled Peuhl are rich in livestock enabling them to manure their land, produce and train their own oxen, and sell surplus grain. Farmers can conveniently be divided into two classes: rich and poor in livestock. They differ in farm size (17 vs 4 ha) and in oxen/land ratios (0.23 vs 0.10 oxen/ha) which have implications for nutrient transfer as shown by the high manure use of the 'rich' group (Table 9). -----------------------Bambara ------------------------- Source: Bonnet (1988).Although theoretically there is common access to grazing land (stocked at an overall level of 15 TLU/km 2 ), the location of corrals and the territorial claims of individual villages sharing communal land, has reduced access. In the growing season, mobility is further restricted by cropping. As a result, half the livestock had access to land stocked at 2 ha/TLU, 28% to about 5 ha and remaining 14% could graze up to 15 ha of land per TLU. In the dry season, 40% of the livestock had access to only 3 ha/TLU, whereas the other 60% had 7-13 ha of grazing land (Bonnet, 1988). It can therefore be concluded that soil nutrient balances not only differ between farms within the same location because of livestock wealth, but are also influenced by grazing rights at the higher spatial level of villages and neighbourhoods.In Côte d'Ivoire, a survey of almost 3000 farmers identified five farm-types using livestock wealth and degree of mechanisation as criteria. These types were classified as livestock-rich (20%) and livestock-poor (80%). Farmers with large livestock wealth (possessing over 10 TLU) also had more land, oxen, farm equipment and greater investments in housing and other assets. Farmers with little or no livestock, owned on average 0.3 oxen, and at the most a few sheep and goats. As a result of this disparity in wealth, the \"rich\" farmers used more inputs (fertilisers and insecticides) especially on cotton and maize. On-farm feed sufficiency showed a reverse trend. It varied from over 5 t/TLU to 0.4 t/TLU for the livestock-poor and the livestock-rich groups, respectively (Table 10).On a large spatial scale this skewed distribution of livestock has implications for the balance of feed and nutrients. Since cropping patterns did not change substantially with livestock wealth (Table 10), the livestock-poor farmers owned 70% of the farmed land and its potential crop residue output. In contrast, they owned 45% of all oxen, but only 12% of the total livestock (Table 11). When viewing the distribution of farmers in the aggregate, the overall feed supply amounted to 1.3 t of crop residues per TLU consisting of 70% cereal straw and 30% higher quality leguminous feed (Table 10). As the overall stocking rate is 1.5 ha per TLU of farmed land, the theoretical N-transfer from required feed consumed by all stock would amount to 4.7 kg/ha (Table 11). However, as they own 88% of the livestock, each rich farmer transfers nutrients from 109 ha of grazing land amounting to 79 kg of N and 36 kg of P. Of the total nutrients derived from livestock, only 22% originates from crop residues in the rich farm compared to 58% for the poor farmer. As the wealthy farmers own 2 TLU/ha of farmed land, there is a potential annual transfer of 14.5 kg of N/ha and 5.6 kg of P (Table 11).To improve the nutrient cycling of the entire system, there should be an exchange of feed for manure between the two strata. In practice, it seems likely that the wealthy farmers have the potential capacity to maintain fertility due to their livestock wealth and their financial resources. The majority of farmers, on the contrary, are poor in assets, cash income and livestock, and therefore incapable of countering the nutrient depletion of their cropland, although the surplus of 0.8 t of residues per ha of cropped land could be incorporated into the soil to retard the process. 1. Assumptions: intake/TLU: 1.73 t DM/yr or 4.9 kg per day; average N content of feed: 15 g/kg; total N excreted is 25.5 kg/TLU/yr of which 60% is stored on farm and 55% is lost; N transfer is 6.9 kg N/TLU/yr. (See Reynolds and de Leeuw, this volume and Table 1) 2. The survey area had an estimated livestock density of 10-11 TLU/km 2 (Landais, 1983;Lhoste, 1990), which was used to calculate the extent of natural pastures available to the \"village\".In Nigeria, intensily managed crop-livestock systems are predominant in Katsina and Kano states covering some 70 000 km 2 and receiving an annual rainfall of 750-1000 mm (RIM, 1992). 4The fraction of land under cultivation varies from 60-85% and densities of up to 400 people/km 2 have been reported (Mortimore, 1989). At this high pressure only 9% of the farmers owned cattle, but most kept SR (mean 13 per household) and donkeys (0.8; Mortimore, 1991: 79). 5   Nutrient transfers in West African agriculture 4. Cattle, sheep and goat densities of 20-50, 50-150 and 50-200 head/km 2 , respectively, are indicative of the high level of livestock integration (Tables 4 and 5). Points of interaction are the collection and storage of crop residues, high levels of manure application often combined with inorganic fertilisers and high cover of useful farm trees providing fruits, fuelwood, browse and litter for soil fertility enhancement (Mortimore, 1989;1991). 5. High rural population densities of 100-400 persons/km 2 were prevailing as early as 1952 (Fricke, 1979). Mortimore (1991: 6) stated that in 1962 around Kano town, the rural population density averaged 235 persons/km 2 , rising to 350/km 2 in the densest areas. Assuming a net increase of 1.4% this rate would have generated an average density of 350 persons/km 2 or 0.24 ha of arable land per head in 1990. Comparisons of aerial photo cover in 1965 and 1981 showed no change in the proportion of cultivated upland, which had reached a maximum level of 85% as early as 1965.At a slightly lower population pressures of about 300 rural people/km 2 , 60% of the farmers still retain cattle, many of which are used for traction and milk production (Agyemang et al, 1993). Average livestock owned was four cattle and 22 SR, while farm size averaged 3.3 ha. Consequently, the on-farm stocking rate amounted to 1.5 TLU/ha, or, since about 70% of the land is farmed, to 100 TLU/km 2 . About 20 t of dry manure is applied on 1.2 ha of land (ranging from 0.5-1.5) in a rotation of one year in three. Such high applications are quite common in Kano State where the average is estimated at about 4 t/ha per season (Mortimore, 1989: 28). Responses of sorghum and millet were estimated at 45 kg and 30 kg per t of manure applied, giving yields of 2.5 and 2.2 t/ha of grain, respectively (Agyemang et al, 1993). These yields are higher than the 1.8 t/ha on fertilised fields reported by Mortimore (1989: 29) and are attributed to oxen tillage combined with manuring.Feed supplies are limited and most farmers purchase feed spending an equivalent of 1460 Naira (US$ 70) on average per annum (Mortimore, 1989). On-farm feed resources were estimated at about 1.5 t DM/ha, 40% of which consisted of high-quality groundnut haulms and cowpea hay (Hendy, 1977). Assuming that purchased feeds were high in energy (brans etc) and in protein (oil-cakes), 100 TLU/km 2 can be maintained provided that browse from farm trees and herbage from grazing land are efficiently utilised.A stocking rate of 4 TLU per manured hectare is unlikely to provide 20 t manure, suggesting that manure was mixed before application with household refuse, ash and feed residues or that outside sources of manure were available. 6 Transfer of N from the actual on-farm animals -given the high level of feeding -may add 48 kg of N per hectare. 7Differences in manure output and quality are large because of changes in feed intake of livestock driven by pulses in productivity during periods of high feed supplies (Table 1). For growing stock, weight gains coincide with the rainy season, being high (up to 1 kg per day) in the early part, tapering off towards the end. For reproductive stock, late pregnancy and early lactation are periods of high feed demand; these may coincide with favourable feed supply or, when conception occurs in June-July, may fall in low-feed periods (de Leeuw and Wilson, 1987).Farmers exploit this upsurge in high-quality manure output by tethering their stock on cropland after the first rains but before tillage begins. Powell (1986) indicated that daily voided nutrients per TLU were up to fourfold higher than those in the late dry season due to a doubling of manure output and its quality. In addition, as the time interval between deposits and incorporation into the soil is short, losses are low.Most manuring contracts involve exchanges of manure for access to crop residues, water and temporary shelter. Hence the period from late November to early February witnesses the highest inputs from itinerant and local sedentary cattle alike. During this time transhumant herds are moved closer to high-residue areas, whereas settled farmers and FulBe tether their stock on their own fields. Rotational night-paddocking may continue throughout the dry season, although transhumant herds usually move to floodplains and to savannah grazing to exploit post-fire regrowth and browse.Soil fertility enhancement from manuring is spatially variant extending from differences between farmers within the same village, to regional differences. The latter depend on the rural population P.N. de Leeuw et al 6. That manure was adulterated with other material is shown by its nutrient content of 0.5% N on a DM basis, suggesting a \"dilution\" of 50-60% (Mortimore, 1989). 7. With an assumed 55% loss, a 90% on-farm excreta rate and a 10% N retention for production, total output equals 12 kg N/TLU derived from 2.2 t DM per TLU of feed containing 1.5% N.density influencing farm size and feed resources, on the degree of animal-powered mechanisation, on crop mixtures (in particular root vs grain crops) and on cultural attitudes to livestock keeping. Furthermore, management practices related to herding, kraaling and tethering stock impinge on nutrient capture, storage and its allocation to land. The other factors governing nutrient transfers are herd and flock size, the degree of control the owner has over their management and their actual location over time in relation to cropland. When in full control, farmers can direct the allocation of nutrients in space and over time according to their own priorities.Within individual farms, further disparities in soil fertility are caused by selective application to specific crops. In Mali, maize is grown as a cash crop and more heavily manured than sorghum and millet which are mostly used for home consumption. Likewise, in Nigeria, farmers grow ginger as the principal cash crop and engage FulBe herds in high-intensity manuring (Powell, 1986).Due to these interacting variables, actual nutrient returns from livestock to the land create patchworks or mosaics of land with contrasting fertility status. At the upper end there are small-scale highly integrated farming systems in close-settled areas, farms with elevated ratios of livestock to land, as demonstrated by well-mechanised farms in the cottonbelt and FulBe agropastoralists with 50 cattle and <2 ha of cropland. Such \"nutrient-rich islands\" intermingle with stockless farmers with nutrient-depleted croplands. Thus, inequity of the fertility status of land further widens the disparities caused by livestock wealth, farm size and associated higher incomes. However, it may be argued that although they are \"mining\" communal rangelands to enrich their own farms only the wealthy can afford the costs associated with efficient manure management and use.The utilisation by farmers of the nutrients voided by livestock depends on expected benefits and costs. Although manuring of cropland enhances soil fertility, farmers are more likely to view the short-term increases in crop yields as the principal benefits, which they then weigh against manuring costs. Therefore, low-cost nutrient transfers are preferred such as tethering stock on land rather than storing manure in corrals requiring labour-intensive collection and distribution.Crop responses to manure, as reviewed by McIntire et al (1992: 78) were variable and low ranging from 15 to 86 kg of grain/t of manure in cereals and from 14 to 27 kg of groundnuts. When manure application was combined with chemical fertilisers up to 94 kg of grain was produced. While confirming that manuring was widespread in drier West Africa, McIntire et al (1992: 88) stressed that low applications (0.1-0.9 t/ha) were most common; with an average response of 50 kg of grain/t manure, benefit/cost ratios were unattractive because of the high transport cost, discouraging heavier applications. Powell (1986) confirmed the low levels of application in areas with low cattle/land ratios but indicated that higher rates (1.9-4.0 t) were applied when cattle/land ratios increased in tandem with the percentage of cropped land. He showed that Peuhl farmers possessing 50 cattle could potentially deposit 6.9 t of manure in the dry season and 5.5 t in the early wet season on 1 ha of crops every second year, requiring a total of 90 days of night-tethering per year. This application of 5.5 t produced 2.3 t/ha being equivalent to 1.0 t of incremental grain of maize or 180 kg/t of manure. Similar responses were reported from the semi-arid zone of Kenya with bimodal rainfall. Ikombo (1989) found low first-season responses of 44 kg of maize/t of manure when rainfall and resulting yields were low (0.4 to 0.8 t/ha). This compared to 178 kg when seasonal rainfall was favourable producing control yields of 1.2 to 2.2 t/ha. Combining three seasons, total increments ranged from 40 to 300 kg/t, the best performances coming from a single first-year application of 8-16 t of manure/ha. The residual effects persisted up to the third cropping season and amounted to 135 kg and 170 kg of grain/t of manure in the second and third seasons with good rains, in contrast to an average of 70 kg in less favourable seasons.An example from Kenya by Smaling et al (1992) reported on the interactions between fertilisers and manure on maize yields. 8 They showed that 5 t of manure per season, containing 75 kg of N and 25 kg of P, remedied deficiencies in two high-potential sites and increased maize yields from 3.2 t to 5.4 t/ha, an average response of 440 kg/t of manure. At the coastal site, this amount of nutrients was insufficient to raise yields above the control yield of 1.6 t/ha. When manure was combined with remedial N or P fertiliser, increments were 590 kg in the high potential, and 350 kg/t of manure in the low potential site. The incremental effect of manure as a supplement to fertiliser application was lower, being 350 kg in the favourable sites and 140 kg/t of manure when measured in the low-potential location.Since intercropping of cereals with grain legumes is common practice and the promotion of improved fallows through forage legume seeding has received high research priority, the importance of manure as a source of phosphorus needs urgent consideration. At a P-content of 0.3%, 5 t of dry manure can provide 15 kg of P which is sufficient for successful Stylosanthes spp establishment (Otsyina et al, 1987;Peters, 1992). Hence, the contribution of manure in crop rotations where forage legumes are grown in short-term fallow periods warrants further emphasis. Assuming that most nitrogen can be derived from legume crops, retention of sufficient soil P through manure may become the essential component of long-term integrated fertility management (Smaling et al, 1992;de Leeuw, 1994).With a total population of 38 million TLU in West Africa, the theoretical manure output would be in the order of 19 million t, if the entire production of 0.5 t/TLU per year were utilised (Table 1). However, most transfers are confined to the semi-arid and subhumid zones comprising 24 million TLU at an average density of 8.6 TLU/km 2 . Assuming that 20% of all land is cultivated, this would convert 0.43 TLU/ha, although in several areas higher ratios obtain (e.g. Nigeria, Tables 4 and 6).In terms of nutrients, the total population of 24 million TLU could provide manure containing 144 000 t of N (1.2%) and 36 000 t of P (0.3%). This results in a potential annual transfer of 2.5 kg of N and 0.6 kg of P per ha of cropped land. When expressed in potential incremental grain yields, this manure output would convert to 1.2 million t of grain if a conservative ratio of 100 kg of grain/t of manure DM is taken. This is a 5% increase above the total cereal production of West Africa of 22.8 million tonnes in 1987. 9 A higher potential rise in production could be achieved if manure management were improved and urine-N were better captured. However, actual increase due to manure is currently much lower as only a small fraction of the manure is deposited on cropped land. Substantial growth of the livestock population would be an additional solution. It was shown that in the closed-settled zone in Nigeria, densities of up to 100 TLU/km 2 can be maintained in a sustainable farming system (Mortimore, 1989). Conversely, the current level of stocking (Table 3) in the two main zones is below their livestock support capacity. This was estimated at 17 TLU/km 2 for the semi-arid and 22 TLU km 2 for the subhumid zone (Winrock International, 1992: 35-36); such densities are approached or surpassed only in the cottonbelt (Table 7) and in Nigeria (Table 4).In estimates of support capacity based on feed demand and supply ratios, feed on offer is conservatively targeted to prevent overgrazing and excess removal of nutrients, and to safeguard the sustainability of the feed resource. Nutrient removal levels can be calculated from average intake data and stocking density. Given a stocking density of 20 TLU/km 2 and an actual feed intake of 1.73 t TLU per year, the removal would be equivalent to 0.35 t of biomass DM/ha (Table 1). If a \"proper-use\" rate P.N. de Leeuw et al of 30% of the total biomass is deemed permissible, the required herbage yield of 1.2 t DM/ha is surpassed in most savannah rangeland and by on-farm crop residues (Cesar, 1989;Hykoop et al, 1991;de Ridder and Breman, 1993). Removal of N amounts to 25.6 kg/TLU per year, 63% of which occurs during the 6-month growing season (Table 1). At this prescribed stocking density, N removal stands at 5.1 kg/ha, out of which 234 kg is returned to the soil, leaving a net removal of 2.8 kg/ha. This net removal rate by grazing is in the order of 11% of the average above-ground plant uptake and is estimated at about 25 kg N/ha per year.At current stocking densities in West Africa livestock produce insufficient manure to replenish the nutrients lost from cropland by crop, erosion and leaching. Hence, in most African farming systems there is a negative nutrient balance and a gradual reduction of soil fertility (Smaling, 1993).Nutrient transfers from livestock to cropping depend on the level of integration between the two enterprises. When under full farmer control, efficient utilisation of nutrients from several sources has developed in systems with animal-powered cash-cropping and in intensively managed smallholder systems in densely populated areas, where land values are high, and infrastructure and markets are well-developed.As relatively low population densities (20-50 people/km 2 ) prevail in most of West Africa, natural pastures remain the major source of livestock feed and of transferable nutrients. Therefore, benefits flow to those who own or manage the livestock that most depend on this resource, i.e. transhumant and settled pastoralists and the livestock-rich settled farmers. Improvement of transfer mechanisms would spread these benefits wider and would reduce the disparity in soil fertility status at different spatial levels (between farmers, communities, etc).More efficient utilisation of livestock-derived nutrients can be enhanced by: • improving integrated resource management with emphasis on communally owned land by regulating and controlling multiple use (grazing, fuelwood extraction etc) and fires • promoting the integration of efficient manure use in long-term soil nutrient management aimed at rotational systems that combine cash crops, cereal-legume and short-term legume-enriched fallows • exploring further the synergisms between inorganic fertilisers, and manure combined with crop residue management for livestock feeding and fertility maintenance.Manure utilisation, drought cycles and herd dynamics in the Sahel: Implications for cropland productivity Animal manure is of vital importance to soil-fertility maintenance in semi-arid West Africa due to its intrinsic value as a soil amendment and because of the low level of inorganic fertiliser use. This paper provides a regional overview of manure utilisation for food crop production. Results of experimental trials and on-farm studies are reviewed to evaluate the agronomic and economic effectiveness of livestock manure as a source of nutrients for millet and sorghum production. The potential and actual amounts of manure available for crop production during normal rainfall years are estimated, and the effect of drought-induced changes in livestock population and species composition on manure availability and cropland productivity are assessed. In doing this, on-station and on-farm data from Niger are used to assess nutrient losses from croplands and to estimate the amount of manure required to maintain crop production at various yield levels. The number of animals needed to produce this level of manure and the feed resources required to maintain them are estimated and compared with the level of livestock holdings and feeds found in village studies. The influence of drought on the structure of national and village herds are evaluated and the amounts of different types of manure that are likely to be available in the years immediately preceding and following a drought are estimated. These estimates and feed availability parameters are used to assess the adequacy of available manure for food crop production, and the role that manure and other soil amendments can play in the future intensification of agricultural production in semi-arid West Africa. Le fumier est essentiel pour le maintien de la fertilité des sols dans la zone semi-aride d'Afrique de l'Ouest, en raison de sa valeur intrinsèque pour la fertilisation mais également parce que les engrais inorganiques sont peu utilisés. Cet article présente un aperçu de l'utilisation du fumier dans la production vivrière dans cette région. Les résultats d'essais en station et en milieu réel ont été analysés en vue d'évaluer l'efficacité agronomique et économique du fumier comme source d'éléments nutritifs pour la production du mil et du sorgho. On a déterminé les quantités potentielles et réelles de fumier disponibles pour la production agricole au cours des années de pluviosité moyenne. Ensuite, l'effet de la sécheresse sur les effectifs animaux et la composition spécifique du cheptel ainsi que ses conséquences sur la quantité de fumier disponible et la productivité agricole a été évalué. Pour ce faire, des données d'essais effectués en station et en milieu réel au Niger ont été utilisées pour estimer les pertes en éléments nutritifs des terres arables ainsi que les quantités de fumier nécessaires pour obtenir divers rendements. Le nombre d'animaux nécessaires pour produire ce fumier et les ressources fourragères nécessaires pour les maintenir ont également été déterminés et comparés respectivement aux effectifs réels et aux ressources fourragères effectivement disponibles dans des études effectuées au niveau villageois. L'effet de la sécheresse sur la composition des troupeaux a été déterminé à l'échelle du pays et du village ainsi que les quantités probables des différents types de fumier au cours des années précédant et suivant immédiatement une sécheresse. Ces estimations ainsi que les paramètres relatifs aux fourrages disponibles ont ensuite été utilisés pour évaluer la capacité du fumier disponible à assurer la production vivrière, ainsi que le rôle possible du fumier et d'autres amendements dans l'intensification de la production agricole dans la zone semi-aride de l'Afrique de l'Ouest.Animal manure is an integral component of soil-fertility management practices in semi-arid West Africa (SAWA). Soils in this region are deficient in nutrients, particularly phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N). However, low rural incomes, high cost of fertiliser, inappropriate public policies and infrastructural constraints prevent the widespread use of inorganic fertiliser. Under this situation, as population pressure increases and fallow cycles are shortened, animal manure becomes one of the principal sources of nutrients for soil-fertility maintenance and crop production.Research indicates that manure increases yields of crops and forages. It augments soil organic matter content, raises soil pH, improves nutrient exchange and water holding capacity of soils and, when sufficient quantity is applied on a continuous basis, might permit stable intensified crop production (Mokwunye, 1980;Pichot et al, 1981;Padwick, 1983;Pieri, 1986). Also when manure is used in combination with inorganic fertiliser, especially N, it serves to reduce the negative effects of fertiliser, particularly acidification and increased removal of nutrients other than the one supplied by the fertiliser (de Ridder and van Keulen, 1990).Despite its vital role in sustaining crop productivity, a key question that has often been posed is whether sufficient amounts of manure are available to permit adequate food production and improvement of soil quality on a long-term basis (Schleich, 1986;Sandford, 1989;de Ridder and van Keulen, 1990;McIntire et al, 1992). While this question can be addressed at a regional, national, village or household level, this paper examines it at the household, village, and national levels.The objective of this paper is to assess the impact of drought induced changes in livestock population and species composition on manure availability and cropland productivity. To achieve this aim, the amount of manure required to replace nutrients taken up from croplands at various yield levels, and the number of animals required to produce the manure needed are estimated. Using longitudinal data from Niger, the influence of drought on herd structure and species composition are sketched and estimates of the quantities of different types of manure that are likely to be available in pre-and post-drought years are determined. These estimates, given the availability of feeds to support animals, provide an indication of the upper and lower limits of manure availability. This range of manure availability when compared with what is required to maintain cropland productivity gives an idea of the additional measures and inputs that might be needed to improve and augment available manure to sustain crop production. To put the analysis that follows in perspective, the next section reviews available evidence on the usefulness of manure as an input for crop production in SAWA.Experimental trials on research stations in SAWA have shown that the beneficial effect of manure can be divided into two parts: the effect on soil physical and chemical properties, and the effect on crop growth through the provision of plant nutrients. This review focusses on the influence of manure on crop yields, but a complete assessment of the usefulness of manure needs to consider both effects. 1The types and amounts of nutrients that manure can supply depend on animal species, season of the year, types of feeds available, manure storage and method of application. Table 1 shows the variation in the nutrient composition of manure in SAWA. Crop response to manure is also influenced by an array of soil, crop and environmental factors. This implies that results of crop responses to manure at a location cannot be extrapolated to other sites without due recognition of the underlying factors that have combined to produce the observed results. Table 2 summarises the results of a number of trials conducted at research stations in SAWA. It shows that manure collected from stables and applied alone produces a response of about 20 to 60 kg/ha of cereal grain and 70 to 178 kg/ha of stover per tonne of manure. When animals are corralled on cropland, a common practice in the region, both manure and urine are returned to the soil. The additional crop response due to urine application can be substantial (Table 2). Application of 3 t of manure plus urine produced grain and stover yields that were three to four times as high as when only manure was applied. Although the N in urine is subject to large gaseous losses, soil N, pH and P levels increase dramatically in areas where urine has been deposited (Powell et al, 1992).Given that single rates of manure were used in most of the reported trials, it is impossible to estimate the optimum level of manure needed to support millet and sorghum production. Also, nearly all responses were measured in the year of manure application and the information that was available in some of the long-term experiments was insufficient to permit a precise estimation of the residual effect of manure on grain and stover yields. Nonetheless, the Niger studies appear to indicate that application of 3 to 5 t of manure per ha may be needed to ensure good crop response. Such annual manure application has long been found to be adequate for sustainable sorghum and millet production in the subhumid zone of northern Nigeria (Dennison, 1961;Watson and Goldsworthy, 1964).In combination with inorganic fertilisers, the range of crop response is between 32 to 90 kg/ha of grain and 84 to 192 kg/ha of stover per tonne of manure. The yield response to manure and fertiliser combinations appears to correspond with findings from northern Nigeria which show that over an 11-year period no additional grain or stover response to fertiliser was obtained when manure applications on sorghum or millet were greater than 7.5 t/ha (Abdullahi and Lombin, 1978). Responses were calculated at the reported treatment means for crop yields as: (treatment yield -control yield)/ quantity of manure applied.2. Response of sorghum planted in the second year of a 4-year rotation involving cotton-sorghum-groundnutsorghum. Manure was applied in the first year.3. Manure plus urine.4. Estimated from visual intrapolation of graph.n.s. implies not specified.Sources: 1. Pieri (1981); 2. Pieri (1986);3. Baidu-Forson and Bationo (1992); 4. Powell (unpublished data).Manure application rates and crop response to manuring appear to be lower in farmers' fields (Table 3) than on experimental stations. Except for the high grain response obtained in Burkina Faso (due to successive manure application in four out of the preceding six years), grain response in farmers fields ranged from 19 to 38 kg/ha, and stover response from 140 to 219 kg/ha per tonne of manure. The low manure application rates and crop response to manuring in farmers fields probably indicate that farmers are unable to apply enough manure to ensure optimum yield increases. However, the low application rates in the drier area of Niger appears to be a rational strategy of farmers. A survey of farms in this area showed that in a poor rainfall year yields in manured fields were significantly lower than in adjacent non-manured plots (ILCA, 1991). This shows that the risk of excessive manure application increases with decreasing rainfall. Note: Animals were corralled in the fields in Niger, whereas manure was collected from compounds and transported to the fields in Burkina Faso.Sources: 1. Powell (unpublished data); 2. Prudencio (1987).The fact that manured fields yield more than unmanured plots does not imply that manure use is profitable. Partial budget analysis conducted under various assumptions indicate that application of 5 t/ha of manure with an average response of 50 kg of grain and 150 kg of stover per tonne of manure, will give value cost ratios (VCR) ranging from 0.7 to 1.5. The lower VCR is obtained when the farmer pays for both the manure and the labour involved in transporting and spreading of manure, and in harvesting the extra yield produced. A VCR less than 1 indicates a negative net return to the farmer. The VCR of 1.5 is obtained under the assumption that manure is deposited directly on the cropland by animals so that labour is not required for transporting and spreading it. A VCR of 1.5 represents a return above the cost of manure of 50%. This indicates that manure use may be profitable, particularly when the labour involved in its application is minimised. The level of return, however, appears to be low given the climatic and price risks faced by farmers in this region.At this juncture, it is useful to briefly consider the response of millet and sorghum to inorganic fertilisers. This is necessary because while there are still impediments to the use of inorganic fertilisers, they represent a potentially viable alternative to organic soil amendments such as manure.In an extensive review of fertiliser trials in sub-Saharan Africa, McIntire et al (1992) reported that application of 20 kg of N/ha on millet and sorghum gave a response range of 5 to 10 kg of grain/kg of nutrient, while application of 20 kg of P/ha gave a response range of 4 to 8 of grain/kg of nutrient. Reports on N efficiency research conducted within the West African Fertiliser Management and Evaluation Network (WAFMEN) indicated that application of 50 kg N/ha to sorghum and 30 kg N/ha to millet gave a response of 20 kg and 9 kg of grain/kg of N for sorghum and millet, respectively. Bationo et al (1986) reported the results of farmer managed trials conducted in Niger in 1984. In this dry year, application of 11 kg of P/ha to millet gave a response of about 10 kg of grain/kg of nutrient.Given these reported responses, it is clear that the yield benefit accruable through the use of fertiliser is much greater than what could be expected from the use of manure. 2 For example, a tonne of single superphosphate (75 kg P) at a modest response of 6 kg of millet grain/kg P, would give 450 kg of millet grain per tonne of additional fertiliser. A tonne of manure would give about 50 kg of additional grain in the year of application. Even if the residual effect of manure is taken into Cropland productivity in the Sahel consideration and it is assumed that an additional 25 kg of grain can be subsequently produced, the figures here indicate that the labour costs per unit of grain output would be much higher for manure (see also McIntire et al, 1992).Nonetheless, two points are clear. First, although the profitability of even relatively small doses of fertiliser is well established (Couston, 1971;Baanante, 1986), the use of fertiliser is still very low in SAWA. Secondly, the analysis conducted above ignores the beneficial effect of manure on soil physical and chemical properties. Pichot et al (1981), reporting on 20 years of experimental trials in Saria, Burkina Faso, found that continuous cultivation without soil amendment diminishes soil productivity. However, a light fertiliser application with manure was found to be superior to a heavy fertiliser application without manure. Thus, for these and other reasons, manure will remain an essential input for crop production in SAWA. To fully assess the future role that manure and inorganic fertilisers can be expected to play as agricultural production is intensified, it is necessary to determine the agronomic demands for manure, its availability, and how this availability can be influenced by natural factors.Table 4 presents data on nutrient removal by millet at three locations in Niger. The sites, Ouallam, Kolo and Say, represent dry (300-400 mm annual rainfall), moderately dry (400-500 mm) and relatively wet (500-600 mm) regions of western Niger.Table 4. Millet dry-matter (DM) yields and nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) uptake in farmers' fields in Niger. 1   Kollo Say In estimating the amount of manure required to sustain the observed crop yields, a key technical consideration is the rate of nutrient release from manure. Soil moisture and temperature highly influence the nutrient release from manures (see Murwira et al, this volume). Whereas nutrients in fertiliser are in readily soluble form, and therefore become rapidly available to crops, nutrients in manure must mineralise and, therefore, become more slowly available. All the nutrients may not mineralise from manure during the first year after application. Results from a long-term on-station trial in Niger show that cattle manure and urine can have positive effects on millet yields even up to three years after application (ILCA, 1993). \"Decay series\" (Pratt et al, 1976) are used to estimate manure application rates needed to achieve a given level of nutrient availability to crops. This approach takes into consideration the amount of nutrients released during the first and subsequent years after application. Farmers in Niger apply manure every 2 to 3 years, depending on soil type, rainfall, and manure availability. Our assumptions concerning the nutrient release from manure, upon which we calculate manure requirements for yield maintenance, are simple, and we recognise the many factors (rainfall, temperature, soil type, manure nutrient content, farmer management etc) that can affect these estimates. We first assume a manure decay series of 50:40:10, or that 50% of the nutrients in manure will be released in year 1, 40% in year 2, and 10% in year 3; that fields are manured every 2 years; that manuring has been practised for some years so that 60% of the nutrients in manure would be available during the year of application (50% year 1 plus 10% year 3 residual) and 40% year 2. Not all the nutrients released from manure will, however, be available for uptake by millet. For example, in the predominantly sandy soils of the Sahel, only 20 to 37% of fertiliser N may be taken up by millet (Christianson et al, 1990). Nutrients are lost from cropland via erosion, leaching, and as gases (N). Nutrients may also recombine with soil components into forms that are unavailable to plants. Since the decomposition of, and nutrient release from manure depends on the same factors (moisture and temperature) that affect plant growth, nutrients from manure may be released in a pattern that more closely coincides with plant demands. In calculating manure requirements to offset nutrient removals shown in Table 4, we assume that 60% of the N and P released from manure in any given year will actually be taken up by millet.The potential uptake of manure-N and manure-P by millet would be lower in the second than the first year after application (Table 5). As biennial manure applications continue for some years, however, soil nutrient levels will build-up gradually and nutrient uptake (and yields) will stabilise.Table 5. Estimates of nutrient uptake by millet in fields receiving one tonne of cattle or sheep manure every two years. Biennial manure applications to replenish the P (and N) taken up from farmers fields at various levels of stover removal are given in Table 6. The actual amount of manure needed is equal to the quantity required to replace the most constraining nutrient, i.e. P. This amount of manure will also supply a sufficient amount of N to replace that taken up by the millet plant. Thus, the manure requirements would range from about 2.1-3.2 t/ha in the dry to 5.1-6.9 t/ha in the wet zone depending on whether cattle or sheep manure is used. More cattle than sheep manure would be required and manure requirements increase as more stover is removed for feed. Increasing stover removal from only 25% of the leaves to 75% of the leaves plus 20% of the stalks increases biennial manure requirements by approximately 1 t/ha. These calculations do not, however, consider the small amount of manure that is returned to fields during crop residue grazing nor does it consider the N return in urine when animals are corralled on cropland. The positive effects of urine on yields (Table 2) are probably due to N return. Since approximately 50% of the N excreted by animals is in urine (NAS, 1983) manure requirements for N replenishment would most likely be less if animals were corralled versus if manure were collected from stalls and hand-spread on cropland. However, urine contains little P so manuring requirements for P replenishment would be the same for corralling and manure hand-spreading.  1. Nutrients available from urine are not taken into account in estimating these requirements (see text for further explanation).2. Nutrient removals were calculated from Table 4 using total grain and leaf/stem N and P removals of 25/0, 50/10 and 75/20% of uptake. Manure requirement = (Nutrient removal) divided by (nutrient uptake). Nutrient uptake taken from Table 5: Year 1.The amounts of manure that can be produced by different ruminant livestock species in SAWA have been estimated by Fernández et al (this volume). Assuming average growth rates and an 8-month manure-collection period extending from October to May, 301, 60 and 45 kg DM of manure per animal can be obtained from cattle, sheep and goats, respectively.Given these estimates, Table 7 indicates how many cattle or sheep are required to provide the manure needed to sustain the grain yields and stover removals specified (in Table 6) on a continuous basis. It shows, for example, that to maintain a sustained yield of 370 kg of millet grain and removal of 50 and 10% of the leaves and stalks on 1 ha of cropped land in Ouallam area, a farmer needs nine cattle or 42 sheep. Given the same level of stover removal, a farmer in Say area needs 21 cattle or 95 sheep to maintain a grain yield of 840 kg/ha. In general, across zones it appears that about 4-5 head of sheep can be used to replace each head of cattle for manuring purposes. The issue of feed required to maintain livestock producing different amounts of manure in SAWA is addressed by Fernández et al (this volume). Depending on rangeland productivity and taking into consideration the amounts of crop residues available from manured and nonmanured fields, the nine cattle or (42 sheep) required for manuring in Ouallam will need between 11-42 or (10-40) ha of dry season grazing land, and 4-11 or (3-10) ha of rangeland for wet-season grazing. The grazing land requirement for the 21 cattle or (95 sheep) needed in Say is from 34-138 or (32-129) ha for the dry season and 9-27 or (6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24) ha for the wet season. In all cases, sheep requirements for grazing area are slightly lower than those for cattle on account of the higher nutrient content of sheep's manure. For both species, less grazing area is required when range productivity is high.Leaving the question of feed availability aside, it is useful to consider whether farmers have sufficient animals to provide the required manure. Given the climatic conditions in SAWA, the question of adequacy of livestock holdings cannot be discussed without considering the impact of rainfall on livestock population and growth.Over the last 25 years, one of the persistent factors that has affected livestock population and its geographic distribution in SAWA is recurrent drought. Since 1968, annual rainfall has been declining in this region and severe drought occurred between 1968-73 and 1983-85 (Figure 1).The effect of drought on livestock depends on a variety of factors including the duration and pervasiveness of the shortfall in rainfall, rangeland productivity and grazing pressure on pastures before the drought, the species of livestock, herd management techniques etc (Sandford, 1977;Penning de Vries, 1983;Toulmin, 1983;1985). Given the extensive system of livestock management in SAWA, localised rainfall shortages can easily be accommodated by moving animals to areas with better rainfall. However, this opportunity becomes limited when drought is widespread. Moreover, if animal stocking levels have been consistently high relative to the longterm capacity of the range, a shortfall in rainfall can lead to huge livestock losses due to limited availability of forage, and the weakened state of livestock arising from low body reserves.Apart from its effect on livestock numbers, drought also influences the species composition of herds due to the varying degree of susceptibility of different animal species. Available evidence indicates that in periods of drought, small ruminants, particularly goats, have a higher survival rate than cattle (Arnal and Garcia, 1974;Dahl and Hjort, 1976). Also, the rapid reproduction and growth rates of small ruminants allow them to reconstitute their numbers much faster than cattle, and this partly explains the changes in the composition of livestock populations in favour of small ruminants in the postdrought period when reconstitution gets underway.In Niger, as elsewhere in the West African Sahel, the prolonged drought of 1968-73 and the limited, but severe, drought of 1984-85 led to drastic fall in livestock numbers (Figure 2). Data in Table 8 shows that between 1968 and 1973, Niger's cattle herd declined by about 50% from 4.45 to 2.2 million. The losses in sheep and goat flocks over the same period were lower at about 36 and 18%, respectively. These losses occurred as a result of deaths and distress sale of animals. However, by 1983 the national livestock herd had been reconstituted to pre-drought levels, although cattle numbers remained somewhat lower and small ruminant numbers were higher. Following the 1984-85 drought, livestock numbers fell again with cattle, sheep and goat populations declining by 59, 26 and 45%, respectively, between 1983 and 1986. This pattern of loss was also evident in other Sahelian states even though the severity varied considerably between countries. For example, between 1972-74 the cattle herd in the Sahelian zone of Mali declined from 4.75 to 2.64 million. Thereafter, it increased to 4.02 million in 1982 but this was followed by a sharp drop between 1983-85 when a new low of 2.69 million cattle was recorded (IEMVT, 1989; de Leeuw et al, 1990). Going by the scale of livestock losses experienced in Niger during the 1984-85 drought, the time it took to reconstitute the herds after the earlier drought of 1968-73 and even by estimates derivable from herd growth models, it is clear that it is still too early for the Niger herds to be reconstituted to their former numbers. 3 Table 8 shows that herd reconstitution is underway, albeit relatively slowly for cattle. 4 In the meantime, if the 1991 figures are compared with the 1961-63 data, it is seen that the ratio of small ruminants to cattle has more than doubled. This shift in the species composition of herds is supported by data from farm surveys conducted by ILCA scientists in Niger at various periods between 1983 and 1991. The surveys were initiated before the 1984 drought in two villages in Ouallam arrondissement about 90 km north of Niamey, the capital of Niger. Mean livestock holdings of sampled households appear to confirm the growing importance of small ruminants relative to cattle (Table 9). 5   While this situation may become reversed in the future as cattle population increases, experience in SAWA has shown that the post-drought period represents a time when livestock numbers are drastically reduced and the species composition of herds are altered. These changes have obvious implications for manure availability and these will be explored below. Cropland productivity in the Sahel 3. A number of herd models exist which simulates drought-induced losses and subsequently estimates the number of years required for herd reconstitution (Tacher, 1975;Dahl and Hjort, 1976;Clark, 1984). Tacher's model of Sahelian cattle herds, for example, predicts that after losses of 40% cattle populations will be back to their former level in about 12 years. 4. The accuracy of the 1991 figures of livestock population is questionable because since 1987, a livestock census has not been conducted in Niger. Livestock population figures since 1987 have been estimated based on the growth rates derived from animal head counts during vaccination campaigns. It is most likely that livestock numbers, particularly small ruminants, have been under-estimated since it is not obligatory to vaccinate sheep and goats. 5. An on-going survey that was started in 1993 in these two villages is investigating the reason for the persistence of droughtinduced shift in species composition. The mean livestock holdings for 1983 (Table 9) are fairly representative of many smallholder farmer's pre-drought herd sizes (see also Wilson, 1986;Swinton, 1988). If the mean livestock holdings of about 4 head of cattle and 15 head of small ruminants found in the two Ouallam villages in 1983 are compared with the number of animals required to produce the manure needed to sustain yields (Table 7), it is seen that the mean herd size will be able to manure only 0.9 ha annually when 25% of the millet leaves are removed. 6 When 75% of the leaves and 20% of the stalks are removed, only 0.6 ha can be manured annually. However, because it is assumed that effect of manure lasts for two years, the same herd size will allow the farmer to spread \"manure effect\" over twice the area indicated at each level of stover removal.Given the mean herd size of one head of cattle and 27 head of small ruminants found in the two villages in 1991 it is clear that, in comparison with the pre-drought situation, farmers in Ouallam will need to rely more on small ruminants to manure their fields. However, despite the increase in small ruminant numbers, the area that can be manured is lower. For example when only 25% of the millet T.O. Williams et al 6. To calculate the total amount of manure that can be obtained from a given herd size, goat manure is assumed to be of the same quality as sheep manure. However, small ruminant manure is known to be of a slightly higher quality than cattle manure (Table 5), and this fact is taken into account when small ruminant manure is added to cattle manure to obtain total manure estimate.leaves are removed the number of animals available to the farmer will be able to manure only 0.8 ha annually. If 75% of the leaves and 20% of the stalks are removed, only about 0.5 ha can be manured annually. Again, in terms of \"manure effect\", twice the area indicated here would be under manure in each year.The situation in Say area is not any different. A survey conducted in Gueladio in 1991 (ILCA, 1993) found an average of 7 cattle, 7 sheep, and 17 goats per household. Compared to what is needed to sustain millet yields, this herd size will only be able to manure 0.6 ha annually when 25% of the leaves are removed and about 0.5 ha annually when 75% of the leaves and 20% of the stalks are removed. When compared to Ouallam, it appears that farmers in Say are unable to manure more cultivated area with their higher herd size probably because Say is a more humid area. The relative wetness in Say causes more rapid manure decomposition, higher crop yields and nutrient removals, and therefore greater manure requirements.At this point, it is informative to compare the results obtained above with farmers' manuring practices. In Ouallam and Say districts, farmers cultivate on the average about 10 and 3 ha per household, respectively. Given the calculations above, it is clear that farmers will not be able to manure a substantial proportion of their fields if they rely only on their own animals. Indeed, given the 1991 herd sizes in the surveyed villages, farmers will only be able to manure in a year between 10 to 16% and 30 to 40% of the total cultivated household fields in Ouallam and Say, respectively. The insufficiency of household animals for manuring is one reason why only a small proportion of cultivated fields are manured. Matlon and Fafchamps (1988) found that in three agroclimatic zones of Burkina Faso, less than half of the sorghum and millet area receives manure in any given year. They also found that sorghum and especially millet tend to be grown on land manured the previous year. Powell and Williams (1993) found in the same three districts of Niger covered in this paper that only 30-50% of the millet fields are manured annually (see also Gavian, 1992). When the area that available herd size per household in Ouallam can manure annually if yield level is to be sustained (1.0-1.6 ha) is compared with the 3 ha that farmers now manure in practice, a number of issues come to the fore.First, it appears that farmers in Ouallam rely on herds other than their own to maintain their current practice. With the 1991 herd size, the farmer will obtain about 1.8 t of manure, but farmers in this area apply about 1.3 t/ha (Powell and Williams, 1993) meaning that they apply a total of 3.9 ha annually over the 3 ha that they manure. Second, even with additional manure coming in from outside, farmers' current strategy will not necessarily allow yields to be maintained on a continuous basis. Manure application rate of 1.3 t/ha is between 40-60% of what is needed if the objective is to sustain yields. In the case of Say, although there is a closer correspondence between area that available herds can manure and current manuring practice, the manure application rates are lower than what will be needed to sustain yields continuously. As pointed out earlier, low manure application rates may be a rational strategy to minimise the risk of crop burning in the event of drought.The objective or strategy notwithstanding, what is clear from the above analysis is that farmers' herd sizes in the two villages will be insufficient to manure all the cultivated fields on an annual basis. The smallness of household herds compared to farmers' manuring needs is another reason why farmers pool herds and also enter into crop residue/manure exchange contracts with transhumant herders. Thus in addition to household herds, farmers can also rely on herds coming in from outside the village. However, the regularity and size of the incoming transhumant herds is difficult to estimate as it depends on climatic, social and institutional factors.The question of manure availability and its adequacy can also be considered at the national level. Just as at the household/village level, herds can also enter a given country from neighbouring states and the same problem of estimating the contribution of such animals to the overall supply of manure still remains.Nonetheless, Table 8 shows that in 1983 before the last major drought there were about 3.5, 3.5 and 7.5 million head of cattle, sheep and goats, respectively, in Niger. This herd size, assuming all animals can be used for manuring, will produce about 1.7 million tonnes of manure. In that same year, about 3.1 million hectares of millet were cultivated in Niger with an average yield of 414 kg/ha (Republique du Niger, 1991). This yield level is about 12% higher than the yields observed in farmers' fields in Ouallam (Table 4). If we assume that only 30% of the cultivated area is manured; that we need to sustain millet yields at the level found in Ouallam; and that 25% of the millet leaves will be removed, then about 2.1 million tonnes of manure will be needed. Compared to what is available, there will be a shortfall of 0.4 million tonnes of manure. If 75% of the leaves and 20% of the stalks are removed the shortfall will be about 1.3 million tonnes of manure.If the post-drought situation in 1991 is considered, 4.4 million hectares of millet were cultivated and the average yield was about 418 kg/ha (Republique du Niger, 1991). Table 8 shows that there were about 1.8, 3.3 and 5.2 million head of cattle, sheep and goats, respectively, in Niger in the same year. If we make the same assumptions that were made above for 1983, the shortfall in manure supply will be 2 million tonnes of manure when only 25% of the leaves are removed, and 3.2 million tonnes of manure when 75% of the leaves and 20% of the stalks are removed.While the estimates sketched above need to be considered in relation to the reliability of the statistics and assumptions used to derive them, they nonetheless give an indication of the bounds of manure availability and the proportion of cultivated fields that can be manured in pre-and post-drought periods.The case of Niger shows that aggregate livestock population is a key factor that may effectively limit the amount of manure available for crop production. The insufficiency of animals to provide adequate manure implies that with the present increasing intensity of land use in Niger and other parts of SAWA, external inputs in the form of inorganic fertilisers are needed, in addition to manure, to prevent decline in soil fertility and crop yields. This observation is consistent with the conclusions of other studies (Breman, 1990;de Ridder and van Keulen, 1990;McIntire and Powell, this volume). This conclusion remains valid even if other considerations (e.g. role of fallow, competition between food and feed for land and the possibility of increased manure collection) which have not been fully addressed in this paper are taken into account. For example, in many parts of SAWA, fallowing is no longer a viable option for maintaining soil fertility as a result of high population growth and declining rainfall which have encouraged extensification and continuous cropping of arable lands. Increasing animal numbers in order to obtain more manure is also not a sustainable option given the competition for land between food and feed that is bound to develop if this option is adopted (McIntire et al, 1992). The extensive system of livestock management practised in SAWA reduces the possibility of increased manure collection. The survival of animals under this system of management depends on extensive grazing; thus a certain amount of manure is bound to be lost when animals are out grazing. The high labour costs of collecting the manure deposited in rangeland in relation to expected returns will not make this a particularly attractive option to cereal farmers.Given that inorganic fertilisers are needed to augment manure that is available for crop production, it is useful to have some indication of what quantities will be needed. If single nutrient fertilisers were to be used to meet the shortfall of 3.2 million tonnes of manure estimated for 1991, about 81 400 t of urea and 172 800 t of single superphosphate (SSP) will be needed. 7 Between 1984/85, 1500 t of N and 786 t of P2O5 fertilisers were imported into Niger (FAO, 1992). Since then the level of imports has fallen to less than a third of these figures due to removal of government subsidy and the subsequent T.O. Williams et al increase in the domestic prices of fertilisers. The huge gap between what is currently imported and what is needed to meet manure shortfalls on only 30% of the cultivated areas suggests an important role for government policy to facilitate and encourage the use of fertiliser in semi-arid West Africa.This paper highlights the importance of aggregate livestock population and species composition as key determinants of manure availability. Given the level of nutrient losses from croplands in Niger, it was shown that insufficient animals were available to provide the manure needed to maintain crop yields. The shortfall in manure availability was particularly evident in post-drought years. The limitations posed by animal numbers and feed availability imply that with the present increasing intensity of land use in Niger and other countries in SAWA, manuring alone is not going to provide the key to attainment of sustainable yield levels. External inputs in the form of inorganic fertilisers are needed to augment available manure to sustain crop production. However, the gap between present fertiliser use and what is required to supplement available manure is wide. To ensure the availability and increased use of fertilisers at the farm level, appropriate public policies are needed to ease the constraints that have inhibited the widespread use of fertilisers in SAWA.The central highlands are an important agricultural zone in Kenya. They have relatively good rainfall and fertile soils which have to date sustained sufficient production of both food and cash crops to meet the needs of the rapidly increasing population. Productivity gains in these highlands in the recent past have been achieved through intensification of land use, as little new land is available. Within this zone, land is permanently cropped. This generally involves the continuous cultivation of maize. Maize productivity was greatly enhanced in this area through the introduction of a production package which included high yielding hybrids (Mwania et al, 1990).The sustained productivity of the soils in the central highlands has become a serious concern because of intensive cultivation. Soil fertility has been identified as one of the most important constraints to maize production in Embu District (Mwenda, 1985). This decline suggests the need to increase research directed toward developing technologies which maintain or increase soil nutrient availability to crops, fodder and trees. One strategy that can be used to accomplish this is through the judicious and complementary addition of nutrients from outside the livestock-crop system. Increases in maize yield have consistently been obtained through the addition of chemical fertiliser in Embu District. On-farm experiments have shown that yields can often be doubled with modest applications of between 40-50 kg/ha each of nitrogen (N) and P2O5 (KARI, 1989). Nevertheless, few farmers appear to use fertiliser on their food crops even after observing the beneficial effects in on-farm trials. Although fertiliser is used on coffee more often than on maize, the levels used are also below those recommended (Muriithi, 1990). A disincentive for the use of fertiliser on maize is the relatively high cost. The nitrogen fertiliser to maize grain price ratio (kg/kg), which has experienced wide fluctuation in recent months, was 9.1:1 a year before this study was initiated, one of the highest for all of Africa (CIMMYT, 1990).Another strategy for maintaining the productivity of the soil would be to develop ways of reducing or eliminating nutrient losses in the system. Loevinsohn and Wang'ati (1993) suggested a number of ways in which this might be accomplished. These include increased efficiency of nutrient capture and the transformation and return to the soil of nutrients in plant and animal products; better synchronisation of the release of nutrients in the soil and uptake by crops; and conserving organic matter and maintaining soil pH at an acceptable level.Developing recommendations based on the cycling of existing nutrients in the system is usually more complex than basing them on applications of fertiliser or other amendments external to the farming system. However, recommendations are urgently needed if the rate of soil productivity decline is to be arrested. To identify leverage points in the farming system that can be exploited to increase the utilisation of nutrients in the existing system, a detailed inventory of the nutrient movement is needed. Little information of this type is available for most farming systems in Kenya. The objective of this research was to document the movement of above-ground sources of N and phosphorus (P) among the various components of a maize-animal-coffee system in central Kenya.The study was initiated with the harvest of the 1990/91 short rains crop (January 1991) and concluded with the planting of the 1992 long rains crop (March 1992). The study site was located in Embu District of central Kenya.Embu District is located on the slopes of Mount Kenya and the farms which were sampled were within 20 km of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), Regional Research Centre, Embu. The elevation of the study area is about 1500 m above sea level. Rainfall varies between 1000 and 1400 mm per annum falling in two distinct cropping seasons (long rains March-August, short rains October-January). The soils are described as very deep, well drained humid Nitrosols, which are dusky red to dark reddish brown in colour. They are generally very friable and have a moderate to high level of inherent fertility (Muchena et al, 1982).The farming system is relatively complex and intense. Coffee is the predominant cash crop and occupies on average 50% of the cultivated area. Coffee generally receives priority in the allocation of labour and purchased inputs because of its cash generating capacity. Annual food crops occupy the remaining area, the dominant crop being maize. Maize is grown as a sole crop or intercropped with beans. The mid-altitude maize hybrids, H511 and H512, are commonly planted in both seasons, and there is limited crop rotation and fallowing. Potatoes, sweet potatoes and bananas are also cultivated, though on a limited area.Farmers also keep dairy cattle (one or two units, generally) under a zero or semi-zero grazing system, where fodder is cut and carried to the animal. The main source of forage is Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum), which is often grown on the edges of the cultivated fields. Additionally, crop residues are important supplementary feeds.Four farms were randomly selected within the Embu District. These farms had similar farming systems containing components that included maize, coffee and livestock. At the time of the maize harvest, four 5 x 5 m subsamples were harvested from each farm. From these subsamples, grain yield, total stover weight and the amount of stover carried from the field to the animals was determined.These same maize fields were monitored before planting and records of all the manure and fertiliser applied were kept. The amount of fertiliser applied was determined by dividing the total amount of fertiliser purchased and applied by the farmer by the area of application. The amount of manure applied was determined by weighing five sample manure piles in the field before they were broadcast and incorporated. The total number of piles were counted and the weight per hectare calculated based on the total area to be planted. The same sites were used during both monitoring seasons with the exception of farm #4 in 1991/92 where no data were taken. Subsamples of manure, maize grain and maize stover were analysed to determine their N and P content at the National Agricultural Laboratories in Nairobi.Grain yields were generally high with the average yield for both seasons exceeding 4 t/ha (Table 1). This is more than double the national average yield for Kenya for the period 1989-91 (CIMMYT, 1992). The range in yield between farms was 2.1 t/ha in 1990/91 and 1.1 t/ha in 1991. Stover yields were correlated to grain yield, though the total amount recorded was less than expected given the grain yields measured. This was particularly true in 1991. The harvest index of the fields often exceeded 50%. Nevertheless, it was not readily apparent why the stover weight might have been under-estimated.The proportion of stover removed from the field after harvest was high, with an average of 75% of all stover being fed to animals in 1990/91 and 68% in 1991. The quality of the dry maize stover was probably quite low, since the N content of the maize stover ranged from 0.48 to 0.55% in 1990/91 and 0.60 to 0.98% in 1991. Nevertheless, the confined animals consumed the maize stover, and it became an important component of their diet after harvest.Total nitrogen removal by grain and stover averaged 58.8 kg/ha in 1990/91 and 74.6 kg/ha in 1991 (Table 2). Stover removal accounted for 20% of the N in 1990/91 and 26% in 1992. Total phosphorous removal (expressed as P2O5) was 18.7 kg/ha in 1990/91 and 20.4 kg/ha in 1991/92. Stover removal accounted for only 11 and 9% of the total phosphate removed by the maize crop in 1990/91 and 1991, respectively. Table 2. Nitrogen and phosphorus removal from maize fields by grain and stover in four farms in central Kenya, 1990/91 and1991/92. Fertiliser use was generally low when compared to the 50:50 kg/ha N:P2O5 that is recommended for the area (Table 3). Phosphorous was applied at about twice the rate of nitrogen, largely due to the wide-spread use at planting of diammonium phosphate, which was the primary fertiliser type available in the market. All farmers applied fertiliser in 1990, while only one farmer applied fertiliser in 1991. The reduced use of fertiliser in 1991/92 may be related to its increased price and its reduced availability during the planting period.Table 3. Fertiliser and manure applications to maize fields and their nitrogen and phosphorus contribution to four farms in central Kenya, 1990/91 and1991/92. Manure was applied in five of the seven farm-years (Table 3). Levels applied ranged from 3040 to 13,000 kg/ha. In all cases when applied, manure contributed more N to the field than did chemical fertiliser. In 1990, farmers applying manure also applied fertiliser, while in 1991 they applied either one or the other. Manure samples contained an average of 1.2% N in 1990/91 and 2.0% in 1991/92 (only one composite sample was analysed in 1992). The 1.2% value is within the range of values found for good quality manure in eastern Africa (Probert et al, 1992). The 2.0% value was higher than expected. Farmer #2 consistently applied high rates of manure. Probert et al (1992) found even higher application rates of 38 to 168 t/ha in drier parts of eastern Kenya, though the quality of the manure was much lower than we found in this study. Nevertheless, the total nutrients applied far exceeded the nutrient requirements of the following crop.The flux of nitrogen and phosphorus into and out of the maize fields was calculated based on the nutrients removed by the grain and stover and the inputs of nutrients into the field through fertiliser and manure (Table 4). These net values were calculated using the measured concentration of N and P in the manure as well as a theoretical level, which is based an average per cent N and P (0.72% N and 0.57% P2O5) found in manure reported by others in eastern Africa (Probert et al, 1992). This allows a more conservative look at the potential contribution of N and P by manures.  Averaged over all farms using the measured levels of N and P, there was a net gain in both nutrients in both years. However, the N balance of individual farms varied considerably, ranging from -69.1 to 185 kg/ha N. Only farmer #1 had a negative N balance both years. Based on a more conservative nutrient concentration in the manure, however, average N balances were negative both years. Furthermore, only farmer #2 had positive N values both seasons. Inputs of P, for the most part, were equal to or greater than its removal. Only farmer #3 recorded a negative value, and this was only in 1991/92. This study did not try to quantify the inputs and losses of plant essential nutrients through ways other than those described here. No doubt they can significantly affect the final nutrient balance of the system. Nevertheless, these data give some indication of the potential sustainability of the system, and suggest that the farmers in this study are able to sustain a fairly high level of production using a combination of fertilisers and manures. Chemical fertilisers contributed 56% of the phosphorus in 1990/91, but only 37% in 1991/92. Nitrogen, however, was supplied to a greater extent by manure than by fertiliser with 82 and 98% supplied by manure in 1990/91 and 1991/92, respectively. Nitrogen and phosphorus removal was greater by grain than by stover. Even though the percentage of stover fed to the animal was very high, the amount of nutrients being returned in the manure in most cases far exceeded the amount removed by stover. This suggests that the maize field is benefitting from nutrients derived from other components of the systems, which are transferred to it via animal manure. Napier grass and fodders from on-or off-farm sources are likely contributors, and were not examined in this study. Maintaining productivity of such sources, however, appears to be essential to the maintenance of the soil fertility level of the maize fields. Technology which would maximise the conservation of essential nutrients in the manure would also be valuable. Considerable variability was observed in the way that farmers currently handle the manure produced on-farm. Over the past 40 years, Bharavad pastoralists from Saurashtra in Gujarat State, India, have found themselves divested of rangelands and village commons that were formerly the primary source of nutrition for their ruminant livestock. To adjust to the changing socio-economic and biotic-edaphic environments, Bharavad pastoralists in this region have de-emphasised the production of more nutrient-demanding livestock products and focused on co-existing with farm production through marketing livestock manure. A model that was used to examine the economics of farmers' involvement in the agropastoral production system predicts that farmers with improved dairy cattle will profit most from (a) utilising high quality on-farm crop residues for their own milk production, and (b) trading low quality crop residue to pastoralists for manure. Other researchers have suggested [in response to our own analysis] that farmer-pastoralist relationships focusing on nutrient cycling can often be over-emphasised. This paper argues that in Saurashtra (and most likely in other areas where pastoral groups are politically marginalised), manure trade is the only production activity available to herders that utilises pastoral skills and is remotely sustainable. Au cours des 40 dernières années, les éleveurs Bharavad de Saurashtra, dans l'Etat de Gujarat (Inde), se sont retrouvés privés des pâturages et des terrains communaux qui leur procuraient l'essentiel des aliments de leurs animaux. Afin de s'adapter à ce nouvel environnement socio-économique et bio-édaphique, ces éleveurs délaissent les productions animales, plus exigeantes en éléments nutritifs, au profit de l'association agriculture-élevage grâce à la commercialisation de fumier. L'utilisation d'un modèle d'évaluation de la rentabilité de l'adoption d'un système de production agropastorale prévoit que les paysans possédant des vaches laitières tirent le meilleur parti possible de a) l'utilisation de résidus de récolte de bonne qualité produits sur l'exploitation pour leur propre production de lait et b) l'échange de résidus de qualité médiocre contre du fumier avec les éleveurs. D'autres chercheurs estiment (suite à notre analyse) que l'on accorde souvent trop d'importance aux relations entre agriculteurs et éleveurs. Il reste cependant qu'à Saurashtra et probablement dans d'autres régions où ils sont politiquement marginalisés, les éleveurs, compte tenu de leurs aptitudes, ne peuvent pratiquer que l'échange de fumier comme activité productive, activité dont la viabilité est en outre marginale.Gujarat is the home of several pastoral peoples, most notably the Bharavads, Maldharis and Rebaris. These communities have for centuries utilised the vast grasslands, shrublands and savannahs of this state to graze their livestock. However, rapid human population growth (especially within the farming community), the increased application of agricultural technology, and changes in village-level land tenure arrangements have irrevocably altered the face of Gujarat's rural landscape. The community that this paper will focus upon, Bharavad pastoralists in the Rajkot District of Saurashtra (the south-central region of Gujarat), have been greatly affected by, and have adapted to these changes. They presently participate in the agricultural system by providing important nutrient and energy inputs to small farms: farms exchange crop residue feeds and sometimes cash supplements for small ruminant (sheep and goat) manure and human labour (Cincotta and Pangare, 1992;1993a;1993b).Scientists and managers have questioned the overall animal productivity of this system. Scientists who are concerned about small ruminant productivity point out that keeping goats and sheep in enclosures to facilitate dung collection is likely to limit grazing time and reduce animal productivity. Many professional dairy managers who are interested in increasing regional milk output suggest that these residues, chiefly the straws of bajra (pearl millet) and wheat, could be used in the rations of additional dairy cattle to produce some milk in addition to manure (R.P. Aneja, personal communication). In fact, the relatively large rumen volumes and slow rates of passage associated with milch cattle and buffalo digestive anatomies, are better suited to extracting energy from fibrous feeds than are the less voluminous digestive tracts of sheep and goats (cf. Demment and Van Soest, 1985).However, the productivity of an agricultural system can neither be understood nor dealt with as a whole. These production systems are sets of individual adaptive strategies that each participant has evolved to cope with the environment, with each other, and with the economic and political constraints that history has imposed. Thus, one should assume that each producer will have consciously attempted to achieve an optimal use of available (constrained) inputs given the information on hand and the perceived planning period.The objective of this paper is to propose models that conceptualise the opportunities that crop residue utilisation and manure production represent for both farmer and pastoralist in this system. These conceptualisations (or general hypotheses) are drawn from analyses of participant observation and interviews obtained in a pilot study of members of 20 herder and 10 farmer households conducted in 1992 in Saurashtra (Cincotta and Pangare, 1992;1993a;1993b). The conclusions reflect upon the apparent sustainability of the agropastoral system that was observed and conceptualised, and compares it to other pastoral production systems that remain in existence both within and outside of India.The major part of this study was undertaken in the town of Sarapdad in Rajkot District. There were approximately 40 Bharavad families out of a total of about 7000 inhabitants. A rural town, the inhabitants of Sarapdad are primarily farmers and shopkeepers. The nearby smaller towns of Shri Kerala and Suvag have a similar percentage of Bharavads: 4-5% of the populace. In this area of Saurashtra, Bharavad pastoralists are almost exclusively small ruminant herders although a minority (about eight households) have focused on other village trades, especially local transport (motorised rickshaws) and farming.Presently, Bharavads live in brick houses along the edges of towns and villages, which are clustered in a \"communal style\". The houses have common areas in which Bharavad families mix. Nearby, on the outskirts of the village, each household maintains a corral (characteristically 300-600 m 2 ) which is enclosed on all sides by a \"natural\" fence (2-2.5 m high) of prickly pear cactus 1 and can be entered through a narrow hand-wired gate. The corrals, built adjacent to one another with common fence-lines, grow to resemble a confusing maze of cactus hedge rows. Essentially, these corrals are a focal point for manure accumulation and harvest, and the location from which much of this material must be transported to agricultural fields up to 5 km from the village.Bharavad households around Sarapdad keep from 40-250 small ruminants, about 90% of which are of the Maravadi sheep breed (the other 10% are goats), a native, coarse wool breed. Income (either in cash or trade goods) from sheep is generated from the sale of live animals for meat, sheered wool, milk and dung. Black-haired goats are kept, as well, principally for their milk production. Two families keep only goats, sending their milk to the local village milk co-operative society (butter fat content of about 3.5%). Goat hair is harvested and spun by family members for rope.Around 25% of the Bharavad herds are involved in a dry-season migrational circuit that takes them onto irrigated farmland in central Gujarat (near Ahmedabad). Interviewed pastoralists suggested that during severe drought (such as 1986-87), where both forage and water are in short supply in the village, nearly all families migrate with their herds in search of forage. During the drought of 1986-87, most families lost or sold 50-75% of their livestock.What Galaty (1992) referred to as \"the nightmare of landless pastoralism\" has largely become a fact of life for most of Gujarat's pastoralists over the past four decades. Irrigation and improved techniques of dryland farming have permitted small-scale agricultural production to virtually overwhelm the most productive rangelands. In the early 1950s, the Gujarat Government endorsed the precepts of a Gandhian grassroots movement, the Bhoodan Movement, that pressured local governments to distribute the remaining common lands to the village landless, mainly Harijans, for farming. The majority of Bharavad households, however, continue to rely at least partly on livestock rearing as their source of livelihood.Because the local Bharavad community has lost control of its access to forage and to land (Cincotta and Pangare, 1993a;1993b), its pastoral existence lies inextricably tied to farmers, who by virtue of their production of crop residues, now control a critical element of pastoral production. Moreover, during the past two decades, small farmers in Gujarat have been organised into a system of district level dairies and supporting village cooperative societies by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), and have assumed the central role in large ruminant (cattle and buffalo) production. Although Gujarat's dairies process an enormous volume of milk, the industry, which is based upon a per-animal production of less than seven litres per day, is supported principally by on-farm crop residues. NDDB has, more recently, encouraged farmers to upgrade their dairy animals and their forage sources to increase milk production.Although Bharavads have traditionally been cattle keepers, both for bullock and milk production (Rangnekar, 1993), the vast majority of these pastoralists have adapted to the loss of access to forage by taking up small ruminant production (sheep and goats). Their animals produce manure, wool, and meat for local markets (Bharavads, themselves, are vegetarians), while milk and goat hair are principally used in the household. Because butterfat content is the parameter by which milk is priced in cooperative dairy societies in India, the low butterfat content of local goat milk (3-3.5%) does not greatly reward participation. Where access to fodder has been retained, either by purchasing or acquiring land during land reform (Chen, 1991), or by obtaining access to reliable markets of good quality fodder and feed (Salzman, 1988), these pastoralists have participated actively in dairy cooperatives.Today, Bharavad small ruminant livestock producers gain access to forage principally by trading small ruminant manure and human labour for crop residues and use of fallow fields (Cincotta and Pangare, 1993a). In fact, with the expansion of irrigation schemes and the acceleration of cropping, this livelihood is likely to expand (Cincotta and Pangare, 1993b). Thus, Bharavad communities have continued to use many of the traditional skills, the knowledge base, and organisational systems that are associated with livestock keeping.A decision tree has been designed (Figure 1) to explain the narrowing of productive possibilities that face Bharavad pastoralists in Saurashtra, and indeed many pastoralists throughout India. Whereas a decision tree is usually generated to conceptualise the contemporary path of options that is accessible to a decision-maker, it will become apparent that, in actuality, the pastoralist enjoys few real productive options: decisions have already been made for the pastoralist by an historical chain of events. Our decision tree is perhaps more like a dichotomous key, the points of articulation representing constraints in control over resources and capital that circumscribe and characterise systems of livestock production in Gujarat. Most Bharavad pastoralists are confined to the lower extremes of this decision tree, where constraints on resources are most severe.The decision tree begins by acknowledging the changes wrought to the grazing ecosystem by the dramatic increase in human population during this century, and the conversion of common land to agriculture (Figure 1, Decision 1). Grassland and forest pastoralism still exist in Gujarat, among them Sindhi Muslim pastoralists in the Banni Grasslands of the nearby Kachchh Region (Bharara, 1987;1993;Saxena, 1993), and a small group of Maldharis in the Gir Forest of Saurashtra (Seth, 1990). Yet even these systems rely on crop residues during some parts of the dry season (Singh et al, 1993).The next tier of constraints (Decision 2) is associated with the availability of an adequate and continuous supply of high-quality forage for milk production, either from grazing, on-farm or commercial sources. Milk production decreases rapidly and non-linearly because low-forage quality (low digestible energy and N) both result in a decreased supply of nutrients per kg ingested, and suppresses total feed intake. To live off modern dairy production (which is not what small farmers do; dairy production is only a supplemental activity) pastoralists must have access to good quality forage, the ready capital to afford purchases, the herd capital in the form of improved milch animals, and the availability of veterinary care infrastructure to protect that capital. It is probably true that few Gujarati pastoralists have ever been in a position to put that combination together. However, pastoralists have previously been able to use combinations of grazing and low quality residues to raise strong, slow-growing bullocks (especially Kankrej breed) that have been marketed to farmers for pulling and plowing. This activity continues among some ethnic/caste groups in Gujarat, especially pastoral communities in the Kachchh (Chen, 1991;Mittal, 1993). However, with the increased mechanisation of threshing and farming, the demand for high-quality bullocks in the village has substantially decreased (Chen, 1991).Most Bharavad pastoralists in and around Sarapdad do not have continuous access to supplies of good-quality forage, and thus have chosen to raise small ruminants for manure production. Pastoral herds of goats and sheep are principally maintained on energy metabolised from the digestible portions of low-quality residues. Nitrogen is obtained from grazing on local common property where heavily grazed forage vegetation tends to be sparse, physically defended (thorny, woody and sprawling), and chemically defended (inhibitory to digestion; Rhoades, 1979). This strategy is successful because sheep and goats are selective feeders, more physically adapted than cattle and buffalo to consuming self-defended vegetation (Ahuja and Rathore, 1987). Small ruminants have small mouth parts and prehensile lips, coupled with an ability to learn to forage among physical obstacles (especially goats; Pfister et al, 1988;Provenza and Balph, 1990). Selective feeders are also capable of ingesting nutritious compounds while maintaining themselves below critical thresholds of simultaneously ingested toxins and refractory substances. In Sarapdad, \"wild\" forage resources remain only on severely eroded village commons, in hedgerows, in fallow fields and along roadsides. Whereas these non-crop feed sources probably represent a relatively small amount of the biomass ingested, they are generally green and growing, and probably supply a good deal of the nitrogen necessary to maintain rumen bacterial function. Thus, it is likely that agropastoralism in Sarapdad encourages a net transport of nitrogen from village common land to agricultural fields.In the village, manure is traded in three ways: (1) by exchanging small ruminant manure that was collected in corrals, for equal volumes of residue straw; (2) by keeping herds overnight on specified agricultural fields; and (3) by permitting pastoralists to graze their herds by day on fallow and uncut residue, especially cotton stover. According to interviewed farmers, pastoralists negotiate crop residues and cash for harvest labour, but manure is only infrequently purchased with cash in the village. However, interviewed pastoralists described arrangements in distant irrigated areas where exchanges of manure for cash were common.During the dry season of average rainfall years, about 25% of Bharavad herders residing in and around Sarapdad move their small ruminants to irrigated areas of North Gujarat in pursuit of ample water, livestock feed, and wages (Cincotta and Pangare, 1993a). Availability of these benefits is associated with the continuous cropping system of irrigated agriculture, which (even during the climatic dry season) creates a continuous demand for organic manure and harvest labour, and a ready supply of crop residues.Large herds, generally over 200 small ruminants, were most likely to undertake long-distant migration (Figure 2); the reason for this is not immediately obvious. However, if one considers that during the dry season it is common for pastoral labour to be traded for crop residue; it is clear that households with large herds often have insufficient labour available to meet the nutritional demand for maintenance of their animals. In addition, it is possible that their presence during a period of resource scarcity could strain relationships with other users of common resources such as water and any vegetation on common property. More significant is the apparent \"commercial attraction\" of owners of large herds to irrigated areas (Kavoori, nd). According to interviewed pastoralists, herders receive combinations of crop residue and cash for bedding their small ruminants on specified sections of cropland. Reportedly, cash payments range from Rupees (Rs) 0.25 to 1.00 per day for each adult animal, though some labour may be involved in this exchange. Climatic conditions mediate the numbers of agropastoralists that undertake migration. When severe drought hit Saurashtra in 1987, nearly all of the local Bharavad herders were faced with shortages of water, forage, crop residues, and labour opportunity in the village. Large ruminants, which are owned primarily by farmers in the Sarapdad area, were maintained in cattle camps on government and Private Volunteer Organization (PVO)-supported rations (Jain, 1989). However, nearly all pastoralists reported that during the drought they had moved with their small ruminants to North Gujarat, causing livestock feed shortages along the route and even in the irrigated areas (small ruminants are not eligible for government-supported drought rations).The social costs of migration include the insecurity of life in a tent, and the vulnerability of animals outside corrals. Bharavads suggest that, in migrating, there is theft of sheep, and sometimes violent altercations with farmers and townspeople (see Times of India, 1992).Given the rate at which the rural population has grown and grazing land has disappeared over the last three decades, it is obvious that most of Gujarat's pastoralists face a situation of primary dependence on agricultural residues for animal nutrition. At the same time, there is a rising demand among farmers for plant nutrients and organic matter. Farm sizes continue to decrease due to subdivision during inheritance, while production has generally intensified because of the increased access to methods of irrigation. In addition, fertiliser subsidies are being eliminated as part of a general restructuring of the Indian economy that began in 1991. To conceptualise the interdependence between pastoralist and farmer, it is necessary to look at both sides of the relationship: (a) at the economics of being a farmer who has the option of exchanging crop residue for manure produced by pastoral herds of small ruminant, or use that residue for his own on-farm dairy production; and (b) at the narrowing of options that face the pastoralist in a changing political environment and ecological landscape.Agriculture in Sarapdad, practised on holdings of 1-3 ha, is rainfed and largely dedicated to cash crops. Rainfall is bimodal: during the long rains (kharif) groundnuts appear to be the crop of choice; in the short rains (rabi) cotton, wheat, bajra, or groundnuts are sewn. Farmers rely heavily upon livestock for nitrogen fertilisation and replacement of organic matter in soils. Small amounts of inorganic phosphorous are added at the beginning of the kharif, and urea is applied lightly before the flowering of some crops.The ownership of a few (generally 1-3) dairy cattle and/or buffaloes represents an important component of production on small and medium-sized farms in Gujarat. The success and proliferation of the cooperative dairy movement has brought the full weight of urban demand for large quantities of high quality (high percentage of butterfat) milk to the village. This demand for milk and fat-heavy milk products (butter, cheese, yoghurt, Indian confections, ice-cream and flavoured milk drinks) has encouraged the acceptance of improved breeding and stall-feeding of dairy cattle/buffaloes. In the past, low-quality agricultural residues (e.g. wheat and millet straws) were fed to bullocks and milch livestock providing only little more than maintenance rations. However, bullocks did not require rapid growth to attain sufficient size and strength for traction (Rangnekar, 1993) and only very limited markets were open to dairy producers and these were controlled by middle-men. Thus, there was little financial incentive to produce much more than subsistence quantities of milk.With markets opening to the small dairy producer, high quality forage (low cell wall, high digestible energy, and high digestible nitrogen content) was needed for increasing milk yield. Prices of nitrogenous forages, such as groundnut tops, other legumes, cottonseed meal and purchased commercial feeds increased (George, 1985). Farmers with some capital on hand, and agricultural residues left from their farming operations are faced with the choice between feeding the residue to their own dairy cattle or leaving residues to be eaten by the small ruminants of pastoral communities. These pastoralists would then reciprocate, through some local arrangement, by providing manure to be sent to the field or directly applying manure and urine by leaving their herds on the agricultural fields overnight.Interviewed farmers indicated that the success of their production strategy depends upon the partitioning of crop residues into low quality and high quality livestock feeds. At the same time, pastoralists have little control over the quality of the feed supply that is available from farmers, although they control the most readily available supplies of manure and, quite often, village labour. As a result, the bulk of feed intake for pastoral small ruminant herds is low quality residues, while nitrogen is obtained primarily from plants that are grazed on degraded common property while the animals are herded during the day.The choice of a crop residue partitioning strategy for farmers can be explained in the following equations that focus on the total economic value, Vt, of the dry matter of each kg of agricultural residue feed of a particular quality, q. For any residue the total value equals the value (net benefits) generated by residues minus the opportunity costs: Vtq = ( Vmq + Vfq ) -(OCmq + OCfq ) where:Vm is the net benefit of milk production Vf is the net benefit of manure production OCm and OCf are the opportunity costs for those same material outputs (i.e. the benefits foregone by not applying that quality of residue to another available strategy) This model seeks to choose between only two simple production strategies, agropastoralism (subscript AP) and dairy production with on-farm sources of feed (subscript D). The strategy with the greatest payoff, Vt * , from a kg of forage of a specific quality is the maximum of the two strategies: where: BFANIM equals the kg butterfat per kg milk MY is the kg of milk produced from consumption of digestible energy DE is digestible energy, which itself is limited by the intake (I) of that forage vB is the value per kg butterfat I is the kg forage ingested as a function of CW CW is the kg cell wall per kg forage UL is the upper limit to intake (see appendix) BFANIM is dependent upon the species and breed of ruminant animal (although intake of forages that are low in cell wall tends to depress butterfat content, intake of such forages, i.e. concentrates, is not a consideration in this simple model). In the case of village on-farm dairy production, either 0.045 for breed cow and 0.060 for buffalo are possible values.VDfq=Nq FY(DIGq,I(CWq,ULANIM)) vN / I(CWq,ULANIM ) where:N is the nitrogen yield per kg faecal matter (assumed to be at 50% of the concentration of the forage nitrogen ingested) FY (correspondent to MY) is the kg of manure produced on the forage consumed DIG is the digestibility of the forage I is forage intake vN is the average value per kg nitrogen estimated from interviews concerning the purchase of faeces by farmers and the faecal N of that material. The amount of manure produced is a function of the digestibility of the forage (DIG), a factor that is depressed by forage intake (I).For providing a residue to agropastoral herds (the agropastoral strategy), AP, net benefits to the farmer are: VAPmq = 0 VAPfq = NC FY(DIGC, I (CWC,ULANIM)) vN/I (CWC, ULANIM ) Of course, no milk is returned to the farmer when forage is fed to someone else's small ruminant herd. The subscript C in the equation for manure benefits refers to the influence from intake of well-defended nitrogenous forages, grazed on common property, by the small ruminant herds. Nitrogen content of their faeces, total digestibility of the diet, and cell-wall content were assumed to include other sources outside crop residues, and were assigned mid-range values for hay, specifically those of groundnut hay (NRC, 1978).For the on-farm dairy strategy, equations for opportunity costs consider the net benefits provided by the alternative strategy of purchasing good quality forage (subscript P) VPmp and Vpfp. This includes reduction of value from feed costs, FC, as expressed as a fraction of the net benefit from milk and manure. The price was assumed to be 50% of the net value returned.VPmp = FC BFANIM MY (DEAVAIL (DEP, I (CWP, ULANIM))) vB/I (CWP, ULANIM) VPfp = FC NP FY (DIGP, I (CWP, ULANIM)) vN /I (CWP, ULANIM) Opportunity costs for on-farm dairy production would then be the amount lost by not taking advantage of the availability of this strategy, assuming that good-quality feed is available and capital can be advanced to purchase it. In Saurashtra, this feed is generally groundnut hay (DE = 2.55 kcal/g; NRC, 1978). Since opportunity costs are penalties for forgone benefits, by definition their sum must be greater than or equal to zero.OCDmq = VPmp -VDmq OCDfq = VPfp -VDfq Condition: If ( OCDmq + OCDfq ) <0, then ( OCDmq + OCDfq ) = 0.For the agropastoral strategy, opportunity costs are associated with using the forage to feed on-farm improved dairy cattle rather than the combination of purchasing feed for them and trading the forage for small ruminant manure production. Thus, OCAPmq = VDmq -VPmp -VAPmq OCAPfq = VDfq -VPfp -VAPfq Condition: If (OCAPmq + OCAPfq) <0, then (OCAPmq + OCAPfq) = 0.Functions in these equations vary non-linearly with elements of forage quality: cell-wall content, digestible energy, and forage digestibility (see appendix for functions used in the model).Results of this modelling suggest that low-quality forage is best left in the field for pastoral livestock, or cut and traded for manure and labour. Feeding low quality forage to improved milch stock when either forage or capital (to purchase very expensive feed) is available for feed purchase, is to accept opportunity costs of forgone milk production (Figures 3a and b). Conversely, to feed high quality forage to small ruminants owned by pastoralists is to forgo milk profits likely to be obtained from utilising an on-farm source of nutrition. Thus, optimal use of on-farm crop residues is a question of identifying the production value of a residue given its quality and that quality's impact on intake and milk production. 1. Graphs show values of strategies (including opportunity costs), expressed in Indian rupees (Rs) per kg feed, calculated along a gradient of feed of digestible energy (DE) and crude protein (CP). This gradient was produced by simultaneously increasing DE and CP and calculating returns for those sets of values (NB). Although increases in both DE and CP are recognised as increases in forage quality, there are no theoretical reasons why they should be positively correlated among feeds). Farmers have the option (shown in Figure 3a) to either feed on-farm residue to their own milk cows, or to trade the residue to small ruminant pastoralists for manure and purchase good quality residues (groundnut hay) for their milk cows. The relationships between components fo the on-farm fed dairy strategy and agropastoral strategy (Figure 3b) suggest reasons why the strategies show different returns at opposite ends of the forage quality gradient. In addition to quantifiable benefits and opportunity costs (covered in the models presented), there are several latent benefits and costs associated with pastoral participation in the agricultural system. Firstly, the 1-2 cm pellets that constitute small ruminant manure are particularly well suited to rapid decomposition and integration into the soil. Like all ruminant manure, it is composed primarily of organic matter that, when reintroduced to the soil, improves soil physical qualities and augments the microbial populations that drive nutrient cycling. Chemical fertiliser inputs make little or no positive impact to long-term components of the agro-ecosystem. However, interviewed farmers noted that because goats and sheep are also grazed on common property vegetation, applications of small ruminant manure increases the frequency of weeds and labour costs for weeding. In addition, agropastoralism facilitates other exchanges, especially long-term relationships concerning labour exchanges, that are difficult to quantify.The models presented in this paper suggest that pastoral loss of land and forage, the growth of on-farm dairy production, and the expansion of irrigated farming in Saurashtra have contributed to the formation of agropastoralism. To adjust to these changes in the socio-economic and biotic-edaphic environments, Bharavad pastoralists have de-emphasised more \"nutrient-demanding\" livestock products and focused on marketing manure, a strategy of coexistence with the crop production objectives of neighbouring farmers.Stability is a key feature of pastoral and farmer strategies in this system. Pastoralists have been historically and economically constrained to a feeding strategy based on crop residues. These feeds are non-exportable outputs because of their low economic value and bulkiness which makes it difficult to market them outside the system. Farmers see trading of residues for manure as a viable option among alternatives for soil fertilisation. When they choose this option, farmers obtain affordable inputs in manure that are non-exportable outputs of pastoral production. Thus, both parties are drawn to an integrated system whose internal efficiency may be high, since these non-exportable outputs are recycled, but at a cost to total productivity. Remnant degraded common grazing land is unlikely to improve under these circumstances unless there is a revolutionary change in perceptions of their value by the community, and the emergence of institutional means to control and protect them (such as has occurred in several cases of common property management directed at improving water harvesting).The observation that farmers and pastoralists can be drawn to this system is not a surprising conclusion: farmer-pastoral relationships of this nature have persisted for centuries, especially in the western Sahel (Le Houérou, 1989). However, it is perhaps surprising to observe stability of agropastoral relationships in a modern context, where agricultural intensity is increasing. Modern agriculture has often fractured traditional interdependencies among farmer, labourer and pastoralist. For example, machinery and fertiliser have displaced the need for both farm labour and animal traction, especially during the planting season. In addition, crop residue feeds can become locally scarce in Gujarat when farmers are drawn to planting portions of their farms to certain cash crops (e.g. tobacco) that have little or no fodder value (Phansalkar and Pandey, 1991).Scientists and managers who have criticised the overall productivity of this system are basically correct; small ruminant productivity is depressed, and the condition of common grazing land remains exceptionally poor. Although authors have stated that, because of depressed productivity, such farmer-pastoral relationships can be overemphasised, we wonder \"how?\". Do most pastoral systems offer a better future, or a even a certain future? This paper suggests that they do not.Although an idealisation of transhumant pastoralism captures the essence of an environmentally sustainable production system, few contemporary pastoral systems are either biologically, economically or politically sustainable. In fact, pastoralists in grazing ecosystems throughout the world will continue to lose control of feed resources and land because of several interrelated problems: (1) a lack of political power in the face of encroaching dryland and irrigated agriculture (Goldschmidt, 1981;Salzman, 1986;Perrier 1990;Köhler-Rollefson, 1992a;1992b); (2) an inability to develop and support powerful institutions that effectively manage the utilisation of communal grazing land; (3) an inability to control population-related positive feedbacks, i.e. growth of human population size, demand for livestock products, and the growth of livestock numbers; (4) sale of grazing land to speculators and non-agricultural users (Galaty, 1992); (5) conflicts with other legitimate uses of common property resources (Libecap, 1981) that are supported by powerful urban and environmental interests, such as watershed, recreation, and restoration of previous ecosystem components (biodiversity). At the root of each of these problems are powerful destabilising forces of a political and social nature about which natural scientists understand very little.In closing, we suggest that the conversion of rangeland pastoralism to agropastoralism is the scenario of the present and the future in a world of exponential population growth, and expanding agricultural technology. We submit that there remains some expectation among scientists who work in grazing ecosystems that pastoral production systems can retain, or once again achieve, some of the characteristics that once permitted them to be environmentally sustainable. Optimistic development specialists believe that pastoral production systems can be converted into sustainable, regionally productive commercial enterprises. Probably neither is true. We submit that the fate of many pastoral peoples will most likely be similar to that of Bharavads in Saurashtra: their pastoral livelihood will be sustained through servicing agricultural systems as agents for rapid nutrient cycling and nutrient transport. NB. Relationship from regression of cell wall on intake (reviewed in Van Soest, 1982:285) FY: manure yield (kg) = I(CWq,ULANIM) (( 1.0 -DIGq) + DIGLOSS ) The integration of crops and livestock has often been cited as a model for agricultural development in semi-arid West Africa. Recent formulations treat the adoption of more intensive forms of manuring as a critical step in agricultural development. These analyses have been criticised for ignoring or underestimating the possible negative consequences of such management on rangeland and livestock productivity. This paper critically examines this debate. It is argued that the agronomic benefits of manuring depend largely on nutrient transfers from non-cropped grazing lands. In this respect, the ecological critiques are correct in arguing that, except in sparsely cultivated areas, the livestock required to support continuous cropping cannot be maintained by local pastures without external inputs. Over the long-term, such nutrient transfers cannot be sustained; nutrient outflows from pastures will exceed inflows resulting in a combination of reductions in livestock productivity, manure quality, pasture productivity and local livestock presence. However, these analyses have ignored the large influence of village-level agronomic and livestock management on the parameters used in such calculations. Once the temporal and spatial aspects of rangeland-cropland nutrient transfer are considered, it is shown that the dynamic sustainability of the process is determined, not simply by rangeland/cropland ratios and livestock stocking rates, but by differences in grazing and manure management at the village and household levels. Village-based livestock management is an area of active concern and experimentation by crop-livestock producers in semi-arid West Africa. More efficient nutrient management can be promoted through a combination of policy and extension efforts.Viabilité du transfert des éléments nutritifs des pâturages aux terres agricoles dans la zone semi-aride de l'Afrique de l'Ouest: aspects écologiques et sociaux négligés dans le débatCentre international pour l'élevage en Afrique (CIPEA)/Centre sahélien de l'ICRISAT B.P. 12404, Niamey (Niger)L'intégration de l'agriculture et de l'élevage est souvent citée comme modèle de développement agricole dans les régions semi-arides de l'Afrique de l'Ouest. Depuis peu, l'intensification du mode de fumure est considérée comme une étape essentielle de ce processus. On a reproché aux tenants de cette théorie d'ignorer ou de sous-estimer les possibles conséquences fâcheuses d'un tel mode de gestion des pâturages et de l'élevage. Cet article procède à un examen critique du débat en cours. D'aucuns affirment que les avantages agronomiques de la fumure dépendent essentiellement du transfert d'éléments nutritifs des terres de parcours non cultivées. A cet égard, les écologistes ont raison de rétorquer qu'à l'exception des régions peu cultivées, les parcours ne peuvent supporter le cheptel nécessaire pour assurer des cultures continues sans intrants externes. A long terme, ces transferts d'éléments nutritifs ne peuvent être viables. Les pertes d'éléments nutritifs des pâturages excéderont les apports, entraînant simultanément une baisse de la productivité du bétail, de la qualité du fumier, de la productivité des pâturages et de l'effectif du cheptel local. Malheureusement, ces analyses ignorent l'influence du mode de gestion des cultures et du cheptel au niveau des villages sur les paramètres employés dans les calculs. L'examen, dans l'espace et dans le temps, des caractéristiques du transfert des éléments nutritifs des pâturages aux terres cultivées montre que la viabilité dynamique du processus dépend, non pas seulement des rapports entre terres de parcours et terres cultivées et de la charge, mais également des différences des modes de gestion des parcours et du fumier à l'échelle du village et des ménages. La gestion des animaux au niveau du village suscite beaucoup d'intérêt et fait l'objet de nombreux essais au niveau des populations agropastorales des régions semi-arides de l'Afrique de l'Ouest. On peut promouvoir une meilleure gestion des éléments nutritifs en associant des mesures appropriées à des efforts bien orientés des politiques de vulgarisation.Despite low mean annual rainfall (400-1000 mm), agronomic and ecological research has found that nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) availabilities in the soil, more often than water, limit range and crop production for most of the southern Sahel and Sudanian zones of West Africa (Penning de Vries and Djitèye, 1982;Breman and de Wit, 1983). Moreover, there is growing concern about the declining fertility status of soils as a result of population growth and a concomitant decline in fallowing rates. Nutrient budgets calculated over a range of spatial scales for low-input agricultural systems in this zone are negative (Pieri, 1989;Stoorvogel and Smaling, 1990;van der Pol, 1992;Hafner et al, 1993). Some analysts argue that the resulting decline in soil fertility is a major factor behind the stagnation or decline in cropland productivity observed across the region (van Keulen and Breman, 1990).These observations have helped to revive interest in the greater integration of crop and livestock production. The productive benefit of the mixed farming model most stressed in recent formulations is the use of livestock to provide manure/urine to agricultural fields in areas where the rate of fallowing no longer maintains fertility. This view has been criticised on the grounds that the productive benefits of manuring are overestimated and that the maintenance of cropland fertility through manuring alone will only occur to the detriment of rangeland and livestock productivity (van Keulen and Breman, 1990). This paper analyses critical issues of this debate. In so doing, it will be argued that by abstracting from a number of ecological and socio-economic realities of semi-arid West Africa, the regionally emergent properties of socio-economic processes that influence local patterns of livestock ownership, agronomic management and livestock management have been obscured.Increased integration of the livestock and cropping sectors has long been viewed as the most promising means for initiating improvements in agricultural productivity in semi-arid West Africa (Landais and Lhoste, 1990). Animal husbandry is viewed as improving crop production through the provision of animal traction and manure, while deriving benefits from the cropping system through the latter's incorporation of fodder crops into the cropping cycle. Development efforts to promote such integration have found it necessary to do so within a context of pre-existing patterns of interaction between these two sectors. Compared to other parts of Africa, the livestock and cropping sectors in semi-arid West Africa have historically been much more integrated. The relationship between cropping and livestock management in the West African semi-arid zone has been typified by: • a widespread interest in livestock ownership across all rural producers (Bernus, 1974;Gallais, 1975;Toulmin, 1983;Bonfiglioli, 1985;Starr, 1987;Turner, 1993) • a certain degree of occupational specialisation between livestock managers and agriculturalists between households as well as within households (Gallais, 1975;Delgado, 1979;Toulmin, 1983) • a fluidity over time in occupational categorisation resulting in part from changes in livestock ownership (Grayzel, 1977;Bonfiglioli, 1990) • a high level of local and inter-regional exchange in grain, milk, meat, labour, animal power, fodder, and manure between households with different resource endowments and economic specialisations (Gallais, 1972;Bernus, 1974;Delgado, 1979;McCown et al, 1979).In this context, development efforts in the past have largely focussed on encouraging the more widespread adoption of three component technologies most commonly associated with greater crop-livestock integration: manuring, animal traction, and fodder cropping. While the provision of these components could plausibly occur under a number of different management configurations, the most commonly promoted management model is mixed farming, which can be defined simply as the joint management of livestock and crop production at the level of the individual household (McIntire et al, 1992). Ownership externalities are seen as limiting the potential of providing some or all of these services at higher levels of social organisation (e.g. between households). Thus packaged, the adoption of these technologies required large changes in livestock management and the organisation of agricultural and herding labour. Despite many years of the promotion of mixed farming in semi-arid West Africa (Landais and Lhoste, 1990), low adoption has revealed the limitations of greater crop-livestock integration generally, and mixed farming management more specifically, from the perspective of the rural producer. In particular, highly favourable comparisons of hypothetical mixed farming systems to existing agropastoral systems have overestimated the potential for such integration by overestimating the benefits/incentives of such integration; underestimating the economic costs associated with such integration; and underestimating the degree of livestock-crop integration possible between households (see Table 1).agricultural production through greater crop-livestock integration (A) or mixed farming (B) in particular.Labour, not land, has been the most important limiting factor in cropland production in semi-arid West Africa (Lewis, 1979;Berry, 1984);The often-underestimated importance of customary non-market exchanges of labour, manure, traction and fodder among and between cropland and livestock managers (Gallais, 1972;Bernus, 1974;Delgado, 1979;McCown et al, 1979); B High natural correlation between dry-season livestock distribution and cultivated areas due to their close association with permanent water sources (Sandford, 1983). Thus even without explicit exchange or ownership mechanisms in place, cropland grazing and manuring occur;The circumscribed edaphic and climatic conditions under which each of the three technical components of crop-livestock integration significantly increases cropland production without external inputs (de Ridder and van Keulen, 1990;McIntire et al, 1992);The implicit assumption of access to external inputs (fertilisers, feed supplements, improved seeds) or more productive soils when calculating the productivity of integrated crop-livestock systems from on-station trials (Rabot, 1990);The costs to animal and range productivity associated with the reduction in livestock mobility required by the mixed farming model (Calvet et al, 1965;Breman and de Wit 1983;Bassett 1986;Turner 1992;Swallow, 1994);The degree of specialised knowledge and wider network of social contacts required for successful animal husbandry in semi-arid West Africa (Bonfiglioli, 1982;Niamir, 1990;McCorkle and Mathias-Mundy, 1992); B A large fraction of household income is derived from outside the agricultural sector entirely (Reardon et al, 1988;Delgado, 1989). Non-agricultural activities may compete successfully with the increased labour requirements necessary for the intensification of the farming system (Berry, 1984).A Despite limited success in the past, there has been a resurgence of interest among agronomists and economists in the mixed farming model in recent years. As mentioned above, the accumulation of a critical mass of research results demonstrating the importance of nutrients in limiting crop production and the prevalence of negative crop nutrient budgets has spurred this interest. More importantly, proponents of mixed farming argue that rural conditions are now changing in such a way to make adoption more likely. The major change cited has been an increase in population densities in many parts of the Sudanian zone, which has led to a reduction in fallows. Continued population growth in these areas will lead to an intensification of agricultural land use (Pingali et al, 1986;Sandford, 1990;McIntire et al, 1992;Winrock International, 1992). The underlying theoretical basis for these arguments is E. Boserup's model that predicts that increases in rural population density will necessarily lead to greater labour inputs per unit of cropland (Boserup, 1965). In other words, increased population density will lower the availability of land relative to labour, spurring an increase in the investment of labour to improve or better maintain the land's productivity. 1   While Boserup's model does not prescribe the manner in which land-use intensity will increase at higher population densities, many see agricultural intensification in semi-arid systems as first occurring through the integration of livestock and cropping systems at the level of the household. Implicit to such models is the view that among the various factors found to limit the adoption of mixed farming in the past (Table 1), population density dominates. Once population densities are sufficiently high, other remaining barriers to adoption are assumed to be small. Alternative intensification trajectories with labour organised at higher levels of social organisation and/or using different technologies are often not considered. This void is all the more surprising given the continued importance of labour scarcity in highly populated zones (Delgado, 1989). As a result of the influence of these views, agricultural intensification in semi-arid West Africa, crop-livestock integration, and mixed farming are often mistakenly treated as synonymous in the development literature.As a result of the new emphasis on fertility management and agricultural intensification as justifications for mixed farming as a development strategy, recent formulations have emphasised the agronomic benefits of manuring compared to the past, when animal traction was viewed as the major benefit that would drive adoption (Lhoste, 1987: 109;Matlon, 1988;McIntire et al, 1992;Winrock International, 1992). Population pressure is now seen to initially stimulate the incentives for increased self-management of livestock in order for agricultural households to more fully reap the manure benefits of livestock ownership (McIntire et al, 1992: 35). The adoption of the plow is seen to be more likely under situations of continuous cultivation and dependence on livestock manure for fertiliser (Pingali et al, 1986: 41). In fact, manuring is now viewed by many as the critical technological component driving agricultural intensification at its initial stages.Over the past two decades of recurrent drought, one has witnessed, as a result of shifts in herd ownership and rural subsistence strategies, a growing fraction of livestock being owned by sedentary agriculturalists (Toulmin, 1983;White, 1984;Bonfiglioli, 1985;Grayzel, 1990;Turner, 1993). As a result of the movements of human and livestock populations, many areas within the Sudanian zone have experienced rapid population growth, a corresponding expansion of cultivated area and decline in fallowing rates; and the rapid accumulation of livestock (van Keulen and Breman, 1990;Landais and Lhoste, 1993). The concurrence of these trends has been used by some observers as evidence for 1. Boserup's model is important in that it has provided a necessary countervailing conceptual framework to Malthusian prescriptions of the consequences of population growth on land-use and resource management. Moreover, it integrates well with studies demonstrating active experimentation and innovation by rural producers in Africa (Richards, 1985). However, to say that increased population density leads to greater cultivation intensity is redundant and self-evident. Once all arable land is cleared, a greater number of people supported by the same amount of land will necessarily have to be utilising the land more intensively. In this way, inter-regional cross-sectional studies that show rural agricultural population densities to be positively correlated with land-use intensity are uninteresting (McIntire et al, 1992: 33-35). In fact the findings of such studies are also consistent with Malthusian models. What is of real interest is how such population equilibriums come about. Will rural population growth lead to agricultural intensification, migration to uncultivated frontiers, seasonal/permanent migration to cities, or ecological deterioration and increased death rates? To use population growth as the sole factor for predicting changes in land-use intensity over a wide range of population densities and historical circumstances is questionable.smallholders choosing to intensify their agriculture in response to increased population pressure, through tighter integration of farming and livestock husbandry (Ramaswamy and Sanders, 1992;Landais and Lhoste, 1993). While this shift has made livestock-cropland integration more possible, to infer that the accumulation of livestock by sedentary agriculturalists results from their desire to \"integrate\" these two production systems is not warranted without more detailed research. Such research would have to demonstrate that livestock are increasingly being purchased more for their traction power and manure than for their historic role in the region as a growing source of capital that can be tapped for a range of expenses (Gallais, 1972;Pelissier, 1977;Reardon et al, 1988;Swinton, 1988;Turner, 1993).The increase in livestock managed by sedentary agricultural populations in the West African semi-arid zone, whatever the cause, has been viewed as a positive trend by proponents of croplivestock integration since it provides the basis for greater agronomic use of manure, a critical step in sustainable agricultural intensification. Others view the same trend with a great deal more trepidation. They argue that in most situations, the negative consequences of the stocking rates required to support continuous cultivation will not allow the agronomic benefits of manuring to be maintained over time (van Keulen and Breman, 1990).To evaluate, even qualitatively, the sustainability of manure-supported continuous cropping requires an understanding of how the agronomic benefits of manuring relate to the nutrient cycle of the whole farming system. A number of agronomic benefits of manure and urine application on semi-arid soils have been cited in the agronomy and soils literature. Table 2 lists a few prominent examples. From a nutrient budgeting perspective, these improve the nutrient status of crops by either accelerating the nutrient cycle, increasing the efficiency of the nutrient cycle or importing nutrients to the particular cropped area from elsewhere. A fair amount of confusion exists about the nutrient budgetary costs and benefits of manure/urine application in the farming systems literature. Benefits of manure/urine application, as commonly stated, need to be disaggregated into one or more of these three mechanisms to understand how they can affect the nutrient budget of the whole farming system. For example, manure/urine application is often described as leading to increased soil organic matter (SOM) and increased nutrient availability. The contribution to SOM of a given amount of manure cannot exceed that contributed by the equivalent amount of crop residue fed to animals producing the manure. Therefore, soil organic matter improvement to cropped areas by manuring can only occur through imports from grazed areas outside of cropped areas. On the other hand, the pool of nutrients available to crop growth results from a combination of an absolute increase in nutrient stocks caused by nutrient imports and by an acceleration of the nutrient cycle brought about by increasing nutrient availability.Such disaggregations are helpful in making sense of the claims and counter-claims made by manuring proponents and their ecological critics. To what extent do the agronomic benefits of manuring rely on nutrient transfers from rangelands? Detailed quantitative analyses are not required for one to conclude that the benefits of manuring rely heavily on nutrient transfers from rangeland. As suggested by Table 2, a large proportion of the agronomic benefits of manuring rely directly on nutrient transfers from rangeland. The agronomic benefits derived from the acceleration and increased efficiency of nutrient cycling do not rely on transfers from rangeland. However, those benefits that increase crop production by accelerating the nutrient cycle, only do so at a cost, since by increasing nutrient availability, they also increase the potential for loss from the farming system through leaching and volatilisation (de Ridder and van Keulen, 1990). Therefore, such modes cannot be viewed as sustainable in the long-term -spinning the wheel faster is not sufficient for maintaining crop production levels. This along with a consideration of nutrient harvest indexes typical of millet-based systems in semi-arid West Africa (Powell and Fussell (1993) estimate 45% N and 51% P), reveals that fertility maintenance of croplands through manuring in semi-arid West Africa can only be achieved through nutrient exports from non-cropped rangelands.Table 2. Agronomic benefits of manure/urine application to cropland and their underlying nutrient budgetary mechanisms.An increase in the availability of crop residue-bound nutrients (Ruess and McNaughton, 1987) AccelerationA rise in soil pH, which for many acid soils, increases the availability of phosphorus and nitrogen (Pieri, 1989;Powell and Ikpe, 1992) Acceleration Nutrient mineralisation more synchronous with the crop nutrient demand (Swift et al, 1989;Somda et al, this volume) Efficiency Increased soil organic matter thereby increasing CEC and reducing nutrient losses (Jones, 1973;Pieri, 1989) Transfer Increased soil organic matter improving soil structure and thus water-holding capacity, aeration, and infiltration (Charreau and Nicou, 1971;Landais and Lhoste, 1993) Transfer Increased soil organic matter which promotes the activity of free-living N2-fixing bacteria (Hafner et al, 1993) Transfer Increased soil nutrient pools (Quilfen and Milleville, 1981;Pieri 1986;Powell and Mohamed-Saleem 1987;Powell and Ikpe, 1992) TransferThe sustainability of nutrient harvesting from rangeland Sustainability can be evaluated using a range of different criteria (Lélé, 1993). For the purposes of this discussion, sustainability will be defined narrowly as the joint maintenance of cropland and rangeland productivity to support grain and livestock production. Any working definition of sustainability requires some sense of the maximum temporal and minimum spatial dimensions (Fresco and Kroonenberg, 1992). In this case, relevant spatial boundaries are determined by the maximal grazing radius of the livestock providing manure to the cropland (around 7 km). 2From a practical standpoint, the temporal scale can be set as the maximum planning horizon for government policy makers and rural producers (around 25 years). Over such temporal and spatial dimensions, livestock and agricultural production cannot necessarily be viewed as activities that do not compete for land at lower population densities (<100 persons/km 2 ), as has been suggested by some mixed farming advocates (McIntire et al, 1992: 41-44). 3 Nor can rangeland and cropland productivity be viewed as evolving independently of each other. A decline in the productivity of a rangeland, reflected in a combination of lower manure quality, livestock productivity, and local livestock presence, will result in a decline in the productivity of the cropland supported by its nutrient exports.While there are many locations in semi-arid West Africa, especially to the north, where livestockmediated transfer can be viewed as being limited by the availability of animals as transfer agents (Williams et al, this volume), a necessary step for any analysis of the sustainability of manuresupported continuous cropping is to relate the rangeland requirements necessary to sustainably support these transfers with the rangeland available. To this end, a number of analyses have estimated minimum rangeland-cropland ratios (RCR) that would be necessary for such systems (Quilfen and Milleville, 1981;Breman et al, 1986;Swift et al, 1989;van Keulen and Breman, 1990). To avoid the spatial and temporal complexities of local-level crop residue, manure and livestock management systems, these calculations are performed on a regional basis -comparing the computed ratio with aggregate land-use statistics. The series of calculations used to derive these ratios are of the same general form. The annual nutrient deficit of cropland (kg/ha per year) is multiplied by the ratio of the rangeland's carrying capacity (ha/TLU per year) divided by annual nutrient excretion by livestock on cropped areas (kg/TLU per year).In practice, these calculations are more complex, incorporating many more than three factors. A more realistic, but still limited, set of calculations to estimate the rangeland-cropland ratio necessary to maintain the N and P status of a continuously-cropped millet monoculture are presented below. 4  These equations are not presented as a pretext to present another set of estimations but to more clearly demonstrate the ramifications of their underlying assumptions. Equation 1is the calculation used to estimate the nutrients required from manure/urine to maintain soil fertility:where: NR = nutrient requirements to replenish losses resulting from biomass removals due to harvesting, weeding, and grazing kg/ha per year (N and P) UE = annual fraction of mobilised nutrients which are available to crops after losses due to leaching, volatilisation, weed uptake and erosion losses (N and P) INp = nutrient inputs through rainfall, kg/ha per year (N and P) INf = mean mineralisation rate of nutrients fixed from atmosphere, kg/ha per year (N) INh = mineralisation from soil nutrient pools with mean residence times >25 years, kg/ha per year (N and P) INmu = required mean mineralisation rate of nutrients supplied by manure and urine, kg/ha per year (N and P)From this estimate of the nutrients required to be supplied by manure/urine to replenish losses from the cropping system (INmu), the rangeland-cropland ratio (NCR) is estimated for each limiting nutrient (N, P) with the following equation:where: RCR = rangeland-cropland ratio necessary to support manure-supported continuous cropping RCF = fraction of total nutrients ingested by livestock that are provided by local rangelands CC = carrying capacity of grazed rangeland (ha/TLU per year) MP = kg of manure produced/TLU per year MC = nutrient content of manure, kg/kg (N and P) NP = mean annual nutrient mineralisation rate per kg of manure-supplied resulting from a chosen manuring regime, kg/kg per year (N and P) NF = ratio of nutrients voided in urine compared with those voided as manure (N)Nutrient transfer in West Africa 4. Nutrient requirements of the cropping system derived from manure/urine are estimated by balancing the flow of plant-utilisable mineralised nutrients with nutrient losses from the cropping system through the removal of plant material. Nutrient flows resulting from the mineralisation of nutrient pools having residence times significantly greater than the chosen sustainability time-scale (25 years) are treated as external inflows. Simplifying assumptions include: nutrient inflows and outflows through the movement of dust are assumed to be equal; the uptake efficiency (UE) is assumed to be the same for all mineralised nutrient flows despite differences in their release with respect to the root zone; no significant differences between livestock species with respect to nutrient excretion per kg of live weight (MP x MC), urine/manure fractionation (NF), or deposition fractions (DFm and DFu).DFm = fraction of manure voided that is deposited or transported to fields (N and P) DFu = fraction of urine voided that is deposited on fields (N).The maximum of the two ratios calculated separately for N and P would then be used as the final estimate of the amount of rangeland required to maintain the fertility of the manured cropland.Estimates of rangeland/cropland ratios using this general computational structure, typically range from 15-45 ha of rangeland needed to support the livestock required to manure one ha of cropland (Quilfen and Milleville, 1981;Breman et al, 1986;Swift et al, 1989;van Keulen and Breman, 1990). The wide range of these estimates reflects the significant uncertainties associated with the parameters. Estimations of RCR have typically but not ubiquitously ignored or excluded a number of the parameters of the above equations. Those parameters most commonly excluded are designated in the above equations in normal (not bold) typeface. Such omissions reflect different disciplinary perspectives, sustainability time scales, and assumed management systems. The effect of each of the most common omissions is to increase the estimated RCR. 5 Inclusion of these omissions into the computation of RCR for millet monoculture systems in semi-arid West Africa, would generally result in estimates falling within the lower end of the 15-45 ha/ha range (e.g. 10-30 ha/ha).Even if reduced, these RCRs call into question the viability of mixed farming as a model for agricultural development in the West African semi-arid zone. They place a ceiling on manuresupported cropping fractions (4 to 9%) well below that of total cultivated fractions in many areas of the Sudanian zone (van Keulen and Breman, 1990). Therefore, there are strong biophysical limits to the intensification of agriculture through greater crop-livestock integration. Conversion of existing cropped areas to continuous cropping can never be supported solely by manuring (van Keulen and Breman, 1990). Based on these values, continuous cropping of cultivated fractions greater than 9% cannot be achieved without fertilisers and/or livestock feed supplements.It should also be noted that the RCRs are most commonly estimated using livestock-based carrying capacities. That is, they are based on the nutritional requirements of livestock and not on long-term degradation processes. Therefore, the biophysical limits that are referred to here are production based, i.e. animal production will suffer in situations where grazing lands available per unit of manuresupported, continuously-cropped land fall below the appropriate RCR. Moreover, there is a limited possibility of allowing the productivity of animals to decline in order to gain greater nutrient transfers from non-cropped lands. As the nutritional status of animals decline, so will the quality and quantity of their excretions. Not surprisingly, longitudinal studies in heavily cropped zones have observed a decline in livestock presence with the extension of cultivated area, resulting from livestock wealth reductions or increased transhumance (Lhoste, 1987;Garin et al, 1990). Estimated RCRs are somewhat surprising given that increased manuring is viewed as critical for the intensification of land use. Not only are there significant limits to the expansion of such cropping systems, but they often represent a more extensive use of arable lands than alternatives. The total land requirement of such a system is significantly higher than so-called \"extensive\" fallowing systems, which have a sustainable fallow/cropland ratio of 5 (Young and Wright, 1980). Under higher land pressures, farmers will collectively pursue a mixed strategy to maintain the fertility of a maximum amount of cropland, thereby maintaining the fertility of higher cultivated fractions than predicted from RCRs alone.M. Turner 5. The omission of natural sources of nutrient input through rainfall, N-fixation, and mineralisation of long-term nutrient pool s (INp,INf,INh = 0) reflects the assumption that the fertility status of uncultivated lands is in equilibrium -nutrient inputs equal outputs. Therefore, any cropping-related export outputs must be balanced by new nutrient inputs. However, the fertility status of many uncultivated lands is not in equilibrium, as evidenced by the role of fallowing in restoring soil fertility. The exclusion of urine as a nitrogen source (DFu = 0), is based on assumptions concerning livestock management and urine volatilisation which are not valid for semi-arid West African farming systems (Powell and Ikpe, 1992).The assumption that all nutrients are derived from local rangelands (RCF = 1) results from the combination of assuming that crop residues represent a very small portion of livestock diets; and choosing to perform the analysis at a regional scale where it is assumed that, despite seasonal transhumance, livestock are being supported by rangeland within the circumscribed area.The relative importance of manuring in maintaining the fertility of cropland will vary with respect to the type of land available to a village. A simple model will illustrate this point. Assume that a village could regulate its animal population and fertility management in such a way as to maximise its sustainably-supported cropland. In addition, assume that manure-supported and fallow-supported cropland are separately managed (in-field, out-field pattern), and that livestock manuring cropland graze on both rangeland and fallows. Figures 1a and 1b show how both total cultivated area and the manure-supported fraction of cultivated area would vary with respect to the extent of non-arable lands within the daily grazing orbit of village herds at two different RCRs. 6 As would be expected, the fraction of cropland supported by manure increases non-linearly with the non-arable fraction. Manure-supported fractions are consistently higher at lower RCRs. 7   A reduction in RCR increases the total cropped fraction, especially where village lands have high non-arable fractions. In this example, increasing RCR from 10 to 30 leads to an 18% and 45% reduction in sustainable cropped fraction at 0% and 80% non-arable fractions, respectively. Therefore, the appropriate fertility management strategies pursued by rural producers will vary with respect to their access to land resources under existing livestock ownership and management constraints.Calculated RCRs support arguments that the potential for continuous cropping without fertiliser is limited in semi-arid West Africa. Therefore they are useful in guiding long-term agricultural planning. At high population densities, the mixed farming model is not viable without external inputs. However, such calculations provide surprisingly little insight into the appropriate policies and technologies that will improve resource management to better maintain productivity. There are two major reasons for this. The first is the wide variation in the RCR estimates with little knowledge about the factors behind this variability. An RCR range of 10-45 may be useful in discussing the future of agriculture in semi-arid West Africa, but it does not provide any guidance for planners and policy makers working at national and subnational levels. The second is the high degree of spatial aggregation inherent to such calculations. This paper argues that these two deficiencies are both cause and effect of the limited amount of analysis of the socio-economic factors affecting local-level management practices. It is only from a synthesis of such knowledge that aggregation can validly be conducted and future trends predicted.The wide variation in the estimated values for RCRs provide little guidance for policy makers and planners. This variation results less from a lack in basic knowledge of nutrient soil dynamics, nutrient uptake by crops, and range ecology, and more from a limited understanding of the landscape-level nutrient cycling ramifications of different management practices; the variation structure of these management practices (individual, household, village and region); and the social and biophysical factors that affect these practices. A review of equations 1 and 2 reveals that the values of many parameters are strongly affected by management practices. For example, the NR and UE parameters in equation 1 are influenced by agronomic practices such as the extent of weeding, interannual regimes Nutrient transfer in West Africa 7. These fractions are consistent with the findings of land-use surveys conducted at different villages in the semi-arid zone (Prudencio, 1987;Gavian, 1992). In systems where there is a more extensive incorporation of annual and perennial legumes into the cropping and fallow systems, higher cultivated fractions and manure-supported fractions can be maintained (Garin et al, 1990). One important limitation of this presentation however is that RCR will vary in an inverse fashion with respect to non-arable land fraction since carrying capacities (CC) are generally lower for non-arable lands. for manure/urine application, manure/urine and crop residue incorporation into the soil, crop residue removals and plowing. Virtually all of the parameters of equation 2 are affected by the livestock ownership and livestock management decisions of rural producers. Livestock species composition will directly affect manure production rates (MP), manure quality (MC) and carrying capacity (CC).Management decisions, such as those on crop residue grazing, transhumance and nocturnal location of livestock, will determine the dependence of livestock on local pastures (RCF) and the amount of manure/urine deposited or transported to fields (DFm and DFu).Even carrying capacities, which are often assumed to be based on biophysical criteria, are heavily dependent on management strategies. Carrying capacities are normally presented as annuallyaggregated values. Implicit in such calculations is that livestock are sedentarily managed. In reality, livestock management in most Sahelian villages is very fluid. The seasonality of grazing experienced on local pastures can be significantly modified by decisions made by villagers on the sending their livestock or receiving outside livestock on transhumance. For CC estimations based on livestock nutritional requirements, the seasonality of grazing will have a significant effect on the forage utilisation coefficients that are possible (de Leeuw and Tothill, 1990;Breman and de Ridder, 1991: 390). For those based on range ecology, the productivity and composition of pastures have been found to most affected by persistent grazing during the rainy season (Turner, 1992: 331-398;Hiernaux and Turner, 1993). The distinction between a fully-sedentary and a highly mobile pastoral system might not be a very useful distinction either for describing present indigenous systems nor to design 'optimum' farming systems. Due to the seasonal variation of rangeland sensitivity and nutrient transfer efficiencies, the degree of damage to rangeland per unit of nutrient transferred to agricultural fields will vary significantly across the year.The importance of the variation in livestock wealth, access to land-based resources, agronomic management, and livestock management in affecting the values of RCR cannot be queried. However, there has been relatively little analysis attempting to characterise the structure of this variation with respect to spatial and social units of analysis (individual, household, village and region), and quantify the nutrient transfer implications of this variation. All evidence points to large intra-village and intra-regional variation in access to land, livestock ownership, agronomic and livestock management (Sutter, 1987;Raynaut, 1988;Bonnet, 1990;Gavian, 1992). All too often, analyses have been performed using averaged data to depict agricultural management typical for the \"farming system\" in a region or bioclimatic zone. Averages are added, multiplied, and divided by averages. Such an approach not only has important mathematical problems, which could lead to large divergences from reality, 8 but it provides little insight into what policies and technologies could improve local resource management nor how such \"systems\" will change in the future. A more complete understanding of the variation structure of important management practices and the socio-economic and biophysical incentives and constraints affecting these practices would provide us a much better basis not only for aggregation but for predicting future changes in these \"systems\" and identifying arenas where outside policy or technology interventions may improve the situation (Blaikie, 1985).Evaluations of the sustainability of manure-supported, continuous cropping through the calculation of RCRs, have been conducted at a regional level. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this. However, the problem is that much of the analysis, discussion and debate about the sustainability of different fertility management strategies have remained at this high plane of abstraction. In so doing, there has been a tendency to ignore the fact that from a fertility management perspective, spatial scales closer to the level of the village are much more appropriate. This becomes all the more clear when one Nutrient transfer in West Africa 8. Since many of the underlying relationships are non-linear, there is potentially a fair amount of error introduced by such a method. Moreover, there is likely to be a fair amount of autocorrelation among the underlying management and biophysical variables (Williams, 1994). As a result, the RCR as calculated from mean parameters can diverge significantly from the true mean RCR.considers how to use a regional RCR to guide resource policy and village-based management innovations. As shown in Figure 2, the cultivated fraction for particular village lands diverge widely from the regional average. Villages are in quite different positions with respect to local land use. Moreover, given the higher density of cultivated area near villages, average RCRs for village lands will always be lower than the regional average.A reliance on regional-scale analyses also ignores the primary importance of grazing and herd management in determining the sustainability of livestock-mediated nutrient transfers. All rangeland is assumed to be accessible to village-based livestock. The analysis above suggests that large areas of rangeland within a region are outside the daily grazing orbits of village-based livestock. Therefore, these areas cannot provide nutrients to cropland, they can only provide nutrition for village livestock that leave on short transhumance. Even within an area which could be considered within the grazing range of village-based livestock (7 km), differences in how these animals are managed will affect the effective grazing orbit. Significant differences in livestock productivity have been documented between herds managed by adult herders in the same area reflecting, in part, differences in daily herding practice (Koyate, 1987;Killanga et al, 1989;Turner, 1992: 225-278). Add to this variability the wide differences in grazing radius between free-ranging, children-herded, and adult-herded livestock, it becomes clear that the rangeland surrounding a village that is grazed by livestock is highly dependent on management. of Maradi, Niger, in 1957 and 1976. 1   1. Cultivated areas presented in these maps most likely include recent fallows. The uncultivated-to-cultivated ratio for the whole 440 km 2 zone is compared to the range of values found for village perimeters of 3 km radius and for their overall mean in both years.• Source: de Miranda (1980: 50-51). To illustrate this point, consider a simple model of village land use where a circle of manure-supported continuously-cropped land immediately surrounding the village is surrounded by a ring of unmanured fields, fallows, and rangeland. For simplicity, assume that all land outside the continuously-cropped zone is open for grazing (ignores unmanured fields and assumes no externally-imposed boundary). The grazing perimeter for the village livestock is determined by the nocturnal location and effective grazing radius (GR) of its herds (affected by livestock species and herding practice). Cropland area is determined by dividing the grazed area by the assumed RCR. 9 Figure 3 shows how grazing radius can affect the amount of supportable agricultural land. Each of these two options are practised by different villages in Niger. 10 Bringing the animals to the perimeter of the cropped zone at night entails greater labour cost to the villagers, not only for guarding herds at night but also for the trips to the herd for milking. During the dry season, the relationship would fall between these two options since the cattle would spend nights on the fields.  The interesting feature of this simple model is that it shows that over a wide range of sustainability ratios (e.g. 20-40), the supportable cropped area is determined more by the livestock management options taken by village households than by the sustainability ratio (RCR) itself. There is wide inter-household and inter-village variation in the grazing management of village-based livestock, reflecting differences in local patterns of land types, livestock management experience, labour availability, and prevalence of labour sharing. This variation also reflects a fair amount of experimentation by villagers. Therefore, there is the potential for management changes that would have significant positive effects on sustainability of agropastoral systems -a possibility often overlooked by development specialists who often mistakenly view livestock management as inherently resistant to change (Pouillon, 1990).This paper first introduces the mixed farming model for agricultural development in semi-arid West Africa and shows how it is often mistakenly viewed as synonymous with the more general concept of crop-livestock integration. It is shown that despite many years of failure, mixed farming proponents view the present demographic and economic situation as more conducive for widespread adoption. As a result of the theoretical and empirical evidence to support this claim, manuring has assumed the role as the most critical technical component of the mixed farming package. However, calculations of the rangeland required to support this practice show that there are severe biophysical limits to the widespread adoption of the mixed farming model. Continuous-cropping cannot be supported without the provision of fertilisers and/or animal supplements, both of which require foreign exchange. During the period before widespread availability of fertilisers and/or feed supplements in semi-arid West Africa, farmers will need to be able to pursue a wide range of practices to help maintain soil fertility. Given labour constraints in rural areas, there will be a continued need for labour-sharing, occupational specialisation, and barter exchange between different groups above the level of the household. The false promise of sedentary mixed farming has indirectly reduced the management options available to livestock owners by providing justification for government indifference towards the protection of transhumance corridors from agricultural encroachment, despite the fact that greater livestock mobility has become more necessary in heavily cultivated areas due to declining availability of local pastures.While demonstrating the severe limits for the future of sedentary mixed farming, the high spatial and temporal abstraction of such analyses and the wide variation in their estimates are both cause and effect of the limited awareness of the critical importance of local management practices in affecting the sustainability of rangeland-to-cropland nutrient transfer. In other words, how rural producers utilise their local resources can be just as important as how many rural producers there are. Examples have been given in this paper showing that there is wide variation in management practices that significantly affect the efficiency of nutrient transfer and that these local practices have regionally emergent effects on the sustainability of rural production. Simply comparing regional land-use statistics with an estimated RCR range, while undoubtedly showing the need for population control and fertiliser imports, provides little guidance to policy makers, planners, and extension agents in implementing resource management policy.Measuring the sustainability of crop-livestock systems in sub-Saharan Africa: Methods and data requirements S. Ehui and M.A. Jabbar International Livestock Centre for Africa (ILCA), P O Box 5689, Addis Ababa, EthiopiaLivestock are an important component of farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa. They are raised mainly for meat, milk and skin and provide a flexible financial reserve in years of crop failure. They also play a critical role in the agricultural intensification process by providing draft power and manure for crop production. With increasing human population and economic changes, cultivated areas in many sub-Saharan African countries have expanded on to marginal lands and fallow periods are being shortened. As a result, large areas of land have been degraded and crop and animal yields have fallen.Improved crop-livestock production systems and technologies are currently being developed in response to the growing demand for food and the degradation of the natural resource base. These technologies must enhance food production; they also need to maintain ecological stability and preserve the natural resource base, i.e. they must be sustainable. However, the notion of sustainability has been of limited operational use to policy makers and researchers attempting to evaluate new technologies and/or determine the effects of various policies and technologies. This paper discusses a methodology for measuring the sustainability and economic viability of crop-livestock systems. The approach is based on the concept of intertemporal and interspatial total factor productivity, paying particular attention to the valuation of natural resource stock and flows. The method is applied to a data set available at the International Livestock Centre for Africa (ILCA). Intertemporal and interspatial total factor productivity indices are computed for three farming systems in south-western Nigeria.Results show that the sustainability and economic viability measures are sensitive to changes in the stock and flow of soil nutrients as well as to material inputs and outputs. The advantage of this approach is that intertemporal and interspatial total factor productivity measures are computed using only price and quantity data, thus eliminating the need for econometric estimation.Evaluation de la durabilité des systèmes mixtes de production agropastorale en Afrique subsaharienne: méthodes et données requises Livestock are an important component of farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa. They are raised mainly for meat, milk and skin and provide a flexible financial reserve for farmers in years of crop failure. They also play a critical role in the agricultural intensification process by providing draft power and manure for fertiliser and fuel (Winrock International, 1992;Fitzhugh et al, 1992). With increasing human population and economic changes, cultivated areas in many sub-Saharan African countries have expanded on to marginal lands and fallow periods are being shortened. As a result, large areas of land are being degraded and crop and animal yields are falling (IBRD, 1989;Ehui and Hertel, 1989). Where both crops and livestock are raised, technology is low, inputs scarce, and markets poorly developed, population pressures lead to the evolution of crop-livestock systems as the most efficient and sustainable means of increasing off-take from a fixed land base (McIntire et al, 1992). Thus smallholders will benefit from livestock if they can be successfully integrated with the cropping systems.Improved crop-livestock production systems and technologies are currently being developed in response to the growing demand for food and the degradation of the natural resource base (ILCA, 1993). These technologies must not only enhance food production but also maintain ecological stability and preserve the natural resource base, i.e. they must be sustainable. However, the notion of sustainability has been of limited operational use to policy makers and researchers attempting to evaluate new technologies and determine the effects of various policies and technologies. This paper discusses a methodology for measuring the agricultural sustainability and economic viability of crop-livestock systems. The approach is based on the concept of intertemporal and interspatial total factor productivity (TFP) paying particular attention to valuation of natural resource stock and flows (Ehui and Spencer, 1993).The conventional approach to growth accounting uses TFP indices to measure the residual growth in outputs not accounted for by the growth in factor inputs. The rate of growth of TFP is conventionally defined as the rate of growth of aggregate output minus the rate of growth of aggregate inputs (Capalbo and Antle, 1988).Agriculture, however, is a sector which utilises common pools of natural resources (e.g. air, water, soil nutrients etc). The stock of these resources affects the production environment, but is in many cases beyond the control of the farmers. For example soil nutrients are removed by crops, erosion or leaching beyond the crop root zone, or other processes such as volatilisation of nitrogen. Agricultural production can also contribute to the stock of some of the nutrients, particularly of nitrogen by leguminous plants and animal manure.When the stock of nutrients is reduced through nutrient losses, the farmer faces an implicit cost in terms of productivity loss. Conversely, when the stock of resources is increased during the production process (e.g. via nitrogen fixation or manuring) the farmer derives at implicit benefit from the system. If these implicit costs and benefits are not accounted for when TFP is measured, results will be misleading.The model used here builds on that developed by Ehui and Spencer (1993). They show that a system will be said to be sustainable if the associated intertemporal TFP index, which incorporates and values changes is the resource stock and flow, does not decrease. They also show that one system will be said to be economically more viable than another if the interspatial TFP index associated with the former, which incorporates and values spatial differences in the resource stock and flow, is higher than the interspatial TFP index associated with the latter. While intertemporal TFP is about the productive capacity of a system over time (thus sustainability) interspatial TFP is a static concept which refers to the efficiency with which resources are employed in the production process at a given period. In both cases the measures include the unpriced contribution from natural resources and their unpriced production flows.Figure 1 illustrates the difference between intertemporal and interspatial TFP for two hypothetical systems. System 1 is sustainable since its intertemporal TFP increases from \"a\" to \"d\" over the same period. However, system 2 is economically more viable (or efficient) than system 1 in year 2 (c>a), but it is economically less viable in year n (d>b). To derive the generalised model for TFP measurement, Ehui and Spencer (1993) solved a maximisation problem. When changes in resource stock levels are positive, the problem is stated as:Max πt = Pyt Yt + Pzt Zt -G(Yt, Zt, Wt, Bt, t) (1) [Yt, Zt] In this equation πt is a measure of aggregate profit in period t, including all benefits and costs of resource exploitation; Yt is an index of crop outputs; Zt is an externality denoting the net resource flow in period t; when changes in resource abundance levels are positive, we have a positive externality and the resulting net resource flow, Zt, is treated as an output, thus contributing positively to the aggregate profit. Pyt and Pzt are the product and resource flow prices; Bt is a technology shift variable representing the level of resource abundance in period t. Equation (1) represents the case of \"open access\" in which Bt is not a choice variable. The resource stock is beyond the control of farmers who thus ignore its opportunity cost. G( . ) is the variable cost function for the optimal combination of variable inputs, where G( . )/B<0 and G( . )/Z0. Wt is a vector of variable input prices; t is the time trend representing the state of technical knowledge.When the production process is depleting the resource at a rate faster than that required for sustainability, net changes in resource abundance levels are negative. Thus, we have a negative externality and Zt is treated as a cost, contributing negatively to the aggregate profit. This requires modification of the objective function ( 1) by replacing the (+) sign before PztZt with a (-) sign, and in this case, G ( . )/Z <0.Using the first order conditions of ( 1), development of the continuous time Divisia index by method of the growth accounting approach gives:In this equation C = ΣjWjXj = PyY + PzZ = total revenue assuming constant returns to scale. Dots on variables imply the logarithm derivation of the associated variable with time.When changes in the resource stock are negative, the productivity index becomes:where C = ΣjWjXj + PzZ = PyY, assuming constant returns to scale.Equations ( 2) and ( 3) indicate that TFP is measured as the residual after the growth rate of output {[Py Y/C]} has been allocated among changes in inputs {Σj[WjXj/C]j} and resource abundance {B} and flows [PzZ/C]Z. The basic difference between (2) and ( 3) is that in (2) the change in resource stock is assumed positive and the resulting flow is treated as a benefit. In equation ( 3) the change in resource stock is assumed to be negative and the resulting flow is treated as a cost.It is clear from equations ( 2) and ( 3) that total factor productivity measures are biased unless variations in the resource stock abundance levels and resource flows are accounted for. Note that although it is not a choice variable, Bt is part of the solution because it appears in the variable cost function, G.A discrete-time approximation to the continuous time Divisia indexes of equations ( 2) and ( 3) is given by the Tornqvist approximation (Diewert, 1976;Ehui and Spencer, 1993). Allowing for resource abundance and flows this approximation gives measures of the intertemporal and interspatial TFP indexes. As in equations ( 2) and ( 3) we distinguish between two cases:Case of net negative changes in resource stock• Interspatial TFPwhere s and t represent two distinct time periods and i and o represent two distinct farming systems or two distinct geographical areas; B is the composite index of soil nutrient abundance; Z denotes the resource flow; Rj = (PjYj)/(ΣjPjYj) is the revenue share for output Yj; S = (WkXk)/(ΣkWkXk) is the cost share for variable input k, and Sz and Rz are the cost and revenue shares of resource flow Z. The basic difference between τst and ρio and τ / st and ρ / io is that in equations ( 4) and ( 5) the net increase in resource stock is treated as benefit while in equations ( 6) and ( 7) it is treated as cost. It is clear from equations (4) to (7) that the productivity differences across different farming systems and time periods can be broken into four components including: an output effect (the first term in equations ( 4) to ( 7)), a resource flow (the second term in equations ( 4) to ( 7)) effect, an input effect (the third term in equations ( 4) to ( 7)) and a resource stock effect (the last term in equations ( 4) to ( 7)).The framework discussed above is demonstrated using a set of data generated during a nine-year study by the International Livestock Centre for Africa (ILCA) at Ibadan (south-western Nigeria). The experiment comprised three systems: the traditional method of cultivation (system A) commonly known as bush fallow system; the continuous alley farming systems (system B); and alley farming with fallow (system C). In the traditional system farmers fell and burn the fallow vegetation, cultivate the cleared land (typically one to three years) and then abandon the site (from 4 to 20 years) to forest or bush cover (Sanchez, 1976). This traditional agricultural production system, which is known to be stable and biologically efficient, operates effectively only where there is sufficient land to allow a long fallow period to restore soil productivity (Kang et al, 1989). The fallow land also serves as a source of feed for the animals. In recent times, population growth and various economic changes have caused the fallow period to be shortened or eliminated. This is resulting in increased degradation of farm land, lower supply of quality feed, declining crop and animal yields and reduced production of food from both crop and animal origins.Alley farming is an agroforestry system in which crops are grown in alleys formed by hedgerows of trees and shrubs, preferably fast-growing leguminous species. The hedgerows are cut back at the time of planting food crops and are periodically pruned during cropping to prevent shading and to reduce competition with the associated food crops. They may also be established along slopes to minimise erosion. A portion of the hedgerow foliage is used as animal feed. Using woody legumes provides rich mulch and green manure to maintain soil fertility, enhance crop production, and provide protein-rich fodder for livestock. In this experiment small ruminants were part of the system and were fed part of the hedgrow foliage. One major advantage of alley farming over the traditional bush fallow system is that cropping, animal feeding and fallow phases can take place concurrently on the same land unit, allowing the farmer to crop the land and feed the animals for an extended period. However, where it is technically feasible, it is possible to combine alley farming with some short cycle fallow periods as in system C.Since the cropping systems have multiple crop outputs (maize and cowpea) an implicit output index is calculated by dividing the total value of all output by a price index. The latter is obtained by weighting the maize and cowpea prices by the revenue share of each crop.Three major inputs are distinguished: planting materials, labour and fertiliser. While labour and fertiliser input quantities are used as observed, the planting material indices are bilateral Tornqvist chain indices for each type of planting materials. Planting materials for each crop is aggregated to a single index weighted by the cost share of each planting material.The Divisia index for the soil nutrient stock is calculated by share-weighting the total quantities of main soil nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) available in the top soil (0-10 cm). The opportunity cost of each soil nutrient is approximated by its replacement cost, i.e. market price for chemical fertiliser. Resource (nutrient) flows are derived as the difference between nutrient abundance levels for a given production system between 1983 and 1984, and between 1983 and 1990. These two periods were chosen to assess short-and long-run effects.Intertemporal and interspatial total factor productivity indices for the three production systems under different scenarios were calculated and are reported in Tables 1 and 2, respectively. The basic analysis is conducted under two scenarios: (1) with and without resource stock and flows and (2) with and without a livestock component. Scenario (2) was evaluated to assess the impact of the livestock component on the TFP measures.Table 1. Intertemporal total factor productivity (sustainability) indices for three crop-livestock systems under experimental conditions in south-western Nigeria, 1983Nigeria, -1984Nigeria, and 1983Nigeria, -1990. From column (5) in Table 1, over the period from 1983 to 1990, TFP increased for the continuous alley-farming systems (system B) and declined for both the traditional system (system A) and alley-farming with fallow (system C). The continuous alley-farming system produced 1.28 times as much output in 1990 as in 1983 using the 1983 input bundle. Therefore, the continuous alley-farming system can be said to be sustainable over the seven-year interval since after properly accounting for temporal differences in input quality and quantity and resource flows and stocks, it produced more than in the reference year (1983). The traditional bush-fallow system and the alley-farming systems with fallow produced only 0.78 and 0.60 as much output in 1990 as in 1983 using the 1983 input bundle. Thus these two systems can be said to be non-sustainable. During the period 1983-1984, the three systems had total factor productivity measures greater than one, indicating that they were sustainable over the relatively short one-year period (Table 1, column 3). Totally accounting for changes in resource stock levels and flows, alters the productivity measures (Table 1). For example during 1983-90 when resource stock and flows are not accounted for, results indicate that the continuous alley-farming system and the traditional bush fallow-system produced 1.46 and 0.92 as much output as in 1983 using 1983 input bundle. However, since there was a decline in nutrient stock level in both systems over time the gain in productivity level was actually lower (1.28 and 0.28), respectively (Table 1). In Table 2, the economic viability of the three systems during 1983, 1984 and 1990 are compared. The traditional bush-fallow system is used as the reference base system. In 1983In , 1984In and 1990, after accounting for changes in resource abundance and flows, both the alley-farming systems (continuous and with fallow) are shown to be relatively more productive than the traditional bush-fallow system. The estimated interspatial TFP measures are largely greater than one, indicating that the two alley farming systems produced comparatively more output than the traditional bush-fallow system using the latter system's input bundle. Comparison of columns ( 1) to (3) with columns (4), ( 6) and (8) indicate that when resource stock and flows are accounted for the productivity measures yield different results. The extent of these differences, of course, depend on how significant the changes in resource stock and flows are. In this case, changes in resource stock levels and flows have not been significant enough to substantially alter the productivity measures.To assess the relative importance of the livestock component in the TFP measures, the analysis was conducted with and without a livestock component. In all cases except for the measurement of the intertemporal TFP during 1983-84, all the productivity measures declined significantly indicating that livestock do play a significant role in the total productivity of the farm. Therefore when farmers raise animals on the farm (as all of them do) and the productivity measures consider only the crop aspect, results will be biased. A system may be said to be non-sustainable when it is like the continuous alley farming during the period from 1983 to 1990. When the animal component is ignored, the intertemporal TFP measure is only 0.64. When the livestock component is accounted for the same productivity measure doubles to 1.28 (Table 1). The same is true for interspatial TFP measures. For example during 1990 when the livestock component is omitted from the analysis, we erroneously conclude that the continuous alley farming is economically less viable than the traditional bush-fallow system (see Table 2, columns ( 8) and ( 9)).Intertemporal and interspatial TFP adjusted for resource flows and stock provide an excellent framework for evaluating the sustainability and economic viability of production systems. In this paper conventional TFPs are modified to develop a generalised TFP framework in which the contribution of crop and livestock outputs and the unpriced contribution of nutrient stock and flows are separately and properly accounted for. This paper shows that where resource flows and stocks are not negligible, the measures of TFP indices provide markedly different results from conventional TFP approaches. Disentangling the productivity residual from changes in resource stock and flows honed the productivity residual to finer precision. While the analytical framework presented within this paper is appealing, its successful application depends greatly on data availability. In this paper only changes in major soil nutrient are taken into consideration. The model needs to take into consideration other indications of natural resource degradation, including vegetation, and the physical, chemical and microbiological properties of soil.The objectives of this paper are to present the role of livestock in sustainable agricultural systems; introduce the reader to the Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resources Management (SANREM) Collaborative Research Support Program (CRSP) and the Landscape Approach to Sustainability in the Tropics (LAST); present relevant results of the reconnaissance survey from the SANREM/CRSP Burkina Faso site; and discuss how interdisciplinary research on the role of livestock is part of elucidating principles of SANREM.Sustainable agriculture has been defined by the National Agricultural Research, Extension and Training Policy Act of 1977, as amended by Section 1603 of the Fact Act as:an integrated system of plant and animal production practices having a site-specific application that will, over the long term: 1) satisfy human food and fiber needs; 2) enhance environmental quality and the natural resource base upon which the agricultural economy depends; 3) make the most efficient use of nonrenewable resources and on-farm resources and integrate where appropriate, natural biological cycles and controls; 4) sustain the economic viability of farm operations; and 5) enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole (USDA, 1994).Almost all definitions of sustainable agriculture include the need for long-term maintenance of natural resources and agricultural productivity, minimal adverse environmental impacts, adequate economic returns to farmers, optimal crop production with minimised chemical inputs, satisfaction of human needs for food and income, and provision for the social needs of farm families and communities (NRC, 1991).The role of livestock in promoting sustainable agriculture and natural resource management is implicit in these definitions. Livestock production has a direct impact on four of the eight elements of sustainable agriculture as listed by the NRC (1991): 1) conservation of soil and water resources and soil physical and biological characteristics, processes and cycles that maintain soil fertility; 2) cultural practices for improving soil fertility, controlling erosion, and maximising biological production potential (e.g. tillage methods, crop residue management, irrigation, alley cropping and agroforestry); 3) indigenous practices and uses of germplasm and the economic and cultural consequences of biodiversity loss and preservation; and 4) the consequence of converting forest and savannah lands into range for cattle production. Livestock production systems also affect other elements of sustainable agriculture such as integrated pest management, institutional arrangements, resource management, land tenure, public policy and production of food crops and cash crops (NRC, 1991).The central themes of sustainable agriculture are crucial to food production and the well being of farmers in agropastoral and mixed farming systems in Africa. In these farming systems, crop and livestock production interact in ways which either complement or compete for natural and human resources (Reed, 1988;McIntire et al, 1992). Most farms in African agropastoral and mixed farming systems are operated by a single extended family with little or no hired labour. Levels of crop and livestock production provide subsistence, but do not provide sufficient savings and capital for investment and the purchase of external inputs. These farms have a significant dependence on livestock (McDowell, 1977a). Income from animal-related products is typically 40% of the gross farm income, but may be as high as 70% (Gryseels and Getachew Asamenew, 1985).Ruminant livestock contribute a large diversity of non-food products (McDowell, 1977b). Milk and meat production are less important than livestock products which complement crop production such as animal traction and manure for increasing soil fertility (McDowell, 1977b). Other uses are also important, especially the role of livestock as a source of capital for purchasing seeds and food when on-farm production of food is inadequate. Manure is used to increase soil fertility as fertilisers are often unavailable or too expensive. Animal traction is used for cultivation, weeding, carting, water-lifting and processing food crops. Domestic ruminants and equines increase overall farm productivity by grazing uncultivated land and crop residues. Swine, poultry and a large diversity of other species complement food production by using kitchen wastes and by-products of food processing, and therefore increase overall crop productivity.However, livestock may also compete with food crop production in the use of resources (land, labour and capital). Increases in the area of land cultivated leads to restriction of grazing areas and the potential of damage to crops from grazing animals (cf. Loofboro, 1993). Labour for herding livestock during the cropping season may not be available because young adults have emigrated to urban areas, children are attending school and existing labour is needed for cultivating, planting, weeding and harvesting food crops. If labour for herding is unavailable, cattle, sheep and goats may be tethered for extended periods of time during the cropping season. Tethered livestock have low productivity because they have insufficient feed, decreased grazing time and increased exposure to disease (especially internal parasites). Development of rice cultivation and vegetable gardening in seasonally flooded pasture land is another form of competition between livestock and crop production.The Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Collaborative Research Support Program (SANREM/CRSP) is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The aim of this programme is to support innovative, integrated systems-based research that will lead to the identification and development of sustainable agricultural production systems in developing countries. The consortium of universities, non-government organisations, national and international agricultural research centres which are implementing this programme has adopted a Landscape Approach to Sustainability in the Tropics (LAST). The lead institution for LAST is the University of Georgia. LAST was developed with the mission to implement a comprehensive, farmer participatory, interdisciplinary research, training, and information-exchange programme for elucidating and establishing the principles of sustainable agriculture and natural resource management on a landscape scale.The project focuses on two broad ecological zones (mega-zones): the humid tropics and the semiarid/subhumid tropics. A landscape ecology approach is used to study the internal, external and interactive processes among ecosystems within a toposequence. These processes include the human aspect of the ecosystem in addition to biological and physical processes. The project has adopted a \"farmer-back-to-farmer\" model for research which includes the farmer in identification of research problems, design of potential solutions, formulation of recommendations, and the final decision on appropriateness of technology (Rhoades and Booth, 1982). In addition, gender analysis is an integral part of research design and implementation. Gender analysis is used to identify the actual user (men or women, young or old) of technology and its potential contribution to family income and effects on income use. LAST has selected watersheds in participating countries as the appropriate geographical scale in which to study the ecology of the interactions between agricultural and natural biological ecosystems.Project design and implementation is currently underway at two research sites: the Manupali watershed on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines and a watershed which encompasses the village of Donsin in the semi-arid zone of Burkina Faso, West Africa. Project implementation occurs in three stages. The first stage consists of network building among key institutions involved in the CRSP to develop communications and collaborative relationships among the researchers and communities in the watershed. The second stage consists of a Participatory Landscape Lifescape Appraisal (PLLA) conducted in the watershed by teams from collaborating institutions and residents of the watershed. The PLLA adopted several of the techniques developed for Rapid Rural Appraisal and Participatory Rural Appraisal for the purpose of assisting residents of the watershed and LAST researchers in the identification of key research issues in SANREM. The third stage consists of a national workshop attended by representatives of all participating institutions including farmers and other representatives of residents in the watershed. The major research themes and problems are identified at the workshop. The output is used by the National Coordinating Committee as a guideline for developing the work plans for the research programme. This process has been completed for the Philippines and is in the fourth stage for Burkina Faso.This section illustrates the role of livestock in the LAST project by presenting relevant results of the reconnaissance PLLA conducted in the watershed (SANREM/CRSP, 1993), and results of diagnostic studies carried out by the Burkina Faso Agricultural Research Institute (CNRST/INERA), as well as other regional studies.The watershed surrounding the village of Donsin in Burkina Faso's central plateau (100 km north-east of Ouagadougou) was selected as the SANREM/CRSP site which represents the semi-arid tropics. The area has an average annual rainfall of between 600 and 900 mm which occurs from June to September. The watershed boundaries are defined by escarpments in the south, east and west and a seasonal river in the north. The site encompasses approximately 6400 hectares. Its agricultural ecology can be described as an agrosylvopastoral farming system. The site was chosen because there is a high percentage of degraded land, the village territory encompasses an entire watershed, and non-governmental organisations and the national agricultural research system are carrying out projects in the watershed but few agricultural technologies have been introduced.The livestock raised by farmers in Donsin include cattle, horses, donkeys, sheep, goats, chicken, guinea fowl, pigeons, ducks and pigs. The village of Donsin is estimated to have 167 cows, 640 sheep, 950 goats, 161 donkeys, 15 pigs, and almost 4000 fowl (Gnouman, 1992). The average number of animals per household was not determined, however all households raise fowl (chicken, guinea fowl and ducks), and goats and/or sheep. Wealthier households raise cattle (Gnouman, 1992). Horses are also owned by wealthier farmers but the number of horses in the village has declined in recent years; pigs were recently introduced. The use of animal traction for cultivation and transportation is low and only a few farmers use donkey carts (Gnouman, 1992). According to village elders, there are more cattle, sheep and goats in the village today than there were 30 years ago.Livestock are used to store wealth and are frequently sold to buy food when harvests are poor. Livestock are also sold to buy items such as medicine or clothing. Donsin livestock owners sell cattle, sheep, and goats in markets outside of the village to obtain a cash income. Livestock have an important cultural role in society as they are given as gifts or consumed for weddings, baptisms and festivals. Lang (1985) studied five villages in Burkina Faso, three in the central plateau, and reported that livestock were sold for various purposes depending on village cash needs. In the village with a poor harvest in 1984, 68% of revenues from livestock sales went to purchase food items. Other important uses of revenues from livestock sales included clothing, taxes, marriages, festivals and debt payment (Lang, 1985). The importance of livestock in the cash economy of the village may be a strong incentive to increase the livestock population.The ownership and use patterns for livestock have changed over the last 30 years. Before, only men owned livestock which were raised for consumption by the family and during cultural events. Today, both men and women own livestock. Women now raise goats and sheep for sale (Sorgho, 1992) and have total rights over chickens, goats, sheep, and cows that they purchase and/or raise themselves. However, women do not control manure from their animals. Men decide which fields are manured and these fields are usually not the women's personal fields.During the rainy season, sheep and goats are herded by children or left tethered near household compounds to prevent crop damage (Gnouman, 1992). In the dry season, sheep and goats are allowed to roam freely in search of food during the day. Cattle are herded throughout the year because of their higher value. During the dry season, only the most valuable livestock are fed crop residues but most livestock are dependent on grazing the residues remaining on croplands and natural vegetation growing on fallow and rangelands. Livestock obtain water from seasonal ponds or streams and from wells when surface water has dried up. All wells in the village have an animal trough.Farmers state that livestock feed is insufficient during the dry season. In a diagnostic survey, CNRST/INERA (1991) found insufficient livestock feed to be a major problem in the village. Dominant herbaceous species in Donsin's pasture lands are Andropogon pseudapricus; Loudetia togoensis, and Schoenefeldia gracilis (Gnouman, 1992). Zoungrana (1991) described this type of pasture as having very low productivity and extremely low nutritional value. In the past, pastures were more productive and crop residues were grazed directly in the fields; harvesting crop residues for dry season feed was unnecessary. Today, some farmers harvest and store crop residues for feeding livestock during the dry season. However, farmers indicated that the nutritive value of droughtresistant crop varieties (especially legumes) now used, is inferior to their traditional crop varieties.A few farmers manage their livestock more intensively to obtain manure for maintaining and managing soil fertility. Most of these farmers collect manure and spread it over fields (Gnouman, 1992); however, some keep livestock corralled or tethered in their fields for direct deposition of excreta. In the past, farmers had manuring contracts with Fulani pastoralists. Farmers in Donsin traditionally spread senescent grasses along with crop residues over their fields to improve crop productivity, a practice still widely used.In the past, Fulani pastoralists managed cattle which were owned by the Mossi. The Fulani would take these cattle to dry-season range in the southern part of Burkina Faso in exchange for grain. As is occurring elsewhere in the central plateau (Wardman and Salas, 1991), this relationship has broken down in recent years because the Mossi no longer trust the Fulani. Now, the Mossi take their own cattle to the south in search of water and pasture during the dry season. Each cattle owner guards their own cattle or entrusts them to another cattle owner from Donsin.Farmers in Donsin allow livestock belonging to neighbouring villages to use pasture land in the Donsin watershed. This fosters good relations and also allows farmers from Donsin to access rangelands outside their village territory in years when their grazing lands have low production. Grazing corridors are also used by transhumanant pastoralists for several weeks each year.The residents of Donsin do not share forest resources with neighboring villages. The growing scarcity of wood has forced residents of Donsin to protect their trees from being cut by non-residents who sell firewood in larger towns of the region. Farmers state that they no longer cut trees for feeding livestock, though browsed and cut trees can be observed throughout the watershed. The tree species which were used for feeding livestock include Khaya senegalensis, Faidherbia albida, Boscia senegalensis and Acacia seyal. Transhumanant pastoralists also used trees and shrubs in Donsin for feeding their cattle during the dry season. However, forestry codes enforced by the Government of Burkina Faso prevent cutting woody vegetation for feeding livestock. The inability to use trees for dry-season feeding is one of the factors forcing Fulani pastoralists out of the Donsin watershed.Results of the PLLA indicate that technology which strengthens the complementarity between crop and livestock production could contribute to SANREM in the Donsin watershed. Biological and social science researchers need to focus on practices that are already being used by farmers in order to understand how the farming system has evolved. Researchers must work with farmers to determine the \"best bet\" research and development areas to pursue. Important research issues in sustainable agriculture and natural resource management that involve the interaction of soils, crops, forests, rangelands and livestock in the watershed are: the role of livestock in nutrient cycles and the maintenance of soil fertility; use of livestock to optimise the use of on-farm biological resources (especially crop residues); the potential conflict between livestock grazing crop residues and the direct use of residues for soil conservation and improvement of other soil characteristics; the importance of livestock in management of forest resources and the introduction of agroforestry systems for improved livestock production.Research is needed to understand the most effective use of manure in the watershed. Diet as influenced by season will have a large effect on nutrient content, especially nitrogen and phosphorus (Powell, 1986;Somda et al, this volume). Powell (1986) found the nitrogen content of mid-dry season manure to be 0.60% dry matter (DM) as compared with 1.89% DM in the early rainy season when the nutritional value of animal diets improves. Similarly, phosphorus content was found to increase from 0.15% DM in the mid-dry season, to 0.27% early in the rainy season.The use of fodder produced by trees in the dry season may improve the value of manure by increasing its content of nitrogen, phosphorus and other nutrients. Tannins and related phenolic compounds in browse have been shown to increase the amount of nitrogen excreted (Woodward and Reed, 1989;Reed et al, 1990). Table 1 shows the effect of proanthocyanidins on nitrogen digestibility. These compounds also increase the proportion of nitrogen in faeces as opposed to urine where it volatilises rapidly (Reed et al, 1990;Coppock and Reed, 1992;Somda et al, this volume). Storage, method and time of application may affect the amount of nutrients lost through volatilisation and leaching (Powell and Williams, 1993). Grazing ruminants harvest nutrients from uncultivated areas and concentrate nutrients in croplands where they are corralled or tethered for the accumulation of manure. This practice is widely used throughout semi-arid West Africa. Source: Reed et al (1990).Research on the effects of socio-economic status and gender on access and use of manure should complement biological research on the effects of manure on soil fertility and structure. Manure is important to, and highly valued for the intensification of crop production. Fields closest to the compound receive the greatest amount and usually have high yields. However, manure may not be available to all farmers at all times of the year. Social interactions and individual decisions determine access to feed and manure resources (cf. Toulmin, 1983;Baur and Mathess, 1989;de Boer and Prins, 1989;Taylor-Powell, 1991;Loofboro, 1993). The effect of grazing area and diet on nutrient cycles in relationship to soil fertility and crop yields is a research area which requires an interdisciplinary approach.Crop residues are used for feed, construction and mulch in the Donsin watershed. The use of crop residues is often ignored by crop improvement programmes. However, quantity and feeding value of crop residues are important criteria in a farmer's decision to grow a particular crop variety (Reed et al, 1988). Crop variety and site conditions have a large impact on residue feeding value (Reed et al, 1988). Table 2 shows varietal effects on digestibility of sorghum, millet and cowpea crop residues. Resource poor farmers have rejected new varieties that were proven successful at plant breeding centres when they realised that yield and nutritive value of the crop residue was unacceptable (Nordblom, 1988;Ceccarelli, 1993). Source: Woodward and Reed (1990).Wind erosion and crop damage from wind storms early in the growing season (wind blast) are important problems. Research has demonstrated that large amounts of whole crop residues left on the field can have a positive effect on soil characteristics (Bationo and Mokwunye, 1991). However, crop residues are also an important dry-season feed. Research is needed on the trade-off between leaving whole cereal crop residues on the field to prevent soil erosion and improve soil characteristics, versus grazing or harvesting for livestock feed.Land tenure may also affect the use of crop residues. The access to crop residues and their end uses are affected by factors such as gender and marital status. Women do not usually farm major cash crops and therefore may not have access to the crop residues, but they may own a large number of small ruminants. Technologies intended to assist women improve sheep and goat production would need to assess the ability of women to use crop residues and other feed resources (Reed et al, 1991).In general, livestock are allowed free access to croplands as soon as crops are harvested. If a farmer does not have adequate transportation to remove crop residues before the livestock are released, their crop residues may be grazed by livestock belonging to other farmers. Although crop residues are an important feed resource, livestock compete with many other uses such as construction, fuel and mulch. Farmers may have problems in harvesting crop residues for these alternative uses if livestock have free access to cropland after grain is harvested. Socio-economic research coupled with agronomy, animal science and soil science is needed to study crop residue management and estimate the long-term effects of its use for controlling erosion, and maximising biological production potential.Poor nutrition is a major constraint to increasing livestock productivity. Feed shortages due to long dry seasons and periodic droughts limit animal productivity. The low nutritive value of feed resources also limits livestock productivity. Available grazing and crop residues are low in protein and energy, and may also be limited by mineral deficiencies. Agroforestry with multi-purpose trees (MPTs) that also provide fodder could be integrated with the farming system as another means to improve livestock productivity. Faidherbia albida, Balanites aegyptiaca, Acacia seyal and other native trees are already present in the Donsin watershed. These trees produce both leaves and fruits in the dry season which are utilised by livestock. Forage produced by MPTs provides protein for ruminants which can improve the nutritional value of grasses and cereal crop residues, otherwise deficient in protein (Reed et al, 1990;Coppock and Reed, 1992). MPTs are important components of the vegetation which provide feed during the dry season.Livestock management and tenure relationships in the Donsin watershed will affect forest management and agroforestry projects. Farmers using borrowed land are often reluctant to plant trees from which they will receive no long-term benefits. Owners fear that trees planted by tenants provide the basis for strengthening tenants' long-term claims to property (Fortman, 1985).Forest codes make it illegal for pastoralists and farmers to cut branches for livestock feeding regardless of the location of the tree. In many cases, enforcement of forest codes have a negative effect on farmers' incentives to plant trees (Lawry, 1990;McLain, 1991;Steinbarger et al, 1991) These codes have ignored the traditional use of resources and the means by which woody species were managed. They have also led to conflicts between farmers and the officials who enforce regulations. Research on the ability of trees to sustain browsing and cutting of branches for livestock feeding is required to develop more realistic management strategies for native and introduced tree species.Farmers in the Donsin watershed are concerned about the decline in natural resources. The standard of living of people in Donsin is heavily dependent on natural resources. The results of the PLLA indicate that the decrease in rainfall over the last 20 years has led to a decline in the standard of living. The LAST will use participatory, landscape ecology research on SANREM to assist the people of Donsin reverse this trend. The livestock production system is a key component of this process. However, component research on livestock production is unlikely to be effective in assisting Donsin farmers to improve natural resource management. The interactions among crops, livestock and natural resources are important to the maintenance and improvement of agricultural production. Research on the role of livestock in SANREM needs to take place within the context of interdisciplinary themes which focus on the human and agricultural ecology of the watershed. Différentes approches de la modélisation des cycles des éléments nutritifs dans le système plante-animal-sol ont été présentées. Un inventaire (incomplet) des approches et des modèles disponibles a été effectué. L'utilisation pratique a été analysée et les raisons de l'utilisation restreinte actuelle ont été examinées. Plusieurs causes ont été identifiées: la formation nécessaire est quasi absente, la fiabilité laisse souvent à désirer et il est difficile pour des personnes extérieures de juger des limites de l'applicabilité et donc de la validité des résultats. Des causes bien plus difficiles à corriger pourraient être l'attitude négative face aux modèles et la méfiance vis-à-vis des résultats indésirables. L'utilisation restreinte n'implique heureusement pas que la modélisation et la simulation soient totalement ignorées en Afrique. L'approche systémique a contribué de façon notable à des changements stratégiques dans le domaine du développement rural. Il s'agit de l'attention accrue pour la fertilité des sols, la gestion des ressources naturelles et l'alimentation du bétail. Ensuite l'approche et la philosophie du projet «Production soudano-sahélienne -Exploitation optimale des éléments nutritifs en élevage (PSS)» ont été présentées pour souligner l'importance vitale de la modélisation et de la simulation pour l'élaboration de systèmes de production animale durables. Ce projet de collaboration scientifique entre le Mali et les Pays-Bas analyse la possibilité d'intensifier l'agriculture soudano-sahélienne par l'introduction d'engrais chimiques pour améliorer la production fourragère. L'approche systémique est indispensable pour une telle analyse: la valeur des essais est restreinte dans un environnement en mutation caractérisé par la surexploitation; des essais de longue durée sont indispensables pour déterminer les taux de réponse optimums des engrais sur sol pauvre; il faut du temps pour démontrer l'efficacité de l'intégration de l'agriculture biologique et intensive; la synergie de l'intégration est difficile à estimer de tête; un trop grand nombre de paramètres influencent la rentabilité de la supplémentation du bétail; les options les plus prometteuses peuvent être sélectionnées par simulation.H. Breman AB-DLO, BP 14, 6700 AA Wageningen, The NetherlandsVarious approaches to nutrient-cycle modelling in the plant-animal-soil system were presented. An (incomplete) inventory of available approaches and models was carried out. Their practical utilisation was then analysed and the problem of their limited use was discussed. Several causes for this limited use were identified including lack of adequate training, low level of reliability and problems encountered by third parties seeking to assess their applicability and hence their validity. Some causes are much more difficult to address including the negative attitude towards models and suspicion with regard to undesirable results. Fortunately, limited use does not mean that modelling and simulation are totally absent in Africa. The systems approach has largely contributed to strategic changes in rural development, including increased concern for soil fertility, natural resource management and livestock nutrition. The approach and philosophy of «Production Soudano-Sahalienne Project -De tout temps, l'homme a extrapolé les connaissances locales pour se faire une idée des situations prévalant ailleurs. La modélisation agricole a été amorcée quand il s'est prononcé sur le potentiel et les contraintes en un lieu et à un moment donnés, en se basant sur des rapports empiriques établis.La modélisation et la simulation ont pu être élaborées grâce à une meilleure connaissance des processus agro-écologiques et au développement de l'informatique. Toute une gamme de modèles est disponible actuellement pour réduire le tâtonnement dans la recherche et ses applications, mais leur efficacité est liée à leur qualité et à la connaissance de leurs paramètres. Un aperçu des modèles, de leur utilisation et des résultats enregistrés est présenté dans cette étude. Une attention particulière est portée à la faisabilité de l'utilisation des engrais pour intensifier l'élevage dans les pays sahéliens.C'est à De Wit que nous devons les concepts de modélisation et de simulation agricoles.Une de ses premières expériences de la modélisation concerne l'analyse des facteurs agricoles limitants dans le nord du désert du Néguev au début des années soixante-dix. Une conclusion importante de cette analyse est que la pauvreté des sols y est bien plus limitante pour l'agriculture que le déficit en eau (De Wit, 1975;Van Keulen et al., 1976). A l'occasion du premier séminaire du CIPEA, Penning de Vries et Van Heemst (1975) ont employé le modèle développé pour estimer la production potentielle des terrains de parcours sahéliens. Ils ont estimé que la production aérienne annuelle serait de 4 000 kg/ha de matière sèche pour une pluviosité de 270 mm/an si la pauvreté du sol pouvait être corrigée. A 540 mm/an, la production potentielle serait de 5 000 à 9 000 kg/ha. Pour vérifier cette conclusion, Diarra (1976) fertilise une parcelle sur parcours naturel avec de l'azote et du phosphore. Il obtient une récolte de 5 600 kg/ha avec une pluviosité annuelle proche de 500 mm, contre 2 000 kg/ha sans fertilisation. L'interaction entre les recherches sur le terrain et la modélisation montre clairement qu'au Sahel aussi, la pauvreté du sol est en général un facteur bien plus limitant que le déficit en eau: la végétation n'utilise en moyenne que 10 à 20% de l'eau de pluie. Environ 60% disparaît par évaporation et 25% par ruissellement. A la fin de la saison de croissance, on trouve encore jusqu'à 20% de l'eau de pluie dans le sol, à la portée des racines. En d'autres termes, ce n'est pas toujours un manque d'eau qui limite la croissance végétale. Avec un apport suffisant d'azote et de phosphore dans la partie sud du Sahel, la production fourragère pourrait être quintuplée avec la pluviosité moyenne et la végétation utiliserait effectivement 50% de l'eau de pluie.Des modèles de simulation de trois niveaux de production ont été élaborés (Penning de Vries, 1982). Il s'agit de la production potentielle (non limitée par la disponibilité d'eau ni des éléments nutritifs), de la production limitée uniquement par la disponibilité naturelle d'eau et de la production actuelle, limitée par l'azote, le phosphore et l'eau dans les pays sahéliens. Les comparaisons des simulations avec la production observée ont beaucoup aidé à mieux comprendre les problèmes et le comportement des éleveurs et des paysans de la région. La limitation de la production par la pauvreté du sol justifie en grande partie la médiocre qualité des pâturages, sauf en bordure du Sahara, où l'eau est encore plus limitante que les éléments nutritifs. La transhumance, le système d'élevage prédominant dans la région, tire le meilleur parti du fourrage de bonne qualité existant dans le nord pendant la saison des pluies. En saison sèche, le bétail est maintenu près des points d'eau permanents du sud du Sahel ou dans la savane soudanienne. En termes de production de protéines animales par unité de surface, cette forme d'élevage est au moins aussi productive que le ranching pratiqué dans des régions à pluviométrie comparable aux Etats-Unis et en Australie (Breman et De Wit, 1983).Ce ne sont pas la disponibilité en eau d'abreuvement, la situation sanitaire et le potentiel génétique du bétail qui déterminent en premier lieu le niveau de production animale dans la plupart des pays sahéliens, mais plutôt la capacité de charge restreinte, dépassée dans le Sahel méridional ainsi que dans de nombreuses autres régions du Sahel et de la savane soudanienne. Les effectifs animaux sont directement liés à l'importance de la population qui en vit directement ou indirectement. Le surpâturage est une conséquence d'une agriculture minière obligée de compenser la baisse des rendements par une extension rapide des surfaces cultivées par une population sans cesse plus nombreuse. La jachère est raccourcie ou abandonnée, l'épuisement des sols progresse. Cette situation est favorisée par un régime foncier écartelé entre une législation vague et éloignée des réalités, et une tradition encore vivante mais en perte de vitesse (Breman et al., 1990). Une telle analyse conduit à la conclusion selon laquelle le principal remède pour l'agriculture de la région est l'augmentation des rendements par l'apport d'intrants d'origine externe. Cela requiert un changement profond des stratégies macro-économiques en raison des rapports coûts-avantages de ces intrants, et un arrêt des pratiques du dumping des produits agricoles pratiqué sur le marché mondial par les pays riches (Van Keulen et Breman, 1990;Wooning, 1992).Les connaissances acquises dans le cadre du projet Production soudano-sahélienne (PPS) ont permis d'élaborer le Manuel sur les pâturages des pays sahéliens (Breman et de Ridder, 1991). Ce manuel permet, à partir de modèles élaborés pour le Sahel et la savane soudanienne, d'estimer le potentiel de l'élevage dans une région donnée, et d'identifier les contraintes de la production fourragère et animale.Ce manuel exploite la modélisation de la production primaire et secondaire. Le lien entre ces deux paramètres, la qualité et la quantité du fourrage ingéré ont été étudiés par Ketelaars (1991) qui a également élaboré un modèle simple permettant de déduire de cette ingestion la croissance d'effectifs et la production de viande et de lait d'un troupeau bovin. D'autres l'ont précédé dans ce domaine: Van Dyne et Abramsky (1975) présentent un aperçu des modèles appliqués aux pâturages disponibles. Christian et al. (1978), jugeant ces modèles trop simples pour être utilisés comme outils pratiques de gestion, ont élaboré leur propre modèle pour mieux gérer la production d'agneaux sur les pâturages artificiels des régions tempérées d'Australie. Un objectif bien différent, à savoir la compréhension de l'économie pastorale, a amené Dahl et Hjort (1976) à faire la synthèse des connaissances disponibles dans des modèles empiriques de la dynamique et de la production de troupeaux camelins, bovins, ovins et caprins. Les systèmes pastoraux de l'Afrique de l'Est constituent leur principale base de données.Le CIPEA réalise tôt l'utilité de la modélisation pour la recherche sur les systèmes de production animale en Afrique (Anderson et Trail, 1978), la considérant comme un outil d'appui pour les choix stratégiques dans l'allocation des ressources. Deux situations se présentaient comme prioritaires: la synthèse des nombreuses données, recueillies au cours d'une longue période de temps et l'analyse d'une banque de donnée réduite. Un exemple de l'approche système à travers la modélisation dans le premier cas est l'application par le CIPEA au Botswana du modèle de la production bovine de l'Université du Texas (CIPEA, 1982). L'utilité de ce modèle a été démontrée par la simulation des options de production, comme le changement de l'âge de sevrage et l'introduction de fourrage de Leucaena leucocephala comme aliment complémentaire de saison sèche.Cela a conduit Konandreas et Anderson (1982) à élaborer un autre modèle, bien que celui de l'Université du Texas leur semblait le meilleur disponible. Fondé sur des processus biologiques, ce modèle permet de faire des calculs avec des intervalles d'un mois. Une amélioration importante concerne le traitement des animaux simulés comme entités individuelles. La productivité du troupeau est simulée dans le temps, comme fonction de l'alimentation actuelle et passée, et en rapport avec le système de gestion. Certaines composantes du modèle sont stochastiques, reflétant la connaissance restreinte des processus impliqués. La situation fourragère, par exemple, est incorporée comme un ensemble de variable stochastique, au lieu d'être simulée par le modèle même. Le modèle a été utilisé entre autres pour évaluer la productivité de l'élevage malien dans le cadre du deuxième type d'application, c'est-à-dire celui d'une situation caractérisée par la rareté des données (De Leeuw et Konandreas, 1982). De 1980De à 1986, le CIPEA et le CABO-DLO ont collaboré pour essayer de combiner des modèles qu'ils élaboraient respectivement sur la production secondaire et primaire. Cette idée a cependant été abandonnée. On a jugé plus utile d'utiliser les résultats d'un modèle comme générateur de données pour un autre, approche utilisée pour la simulation des systèmes d'élevage de l'Afrique de l'Est par Sullivan et al. (1981). La modélisation de l'ingestion de fourrage a occupé une large place dans les travaux de l'atelier de clôture de la collaboration. Un autre point particulier concernait la modélisation en rapport avec la gestion et l'économie des systèmes de production animale. Il s'agissait notamment d'une contribution des chercheurs israéliens, partenaires de la première heure de la modélisation de De Wit. Le compte rendu de l'atelier présente ainsi une bonne vue d'ensemble de la modélisation des systèmes extensifs de production animale (De Ridder et al., 1986). Plus récent, mais couvrant un domaine plus large, l'ouvrage Food from dry lands. An integrated approach to planning of agricultural development (Alberda et al., 1992), premier volume d'une nouvelle série: Systems approaches for sustainable agricultural development.Il est difficile de présenter un aperçu de tous les modèles susceptibles d'intéresser ceux qui s'occupent de la viabilité des systèmes mixtes agriculture-élevage en Afrique subsaharienne. C'est pour cela que l'aperçu historique est complété par une sélection arbitraire de modèles divers, permettant de présenter certaines réflexions sur l'approche par modélisation. A côté de modèles relativement complexes, pour lesquels on recourt en général à un ordinateur, quelques modèles statistiques relativement simples mais utiles seront présentés. Ils sont marqués d'un astérisque dans le tableau 1.Les modèles diffèrent énormément en terme de complexité, et on pourrait penser que cela est lié à l'ampleur des phénomènes à simuler. Ce n'est là qu'une demi-vérité. Il est vrai que les deux derniers modèles du tableau, relatifs à la socio-économie et à l'agro-écologie des systèmes entiers, sont les plus complexes des modèles présentés. Mais le modèle GRASMOD (Van de Ven, 1992), par exemple, qui vise à optimiser la production fourragère et l'utilisation du fumier en tenant compte des objectifs agronomiques, économiques et environnementaux des éleveurs et de la société, n'est pas plus complexe que le modèle de la dynamique de la matière organique du sol (Verberne et al., 1990).L'objectif des modèles en détermine souvent le niveau de complexité (Spitters, 1990). Des modèles permettant de se prononcer sur une situation donnée sont en général plus simples que ceux servant à identifier des options techniques, des stratégies destinées à changer une situation. C'est ainsi que le modèle GRASMOD est bien plus complexe que celui qui sert à évaluer le degré d'épuisement des sols par les cultures en Afrique (Stoorvogel et Smaling, 1990). On constate, après l'utilisation de ce dernier modèle pour 38 pays, que dans presque tous les cas la perte annuelle par hectare cultivé s'élève à plus de 10 kg d'azote, de 4 kg de P2O5 et de 10 kg de K2O, mais le modèle ne propose aucune solution à ce problème. De la même manière, le modèle simple de Ketelaars (1991) permet de se prononcer sur la production bovine pour une situation fourragère donnée, particulièrement pour les jeunes animaux sevrés, mais aussi globalement pour l'ensemble du troupeau. Mais le modèle complexe du CIPEA (Konandreas et Anderson, 1982) est mieux adapté à la détermination d'autres options de systèmes de production. Les modèles simples ne procèdent pas nécessairement de modèles plus complexes. Le cas contraire se présente en effet fréquemment: une connaissance approfondie permet de simplifier certaines situations; les modèles détaillés et complexes sont remplacés par des modèles récapitulatifs. Le manuel pour l'évaluation des terrains de parcours sahéliens (Breman et De Ridder, 1991) en est un exemple. Cependant certains champs de connaissance sont parfois considérés comme secondaires par rapport à l'objectif visé à travers la modélisation et la simulation. C'est ainsi que le modèle SARRA (Clopes et al., 1993), élaboré pour quantifier les risques agroclimatiques, permet de calculer l'utilisation d'eau par les cultures avec un indicateur simple, et donc de se prononcer également sur les rendements attendus. La valeur de l'indicateur dépend de la culture considérée, du climat et de la fertilité du sol. Dans les modèles de production primaire comme SUCROS et WOFOST, et ceux inclus dans DSSAT, il faut disposer d'un jeu de données bien plus étendu pour pouvoir se prononcer sur la production végétale.\"Fonction de forçage\", modules et submodèles Vossen (1990) arrive à expliquer 93% de la variation interannuelle de la mortalité de bovins au Botswana au cours de la période 1977-1986 par un simple modèle statistique, décrivant la relation entre la pluviosité, l'évaporation potentielle et un indice de performances du bétail. Ici, la relation fondée sur l'empirisme permet d'éviter des modèles complexes; cependant cette relation n'a qu'une valeur locale indissociable de son époque. Il en va de même pour l'indicateur de l'utilisation d'eau par les cultures du modèle SARRA mentionné ci-dessus, et pour la relation pluviosité-capacité de charge établie par l'auteur (Breman, 1975). Le manque de choix et la précision de l'estimation de la mortalité du bétail au Mali par suite de la sécheresse du début des années soixante-dix ont par exemple amené la FAO à utiliser la relation pour estimer le potentiel d'élevage des pays sahéliens. Grâce aux travaux du projet PPS (Penning de Vries et Djitèye, 1991) on sait aujourd'hui que la précision de l'estimation de la mortalité n'était due qu'à un heureux hasard: c'est la pauvreté du sol et non la disponibilité en eau qui constitue le facteur limitant pour la production fourragère de la région. La qualité du fourrage est ainsi bien plus limitante que sa disponibilité, ce qui apparaît dans la méthode proposée pour l'estimation de la capacité de charge (Breman et De Ridder, 1991). Mais dans une année aussi sèche que 1973-1974 au Mali, la production fourragère du vrai Sahel était surtout limitée par l'eau (qualité fourragère élevée), alors que le centre de gravité de l'élevage malien se trouvait encore dans le Nord! Il convient donc d'avoir conscience de la portée de l'introduction dans un modèle, comme \"fonctions de forçage\", de connaissances empiriques et des résultats de modèles statistiques. En fait, cela est inévitable, et les utilisateurs devraient en tenir compte régulièrement. Pour certains objectifs et situations, on peut évaluer l'ingestion fourragère par la simple formule 6,25 kg/UBT/jour. Mais pour estimer par exemple la production animale de la savane soudanienne, dominée par des graminées annuelles, on commet de graves erreurs avec une telle simplification. Pour que les bovins ingèrent quotidiennement une telle quantité d'aliment et arrivent à bien produire, il faut un fourrage ayant un taux d'azote de l'ordre de 16 g/kg à une digestibilité de 65%. C'est seulement pendant deux mois par an que les terres de parcours offrent un fourrage d'une telle qualité. Et pendant sept mois, la qualité ne permet qu'une ingestion maximale de 4 kg/UBT/jour; or une UBT perd presque un demi-kilo de poids vif par jour si le bétail n'a pas accès à un supplément de très bonne qualité après avoir sélectionné 20% des meilleures parties du fourrage (Breman et De Ridder, 1991).Plusieurs possibilités permettent d'obtenir une meilleure simulation de la production animale. On fait varier la quantité et la qualité du fourrage ingéré par mois ou durant des périodes de temps plus courtes; un tableau avec des valeurs fixes est incorporé comme fonction de forçage. Des mesures périodiques peuvent servir comme sources des données en question. Pour l'ingestion elle-même, la simulation ne sera valable que pour la situation fourragère en question, déterminée par les caractéristiques et l'état du sol, le climat et le temps, le troupeau et l'exploitation du parcours. En d'autres termes, la valeur des résultats de la simulation dépendra de l'universalité de la situation fourragère. Et le modèle ne présente pas d'intérêt pour l'analyse du potentiel de changement de cette situation pour la production animale.Les perspectives sont meilleures cependant lorsque la situation fourragère elle-même devient la fonction de forçage. Le modèle doit être élargi dans ce cas avec un module permettant de dériver l'ingestion à l'aide de modèles restreints comme ceux de Zemmelink (1980), Genin (1991) et Ketelaars (1991). Il devient possible ainsi de se prononcer sur l'influence des variations climatiques, de l'aménagement du parcours, de la complémentation et de la gestion du troupeau; chaque situation exigeant son propre tableau de l'évolution de la situation fourragère au cours de l'année.Mais les trois dernières sources de variations concernent des interventions humaines contrôlées, dont on voudrait connaître l'influence malgré les variations climatiques incontrôlables. On intègre un jeu de données climatiques réel comme fonction de forçage et on fait calculer la situation fourragère par un ou plusieurs modules supplémentaires, en profitant de l'étude et des modèles du projet Production primaire sahélienne (PPS) (Penning de Vries et Djitèye, 1991;Breman et De Ridder, 1991).L'applicabilité d'un modèle, et donc la valeur des résultats de la simulation s'améliore en principe chaque fois qu'on remplace une fonction de forçage par un module de simulation. Les résultats deviennent alors plus universels et le modèle de plus en plus analytique au lieu d'être descriptif. L'amélioration ne sera cependant qu'apparente si la connaissance est insuffisante pour faire un module satisfaisant des processus concernés, ou si les valeurs numériques des paramètres utilisés ne sont pas assez précises. Ainsi, Nonhebel (1993) montre la conséquence des imprécisions des données météorologiques sur les résultats des simulations de la production agricole. Des différences entre les conditions aux champs et celles mesurées par les postes météorologiques entraînent facilement des écarts de plus ou moins 10% entre la simulation de la production limitée par l'eau et la production réelle. Des écarts pouvant aller jusqu'à 30% sont mis en évidence lorsqu'on remplace des données météorologiques manquantes par des valeurs moyennes. Pour la production fourragère actuelle des pays sahéliens, l'influence pourrait être moindre, car elle est notamment limitée par le déficit en N et P. Mais les conditions climatiques influencent aussi directement la production animale et on peut se demander si cette influence est suffisamment prise en compte dans les modules de la production animale.Pour juger de l'utilité d'un modèle pour une situation et une question données, il est ainsi indispensable de se demander quels processus ont été décrits avec quelle précision, et quels sont ceux représentés par des fonctions de forçage. Pour leur part, les chercheurs du groupe CABO/TPE à Wageningen, qui ont élaboré des modèles comme SUCROS, estiment que l'IBSNAT, l'autre grand groupe de modélisateurs (auteurs par exemple de DSSAT), sacrifie la clarté nécessaire des modèles à leur accessibilité aux utilisateurs: à leur avis, ces modèles contiennent trop de \"black boxes\". La collaboration des deux groupes (ICASA, 1993) devrait permettre d'aboutir à des modèles alliant clarté et accessibilité.Un aspect crucial dans ce cadre est d'éviter que les modèles deviennent trop grands, représentant trop de processus à la fois. Souvent, il sera plus pratique de travailler plutôt avec deux ou plusieurs submodèles, comme l'a conclu la collaboration CIPEA-CABO mentionnée plus haut. Les résultats d'un submodèle entrent dans ce cas comme fonctions de forçage. De cette façon, on peut analyser à part des rapports tels que ceux entre climat et situation fourragère et entre situation fourragère et production animale; mais aussi les rapports entre climat, conditions pédologiques et productions végétales. C'est ainsi que le projet PPS a pu identifier l'importance relative de l'influence de la disponibilité en eau, en N et en P sur la production des pâturages sahéliens. Des modèles à part ont été utilisés pour la production potentielle et la production uniquement limitée par la pluviométrie, et les résultats de simulation ont été confrontés avec la production réelle.L'utilisation des submodèles permet des simulations en travers des interfaces. Ces dernières exigent donc une attention particulière, ainsi celle entre sol et plante, plante et animal, et animal et sol. Il ne suffit pas de connaître la quantité de N, de P, etc. disponible dans le sol à une pluviosité donnée pour la production végétale, ou la quantité de fourrage que produit une terre de parcours. Il faut connaître les conséquences de l'utilisation des éléments nutritifs et du fourrage sur l'offre à long terme, car la durabilité des systèmes de production doit être assurée.Le projet d'appui pour la planification de l'utilisation des terres dans la région de Mopti (Mali) a trouvé une solution élégante (Van Duivenbooden et Gosseye, 1990). Le niveau réel des productions a été défini à partir de statistiques agricoles. Des modèles comparables à WOFOST ont servi à simuler la production de diverses cultures limitée par l'eau, en situation d'accès libre aux engrais chimiques. Pour les deux cas, le modèle NUREQ a été employé pour déterminer la quantité de N, de P et de K à apporter annuellement pour assurer le maintien du bilan de ces éléments. Les modèles de Wolf et al. (1987de Wolf et al. ( et 1989) ) ont une application plus universelle dans le cas de cultures fertilisées.Il est relativement aisé de modéliser la production végétale potentielle et celle limitée par l'eau. Dans le premier cas, le déficit en eau est comblé par irrigation, et des engrais corrigent les effets de la pauvreté naturelle du sol. Dans le deuxième cas, la pluie est la seule source d'eau pour les cultures, mais les déficits en éléments nutritifs sont comblés (SUCROS et WOFOST). La connaissance de la dynamique des éléments nutritifs est trop restreinte pour bien simuler la production primaire réelle. L'utilité des modèles existants (par exemple PAPRAN) reste limitée; ils décrivent la situation d'un endroit ou d'une région donnés. Il s'agit en général ou bien de la situation moyenne, ou de la situation d'une année donnée. L'obligation d'utiliser des connaissances empiriques pour les relations entre les facteurs climatiques et la disponibilité des éléments nutritifs (ou directement la production) donne à de tels modèles une valeur restreinte. Ils permettent néanmoins de savoir si la situation réelle est bien comprise.Les modèles de la production potentielle et de la production limitée par l'eau sont plus utiles, notamment pour la recherche prospective. La quantification des écarts entre la réalité et les possibilités théoriques permet d'estimer la satisfaction des besoins, la rentabilité des investissements éventuels, etc.Dans la pratique, il existera en général un écart entre les niveaux théoriques simulés de la production potentielle ou de la production limitée par l'eau et ceux réalisés dans la réalité, bien que la disponibilité en eau et/ou en éléments nutritifs ait été suffisante. Cela est dû à l'effet sur les cultures des maladies et des ravageurs, lesquels entrent en compétition pour les facteurs de croissance. C'était exactement un tel écart entre la production théorique de blé limitée par l'eau, simulée par De Wit (1965), et la réalité paysanne des années soixante-dix aux Pays-Bas, qui a mené à la découverte des maladies de maturation du blé. Les remèdes développés par la suite ont permis d'augmenter le rendement de 8 à 10 t/ha. Une autre forme de compétition, bien plus générale, est celle entre les cultures et les adventices; la disponibilité en eau, en éléments nutritifs et en lumière risque de beaucoup baisser en absence d'actions adéquates. Kropff et Van Laar (1993) présentent une vue d'ensemble de la modélisation de cette compétition. Spitters (1980) l'a modélisée dans sa simulation de la dynamique d'une végétation sahélienne. De tels modèles et les connaissances qui en sont à la base sont indispensables pour évaluer la plus-value des cultures mixtes. Celles-ci, y compris l'agro-sylvo-pastoralisme, sont souvent proposées pour optimiser l'utilisation des ressources naturelles et exogènes. La plus-value devient notamment intéressante si elle dépasse les conséquences négatives de la compétition pour les mêmes ressources. Un exemple simple de ce genre de modélisation concerne la compétition pour les éléments nutritifs entre une espèce herbacée et une espèce ligneuse d'un parcours naturel aux Pays-Bas (Berendse et Elberse, 1989). La compétition en question et la dynamique de la végétation qui s'ensuit va de pair avec la dynamique de la matière organique du sol. Cela est aussi un élément clef de SCUAF, un modèle d'agroforesterie et de la dynamique du sol (Young et Muraya, 1990). Breman et De Ridder (1991) utilisent des modèles très simples de la dynamique de la composante azotée de la matière organique du sol pour estimer la production herbacée sahélienne en rapport avec le recouvrement de la strate ligneuse, et pour calculer l'influence de l'exploitation des parcours sahéliens sur la production de ces parcours. Ranganathan (1992) a utilisé le modèle de Spitters (1983) de l'estimation du degré de compétition intra-et interspécifique pour tracer les limites des possibilités de production des cultures mixtes. Ainsi elle a pu effectuer une évaluation économique de la plus-value maximale des cultures mixtes de maïs/arachide et de sorgho/pois d'Angole.L'objectif ultime de nombreuses simulations est, comme celui de Ranganathan (1992), de permettre de se prononcer sur l'intérêt économique des options agronomiques sans être obligé de toujours recourir à des tests. De Wit (sous presse) signale que dans les fonctions de production agronomique, les agro-économistes continuent à s'intéresser aux rapports entre les intrants et les rendements des cultures. La recherche agronomique se concentre cependant de plus en plus sur la recherche explicative, l'étude des processus de la croissance des cultures. Ainsi signale-t-il, une situation est née où les économistes posent des questions pour lesquelles les agronomes n'ont plus de réponses, tandis que les agronomes ont des réponses aux questions non posées. Cette publication et l'approche de Ranganathan indiquent comment lever ce blocage. Un troisième objectif, dû aussi au moins partiellement à De Wit, est la planification à buts multiples avec l'aide de la programmation linéaire (PBM-PL). Spharim et Seligman (1986) exploitent la programmation linéaire pour le choix des technologies de l'élevage ovin dans la région semi-aride méditerranéenne. Bien plus proche du sujet du présent séminaire est l'utilisation dans le cadre de l'élaboration d'un schéma directeur pour la région de Mopti au Mali (Veeneklaas, 1990;Veeneklaas et al., 1990). La planification rationnelle de l'utilisation des terres se heurte à une compréhension insuffisante des relations variables entre les conditions agro-écologiques et socio-économiques et aux conflits entre les objectifs multiples. Il s'agit des conflits entre durabilité, survie et revenus réels, entre producteurs et consommateurs, entre les besoins de la société et ceux des individus, etc. L'étude est composée des éléments suivants:• une description quantitative des ressources de la région concernée (Cissé et Gosseye, 1990);• une description quantitative (rapports intrants:extrants) des systèmes de production en vigueur et des systèmes alternatifs (niveaux d'intensification plus élevés et/ou produits alternatifs); des modèles de production d'une gamme de cultures et de l'élevage ont servi pour l'estimation des niveaux de production probables, et le modèle NUREQ a été utilisé pour calculer la quantité d'intrants nécessaire pour obtenir ces niveaux (Van Duivenbooden et Gosseye, 1990); • un modèle d'optimisation de l'utilisation des ressources (Veeneklaas, 1990);• un inventaire des nombreux objectifs de développement de la région et les résultats d'optimisation, c'est-à-dire les stratégies de développement pour des combinaisons, des compromis divers entre des objectifs de développement (Veeneklaas et al., 1990).Les principales conclusions de l'étude peuvent se résumer comme suit: les cultures sont indispensables pour assurer l'alimentation de la population de la région dans les divers scénarios élaborés. Elles constituent cependant un secteur économique peu intéressant; les revenus devront venir de l'élevage, de la pêche et de l'émigration. Enfin, l'autosuffisance alimentaire durable n'est possible qu'avec l'utilisation d'intrants exogènes, notamment les engrais chimiques.Utilisateurs et usages L'inventaire ci-dessus a conduit à identifier des applications de modèle à plusieurs niveaux d'intégration dont les limites sont cependant graduelles et vagues.Il s'agit d'abord et surtout de l'utilisation dans la recherche thématique, en production végétale et animale. Les objectifs concernent l'identification des contraintes et des potentiels des activités isolées ou des systèmes complexes de production, la compréhension des processus de production, ainsi que la généralisation et l'extrapolation des données obtenues localement à un moment donné. Cette utilisation des modèles a la faculté d'accélérer la recherche et de favoriser la coopération et la coordination. Un exemple intéressant est l'utilisation du modèle SARRA (tableau 1) dans le cadre du réseau R3S (Réseau de recherche sur la résistance à la sécheresse).La recherche prospective en amont ou dans le cadre même de la recherche sur les systèmes de production rurale, permet d'éviter l'approche par tâtonnement en diminuant le nombre de tests au niveau paysan et en augmentant les chances de succès. C'est ainsi que Leloup et Traoré (1989et 1991) ont employé les résultats des modèles de production fourragère et de production animale pour identifier le rôle potentiel de l'élevage dans le développement rural du sud-est du Mali.En ce qui concerne l'appui à l'élaboration et à l'exécution des stratégies de développement, les utilisateurs des modèles seront souvent encore des chercheurs, comme dans l'exemple du schéma directeur de la région de Mopti mentionné plus haut (Veeneklaas et al., 1990), mais les demandeurs sont des décideurs à un certain niveau. Des agro-économistes seront bien plus souvent impliqués que dans le cas précédent et les résultats des simulations alimenteront en général des modèles économiques.Le transfert des connaissances et la promotion de l'approche système et de l'approche multidisciplinaire sont favorisés par les modèles aux trois niveaux d'intégration ci-dessus.Malgré tout ce qui précède, la modélisation et la simulation sont encore au stade du balbutiement en Afrique subsaharienne. Cela est encore plus vrai pour les niveaux d'intégration supérieurs que pour la recherche thématique, où la majorité des exemples a été empruntée. Les instituts internationaux ont pris l'initiative, et parmi eux les centres de recherche comme le CIPEA. Pour ces derniers l'utilisation pourrait bientôt s'intensifier si les centres du groupe GCRAI (Groupe consultatif pour la recherche agricole internationale) adoptent \"l'approche écorégionale de la recherche\" (Anonyme, 1993), conformément à une proposition de leur commission consultative. L'utilisation au niveau d'intégration le plus élevé, celui des décideurs est extrêmement rare. A côté de l'exemple mentionné du schéma directeur de Mopti, deux autres sont présentés. Sur la demande de la FAO, SOW (1985) a déterminé avec l'aide du modèle WOFOST (tableau 1) l'augmentation possible de la production alimentaire du Burkina Faso, du Ghana et du Kenya sous l'effet des dons d'engrais. SOW a conclu qu'un don équivalent au triple de l'appui actuel permettrait de tripler presque la production de maïs au Burkina, soit une augmentation de 100 000 t/an de plus. Au Ghana et au Kenya, le triplement des dons d'engrais n'augmenterait la production que de 20 à 30% seulement et ce, en raison du faible niveau des dons actuels.Sur demande de l'Office des Nations Unies pour la région sahélo-soudanienne (ONUS), Wolf (1990) a passé en revue les méthodes disponibles pour évaluer la capacité bio-économique des zones semi-arides de l'Afrique de l'Ouest, compte tenu du volume d'intrants extérieurs actuellement disponible et dans l'hypothèse de son augmentation. L'attention a porté sur les cultures, l'élevage et la production forestière. Dans chaque cas, la présentation des modèles disponibles a été accompagnée de quelques résultats de leur utilisation.Dans aucun des trois cas ci-dessus, il n'a été question ni d'une suite directe et claire ni d'un changement de stratégie, de politique. Cela ne veut pas du tout dire que la modélisation et la simulation sont vaines en Afrique. Trois terrains au moins peuvent être indiqués où l'approche systémique a contribué de façon notable à des changements stratégiques en rapport avec le développement rural. Il s'agit de l'attention accrue que manifestent les décideurs nationaux et les responsables des structures d'appui pour la fertilité des sols, la gestion des ressources naturelles et l'alimentation de bétail.Il y a sans doute des raisons simples à l'utilisation restreinte des modèles agronomiques en Afrique. La formation nécessaire est quasi absente, la fiabilité laisse souvent à désirer et il est difficile pour des personnes extérieures de juger des limites de l'applicabilité et partant de la validité des résultats. Pour illustrer ce dernier point, citons les conclusions de deux études: 'Des observations additionnelles sont nécessaires au Botswana, avant que le modèle puisse être utilisé comme outil pour la formulation des messages de vulgarisation' (CIPEA, 1982). 'La conclusion selon laquelle une intensité d'exploitation dépassant 5 ha/UBT est basée sur la capacité de production des années sèches, sur le rapport actuel entre gros bétail et petits ruminants, avec le maintien des effectifs animaux comme seul objectif de l'élevage, et donc sans aucun critère environnemental' (Breman, 1990a).Bien plus difficile à corriger pourrait être l'attitude négative en face des modèles et la méfiance vis-à-vis des résultats indésirables. Le premier problème revêt plusieurs facettes. Tout d'abord, l'enracinement des sociétés africaines dans les traditions orales. La capacité d'apprendre par coeur y est phénoménale. Elle va de pair cependant avec le risque de non-compréhension au cours de la formation scolaire 'moderne', si celle-ci est réalisée dans une langue étrangère. Une deuxième facette est celle des hommes à pensée qualitative, opposée aux outils des hommes à pensée quantitative, qualifiés de technocrates. Enfin, le conflit déjà signalé entre les agro-économistes et les agronomes et les écologistes. Les premiers exigent une place prépondérante pour le comportement paysan et pour les processus dynamiques du marché. Les modèles des derniers ont souvent à peine une réponse pour la dynamique des processus agro-écologiques. Il y a cependant des initiatives prometteuses, qui pourraient mener à une intégration satisfaisante des modèles des deux domaines (par exemple Hengsdijk et Kruseman, 1993).La méfiance des résultats indésirables ne doit pas être négligée comme explication du faible degré d'adoption des modèles. Il est question d'une gamme de messages difficiles à digérer par les décideurs en raison des conséquences politiques nationales et internationales. Pour illustrer ce point, prenons quelques exemples dans les pays sahéliens.Ce n'est pas la sécheresse qui est le problème numéro un au Sahel pour la production primaire, mais la pauvreté des sols (Penning de Vries et Djitèye, 1991). L'irrigation n'est pas la solution pour cette région.La pauvreté des sols est à la base de la disponibilité restreinte de fourrage de qualité, ce qui pour l'élevage, constitue une contrainte bien plus aiguë que l'hydraulique pastorale, la situation sanitaire ou le potentiel génétique du bétail de la région (Breman et al., 1990).Les sols pauvres, ajoutés à un climat difficile, entraînent un problème de surpopulation à une densité démographique absolue très faible, ce qui limite les investissements productifs rentables. La capacité de charge pour une utilisation intégrée des agro-écosystèmes, sans l'emploi d'intrants externes, n'est que de 1, 10 et 35 personnes/km 2 respectivement pour le nord du Sahel, le sud et la savane soudanienne (Breman, 1992a). Il est vraisemblable que cela soit un élément explicatif du retard de la 'révolution verte' dans la région.Le retard de l'intensification agricole et l'épuisement des ressources naturelles (Stoorvogel et Smaling, 1990) ne sont pas des signes d'arriération et d'incapacité des paysans auxquels il faudrait remédier par une meilleure éducation et une meilleure vulgarisation. Il s'agit plutôt des conséquences des ressources naturelles très pauvres et d'un accès inégal aux ressources en général, au niveau national aussi bien que mondial, problèmes auxquels la politique n'a pas encore donnée de réponse adéquate (Breman, 1990b, Wooning, 1992).Pareilles affirmations sont difficiles à accepter, et une réaction préalable et simple est la méfiance vis-à-vis des modèles à l'origine de ces conclusions. Il est facile d'y trouver des paramètres à critiquer, mais en général, on ne se gène même pas pour en chercher. Plus rares sont encore les efforts pour montrer que l'imprécision de ces paramètres met les résultats en question.Il faut se demander si les chercheurs et les décideurs, en Afrique et ailleurs, peuvent se permettre de rejeter les modèles à la légère. En acceptant une certaine imprécision des modèles, on peut toutefois affirmer que Diarra (1976) avait confirmé la conclusion de Penning de Vries et Van Heemst (1975) selon laquelle la pauvreté des sols est un facteur limitant de la production au Sahel. Ce sont entre autres les observations du CIPEA (Diarra, 1983) qui permettent d'affirmer que la simulation de la production animale au Sahel sur la base de la qualité fourragère permet d'obtenir des résultats réalistes (Ketelaars, 1991). Les essais d'ICRISAT-Niamey et du SAFGRAD confirment les valeurs élevées des estimations de la production céréalière potentielle du Burkina Faso (SOW, 1985). Aussi le dernier chapitre plaidera-t-il pour une introduction rapide des modèles en Afrique comme outils scientifiques et stratégiques.La surexploitation des ressources naturelles en raison d'une trop forte pression démographique, situation quasi générale au Sahel méridional et dans la savane soudanienne, exige vigilance, esprit de décision et rapidité d'action. Cela est difficile dans un environnement en perpétuelle mutation, où l'expérience des générations antérieures perd rapidement sa valeur. Et, comme il est dangereux de se faire guider par l'intuition ou de préjugés, il serait sage de relativiser la réalité par des modèles, et de se faire une idée des contraintes et des potentiels grâce à des simulations, en tenant compte de la dynamique des changements.Cette nécessité est rarement acceptée en raison de la capacité tampon des ressources naturelles. Celle-ci s'explique par le fait que l'intensité d'exploitation de ces ressources a été très faible jusqu'à un passé récent. Avant notre ère, des stocks importants avaient été constitués sous forme de biomasse vivante et morte (matière organique du sol) et de concentration en éléments nutritifs dans les couches superficielles des profils pédologiques. Les cultures céréalières de la zone prise comme exemple, entraînent facilement une perte de 10 à 20 kg/ha/an d'azote et de 2 à 3 kg de phosphore. Mais les stocks d'azote minéral et organique du sol sont de l'ordre de 500 à 1 500 kg/ha, tandis que ceux de Phosphore total représentent 25%. Les pertes par l'élevage sont nettement moindres que celles provoquées par les cultures. Il est vrai que l'élevage peut provoquer une dégradation des parcours pire que l'épuisement des sols: l'augmentation du ruissellement. La conséquence négative n'apparaît que lentement cependant, car la diminution plus rapide de la disponibilité en eau en comparaison de celle des éléments nutritifs entraîne une amélioration de la qualité fourragère, alors que la disponibilité en fourrage reste constante malgré la diminution de la production de biomasse (Penning de Vries et Djitèye, 1991). Les végétations relativement intactes ne produisent que 100 à 600 kg/ha/an de bois (du nord au sud), mais en exploitant le capital, c'est-à-dire la biomasse totale de bois, on dispose (temporairement) d'une quantité 10 à 20 fois supérieure.Cette capacité tampon est une bénédiction dans le sens où elle nous donne le temps d'élaborer des systèmes de production viables. Mais elle permet aussi une croissance des troupeaux et une croissance démographique à un niveau bien supérieur à la capacité de charge des ressources naturelles. Une fois les limites atteintes, la qualité des ressources est si faible que la régénération, quoique techniquement encore possible, ne vaut économiquement plus la peine: il vaut mieux prévenir par l'intensification que guérir. Prévenir par intensification c'est utiliser des intrants externes comme les engrais (Breman 1992b).Il serait illusoire de compter sur les seuls essais agronomiques pour l'élaboration des stratégies nécessaires. Le fait que l'agriculture repose déjà souvent sur la consommation de la capacité tampon des ressources naturelles signifie que le temps disponible pour la recherche de solutions est limité et ne doit pas être gaspillé par trop de tâtonnements. De plus, la valeur des essais de courte durée est limitée dans un environnement en mutation. Cela est vrai aussi bien pour le pilier de l'intensification, l'utilisation des engrais chimiques, que pour ses alternatives écologiques.Inhérente à la nécessité d'utiliser des intrants extérieurs est la production pour le marché. Dans une situation de surpopulation, l'autosuffisance alimentaire est impossible sans les cultures de rente. La conséquence est l'obligation de produire d'une façon compétitive. Les frais relatifs des moyens de production de l'élevage intensif dans un pays comme la Hollande sont tels que les mesures destinées à éviter les pertes en éléments nutritifs sont plus coûteuses qu'un usage dépensier. Aussi des efforts en vue d'une optimisation de l'emploi d'engrais pourraient-ils devenir, à côté du faible coût de la main-d'oeuvre, un élément clef de la production compétitive en Afrique, ce qui permettait d'éviter en même temps les problèmes de pollution par l'agriculture intensive actuelle.Le rapport valeur/coût des engrais (une évaluation simple de leur rentabilité) s'est sérieusement dégradé en Afrique de l'Ouest au cours de la dernière décennie. Ce problème est moins sérieux pour une culture de rente comme le coton que pour les cultures céréalières et fourragères (Wooning, 1992). L'utilisation économique des engrais exige actuellement un taux de réponse très élevé.Ce raisonnement pourrait constituer un plaidoyer en faveur de nombreux essais en vue d'établir des courbes de réponses et de déterminer des taux de réponse et des doses économiques. Cependant, quelle est l'utilité de tels tests lorsqu'on sait que le taux de réponse dépend fortement de la fertilité du sol, de sa teneur en matière organique, de la qualité de cette matière organique, de sa capacité de rétention en eau et de la disponibilité en eau, tous facteurs qui risquent de se dégrader sous l'influence de la surexploitation? Quelle est l'utilité de tels tests lorsqu'on sait que les engrais peuvent influencer ces facteurs d'une façon positive aussi bien que négative dans le temps, et cela en relation avec les systèmes de production? Quelle est l'utilité de la détermination de la dose économique maximale lorsqu'on sait que cette dose augmente en général avec l'intensification (De Wit, 1992).Dans la réalité paysanne et sur les champs d'essais des stations de recherche, les taux de réponse à N et P montrent une variabilité infinie (Van Duivenbooden, 1992). Les essais ne sont valables que s'ils visent principalement à comprendre cette variabilité et à détecter les causes des taux de réponse trop faibles. Cela exige d'accompagner les essais par les simulations et des observations secondaires pour être capable de se prononcer sur le sort des éléments nutritifs. Sinon, les essais n'auront qu'une valeur locale et temporaire!Pieri (1989) a montré l'importance décisive de la matière organique du sol pour la durabilité de la production agricole de la savane. Il est possible que son rôle puisse être partiellement assumé par le chaulage (De Ridder et Van Keulen, 1990), mais cela ne fera qu'augmenter les frais de la fertilisation. La matière organique n'est pas seulement une source d'éléments nutritifs, elle améliore également l'efficacité de l'utilisation des éléments nutritifs et la disponibilité en eau. Bien que le taux de matière organique des sols de la savane ouest-africaine soit très faible, les propriétés des minéraux d'argile amènent cette matière organique à rendre facilement compte de 50% de la capacité d'échange de cations (C.E.C) (Budelman, 1991). Le taux de réponse à l'azote dépend ainsi du taux de matière organique. Même le taux de réponse au phosphore en dépend indirectement, car le lessivage des cations par suite d'une C.E.C. insuffisante entraîne une baisse de pH, ce qui diminue la solubilité du phosphore. On comprend donc que l'agriculture biologique exige qu'une attention particulière soit accordée à l'état du sol en ce qui concerne la quantité et la qualité de la matière organique! L'agriculture biologique est un domaine par excellence pour la modélisation et la simulation. Les pratiques vulgarisées ne changent les conditions de production qu'à terme et des interactions complexes ont été mises en évidence. On pourrait déplorer que les promoteurs se trouvent essentiellement chez les gens qualifiés ci-dessus de qualitatifs. Ne surestime-t-on pas cette forme d'agriculture qui -après être reconnue par les hommes à pensée quantitative -entrave la collaboration et la mise en valeur? La vitesse de transformation et de dégradation de la matière organique est si élevée sous les climats extrêmes des pays sahéliens, qu'il faut des apports d'énormes quantités et/ou de longues périodes de pratiques alternatives pour obtenir une augmentation limitée du taux de matière organique du sol (De Ridder et Van Keulen, 1990). L'effet des tests de courte durée ne pourra convaincre facilement les paysans et les décideurs. Il faudra donc recourir à la modélisation et à la simulation en vue d'élaborer des essais de longue durée avec de bonnes chances de succès. Une attention particulière doit être accordée à la différence entre la biomasse végétale, la production annuelle et l'exploitation maximum durable. Les biologistes savent que la biomasse énorme de la forêt tropicale pluvieuse ne permet pas d'établir la productivité de la région concernée. Mais il est difficile de transférer cette connaissance dans l'évaluation de la biomasse élevée d'une parcelle protégée au Sahel, d'un peuplement de graminées pérennes ou d'espèces ligneuses. C'est la simulation qui permet une pareille évaluation, au moins globalement. Ainsi on pourra se prononcer sur le rapport entre biomasse, production annuelle et taux de matière organique du sol. C'est encore la simulation qui permettra de déterminer dans quelle mesure l'exploitation diminue la plus-value inhérente, laquelle permet de déterminer l'exploitation optimale. Une forme très simple d'une telle simulation est celle des formules Nh et Nlh, qui permettent de déterminer respectivement la production herbacée, et ligneuse plus herbacée des parcours, à travers la disponibilité d'azote, et cela en rapport avec l'intensité d'exploitation (Breman et De Ridder, 1991).Une modélisation plus complexe s'avère nécessaire pour quantifier la plus-value totale de l'agriculture concernée. Il a été déjà signalé que la matière organique influence la disponibilité et l'efficacité de l'utilisation des éléments nutritifs et de l'eau. On peut par conséquent s'attendre à des effets synergiques difficiles à estimer sans ordinateur. Plus complexe encore est la question de la plus-value de la combinaison de l'agriculture biologique et de l'agriculture intensive. Il est probable que des éléments de base de la première forme d'agriculture augmentent l'efficacité des intrants externes de la deuxième forme. C'est ainsi que l'introduction d'une espèce pérenne dans une culture annuelle pourrait augmenter le taux de réponse des engrais par l'accroissement du taux de matière organique du sol. Un exemple extrême est l'agroforesterie. Il est possible que sa suppression des pertes des éléments nutritifs d'une culture fertilisée, est bien plus intéressante que son utilisation en remplacement de la fertilisation (Breman, 1990b;Breman et Kessler, en préparation). La synergie de cette agriculture intégrée sera supérieure à celle de la seule agriculture biologique.Il serait dangereux de penser que sans la modélisation, la simulation et les tests, cette synergie sera suffisamment élevée pour permettre de remplacer l'agriculture actuelle par l'agriculture biologique simple. Le remplacement partiel du capital et des intrants externes par l'énergie et l'intelligence humaine est conseillé si l'énergie supplémentaire est au moins compensée par l'augmentation de la production, et si cette augmentation suffit pour combler les déficits. L'agriculture intégrée pourrait avoir plus de chance. L'excès d'optimisme n'est pas de mise pour une région comme le Sahel. La plus-value technique de l'agriculture biologique est liée aux conditions agro-écologiques: la plus-value est la plus faible là où on en a le plus besoin. Le climat extrême et les sols pauvres ne permettent qu'une faible production des cultures annuelles (Penning de Vries et Djitèye, 1991). L'aridité extrême de la saison sèche entrave sérieusement le développement des espèces pérennes (Breman et De Ridder, 1991). Ces deux facteurs, ajoutés à la vitesse de dégradation élevée de la matière organique, empêchent d'atteindre les valeurs minimum du taux de matière organique du sol (m.o.s.) pour maintenir une agriculture viable au Sahel. Selon Pieri (1989) la valeur minimum taux de m.o.s./taux d'argile + limon devrait être de 0,05, c'est-à-dire que les sols sableux, limoneux et argileux devraient avoir respectivement un taux de carbone de 3, 7 et 22 g/kg. Penning de Vries et Djitèye (1991) donnent des valeurs de 1 à 4 g/kg pour les sols sablonneux, 2 à 18 pour les sols limoneux et 3 à 27 pour les sols argileux. Breman et Kessler (en préparation) estiment que les valeurs moyennes pour les zones subhumide et semi-aride de l'Afrique de l'Ouest sont de 3 à 4 g/kg pour les terrains ouverts. Elle est deux fois plus élevée sous les couronnes des espèces ligneuses. Quant aux recouvrements jugés nécessaires pour obtenir les taux minimums de matière organique dans un système mixte de cultures et d'arbres, ils sont tels que la plus-value ainsi obtenue est entièrement perdue par la compétition entre les arbres et les cultures.A première vue, il semble assez facile d'évaluer la rentabilité de l'utilisation directe (cultures fourragères et amélioration des parcours) ou indirecte (cultures vivrières, etc.) des engrais chimiques pour l'amélioration de la situation fourragère. Le fourrage ou les sous-produits de qualité moyenne peuvent être utilisés comme suppléments du fourrage brut, et l'amélioration de la productivité du bétail peut être déterminée. Ensuite il s'agira de calculer les coûts et les bénéfices.Cependant, la productivité n'est pas une dérivée simple d'un certain supplément. Elle est déterminée par la quantité d'énergie digestible ingérée, laquelle dépend à son tour -outre de l'espèce et de la classe de l'animal -des valeurs absolues et relatives du taux d'azote et de la digestibilité du supplément et du fourrage brut, de leur combinaison, de leurs structures et des quantités offertes, c'est-à-dire des possibilités de choix dont dispose l'animal. Cela fait donc pas mal de combinaisons et il vaudrait mieux en sélectionner d'abord les plus prometteuses par simulation.En réalité, la situation est encore plus complexe. Un certain niveau de production animale peut être atteint par toute une série de combinaisons d'un fourrage brut et d'un supplément donné (Kaasschieter et al., en préparation). La combinaison optimale dépendra ainsi de la disponibilité du fourrage brut et du supplément. Elle sera très différente par exemple pour une zone pastorale sous-exploitée et une région surexploitée. Elle dépendra également du mode de production du supplément (extensif ou intensif), de la disponibilité relative des facteurs de production et de la situation économique.La possibilité d'économiser des essais et de limiter le tâtonnement devrait être un argument suffisant pour adopter l'approche systémique en ce qui concerne la recherche aussi bien que la planification. D'autant plus que dans une situation dynamique et incertaine caractérisée par la surexploitation des ressources naturelles, on aurait tort de se permettre de négliger la modélisation et la simulation. la situation actuelle est très différente de la durabilité à laquelle on aspire.Ce n'est pas la situation actuelle qui est intéressante à simuler, mais les perspectives d'avenir. Ni les résultats pratiques, ni les essais ne peuvent remplacer les simulations, car les paramètres varient dans l'espace et dans le temps.Les modèles comportent encore beaucoup de lacunes et ne peuvent pas remplacer les essais. Bien souvent, ce sont uniquement les limites supérieures des options techniques qui peuvent être simulées avec une précision acceptable. De telles limites sont cependant des guides très utiles pour détecter les défauts de la pratique et des essais. Pour profiter de cette option, les modélisateurs sont obligés de se prononcer clairement sur les points faibles et la précision de leurs modèles. En plus, ils doivent consacrer beaucoup de temps aux vérifications, même s'il s'agit de vérifications des modules individuels, si celle de la situation recherchée ne pourra être effectuée qu'après une très longue période de temps.Les agro-écologistes et les modélisateurs devront toujours se rappeler qu'identifier une solution et l'utiliser sont deux choses différentes. La politique, avec ses stratégies de développement, est confrontée à une situation socio-économique difficilement influençable, et le comportement des producteurs et des consommateurs est difficile à prévoir. Ce constat doit cependant être nuancé. En situation de surexploitation des ressources naturelles imputables à la surpopulation, le choix des producteurs est très restreint et leur comportement prévisible: ils ne peuvent qu'épuiser les ressources naturelles. Dans la recherche de solutions durables, les décideurs doivent s'inspirer des résultats des simulations tout en faisant preuve de prudence pour avoir le courage d'élaborer une politique sociale et économique qui donne un choix aux producteurs.Modelling the effects of livestock on nutrient flows in mixed crop-livestock systems Some of the effects of the passage of biomass through livestock on the dynamics of whole-system nutrient cycles are relatively clearly defined. However, processes in the livestock component may have other far-reaching effects that are less readily accounted for. For example, changes in diet composition can affect the partitioning of excreted nitrogen between manure and urine. Such changes can interact with animal and compost management practices to affect the dynamics of processes occurring in soil organic matter. A model based on digestive processes in ruminants is described which has been developed to assist in resolving these effects and interactions. Initial simulations with the basic Animal Production/Manure (APM) model have been conducted, both alone and in conjunction with the SCUAF (Soil Changes Under Agroforestry) model. These have been based on a system in which livestock are fed crop residues but may also graze or receive concentrate supplementation to highlight a number of issues, in particular that: animals may, depending on access to grazing and concentrate supplements, act as importers of nutrients into more intensively cropped land; and optimum production from the animal component may not necessarily be associated with maximum losses of nutrients from this land, even when the use of concentrate supplements is limited. Apart from improving our understanding of whole-cycle nutrient dynamics, the approach used in developing the APM model might also allow a unified approach to questions of whole-system productivity in mixed crop-livestock systems. Future efforts will concentrate on defining the parameters of the processes on which APM is based and the validation of the model against field data.Natural Resources Institute (NRI), Central Avenue, Chatham Maritime, Kent ME4 4TB (R.-U.)Certains des effets du transit de la biomasse par le système digestif des animaux sur la dynamique générale des cycles des éléments minéraux sont relativement bien définis. Toutefois, les processus survenant au niveau des animaux mêmes peuvent avoir des conséquences extrêmement importantes mais moins faciles à prendre en compte. Par exemple, les changements de la composition des régimes alimentaires peuvent modifier les proportions d'azote excrété dans le fumier et l'urine. L'interaction de tels changements avec les modes de gestion des animaux mêmes et du compost peut influencer les processus survenant dans la matière organique du sol. Cet article décrit un modèle basé sur les processus digestifs des ruminants et élaboré pour expliquer ces effets et ces interactions. Les premières simulations ont été effectuées soit avec le modèle Production animale/fumure (APM), soit avec celui-ci et le modèle Changements pédologiques en agroforesterie (SCUAF). Ces simulations sont basées sur un système dans lequel les animaux reçoivent des résidus de cultures mais peuvent aussi pâturer ou recevoir une complémentation de concentrés. L'objectif consistait à démontrer que les animaux peuvent, selon l'accès au pâturage et aux concentrés, importer des éléments nutritifs dans les terres soumises à une exploitation intensive et qu'une production animale optimale ne doit pas être nécessairement associée à des pertes accrues d'éléments nutritifs de la terre, même en conditionModels are a useful component in the analytical framework, which includes observation and experimentation, that can be applied to the evaluation of a wide variety of systems. Used in this way, modelling approaches have proved themselves powerful tools for integrating data from a wide variety of sources for the formulation of hypotheses and the testing of assumptions about key processes within a number of systems.The objectives of models are unlikely to encompass the perfect simulation of observational data. To assume that this might be achievable in most complex biological systems is naive. Furthermore, such a feat would merely reflect the fact that knowledge of the system under study was at a perfect stage and that further analysis would be unnecessary. It is arguable, therefore, that failures of predictive models are in many ways their most interesting features as they can help to focus researchers' attention on those processes about which information is inadequate or inaccurate.Models have been widely employed to explore the complexities of soil nutrient dynamics and the interactions between the factors which affect these (Parton et al, 1987;Thornley and Verberne, 1989) and, in many cases, have furnished the benefits outlined above. It is surprising, therefore, that a similar approach has not been taken to evaluate fluxes through the livestock component of nutrient cycles. The range of digestive and physiological processes which determine the partitioning and ultimate fate of nutrients as they pass through livestock operate at a similar level of complexity to soil processes. The interactions of these processes with the range of management strategies relating to feed and movement further complicate the elaboration of the subtle effects of livestock on nutrient fluxes within the system as a whole. The development of livestock models that can be interfaced with soil models could also have benefits for the modelling of whole-system dynamics and productivity with nutrient transfers being used to unify soil, crop and livestock components.Many of the effects of livestock on nutrient cycle dynamics are likely to be susceptible to evaluation using a process-based modelling approach as they are readily quantifiable. The efficiency of extraction of nutrients from feed by animals within a herd, the turnover of ingested nutrients within the animals, both in the short and longer terms and the partitioning of excreted nutrients between urine and faeces have all been assessed in formulating nutrient requirements for domestic livestock (ARC, 1980;IDWP, 1992). It is these processes that can affect the quantity and chemical composition of organic returns to cropland and, consequently, the dynamics of subsequent fluxes in the soil (Tian et al, 1992). There are, however, a number of other factors involved, e.g. the effects of tannin on nitrogen fluxes (Sivapalan, 1982;Rittner and Reed, 1992) that require further quantification. The integration of a modelling approach at an early stage could facilitate the identification of priorities for research in these areas. This paper, while not able to address these issues in great detail, sets out to demonstrate the potential of a modelling approach to contribute to the analysis of nutrient flows within crop-livestock systems. The principal objective of the Animal Production/Manure (APM) model developed was to assess the utility of a modelling approach for evaluating the effects on outputs, including nitrogen in excreta, of a range of management decisions that smallholders operating mixed crop-livestock systems must make. These decisions relate to the principal areas in which such farmers are likely to have optionsstocking density, use of grazing and the use of feed supplements. The model can be used to examine trade-offs between the different productive outputs of the livestock component of the system. Its outputs can also be used to examine the consequences of interventions within the livestock component for other parts of the farming system by using these as input data for soil models.The APM model is based on the treatments of nutrient and energy absorption and utilisation developed by ARC (1980) for metabolisable energy (ME) and IDWP (1992) for metabolisable protein (MP). The basic input data set required by APM (Table 1) has been minimised to allow the model to be operated in situations were available data are limited. Therefore, some of the feed parameters required by the model must be derived indirectly. These include the feed metabolisability (q = ME / Gross Energy), the acid detergent insoluble nitrogen (ADIN) content of the feed and three parameters which describe the dynamics of protein degradation in the rumen, a, b and c (Orskov and McDonald, 1979). ADIN and a, b and c are required by the MP system upon which the nitrogen component of the model is based and the values used are averages for each feed type. APM assumes that all animals in the herd are identical in type (for example, growing animals of a fixed mean live weight). This approach simplifies simulations for a range of herd sizes and is considered justifiable as the model is designed principally to examine the effects of livestock, as a system component, on nutrient fluxes. The composition of the diet consumed by animals in the herd is a function of the capacity of the type of animal selected to consume the feed that is available (its voluntary dry-matter intake; VDMI) and the herd size. If the total amount of feed available is greater than the total VDMI of the herd, it is assumed that feeds with the highest value for q are consumed preferentially. Thus, animals in a small herd will, at a given level of feed availability, tend to consume feeds of a better quality up to their maximum predicted VDMI (Forbes, 1986) and reject those of poorer quality. This approach allows the model to account, in principle at least, for the selectivity observed in animals offered feed in excess of their capacity to consume it (Osafo et al, 1992). When herd size is larger and the quantity of feed available is less than the total VDMI for the herd, a reduction in dry matter intake below VDMI is calculated that is proportional to herd size. Grazing intake is calculated separately, assuming that each animal in the herd consumes a quantity of grass that is proportional to the hours spent at pasture during each day. Thus, for a grazing herd, the potential intake of feeds presented in the stall is obtained by subtraction of the dry matter consumed at pasture from the VDMI of each animal.The simulation of animal performance is derived initially from the difference between the ME supplied in the feed consumed and the maintenance ME requirement appropriate for the type of animal in the herd, calculated using equations of ARC (1980). A mean daily rate of production (milk or liveweight change) and total production (or liveweight loss) during one month is calculated from the amount of ME in excess or deficit of the maintenance ME required. In the latter case, weight loss is Effects of livestock on nutrient flows calculated from the amount of body reserves mobilised to meet a shortfall in ME for maintenance (ARC, 1980).The animals' ability to achieve the level of performance predicted from ME intake depends on the adequate supply of protein for turnover and production. The protein component of the model, based on the UK MP system, uses the same general approach described by Dewhurst and Thomas (1992) who evaluated the effects of dietary changes on urine production. Dietary MP supply is checked against the MP required to support the level of production by the energy component. If the former is found to be inadequate, a correction is made to the predicted production level on the basis of the rate of MP utilisation that the current MP intake will support. If MP supply is inadequate for protein turnover, a weight loss is calculated as specified by IDWP (1992).The MP system also allows the prediction of the partitioning of nitrogen between faeces and urine (Table 2). In animals that are not grazed, it is assumed that all excreted nitrogen is incorporated into compost together with any feeds that are rejected by a herd that is fed in excess of VDMI. In herds that graze for part of the day, it is assumed that the amounts of faecal and urine N deposited on the pasture or range are proportional to the amount of time spent grazing. The current implementation of the model assumes that there is no diurnal variation in faeces or urine output. Source: IDWP (1992).APM is a mechanistic model (albeit at a fairly low level of disaggregation) in the sense that the parameters used in its construction are related by the discrete, identifiable processes that are said to govern nitrogen and energy transactions in the animal. The scope of the model's applicability depends, therefore, on how generally these processes apply. The key question here is: do the descriptions of processes derived by ARC (1980) and IDWP (1992) for animals under European conditions apply to animals, of different genotypes, kept under more extensive feeding and management systems in Africa or elsewhere? A reliable answer to this question would require detailed validation and testing of the model using individual animal data for several species under a wide range of feed management systems. Such testing of APM might be envisaged for the future when a number of inadequacies, which will become apparent, relating to the parameterisation and data used in the construction of the model have been addressed.For the purposes of this paper, a simple comparison between APM predictions and experimental observations is presented to illustrate current limitations on the predictive capacity of the model. The P.J. Thorne input data used for this simulation (Table 3) are derived from a nitrogen balance experiment conducted with indigenous Malawi goats offered a range of hay-supplement combinations (Reynolds, 1981) which was selected at random from a number of suitable, published studies. Source: Reynolds (1981).Simulations were conducted with APM to evaluate the effects of herd size, availability of grazing and supplementary feeds and their interactions on liveweight production and nitrogen outputs for composting from a livestock holding associated with a specific system. The system used was a hedgerow intercrop of pigeon pea and maize producing 1020 and 2220 kg/ha per year, respectively, of forage dry matter which, for the purposes of the simulation was assumed to be available as feed (6 kg of maize stover and 2.8 kg pigeon pea haulm per day). This level of forage production was based on predictions for the crop generated by an example simulation presented by Young and Muraya (1990) using the Soil Changes Under Agroforestry (SCUAF) model. The system was chosen so that possibilities for using the APM model in conjunction with this soil nutrient model could also be explored. The APM model simulations were based on the assumption that all forage was removed from the cropped land and all compost produced was available subsequently for fertilising the crop.The effects on liveweight production and sources of nitrogen in the compost, of grazing for four or eight hours per day and a fixed availability of concentrate of 0.5 kg or 1 kg per day in addition to the forage available from crop residues were also examined. The model was also used to examine the effects of grazing and supplement availability on net nutrient transfers between the livestock component and the crop land. Basic input data for these APM simulations are shown in Table 4. Interfacing with a soil nutrient model APM model simulations were also conducted in tandem with simulations of soil changes and their consequences for crop productivity over a six-year period that were generated using the SCUAF model. The SCUAF model was developed for making approximate predictions of the effects of agroforestry systems on soil parameters (erodibility and nutrient status) and to use these predictions to assist in the design and conduct of agroforestry experimentation. It is divided into a plant and a soil compartment. The soil compartment simulates changes in soil stability and fertility over a specified period by considering soil erosion -based on a simplified version of the Universal Soil Loss Equation (FAO, 1979) -and carbon and nitrogen cycling. Changes in plant growth over time in response to changes in the soil compartment are estimated using a number of user-specified feedback factors which describe the extent to which soil factors influence plant growth.The basic input data used for the SCUAF simulations conducted here were presented by Young and Muraya (1990). These simulations assumed a constant rate of inorganic fertiliser application of 100 kg of 40% N per year. Grains from the pigeon pea/maize intercrop were harvested annually for human consumption and therefore represented losses to the system. Residues from both crops (pigeonpea haulms and maize stover) were also removed for animal feeding but compost was accounted for, where appropriate, as an input to the SCUAF model. The woody above-ground parts of the pigeon pea remain in the system from year to year as standing biomass and the roots which die and decompose at varying rates return nutrients to the labile pools in the soil.To run the joint simulations, the crop model was used to produce yearly forage inputs for APM. On the basis of these, APM supplied input data on the quantity and quality of organic matter returns to the soil for SCUAF for the following year. Years were considered to be identical except for the levels of removals, determined by SCUAF, and returns, determined by APM.Feed and compost-management scenarios for each joint simulation were developed using the APM simulations of the effects of herd size, access to grazing and use of supplementary feeding. It was assumed that, for a given feed-management strategy, the farmer adopted a herd size which maximised the live weight gained by the herd as a whole. Thus, the four basic management scenarios used in defining conditions for the joint simulations were:1. All crop residues removed for feeding but no return of compost. In this simulation, there would be no feedback effects of livestock management on the crop component (net outflow of N in feeds from crop land = 47.28 kg/year).2. Removal of crop residues for feeding and all compost returned subsequently for fertilising the crop. No grazing or supplementary feeding of a herd of two animals (net outflow of N in feeds from the crop = 19.56 kg/year).3. As for simulation 2 but with a herd of four animals grazed for 8 hours per day (net outflow of N in feeds from the crop = 21.84 kg/year).4. As for simulation 3 but with a herd of ten animals also offered 0.5 kg per head per day of supplementary groundnut cake (net outflow of N in feeds from the crop = -31.08 kg/year).The results of these simulations were related to a baseline simulation in which all crop residues were returned to the crop directly, after harvest. This represents the pigeon pea-maize intercrop with no associated livestock component.Faecal and urinary nitrogen production from indigenous Malawi goats consuming diets with a range of nitrogen contents observed experimentally (Reynolds, 1981) and predicted by APM using input data derived from this study are shown in Figure 1. Accurate quantitative prediction of the individual P.J. Thorne experimental observations was not achieved by the model as, in general, predicted values fall outside the ranges of the errors associated with the observed values. However, the direction and rates of the predicted responses to increasing dietary N were significantly correlated (faecal N, r 2 = 0.676; urine N, r 2 = 0.981) with those observed in vivo.Similar inaccuracies were also observed in the quantitative prediction of nitrogen balance (Table 5) but again, correlation over the range of treatments was significant (r = 0.959). Growth performance  Effects of livestock on nutrient flows data were not available for the experiment. However, weight changes predicted by the APM model (also shown in Table 5) were, to an extent, consistent with the observed nitrogen balance data. As might be expected animals that were in negative N balance in the experimental study lost weight in the simulations. However, the group with the highest predicted percentage of ingested nitrogen retained was not the group with the fastest growth rate in the experimental study and the levels of N retention predicted might have been expected to be associated with rather higher rates of gain. The inadequacies of the predictions, for urine N production at least, would appear to be errors of quantification rather than due to the general formulation of the relationships which define the model. This implies that there are inaccuracies in the data used within the simulations. It is suggested that the parameters most likely to be responsible are those which describe protein degradation in the rumen (a, b and c) and ADIN which contributes directly to faecal N levels. Values used in the model are derived means for each different class of feed but, for a, b and c, are likely to be subject to quite large inaccuracies as these parameters are highly variable (Webster, 1993) even when determined for the same samples at different laboratories. The use of ADIN to represent undegradable, undigested nitrogen has been adopted relatively recently, therefore, only limited data are available on which to base model predictions. Thus, increasing the accuracy with which a, b, c and ADIN are quantified is likely to be the most significant barrier to improving the quantitative predictive capacity of the model in future. Direct input of these parameters for feeds used in simulations could be expected to increase accuracy of prediction. However, these data are not widely available for practical situations and insistence on their use would probably compromise the utility of the model.Changes in the production of live weight by herds in response to increasing herd size followed similar patterns under all conditions of feed availability simulated with the APM model (Figure 2). Daily liveweight gain (DLWG) by individual animals decreased initially as the quality and quantity of feed available to each one declined. In contrast, total liveweight production increased initially to a peak with increasing herd size. As herd size was increased further, liveweight production declined as the incremental reduction in DLWG in all animals due to the reduction in nutrient intake brought about by the sharing of available feed with an additional animal exceeded the increase in live weight due to that extra animal. Not only the size but also the position and shape of the peak in live-weight production was dependent on feed availability. Increased feed availability due to the provision of supplements or, in particular, grazing shifted the peak to a larger herd size.Grazing access also tended to broaden the peak as the provision of extra forage, proportional to the number of animals in the herd, allowed the higher quality feeds (pigeon-pea haulm and groundnut cake) to be spread more widely. A similar response to supplementation was observed when a fixed allowance per animal was offered rather than allowing this to vary by the allocation of a flat rate for the herd. The provision of grazing and supplements in this way could potentially allow farmers more P.J. Thorne flexibility in planning stocking rates. If total live weight produced is similar over a range of herd sizes, there is scope for optimising other variables such as nutrient fluxes within that range.The relationships between herd size and the sources and quantities of nitrogen in the compost under the different supplementation regimes are shown in Figure 3 and different levels of grazing access in Figure 4. In general total N in the compost tended towards a minimum with increasing herd size. This minimum was observed when herd size was large enough for all offered feeds to be consumed. Subsequently compost N increased with increasing herd size due to the progressively larger contributions of endogenous urinary and faecal N. Sources of nitrogen in the compost are likely to have a significant effect on its quality as a soil adjuvant. In small herds which do not consume all the available feed, a proportion of the compost is made up of maize stover and at higher levels of supplementation and grazing a limited amount of pigeon pea haulm. Manure nitrogen is probably of higher value as a soil adjuvant than undegraded plant material (Sandford, 1989) although some undegraded plant material is necessary for good quality compost and efficient urine capture. Animals in small herds also consume diets of higher quality in terms of dietary protein:energy ratio. Under these conditions the ratio of faecal to urine nitrogen is lower. This highlights the importance of management practices, such as the provision of bedding or placement of stalls on land that is to be cropped in future, that are aimed at conserving urine N, particularly when improved feeding practices are introduced. The consequences of ineffective urine capture have been demonstrated in practice by Powell and Williams (1991) who observed increases in DM production of more than 50% in plots treated with manure and urine in comparison with other plots treated with manure alone.Responses in nitrogen excretion to increasing herd size when grazing access was allowed were similar although total N in the compost was reduced at a particular herd size as a proportion of faeces and urine was excreted on the pasture. If herd sizes optimum for liveweight production are compared for grazing and non-grazing animals, levels of N added to compost are similar but the provision of supplements resulted in higher levels of compost nitrogen at optimum herd size.The division by the model of nitrogen excreted in faeces and urine between pasture and compost assumes that there is no diurnal variation in output. There is, however, evidence that this is probably not the case in practice as marked diurnal variation in faecal and urine production and N content has been observed experimentally. Betteridge et al (1986) suggested that up to 66% of urinary nitrogen may be excreted during the night.Figure 5 shows the effects of the size of a herd grazing eight hours per day on net fluxes from the cropland both with and without the provision of 0.5 kg of groundnut cake per animal per day. This simulation illustrates how animals can act as importers of nutrients into crop land. The removal of crop residues for livestock feeding represents a constant flow of 47.28 kg of nitrogen per year from the cropland. In the unsupplemented herd, a net flow of zero does not occur until a herd size of 10 is reached. At this stage, the herd is losing live weight. With supplementation, a net flow of zero is achieved within the range in which live-weight production is maximised. Furthermore, the high rate of supplementation ensures that the peak for live-weight production is broad and, at a herd size of 13, outflows from the plot can be returned in faecal nitrogen alone reducing the importance of efficient husbandry of urine. This latter simulation illustrates how intensification of feeding systems in crop-livestock systems through the use of agro-industrial by-products are likely to lead incidentally to improved sustainability of associated crop production activities.While net fluxes can be evaluated using APM alone, the wider effects of the quantities and composition of compost available in crop-livestock systems need to be evaluated using the APM model in conjunction with the SCUAF model. Figure 6 illustrates the consequences of the four scenarios used in the joint simulations on changes in soil organic matter and crop productivity over the six-year period of the simulations. It is not surprising that under scenario 1 the removal of crop residues for feed with no return of compost results in an accelerating decline in soil organic nitrogen and crop productivity. Equally expected is the increase in soil organic nitrogen and productivity observed under scenario 4 where there was a net influx of 31.08 kg/year of compost nitrogen into the plot. Perhaps most interesting are the differences between scenarios 2 (no grazing or supplementation) and 3 (8 hours grazing per day). Although net annual N fluxes were similar (19.56 versus 21.84 kg/ year), more than twice the volume of compost dry matter was returned under scenario 3 (2188 versus 1009 kg/year) which supported a herd size of four as opposed to two animals. This is reflected by differences in the ratios of carbon to nitrogen in the organic returns which, under scenario 2, averaged 15.5 and under scenario 3, 34.5. The higher organic-matter returns under scenario 3 are likely to be more beneficial for soil structure and would thereby promote more effective retention of N in the soil.Modelling studies conducted to date indicate a need for improved parameterisation to account for the effects of livestock on nutrient cycle dynamics under tropical conditions. There are three areas in which this could be particularly improved: • Integration of the effects of other feed factors such as tannin which affect protein metabolism and soil processes and are found in a range of tropical feeds. • A treatment of diurnal variation in manure and urine production or, failing this, an ability of the model to test the sensitivity of simulations to variation in these parameters. • Increase the potential of animal models to interface directly with soil models, a treatment of the degradation of manure and urine, post-voiding.The current study has also identified problems in assimilating basic data for running simulations of nitrogen transactions in the animal for a wide range of tropical feeds. The use of multivariate statistical analysis to identify groups of feeds with common properties relating to the degradation and digestibility of nitrogen might promote improvements in the ability of the APM model make quantitative predictions. Un modèle de simulation a été construit pour prévoir la consommation de matière sèche (MS) et de protéines brutes (PB) et les performances des bovins à partir du poids vif, de l'âge, de l'état des pâturages et du niveau de complémentation. Les données d'ingestion ont été utilisées pour évaluer les quantités d'azote (N) assimilées par les animaux, et les quantités excrétées dans les fèces et l'urine. La teneur en azote des excrétions dépendait de la nature, de la quantité et de la qualité des aliments. Le taux et la dégradabilité des protéines brutes de la ration influençaient aussi l'excrétion d'azote dans les fèces et l'urine. La proportion des éléments nutritifs excrétés qui étaient recyclés dans le sol dépendait du mode de gestion des animaux. Le modèle a également été utilisé pour examiner l'effet des compléments endogènes ou exogènes et des effectifs animaux sur les quantités d'éléments nutritifs recyclés par le bétail dans le district de Kaloleni sur la côte kényenne. Les besoins en éléments minéraux ont été calculés pour l'ensemble du cheptel et comparés aux ressources alimentaires afin de déterminer l'effet de la densité de population rurale sur l'équilibre entre la demande et l'offre d'aliments du bétail. Il ressort des résultats que les propriétaires de bovins peuvent apporter à leur maïs une quantité nette de 25 kg de N/ha, suffisante pour assurer un rendement grains de 1,8 t/ha. Les terres des agriculteurs sans bovins subissaient des pertes nettes d'azote par suite de la pâture des résidus de culture par les bovins. Avec l'augmentation de la densité de population et la diminution de la taille des exploitations, les propriétaires de bovins n'obtenaient sur leurs exploitations qu'une proportion décroissante des aliments du bétail dont ils ont besoin et les animaux passaient plus de temps à pâturer ailleurs. Par conséquent, le flux net d'azote augmentait au détriment du reste de la communauté. L'achat de concentrés, alternative économiquement viable pour l'élevage de bovins laitiers, est une autre source externe d'éléments nutritifs capable d'augmenter le taux d'azote excrété et de maintenir la fertilité des sols.Plant material is the primary level of production from land, with animals (humans, domesticated and wild animals) as secondary users in competition for plant material. Most of the consumed nutrients are rapidly returned by animals to the soil in faeces and urine, but nutrients are removed when plant material is consumed and the nutrients retained in body tissue or in milk. Nutrients are returned to the soil in excreta when livestock products are consumed by other animals, and later when animals die and their carcasses decompose.In areas of high population density, grazing areas may no longer be available. Cultivated forages, with natural forages from on-and off-farm sources, sometimes supplemented with purchased feeds, provide the necessary dietary nutrients for animal production. Animals may be confined and hand-fed or tethered on the farm. With lower population densities, grazing on-and off-farm is more common. Grazing animals consume plant biomass growing over a wide area, but faecal and urine deposits are concentrated in patches. Farmers can take advantage of this by collecting manure from kraals to spread over their cropland. Urine is more difficult to collect, except with stall-fed animals on concrete. A large area is depleted of nutrients to the benefit of a small area. Grazing livestock can enhance the nutrient status of cropped areas on mixed farms, but at the expense of extensive grazing areas.It is difficult to collect sufficiently detailed data on-farm to accurately measure the flows of nutrients within, to and from a farm. The objective of this paper is to explore ways of estimating nutrient balances based on milk production and reproductive performance of cattle, estimate dietary nutrient requirements to achieve that level of production, and the probable faecal and urine nutrient outputs. Predictions of animal requirements for given levels of production, and corresponding faecal and urine output are based on equations developed in Australia for grazing animals (SCA, 1990). A further simulation model predicts the feed availability, animal requirements and nitrogen (N) excretion for a case study area (Kaloleni Division of Coast Province, Kenya) and indicates the overall effect on N balance on-and off-farm for increasing levels of human population density.The SCA model takes an approach similar to that of the Agricultural Research Council (1980;1992) requiring information on age, body weight, sex and physiological state of an animal, and on dry-matter (DM) energy and protein intake, and degradibility of the protein. In addition, SCA allows predictions of intake to be made for grazing animals based on pasture biomass, composition and quality. Since tropical rations, especially when forage-based, are more heterogeneous than the rations on which cattle are raised in temperate regions, post-ruminal protein digestibility for undegraded dietary protein is based on protein concentration in the forage (Webster et al, 1982) rather than using a fixed value.The spreadsheet predictions start from dietary protein and energy intake, and assume that faecal N is determined by dietary N degradability, post-ruminal digestibility and absorption of microbial N and undegraded N, plus endogenous N. Urinary N is determined by the efficiency of utilisation of absorbed N, unutilised N from rumen-degradable protein RDP and dietary non-protein nitrogen (if limited by dietary metabolisable energy (ME)), plus endogenous N.Firstly, the effects are shown of cattle at different production levels on the nitrogen balance within farms. It highlights the role of sources of feed external to the farm in raising the amounts of N excreted in faeces and urine which can provide nitrogen inputs for soil fertility and plant growth. Secondly, using survey data from the semi-humid coastal lowlands of Kenya, the effects of livestock are shown on nitrogen balance of smallholder farms in the coconut/cassava (CL3) and cashewnut/cassava (CL4) agro-ecological zones.The efficiency with which dietary nutrients are converted by indigenous tropical cattle to animal products is low. Livestock in a typical tropical smallholder system will retain less than 20% of the ingested N for productive purposes. The rest is expelled in faeces and urine. Livestock provide an anaerobic environment for rumen microbes to extract soluble N and some of the insoluble N compounds from ingested dietary material. Further along the intestinal tract, enzymes secreted by the animal allow absorption of N compounds to occur, before the remainder are excreted in faeces. Absorbed but unwanted N, and N from metabolic by-products are excreted in urine.A zebu cow on pasture weighing 190 kg and consuming 2.4% of its body weight of a ration with 80 g crude protein (CP)/kg DM, N degradability of 0.70 and 8 MJ ME/kg DM, has a net maintenance requirement of 117.5 g CP/day (18.8 g N/day). Dietary requirements (SCA, 1990) are higher than net N requirements because of inefficiencies in digestion, absorption and assimilation. For the reference animal dietary N needs are 58.7 g/day, producing a total faecal output of 34.8 g N and urine excretion of 23.0 g N.Maintenance requirements are dependant upon dietary CP level (Figure 1) and the degradability of N in the ration (Figure 2). When N degradability is 0.80, maintenance would be achieved with an intake of 2.0% of body weight, with a daily faecal and urine N output of 26.7 and 22.0 g N, respectively.If intake is higher than 2.4% of body weight on a ration with 80 g CP/kg DM, N degradability of 0.7 and 8 MJ ME/kg DM, the animal will retain N in the body. As the quantity of N in the ration increases, the level of N retained in the body will rise, as will faecal and urine excretion (Figure 3). At an intake of 2.7% of body weight on the ration used in the maintenance example, the animal will retain 0.9 g N/day, losing 38.9 g N in faeces, and 24.9 g N in urine. As N degradability increases, N retention and urinary N losses increase, but faecal N losses decline (Figure 4). Less N will be returned to the soil in excreta than have been removed by the grazing animal. Animal production must involve the storage of nutrients taken from plant (and hence from soil) in body tissue or milk. Farmers only receive an income from livestock when milk or meat are sold, and this inevitably involves removal of nutrients from the farm.If intake is less than 2.4% of body weight on the ration described for maintenance, the animal will excrete more N then it consumes. At an intake of 2.0% of body weight faecal excretion will be 28.8 g and urine 20.2 g N/day: a net loss of 1.3 g N/day. Under these circumstances, more N is returned to the soil than was removed during grazing.A grazing cow may walk 2 to 6 km per day, with a grazing area of approximately 0.5 m on either side of its line of passage. Hence, the total area from which forage has been harvested may be between 0.2 and 0.6 ha/day. Over 24 hours, a grazing animal defaecates 10 to 12 times, and urinates 4 to 6 times. Dung will cover a total area of approximately 1 m 2 , and urine 2.5 m 2 (Holmes, 1980). Excreta are   deposited where animals are grazing. It can be assumed that the amount of excreta dropped while grazing is proportional to the time spent in that area. With a grazing time of 8 hours per day, one-third of total excreta will be deposited in the field, and two-thirds in the kraal.Urine deposited in the kraal will partly be absorbed in the dung layer, but will also soak into the underlying soil. Kraal manure taken to cropland will contain therefore only a portion of the N excreted by the animal in the kraal. Temporary corralling on cropping areas before planting allows in situ manuring (Powell, 1986), avoiding the labour of transporting manure to cropping areas. It also allows urine to be deposited where it will be most useful.In most parts of Africa there is a relatively short time during a year when food crops are growing, and it is during this period when nutrients from manure are most needed. Soluble N in manure, and urine N are almost immediately available to plants, while insoluble N, tied to undigestible plant residues will only be mineralised slowly. However, manure is deposited year round, and nutrient losses occur when dung is left on the soil surface, and from urine absorbed in the soil. Excreta dropped at pasture by a grazing animal lose around 50% of urine N over a few weeks, and 5% of faecal N, mainly from the soluble fraction and mostly from volatilisation. There are smaller losses from denitrification and leaching.Thus, half of the N consumed by an animal at a maintenance level of production will be lost from the excreta before it can be re-used by soil microflora and fauna, and by plants. The rate of mineralisation of N is faster, and losses from volatilisation are greater from animal excreta than from plant litter. Vertregt and Rutgers (1988) estimated that ammonia losses accounted for four times as much of the N excreted from animals when compared with the N losses from decaying herbage from pasture. Hence, although animal excreta provides nutrients for plants in a more usable form, the loss of N from the system is accelerated.When manure is collected in the kraal or from a stall, it accumulates daily. Whether it is stored in situ on the floor of the kraal, in a manure heap or a slurry pit, losses of N will occur before the excreta is needed on cropland. Losses in a manure heap will be slower than from the equivalent amount of dung in scattered pats on pasture, because the surface area exposed to the atmosphere is less. Losses of N between the deposition of excreta in a stall unit with subsequent storage in an open heap, and application on the land were estimated to be up to 55% of total N (Iowa State University, 1975).Composting can occur in the interior of a manure heap, and this will accelerate the mineralisation of N, so that when the compost is spread on cropland, nutrients will be available for plant use more rapidly. Slurry, a mixture of excreta and water, shows higher losses of N from volatilisation when applied to the surface of the soil, than when it is incorporated in the soil.In a closed or subsistence farming system, there is no import or export of nutrients to or from the farm. There is no sale of live animals, meat or milk, and no forage from outside grazing or supplementary feed enter the farm. Animals obtain nutrients only from on-farm natural pasture, cultivated forages and crop residues.With animals at maintenance, by definition, intake of N is equal to output of N, and there is theoretically no overall effect on the N balance of the farm. However, because of the volatile nature of much of the N in excreta, a portion is lost to the atmosphere. The overall result is a decline in the N status of the farm as a result of the presence of livestock, even if the farm is operated at a subsistence level.In an open or commercially oriented farm, nutrients will be exported in milk and meat. There must be a net drain on farm nutrients if all the feed has been produced on the farm, but when animals graze outside the farm or where supplementary feeds are purchased, a profit and loss account for nutrients can be drawn up. For example a 190-kg cow grazing for 8 hours/day, consuming 7.4 kg DM/day (the equivalent of 3.9% of body weight) containing 81 g CP/kg DM (degradability of 0.70) and 10.4 MJ ME/kg DM, and producing 1.0 kg milk/day will have an intake of 96.0 g N, of which 5.1 g will be found in milk, 0.9 g in dermal losses, 56.6 g in faeces and 33.4 g in urine.The N balance of the farm will benefit if more feed N is brought on to the farm than is removed when the milk is sold. The calculation is simple if external feed sources are a supplement to on-farm grazing, and livestock do not move off-farm. In this case, N in the supplement must be greater than N in any milk sold off-farm for a positive N balance to occur. The situation is slightly more complicated when livestock graze on-and off-farm, because nutrients will be ingested and excreted throughout the day, some on-farm, and some off-farm. Intake depends upon a combination of animal and pasture characteristics and their interactions. Excretion in a particular location is largely dependent upon the time spent there. If the reference animal spends eight hours grazing, of which two hours are on-farm and six off-farm and assuming that all the milk is consumed on-farm, the net gain of N to the farm will be 60.0 g/day.If the farmer provides, from off-farm sources, 1 kg of supplement containing 160 g CP/kg DM with a degradability of 0.65 to the grazing animal described above, daily intake will increase to 7.52 kg (4.0% of body weight) as the supplement acts as a partial substitute for some of the forage, and milk yield will increase to 2.0 kg/day, containing 10.2 g N. Nitrogen intake will increase to 111.5 g, with dermal, faecal and urine losses of 1.1, 62.2 and 37.9 g N/day, respectively. Given an 8-hour grazing period, 67% of the excreta will be dropped in the kraal area (i.e. 41.7 g faecal N and 25.4 g urine N). If grazing is divided between two hours on-farm and six hours off-farm, the net gain to the farm will increase to 71.4 g N/day. Kaloleni Division, Kenya coast Jaetzold and Schmidt (1983) reported that the 1979 population of Kaloleni was 151 500 people, in 21 700 rural households. Agricultural land accounted for 915 km 2 , with roads, homesteads and rivers covering 98 km 2 , and steep slopes (unsuitable for agriculture) covering the remaining 40 km 2 totalling 1053 km 2 . Thus, on agricultural land, there is a density of 143 persons/km 2 , implying an average farm size of 4.2 ha. In Kaloleni, agro-ecological zone CL3 (coconut/cassava) covers 160 km 2 , CL4 (cashewnut/cassava) covers 429 km 2 with a further 326 km 2 in drier areas. A small-scale farm survey of CL3 and CL4 zones in 1977, which included part of Kaloleni Division, reported an average of 5 cattle, 2 sheep and 16 goats per household.In 1988/89 ILCA undertook a survey of 1800 households in CL3 and CL4 agro-ecological zones of Kaloleni. Total farm size for the first and second plot combined was 5.7 ha for households based in CL3 and 7.6 ha for households based in CL4, implying only 2802 and 5608 households in the two respective zones (Thorpe et al, 1993). 1 Farm size and livestock holdings are summarised in Tables 1  and 2. In zones CL3/4 of Kaloleni there are 17 917 tropical livestock units (TLU) from cattle, 94% of which were zebu animals, and 2859 TLU from small ruminants, giving a total of 20 776 TLU and a density of 35 TLU/km 2 . Source: Adapted from Thorpe et al (1993). Cattle-owning farms account for 20% of all farms in Kaloleni (Table 1), keeping 6.9 adult zebu cows, of which 25% (1.7 cows) will be in milk. Based on the studies of Maloo et al (1988) at the coast, the estimated lactation length is 177 days, milk extraction is 158 kg and the calf takes another 270 litres, and there is a calving interval of 708 days (Table 3). With a mean live weight of 190 kg, animal requirements for dry matter and protein for a complete reproductive cycle will be 3.6 t DM and 314 kg CP, respectively, equivalent to 1.86 t DM and 162 kg CP/year. Over a complete reproductive cycle, 6.9 adult cows will require 25.1 t DM and 2.17 t dietary CP, equivalent to 13 t DM/year and 1131 kg dietary CP/year. The total feed requirements for all adult cows in CL3/4 are estimated at 19 715 t DM and 1712 t CP per year. Adult cows represent 52% of the total ruminant TLUs in Kaloleni. The requirement for other cattle is 12 193 t DM and 1050 t dietary CP/year, and for small ruminants is 5792 t DM and 496 t of CP/year. Hence, total annual feed requirements for ruminant livestock in the CL3/4 zones of Kaloleni are 37 700 t DM and 3258 t dietary CP/year.Forage will be available from natural pasture, fallow land, herbage underneath permanent tree crops, cultivated forages and from crop residues. In 1977, 27% of the land was under natural pasture, 5% under fallow, 32% under tree crops and 34% under annual crops (Jaetzold and Schmidt, 1983). By 1985-87, Leegwater et al (1991) found that 43% of all farmland was under food crops. Thus over time, as human population density increases, an increasing portion of the land is being used for annual crops.The actual areas under different land-use categories are summarised in Table 4. An assumption is made that natural herbage biomass production is the same under permanent tree crops, as from natural pasture, fallows and roadsides. Forty per cent of the cropped land is occupied by maize, cowpeas cover 10%, and cassava 20% (Jaetzold and Schmidt, 1983). Residues, including 2.5 t of maize stover (1.65 t edible) and 0.5 t of maize bran/ha plus 0.9 t/ha of cowpea haulms will be available for animal feed. Losses in the field from termites, weathering and trampling, account for 50% of the residue yield. This produces annually 8484 tonnes of edible maize stover, 4558 t of maize bran and 1139 tonnes of edible cowpea haulms (Table 5).  Cassava is harvested 10-11 months after planting, and the land is unavailable to grazing livestock because of the probability of crop damage. Livestock owners are assumed to feed crop residues from their farm to their own animals, but any surplus will be available to animals from other owners who face feed deficits. Standing herbage biomass on natural pasture varied over a period of two years from 0.7 t DM/ha at the end of the dry season to 2.4 t/ha at the end of the rainy season (P. Bullerdiek, unpublished data). Mean levels were 1.6, 1.2, 1.5 and 1.2 t/ha for April-June, July-September, October-December and January-March, respectively. Assuming that only 50% of the grass biomass can be harvested by grazing animals, 21 000 t of natural forage will be available annually (Table 5).Browse is assumed to produce 0.5 t DM/ha at 15% CP, of which 50% can be harvested by grazing animals. Half of all the non-cropped land is assumed to produce browse. In Kaloleni for grazing cattle and goats, grass accounts for 79% and 42% of bites, respectively (Ramadhan et al, 1992). Total browse, that can be harvested by grazing animals is 4384 t DM and 658 t CP/year. Based on 1989 figures, animal DM requirements are met by available feed with a surplus equivalent to 5% of annual DM requirements, and a 16% excess of dietary CP. On the basis of these estimates, Kaloleni Division is slightly understocked (Table 5).For zones CL3/4, ruminant livestock produce a total intake of 515 t N/year, from which 268 t N is deposited in faeces, 216 t N in urine, 9 t N in dermal losses and 22 t N is retained for production. Gains and losses of deposited N differ between the three groups of farmers and depend on livestock ownership. Livestock from other farmers remove 105 t N from those without livestock and return 35 t of N in excreta giving this group a negative balance of 70 t/year (Table 6). Similarly, small-stock farms lose 111 t of N per year, the main beneficiaries being the cattle owners who gain 150 t or 89 kg N/farm per year. These cattle-owning farmers occupy 28% of the land, but produce 93% of all excreta. These N-returns, if distributed evenly on the 43% of their land allocated to annual crops, are equivalent to 9 kg N/ha per year. If, instead of manuring all 4.2 ha of their cropped land, cattle owners deposit all excreta on their 1.7 ha of maize, the net benefit would amount to 22 kg N/ha per year.  Boxem et al (1987) predicted that 50 kg of N/ha is required to maintain a maize yield of 1.8 t of grain on the sandy soils in Kilifi District, of which 25 kg can be obtained from the soil, and the remainder must be provided from other sources. If animal numbers were at a level to fully utilise feed supplies, the area could carry 41 TLU/km 2 and support a population density of 164 persons/km 2 . At this density, the net contribution of livestock on cattle farms would be equivalent to 27 kg N/ha of maize, close to the level needed to maintain a grain yield of 1.8 t/ha. For food security it can be argued that sustainable maize production has the highest priority for all classes of farmers. Land allocation to maize (1.0 ha for no livestock, 1.2 ha for small ruminant only and 1.7 ha for cattle-owning farms) and an average yield of 1.8 t maize grain/ha would provide an annual provision of 200 kg/person. Assuming storage losses are 30%, 140 kg of edible grain would be available per person.The human population in the Coast Province may be increasing at a rate of 3.5% per annum. In 12 years the population will be 1.5 times as high as in 1989 and in 20 years it will have doubled. As population and the number of households increase, farm size will decrease. The proportion of total feed required by ruminants in Kaloleni that can be met from natural pasture (herbage and browse) and crop residues, will decrease if numbers of livestock/household remain at 1989 levels.There are many scenarios that could ensue as populations increase. More land could be allocated towards annual crops and within the annual crop portion to maize and cassava in an attempt to ensure subsistence food production. Numbers of animals/household could decrease following existing trends of fewer animals as total farm land declines. Increasing annual crops slightly improves the output of both feed DM and CP, because crop residues produce more livestock feed than natural grass and browse. Irrespective of allocation of land to annual crops, as human population increases and farm size drops, the proportion of required feed that can be obtained by cattle on-farm will decline, although farms with only small ruminants will continue to meet feed requirements from their own resources. Hence, cattle must spend an increasing proportion of their grazing time on non-cropped land and on land of \"other\" farmers (Table 6). As a result, across the population pressure gradient, total net N transfers to cattle owners will rise from 150 to 195 t of N. However, with a nearly constant livestock population, the stocking density per area of maize will drop from 7.1 to 4.2 TLU/ha thereby lowering the N-deposits per ha and potentially leading to declining grain yields (Table 7). Average farm size, ha 2 7.0 4.7 ----------------------2.8 -------------------------Fraction of land 0.17 0.17 2. Farm size is based on the assumption that all agricultural land is adjudicated to farmers (see Tables 1, 4 and 5).3. Net N before losses due to volatilisation.Zebu animals are not sufficiently productive for purchased feeds to be an economic proposition, but with crossbred dairy cows the use of purchased concentrate can be financially profitable. As has been shown by Snijders (1992) for zero-grazing dairy farms with crossbred cows in the highlands of Kenya, the import of N in purchased concentrate allows zero-grazed dairy farms to remain in positive N balance despite annual sales of 2500 litres milk/cow. This scenario will be increasingly important for the small number of farms producing milk from crossbred cattle in Kaloleni as human populations increase and farm size decreases. However, it is less likely to be relevant to the zebu cattle owners who are currently in the majority.Grazing livestock collect nutrients from a wide area and deposit a large proportion in excreta in very small areas. High losses of nitrogen from volatilisation occur in urine together with smaller losses from faeces. Volatilisation losses of N from excreta are higher than the losses that would occur if the N remained as a constituent of uneaten plant material. Any sales of livestock or their products will remove N from the farm. The net effect of livestock on the N balance of a farm will only be positive where feed N imported in concentrate or harvested off-farm by grazing animals outweighs the N exported in livestock sales. In Kaloleni Division, farms with grazing cattle show a net positive N balance at the expense of non-cattle owning farms in the area, provided there is unrestricted access to all on-and off-farm feed resources.A static model of nutrient flow on mixed farms in the highlands of western Kenya to explore the possible impact of improved management Currently there is much interest in the potential role of agroforestry in the mitigation of nutrient depletion in sub-Saharan Africa. Using data from farm surveys and trials static models of nutrient flow for existing farm systems and improved agroforestry systems were constructed. These included boundary plantings of trees, hedgerow intercropping for green manure or fodder, and a well-managed zero-grazing system with moderate fertiliser inputs. The objective was to explore the possible impact on nutrient budgets of improved management options. Major nitrogen (N) losses (70% of total farm loss) occurred in the field and hedgerow compartments, principally through leaching and denitrification, which exceeded 60 kg N/ha per annum in all systems. However, there was uncertainty in predicted net mineralisation and the potential amounts of soil-N losses, and the study indicated substantial potential for N mineralisation in deep subsoils. In contrast, phosphorus (P) was efficiently conserved in the farm system, and moderate additions of inorganic P fertilisers could maintain soil-P stocks. Net soil nutrient balances ranged from -39 to -118 kg N/ha per annum and from -7 to +31 kg P/ha per annum in the different simulated systems. N inputs through biological N fixation and deep N capture were significant in agroforestry systems (up to 122 kg N/ha per annum), but when trees were used for production purposes these additional inputs were offset by increases in consumable N harvested (grain, wood and milk) which ranged from 35 to 195 kg N/ha. Improved manure management reduced soil-N deficits by 70 kg N/ha per annum in a zero-grazing system with a high manure flux. Research priorities for the humid highland farming systems include the quantification and dynamic modelling of (1) N mineralisation and N dynamics throughout soil profiles, (2) spatial and temporal patterns of N uptake by trees in agroforestry systems, and (3) nutrient budgets in long-term systems trials. La possibilité de recourir à l'agroforesterie pour réduire les pertes d'éléments nutritifs dans les sols en Afrique subsaharienne suscite aujourd'hui beaucoup d'intérêt. A partir de données d'enquêtes et d'essais en milieu paysan, des modèles statiques du flux d'éléments nutritifs ont été construits pour les systèmes agricoles existants et des systèmes agroforestiers améliorés, y compris la mise en place d'arbres en bordure des champs, le semis entre des haies en vue de la production d'engrais vert et de fourrage et un système approprié de zéro-pâturage avec apport de quantités moyennes d'engrais. L'objectif était d'évaluer l'impact possible des options de gestion améliorée sur les stocks d'éléments nutritifs. Des pertes importantes d'azote (70% des pertes totales) supérieures à 60 kg/ha/anessentiellement par lessivage et par dénitrification -ont été enregistrées dans les champs et les haies dans tous les systèmes étudiés. Toutefois, les prévisions relatives à la minéralisation nette et aux pertes d'azote des sols laissaient à désirer, mais les résultats indiquaient une forte possibilité de minéralisation de l'azote dans les horizons profonds du sous-sol. En revanche, le phosphore (P) était bien conservé dans ces systèmes et l'addition de quantités moyennes d'engrais phosphorés inorganiques permettait d'en maintenir les stocks dans les sols. Le bilan d'éléments nutritifs des sols était de -39 à -118 kg/ha/an pour l'azote et de -7 à +31 kg/ha/an pour le phosphore dans les différents systèmes simulés. Les apports d'azote par fixation biologique et à partir des horizons profonds étaient significatifs dans les systèmes agroforestiers (jusqu'à 122 kg/ha/an), mais lorsque les arbres étaient utilisés pour la production (graines, bois et lait), ces apports étaient contrebalancés par l'azote contenu dans les produits récoltés, soit de 35 à 195 kg/ha. L'amélioration de la gestion du fumier se traduisait par une baisse de 70 kg/ha/an des carences en azote du sol dans un système de zéro-pâturage à flux élevé de fumier. Les priorités de recherche dans les systèmes agricoles des zones humides comprennent la quantification et la modélisation dynamique 1) de la minéralisation et de la dynamique de l'azote à travers les horizons; 2) des caractéristiques spatiales et temporelles de la fixation de l'azote dans les systèmes agroforestiers; et 3) des stocks d'éléments nutritifs dans des études de système de longue durée.The mitigation of land depletion and rural poverty is currently a major world concern. There is currently gross nutrient mining of agricultural soils resulting from crop production with low levels of nutrient inputs coupled with poor nutrient conservation practices. The situation is particularly severe in sub-Saharan Africa where soils are generally less fertile and fertiliser use is lower than in other continents. For example, the annual average nutrient loss per hectare of arable land for the sub-Saharan region has been estimated at 22 kg N, 2.5 kg P and 15 kg K (Stoorvogel et al, 1993). The most severe nutrient mining occurs in areas that have favourable climates for crop production and high population densities, notably in the East African highlands.There are a number of hypotheses on how agroforestry systems and improved management of organic resources (e.g. animal manures and composts) may improve soil fertility (Young, 1989). However, much of the experimental work to test these hypotheses is done at the plot level without regard to the limits on the availability of nutrient resources at the farm or regional level. There is need for thorough ex-ante analysis of technologies at the farm level in order to direct long-term experiments on improved management systems. Examples of quantitative models of nutrient cycling and budgets at the regional scale are given by Smaling et al (1993) and Van der Pol (1992), and at the agro-ecosystem or farm scale by Frissel (1978), Powell and Mohamed-Saleem (1987) and Swift et al (1989). This paper models nutrient flows and balances on mixed farms in the humid highlands of western Kenya, including tree, crop and livestock components. The objectives are to explore the possible impact of improved management systems on soil nutrient balances and thereby identify priorities for research.The study area was chosen to represent an area that has high agricultural potential but severe land depletion. It includes parts of Siaya, Kisumu and Vihiga districts in the highlands of western Kenya that have a humid climate and an altitude of about 1500 m (Ndufa et al, 1992). The area has an annual rainfall of 1600-1800 mm with a mean annual temperature of 21°C. The landscape is gently undulating, dominated by Acrisols, Nitisols, and Ferralsols. The area has a subsistence-level mixed crop-livestock farming system. The major crops are maize (mostly unimproved varieties), beans, cassava, bananas, sweet potatoes and sorghum. There are two cropping seasons, the long rains from March to August, and the short rains from September to December. Cattle (mostly unimproved breeds of zebu) are kept mainly as a source of liquid capital, though there is increasing interest in small-scale dairying. Average farm size ranges from 0.5 to 2.0 ha and population exceeds 1000 persons/km 2 in some areas (KEFINCO, 1990). Land tenure is mostly secure as most land has been purchased. Out-migration of male labour has resulted in about 45% of female-headed households (Sands, 1983).A survey of soil nutrient stocks for cropped fields of 32 farms was conducted to assess the main variation in soils in the area. The soil chemical methods used are given by Anderson and Ingram (1989). The nitrogen mineralisation index was determined using anaerobic incubation (Page et al, 1982: 717).Data on farmers' soil fertility management practices were obtained from multi-visit ethnographic interviews with 11 farmers using a checklist of questions on five topics: soil erosion control, fallows and rotations, management of manure and organic residues, use of fertilisers, and knowledge of soils. A formal survey was administered to a random selection of 71 farmers to quantify the findings.Data on crop, tree and hedgerow yields and nutrient contents are median values taken from farmer-managed agroforestry trials conducted in the area (Ndufa et al, 1992). The data on shrub dry matter and nutrient content is based on hedgerows of Leucaena leucocephala and Calliandra calothyrsus planted in farmers' cropland four metres apart and cut four times a year for green manure and fodder. Sesbania sesban dry matter and nutrient contents were taken from an improved fallow trial on one farm. Other data is taken from the literature as indicated in the text.A static model was constructed of the annual inputs and outputs of nitrogen and phosphorus to/from the farm, and the annual flows of these nutrients between six compartments within the farm: field, hedgerow, livestock, boma, compost and homestead (Figure 1). Nutrient resources outside the farm's external fence, in the atmosphere above the farm, or in the soil below a depth of 0.5 m were considered external to the farm system. The field component was taken to include areas that are cropped or under temporary fallow, while the hedgerow compartment included all permanently fallow areas (mainly the perimeter, soil conservation bunds and areas around the homestead that have permanent grass cover). The livestock compartment was designed to simulate livestock grazing both on and off the farm. The homestead compartment was taken to accumulate nutrients consumed by the household, but recycle some components, such as ash from burning fuelwood. Storage (S) for each compartment was calculated from inputs (I), outputs (Q), and flows to/from each compartment (F), exemplified below for the field compartment (Figure 1). Steady state (no change in storage) was assumed for the livestock, boma and compost compartments.Sf = If + Ff* -Qf -F*f Individual inputs and outputs of nutrients for the soil were similar for both the field and hedgerow compartments (Table 2a). Inputs from the atmosphere as wet deposition were predicted from annual rainfall (1800 mm) using the transfer function of Stoorvogel and Smaling (1990), while dry deposition was assumed to be negligible in humid environments. Biological nitrogen fixation was estimated as 50% of total uptake in above-ground biomass of N-fixing plants, although maximum literature values may exceed 75% (Giller and Wilson, 1991). Asymbiotic nitrogen fixation was also estimated from annual rainfall using the transfer function of Stoorvogel and Smaling (1990). Input from weathering of minerals was taken as 0.1 kg P/ha per annum, as a typical rate for poor parent materials (Hingston, 1977). Deep uptake of N from below 0.5 m was taken as zero for shallow-rooted plants (e.g. annual crops) and 50% of above-ground N uptake for deep-rooted plants (perennial grasses, shrubs and trees) up to a maximum value equal to the amount of leached N. Shrubs and trees in the hedgerow compartment were allowed to access leaching N from the field compartment. Simulations by Noordwijk (1989) indicate that deep root systems could capture much of the leached N in humid environments, but field measurements are lacking. For slowly mobile nutrients, Commerford et al (1984) suggested maximum values of up to 80% of plant uptake from layers below 0.15-0.30 m depth for deep rooted plants, but high values were mainly associated with prolonged dry spells. In the model, however, deep uptake of P was set to zero because of the low available P status of the subsoils. Fertiliser application rates were specified as part of the farm systems described later. Note: Values are expressed on an air-dry soil basis for <2 mm soil fines. Exclusion of gravels gave low bulk density values for some samples.1. Anaerobic incubation, Page et al (1982).  Soil erosion was estimated using the Universal Soil Loss Equation (Wischmeier and Smith, 1978). Using the original units, rainfall erosivity (R) factor has been estimated as 500 for the western Kenya highlands around Lake Victoria (Wenner, 1981), and the soil erodibility factor (K) from 0.04 on stable soils, such as kaolinitic Ferralsols and Nitisols, to 0.2 on less stable soils, such as Acrisols (Barber et al, 1979). Slope gradients in the Project area are generally between 0 and 10%, and a median value of 6% from the farm survey (71 farms) was used as a default value, giving a slope gradient factor of 0.45 (Wenner, 1981). The slope length factor was derived from the slope length measured in the farm survey (average distance between soil conservation structures), which had a median value of 35 m (range 5-154 m) giving a median slope length factor of 1.26. A cover factor of 0.3 was used to represent maize/beans intercropping (Smaling et al, 1993). The land management factor was set at 0.31 to represent slopes of 6%, with contour farming plus strip cropping (Wenner, 1981). Nutrient loss in eroded soil was calculated using the total N and P contents of the topsoil from the farm survey, times an enrichment factor of 1.5 (Gachene, 1989). Using the median values above gave erosion losses for the field compartment of 11 kg N/ha per annum and 3.7 kg P/ha per annum. It was assumed that there is no erosion from hedgerow areas as they are usually under permanent grass, however, erosion from the field compartment was taken to flow into the hedge compartment where a fraction of the nutrient flow was deposited (default value = 80% deposited).Nutrient flows to other compartments or out of the farm were calculated from nutrient yields of harvested biomass together with the fraction of the biomass apportioned to the various destinations (Table 2a). The biomass included three components: herb (e.g. food crop, fodder crop, grass and weeds), shrub, and upper-storey tree. The herb component was divided into harvested parts and residues, whereas shrubs and trees were divided into leaf (green matter), branch and trunk (trees only). Nutrient concentrations for each plant part are given in the farm system descriptions below.The livestock component was specified as the number of lactating zebu, crossbred, or purebred cows on the farm, which determined the potential nutrient intake (Table 2b). Maximum potential values for nitrogen intake for maintenance requirements and annual milk yields were estimated based on standard equations (ARC, 1980;CSIRO, 1990) assuming zero growth and standard live weights for each breed (Table 3). Actual intake was calculated according to the feed materials available to the livestock up to the potential intake value. If excess feed was available, preference was given to the highest quality feed materials. The ingested nutrient was partitioned between milk, faeces and urine (Table 3) assuming milk nutrient contents of 5.5 g N/kg and 1 g P/kg. Nutrient excretion in faeces and urine was partitioned between the field, hedgerow, boma and off-farm according to the time the livestock would spend in each compartment (Table 2b). Nutrient export from sale of livestock was not considered in the model but based on equations given by the ARC (1980) a purebred cow (which may be retained on a farm for several years) is expected to contain 11 kg N and 4 kg P.Nitrogen losses from a boma may occur through volatilisation, leaching and denitrification. The potential for high losses by volatilisation, particularly from urinary-N, has already been noted. However, there are fewer opportunities for loss of P, although leaching of organic P is possible. Probert et al (1992) provide evidence for accumulation of substantial quantities of nutrients beneath bomas with earth floors, but the use of concrete floors, roofing, bedding materials, and frequent emptying would tend to reduce losses. In zero-grazing units, use of concrete-lined urine pits, frequent washing out of the unit floor, covering of the pits, and frequent emptying of pits would also help to reduce N losses from urine. In the model a nutrient retention fraction equal to the amount of nutrient recovered from the boma as a proportion of the nutrient excreted there is specified. Response to management was simulated by varying the nutrient retention fraction within the ranges of 0.4-0.9 for faecal N, 0.0-0.8 for urinary N, and 0.8-1.0 for faecal P. Nutrient recovered from the boma (in faeces and urine separately, or faeces plus urine soaked up in bedding material) was apportioned between several destinations (Table 2b).Nutrient losses from the compost compartment were handled in a similar way to the boma (Table 2b). Improved management, such as covering to reduce leaching and high temperatures, was simulated by increasing the nutrient recovery fraction within the range 0.41-0.85 for N and 0.72-0.88 for P (Kwakye, 1980;Guar et al, 1984).Nutrients harvested in food crops, fuelwood and poles were allocated to the homestead compartment, but off-farm exports of consumable products from the homestead and utilisation of human excrement were not modelled. Organic wastes derived from food brought into the farm were estimated assuming that a maximum of half of the household food requirement (equivalent to 50% of 950 kg maize grain for a household of five) is purchased (Sands, 1983) and that 10% of the food is residue. This gave imports in food wastes of 0.7 kg N per annum and 0.1 kg P per annum. Organic residues obtained from sweeping around the homestead were estimated at 1 kg N per annum and 0.1 kg P per annum. Average household fuelwood needs are in the range 6-10 kg dry matter per day which is equivalent to maximum imports of 11 kg N per annum and 1.1 kg P per annum, although most households meet two-thirds of this need from within the farm (Muturi and Franzel, 1992). → indicates destination compartments for products. Off-farm is an output.Nutrient flow in mixed farms in Kenya An existing farm system was defined to represent the situation for farms with median farm size and resources and was used as a baseline with which to compare improved management options. Median survey values were 0.8 ha for the field area and 0.2 ha for the hedgerow area. Median crop dry-matter production from the field was 1 t/ha maize grain (1.5% N, 0.20% P) plus 0.3 Mg/ha of field beans (3.5% N, 0.50% P). A harvest index of 0.5 was taken for both crops, with 0.6% N and 0.06% P in maize stover and 0.8% N and 0.08% P in bean stover. The survey showed that only 41% of farmers regularly use fertiliser on maize, and most apply diammonium phosphate alone, and only during the long rains. The farmers who used fertiliser (75%) estimated average application rates of less than 5 kg N/ha per annum and 6 kg P/ha per annum, thus in the simulation no fertiliser use was assumed. The survey showed that over half the farmers use some maize stover for fodder and fuel but leave the remainder in the field. About 20% of the farmers graze cattle on the stover in the field, 18% sell some, and 13% burn the residues in the field. In the simulation crop residues were partitioned between fodder (0.5 of total), and fuel (0.2), with the remainder returned to the field.For the hedgerow compartment, above-ground herb production was taken as 5 t/ha per annum of natural grass at 3.0% N and 0.33% P (Sands, 1983), and shrub production as 3.2 t/ha per annum, partitioned into leaf plus twig biomass (0.84 of total biomass, 1.8% N, 0.09% P) and branch biomass (0.16 of total biomass, 0.73% N, 0.06% P). Shrubs were assumed to be unimproved species that do not fix N. Upper storey tree production was calculated assuming five seven-year-old Grevillea robusta trees (10 cm mean diameter) were harvested each year (Muturi and Franzel, 1992). Total dry matter per tree was 142 kg (partitioned into 0.12 leaf + twig, 0.17 branch, and 0.71 trunk) with nutrient concentrations of 1.5% N and 0.16% P in leaf/twig; 0.3% N and 0.04% P in branch; and 0.31% N and 0.06% P in the trunk (Visser, 1960). The survey showed that the main product of the hedgerows was fuelwood, with lower levels of utilisation for poles, fodder, grazing, and composting. In the simulation, it was assumed that natural grass was grazed, the tree trunk component was used for poles, the hedge and tree wood components were used for fuelwood, and the leaf material was divided equally between fodder, grazing and compost.Most households own cattle (74%) with a median of four zebu per household, but only one-third own shoats. Only 9% of households own crossbreeds and 6% own purebreds. While more than three-quarters of the cattle owners use both grazing and cut-and-carry feeding, 68% rely mainly or solely on their own farm for grazing land. Off-farm grazing is usually restricted to the roadside grass around the border of the farm, commonly for about six hours per day. Farmers estimated that about 80% of the cut-and-carry fodder that is used comes from within the farm (e.g. maize thinnings and stover). In the simulation it was assumed that four zebu cows, with off-farm grazing restricted to 0.10 ha of roadside grass yielding 5 t/ha with 1.5% N and 0.15% P (Sands, 1983), giving an off-farm intake of 15 kg N and 1.5 kg P per annum. Deposition of faeces/urine was apportioned to the boma (0.5), off-farm (0.2), hedgerow (0.2) and field (0.1).The survey showed that on the majority of farms cattle are kept at night in a roofed building, or enclosure, with an earth floor without bedding. Emptying of the faeces is usually done daily. To reflect this situation, the nutrient retention fractions for the boma were estimated at 0.8 of faecal N, 0.95 of faecal P, and zero for urinary N.The majority of cattle owners (85%) compost the manure from the boma in a pit or heap. Crop residues, household scraps and sweepings are usually added to the compost, but no materials are collected from outside the farm. The compost is usually not protected from rain or sun but is commonly mixed once or twice during a storage period of about six months. The median amount of compost produced (farmers' estimates) was 20 wheel-barrows, equivalent to about 360 kg of dry matter. Median concentrations of nutrients in manure measured from seven farms were low at 0.6% N and 0.22% P, giving 3 kg N/ha and 1.0 kg P/ha applied to cropland. The most common practice is to apply a handful of composted manure into each maize planting hole, and broadcast any remaining. It is also a common practice to apply some manure direct to the fields from the boma, especially during the growing season. Thus in the simulation, 20% of the manure from the boma was apportioned to the field and 80% was composted, with all the compost being apportioned to the field. Nutrient retention fractions were set in the low range, at 0.4 for N and 0.7 for P, to reflect the poor standard of compost management. The homestead was assumed to import 20% of the maximum fuelwood requirements and the ash from burning fuelwood was allocated to the compost compartment.The potential impact of improved manure management was simulated, assuming that 30% of crop residues are used as bedding in the boma, resulting in an increase in the recovery fraction for urinary N from zero to 0.8. Improved compost management (covering) was assumed to increase the recovery fraction from 0.4 to 0.8 for N, and from 0.7 to 0.9 for P.Improved boundary planting was simulated with Grevillea robusta trees planted every 2.5 m along the external farm boundaries and along contour bunds at 35 m apart, giving 400 trees in the 0.2 ha hedgerow compartment. Assuming a seven-year rotation, 57 trees would be harvested each year. It was assumed that poles were harvested for construction or sale, branches were utilised for fuelwood, and the leaf fraction was composted using the improved compost management regime. It was also assumed that the additional tree growth did not suppress the growth of other field or hedgerow vegetation, and that no fuelwood was imported.The survey revealed that over half the farmers leave some of their land fallow, more usually to restore soil fertility, but also because of labour shortages. The most common length of fallow is one year (36% of fallowers), with periods of one season or for longer than one year being slightly less common. Here, a traditional weedy fallow compared with an improved fallow was simulated. The field area was allocated to maize-beans during the long rains and natural fallow (weeds) or improved fallow (plus Sesbania sesban) during the short rains. It was assumed that the sesbania was inter-sown with the previous maize-beans crop. Deep nutrient capture was allowed to occur in the improved fallow but not in the natural fallow. Crop yields during the long rainy season were taken as 0.6 of the default annual crop yield, and crop production was increased by a factor of two in the natural fallow system, and by a factor of three in the improved fallow system. We assumed the natural fallow vegetation (2.5 t/ha, 1.5% N, 0.15% P) was burned before subsequent cropping, whereas the sesbania fallow (3 t/ha) had a leaf/twig fraction (0.36 of total dry matter, 1.8% N, 0.09% P) which is returned to the soil as green manure, and a branch fraction (0.64 of dry matter, 0.73% N, 0.06% P) which is utilised for fuelwood.Hedges of calliandra or leucaena planted 4 m apart on the field area, yielding 5 t/ha of above-ground biomass in prunings was modelled. The leaf/twig fraction was apportioned to the soil as green manure, while the branch fraction was allocated for fuelwood. Shrub biomass partitioning into leaf/twig and stem, and their nutrient contents were the same as given for the hedgerow compartment but the shrubs were assumed to fix N. Field erosion was set to zero.Based on the results of fertiliser trials in the region (Jaetzold and Schmidt, 1982) fertiliser inputs of 130 kg N and 50 kg P were assumed to produce 4 t/ha of maize grain plus 400 kg/ha of bean seed from the field. Otherwise the specifications were the same as the existing system.Our survey showed that only 4% of all farmers have purebred cows in zero-grazing units. However, there is strong interest in the enterprise and in some other parts of the Kenya highlands (e.g. Embu District) over 90% of farmers are engaged in dairying, although management practices are often poor. Average Napier dry-matter yields in the study area are 12-22 t/ha per annum and milk yields for lactating cows are 6-9 kg per day (van der Valk, 1990). Farmers apply only about one-fifth of the recommended rate of fertiliser to their Napier plots (the recommendation is 100 kg N plus 20 kg P/ha, with all the manure and urine returned to the Napier plot). However, up to half of the farmers return no manure to the Napier plots, and less than half of the farmers use urine pits, which are mostly uncovered and emptied at intervals of more than one week.The simulation combined boundary planting, hedgerow intercropping, moderate fertiliser inputs, and a well-managed zero-grazing dairy unit. The field area was modelled as 50% under Napier grass and 50% under a high input maize/beans intercrop. We assumed that the Napier received recommended fertiliser rates of 100 kg N plus 20 kg P/ha and yielded 30 t dry matter/ha of 1.5% N and 0.30% P (Bayer, 1990). The whole field area was specified under hedgerow intercropping with the leaf/twig fraction allocated for fodder. The hedgerow areas included Napier grass and hedges of N-fixing shrubs harvested for fodder, and improved boundary planting. A zero-grazing unit with four pure-bred cows utilising all the crop stover as fodder was simulated. Minerals were supplied at 20 kg per day per cow containing 11.8% P, but the legume fodder was used as a substitute for concentrates. It was assumed that faeces were emptied daily from the concrete floor of the grazing unit and composted, while urine was collected in a pit and emptied daily on to the field. These practices were assumed to give high N retention fractions in the boma (0.9 for faecal N and P, and 0.8 for urinary N). A high level of compost management was also assumed.In terms of validation, the model gave realistic values for milk and compost production. The predicted milk yield in the existing farm system was equivalent to 1.2 kg per day for each animal, which is close to estimates of 1.1 kg per day for zebu in Kakamega District (Sands, 1983). The predicted milk yield for the improved agroforestry system was equivalent to 13.6 kg per day per cow which is, as expected, slightly higher than the yields of 6-9 kg per day usually obtained by zero-grazing farmers in the area (van der Valk, 1990). The predicted amount of composted manure applied to the field in the existing farm system was 6 kg N/ha, compared with 3 kg N/ha in the farm survey.However, the modelling approach used had several limitations. First, the model could not be used to simulate long-term effects on nutrient budgets because biomass production was not modelled as a function of nutrient availability. Second, there were major uncertainties in the estimates of soil-N losses and yet these constituted the main source of N loss from the farm system (apart from harvested N). Third, nutrient inputs entering the system in below-ground biomass production were not considered. Fourth, several other feedback mechanisms were not accounted for, like reductions in N leaching through increased N uptake, and the possible effects of quality of organic inputs on microbial activity. Despite these limitations, the results illustrate a number of important points.The major N losses came from the field and hedgerow compartments (Figure 2), principally from leaching and denitrification from the field compartment which totalled 61 kg N/ha in the existing farm system and 108 kg N/ha in the improved agroforestry system (Table 4). The losses could potentially range from half to twice this value on different farms on the basis of their range in soil-N content (Table 1). Also, if total-N in the 0-0.15 m layer, rather than in the 0-0.5 m layer, is taken as the basis for predicting mineral-N, then the losses would also be approximately halved. In addition, net mineralisation rates are likely to vary between soils. Hence there is uncertainty in the predicted net mineralisation and the potential amounts of soil-N losses. However, in the soils studied there appeared to be substantial potential for mineralisation in the subsoil: the median N availability index in the subsoil was 1.2% of total N (by weight), almost the same as in the topsoil at 1.3% of total N.   The agroforestry systems (3,5,6,8 in Table 5) significantly increased N inputs from cycled N (biological N fixation and deep N capture). However, in the systems where tree products were harvested for consumption there was little impact on the size of the soil nutrient deficit. For example, in the improved boundary planting system (compared with the existing system) the input from cycled N was increased by 19 kg N/ha, but this was more than off-set by the increase in consumable harvest of 24 kg N/ha. Similarly, two-thirds of the extra N cycled in the improved fallow system (44 kg N/ha) was off-set by the higher N harvests in grain and fuelwood compared with the existing system. Also, the use of hedgerow areas for fodder banks was not sustainable without inputs -it resulted in larger soil nutrient deficits in the hedgerow compartment (75 kg N) than in the field compartment (36 kg N).The only system that significantly decreased the soil-N deficit was the hedgerow intercropping system in which most of the cycled N was returned to the soil as green manure. However, this benefit would also have been partially off-set if grain yields had been assumed to increase as a result of hedgerow intercropping. Nevertheless, the removal of the benefits of cycled N would significantly increase the amount of external N input required to support the same level of production. In System 8 this amounted to 122 kg N/ha, or 63% of the consumable N harvested. However, it may be unreasonable to assume that N-fixing trees can provide a sink for deep N uptake similar to that provided by non-fixing trees.The possible implications of ignoring inputs via root growth processes can be assessed by assuming that 20% of the cycled N input was retained in root biomass. This would reduce the N deficits by only 4 kg N/ha (5%) in System 1 and by 24 kg N/ha (22%) in System 8.The trends in the deficits for the soil-P budgets were broadly similar to those for the soil-N budgets, except that moderate applications of P fertilisers significantly reduced the deficits or resulted in a positive balance. However, P requirements for adequate availability to crops would be larger than required to maintain zero soil balances because these soils can absorb large quantities of P, of up to 400 mg P/kg soil at soil solution concentrations of 0.2 mg P per litre (Okalebo, 1987).Improved manure and compost management had a significant impact on soil-N budgets, notably in the improved agroforestry system with zero-grazing because of the large manure flux. Improved manure management reduced the soil-N deficit by 10 kg N/ha in the existing system, but removing good management from the zero-grazing system increased the deficit by 71 kg N/ha.The model proved a useful tool for exploring limits on the potential impact of alternative farm management practices on soil nutrient stocks, taking into account organic and inorganic nutrient resources available both on and off the farm. However, nutrient balances were sensitive to estimates of mineralisation, leaching and denitrification, for which reported field measurements are scarce.The results suggest that the integration of trees on to farms for production purposes (fuel, poles, timber and milk) may not decrease the rate of depletion of soil nutrient stocks. On the contrary, there is opportunity for accelerating nutrient depletion. However, strategies that maximise inputs by biological N fixation and the capture of subsoil-N by deep-rooted plants may substantially reduce the amounts of external N inputs required to support a given level of farm production.While soil-P stocks may be maintained or increased by moderate additions of inorganic P fertilisers this may not be the case for N. Inorganic N inputs alone may not be sufficient to maintain or increase soil organic N on depleted soils, even when coupled with management strategies to reduce N losses. What is additionally required is that a higher proportion of the N input is retained in the system rather than being exported in harvests. In the absence of external organic inputs, this will require an increase in the proportion of biomass N that is returned to the soil (either as green manure or increased root growth) at the expense of N removal in harvests. Unfortunately, these strategies are not normally economical in the short-term, but may have to be considered for sustainable soil use.Research priorities for the humid highland farming systems include the quantification and dynamic modelling of (1) N mineralisation and N dynamics throughout soil profiles, (2) spatial and temporal patterns of N uptake by trees in agroforestry systems, and (3) nutrient budgets in long-term systems trials.Mixed farming systems of semi-arid West Africa (SAWA) are characterised by the cultivation of pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum [L.] R.Br.), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor [L.] Moench.), cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp.) and groundnuts (Arachis hypogea), and the raising of cattle, sheep and goats. Crop and livestock production are always complementary enterprises. Crop residues provide important feeds, especially during the 6 to 8month dry season, and animals are used for transport and traction and provide manure that sustains the yields of many cultivated areas.The expansion of the cultivated areas has been the most common path for augmenting crop production. The rate of bringing new land under cultivation has been much faster than population growth, however, causing severe stress on the land resource base (Boulier and Jouve, 1988). Grain yields per unit area have decreased over this period. The decline in fallowing practices for soil fertility maintenance and the expansion of cropping into marginal lands has mined soil nutrients (Stoorvogel and Smaling, 1990), jeopardising the long-term sustainability of the farming system.The cycling of biomass through livestock in the form of manure and urine that fertilise the soil has long been an important means of restoring soil nutrients in semi-arid Africa (McCown et al, 1979;Swift et al, 1989;McIntire et al, 1992;Powell and Williams, 1993). The predominantly sandy soils of SAWA are very low in organic matter (Kowal and Kassam, 1978;Pieri, 1989), nitrogen and especially phosphorus. Although manuring greatly improves these soil properties and crop yields, (Abdullahi and Lombin, 1978;Powell, 1986;Bationo and Mokwunye, 1991), the amounts of available manure are limited and insufficient for widespread use. Long-term gains in crop production will therefore require increased use of chemical fertilisers (Breman, 1990;Van Keulen and Breman, 1990). However, the cost of fertilisers is high compared to their economic productivity therefore little is applied to cropland.Sustainable agriculture is often argued to be urgently required in SAWA, but serious analysis of it potential attainment is scarce. This paper seeks to give some empirical meaning to one variant of sustainable agriculture by analysing its costs and benefits over time. A putatively sustainable system, based on nutrient cycling between crops and livestock in a mixed farm enterprise is used as an illustration of a semi-arid tropical site in western Niger. The site is representative of the drier parts of the African semi-arid tropics and is one where sustainable farming systems are urgently needed to prevent land degradation.Two sites were chosen for long-term studies of SAT farming in Niger. The sites are roughly 13 and 14° N and 2° E. There are two villages at each site. Population density is 1015 persons/km 2 at the northern site and 50-60 in the southern one. The climate is hot and usually dry. More intensive modes of crop and livestock production are practised in the more densely populated southern areas. These sites have higher annual rainfall (600 mm) as compared to the areas of lower population densities (400 mm). Other aspects that differentiate the high from low population density sites include more land under permanent cultivation than in fallow, smaller cultivated areas per household and more manuring per unit of land.Crop production is almost entirely rainfed and there is only one growing season, of 90-120 days. The principal crops are millet (by far the most important), cowpea, sorghum, groundnut, and some vegetables. There are no perennial crops of importance. Livestock are an important complement to grain production. There is almost no farm mechanisation, except animals for transport, and all field activities are done with hand labour. Essentially all work is done by family members and few farmers hire labour. A description of the millet production system can be found in McIntire and Fussell (1989).Crop and livestock production interact closely. The interactions can be competitive or complementary. Livestock graze residues produced by crops and crops use manure produced by animals. Corralling animals overnight on fields during the dry season is the predominant method ofThe prices of millet grain and of livestock are fixed in real terms throughout the 20 years of each simulation. However, the price of N fertiliser varies annually. It is determined by a random number generator from the calculated mean and standard deviation of world urea prices.The multi-period programming programme is fully described by equations ( 1) through (10). The equations have three annual decision variables: cropped area, the quantity of fertiliser to apply, and offtake. Because the total area is fixed, the pasture area is defined by the total area minus the cropped area, so pasture area is not a decision variable. The quantity of manure to apply is not a decision variable because it is determined by the herd size at the end of a year, which is itself a function of pasture area (total -cropped) and offtake.The formal problem is:maximise NPV Σtπt = at (pqf(m,z)t) -p1*Θt -zt pz (11) where:pq is the price of millet grain p1 is the price per cattle TLUThe second term on the right-hand side, expressing the value of livestock sales, is negative because a sale of livestock is defined as negative offtake from equation (5).Equation ( 11) is maximised by solving for the vectors of [a]t, [z]t and [Θ]t, subject to the constraints:[a]t ≥ 0 [a]t ≤ 100, the maximum land areaThe partial derivative of the objective function with respect to fertiliser is: ∂π/∂z = a{pq(∂q/∂z) + p1[Ψ(∂q/∂z)]/n} -pz,where the second term on the right hand side is the indirect effect of fertiliser on livestock offtake through the production of crop residue, and the constant Ψ is the average ratio of available digestible stover to millet grain yield of 1.26 (see Appendix for derivation) and the year subscript is suppressed.The partial derivative of the objective function with respect to offtake is: ∂π /∂Θ= P1 -{[pq(∂q/∂m)∆m/∆Θ] -P1[Ψ(∂q/∂m)∆m/∆Θ]/n} (13) The right hand side of equation ( 13) represents the net effect of offtake on profits. The net effect has three components. The first is the positive direct effect of livestock sales. The second is the negative indirect effect of offtake on profits through its indirect effects on manure availability and hence on grain yield output. The third is the indirect negative effect on profits through manure availability, stover production and feasible herd size.The millet production function was estimated with farm data collected from studies done in Niger from 1982 through 1985 (McIntire and Fussell, 1989), from experimental data from many African sources as reported in McIntire et al (1992), and from other information contained in the references.The simulation period is 20 years; a longer period increases the solution time enormously with little effect on the results. The total area modeled is 100 hectares; the area to model has no effect on the results, so 100 hectares is used because it is a round number.The model is simplistic in the sense that it does not incorporate complex interactions among inputs. For example, greater manure and fertiliser use in this model do not imply more labour use, but obviously would in a real farming situation. In addition, more land use always requires more labour, and sometimes more fertility inputs if additional land cultivated is of poorer quality.Models of this type are sensitive to the conditions in the first year of the simulation. Particularly important initial conditions are: the stock of N in the soil; the cropped area and the herd size. The initial stock of N in the soil is roughly equal to that found in a continuously cultivated millet under traditional management. The initial cropped area is set at 24 hectares, which is the area needed to produce the food for consumption by 30 people living on 100 hectares; the remaining 76 hectares are given to pasture. The initial herd size is determined from the feed produced from the specified areas in crops and pastures and from the average yields of pastures and crop residues. The initial quantity of manure available is determined directly from the herd size. The initial quantity of fertiliser used is the profit-maximising quantity. The initial offtake is set to zero.The basic sustainability questions are: what path of agricultural income over time maximises the net present value (NPV) of income; what production systems are associated with the highest income; and how stable are the paths of income?Values of the basic model parameters are given in Table 1. Figure 1 depicts the results derived from the initial model parameters, shown as the average fertiliser price scenario in Table 2. The most relevant comparisons are the ribbons in Figure 1 depicting the average fertiliser price scenario and the no fertiliser scenario. The scenario with no mineral fertiliser use most closely represents the historical situation. With average fertiliser prices, although no fertiliser is used; (i) cropped area falls to 22.6 from 62.5 hectares; (ii) the average herd grows by about 52%; and (iii) average income falls 60%. With respect to the change in income, the coefficient of variation in the no-fertiliser scenario is 55% more than that of the average fertiliser price scenario, i.e. lower income without fertiliser is associated with much higher relative variation of income. Figure 1 shows more about the behaviour of per capita income in the initial scenarios. The nofertiliser scenario is never as good as any of the others and the high fertiliser response scenario, which represents high-input agriculture, is always better.The average fertiliser price scenario does not exclude manure use, but the quantity of manure per hectare is only about 26% of that in the nofertiliser price scenario. The quantity per hectare is lower in the average fertiliser price scenario because the herd size is 34% smaller and the cropped area is 2.8 times as large. These relations show the basic constraint to the manure variant of LIS agriculture-it is a form of recycling that can generally only be applied to very small areas because it is constrained by feed availability. The higher fertiliser prices in the initial scenarios cause: (i) a 12% decline in mean income; (ii) no decline in mean herd size; and (iii) 13% less relative income variability.A key assumption in the initial scenarios is that crop and pasture yields are not cyclical, though they are highly variable. Assume now that they are cyclical, with regular rising and falling phases. Such cyclical yields would be caused by cyclical patterns of rainfall that may occur in semi-arid West Africa. Within each phase, there is still random variation around the rising or falling trend. During the rising phase, one expects longer buildup of soil N stocks and herds, and vice versa during the falling phases. In the cyclical scenario, a rising phase of 10 years is assumed to precede a falling phase of 10 years. The cyclical scenario also requires different assumptions about the initial conditions for the cropped area, the stock of soil N and herd size. For the rising/falling scenario, the initial conditions were set equal to those obtaining at the end of the last falling period, i.e. it is assumed that the beginning of the rising cycle coincides with the end of a falling cycle.The results for the cyclical scenarios (Figure 2) are similar to those of the initial scenarios. Higher fertiliser prices induce: (i) lower overall income; (ii) slightly lower (relatively) income variability; (iii) a larger herd size, though a lower stocking rate per hectare of pasture; and (iv) a marginally smaller cropped area. The cyclical no fertiliser scenario produces lower income than the acyclical no fertiliser scenario.No time trend for any of the cyclical scenarios was statistically significant; however, the trends for high fertiliser prices and no fertilisers were nearly, but not, significant. This is because their mean values were lower; they were more strongly affected by the cyclical yield trends-which were introduced into the cyclical scenarios by assumption-than the scenarios with average fertiliser prices and high fertiliser responses. In the latter, the additional grain and residue yields produced by the greater fertiliser quantities tended to damp the effects of the cycles.Some results of the analysis may depend on: (i) the interest rate applied to future benefits and costs; and (ii) the cyclical nature of variations in grain and pasture yields.The interest rate to discount future values in the initial analyses was 10%. Some of the environmental literature argues that lower rates should be used to value future resources. Would a lower rate affect the conclusions? A lower rate would encourage a longer herd build-up-by penalising future offtake less than the higher interest rate-thus permitting a longer buildup of soil N from manure alone.Model results are presented in Table 3, and depicted in Figure 2, for two scenarios with the initial 10% real interest rate and a 2% real interest rate. The 2% interest rate is of little importance to the cropped area, offtake, fertiliser use, or per caput income without fertiliser. At the average fertiliser price scenario, the higher discount rate leads to greater cropped area, a smaller herd, more fertiliser use, and higher income. LIS agriculture is inferior to agriculture based on mineral fertiliser in terms of average income and the variability of income. Advocates of LIS may object to these results on the grounds that it is possible to recycle soil nutrients via manure from a much larger pasture area. For example, seasonal grazing of areas that cannot be cropped can satisfy part of the annual feed demand of livestock and thereby make more manure available than what would be available from the pasture area immediately adjacent to the cropped area. Analysing this possibility amounts to answering the question: How much more area is needed to produce an equivalent LIS income and satisfy the soilN constraint? Table 2 shows that 22.6 hectares is the average cropped area with no fertiliser and 62.5 hectares is the average cropped area with average fertiliser prices; the per capita incomes are US$ 42 and US$ 104, respectively.The ratio of pasture to cropped area needed to produce a per capita income of about US$ 200 (from millet and cattle production) was calculated from the model with the no fertiliser scenario. The resulting ratios, plus the herd sizes and manure quantities per hectare, are plotted against cropped area in Figure 3. If the cropped area is 10 ha, the ratio is 5.3; if the cropped area exceeds 30 ha, the ratio is typically less than 10. The ratio is not initially constant with respect to cropped area because more cattle, and hence higher cattle offtake, are needed to meet the income target when the cropped area is very small. As the cropped area increases, then more millet production is available to meet the income target and the ratio of pasture to cropland needed to satisfy the N constraint becomes nearly constant over a wide range of cropped areas.African semi-arid agricultureThe model utilises average crop and cattle response functions to derive its solutions. However, climatic variability can be great in SAWA and affects both crop and livestock output tremendously. For example, whereas millet responds positively to fertiliser P during years of both poor and good rainfall, positive responses to fertiliser N are obtained only during years of adequate rainfall (Powell and Fussell, 1993). Millet responses to manure applications are similar. During a year of low rainfall, yields in manured fields of farmers were only 6 to 20% greater than yields in adjacent non-manured fields (Powell, unpublished data). Manuring actually decreased yields significantly in one village of the dry zone reflecting the risk of excessive manure application in low rainfall areas. During the following year when rainfall was more favorable, total millet production in manured areas were 60 to 99% greater than adjacent non-manured areas.The millet response function for manure (equation 3) does not account for the fact that manure also appears to have positive residual effects on millet production. Whereas manure decomposes and releases nutrients slowly, mineral fertilisers are soluble and release nutrient rapidly. The efficiency of fertiliser N uptake by millet is only in the range of 20 to 37% (Christianson et al, 1990). Less manure-than fertiliser-N, however, may be transferred to millet during the first year preceding manure application. A high proportion of manure-N would probably be incorporated into soil organic matter and be available more slowly than fertiliser-N (Wolf et al, 1989). The same factors that govern plant growth control manure decomposition. The amounts of residual-N from manure available for the next millet crop would depend, therefore, on climatic conditions and millet yields the previous year. Partial results of a long-term trial (Powell, unpublished) show that total millet yields in fields where cattle were corralled (manure plus urine application) during each of the previous three dry seasons were on average 2.2 times greater than in fields where only manure was hand-spread. The positive effects of urine on millet were also evident in the residual plots, or where animals were corralled two or three dry seasons before. Millet yield in plots where cattle had been corralled two and three years before was 1.7 and 1.6 times greater than where only manure was applied (ILCA, 1993).The model showed a distinct tradeoff between crops and livestock when fertilisers are introduced into the production system, especially at an average price and when millet response to fertiliser is high. The combination of manure and fertiliser is, perhaps, the most efficient way to utilise these inputs. The application of both nutrient sources can enhance the synchrony of nutrient release such that it coincides more closely with crop nutrient demands (Ingram and Swift, 1989;Swift et al, 1989).Research in Niger has shown that the efficiency of fertiliser use by millet can be greatly enhanced when combined with manures (Fussell et al, 1987;Bationo and Mokwunye, 1991). The judicious use of both organic and inorganic nutrient sources is a prerequisite to achieving sustainable increases in agricultural production from mixed farming systems in SAWA.Mineral fertiliser use is an essential technology for increasing the food and feed supply from cropland and pastures, and for raising farmers' incomes. New cultivable areas are scarce so that long-term production gains must come through intensification of land already under cultivation. Although long-term profitability plays an important role in fertiliser adoption, other factors must be considered such as supply, credit and extension. In particular, policies are required that give farmers timely access to fertilisers.The traditional management practices of farmers need to be investigated, understood and incorporated into recommendations for manure and fertiliser use. Incentives are required that discourage current practices of soil nutrient mining for short-term gain. The sustainability of nutrient cycling between crops and livestock in these production systems depend on management strategies that do not deplete the nutrient supply in pastures through excessive grazing in order to increase the nutrient supply and yields in cropland. A balance between nutrient inputs, the food and feed supply and human and livestock populations will be critical to the long-term sustainability of these production systems.","tokenCount":"172886"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"77cec350385f71964106bb1fd4a00a58","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/2ea2ca0a-a12c-4018-b18d-464dd9096477/retrieve","id":"456674871"},"keywords":["Agriculture","climate change","low-emissions development","mitigation","emissions","DfID"],"sieverID":"b77a7a29-ff48-435d-8ae7-69a0260bd4eb","pagecount":"60","content":"Titles in this series aim to disseminate interim climate change, agriculture and food security research and practices and stimulate feedback from the scientific community.As part of its support to economic development, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) 1 supports the commercialisation of agriculture in developing countries, which could serve as a critical driver of agricultural transformation for climate and food security. To date, the potential to harness mitigation co-benefits in the UK Department for International Development (DfID) portfolio has not been analysed comprehensively.Understanding the GHG emissions footprint of current activities and the factors affecting emissions and their reduction could help increase and scale up mitigation and food security impacts in future investments. Many of these interventions also support farmers to adapt to climate shocks and trends.This report provides an initial, rapid assessment of a selection of programmes in DfID's commercial agricultural portfolio to demonstrate a range of interventions and their likely net GHG emission impacts. The objectives of the assessment were to (i) evaluate the GHG emission impacts of a representative sample of commercial agriculture programmes and selected value chains affected; (ii) identify mitigation options appropriate to the investments; and (iii) support learning among DfID's staff working on agriculture priorities and opportunities for reducing climate impacts.This rapid assessment of GHG emission impacts shows the significance of investment impacts, provides a baseline for future comparison, and can indicate opportunities for reducing climate change impacts in the future.Results from analysis of crop and livestock value chains in seven countries, representing over four million hectares, show that the changes in farmers' practices supported by DfID's bilateral investments in commercial agriculture are estimated to significantly enhance crop and livestock production while likely reducing net GHG emissions in the near term. Overall, the programme value chains increased average crop productivity by 1.0 ton per hectare per year (t ha -1 y -1 ) (ranging from a minimum of -0.20 to a maximum of 3.7 t ha -1 y -1 ). The largest changes in net GHG emissions were observed for cocoa agroforestry, which reduced net emissions by 5.5 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 compared to the start of the programme. Cereals demonstrated smaller annual changes, averaging a reduction of 0.80 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 (ranging from a reduction of 1.62 to 0.05 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 ). For livestock, farmers increased average productivity only slightly from 1.0 (goats) to 3.0 kg head -1 y -1 (beef cattle), with corresponding slight reductions in net GHG emissions from 0.001 (goats) to 0.01 (beef cattle) tCO2e head -1 y -1 . The reductions in livestock emissions predicted by the model used for quantifying emissions, however, should be further monitored as increased productivity can also lead to increases in emissions, depending on weight, productivity gains, feed, type of breed, age and other conditions. For poultry (meat and eggs), emissions (mostly from manure) increased, relative to the start of the programme, by 18.9 KtCOe y -1 because of the increase in total number of chickens (over 6 million heads) and productivity since the start of the programme.Increases in emissions across the programmes are commonly due to increased use of nitrogen fertiliser and mechanisation (Figure E1). Reductions are commonly due to carbon sequestration in the soil as a result of manure addition, minimum tillage, crop rotation or reduced burning.These results are consistent with the increased use of inputs expected from market-driven agricultural intensification. The aggregate impacts of soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration outweighed increases in GHG emissions by five times. The levels of SOC sequestration that could be achieved in practice are highly uncertain, due to variability in local climate, land use history, soil type, topography, and management practices. In addition, SOC builds up slowly -reaching saturation within 20-40 years -but can be lost quickly. Given these caveats, the role of soil carbon in offsetting programmes' emissions should be interpreted carefully and not be the sole means for reducing climate impacts. Soil carbon sequestration is nevertheless a no-regrets strategy due to its benefits for soil health and productivity and short-term carbon sequestration could buy time for transitioning agriculture to lower emissions practices.Most programme representatives reported land use change associated with interventions, but only two were able to provide quantitative estimates. Multiple factors likely drive land use change in the programme areas, so impacts cannot be attributed to programme interventions alone. Nevertheless, conversion of land with significant stored carbon, such as forest, grasslands, and peatlands, is the single most high-impact driver of emissions and should be avoided if emissions are to be minimized. For that reason, understanding the role that programmes have in land use change is a priority for managing climate impacts.The GHG impacts of practices reported here are similar to the analysis of the GHG impacts of other overseas development assistance programs in agriculture (Grewer 2018;Richards 2019).Including investments in forestry in the portfolio of programmes, would likely show even higher levels of carbon sequestration and offsetting of emissions from agriculture.These findings are subject to some caveats. While both at the portfolio and programme level, Globally, agriculture is a principal source of climate change, directly contributing ~10-12% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and indirectly contributing an additional ~6-7% through land-use change (Smith et al. 2014). 2 Agriculture also is the source of 80-86% of food system emissions (Vermeulen et al. 2012). 3 Most future increases in agricultural emissions will likely occur in low-to middle-income countries (Metz et al. 2007).The 2015 Paris Agreement set the goal of limiting warming to no more than 2°C in 2100 and to pursue 1.5°C. To align with a 2°C pathway, agriculture will have to reduce nitrous oxide and methane emissions, the major emissions from the sector, by ~1.5 billion tons of CO2 equivalents (CO2e) per year by 2030 or ~20% relative to 2020. 4 In addition, zero deforestation is needed after 2020 (SDG 15.2). A target for carbon sequestration in agricultural soils, based on low-cost options, is ~1.2 billion tons of CO2e (Bossio et al. 2020). 5 To meet these goals, more than 104 of countries included agriculture in the mitigation targets, polices or measures of their Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). Another 15 countries committing to economy-wide mitigation action in their NDC, which potentially includes agriculture. National and international policy mandates therefore exist for emissions reductions in agriculture.While both developing and developed countries must reduce current levels of GHG emissions to meet mitigation targets, developing countries face the extra challenge of increasing food security and incomes, while also reducing net emissions. 6 In this context, Sub-Saharan Africa faces the biggest challenge in meeting food security needs and improving livelihoods, while also avoiding further land use change and minimizing emissions. Between 2010 and 2050, the demand for cereal crops in Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to triple, requiring land use intensification or increased imports to avoid large-scale land use change (van Ittersum et al.2 Land use change contributed 7-9% of global anthropogenic GHG emissions 2000-2010 (Smith et al. 2014). Agriculture is responsible for about 80% of deforestation, which is the predominant source of land use change (Kissinger et al. 2012) 3 9.8-16.9 GtCO2e, inclusive of land use change 4 For the 1.5˚C target, emissions will need to be reduced by ~1.9 billion tons of CO2 per year in 2030 or about 24% relative to 2020 levels. Targets for 1.5˚ and 2˚C pathways are based on average values of emissions needed in the AFOLU sector for N2O and CH4 for RCPs 1.9 and 2.6 using integrated assessment scenarios for SSP2. Data available here: https://data.ene.iiasa.ac.at/iamc-1.5cexplorer/#/login (Huppman et al. 2018).5 i.e., what is feasible at costs up to USD 10 per ton CO2e. The total technical potential of soil carbon sequestration is ~2 to 5 GtCO2, with the range reflecting differences in assumptions about the area of land included in the estimate (Fuss et al. 2018).6 Net emissions are the sum of GHG emissions and soil carbon sequestration). Yet, tropical Africa is already experiencing rapid land use change, contributing the highest level of land-based CO2 emissions in the global tropics (Palmer et al. 2019). Vast parts of Sub-Saharan Africa are also highly vulnerable to extreme climate events, rising temperatures and increased rainfall variability (Searchinger et al. 2018).Most low-income counties will likely need to increase their agricultural emissions relative to current levels to improve food security. The need for 60% more food production by 2050 (Alexandratos, Bruinsma 2012) 7 will drive agricultural emissions higher and increase the share of the agriculture sector in global emissions, especially as other sectors are decarbonized (Searchinger et al. 2020). 8 For example, to meet 2050 maize demand in Sub-Saharan Africa, nitrogen fertiliser use is expected to increase by 15 times to an average of 140 kg nitrogen (N)/ hectare (ha) relative to 2015 levels (van Ittersum et al. 2019;Jayne et al. 2019). 9The contribution to the global carbon balance from agricultural growth could be significant with interventions. Projections for Sub-Saharan Africa indicate that by 2050, agricultural production will contribute ~1 billion tons of CO2e per year and expand by 200 million hectares relative to 2010, producing an additional 2.1 billion tons of CO2e per year due to land use change alone (Searchinger et al. 2020). 10 ,11 Balancing the multiple objectives of food production, livelihood improvement, greenhouse gas emissions, carbon sequestration, and other environmental impacts may require trade-offs in some places until more affordable technical innovations such as more nitrogen efficient crops or feed supplements for livestock are available (Kanter et al. 2016;Searchinger et al. 2018).Common sources of GHG emissions from intensified production include fertiliser production, fertiliser use, feed production (for livestock), livestock production, mechanisation, manure 7 Increase is relative to 2005/07. Bruinsma (2009) projected that 90% of new production would have to come from developing countries, with this production coming predominantly from yield increases (71%), expanded land area (21%), and increased crop intensity (8%).8 Searchinger et al. (2018) projected that current direct and indirect agricultural emissions of 12 GtCO2e will increase to 15 GtCO2e by 2050, and use \"up to 70 percent of the annual allowable emissions budget for all human emissions, including energy, that will be necessary to hold warming to international climate goals.\"9 These levels of nitrogen fertiliser use are comparable to or less than levels currently in food-secure countries.10 Projection assumes that crop yields double and 20% of food needs are met with trade.11 Whether such large areas of land will be available in the countries requiring expansion is an issue. Land appropriate for agricultural expansion (not forested, not protected and with populations densities of <25 people/km2) is scarce globally, with only about 445 million hectares available, which is mostly located in a handful of countries (Brazil, Argentina, Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, Tanzania, Madagascar) (Lambin and Meyfroidt, 2011).management, and irrigation. Irrigation for paddy rice is a major source of emissions. Emissions can also occur along the supply chain for storage, processing and transport. Agricultural expansion is the single most significant source of emissions where land use changes from nonagricultural land uses such as forest, grassland, or shrubland to agriculture.Low-emission development (LED) in agriculture intentionally reduces, minimizes or offsets emissions in development interventions. As an approach to help countries' meet food and economic security needs, LED treats mitigation as a co-benefit to agricultural income or yields.This contrasts with approaches that prioritize mitigation over agricultural production, such as cropland set asides. In practice, mitigation in most places will need to be a co-benefit of farming.LED Sustainable intensification is a pathway for agricultural development that increases crop or livestock production while reducing ecological impacts (Godfray, Garnett 2014). Impacts can be measured in terms of input-use efficiency (e.g., energy, water, nutrients, land), yields, incomes, and environmental impacts (Cassman, Grassini 2020) Most importantly, intensification can influence emissions due to the conversion of land to agriculture. The role of sustainable intensification in the expansion of agriculture in forests and other high-carbon landscapes is complex (Byerlee 2014). At global levels, evidence suggests that historically, intensification has reduced land conversion, likely avoiding significant levels of GHG emissions due to avoided deforestation (Burney et al. 2010). However, at regional and crop levels, intensification has not had predictable impacts on land use change (Rudel et al. 2009). At these levels, agricultural intensification sometimes incentivises further expansion and land conversion (Hertel 2012). This is particularly true where commodity markets can absorb new production, land is readily available, local costs (e.g., in forest areas) are more competitive, and suitable production conditions exist, such as for oil palm in forest areas of Indonesia (Campbell et al. 2014). Indirect impacts on land conversion can also occur. For example, in Brazil, mechanized cultivation of soy displaced pasture, leading to conversion of more forest area for pasture (Nepstad 2014).Intensification alone, therefore, is not a guarantee of avoided land use change and GHG emissions. A mix of governance and economic incentives is needed in addition to intensification, including land zoning, land tenure security, promoting efficient use of already-cleared lands, monitoring forest clearing, boundary enforcement, supply chain initiatives (e.g., sustainability commitments and disclosure, traceability), incentives for relocating production, or support for alternative livelihoods (Ewers et al. 2009;Nepstad et al. 2014;Macedo et al. 2012;Lambin et al. 2018;Lambin, Meyfroidt, 2011;Wollenberg et al. 2011). These conditions are often inherently weak in remote forest areas, or subject to changes in political will, even in countries with strong national land governance. Intensification far from forest frontiers is less likely to lead to land use conversion (Byerlee et al. 2014).In 2020, the UK Department for International Development (DfID) 12 engaged the CGIAR Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) to conduct a rapid analysis of the GHG impact and mitigation opportunities in DfID's agriculture portfolio of investments. To frame a strategic approach to low-emissions development in the agricultural sector, DfID sought to quantify the GHG emissions impacts of a range of representative programmes and identify options for mitigation.DfID pre-selected seven programmes from their commercial agricultural portfolio for the GHG analysis (Table 1). More details are provided on each programme in the Annex. The criteria for selection of programmes included representativeness of the type of programme and agricultural sector supported by DFID's agriculture portfolio as well as the capacity of programme developers to engage in the GHG analysis exercise. Programmes were located in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia and had agribusiness, rural market development or livelihood objectives (Table 1). At least one programme had an explicit climate change focus. Programme interventions often operated at the market or investment level and did not necessarily link directly to farm practices affecting the sources and sinks of emissions. Thus, assumptions were made based on trends in farming and supply chain practices reported by programme representatives or 'implementing partners.' Attributing these changes entirely to the programmes may therefore not be appropriate in all sites. Implementing partners were local or locally based organisations with long experience in the agricultural sector and in-depth knowledge about the region and production practices. All selected programmes were still active at the time of the interview.Nearly all programmes had been operating for more than four years, and roughly half were close to ending. Due to a lack of existing field data and DFID's request for a rapid analysis, the primary method of data collection was based on a limited set of interviews and review of documents13. DuringMarch 2020, CCAFS conducted interviews with developers and implementers of the programmes described in Table 1 for collecting data necessary to estimate GHG emissions balance.We estimated each programme's impacts on GHG emissions and carbon sequestration using the FAO Ex-Ante Carbon Balance Tool (EX-ACT) (Bernoux et al. 2010). EX-ACT is an appraisal system developed by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) to estimate the impact of agriculture and forestry development programmes and policies on net GHG emissions and carbon sequestration. In all cases, conventional agricultural practices (those employed before programme implementation) provided reference points for a GHG emission baseline. The team described results as increases or reductions in net GHG emissions attributable to changes in agricultural practices as a result of the programme. Impacts were assessed for the time of interview and for an estimated 20 years after the start of the programme to account for carbon sequestration, in line with IPCC emissions accounting for agriculture and land use. Methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide emissions are expressed in metric tonnes (t) of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e). If the agricultural practices supported by the programme were estimated to lead to a decrease in net GHG emissions through an increase in GHG removals (e.g., carbon sequestration, emission reductions) or a reduction of GHG emissions, the overall programme impact is represented as a negative (-) value. It is important to note that a negative value does not necessarily indicate a GHG sink, but rather a decrease in emissions relative to the baseline (i.e., practices before programme intervention).This rapid assessment technique is intended for contexts where aggregate data are available on agricultural land use and management practices, but where field measurements of GHG and carbon stock changes are not available. The method indicates the magnitude of GHG effects among field activities, cropping systems or value chains. As such, the results provide evidence of programme trends in the selected value chains, rather than a comprehensive or precise greenhouse gas footprint for the programme as a whole.This method is useful for estimates of GHG emissions where data are scarce; however, results should be interpreted based on an understanding of the nature of the data. Error in total GHG emissions per value chain in the programmes is likely due to the use of interview data and the need for key respondents to estimate some information. We urge users of this report to focus on the patterns of activities (e.g., introduction of nitrogen fertilizer, machinery) and the associated rates of emissions with these patterns. Estimates of impacts due to land use change and to some extent programme activities should consider that impacts might reflect a mix of programme interventions and other drivers of intensification.During the interviews, DfID's programme implementers and CCAFS identified predominant farm types and practices in each programme area. We then identified value chains relevant to GHG emissions and for which sufficient information existed to estimate implementation areas and activities. Across programmes these included seven cropping value chains (maize, groundnuts, soybean, sorghum, sugar bean, cotton, and rice) and three livestock value chains (beef cattle, goats, and poultry) directly affected by the programmes' market and agribusiness interventions.Value chain information (post-farmgate) was possible to estimate for one programme on improvements in post-harvesting losses (Zambia) and for one programme on cookstove efficiency (Nigeria).The 24 value chains sampled in this work were associated with an expected land area of almost 4 million hectares. Of this area, close to 76% of land use was for pasture and 24% for cropping systems. Maize was the largest cropland use area among value chains (53.5%), whereas beef cattle were the largest livestock type among ruminant animals (0.66 million heads) (Figure 2). About 85% of the data was collected from interviews with DfID's programme representatives and 15% from literature reviewed by the CCAFS team or based on assumptions using expert judgement. We characterized the certainty of the data based on the source of the information used in this assessment (Table 2). As a result of DfID programme interventions, farmers made one or more of the following improvements: (a) soil management, (b) crop residue retention (reduced burning of crop residues), (c) nitrogen fertiliser management, (d) soil liming, (e) improved seed varieties, and (f) mechanisation (Table 3). Land use change involving conversion of native vegetation was reported in five programmes, but only two programmes, both in Ghana, were able to provide quantitative estimates.14 14 For the programmes that promoted the nitrogen fertiliser use (urea and manure) application rates across value chains ranged from ~5 to 100 kg N ha -1 y -1 . Mechanisation required diesel consumption at a rate of 15-23 L ha -1 y -1 . Burning of crop residues occurred in a few programmes, but for most programmes, open burning was banned or reduced to support the implementation of minimum tillage. In some cases, residues were removed for animal feed or composted.High Assumptions based on programme expertise, expert consultation or literature review Medium Assumptions based on similar programmes or arbitrarily assumed, or source not considered LowThis set of agricultural interventions has allowed farmers to increase the average yields of cereal crops by 1.0 t ha -1 y -1 (from -0.20 to 3.7 t ha -1 y -1 ) 15 , and reduce current average net GHG emission per hectare by 0.80 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 (mitigation of 1.62 to 0.05 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 ).Interventions reduced the greenhouse gas emission intensity by 0.88 tCO2e ha -1 t product -1 (0.01 to 2.88 tCO2e ha -1 t product -1 ). As these practices continue, programme staff expect a further increase in productivity and reduction in GHG emission intensities (Table 3; A2; Figure 6).The use of nitrogen fertiliser was a significant GHG emission source across programmes, increasing GHG emissions by approximately 0.02-0.5 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 . Other significant sources were the use of lime (~0.17 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 ), burning of crop residues (~0.14 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 ) and use of fossil fuel (~0.05 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 ), respectively (Figure 2).The use of improved seeds (short growing season and high-quality varieties) and good agronomic practices reduced use of nitrogen fertiliser (urea) by 50% (or 0.67 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 ) and paddy rice flooding periods, from 140 to 120 days, enabling a further emission reduction of 0.23 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 (Figure 3; Table 3). New soil management practices improved soil carbon sequestration by 0.88 to 1.5 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 , offsetting more than 100% of emissions caused by the use of soil inputs and mechanisation in most of the programmes (Figure 3, Table 3). Practices that supported increases in soil carbon included improved seeds, crop rotation, reducing crop burning, and nutrient management.These practices induced higher biomass production, supplying increased organic matter to soils and, consequently, leading to soil carbon sequestration.Cocoa cropping systems were a significant source of carbon sequestration. By enriching cocoa plantations with other perennial crops (multi-strata agroforestry), we estimate new carbon sequestration in the aboveground biomass at a rate of 5.8 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 (Figure 3). These benefits will accrue until the trees reach maturity, after which carbon sequestration in aboveground biomass levels off.  A2). **expected by programme end (see Table A2). † Refers to changes in net emissions where the baseline was assumed to be zero. See Table A2. † † Pasture area not provided. Productivity expressed in animal live weight gain (LWG) rather tons of meat produced. NA: not applicable.The livestock value chains assessed in this work implemented improved breeding, feeding, andhealth (e.g., vaccination) in Zimbabwe, Uganda, and Mozambique (Table 3, A2; Figure 3).Farmers increased average productivity only slightly from 1.0 (goats) to 3.0 kg head -1 y -1 (beef cattle). On an animal basis, according to the EX-ACT tool, improvements in livestock production across programmes decreased emissions by 0.01 tCO2e animal -1 y -1 for beef cattle and 0.001 tCO2e animal -1 y -1 for goat (Figure 3). The change in emissions should be investigated further with more detailed models, as increases in productivity can also lead to increases in emissions, depending on weight, productivity gains, feed, type of breed, age and other conditions.In the poultry sector, vaccination and improved animal feeding promoted by the programmes made it possible for farmers to expand chicken numbers significantly. An increase in chicken population of more than 6 million heads was reported across programmes, which increased GHG emissions relative to the baseline by 18.9 KtCOe y -1 (0.003 tCO2e per poultry head) (Table 3; Table A2). After implementing a programme for better poultry management in Zimbabwe, for example, poultry meat production increased almost 50% and an increase of 110% is expected by the end of the programme (Table 3, A2). If chicken consumption displaces consumption of higher emissions meat products such as beef, poultry production will help reduce overall emissions. The annual emissions of one head of cattle raised for beef, for example, is equivalent to the emissions of approximately 600 chickens. Consumption patterns would need to be monitored to confirm any displacement effect.GHG emissions intensities for livestock meat (emissions per kg beef, mutton or chicken), however, were not assessed due to the lack of data collected on livestock production and productivity before and after the programme interventions.The seven DfID programmes evaluated in this work reduced net GHG emissions in 24 value chains by 1.01 Mt CO2e y -1 in crop systems and increased net GHG emissions slightly by 0.015 Mt CO2e y -1 in livestock systems, during the period from programmes' start dates to the present. By the programmes' end dates, mitigation is expected to increase to a total cumulative value of 1.20 Mt CO2e y -1 in crop systems, suggesting that the largest GHG mitigation from cropland, mostly due to soil carbon sequestration, has already been achieved. For livestock systems, programme interventions are expected to increase to 0.041 Mt CO2e y -1 due to increases in livestock population (Figure 5; Table 3, A2). Of the seven programme representatives interviewed, five mentioned occurrence of land use change in the area of influence of the programme. However, only two programmes, both in Ghana, were able to provide estimates of how much land had been converted for agriculture expansion since the start of the project. Identified land use change in Ghana due to the two programmes comprised an estimated area of approximately 32,000 ha in Ghana.Almost all land use change was due to one programme expanding cropland in the northern savannah region, with 75% of the expansion occurring on areas previously fallow, and 25%involving clearing of tropical shrubland in native savanna. Although the latter is a relatively lowcarbon density forest type, the conversion of one hectare of native savanna is estimated to emit close to 240 tCO2e ha -1 , which contributes GHG emissions for the programme of 1.9 MtCO2e or 12.2 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 (over 20 years). The conversion of one hectare of fallow area is estimated to emit close to 60.0 tCO2e ha -1 , which impacts GHG emissions for the programme by 1.47 MtCO2e or 3.1 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 . Thus, emissions associated with land use change (3.4 MtCO2e or 170.0 K tCO2e y -1 ) are almost 4.5 times higher than the expected GHG emission reduction by the end of the programme (38.9 K tCO2e y -1 ) (Table 3).In the second case in Ghana, land clearing of native tropical moist deciduous forest for cropping production expanded over 356 ha (to produce maize) was estimated to emit close to 630.0 tCO2e ha -1 , which impacts GHG emissions for the programme by 0.22 MtCO2e or 31.47 tCO2e ha -1 year -1 (over 20 years) (Table 3).However, land use conversion is driven by multiple factors such as: (a) demographic (population growth, urbanisation and migration), (b) economic incentives (changes in prices, shifts in demands, and infrastructure development), and (c) policy (tenure rights, access to loans) (Ciao, Sarpong 2007;Geist, Lambin 2002). Addressing the drivers of cropland expansion over natural woodlands and sensitive areas (e.g., forest, mangroves, grasslands, wetlands, and peatlands) is an important opportunity to curb GHG emissions in the region of programme influence. At the same time, the converted land supported an almost quadrupling of grain production (Table A2), so consideration of trade-offs and whether alternative land use choices were available is necessary.We analysed the potential land sparing due to agriculture intensification supported by DfID's programme interventions. To achieve the same level of production without agricultural intensification (Table 3) would have required an additional land area of approximately 4.1 million hectares, which is equivalent to 97% of the area of influence of the programmes evaluated in this work (Table 4). 16   While most programmes likely contributed to land sparing, it is possible that further expansion of agriculture and land use change will occur with the growth of markets and input efficiencies.Avoid locating programmes in the frontier zones of carbon-sensitive areas, such as forest land, grassland, peatland, or wetlands (create incentives for use of already cleared areas, restricted areas, road and market infrastructure choices).Encourage sustainable sourcing commitments by corporate actors (labelling, certification, impact investment funds, disclosure agreements)Foster programmes that also promote rule of law and strong governance for the protection of carbon-sensitive areas (including environmental protection policy, monitoring, third-party watch dogs, national-level adjudication and enforcement).Strengthen compliance of private sector action with public policy commitments for climate change and environment (e.g., through local and national government, emissions reporting requirements, conditional finance, traceability and labelling). Interventions to reduce forest burning and promote forest conservation have been taking place in Ghana. The project has reduced the occurrence of forest burning by an estimated 50%. This action has avoided degradation of 376 ha of tropical moist deciduous forest in Ghana (Table 3), reducing emissions by 85% (from 8.47 to 1.30 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 ), which is equivalent to 53.95 K tCO2e or 2.70 K tCO2e y -1 (Table 3, A2). PICS, therefore, results in savings in maize and soybean production equivalent to 0.22 and 0.08 t y -1 , respectively. According to the GHG emission estimated in this work (Table 3), PICS implementation has avoided emissions equivalent to 0.45 and 0.09 tCO2 ha -1 y -1 for maize and soybean, respectively, totalling about 0.05 Mt tCO2e y -1 for these value chains combined (Figure 3; A2). Reduced food loss does not necessarily lead to reduced production however, so these reductions may be best thought of as avoided emission increases.By improving cookstove efficiency, the programme in Nigeria is reducing deforestation and consequently, baseline GHG emissions by 60% as a result of reduced firewood use. Traditional cookstoves require 1.9 kg of firewood per day, whereas improved cookstoves only require 0.75 kg of firewood per day. Currently, 1,438 beneficiaries have received improved cookstoves, meaning that total firewood consumption has potentially decreased from 492 to 197 t firewood y -1 , avoiding the deforestation of 4.3 ha of forest (shrubland) per year (considering 69.3 t of harvested wood product per ha per year). Consequently, the adoption of improved cookstoves has avoided the emissions of 0.63 and 0.04 tCO2e beneficiary -1 y -1 from forest degradation and firewood use, respectively, totalling -963.5 tCO2e y -1 (Figure 3; Table 3, A2).The selected crop and livestock value chains of the seven programmes (Table 1) comprise an area of slightly more than four million hectares. Results show that improving farming management practices and technologies due to these DfID investments are expected to lead to a significant increase in crop and livestock productivity while reducing net total GHG emissions by 1 MtCO2e/year for the first 20 years (Table 3, A2). This number should be interpreted with caution as it reflects only a subset of programmes' activities and has high uncertainty.The largest changes were observed for cocoa agroforestry systems, which resulted in a net GHG change of -5.5 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 (Figure 6; Table 3, A2). Cereals and other annual crops demonstrated smaller annual changes, currently averaging -0.80 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 (from -1.62 to -0.05 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 ; see rice in Myanmar and maize in Ghana), with a slight change to -0.97 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 expected by the programmes' end (Figure 6; Table A2). Interventions in livestock production systems decreased net GHG emissions from 0.001 (goat) to 0.01 (beef) tCO2e head -1 y -1 , with no further changes expected by the programmes' end (Figure 3; Table A2). Overall, programmes promoting more use of nitrogen fertiliser (synthetic and organic sources) or improved soil management (e.g., minimum tillage) tended to increase or decrease emissions respectively compared to their baseline scenarios (Figure 2).The trends found in this work are similar to those reported in evaluations of other agriculture development interventions. Analysis of agriculture interventions in more than 30 crop value chains across Africa, Asia, and Latin America showed average annual net GHG impacts of -6.14 tCO2e ha -1 in agroforestry and -0.78 tCO2e ha -1 for cereals (Grewer et al. 2018). On-farm emissions increased due to more use of nitrogen fertiliser, and reductions in emissions by soil carbon sequestration (Grewer et al. 2018;Richards et al. 2019).The baseline scenario and the acreage also mattered. DfID programmes in Zambia and Ghana, for example, have similar programme structure (soil and fertiliser management interventions).However, farmers in the Zambia programme used fertiliser inputs more intensively before the start of the programme, while soil inputs used by farmers before the start of the Ghana programme were negligible. Thus, Zambia's increase in fertiliser emissions was lower and soil carbon sequestration had a higher offset impact (Figure 2; Table 3). On the other hand, the adoption of fertiliser through the Ghana programme helped farmers to increase crop production and narrow differences in crop productivity compared to Zambia (see Table 3 for maize).Zambia is also achieving further emissions reductions per unit of food through post-harvesting loss interventions (Table 3; Figure 3). Similarly, soil management in Uganda has a baseline and programme scenarios with low use of soil inputs. Still, with improvements in soil management, the soil carbon sequestration largely offsets the programme interventions.The programme in Myanmar is an exception among the programmes evaluated. This programme reduced emissions by 46% with the use of improved seeds and good agronomic practices (GAP), while increasing rice productivity (35%) -also potentially lowering production costs (Figure 3; Table 3). The use of improved seeds (short growing season and high quality varieties) and good agricultural practices have promoted reduced use of nitrogen fertiliser (urea) by 50% (or 0.67 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 ) and shorter paddy rice flooding periods, from 140 to 120 days, promoting a further emission reduction of 0.23 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 . In addition, the Myanmar programme expects a further reduction in the flooding period (to 90 days) in the coming years once new short growing varieties are introduced, which will lead to a GHG emission reduction of 0.57 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 (Figure 3; Table 3).We assessed the relationship between productivity increases associated with intensification and emissions across value chains for all programmes and found no significant relationship, which may reflect the small number of value chains sampled. We did not include cocoa agroforestry and selected livestock interventions, which were outliers with emission values over 4 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 , only a few observations (n=3), and with data of medium to low certainty. Importantly, carbon sequestration, especially in soil, comprises the majority of the GHG mitigation potential in the programmes assessed -over 80% for most of the programmes, except for Myanmar (Table 5, 6). Minimum tillage, manure additions, and crop rotation were the major interventions leading to soil carbon sequestration across programmes (Table 3, 5;Figure 2, 3). However, in Myanmar, soil carbon sequestration contributed to less than 50% as interventions focused on using improved seed and good agronomic practices reduced the use of nitrogen fertiliser application and the period paddy rice remains flooded, which decreased associated emissions by 46% (Table 3, A2; Figure 2, 3).Excluding soil carbon sequestration, reduced burning of crop residues was the main intervention reducing net GHG emission of the programmes. On the other hand, increased use of nitrogen fertiliser and, to a lesser extent, mechanisation use in most programmes were the main drivers of increases in emissions. This suggests that the net mitigation effect of programme interventions is likely in the short term (e.g., over 20 to 40 years) or until carbon sequestration reaches equilibrium. Without the adoption of interventions leading to new emission reductions and carbon sequestration, we estimate that, under a scenario of saturation of carbon sequestration, the programme interventions would increase net GHG emissions from 45% to 161%. In the absence of carbon sequestration, aggregated emissions of the total area evaluated in this work would approximately shift from -0.19 to 0.05 tCO2e ha -1 y -1 or from -0.81 to 0.22 MtCO2e y -1 (Table 5). The eventual annual increase in GHG emissions would be a trade-off of securing food security benefits. *20 year time-period after the start of the programme; **Land use change was associated with agriculture expansion and deforestation. † Reflects total area of the programme; † † Values over 100% mean that removals, primarily through soil carbon sequestration, are higher than the total GHG emissions of the programme. Animal management practices such as improved health, genetics and live weight gain, and reduced mortality. Improved animal feeding with the inclusion of cereal grains in feed to improve feed quality. Improved rice cultivation with the adoption of water management techniques such as alternate wetting and drying (AWD) and midseason drainage (MSD), residue incorporation and improved fertiliser management.Nutrient management focused on reducing excessive fertiliser use and improve application methods such as improving the timing, placement, and form of fertiliser application, replacing synthetics by organic sources without negatively impacting crop yields. Replacement of fossil fuels by solar panels and other co-generation as a source of electricity and transportation.Planting cover crops during the part of the year when the main crop is not growing and shifting soil ploughing to reduced-tillage or zero-tillage systems.Integrating trees into croplands at levels that do not reduce crop yields. It includes windbreaks and alley cropping.Adopting silvopastoral systems integrating livestock, forage production, and forestry on the same landmanagement unit.Implementing agroforestry systems that combine coffee, tea or cocoa shrubs with multi-purpose shade species.Sowing legumes in planted pastures.Grazing optimization on rangeland and planted pastures.Avoid deforestation by improving cook-stoves efficiency.Reduce post-harvesting loss by improving handling, storage and transport practices.Grazing optimization on rangeland and planted pastures.* Griscom et al. 2018;IPCC, 2006. Fortunately, there are several options to minimize and avoid higher emissions scenarios in future investments. We identified core value-chain interventions that may enable programmes to enhance future emissions reduction and carbon sequestration while presenting economic feasibility and yield crop productivity benefits (Table 7).As stated above, the highest impact intervention for mitigation is to avoid conversion of lands with significant carbon stored in vegetative cover or soil due to its relatively high impact compared to emission reductions of agriculture practices. This is followed by on-farm methods focused on livestock and cropping systems and off-farm practices that reduce post-harvesting loss (Table 7).Among the mitigation opportunities listed in Table 7, improving nutrient efficiency in both cropping and pasture-based livestock production systems is likely to have the most significant effect across the DfID portfolio. The implementation of agroforestry may further enhance carbon sequestration across the portfolio. Improving animal breeding and feeding and promoting water drainage in rice paddies are additional opportunities for mitigation (Figure 7).Guidance toward low-emission pathways relevant to the programmes may be initiated through use of best-practice checklists or, more generally, by applying three principles: (1) avoid land use change, (2) improve production efficiency, and (3) offset emissions with carbon storage.Production efficiency should focus on:(a) efficient use of energy, fertilizer, in the case of paddy rice, water;(b) efficient use and conversion of feed in livestock production;(c) avoided food loss or waste; and(d) recycling of waste.In addition, where possible, fossil fuels should be replaced with alternative renewable energy and the efficiency and quality of production of ruminant livestock should be enhanced before increasing the number of animals. Low-emission pathways are context specific and emissions reflect aggregated net emissions for a production system, so no single practice can guarantee mitigation impacts.   The adoption of enhanced agronomic interventions is expected to significantly enhance crop and livestock productivity across DfID's programme investments in commercial agriculture in Africa and Asia while reducing net GHG emissions.Carbon sequestration, especially in the soil, comprises the majority of the GHG mitigation potential in the sampled value chains in the programmes. Minimum tillage, pasture management, crop rotation, and nutrient management were the major interventions leading to soil carbon sequestration.Across programmes, the use of nitrogen fertiliser will likely lead to an overall increase in emissions over time, despite the impacts of fertiliser use on increasing soil carbon sequestration. The net mitigation effect from soil carbon sequestration is only likely in the short term (up to 20 to 40 years), until soil carbon sequestration reaches equilibrium.However, there are several opportunities to minimize and avoid higher emissions scenarios from future investments. The most important of these is to prevent the conversion of land with significant vegetation or organic soils (e.g., peatlands), as the level of carbon loss will likely outweigh the emission reductions possible using agriculture practices. Among the most significant agronomic interventions for mitigation are nitrogen fertilizer efficiency, crop rotation, no-tillage, agroforestry, animal management, and water-saving irrigation in paddy rice (Table 6).Finally, practices and policies that promote efficient and improved nutrient use, with a focus on balanced nutrient inputs and optimal use of organic resources, as well as those that promote high-yielding and improved seeds, are crucial for future low-emissions development. For example, as seen in the Myanmar programme, the use of improved rice seeds and adoption of good agronomic practices helped reduce the use of nitrogen fertiliser by 50%. Estimating GHG emissions and removals requires two sets of data: activity data and emission factors. Activity data is the information related to the activities or interventions of a given scope (e.g., quantity of fertiliser applied to the soil, heads of animals, type of soil tillage). An emission factor is the amount of GHG emitted or removed by a unit of activity data (e.g., a kilogram of N2O emitted by the application of 1 kilogram of urea). In the next two sections, we describe the process of acquiring activity data from selected programmes as well as associated emission factors.The process of collecting activity data for the selected DfID programmes consisted of four steps:1. Review of programme documentation: We examined and collected qualitative and quantitative data for the selected applications by reviewing programmes' design documents and annual reports. These documents were provided by implementing organisations and available in a dedicated DfID's investments platform (DevTracker). The objective of this step was to identify significant value chains and interventions promoted by the programmes and their status under three scenarios: situation at the start of programme implementation (baseline year), the current state of programme implementation, and expected results at the programme completion. For programmes with large portfolios, we selected a sample of programmes most likely to have emissions and mitigation impacts. In order to ensure data in this assessment were of sufficiently quality to draw robust conclusions, we employed the following data quality management measures:We flagged data provided by implementing organisations as subject to low certainty, unaccompanied by a reasonable amount of monitoring data and assumed values. For those, we arbitrarily assumed low, medium and low certainty, respectively.We crosschecked data provided by implementing organisations with agriculture experts, literature consultation, and global databases for precision (e.g., FAO-Stat for agriculture yields and use of soil inputs), excluding data when no reliable data documentation was available.The IPCC (2006) methodology allows the combined use of Tier 1 and Tier 2 emission factors data. Tier 1 emission factors are default values readily available national or international factors such as those provided by the IPCC and therefore should be feasible for all countries, but low certainty. Tier 2 emission factors are country-specific developed by considering country-specific data and, consequently, they have higher certainty compared to Tier 1 emission factors. We used country-and programme-specific Tier 2 factors wherever available (i.e., soil carbons sequestration rates), otherwise relying on default Tier 1 factors. Coefficients from published reviews or international databases were used where appropriate.Emission factors used in this report relating to rates of soil carbon sequestration (t CO2 ha -1 y -1 )in Africa were adopted from The World Bank report on Carbon Sequestration in Agricultural Soils (report number: 67395-GLB). The report provides soil carbon sequestration rates (kg C ha -1 y -1 ) for a range of continents and agronomic practices and further provides an averaged soil carbon sequestration rate based on several observations (number of observations range from 11 to 125 per region and agronomic practice). To determine the soil carbon sequestration rates for different value chains at baseline, current, and expected programme scenarios, we calculated an average rate for the agronomic practices of interest. For the programme in Myanmar, we adopted a soil carbon sequestration rate from similar agronomic practices and study region.Calculating the GHG impact of each programme accounted for GHG emissions and carbon sequestration resulting from the programme interventions using the EX-ACT tool of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). The EX-ACT tool was built based on the IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (IPCC 2006). And was selected because of its ability to evaluate the primary sources of GHG emissions and removals in agriculture, forestry, and land use as compared with a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario; it also allows for the combined use of Tier 1 and Tier 2 emission factors.Expected and monitored programme outcomes were used as input data to the EX-ACT tool to estimate (i) the total GHG impact of agricultural production systems by area; (ii) the GHG impact of individual agricultural practices as compared with BAU practices; and (iii) the GHG emission intensity of production systems before and after programme implementation. Results were converted to CO2e using Global Warming Potential (GWP) factors provided by the IPCC (2013).We estimated the influence of programmes' agricultural interventions on average annual GHG emissions over 20 years following programme initiation, consistent with time frames commonly considered for carbon stocks to reach equilibrium (IPCC 2006). We assumed an implementation and a capitalization period of 7 and 13 years, respectively. This approach assumes that farmers continue to use agricultural practices introduced by development programmes over 20 years, often a more extended period than the development assistance.Programmes can influence land-use beyond the target area, which can influence GHG emissions accordingly. When an activity promotes emission increases in another area, it is called leakage.These dynamics are challenging to estimate in ex-ante analyses because their causal pathways depend strongly on context. In interviews, we limited ourselves to explore with interviewees any land-use change that was related to the programme activities. Emission intensity: Emissions per unit produced, in contrast to emissions per hectare. Can be considered a metric of the emission efficiency of a production system.Fossil Fuel: Geologic deposits of hydrocarbons from ancient biological origin, such as coal, petroleum and natural gas.Fuel combustion: Fuel combustion is the intentional oxidation of materials within an apparatus that is designed to provide heat or mechanical work to a process, or for use away from the apparatus.Global warming potential (GWP): An index, based upon radiative properties of different greenhouse gases relative to carbon dioxide. The GWP represents the combined effect of the differing times these gases remain in the atmosphere and their relative effectiveness in absorbing outgoing thermal infrared radiation.Greenhouse gas: Any gas that absorbs infrared radiation in the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases include, but are not limited to, water vapor, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), ozone (O3), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6).Hectare (ha): a metric unit of square measure, equal to 10,000 square meters.High-carbon landscapes: Land areas with high stocks of carbon in the biomass or soil. These typically include forests, grasslands, peatlands or wetlands. With its capacity for reporting on climate change, its consequences, and the viability of adaptation and mitigation measures, the IPCC is also looked to as the official advisory body to the world's governments","tokenCount":"7899"}
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..6fc460dde5ab50e5a679ab71f3e50096ee454bcb
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"47a49cad15c331d56d8a9a6425463892","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/db930a3c-0bb7-42a2-a196-02877248cda9/retrieve","id":"318002514"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"3e53af3e-328e-4bf6-9dbb-6253a0611f2a","pagecount":"15","content":"• COHESA is a project about OH institutionalization (= setting up the framework from national to local level for OH to be operationalized)• WP 1, 2 & 3 are mainly about OH institutionalization• WP4 is about testing OH operationalization• Started in second half of 2023• Meetings started in August 2023• 5 meetings organised since August 2023, including DD country lead and multipliers + Zambia multiplier• First meetings with consortium staff only, from third meeting on, with multipliers WP4 Acticity plan  What is a sandpit?• The purpose of a sandpit is to generate ideas and high-quality, multidisciplinary project proposals. In COHESA we are using sandpits as a way to generate projects that lead to implementation of innovative One Health solutions.• During the 5-day event, participants will work in teams to develop and refine a project idea. Teams will be provided with guided learning around One Health and other areas relevant to successful delivery of the project. One the 5th day, teams will pitch the project to a funding panel. If successful, the team will be supported to implement the project. ","tokenCount":"179"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/7508224345.json b/data/part_1/7508224345.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..b01683ec5dcb95381ced03cf7b8d42f913546531
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"477047e41ab70b4a5488620633c9efcf","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/45e1f8db-c2a1-4d47-a182-4645e4dda0ad/retrieve","id":"-1365883596"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"435b76a9-c405-4094-ae70-c275b3760e1f","pagecount":"1","content":"Enteric methane emissions of zebu steers fed with tropical forages of contrasting nutritional value Methane (CH 4 ) emissions from livestock contribute significantly to climate change and diet plays a fundamental role in the emissions generated. Research in animal nutrition should aim at identifying ways to increase production efficiency with the least possible environmental impact and manipulation of diet quality becomes one of the most viable options to both mitigate emissions and increase animal productivity.The present study intends to contribute to the knowledge in this area by means of the evaluation of the methane emissions of some tropical forages commonly used in the Colombian low tropic of different nutritional value and level of voluntary intake in zebu steers. Dry matter intake: The voluntary intake of forage of each animal was calculated by the difference of forage offered and rejected.Data analyses: Data were analyzed using randomized complete block design with GLM procedure of SAS (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC). Animal was considered as the block and the animal weight was used as a covariate.Table 1. Average intake of dry matter and nutrients in zebu steers fed with tropical forages of different nutritional value  » The nutritional quality of the diet that is offered to the animals directly influences the voluntary intake and methane emissions generated.» In the present study, the diets with the highest nutritional value were those in which Leucaena was included; and it was the diets that presented the highest dry matter intake and the lowest methane emissions per unit of product.» Animals fed with the same grass showed better efficiency in the use of nutrients when the grass has better quality due to adequate harvest times.» The quality and quantity of forages is directly related to grazing management practices. Optimal forage harvesting time increases nutrient availability and voluntary intake and therefore influences the reduction of methane emissions. ","tokenCount":"309"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/7509617318.json b/data/part_1/7509617318.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..9f29d1f3f72c229b80f5f89cc5609c31bb460966
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a3c5bf59079787413bf3ed2fe50f7b04","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/acc6f20d-6b6d-4ab0-9ecc-9968cc0de12c/retrieve","id":"-1825181854"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"75edf073-8ba1-40d1-bcac-c178030ba574","pagecount":"2","content":"Stakeholders made recommendations on key issues for planning and implementing field tests in small-scale irrigation (SSI) and irrigated fodder. The focus of the discussion was on the following:  Identifying the most profitable and appropriate water storage, lifting and harvesting systems for small farmers to improve water productivity.Understanding livestock water and fodder needs and feasibility of integrating fodder production into irrigation systems.Recommending effective institutional and governance arrangements for development of integrated irrigated crop-livestock systems. The workshop provided the first dialogue and knowledge sharing platform in Ghana under Innovation Lab for Small Scale Irrigation project. Stakeholder groups were represented by irrigation farmers, national research institutes, universities, non-governmental organizations, government programs and initiatives and government institutions such as the Ghana Irrigation Development Authority and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. A summary of the discussions and priorities for research is in this brief.The workshop contributed to the process of identification and prioritization of potential research issues and interventions on small-scale irrigation and fodder. The workshop also provided an opportunity for identifying the interests and expertise of partners, and for developing partnerships to implement the research. The issues outlined from the workshop discussions will be considered alongside the results of focused meetings with individual stakeholders and institutions in Ghana, the existing research on which to build, and the opportunities for partnerships. Through further consultation, research partners will identify sites and interventions to field-test in Ghana.The Innovation Lab on Small-Scale Irrigation (ILSSI) is supported by USAID to undertake research to increase food production, improve nutrition, accelerate economic development and contribute to the protection of the environment. This brief was made possible by the generous support of the American people through USAID. The contents do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.Technologies need to be appropriate and accessible: Improving water productivity is critical to increasing production, particularly in areas with limited access to water. However, many different technologies can be used to achieve that; some are being used already by farmers, such as pumps. Comparative analysis is needed of combinations of different storage, lifting and distribution systems. Stakeholders expressed interest in canal, drip, and sprinkler, and of course different types of pumps. There is also need to improve technologies already being used widely, such as capturing surface run-off, shallow wells for groundwater and small earth dams and dugouts.Profitability is key for small farmers: Stakeholders agree that small-scale, farmer-driven irrigation investments appear to be more successful than large-scale public schemes, though they would like to understand better the factors for that. At the same time, small farmers face many constraints to profitability on irrigated plots; expensive irrigation supplies, high energy costs for pumps, crop failure, and low access to markets for high value vegetables and fruits, among others, limit profits. Costbenefit analysis is needed to identify which methods of water storage and water lifting are the most cost effective for small farmers.Stakeholders also noted the persistence of governance issues related to both irrigation schemes and livestock. In some cases, they pointed out that by-laws do exist, but cannot play the role intended in regulating the movement of livestock and prevent-ing damage to irrigation schemes, water bodies and farms because they are not enforced properly. In other cases, indigenous systems in enforcing by-laws are effective, and those lessons should be shared. While much research may have been done on management of irrigation systems, stakeholders identified the need to better understand governance issues, notably related to by-laws, different levels of government and enforcement mechanisms.A number of opportunities were noted related to development of irrigated fodder, such as an emerging fodder market in the Upper East Region and the introduction of greens for livestock feed on irrigation schemes by farmers. At the same time, stakeholders noted that there is a lack of information on livestock numbers, and water and feed demands of livestock, among others. The interest in developing irrigated fodder exists, but more information will be required on the types of crop-livestock systems that would be acceptable and feasible on irrigated sites.Farmers noted the lack of guidance and advice available on irrigation technologies. Stakeholders agreed on the urgent need for an irrigation curriculum for extension service suppliers to improve support services. They expressed need for the project to contribute to development of a curriculum and to facilitate dialogue between irrigation, water and livestock institutions. Interventions in irrigation can further contribute to improving livelihoods when complemented with capacity development for communities; nutrition planning and use of bed-nets near irrigation schemes to offset increased malaria are important to achieving equitable impact through irrigation intervention.R e s e a r c h C o o p e r a t i v e P a r t n e r s","tokenCount":"785"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/7524493761.json b/data/part_1/7524493761.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..29051bb3dc577be7d2f85cdb222ff0bebf523eb3
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3efd3994a70a4bedb175eae2d0f5fd55","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e8adee4c-3bad-493d-87a0-86cc31ddcaf2/retrieve","id":"-2070730690"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a554fe27-8bc9-443c-b32d-d4432739b5f1","pagecount":"18","content":"The Community-based Fish Culture in Seasonal Floodplains and Irrigation Systems (CBFC) project is a five year research project supported by the Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF), with the aim of increasing productivity of seasonally occurring water bodies through aquaculture. The project has been implemented in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Mali and Vietnam, where technical and institutional options for community based aquaculture have been tested. The project began in 2005 and was completed in March 2010.This working paper represents work-in-progress. It forms part of a series of documents presenting research findings from the project. The reader is advised that it has not been subjected to academic quality control, nor edited for errors of fact or interpretation.Bangladesh is a huge delta formed by three main river systems-the Padma (Ganges), Meghna and Jamuna-Brahmaputra and their tributaries (Map of Bangladesh showing the three mighty river system). There are 5.2 million ha of floodplain areas in the Indo-Gangetic river basin of which 2.8 million ha are located in Bangladesh. More than one-third of the lands in Bangladesh remain under water every year during monsoon to some extent are use as habitat for different species of fish. Inundated floodplains are rich in nutrients and natural fish food, and thus are excellent feeding, breeding and nursery grounds for fish and other aquatic organisms (De Graff, 2003;De Graff and Marttin, 2003). In 2007-08, the contribution of floodplains in Bangladesh to total fish production from inland open waters is 77% (DoF, 2009). About 6.7 million people are getting direct benefits for their food security and livelihoods gains from the floodplains in Bangladesh (Dey and Prein, 2006).Bangladesh has rich in aquatic fish biodiversity with 260 freshwater fish species where minnows, catfish, eels, perch, gobies, clupeids and prawns constituted the major portion (DoF, 2009). A rich diversity of fish fauna is contributing significantly to the ecology and sustainable productivity of the floodplains. Barr et al (2004) reported that during the monsoon the floodplains of Bangladesh become integrated into a single biological productive system. About 20-30 fish species which are resident in the floodplains and tolerant of low levels of oxygen provided the majority of the national freshwater fish production.The degradation of floodplains resulting from human interferences due to construction of roads, embankments, deforestation, encroachment for agricultural production, indiscriminate use of pesticides and natural causes (siltation, drought, cyclone and intrusion of saline water) has had negative impacts on fish diversity in Bangladesh. On the other hand, the Thus the objective of the study was undertaken to assess the impact of technological interventions on fish yields, biodiversity of non-stocked fish species for livelihood gains of community people including the poor fishers in three seasonal floodplains located in three different river basins in Bangladesh. The study aims to fill gaps in our understanding in improvement of fish yields, enhancement of fish biodiversity and its implications for diversified use of seasonal floodplains.The study was conducted in three seasonal floodplains; Beel Mail, Angrar Beel and Kalmina Beel located in the river basins of the Padma, Teesta and Brahmaputra in the northwest and northern region of Bangladesh (Figure 1 and Table 1).Table 1. Description of the floodplains selected for the studies from three river basins of Bangladesh. The people living in the neighborhood of the floodplains under intervention, the professional fishers, landless people and landowners were identified. For CB management two committees the Floodplain Management Committee (FMC) and the Project Implementation Committee (PIC) were formed. These committees were working for planning, budgeting, implementation of fish culture activities and distribution of the benefits among members of the floodplains. The FMC was formed with representative from the communities however;the PIC in addition to representatives of FMC included government officials from the local Upazila and district level.Baseline data on fish species and production in the sites before intervention collected to compare the effects of the technological interventions on biodiversity (\"before vs. after\").The information regarding qualitative and quantitative aspects of fish catch and abundance of non-stocked fish species in sites were collected from the people in concerned local community. Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and Key Informant interviews methods followed by structured questionnaire survey were used in the information collection. The activities for collection of information included: 1. Installation of low-cost large meshed bamboo fencing at water inlet and outlet points, and setting of ring culverts for maintaining suitable levels of water for fish culture without hampering the production of rice in the upland areas of the floodplains:The Bamboo poles were locally purchased by the beneficiaries, cut into pieces, usually 1.5 -2.0 meters in length and splitted into slates of about 2.0 cm in width. The bamboo slates were joined together by means of synthetic ropes like stitching of cloth; at the top, middle and bottom portion of the bamboo slates. The mesh sizes of the bamboo fences were 1.0 cm.Thereafter, the fences were installed at the mouth of the inlets and outlets of water body in such a way that would permit the entry of larvae and hatchling of small indigenous species but prevented the stocked fish from being escaping. The fences were reinforced by fixing additional bamboo slates diagonally across the fence. A good number of bamboo poles, which served as stronghold to keep the fence in position, were fixed at the bottom of the inlet-outlet at 1.0 meter distances in the close proximity of inlets and outlets. In some cases, the peripheral dikes of the water bodies were also raised to certain extent for holding water as well as preventing the escape of stocked fishes.Several ring culverts comprising of ring concrete culvert (RCC) pipes with round holes of 60cm in diameter were installed at 0.3 meter above the bottom level of the floodplain and the upper side of the culverts were covered with soil for about 0.6 meter to maintain the water level and prolong the water retention time for Kalmina Beel floodplain. Further, the bamboo fences were fixed at the inlet and outlet of the other two sites of the Kalmina Beel floodplain.Besides use of bamboo fences in Beel Mail floodplain, the existing sluice gates constructed by WAPDA was regulated for retaining water throughout the culture period and draining out water for final harvesting of fish and also for facilitating the planting of winter rice. The three inlets and outlets of Angrar Beel Floodplain were also fenced like other floodplains.Earthwork was done to raise the embankment of the respective floodplains. The beneficiaries as well as hired labors were involved in repairing and elevating the level of the dike of the floodplains. . The impacts of stocking on fish production and biodiversity of non-stocked species in the seasonal floodplains were determined using comparisons before and after intervention, based on survey data. The comparisons were presented in tabular form. SPSS were used for data analysis.The fishes recorded before and after the project intervention in the seasonal floodplains under the studies are categorized into the following 11 major groups (Table 2) Fish biodiversity of the floodplains not affected negatively due to intervention of fish culture under community based system. Before intervention 30 species of non-stocked fishes were identified in Beel Mail, 21 species in Kalmina Beel and 24 species in Angrar Beel. After implementation of the technical intervention the, number of non-stocked fish species in each beels showed 8-19% increase over the initial base level populations (Table 2).There was significant increase in both stocked and non-stocked species biomass after implementation of technical interventions (  The contribution of different groups of fishes to the total fishery yield is presented in Table 5.It is evident that exotic carps contributed the bulk of the fishery production in all the experimental seasonal floodplains, followed by native carps. Among the non-stocked species, the barbs, catfishes, minnows and clupeids, glassfish, and small prawns were the most dominant fauna in most of the seasonal floodplains.   ","tokenCount":"1298"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/7550688375.json b/data/part_1/7550688375.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..57e96594e7f5aa769b34c3d99b930a19b027e7f1
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"704b0bb97e6377d72500156e2e92a6c0","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/544ed044-c064-4f18-8838-8dc57303a968/content","id":"117982301"},"keywords":["Social and environmental change","Adaptive capacity","Eastern Africa","Household diversity","Adaptive capacity","Agroecosystems","Drivers of change"],"sieverID":"65826375-00aa-44e1-bc43-0b98da3f7a98","pagecount":"13","content":"Understanding the diversity of current states, life cycles and past trajectories of households and agroecosystems is essential to contextualise the co-design of more sustainable agroecosystems. The objective of this paper was to document and analyse current states, trajectories of changes and their major drivers of households in a highly populated maize-based agroecosystem of Western Kenya. In 2013, we revisited 20 rural households that were surveyed, analysed and categorised 10 years ago (2003) in order to describe major changes in livelihood strategies, land use and soil fertility status. The household-level analysis was complemented with the analysis of secondary data on changes in drivers at the national level for the study period. The diachronic study showed a close association between drivers such as market and transport development, and the structure of rural households in terms of demographic shifts, land and labour exchanges, increased costs of agricultural inputs and better connectivity to markets. Between 2003 and 2013, the surveyed households experienced an increase in non-agricultural income by 30 %; intensity of land cultivation by 60 %; use of hybrid maize seeds by 35 %; and of synthetic fertilisers by almost 50 %. Local households increase their number of crossbred livestock in detriment of local breeds and used less manure to fertilise their soils. In contrast, there were few changes in terms of food self-sufficiency (around 9 months per year) and in soil conditions (soil fertility was already poor in 2003). In terms of livelihood strategies, betterendowed households tended to diversify and acquire land that enabled them to adapt and benefit from the major changes observed in external drivers. In contrast, more vulnerable households sold labour and land to cope with such changes, remaining in a poverty trap. Households combine and explore diverse strategies to act, cope and adapt to fast-changing local and regional drivers. Policy or development programmes need to account for such diversity and dynamics to support the co-development of more adaptive and sustainable smallholder agroecosystems.The current configuration, performance and plausible future pathways of a particular agroecosystem are largely determined by the past dynamics and interactions between its intrinsic properties and external drivers (i.e. external factors influencing these intrinsic properties) such as climate, local institutions, population dynamics and markets (Zimmerer 2007(Zimmerer , 2013;;Raut et al. 2011). Agroecosystems are social-ecological systems managed by humans to provide goods and services, particularly the production of food, feed, and fibre for human needs (Conway 1987;Becker and Jahn 2001). Their dynamics and long-term trajectories in the face of changing contexts express their responses to gradual changes and sudden disturbances, which can be characterised in terms of vulnerability, resilience, adaptive capacity and overall sustainability (social, environmental and economy). At lower hierarchical levels, rural households that are part of evolving agroecosystems combine different strategies to cope or adapt to such changes in their context and their own life cycle dynamics (e.g. Speelman et al. 2014). While some households have to use some strategies to cope with changes by hanging in, others can use other strategies to support the adaptation by the stepping up or out based on agricultural production and non-farm income, respectively (Dorward et al. 2009). Surprising, or rather unexpected agroecosystem dynamics and patterns can emerge from the complex interaction between system management and the various external drivers operating at multiple levels/scales.Understanding the diversity of current states and past trajectories of households and agroecosystems can generate relevant knowledge to better contextualise and support discussions regarding the co-development, adaptation, integration and adoption of promising agricultural innovations and diversification strategies, and their potential impacts on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers (Scoones and Wolmer 2000; Ryschawy et al. 2013;Zimmerer 2013). In particular, improved integration and management of ecological processes to enhance agricultural production while reducing dependence on external inputs in the face of climatic variability require strengthening the adaptive capacity of households and local institutions as lead actors of agroecosystems (Pretty 1997(Pretty , 2008;;Reardon et al. 1999;Keating et al. 2010).Changes in biophysical and socio-economic drivers may promote or limit changes in the use of land (Lambin et al. 2006;Rindfuss et al. 2008) and access to other resources (e.g. water, nutrients, labour, capital), influencing positively or negatively rural livelihoods, farming systems (Wilson 2008;Enfors 2013;Tittonell and Giller 2013), and overall sustainability (Tarawali et al. 2011). The understanding of trajectories of households and agroecosystems as affected by changes in drivers and interactions among drivers operating at different spatial and organisational levels can shed light on the ecological and social underpinning of their adaptive capacity and resilience (Geels and Schot 2007;Tittonell 2013).In Western Kenya, one of the most densely populated rural areas in the world, households combine diverse livelihood strategies, management practices and commodities to react to or anticipate processes and changes in agroecological (e.g. climate) and socio-economic (e.g. population dynamics and markets) drivers. Household decisions, their life cycle and changes in external drivers influence their current performance and potential future pathways, as has been documented in a number of studies (e.g. Conelly and Chaiken 2000;Crowley and Carter 2000;Tittonell et al. 2005a, b;Jayne and Muyanga 2012). Most of these studies concurred in diagnosing severe soil degradation and overall land fragmentation as a consequence of high population pressure on the natural resource base. Yet, the dynamics of market development, trends in the national economy, and the increased rural-urban connectivity in Kenya over the last decade may have promoted changes in livelihood strategies that can only be captured through longitudinal studies. Our objective was to document and understand such trajectories to better contextualise opportunities for sustainable natural resource management pathways in the highly populated maizebased agroecosystems of Western Kenya. We revisited rural households from the area that were surveyed, analysed and categorised 10 years ago to document major changes in livelihood strategies, land use and soil fertility status. We combined the analysis of secondary data on national drivers together with the analysis of field data collected in 2003 and 2013.The study area was located in Shinyalu, a Constituency of the Kakamega District in Western Kenya (Fig. 1). Its agroecosystems host diverse smallholder households farming between 0.5 and 2 ha of land, where they combine crop, livestock and tree production. Although agriculture plays a major role, households have combined different strategies to achieve their livelihoods including migration and income diversification (Crowley and Carter 2000;Lay et al. 2008).The study area is sub-humid, receiving on average between 1,500 and 2,500 mm of rain distributed in two rainy periods, the long (March-July) and short (August-November) rains, which allow two cropping seasons per year. The area is characterised by a rolling landscape with a combination of flat and undulating slopes dominated by soils of the orders: Nitisols, Ferralsols and Acrisols (Jaetzold et al. 2007). Most soils in the area are degraded as a result of pedo-climatic conditions combined with long-term cultivation, insufficient use of organic matter or other nutrient inputs, and erosion (Tittonell et al. 2005a, b;Jaetzold et al. 2007).Agricultural expansion and urbanisation have considerably reduced the areas of land under communal usufruct (e.g. communal grazing) in the study region. Agricultural intensification has facilitated a continuous agricultural production and population growth, while reported average farm sizes for the whole population continue to decline and limit the practice of fallow or crop rotation as means to manage soil fertility (Nambiro 2008). The agroecosystem is dominated by the intercropping of maize (Zea mays L.) and common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), combined with many different food, feed and cash crops and trees (Crowley and Carter 2000;Tittonell et al. 2010). However, many households do not cover their food demands, being net buyers of maize. Also, after communal grazing areas became scarce some decades ago, livestock herds have remained small with a combination of cross-bred and indigenous cattle, goats, sheep, pigs and poultry with changes in feeding practices (Crowley and Carter 2000).The analysis of trajectories was based on the collection and comparison of data and indicators on drivers, livelihoods and soils in 2003 and 2013. Indicators on the major changes in biophysical and socio-economic drivers were collected by gathering secondary data covering that period to better contextualise changes in livelihoods and farming systems. The aim was to provide an overview on the major dynamics rather than an in-depth analysis of drivers. The search focussed on national and global datasets of different organisations including KNBS or the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (http://knbs.or.ke/), FAO (http://fao stat.fao.org/), World Bank (http://data.worldbank.org/) and United Nations (http://unstats.un.org). District population data for 2003 and 2013 are an extrapolation of the data of the national census of 1999and 2009(KNBS 2000, 2010)). This extrapolation was done based on the annual growth rates that were calculated by comparing the District population of 1989 and 1999 (i.e. 2.5 %), and 1999 and 2009 (i.e. 2.7 %).Household data on family structure, life cycle, crop and livestock production, and income were collected from the same households in two different years: 2003 and 2013 (see Table 3 in ''Appendix''). The methods used in both years are described in detail in Tittonell et al. (2005a and b). In 2003, 20 households were selected after having categorised the diversity of local households into a farm typology based on resource endowment levels out of survey data. Semi-structured questionnaires and participatory mapping tools were used to collect farm management data to better understand diversity of crop and livestock management practices, resource flows, farm productivity and market prices for agricultural inputs and outputs (for further details see Tittonell et al. 2008). In 2013, these households were revisited and similar though adapted questionnaires were used to collect key indicators on livelihoods and farming systems, as well as storylines on the past trajectories and potential future strategies. In total, 19 interviews were conducted because we were not able to contact one of the households. The values of the collected household data were compared for all the households to check statistical differences between years by using the Wilcoxon Matched-Pair Signed-Rank, a nonparametric test to evaluate differences between repeated measurements of the same sample.A sub-sample of five representative households of the typology was selected to conduct a detailed system characterisation including quantitative data on resource allocation, and farm biophysical and socio-economic efficiencies, in exactly the same way as reported in Tittonell et al. (2005a and b). Additionally, discussions with key informants were conducted to collect current prices of main agricultural inputs and understand major changes in local markets and general land use changes in the region. Although prices of agricultural products are highly variable in the study area (Tittonell et al. 2007), major changes can be still an indicator of relative variations in agricultural costs. Prices of agricultural inputs for both years were divided by the highest retailer's price of maize for food for each year in order to compare the relative value of agricultural products between years accounting for other factors (e.g. devaluation, inflation).Soils were re-sampled and analysed for each field of the sub-sample of farms used for the detailed study to quantify potential changes in soil carbon and nutrient concentrations. Samples were taken from the first 15 cm of the soil profile, making a composite sample of 5 sub-samples per plot (Tittonell et al. 2005a and b). Standard analytical procedures for tropical soils (Anderson and Ingram 1993) were followed to analyse the composite samples for texture, pH, organic carbon (OC), total N and extractable P (Olsen). Results from nutrient content of 2003 and 2013 were compared using descriptive analysis.Major changes in drivers and the agrarian sector During the last decade, substantial changes occurred in both the bio-physical and socio-economic contexts affecting the agrarian sector in Kenya, which could potentially affect the dynamics of livelihoods and the agroecosystem in the study area. In the whole of Kenya, annual population growth remained constant at around 2.6 % with a total increase of *10 million people, from 33.8 million in 2003 to almost 43.9 million in 2013 (UN 2011). The increase in population was relatively larger in the cities than in rural areas caused by a close interaction between population growth and urban migration, as the percentage of urban dwellers increased from 21 % to almost 24 % of the total population by 2011 (UN 2011). Following demographic trends, total enrolment in secondary education doubled between 2003 and 2011, reaching almost 1.8 million, while the number of students in primary education increased from 7.2 to 9.9 million (KNBS 2012). Cereal consumption for the whole country also increased between 2003 and 2011, but no change in yields was observed. During this period, the total production increased due to an expansion of the cultivated area from 2.1 to more than 2.5 million ha, while average yields remained unchanged at an average of 1.5 Mg per ha (FAOSTATS 2012). During the same period, the increasing but oscillating trend of cereal imports continued with a peak of 2.7 million tons in 2009 (Fig. 2), while the total value of imported N and P fertilizers quadrupled from 14 to 58 million US dollars in 2010 (FAO-STATS 2012). Livestock production also increased in the last decade, reflected in a rise in the number of animals purchased in licenced abattoirs between 2005 and 2011: 18, 38 and 24 % more cattle, sheep/goats and pigs were purchased, respectively (KNBS 2012).The total GDP of Kenya increased on average 4.6 % per year in spite of the economic slowdown of 2008 (1.5 %) after the problematic elections the year before (World Bank 2013). In contrast, the relative value of agricultural production in the GDP further decreased Parallel to these major trends at national level, similar changes were observed at the district level. In Kakamega population grew from *650.000 to *850.000 persons between 2003 and 2013 reaching a population density of 592 persons per km 2 . The city of Kakamega had a similar growth rate with the population going from *82.000 to *104.000 people in the same period. People at school increased from 39 to 44 % of the population between 1999 and 2009. Currently, besides the 800,000 chickens kept by local farmers, cattle is the dominant livestock species in the district with more than 200,000 heads of cattle, compared with 35,000 sheep, 30,000 goats and 15,500 pigs (KNBS 2010).Finally, Kenya experienced climatic extremes during this period, with two major drought periods disrupting agricultural production and food prices in 2004-2005 (Kandij 2006) and 2008-2011 in the entire country (Republic of Kenya 2012), including the study area (Fig. 3). Rainfall data recorded at different locations in Western Kenya from 1958 show a trend towards monomodality, characterised by a shortening of the dry spell in between the long and short rains seasons and a concentration of rainfall during the short rains season in the months of August and September in the last decade (Tittonell 2008).Households changed and acted upon the significant contextual changes described above. We observed a diversity of strategies deployed by households to assure their livelihoods (Fig. 4), similar to the heterogeneity in intensification trajectories described by Crowley and Carter (2000). Through the new household survey and interviews with key informants, we identified four major changes experienced by local households that were partly internal to the household life cycle and structure and partly external drivers affecting the context of the agroecosystem. These were, namely changes in: (i) household composition, (ii) land and labour exchanges, (iii) prices of inputs and products and (iv) access to markets and infrastructure. The population and economic changes at national and district level (''Major changes in drivers and the agrarian sector'' section) influenced in particular the external drivers affecting the households.(i) Changes in household composition: Although the average number of household members increased (Table 1), this increase was not significant because some households increased, while others decreased, in family size. Changes in the life cycle and family structure of the rural households resulted from changes in the number of children per household, from new marriages, illnesses and death. In 2013, 42 % of the household heads had changed compared with 2003, mainly as a consequence of the dead of the previous one. From the 19 households, four ceased to exist in the study area in 2013: for three of them the household head died and their farms were given to relatives who already had farms, while the remaining one sold the land to neighbours and migrated to another region. Three of these four households exhibited low levels of resource endowment already in 2003. On the other hand, more than ten new households emerged by inherit some of the land surveyed in 2003.(ii) Changes in land and labour exchange: Although most farmers changed the amount and combination of key resources they used, only few of them have strongly increased their access to land, livestock and financial resources. Similar patterns of resource acquisition have also been reported for the same region et al. 2004;Dose 2007). Five of the original farms were subdivided (from two to six pieces) and passed on to male children reducing the cropland available for each new household. Our analysis was restricted to the original households, managing the remaining of the original farmland. Additionally, four of the households interviewed sold land between 2003 and 2013 to be able to pay for health care or education, while five bought land during the same period to increase agricultural production and to be able to pass land on to their sons without subdividing the original farm land. However, *60 % of the total increase registered in cropland area was the result of changes in only two of the households interviewed (Fig. 4a), which resulted in a non-significant difference in average cropland areas per household between 2003 and 2013.In terms of labour, in 2013, four households made arrangements to share labour with other households for agricultural activities. Additionally, a few of the interviewed households sold their own labour for agricultural activities on other farms in exchange for cash, while 94 % of households hired casual labour for cropping activities, and 60 % hired oxen services to prepare their land.(iii) Changes in prices of inputs and products: During the household interviews, it was stated that there was an increased need for cash to cover household needs and to purchase farm inputs. For example, comparing the changes in the relative costs of inputs and products (reported by farmers and other key informants) showed that the price of maize for food increased more than proportionally with respect to the price for inorganic fertilizers, hybrid seeds and labour. This disproportional increase of prices suggests that the purchasing capacity decreased for households practicing small-scale subsistence farming and working off-farm to buy maize, whereas farmers producing maize for the market could benefit from the high product prices in 2013.(iv) Better markets and infrastructure: Farmers perceived greater market opportunities through better access to information and transport and an increased demand for agricultural products such as food and firewood. Most farmers mentioned that road quality and increased availability of motorbikes had allowed them to have a better access to markets. Similarly, there was a perceived market development represented as an increased supply and demand of different products in the region such as agricultural inputs. In Shinyalu, a major market of the study area, key informants reported that agro-dealers increased from two to six shops together with an increase in the number of smaller input sellers (i.e. retailers) during market days. Related to road improvement, most farmers also mentioned the better accessibility to the area as a result of the expansion in coverage of motorcycle taxis. This was also reflected in an increase in mechanic shops at Shinyalu marketplace from 3 to 14 during the last decade. Although the electricity network also expanded into the study area, most farmers did not yet have access to it because of the high installation costs.Based on their own objectives and possibilities, households combined different strategies to act on and take advantage of changes in their structure, life cycle and their context. Specifically, these strategies included: increased land and labour exchange (explained in the previous section), agriculture intensification and diversification, and diversification of other income sources. In terms of agriculture intensification, most households increased frequency of cultivation (i.e. percentage of the land cultivated in a year), while using external inputs such as inorganic fertilizers and hybrid seeds (see also ''Changes in crop management and soil condition'' section). Farming activities across farms, particularly those related to livestock production (Table 1). The number of households with crossbred cattle and pigs increased. On-farm income further diversified by increasing the number of households selling pigs and chickens, vegetables and firewood and timber, in response to the increasing local demand for these products. However, selling of milk decreased as a consequence of the reduction in the number of cattle partly caused by animal diseases (Fig. 4a), selling of animals for investments and eventual dowries.In terms of income diversification, most households increased their share of non-agricultural income (Fig. 4b). In 2003, the share of off-farm income for most households represented less than half of their income. In 2013, half of the income of households was derived from off-farm activities. The tendency of increasing the share and importance of off-farm income in the rural livelihoods is common in developing countries (Ellis 2000;Barrett et al. 2001;Haggblade et al. 2010). Increases in off-farm income reflected the emergence or consolidation of economic activities such as trade of molasses and by-products, and miscellaneous shops (e.g. groceries, tailoring), as well as migration to rural centres (e.g. remittances). Some households combined several of these strategies (Fig. 4). For example, most households that increased their total cultivated area also increased the share of their income from off-farm activities such as income from own business.Farmers mentioned that the diversification of both onand off-farm activities and income was often related to covering an increasing need for cash to cover frequent expenses such as buying food, or to cover specific household expenses such as health care, education and hired labour. This diversification was also related to an increasing local and regional demand for food, including animal products and vegetables. According to farmers, most buyers/traders of molasses by-products, milk, chickens, pigs and trees come to their farms to buy these products. These processes describe a better supply chain integration and larger dependency of the rural livelihoods and farming systems on a growing market. However, market dependency can also have detrimental effects for household income when expenses to cover food needs increase, which can result in reduced purchasing and consumption of nutritious foods, as observed in a similar region (Conelly and Chaiken 2000).Household heads outlined diverse potential future strategies including investment in crops intensification and diversification, livestock production, and further development of their own business, and the purchase of more land (Fig. 5). Many of the selected households (65 %) were planning to diversify on-farm income by acquiring cattle to produce milk, as well as to invest on small livestock production given the increasing demand and high prices for these products. Although this contradicts the apparent trend of many households reducing cattle in the last decade, such a reduction in our small sample was only temporary, either caused by animal diseases or in order to pay for other household activities (e.g. dowries, buying land). Alternatively, some farmers were willing to invest in crop intensification or diversification (e.g. vegetables and sugar cane for local consumption), or in expanding their own business to access more frequent income. Some farmers would also invest in acquiring additional land to increase agricultural production and pass-on land to their sons to avoid land fragmentation, while five of the farms visited would be subdivided soon. Finally, although some farmers also mentioned education as a future investment option, 75 % of the households are already investing in education for their children to provide them with more future opportunities, not necessarily in farming, which might affect future rural population dynamics.In 2013, households increased the average frequency of cultivation by almost 50 % reflecting the need to increase crop production, further reducing the areas left as fallow during the short growing season, which has been an ongoing process in the area (Nambiro 2008). Households that fallowed during this season did it either to provide grazing areas for the livestock, to improve soil fertility, and/or to avoid incurring in extra labour costs given the low potential of crop returns expected during this season. Instead of crop production, these households chose to secure animal feed availability, and increase capital and labour efficiency to enhance overall farm production and well-being in 2013. This indicates how smallholder rural households deal with trade-offs, selecting where to allocate Compared with 2003, the households interviewed in 2013 used less manure as soil amendment partly as a consequence of the reduction in the number of cattle. The number of households using market inputs such as inorganic fertilizers or maize hybrid seed increased (Table 2), particularly those combining fertilizer applications at planting (i.e. di-ammonium phosphate or DAP) and top dressing (i.e. calcium ammonium nitrate or CAN). This intensification of input use was partly supported by new institutional developments. Specifically, eight farmers mentioned that they had participated or were participating in micro-credit programmes to access and better use inputs, shared labour and related information offered by the One Acre Fund (http://www.oneacrefund.org/). Similarly, five farmers mentioned their active participation in community micro-credit and labour-sharing programmes, especially for women. This illustrates how institutions can provide relevant knowledge and key agricultural inputs that can facilitate crop intensification. Nevertheless, questions on the long-term viability of these institutional innovations and a potential competition with local traders remain open.Changes in management did not lead to significant changes in the soil fertility indicators measured in 2003 and 2013, namely soil organic carbon (SOC), total soil N and available P, in most of the fields sampled. The samples taken in 2013 exhibited SOC levels between 15 and 20 g kg -1 , similar to those observed in 2003 (Fig. 6). Yet, two samples showed an increase of 5 % reaching *23 g kg -1 of SOC, which remains at low levels (Waswa et al. 2013). Soil concentrations of total N and available P changed drastically for some of the selected the selected fields between both sampling periods. Some of the fields that exhibited very low levels of total N in 2003 (\\0.5 g kg -1 ) increased their contents to average levels of between 1.8-2.3 g kg -1 . Extractable P values remained at very low levels, in most cases far below the 10 mg kg -1 cited as reference for response to fertiliser P in the soils of the area (Vanlauwe et al. 2006). Some fields exhibited lower available P levels while others, that were at very low levels in 2003 had now relatively high concentrations. Such small positive changes could be caused by the use of organic or inorganic P inputs during the period considered, particularly in the originally less fertile fields.The lack of change in these soil indicators for most fields suggest that SOC, total N and available P were already at or close to their lower equilibrium concentrations in 2003 (Tittonell et al. 2005a and b) and the situation has not changed. The soil fertility gradients that were described by Tittonell et al. (2005a and b) were not observed in this sub-sample, perhaps as a result of the changes described (land fragmentation, increased fertiliser use, etc.), although conclusions cannot be drawn from the small number of observations included in this study. Although farmers mentioned that a better access and use of inorganic fertilizers had an overall positive impact on crop productivity, the variable access to manure and reduction of fallow periods indicated that current crop management would likely keep the soils impoverished. To face this process, most households are increasingly investing in external inputs to maintain or improve crop production, basing their decisions upon the market and global prices for fertilizers.The trajectories of rural households in the study area are conceptually represented in Fig. 7 and specified in Annex A. The socio-economic context changed in the last decade, influencing the window of opportunity for households who act or anticipate to such changes in different ways (thresholds P and S). For instance, a better link to markets influenced households' needs (e.g. for cash to pay labour and education) and opportunities (e.g. increasing local demand for feed and livestock production). Along with these changes, households combined different strategies on access to resources and adaptive capacity. Such changes can be best illustrated through examining individual storylines and household life cycles (cf. Box 1). There were four households who have stepped up/out (trajectory a). Despite temporary changes and an overall reduction in cattle numbers, three of them have increased the farm size and/or have largely increased their off-farm income and their maize food self-sufficiency in the last decade, the latter being already high in 2003. Nine households have remained in a relatively bearable situation, hanging in and reflecting a diverse range of situations of coping with changes in both drivers and situation, which might follow different future (trajectory b). These situations range from illness of the household head, the sons forming their own household and the selling of some land; starting up of a new young household head without much capital and extra labour but with different plans while renting out some land to build capital for future investments; and a household who lost their livestock and sold some land to pay the education of their children, but still owning some land and off-farm activities to make future investments. Two female-headed and relatively elder households are coping with the social-ecological context (trajectory c), with limited labour and capital to invest in their farm while reducing their maize self-sufficiency and depending on remittances of other relatives. Finally, four households have stepped out (trajectory d) either by the disintegration of the household or by the selling of the land to invest in a region with cheaper land and better investment options.The strategies that surveyed households deployed during the last decade were a combination of coping and adaptation strategies to respond to changes within the household structure, life cycle and the context. Households used coping strategies to cover their basic needs, as observed in other smallholder agroecosystems (e.g. Dorward 2009;Mushongah and Scoones 2012), by selling most of the household labour, selling and renting out land, etc. Households deploying coping mechanisms tended to be those with an already limited access to resources and who often relied on selling their labour to other households (i.e. poverty trap (Carter and Barrett 2006)), or those with better access to resources but who experienced drastic changes such as labour limitations (e.g. due to illness) and land reduction (e.g. due to farm fragmentation)-i.e. transitional ruptures (Wilson 2007). Households followed adaptation strategies or out, improving their access to resources and livelihoods as described by Lay et al. (2008) for the region. These strategies included buying additional land, creating or enhancing their own businesses, and diversifying and intensifying agricultural production among others. The way in which households combined different adaptation strategies depended on their past trajectories and on their access to resources. A major consequence of this differentiation among households coping with or adapting to changes is the growing inequity among household in the region.To understand the structure, diversity and dynamics of these coping mechanisms and adaptation strategies is a fundamental step towards improving the adaptation of technologies and the design development and policymaking processes to reduce vulnerability and improve future pathways for rural communities. This study describes the trajectories of a small number of households that were selected based on a farm typology delineated 10 years ago. Their small number does not allow deriving conclusive patterns of household dynamics. Yet, the observed changes operated in these households, in combination with the changes that operated at national level, allow extracting some general remarks that are supported by other studies conducted in the region. In general, despite the past and current land fragmentation processes and increasing population densities, agriculture still remains an important livelihood strategy for income, food and nutritional security. These processes are likely to continue (Lay et al. 2008), challenging further the food self-sufficiency in these highly populated regions. Although many households keep coping and adapting to support their livelihoods by migration and off-farm income, the questions remain as to what is the desired future for rural households and smallholder agriculture in this region according to the local communities, policy-makers, development actors and society in general and as to how this desired future is represented in national policies. Improving agricultural production for every household might not have a real impact in poverty alleviation and food security (Harris and Orr 2014).Even if a policy framework is available, however, there still seems to be a lack of political willingness to implement it in order to really address the needs of the more vulnerable households and regions (Poulton and Kanyinga 2013). Specifically, policies and development programmes should be flexible and adaptive to be able to include some of these dynamics and diversity. For example, programmes could aim at improving the adaptive capacity (e.g. training), reducing risks (e.g. credits) and ensuring access to markets of household members, specifically those with more vulnerable trajectories. The highly dynamic nature of rural households revealed in this study suggests that temporal analyses needs to be included to inform policy and development (e.g. longitudinal surveys, transitional studies).Improving rural livelihoods in Western Kenya is a ''moving target'' that needs to account for the diverse strategies that household use to act, cope and adapt to fast-changing local and regional dynamics. Limited land availability to expand farm sizes and ensure food self-sufficiency and increasing dependence on off-farm income suggest that the future of local rural livelihoods would increasingly depend on the combination of both agricultural and non-agricultural activities. The existence and prevalence of non-agricultural rural households and strategies are an important aspect to be considered in any policy or development plan for the region. The trajectories of change of the households surveyed in this study have been embedded in the interactions and dynamics of biophysical and socio-ecological drivers that prevailed in Kenya, and to some extent in the region, over the past decade. The strategies deployed by these households to act on such changes and their own life cycle changes shaped their livelihoods and farming systems. Population dynamics and economic growth have the development of local and markets reflected in an increasing offer for different agricultural products, household labour and land. The bestendowed households had more opportunities to adapt and step up/out, improving their level of well-being, while the poorest simply hanged-in, coping with changes and remaining in a poverty trap. This seems to have resulted in an increasing inequity in resource endowment and wellbeing among households. Although it remains challenging to quantify these trajectories and interactions given the nonlinearity and emergent properties of these social-ecological systems, the storylines of these 20 households allowed us to have a better understanding of the complexity and interactions between patterns and processes in smallholder agroecosystems. To assert whether the trajectories of these households represent a pattern for the region or not, the dynamics of livelihoods strategies should be studied among a larger population in the study area. Nevertheless, this limited study illustrates the highly dynamic and heterogeneous nature of rural livelihoods in highly populated regions. The analysis of their trajectories of change, through more frequent longitudinal surveying for instance, is essential to contextualise rural dynamics in order to design research and inform future options for more sustainable agroecosystems.","tokenCount":"5874"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"72b1f209a1ec7794126aac11f9d51540","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/0e5617ed-e829-4857-90b9-71cbb149ea08/content","id":"1481184011"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"9d6cd178-dfc4-492b-8270-9d6ab50f23ff","pagecount":"19","content":"Growing up in India, I saw poverty on the streets every day as people with sunken cheeks and frail bodies asked for food. While this isn't representative of all of India, the hunger was difficult to overlook. I expected the issue to disappear when I moved to America, but it was simply a different scene from the same story. In the middle of a freezing winter in Iowa, men, women, and children stood in lines outside the local food pantry, waiting for a warm, nutritious meal. I was shocked that this issue is so prevalent even in one of the most developed countries. I got involved in various volunteer opportunities to help reduce hunger in my local community including meal packaging, canned-food drives, and volunteering at the local soup kitchen, but I had a strong desire to do more. For most of my life I have lived in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Live in a state known as the agricultural capital of the world and having a large corn field right next to my house gave me a singular view that food is abundant for many. It wasn't until I was introduced to the World Food Prize (WFP) organization that I began to understand the enormity of food insecurity. When my AP biology teacher, Mr. Brad Horton discussed an opportunity to get involved in WFP, I was excited for a chance to impact the global community. In my research paper presented at the Iowa Youth Institute, I focused on water scarcity and its impact on rural farmers in Andhra Pradesh, India. I developed a deeper understanding of the issues causing food insecurity through the research done for that paper, my interview with a farmer from that region, and the various symposia at the state youth institute. Jo Luck, the keynote speaker and 2010 recipient of the World Food Prize, inspired me with the impacts she brought around through Heifer International.I found out that I made it to the Global Youth Institute (GYI) on my birthday and I couldn't have asked for a better gift that day. I eagerly awaited the chance to meet other students passionate about fighting food insecurity. It was a great opportunity to interact with scientists, farmers, and corporate officials from around the world leading this movement. Sitting next to these individuals, I learned that today's generation must invest in this fight to be able to feed the projected population of 9 billion by 2050. I also conversed with Borlaug-Ruan International Interns from previous year and learned about this 8 week internship abroad to research issues related to food security. Hearing about those students' experiences, their contributions, I decided to apply for the same internship.I spent my 8 week internship at CIMMYT Turkey's soil borne pathogens (SBP) program. This program collaborates with the International Winter Wheat Improvement Center (IWWIP) to improve winter wheat germplasm to tackle root rot diseases. CIMMYT began as a pilot program in the 50s when Norman Borlaug worked in collaboration with the organization to develop shortstemmed varieties of wheat that are resistant to rust disease. CIMMYT has now evolved into a global organization looking to make the next \"Green Revolution\" through its work around the world. Their ultimate goal is to create responsible and sustainable methods to combat global food insecurity. SBP CIMMYT Turkey program contributes to this goal by identifying strains of wheat resistant to various soil borne pathogens and develop integrated pest management systems for farmers both local and international. There are many worksites around Turkey. I worked in Eskişehir in CIMMYT labs that is a part of the Turkish Ministry of Food Agriculture and Livestock research institute.  Working on Soil Borne Pathogens is a challenging since most of the disease symptoms are on the roots of the plants which aren't readily visible in the field and most of the analysis require microscopic examination. In addition, there are several confounding variables in the field that make it difficult to determine if the pathogen alone is causing the observed effects or if other variable play a role in that as well.The SBP program at CIMMYT Turkey tests various wheat germplasm provided by CIMMYT Mexico wheat breeding's program and IWWIP to determine germplasms' resistance to various soil borne pathogens. The new germplasm is first screened in the growth chamber and greenhouse before the open field evaluation. The yield trials are set up in the field under naturally or artificially infested and non-infested field conditions during wheat growing season (October-June) in Turkey. The plants are harvested upon maturity and the seeds weighed to quantify yield loss caused by each pathogen by comparing both (inoculated and non-inoculated) field sites. For plots being tested for either nematode, soil samples are collected at sowing and at harvesting to investigate the tolerance/resistance reaction of that line. For the plots being tested for crown rot, the stems are pealed for a visual rating. Based on the findings, a decision is made on the most resistant germplasm to the specific disease to be used in both the breeding programs and for international distributed to the international collaborators.I did my internship under the able guidance of Dr. Abdelfattah A. Dababat and Dr. Gül Erginbas-Orakci. Dr. Dababat received his PhD from University of Bonn in Germany in 2006 and specializes in plant pathology and nematology. He is based in the CIMMYT and ICARDA offices in Ankara and frequently travels to all the CIMMYT worksites to manage the fieldwork. Having grown up on a farm, his passion lies with working in the fields and seeing the fruits of the months of lab and computer work required beforehand. Dr. Erginbas received her PhD in 2010 from Osman Gazi University and is a plant pathologist specializing in crown rot disease. She is based in Eskişehir and runs the CIMMYT SBP lab. She travels to various field sites like Yozgat and Konya to determine the visual rating for hundreds of wheat strains.Under the mentorship of these scientists, I was introduced to various projects in CIMMYT Turkey and contributed to both the lab and field work. Most of my work was with Sevil Yavuz (Sevil Hanım), Ekrem Çelik (Ekrem Abi), and Ümit Rüzgar (Ümit Bey), who I have to deeply thank for becoming my Turkish family and teaching me the ins and outs of each protocol and procedure. We worked with each other daily, setting up experiments, analyzing soil samples, harvesting, and taking ҫay (tea) breaks together. I also worked with Joseph Barry during my 8 weeks. He is in his first year of his PhD and is setting up experiments in both Turkey and Australia. In addition to expanding my understanding of the soil borne pathogens, he became a great friend. We arrived in Turkey at the same time and got to experience the culture together and figure out this ins and outs of living in a different country. While I loved learning Turkish, it was nice to have someone to talk to in English whenever I wanted.My contributions to the research at CIMMYT Turkey involved many projects. Through my work I gained a wealth of knowledge about CIMMYT, agricultural research, and lack of availability of resources. I developed an appreciation for the hard work put in by this team to contribute to the fight for food security.During my first week in Eskişehir, I harvested various germplasm of wheat and barley from the greenhouse. These grains require 8 months to grow under the ideal conditions of the greenhouse and the seeds were harvested with the use of a thresher. Though I have been surrounded by farms most of my life, I have had quite the urban upbringing. This first week helped me get oriented with plant terminology and structure. These fundamentals became particularly useful when separating wheat from barley in the field.Since CIMMYT is an international organization, there is significant collaboration between the different work sites. The seeds from each plant were carefully labeled and prepped to be sent to collaborators where the wheat and barley would be planted and further analyzed for properties that can make them viable in various conditions and regions around the world (Figure 2).During this first week, I got introduced to Sevil Hanım and I was immersed in Turkish. We learned to communicate through hand gestures and I learned the words tamam (okay), yok (absent: often used when talking about a plant with zero yield), tohum (seed), and evet (yes). She helped me get comfortable with the lab members very quickly.Working in the Soil Borne Pathogens Program, a majority of my work focused on cereal cyst nematodes, root lesion nematodes, and fusarium. While each of these pathogens impacts the plant differently, all of them significantly reduce yield.Cereal Cyst Nematodes (CCN) are a parasite that damages the roots of wheat, barley, oats, and rye. In 2001, nematodes alone caused $118 billion in losses globally (McCarthy, 2009).Occasionally CCN infected plants can be identified visually because of stunting of plants or scattered patches of growth in the field. Economically the most significant CCN species are Heterodera avenae, H. filipjevi and H. latipons (Nicol and Dababat, 2009). Past studies have established that Cre genes indicate resistance to species of CCN, however, germplasm with these genes have only shown moderate resistance to the Turkish H. Filipjevi populations (Imren et al., 2013). SBP program at CIMMYT Turkey collects cysts from fields historically infested with CCN, extract cysts, enhance hatching, and then inoculates plants to later determine the germplasm's resistance or lack thereof.Over years of testing, certain plots have been identified as CCN positive in the CIMMYT fields at different location in Turkey. I began collecting soil samples from the field. Cores of soil are collected and then washed using the floatation method (shown in Figure 3). First the soil sample is flooded with a large volume of water and stirred. Once the mixture has settled for 20 seconds, the top water is poured into a double sieve apparatus. The cysts from the soil float in the water and are then collected in the sieves. The upper sieve has a 250 µm mesh size and the bottom sieve is 850 µm. The mixture left on the second sieve is collected. The sample is observed under a stereomicroscope and the individual cysts are handpicked with forceps. During my hours collecting cysts under a microscope, I found it to be quite the scavenger hunt. Among similar looking debris, I delicately collected each cyst. The white cysts are female nematodes carrying eggs. Once the female dies, the outer layer turns brown and protects the eggs until they are ready to hatch. The cysts were placed in a refrigerator at 4°C and will be stored there until they are needed during the next planting season. At 4°C these cysts lay dormant. A fluctuation between 4°C and 21°C (room temperature) stimulates the hatching of juveniles. The concentration of juveniles is counted and the solution is either concentrated or diluted with water to get 300 juveniles per ml of tap water.  During this period, wheat seeds were germinated (Figure 6) for the various germplasm we received from other organizations in Turkey and around the world. The seeds were planted in a standard tube (16 cm in height x 2.5 cm in diameter) with three replicates of each germplasm. The tubes contained a soil mixture of sand, field soil, and organic matter in a ratio of (70:29:1, v/v), respectively. One ml of inoculum was evenly dispersed amongst the three holes in each tube to infect the plants (Figure 7). These tubes were then placed in a growth chamber with artificial light and were watered periodically. In the growth chamber the plants get 16 hours of light daily, temperature of 23ºC ± 2 and 65% ± 5 of relative humidity. Plants are harvested after nine weeks of nematode inoculation and cysts are extracted by procedure detailed above. The cysts are counted to determine if a line is resistant. The growth chamber is ideal for initial analysis because most extraneous variables can be controlled for and these experiments can continue throughout the year. The experiment I set up in Turkey did not reach maturity before I left due to the 9 week growth period. In the midst of planning for the harvest season occurring this month, the analysis of the resistance of each germplasm is ongoing.When analyzing the germplasm grown in the growth chamber, any tube with 5 cysts or less is considered resistant. Having five cysts would indicate that of the 300 juveniles that initially infected the plant only five females survived to the stage of maturity. The resistant germplasm will be tested in the field to verify viability in a natural environment as well as to test its tolerance reaction under high and low disease pressure.Root Lesion Nematodes (RLN) is another soil borne pathogen that devastates crop yields in Turkey and around the world. Pratylenchus thornei is the predominant species of RLN in Turkey (Toktay et al., 2013) and can cause up to 19% yield losses in this region. Due to the wide range of hosts RLN can infect, crop rotation isn't an effective method to reduce infestation; resistance in germplasm is considered economically most viable in the long run. As the name suggests, RLN infiltrate the roots of wheat plants and reduces the plant's yield. RLN infected plants can visually be identified by dark brown-black lesions on the surface of the root and a chlorotic (yellowish), stunted plant (Nicol et al., 2010). Over years of testing, certain plots have been identified as RLN positive in the CIMMYT fields in Turkey. At the beginning of my internship, I went to the field and collected soil cores in the field with Mr. Ümit Rüzgar and analyzed them in lab. I got to repeat the following analysis process multiple times during my stay for field trials, greenhouse experiments, and for cultures. The RLN extraction process is done using the Baermann technique (Figure 8) and it capitalizes on root lesion nematodes' tendency to migrate towards water. In this process, the soil sample is placed on filter paper supported by a wire dish. A petri dish is placed underneath the setup. The soil sample and roots are cut and flooded with water in the petri dish. As the water drains to the bottom petri dish, the RLN follow the water. After the samples have been allowed to rest for a few days and the water has drained, the remaining water is placed through a suction pump with a 20 micron sieve. The sieve is used to catch the nematodes and then they are washed into a sample tube. I spent several hours walking around the lab, where every spot on the tables was filled with petri dishes, flooding each sample with water. After a while I realized I was building strength in my thumbs as they would be very sore the following day.Root lesion nematodes were extracted from the soil samples I collected from the field plots during my first few weeks. These RLN were used to make cultures where the nematodes would replicate. The nematodes from these cultures were used for inoculation. The culture is done on carrots and was a fascinating process to watch and help with. Large carrots are peeled and placed in a 95% alcohol solution for 10 minutes. They are then sterilized by being placed in a fire that burns the alcohol off and then they are peeled again. Afterwards, the carrot is cut into discs that are 0.5 to 1 cm in thickness. The peeler and knife are repeatedly sterilized by placing in alcohol and then burning. My favorite aspect was watching the carrot, knife, and peeler catch fire! All of this is done in a laminar flow hood. Once the carrot disks are cut, they are placed in a sterile petri dish. The collected RLN from the Baermann technique are placed in a 1% streptomycin solution for one hour before use. They are then rinsed three times in distilled water and then examined under a microscope. A single root lesion nematode is selected and placed on each carrot disc. The petri dishes are then labeled and sealed with Para film. They are stored in an incubator at 18°C till multiplication of the carrot culture and then the multiplied culture is stored in a fridge until it is needed for inoculation.When analyzing to determine resistance of germplasm, the RLN collected in the tube from the suction pump are counted. If the final nematode population over the initial nematode population is less than one the germplasm is deemed resistant. Crown Rot Crown Rot is the disease caused by fusarium, a fungus focused on at CIMMYT-SBP program. CIMMYT-SBP program has been screening wheat germplasm for their resistance for F. culmorum and F. pseudograminearum. Crown rot can be identified by basal stem browning and white heads. Fusarium prevents the flow of xylem (water) and phloem (sugars and proteins) up the stem of the plant, reducing yields severely. Crown Rot disease can cause a 25-58% reduction in yield (Smiley et al., 2005).Fusarium spores are cultured on wheat bran and then used to inoculate plants (Figure 9). I got to plant the germinated seeds to test for resistance to crown rot. Unlike RLN and CCN where 3 replicates are planted, 5 replicates are planted for Fusarium. After growing for 9 weeks, the plant is removed from the roots, the outer stalks are peeled off, and the browning at the base of the stem is quantified. This is a visual rating done from zero to five based both on the darkness of the tissue and the how high up the stem the browning extends. One indicates a plant that is completely resistant to the fusarium and five indicates a plant is highly susceptible (Figure 10). The scale below is dependent on the browning percentage on the basal stem: 1: 1-9%, 2: 10-29%, 3: 30-69%, 4: 70-89%, 5: 90-99%. Then lines are ranked based on this, from resistant to highly susceptible as follow; R -Resistant, MR -Moderately Resistant, MS -Moderately Susceptible, S -Susceptible, HS -Highly Susceptible. (Figure 10).While I was in Eskişehir, I spent many hours peeling the outer stalks off the wheat stem with growth chamber, greenhouse, and field trial experiments (Figure 11). During the hours of work I got to converse with my colleagues and learn more Turkish. I also got to record the ratings in our leather-bound field notebook often. Working with Joe Joe's PhD project is also related to crown rot disease. He worked with two species of fusarium to better understand how a co-inoculation would impact a wheat plant. Crown rot is a prominent issue in both Turkey and Australia with the opposite species dominant in the two regions. I spent a week working with Joe on his research and assisted with tube labeling, weighing dry stems, and helping grind the samples. Qualitative PCR is being run on the samples to determine how much of the stem is infected based on species.Since the experiment is ongoing and the results from the trial this year are currently being analyzed, the data isn't available yet. I look forward to hearing the outcome of this specific research in the coming months and am excited to see Joe publish a paper with his findings.Field trials are used to verify the resistance of germplasm and to test their viability in a natural environment. Planting occurs in October because we work with winter wheat which is required vernalization. The seeds are planted in two plots, one that is inoculated and one that isn't to serve as a control. When I first arrived in Eskişehir I looked out the lab window that overlooked the fields from above and saw a sea of green plants. I walked through the fields and learned how to distinguish wheat from barley and saw the white heads of plants with crown rot disease. Over the course of the following weeks I witnessed the color change to a rich golden brown. Harvest season began about 5 weeks into my stay in mid-July. The first week of harvest, I travelled to field sites in the cities of Yozgat and Konya where I got to see how different the culture can be from one city to the next. At Yozgat, I spent my first day labeling bags for harvest indicating site, plot and germplasm. Then I went to the fields and saw the harvest take place. Each bag was meticulously ordered and I weighed them to determine yield. In the field I helped strip the wheat stems and helped with the quantification. At the field sites I worked with Dr. Dababat and Dr. Erginbas-Orakci. When quantifying the crown rot, we developed an efficient system where I would arrange the wheat bundles in numerical order by germplasm and hand them to Dr. Erginbas-Orakci. She would give an average rating for the bundle, and Dr. Dababat would record the ratings in the field book. We only had a week to do this at both field sites so we got to work long days in the field usually finishing right before Iftar (the dinner meal that breaks Ramadan). I met many workers in the field and I have to commend them for their relentless work. Though we had relatively normal temperatures for the region, it was still between 90°F and 100°F and some of the workers were even fasting for Ramadan. Once we got back to Eskişehir, it was time to begin harvest and analysis. My last two weeks were spent in the fields harvesting, rating crown rot, and analyzing soil samples in the lab. I worked with the SBP staff well over 8 hours a day and learned how to innovate solutions to maximize efficiency as we fought against rain predictions that would ruin our results. I also assisted Dr. Erginbas-Orakci in transferring all the data recorded in the fields to excel sheets.Walking away from my internship this past summer, it is extremely rewarding knowing that I contributed to the fight for food security. Every day spent harvesting in the hot fields, every hour spent washing soil samples, and every minute spent collecting cysts took us one step closer to improving the lives of our future generation. The resistant strains I helped identify will be adapted by farmers along with other integrated pest management systems to improve yield. With the staggering amount of yield losses soil borne pathogens cause, any step towards progress will make an impact. By testing hundreds of germplasm at CIMMYT, I was able to help eliminate germplasm that would be more harmful than beneficial by taking up field space and not producing sufficient yield. My work with Joe is helping establish a basic understanding of the way in which fusarium infects plants which will go a long ways towards developing effective solution that attach the issue from the base. By identifying resistant wheat strains and suggesting integrated pest management solutions to farmers, we are providing longterm and economically sustainable methods to increase yield. This research can be related to regions outside of Turkey as well, improving global food security. It was an honor for me to get to work at CIMMYT, an organization fighting to end world hunger around the world. When Ambassador Quinn told us we would all be different when we came back, I expected that to mean I would feel a change in me while I was in Turkey. I expected there to be a very difficult transition that would help me realize that I was evolving into a new person. The individuals I was with made the cultural transition almost seamless. While each intern will admit to having a rough patch here or there, the hospitality and humility that surrounded me, flushed out any memories of difficulties. I was extremely happy after the initial weeks of adjustment. I didn't realize quite how much I had changed until I came back to America and talked with my friends and family. I had felt so assimilated into the culture some experiences in a short period of time that didn't strike me as significant or abnormal until I shared these stories at home and saw shocked expressions on my friends' and family's faces.I want to share my personal growth before jumping into the academic growth. Despite talking to the previous intern who went to CIMMYT Turkey, I didn't quite realize how independent I would be. For the first time in my life, I wasn't in my own house, or with extended family, or even anywhere near either of these two. I was thousands of miles away, living by myself, getting groceries, cooking, cleaning, and managing my finance and free time independently. I didn't have a rigid schedule of extracurricular after work each day and weekends were entirely mine to spend as I chose. Now I shouldn't overstate this since I did still have guidelines for my own safety in a foreign country, but this is more freedom than I have been allowed in my 17 years. Learning how to handle this independence helped me gain an appreciation for all that my parents do for me and also gave me the assurance that I don't need to be worried about living away from home in college. I learned that independence truly does come with a lot of responsibilities as well.The generosity of the Turks increased my trust in other people and their optimistic and cheerful attitude definitely made a difference. Even my colleagues who worked two jobs to provide for their family would come into work after a late night and continuously make me laugh. They seemed to have the spirit that no matter what problem you are in, don't let that negativity rub off on your friend.My academic growth was more apparent to me while I was in Turkey. The background reading Dr. Dababat provided me with gave me the stats on the enormity of the issue of food insecurity but it was the work in the field that helped me get my mind around the concept. My first week in Eskisehir, I harvested seeds with Sevil Hanım that would later be sent to collaborators worldwide. When we got to the middle of the potted wheat plants, there were many that had produced no seed. We got empty spike after empty spike and it was very evident because of the difference in the noise the thresher made when seeds were and weren't present. This is when I learned the Turkish work \"yok\" meaning absent. I can't even count how many times I said \"tohum yok\" (no seeds) that day. After a particularly long streak of plants without any seeds, we got a wheat plant with many seeds and both Sevil Hanım's and my face lit up. Thinking back on this day, I realize that if I was so disappointed about not having seeds in a few trials a farmer's despair must be a thousand folds greater when they have reduced yield because that is their sustenance and livelihood. This experience gave me a more encompassing view of food insecurity than any paper or research I had done till that point. This summer also reemphasized the importance of research. The daily lab work I partook had the potential to improve the lives of farmers and the food insecure around the world. This summer confirmed that I want to continue research and aid the fight for food security, but it also showed me that there are more ways to help in the fight for food security than agriculture alone. I realized I can contribute by pursuing a career in medicine which has been a childhood dream of mine. This World Food Prize Borlaug-Ruan International Internship has helped me develop and appreciation for the enormity of food insecurity and helped shape my future career path. I look forward to continuing to contribute to the fight for food security.When I first arrived in Turkey I spent the night with Dr. Dababat's family. They made me feel comfortable, and gave me the 101 on Turkish culture. I had a great time playing UNO with the children and watching them dance.In Eskişehir, each morning I would wake up around 7 to warm, bright sunlight flooding my room. I lived independently in a guest house across the street from the institute in a gated compound. The main institute buildings and housing were on a hill that over looked the fields on one side and more hills on the other side. Beauty of the region was breath taking. Each morning I went in the SBP lab, greeted my colleagues with a \"Günaydın, nasılsın\" (Good morning, how are you?) and would begin the day's work. I quickly learned I would be expected to stay on my toes and move from task to task depending on the schedule. No matter what work we were doing, we would always take a çay (tea) break at 9:30 and again at 15:00 where we would all gather in the break room and converse with each other over tea and snacks. During these breaks, I found out Candy Crush and Facebook are not only popular in America, but around the world. We often played Turkish music on the radio and conversed during our work. If there was a long silence or I hadn't spoken in a while, Ekrem Abi and Ümit Bey would start talking quickly in Turkish and mention my name till I curiously looked up at them. Other times Ümit Bey would begin singing loudly and off-pitch to make me laugh or he would begin dancing, encouraging me to join in. Sevil Hanım was always singing merrily and definitely took the role of mother-of-the-group.During our hour lunch break, Büşra Abla, another lab member, would take me to the Institute's restaurant where we were served a delicious meal with bread, soup, fresh salads, some sort of pasta or rice with vegetables and meat, and of course dessert. Each meal was delicious and the kitchen staff was kind enough to set a vegetarian meal aside for me.After the work-day, I occasionally went to the city center with Joe. The institute compound was about 20 minutes away from the city. We went there for groceries, restaurants, and entertainment. The city is beautiful with a river flowing in the middle with pedestrian friendly walkways all around. In fact much of the heart of the city doesn't allow cars.The city name Eskişehir directly translates to old city. Aptly, ancient relics could be found all around the liberal college town. While a majority of the population is Muslim, most of the younger women don't wear a hijab and dress like any western country. Clothing seems to be important for individuals and always dresses very nicely.Joe and I got to explore much of the city going from side ally markets to large malls. Joe enjoyed a burger joint he found and took me there often, while I took him to the more traditional restaurants. I developed quite a love for fasülye (a bean dish) with rice and became increasingly fond of fresh baklava. I was very surprised to see quite a few stores that looked like they were dedicated solely to prom dresses; upon inquiry I was told that women wear these gowns to weddings.Early on in my internship, Joe and I were harvesting seeds from the green house samples on a hot day. Members from another lab, Volkan and Özgür introduced themselves and insisted we take a few breaks from the heat. They got to know the places I had visited and offered to take me out that weekend. We had a phenomenal time in the city. They took me to a mosque constructed in 1525 where I had to wear a hijab and take my shoes off to go inside. The architecture of the building fascinated me. They also introduce me to Es Park (a mall I frequently went to thereafter) and took me to a famous baklava and ice cream shop in the city. I loved the ice cream, but its texture is far different than what we have in America; it is chewy and sticky. Overall I was further impressed by the hospitality of the Turkish people.The day after I arrived in Turkey, Ramadan started. This meant that no one in my lab ate or drank anything all day long and the restaurant was closed. I knew I would have to cook for myself going into the internship but it definitely took me a while to figure that out. The first evening of Ramadan, I walked into the kitchen where my colleague Ümit Bey and his wife were preparing their meal for Iftar, to ask them a few questions about where everything was located in the institute. At the end of our conversation Ümit Bey invited me to dinner with his family; I gratefully accepted since I had barely scraped together a lunch for myself earlier that day and had no plans for dinner. I had a lovely time with his family, especially the two kids. By the next morning Ümit Bey called me his daughter and told me I was required to eat dinner with his family every night. I will never forget how much this meant to me, being in a foreign country away from my family. In the coming weeks the kids helped me quite a bit with my Turkish and I in-turn helped them with their English. I would point to an object in the room and say \"bu ne\" (what is this), they would tell me the Turkish word and I would tell them the English word. I realized how uniting the Iftar meals are during this period. I also got a chance to join my colleagues and their families for a large Iftar meal on July 4 th .On several occasions Dr. Dababat explained the significance of Ramadan to me. He said it was to help humans identify and understand the struggles of those in poverty and hunger on every day. He added that people are exceptionally charitable during this season. To me the idea of Ramadan highly resonates with the message of the World Food Prize organization which is to understand and improve the lives of those effected by food insecurity. For this reason, I tried fasting for one day and I was very appreciative of my dinner meal that night.As soon as Ramadan ended, the vibe in lab became even more exuberant. We would have chocolate and treats for çay break and I tried to contribute by baking various chocolate cookies and brownies for my lab.In addition to working with my colleagues, I met several college interns at the institute. All of them were very friendly and we would go out together on the weekends. By the end of my internship, I felt like I had a Turkish family which made the good-byes extremely difficult. Prior to this internship, I never realized how close of a relationship you can build with a group of people in eight weeks especially with such a significant language barrier and cultural differences. Thank you to Ekrem Abi for teaching me lab practices and bringing a smile to my face no matter how tired we were.Thank you to Sevil Hanım for making me feel comfortable in lab right away and for constantly looking out for my safety.Thank you to Volkan and Özgür for being so kind to me an introducing me to Eskişehir.Thank you to Büşra Abla for eating lunch with me every day and always sharing a smile with me.Thank you to all the interns who so graciously introduced themselves to me and took me out for fun nights in town.  ","tokenCount":"5932"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b3a43c20b9df94964af911fb3b1aabc5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9ae9a16f-54f6-4891-aca8-e0edc956a0e0/retrieve","id":"329022164"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c0b893bf-7896-4267-98c1-de59f9ec1728","pagecount":"13","content":"Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above. The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used.Editing, design and layout-Increasing the productivity of smallholder dairy farms is a high priority for the Ethiopian government as indicated in its Growth and Transformation Plan II (GTP-II) 1 and, more specifically, in the Ethiopia Livestock Master Plan 2 . However, milk production still falls far short of potential due to inadequate quantity and/or quality of available feed resources. This is especially true in smallholder farming systems in Ethiopia. Even where relatively good feed is available in semi-intensive and intensive production conditions, rations are not properly formulated. Therefore, the animals are typically underfed, leading to considerable milk productivity gaps and significant losses of potential income.Ration formulation using appropriate and locally available feeds can increase dairy cow productivity and farmers' incomes, in addition to reducing the cows' methane emission intensity (emission per litre of milk) and overall environmental impact. This is why the PCDAIRY_ET_Amh (ration formulation and evaluation software program for dairy cattle in Ethiopia in Amharic language) was developed and shared. PCDAIRY_ET_Amh is part of another comprehensive software package called Global FARP (Farm Animal Ration Program), which covers other countries, languages and farm animals. For this training workshop, the software was made available in English and Amharic with an easy-to-use graphical user interface (see Figure 1).  To view the site in Amharic, click on 'Ethiopia' then select 'Amharic'. To select dairy cattle, click on the dairy cattle icon then on the 'ኢሺ' button.Main menu of the PCDAIRY program As shown below in Figure 2, the main menu of the PCDAIRY program offers six choices:1. LC_G: least cost ration formulation for growing dairy cattle 2. LC_B: least cost ration formulation for breeding dairy cattle Training proceedingsThe objectives of the ToT were to:• Train participants in the use of dairy cattle ration formulation software, thus building their knowledge and skills and enabling them to train others. • Provide information technology-enabled extension support to formulate climate-smart and least-cost rations for improving the productivity of dairy cattle; and • Demonstrate to participants how to evaluate rations and formulate least-cost balanced rations, thus enabling accurate feeding of livestock using locally available feed resources.The The training workshop began with a welcome session, self-introduction of the participants and an explanation of the workshop objectives and training agenda. Afterwards, a discussion on the draft plans of the workshop training was done and the training sessions were conducted as follows:Day 1 1. General introduction to the PCDAIRY_ET_Amh software. with detailed instructions on how to download, install and run the Global FARP software.There are three feed libraries:• A standard feed library with a capacity of 999 feeds.An alternate feed library with a capacity of 999 feeds.• An unfeasible feed library with a capacity of 999 feeds.Training on evaluation of feeds:1. Evaluation module: input screens.2. Evaluation module: output reports.Training on formulation least cost ration:1. Formulation module: input screens.2. Formulation module: output reports.Day 41. Group exercises on ration evaluation and least cost ration formulation.To enrich the outcomes of the group work (see Picture 1), the results were presented and discussed in a plenary session. Participants discussed on opportunities for increasing the application of the software and dissemination of the software for increased number of users. The groups also put forward funding options to enable delivery of this training to larger numbers of users at various levels.Photo 1. Group work and discussion on ration evaluation and least cost ration formulation.Photo credit: ILRI/Bayissa Hatew.Once the discussions were completed, workshop participants were awarded certificates for successful completion of the ToT course on ration formulation for dairy cattle in Ethiopia.The workshop was concluded after a group photograph.In the three and a half days of the ToT workshop, extensive demonstrations were provided to help build the capacity of participants in using the PCDAIRY_ET_Amh ration formulation software. Trainees also practised how to evaluate a ration, formulate the least-cost ration with locally available feed resources and ultimately train others. The feedback from the trainees was that the training was interesting, practical, clear and a timely opportunity for Ethiopia. It was also mentioned that the software would not only make it easier for feed manufacturers to formulate proper and low-cost rations that would improve livestock productivity based on locally available feed resources but could also be used as a teaching tool in the universities by integrating the software into the curriculum thus ensuring sustainability. Besides, with the software, young researchers could learn about practical ruminant nutrition and thus formulate feeds that improve animal productivity while reducing greenhouse gas emission intensity among smallholder and commercial livestock producers. Extension agents could also be trained on using the software. ","tokenCount":"797"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"65369f43f09d6a384214f20591903330","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/365a992b-bb1c-493c-8a33-6ce6f0fd2516/retrieve","id":"-2093417384"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"98d0dfa3-5280-45a2-b2b1-0e8ff3cb89a8","pagecount":"34","content":"This book contains information obtained from authentic and highly regarded sources. Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and publisher cannot assume responsibility for the validity of all materials or the consequences of their use. The authors and publishers have attempted to trace the copyright holders of all material reproduced in this publication and apologize to copyright holders if permission to publish in this form has not been obtained. If any copyright material has not been acknowledged please write and let us know so we may rectify in any future reprint.The African continent is increasingly recognized as one of the few areas in the world where development is lagging, and it is increasingly attracting the attention of the donor community. With population pressures increasing and low investments in land conservation, the future health of the land is in question (Vlek, 2005). Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) covers more than 21 million km 2 with an average population density of 30 persons km -2 (more than 50% of whom live in cities). Approximately 15% of this land is cultivated and another 4% is mixed forest-cropland. Quantifiable data on the state of these land resources are scarce, even though a Google search yields nearly 2 million hits. The very first of those is a rather sobering paper by Prof. S. C. Nana-Sinkam of the Joint European Commission on Agriculture/ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Agriculture Division (http://www.fao. org/ docrep/ X5318E/x5318e02. htm) that starts out by stating: \"Little reliable data are available on the extent of land degradation in Africa. However, anyone who has travelled through the continent has observed that land degradation is widespread, and serious.\" This gap in our knowledge is hampering land conservation efforts.Many papers cite widely differing numbers regarding land degradation in Africa. For instance, Reich et al. (2001) claim that about 25% of land in Africa is prone to water erosion and about 22% to wind erosion. GEF (2006) suggests that 39% of the African continent and as much as 65% of the agricultural land are affected by desertification. Such estimates are rarely based on spatially distributed data and fail to identify the regions of concern. Yet, if the scientific community is to help guide investments in land conservation and remediation, it will need to find a way to identify the hotspots of degradation and develop a notion of what is driving the degradation processes of the land in SSA. This means that spatial distribution information showing the relative differences in the magnitude of land degradation across space is necessary.The Global Assessment of Soil Degradation (GLASOD) (Oldeman et al., 1990;Middleton and Thomas, 1992), which maps land degradation at the global scale, can be considered a first attempt to map land and soil degradation. In preparing GLASOD, 290 national collaborators guided by 23 regional correlators were asked to estimate human-induced decline in land productivity by degree as: light, moderate, strong, or extreme. The national collaborators also were asked to identify the major cause for degradation associated with the respective mapping unit.Table 4.1 shows the degree of soil degradation as a percentage of the total land area where productivity is reduced by the defined amount of area covered based on the GLASOD survey. When the survey was conducted in the late 1980s, the degree of land degradation in SSA suggested that 83% of the surveyed area was not degraded, 6% was lightly degraded, and 6% was moderately degraded (Table 4.1). The remaining area was considered in worse condition and beyond reclamation, which at 5% seems modest. Yet, no other continent reaches this degree of degradation, and as a percentage of the present arable land area its significance jumps to 25%, assuming that the reported degradation was primarily observed on arable land.Until recently, the GLASOD map remained the sole source of data on African soil/ land degradation. It is, however, a subjective assessment by experts in the late 1980s with unknown accuracy. Even though the FAO regularly revisits the GLASOD data, offering more detail (http://www.fao.org/landandwater/agll/glasod/glasodmaps.jsp), most of the basic shortcomings of expert surveys remain. If GLASOD did successfully identify the territories degraded beyond recuperation, it failed to indicate where degradation is in progress and where it may have been abating. Nor did it separate human-induced degradation from climate-related decline.Advances in satellite remote sensing and the fast development of computing systems have opened up new ways of mapping the magnitude and processes of land degradation over a broad range of geographical scales. In particular, Advanced Very High-Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data, from which the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) can be derived, have made it possible to infer land degradation at various scales, and these data have been used extensively (Tucker et al., 1991;Prince et al., 1998;Milich and Weiss, 2000;Weiss et al., 2001;Groten and Ocatre, 2002;Thiam, 2003;Evans and Geerken, 2004;Bai et al., 2008;Hellden and Tottrup, 2008;Vlek et al., 2008). Data series of global coverage, dating back to the early 1980s, are available at no cost. These can be used to gain a long-term and spatially distributed view of the progression of vegetation development over a larger geographical extent.  b Data represent the extents of the vulnerability class (for risk assessment of desertification), which is not directly comparable with the severity classes of degraded land given by the GLASOD map (Middleton and Thomas, 1992). Source: This chapter builds on the above-mentioned studies and uses the long-term  NDVI data as a proxy to map the spatial distribution of change in net primary productivity (NPP) for SSA. Through a logical analysis of the NDVI trends, the effects of climatic cycles and atmospheric fertilization are accounted for in order to determine the extent to which humans affect NPP. By relating these hotspot areas in SSA with different attributes of the region such as population density, soil/terrain conditions, and land-cover types, it is possible to surmise which underlying processes, for example, deforestation or soil degradation, are at play. To this end, this study analyzes the vegetation dynamics of 320,000 pixels (64 km 2 /pixel) at the continental scale. The result of the study is intended to help scientists pinpoint the locations in SSA where more detailed research may be required.Land is defined as the ensemble of the soil constituents, the biotic components in and on it, as well as its landscape setting and climatic attributes. The most common indicator of the state of the land is its vegetation cover (Safriel, 2007) or, in a more quantitative sense, NPP as a fraction of its potential. In an ecological sense, a loss in biodiversity or ecosystem services with constant NPP would also be a degradation process (Eswaran et al., 2001a). In fact, land degradation sets in when the potential productivity associated with a land-use system becomes nonsustainable, or when the land within an ecosystem is no longer able to perform its environmental regulatory function of accepting, storing, and recycling water, energy, and nutrients (Katyal and Vlek, 2000).Some natural processes can lead to land degradation, either rapidly (e.g., land slides) or gradually (e.g., climate change), but the phenomenon is mainly due to the interaction of the land with its users and is thus a social problem. Most land degradation is therefore preventable if the underlying causes are understood and acted upon (Eswaran et al., 2001a). The anthropogenic causes of land degradation are related to an ever-increasing demand for food, fodder, fiber, and fuel, as well as shelter and other infrastructure. They include land conversion through land clearing and deforestation, agricultural mining of soil nutrients, and land sealing, irrigation, and pollution.Until recently, land degradation assessments were often based on the state of soil parameters (Safriel, 2007). Soil conditions often have a close relationship with vegetation cover and (agro-) ecosystem productivity (Figure 4.1), as soil degradation is a common proximate cause of land degradation. Assessing soil degradation at a global, continental, or regional scale is hampered by a shortage of data for long-term quantitative comparisons. At the field scale, it is feasible to develop time series of soil properties that could detect persistent changes in soil status (compared to a baseline) required for a valid soil degradation assessment. With current technology, it would be very costly to directly track the dynamics of soil properties over longer time spans at a regional scale. It is practically impossible on a continental or global scale.Monitoring land degradation using remote sensing of NPP is an easier task, especially since satellite imagery has become publicly available. Land degradation expresses itself as reduced biological activity (Reynolds and Smith, 2002;Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005;Safriel, 2007) reflected in aboveground NPP. The most common remote sensing-derived indicator of vegetation productivity is the NDVI, a relative measure of vegetation vigor and photosynthetic activity. NDVI is strongly correlated with NPP and is often used to estimate NPP at regional scales and as a tool for monitoring temporal changes in vegetation (Field et al., 1995;Prince and Goward, 1995). Aboveground NPP (represented by NDVI) has been shown to increase with increasing annual precipitation (Huxman et al., 2004), and indeed correlation studies between rainfall and NDVI have been used to differentiate between human-induced and climate-induced land degradation (Herrmann et al., 2005), where any NDVI trends not explained by rainfall dynamics are ascribed to human actions.The arguments to use vegetation productivity decline as a proxy for land degradation are twofold. First, NPP of the land is an integrative parameter reflecting many of the ecological functions that deliver ecosystem services for human well-being (see Figure 4.1). Second, a wide variety of remote sensing products are now available, some of them with a record of more than 20 years that reflect the dynamic aspects of the land degradation process. The current remote sensing time series covering Africa are sufficiently long-term and with frequent enough data sampling to allow statistical analysis. Furthermore, combined with global data on climate, topography, soil, land use, and human demographics, the remote sensing data allow further analysis of the underlying causes and processes (Vlek et al., 2008).One of the meaningful distinctions to be made is between climate-induced and human-induced land degradation, as it is the latter that can be countered by mitigating strategies. Recent studies use alternative methodologies such as the Residual Trend Analysis (Herrmann et al., 2005) and the trend-correlation-based approach (Vlek et al., 2008) to distinguish the human-induced productivity degradation from rainfalldriven productivity dynamics. These stepwise analyses separate areas where land productivity dynamics are highly correlated with climate change from those where climate does not play a significant role and human-induced degradation is presumed to be dominant. Applied to the Sahelian belt, the results of this method concluded that the reported \"greening of the Sahel\" over the past 20 years (Olsson et al., 2005;Eklundh and Olsson, 2003;Tucker and Nicholson, 1999;Prince et al., 1998) was largely attributable to improved climatic conditions following the severe drought of the early 1980s. In some land-degradation studies, use is made of Rain Use Efficiency (RUE), a compound index expressed as NPP per rainfall unit, either alone or in combination with NDVI, particularly for human-induced land degradation in drylands. The idea is that RUE is systematically lower in degraded drylands than in equivalent nondegraded areas (O'Connor et al., 2001), so that despite its wide fluctuation from year to year the long-term RUE trend is considered a good indicator of land degradation. Some scientists even consider RUE a valid indicator for soil degradation, because a decline in RUE appeared to correspond with modeled soil erosion driven by the same rainfall data (Symeonakis and Drake, 2004). However, both a stable system and a change in NDVI proportional to a change in rainfall would yield constant RUE (Safriel, 2007), which is somewhat ambivalent. The strong negative correlation of RUE with rainfall in drylands, for example, for South Africa r = -0.82 (Wessels et al., 2007), has been used as an argument against its use. For the purpose of this study, RUE offers little added value.To analyze the spatiotemporal dynamics of vegetation productivity in SSA in this study, we drew on the NDVI product for a 22-year period spanning from 1982 to 2003 from the Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS), published by the Global Land Cover Facility (GLCF) (http://glcf.umiacs.umd.edu/data/gimms/). The dataset is derived from remote sensing imagery obtained from the AVHRR instrument onboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite series. The NDVI dataset has been corrected for calibration, view geometry, volcanic aerosols, and other effects that are not related to vegetation change (Tucker et al., 2005). The original data were collected twice monthly on an 8 × 8 km resolution (pixel size) and were aggregated to obtain the time series of annual mean values as 12-month averages. Average NDVI values for the whole period  of each month were also calculated. These two sets of data were then subjected to statistical analyses to assess variability and trends in vegetation productivity.A stepwise analysis of the dynamics of the aboveground green biomass in SSA was undertaken that included tests for significance at each step. The process is divided in two phases: (1) mapping a decline in vegetation cover as a proxy for land degradation and (2) interpretation of the mapped degradation. NDVI was used as an NPP predictor at regional scales (Field et al., 1995;Prince and Goward, 1995).In order to evaluate to what extent NDVI can be used to predict NPP across different biomes in SSA, we first analyzed the relationship between annual NDVI and NPP calculated by the Global Production Efficiency Model (1982Model ( -2000)), obtained from the GLCF at the University of Maryland (http://glcf.umiacs.umd.edu/data/glopem/). A rectangular region containing about 80,950 pixels across different climate zones/ biomes in SSA but that excludes the often cloudy areas along the humid coast of the Gulf of Guinea was then selected, and all pixels within that region were used to establish the relationship between NDVI and NPP. Pixels with NPP and/or NDVI near zero (i.e., NPP < 0.5 g C -1 m -2 yr -1 and NDVI < 0.05) were eliminated as they are considered to be too noisy to represent real values (Camberlin et al., 2007).We estimated the NPP-NDVI relationship using six mathematical models: linear, inverse, power, S, growth, and exponential functions. The goodness-of-fit assessment revealed that the linear model best fits the sampling data, as it is significant and has the highest prediction capacity:The strong relationship between NDVI and NPP reflected in Equation (4.1) agrees with findings in other studies (e.g., Field et al., 1995;Prince and Goward, 1995) and confirms that the AVHRR-NDVI trend can be used as a proxy for land productivity. Whereas NPP is not easy to measure or calculate, NDVI is a simple, satellite-derived index (based on only red and infrared signals), which is readily updated with different remote sensing platforms. The NDVI trend therefore was used in this study as an indicator to assess land degradation across different biomes in SSA.To assess the relationship between interannual rainfall variability and green biomass (NDVI) in SSA in the absence of well-distributed and continuous station-based rainfall datasets, we used a long-term global gridded climate dataset from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (Mitchell and Jones, 2005). The dataset has a spatial resolution of 0.5°, covers the period from 1901-2002, and has been applied and tested in many studies (Fiedler and Döll, 2007). We extracted rainfall data from the CRU dataset version TS 2.1 for the period 1982-2002, and re scaled the original CRU cell size of 0.5° to a cell size of 8 × 8 km to make it congruent with the AVHRR-NDVI dataset. Comparison with the VASClimo Climatology 1.1 (Variability Analysis of Surface Climate Observations) dataset acquired from a different source (Beck et al., 2005) shows very good correlation (Figure 4.2a), which enhanced the confidence in using CRU rainfall data in SSA analysis.Because the sensitivity of NPP to human interference and rainfall variation is substantially different across biomes (Huxman et al., 2004), a spatial delineation of the major biomes in SSA is needed for land degradation assessment. We differentiated the Arid (<500 mm yr -1 ) Semiarid (500-800 mm yr -1 ) Subhumid (800-1300 mm yr -1 ) Humid (>1300 mm yr -1 ) No Data major biomes using mean annual precipitation (MAP) for the period 1981-2002. The SSA was stratified into four precipitation zones: arid (MAP < 500 mm yr -1 ), semiarid (500 mm yr -1 ≤ MAP ≤ 800 mm yr -1 ), subhumid (800 mm yr -1 ≤ MAP ≤ 1300 mm yr -1 ), and humid (MAP > 1300 mm yr -1 ) (Figure 4.2b). The boundaries of these precipitation zones were selected such that they agree with the main agroclimatic zones for Africa. Compared to the most recent Köppen-Geiger climate map (Kottek et al., 2006), the Arid and Semiarid zones in Figure 4.2b more or less match the arid and semiarid climates (BW and BS classes), the Subhumid zone overlays the tropical dry-wet (savannah) climate (Aw class), and the Humid zone matches the humid equatorial climate (Af and Am classes).Spatial and temporal differences in NDVI are closely related to climate or climate change in many environments (Eastman and Fulk, 1993;Ichii et al., 2002;Nicholson et al., 1990). In an attempt to disentangle human-induced and climate-driven vegetation productivity dynamics, the correlation between interannual vegetation productivity (expressed as NDVI) and rainfall across SSA over the 21-year period was assessed using Pearson's correlation coefficient for the period 1982-2002 for all 320,000 pixels mapped in Figure 4.3a. The area where vegetation productivity correlates positively with rainfall changes (positive values in Figure 4.3a) covers the Sahelian band and the semidesert regions of southern Africa. The areas with the negative Pearson's coefficient (negative values in Figure 4.3a) stretch along the subhumid band from Southern Chad to the Casamance of Senegal. The nonresponsive areas are found in the high-rainfall zones where the variation of rainfall is limited, or in the very dry zones where the variation is too high to yield significant trends. The depicted spatial pattern of NDVI response to interannual rainfall in SSA agrees largely with the result given by Camberlin et al. (2007) and Hellden and Töttrup (2008).To be considered in this analysis, the correlation between the interannual NDVI and rainfall had to not only be significant (P < 0.05) but also greater than 0.5 or less than -0.5. In areas where, by these criteria, precipitation increases over the past 20 years had led to improved biomass (NDVI) signals (positive in Figure 4.3b), human effects on vegetation productivity are possibly masked. A significant negative correlation (negative in Figure 4.3b) can reflect two different responses: (1) where rainfall goes up whereas the vegetation cover declines due to severe degradation, areas of particular concern, or (2) where rainfall goes down but vegetation goes up due to human interventions such as the establishment of exclusion zones, afforestation, or irrigation schemes.The trend of NPP of the land in SSA over 1982-2003 was statistically analyzed for every pixel using the annualized NDVI data. The net change in NDVI per year (dNDVI yr -1 ) was measured by the slope coefficient (A) in the linear relationship: NVDI = A × Year + β, where β is the intercept. If the beginning year (1982) was set to zero, β indicates the initial state of NPP for a pixel. The A values are mapped in Figure 4.4a. The NDVI slope of every pixel was tested for statistical significance      against the stable baseline. Given the very dynamic nature of human interference in vegetation dynamics, we accepted the somewhat relaxed confidence level of 90% to be significant in the trend analysis. We subsequently tested different threshold values of change in comparison to the baseline (1982 NDVI) and mapped those pixels with a significant change (P < 0.10) of 15% or more over 22 years. Figure 4.4b shows the geographic extent of productivity shifts as compared to that in 1982 meeting these criteria. The map shows that some of the most significant changes in NDVI are found in areas of low primary productivity. These areas lie in the drier parts of SSA, where NDVI values are very small to begin with. In such dry biomes, small changes in absolute NDVI values constitute large changes in relative terms.Based on the 15% threshold, the area with sustained decline in vegetation over the observation period of 22 years amounts to 0.54 million km 2 (about 2.5% of the SSA landmass), whereas about 4.38 million km 2 (20.5% of the SSA) exhibit a significant improvement in vegetation productivity. Thus, the areas of significant productivity decline are only a fraction of the areas of improving productivity.The extent of the areas with declining, improving, or stable NDVI in the arid, semiarid, subhumid, and humid zones is given in Table 4.2. The largest area with declining productivity is found in the subhumid tropics, considered the breadbaskets of SSA. A large proportion of the area with improving NDVI is found in the arid zone, such as the Sahelian and Horn of Africa regions as well as in parts of Botswana, as demarcated in Figure 4.4b. These areas largely coincide with areas where the vegetation is responsive to interannual rainfall variation (positive in Figure 4.3b), and the increase in NDVI is likely due to a gradual improvement in annual precipitation. This phenomenon has been reported in the literature as the \"greening of the Sahel\" (Olsson, 1993;Prince et al., 1998;Tucker and Nicholson, 1999;Eklundh and Olsson, 2003;Olsson et al., 2005;Hellden and Töttrup, 2008). The early 1980s indeed experienced a long-term drought. However, since these areas also lay below the 500-mm isohyets, averaged for the 1982-2002 period, they are of limited agricultural importance. Pastoralists that occupy these lands and are a vulnerable group should have benefited from this improvement. The improvement in vegetation productivity in the wetter areas (10.2% of the SSA landmass) is not related to increasing rainfall, because no such correlation could be established (Figure 4.3b). It is also not possible to attribute such improvement to human management and/or expansion of irrigation practices because the areas of improved biomass cover too large a geographical region. The greening of these wide areas will need to be explained by a plausibly natural phenomenon.The greening of extensive areas in SSA is most likely attributable to a change in atmospheric composition. This positive response of vegetation productivity to rising levels of atmospheric CO 2 due to a stimulation of photosynthesis has been well documented (Grace et al., 1995;Körner, 2000;Nowak et al., 2004;Norby et al., 2005;Boisvenue and Running, 2006). Furthermore, it has been observed that the increasing NO x load of the atmosphere over SSA is causing an increase in reactive nitrogen (N) deposition and enhances carbon sequestration (Galloway et al., 2004;Adam et al., 2005;Hagedorn et al., 2005;Dentener, 2006;Magnani et al., 2007;Reay et al., 2008;LeBauer and Treseder, 2008). Atmospheric fertilization at a rate of 0.63 ± 0.31 Mg ha -1 yr -1 over the past four decades was recently also reported for closed-canopy tropical forest sites in Africa (Lewis et al., 2009).The actual change in vegetation productivity (dNDVI act /dt = slope coefficient A) can be considered the net balance between the partial changes caused by human activities (dNDVI human /dt) and those caused by natural processes (dNDVI natural /dt) as shown below:Positive values for dNDVI natural /dt can be due to environmental change such as improved rainfall or atmospheric fertilization, and positive values for dNDVI human /dt can be related to afforestation, exclusion zones, or soil remediation. Having excluded the areas with rainfall-related increases in NDVI (Figure 4.3b), we sought to quantify the effect of atmospheric fertilization on the dynamics of vegetation productivity over time. To this end, we selected the pristine areas across SSA with (1) little human habitation, (2) no significant NDVI-rainfall correlation, and (3) an increasing NDVI (Table 4.3). For the period 1982-2002, this resulted in 20,000 pixels (about 1.3 million km 2 ). The rate of NPP improvement for these areas as expressed in the average NDVI slope (dNDVI act /dt = A) was ascribed to atmospheric fertilization. The baseline slope values of biomass accrual in those pristine lands for each climate zone were subsequently used as a new baseline to recalculate the trend of NDVI over the 22-year period.Recalculation of the time series of NDVI decline (dNDVI human /dt) by correcting for atmospheric fertilization results in a substantial increase in the number of pixels that experience land degradation processes. Vlek et al. (2008) estimated that 10% of SSA was significantly affected by degradation as reflected in a decline in NDVI (Figure 4.4b). Based on the current analysis, 27% of the land is subjected to degradation processes, but most of this is masked by atmospheric fertilization and does not show up directly in a decline in NDVI (Figure 4.5). In these areas, landdegrading processes such as soil degradation, excessive grazing, or wood harvesting were (more than) compensated by the increased vegetation vigor due to atmospheric CO 2 and NO x , and thus go undetected with simple NDVI tracking.The geographic spread of the area subject to human-induced degradation processes (Figure 4.5) among the different climatic zones of SSA is provided in Table 4.4. Pixels with significantly declining dNDVI human /dt amounting to 15% or more are found in all rainfall zones although somewhat less in the semiarid tropics. For 14.3% of the 5.94 million km 2 , 14.3% of the decline in dNDVI human /dt takes place despite an improving trend in precipitation (labeled Negative in Table 4.4), which is of particular concern.The GLASOD survey, which is based on \"expert ground observations,\" concluded that in the early 1980s about 10% of SSA experienced serious human-in duced land degradation (Middleton and Thomas, 1992). The areas identified in the survey appear to have reasonable correspondence with Figure 4.5. Bai et al. (2008) used a rain-use efficiency adjusted NDVI to map the global land degradation trend, and their result shows that about 26% of SSA experiences land degradation, but the geographic correspondence with Figure 4.5 is limited. Hellden and Tottrup (2008) applied NOAA AVHRR NDVI for desertification monitoring, and their result shows an extensive greening in the majority of the world's dryland regions. Future studies will be needed to ground-truth these satellite-based assessments.In the following section, the areas of human-induced land productivity that decline in the long term ( spatially explicit insights in the likely processes leading to land degradation, offering guidance on mitigation or adaptation. It is recognized that the value of such analysis is directly related to the quality of the respective databases, which for SSA are often deficient. However, the logical framework retains its validity and can be easily reapplied whenever better data become available.If human factors are of key importance in land degradation (Abubakar, 1997;Eswaran et al., 1997;Reich et al., 2001), areas of degradation would likely be associated with high population pressure, as was suggested by the GLASOD analysis. The mean population densities for the 1980-2000 period (average of 1980, 1990, and 2000) were obtained from the Grid Population of the World Version 3 (GPWv3) dataset of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University and Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) (Balk and Yetman, 2004). The mean population densities for the four climatic zones are 8 persons km -2 for the Arid zone, and 25, 32, and 28 persons km -2 for the Semiarid, Subhumid, and Humid zones, respectively. The pixels in these rainfall zones that show signs of vegetation productivity decline (Table 4.4) have average population pressures of 4, 32, 31, and 32 persons km -2 , respectively, close to those for the rainfall zones as a whole. To see how the population is distributed within the degrading zones, each of the degrading pixels of the respective rainfall zones was differentiated according to three classes of population density (smaller than the mean, more than twice the mean, and between these two). For the Arid zone, these ranges would thus be <4, 4-8, and >8 persons km -2 . The map in Figure 4.6 clearly shows that in each climatic zone, the areas most affected by degradation processes are those low in population density. These regions possibly constitute marginal or fragile lands with limiting carrying capacities that are easily overpopulated. Food security in such areas will be threatened as population density continues to increase unless measures are taken to increase the carrying capacity of these regions and reverse degradation or to reduce the pressure on the land by offering alternative employment and means to purchase food. However, there are also some areas where vegetation decline is strong and population density is high, notably southwestern Ethiopia, the Ugandan highlands, northern Nigeria, and southeastern Sudan. These higher population densities are found on the better and more productive land, and degradation problems in these areas should be addressed with priority. In case nutrient depletion is the cause, these areas could be targeted with fertilizer marketing schemes, as inputs are likely to be economical in such regions (Kaizzi et al., 2006). In the case of erosion, investments would be needed to slow runoff and restore land (Tamene et al., 2006). Topography affects climatic conditions, regulates water flows, and determines landscape and soil patterns (Gessler et al., 2000;Wilson and Gallant, 2000;Park et al., 2001), and thus affects vegetation cover. Furthermore, soil quality is closely interlinked with the primary productivity of standing vegetation (Safriel, 2007). Thus, the pattern of primary productivity decline as it relates to soil and terrain conditions may offer some insight in what processes are involved. SSA was differentiated according to the topographic and soil-based suitability of the land for agriculture using FAO and United States Geological Survey (USGS) databases. Soil constraint classes were derived from the FAO classification of soil constraints (Fischer et al., 2002) by aggregation as follows: Good (FAO class 1 or 2), Bad (FAO class 3 or 4), and Unsuitable (FAO class 5,6,7,or 8).Topographic SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) elevation data with a pixel resolution of 1 km derived from USGS (2004) were used to derive terrain constraint with respect to agriculture productivity. Pixels with elevation >3500 m above sea level (a.s.l.) or surface slope >25° were considered not suitable for agriculture ( Sheng, 1990). The following categories were delimited: Good (0° ≤ slope ≤ 15° and elevation ≤ 3500 m a.s.l.), Bad (15° < slope ≤ 25° and elevation ≤ 3500 m a.s.l.), and Unsuitable (slope > 25° or elevation > 3500 m a.s.l.). The area affected by human-induced degradation processes resulting in negative dNDVI human /dt (Table 4.4) was mapped by classifying each pixel according to terrain and soil suitability for agriculture as shown in Figure 4.7. Of the 5.91 million km 2 that were considered subject to degradation processes, the areas unsuitable for agriculture because of topographical or soil constraints comprise about 1.72 million km 2 , 1% of which was constrained by both topography and soil conditions. Most of these pixels are found in regions with relatively low population density, as they likely pose inherent restrictions on exploitation and habitation (Table 4.5). Erosion from degrading areas with unsuitable terrain can cause damage to reservoirs and agricultural land downstream. Such areas should remain under protective vegetation and, if not already so, should be revegetated in order to protect food production downstream.About 4.2 million km 2 of the area noticeably subject to degradation processes (Table 4.4) are potentially cultivable land and cover a band that extends from West Africa to Ethiopia (Figure 4.7), the breadbaskets of Africa. Nearly 50% of this region is on good soils that are very likely under cultivation and probably experience soil degradation. More than 50% of this region, however, is on poor-quality soils. Some of these areas are likely also under cultivation and, if economical, might benefit from soil remediation programs. In the case of pastures and forests, overexploitation for short-term gains (deforestation, overgrazing) should be discouraged.Additional information might be gained from knowing the land use of the areas that experience negative human impact. For instance, in the forest regions human interference most likely involves excessive wood harvesting, whereas in agricultural areas it is more likely to be related to soil-nutrient mining. The map depicting land affected by soil degradation processes (Figure 4.5) was cross-referenced with the land-use/ cover map of GLC2000 (Mayaux et al., 2004), allowing differentiation of the areas subject to land-degrading processes according to land-use type. The GLC2000 dataset is based on Satellite Pour l'Observation de la Terre vegetation data with 1-km resolution. The quality of the map has been verified using different approaches and using data from a spectrum of sources such as ground observations, national forest statistics, previous land-cover maps, and high-resolution satellite imagery (Achard et al., 2001;Bartalev et al., 2003;Cihlar et al., 2003;Fritz et al., 2003;Mayaux et  2004). The map's quality has also been compared with that of other global landcover maps (e.g., Giri et al., 2005).Combining the GLC 2000 dataset with the GIMMS-derived information summarized in Figure 4.5 yielded the regions affected by human-induced land-degradation processes under different land cover/use. The statistical details are shown in Table 4.6. In total, about 27.6% of the SSA region (5.91 million km 2 ) is suffering from a significant human impact on primary productivity as measured against the baseline corrected for atmospheric fertilization. Of the 1.72 million km 2 that are not suitable for agriculture (Table 4.6), 288,000 km 2 are actually being farmed (forest cropland or agriculture) but probably should not be. In the dry areas, this is agricultural land, whereas in the more humid regions these are the forest-cropland mosaics. Means should be found to offer these farmers alternatives to ensure their food security so that land can be restored over time, for example, by establishing exclusion zones.Of the remaining 4.19 million km 2 that experience a negative human impact, 0.97 million km 2 are actually farmed (agriculture and forest/cropland mosaic) and are likely overexploited or poorly managed. The area is equally divided between land with good soils and land with bad soils, except in the humid forest/cropland zone where the bad soil/terrain areas appear to be under threat. These agricultural regions require more sustainable farming practices. Thus, in all, about 1.25 million km 2 of cultivated land are experiencing some degree of human impact.As shown in Table 4.6, about 0.95 million km 2 of the area under grassland, largely in the arid and semiarid areas, show a human impact on productivity, probably due to overgrazing. This area constitutes only 17% of the 5.6 million km 2 of grassland in SSA, but more than 75% of which (0.78 million km 2 ) are found in the dry (arid and semiarid) areas, home to some of the most vulnerable communities, where the people depend on livestock grazing for food security.In the subhumid tropics, the woodlands/shrublands are the most affected because they are predominant there, whereas the mosaic forest/savanna and dense forests are threatened in the humid areas. As much as 28% of the woodlands/shrublands in SSA is subjected to significant human-induced degradation processes, probably reflecting encroachment by farmers on these natural habitats. For the expansive, more densely forested regions, the area with vegetation affected by human impact covers only 13.8% of the region, most of which is unsuitable for agriculture. This may be a region of intensive deforestation.Figure 4.8 provides an overview of the areas of declining agricultural productivity. The affected farming communities stretch across SSA from West Africa to Ethiopia. The cultivated areas (category \"Suitable soil/terrain -Cultivated\" in Figure 4.8) are most likely land experiencing a declining resource base due to soil degradation, for example, declining soil organic matter, erosion, or soil mining. Food security is becoming increasingly threatened in such areas. Also indicated in Figure 4.8 are regions that are considered unsuitable for agriculture but are, in fact, being cultivated (category \"Unsuitable soil/terrain -Cultivated\" in Figure 4.8). The latter are found, for instance, on the eastern borders of Sierra Leone and Liberia, eastern Nigeria, as well as in Uganda. Cultivating such land is likely not sustainable and will increasingly lead to food insecurity. Such areas should probably be rehabilitated to their natural conditions. Finally, there are areas that are experiencing human impact and have agricultural potential (category \"Suitable soil/terrain -Noncultivated\" in Figure 4.8), provided they receive adequate rainfall. The declining NDVI signal in these zones may be reflecting gradual conversion of land. Whether this process is desirable given the current concern about climate change is open for debate (Vlek et al., 2003).Detailed information is easily lost when 320,000 pixels are mapped on 10 × 10 cm. However, details can be obtained by consulting the electronic map versions (http://www.zef.de).Excessive pressure on land is the prime cause of human-induced degradation of agricultural land. Imhoff et al. (2004a) expressed this pressure as the human appropriation of net primary productivity (HANPP). Mapping HANPP as a percentage of NPP for each pixel gives a spatial balance sheet of NPP \"supply\" and \"demand\" by the local population. In general, pixels with higher HANPP (% of NPP) would  leave a greater footprint of human consumption with commensurate environmental impact. Imhoff et al. (2004a) produced a global HANPP map (resolution of 0.25°).Because NPP represents the primary food energy source for the world's ecosystems (Imhoff et al., 2004a), the persistent decline in NPP reduces the ability of the land to provide food for human consumption. Food insecurity can be brought about by a decline in NPP or an increase in population or by both. For Africa as a whole, Imhoff et al. calculated an HANPP of 12.4% for 1995, suggesting a light impact of human consumption overall. However, the spatial distribution of HANPP for SSA (Imhoff et al., 2004b) reveals a great spread from 0% to more than 100% with an average of 16%. The cultivated area (Figure 4.9b) of the subcontinent consumes 27% of NPP, in the degraded land as much as 32% on average (Figure 4.9a), and this biomass is mainly appropriated for food products. The areas where excessive fractions of NPP are appropriated for human agricultural production are concentrated in a belt running through Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Northern Nigeria, areas often in the news because of food insecurity.Anticipating the changes in the appropriation ratio (HANPP) offers a view of where food insecurity may emerge as an issue in the future. Using the change in NDVI as a proxy for the shift in NPP (Figure 4.4b) and assuming a continued population growth of 3% yields a spatial distribution of HANPP, represented for 2018 in Figure 4.9 (category \"High/very high HANPP in 2018\"). The areas bordering the Sahel are seeing increasing pressure on the land as are areas in Ethiopia, Uganda, and Kenya.If a pixel experiences an HANPP (% of NPP) value higher than 100%, the NPP needed for the current agricultural demand in the particular pixel exceeds the current productivity of the land, thus illustrating a very high threat of food insecurity and dependence on imports. Table 4.7 reveals that such areas will increase over the coming 20 years by about 250%. The areas where pressure on land (HANPP) is high and moderate will increase as well at the expense of those with low and very low HANPP.It seems reasonable to assume that, when information derived from remote sensing observation over a 20-year time slice suggests a declining biomass production as measured in NDVI, the underlying degradation processes must indeed be rather severe, particularly on agricultural land. Even though the extent of areas that exhibited actually declining NDVIs over the past 20 years of the last century with 10% of the SSA landmass seems relatively modest (Vlek et al., 2008), if added to the 10% that was already claimed to be severely degraded in the late 1980s by the GLOSOD team, the land resources of Africa are indeed dwindling. Moreover, if atmospheric fertilization is taken into account, the human footprint in SSA increases to nearly 30%. Additionally, land degradation may be ongoing at the microscale (patches) level, which is not captured as significant in an 8 × 8 km pixel. As time series of higher-resolution satellites become available, more detailed analysis on a countryby-country basis should better inform about the state of land and soils. In the absence of any instruments for monitoring the rate of land degradation in SSA on the ground, satellite-based systems are the most promising for tracking the state of this vital natural resource on the vast African continent. A systematic research effort should be made to verify the accuracy of the findings reported here and to refine the analytical tool and interpretation of the results.Land degradation processes vary according to land use. In the forested areas of the humid tropics it would be due to deforestation, which seems to be taking place predominantly in areas with bad to very bad soil and terrain conditions. Overgrazing would be the prime form of land degradation on grasslands, and the greatest impact of this type of mismanagement appears to occur in the arid/semiarid regions and predominantly on land with the better soil and terrain conditions. Both types of land mismanagement have a negative impact on the soil resources, which are deprived of their protective vegetation; the involved practices should be avoided.The human impact on the productive capacity of agricultural land in SSA is largely related to unsustainable soil management such as elimination of fallows, removal and burning of crop residues, produce exports, and shifts to more demanding crops. The consequences are soil acidification, loss of soil organic matter and nutrients, and soil erosion. Approximately 1 million km 2 appear to be affected, 40% of which comprises the land with inherently good soil and terrain conditions in the most productive areas of SSA, thus threatening food production in the long run. Approximately 65% of this unsustainable land management goes unnoticed, as atmospheric fertilization (CO 2 and NO x ) is compensating some of the depleting processes, so that the actual decline in the NDVI signal on agricultural land is noticeable only on 285,000 km 2 (Vlek et al., 2008).Finally, it should be noted that land degradation in SSA is taking place against a background of increasing population and deteriorating climate conditions in a food-insecure part of the world. It is also the only part of the world where fertilizer use has been stagnant over the past 25 years at a value of below 10 kg ha -1 yr -1 . The persistent decline in NPP induced by mismanagement of agricultural activities against the background of the steady growth of agrarian population (about 3% annually) will likely lead to an increasing pressure on agricultural land, threatening the food security of an additional 250,000 km 2 by the end of the 2010s.A land resource analysis of the type presented here can provide the basis for identifying areas with common climatic, vegetation, physiographic, and soil and landuse characteristics that appear to be threatened by human-induced land degradation. Immediate adaptation strategies are needed in areas characterized by favorable soil and terrain where population pressure is high and degradation is in full progress. These may involve capital-intensive land conservation measures and fertilizer adoption, because such practices are likely to be profitable in such environments (Kaizzi et al., 2006). In less-endowed environments, farmers may have to rely on more laborintensive measures such as conservation agriculture (Vlek and Tamene, 2009).This assessment can only be seen as a first approximation, and the maps and analysis here need extensive verification in the field. The analysis, in essence, is as good as the underlying databases. However, as better data become available, the analysis framework proposed here allows easy substitution of this information and rapid generation of an updated assessment.","tokenCount":"7243"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"5f377b836fbb21e4fbd16500d78a6eaf","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e0e9d45d-a539-4104-84b4-4d6032af656e/retrieve","id":"-1983426676"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1e06f9e4-2611-414e-b17e-f59e9a19a323","pagecount":"22","content":"NPS se basa en la colaboración continua de los centros del CGIAR con el Gobierno de Colombia y otros asociados sobre la base de los acuerdos existentes y los memorandos de entendimiento.• Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural. o Transferencia de capacidad y propiedad de la SAM en el país.o Evidencia de transformación del sistema agroalimentario y prioridades de gasto público y utilizadas por los responsables de políticas.o Matrices de contabilidad social (SAM), analisis de multiplicadores y modelos de equilibrio general.o Capacitación para la construcción de una SAM y una nueva SAM para Colombia.o Kit de herramientas simples incluyendo un análisis de multiplicadores con enfoque sector agroalimentario o Análisis diagnóstico del sistema agroalimentario utilizando el modelo de equilibrio general (RIAPA)• Una matriz cuadrada de pagos e ingresos relacionados con todas las transacciones económicas• Integral (todas las transacciones) y coherente (balanceada)¿Por qué realizar análisis a nivel de la economía? ","tokenCount":"148"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7cc68b03e179b097e48ee6710f5477b4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/bb48eeb8-2b3a-4ddd-a33c-6fc288728352/retrieve","id":"1380507683"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d8a00b9a-4cb1-43cc-9ad6-528a3041688e","pagecount":"1","content":"Forests and trees play a key role in many food systems. Directly, they provide people with nutritious foods, and indirectly they provide ecosystem services and income. Food from trees and forests will be increasingly important in the face of challenges from population growth and climate change.According to the most recent Global Forest Resource Assessment, food is by far the largest category of nontimber forest products (NTFPs) harvested. More than 1.6 billion people -almost 1 in 5 -depend on forests for their livelihoods. The food from forests and trees contributes to household food security by helping to combat hunger and malnutrition directly but also indirectly: it can be sold and the income spent on food. Forest and tree foods are particularly important during emergency periods such as drought, which may increase as a result of climate change.Among the most serious threats is the degradation of traditional food-yielding systems, such as parklands in West Africa, as a result of demographic pressure, droughts, desertification and agricultural practices. Other risks include competitive exploitation of NTFPs and conflict between the use of a single species for timber and food products.Gathering data through interviews with focus groups, households and key informants in Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Madagascar, Niger and Togo.• Identify all native tree species consumed by rural communities during food shortages • Assess their relative importance in the diet: how they contribute to the diet, how frequently they are used, what parts of the plant are consumed and how are they processed • Identify main threats to these species to develop strategies for their conservation.The project looks at two model species: Vitellaria paradoxa (karité) and Parkia biglobosa (néré).Objectives:• To understand patterns of change in the mosaic of land uses under increasing immigration pressure and other socio-economic changes, and the effect of these changes on land tenure and access to food tree resources • To understand how changing and intensifying land use and associated habitat fragmentation, in combination with climate-induced reduction of suitable habitat and overexploitation, affect viability and vulnerability of key food tree species • To improve local capacity to propagate and cultivate important food tree species • To produce management guidelines and recommendations for conservation and sustainable use of key food tree species, and policy briefs.Beyond Timber: Reconciling the needs of the logging industry with those of forest-dependent peopleThe project aims to facilitate multiple use of forest resources in the Congo Basin through innovative management. Research will be carried out in Cameroon, Gabon, Congo DRC where 90% of forest land is in timber concessions:• Socioeconomic studies on uses of plants, including trees for food, in communities near or within forest concessions • Assess resource inventories and impact of timber harvesting for priority tree species that produce both timber and food • Nutritional, ecological and genetic studies on key species: one for fruit/oil (moabi, Baillonella toxisperma) and two that host edible caterpillars: sapelli (Entandrophragma cylindricum) and tali (Erythrophleum suavolense) • Develop forest management guidelines with concessionaires and communities to reconcile timber and non-timber production • Make recommendations for forestry legislation and social responsibility contracts.Bioversity International is working on three projects focused on food trees species in Sub-Saharan AfricaNutritious dietsProcessing of shea butter from Vitellaria paradoxa and 'soumbala' from Parkia biglobosa.Powder from baobab leaves of Adansonia digitata and leaves of Vitex doniana used by the communities in West Africa as part of their diet.Women from a rural community in the North of Benin interviewed to understand the composition of their diet and their dependency on food tree species.Poster: E.Hermanowicz, B.Vinceti. Photos: B.Vinceti/Bioversity International. Projects coordinated by L.Snook and B.Vinceti.","tokenCount":"593"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3d7a5b15528b918232ccc101c81160d3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c36f112e-2d5c-47a4-8189-efed61092d41/retrieve","id":"-315530819"},"keywords":["gender","women participation","pig value chain"],"sieverID":"2f7fa92f-3e46-4f82-a1ae-b68358a511a3","pagecount":"13","content":"Using a broad systematic literature review of peer reviewed publications and grey literature, the paper summarizes the most relevant gender issues in the pig value chain of Vietnam, and the ways in which these could be addressed. Specifically, women were found to face more severe constraints than men in accessing productive resources, markets and services. They have limited access to land use rights and therefore have limited access to resources for pig production. Besides, time constraints and cultural norms hinder women from actively participating in trainings and extension activities. Several projects/programs have been undertaken to help reduce the gender gaps. Lessons learnt from successful projects indicate that approaching women farmers via the Women's Union is an effective way to increase the active participation of women in trainings. Identifying and providing technical trainings that meet specific needs of women farmers could lead to productivity increase. Besides, it is important to facilitate collaboration and dialogue between men and women to encourage men's support of women's empowerment and to improve the positive impacts of project interventions.Pig production is central to the development of the livestock sector in Vietnam, accounting for 74.2% of total livestock output (MARD, 2014). Vietnam's pig herd has increased from 21.8 million heads in 2001 to approximately 27.2 million heads in 2015 making Vietnam the biggest pig producer in South East Asia and third producer in the world. About two-thirds (70%) of the national pig production is in the hands of smallholder farmers with typically 1 to 5 sows (ILRI et al., 2011). Small-scale pig production is of great importance to livelihood of smallholder farmers, acting as a source of employment and household income, as a supplementary source of funds for children's education, for investment, and as a \"living bank\" against shocks (accidents, illness, natural disasters, etc.). It contributes approximately 14% to total rural household income or 24% of agricultural income and generates about 4.13 million fulltime jobs along the pork supply chain, with women contributing 1.5 time more labor time than men suggesting that household pig production is a viable income source for women in the absence of other employment options beyond the household. (Lapar et al., 2012). The share of male labor, on the other hand, increases with production scale, particularly in production systems with slaughter hog as output, indicating the increasing role of male labor in those systems as farms expand. According to FAO et al. (2010), 57% of pig keepers in rural areas are male-headed households and 47% are female-headed households.Along with population increase, economic growth and consumer preference, pork demand in Vietnam is increasing remarkably. Pork consumption per capita per year has increased from 12.9kg in 2000 to 27.3kg in 2012 and is projected to reach 34.5kg in 2024 (OECD, 2016). To meet the growing demand, Vietnam has set up the Livestock Development Strategy for the period up to 2020 with the main objective of replacing smallholder farms with large, intensive and commercial farms. Accordingly, the restructuring is necessary, especially in the context of strong global integration where trade agreements and regulations are likely to favor large producers and processors with stable supply and better control of disease, phytosanitary and environmental issues. This poses challenges for the existence of current smallscale pig production systems. However scaling-up and modernization of the existing smallscale producers which require huge capital investment are the way to go in the foreseeable future given that large-scale, commercial farms, will not be able to dominate the pig sector in the short-term (MARD, 2014). Empirical findings show that pig smallholder producers in Vietnam can successfully compete with larger farms by using improved technologies (Lapar et al., 2012). More efforts from the government, donors, and development practitioners are currently put in practice to help improve productivity and food safety of small-scale pig production.Women are dominant players in small-scale pig production and marketing, accounting for two-thirds of labor force in the sector. However, many existing policies and projects are inattentive to differences between men and women regarding access to resources, roles, and constraints. The lack of deliberate recognition of any existing inequities further contributes to maintaining the status quo at best or worsening the biases at worst. This somehow hinders women's productivity and reduces their contribution the sector development (FAO, 2011). ItThe analysis is based on a broad systematic literature review of peer reviewed publications and grey literature on livestock and pig production in Vietnam. Literature was sought using web search engines (Google) and keyword tracking. Key words such as \"gender\", \"pig\", \"value chain\" guided the search. Other specific search words included \"gender roles\", \"decision making\", \"breeding\", \"feeds\", \"markets\" and \"diseases\".' In each search, \"Vietnam\" was included to narrow down the search to the geographical context under investigation. Bibliographic references in each reviewed paper were also examined to identify additional papers relevant to the scope of this review. The findings were then categorized into key relevant domains -including gendered ownership, division of labor, decision making, and access to and control of resourcesthat structure this article.In addition, quantitative databases from the Humidtropics baseline survey in Northwest Vietnam with a total sample of 400 farm households and the Good Animal Husbandry Practices (VietGAHP) adoption survey of 112 pig producers in Nghe An province were utilized to provide data on pig ownership and credit access for pig production. Four single-sex focus group discussions with pig producers in Nghe An province were undertaken by ILRI in 2015 to provide qualitative findings on labor allocation, decision making power, access to and control of productive resources in pig production to enrich the quantitative data. Documents on project interventions in the pig value chain were also sought. Only projects conducted in Vietnam or in the context of Vietnam that tackled gender issues and included some (early) evidence on outcomes or impacts of these interventions were selected for in-depth analysis.Livestock ownership has direct impacts on women and children in terms of food security insurance, potential income or fertilizer use (World Bank, 2009). It enables direct access to animal source foods; provides cash income from sale of livestock and livestock products that can in turn be used to purchase food especially during times of food deficit; and contributes to increased aggregate cereal supply as a result of improved productivity from use of manure and traction. Gendered ownership of livestock is relatively well documented in African countries, where women are more likely to be owners of small animals like pigs and poultry and men tend to claim control over large animals such as cattle, horse, camels, etc. (Deere et al., 2009;FAO, 2009;Njuki and Sanginga, 2013). This is likely not the case in Vietnam where approximately 90% of households surveyed in Northwest Vietnam, a Humidtropics site, reported joint ownership of pigs. Similar findings emerged from four focus group discussions with men and women separately in Nghe An province. However, these findings are specific to the study site and need to be validated in other context in Vietnam. Also note that explorations of pig ownership in Vietnam so far is mostly done with only one or two questions incorporated into questionnaires without a clear definition. This might result in misunderstanding of the term \"ownership\" and therefore bias conclusion on the ownership status of pigs. Galie et al. (2015) explored gender perceptions of resource ownership among rural livestock owners in Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Nicaragua and found a large variability of local understanding of the term 'livestock ownership'. Different understandings of ownership could be based on separate domains including (i) benefiting from the livestock, (ii) source of livestock (e.g. \"a person could be said to own livestock if they had purchased it, received it as marriage gifts, and/or inherited it\"), (iii) decision making, (iv) taking care of the animals, (v) knowledge of resources, (v) having full authority over livestock, or (vi) carrying the responsibility. Taking these domains into consideration, the term \"joint ownership\" may have different meanings across contexts, for example \"shared labor tasks\" in Ethiopia, \"shared legal rights\" in Tanzania, and \"legal rights of the household head in conjunction with informal rights of other household members\" in Nicaragua. This implies that asking simple questions such as \"who owns pigs in your household?\" seems to mean little in understanding the true nature of pig ownership in Vietnam. This also creates room for future research to shed light on the existing ambiguity of gender ownership in the Vietnam pig sector.Generally land serves as a collateral to access credit for financing production inputs (World Bank, 2009). According to the Vietnam Land Law 1993, farmer households who were allocated land for long-term use had rights to rent/lease, mortgage, transfer, exchange, and inherit. Land use right certificates (LUCs) were granted to land users but only the name of household heads was put into the certificates. In Vietnamese culture, household heads are mainly husbands; 80% of the households in rural areas are male headed and 20 percent are female headed (FAO et al. 2010). As a consequence, after 10 years of implementation of the Land Law 1993 only 10-12% of LUCs were granted to women (World Bank, 2011). Women were denied formal land rights despite their contributions to family labor. In practice women had no legal proof of their rights to land, which reduced their ability to claim their rights in cases of dispute, divorce or death in the family. This also limited women's opportunities to use the land as collateral for credit when needed (World Bank, 2002). The Land Law 2003 provides a more gender inclusive policy framework for land ownership in Vietnam, (e.g., both husband and wife could have equal access to land.) Signatures of both would be required in LUCs. The newest Land Law 2013 added a number of new stipulations amending the issuance of LUCs. Accordingly if land is jointly possessed by several family members, individual or shared LUCs would be provided. However, due to a number of factors that related particularly to a lack of human capital (knowledge, capacity, etc.), financial capital, and limited capacity of local administrative level, this new Land Law has not been effectively translated into action at community level. As of 2008, presence of names of both husband and wife was recorded for only 18.2% and 29.8% of the LUCs in rural and urban areas, respectively (Alvarado et al., 2015). In 2015 Alvarado and his team surveyed 864 households in Long An and Hung Yen to assess farmers' ability to access land, especially women's land rights. The findings indicated that only 1% of the land plots were registered under both names of couples in Long An and 35% in Hung Yen. Plots were most often registered under a man's name in both provinces.The unequal control over land reduces opportunities for women to improve productivity by reducing their access to credit, and to technology and information on productivity-enhancing practices and inputs (Agarwal, 1994). Several studies have examined gender-segregated LUCs on agricultural productivity, household economic security, and vulnerability (Menon et al., 2014;Newman et al., 2015). They found that exclusively or jointly holding LUCs by women would bring in beneficial effects including increasing household expenditure and women's self-employment, and lowering vulnerability to poverty. In addition, joint titles are a way to improve women's bargaining power within the household. In the context of Vietnam, measures to effectively implement the gender inclusive spirit of the Land Law could further facilitate improved benefits from access to and control of land use. Further research is thus warranted to identify these.Credit is essential for improving agricultural productivity and household livelihood. A study on rural development finance in Vietnam by Duong and Izumida (2002) indicated that 54% of formally sourced credit was used for livestock investment, including pigs. Credit is used for purchasing pig stocks and feed, upgrading pig shelter, purchasing farming implements, adopting new technologies, etc. Prevailing sources of credit that farmer households often seek for include Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, the Vietnam Bank for Social Polices and People's Credit Funds, relatives and friends, and village money lenders (Le, 2014).Despite the availability of a series of formal and informal sources of credit, the rural financial market is more easily accessible to / or addresses most men. For example, in the VietGAHP adoption survey of pig producers in Nghe An province, 22% of households have loans for pig production, of which 98% borrowers are men. This is driven from unequal control of landa unique physical collateral required for accessing credit-between men and women.Women and men are responsible for different tasks in households as dictated by customary rules that define which are men's tasks and which are women's (FAO, 2013). For example, rural women, in addition to shared responsibilities with men such as working on crop farms, raising animals, working for wages, selling agricultural products, etc. have to be involved in all household chores (i.e. bearing children, caring for family members and their homes). These additional activities are essential to well-being of households even though they are often not nationally accounted as economically active employment.In pig production, labor is mainly provided by family members, mostly women who have limited off-farm employment opportunities. Women are likely to contribute more time to pig production than men. Time spent by women on pig related activities is 1.5 times higher than that of men (Lapar et al., 2012). However, the share of family labor and female labor decreases with production scale. In large farm, for example, although family labor still predominates, outside labor is hired in times of labor shortage on a daily or seasonal basis rather than as permanent employment (Tisdell, 2010). Besides, large farms are more likely to be ran by men and women's labor contribution is almost negligible and restricted to non-managerial tasks such as cleaning and feeding (Pham, 2011).For allocation of labor in pig production, traditional roles are at play, heavy tasks such as constructing pig shelters and treating pig diseases are assigned to men, while 'light' tasks such as cleaning and feeding are handled by women (ILRI, 2015). At other nodes of the value chain, men are more likely to work slaughter/collection activities while women tend to be more active in processing and retail. In particular, slaughter of pigs at abattoirs are generally done by men, but women still support in some activities such as cleaning of the offal, gathering dung, carrying the quarters of meat to the wet market, etc. On the other hand, women are observed to be dominant players as retailers in traditional markets where most of fresh pork is being sold in Vietnam (Grace et al., 2015).Participation of women in decision making depends on the scale of pig production (small versus big), and on matters pertaining to time and resource investments to sustain pig production. Focus group discussions with men and women groups in Nghe An province (ILRI, 2015) revealed that in smallholder pig production, decision makers are mainly women because they are the main labor involved while their husbands seek other job opportunities. However, as the scale of production expands, men tended to be more involved in pig production when they see the potential for significant income that could be gained from the activity. Decisions are usually made based on agreements/negotiations between husband and wife, but in case of disagreement, the husband would usually retain his traditional role as the final decision-maker. During focus group discussions with men, extreme gender discriminating viewpoints were revealed, such as women \"gravitate to child rearing\" and \"things around the home\" while men gravitate toward \"construction projects\", so \"men know everything and understand better than women\". In those extreme cases, every decision in the household, not just limited to pig production, are made by the husbands.Decision making patterns can be changed given the influence of demographic and cultural factors. For example in the ethnic minority groups such as Tu Di, Pa Di, Nung and Day, decisions on raising and selling pigs are equally distributed between women and men, while Dao and Hmong women have less decision making power (Vu, 2015) Women face disproportionate challenges compared to men in accessing pig related services and information. This is partly evidenced by unequal involvement of men and women in technical trainings. Even though women are usually the main family labor involved in pig production as mentioned above, they are likely to participate less than men in extension trainings. Besides, extension services most often do not respond to the specific needs of female farmers. For example, under the \"Biogas Program for the Animal Husbandry Sector in Vietnam\" initiated by the governments of Vietnam and the Netherlands since 2003, 103,000 households in 8 provinces nationwide have been supported to build biogas plants to utilize manure from pig and other livestock production. The program organized pre-and postconstruction trainings for users; however, only 22.8% of trained users were females even though they were the main users of this technology at home (MARD and SNV, 2011). This finding suggests that women are likely to be disadvantaged in some key stages of promoting technology uptake in the biogas value chain, by receiving very poor levels of initial information and given their limited involvement in decision-making and training/technical advice despite the fact that they are the main users of this technology in households.CODESPA is a non-profit organization working in Vietnam with the aim of helping low-income communities to become fully involved in economic activities for income generation and capacity development aimed at realizing their human potential. In 2011, CODESPA initiated a program in Yen Bai province \"to reduce the rural poverty and the environmental impact of pig raising activities through the improvement of households' skills and the linkages between suppliers, farmers and buyers.\" The project started in 12 communes and then expanded its action to 22 communes by January 2012. With the roll-out of the program, the target changed from 3000 to 7500 pig producing households by the end of the project in 2014, of which up to 1500 were extremely poor households.At an overall level, the program helped strengthen the pig value chain through improved pig raising techniques and commercial linkages between suppliers, raisers, and sellers and therefore improved farm household livelihoods. It provided support in drawing up purchase contracts between groups and buyers that facilitated higher prices for the pigs, and minimized risk for small scale producers by ensuring buyers of their pigs. In addition, the project provided technical training to pig raising households that contributed to uptake of better management practices and appropriate use of inputs promoted in the rural marketing campaigns. The training activities were combined with the promotion of new products/services through trials/demonstrations. As of July 2013, average income from pig raising of households involved in the program has increased from €80 to €112 per year.It is noteworthy that the program was one of the few that successfully put women at the center of its approach. With the acknowledgment that household pig production which is a side-line activity and a means to diversify overall household incomes is mainly run by women, the first step of the program was to set up a number of pig raising groups in the targeted communities via Women's Union. By involving the Women's Union in social mobilization, women pig farmers were reached, and encouraged to participate in trainings on pig feeding, feed preparation, maintaining a pig pen, vaccinations and waste management. The program required the participation of both men and women in training and information sessions. Since husbands and wives were unable to attend together, they were encouraged to take turns. As a result, in most cases, women came to group sessions to represent the household, or together with their husbands. This approach seems to have worked well to ensure the active participation of women in the trainings.The program was also the first one in the region to train and integrate women para-vets in the market. Each group was required to select someone to be trained in performing basic veterinary services for pigs and most of those selected were women. The reason for this selection was that women were well known for their pig raising skills in the community, and that pigs raised by women were likely to get less sick than men. The program collaborated with the government's Animal Health Services to carry out trainings and to ensure that trained paravets would receive government certification for the skills they obtained so that they were included in the government livestock services. Women para-vets gained recognition for their knowledge and skills in the field which used to be considered as men's exclusive field. This has gradually changed common perspectives on women's ability to hold respected positions and have a voice in the community. It is a good outcome contributing to gender-equity that should be continuously supported in the follow-up phases and other development programs.The project \"Enhancing Market Access and Promoting Economic Leadership for Raglai Women in Ninh Thuan Province\" (Ninh Thuan PWEL or RVNA93 Project), was funded by Oxfam and implemented for the period 2011 -2015. The project's overall objective was \"to improve the economic and social status of 3,000 Raglai women in Ninh Thuan province\". One of its main components is to enhance the black pig value chain. Up to 2014, it supported the consolidation of 22 black pig raising groups which included 292 members (100% women) in 2 districts, namely Bac Ai and Thuan Bac. The project provided trainings of modern techniques in raising black pigs such as construction of pig pens, application of semi-free range husbandry models, preparation of mixed feed, and identification of some common pig diseases, etc. As a result, Raglai women gradually became aware of the importance of new techniques, e.g., adopted the semi-free range pig raising model, prepared good animal feed from available vegetable and rice bran, applied some basic veterinary skills (e.g. injection of medicines, sterilization of male piglets, recognizing pig diseases), and consulted local veterinarians when pigs were sick. Also, the project has helped to gradually change the mindset of part of Raglai communities, especially of Raglai women regarding market-oriented production. They started raising pigs for sale and not just for barter or for family events, and learned to calculate costs and benefits of pig production.By focusing on women only as the main target group, the project has also faced some drawbacks. Some technical activities were considered as too difficult or culturally inappropriate for women so the effectiveness was not high. For example, result of group discussions in one project site revealed that women received trainings on pig sterilization, but they felt uncomfortable practicing the technique, and thought their husbands could do the work much better. Besides, too much focusing on women in project implementation could lead to a misperception of bias against men and thereby discourage the husbands from being supportive of their wives' participation in these projects.Women are major contributors to pig production in Vietnam but face various constraints that limit their ability to achieve optimal production. These key constraints include, but not limit to, unequal distribution of housework, limited control over land and access to credit, and limited access to information and advanced technologies. In the context of limited beyond-household employment opportunities, pig production remains the main livelihood of rural women. It serves as a primary form of savings, as well as insurance against accidents and illness. Regular income from pig sale can provide money for household goods and services such as school fees for children, implements, animal services or for scaling up pig production. For small-scale production featuring less than 10 pigs per year, almost all tasks as well as decision making related to pig production are likely to be in the hands of women. This trend, however, tends to change when production scale increases. Men would be more involved in pig production when they see more potential for profits compared to profits possibly gained from outside job opportunities. Most large-scale pig farms are managed by men; women play the secondary role such as supporting their husbands to manage wages, hired labor, pig feed and other tasks assigned by their husbands. Although empirical evidences showed that almost all decisions are jointly made by both husband and wife in a household; in extreme cases, the husband calls the shots, retaining his traditional role as final decision-maker.Women generally have limited access to land use rights and therefore have limited access to resources for pig production. Access to resources are controlled and dominated by men due to their sole names titled in the land use right certificatesthe required collateral for resource access. The amended land law 2013 ensures equal access to land of both husband and wife; however because of a number of factors that relate particularly to a lack of human capital (for example, knowledge, capacity, political commitment) and financial capital (for example, lack of funds, decentralization constraints), many provinces still face challenges in translating this amended law into action at the community and household levels. Further work to identify institutional mechanisms and improved local level regulatory guidelines to ensure effective implementation of the Land Law that will engender the envisioned gender equity in access to land will be worthwhile pursuing.Women are less likely than men to participate in community meetings and trainings related to pig production even though they are main players in this sector. The main reason given for women's low participation is that women are mostly tied up with household chores in addition to pig production, so they do not have enough time to participate in meetings/trainings and, in some cases, are not encouraged to do so by their husbands or their communities. In addition, some development projects provide trainings without taking into consideration the specific needs of female farmers.Along with the rapid development of the pig sector in recent years, gender issues are now mentioned more in livestock projects. Several efforts have been done to help reduce the gender gaps. Lessons learnt from successful projects indicate that approaching farmer women via the Women's Union is an effective way to increase the active participation of women into trainings. Identifying and providing technical trainings that meet specific capacity development needs of women farmers could lead to productivity increase. Besides, it is important to facilitate collaboration and dialogue between men and women to encourage men's support of women's empowerment and to improve the positive impacts of project interventions.","tokenCount":"4358"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3aac1bf4da1914c53b0062d82c76aea4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/608eeaaf-a745-4a2f-b3b4-a81f09ccd2ce/retrieve","id":"-1260175925"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6df05412-58ed-46f8-ab51-7ea60104fc65","pagecount":"7","content":"Rice Improvement for Latin America and the CaribbeanThe challenge: In this cenrury rice has gradually become the most important food grain in tropical America. The region's per capita consumption of this staple rose from lO kilograms in the 1920s to about 30 in the 1990s. The displacement by rice of traditional staples , such as cassava and plantain, which are bulkier and more perishable , has been driven largely by rapid urbanization throughout the region. Rice is clearly a more convenient food for the approximately 70 percent of the population who now live in cities. Sustained improvement in the production of this crop is thus critical for food securiry in tropical America.lt is also vital for alleviating poverty in the region. About half of the people in Latin America and the Caribbean live below the poverty line, as defined by FAO. Food accounts for half of poor people 's total expendirures, and 15 percent of what they spend on food is for rice. More efficient rice production in lowland irrigated areas offers the further advantage of reducing the pressure to expand cultivation of upland rice and other crops onto ecologically fragile land in the savannas and forest margins.The product: In the mid-1960s , Latin America's entire rice area was planted to tall traditional varieties. Throughout the 1970s famlers rapidly adopted new semidwarf varieties developed by national programs and intemational centers. This was merely the beginning of a process that continues to the present. Over the lasl 25 years, national programs across the region have released, on average, a total of !O new lowland rice varieties each year. A total of about 275 new varieties have been released, 90 percent of them targeted to fIooded environments. About 39 percent of the varieties have come from crosses made al CIA T and 12 percent from IRRI crosses; sorne of the rest have progenitors from the intemational centers in their parentage. In general, each new variety represents significant improvement for at least one key trait, on top of the gains already achieved .The impact: Modem semidwarf varieties now account for 93 percent of all fIooded rice production, which represents 80 percent of Latin America 's total output of this crop. In the irrigated rice areas , average yield increased from 3.3 tons per hectare in the mid-1960s to 4.6 tons in 1995. As a result, total rice production doubled during lhat period to about 20 million tons of paddy, making the region largely self-sufficient in rice. More efficient production has brought down the price of this staple by about 50 percent in real terms over the last three decades .According to recent results from an ongoing srudy, consumers have been the main beneficiaries oftechnological change, receiving US$518 million per year since 1966. Producers in irrigated areas have also caprured large benefits, amounting to $437 million per year. These gains have been offset somewhat by losses in other rice production environments, mainly upland, rainfed areas .The challenge: Cassava provides food and a livelihood for roughly 120 mili ion people in tropical America, where Ihe starchy root crop originated. Traditionally, it has been considered a \"poor man 's crop,\" grown mainly for subsistence by small farmers in marginal environments. In recent years, Ihough, the image of cassava has begun to change with Ihe advent of new uses and markets. In addition 10 being consumed in fresh form, Ihe crop has also become a component of animal feeds and a source of starch for a wide range of industrial products. As such cassava now offers small farmers, nor just Iheir nexr meal , but a reliable option for increasing their incomes.The product.• In Ihe 1980s, CIAT and various nalional panners embarked on a search for ways to enable farmers 10 make a better living from cassava. This work was aimed panicularly at farmers in marginal areas (characterized by poor soils and drought) where cassava is ofien one of the few crops Ihat will grow. The product of Ihis work was an integrated approach to cassava research and development, in which panner instirutions work IOward sustainable crop production in a given area, while simultaneously creating new or improved cassava products and markets.One such project was established in Colombia's Cauca depanment, focusing on small-scale extracrion of cassava starch for local markets . In 1989 various NGOs in Ihat region joined CIAT and ClRAD, with financing from the French government, in an integrated project aimed at speeding Ihe development of Colombia's cassava starch industry. Specifically, Ihe project sought ways to improve the quality of Ihe final product and 10 increase Ihe efficiency of processing by improving equipment and procedures and by introducing and testing improved cassava varieties .The impact: A recent srudy divided Ihe 208 starch processing operations in Cauca into three groups--Iow , medium, and high-according 10 Iheir level of processing technology. Just over 15 percent of Ihe unirs had adopted all or pan of Ihe improved technology introduced by instirutions. The majority of processors (67 percent) were using technologies improved locally with instirutional suppon. About 26 percenr were processing roots of an improved variety wilh high dry matter conten!. Anolher 20 percent were mixing Ihis variety wilh Ihe best local variety.Analysis of economic impact showed Ihar from 1988 10 1996 the new technology had generated benefits valued at about US$25 million. Producers profited from Ihe higher dernand and somewhat better price for cassava roots, wilh benefits amounting to $6.4 million. Processors took an approxirnately equal share of Ihe gains through reduced processing costs. The rest of Ihe economic benefits accrued to industries Ihat consume starch, because !bey were able to buy it at a lower cos!. AlI !bese gains in rum benefited Colombian society by injecting cash into Ihe economy and by generating employmen!. Given !hat Ihe project cost about $8.9 million, its net benefits of $16.4 million represent an 80 percent inrernal rate of rerum .The challenge: Beans are grown on more than 3.5 mil!ion hectares in Africa, cultivated for subsistence and, increasingly, as a cash crop by poor farmers, mainly women. In Rwanda alone, 95 percent of al! farmers grow beans, which provide 32 percent of aH calories and 65 percent of al! protein consumed in the country.During recent decades high population density and land scarcity in Rwanda have given rise to extremely intensive production of beans and other crops on small plots. In tbe absence of sufficient organic and inorganic fertilizers, soil quality appears to be declining, and this poses a major threat to the country' s food securíty. One warning sign of the problem was the emergence in the 1980s of a complex of bean diseases referred 10 coHectively as \"root rots.\" Serious outbreaks occur only in areas, like Rwanda as well as southwestern Uganda and western Kenya, where círcumstances force farmers to exhaust the soil through ever more íntensive cultivation.The product: In the early 1980s, CIAT began workíng with Rwanda's national bean program to test and ímprove experimental germplasm íntroduced from tropical America. The work has been funded by the Canadian, US, and Swiss governments. A prominent feature of this program was the participation of Rwanda' s women bean farmers in the improvement scheme. Since the women tend 10 grow complex mixrures of beans, their early involvement in selection was considered essential for achieving wide adoption of new varieties.One important finding of this work was that climbing beans of Mexican origin show marked advantages over bush beans and local climbing varieties, especially in terms of yield and root rot resistance . They proved to be the ideal technology for a country where producing more food on less land is of the utmost urgency. Evenrually, more than 20 climbing bean varieties were released . At first farmers complained about the need to use tall stakes, but with help from local NGOs they found a number of environmentally sound ways to obtain them.The impact: During recent years CIA T staff have carried out a series of srudies on the adoption of climbing varieties in Rwanda. In 1990, for example, six growing seasons afier release of the variety Umubano, scientísts observed an adoption rate of about 70 percent. The mean yields of Umubano were 1.4 10 1.6 tons per hectare, compared to 0.8 to 1.0 tons for local climbing bean mixrures.Then, in 1993 a nationwide survey showed !hat about 43 percent of Rwandan families were growing improved climbing beans introduced 5 years earlier. 1t was estirnated that up to 20 percent of Rwanda's total bean area was sown to the new varieties . The srudy concluded !hat the use of improved climbing beans increased production by as much as 66,000 tons per year, generating extra income of about US$15 mili ion.In late 1995 a survey was conducted to monitor the impact of seed aid in Rwanda (under tbe Seeds of Hope project) afier tbe genocide of 1994. Remarkably, tbe srudy found !hat, despite tbe violence, improved climbers were being grown by 48 percent of tbe bean farmers surveyed and accounted for a third of tbe bean seed sown.The challenge: For many centuries common bean has been an essential part of Ihe Andean zone 's diel and culture. Here and IhroughoUl Iropical America, Ihe crop offers a prolein-rich food Ihal low-income families can afford. Beans are Ihe fourth mOSI important source of prolein in lropical America, and as a source of calories, Ihey surpass bolh pOlato and cassava. Beans also provide a livelihood for millions of small farmers, whose besl hope for overcoming poverty is 10 produce food efficiently for expanding urban markets at home and abroad.Until Ihe early 1990s, production of Ihis staple in Ihe Andean zone as a whole was essentially slagnant, with rales of growth in yield and production lagging well behind populalion growlh. The outlook for beans in Ihe region was bleak, wilh Irends in supply and demand pointing 10 large deficils by Ihe year 2000 .The product: CIAT responded lO Ihis challenge in two ways: firsl, Ihrough an intemalional bean improvemenl scheme Ihal channeled improved germplasm lO nalional programs around Ihe world and, second, through bean networks in key production regions. These have provided national programs with a mechanism for sharing research resulls and responsibilities, and Ihey have notably slrenglhened local capacicy 10 sol ve problems in bean produclion. PROFIZA, Ihe regional network for the Andean zone , was sel up in 1988, wilh funding from Ihe Swiss government.As of 1996 Ihe countries taking part in Ihe network-Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peruhad released 31 improved varielies. In addition to offering higher, more stable yields and good local adaptation, most of Ihese varieties supplied genetic solutions 10 importanl disease problems in specific environments.The impact: By 1995 bean production in Ihe Andean zone had risen sharply, mostly as a resull of higher yields . The annual rale of increase in production now exceeds the pace of population growth, wilh a resulting increase in per capita bean consumption.A growing body of evidence from adoption studies in Ihe Andean zone suggests Ihat improved varieties have contributed importantly to Ihose increases. For example, a 1996-97 study, in Peru' s Cuzco department examined Ihe adoption and impact of five new varieties Ihat had been developed in the late 1980s Ihrough farmer participatory schemes. According to Ihe study, 94 percent of farmers were growing new varieties. Moreover, Ihese constituted 52 percent of Ihe bean germplasm available , and Ihey accounted for 64 percent of Ihe total bean area. The study further determined Ihal Ihe combination of improved germplasm and higher plant densities bOOSled average yields by 110 percent from 1985 10 1996.The challenge: In pans of Colombia, farrners have raised their incomes during the last two decades through intensive production of beans and other vegetables for urban markets . They have done so by adopting new varieties and practices, including pesticide application.Unfortunately, though , a dangerous \"chemical culture\" has arisen in many rural cornrnunities. For fear of yield losses, farrners spray frequently and habitually, without accurate knowledge or assessments of the economic threat from insect pests. Indiscriminate use of chemicals has come to pose a serious threat to the environment and human health . And, ironically, it has made pest problems worse by destroying the natural balance between them and their natural enemies.In the late 1980s, problems arising from total dependenee on chemical controls became evident in the Sumapaz region, which supplies snap beans and other vegetables to markets in the nation' s capital. Farrners were spraying snap beans about a dozen times during a growing season, roughly once a week.The product: During the early 1990s, a pilot project supported by CIA T and financed by IDRC began searching for ways to put chemical use on a more rational basis in Sumapaz. Through farrner participatory research, the project developed an integrated pest management strategy for snap beans in the area, which consisted of six technologies, involving cultural, mechanical , and chemical controls.In 1992 an adoption study showed high levels of adoption for at least sorne of the component technologies . Very few farrners accepted Ihe entire IPM package. The most popular innovations were the cultural practices. Together wilh olher measures, these enabled farrners to lower pesticide use by about 33 pereent.In 1996 a second showed that , although pans of Ihe package were still in use, many farrners had abandoned them, and Ihe average number of sprays per growing season had retumed ,almost to its 1988 level.The study put forward various explanations for Ihis. For example, because snap bean priees vary greatly, farrners have a strong incentive to spray as a defensive measure to reduce the risk to their income. Anolher key consideration is Ihat snap beans account for only 22 percent of farrners' total pesticide use in Sumapaz. Apparently, any effort to change the chernical culture there will have 10 deal with Ihe whole farrning system ralher Ihan a single crop.","tokenCount":"2304"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"746b1f1bd7a1305093bb276009ef8291","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a62585d3-fee1-4b30-9ab3-b912565dbf71/retrieve","id":"-165754322"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"aba4ca41-0894-4951-9418-8ee7d860841b","pagecount":"8","content":"The Planteome project ( https:// planteome.org/ ) provides a suite of reference and crop-specific ontologies and an integrated knowledgebase of plant genomics data. The plant genomics data in the Planteome has been obtained through manual and automated curation and sourced from more than 40 partner databases and resources. Here, we report on updates to the Planteome reference ontologies, namely, the Plant Ontology (PO), Trait Ontology (TO), the Plant Experimental Conditions Ontology (PECO), and integration of species / crop-specific vocabularies from our partners, the Crop Ontology (CO) into the TO ontology graph. Currently, 11 CO vocabularies are integrated into the Planteome with the addition of yam, sorghum, and potato since 2018. In addition, the size of the annot ation dat abase has increased by 34%, and the number of bioentities (genes, proteins, etc.) from 125 plant taxa has increased by 72%. We de v eloped ne w tools to facilitate user requests and improvements to the CO v ocabularies, and to allo w f ast searching and bro wsing of PO terms and definitions. T hese enhancements and future changes to automate the TO-CO mappings and knowledge discovery tools ensure that the Planteome will continue to be a valuable resource for plant biology.The Planteome Project ( https:// planteome.org/ ) provides a suite of reference and crop-specific ontologies and an integrated knowledgebase of annotated plant genomic data. Three of the reference ontologies, the Plant Ontology (PO) ( 1-3 ), the Plant Trait Ontology (TO) ( 4 ), and the Plant Experimental Conditions Ontology (PECO) ( 5 ), have been developed and are maintained in-house by the Planteome team. At the same time, the Gene Ontology (GO) ( 6 ), the Phenotype and Trait Qualities Ontology (PATO) and the NCBI Taxonomy ( 7 ) are imported for extended cross-references and standardized annotation of omics and genetics data as needed. The crop-specific ontologies developed by our partners at the Crop Ontology (CO; https:// cropontology.org/ ) are mapped to the TO for integration into the Planteome. The Planteome conforms to the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) data policy standards ( 8 ), and in a broadly collaborative effort, it hosts plant genomics data from more than 40 databases and resources (Table 1 ).Since the publication of the original Planteome paper in 2018 ( 5 ), many updates and improvements have occurred to the Three Planteome database releases since 2017 include revisions to existing ontology terms, the addition of new ontology terms, and annotations from new data sources and taxa. The number of plant taxa covered has increased along with the total number of bioentities (genes, proteins, QTLs, gene models, etc.).reference and species-specific ontologies and the annotation database. We have also created new tools for the community to access and interact with the Planteome ontologies and database. At the time of the previous publication, the Planteome platform was in the second full release, and we have recently released the Planteome Version 5.0 in July 2023. A summary is available in Table 1 , and full details of the changes reported in each release are accessible from the release notes at https:// planteome.org/ documents .All the reference ontologies are managed through the Planteome GitHub organization ( https://github.com/ Planteome ), where changes to the ontologies and metadata are under version control. Each ontology is stored in a separate repository and is associated with an issue tracker for comments, new term requests and suggested revisions. Each of the ontologies undergoes a release through its respective GitHub repository, and since 2016, the release versions of the Planteome reference ontologies are assigned a DOI through Zenodo ( https://zenodo.org ) (Table 1 ). The release process updates the files at the stable URLs, which are available through various ontology look-up sites and libraries, for example, for the Trait Ontology (TO) at the OBO Foundry ( http:// obofoundry.org/ ontology/ to.html ) and the EBI-OLS ( https:// www.ebi.ac.uk/ ols4/ ontologies/ to ). The DOI for the most recent ontology version is displayed as a badge on the README file in the respective GitHub repository. The Planteome database releases incorporate the latest versions of the reference and species-specific ontologies, along with the updated annotation database. These are loaded together on the Planteome ontology browser on the Planteome website: https:// planteome.org/ . During the Planteome version 5.0 preparation, there was a net decrease of 342 ontology terms (Table 1 ). This change primarily results from removing the GO terms that were either marked obsolete (not to be used) or merged into another term ( https:// geneontology.org/ stats.html ).The PO describes plant anatomical structures and their developmental stages. Significant revisions include 22 new terms to describe different types of inflorescences, three new terms, and two revised ones to describe different types of pedicels, as well as new terms were added to describe parts of the metaxylem vessel, the endodermis cell, and the cortexendodermis initial cell.Extensive revisions included updates to the inflorescence, branch, and inflorescence axis terms, stolon, spikelet and its child terms, paraclade, plant ovule integument, and root initial cell terms. We have added 'plant' to the name of all 'epidermis' terms: plant epidermis, plant epidermal cell, and plant epidermal initial cell to avoid confusion with the animal epidermis, etc., during annotation, and updated the definitions of 45 child terms.Other changes to the PO include adding a taxon constraint at the root level, changing the obo namespace from 'plant anatomy' to 'anatomical entity,' and updating the database cross-references and links to the issue trackers on GitHub.The TO consists of nine branches describing the trait classes: biochemical, biological process, plant growth and development, plant morphology, plant quality, plant stress, plant vigor, sterility or fertility and yield. Definitions of many of the terms were revised or added if missing. Design patterns were created for almost half the terms in the ontology.Significant additions and updates to the plant morphology trait (TO:0000017) branch include 41 new terms for various morphological traits of different fruit types, including grain (caryopsis fruit), and capsule fruits, such as those found in poppies and cotton. In addition, 32 new trait ontology terms were added to describe fresh and dry weights of various other plant structures. We added eight new terms for inflorescence traits, with four specifically related to the characters of a panicle inflorescence. Fifteen new terms were created to describe leaflet traits and five for bulb morphology. Ten new traits of roots and root systems were created, including subterranean shoot axis tubers, such as in potatoes and yams.In the biochemical trait (TO:0000277) branch , 49 new terms for mineral contents in shoot and root systems were added, along with another 53 new terms for potassium, nitrogen, phosphorus, and carbon contents in other plant structures. Two new terms were added for fatty acids, linolenic acid, and palmitic acid contents.Three new traits were added in the plant quality trait (TO:0000597) branch for traits associated with processing, cooking, and brewing qualities, and two new terms to describe fruit shattering in the plant growth and development trait (TO:0000357) branch. Modifications to the plant stress trait (TO:0000164) branch include new biotic stress traits and changes to align with the Plant Experimental Conditions Ontology (PECO) and the Plant Stress Ontology (PSO), which is under development. A new yield trait (TO:0000371) parent term was added to describe the yield of legume fruits.The Plant Experimental Conditions Ontology (PECO) describes exposures or treatments to plant or plant part(s). The PECO was originally the Plant Environment Ontology (EO) but was renamed in October 2017 to avoid confusion with the Environment Ontology (ENVO) ( 9 ).Updates to the PECO include creating new terms to describe exposures to potassium fertilizer, potassium chloride salt, nematicide, three terms for organic soil amendments, aeroponic plant growth media and two plant pathogens. Other changes include the addition of design patterns to automate imports of terms from other reference ontologies, such as Chemical Entities of Biological Interest ( 10 ).The Planteome annotation database is stored in a custom version of an Apache SOLR index originally created by the Gene Ontology called GOLR ( 11 ). This database stores the ontology terms, relationships and annotations to biological entities (bioentities) such as proteins, genes, gene models, transcripts, quantitative trait loci (QTLs), etc. The bioentity types, or data objects, are produced and named by the source databases or resources using their terminology. Planteome provides database cross-reference links back to the source database. We have preserved the nomenclature to enable establishing cross-references and interoperability. The annotations, or links between the ontology terms and the bioentities, are contributed by collaborators and also generated in-house. Since Version 2.0 of the project in 2017, the number of annotations has increased by 34% from 21,206,117 to 28,399,673, and bioentities by 72% from 2,000,665 to 3,449,543.Between the release of Planteome version 3 in September 2018 and version 4.0 in October 2020, we updated the annotation data files in the Planteome. We removed a large number of transcript isoforms based on the gene / transcript ID information provided by the source databases. Our goal in Planteome is to provide annotations from sequenced genomes at the bioentity 'gene' level. Ideally, a single canonical (longest and structurally complete) transcript form represents a gene bioentity . Additionally , new versions of gene sequences with better evidence support and homology-deriving software ideally result in better and more stringent scores, thus reducing the counts. We revised some annotations due to GO vocabulary revisions, updates to the original Arabidopsis thaliana annotations, and their projections to the homologs with taxon / species-specific restrictions.The bulk of the increase in bioentities was in the update from Version 3.0 to 4.0 (October 2020), where annotations from 19 new source databases were added (Table 1 ). In addition, 25 new taxa were added to the pipelines where annotations were generated using both InterProScan (IPRScan) ( 12 ) and by orthology to A. thaliana for GO annotations, maintained by TAIR ( https:// www.arabidopsis.org/ ; ( 13 ). The source GO annotations from TAIR are first updated at the Gene Ontology Consortium site, followed by updates on the Planteome. In the latest release, there were 99 species for whom the InterProScan-based GO annotations were supplemented with predicted assignments via gene homology to A. thaliana genes with experimentally validated GO annotations.We updated the IPRScan-based GO annotations for new species data and to integrate updates or changes to the Inter-ProScan program. A total of 101 species were annotated in this way. Annotations were also checked and changed if they were annotated to obsolete ontology terms, had incorrect ontology aspects, changed external references, etc. A script was developed (available on GitHub) to validate annotations and check quality for issues.Planteome Version 4.0 included the addition of annotations to the flowering dogwood ( Cornus florida ) genome. In the latest release, Version 5.0, we added 7,675 newly curated Sorghum QTLs ( https:// aussorgm.org.au/ sorghum-qtl-atlas/; ( 14 ) annotated to TO terms, and 4,431 QTLs from SoyBase ( https:// www.soybase.org/ ; ( 15 ) annotated to terms from TO and PO.An important aspect of the Planteome is to serve as an integrative layer between in-house and other reference ontologies and the application vocabularies (Figure 1 ). The Crop Ontology (CO) project ( https:// cropontology.org/ ) manages a set of crop-specific ontologies used by plant breeders in their field books, ensuring that phenotype-trait data is captured using standardized ontologies, and maintains harmonization, reusability, and interoperability ( 16 ,17 ). The CO project is widely adopted and has become an essential component of plant breeding databases such as the Breeding Management System of the Integrated Breeding Platform ( https: // www.integratedbreeding.net/ ) and the Breedbase ( https:// breedbase.org/) ( 18 ). The CO vocabularies are developed as trait dictionaries (TDs) by plant breeders and curators from CGIAR centers and collaborators worldwide. The TD standards follow their Guidelines v. 2.1 ( 19 ) and provide a common vocabulary and structure for describing phenotypetrait variables and scores that breeders are recording in the field. The crop / species-specific TD template v. 5.2, as specified by the CGIAR organization, is currently used. Each species-specific CO vocabulary is assigned a unique identifier prefix (CO_DDD), where the DDD is defined by the Crop Code ( https:// cropontology.org/ page/ CropCodes ) (Table 2 ). The TDs consist of trait classes, traits, variables, methods, and scales specific to the individual crops and are saved as comma-separated values (CSV) files. The variables (observations) are used to annotate data precisely as they link to a trait (what is measured), a method (how is it measured) and a scale (how the data is reported or scored, using a qualitative or quantitative scale or a unit of measurement) (Figure 1 A).The CSV format TDs are converted to an OBO format ( 20 ) ontology file, where the mapping to the TO is carried out (Figure 1 B). Since the TO already has an ontology graph of classes and subclasses, the categorical trait classes described in the TD are ignored. As different crop-specific terms may reuse the same trait name, the specific crop's common name is added as a prefix to the existing CO term name to disambiguate them on the Planteome browser (Figure 1 C).Mapping the CO crop-specific ontologies to the Trait Ontology allows inter-specific comparison and unifies the search of data that are collected in different contexts. At the time of the previous Planteome publication in 2018, eight cropspecific ontologies were mapped to the TO and integrated into the Planteome ontology browser: cassava ( Manihot esculenta ), lentil ( Lens culinaris ), maize ( Zea mays ), pigeon pea ( Cajanus cajan ), rice ( Oryza sativa ), soybean ( Glycine max ), sweet potato ( Ipomoea batatas ) and wheat ( Triticum aestivum ). Since that time, we have added sorghum ( Sorghum bicolor ), yam ( Dioscorea sp.), and potato ( Solanum tuberosum ), bringing the total number to 11 (Table 2 ). The CO-TO mappings are maintained on GitHub along with the CO cropspecific ontologies.Maintaining ontologies, metadata, and the inter-ontology mappings can be challenging since ontologies continue to evolve. It requires funding for ontology maintenance and development tasks, which are resource-intensive in terms of time, expertise, and computational resources. To centralize re-sources and provide a common cyberinfrastructure platform for ontology development for plant biology, we collaborated with partners and introduced the Planteome GitHub platform. Each CO ontology development group has read and write access to its own Planteome GitHub repository, which provides long-term storage and tools for tracking edited versions, ticketed requests, and public and development release versions of the ontology files and scripts. A Zenodo-enabled DOI is assigned to the public release version of each vocabulary integrated into the TO for easy citation and to meet FAIR data standards. Both the CO and reference ontology developers use the Planteome GitHub infrastructure.Integrating the CO vocabularies into the TO is an involved process. Over the past several years, we have gradually moved from manual mappings where a trained curator maps the CO traits to a term from the TO to a more automated system using ontology design patterns (DP; Table 2 ) ( 21 ). Even though the current automated mapping techniques streamline the maintenance process, human intervention, and continuous monitoring are still essential to ensure the quality and accuracy of ontology mappings over time. Our approach for guaranteeing the long-term sustainability of the mappings between the crop-specific CO traits and the reference TO also encourages community engagement. It allows quick turnaround in building ontology updates and helps correct deficiencies and inconsistencies in reference ontologies and the CO vocabularies.A first test release of a pilot program of automated mapping and community engagement is underway, where we reuse the Simple Standard for Sharing Ontology Mappings (SS-SOM) ( 22 ) format to generate and store the mappings. The SSSOM enables machine-readable mappings and the opportunity for community input and edits. While design patterns Eleven crop ontologies were mapped to the TO, using either the Design Pattern (DP) approach or the Simple Standard for Sharing Ontology Mappings (SSSOM) approach.  were used earlier for mapping, we are now testing mapping generation using an in-house SSSOM-based lexical matching algorithm. We use SKOS ( 23 ) properties to categorize the mappings, namely exact (skos:exactMatch) or subclass (skos:broadMatch or skos:narrowMatch). During this process, we also attach metadata to the mappings, including the type of match (e.g. HumanCurated, lexical) and provenance information, such as the version of the ontologies used to generate the mappings. These mappings are publicly available in a tabular format in the respective GitHub repositories, making it easy for anyone to contribute to their creation and curation. This approach was tested for rice, sorghum, and potato CO vocabularies.We implemented an online Planteome-CO term request form ( https:// trait-requests.planteome.org/ ) to engage community participation and simplify user requests for new ontology terms, suggestions for potential edits, or to add synonyms to existing terms (Figure 2 ). Requests can be submitted using a GitHub ID, or by simply supplying an email address in case requesters are not familiar with GitHub.The term request form is a collaborative effort between Planteome, the CO, GrainGenes ( https://wheat.pw.usda.gov/ GG3/), the Triticeae Toolbox ( https://triticeaetoolbox.org/), and the CGIAR program on roots, tubers and bananas ( https: // www.rtb.cgiar.org/ ). In the backend, the requests made through this tool are linked to the ticketing issue tracker for the respective Planteome GitHub repository. Upon submission, the tool automatically generates a GitHub issue ticket, alerts the curator, and allows the requester to track the progress and resolution. Currently, the Term Request tool links to 29 CO vocabularies on GitHub and includes the 11 integrated into the Planteome knowledgebase and described above. If users wish to suggest a new trait or request an edit to an existing term, they can select the appropriate button and fill in the corresponding boxes. If one of the linked CO vocabularies is selected, a drop-down list of 10 of the most closely related existing terms is displayed, along with the definition, if one exists (Figure 2 ).To request a new term, the user should fill in the 'Trait Name' box, select an appropriate 'Trait Class' from the dropdown menu, and provide a detailed definition and any relevant synonyms. If requesting an update to an existing term (linked CO only), the user can enter a term name or identifier (e.g. CO_320:0000146) and select from the list of terms shown. The user should fill in the details of the requested change and its rationale.Another new feature for our users is the interactive plant ontology glossary ( https:// planteome.org/ po _ glossary ) (Figure 3 ). All the terms in the current release version of the PO are browsable and searchable (including obsolete terms). The full term name is displayed along with the identifier and definition. The user can browse the ontology by alphabetical letter and filter the results using the 'Search' box. The results can also be sorted by term name or identifier using the arrow buttons above the list. Users can access the PO Glossary from the menu link on the left-hand side of the Planteome home page.A knowledge graph (KG) is a graph-based data model ( 24 ) synthesized by building connections among diverse data types (nodes) and interdependencies (edges) for intra-and interspecies comparisons of genes, pathways, phenotypes and experimental data. Additional data nodes and edges in the graph may include natural and synthetic genetic variation and its functional consequences on gene function, expression, and phenotype to support researchers in novel hypothesis generation for translational research and advancing knowledge. For a database such as Planteome, managing the continuous del- uge of multidimensional data depends on cleaning, formatting, analyzing, mapping to entities (and different versions) in multiple online databases, routine updates, and remotely accessing data APIs. The process is error-prone and inefficient, restricts data usage by researchers, and almost always requires them to perform additional analyses to synthesize the knowledge. Researchers find it difficult to access data from multiple sources often provided in different formats. There are many data repositories and databases; however, we need knowledge graphs built on the prior knowledge collected from multiple sources and a sustainable mechanism to provide new versions with new and enriched data layers. When implementing additional deep learning tools on these KGs, one may be able to create subgraphs with pieces of information that are not previously curated or generate new hypotheses to test.To empower researchers, Planteome developed a pilot knowledge graph ( 25 ), based on the Biolink model ( 24 ), which incorporates ontology terms and annotation data to allow users to make complex queries and help discover novel genotype-phenotype or molecular interactions. Using the KG, researchers can start with their queries using the graph to navigate the current data and utilize the power of deep learning to synthesize knowledge, find dependencies, build hypotheses, and find deficiencies. The Planteome KG integrates ontologies and annotation data from Planteome with experimental data from the EMBL-EBI Gene Expression Atlas. Therefore, the Planteome KG connects gene expression, molecular interactions, functions, and pathways to homology-based gene annotations and includes environmental conditions or treatments (E) that allow genotype (G) to be linked to phenotype (P) as G2P or GxE = P. Planteome considers gene expression a form of molecular-level phenotype often regulated by the environment and the plant's spatial and temporal landmarks.The future directions of the Planteome include developing the Plant Stress Ontology, which will link together phenotype traits, biotic and abiotic causal agents of plant stress, the associated plant structures, and growth stages that the stress may (or is known to) affect, and the experimental conditions. New CO vocabularies for banana, groundnut, oat, and cowpea will be mapped to the reference TO and integrated into the Planteome knowledgebase. The SSSOM pilot project will be further fine-tuned and expanded to include all the Crop Ontology into Planteome. To maintain the accuracy and completeness of the mappings over time following the different ontology updates, we plan on utilizing GitHub actions to sync the mappings with the ontologies autonomously. Any update in the ontologies will automatically trigger GitHub actions to perform the re-mappings, update the SSSOM file storing the mappings, and notify the community and curators that new mappings need curation or review. We plan to scale up the knowledge graph development to include the nascent plant stress ontology and to implement futuristic applications of Large Language Models and OntoGPT frameworks ( 26 ,27 ) to enable this process, besides helping improve annotation deficiencies and human curation overload.","tokenCount":"3728"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"14eead7ace424a6fd5192f7f14aba339","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/7bbc0072-ddc3-4c14-be03-d1d757f6dc39/content","id":"1432230395"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2830e497-bcf4-474e-9296-c173cf2a6eb6","pagecount":"13","content":"Agriculture and the economies of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are highly sensitive to climatic variability. Drought, in particular, represents one of the most important natural factors contributing to malnutrition and famine in many parts of the region. The overall impact of drought on a given country/region and its ability to recover from the resulting social, economic and environmental impacts depends on several factors. The economic, social and environmental impacts of drought are huge in SSA and the national costs and losses incurred threaten to undermine the wider economic and development gains made in the last few decades in the region. There is an urgent need to reduce the vulnerability of countries to climate variability and to the threats posed by climate change. This paper attempts to highlight the challenges of drought in SSA and reviews the current drought risk management strategies, especially the promising technological and policy options for managing drought risks to protect livelihoods and reduce vulnerability. The review suggests the possibilities of several ex ante and ex post drought management strategies in SSA although their effectiveness depends on agro-climatic and socio-economic conditions. Existing technological, policy and institutional risk management measures need to be strengthened and integrated to manage drought ex ante and to minimize the ex post negative effects for vulnerable households and regions. A proactive approach that combines promising technological, institutional and policy solutions to manage the risks within vulnerable communities implemented by institutions operating at different levels (community, sub-national, and national) is considered to be the way forward for managing drought and climate variability.Agriculture is the dominant form of land use globally involving major economic, social, and cultural activities and providing a wide range of ecosystem services. Because of its nature, however, agriculture remains highly sensitive to climate variations. The vast majority of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are dependent on rainfed agriculture for their livelihoods, and they are often afflicted by the vagaries of weather and climate (Gautam, 2006). Among the climatic factors, rainfall variability has a large impact on the livelihoods of the poor as well as the economies of most of the African countries (Gautam, 2006;Hellmuth et al., 2007). For millions of poor people in SSA, variability and unpredictability of climate is a major challenge and poses a risk that can critically restrict options and limit their development (Hellmuth et al., 2009).Droughts and floods alone account for 80% of the loss of life and 70% of the economic losses in SSA (Bhavnani et al., 2008). Frequent drought conditions have reduced the GDP growth of many African countries (Jury, 2000;World Bank, 2005a;Brown et al., 2011) and threatened their development gains (Hellmuth et al., 2007). Drought has both direct and indirect impacts. Drought directly affects production, lives, health, livelihoods, assets and infrastructure that contribute to food insecurity and poverty. However, the indirect effects of drought on environmental degradation and reduced household welfare through its impact on crop and livestock prices could be larger than its direct effects (Zimmerman and Carter, 2003;Holden and Shiferaw, 2004). In the past five decades, Contents lists available at ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wace drought has become a major problem of Africa and it has caused depletion of assets, environmental degradation, impoverishment, unemployment and forced migrations (Hellmuth et al., 2007;Bhavnani et al., 2008;Scheffran et al., 2012).Although drought accounts for only 8% of natural disasters globally, it poses the greatest natural hazard in Africa accounting for 25% of all natural disasters on the continent occurring between 1960 and 2006 (Gautam, 2006). Over the four decades since the 1960s, Africa stands first in drought frequency with a total of 382 reported drought events that affected 326 million people (Gautam, 2006). Regions of highly variable rainfall in Africa include the Sahel, the Greater Horn and Southern Africa. These regions experience frequent and sometimes prolonged droughts that lead to famine associated with drought in combination with inadequate socioeconomic entitlements, exacerbating vulnerabilities of households and national economies (Hansen et al., 2004). Over the last five decades, the frequency of droughts has increased steadily in East Africa but declined in West Africa (Gautam, 2006).Eastern and southern Africa regions are characterized mainly by semi-arid and sub-humid climates with a pronounced dry season in part of the year. Therefore, in contrast to West Africa, the variability of rainfall in these regions is concentrated on relatively short time scales in a year and it has a direct connection with global processes such as El Niño/La Niña-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) (Nicholson, 2001). 1 ENSO events have a strong influence on the inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ), regional monsoon wind circulation, and patterns of rainfall anomalies over many parts of SSA (Dilley and Heyman, 1995;Jury, 2000;Singh, 2006). The impacts, however, vary significantly from season to season and across countries depending on geographic conditions. For example, El Niño episodes are often associated with the above normal rainfall conditions over the equatorial parts of eastern Africa during October to December and below-normal rainfall over much of the Horn of Africa during the June to September rainfall season. On the other hand, La Niña events often give rise to belownormal rainfall over much of the Greater Horn of Africa during October to December and March to May and above-normal rainfall during the June to September rainfall season (Janowiak, 1988;Singh, 2006).Drought has a covariate or widespread nature which can cross national borders making informal risk management arrangements ineffective (Gautam, 2006;Vicente-Serrano et al., 2010). This has led to an increase in the number of people affected, rising economic costs and increasing humanitarian assistance for the rising numbers of affected populations (Gautam, 2006). The effects of natural climatic variability and drought conditions are further accentuated by the looming threat of climate change that is projected to increase extreme events and drought frequencies in many parts of Africa. Alternative agricultural investment options and policy and institutional innovations with varying profitability and success exist for managing climatic risks (Rosenzweig and Binswanger, 1993;Shiferaw and Okello, 2011). The main purpose of this paper is to highlight the state of vulnerability to drought and its impacts in SSA and present the promising technological, institutional and policy options for drought risk management to reduce vulnerabilities and livelihood impacts in the region.Understanding people's vulnerability to drought is complex because this depends on both biophysical and socioeconomic drivers of drought impact that determine the capacity to cope with drought (Naumann et al., 2013). Vulnerability is defined in many ways and it has different meanings when used in different disciplines and contexts (e.g., Chambers, 1989;Smit et al., 1999;Brooks et al., 2005;Adger, 2006;Füssel, 2007). In this paper, drought vulnerability is used to highlight the socioeconomic and biophysical characteristics of the region that makes it susceptible to the adverse effects of drought.The vulnerability of a society to climate disasters such as drought depends on several factors such as population, technology, policy, social behavior, land use patterns, water use, economic development, and diversity of economic base and cultural composition (Wilhite and Svoboda, 2000;Naumann et al., 2013). As Amartya Sen argued, prevalence of drought and decline in food availability should not necessarily lead to famines and loss of livelihoods. Whether food availability decline would lead to disaster will depend on capability failure which in turn depends on market access and people's social, economic and political entitlements (Sen, 1999). In SSA, rainfed agriculture provides about 90% of the region's food and feed (Rosegrant et al., 2002) and it is the principal source of livelihood for more than 70% of the population (Hellmuth et al., 2007). Because of heavy dependence on rainfed agriculture, about 60% of Sub-Saharan Africa is vulnerable to frequent and severe droughts (Esikuri, 2005).Although expanding irrigation is an important strategy to reduce the vulnerability of agriculture to climate risks, water resources are inextricably linked with climate and the prospect of global climate change has serious implications for water resources and regional development (Riebsame et al., 1995). Although Africa has a huge water resource, there is large variation in its spatial and temporal distribution. Moreover, many African countries are expected to face water stress, scarcity and vulnerability by 2025 (Fig. 1) indicating that water resources are highly dependent on, and influenced by, climate.Furthermore, unsustainable use of land and other resources increase the vulnerability of people in SSA. Millions of smallholder farmers and pastoralists earn a living in degraded areas which make them highly vulnerable to droughts and other climate hazards. Land degradation often stems from the nexus between poverty and lack of capacity to invest in more sustainable agricultural practices and change extractive land-use systems (Holden et al., 1998;Shiferaw and Okello, 2011). Poverty makes people vulnerable and limits their choices. Therefore, apart from climate, human activity is one of the major factors responsible for environmental degradation in SSA that slowly depletes productive natural assets and increases vulnerability to drought and climatic variability.Another widely accepted reason for the aggravation of drought vulnerability and impacts in Africa is the continuous increase in population growth which has huge implications when complemented with poverty and inadequate policies (Tadesse, 1998). High population growth increases pressure on limited and fragile land resources and leads to unsustainable resource exploitation, resulting in environmental damage. If crops fail, subsistence farmers have few or no alternative means to provide food for their families. When they run out of alternatives, the poor are forced to exploit land resources, including fragile ones for survival, and inevitably they become both the victims and willing agents of environmental degradation and desertification. In general, high level of chronic poverty contributes to low adaptive capacity to 1 El Niño and La Niña refer to the warming and cooling of sea-surface temperatures (SST) in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, respectively which influence atmospheric circulation and consequently rainfall and temperature in specific areas around the world. Since the changes in the Pacific Ocean (represented by \"El Niño/ La Niña\") and the changes in the atmosphere (represented by \"Southern Oscillation\") cannot be separated, the term ENSO is often used to describe the oceanatmosphere changes (Singh, 2006).drought and threatens the lives and livelihoods of the poor more than other social groups (Hellmuth et al., 2007).An increase in vulnerability to drought hazard may result from an increased frequency and severity of drought, increased societal vulnerability, or a combination of the two. Using a drought vulnerability indicator (DVI) computed at country level, Naumann et al. (2013) classified Somalia, Burundi, Niger, Ethiopia, Mali and Chad as countries with higher relative vulnerability to drought. The ability to cope with drought also varies from country to country and from one region, community or population group to another.Another factor that is increasing drought vulnerability and impact in Africa is climate change. Climate change threatens both frequent and severe extreme events in Africa (Bang and Sitango, 2003;IPCC, 2007) and in many parts of the world. For example, analysis of long-term records of drought events compiled by NMSA (1987) over several centuries in Ethiopia indicates shortening of the return periods of droughts at exponential rate (Fig. 2). The increased frequency of drought observed in eastern Africa over the last 20 years is likely to continue as long as global temperatures continue to rise (Williams and Funk, 2011). This poses increased risk to more than 18 million people in the Greater Horn of Africa alone who frequently face potential food shortages. Moreover, climate change will greatly exacerbate weather riskpoverty relations as poverty limits the capacity of people to manage weather risks while the same risks contribute to locking people under poverty (Hellmuth et al., 2009).In recent years, individual countries are paying increasing attention to drought-related issues due to ever increasing exploitation of water resources and associated water scarcity coupled with the growing concern that future climate change will exacerbate the frequency, severity, and duration of drought events and associated impacts (Wilhite and Pulwarty, 2005). This has brought drought risk management to the forefront in policy discussions although the mix of options available and their effectiveness remains poorly understood. The impacts of drought can be both ex post and ex ante. Ex post impacts refer to the losses that follow a climate shock while ex ante impacts refer to the opportunity costs associated with conservative strategies that risk-averse decision makers employ in advance to protect themselves against the possibility of climate shocks (Hansen et al. 2004). The major conservative ex-ante responses of farmers to climate risks documented by Hansen et al. (2004) include use of less risky but less profitable crops or cultivars, avoidance of potentially risky improved production technologies, under-use of fertilizers, and shifting household labor away from farming to non-productive but more liquid assets as precautionary savings. Because of high relative risk aversion, poorer households are often impacted more by ex-ante responses to climate variability than wealthier ones even in good years (Zimmerman and Carter, 2003).The economic and environmental impacts of drought may be direct or indirect, and can be expressed in different forms (Hansen et al. 2004;Hellmuth et al., 2007;Bhavnani et al., 2008). These may include productivity loss in crops, rangelands and forests; increased fire hazards; reduced water levels; increased livestock and wildlife mortality rates; and damage to wildlife and fish habitats (loss of biodiversity). These effects may finally manifest themselves in the form of reduced income for farmers and agribusiness; increased food prices; unemployment; reduced tax revenues; increased conflict, outmigration and displacement; malnutrition and famine; disease epidemics and greater insect infestations; and spread of plant diseases and increased wind erosion.Between 1971 and 2001 alone, drought affected more people than any other natural disaster in Africa (UNEP/GRID-Arendal, 2005). Many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa face risk of 10-40% probability of failed seasons during the major cropping calendar (Fig. 3). The African continent suffered from the worst famines in the mid-1980s which affected 20 countries critically resulting in the migration of 10 million people in search of food and water and endangered the lives of 35 million people (Tadesse, 1998). In east Africa and the Sahel, the 1984 long-term drought resulted in widespread starvation and famine (Tadesse, 1998). Among sub-regions, East Africa accounted for over 70% of the total affected people from 1964 to 2006; and within East Africa, Ethiopia suffered the most (39% of all affected). Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, and Kenya all accounted for 9-12% of the total affected people (Gautam, 2006). In recent years, more than 10 million people across the Horn of Africa went hungry due to death of livestock as a result of extended drought in 2011 (AMCEN, 2011).Severe livelihood and food security stresses due to climate shocks may force households to liquidate productive assets such as livestock or land in exchange for food, default on loans, withdraw children from school, and/or engage in exploitive environmental management practices to survive (Hansen et al. 2004). One of the characteristics of drought impact is that households that suffered a previous shock emerge more vulnerable to the next shock until lost assets can be restored. A study in Ethiopia showed that a substantial portion of the immediate impact of the drought of the early 1980s on farmer income and consumption persisted for more than a decade (Dercon, 2004). At the macro-level, climate variability affects food security through its broader influence on investment, adoption of agricultural technology, aggregate food production, market prices and economic development which in turn determine the ability of individuals, communities and nations to produce and purchase food (Zimmerman and Carter, 2003;Hansen et al. 2004).Risk management in general refers to strategies to avoid adverse outcomes while pursuing positive goals (Hansen et al., 2004). Drought risk management (DRM) is part of the general climate risk manage (CRM) approach which refers to climate-sensitive decision making (Hellmuth et al., 2007). Using as much information as they can get, farmers make decisions that aim to minimize climate risks and exploit climate opportunities. Climate risk management is being practiced at various levels and with varying effectiveness across SSA (Hellmuth et al., 2007). The major drought risk management practices and efforts are presented below.Drought coping strategies can be classified into ex ante and ex post, according to whether they help reduce risk a priori or for minimizing undesirable outcomes after the shock has occurred (Owens et al., 2003;Skoufias, 2003). Farmers living in drought affected areas modify their production practices to provide 'selfinsurance' so that the likely impact of adverse consequences is reduced to an acceptable level (Hansen et al., 2004;World Bank, 2005b;Pandey and Bhandari, 2009). Although they can be costly in terms of forgone opportunities for income gains because of the choice of safer but low-return activities by farmers, ex-ante strategies help reduce income fluctuations and they are considered as consumption-smoothing strategies (Pandey and Bhandari, 2009). ex ante strategies can be achieved in two ways: by reducing risk through diversification and by applying flexible decision-making. Diversification involves reduction of income shortfalls by engaging in livelihood strategies that have negatively or weakly correlated returns which may involve diversification of crops and livestock, spatial diversification of farms, and diversification from farm to nonfarm activities. Maintaining flexibility in decision making is also an adaptive strategy that allows farmers to switch between activities as the situation demands. Examples include plant population adjustments, splitting fertilizer doses and temporally adjusting other input uses based on climatic conditions (Pandey and Bhandari, 2009).The most common ex-ante coping strategies of farmers in Africa include careful choice of crop varieties (e.g. drought tolerant and short maturing varieties), temporal adjustments of cropping patterns and adjusting planting dates and crop establishment methods; changing weeding and fertilization practices; and use of soil and water conservation practices. In drought-prone areas farmers use these strategies in different combinations and some of these strategies have become an integral part of the farming system and may not be easily identified as coping mechanisms (Pandey and Bhandari, 2009).Ex post strategies are designed to prevent shortfall in consumption when income drops below the required level as a result of climatic shocks. Depending on the severity of the shock, farm households employ a wide range of ex post drought coping strategies which range from reduction in selling of food, reduced consumption, and increased borrowing to higher rates of seasonal out-migration, default on loans, withdrawal of children from school, distress sale and liquidation of productive assets such as livestock, land, trees and other assets. Households often initially respond in terms of forced reduction of expenditures on certain 'non-essential' items such as clothing, social functions, food and medical treatment, adjustments in food balance and move progressively to reliance on public relief and safety-net programs and exploitive environmental management practices (Skoufias, 2003;Hansen et al., 2004;Pandey and Bhandari, 2009). Despite these adjustments, farmers may not be able to maintain their normalyear level of consumption under severe drought years (e.g. Sahelian droughts in the 1980s) in Africa. As a result, households may be forced to reduce the number of meals per day and the quantity consumed per meal with women and children bearing the burden of drought disproportionately (e.g. Tesfaye and Assefa, 2010;AMCEN, 2011). Exposure to frequent distress from climatic shocks progressively leads to depletion of assets and weakens the ex post adaptation options, making households unable to adapt to and manage even smaller perturbations in production conditions.In many parts of Africa, drought needs to be viewed as a longterm development challenge that requires a multi-sectorial and multi-dimensional response (Esikuri, 2005;Gautam, 2006). Thus, strategies for managing drought and enhancing resilience of farmers and agribusiness to weather shocks require integrating technological, institutional and policy options (Fig. 4). The integrated strategies will have direct positive effects on reducing sources of risk (production and market) and vulnerability and thereby increasing livelihood resilience. The integrated technological, institutional and policy interventions offer the best option for strengthening livelihoods through improved agricultural productivity and building the capability of households to diversify incomes to manage drought-induced shocks in consumption. Access to risk-reducing and productivity-enhancing technologies, diversification of livelihoods, better access to markets and market information, and improved infrastructure are crucial strategies for reducing vulnerability and effectively managing climate variability and extremes (Hellmuth et al., 2007). Improving farmer decisions using climate information, improving farmer access to credit using index insurance, use of early warning systems and monitoring information to forewarn and encourage optimal ex ante strategies and organize safety-net and social protection programs will create resilient communities in the face of drought. Some of the key technological, institutional and policy options and strategies for drought mitigation and adaptation are presented below.Use of drought tolerant crop varieties has been one of the major strategies for managing water limitation in agriculture (e.g., Xoconostle-Cazares et al., 2010), and long years of plant breeding activities have led to yield increase in drought affected environments for many crop plants (Cattivelli et al., 2008). Drought tolerance in crops such as maize, pearl millet, cowpea, groundnut and sorghum played important role in fighting the worst droughts in the last half of the 19th century in the Sahel (e.g., Hall, 2007).By exploiting drought-tolerance genes, several national and international research institutions have scored important gains in improving the drought tolerance of major grain crops in Africa. Some examples are presented below.3.3.1.1. Millet and sorghum. Millet and sorghum are key cereal grain crops in the drylands providing food, feed, fuel, and construction material. The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and national partner organizations have made important gains in improving the drought tolerance of millet and sorghum in many regions. For example, about 34% of the millet area and 23% the sorghum area in southern Africa have been planted with improved varieties (CGIAR, 2006).3.3.1.2. Multipurpose grain legumes. Legume crops are vital sources of low-cost protein for smallholder farmers and generate farm income, serve as quality livestock feed and restore soil fertility. Cowpea followed by groundnut is the most widely grown grain legume in the dry areas of Africa, and several countries have released improved cowpea varieties with support from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) (CGIAR, 2006). Drought tolerant varieties of common bean and chickpea are also grown in highly variable rainfall areas of Africa (e.g., Tesfaye and Walker, 2004). maize hybrids and open-pollinated varieties (OPVs) which have been deployed by partners in various countries. The Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa (DTMA) project, led by CIMMYT, and being implemented in collaboration with IITA and national agricultural research systems (NARS) in 13 African countries (Angola, Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe), uses conventional breeding to develop and disseminate varieties that can provide a decent harvest under reduced rainfall and insurance against the risks of maize farming (Table 1). DT maize occupied close to 1.5 million ha in Africa in 2010 (Table 1), maintaining at least 1 t ha À 1 more yield than the local varieties under drought stress conditions. Moreover, the performance of the DT maize varieties under normal or optimal conditions is comparable with the best checks being grown in African countries. The DT varieties have also at least 30-40% yield advantage over commercial materials under severe stress, and similar performance under optimal conditions (Fig. 5). On-farm trials as well as modeling drought tolerant maize varieties indicate that new DT varieties can perform better than standard checks (e.g. SC513) and provide a yield advantage of 5-25% in many maize growing areas of Africa (Fig. 6). The modeling study also suggests wide adaptability of the newly developed DT varieties over diverse environments.A study conducted on the potential impact of DT varieties for the period 2007-2016 indicated that DT maize could generate US$ 0.53 and US$ 0.88 billion from increased maize grain harvests and reduced risk over 10 years, assuming conservative and optimistic yield improvements, respectively (La Rovere et al., 2010). The same study further indicated a benefit for 4 million people to escape poverty and many millions more to improve their livelihoods if all the existing varieties were replaced with improved drought tolerant varieties.The released DT varieties have a combination of traits, including shorter anthesis-silking interval (ASI), reduced bareness (or increased number of ears per plant), reduced evapo-transpiration, functional stay green during grain filling, etc. that allow them to thrive under drought stress conditions (Bruce et al., 2002;Edmeades, 2008). Early maturity is also an important trait in areas where the season is short and terminal drought is common (Barnabás et al., 2008;Lopes et al., 2011) The potential benefits of DT varieties depend on level of adoption of the released varieties by farmers and availability, and timely supply of seeds at affordable prices. The amount of seed produced for DT maize varieties in Eastern, Western, Southern and Central Africa was 10,000 t in 2011, 30,000 t in 2012 (including 17,000 t of new DT maize varieties) and is targeted to reach 70,000 t by 2016 (Badu-Apraku et al., 2012). The adoption of DT varieties is believed to be the major determinant of benefits from the varieties and the return on investment (La Rovere et al., 2010). In general, adoption of improved seed has continued to rise gradually in sub-Saharan Africa, currently representing an estimated 44% of maize area in eastern and southern Africa (outside South Africa), and about 60% of maize area in West and Central Africa (Smale et al., 2011). Partnership with nearly 110 seed companies in SSA under DTMA has been critical for the success of seed scale-up and improved adoption of DT maize varieties.Climate projections suggest that elevated temperatures, especially in the drought-prone areas of sub-Saharan Africa and rainfed regions in South Asia, are highly likely to result in significant yield losses in tropical/subtropical maize (Cairns et al., 2013a). Recent studies indicated that current tropical/subtropical maize germplasm developed for drought tolerance in SSA may not perform well under drought stress and at elevated temperatures, and tolerance to either drought or heat stress may not lead to tolerance to a combination of these two stresses. Nevertheless, a few inbred lines combining tolerance to drought and heat stress, most notably La Posta Sequia C7-F64-2-6-2-2 and DTPYC9-F46-1-2-1-2, were identified and are presently being utilized in developing new germplasm with combined tolerance to the two stresses in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia (Cairns et al., 2013b).The finding that tolerance to combined drought and heat stress in maize was genetically different from tolerance to individual  stresses has major implications in breeding heat stress resilient maize cultivars. Several DT parents developed by CIMMYT and widely used in hybrid maize breeding in eastern and southern Africa were found to be highly susceptible to drought stress under elevated temperatures; a notable example is CML442 Â CML444 that is extensively used as the female parent in several commercial hybrids (Cairns et al., 2013b). Intensive efforts should thus be made to ensure that the most widely used drought tolerant inbred lines and hybrids also possess tolerance to heat stresses, especially for deployment in drought-prone areas where temperatures are predicted to increase. New plant breeding strategies that utilize high-density genotyping based on next-generation DNA sequencing technology, coupled with high throughput field-based precision phenotyping, genomic selection (GS) and doubled haploid (DH) technology, could significantly increase genetic gains, and accelerate the development of improved stress resilient varieties. The development and availability of tropicalized haploid inducers (Prasanna et al., 2012), coupled with the recent establishment of a centralized maize DH facility in Kiboko (Kenya) by CIMMYT for the benefit of both public and private sector institutions engaged in maize research and development in SSA, are important for improving maize breeding efficiency in Africa.Soil nutrient depletion has become one of the major constraints to food security in sub-Saharan Africa because of low crop productivity that causes declining per-capita food production (Stoorvogel and Smaling, 1990;Sanchez, 2002). One of the reasons for under-investment in soil fertility inputs in rainfed production systems in Africa is climate variability (e.g., Vlek et al., 1997;Snapp et al., 2003) mainly because nutrients are not used efficiently when water availability is inadequate which results in considerable variability in profitability of fertilizer use and optimal application rates from year to year and season to season (Piha, 1993;Dimes et al., 2003). One of the options for addressing this problem lies in seasonal climate forecasting which presents opportunity for increasing the efficiency of both water and nutrients through adaptive fertilizer management (Hansen et al., 2004).Retaining and using variable rainfall efficiently is a key strategy in order to improve food security in regions that are dependent on rainfed agriculture. If combined with both historic and predictive climate information, a range of field-, farm-and community-scale water harvesting and water conservation management strategies can stabilize yield and provide benefits under variable climate (Hillel, 2004;Hansen et al., 2004). Adaptive crop management that matches crop characteristics, production activities and input use to rainfall variations is one way to enhance efficiency of water use.Water storage capacity and irrigated area in Africa are the lowest of any region in the world. However, in recent years, there is an increasing focus on well-designed, less costly and participatory large-scale irrigation projects that play a role in reducing the rainfed dependency of agriculture in many countries in SSA (Gautam, 2006).Use of fertilizer and restorative crop management practices remains relatively low and inefficient in many developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa (Smale et al., 2011). Many farmers in this region lack the capital to purchase adequate amounts of fertilizers and agrochemical inputs. This implies that the chance of improving crop productivity and reducing risk on smallholder farmers' fields with their current production system and practice seems to be very limited. There is a need to more formally and deliberately support and promote the inclusion of agronomic and natural resources management practices as critical elements of a balanced agricultural intensification package.In recognition of this problem, alternative innovations that increase productivity using locally available inputs and practices are being explored. For example, CIMMYT and its partners are engaged in increasing yield and market access for African farmers through a project called Sustainable Intensification of Maize-Legume Cropping Systems for Food Security in Eastern and Southern Africa (SIMLESA). The project aims to increase food security and incomes through improved productivity from more resilient and sustainable maize-based farming systems. Sustainable intensification practices (SIPs) have tremendous potential for enhancing the productivity and resilience of agricultural production systems while conserving the natural resource base (Godfray et al., 2010;Pretty et al., 2011). The SIPs can include minimum tillage, crop diversification (intercropping and rotations, growing different cultivars/varieties at different farm plots that have different environmental response), use of manure, complementary use of organic fertilizers, and investment in soil and water conservation (Lee, 2005;Pretty et al., 2011).Empirical evidence in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Malawi has shown that adoption of individual or combination of SIPs significantly increase crop income and water use efficiency and reduce application of external inputs and downside risk exposure and cost of risk (Teklewold et al., 2013;Kassie and Teklewolde, 2013). In Ethiopia, the adoption of SIPs options increased net maize income by about 9-35% compared with non-adoption of these options (Fig. 7a). This increases further to 47-67% when SIPs options were combined with complementary inputs (e.g., improved maize varieties). Similar results were found in Malawi where certain combinations of SIPs options provided higher benefit than adopting them individually (Fig. 7b). These options also reduced the downside risk or risk of crop failures (Kassie and Teklewolde, 2013).Conservation agriculture (CA) has recently been presented as a mechanism for sustainable intensification of smallholder agriculture. It involves three principles based on minimum mechanical soil disturbance, permanent soil cover with organic mulch, and crop rotations that need to be adapted to local conditions (FAO, 2008). CA offers potential benefits to farmers by stabilizing yields, avoiding the need for tillage and allowing early planting with the first rains and reduced soil erosion (Giller et al., 2011). In general, increased growth and productivity of crops, more efficient use of water and soil nutrients and savings in the cost of fuel and labor are expected through reductions in tillage, enhanced surface retention of adequate crop residues and appropriate crop rotation practices (Hobbs and Govaerts, 2010;Thierfelder et al., 2013). Although CA systems are increasingly promoted in Africa as an alternative for enhancing resilience and increase food production on the basis of more sustainable farming practices, its adoption has generally been limited. Unlike other components of CA, the adoption of minimum/zero tillage and residue retention particularly remain very low in eastern and southern African countries (Table 2). The reasons for low adoption are complex but often related to inadequate awareness of the practice by smallholders, tradeoffs in use of crop residues for other uses including feeding livestock, lack of suitable and low-cost zero-till equipment and chemicals for weed control, and the long gestation period involved for CA systems to enhance productivity and generate benefits to smallholders (Corbeels et al., 2014). Thierfelder et al. (2013) report results from rare long term field experiments across locations in central and southern Malawi. The results summarized across four locations indicate that yield benefits of CA over conventional tillage systems were greater especially from the 5th season although, in some instances, greater yields on CA were recorded almost immediately (Thierfelder et al., 2013) (Fig. 8). These results provide some evidence for adapting CA systems to the local agro-ecological and socioeconomic conditions of the farmers and the need to carefully target communities for a stepwise and incremental adoption of the different components.In developed countries risk transfer approaches such as insurance have played a role in mitigating climate risk but they have generally not been available in developing countries where insurance markets are limited and are not oriented towards the poor (Hellmuth et al., 2009). Recent advances in climate science help in the development of a new type of insurance called weather index insurance (index insurance) that offers new opportunities for managing climate risk in areas where such services were difficult to deliver due to high transaction costs related to poor infrastructure and the classical adverse selection and moral hazard problems in providing financial services. Access to risk transfer services will help protect resource-poor farmers against climate variability while promoting the uptake of productivity-enhancing technologies. Index insurance is type of insurance that is linked to an index, such as rainfall, temperature, humidity or crop yields, rather than actual loss which is difficult to observe (Alderman and Haque, 2006;Hellmuth et al., 2009). The advantages of index insurance include lowers transaction costs, financial viability for private-sector insurers and affordability to small farmers, less adverse selection and moral hazard than traditional insurance, and applicability in rural areas where existing weather stations will allow observing changes in rainfall levels (World Bank, 2005b;Gautam, 2006;Alderman and Haque, 2006;Hellmuth et al., 2009). The index is often linked to changes in agricultural productivity using some regression estimates to trigger payout of indemnities when the weather parameter goes below a certain level. The ability to organize systems that take advantage of global insurance markets to transfer the correlated risks associated with lowprobability, high-consequence events makes index insurance potentially useful for managing drought risk (World Bank, 2005b).Index insurance has been piloted with small farmers in several countries, including Nicaragua, Mexico, India, and Ukraine outside of Africa, and in Malawi and Ethiopia in Africa (Gautam, 2006;Hellmuth et al., 2007) showing mixed but promising results for scale-up. However, application of index insurance in many places is hindered by high basis risk associated with the lack of good sitespecific rainfall data for precise actuarial modeling (to make   (Teklewold et al., 2013). (b) Impact of CA options on net crop income in Malawi (Kassie and Teklewolde, 2013). Therefore, significant improvements in calculating the index, presenting the product to clients and investment in weather data collection, processing and dissemination are required to facilitate scaling and wider use of index insurance in SSA.3.4.1.1. Input/output market development. Adoption of agricultural technologies, farm intensification and the production of marketable surpluses often depend on the profitability of market production. Market failures in input-output markets and climate-induced variations of aggregate production lead to large fluctuationstriggering cycles of high and low food prices with variable effects on net-buyers (poor consumers) and net-sellers (Hansen et al., 2004). Input market reforms and investment inroads, seed production and marketing for drought tolerant varieties and fertilizer production and distribution will increase availability and affordability of key inputs to increase agricultural production and reduce soil mining and land degradation. Secure rights to land and access to rural finance markets (credit, insurance, savings) can also play an important role in buffering against risk, providing incentives for conservation investments and sustainable intensification (Shiferaw et al., 2008). In general, efficient input/output markets will play major role against climate risk by stabilizing prices and smoothing consumption during drought years.3.4.1.2. Climate information and early warning system. Improved drought management and preparedness depends on access to climate information and early warning systems. The value of climate information lies in its ability to provide evidence of risk of a major climate shock in advance which help in anticipating the costs and the scale of measures that may be needed at the national and regional level (World Bank, 2003). Climate information systems can contribute to strengthening institutional capacity and coordination to support generation, communication and application of early warning systems.As a component of disaster risk reduction, early warning systems in Africa have provided the information necessary to allow for early action that can reduce or mitigate potential disaster risks. Climate information is also important to governments and private traders to better manage imports, exports and strategic grain storage in a manner that stabilizes prices in the market and at the farm gate (Hansen et al., 2004). in situations where credit risk is not functional, seasonal forecasts could also offer opportunities to improve availability and terms of credit to farmers by identifying the years when production conditions are good and risk of default to the lender is reduced. Combining forecast-based credit with insurance markets to spread the risk associated with rainfall variability and forecast uncertainty is a promising intervention (Fafchamps, 2003). Although short-and long-term climate forecasting has shown promising application in climate risk management in SSA, it still needs considerable institutional strengthening, technical capacity building, and investment in data and equipment (World Bank, 2003).3.4.1.3. Safety nets. Safety nets are meant to protect vulnerable populations from persistent impacts of shocks by providing livelihood support and contributing to immediate food security, often through community-driven public works schemes and transfers to vulnerable households (World Bank, 2005b;Gautam, 2006). While safety nets protect vulnerable populations during periods of adverse weather conditions, another form of safety nets called 'cargo nets' (Barrett, 2004) assist the poor to increase investment to take advantage of favorable conditions which could help them to invest the returns in productive assets for the future (Hansen et al., 2004). In many countries including Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and others, safety nets have provided crucial 'insurance' when the primary source of income of a large number of households suffers a severe shock during times of drought (Gautam, 2006). The productive safety net project in Ethiopia serves a productive function in addition to social protection in the event of drought shocks (Alderman and Haque, 2006). Safety nets could also be enhanced to serve large population using index insurance to automatically trigger payments to affected districts (World Bank, 2005b  needs and scale of decision-making. ex ante education and services provided by agricultural extension help familiarize farmers with the consequences of climate risks and assist them to adopt appropriate innovations to deal with it (World Bank, 2005b). Equitable access is usually a major concern when targeting the poor and food-insecure. Therefore, climate interventions targeting drought-prone and vulnerable areas need to be integrated into agricultural extension systems and rural communication. This will require communication of climate information through coordinated efforts of several key institutions, including meteorological services, agricultural extension services, environmental agencies, NGOs, producer organizations and the media (Hansen et al., 2004). Such coordination and collaborated delivery of coherent information to farmers and resources users is currently weak in many countries in SSA.Farmers in Africa have traditionally adapted to climate risk by diversifying across crops and risk management options (Dercon, 1996;Ellis, 2000). Farmers generally diversify their production systems by employing activities that are less sensitive to drought and/or temperature stresses and activities that take full advantage of beneficial climate conditions. For example, farmers time their planting and inputs based on their best estimates of the cropping season; and they reduce risk exposure by diversifying their livelihoods. Farmers diversify their cropping practices using a mix of crop species both in space and time (e.g., intercropping of different crops species, strip cropping, double cropping), growing different cultivars at different sowing dates and farm plots; combining less productive drought-resistant cultivars with high-yielding but water-sensitive crops. Nevertheless, managing droughts effectively in vulnerable areas requires diversifying livelihood strategies and income generating options within and outside agriculture especially into income generating options through non-farm enterprises and employment opportunities. This will require greater investments in infrastructure, road networks, electricity, communication and market development.Drought remains to be the most important threat to food production and food and nutritional security in SSA. Drought represents one of the most important natural factors contributing to malnutrition and famine that affects the most vulnerable communities, especially women, children the elderly. Its effects are inter-temporal and long-lasting. Risk of drought prevents farmers from adopting profitable technologies and practices that are perceived risky, hence creating a nexus that increases the cycle of vulnerability and depletes the capability to overcome hunger and poverty. This is mainly because small-scale farmers often prepare for the possibility of climatic shocks by engaging in conservative risk management strategies ex ante at the cost of low productivity and profitability gains. This inability to accept and manage risk and accumulate and retain wealth locks vulnerable populations in poverty.Traditionally, farm households have used a mix of strategies to shield themselves from drought-induced shocks. One common strategy that they employ to mitigate drought is to avoid or prevent it as much as they can. These traditional methods are often insufficient and fail to protect livelihoods in drought-prone regions and have at times made the situation worse by undermining investments in new technologies and practices. At the economy-wide level, covariate risk of drought often causes food shortages and inflationary trends that spark high food prices, creating dependence on food aid and/or costly food imports that aggravate food insecurity. New strategies and policy options are needed to break the nexus between poverty and vulnerability to climatic risk and to build the capability to manage droughtinduced shocks at the household and national levels.Based on an extensive review of the recent practice and experiences in Africa, we conclude that promising technological, policy and institutional options exist for effective drought management in SSA. Integrated strategies that combine agricultural technologies for drought management including drought-tolerant crops and varieties, improved crop management practices and water conservation methods, climate forecasting and early warning systems, weather information communication, weather-index insurance systems, output/ input market development and price information that will enhance drought risk management. Moreover, there is a need to shift from crisis management to ex-ante drought risk management by countering environmental degradation, restoring degraded ecosystems, and investments in irrigation infrastructure to better manage extended droughts. Price stabilization, strategic food reserves and social protection policies that enhance access to life-saving and productive safety-nets will prevent disinvestment and depletion of assets and enhance post-drought recovery, adaptation and resilience of livelihoods in affected areas.","tokenCount":"7170"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"dbcb0a9f9c4883fcbba98ec899dbcb6c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/cf411944-8805-470d-83d8-e357f3e083b3/content","id":"889918848"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"81d8ba88-5043-49c4-98c2-aa5ec7158230","pagecount":"13","content":"Water footprint (WF), a comprehensive indicator of water resources appropriation, has evolved as an efficient tool to improve the management and sustainability of water resources. This study quantifies the blue and green WF of major cereals crops in India using high resolution soil and climatic datasets. A comprehensive modelling framework, consisting of Evapotranspiration based Irrigation Requirement (ETIR) tool, was developed for WF assessment. For assessing climate change impact on WF, multimodel ensemble climate change scenarios were generated using the hybrid-delta ensemble method for RCP4.5 and RCP6.0 and future period of 2030s and 2050s. The total WF of the cereal crops are projected to change in the range of − 3.2 to 6.3% under different RCPs in future periods. Although, the national level green and blue WF is projected to change marginally, distinct trends were observed for Kharif (rainy season-June to September) and rabi (winter season-October to February) crops. The blue WF of paddy is likely to decrease by 9.6%, while for wheat it may increase by 4.4% under RCP4.5 during 2050s. The green WF of rabi crops viz. wheat and maize is likely to increase in the range of 20.0 to 24.1% and 9.9 to 16.2%, respectively. This study provides insights into the influences of climate change on future water footprints of crop production and puts forth regional strategies for future water resource management. In view of future variability in the WFs, a water footprint-based optimization for relocation of crop cultivation areas with the aim of minimising the blue water use would be possible management alternative.Achieving zero hunger remained one of the primary development goal, and over the years India has achieved phenomenal growth in food production 1 to feed its increasing population. The food grain production in India has increased from 82 million tonnes in 1960s to record 285 million tonnes during 2018-2019, the population during this time increased by three folds 2 . Food production is dependent upon the blue and green water resources 3 , and its spatio-temporal distribution is affected by climate change and variability 4-6 . The assured supply of green water is important for food security of India as 51.7% (72.2 million ha) of the net sown areas (139.5 million ha) is still rainfed 2 , and even on irrigated crop lands, green water has significant contribution in agricultural production 7 . Excessive withdrawals of non-renewable blue water resources to compensate green water deficit in longer run might lead to resource degradation; leading to increased vulnerability of the entire agricultural production systems especially under the threats posed by increased climatic variability and change.The increased climatic variability, depleting glaciers, heat waves, rising sea level, frequent floods and droughts are impacting agriculture in different ways. Recent estimates using bias corrected projections indicate a warmer (3-5 °C) and wetter (13-30%) climate in South Asia in the twenty-first century 8 . Climate change has both direct and indirect impacts on ecosystems, social economics, agriculture and is likely to intensify the pressure on global water resources 9 . Changes in the availability of water, particularly for agriculture, due to climate change have been observed and reported globally 10 . Many climate adaptation and mitigation strategies with respect to water management in agricultural sector are being practiced at various levels (e.g., farm, irrigation scheme, watershed/ aquifer, river basin, and national levels). Apart from social and policy level measures, the water sector particularly considers promoting efficient on-farm water management (water-saving devices, improving efficiency of waterThis study evaluates the WFs of major cereal crops namely, paddy, wheat, maize, sorghum and pearl millet crops cultivated in India using a spatially explicit approach. These five cereal crops share 98.0% of the total cereal production in India 54 . The water use and WFs of the selected cereal crops were estimated following the methodology and terminology as described in the WF Assessment Manual 19 . The first step in the calculation of the WF of a crop production is the determination of the crop evapotranspiration which can originate either from effective rainfall (green water use) and/or irrigation (blue water use). Green water use in agriculture is the volume of evaporated rainwater by the crops while blue water use refers to evaporated irrigation water for the duration of crop growing season 18 . To account for wide spatial variation in the crop evapotranspiration, this study estimates green and blue water use of selected cereals at a spatial resolution of 0.5° latitude × 0.5° longitude. The blue and green water use of the crops was translated into the WF of crop production of the state using district level average crop yields. Figure 1 shows the 0.5° soil datasets 55 used in this study overlaid by administrative boundaries for states/union territories in India. We also estimated the impacts of climatic change on the blue and green components of WFs of cereal crops.Spatial variation of WFs in future climate. The blue (or green) WF of crop production obtained by dividing the blue (or green) water use (m 3 /ha) of the cereal crops with respective crop yields (t/ha) is presented in Fig. 2a and the percent change of WFs under two projected climate change scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP6.0) for the two time periods (2030s, 2050s) is presented in Fig. 2b. Spatial variation in the total, blue and green water use of cereal crops are presented as Fig. S1 and the temporal trends in ETc of paddy and wheat as representative kharif and rabi season crops is presented in Fig. S2 in Supplementary Material. In case of reference scenario (1989-2018), the average total WF of wheat and paddy was 2475 and 3122 m 3 ton −1 , respectively while the blue WF of rabi crops (wheat and rabi maize) was 2-3 time higher than that of paddy. Share of blue water in total WF of paddy, wheat, maize (kharif/rainy season) and maize (rabi/winter) were 18.0, 78.6, 95.0 and 84.8%, respectively. Higher proportion of green water (82.0-100.0%) in case of kharif/rainy season crops highlights their heavy dependence on monsoon rainfall to meet their crop water requirements. Blue WFs of paddy is projected to decrease under both the RCPs during 2030s as well as during 2050s, with a maximum decrease of 7.7% under RCP4.5 during 2050s. However, the green WFs of paddy are likely to increase (0.9 to 3.1%) under both the RCPs  and future period of 2030s and 2050s. Increase in green WFs are projected to increase for all crops in both the RCPs and future period of 2030s and 2050s. The blue WFs of wheat are projected to decrease marginally with exception of RCP4.5 in 2050s. For kharif maize the blue WFs are projected increase. For rabi maize blue WFs are projected to increase marginally in 2050s and decrease marginally in 2030s (Fig. 2b).As maximum change in total WF of cereal production was predicted for RCP4.5 during 2050s, we presented the spatial variation maps for total, blue and green WFs (m 3 /t) for this scenario only (Fig. 3). Previous research has also shown spatial variation of WFs of rice production under different RCPs in Nanliujiang Catchment of China 44 . Spatial variations in total and blue WFs under RCP4.5 2030, RCP6.0 2030 and RCP6.0 2050 is presented in Supplementary Material (Figs. S3-S8).There is considerable variation in the total WFs over Indian subcontinent which is linked to spatial variation in soil and climatic condition, and crop yield differences in different sub-regions of the country. The zone of higher paddy WF (4000-8000 m 3 /t) lies in the central India covering the states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and eastern Gujrat (Fig. 3a). Total WF of kharif/rainy season maize was projected to decrease more than 4.0% in North-West India (Fig. 3c). The rabi/winter crops, however, showed higher total WF in the peninsular India. The total WF of wheat and Maize was in the ranges of 4000-8000 m 3 /t and 1500-3000 m 3 /t, respectively (Fig. 3b,d). Under RCP4.5 during 2050s, the total WF of wheat is projected to increase over the entire wheat growing region of the country with an increase of 4.0-8.0% in the northern part and 0.0-4.0% in the southern part of the country (Fig. 3b). The changes in total WF of the rainfed crops of sorghum and pearl millet under different RCPs and future time periods are marginal and would vary in the range of − 5.0 to + 5.0% over most parts of the country (Fig. 3e,f).The green WF of cereal crops is projected to increase during 2050s under RCP 4.5 (Fig. 4). The green WF of paddy is projected to increase by about 5.0% to > 10.0% in the Indo-Gangetic plains of India covering the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab and Haryana, while the increase in the central region would be in the range of 0.0-5.0% (Fig. 4a). Compared to paddy, wheat and kharif season maize have lower green WFs. Projections for 2050s showed that the green WF of wheat and rabi maize would increase over larger part of the country (Fig. 4b,d). In central regions and in the western part of the country, the increase in the green WF would be to the tune of 25.0% to > 50.0% and 10.0-20.0% in case of wheat and rabi/winter maize, respectively. Kharif season maize showed 0.0-5.0% decrease in green WFs in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and parts of Gujrat and Rajasthan. The regions with increase in green WF of kharif maize were similar to that of paddy, but the increase in green WF of kharif maize is comparatively smaller (0.0-5.0%) (Fig. 4c). The green WF of rabi maize is predicted to increase by 10-20% over the major maize growing states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh, however along the eastern coastal areas the increase would be in the range of 0-10% (Fig. 4d).The regions with higher blue WF (500-2000 m 3 /t) are located in the north-western part of the country. With increase in rainfall and increased availability of green water for paddy during kharif/rainy season, there is a substantial decrease (0.0-50.0%) in blue WF in large number of paddy growing districts (Fig. 5a). Central and south-central regions of India have comparatively higher blue WFs (3000-6000 m 3 /t) of paddy mainly due to dryer winter seasons, and it is projected to increase by 5.0-10.0% over northern half of the country (Fig. 5b). Since the main source of water for rabi/winter maize is from irrigation, the blue WFs of rabi/winter maize was comparatively higher than that of kharif/rainy season maize (Fig. 5c,d). During 2050s, blue WFs of Kharif/rainy season maize is projected to increase by 25.0-50.0% or even > 50.0% over many kharif/rainy season maize growing districts of India. Blue WF of rabi/winter maize was higher (1500-2000 m 3 /t) in the eastern Maharashtra and Odisha while in the major maize growing states (Uttar Pradesh and Bihar) the blue WF was in the range of 500-1500 m 3 /t. Increase in blue WFs is projected in the range of 5.0-10.0% in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and in the range of 0.0-5.0% over rest part of the country (Fig. 5d). The districts located in the northern parts of the country usually have lower blue WFs of rabi/winter crops due to occurrence of winter rains and lower temperatures during crop growth period, leading to reduced irrigation water use.The blue WF is important in the context of management of water resources. Analysis of the state wise variation in the blue WF of cereal production in ten major Indian states for reference scenario (1989-2018) revealed that five states, namely, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab and Maharashtra accounts for about 51.3% of the total WF of cereal production in India (Fig. 6). Similarly, five states viz. Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan share 70.7% of blue WF of cereal production in India. The blue WF of cereal production in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu would decrease by 9.1, 9.9 and 5.3%, respectively under RCP4.5 during 2030s, while the increase in blue WFs of Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and north western states (Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan) would be in the range of 1.9-5.7%. Decrease in blue WF of Uttar Pradesh is encouraging as it would relieve the pressure on surface and ground water resources, however at national scale, it is counter balanced with the increased blue WFs in other major cereal growing states (Fig. 6). State-wise and crop-wise blue and green WFs of crop production are provided in Supplementary Table S4.As shown in Table 1, the largest share of the total WF corresponded to the green WF, accounting for 65.6% of the total WF. Total WF of cereal production under RCP4.5 during 2050s would be 365.8 BCM, about 2.6% increase over the baseline scenario. Due to increase in precipitation, the green WF showed an increase of 2.5% and 3.3% under RCP4.5 during 2030s and 2050s, respectively; and 1.1% and 1.8% under RCP6.0 during 2030s and 2050s, respectively. Our analyses showed the share of green WF in total WF would increase only marginally (0.5-1.1%) in future scenarios over the baseline scenario. Compared to the baseline, the blue WF would increase by 1.1% under RCP4.5 during 2050s, however, under RCP 6.0, it is projected to decrease by 2.2 and 2.1% during 2030s and 2050s, respectively.Changes in total WFs of the selected cereal crops ranged from − 3.2 to 6.3% across the two RCPs and two future periods. Although, the changes in total WF were not substantial, under RCP 4.5 the blue WF of paddy  would decrease from 30.1 BCM to 26.1 BCM (− 13.6%) and 27.3 BCM (− 9.6%) during 2030s and 2050s, respectively. With the increase in winter precipitation under the future climate scenarios, the green WFs of rabi/winter crops (wheat and maize) is projected to increase. Maximum increase in green WFs for wheat is projected as 24.1% under RCP6.0 during 2050s while in case of rabi/winter maize it would increase by 16.2% under RCP6.0 during 2050s. Increase in green WF of rabi/winter crops would reduce the pressure on freshwater resources. As compared to the baseline, the change in green WFs of kharif/rainy season crops viz. paddy, kharif/rainy season maize, sorghum and pearl millets would vary in the range of − 3.2 to 3.2% across all the scenarios.Agriculture, owing to its heavy dependence on climatic factors, has been identified as the climate sensitive enterprise as climate change affects food production directly through changes in agro-ecological conditions 56 . The WF of crop production, the most widely used indicator of water use, is likely to be affected by the changes in climate 41,57,58 . The concept of WF is being used as a measure of water consumption and to identify opportunities for risk mitigation strategies that promote sustainable water use 25,29 . In the context of wide variations in WFs of cereal crops within the Indian states, it is important to suggest crop planning such that total blue WFs can be reduced. This approach of WF based changes in cropping pattern or a drastic reduction in the irrigated areas has been demonstrated earlier 24,25,49,59 . This study illustrates a comprehensive methodological framework to assess the blue and green WFs of cereal production in India considering high resolution (0.5° latitude × 0.5° longitude) assessments of crop water requirements. The baseline average blue and green WFs from this study are comparable to those found by other researchers 32,60 .The WF assessment methodology applied in this study is similar to earlier world-wide studies on water footprint assessment 61,62 . However, one of the important innovations in this study is the development of integrated crop evapotranspiration (PMET) and root zone water balance (RZWB) model for the assessment of blue and green crop water footprints. The model provides a robust framework for WF assessment of agricultural crops at desired spatial resolution and can be run in the MS Excel environment using large spatial datasets pertaining to soil types, climate and crop data. On the account of absence of suitable model, earlier studies have assessed the WFs of crops at coarser resolutions. Some studies considered administrative boundaries, such as state 32,63 and country 60,64 as homogeneous unit in the assessment of water footprints. Researchers evaluated water footprints of specific crops considering grid based spatial resolutions of 30 × 30 arc minutes 65 , 5 × 5 arc minutes 66 . One limiting factor of these studies is the use of global database inputs of climate factors for ET calculations with coarser resolution, thereby limiting the accuracy of the results 67 . The modular and spatially explicit methodology developed in this study has the potential to be replicated for other agro climatic regions at any desired spatial resolution, provided the soil, climate and crop related datasets are available at the selected resolution.Uncertainties in climate change projections remain particularly high, and combined with economic and political drivers of change, they make local level effects difficult to predict 68 . Consideration of multiple climate projections allows for consideration of various parametric, structural, and forcing uncertainties 69 . To address the uncertainties associated with GCMs and emission scenarios in climate change impact assessment, we considered multi-model ensemble of GCMs. Climate change projections of two RCPs representing intermediate stabilization pathways and two future time periods, covering wide spectrum of possible scenarios in WF assessment were used. Keeping in view the uncertainty associated with the future crop water requirements under various climate change scenarios 70 , the results obtained in the study should be interpreted considering the consequential inherent uncertainties.In general, it is difficult to attribute differences in WF estimates across studies since they depend on a large set of assumptions on datasets, modelling structure and parameters 71 . The total WFs of wheat, maize, sorghum and pearl millet obtained in this study were slightly higher while the total WF of paddy was slightly lower than those reported by Kampman 32 . These variations can be accorded to the differences methodology and data used, and the spatial resolution of assessments. Kampman 32 used state level average ET c values of crops to compute the WF of crop production in India. The present study uses high resolution climatic and soil data to account for regional variations in soil and climate. The average WF of paddy (3122 m 3 /t) and wheat (2475 m 3 /t) worked out in this study were higher than the respective global averages of 1450 and 1830 m 3 /t 71 . Worldwide, the WF of wheat varied between 566 (United Kingdom) and 3710 m 3 /t (Morocco) 71 , while in case of for paddy it was in the range of 638 m 3 /t (Vietnam) to 2874 m 3 /t (Pakistan) 61 . Higher WFs of paddy and wheat in present study can be accorded to the differences in global and Indian average yields of these crops. The global average yields of paddy and wheat are 3.3 t/ha and 4.6 t/ha as against the Indian national average yields of 2.6 t/ha and 3.5 t/ha, respectively. Keeping other factors same, low crop yields lead to higher WFs of crop production. It is to be noted that green water covers about 2/3rd of total WFs and is comparable with estimated consumptive use of water in case of most of the cereal crops and soybean 72,73 .Climate change studies indicated that the inter-annual variability of the monsoon is expected to increase in the future due to possible climate change with increasing/decreasing trends at some locations 74,75 . Climate linked variability in rainfall patterns has led to spatial variations in the WFs of crops over Indian subcontinent. Rainwater availability is seen to decrease and the temperatures increase with a delay in the sowing dates in the futures scenarios causing an increase in the crop water requirements 56 . The present study confirmed that, the future variations in rainfall and temperature patterns under future scenarios (RCP 4.6 and RCP6.0) are likely increase the crop water requirements leading to higher green and blue WFs of some regions in future climates. Reduction in blue water use over major cereal growing state (Uttar Pradesh) is predicted under all future scenarios. This is mainly on account of reducing trends observed in the annual as well as monsoon season rainfall 76 .Climate change projections showed that under RCP4.5 during 2030s and 2050s, the blue WF of wheat and rabi/winter maize would increase by 4.4 and 13.2%, respectively. Increase in blue WFs implies increased use of surface and groundwater resources under future climates. This has direct bearing on sustainability of groundwater resources, particularly during rabi/winter season, as rabi/winter crop production is heavily dependent on regional aquifers 77 . If blue WF exceeds the availability of blue water, human water use is met by using environmental flows, leading to river and groundwater degradation 39 . This calls for optimal crop planning to minimise national blue WFs and reorganization of cropped areas in accordance with region water resource availability and crop water footprints can be a better alternative 49 . However, relocation of crop production is largely governed by social and economic factors in addition to saving in blue WFs. Predictions also showed only marginal increase (3.3 and 1.8% under RCP4.5 and RCP6.0) in the green water footprints. Increase in green WF has close links with the environmental flows in the streams and rivers. Increased green water consumption may reduce environmental flows below the threshold level required to maintain healthy aquatic ecosystems.Ever increasing economic and population growth coupled with climate change is leading to increased water scarcity in many parts of the world. Agriculture being the most water consumptive sector and increasing international trade of agricultural commodities, the freshwater issues need to be regulated by sustainable policies. Formulation of import-export policies in India should consider the regional variations in water footprints with export restrictions on hot-spot areas facing water sustainability issues. Export of water intensive crops should be from the states where the blue WFs are lower and that the net gain from the international trade leads to positive virtual water balance.Although, this study provides improved estimates of WF through high resolution assessments, the accuracy of assessments is largely influenced by the input data used and other assumptions. Consideration of uniform sowing dates, agronomic management practices, and static crop yield in the future in the monsoon dependent agricultural production systems can result in some deviations from actual values. On account of lack of regional values, the Kc values for a particular crop were assumed to be uniform over the Indian subcontinent as considered in previous studies 32,38,72 . However, Kc values differ only marginally from region to region and consideration of uniform Kc values over India, would not lead to significant variations in the WF estimates. Due to lack of accessible country wide data on agricultural pollution, we do not consider grey WFs in this study. The analysis here develops on current yield levels and we did not consider any yield changes (both positive and negative) in future climate in addition to integrated effects of increased CO 2 on Crop Water demand. The WF estimation has been done in decoupled fashion and it has not been linked to hydrological models to understand its effect on surface water flows and change in ground water storages. Nevertheless, the impact analysis presented in this study clearly highlights the degree of expected changes in WFs under future climates.Water footprint (WF), a comprehensive indicator of water resources appropriation, is being used as a decision support tool to identify risk mitigation strategies to promote sustainable water use. This study presents a comprehensive methodological framework to assess the WFs of cereal production in India considering high resolution (0.5° latitude × 0.5° longitude) assessments of crop water requirements. The modelling framework consisted of Evapotranspiration based Irrigation Requirement (ETIR) tool, consisting of two modules, namely, PMET-for estimation of ET 0 and RZWB-for simulating the root zone water balance. The daily crop evapotranspiration and irrigation water requirement were computed for 1204 grid points (0.5° latitude × 0.5° longitude) covering the study domain, and then aggregated to district level using weighted area proportionating approach. For assessing climate change impact on WFs, multi-model ensemble climate change scenarios were generated using the hybrid-delta ensemble method for two different RCPs (RCP4.5 and RCP6.0) and future periods of 2030s (2020-2049) and 2050s (2040-2069).This study demonstrated that projected climate change is likely to modify the WF of cereal production in India considerably both positively (i.e., with increased green water use and reduced irrigation needs), and negatively (i.e., with reduced green water use and increased irrigation needs). Compared to the reference scenario, total WF of the selected cereal crops is projected to change in the range of − 3.2 to 6.3% across the two RCPs and two future periods. There is considerable spatial variation in the total WFs of cereal crops over the Indian subcontinent. Concentration of large proportion (51.3%) of the total WF of cereal production in five states (Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab and Maharashtra) highlights the need for devising region-specific crop planning such that total blue WFs can be reduced. Under RCP4.5 the blue as well as green WF of rabi cereals are likely to increase by 2030s and 2050s. Predictions for RCP6.0 showed that the green WF of wheat and rabi maize is projected to increase by 24.1% and 16.2% while the blue WF of wheat and rabi maize is projected to decrease (0.1-0.3%). Reduction in blue WF implies reduced pressure on blue water resources during rabi/ winter season. The methodological framework presented in this paper for assessing the green and blue WFs of crops provides insights into influence of climatic factors on future trends in WF of cereal production in India. This study clearly demonstrated that water resource management strategies and policies should consider the crop-wise variations in future water use and highlighted the need for developing region specific adaptation plans considering climate change impact on WFs.  Crop area and yield Publicly available data from the Government of India, available here (https:// eands. dacnet. nic. in/)Crop coefficients, phase duration and planting dates Kc values for wheat, sorghum and pearl millet were adopted from 85 while those for maize and paddy were taken from FAO-56 78 . Sowing and harvesting dates for selected cereal crops were primarily assimilated from Ministry of Agriculture 86 and from research bulletin 87 Soil data Harmonized World Soil Dataset (HWSD), Version 1.2 55 of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Rome Soil properties: field capacity, wilting point and maximum infiltration Estimated using pedotransfer functions for the Indian soils developed by Adhikary et al. 88 and further validated with data presented in Raychaudhuri et al. 89 High-resolution (1° latitude × 1° longitude) daily gridded temperature data 90  WF estimation under current and future climate. The WF of crop production depends on the crop water consumption (including blue and green water) over the crop growing period and the crop yield 19 . Variability of climatic factors would cause the variation of crop evapotranspiration (ET c ), irrigation water requirements (I r ) and will exert an indirect impact on the WF of cereal crops. In this study, the reference evapotranspiration (ET 0 ), crop evapotranspiration (ET c ), effective rainfall (P eff ) (green water use) and irrigation water requirement (blue water use), under different climatic scenarios, were determined using Evapotranspiration based Irrigation Requirement (ETIR) tool. The ETIR was developed in MS Excel using Visual Basic Applications (VBA) of Excel.The ETIR has two modules, PMET for estimation of ET 0 and RZWB for simulating the root zone water balance. For each of the 1204 grid points within the modelling domain, the PMET module estimated the reference evapotranspiration using the FAO-56 Penman-Monteith (PM) method 78 and the RZWB module simulated the root zone water balance to work out the blue and green water use of selected crops at daily time step for the length of period specified by the user (30 year in this study). Daily maximum and minimum temperature, latitude and altitude of the grid point (or location) are inputs to the PMET module. Other input parameters to PM method viz. humidity, radiation, wind speed were estimated using the inbuilt functions as specified in FAO-56 78 , Najmaddin et al. 79 and Zotarelli et al. 80 . The daily values of parameters like, soil heat flux density (G), saturation vapour pressure (es), actual vapour pressure (ea), slope of the vapour pressure versus temperature curve (Δ), solar radiation flux density at the surface (Rs), net shortwave radiation flux density (Rns), extraterrestrial radiation (Ra), inverse of the relative distance between the Earth and the Sun (dr), net longwave radiation flux density (Rnl), clear-sky solar radiation flux density (Rso) and psychrometric constant (γ) were estimated using the set of empirical equation coded in MS Excel. In PMET tool uses these set of equations for estimating all these parameters at daily time step. The details of the ETIR tool and the step-by-step modelling procedure are provided in supplementary material. During validation, the developed model showed good degree of agreement with CROPWAT estimated values of ET c and P eff with R 2 values of 0.90 for ET c and 0.96 for effective rainfall (P eff ). The respective values of root mean square error were 22.8 and 27.1 mm. To get the district level averages of ET c and P eff , the model estimated values at 0.5° latitude × 0.5° longitude were aggregated by averaging these parameters for all the pixels within the district and border pixels with > 50.0% area within the district.The period of 1989-2018 was considered as the reference period for comparison of WFs estimated for future climate change scenarios (2030s and 2050s).We used hybrid-delta ensemble method [81][82][83] for generation of climate change scenarios from multiple GCM projections for two different RCPs (RCP4.5 and RCP6.0).The detailed flowchart of WF calculation is shown in Fig. 7 and datasets used for WF assessment are provided in Table 2. Details about GCM projections used for generating climate change scenarios, crop data and soil physical properties are provided as Supplementary Material (Tables S1-S3).The WF of cereals is the volume of water required to produce one unit of cereal grains, generally expressed in terms of cubic metres of water per ton. The total, blue and green WF of crops was obtained by dividing the district level average crop yields (Y) by the ETIR estimated district level average blue and green water use 19 .where, WF b/g,c is the blue (or green) WF of the crop c (m 3 /t), CWU b/g,c is the blue (or green) and green water use of crop cin district d (m 3 /ha) and Y c is the yield of crop c in in district d, (t/ha).The blue and green WFs were quantified following the approach of Mekonnen et al. 71 and Hoekstra and Mekonnen 84 . The total WF related to cereal crop production was estimated by multiplying WF of crop (unit weight basis, m 3 /t) with its total production (ton) within the district and then summing up for all districts to get the national or state level WFs.","tokenCount":"5172"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ee414bcc89a4588c01ce1d1ad510d654","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d8b4de77-462f-419e-ad29-cdbbb8d9d7bd/retrieve","id":"266802158"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"db024286-93cf-438d-8b5b-92ffe767de11","pagecount":"30","content":"Ejemplo del origen \"reticulado\" de una variedad moderna: IR36 Qué nos enseña el caso del IR36 ?•Genes de interés vienen de variedades tanto modernas como tradicionales•Genes de interés vienen de varias áreas geográficas sin poder predecir•Genes de interés vienen tanto de la especie en mejora que de otras•La fecha de desarrollo de las mismas no importa•Genes de resistencia al GSV vienen únicamente de Oryza nivara 4/30 in the 1980s it was estimated that over 10% of the world's rice land was sown with this one variety fuente: Davidson 2006 adaptado de Lobell & Gourdji 2012 Bajo calentamiento global, cómo andarían los productores, para 4 cultivos clave ?Oryza: un género con aprox. 26 especies Por qué invertir tiempo y esfuerzos en los silvestres?QTLs para aumentar rendimiento en sativa, desde rufipogon de Malasia (McCouch et al. 2007, Moncada et al. 2001, Xiao et al. 1998) fuente de CMS para la producción de arroz híbrido O. rufipogon (AA) (Lin & Yuan 1980;Jena 2010) O. glumaepatula (AA) (Brar & Khush 1997;Dalmacio et al. 1986) resistencia a plagas y enfermedades (lógica = duración de la co-evolución)O. nivara (AA): resistencia a bacteriosis (Jena 2010) y Grassy Stunt Virus (Khush & Ling 1974) O. rufipogon (AA): resistencia a bacteriosis (Jena 2010) y Tungro Virus (Ikeda et al. 1994) O. longistaminata (AA): resistencia a bacteriosis (Khush et al. 1990) O. officinalis (CC): resistencia a thrips y chicharita (Khush 1997) tolerancia a factores abióticos adversos El caso de O. glumaepatula Steudel:• No: por la amplia distribución geográfica y los polimorfismos moleculares:• No: híbridos entre O. glumaepatula (Brasil) y O. rufipogon (Asia) mostraron baja fertilidad (Naredo et al. 1998) • No: este último trabajo reveló la posibilidad de otro diploide en América del Sur Cómo podemos explicar su presencia ? ?Es un arroz 'rojo' de O. sativa o de O. glaberrima desde 1493 a 2018? ?• No: Dally & Second (1990): 3 plastotipos de cpDNA únicos en América vs 5 en Asia cpDNA con evolución lenta; especies AA de Asia de 1-3 mi años de edad Algunas conclusiones• existe más de 1 especie diploide (= O. glumaepatula) con genoma AA (= arroz cultivado) cuyo tiempo de evolución sería de 1,000,000 años (Amazonia > Centroamérica), y cuyo valor como recurso genético es alto, pero hasto hoy poco estudiado• se tiene ahora secuenciación (SNPs) para apreciar la diversidad de manera 'neutra' establecer relaciones filogenéticas, y fijar duraciones de evolución• pero el mayor limitante para progresar es la falta de 'buen' material: hay que colectar! en las cuencas antiguas y con accelerado cambio en usos de los suelos (antes de 2025!)• el número muy reducido de materiales evaluados deja entender que sin embargo hay características útiles en los silvestres de Oryza del Neotrópico ","tokenCount":"450"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"256597b9898e3cc43b47d92a8e7f924d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/acbe461b-f313-466b-8077-4b4241f34dc6/retrieve","id":"-416263737"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"940cc6f1-b23f-4486-81cd-d22ff86ce0fa","pagecount":"19","content":"Tropical (CIAT) brinda soluciones científicas que abordan las crisis mundiales de malnutrición, cambio climático, pérdida de la biodiversidad y degradación ambiental.La Alianza se enfoca en el nexo entre agricultura, nutrición y medio ambiente. Trabajamos con socios locales, nacionales y multinacionales en África, Asia y América Latina y el Caribe, y con los sectores público y privado y la sociedad civil. Con colaboraciones novedosas, la Alianza genera evidencia e integra innovaciones para transformar los sistemas alimentarios y los paisajes a fin de sostener el planeta, impulsar la prosperidad y nutrir a las personas en medio de una crisis climática.La Alianza es parte de CGIAR, un consorcio mundial de investigación para un futuro sin hambre, dedicado a transformar los sistemas alimentarios, terrestres y acuáticos en medio de una crisis climática.Este informe hace parte de los productos del proyecto EU DeSIRA: \"Cinco Grandes Bosques de Mesoamérica: Una iniciativa regional para el clima, la biodiversidad y las personas\", liderado por Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), y que busca construir un modelo replicable para transformar la agricultura y los sistemas alimentarios y proteger ecosistemas boscosos intactos en los Cinco Grandes Bosques de Mesoamérica.En Nicaragua, WCS ha venido trabajando en el fortalecimiento de los medios de vida de las comunidades de los territorios indígenas de la Región de Alto Wangki Bocay (AWB), como un instrumento para reducir la presión en los bosques y fomentar su conservación. Dentro de las actividades económicas priorizadas por las comunidades y actores regionales para alcanzar estos objetivos, se destaca la producción de frijol.La Alianza Bioversity International y el CIAT (ABC) como co-beneficiario del proyecto, busca contribuir en los esfuerzos a través del análisis de alternativas productivas y cadenas de valor con mayor potencial para la región, describiendo su funcionamiento e identificando las principales oportunidades, retos y amenazas, haciendo énfasis en los componentes relacionados a los mercados. En consecuencia, este reporte presenta un perfil de la cadena de valor regional del frijol, junto con información estratégica de sus mercados actuales y potenciales.Metodología: Este reporte fue desarrollado con base en información secundaria disponible, entrevistas semiestructuradas con 3 informantes clave y 6 grupos focales con productores de frijol de la región de interés. En el Anexo 1 se presenta el listado de organizaciones entrevistadas.Dentro de las leguminosas de grano, el frijol es la especie más importante para el consumo humano. Según la FAO se cultiva en 129 países de los cinco continentes. La producción mundial de frijol para el año 2020 fue de 29.02 millones de toneladas, obtenidas en una superficie cosechada de 36.6 millones de hectáreas, por lo que se registra un rendimiento promedio de 0.79 toneladas por hectárea (FAOSTAT, 2023). Para este mismo año, el mayor productor de frijoles fue India con el 21% del total, seguido por Brasil con el 10%, Myanmar con el 9%, Tanzania con el 5% y el resto de los países con porcentajes menores al 4%. A nivel de región, la producción de frijol del continente americano representa el 29% (FAOSTAT, 2023).En Centroamérica, Nicaragua lidera las exportaciones de frijol con más del 93% del total, seguido de Honduras y Guatemala. En el año 2018 se reportaron 81,966 toneladas de frijol exportadas en toda la región y para el año 2022 fueron reportadas 94,784 lo que representa un incremento del 16%. Con respecto a los importadores de Centroamérica, Costa Rica es el principal comprador, seguido de El Salvador, Guatemala y Honduras (ITC, 2023).El frijol no cuenta con un precio de referencia en el mercado internacional, no obstante, los precios de frijol de Estados Unidos son tomados como referentes para el mercado internacional, ya que este país suministra una importante cantidad del grano a países de América Latina, Asia y África a través de exportaciones y la ayuda humanitaria (BOLSAGRO, 2023). El cultivo de frijol en Nicaragua es de gran importancia para la dieta local y en muchas ocasiones representa la principal fuente de proteínas para familias de bajos recursos. Las variedades de frijol rojo son las preferidas para el consumo nacional mientras que las variedades de color negro son destinadas para la exportación.En todo el país se siembra frijol a diferentes escalas, sin embargo, la región centro norte presenta tres áreas de importancia: i) Zona seca y áreas del norte para siembra de primera (mayo, junio y julio) y postrera (septiembre, octubre y noviembre), que incluye algunos municipios de los departamentos de Estelí, Jinotega, Matagalpa y Madriz. ii) Zona semihúmeda para siembra de postrera, incluyendo municipios de los departamentos de Matagalpa, Madriz y Jinotega. iii) Zona húmeda para siembra de Apante (diciembre, enero, febrero y marzo) en la Región Autónoma de Caribe Sur (RACS), zonas montañosas de Matagalpa y Jinotega y en la ribera de los grandes ríos (Escobedo et al 2017). Figura 1. Precios pagados a los productores por tonelada de frijol (en miles de USD).Fuente: FAOSTAT, 2023 estudio afirma que la producción se sostiene en cerca de 151,000 productores, de los cuales el 90% siembra menos de dos hectáreas para un total de 245,000 has (Escobedo et al., 2017).Según el BCN (Banco Central de Nicaragua) en el año 2022, el principal mercado de frijol nicaragüense fue El Salvador, con el 26% del volumen producido, seguido por Costa Rica (25%), Honduras (22%) y Estados Unidos con el 21%. El restante fue destinado directamente a Guatemala, Cuba, España, Panamá Y Canadá. No obstante, debido a las diferencias de precios de los mercados, el orden de los destinos cambia al observar las exportaciones en términos de valor.  Guatemala, 14 Honduras, nueve empresas exportan a España y cuatro a Panamá. Los demás países cuentan con menos de tres exportadores.Cabe destacar a las empresas GRABACESA SA, que exporta frijol a nueve países; Exportadora Panamericana del Norte, con exportaciones a seis países; y COOAPCOGBROLEK RL, Cooperativa 16 de Julio RL y Raúl Salazar Hurtado, que exportan frijol a cinco países. Los demás exportadores cuentan con cuatro o menos destinos de exportación (VUCEN, 2023).Figura 3. Mapa de la cadena de frijol en la de Zona Alto Wangki Bocay en NicaraguaCon base en los grupos focales desarrollados con representantes de las comunidades mencionadas, se constató que los medios de producción se basan principalmente en la agricultura de subsistencia, donde se destaca la producción de granos básicos como el frijol, el arroz y el maíz, las musáceas como plátanos y guineos, la yuca y árboles frutales. El bosque es aprovechado para obtener madera para la construcción de sus viviendas, prevaleciendo en muy pequeña escala la venta de madera de forma comercialEn conversaciones con directivos del GTI MITK, afirman que aproximadamente 1,600 productores establecieron parcelas de frijol con un promedio de 0.75 has por productor. Los rendimientos de este ciclo alcanzaron las 1,900 toneladas, representando un rendimiento promedio de 1.18 t por hectárea. Este valor es un 37% superior a la media nacional de Nicaragua (0.86 ton/ha) (Pomareda et al., 2022). La variedad utilizada en la región para esta campaña fue INTA Rojo, la cual fue provista en ciclos anteriores a través del MEFCCA.Todas las plantaciones de frijol en AWB se manejan de forma tradicional con bajo nivel tecnológico. Los productores aprovechan la riqueza nutritiva de las áreas riparias, producto del arrastre del rio y de las sedimentaciones que ocurren en estas zonas para el establecimiento del frijol.Es común contratar mano de obra para las labores que demandan más fuerza laboral como son: la preparación de suelos y la siembra, posteriormente las otras actividades se realizan mediante el apoyo de los miembros de la familia. La forma de trabajo \"pana pana\", mediante la cual se intercambia mano de obra entre familias de una comunidad, se practica ocasionalmente en la región. Sin embargo, actualmente está siendo desplazada por la contratación de jornaleros en las actividades con mayor demanda de mano de obra.En función de los sistemas de siembra practicados en la zona, se ha calculado que los costos de implementación de una hectárea de frijol en la zona rondan los C$ 22,520 2 (USD 618), incluyendo la preparación de suelos, la siembra, el manejo del cultivo y la cosecha (Anexo 2). Se estima que con rendimientos de 28 quintales por hectárea a precios de C$1,500 (USD 41) por quintal, en el año 2023, los ingresos pueden alcanzar C$42,000 (USD 1,152.5) y las utilidades C$ 20,300 (USD 558) siendo una actividad rentable. Con estos resultados se necesitarían cerca de 3 hectáreas por familia para generar un salario mínimo rural y 10.7 para un ingreso digno 3 .Existen dos vías de comercialización para el frijol de la zona: i) el comercio local-nacional y ii) el comercio internacional. En la primera vía, los productores venden el frijol a los dueños de las pulperías locales 4 , quienes pagan en efectivo o intercambian el grano por víveres. Los pulperos venden el grano a comerciantes de fuera de la región que se trasportan a lo largo del rio Coco en pipantes (balsas) y estos a su vez comercializan el frijol en el casco urbano de Wiwilí. Tras acopiar el grano de diversas comunidades del municipio, el frijol suele dirigirse al interior del país.En la segunda vía participan principalmente los productores con mayor capacidad productiva. Estos cuentan con la capacidad económica de contratar los servicios de traslado expreso del frijol desde las áreas de producción hasta el puerto de montaña denominado \"Boca de Español 5 \", donde es vendido a comerciantes de origen hondureño, quienes trasladan el producto al interior del país vecino. El costo aproximado del trasporte hasta Boca de Español es de C$ 14,500 (USD 400) por carga de hasta 40 qq.Para el ciclo 2022/2023 los comerciantes locales afirman que el 99% de la producción de frijol de AWB tuvo como destino Honduras ya que los precios pagados fueron superiores a los de Nicaragua, además de que estos comerciantes habían financiado parte de la producción de la zona.El frijol producido en AWB, es comercializado sin ningún tipo de transformación a producto secundario. Una vez cosechado, los productores secan el frijol mediante la radiación solar hasta bajar el nivel de humedad del grano al 12%, para poder comercializarlo según la demanda de los compradores. Como se mencionó en la sección anterior, los compradores hondureños, representan el principal comprador de este grano para los productores de AWB a un sobreprecio de los compradores nacionales. Sin embargo, existe el riesgo que las autoridades de Nicaragua restrinjan estas transacciones ya que no se cumple con la tramitología ni el pago de aranceles de exportación, lo que puede implicar la necesidad de buscar nuevas rutas de comercialización, la formalización de estas transacciones o de lo contrario, podría resultar en una diminución de las áreas de siembra anuales y teniendo un impacto negativo importante a la economía de la región.La Zona Especial Alto Wangki Bocay se caracteriza por su limitado acceso a servicios. A través del gobierno y diferentes ONG se han hecho esfuerzos para mejorar el acceso a agua potable en las comunidades con mayor densidad de población como San Andrés de Bocay.En ninguna de las comunidades existe red de energía eléctrica, sin embargo, los centros de salud y algunos colegios se abastecen a través de paneles solares. La falta de acceso al servicio representa una importante limitante para el establecimiento de procesos de transformación de la materia prima.En la región no existen cooperativas de ahorro y crédito o entidades financieras que permitan el acceso a crédito. El MEFCCA otorgó en el pasado financiamiento para la producción de granos básicos, pero la tasa de recuperación fue muy baja, por la cual los habitantes de la zona están considerados como \"alto riesgo crediticio\".Fortalezas:• El cultivo del frijol en la zona de AWB se realiza desde tiempos ancestrales, por lo que los productores cuentan con una amplia experiencia en el cultivo.• La productividad de frijol por área cosechada de la zona sobrepasa la media nacional, lo que permite obtener un volumen considerable de este producto.• Los suelos donde se cultiva frijol poseen riquezas de nutrientes y humedad por su proximidad con el afluente del Rio Coco lo que permite cultivar usando poco o ningún tipo de fertilizante.• Las condiciones agroclimáticas de la zona son propicias para el cultivo del frijol.• Disponibilidad de mano de obra para labores agrícolas.• Demanda de frijol por parte de comerciantes hondureños que pagan a un precio mayor que en Nicaragua• Existe financiamiento a la producción por parte de los comerciantes hondureños.• El MEFCCA está presente en la zona apoyando a la producción en coordinación con el GTI mediante bonos productivos impulsados por el gobierno y acordes a los planes de desarrollo de AWB.• Debido al alto régimen de pluviosidad solo se puede sembrar un ciclo al año que va desde finales de enero a finales de marzo• Falta de vías de acceso y altos costos de transporte• Transacciones comerciales sin contratos de compraventa, lo que impide la planificación y la gestión de inversiones.• Altas tasas de analfabetismo y sistemas de información sectorial precarios.• Falta de acceso a servicios públicos.• Falta de acceso a servicios de apoyo empresariales, productivos y financieros Amenazas:• Fluctuación de precios del frijol• Afectaciones en el cultivo por una mayor variabilidad climática y frecuencia de eventos adversos. Se presentan pérdidas de frijol importantes de manera frecuente, ya que llueve ha incrementado la intensidad de las lluvias durante la fase de cosecha.• Debido a lo anterior, se dificulta guardar semillas para los ciclos de siembra posteriores, generando escasez futura y afectando la seguridad alimentaria en la región.• Presión de colonos ilegales causa inestabilidad al modus vivendi de las comunidades indígenas de la zona.• La falta de empleo provoca la migración de los más jóvenes y por ende se pierden la apropiación de estos de sus raíces culturales étnicas y de la producciónPara mejorar la eficiencia y eficacia de las intervenciones en AWB, es necesario tener en cuenta los cuellos de botella y características específicas de la región y el cultivo. A nivel general, las dificultades de la zona en términos de infraestructura y logística representan un gran reto para su competitividad frente a otras zonas del país. Dadas estas condiciones, los precios al productor y los costos de los insumos y servicios serán consistentemente menos favorables que en otras áreas productoras.No obstante, la gran importancia del frijol en el consumo local, la alta demanda de Honduras, la riqueza de los suelos y la experiencia de las poblaciones en el manejo del cultivo resaltan la importancia de continuar trabajando en este cultivo para fomentar su manejo sostenible, y brindar a las comunidades herramientas para robustecer sus medios de vida. Para ello se plantean sugerencias en distintos niveles:En vista que el cultivo del frijol demanda la radiación solar plena para su desarrollo, se debe de fomentar el cultivo haciendo uso de las técnicas de conservación de suelos. Estas incluyen:i) Siembra en curvas de nivel o al menos en contra de la pendiente para evitar la pérdida del horizonte A del suelo y la materia orgánica rica en nutrientes que favorece los niveles productivos alcanzados.ii) continuar con las técnicas de siembra al espeque por ser el método de siembra que menor afectación física causa a los suelos.iii) Procurar la construcción de acequias de drenaje para evitar los excesos de humedad que podría dañar el cultivo. iv) Construcción de barreras físicas como son barreras vivas, barreras muertas y diques de contención con fines de preservación del suelo.También es importante que los productores tengan pleno conocimiento de la ficha tecnológica de la variedad de frijol a establecer para una mejor planificación de las labores de manejo acorde a la etapa fenológica del cultivo. Bajo esta misma premisa, las fechas de siembra se deben de establecer proyectando la cosecha en el mes de abril cuando las precipitaciones en la zona son menores.Las fertilizaciones edáficas en AWB son caras debido a la dificultad para transportar grandes volúmenes a la zona. En este caso, se pueden suplementar a través de las fertilizaciones foliares con fórmulas completas más micronutrientes. Otras alternativas de fertilización son los biofermentados preparados a partir de estiércol vacuno y suero de leche, a los que se pueden agregar elementos para el control de hongos y bacterias en el cultivo.En vista que la precipitación solo permite la siembra de un ciclo de cultivo al año, es necesario la reactivación y ampliación de los bancos comunitarios de semilla para contar con material genético de calidad que asegure buenos rendimientos y calidades. La reactivación de los bancos incluye la provisión de material genético de calidad registrada, reactivación de las estructuras de almacenamiento, y capacitación a los socios de los bancos de semilla en aspectos de manejo agronómico, cosecha y postcosecha del grano destinado para semilla.En caso de no contar con material de calidad en la zona, se recomienda establecer áreas de frijol con por lo menos, semilla de calidad apta que asegure un buen nivel germinativo. En cuanto a las variedades establecidas, en los grupos focales los productores afirman tener buenos resultados con el frijol INTA Rojo, sin embargo, con la finalidad de probar nuevos materiales y con fines de aumentar la seguridad alimentaria se recomienda establecer parcelas de difusión con las variedades frijol Bio-Apante (SMR-156) y Nutritivo y Rendidor (SMR-88) que se caracterizan por ser materiales enriquecidos con hierro y zinc y con ciclos de 80 y 76 días.El comercio de frijol en AWB se ha visto dinamizado por el financiamiento a los cultivos y el incremento en los precios. Sin embargo, actualmente no existen contratos formales de compraventa con acuerdos que protejan a los productores y comercializadores de choques de precio, y que permitan a los productores planificar la producción en el mediano plazo y proyectar sus inversiones productivas y familiares.El Programa Integral de Nutrición Escolar (PINE) del Ministerio de Educación representa una oportunidad para generar acuerdos comerciales más estables, integrando la venta de frijol biofortificado, con varios beneficios para los actores implicados: i) Los niños beneficiarios del programa consumirían frijoles ricos en hierro y zinc, que son especialmente necesarios ante la falta de otras opciones en la dieta local.ii) Los productores asegurarían la comercialización de frijol, ahorrándose los costos de traslado desde las comunidades hasta boca de español.iii) Los procesos de comercialización se realizarían legalmente, sin incurrir en contrabando por vender producto sin los permisos establecidos. iv) Se ahorran costos de traslado de la merienda escolar desde las bodegas del MINED hasta AWB y también se minimiza el riesgo de pérdida de producto en el traslado.Existen múltiples retos a tener en cuenta desde la perspectiva de los actores de soporte para el sector:-Las condiciones de la región dificultan sustancialmente el desarrollo de cualquier iniciativa comercial en el territorio.-Existen precedentes entre algunos beneficiarios de las comunidades de malos manejos administrativos y organizativos que han generado renuencia y desconfianza a los organismos de cooperación y entes privados a trabajar en la zona.-La dispersión de las áreas productivas representa un reto significativo para el manejo de los cultivos y la asistencia técnica.-A pesar del aumento de la transformación de los bosques en pastizales por parte de los colonos, no existe información confiable acerca de la magnitud e involucrados en este fenómeno.-El modelo de producción ganadera hondureño tiene un valor aspiracional para las comunidades nativas indígenas, quienes muestran gran interés de replicarlo. Por esto, es necesario fomentar procesos de sensibilización y formación que resalten los riesgos económicos, ambientales y legales de emprender en dichos sistemas dentro de estos territorios indígenas.Agradecemos a todos los actores de la cadena del frijol a nivel local y nacional por sus aportes, conocimientos y experticia sobre la cual se basa este informe. Esperamos que la información presentada en este reporte pueda contribuir en la toma de decisiones en el sector y aporte en el fortalecimiento económico, ambiental y social de los actores vinculados en esta importante actividad productiva.","tokenCount":"3272"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f3f03eb337cb27eb20b580bfbf997bd0","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/infobrief/9034-Infobrief.pdf","id":"720537295"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c48061e0-d131-4701-902f-f4b592e8db38","pagecount":"8","content":"Forest landscape restoration in Madagascar is likely to target forests and pasturelands managed as commons under customary tenure claims that are unrecognized by the state.Under the Bonn Challenge, Madagascar has committed to restoring 4 million ha of its forest landscape by 2030. Commons, such as forests and grazing lands, are the landscapes most likely to be targeted for restoration. 1  National law, however, does not recognize customary claims to these lands. In addition, efforts to provide rural residents with state-issued individualized land certificates risk further undermining those claims (McLain et al. 2019). The limited information on contemporary customary tenure systems in Madagascar, particularly with respect to commons, impedes statutory recognition of customary tenure claims to forests and pasturelands. This Infobrief draws on findings of a recent review of research on customary tenure in Madagascar (McLain et al. 2021) to help fill this knowledge gap. The review describes a broad range of the island's customary tenure systems (Figure 1).Prior to 2005, any land in Madagascar that had not been titled through the state titling process was presumed to belong to the state domain. However, few rural Malagasy had land titles and the state had limited land administration capacity. Thus, for all practical purposes, customary tenure prevailed in most parts of the country. Malagasy customary tenure systems are dynamic living systems that meld customary and state legal procedures and principles to a greater or lesser extent (Boué and Colin 2018;Valkonen 2018). Some hybrid tenure practices are formalized. In Madagascar's forest co-management contracts, for example, community associations can apply local rules regulating access to forest products provided the rules do not violate national laws (Bérard 2011). Other hybrid tenure practices are ad hoc. For example, some land sales do not follow formal state procedures for registering land transactions. Instead, they are recorded through written documents signed and stamped by the fokontany President and, in some cases, the commune mayor (Di Roberto 2020).  Local customary land governance systems vary depending upon which of Madagascar's 18 ethnic groups is or was historically dominant in a region, as well as the extent to which traditional authorities retain legitimacy. However, in all ethnic groups, lineage and clan affiliation influence who has access to land and under what conditions.Clans consist of individuals or families with a common ancestor, who may be real or symbolic (Barry et al. 2000). The founding clan of a territory includes the families who claim to have first settled in that region. Each clan has a name or symbol, taboos (fady) that guide clan members' behaviour, and a shared oral history. The leader of the clan, who is typically an older man, functions as a religious authority, connecting humans with the spirit world.Lineages are composed of the descendants of a common relative, who is real rather than symbolic (Barry et al. 2000). The lineage is the foundational social and political organizational unit throughout rural Madagascar. How an ethnic group traces descent affects who inherits land, as well as who controls lineage and clan lands. Patrilineal descent is more common among ethnic groups whose livelihoods depend on extensive cattle raising, such as the Sakalava and Tsimihety. Ambilineal descent is more common among groups who rely primarily on paddy rice cultivation, such as the Betsileo and Merina (Southall 1971). Typically, the oldest male in the descent line is the lineage head. The lineage heads, known as rey amin'dreny, administer lineage land. The lineages that first settled and cleared land in an area are considered tompon-tany, or masters of the land.In areas where farmland, particularly land suitable for rice cultivation is scarce, nuclear families or households may hold ownership rights (Di Roberto 2020). Few landholders have state-issued land titles or certificates, and in general neither are needed for land claims to be viewed as legitimate by locals (Cullman 2013;Valkonen 2018;Di Roberto 2020). Within customary tenure systems, rural Malagasy can acquire land in a variety of ways. This includes through inheritance, clearing of unoccupied land, sharecropping, intergenerational gifts, borrowing, rentals, and, in some areas, purchase (Gezon 1997;Jones et al. 2018;c.f., Evers 2001;Di Roberto 2020). However, land purchases are relatively uncommon and when they do occur are generally transactions among family members (Di Roberto 2020). In-migrants who wish to establish a land claim must obtain approval from the tompon-tany of the area (Fauroux 2001;Moizo 2001). Getting such approval requires the migrant to integrate socially into the community, typically either through marriage or blood-mixing ceremonies (fatidra) (Gezon 1997;Jones et al. 2018;Di Roberto 2020).Madagascar's 2010 Constitution states that all individuals have equal rights regardless of sex. Additionally, the law on succession 5 provides that male and female surviving spouses should be treated equally. The 2007 marriage law 6 also specifies that property held in common must be divided equally between the husband and wife in cases of divorce. In practice, however, these state laws are often ignored (Widman and Hart 2019). The following examples illustrate regional commonalities and differences in women's land rights in Madagascar.Among the Bara living in Atsimo-Adrefana Region, rice fields and upland cropland are inherited patrilineally with women inheriting only access and use rights (Moizo 2001). Women can own cattle. However, if a woman leaves the village when she marries, her cattle are placed under the care of her brothers. Importantly, the principle that cattle stay with the village also applies to men. Consequently, if a Bara man moves away from his village, his cattle remain in the village, where they are placed under the care of a male relative. Among the Merina in Vakinankaratra Region, inheritance is patrilineal and, when daughters inherit land, they inherit less than their brothers (Valkonen 2018). However, because women typically don't inherit land or only inherit small parcels, they are not required to contribute towards family festivities, which can be costly. However, land inheritance rules are flexible, and some individuals leave equal amounts to all their heirs. Whether women feel secure in their claims to land depends greatly upon the nature of their relationships with their male relatives. Among the Antankarana in Diana Region, both men and women can inherit land (Gezon 1997). However, less than 20% of the women interviewed owned land and most women landowners were single or widowed. Women can own cattle, but the cattle are placed in the care of their father or brothers. As in Vakinankaratra Region, women with social ties to economically and politically powerful families can offset their generally weaker rights to land by working through their male relatives to influence village and family land use and allocation decisions. Although women's rights to land are generally weak in rural Madagascar, in some areas, such as the Central Highlands, there is a trend towards women acquiring stronger land rights. This is due to changes in socioeconomic conditions and growing awareness of state laws supportive of gender equality with respect to land ownership and inheritance (Di Roberto 2020).In rural Madagascar, the fokonolona typically make community-level decisions. Under national law, the fokonolona comprise all residents in a fokontany, both men and women, who are 18 years of age or older. Fokonolona are rarely democratic, and community members with higher social status and greater wealth tend to dominate deliberations (Blanc-Pamard and Farroux 2004).A key feature of customary tenure systems in Madagascar is the use of dina, or social codes that govern behaviour at the local level (Karpe et al. 2007). Dina are rooted in local traditions but are also valid under state law. Once a fokonolona has adopted a dina, a ritual is held to consecrate it. The ritual emphasizes the dina is not merely a pact between humans: it is also an agreement between members of the fokonolona and Zanahary (God), the ancestors, and the locality's spirits (Karpe et al. 2007).Land conflicts in rural Madagascar are often linked to ambiguities within families regarding who has rights to land; disagreements over land claims between long-established inhabitants and recent migrants (Moizo 2001); and tensions between livestock herders and farmers (Gezon 1999), and between local communities and outsiders, such as agricultural investors and conservation organizations (Gezon 1997(Gezon , 1999;;Horning 2004;Medernach and Burnod 2013). A high value, however, is placed on fihavanana, a Malagasy concept that translates roughly as \"social solidarity\", and which encourages the maintenance of peaceful relations with others (Kneitz 2016).When conflicts over land or resources arise, they are typically managed at the family or lineage level; only rarely do disputants take the case to the fokonolona to be judged by the rey-mandreny (lineage heads) (Gezon 1999;Di Roberto 2020). The fokonolona settles cases using the principle of fihavanana, with the primary goal to reconcile the disputing parties (Rosés 2016). Only in unusual circumstances will disputants seek to resolve the conflict in the state courts, which operate on the principle of assigning fault to one party rather than reconciliation (Rosés 2016). Application of fihavanana reduces the likelihood that an injured party will seek vengeance, but it also tends to reinforce social inequities (Sandron 2016).Zebu cattle are key elements of Malagasy culture: they are a walking savings bank and a source of protein, and play an important role as sacrifices in funerary and other rituals. Their manure is critical for the maintenance of soil fertility, and zebu are used to plough fields and draw carts. Zebu play a critical role in people's lives throughout Madagascar. However, studies of customary rangeland tenure have focused primarily on extensive cattle-raising systems in the southwest and west. The following examples illustrate some key elements of Malagasy rangeland tenure systems.Among the Bara in Atsimo Andrefana Region, the savanna near villages is used as a collective pasture by members of the village lineages (Horning 2004). In more distant grazing areas, each lineage is allocated area for its cattle to graze. Temporary cattle camps, known as toets'aomby, serve as points for watching the cattle and monitoring passers-by. Other important elements for extensive cattle management in this area include watering points, cattle corridors, and areas where the cattle are gathered. Among the Bara on the Ihorombe Plateau, founding villages hold collective management, exclusion, and allocation rights to communal grazing land• Marked samata: Individual trees found in community grazing areas that have been marked and claimed as private property; the claimant has rights to the trees but not to the land. Like rangelands, forests are integral to rural Malagasy lifeways. Forests are a source of subsistence products (e.g., fuelwood, construction materials, food, game), a land reserve for future generations, and home to spirits and the ancestors (Scales 2012). The following examples illustrate the importance of functional customary tenure systems for sustainable forest management in rural Madagascar but also point to some of the challenges these systems face.In the Androy Region in southeastern Madagascar, in one site where the customary system still functioned well, new permanent settlers had to go through the clan authorities to acquire access to land (Elmqvist et al. 2007). Additionally, anyone wishing to harvest a tree had to first get permission from both the fokonolona and the state forestry service. However, because few people lived in the area, it was difficult for the local communities to monitor and enforce forest use restrictions against outsiders. In another site where the customary system also functioned well, all forested land had been allocated to clans or lineages. Some forested areas were considered taboo forests, with strict rules about who could enter them and what resources could be harvested from them. The population density in the area was relatively high, and the local communities had the capacity to monitor the forest and ensure respect for rules regarding access to and use of the forested areas.In Ibara, in southwestern Madagascar, two distinct types of forest tenure situations existed in forested areas in the state domain where the state's presence was weak (Horning 2004). Local forest protection was effective in remote communities located near the forest, with homogenous populations, and strong customary authorities. Lineage or clan leaders set the rules governing forest use, and community members generally respected the rules. Community members considered the forest to be the sacred home of their ancestors and believed they would receive supernatural punishment if they broke the rules. Moreover, the risk of being caught was high because local herders camped at the forest edge could easily monitor the area. In contrast, local forest protection was ineffective in communities located at a distance from the forest, and where many migrants or multiple ethnic groups were present and traditional authorities were no longer respected. Forests near these communities suffered from illegal forest uses, and commercial timber harvesting was facilitated by easy access to local markets.In Despite sharing some core features, Madagascar's customary tenure systems exhibit considerable heterogeneity geographically, and across and within ethnic groups. Moreover, these systems are complex and dynamic, with local communities, pastoralists, and others finding innovative ways to secure access to land and resources. Efforts to recognize customary tenure rights in Madagascar will need to acknowledge and support the diversity of tenure and livelihood systems that occur, while also recognizing that communities differ considerably in their capacity and political will to manage their commons.To guide future research and legal reforms, we put forth the following hypotheses:Hypothesis 1 -In areas of Madagascar where traditional authorities retain widespread legitimacy, customary systems already provide reasonably stable and effective frameworks through which rights to access, use, manage, and transfer land or resources are allocated and enforced, and over which conflicting claims are adjudicated. In such areas, identifying ways to support these systems rather than seeking to replace them, may be the most viable pathway for providing tenure security for rural inhabitants.Hypothesis 2 -In areas where the legitimacy of traditional authorities is broadly questioned, community members and outsiders are more likely to make use of the state tenure system. In such areas, one would expect to see more conflict, particularly if the state has a limited presence as is the case in much of rural Madagascar. In these areas, the most viable pathway for providing tenure security may be to encourage the emergence of innovative hybrid approaches.Research that explores these hypotheses in more detail can help shed light on what constitute the key elements of still-functional customary tenure systems and emerging hybrid systems -as well as for whom, and in what sense, they are functional and for whom they are not. Such research can help identify elements of those systems that need to be modified so they are more inclusive and equitable in how they distribute benefits and costs.We end with a call for more research on women's rights to land and resources in customary and hybrid tenure systems in Madagascar, an area of study that our review indicates has been greatly neglected. Work on women's land rights in sub-Saharan Africa (Santpoort et al. 2021) is instructive in this regard. It suggests that actionresearch aimed at co-producing knowledge about women's land rights and decision-making authorities, while co-designing approaches for strengthening those rights and the ability of women to realize them, is likely to prove most effective at helping bridge the gap between state law and local practices. In particular, initiatives aimed at supporting convergence between state and customary tenure systems with respect to women's rights need to focus on the whole community, given that women often have access to land through the group rather than as individuals (Abebe and Flintan 2021).","tokenCount":"2540"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"745276348cee2f3f60519213292ca0fa","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8b652a86-734f-4e10-94ae-c837f270dbff/retrieve","id":"1777386506"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"553d5051-6f85-4a2a-9aef-748324ee119e","pagecount":"39","content":"L'importance économique des caprins en Afrique et notamment pour les populations les plus défavorisées est souvent sous estimée. Plusieurs raisons peuvent expliquer cette méconnaissance: d'abord les chèvres sont difficiles à compter car, dans les élevages traditionnels qui constituent l'énorme majorité en Afrique, elles sont laissées en liberté, ensuite leur commerce se fait le plus souvent à l'intérieur de circuits informels. Pourtant, elles ont sont très présentes dans la vie quotidienne : pour la consommation ménagère, pour renflouer la caisse de menues dépenses domestiques, pour les rites coutumiers, pour les mariages et les baptêmes. La chèvre joue donc souvent un rôle de réserve, de « tirelire » en quelque sorte.Les chèvres sont aussi une source de plusieurs produits de valeur : en dehors de la viande dont la consommation est très répandue, il y a bien sûr le fumier, mais surtout le lait pour sa commercialisation et la fabrication du fromage et leurs peaux pour l'industrie du cuir, en pleine expansion. Domestiquée depuis près de 10 mille ans, les chèvres ont la capacité de s'adapter très facilement aux plantes disponibles dans leur environnement. Elles peuvent donc survivre dans des régions arides, semi-arides et montagneuses en se nourrissant de ce qu'elles trouvent, ce que le mouton ou les bovins ne peuvent pas faire. Sa reproduction rapide (maturité sexuelle précoce et grande prolificité) est un atout, dans les pays du Sahel en particulier qui connaissent des sécheresses successives. Elle permet de compenser les fortes mortalités et assure ainsi au moins l'autorenouvellement des troupeaux, même dans les conditions les plus difficiles.En Afrique, les conditions d'élevage sont souvent difficiles et l'encadrement technique est souvent trop sommaire dans les exploitations traditionnelles et cela explique des performances faibles.Dans ce programme, vous trouverez des interviews avec des spécialistes de l'élevage caprin dans différents pays. Ils donnent leurs avis et des conseils, notamment sur la façon d'améliorer les systèmes d'élevage actuel, notamment en ce qui concerne l'alimentation, les soins de santé, la gestion des effectifs, l'hygiène des locaux et la rationalisation des ressources que procurent les chèvres comme la viande, le lait et les cuirs.Une bonne alimentation est la clé d'un élevage caprin prolifique mais les chèvres en liberté se nourrissent d'un peu de tout ce qu'elles trouvent y compris du papier ou du plastique s'il n'y a rien d'autre ! Mais en général, elles broutent l'herbe, les épineux, les plantes vertes et les branches feuillues des arbres qu'elles escaladent avec une grande facilité (fourrage dit aérien). Mais si la pâture est pauvre, ou si les conditions climatiques sont mauvaises, une alimentation complémentaire sera nécessaire.En fait les problèmes se posent le plus souvent pendant la saison des pluies quand les animaux doivent être attachés pour ne pas aller causer des dégâts dans les champs. C'est à cette période que leur alimentation présente le plus de problèmes car les animaux attachés ou en stabulation dépendent entièrement de l'éleveur et si l'éleveur n'a pas assez de fourrage, les chèvres sont mal nourries et perdent leur fertilité. Le plus souvent seuls les moutons de case, les vaches laitières et les bovins à l'engrais reçoivent les fanes d'arachide et de niébé, et les tiges de sorgho récolté. Les caprins n'en reçoivent pas.Mais la quantité suffisante de fourrage n'est pas le seul problème que doit résoudre l'éleveur, il y a aussi la qualité du fourrage qui idéalement doit contenir des graminées et des légumineuses. Plusieurs instituts de recherche agronomique en Afrique se sont donc attachés à sélectionner les meilleures plantes pour l'amélioration des fourrages (comme le Xylothantes ou le Bracaria) et à les diffuser parmi les éleveurs grâce aux services de vulgarisation. (« Comment assurer une bonne complémentation alimentaire\") Fourrage et complémentation Si l'éleveur parvient donc à réserver une partie de ses exploitations agricoles pour développer les plantes fourragères, les animaux auront la quantité nécessaire de fourrage dont ils ont besoin et seront en bonne santé et plus fertiles.Il est également conseillé aux éleveurs d'utiliser les sous-produits agro-industriels comme des concentrés de mélasse, les « bouts blancs » (manioc et igname), l'urée mais aussi les compléments minéraux comme le phosphore et le calcium. Cette complémentation minérale est capitale pour la santé des chèvres : elle se présente sous forme de pierres ou de blocs à lécher qui peuvent s'acheter dans toutes les pharmacies vétérinaires en Afrique. Ceci est particulièrement important pour les chèvres qui viennent de mettre bas et qui sont en lactation.précieux sur tous les aspects de la nutrition des chèvres et sur l'importance du bon fourrage et des compléments minéraux.Une des caractéristiques de la race caprine est sa prolificité mais les naissances surviennent le plus souvent au hasard quand les chèvres sont laissées en liberté. Une reproduction contrôlée présente donc de gros avantages comme l'explique l'interview du Docteur Ebodé Sylvain Blaise, dans le programme « La reproduction contrôlée, un gros avantage pour les éleveurs ».Le meilleur moyen pour parvenir à une reproduction contrôlée est que l'éleveur soit vigilant et regroupe les chèvres en chaleur et les mette en présence du bouc à ce moment là. Le plus gros avantage pour l'éleveur est que si la reproduction est planifiée, il peut choisir qu'elle survienne au moment où les fourrages sont les plus abondants ou quand le prix de la viande sur les marchés est le plus élevé.Cela facilite aussi la gestion de son troupeau quand les chèvres mettent bas toutes en même temps et que les chevreaux ont tous le même âge. Une femelle en gestation a aussi besoin de soins particuliers et il est donc plus facile de les regrouper pour leur donner ces soins.Une des choses les plus importantes est de leur donner une nourriture abondante et variée contenant tous les minéraux nécessaires, en particulier pendant le mois précédent la mise bas et pendant le mois suivant la mise bas.Il est d'autre part recommandé de ne pas mettre les chèvres en présence d'un bouc avant l'âge d'un an, de les protéger et de les surveiller une fois la grossesse constatée afin d'éviter les avortements, de les vacciner et de bien les vermifuger.Il est courant que pour les chèvres laissées en liberté, le taux de viabilité des chevreaux de la naissance au sevrage n'atteint pas 70 %. La complémentation alimentaire de la mère en période de soudure est donc essentielle à la survie des chevreaux.Pour soutenir et développer les propres capacités défensives de l'organisme du chevreau, il devrait recevoir dés la naissance une quantité adéquate de colostrum de sa mère ou d'une autre femelle ayant mise bas. Il est à noter qu'il existe des préparations de colostrum en poudre pour augmenter le transfert immunitaire passif des cabris nouveau-nés. Ceci est particulièrement recommandé lors des naissances multipares. Il est aussi possible de donner le colostrum ou du lait reconstitué grâce a une sonde stomacale ou a un biberon : l'interview « La reproduction contrôlée, un gros avantage pour les éleveurs » explique comment faire.Une attention particulière doit être accordée à l'hygiène au moment de la mise-bas : la litière doit être propre et il faut veiller régulièrement au nettoyage et à la désinfection des cases de mise-bas. Le cordon ombilical doit être désinfecté si nécessaire. Les chevreaux morts et les délivrés tombés doivent être enlevés immédiatement et détruits de façon hygiénique. Le sevrage est un moment délicat et doit intervenir ni trop tôt ni trop tard.Les chèvres sont de façon générale, très résistantes mais elles sont cependant particulièrement sujettes à certaines maladies contre lesquelles elles ont peu de défenses et pour laquelle la mortalité est très élevée. C'est le cas de la PPR, la Peste des Petits Ruminants qui est la maladie la plus redoutable pour elles. Elle est causée par un virus de la famille des Paramyxo-viridés, proche du virus de la peste bovine. La transmission se fait par contact direct entre animaux, par les larmes, les écoulements nasaux, les expectorations et toutes sécrétions et excrétions provenant des animaux malades ou en phase d'incubation. La période d'incubation varie entre 3 et 10 jours. L'autre maladie la plus dévastatrice est la Pleuropneumonie Caprine Contagieuse pour laquelle seule la vaccination est efficace.Mais en dehors de ces maladies très graves, les autres problèmes de santé les plus courants qui peuvent affecter les chèvres comprennent les parasites intestinaux, les tiques et la galle. Il existe de nombreux médicaments de pharmacie mais comme l'explique l'interview « Les remèdes traditionnels efficaces contre certaines maladies », les éleveurs font souvent appel aux remèdes traditionnels.Il est donc particulièrement important de reconnaître rapidement qu'une chèvre est malade. Les animaux en bonne santé ont une vivacité générale, une toison dans un bon état général, les yeux nets et brillants, de bonnes dents, des mouvements libres, pas de claudication, un bon appétit, un comportement normal lorsqu'ils boivent ou tètent, une rumination normale, pas de parasites externes, pas de blessures visibles, abcès ou autres lésions visibles. Les signes de mauvaise santé englobent : apathie, perte d'appétit, baisse de la lactation, absence de rumination, écoulements des yeux, du nez ou de la bouche, salivation excessive, toux persistante, inflammation des articulations ou d'autres parties du corps, claudication, diarrhée, décoloration du lait ou de l'urine, grattements ou frottements fréquents, perte de la condition physique, modifications de comportement y compris dans certains cas, le fait de se tenir éloigné du troupeau.Dans les systèmes traditionnels d'élevage de caprins, les chèvres sont laissées en liberté et aucune structure d'abri, digne de ce nom, n'existe. Généralement les agriculteurs se contentent de mettre les chèvres avec l'ensemble des animaux qu'ils possèdent, dans un hangar au toit de paille. Ces hangars sont souvent trop étroits pour l'effectif qui y loge, mal aéré et surtout jamais balayé. Le fumier s'entasse jusqu'à son ramassage au début de l'hivernage pour la fumure des champs. Ceci peut avoir des conséquences nuisibles sur la santé des chèvres.Dans l'idéal, un bâtiment qui abritera un troupeau de chèvres doit être conçu, construit et entretenu de manière à minimiser les risques de blessures et maintenir les animaux à un niveau de bien être acceptable, autrement dit dans un endroit bien aéré, sec et bien drainé pour pouvoir protéger les chèvres de la pluie, de l'humidité, du vent et de la poussière. Ensuite, l'abri doit être facile à nettoyer. Dans les pays secs, un sol en terre battue fera l'affaire. Mais il faut veiller à ce que le sol soit légèrement en pente afin que l'urine des chèvres puisse s'écouler et ne forme pas des flaques. Dans les pays humides, les planchers en caillebotis ou en platelage perforés peuvent éviter la contamination parasitaire et microbienne pouvant provenir des urines et des fèces. De plus les déjections peuvent ainsi être recueillies plus facilement et utilisées ensuite comme fumure pour les champs. Un plancher à caillebotis coûte assez cher lors la construction mais cela peut s'avérer un excellent investissement si cela contribue á la bonne santé du troupeau.Enfin, la taille de l'abri est aussi un élément importante : si les animaux sont gardés en stabulation de façon permanente, il faut prévoir une superficie minimale de 1,5 à 2 mètres carré par animal. Si les chèvres broutent de façon libre dans la journée, 1 mètre carré par animal suffira. « L'habitat idéal : propre, aéré et en petites unités séparées »Les chèvres ont un potentiel économique encore inexploité et ceci surtout à cause du manque de réseaux de commercialisation des produits et ressources des caprins. La viande est pour l'instant la seule ressource vraiment exploitée et le lait est totalement sous exploité, en partie à cause des habitudes alimentaires qui, en Afrique ne comprennent pas de produits laitiers, mais aussi en partie du fait des conditions climatiques qui rendent la conservation naturelle du lait difficile et imposent de grosses unités de réfrigération.La chèvre peut donner jusqu'à 5 litres de lait par jour et la valeur nutritionnelle du lait de chèvre est supérieure à celle du lait de vache : en effet il contient beaucoup plus de vitamine A et est beaucoup plus facilement digéré à cause de sa haute teneur en acides gras. Beaucoup d'efforts sont fait en ce moment en Afrique pour promouvoir la consommation du lait et bien que la consommation du fromage soit encore très peu répandue, le yaourt est en revanche de plus en plus apprécié et commence à se généraliser dans les villes. (Une race laitière de haute qualité : La chèvre Guerra) Une autre ressource en pleine expansion est le cuir de chèvre. Traditionnellement les femmes appartenant à certaines ethnies s'occupaient de sa transformation et de son commerce mais le marché est de plus monopolisé par des collecteurs qui agissent comme intermédiaires pour des acheteurs internationaux. L'interview « Le cuir de chèvre, une industrie porteuse » donne une bonne idée ce qui se passe au Sénégal dans ce secteur.Les interviews de cette série contiennent beaucoup d'informations pratiques qui pourront être utiles aux éleveurs de caprins ou à ceux qui veulent commencer à élever des chèvres. Il serait judicieux de compléter ces interviews avec des informations plus spécifiques au contexte local, soit en interviewant des éleveurs de votre région soit d'autres spécialistes comme par exemple des vétérinaires ou des experts en commercialisation. Les paysans et les éleveurs sont souvent très inventifs dans la façon dont ils s'adaptent aux nouvelles circonstances et ceci s'applique autant à l'élevage qu'au reste des activités agricoles. Cela pourrait donc être très intéressant d'avoir la réaction de vos auditeurs-grâce à des directs au téléphone par exemple.Les deux interviews en provenance du Bénin et du Cameroun expliquent comment une alimentation riche et variée est la clé d'un bon élevage et comment assurer une bonne complémentation alimentaire grâce à la pierre à lécher. Vous pouvez les compléter en donnant des renseignements sur les plantes locales, plantées ou poussant de façon sauvage. S'il s'agit d'espèces plantées, il sera nécessaire de dire aux auditeurs où ils peuvent se procurer les semences, soit auprès des Instituts de recherche agronomique soit auprès de certaines ONGs ou auprès d'opérateurs privés. La complémentation en minéraux est souvent problématique pour les éleveurs surtout à cause des concentrés et des blocs à lécher mais pour les éleveurs qui ne se trouvent pas trop loin des zones urbaines, ils peuvent utiliser les résidus des industries agroalimentaires situées dans ces zones urbaines. Où se procurer ces résidus peut constituer le sujet d'un débat téléphonique en direct ainsi que les solutions traditionnelles employées localement. L'usage du fourrage et sa conservation est également un sujet très important pour les éleveurs et il doit être possible d'inviter un agronome ou de faire une causerie sur les avantages du fourrage et les problèmes à résoudre : Internet vous donnera également des idées de questions à poser.Les méthodes employées pour contrôler la reproduction des chèvres varient considérablement d'un pays à l'autre et l'interview en provenance du Cameroun n'est qu'un exemple des pratiques utilisées. Vous pouvez inviter un vétérinaire ou un agent de vulgarisation des Services de l'élevage pour une causerie ou un débat en direct en studio pour informer les auditeurs de ce qui se fait dans votre pays. Mais l'avantage de la reproduction contrôlée est certainement un sujet important pour vos auditeurs étant donné les avantages qu'ils pourraient retirer du fait d'avoir des chevreaux à vendre au moment ou le marché enregistre une demande élevée. Inviter un commerçant pourrait aussi donner de bonnes indications sur le moment où la demande est la plus élevée et les raisons qui expliquent ce pic saisonnier. Le commerçant autant que l'éleveur auront à y gagner car si le commerçant ne peut satisfaire la demande, il y perdra. Les croisements avec des espèces étrangères est un sujet important mais délicat car ce n'est souvent pas à la portée des éleveurs ordinaires et souvent ce sont des organisations extérieures qui introduisent de nouvelles races. Des représentants de ces organisations pourront expliquer les avantages que les éleveurs pourraient tirer des espèces étrangères et comment ils comptent disséminer les résultats de leurs travaux.La santé des chèvres L'interview sur l'emploi des remèdes traditionnels donne des renseignements pour soigner la galle et les parasites intestinaux mais il est question du maintien de la bonne santé des chèvres dans pratiquement toutes les interviews de cette série. Très peu d'éleveurs en Afrique ont recours aux déparasitants gastro-intestinaux modernes et ne pratiquent presque jamais la vaccination ni le détiquage de leurs chèvres, contrairement à ce qu'ils font pour les ovins. Il serait donc utile pour les éleveurs d'inviter un vétérinaire en studio et de parler avec lui des maladies les plus spécifiques et les plus dangereuses comme la PPR (Peste des Petits Ruminants) ou la PCC (Pleuropneumonie Caprine Contagieuse) ou encore des autres affections qui atteignent les caprins. Le vétérinaire pourra informer les auditeurs sur les mesures de prévention à prendre, comment reconnaître les symptômes, que faire pour soigner la chèvre atteinte et comment prévenir une contagion du troupeau. Les réglementations en matière de vaccination varient aussi d'un pays à l'autre et un représentant des Services du Ministère de l'élevage invité au micro sera capable de répondre aux questions des auditeurs si nécessaire.Celles-ci varient d'une région à l'autre et d'un climat à l'autre mais les règles de base demeurent les mêmes et un hangar trop étroit, sale et mal aéré est à proscrire. En effet bien que beaucoup d'agro-pasteurs soient maintenant sédentarisés en Afrique de l'Ouest, la divagation reste une caractéristique dominante pour les caprins. Elle est totale en saison sèche, alors qu'en hivernage, les animaux sont surveillés plus ou moins étroitement pour éviter les dégâts aux cultures. Dans beaucoup d'élevages, les agriculteurs disposent d'un simple hangar au toit de paille comme abri pour l'ensemble des espèces présentes. Les solutions trouvées par les éleveurs pour construire des abris propres et bien aérés, en matériau local, avec des sections séparées pour les chèvres grosses ou en lactation par exemple, peut faire l'objet d'une très bonne émission ou l'éleveur est interviewé et où les auditeurs peuvent réagir et poser des questions à cet éleveur. L'élément « L'habitat idéal » peut constituer un bon départ pour toutes discussions au téléphone ou en studio et demander aux auditeurs s'ils ont d'autres suggestions ou idées. Les chèvres étant très curieuses et très habiles à s'échapper, un bon sujet de discussion pourrait être par exemple la façon dont les éleveurs s'assurent que toutes les portes et les attaches de barrières sont à l'épreuve de leurs animaux mais sans toutefois créer des risques de blessure comme avec des fils de fer barbelés : les éleveurs peuvent échanger quelques « trucs » que l'expérience leur a enseigné ! La viande, le lait et le cuir En Afrique, la viande de chèvre est très consommée malgré de nombreux tabous liés à sa consommation. La viande de chèvre est souvent, avec les poulets, la seule véritable source de protéines des familles pauvres. Un vétérinaire ou un agent de vulgarisation peut être invité à répondre aux questions des auditeurs pour combattre ces tabous et les informer des bienfaits de la viande de chèvre. L'interview faite au Sénégal sur la consommation de viande dans ce pays peut servir de point de départ à une discussion en studio.Les chèvres sont des animaux laitiers par excellence puisqu'elles peuvent produire jusqu'à 5 litres de lait par jour. Mais la consommation de lait de chèvre est encore très peu répandue en Afrique et le fromage encore moins. Une suggestion d'émission originale pourrait être d'organiser un micro trottoir pour faire goûter du lait ou du fromage de chèvre aux personnes interrogées et enregistrer leurs réactions. Un panel en studio pourrait faire la même chose et un débat pourrait suivre sur les façons d'encourager la consommation de lait et de fromage de chèvre et même de yaourt. Les habitudes alimentaires sont extrêmement difficiles à changer partout dans le monde mais des émissions de sensibilisation sont un premier pas. Interviewer une fabricante de fromage dans la capitale ou un technicien actif dans la filière lait pourrait aussi intéresser les auditeurs et les inciter à téléphoner à votre station.Le cuir de chèvre a toujours été travaillé de façon traditionnelle en Afrique de l'Ouest par certaines ethnies qui se spécialisent dans ce travail. Mais l'industrie internationale du cuir s'intéresse de plus en plus aux peaux de chèvres très souples et de nouveaux acteurs agissent dans la filière. L'interview faite au Sénégal sur le sujet donne beaucoup d'information sur les problèmes actuels rencontrés par les acteurs présents dans le secteur de la peau. Cela peut être le point de départ pour un débat en studio sur ce qui est fait …ou pas fait … dans votre pays. S'il existe il une tannerie traditionnelle ou industrielle, cela ferait un très bon reportage de s'y rendre et de recueillir l'avis des travailleurs et du directeur.• Les différentes races de chèvres. Vous pouvez inviter un spécialiste qui pourra vous parler des croisements possibles. Les meilleures races de chèvres laitières qui peuvent être croisées avec des races locales sont la Saanen, la Mancha, l'Alpine et la Toggenbourg Les moyens pratiques pour avoir tous les éléments nécessaires à l'alimentation des chèvres.Regrouper les chaleurs, contrôler l'accès des boucs, la nécessité de la castration.3'57 Les remèdes de pharmacie sont efficaces mais chers et beaucoup d'éleveurs font appel à leurs connaissances traditionnelles.Les dangers des hangars trop étroits, sales et mal aérés.A lire en studio Propre, aéré et en petites unités séparées.3'51 La viande de chèvre est souvent la seule source de protéine pour les ménages pauvres et des efforts sont faits pour promouvoir sa consommation. En général, les éleveurs de caprins n'ont pas un truc digne d'habitat pour les caprins parce qu'ils évitent le vol surtout. Donc ils font des abris de fortune : soit c'est une case qu'ils font comme ça et ils mettent les animaux dedans, ils parquent les animaux dedans, qu'ils ferment. Ou c'est quelque chose, un appatam qu'on n'utilise pas, ils mettent de la paille dessus pour couvrir et ils mettent les animaux là. Donc chacun utilise ce qu'il peut pour pouvoir abriter ses animaux, ce qui n'offre pas les conditions nécessaires pour que les animaux puissent vivre, d'abord les normes, l'hygiène, l'aération, tout ça là.Comment cela devrait se faire en réalité ?En réalité il faut un habitat avec une courette et un abri qui porte un toit pour pouvoir abriter les animaux et cet habitat doit contenir certaines …un habitat digne c'est à dire un abreuvoir, une mangeoire et un truc pour pouvoir suspendre les feuilles, les feuilles vertes et aussi il faut quelque part ou les animaux peuvent se reposer. Mais à ou il faut mettre les aliments, il faut l'accrocher et là où il faut mettre de l'eau et aussi un piquet pour pouvoir supporter la pierre à lécher. Et donc dans la cour on met tout ça là et la nuit les animaux se retirent sous l'abri pour pouvoir… pour être à l'abri de la fraîcheur.Et ces abris de fortune que les éleveurs trouvent, qu'est ce que cela a comme conséquence sur l'élevage?Ces abris sont exigus et ils ne tiennent pas compte des normes qu'il faut c'est à dire pour un animal maintenant il faut environ 1,5 mètres carré pour que l'animal soit bien à l'aise mais chez nos paysans, ils les parquent dans un enclos, je vais appeler ça enclos, ils les parquent dedans et ils sont là étouffés, si bien que le matin quand on arrive et qu'on ouvre la porte pour pouvoir faire sortir les animaux, il y a une odeur d'ammoniaque que l'on rencontre. Donc vous voyez ça là sur l'organisme des animaux, ça ne les met pas en sécurité à 100 %.Bon généralement ils ne sont pas étouffés mais seulement cette manière de les mettre ensemble développe les maladies et comme je l'ai dit, il n'y a pas d'hygiène, ça peut amener la galle et l'animal qui porte le virus déjà en miniature de la Peste des Petits Ruminants, quand il tousse, il éparpille tout au niveau des autres et ainsi le mal se propage rapidement…oui … c'est juste pour éviter le vol qu'ils font tout ça là, hein…Ils sont conscients au moins de ce qu'il faut un abri décent pour les animaux ?On les a formés et on leur a montré comment en milieu rural ils peuvent ériger un abri avec des matériaux locaux …Mais ils ne le font pas ?Ils ne le font pas …Si vous les rencontrez, vous discutez avec eux, ils disent que ça vraiment ils n'ont pas d'argent, c'est toujours le même refrain, ou bien c'est qu'ils évitent les voleurs et ils les parquent là et ça leur permet de les surveiller parce que l'enclos, là ou ils les enferment, c'est leur cour, dans la concession donc ça n'a pas besoin de beaucoup d'espace. Ça fait que ces enclos là ne sont pas aérés, il y a aussi le problème d'aération. Mais par contre pour faire l'habitat réel, ce qu'on leur conseille de faire, il faut un peu d'espace, il faut au moins 6 mètres sur 9 pour à peu près 4 à 6 petits ruminants dans la cour parce qu'il faut prévoir que ceux là vont se multiplier.Vraiment pour faire des abris qui répondent aux normes, il faut aller à la racine du problème : il faut reconnaître qu'ils ont en partie raison, hein, pour les cas de vols parce que les animaux sont vraiment volés dans les villages et aussi comme ils parlent toujours de problèmes d'argent, si on peut leur faire des prêts ou bien desis subventions, là ça peut les aider parce qu'il y a certains qui sont effectivement disponibles et qui tentent de faire ce qu'on leur demande mais il leur manque effectivement les moyens pour pouvoir le faire donc si on peut leur trouver de petits moyens, juste pour faire l'abri, ça peut régler parce qu'effectivement il y a ce problème d'argent. Fin de la bandeLes infrastructures d'abri pour les chèvres sont très variées : Certains éleveurs se contentent de rassembler leur troupeau sous un arbre et de les surveiller. D'autres construisent de petits hangars en briques ou en planches sur lesquels ils posent un toit de paille ou de tôle ondulée. Dans beaucoup d'élevages traditionnels, les chèvres broutent librement pendant la journée et sont ramenées à l'abri á la tombée de la nuit mais d'autres préfèrent les garder en stabulation c'est-à-dire dans la chèvrerie de façon permanente.Les infrastructures d'abri que l'éleveur choisit, dépendent de plusieurs facteurs, notamment le climat, la taille du troupeau et le genre de gestion de l'élevage. Mais si vous avez l'intention de construire une infrastructure d'abri pour des chèvres, il y a certaines règles élémentaires à suivre.D'abord il s'agit de choisir le bon endroit : si la chèvrerie est située prés des habitations, les voleurs seront moins enclins à essayer de voler les animaux. L'abri doit être construit dans un endroit bien aéré, sec et bien drainé pour pouvoir protéger les chèvres de la pluie, de l'humidité, du vent et de la poussière.Ensuite, l'abri doit être facile à nettoyer. Dans les pays secs, un sol en terre battue fera l'affaire. Mais il faut veiller à ce que le sol soit légèrement en pente afin que l'urine des chèvres puisse s'écouler et ne forme pas des flaques. Dans les pays humides, Les planchers en caillebotis ou en platelage perforés peuvent éviter la contamination parasitaire et microbienne pouvant provenir des urines et des fèces. De plus les déjections peuvent ainsi être recueillis plus facilement et utilisées ensuite comme fumure pour les champs. Un plancher à caillebotis coûte assez cher lors la construction mais cela peut s'avérer un excellent investissement si cela contribue á la bonne santé du troupeau.Une bonne aération est donc essentielle car si la ventilation n'est pas adéquate le risque de pneumonie ou d'autres maladies pulmonaires augmente considérablement. Donc si l'abri est construit en dur, soit en parpaing de ciment ou en banco, il doit y avoir des espaces entre les briques afin de permettre à l'air de circuler. Cependant s'il y a possibilité de vent froid, ces espaces doivent être placés au dessus de la tête des chèvres qui craignent beaucoup les courants d'air et sont très frileuses. Dans les climats très chauds, des murs en dur ne sont sans doute pas la meilleure solution et une structure en bois est sans doute plus adaptée. Le toit, qu'il soit en paille ou en tôle ondulée doit avant tout être parfaitement étanche car les chèvres sont très sensibles à la pluie et à l'humidité. Un toit plus large que l'abri lui-même est toujours une bonne idée car cela offre une zone d'ombre supplémentaire et empêche aussi l'eau de rentrer dans la chèvrerie en cas de rafale de vent. Si le toit est fait de paille, il est conseillé de mettre une couche de plastic entre les couches de paille ce qui le rend plus étanche. La tôle ondulée est plus solide de la paille mais dans les pays très chauds, il y a un risque de surchauffe.Enfin la dernière chose qu'il convient de mentionner c'est la taille de l'abri : si les animaux sont gardés en stabulation de façon permanente, il faut prévoir une superficie d'au moins 1,5 à 2 mètres carré par animal. Si les chèvres broutent de façon libre dans la journée, 1 mètre carré par animal suffira. Généralement nous ici, on parle globalement de petits ruminants qui englobe donc les ovins et les caprins. On lutte contre les maladies qui attaquent ces espèces là et on encourage les exploitants à s'intéresser à ces espèces là pour pouvoir améliorer leurs revenus et aussi pour pouvoir améliorer la consommation de viande sur le plan national parce que si on abat plus de caprins ou de moutons, là on joue aussi sur la consommation per capita de viande.A combien peut on estimer la quantité de viande consommée par les sénégalais ?Si on se base sur les abattages contrôlés parce qu'il y a des abattages contrôlés et des abattages non contrôlés malheureusement qu'on appelle abattages clandestins et là, si je me réfère à l'année 2005, il y a eu prés de 35 000 tonnes de viande qui ont été consommées par les sénégalais. Donc la consommation per capita pour l'année 2005 tourne autour de 13,9 kilos de viande par habitant. Ça c'est calculé sur la base des abattages contrôlés, la production contrôlée qui tournait autour de 35 000 tonnes plus maintenant les abattages dit domestiques ou rituels ce qui nous donne une production estimée de plus de 100 000 tonnes et c'est sur cette base là qu'on a déterminé donc la consommation per capita qui tourne pour 2005 à environ 13,9.Il s'avère que pour de nombreux sénégalais, manger de la viande de chèvre n'est pas une bonne chose parce qu'ils soupçonnent que la viande de chèvre cause des maladies, qu'en est il exactement ?Il y a certaines croyances ou assertions qui le disent mais dans les faits il y a beaucoup de personnes qui mangent de la chèvre sans le savoir : dans les « débiteries » par exemple, généralement c'est des caprins et je crois que sur le plan strictement vétérinaire, il n'y a aucune contre-indication pour la consommation de la viande de chèvre.Est-ce que ces croyances populaires constituent un frein à la consommation de viande de chèvre ? Est-ce que ça cause des manques à gagner aux éleveurs ?Je ne crois pas réellement, hein … On parle généralement de petits ruminants avec les ovins …C'est en fait des animaux qu'on vend souvent pour régler des problèmes ponctuels et je pense que ça n'affecte pas vraiment la consommation ou l'élevage des caprins.Certaines débiteries, comme vous dites, donnent l'argument selon lequel la viande de chèvre est plus maigre que la viande de mouton. Est-ce que cette comparaison peut être faite ?Oui effectivement, la viande de chèvre est moins grasse, généralement moins grasse que la viande de mouton parce que généralement les chèvres ne sont pas élevées en case comme les moutons et ça peut aussi être aussi un moyen pour lutter contre certaines maladies : éviter de manger trop gras. En ce qui concerne les peaux de caprins, de chèvres, elles font l'objet de commercialisation de la même manière que les peaux de mouton et de bovins. Nous avons un potentiel qui est très important. Vous savez le Sénégal consomme beaucoup de viande de petits ruminants, de chèvres, donc actuellement ces produits sont très bien commercialisés au Sénégal, c'est valorisé car avant on considérait ces produits comme des sous-produits mais aujourd'hui ce sont des produits qui sont particulièrement recherchés compte tenu du fait que ce sont des produits qui procurent beaucoup de revenus.Justement, à combien peut on évaluer ce que rapporte la peau des chèvres aux éleveurs ?Bon vous avez parlé des éleveurs … Je dois dire que les peaux sont principalement exploitées par d'autre types d'intervenants que sont les collecteurs. C'est une filière a part dans le sous-secteur de l'élevage …Il faut dire que pour ce qui concerne les exportations, cela tourne en moyenne autour de 10 milliards de Francs CFA en recettes d'exportation.Et à Dakar, les collecteurs, c'est composé pour l'essentiel de femmes. Est-ce que au plan national, il y a plus d'hommes ou de femmes qui interviennent dans ce secteur ?Bon disons que pour ce qui concerne la collecte des peaux, c'est vrai, il y a des catégories de femmes qui sont spécialisées dans le travail des peaux mais si on regarde de façon globale, la masse des intervenants, je crois que les femmes aujourd'hui, elles occupent une petite portion parce qu'avant effectivement c'étaient les femmes qui travaillaient la peau, pour être plus précis les femmes mauresques, elles sont très connues dans ce genre d'activité parce qu'avant la peau était considérée comme un sous-produit, beaucoup de gens ne s'intéressaient pas à cette activité mais quand les gens ont découvert que c'était un filon, mais aujourd'hui ce sont des gens qui ont beaucoup d'argent qui investissent. Si bien que les femmes qui avant occupaient le devant de la scène, se trouvent aujourd'hui presque à la périphérie de cette activité … parce que c'est une affaire de gros sous maintenant n'est ce pas ….Parce que le marché du cuir à l'échelle internationale est un marché extrêmement important en termes de revenus. Par conséquent vous avez vu l'évolution qui s'est opérée dans ce secteur des peaux.Monsieur Mané, est ce qu'il y a des unités industrielles sur le territoire national de tannage ?Oui, je crois que sur ce plan là, on a une bonne position et on doit prendre avantage de cette position. Vous n'ignorez pas que on avait la plus grande unité industrielle de production au Sénégal avec l'ancienne Bata qui existe jusqu'à présent … peut être qu'elle ne fonctionne pas à son rythme normal mais les unités sont encore là. On a encore également d'autres unités de tannage qui sont venues s'ajouter à l'ancienne Bata si bien qu'aujourd'hui nous avons une capacité importante de tannage au Sénégal qui est quelque peu sous-exploitée. Je pense que ce qu'il faut c'est d'essayer de redonner un coup de fouet à ce secteur là parce que nous avons aujourd'hui une capacité de tannage qui dépasse la production nationale. Ce qu'il faut simplement, c'est un problème d'organisation, organiser la filière pour qu'on puisse vraiment valoriser de façon optimale notre capacité et je crois qu'on peut même aller au-delà de nos frontières … D'ailleurs c'est le cas, il y a des importations de peaux, peaux brutes des pays voisins qui sont traitées au Sénégal pour être ré-exportées. Par conséquent sur ce plan là je pense que ce qu'il nous faut c'est une bonne organisation. L'autre aspect qu'il faut mentionner c'est que nos unités de tannage fonctionnent en deçà de leurs capacités parce que tout simplement une bonne partie des collecteurs exporte leurs produits, ils ne tannent pas ici au Sénégal. Une bonne partie de la production est exportée à l'état brut. On a deux grandes unités qui fonctionnent : il y a une unité qui fait du cuir totalement fini, prêt à être employé et il y a une autre unité qui fait du semi-fini c'est-à-dire des cuirs et peaux travaillés à mi chemin entre le brut et le fini.Comment, d'après vous aider les femmes maures ou d'autres ethnies, qui se livrent au tannage artisanal, comment les aider à développer ce secteur d'activité ?Il faut faire quelque chose pour ces dames là. Il faut voir ces femmes qui travaillent, n'est ce pas …C'est des gens qui travaillent dans des conditions très modestes. Je pense que les aider permettra de résoudre en même temps le problème de pauvreté parce qu'actuellement il y a de sérieux problèmes auxquels ces femmes font face. Le premier problème c'est le problème de local pour travailler… N'est ce pas avec l'urbanisation, elles n'arrivent plus à trouver de l'espace dans les grandes villes pour travailler si bien qu'elles ont des difficultés à trouver un endroit ou pouvoir travailler. Ça c'est le premier problème. L'autre problème, c'est la matière première. Avant elles étaient presque seules dans la filière. Ce sont elles qui ramassaient les peaux, qui les travaillaient, qui les vendaient. Mais aujourd'hui avec l'évolution, elles ont des difficultés pour trouver la matière première parce que aujourd'hui il y a des gens qui ont leur argent pour aller à la source donc imaginez ces femmes avec des moyens très modestes qui vont concurrencer des gens qui ont des revenus assez importants pour collecter les peaux … Parce les femmes, si vous voyez la manière dont elles travaillent : elles ne travaillent qu'avec des peaux de rebut c'est-à-dire des peaux qu'on a presque jetées ou bien alors si elles trouvent des peaux de bonne qualité, c'est plus loin, c'est-à-dire des peaux qu'elles peuvent recueillir aux endroits les plus éloignés, par exemple en brousse où les gens, ils tuent les bêtes, ils ne savent pas trop bien valoriser la peau, ou les grands collecteurs ont des difficultés pour accéder. Donc c'est à ce niveau là qu'elles peuvent avoir des peaux de bonne qualité mais à Dakar pratiquement c'est impossible parce Dakar c'est pris par des opérateurs économiques qui ont des moyens économiques suffisants pour tout ramasser. Donc il y a ces problèmes qu'il faut résoudre et ça permettra de participer de façon, disons significative, en tous cas pour ce secteur là, à la réduction de la pauvreté. Fin de la bande","tokenCount":"6349"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d6666466708fca21fed508edf98da695","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/1b12e2c5-933d-463d-8b14-32637b5c1316/retrieve","id":"-478402633"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a9c38f76-964e-48d5-84b3-2487fb7081b5","pagecount":"44","content":"Buku ӓvuoso 'ba ro (to'dina)    BUKU GIṚINGWA Alo aza nӓtu roBuku ono orine 'du gboko kyiro kwori ro be: ka tase usube driya ndi losi oyena be itina. Buku ono to'di yi ka liti taro lepena. Egyi'ba na yi ni Ronnie Vernooy, Bhuwan Sthapit ndi Guy Bessette be (Bioversity International, 2020). James Odra ndi Kennedy Crispo be logoni kala moru si (University of Juba, 2023). Buku ono orivoya nätu giṛinwa ro. Buku giṛingwa ono egyite lidri 'bӓdri ro ri. Ndana se ka ngaonya lofo be ndroa cini si, ago ndana tadri ole be kyiro kwori gboko anya ro ro opani, edeni ago embani.Losi ono efoni tavo uṛi tangye usuro tauni ambasi yasi ndi ngaemba kyiro kwori gboko ro ro be. Egyite ngaopa parata na Dipartmenti Agriculture ro, Forestry ro ndi Fisheries ro (DAFF) Miri 'bädri South Africa ro ozoni.Maye aro'boya DAFF ri tana ndana ozo kandra kado gwo amari buku giṛingwa ono egyi zana ävuoso'ba cini 'bӓdri ono ya ri uzini. Tagi egyibe buku giṛingwa ono ya ono tausu lidri gi kegyi yi buku koyi be ono ro.Teinye buku kwoyi lofo akuna, mojo te losi oyeni sina Zimbabwe ya. Losi oye'ba Community Technology Development Trust (CTDT) ro lepe amani losi ena ya. Ago lidri gboko kyiro kwori ro Uzumba Maramba Plungwa ro ndi lidri Mudzi robe kpa ama yibe. Ama yaiḋwe ambasi anya yibe tana ndana kaḋa liti azakana te amari. Maye aro'boya CTDT ri tana ndana le tadrigwo buku kwori kaḋa ro vo aloya (Buku giṛinwa3) losi oyena ojoni amari vo aloyasi.Maye aro'boya Anne Porcuna Ferrer ri, Arnab Gupta ri, ago kpa Deendayal Research Institute (India) ri tana leyi tadrigwo lindri ndana ro azakana o'bani bukungwa amoro koyi ya.Maye aro'boya kpa amba ävuoso'ba ḋitoko ro ago manoago ro ri 'bӓdri ya ngulu, se etoyi ede kyiro kwori gboko ro ro ni. Mojote tauni ndana ro ndi tausu ndaro ago losi azaka se ndana koye be ḋo locini buku amaro ono ya. Ago riti azaka se ndana kusu be losi oyevoya ndi nga azaka se koye yibe kado ro ede, mbara ozo ndi losi oye kwori gbako ro ya ḋo mooloci kpa gwo buku ono ya.Kyiro kwori ro gboko ri omoni kori robena ḋu gboko be olena losi oyeni lidri amba ri mbara cini si. Taoma amaro ya, buku onosi, ӓvuoso'ba amba kaoye andivo anyaro ozoni cu losi Kyiro Kwori Gboko ro oyeni.Aro'boya amaro amba Sandra Garland ri kala egyi buku ono be sina ono edero ngye.Ago aro'boya kpa Luca Pierotti ri beti buku ono ro edero oso nya ondrena be ono ronye.Aro'boya amba James Odra ndi Kennedy Crispo be ri tana ndana logo bukungwa ono teni kala Englizi ro ya kala Moru si. Egyi tausu cini ndi losi oye kyiro kwori gboko ro rote kigye (Vernooy ndi lidri aza ka be, 2020). Buku giringwa koyi egyite ago a'ba tana te lidri gboko cini ya se kole tadri be losi kyiro kwori gboko ro oyeni 'do, ainya ri losi oyeni sina. Alo buku giringwa ono ro cini ka tase kyiro kwori gboko lidri 'bädri Africa roya, Asia ya ndi Latin America ya kegyi be vuru atana.Tenye miri losi oye ako bukuwa ono si gboko miro ya, be ro miri vo losi miro ro edeni kode ozani kado ro.Mini na ndi logoni kale miro ya ago tagi cini egyibe kigye 'do ozani taoye gboko 'bädri miro ro vo ro. Oko rägu tagi egyi be losi oye 'bädri azaka yasi 'do mi'ba kori inye tana ävuoso 'ba gboko amiro ro kuni ta azakana robe ni kigyesi. Nya'do nja kala nyologo be 'do ozoni lidri se kuni ta kyiro kwori gboko ro be 'do ri uzini. Tana ta gi usu tana be, ago ngase cini ale be oyeni 'do odreni nyologo te cini kado ro kala amiro ya. Ta azaka kala Inglisi ro si, riti ro logoni, tana ta oye lidri ro 'badri cini ya ba toto.Mini na ndi ta cini buku giŗingwa ono ya logoni kala amiro si. Ago lindri cini ri a'doni lindri 'bädri amiro ro. Ago etovo egyi buku giŗingwa cini ro tozani, ta ka'da kyiro kwori gboko amiro ro ya. 'Dooko miye te inye, buku dri ro ono o'dena gwo a'doni 'bädri amiro ro.Buku giŗingwa ono mini na ndi losi oyeni toto sina. Ago mini na kpa lidri embani sina ta ede (omo) kyiro kwori gboko ro ya ndi vona ondre na be.Ondro nyate mi ede lidri embani oko, kpa miri buku Bioversity International ro aza äzi ävuruna \"Companion Community seed bank facilitator handbook\" losi oyeni sina.Ago ka'do te ävuoso'ba ri losi oyeni buku giŗingwa ono si, be ainya ri liti koyi o'deni vona yasi:• Be miri buku giŗingwa koyi losi oye sina ka'dani gboko miro ri teinye miri ozo aku ainya ri.• Tu mile ya aza si oko, nyeji gboko koye losi be buku giŗingwa ono si 'do, tausu ainya ro buku giŗingwa ono ta engwonye ya, tana ko'ba egyi'ba buku ro kolofo to'dina kado para robe.Ondro logo buku giŗingwa koyi ro kala miro si ndi losi oyena be kokye te oko, be miri beti se mile buku be a'doni itini buku lofo 'ba ri.√ Buku giŗingwa ono edeni oso buku ngaga giŗingwa ro ronye.√ Lindri cini a'doni 'desi ogani twi page alo ya.√ Ta egyi buku ya a'doni cini 'desi ro.√ Waraga kado mbarabe losi oye zana aya.√ Olofo buku alodi aza käti andre kado na robe teinye vona cini se alebe lofo ni'do ako.Rägu ngase cini miye be ago nyusu tana be buku giŗingwa ono ri a'do zana kado para, mizo tana Bioversity International ri address ono ya: r.vernooy@cgiar.org Maa ni kyiro kwori gboko amaro ro losina oyena andivo amaro si. Maa kpa ni kwori ngoanya cini amaro ro ro omba drina ya (da'dona). Maa ni kwori koso cini ro, koso kara ro, thore ro, sämändi ro, däbäŗi ro, melon ro, inju ro, inya ro, wheat ro ago bambara nuts ro omba drina ya. Ama kpa kwori keci ice aza äzi ävuruna Moringa be. Kyiro kwori gboko amaro ro orivoya zo be 'desi, kwori amaro dämbi ro. Vo aza kpa orivoya zo amaro 'do ya kala koto ro ta ata ro. Ama kpa ävube kwori kyi'di zana. Dipartmenti Agriculture, Forestry ndi Fisheries ro be 'bädri South Africa ro ya, ndi lidri Limpopo ro be kayibe ta nga kyi'di ro ndi vona ondrena ka'dana be ävuoso'ba ri, ago ndi Bioversity International be kayi ama opani losi amaro ya.Male itini amiri nyede na (mimona) ago nyelepena kyiro kwori gboko amiro ro engonye ya.Kyiro kwori gboko ro orivoya nga amiro. Kyiro 'do ka kwori eta ago dämbi ni teinye nga kwozi ri oci ako kigye. Ago ka kpa kwori se ävuoso'ba kole be 'do, o'bana ainya ri usuni.Ävuoso'ba 'ditoko ro ago manoago ro gboko ro, se kole yibe vo kwori ro ondreni 'do, kayi ni vo kyiro amaro ro ondrena. Azaka si lidri azaka se ru dri be vo aloya losi ävuoso (agriculture) ro ya 'do ka ama opani.Kyiro amaro kwori gboko ro ka losi nätu koyi oye:• Ka kwori dämbi ago ka kwori se kyeno kuje te 'do lofona gboko ŗi ogoni kyi'di ni.• Ka kwori kado o'ba usuni ndri, lagye fere si, ävuoso'ba kole kwori be 'do ri.• Ka gboko o'ba ombani a'doni nga be.Liti orivoya su miri oyeni ondro mile te kyiro kwori ro omoni gboko amiro ri au.Ta tenyi gi kägyi su ro ono kami o'ba ta toto ävuoso ro unini: kode kwori betina orivoya amba kode toto oti ro fere, inye 'do kwori 'do ndana vo cini ya, kode toto vo azaka yasi. Kode azaya oti ndaro toto fere ka oyete a'doni i'do lidri be. Mäni na ndi square aza locini kyitori ka kwori azaka se kuje be ni gboko ya ka'dana. 'Dooko anjioko 'do te ta tenyi kägyi nji ro.Gboko azaka ka losi oye (biodiversity wheel) si, kiswe be su, ko'ba kägyi ro a'doni su. Vo ngulu aza orivoya kyitori wheel ro ya. Vo ngulu 'do ya ävuoso'ba ka ävuru kwori se cini kuje be 'do egyina kigye.Mäni na ndi ta ono ogwo ni dele ni beti cini kwori ro gboko be egyini wheel ono ya. Mäni na ndi beti cini däbäŗi ro se gboko kabe kyi'di na ävuruna egyini wheel ono ya. Ma'dena gwo uni ni kode ävuoso'ba cini ka kyidina vo cini ya, kode ävuoso'ba fere kani kyi'dina toto vo azaka yasi.LITI TA ONO KA OYI BE KIGYE SI TENYI NAOndro ta enyi kägyi su ro (\"4 -cell analysis\") kokye te oko, te liti ta ono ro tenyi ni. Ta tenyi ono si ma'dena gwo unini kwori engwoni ago beti kwori engwoni ro cini se kuje be ni gboko yasi; ago ko'de yibe ujeni takaci na e'di ya.Vo amba ya, nga lidri idri ro ka ru toza (gyero) tu cini ya agov ose ndana kayi oribe kigye, ka kpa ugu ru toza (gyero). Tu cini ya, kwori ngaonya ro ka ugu okye, ago vo se abe ndana kyi'di kigye, ka kpa ugu ego fere.Amiri unini kwori ngaonya se lidri ka kyi'di na be ndroa nji kälävu be 'do ya ni e'di ya. Ago se akyi'di na be ndroa 'bute kälävu be ndroa nji vosi ni ed'i ya. Ago se aza akyi'di na be ndroa 'bute käti ena ya ni e'di ya.Ondro mini kwori ngaonya ro se cini abe kyi'dina ndroa nätu iy iya, ago mini liti kwori amiro ka oyi be kigye si te oko, mi'de na gwo ta koyi oyeni• Nyegyi ävuru kwori cini ngaonya ro lidri amiro kabe kyi'di na.• Nyojo kwori ngaonya ro se ndroa 'bute (10) kälävu be 'do ya, ago ndroa 'bute ritu (20) kälävu be 'do ya lidri amiro kabe kyi'dina 'do unini. 'Dooko mindre kode gyero ko, kode otina ka ego vuru kode ka utu kuru.Liti käti: Kwori cini gboko amiro ya unini ago mi'ba lidri cini ri ta kwori ro uniniYau ono amiri unini ta se cini ka be a'do kwori amiro se nyabe kyi'dina 'do ya e'di ya. Ago ngana gi iyi ka e'di oye ävuoso'ba ri ya. Nyiti taoye ngana gi iyi ro. Ago mindre kode kayi takado ozo kode ta kozi oye kwori ngaonya ro amiro ri ya.Tase unini nino. Ale unini ävuoso'ba amiro ka kwori ndaro onjina, omba drina ya, dämbina ago gyero na azi be engwonye ndroa cini si ya. Ago inye 'do kayi ta ndana ro cini oyena engwonye, ago a'di yibe ya. Ago, kayi ru dro'be ävuoso'ba azaka be engwonye, ta kwori ainya ro ro ta ya?Tase ale be unini nino. Ale unini ta kozi azaka se ka a'do be kwori amiro dämbi ro ya, ago losi kwori ro oye vo ya tu yau ono ya. Tana ta kozi gi ka a'do be 'do ana robe, ko'ba lidri cini robe orini kado ro.Liti käti: Kwori cini gboko amiro ya unini ago mi'ba lidri cini ri ta kwori ro unini MI'BA LIDRI GBOKO AMIRO YA TA KWORI RO UNINITa kwori toto ro unini, ago ta tenyi liti se kwori kabe uruna ro ka taka'da ni ngase cini kabe ru toza (gyero) ngaonya se cini gboko kabe kyi'di na ya.Ta koyi oyena tana ka gboko o'bani ta kado kwori dämbi ro unini ago kwori se cini kuje be ni gboko ya, logoni kovole gboko ri.Ävuoso'ba gboko toto azaka ro täkyini kado para, tana losi oye anya ro ka kpa tauni ozo amiri losi oyezana.Lidri tӓkyi 'do orivoya kado para. Ka a'do kado para amiri ondro nyӓtӓkyi te lidri se vo ndaro (ndana) ro oti kwori ro amba, ago kwori dӓmbi ndana ro kado para ni amiro risi. 'Do ka kpa tauni ozo gboko amiro ri.Ta miemba lidri ro kwori ndaro unini vosi, ävuoso'ba azaka gboko amiro ya ka oye o'deni mile ya (käti) atani gboko ri ta dri oleni kyiro kwori gboko ro omoni. Gumbu ya moto kala ävuoso'ba Gumbu ro ta atani voaloya, ago äduro ndana vo vodo gwo. Vodo ovosi, ävuoso'ba cini le tadri omo kyiro kwori ro gboko ndaro ri gwo ya cini si.Mini na kpa ndi organization azaka ndi Miri amiro be ejini ami opani ta kyiro gboko amiro ro omoni ta.Yau one te amiri vo se kyiro kwori gboko amiro ro omoni kigye 'do uŗini. Amiri ta amba o'bani dri amiro ya käti mi'dena gwo vo se kado kyiro 'do omoni kigye 'do usuni. Tase o'bani dri amiro ya ni koyi:• Gyini gyi kyiro omoni kigye 'do a'di ro ago yau ono a'di kani losi oye kigye ya?• Vo 'do a'doni kyitori gboko ro ya tana ka'do robe riti ako lidri se losi be osani kigye.• Nga lidri lungi ro a'doni orivoya osani ni vo cini yasi, ndi vogi kyiro be kigye 'do ya.• Gyi uvuro ka'do a'doni orivoya vo 'do ya.• Vo ngaonya ogyero a'doni orivoya loto ti, tana lidri koto kala te atani kode losi oyeni oko, kogye yi ngaonya ro be ni kigye.• Lidri se ka ävuoso'ba emba be ta ävuuoso ro ya, ago vona ondre roya (extension agents) a'doni orivoya vo 'do ya.Liti nina: Tori ävuoso'ba ro engana vo ndana ro edena ago omo kyiro kwori gboko roOndo alo organization gi kole tadri be kyiro kwori gboko ro omoni 'do le kpa gboko ri ngaopa ndana ro ozoni ngase aza ndana be si. Ävuoso'ba ri tori ndaro engani kuru losi dri ro oyeni tana ande omo kyiro ro robe.'Bädri Gumbu ro ya, mäzi lidri gboko amaro ya te kala otoni atani ta ngase cini alebe oyeni ago ngase ni 'do ya gboko unina ndi ozoni ni e'di ya. Mäzi lidri gboko amaro ya te cini.Me'be 'ditoko ndi manoago be ko. Me'be agoanji ndi ndiringwa ago lidri 'desi ndi agoambago ndi toko adrangwa be ko. Mäzi ävuoso'ba se vo ndaro loto ti, ago se vo ndana ro lozo 'do kpa cini. Lidri gi cini mäzi be kala kotoni 'do, male anya ri tausu ndaro itini ago tausu ndana ro tagi cini ale be oyeni 'do ro itini kala koto 'do ya.A'dona kado para mi ävuoso'ba ro embani ta kwori kado legyeto ro ya, kwori ede wäŗi ndi ewina be ya, ago kpa omba kwori dri ndi egyina waraga ya be.A'dona kado ro amiri lidri gi kabe ävuoso'ba emba ävuoso ya, ago vona ondre (\"extension officer\") ya 'do ejini tana kopa amiro liti kado miemba ro vona ozana ya.Lidri kyiro kwori gboko azaka ro vo azaka ya, kayi ru dro'be lidri Madrasa ävuoso'ba ro (\"farm field school\") be, se orivoya 'bädri ndana ro ya, miemba 'do vona oza voya. Miemba 'do ya, liti kado kwori oto ro, ago kwori liti ro äni tana robe kado ro.A'dona kpa kado ro gboko giŗingwa azaka ävuoso'ba ro se orivoya tadriolebe ago tauni be ta ävu oso ro ya 'do unini. Tana ndana ka'da nai vose kwori ngaonya kado ro be kigye 'do ni.Buku giŗingwa ono ya, maka'da liti te su ta ede (omo) kyiro kwori gboko ro tana ro.Liti käti: Uni kwori toto ro, ago lidri o'bani kwori cini 'do tana unini. Ta 'do oyeni le losi otina su oyeni:• Tauni ne kode oti kwori toto 'do ro mu'du moda, ago inye 'do ndana ndi vo cini yasi ya.• Liti se kwori ka oyibe kigye si tenyi na. Ono ka mi o'ba tauni ni kwori toto ka ru gyero engwone ago vose ndana be kigye 'do ka ru gyero engwonye ya.• Voondre kwori se lidri be yau sina ono dri. Unini lidri se kabe losi oye vo kwori ro ya ago losi ndana ro kwori dämbi ni, ago lidri se ndana ka o'bana ävuoso'ba ri kwori usuni ni azi rigye si 'do unini cini.• Lidri amiro ta unini: ono ya, tase cini äni be ta kwori roya itini lidri cini ri.• Liti ŗiri: Tadriole kyiro kwori gboko ro omoni. Amiri organization azaka ndi miri amiro be ejini tana kopai amiro be omo kyiro ro ya. Ago amiri vose kyiro omoni kigye 'do onjini.• Liti nina: Tori ävuoso'ba ro engani (motivating) ago ndana ruedeni (lomvo edeni). 'Dooko kyiro kwori gboko ro omoni.• Liti lisu: Vo miemba ro ozana (edena) Ono ädu buku giŗingwa käti (1) ro se egyi te emba ndi voondre kyiro kwori gboko ro ro ta Ede (omo) kyiro kwori gboko ro Yau ono te amiri mi ozani buku giŗingwa ŗiri (2) dri: Ta kyikyi'ba ro.","tokenCount":"2683"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"10367c7728955d479e0b958bf53614ed","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0afdbb64-c736-465b-9376-6ae109ba246c/retrieve","id":"-1963933275"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"ee461590-737a-467e-9854-9273fb75ab39","pagecount":"19","content":"Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above. The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used.Editing, design and layout-ILRI Cover photo-ILRI Kenya.The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Swedish AgriFoSe2030 program, organized a three-day training workshop titled \"Research to inform agricultural and food security policy and practice in Kenya\" at ILRI Campus, Nairobi on 19-21 February 2018. The workshop targeted Kenyan researchers who recently attained PhD qualifications and are working on agriculture and food security issues. A total of eleven ( 11) participants (7 men and 4 women) from different Universities and research organizations in Kenya namely: University of Nairobi, University of Eldoret, Embu University, Chuka University and Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KARLO) participated in the workshop.The three-day training workshop, led by facilitators from local universities and ILRI, gave participants an opportunity to deepen their understanding and skills in the following areas:o After introductions of the workshop participants, Magnus Jirström of Lund University gave a brief overview of AgriFose2030 activities and progress to date. He described the role of AgriFose2030 in contributing to sustainable intensification of agriculture for increased food production. He also said that AgriFose2030 aims at using science to support better policies and improved practises within the agricultural sector.In his opening remarks, Steve Staal described the role of ILRI/ReSAKSS in supporting the implementation and monitoring and evaluation of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) with data, analysis, and tools for decision making. He emphasized the importance of increasing awareness in the critical areas of agricultural development and the role of research evidence in influencing policy. Joseph Karugia highlighted the objectives of the training workshop indicating that the main purpose of the workshop was to enhance the capacity of participants to undertake policy relevant research and analysis and disseminate their work to the policy making community. He noted that the workshop would be interactive and the sessions would cover the following topics: understanding key concepts in policy; key policy issues in agriculture and food security sectors in Kenya; understanding the policy making process in Kenya and opportunities to engage; and technical writing and policy communication.The session was facilitated by Paul Guthiga. He first started by giving the definition of policy, public policy as well as the characteristics of public policy. He went ahead to outline the key elements of policy and the relationship between policy and politics. The presentation also dwelt on why policies are needed. He mentioned that policies are needed because of market failure. Some of the causes of market failure include:• Existence of monopolies or oligopolies • Imperfect information • Existence of externalities • Inability of the private sector to provide public or collective goods • Barriers to entry or exitThe presenter also gave an overview of the role of agriculture in structural transformation and the transition process involved. The last bit of the presentation was about food security. He defined food security and gave an overview of food security pillars as well as the causes of food insecurity. (See annex for detailed presentation).Session 2: Performance of agriculture and food security sectors in Kenya: policies that underpin performanceThe presentation was made by Stephen Wambugu from Chuka University. The presentation sought to address the following questions:• Which are some of the key agriculture and food sector performance indicators?• Which are some of the key policies that Kenya has implemented in the agriculture sector?• Do you think there is a linkage between policies pursued and agriculture performance?The presenter mentioned that agriculture is key to food security and agriculture sector performance has a strong correlation with the performance of the overall economy. He highlighted the policies which have been pursued in the agriculture sector since 1963 to date, including other important policy decisions. The presenter also provided a linkage between the key policies and agriculture performance.From the presentation, the following conclusions were made: • Kenya's agricultural performance since independence shows mixed trends.• Several indicators are used to depict the performance of agriculture and food sectors.• Performance has been good in some years but not so good in others.• Several policies formulated and implemented have been responsible for these mixed performance. • Agriculture is key to the attainment of SDG 1 and 2 • More effort is needed in the agricultural and food sectors if Kenya is to overcome the recurrent agricultural and food crises. • Opportunities exist for workshop participants to carry out agricultural policy research.(See annex for detailed presentation).This session was facilitated by Willis Kosura. He started by giving the context of agricultural policy making in Kenya and the functions of various levels of government as stipulated in law with an illustration of the Kenya policy implementation map. The presentation centered on the steps of policy analysis, understanding the policy processes, conventional view of policymaking, the policy process model, policy narratives, political interest, concept of policy space as well as communication and packaging. The presenter emphasized the following innovative approach to policy making:• Forward looking Session 4: The role of evidence in policy making with case studiesThe presentation was facilitated by Mohammed Said. It involved demonstrating the role of evidence in policy making using case studies. He used the Kenya Wildlife Conservation and Management Strategy to demonstrate this. He started by explaining the need for a strategy and used the example of Kenya Wildlife Conservation and Management Strategy to demonstrate the role of scientific evidence. The purpose of the Kenya Wildlife Conservation and Management Strategy was to:• Provide a long-term vision for conservation, with priorities and clear action plans for 5 years; • Provide a framework for implementing wildlife conservation;• Set targets and impact pathways • Outline measures of success -through monitoring and learning • Allow cross-sectoral engagement and coordination He also demonstrated the legal and political context of the strategy as well as the strategy formulation process. Another case study of using evidence to inform policy was the licensing of small milk vendors in Kenya. (See annex for detailed presentation).The presentation was delivered by Isaiah Okeyo. He dwelt on what is meant by policy and provided relevant examples from the Kenyan context. He emphasized that while law can compel or prohibit behaviors, policy merely guides actions toward those that are most likely to achieve a desired outcome. He also defined policy dialogue. He said it involves conversations between stakeholders with diverse interest to reach mutual consensus. Some of the policy dialogue outputs include:• Consensus statements • Identifying evidence gaps • Outlining priorities of reform He identified the following opportunities for dialogue in the agriculture sector:The presentation was delivered by Anne Marie Nyamu.The presenter started by giving a brief overview of communication. She said good research must be communicated to the right people for it to have impact. She added that the most important questions to ask when communicating are:• Who do you want to reach?• Why do you want to reach them? • How do you reach them?• What are your main messages? She emphasized that the critical steps to remember before you communicate include:• Clarify your message  To evaluate the training and solicit feedback, participants were asked to complete a four-page questionnaire to rate the various components and aspects of the workshop. The components rated were the workshop content, logistics and learning experience. Another section of the question dealt with how to improve future workshops and gather suggestions and topics for subsequent training workshops.Results of the aanalysis of responses on these aspects are presented in Sections 2 below. workshop content are presented in Table 1 and Figure 1 while areas of improvement and general feedback are presented towards end of results sections.All the 11 workshop participants returned their evaluation forms translating to 100% feedback, which was an excellent response rate. Elements of the workshop content were rated on a scale ranging from 1, for poor, to 5, for excellent. Altogether, the lowest average rating was 3.9 (very good) whilst the highest average rating was 5 (excellent). Relevance of the workshop to the work of the participants was rated very highly by all the participants with an overall mean rate of 5, translating to excellent. This demonstrates a high appreciation of the role that the ILRI/AgriFose2130 policy training initiative can have in improving the work performance of the trainees.Other aspects of the workshop had average rates of 4.5 or higher, i.e. between very good and excellent. Some aspects of the workshop though rated as good or very good are i) quality of presentation on performance of agriculture and food security sectors in Kenya, ii) quality of presentation on how to inform policy: a policy makers perspective, iii) quality of presentation on communication, iv) quality of presentation on digital literacies, v) adequacy of time for discussions, and vi) discussions were stimulating.Eighty-two per cent of the participants rated that the workshop as excellent in terms of living up to their expectations, while the remaining eighteen per cent rated it as very good. This shows that the participants were highly satisfied with the workshop content which was very relevant to their work.Table 1 and Figure 1 present the results of the evaluation of the workshop content. Overall workshop rating 6 (54.5) 5 (45.5) ---4.5Table 2 and Figure 2 below present the results of assessment of workshop logistics. Workshop room facilities and meals/catering services during the workshop tied at the highest rating with an average score of 4.5 with 45.5% and 54.5% of respondents rating them \"excellent\" and \"very good\", respectively. Hotel accommodation got a rating of 4.6 which is higher than the two components mentioned above; however, it is worth noting that only five of the participants were accommodated in the hotel and therefore rated this aspect. Participants were also happy with the way workshop details (invitation letter, air travels and other logistics) were communicated. The average rating was of 4.4 but it was affected by the non-response by one of the participants.   Besides evaluating the presentations and logistics, participants were further asked to evaluate their learning experience. as having significantly improved, moderately improved, not improved and unable to rate, while also providing feedback on five specific areas of coverage as outlined in Table 3 and 4 below. About 64% of the respondents felt that their knowledge and understanding on digital literacy and online resources moderately improved compared with before the workshop. A majority of 82% of the participants attested to have significantly improved their knowledge and understanding of the role of evidence in policy making, compared with before the workshop. Table 3 presents the results of the evaluation of the learning experience while Tables 4 and 5 present comments and recommendations on how the learning experience could be improved.  From their comments and recommendations, it was evident that the agricultural making process in Kenya remains a complicated process and the concepts were not clearly understood. The slides were clearly presented, but the process can take a long period to pass to a policy at national level but the grass roots might be easieriii) The role of evidence in policy making, compared with before the workshop As feedback, the participants hailed the good job done by the facilitators, citing that the resource persons were knowledgeable and that the content of the presentations were excellent.  ","tokenCount":"1884"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"baf2147d1d352f8eb9afb57404480cbe","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/116bb1df-3363-4d73-9b46-869d2547ec5e/retrieve","id":"-1914119775"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"ebc517d7-65f9-47d2-a15a-bb41da63552c","pagecount":"3","content":"Los recursos genéticos forestales (RGF) -material genético de especies leñosas de valor actual y futuro para sostener la producción de madera y productos no-maderables y para proveer servicios ambientales-son esenciales para los medios de vida de las poblaciones humanas dependientes de los bosques. Estos recursos también son la base para la producción frutícola y de madera en bosques cultivados para satisfacer la demanda global de madera y papel. Sólo algunos recursos genéticos de especies maderables, no-maderables y frutales son conservados ex situ mientras que la gran mayoría de los RGF existen exclusivamente in situ. Los RGF mantenidos in situ están cada vez más amenazados por intervenciones humanas, y por tanto requieren de medidas eficaces de protección. Desafortunadamente es escaso el conocimiento sobre la distribución y estado de conservación de la mayoría de estos recursos.MAPFORGEN es un proyecto creado conjuntamente por Bioversity International y el Centro de Investigación Forestal del Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (CIFOR-INIA, España), en colaboración con la Red Latinoamericana de Recursos Genéticos Forestales (LAFORGEN) y con el apoyo financiero del INIA-España. El proyecto tiene como metas principales apoyar acciones de conservación para los RGF en América Latina y el Caribe, y elevar su visibilidad. Con esta finalidad, el proyecto MAPFORGEN producirá un Atlas sobre la conservación de 100 especies leñosas (árboles, palmas, arbustos y bambúes) de importancia socio-económica y nativas de América Latina y el Caribe. En el Atlas se podrá observar la distribución, el estado de conservación y el grado de amenaza de las 100 especies empleando análisis espaciales.Las 100 especies fueron seleccionadas a través de ejercicios de priorización del panel de RGF de FAO y LAFORGEN (FAO 2001;IPGRI 2006), según los siguientes criterios de selección: industrial, madera para uso doméstico, productos no-maderables y frutales. las especies se seleccionaron de manera que hubieran al menos cinco especies nativas por país.stribuidas en por lo menos dos o más países de América Latina y el Caribe, excepto para especies con una distribución amplia en México y Brasil que son dos países grandes e importantes en cuanto a recursos genéticos forestales.En colaboración con miembros de LAFORGEN, se recopilaron datos de presencia de las 100 especies para elaborar mapas de la distribución observada, mediante Sistemas de Información Geográfica (SIG). Se predijo el rango completo de la distribución de cada especie usando el programa de modelación de distribución Maxent (Phillips et al. 2006). Con base en esta información, se hicieron (1) análisis espaciales para evaluar el estado de conservación in situ, incluyendo entre otros parámetros, dos criterios de la IUCN, extensión de ocurrencia (EEO) y área de ocupación (AOO); y (2) análisis de vulnerabilidad con base en mapas de amenazas (Jarvis et al. 2010).Una página web esta en desarrollo (www.mapforgen.org) con mapas disponibles para consulta, sobre la distribución observada y proyectada de las 100 especies seleccionadas. Para cada especie, país y eco-región incluido en el estudio, se muestra el estado de conservación y las amenazas correspondientes. Además, para cada especie, se recopiló información general como el sistema de reproducción, dispersión y polinización, más información sobre el estado de conservación ex situ. Adicionalmente, ejecutado en colaboración con miembros de LAFORGEN, se presenta análisis de diversidad intra-específica para seis especies basados en marcadores moleculares, cuya finalidad es priorizar poblaciones para su conservación in situ.Los resultados de MAPFORGEN aportan a un análisis regional del estado de los RGF en América Latina y el Caribe. El Atlas demuestra la importancia de la colaboración entre investigadores de diferentes países en la recopilación de información para tener un mejor conocimiento sobre la distribución y la diversidad intra-específica de especies leñosas de importancia socio-económica, y el estado de conservación de RGF en la región. Se espera que los resultados generados puedan servir a tomadores de decisiones en la elaboración de políticas dirigidas a la conservación tanto in situ como ex situ de RGF en América Latina y el Caribe, con el propósito de asegurar un uso sostenible de aquellos materiales genéticos para mejorar la situación socio-económica de las poblaciones que dependen de estos recursos. ","tokenCount":"670"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"18b175d31e182d960d471f1c84737fe6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H044828.pdf","id":"867593350"},"keywords":["Inter-basin water transfer","climate change","SWAT","BUDGET","Koshi basin","Melamchi","Nepal"],"sieverID":"3c11c4a0-4402-4458-8117-e4e7bb9109a2","pagecount":"7","content":"The Melamchi Water Supply Project (MWSP) is designed to minimize the shortage of drinking water in the Kathmandu valley. Although the project was supposed to be completed by 2008, due to various problems, it is still diffi cult to forecast the exact date of completion. This paper quantifi es the downstream effects of diverting water from the Melamchi (Stage-I),Yangri (Stage-II) and Larke (Stage-III) rivers under current as well as future climate scenarios. The Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was used in the analysis. Result shows that in the Stage-I water transfer plan, average infl ow reduction in the immediate downstream sub-basin in the dry and wet seasons are 36% and 7% respectively, where as in Stage-II the infl ow reductions are 38% for the dry season and 8% for the wet season. In Stage-III, infl ow reductions are 38% in the dry season and 7% in the wet season.The impact of the water transfer schemes on various changes in water management within the Melamchi River irrigation command area was also tested. BUDGET (soil, water and salt balance) model was used to quantify crop water requirement of Melamchi River command area when the irrigated area is increased and the cropping pattern is changed. Simulation results of crop water requirement in intensive water use conditions show that present Melamchi River command area can be increased by 2.2 times under current climate projection, whereas the area can be increased 1.4 times in 2030s and by 2.0 times in 2050s.I n Nepal, as elsewhere, migration trends from rural to urban areas are growing. As a result, the population of urban centers, especially Kathmandu is increasing at a rapid rate. Meeting water demands in Kathmandu is therefore a major challenge for the government. There are nearly 2.2 million people living in the Kathmandu valley and their daily drinking water demand is about 220 million liters (MWSDB 2008). Recent project document has reported that their daily demand is 330 million liters. National Population Census (CBS 2011) reported that the population of Kathmandu valley is nearly 3.5 million including fl oating population. Daily available water, however, within Kathmandu valley is about 90 million liters in the dry season and 130 million liters in the wet season (MWSDB 2008). Hence, the Government of Nepal (GON), the donor community and Non-governmental organizations are involved in fi nding alternative water sources to tackle the water scarcity crisis in Kathmandu. The Melamchi Water Supply Project (MWSP) was identifi ed as a potential solution in 1973. The GON started the implementation of the Melamchi Water Supply Project in 1998 and originally, expected the project to be completed by 2008. However, due to various problems including the issue of downstream hydrological impacts, it is still diffi cult to predict whether the project will be completed by the extended date of completion; i.e., 2015.The Melamchi River is located about 50 km North-East of the Kathmandu valley and is one of the tributaries of the Indrawati River. The Indrawati basin is a sub-basin within the Koshi basin (Figure 1). The MWSP diversion points of all stages are situated in the Indrawati River Basin which has a catchment area of 1,228 km 2 . Melamchi, Yangri and Larke Rivers are major tributaries of the Indrawati River and have about 323, 117 and 116 km 2 catchment area respectively. The project plans to divert 170 MLD (1.97 m 3 /s) of water from Melamchi river in Stage-I and an additional 170 MLD each from Yangri and Larke tributaries of the Indrawati River in Stage-II and III (Bhattarai, Pant et al 2002;Mishra and Shilpakar 2001). The project is important and has attracted a lot of attention and interest not only because it is seen as a solution to the drinking water crisis in Kathmandu but also because this is interbasin water transfer project that is in the process of being implemented in Nepal.At present, the available water in the Melamchi river basin is being used for irrigation, drinking water supply and sanitation, consumption for forest and vegetation, micro-hydropower generation and water mills (MWSDB 2008). The project has a high level of skepticism among the local community and stakeholders, despite the project compensation package as well as the inclusion of minimum fl ows of 34.56 MLD (0.4 m 3 /s) to be released downstream of the diversion (Bhattarai, Pant et al 2002;IUCN 1999;MWSDB 2008). So far, the project has paid about NRs. 880 million to the local community living in project affected areas as cash compensation (MWSDB 2008) and recent project document has reported that project has spent NRs. 900 million till 2011. The demand and grievances of local people plus political circumstances and challenges in engaging the private sector partner have all contributed to delay the completion of the project (Khadka and Khanal 2008).Although the insuffi ciency of the prescribed minimum fl ow releases is one of the main critiques of the project, the few studies that have been carried out to look at water accounting have only focused on the Indrawati River basin (Bhattarai, Pant et al 2002;Mishra and Shilpakar 2001;Sharma 2002). Therefore, this study makes use of the hydrological model developed for the entire Koshi basin to look at the hydrological impacts of the MWSP until the outlet of the Koshi basin at Chatara (Figure 1) under current and future climate change projections. Furthermore, the impact of water transfers on the crop water requirement within the Melamchi River command area was also evaluated.The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was setup for the Koshi basin as a part of the Indo-Ganges Basin Focal project (www.slideshare.net/cpwfbfp/indogangesbasin-focal-project). SWAT is a continuous, physically based, semi-distributed hydrological public domain model jointly developed by USDA Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) and Texas AgriLife Research, part of Texas A&M University System. SWAT is a river basin-scale model to quantify impact of land management practices on water quantity, sediment and water quality in large complex watersheds with varying soils, land use and management conditions over a long period of time (Arnold, Srinivasan et al 1998;Bharati, Pant et al 2011;Neitsch, Arnold et al 2005). For this study, the Koshi basin is divided into 79 sub-basins and delineated with the basin outlet at Chatara-Kothu. Detailed description of the methodology as well as results from the water balance analysis of the whole Koshi basin is in preparation. Therefore, in this paper, only the results related to the downstream impacts of the MWSP will be discussed.BUDGET (soil, water and salt balance) model was used to simulate net crop water requirement for agricultural command area of the Melamchi River. BUDGET is a fi eld based model developed by faculty of applied bioscience and engineering, Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven, Belgium. BUDGET requires length and crop coeffi cient (K c ) for the four growth stages: initial, crop development, mid-season and late season stage (Shrestha, Geerts et al 2010). Reference evapo-transpiration (E T 0 ), rainfall, crop parameters and soil type are essential parameters to evaluate net irrigation requirement (NIR). In this study, 80% dependable rainfall () is taken to evaluate NIR, where is mean rainfall and is standard deviation. Likewise, ET 0 is evaluated from climate data (temperature, wind speed, sunshine hour and vapor pressure) using New LocClim (local climate estimator) developed by FAO in 2005. Henceforth, comparison between gross irrigation requirement (GIR) and water available in the stream was done in different scenarios.In this study, MarkSim weather generator was used to downscale climate data from Global Circulation Model (GCM) (gismap.ciat.cgiar.org/MarkSimGCM/) (Jones, Thornton et al 2002). GCMs used to generate daily climate data are CNRM-CM3, CSIRO-Mk3.5, ECHam5, and MIROC3.2 and the projected data are average of these four GCMs. In addition, statistical downscaled daily climate data is also used in this study. Scenarios families of the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES), period of projection and climate variables considered in this study are presented in Table 1. Therefore, fi ve projected scenarios in total (two from MarkSim and three The downstream impact study is carried out for 11 As explained above, the outlets of sub-basins number 24, 25 and 22 are the locations for MWSP's water transfer sites in Stages I, II and III respectively. The effective catchment areas of these three transfer stages are 148, 110 and 114 km 2 respectively. Figure 3 represents fl ow duration curves and monthly fl ow volume at the three water transfer locations. The study result show that downstream fl ow availability at the driest month will be approximately more than 13% of the river fl ow of that month. The total available annual simulated water is 499 MCM, 443 MCM and 448 MCM respectively in Melamchi, Yangri and Larke river sub-basins (Table 2). The fl ow volume of 401 MCM, 348 MCM and 355 MCM occurred within fi ve monsoonal months (June to October). Therefore, seasonal water fl ow varies signifi cantly in the rivers and more than 80% of the total annual fl ow occurred within these monsoonal months. Hence in the study, June to October is considered as wet season and the other seven months are dry season.Fi gure 2. Melamchi Inter-basin Water Transfer Plan and Flow Network in the Koshi Basin (The numbers in the fi gure refer to sub-basin numbers, which can also be seen in Figure 1).The three rivers Melamchi, Yangri and Larke meet at sub-basin 35. Therefore, water transfer in all stages will infl uence sub-basin 35 as well as the downstream sub-basins. Figure 4  The annual simulated fl ow under the current climate and the range of projected fl ows under climate change scenarios are presented in Table 2. The water availability ranges and means of projected fl ows as shown in Table 2 represent the results from fi ve projected future climate scenarios (two from MarkSim and three from statistical downscaled data) for A2, B1 and A1B scenarios. Results show that on an average, fl ows in the rivers will decrease in the projection period of 2030s and 2050s when compared to the current fl ows.Before MWSP:   fl ow in the Melamchi, Yangri and Larke rivers will change by +3%, +4% and +5% than the current fl ows, whereas the wet season fl ow will change by +2%, +2% and +6% and dry   season fl ow by +5%, +10% and +2% respectively. Likewise, in the Koshi basin outlet, at Chatara-Kothu, annual outfl ow will change by -2% in 2030s and +1% in 2050s climate change projection. Similarly, wet season outfl ow from Koshi basin will change by -9% in 2030s and -6% in 2050s, whereas dry season outfl ow will reduce by 21% in 2030s and 19% in 2050s climate change projections.According to simulation results, MIWTP will not have considerable impact on the hydrology of downstream subbasins except in immediate sub-basins 35 and 42 (Figure 4). After implementation of the project, dry season fl ows (Nov-May) will drop by 24.1% and 19.7% in sub-basins 35 and 42 respectively. Therefore, in this study only impact of Stage-I water transfer plan on the exiting irrigation system in Melamchi River basin is evaluated. At present, nearly 289 hectares (MWSDB 2008) of downstream agricultural lands are irrigating from Melamchi River. pattern as well as the recommended cropping pattern scenarios. Figure 6 shows that irrigation is only required in the dry season. In the existing cropping pattern scenario, intensive irrigation is required in April (130 mm). In the recommended cropping pattern, irrigation is required in March (158 mm).Results show that the water scarcity is only during the dry season. Figure 7 shows that water for irrigation is suffi cient in driest month even after implementation of MWSP. Other water uses such as drinking water and operating water mills are not accounted in this study. These demands The cropping pattern, area and calendar were used to evaluate crop water requirement in the agricultural command area of the Melamchi River (Table 3). The existing cropping pattern in the study area was identifi ed through farmer discussions, statistical information on Nepalese Agriculture (2005). The recommend cropping patterns are from the Department of Irrigation for the Melamchi command area. The crop characteristics and crop duration are taken from Raes (2002) and McDonald (1990). For simulation, initial soil water content is considered to be 50% of Total Available Water (TAW), where TAW is difference between fi eld capacity and wilting point.Figure 6    dry months, if in system water storage methods are introduced to reserve excess water of the wet season, the command area can be further increased. In this case, the available of cultivable land might be the constraining factor.--  India, Bangladesh, China, Ghana and Burkina Faso. The key areas of her interests and expertise are in: Field investigation and modeling of erosion and nutrient transport and the impacts on water quality (models used: AGNPS, Erosion 3D), Modeling the water balance of a catchment and the infl uence of climate and land use change using distributed watershed models (e.g.,WaSim-ETH, SWAT, GeoSFM, WEAP), Developing integrated environmental and economic models for calculating optimal water use and allocation for decision support systems, Calculating environmental fl ow requirements in the context of basin water allocation strategies. Currently, Dr. Bharati is a Senior Researcher in Hydrology and Water Resources and the Head of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI)-Nepal offi ce. Corresponding Address: l.bharati@cgiar.org.","tokenCount":"2206"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a876fa57ae0d7fcc6c84a70e0942d276","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/45c1002a-0e8e-4ef8-adf3-d62f1204b4ce/retrieve","id":"-1339006991"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"da640aa4-34da-4a35-8506-f8a4666f779c","pagecount":"4","content":"On 23-25 May, the CGIAR Accelerate for Impact Platform (A4IP) and local accelerator, Impact Lab teams co-hosted an immersive three-day bootcamp for the AgriTech4Morocco Innovation Challenge 20 shortlisted projects. Thirty-two purpose-driven entrepreneurs from 11 countries spanning across Africa, Europe, Middle East, and Americas, received group and individual hands-on guidance from industry experts to refine their business pitch through expert talks, workshops, and coaching. The bootcamp aimed to support shortlisted innovators to navigate the agri-food ecosystem in Morocco and explore new partnerships. The AgriTech4Morocco Innovation Challenge set out to select, scout, and accelerate agri-tech solutions to contribute towards improving Morocco's efficiency, equity, and environmental sustainability and support the goals of the Generation Green 2020-2030 Strategy. The competition was high with 350+ applications from 31 countries. Following careful scrutiny of the Selection Committee, 20 agri-tech projects were invited to participate in the bootcamp at Le Qualipôle Alimentation in Meknès, an agrifood innovation center with the support of Agrinova. The selection of the location was no coincidence; Meknès being the capital of a large agriculture region, situated in northern central Morocco, and known for its productive land thanks to the high elevation, fertile soils, and availability of fresh water.During the first two days, through interactive learning methodologies, participants were trained on the key principles of design thinking, learned about the importance of adopting user-centered design to reflect on users and their needs in each phase of the design process, and improved their pitch through business and public speaking coaching. On the third and final day, 18 teams pitched their solutions to the Selection Committee that consisted of 7 members, representing project partners and industry experts.Read about learn about Selection Committee members http://agritechchallenge.org/morocco/selection/ Of the 18 teams, 10 teams were shortlisted by the Selection Committee, based on a set of criteria, and granted access to the nine-week Acceleration Program which launched on Wednesday, 1 June.The AgriTech4Morocco Acceleration Program aimed to prepare teams to validate and scale their innovation by developing an actionable pathway and exploring potential collaborations with CGIAR through a blended learning approach, comprising business-oriented coaching and scientific technical assistance. Under the responsibility of A4IP, participants received support from CGIAR scientists with regards to the technological development of their projects through themed expert talks and individual mentoring. A4IP offered guidance in matching teams with relevant scientists, based on their priority areas and research interests, to support them to strengthen the scientific validity of their solution. Through individualized technical assistance with CGIAR researchers, participants had the opportunity to deep dive into the scientific component of their project, pose questions regarding the strategies in place to overcome the bottlenecks of technological development, and seek feedback on the actionable pathway to scaling their project.The Acceleration Program will close with the final Demo Day, scheduled on Thursday, 28 July at 2pm GMT+1, where the 10 teams will pitch their projects to the Selection Committee, investors, sector stakeholders, and the media. The three winners will also be announced. Register here to join the Demo Day https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Ke-E4dunTdi_8I3QGP0y1wRead on to discover the ten finalists who are currently engaging in the Acceleration Program.Fila7a provides an online eco-system to farmers to help increase their quality and productivity, and help sell their products to a bigger audience. Fila7a aims to reduce intermediary costs for farmers, increase their access to market, promote their product nationally and internationally, increase their bargaining power and stimulate price transparency.Green Growth provides farmers with real-time analytics on land productivity from each point in the field, thanks to data collected directly from harvesting machines. As a result, farmers can see yield maps that are used to optimize farm inputs, such as fertilizers, seeds, and crop protection products in a sustainable farming approach. yieldsApp, Israel yieldsApp is a groundbreaking Artificial Intelligence based technology that provides a precise diagnosis of pests, diseases, and soil health together with the exact courses of action to take in order to sustainably avoid, eliminate, or prevent infestation or contagion, while minimizing the use of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers.Smart BAC optimizes the collection and transport of milk, by offering a solution that preserves product quality, while ensuring real time traceability for value chain stakeholders and improving the remuneration of producers.From Sand to Green creates new arable land by rehabilitating arid lands into orchards, leveraging endemic agroforestry plantations, solar desalination, and the opportunities created by carbon compensation mechanisms.AgriScan develops and produces new portable sensors offering real-time soil analysis through a disruptive technology of embedded and network-connected artificial intelligence for data storage and analysis that enables farmers to optimize their fertilization decisions.Intellexia is a solution providing remote and real-time monitoring of the entire cold chain for perishable products all along the production/manufacturing, goods transport, and distribution phases.Track Tomato is a solution that estimates tomato yields, detects the first outbreaks of phytosanitary problems, and optimizes the use of pesticides, using video captures and artificial intelligence.Jodoor GreenTech is a network of franchised, modern, and ecological hydroponic farms, specialized in leafy vegetables, aromatic, and medicinal herbs. Jodoor's technology offers constant productivity and quality with an all year long fixed price to customers.agricapture by Capture Solution LTD, Ivory Coast agricapture connects conscious consumers to the farmers and locations where crops are grown, ensuring traceability and transparency. agricapture uses a combination of smartphones, digital weighing scales, QR codes and digital payments to ensure that the processing of raw goods is fully traceable and accurate.Visit the AgriTech4Morocco Innovation Challenge website.Contact us at innovations@cgiar.org for any questions.","tokenCount":"901"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9a487c8b991a1beb0fc287400091117d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/2e9b3629-c96d-4088-9826-5e0b8a856f1a/retrieve","id":"1681893340"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"bd8d8e20-6a39-42c8-a2be-40f1e3175501","pagecount":"20","content":"The overall goal of this project on Sustainable intensification through better integration of crop and livestock production systems in the Sahelian zone of Burkina Faso is to improve household food production and nutrition and enhance ecosystem services through better integration of crop and livestock production systems in the region. The project seeks to: 1. Increase crop and livestock integration in these mixed systems through improved crop production, soil fertility, water harvesting and livestock feed enhancing interventions; Assess the economic, social, nutritional and environmental benefits and tradeoffs of the productivity-enhancing interventions, and the potential for cost-efficient outscaling; and 3. Build the capacity of smallholder farmers and researchers on sustainable intensification and improved nutrition through multi-stakeholders' platforms.The research activities are solution-focused to meet the needs of farmers and are being implemented at both household and community levels in Seno and Yatenga provinces in the Sahelian zone of Burkina Faso with rainfall between 300 and 600 mm per year. The main underlying hypothesis is that there is a great potential for the smallholder farmers currently engaged in crop-livestock systems to produce more in a given area of land, thereby improving productivity, food security and nutrition while preserving ecosystem services. The project partnersSustainable intensification of agricultural production has become a predominant theme in development agendas in West Africa, but despite the availability of a wide range of technologies adoption of these technologies in targeted projects has often been disappointing. One reason for often disappointing uptake of technologies could be the poor targeting. Technologies are often widely promoted, while they might only be relevant and sufficiently beneficial for few. This report presents the results of analyses quantifying the potential food security impact of production intensification on individual households, to better identify which technology would fit the characteristics of what household. This work is part of the Feed the Future Sustainable intensification innovation laboratory-funded project 'Sustainable intensification through better integration of crop and livestock production systems for improved food security and environmental benefits in Sahelian zone of Burkina Faso', led by the International Livestock Research Institute.We evaluate through ex-ante analyses a set of sustainable intensification options that is currently being evaluated in experimental trials and in participatory approaches with farmers. Four different interventions were evaluated in this study: sorghum yield up by 50%, cowpea yield up by 50%, off farm income increase by USD200 per year per family and goat production (milk and off take) up by 50%. These interventions were chosen for the impact assessment because these are currently being assessed through on-farm experimental trials (sorghum, cowpea and goats), and in participatory evaluation exercises together with farmers (increased involvement in off farm activities).For the most vulnerable group, the severely food insecure farm households, the best options are to increase sorghum productivity and to increase possibilities to generate further off farm income. Sorghum (together with millet) is the most important food consumption crop for these households, and beneficial yield effects improve their food self-sufficiency and food security. The off farm income affects food security by increasing income, thereby generating cash with which farmers can buy food. Cowpea is an important crop grown by all farmers for cash production. Goats play an important role in most farm households, but more because they are for sale and slaughter as needs arise, rather than as an overall year round important factor in food consumption and cash generation. Increasing their currently very low productivity by 50% therefore only improves food security and income to a minor extent. The analyses showed that different interventions have different effects for different groups of households: the targeting of interventions through a clear definition of the target population and the desirable effects on food security are therefore essential.Despite decades of development investment, the region of West Africa continues to be plagued by high levels of poverty and food insecurity (UNDP 2014). Climate change and projected population growth are expected to increase both production variability and demand for agricultural products through 2050 (Graziano da Silva 2012), putting further pressure on these agricultural systems to keep pace. Sustainable intensification of agricultural production has become a predominant theme in development agendas in the region (Garnett et al. 2013). It has been defined as the ability to produce more food on the same amount of land for an indefinite duration into the future while maintaining the integrity of ecosystems and the environmental resource base supporting that production (Pretty et al. 2011).Despite the availability of a wide range of technologies to achieve sustainable intensification (e.g. Ayantunde et al. in press), adoption of these technologies in targeted projects has often been disappointingOne reason for often disappointing uptake of technologies could be the poor targeting. Technologies are often widely promoted, while they might only be relevant and sufficiently beneficial for few. Targeting dissemination on these would be far more efficient (e.g. Ritzema et al. 2017). One approach to better understand potential benefits for different groups of farm households is to simulate the effects of interventions on critical livelihood indicators, such as income and nutrition. Instead of a comprehensive model, which would be difficult to generalize and populate with data efficiently, an intermediate indicator has been proposed -potential food availability (e.g. Frelat et al. 2016;Ritzema et al. 2017;Wichern et al. 2017;Paul et al. 2018).This report presents the results of analyses quantifying the potential food security impact of production intensification on individual households. This work is part of the Feed the Future Sustainable Intensification Innovation Laboratory funded project 'Sustainable Intensification through better integration of crop and livestock production systems for improved food security and environmental benefits in Sahelian zone of Burkina Faso', led by the International Livestock Research Institute. We evaluate through ex-ante analyses a set of sustainable intensification options that is currently being evaluated in experimental trials and in participatory approaches with farmers. We use a simple energy-based Food Availability Index as a partial indicator for food security. The index is calculated for individual farm households in two regions in Burkina Faso to assess the baseline food availability status and to quantify the contribution of various on and off-farm activities. We then present results of possible effects of interventions on food security at population level, and for contrasting individual households; we will also discuss how in future work we will expand on these analyses and study in more detail how dietary diversity might be improved through interventions.As described in the 'Introduction' we will make use in this study use of the intermediate complexity indicator for food security-potential food availability (PFA-e.g. Frelat et al. 2016;Ritzema et al. 2017;Wichern et al. 2017;Paul et al. 2018;Waha et al. 2018). We will quantify this indicator for all individual households in two sites in Burkina Faso, and subsequently, we investigate the PFA scores in the sample populations: composition, curve, and shares within three food security categories. Next, intervention scenarios are introduced, built on priority commodities. The effect of these scenarios on PFA as well as component indicators (e.g. total agricultural production, sales, total cash revenue). Finally, results of the two individual households are used to illustrate the PFA composition under the various intervention scenarios. The different steps in the analyses and the data used are now explained in more detail.A simple food security indicator was used based on Frelat et al. (2016) and Ritzema et al. (2017). The indicator, called potential food availability (PFA; Figure 1) is calculated from on-farm consumption of food crops, and food that could be purchased on the basis of money earned through on-farm and off-farm activities. This indicator of food security does not cover all of the complexity contained in the concept of food (in)security. Our indicator estimates the potential annual amount of energy available at household level, and we therefore refer to it as 'potential food availability'. The indicator provides a continuous \"food-availability scale\" that allows us to quantify the contribution of key determinants of PFA for individual households within and across sites, and to perform intervention analyses quantifying the potential food security benefits of different groups of agricultural or non-agricultural interventions (see Ritzema et al. (2017) and Paul et al. (2017) for examples).The way the intervention analyses work is through adapting the yield values and price values used in the calculation scheme (Figure 1) depending on the likely effects of certain interventions. For example, if through improved manure management in experimental trials we find that cereal yields increase by 40%, we can include these yield increases for certain groups of farmers in our calculations, and quantify the likely effects on the potential food availability indicator (e.g. see Ritzema et al. 2017). Thereby we assess the likely effects on overall food security (as PFA is normally quite well related to other indicators of food security, for example the Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS) and the Hunger and Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) (Hammond et al. 2017a).In the analyses presented in this report we make use of farm household characterization data collected in May 2016 in Burkina Faso, within the Feed the Future Sustainable Intensification Innovation Laboratory funded project 'Sustainable Intensification through better integration of crop and livestock production systems for improved Food Security and Environmental Benefits in Sahelian zone of Burkina Faso', led by the International Livestock Research Institute. In two sites, Seno and Yatenga provinces, a farm household characterization survey was executed. The two sampled sites are located in the Sahel and sub-Sahel region, an arid zone of northern Burkina Faso. The sites' elevation ranges from 250 to 350 masl., receiving between 300 and 600 mm of rainfall per year, in a unimodal pattern (based on publicly available GIS data). Soils in northern Burkina Faso are characterized as poorly evolved, granite and migmatite derivatives, with poor soil fertility (FAO 2002).The Results of the following analyses will be presented: Four different interventions were evaluated in this study: sorghum yield up by 50%, cowpea yield up by 50%, off farm income increase by USD200 per year per family and goat production (milk and off take) up by 50%. These interventions were chosen for the impact assessment because these are currently being assessed through on-farm experimental trials (sorghum, cowpea and goats), and in participatory evaluation exercises together with farmers (increased involvement in off farm activities). The likely effect sizes of yields and prices used in the impact assessment were based on the first results obtained in the experimental trials, expert knowledge and other findings on similar interventions reported in the scientific literature.Besides looking at the Potential Food Availability indicator (either in its direct form in terms of kcal per capita per day, or as a ratio by dividing it by the daily energy requirements of a Male Adult Equivalent), we also quantify the following indicators in the scenario analysis: food self-sufficiency (which is similar to the calculations of the PFA indicator, but only takes into account the consumed parts of crop and livestock production and ignores the marketed production and off farm income generated); agricultural based income (in USD per family per year, which calculates the revenue generated by the sales of crop and livestock products); total income (in USD per family per year, which is the sum of the agricultural income and off farm income); and total value of production(in USD per family per year, which is total income plus the value of the consumed parts of crop and livestock production).In the scenario analyses the potential impacts of the interventions (assuming that all farmers will adopt a technology leading to a certain amount of production or off farm income increase) are presented not for all individual farm households, but as aggregated values for different food security classes. Three classes were defined, following a similar classification in Wichern et al. (2017) taking into account that earlier research in Hammond et al. (2017a) showed that the potential food availability indicator correlated well with other food security indicators, including the Household Dietary Diversity Score (HDDS) and the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) up to values of 5,000 kcal cap −1 day −1 , but not beyond. Hence, we split our dataset based on the following thresholds: Class 1 included households with food availability below 2,500 kcal cap −1 day −1 (severely food insecure); Class 2 comprised households with food availability between 2,500 and 5,000 kcal cap −1 day −1 (moderately food insecure); and Class 3 included households with food availability above 5,000 kcal cap −1 day −1 (food secure).The results of the Potential Food Availability (PFA) analysis for the Yatenga and Seno regions are presented in Figure 2. Both sites showed a large variation in PFA scores between households. In both sites consumption of crop produce is the key determining factor underlying PFA. The systems in Yatenga are more crop determined, while in Seno livestock production plays a key role as well. In both sites off farm income supplements the on-farm activities, but in contrast to other similar analyses in East Africa (e.g. Frelat et al. 2016;Ritzema et al. 2017) it does not seem to be a key factor to achieve food security. On the x-axis 200 individual households are represented, ordered along their PFA status (on the y-axis). In the different colors the contribution of crop consumption and sales, livestock product consumption and sales and off farm income are shown. MAE is Male Adult Equivalent; the dashed line is the FAO standard actual intake of 2,500 kcal per MAE per day.The PFA indicator is strongly related to other indicators of food security such as the Hunger and Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) and household level dietary diversity scores (HDDS) at the end of both the dry and the harvest seasons (Figure 3). These results show that increases in PFA are generally associated (in a statistically significant manner) with improvements in HFIAS and HDDS status, although the variation around these generic relationships is large. Also similar to Hammond et al. (2017a) the relationships are not linear, but indicate a saturation of the food security measures at potential food availability ratio values of around 2-3, which matches well the reported saturation value of around 5,000 kcal per capita per day of Hammond et al. (2017a).In Table 1 we present the results of some rapid intervention analyses, and their possible effects on the income and food security of different farm household groups (from severely food insecure to food secure). Across the 2 sites there is a series of consistent findings. For the most vulnerable group, the severely food insecure farm households, the best options are to increase sorghum productivity and to increase possibilities to generate further off farm income. Sorghum (together with millet) is the most important food consumption crop for these households, and beneficial yield effects (slightly) improve their food self-sufficiency and food security. In both sites increasing the sorghum yield improves food self-sufficiency, but not the agricultural income: basically all sorghum production is now used for own consumption. The off farm income affects food security by increasing income, thereby generating cash with which farmers can buy food. Cowpea is an important crop grown by all farmers for cash production. Surprisingly enough the land allocation to cowpea is rather consistent across the different farm groups (ranging between 0.25 and maximum 1 ha), and therefore beneficial effects are almost equal for all food security groups. Although the area under cowpea is rather small compared to the cereal crops, improving yield does lead to substantial increases in food security, especially for the most food insecure farm households because it is one of the few crops they have to generate cash income. Goats play an important role in most farm households, but more because they are for sale and slaughter as needs arise, rather than as an overall year round important factor in food consumption and cash generation. Increasing their currently very low productivity by 50% therefore only improves food security and income to a minor extent.Differences between the sites in terms of the effects of the interventions reflect the results of Figure 2, with average food security and income numbers being substantially lower than in Yatenga. In Seno the farm population is more dependent on livestock production, and goats play a major role in this. Increasing goat productivity has therefore a stronger effect (increasing the agricultural based income with on average USD30, but for individual households with more goats this can a multiple of this number). Results of increasing crop productivity are similar for both sites, and also in both sites off farm income is a key entry point for improving income and food security of the poorest and most food insecure households. This effect is strongest in Seno, where production is more subsistence oriented, and income values are much lower than in Yatenga, where market orientation of crop production is stronger.  We also analysed the effects of the interventions for several individual contrasting households. Figure 3 shows the results of these analyses for two households in Seno. One household is relatively poor and food insecure, and especially focuses on subsistence crop production, while the second household is more food secure and less poor, and has a much more varied basket of livelihood activities. As expected, the different interventions work out differently for these households, showing that the overall analyses results presented earlier at population level can show generic patterns, but hide the large diversity in household level responses within the same community of farm households.Logically for the poorer household the sorghum and off farm interventions showed the biggest response (but even a 50% yield increase in sorghum yield does not make food security increase drastically given the current lower yields per area), whereas for the less poor household all interventions showed an increase in food security as a consequence, although also for this household the sorghum and off farm income interventions showed the biggest effects. The analyses presented in this report quantify the main activities for individual households while they try to achieve food security and escape from poverty in two contrasting regions in Burkina Faso. Whereas in Yatenga the livelihood activities are dominated by crop production, supplemented by livestock and off farm activities, in Seno, livestock plays a much more important role. The analyses also stress the large within site variation, and that variations in food security between households in one site are larger than the differences between sites. The analyses also showed (comparable to results obtained by Ritzema et al. 2017 andPaul et al. 2017) that different interventions have different effects for different groups of households: as stressed in the earlier mentioned articles: the targeting of interventions through a clear definition of the target population and the desirable effects on food security are therefore essential.The analyses quantified the potential effects on a simple indicator of food security. Two key aspects need to be taken into account when interpreting the results of this study and translating them into a prioritization exercise for interventions. One, all effects are potential effects, the analysis quantifies the effects if all farmers would adopt the intervention of interest. Recent work has shown that farms' interest in adopting (sustainable) intensification options is much lower and more likely to be in the range of 40--60% of the farm household population (Hammond et al. 2017b). Further studies need to differentiate these numbers, and it will be interesting to see whether there is a match between the households that could profit most from intensification for their well-being and their motivation to adopt. This is often assumed in ex-ante analyses, but no detailed studies exist that combine ex-ante work and motivation to adopt studies to see whether this is true.Second, we only used a simple indicator of food security, and did not try to capture effects on other (food security related) indicators. This work made use of data collected using an adapted version of the RHoMIS tool (Hammond et al. 2017a) that tries to capture a more integral picture of the well-being of farm households, with a special focus on food security. This means that in further, more in-depth, analyses the other aspects of food security can be explored in more detail. With a targeted monitoring plan of the farm households this would give an unique opportunity to bring ex-ante analyses and M&E together in an integrated analysis framework. Here we could also build on the work on a sustainable intensification indicator framework within the Feed the Future Sustainable Intensification Innovation Laboratory (e.g. Smith et al. 2017;Snapp et al. 2017).","tokenCount":"3384"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"781584371870b2e13779487e1e602470","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f5e80208-165a-4e05-834d-cd4a9b273091/retrieve","id":"-1340933688"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f11ed6ca-ac98-4365-8641-3d131ae875ff","pagecount":"64","content":"Fruits & vegetable value chains (F&V VC) in Nigeria hold significant potential to continue toward sustainable, inclusive food system transformation. Domestic food system growth, including that of F&V, remains crucial in achieving a healthy food environment and serving as a source of various micronutrients. There is a need for bundles of innovations to address multiple challenges along F&V VC in Nigeria, characterized by a set of challenges that are unique to developing countries and F&V.V&F VC consists of many small actors, farmers, and traders, whereby limited vertical coordination can lead to significant efficiency loss along the value chain. Seasonal and temporal variations in supply-demand gaps for F&V commodities are substantial, and considerable scope exists for reducing losses and enhancing the overall efficiency of the domestic F&V sector. Policy environments are also favorable for such efforts, as the latest Agricultural Policy documents highlight the Nigerian government's interest in modernizing F&V VC. Given the significant involvement of women and youths in the sector, F&V VC development has substantial potential to contribute to Nigeria's inclusive development of agrifood systems.The current domestic F&V VC in Nigeria suffers from various sets of problems. Access to quality seeds is limited due to the significant use of recycled seeds, limited supply, and high costs of certified seeds. Cooling practices are inefficient due to insufficient access to the grid and off-grid electricity, limited knowledge of intermediate cooling methods applicable at the farm gate, and constraining quality preservations at farm gate storage, during transportation, and storage at market premises. Processing is insufficient due to the high costs of processing equipment and limited knowledge of the construction and operation of simpler, less resource-dependent processing facilities, including drying of F&V commodities. Inappropriate packing, such as the use of Rafia baskets instead of Reusable Plastic Crates, which are commonly recognized, is still prevalent, potentially due to limited market coordination.Based on the stakeholder consultations, desk reviews, validation workshops, and availability of external resources, we identified the following as critical interventions to pilot various innovation bundles. Intervention #1 provides improved varieties and quality seeds, combined with agronomy training and certification, in northern Nigeria through the collaboration with East West Seeds and Wageningen University & Research. Intervention #2 provides off-grid cooling and cool transportation, including forced-air evaporative cooling units at farm clusters and the combination of small and large refrigerated trucks for local and longer-distance transportation, through the collaboration with ColdHubs and MIT-Lab. Intervention #3 introduces improved solar dryers and provides training on appropriate, hygienic processing methods, building, and utilization of these driers (possibly combined with the introduction of a business model), through the collaboration with World Vegetable Center and Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute. Intervention #4 provides plastic crates using various rental arrangements and improves market access for farmers through collaboration with private companies, including Bunkasa. Intervention #5 supplements interventions #1, #2, and #3 and provides improved information through certification and labeling. Lastly, Intervention #6 strengthens linkages between existing solar powered cold storages to supplement other interventions.Fruits & vegetable value chains (F&V VC) in Nigeria hold significant potential to continue toward sustainable, inclusive food system transformation. Domestic food system growth, including that of F&V, remains crucial in achieving a healthy food environment and serving as a source of various micronutrients (Schreinemachers et al., 2018;Fan et al., 2019). Domestic VC continues to play important roles, especially in the face of global market uncertainty due to economic (rising fuel transport costs), environmental (climate change in major exporting countries), and political risks. F&V in developing countries like Nigeria also constitute one of the commodity groups that suffer from and hold significant reduction potentials for food loss & waste (FLW) (IFPRI 2016;FAO 2019). Development of F&V VC, which tends to be land and labor-intensive, can also remain an important source of income and livelihood for smallholders who account for the bulk of the poor in Nigeria. Relative to cereals, horticulture can increase the returns on the land about 10-fold and potentially increase employment in processing, marketing, and packaging (Weinberger & Lumpkin, 2007;World Bank, 2008, p.58). Significant production/demand gap growth is also expected for F&V in West Africa, including Nigeria, in the next few decades (Zhou & Staatz 2016) as urbanization continues to intensify (AGRA 2020). Within West Africa, Nigeria holds one of the largest potentials for domestic VC development, given the dominant size of its domestic market.There is a need for bundles of innovations to address multiple challenges along F&V VC in Nigeria, which is characterized by a set of challenges due that are unique to developing countries and F&V. Similar to non-F&V sectors, F&V VC in Nigeria consists of a large number of small, atomistic agents, ranging from upstream seed sellers, producers, marketers, and small-scale processors. Various market failures, including markets for inputs and outputs, credit and insurance, and information, can prevent optimal investments that can otherwise contribute to VCwide efficiency improvements. These challenges are multiplied by the unique characteristics of F&V commodities, including perishability, seasonality, high seed costs, production management/care needs, and susceptibility to post-harvest handling practices.The following objectives and methods guide this scoping report. First, it provides key context behind F&V VC in Nigeria, including market structures and relevant policy environments. The report builds on several recent studies conducted regarding Nigerian F&V VC (e.g., Plaisier et al. 2019;Dijkxhoorn et al. 2021Dijkxhoorn et al. , 2022;;Rockefeller Foundation 2021;van den Broek et al. 2021; USAID 2022) by supplementing them through nationally representative information, constructed from nationwide household surveys like the LSMS-ISA data (NBS-World Bank 2019).It then describes a key set of persistent and urgent problems in Nigeria F&V VC, background evidence for and the prevalence of these problems, and past and current support programs and policies implemented in the country. Findings through dialogues with various local stakeholders from several stakeholder consultations (SC) meetings are combined with insights from literature reviews focusing on experiences in Nigeria and other African countries where applicable.The report will then describe the proposed pilot interventions of innovation bundles. For each intervention, it lays out expected benefits, potential complementarity with other innovation bundles, and costs of interventions while also considering inclusivity, sustainability, and scalability aspects.This project focuses on a particular set of commodities within the broader class of fruits and vegetable commodities.In particular, we focus on tomato, mango, and orange as priority commodities, although many of the interventions proposed can apply to a broader range of V&F commodities. Tomato and oranges are selected because, as described in later sections, these are two key F&V commodities highlighted in the Nigerian government's latest agricultural policy.In addition to orange, we also select mango as a focus commodity. Mango is one of the key fruit commodities grown in Nigeria in terms of production quantity, and only a few commodities, like pineapple, exceed mango (FAO 2022). In addition, mango is a more smallholder-oriented commodity, with about 2/3 of producers operating as smallholders outside the orchard system, unlike pineapples, for which about half of the producers operate as orchard producers (Figure 2).We excluded bananas and plantains because CGIAR has dedicated programs for Root, Tuber, and Banana (RTB), where bananas and plantains are covered more in-depth.In Nigeria, F&V commodities, including tomato, mango, and orange, are produced by smallholders. In 2018, the median production figures among producers during the rainy season were 140kg (₦20,000 in value) for tomato, 323kg (₦45,000) for onions, 87kg (₦22,000) for pepper, 17kg (₦2,500) for okra, 66kg (₦1,500) for mango, 220kg (₦5,000) for orange (based on LSMS-ISA data 2018). Most producers grow these commodities alongside other staples rather than specializing in them.Figure 4 summarizes the shares of improved seeds used and the shares of seed by sources for four major vegetables (okra, onion, pepper, and tomato). The following patterns stand out: ► The use of improved seeds (based on farmers' perceptions) was still low in 2015-2018; less than 20% of growers of each vegetable used improved seeds.► The use of recycled seeds was still common and accounted for more than half of the seeds for these commodities. The shares were especially higher for okra and pepper (more than 70%)► About 40% of tomato and onion growers and lower shares of pepper and okra growers used seeds purchased from local markets within the town/village. About 23% and 13% of onion and tomato growers used seeds purchased from markets outside their towns.Use of agrochemicals is somewhat common (Figure 6):► 30 -40% of tomato, pepper, and onion producers and about 20% of okra producers apply herbicides and/or pesticides to these crops ► On average (including non-users), the application intensity of agrochemicals for these crops is approximately 4 ~ 6 liter/ha of herbicides and 2 ~ 8 liter/ha of pesticidesSignificant shares of vegetable production are under rainfed conditions (Figure 5), and the use of irrigation is relatively less common: ► Approximately ¼ of tomato and pepper, 10% of onion, and 2% of okra produced are from irrigated plots ► In terms of the shares of growers using irrigation, approximately 2 ~ 15% of these crops ► Use of irrigation is negligible for fruits (orange, mango, pawpaw) (not shown)Production and harvesting of F&V commodities are characterized by significant variations across regions in seasons. Figure 3 shows nationally and regionally representative figures of the seasonality of harvesting. While these figures should be interpreted cautiously given the small sample sizes, key insights emerge. First, there is significant seasonality at the national level. For all regions, most harvesting of major F&V commodities is in June -December, except mango, for which the peak is mostly January -July. Therefore, the scope is enormous for smoothing the supply seasonality of F&V commodities through improved post-harvest handling and processing. Second, some variations across regions in peak season timing create scope for intra-regional commodity movements in varying directions over time. Specifically, (a) Northern zones (North-West and North-East zones) have greater harvests than the Central/South region during September -December; (b) Southern zones (South-East, South-South, and South-West) have greater harvests than North/Central during Jan -May/June (though marginal); and (c) Cen-tral zone (North-Central zone) has greater harvests than Northern zones or Southern zones during July -September.Horticulture products are commonly harvested manually.Tomatoes are generally harvested through hand-picking, the most common method. Farmers selectively pluck ripe tomatoes in buckets to prevent damage.Mangoes are harvested through several methods (Balana et al. 2022b). In some cases, a basket is attached to a long stick to which fruits are plucked manually from the tree, which is a selective harvesting method (only ripe fruits are harvested) that prevents fruit damage (no damage at all). Sometimes, suspended polythene is used, whereby someone climbs the tree to either pluck with a stick or shake the mango tree for the fruits to fall, while 4-5 people hold a polythene bag to receive the fruits. This method prevents fruit damage (little damage). However, the fruits require sorting (e.g., ripe from unripe). A more sophisticated and costly approach involves using foams (soft, light, and naked foams) which are spread under the trees while someone climbs up to pluck the fruits. Foams may not always be durable and reusable if mangoes are too heavy. Rice straws are used instead of more expensive foams as a cheaper and more viable option. However, packing straw pre-and post-harvest can be labor-intensive. Sometimes, farmers dig holes around the mango trees, which softens the soil and prevents fruit damage.Orange fruits are allowed to fall directly on the ground, unlike mango, which is very sensitive to damage. Therefore, more oranges are harvested through the tree-shaking method or using a stick for plucking, which is more time-consuming than the tree-shaking method. Some harvesters, however, also hand-pick oranges from trees.Cleaning/Drying/Pest control Cleaning of fruits is relatively rare. For mangoes, relatively few growers clean the fruits to reduce handling, prevent quick ripening, and increase shelf life. This is because, from the marketers and aggregators' point of view, cleaning/washing mangoes often hasten ripening. However, one may clean selectively with clothes/rags.Pest control for mangoes varies depending on the varieties. For instance, while some varieties, like Broky, last longer and don't get infested, others must be treated before fruiting. However, spraying chemicals is often considered detrimental to fruit poisoning. While polythene bags are sometimes used to cover the fruits before spraying them with chemicals, this is also considered inadvisable. Developing pest-free varieties should be considered an important alternative. Another alternative is to use an insect pest trap. The traps introduced by ECOWAS and the EU have been relatively widely adopted.Drying mangoes is relatively rare. In some cases, cabinet dryers (a propane gas heater is attached to the sides of the dryer to generate heat) are used. However, introducing locally fabricated dryers or solar power to solve power issues is considered important.Tomatoes are often stored under shady trees. Fresh tomatoes are aggregated under trees to prevent exposure to harsh sunlight. The products can often be piled under the three for up to three days. Tomatoes are sometimes stored in buckets and baskets and kept under shades. Usually, crop residues/straws are placed underneath to minimize damage due to rough ground surface.Mangoes are typically stored under shady trees as well. This involves aggregating the fruits under a tree to prevent harsh sunlight. In some cases, mangoes are also stored in mud houses with thatched roofs built on the farm. Storage rooms are sometimes built on the farm, which contains wooden shelves with well-organized racks that house the fruits. For protection, the fruits are covered with dry grasses to reduce exposure to sunlight. This method hastens ripening, reduces spoilage, and increases the shelf life of the fruits. Processers also store mangoes in chillers, which increases the rate of ripening, reduces spoilage, and increases the shelf life of the fruits.Tomatoes are often transported by trucks, cars, motorcycles, wheelbarrows, and donkeys. The choice of transport modes depends on the distance to the market destination and the volume of commodities. They are typically packed in Raffia baskets, traditional wooden baskets, and in some cases, reusable plastic crates (RPC).Mangoes are transported mainly by sedans like small Toyota Corolla (most common), Hilux, and occasionally cooling vans. Fruits are packed in ventilated baskets laced and covered with dry leaves. These baskets are kept in chambers, demarcated with long planks to prevent damage. Knitted grasses are laid on the floor and sides of the transportation van to avoid fruit damage. Some use local logistics arrangements (bus drivers) to send the products to buyers in other states (Balana et al. 2022b).Similarly, oranges are typically packed in sacks, perforated cartons, 29x4 nylon bags, and Raffia baskets during transportation.Market storages also remain primitive. Tomatoes and onions are often stored in sheds and kept in rice stalks, corn stalks, and open spaces (Balana et al. 2022b). Similarly, mangoes and oranges are commonly stored in open spaces, packed in baskets, or in heaps between layers of sacs or mats to prevent fruits from direct sunlight.Horticulture commodities are typically sold through agents at farm gates, sold as fresh products in market outlets, marketed through brokers, and sold to retail agents, hotels, and restaurants. They are also often transported to other markets outside the state. For example, tomato marketers in Kano transport products to out-of-state locations such as Lagos, Ibadan, Abuja, and Port Harcourt. Some sell tomatoes to off-takers such as Dangote, and Tomato Jos. Some sellers, such as mango traders, market their products via social media (SM) platforms (Facebook and WhatsApp) and referrals (Balana et al. 2022b).Tomato and fruit producers and fresh tomato/ fruits marketers often sort and grade their produce based on the freshness and size of commodities. Large-scale and medium-scale processors label and brand their products. Some small-scale processors label their products using markers/pens, although they rarely brand them (Balana et al. 2022b).Horticulture commodities are processed in various forms. Tomatoes are often dried through sun and open-air drying. They are also wet-processed into paste, puree, sauce, and juice: This is done manually or with automated machines. Mangoes, especially those with high fiber, are sometimes processed into flakes and chips. Tomato and orange are also processed into powders.A few larger processors, like Tomato Jos and Dangote tomato paste factory, carry out more modern processing. Processing rates for these larger processors can be around a few tons/hour (Tomato Jos) and as high as 600 ~ 1200 tons/day for Dangote (Tafida et al. 2019).Mango and orange are also processed into juice through a fabricated multi-purpose diesel blender and an electric fruit blender. However, such processing methods do not always have standard health safety protocols (Balana et al. 2022b). Juices are often packaged in used water bottles (e.g., 75cl Eva water bottles) and stored in a chiller. The fruit juice can stay for up to 5 days with constant electricity for the chiller. Otherwise, it must be consumed within 2 days. Some processors prepare fresh juice for immediate consumption (wait and get) or distribute it door-to-door.Nigeria is one of the largest consumers of fruits and vegetables in Africa South of Sahara (SSA), not only in terms of aggregate but also in terms of per capita and calorie equivalent (Figure 9). According to FAOSTAT (FAO 2022), per capita calorie consumption of tomatoes, vegetables, and fruits (excluding bananas and plantains) in 2019 was 10, 49, and 34, respectively, in Nigeria, which was generally higher than figures for other parts of SSA.Consumptions of F&V also vary considerably across regions and seasons, based on more disaggregated figures from LSMS-ISA data (Figure 10). Average per capita consumption per week is around 200g for tomato, onion, 100g for okra (fresh), pepper (fresh), orange, 50g for watermelon, and a lower amount for other primary vegetables and fruits. Consumption is significantly greater in the South for tomato, pepper (fresh), orange, mango, and pawpaw, while greater in the North for onion, okra (fresh and dried), and watermelon. Consumption also varies between August -October and February -March. Generally, consumption is greater in February-March for tomato (except South-South), okra (dried), orange, mango, pawpaw, and August-October for onion, fresh okra (except South-East), pepper (dried).Various entities, including private companies, associations, and household enterprises, engage in service provisions along the F&V VC in Nigeria.Many household-based enterprises engage in F&V VC activities in Nigeria, especially in F&V retail/wholesale (Figure 7). In 2012 and 2015, when information was available from LSMS-ISA data, these enterprises accounted for at least 4% of households (3% in retail/wholesale and 1% in personal service) nationally, equivalent to approximately 1.2 million households.These household enterprises in F&V retail/wholesale have been mostly small-scale (Figure 8). Typically they employ 1 worker, as well as 1.6 unpaid workers, have business capital of $100, stock of raw commodities of $15 on an average month, and monthly sales revenue of around $1,000 / month. These enterprises typically operate for 4-6 months/year, though some operate for 12 months. These figures are comparable to other studies in other African countries, including tomato trading in Ghana (Haruna et al. 2012) and mango trading in Malawi (Nyirenda et al. 2019 Table 2).More specialized private companies engage in the provision of various types of services. For example, Bunkasa Agritech Limited, established in 2017 as a subsidiary of the Mile-12 International market in Lagos (the largest agricultural commodities off-taker with a supply chain to 300 smaller markets in Nigeria and West Africa sub-region states), has partnered with the West African Association of agricultural traders. It has provided actors along the tomato and other com-modity value chains with price, market information, and rental services for their trademarked Reusable plastic crates (RPCs) (Balana et al. 2022b). The company uses PRCs to provide standardized weighting services and quality control (food safety) of products. The company also takes responsibility for crate handling, transporting, product delivery, and crate handling risks.They have market agents who take care of the crates from when they get to the market and ensure they are safely returned to the warehouse.One tomato processing company in Kano, producing homemade condiments for personal use, received a 7 million Naira seed grant in 2014 under the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) You-Win program and started tomato processing in 2016 with locally fabricated machines. After facing the challenge of low processing efficiency, the company owner traveled to China in 2016 and sourced improved small processing machines manufactured based on her specifications. The company now sources fresh tomatoes from the open Yankaba Market in Kano and directly from farmers through trust-based agreements (instead of formal contractual agreements) with specific producers whose products she buys before harvest. The final products (tomato paste, sauce, and puree) are sold to supermarkets, restaurants, hotels, higher institutions of learning, wholesalers, retailers, and final consumers who buy in bulk both within and outside Kano. The products are well-packaged and labeled. Marketing materials are sourced both locally and internationally from China.Trader associations provide various support services as well. For example, the tomato traders' association in Kano, which currently has 2500 members across the country, helps members market/sell their produce, provides both technical and financial support, and facilitates access to credit to help them trade and transport their tomatoes to markets. The associations also serve as entry points for donors to provide supporting projects. For example, the tomato traders' associations facilitated the rental of Plastic Crates distributed by the World Bank under the 'APPEALS' project in 2019 (Balana et al. 2022b).Food loss is an important issue in vegetable VCs. In Sub-Saharan Africa, about one-third of the food produced is lost at the production stage and between the postharvestprocessingretail stage, respectively (CBI -MOFA, 2021). Table 1 and Table 2 summarize the reported loss rates for key vegetables and fruits in Nigeria. Overall, estimated shares of losses at the post-harvest stage can be as much as 50% or more for tomato and onion and 10-20% for peppers and okra, occurring at storage, processing, and collection/transport stages. Similarly, sometimes more than 50% of mango, watermelon, and around 10% of orange can be lost during the marketing stage. Source: World Vegetable Center (2022).F&V VC in Nigeria provides significant employment and income to women and youths. This is demonstrated in Figure 12, which shows the employment in the off-farm V&F sector, excluding on-farm, by gender and age groups. These figures are based on people who explicitly mentioned the names of key vegetables/fruits in their off-farm labor activities in 2012 when data were available in LSMS. These figures might be greater in 2022, given the population growth since 2012).According to Figure 11, at least about 900,000 workers were engaged in the off-farm V&F sector in the post-planting season (Aug-Oct) and the post-harvest season (Feb-March). Among them, women constituted about 2/3 of all workers. In the South, women account for a large share (about 80%); in the north, shares are somewhat smaller, but still, approximately 100,000 -150,000 women work in the off-farm V&F sector. Among youths (15-34 years old), women constitute a greater share (80% or more). Youths (15-34 years old) account for 15 ~ 20% of all workers engaged.The development of F&V VC and its inclusivity have been highlighted as key focus areas in various policies.National Agricultural Technology and Innovation Policy (NATIP) (FMARD 2021) is the latest agricultural policy in Nigeria and is built around 10 intervention pillars. One of the pillars includes \"vii. Strengthening Value-Chains for Priority Crops\", which focuses on the value-chain development of maize, sorghum, rice, wheat, cassava, sesame, and tomatoes (p.4). In particular, the pillar emphasizes strengthening the processing sector, including establishing over 100 processing centers in rural communities across the country under the Green Imperatives Plan. Furthermore, the pillar promotes the development of clusters, rural nodal centers, rural cottage industries, and the establishment of at least six Special Agro-industrial Processing Zones  FMARD 2021) emphasizes that government programs focus on capacity building, acquisition of 21st-century skill-sets, gender and youth-friendly innovations and enterprises, promotion of modern agriculture, and linkages to finance. Nigeria's Gender Policy (FMARD 2019) also emphasizes that the Nigerian government will promote agri-business ventures for both people with special needs and women, ensuring that women do not lag in key sectors, especially horticulture value chains.Key common set of problems across major horticulture commodities are A. Upstream a. Insufficient access to improved seeds and varieties (supply and demand) b. Seasonality B. Midstream a. Insufficient quality preservations using cooling technologies (insufficient access to grid electricity) b. Inefficient packing methods (especially, plastic crates) c. Insufficient value-addition through processing (capital requirements, market structure, etc) C. Downstream a. Insufficient willingness to pay for domestic horticulture commodities due to information asymmetry (e.g., limited certification and labeling) b. Insufficient knowledge on nutrition benefits of domestic fresh horticulture commodities c. Significant competition with imported substitutes (such as imported tomato concentrate, tomato paste, etc.)The following evidence suggests that insufficient access to suitable improved varieties and seeds is a problem.► Significant use of recycled seeds, and limited use of improved varieties, as shown in Figure 4 ► The limited supply of certified seedsfew certified seeds of horticulture commodities have been produced in Nigeria in the 2010s; almost all certified seeds produced have been cereals, legumes, and cotton (NASC 2020). Some horticulture product seeds, like onion seeds, produced were 20 tons, accounting for only a fraction of 128 tons of expected seed demand (NASC & SEEDAN 2020).► The number of vegetable varieties released in Nigeria up to 2020 has been generally small -8 Amaranthus, 3 okras, 7 peppers, 2 cabbages, 17 tomatoes, which account for 37 out of 627 variables (NACGRAB 2020).► Significant shares of tomato and garden egg varieties come from the public-sector bred varieties in many African countries (e.g., Afari-Sefa et al., 2012;Schreinemachers et al. (2017), suggesting that insufficient supply of seeds of these varieties can be a significant constraint.► High costs of improved, certified seeds (Balana et al. 2022b)Evidence suggests insufficient access to suitable improved varieties and seeds is a prevalent problem in Nigeria. Compared to some other countries in Africa, Nigeria has a low quantity of certified seeds for horticulture crops. For example, in Egypt, as early as 1997, certified seeds were produced for tomato (95 tons), watermelon (175 tons), cucumber (110 tons), Spinach (60 tons), okra (130 tons), lettuce (50 tons), carrot (60 tons) (FAO 2000), which is significantly higher than the quantity produced in Nigeria, where few seeds were produced in 2020 (NASC & SEEDAN 2020).Various policy and strategy documents discuss these problems, including National Seed Policy 2015 (FMARD 2015), and Plant Variety Protection Law (FMARD 2021), indicating the persistence of these problems recognized in Nigerian policies. In addition, the National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC)'s strategies for 2020-2024 (NASC 2019) aim to achieve the following:► Increased availability of improved seeds and adequate training led to 40% of farmers in Nigeria adopting improved seed varieties across priority value chains, including vegetables.► An efficient and robust certification system by improving time and cost-efficient and effective seed certification system that covers additional value chains such as fruits, vegetablesInsufficient cooling practices, cold storage, and cool transportation at various stages, whether on-farm or market level, are widely mentioned as a critical problem (e.g., Kirubi et al. 2009;Tschirley et al. 2015;Béné et al. 2019;Takeshima et al. 2021).The following evidence suggests insufficient access to cold storage and cool transportation is a significant problem.Recent studies (e.g., Takeshima et al. 2021) suggest introducing solar-powered cold storage in major horticulture markets in Northeast Nigeria can have significant economic effects. These include a relative increase in sales volumes of horticulture commodities, reduced losses, and higher prices received by market traders and producers. The overall returns are found to be suf-ficiently larger than the investment costs of cold storage. Such significant effects, in turn, suggest that insufficient access to cold storage in the market is limiting the potential of domestic F&V VC development.Most of the cold storage services in Nigeria are primarily for preserving meat and fish, with comparatively few options suitable for storing fresh fruits and vegetables (FFV) (GAIN & Rockefeller Foundation 2018; USAID 2022). Poor and unstable electricity supplies, and insufficient adoption of off-grid, renewable electricity, deter the development of cold storage facilities (Plaisier et al. 2019;Dijkxhoorn et al. 2021).Knowledge and awareness still need to be improved regarding cheaper, intermediate on-farm cold storage, such as zero-energy cooling chambers and other evaporative cooling methods (Mogaji et al., 2013;Rockefeller Foundation, 2021;Nwalieji & Ajayi, 2009). At the same time, some intermediate methods, like storing fruits in mud-houses with thatched roofs, tend to be more susceptible to external shocks like fire outbreaks and may provide only a modest degree of quality preservation, insufficient to meet consumer's preference for freshness (Balana et al. 2022b).Generally, Nigeria's greater consumer preferences for fresh products than processed products make inappropriate storage a key constraint (Balana et al. 2022b).In addition, insufficient cold storage / cool transportation aggravates food loss and waste due to spatial and temporal variations in supply-demand gaps. As was described earlier, production seasonality is substantial in each region, and generally, northern Nigeria faces excess supply while southern Nigeria faces excess demand.Longer, costlier transportation challenges due to extortions on the road (illegal and informal) by unions or government agents such as police, road safety corps, inadequate road conditions, poor road linkages, and lack of aggregation centers (Balana et al. 2022b) can further lengthen the transportation time, and thus expose products longer to higher temperatures.Various documents mentioned above indicate the significant prevalence of the problem anecdotally. Stakeholder consultations also revealed that mangoes in the market tend to be stored by simply covering them between layers of sacs to prevent fruits from direct sunlight (Balana et al. 2022b).In addition, baseline surveys of horticulture traders in 14 main daily horticulture markets in Northern Nigeria conducted by Takeshima et al. (2021), which are representative of the horticulture market levels, show that very few market agents in these horticulture markets had used cold storage.Various policy and strategy documents discuss these problems. For example, National Agricultural Technology and Innovation Policy (NATIP) (FMARD 2021) aims to support cold-chain development:► Market Development: A multi-stakeholder approach would be adopted to equip and upgrade major commodity markets, re-organize rural and urban market infrastructures, and establish warehouses, environmentally friendly cold chain facilities, and functional commodity exchange and warehouse receipt systems.► Establishment & Upgrading of Commodity Markets: Support the establishment of cold stores, preservations, light processing in major commodity marketsFarmers in developing countries, particularly under-developed countries in SSA, including parts of Nigeria, continue to face high transactions costs due to inefficient market structure (Minten et al. 2012;Vandeplas & Minten 2015;Liverpool-Tasie et al. 2020), including those in tomato value-chain (e.g., Ugonna et al. 2015). Similarly, many horticulture producers consider market linkages as weak. While middle-men partly facilitate and play coordinating roles, concerns remain strong among farmers regarding the overall efficiency of the current market structure, and preferences for having more direct access to buyers like processing companies and final retailers also remain strong among producers, aggregators, and associations (Balana et al. 2022b).Various donor-initiated projects attempt to address this problem. For example, the YieldWise-TechnoServe tomato program supports strengthening the market associations and expanding the networks of the aggregators by linking them to more farmers and buyers (e.g., Rockefeller Foundation 2021). The project also developed a contract farming and aggregation model to strengthen linkages between producers and buyers, including off-takers, processors, hotels, or wholesale outlets. These buyers provide inputs to producers and purchase directly from them (e.g., Rockefeller Foundation 2021).Market agents in developing countries, including Nigeria, also need more information about prices and demand uncertainty in staple and horticulture commodities (Minten et al. 2012;Vandeplas & Minten 2015;Liverpool-Tasie et al. 2020). More marketing information is also considered a significant challenge for the tomato value chain in Nigeria (Ugonna et al., 2015). There needs to be more quality control and standardization for processed tomatoes and mango due to information asymmetry, have also been raised by various stakeholders in Nigeria during the stakeholder consultations (Balana et al. 2022b).As was described earlier, major agricultural policies like NATIP emphasize the importance of value-chain development, and the government contributes to building and maintaining market infrastructures through public investments. However, the investments and public expenditures still need to be increased given the sheer size of horticulture marketing activities in Nigeria (e.g., Hatzenbuehler et al. 2018;Takeshima et al. 2022).The problems associated with inappropriate processing methods generally consist of the following:   (Larsen 2009), more than 500 in countries like Colombia (Dávila et al. 2015), and South Africa where larger companies like Giant Foods and Tiger Brands engage in significant tomato processing (Louw et al. 2007).NATIP generally emphasizes the importance of strengthening processing capacities.► Pillar: Strengthening Value-Chains for Priority Crops: the establishment of over 100 processing centers in rural communities across the country, under the Green Imperatives Plan; the development of clusters, rural nodal centers, rural cottage industries and the establishment of at least six Special Agro-industrial Processing Zones (SAPZs); linking the agricultural sector with the industrial/processing sector, thereby boosting industrialization and creating at least 1 million jobs in the country.► NATIP also mentions particular quantitative goals: increase by 20 percent the value addition of agricultural products through processing and nutrient fortification; provide 25 agro-processing facilities tied to the silos and other cottage industries for value addition by 2027The problems associated with inappropriate packing methods generally consist of the following:► Low quality preservations of conventional packing materials ► High cost, variable quality of plastic crates ► Insufficient knowledge of handling of crates ► Insufficient awareness of the benefits of plastic cratesThe low adoption rate of crates among smallholder tomato farmers and local produce aggregators using crates (4%), with less than 100,000 crates circulated in Nigeria (Rockefeller Foundation 2021). The high and rising cost of crates in recent years (₦1,000 before 2021 (Rockefeller Foundation 2021) to ₦2,500 to 4,000 in 2022) have also induced farmers to prefer traditional wooden (Rafia) baskets despite high losses (Balana et al. 2022b).Poor and variable quality of crates are other problems. The more recently circulated crates have become less durable and can only last for 2 years, with only one company currently producing high-quality plastic crates in Nigeria; even though plastic crates reduce postharvest losses, the texture/design of some existing crates still contributes to product damages (Balana et al. 2022b). Other problems include improper crate handling and offloading stacked tomato crates from trucks contributing to spoilage (Balana et al. 2022b) and limited farmers' understanding of the efficiency of plastic crates in transporting tomatoes (Balana et al. 2022b).NATIP emphasizes the importance of improved post-harvest handling, including that for fruits & vegetables, to which this problem falls.In addition, various projects have provided support to address the problem. These include:► World Bank's APPEALS (The Agro Processing, Productivity Enhancement and Livelihood Improvement Support) project provided crates through rental.► Rockefeller Foundation (2021), through collaborations with TechnoServe and under the YieldWise project, experimented with evaluating how packaging materials contributed to the post-harvest loss. It also facilitated the formation of an RPC Association based in Danja, Katsina State, to promote the use of the crates among local produce aggregators and smallholder farmers.► In 2019, the Nigerian Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending financed a program for small-holder tomato farmers and aggregators in Kano State. Each farmer received 30 reusable plastic crates, crop protection, insurance services, seeds, and fertilizers.The challenges along F&V VC, described in the previous section, can be best addressed by applying various sets of innovations in bundles.The scoping work identified several sets of innovation bundles based on the review of challenges, lessons from recent applications, and pilot of existing innovations in some parts of the country. Three types of innovations have been considered: process, product, and information innovations. Process innovations include those in cooling and packing methods, while product innovations include improved seeds and varieties, a variety of processing methods, and so on. Information innovations include certifications and labels and better access to market information.Table 3 summarizes the set of innovation bundles identified, and the types of F&V VC functions associated with them, while Figure 1 maps the collaborators and partners involved. The subsections below describe each intervention bundle in detail.   The intervention brings the benefits in three areas; ► Improved access to quality seeds of horticulture commodities: the quality seeds of a broad range of varieties, popular in the local area but not readily accessible in high quality, become more widely available in the local market. In addition, access will improve in local markets for more improved varieties suitable for various forms of consumption. For example, such varieties may include dual-purpose tomato varieties adapted to fresh and processing markets, solids content ideal for juice, colors, texture, and size, among others (Snels et al. 2018). More details of characteristics of improved horticulture crop varieties are provided in Appendix B.► Skill upgrading of producers through extension and training on improved production practices of horticulture commodities: producers' knowledge and skills on horticulture commodity production will be enhanced both directly through training, and indirectly through exposures i ► Higher market premiums for horticulture commodities sold by the producers: providing certification to producers who received training can reduce information asymmetry from buyers' perspectives regarding the crop quality, who are willing to offer higher prices to producersKey intervention cost components are Women and youths who engage in production, marketing (both crops and seeds), and processing broadly benefit, given their significant involvement in these activities within F&V VC.The intervention also includes training-of-trainers (TOT), who tend to be the youths with basic agricultural backgrounds and contribute to increased youth involvement.Training will also cover environmentally sustainable production practices, which enhance both short-term and long-term benefits for the producers.Certification of producers is relatively inexpensive (requiring materials to demonstrate certification status) and thus fairly easy to scale up. Potentials of intermediate cooling technologies have been hypothesized in past studies in Nigeria and other developing countries, including forced-air evaporative cooling (Sibanda & Workneh 2020;Kumar et al. 2022), ii Zero Energy Cooling Chamber (ZECC) (Odeyemi et al. 2021;RF 2021), evaporative-preservation cooling system (Mogaji et al. 2013), evaporative coolant structure (Nwalieji & Ajayi 2009), and other temporal cooling structure (Njume et al. 2020). Improved on-farm storage can also partly mitigate the challenges due to the erratic and high electricity supply cost, which discourages using modern storage facilities (Balana et al., 2022b).Access to cold storage, among others, can help smallholders to engage in higher-value livestock and horticultural products (Hazell et al., 2019). Recent studies show the potential economic impacts of small-scale solar-powered cold storage installed in horticulture market premises in Northeast Nigeria, particularly in markets with high transactions (e.g., markets that operate every day, as opposed to markets that operate only a few times a week) (Takeshima et al. 2021). Takeshima et al. (2021) and Yamauchi & Takeshima (2022) show that, after several years, cumulative economic returns can exceed installment costs. These studies also showed that cold storage in market premises could often double the shelf-life of products, preserving more than half of the original nutritional values after 10 days or more and reducing loss/waste of commodities.The benefits of cool transportation, and more broadly cold-chain, have been increasingly studied as well, although the evidence base just began broadening (e.g., Mahajan & Frías 2012;Han et al. 2021;Tokala & Mohammed 2021). Generally, cool transportation can reduce the effects of ripening and spoilage, quality preservation, and increase overall economic efficiency in F&V VC. Access to cooling technologies can incentivize more significant investments in value-adding activities (Takeshima et al. 2021), such as grading/sorting, washing, cleaning, etc. These activities can be labor intensive and lead to increased employment in women and youths.While cool transportation itself could contribute to greater fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions (Wu et al. 2022), reduced loss and waste during transport can indirectly reduce the overall environmental footprints per value of F&V produced and consumed along the VC. Similarly, low-carbon management strategies, such as energy efficiency improvement, clean electricity grid supply, environmentally friendly refrigerants, and alternative refrigeration technologies, can mitigate adverse environmental effects (Wu et al. 2022).Capital-intensive technologies like forced-air evaporative cooling facilities and cool transportation technologies can be scaled up similarly to agricultural mechanization. Large farmers who purchase tractors through their private savings become a major source of mechanization services for neighboring smallholders (Takeshima et al. 2015;Diao et al. 2020) Source: Authors.Solar drying is an advanced way of utilizing the usual open-air sun drying method (RF 2021; Ngasoh et al. 2018). A solar dryer is set up as a structure that is used as a collector of the ray from the sun and intensifies it to facilitate drying (Ngasoh et al. 2018). The technology is expected to enhance the speed and efficiency of drying F&V commodities at the farm gate.The solar dryer also effectively eliminates aflatoxin contaminations in maize and ground nuts. Though these commodities are not fruits and vegetables, it is possible to use solar dryers for these commodities during the off-season for fruits and vegetables.Training on wet processing can improve processing efficiency and adequacy, including the consistency of quality, cleanliness, and hygiene of processed products, adequate packaging materials, and adequate operation of processing equipment. In other developing countries, gaps have often been detected among processers of F&V commodities and food. The training was suggested as an effective intervention (e.g., da Cruz et al. 2006;Kussaga et al. 2014).Improved processing skills can also mitigate losses, capturing higher value than selling raw products alone (Larsen 2009).Potential costs of interventions are guided by field assessment and similar studies in neighboring countries.Kano, PlateauCluster-RCT by randomly selecting locations to set-up the solar dryer. Two potential treatments: (1) service fees to use the solar dryer and ( 2 Solar driers (solar-dryers), more broadly solar-energy drying systems, are generally suited to women (e.g., Sharma et al. 2009) and thus gender-inclusive technologies. Solar dryers rely primarily on solar energy with little reliance on alternative electricity, negligible emission of Green House Gas, and use locally-available materials. Thus, the technology is environmentally sustainable. Solar driers are relatively simple and can be constructed mainly with locally-available materials (Ngasoh et al. 2018;Rockefeller Foundation 2021). Thus, the technology is highly scalable.Cottage-industry type processing, such as for simple tomato juice/sauce, is also gender-neutral because many women generally engage in post-harvest handling of fruits and vegetables. In addition, improved knowledge of processing through training can be readily disseminated locally and is scalable. In the second sub-component, one-stop-shop type service provisions will be provided. SMEs provide multiple services ranging from providing crate rental services alongside other services to supporting client farmers and traders. A bundle of services offered includes crate rental services, farmer training on agricultural production (e.g., varieties with the high demand), packaging usingTBD Kano, Plateau Impact evaluation research designCluster-RCT by randomly selecting locations for service provisions (2 treatments): Increasing returns to plastic crates as an increased incentive to use -Plastic crates provisions through rental -Market information provided to producers (price information, linkages with guaranteed market, etc.)ColdHubs Bunkasa Notes Plastic crates will be used in other innovation bundles (cold chain, market coordination) plastic crates, price information (e.g., price bands in 7 wholesale markets in southern Nigeria), advice on sales locations (e.g., supermarkets or restaurants when prices at the wholesale markets are low), establish links to agents in southern wholesale markets by guaranteeing them that farmers/northern traders will sell their produce within the band price gathered from those agents.Benefits of Reusable Plastic Crates, particularly for F&V commodities, include the following:► Improved quality preservation and reduced loss/waste  Transporting tomatoes in crates helps the farmers to extend the shelf life up to 10 days and allow them to access better markets outside their local production areas (Balana et al. 2022b). RPC can also help preserve food safety quality. For example, tomatoes that are transported in crates are free from toxins, as farmers are discouraged from using ripening ingredients, and thus tomato plums tend to remain safer for eating (Balana et al. 2022b). A truck can load between 600-900 crates compared to 300 Rafia baskets (Balana et al. 2022b). Each plastic crate, when fully loaded with tomato, weighs 25kg, which is half of the weight of the traditional wooden basket, commonly called the 'Rafia' basket, which weighs about 50kg. An RPC is generally accepted as a standard unit of measurement in tomato markets across the country (Balana et al. 2022b).► Increased benefits in response to supplementary support like training, awareness enhancement  Limited awareness and insufficient knowledge in handling PRC due to little training are considered some of the barriers against using PRC (Nwabuogo et al. 2019), suggesting that supplementary support for training and awareness enhancement can raise benefits from traders' perspectives. Training farmers on using crates to minimize post-harvest loss is also useful (Balan et al. 2022b). Benefits can also be enhanced by partnering with other value chain actors across markets with the possibility of using the crates (instead of sending them back empty) to transport other commodities to where the crates originated.► Reduced overall transactions costs for farmers by  Reduced transactions costs by having to deal with fewer service providers  Better access to guaranteed and/or high-end markets like restaurants or supermarkets, where sellers can capture price premiums for high-quality produce.Key cost components of interventions utilizing Reusable Plastic Crates are the crates' costs. Prices of crates can vary depending on the quality, but typically around ₦4,000 / crate in 2022 for purchase. Crates can also be rented at a rate of ₦600 / crate per peak season. Standard crates can last for up to 2 years.The key intervention costs for the provision of market information include the standard costs incurred by existing SMEs already providing these services.Women often account for a significant share of the population engaged in trading of F&V in Nigeria. Packing techniques, including RPCs, are often suitable for women (Badu & Sahoo 2015). Furthermore, providing these bundles of services has the potential to significantly bridge gender gaps and promote inclusivity, where bridging those gaps expands the SME market access and client base. Thus, these service-provider SMEs could be incentivized to expand their operations to reach smaller and more remote farmers and traders with particular attention to youth, women, and disadvantaged castes and ethnic groups.Studies indicate that reusable plastic crates (RPCs) have a lower environmental impact than single-use containers (cardboard and wooden boxes) (e.g., López-Gálvez et al. 2021); a service life of only 15 rotations can be sufficient to reduce all the impacts in comparison with single-use cardboard and wooden boxes. Using plastic crates helps minimize the cost of packaging materials and makes the whole process less dependent on scarce items like wood, thereby resulting in the conservation of the environment (Badu & Sahoo 2015).Similarly, where encouraging climate-smart practices might not currently be provided by existing SMEs, working with them (since they already have connections with farmers and are providing them with some services) could be a mechanism to promote adopting these practices. In addition, working with these SMEs could be an effective way for governments and donors to support increased farmers' knowledge and adoption of environmentally safe practices and incentivize farmers to adopt such practices.Given the divisibility of crates and availability of rental services, the scalability of intervention is high once the profitability of using crates is better recognized among F&V VC actors, and the costs are directly reduced by scale economy and/or improved service provision (e.g., one-stopshop).Similarly, the provision of market information has already been implemented along the tomato value chain in parts of Nigeria. Thus, there are significant scalability potentials to other regions in the country with similar VC growth potentials once improved knowledge of business models is diffused to these regions.Certification and labeling intervention will address information failures in the market, as discussed in the earlier section. This intervention includes labeling/certification of seeds as discussed in the other innovation bundle and labeling/certification of cool transported products. The intervention mitigates information asymmetry and reduces information costs from buyers' perspectives by improving the clarity of quality-preserving practices used for seeds and products. This can also translate into higher market premiums received by sellers.Intervention costs include labeling materials and third-party certification costs.Providing labeling and certification has the potential to significantly bridge gender gaps and promote inclusivity, especially by raising returns to quality-preserving practices often carried out by women or youths.Similarly, if demand is high for environment-friendly practices, such as cold storage and cool chain based on renewable energy (e.g., solar power), labeling and certification of such practices can raise returns to environment-friendly practices.The intervention can be scalable because the costs of labeling materials can be relatively low in Nigeria, and the certification process is less capital intensive (especially if the number of certifying agents is sufficient and certification service is reasonably accessible).Certification on improved seeds Labeling on cool transported products Pilot locations North: local fresh markets South: rental markets Impact evaluation research design RCT (plot levels) RCT (product levels)Fruits and vegetables are critical commodities in Nigeria regarding food and nutrition security, employment, and income earning potentials of various actors along the value chain, from upstream, midstream, and downstream. Unlocking these potentials, however, requires modernizing the value chain by addressing bottlenecks at various stages across the chain. Our scoping work assessed key characteristics of relevant value chains, market structures, policy environments, potentially binding constraints, and possible sets of innovations that can address these constraints, focusing on fruits and vegetable sectors in general and key commodities like tomato, mango, and orange in particular. We built on past, and recent studies investigating F&V VC challenges in Nigeria and complemented them by providing nationally representative statistics from household data, findings from various stakeholder consultations, and co-designing possible innovative solutions with local partners.Overall, our scoping work revealed that V&F VC consists of many small actors, farmers, and traders, whereby limited vertical coordination can lead to significant efficiency loss along the value chain. Seasonal and temporal variations in supply-demand gaps for F&V commodities exist across the country, and considerable scope exists for a more modernized value chain to reduce losses and enhance the overall efficiency of the domestic F&V sector. Policy environments are also favorable for such efforts, as the latest Agricultural Policy documents highlight the Nigerian government's interest in modernizing F&V VC. Given the significant involvement of women and youths in the sector, F&V VC development has significant potential to contribute to Nigeria's inclusive development of agrifood systems.The current domestic F&V VC in Nigeria suffers from various sets of problems. These include insufficient access to quality seeds and farming knowledge of F&V, insufficient cooling for quality preservation, insufficient processing, inappropriate packing methods, and inefficient market linkages and coordination that can be improved. Insufficient access to quality seeds and farming knowledge is associated with significant use of recycled seeds, limited supply, and high costs of certified seeds. Deficient cooling practices are due to inadequate access to the grid and off-grid electricity, limited knowledge of intermediate cooling methods applicable at the farm gate, and constraining quality preservations at farm gate storage, during transportation, and storage at market premises. Insufficient processing results from not only high costs of processing equipment but also limited knowledge of the construction and operation of simpler, less resource-dependent processing facilities, including drying of F&V commodities. Inappropriate packing, such as using Rafia baskets instead of Reusable Plastic Crates, which are commonly recognized, is still prevalent, potentially due to limited market coordination.The Following the introduction of the Initiative and its two work packages, the research team shared the findings of the scoping studies from WP2 and WP3 with the stakeholders, followed by discussions and Q&A sessions. The second half of day one of the workshop focused on learning from the stakeholders (potential implementing partners) about their experiences, expectations, innovations, and capabilities to implement them. Accordingly, seven organizations iv among the stakeholders invited to the workshop each gave presentations on the following key areas: (1) their From the 'innovations logistic services' discussion group, a significant challenge remains postharvest loss because of poor/inefficient logistics services. Some proposed interventions included plastic crates transporting perishable vegetables and fruits, cool transportation services, off-grid cool storage to reduce food loss, and increased market information and coordination services.Participants in the 'innovations in food processing and value addition' group suggested solar dryer technology as the key innovation that can replace traditional food drying methods in the sun and the open air.The group that discussed 'innovations in quality standards, labeling, and certification' agreed that the barriers to quality standards include the need for more capacity for valueadded services along the fruits and vegetable value chains and the lack of standardization and traceability of farm commodities. Therefore, they proposed increasing capacity building on quality standards and quality labeling from farms to aggregation centers and markets.The group on 'innovations in digital financial services' proposed several financial solutions to mitigate the challenges smallholders and SMEs face along the agri-food value chains. The key DFS solutions suggested: (1) digital delivery of inputs loan bundled with agronomic and weather advisory services. This could help farmers to receive payments from off-takers in a timely and efficient manner by reducing extensive paper trails and harmonizing their data;(2) an e-wallet card to drive ease of payment processes and financial inclusion; (3) digital warehousing allowing farmers to move their farm produce to designated warehouses; and (4) a centralized USSD that can give farmers access to information or link to digital financial service providers in local languages.Participants expressed their satisfaction with the information and knowledge gained about the Initiative at the workshop and the opportunities for collaboration on innovative solutions to mitigate the challenges in the agri-food sector in Nigeria. The readiness and enthusiasm of private sector partners for collaborations are very encouraging. In addition, the reflections/feedbacks from policy stakeholders (i.e., the Ministry of Agriculture at both federal and state governments) are highly positive. Government stakeholders expressed their willingness to engage with the Initiative team and implement local partners and contribute to the Initiative's success in producing evidence to support better and targeted policies in the agri-food sector in Nigeria.Based on the scoping work, review of existing materials, and stakeholder consultations, the following interventions (innovation bundles) have been identified as promising for F&V VC in Nigeria and should be piloted.   Source: Authors based on NBS-WB (2019). Note: Figures are based on LSMS-ISA data, waves 2 and 3 in which the descriptions of enterprise included the following: fruits = \"banana\", \"fruit\", \"mango\", \"melon\", \"orange\", \"pineapple\", \"plantain\", \"watermelon\"; vegetables = \"bitterleaf\", \"egusi\", \"herb\", \"kuka\", \"okra\", \"onion\", \"pepper\", \"tomato\", \"vegetables\". Figures above may underestimate, as they exclude other households who may handle fruits and vegetables but do not describe them explicitly. Processing mango fruit into various shelf-stable products makes the seasonal fruit conveniently available to consumers all year round. Some common processed products from mango fruit are derived from pulp. Apart from the primary products from mango pulp, mango pulp derivatives can enrich or flavor secondary products such as yogurt, ice cream, beverages, and soft drinks.Byproducts of mango processing, such as the peel and kernel, are rich in bioactive compounds, including carotenoids, polyphenols, and dietary fibers. The byproducts of mango processing can be used in food fortification and the manufacture of feeds, thereby gaining more excellent value from the fruit while reducing wastage. Although mango can be processed into all these products, smallholder farmers and processors in developing countries have yet to exploit this potential fully.Only citrus varieties, of which 11 varieties of sweet orange (Citrus sinensis) and 1 variety of Tangelo (Citrus tangelo), are registered in the national variety catalog. The varieties were released in 1986 (Sweet Orange (Citrus cinensis) -Nigerian Seed Portal Initiative). Similar to vegetables, there are varieties of fruit species grown but not registered in the country.   i Some improved production and harvesting methods were also clearly expressed at the stakeholder consultation meetings, including harvesting and post-harvesting handling practices (Balana et al. 2022b). For example, creating large passages/spaces between ridges will minimize trampling on tomato fruits during harvest while discouraging child and unskilled labor for harvesting raises harvesting quality. Other examples include harvesting early in the morning when the temperature is the coolest (Komolafe et al. 2015;Nwaobiala & Nwosu 2013).ii Forced-air cooling is also more suitable than other methods, like hydro cooling for specific fruits and vegetables like strawberries and tomatoes that do not tolerate submersion (Kumar et al. 2022). Forced-air evaporative cooling (FAEC) uses an evaporative cooler that passes air through a water pad before contacting fruits and vegetables (Kumar et al., 2022). FAEC is considered particularly suited for produce to be kept at moderate temperatures (e.g., tomatoes) or soon to be marketed after harvest (Kumar et al. 2022). \"Evaporative cooling technology, if used with forced air, requires lower energy to operate water pump and fans while it is effective in providing cold and humid air to the storage chamber\" (Sibanda & Workneh 2020).iiiThe Initiative aims to provide evidence on what types of bundled innovations, incentive structures, and policies are most effective for creating more equitable sharing of income and employment opportunities in growing food markets while reducing the food sector's environmental footprint. In collaboration with partners, the Initiative will produce a robust evidence base and rigorous impact assessments of the technological, process, and policy innovations for inducing favorable changes in food markets and value chains in five countries (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Central America sub-region. The innovations will primarily benefit smallholder farmers and agrifood SME business owners and workers along the value chains. iv These include Bunkasa AgriTech Ltd., Coldhubs Ltd., Nigerian Stored Product Research Institute (NSPRI), World Vegetable Center (WVC), East-West Seeds Ltd., Crop2Cash Ltd., and Agrorite Ltd. ","tokenCount":"9471"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1ebfa3ef10a0cc7a1997940f510fd646","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5c0cb25f-bcd1-4752-ad95-45221c0c8cb7/retrieve","id":"857010148"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1c9d2a32-e763-4c00-b358-97d5d47f6e48","pagecount":"12","content":"The wheat wild relative Aegilops tauschii was previously used to transfer the Lr42 leaf rust resistance gene into bread wheat. Lr42 confers resistance at both seedling and adult stages, and it is broadly effective against all leaf rust races tested to date. Lr42 has been used extensively in the CIMMYT international wheat breeding program with resulting cultivars deployed in several countries. Here, using a bulked segregant RNA-Seq (BSR-Seq) mapping strategy, we identify three candidate genes for Lr42. Overexpression of a nucleotide-binding site leucine-rich repeat (NLR) gene AET1Gv20040300 induces strong resistance to leaf rust in wheat and a mutation of the gene disrupted the resistance. The Lr42 resistance allele is rare in Ae. tauschii and likely arose from ectopic recombination. Cloning of Lr42 provides diagnostic markers and over 1000 CIMMYT wheat lines carrying Lr42 have been developed documenting its widespread use and impact in crop improvement.eaf rust, caused by Puccinia triticina Erikss., is a prevalent disease limiting wheat production worldwide 1 . Yield reductions in susceptible wheat cultivars typically range from trace to 30% and may exceed 50%. The yield loss can be mitigated by the introduction of genetic resistance 2 . More than 70 leaf rust resistance genes have been characterized and named in wheat (https://shigen. nig.ac.jp/wheat/komugi/genes/symbolClassList.jsp). Six cloned racespecific site leaf rust resistance genes include Lr10 3 , Lr21 4 , Lr1 5 , Lr22a 6 , and Lr13 7 belonging the nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) gene family, and Lr14a encoding a membranelocalized protein containing ankyrin repeats 8 . Two race-nonspecific genes have been cloned, including Lr34 encoding an ABC transporter 9 and Lr67 encoding a hexose transporter 10 . Cloned resistance genes may be useful in assembling transgenic multigene cassettes for developing strong and durable resistant varieties to combat fast-evolving fungal pathogens 11,12 .The leaf rust resistance gene Lr42 was identified from accession TA2450 in a collection of the wheat wild relative Aegilops tauschii Coss. (DD, 2n = 14), the diploid D-genome donor for hexaploid bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L., AABBDD, 2n = 42) 13 . Lr42 confers all-stage resistance to leaf rust. To date, the Lr42 gene is effective against all reported races (isolates from 2020 and previous years) of the leaf rust fungus in the US [14][15][16] . The Lr42 resistance locus was introduced to a bread wheat cultivar \"Century\" by direct crossing, followed by two backcrosses to Century, and was released in a germplasm line KS91WGRC11 in 1991 17 . KS91WGRC11 has been extensively used in CIMMYT wheat breeding programs and is represented as line \"Lr42\" in CIMMYT pedigrees 18,19 . Several KS91WGRC11-derived cultivars released by CIMMYT have outstanding yield potential. Field studies in Oklahoma showed that near-isogenic lines with Lr42 introgressions had a 26% increase in yield and 9% increase in kernel weight, which was attributed to leaf rust resistance 20 .In this work, we undertake the cloning of the Lr42 gene because of its extensive use in international breeding, broad effectiveness, possible association with yield-enhancing factors, the need for diagnostic markers, and the potential utility of the cloned gene in transgenic cassettes. The Lr42 gene was previously mapped to the short arm of chromosome 1D (1DS) using hexaploid wheat mapping populations 13,[21][22][23] . We employ BSR-Seq, a bulked segregant RNA sequencing method 24 , to map Lr42. To eliminate interference from A-genome or B-genome homoeologous sequences from hexaploid parents, we construct two diploid mapping populations by crossing the resistant accession with susceptible accessions of Ae. tauschii. Another advantage of using diploid parents is that the phenotype of Lr42 is stronger and easier to distinguish compared to the phenotype in hexaploid wheat. Fine-scale mapping identifies the candidate gene that is then confirmed to be Lr42 by ectopic expression in a susceptible wheat line as well as by gene knockout mutagenesis. The results confirm that the candidate gene is required and sufficient for the Lr42-mediated resistance.Genetic mapping identified candidate genes of Lr42 on 1DS. We developed the diploid Ae. tauschii populations for efficient genetic mapping by crossing the Lr42 donor Ae. tauschii accession TA2450 with two leaf rust susceptible Ae. tauschii accessions, TA2433 (Fig. 1a) and TA10132 (Supplementary Fig. 1). F 2:3 individuals from both populations were phenotyped for leaf rust resistance at the seedling stage. We scored 100 F 2:3 families of the TA2450 x TA2433 population and identified 27 homozygous resistant (HR) and 21 homozygous susceptible (HS) F 2:3 families (Fig. 1b). Leaf tissues of these HR and HS F 2:3 family seedlings were separately pooled for BSR-Seq 24 . The BSR-Seq experiment mapped Lr42 at a locus close to the end of the short arm of chromosome 1D (1DS) (Fig. 1c), consistent with the mapping results from the other mapping population TA2450 x TA10132 (Supplementary Fig. 1), and from the previous Lr42 mapping studies in hexaploid wheat 19,[21][22][23] . The results indicated that the gene we mapped in the diploid populations is the same as the Lr42 gene transferred to hexaploid wheat. Based on the BSR-Seq results, we identified single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that were likely located near the Lr42 gene and converted them to Kompetitive Allele Specific PCR (KASP) markers for genotyping F 3 and F 4 individuals from both mapping populations (Supplementary Data 1). The Lr42 mapping interval was narrowed down to ~116 kb flanked by the two markers, pC43 at 8,655,291 bp and pC50 at 8,771,761 bp on 1DS, based on the Ae. tauschii reference genome Aet v4.0 25 (Fig. 1d). Note that pC43 is an effective co-dominant marker to select Lr42-carrying lines in both Ae. tauschii and bread wheat lines (Supplementary Data 2). The two markers are located within two genes, which flank three other genes including an intact NLR gene (AET1Gv20040300), an NLR fragment (AET1Gv20040500), and a protein kinase (AET1Gv20040200). Therefore, the three genes in the interval on the reference genome were prioritized as the candidate genes of Lr42 (Fig. 1d).Overexpression supported the intact NLR as Lr42. BSR-Seq provided not only genetic mapping information but also genomewide gene expression data. Our BSR-Seq result showed that all three candidate genes in the Lr42 mapping interval were expressed in uninfected seedling leaves in both resistant and susceptible Ae. tauschii lines. Sequence comparison of the candidate genes between the resistant and susceptible lines using RNA-Seq data revealed that only the candidate AET1Gv20040300 contained polymorphisms in transcribed regions (Supplementary Figs. 2 and 3). We then amplified the full-length coding region of AET1Gv20040300 from both the resistant donor, TA2450, and the susceptible accession TA10132, which confirmed polymorphisms between the two alleles and different lengths of encoded proteins (Fig. 2 and Supplementary Figs. 4 and 5). Both alleles with the maize ubiquitin promoter were separately transferred to a bread wheat cultivar \"Bobwhite\". In total, we obtained four independent positive transgenic T 0 lines carrying the Lr42 resistance allele (Lr42) from TA2450 and two carrying the lr42 susceptibility allele (lr42) from TA10132. T 1 and T 2 transgenic lines were evaluated for leaf rust resistance.Bobwhite carries the leaf rust resistance gene Lr26 that confers resistance to many leaf rust P. triticina races 26 . We screened three P. triticina races and found that Bobwhite was susceptible to race TFBJQ (Supplementary Table 1), which is virulent on Lr26. Infection with race TFBJQ revealed that all Lr42 transgenic lines gained high resistance and two lr42 transgenic lines were highly susceptible like Bobwhite (Fig. 2a). Gene expression analysis showed that the Lr42 allele was expressed in all Lr42 transgenic lines and lr42 was expressed in both lr42 transgenic lines (Fig. 2b). Note that expression of both Lr42 and lr42 was not detectable in Bobwhite. In summary, the transgenic experiment with the Lr42 expression under the control of the ubiquitin promoter showed that expression of the single gene AET1Gv20040300 can induce the resistance response to the pathogen.Lr42 locus. To understand the haplotype of the Lr42 locus, publicly available whole genome sequencing (WGS) Illumina data were used to first examine polymorphisms between TA2450 (Lr42 resistant line) and TA10132 (susceptible reference line) 27 . The result from Comparative Genomics Read Depth (CGRD) analysis using WGS data 28 , which provides similarities and copy number variation of low-repetitive regions between the two genomes, revealed two relatively conserved segments (8.24-8.67 Mb and 8.70-8.82 Mb on 1D) and other divergent regions (Fig. 3a). We produced ~10x Nanopore long reads for the local assembly of the Lr42 locus, resulting in a contig of 201,155 bp including the 116 kb Lr42 mapping interval. Note this newly assembled sequence contains ~1% sequence errors. Sequence comparison showed that the Lr42 locus contains all three candidate genes collinear with the genes in the reference genome (Fig. 3b). Consistently with RNA-Seq data, syntenic sequences of the protein kinase gene AET1Gv20040200 were almost perfectly aligned with 99.85% identity. The comparison showed that the promoter region of AET1Gv20040300 is highly polymorphic. Besides AET1Gv20040500, we identified another NLR fragment homologous to AET1Gv20040300 (Fig. 3b). The expression of the fragment was not detected based on RNA-Seq data. Collectively, the sequence of the Lr42 locus shows that the locus only contains a single intact NLR gene.Ectopic expression and knockout mutagenesis validate the NLR as Lr42. To test the disease resistance of ectopic AET1Gv20040300 expression driven by the native promoter, primers were designed to amplify the Lr42 region, including the promoter, the Lr42 gene, and the terminator. The promoter activity was validated with the GUS assay (Supplementary Fig. 6). Transformation of the gene with the native promoter in Bobwhite resulted in two events carrying the transgenic gene. The transgenic T 1 plants showed resistance to race TFBJQ (Fig. 4a). T 1 plants from one transgenic event (Lr42 p ::Lr42-1) displayed a similar resistance level to the transgenic lines with constitutive expression driven by the maize ubiquitin promoter. T 1 plants from the other event (Lr42 p ::Lr42-2) exhibited a weaker resistant phenotype. Expression quantification of Lr42 via qRT-PCR indicated that a high level of rust resistance might require a certain threshold level of Lr42 expression. At low levels of expression, resistance increased with the elevation of Lr42 expression (Fig. 4b and Supplementary Fig. 7). Quantification of the genomic copy number of the Lr42 transgene found that the lower Lr42 expression transgenic line Lr42 p ::Lr42-2 contained a higher copy number of Lr42 than Lr42 p ::Lr42-1 (Supplementary Figs. 7 and 8), possibly due to position effect and/or gene silencing associated with higher copy number of transgenes 29,30 .We then employed Virus Induced Gene Silencing (VIGS) to specifically knockdown expression of the AET1Gv20040300 gene in TA2450. Rust pustules were consistently observed on the leaves with reduced AET1Gv20040300 expression through VIGS using the construct containing a 201 bp fragment in the leucine-rich repeat (LRR) region (Supplementary Fig. 9). In contrast, the resistant phenotype was maintained on leaves through VIGS with no sequences targeting AET1Gv20040300 (Supplementary Fig. 9a).The VIGS result confirmed that a high-level of rust resistance required a certain level of AET1Gv20040300 expression.In addition, we screened 1320 M3 families of an Ethyl Methane Sulfonate (EMS) induced mutant population of the resistant accession TA2450 31 for their leaf rust responses. We identified one family showing the segregation for leaf rust resistance with 4 resistant and 9 susceptible individuals (Fig. 4c and Supplementary Fig. 10). The low positive mutation rate may be due to the loss of mutant alleles in the selected M3 families, a low number of seeds in many families, and weak phenotypes of missed mutants. Sequencing of the mutant found a G to A mutation in the LRR region, which causes a substitution from Cysteine to Tyrosine at the 700th amino acid (C700Y). Genotyping of all individuals (N = 13) in the family showed a co-segregation among genotypes and phenotypes, i.e., all homozygous mutants were susceptible and all others were resistant. Collectively, the results from the transgenic, VIGS, and EMS experiments consistently confirmed that the NLR gene AET1Gv20040300 is the Lr42 gene.The Lr42 resistance allele infrequently occurs in the Ae. tauschii collection. The Wheat Genetics Resource Center (WGRC) The sequence comparison between the assembled Lr42 locus and a 1D region on the reference genome. On the Lr42 locus, the red rectangle and orange rectangles stand for three genes syntenic with three annotated genes (1: AET1Gv20040300, an intact NLR; 2: AET1Gv20040500; 3: AET1Gv20040200) within the mapping interval in the reference genome. On the reference region, light blue and blue rectangles signify untranslated regions and coding regions of five annotated genes overlapping with the mapping interval, respectively. Blank rectangles represent the locations of NLR fragments homologous to AET1Gv20040300. Green arrows point to the flanking markers of the mapping interval.Ubip ::Lr42Lr42 p ::Lr42 collected 549 Ae. tauschii accessions and has identified a minicore set of 40 accessions that capture >80% of genetic diversity of the whole set 32 . We examined the Lr42 homologs from 35 minicore accessions, which include 24 accessions from Lineage 1 (L1, Ae. tauschii ssp. tauschii) and 11 from Lineage 2 (L2, Ae. tauschii ssp. strangulata) 32 . Lr42 donor TA2450 belongs to L2. Expected bands were amplified from 8 out of 11 L2 accessions and 3 out of 24 L1 accessions (Supplementary Data 3). Of the bands amplified from 11 accessions, Lr42 homologs from 10 accessions were successfully sequenced. We also extracted intact Lr42 homologs from TA10132, the Ae. tauschii accession for the reference genome. TA10132, also known as AL8/78, is a leaf rust susceptible accession. Of all TA10132 Lr42 homologs, the homolog with the highest similarity to Lr42 and located in the Lr42 mapping interval is deemed to be the allelic homolog of Lr42 (lr42-TA10132 or lr42). The lr42-TA10132 allele was used in the transgenic experiment. Among all Ae. tauschii Lr42 homologs, 10 homologs amplified from 10 Ae. tauschii minicore accessions are most similar to Lr42, supporting that these 10 homologs are also allelic to Lr42 (Fig. 5a). The phylogenetic analysis indicated that the Lr42 alleles are not completely separated in the two Ae. tauschii lineages (Fig. 5a). Sequences of the 11 Lr42 allelic homologs, including lr42-TA10132, belonged to three major haplotypes I, II, and III, represented by lr42-TA2376, lr42-TA1605, and lr42-TA2536, respectively (Fig. 5b). Most sequences of the Lr42 allele can be found from these three haplotypes except for a segment of ~140 bp in the LRR region, referred to as Lr42unique-segment hereafter (Supplementary Fig. 4). Interestingly, Lr42-unique-segment can be identified with 98% identity in a non-allelic Lr42 homolog from 1D subgenome of the Chinese Spring (CS) wheat reference genome (1D:7381846-738462, showing only 83.8% identity to Lr42) (Fig. 5b and Supplementary Figs. 11 and 12), implying that this unique sequence originated through either intragenic recombination or ectopic recombination. Beside the uniqueness of Lr42, we also observed conserved sequences at the end of the NB-ARC domain and at the beginning of LRR (Fig. 5c). A separate phylogenetic analysis using these domains (e.g., RX-CC, NB-ARC, and LRR) of the gene resulted in different phylogenetic relationships among these Ae. tauschii accessions, further supporting intragenic recombination occurred between Lr42 haplotypes or ectopic recombination at some domains (Supplementary Fig. 4).Among the accessions with the allelic Lr42 homologs, two accessions TA2458 and TA2468 were seedling leaf rust resistant to race PNMRJ (Supplementary Fig. 13). Both Lr42 haplotypes (lr42-TA2458 and lr42-TA2468) were found in susceptible accessions (Fig. 5a), suggesting that the Lr42 allelic homologs are not responsible for the leaf rust resistance in these two accessions. Indeed, TA2468 was known to carry Lr21 that confers resistance to race PNMRJ (Supplementary Table 1) 4,33 .In the Ae. tauschii reference genome, the susceptibility lr42 allele, four intact homologs, and four partial gene fragments were clustered within an 871 kb region (Fig. 5d). Interestingly, homologous sequences with plus and minus orientations were physically separated into two regions, and homologs with the same orientation are more similar. The organization of the gene cluster indicated that Lr42 homologs likely expanded independently in the two separate regions. The Lr42 homologous clusters were also identified in 1A, 1B, 1D subgenomes of the hexaploid wheat variety, CS, 1A and 1B chromosomes of tetraploid emmer wheat, 1A and 1B chromosomes of durum wheat, as well as 1H of diploid barley (Supplementary Data 4). Only two homologs were identified in Brachypodium, a more distantly related species (Fig. 5d). The results indicated that Lr42 was derived from an ancient locus that has been maintained or expanded to result in a high copy number in barley and wheat species.Lr42 is a widely used source of effective resistance in wheat breeding programs. Source germplasm lines KS91WGRC11 and KS93U50 carry the Lr42 resistance alleles (Supplementary Fig. 14). These Lr42 source lines carrying Lr42 have been extensively used in the CIMMYT wheat breeding program. To identify which CIMMYT wheat lines containing the Lr42 gene, both pedigree information and genotyping data via Genotyping-By-Sequencing (GBS) of 52,943 CIMMYT lines 34 were used. We identified 14 Lr42-specific GBS tags (Supplementary Table 2). Of 5121 genotyped CIMMYT lines with the Lr42 introgression in the pedigree, 33.7% (1724/5121) were classified as Lr42+ lines (Fig. 6a and Supplementary Data 5). In contrast, only 2% (928/ 47,822) of lines that were not expected to carry Lr42 based on the pedigree were categorized as Lr42+ lines. The 2% misclassified lines may reflect the false positive rate or could represent incorrect pedigrees or seed mixtures. In total, 2924 out of 5121 with an Lr42 donor in the pedigree were categorized as without the Lr42 segment (Lr42−) (Fig. 6a and Supplementary Data 5). Some Lr42+ and Lr42− wheat lines were phenotypically examined for leaf rust resistance and grain yield at CIMMYT 34 . Comparison between Lr42+ and Lr42− wheat lines from the breeding population supported that the Lr42 segment is highly associated with seedling resistance to the leaf rust race MBJ/SP 35 , and moderately associated with resistance at the adult stage to leaf rust (Fig. 6b). Without leaf rust infection, grain yield traits of Lr42+ and Lr42− lines were not significantly different, indicative of no significant yield boost or penalty directly imposed by the Lr42 resistance segment from Ae. tauschii (Supplementary Table 3).Diagnostic markers for Lr42 genotyping. We developed an effective co-dominant KASP marker pC43 that is located 46 kb from the Lr42 gene for selection of Lr42-carrying lines in both Ae. tauschii and bread wheat lines. We have also designed and validated two markers, Lr42-pD1 and Lr42-pD2, on the Lr42 gene to distinguish the presence or absence of the Lr42 resistance allele in wheat (Supplementary Data 2, 6, and 7). These markers would be useful for precise marker-assisted selection of Lr42 in wheat breeding programs.We employed an efficient mapping strategy using diploid Ae. tauschii populations to clone the broadly effective leaf rust resistance gene Lr42. Cloning took advantage of the newly constructed Ae. tauschii reference genome 25 , high-throughput sequencing technology, and the optimized genetic analysis strategy, BSR-Seq 24 . Using susceptible and resistant bulks, BSR-Seq enabled simultaneous discovery and genotyping of high-density SNPs to map the genomic region that contains Lr42. Further finemapping delimited the gene interval to ~116 kb interval and revealed an expressed candidate NLR gene, AET1Gv20040300, for Lr42. The causal gene was confirmed by gain-of-resistance via gene transfer to a susceptible hexaploid wheat cultivar as well as loss-of-resistance in an EMS mutant of the Lr42 Ae. tauschii diploid line.The cloning of Lr42 added a member to at least 12 known wheat rust resistance NLR genes (Supplementary Fig. 15) [3][4][5][6][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] . NLR functions as an intracellular sensor of pathogen signals and/ or as an executor to induce localized cell death, the hypersensitive immune response. NLRs exerting both functions were recently referred to as singleton NLRs, such as Mla 43 and Sr50 44 . Some other NLRs function in a pair: sensor NLR recognizing the pathogen and helper (or executor) NLR initiating immune signaling. The paradigm of NLR networks consisting of a number of sensor NLRs and helper NLRs to modulate immune responses was also proposed 45 . An NLR gene in monocots generally consists of an N-terminal coiled-coil (CC) domain, the central NB-ARC domain, and a C-terminal leucine-rich LRR domain. Recent protein structure studies of an Arabidopsis NLR gene product, ZAR1, revealed that a pentameric wheel-like NLR resistosome is assembled upon activation by the pathogen. The funnel-shaped structure formed from the N-terminal α helices at the CC domain is hypothesized to directly compromise plasma membrane integrity and induce cell death 46,47 . Interestingly, a MADA motif (MADAxVSFxVxKLxxLLxxEx, where x represents nonconserved amino acids) conserved among helper NLRs and singleton NLRs but not sensor NLRs was identified on the CC domain 48 . Lr42 has a typical NLR structure and contains a homologous domain \"MAEAVVGQLVVTLGEALAKEA\", which is most similar to the MADA motif among all known wheat rust resistance NLRs (Supplementary Table 4). This implies that Lr42 is more likely to be a singleton NLR or a helper NLR, not a sensor NLR.Lr42 is apparently a recently generated allele at an ancient locus. Homologs of Lr42 were detected in the distant wheat relative Brachypodium (Fig. 5d), which diverged from the Triticeae (wheat, rye, barley) lineage 32-39 MYA 49 . Nevertheless, 34/ 35 samples in the Ae. tauschii minicore have been excluded to carry an Lr42 resistance allele, suggesting that Lr42 is not frequently present in the Ae. tauschii population and, likely, of recent origin. The variation in LRR repeat numbers among Lr42 alleles indicated that unequal crossovers may have occurred within the LRR domain 50 . In addition, intragenic recombination as was documented for Lr21 33 , or even ectopic recombination, may also have played a role in the origin of Lr42 allele. Indeed, the unique LRR sequence of the Lr42 allele can be identified in a non-allelic region in the subgenome 1D of CS, supporting the potential role of ectopic recombination in the origin of the Lr42 resistance allele.The phenotypic expression of resistance in Lr42 lines depends on several factors. Although no leaf rust isolates have shown full virulence to Lr42, some isolates showed lower infection types than others on KS93U50, an Lr42 resistant selection from KS91WGRC11 22 . The resistance reaction of the diploid Ae. tauschii TA2450 donor accession is consistently very strong, ranging from a hypersensitive fleck (Infection Type (IT) = ;) to flecks with tiny pustules surrounded by necrosis (IT = ;1−) (Fig. 1a). However, the reaction of nontransgenic hexaploid Lr42-containing lines ranged from flecks and small pustules surrounded by necrosis (IT = ;1) to medium-sized pustules surrounded by chlorosis (IT = 2+) 13,22 . The reduced expression of introgressed resistance in hexaploid bread wheat compared to diploid donors is a frequently observed phenomenon 11 . However, the reaction of ubiquitin-driven transgenic hexaploid derivatives was very strong, ranging from a hypersensitive fleck (IT = ;) to flecks with tiny pustules (IT = ;1−) (Fig. 2a). The improved performance of the transgenic versus nontransgenic hexaploid lines may be due to the strong maize ubiquitin promoter that was used in the transgenics. The very strong resistance of the transgenic hexaploid Lr42 lines bodes well for its utility in ubiquitin-driven transgenic cassettes. From the transgenic experiment with Lr42 driven by the native promoter, we found one transgenic line with weak leaf rust resistance and low Lr42 expression, which supported that the gene expression level is an important factor for Lr42 resistance. In addition, plant age and/or environment may also influence Lr42 resistance. Adult plants in the field showed much stronger Lr42 resistance than greenhouse-grown seedlings 20 .The undefeated status of Lr42 raised the possibility that it might be a more durable type of resistance gene. However, elucidation of the NLR structure of Lr42 indicates that the mechanism of resistance is typical effector-triggered immunity (ETI). ETI is usually not durable because the rust pathogen can become virulent by loss of the corresponding avirulence factor (effector) that triggers the hypersensitive resistance response. It is possible that the effector gene conferring Lr42 resistance is important for the fungus, which could explain why no virulent rust isolates have been identified. Lr42 is currently deployed mainly in wheat lines from CIMMYT that contain combinations of durable adult plant resistance (APR) genes to leaf rust (Supplementary Table 5). This may have reduced the selection pressure on the pathogen population to overcome Lr42. The CIMMYT wheat breeding pipeline has many more Lr42-containing breeding lines in a background with high levels of APR to leaf rust (Supplementary Data 6). Effective gene stewardship will require breeders to release Lr42 only in varieties with strong combinations of other leaf rust resistance genes.Previous field trials showed that the Lr42 introgression contributed to large increases in yield and kernel weight in Oklahoma 20 . We used GBS markers to classify 5121 CIMMYT breeding lines that had Lr42 in the pedigree. Some of the advanced lines positive for Lr42 were compared to their counterparts without Lr42. We were able to detect a very large effect of Lr42 on leaf rust ratings at the seedling stage, but only a moderate effect on severity at the adult stage in the field probably because most CIMMYT lines also had a high level of APR that kept disease severities low (Fig. 6c). In a QTL analysis of highly resistant CIMMYT line Quaiu 3, Basnet et al. were able to separate the effect of Lr42 from other resistance genes 19 . Lr42 explained 32% of the phenotypic variation and limited disease severity in the field to a maximum of 40%. Lr42 combined very well with Lr46 and QLr.tam-3D to achieve near immunity to leaf rust in Quaiu 3 19 . We did not detect a direct or indirect impact of Lr42 on yield and other grain quality traits, which is also probably due to a high level of APR in most CIMMYT lines.KS91WGRC11 may be common in CIMMYT pedigrees because it contributes resistance to stem rust and stripe rust in addition to leaf rust. KS91WGRC11 carries the SrTmp stem rust resistance gene on chromosome 6DS from the Century parent 51 . We also documented a hidden introgression in the WGRC germplasm. Recently, a stripe rust resistant NLR gene YrAS2388 originating from chromosome 4D of an Ae. tauschii accession was cloned and TA2450 was found to carry the resistance allele 42 . We amplified the YrAS2388 gene from TA2450 and confirmed that the sequence is identical to the reference resistance allele reported. We found that KS91WGRC11 carries the YrAS2388 resistance allele from TA2450, which implies that the YrAS2388 resistance allele has been introduced to germplasm in CIMMYT and many other breeding programs. Given the limited backcrosses to Century, KS91WGRC11 is expected to harbor additional genomic segments from Ae. tauschii that might contribute valuable genetic diversity to future cultivars. Our results point to the need for in situ conservation of robust populations of native wild species for enhancing crop biodiversity so that alleles such as Lr42 reported here can evolve and be conserved for future crop improvement.Plant materials. Ae. tauschii accessions for genetic mapping and haplotype analysis are listed in Supplementary Data 3. Ae. tauschii ssp. strangulata accession TA2450 from Caspian Iran is the donor of the Lr42 gene. Two highly susceptible accessions TA10132 (also known as AL8/78) and TA2433 were crossed with TA2450 and advanced to F 2:3 , F 3:4 , and F 4:5 populations by single seed descent.Leaf rust disease phenotyping. The leaf rust disease inoculation procedure followed the protocol developed by ref. 21 except plants were incubated in a growth chamber at 20 °C and a 16 h photoperiod. Briefly, for Ae. tauschii leaf rust phenotyping, two-leaf stage seedlings were inoculated with the leaf rust race PNMRJ. The virulence/avirulence phenotype of rust races is given in Supplementary Table 1. The infection type of plants was scored on the 0 to 4 Stakman scale at 10 days post inoculation (dpi) and confirmed at 14 dpi. The race nomenclature, differential sets, and Stakman infection types were described by refs. 1,14,52 . For transgenic wheat seedling leaf rust phenotyping, race TFBJG was used to inoculate seedlings at the two-leaf stage. TFBJG was used because it defeated Lr26 in Bobwhite.BSR-Seq. Two F 2:3 populations (population 1: TA2450 x TA2433 and population 2: TA2450 x TA10132) were used for BSR-Seq analysis [https://schnablelab. plantgenomics.iastate.edu/software/BSR-Seq]. Fifteen seeds from each of F 2:3 families were inoculated and phenotyped. Of 100 TA2450 x TA2433 F 2:3 families, 27 were HR families of which all individuals were resistant to leaf rust, and 21 were HS families of which all individuals were susceptible. Equal amounts of leaf tissue were collected from each of 21 HR and 21 HS families, and HR and HS families were pooled separately. Of 101 TA2450 x TA10132 F 3 families, 36 were HR families and 9 were HS families. We selected 26 HR and all 9 HS families to collect HR and HS tissue pools. RNA samples were extracted using the RNeasy Plant Mini Kit (Qiagen, Germany, Cat.# 74904) and with the 2 × 101 bp paired-end platform on an Illumina HiSeq2000 at the Genome Sequencing Facility at the Kansas University Medical Center. In total, ~180 million pairs of reads were generated. Raw reads were trimmed using Trimmomatic (version 0.32) [https://github.com/usadellab/ Trimmomatic]. Trimmed reads were aligned to the Ae. tauschii reference genome (Aet v4.0, GCA_002575655.1) 25 by GSNAP (version 2018-03-25) [http://researchpub.gene.com/gmap] 53 with the parameters of \"-B 2 -N 1 -m 6 -i 2 -n 3 -Q\". SNPs were discovered with GATK (version 3.3) [https://github.com/broadinstitute/ gatk] 54 with the UnifiedGenotyper module using the following parameters: \"--heterozygosity 0.005 -stand_call_conf 30.0 -stand_emit_conf 20.0 -glm BOTH -U ALLOW_N_CIGAR_READS -ploidy 2\". SNPs were filtered by the GATK module of SelectVariants with the following parameters: --restrictAllelesTo BIALLELIC --selectTypeToInclude SNP --select \"AF > = 0.2 && QUAL > = 30.0 && DP > = 200 && DP < 10000\". In total, 170,069 SNPs were identified for population 1 and 74,206 SNPs for population 2. For each population, a Bayesianbased approach was used to determine the probability of the complete linkage between each SNP and the causal gene 24 .Fine mapping with KASP markers. SNPs having a high probability of the complete linkage with the causal gene were selected to convert to KASP assays. All KASP markers used for fine mapping were listed in Supplementary Data 1. The KASP experiment was run on the Applied Biosystems Real-Time PCR Instruments 7900 (Applied Biosystems, USA) using the KASP-TF Master Mix (LGC, Biosearch Technologies, UK, Cat.# KBS-1050-132) according to the manufacturer's instructions. To confirm the mapping interval, 68 F 2:3 families from the population 1 used for BSR-Seq were selected for genotyping. The 68 DNAs of pooled tissue samples from 12 F 2:3 individuals per family were genotyped with KASP markers p12A10, p1A05, and p1A02. As a result, 11 F 2:3 recombinant families were identified. Analysis of genotypic data together with phenotypic data confirmed that the Lr42 gene was located between the markers p12A10 and p1A05. To validate this interval, 6 of the 11 recombinant families were selected to genotype individual plants in each family with more KASP markers within the mapping interval.To narrow down the mapping interval, we used F 4 plants from population 1. We first identified 9 F 4 families that were derived from the resistant F 2:3 individuals heterozygous for the Lr42 in the mapping interval. In total, 891 F 4 individuals were phenotyped for rust resistance and genotyped with the markers p12A10 and p1A05, which identified 85 recombinants. Genotyping recombinants with additional markers identified nine F 4 individuals harboring the recombination between p12A10 and pC24. Further analysis of the F 5 progeny of these three F 4 individuals confirmed by the mapping interval between 8,655,291 bp and 8,830,775 bp on 1DS flanked by the markers pC43 and pC49.We also analyzed 78 F 2 families of the population 2 and found four F 2 families with the recombination between p12A10 and p1A05. Luckily, one recombinant between the marker pC43 and the marker pC50 enabled us to locate the gene at a 116 kb interval between 8,655,291 bp and 8,771,761 bp.Cloning of full-length coding region of Lr42 candidate gene. Total RNA was extracted from leaf tissues of resistant (TA2450) and susceptible (TA10132) accessions using TRIzol reagent (Invitrogen, USA, Cat.# 15596026) according to the manufacturer's instructions. After removing residual DNA with DNase I (Invitrogen, USA, Cat.# 18047019) treatment, 1 µg of total RNA was reversetranscribed to cDNA using SuperScript® IV First-Strand Synthesis System (Invitrogen, USA, Cat.# 18091050) with an oligo(dT) 20 primer following the manufacturer's instructions. The full-length coding region of the Lr42 candidate gene was amplified by PCR with the gene-specific primers AET300.2_CDS-F and AET300.2_CDS-R (Supplementary Data 8). The PCR product was cloned into the pCR-XL-2-TOPO vector (Invitrogen, USA). The inserted fragment in the construct was verified by sequencing using an ABI 3730 DNA analyzer (Applied Biosystems, USA).Construction of the plasmid of Lr42 with the ubiquitin promoter. The fulllength of Lr42 coding regions flanked by a BamHI restriction site was amplified via PCR using primer sets AET300.2_CDS-BamHIF and AET300.2_CDS-BamHIR (Supplementary Data 8). DNA fragments were ligated into a pAHC17 vector 55 at the BamHI site. The expression constructs containing the full-length Lr42 coding region under a maize ubiquitin promoter (Ubi-1) and a nopaline synthase terminator (tNOS) were used for generating transgenic plants.Assembly of the Lr42 locus using Nanopore data. The public WGS Illumina data of TA10132 (the reference susceptible line, SRS7974112) and TA2450 (the Lr42 parental resistant line, SRS7973948) were downloaded 27 . The data were used for genome comparison through CGRD [https://github.com/liu3zhenlab/CGRD] 28 , identifying conserved and variable regions on the Ae. tauschii reference genome between the two genomes.To assemble the sequence of the Lr42 locus, a low-depth (~10x) WGS Nanopore long reads of TA2450 were generated. Briefly, genomic DNAs were isolated from 12-day above-ground seedling tissues using a CTAB method 56 . A total amount of 2 µg TA2450 genomic DNA was used for the Oxford Nanopore library preparation. DNA was subjected to size selection using the BluePippin system (Sage Science, USA). The sequencing library was made using the ligation sequencing kit SQK-LSK109 (ONT, UK) and sequenced on a Nanopore PromethION sequencer (ONT, UK) at Wuhan Grandomics Biosciences co., ltd. The basecaller Guppy (version 4.2.2, Oxford Nanopore) [https://community. nanoporetech.com] was used to convert FAST5 raw data to FASTQ data with default parameters. WGS Nanopore reads were then aligned to the conserved regions close to the Lr42 gene and the full-length Lr42 gene sequence with minimap2 (2.21-r1071) [https://github.com/lh3/minimap2] 57 . Reads with confident alignments are considered from the Lr42 locus. Two sets of criteria were separately used to filter alignments to obtain confident alignments: (1) at least 8 kb matched sequence with at least 84% identity and less than 95% overhangs; (2) at least 12,000 kb matched sequence with at least 80% identity and less than 95% overhangs. Reads passing each set of alignment criteria were then separately assembled using flye (2.6) with the same parameters: \"--min-overlap 1000 --asmcoverage 15 --genome-size 0.5 m --iterations 2\" [https://github.com/fenderglass/ Flye] 58 , resulting in two sets of contigs. Finally, both sets of contigs were manually checked and merged into a final assembly of the Lr42 locus.Cloning the Lr42 region including the promoter and terminator. The sequence data of the final assembly of the Lr42 locus and WGS Illumina data were used to design primers for amplifying the Lr42 region with the promoter and the terminator. The Lr42 promoter region was predicted by the Softberry TSSP program (www.softberry.com). The Lr42 sequence with the promoter and the terminator was covered by two Lr42 fragments amplified with primer pairs of r42P_821F_F1/ r42P_3725R and LR42_H1F/r42P_7872R_F1 (Supplementary Data 8). The two Lr42 fragments have a 133 bp overlap that provided homologous recombination sequences for the DNA fragment assembly. Primers r42P_821F_F1 and r42P_7872R_F1 (Supplementary Data 8) contained the EcoRI restriction enzyme site and the homologous sequence of the target vector pCR-Blunt (Invitrogen, USA). The EcoRI linearized pCR-Blunt vector and the two Lr42 fragments were fused using the enzyme premix in ig-Fusion™ cloning kit (Intact Genomic, USA, Cat.# 4111). The expression construct was validated by Sanger Sequencing (Genewiz, USA) and used for generating transgenic plants.Activity assay of the Lr42 native promoter. The 2534 bp promoter fragment (containing TATA box) was amplified by PCR using a primer set Lr42p_BsaI_F containing a BsaI site and Lr42p_BamHI_R containing a BamHI site (Supplementary Data 8). The amplified fragment was digested with BsaI and BamHI, followed by ligation into BsaI/BamHI-digested vector pBI21 (Clontech, USA). This resulted in the Lr42 p ::GUS vector. The construct was verified by sequencing. Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain LBA4404 transformed with Lr42 p ::GUS plasmid was used to infiltrate wheat leaves as described by ref. 59 . GUS histochemical analyses were performed at 48 h after agroinfiltration according to ref. 60 . GUS expression driven by the Lr42 promoter was detected by RT-PCR using a primer set GUS_RT_F and GUS_RT_R (Supplementary Data 8) as described by ref. 60 . The 18S rRNA gene was used as an internal control.Transgenic plants. Immature embryos were isolated from a spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cv. Bobwhite grown in a controlled environment with a 16-h photoperiod, and the day/night temperatures at 20/18 °C. The expression constructs and the pAHC20 vector 55 containing the bar gene were co-bombarded with 1:1 ratio into selected embryogenic calli. A biolistic approach using a particle inflow gun and following tissue culture protocols were performed for transformation 61,62 . Recovered plants in soil were screened for herbicide resistance by brushing a 0.2% v/v Liberty (glufosinate) solution (Bayer CropScience, USA) on leaves. The putative herbicide-resistant plants with an absence of necrosis after 5 days of Liberty application were analyzed by PCR for the presence of the gene of interest using primers Ubi-F and Seq2R (Supplementary Data 8) for Ubip::Lr42 transgenic plants and Lr42_difBW_2F and Lr42-qRT_R6 (Supplementary Data 8) for Lr42p::Lr42 transgenic plants. The transgenic plants were grown for leaf rust bioassays.EMS mutagenesis and screening. The method of TA2450 EMS mutagenesis treatment was described by ref. 31 . In brief, 5300 seeds of TA2450 accession were soaked in 0.6% Ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS, Sigma-Aldrich, USA, Cat.# M0880-25G) for 8 h and then transplanted. The EMS-treated seeds and the plants grown from the EMS-treated seeds were in M0 generation, and M0 plants were selfpollinated to derive M1 seeds. The M1 seeds from a single M0 plant were collected as an M1 family. A single seed from each M1 family was randomly selected to generate M2 seeds, and the same procedure to generate M3 families. M3 seeds (n = 1320) were grown and inoculated with leaf rust race PNMRJ. Of the 1320 M3 families, 901 families had more than 16 seeds per family.Virus induced gene silencing of Lr42. A Barley Stripe Mosaic Virus (BSMV)based system developed by Yuan et al. was used for VIGS of Lr42 63 . BSMV vectors were shared by Lucy Stewart, USDA-ARS, Fort Detrick, MD. The primers (Lr42_BVIGS_P3_F1/R1, Supplementary Data 8), fused with Ligation Independent Cloning (LIC) sites, were designed to specifically amplify a 201 bp sequence of the Lr42 allele. The PCR amplicon was cloned into a BSMVγ-LIC vector to generate BSMVγ-Lr42 construct 63 . BSMVγ-Lr42 was transformed into Agrobacterium GV3101 via electroporation and grown on LB plates containing 25 µg/ml rifampicin (Sigma-Aldrich, USA, Cat.# R7382-5G) and 50 µg/ml Kanamycin (Fisher Scientific, USA, Cat.# BP960-5). BSMVγ-LIC, BSMVγ-Lr42, BSMVα and BSMVβ Agrobacterium cultures were grown separately overnight at 28 °C. Cultures were resuspended to OD 600 of ~0.7 in the infiltration buffer (10 mM MgCl 2 (Sigma-Aldrich, USA, Cat.# M2393-100G), 10 mM 2-(N-morpholino)-ethanesulfonic acid (MES) (pH 5.2) (Sigma-Aldrich, USA, Cat.# M2933-100G), and 0.1 mM acetosyringone (Sigma-Aldrich, USA, Cat.# D134406-5G) and incubated at room temperature for 4 h. Equal volumes of BSMVα, BSMVβ, and BSMVγ-Lr42 (or BSMVγ-LIC) cultures were mixed and infiltrated into three to four leaves of Nicotiana benthamiana plants using 1 ml needleless syringe. Infiltrated plants were maintained in the growth chamber. After 7 days post infiltration, 1 g of infiltrated leaf tissue was ground in 3 ml of ice cold 1x PBS containing 1% celite (Sigma-Aldrich, USA, Cat.# 20199-U) using a mortar and pestle. The sap containing viral particles were rub inoculated onto two-leaf stage seedlings of Ae. tauschii TA2450. After 2 weeks of viral inoculations, plants were infected with race PNMRJ as described above. At 14 days post rust inoculations, disease scores were recorded, and leaf samples were collected for gene expression analysis of Lr42.Gene expression analysis of Lr42 in VIGS samples. Total RNA was extracted using a Direct-Zol kit as per manufacturer's recommendation (Zymo Research, USA, Cat.# R2051). After DNase treatment with DNase I (New England Biolabs, USA, Cat.# M0303S), cDNA synthesis was performed using AzuraQuant cDNA synthesis kit (Azura genomics, USA, Cat.# AZ-1995). Lr42 expression was monitored by performing qRT-PCR using the gene-specific primers amplifying the sequence outside the targeted region (LR42_qPCR_F1/R1, Supplementary Data 8). qRT-PCR was performed in 10 µl reaction volume containing 2 µl of 3X diluted cDNA, 5 µl of 2X AzuraView GreenFast qPCR Blue Mix LR (Azura genomics, USA, Cat.# AZ-2301) and 400 nM of each of forward and reverse primers. Thermal cycler profile included 95 °C for 2 min and 40 cycles of 95 °C for 5 s and 60 °C for 40 s. Reactions were performed with three technical replicates. The RL1 gene amplified by RLI_F1/R1 (Supplementary Data 8) was used as the reference gene for normalizing gene expression data 64 . Primer efficiencies for the target and reference genes were in the range of 100-110%, therefore, gene expression data were analyzed using the ΔΔCT method 28,65 . Three biological replicates were used for expression analysis.Lr42-specific GBS tags and identification of Lr42+ and Lr42− CIMMYT wheat lines. Both GBS data of Ae. tauschii accessions 32 and GBS data of CIMMYT lines 34 were used to identify Lr42-specific GBS tags that are associated with the Lr42 segment from the Ae. tauschii donor TA2450. All GBS tags of TA2450 were aligned to the Ae. tauschii reference genome (v4.0) 25 . GBS tags that are located at the Lr42 locus (~1 Mb upstream and downstream of the gene) and detected in less than 100 Ae. tauschii lines out of all Ae. tauschii collections at WGRC were considered to be associated with the Lr42 segment. From the CIMMYT pedigree, 5121 CIMMYT lines that were genotyped were involved in the introgression of the Lr42 segment from TA2450. Given missing data of GBS tags, we expect that each GBS tag that is specifically associated with the Lr42 segment should be detected in less than 5000 lines. With that consideration, we obtained 14 Lr42-specific GBS tags (Supplementary Table 2), which were used to identify Lr42+ and Lr42− wheat lines.From the CIMMYT pedigrees, 5121 CIMMYT lines that were GBS genotyped could have the introgression of the Lr42 segment from TA2450. The wheat lines carrying at least five Lr42-specific GBS tags were categorized as Lr42+, the lines harboring the Lr42 segment. The wheat lines with no Lr42-specific GBS tags detected but with at least 0.2 million total GBS tags were categorized as Lr42-, the lines without the Lr42 segment. All other lines were not classified.Phenotypic comparison between Lr42+ and Lr42− CIMMYT lines. Seedling plant responses of CIMMYT lines to leaf rust race MBJ/SP 35 were obtained using the original disease rating scale of 0-4 and converted to a 0-9 scale for the purpose of quantitative comparison using the conversion formula described in ref. 66 . The adult plant scoring was conducted using severity (0-100%, modified Cobb Scale). Seedling leaf rust responses were phenotyped in CIMMYT's greenhouses in El Batán and adult plant leaf rust responses were phenotyped in field trials at two locations, Ciudad Obregón and El Batán, in Mexico. Analysis of variance was performed to test the differential adult plant responses to leaf rust in two locations. T-tests were performed on seedling rust infection types and grain yield related traits, such as test weight and thousand kernel weight, evaluated as described by ref. 34 .Haplotype analysis. Genomic DNAs of leaf tissues from 35 Ae. tauschii accessions in the minicore collection from WGRC were extracted using 2% cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (Sigma-Aldrich, USA, Cat.# H6269-250G) 67 . DNAs were used to survey sequences of Lr42 haplotypes. Lr42 alleles/homologs were amplified with the primers Lr42_H1F and Lr42_H1R (Supplementary Data 8) using Q5 ® High-Fidelity DNA Polymerase (New England Biolabs, USA, Cat.# M0491L) with High GC Enhancer. The PCR thermocycling conditions were initial denature at 98 °C for 3 min, 33 cycles of 98 °C for 8 s, 63 °C for 30 s, and 72 °C for 3 min, followed by a final extension at 72 °C for 5 min. PCR products were purified by using QIAquick Gel Extraction Kit (Qiagen, Germany, Cat.# 28706), and sequenced by Genewiz Sanger sequencing service. Sequencing reads were de novo assembled using Geneious software (version 8.1.7) [https://www.geneious.com]. The command cd-hit-est from the software CD-HIT (4.8.1) [https://github.com/ weizhongli/cdhit] was used to cluster Lr42 allelic homologs with default parameters 68 . The allele selected by cd-hit-est to represent each cluster was considered to be the haplotype sequence. Phylogenetic analysis. ClustalW in the Geneious (version 8.1.7) was used for multiple alignment and phylogenetic construction. Multiple alignments were performed using the default setting. Phylogenetic trees were built with the Juke-Cantor model and the Neighbor-joining method. Trees were exported as Newick formatted flat files that were then uploaded to iTOL for plotting 69 .Nucleotide diversity. Nucleotide diversity of the 12 Lr42 alleles was calculated by an R package, PopGenome [https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/ PopGenome] 70 . Nucleotide diversity was calculated for windows with 50 bp and slided by the step of 10 bp.Identification of clusters of Lr42 homologs. Clusters of Lr42 homologs were identified with BLAST (version 2.2.30+) [https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov] 71 . First, the Lr42 resistance allele was aligned to the genomes of Brachypodium (GCF_000005505.3 Brachypodium distachyon v3.0) 49 , Barley (GCA_901482405.1_ Morex_v1.0) 72 , Triticum dicoccoides wild emmer (GCA_002162155.2 WEW v2.0) 73 , Triticum turgidum subsp. durum (GCA_900231445.1 Svevo.v1) 74 , Ae. tauschii (Aet v4.0) 25 , and T. aestivum cv. CS (iwgsc_refseqv1.0) 75 . Homologs were identified if an alignment had the E-value smaller than 1e−100 and the matched length of the query (Lr42) was longer than 1 kb. Second, a chromosome interval smaller than 2 Mb with at least 2 homologs was identified as a Lr42 cluster. Alignments of the Lr42 resistant allele and homologs in each cluster were plotted using Circos [http://circos.ca] 76 .RNA extraction and RT-PCR of transgenic plants. Leaf tissue from Ae. tauschii and transgenic wheat were collected, and RNA was extracted using the RNeasy Plant Mini Kit (Qiagen, Germany, Cat.# 74904). cDNA was synthesized with Verso cDNA Synthesis Kit (Thermo Scientific, USA, Cat.# AB1453A). The cDNA input for each sample was normalized by the housekeeping gene actin amplified with primers actin_F1 and actin_R1 (Supplementary Data 8) for 25 cycles. The Lr42 resistant and susceptible alleles were amplified with primers Lr42-qRT-F5/R5 and lr42_1F/R (Supplementary Data 8) for 28 cycles. The OneTaq 2x Master Mix (New England Biolabs, USA, Cat.# M0482S) was used in the RT-PCR. The thermocycling conditions were initial denature at 94 °C for 2 min, 25 or 28 cycles of 94 °C for 30 s, 53 °C for 30 s, and 68 °C for 30 s, followed by a final extension at 68 °C for 5 min. The 10 ul of PCR products were loaded to the 1% agarose (Fisher Scientific, USA, Cat.# BP1356-500) gel, and the GeneRuler 1 kb DNA Ladder (Thermo Scientific, USA, Cat.# SM0314) was used as a molecular marker.Quantification of gene expression in transgenic plants by qRT-PCR. Leaf tissue was sampled at 12 days after inoculation for RNA extraction using the RNeasy Plant Mini Kit (Qiagen, Germany, Cat.# 74904). Verso cDNA Synthesis Kit (Thermo Scientific, USA, Cat.# AB1453A) was used for cDNA Synthesis. The cDNA was input in 10 ul reaction for quantitative PCR (qPCR) using IQ SYBR Green Supermix (Bio-rad, USA, Cat.# 1708882) on the CFX96 Touch Real-Time PCR Detection System (Bio-rad, USA). Primers Lr42-qRT_F6 and Lr42-qRT_R6 (Supplementary Data 8) were used for Lr42, and primers actin_F1 and actin_R1 (Supplementary Data 8) were used for the actin gene as the control. The thermocycling conditions were initial denature at 95 °C for 3 min, 40 cycles of 95 °C for 10 s, 60 °C for 30 s. The ΔΔCT method was used to determine the relative expression of Lr42 28,65 .Quantification of genomic copy number of the Lr42 transgene. Genomic DNAs of single plants were extracted from leaf tissue using DNeasy Plant Mini Kit (Qiagen, Germany) and quantified using Qubit 1X dsDNA High Sensitivity Assay kit (Invitrogen, USA, Cat.# Q33230). Total 10 ng genomic DNA was input for qPCR using IQ SYBR Green Supermix (Bio-rad, USA, Cat.# 1708882) on the CFX96 Touch Real-Time PCR Detection System(Bio-rad, USA) following the manufacturer's instructions. Primers Lr42_difBW_3F and Lr42-qRT_R6 were used for Lr42, and primers actin_F1 and actin_R1 were used for the actin gene (Supplementary Data 8). Similar to the analysis of qRT-PCR, the actin gene was used as the control to determine the DNA level of the Lr42 transgene in transgenic lines and other control lines, including the Thatcher line that carries Lr42 (Thatcher-Lr42) 77 . The Lr42 DNA level of each line was then normalized to the Lr42 copy number relative to Thatcher-Lr42, which was considered to carry one copy of Lr42 in the 3x wheat genome because the Lr42 was introduced by crossing with an Lr42 line and maintained as the Lr42 homozygous line.Conserved domain and repeats annotation. Protein and DNA sequences were submitted to NCBI for conserved domain search 78 . LRR was searched by a webbased LRR search tool with additional manual examination 79 .Development of Lr42 diagnostic markers on the Lr42 gene. Multiple alignment of Lr42 alleles from the Ae. tauschii minicore set identified a unique region (~140 bp) in the LRR (Lr42-unique-segment) from the Lr42 resistant allele. We attempted to design diagnostic markers on the Lr42 gene across this region. First, the Lr42 sequence of the unique region was aligned to all Lr42 homologs in the reference genomes of Ae. tauschii, wild emmer, durum wheat, CS, Barley, and Brachypodium. The top hit was a homolog (1D:7381846-7384626) in CS. The top hit sequence carries two SNPs with the Lr42 unique sequence. Outside this highly similar region, high polymorphisms were found between Lr42 and the homolog 1D:7381846-7384626. The sequence of the second best hit has 19 SNPs, confirming that the Lr42-unique-segment is not common in diverse genomes. Based on this finding, for each KASP assay, we designed a Lr42 specific primer on the Lr42unique-segment, and a primer on a homolog from the cluster of Lr42 homologs on CS 1D. The common primer paired with them was designed on a conserved region between Lr42 and the homolog. The primer pair that amplifies the Lr42 homolog could potentially amplify a paralog in Ae. tauschii genomes. Therefore, in most populations, the assay is considered to be a dominant marker for detection of the Lr42 resistant allele.","tokenCount":"8420"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"77ac8b5ca845fabeedebd5cc3100b1dd","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/476a7432-d83e-4a1b-8839-c58e79463f07/retrieve","id":"-1252862202"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"836a3e02-946b-4e6e-9b21-8950f29b751b","pagecount":"2","content":"Mango (Mangifera indica L.) is an economically important export crop for Senegal, producing about 100,000 tons of fruit annually. In April 2009, severe outbreaks of a new disorder occurred in mango orchards in the southeastern part of Casamance. Diseased plants showed abnormal growth of vegetative shoots with short thickened internodes and malformed inflorescence with short leaves interspersed among thickened sterile flowers that aborted early. These symptoms resembled those caused by mango malformation disease (4). To identify the causal agent, floral and vegetative samples from symptomatic mango plants were collected from Kolda district (12°53' N, 14°56' W). Malformed tissues were cut into 4-mm 2 pieces, surface sterilized with 75% ethanol for 2 min, dried, and plated on the Fusarium isolation medium Peptone PCNB Agar (PPA) (2). Fungal growth with Fusarium morphology were transferred on PPA and further purified on water agar as single spore isolates. Cultures were identified on the basis of spore characters on carnation leaf agar and colony morphology on PDA (2). Two isolates (I 4 and I 17 ) were similar to F. mangiferae/F. sterilihyphosum/F. tupiense complex (3). Macroconidia were slender, slightly falcate, three-to five-septate, 18.5 to 27.7 × 1.1 to 2.3 μm with slightly curved apical cell produced on cream to orange sporodochia. Microconidia were single-celled, oval, 3.7 to 13.6 × 0.75 to 1.1 μm produced on mono-and polyphialides in false heads. Chlamydospores were absent. To confirm the identity, genomic DNA was isolated from pure cultures of I 4 and I 17 , used for amplification of portion of translation elongation factor (TEF-1α). Amplified products (241 bp) were purified and sequenced in both directions (GenBank Accession Nos. JX272929 and JX272930). A BLASTn search revealed 100% sequence identity with F. tupiense (DQ452860), 99% identity with F. mangiferae (HM135531) and F. sterilihyphosum (DQ452858) from Brazil. Phylogenetic analysis inferred from the Clustalw alignment of TEF-1α sequences clustered I 4 and I 17 isolates with F. tupiense (3). To confirm Koch's postulates, 2-year-old healthy mango seedlings var. Keitt and Kent (12 plants each) were inoculated by placing 20 μl conidial suspension (5 × 10 7 conidia ml -1 ) on micro-wounds created in apical and lateral buds. Inoculated buds were covered with filter paper soaked in the same spore suspension (1). Seedlings inoculated similarly with sterile distilled water served as control. Seven months after the inoculation, typical malformation symptoms were observed on vegetative parts on all inoculated plants, but not on control plants. F. tupiense was reisolated from symptomatic shoots of inoculated plants. Based on the morphological characteristics, sequence analysis, and pathogenicity test, the pathogen of mango malformation in Senegal was identified as F. tupiense (3). To our knowledge, this is the first confirmed record in Senegal of mango malformation caused by F. tupiense. This disease is a serious threat to mango production and trade of Senegal. Urgent actions are necessary to stop this emerging epidemic that can spread to other countries in West Africa. ","tokenCount":"484"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"5a2feb9448c556be9d813c2951c74f8e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/69e841bc-4da4-40ae-bab8-d67dd0f7baea/retrieve","id":"2065249548"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a11719bf-57b6-4ae8-8c90-7977e0bf0b8f","pagecount":"31","content":"• The better-off benefit at the expense of the poor -> aggravate inequality and food insecurity• Women do not benefit as (much as) men -> aggravate gender inequality• Expansion of intensive, commercial agriculture -> degradation of land and nature• Non-users have livelihoods displaced.The literature path to responsible and effective scaling• Making upstream techno science more inclusive, reflexive, responsive and anticipatory• Preventing undesirable consequences • Contribute to positive societal impact• Responds to the needs of men and women, and other socially marginalized groups with the aim to reduce rather than exacerbate any existing gender disparities.• Informed through gender analysis• Focus on user and non-users from a socially inclusive perspective. Considers who will benefits or not from an innovation.• Acknowledges that innovation influences gender relations and dynamics -and vice versa• Anticipates socially differentiated effects of scaling through identifying relevant diversity• Anticipates longer term negative consequences and trade-offs associated with scaling -Men often assume positions of power -Women and non-white men are less likely to have their contributions taken up, even though they innovate at similar or greater rates compared to white male counterparts.-Strong, diversified innovation pipelines lead to more effective innovation Anticipatory Questions:-Who is leading the project? How does positionality impact decision making? What capacity strengthening is needed to ensure team members are aware of their limitations and to contribute equitably?Designing agricultural innovations for womenWomen and men farmers, and women and men from different socio-economic strata or ethnic backgrounds, may have different need and preferences for technologies. Ignoring intra-household power relations may miss key reasons shaping women's preferences. This is an example from Malawi on sweet potato storage. Women prefer the pit storage over the hut one because they can make it by themselves. To build hut, they need their husbands' help -resulting in losing their ownership to the sweet potatoes kept in the hut. Also, if women manage by themselves, they have more confidence.\"Sweet potatoes are mine, because I built this storage.\"• Extension services and information tend to be biased towards men.○ This frequently neglects disadvantaged social groups such as the extremely poor, landless, youth, and women ○ Information does not trickle down from husband to other household members• Women might prefer and trust different sources of information.○ Social networks differ-Business models that incorporate innovations might not be profitable for women or other marginalized groups.Even if they are for community members with access to social and financial resources.Anticipatory Questions:-Does the focus group have the necessary business acumen of market access? Do they have access to complementary inputs or system to use/sell the innovation? Does it depend on accessing credit?-There is an increased focus on how innovations change within the systems it operates in, rather than just focusing on a binary choice of adoption or not.-Who has power over the innovation as it scales and changes?Anticipatory Questions:-How will this innovation be reinvented after introduction in the field? Will the focus group have access and input into the reinvention? How will groups or individual impact future iterations?Engaging with the political economy of innovation -Enabling conditions include the political economy and can include allencompassing economic and social institutions. -Significant paradigm shifts are necessary to address systemic issues within institutions that often underscore the power of already powerful actors.-Partnership is critical to enable a dynamic scaling path, particularly when there are different levels of expertise, political connections, and positionality.Anticipatory Questions:-Is there a policy or social norm that somehow excludes access to the innovation, complementary inputs, or systems necessary to exchange and interact with the intervention?Would you send an economist to test your well water?Understanding social differentiation women men Innovation packages look different for different social groups• The appropriate innovation package may differ along gender and social identity lines• The appropriate scaling strategy may need to be different• Mitigating activities may be needed for additional adaptations to make core or complementary innovations more inclusive.Farmer collecting orange flesh sweetpotato (OFSP) leaves for food in Mozambique.Photo by Benjamin Rakotoarisoa/CIP","tokenCount":"651"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/7793100519.json b/data/part_1/7793100519.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..b3f83626413c609297b148ec8aa1662fe7f4a85f
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d62383ef37d70513862f683d819517fa","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/89ad777c-6035-4fd4-a9f9-6d0980aa5412/retrieve","id":"-1240532283"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0aec14a0-08d6-4b08-842f-244cf7d3ef06","pagecount":"8","content":"Un travail de recherche mené en 2015 avec l'accompagnement de l'International Water Management Institute par Adolphe Yemtim, étudiant du Master Agrinovia à l'Université Joseph Ki-Zerbo à Ouagadougou, s'est intéressé à la participation des femmes au sein d'institutions locales de gestion de l'eau en milieu rural, les Associations d'Usagers de l'Eau (AUE), dans des villages du centre du Burkina Faso. Il s'agissait de comprendre les facteurs de leur faible participation, les raisons de leur absence relative à certains postes et de leur présence à d'autres ainsi que les facteurs favorisant leur accession aux postes de décision. Il est apparu que les freins à la participation féminine résultent de facteurs personnels, socioculturels et institutionnels. L'étude a permis de formuler des recommandations pour l'amélioration de la participation des femmes dans le système de gestion de l'eau selon les principes de la Gestion Intégrée des Ressources en Eau (GIRE) mise en oeuvre au Burkina Faso. Les Associations d'Usagers de l'Eau Selon le Programme d'application de la réforme et les règlements intérieurs, les AUE ont un caractère paritaire pour assurer l'implication des femmes et faciliter leur accession aux postes de décision mais on relève des insuffisances dans l'application de cette parité.• Au niveau des AG : elles doivent en principe respecter la parité. Selon les procès-verbaux des assemblées générales constitutives de la majeure partie des AUE de la zone d'étude, le nombre de femmes membres est plus important que celui des hommes.• Au niveau des BE : les textes rendent la parité obligatoire aux deux postes de responsables à l'hygiène. En 2014, dans les 49 BE des AUE de Ziniare, 28 femmes et 21 hommes occupaient le poste de 1 er hygiéniste et 29 femmes et 20 hommes celui de 2 nd hygiéniste. Le poste de trésorier était occupé majoritairement par des femmes, avec 30 femmes pour 19 hommes, sans que les textes n'encouragent particulièrement l'élection de femmes à ce poste. Associations d'Usagers de l'Eau. L'étude a permis d'observer le faible niveau d'adoption des mesures de la réforme de l'eau par les acteurs locaux. Elle a fait ressortir en particulier la persistance des normes de genre. Elle a permis de relativiser le caractère statique des rôles fondés sur les différences de genre en donnant des exemples d'ajustements dans la délégation des tâches motivés par la recherche d'efficacité.Cependant, ces ajustements sont rarement favorables à la participation féminine. L'attribution des postes au sein des BE est marquée par la disponibilité des individus, leur capacité à assumer les tâches ainsi que leurs qualités personnelles, réelles ou supposées. Les femmes occupant les postes à responsabilité cumulent un ensemble de connaissances, compétences et savoirfaire qui les distinguent des hommes et motivent leur désignation.L'étude a également permis de relever l'insuffisance des textes (Programme d'application de la réforme, règlements intérieurs) qui, s'ils encouragent la participation féminine, ne reposent pas sur une approche genre exigée par la GIRE. Ils laissent aux acteurs locaux le loisir d'asseoir une suprématie masculine.Ainsi, la parité est imposée uniquement pour les postes d'hygiéniste au sein des BE. Elle est simplement recommandée pour la composition de l'AG et l'élection de présidentes est encouragée. L'attribution paritaire des postes d'hygiéniste, seule disposition obligatoire, a eu pour conséquence de reléguer les femmes à un rôle qui leur est traditionnellement attribué. Elle est ainsi un facteur de renforcement des stéréotypes. Le Programme de la réforme ne précise pas en quoi l'implication des femmes est pertinente et peut contribuer à une meilleure gestion des ressources en eau.Pour favoriser l'implication des femmes au sein des AUE, et en particulier dans leurs BE, les auteurs de cette étude formulent les recommandations suivantes.• Sensibiliser les populations rurales aux avantages de l'implication des femmes dans la gestion des ressources en eau (bonne connaissance des problématiques, utilisation quotidienne des infrastructures, présence permanente dans le village).• Déterminer des indicateurs précis de participation féminine, par exemple le dédoublement des différents postes pour appliquer la parité de manière transversale à toutes les fonctions.• Former les femmes pour qu'elles puissent s'impliquer dans d'autres domaines, tels que la maintenance des infrastructures.• De manière générale, promouvoir l'instruction/ alphabétisation des femmes, leur implication dans la vie associative et les activités génératrices de revenus, leviers de participation à la vie publique.• Revoir les textes pour permettre une véritable prise en compte du genre au sein des institutions locales de gestion de l'eau.• Mener des travaux de recherche sur les effets de la participation féminine dans le fonctionnement des instances de gestion de l'eau.  Appui à la rédaction : Élise Cannuel / Conception graphique : Laura Delhommeau Les photos ont été utilisées à titre illustratif.","tokenCount":"757"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/7795190945.json b/data/part_1/7795190945.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..26607687563ab73ef2092867104f884df9eb01c9
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fb069586c1b7f5cd111f20fe8faf217e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/933cb7a8-6f9b-42dd-9691-4ff341ae4559/retrieve","id":"1393727540"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b14e22bf-8e2a-4e61-a8dd-32cb2de52e04","pagecount":"4","content":"Tropical root and tuber crops (RTCs -including cassava, potato, sweetpotato, yam, and taro) play a key role in food systems, contributing to nutrition and food security outcomes and the incomes of more than two billion people in developing countries. RTCs are the second most important crops in the developing world after cereals; with cassava, sweetpotato and potato being among the top-10 most widely cultivated crops. RTCs are used as food (fresh or processed), sources of income, animal feed, and in industrial processing. This brief presents a review of policies relevant to cassava and sweetpotato, the two main RTCs in Vietnam, and seeks to inform policy, decision makers and development practitioners, regarding the untapped potential and the role that RTCs could play in the Vietnamese agri-food system provided that a more supportive policy environment was in place.• The case of Quang Binh province shows the existence of potentially more conducive frameworks at provincial level, recognizing cassava as one the three provincial strategic crops and highlighting the roles of root and tuber crops in general in replacing other crops vulnerable to climate change.• RTCs growers still face many challenges, including in terms of access to quality planting material, farm and postharvest management practices, and the generation of added-value.• With appropriate supportive policies, root and tuber crops could play a more prominent role in reducingpoverty, facing climate change effects, and contributing to improved diets.in ensuring food security in the country. However, cassava remains a key cash crop for over 1.1 million smallholder farming households, especially the poorest living in upland areas. The amount of land planted with cassava has doubled in the past 20 years, reaching 570,000 ha in 2016 (GSO, 2017), making it the fourth most widely cultivated crop. The export of cassava dry starch (760,000 tons in 2016) and dried chips (1.5 million tons) has also skyrocketed in the past 20 years, enabling cassava to become one of Vietnam's top agricultural exports (worth over $1 billion a year since 2012), and making the country the world's second largest cassava exporter after Thailand. Although sweetpotato is still a strategic crop for many rural households (see Box 1), its development has not followed the same pathway. Arable land allocated to sweetpotato has drastically declined over the past 20 years, from 305,000 ha in 1995 to 119,000 ha in 2016 (FAOSTAT, 2018), representing less than 2% of total cultivated land in Vietnam (Fig. 1 and Fig. 2). Annual production of cassava and sweetpotato was estimated at 10.9 and 1.3 million tons in 2016, respectively.Vietnam is prone to natural disasters and has been ranked by the World Bank among the top five countries most likely to be affected by climate change. The food security and liveli- hoods of millions of Vietnamese are threatened by increasing temperatures (with extreme heat events), sea level rise (with increased salinity and soil erosion) and increased frequency of typhoons, floods and droughts. RTCs can play an important role in climate change adaptation strategies, enabling farmers to cope better with the effects of changing climates. Cassava for instance is well-known for its resistance to severe droughts and its ability to grow in poor soils even after the cultivation of other crops is no longer possible due to soil degradation.Sweetpotato also shows great potential, thanks to its tolerance to droughts and increased salinity. Root and tubers are also less affected by typhoons as they grow underground. Furthermore, the short production cycle of sweetpotato facilitates more rapid recovery after extreme events such as typhons or floods.In the near future, large areas in Vietnam are likely to become un-suitable for mahor crops due to the effects of climate change but scientists believe RTCs will be less effected or even benefit (see Fig. 3).  For example, the National Nutrition Action Plan, issued on 29 January 2018 by the MOH (Decree No. 718/QĐ-BYT), aiming at reducing Vitamin A deficiency among children to 11% by 2020, do not mention sweetpotato despite the fact that it is an excellent source of vitamin A and other micro-nutrients.The example of Quang Binh Quang Binh province is located on the north central coast of Vietnam. The region is particularly affected by climate change-related extreme weather events, such as storms, floods, and droughts. Like its neighbouring provinces, Quang Binh is characterized by a predominance of upland areas; with coastal plains making up the rest. Rice accounts for 65% of the land dedicated to crops every year, with cassava and sweetpotato being other important crops (7% and 5%, respectively -see Fig. 4). In line with national trends, land dedicated to cassava production in the province has increased(from 4,300 to 6,900 ha between 1995 and 2016, land dedicated to sweetpotato production has declined from 8,500 to 3,700 ha in teh same time period (see Fig. 5).In the past 10 years, of 97 agriculture-related policies issued by Quang Binh's People Committee, only 3 referred to RTCs (see Box 3). In the Decree 1484/QĐ-UBND, approving the Master Plan for restructuring agriculture in Quang Binh, cassava was recognized as one of the three strategic crops of the province, along with rice and rubber. In Previous improvements in terms of genetic and cropping practices have led to a dramatic increase in cassava and sweetpotato yields. However, these do not guarantee stable and sustainable profits over time to smallholders. The farm gate prices for cassava roots are highly volatile, mainly driven by demand for starch and dry chips in China, and affecting farmers' ability to rely on cassava cultivation to generate stable livelihoods. Most cassava roots are sold to starch processing factories, and farmers complain about low and fluctuating farm gate prices. There are limited incentives for smallholders to produce higher quality roots (higher starch content), especially for those relying on \"harvester-collectors\". In that scheme, where collectors also take care of the harvest, prices are set based on visual assessments of the field, irrespective of actual yield and starch content. Consequently, farmers have no control over the prices they receive and are dependent on collectors and factories -factories which are also heavily dependent on international starch prices. Despite this, most cassava production is oriented toward the export of dry starch. There is little or no support, for instance, to medium-scale wet starch processing factories, which supply local markets, have potential to generate more added-value locally, and are less dependent on international price fluctuations. Medium-scale cassava processors are actually disappearing. They struggle to secure their fresh cassava roots (as they cannot compete with large-scale companies when prices increase), have also faced serious environmental challenges (i.e. waste management) has forced several of them to close. ' While smallholder cassava farmers can still access disease-free planting material (Quang Binh is still relatively untouched in terms of cassava disease, the situation is very critical in Vietnam's southern provinces, in Tay Ninh for example), this is not the case for sweetpotato growers who face limited availability of quality planting material. They struggle to access improved varieties and can barely verify the health of the seed they get.This limits productivity, facilitates disease propagation, and constrains market opportunities. Similarly, sweetpotato growers are unable to respond to growing demand for new varieties (including orange-fleshed and purple-fleshed) and quality sweetpotato, for which market prices are much higher, as they have limited access to the required planting material. Moreover, despite the wide range of potential processedQuang Binh People Committee's decrees mentioning RTCs• Decree 1484/QĐ-UBND, issued on 10 June 2014, approves the Master Plan for restructuring agriculture toward 2020. The area of land dedicated to cassava is expected to stabilize at around 6,000 ha, mainly in upland areas. Focus is on supporting genetic improvement (high starch content varieties), consolidating production, and enhancing linkages between cassava starch factories and producers. Other roots and tubers are not mentioned. • Further promote the reallocation of unsuitable land for rice (in lowland) and other crops, including perennial crops (in upland) to roots and tubers;• Strengthen the capacities of the national research system in terms of breeding, seed system, post-harvest and value chain development;• Foster collaboration between international research institutions and provincial agriculture extension centers to test and disseminate improved varieties (e.g. short cycle varieties, disease resistance);• Support the emergence of a seed system for RTCs;• Develop public-private partnership models to strengthen relationships and funding for research and extension;• Enhance access to quality planting material of market-preferred varieties;• Strengthen capacities of public agents (e.g. extension agents, DARD officers) regarding RTC cropping practices (including climate-smart agriculture practices);• Set-up RTC demonstration plots at commune level, the provision of along with technical training to traders, processing companies, etc.• Support small-scale initiatives for RTC processing and value addition;• Support smallholder farmers to access alternative domestic markets, to diversify export markets, as well as support cassava processing companies to improve starch quality in to generate more added value that remains in Vietnam. The project aims to enhance food resilience among poor households in upland and coastal communities of the Asia-Pacific region through introducing root and tuber crops (RTCs) innovations.To achieve this goal at scale, the project develops, validates and implements effective partnership strategies with IFAD investment projects to promote RTCs for food security.In particular, FoodSTART+ is implemented in partnership with Livelihoods and Access to Markets Project (LAMP), India; Smallholder Livelihood Development Project (SOLID), ","tokenCount":"1533"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/7834103666.json b/data/part_1/7834103666.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..ae776e905e4e1ae1ade632c11e850ee6f02ed101
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@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"af501d3069a70876c243397b71995fd3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f9669777-5b43-409d-a090-0f0d4c9d5481/retrieve","id":"1591355485"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b6b92a3b-5ec3-4db4-9b01-67a471a5d797","pagecount":"8","content":"Quarters 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 Activity and sub-activities (General -recruitment of project staff ) Recruitment, preparation for subsequent recruitment and/or confirmation of project staff (project manager, graduate fellows, NPO, SNR, field enumerators) (General -project workshops) Annual project planning and review workshops (General -project reports) Annual & final reports Activity 1: Identification of communities, priority breeds/species and PRA surveys • Collect and analyze existing secondary data • Stakeholder discussion and planning seminars & workshops • Survey instrument design, pre-testing and sample selection • Training of enumerators • Livestock-keeper breed surveys • Identification of in-depth study locations and priority breeds Activity 2 (previously Sub-Activity 2.2): Community-based action research ---Communitybased management framework development, establishment, monitoring and assessment • Development and establishment • Monitoring and assessmentFive quarters (of which four for 2005) are completed since the project has started with rural communities' involvement. At the end of each quarter, Benin team used to evaluate the level of activities execution and then plans the following quarter. The \"PIC\" approach is applied at every stage of the implementation.Feed-back of the informal PRA results to each community A PRA was conducted in the last term of 2004 through the south and the centre of zones of Benin. The feed-back of the informal PRA results has provided an additional opportunity to contact local authorities and discuss with them those results and the project implementation as well as the selected communities to work with.-Natural resources are disappearing -Natural vegetation is sparse, -Soils are naked and of low fertility, -An inexhaustible little river is available in a low ground soil. This offers an opportunity to produce maize and vegetables in dry season. -Wildlife is quite scarce, -Soils are continuously exploited to produce annual and perennial crops, resulting in low harvest. In addition, human activities consist in:-   Informal PRA results showed that livestock reared were ruminants (goats, sheep, and cattle), poultry (chicken, duck, guinea fowl, pigeon) and pig, while grass-cutter and rabbit were recently introduced. Irrespective of the location, the priorities in term of species were ranked as chicken and goats. Sheep shared the third position in Toffo and the 5 th position after cattle and pig in Dassa. However, cattle and pig are owned only by a very few proportion of women. Consequently, these species could be considered as less relevant than sheep for the resource-poor people.For community-based actions, 30 herds of goat and 30 flocks of chicken were chosen for monitoring purposes.Identification of breeding goals and commitment on breeding goal values and predictors with the farmers are in progress. The observed lateness was due to farmers who were busy with cropping activities.One enumerator per community was recruited. The most important criteria for that were: acceptance to live continuously in the concern site, aptitude in reading and speaking French and ability to speak common language of the community.Change in livestock species and production systems were discussed with village elders. It came out that grazing area and available drinking water were decreasing; local breeds of goat and chicken were disappearing and exotic breeds became more available; number of human and animal diseases has increased; higher rates of mortality were recorded. The enumerated reasons are: land shortage for cropping, high development of urban drift, introducing animal from other parts of the country or from outside, lack of respect to indigenous laws.This sub-activity has been completely achieved for goat. The average household flock was 8.2 (8.6 for the richest, 10.8 for the rich, 8.2 for the poor and 4.4 for the poorest). More than 90% of households preferred local average legs goat as in DASSA and in TOFFO Diseases appeared as major constraints face to lack of housing, failure in feeding, theft, lack of capital, early disposal of animals and limited access to market.There is a poor breed description of goat; only Meyer (2002) described three breeds: African dwarf goat (short legs), Sahelian (long legs) and crossbreeding products. .Very short legged type in Dassa and ToffoLong legged type from North BeninReproductive and productive traits preferred by the farmers are: litter size, animal size, good mothering and diseases resistance. Formal markets do not play any role in breed stock acquisition. Enumerated sources for breed stock acquisition were village keepers, neighboring villages, other regions, formal market and care taking.Irrespective of the location, sale and ceremonies purposes are the main reasons for offtake. From the rank given to \"limited access to market\", it appears that farmers restrict their concern to production point of view.In chicken, major constraints are killing diseases, theft, lack of feed and water during dry seasons, depredation, low market price. They are raised in a freely range system.In this activity context, data on breeding system, market and consumers are required.It consisted in gathering available information on livestock and livestock products supply and demand in Benin. Goat and chicken were specifically focused. The place of local farm animal production at national level in relation to existing and potential demands has been pointed out. The gathered information derives from national and international sources. They have been collated, summarised and a report is written.The designed material aimed at collecting information on infrastructure aspects, different actors in goat and chicken channels and the relative importance of these animal species.Six enumerators were recruited, four for urban and sub-urban markets and two for rural markets.Actors and resource-persons have been interviewed. Different actors, related importance of supply to demand for animals and animal products, and the origins of focused species are identified. Collected data were analyzed and relevant zones for the in-depth surveys were consequently chosen. Each zone included the local market and surrounding consumers households.Designed questionnaires focus various actors such as breeder-sellers, local traders, wholesalers, retailers, restaurant managers, caterers, butchers and negotiators.This step includes enumerators training and support from ILRI consultant to improve the questionnaires. Early November 2005, Benin team has received a boost from Isabelle BALTENWECK assistance in this respect.The in depth survey was conducted in:-Cotonou (South) and Bohicon (center) as urban markets -Godomey (South) and Tindji (center) as sub-urban markets -Avakpa (South) and Dassa (center) as rural markets Encountered difficulties were:-Time constraints at actors level, -Refusal of some selected informants to be questioned because they did not expect any interest and considered that as a wasting of time. -Data filing and analysis This step has just started. A data base is being designed.• Graduate Fellowships -One PhD fellow, PhD Student, University of Goettingen, Germany -MSC student: one was recruited and sacked less than two months after. • On-the-job training, training courses and workshops -Two members of the research team have been trained in Kenya on Farmer Field School (FFS) approach and livestock characterisation in a production system by cybernetic approach. -The four communities have been trained on various materials of situation analysis such as pair wise comparison, map drawing, constraints analysis, action planning. ","tokenCount":"1134"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/7840373171.json b/data/part_1/7840373171.json
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..1b96c2d50a48dd05b28377770039d3f1497c6d6d
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ed3b61c7ceae8f8db4bebbc83d1b630a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/62cde2cd-0205-495b-9196-51eef208d125/retrieve","id":"-454306"},"keywords":["General combining ability","specific combining ability","additive effects","dominance effects","epistasis","diallel"],"sieverID":"92a317c2-881a-4c51-a217-f7afbd9bece6","pagecount":"28","content":"Little is known about the inheritance of agronomic traits in cassava, nor on the relative importance of epistasis for most crops. A group of ten clones, adapted to the acid-soils environment was used as parents in a diallel study. Thirty genotypes were obtained from each F 1 cross and cloned. Each clone was represented by six plants, which were distributed in three replications at two contrasting locations.Genetic variability concentrated in the within-family component, which was statistically significant for all the variables analyzed (fresh root yield, fresh foliage yield, harvest index, root dry matter content, and plant type score) except for the reaction to super elongation disease (SED). Estimates of dominance variance were considerably larger than those of additive variance for fresh root and foliage yields.The reverse was observed for harvest index, dry matter content, plant type and SED scores. Epistasis played an important role only for fresh root and foliage productions. These results agree with those from similar studies targeting different environments. The common assumption of absence of significant epistatic effects common for many quantitative genetic designs is, therefore, challenged from the results for these two variables. Alternative breeding approaches are suggested according to the results obtained from this study. Epistasis in cassavaCassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz), is the fourth most important staple food after rice, wheat and maize and is a fundamental component in the diet of million of people (FAO/FIDA, 2000). Scott and collaborators (2000) estimated that for the 1995-97 period, annual production of cassava was about 165.3 million tons, with a value of approximately US$ 8.8 billion. Recent studies suggest that cassava is not only a reliable source of energy but also that it can be bred for enhanced nutritional quality in micronutrients and proteins (Chávez et al. 2004;Ceballos et al., 2004). Few articles regarding the inheritance of quantitative traits in cassava have been published (Easwari et al. 1995;Easwari & Sheela 1998;Losada 1990). These studies suggested important non-additive gene action for root yield, number of roots, length of root, mean weight of root, dry matter content and the related starch content. Ironically, cassava shows in this regard a unique situation because a molecular map has been already developed (Fregene et al. 1997;Mba et al. 2001) along with valuable additional information in QTL detection (Cortes et al, 2002;Jorge et al. 2000;2001;Okogbenin and Fregene, 2003) and yet it is complemented with limited knowledge on traditional genetics.Cassava is an interesting crop because its vegetative propagation allows the estimation of within-family genetic variation and, indirectly, the relative importance of epistatic effects in relation to additive and dominance effects. Genetic studies analyzing the importance of epistatic effects are not very common, particularly in Epistasis in cassava annual crops. Adequate estimation of epistatic effects for complex traits, such as yield, is difficult and expensive. Holland (2001) published a comprehensive review on epistasis and plant breeding. Reports in the literature on the relevance of epistasis are infrequent and usually only for species that can be vegetatively propagated e.g. forest trees (Comstock et al. 1958;Foster and Shaw 1988;Isik et al. 2003;Rönnberg-Wästljung, & Gullberg 1999;Rönnberg-Wästljung et al. 1994;Stonecypher & McCullough 1986). Because of the complexities of these analyses and the costs involved, reports in the literature related to epistatic effects are frequently based on a limited number of genotypes sampled, giving variable if not contradictory results.The cassava-breeding project at CIAT (International Center for Tropical Agriculture) is based on a mass phenotypic recurrent selection (Ceballos et al., 2004;Jennings and Iglesias, 2002;Hershey, 1984) and targets four major environments: sub-humid, acid-soils, mid-altitude valleys and highlands. Each environment is characterized by particular abiotic and biotic limiting factors. In the case of the acid-soil savannas, in addition to the edaphic problems of low pH, reduced Ca, P, and Mg availability and Al excess, disease pressure from super elongation disease induced by the fungus Sphaceloma manihoticola and cassava bacterial blight (CBB) induced by Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. manihotis are endemic in this region. Epistasis in cassava Because of the breeding scheme employed and the limited number of studies specifically designed to measure general (GCA) and specific (SCA) combining ability effects little information on the relative importance of additive and nonadditive (dominance and epistasis) genetic effects in cassava. The objective of this study was to measure the within-family variation in a ten-parent diallel study conducted in two acid-soil environments to determine the relative importance of additive, dominance and epistatic genetic effects on the expression of several relevant traits of cassava. (1956) Method 4 diallel mating design was used to generate F 1 crosses among 10 parents. The inbreeding level of parental lines was considered negligible because no self-pollination has been involved in cassava breeding and crosses among related clones are generally avoided. Controlled pollinations were performed following the standard procedures described by Kawano (1980). As many parental clones as 31 were involved in the generation of new segregating populations targeting the acid-soil savannas (CIAT, 2001). These materials are generally selected based on their per se performance in this target environment.However, the 10 parents ultimately used in this study were those that allowed for a near balanced set of crosses. The botanical or true seeds were germinated and grown in a screen house until the seedlings were two-months old, when they were transplanted to the field at CIAT experimental station in Palmira, Valle del Cauca, Epistasis in cassava Colombia (Calle et al. 2004). F 1 plants were grown in the field for ten months.Among the many progenies (> 30) from a given F 1 cross, 30 were randomly chosen for this study based solely on their capacity to produce at least six good quality vegetative cuttings. Minor selection was thus unavoidable in determining the group of clones representing each F 1 cross in this study. The six stakes (clone) representing one genotype were distributed to the three replicates in each of two locations with different soil conditions, where the evaluations were conducted.Both locations were at the Experimental Station in CORPOICA La Libertad near Villavicencio in Meta Department, Colombia (4° 06' N, 73° 29' W and at 400 meters above sea level). In spite of its proximity the two environments were very different.The Loma plot had severe edaphic constraints related to soil acidity (4.33 pH, 15.7 ppm P and 66.9% Al saturation). This site generally allows for high disease pressure from super elongation disease and CBB. Both diseases are endemic in this region and evaluation of the reaction of cassava to them is based on their natural incidence. The Porcinos site had much better soil conditions (4.73 pH, 24.7 ppm P and only 28.5% aluminum saturation). Before planting 0.5 t ha -1 of dolomite lime was applied to the soil. One month after planting the stakes 0.5 t ha -1 of 10-20-20 NPK fertilizer was applied following the standard recommendations for cassava grown in these environments. Epistasis in cassava A randomized complete block design with three replications was used in each location. The evaluation was similar to a split-plot design. Each replication contained 45 main plots, one for each of the 45 F 1 crosses of the diallel. Each F 1 cross was, therefore, randomly allocated within each replication. Main plots contained eight rows with seven plants per row. The first and last rows and the first and last plant within each row were filled with border plants (either of the parents for the respective F 1 cross). The rest of the plot (6 x 5= 30 subplots) was used to plant the experimental material. The 30 clones constituting each F 1 cross were planted together in the respective main plots of each replication. Row-to-row distances and separation of plants within row were 1 m for a final plant density of 10000 plants ha -1 . Trials were harvested in April 2002, ten months after planting (the usual age for harvesting cassava in this environment).Plants were hand harvested individually. The roots, stems and foliage produced by each plant were weighted. Harvest index was measured as the ratio between root weight and total biomass. Root dry matter content was estimated using the specific gravity methodology (Kawano et al. 1987).Reactions to diseases (super elongation disease and CBB), and plant type architecture were scored using a 1 to 5 scale where 1= resistant or excellent and 5= susceptible or very poor (CIAT 2002). Plant type score took into consideration several important characteristics such as plant vigor, erect architecture with few Epistasis in cassava branches and reduced branching angle, adequate capacity to produce vegetative cuttings, and amount of foliage present at harvest time.The analysis of variance was conducted following the expectations for each mean square described in Table 1. As is commonly the case, a few plants died or failed to develop normally to be harvested. To take into consideration this lack of uniformity, the harmonic mean was used as k (Venkovsky & Barriga 1992).The total genetic variance has been partitioned into the between-family variation (σ 2 F1 ) and the within-family variation (σ 2 c/F1 ). The between-family variation, in turn, was partitioned into the well-known variances related to general (σ 2 GCA ) and specific (σ 2 SCA ) combining ability, which in turn allow the estimation of additive (σ 2 A )and dominance (σ 2 D ) variances (Calle et al., 2005;Griffing 1956;Hallauer & Miranda 1988):where Cov.HS = covariance of half-sibs; Cov.FS = covariance of full-sibs; σ 2 AA = additive x additive epistatic variance; σ 2 AD = additive x dominance epistatic variance; σ 2 DD = dominance x dominance epistatic variance, and so forth. Epistasis in cassavaSince parental clones are expected to have negligible levels of inbreeding σ 2 A = 4*σ 2 GCA and σ 2 D = 4*σ 2 SCA (Hallauer and Miranda, 1988). The estimates of additive and dominance variances are overestimated because they contain portions of epistatic variances (Equations 1a and 1b). Genetic parameters were estimated using the following mean squares from Table 1:Variance for these estimates were calculated as follows (Becker 1985;Vega 1987): In this evaluation, in addition to the usual between-family variation, the vegetative propagation of cassava allowed the analysis of the within-family variation. By cloning individual genotypes, they could be planted in two locations with three replications in each location. Therefore it was possible to partition the within-family variation into its genetic (σ 2 c/F1 ), genotype by environment (σ 2 c/F1*E ) and the error (σ 2 e ) components, as illustrated in Table 1. Epistasis in cassavaThe within-family analysis allows obtaining information on the relative importance of epistatic effects. The following equation has been developed when the assumption of negligible epistasis is true (Hallauer & Miranda 1988):The variance for this test is expected to be large (Hallauer & Miranda, 1988) because of the complexity of this linear function. The variance was estimated following the principles established in Lynch & Walsh (1998) and Isik et al. (2003), as follows:However, since Cov (σ 2 c/F1 , σ 2 SCA ) =0 and 4 Cov (σ 2 c/F1 , σ 2 GCA ) = 0, the formula can be simplified:The last term in the equation can be estimated as: The analysis of between-family variation was published elsewhere (Calle et al. 2004). In that article genetic effects, rather than genetic variances, were of interest and they were considered fixed effects. In the present study, however, the analysis of within-family variance and the relative importance of epistatic effect are of prime interest. All effects, therefore, were considered random and normally distributed. The 30 genotypes representing each F 1 cross are clearly a random sample of all the possible genotypes that could possibly be derived from the respective parents and contribute to most of the degrees of freedom in the analysis. The only criterion defining which genotype would be used was the capacity to produce six stakes in an environment different from the target environment where the evaluation was conducted. The progenitors in this study were among a group of 31 parental clones and the actual ten parents eventually involved were those that allowed for a balanced set of progenies. Therefore, the main criterion for the selection of the parental lines was their capacity to flower and produce adequate samples of botanical seed from many different crosses. That capacity varies from the environment where the F 1 plants were grown and that where the trials were conducted. The selection applied, therefore, is not expected to have had any bearing on plant architecture when plants were grown and evaluated in the acid-soils savanna environment. Epistasis in cassavaThe usual assumptions for this kind of analysis are: regular diploid behavior during meiosis; absence of cytoplasmic effects; linkage equilibrium, relatives are random members of a specified population and, because of the vegetative propagation of cassava, absence of C-effects (Libby & Jund 1962).In most F 1 crosses, 28 to 30 clones were actually evaluated in the field in each of the three replications at the two locations. Four crosses, however, were represented by a smaller number of clones (16, 18, 25 and 26, respectively) in the combined analysis across the two locations. In the analysis of results, therefore, k=27.96.The two locations used in the evaluation showed significant differences for fresh root yield (FRY), fresh foliage yield (FFY) and plant type score (PTS) (Table 2).Genetic differences among crosses were found for dry matter content (DMC), PTS and reaction to super elongation disease (SED) but not for FRY, FFY and harvest index (Table 2). The error term for the differences among the F 1 cross averages is the respective genotype by environment interaction. These interactions were significant for all variables analyzed in the two environments. The magnitude of these interactions resulted in many main effects failing to reach statistical significance. A similar situation could be observed for the GCA and SCA Epistasis in cassava partitioning of the between-family variation (Calle et al., 2005), particularly for the case of GCA, which showed significant interactions with the environment for all variables as well (Table 2).For the scores to the SED, GCA accounted for about 85% of the F 1 crosses sum of squares and SCA only the remaining 15%. Similar observations were made on different diallel studies (Cach et al. 2005;Jaramillo et al. 2004), in relation to prevalent pests in other environments (whiteflies, mites and thrips). PTS and DMC also showed a high dependency on GCA, which accounted for 82% of the sum of squares of F 1 crosses (Calle et al., 2005). Harvest index and FFY showed intermediate (not significant) dependency on GCA, which explained respectively 57 and 61% of the F 1 crosses sum of squares. GCA effects had the lowest impact in FRY, explaining only 42% of the F 1 sum of squares. Similar trends have been observed elsewhere (Cach et al. 2005;Jaramillo et al. 2005).Since individual clone data has been included the degrees of freedom involved (Table 2) are considerably larger than those reported in the between family analysis (Calle et al. 2004). In every case, within-family genetic variation (σ 2 c/F1 ) was statistically significant (Table 2). The interaction between environment and the within-family genetic variation was also significant for all variables analyzed in the two locations, except for PTS. From the mean squares presented in Table 2 the estimates for σ 2 A , σ 2 D , and the test for epistasis (Table 3) were obtained as described above. Epistasis in cassavaVariance components were considered important if the standard errors were less than half of the component estimates (Isik et al. 2003). Negative variances were considered to be zero, although their actual estimates were presented. Both, the reaction to SED and PTS, showed very distinctive results: genetic effects concentrated in the additive component, with considerably lower relevance of dominance effects and negative estimates for epistasis (Table 3).Harvest index and DMC showed a similar pattern with σ 2 A larger than σ 2 D , and negligible epistasis, which in these cases, as opposed to PTS and SED, were positive (Table 3). The test for epistasis was statistically significant for FRY and FFY (Table 3). These two traits also showed a similar trend with considerably higher σ 2 A than σ 2 D but these estimates were not significant. Results from individual location analysis were similar to those in the combined analysis.The comparison of the relative magnitude of between-and within-family variation suggested that a large proportion of the genetic variability in cassava was detected as within-family variation for FRY and FFY (Table 3). These results reaffirm the observations made during the selection in evaluation trials where large number of crosses among elite parental lines, are represented by several clones. The withinfamily genetic variances for harvest index, DMC and PTS were larger than for between-family variation, but the difference was not as large as for FRY and FFY. Epistasis in cassavaOn the other hand, SED showed larger variation in the between-compared with the within-family component. Larger between-family variation was observed for reactions to thrips, white flies and mites in similar studies conducted in other environments and with a different set of parental lines (Cach et al. 2005;Pérez et al., 2005). The relatively simple inheritance for resistance to diseases or pests (with a strong dominance component) generate large variation between the averages of progenies involving one or two resistant parents compared with those from susceptible ones, with relatively little or no variation among the individual genotypes or clones within each family.The cassava-breeding project at CIAT has recently started to generate data from the earlier phases of the selection process called Clonal Evaluation Trials (CET)that allow an estimation of the breeding value of parents used in generating these trials (Ceballos et al., 2004). In general, these estimations of breeding values based on the CET will be effective in traits were the genetic variation is concentrated in the between-family component or shows strong additive effects.Selection of outstanding parents for a given trait such as SED, will tend to generate uniform progenies also outstanding for that trait. This, in turn, could allow the implementation of the Backward GCA Selection described by Mullin and Park in 1992. For characteristics such as FRY, with strong non-additive effects and large within-family variation, the selection of outstanding parents would not be enough and individual clone analysis, within a given family, would be required. Epistasis in cassavaIn the present study, epistatic effects were important for FRY and FFY. This result agrees with those observed in similar studies conducted in distinctive environments, and involving mostly unrelated sets of parents (Cach et al. 2005;Perez et al. 2005) The magnitude of epistasis affecting FRY and FFY reveals the limitation of most quantitative genetic studies based on the assumption of negligible epistasis in such complex traits. The importance of epistasis revealed by these results also help to explain the difficulty in finding quantitative trait loci or QTLs accounting for the phenotypic variation observed in complex traits such as yield (Kao & Zeng 2002).The mass phenotypic recurrent selection used for cassava genetic improvement exploits additive, dominance and epistatic genetic effects (Ceballos et al., 2004;Jennings and Iglesias, 2002;Hershey, 1984). However, the current breeding scheme cannot direct genetic improvement in such a way that the frequency of favorable genetic combinations (within or between loci) is efficiently maximized. To achieve this, special efforts to design parental clones (preferably with some degree of inbreeding) that produce better crosses and/or a reciprocal recurrent selection (Hallauer and Miranda, 1988), are required. The development of inbred clones specifically designed for their utilization as parents in breeding nurseries offers interesting advantages such as the possibility of a gradual and consistent assembly of favorable gene combinations, which in the current system occur just by chance. The important non-additive effects found in the present study justifies and supports this proposition. Epistasis in cassava Moreover, inbred parents offer additional advantages: a) Promote the discovery of useful recessive traits (e.g. waxy starch); b) Genetic load, which is expected to be high based on published results (Kawano et al. in 1978), could be reduced; c) Inbred parents would allow for the implementation of the back-cross scheme (Allard, 1960). This in turn will enhance the usefulness of valuable traits (e.g.genes for resistance to whiteflies, novel starch properties, etc.), which can then be transferred from one parental clone to another; d) Molecular markers and traditional genetic studies would be greatly facilitated; e) Germplasm exchange based on botanical seed is much easier than that of vegetative cuttings (Iglesias et al., 1994). This would promote south-to-south collaboration among the few cassava breeding projects of the world; and f) Cleaning planting stocks from viral or other pathogens could be achieved without the need of meristem culture.The generation of doubled-haploids could reduce to two years the time required to attain desirable levels of inbreeding, which by successive self-pollinations would require about 10-12 years. CIAT is currently executing a project supported by the Rockefeller Foundation to develop the protocol for the production of doubledhaploids in cassava through anther culture.The methodology and results of this study can be useful for other semi-perennial crops that can be vegetatively propagated. The diallel design employed, although cumbersome, it not very different from the traditional CET used in cassava Epistasis in cassava (Ceballos et al., 2004). The main differences were the restriction of a balanced set of crosses and the fact that each genotype (or clone) was planted in six, singleplant plots, rather than in a single six-plant plot. A balanced set of crosses allows for proper estimation of genetic parameters. The planting scheme allows a more precise estimation of the genetic value of each clone, because of the reduced impact of genotype x environment interaction. As a matter of fact, the data produced from this diallel study was used in the same way as that from CETs and the best clones were selected to continue in the following stages of selection (preliminary yield trials, advanced yield trials and regional trials).   σ 2 ε = Error associated with the average of F 1 crosses; σ 2 SCA and σ 2SCA*E = Specific combining ability variance and its interaction with the environment, respectively; σ 2 GCA and σ 2GCA*E = General combining ability variance and its interaction with the environment, respectively; σ 2 F1 and σ 2F1*E = Variance between F 1 crosses and their interaction with the environment, respectively. Epistasis in cassava  ","tokenCount":"3696"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6a4a3ed17b5da905ebe9e8ce6bbb3726","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/70296057-51c5-4101-9396-8ab2dd2a4c94/content","id":"1289821896"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"24479883-5a4f-4beb-a8ec-1335cf5f0d7f","pagecount":"12","content":"Componente lleguen al Productor e impacten positivamente a las unidades de producción familiares.• Fomentar la colaboración interinstitucional para una aplicación óptima y eficiente de los recursos del Componente.• Ampliar la oferta de modelos de extensión que propicien el arraigo a la tierra en beneficio de la agricultura familiar.• Garantizar los recursos que den continuidad a las acciones emprendidas hasta ahora en beneficio de la agricultura familiar (remuneración a extensionistas y prestadores de servicio social gratificado).• Incrementar el conocimiento social y la sensibilización de los diferentes sectores de la sociedad en torno al extensionismo rural.• Generar estrategias para favorecer la incorporación de nuevos profesionistas a los servicios de extensionismo rural.• Contar con un sistema de seguimiento y monitoreo de las actividades de los extensionistas, procurando siempre la calidad en la atención a productores.Extensionistas con la finalidad de que los productores puedan solicitar asistencia técnica focalizada a una problemática en específico. • Fomentar una ética comunitaria en madres jóvenes de zonas rurales de Xochimilco.• Capacitación técnico-práctica para la innovación y perfeccionamiento de métodos de producción sustentable de alimentos nutritivos y plantas medicinales para autoconsumo. • Coadyuvar a la seguridad alimentaria de familias en situación de hambre, la prevención y tratamiento de algunas enfermedades,• Inducir cambios en el Ser, detonados por el Taller de Autoconocimiento Profundo (TAP), para que el participante mejore la eficacia de su desempeño personal, familiar y en la comunidad de la que forma parte. • Inducir cambios en el Hacer y en la manera de relacionarse con los demás, para incrementar el nivel de desempeño productivo del participante, a nivel individual y organizacional; en la Unidad de Producción rural, cadena productiva, red de valor o clúster, donde actúa. • Coadyuvar en la instalación de una estrategia para Aprender a Aprender, que considere la sistematización de experiencias, la operación de una red de gestión del conocimiento, y el desarrollo de capacidades para la autogestión.• Capacitación técnica en el control de Plagas, Enfermedades y Nutrición, en Frutales, Flores y Hortalizas.• Desarrollar las habilidades, conocimientos y destrezas que permitan al agricultor conocer que productos o materiales que se tienen a la mano y que la mayor parte son desperdicios, los pueden aprovechar en sus cultivos como fertilizantes, insecticidas, fungicidas o mejoradores de suelo. • Conocimientos para llevar a cabo unidades de producción, verificar sistemas de producción orgánico y conocer la normatividad vigente en la materia.• Las familias del medio rural desarrollan capacidades, para la promoción de su desarrollo social y productivo, a través del identificación de los 3 tipos de mejoramiento de vida y del aprendizaje del ciclo del proyecto. • Establecer a la población rural en su nuevo papel como gestores estratégicos de la actividad humana en su comunidad, a fin de atender los nuevos retos que impone un entorno en constante cambio y complejidad • El modelo promueve el cambio de actitud, bajo un enfoque autogestionario a partir del desarrollo personal, familiar y comunitario Dentro de los Modelos de Extensión con mayor impacto en el desarrollo de la Agricultura Familiar, se encuentran:","tokenCount":"502"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fee4ae6dbb9b35a236888d9b01527f2f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/21b4a01f-c56e-4e12-9dcd-36af629e1ee8/retrieve","id":"746730158"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"31aa2adf-43d0-4c9b-934c-d67b26b23951","pagecount":"4","content":"We examine the potential of external reward mechanisms, such as payments for ecosystem services (PES), to increase conservation levels as well as the degree to which alternative approaches (such as individual versus collective payments) interact with the social norms that underlie collective action associated with the management of plant genetic resources (PGR).The analyses draw on fi eld experiments from the two study sites in Andean Altiplano, subsistence-based farming communities from the Northern Altiplano in Peru and communities with more commercialized farming systems from the Southern Altiplano in Bolivia. This allows us to account for diff erent market contexts.Findings indicate that we cannot generally assume that external reward mechanisms would unequivocally provide resource users with the incentives to increase their conservation eff orts. Diff erent reward systems infl uence diff erent types of resource users in diff erent and complex ways, and thus may diff er in their eff ectiveness depending on the market context.The conservation of ecosystem services (including those related to agrobiodiversity conservation) is subject to a public goods problem, whereby private/individual and social interests diverge. The on-farm conservation of a diverse portfolio of crop varieties can be associated with local, national and global public benefi ts. Local public benefi ts include contributions to agroecosystem resilience, the maintenance of evolutionary processes, traditional knowledge and culture, and future option values which accrue to all farmers within a community. Markets, however, tend to largely favor only those varieties with commercial traits. Under such circumstances, farmers have an incentive to cultivate commercial varieties only, so as to maximize private/individual benefi ts, while benefi ting for free (i.e. free-riding) from those who continue to cultivate a diversity of varieties (including traditional ones) which generate public benefi ts.There is also evidence that resource users, farmers included, can cooperate to a certain extent to overcome social dilemmas related to the overexploitation of common resources and the provision of public goods. External reward mechanisms, such as PES, may provide resource users with an incentive to conserve that which benefi ts wider society, and thus have been praised as an eff ective instrument to facilitate conservation. Yet in many rural communities collective action towards conservation is based on \"intrinsic\" motivations leading to pro-social behavior. This is because individuals are normally driven not only by self-interest but by social norms, as for example altruism, reciprocity and fairness. These norms are determined by social preferences, such as conditional as well as unconditional cooperativeness or inequity aversion, thereby aff ecting collective action strategies towards conservation. As social preferences are endogenously shaped, conservation behavior depends on socio-economic, cultural as well as institutional factors.In such contexts there is a concern that external regulatory mechanisms, such as PES, may crowd-out existing pro-social behavior thus hampering existing conservation eff orts. The degree to which such crowding-out may occur is likely to depend on resource user-specifi c social preferences and their interactions with external rewards. More specifi cally, it may be hypothesized that increasing economic incentives for the conservation of public ecosystem services through individual rewards may erode existing pro-social norms. On the other hand, the use of collective rewards in the form of group-level payments may actually complement such norms.The responses to such incentive mechanisms, however, may vary signifi cantly from community to community depending on the social norms that are prevalent. Evidence exists that Project \"Payments for Agrobiodiversity Conservation Services (PACS)\"Via dei Tre Denari 472a 00057 Maccarese Rome, Italy Contact: Adam Drucker a.drucker@cgiar.org suggests that although regulatory interventions can complement existing community eff orts, under certain circumstances they can be ineff ective or even reduce levels of conservation. In particular, it appears that external incentives might be benefi cial where selfregulating mechanisms are weak or unstable, but might be ineff ective or even harmful where pro-social norms and rules are strong and robust. Therefore, it is important to account for social preferences in the context of the implementation of policy interventions such as PES, including under diff erent market and group contexts, in order to better support the design of such reward mechanisms; and with a view to facilitating their ability to build upon rather than undermine existing patterns of collective action.One such approach to understanding social preferences is through the application of framed experiments in the fi eld. Such experiments can shed light on the behavioral dynamics of the resource users in question when confronting diff erent pay-off situations subject to their group contexts. However, to-date, there has only been limited application of fi eld experimental research regarding the provision of public goods in poor farming communities and the impact of PES-like reward mechanisms. Furthermore, we are unaware of any applications in the context of crop genetic resource diversity.It is in this context that a public goods game was framed around decisions related to the allocation of land for the cultivation of diff erent quinoa varieties. Each game participant formed part of a group of 4 players and is allocated a number of land units. To control for heterogeneity in land endowments, we organized uniform groups (4 land units each), as well as heterogeneous groups (2 participants with 2 land units each and 2 participants with 6 land units each). Over 12 rounds participants decide on how many land units to allocate to the conservation of a threatened traditional variety. As market prices for this variety are lower than for a commercial variety, the farmer incurs private conservation costs. Yet, the cultivation of the traditional variety is associated with public conservation benefi ts that accrue to every community once a certain threshold is reached (in this case a group total of 7 land units). 6 rounds of a baseline game were played, before introducing economic incentives for conservation and playing six additional rounds with either individual rewards that decrease the private costs of conservation or collective rewards that increase the benefi ts of conservation for the public good.The social optimum, i.e. where the group's total benefi ts would be maximized, is reached when all the group members allocate all their land units towards conservation. However, a social dilemma arises from the participants' private incentive not to cultivate a traditional variety and instead to free-ride on the conservation activities of others; alternatively participants may choose to allocate a certain number of land units to the traditional variety in order ensure the threshold can be reached, given the expectation that other group members will also allocate some land in this way. With external rewards, the set of optimal private strategies would include the conservation of more land units depending on the expectations of the behavior of others, but there is no dominant strategy that would allow the social optimum to always be reached.Between February and April 2010 we organized four sessions in the Southern Altiplano of Bolivia and four more in the Northern Altiplano of Peru. Half of these sessions were played with individual and the other half with collective rewards. Each session was organized with 20 participants coming from quinoa-based farm households in the same or (neighbouring) communities, which were selected from diff erent zones within the two study sites.Participating farmers were randomly arranged in three 'uniform' and two 'heterogeneous' groups of four participants each. Famers were not aware of who else was in their group. However, after each round the participants were informed about the individual land allocations of their (anonymous) group peers and the overall payoff . This permits that group members may form expectations of the behaviour of their group members in future rounds.In order to provide an incentive to behave in a realistic manner, two winning rounds were randomly drawn -one from the baseline games and one from the rewards game, and participants were remunerated with real money for the points earned in these rounds. Including a fi xed participation payment, an average of US$ 7 was paid to the farmers, which is approximately equivalent to the daily wage in both the study regions.(1) Farmers in the Bolivian communities have more commercialized quinoa production systems and allocate a smaller share of their land to the conservation of non-commercial varieties. They rely less on patterns of collective action, and on average conserve fewer land units in the agrobiodiversity conservation game when compared to the Peruvian participants.(2) In the Peruvian site less wealthy farmers (either in terms of real landholdings or of hypothetical land units assigned in the game) contribute less to conservation. This is, possibly due to an aversion to inequality as well as safety-fi rst behavior (i.e. they fi rst seek to secure individual benefi ts before investing in group projects to secure local public good benefi ts). Heterogeneous groups conserve less than their uniform counterparts.(3) In both sites farmers are unconditionally cooperative, that is they conserve some share of their land units in the initial round without having learnt about the extent to which their anonymous group members are willing to cooperate. This behavior is likely to be driven by a combination of positive expectations due to trust in the cooperativeness of others as well as altruism. Expectations of course evolve as the game proceeds.are driven by altruism, thereby complementing this pro-social norm.(13) In both sites individual rewards appear to be potential means a reverse anti-social dynamics. In contexts where cooperation is very fragile due to the presence of free-riders, increased individual-level incentives may have a stabilizing eff ect due to motivating people to stick to pro-social norms. This would increase trust in the cooperation of others and thereby facilitate pro-social dynamics.Findings indicate that we cannot generally assume that external reward mechanisms would unequivocally provide resource users with the incentives to increase their conservation eff orts. Diff erent reward systems infl uence diff erent types of resource users in diff erent and complex ways, and thus may diff er in their eff ectiveness depending on the market context.For instance, collective rewards in the Bolivian site are found not to result in any behavior change at all and are thus ineff ective (although this fi nding may also be related to the level of reward off ered). In the Peruvian site, collective rewards may have a positive eff ect on conservation through the provision of benefi ts through collective conservation eff orts, but at the same time provoke freeriding for some farmers. This brings forward concerns about the crowding-out eff ect of such rewards systems in communities where pro-social norms are still strong. The potential overall impact on the conservation behaviour of diff erent types of farmer within the community thus needs to be carefully considered.In the Altiplano individual rewards seem to unleash pro-social dynamics. In the Bolivian site they seem to provide altruistic farmers with an incentive to increase conservation. And even more importantly, in both study sites these rewards appear to be a potential means to stabilize pro-social behavior, so that our fi ndings suggest that individual rewards may eff ectively increase conservation levels due to reversing anti-social dynamics.These fi ndings highlight the importance of a careful assessment of existing social preferences that are of relevance for the success of formal institutions brought from outside the community. With the growing implementation of PES schemes in the fi eld, there is an urgent need for study site-specifi c research, including through the use of fi eld experiments, in order to widen the understanding of the ways external rewards systems may aff ect existing resource management practices given various market and group contexts. This is also highly important in the context of enabling policymakers to design payments for agrobiodiversity conservation services schemes in a way they can draw upon, support and complement existing patterns of collective action.(4) In both sites initial conservation levels to a large extent determine conservation in subsequent rounds, so that it seems that altruism plays a key role in ensuring collective action. There are no diff erences in the relevance of this pro-social norm across the two sites.(5) In both sites conservation levels oscillate around the threshold, so that the threshold seems to have a stabilizing eff ect on conservation levels.(6) In the Bolivian site, free-riding behavior seems to undermine conservation levels in the baseline rounds. For both sites a similar number of participants behave like free-riders (between 33% and 40%).(7) In the Peruvian site there are more participants who follow reciprocity-based behaviour (36%) than in the Bolivian site (19%). This would seem to indicate that pro-social behaviour seems to be reduced in commercialized farming contexts. This concurs with fi ndings that conditional cooperativeness decreases with the degree of individual-level commercialization (measured by the amount of quinoa sold at markets) within the two sites.(8) In both sites conservation levels increase signifi cantly under individual rewards (in both uniform and heterogeneous groups), but collective rewards seem only to have a conservation facilitating eff ect in heterogeneous groups from the Peruvian site. However, this fi nding may partially indicate that the collective reward levels used in the game were insuffi cient to promote increased levels of conservation.(9) In the Peruvian site, the benefi ts accrued from group level conservation through collective rewards may actually enhance incentives for collective action.(10) In the Peruvian site collective rewards may, however, crowd-out reciprocity-based norms, as they trigger free-riding behavior.Possibly some farmers would expect increased collective action of other group members under the collective rewards and thus assume that public benefi ts would be generated without their contribution.(11) In The Bolivian site there is some evidence of a guilt-relief eff ect associated with individual rewards. Due to the increase in individual level pay-off s from conservation, farmers feel less obliged to contribute to conservation. This seems to be mostly relevant in groups operating above thresholds for the generation of collective benefi ts.(12) In the Bolivian site individual rewards seem to provide an additional incentive for conservation to those farmers who ","tokenCount":"2288"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7b044dac0dd35b04a27e87ecc4a5e6ee","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0b901d43-83b6-4817-a0f2-081ccb03e61b/retrieve","id":"694266566"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"efa97402-83b2-4e80-8b89-b4727429f801","pagecount":"54","content":"The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) is a not-for-profit organization that conducts socially and environmentally progressive research that aims to:CIAT is one of the 15 food and environmental research Centers working towards these goals around the world in partnership with farmers, scientists, and policy makers. Known as the Future Harvest centers, they are funded mainly by around 65 donors including countries, private foundations, and international organizations that make up the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). These include the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT)For the years ended as of December 31, 2009 and2008 (expressed in thousands of U.S. dollars)CIAT's financial statements are stated in U.S. dollars. Those assets and liabilities (but not including supplies, spare parts, property, and plant and equipment) denominated in other currencies are translated at the exchange rate in effect at the end of each financial period. Grants received in currencies other than U.S. dollars are recorded at market exchange rates in effect at the time the grant is received or, if outstanding at 31 December, at the market rate of exchange in effect at the year's end.Incomes and expenses in currency other than U.S. dollars, as well as those related to properties, spare parts, plants, and equipment, are initially recorded at the official exchange rate on the dates of the transactions. Profits and losses arising on exchange are included in the results of operations .Cash comprises cash on hand, petty cash funds, currencies awaiting deposit and local or foreign currency deposits in banks which can be added to or withdrawn without limitation and are immediately available for use in the current operations.Reduce hunger and poverty, and improve human health in the tropics through research aimed at increasing the eco-efficiency of agriculture.Under the accrual basis of accounting, transactions and events are recognized when they occur (and not as cash or its cash equivalent is received or paid) and they are recorded in the accounting books and reported in the financial statements of the periods to which they relate. Expenses are recognized in the Statement of Activities on the basis of a direct association between the costs incurred and the earnings of specific items of revenue.Under an agreement with CIAT, signed on 5 May 1987 and ratified by Law 29 of 18 March 1988, the Colombian Government recognizes CIAT as a not-for-profit international organization and grants it certain prerogatives, including exemption from Colombian taxes.Beginning February 2006, the Center prepares its financial statements in accordance with the new accounting policies and reporting practices prescribed by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) for international agricultural research centers. These policies established to Centers fully adoption and complying with all relevant IFRS. The major accounting practices followed at CIAT are summarized below:The Center prepares its financial statements, except for cash flow information, under the accrual basis of accounting.d.The contract signed with the Colombian Government related to the land on which CIAT has its headquarters to the Center in commodatum was renewed until July 2015. This contract may be extended thereafter by mutual consent. CIAT will initiate the process with the Colombian Government to renew the commodatum for the land on which CIAT has the headquarter. At the end of the contract, CIAT is to return the land with its improvements, buildings, and installations, free of any kind of judicial actions or embargoes and without receiving any compensation. This land is not considered a contribution to \"property, plant and equipment\".All new facilities provided by host countries to the Center or constructed for the use of the Center, which will revert to the host country in the event the Center ceases to operate, are recognized as assets.Subsequent expenditures relating to property, plant and equipment that has already been recognized are added to the carrying amount of the asset only if the expenditure improves the condition of the asset beyond its originally assessed standard of performance. All other subsequent expenditures are recognized as expenses of the period where incurred.Inventories of materials and supplies are stated at cost, using the moving average price method. Cost represents the purchase price of supplies and spare parts, plus freight and handling charges. Materials in transit are stated at invoice cost.Grants in the form of inventories are measured at fair value at the time of receipt.Inventories held at the end of the financial period are stated at cost or net realization value, whichever is lower.Investments acquired with the purpose of disposing from them within one year or less after their acquisition date are to be classified as current investments. Furthermore, investments classified as current, as distinguished from cash equivalents, are those that are acquired with original maturities of more than three months but not exceeding one year.Investments acquired with the purpose of keeping them for more than one (1) year as from their acquisition date are to be classified as long-term investments.Property, plant and equipment acquired through the use of restricted grants are recorded as assets and fully (100%) depreciated, and the depreciation expense is charged directly to the appropriate restricted project in the same year of acquisition.Until 2009, acquisitions of property, plant and equipment costing less than US$500 are expensed. Starting 2010 this amount is increased to US$1,000.Property, plant and equipment acquired through non-monetary grants are recognized at fair value at the date of the grant. Such grants are presented in the Statement of Financial Position as Deferred Revenue and are taken to account as revenue on a systematic and rational basis over the life of the asset.Cash equivalents are short-term, highly liquid investments that are both: i) readily convertible to known amounts of cash; and ii) so near their maturity date that the risk of changes in value due to changes in interest rates are insignificant.CIAT investment policy is established by the CIAT Board of Trustees. Investments are initially recorded at their acquisition cost (including brokerage and other transaction costs) if they were purchased, and fair value if they were received as a grant. Investments in equity securities with readily determinable fair values and all investments in debt securities shall be measured at fair value as of the date of the Statement of Financial Position.Investments received as grants from donors are to be recorded at their fair market value.Interest, dividends, losses, and gains relating to financial instruments are reported in the Statement of Activities as expense or revenue.Sugar cane inventory is quantified according to the real costs invested and the average age of each of the cultivated hectares.  Unrestricted Grants: Receivables from unrestricted grants are recognized in full in the period specified by the donor.Unrestricted Grants: Are those received from the unconditional transfer of cash or other assets to the Center.Restricted Grants: Are those received from a transfer of resources to the Center in return for future compliance relating to the operating activities of the Center. Restricted Grants include Intercenter Activities and Challenge Programs.These funds have been provided by donors and are managed by CIAT for an ultimate beneficiary other than the Center.These are claims held against donors for the future receipt of money, goods or services. Receivables due from donors can arise from: Unrestricted grants which are due and receivable by the Center and amounts due from restricted grants that have been negotiated between a donor and the Center.Restricted Grants: Receivables from restricted grants are recognized in accordance with the terms of the underlying contract. Restricted Grants include Intercenter Activities and Challenge Programs.These include grants received from donors for which conditions are not yet met and amounts payable to donors when donors in respect of any unexpended funds received in advance for restricted grants.\"Accounts payable -donors\" are classified as follows:Depreciation of assets owned by the Center is computed by the straight-line method over the asset's estimated useful life, except assets acquired with restricted grants. The basis for computing depreciation is the asset's acquisition cost, less its estimated salvage value.In order to adjust the cost of fixed assets to reflect the actual market price, in 2007 the Board approved to change the useful life and salvage value in different categories of fixed assets. The loss originated by this change was included in 2007 and beginning January 1, 2008 the depreciation is calculated taking into account the approved changes.Estimated life in years and salvage value for headquarter vehicles and buses and trucks are based on the market conditions in Colombia.The following table indicates the useful lives and estimated salvage percentages of the Center's fixed assets:Motorcycles Headquarter vehicles j.Net assets Net assets comprise the residual interest in an entity's assets after liabilities are deducted. They are classified as either undesignated or designated and temporary:Institutional costs are recovered based on the Activity Base Costs methodology -ABC -proposed by the CGIAR.According to the CIAT policy, direct costs are recovered on the basis of resource drivers and indirect cost or overhead is is recovered on the basis of the rates agreed in the grant agreements. Using the ABC methodology, the institutional costs are also charged to unrestricted grants.Undesignated net asset, the use of which is not designated by CIAT Management for special purposes.Designated net asset, are those that have been restricted by CIAT Management as reserve for replacing property and equipment, retirement of national staff and other activities or purposes.Unrestricted grants are those received from the unconditional transfer of cash or other assets to the Center.Unrestricted grants in currencies other than U.S. dollars are recorded at exchange rates in effect at the time of receipt or, if outstanding at December 31, at the exchange rate in effect at the year's end.Restricted grants in currencies other than U.S. dollars with specific request for the partner's funds to be paid in that currency, are recorded as income and expenses at exchange rate in effect at the time of the payment.Temporary net assets are those that are the result of hedging operations accrued but not realized with the objective to protect the budgeted exchange rate.Grants are recognized as revenue to the extent of expenses incurred. The research partners of the HarvestPlus Challenge Program are managed as funds in trust.Challenge Programs are the means for the CGIAR system as a whole to take on global challenges in cooperation with a wide range of research partners.Restricted grants are those received from a transfer of resources to the Center in return for past or future compliance to the operating activities of the Center.The grants, whether restricted or unrestricted, are recognized until there is reasonable assurance that the Center will comply with the conditions attaching to; and the grants are received.A derivative with a positive fair value is recognised as a financial asset; a derivative with a negative fair value is recognised as a financial liability. A derivative is presented as a non-current assets or a non current liability if the remaining maturity of the instrument is more than 12 months and it is not expected to be realised or settled within 12 months. Other derivatives are presented as current assets or current liabilities.The Center enters into a derivative financial instrument to manage its exposure to foreig n exchange rate risk. Further details of derivative financial instrument are disclosed in Note 21 to the financial statements.Derivatives are initially recognized at fair value at the date a derivative contract is entered into and are subsequently remeasured to the fair value at each balance sheet date. The resulting gain or loss is recognized in the statement of activities immediately unless the derivative is designated effective as a hedging instrument, in which event the timing of the recognition in statement of activities depends on the nature of the hedge relationship. The Center designates certain derivatives as either hedges of the fair value of recognized assets or liabilities of firm commitments (fair value hedges), hedges of highly probable forecast transactions or hedges of foreign currency risk of firm commitments (cash flow hedges).The Center designates certain hedging instruments, which include derivatives and nonderivatives in respect of foreign currency risk, as either fair value hedges or cash flow hedges. Hedges of foreign exchange risk on firm commitments are accounted for as cash flow hedges.The CGIAR Accounting Policies and Reporting Practices Manual encourages to adopt with all the requirements applicable IFRS and IAS. CIAT utilizes the IAS 32 and IAS 39 for recognition of its derivate financial instruments and IFRS 7 for the disclousure respective.n.Note 3: Cash and cash equivalents and short term investments The effective portion of changes in the fair value of derivatives that are designated and qualify as cash flow hedges are deferred in net assets. The gain or loss to the ineffective portion is recognized immediately in the statement of activities.Amounts deferred in net assets are recycled in the statement of activities in the periods when the hedged item is recognized in the statement of activities. However when the forecast transaction that is hedged results in the recognition of a non-financial asset or a non-financial liability, the gains and losses previously deferred in net assets are transferred from net assets and included in the initial measurement of the cost of the assets or liability.Hedge accounting is discontinued when the Center revokes the hedging relationship, the hedging instrument expires or is sold, terminated, exercised, or no longer qualifies for hedge accounting. Any cumulative gain or loss deferred in net assets at that the time remains in net assets and is recognized when the forecast transaction is ultimately recognized in the statement of activities. When a forecast transaction is not longer expected to occur, the cumulative gain or loss that was deferred in net assets is recognized immediately in the statement of activities.At the inception of the hedge relationship the entity documents the relationship between the hedging instrument and hedged item, along with its risk management objectives and its strategy for undertaking various hedge transactions. Furthermore, at the inception of the hedge and on an ongoing basis, the Center documents whether the hedging instrument that is used in a hedging relationship is highly effective in offsetting changes in fair values or cash flow of the hedged item. The international staff reserves correspond to the estimated costs of repatriating members of the senior staff to their home countries, as specified in their appointment letters.Reserve for future local staff indemnity payments in case of unilateral termination of long term contracts according to the Colombian labor law and to cover bonus for retirement pension according to CIAT's policy.Net assets as of December 31 are unrestricted net assets. These funds are available for the following purposes:According to IAS 39 due to the effectiveness of these operations, the estimated gain or loss is reported directly in net assets. Once the hedging maturate, the result goes to profit and loss.Other provisions consist primarily of self-insurance reserves for theft, accidents, provision for regional staff. The new CIAT hedging policy asks for a protection up to 100% of the estimated unrestricted expenses executed in Colombian pesos. The Center contracted forwards to cash U.S. dollars into pesos amounting to US$6,900 and US$12,100 to protect the first nine months of the budgeted expenses for the year 2010 and the budgeted expenses for the year 2009 respectively, against the exchange rate exposure. An exchange rate exposure analysis endorsed by the Board of Trustees, is managed within approved parameters.The IAS 39 requires to assess the changes in the fair value of the financial instruments. Risk containment must be expected to be effective in offsetting the changes in the fair value of the hedging instruments where actual results being within a range of 80% to 125%. After the assessment of the financial instruments, they are qualified as effective.Due to the hedge effectiveness, the forward contracts were recognized in net assets in the Statement of Financial Position.The forward foreign exchange contracts for 2010 valuated at the end of 2009 are detailed below.The amount of US$611 corresponds to the temporary variance resulting from the valuation of the forward operations. This temporary variation is accrued but not realized as of December 31, 2009.The fair value was calculated converting COP at the exchange rate of $2.044.23/1USD on December 31, 2009.The method adopted by the Center to assess the hedge effectiveness is the Dollar offset method. This is a quantitative method that consists of comparing the change in fair value or cash flows of the hedging instrument with the change in fair value or cash flows of the hedged item attributable to the hedged risk. ","tokenCount":"2742"}
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diff --git a/data/part_1/7954006133.json b/data/part_1/7954006133.json
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7ee885747d0c075b69c8ec14dfc85c7b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/59b3b36b-9e97-4eee-8bac-251a257b7867/retrieve","id":"145792655"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"455bb207-7b8c-41de-9d91-ef4ff13b3d48","pagecount":"2","content":"Cambodia has a rich tradition of tasty and nutritious foods. Animalsource foods are an important part of the cuisine with pork, fish, and poultry products widely consumed. The great majority of livestock products are produced by smallholders, many of them women, and sold in traditional, wet markets where women also predominate as retailers. In recent years, Cambodia has seen growing food safety concerns. Development is accompanied by urbanization, rapid increases in demand for livestock products and, consequently, rapid changes in supply chains, which become longer, more complex, and less transparent. Trust in food goes down, often with good reason as the food system develops in a way that provides little rewards for those with good practices, but high rewards for those who carry out bad and unsafe practices.Under the Safe Food, Fair Food for Cambodia project, we propose two major research areas to tackle the above-mentioned issues: (i) to generate evidence on the health and economic burden of foodborne diseases in animal-source food value chains important to the poor and women and (ii) to pilot a market-based approach to improving food safety that builds on successfully implemented projects in Africa and India. Our central idea is market-based, light-touch interventions that are sustainable and scalable, changing practice through capacity building and incentives, and provision of an enabling policy environment.With the overall aim of reducing the burden of foodborne disease in informal, emerging formal, and niche markets and targeting small-and medium-scale producers, the project has five objectives with associated activities, outputs, and outcomes.• Objective 1: To generate actionable evidence on the health and economic burden (gender-disaggregated) of foodborne diseases associated with animal-source foods in Cambodia.• Objective 2: To develop, pilot and test a new approach to food safety, which relies on incentives (rewards) and light-touch interventions in close partnership with the private sector. • Objective 3: With stakeholders, to describe, plan, and monitor how evidence-based recommendations and the tested approach could contribute to the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems (LSIL) theory of change.• Objective 4: To make recommendations for enhanced engagement and benefit sharing for men and women in animal-source food value chains through improving understanding of gender aspects and the gender appropriateness of interventions and also by integrating nutrition and food safety. • Objective 5: To build capacity in understanding food safety risk, its management, and effective communication among stakeholders including the government, private sector, academia, donors, and media.A beef retailer along a road in Cambodia. (Photo credit: CelAgrid) www.feedthefuture.gov• Greater understanding among policymakers, donors, and the private sector of the multiple burden of foodborne diseases and their implications for nutrition security. • Increased openness to promising approaches to improve food safety equitably and sustainably.• Agreement by Cambodian food safety stakeholders on what will be needed to take evidence and innovative approaches to greater scale guided by the LSIL theory of change. • Improved knowledge and understanding of nutrition-gender dynamics in foodborne disease risks and viable options identified for increased gender equity in foodborne disease risk management. • Improved understanding and communication of risks among academics, policymakers, private sector and media.• Improved capacity in researchers, students, government, and non-governmental organization partners and value chain actors.The project is a 3. Because so little is known about the distribution or burden of foodborne disease, the approach will be at multiple levels with initial risk profiling and situational analysis of food safety. The project will then focus on one or more high-risk livestock value chains to estimate burdens of foodborne disease and finally on one value chain to pilot an intervention. Risk profiles will be at the sector level and cover all animal-source foods produced in Cambodia in the formal and informal sectors as well as animalsource food imports. The more in-depth studies on hazards present as well as their health, economic, and nutrition impacts will be on urban and peri-urban consumption around Phnom Penh and the adjacent provinces which have the highest density of pork and poultry and are in a Feed the Future Zone of Influence site (Siem Reap).The overall research method is 'participatory risk analysis' which is an approach to working in informal markets that combines risk analysis and participatory learning and analysis. See information on the participation of markets and market operators in the box.A unique aspect of this project is to develop a systematic and structured approach, starting with risk profiling and moving to risk assessment and risk management, while investing in risk communication and capacity building. The project will adopt a gender-sensitive approach in the design and implementation of planned activities to ensure that project outcomes and impacts will be gender inclusive, but also because we believe that mainstreaming gender is necessary to achieve impact in food safety projects. This is because gender and equity issues are important along the animalsource food chain, both because men and women play different roles along the value chain, from production through slaughter and processing to sale, and because risk of foodborne disease varies by gender and sex. • Agreeing to provide information to probabilistic surveys on risks and hazards that are generalizable to a large proportion of markets.• Through participatory appraisals and focus group discussions, co-creating knowledge on food safety as well as gender, equity, and nutrition aspects.• Participating in pilots to build capacity of market sellers and which provide incentives for behaviour change.","tokenCount":"886"}
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index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..9f8aae64961baa8be867ad758874ddedbac01791
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"15f143b28a66da087af498f476603ef1","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b93f896a-63fd-4af1-aeb1-707e413fa614/retrieve","id":"1383147024"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2f85437a-6b0d-4c1a-add7-6d3169f24700","pagecount":"14","content":"Under the CGIAR's initiative on Sustainable Animal Productivity or SAPLING, the Feeds and Forages Program of ILRI organized a series of training workshops to build the capacity of national staff in Ethiopia on quality forage seed production and handling. The first training workshop was organized in October 2022 targeting forage seed technical assistants from research centres working in the highlands of Ethiopia (link: https://hdl.handle.net/10568/125851). The training provided a unique opportunity for the national staff to acquire essential skills and tips to produce quality forage seeds in different agro-ecological conditions.Due to high demand for similar training from other research centres, a second round of training was organized in December 2022. The second training workshop targeted research technicians in pastoral and agro-pastoral areas of Ethiopia. In this training a total of 17 technicians and researchers from Afar, Somali, Gambella, Assossa, Yabello and Jinka participated. The main objective of the training was to address the skill and knowledge gaps of the trainees on quality forage seed production and expose them to the available forage options in the ILRI Forage Genebank.The course was organized to enable participants to:1. The training program started with self-introductions. Each participant gave a brief explanation of their experiences in forage seed production, main challenges/gaps and expectations from the training course. Some of the forage seed production challenges that the trainees mentioned include the following:• Difficulties in alfalfa seed harvest, and inability to grow seeds in some areas • Cowpea pest infestations before and after seed harvest; as a result having difficulty to store cowpea seeds safely. • Panicum maximum -shattering of seeds and high level of bird attack before full maturity.• Inability to produce viable seeds of Brachiaria grass; seeds fall before maturity • Seed rates and spacing for some of the forages including alfalfa.• Rhodes grass -difficulty testing germination percentages in the lab; having low level of germination in the field; limited available varieties of the grass. • Limited experience in seed scarification and treatments.These challenges mentioned by the trainees were used as input in tailoring the training to meet the demands of the participants. Specifically, the training was fine-tuned to deepen their theoretical and practical understanding of quality forage seed production, handling with practical examples, and tips to overcome challenges in the production process. Moreover, a good platform was created for the participants to exchange ideas among themselves and share experience and enrich their knowledge through peer interactions.The training included plenary discussions, practical field work and a visit to the Herbage seed unit seed production and regeneration field at Bishoftu, ILRI Genebank lab and field activities, as well as the ILRI nutrition lab in Addis Ababa (See Annex II for the training program). The practical field work and visit to Addis Ababa lab were instrumental in showing trainees how to select and prepare land for forage seed production, sowing/planting techniques and isolation. ILRI's farm facility in Bishotu was used as demonstration site and trainees undertook practical exercise and sowed forage seeds that included Cajanus cajan (pigeon pea brows), Vigna unguiculata (herbaceous legume), Chloris gayana (grass) (in rows and broadcasting), Megathyrsus maximum (grass) by root splitting and Cenchrus purpureus (Napier grass) by cutting. Also, practical exercises of various methods of scarification (hot water, knife, sandpaper, machine etc.), were demonstrated including inoculation of legume seeds for nodule formation, methods of harvesting (hand picking, shaking, sweeping, striping, cutting with sickle and machine), post-harvest management such as stooking, sweating, bundles and windrowing; all seed processing/conditioning steps (drying, threshing pre-cleaning, cleaning grading, pesticide treatment and packaging) and the seed quality determination procedures/techniques (sampling, purity, germination, moisture content and seed health) were all demonstrated and practiced by the trainees. Finally, principles of seed storage and routine management of seed store were discussed.The following topics were covered in detail during training (in most of the cases, trainees were provided with the opportunity to work in groups and conduct practical field and lab work).Characteristics of important forage species and crops under different agro-ecological conditions:• Establishment and management of sown pastures • Fodder trees / shrubs (multi-purpose trees) • Forage germplasm • Forage integration in crop-livestock systems • Forage seed production possibilities and methods • Site selection for feed and seed production (soil, water, climate) • Forage seed crop establishment (land preparation, planting, scarification, isolation etc.)• Management of forage seed crops (weeding, pest, disease, fertilizer, irrigation etc.)• Harvesting of forage seeds (how and when) • Forage seeds processing (drying, threshing, cleaning, and grading)• Forage seed quality (purity, viability, moisture content and seed health)• Storage system of forage seedThe visit to ILRI's Gene Bank laboratories and field facilities as well as nutrition lab provided good understanding for the trainees. Training materials were given on the various topics including manuals, training modules, handout notes and copies of presentations.On the last day of the training, participants were given opportunities to reflect on the course program. The participants appreciated the training and thanked ILRI for the chance to upgrade their knowledge and skills. They mentioned that they got good lessons and tips to overcome some of the challenges they faced in their respective workplaces. They mentioned how routine inspection of forage plots is important to enable appropriate measures be taken at the right time. They said they were motivated to do things differently based on the new skills acquired. The trainees also appreciated the enormous alternative forage collections and options available at the ILRI Genebank for highland and lowland agro-ecologies and said they would make use of them. They requested for continuous support and collaboration between ILRI and their respective research centres as well as additional training on standard procedures of forage variety evaluation, (performance/biomass measurement), and lab analytical procedures.At the end, each training participant evaluated the course to get feedback. The results will be used to improve future courses (see Annex III).• Follow-up of the trainees to make sure they share the skill and knowledge gained in by training their teams. • Contact the centre directors for feedback on the improvement and progress made on forage seed production after the training, • Provide technical support based on demand from the centres.The feedback from this course will be used in future engagement between SAPLING and the national agricultural research system (NARS) in Ethiopia. New training topics suggested can be considered in future capacity building programs. The participants were encouraged to the make use of the training information, material, and facilities available at ILRI Bishoftu.Trainees in the field and lab (photo credits: Tesfaye Taddese and Asebe Abdena/ILRI).","tokenCount":"1076"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f025fe4f070cae91d53273a0f7108450","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c2df92ca-a291-45eb-89e6-d26f7b97b13c/retrieve","id":"132843918"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"40b1b44a-3808-49a4-8b57-933cdc0a6c04","pagecount":"27","content":"Scapsipedus icipe Hugel and Tanga (Orthoptera: Gryllidae) is a newly described edible cricket species. Although, there is substantial interest in mass production of S. icipe for human food and animal feed, no information exists on the impact of temperature on their bionomics. Temperature-dependent development, survival, reproductive and life table parameters of S. icipe was generated and integrated into advanced Insect Life Cycle Modeling software to describe relative S. icipe population increase and spatial spread based on nine constant temperature conditions. We examined model predictions and implications for S. icipe potential distribution in Africa under current and future climate. These regions where entomophagy is widely practiced have distinctly different climates. Our results showed that S. icipe eggs were unable to hatch at 10 and 40˚C, while emerged nymphs failed to complete development at 15˚C. The developmental time of S. icipe was observed to decrease with increased in temperature. The lowest developmental threshold temperatures estimated using linear regressions was 14.3, 12.67 and 19.12˚C and the thermal constants for development were 185.2, 1111.1-and 40.7-degree days (DD) for egg, nymph and pre-adult stages, respectively. The highest total fecundity (3416 individuals/female/generation), intrinsic rate of natural increase (0.075 days), net reproductive rate (1330.8 female/female/generation) and shortest doubling time (9.2 days) was recorded at 30˚C. The regions predicted to be suitable by the model suggest that S. icipe is tolerant to a wider range of climatic conditions. Our findings provide for the first-time important information on the impact of temperature on the biology, establishment and spread of S. icipe across the Africa continent. The prospect of edible S. icipe production to become a new sector in food and feed industry is discussed.Insect consumption is a practice that has increased but is still restricted to a few countries. Nearly 2000 species are reported edible and approximately 300 million people consume insects [1]. In Africa, nearly 500 consumable insects are reported to be eaten by human beings [2]. Edible insects form part of the diet of many Africans particularly as a delicacy. However, edible insect supply largely depends on wild harvesting. With the increasing advocacy of economically feasible and environmental sustainability, the blueprint of insect mass production has become a salient target [3].In Sub-Saharan Africa countries, many cricket species are considered for large-scale production [4][5][6]. These include Acheta domesticus Linnaeus, Gryllus bimaculatus De Geer and Gryllus texensis [3,[5][6][7]. Furthermore, a newly described indigenous cricket Scapsipedus icipe Hugel and Tanga was recently reported as one of the most promising species for use as food and feed in the continent [8][9]. In Kenya, S. icipe is the dominant and most wide-spread species across the low, mid and highlands [8].Commercial insect farming systems are emerging globally due the urgent need for both viable and sustainable alternative protein sources for improving the productivity of livestock and aquaculture sectors [10]. Recent scientific advances have demonstrated the potential of insects as an alternative sustainable protein-rich ingredient to the expensive conventional protein sources (i.e., soybeans, fish oil, fishmeal, seed cakes and several other grains), which accounts for 60-70% of production costs [11]. The animal feed sector in East Africa is organized, regulated and has broadly accepted insects as an alternative protein source [12]. Furthermore, the production of insects for human consumption to address acute food shortages and malnutrition is widely being promoted world [3,[10][11]13].Although S. icipe is consumed as food in Africa, information on their rate of development, thermal thresholds, survival, fecundity, fertility and longevity are lacking. Temperature is regarded as one of the most significant environmental conditions that impacts insect evolution, adult lifespan, survival, sex ratio, fertility and distribution [14][15][16][17][18]. Among the above listed performance indicators, the rate of development is conventionally used to quantify the effect of temperature. Preceding studies have shown that each insect population has an optimal temperature at which its development is most favorable as well as lower and upper temperature limits beyond which they cannot develop [18][19][20][21][22][23]. Several studies have demonstrated that stage-specific mortality carried out within widely varying temperatures are valuable tools in the study of population dynamics of insects as they help to measure the rate of mortality at different stages in the life cycle and determine optimal, lower and upper limits of developmental thresholds [15,[17][18].Based on these abiotic factors, distinct models have been employed to estimate the correlation between these variables especially temperature and development processes of insects. Generally, the interrelations between temperature and process rates are more or less linear at moderate temperatures and curvilineal at maximum points [24]. Linear models have many times been applied to determine the lower development temperature limit and thermic constant within a narrow temperature range, with an assumption that the upper development temperature limit is beyond the linear part of the correlation [19,25]. Nonlinear models have been advanced to relate the whole relationship that exists between the development of an insect species and its developmental temperature, which ranges from the lower developmental temperature threshold to an upper temperature threshold [23,[25][26][27][28]. Therefore, details on the thermic requirements of a newly described insect species' development would have significant implications for mass production programs, as temperature determines the increase of the population growth and size of any insect species and their differences under varying conditions [17][18]29].Considering the prospects of S. icipe in addressing food security, nutrition and employment in the region [9], it is crucial to carry out comprehensive studies to understand the influence of different temperature regimes on the bionomics of S. icipe, which is a prerequisite for mass production and quality control programs, if the optimal conditions are known. Based on these findings, we also wanted to know the potential distributional range of this new edible insect species in Africa using climate suitability map. The climate suitability map highlights areas with lower, optimal and upper developmental temperature thresholds where the species can survive and develop, thus providing enabling environment to inform policy decision making with regards to conservation of this new species where ever they may occur. Thus, temperature-dependent population growth life-cycle simulation models were used to assess their spread in various agroecological zones in Africa. The findings would inform geographically-targeted policies in order to guide biodiversity hotspots for the conservation of S. icipe, an important, abundant, and often ignored component of biodiversity. The strong performance of the model for hotspot prediction emphasizes the importance of including new species' natural history information [9] for conservation decision-making, which could be easily adaptable to other insect species [30]. The climate change impacts on S. icipe potential distribution and conservation is also discussed.The colony of S. icipe was initiated from wild populations [425 nymphs and 366 adult insects (248 females and 118 males)] trapped from the grassland fields in Coast, Central and Western of Kenya during a country-wide survey conducted in 2016. The wild field populations were reared according to the methods described by Magara et al. [9]. Adult crickets and nymphs were fed on formulated diets, which consisted of a mixture of different feedstocks (cornmeal, wheat bran, pumpkin leaves meal, fish offal meal and soybean waste meal) and maintained at 30˚C; 80±5% relative humidity and photoperiod of L12:D12, following the protocol described by Melisa [31] with slight modifications. The crickets were provided water regularly on soaked cotton balls (5 cm diameter) [9]. The stock colony was refreshed twice each year by introducing the F1 generation of newly harvested wild population of S. icipe to minimize inbreeding. The stock was raised for over eight generations before the commencement of the experiments. The stock colony is maintained at the International Centre of insect physiology and ecology (icipe), Duduville campus, Nairobi (1.221S, 36.896E; 1616 m above sea level) in the Animal Rearing and Containment Unit (ARCU). The cricket populations used in the present where obtained from the ARQU.The thermal effect on the development, survivorship/mortality and reproduction was investigated in a thermostatically controlled incubators (Sanyo, MIR-554) at nine constant temperature regimes (10, 15, 20, 23, 25, 30, 35, 37 and 40˚C), 80 ± 5% r.h. and L12:D12. A portable digital thermo-hygrometer was placed inside each incubator to record the temperature and relative humidity.To collect eggs of same age, 500 adult females and 500 adult males of S. icipe were placed in transparent plastic rearing cages (60 x 50 x 60 cm) with an opening sealed with a nylon mesh net to offer adequate ventilation [8][9][32][33]. The crickets were fed on an artificial feed as described above [9,31]. Moist cotton balls were provided in each cage to serve as oviposition medium. Freshly laid eggs (2-3 hours old) were carefully detached from the cotton balls using a fine camel hair brush. The eggs collected were incubated individually on thinly spread moist cotton wool, which was placed in a well-ventilated plastic cage (16 × 7 × 9 cm). Each temperature treatment had a total of 100 eggs, each serving as a replicate. For each temperature regime, each egg was monitored thrice daily (every six hours) for hatchability and percent mortality. The emerged nymphs were supplied with 1 mg of the artificial diet and water as described above. The duration of each moult (developmental time) and survivorship was recorded daily until adult emergence for each temperature treatment. The sex ratio of adults emerged from each temperature regime was also recorded. The survivorship data for each life stage was recorded and used to calculate stage-specific survivorship and mortality for each nymphal developmental period.To evaluate the impact of temperature on the body weight and body length of adult male and female S. icipe, 10 adult males and 10 adult females were randomly selected from those that emerged as adult in the above experiment. The crickets were transferred individually into transparent plastic cages (15 cm length x 10 cm wide 6cm depth) secured with a nylon screen. Water was provided ad libitum in Petri dishes using soaked pumice granules. Crickets were fed for 7 days until sexual maturity, when all the body colourations were attained. Thereafter, the weight of each cricket was measured using a digital electronic weighing balance with a precision of 0.0001 g (Kern and Sohn, D-72336 Ballngen, Germany). The width of each cricket's body was cautiously measured using digitalized Vernier callipers [34]. For the length of randomly selected individual crickets, each was placed in a thin transparent plastic container with a diameter of 8 cm and height of 12 cm. The container was then gently placed on a well-calibrated ruler, essential for traceability and accuracy measurement of the length of the cricket. Thereafter, a smaller transparent container with 4 cm diameter and 6 cm height was carefully used to cover the cricket inside the bigger container to significantly reduce mobility. Once stable the measurement of the length of the cricket was recorded with precision.Adult crickets emerged (2-3 hours old) from the previous experiment were randomly selected, paired and kept separately in aerated transparent cages (20 x 20 x 15 cm) subjected to the different temperature regimes. Each pair of crickets were provided water on pumice granules in a Petri dish and fed similar diets as described above. An oviposition substrate that consisted of a soaked cotton ball was placed inside sterile Petri dish (60 x 15 mm) in each cage for egg laying and to maintain the relative humidity. The oviposition substrate was exposed for 24 hours in each cage and thereafter eggs laid were counted daily using a moistened fine camel's hair brush. Total number of freshly laid eggs per day per female throughout the lifespan were collected and recorded within a uniform time interval of 2-3 hrs. The rate of hatchability of eggs produced at each temperature treatment was carefully established. Additional, parameters measured included: adult pre oviposition period (APOP; the timeframe between the emerged adult female and the beginning of egg laying), the total pre oviposition period (TPOP; the duration from newly hatched pinhead crickets to the time of first egg laying), the oviposition duration (refers to the entire egg laying period of the cricket), the day by day fecundity and total fecundity (sum number of eggs laid by an individual during its reproductive period), Post oviposition period (POP; Period between last egg laid and death of cricket), survival and longevity of each adult in each treatment temperature were recorded. A total of 20 pairs of adult crickets were observed at each tested temperature regime.An additional cohort of emerged adult (50 female and 50 male) crickets (2-3 hours old) from each temperature treatment was kept separately in groups in transparent Perspex cages (45 x 45 x 50 cm). From each of the different temperature treatments, the longevity and survival rate of male and female crickets were recorded separately.The data on the developmental time of the various life stages of S. icipe, adult longevity and females' fecundity were compared across temperatures using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA; P < 0.001) and the means were separated using Student-Newman-Keul's test at a significance of 0.05 (P < 0.05) in R Statistic (Version 3.3.3) [35]. Temperature-dependent models or functions were used to model the demographic characteristics of S. icipe, by employing the Insect Life Cycle Modelling program (ILCYM, version 3.0) [36]. This program has a function builder that fits non-linear models as descriptors of correlation between temperature and insect development characteristics. The function builder then utilizes its inbuilt statistical criteria, combined with the data on the biology of the insect species under investigation, selects the best fitting functions to describe the intermediate temperature-driven processes. After that, it amasses the processes into a phenological model for the population under assessment [36]. Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC), which defines the best fit of an estimated statistical model and the coefficient of determination R 2 , which is the portion of variation explained by the function, as statistics used for model selection. The lower the AIC, the better the model while the higher the R 2 , the better the model. A female ratio of 0.5 was taken into account for all the temperature treatments under study.The rate of development of juveniles of S. icipe was evaluated as an inverse of development time (rate of development = 1/median of developmental time) [37], for each juvenile stage and the total developmental duration from egg to adult stage, and then plotted versus temperature. The linear part of the rate of the developmental curve was modelled employing linear regression analysis hence establishing the relationship between the rate of development and temperature [36]. The following linear equation was adopted:whereby r(T) refers to the rate of development at temperature T, and constants a and b are estimated values of the intercept and slope, accordingly. The lower limit temperature (T min ) was determined at the intersection of the regression line at r (T) = 0, T min ¼ À a b . Thermal constant, K also referred to as degree-day (DD) requirements) were evaluated using the inverse of the slope of the inserted linear regression line [38].The linear model cannot correctly capture the rate of development at extreme temperatures. Therefore, by using AIC selection criteria [39] and R 2 , a nonlinear Logan 1 model [26] and Allahyari model [23] were fitted between the rate of development, r (T) and temperature, T to determine the correlation between temperature and development by use of the Marquardt algorithm equation [40]. The Logan 1 model was applied to the egg stage while Allahyari model was applied to the young nymphal stages (i.e., nymph and pre-adult data generated).The Logan 1 equation is provided as:whereby r (T) refers to the development rate of the insect at temperature T; while Y, p and v are constants values. This model estimated the upper lethal temperature where there is no measurable development and lower temperature limit below which the linear regression estimated no measurable development. The Allahyari equation is given as:� whereby r (T) refers to the development rate at temperature T, P refers to the number of model parameters while n and m are constants values, T max is the maximum lethal temperature and T min is the minimum lethal temperature [23]. The maximum lethal temperature (T max ) and the temperature for the shortest development time was estimated from the Logan models for each immature stage and the total development from egg to adult. Optimum temperature (T opt ) for survival (= temperature for lowest mortality) was estimated from the models for each immature stage.Mortality of eggs and nymphs at various constant temperatures were best determined by the Wang 2 equation [41] whereas Wang 3 equation [41] provided the best curve for mortality of the pre-adult, respectively. The Wang 2 and Wang 3 equations were given as:whereby m (T) is the mortality rate at temperature T (˚C), T l is the minimum lethal temperature, T h is maximum lethal temperature, T opt is the optimal temperature for survival, while B and H are constant values of model parameters. In both Wang 2 and Wang 3 models refers to the natural exponential.A Wang 7 function [41] was considered as a suitable model in assessing the impacts of temperature on fecundity. At the same time, the relative oviposition frequency, which demonstrates the portion of total lifespan reproductive capacity that passes in each time period, was assessed in connection to the normalized age of adult female crickets at a particular temperature. The cumulative oviposition rate was graphed against the normalized age indicated as a ratio of age in days over the average survival time. The Gamma equation [42] was utilized to fit the experimental datasets and further help to evaluate parameters, for example, H, B1 and B h . The Wang 7 function was provided as:whereby f (T) refers to the fecundity at temperature T (˚C), x is the maximum fecundity, T opt is the temperature at which maximum fecundity occurs, and H, B1 and B h are other model parameters.An exponential function was applied to recount the age-specific fecundity rate per temperature. The cumulative rate of oviposition was then plotted against normalized females' age presented as a ratio of the age of female crickets in days divided by average survival time. The exponential equation function is given as:whereby O(E) refers to the cumulative oviposition frequency female crickets, E is the normalized age of female crickets indicated as a ratio of the age of female cricket in days and average survival time while a, b and c are function parameters.The cumulative frequencies of the adult crickets' life span and treatment temperatures were plotted versus normalized developmental times by fitting in Hilbert and Logan 3 [43] function for adult female crickets and Exponential simple function for adult male crickets. Hilbert and Logan 3 function is given as:whereby T is temperature, T max is the thermal maximum, T min refers to the lowest thermal limit below which development cannot take place (= temperature development threshold) and T max , is the uppermost thermal limit beyond which development will not take place while Dt, D, and trid are parameters to be estimated by least squares nonlinear analysis. The least squares estimated value of T max was used as a limit mark for viable temperature conditions for S. icipe. Exponential Simple function was given as:whereby s (T) is the rate of adult senescence while b1 and b2 are function parameters.The oviposition was modelled by looking at the three temperature-dependent functions: thus, temperature dependent total fecundity, age-related oviposition frequency and age-specific survival of adult crickets. Hilbert and Logan 3 formulae were applied to evaluate the effects of various constant treatment temperatures on a total number of eggs oviposited by a female cricket throughout her lifetime.The models developed for S. icipe demographic characteristics were compiled and utilized to determine the life table parameters. Using stochastic simulation tool [44] in ILCYM, the life table parameters such as the gross reproductive rate (GRR), which refers to the mean number of nymph daughters bred by a living female during her reproductive period, the net reproductive rate (R o ), which also takes into account mother mortality, the intrinsic rate of increase (r m ), which is summarized from all the demographic variables indicating the ability of a population to grow under particular environmental conditions, the mean generation time (T), and doubling time (Dt) for the population were estimated. During simulations, 100 individuals at the egg stage were involved and the simulation was conducted for six constant temperatures from 20, 23, 25, 30, 35 and 37˚C. The simulation was replicated six times for each temperature. This offered to signify how the change in temperature can influence S. icipe population growth and to estimate the temperature thresholds of S. icipe population growth. The simulated life table parameters were analysed using ANOVA in R (Version 3.3.0) [35].The temperature information used for spatial simulations in the current scenario was obtained from WorldClim at http://www.worldclim.org. The information was a set of worldwide climate layers (grids) with completely different spatial resolutions that contain monthly average minimum, maximum and mean temperatures that were interpolated from historical temperature records worldwide (NOAA data) between 1950 and 2000. The temperature data is well recorded in Hijmans et al. [45]. For spatial population simulations and model output validations at totally different locations (point-by-point) temperature information directly obtained from native weather stations were used.For simulating population parameters for S. icipe for the year 2050 (future scenario) we employed downsized data of the SRES-A1B [46] to project temperature changes. The predictions developed on the WorlClim data bank are reported by Govindasamy et al [47]. The downsizing of data which was conducted by Ramirez and Jarvis [48] is freely available at http://gisweb.ciat.cgiar.org/GCMPage. For point-by-point analysis, empirical data were chosen as baseline data, and we assumed increases of 1, 1.6, 2.4 and 2.8˚C global temperature that may be the average global temperature change according to the A1B model within the years 2030, 2050, 2080, and 2100, respectively.The eggs of S. icipe were unable to hatch at 10 and 40˚C, while emerged nymphs failed to complete development to adult at 15˚C. The nymphal stages of S. icipe were found to complete development within the temperature range of 20-37˚C. The number of moults from 1 st nymphal instar to preadult stage was observed to decrease significantly with increasing temperature. The highest number of moults were recorded at 20˚C (10 moults), followed by 23˚C (9 th moults) and 25-37˚C (8 th moults) (Table 1).Average developmental time of the immature life stages of S. icipe varied considerably (eggs: F 5, 5226 = 11371, P < 0.0001; nymphs: F 5, 214 = 91.67, P < 0.0001; Pre-adult: F 5, 408 = 2065, P < 0.0001) across the various temperature treatments (Table 1). The developmental time from egg to adult varied significantly across the different temperatures (Female: F 5, 208 = 2447, P < 0.001; Male: F 5, 193 = 4533, P < 0.001). The average developmental time of the eggs decreased from 76.2 days at 15˚C to 9.6 days at 35˚C. Similarly, the mean developmental time of the nymphal stages was significantly (F 29, 340 = 695.6, P < 0.001) shorter (3.9 times) at 37˚C compared to that recorded at 20˚C (Table 1). The developmental rate of each immature life stage of S. icipe was best described by the Logan 1 function and Allahyari function (Fig 1;Table 2 and Table 3). Interestingly, the sex ratio of S. icipe was female-biased at 20, 23 and 30˚C, while that at 35 and 37˚C was male-biased (Fig 1). For adult longevity, male crickets lived significantly longer than the females when subjected to various temperatures regimes (F 5, 401 = 7.60; P < 0.001). The same trend was observed for the total lifespan of the crickets (F 5, 401 = 9.65; P < 0.001) when exposed to the different temperature treatments.The lowest thermal limits for development was estimated from the linear regression were: 14.3˚C, 12.7˚C and 19.1˚C for eggs, nymphs and the pre-adult stage, respectively (Table 3). The mean thermal constant required for each life stage to complete development was 185.2, 1111.1 and 40.7, Degree days (DD) for eggs, nymph and pre-adult, respectively. The optimum temperature for development of the eggs, nymphs and pre-adult was recorded at 35˚C (Fig 2). The upper-developmental threshold of S. icipe was estimated at 39.5˚C for egg, 43.5˚C for nymphs and 39.2˚C for pre-adults (Table 3).The mortality of eggs and nymphal stages at various constant temperatures was best described by the Wang 2 function (S1 Table ) while that of the pre-adult stage was best fitted by Wang  No significant interaction was observed between S. icipe's body length, sex and temperature (F 5,108 = 0.39, P = 0.8500). However, there was a significant difference in male and female body length when reared at different temperatures (F 1, 108 = 68.69, P = 0.0001; Fig 4). The highest body length of S. icipe was recorded at 30˚C for both females and males, followed by 25˚C and 35˚C. The lowest body length was recorded at 20˚C and 37˚C for both sexes (Fig 4). There was a significant interaction between body weight, sex of S. icipe and temperatures (F 5, 108 = 3.13, P<0.0001). The body weight of S. icipe males and females was found to be significantly difference when compared at different temperatures (Female F 5, 54 = 87.22, P<0.0001; Male F = F 5, 54 = 111.30, P<0.0001). The heaviest females and males were recorded at 30˚C (Fig 4). The body length and body weight of S. icipe was found to be strongly correlated (R = 0.88; P < 0.0001). Scapsipedus icipe was observed to lay eggs at six constant temperatures ranging between 20-37˚C (Table 4). However, the total number of eggs laid per female varied considerably across the various temperature treatments (F The adult preoviposition period and the total preoviposition period were inversely correlated to temperature (Table 4). Adult preoviposition (F 5, 209 = 292.7; P < 0.001) and total preoviposition period (F 5, 209 = 1776; P < 0.001) were significantly higher at 20˚C compared to the other temperature treatments. Generally, the oviposition period (F 5, 209 = 136.9; P < 0.001) was observed to increase drastically from 20˚C to 30˚C, before decreasing thereafter to reach the lowest value at 37˚C. The post-oviposition period was found to varied significantly (F 5, 209 = 41.74; P < 0.001) when compared across the different temperature treatments. The post-oviposition duration of S. icipe was significantly shorter as females died between 2-3 days, after the last egg production cycle at 30, 35 and 37˚C but lived between 9-12 days at 20, 23 and 25˚C (Table 4).The longevity of adult females and male S. icipe were observed to decrease significantly with increasing temperature (Table 5). The same trend was observed in the lifespan of both females   For S. icipe the highest intrinsic rate of increase (r m ), net reproduction rate (R o ), Growth reproductive rate (GRR), finite of increase (λ), and the shortest (Dt) was recorded at 30˚C (Table 6  The prediction shows that under the current climate scenario, S. icipe can establish in the tropics, especially in countries closer to the equator (Fig 8A). In Eastern Africa, the model showed that S. icipe can establish in some parts of Kenya, most of Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and Southern Sudan. The potential distributional range of S. icipe also expanded to the horn of Africa (Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea and Djibouti). In Central Africa, the model prediction revealed that S. icipe can thrive in Cameroon, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Congo, São Tome ´and Prı ´ncipe. Climatic suitability of S. icipe demonstrate that this species can perform better in most Western Africa countries such as Benin, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Chad, Niger, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. For Southern Africa countries, S. icipe might be able to thrive in Mozambique and Malawi. Madagascar, which is an island in the Indian Ocean, was partly predicted to be climatically suitable. This is a promising pointer that S. icipe can be grown and utilized as food and feed in many parts of Africa because of climatic suitability (Fig 8A). Under future climate change scenario (2050), there was a clear indication that S. icipe can expand its range to covered new elevations that were not optimal or highly suitable under the current climate scenarios (Fig 8B). For instance, in East Africa, the model revealed that S. icipe is able to establish comfortably in most of the altitudinal zones of Uganda and Kenya. In Tanzania it can establish in many areas apart from a few areas around the Central region of Tanzania. Burundi is also earmarked to be a highly suitable area where black soldier fly can thrive compared to the current climate scenarios. In Western Africa, the intensity of climate  Means in the same row followed by the same letters are not significantly different (Student-Newman-Keul's test: P>0.05). Adult pre-ovipostion period (APOP) is the period between the emergence of adult female and the onset of egg laying, Post oviposition period (POP) is the period of time from the last egg lay and when the adult female dies) https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222941.t004suitability in all the countries predicted was shown to be more pronounced. In southern Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Swaziland, Namibia and parts of South Africa and neighboring Zimbabwe showed marginal suitability. Madagascar was shown to be more suitability under future climate change scenario (i.e. by 2050).This study was aimed at providing information on S. icipe development, growth, reproduction and survival at different constant temperatures. Temperature is a known climatic factor that impacts the population growth and geographical distribution of insects [17,[49][50]. Being a new species, this is the first assessment of the effect of temperature on the life table parameters as well as its potential African-wide distribution based on temperture-dependent phenology model. The findings from our study show that temperature significantly impacts the bionomics of S. icipe. Our results concur with that of previous studies with other cricket species [51][52][53][54]. Scapsipedus icipe developed, survived and reproduced successfully across the various  temperature regimes except at 10 and 40˚C. The eggs failed to hatch 10˚C, which was probably due to freezing injuries or desiccated at 40˚C. At 15˚C, hatched nymphs were unable to develop beyond the third nymphal stage. The number of moults to adult stage varied significantly between eight (8) and ten (10). Contrarily, other crickets such as Gryllus bimaculatus De Geer has 9-11 nymphal stages [55][56], Acheta domesticus Linnaeus has 8-15 nymphal stages [56][57][58] and Acheta configuratus (Walker) has 11 nymphal stages [56,58]. The difference in the number of moults translates to an overall developmental time ranging between 2 and 8.5 months for S. icipe at 37˚C and 20˚C, respectively. Similar trend of developmental pattern has been reported for A. domesticus, which varied between 1.63 and 3.83 months when subjected at 28˚C and 25˚C, respectively [52]. The sex ratio was male-biased at higher temperatures (35   and 37˚C) and strongly female-biased at lower temperature thresholds (20 and 23˚C). However, at 25˚C the sex ratio was unbiased. While a similar impact of temperature on the sex ratio has been shown earlier in the giant water bugs, Abedus indentatus [59] and Belosloma flumineum [60], our results provide the first experimental demonstration of temperature effects on the sex ratio of crickets.Models that best describe the relationship between developmental time and change in temperature must be unimodal and estimates the lower, optimum and upper thermal requirements of the insect under study [61]. The Logan 1 and Allahyari models were the best fits properly describing the relationship between temperature and developmental rate of S. icipe. These findings are in agreement with that of previous studies by Bowling [62], who worked with Acheta domesticus and proof that a shift from 29.4˚C to 35˚C had a huge impact on the nymphal developmental duration, which decreased by 28 days. The lower development thresholds described by the linear model is in line with that for other insect species [17-18, 36, 63-65]. At the optimal temperature threshold, S. icipe had the highest survival rate accompanied by short generation time, which are considered as important criteria for mass production [65][66]. According to Patton [67], life table studies obtained under constant temperatures provide useful information on the biology and ecology of insects, which explain the dynamics that might occur within and between S. icipe populations subjected at various temperature regimes. The oviposition duration decreased with increased and lasted for 22 days at 30˚C for S. icipe, which is contrary to 9 days at 30˚C for A. domesticus [67][68]. The highest number of eggs of S. icipe were laid at 30˚C, while that of A. domesticus is known to occur between 27-32˚C [69]. According to Adamo and Lovett [53], egg laying by Gryllus texensis followed that same pattern as that of S. icipe. Our results revealed that the fecundity of S. icipe increases with body size, which is in accordance to that reported for other insect species [70]. These are consistent with that of both Forrest [71] and Hone ˇk [72], who in reference to insects, affirmed that female body size was generally a good predictor of fecundity. A positive linear or log-linear relationship between body size and fecundity (number of eggs laid over a lifespan) has been demonstrated in representatives of several insect orders [73][74][75][76]. Our results also demonstrated that S. icipe female lifespan was significantly shorter than that of the male counterparts at all temperature treatments, which agrees with that of previous studies [77][78][79][80].Temperature is a crucial factor that influences the body length and body weight of crickets [52][53]81]. Identification of the optimal developmental temperature threshold that provides bigger body size and heavy weight S. icipe in this study is a prerequisite for higher productivity, profitability and sustainable farming of the insect. Our findings revealed that the body length and body weight of female S. icipe was significantly higher compared to the males across all temperatures but both sexes experienced drastic decline of these parameters at 35 and 37˚C, while optimum values were recorded at 30˚C. The increase body weight and size observed at 30˚C can be partially attributed to increase feed intake [53]. At each nymphal molt, body size increases by about the same factor, which leads to an exponential size increase from instar to instar, and this means that most of the body mass accumulates during the last larval instar [82]. Whether molting is gated in S. icipe by some specific factors is largely unclear, therefore more investigation is needed in this direction. However, Nijhout et al. [82] successfully demonstrated that there are developmental mechanisms that control body size and control timing events in tobacco hornworm Manduca sexta (L.) and the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster Meigen. For examples, Manduca sp., has been reported to grows from about 1.2 grams to about 12 grams during its last larval instar, so growth during this instar accounts for about 90% of final body mass [82][83]. In Drosophila, the last instar larva grows from 0.5 mg to about 1.8 mg, gaining about 70% of its final mass during that stage.The current study concurred with the hypotheses stated by Stevens [84], which shows that the temperature an insect can tolerate is directly proportionate to the subjected temperature change of the insect. The 100% mortality recorded at lower temperatures can be attributed to enzymatic reactions being inactivated while at higher temperatures these enzymes that play a vital role in the survival of S. icipe cricket are denatured leading to cessation life [53,85]. The Wang 2 function [41] illustrated well the mortality of the eggs and nymphal stages of S. icipe while Wang 3 function [41] fitted best for the mortality of pre-adult stage of S. icipe. These models predicted the temperatures for optimum survival of S. icipe at 30˚C, which is different from that reported by Bowling [62] for Acheta domesticus with optimal survival temperature at 35˚C beyond which development was observed to decline.The life table parameters of S. icipe across the different temperature treatments varied considerably. The highest total fecundity, highest intrinsic rate of natural increase, highest net reproductive rate and shortest doubling time were recorded at 30˚C. The time required for the population of S. icipe to double at temperatures ranging from 25 to 30˚C varied from 17.5 days to approximately 9.3 days. Below 25˚C, this time significantly increased. The regions predicted to be suitable by the model suggest that S. icipe is tolerant to a wider range of climatic conditions. This may explain to some extent the higher survival rate at the nymphal stages of S. icipe as a result of the strong endurance to each temperature conditions in our study. Reproduction remains one of the most important determinants of population fitness, especially in S. icipe that typically produce most offspring at an early age and have no parental care. Understanding the demographic parameters of S. icipe is essential to develop a profitable and sustainable mass production, given that these parameters provide the population growth rate of a species in the current and next generations [8,86]. The present study provides novel information about life table parameters and biotic potential of S. icipe.This marks the first attempt at modelling the distributional range of the newly described edible cricket S. icipe using temperature-dependent phenology data. The models demonstrate that S. icipe is more tolerant to a wider range of environmental conditions. The current and future scenarios remarkably align with almost all the African countries where entomophagy is widely practiced by the various communities as a traditional heritage [2]. Zooming to specific regions of the continent, our models reaffirm that Central Africa regions remains the most important biodiversity hotspot for edible insects, followed by Southern Africa, Eastern Africa and West Africa. All the areas predicted by the model have been earlier assessment by van Huis [87] and Ramos-Elorduy [88] who reported 246 species of edible insects from 27 countries and 524 species from 34 African countries, respectively. Several authors have reported that in the communities of predicted countries, it is common to find several species of insects being consume [2,[89][90][91][92][93]. Other countries practicing entomophagy and earmarked by the model as climatically suitable for the establishment of S. icipe included: Madagascar and Mozambique. Although the distributional range of S. icipe has not been fully documented after having been proposed as a new species, we speculate that this might not be too different from those reported by Kelemu et al. [2]. Thus, this offers plausible justification to continue to assess the occurrence of S. icipe in the African continent, to have a snap-shot of their spread to new locations. The ecological shift observed in the future scenario of the model showed that S. icipe has the potential to gradually expand its distributional range to the warmer regions of the tropics and subtropics that would favour population growth of subsequent generations of S. icipe [8,46,[94][95][96].We believe that the model described here is useful for optimizing mass rearing technologies for S. icipe (Fig 9) and provides addition information that may aid in decision-making. We recognize the limitations of our projected model but believe that it represents a novel technique and a potentially powerful tool for biodiversity conservation and further research on S. icipe and other edible insects as food and feed in Africa and beyond.","tokenCount":"6509"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b6cb49f0299ed9ba4f94d8aed7cb690a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/79efbc94-d707-42ff-a17a-ed7f05f97638/retrieve","id":"327826412"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"517300da-f535-44da-b60c-1a00515b7827","pagecount":"2","content":"It is with eager anticipation that the Crop Trust and 11 CGIAR Centers of the Genebank Platform share this proposal. It presents the essential activities of the CGIAR genebanks of making available and promoting the use of the crop and tree genetic resources that they conserve on behalf of the global community. Identifying and using such genetic variation contributes fundamentally to enhanced productivity, sustainability and resilience of agrifood-systems worldwide. This work represents an essential global public service that the CGIAR is obligated to perform under international legal agreement. We welcome all participation and collaboration in making this important service even better. This proposal builds upon the 'Genebank Options Paper', which was approved for support by the CGIAR Fund Council 13. We have responded to reviewers' comments by demonstrating a better interconnected body of work and a more outward looking and receptive face to the genebanks. The proposal template limits the freedom to elaborate what we perceive to be the important details of the Genebank Platform, but we hope that we have succeeded in conveying a strong sense of direction, collaborative action, motivation organization and continual improvement.To sum up some of the highlights, the Genebank Platform aims to:  ensure that genebank operations are fully sustained and strengthened within a validated quality management framework;  ensure that all collections are available, safety duplicated and documented according to performance targets;  gain efficiencies in operations that result in reduction of costs, using a science based and rationalized approach;  strengthen the capacity and management of germplasm health units;  provide a global response to the threats affecting in situ crop diversity through targeted, multi-crop collecting in partnership with NARS;  strengthen the global system of institutes and instruments that contribute to the conservation and use of genetic resources globally;  develop a totally new experience for the genebank user based on modernized and ideally visual, information search tools and much enriched data;  change the culture between genebank and user so that information flows more easily between them and adds value to the collections;  ensure compliance across the system with international genetic resources policy;  take full advantage of the new portfolio structure and other systemwide platforms to deliver sub-IDO 4.4. of increased conservation and use of genetic resources and Target 2.5 of the Sustainable Development Goals.This proposal is the result of a group effort; we have made the most of the genomics, policy, phytosanitary, data management and germplasm conservation experts in the group. A key aim of bringing the genebanks under one umbrella is to exploit this wealth of expertise within the genebank community to enable all Centers to rise to the same high and exacting standards, and to strengthen the common goods that exist within the system for the benefit of the whole. Important steps have already been made in this regard within the Genebank CRP, especially for conservation activities. The reorientated approach to the Platform with its Use and Policy Modules aims to give the genebanks more capacity to achieve change in its interaction with users to ensure stronger collaboration, exchange and use of the diversity in the collections.The Platform follows the concepts conveyed in the 'Options Paper' with a strict adherence to supporting only essential operations of the genebanks. The proposed governance and management mechanisms are intended to ensure that the Platform complements closely the work of the AFS-CRPs and avoids duplication of activities or supporting work that the genebanks are not best placed to do. The genebanks look to and depend on the Genetic Gains Platform and AFS-CRPs as the main generators of value adding data. However, it is important to remember that many crops or components of major crop genepools are not the focus of the AFS-CRPs. We propose here, as an initiative for 'uplift' funding, to comprehensively genotype all of the collections in a leap towards a vision of understanding and improving the diversity represented in the collections, bringing in a new level of quality control and management, and facilitating dramatically its use. While some may consider this to be a wild ambition right now, the time is fast approaching when such an initiative would only be what is expected of the CGIAR. Whether this ambition is realized or not, we remain highly dependent on a healthy collaboration with our sister Platforms and CRPs within a fully-integrated CGIAR portfolio. A dedicated effort to examine points of integration will be very important in the next phase of proposal or workplan development, and we advocate strongly for the AFS-CRPs to ensure that Genebank Platform representatives take part in the planning and development of their programs of work, just as the Genetic Gains Platform has.We look forward to receiving your comments and review. In the meantime, I wish to recognize the efforts of all of the genebank managers and collaborators who took a role in developing and improving this proposal and particularly to the proposal Writing Team: Dave Ellis (CIP), Ruaraidh Sackville Hamilton (IRRI), Jean Hansen (ILRI), Lava Kumar (IITA), Charlotte Lusty (Crop Trust), Tom Payne (CIMMYT) and Peter Wenzl (Crop Trust/CIAT).Sincerely,Executive Director Global Crop Diversity Trust","tokenCount":"850"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"21c79d2f97b5fa38ab6ba70170988119","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/219797d4-f1ed-4a53-b303-6557a777cff3/content","id":"1835129792"},"keywords":["Sehgal, D.","Dhakate, P.","Ambreen, H.","Shaik, K.H.B.","Rathan, N.D.","Anusha, N.M.","Deshmukh, R.","Vikram, P. Wheat Omics: Advancements and Opportunities omics","wheat","genomics","transcriptomics","proteomics","metabolomics","multiomics"],"sieverID":"c0c919e7-b715-4062-9ffa-69fe6368be50","pagecount":"23","content":"Plant omics, which includes genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics and proteomics, has played a remarkable role in the discovery of new genes and biomolecules that can be deployed for crop improvement. In wheat, great insights have been gleaned from the utilization of diverse omics approaches for both qualitative and quantitative traits. Especially, a combination of omics approaches has led to significant advances in gene discovery and pathway investigations and in deciphering the essential components of stress responses and yields. Recently, a Wheat Omics database has been developed for wheat which could be used by scientists for further accelerating functional genomics studies. In this review, we have discussed various omics technologies and platforms that have been used in wheat to enhance the understanding of the stress biology of the crop and the molecular mechanisms underlying stress tolerance.Wheat is a widely grown staple cereal crop covering an area of 217 million ha annually and meets the dietary demands of 2.5 billion people globally [1]. Its production is severely affected by biotic and abiotic stresses throughout its production zones [2][3][4] leading to a large gap between the potential yield and the real harvest yield. The projected global demand for wheat by 2050 [5] demands that scientists and breeders should adopt newer tools and technologies to accelerate the development of high-yielding varieties that can adapt to challenging environments.With the recent advancements in wheat omics, which include genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics and proteomics, extensive research has been conducted to decipher the mechanism(s) of stress tolerance, leading to the enhanced understanding of the expression of different genes along with their protein profiling and the biological mechanisms underlying various stress tolerance traits [6,7]. To handle massive data points generated by all omics approaches, new analytical tools, high-throughput data analysis pipelines and omics databases have been developed [8][9][10][11]. For example, a Wheat Omics database has been recently developed, which combines multiple omics data gathered from different tissues and germplasm sets harboring more than 100,000 novel annotated transcripts [10]. It has various user-friendly tools, including BLAST, Primer Server, Homolog Finder, Interval-Tool, etc., and various functionalities to investigate gene expression, co-expression, protein Plants 2023, 12, 426 2 of 23 interactions and synteny. WheatGmap database (https://www.wheatgmap.org, accessed on 10 October 2022) was recently developed, which integrates multiple mapping models and large amounts of public data to facilitate functional genomics research [11]. It contains more than 3500 next-generation sequencing (NGS) datasets, including whole genome sequencing (WGS), whole exome sequencing (WES) and transcriptome deep-sequencing (RNA-seq) datasets. These recent developments will allow wheat scientists to further enrich the knowledge of differentially regulated genes under various stress conditions and unravel the complex regulatory interplay of different biological processes in response to multiple stresses in fields. It is anticipated that these advances will play pivotal roles in wheat breeding and trait optimization.In the past few years, the use of multi-omics has become a leading approach in elucidating the responses to biotic and abiotic stresses and in building prediction models in crops, thus allowing multidimensional research in several crops, including wheat [12,13]. Figure 1 illustrates different omics approaches that are generally deployed in crops. This review highlights various omics/multi-omics approaches and technological advancements that have been utilized in wheat for identifying genes underpinning stress tolerance, investigating the biochemical changes in response to stress, understanding protein-protein interactions and regulating metabolic pathways evolved to tolerate and/or escape stresses. Various case studies have been discussed at length under different sections to better understand the methodology in detail and to realize how the research outputs from omics/multi-omics research could be used in breeding.database has been recently developed, which combines multiple omics data gathered from different tissues and germplasm sets harboring more than 100,000 novel annotated transcripts [10]. It has various user-friendly tools, including BLAST, Primer Server, Homolog Finder, IntervalTool, etc., and various functionalities to investigate gene expression, co-expression, protein interactions and synteny. WheatGmap database (https://www.wheatgmap.org, accessed on 10 October 2022) was recently developed, which integrates multiple mapping models and large amounts of public data to facilitate functional genomics research [11]. It contains more than 3500 next-generation sequencing (NGS) datasets, including whole genome sequencing (WGS), whole exome sequencing (WES) and transcriptome deep-sequencing (RNA-seq) datasets. These recent developments will allow wheat scientists to further enrich the knowledge of differentially regulated genes under various stress conditions and unravel the complex regulatory interplay of different biological processes in response to multiple stresses in fields. It is anticipated that these advances will play pivotal roles in wheat breeding and trait optimization.In the past few years, the use of multi-omics has become a leading approach in elucidating the responses to biotic and abiotic stresses and in building prediction models in crops, thus allowing multidimensional research in several crops, including wheat [12,13]. Figure 1 illustrates different omics approaches that are generally deployed in crops. This review highlights various omics/multi-omics approaches and technological advancements that have been utilized in wheat for identifying genes underpinning stress tolerance, investigating the biochemical changes in response to stress, understanding proteinprotein interactions and regulating metabolic pathways evolved to tolerate and/or escape stresses. Various case studies have been discussed at length under different sections to better understand the methodology in detail and to realize how the research outputs from omics/multi-omics research could be used in breeding. Advancement in NGS technologies has propelled a massive wave of scientific discoveries, providing enormous modern genomic tools and resources for wheat genetic improvement and bringing a paradigm shift in breeding methods [14]. Innovations have been made in the development of efficient genotyping platforms in wheat which could be combined with physical maps for rapid gene discovery [15][16][17]. Advancements in single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping arrays now allow thousands of markers to be screened in large populations, providing tangible information in an expeditious and Advancement in NGS technologies has propelled a massive wave of scientific discoveries, providing enormous modern genomic tools and resources for wheat genetic improvement and bringing a paradigm shift in breeding methods [14]. Innovations have been made in the development of efficient genotyping platforms in wheat which could be combined with physical maps for rapid gene discovery [15][16][17]. Advancements in single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping arrays now allow thousands of markers to be screened in large populations, providing tangible information in an expeditious and inexpensive mode. Over the years, several SNP arrays have been developed for genotyping wheat, showing continuous improvement in terms of their effectiveness to differentiate diverse wheat genotypes. A 9K iSelect array was developed based on gene-associated SNPs and assessed the functional diversity of 2994 wheat accessions [18]. Additionally, aPlants 2023, 12, 426 3 of 23 high-density 90K SNP chip was developed that was subsequently used for the generation of a 15K Infinium array [19,20]. An Affymetrix Axiom 820K SNP array, targeted the identification of polymorphisms in bread wheat and close relatives, including members from secondary and tertiary gene pools [21]. This array was further exploited to derive a 35K Wheat Breeders Array which was found to be highly equipped to genotype elite wheat accessions, including landraces from breeding programs [22]. Whole genome resequencing data from eight wheat lines were employed to develop a 280K SNP array for effective discrimination between closely related wheat accessions [23].Recently, previously reported seven wheat SNP arrays were evaluated to design a cumulative 660K Axiom SNP array with wider applicability [17]. Based on a novel approach, an imputation-enabled SNP array, Illumina Infinium Wheat Barley 40K SNP array version 1.0, has been designed to capture the haplotypic diversity in wheat and barley germplasm [24]. In addition to the reliable and cost-effective SNP chip arrays, NGSbased genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) has been used to detect global variation in wheat germplasm for various applications [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34].In the past decade, several reference genomes sequences have been released for wheat, including durum wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. durum;) [35,36] bread wheat (T. aestivum) [9, [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44] and its progenitor species including wild emmer (T. turgidum spp. dicoccoides) [35] wild goatgrass (Aegilops tauschii) [45][46][47] and T. urartu [48]. These near-complete assemblies, for the first time, depicted the true genomic landscape of wheat and provided genome-wide navigation into repeat and gene families, transforming the entire field of wheat genomics. The availability of multiple high-quality reference genomes and resequencing data from several genotypes in wheat has revealed a high proportion of genomic variation [40]. Moreover, an awareness that a single reference genome is inadequate to represent the complete diversity within the species has catalyzed the expansion of a pan-genomic era in wheat. Pan-genomes aim at investigating the entire sequence diversity within a species, captured from the core/universal (present in all individuals) and divergent/variable (specific to a few individuals) genomic components, which could potentially be applied for understanding the genetic basis of important agronomic traits [49]. The first wheat pan-genome, based on the gene content of 18 cultivars, identified a new gene space along with the exploration of variable genes through presence/absence variation (PAV) analysis with respect to the classical reference genome of Chinese Spring [50]. Functional annotation of the variable gene components of the studied wheat cultivars exhibited the enrichment of genes involved in the response to abiotic and biotic stresses. The dispensable gene sets were shown to harbour more genomic variation as compared to core genes and were projected to play an important role in maintaining crop diversity.The reference genome assemblies have served as a key component for in-silico identification and characterization of known and novel gene families with functional implications in various biotic and abiotic stresses. For instance, examination of nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeats (NLR) gene family revealed a highly variable and complex repertoire of the NLR-encoding resistance gene family [40]. Only 30-34% of NLR signatures were conserved among the studied lines and a large number of unique signatures were reserved in individual genotypes, providing high-resolution variation information which could be exploited for the development of disease-resilient wheat cultivars. Additionally, exploration of a novel gene family facilitates the identification of gene members, analysis of their gene structure and duplication events, evolutionary relationships, spatial and temporal expression dynamics and assignment of putative function. A plethora of studies have been conducted to elucidate the novel functional roles of different gene families during various stress conditions in wheat. Reporting the entire set of these studies would be difficult to accommodate here, owing to the excessively high quantum; however, a few representative studies are presented in Table 1. BAM (B-amylase) Sugar Heat and drought [70] LIM (Lin-11, IsI-1 and Mec-3) Transcription factors Heat, drought, salt, abscisic acid [51] Growth regulating factors Transcription factors Osmotic stress [71] Amino acid transporter Transporter proteins Heat and drought [72] The availability of millions of SNPs in wheat has opened vistas of new gene discoveries using genome-wide association studies (GWAS) [14,73]. As of today, more than 3000 marker-trait associations are known for a plethora of agronomic traits in wheat which have been compiled into 141 meta-QTLs [74]. Thirteen of these meta-QTLs have been reported as breeder's meta-QTLs, the application of which in breeding should prove useful for realizing yield gains. Due to the high marker densities available in wheat, haplotypesbased GWAS studies and epistatic interaction analyses have become possible in wheat, providing high-resolution dissection of complex traits [75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84]. Additionally, a range of new genetics and genomics analyses are now possible, including genomic selection (GS) and selective sweep analyses, which require genome-wide high-density markers [85][86][87][88]. The integration of genomics in wheat improvement programs has restructured breeding programs globally, from conventional to genomics-assisted ones, promoting marker-assisted selection (MAS) and GS for achieving faster and more reliable breeding outcomes [89].Due to its intrinsic ability to expedite genetic gains achieved through improved selection accuracy coupled with reduced breeding time and phenotyping cost, GS has garnered huge attention over the past decade in wheat [85]. Various efforts have been undertaken to practically implement the GS strategy for abiotic stress tolerance, particularly heat and drought stress, and different robust statistical models have been tested to analyze their impact on prediction accuracies [77, [90][91][92][93][94][95][96]. Additionally, attempts have been made to optimize genomic prediction accuracies for resistance against a wide range of pathogens in wheat, including powdery mildew (causative agent: Blumeria graminis; [97]), fusarium head blight (causative agent: Fusarium graminearum; [98][99][100][101]), septoria tritici blotch (causative agent: Zymoseptoriatritici; [99,102,103]), stem or black rust (causative agent: Puccinia graminis Pers; [104]), leaf or brown rust (causative agent: Puccinia triticina Eriks; [104]), stripe or yellow rust (causative agent: Puccinia striiformis West; [104,105]), stagonospora nodorum blotch (causative agent: Parastagonospora nodorum; [102]), spot blotch (causative agent: Bipolaris sorokiniana; [32]) and tan spot (causative agent: Pyrenophora tritici-repentis; [102]). Integrating omics datasets in prediction models and compounding GS with high-throughput phenotyping, speed breeding and gene editing techniques would be instrumental in hastening wheat improvement programs for the development of future climate-resilient, high-yielding superior wheat cultivars.In the past, microarrays have been used extensively to analyze the expression and co-expression of numerous genes under various stress conditions in crop plants [106][107][108]. However, microarray-based experiments failed to detect gene networks regulating stress responses at the genome-wide level. With advancements in NGS, whole transcriptome analyses have become feasible, allowing identification and quantification of the global expression of transcripts, alternative splicing patterns and associated allele-specific expressions [109,110]. RNA-seq, the latest NGS technique for investigating genome-wide transcriptomes, helps to examine the expressional variation in genes in contrasting sets of samples or panels subjected to different stress treatments and to pinpoint the potential candidate genes. Due to its in-depth coverage and global expression of transcripts, RNA-seq has been used extensively in many crops, including wheat, to uncover the mechanisms conferring tolerance to different stresses. Table 2 enlists transcriptomic studies carried out in wheat under different stress conditions in the past decade.Heat and drought stress HSFs and DREBs are involved in alleviating stress effect. Further, 1328 TFs found to be responsive to stress treatment. [111] Salt stress TF's including WD40-like, C2H2, MYB-HB-like, genes coding for V-ATPase, glutathione S-transferases, cytochrome c oxidase and Cbl-interacting protein kinasewere over expressed in Triticum aestivum cv. Kharchia Local.[112]Drought and/or heat stress Drought-responsive WRKY transcription factor genes TaWRKY1 and TaWRKY33 were found to confer drought and/or heat resistance in Arabidopsis. [113] High temperature stress Identified six heat-induced MYB genes in wheat. [46] Metal stress The expressions of ABC transporters in dwarf polish wheat played important roles in metal transport (Cd, Cu, Mg, Zn, Fe, and Ni) and detoxification.[114]Drought stress significantly upregulated auxin receptor (AFB2) and ABA responsive transcription factors (MYB78, WRKY18 and GBF3), ACC oxidase and 2OG-Fe(II) oxygenase in roots. Genes related to gibberellic acid, jasmonic acid and phenylpropanoid pathways were down regulated in roots. [115] Water stress Root transcriptome profiles identified DEGs involved in carbon metabolism, flavonoid biosynthesis and phytohormone signal transduction. [6] Leaf rustGenes involved in reactive oxygen species (ROS) homeostasis and several genes encoding TFs, most abundant being WRKY TFs, were identified along with some ncRNAs and histone variants in HD 2329 + Lr28 NIL in comparison to HD 2329.[116]Seedling salt stress Salt tolerance was conferred by polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFAs) by enhancing the photosynthetic system and JA-related pathways. [45] Leaf spot (Bipolaris sorokiniana) toleranceThe upregulation of hydrolase inhibitor, NAC (including NAM, ATAF1 and CUC2) transcriptional factor, and peroxidase in infected wheat tissues suggested their central roles in the defensive response of wheat to Bipolaris sorokiniana.[117]Elevated CO 2 and high temperature stress DEGs in response to stress includes protein kinases, receptor kinases, and transcription factors.[118]Stripe rust Several regulators, including splicing and transcription factors and Hsp70 protein are responsive in Puccinia striformis induced response network. [119] Water StressComparative analysis of root transcriptome revealed that transcription factors, pyroline-5-carboxylate reductase and late-embryogenesis-abundant proteins were upregulated genes in the tolerant cultivar.[120]Heat stress during grain filling Hsp-family, ascorbate peroxidase, β-amylase, γ-gliadin-2 and LMW-glutenin were heat stress responsive and were upregulated during stress.[121]Plants 2023, 12, 426 6 of 23Transcriptomics studies have unveiled important roles played by numerous genes, gene families, transcription factors (TFs), hormones, metabolites, cofactors and microR-NAs (miRNAs) in conferring tolerance to various abiotic stresses in wheat. Most significantly, the role of antioxidant enzymes, such as cytochrome P450, glutathione S-transferase, polyphenol oxidase, chitinase 2, ascorbate peroxidase (APX) and peroxidase (POD), in circumventing the adverse effects of reactive oxygen species (ROS) on proteins has been repeatedly suggested to be an important tolerance mechanism under both drought and salinity stress conditions [122][123][124]. Similarly, ABC transporters and Na + /Ca 2+ exchangers have been suggested to be the key players under salinity stress conditions. In addition, the role of various TFs belonging to the NAC, WRKY and MADS families was highlighted to be a significant one under a single or multiple abiotic stress condition while TFs from the MYB family were highlighted as the key candidate genes under biotic stress conditions [125,126].The transcriptomic alterations in response to salt stress were analysed to identify the candidate genes regulating plant salt stress tolerance in wheat [125]. Two sets of genotypes, contrasting for sensitivity to salinity stress wherein one set consisted of a German winter wheat cultivar Zentos (salt-tolerant) and the synthetic genotype Syn86 (salt-susceptible), while the other set had a Turkish cultivar Altay2000 (salt-tolerant) and the Uzbek cultivar Bobur (salt-susceptible) were analysed [125]. The expression of genes from four genotypes revealed upregulation of some ABC transporters and Na + /Ca 2+ exchangers in the tolerant genotypes, indicating their involvement in the mechanisms of sodium exclusion and homeostasis. Furthermore, five genes were found co-located with two QTLs on chromosome 2A and three of these were found to have a differential expression. Of these, TraesCS2A02G395000, which codes for an oxoglutarate/iron-dependent dioxygenase, was reported to be central in controlling salinity stress in wheat [125]. Transcriptomic analyses in wheat was employed to assess regulation of biosynthesis of a special metabolite, benzoxazinoid, by the wheat transcription factor MYB31 in response to pest attack [126]. The silencing of TaMYB31 gene was found to significantly decrease the benzoxazinoid metabolite levels and consequently resulting in susceptibility to herbivores [126]. Furthermore, comprehensive transcriptomics highlighted the fact that the TaMYB31 gene co-expresses with the target benzoxazinoid-encoded Bx genes under various biotic and environmental circumstances imparting resistance to wheat plants [126]. RNAseq analysis of wheat lines subjected to multiple abiotic stresses revealed a novel ERF gene TaERF-6-3A, which was found to be induced under three abiotic stresses, salt, cold and drought [127]. In addition, upregulation of 20 AP2/ERF genes was identified based in response to drought stress [127]. Most significantly, a novel ERF gene, TaERF-6-3A, was found to be induced in response to three abiotic stresses, salt, cold and drought [127]. Further, the ectopic expression of TaERF-6-3A in Arabidopsis was found to increase sensitivity to drought and salinity stress. TaERF-6-3A was found to repress endogenous antioxidant enzyme mechanisms, resulting in increased oxidative damage and reduced tolerance to stress, suggesting TaERF-6-3A to be a negative regulator [127].Over the last decade, transcriptomics has validated the regulatory role of miRNAs in response to abiotic stresses in wheat [128][129][130][131]. The microRNAs (miRNAs) are small, single-stranded, non-coding RNAs with a typical length of 20-24 nucleotides. The role of miRNAs as cardinal post-transcriptional regulators directing gene expression in a sequencespecific manner in response to abiotic stresses is now well established. Stress-induced expression of miRNA genes usually leads to the accumulation of mature miRNA species to downregulate their intended target. Alternatively, the downregulation of these genes results in an increased expression in their intended targets. Over the past decade, transcriptomics has been used to assess the altered expressions of miRNAs and their downstream target in response to numerous abiotic stresses. RNA-seq was employed in the salt-tolerant wheat cultivar (Arg) and salt-susceptible cultivar (Moghan3) and identified a total of 26,171 novel transcripts, of which 5128 were found to be differentially expressed in response to salinity stress [129]. Significant expression of 16 novel miRNAs was found in response to salinity stress, in addition to the TaABAC15, TaACA7, TaANN4 and TaNCL2 genes, in the salt-tolerant wheat cultivar, implicating a central role of miRNA in mediating responses to salinity stress in wheat. A root-specific accumulation of mature miRNAs under salinity stress in wheat was identified [131]. Most importantly, miRNAs osamiR444b.2, osamiR172b and athmiR5655 were found to mediate the regulation of TFs, containing conserved domains such as MADS-box, AP2/ERBP and bHLH135, respectively [131].Furthermore, underlying regulatory network at play to improve tolerance to heat was explored with the exogenous application of trehalose in wheat [124]. It was found that pretreatment with trehalose was found to alleviate the oxidative damage caused by high-temperature stress [124]. A total of 15,403 genes were found differentially expressed in the tolerant Yangmai 18 variety and the differential expression of 749 genes was found in the susceptible Yannong 19, suggesting that a higher number of genes are involved in the trehalose response in the tolerant variety [124]. A majority of the DEGs were found to mediate cellular metabolism and regulation cell metabolism and biological regulation. Additionally, RNA-seq analysis revealed that the exogenous application of trehalose could potentially activate autophagy under high-temperature stress. Conclusively, the application of trehalose in wheat plants was found to reset the transcriptional profile of the endogenous metabolic pathways, suggesting the existence of a trehalose-induced complex regulatory network at play to aid the efficient adaptation of plants in response to heat stress [124].Numerous transcriptomic studies have suggested a co-mediated regulation of Calmodulin (CaM) and calmodulin-like (CML) proteins regulating Ca 2+ -signaling processes in response to abiotic stresses in wheat [51,132]. The transcriptome from leaves of the salttolerant Iranian wheat cultivar (Arg) was analysed on Illumina HiSeq 2500 platform [129]. A total of 26,700 novel transcripts along with the differential expression of 4290 genes, were identified, of which 2346 were found upregulated and 1944 were downregulated [129]. Transcripts discovered were primarily found to be related to phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, transporters, exosomes, transcription factors, MAPK signalling, glycosyltransferases and signal transduction, suggesting their relevance in imparting salt tolerance to the plant [129]. Significant upregulation of Ca 2+ homeostasis-related genes, including two genes for calcium-transporting ATPases, three glutamate receptors (GLRs), 13 CIPK genes, a gene encoding calmodulin (CaM), a CaM-binding transcription factor CBP60 and a CaMbinding gene TaMLO was found [129]. In addition, six wall-associated kinases (WAKs) and three LecRLKs, which are both members of the receptor-like kinases (RLK) subfamily, were discovered to be upregulated [129]. Likewise, LecRLKs and WAKs have a well-documented role in controlling plants' adaptation to various abiotic stresses [133]. In addition, 27 MYBs, basic leucine zipper TFs, 17 zinc finger TFs and two genes coding for TIFY were found to be differentially expressed in response to salinity stress in wheat [129]. Further, 22 genes, reported to be involved in regulating the transportation of sodium, potassium or both, were found to be significantly upregulated in response to salt stress [129]. Of these, two genes, Ta.HKT1 and Ta.KT, were functionally characterized. Ta.HKT1 was established as an orthologue of rice Os04g0607500 that encodes a cation transporter. Ta.KT was found to be an orthologue of At2g30070 that encodes AtKT1, a potassium transporter. Transcripts of both genes were found to be significantly accumulated in response to salinity stress [129]. Similarly, recently 113 TaCMLs and 15 TaCAMs were identified in response to drought and salinity stress [51]. Increased expression of TaCAM2-D was found under salt and drought stresses [51]. Evidently enough, the ectopic expression of TaCAM2-D in Arabidopsis led to an increased tolerance to salt and drought. TaCAM2-D was validated to be TaMPK8, a wheat mitogen-activated protein kinase, providing evidence of calcium signalling in regulating the stress response in plants [51].Heavy metal contamination of the soil via natural and (or) anthropogenic activities is another stress that crop plants regularly experience. The physical-geochemical properties of these heavy metals in soil and their subsequent uptake by plants have been found to adversely affect various physiological, morphological and biochemical processes of the plant, resulting in reduced crop productivity. Given the relevance of wheat as an important cereal across the globe, developing/screening wheat cultivars with low heavy metal accumulation promises reduced dietary exposure to heavy metals. To this effect, root transcriptomes of YM16, a low-Cadmium (Cd)-accumulating wheat genotype were analysed under cadmium-treated and untreated conditions [134]. Genes regulating glutathione metabolism, phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, nitrogen metabolism and sulfur metabolism were found to be significantly upregulated under Cd stress [134]. Furthermore, a comparative transcriptomic approach was employed to assess the activation of endogenous Cd detoxification mechanisms following Cd treatment in wheat genotypes T207 and S276 displaying Cd resistance and sensitivity, respectively [135]. The accumulation of transcripts encoding glutathione, ascorbic acid and catalase activity was found in T207 along with lower expression levels of peroxidase and superoxide dismutase [135]. Further, the transcriptomics revealed that the expression of Respiratory Burst Oxidase Homologs (RBOH), such as RBOHA, RBOHC, and RBOHE, was significantly increased in response to Cd toxicity [135]. Twenty-two RBOH genes were found to have increased expression levels in S276 in comparison with T207. Studies, as mentioned above, continue to increase our understanding of the complex molecular mechanisms of plants under Cd stress and shall aid in the development of low-heavy metal accumulating wheat varieties.Metabolomics is one of the most evolved and extensively explored omics technologies. It is an analytical profiling platform to measure and compare the metabolites present in biological samples at a given time. Metabolomics can be combined with high-throughput analytical chemistry and multivariate data analysis to unravel the molecular mechanisms at play in response to endogenous and exogenous environments of organisms. Its ability to efficiently complement other omics approaches makes it even more powerful for usage across all organisms [74]. In contrast to other omics approaches, metabolomics is efficient in tangibilizing the biochemical activities of apparent proteins and their subsequent metabolism into other proteins, making it rather easy to associate phenotypes [74]. Albeit not as extensively as transcriptomics, metabolomics has been employed in wheat to identify stress tolerance mechanisms and candidate genes by correlating the accumulation of metabolites in response to induced stresses [41,136,137]. An untargeted metabolomic analysis was employed to validate the use of wheat homeologous group 3 ditelosomic lines for identification and direct validation of genes regulating the accumulation of metabolites during the later stages of grain development [136]. Significant differences with respect to the accumulation of sugars were found between genetically modified wheat genotypes with their parental lines associated with the environment rather than the genotype [138]. Similar findings have also been reported in other investigations [137,139,140]. To assess the effects of nutrient deficiency on the metabolomic profile of wheat, a metabolomic approach in conjunction with transcriptomics was employed to assess the effects of nitrogen and sulphur deficiency on the remobilization of resources from a degrading canopy to developing grains in wheat [141]. The results obtained from both approaches corroborated, to suggest a suboptimal mobilization of N and (or) S supply to leaves but the supply to developing grains was always found to be optimum. A clever strategy employed by the plant was deciphered that utilizes the machinery in place for aminoacid biosynthesis to produce glutamine in developing grains. In the first seven days of seed development, a significant accumulation of glutamine was observed that was later converted to other amino acids and proteins over the subsequent 21 days of grain development [141]. The content of nitrogen and sulphur in the grains was found to increase at a steady rate of post-anthesis and nitrogen deficiency was found to adversely affect the accumulation of nitrogen and sulphur, suggesting that the availability of nitrogen at the vegetative stage determines the time and extent of the remobilization of resources [141].The metabolic profile of the wheat cultivar Sumai-3 was analysed to unravel the host resistance mechanisms against Fusarium Head Blight (FHB) in response to two isolates of Fusarium graminearum that differentiated with regard to the production of trichothecene [142]. The resistance was found to be acquired due to the accumulation of the resistance-related Plants 2023, 12, 426 9 of 23 (RR) metabolites from the phenylpropanoid pathway that reduced the spread of fungus by thickening the host cell wall and not due to the reduced accumulation of the toxic deoxynivalenol (DON) [142]. In addition, the growth of the pathogen was found curbed owing to the antifungal properties of RR phenylpropanoids that subsequently decreased the biosynthesis of trichothecene. Evidently, these results demonstrated the efficacy of the metabolomic approach in dissecting the underlying mechanisms driving biotic stress tolerance in wheat [142].An increased concentration of atmospheric CO 2 has been reported to have an adverse effect on the metabolomic profile of the wheat plant. A change in 40 metabolites was found with an increase in atmospheric CO 2 levels that was associated with the altered development of the plant [143]. This change was correlated with the decreased concentration of a few amino acids and derivatives that induce the raffinose synthesis pathway only during the vegetative phase but a reduced lysine turnover throughout the plant's life cycle. Similarly, increased atmospheric CO 2 was found to be associated with a decrease in the accumulation of N-rich metabolites vis-a-vis a few organic acids and ribose-5-P [144]. Interestingly, soon after, one of the first reports of integrating the metabolomic approach with other high-throughput studies was reported. The genetic basis of variation in metabolites and agronomic traits was dissected by integrating the mapping of QTLs associated with the levels of metabolites with the mapping of the agronomic traits [145]. Furthermore, a genetic control for numerous groups of metabolites was found to be regulated by two distinct loci on chromosome 7A. Such a study is a great example of the integration of metabolomics with QTL analysis to identify potential trait targets with accuracy.Metabolomics has also been employed to investigate salinity tolerance in durum wheat [146]. Adaptation to salinity was reported acquired by rearranging sucrose and nitrogen-containing metabolites in cytosol following the uptake of sodium and its sequestration in the vacuoles. Such a strategy ensures the optimal maintenance of osmoticum to prevent any oxidative damage to the root cell and ensures plant survival under nitrogendeficient conditions. Under low nitrate conditions, accumulation of glycine betaine and sucrose was found [146]. However, under high nitrate conditions, glycine betaine, proline and asparagine were found to maintain cytosolic osmoticum, scavenge ROS and assimilate excess ammonium [146]. Differential changes in the metabolomic profiles, correlated with physiological changes, were found in leaves and roots of two wheat genotypes, LA54 and AGS2038, drought-tolerant and drought-susceptible, respectively, to assess the droughtresponsive mechanisms in wheat [147]. In LA54, 45 metabolites in the leaves were found to be altered compared to only 20 in the roots, suggesting active allocation of resources on the leaves [147]. In the leaves and roots of AGS2038, 30 and 28 metabolites, respectively, were changed, suggesting that the resource allocation in the sensitive genotype was suboptimal, favouring roots more than leaves [147]. Furthermore, in LA54, the accumulation of valine, tryptophan, malic acid, fumaric acid and citric acid showed a higher accumulation in the leaf compared to the root. These findings suggested that the differential allocation of resources in tolerant and susceptible genotypes was decisive in imparting tolerance to drought stress in wheat [147]. The finding that the differential allocation of amino acids, phenolics, alkaloids, flavonoids and organic acids is an important key mechanism in differentiating drought-resistant and susceptible varieties was further reinforced by ultra-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS) [41].Furthermore, to assess the effect of Cd toxicity on wheat metabolome, the metabolome profile following Cd application was investigated from two hexaploid wheat genotypes, AK58, and ZM10, with a low and high Cd-accumulation in grains, respectively [148]. Compared to ZM10, AK58 was found to have a greater root antioxidant system and higher levels of Cd bound to root cell walls, owing to the increased accumulation of hemicellulose and pectin to aid Cd binding. To further our understanding of Cd toxicity, ameliorating effect of Boron (B) was analysed on wheat growth following exposure to Cd treatment [149]. It was found that plant growth under Cd stress was adversely affected and B application was not able to fully recover the plant [149]. However, following the B application, accumulated Cd and malondialdehyde levels in the shoot and root decreased significantly. In addition, B application led to a reduction in the activity of enzymes, such as SOD and peroxidase (POD), that were induced in response to Cd stress [149]. Also, B application following exposure to Cd stress resulted in an increased accumulation of citric acid, galactaric acid, D-glucose and N6-galacturonyl-L-lysine and decreased accumulation of C16 sphinganine and threoninyl-tryptophan [149]. Hence, a significant role of galactose, sphingolipid, linoleic acid and propanoate metabolism and glycolysis/gluconeogenesis pathways was slated to alleviate Cd toxicity by inhibiting Cd uptake, changing metabolic profile and augmenting antioxidant activity.Proteins, along with their post-translational modifications, are crucial for plant stress responses. Proteomics studies, therefore, provide valuable information about the cellular pathways involved in stress adaptation and mitigation. Initially, the term 'proteomics' referred to the methods used to analyze numerous proteins at a time; however, the term has now expanded to include any approach that provides information on the abundance, properties, interactions, activities or structures of proteins in a sample [150]. The analysis of the protein profile of wheat plants in response to abiotic stresses, such as drought, salinity and heat, is well documented (Table 3). Pretreatment with 0.5 mM salicylic acid (SA) for 3 days significantly enhanced the growth and tolerance to subsequent drought stress in Yumai 34. A total of 76 proteins were found to be differentially regulated by using 2-DE, MALDI-TOF-TOF from leaf samples.[152]Monitored the roots of two different wheat varieties, Nesser (drought-tolerant) and Opata (drought-sensitive), in the absence and presence of abscisic acid (ABA, as a proxy for drought). A total of 151 proteins were found to be differentially regulated. [153] Monitored the stress response of two cultivars Bahar, drought-susceptible; Kavir, drought tolerant under drought stress. A total of 81 proteins were found to be differentially regulated. [154] Monitored the stress response of two varieties, Ningchun 4 (Tolerant) and Chinese Spring (Susceptible), at grain development stage: A total of 91 proteins were found to be differentially regulated. [155] Monitored PEPC transgenic lines for drought tolerance, expressing maize C4 phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC) gene. By employing the 2-DE, MALDI-TOF, a total of 75 genes were found to be differentially regulated from flag leaf samples.[156]Monitored the stress response of two wheat cultivars, Xihan No. 2 and Longchun 23, under dehydration and rehydration. They reported 84 and 64 proteins differentially regulated in Xihan No. 2 and Longchun 23, respectively. [157] Monitored the stress response of two varieties, Zhongmai 8601 and Zhongmai 8601-Thinopyrum intermedium 7XL/7DS translocation line YW642, under drought stress at grain development stage. They found the differential regulation of 146 proteins in response to drought.[158]Monitored the NaHS treated seedlings under drought stress in Yumai 34. They found the differential regulation of 120 proteins. [159] Identified drought-tolerant proteins via virus-induced gene silencing in drought-tolerant XN979 and drought-sensitive LA379 varieties. They found the differential regulation of 335 proteins in response to stress. [160] Heat Stress Monitored the stress response of Gaocheng 8901, winter wheat. They found the upregulation of 207 proteins.[161] Monitored the stress response of two cultivars, HD2985 (thermotolerant) and HD2329 (thermosusceptible), at pollination and grain filling stages. They identified 4271 stress-associated proteins. [162] Monitored the BWL4444 (HD2967+ Yr10) plants during the grain filling stage to understand the effect of heat stress in heat-tolerant varieties. Differential expression of 153 proteins was found in developing grain samples. [163] Monitored the stability of the filling rate under heat stress in two wheat varieties, Chinese Spring and Liao-10. They found 309 proteins associated with heat stress.[164]Monitored priming-induced salt tolerance on vigor in T durum var. Waha. The ratio of seed weight to the volume of solution employed for priming was 1:5; 12 h soaking. Priming treatments: distilled water (c) and ascorbate (t). Salt stress: 10 mL of saline solution (NaCl 250 mmol L −1 ) or distilled water (control) and drying under shade with forced air at 27 ± 3 • C. They found 72 proteins hydroprimed and 83 proteins ascorbate primed.[165]Monitored the roots of two wheat varieties, Jing-411 (salt-tolerant) and Chinese Spring (salt-sensitive), under salt stress. They found 52 proteins in Jing-411 and 47 proteins in Chinese Spring to be differentially regulated.[166]Monitored the roots of two wheat varieties, Kharchia-65 (highly salt-tolerant) and PBW-373 (salt-sensitive), under salt stress. They found 2520 proteins in Kharchia-65 and 1633 proteins in PBW-373 to be differentially regulated. [167] Cold Stress Monitored the cold stress response of seeds of one wheat cultivar, T urartu L. They found 34 proteins differentially regulated in response to cold stress in leaf samples. [168] Molecular mechanisms in response to drought were investigated in two wheat lines, Zhongmai 8601 and YW642, drought tolerance and Thinopyrum intermedium 7XL/7DS translocation line, respectively, under a drought stress environment [158]. Two-dimensional difference gel electrophoresis (2D-DIGE) was employed to explore the differential accumulation protein (DAP) after 20 days of post anthesis (DPA) and a total of 146 DAPs were identified [158]. Furthermore, MALDI-TOF/TOF-MS was employed to identify the 113 unique proteins connoted by these DAPs [158]. Of these, 48 unique proteins exhibited upregulation and were involved in plant stress response, protein metabolism and, energy metabolism. Most significantly, 14 DAP genes were reported to have high expression levels in the 7XL/7DS translocation line during grain development periods [158]. Of these, four genes were identified as responding to drought stress, of which two genes showed oxidoreductase and dehydrogenase activities. In addition, three genes with potential protein binding, catalytic and transmembrane transporter-type roles were identified under drought and heat stress [158]. Functional relevance of a plant growth-promoting rhizobacterium (PGPR) Enterobacter cloacae SBP-8 was assessed under excessive salinity (200 mM NaCl) stress by investigating proteome profiles in the bacterial-inoculated wheat plants with and without salt stress [169]. A total of 286 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) were identified and the majority of them were linked to metabolic pathways, photosynthesis and stress mechanisms [169]. Furthermore, bacterial inoculation was found to upregulate the expression of the Hsp70, organizing protein and cold shock protein CS66 at 200 mM NaCl stress [169].To understand the effects of heat stress on wheat plants, proteome changes were analysed in the wheat kernel in the winter wheat cultivar Gaocheng 8901 under heat stress by iTRAQ (isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation) [161]. The iTRAQ analysis revealed quantitative information on 2493 proteins in the cultivar Gaocheng 8901 under heat stress, of which 116 were upregulated and 91 were downregulated [161]. A group of 78 DEPs were coupled to 83 KEGG signalling/metabolic pathways. Five DEPs, Elicitor responsive gene 3 (ERG3), brassinosteroid-insensitive 1 (BRI1), chaperone protein (CLPB1), histone cell cycle regulator (HIR1) and pre-mRNA processing factor (RSZ22), were involved in protein-protein interaction networks and were suggested to significantly impact the yield and quality of wheat grain under heat stress [161]. The relevance of stress-associated active proteins (SAAPs) involved in the process of the terminal heat tolerance of wheat has also been investigated [162]. The wheat cvs., HD2985 (heat-tolerant) and HD2329 (heat-sensitive) were studied under heat stress at 38 • C for 2 h to identify 4271 SAAPs by employing iTRAQ. Under heat stress, 2800 and 2225 differentially expressed SAAPs were upregulated and downregulated in the tolerant cultivar HD2985, while 800 and 3600 expressed SAAPs were upregulated and downregulated in the sensitive cultivar HD2329, respectively [162]. Using the gene ontology analysis, differentially expressed SAAPs were characterized into three majorly functional groups, namely, molecular functions (51%), biological processes (39%), and cellular components (10%) [162]. SAAPs have been classified to regulate in defence-and stress-related activities. However, expression of ribonuclease TUDOR-1, HSP90, HSP20, peroxidase and HSC70 has been found in the wheat cv. HD2985 (heattolerant), and downregulation was observed in the wheat cv. HD2329 (heat-susceptible) under heat stress [162]. In addition, here was an increase of 8.2 folds HSP17 and 2.2 folds of CDPK in expression under heat stress at 38 • C for 2 h in the spike of the wheat cv. HD2985 [162]. Likewise, there was a 22.5 folds HSP17, 4.5 folds RuBisCo, 4.3 folds Rca and 4.1 folds OEEP increase in expression in the leaves of the wheat cv. HD2985 under heat stress at 38 • C [162].The Molecular mechanism of pathogenesis on the protein level in a wheat cultivar (Dongxuan 3) was analysed for two diseases, i.e., dwarf bunt (Tilletia controversa Kühn) and common bunt (T. foetida Kühn) [170]. The iTRAQ and Ultra-High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (UHPLC)-MS/MS analysis were employed for detecting DEPs [170]. A total of 4553 DEPs following infection by T. controversa and 804 DEPs following infection by T. foetida were identified [170]. Of the 4553 and 804 DEPs, 4100 and 447 were upregulated and were linked with metabolic process, catalytic activity, transferase activity, photosynthetic membrane and oxidoreductase activity [170].Molecular mechanisms of the interaction between the Fusarium pseudograminearum WZ-8A and two wheat cultivars were explored [171]. Crown rot pathogen F. pseudograminearum was inoculated into UC1110, disease-susceptible and PI61750, disease-resistant wheat cultivars. Three days after inoculation (DAI), the average root diameter and malondialdehyde content of the roots was found to decrease, and the number of root tips increased [171]. To determine if the morphological, physiological and biochemical responses of the roots to disease differed between the two cultivars, Tandem Mass Tag (TMT) labelling and LC-MS/MS were employed [171]. Using TMT quantitative proteomics analysis, 366 DEPs were identified, of which 163 were from UC1110. Gene ontology and KEGG analysis identified candidate genes involved in biological processes, such as phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, photosynthesis and glutathione metabolism and cellular components, such as ribosomes [171].Since the advancements in omics technologies and computational tools, the use of a multiomics approach has become a major area of thrust to answer burning questions in the stress biology of a crop and to reduce the number of false positives arising from the use of a single data [172,173]. It has been proposed that, by inspecting the change in correlation in the transcript-protein-metabolite between the control and stress conditions, biological processes strongly regulated by the plants can be recognised.Various web-based tools and visualization portals are available to analyze the multiomics datasets, such as PAINTOMICS, KaPPA-view, COVAIN, and O-miner [174][175][176][177][178]. In PAINTOMICS, the integrated visualization of transcriptomics and metabolomics datasets is possible and displays the data on KEGG pathway maps. The KaPPA-view tool allows the integration of transcript and metabolite data on plant metabolic pathway maps. The COVAIN tool offers statistical analysis of the integrated omics dataset through the KEGG pathway and gene ontology analysis [177].A combined phenotypical, molecular and metabolomic approaches were employed to understand the role of symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) on the mineral nutrition of wheat and in response to pathogen attack by the fungus Xanthomonas translucens [4]. The changes in transcripts and proteins in the roots and leaves of wheat plants with AM and with AM along with pathogen infection were investigated. It was observed that the transcriptomic and proteomic datasets shared 3.7 and 0.9% and 19 and 20% of differentially expressed genes (DEG) and differentially expressed proteins (DEP), respectively [4]. Several genes involved in nutrient uptake, primary metabolism and phytohormone regulation were found to be differentially regulated between the lines with and without AM [4]. Most significantly, the homologies searches identified important orthologous candidate genes, such as coding for Glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase (OsRAM2 homolog), LysM domaincontaining protein (OsLysM homolog) and ABC-2 type transporter (OsSTR1 homolog) [4]. In addition, the transcription profiles of some phosphate transporters (PTs) were investigated by RNA-seq and qRT-PCR analyses, such as TaAMT3.1, TaSulfTr2, TaAKT1, TaPT10, TaPT11 and TaPT12. All of these PT genes were strongly induced in wheat-AM plants' roots compared to plants without AM [4]. A total of 29 novel genes were found to be exclusively expressed in the leaves of AM plants known to be involved in the responses to biotic stress, including a pathogenesis-related protein PR-1, mildew resistance locus (MLO) genes and putative homologs of RPM1 (Resistance to Pseudomonas syringae pv. maculicola 1) protein [4].Both proteomics and metabolomics approaches were employed for two spring-wheat cultivars, Bahar and Kavir, drought-tolerant and drought-susceptible, respectively, to understand the underlying biochemical networks at play in wheat leaves under drought stress [154]. Metabolomic analysis revealed that the levels of primary metabolites, such as amino acids, sugars and organic acids, were found to change in response to water deficiency [154]. In the Bahar cv, the accumulation of branched-chain amino acids, lysine, proline, aromatic, arginine and methionine was found in response to drought stress, in addition to the activation of shikimate pathway-mediated tryptophan accumulation aiding auxin production [154]. In the Kavir metabolome, only two pathways were found to be significantly affected in response to stress, one being of purine metabolism [154]. Only a few alterations in the metabolomic profile of Kavir were potent enough to induce susceptibility to drought stress, suggesting that unravelling the subtle changes in complex pathways leads to profound phenotypical changes [154].Combined metabolomic and proteomic approaches was employed to dissect the resistance mechanism conferred by Fhb1 QTL in the near-isogenic lines (NILs) derived from the wheat genotype Nyubai [142]. The comparison of the metabolomic and proteomic profiles in the NILs revealed that the shunt phenylpropanoid pathway-producing metabolites, such as hydroxycinnamic acid amides, phenolic glucosides and flavonoids, played an important role [142]. Using confocal microscopy, it was confirmed that cell wall thickening, due to the deposition of hydroxycinnamic acid amides, phenolic glucosides and flavonoids, was responsible for imparting resistance rather than the conversion of DON to less toxic deoxynivalenol 3-O-glucoside, demonstrating alternate novel pathways that could play a pivotal role [142].Large-scale multi-omics analysis was used to dissect the wheat stem solidness and resistance to wheat stem sawfly (WSS) [179]. A combined transcriptomic, metabolomic and proteomic approach was deployed on two wheat cultivars, the solid-stemmed Choteau and semi-solid-stemmed Scholar, differentiating for a QTL identified previously on chromosome 3B for solid stem [179]. The semi-solid-stemmed cultivar showed a differential regulation of 15 transcripts on WSS infection, of which 5 were upregulated and coded for an auxin efflux carrier component, pathogenesis-related (PR) genes 5 (CPR-5) protein, NADH dehydrogenase (NDH-A) and a magnesium transporter [179]. The solid-stemmed Choteau variety, on the other hand, showed nine DEGs, of which only one was found to be upregulated, while the remaining transcripts were downregulated [179]. In silico analysis revealed that this upregulated DEG coded for a cysteine-rich receptor-like protein kinase. The proteomic and metabolomic data further suggested the activation of the phenylpropanoid and pentose phosphate pathways in response to WSS infestation [179].The key metabolites of the phenylpropanoid pathway are flavonoids and lignin. Lignin is is known to protect plants against mechanical damage under stress conditions, including drought or wounding, and acts as a physical barrier against pathogens [180].Molecular mechanisms underlying the adaptation of wheat were determined in response to potassium (K) deficiency by investigating the transcriptomes and metabolomes of a panel of wheat accessions differing in K-deficiency tolerance [181]. The panel was subjected to a low-K treatment under hydroponic culture conditions for 14 days and root samples were collected for transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses [181]. It was found that the three CIPK (serine/threonine protein kinases)-encoding DEGs, i.e., CIPK14, CIPK9 and CIPK27, were upregulated in KN9204 and unchanged in BN207, while the expression of the three other DEGs (CIPK19, CIPK15 and CIPK29) was downregulated in BN207. These CIPKs were suggested to be underlying candidates for low-K tolerance. Recently, a multiomics approach was employed to identify the genes conferring a dense spike in a wheat-dense spike mutant (wds) obtained from a landrace Huangfangzhu [128]. Two large deletion segments on chromosome 6B, at 334.8-424.3 and 579.4-717.8 Mb, in the wds mutant and 499 genes were identified within the deleted regions [128]. The candidate gene TraesCS6B01G334600, for which an ortholog was identified in rice (OsBUL1), is known to regulate spike length and grain length [182]. This study, therefore, provided a basis for using this gene in wheat breeding for yield improvement.In most of the GWAS studies, the biological mechanisms underlying the associations are unknown. To deal with this, GWAS has been integrated with metabolite profiling and/or gene regulatory network or pathway analysis and this approach has proven to be very effective in increasing the utility of information gained from GWAS [183][184][185]. A combination of GWAS and SNP-phenotype network approaches was employed in a core collection of wheat to identify the genetic basis of grain yield and spikelet-fertility-related traits [185]. The 118 SNPs that were found to be significant in their study at a false discovery rate (FDR) = 0.01 were used in the genotype-phenotype network analysis, of which 14 SNPs directly interacted with many of the agronomic traits. In silico analysis of these 14 SNPs revealed the strong involvement of metal ion transport and Gibberellin 2-oxidases (GA2oxs) genes in controlling the spikelet sterility [185]. Additionally, these genes showed a higher expression in the grain and spike, which further suggested their pivotal role in controlling the traits [185]. Acombination of GWAS and gene co-network analysis was used to dissect the genetic basis of root traits in a panel of winter wheat [80]. Three genomic regions on chromosomes 6A, 6B and 6D controlling the rooting depth, canopy temperature and yield were identified [80]. Using a minirhizotron system, accessions with favourable marker alleles of peak SNPs on chromosomes 6A, 6B and 6D were found to have longer roots than those with alternative marker alleles at these loci. Most significantly, 13 NRT2 genes from a nitrate transporter gene family were identified in the study, which are known to improve nitrogen use efficiency and yield in rice [186].The three rust pathogens, Puccinia triticina (leaf rust), Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici (stem rust) and Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici (stripe rust), are the most damaging pathogens in wheat and create massive losses in yield [187][188][189]. The constant appearance of their new races in wheat-growing areas and their high adaptability to diverse climates pose serious challenges in developing resistance in wheat against rust. Although genomic selection (GS) has been deployed previously to improve predictions for fusarium head blight resistance, an integration of GS and transcriptomics data was suggested to improve the applicability of GS for rusts [190]. To be effective in a practical breeding program, the transcriptomes of only a limited number of founder lines could be integrated to develop GS models for imputing the value of others by using pedigree and genomic data [191].Diverse omics tools are now at hand to understand the quantitative and qualitative reaction of wheat to various stresses and to pinpoint the potential candidate genes for marker-based breeding and/or for gene manipulation by CRISPR-based genome editing. The combined application of genomics and transcriptomics approaches has unveiled gene sets of certain gene families that could be deployed for generating stress-tolerant varieties. Furthermore, metabolomic and proteomic approaches have revealed additional candidate genes, gene networks and mechanisms, suggesting that a network of diverse gene actions comes into play under a stress condition. For example, genomics and transcriptomics studies demonstrated the role of ROS enzymes to be key players, while metabolomics studies highlighted the important roles played by amino acid transporters in the differential allocation of resources under drought stress.While genomics and transcriptomics approaches are routinely employed in wheat for in-depth analysis, the combined application of metabolomics and proteomics has not been explored to a great extent. This is partly due to the affordability of genomics and transcriptomics data on large panels owing to low sequencing costs, as compared to metabolomics and proteomics, and due to the availability of user-friendly statistical and bioinformatics tools facilitating the analyses of genomics and transcriptomics. We envision that similar advancements in metabolomics and proteomics tools in the future will enable the comparative analysis of data from different streams of omics platforms in wheat. A straightforward application combining GWAS with proteomics (pGWAS) and metabolomics (mGWAS) would become feasible to identify the novel genes and functional pathways underlying complex traits. In addition to unveiling the novel candidate genes, the combined analysis of data will help in narrowing down the number of candidate genes to be subjected to functional validation by utilizing the mutant resource freely available to wheat scientists. The information of sequenced mutant libraries in the Ensemble database (http://plants.ensembl.org/Triticum_aestivum/Info/Index) and SNP-based primers available to screen mutants have opened vistas for conducting a plethora of novel functional genomics studies in wheat. Furthermore, amalgamating omics approaches shall pave the way for developing mathematical and GS models to predict plant performance under adverse conditions. This will facilitate wheat breeders to select lines with suitable gene-trait combinations to improve crop productivity under stress conditions. The synchronous analysis of genome, transcriptomes, proteome, metabolome and correlation of findings is, therefore, highly relevant and timely to develop efficient crop improvement programs in wheat.","tokenCount":"8683"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1c96ba4e14222c1eec6c09fff48c1c85","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/bb7cd511-ca19-4183-a176-61207646eb15/retrieve","id":"-466053468"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"fcecad1c-7e47-4f0d-9dfc-8743d096cd29","pagecount":"95","content":"Objectives: Street food has been identified as of low hygienic quality and hence to constitute a public health threat to many consumers depending on affordable street foods in urban areas of Africa. The aim of this study was to investigate notions of street food quality among vendors and consumers in Kumasi, Ghana, and to find out how these relate to practices and perceptions of hygiene and street food safety. Method: Qualitative data was collected during a 3 months field stay in Kumasi. Extensive participant observations, informal as well as formal interviews were conducted with 8 street food vendors and their staffs. The main issues investigated related to food safety practices and perceptions, vendorcustomer interactions and general conditions and challenges for street food vending. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 27 street food customers and two focus group discussions were carried out with male and female street food consumers to gain in-depth understanding of consumers' perceptions and attitudes towards street food quality, food safety and hygiene. Several markets, urban farms, vendors' networks and other relevant locations were visited in and around Kumasi and keyinformants from town authorities, research institutions and food corporations were consulted.Vending of street food in urban areas is a growing and world wide phenomenon and today street foods are important sources of daily foods for massive urban populations -not least in African towns. But food poisoning, food borne diseases and food safety have been declared a major public health concern by international health agencies and street foods have in many studies been associated with microbiological contamination and low hygienic standards (WHO 2006). Hence, street food vendors are of massive importance for public health since they alone have influence on the health of thousands of people every day. This study will concentrate on street food vendors and consumers in Kumasi, the second largest town in Ghana, West Africa. Several studies from the Ghanaian capital Accra have already confirmed that the street food sector is facing serious challenges in maintaining hygiene and safety of foods (Mensah 1999, 2001, King 2000, Tomlins 2002) and with more than 10.000 street vendors in Kumasi and the town rapidly expanding Kumasi is now facing the same challenges. Studies conducted in Kumasi under IWMI have also identified vegetables prepared by street food vendors to be highly contaminated with faecal material and harmful micro-organisms (Amoah et al. 2006) and several related risk practices of food handling have been identified by Henseler (2005) and Olsen (2005).However, if we in future whish to effectively encourage vendors to improve street food safety and thereby minimise the dangers of food borne diseases, it is vital to gain in-sight into the perceptions which form practices and attitudes towards food safety and hygiene. This thesis will therefore engage in understanding such perceptions among vendors and consumers in Kumasi and investigate how these are linked to actual practices and decision-making when preparing and vending street foods and choosing a vendor.As I started investigating perceptions it became evident that concepts of food as well as hygiene, contamination and health risks are deeply imbedded in the social and cultural context and everyday life practices. Biomedical concepts of contamination and health risks are therefore not adequate to capture the full complexity of behaviours and attitudes. Cultural and anthropological theories of contamination by Mary Douglas (1956) and Edward Green (1999) are therefore relevant to explain the variety of beliefs and attitudes towards safe and unsafe food. Hygiene perceptions and practices also turned out to be part of a complex system of interactions between vendors and consumers, particularly concerned with appearance and presentation. The impression management theory of Goffman will therefore add to understanding such behaviour patterns. Finally, I found factors such as demand and trust to be strong values and this thesis therefore takes its point of departure in realizing that perceptions of street foods quality are multi-dimensional-dependent upon far more than hygiene and health concerns.Instead of narrowly focusing on hygiene and food safety, I therefore choose to focus on a wider concept of Food Quality. This concept embraces hygienic as well as social, cultural, nutritional and practical aspects of food quality. To make use of findings from this study the last part of the thesis will concentrate on outlining potential target groups and strategies for future hygiene promotion in the street food sector.Therefore, the main objectives of this thesis are: 1) to determine the multiple factors which influence vendors' and consumers' street food practices and perceptions towards food quality in Kumasi and 2) to find out how these relate to safe and unsafe food practices.3) to identify and recommend possible future hygiene promotion strategies in the street food sector.The main objectives of this study will be obtained by using various approaches:• to investigate in-depth the practices by street food vendors and their customers in urban Kumasi, especially practices related to food hygiene and food safety.• to explore the perceptions, attitudes and awareness of street food hygiene and food contamination among these street food vendors and their customers.• to explore factors in the seller-customer relation and interactions possibly influencing practices of food hygiene and food safety among both parties• to identify channels of food safety information and identify possibilities and barriers to reach these for vendors and consumers and to discuss potential future promotion strategies with vendors and key-informants.Qualitative data was collected from March-June 2006 in Kumasi, the capital of the Central Ashanti region in Ghana (see pictures) among street food vendors and customers using various data collections methods (interviews, observations and focus group discussions, see specified schedule for field activities in Annex 2). Data was compiled in handwritten field notes, pictures and recordings during field activities, and was indexed, transcribed and entered in databases on laptop as quickly as possible during the field study. This study shares the general objective of the medical anthropological research, which is to study people's ideas and practices concerning health and illness (Hardon 2001:5). The aim was to gain indepth understanding of the study object in its context and thus to include the specific culture, tradition and social society as described by Janzen (2002). By paying attention to the values, perceptions and beliefs of vendors and consumers, the study gives emphasis to the subjectivity of health and medicine related concepts (Ibid.). This study and the medical anthropological science are therefore emic of nature and accept various constructs of health, whether or not they coincide with bio-medical explanations of disease.The reason for initiating this qualitative research project was partly founded in previous quantitative studies of the street food sector in Kumasi. In a questionnaire survey it was found that 52% of all customers and vendors gave \"cleanliness\" as the most important criteria for purchasing lettuce (see figure 2). The researcher him self then stated: \"However, what cleanliness of lettuce means to these people has to be analysed elsewhere\" (Henseler 2005). What this qualitative study offers is an opportunity to understand what constitutes such concepts of cleanliness of food and an occasion to look deeper into related practices and behaviour patterns. To interpret the world from the peoples own perspectives researchers must experience actions as performed by the people (Hastrup 1994). Fieldwork and qualitative data collection is therefore necessary to gain in-depth understanding. Instead of asking why people behave and practice food hygiene but observe how people act it is thus possible to gain in-sight into people's knowledge-inaction (Yoder 1997) and relevant non-verbal information (Hastrup 1994). In this study I therefore chose to do participant observations, taking active part in daily routines at vending places and thereby gain knowledge on practices and interactions of vendors. I washed and prepared vegetables, I grinded chillies, stirred the iron pots, served customers, did a lot of dishwashing and went to the market with the vendors to meet suppliers and buy groceries.Taking part in the work was also an effective method to kick-start conversations and as I became a reliable part of the everyday, attitudes and perceptions of the vendors were revealed to meinformation which would not have been exposed during a single interview. Finally, an important part of conducting field work is to work with a genuine interest for the study object. To eat the street food offered by the vendors -no matter how worried I was about the hygienic quality of the foodtherefore seemed inevitable. Doing this field work has therefore also produced self-experienced information.The medical anthropology aims to gain insight into the words as well as the worlds of people and to gain access to verbal information via interviews is a second relevant component of gaining anthropological knowledge (Hastrup 1994). Semi-structured and informal conversations with vendors gave the vendors possibility to describe, explain and reflect upon their own behaviour patterns and aimed to elicit vendors' perceptions, to draw out categories of meaning and to map out values related to behaviours as described by Hardon (2001: 227). Compared to structured interviews or surveys this method of gathering information has the advantage of giving respondents the opportunity to explain complex or sensitive issues in elaborate ways and be spontaneous in their contact with the researcher (Ibid: 226).The third component of the data collection was to conduct focus group discussions (FGD) with customers. The FGD provides the researcher \"with a chance to find out differences in beliefs and gives a picture of how well health messages are accepted and provides explanations of why they may be rejected\" (Rifkin 2001:41). The FGD's gave me an opportunity to explore in greater depth the identified issues and statements from the short individual customer street interviews and thereby provided me with customers various perceptions and attitudes towards eating street foods, and concerns towards related food safety issues.Background literature was searched in relevant online databases, collections, forums and relevant libraries in Denmark (PubMed: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, CGIAR: www.infofinder.cgiar.org, IFPRI: www.ifpri.org, WHO: www.who.int, FAO: www.fao.org, Royal Danish Library: www.kb.dk, Library for Danish Centre for International Studies and Human rights (DCISM): www.dcism.dk/library, Denmark's Electronic Research Library (DEFF): www.deff.dk.The main search words and topics used, either separately or in combinations were: street foods, street vending, food hygiene and food safety, perceptions of food hygiene and food quality and urbanisation in Sub Saharan Africa. Due to the extent of material literature searches were predominantly limited to African countries. A few evaluations from street food sector projects in Asia are included in the last chapters of the thesis since they present relevant results from hygiene promotion strategies and policy making within this area.Previous studies have concluded that the majority of lettuce produced in Kumasi is purchased by street food vendors (Henseler 2005). I therefore felt it was vital to gain knowledge on the supply chain of vegetables in Kumasi. Thus, the third week of fieldwork was spent with field activities related to urban vegetable farmers in Kumasi. Participant observations were conducted during a three day stay in the home of an urban farmer following and taking part in his work routines. Informal interviews were conducted with the majority of the farmers of the area (10 out of 15) and with farmers' wives (2). A farmers' meeting on crop techniques and health issues was attended and staff from KNUST involved in conducting such meetings was consulted for additional information on such activities. Work routines of women harvesting and dealing the lettuce on the wholesalers markets were observed and 7 of these women also interviewed. Finally, some customers buying vegetables in bulks at the markets were consulted. These activities are not directly related to this thesis but necessary to understand the underlying structures of the food supply chain of street foods and to understand the challenges of urban agriculture and urbanisation in Kumasi.Vendor selection 8 street food vending sites were selected for observations in 6 different areas of Kumasi (see vendors' location on city map of Kumasi in Annex 1). It was prioritised to observe vendors from low, middle and high income areas and to include small-scale one-man vending enterprises with basic facilities as well as larger enterprises with multiple employees and permanent vending structures. Enterprises were owned by female (4) as well as male vendors (4). The study included two categories of street food vendors; Fast food and Wakye vendors. 6 out of the 8 vendors in the study were fast food sellers (no. 1, 2,3,4,5, and 6). One of these (no. 3) also sold traditional dishes (see further description of vendors in ch. 1.4.). Vendor no. 7 and 8 were traditional wakye vendors. All vendors handle all kinds of food items within their kitchens: meat, stable foods and raw vegetables. Selecting these vendors thus gave me an the opportunity to observe the full range of food handling practices performed in the streets and to observe traditional as well as modern food preparations.Extensive participant observations with the 8 case vendors and general observations of the nearby communities and many other street food vendors were conducted through out the whole period (see observation schedule in Annex 3) and were passive as well as participatory. Vending sites were each visited between 6-13 times and observed on 4-9 occasions on various times of day ranging from 7 am.-10 pm. Few of the sessions were scheduled with the vendor's to avoid vendors and staff changing routines ahead of my visits and for the sake of the study. All vendors were positive towards participating in the study. One vendor (no. 4) was only visited on three occasions since it was highly inconvenient and time consuming to travel to his stand and since the atmosphere was rather intimidating making it difficult to carry out observations and fruitful interviews. Observations were conducted working or sitting inside or near kitchens and vending stands and included all cooking and vending procedures as well as interactions with customers. A semi-structured observation guide was followed (See observation guide in Annex 4). A set of observation notes were compiled for each vendor with exact descriptions of events, discussions, observation atmosphere, practices observed etc. for each observation session. Observations were continually indexed according to the main categories of the observation guide. A total of 76 pages of observation notes from vendors were obtained.A number of informal interviews and conversations were conducted with each vendor and one formal recorded interview was planned and conducted with each vendor at the end of the observation period. All interviews were conducted using semi-structured interview guides and focused on: perceptions and attitudes towards food vending, food hygiene, and food safety but also sought general descriptions of the life of a street vendor, challenges and problems for the street food business, customer relationships and cooking knowledge, education and experience (See interview guide in Annex 5). Formal interviews were conducted using translator if the vendor was not sufficiently articulated in English to ensure interview material of good quality. Questions and answers were translated ad verbatim simultaneously during these interviews. Permission to record interviews were given by all vendors and staffs interviewed. Interviews took place seated near the vending stand or kitchen and often had to be conducted in small sessions, since vendors had to attend to their work. Transcribed interviews and interview notes produced a total of 80 pages text.A total of 27 individual customers (16 males, 11 females) were interviewed on the streets. Customers ranged between 16-48 years in age, 8 were students, 17 workers and 2 shop owners. The customers were recruited around the 8 food stands in agreement with vendors. Respondents were questioned on the spot for 5-15 minutes taking care to be outside of hearing range of the vendor. Notes were taken on all occasions and 5 of the interviews were also recorded and transcribed ad verbatim. Due to customers being in a hurry when purchasing food it was not possible to conduct all interviews as formal recorded sessions. The majority of interviews were conducted in English by me on single occasions assisted by the translator when respondents did not speak sufficient English. Interview transcriptions and interview notes make up a total of 40 pages. Street interviews were mainly conducted to quickly gain an insight into many people's consumptions patterns, attitudes towards street food quality and food safety and hence serve as basic knowledge to identify core issues and develop guides for later focus group discussions (See customer interview guide in Annex 6).2 FGD´s, one with female and one with male customers respectively, were conducted in Bantama, a middle income area of Kumasi where the concentration of street food vendors is high. The events took place in a middleclass restaurant and participants were recruited by me and the attached translator from outside the restaurant and followed to the restaurant where they were treated with drinks before the discussion. When recruiting, participants were asks if they regularly buy food at street food vendors and given basic information about the study (see introduction and question guide in Annex 7). Men were eager to join the FGD with friends which is the reason why this group ended up becoming rather big consisting of 12 men. The participants were 18-35 years of age, all unmarried and had a maximum of Junior Secondary School educational level (18 years). Few older men were seen on the streets at the time of recruitment and the ones approached were not fast food customers.Women felt shy to participate in an FGD. Hence, we sought out pairs of young women who helped us recruit more women. The group eventually consisted of 6 unmarried women between 16-26 years old, with a maximum of Junior Secondary School. Permission to record the discussion was obtained and anonymity promised. Seating of the group members including names, age and characteristics of the persons were noted down (see figure 3). All participants spoke some English but felt more confident to speak the local language Twi. Hence most of the discussions were facilitated by the local speaking translator. From time to time the facilitator translated the content of the discussions and asked me for further probing or questions. Most questionswere formulated as open-ended questions or case stories from observations and street interviews and covered the same main issues as the street interviews. Each discussion took approximately 1 hour and transcriptions produced a total of 40 pages of text.Environmental Health Department of Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly's (KMA) was consulted to gain knowledge into the procedures and experiences of food safety control among street food vendors. On two occasions I attended the daily food safety and hygiene inspection rounds in urban households and vending places and had several conversations with environmental health officers (EHO). A formal interview with two EHO´s from the KMA Asawasi sub-metro office was later conducted to gain further insight into the obstacles of controlling and monitoring the street food sector and to learn about street food initiatives taken by KMA during the last years.MAFFAG is a key-actor in the CP51 project: researchers have repeatedly recruited respondents for interviews and focus groups discussions from the members of MAFFAG and the activities of the network have been observed and evaluated by several researchers. I therefore chose to conduct a knowledge sharing workshop for members of the association in the final phase of the field work. The aim was to present food vendor related findings of the research project and to gain knowledge from discussions on the findings. Discussion questions and role plays were used to get participating vendors involved in identifying and discussing main problems in implementing safe food and hygiene practices (see more on hygiene promotion strategies in chapter 4). 50 street vendors from all over Kumasi took part. All served fast food dishes and salads but some also sold dishes such as banku, sandwiches, pastries, plantains, pasta, spring rolls, rice and stews. Many of the vendors present were native speaking only and hence the attached translator functioned as the leading facilitator of forum discussions Junior research staffs, including me, functioned as note-takers, photographer, acting out role plays and assisting facilitators. Staff of the local branch of the Nestlé owned MAGGI Corporation was also consulted to gain knowledge on existing Maggi initiated vendor networks and hygiene promoting activities for street food vendors.The process of analysis has largely followed hermeneutic interpretation principles of categorisation, operationalisation, de-contextualisation and re-contextualisation as described by Kvale (1997: 58). This process of data analysis has been cyclic in it's nature (Ibid: 58) proceeding forth and back between smaller and larger units of data and between empirical and theoretical perspectives, each adding to the final interpretation. Segments of data were first identified, labelled and categorised by assigning one or several codes from the pre-produced guides (such as food hygiene practices, disease avoidance strategies or food safety knowledge). The process of organizing data by coding was highly iterative and as the data collection proceeded and data became substantiated new subtle issues emerged and new codes were added (such as neatness of the vending site, vendors' appearance, trust in vendors, perceptions of eating street foods and home made foods). For the subsequent analysis of data, I have used the overall framework of \"multiple dimensions of perceived food quality\" (see more in ch. 2.1) since this model embraces all codes of data under five main categories. Data was then operationalized by assigning the data-categories to one dimension of perceived food quality and analysed accordingly. The final overall analysis codes were: social, nutritional, functional, aesthetic, and hygienic dimensions of food quality.Data has therefore been decontextualising, when dividing it into smaller units and first interpreting these separately out of the larger context. Finally, data was recontextualised when merging it into a comprehensive framework, in which dynamics between aspects of data becomes evident and data is interpreted as a unity taking the context into account.There are noteworthy limitations of this field study and some biases were also recognized during and after fieldwork. These will be briefly listed here. Implication for the study will be further discussed in chapter 5.1• This study has focused on middle class categories of food vendors and their customers in Kumasi and the results are therefore foremost valid for this segment of vendors and customers.• More male customers than female customers and more young low social class people than older higher status customers were included in this study.• Observations stemming foremost from 8 vendors are not representative for the whole sector of street food vendors but observations at each vendor have been extensive covering a wide range of aspects of vending street food and together with numerous interviews and conversations these have produced a comprehensive data material from some typical vendors in Kumasi. Furthermore, the validity of research results was strengthened by using triangulation of data collection methods.• Translation and transcription bias may be present to some degree.• Further observation studies at household level with customers as well as observations with other categories of vendors are relevant to asses the level of hygiene and food safety in urban households and with lower class vendors.Chapter 1: Study context: Street food in developing countries, Ghana and KumasiThe world is becoming rapidly more urban. The population of the developing world is projected to double from 1.7 billion in 1995 to 3.4 billion in 2020 and rising deprivation in urban areas including poverty, food insecurity, and malnutrition are increasing faster than in rural areas -and urban growth now presents a serious challenge in developing countries (Maxwell 2000). The explosive urbanisation has had its effects on the structures of society. Migrants coming to urban areas in Africa have experienced higher food prices, growing joblessness and lower wages which have created great social inequality and new classes of vulnerable urban people (Ibid.). In Kumasi the rapid urbanisation processes have also created problems with supplying and maintaining proper water and sanitation facilities, decreased agricultural soil quality for peri-urban and urban agriculture and poor garbage collections systems (Simon et al. 2004). As part of the urbanization process, informal food supply systems have developed, including the street food sector which now constitutes significant public health benefits as well as risks for urban dwellers (Tomlins 2002).The street food sector has grown explosively in the last decades and is now widely recognised by food and health agencies to possess a huge socio-economic power and importance for developing countries (FAO, WHO, IFPRI). With limited capital assets to meet opportunities in urban areas, poor groups have developed livelihood strategies -vending street food being one of these and the sector therefore has an immense employment and income generating potential.. FAO thus estimates that vendors make up 6-25% of the entire labour force in developing countries (Dawson 1991) and in the Ghanaian capital Accra the street food sector is estimated to employ over 60.000 people and produce an annual turnover of over 100 million US$ (Tomlins 2002). The benefits from street food trade also extend throughout the local communities and economies since vendors buy their fresh food locally, thus linking their enterprises directly with local farms and markets (WHO 2006). An example is the growing lettuce industry in Ghana, which is boosted by a vast demand from the growing street food sector (see box 1).Lettuce is now among the major raw eaten vegetables in Ghana and a very popular ingredient in street foods. A study by IWMI has identified fast food vendors as the major buyers of lettuce from urban markets in Kumasi. 855 tons of lettuce is produced in urban and peri-urban farms and 83 % of the lettuce is consumed at fast food stands. It is estimated that a total of 110.000 fast food customers eat lettuce daily from a fast food vendor in Kumasi (Henseler 2005). Hence, the street food sector secures the employment and livelihood of thousands of farmers and their families. Furthermore, many hundreds of farmers' wives are also involved in harvesting and selling the crops, making these families totally dependent on sales of vegetables to the street food sector.A number of studies have shown that particularly poor, uneducated and women are involved in street food vending and since single vendors often support a household with the incomes from vending activities, massive numbers of people are economically dependent on street food sales (Dawson 1991, Maxwell 2000). Accra based studies indicated that most vendors are from the lowest income groups and thus vulnerable to small changes in income (Maxwell 2000). Furthermore, informal street food vending doesn't require training or large investments and therefore provides realistic selfemployment for population groups that might otherwise be unemployed, including women and uneducated urban residents.Low-income urban populations depend more heavily on street foods as a source of relatively inexpensive foods (Tinker 1997, Maxwell 2000, Van t´Riet 2003). Thus, in Accra it was estimated that street foods account for 39% of the total food budget in the lowest expenditure quintile but 25% in the highest. It was also found that households considered to be food-insecure 1 spend up to 41% of the household budget on street foods to cope, compared with 28% for those considered food-secure. A reason for the poor, spending more on street foods might be that low-income people are forced to buy foods in small portions on a daily basis which is in fact more expensive than buying larger amounts of raw materials for cooking (Maxwell 2000, Mwangi 2002).But many other important reasons for purchasing street foods exist. Due to more people joining the labour force, increasing distances between home and the workplace, inadequate kitchen facilities, lack of cooking knowledge and changes in family cohesion, more people tend to rely on ready-to-eat foods consumed outside of their homes (Tinker 1997, Maxwell 2000). With more women working outside the homes families and children also become more dependent on street food as a convenient source of nourishment (Maxwell 2000, FAO 2006).Food safety has been declared a global and increasing public health concern by International agencies such as IFPRI, FAO and WHO but the exact number of food poisoning and food borne diseases is not known since most incidences are not reported. It has been estimated that food and waterborne diarrhoeal diseases are leading causes of illness and death in less developed countries killing 1.8 million people annually (WHO 2002) most of whom are children. In Ghana it has been estimated that diarrhoeal diseases cause an annual of 9.700 deaths making diarrhoeal diseases the fourth most frequent cause of death in Ghana (who int 1). Outbreaks of food borne diseases (i.e. cholera, typhoid and salmonella) thus have the potential of seriously damaging the health status of the populations, simultaneously creating an enormous social and economic burden on communities and their health systems.Street foods have in general been shown to be of rather low hygienic quality, also in Ghana. Maxwell, identified links between reliance on street food consumption and prevalence of gastrointestinal infections (Maxwell 2000) and other Accra studies isolated Shigella E. coli and Salmonella bacteria in food samples such as tomatoes, meat, lettuce and ready street vended dishes (Mensah 2001(Mensah , 2002) ) and found that 37.5% of the vendors harboured at least one enteric bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella (Mensah 1999). A study conducted among 160 vendors in the southern Ga district also identified street food as a source of transmitting zoonoses and majority of vendors used water of poor microbiological quality (King 2000). Street food has also been shown to contain environmental contaminants such as chemicals, traces of pesticides and heavy metals (Tomlin, 2002). Changes in eating patterns, such as preferences for fresh and minimally processed foods also contribute to the increased incidences of food borne diseases ascribed to microbiological organisms (WHO 2002). An example from the Kumasi context is the irrigation of lettuce with waste water: 10 % of the waste water in Kumasi. The rest ends up in rivers and streams where some of it is collected by farmers and used for irrigation purposes (Keraita et al. 2003). Lettuce traded on urban markets has thus been found to be extremely contaminated with faecal bacteria and other harmful pathogens (Amoah et al. 2006).Hence, hygienic behaviours, food handling practices of street vendors, water quality, and farming methods and are all potential sources of food contamination and efforts to ensure street food safety must therefore be initiated at many levels. Sale and consumption of street foods are on the increase within the West African Region and will continue to grow (WHO 2006). The safety of street food is therefore an area with growing importance for public health but the availability of safe street foods also provide an important platform for productivity, development and poverty alleviation (WHO 2002).Street food vendors in Kumasi prepare and serve a large variety of foods. Fast food vendors serve various types of fried rice (with vegetables and spices) served with pieces of fried chicken or fish. Meals typically comes with salad made of lettuce and a variety of toppings such as eggs, onions, cabbage, tomatoes and other raw vegetables. Some fast food vendors also vend local traditional dishes consisting of staple food items (i.e. fu-fu made of pounded cassava, maize and yam flavour, banku and kenkey both made of fermented maize). Wakye vendors (pronounced waché, meaning beans) is the commonly used name for vendors selling a traditional dish of beans mixed with rice. The dish is sold together with a range of stews, meat dishes, salads, spaghetti and toppings. Other major categories of vendors are chop bar owners, hawkers, and porridge sellers. Chop bars are traditional small scale road side restaurants serving banku, fufu and kenkey. Porridge sellers serve breakfast porridge (made of fermented maize dough) tea, coffee and fried eggs during the early morning hours. Besides these vendors thousands of hawkers are selling snacks, breads, ice creams, cakes, maize cones, kebabs, fried plantains etc. vending from road side tables, wooden boxes carried on their heads or directly on the ground.Studies of street food vendors in Accra suggest that 90% of vendors are women (Maxwell 2000) but no such estimate exist for Kumasi. My observations and previous studies in Kumasi (Olsen 2005) suggest that males own the biggest proportion of fast food enterprises in Kumasi, while women make up the vast majority of traditional street vendors. This is supported by MAFFAG and EHI. Many youngsters and school children are also active selling snacks on a part-time basis. In Accra it was found that vendors had minimal or no education, 75% did not pay taxes and most did not belong to vendors' associations. The member status of Kumasi based networks indicate that very few vendors are indeed members of associations in Kumasi and my field studies also suggest that vendors in general have low education and minimal formal cooking knowledge (see more in ch.4). EHI support this finding.Street food consumers observed in this study were predominantly young male workers with low educational levels or students of both sexes. This is a quite typical picture of street food consumers also found in other studies (Tinker 1997, Mwangi 2002). The consumer group seems to differ between the types of preferred vendor, with higher status customers, such as students and shop owners, among fast food vendors and lower among traditional vendors. This will be further elaborated in chapter 3.2 and 3.3.The street food vendors observed in this study all had stands from where they vended ready dishes. Stands were simple metal cages or wooden tables and included a minimum of facilities such as a number of shelves and a roof made of textile or wood (see pictures). The traditional vendors cook foods in outdoor kitchens on multiple pots boiling on charcoal fires. They arrive to markets around midday and start selling foods. Fast food vendors all prepare food in or around their stands, frying the chicken on char coal fires outside the stand and frying the final rice dish on stoves inside the stands.Kitchen facilities at vendor 5 (left and middle) and 8Street food vendors operate under challenging conditions being in a highly unstable and competitive business with a relative small income. Many vendors spend time and efforts ensuring water and sanitation facilities, negotiate rent and rights and have to pass food safety and health control by town authorities. The two cases below give impressions from the daily routines and lives of two vendors in this study.The stand is situated on the roadside of a residential area. The area is considered to be middle-high social class with many two stored newly build houses surrounded by protective walls. The street is very quiet with only few people passing by on foot.The stand is owned by Serwaa, a 29 year old woman. She left school when she was 17 and started cooking for celebrations and working in a fast food shop. She has recently taken over her own stand and chose it because it was situated near the town Stadium a very busy area with many vendors and customers. Now the Stadium is under construction and all the vendors driven away by town planners. Serwaa was forced to move to this spot which she rents for a high price from a resident of the area. She hopes that she can move back to the Stadium one day. In the meantime she is concerned she can not earn enough to keep the business going. Therefore, even though Serwaa has very few customers she starts work at 7 am., goes to the market, cooks rice, rests and then stays in the stand until 10-11 pm. to make the most of the day. Never the less she dreams about one day creating an outdoor seating area for customers and turning the stand into a real restaurant.Serwaa lives apart from her husband and has a 1 year old son staying with her. She can not afford a babysitter so she brings him along for work everyday. While she cooks he crawls around the inside of the stands and it is indeed difficult for her to work effectively while keeping the son away from the heat, the water, the gas and the scrap. She is also forced to change his diaper inside the stand which she feels is highly inappropriate.Serwaa lives in a rented room not far away. There is no water source at the stand so she cooks rice in her room every morning and brings it to the stand. Serwaa finds it very difficult unsuitable to cook here since it produces smoke and produces an unhealthy environment for her son. She also brings buckets of water for dish washing to the stand from her room every morning and complains that it is a hassle to bring heavy buckets and rice every morning and therefore often prioritises to bring less water. She knows that utensils are not washed adequately on such days and often she has to buy expensive water in sachets to rinse the plates. On days with good earnings she therefore spends money on a taxi to carry all the items to the stand. Serwaa finds the public toilets around too disgusting so once in a while Serwaa has to close down the shop and walk half an hour back to her room with her son to use the toilet.When Serwaa is busy, her sister and a school girl helps out -neither of them have any food education or health licenses but Serwaa feels it is ok since she is supervising them. Serwaa has been inspected by KMA several times and has never been reprimanded. She holds a health licence but it has transpired several years ago. Serwaa feels it is a big hassle and expenditure for her and her son to go to the local authorities and the health clinic to renew it and she therefore keeps postponing it.Box 3: Example of daily life challenges of street food vendor 2; Royal Fast Food \"Royal Fast Food\" stand is situated in a very busy and congested part of town where lorries, containers and buses always fill the streets. Vendors, hotels and restaurants have lots of customers here. The stand is owned by Ali, a 37 year man and together with his brother, Dauda 22 years old, he works in the stand from 10 am. -1-2 in the night mainly serving regular customers in the day and truck drivers passing through town in the night.The brothers live together and support a family of 9. Ali is worried that depending on one food stand is too risky and to make enough money he also cooks for rich people in Kumasi. He also spends time teaching Dauda everything he knows about cooking so he can take over the stand while he himself cooks for others. Actually Dauda does not want to be a vendor but he has to support the family and schooling is too expensive to continue. However, he dreams of one day finishing vocational school and being a car mechanic. Ali has completed a 2 and a half year catering course. He was an apprentice and cook at a four star hotel in Kumasi but he lost his job. Now he wishes to go back to catering school to enhance his cooking knowledge but he sees no chance how. He says that the working life of street food is too strenuous and he therefore works nonstop -to be able to invest for the future. He is looking out for a location of establishing a restaurant but it is not affordable with the income from the food stand alone.The day starts early in the morning when Ali goes shopping on the Central Market. He takes his time to find the foods items and he sometimes even drives to nearby farms to buy vegetables from farmers he knows.During afternoons he cooks non-stop while Dauda collects water, cleans the vegetables and does the dish washing. Ali does not find expenses for water, toilet and washing facilities to be too high and Dauda often fetches additional water from the nearby tap to ensure proper dishwashing and clean water for rinsing vegetables. But it is a serious problem for Ali that his only cooling facility is the freezer of the nearby police station which he pays an officer a high rent to use. His own home is too far away to bring the meat and leftovers everyday. He therefore has to store leftovers over night outdoor in the stand.Ali is a known and well liked man in the neighbourhood and he has a large group of regular customers who come because they think he is an honest man and because they expect him to keep himself and the place neat. Ali knows that he has to keep the hygienic standards up to keep attracting customers but he is worried about the quality of food: The open structure of his stand makes contamination from exhaustion and dust from passing vehicles unavoidable. He also finds it difficult to clean satisfactorily in such a crammed and small kitchen and he has troubles keeping pests such as rats, flies and cockroaches away. But Ali is a licensed vendor and he always goes to the main Hospital once a year for health check-ups together with his brother and he pays great attention to advice given by doctors, KMA and often asks his business relations about hygienic issues.Street food vendors must be registered with name, vending site, and type of food vended within KMA and pass a medical screening test on a health clinic to obtain a vending license. The test includes blood and faeces screening for TB, typhoid and worm infections. The health certificate cost 35.000 Cedis (app. 3.5 USD) and should be renewed once a year. In recent years it has been a toppriority of KMA to screen and register vendors, promoting it in half yearly community campaigns (vans with load speakers etc.). EHI staff estimate that 80 % of established vendors are currently registered, but it is a major problem to get vendors to renew licences. EHI regularly inspect vending and preparation sites, examining sanitation and water facilities, utensils, storage, wastewater disposal, methods of refuse storage and general hygienic conditions around cooking and vending premises.KMA have the authority to fine vendors and close down vending stations if they find the food unsafe or the facilities inadequate for safe food vending. Most often EHI will discuss hygiene or safety problems with the vendors on site and return to the vending place to ensure that improvements have been implemented. According to EHI staff the challenges of improving the general street food hygiene with these tools are vast; the work is tedious and EHI can impossibly cover al grounds.Vendors are also very reluctant to comply with orders from KMA. On occasions EHI arranges health and food hygiene workshops for vendors in cooperation with vendor associations, chiefs etc. but EHI stated that it is very difficult to attract vendors to such educational activities.Kumasi has grown explosively during the last decades and is today the second-largest town of Ghana housing 1.2 million people, which is more than twice the number recorded during the 1984 census (Keraita et al. 2003). The city hosts one of the largest markets in West-Africa and together with the local population thousands of petty traders, businessmen, travellers and whole sellers on the market create a huge demand for ready available street foods in Kumasi. The Metro Director of Sanitation and Environmental Health in KMA recently estimated that more than 10.000 licensed vendors are operating in Kumasi (Olsen 2005) and the registration books also show a marked increase in registrations during the last few years 2 . In addition to licensed vendors EHI confirm that hundreds of vendors operate ad hoc and without any official licenses.Three organisations exist for small scale food vendors in Kumasi all initiated and sponsored by The Nestlé/Maggi Food Corporation: The \"Maggi Traditional Caterers of Ghana\" (for small scale restaurant owners), the \"Nestlé Tea\" (coffee and tea sellers) and the fast food association \"MAFFAG\" for street vendors which currently holds 122 members about 50 of these being active and attending weekly meetings. MAFFAG members discuss social and commercial issues on their meetings and are taught about Maggi products. These also organise yearly clean-up campaigns on streets and markets to promote safe and clean vending premises. No organisations exist for street food vendors producing traditional dishes vended from street stands. The Maggi Company also has individual business relations with app. 500 tea sellers, 320 traditional food vendors, 400 fast food vendors and 75 restaurants in the Ashanti region alone.Chapter 2: TheoryIn the African context studies of street food quality have focused mostly on investigating the microbiological quality with studies such as those of Mensah (1999Mensah ( , 2001Mensah ( , 2002) ) and King (2000) from Ghana, Umoh (1999) from Nigeria, EI-Sherbeeny et al. (1985) from Egypt, Murindamombe et al. (2005) from Botswana, Mosupye et al. (2000) from South Africa and Cardinale et al. (2005) from Senegal, all concentrating on bacterial contamination, pathogens in food and food hygiene. As already described in ch. 1.2 some more studies have also focused on the socio-economical importance of street foods. Furthermore, many meetings in international food and health organisations have been invested in street food safety, and researchers as well as policymakers seem to reach the same conclusion: It is essential to raise the risk awareness and educate vendors as well as consumers on food safety (FAO 1997, Garrett 2000, WHO 2006). Few studies have concentrated on the actual practices and knowledge levels of street food vendors on hygiene related issues (Mwangi 2002, Mensah 1999).Quite a few European based studies on food perceptions have focused on lay peoples' perceptions of food dangers and food risks (i.e. Frewer et al. 1996, Hansen 2003, Redmond 2004, and Knox 2000). These studies plead that in order to change risk behaviours, individuals have to perceive that their current behaviours endanger health and need to be changed and that taking action has a strong likelihood of reducing such risks. Therefore, they have concentrated on investigating to what extend people perceive and acknowledge food related risks such as food contamination. Studies have found that people tend to express optimistic bias towards food risks, underestimating or ignoring risks of encountering harmful effects from foods (Redmond 2004). In others studies people tended to express illusion of control over food related risks (Frewer et al. 1996) and Hansen et al. found trust to compensate for knowledge of food risks (Hansen 2003). Hence, food related risks and dangers are coped with using many strategies and these studies have concluded that perceptions of food risk are often not the core dimension of food quality assessments.Hansen et al. therefore claim that more sociological and anthropologically founded studies must concentrate of how food quality is actually thought of in an every day life context (Holm et al. 1996).Few studies have devoted attention to such dimensions of perceived food quality and to my knowledge none have sought to understand the variety of individual perceptions and attitudes towards street food quality and street food safety among vendor and their consumers. Hence, there is a need to approach perceived food quality as a multidimensional construct including biomedical and nutritional quality, risk awareness, social and cultural setting.An exception is the study of Prigent-Simonin and Hérault-Fournier (2005) who used a multidimensional food quality model and adapted it to a study of European consumers' trust in local producers and food products (beef, wine, and poultry). The study focused on the direct relationship between food producer and consumer and the theoretical frame of the study therefore seems to fit the street food vendor-consumer relationship as well. The seven dimensions of perceived food quality considered in the study were: nutritional, hygienic, practical, organoleptic, social, symbolic and humanistic quality (See figure 4). Prigent-Simonin et al. describe organoleptic quality as \"the sensory pleasure we get from eating or cooking foods\". The social dimension is \"connected to the way we select, cook or eat food, which enables us to position us selves in certain social groups, relations or reference groups\". The symbolic quality of food is defined by the cultural background of the consumer and if the food item is eatable according to his/her culture. Functional quality is defined as \"the degree of how practical the food is to handle, transport and eat\". Humanistic food quality is described as an awareness of purchasing foods taking environmental issues such as less intensive farming and fair price trade into consideration. The nutritional dimension of food was defined as \"the food's overall contribution to a balanced diet\". Finally, hygienic food quality is defined as \"food containing no toxic substances and being good for the health of consumers\". These definitions will also be used in this study but also be broadened up and contain more aspects.As already described previous street food studies have concentrated foremost on two of these dimensions: hygienic and social. The model and its multidimensional perspective on food quality will thus constitute a beneficial frame to understand a wider range of dimensions of perceived street food quality in Kumasi. This can give a full picture of how vendors and consumers perceive and consider food quality -and how this is of importance for food handling practices and purchasing patterns. This will broaden up the scope of previous studies focusing foremost on the two dimensions of hygiene and social-economic significance. From a public health point of view the hygienic quality and food safety is a crucial dimension of street food quality since foods have been recognized to be of low hygienic standards and a potential source of diseases. But as I progressed into vendors' and consumers' perceptions of street food hygiene it became obvious that perceptions of hygiene are not only rooted in microbiological reasons but also draw heavily upon social, cultural and aesthetic values. Examples of such very different hygiene rationales encountered among vendors are mentioned in Box 4. Similar rationales were met among customers.As the examples demonstrate vendors operate with various hygiene rationales and express several of these during their everyday practices. Religious, biomedical, aesthetic and social norms affect these rationales and hygiene practices parallel. Theories of emic and etic hygiene rationales can describe the differences between these aspects of hygiene.Observing and assessing performed hygiene practices from a scientists' outside view has been labelled as the etic view on hygiene focusing on sources of contamination and risk of infection. This point of view on hygiene is rooted in the European sanitarian movement beginning in the mid 19 th century. At that time the urban growth of western cities and the rapid industrialisation createdVendor 2; Royal fast food; Vegetables have to be cleaned, utensils have to be washed and meat has to be thoroughly cooked to avoid germs and make hygienic foods says Ali, who used to be a professional cook and now owns this fast food stand.Vendor 3; Adom fast food: One midday the vendor asks me to clean my self up: to fix my hair, put on an apron and wash my hands before we go strolling down the shopping street were this stand is situated. We are going to visit her regular customers to announce the menu of the day. It is important to be appear clean she says so the customers can see that she is a good vendor.Vendor 4: Mario's Fast food stand: Levanos who has been cooking for 4 months tells me he has to bath at least two times a day when he is vending: Once in the morning before he starts cooking so he doesn't bring any dirt to the food stand. And again after finishing food preparations so he can appear clean in front of the customers. Maybe he will also bath in the evening before he goes to bed, since he is often stained with grease after working a whole day in the stand.Vendor 6; Agingo Fast food: Basch is a Muslim and one of the vendors met in the stand. Once a day he goes to pray and before leaving for the prayer he washes his arms and his hands. He thoroughly repeats this routine when he returns to the stand. It is important to appear clean before God and the customers he says.Vendor 7; Traditional food stand in Adom: The vendor Aisha has several staffs. When they start cooking in the morning she asks them all to put on hair covers. The food has to be hygienic she says and a part of that is not having hair falling into the food as they cook. She also likes the customers to see that she takes care to instruct her staff in hygienic manners -that makes her look like a responsible vendor.congested living conditions for the urban populations and caused concerns of public health (Rosen 1993:177). According to the dominating miasma theories, sanitation and sewage became the main tools in combating the great endemic diseases such as typhoid, tuberculoses, diphtheria and cholera, defeating the contagious diseases by improving the overall hygiene of the urban environment by removing and limiting the risk of contact with disgustful dirt and waste. The focus on contamination was reinforced with the great scientific revolution of Louis Pasteur and others in the mid and late 19 th century. Discovering the significance of micro-organisms and their roles in disease transmission, the germ theory became the leading and most weighty argument for enhancing hygiene (Ibid: ch. VII).Promoting hygiene was from then on inevitable connected with eradicating favourable living conditions and sources of bacteria, parasites and other pathogens.However, avoiding and combating dirt has proven to be a desirable behaviour long before the discovery of bacterial disease transmission and from the above cases it is obvious that hygiene is not just about removing germs. Examples of 'indigenous' dirt-avoiding behaviours are many in history; Rosen describes Greek, Roman, and Middle Age hygienic behaviours (Rosen 1993), Cohen describes hygiene and dirt avoiding behaviours in European cities through out the 19 th . Century (Cohen 1989) while Douglas (2002) and Green (1999) both describe African tribes' hygiene related rituals. All this took place before the discovery of bacteria or in communities where bacteriological rationales are not present. However, the cases showed that hygiene perceptions, not rooted in theories of bacterial disease transmission, need not to be indigenous in their nature since they exist in a present urban Ghanaian society, with people being knowledgeable about germs and bacteria. Hence, hygiene needs to be looked at from an emic angle as well to explain why people do not only express etic hygiene rationales.The emic view is an inside point of view of people expressing and practising hygiene. It is a map of what actually motivates hygiene behaviours -or lack of hygiene practices. Mary Douglas emphasised such emic views when stressing that dirt needs to be interpreted within a symbolic and cultural frame (Douglas 2002). In her classic book Purity and Danger from 1966 dirt is described as \"matter out of place\" thus being a relativistic construct: \"Dirt is essentially disorder. There is no such thing as absolute dirt; it exists in the eyes of the beholder (Ibid: 2). Dirt and unhygienic conditions are therefore interpreted as a part of a social order and can only be understood in relation to the fundamental social values in society. It cannot be set apart from the rest of society: \"Dirt then is never a unique, isolated event. Where there is dirt there is a system. Dirt is the by-product of a systematic ordering and classification of matter, in so far as ordering involves rejecting of inappropriate elements\" (Ibid. :44). Hygiene and motivations for hygienic behaviours are therefore socially rooted behaviours which serve to uphold order and appropriateness. In recent public health and hygiene research Valerie Curtis has underlined the importance of also recognizing such strong social dimensions of hygiene in developing countries. Research in hygiene behaviours among African mothers made her realize that: \"If hygiene is a social phenomenon, then it cannot be understood except in a social context. And without methods for understanding hygiene in context, without analysis of the factors underlying and determining hygiene, efforts to encourage better hygiene for the sake of public health will remain ineffective\" (Curtis 1998:3). This fundamental realization is the basic effort of this thesis; In order to understand the hygiene practices expressed by vendors and customers and in order to use this knowledge to promote safer street food practices it is necessary to investigate the underlying emic hygiene perceptions.The cases showed that street food vendors in Kumasi do not operate within strict biological neither supernatural hygiene rationales but also host rather naturalistic perceptions of contamination, pollution and disease. Douglas has studied examples of personalised and supernaturally founded hygiene perceptions and disease explanations such as sorcery, witchcraft, magic and miracles. In recent years anthropologist Edward Green has given emphasis to another emic view on pollution theories which can further explain the rationales of vendors. He stresses that indigenous peoples' categorisations of disease need also be interpreted as lying in between microbiological hygiene theories and personalised perceptions of dirt (Green 1999). His indigenous contagion theory (ICT) pleads that dirt and disease are mainly interpreted as caused by natural factors such as cold, heat, winds, dampness, upset in the basic body elements, and hence more naturalistic than mystical: \"I suggest that pollution beliefs…are naturalistic or quasi-naturalistic. They involve an impersonal process of illness through contact or exposure. Polluted individuals are not singles out for illness or misfortune by a human or superhuman force; they typically become polluted from mere contact, from being in the wrong place at the wrong time\" (Ibid: 14). According to ICT emic hygiene perceptions are therefore both cultural and socially founded but also closely related to previously mentioned miasma theories in which people interpret dirt, contamination and disease as caused by external factors such as wind, dust, flies and garbage. Seen together, these emic and etic hygiene theories based on scientific, social and cultural norms, offer explanations for many aspects of hygiene practices and perceptions and through this thesis it will become evident that vendors and customers operate with a variety of these in their everyday lives.During field work I had the full access to food preparation sites as well as the vending areas and at all vendors I saw obvious distinctions between food practices and behaviours going on 'behind the counters' and what was ultimately presented to the customers in the stands. The practices, manners and appearance of vendors, cooking surroundings and foods simply differed. In the two boxes below two such typical situations from vendors are sketched out, outlining \"back stage\" and \"front stage\" behaviour patterns.At this stand, situated in the busy and upper-status part of the shopping centre of Kumasi, you can buy a modern meal of fried rice and chicken or a traditional meal of banku with fish, stew and chilli paste. All meals come together with a serving of salad and are served either at the seating area or as take-away in small plastic boxes.Back stage: Inside the kitchen the food is cooked on gas stoves. Vegetables, meat or sauces cooking and new dishes are being prepared on tables, the floor or wherever the staff can find the necessary space to work. The kitchen is busy all day through and the staff is putting efforts into working and producing food profitably, not paying much attention to systematizing the work process: they grind the chilli paste, they chop and rinse the vegetables, they scrape the fish and fry the chicken -all is done in a seemingly disorganized way but dishes are always ready to be served and consumed when the customers come around for lunch and dinner to order. The staff is usually relaxed and work is performed in an informal atmosphere; They laugh, joke, discuss loudly, sing along to the radio music and often greet friends passing on the streets. The kitchen is also often visited by people who hang around to chat with staffs, maybe help out or just to enjoy a cold drink. Work goes on with people coming and going not being overly concerned with how the kitchen presents it self to the ones who enters -also if it is totally chaotic and dirty. In general the inside of the kitchen constitutes a friendly workspace where everything is dealt with as it comes along, where nothing is hastened and where solutions are often improvised to allow production to continue.Front stage: When observing the outside surroundings and interactions with customers in front of the stand, I witness other behaviour patterns and prioritisations: when a customer buys a meal, the food is arranged artistically on a plate, piling the food in a pyramid and taking care not to touch the food with hands. The vendor places the plate on a tray together with a white napkin, a bowl with clean water for washing hands and a clean glass. She covers it all with a clean tissue to protect it from flies as she carries the meal away. She usually also puts on an apron to cover the stains on her clothes, washes her hands before she goes to the customer and serves the food in a polite way by smiling to the customer who awaits the food in the seating area outside the food stall. Sitting in the shade at a clean plastic table surrounded by flowering bushes the area gives the impression of being in a leisurely park even though the stand is situated in the middle of a heavily trafficked neighbourhood. The seating area is well-swept and no litter is disturbing the eyes of the customers and the staff always monitor that the areas stays attractive and neat. When helping to clear off the tables, I am also told to fix my hair, not speak to the customers, bring dirty utensil into the kitchen immediately, whipping the tables clean and not leave any traces of dirt for new customers to see.In this stand customers can buy themselves a solid meal of wakye. The food is prepared in a private courtyard in the labyrinths of one of the poorest suburbs of Kumasi. After preparation the food is carried to the local market situated on the road side of a major approach road to Kumasi. The market is a scattered collection of provisional stands from which many other street food vendors operate. Customers take-away their foods in plastic bags or eat it with fingers from plastic plates on a bench next to the stand.The food is prepared in the courtyard of a private house owned by the female vendor in charge. The vendor, her husband, 4 of their children, some spouses, some grandchildren, a number of young male workers subrenters and a few of the cooking staffs are all accommodated here and the courtyard is the centre of their everyday lives as well as the food production. The 6 staffs and the vendor start cooking around 7 am by lighting the fires and boiling water in big iron pots. During the day they stir fry the fish, chicken and beef, cook the stews, eggs, spaghetti, wash and prepare the vegetables for salad, and mix and boil the chilli sauce.They are busy and the atmosphere is loaded with hectic activity: staffs argue loudly with each other and the vendor, the children are all over the place sometimes being punished because they interfere with the cooking. Animals are running in between the pots being traced away by staffs. Guests, neighbours and business relations are also frequently visiting the place. While cooking, staffs and vendor do not spend time cleaning, organising or tidying up the place but are concentrated on chopping, boiling, stirring and discussing the food preparations and are not bothered with other people's presence or staring as they pass the court yard. Neither are staffs concerned with their looks: they are wearing worn out clothes, frequently drying off sweat in their shirts which are blackened from charcoal and stained with palm oil.Front stage: Around 1 pm. the food is ready and brought to the market for sale, usually by staffs carrying the foods in tin bowls on their heads. Now the behaviour patterns change and many front stage impressions can be observed. The appearance of the seller and all utensils brought to the market is important: All bowls are washed with soap and wiped shining clean before the food is poured into them. The girl who is selling the food takes a bath, puts on a clean dress, make-up and jewellery. She always wears a head cover made of a new colourful piece of traditional fabric and during the day she takes care not to get any stains on her clothes. She also keeps a white handkerchief to wipe of sweat from her face. When arriving to the market she arranges the many on top of each other in an artistic way and covers all the food with white clean lace and nets which gives the stand an elegant appearance attractive to customers. The stand is situated right in front of an open gutter and flies are filling the air. But the girl sweeps the immediate surroundings at least three times a day, continuously collects litter from the ground and makes sure that the gutter is the only visible dirty feature in her vicinity. Her manners are also significantly changed: When standing behind the table she quickly identifies the wishes of the customers and serves them graceful movements and only speaks few words in a low and soft voice always ending with a ´thank you` or ´sorry` .In Goffman's self impression management theory people are portrayed as actors on an everyday life scene, managing the impression of self in the public space on fully visible 'front stages' and veiled 'back stages' (Goffman 1956). According to this theory individuals' actions can be understood as part of a social consciousness in which people stage them selves in social society striving to give impressions of certain status and role. Goffman's theory and the theatrical analogy is therefore useful for this study when trying to understand the described stages on which vendors and consumers act.The analogy also provides good explanations for the observed unsafe and safe food related behaviours which at first glance seem out of order and without any reason. Furthermore, instead of describing hygienic behaviours as individual actions and concerns this theory focuses on behaviours created in the meeting between the acting parties and gives importance to the social relationships between them. Hence, it offers an opportunity to understand the patterns of behaviours and interactions between vendors and consumers.According to Goffman a social establishment can always be studied profitable from the point of view of impression management (Ibid: 238) because is visualizes characteristics of our social interactions.When defining a social establishment as \"any place surrounded by fixed barriers to perception in which a particular kind of activity regularly takes place\" (Ibid:238) I feel confident to take on his analogy and apply it to 'the street food stand' as a social establishment. A street food stand indeed hosts well defined and regular activities of food vending and evokes quite fixed perceptions of service, food production and food purchasing for both vendors and customers.Goffman describes a social establishment as divided into a 'back stage' on which \"performance of a routine is prepared\" and a 'front stage' \"in which performance is presented\" (Ibid: 238). This distinction between preparation and presentation was clear in the above cases and very fitting for the street food sector in general: Any vending site has a back stage where food is prepared and where food, staff and kitchen is invisible to the consumer. In Kumasi such preparation sites were located in vendors' homes, rented rooms, back yards or areas behind or inside the food stands. When finishing preparations vendors turn to the front stage areas, where foods and vendors are presented to the public and customers. But the above cases also visualises that hygienic practices are indeed performed with the awareness of such stages: on the back side of these kitchens hygiene practices are heavily influenced and overruled by priorities such as cooking routines and practicalities (such as time, space and convenience) which makes effective and profitable cooking possible.According to Goffman the exact distinction between these two settings are made of stimuli and behaviour patterns expressed by individuals. On the front stage this especially includes stimuli such as ´appearance´ and ´manners´ (Ibid: 24) whereas the back region is where suppressed facts make an appearance and where the performer can relax and step out of the front character (Ibid: 112). This implies that the front stage is the area on which the individual struggles to project impression of one self and thus to control the perception of one self by others. Conversely, the backstage is the area behind the curtain on which behaviours and facts damaging to the impression-struggles are disclosed. The above cases clearly confirmed that vendors have strong awareness of such manners and appearances as important for projecting the right image when entering the front stages of vendingconcerns such as appearances of immediate cooking surroundings, foods and vendors are high here.Appearance and manners are all kept 'neat' to project a positive impression to the customers.Another important component in keeping up the show are the relations and interactions between an audience and the performer, here the vendors and the customers. All parties must act according to a mutual agreement (Ibid: 238) and play their specified roles. The performer will employ the above attributes to set the scene and the audience contributes to upholding the show by employing tact via polite interaction (Ibid: 211) -thereby respecting the impressions made by the performing part. These patterns of behaviours will ensure that no one is socially humiliated or embarrassed (Ibid: 212).The distinction between the two stages is often not controlled but upheld voluntarily by the acting parties them selves. Not to intrude on the arenas of others is simply a natural part of respecting the social order between the audience and the performer (Ibid: 229). This was also the case for many street food customers who act out their part of the show by agreeing in the distinction between a front and back stage and seldom intrude on the work space or arenas of vendors -even though it is sometimes easily accessible to them.Functional quality Aesthetic quality (Appearance)Nutritional qualityChapter 3: Findings and analysisFrom data it was possible to identify signs of all of the above mentioned dimensions of street food quality among vendors and consumers in Kumasi. Many characteristics were found to be interlinked and crosscutting and the seven dimensions are therefore re-grouped into five main dimensions: social, nutritional, functional, hygienic, and aesthetic quality (see figure 5). Aesthetics were not identified as a separate dimension in the Prigent-Simonin study but turned out to be significant in this data material and will be described and analysed independently.Figure 5 pictures each dimension detached from others. However, data turned out to hold much higher complexity and the present figure does not capture the dynamics and linkages between some of the dimensions. After analysing each dimension separately a model will therefore be presented which attempts to visualize such dynamics of vendors' and consumers' perceptions.In this analysis the two dimensions of symbolic and social quality are merged since many traits of cultural references and social values were interconnected in the data. The social dimension of this study thus concerns a row of norms and perceptions rooted in the social and cultural setting of Ghana and provide the framework for understanding the position of the street food sector in such Ghanaian context. While other dimensions are mostly concerned with individual perceptions of street food this dimension is highly concerned with inter-personal issues such as the social relationships between customers and vendors and the social values and norms influencing peoples behaviours in the public space.As described in ch. 1.2 the socio-economic and nutritional importance of the street food sector is now recognized by international agencies. However, perceptions of street foods in the population seem much more complex and positive notions towards street foods as well as reluctance, suspicion and distrust can be found among consumers, authorities and vendors. In this study I often found street foods to be regarded as foods of lower standards compared to food from other eating establishments (e.g. restaurants and chop bars) and home cooked food; \"If it happens that your mother is cooking for you she will place the food on a table and even use a kind of lace to cover the food…your mother, she will ensure that everything is genuine\" and \"It is always better you eat in your own house…it is better, than the outside food …the service is far far better … It is extraordinary compared to outside food\" (FGD, males). The proverb \"everybody likes to eat from under the mother's tripod\" was also used to describe the role of home cooked foods. Food cooked at home by the women of the house is always praised and enjoyed. Hence, the emotional attachment to home cooked food is strong and care for the food is perceived to be much better here compared to what street food vendors are expected to deliver. Hence, street food vendors were typically described as \"careless\" with food and not putting enough efforts into the process of producing it and mainly concentrating on gaining money.Eating at home was also perceived to be the proper behaviour for a family and eating in the streets may signal problems in maintaining a typical family structure. Several married male customers therefore stressed that their reasons for buying street foods wasn't a way of avoiding home cooked food made by their wives -which was considered to be a highly improper behaviour for a married man. Typically wives were working outside the homes and had no time to cook. Studies of acceptance of the street food sectors in various African countries by Fouéré et al. (2000) agrees in this explanation of social apprehension towards street foods; eating street food goes against socialization trends that binds ties between household members around a family meal. Street foods are therefore unaccepted as it is representative for individualized eating.Because of the low social status of the street food people also perceive it to be socially unacceptable for higher status people such as chiefs and pastors to eat food from the streets: \"Especially the pastors, they don't want to stand there…people will complain about them… Ghanaians are talkative. They can go and tell someone \"I saw the pastor buying food, I saw the pastor doing this and that\" (interview with vendor 5) and \"Because of the kind of home he comes from it will not be good for him to eat outside…Let's say a chief or say a manager, he cannot come and sit outside to eat\" (FGD, males). A high-social class customer from a nearby business cooperation also stated that eating in the streets was embarrassing to him since people from \"the slums\" can watch and he thus felt protected when eating in inside facilities such as restaurants, which were considered \"more according to his status and standards\" (Male customer Asokwa, 26 th April). But common people also perceived it to be a degrading and socially dishonourable behaviour to eat in public:\"Corn -I can't buy it and chew it on the street. I feel shy… you have to eat it in a very rough way (showing how to break the cone with his teeth)… Maybe I'll meet someone and maybe the person knows me and he will say \"See, I met this brother up here in this street and he was eating corn or sugar cane like that\" (shows how to eat roughly) and he will laugh at me… so if I want to chew sugar cane I will find somewhere to sit down and chew it\" (Male customer Adom, 23 rd April)Such reasons why people feel exposed can be understood using the Goffman analogy: when eating in public you are exposing your eating manners and yourself and you are in danger of loosing face which is socially demeaning. Eating manners are obviously not meant to be staged in public but kept hidden and to keep up the impression of one self in the public sphere and thereby avoid being ridiculed and socially embarrassed the customers therefore 'hide' when eating street foods; few customers were seen to stand visibly in the streets eating their street foods and several customers explained how they turn their backs to the public while eating or try to locate a hidden place or sit inside the food stands out of sight of the public. I my self was corrected several times by vendors when eating in public; not to eat food directly from a bag or not to eat while walking. It was simply perceived as 'improper' behaviours. Hence, even though the fast food business is build on concepts of eating away from home many people still take food from the stands to eat it at home. The reasons seem to be related with perceptions of loosing social status and fear of social embarrassment and therefore protecting the impression of one self. The fetishist religion is the indigenous religion of Ghanaians and still practiced by many. But fear of witchcraft was only mentioned by few interviewed customers and more respondents expressed patronizing attitudes towards those believing in such witchcraft and other \"old-fashioned\" beliefs. However, it may be an important cultural reminiscent, which still influences and sustain peoples apprehension to eat in public even though they do not explicitly mention it.The recent introduction of fast food dishes in the street food sector is an example of a trend, which seems to in-crease the status of street foods and thereby adds to the variety of opinions of street food quality. The use of more expensive raw materials such as imported white rice and white meat (such as chicken) means that fast food is more expensive than traditional foods. The considerably higher prices of fast food allow richer customers to buy it on a regular basis and keeps unskilled workers from buying it as everyday food. Fast food is therefore a symbol of some social status and wealth and by purchasing and consuming fast food consumers in fact position them selves in a higher social group. Some customers explained:Facilitator: Let's say… someone comes to visit you when there is food at home. Would you take that person out? R4: \"Maybe my mother has cooked food, which is correct at that time; I can't go and say to my Mum ´Mum, give me some for the lady´. I will instead go and take the lady out. Even if my mum's money is there, I will take it and use it to go and eat with her\" R5: \"Yes, You will go and buy fried rice for that person\" R9: \"We have to let the visitor eat fried rice. It is food for the rich\"Hence, fast food holds quite strong symbolic values of status sometimes even ranging over home cooked foods. The social status of fast food is also influenced by certain ingredients such as lettuce and will be further analysed under the nutritional dimensionDue to the general sceptic attitudes towards the quality of street foods many consumers choose to buy street food from a known vendor and a social bond to a known vendor seems to be one of the decisive factors when choosing a trusted place to eat. This was also the case for vendors when choosing their suppliers; they all stressed trust as the main reason for choosing and maintaining a business relationship with them. Hence, trust in persons seems to transfer to and induce quite strong trust in the food quality.Trust was often based on close interpersonal ties to relatives or friend: \"She is my friend -I will go and buy her food all the time\" (FGD, females) and \"The vendor is good because he is a friend\" (male customer, Abrepo, 24 th April). But many vendors were also chosen and trusted on the basis of previous experiences which made consumers become regular customers: \"I know the vendor from a restaurant, where I used to eat… I know he is safe\" (male customer, Asokwa, 26 th April) and \"I buy because I know the seller\" (FGD, males). Customers very rarely mentioned trust in vendors, based on vendors' knowledge and specific safe and hygienic food handling practices, such as washing or cleaning lettuce properly, washing hands when cooking, using soap for dishes etc. But in addition to assumed higher food quality, buying from a trusted vendor or supplier also yielded specific benefits such as larger portions, credits, special made orders etc.These findings indicate that food hygiene is not the decisive factor for customers' and vendors' trust -rather they seem to choose vendors and suppliers partly because of a highly individual and emotional attachment. Personal trust thus seems to overrule and replace concerns and criteria of proper food handling and food hygiene to some extend. Later findings will reveal that other factors are also very influential. Trust also seems to add an additional positive aspect to the experienced quality for customers and vendors, since attachment to a regular eating place or supplier provides everyone with a sense of belonging to a certain vendor or supplier.The organoleptic experience of food such as taste is an important aspect for all of us when eating. However, taste was not highly stressed by street food customers as an important criterion for assessing street food quality. Rather taste was mentioned as a factor influenced by social factors such as good company when eating and commitments to a particular trusted vendor: \"The taste is so sweet, and the vendor is good, he is a friend\"( male customer, Abrepo, 24.4) and \"The one you have always been buying from makes it nice for you. That is why you buy from that person. When you eat it, it tastes nice to you\" (FGD, females). A few customers stated that taste was a co-decisive factor when choosing a new vendor: \"You must taste the food, taste how it is. If the taste is nice the customer will go there everyday and buy it\" (FGD, males). Sensory criteria were therefore quite incorporated into the social experience of eating foods but rarely a co-decisive factor for testing and trusting vendors.Positive as well as negative trends of social status of street foods can be identified. Suspicion and reluctance towards eating street foods are strong but increasing recognition of fast food as modern and attractive meals also exist. Hence, findings indicate that perceptions of eating and purchasing street foods indeed is influenced by social values and function to positioning one self in social reference groups as defined by Prigent-Simonin et al.(2005). Despite social and cultural apprehensions towards eating street foods it is still consumed in large quantities in Kumasi -and by the very same people who gave the above answers. Statements such as: \"I feel that the home cooked food is better, but I don't have the time to cook for lunch\" (female, customer, 24 th April) were frequently heard during fieldwork and it is thus obvious that functional rationales including convenience, price and necessity are important rationales as well which seem to overrule concerns of trust and social correctness when eating foods (see more in functional dimension).In this study the nutritional dimension also includes signs of perceived humanistic food quality since these turned out to be closely associated with the perceived nutritional values of foods.Data from this study seem to indicate that customers do not tend to buy street food for nutritional reasons only and do not often consider the nutritional quality as the key purchasing criterion. This finding is in accordance with those of studies in various other developing countries by Tinker (1997) and from similar studies in Kumasi (Olsen 2005). Comments like: \"People are generally not very concerned about what they eat. They are not concerned about what they get from the street food, which nutrients they consume. They are concerned to get a full stomach\" (male customer, Adom, 24 th April) were often heard and in a recent interview for the Food service industry in Ghana the General Director of Ghana Health Services Professor Asoka stated that \"when Ghanaians eat, they want the food to fill them up\" and states that nutritional intake and distribution isn't in general considered by many inhabitants (Akosa 2006). Concerns of nutritional aspects of foods might therefore not be strong at all in the Ghanaian society, including the purchasing and consuming of street foods. However, even though the objective nutrition value of the food may not be the main criterion of purchasing street foods this study revealed that customers as well as vendors host many perceptions of nutritious aspects of street foods and are concerned with a variety of more or less objective perceptions of nutritional contents. Some examples from the field work are: cooking oil is perceived to be very dangerous producing malaria attacks in those who take too much oil in their daily diets. Mangos are perceived to produce diarrhoea and carry cholera bacteria and sachets of purified drinking water is often heard to be transmitting typhoid bacteria. Finally, persistent rumours circulate that chicken is infected with bird flue -especially meat coming in from the Northern countries. But all seem to agree that street foods satisfy the basic needs of the urban dweller. As with perceptions of food status, perceptions of nutritional values of street foods are therefore complex. Some are positive but in general street foods are perceived as low-nutritional and therefore sometimes damaging to health and seem to add to the above described negative social perceptions of street foods.Some specific reasons for perceiving street foods as less nutritious were explained by several customers: \"Home cooked food is more nutritious; I am able to use many vegetables and use good products. Here they add sachets with spice mixtures which are bad products and they put lots of oil and too much salt. It is unhealthy\" (female customer Ayigya, 5 th May) and \"The street food is not very good; they use too much chemicals like Maggie powder and canned food -even outdated ones\" (male customer, Ayigya, 22 nd . April). Other reasons related to particular harmful cooking strategies e.g. vendors 'disguising' decaying vegetables in the food by using large amounts of spices. This practice was observed at several vendors who bought decomposing tomatoes in bulks for very low prices on the markets.Another frequently outspoken perception of street food was associated with its ability to satisfy a nutritional need: R1: \"If I eat the home cooked food it will be in my body for a long time before I sense the need to eat again, but if I take outside food in the morning -it won't take one hour before I feel hungry again\" R5: \"Let's take banku for instance. They will prepare it in such a way that it will become very, very soft. That is how they get to serve a lot of servings and make their money\" R1: \"But the home food is very heavy so when you eat one ball you are satisfied. The in the outside food they don't add a lot of ingredients\" (FGD, females)Thus street food seems to be perceived as less filling. This aspect was in particular mentioned for fast food meals which was in generally spoken of as \"light food\" which \"doesn't make you feel heavy\" after eating. Fast food is also branded in the media as a way for modern town people to get a fast, light and fancy meal 3 and from the customer segment observed it was obvious that such 'light foods' are more popular with younger, modern, richer, town people who have office jobs, who own small scale shops or are students. On the contrary, the traditional Ghanaian stable foods such as banku, fufu, yam, and cassava are considered to be 'heavy foods' and good for someone who 'need his/her strength' to do hard physical work. Low class people and workers in particularly are therefore buying such traditional filling meals on the streets for very small amounts of money.In this way perceptions of nutritional values of street foods are closely interconnected to the social status of food and people: fast food is associated with higher status low-physical active life styles whereas the cheap traditional street foods are perceived by many as low-status food for the poorer and the unskilled workers with physical active and strenuous jobs.Apart from expensive imported brands of American rice and the attractive chicken meat, lettuce in particular seems to add to the higher status perceptions of fast food. Recently lettuce has been introduced to the Ghanaian diet with fast food and many customers see it as exotic and related with an attractive western lifestyle. The lettuce was by many described as a luxurious food item eaten on special occasions -even by lettuce farmers who have free access to heaps of lettuce in their own fields. With lettuce being a highly popular and attractive food item in fast food traditional vendors are now also introducing lettuce as an attractive side dish to traditional Ghanaian meals.Lettuce is also perceived to be extremely nutritious and healthy. Customers and vendors described lettuce and other green vegetables as 'giving energy', 'balancing the diet',' making you strong', 'giving you good eyesight', 'giving you vitamins', 'being nourishing foods'. Two school girls explained what they had learned about such healthy benefits from foods: \"As it (lettuce) is added to the food it gives us some nutrients and it will give us blood and the food is also more tasty (R1). We are taught this… so when ever we go out we eat a little on our food (R2)\" (Female customers, Adom, 24 th May). Thus many seem to feel that their diet and health status will be greatly enhanced by eating even small amounts of raw vegetables as topping on a dish of rice or beans.Together with findings from the social dimension the nutritional aspects show that street foods are deeply embedded in and formed by perceptions of cultural appropriateness and social acceptance of foods. These are formed and challenged by new lifestyles, family structures and new nutritional patterns. And new food items are becoming symbols of such modern food culture and lifestyles.Humanistic food quality is described by Prigent-Simonin et al. (2005) as an \"awareness of purchasing foods taking environmental issues such as less intensive farming and fair price trade into consideration\". Such ecological food quality considerations were present in some, but minor degree in this study and were especially related to concerns of urban farming methods and safe crops. Three vendors (no. 2, 6 and 8) thus mentioned the risk of purchasing rice and vegetables grown with excessive amounts of pesticides and fertilizers and one (no. 6) strongly believed that chemical residues could be traced in the lettuce why he was observed to cut parts of the lettuce away 4 .However, none of the vendors had exact knowledge of farming methods used to grow the specific vegetables they buy including source of irrigation water, fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides etc. and no vendors had ever enquired their regular suppliers about it. Some felt that such information was unavailable to them, some felt uneasy to enquire suppliers but most vendors automatically trusted suppliers and did not question them or the quality of supplies 5 . From interviews with lettuce sellers in the market and from shopping trips with vendors it was clear that most suppliers do not have knowledge at all about the ecological quality of the food. This also seem to be the case for farmers and market women growing and selling the vegetables who's awareness about occupational health and environmental risks (e.g. close contact with pesticides or waste water used for irrigation) is very low (Interview with staff from Institute of Agriculture, KNUST, meeting in farmers association , Amoah et al 2003). This finding suggests that vendors put faith in trusted relationships to suppliers and that trust seems to replace concerns of ecological risks -even when vendors or suppliers obviously do not have knowledge on such potential risks. The reason might be that there are no active official organisations negotiating and ensuring fair prizes or ecological quality on behalf of vendors or consumers in Kumasi. Vendors, suppliers and customers therefore have to base business agreements and relations solely on personal relationships and trust in such contacts (see more in ch. 3.5).All official hygiene recommendations are based on scientific micro-biological explanations and are therefore etic in their nature not taking peoples individual perceptions of food safety into account. This chapter will first sketch out risk practices according to such etic perspective and later elaborate by investigating the underlying explanations of observed food hygiene and safety behaviours.An example of a comprehensive but uncomplicated guide to safe food practices is \"the five keys to safer food' of WHO (who int 2) which sums up the most important recommendations for producing safe food: 1) Keep clean, 2) Separate raw and cooked food, 3) Cook thoroughly, 4) Keep food at safe temperatures and 5) Use safe water and raw materials. During observations these and other core risk 4 Official standards for maximum residue limits of pesticides does exist in Ghana, but monitoring of residues is virtually non-existing and exceeding and worrying levels of pesticide residues have been found in vegetables at urban markets in Ghana (Amoah et al. 2006). The Ghana Institute of Horticulturalists and Institute of Agriculture of KNUST are trying to decrease amounts of used pesticides in urban farming by teaching farmers in Kumasi about safe spraying practices and the adverse health effects from pesticides. 5 I attended several shopping tours with vendors and asked them all about the nature of business relationships and found no signs of expressing such concerns. However, there might have been reluctance towards telling me about disputes or negotiations with suppliers which I have therefore not been able to record.practices described by international food standards 6 were identified. The most prevalent risks of unsafe cooking practices were related to cross-contamination of food and lack of hand washing during pre-cooking and serving stages and will be described in the following paragraphs.Since the cooking and vending area of a typical street food stand is very limited (3-5 m 2 ) floors, outdoor areas, improvised furniture and other surfaces are therefore often used for multiples purposes Cooking and storing of foods were thus frequently seen to be conducted on benches, stools, shelves, water gallons and on cloths or clothes. Foods were also often seen to be kept directly on the ground being exposed to various sources of contaminations. This issue seems particularly relevant for vendors cooking in outdoor kitchens, since these are often very congested with crowds of people passing through, animals running loose and very poor sanitation and drainage facilities adding to the potential danger of cross-contamination during cooking processes (see Box 7 for example). No vendors had garbage bins available and scrap was therefore left in piles on cooking and vending premises, gathered and taken to dumpsites in the evenings. Compared to cleaning kitchen facilities efforts are much greater to ensure a tidy vending site, as also described in Box 4 and 5. Vending premises are always kept tidy and in order by dusting of, sweeping, clearing away refuse and washing dirty utensils as soon as food is ready for customers to buy and eat.More than ten kitchens operate in the same small area of app. 30 m 2 and the whole area is scattered with scrap from food preparations. There are no toilet or water facilities and cooking staffs are therefore seen to squat over the gutter passing between the pots and pans when they need a toilet. Animals such as hens, cats and goats can be seen running loose between the pots eating from the scrap. There is no drainage of the area and streams of dirty water from the dish washing and cooking are crisscrossing the area and once in a while emptied into the main gutter. Raw meat is chopped on a piece of carton on the wet soil, salad is lying on the ground before being chopped just next to the leftovers from chopping the meat and ready dishes are exposed to the sun and dusty air in uncovered pots for hours.At all vendors there was no consistent separation of raw and cooked foods when using cutlery, fridge facilities, storage space or crockery and on all vending sites knives and chopping boards were observed to be used for meat as well as vegetables, raw as well as cooked. One explanation is that crockery is limited and hence vendors continuously shift raw and cooked foods from one pot, basin or board to another. Furthermore, cleaning of boards was often done by wiping it \"clean\" with cloths, which were often dirty pieces of textile. Two vendors washed crockery and knives with soap frequently while others were observed to wash crockery only when finishing food preparations.In 7 out of 8 observed vending sites vendors were not observed to wash hands regularly. Vendors often had specific reasons for washing hands such as washing hands after changing a diaper of a baby (vendor no. 1), washing hands before presenting one self before customers to announce the daily menu (vendor no. 3) or following religious rules of purification (vendor no.2 and 6). At 4 out of the 8 vending sites hand soap was available but not used by any vendors or staffs. Soap was instead offered to customers, to me, to friends or business relations before or after eating. Only two vendors were observed to use soap after visiting a toilet (both Muslim) and most vendors actually attempt to avoid visiting toilets during working hours since they find it disgustful.The risk of food contamination was increased by the common practice of using hands for serving foods. All vendors used hands for serving the ready meals to some extend e.g. when grabbing the fried chicken, yam, spaghetti, or salads with hands. 6 vendors actually had thongs or ladles available but they were used irregularly or fingers were preferred (see example in box 8). All vendors also used unwashed hands when preparing meat and vegetables.Box 8: Example of chain of unsafe hand hygiene practices at vendor 3 During the cooking preparations the staff uses her hands to grab the raw meat from a plastic container to fry it in a pan. She wipes her hands 'clean' in a cloth and grabs the raw vegetables in another container to garnish the food. She then turns to the fridge to take out a sachet of drinking water for a customer and receives the payment. The customer drinks the water straight out of the plastic sachet without washing it. When frying is finished the staff tastes the food by taking a spoonful of rice from the pot with her fingers, she eats it, licks her fingers and then continues with the job. She is not observed to wash hands before, in between or after any of these practices.Traditional Ghanaian food is eaten using fingers and at two vendors customers therefore ate the food with fingers out of plastic plates. Customers were offered cold water to rinse their hands before and after eating but very few customers did so. Hand soap was not available. Hence, together these hand washing practices greatly constitute a high-risk source of food contamination since faecal material and other harmful bacteria from dirty hands of the vendors and the customers them selves is easily spread from hands to the whole food stand and ultimately the foods.Cleaning procedures of vegetables consumed raw is of particular great importance to the microbiological food quality since pathogens such as helminth eggs, E. coli and other harmful bacteria from farming soil, waste water or faecal material can be transferred directly to the customer. It is true and common knowledge among vendors that rinsing vegetables in a solution of water and vinegar is effective 7 but salt and lime juice is also known to have disinfecting effects. All vendors and staffs practiced some of kind of vegetable cleaning procedures; washing in pipe born water, washing in salty water solutions or using vinegar. 4 of the vendors also washed the vegetables twice; first to wet vegetables and again to rinse off the dirt. Recommendations of cleaning practices thus seem to be known by vendors. But at all vendors observed the cleaning procedures were superficial; vegetables were only dipped or left in the water for few seconds, leaves were not always separated or inspected and dirt is not rinsed off. Some vendors also practice the cleaning in ways which might risk adding dirt to the vegetables by first washing it in salty water and later washing in dirty water, washing lettuce in salty water and then drying lettuce leaves with dirty clothes or using the same water for rinsing all vegetables during a whole day. All vendors were also very inconsistent in adding salt or vinegar to the water and often used a minimum of vinegar. Hence, few vendors were observed to practice high standards of cleaning vegetables. Many other vegetables consumed raw were not cleaned at all.At all vendors I frequently observed ready foods such as boiled rice, stews and salads being stored without protective lids and fried chicken was usually kept uncovered in plastic containers exposed to flies etc. This was done even though some vendors had lids available. Three vendors kept chicken correctly covered in sieves with lids or under plastic sheets most of the time.WHO recommend thorough reheating of food and cooking at minimum of 70 degree Celsius to ensure killing of harmful bacteria (who int 2). Street vendors typically cook large portions of food in the morning and store and sell throughout the day. Most fast food vendors reheat rice by flash frying it just before serving it (frying it hard for very short time) whereas traditional vendors do not reheat.Chicken and meat stews are always served cold or tepid. Some vendors use ice chests to keep food hot and protected but the majority of vendors store food in what ever they have available (i.e. pots, pans, plastic containers, buckets etc.). Foods served in the evenings have therefore typically been on display under tepid temperatures for many hours and maybe been re-heated for a very short time.Together with practices of not covering foods and lack of hand washing these practices greatly enhance the risk of introduction, growth and survival of potentially harmful bacteria and hence unsafe foods.None of the observed vendors had direct access to potable water at the vending site. Vendors collect water from public taps in the neighbourhoods in plastic gallons or buckets or bring water from their houses. Some pay a fixed amount a month for fetching water others pay pr. gallon. Prices ranged between 300-500 Cedis (app. 0.03-0.05 USD) pr. gallon (app. 4.5 Litres). All vendors reported that water was affordable to them and had good water supplies -except from vendor 7 who had problems with irregular supplies due to rationing on water by authorities 8 . However, all vendors found it troublesome and very time consuming to manually fetch water several times a day.The 4 vendors who offered customers to eat at the vending site (no. 1, 3, 7 and 8) had cold water available in buckets for washing dirty plates. Plates were washed in soapy water and rinsed with clear water. But the amounts of water available were limited in three out of the four places and water not shifted regularly. Plates were therefore often greasy after washing. This situation is confirmed by the KMA staff to be a frequently met condition and practice among vendors.These findings show that most vendors apply some of the most important practices of food hygiene such as ensuring tidy vending premises, fetching water regularly, and washing vegetables.Recommendations on hygienic vending premises and safe food handling practices thus seem to have been introduced and known to vendors in some degree. However, it is also clear that many hygiene practices are adjusted to suite practical everyday work routines such as flash frying rice, washing vegetables very briefly and with little amounts of salt or vinegar). Street food vendors therefore have problems ensuring complete safe food hygiene as described by scientific standards and practices thus possess potential risks to customer's and vendors' well-being.But if we wish to find out for what reasons practices are adjusted we need to grasp the underlying attitudes and perceptions of safe and unsafe food practices of the individuals and find out how perceptions are linked to the these everyday decision-making. The next chapter will therefore engage in some aspects of vendors and customers' emic constructs of food safety and food hygiene.In this study all vendors had some knowledge on disease transmission and food born diseases and perceived selling food as a sensitive matter: \"Food is very delicate since it could be the cause of a lot of diseases\" (Vendor 1). Vendors were also highly concerned that business would be threatened if customers fall sick from their food and start a bad rumour. The majority of customers were also concerned about health aspects of street food vending. They had all heard about cases of customers, friends or relatives falling sick from street foods. Most vendors mentioned the risk from serving old and cold foods and of cholera spreading from bad water sources and typhoid coming from sick persons. Customers also mentioned food borne diseases such as diarrhoea and fevers to be common.But it was also quite clear that vendors were very reluctant to describe diseases such as typhoid and diarrhoea as related with eating contaminated street foods from contaminated vendors and diarrhoea was usually not mentioned unless probing specifically and repeatedly for it during conversations and interviews 9 . When describing causes for diarrhoea most vendors only perceived diarrhoea to happen for people having \"sensitive stomachs\" or who are \"allergic\" to specific food items such as very spicy food, chillies, cassava or groundnuts and in general they perceived such customers' health status to be \"weak\" and \"easily disturbed\". Weak stomachs were particularly referred to with children. Furthermore, many vendors did not acknowledge sources of disease transmission from within their own stands: \"It (contamination of food) can happen if you have flies around. I have seen nothing else here which can contaminate the food\" (vendor 4) and \"There can be no problems if you cook it well\" (Vendor 7). Hence, vendors expressed a degree of optimistic bias when not believing that their food could be the cause of diseases. When asked how to prevent contamination, no vendors stressed efforts to strengthen the general hygiene but instead stressed efforts to improve the attractiveness of the food stand to give customers the impression of a safe and good food stand (see more in ch. 3.5).Contrary to the vendors, the majority of customers strongly believed that eating contaminated street food can easily cause an 'upset stomach', 'stomach pains' or a 'running stomach' which was the commonly used phrase for diarrhoea. Many had had incidences them selves and from interviews is seems to be a relatively frequent event to experience a 'running stomach' after eating street foods.As described in ch. 1.3 most food related diseases are not reported to health authorities and the exact number of food borne diseases is therefore unknown. The above perceptions of disease transmission indicate that an obstacle to improve food safety is very likely associated with vendors' lack of awareness and acknowledgement of food related risks. It also indicates why incidences of food borne diseases are not reported to authorities: customers are quite used to experiencing stomach problems attributed to eating street foods. Some people even perceive it to be normal and inevitable for children to experience this once in a while due to their particularly sensitive stomachs.Despite these perceptions it was obvious that consumers' choice of street foods and vendors' perceptions of food quality are quite influenced by concerns of food safety and hygienic food quality. The majority of customers interviewed preferred to see the food preparations to evaluate the safety of the food them selves by overlooking the cooking and the cooking environments: \"I buy here because I can see how they prepare it. I can see that they serve it freshly. I can order it and they make it…\" (Male customer, Adom, 24 th April). But most consumers realise that they can not have full insight into the quality of the food since cooking premises are often located in private quarters of vendors or in street kitchens and later brought to the markets or vending stands. They therefore do not know how and under which conditions the food has been prepared and stored. Lack of such knowledge and uncertainty was described by many as a major concern:R1: \"I would prefer to see where they cook… We don't know where they prepare the food. All we know is that they have brought the food\" R5: \"As for the particular place they brought it from, it could be that the place is not neat\". R1: \"How can I go to Kwadaso (name of quarter) to check how she cooks before I decide to buy it? …You don't even know whether it is leftover food or not. Some of these sellers they will reheat it and sell it to you… You won't know…\" (FGD, females).Uncertainty of food safety was mostly related to the appropriateness of cooking premises (e.g. cooking near gutters), safety of ingredients, improper behaviours of the vendors during cooking (e.g. using dirty utensils) and safety of water sources. To cope with the uncertainty different protective strategies were expressed by the customers. Some had fatalistic attitudes towards the potential dangers of consuming street foods: \"Yes, I am afraid of getting sick from food but I can do nothing. I have to eat because I have no time to cook\" (Female customer, Adom, 24 th April). The Ghanaian proverb \"Ani ahu a, εnyεtan\" meaning \"If you can't see it, it does not hurt you\" was also frequently heard from customers describing a typical carefree reaction towards not being able to monitor cooking premises and discovering sources of contamination. Hence, customers choose to 'close their eyes' to potential health risks: \"I don't think too much about the health risks; I just like to try out different new things…I just go for it…I try to see the positive things; If something happens to me I try to make it a good thing\" (Male customer, Ayigya, 24 th April). Religious faith was also mentioned as a protective strategy: \"I can only pray to God over the food. Only he can know if it is safe\" (female customer, Abrepo, 4 th May).These avoidance and protective strategies and rationales clearly indicate that decisions and evaluations of food quality are made in an everyday context where people sometimes choose not to be concerned with, or can do nothing else than, ignore risks such as low food hygiene. A degree of optimistic bias was thus found as some people do not acknowledge risks to be of severe significance for them. However, the majority of consumers are in fact very concerned with the safety and hygienic quality of food and a variety of categories of dirt and related concerns and perceptions were presented. These are listed in the below table and will be elaborated in the following text.Except from one, all sources of dirt mentioned among vendors and customer (summarized in table 1) can be categorised as natural and impersonal sources of contamination since dirt stems from nature, foods or the human body. Natural sources of dirt can be further categorised as dirt from 'the environment' (part A and B, table 1) and 'the body' (part C, table 1). The exception is the category of evil eyes, a supernatural and personal source of contamination, stemming from spiritual powers of a witch or sorcerer. This indicate that interpretations of dirt and contagions in a Ghanaian urban context follow the categorisation of the Indigenous Contagion Theory of Edward Green (1999); the vendors and customers emphasise natural contagious agents and host many semi-microbiological hygiene rationales and interpretations of dirt and disease rather than supernatural categories of contagions.A crucial part of the ICT trend described by Green is the focus on 'the tiny agent' or 'tiny animal' as the cause of disease. Green found beliefs in tiny agents as disease carriers through out the African continent without perceptions being directly related to western perceptions of microbiology (Ibid: 38ff). In this study customers and vendors were very concerned with such 'animals' or 'germs' in food causing diseases (i.e. germs from the soil in lettuce, germs from meat, germs from saliva, germs on hands from toilet and germs in cold foods): \"Lets say that when I washed this lettuce maybe I didn't see all worms and proceeded to cut and serve it. Some customers …may get sick from eating the unseen worms\" (vendor 1). No respondents ever used biomedical terms such as 'micro-organisms', 'bacteria' or 'virus' but instead referred to tiny \"worms\" (sonsunu) or \"animals\" (amoa) hiding in foods. Vendors therefore seem to know that harmful agents can hide in food and not be seen. However, they do not believe that germs can be too small for the human eye to detect (e.g. bacteria and viruses): Most other vegetables than lettuce (i.e. cabbage, carrots, peppers, spring onions) were perceived to be too \"straight\" or \"closed\" for animals to hide in and hence not treated with salt or vinegar. These beliefs imply that recommendations of treating all vegetables consumed raw are modified by vendors' perceptions of feeling capable of controlling this health risk by looking for animals. Finally, vendors were all found to host very strong beliefs in the effectiveness of vinegar or salt as a 'miraculous' methods for killing everything harmful in the lettuce -even when added in very small amounts. Inability to pay for vinegar and perceptions of vinegar and salt decreasing the quality of the lettuce were also mentioned as reasons for not complying with recommendations of always treating vegetables.Many vendors and customers knew about the harmful effect of germs in cold foods and hot foods are therefore perceived as safe and healthy and statements such as \"The food has to be hot, so no germs can harm you\" or \"germs and hot food is incompatible\" were often heard. The majority of vendors and consumers presented explanations which match biomedical explanations of adequate temperatures and germs resistance to heat such as: \"germs are killed when food is hot\". But other more practical and intuitive rationales also exist among vendors: \"When we fry it is not possible to go near for the flies because of the heat of the oil\" (vendor 4) and \"I have to keep the food hot…Because the flies can not sit on it…\" (Vendor 8).However, very few vendors and customers found it necessary to practice reheating even though food had been cooked hours ago. Reasons were mostly practical such as no heating facilities available at homes or at vending stands. But vendors also had concerns about the quality of food when reheating: \"I am not reheating it, because people will not like that. The chicken will be soft\" (Vendor 6). When reheating was carried out flash frying was perceived to be adequate since the food turns very hot within very short time.The majority of vendors and customers perceived it to be a \"wrong\", \"un-neat\" or \"not fine\" behaviour to use hands for grabbing and serving food and many vendors were therefore aware of not using and exposing dirty hands when serving customers. The majority of both vendors as well as customers also knew of risks of contaminating food with faecal matter via dirty hands and many customers therefore said they would avoid vendors using hands for serving. However, it was possible to identify diminishing attitudes towards the importance of keeping clean hands and avoiding using hands for serving:\" I use the left hand for the money and the right one for the food… people don't like it that way…but on my side, I don't think there is anything wrong in using one hand for everything\" (Staff at vendor 8) and \"I use the same hands to cook so why is it not good enough to use my hands to serve them?\" (Vendor 7). Such attitudes were found among staffs and vendors with no schooling and no exact knowledge of the dangers of contaminating food with dirty hands. They were well aware that customers generally disapprove of their behaviours but did not see any reasons for changing routines.Practical reasons for not washing hands were frequently mentioned. The convenience of using hands when serving in a hurry was one decisive factor: \"sometimes when there are many customers and I am busy I choose to use my hands because you can just grab it like that\" (staff at vendor 7) and most vendors also found it un-necessary to wash hands if they didn't visit a toilet during the day. Most vendors and customer also agreed that washing hands with soap during cooking and before eating makes the hands smell of soap and the food taste bad since it is traditionally eaten with fingers.Hands are therefore often washed without soap, if washed at all. Even today with people eating non-traditional foods with spoons, knives and forks and vendors serving food with thongs and other utensils, people still tend to uphold such hand washing patterns.Finally, hand washing just seem to be a totally overlooked aspect of food hygiene among all parties and within all types of eating establishments in Kumasi! 10Despite actually having knowledge on risk of contamination very few customers and vendors extended their concerns to actually washing hands during cooking when not visible to customers. Very few of the customers paid attention to this aspect, and included the need to wash hands in their descriptions of a neat and hygienic vendor or demanded hand washing from vendors. Once again the distinction of visible front stage and invisible back stage hygiene practices seems evident; Presenting clean hands and neat serving manners to customers is a vital part of the impression management to elude the perfect front stage and adds to the extreme focus of eliminating any traces of dirt in the immediate visible surroundings. Furthermore, customers and vendors seem to behave in a polite and professional relationship and customers therefore do not question the standard of a vendor's hygienic practices.These findings on germs in food and hands washing gives examples of how vendors operate within semi-microbiological rationales being highly concerned with contamination of foods from contagious agents. Messages of keeping food hot and washing hands to avoid such dangers are also known to most vendors and customers but findings show that recommendations are moderated, overrules and understood in the light of everyday practical judgements (such as flash frying as an effective way of reheating, covering food when convenient for work routines, keeping flies away by heating, strong beliefs in vinegar as a 'magical' mean of treating vegetables, serving food with hands when in a hurry and not using soap because of the smell). Furthermore, the awareness of back stage and front stage behaviours clearly influence hygiene practices in a negative way on back stages -but in a positive way on front stages. Intuitive and practical rationales of vendors and customers which decrease and increase the hygienic standards could therefore be a focus for future hygiene promotion activities (see more in ch.4).In conversations with customers and vendors the categories of visible features of dirt in part A of table 1 were particularly stressed and repeatedly mentioned as most important for food hygiene. Few practices endangering food safety were mentioned (such as lack of hand washing, washing of utensils etc.). As a result of this focus a frequently chosen dirt and risk avoidance strategy was to asses the general visible impressions of vending sites, vendors and foods -often referred to as the `neatness': \"What we do is to look at the vendor. If she is neat and where she cooks is neat then the food will also be neat\"(FGD females). And:\" I look for neatness; whether they cover the food, the cooking environment, whether the person selling is dirty or clean, no rubbish around and no flies\" (female customer, Ayigya, 5 th May). The same criteria and perceptions were expressed by vendors; \"You have to sweep the whole place and wash you things ….Because when people come and eat….The first thing is they will look if it is neat\" (vendor 6). Hence, in general 'neatness' described an all-inclusive state of order and correctness in which all dirt had to be eliminated: \"The person …must be in order, everything must be made in order. Because if I go and buy food and realize things are not neat, I won't buy from that place again\" (FGD, males) and \"She (the vendor) will remove anything associated with dirt from the selling place before she will serve. She will make it neat\" (FGD, females). Neatness and eliminating dirt was therefore often a purpose per se for vendors and customers, without them necessarily reflecting about possible health benefits. This finding clearly show that hygiene is far from always verbalized as a health concern or motivated by potential health risks. Rather 'neatness' refers to efforts of maintaining a system of acceptable order as described in ch. 3 by Mary Douglas. Dirt is to be controlled and hygiene or 'neatness' secured by upholding such systems.But focusing so strongly on the visible neatness of the immediate vending surroundings and not the \"unseen\" kitchen premises, also exposes the clear distinction between dirt avoiding behaviours on back and front stages. Hence, vendors' efforts to combat dirt, maintain order and present neat front stages have now turned out to be a central underlying motivation for most hygiene related behaviours.The risk perceptions and avoidance strategies used by customers' seem to support this distinction; they too focus on a clean front stage as the most important criterion when choosing a safe vendor and rarely intrude on the back stages to ensure safe food production.The strong emphasis on presenting spot less front stages and tolerating unhygienic back stage behaviours might seem irrational. Parallel findings were pinpointed by Van Der Geest who labelled the paradoxical dirt-managing behaviour of Akan people in Ghana a 'hygiene puzzle' (Van Der Geest 1998). Like vendors even educated health personnel were able to ignore filth and dirt and yet be immensely concerned with inducing an attractive appearance while working (e.g. by ignoring dirty toilets on hospitals but wearing clean uniforms). In this study the attitudes of consumers seem to add to the puzzle since they also place strong emphasis on the front (aesthetic bodily appearance of vendors and food stalls) and less about the hygienic conditions of the back stages. Furthermore, vendors as well as customers seem to agree that assessing neatness does not include the general neatness of the surrounding public space. An example was FGD members who rated hygienic vending surroundings as a strong criterion for choosing a vendor but were recruited while purchasing fast food on or just in front of an open public gutter -which did not \"belong\" to the vending arena. Finally, the hygiene puzzle can be further elaborated with the fact that the physical separation of back stages and front stages is almost non-existing in a street food stand: The back of a vending station can be readily observed by any one who wishes to -just by peaking inside or behind the food stand. Hence, customers can not avoid actually seeing it -but do not seem to see it at all.The Goffman analogy can explain many trends in this puzzle; according to him we are all playing parts in the 'everyday show' in which we perform social roles, routines and impressions. Often it is done unconsciously and without questioning the meaning or relevance of our own or others behaviours. Here, vendors and customers are performing their roles, fulfilling the impression of a professional vendor-customer relationship. To \"keep up the show\" vendors and vending stations must therefore appear neat and thus professional when exposed to and in interaction with consumers.Functioning in such professional relationship also entails the customers' natural trust in and acceptance of the impression and professionalism of the vendor. Even though customers apparently do observe the backstage (you can hardly avoid it!) no customers will therefore actually intrude and actively asses and question the vending premises or practices of a vendor. The customer therefore 'blindly' accepts the impressions projected to him/her on the front stages. Put in other words; as a customer you are not expected to jump behind the counters to check on the vendor; whether he has cleaned his kitchen, if he washes his hands etc. -one naturally behaves with tact as a \"professional\" customer and keeps the eyes away from assessing anything else than what is immediately visible to him. And just think about it: This is actually a complete routine behaviour for many of us. We usually do not walk behind the counters to see the kitchen or even peak into it if we are purchasing take away foods. Usually we will stand in front of the counter and expect the vendor to do his work professionally and routinely. Thus, the physical distinction between stages needs therefore not to be physical or controlled as Goffman point out -it is upheld by vendors and consumers own actions and attitudes.Observations and interviews have shown that 'neatness' also refers to components not directly related to hygienic concerns of dirt and contamination. Some of the features of dirt stemming from a vendor (as listed in table 1) were hygienic concerns (such as saliva in food), but many of the features were also connected the general image and neatness of a vendor (such as clean clothes, neat hair and nails). Hence, quite strong aesthetic and moral criteria about the appearance, manners and personal qualities of the vendor can also be identified. Similarly, vendors and customers often referred to neatness of food as including hygienic concerns of 'germs' but also very often the purely aesthetic impression of the foods. Such aesthetic factors will be further elaborated in the next aesthetic dimension. However, many statements from customers and vendors are overlapping these two dimensions. For example when customers state that garbage around the vending site is un-neat: it looks un-aesthetic and is at the same time perceived to carry a potential danger to food safety, since it attracts pests etc. It is therefore important to have in mind that these analysis categories are not rigid, but rather interlinked and interacting.Criteria of aesthetic appearances in this study concerned the aesthetics of the vending environment, the food and the vendor him/her self.Keeping an aesthetic stand and environment was typically used by vendors as a business strategy to attract customers offering an appealing environment; \"Take for example when the customers come and see a very neat place-it will attract them and it will look very nice and be very appealing for people to come\"(vendor 3). This vendor very clearly expressed the underlying attitudes of many vendors' practices; creating aesthetic environments is rated over efforts to create hygienic cooking environments. She explained: \"Hygiene is number two. The hygiene is more about how to keep food safe and closed. You can come to a very clean place and the food is still not kept safe. It will still look attractive, but the food is not nice\" (vendor 3). Such statements also show that vendors are aware about the differences of neat and safe food and sometimes make this distinction when workingprioritising neatness before safety. Similar statements were heard from customers: \"Neatness first and good food next\" (FGD, males) who use the aesthetic appearance of the vending stand as an overall guiding criterion for choosing a vendor.Vendors were all asked how to improve the standards of food vending and their enterprises and they all mentioned improvements of the aesthetic appearance of vending structures i.e. painting stands, making new and flashy logos and establishing neat seating areas for customers: \"I wish I could paint the place… some people are shy to eat in the open place so I wish I could provide a covered area for them to eat\" (vendor 1). Hygienic improvements were seldom prioritised and vendors usually did not perceive alterations of hygiene related practices as of major importance for the standards. Instead improvements which could attract more customers and add customers from higher social segments were stressed and many vendors therefore naturally rated funds as the overall barrier for making improvements.Aesthetic values were also expressed towards how to present foods in artistic formations; arranging fried meat in pyramids, colourful salads, and numerous jars, bottles and pots arranged in lines and figures on shelves and all vendors underlined the importance of presenting foods in such attractive ways: \"When the customers come and see the way I have arranged my things they are attracted…I arrange them well -the mayonnaise, soy sauce and tomato ketchup bottles\" (Vendor 5). Lettuce was in particular perceived as attractive because of its refreshing colour and exotic impression. Most customers agreed that such presentations are beneficial when attracting them to a certain vending place: \"I think it is necessary; the way he (the vendor) arranges it can attract you to the food\" (FGD, males). At the same time all vendors and majority of the customers knew about protecting food from 'germs' by covering it and putting food on display in open air for many hours obviously carries potential risks by exposing it to various sources of dirt. Still very few customers and vendors seemed concerned and many customers were observed to buy uncovered foods exposed to flies, dust, fingers etc. Only one customer with extensive knowledge on food hygiene and healthy diet said: \"It is not necessary because flies can get to the food and it will attract diseases. Dust settles on the food and it becomes polluted or contaminated. Who ever eats it will have troubles afterward, so it not important they do that (put food on display)\" (FGD, males). Other participants in the focus group did not host the same radical opinion and stated that they were not so worried about this risk.Neatness also applied to the aesthetic impression of the vendor and was associated with hygiene related values such as 'cleanliness' as well as purely aesthetic values of 'beauty'. Hence, vendors and consumers described a 'neat' vendor as an appealing person with clean clothes, clean hair, clean teeth etc.: \"I look at the person. He/she must look perfect as he /she stands cooking and selling… The dressing he/she wears when standing by the food has to be nice. He/she must look neat!\" (FGD, males). The bodily features of dirt mentioned in Part C of table 1 showed that most bodily sources of dirt are in fact disgusted because of its 'ugliness' and less for its potential hygienic danger. Saliva was the only category of dirt from the body which was disgusted mostly for its health danger since people perceived saliva to transmit all kinds of germs and diseases. A talking and shouting vendor was therefore perceived as highly unhygienic: \"when you are cooking and talking and shouting, you can introduce dirt to the food…if you are talking, you can spit for example\" (vendor 5).Finally, 'neatness' also had strong moral connotations when customers and vendors referred to personal 'pureness' and positive personal qualities of the vendor such as 'neat manners' and a sound moral attitude. Neatness thus implied being a friendly and pleasant vendor who treats customers neatly by giving credits, adding extra food to a portion, reacting positively on complaints and greeting customers. A morally neat vendor was described as a person who takes care of his/her reputation and is careful to appear and act decently towards customers e.g. by being submissive to their demands: \"In some places they (the vendors) are too proud. They don't serve you nicely, they don't know how to talk and ask politely. They are not acting neatly to people. (male customer, Adom, 24,4) and \"you need to be patient and humble in doing what the customers say\" (vendor 6).The relevance of personal moral quality was also found by Van Der Geest who stated that 'neatness' for Ghanaian Akan people seem to signal bodily cleanliness as well as being a moral indicator of purity and morality (Van Der Geest 1998). This explains why vendors are extremely concerned to eradicate all sources of dirt since it is not only un-neat for hygienic reasons but also 'sticks' to and impair the personal impression of them. Similar concerns were described and prioritised by customers in the social dimension: eating under their social status, exposing their eating manners in public and eating in dirty surroundings will also sully the impression of their morality. Vendors' efforts to appear morally healthy and consumers' efforts to avoid moral disgust therefore seem to promote the avoidance of social rather than physical parasites as formulated by Curtis (Curtis 2001b).As findings have shown customers host a great variety of perceptions towards hygiene, nutrition cleanliness and social values of street foods when asked and reflecting upon food quality. But when buying street foods consumers often tend to give less attention to such concerns and instead choose with the money or time they have or the distance they have to walk to find food. Hence, many customers emphasise practical and functional reasons for purchasing and eating street foods more than anything else and a very pragmatic view on food quality therefore seem to be highly influential on customers purchasing patterns. The most frequent functional reasons given by consumers for eating street foods were:The price of street food ranges from 2.000 -20.000 Cedis, cheapest for traditional Ghanaian dishes such as fufu, wakye, yam, and cassava. A filling meal of wakye and fish can cost as little as 2500 Cedis (0.25 USD) while meal of fried rice and chicken costs minimum 10.000-15.000 Cedis (app. 1.5 USD). The same meals would cost approximately 20.000-30.000 (2-3 USD) Cedis to buy in a restaurant and a little less to buy the materials on markets and cook at home. Consumers of street foods therefore save considerable amounts of money by eating in the streets, especially the traditional dishes, while rice meals are still too expensive for unskilled workers to buy every day -however still much cheaper than cooking a similar meal at home: \"Sometimes not all the food e.g. fried rice are cooked at home...It will cost more money. You can't cook fried rice for 10.000 Cedis. But I can buy it for 10.000 Cedis\" and \"Sometimes, you may have little money on you, which is not enough to cook at home, let's say 5.000 Cedis. So you can't use it for that. So you have to use it to buy food outside\" (FGD, females). Together with the social gradient in the customer segment described under the social dimension, with customers ranging from middle class people to homeless beggars, this situation again underlines the importance of affordable street foods for the urban populations who are highly dependent on street foods.Vendors also underlined the fact that customers rate cheap food of lower culinary quality above food with a lot of ingredients: \"Food has to have all the right ingredients but it is a problem that the customers don't want to pay for this food. They want cheap food so I leave out some ingredients to make it cheaper\" (vendor 1). This compels vendors to change the contents and lower the price of foods to be compatible and attract customers -which demonstrates functional quality as also overruling nutritional concerns.As described in the social dimension, many changes of life styles happen due to urbanisation and longer distances from homes to work places makes it impossible for many workers to travel to their homes to eat and vast numbers of workers therefore purchase street foods as their daily meals.Statements such as: \"I am working and don't have time to cook for lunch so I take lunch outside every day\"(male customer, Adom 24 th April) or \"because of the work, I can not go all the way home and eat, I have to eat now\" (female customer, Adom 22 nd April) were therefore heard from almost every customer purchasing foods. Working hours are also often long for urban workers and many thus have no time or energy to cook once they got home in the evenings: \"We do not arrive home early. So in order to survive we have to buy food outside… And because you are alone and won't need to cook a lot of food it is better that you buy it outside. Also if you are single, you can't light up a stove to cook. It will disturb you. So you will prefer to buy food from outside\" (FGD, males). The proximity and easy accessibility to a good selection of dishes also added to the convenience of purchasing street foods instead of cooking at home -you can always find what you like to eat among the hundreds of food vendors in the streets.As the last sentence in the above citation indicates young men prefer to eat food outside their homes because they live as bachelors, have no cooking skills and/or no kitchen facilities. Another male consumer explained: \"You know I am a male and I am not married and I do not stay with my mother. I have no time to cook and I am staying with a friend. We do not know how to cook\" (Male customer, Ayigya, 22 nd April). This situation partly arises out of traditional family structures where men do not learn how to cook and where women cook for the households (see also social dimension). On the other hand it clearly shows how urban life with new family structures and housing facilities influences the nutritional patterns of urban populations.This study has found that consumer's base their purchasing choices mostly upon the described practical criteria in accordance with FAO results from street food studies around the world (FAO 1995). This finding is not highly surprising, since the concept of street food is based on servicing bypassing customers and enhancing easy availability to foods for the general population. However, the strength of this criterion is sometimes startling; \"It is not hygienic but we will have to take it like that -we have to eat\" (female customer, Asokwa 26 th April) and \"Usually I will look out around the place before I buy. But if I am too hungry then I will just go and buy it\" (FGD, females) and \"I like the cheap food so I will buy it no matter what\" (FGD males). The functional dimension of food quality is thus often overruling many of the described quality factors including safety, hygiene, aesthetic appearances and nutritional concerns.Each dimension from figure 4 has now been described in detail and it is clear that the five dimensions of perceived food quality all play substantial roles for vendors' and customers' perceptions of street food quality and to some degree for prioritising and choosing street foods. During the analysis it was also clear that many linkages exist between categories and it is therefore now possible to sketch out a new model to visualize such dynamics between the various dimensions of perceived food quality.In the new model (see figure 6) the five dimensions of food quality are no longer infleuncing perceived food quality equally. The social quality now constitutes an overall frame positioning the street food sector in a social context including the many social and cultural norms and values influencing customers' and vendors' interactions and behaviours. These have turned out to influence and relate to the dimensions of nutritional, hygienic and aesthetic food quality, which all have influence on perceived food quality. Findings also showed strong linkages between hygienic and aesthetics values which are therefore interconnected and feeding into perceived quality via the all inclusive criterion of 'neatness'. The reason why functional quality is now placed outside the influence of social quality perceptions may seem artificial -since every action we take can be seen as inscribed in a social context. However, findings revealed that functional criteria were often purely strategic or practical factors and often overruling other considerations expressed towards food quality and hence quite independent of other factors identified. The total perceived quality of street foods is now made up of a wide range of choices, preferences, attitudes, and perceptions which seem to influence, create or decrease trust in the food. Two dimensions of such trust in food were sketched out by Hansen et al. (2003) who described relational trust as a personalised trust based on interactions and experiences with individuals and the opposite type of trust as systemic trust -trust in abilities of food producers, control authorities, government institutions etc. In this study social interactions between the individual customer and vendor and a personal social relationship between them have indeed turned out to be of great importance for the perceived food quality of vendors and customers; the analysis of the social dimension revealed that a eating from a known and trusted vendor and being a regular customer induces strong trust in the quality of the food and also gives the customer an experience of social belonging when eating. The analysis of hygienic and aesthetic dimensions also revealed that such trust is created when a customer evaluates and accepts a vendor who can present clean and aesthetic food, persons and vending environments. Hence, trends of personalized trust in food are strong and evident among vendors and customers in Kumasi.To counter this were several signs of low systemic trust in the street food sector; an overall low social acceptance of the street food sector, the social apprehension towards eating street foods and the low trust in control authorities' abilities to give advice and control the sector and consumers lack of possibilities to influence the hygiene standards and behaviours of vendors. (see more in ch. 4) are some examples. Finally, the street food sector lacks organisation and structure; few vendors are members of official associations, no official quality standards for street food quality exist and no strong consumer associations to strengthen awareness of consumer's rights and their influential powers are found.The strong personal trust might therefore be part of a natural coping strategy for customers to ensure food quality: with no state guarantees and no trustworthy official system consumers are compelled to put their trust in persons instead and relying on known vendors, establishing social relationships and making highly individual quality assessments are therefore preferred ways for consumers to cope with uncertainty and minimize risks.The analysis has highlighted vendors and customers' practices and perceptions of several important aspects of food quality and some of them are obviously related with potential risks of bad food hygiene and safety. The last part of this thesis will therefore focus on how practices and perceptions can be targeted and food safety eventually be improved through future hygiene promotion strategies in the street food sector.From a public health perspective the main reasons and benefits of improving hygiene are the obvious health improvements. Strategies of enhancing hygiene and reducing diseases are many and several comprehensive reviews of hygiene projects have highlighted the importance of addressing several factors when for example reducing diarrhoeal diseases (Esrey et al. 1991, Fewtrell et al. 2005). The Hygiene Improvement Framework (HPF) for preventing diarrhoeal diseases has therefore been developed by the Environmental Health Project (EHP) (see figure 7) to take into account a list of important factors.The three areas of hardware, hygiene promotion and enabling environments are all relevant issues for interventions in the street food sector and a beneficial strategy for implementing food hygiene initiatives is thus to assess these and at best design a cross-sectorial initiative targeting more of these simultaneously. In this chapter some factors in the framework will thus be briefly addressed to give suggestions for such future projects.Figure 7: The Hygiene Improvement FrameworkNo vendors in this study had potable water available at the vending stand but brought water from nearby public taps. The majority of vendors identified this as an obstacle to ensure safe washing and cleaning practices because of rationing of water consumption during cooking and cleaning. Findings from large-scale street food projects in Bangkok, Calcutta and Accra (Dawson et al. 1996, Chakravarty et al. 1996, NRI org) have found similar worrying results of limited access to water for vendors. Some reviews have shown that quantity of water has greater importance in reducing the prevalence and severity of various water related diseases, including diarrhoea, than the actual water quality (Esrey et al. 1991). It has therefore been hypothesized that hand washing and other personal hygiene practices become more frequent when water is freely available at close range -which was also the promising result from the Bangkok street food project (Dawson et al. 1996). Such results points to the importance of providing high coverage of affordable and steady water supplies in areas of Kumasi with many food vendors. One strategy is to design restricted vending areas with proper water and sanitation facilities which has been tried out in a huge vendor resettling project in Singapore. Unfortunately it resulted in many vendors not being able to afford a stand in the new designated area (Dawson 1991). In Kumasi I believe it is possible to make measurable improvements on a smaller scale; it is relatively easy to identify small areas plastered with outdoor kitchens, no water or sanitation facilities. These can be greatly improved by levelling grounds with concrete and constructing water taps and drainage and need not become too expensive for vendors to cook in for this reason.An important criterion for effective hygiene promotion is to target a condition which is of importance for the target groups to change and improve on (Appleton 2003). This might turn out to be the biggest obstacle for future hygiene promotion within the street food sector. This study indicated that vendors do not seem to acknowledge the importance of hygiene education and knowledge. Instead all vendors stressed practical cooking skills as the most important knowledge (i.e. learning how to cook traditional dishes, knowing the prices and differences of ingredients). Only one vendor mentioned hygiene and food safety as an important part of the mandatory courses of cooking in Junior Secondary school 11 and no one mentioned hygiene as an important part of later formal or informal cooking training. Prioritising practical skills over hygiene knowledge thus constitutes a first barrier to reach vendors with hygiene messages in the street food sector. A second major condition for hygiene promotion to be effective among street food vendors might be the lack of a visible and measurable effect of behaviour changes (Appleton 2003). Washing hands will probably not bring more customers and no vendor will know if hand washing will lower the incidence of diarrhoeal diseases in the population. Hence, benefits from behaviour changes and the related efforts to introduce these will be evaluated by vendors and maybe overruled by routines, time constraints and other daily concerns with a visible impact on income.As stressed in this thesis vendors and consumers host a lot of risk perceptions and future hygiene promotion could therefore beneficially start by addressing vendors' own perceptions of harmful sources of dirt and related practices. Vendors predominantly perceive harmful 'dirt' as coming from the outside surroundings and related messages of avoiding such dirt (dirt from drainage, gutters, garbage and flies) have already been heavily addressed in a variety of forums such as the vendor network MAFFAG, and Environmental Health Departments. It was also the major focus of the Accra street food project which promoted aesthetic cooking and vending environments and beautiful vendors (see pictures). Awareness of avoiding dirt from environments and presenting aesthetic and spotless vending sites is therefore already deeply engraved in authorities', vendors' and customers' awareness.Campaign material from The Accra Street food Project 2003 to promote consumer awareness of food safety (Source: NRI org)In comparison awareness of evident risk practices of vendors and invisible features of dirt are surprisingly low among vendors and consumers. Even though this study have shown that aesthetically founded efforts are in fact beneficial for many aspects of improving hygiene, focusing entirely on visible features in the vending environment might risk being counterproductive for food hygiene by creative a common understanding that \"nothing else needs to be done\". It is therefore crucial in future campaigns to address 'inside' sources of contamination, including the possibility of vendors contaminating the food them selves. In particular vendors' understandings of 'germs' and 'animals' should be targeted since these do not directly translate into bio-medical understandings of pathogens and thus constitutes some danger to food safety. Convincing ways of communicating to the vendors that things might carry health risks equally dangerous to gutters i.e. even though not visible (such as invisible particles of stool or soil on hands and vegetables) should therefore be developed 12 .On the basis of this and the study of Olsen (2005) I therefore recommend to address few crucial risk practices in future vendor campaigns:Hygiene promotion is more likely to succeed if focus is on key-risk practices which are realistic to alter (Appleton 2003). All the above practices are easily changeable in the sense that they do not require large scale financial investments of vendors or authorities. However, analysis showed that many practices are quite interlinked with complex perceptions of dirt and routine practices and effective hygiene promotion activities must therefore take into account and try to understand the underlying rationales of vendors and customers to succeed.It turned out that most vendors have strong apprehensions towards certain sources of information and therefore have very few channels of hygiene information available. Only two vendors in this study (no. 2 and 3) had attended formal cooking courses including food safety issues and both had overall better food safety knowledge than the rest. The rest had not obtained any formal training in food safety apart from the school courses. The level of food safety knowledge was particular low with the two traditional vendors (no. 7 and 8) who both had short schooling and cooking was entirely learned through informal channels not guaranteeing them adequate food safety knowledge. Only one vendor remembered to be taught hygiene and food safety in school and the formally educated vendors did not perceive hygiene to be a major part of their cooking training. Instead all vendors stressed close social relations as the most important source of gaining vending and hygiene information. Most of them referred to mothers, other family members or 'master' vendors as the most preferred source of such information.A reason why vendors prefer seeking advice with close relationships may be explained by another finding: Vendors do not approach each other for information and the majority of vendors stated that it is not perceived socially accepted to seek information and new knowledge on food safety from fellow vendors. Such behaviours are perceived as \"spying on business\" and inappropriate: \"If you go and12 National hand washing campaigns were launched in Ghanaian rural areas and district towns in the mass media some years ago (World Bank). School initiatives, social marketing of soap, bill boards, TV-and radio spots showing housemothers contaminating home cooked foods via dirty hands were launched. The slogan used was \"There is something on your hands\" referring to bacteria depicted with pinks spots spreading in the food and on to those eating the food. This turned out to be extremely effective in raising awareness about \"invisible\" harmful dirt.look at other people to see how they are cooking maybe they will think that you are a witch or think you will steal their customers\" (vendor 8) and \"When we go there to ask them they will scold you and say \"your brother teaches you every day so why don't you ask your brother?\" So I am not supposed to go around asking others\" (vendor 4). As described in ch. 3.1.1 many social rules seem to dictate what is of 'appropriate behaviours' for social interaction and such social codex also seem to influence vendors' knowledge seeking behaviour. Vendors are in danger of loosing social acceptance among fellow vendors if exposing their own lack of knowledge by seeking information. And such business culture clearly constitutes a strong barrier for vendors to gain new knowledge and improve on food safety.All customers agreed that making vendors aware of insufficient cooking hygiene is necessary to enhance street food quality. However, only very few had the courage to approach vendors since they are known to treat demanding customers badly by \"insulting\" them, \"calling them names\", \"shouting\" at them, give them bad food or demand more money. One customer explained: \"In fact you can't tell the owner if that the place is not neat. You will feel shy to go and stand in her face to tell her that. She will insult you in front of a lot of people\" (FGD, females). All vendors confirmed that very few customers ask questions, comment or advice on cooking environment, hygienic food quality etc. Customers were also very concerned not to ruin the business of vendors by speaking out complaints in public and seemed to protect vendors -sometimes even though highly dissatisfied with services or food quality! Instead rumours of good and bad street food experiences travel between consumers via word of mouth. These findings once again depict customers and vendors as playing their respectful roles towards each other. But a social attachment to a vendor indeed also seems to produce a protective attitude in customers who do not wish to let vendors down.Together these findings illustrate a tabooing culture towards seeking knowledge among vendors and a very weak consumer culture with consumers who do not seek influence, educate vendors or enforce demands of food safety and hygiene. Vendors' hygiene practices and perceptions are therefore influenced and challenged from very few sources.This study clearly showed that the potential risks of cooking in unsafe environments are considerably higher for traditional vendors than for fast food vendors. The present organisational set-up of the street food sector makes it further difficult for these vendors to change behaviours; Associations for traditional caterers do not host street vendors as members and fast food organisations do not host members cooking only traditional dishes. Finally, this group of vendors seems to have none or very low schooling and cooking education levels. Targeting these vendors with hygiene promotional initiatives is therefore very important and including traditional vendors in formal networks would greatly enhance their possibilities to obtain food safety knowledge and to change behaviours.Many vendors in Kumasi have support staffs employed in charge of parts or majorities of food preparations and serving. Support staff is a vast target group and sensitizing this group to food hygiene would have an immense potential impact on the general food hygiene of the street food sector. In this study no support staffs had formal food hygiene knowledge and many had not attended junior secondary school. This constitutes a serious problem since a huge group of support staffs perform delicate food preparations on a daily basis. The problem was acknowledged and discussed by MAFFAG members during the knowledge sharing session. They know that support staffs have insufficient low levels of food safety knowledge and practice unsafe behaviour which made many vendors feel frustrated. The majority of vendors also acknowledged a responsibility to educate staffs. However, observations showed that vendors rarely enforce food hygiene practices towards their staffs or gave lectures on food hygiene and safety. Finally, support staffs never attend meetings or workshops in vendor associations.It is my clear impression that vendors are very protective towards their status as owners or managing vendors and do not wish to loose status by educating lower ranging staffs. Vendors expressed somewhat condescending attitudes towards illiterate staffs and do not perceived them capable of understanding and internalizing food safety messages. This problem should be addressed in future education strategies by encouraging vendors to involve trusted support staff when attending meetings and workshops and educational materials for illiterates should be available. Finally, above identified channels of knowledge indicated that 'master' vendors is a common source of knowledge and Tutor-Vendor programmes could therefore be a strategic way of ensuring education of staffs. Master vendors should be taught leadership skills and be made aware of the responsibility towards teaching staffs and enforcing safe food practices on their premises.Studies of the street food sector in Ghana has pointed out that the sector is now too big for authorities to control (Maxwell 2000) and new control mechanisms and hygiene promotion methods are therefore needed. The Hygiene Improvement Framework suggests community involvement, partnerships between authorities and private organisations and institutional strengthening as essential components of creating enabling environments for hygiene promotion. In Kumasi the contact between vendors and KMA does not emphasise social inclusion or participation of the public and it relies mostly on one-way communication from authorities. Hence, if municipal authorities in future wish to appeal to vendors it requires a different approach -one that emphasizes participation and collaboration rather than control.The workshop with MAFFAG members is an example of a participatory approach useful for involving vendors in promoting food hygiene. The method included participatory role plays in which vendors could influence events (see pictures) and open ended discussion questions which stressed two-way communication between researchers and vendors. Materials for the workshop consisted of a trainers guide containing picture examples and various accessories for role plays. This made the event possible for illiterates to participate in and for untrained facilitators to conduct. The aim was to involve vendors in discussing the various barriers they encounter in their everyday vending life and the method proved effective to reveal difficulties in 'doing the right thing' even though vendors knew of the importance to keep kitchens clean, wash hands and educate support staffs in food hygiene.Discussing hand hygiene with Role play about sweeping members of the MAFFAG network and contaminating foodA general finding from street food projects in many countries are authorities' habit of not recognizing the food sector or merely tolerating it until vendors become a nuisance (Dawson 1991). In Ghana the street food sector has luckily gained a lot of attention during the last ten years with the Accra Nutrition study pointing out the significance of the sector (Maxwell 2000) and the Accra Street food project evaluating the hygienic standards of street foods and educating many vendors (NRI org).In Kumasi the street food sector is in fact also a high priority of municipal authorities who are well aware of the scope of the sector. And being the authority with daily ground level contact with vendors, KMA has a key-role to play in hygiene promotion and a great potential for positively influencing vendors hygiene perceptions and behaviours. But obvious problems exist; inspectors are in general rather disillusioned and hence do not see the beneficial aspects of the sector but primarily view street foods as a source of food contamination and a public health threat. This was also one critic outspoken in the Accra study (Maxwell 2000). Furthermore, KMA have until now only been inspecting, controlling and disciplining vendors and few vendors stated that they can gain useful advice and hygiene knowledge from such control visits by KMA -they mostly experience being reprimanded.But there are several obvious possibilities for KMA to influence vendors' behaviours with existing tools. Present KMA inspections focus heavily on controlling health certificates and clean environments and basic hygiene practices such as hand washing and washing vegetables are not systematically studied 13 . Active promotion of personal hygiene and hygiene practices could easily be included in the routine work tasks of environmental health staff inspection rounds e.g. by asking about or inspecting vendors' toilet facilities and advising about soap and hand washing and how to avoid contaminating food via dirty hands.Another possibility for KMA to use their influence is in active cooperation with vendors' networks and private food cooperation.This thesis has highlighted that vendors prefer seeking knowledge from trusted social relations whom they already trust and have legitimate contacts with. Food hygiene promotion could therefore beneficially be conveyed by strengthening vendors own institutions such as vendors' networks.According to Maxwell, strengthening such associations also helps in developing self-regulatory mechanisms and gives a political voice to small-scale entrepreneurs (Maxwell 2000) which will therefore be an alternative hygiene control strategy to the present restrictive one upheld solely by town authorities.The MAFFAG association in Kumasi has proven successful in establishing an accepted culture of vendor-to-vendor education via workshops, lectures and informal exchange of experiences and in the street vendor education program in Accra conducted in 2000-2004 (NRI org) 300 attached vendors were trained via such networks. The networks have succeeded in training approximately 3000 vendors in basic food hygiene. Even though the street food sector is a highly unstable and informal sector this project and the single vendor association in Kumasi have clearly proved that it is possible to reach vendors, organize them in sustainable networks and initiate large scale educational programmes collaborating with vendors rather than controlling them.Furthermore, KMA staff confirmed that in general members of MAFFAG have better possibilities of social support and positive influence from fellow vendors and from MAFFAG meetings it was clear that being a member of an association give vendors pride in their occupation. Finally, joining a 'social club' is already a strong integrated feature of the Ghanaian culture 14 which usually functions as forums of exchanging experiences within a specific worker group. Being in an official network can therefore help combat the overall low social status of street food vendors, curb the tabooing culture towards seeking new knowledge and enable a positive environment towards educating each other. This will give vendors a much stronger incitements to improve on food hygiene.So far the only organisation involved in establishing networks in Kumasi is the food cooperation Nestlé, the producer of Maggi, who has included thousands of vendors in business networks in the Ashanti region alone. Nestlé naturally operates foremost from a commercial point of interest but the company has nevertheless proven to be effective in establish wide-ranging communication with vendors, which can be brought actively into play in future public health campaigns.Nestlé has already financed several clean up campaigns promoting 'The clean market place' (see picture) in Kumasi and other towns but until now the activities in the networks have not focused heavily on food hygiene; The corporation does not operate with written food safety standards 15 for attached vendors and food hygiene is not a part of the quality assurance visits they undertake at vendors selling their products. Therefore, building positive partnerships and creating dialogue with food cooperation's on enhancing the focus on hygienic aspects should be stressed in the future.At the moment the only quality assurance tool existing for street food vendors is the health screening license, which is rarely visible to customers. It could be a logical next step to implement for example a KMA-smiley or a network-smiley clearly signalling a successful inspection by KMA or a standard acceptable for a membership of a vendor network. This would provide the customers with the first visible objective tool to assess food hygiene and safety. Furthermore, it can strengthen the vendors' awareness of inspections as being a positive event and give them pride in keeping up hygienic standards.The significance of the street food sector in developing countries has been highlighted and recognized by many big donor organisations during the last decade. Several educational projects have been initiated for vendors in Bangkok, Accra, Singapore and Calcutta but scaling up activities to regional or national levels and sustaining educational projects have not found place. Furthermore, projects have rarely been based on analysis of local hygiene perceptions. It is therefore becoming increasingly necessary to direct funds to more vendor targeted hygiene promotion activities. Based on the findings and the hygiene improvement framework this chapter has highlighted some possibilities of such future activities. Strengthening vendors' networks in fruitful partnerships with commercial companies already hosting professional contacts to thousands of vendors in particular seems like a promising strategy.Chapter 5: DiscussionThe attached translator had had some training by professional research staff in translation and transcription processes and had previously been working with researchers conducting similar fieldwork. However, translation and transcription bias were probably still present in some degree. Back-translation of transcribed interviews and FGD´s by a second translator could have added to the correctness and quality of data but was not performed out of practical reasons. To limit translation biases each interview guide was presented to the translator on before hand. The translator would then rehearse phrasings, suggest alternative wordings and point out inappropriate or complicated questions. Furthermore, each transcription completed by the translator was followed up by question sessions with me in which wording and correctness of the translation was discussed. Interviews conducted and transcribed in English by me were usually double checked by the translator.Transcription of interviews by a second translator not involved in the interview situation might also have added to the objectivity and correctness of the transcription. However, the low quality of recordings, with a lot of street noise, sometimes made it quite impossible for others to understand the contents and notes from the interviews were often necessary to complete the transcriptions. Finally, it was not financially possible to hire a second translator.This study was limited to vendors serving whole meals from street based stands. These and similar vendors can be considered 'middle class' vendors, since they have established kitchens but are not considered proper restaurants. Food hygiene and food safety is most likely lower with 'low class' vendors who are known to cook under very provisional conditions. To get a complete picture of hygiene and safety of street foods in an urban setting such as Kumasi and prioritise hygiene intervention groups and settings it is most certainly relevant to observe and evaluate these settings as well.The majority of customers included in interviews and FGD´s were youngsters or young adults of middle or low income class who ate street foods on a regular basis. I only met and interviewed few customers of high income or people who were non-customers. This selection provides information from the typical street food customer segment in full accordance with other street food studies (Tinker 1997, Maxwell 2000, Mwangi 2002). However, it is relevant to consult high social-class people and non-customers if one wishes to gain a complete picture of perceptions towards street food and reasons for not eating it. This will reveal if it is hygiene knowledge, social status or other factors such as higher income or better housing facilities that keeps them away from buying street foods.Observations are always influenced by the researchers' own agenda and ability to understand the setting. They are \"subjective, because what we see (or do not see) is influenced by our own culture and experience\" (Rifkin 2001:44). Some of the observed behaviour patterns might therefore not be directly interpretable and others might be misinterpreted since the researcher does not understand the setting and underlying cultural reasoning. Me, being a white, western and none-Twi speaking person, possibly sets limits to what I can observe and understand in the street food sector in Kumasi. To avoid biased observations and interpretations, it is vital for the observer to \"recognise both how much and how little they observe\" (Wolcott 1994:170). I therefore continuously aimed to discuss observations with the attached local translator and other researchers doing observations in Kumasi. Such sessions with the translator were often interesting for other reasons as well; when I was puzzled with practices and statements she was often amused and found them natural and logical. The construct of 'neatness' is an example. To begin with the translator found the meaning of the commonly used phrase 'neatness' quite apparent and simple. As I realized that neatness covers a range of criteria for vendors and customer, I thoroughly instructed the translator to probe for further explanations from respondents. This shows that being an outsider can also have positive effects on observations since the contrast in cultural settings make behaviours and explanations \"stand out in bold relief\" (Wolcott 1994:170) and at times therefore makes it easier for strangers to identify important practices and perceptions.Overall, vendors seemed to be little worried about being observed by me and note taking during field work was in general perceived as interesting rather than monitoring. However, several challenges on how to do observations in a respectful and effective way were encountered. In field notes from the first days I wrote: \"I have now seen that the vendor stands are very small and that every centimetre of space is needed for different stages of the cooking process. So how can I fit in? Me sitting on a chair inside the stand mean that vendors have to bend them selves around me and maybe reorganize their daily routines? How can I then avoid disturbing their work and changing their behaviours?\" Hence, when initiating observations it took time to position one self optimally. The dilemma was how to get close enough without disturbing the vendor and how far away one can sit without missing out on important behaviours or giving the vendors opportunities to 'hide' parts of the food procedures. However, all vendors continuously asked me to come closer to follow the work meticulously to provide me with comprehensive knowledge of all vending activities.Similarly, it was a concern how and when to take notes during fieldwork with vendors. Taking out a notebook during work sessions could intimidate vendors and in general I therefore prioritised to take part in work routines rather than taking notes. Instead pictures were taken to reconstruct events and sometimes I made an 'escape' to nearby chop bars to sit down and do scratch notes for 5 minutes before returning to the vending site. Notes were always elaborated later same day. However, as vendors became accustomed to me they started to explicitly ask me to note down. It was important for them that I got 'the right' information directly from them and seeing me noting it down often gave them a feeling of authority and significance to the study. During informal interviews full notes were always taken on the spot.It was the aim to observe all phases of the vending during all times of the day. However, it was not possible to stay at vendors after 10 pm. since it was considered unsafe for foreigners to walk the streets in the late evenings and since transport was scarce. Information on evening and night events were therefore obtained from interviews and talks with vendors during day hours.The study has made apparent that customers perceive home made food safer and more attractive than street foods. They also perceive home made food as holding social and nutritional values better than those of street foods. Therefore it is quite interesting to find out more about urban home based food hygiene practices by conducting further observations in household kitchens. This would not only make visible to what extend the urban population have possibilities to conduct safe food hygiene at home. It would also add to the understanding of people's demeaning perceptions towards street foods.Triangulation of data collection methods was used to assure validity of research results. Each method (focus group discussions, interviews and participant observations) has added to the complexity of the data material and compensated for shortcomings of other methods. Problems of validity arise if data does not accurately reveal the actual behaviours and perceptions of people and this might in particular become relevant if the subject of investigation is socially sensitive. In such situations respondents may give answers in accordance to what they find suitable or what they think is expected of them in stead of expressing their genuine beliefs. For example, it was clear that street food is in the limelight of control authorities in Kumasi because of recent outbreaks of cholera. Some vendors were therefore prone to report exaggerated concerns with food hygiene during initial contacts. Findings also made it clear that hygiene is a strong social virtue related to appearing clean and being a moral person. Hence, answers of hygiene practices might be skewed towards over reporting 'correct' practices. Finally, observed staff might 'hide' or alter behaviours they perceive as not presentable to the observer.To avoid such bias' series of observation sessions at vendors were conducted supplemented by several interviews. Continuous observation and informal conversations made it clear that some statements of concerns were neither persistent nor turned into practices and biased practices were quickly revealed. Furthermore, ending each sequence of observations with a formal interview had the effect that respondents knew what I had observed and could no longer over-report 'good' behaviours without me recognising biased answers immediately. Finally, when introducing the objectives of the study to respondents, words such as \"food safety\", \"hygiene\" and \"food contamination were consciously avoided to minimize the risk of influencing their practices and leading their answers.Taking the time to discuss findings with respondents and giving emphasis to their feed-back is also an important way of validating findings. I was the fourth student doing field work in the street food sector for the CP51 programme and much data has been compiled. The knowledge sharing workshop with vendors in the last phase of the field work helped test some of the vendor related findings and research hypothesis. Vendors were hence presented with findings on lack of hand washing practices, the focus on keeping aesthetic vending premises and ignoring kitchen premises. Finally, barriers to and future possibilities of educating vendors and staff were discussed in open forum. Vendors were in general in agreement and acknowledged the findings as they appear in this thesis and were willing and eager to discuss possibilities of further educational activities. Their suggestions have been incorporated in the recommendations as they appear in ch.4.This study has opted away from the tradition of many street food based studies focusing on microbiological food quality and hygiene and instead explored the issue of hygiene and street food safety using qualitative anthropological methods, emphasising contextual and emic aspects of food safety, hygiene and contamination. The study has identified and described several dimensions of perceived food quality among street food vendors and consumers and the analysis revealed a complex system of interacting social, cultural, practical and normative factors. Findings thereby confirm that perceived food quality indeed diverts from objective microbiological food quality and in accordance with findings of Holm (1996) consumers depend heavily on individual and situational assessments of food when making choices.In this study consumers particularly based their purchasing choices on functional factors such as accessibility, price, and convenience, as it was also stressed by FAO (FAO 1997). But a strong emphasis on neatness, a construct created in dialogue between hygienic and aesthetic concerns was also identified. Trust created through social and personal relationships to known vendors was also determining for customers perceptions of the food quality and choices. Hence, neatness and trust seem to be ruling criteria for evaluating street food quality. This clearly demonstrates that reasons for valuing hygienic foods are not solely controlled by health concerns and preventing diseases but are complex social and cultural construct as well. In this as well as many other studies of food perceptions (i.e. Frewer 1996, Knox 2000, Hansen 2003, Redmond 2004) it is therefore reasonable to conclude that risk awareness of health and disease is not the core dimension when assessing food quality at all.So why do people not rate food hygiene and the risk of disease as the overall food quality criterion? In accordance with Holm (1996) and Knox (2000) this study suggests that concerns of food safety and related food risks are integrated in everyday concepts of food quality and that choices of foods often reflect compromises in everyday life rather than reflecting the consumers' rational preferences -for example when rating price over hygiene. Hence, food safety and hygiene is not merely overruled as a quality criterion but spun into the hundreds of other concerns people deal with in their lives everyday.During the study this became increasing clear since hygiene practices turned out to be particularly determined by social behaviours and everyday interactions between vendors and customers and also highly formed by social and moral values and norms.By using the theory of Goffman and Douglas such behaviours could be better understood; it was evident that hygiene related behaviours are indeed created during 'the everyday show' in natural social interactions between vendors and consumers. And everyday logics of vendors and customers turned out to be concentrated on and deeply socially and morally determined by keeping up appearances, avoiding social contamination and thereby making a good impression. 'Neatness' in performances and appearances can therefore be interpreted as profound positive virtues which seem to be the main driving forces for most hygiene related practices. One might say that 'Neatness' replaces and becomes the everyday proxy for hygiene concerns, which is indeed a very logical and human behaviour pattern: usually people do not \"think\" hygiene in every aspect of their everyday routines.Instead it is inscribed in our behaviours as general efforts to keep clean, neat and presentable.Customers' behaviours are therefore also meaningful: assessing food hygiene by evaluating neatness is a possible -and maybe the only -method for lay people to estimate the hygiene. Apart from being a practical tool for hygiene assessment, neatness is also likely a fairly good indicator of objective hygiene; A neat vendor is also a vendor who takes the time and efforts to actually become neat by cleaning him/herself, utensils, the food stand etc. and the hygiene of an un-neat vendor and food stand is very likely to be worse. The health danger arises if neatness becomes nothing more than an aesthetic façade which conceals bad hygiene -which was one identified aspect when vendors cooked under very unhygienic standards but presented food very neatly when vending. However, most often it was possible to identify hygienic as well as aesthetic efforts to ensure neatness.No other studies of street foods have identified and described aesthetics as a core factor for evaluating the quality of street foods. FAO evaluations stated that: \"Discriminating consumers look for general cleanliness of street food vendors\" (FAO 1997) but aesthetics was not singled out as an explanatory factor for such consumer behaviours. Neither have studies of food risk perceptions given aesthetics much attention. The reason for not focusing on this aspect might be that aesthetics are obviously part of very subtle and elusive constructs such as neatness, which demands qualitative in-depth analysis to pin-down. However, the importance of aesthetics has been described and acknowledged in studies by Douglas (2002), Curtis (2001b) and Van Der Geest (1998) who all identified aesthetics to be a universal and major driving force for hygiene practices and assessments. This study confirms that the importance of aesthetics also applies to the world of street foods and is a major driving force for presenting, evaluating and choosing hygienic vending environments.The theory of Goffman can explain how concerns of hygiene are replaced by concerns of neatness and formed by social interaction patterns between people. But it does not take into consideration the social bonds and personalized trust in known vendors which was indeed found to replace hygienic food quality concerns in this study. Such trends of high personal trust were also found among vendors and consumers in Uganda (Bhat 2000). In food related studies by Hansen (2003) trust was found to be a coping strategy for consumers' lack of knowledge about food risks. However, in this study trust in vendors was mostly based in a personal and social relationship and in fact not much related to customers believing in vendors' knowledge of food safety. Hence, a personal factor also exist which can not be explained by Goffman's' social theory or theories of coping for uncertainty. My own best explanation for these mechanisms is vague and based on the cultural context. It is obvious that the society and culture of Ghana and the Ashanti region in particular is built on strong values of honour, moral and pride 16 . Several codex´ of proper social behaviours and traditions in relation to greetings, respectful behaviours towards elders, chiefs etc. (see for example Kwadwo 2002) are therefore being strongly practiced in today's Kumasi. Hence, to show respect and to give a known person your sincere trust is an expectable behaviour and turning away, doubting or questioning a trusted person is considered highly in-proper, in-moral and a demeaning behaviour. This might also explain to some extend why there is presently no culture for critical consumer-organisations in Ghana.The findings of Henseler (2005) presented earlier (see figure 2) may seem contradictory when finding that a personal relationship to a vendor was only the criterion for 8% of customers when buying lettuce. Results suggested that cleanliness was a much stronger criterion. Two explanations are relevant for this finding: The special need for treating lettuce to avoid food contamination has been heavily promoted and is by now public knowledge for both vendors and consumers. Answers might reflect this awareness since the survey only addressed reasons for choosing lettuce. Furthermore, survey results are possibly biased towards ´correct´ answers such as being attentive towards food hygiene and cleanliness while answers obtained in this study during observations and informal conversations have revealed much more complex perceptions and motivations for behaviours.It has been hypothesised that female vendors are more concerned with food hygiene since they are used to handle food in their homes. In Kumasi it seems that more men are now going into the street food business as fast food vendors. But Ghanaian men typically have no or little cooking knowledge and it is therefore interesting if they practice less safe food handling compared to female vendors. There were no obvious association between gender of vendors and safe food practices in this study and neither did higher formal levels of vendor education seem to be turned into safer food behaviours. Findings were similar among street food vendors in Nairobi, were Mwangi (2002) stated that it is not the sex of vendors or vendors' knowledge about health and hygiene which hinders them in applying safe food practices. Mwangi therefore states that the wider social, cultural and everyday context seemed to have great influence on vendors' behaviours.One social factor with potential influence on vendors' hygiene behaviours might be the status of the customer segment. In this study vendors were selected from high-income as well as low-income areas. Vendors' hygiene practices could be expected to reflect such placements taking into account that higher educated and higher income customers might be more aware of food safety and hygiene.To my own surprise hygienic standards were not better at vendors in high income areas (city centre) or areas with many highly educated customers (near the university campus) compared to lower income areas. Instead efforts to present neat front stages in areas with high status customers were sometimes higher since vendors were aware of customers' being more knowledgeable about food safety.Quality perceptions and awareness of food safety did not differ across gender of customers while education levels seem to have some influence. Hence, many university students and higher income customers were aware of low food safety standards in street food and often expressed more critical and demeaning perceptions towards street food. However, students are a major customer group and they do not seem to abstain from purchasing foods despite their apparent higher knowledge on food safety. When purchasing foods they expressed and used exactly the same criteria as everybody elsethey asses neatness before everything else.Together, these findings demonstrate that social and cultural values of neatness offer good explanations for vendors' safety behaviours and customers' priorities. This once again stresses the importance of not restricting promotion strategies to educating vendors on risk behaviours, but to be aware of the multiple driving forces of hygiene behaviours highlighted here. It also underlines the importance of strengthening customers' demands towards improving food safety, which is obviously not done just by educating people on food related risks since most people still withdraw from using their consumer-influence.The implications of these findings for future hygiene promotion are several and some were mentioned in chapter. 4. It is obvious that educating vendors on risk factors is not a sufficient strategy and social and moral driving forces, such as neatness and aesthetics, of hygiene must thus be included and targeted. Furthermore, the fact that hygiene behaviours are so profoundly tied to social interactions, social and trusted relationships makes the 'network strategy' an obvious choice. Actively involving vendors in hygiene promotion within networks takes departure in vendors own trusted relations and recognized forums and thereby enhance motivating environments for vendors to gain knowledge and change behaviours.However, the lack of acknowledgement of food related health problems might be a serious obstacle for the effectiveness of interventions and a survey study of street food related diseases among customer could help clarify and make visible the magnitude and nature of the problem (e.g. incidence of street food borne diseases, types of diseases reported, types of disease causing foods, causes for non-reported cases etc.). A study could take departure in reported food poisoning cases at hospitals but also be conducted among customers in the street not reporting to hospital. Valid information is naturally very difficult to obtain because of recall bias, unknown causes of diseases etc. but a rough estimate of 'the street food factor' in transmitting food borne diseases would be very useful when designing targeted hygiene promotion strategies in the future.As described earlier, urbanisation processes rapidly changes traditional nutrition and eating patterns and street food is by now an important part of urban lifestyles. The street food sector has also had large impacts on urban living and urban societies creating employment and income potential for thousands of people inside the sector as well as in related economies such as the peri-and urban agriculture. With the prospect of the sector growing even more in the years to come some of these trends are worth reflecting upon.This study showed that street food and fast food in particular is extremely popular and a dish with some social status attached to it signalling some wealth and an urban modern lifestyle. It was also clear that people pay greater attention to such social aspects of nutrition that the actual nutritional contents of foods. But such changing dietary patterns from traditional foods to higher reliance on street foods bring into question the nutritional quality of street foods: Does it hold sufficient nutritional value to ensure health in the urban population? FAO evaluations of studies from across African, Asian, and Latin American countries (FAO 1997) indicated that the eating of a combination of street foods do in fact provide consumers with adequate opportunities to meet daily nutritional requirements at an affordable level. And studies from Nairobi (Van t'Riet 2003), Nigeria (Otungo 1995(Otungo , 1999) ) and Ghana (Maxwell 2000) showed that street foods sufficiently covered substantial parts of energy and nutrient requirements for the urban dwellers.It is also known that a shift in the profile of the urban diet from one that is deficient towards richer in animal protein compared to their rural counterparts is happening, ensuring urban people a more balanced diet (Popkin 2000). But worrying trends enhanced by the intake of street foods can also be identified: urban dwellers have a considerable higher intake of saturated and total fat and sugar and lower intakes of fibre. Combined with a more sedentary lifestyle in urban areas an urban diet increases the risk of obesity and related chronic diseases (Popkin 2000). Fouéré et al. (2000) also warned that a diet based on street foods may be lower in nutritional value since fresh legumes are often eliminated from the daily diet and consumption of leftovers and processed food items is higher. This issue is highly relevant in developing countries and for the Ghanaian context where a large and rising portion of the population is now overweight (Popkin, Akosa 2006). Furthermore, in Ghana even the traditional Ghanaian diet holds small amounts of micronutrients and increasing amounts of fats, refined foods and sugar (Akosa 2006). Hence, street foods in Ghana indeed secure the survival of many but an indication of an unbalanced urban diet is also a relevant issue. The study by Henseler (2005) indicated that consumption of lettuce seems to be on the increase in the street food sector and this and the study of Olsen (2005) indicated that awareness of the benefits of consuming fresh vegetables does exist in the population who hold high expectations to health benefits from consuming these. Hence, using and selling fresh vegetables in street food can be seen as a positive trend to counter the development of an unhealthy urban nutritional pattern and should be encouraged.This study showed that people in general have low awareness of the production conditions of urban grown crops and far from all people take ecological concerns such as contents of pesticide residues or faecal material in foods into account when they purchase or prepare foods. Furthermore, this and other studies of street food in Kumasi (Olsen 2005, Henseler 2005) have identified insufficient standards of cleaning lettuce to be a risk factor and studies among Accra and Kumasi vendors also found salads and lettuce to have very high levels of faecal contamination (Mensah et al. 2003, Amoah et al 2006). Research into urban farming of these vegetables in Kumasi and Accra has identified several sources of faecal pollution of vegetables related to farming (waste water irrigation) as well as post-harvest practices (washing of vegetables in waste water etc.) (Keraita et al. 2003). With the rapidly increasing consumption of lettuce in the street food sector these findings are worrying.Teaching vendors safe cleaning practices of lettuce it therefore important to ensure safer street food. However, more important is probably to address the overall causes for contamination stemming from urban development and derived intensification of agriculture and urban food production. It is positive and highly necessary that urban agriculture now constitutes an important complement to rural supplies of foods for the growing urban societies, but the application of improperly or untreated waste to crops and the exposure to air, water, or land pollution are increasing and relevant public health concerns (Mougeut 2000). Apart from lettuce contamination many other risks in the street food sector can thus be identified stemming from urban agriculture practices. It therefore makes little sense to separate the risks from contaminated vegetables and cleaning lettuce from the broader underlying causes of contamination. The general need to keep all vegetables and meats clean and safe for consumption must therefore be in focus and vendors and customer must be taught how to choose safe crops. It also includes continuous intensive research and actions taken to ensure safe urban agriculture and food production.Children and mothers have been identified as particularly vulnerable to changes of urban family patterns and lifestyles (Maxwell 2000) and children are a high-risk group more susceptible to food borne infections than adults (WHO 2002). Malnutrition increases the risk of such infectious diseases (Stephens 2000) and even small improvements and deteriorations of the nutritional quality of children's food can therefore in-or decrease their micronutrient intake and affect their health (FAO 2006). Intake of street foods might therefore play a particular important role on the health status and development of urban children.The Accra nutrition study found the lowest nutritional status among children from single headed households engaged in street vending (Maxwell 2000) and pointed out that one reason was mothers having less time to cook at home and children being fed with or given money for street foods. Similar trends have been highlighted in other studies: Another Accra study highlighted serious health problems when it found street food consumption to be a predictor for children diarrhoea and measured higher levels of contamination in street foods given to these children compared to home cooked foods (Mensah 2002). In households headed by working mothers breakfast was found often to be eliminated and children instead given money to buy street food on the way to school (Fouéré et al 2000) and in Ghana many mothers' prefer the low-energy and low-nutrient porridge koko sold in streets as weaning food for babies instead of preparing approved weaning meals at home (Colecraft et al. 2003, Maxwell 2000). Furthermore, in many African countries it is common practice that schools assign street vendors to sell food to students and studies from Tanzania (FAO 2006), Mali, Niger and Benin (Chauliac et al. 1996) have all shown vendors to be the prime source of students' food during school days.Hence, thousands of children rely on street foods and potential health dangers exist for them if they or their mothers do not know how to choose safe and nutritional street foods. But are children actually able to make safe and nutritional street food choices on their own? In Ghana it was found that many children spend the food money on candies and other foods of low nutritional value (FAO 2006) and the Tanzania study showed that most snacks and meals available for children at school to be grossly deficient of micronutrient with low use of vegetables and fruits (FAO 2006). In the same study 17% of the children indicated that they did not know if foods were safe and 59 % actually stated that foods were probably not safe but felt compelled to buy them anyway (FAO 2006). The studies from Mali and Benin also found that children based their street food purchasing on practical criteria such as taste and quantity. Only 1 out of 6 children assessed the hygiene. Instead children rejected vendors out of emotional reasons (Chauliac et al. 1996). Together these findings draw a picture of the urban society creating difficult situations for children to obtain an everyday diet of sufficient quality since they have low possibility to assess food safety and nutritional quality and hence to avoid risk of food contamination, disease and malnutrition. Children also have low authority to demand safe food from vendors and therefore entirely depend on adults and vendors to ensure safe foods. The trend towards children consuming more street foods therefore creates a potential threat for child health.However, important positive social trends must be taken into the equation; The income from vending street foods in urban areas provide thousands of mothers with means to send their children to school, take them to health care facilities and to buy or cook regular meals. Hence, many children are ensured a reasonable diet and health care due to the huge socio-economic spin off from the street food sector. To conclude, it is of the greatest importance to continuously monitor the nutritional effects of street food and the nutritional status of the urban child from low-income groups should indeed be particularly carefully observed.In chapter 4 several suggestions for enhancing the hygienic quality of street foods were highlighted.The above perspectives add a few potential key target groups for future hygiene promotion; Parents, schools and other authorities in contact with children are in a strong position to influence and demand nutritional and hygienic food quality served to children and must take co-responsibility to enhance quality of street foods for the sake of children's health. Furthermore, the people involved in urban agriculture must become aware of their potential to enhance the quality of foods produced, harvested and sold from their hands. Research into safe crop production methods can support farmers etc. in doing so.The socio-economic importance of the street food sector Due to changes in lifestyles and living conditions in urban areas, vast numbers of urban dwellers now depend on street foods as a daily source of food. The street food sector therefore offers an enormous positive income generating potential for thousands of vendors and their families in urban areas of developing countries around the world. In addition, the sector now produces a huge socio-economic spin-off in related economies such as the peri-urban and urban-agricultures. Hence, the street food sector is necessary and shows prospective for urban development.But street food is also known to be of rather low hygienic quality, jeopardizing the health status of thousands of urban dwellers. Town authorities are therefore struggling to control and ensure safe street foods. But in Kumasi and many other towns the street food sectors have grown explosively during the last decade and it now seems too far-reaching for authorities to handle on their own with present methods. The street food sector is therefore an increasingly important point of entry for public health and hygiene interventions and emphasis on research and studies such as this one should be enhanced to gain more knowledge on street food hygiene and help develop suitable interventions.The main objective of this thesis was to investigate the practices and perceptions of food quality, food safety and hygiene among street food vendors and their customer's in urban Kumasi and to suggest viable future hygiene initiatives. Qualitative data was collected during a 3 months field study in urban Kumasi, Ghana, The field activities included extensive participatory observations and interviews with 8 case vendors, general observations on various markets, urban farms and vending places around Kumasi. Furthermore, interviews and focus group discussions with street food customers and interviews with various key-informants were conducted. The data was analysed using a multidimensional approach focusing on the five main dimensions of social, hygienic, nutritional, aesthetic and functional dimensions of food quality.This thesis has made it clear that food safety and hygiene is not the sole concern for vendors and consumers when evaluating street food quality. A range of quality dimensions influence their perceptions of street food. In this study choosing a vendor was highly influenced by functional factors such as price, availability and accessibility. But assessing food quality was mostly a matter of neatness of the vending premises, the neatness of the vendor and the presentation of foods. Furthermore, putting personal trust in a known vendor seemed to replace customers concerns of food hygiene to some extend -also when it was not expected from vendors to have knowledge of food risks. Instead trust seemed to constitute an important social attachment for customers. Hence, neatness and trust were ruling criteria for food quality.'Neatness' turned out to incorporate aesthetic as well as hygienic aspects related to concerns of general cleanliness, orderliness, beauty as well as moral purity. Hence, in accordance with findings of Mary Douglas, reasons for valuing hygienic food behaviours were clearly driven by multiple aspects of social, moral and aesthetic motivations such as social esteem, attractiveness, and acceptance. Efforts to avoid and eliminate moral dirt and social contamination along with biological dirt are therefore indeed very evident among street food vendors and customers in Kumasi and neatness thus functions as a useful parameter for everyday dirt avoidance behaviours, intuitively taking a variety of food related risks into account.But observations in the street food sector of Kumasi showed quite obvious distinction between hygienic behaviours on the front stages and back stages of food vending sites and it was clear that vendors unfortunately rarely extent hygiene concerns to include practices on the back stages of food vending -while efforts were great when presenting one self and the food. Dirty kitchens and lack of hand washing were therefore often encountered, even though most vendors had sufficient knowledge to avoid related risks of diseases transmission. The reason for this hygiene puzzle seem to be that vendors put substantial emphasis on the aesthetic and immediate visible impression of the vending environment and less on avoiding in-visible sources of dirt such as germs, bacteria and other pathogens.This elucidates how strongly hygiene practices are formed and determined by social interactions and relationships between people and it also reminds us that food safety and hygiene is spun into and sometimes overruled by the hundreds of other everyday concerns, which for vendors include concerns of maximizing the impression conveyed to their customers. For customers the price and availability often had the last saying. Hence, vendors and customers operate with quite pragmatic logics sometimes incorporating hygienic concerns into their actions -and sometimes not.On the basis of these findings it was possible to suggest several strategies for future hygiene promotion initiatives. First of all it is crucial to understand that it is not a sufficient strategy to educate vendors only on risk factors and vendors must not just be blamed for their lack of hygiene practices. Instead initiatives should recognize and build on the many underlying social, cultural and moral motivations for food hygiene which vendors already express in many aspects of their everyday life. Secondly, creating enabling environments by involving vendors actively in hygiene promotion within their own business networks seemed like a promising strategy. This can build upon existing trusted business relationships between vendors and help in developing self-regulatory and participatory control mechanisms in the street food sector. This will offer an important supplement to the restrictive control strategies exercised by town authorities today and help curb the negative attitude towards the sector.","tokenCount":"33386"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7a16d3ed086e4e6fdb17082f44138ebc","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/415075b5-e97d-49ce-9f4a-aa6bea1d3525/content","id":"1693186806"},"keywords":["Zea mays","acid soils","agronomic characters","grains","production","genetic variation","selection responses"],"sieverID":"b41544c9-16d9-47b9-b965-338220925d7f","pagecount":"9","content":"RESUMO -Foram avaliados os efeitos da seleção recorrente intrapopulacional e da oscilação genética na população de milho (Zea mays L.) SA3 tolerante a solos ácidos, submetida a 20 ciclos de seleção. Utilizaram-se amostras de oito ciclos seletivos, com o objetivo de estimar as respostas à seleção para produção de grãos e outros caracteres agronômicos, utilizando o modelo proposto por Smith (1983). O material genético utilizado consistiu em oito ciclos per se, oito ciclos per se autofecundados, 28 F 1 's entre ciclos, 28 F 1 's entre ciclos autofecundados e 28 F 1 's recombinados. Os experimentos foram conduzidos em cinco ambientes com solos ácidos, no Brasil e na Colômbia. As magnitudes das respostas esperadas à seleção (2ALI+2DLI) mostraram que os esquemas seletivos utilizados não foram eficientes para melhorar o caráter produção de grãos e para reduzir o caráter altura da planta. Porém, as estimativas indicaram que o processo de seleção foi eficiente para reduzir o número de dias para o florescimento feminino e aumentar o número de espigas por planta. As magnitudes das estimativas da oscilação genética (DQI) mostraram que seus efeitos não limitaram o melhoramento dos diferentes caracteres.Termos para indexação: Zea mays, solos ácidos, características agronômicas, grãos, produção, variação genética, resposta à seleção.A ocorrência de solos ácidos nos trópicos é bastante comum, e a acidez está associada, em muitos casos à baixa fertilidade desses solos. No Brasil, o problema ocorre em grandes áreas de seu território, expressando-se, em parte, nos solos sob vegetação de cerrado que ocupam uma área de 204 milhões de hectares, o qual representa 22% de seu território, onde se produz 25% da produção de milho, soja e arroz (Lopes et al., 1987;Parentoni et al., 1996). O milho cultivado em solos ácidos apresenta problemas que são causados principalmente pela toxicidade de Al, que inibe o desenvolvimento das raízes, resultando em menor absorção de nutrientes e umidade. A existência de variabilidade genética e a herança da tolerância à toxidez de Al já foi estudada e reportada por vários pesquisadores, merecendo destaque os trabalhos de Lima et al. (1992), Duque-Vargas et al. (1994), Borrero et al. (1995), Parentoni et al. (1995), Resende et al. (1997) e Salazar et al. (1997), entre outros. Esses estudos indicaram ainda que a tolerância a solos ácidos pode ser incrementada com seleção recorrente, com base em avaliações sobre vários ambientes de solos ácidos visando melhorar a produção de grãos e outras características agronômicas.O melhoramento de populações via seleção recorrente tem como objetivo aumentar gradualmente a freqüência dos alelos favoráveis, por meio de ciclos sucessivos de seleção e recombinação dos genótipos superiores, mantendo a variabilidade genética da população (Souza Júnior, 1983). A seleção e a oscilação genética são dois processos que podem alterar as freqüências gênicas e conseqüentemente alterar a magnitude da variância genética de uma população sob seleção recorrente (Helms et al., 1989). Para a análise das mudanças genéticas em uma população submetida à seleção recorrente e avaliar o progresso através de ciclos seletivos, Smith (1979aSmith ( , 1979bSmith ( , 1983) ) apresentou um modelo que permite interpretar as mudanças na média da população sob seleção como função das alterações das freqüências alélicas e dos efeitos alélicos nas populações. O modelo possibilita, também, a mensuração dos efeitos da oscilação genética nas populações selecionadas e a comparação da resposta direta e indireta à seleção.A avaliação de múltiplos ciclos com diferentes processos de seleção recorrente em milho, utilizando o modelo proposto por Smith, tem sido realizada por vários pesquisadores, cabendo ressaltar os trabalhos de Iglesias & Hallauer (1989), Keeratinijakal & Lamkey (1993a, 1993b), Stojsin & Kannenberg (1994a, 1994b) e Rezende (1997), entre outros. Por outro lado, programas de seleção recorrente incluindo avaliações de progênies e estimativas de progresso por seleção recorrente em solos ácidos são escassos, merecendo destaque os trabalhos de Aguiar (1986), Granados et al. (1993), Pandey et al. (1995) e Resende et al. (1997).Com base nesses antecedentes, os objetivos deste trabalho foram estimar a resposta à seleção para produção de grãos e outros caracteres agronômicos na população SA3, estimar as alterações decorrentes dos efeitos de homozigose e heterozigose, e os efeitos da oscilação genética.Foram utilizados oito ciclos seletivos (ciclos 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 16, 18 e 20) da população de milho SA3, tolerante a solos ácidos, formada pelo Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (CIMMYT), a partir de germoplasma do México, da Colômbia, do Peru, da Bolívia, da Tailândia e 14 coleções da raça cateto do Brasil. A população SA3 possui grãos amarelos, semidentados e foi submetida a 16 ciclos de seleção utilizando uma modificação do método \"espiga por fileira modificado\" com progênies de meios-irmãos (MIM) e quatro ciclos de irmãos germanos (IG) com um total de 20 ciclos de seleção (Granados et al., 1993). No segundo semestre de 1994 e primeiro de 1995 incrementaram-se as sementes dos ciclos per se. A seguir, estes foram autofecundados e cruzados em um sistema dialélico. Posteriormente, esses cruzamentos F 1 's foram autofecundados e recombinados.Os 100 tratamentos obtidos correspondem a oito ciclos per se, oito ciclos per se autofecundados, 28 F 1 's entre os ciclos, 28 F 1 's entre ciclos autofecundados, e 28 F 1 's recombinados. Esses tratamentos foram avaliados nos anos agrícolas de 1995/96 e 1996/97, em cinco ambientes, com solos ácidos localizados no Brasil e na Colômbia, utilizando-se o delineamento de látice 10 x 10 com três repetições em cada ambiente. As parcelas constituíram-se de uma linha de 5 m de comprimento com espaçamento de 0,75 m entre linhas e 0,50 m entre plantas dentro de linhas, com duas plantas por cova perfazendo-se 22 plantas por parcela.Os ambientes com solos ácidos foram: Carimagua (Colômbia), com 63% de saturação de Al, 10 ppm de P e pH 4,1; Santander de Quilichao (Colômbia), com 34% de saturação de Al, 10 ppm de P e pH 4,0; Villavicencio 1 e 2 (Colômbia) com 53% e 64% de saturação de Al, 10 ppm de P, pH 4,5 e 4,3, respectivamente; e Sete Lagoas, MG (Brasil), com 36% de saturação de Al, 5 ppm de P e pH 5,1.Foram avaliados e analisados os seguintes caracteres: dias para florescimento feminino, altura da planta (média de cinco plantas por parcela), número de espigas por planta (número de espigas/número de plantas por parcela) e produção de grãos. O caráter produção de grãos foi avaliado através do peso total de espigas despalhadas, assumin-do que 80% desse peso corresponde ao peso de grãos, o qual foi ajustado para 15% de umidade e corrigido para estande médio (Steel & Torrie, 1960).A análise de variância foi realizada quanto a cada caráter em cada ambiente e conjunta dos cinco ambientes. Os efeitos de tratamentos foram considerados como fixos, e os ambientes, como aleatórios. As análises individuais e conjuntas foram realizadas segundo o delineamento em látice de 10 x 10, com recuperação da informação intrabloco (Cochran & Cox, 1957;Pimentel-Gomes & Garcia, 1991). No cálculo da análise conjunta, utilizaram-se os totais ajustados de tratamentos estimados nas análises individuais.Progressos com a seleção foram estimados considerando-se em conjunto os oito ciclos seletivos correspondentes à seleção combinada de meios-irmãos modificados e irmãos germanos (MIM-IG), sobre os ciclos MIM (2, 5, 8, 11, 14 e 16) e sobre os ciclos de IG (16, 18 e 20). O ciclo 16 de MIM foi considerado o ciclo zero (C 0 ) de IG (Granados et al., 1993).As estimativas das alterações nas médias resultantes da seleção foram obtidas pela análise de regressão pelo modelo sugerido por Eberhart (1964). As alterações nos efeitos genéticos resultantes da seleção e da oscilação genética foram estimadas segundo o modelo genético proposto por Smith (1979aSmith ( , 1979bSmith ( , 1983)). Na obtenção dessas estimativas, utilizaram-se as médias ajustadas de tratamentos das análises conjuntas.De acordo com o modelo proposto por Smith, C ij representa a média da população i, com j ciclos de seleção. As médias das populações per se, per se autofecundadas, os F 1 's entre ciclos, os F 1 's autofecundados e os F 1 's recombinados podem ser expressos da seguinte forma:correspondem à população i no j-ésimo ciclo seletivo; AOI e DOI referem-se à contribuição dos homozigotos e heterozigotos no ciclo zero da população i respectivamente; ALI e DLI referem-se aos coeficientes de regressão lineares das alterações das freqüências alélicas causadas pelos homozigotos e heterozigotos na população i, respectivamente, e DQI refere-se ao coeficiente de regressão quadrático das alterações nas freqüências alélicas causadas pela oscilação genética na população i. Os parâmetros do modelo foram estimados pela análise de quadrados mínimos, onde b = (X'X) -1 X'Y, sendo (X'X) -1 a inversa da matriz X'X, X' é a transposta da matriz X e Y matriz de médias dos tratamentos através dos ambientes com solos ácidos. A matriz X é função do número de ciclos e dos coeficientes dos parâmetros.As variâncias de cada estimativa [V(B i )] foram obtidas multiplicando-se a diagonal principal da matriz (X'X) -1 pela relação entre o quadrado médio do erro da análise da variância conjunta e o produto do número de repetições pelo número de ambientes utilizados nos ensaios. Diferenças altamente significativas (P ≤ 0,01) foram observadas nos caracteres produção de grãos, dias para florescimento feminino, altura da planta e número de espigas por planta. Os coeficientes de variação para produção de grãos e número de espigas por planta apresentaram-se altos (25,6% e 18,9%, respectivamente), em comparação com os relatados na literatura de milho por Hallauer & Miranda Filho (1981), baixos para o número de dias para o florescimento feminino (3,1%) e médios para altura da planta (8,3%) (Scapim et al., 1995). As médias dos quatro caracteres foram: 2,76 t ha -1 de grãos; 65,1 dias para o florescimento feminino; 164,5 cm de altura das plantas e 0,91 espigas por planta.As médias ajustadas de tratamentos, relativas ao caráter produção de grãos, na população SA3 encontram-se na Tabela 1. O efeito de tratamentos apresentou diferenças altamente significativas (P ≤ 0,01) em todos os caracteres; esse resultado era esperado em razão de que nessa fonte de variação estão embutidos os efeitos de uma amostra de 20 ciclos seletivos da população SA3. A interação tratamentos x ambientes foi significativa (P ≤ 0,05) para número de espigas por planta e altamente significativa (P ≤ 0,01) para produção de grãos e altura da planta, evidenciando o desempenho diferencial dos tratamentos atra-vés dos ambientes com solos ácidos, e não-significativa no caráter dias para o florescimento feminino, sugerindo que não houve variação dos ciclos seletivos em função das mudanças ambientais.Em seu conjunto, esses resultados indicam que ambientes com altos níveis de Al tóxico reduzem significativamente a produção de grãos, a altura da planta e o número de espigas por planta e retarda o florescimento do milho. Resultados semelhantes já foram relatados em outros trabalhos realizados com diferentes populações de milho sob condições de TABELA 1. Médias ajustadas de tratamentos do caráter produção de grãos (t ha -1 ) na população SA3, avaliada em ambientes de solos ácidos. 1995-1997 1 .1 S 0 , S 1 e R referem-se às gerações não-endogâmicas, com uma geração de autofecundação e com uma geração de recombinação, respectivamente; média geral = 2,76 t ha -1 ; coeficiente de variação = 25,6%. estresse por Al (Aguiar, 1986;Duque-Vargas et al., 1994;Borrero et al., 1995;Resende et al., 1997).Em relação às estimativas de parâmetros genéticos do caráter produção de grãos, a contribuição dos efeitos aditivos (AOI) na população original SA3 não apresentou significância nos três processos seletivos, sendo negativa e de baixa magnitude (-0,04 t ha -1 ) no processo de seleção combinada de meios-irmãos modificados e irmãos germanos, e positivas e de maior magnitude (0,34 t ha -1 e 0,25 t ha -1 ) nos processos de meios-irmãos modificados e de ir-mãos germanos, respectivamente. Os efeitos de dominância (DOI) na população original foram positivos (1,60 t ha -1 , 1,28 t ha -1 e 1,50 t ha -1 ) e significativos (P ≤ 0,01) nos três processos seletivos, evidenciando o pronunciado efeito causado pela dominância dos alelos que controlam produção de grãos na população SA3 (Tabela 2).Os efeitos aditivos (ALI) e de dominância (DLI) decorrentes da seleção para produção de grãos foram positivos (0,26 x 10 -2 t ha -1 e 0,10 x 10 -2 t ha -1 , respectivamente) e não-significativos na seleção combinada. Entretanto, no processo de meios-irmãos modificado, os efeitos aditivos foram negativos (-0,11 x 10 -1 t ha -1 ) e significativos (P ≤ 0,10), e negativos (-0,05 x 10 -1 t ha -1 ) e não-significativos em irmãos germanos. Por outro lado, as estimativas dos efeitos de dominância foram positivas 1 Meios-irmãos modificados e irmãos germanos (MIM-IG); meios-irmãos modificados (MIM); irmãos germanos (IG). 2 (ALI, DLI, DQI) (10 -2 ). 3 (DQI) (10 -3 ). 4 (ALI, DLI, DQI) (10 -1 ). *, ** e *** Significativo a de 5%, 1% e 10%, respectivamente. (0,22 x 10 -1 t ha -1 e 0,19 x 10 -1 t ha -1 ) nesses dois processos, sendo significativa (P ≤ 0,01) no caso de meios-irmãos modificados e não-significativas para irmãos germanos. Esses resultados evidenciam que ocorreram aumentos nas freqüências dos alelos favoráveis nos locos com algum nível de dominância, e portanto a contribuição dos efeitos de dominância foram superiores aos efeitos aditivos para o melhoramento da população SA3. Os efeitos da oscilação genética (DQI) para os três processos seletivos foram positivos, não-significativos e com baixas magnitudes (0,11 x 10 -3 t ha -1 , 0,04 x 10 -2 t ha -1 e 0,08 x 10 -1 t ha -1 , respectivamente). Esses resultados indicam que os efeitos da oscilação genética não foram importantes na população melhorada, porém direcionais, apresentando tendência de aumentar a produção de grãos (Tabela 2).A resposta esperada à seleção segundo o modelo de Smith (1983) é definida como (2ALI + 2DLI), e é uma função da resposta observada (2ALI + 2DLI + 2DQI) corrigida pelos efeitos da oscilação genética. Como os efeitos da oscilação genética (DQI) não foram significativos, não afetaram a resposta à seleção. Esses resultados eram esperados, uma vez que foram utilizadas em média 25 progênies de meiosirmãos ou de irmãos germanos para a recombinação, as quais geram populações melhoradas com elevado tamanho efetivo populacional. A resposta foi de 0,72 x 10 -2 t ha -1 por ciclo (0,23%) para seleção combinada; de 0,22 x 10 -2 t ha -1 por ciclo (0,72%) para meios-irmãos modificados, e de 0,28 x 10 -1 t ha -1 por ciclo (0,89%) para irmãos germanos (Tabela 3). As estimativas obtidas nesta pesquisa são bastante inferiores às obtidas com a mesma população por Granados et al. (1993) e Pandey et al. (1995). Também, são bastante inferiores às estimativas reportadas por outros autores em avaliações realizadas com diferentes populações de milho sob condições de solos ácidos (Aguiar, 1986;Lima et al., 1992;Resende et al., 1997).Quanto ao florescimento feminino, a estimativa do parâmetro genético (AOI) na população original SA3, nos três processos seletivos, apresentou contribuição positiva e significativa (P ≤ 0,01), com magnitudes de 67,79 dias na seleção combinada, 67,78 dias no processo de meios-irmãos modificados e 69,41 dias no de irmãos germanos. Entretanto, a contribuição dos efeitos de dominância (DOI) na população original foi negativa, significativa (P ≤ 0,01), e de menor magnitude nos três processos (1,76 dias, -1,11 dias e -1,99 dias, respectivamente). Tais resultados sugerem que o caráter dias para florescimento feminino foi fortemente controlado por alelos com efeitos aditivos em ambientes com solos ácidos (Tabela 2).A contribuição dos efeitos de dominância (DLI) em decorrência da seleção foi negativa (-3,06 x 10 -2 dias) e significativa (P ≤ 0,05) no caráter florescimento feminino, no processo de seleção combinada. Os efeitos aditivos (ALI) contribuíram positiva e não significativamente (0,52 x 10 -2 dias), indicando a preponderância dos efeitos de dominância em diminuir os dias para florescimento feminino. Por outro lado, no processo de meios-irmãos modificados, os efeitos de dominância em virtude da seleção foram negativos (-0,92 x 10 -1 dias) e significativos (P ≤ 0,01), e as estimativas dos efeitos aditivos foram positivas (0,48 x 10 -1 dias) e significativas (P ≤ 0,01), embora de menor magnitude. No processo de irmãos germanos, as estimativas foram negativas e não-significativas, apresentando magnitudes de -0,52 x 10 -1 dias em relação aos efeitos aditivos e de -0,64 x 10 -1 dias em relação aos efeitos de dominância.A estimativa da perda de heterozigose decorrente da oscilação genética (DQI) foi positiva (0,61 x 10 -3 dias) e não-significativa na seleção combinada; no caso de meios-irmãos modificados, foi positiva (0,32 x 10 -2 dias) e significativa (P ≤ 0,01), e no caso de irmãos germanos foi negativa (-0,37 x 10 -1 dias) e significativa (P ≤ 0,10). Esses resultados mostram que a oscilação genética apresentou uma tendência inconsistente em magnitude e TABELA 3. Estimativas da resposta esperada à seleção (2ALI+2DLI) na população SA3, em três processos seletivos e quatro caracteres agronômicos em ambientes com solos ácidos (1995-1997).1 Meios-irmãos modificados e irmãos germanos (MIM-IG); meios-irmãos modificados (MIM); irmãos germanos (IG). 2 (2ALI+2DLI) (10 -1 ).3 (2ALI+2DLI) (10 -2 ). *, ** e *** Significativo a 5%, 1% e 10%, respectivamente.Processo seletivo 1 Produção de grãos (t ha -1 )Altura da planta (cm) Número de espigas por planta MIM-IG 2 0,72*** ± 0,39 -5,08** ± 1,11 2,64 ns ± 7,60 0,16*** ± 0,09 MIM 3 0,22** ± 0,06 -0,88** ± 0,17 0,26 ns ± 1,52 0,018 ns ± 0,014 IG 3 0,28 ns ± 0,37 -2,32* ± 1,05 0,42 ns ± 7,22 0,18*** ± 0,09 sinal com os processos seletivos. No entanto, para o processo de irmãos germanos, DQI foi negativo e significativo e, portanto, contribuiu para reduzir o número de ciclos para o florescimento (Tabela 2). Em relação à resposta esperada à seleção (2ALI + 2DLI) nos três processos seletivos, os resultados foram de -5,08 x 10 -2 dias (-0,09%); -0,88 x 10 -1 dias (-0,13%) e -2,32 x 10 -1 dias (-0,36%) na seleção combinada, de meios-irmãos modificados e de irmãos germanos, respectivamente. A estimativa da resposta esperada à seleção nesta pesquisa quanto a esse caráter foi diferente em magnitude, porém apresentou a mesma direção daquela relatada por Granados et al. (1993) nessa população (Tabela 3). Em termos gerais, os resultados obtidos quanto a esse caráter em condições de solos ácidos, indicam que o processo de seleção recorrente intrapopulacional foi eficiente para reduzir os dias para florescimento feminino nessa população. Ressalta-se que a resposta à seleção com progênies de irmãos germanos foi superior à resposta com progênies de meios-irmãos. Isso já era esperado, uma vez que no processo de irmãos germanos aproveita-se uma maior quantidade da variância genética aditiva que no processo de meios-irmãos.No caráter altura da planta, as estimativas dos efeitos aditivos (AOI) e de dominância (DOI) na população original foram positivas e significativas (P ≤ 0,01) nos três processos seletivos, apresentando magnitudes de 138,82 e 14,75 cm no processo de seleção combinada; de 139,83 e de 13,83 cm no processo de meios-irmãos modificados, e de 150,68 e 10,08 cm para irmãos germanos, respectivamente, indicando predominância dos efeitos aditivos nos três processos seletivos (Tabela 2). Os efeitos aditivos (ALI) resultantes da seleção contribuíram positiva (13,39 x 10 -2 cm) e significativamente (P ≤ 0,10) na seleção combinada; positiva (0,97 x 10 -1 cm), e significativamente (P ≤ 0,10) para meios-irmãos modificados, e negativa (-6,16 x 10 -1 cm) e não-significativamente para irmãos germanos. Entretanto, as estimativas dos efeitos de dominância decorrentes da seleção (DLI) não foram significativas nos três processos seletivos, sendo negativas na seleção combinada (-12,07 x 10 -1 cm) e meios-irmãos modificados (-0,84 x 10 -1 cm) e positiva (6,37 x 10 -1 cm) no processo de irmãos germanos. As estimativas dos efeitos aditivos e dominantes relativas a esse caráter apresentaram uma tendência inconsistente em magnitude e sinal. E as estimativas dos efeitos causados pela oscilação genética (DQI), foram positivas (0,26 x 10 -3 cm e 0,92 x 10 -2 cm) e não-significativas nos processos de seleção combinada e de meiosirmãos modificados, respectivamente; sendo negativas (-2,24 x 10 -1 ) e significativas (P ≤ 0,10) no processo de irmãos germanos. Cabe salientar que as estimativas da oscilação genética no processo de irmãos germanos foram no sentido oposto à direção da resposta à seleção, apresentando tendência a limitar o melhoramento da população SA3 (Tabela 2). As respostas esperadas à seleção (2ALI + 2DLI) apresentaram estimativas de 2,64 x 10 -2 cm (0,01%) na seleção combinada; 0,26 x 10 -1 cm (0,01%) para meios-irmãos modificados, e 0,42 x 10 -1 cm (0,02%) para irmãos germanos (Tabela 3). As estimativas da resposta à seleção são bastante inferiores às relatadas na população SA3 sob condições de solos ácidos (Granados et al., 1993). Essas diferenças poderiam ser atribuídas ao número de ambientes de avaliação e dos diferentes níveis de saturação de Al presente nesses ambientes. As estimativas da resposta à seleção para altura da planta mostram que os processos de seleção utilizados não foram eficientes para melhorá-los em solos ácidos, uma vez que ocorreram aumentos nesse caráter, o que é indesejável.Quanto ao número de espigas por planta, os efeitos aditivos (AOI) e de dominância (DOI) contribuíram positiva e significativamente (P ≤ 0,01) nos três processos seletivos, indicando, assim, que ambos os tipos de efeitos foram importantes na população original. As magnitudes dessas estimativas foram de 0,59 e 0,17 espigas por planta no processo de seleção combinada, de 0,57 e 0,18 espigas por planta no processo de meios-irmãos modificados, e de 0,54 e 0,20 espigas por planta em irmãos germanos, evidenciando preponderância dos efeitos aditivos sobre os de dominância. Os efeitos aditivos (ALI) decorrentes da seleção foram positivos e não-significativos na seleção combinada e no processo de meiosirmãos modificados, apresentando magnitudes de 0,09 x 10 -2 e 0,01 x 10 -1 espigas por planta, respectivamente. No processo de irmãos germanos, esse efeito foi positivo (0,21 x 10 -1 espigas por planta) e significativo (P ≤ 0,10). Por outro lado, as estimativas dos efeitos de dominância (DLI) decorrentes da seleção foram negativas, não-significativas, e de menor magnitude nos três processos seletivos (-0,008 x 10 -2 , -0,008 x 10 -1 e -0,12 x 10 -1 espigas por planta, respectivamente). Esses resultados mostram que nesse caráter os efeitos aditivos são mais importantes que os efeitos de dominância, como relatados para diferentes populações em solos ácidos (Duque-Vargas et al., 1994;Borrero et al., 1995;Resende et al., 1997). No que se refere às estimativas da perda de heterozigose por causa da oscilação genética (DQI), estas apresentaram-se positivas e não-significativas, e portanto, não limitam as respostas à seleção. A resposta à seleção, nos três processos seletivos, apresentou as seguintes magnitudes: de 0,16 x 10 -2 espigas por planta (0,17%) na seleção combinada; de 0,018 x 10 -1 espigas por planta (0,19%) no processo de meios-irmãos modificados, e de 0,18 x 10 -1 espigas por planta (1,91%) no caso de irmãos germanos (Tabela 3). Esses resultados mostram que o processo de seleção utilizado foi eficiente para melhorar esse caráter, e que os maiores progressos com seleção foram obtidos no processo de irmãos germanos.Ressalte-se que, no caso da produção de grãos, que é o caráter mais importante, os efeitos da oscilação genética (DQI) não foram significativos, e as respostas à seleção no processo da seleção combinada (MIM-IG) e na seleção com meios-irmãos modificados foram positivos e significativos, embora de baixa magnitude, o que não ocorreu com o processo de irmãos germanos. O fato de DQI não ser significativo deve-se ao elevado tamanho efetivo populacional mantido durante os ciclos seletivos, embora o fato de o processo seletivo com progênies de irmãos germanos não apresentar resposta à seleção não seja evidente, uma vez que teoricamente espera-se que esse processo seja mais eficiente que o processo de meios-irmãos modificados. Assim, para que o melhoramento dessa população possa ser feito de forma eficiente seria necessário alterar o processo seletivo e as condições experimentais para a avaliação das progênies visando minimizar a elevada heterogeneidade desse tipo de solo.1. Os processos seletivos utilizados apresentam baixa eficiência no melhoramento dos caracteres produção de grãos e altura de planta e são eficientes para os caracteres dias para o florescimento feminino e número de espigas por planta sob condições de solos ácidos.2. As estimativas da oscilação genética mostram que seus efeitos não limitam o melhoramento dos caracteres avaliados.À Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) e ao Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (CIMMYT), pela concessão de bolsa de estudos e apoio financeiro.","tokenCount":"4053"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1b45b493441903d2c92bf45db7e30cf8","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/88d20904-5f86-47bf-86f0-1037880e9c05/retrieve","id":"432333997"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"50e686ac-eddb-4247-a9c3-9f9389bac3d5","pagecount":"52","content":"Through action research and development partnerships, Africa RISING is creating opportunities for smallholder farm households to move out of hunger and poverty through sustainably intensified farming systems that improve food, nutrition, and income security, particularly for women and children, and conserve or enhance the natural resource base.The current reporting period covers research results/findings of the livestock, crop and natural resources management (NRM)-related interventions associated with capacity building efforts and research products of the Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation (Africa RISING -AR) project in the Ethiopian highlands. The interventions potentially contribute to filling production-related gaps in Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples, Amhara, Tigray, and Oromia regions.The development work on feed and forage during the reporting period was clustered into three groups.The first was continued R4D work involving: i) fodder beet participatory varietal selection, ii) intercropping desho grass with vetch and tree lucerne, iii) dual-purpose oat and triticale evaluation, and iv) sweet lupin supplementation trial. The second monitored the performance of different forage options established in the mother plots through participatory evaluations. The third involved supporting the scaling of technologies validated by AR. The daily body weight gain of sheep with diets supplemented by sweet lupin grain was higher (117 -145 g/day/head) than for those supplemented with commercial concentrates (96 g/day/head). This appears to be highly satisfactory for an on-farm fattening trial.Participatory varietal selection (PVS), scaling, and community seed production of validated crop technologies have been priority activities to generate research evidence and benefit small-scale farmers. Wheat cultivar \"Jajabo\" provided high yield in sites in Lemo (2.8 t/ha), Endamehoni (6.3 t/ha), and Basona-Worena (5 t/ha). Two newly tested faba bean varieties (Numan, Ashebeka) with high yield and wider adaptation were selected in all sites. The crop diversification attempt contributed to sustaining crop production and minimizing risks of plant disease in the four intervention zones.The research work on high value fruits was concentrated on the evaluation of cultivars and management practices that produce data on quality fruit, and socioeconomic survey activities to measure yield of avocado in different sites. Preliminary research results showed that there were significant differences among the different varieties in terms of fruit number and size. The socioeconomic survey result demonstrated that farmers used 80% of avocado production for consumption and about 20% for sale.The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has been conducting nutrient omission trials on wheat within and outside AR sites under three landscape positions, with four sites at each location. The macro-and micronutrients considered for this study were nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, zinc, and boron. The fertilizer sources were urea (straight N fertilizer), NPS (blended fertilizer), and fertilizers containing Zn and B. Significantly higher yields of wheat grain were achieved at foot slope than from mid-and hillslope positions; this could be due to the better availability of high nutrient contents and soil water retention at foot slopes than in farms situated on steep slopes.During the current reporting period, activities implemented in relation to small-scale mechanization included monitoring service provision, collecting and analyzing data on agronomy and gross margins, developing a technical brief on mechanization, and developing a cross-regional manuscript on mechanization. Results from the mechanization research work demonstrated that wheat productivity of both grain and straw was higher from two-tractor based direct planting than the conventional maresha based system. The direct planted treatment had 1107 kg ha -1 more grain than the conventional practice. Direct planting increased straw yield (947 kg ha -1 more) compared with the conventional practice.The landscape/soil and water management work in the current reporting period focused more on developing an operational framework to guide land restoration efforts and targeting and the scaling of CSA options. Research results show that about 13,142 t of sediment was accumulated along bunds of different types. In addition, integrated watershed interventions have shown a positive impact on water resources. In general, integrated interventions of physical, biological, and income generating activities are understood to have more benefits than the sum of individual ecosystem benefits.Cross-cutting issues such as nutrition and capacity building have been given due attention in the current reporting period. The alliance Bioversity-CIAT conducted studies on nutrition in AR sites to assess how effective was the nutrition-education intervention and its contribution to household nutrition, and on the need assessment for nutrition-education in the proposed areas prior to scaling. Preliminary research findings showed that livestock feed and forage interventions helped to enhance milk production and household consumption.The AR project in the current reporting period organized different training sessions, workshops, visits, field days, and survey programs for local and core CGIAR partners. As a result, 2533 individuals benefited from the project's capacity building initiatives.The Africa RISING program consists of three Research-for-Development projects supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of the US Government's Feed the Future initiative.In phase II, the AR project in the Ethiopian Highlands will seek to elaborate the generic research questions presented in the program's umbrella document for issues identified largely during phase I (2011-2016). The research questions addressed by our specific activities will contribute insights from specific activities related to sustainable intensification and geographic areas within the country.Umbrella research questions: What are the environmental, economic, human, and social impacts of productivity-enhancing interventions?Umbrella research question: How are these interventions aiming at increasing productivity and improving environmental conditions going to benefit diverse farmer typologies in the target areas?Umbrella research question: How do changes in the management of specific activities or a combination of activities within a farm (e.g., a field or a livestock unit) affect overall livelihood conditions for different farmer typologies?Umbrella research question: How do enabling conditions affect the nature (variety, agro-inputs, complexity, and diversity) of promising interventions moving towards sustainable intensification (SI)?Umbrella research question: How does social capital affect community productivity, cooperationi and well-being along with the scaling of SI innovations?In Ethiopia, AR is led by scientists from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in partnership with scientists from other CGIAR centers, the Ethiopian national agricultural research system (NARS), and local communities.In its phase II (2016II ( -2021)), the project has been targeting 0.7 million households with SI technologies. So far, after four cropping seasons, the project has managed to reach and benefit more than 304, 342 households with its validated technologies. This equates to a land area of 146,568 ha. The geographical and administrative coverage of the project has also increased from four to more than 31 woredas and from four to nine zones. In the remaining one year of the project, we will seek to generate wider evidence for the benefits of the novel R4D techniques adopted in the project, synthesize the lessons learned and deliver the tools required to support wider employment of these approaches.The work of AR on feed and forage development and scaling has played an important role in validating and promoting context-specific feed technology solutions to thousands of farmers in the project sites over the past few years. Assessments of the effects of the technologies through controlled trials and feedback from farmers indicated a considerable improvement in livestock productivity. As part of the on-going effort to generate evidence regarding the performance of different forage technologies, R4D trials have been conducted in the 2020 cropping season. The work included on-going agronomic trials for some of the forage options, on-farm sheep fattening trials using sweet lupin grain, and mother plots for forage demonstration. The objectives of the trials were as follows.▪ Establish an adequate database on the performance of the practices and varieties. ▪ Facilitate active learning and create an experience-sharing platform for smallholder farmers and development partners.The work on feed and forage development during the reporting period was clustered into three groups.The first was continued R4D work involving i) fodder beet participatory variety selection (PVS), ii) intercropping desho grass with vetch and tree lucerne, iii) evaluation of dual-purpose oat and triticale, and iv) feeding trial with sweet lupin supplementation. Three varieties of fodder beet (Brick, Magnum, and Robbos) were used in the PVS. Intercropping desho with vetch and with tree lucerne was implemented to address the problem of declining soil fertility due to nutrient mining on desho grass plots. For desho-vetch intercropping the treatments were as follows: 1) intercropped with 12 kg/ha seed rate for vetch, 2) with 9 kg/ha seed rate for vetch, 3) with 6 kg/ha seed rate for vetch, 4) sole desho grass, and 5) sole vetch forage. For intercropping desho grass -tree lucerne (TL) the treatments were 1) Desho grass only, 2) Desho grass + TL (9 trees/plot) planted at 1 m intervals, 3) Desho grass + TL (6 trees/plot) in 1.5 m intervals, and 4) Desho grass + TL (3 trees/plot) at 2 m intervals.Dual-purpose varieties of oat and triticale were evaluated to test the feasibility of introducing dualpurpose crops (food-feed) and multiple cutting practices to increase forage biomass production while producing grain for human consumptions. The treatments involved a single cut at maturity or two cuts at 45/60 days of growth and maturity for the dual-purpose oat, forage oat, and triticale.An on-farm sheep fattening trial was implemented using sweet lupin grain to demonstrate its value in small ruminant fattening. A graduate student was recruited in collaboration with the livestock CRP.Sweet lupin grain produced in FTCs and individual farmers' fields was collected and used for the trial in the Doyogena district of southern Ethiopia. A total of 24 yearling rams were assigned to one of four supplementation treatments: 1) commercial concentrate supplement (control); 2) roasted and crushed sweet lupin grain; 3) soaked sweet lupin grain; and 4) steamed sweet lupin grain. The basal diet across the treatments was grass hay offered ad libitum while the supplements were provided at a rate of 440 g/head/day. The experiment lasted for 90 days of feeding and seven days of a digestibility trial.The second activity involved monitoring the performance of different forage options established in mother plots through participatory evaluations. The mother plots continued to serve the communities as sites for learning and experience sharing. The third activity involved supporting the scaling of ARvalidated technologies. During the reporting period, efforts were made to support cooperatives, FTCs, and model farmers as alternative options to multiplying forage seeds through the informal system.Fodder beet variety trial: Figure 1 shows the yield performance of the new fodder beet varieties evaluated in the 2020 cropping season. Based on the total fresh fodder biomass (tuber yield and leaf biomass) Robbos was ranked top variety, followed by Magnum and Brick. This ranking order was consistent with the observation in 2019 which indicated that Robbos was the highest yielding fodder beet variety followed by Magnum. A seasonal effect in the overall yield of the varieties was highly noticeable. For instance, in 2019, the total fresh biomass yield of Robbos in the Lemo site was more than 200 t/ha. But in the 2020 cropping season the yield was less than 100 t/ha. The high seasonal variation in yield performance may be related to climatic and soil fertility conditions. However, an important observation from the current season was that the relative performance (ranking) of the varieties remained the same, although the overall yield was affected. Desho grass-vetch intercropping: This practice was intended to improve soil fertility on desho grass plots through biological nitrogen fixation, while at the same time producing higher biomass of good nutritional quality. As shown in Figure 2, intercropping desho-grass with vetch forage increased fresh forage yield by about 64%. Out of the total biomass, vetch forage constituted approximately one-third, indicating that the quality of the mixture was much better than the digestibility content of pure desho grass which has relatively low crude contents of protein and organic matter. When the different seeding rates were compared, 12 kg/ha appeared to provide the maximum return in yield. These results are consistent with the observations of the 2019 growing season.Figure 2. The effect of intercropping desho grass with vetch on the yield of forage biomass in the highlands of Ethiopia.Desho grass -tree lucerne intercropping: As shown (Fig. 3) intercropping Desho grass with tree lucerne showed advantages in yield and forage quality over sole cropping practices. Forage dry matter yield was increased by 60%, with tree lucerne forage contributing almost half of the biomass produced. This showed an improvement in both the quality and quantity of the forage harvested from the Desho grass plot, as tree lucerne is known for its high protein and metabolizable energy contents. When the yield and forage quality advantages are added to the soil fertility improvement as a result of symbiotic nitrogen fixation by tree lucerne, this agronomic practice appears to be very important in sustainably improving feed resources at the household level. The preliminary results indicate that a tree density of six plants/6 m 2 (i.e., one tree/m 2) would give the maximum benefit. Oat and triticale multi-cut trials: Oat and triticale are potential dual-purpose crops, providing food for human consumption and feed for livestock. The cutting management trials in this study were intended to explore whether multi-cut management practices could increase the food-feed functions of these annual crops. As shown (Table 1) there was a trade-off in forage and grain yield due to the cutting management. The one-cut management at maturity provided higher grain yield whereas the double cutting practice provided a good yield for forage but minimal for grain. From the double cutting practices, cutting at 45 days of growth appears to give better results than cutting at 60 days. With twocut management the crops were found to mature later (after other crops had been harvested and removed). As a result, they were exposed to browsing in some areas and bird attack in most places.Adjusting the planting times of such forages so that the maturity stages would coincide with those of other crops would be very important to get the full food-feed advantages of the multi-cut systems. or processed sweet lupin grain. Overall, the daily body weight gain of sheep supplemented with sweet lupin grain was bigger (117 -145 g/day/head) than for those supplemented with commercial concentrates (96 g/day/head) (Fig. 4). Among processing techniques, steaming the sweet lupin grain before feeding showed the highest benefits, providing a 51% advantage in daily weight gain over the commercial concentrate. Sheep fed steamed sweet lupin had the highest total dry matter intake and digestibility, which appears to be the main reason for the greater daily body weight gain observed in this trial. As a result, this group of sheep had the highest feed conversion efficiency (18%), followed by those supplemented with roasted and crushed sweet lupin (16%), soaked sweet lupin (14%) and commercial concentrate (12%). However, soaking the grain in water overnight was found to be the cheapest way of processing the grain, as it did not need any energy and might be a good alternative for resource constrained farmers with limited access to fuelwood or other sources of energy (Photos 1-4). Messages/next steps ▪ Results of the R4D trials strongly indicated the potential to improve feed resource availability and quality by adopting the improved varieties and/or implementing the new management practices at the household level. ▪ Desho-vetch and Desho-tree lucerne intercropping practices provided highly promising results in double forage yield, considerably improved forage quality and addressed soil fertility issues related to sole Desho grass establishment. As vetch can easily be oversown on established Desho grass plots, this practice has a high potential for adoption. ▪ The potential of sweet lupin grain to replace commercial concentrates in sheep fattening is well demonstrated. Average daily body weight gain of 117 -145 g/day/head was obtained with sweet lupin supplementation, and this appears highly satisfactory for an on-farm fattening trial. ▪ The support provided to cooperatives and FTCs to multiply forage seeds has provided encouraging results in some sites. Building on the last season's successes in strengthening the informal seed sector would be important to ensure continued scaling efforts.Introduction Wheat (bread and durum wheat), barley, and food legumes (faba bean, field pea, chickpea, and lentil) are major staple crops that occupy large acreages of the arable land in the Ethiopian highlands. Highland food legumes are also important as rotation crops for the sustainability of the wheat-based cropping system. Many cereal and food legume cultivars are released by the national research system and only a few are made available to farmers in limited areas. High yield gaps in wheat, barley, and food legumes have led the country to import wheat and malt barley to meet local demands for food, incomes, nutrition, and raw materials for agro-industries. Major factors that contribute to large gaps in yield are poor access to quality seeds, a weak extension system, mono-cropping of wheat, expansion of acid soil, and biotic factors. The objectives of the research were to do as follows.• Identify wide and specifically adapted high yielding varieties of bread wheat and faba bean through PVS for main and short (belg) seasons.• Strengthen seed growers through the provision of early generation seeds to ensure future access to quality seeds of farmer preferred varieties.• Facilitate scaling through effective linkages with BoA and Unions.Participatory variety selection (PVS): Participatory variety selection was conducted in the four AR intervention sites. Five bread wheat varieties (Jajabo, Liben, Deka, Shorima, Lemu, and Wane) and five faba bean varieties (Gora, Gebelcho, Didea, Ashebeka, and Numan) were planted by 32 host farmers (16 farmers/crop) in the four AR sites. The plot size for each crop variety was 25 m 2 replicated over host farmers. Male and female farmers evaluated the crop varieties at physiological maturity stage. Farmer evaluations together with seed yields were used to select one or two high performing varieties of bread wheat and faba bean for inclusion in the seed production system. For the belg season, one to two early maturing varieties with good levels of productivity for the short season were identified by farmers. varieties of field pea (Megeri, Weyib, Gume, Hortu, and local) and of lentil (Baredu, Derash, Alemaya, Dembi and local) were planted on 25 m 2 plots per variety using supplemental irrigation in two fields in the North Shewa area. With similar plot sizes, PVS trials (field pea, lentil, common bean, and fenugreek) were planted at Selka, Sinana AR site.Scaling and community seed production of validated crop technologies: Availability of seeds is the key constraint that hinders wider adoption/scaling of improved crop varieties and could bring the desired impact on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers. The project provided early generation seeds to community seed growers in AR sites. Revolving seeds from the previous season were provided to other farmers in 2020/2021 cropping season. Revolving seeds is the practice at the end of the growing season for farmers to return the seeds they had received. Scaling AR validated improved varieties through partners were implemented in the four project intervention zones.PVS trials: In the main cropping (Meher) season, except in southern Tigray, farmers evaluated PVS trials of bread wheat and faba bean. In southern Tigray, farmers were unable to visit and evaluate the performance of the improved varieties due to the recent unrest. The newly added bread wheat cultivars (Jajabo, Liben, and Shorima) were not selected and farmers again preferred the former varieties. Deka is under scaling by Africa RISING and partners from past PVS evaluations. However, cv. Jajabo gave high yield in sites at Lemo (2.8 t/ha), Endamehoni (6.3 t/ha) and Basona-Worena (5 t/ha) and was released for areas where soil acidity is a problem. For faba bean, two newly tested varieties (Numan and Ashebeka) were selected in all sites, which shows a wider adaptation of the varieties. The highest mean grain yield for faba bean was recorded for Didea (3.0 t/ha) in Lemo and Basona-worana sites and for Ashebeka (4.1 t/ha) at Endamehoni. Both Numan and Ashebeka varieties will be provided to seed growers in the 2021/22 cropping season. Farmers requested 3.5 t of early generation seeds of cv. Numan for next year's belg seed multiplications in the Sinana site.In the Belg season of 2021 we planted PVS of field pea and lentil in North Shewa using supplemental irrigation. The improved varieties were planted in January 2021 and the performance of the crop was encouraging (Photo 5). Field pea, lentil, common bean, and fenugreek were planted in PVS at Sinana. We plan to hold Field days in June 2021.Photo 5. Performance of PVS trials of field pea (left) and lentil (right), under supplemental irrigation, 2021, North Shewa area (photo credit: ICARDA).Community seed production and popularization by AR project: Using the revolving seed approach, the project provided 13.1 t of early generation seeds (breeder, pre-basic, and basic) of three varieties of bread wheat, one variety of faba bean, and one of field pea to seed producing unions for multiplication and popularization. The varieties were selected from PVS trials in Phases I and II of the project (Photo 6).Photo 6. Community seed production of faba bean cv. Gebelcho at Ayba kebel, Alajae Wereda, south Tigray (photo credit: ICARDA).During the cropping season, it was possible to reach 69,173 households (21% female-headed) by using farmer preferred crop technologies in 29 woredas in nine districts) (Table 2). This showed a huge spill over of the project outcomes beyond the four intervention districts. • The project diversified crops and crop varieties for sustainable production and minimized risks of plant disease in the four intervention zones.• The revolving seeds approach managed by BoA helped to increase the number of technology beneficiaries in the project scaling sites and expanded sites to over 25 woredas/districts.• The linkage of community seed growers and some universities such as Raya University with the project was increasing from year to year. The universities recognized the support of AR in strengthening their capacity through training and the provision of early generation seeds of crop cultivars selected by farmers.• The belg PVS that we started this season will create new opportunities for growing improved pulse crops to increase the productivity of the small-scale irrigation scheme in north Shewa as well as in the Bale highlands.• Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the planned Field days were not held in the intervention sites.• It was not possible to implement farmer evaluations and university seed multiplication schemes in southern Tigray due to the political unrest in the region.• Collecting revolving seeds was at times difficult in some areas.To address the multifaceted problems that include food and nutrition insecurities, the ICRAF-led Africa RISING phase 1 project together with partners introduced high value multipurpose trees (mainly avocado, apple, and walnut) and their improved management practices. We evaluated their performances in the laboratory, on-station, and in on-farm trials at different biophysical levels and socio-economic contexts. Due to their excellent performances and the high-rated evaluations by farmers and partners, there is great local demand to scale up within and beyond the current project intervention sites. Moreover, due to the high export demand for avocado to France and China, the government has requested us to scale up avocado widely. It is worth noting that fruit trees pass through a series of fairly definite growth steps or stages. For the first two and half years after planting, we provided subsequent training on watering, mulching, and caring. However, the trees are now in a different growth phase and require other management techniques, for instance, pruning and fruit handling. Pruning is essential to ensure the fruit trees enjoy disease management and good health and produce a better fruit yield. Pruning stimulates shoot growth, controls the size and shape of the tree, and improves the quality of the fruit. While facilitating wider adoption and scaling up of the technologies, the project needs to address some of the existing challenges. 1) Unavailability and inaccessibility of quality germplasm at a required quantity; 2) Limited technical knowledge and skills in propagation, management techniques, and disease control; 3) Limited information on and awareness of the potential opportunities that high value and multipurpose trees can provide. Unfortunately, work in 2019/2020 was restricted to data collection and we believe the gap will be addressed in 2021.Evaluation of cultivars and management practices that produce quality fruits: A novel aspect of the AR project is in bringing together tree, crop, livestock, and soil and water expertise to quantify the synergies and trade-offs for an optimal and efficient integrated system. During phase 1, we have established on-farm trials in AR sites (Lemo, Sinana, Debrebirhan, and Tigray). Some households chose specific innovations while others adopted almost all innovations (fruit, water, fodder, etc.). We designed different management options such as biophysical (site differences, with and without mulching, watering amount, with and without fencing) and socio-economic contexts (female-headed and maleheaded households, rich and poor) to access the best varieties which had already been introduced in phase 1 and determine the best management options and combinations. We collected comprehensive data for the first three years. Now the trees (varieties) have reached fruiting stage and it is imperative to collect the yield data and publish the results so that the initial expenditure would be a worthwhile investment. The information is invaluable to fill the gap in the knowledge and to scale up, based on evidence, the best performing varieties and their management practices. The assessment on yield data will also be supplemented by questions such as what are the benefits of the innovation (social, ecological, economical, nutritional) and what makes it successful or challenging (especially on the management of apple disease). This will further help to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the AR project, especially on the issue of integration.Therefore, the proposed activities were as follows.▪ Measure yield data for avocado (lemo) in two sites ▪ Assess quality data of avocado fruit (in terms of fruit size, appearance, color, and farmers' preference) ▪ Hold quick assessment on the existing stocks to identify o status of the fruit tree varieties (avocado) o challenges related to availability of germplasm, production, management, and utilization of avocado fruit trees o research, training, capacity building, and management issuesWe measured avocado yield data in different sites following COVID 19 safety measures. We also did a socio-economic survey in Lemo and Maichew (Table 3) in 2020 for data collection on avocado fruit yield. Fifteen households per research kebele (30 households/site) were randomly selected, (five households/site were female-headed), and a total fruit load count was applied. • There are significant differences in fruit numbers and sizes among the different varieties.• A significant gender difference appeared to be due to management practices for high value fruit trees.• The socio-economic survey result demonstrated that farmers used 80% of avocado yield production for consumption and about 20% for sale.We have analyzed the yield data and happy to report that we are considering producing two journal articles.▪ Tentative Title: Cultivar-specific and mixed-cultivar allometric models and estimation of fruit weight and yields of five Avocado varieties in Ethiopia. Draft manuscript has been finalized and will be submitted for review by end of March 2021.▪ Draft manuscript in preparation: High value trees growth performance, yield, and income contribution to food security in Ethiopia. We will compile and analyze the socio-economic data to finalize the manuscript. We will submit the paper for review by end of June 2021.In Ethiopia, trials have been conducted on suitable farmlands regardless of landscape position since the advent of fertilizer research. However, the agricultural landscape of the Ethiopian highlands involves high elevation hillslopes, mid-slopes, and foot slopes, which normally occur within certain distances (Amede et al., 2020). This has required different agronomic management practices and various levels of inputs, particularly fertilizer types with the correct rates, because the response of crops to fertilizer application varies greatly, depending on the fertility and moisture status of soils. Evidence has shown that landscape position affects grain quality. It could also affect the nutrient status and water retention capacity of soils. Thus, the landscape approach is a new strategy in the country that considers different landscape positions for the development of different soil test-based fertilizer recommendations for major crops.Low yield of crops is primarily associated with the depletion of soil fertility from the continuous nutrient uptake by crops, low fertilizer application rates, and low use efficiency due to very low content of soil organic matter (Zeleke et al., 2010;Agegnehu et al., 2013). In Ethiopia for over five decades, most farmers have used mainly urea and di-ammonium phosphate fertilizers containing only nitrogen and phosphorus. Such unbalanced and limited use of nutrient sources has depleted other secondary macroand micronutrients in the soil, which could result in a decline in crop yields but also in the quality of the produce, particularly from deficiency in micronutrients (Zeleke et al., 2010). A key component of this strategy is soil test-based fertilizer recommendations through the Ethiopian Soil Information System program (EthioSIS, 2014). Management of macro-and/or micronutrients is not the same in different agroclimatic zones. Wheat is one of the major cereal crops in Ethiopia, the second most economically important crop, on par with maize in terms of national fertilizer use. Data for fertilizer source targeting were limited to a few sites with highly variable yield responses which did not also include the more marginal Ethiopian highlands and upper slope locations. The objective of the research was to better target the fertilizer source and rate to specific crops and areas of Ethiopia for increased yield and more economic fertilizer use.Priorities were given to districts where ICRISAT-AR had been conducting soil fertility and nutrient management trials for the last five years. The nutrient omission trials on wheat were conducted at Gozamin and Machakel districts of East Gojjam zone and Lemo district in Hadiya zone of southern Ethiopia in three landscape positions, four sites at each position. The macro-and micronutrients considered for this study included nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), sulfur (S), zinc (Zn), and boron (B). The fertilizer sources were urea (straight N fertilizer), NPS (blended fertilizer), and those containing Zn and B. The treatments were 1) control (without fertilizer); 2) NPSZnB (All); 3) NPZnB (All-S); 4) NPSB (All-Zn); 5) NPSZn (All-B); 6) NPSZnB + K (All + K); 7) NP (ALL-S Zn B); 8) 50% (All + K); and 9) 150% (All + K).Data on wheat yield were collected per treatment for grain quality analysis and determination of nutrient use efficiency. The yield data were analyzed using the general linear model procedure (PROC GLM) of the SAS statistical package. Total variability for the yield parameter was quantified using an appropriate model considering the fertilizer treatments and landscape positions. A summary of green manuring effects on wheat yield has been included in this report.Wheat yield response to different fertilizer treatments in East Gojjam: The trial sites selected in Gozamin and Machakel districts are found in the cool highland of East Gojam zone. According to FAO classification, the soil type is acidic Nitisol. Analysis of variance over sites and landscape positions indicated that grain yield and total biomass of bread wheat were significantly improved due to the application of different fertilizer treatments compared with the yields recorded from the control, and 50% lower than the fertilizer rate of all nutrients (50% NPKSZnB) at Machakel district (Table 4, photo 7). Significantly higher wheat grain yields were achieved at foot slope than in mid-and hillslope positions.The grain yields and total biomass of wheat produced without application of fertilizer at the hillslope position were very small (Table 1), implying that farms at steep slopes were very degraded and deprived of essential nutrients for plant growth. Since the soil was richer in organic matter content and with higher water retention, wheat yield was more responsive to fertilizer applications at foot slope position than in the other two landscape positions. The yields achieved at the highest rate of nutrients were not consistent at mid-and hillslope positions which require improvement in soil health and fertility. The grain yield and total biomass response of bread wheat observed in Gozamin district were like those observed in Machakel district. However, the yields recorded at Gozamin sites were higher than the yields achieved at Machakel, indicating the soil was relatively more fertile. This difference was also observed during the crop growth period. Wheat yields responded significantly to landscape positions and the application of different fertilizer treatments compared with the control treatment (Table 5). Overall, application of 150% NPKSZnB resulted in significantly higher yields than other fertilizer treatments across landscape positions. Economic analysis will be performed to determine the economic benefits of fertilizer treatments for smallholder farmers compared to the NP application rate. Mid-slope Foot slopeMeans followed by the same letter within a column are not significantly different at p < 0.05.Wheat yield response to different fertilizer treatments in East Gojjam: In the southern region, nutrient omission trials were conducted on wheat in Lemo woreda/district of Hadiya zone. The analysis of variance indicated that grain yield and total biomass of wheat responded significantly to the different fertilizer treatments across landscapes (Table 6). The highest grain yields and total biomass of wheat were recorded from the highest fertilizer rate (150% NPKSZnB) over landscape positions and the lowest from the control treatment. For example, addition of 50% more to the full rate of NPKSZnB fertilizer increased wheat grain yield by 200, 22 and 28% compared to the control, NP only and 50% lower than the full NPKSZnB fertilizer rate at hillslope position: 92, 25 and 41% at mid-slope position, and 61, 17 and 18% at foot slope position at Lemo district (Table 6). Higher grain yields and total biomass of wheat were recorded at the foot slope landscape position compared with the yields from the hill and midslope positions. Wheat yield responses to the fertilizer treatments were greater at the foot slope position than in the mid-and hill slope positions but yield differences between treatments were narrower for foot slope positions, indicating better soil fertility than in the other two landscape positions. Yield differences were not significantly different due to the addition of K and micronutrients although numerical variations were observed due to their addition, which will be determined through economic analysis.Distinct variations were also observed in soil water content along the landscape positions. Soil moisture content increased from hillslope to foot slope position, indicating that more soil moisture at the foot slope position might have contributed to the enhanced wheat yield at the foot slope position. 13.7 13.5 17.9 16.5 9.6 6.0 Within a column, means followed with different letters are significantly different at p < 0.05.The subsequent effects of green manures vetch, lupin, and lablab as organic resources compared with three fertilizer levels (0/0, 23/0, and 78/20 kg N/P ha -1 ) were evaluated on soil fertility status and wheat yield in acidic Nitisols of Lemo district in southern Ethiopia, for three consecutive years (2017)(2018)(2019). The treatments were laid out in a randomized complete block design with three replications. In 2017 and 2018, green manure crops were sown in March and April using short rains, and their shoot and root biomass were plowed under. Shoot biomass was transferred to non-treated plots or the residual root biomass was used and incorporated into the soil during late flowering stage in June. Wheat was sown during long rains during the same growing season a month after the incorporation of green manures. In 2019, wheat was grown on the same plots with the application of an additional 64/20 kg N/P ha -1 .Results showed that the amounts of N 2 fixed by vetch, lupin, and lablab green manure crops were estimated to be 73, 58, and 21 kg ha -1 in 2018 and 25, 37, and 15 kg ha -1 in 2017, with the highest being from vetch in 2018 and from lupin in 2017. In 2017 and 2018, fertilized plots gave significantly higher wheat grain yield than green manures although the application of vetch and lupin green manure resulted in grain yield advantages of 49 and 32% over 0/0 and 34 and 19%, over 23/0 kg N/P ha -1 (Table 7). In 2019, the addition of vetch and lupin shoots and root biomass treatments gave significantly higher wheat yields over fertilizer treatments, with yield advantages of 18-26%. Similarly, root biomass alone also produced a significantly higher yield than fertilized plots. The yield benefits from green manure application were due to improved soil water content, significantly increased exchangeable K, Ca, and Mg, and pH increased by about 0.4 units. The residual effect of green manures could compensate for up to 33% of 78 N kg ha -1 (Table 7). We concluded that vetch and lupin could be used for dual purposes in the crop-livestock system where the root part could be green manure for improving soil fertility and crop yield and the shoot part used as livestock feed.Table 7. Influence of the different plant parts of the preceding green manure crops and their residues on wheat grain at the Lemo site, 2017-2019.Note: NTPP: Number of tillers per plant; V: Vetch, Lu: Lupin, La: Lablab, SB: Shoot biomass, RB: Root biomass, SR: Shoot and root biomass, F2, F1 and F0: 78/10, 23/0, and 0/0 kg N/P ha -1 , respectively. Within a column, means followed with different letters are significantly different at p < 0.05.Significant wheat yield increments were recorded of up to 300% relative to the control, up to 8% relative to the NP treatment only, and over 25% compared with 50% of all the nutrients (all + K). Consistent differences were not observed among the fertilizer treatments containing K and micronutrients in mean wheat yields. Crop yield responses to fertilizer were strongly dictated by fields distributed along landscapes and the yield response was high on fields located at foot slopes where the nutrient content and soil water retention were higher than in farms situated on steep slopes. Use of appropriate short fallow green manure legumes might maintain satisfactory crop yield and soil fertility, reduce the costs of production, and therefore increase profitability and improve soil fertility to enhance the long-term sustainability of the cropping system. Two years of application of vetch or lupin based green manure alternately followed by one-year fertilization with the recommended dose of inorganic fertilizer might enhance soil fertility and crop productivity. However, further research is needed to establish the supplementary N fertilizer required with the green manure crops and the rotation cycle over longer periods for green manure after wheat.Appropriate mechanization technologies adapted to the smallholder farming conditions are being promoted in different parts of the Ethiopian highlands. The mechanization technologies are value chain focused, covering crop production, irrigation, harvesting, and post-harvest processing as well as transportation services on smallholder farms. The two-wheel tractor technologies that are being promoted in Ethiopia increase opportunities to free available farm labor to pursue other on-farm and off-farm income generating activities within and outside the rural communities. Activities were implemented in all project sites during the period November 2020 to March 2021. Planned activities during this period included provision of a monitoring service, collecting and analyzing data on agronomy and gross margins, developing a technical brief on mechanization, and a cross-regional manuscript on mechanization.Field visits to project sites were conducted for monitoring operations and service provision and collecting data on agronomy and gross margins from on-farm trials and for on-site training of a service provider in Hosanna on operating post-harvest equipment. Office-based work involved data analyses, developing a technical brief on mechanization and a manuscript for publication. All field days that were planned for the post-harvest processing period were cancelled due to COVID-19 based restrictions imposed by CIMMYT as well as the government.Agronomy and gross margin results from on-farm trials: Wheat productivity, both of grain and straw, from two-tractor-based direct planting was higher than with the conventional maresha-based system (Fig. 5). The direct planted treatment had 1107 kg ha -1 more grain than the conventional practice, though this difference was statistically insignificant. Direct planting increased (P = 0.093) straw yield (947 kg ha -1 more) compared with the conventional practice. Similarly, gross margins were not statistically different but direct seeded wheat generated more from a hectare (UD$2444) than conventional practice (US$1752) (Fig. 6). From the conventional practice, gross margins ranged between US$828 and 3151 compared with US$1436 to 3464 from the direct planting practice on a per hectare basis.  In Ethiopia, concerted efforts have been made since the 1970s to restore degraded areas and promote sustainable land management options. Promoting sustainable intensification, protecting and properly managing existing land, water and forests and woodlands, and establishing new forests through afforestation and reforestation had been identified as priorities of the government in its 2011 Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) Strategy. The strategy was designed to foster a green economic development path, and support adaptation to climate change by limiting emission of greenhouse gases to the 2010 level, estimated at 150 Mt CO2e (CRGE, 2011). The ongoing 5-year development plan of the government aims to put 2 million ha of natural forests under Participatory Forests Management (PFM) while identifying and demarcating 4.5 million ha of degraded land for afforestation or reforestation and supporting national tree planting initiatives to increase national forest cover by 4.5%. As part of the Bonn Challenge, the government also pledged to rehabilitate 15 million ha of degraded landscapes by 2025, a pledge that was increased to 22 million at the 2014 UN Climate Summit in New York. The country has also been investing about $1.2 billion annually on land restoration only in the four major regions over the last 10 years (Adimassu et al., 2018). The Green Legacy Initiative that the government put in place to plant 5-6 billion trees per year is another testament reflecting the effort to curb land degradation.Though the extent varies from place to place, evidence suggests that the landscape restoration, reforestation, development, and management interventions have had reasonable impact on improving ecosystem health and the livelihoods of millions of people in Ethiopia. Visible signs of resilient landscapes and communities are also emerging in association with restoration initiatives. However, the adoption of sustainable land management practices and associated benefits are limited in comparison with the level of effort being put in place every year. Lack of integrated approaches that can bring complementary benefits has undermined widespread success. There are still challenges in identifying priority areas of intervention, identifying local specific and suitable management practices, and generating evidence of the impacts of the interventions to promote data-based and knowledgeinformed decision-making while targeting and scaling technologies. The main aim of the project is to develop a framework and tools that can facilitate employment of integrated climate-smart technologies and practices to 'create' multifunctional landscapes that can provide multiple benefits to multiple users. It also aims to develop strategies to support generating comprehensive evidence related to the impacts of land restoration efforts.Developing operational framework to guide land restoration efforts: Restoring landscape health requires undertaking a sequence of steps starting from deciding where to prioritize (hotspot diagnosis) to assessing whether the investments were worthwhile. The pathways of restoration can vary from place to place as every landscape and country will be different, but the overall engagements can be defined in three steps that can be followed during land restoration efforts so that potential pitfalls are avoided and successes are accelerated. The three steps are (WRI, 2019): (a) understand the 'land condition' and be participatory;(2) define goals and set choices; and (3) build system to track progress. Unpacking the three steps into more details can result in ten interlinked activities that need to be performed when restoring landscapes (Fig. 7). Defining such a detailed framework and monitoring implementations can enable tracking progress to be made and also relevant adjustments when necessary. (3)(5)(8) (10) (9) (6) (requirements, constraints, potentials), match options with context (implement options), and assess impacts including tradeoffs.Figure 7 highlights that setting a goal is the essential and primary step in landscape restoration schemes so that adequate preparation can be made about the subsequent activities. Once the goal is decided, the next steps will be about where, what, and how (e.g., Fig. 8). Ex-ante analysis can be conducted to determine the types and optimal combination of suitable technologies. Model-based scenario analysis can be instrumental in estimating potential gains under given management options and in assessing tradeoffs before implementation. Since landscape restoration is a complex process that takes a long time to accrue benefits, it is essential to assess progress frequently to make sure that the efforts do not resort to tradeoffs and have negative impacts.Since restoration is not intended to fix a single problem at a given spot, technologies must be placed across the landscape continuum (Fig. 8). Though local variations are expected from variation in landscape attributes (including land use/cover types) and the associated requirements of land and water management technologies, the general tendency is that a mosaic of complementary and linked technologies is placed across the landscape. The options can be co-located and/or staggered across space considering complementarity. To make an efficient use of SLM technologies and effective landscape management options, practitioners and planners should have the capacity to understand and analyze the landscape/watershed characteristics so that they can be able to identify and select the required technologies that fit the area under consideration. However, a mismatch was identified between the conditions/attributes of watersheds and the requirements and functions of technologies as one of the major problems for the 'limited successes' of many watershed management interventions. In addition, there is a lack of integrated technology implementation on the topo-sequence so that they are complementary and promote synergy. On the other hand, the various SLM technologies might have multiple functions when applied under different conditions. However, whenever a specific technology is not implemented in the right condition, it can lead to undesirable impact causing low adoption due to the negative perception by the land users.SLM comprises measures and practices adapted to biophysical and socio-economic conditions aimed at the protection, conservation, and sustainable use of resources (soil, water and vegetation) and the restoration of degraded natural resources and their ecosystem functions. However, for a certain set of biophysical/environmental and socio-economic conditions, the practical challenge is to select and place appropriate/optimal technologies that can fit a specific context.To tackle the above challenges, it will be essential to develop a conceptual 'framework' that can guide the placement of complementary technologies across the landscape. The framework can guide the matching of options with the context -where specific technologies should be placed across the landscape. In addition, it will be important to develop a tool/dashboard that can facilitate problem identification (where are the hotspots?), technology choice, matching with site conditions and generating evidence related to performances of interventions.As part of the project 'creating multifunctional landscapes' project, we compiled our experiences within Ethiopia and beyond to develop a decision-support tool/guideline that can match landscape conditions with the appropriate technology options (measures) and made sure that landscape conditions would satisfy technology functions and/or requirements, identify a catalogue of SLM options, match the options with the landscape conditions, and generate evidence related to the performances of watersheds (Fig. 9). Professionals, planners, and decision-makers can use the tool to identify the most suitable SLM practices and technologies for targeted areas and communities and understand the optimal benefits that can be enjoyed from those practices.A detailed assessment of each of the six steps (Fig. 9) was conducted to ultimately identify the key land degradation issues to be resolved and the major functions of SLM options. Most of the assessment is done, based on a review of WOCAT technology questionnaire, the Community based Participatory Watershed Guideline of Ethiopia, and other related literature. A key consideration is that SLM measures need to be environmentally friendly, socially accepted, profitable and cost-efficient, and achieve the highest impact on productivity and other ecosystem services. To meet these criteria, detailed characterization of the functions and requirements of SLM technologies/measures is essential to help to guide practitioners and planners on where to place them. Based on WOCAT classification, SLM technology options can be vegetative, mechanical/structural, and agronomic measures. The specific technologies in each category which are commonly implemented and adapted in the Ethiopian context were identified from the info-techs in the Community based Participatory Watershed Development Guideline. The technologies were characterized based on the functions and their landscape requirements. In principle, at certain landscape conditions, the technology options have provided specific functions to prevent, control, and manage the soil, water and vegetation resources. In addition, by considering these functions of the technology options, the agro-climate, topographic, soil and land use requirements needed to achieve these functions are described.Once the landscape diagnosis and characterization of SLM options have been undertaken, the next step would be to develop a tool that can guide implementation and mainly conduct ex-ante assessment of the potential impacts of various interventions. Developing such a tool that can be practically useful needs a detailed dataset (especially related to the landscape conditions) so that the characterization can be as detailed as possible. However, such data are not available at the required scale, resolution, and accuracy in Ethiopia. We will thus use a relatively coarse resolution dataset to build a prototype tool. The tool will be designed to have four major components: landscape diagnosis, landscape restoration options, landscape impact assessment, and tradeoff analysis and optimization.The landscape diagnosis tool will be useful to describe the overall characteristics of the landscape in terms of climatic, topographic, soil, vegetation variables, and indicate the hotspots and the oppositespoints of stress and degradation. This is the first stage of investigation of the health of the area under consideration. Once this is described and the core problems and their spatial distributions have been defined, the next step will be to identify a suit of climate-smart land and water management options that can enable tackle the observed problems (defined during the diagnosis stage). This will be based on the requirements of the respective options (to know whether those can fit the hotspots identified, sitespecific options). The tool will then match the 'options' with the context of the landscape and guide implementation. This will be done based on expert knowledge, the literature, and different optimization tools. The third step helps to assess the impacts of those innervations in terms of different ecosystem services. This step is designed to evaluate the impacts of the technologies in addressing the 'diagnosed' problems. This can be based on ex-ante analysis as well as earth observation and ground-based data analysis. The final step will assess the tradeoffs and/or complementarities of the various interventions considering different ecosystem services. This is an important step to fine-tune the implementations of technologies to optimize benefits. The steps reflect that tool follows the synonymous approach of treating a patient. When finalized, the tool will use combination of datasets from the cloud, integrates information from crowd-sourced citizen science to diagnose the conditions of landscapes and prescribe suitable options as well as evaluate impacts in near real-time (Fig. 10). Assessment of the impacts of land restoration efforts on multiple ecosystem services: Despite few and sporadic signals, there is generally a lack of quantitative evidence about the performances of landscape restoration interventions in improving livelihoods and enhancing ecosystem services across scale. Because of this, there is no clear information about what a truly restored landscape could offer. Lack of such information can undermine the value of restoration efforts (because gains in terms of complete ecosystem services are not quantified). It can also camouflage the real cost of land degradation (because we do not know how much we have lost in terms of different functions and services). Thus, it is necessary to understand what can be achieved by promoting climate-smart multifunctional landscapes that can support ecological, as well as economic and socio-cultural benefits. Acquiring such data can support planning and informed decision-making as well as convince policymakers, farmers, carbon traders, the private sector, and others to invest in landscape restoration to get multiple benefits sustainably.Smart land use planning is about doing the right thing in the right place at the right scale: a multifunctional landscape approach advocates more rational land use allocations that lead to greater resource use efficiency and the reduction of waste. Knowing the comprehensive impacts of such interventions can be ideal to plan knowledge-based scaling strategies and facilitate national reporting and enhance negotiated potential for benefits such as carbon credit and payment for ecosystem services). Understanding what a multifunctional landscape looks like and what benefits can be generated is essential for making informed decisions with regard to SLM and land use planning. We thus reviewed the literature and discussed with partners/stakeholders to identify site(s) in Ethiopia where relatively good restoration has been achieved but at the same time for which quantitative data, of as many components as possible, are available. The idea was to understand what truly restored multifunctional landscapes can offer by focusing on successfully restored sites and for which evidence is available. Measured biophysical data and simulation analysis were both used to understand the value of SLM options to create multifunctional landscapes. For situations where data were not available, the impacts of SLM interventions on ecosystem services were estimated by producing scenarios for intervention cases, before, after, and optimal. The aim is to define what a multifunctional landscape looks like and what can it offer in terms of diverse ecosystem services under what management practices. The types of ecosystem services assessed depended on the availability of field and simulation data and remote sensing.In this report, we present assessment results for four watersheds (Fig. 11): Aba Gerima, Debre Mewi, Anjeni, and Gudo Beret. For the Debre Mewi watershed, where field data on crop yield, sediment retention, base flow, and biomass production were available, crop yield productivity, biomass change, and sediment retention were exclusively estimated. Habitat quality, carbon sequestration, and crop pollination were estimated for the other three watersheds using as bases land use/land cover maps of the past, current, and optimal scenarios. The Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) tool was used to assess the changes in terms of different ecosystem services.Figure 11. Location of the study watersheds, in the Amhara National Regional State, northwestern Ethiopia. A) Aba Gerima, B) Debre Mewi, C) Anjeni, D) Gudo Beret.Comparing the baseline productivity data of Debre Mewi with the yield of four major crops (maize, wheat, teff, and finger millet), an increase has been observed following integrated interventions in land and water management. The increase in yield varies from crop to crop, the highest being for maize (120%) while the lowest is for wheat (9%). The canopy cover of the watershed increased from 8 to 20%, between 2010 and 2017 (Fig. 12). This indicates greening of the landscape related to land management interventions including grasses in bunds. The highest change is observed in valleys and lowland areas of the watershed. During the dry season, the area of canopy cover increased from 41 to 128 ha between 2010 and 2018. Evidence also shows that about 13,142 t of sediment accumulated along bunds of different types. Since the bunds and terraces were constructed mostly at the upper and hillside of the watershed, higher soil sediment retention was observed in those areas. In addition, the impacts of the integrated watershed interventions have shown a positive impact on water resources. Here, we have observed that streams that were dry and empty in 2010, have revived after the watershed interventions.Figure 12. The benefits of employing integrated watershed management options at the landscape scale: the case of Debre Mewi watershed.The canopy cover change of the Anjeni watershed has also shown an increase in association with the SWC practices. The land management options that contributed to the resulting increase in canopy cover were area closure, terracing, gully rehabilitation, and farmland plantation. Following such interventions, the canopy cover of Anjeni watershed has increased from 100 ha in 2010 to 140 ha in 2017 (Fig. 13).Figure 13. Assessment of the multifunctional benefits of integrated land and water management practices in the Anjeni watershed.Habitat quality was modelled based on the LULC map of the watersheds and in consideration of the suitability of LU classes, and the threat/weight of other LU classes on suitable habitats. The habitat suitability index ranges between 0 and 1. The results show that the average habitat quality improved for all watersheds going from the previous situations to optimal SWC intervention cases. Similarly, an increase has been recorded in the overall and average carbon stored in Mg per pixel for all watersheds following interventions. For Aba Gerima watershed, the average habitat quality has increased to 0.4 and the average carbon storage to 1.3 Mg per pixel (Fig. 14).Figure 14. Assessment of the multifunctional benefits of integrated land and water management practices in the Aba-Gerima watershed.Finally, crop pollination was modelled based on the LULC change in the watersheds and consideration of the presence of pollinator bee species, their relative abundance, availability of nesting grounds, and availability of floral resources. The values used here were mainly based on general literature and default values from the model builder were also adopted. Therefore, it is advised that the model is customized with watershed-specific values for more accurate estimations. The results in Figure 15 show that the average pollinator index estimated for the Gudo beret watershed has increased (0.26) compared to the base year (0.1). This can facilitate planning and decision-making. For example, governments and policymakers can have an idea of what to expect in their landscape restoration investments. Such information can provide data about costs, from investments made for land restoration to benefits gained. This can be achieved if we can analyze the multifunctional benefits that can be enjoyed from well restored and managed sites. It is thus essential to conduct a thorough study on selected sites to have a clear picture of the ecosystem functions that can be rendered as a result of sustainable land management efforts, which can form the basis for scaling and PES as well as negotiations for carbon payment.The experiences gained at the learning watersheds of the project and other successful sites in the country provided good lessons in identifying CSA practices that can be scaled to other areas. Because CSA options that involve SLM and SWC are expensive to implement and difficult for research organizations to handle, partnering with development organizations, government, and NGOs, the various partnerships established across the country, can be instrumental in scaling technologies. An important lesson is that landscape-based CSA practices should be complemented with plot/farm level intensification options to facilitate adoption. Evidence of generation is vital to making informed decisions and it will be good to develop systems that can enable assessments of impacts to be made in near real-time. The framework developed in this project can help achieve that once fine-tuned to fit local situations.Our experience shows that the amount of evidence generated is extremely small compared to the volume of SLM-related work implemented in the country. In cases where some studies are conducted the focuses are on a few ecosystem services without considering the possible multitude of benefits.Because of this it is possible that the benefits of land restoration are hugely underestimated and undervalued mainly because the multifunctional services of parcels are not well considered. In addition, it is likely that the true cost of land degradation might have been underestimated because no detailed accounting of losses in terms of whole ecosystem services had been conducted. It is thus vital that detailed assessments of the SWC/SLM/CSA intervention be made. This will specifically be important for Ethiopia where tremendous land restoration investment is being made by different actors. Considering the Green Legacy initiative by the Prime Minister of the country it will be essential and useful to develop an automated digital tool that can guide targeting and scaling of technologies in near real-time. With the current developments in data acquisition, storage, and analytics, this should be an achievable target to be aimed at. As nutrition is a cross-cutting activities, AR requested the Alliance of Bioversity-CIAT to scale up the nutrition-education intervention implemented in Sinana and Basona into other project sites. The nutrition team from the Alliance had done some preliminary research on AR's nutrition work and found that the effect of the AR intervention had not been assessed by the program and it is unknown whether these interventions were effective or not. We, the research team, therefore proposed two strategies: 1) to assess how effective the AR nutrition-education intervention had been and its contribution to household nutrition and 2) to conduct nutrition-education need assessment in the proposed areas prior to scaling.Objectives of the study were as follows.• To get better understanding of AR activities through a project document review.• To assess how AR technologies and nutrition-education interventions contributed to improved nutrition in the smallholder farming communities.• To conduct the need assessment for nutrition education at local government and household level in the intervention areas.• To assess the seasonal food availability in the intervention areas.Study design and area: A formative research was implemented. The study was conducted in three regional States of Ethiopia: Amhara, Oromia, and SNNPR. Due to the security situation at the time of the survey, we were not able to conduct the study in Tigray. Selection of woredas was made in collaboration with the AR team. Kebeles (the smallest administrative unit in Ethiopia) were drawn from the list of those in which the AR project is being implemented on a purposive basis, considering the rate of adoption of AR technologies.Research approach and sampling: A qualitative research approach was employed to collect information from respondents. The survey consisted of detailed assessment of agricultural technologies and nutrition-education interventions in woredas where AR had been operating. Participant households were purposely selected from AR project beneficiaries. A total of 64 key informant interviews (KIIs) and 12 focus group discussions (FGD) consisting of a total of 80 participants was undertaken using different thematic-based questionnaires.Data collection: Data were collected mainly using KIIs by phone with AR site coordinators, beneficiary farmers, Health Extension Workers (HEWs), Development Agents (DAs), woreda government officials and experts at Offices of Agriculture and Health, as well as with researchers and individuals from Institutions of Higher Learning Institutions. In addition, seasonal food availability assessment was conducted using FGD and KIIs to collect foods that were known and utilized by the community and identify the potential of locally available underutilized nutritious foods that could improve the quality of diets.Ethical The training has also changed participating farmers' attitude towards production and consumption of high value farm produce such as avocado, vegetables, and animal sourced foods. In general, some nutrition-education interventions were implemented to address the knowledge gap of experts (agriculture and health extension workers) and model farmers. However, this study found that not much attention had been given to cascading the knowledge down to the community level.The key informants from the health sector explained there was a huge knowledge gap in nutrition specifically concerning food preparation and feeding at all levels of the community despite the effort made by various organizations. In Lemo woreda, nutrition education that included cooking demonstrations was provided to the lactating and pregnant women with the support of UNICEF and other unspecified projects in collaboration with the government before 6-7 years. The respondents (DAs, HEWs and the AR beneficiaries) confirmed that they had limited knowledge on nutrition concepts, food preparation and feeding, and thus asked for training to improve their skills.Seasonal Food Availability Assessment in, Amhara, Oromia and SNNP Regions: The seasonal availability of food groups across the three AR sites was compared. The diversity and availability of food groups was slightly better in Sinana district when compared with the other two AR sites (Fig. 16). Even though this was a one-time assessment, a better understanding of the type of foods available in the areas was gained through identification of the type of food items available in each AR intervention area. The food items listed under dark green leafy vegetables, other vitamin rich (Vitamin A) vegetables, and fruits are low in diversity and availability across all districts, and this may lead to low intake of fruits and vegetables by the community.Figure 16. Perceived seasonal availability of cereals across all woredas/districts.Interviews were undertaken with purposively sampled households to include project beneficiaries to ensure the result did not represent the whole community in the intervention woredas. Since the survey was conducted through the phone, drawbacks were considered. As in case of network interruption, we arranged one focal person in each site to link us with the study participants. Also, participants were informed about the survey by site coordinators and interview times were arranged at their convenience. The data collection relied mainly on respondents' memory, especially for the nutrition education questionnaires; we therefore considered a recall bias as a limitation of the study.The AR project in the Ethiopian highlands managed to conduct different capacity development programs including training, field visits, field days, workshops and meetings and reached over 2553 beneficiaries in the current reporting period (Table 8). Two PhD students defended their dissertations and graduated from different universities. The project has currently nine students (Table 9).   19 December 2020. AR Basona site organized a meeting with livestock contact persons from zone and four scaling districts of the project. The main aim was to review the performance of 2020 main cropping season and to plan the way forward for 2021.28 December 2020. A meeting was organized with crop contact persons from zone and four scaling districts. We had an excellent discussion with the crop group like the livestock group on 2020 achievements, challenges, and the way forward for 2021. Tigray 25 October 2020 AR Endamehoni site and Raya University jointly organized a field day at Alaje District and the university campus. The main purpose day was to make partners and farmers aware of AR's technologies and create partners' interest and opportunities for further scaling. 122 participants from Tigray regional, zonal, and district Office of Agriculture, research center, Raya University, Maichew ATVET college, GRAD, ATA, union, cooperatives, ILRI, and farmers participated in the field day.The participants visited faba bean and field pea seed multiplications and malt barley production at kebele and the fodder beet, desho grass and wheat multiplication in Raya University campus. All the field day participants were surprised by the excellent performance of the field pea and faba bean seed multiplication field and learned a lot from the model farmers. Partners appreciated the AR's effort to increase access to improved seeds of pulse crops and to feed technologies.23 February 2021. AR Endamehoni site organized a field visit to an apple farm for experience with model farmers. The visit aimed to shares experience on apple management and practice; 34 farmers and extension participants attended the event. The visit created motivation for participant farmers to enhance apple management practices and benefit from the income earned. 18 December 2020. An event on sweet lupin feeding practice and experience sharing and learning was held for a day in Doyogena woreda. The objective was to equip farmers and experts with knowledge on supplemental sweet lupin feeding. A total of 32 male and 11 participants benefited and came from both Lemo and Doyogena woredas. 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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6b81429cadf8dcc33b240fe5a1092c84","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/23ac2f79-d785-462f-b495-0d429986fc4b/content","id":"1697787309"},"keywords":["Agricultural development","Development aims, policies, programmes","Development plans","Planning","Right of access","Trends","Political systems","Social policies","Economic policies","Partnerships","Research institutions","Information processing","Technological changes AGRIS category codes: E14 Development Economics and Policies A50 Agricultural Research Dewey decimal classification: 658.57"],"sieverID":"bbcbde12-e9a6-4b05-ba0c-eda1cbe29752","pagecount":"54","content":"CIMMYT® (www.cimmyt.org) is an internationally funded, non-profit, scientific research, training, and development organization. CIMMYT serves as a catalyst and leader in a global innovation network that changes people's lives for the better. Drawing on effective science and partnerships, CIMMYT creates, shares, and uses knowledge and technology to improve the livelihoods of the world's poor who depend on maize and wheat. CIMMYT is one of 16 food and environmental organizations known as the Future Harvest Centers (www.futureharvest.org). Located around the world, the Future Harvest Centers conduct research in partnership with farmers, scientists, and policymakers to help alleviate poverty and increase food security while protecting natural resources. The Centers are supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) (www.cgiar.org), whose members include nearly 60 countries, private foundations, and regional and international organizations. Financial support for CIMMYT's research agenda also comes from many other sources, including foundations, development banks, and public and private agencies.CIMMYT embarked upon a major strategic planning exercise in 2003 to reaffirm the continuing relevance of the Center's mission, evaluate the effectiveness of the Center's organizational structure and operating modalities, and identify ways in which the Center may want to reposition itself to improve its effectiveness over the next 10-15 years. If CIMMYT is to fulfill its mandate, clearly it will have to be able to respond to emerging challenges and seize emerging opportunities in the scientific, economic, social, and political environments.To support strategic planning, six Task Forces were formed to prepare background reports on topics of particular importance:1. Scenario Building 2. Global Trends 3. Science 4. Partnerships/Networks/Systems 5. Organizational Structure and Management 6. FundraisingThis report presents the findings of the Global Trends Task Force. The job assigned to the Global Trends Task Forceto examine likely future trends in factors that will impinge on CIMMYT's mission-was in a sense different from the jobs assigned to many of the other Task Forces. In most cases, the work of the other Task Forces could be accomplished through introspection and discussion, drawing mainly on knowledge acquired by Task Force members through direct experience. In contrast, the work of the Global Trends Task Force required systematic surveying of the current thinking by leading experts in a number of specialized fields. This implied the need to undertake a series of literature reviews.During a series of organizational meetings, members of the Global Trends Task Force identified eight \"themes\" or \"contexts\" that are likely to shape the environment in which CIMMYT  This report is an assemblage of eight separate papers prepared on each of these themes by various staff members. The objectives of each paper were to review the current state of thinking in each of the theme areas, to summarize the consensus view regarding likely future trends, and, where relevant, to present summary data to be used by others during strategic planning.Given the broad range of topics covered in the papers, the Task Force members decided that it would not be worthwhile attempting to produce a single synthesis report. The value of the papers lies precisely in the detail they provide on each of the themes. For this reason, all of the papers are included in this report as separate chapters, and no attempt has been made to rewrite them to give one authorial voice. Readers who are interested in a particular theme are encouraged to refer directly to the relevant paper. Please note that due to the crosscutting nature of several of the themes, a number of topics are addressed in more than one paper.Seeking ways to exploit the many important insights that had been gained during the course of preparing the papers, the Task Force members met to discuss the implications of their findings for strategic planning. We decided that the best way to stimulate reflection and discussion would be by drawing up a list of strategic questions for CIMMYT that have arisen from our work. The final section of this report presents the strategic questions.The demographics of the world are changing. Despite some advances in poverty reduction, continuing high fertility rates in the least developed countries greatly exacerbate the problems of poverty, with women and children generally paying the highest price. Furthermore, most population increases are predicted to occur in urbanized areas of the developing world. In only a few years, half of the world's population will be urbanized for the first time in history. Although fertility rates are very high in some countries, the world's population as a whole is aging, leaving fewer economically active workers to support the young and the elderly. Migration from less developed countries to industrialized countries is increasing to such an extent that more and more countries are enacting legislation to control it. However, migration is not just between countries, but also from rural to urban areas, as people seek to escape poverty and find a better life.Having many and unplanned children imposes a heavy burden on families, and pregnancy and childbirth pose serious health risks for poor women. High levels of fertility contribute directly to poverty, reducing women's opportunities, as well as money available for children's education and health. Having a large family can also reduce or prevent savings and increase overall vulnerability and insecurity. The poor suffer from the direct effects of their large numbers-for example, the existence of large pools of unskilled workers lowers wage rates, landholdings must be divided among more inheritors, and schools become over-crowded. People become less and less able to escape from poverty. The world's population had reached 6.3 billion in 2001 (Table 2.1, data broken down by region) and is expected to increase to 6.8 billion by 2010 and 7.6 billion by 2020C H A P T E R 2 (FAOSTAT 2003). Seventy-nine percent of the world's people live in developing countries (UNFPA 2002), and China and India alone account for 37% of the world's population (UNICEF 2003).Population is currently increasing by 77 million people per year. Six countries account for almost half of the world's annual population growth: India (21%), China (12%), Pakistan (5%), Nigeria (4%), Bangladesh (4%), and Indonesia (3%). Ninety-seven percent of the global population increase takes place in less developed countries (United Nations Population Division 2002a).There is good evidence that population growth has a strong impact on economic development. In Brazil, for example, the effect of declining fertility has been a 0.7% increase in economic growth, and similar effects have been seen in other countries (UNFPA 2002). Reductions in fertility levels change the demographics of a population temporarily, forming a larger group of working-age people to support relatively fewer older and younger dependents. This provides a window of opportunity for growth with fewer dependents, which a country may or may not take advantage of, before the population in general ages and produces more elderly dependents.It is estimated that the number of persons aged 60 years or older was 629 million in 2002 and will increase to almost 2 billion by 2050. This means that there will be more older (over 60) persons than children (0-14 years) for the first time in history. Currently 1 of every 10 persons is aged 60 years or older (Table 2.2, data broken down by region), but according to United Nations projections, the ratio will be 1 in 5 persons by 2050 and 1 in 3 persons by 2150. The percentage of older people is much higher in developed regions, but the pace of aging is faster in Source: UN Population Division (2002b). Note: Regional averages were calculated by taking average percentages per region, as raw data were not available for the number of people 60 to 65 years of age. Regional averages were also calculated using populations 60 years and above for which data were available.† Potential support ratio: the number of persons aged 15 to 64 years per one older person aged 65 years or older. developing countries. The older population itself is aging, with more people living into their eighties and beyond. Women live longer than men, and currently there are 81 men per 100 women in the older population (globally).The ratio is lower in more developed regions, with 71 men per 100 women compared to 88 men per 100 women in less developed regions (United Nations Population Division 2002b).The potential support ratio (PSR) is the number of persons aged 15 to 64 years per 1 older person aged 65 years or older. This gives an indication of the dependency burden on potential workers. Between 1950 and 2002, the PSR fell from 12 to 9 people of working age per each person aged 65 years or older. By mid-century, the PSR is projected to fall to 4 working-age persons for each person aged 65 years or older (United Nations Population Division 2002b).More older people are working longer in developing countries than in developed countries, due to limited retirement schemes and relatively small incomes. Twentyone percent of men aged 60 years or older are economically active in more developed regions, compared with 50% of men in less developed regions. In the case of older women, 10% are economically active in more developed regions, compared with 19% in less developed regions (United Nations Population Division 2002b).Although the world population as a whole is aging, a high proportion of the population in the least developed countries is under 18 years of age-above 50% for sub-Saharan Africa, which in 2001 had the highest fertility rate and has had the lowest annual reduction of the fertility rate from 1960-2001 (Table 2.1). Its demographics are hard hit not only by the high fertility rate, but also by the past and future loss of a large part of its economically active population due to HIV/AIDS. A smaller labor force supporting a greater number of dependents will impede development and may force more children and older people into the workforce to survive.Developing countries are becoming increasingly urbanized, although the amount and rate of urbanization depends on the region of the world.Forty-seven percent of the world's population, or 2.9 billion people, lived in urban areas in the year 2000 (Table 2.3). This percentage was 30% in 1950 and is expected to increase to 56%, or 4.2 billion people, by 2020, and to 5 billion by 2030. If current growth rates continue, the number of the world's urban and rural dwellers will be equal by 2007.Almost all population growth from 2000 to 2030 is expected to occur in urban areas, most of it in the less developed regions of the world. Little growth is expected in the more developed regions, which are already largely urbanized and have much lower population growth rates. Urban populations in less developed regions are expected to increase from 2 to just under 4 billion people between 2000 and 2030.The growth rate of the world's urban populations is expected to be nearly double the rate of the population as a whole, and urban populations should double in 38 years. However, the growth rate is much higher in less developed regions, whose urban population should double in only 29 years. Rural populations in less developed regions, on the other hand, are expected to peak around 2025 and then start to decline, as they have in more developed regions since the 1950s. Most of the growth in urban areas in less developed regions will be due to rural-urban migration and the transformation of rural settlements into cities.Currently, about 79% of the population in industrialized countries lives in urban areas, followed by 76% in Latin America and the Caribbean. Regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and East Asia and the Pacific have much lower levels of urbanization. Although percentages of urban dwellers may be low in Asia and Africa, the actual number of people is greater than in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, and Oceania combined. Asia, followed by Africa, is expected to have the largest rural population during 2000-2030.Although there will be an increase in the number and population of mega-cities, a relatively small proportion of people live in such mega-cities. Small-to mediumsized cities will experience much higher rates of growth.Most urban growth in developing countries will occur in small cities of 500,000 or less, or in cities with populations over 15 million.Agricultural production and policies will be affected as the world becomes more urbanized. Feeding large urban areas requires policies that promote efficient, large-scale production and reasonable prices, as they do in the developed world. As urban populations increase, productive land will disappear. Improved infrastructure will be needed to deliver agricultural products to urban populations, and the role of urban agriculture will become more and more important (United Nations Population Division 2002c).However, as policies change to favor urban areas, the rural poor could become increasingly marginalized, and rural areas are where the most severe poverty is likely to exist.Migration has both positive and negative impacts on countries and economies. It can facilitate the transfer of skills and enhance cultural diversity, but can also cause countries of origin to lose human resources and destination countries political, economic, and/or social tensions. For good or bad, migration has demographic, economic, social, and political causes and consequences, such as brain drain and brain gain, worker remittances, human rights issues, social integration, xenophobia, human trafficking, and national security.Worker remittances can contribute significantly to a country's GDP. This is particularly true in less developed countries, where remittances on average make up 4.6% of the GDP, though they are much higher in some countries (Tables 2.4 and 2.5).  Women often have unequal access to everything from education to food to credit. In many areas they are legally unable to own land and completely vulnerable to decisions made by their male relatives. They are often also the victims of violence. There is frequently great disparity in the education offered to women versus men in the least developed countries, particularly in South Asia (Table 2.7).This has an important impact on malnutrition and, ultimately, on child survival, contributing to the cycle of poverty.In 1995, the Fourth World Conference on Women described the \"feminization of poverty.\" There was a consensus that women should have an active interest in economic and social development, and should be involved in planning and implementing strategies to alleviate poverty. However, there has been little systematic effort invested in alleviating poverty among women. The disparity in the number of women versus men living in poverty has increased over the past decade. The problem is worst in the poorest countries, for they have the greatest gender disparities in education and health (UNFPA 2002).  Persons whose application for refugee status is pending in the asylum procedure or who are otherwise registered as asylum-seekers. In countries with various stages in the asylum procedure, a case (person, family) may have been counted more than once.  Aside from disease and dietary intake, malnutrition is also affected by social, political, and cultural elements such as lack of political stability or discrimination against women. Lack of access to good education and correct information is also a major cause of malnutrition, as are war and conflict.Although adequate overall energy intake is necessary for survival, intake of various micronutrients is essential as well. Although the proportion of people affected is highest in sub-Saharan Africa, the actual number of people is higher in South Asia due to much higher concentrations of population. This is not to say that these are the only areas affected. Although malnutrition levels may be lower overall in other areas of the world, there are still areas of extreme poverty that must not be ignored. For example, even in relatively wealthy countries such as Mexico, there are still many people living in extreme poverty.The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) uses the under-five mortality rate as the best overall indicator of health in a country. Children in the first five years of life are most vulnerable for that is when death is most likely to occur. A ranking of the under-five mortality rate shows that in the 20 worst countries, all except Afghanistan are located in sub-Saharan Africa (Table 3.3). In these countries, 18-32% of children die before the age of five. The least developed countries, led by sub-Saharan Africa, have the highest child mortality rates and the lowest rates of annual reduction in child mortality (Table 3.4).  Approximately 42 million people were infected by the HIV/ AIDS virus at the end of 2002 (Table 3.5). The highest number by far is in sub-Saharan Africa ( As more people die of AIDS, less labor is available. It is easy to see that there will be a huge impact on food security in these countries.It may be difficult for women and children left without a male figure to head the family to carry out all the labor needed to plant and harvest their crops. A number of studies show a shift toward crops requiring less intensive labor and/or capital input, especially within families where the husband has died of AIDS. This usually means moving away from cash crops to subsistence crops. Often women cannot manage to plant all the land available to them. In these cases, they are very likely to lose the land to  Source UNAIDS (2002).acquisitive relatives of their dead husbands, which leaves them very much at risk. If the wife subsequently dies of AIDS, the children could be left in child-headed households, although most are absorbed into the families of other relatives. Children might also be left alone on the land to retain their rights to the use of the land.Although child-headed households are relatively rare, they are increasing. Both women and children have reduced access to information and credit and are less physically able to do heavy labor, particularly land preparation. This is especially true if the women are sick with AIDS themselves. These issues are complex, and it is not clear what impact they will have on overall food security.Households with AIDS patients are often forced to spend all their extra income, as well as compromise their future income, to pay for medical expenses and funeral costs. They are often left in extreme poverty and unable to support themselves. Direct costs are further exacerbated by local customs concerning funerals, which require that families and neighbors refrain from working for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks after someone dies. If this occurs during a critical period of the cropping cycle, it can have very negative effects on the harvest, further worsening the family's position.Parents of young children that die of AIDS are not able to pass their knowledge down to the next generation. Therefore, much traditional knowledge can be lost, particularly in areas of high AIDS prevalence. AIDS also kills agricultural researchers and extension workers, reducing research and services to farmers.HIV/AIDS can both affect malnutrition and be affected by it. The immune system is undermined by both proteinenergy and micronutrient malnutrition, and HIV/AIDS can hinder the body's ability to absorb and process different macro-and micronutrients. Problems endemic to poverty such as diseases, poor gender relations, migration, and other socioeconomic factors have an effect on HIV.The impact of HIV/AIDS on affected families in agricultural communities can be devastating, pushing the survivors into destitution that could last for generations to come, with probable heavy impact on their ability to carry out small-scale agricultural production.Although access to education has improved substantially over the past decade, it varies across regions and is clearly related to both poverty and gender (Table 3.7). In some areas, such as Latin America, almost all children complete the first grade, but subsequent dropouts are high. In other regions, high percentages of children never attend school at all.The amount and quality of education received is strongly influenced by poverty levels. The poor, in general, receive much less education than the non-poor. In almost all developing countries, children (6-14 years) from the wealthiest 20% of the population are much more likely to be enrolled in school than children from the poorest 40% (UNFPA 2002). However, the gap varies greatly across countries for several reasons. One may be the distance to school. For example, children in rural areas tend to have to travel much farther to reach school. Also, government spending on education may favor wealthier families at the expense of the poor; for example, some governments spend more on higher education rather than primary and secondary education, which affects the poor more. The quality of the schools affects school retention and attainment. Poor curricula, textbooks, teaching methods, teacher training, pupil:teacher ratios, and parental participation all affect educational outcomes. The price of tuition and textbooks may also be too high, particularly if jobs are scarce and if prospects for higher incomes with more education are low.Evidence for the benefits of maternal education on health and nutrition, child survival, and lower fertility is plentiful.It is estimated that gains in women's education accounted for 43% of the reduction in child malnutrition between 1970and 1995(UNFPA 2002)). Educated women are in general more likely to receive adequate prenatal care, be attended by skilled assistance at the delivery of their babies, and use contraception. Paternal education has much less of an impact, yet girls are much less likely to be educated than boys in many parts of the world. Some of the contributing factors include: distance to schools and fear of sexual harassment on the way; lack of schools for girls; attitudes that discourage girls from seeking and pursuing higher education; social expectations that girls will only become wives and mothers and therefore do not need education; and low expectations that future financial benefits will be recovered by educating girls. The disparity is particularly evident in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. The educational gender differential becomes even more pronounced at higher educational levels.Overall, educational prospects for girls from poor families in developing countries tend to be quite low. As this has a very strong impact on family health and child survival, it contributes greatly to continuing poverty levels in developing countries (UNFPA 2002).By 2005, it is estimated that half the world's population will live in urban areas, which means that productive land will increasingly be converted to urban use. Fewer people will be involved in producing food for urban areas (Table 3.8). At the same time, population will increase, particularly in urban areas. Feeding everyone will place a heavy burden on the agricultural sector. It will also require improved infrastructure to get affordable food to the people who need it. This trend seems to imply the need for more intensive agricultural cultivation to keep pace.Countries that are less competitive agriculturally will have to import most of their food supplies. Unfortunately, with increasing globalization, developing countries may become less and less able to compete with developed countries, which can afford heavy agricultural subsidies. The level of understanding of nutritional needs has grown tremendously since the early days of the Green Revolution, when most efforts went into simply creating enough energy to feed the world (thus the emphasis on cereal crops). It is now clear that it is important not only to address the need for total energy requirements but the need for micronutrients as well. Concentration on cereal crops, although important, is not sufficient to meet the world's nutritional needs. More effort should be made to encourage a greater diversity of crops to provide sufficient macro-and micronutrients to support a healthy population at an affordable cost. Biofortification of cereal crops may be one way to reach this goal, but producing affordable dietary diversity is a more important one.Biotechnology holds promise for getting more and betterquality foods to the market more quickly and efficiently than with conventional breeding. For example, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), if people accept them, could play an important role in developing nutritionally enhanced crops such as golden rice, but whether they would have a nutritional impact remains to be seen. Pathways to adoption by those in need can be quite complex, and there has been much resistance to the adoption of GMOs in the past. It has been suggested that biotechnology's greatest potential is not in GMOs, but in tools such as molecular markers and proteomics, which could significantly improve the efficiency of conventional plant breeding in some situations and cropping systems.Whether or not nutritionally enhanced GMOs would be accepted and adopted remains to be seen and is an area for further study. With global per capita food availability at unprecedented high levels, the concern over the existence of an adequate world food supply has gradually been replaced by concerns over the distribution of the food supply in addressing hunger, malnutrition, and poverty and about the sustainability of natural resources in efforts to intensify agricultural production. The prospect of negative effects on the environment from agricultural technologies is now shaping the debate on food and environmental policies. Sustainable agriculture practices have been defined as those \"that meet current and future societal needs for food and fiber, for ecosystem services, and for healthy lives, and that do so by maximizing the net benefit to society when all costs and benefits of the practices are considered\" (Tilman et al. 2002). Past mismanagement of natural resources in agricultural production has reduced the sustainability of most of the world's ecosystems. The pool of biodiversity has declined due, in large part, to an expansion of agricultural land. This decline has contributed to the current situation in which more than one-third of the existing biodiversity is located in only 1.4 % of the world's land (World Bank 2003a). Growing demand for agricultural land caused approximately two-thirds of the total deforestation of the world's tropical forests to occur in the last two decades (Pinstrup-Anderson 2002). Up to 30% of irrigated land, 40% of rainfed agricultural land, and 70% of rangelands are affected by soil erosion, salinization, and compaction. This has contributed to an estimated cumulative loss in productivity over three decades of 12% of total production. Most African countries have been affected by seriously large losses of soil nutrients (World Bank 2003a).Adequate supplies of water and, more importantly, the distribution of these supplies also present serious concerns for the future sustainability of agricultural practices. While aggregate water supply is projected as adequate for the next 30-50 years (World Bank 2003a), critical local and regional shortages are forecast, particularly in China, South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. Irrigated land in these areas is not expected to be adequately provisioned with water to maintain per capita food production at present levels. Africa's water resources, until now largely unexploited, are unlikely to offer much potential due to geographic and climatic conditions as well as infrastructural and financial constraints (World Bank 2003a). Water utilization for agriculture is also facing increasing competition from high-value uses in urban areas and those related to environmental conservation. The fact that many water sources cross multiple borders increases the likelihood of future water-based cross-border conflicts. Focused efforts to increase water-use efficiency and to promote rational water-use policies are vital to ensure sustainability of food production in these waterconstrained regions.Improved nutrient-use efficiency will also contribute to the sustainability of agricultural production. Excessive application of pesticides and fertilizers affects human health, contaminates water and soil, and also has implications for ecosystem health. Effects of non-point sources of pollution include ozone formation, air pollution, eutrophication, and greenhouse gas emissions (Tilman et al. 2002).Agricultural technology will need to adjust rapidly to address increased scarcity of key natural resources through increased crop yields, increased efficiency of input use, lower impact pest management, sustainable crop management techniques, and improved animal husbandry. Efforts should be made to develop technology with active interaction among and between scientists and farmers to maximize utilization.The impacts of climate change on agriculture will be direct and indirect. Direct impacts include changes in temperature, precipitation, length of growing season, atmospheric CO 2 concentration, and the influence of these changes on crop development. Indirect effects include changes in the impacts of pests, diseases, and weeds (to date, there has been no quantification of these impacts), and the combined effects of changes in biotic and abiotic factors on the economics of farming systems.Evidence continues to support the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 1995) that, unless CO 2 levels more than double over the coming decades, it should still be possible to produce enough food for a growing population, despite climate change.However, there are serious concerns over the regional impacts of climate change. The IPCC Special Report (IPCC 1997) further suggests that, due to higher temperatures, the risk of crop failure and subsequent hunger will increase in the tropics and subtropics. Rainfed cropping systems will be most affected, particularly where staple crops are at or near their maximum temperature tolerance, and/or there are other biotic and abiotic factors reducing farming system resilience and increasing vulnerability. Subsistence farmers and pastoralists are likely to be hit hardest.The IPCC Report (1997) also suggests that many middle to high latitudes are likely to experience increases in productivity, although this is highly dependent on the duration and intensity of rainfall, length of growing season, temperature changes, and crop type. It states that in \"areas where agricultural systems are adapted to current climate variability and/or where market and institutional factors are in place to redistribute agricultural surpluses to make up for shortfalls, vulnerability to changes in climate means and extremes generally is low.Other factors also will influence the vulnerability of agricultural production in a particular country or region to climate change-including the extent to which current temperatures or precipitation patterns are close to or exceed tolerance limits for important crops-per capita income, the percentage of economic activity based on agricultural production, and the pre-existing condition of the agricultural land base.\"Elevated CO 2 concentrations are expected to affect wheat and maize differently. As far as wheat is concerned, current CO 2 levels are below concentrations that saturate photosynthesis. Experiments utilizing elevated CO 2 levels have increased wheat yields by up to 30%. However, when CO 2 levels are elevated for maize, there is very little response. Experiments with elevated CO 2 levels have also increased water-use efficiency, dry matter, and seed yields in cereals. However, it must be noted that this response is highly mediated by increased temperatures.C H A P T E R 5Erika MengSince 1980, an unprecedented level of global economic integration and linkages through trade, migration, and capital flows has taken place. Unlike past periods of increased trade and movements of labor and capital, this integration has for the first time involved developing countries in international markets for manufactured goods and services instead of being primarily commodity based. Technological change, particularly advances in transportation, information, and communications, has been singled out as a key impetus. Trade liberalization, domestic economic reforms, and regional trade agreements have also all been identified as major factors in fueling globalization. Those developing countries that have become increasingly integrated into the global economy have enjoyed relatively rapid growth levels and larger increases in per capita GDP (Dollar and Collier 2002).Nevertheless, the ability of all developing countries to participate in and benefit from globalization has been very unequal due in part to geographical disadvantages, poor economic policies, and armed conflicts experienced by some countries. Trade-distorting national and regional policies, such as subsidies and non-tariff barriers perpetuated by industrialized countries, also impede equitable progress and distribution of benefits. Globalization has been blamed for rising levels of poverty and increasing income inequality. It has also sparked strong concerns regarding what has been perceived as an increasing homogenization of cultural and social diversity.Countries excluded from or marginalized by globalization, as well as some rural areas in countries recently integrated into the global economy, are experiencing increased vulnerability. However, the ideology and rhetoric in the debate surrounding globalization often prevents objective analysis of its impacts. According to the World Bank (2003b), world inequality increased at a rapid rate prior to 1980 and has stabilized in the years since. Poverty levels in those countries integrating into the global economy have declined. However, the approximately 2 billion people living in countries that have not participated in global integration have not enjoyed similar benefits. Those impacts, particularly with respect to poverty and inequality, are uncertain and require additional research and monitoring.One of the more indisputable developments related to globalization is the declining importance of agriculture in many developing country economies. The proportion of GDP and exports related to the agricultural sector has been steadily decreasing, with implications for the demand and supply of human capital in this sector. Another important issue is the growing significance of agricultural trade, domestic and international, on food security for urban populations. The role of the public sector is also changing, given the increased role of markets and of the private sector in the globalized economy.Funding for agricultural research is likewise on the decline in many countries.The dynamics of poverty are most heavily affected by overriding economic and political factors, such as the presence/absence of stable governments, absence of conflict, fair representation of all groups in society, as well as intangible relationships, such as those between the poor and non-poor and the powerless and powerful (World Bank 2001). Currently, the largest absolute numbers of the extremely poor, defined as those living under US$ 1 per day, reside in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa (Table 5.1). These regions also contain the largest proportion of poor people as a percentage of the total population (World Bank 2003b). For an alternative measure of poverty, the number of people living on less than US$ 2 per day, the number rises from 1.17 billion people to 2.8 billion people in 1999 (Table 5.2). The largest absolute numbers reside in South Asia and East Asia and Pacific, while the largest population shares are found in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.Future poverty trends will dependent greatly on growth in domestic economies, but slow growth (less than the 3.7% annual growth in GDP predicted to be necessary), especially in sub-Saharan Africa, will make it difficult to attain the United Nations Millennium Goal to halve by 2015 the proportion of people living on under US$ 1 per day and suffering from hunger.The majority of the world's poor population (the World Bank reports a figure of over 70%, from the total population of approximately 3 billion people) still lives in rural areas. Populations in rural areas are also expected  to continue to grow in most low-income countries.Vulnerable groups, including women and the uneducated, are at risk of becoming increasingly marginalized. Women are particularly vulnerable to chronic poverty due to inequality in income distribution, access to inputs, and incomplete control over property and earned income (Cagatay 2001). However, the role of women in the rural household economy is increasing in importance as more responsibility and a larger burden of social costs are borne by women.Rural-urban linkages, through labor migration and integration into markets, are increasingly recognized as important forces for poverty alleviation. Access to nonfarm income and risk diversification alternatives, particularly in countries such as Mexico and China, are playing a key role in shaping the poverty profiles that we observe today. The large majority of urban migrants come from rural areas, and the economic characteristics of these migrants -their access to land, water, education, and other resources prior to the migration -will play a large role in determining what conditions and future they will face after moving to the urban environment (World Bank 2003b). With 2 to 2.5 billion rural people estimated to become urban residents by 2050, this connection between rural and urban poverty is very important.Some of the policy instruments that have been proposed to address factors essential to the alleviation of poverty, income inequality, and hunger include: (1) investment in public goods and institutions;(2) rural infrastructure development;(3) promotion of effective private markets;(4) restructuring research and education systems to be more stable with respect to funding and more sensitive to needs of smallholders; and (5) improved coordination between farmers and markets. Research has also suggested that addressing inequalities in asset distribution could be effective in poverty reduction, especially for countries with low projected rates for growth of GDP (Deiniger and Olinto 2000).Measures of income distribution need to include both trends in global income inequality over time as well as the level of inequality at a given point in time. While rapid growth in many developing countries has had a positive effect on closing inequality gaps, income inequality on a global level remains at an extremely high level with large gaps between the incomes of the richest and the rest of the world population. At today's current high level of global inequality, the richest 1% of total world population earns as much income as the poorest 57% (World Bank 2003b). The level of inequality between the north and south has been somewhat offset by fast growth in both China and India. Nevertheless, regional disparities remain large, and inequality within countries, which is not picked up by aggregate data, is also increasingly serious. Data show that among 73 countries with 80% of the world's population, inequality between rich and poor has increased in 48 countries and decreased in only 4 (UNDP 2002).There is an increasing consensus that the food problem is a poverty problem and that increased economic and political empowerment is a key factor in reducing poverty.The paradigm in development policies is gradually shifting to foster greater participation of the poor. Moreover, because the majority of the world's poor still live in rural areas, mostly concentrated in Asia and Africa, achieving overall poverty alleviation goals will require a specific focus on the reduction of rural poverty.The role of access to markets for agricultural producers is recognized as increasingly important, and the role of the private sector in enhancing growth and reducing poverty has been reassessed. Today, the availability of food at a global level is higher than ever before. The reduction in costs of transport, communications, and information has contributed greatly in this regard. Domestic economic reforms in many developing countries have also played a large role in enabling the development of rural and urban markets. However, these developments are far from uniform across regions and within countries. Issues of food accessibility at regional and local levels still remain serious. Depressed world prices and large local price fluctuations contribute to vulnerability in local areas. The effect on prices of continuing agricultural subsidies and tariff and non-tariff barriers, legislated by industrialized countries, cannot be downplayed. Given the weakness of institutions in many developing countries, the continued presence of trade and other policies not conducive to efficient performance, and the uneven distribution of benefits from globalization, it is clear that privatization and liberalization alone are not necessarily sufficient to ensure access to markets and to reduce poverty. Developing a more diversified rural economy, which builds on and fosters rural-urban linkages, can provide more opportunities for rural residents and can stabilize fluctuations in income and wealth.C H A P T E R 6The objective of this chapter is twofold: to provide a concise overview of major global trends in politics and policies, specifically in the areas of agriculture, food, trade, development, and environment; and to provide insights into possible policy trajectories over the next 20 years.For the purpose of this paper, policy is defined as a dynamic process of negotiation and contestation that allocates values, sets goals (and the means of achieving them within a specified situation), and results in a course of action or inaction.The direction and duration of individual policies are notoriously difficult to predict, as they have the capacity to change significantly over a short period of time. Change is usually initiated by new political priorities, brought about by current world events and the changing positions and strengths of competing and/or complementary interests/ lobbies.In order to realistically encapsulate policy trends, this review will concentrate on two major policy goals: economic growth and sustainable development, which will still be relevant in 2020 even if their importance/ prioritization change.As humanity enters the 21 st century, economic growth remains the primary objective of governments across the globe. However, disagreement exists regarding the most appropriate means of achieving it. The sections below address three key strategies employed to promote increased economic growth. These strategies are globalization, regionalization, and localization.The process of globalization began in the early 1970s, after the break-up of the Bretton Woods system of national economic organization, and it has accelerated rapidly over the past 30 years. Many economists and policy makers argued, and continue to argue, that globalization is the optimum level of organization to ensure economic growth. It was private corporations, however, that embraced the process of globalization. Their intent was to maximize market opportunities in the 1990s, when world trade grew at more than twice the rate of outputs (Buckley 1996). Corporations were/are almost obliged to operate at the global level in order to remain competitive.In the agrifood sector, growth of national, multinational (MNCs), and transnational corporations (TNCs) during this period has been staggering.In response to private-sector lobbying and internal economic advice, many national governments have developed policies and institutions that underpin globalization. The World Trade Organization (WTO), with over 122 member states, is the most powerful of the new institutions. In 1999, 110 out of 152 developing countries were members of the WTO (World Bank 2000). The WTO is the principal regulatory mechanism for agriculture, food, and trade.Many believe that, in a globalized world, future opportunities will arise from a variety of sources: changes in consumer habits; reductions in surface and air transportation costs; advances in biotechnology; and the continued liberalization of global trade rules. Increasing consumer incomes and declining demand for frozen, canned, and other processed foods are already creating a demand for high-value added products rather than homogeneous bulk goods. Falling transportation costs already enable firms to supply new markets with fresh products.The World Bank has made deregulation and market liberalization a condition of loan receipt. World Bank stipulations have tended to follow what came to be known as the \"Washington consensus\" (an approach that has recently been discredited). This approach stipulates that loan recipient countries adhere to a number of structural criteria: fiscal discipline; redirection of public expenditure towards education, health, and infrastructure investment; tax reform through broadening the tax base and cutting marginal tax rates; interest rates that are market determined and positive (but moderate) in real terms; competitive exchange rates; trade liberalization (replacement of quantitative restrictions with low and uniform tariffs); openness to foreign direct investment; privatization of state enterprises; deregulation/ abolishment of regulations that impede entry or restrict competition, except for those justified on safety, environmental, and consumer protection grounds; prudential oversight of financial institutions; and legal security for property rights.Many governments are less enthusiastic about the process of globalization than the World Bank, and they have been slow to liberalize and deregulate their markets. However, many economists suggest that only a fraction of the feasible gains from liberalized agriculture have been realized, exactly because many countries have been reluctant to scale down barriers.Governments are concerned about several issues, including the transfer of power from national and supranational state apparatus to international state systems and MNCs/TNCs, and the subsequent, and highly unpredictable, distribution of the costs and benefits associated with this transfer of power. Indeed, many commentators suggest that the European Union's (EU's) ability to manage its rural areas would be greatly compromised if WTO-sponsored globalization and trade liberalization removed all measures of agricultural protection. The growing centralization of financial structures through which credit money is created, allocated, and put to use, particularly the resulting increase in the power of finance over production, is another cause for concern. Foreign direct investment now far exceeds developed country government investment in developing countries. In many cases, the value of TNCs now exceeds the total income of the countries in which they make their investments, endowing TNCs with extraordinary political and economic power.Foreign direct investment is now recognized as the driving force behind the increasingly integrated global economy. However, foreign direct investment is concentrated in a small number of countries in Southeast Asia and Latin America and is often both speculative and transitory. In addition, even though international trade has increased, it often takes place within TNCs and does not always benefit developing countries. According to Watkins (1994) 66% of the benefits of the 1993 GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) Accord were expected to go to developed countries.Environmental impacts of world trade are not being properly addressed by the WTO. Although the WTO rulings refer strictly to international trade policy, the agreements made by the organization have far-reaching implications for economic development, peace, security, and environmental protection worldwide. The WTO does have a committee on trade and environment, but it focuses exclusively on how environmental measures may impact negatively on trade. It is possible to regulate trade in certain products in order to protect humans, animals, plants, or health. There is often no reference as to how the product has been produced and no consideration of how trade liberalization may aggravate or cause environmental damage. It is also likely that food safety policies will stifle trade and that disputes over market access and production methods will continue. The EU and USA continue to battle over hormones in cattle feed and genetically modified (GM) maize and soy. Many believe that large corporate lobbies ensure that MNCs are virtually beyond international regulation. The MNCs put profit first and hold no allegiance to any particular place, community, or environment.International trade is the most significant aspect of global economic activity. The new WTO will, to a large extent, determine patterns and processes of resource exploitation and will have a considerable impact on progress towards sustainable development. However, environmentalists are generally fearful of the poor prospects of sustainable development achievable through trade liberalization. Indeed, the World Bank and several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) now support developing countries in WTO negotiations. The World Bank developed the Integrated Framework for Trade and Development in the least developed countries, in order to support them in their WTO negotiations.In response to concerns associated with globalization, many governments have taken a more cautious position and have only partially deregulated and liberalized their markets. Examples include the EU and the USA, which are still pursuing a relatively protectionist position when it comes to agriculture, food, and trade, even though the goal of self-sufficiency is slowly being superseded by that of self-reliance.Kenya's Director of Internal Trade, Seth Otieno, says that trade liberalization has been a disaster for many in Kenya.In Swaziland, the importation of sugar products from EU countries has undermined the local industry. Freer trade, especially in agricultural produce, has worked to \"threaten or destroy the livelihoods of millions of farmers\" and to keep people poor. Even though many African leaders accept globalization as a long-term goal, they stress that it must be accompanied by reform in developed countries, to make the terms of trade fairer to Africa.The African director of the International Labour Organization, Regina Amadi-Njoku, suggests that globalization is responsible for the decline in Africa's status in the global economy and that pressures for economic liberalization in Africa from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and Western governments have had negative effects on the development process. Action Aid and Oxfam say that EU and US financial support for their farmers gives them big advantages in trade and ruins African farmers by subjecting them to unfair competition. They argue that these countries protect their own farmers but demand that African countries cut subsidies to theirs.In a submission to the UK Government, Oxfam calls for globalization to be underpinned by global rules and institutions that place human development above the pursuit of corporate self-interest and national advantage. However, those in favor of globalization say that Africa needs better economic management and more trade liberalization, in order to stimulate sustainable economic growth and the alleviation of poverty. To conclude, it is suggested that over the next 25 years it will become harder to sustain the momentum of trade liberalization (World Bank 2000).Regional trade deals are flourishing as it becomes increasingly difficult to get multilateral trade talks off the ground. The EU stands as one of the world's most successful and largest regional trade blocs. Other regional trade blocs and free trade alliances/lobbyists include the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the Cairns Group. Even though regional trade agreements (RTAs) could undermine the WTO and lead to counterproductive decisions, they have proven ability to harmonize regulations and adopt minimum standards. Negotiations are now underway to create the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). However, Brazil's new left-wing government is likely to prove the main stumbling block to this US-led effort for closer regional integration.Argentina and Venezuela also have political or economic reasons for resisting further integration. This may mean that the USA will have to settle for a series of bilateral deals with some of the smaller Latin American nations such as Chile and Costa Rica. The business communities of many developing countries (including Brazil) express that they are comfortable behind the high tariff barriers that protect their industries. Slow growth in the area has also reduced incentives for closer economic integration. In conclusion, in the absence of a global free-trade pact (and US leadership), Western Hemisphere countries have either signed or are negotiating over 50 regional trade pacts.The term \"localization\" reflects the growing desire of people for a greater say in their government and manifests itself in the assertion of regional identities. It pushes national governments to accept that decision making at regional and city levels is the best way to manage changes affecting domestic politics and patterns of growth. The localization of economic, political, social, and environmental systems is the latest phenomenon and a goal sought by many environmental NGOs. Most assessments of economic localization suggest that either a steady-state zero or negative economic growth model should be applied. Many governments, particularly in developed countries, are engaged in a process of both political and environmental localization that has promoted popular participation in decision-making and enhanced local autonomy. Many plural-politics community groups and NGOs continue to actively encourage citizen participation. Polycentric philosophies are also being adopted in the EU. However, there are concerns that vigorous political activity involving many organized grass roots groups entrenched in assertive societies will substantially reduce the scope for autonomous government action. Central governments may lose their ability to take immediate and strategic action.During the 1970s and 1980s, the world witnessed a proliferation of global and local environmental NGO movements, culminating in three main achievements: (1) the Meadows Report (Meadows et al. 1972) Unfortunately, much of this momentum has been lost. The world economic recession, which began at the end of the 1990s, has concentrated attention on the promotion of economic growth with less concern for the environment and equity. Today, the Brundtland Report and the concept of sustainable development are seen in profoundly ambiguous ways. On the one hand, they have stimulated the most significant political responses to environmental concerns to date. Most world governments have adopted sustainability concepts and are involved in on-going policy debates. On the other hand, environmentalists criticize the anthropocentrism and vagueness which make it possible to espouse concepts of sustainability without any significant change to priorities and practice. Most politicians assume that the degree of change advocated by the Report is far too radical to be contemplated, let alone implemented. Environmentalists are beginning to argue that not only is sustainability virtually impossible to define in practical terms, but that it is also, in principle, the minimum environmental standard anyone could possibly advocate.Are we to believe that contemporary society-nature interactions are dictated solely by free-market capitalism?The answer is clearly no. However, sustainability initiatives are, on the whole, under-funded and under-prioritized. Since the Earth Summit, there has been a significant decline in official Overseas Development Assistance (ODA).As summarized by Pingali (2002):The ODA from major bi-lateral and multi-lateral donors dropped from 14 billion dollars in 1988 to less than 8 billion dollars in 1999. Much of the decline in ODA was for support to projects dealing with crop production and agricultural services. During the last decade, lending to agriculture by International Financial Institutions has dropped in absolute terms as well as a proportion of loans. World Bank lending for agriculture declined from close to 4 billion dollars in 1990 to 1 billion dollars in the year 2000.The reduction in ODA can be partially explained by the fact that declining food prices and abundant global food supplies have created a perception that the food problem has been solved, particularly in the context of globally integrated food markets. Agriculture also has a diminishing share of national GDP, and increased urbanization and its problems make rural poverty seem less important in comparison. There is also a growing belief that getting macroeconomic and trade policies right will automatically move people out of poverty, and there is an increasing sense of complacency about our ability to tackle the problems of food and agriculture (Pingali 2002).Overseas Development Assistance generally offers no profit for donors and low interest repayments for recipients, on the funding of research, development, and infrastructure development activities. Thus ODA basically transfers resources from wealthy to poor nations (often those with whom the donor has historic ties, particularly former colonies). Views vary as to whether or not this is a good tactic. Some say it is necessary for development; others say that it perpetuates neo-colonial dependency (Todaro 1997).To conclude, the limited progress made at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, 2002, and the failure of the USA to ratify the Kyoto agreement are the most recent demonstrations of the declining priority of sustainable development. Indeed, the Commission on Sustainable Development estimates that an extra US$ 125,000,000,000 every year in aid would be required to implement Agenda 21, approximately double of what is spent now (Bramble 1997).The unfounded belief, in the 1960s and 1970s, that stimulating fast economic growth in developing countries would automatically lead to fast social and political change, can primarily be attributed to traditional economic analysis, focusing on GDP and GNP, and omitting distributional entitlements. At the dawn of the 21st century, nearly half of the world's population was classified as living in poverty, surviving on less than US$ 2 per day (World Bank 2001). These people often struggle to acquire the bare necessities of life. Many are under-or malnourished, have inadequate shelter and clothing, and have limited access to health and educational services.Global distribution of the world's poor is not uniform, with most living in developing countries. According to the World Bank ( 2001), the average income in the richest 20 countries is 37 times the average in the poorest 20. This gap has doubled in the past 40 years.Spatially, rural and agricultural development has been uneven and often inequitable, such that perhaps as many as one person in five lives in a world where food is plentiful, yet is denied to them (Conway 1997). Resourcepoor agriculture is a major challenge for sustainable development, initiating calls for a \"doubly green revolution\" (Conway 1997). There is little evidence to show that liberalized trade policies have served to enhance the resource base or empower the poor. Indeed, contemporary crises in major economies, such as those in Southeast Asia and Latin America, suggest that economic gains made in the past decade are themselves short-term and can be very quickly reversed, as witnessed by the massive capital outflows which preceded the economic crisis in Indonesia in 1998.According to Pingali (2002), even though the private sector will play an increasingly important role in the development and dissemination of technology in the developing world, it will not cater to the needs of smallscale and subsistence farmers, particularly in marginal production environments. The need for investment in public goods that enhance the productivity of marginalized households continues to be urgent and imperative.The World Bank group is the major source of multilateral aid for developing countries, lending/investing US$ 20,000,000,000 in 1996 (World Bank 2001). According to the World Bank ( 2001), each dollar lent brings in 2-3 dollars from other agencies, private banks, and recipient governments. Therefore, the rhetoric and action of the World Bank are crucial in determining the prospects for sustainable development. At the dawn of the new millennium, the World Bank has begun to focus substantial attention on local initiatives that encompass promoting opportunity, facilitating empowerment, and enhancing security (World Bank 2001).Structural adjustment programs have been the principal mechanisms of the World Bank and IMF to address debt. However, there has been much criticism that this approach has resulted in the export-led mining of natural resources.In the 1980s, Ghana lost 75% of its forests during the course of its economic adjustment. Structural adjustment has also been accused of widening socio-economic and gender disparities, further impoverishing some of the poorest people in society, and compounding environmental degradation. \"Debt-for-nature swaps,\" piloted in the 1980s, have been successfully used by NGOs to alleviate debt and protect habitats. The first projects were piloted in Ecuador and Bolivia.Interestingly, an increasing percentage (33%) of ODA funds are now channelled through NGOs. The proportion ranges from 10% in the UK to 80% in Belgium and Italy (Elliott 1999). In 1993, there were over 18,000 NGOs in the Philippines and at least 50,000 NGOs in developing countries. The environment and the pursuit of sustainable development have been the primary factors responsible for promoting the growth and importance of NGO activities globally and for stimulating interactions between these organizations and state and/or international development institutions. In the 1970s and 1980s, NGOs were involved in only 13 World Bank projects. In 1997, 47% of World Bank operations involved NGO participation in some capacity. When projects are disaggregated by discipline, NGOs were involved in 43 agriculture-based and 12 environment-based projects, which was 81% and 100% of projects, respectively. NGOs are increasingly involved in planning, evaluating, and implementing projects.The WCED recognized the key role that NGOs could have in fostering sustainable development, based on their proven ability to secure popular participation in decisionmaking. Experience is suggesting that this can best be secured through processes of planning and action, which put people's priorities first rather than those defined by outside actors and agencies. The rise of the middle class in developing countries is also linked to environmental NGOs. There has been a proliferation of these groups in South and Southeast Asia and Latin America, but very few in Africa, due to slow economic development. These increasingly professional NGOs lobby states, businesses, and multilateral institutions regarding their environmental policies. Some NGOs are also currently promoting alternative \"fair trade\" agricultural systems. However, concerns exist regarding the unaccountability of NGOs.According to the World Bank ( 2001), poverty alleviation and sustainable environmental management can also be achieved through global initiatives. These include: (1) the promotion of global financial stability and opening the markets of rich countries to the agricultural goods, manufactures, and services of poor countries; (2) bridging digital and knowledge divides, thus bringing together technology and information to people throughout the world;(3) providing financial and non-financial resources for international public goods, especially medical and agricultural research; (4) increasing aid and debt relief to help countries take actions to end poverty within a comprehensive framework that puts countries themselves, not external agencies, at the center of the design of development strategy and ensures that external resources are used effectively to support the reduction of poverty; and (5) giving a voice to poor countries and poor people in global forums, such as through international links with organizations for the poor.The World Bank, in conjunction with UNEP (United Nations Environmental Programme), established the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Its role is to assist least developed nations in tackling global environmental problems, biodiversity, water management, and energy conservation. However, the GEF has a pitifully small budget with which to achieve Earth Summit targets. In 1995, the GEF's budget was US$ 103,000,000.Many national ODA policies now embrace the need for comprehensive and integrated approaches to poverty alleviation and development. The UK's Department for International Development (DFID) presents one example:Development assistance is an important part of the way in which we can help tackle poverty. But it is by no means the only aspect of our relationship with developing countries. Both nationally and internationally, there is a complex web of environmental trade, investment, agricultural, political, defense, security, and financial issues, which affect relations with developing countries. These are driven by a range of policy considerations, all of which affect the development relationships. To have a real impact on poverty we must ensure the maximum consistency between all these different policies as they affect the developing world. Otherwise, there is a risk that they will undermine development, and development assistance will only partly make up for the damage done (DFID 1997).The UN's Millennium Declaration recognizes its \"collective responsibility to uphold the principles of human dignity, equality, and equity at the global level.\" By the year 2015, the UN aims to halve the proportion of the world's people living on less than US $ 1 per day, halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty, and halve the proportion of people suffering from hunger (UNDP 2001).The UNDP report called for: (1) innovative partnerships and new incentives for research and development;(2) improved management of intellectual property (IP) to balance both public and private interests;(3) increased investment in technologies for developing countries, which are needed but not provided by the global market, and (4) regional and global institutional support to build the technological capacity of developing countries (UNDP 2001).To conclude, global institutions and the private sector (underpinned by power bases in the developed world) will continue to promote and/or accelerate uneven capitalist development unless developing nation states are empowered to rebalance political and economic asymmetries (both domestic and international) and ensure an increasingly equitable distribution/redistribution of the benefits of global economic activity. Likewise, unless the rhetoric of sustainability is wholeheartedly embraced by powerful (global-supranational-national) actors and translated into action, the extreme poverty, vulnerability, and environmental mismanagement witnessed today will continue.Projected Trends in Supply and Demand of Maize and WheatDemand for cereals such as maize and wheat can be projected with greater certainty than supply, because the \"key drivers\" affecting changes in demand-population growth, income growth, and urbanization-are characterized by a certain amount of inertia and unlikely to change dramatically in the short run.Over the next 20 years, global demand for maize is projected to grow at roughly the same rate as in the recent past. The composition of demand will continue to change, with feed use of maize increasing more rapidly than food use in both developed and developing countries (Table 7.1a). As a result of projected faster growth in feed use, the market for yellow maize will expand relative to the market for white maize. However, demand for white maize will remain strong in certain countries and regions, including Mexico, Central America, and Eastern and Southern Africa, and white maize is likely to command a modest price premium in these markets. Meanwhile, niche markets are likely to emerge for certain types of specialty maize (including maize with suitable industrial characteristics and maize with improved nutritional quality), assuming that appropriate germplasm becomes available and the necessary market structures develop.Studies conducted in southern Mexico show that the emergence of these markets requires institutional development and new breeding methodologies to develop varieties with the right traits (Bellon pers. comm.). These markets could be important for small-scale farmers, as they may enable them to produce a differentiated product that would not be in competition with the cheaper maize produced by the largest producers.Demand for maize will be very concentrated. By 2020, the four largest consumers (China, USA, Brazil, and sub-Saharan Africa) will account for approximately 70% of world demand. China will become a major importer because of its rapidly growing livestock industry. Food consumption of maize will remain concentrated in Eastern and Southern Africa, Mexico, and the smaller Latin American countries.Over the next 20 years, global demand for wheat will continue to grow, but somewhat more slowly than in the recent past. Most of the world's wheat crop will be used for human consumption, although feed use of wheat will remain important in the EU and in parts of Eastern Europe (Table 7.1b). Turkey, Central Asia, and the WANA (West Asia/North Africa) Region are expected to remain the leading wheat consumers in 2020. In these countries and regions, increased demand for wheat, fueled by strong population growth, will more than offset declining per capita consumption. Wheat consumption per capita is expected to increase sharply in Southeast Asia, most notably in Vietnam, Myanmar, and Thailand. Since these increases in wheat consumption will not be matched by increases in domestic production, Southeast Asia is expected to become a major wheat importer.Supply of cereals is harder to project than demand, because production in major exporting countries could change dramatically in response to policy changes, which are very difficult to predict. In the cases of maize and wheat, producer subsidies in the EU and USA are currently encouraging chronic overproduction. Surplus grain is sold on the international market or given away as food aid, depressing international prices and undermining production incentives in other countries. Policy reforms in the EU and USA could significantly alter current production patterns, but despite much talk, relatively little progress has been achieved in recent years toward reforming European and American cereals policies.Looking ahead, it is possible to envision two different scenarios. If the EU and USA continue to support maize and wheat production, global markets are likely to remain awash in grain, international prices are likely to remain low, and current production patterns are unlikely to change significantly. If, on the other hand, the EU and USA are successful in implementing policy reforms that result in significant reduction in the support afforded to maize and wheat producers, international prices could strengthen, and new players could enter into the market.C H A P T E R 7  The area planted to cereals could also expand significantly in parts of the WANA Region and Central Asia, although this would require technical change (improved water management techniques and improvements in crop management practices).At the global level, supply of maize will keep pace with demand for the foreseeable future, since most of the major producing countries and regions have considerable capacity to expand production quickly in response to favorable changes in price incentives. Assuming no major changes in producer support policies, the USA will remain the world's largest maize producer (297 million tons) in 2020, followed by China (259 million tons), Brazil (54 million tons), Eastern Europe (40 million tons), and the EC15 1 (39 million tons) (Table 7.2a). Most of the maize produced by these countries will be yellow maize destined for domestic and international feed markets. Maize production will continue to increase slowly in developing countries where maize is an important food staple, although production will continue to experience significant year-to-year variability in some countries and regions, especially where maize is grown in drought-prone environments (e.g., eastern and southern Africa, parts of Central America). Most maize produced for food will continue to be white maize.The distribution of global maize production could change if policy reforms succeed in reducing the level of support afforded to producers in the EU and USA. Brazil and Argentina, both of which have considerable amounts of untapped crop land, could increase their importance in the world maize market under such a scenario (assuming additional investment in transportation infrastructure, e.g., roads and port facilities). 2 In particular, Brazil could become self sufficient or even have a small surplus that could be exported. Developing countries in which maize is produced mainly for domestic food consumption, especially those in eastern and southern Africa, would remain largely unaffected by movements in international maize prices.Global supplies of wheat will also keep pace with demand.As with maize, most of the major wheat-producing countries and regions have considerable capacity to expand production quickly in response to favorable changes in price incentives. Supplies will therefore have little trouble keeping pace with demand increases fueled by population growth, income growth, and urbanization. Barring major policy changes, China and the EC15 will remain the world's largest wheat producers in 2020, followed by India, the USA, the FSU (former Soviet Union), WANA, Pakistan, and Turkey (Table 7.2b).Long-term trends measured at more aggregated levels may, however, conceal some important shifts in the location of wheat production, particularly in areas where agriculture is becoming more and more intensified. Throughout most of South Asia and large parts of East Asia, wheat is grown as part of intensive irrigated cropping systems. Pressure for further intensification, combined with rising prices for scarce land and water resources, as well as reduced support for crop prices, is forcing commercial producers in these systems to shift out of wheat into higher-value crops and/or crops that are more water-efficient and hence more profitable.Grain quality factors may also play a role in determining future production patterns for wheat. International markets are expected to become increasingly segmented, with separate channels for different grades and qualities, so producers who have the capacity to target specialized niche markets are likely to enjoy a competitive advantage.Trade in cereals, including maize and wheat, is expected to continue to grow. Future trade growth will be associated with increasing production and consumption of food and feed (caused by a global population that will get larger, richer, and more urbanized). In addition, agricultural trade is likely to get a boost from the policy side. In the name of economic efficiency, more developing 1 EC15 consists of the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom. countries will abandon failed policies to ensure national food self-sufficiency and replace these with more commercially-oriented agricultural policies designed to ensure national food security. In many cases, they will promote commercial production of export crops and embrace grain imports to meet domestic production shortfalls. At the same time, agricultural policies will become increasingly linked with trade policy, with the result that efficiency considerations may become less important in determining production and consumption decisions. In spite of these changes, however, it is unlikely that all developing countries will be able to meet the additional demand for food through trade alone, implying that domestic production will have to increase as well.International trade in maize is expected to continue expanding for the foreseeable future, fueled by strong demand for feed. Assuming no radical changes in current policies, the USA will remain the world's dominant maize exporter, while the EU, East Asia, Southeast Asia, and WANA Region will remain major maize importers. Patterns of global trade are unlikely to change significantly, unless the USA proves unable or unwilling to adapt to the evolving regulatory environment relating to GMOs. Maize trade within Asia is expected to expand especially rapidly, with future trade flows depending largely on developments in China. Maize trade within Latin America will increase as well, with Brazil an increasingly dominant player.While the overall global picture is one of increasing trade in maize, there will be exceptions. Some developing countries, especially in eastern and southern Africa, will continue to make limited use of international markets because of the high transportation costs involved in accessing them.Global trade in wheat is also expected to expand. As in past years, most wheat will be traded from developed countries to developing countries. Assuming no significant change in policies, the USA will remain the largest exporter, followed by Canada, Australia, the EU, and Argentina. Smaller producers (mainly in Central Asia and eastern Europe) should be able to consolidate their share of the market. Some of these countries could emerge as significant exporters, but only after important investments to modernize machinery stocks and marketing infrastructure. China is likely to revert to importing large quantities of wheat, with erratic swings in yearly import volumes.How will these projected developments in global maize and wheat markets affect CIMMYT and its partners, especially the poor in developing countries?In a world that is becoming more populated, wealthier, and more urbanized, and one in which economic activities are increasingly linked through commercial relationships, food production and consumption will depend increasingly on national and international markets. The role of markets will vary from country to country depending on many factors, including the level of general economic development, the quantity and quality of transportation and communication infrastructure, the efficiency of marketing institutions, and the incentives created by agricultural as well as non-agricultural policies.In developing countries, markets will be particularly important in provisioning urban areas with imported food. Markets will have less influence in determining food supplies in rural areas, at least in the short to medium term, because high transactions costs will prevent them from functioning efficiently in these areas.Future developments in international markets for maize and wheat will be greatly influenced by economic policies enacted in a small number of dominant exporting and importing countries. Commercial farmers will be affected directly by agriculture and trade policies, which will affect prices and thereby influence production decisions. Noncommercial farmers will be affected more indirectly. Globalization will bring increased competition into local markets, making it more difficult to sell occasional surpluses. Lower international prices will reduce the profitability of maize and wheat production, forcing many farmers to look to other avenues to increase their incomes, including off-farm employment. For many rural households in developing countries, agriculture in general, and maize and wheat cultivation in particular, will shift from being the main component of a livelihood strategy   These projected developments in global maize and wheat markets have a number of important implications for CIMMYT.1. Many developing countries will rely increasingly on international markets to satisfy domestic food consumption requirements, especially those of urban consumers. In most of these countries, increasing the productivity of maize-and wheat-based farming systems will have relatively little impact on urban poverty.2. For the foreseeable future, lack of reliable access to markets will force hundreds of millions of poor rural households in developing countries to produce maize and wheat for home consumption or to purchase locally produced maize and wheat. Many of these households could benefit from sustainable, productivity-enhancing technologies for maize and wheat production that are appropriate to their circumstances. However, productivity increases in maize-and wheat-based farming systems will not be enough to raise most of these households out of poverty. New income-generating activities, both on-and off-farm, will have to enter into their livelihood strategies. 3. Experimental evidence (not reviewed in this chapter) suggests that improved germplasm alone is unlikely to lead to significant productivity increases in maize-and wheat-based farming systems, particularly in unfavorable environments characterized by severe abiotic and biotic stresses. Improved germplasm could, however, boost productivity if it is adopted in combination with improved crop management practices. The need to combine germplasm with management practices has important implications for research, extension, and policy design. 4. Even in countries with flourishing private seed industries, many poor maize and wheat farmers are unable to afford improved seed or find suitable varieties (Morris 2002;Heisey et al. 2002). The weakening of public research and extension institutions is compounding this problem. Policy actions will be needed to implement effective technology delivery systems that can reach farmers who are currently being bypassed.C H A P T E R 8Shawn SullivanAlthough for-profit enterprises may want to do good for the poor of the world, there are three major considerations (according to a representative from Monsanto) that may make sharing their technology unfeasible: 1. Companies do not want to destroy possible future commercial markets for their products. At least some developing countries increasingly show the prospect of a market where money can be made, albeit only in the long term. One of the reasons for this perception is the fact (discussed in detail below) that it is becoming increasingly more cost-effective for companies to protect their innovations with patents in developing countries. 2. Even when a company has no present interest in a particular geographic or product market, it generally will not donate technology for humanitarian uses if there is a perception that such a donation may help the company's competitor. 3. Increasingly agricultural technology is of such a nature that it cannot simply be delivered to its intended users in developing countries without the need for further involvement by the technology developer. Transgenic technologies, in particular, may require \"resistance management\" strategies (as in the case of technologies making use of pesticidal or herbicidal qualities), continuous monitoring and training by the technology developer, and possibly someone to assume monetary liability for product failure or other unplanned events. Before donating technology for humanitarian uses, the owner of the technology wants to be certain that he/ she has minimized the risk of having to remain involved in, or of incurring liability because of, the humanitarian project.The points made above by the Monsanto executive echo similar comments made by other multinational developers of biotechnology and are relevant to the rest of this analysis.In 1980, the US Congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act, which enabled universities and other not-for-profit entities to retain intellectual property rights in their federally funded inventions. 3 In the same year, in Diamond v. Chakrabarty, the Supreme Court of the United States held that genetically engineered bacteria could be the subject of patents under the United States' general utility patent legislation. 4   Five years after Chakrabarty, the patent appeals board of the US Patent and Trademark Office held that the utility patent statute includes plants as patentable subject matter. 5 This ruling made it possible in the USA to obtain \"dual protection,\" i.e., protection of plant varieties by both utility patents and plant breeders' rights, a practice which the US Supreme Court recently endorsed. 6 In response to these changes, private companies and universities actively sought and obtained US product and process utility patents on a variety of biotechnology tools and processes.  § 200-12 (1994)). Harvard \"oncomouse\"-and seemingly all \"higher life forms\"-were held not to be patentable under the current Canadian patent legislation. However, it is important to note that there the court found no inherent bar to patentability but simply concluded that the existing legislation did not extend patentable subject matter to the higher life form invention. The court expressly recognized the ability of the Canadian Parliament to provide for such patents, and lobbying efforts to overturn the court's decision legislatively have already begun.preclude the patenting of hybrids 9 and other groupings of plants that may include varieties, so long as the patent does not claim a single plant variety. The deadlines for implementation of TRIPS have now expired (with limited exceptions) for all but the least developed countries. As a result of national legislation in developing countries implementing TRIPS, many of the legal barriers that formerly prevented the patenting of biotechnology inventions have been removed. 15   The cost of patent filing has also diminished substantially as a result of the increasing accession of developing countries to the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), which makes it possible to seek patent protection for the same invention simultaneously in a number of countries by filing a single international application. In a PCT application the applicant designates the PCT-member countries in which the applicant wishes the application to be processed. The application is then subjected to an \"international search\" by one of the major national patent offices, and a report is issued concerning literature that might affect the patentability of the invention. Thereafter (up to 30 months after the initial application filing) the application may enter the \"national phase\" in the countries designated by the applicant, and the patent offices of those countries judge the application in light of their national patent laws. The practice is likely to continue to differ somewhat from that in the USA, where plant varieties can be patented as well as protected by plant breeders' rights. Mexican law currently prohibits the patenting of plant varieties. In addition, the above comparison of Mexican with European practices refers only to the practice of applying for and obtaining patents. The issues pertaining to enforcement of patents are quite different and much more basic in Mexico than in Europe and are likely to remain so for some time. 27 449 U.S. 808 (1990). 28 William Hill v. British Horseracing Board and Fixtures Marketing Limited v AB Svenska Spel.In light of the above, it seems likely that, within a few years, the practice of patenting biotechnology inventions in Mexico (and other developing nations) will be practically indistinguishable from practices that currently prevail in Europe. 26 This means that although the most frequent restrictions posed by intellectual property laws for the Centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) to date have been imposed contractually (i.e., through material transfer agreements), in the future, CGIAR Centers are likely to have to face the same \"patent thicket\" that exists in industrialized countries today.Because genomic databases and other compilations of data have become critical to research in some fields of agricultural research, developments concerning proprietary claims to data will be relevant for CGIAR Centers in the future.The ability of high-speed computers to manipulate data in increasingly useful ways has generally augmented the commercial value of data. Compilers of data wish to extract as much of that value as they can, with the aid of legal doctrines (such as copyright law) and devices (such as nondisclosure agreements).Traditionally copyright law has been said not to protect an idea in itself but only the expression of the idea. Consistent with this concept, in Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service, 27 the US Supreme Court rejected the idea that the effort involved in obtaining data (i.e., where facts have been gathered through the \"sweat of the brow\" of investigation and compilation) justified granting the compiler of facts an exclusive right to use the data. Therefore, if compilations of data are made public (in Feist the data consisted of telephone numbers and related data disclosed in a telephone directory), only those elements of the compilation that express a minimal element of creativity, such as original elements in the selection, arrangement and display of the data, can be protected by US copyright law.The Feist decision had a number of impacts. First, developers of commercial databases mounted an intensive lobbying effort in the USA and Europe to obtain special protection for databases. In the USA, these efforts have yet to succeed. In Europe they were more successful. In the EU, Council Directive 96/9/EC of 11 March 1996 on the Legal Protection of Databases requires EU member states to \"provide for a right for the maker of a database which shows that there has been qualitatively and/or quantitatively a substantial investment in either the obtaining, verification or presentation of the contents to prevent extraction and/or re-utilization of the whole or of a substantial part evaluated qualitatively and/or quantitatively, of the contents of that database.\" Two important cases 28 that have been referred to the European Court of Justice may eventually flesh out the parameters of this still-new, sui generis form of IP right.A second result of Feist has been increasing reliance by database developers on the use of trade secrets to maintain the commercial value of data compilations. To obtain access to many genomic databases, it is often necessary to sign highly restrictive contracts, in which the user agrees not to divulge to third parties data from the compilation or to use the data for any purposes other than those specified in the contract.At the same time that these developments have occurred, copyright law itself has been strengthened considerably. Four years ago, the widely criticized US Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) handed to US copyright holders a variety of unprecedented rights over their literary and artistic works. Less well-known is the fact that the WIPO Copyright Treaty, which is now in force and growing in acceptance among both industrialized and developing countries, requires member states to enact provisions similar to those of the DMCA, including its controversial prohibition on circumvention of measures adopted by the copyright holder to prevent reproduction of the work. 29   The impact of these and other legislative developments in the field of copyright and data protection has been to give authors and compilers of data greater incentives to withhold their works from the public domain by providing potent legal weapons against persons who would appropriate those works to their own use without authorization.On November 3, 2001, in Rome, representatives of 116 nations approved the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. 31 The Treaty has many implications for claims of IP rights for germplasm. It will come into force 90 days after the 40th instrument of ratification has been deposited with FAO. A Governing Body will be established to implement the Treaty.The Treaty applies only to plant genetic resources useful for food and agriculture (PGRFA). Its purposes are: (1) to encourage conservation of PGRFA in order to preserve and enhance the genetic diversity of plant species and varieties of value to food or agriculture; (2) to provide a basis for rewarding farmers for their contributions in conserving, improving, and making available PGRFA; (3) to elaborate further the system of national sovereignty over genetic resources first established at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), while ensuring that such exercise of sovereignty does not hinder international exchange of PGRFA; and (iv) to create a multilateral system of access and benefit sharing to coordinate exchanges of PGRFA. The Treaty's Multilateral System of Access and Benefit-Sharing will apply to an initial annex of 35 food crops and 32 genera of forages. Maize and wheat are specifically identified among the listed food crops. Not all crops listed in the Treaty annex will be subject to the Multilateral System. It covers only listed PGRFA (1) which are \"in the public domain\" and managed and controlled by member states, and (2) which are held in ex situ collections by international agricultural research centers (IARCs) of the CGIAR and other institutions.Treaty Article 12 provides for facilitated access to PGRFA within the Multilateral System. Covered materials will be made available subject to a standard material transfer agreement (MTA). Recipients of PGRFA accessed through the system may not \"claim any intellectual property or other rights that limit the facilitated access to the [PGRFA], or their genetic parts or components, in the form received from the Multilateral System.\" Recipients who commercialize such materials will have to pay into a financial mechanism an equitable share of benefits arising from such commercialization. Such payments will not be mandatory if the product is made available without restriction to others for further research and breeding. Benefits shared under the Multilateral System are required to flow primarily to farmers, especially in developing countries and countries with economies in transition, who conserve and sustainably utilize PGRFA.Only nation states may sign the Treaty. However, Article 15 calls upon IARCs to enter into agreements with the Governing Body to make PGRFA in the ex situ collections that are held in trust for humanity available through the Multilateral System. The current MTAs governing access to in-trust materials will be revised, and IARCs will be required to recognize the Governing Body's authority to provide policy guidance concerning ex situ collections that are subject to the Treaty. In return, member states will make materials available through the Multilateral System to IARCs that sign such agreements.The full impact of the Treaty on IP rights affecting CGIAR Centers remains to be seen. However, it is plain that if the Treaty comes into effect (and all indications are that the minimum of 40 ratifications for the Treaty to enter force will be attained), the character of CGIAR Centers as producers of international public goods will be reinforced for the first time in indisputably binding legal documents. CGIAR Centers will have considerably less discretion than today over the terms and conditions under which they may make PGRFA covered by the treaty available to others. Thus the use of germplasm (but not necessarily other products of research) by CGIAR Centers as \"bargaining chips\" in order to obtain funds or access to technology will largely be eliminated.CGIAR research institutes sometimes obtain licenses of third-party technology or jointly develop new technology with third parties. In these instances, the public institution must negotiate with the third party/ies over the extent to which the center will be permitted to use the technology for humanitarian purposes. One model of \"humanitarian use\" licenses has permitted not-for-profit institutes to diffuse proprietary technology for the benefit of \"subsistence farmers.\" However, as mentioned in previous chapters, the nature of poverty is changing, and licenses permitting the use of technology to help subsistence farmers may not be of much use in combating the most intractable problems of hunger and malnutrition.The preferred scope of licenses for humanitarian uses may be an unrestricted right to use the subject technology in a particular territory where it is most needed. However, as it becomes more and more feasible for companies to obtain IP protection in developing countries, and as those countries come to be perceived as future profit centers, IP owners are likely to be even less generous than at present in permitting the use of their own technology and will bargain harder over restrictions on use of jointly developed technology. Public institutes may have to work harder to develop \"bargaining chips,\" i.e., proprietary technology of their own which can be offered to third parties in exchange for access to commercial technology.For the foreseeable future, IP issues affecting public international research are likely to become more complex. This does not mean that research will become impossible for the public sector. However, IP issues will require greater attention and sophistication on the part of the research institutes.Predicting the future of the information technology (IT) field is a difficult task, largely because there are no good trends that one can use. Technically, the field is fast changing, although some will argue that the wheel is constantly being re-invented. Also the IT world is very much a seesaw, with booms and busts, and it is characterized by great swings in reaction to external changes. So, for example, while 9/11 changed the world, it was a huge shock wave to the IT sub-world, compounding the bust of the .com companies and shifting some emphasis away from improved functionality and performance to improved security and support for military applications.Scientists graduating today have some programming skills, and tools available to them are easier to use and more powerful than in previous times. This is a trend that will continue. It does not mean that IT shops will be required to do less programming, as the big systems (from financial to specialized systems such as CIMMYT's wheat system [IWIS]) will always require specialized IT skills to develop and/or implement. But it does mean that scientists can do more manipulation/interpretation/projection with their own data, or with subsets of data extracted from larger systems. In addition, scientists know what is possible and, therefore, what to ask for in the way of functionality of the larger systems.At the support level, there are still many who use a computer as an expensive typewriter and who do not know how to use the office productivity tools effectively, although this too should change for the better over time.Issues about GMOs make CGIAR Centers more likely targets for attack than the average organization. Just as viruses are expected generally to increase in number and in complexity, we can also assume that attackers will increase in numbers and be more sophisticated in their endeavors. Therefore, some attention will be diverted away from productive work to defensive work in IT shops in all the Centers.Although the Web has been around for 15 years in some circles, and popularly for perhaps half that time, much of the world remains e-challenged.Even in developed countries, e-commerce is not as widely accepted as above-average users might expect. Recent surveys show that significant percentages of families remain unconnected and that as few as 2% actually use the Internet for e-commerce. Fear about security (use of credit cards, identity theft, etc.) is widespread and hard to overcome. Acceptance is, of course, much higher for companies, governments, and institutions. Business-tobusiness usage is much higher than personal usage.Business is moving, slowly but surely, to using Web-based applications in place of client/server (LAN, Local Area Network) or stand-alone systems. This trend should accelerate, unless great security shocks hit.Scientists know much more than many other users about the potential of the Web and the information and information tools available on the Internet. The challenge is to better access this goldmine of resources, and to improve the integration of systems at the level of the Web. This will be the driving force in all major software development in the next few years, from operating systems functionality to application development. CIMMYT's IT unit sees Web-based applications as the wave of the future for its systems, but it will be a number of years before the goal is reached.Standardization in the computer field (e.g., hardware, software, data exchange formats) is important to success in continued automation of research activities and the exchange of information, but it is not in itself essential. But standardization remains an elusive goal. Standards organizations (especially the ISO, International Organization for Standardization) are seen today as being too slow to implement global/system-wide standards, and de facto industry standards are more the norm. Often a new standard is another approach, so that the gap between goals and reality will remain for some time to come.C H A P T E R 9E-challenged areas, including low bandwidth and e-mail support for Web-based systems, will remain in some cases for some time, so global systems must continue to be developed with this in mind.Many areas of the world are still e-challenged, either for lack of an appropriate infrastructure, or regulatory constraints and monopolistic service provision, or both.While the WTO rules will, in time, address the latter issue, it will be a very slow process, with signatory countries continuing to use restrictive practices.On the other hand, new technologies, such as voice and video over the Internet, demand enormous increases in bandwidth, which can be difficult to support. Voice will definitely move rapidly to the Internet, and some phone companies in developed countries are already routing some or all of their long distance services this way (unbeknownst to the users). The Internet has the ability to allow a complete bypassing of the phone companies in the future.Video over the Internet or the phone (video conferencing) remains an expensive option to implement in-house, and is still not available in many parts of the world. It will take longer to come, and it is impossible to predict how widespread its usage will be, or when.Although it will prove difficult for the CGIAR to advance to more shared and harmonized systems, IT managers are committed to moving in that direction. The most successful efforts to date have been at the infrastructure level, where the focus has been, and will remain initially, in the area of administrative systems and other aspects of infrastructure support. It is anticipated that progress on the scientific system side will be slower.More shakeups in the IT industry are anticipated (such as changing standards, consolidation of key companies, and shifting of software development activities from the expensive developed countries to newly-industrialized countries). More consolidation will result in lack of competition in the short run. This trend may well lead to more political and practical support for more open-source solutions.According to Michael Tiemann, Chief Technical Officer, Red Hat: \"The industry right now is clearly out of balance. Many people would argue now that there is an oversupply of technology and an undersupply of quality. There's undersupply of competition, there's oversupply of incompatibility\" (C|Net: http://news.com.com/1200-1070-975281.html).At this time, the transfer rate of data using wireless technology is still relatively slow. These transfer rates will increase, but so will the rates on LANs; wireless will always lag. The reception range will never be large (perhaps a hundred meters) but it will increase in popularity and usefulness, allowing business travelers to hook up easily to the Internet wherever they are, to connect to corporate systems when in meeting rooms, and so on.It is probably too early to see how the technology related to instant messaging will develop, but clearly this area will also grow and no doubt change. Standardization is critical here, so it is bound to improve.Open-source development of software (software developed by numerous persons online, with an open license that makes the software available and free) is probably over the acceptance hurdle, especially in the academic environment, though it remains taboo to the great majority of the business world. But even here there are interesting exceptions, such as IBM. The mainframe computer is far from dead, and IBM is having considerable success selling its latest models. On the other hand, there is considerable interest in grid computing, where operating systems and programming approaches are being adopted to allow very large numbers of microcomputers and servers to work together to solve a single but complex problem. Work continues in many other fields that are not new, and have not always shown promise, such as artificial intelligence. But most of these fields are of little consequence to smaller organizations.Information is key to research-having access to it to develop the research, being able to store it, interrogating it in the future for further research, and disseminating it.The reliance on IT systems will only increase, as CIMMYT tries to involve more players in its research and as it needs to integrate systems from more diverse sources.The key to success is to bridge the gap over the Web, finding ways to integrate external data sources with our own data kept on CIMMYT servers, and in turn make this available on the Internet.CIMMYT will need to continue to increase bandwidth to support greater exchange of all forms of data, principally over the Web. It must also keep in lock-step with others. Over time, CIMMYT must be able to support more demanding types of information exchange in real time (e.g., voice, video). CIMMYT will also need more integrated systems making as much relevant information as possible available to the user in a single location, single system, or single portal. Finally, CIMMYT must move to Web-based systems, away from LAN-based systems, but with continued support for e-challenged partners and users.The demands on IT will not decrease, and CIMMYT must remain committed to making maximum use of IT in support of its research and administration.","tokenCount":"16368"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"96034cdbc5a31849e2d05785472550cd","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5cd834c2-14b5-4dd1-bf4e-b0ace0d456e6/retrieve","id":"-503735394"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"5b9be5b3-8804-4629-a438-32b7abe1c279","pagecount":"36","content":"PROGRAMA -205pm Introducción 05 -2 15pm Estado actual de las SO de investigación Implementadas en ORACLE Objetivo, contenido, audiencia potencial, grupo de trabajo de cada BD Software ORACLE disponible en CIAT Costos ( para malnframe y micras) -225pm Uso actual de las SO Usuanos Internos M C AmézqUlta M C AmezqUlta Usuanos externos (Instlt l\\Jals Caso RIEPT y FriJol) Capacltaclon ofrecida por la USO a usuanos Uso de recursos del malnframe F ROjas 25 -2 35pm Planes a corto y mediano plazo Aplicaciones adicionales Nuevas areas que pueden beneficiarse Perspectivas con el hardware IBM 4361 Redes LAN con ORACLE Dlstnbuclon internacional de las BO vla redes WAN Caso BITNET 35 -2 45pm DIscusión 45 -3 OOpm Consultas interactivas a las SO Ejemplos 3 00 -3 30pm DIscusión y sugerencias.  ----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+  -----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----  2 EXiste actualmente sobrecarga en la tasa de pagmaclon del sistema (uso de la memona) y uso de la CPU -18 pag/seg vs 12 pag/seg (recomendado) -852% de CPU promedlo/dla 3 El mcremento esperado en el numero de usuanos ORACLE Impondra una demanda adicional de recursos del eqUipo = = > degradaclon del tiempo de respuesta al usuario La USD ya esta tomando medidas concretas para aliviar la carga del equipo y se continuara el momtoreo de su comportamiento 1 Nuevas aplicaciones en los Programas actuales a) BD Pastos Tropicales Completar Re-diseñar en ORACLE lo eXJstente en IDMS/R, con reVISlon cUidadosa del Programa -segUimiento de proyectos de Investlgaclon (700 proyectos entre 1978 y 1991) -proyecto C O R E -precIos de productos e Insumos ganaderos en RIEPT -banco de hongos y bactenas -banco de cepas de Rhlzoblum -proyectos sobre evaluaclon de germoplasma (1978)(1979)(1980)(1981)(1982)(1983)(1984)(1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991) -Inventarios y proyectos en producclon de semillas ","tokenCount":"281"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1db09eef90d0c2138d76e7af1507e9aa","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/dc6c00b0-5705-4bef-8bbc-e2f836794c1c/retrieve","id":"1792450019"},"keywords":["Geographic scope:","National Country(ies):","Ghana Comments: <Not Defined>"],"sieverID":"31733a12-7337-431b-a2ce-2643f2171f7f","pagecount":"2","content":"Predicting adoption of sustainable intensification practices (Ghana) Commissioning Study: IITA Part II: CGIAR system level reporting Links to the Strategic Results Framework: Sub-IDOs: • Agricultural systems diversified and intensified in ways that protect soils and water Is this OICR linked to some SRF 2022/2030 target?: No Description of activity / study: Predicting adoption of sustainable intensification practices in northern Ghana: Findings suggest that farrmers are truly interested in sustainable intensification (SI).Development actions are more likely to succeed, if they consider preference heterogeneities among farmers and adapt to local conditions. Researchers proposed an evaluation criterion for designing and testing (a mix of) sustainable maize production technologies, to guide national and regional level efforts for R4D and scaling prioritization.One example of SI innovation are maize-legume strip cropping systems, which can mitigate production risk. Such cropping resulted in better grain yield productivity, income, and income risk reduction (on average 75%) than that of the sole cropping; and saved 90-100% (on average) of agricultural land for other agricultural activities. Another study offers different findings regarding grain yield, but showed that maize leaf stripping had more positive than negative interactions with farm system performance (e.g. forage protein yield, sheep liveweight).","tokenCount":"195"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"48c7a35b64481d3c2d2917e028d77de2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e4f13e9e-7b48-4989-a98d-ca3ddc9bbb31/retrieve","id":"-496435457"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"bac6be84-1b06-4642-81a7-63e36d58bb1a","pagecount":"292","content":"This publication has no copyright. NAPC and IIRR encourage use, translation, adaptation and copying of materials.However, acknowledgements and citation will be highly appreciated.Small-scale Household Food Production This compendium of best practices brings together practical ecologically sound and nutrition-sensitive approaches to improving the productivity of backyard, community and family farms. With the increasing awareness of the importance of safe and healthy diets, there is a resurgence of interest in these complementary pathways to household level food security Many of these ideas are not scale neutral and therefore best done on small scale systems. The opportunities for diversification and intensification are often greater in these backyard and family centered systems. Most of these small scale production systems can quickly be transformed to chemical-free systems of production. This compendium has four main sections: the first section is an Overview chapter which provides a conceptual understanding of the value of agro ecological approaches. It has articles on climate smart agriculture approaches which IIRR has been promoting as part of its engagement with the global CCAFS network and the Philippine Department of Agriculture AMIA 2 Program. The second section is on Intensive Organic Gardening. This section includes the very best of the articles that IIRR has produced in its Bio Intensive Gardening program which it has adapted and refined over three decades and now being promoted nationally through the Department of Education of the Philippine government. The IDRC Canada (and earlier, UNICEF) has been a big supporter of this approach. The bio-intensive gardening program includes a tree component that helps create a micro climate in gardens that lowers the ambient temperatures by 2-3 degrees. Its emphasis on diversity helps turn these gardens into focal points for conserving vegetable diversity. Ways to enhance the nutrition contributions of gardens receive special consideration. This section on organic gardening is comprehensive and, can serve as the basis for designing a training program and field level interventions. The third section is on Family Farming. Here IIRR has relied on its own experiences as well that of other agencies (UPLB, Phil Rice, MBRLC, PRRM, World Neighbors and others) which have contributed articles to previous source books. Crop production is emphasized mostly those relying on regenerative agriculture approaches. Special efforts were made to include climate-smart agriculture ideas (agroforestry, conservation agriculture, mitigation opportunities in agriculture etc). Diversification and sustainable diversification characterizes the approach to family farming. The fourth section is on Small Livestock and Fish Production. Small scale livestock and fish production systems are highlighted in this section. The concern about hormones and antibiotic use in meat production is surfacing as a major health concern. Rural communities can meet their own needs (or even supply local markets) with animals produced in backyards and small farms. Alternative (improved) feeding systems are highlighted in this section (e.g. pig rations formulated from locally secured products). Low cost housing can help reduce the impacts of rising temperatures on livestock and along with small fish production systems, can contribute to enhancing protein requirements of families. Organic meat creates special niche market opportunities for the small producer. This compendium highlights ways of producing food with a small carbon foot print. Diverse systems of food production are environmentally sound and as long as climate change remains a threat, there will be a role for these systems. Moreover, as long as a third of the population (in developing countries) remains poor, and malnourishment prevails, there will be a special role for community level food production. This compendium features one hundred simple ideas each of which, in a small way, can contribute to climate-smart and nutrition-smart ways of producing food.A Compendium of Climate-resilient Agriculture Options Overview F armers need to respond to change including climate. Adapting to climate change requires adjusting agriculture practices to meet changing and more difficult environmental conditions. Traditional and newly introduced practices can help farmers cope with both current climate variability and future climate scenarios.Agriculture and climate change are closely linked. While agriculture is part of the climate change problem, it is also part of the solution offering many opportunities for mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.The agriculture sector is expected to suffer the most from the serious impacts of climate change. Food security, nutrition and livelihoods will be greatly affected if we don't act soon.To help ensure lasting results, it is not enough to limit our work to addressing the impact of climate change on agriculture. We also need to address the problems of poverty and reduce climate vulnerabilities through the use of multiple benefit approaches (e.g. diversified farms, alternative livelihoods, and micro enterprises).CSA can be simply understood as environment friendly and sustainable agriculture that takes climate variability and climate change factors into consideration.Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) is one way to achieve short and long term agriculture development priorities in the face of climate change. It anchors on three pillars: food security through agricultural productivity, adaptation by managing climate variability, and mitigation by reducing GHG emissions from agricultural activities.Upland ecosystems are often the interface between forests and lowlands. CSA options for these areas include agro-forestry, small livestock systems, water harvesting, diversified mini fruit tree orchards and livestock systems based primarily on farm grown feeds.Coastal ecosystems and low-lying farms are prone to flooding and sea water intrusion which affects crop production. Mangroves serve as barriers (bioshield) during periods of storm surges. Coastal agriculture is a good CSA option: more fruit trees, timber, livestock and fodder trees which not only serve to protect homes but also help diversify the livelihoods of fishers.Lowland rice ecosystems rely heavily on external inputs. Rice, in this system, is grown in continuously flooded field, which contribute to GHG emission. Opportunities for CSA interventions can be demonstrated through:System of Rice Intensification (SRI) Alternative Wetting and Drying (AWD) Use of short duration and/or drought tolerant varieties Post-Rice Legume Systems Small Water Impounding Diversification to livestock, agroforestry root, tuber crops and fish can help reduce risks from crop failure and enhance nutrient recycling opportunities.CSA is usually best undertaken across landscapes because ecosystems are interconnected with each other. For instance, by conserving and improving forest and water resources, nutrient flow to farms on lower slopes are likewise enhanced.Ultimately, for CSA to be sustained and outscaled, it has to consider a value chain perspective and the market opportunities.Farmers need to secure their food supply, as well as their livelihoods, if we want them to be stewards of the environment.Climate change is expected to adversely affect lives, livelihoods, nutrition and food security in the future.However, if we start NOW, we can: do a lot to reduce the impacts of climate change; build resilience in our food systems; and reduce risks and vulnerabilities of farming communities.Scaling out CSA involves building adaptive models that provide practical guidance and serve as focal points for communities, organizations, and governments in the local level. CSA considerations should be included in the local government plans.Projects must demonstrate impact and uptake at scale. Living things need nitrogen (N) to manufacture proteins. Plant growth can be limited by a lack of nitrogen available from the soil. Too little nitrogen can also cause malnutrition in humans because many of the body's essential functions require nitrogen-containing molecules, such as proteins.The nitrogen cycle outlines the process in which nitrogen is converted into various forms and transported through the biosphere.The nitrogen gas which accounts for 78 percent of the volume of the earth's atmosphere is not usable by most plants and animals. Fortunately, the process of nitrogen fixation allows for the conversion of atmospheric nitrogen gas into forms useful to plants. This process is accomplished by soil bacteria; Rhizobium bacteria living in root nodules of leguminous plants such as beans, peas and ipil-ipil; blue-green algae such as azolla found in water and soil; lightning; and, industrial manufacture of fertilizers.Plants convert nitrates obtained from soil water into large, nitrogen-containing molecules necessary for life and good health. Animals get most of the nitrogen-containing molecules they need by eating plants or other animals that have eaten plants. When plants and animals die, decomposers break down the nitrogen-containing molecules into ammonia gas and other compounds. Other specialized bacteria convert these into soil nitrates and nitrogen gas which is released to the atmosphere to begin the cycle again. Humans intervene in the nitrogen cycle in several important ways: Large quantities of Nitrous oxide (NO) and Nitrous dioxide (NO2) are added to the atmosphere when fossil fuels are burned in power plants and vehicles. These nitrogen compounds react with other chemicals in the atmosphere to form smog and acid rain, endangering the health of humans.Nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas are converted by an industrial process into ammonia gas and then ammonia compounds used as inorganic fertilizers. Mineral deposits of compounds containing nitrates are mined and used as inorganic fertilizers.Excess nitrates from different sources (e.g., runoff of animal wastes from livestock feedlots, runoff of inorganic fertilizers from croplands and discharge of treated and untreated sewage) enter aquatic ecosystems, causing rapid growth of algae, depleting the water of dissolved oxygen gas and causing fish kills. This is known as cultural eutrophication, a process that speeds up the natural ageing of lakes.Source: Basic Concepts in Agriculture and Natural Resources: A Technology Information KitCarbon and oxygen are two of the most important elements needed by all living organisms. The cycling of carbon and oxygen is closely tied with energy flows in the ecosystem.Through the process of photosynthesis, green plants convert carbon from the air (in the form of carbon dioxide) into plant tissue (carbohydrates).In the process of respiration, oxygen is absorbed by living organisms from the environment and is utilized by living cells as an oxidizing agent. Carbohydrates are broken down to carbon dioxide and water and released again to the atmosphere.In nature, the processes of photosynthesis and respiration balance each other. For a long period of time, the concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere remained at 21 percent while the concentration of carbon dioxide stabilized at 0.03 percent. Present human activities release increasingly more amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and the balance between these two gases is upset. Burning of fossil fuels in automobiles, power plants and industry has resulted in the release of large quantities of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide into the atmosphere.Large quantities of carbon dioxide are also released when agricultural residues are burned.The forest is an important carbon sink. Forest conversion means removal of a large volume of vegetation that can absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release oxygen through the process of photosynthesis. Burning of forests directly releases carbon into the atmosphere. This increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may cause global climate change with potentially great repercussions for all living organisms, especially humans.Source: Basic Concepts in Agriculture and Natural Resources: A Technology Information Kit. September 1992.Pesticides: Environmental and Health Effects P esticides are any substance or mixture of substances used to prevent, destroy, repel or mitigate insects, rodents, nematodes, fungi, weeds and/or other organisms perceived to be troublesome (pest). Its use continues to be an essential and growing component of modern crop technologies. Also, there are several pesticides that are being used at the household level to repel or kill rats, mosquitoes and cockroaches.However, pesticides pose health and environmental hazards, as has been documented. Worldwide statistics showed that there is a conservative estimate of two million cases of pesticide poisoning last year wherein four percent of this led to death. The problem of underreporting is noticeable because of the lack of knowledge and awareness on signs and symptoms of pesticide poisoning.Unsafe, indiscriminate and irrational use of pesticides constitute the following: regular use of pesticides even when unnecessary; not wearing the appropriate protective clothing; improper storage, preparation, application and disposal of pesticides and used clothings; and, use of pesticides in cocktail or mixtures.The effects of the indiscriminate use of pesticides can lead to ecological disruption. Among the effects are as follows: contamination of ground and surface waters; thus, killing aquatic lifeforms through runoff and seepage (environmental contamination); transmittal of pesticide residues through the food chain to the farm family and urban consumers (biological magnification); increase in the resistance of pest population to pesticides (resistance development); thereby, reducing efficacy and causing pest outbreak (pest succession); reduction in the population of beneficial insects (butterflies, spiders), parasites (earthworms) and predators; and, reduction in the population of microorganisms in the paddy soil and water that help sustain soil fertility while lowering chemical fertilizer use.The effects of irrational and unsafe use of pesticides on health can lead to any of the following: acute poisoning (may occur from single exposure to the pesticide) which is manifested by skin and eye irritation, manifested as cough, colds and shortness of breath), respiratory tract irritation, systemic poisoning and, in some cases, death; and, Source: Basic Concepts in Agriculture and Natural Resources: A Technology Information Kit chronic poisoning (results from months or years of continual exposure to pesticides) which can lead to nervous disorders (paralysis, numbness extremities, loss of consciousness), neurobehavioral effects (mental deterioration), anemia, sterility, birth defects and effects on the unborn(manifested as abortions, stillbirths). Chronic poisoning is also suspected to cause cancer of the lungs, brain, blood, digestive system and liver, as well as decreased body's immune system or defenses.Because of the noted environmental and health effects of pesticides, there are several of them that have already been banned from the market. Among these are the famous DIRTY DOZEN which include Parathion, 2,4,5-T, Paraquat, DDT, Aldrin/ Dieldrin/Endrin, Chlordimeform, Dibromochloropropane (DBCP), Chlordane/Heptachlor, HCH/Lindane, Ethylene dibromide, Cam phechlor and Pentachlorophenyl (PCP). Organotins (Brestan and Aquatin) were also banned from the market recently.F ood is a basic human need. However, through carelessness and ignorance, food can also be a source of contamination which can cause diseases or, sometimes, death.Advancements in science have improved the levels of food safety. Food preservation, causes of spoilage and reasons why food can cause illness were learned from studies.The objectives of food safety practices are: to insure primarily the consumption of safe and wholesome food; to protect humans from illness and to promote their health and well-being; to prevent consumers from buying inferior and low-quality food; and, to cut down spoilage and wastage of food.Procure food and food materials only from approved sources to prevent food infection or food intoxication (e.g., markets, supermarkets, groceries, bakeries and stores; meat, poultry, grain, egg, fish and shellfish shops; and, dairy products, fruits, vegetables and rootcrop stalls) Avoid buying food that show signs of deterioration, adulteration or damages, even when sold at bargain prices. Canned goods with leaks, swells and bulges can be poisonous. Buying junk food is discouraged. Junk food may have less nutritional value and may be inferior in quality. Never buy shellfish when your area is affected by Red Tide. Get the latest news updates from your local radio station, newspaper or other reliable sources of information. Avoid buying food from ambulant food vendors, particularly those that are not wearing their Health Certificate IDs. Food from these vendors are not guaranteed safe. Patronize only food establishments bearing the SSRS (Sanitation Standard Rating Stickers). You can be sure that food establishments bearing the SSRS are operating legally, are frequently inspected by health authorities and have complied to minimum sanitary requirements on health and sanitation With SSRS, the potential risk of transmitting communicable disease is minimized. The SSRS are usually posted at the doors of food establishments with the following color codes: green for an excellent rating (90%-100%), yellow for very satisfactory (70%-89%) and red for satisfactory (50%-69%). Use your senses when buying food. Consult and/or report to the proper authorities when you are in doubt of the food quality. Remember, it is your money and health that is at stake. Avoid eating raw food. Adequate cooking of food (beef, pork, shellfish, fish, shrimps, squids, poultry, vegetables, etc.) will prevent bacterial infection and intoxication, viral infection and parasitic infestation. Pasteurization of milk and milk products is required before consumption.Re-heating, warmedover food and serving leftover food are discouraged. Prepare food enough for your consumption.Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water and, if possible, with a nail brush before preparing food, after each visit to the toilet and after handling soiled or contaminated equipment and utensils.Always observe personal hygiene and personal habits while handling food. Do not scratch your head, pick your nose or wipe your mouth with your fingers while preparing food. Sneezing or coughing is not only a bad manner but also unsanitary.Do not be involved in food preparation if you have diarrhea, dripping nose, sore throats, colds, skin diseases, infected wounds, boils, cuts or pimples. Human discharge can contaminate food and can produce toxins.Separate food and non-food items Food cabinetApply the principle of FIFO (First In -First Out) in storing food.Food should be stored away from floors and walls. Place them in pallets, platforms, shelves or food cabinets.Protect food from insect and rodent infestation and from other contaminants.Store food in refrigerators, if available. All food should be stored at proper temperatures.Environmental-Friendly Aquaculture Conduct a thorough, honest socioeconomic and ecological impact assessment before proceeding with the implementation. Ask who benefits or profits and who loses in terms of jobs and income; how much land, energy, water, labor and other resources are diverted from other uses; how the wastes will affect the surrounding community. Practice and promote proper pond/cage/tank preparation and management. Keep buffer strips of mangroves or other trees around the ponds to minimize erosion. Minimize pond tillage that exposes acid soils. If feeds are necessary, use the appropriate kind and amount.Oppose the clearing of mangrove forests, wetlands and other virgin areas for new ponds. Replant mangroves or other trees along the dikes of ponds.Oppose stream modification and massive ground water extraction for aquaculture. They can lead to flooding, land subsidence (sinking) and reduced water supply. Keep freshwater fishponds weed-free and well-stocked to control mosquitoes. Be aware of the water-borne diseasesPolyculture (milkfish with shrimp, crab with seabass), rather than single-species culture present in the locality and assess whether ponds significantly add to the risks of contraction by farm workers, fish handlers and consumers. Seek professional advice from public health workers. Support the ban of the production, sale and use of antibiotics, hormones and pesticides in food production. Clean (properly treat) the waste water from aquaculture facilities to prevent adverse effects on other water users. In shrimp farms, set aside some filter ponds stocked with filterfeeding mussels and nutrient-consuming seaweeds. Route the waste water (with the excess feeds and other wastes) through the filter pond before disposal into coastal waters. Since antibiotics, pesticides and hormones cannot be removed from waste waters, do not use these chemicals.Source: Basic Concepts in Agriculture and Natural Resources: A Technology Information Kit Philippine Marine FisheriesAs in other parts of the world, the major fisheries in the Philippines are concentrated in waters overlying the continental shelf (shallow underwater extension of a continent; usually limited in depth to 200m). This is because inshore waters have a much higher primary productivity than deep open-ocean waters and, therefore, support larger populations of marine organisms at all trophic levels. Of the total landed fish in the country (approximately 2m tons in 1987), 25 percent come from coral reefs (27,000km 2 -total area nationwide) alone. It is estimated that a coral reef in a good condition can annually yield as much as 30m tons of fish per km 2 . Aside from fish, a majority of benthic (bottom-dwelling) marine invertebrates are harvested from coral reef and adjacent seagrass areas. A wide range of fishing gears are used to harvest the diverse marine resources in these productive and diverse ecosystems.Source: Basic Concepts in Agriculture and Natural Resources: A Technology Information Kit. September 14 -19, 1992There has to be a limit to the harvesting of natural populations. A significant fraction of the populations must be left as breeding stocks to replenish the population. Subsequently, juveniles must be allowed to grow to reproductive maturity. Otherwise, natural populations will progressively diminish and may become extinct.There are clear signs that many of the Philippines' fishery resources are already overexploited. The average size of fish and invertebrates caught by fishermen has declined. Likewise, there is an increase in the fishing effort needed to catch the same amount of fish. The pressure of increased demand for food and poverty due to the rapidly increasing human population promotes the overexploitation of marine resources. Moreover, the degradation of marine habitats due to destructive fishing methods (e.g., blast and cyanide fishing) and sedimentation, particularly in nearshore waters, has accelerated the decline of marine fisheries. Appropriate management measures that will allow our overexploited marine populations and degraded habitats to recover need to be urgently implemented.H ousehold gardens should include vegetables that are rich in protein, carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins.Cajanus cajan (pigeon pea), pods Colocasia esculenta (taro), tuber Dolichos lablab (hyacinth bean), dried beans Ipomoea batatas (sweet potato), tuber Manihot esculenta (cassava), tuber Pachyrrhizus erosus (yam bean), tuber Phaseolus aureus (mung bean), pods Phaseolus calcaratus (rice bean), pods Phaseolus lunatus (lima bean), podsVitamin A Sources The Food Chain, Food Web and Food PyramidAll lives exist in an ecological system. Organisms are interrelated by many things. One important relationship among plants and animals is the concept of food chain. Transfer of food energy in which one type of organism consumes another is referred to as the food chain.Plants receive energy from the sun and convert it into chemical energy through the process of photosynthesis. Similarly, plants get food from the soil. In both cases of energy transfer from the sun and the soil to the plant, some energy is lost as heat and cannot be used to make the living matter of the plant.Similarly, when plants are eaten by animals, some energy is lost in the transfer of energy from the plants to the animals.Typically, only about 10 percent of the energy is effectively transferred at each link of the food chain. This process can be represented by what is known as the food pyramid.All organisms that share the same general types of food in a chain are said to be at the same atrophic level. Thus, green plants (producers) occupy the first trophic level, herbivores (primary consumers) occupy the second trophic level, carnivores (secondary consumers) which eat the herbivores occupy the third trophic level and top or secondary carnivores (tertiary consumers)-those that eat other carnivoresoccupy the fourth trophic level. The classification of species into trophic levels is based on the function, rather than the species itself. Humans are considered to be omnivores, eating plants, therefore, functioning as a herbivore; and, eating animals, therefore, functioning as a carnivore.Food chains are not isolated sequences but are interconnected with one another. The complex series or network of many interconnected food chains is called a food web. Food webs are an important factor for understanding the importance of maintaining plant and animal diversity in order to protect the interlocking nature of food chains and food webs. As plant and animal species are lost, breaks can occur in the food chain and food web.The most obvious form of species interaction in food chains and webs is predation. An individual organism of one species, known as the predator, captures and feeds on parts or all of an organism of another species, the prey. Humans act as predators whenever we eat any plant or animal food.An important principle affecting the ultimate population size of an omnivorous species, such as humans, emerges from a consideration of the loss of available energy at successively higher trophic levels in food chains and webs. The shorter the food chain, the less the loss of usable energy. This means that a larger population of humans can be supported if people shorten the food chain by eating grains directly (for example, 1 ha rice = 10 people) rather than eating animals that feed on the grains (grain-cattle-human).Source: Basic Concepts in Agriculture and Natural Resources: A Technology Information Kit. September 1992.A Compendium of Climate-resilient Agriculture OptionsDefinitions of HomegardenHomegarden is an area of land, individual wined, surrounding a house and usually planted with a mixture of perennials and annuals. (TERRA, 1954)2. A plot of land that has a residence on it, fixed boundaries and a functional relationship with its occupants. (Second Homegarden, Seminar Indonesia, 1978)3. A subsystem within larger food procurement systems which aims to produce household consumption items, either not obtainable through permanent shifting agriculture, hunting, gathering, fishing, livestock, husbandry or wage earners.(Anonymous) 4. A garden is defined as a supplementary food production system that is under the management and control of household members. A household garden can be consumption or market-oriented, but at least some of the produce will be consumed by the household. As a supplementary production system, the household garden is secondary to both the primary source of household food, whether from field production or purchase and to household income, whether from sales of field produce, wage labor or other sources. (Soleri, D., Cleveland, D. A. and Frankenberger, T. R., 1991) Rural people in many parts of the world have always used their house-yard space to grow food, but modern agriculturists have generally not recognized this. Degradation of the agricultural and natural resource base requires the use of intensive small-scale biological approaches to vegetable production.Garden produce is usually raised with the use of ash, compost, waste water and mulch. This provides an opportunity to recycle household waste and maintain sanitation.Pesticide residues on vegetables have reached alarming proportions. Growing ones own is one way of ensuring pesticide-free and safe vegetables. Food grown around homes and without the use of external inputs is usually consumed by the family Fresh and higher quality vegetables with better nutritional values are harvested.Characteristics of the Bio-intensive Approach to Small-scale Household Food Production T he bio-intensive approach to small-scale household level food production differs considerably from the conventional gardening systems because of its stress on deep bed preparation, nutrient recycling, building up of the soil's biological base, diversified cropping, use of indigenous cultivars or locally adapted varieties and its emphasis on a balanced and integrated ecosystem. Here are some of the characteristics the approach as developed and/or promoted by the author.The bio-intensive approach, as the name suggests, is a biological (as opposed to chemical) form of agriculture in which a small area of land is intensively cultivated, using nature's own ingredients to rebuild and then maintain the soil's productivity. At the heart of the approach is the effort to improve the soils capability to nurture and sustain plant life. What bio-intensive gardener tries to do on his/her small plot is to simulate/replicate a natural forest the constant recycling of nutrients and maintenance of soil, moisture and microbial conditions. Many countries of the world (and China is particularly notable) have farmed biologically for thousands of years and have been able to sustain output levels over these years. In sharp contrast, the \"efficient\" but short-sighted approaches being used in many Western and third world countries have often been disruptive of the natural resource base. Farmers in many parts of the world experiencing that they are having to use steadily increasing quantities of fertilizers and pesticides to sustain previous yield levels.In the bio-intensive approach being recommended here for smallscale plots, the soil is gradually improved and the composition of beneficial microbial life actually improves from season to season. The soil structure and humus content also greatly benefits. The nutrient content of the soil is built up after each crop rather than being depleted. A healthy soil means a healthy stand of plants, and that means fewer insects and less disease. In the bio-intensve approach, yields continue to rise for the first few years and then tend to stabilize (at an overall higher yield). Such systems and the outputs (i.e., yields) are easily sustained at that level for many years with unchanging or even reduced levels of material and labor inputs.Every bio-intensive gardener attempts maximize the use of plant and animal residues and wastes. In an attempt to return to the much of what come out from it, material recycled back to the soil. Typically, such material is transported away from the site where it came from in the first place and/or dumped in the garbage or burned. Organic matter must be returned to the soil that helped build it.A bio-intensive gardener usually composts such plant and animal wastes before returning it to the soil. In addition, other materials also produced at the soil's \"cost\" are added, such as ash, bone meal, etc. This replenishes the soil with what was taken from it. Soil requires food just as humans and animals do. Once again, the example of a natural forest and how it regenerates itself through continuous recycling (dead trees, fallen leaves decompose on the forest floor with help from forest animals and microbial life) is helpful in understanding the need for recycling nutrients in the backyard garden.Today, soils in conventional farming are being literally mined with little or no recycling of organic matter. In the past, various approaches to permit regeneration such as leaving lands to fallow or the abandonment of swidden plots (slash and burn) for periods of 3-10 years were used to permit the regeneration of plant and animal life and rebuild the organic matter status. In other parts of the world (in recent years particularly in India), available chemical inputs were combined with animal manure which served to partially return the organic matter to the soil. In the bio-intensive approach, organic matter is returned to the soils in the form of compost after each crop.The cultivation of a range of crops (each of different rooting lengths) tends to retain organic residues in the soil at different depths (when plants are pulled out, rootlets and root hairs invariably remain in the soil). Organic matter builds and sustains soil life. No amount of chemicals can do that job. Such organic manure helps \"break up\" sticky and hardened clays and hold together separate soil particles of sandy soil. Organic matter acts like a sponge that soaks up moisture and retains it for future plant use at a level in the soil where it is readily accessible to the plant.The organic matter can contribute to the build-up of the soil's population of earthworms, which in turn improves the aeration and nutrient status of the soil. John Jeavons of Ecology Action indicates that earthworm castings are five times richer in nitrogen, seven times richer in phosphorus and 11 times richer in potassium than the soil they inhabit. When you consider that earthworms produce twice their weight in castings every day, that's a lot of nutrients added to the soil! The cultivation of a range of different crops having different rooting depot serves to tap different layers of the soil profile thus, reducing soil exhaustion. In fact, different crops require different quantities of soil nutrients, e.g., leafy crops are heavy on nitrogen, root crops are heavy on phosphorus, fruit crops are heavy on potash and legumes in fact add nitrogen. Hence, crop rotation helps build a sustainable and stable soil.As mentioned earlier, the bio-intensive approach is characterized by a greatly reduced dependence on the expensive inputs that are generally used in conventional food production approaches. Many of these non-renewable inputs, such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides, are produced at high energy costs (usually petroleumbased). Instead of such energy-intensive chemicals inputs, plants and animal wastes and natural mineral substitutes are used. In the methods being advocated here, the inputs required are bones, wood ash, eggshells, mudpress (by-product of sugar mills) or compost, ipil-ipil (Leucaena) leaf meal or fish meal (only in places where they are readily available). Liquid manures or manure teas (fresh manure fermented in water) are used as \"top-dressing\" every 2-3 weeks during the first two months of a plant's life.Locally available seed material is advocated rather than the purchase of hybrids and other 100% imported substitutes. Experience suggests that it is feasible to achieve a 100% selfreliance in recurring input needs. Other than hand tools, all material inputs are usually available locally or are within easy access. This reduces significantly or eliminates the need for cash outlays. It also provides and produces a sense of being able to control the required production resources. Finally, by emphasizing the use of local and biological resources rather than energyintensive fossil-fuel based chemical imports, a small step is being made in the direction of conserving the world's non-renewable resources.Given the use of bio-intensive techniques, between 60-150 sq m of land area (depending on how much land is available) is all that is needed to meet the vegetable needs of a family. This makes the approach highly relevant to areas where there is a high population pressure on land resources or if people are landless. Landless people often have access to at least some backyard space. Also, organizations can often arrange for small community lots where each family can be allocated 60-90 sq m of intensive gardening.In many parts of the world, particularly in the continent of Africa, while land might not be a limiting factor, other inputs such as water and fertilizers are usually severely restricted. Since biointensive gardens almost always produce higher yields per unit area compared to conventional approaches, such intensive plots may be relevant even in areas where land per se is not limiting. The bio-intensive plot is intensively used throughout the year. Plant spacings (i.e., very close) are such that, when plants are fully grown, their leaves barely overlap. Maximum use of space is achieved through companion cropping, succession cropping and multistoried cropping.The bio-intensive approach is labor-intensive initially and, therefore, is best suited to small-scale, family-centered food production. It is also particularly relevant to the poorest section of society who generally lack the capital but often have underutilized family labor potential. Typically, each of the two beds (30 sq m each) recommended for a family takes 4-8 hours to prepare if the double digging option is chosen. If the other options to prepare raised beds are used, 50% less time is required. However, if the double digging option is chosen (in humid tropics such as the Philippines), a single one-time bed preparation is all that is required. No subsequent digging will be necessary (assuming the beds are always covered with some plants and/or mulch). Whatever the option, the amount of labor required declines from season to season.The bio-intensive approach described in this kit uses significantly less water than conventional garden plots. The method of deep bed preparation and the fact that the soil in the bed remains loose (only the soil in the path between beds is subject to compaction) permits the absorption of most of the water which is applied or falls (in case of natural rainfall) on the bed itself. Once in the soil, the judicious quantity of compost which was added to the soil serves to retain moisture within the rooting zone. The closer spacing of plants recommended in the bio-intensive approach reduces the evaporation of water from the soil surface as a result of the sun's action on the soil. Mulching (a layer of grass or straw applied onto the soil and between plants) serves to keep the moisture loss to the minimum. The close spacing of plants reduces further the loss of moisture as a result of the wind's action on the soil and plants.The bio-intensive approach, as developed by the author, puts strong emphasis on the use of indigenous vegetable varieties. Ideally, a homegarden should, aim at 100% dependency on, such selected traditional seed varieties. The strategy which emphasizes indigenous cultivars not only provides a significant insurance against pests due to the diversity, inherent hardiness and pest tolerance (through years of evolution) but also serves to ensure that this valuable heritage of humankind is conserved for future generations. The best conservators and curators may not always be the seed banks but the farmers and gardeners themselves. Another aspect stressed by the author is the inclusion of indigenous plants which have insect.Repellant properties as well as applications in the preparation of home remedies for minor ailments. By encouraging the use of traditional medicinal plants with proven values, such plants (and knowledge) are \"conserved\" for future generations. Indigenous vegetable varieties are not readily available in stores; a bio-intensive gardener must attempt to retrieve such varieties. Remote and neglected provinces and villagers are good places to begin the search for these vanishing resources. Many indigenous varieties have special features which make them invaluable to the gardener (e.g., hairy stems and leaves which reduce insect problems, staggered ripening of produce, tolerance to partial shade, longer storage quality, etc.)In the bio-intensive approach, the soil and not the insects is considered the primary source of the pest problem. The wide diversity of vegetables within a single bed tends to reduce insect infestation. In addition, specific plants are raised because their odor helps repel insects from plants surrounding them. The use of indigenous and resistant varieties of vegetables also further reduces pest problems (the very fact that these indigenous varieties have been around for generations says something about their resistance to pests). Finally, various organic (usually botanical) formulations can be prepared at home for use on small patches of crops. These formulations are generally prepared from locally available material and have no adverse affects on the environment and pose no health hazard to the gardener or the consumer of the sprayed vegetables.Every year, hundreds of thousands of people are killed due to accidental poisoning by agricultural chemicals. However, what is equally concerning is the cumulative deposits of chemicals in the human body (chronic toxicity) which do not result in immediate deaths but may have long-term effects, the origins and causes of which are usually difficult to trace. The lack of \"controls\" in developing countries often account for the importation of banned chemicals or the use of chemicals without required safety precautions. Pesticide residues in vegetables in markets of the developing world are frighteningly high. Adequate documentation is already available to suggest that the health hazards at the family level, both in the developed and developing world, are serious. Bio-intensive gardeners may not be able to solve all the chemical hazard problems, but they can ensure that all their own vegetable harvests can be totally free from such hazards. Thus, the produce harvested from such a garden is worth far more than its market value in money.One of the most important reasons for raising one's own vegetables using organic methods is the high nutritional quality of the produce. The nutritional value of a vegetable is greatly affected by the condition of the soil. The carbohydrate, vitamin, protein and mineral content are linked to the soil's mineral and trace-element content. One needs a healthy soil in order to produce a healthy and nutrient-laden vegetable crop.The emphasis on techniques that do not involve costly inputs tends to provide a greater assurance that vegetables produced this way will be consumed (at the minimum, one knows that the vegetables are not being sold in order to recover the capital invested -no small concern of the poor). The emphasis on a diversity of vegetables improves the range of sources of food typically available. By growing a diverse selection of vegetables (as opposed to monocropping), the availability of nutrient-rich vegetables is spread more widely throughout the season. Also, since only small quantities of many different kinds of vegetables are being produced, the incentive to sell such produce is reduced (relative to the situation when only 1 or 2 crops are raised resulting in peak harvests of Quantities that at are far greater than the consumption needs of the family). Special emphasis is given to the nutritional aspect of vegetable gardening and preparation of produce with special emphasis on leafy vegetables (e.g., amaranth) and grain legumes (including winged bean) besides the crops more commonly grown. The emphasis on traditional varieties means that more than one plant part is usually edible (e.g., roots, leaves, flowers, pods, etc.). Certain plants are usually good contributors of energy (e.g., lima bean, pigeon pea, rice bean, hyacinth bean all consist of approximately 50% energy and 20% protein).The dependence on home-grown vegetables usually results in a significant saving of cash resources. This can be used for nonfood needs of the family. However, the bio-intensive approach can also be used as an income-generating project, through the production of vegetables for sale to nearby markets. Such ventures must be preceded by a well-designed educational campaign to ensure that at least a certain percentage of the harvest is utilized at home. The cultivation of a wide variety of crops tends to insulate cultivators against the risk of (i) devastation of monocrops by pests and (ii) risk of price slumps resulting from over-production of a particular crop. If the bio-intensive approach is to be used as an income-generation project, the number of beds needs to be increased from two (each 30 sq m) to at least ten or twelve. If these are prepared during the slack period (e.g., after harvest), the bed preparation can usually be accomplished over a period of time and with no cash outlay: family labor or through mutual help in a village community. Since small quantities of a large number of vegetables are raised, the producer can market them locally or/ and directly thus, ensuring higher cash returns.The use of readily available, natural resources and the total reliance on family labor in the bio-intensive approach reduce any financial risks to the family. The use of organic nutrient sources, the continuous improvement of and the growing of a highly diverse selection of vegetables (usually 8-10 in two beds) tend to reduce very significantly, pest problems. If pests do cause damage, only a portion of the crop is lost because of the diversity of crops grown (the risks of monocropping are eliminated here). If a complete shift can be brought about to the use of traditional varieties (those that have been around for generations), the pest problems and therefore, the risks are negligible.The bio-intensive approach suggests human beings must work with nature rather than attempt to dominate and control it. Renewable sources of energy are used in this system. Every attempt is made to maintain an environmental balance. The nonuse of increasing quantities of chemical-based inputs reduces the contamination of the environment with chemicals that tend to persist in the soil for many years after use (i.e., they are not biodegradable). The use of animal manures (in countries where they are not already being used, as in parts of the Philippines and Africa) can reduce environment sanitation problems and related health problems in rural areas. The bio-intensive approach at the homegarden level can set people thinking about the \"larger\" environmental issues. It can get people to question what they may hitherto have accepted as an inevitable consequence of modernization and development.Source: Gonsalves, J. F. Paper presented at the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Centre, Taiwan. VIP Gardening Workshop. April 25, 1985 Why are Bio-intensive Gardens climate and water smart? How can we make them more adaptive to climate change? How can we conserve genetic diversity of nutritional importance? Bio-intensive Garden (BIG) is an agro ecological approach to gardening which makes the best use of available natural resources and does not rely on any chemical inputs.A bio-intensive garden has a low carbon footprint because very few external resources are used. BIG relies on locally produced seeds, locally produced fertilizers and it does not use any chemical pesticides. Thus, the carbon footprints of food produced using this approach is small. Moreover, the food products are safe and free of pesticide residues.A deep dug bed is essential when there are frequent droughts or flooding (12 inches deep or more is essential if you want to trap water in the soil). A deep dug bed conserves rainwater and in times of floods, water is drawn down to the lower part of the soil, within reach of the plant roots.The beds are narrow making it possible to work from the sides to prevent compaction. This leaves the soil always loose. The slightest rain is absorbed and stored in the soil. BIG beds harvest rainwater better and store moisture longer.Deep dug beds with loose soil and lots of organic matter help to store water, encourage earthworms and beneficial bacteria. This is a LIVING soil and gets better every year (PROVIDED you don't let it dry up and compact again in summer).In summer when your gardens are generally not actively maintained, the entire garden should go into a cover crop of legumes (cowpea, rice bean, etc). This keeps the microbes alive and reduces weed growth and most important of all keeps the soil temperature low.The planting of trees around the periphery of the garden (Kakawate or Gliricidia sepium or Cassia siamea) is an absolutely essential element. Leaves of these nitrogen-fixing trees serve as source of green fertilizer. If trees are not planted on all four sides of the plot, then we don't get the advantage of the cooling effects of trees. If you don't have trees, the wind tends to dry the soil. Moreover, trees can serve as barriers against strong winds.Green-leaf manure trees are also grown between every two sets of plots to provide green-leaf fertilizer.The advantage of using green leaves as fertilizer is that it is a way of storing carbon in the soil. Unlike when one uses chemicals where we contribute to the greenhouse gases (trees absorb carbon).Another feature of BIG is that it uses mostly indigenous plant species. These are usually hardy and climate resilient. Climate resilient varieties are being lost because they are not popular amongst market-farmers. These indigenous heritage varieties are still around and passed down from one generation to another. They must be saved because they are hardy and tolerate long dry weather (eg., Patane or Lima bean; Batao or Hyacinth bean or Kadios or Pigeon pea).With rising temperatures we can expect more pests and diseases. That is a reality. This is the reason for increasing the intraspecies diversity to reduce risks from crop failure (eg., different kinds of sweet potato).... the interspecies diversity is also important. Diverse gardens ensure dietary diversity.Green or blue net tunnels help reduce temperature and protect the crop from rain and insects.In BIG we practice minimum tillage. After the first digging and especially in the drier months we avoid subsequent unecessary digging. The next crop is planted in the residue of the previous crop. This is a way of conserving soil moisture.Another way of conserving moisture and lowering soil temperatures is to place mulch on the top of the bed and in between plants within the bed.In a BIG, the plants do the digging themselves. When you practice crop rotation you take advantage of the fact that different crops have different rooting depths. So crops are always rotated and never planted in the same area in the same year. BIG is an excellent example of climate smart agriculture. Try it out and see for yourself. Enjoy nature and live a healthy lifestyle with chemical free, fibre dense and micro-nutrient rich foods. Enjoy dietary diversity by maintaining garden diversity.Source: IIRR & CCAFS. 2015. Bio Intensive Garden Primer. IIRR, Silang, Cavite, Philippines Integrated Alley Cropping Bio-intensive Garden* Uthaithanee Adaptation I ntegrated alley cropping is a form of intercropping vegetable plots between rows of fast-growing trees or shrubs. It is applicable in areas where animal manure/compost is not available. Its main purpose is to provide a steady and reliable source of organic material to crops. Since these hedgerows are legumes which fix atmospheric nitrogen, they add a continuous supply of this element as well as valuable organic matter.1. Select fast-growing and nitrogen-fixing trees/shrubs that can withstand frequent pruning.Gliricidia sepium Calliandra calothyrsus Flemingia macrophylla Cassia siamea 3. Orient the rows in an east-west direction to avoid shading of the crops by the hedgerows.4. Rows of trees/shrubs should have a minimum space of 5m to allow more space for vegetable crops. 5. Soil should be dug and loosened to a minimum depth of 30cm. 6. Plant tree/shrub seeds and vegetables crops at the same time. 7. Pruning is first done after the trees are 9-12 months old. Trees are cut 0.5m above ground level.*For areas where animal manure/compost is not available.1. Cut the trees when they are about three meters in height or the stem diameter is more than one centimeter. Subsequent cuttings are done whenever leaves are needed or the trees begin to shade the garden plots. Leave one branch/tree longer to ensure regrowth in the event of very dry weather. 2. Place cut branches of tree hedgerows (within leaves) over the entire bed. 3. Leave them in place for two days. This will allow the leaves to wilt and hasten defoliation.There should at least be a 8cm layer of leaves over the entire bed. The branches can be used as fuel for cooking.5. Incorporate leaves into the soil to a depth of 15cm. 6. Allow leaves to decompose for 10-14 days. If possible, re-dig the bed once or twice to turn over the incorporated materials. 7. After another 10-14 days, apply necessary soil supplements like 1kg of wood ash, 1kg of eggshells and 1kg of crushed bones (where these are available; rates mentioned are for a 9sqm bed area). 8. Shape the bed and plant.Source: Regenerative Agriculture Technologies (RAT) Kit. IIRR UNICEF for Philippine Department of Agriculture. 1989.1. Measure about 1m by 6m bed area (length can be altered depending on the availability of land). Divide the bed temporarily into sections, 75cm wide using wooden stakes as guide. 2. Spread evenly a 8cm thick layer of compost over the bed. For rocky and waterlogged areas, soil can be taken from other sources and formed into a bed using artificial sidings like banana trunks, coconut trunks, wood planks, etc.The same natural amendments are added to all the other options of bed preparation.For very hard soils, initial digging of 15cm can be made. Then beds can be raised further by getting soil from the sides of the bed.Double digging is one way of upgrading the soil structure by improving soil aeration and water-holding capacity at the lower depths of the soil. Instead of 30cm, the soil is dug 60cm deep.Source: Regenerative Agriculture Technologies (RAT) Kit. IIRR UNICEF for Philippine Department of Agriculture. 1989.T rees, shrubs and other crops must be planted in such a way that a multistoried cropping pattern is achieved. This way, various crops can be grown in a limited space without competing with each other. Weed growth is also controlled through shading by the upper canopy level and by crawling vines.Upper canopy species (A) -form a protective canopy against tropical sun and torrential rains. Middle canopy species (B) -feature staple and fruit production including trailing plants which can be allowed to climb the trees. Lower canopy species (C) -bush-level growth which can be grown to form a double layer of protection against stray animals. Understory crops and creepers (D) -shade-tolerant crops and crawling vines can be planted to further cover the soil.How to Make a Fenceline 1. Dig a trench 1 1/2 ft wide and 1 1/2 ft deep along the fence 2. Mix the dug out soil with wood ash and compost and return the mixture into the trench. 3. Plant the seeds or cuttings. For a garden to give the maximum yield for the family, it should be kept planted all the time. Good planning is necessary.Grow different kinds of vegetables, trees and other plants in one area. Each plot must contain at least one of each of the following crop categories: leafy, legume, tuberous and fruit-bearing vegetables. In this way, the nutritional needs of the family are being met. By growing a diversity of vegetables of different durations, the family is assured of the availability of vegetables throughout the year. This practice is also one way of checking pest outbreaks and certain intercrops serve the additional purpose of being insect repellents. Different plants have varying rooting depths and so extract nutrients and moisture from different points of the soil profile. The cultivation of different plants in the same part of the bed from season to season does not overburden the soil. Also, each kind of plant takes away something from the soil, but also gives something back. By rotating the plants from one part of the bed to another, the land is allowed to rest from one kind of plant and the soil gets richer from the other plant that was put in its place. Crop rotation enables the land to \"rest\" without keeping it idle. Follow heavy feeders with heavy givers and then light feeders.Use every bit of the area as many months of the year as possible.Close spacing is recommended to prevent the growth of weeds and reduce the direct exposure of the soil to sunlight, thereby reducing moisture evaporation as the plant canopy serves as \"living mulch. \" Space plants closely, seeing to it that each plant has enough sunshine and space to grow. Plants are correctly spaced when the leaves of the fully grown plants barely overlap with the adjacent ones. This achieves maximum use of space and Row planting has more soil space exposed to sunlight which leads to rapid evaporation of soil moisture.Triangular method of planting gives more plants per unit area.Thick canopy of plants reduces moisture evaporation and prevents weed growth.Triangular planting higher yields per unit area, when compared with conventional gardening (plant in a triangular fashion). The seeds or seedlings are planted at each end of an imaginary triangle, with the sides of the triangle being equal to the recommended spacing. This portion allows more plants to be grown within a small area than the usual method of square or row planting. Common Garden Tools T he ease of gardening depends largely on the use of right tool in the right way. The proper tools will also make the work more productive.Rakes -made for breaking up spaded soil, smoothing seedbeds and removing leaves Hoe -ideal for cultivating, furrowing, lulling and weeding Shovel and spade -useful for mixing and moving soil, digging trenches, pruning roots and balling plants Nursery Techniques for Seedlings D irect seeding is the most common method of sowing vegetable seeds. However, some vegetable seeds perform better if they are sown in containers or seedbeds initially and are later transplanted. Here are some basic steps in starting plants by this method:1. Select suitable container. Planting in a seedbed is cheaper than using a container. However, using a container allows the gardener to choose the right medium for growing the seedlings. Any container deep enough to allow seedlings to root and wide enough to prevent their becoming cramped will do. Containers may be: 3. Prepare the soil medium. The soil medium should be free of weed seeds, fungus spores and garden pests. It should be sufficiently porous to allow the delicate rootlets to penetrate and to admit air and moisture. Usually, a mixture of equal parts of sand, soil and compost is recommended, though a modified mixture can be made to produce a soil mixture that is more favorable for the growth of seedlings.Fine seeds are usually broadcast together with sand.Medium-sized seeds are often sown in drills.Large seeds can be poked in slightly with a finger.Filling flat or pan Watering 4. Sow the seeds. The mariner in which seeds are placed in the soil depends largely on their size.5. Cover the seeds. Cover the seeds by sifting soil medium through a fine sieve held above the seed bed. Large seeds are covered to a depth equal to twice their width. Fine seeds are not covered but are merely pressed gently into the soil with a flat, level piece of wood.6. Care for Germinating Seeds. Seedlings should be protected from temperature fluctuations. Enough moisture and air circulation must be provided.Dry soil can stop germination, but overwatering can encourage damping off. When watering is necessary, soak by immersion if possible.It is advisable to set the seedbox in the open. If it is covered or is indoors, the seedlings may suffer from lack of moving air. The seedlings should continue to get some protection until the first true leaves emerge. When one or two sets of true leaves become visible, the seedlings are ready for transplanting.7. Pricking/thinning is the process of transplanting seedlings from the seedbox to another seedbox. This step gives the seedlings a chance to start development of root and leaf systems before the plants are left to fend for themselves in the garden. Seedlings should be pricked out as soon as they have two sets of leaves.Use a sharp tool to help remove the plants so as not to injure them.If seedlings conic up with their roots entangled, they can be separated by soaking the root ball in water.Transplant the Seedlings. Punch holes in the seedbed with a dibble at two inches apart. Working quickly, insert the roots of the individual seedlings in the holes and firm them in with either the dibble or with forefinger and middle finger.If roots of a seedling are lengthy, they should be cut with shears or sharp knife. When the seedbox is filled, it should be When the seedbox is filled, it should be watered with a fine spray from a hand syringe to settle the soil around the roots and to freshen wilted stems and leaves.If plants are particularly soft and subject to wilting, cover the box with a sheet of newspaper or another box turned upside down.In about four or five weeks, the young plants will be ready to go out into the open ground. A week before transplanting, the plants should be hardened by gradually increasing exposure to sun and air. Before finally setting in the garden, the plants should be given several days of full sunlight; and if they are going into a sunny position, watering is also held back gradually before transplanting.Source: IIRR. 1993. The Bio-intensive approach to small scale household food production, Silang, Cavite, Philippines. The central feature of the garden is a series of raised garden beds in which bamboo baskets are set for the production of the socalled \"basket compost\".Basket composting has been practiced at the MBRLC for many years and is proven to give the following benefits: You can directly use plant nutrients derived from rotting materials without waiting for the usual three to four-month period in the traditional method of composting. Your basket compost holds the composting materials in place; therefore, it will minimize nutrient depletion by runoff. Stray animals (like goats and pigs) and fowls (such as chickens and ducks) are prevented from scattering the compost materials.Your home and its surroundings will become cleaner because garbage and wastes are collected and are put inside the basket composts.It serves as reservoir and collector of the much needed moisture and nutrients for your plants.The organic matter in the compost strengthens the soil aggregate, making it resistant to heavy rainfall, thus lessening erosion.You can produce more nutritious vegetables at less cost.1. Prepare the materials.Long bamboo strips (two to three m width) Bamboo stakes (at least 30m length) Home organic garbage, farm and garden wastes, leaves of ipilipil, kakawate, rensoni and/or Flemingia (if available) Dried manure (goat, duck, chicken, horse, and/or carabao)5. Put Organic Wastes.Place the rotting garbage and manure into the basket first.Fill to the brim with other organic wastes Fresh manure can be used. Place the undecomposed materials like ipilipil leaves or any recommended leguminous leaves, grasses and weeds next, cover the organic wastes with a thin layer of soil.Clean garden site. Save weeds and grasses for composting materials Prepare garden plot thoroughly.Dig holes along the center of the plots at least 12 m in depth and 30 m diameter. Space holes 1 m apart.4. Make the Baskets.Drive seven stakes around the holes; uneven number of stakes makes perfect brace for weaving.Weave the long strips of bamboo around the stakes to form a basket. Without bamboo strips, closely space the stakes (about 1 cm apart).Half-bury the baskets in the holes. The basket serves as erosion control and as container that prevents the chicken and other fowls from scaterring the compost.If the materials placed at the bottom part of the basket are almost decomposed (within 2-3 days), you can start planting seeds or seedlings. Plant them six to eight inches around the basket.If the composting materials placed in the baskets are green leaves (called \"green manure\"), plant the seeds or seedlings two to three weeks later. This will give enough time to start decomposing. If green leaves of ipil-ipil are used, put five kilograms of the leaves to the basket at the start. Add two kilos of leaves every two weeks.7. Water the Seedlings.Water the newly transplanted seedlings. Later on, when they can grow on their own, just water the basket. Water only at the center of the basket, instead of watering the plants. The lower part of the basket is cool, moist and has abundant nutrients for crops. Later on, the roots will grow into the basket.After harvesting your vegetables and your compost are used up, remove the decomposed materials and incorporate them into the soil while cultivating. Add new composting materials to the basket for the next plants. Avoid using diseased plants for composting. Use the basket while still intact.Note: Basket composting is compatible with and can be integrated with the bio-intensive gardening technology.ontainerized gardening is very appropriate in areas where space is limited. It is one of the important features in urban gardening.A lot of vegetable crops can be grown with their roots contained. They can perform as well as when they are in the ground.A general potting mixture for most plants 1 part garden soil, 1 part coarse sand and 1 part compost. Whatever container is used, it is important that it drains freely -it should have hole(s). Enough coarse gravel should be placed in the bottom of the container so that the dirt will neither sift through the holes nor clog them.Herbs and some leafy vegetables (shrubs) are best grown in pots:Productive vine crops can be grown in hanging baskets. eeds should be carefully harvested to ensure high quality.The seeds should possess the qualities of the variety that was planted. For example, if a long, purple eggplant was planted, the harvested fruit should possess these qualities. Seeds from more plants should be harvested when the plant is crosspollinated.Seeds should also be harvested when they are already mature. Seeds that are overmature are not recommended since they might have already been infected with pests and diseases. Secondly, they are already weak because they are old. Seeds that are undermature will not produce good seedlings and usually do not germinate. Usually, for fruits that have lots of seeds (example: bottle gourd, sponge gourd, bitter gourd, eggplant), the seeds that will be used for planting are collected or extracted from the middle portion of the fruit, where the maturity of the seeds is just right and the seeds are the same age. If earliness or lateness of fruiting is not one of your selection criteria, it is recommended to get fruits that ripen in the middle of the fruiting season.To allow for losses during storage, germination and early growth, about 50% more seeds than needed for planting should be harvested. It is very important that the seeds are labelled after harvesting to avoid mixing up the seeds.How to Determine if the Seeds are Already Mature Example: squash, watermelon, melon 5. Number of days -this depends familiarity of the farmer for the type of plant.Some seeds improve their germination if they are allowed to stay inside the fruit for several weeks. Example: squash, bottle gourd, sponge gourdThe extraction of seeds from the fruit depends on the condition of the fruit and seeds that will be harvested:1. Wet seeds from fleshy fruits -The fruit and the seeds are both wet. Usually, the flesh is attached firmly to the seeds. Seeds are extracted using the hands or a knife. The fermentation process is sometimes done to remove the seeds. Soak the fruit in water for one to two days. After soaking, separate the seeds from the flesh, and throw away the flesh together with the seeds that float (except when the seeds naturally float). Sunken seeds are then washed and dried.Example: eggplant, cucumber, tomato, bitter gourd, squash, sponge gourd, bottle gourd 2. Dry seeds -These are obtained or extracted from a dried fruit or pod. These are extracted by hand or pounded collectively while inside a sack or net bag. Pounding the seeds inside the bag is necessary to prevent them from scattering.Example: cabbage, cauliflower, mustard, pechay, lettuce, pea, lima bean, cowpea, hyacinth bean, yardlong bean, pigeon pea, mung bean, onion. If possible, do not harvest these seeds when it is raining or in early morning when there is still dew. Also, do not harvest at midday since the pods will break or shatter, allowing the seeds to come in contact with the soil and with microorganisms that lower seed quality.3. Dry seeds from fleshy fruits -The ripe fruit is dried before extracting the seeds. Example: chili, ladyfinger For all kinds of seeds, winnowing or removal of contaminants after drying and before storage is recommended to maintain good quality. Contaminants include weed seeds, seeds of other crops or of different variety of the crop, chaff, dust and other inert materials like rocks, dirt, twigs and leaves.Source: IIRR. 1993. The Bio-intensive approach to small scale household food production, Silang, Cavite, Philippines.Seeds come from flowers. Plants have to be pollinated in order to produce seeds. The pollen, the fertilizing powder which comes from the male part of the flower or anther, is brought to the female part of the flower -the stigma or pistil.Plants may either be self-pollinated or cross-pollinated.In self-pollination, the plant can produce seeds without another plant. The pollen comes from the same flower or from another flower from the same plant. Examples of self-pollinated plants are tomato, hyacinth bean, soybean, lima bean, mungbean, Baguio bean, pea, winged bean, yardlong bean, cowpea, water hyacinth and lettuce.In cross-pollination, the pollen that will fertilize the plant will come from another plant. The plant cannot produce seeds if only one plant is planted because there will be no source of pollen. Seed Drying I t is necessary to dry moist seeds before processing and storing. Seeds with high moisture content are more susceptible to physical damage during processing. This reduces viability and encourages the formation of molds.In addition, the germination of moist seeds that are stored can be severely reduced. In this condition, the respiration of the seeds and of the microorganisms present in and on the seeds may produce enough heat to kill the seed. Excess moisture favors infestation of insect pests. It also increases the respiration of the seeds, consuming the stored food of the seeds and resulting in weak seedlings. Seeds which are not well-dried have high respiration rates, causing them to rot. Usually, the moisture content of seeds after harvesting is high, especially when they are cleaned by washing.If the air is humid, dry seeds absorb the water from air. If the air is dry, it absorbs water from wet seeds. This is why air-drying can dry wet seeds. This is also the reason seeds are stored in air-tight containers after they have been properly dried.Things to Remember in Drying Seeds 1. Do not allow the seeds to come in contact with the soil or ground. This will prevent the seeds from getting in contact with soil microorganisms that will lower the quality of the seeds. Use a wedge so that the seeds can be dried above the ground. 2. Use a drying material with holes (example: sack, winnowing basket, mat) to allow air to pass through, giving fast, even drying.3. Do not dry the seeds rapidly because it will lower seed germination. Rapid drying can also harden the seed coat, making the seed impermeable to water when planted. If the initial moisture content of the seeds is high, air-dry the seeds in a shady area for one to two days before sun-drying. Do not dry seeds under the sun from 11:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. when the heat of the sun is intense because it will kill the seeds. 4. Spread the seeds thinly and stir and turn them occasionally (at least 4 to 5 times a day) to make drying fast and even. 5. Before it rains or gets dark, cover the seeds and take them indoors to prevent their moisture content from increasing.How to Determine if Seeds are Well-dried 1. Seeds that were harvested dry have enough moisture content when they are dried under the sun for 2-3 days. If seeds were harvested wet or were washed before drying, 3-5 days sundrying is enough after they have been air-dried for 1-2 days.2. Seeds have distinct sounds when their moisture content is already low enough for storage.a. Large, thin seeds will break with a \"snapping\" sound when twisted between the fingers.Example: squash, bottle gourd b. Large, thick seeds will break with a \"cracking\" sound when bitten between the front teeth. Do not do this for very hard seeds because it might damage your teeth. Also, avoid this if the source of the seeds is unknown since they might have been applied with chemicals.Example: ladyfinger, cowpea c. Small seeds will break with a \"cracking\" sound when squeezed between the fingernails.Example: mustard, pechay, amaranth 3. Seeds have a distinct tinkle when they are well-dried.However, it is not easy to obtain an oven to determine the moisture content of the seeds so the practical methods above are recommended.4. If possible, use an oven which can reach a temperature of 100°C or higher. Weigh the seed sample before placing it inside the oven. Weigh the seeds again after drying for 17-20 hours inside the oven. The lost weight indicates how much water was lost after the seeds have been dried. From these, the percent moisture content of the seeds can be computed. The seeds are dried enough for storage when they reach a moisture content of or less than 10%.Example: Before oven drying -weight of seeds is The life of seeds doubles when the moisture content is lowered by 1% or when the storage temperature is lowered by 5°C.If the storage life of a seed with 14% moisture content is two years, its storage life can be prolonged to four years if the moisture content of the seed is lowered to 13%.If the expected life of a seed is three years in a storage room with a temperature of 15°C, its life can be prolonged to six years if the storage temperature is lowered to 10°C.If both the moisture content of the seed and storage temperature are lowered, the increase in the life of the seed is greater.3. Pests -Storage weevils, fungi and bacteria shorten the life of seeds during storage. Storage weevils begin to multiply when the moisture content is 10%. Fungi infestation becomes a problem when the moisture content is 13%. Bacteria become a problem when the moisture content is above 20%. To prevent pest infestation, choose only pest-free seeds during storage. Pest problems can also be prevented if the seeds are maintained dry. Materials that prevent or stop the growth and multiplication of pests can also be used. These are:a. Dry ash and charcoal -They absorb water inside the storage container. Ash prevents the growth and increase of weevils. Use one-half kilo of ash for every one kilo of seed. Use ash which has been cooled for at least 12 hours to prevent the seeds from burning.b. Sand -Mix the sand with the seeds and make sure that the storage container is full so that the weevils cannot move around. c. Cooking Oil -Some seeds can be mixed with cooking oil to prevent increase of weevil. The recommended rate is one teaspoon oil for every one kilo of seeds. d. Lime -In addition to absorbing moisture, lime can also prevent an increase in the number of weevils. Mix 15 teaspoons (about 50 grams) of lime for every kilo of seeds. e. Dried and powdered leaves or seeds of different aromatic plants -Weevils are sensitive to odorous plants which prevent their multiplication and cause their death.The effect of the plants depends on their preparation, the amount applied and the type of seed and weevils. Some of these plants can affect the seed so it is important to test what is appropriate for a certain kind of seed. Also, make sure that the right amount is applied.Neem -Dry the leaves or seeds under the sun and grind them to a powder. Mix 3-4 teaspoons (15-20 grams) of powdered seeds (double the amount if powdered leaves are used) for every one kilo of seeds.Hot pepper or chili -Dried and powdered fruits are better than dried whole fruits. Mix 4-6 teaspoons (20-30 grams) of dried and powdered chili for every one kilo of seeds.Black pepper -Mix 6 teaspoons (30 grams) of powdered black pepper (double the amount if powdered leaves are used) for every kilo of seeds.Other plants which can be tried:Powdered rhizome of turmeric -Mix 4 teaspoons (20 grams) for every kilo of seeds.Powdered leaves of mint -Mix 1-4 teaspoons (5-20 grams) for every kilo of seeds.Powdered seeds of yambean -Mix 1-2 teaspoons (5-10 grams) for every kilo of seeds.Powdered leaves of lagundi, mango and tobacco -Mix 1-4 teaspoons (5-20 grams) for every kilo of seeds.4. Other factors -The storage life of seeds can become shorter if the seeds are overmature, if they came from plants that have been attacked by pests and diseases or if the seeds were damaged during seed processing.Place labels inside and outside the storage container, especially when lots of different types of seeds will be stored. The following should be included in the label: (1) name of seed; (2) date harvested; (3) date stored; (4) date germination test was conducted; and, (5) percentage germination. If necessary, the characteristics of the plant and the seed should also be included.Source: IIRR. 1993. The Bio intensive approach to small scale household food production, Silang, Cavite, Philippines.Testing Seed Quality S eed quality should be determined when buying seeds, selling seeds, giving or sharing seeds, storing seeds and sowing or planting seeds.The strength or vigor of seeds, especially after exposing these to conditions of the storage room and planting area, needs to be determined. Weak seeds planted in poor field conditions will die, or the resulting plants will be susceptible to pests and diseases. Yields will, therefore, be low. Weak seeds will also not survive long during storage. In addition, even if a number of seeds have germinated, their rate or timing of germination and growth will be slow and not uniform. Determine seed vigor at the same time as measuring the percentage germination, in which seed vigor is the speed and uniformity of germination of the seeds. Compare the number, speed and uniformity of germination of the seeds being tested to those of good quality seeds. Seed vigor can also be determined by soaking the seeds in water. Usually, the seeds which float are weak.Healthy seeds are free of pests and diseases which can kill or damage. They will not infect other plants and spread a disease. If a microscope is not available, examine the seeds carefully. Look for blemishes or stains in the seedcoat, molds, holes caused by insects or eggs of insects. These seeds might cause an epidemic or will introduce a new pest or disease and are, therefore, unfit for planting. Clean the seeds and remove diseased or infected seeds. Sometimes, a disease can be seen only after the seeds have been planted. Check if germinating seeds have fungi or bacteria (symptoms of infection: seeds are watery, shiny and have bad smell). It will also be helpful to know the place and the plant where the seeds were collected, especially for purposes of determining seed-borne diseases.Many fungi and bacteria which can be killed by soaking the seeds in hot water (50°C) for 30 minutes. However, some pests and diseases cannot be killed by this method. Some tests on seed health are better conducted in the laboratory. If you think that your seeds have pests and diseases, have them tested in appropriate offices or agencies (example: Bureau of Plant Industry).Make sure the seeds you procure are the right ones or the ones as stated in the label. This can only be determined by knowing the characteristics of the seeds well. Also, determine whether there are contaminants in the seeds, such as dirt, stones, leaves or seeds of other plants, broken seeds and pests and diseases. The contaminants lower seed quality. If possible clean the seeds before storing or giving to others.The standard moisture content is 14% for seeds that are not oily (like ladyfinger and pechay) and 12% for seeds that are oily (like soybean, peanut, yardlong bean and mung bean). High moisture content decreases the viability of seeds.Obtaining percentage germination gives an idea on whether the seeds should still be stored, planted or thrown away. This will also indicate the number of seeds to be planted to get the desired number of plants. You need a material which can absorb water. For large seeds, use river sand or clean soil (usually boiling water is poured on the soil before using to kill germs) as a germination medium. For small seeds, paper (example: filter paper, tissue paper) or cloth (example: cheese cloth) can be used as a germination medium. Arrange the seeds (not close together) in the germination medium and roll the medium like a mat, or cover with another layer of the medium. Water the seeds, but do not flood them. Place the medium with the seeds in a box or plastic bag which allows air to penetrate, or stand it in a container with enough water to be absorbed upwards. Do not place the medium in the sun or where it can be reached by rats or ants. After several days, count the number of normal seedlings (the ones which have the ability to continue growing normally and those which have normal leaves and roots). Calculate the percentage germination.% germination = number of normal seedlings total number of seed germinated Example: % germination = 80 (number of normal seedlings) 100 (total number of seeds germinated)x 100x 100 = 80%The more seeds tested for percentage germination, the more accurate the percentage germination will be. Do not store or plant seeds if their percentage germination is lower than 50%. These seeds will usually produce weak seedlings and will deteriorate rapidly, if stored.There are instances when seeds do not germinate at once, not because they are dead, but because they are dormant or fail to absorb water (example: mung bean, winged bean). In addition, some temperate seeds (example: pechay, carrot, cabbage) absorb water but do not readily germinate, especially when they are new or fresh. Hard-coated seeds need methods that will open the seedcoat (example: rubbing in sandpaper, use of nailcutter or chipping with a knife). Take extra care in preventing embryo damage. You can also soak the seeds in hot water for 3-10 minutes (1 part seed for every 10 parts water) or in boiling water for 1-10 seconds. The duration of soaking depends on the type of seed and the age of the seed. Seeds which are old, hard and easily absorb water should be soaked for a shorter length of time compared to seeds which are young, soft and do not easily absorb water. Seeds usually grown in cold areas can be placed in the cold for several days while in the germination medium before transferring them to a planting area.Source: IIRR. 1993. The Bio-intensive approach to small scale household food production, Silang, Cavite, Philippines.he consciousness today about genetic resources and their importance to humankind is at an all-time high. Discussion has focused specially on the loss of traditional varieties, or \"genetic erosion\" and the control of germplasm by vested groups or companies. Varieties are being lost as they cease to be cultivated. There is a call to search out and retrieve these vanishing resources if not for any other reason than for preservation, the same way a curator in the museum preserves heirloom cutlery. Finally, traditional varieties are sources of useful genes concerning special qualities such as resistance to diseases or drought. Such genes are invaluable in breeding new cultivars.Unfortunately, conferences and workshops, do not save seeds. Despite the many meetings and papers on the topic of genetic erosion, action efforts to save seeds are sadly lacking in quality and impact. Historically, the best conservers of seeds have been small farmers and backyard gardeners, but programs to conserve seeds at their level are sadly lacking. Meanwhile, every day, the seed heritage slowly but steadily diminishes.Non-government organizations and others interested in saving seeds in situ (as opposed to storing them in laboratories) need to address this issue with a sense of urgency and through field-level and farmer or gardener-involved interventions.The concept of a farmer/gardener curator is valid because the seeds used by the majority of today's farmers in developing countries have been handed down by generation of farmers. When planted out every year, these varieties continue to evolve and adapt to the changing environment. These same seeds, stored in conventional low-temperature seed storage facilities, just remain dormant, and their characteristics remain unchanged they do not evolve any further. In fact, varieties stored this way, if planted many years later in the field, may not be able to withstand the changed environment in the place they were originally collected.Many traditional varieties do not meet the criteria and standards of today's consumers and so are not planted commercially even if they have superior nutritional, taste or storage qualities. One example is the bitter gourd. A favorite of Filipinos, improved varieties of this crop are superior in production and of larger individual size but are dependent on chemicals. Other varieties do not have synchronous harvests and so are getting lost. An example is the araw-araw (\"daily\") eggplant, so called because it provides a few eggplants every day compared with the improved varieties that come to harvest at a peak time and so are preferred for marketing.Many traditional vegetable cultivars have multiple uses. A good example is the winged bean which produces a tasty and nutritious pod and has edible flowers and tubers. Unfortunately, many of the tuber-producing cultivars are rare and can only be found in remote areas such as Papua New Guinea.The potato yam is another crop which is steadily getting lost. Even though it produces both aerial and ground tubers on the same plant, this is not enough to ensure its survival for the next generation of farmers.The list of cultivars that have special qualities is long: cherry-sized tomatoes which can be grown in the rainy season with no fungal problems (as many as 1000 fruits can be harvested in the life of this cultivar), the mung bean with hairy leaf surfaces that keep most insects away and the deep-rooted leafy amaranths that can go for as long as six weeks in summer with no water and no wilt symptoms. These qualities do not often make a difference to the consumers of marketed vegetables, who look for good size more than anything else. The bigger the better is the norm! In fact, most farm produce in exhibitions and competitions use size as a major criterion in crop judging. Is it not ironic when miniature vegetables in the West fetch the highest prices, but developing countries prefer the longest, heaviest, largest products? Why this obsession, when we know that eventually these are going to get cut down into small pieces to be eaten?The emphasis on producing seedless products is another example of how preferences have changed over the years. The seedless grape and the papaya with just a few seeds in each fruit are examples.But, finally, the most important factor is how our technicians and extension workers perceive the growers of such indigenous cultivars. If they treat farmers as primitive or outdated in their thinking and choice of varieties, then the farmers will have a poor self-perception and image. Unless an effort is made to give these traditional cultivars a new image, they will gradually be neglected by the farmers themselves. When that happens, all is lost for the cause of seed conservation.The greatest opportunity for conserving such varieties is by reintroducing them for use in gardening programs --in backyards of farm households, in urban gardens or in school areas. These gardens are raised primarily for family use and nutrition for school children. The special qualities of traditional cultivars, their hardy nature, prolific seed production, high nutritional value, welldistributed fruiting periods (as opposed to peak production), shade tolerance, etc., all make them especially useful for these programs. What is also important to realize is that their yields do not have to be low because, if combined with improved crop husbandry techniques such as the bio-intensive technologies, their output per unit area could compare favorably with the output, using conventional technologies and chemicals. Such gardens can consist of a great diversity of crops: a typical biointensive garden area of 200 sq m can contain as many as 30 selections. Isn't that biodiversity also? While biodiversity often refers to natural forest ecosystem, we can create this in garden spaces and backyards as a conservation strategy. Of course, they will not have the looks of a neat garden with distinct rows and clean space between rows.Are No Traditional Varieties in the Area?Most developing countries still have a vast selection of materials to collect, if one knows where to look for them and what to look for. Where modern agriculture has been aggressively promoted, these genetic resources will still be around but often growing only in remote areas in backyards or in intercropping systems, or often as weeds. However, the way to ensure success is to focus the seed retrieval and collection missions in areas away from the beaten tracks and asphalt roads. It is less likely that seed merchants will have reached these places. Ethnic groups in most countries are especially important communities from whom to collect seeds. Often, these groups continue to grow old cultivars because they have not been exposed to extension agents or for cultural reasons (in defense of their cultures) have been resistant to change. The most diverse collection of planting materials can be found in the remotest areas.One has to time one's visit to ensure that seeds are ready for collection. Usually, the three to four months immediately preceding the summer season are ideal times for legumes and other vegetables. The end of summer is the best time to select drought-tolerant vegetables: just look for unirrigated areas where the crops have survived through the summer season. Market days are excellent opportunities for seed collection, especially in those parts of the world where small quantities of seeds are traditionally sold by farmers in the weekly market. If seeds are not available, these market days are good for acquiring produce from which seeds can be extracted. In the case of legumes, these can be bought from traders dealing with dried legumes-though germination is inevitably a problem with this method of acquiring seeds.One of the most efficient ways to collect the greatest diversity of seeds is to get in touch with local schools in remote areas and through the authorities, launch an effort for seed retrieval through children. Finally, a consortia of NGOs in a country can be used for seed retrieval and subsequent exchange. NGOs working with fanner organizations can use their infrastructure to collect planting materials and seeds.The amateur seed conservationist will find the seed-saving idea a lot more complicated than when he or she anticipates. The problems of categorization, outplanting, characterization, storage and quality control are all essential to a systematic effort; yet, they are time-consuming and, unfortunately, require financial resources.The NGO or amateur conservationist will first have to limit the collection based on priorities, e.g., vegetables, cover crops, trees, fruits or rice. It is a common mistake to try to collect everything because it soon becomes overwhelming, difficult to manage and expensive. With cooperation, it is conceivable that each NGO could focus on one crop and then exchange the collected and tested materials with other partner NGOs.The planting-out of collected seeds is another important step --probably the most expensive. Human labor is needed for this, as long as the crops are in the field. Seeds must be planted and observed for two to three seasons to ensure that the characteristics (e.g., planting season, flowering habits, pest susceptibility, etc.) can be recorded. Here we are not talking of sophisticated data but very simple but essential information without which the gardener or farmer receiving the seeds could get the wrong conclusion, i.e., indigenous varieties are not good. Many traditional varieties are season-bound and, if planted in the wrong season, give very poor results. Others do badly if fertilized and do well only under low fertility conditions.The collection of seeds is labor-intensive and time-consuming. The next step, that of drying and then depodding or cleaning, is also labor-intensive. However, all activities mentioned so far can be easily learned and require systematic effort rather than expertise.The storage of seeds and maintenance of viability is probably where the most problems will occur and where guidance from a seed technologist in the design of a technical strategy is important. Seeds can be dried too much ar not enough. They can get infested with fungus while in storage, affecting their viability, or the seedlings can be damaged soon after germination. The seed moisture content in storage is the single most important factor. But the storage temperature and humidity often critical determinants of how successful the seed production effort has been.The importance of labeling seed packets with information on the place of origin, local name and the date of collection cannot be over emphasized. Any observations from the gardener or farmer will be very helpful in future characterization of accessions, e.g., some cultivars store better than others, an important characteristic of old cultivars of beans and a trait lost in the new varieties. If this information is not recorded one might not know it by observing plants in the field. Another attribute of traditional legumes that farmers know well and use to describe their collections is the versatility, for instance, some legumes can be sold as green vegetables but are also equally good as dried legumes. This knowledge is best collected from the original growers themselves.An institutional effort to conduct seed collection missions is justified (as opposed to farmers collecting the seeds from their own area for in situ conservation) if seeds are rare and must be brought from other parts of the country and exchanged in order to reinstate the original diversity and variability. But such efforts are only useful and relevant if the seeds collected, tested and multiplied are returned to the communities for them to plant, try out and conserve. The sooner the materials are moved out, the better. The ideal approach is to give farmers a diversity from within each crop, e.g., six kinds of mungbeans, so they can choose from a range. Some retain what others will not. So somewhere in every village the materials will get preserved.Unless the program is backed up with an elaborate conscientization strategy, one should not expect farmers to understand the philosophical or aesthetic dimensions of genetic resources conservation program. Their agenda may be different from that of the organization: they conserve the varieties for a host of reasons, the last of which may be conservation for conservation's sake. So, the idea of getting growers to continue to raise seeds only for purpose of saving them, as is being done in some Western countries, is a bit unrealistic. There is need to focus on seed accessions whose attributes will in themselves result in their being conserved. The genetic resources agenda then become a hidden one and need to be integrated with other activities, such as family food production through improved agricultural technologies for farms and gardens, or health and nutrition interventions.It seems clear that conservation will not result from workshops on the topic of genetic erosion, even as we admit these are important at certain stages of the campaign. Nor will it result only from storing seeds in national or international germplasm banks, because of the need for these plants to continue their process of evolution and adaptation. Seed conservation is everybody's concern and not an activity limited to geneticists and breeders.We still have time to do something about this--only if we start today.Sucking insects attacking the leaves and stems. When attacked, the leaves and stems of the plants begin to look pale and spindly. Aphids can change color to match plant parts and metamorphose from nymphs to adult, both with and without wings. When the aphids in one plant get overcrowded, they develop wings and fly to another plant host of the same plant family. Aphids mature in 12 days.Boring insects attacking the flowers, pods, stems and roots. Borers hatch, eat and grow inside plant part as caterpillars. The presence of borers is indicated by the sudden wilting of plant tops Sucking insects that attach to plant parts and drain plant juices. In case of mealybug, eggs are laid in white, cottony masses. Young are crawlers like scale insects. Bugs excrete large amounts of honeydew that attract ants and encourage black mold fungus.Chewing insects which feed on leaves, flowers, stems and even roots. They feed on most vegetables. Severe infestation can defoliate plant.Chewing insects usually developing from patches of eggs on the underside of leaves. The larval stage of moths and butterflies, caterpillars feed on foliage and tender stems. Some are tiny sucking insects that hatch and live mostly on underside of leaves. In case of white flies, stationary scale-like nymphs do most of damage, sucking juices and excreting honeydew, thereby attracting ants and encouraging fungus growth.Feed on foliage of many plants. Grasshoppers are most often found in late summer when fields next to gardens become dry. In severe infestations, large plants may be defoliated. The tender bark may be stripped from trees and shrubs.Small insects, covered by protective shells, that attach themselves to stems and under surfaces of leaves and suck out plant juice. Generally, they are able to move about in younger stages, but become stationary or nearly so in adulthood.Slimy trails and tattered foliage indicate snail and slug invasion. In daytime, they can be found under rocks, leaves, densely foliaged plants, boards or any object that rests on the ground. At night, they can be found busily feeding on plant parts.Microscopic worms that either stick their heads on a plant to suck the sap or actually spend their lives inside the plant. They attack roots of various plants and form galls or root knots. Infested plants wilt or die due to the inability of the damaged root systems to supply enough water to their tops. M ulch is loose organic materials, such as straw, cut grass, leaves and the like used to cover the soil around the plants or between the rows for protection or improvement of the area covered. A mulch aids in maintaining a favorable condition of the soil underneath. The increased plant growth is due primarily to conditions resulting from the use of a given material rather than any growth promoting substances present in the mulch itself.Since organic mulches are derived from plant materials, decomposition will occur and this has several positive effects on both the soil and the plants. 1. Most organic materials will raise the soil pH slighty, making it more alkaline. This can be remedied by mixing acid-forming or organic matter like sawdust and moss peat with the soil. 2. In two or three months, mulch rots and small amounts of fertilizer become available to the plants. 3. Nitrogen deficiency may become apparent with mulched plants because an appreciable amount of nitrogen is taken from the soil by the microorganisms decomposing the organic mulch. To avoid this, liquid fertilizer must be applied to the plant as nitrogen-supplement .1. Organic mulch serves as food for many microorganisms found in the soil. It also helps keep the temperature more constant so microorganisms activity can proceed at a uniform rate. 2. Sometimes undesirable organisms like disease-causing fungi, bacteria and nematodes may be added to the soil with the application of organic plant materials. Stirring the mulch occasionally eliminates the mold. During rainy season, mulch should be applied only when the plants are at least a month old to deter pest attack. 3. Weed seeds may be introduced into the garden with hay or straw. This can be avoided by using only the middle portion of the plant as mulching material. The flowers and the roots must first be composted.Mulching prevents soil compaction.Without mulch, weeds are growing in between plants.Mulch prevents the growth of weed.ade from a blend of saltwater fish wastes, fish emulsion is a thick, gooey concentrate with about five percent nitrogen and small but significant amounts of trace minerals. It also contains a lot of fish oil. Most of the nitrogen in fish emulsion is present as amino acids from the breakdown of protein or as ammonia and nitrate. These amino acids can easily be absorbed by the leaves or roots. Diluted in water, fish emulsion can be either sprayed on leaves or poured around the base of plants. With more spaces in the soil, greater amounts of water can be stored for the use of the plants.2. Addition of large amounts of organic matter into the soil. While nutrients can be present in dryland soils, they are usually chemically unavailable due to high soil pH. Organic matter is essential to create humus, which can make the elements become available to the plants.It also acts like a sponge, absorbing water so that less evaporates.  Growing Vegetables in Saline Areas S aline soils are soils that have been harmed by excessive amounts of soluble salts-mainly sodium, calcium, magnesium, chloride and sulfate, as well as potassium, bicarbonate, carbonate, nitrate and boron. The abnormally high salt concentration of saline soils reduces the rate at which plants absorb water, consequently growth is retarded. Aside from growth retardation of plants, certain salt constituents, like boron, are specifically toxic to some crops.What Causes Soil Salinity?1. Lack of water. Salt-affected soils are common in arid or semiarid regions because there is less rainfall available to leach and transport the salts and because the high evaporation and plant transpiration rates in arid climates tend to further concentrate the salts in soils and surface waters.2. Poor drainage. When water table rises to within 1.5 or 2m of the surface, groundwater containing dissolved salt moves upward into the root zone and to the soil surface. Groundwater then causes the soil to become saline.The salinity status of soils is appraised by measuring electrical conductivity of the solution extracted from saturated soil paste. The yields of very salt-sensitive crops may be restricted at readings as low as 2, moderately salt-tolerant crops grow satisfactorily below readings of 8; only salt-tolerant crops grow satisfactorily when readings range between 8 and 16.Management Practices for the Control of Salinity 1. Select crops or crop cultivars that can grow successfully under saline conditions. Among the highly tolerant vegetables are beets, kale, asparagus, spinach and tomato. 2. Use land preparation and tillage methods that aid in the control of salinity. Careful leveling of land makes possible a more uniform application of water and better salinity control. 3. Modify watering practices and bed shape to alter the tendency of salts to accumulate near the seed. Pre-emergence watering in special furrows placed close to the seed often is done to reduce the soluble salt concentration around the seeds and thus permit germination. After the seedlings are established, the special furrows may be abandoned and new furrows made between the rows. 4. Use special planting procedures that minimize salt accumulation around the seed. The tendency of salts to accumulate near the seed during irrigation is greatest in single-row, flat-topped beds. With double-row beds, most of the salt is carried into the center of the bed, leaving the shoulders relatively free of salt and satisfactory for planting. 5. Water properly, so as to maintain a relatively high soil moisture level and, at the same time, allow for periodic leaching of the soil and reduce salinity problems. The method and frequency of watering and the amount of water applied are of prime importance in the control of salinity. The amount of water applied should be sufficient to supply the crop and satisfy the leaching requirement but not enough to overload the system. 6. \"Pond\" water over the entire soil surface to make leaching efficient. Soils can be leached by applying water to the surface and allowing it to pass downward through the root zone. 7. Apply special treatments, such as, adding organic matters and growing sod crops to improve soil structure. Low permeability of the soil causes poor drainage by impeding the downward movement of water. The impedance may be the result of an unfavorable increase in groundwater level, which then causes the soil to become saline.For peppers, chile, ladyfinger, sweet potatoes, cowpeas and sweet cornonserving water is especially important during dry months when water is limited. However, water conservation does not necessarily mean cutting down on water, rather, it means making the most of available water.1. Water early in the morning. Watering in the morning allows greater absorption of water by the soil. Later in the day, the air is hot and dry and water evaporates from the soil surface faster.2. Water placement. The best method of watering is by trickle or drip irrigation with a perforated plastic hose placed adjacent to each crop row. This puts the water exactly where it is needed. A seed is an undeveloped and dormant plant, usually with a reserve food supply and protected by a seedcoat. It is also defined as a miniature plant in an arrested state of development.Botanically, the seed is a mature ovule enclosed within the ovary or fruit. Seeds of different species vary greatly in appearance, shape, location and structure of the embryo and the presence of storage tissues. A seed has three basic parts: (1) embryo; (2) food storage tissues or endosperm; and, (3) seed covering or seedcoat.Seed is Important T his is an approach that utilizes different techniques other than the use of chemical pesticides to control pests. It involves natural pest population-control methods, including cultural and biological controls and the use of botanical pesticides as needed.Traditional varieties are hardier and relatively more resistant to pests. They can withstand harsh environmental conditions better than modern hybrids.3. Pest control through the use of mesh screen (nylon nets) Younger plants are usually preferred by insects and they suffer significantly from such attacks when compared to older plants.Therefore, a single netting over the plants during the first 30-45 days of their growth can reduce pest damage. Also, the net helps diffuse sunlight thereby improving the quality of some vegetables. Finally, the net breaks the impact of raindrops thus (i) reducing physical damage to the plant and (ii) reducing soil erosion from the beds.These methods are aimed either at reducing the sources of inoculum or at reducing the exposure of plants to infection. Its primary objective is the prevention of pest damage and not the destruction of an existing and damaging pest population.Removal of diseased plants or plant parts prevents the spread of microorganisms to uninfected areas.Several types of odorous plants can be grown together with the main crop to repel insects. The following are some examples:Allium cepa (onion) Hyptis suaveolens (bush-tea bush) Allium odorum (leek)Mentha cordifolia (mint) Allium sativum (garlic)Ocimum basilicum (sweet basil) Artemisia vulgaris (mugwort, worm wood)Ocimum sanctum (sacred basil) Coleus amboinicus (oregano)Tagetes spp. (marigold)Pests can be controlled by their natural enemies. By growing a variety of flowering plants, specifically those belonging to Umbelliferae family, such as, fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) and celery (Apium graveolens), insect predators will be attracted to stay in the garden. These beneficial insects feed on pests, keeping the pest population below economic injury level.This provides genetic diversity to minimize pest increase. Variation in susceptibility among species or varieties to a particular disease is great. Given abundant hosts of a single species or variety, a pest could easily be spread from host to host. When the number of hosts declines, the pest incidence will also decrease for lack of necessary food for the organism.This is a practice of following a crop susceptible to a pest by a resistant crop. There is no build-up of the organism to a high level since the growth cycle of the organism has been broken.Source: International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR). Silang, Cavite, Philippines.Encouraging Predators I n nature, pests are usually controlled by the presence of insect predators and parasites which keep the populations of the harmful insects in control. Most of the insects in nature are either beneficial or at least harmless. There are many ways to encourage insect predators in one's garden.1. Create a Suitable Habitat for Insect Predators -flowering shrubs and trees throughout the garden will attract many beneficial insects, including parasitic wasps which require pollen and nectar for their growth and maturity. Plants belonging to Umbelliferae family are particularly effective in attracting natural enemies of pests.2. Provide Alternate Hosts for Pests -To ensure availability of food for the beneficial organisms, grow alternate host plants along fence lines and in between cultivated crops. The natural enemy populations on these alternate host plants will control pests attacking the cultivated crop. and, c. insecticides with short-term residual action rather than persistent action.Improved application method should be developed and minimum doses should be applied.Source: International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR). Silang, Cavite, Philippines.U rban gardens are often affected by the presence of metal pollutants in the air and on the soil. Air pollution can cause health problems for humans and can retard plant growth.Of the metal pollutants, lead is a major concern. At least two sources of lead affect city grown produce: gasoline emissions and lead-based paint. Lead can be deposited directly on the plant leaves or on the soil. Lead in the soil is usually not taken up by plant roots unless it is present in large quantities. Soil-borne lead is rarely found in the fruiting parts of the plants. It is found mostly in the roots and leaves.A number of factors affect the amount of soil-borne lead found in plants. Plants growing in soils with high organic matter content take up small amounts of lead. Decomposed organic matter and well-rotted manure tend to bind the lead and makes it insoluble to plant roots. If the soil pH is kept between 6.5 and 7.0, lead uptake can be reduced. Soil pH levels above 6.5 also reduce the absorption of metallic cadmium, another dangerous pollutant. Applying 8 -10 cm of well-decomposed compost to each bed and incorporate it in the soil helps reduce lead uptake.A bigger concern in lead-contaminated gardens comes from the exposure of children to the soil. Young children playing in the garden may put soil in their mouths, ingesting the lead. This method of lead poisoning is more common than through consuming lead-polluted vegetables. Avoid taking young children into urban gardens to reduce' their direct exposure to surface soil lead.Fortunately, lead deposits on leaves can easily be washed off. Water alone is not sufficient. Wash with diluted vinegar (1% or one spoonful of vinegar in 100 spoons of water) or diluted dish washing liquid (0.5% or half a spoonful for every 100 spoons of water) is preferred. Root crops should be peeled to ensure that lead adhering to the skin is removed. Since green leafy vegetables are most affected by lead deposits, they should be planted as far away as possible from roads with heavy traffic.Vegetables such as tomatoes, eggplants, beans, squash and peppers should be planted closer to the roads since they show lower concentrations of the metals. However, at least 10 meters should separate any garden from the street. Barrier crops such as a hedge planted at the side of the garden facing the road can effectively reduce the deposit of-lead and other metals on garden produce and on the soil itself. The Household as a Production and Consumption Unit T he household, seen as a production and consumption unit, has three subsystems:A. The Household Subsystem: This is the socioeconomic unit concerned with the household structure and its composition: husband and children, grandparents and often other family relatives. Different responsibilities (some culturally defined) are to be found with regard to food production and utilization and related decision-making. The access to, and control of, productive resources may differ from household to household.B. The Production Subsystem: This refers more to the physical unit with an emphasis on homestead-level production (halaman sa bakuran) and, to a lesser degree, on field production (pulo or bukid). This subsystem is affected by the access to productive resources mainly land area, capital and other inputs. This includes production from backyard activities, such as small livestock, home gardens (including traditional sources such as the mixed backyard garden) and, sometimes, fish ponds. If the production from the main field is even partly consumed at home, that physical unit must also be considered (e.g., cereals or large animals).C. The Consumption Subsystem: This is the biological unit and refers to the actual utilization of the food produced at the household level. Consumption is affected by factors such as: the total quantity of food produced; the numbers of consumers involved; the pressure to market the food (e.g., to repay capital costs); cultural values and attitudes to the kinds of food produced and not produced locally; patterns of distribution of food within the household system; and, food preparation and preservation practices (to prevent waste during peak production months).Food consumption includes items that were not specially grown by the consuming unit or purchased but were either bartered, or scavenged (mamumulot), collected from other sources (e.g., fish, backyard trees or halaman sa bakuran) or procured as part of some culturally accepted norms (hunusan or share of harvests given to laborers assisting in the harvest).Source: International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR). Silang, Cavite, Philippines.Agriculture System R egenerative agriculture system, food and energy security at the household level, income enhancement and ecological soundness are all equally important goals. In the interest of equity and soda justice, the small and marginal farmers are the priority audience.1. A regenerative or sustainable farming system relies more on the internal resources of the farm than on external resources.Seeds are saved on a year-by-year basis. Household / family labor use is maximized.Rainwater is harvested and soil moisture conserved within the farm. Nutrients are provided from crop residues and other organic sources, such as animal manure and biofertilizers. Fodder, timber fuel and food are farm grown.Diversified farms offer a range of products or sale rather than large quantities of a single product. Marketing can be done locally. This reduces transportation costs and eliminates or reduces the number of middlemen. This means higher returns for the farmer. Most of the labor is provided by the farm family. The labor demand is evenly spread in a diversified farm as opposed to single-enterprise farms where labordemand peaks are a phenomenon to contend with. Genetic diversity within crops is encouraged. Two or more varieties of each crop are grown rather than just one variety. Similarly, mixed tree planting is preferred over single-species planting.(the transition to reduced levels of use is gradual, not abrupt).Atmospheric nitrogen (as much as 78% of the air is nitrogen) is tapped by introducing leguminous crops into the annual cropping cycle, e.g., bean rotations following rice or corn, leguminous trees within the crop area. Heirloom or traditional vegetable varieties are raised in backyard family food gardens. This conserves these varieties for future generations.The presence of trees on the farm encourages deeper penetration of rain water into the soil surface. Terraces, contour builds structures and vegetative barriers reduce run-off from the farm. Crop residues and mulch reduce runoff water and soil moisture evaporation. Minimum tillage is practiced as a way of conserving sub-soil moisture reserves. Sowing legumes directly into the stubble or residues of the previous crop (without ploughing the land) is one such example.Where feasible, small farm ponds based run-off water are constructed for future recycling.Energy needs (for heating and cooking provided by farmgrown fuelwood. Tillage, transportation and processing a based on renewable energy resources, including animal power and human labor.The increased reliance on organic manures reduces the need for fertilizers manufactured with fossil fuel.The area under annual crops is adjusted devoting more space to perennial crops. The reduced area under annual crops is then intensively cultivated. Perennial crops are, in the long run, more reliable sources of income, are less susceptible to drought and diseases and require less overall labor.Growing mixed tree species of different heights serves to maximize the use of above-ground vertical space, thus using solar energy more efficiently, e.g., multistoried treecropping or mixed-species fence lines. Fast-growing trees are raised in the slopy, elevated or marginal portions of the farm to exploit the incomegenerating potential of trees for housing materials, fuel, etc.Livestock are a critical component within an integrated operation. They provide an opportunity for recycling crop-wastes and provide manure for soil fertility enhancement.Livestock and trees can be integrated with fish culture or cereal crops to reduce production-input costs.Livestock enterprises must rely primarily on internal resources of the farm (Azolla, fodder trees, ricebran, etc.) and less on external resources. Trees and grasses for feeding livestock are raised in degraded or underutilized parts of the farm, such as fences and terrace risers.Some forms of aquaculture are practiced on the farm, especially within the rice paddies or in small-farm ponds fed by run-off water. Often, aquaculture efforts are linked with livestock enterprises and, in turn, pond sediment is used to fertilize vegetables grown on the pond-bank.9. Economic viability and income enhancement. Some of the ways this is done are the following: the intensification of outputs per land unit area through crop rotation, multistoried cropping, intensive market gardening, processing of farm outputs, integration of enterprises, the reduction of external input costs, direct marketing of produce and product diversification. 12. Working with nature. A practitioner of sustainable agriculture sees the need for restoring and regenerating the natural resource base upon which everything (including human life) depends. One works with nature's forces to nurture its own capacity to contribute to the regeneration process. To this extent, external inputs are brought in, but only after a critical assessment of their potential contributions to the long-term sustainability of the farm.Source: Regenerative Agriculture Technologies (RAT) Kit. IIRR UNICEF for Philippine Department of Agriculture. 1989.Use good crop rotation practices; alternate grain crops with legumes whenever possible.Practice relay planting of the second season crop. Sowing the second crop while the first is still growing helps reduce demand for soil cultivation. Relay planting also serves as an effective soil cover following the first harvest.Always cultivate and plant crops along the contour. This impedes water flow between more solid structures, like rock walls or living hedgerow barriers.Incorporate all available organic matter (crop residues, animal manure, etc.) into the soil. This helps improve soil structure, fertility, moisture-holding capacity. Do not burn crop residues.Lay additional crop residues, twigs and other materials in contour lines across the slope, to further impede water flow. These lines can be placed at the base of contour hedgerows or rock walls.Diversify farm enterprises to include more tree crops. Fruit or estate crops can be planted in small orchards or interspersedProtect the land during fallow periods Use effective mulches on cover crops to protect the soil surface from intense sunlight, wind erosion and the occasional unseasonal rains.with food crops. Tree crops are particularly suitable on severely sloping land.Maintain forested areas at the upper end of sloping farmlands. These forested plots or woodlots should serve both a protective or conservation function as well as provide a steady source of fuelwood, food, income and other useful products.Source: IIRR. 1990. Resource Book on Sustainable Agriculture for the Uplands, IIRR, Silang, Cavite, PhilippinesStall-feed or tether all animals. Free-grazing animals which roam farmland during offseasons can be one of the major causes of erosion in hilly areas. Stall-feeding also enables collection of manure for soil fertility management.Increasing Organic Matter in the Soil I n general, organic matter (OM) and soil fertility are linked. If soil has a large amount of OM, it is also high in fertility. Increasing the supply of one will ultimately increase the other. There area two basic steps in increasing soil OM content: (1) increase biomass production; and (2) return biomass produced to the soil.Increasing biomass production is the first step in attaining higher OM content in the of biomass produced is in turn increased by increasing in the soil. The amount soil fertility and by improving the efficiency of water use .One of the quickest ways of increasing soil fertility is fertilizersthough it is the most expensive. However, the by using chemical value of these chemicals lies in their use as catalysts -when they are used in very small amounts to supply any nutrient which is lacking in the soil (and which is very difficult to make available in any other form). Biofertilizers such as green manures, Azolla, and micro-organisms which can 'fix' nutrients in forms that can be used by plants are more practical for the small farmer with little capital.Crops or trees which produce food for humans, feed for livestock, or other useful items and at the same time increase soil fertility can also be grown. These are usually legumes. The application of animal manure and other farm by-products which would otherwise be thrown away can also significantly increase the soil's fertility.Water is essential for plant growth. Making the best use of it will increase total biomass production.When water is in excess (during the rainy season), plants that are able to use a lot of water and grow very fast, should be grown. Excess water can also be stored on the surface: in ponds, in underground reservoirs, or in the soil's surface layers for use by crops.Preventing the stored water from evaporating is important. If possible, water stored in ponds should be shaded and windbreaks planted around it. The ground should be mulched if the water is stored in the ground for the use of crops.When water is scarce, plant crops which need very little water for good growth and production (like sorghum and forage legumes), or deep rooted plants which can tap soil reserves (trees), should be sown.The biomass produced must be returned to the soil in some formeither through direct incorporation, by using as mulch, by passing through livestock as feed, or by composting. The choice of method will be determined by any number of factors, but one of the most important to consider is: how can the biomass be used to meet as many needs as possible in the most efficient way before ultimately serving as OM in the soil?OM increases the size of macropores in the soil. This allows for more water absorption and retention. Consequently, the greater rate of absorption reduces runoff during heavy rains, decreasing erosion. Water-holding capacity is improved in sandy soils and water is made more easily available in clay soils. Soil temperature is also cooler, reducing evaporation.OM reduces bulk density, allowing deeper root penetration. This increases the surface area available for extraction of water and nutrients. Drought tolerance and crop growth are improved. Increased OM makes tillage easier and faster. It allows for reduced tillage without reduction in yield. Soils can be more quickly worked after a rain which enables farmers to better control weeds in the rainy season. OM improves seed germination rates and reduces soil cracking, thus minimizing root and soil exposure to drying winds.OM acts as a buffer on soil pH. It increase pH of acidic soils and decreases pH in alkaline soils. The change can be as much as one unit on the pH scale. OM provides N and K directly to the soil and improves the efficiency of any chemical fertilizer applied. It favours the growth of N-fixing bacteria and algae residing in the soil; encourages micro-organisms that 'fix' P, making it more available to plants; and supplies micro-nutrients and improves overall soil health. In fact, yield increases are greater with OM application than with direct application of micro-nutrients. OM also reduces nutrient leaching.OM favours the development of micro-organisms which compete with insect pests and disease-causing organisms (pathogens), reducing insect and disease damage. Gases released during OM decomposition are toxic to several pathogens. Balanced plant growth improves resistance to pests.Source: Resource Book on Sustainable Agriculture for the Lowlands. Southeast Asia Sustainable Agriculture Network (SEASAN). 1992Family Food and Income from Root Crops R oot crops have been labeled as a poor man's crop or a survival crop. But for the past few years, they have been proving their worth, both as a survival crop and for incomegeneration as well.First, root crops can grow under a wide range of soil and climatic conditions. Second, the introduction of higher yielding varieties (esp. cassava and sweet potato) gives better promise for utilizing the crop both for family consumption and for income-generation. And third, the promotion of root crop processing technologies will not only increase the crop value but will also lessen the risk of dealing with crop perishability. Nourishment from root crops: Root crops are basically energy-rich foods. Aside from the tubers, the leaves (particularly of sweet potato, cassava and gabi) may also be eaten. Root crops in general also contain vitamins A, B and C, plus some other minerals essential for body growth. The Food and Nutrition Research Institute recommends that Filipinos should be having in their diets a daily intake of a small piece of root crop tuber (about 170g) equivalent to about one cup of rice. Some root crops (cassava and gabi) however, have to be prepared in certain ways because a number of varieties contain certain levels of harmful substances like hydrocyanic acid and calcium oxalate raphides which can cause goiter and throat itchiness, respectively. Some suggested root crop varieties: Sweet potato: UPL Sp 1, 2 and 3; VSP 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 Cassava: Lakan, Datu, Java Brown Basic steps involved in some root crops processing activities: Acceptable Substitution Level Other Features:Each component introduced into the system should contribute toward the goals of regenerating the land and sustaining the farming system.The system exhibits redundancy: each function meets more than one need, each need is met by more than one function.It starts simply and through careful observation and analysis of the area's resources, it evolves into a more complex, stable system.Technical Profile:As an example, a small area of marginal land near a water source (irrigation canal, creek or spring) can be used for the components below: Pig pen (2m x 4m) -Good for 2-3 heads of upgraded breed. Use local materials like bamboo for pen enclosure, cogon or nipa for roofing. Cement the flooring. Sedimentation pond (2m x 4m) -One meter deep. Install spill pipe in the dike 30 cm above pond floor for excess water going to the Azolla pond. Azolla pond (3m x 4m) -Maintain 30-40 cm water depth.Install another spill pipe in the dike for excess water going to the fish pond and to control water depth in the Azolla pond to 40 cm above floor level. Duck pen (1.5m x 3m) -Constructed near the Azolla pond for 1 male and 8-10 female ducks. Fish pond (10m x 3m) -Maintain 100 cm water depth for 600 Tilapia nilotica or other fish species fingerlings. Fish breeding pond (2m x 10m) -Maintain 65-70cm water depth for 8-10 female and 2 male Tilapia or other fish species breeders. B.I.G. plots (1.5m x 3m) -For production of various indigenous vegetables.Pig pen -Gross sales in the amount of P6,000.00 for 3 upgraded (75%) pigs in 6-7 months using low-cost feed combinations.Sedimentation pond -Ready source of sludge for the garden and material for composting. Azolla -Provides fresh or cooked feed for swine, ducks and fish or can be used as green manure or composting material. Ducks -Regular source of meat and eggs for the family after 6 months. Fish pond -50-55 kg of Tilapia can be harvested within 6 months.Garden -1-1/2 kg of various vegetables can be produced daily throughout the year. Compost -1.5-2.5 tons of compost can be produced annually. Woodlot -Fast-growing shrubs or trees can provide the fuel needs of the household. When planted along the paddy dikes and other waste spaces, the woodlot can also be a good source of wood for fence posts, trellises, etc.While rice-based lowland farm systems are principally devoted to rice production, they also can involve a variety of production components and complex integrated systems. Small farmers have traditionally managed these complex farming systems and have an acute awareness of the cycles and flows of nutrients which occur on their farm within a cropping season or throughout the year.However, resources can oftentimes be more intensely optimized by allowing farmers to critically analyze their farm nutrient flows in a systematic manner. This process can be implemented using a simple exercise with farmers. This exercise also helps field workers improve their skill in eliciting indigenous knowledge from farmers through the use of farmer's diagrams.1. Explain the entire process to the farmers or ask them to help you (the technician) understand their systems -an important reversal for those who are usually telling farmers what to do. 2. Farmers are asked to list the individual components which make up their farm, i.e., paddy, fishpond, carabao, etc. 3. Farmers discuss the concept of nutrient flows within the farm. Linkages between the different components should be emphasized. The technician or farmer-leader can facilitate the discussion with leading questions. 4. Farmers are shown a design of the nutrient flows of an actual farm and asked if they could produce a similar design for the conditions found on their farm. Many may answer negatively, stating that they cannot draw such a \"professional\" design (\"I can't draw like that\"). 5. The farmer-leader or technician should then begin drawing a design using newsprint and pens. 6. The farmers are then provided with sheets of newsprint and pens and are asked to attempt to diagram the components of their farm and the nutrient flows which integrate those components. Exhaust all enterprises for possible inputs and outputs. Include all plots and land types that farmers have access to, even community resources. 7. The farmer-leader or technician should then assist the farmers and guide them in mapping out their individual farm design. All attempts at drawing should be validated --anyone can draw to some extent. 8. Upon completion, the farmers are asked to present their designs for peer review and discussion by their farmer colleagues. 9. Finally, if desired, an artist can draw the design, based on the farmer-drawn diagram, to give the reproductions a \"professional\" touch.This exercise provides a valuable methodology for farmer interaction. It is a learning process for farmers showing alternative uses of farm wastes and by-products being used by other farmers. The visual presentation reinforces what a farmer learns long after the exercise is completed. It is a learning process for technicians and field workers who learn about traditional knowledge. It helps to build a more equal relationship between farmers, extensionists and researchers. It helps to build self-reliance and confidence among farmers to make changes and adaptations of their farming systems, as well as validating farmer knowledge among farmers.The following pages present artist reproductions of rice-based farming systems. The first design depicts a \"typical\" rice farm with little integration, under-utilized resources and costly off-farm resources. The other four are actual farmer designs of rice-based farming systems from the Philippines. All of these designs were developed using the exercise outlined above and have helped farmers to increase their own awareness of nutrient flows within their farm.Source: IIRR. 1990 Low External Input Technology Information Kit, IIRR, Silang, Cavite, PhilippinesDried rice straw/rice stubbles, grass clippings, coffee hulls, sawdust, etc.--these materials help prevent nutrient loss. They contain residual plant food of their own, adding to the overall nutrient value of the compost.1. Chop or shred the materials (except coffee hulls and sawdust) to make them easier to spread and later on easier to decompose.2. Spread a six-inch layer of litter bedding over the floor space. Allow manure and urine to accumulate.3. Three to four days after the bedding materials are fully soaked with urine, mix them so as to incorporate the manure.Remove the bedding and store it in a pit or a pile fully covered to conserve the nutrients. Collected bedding material can also be used in preparing liquid fertilizer. The compost is ready for use in one and a half months or earlier. A feedlot cattle with an initial weight of about 150 kg would produce a total of 2.23 tons of fresh manure over a fattening period of 180 days.On the average, a cattle or a carabao excretes fresh manure equivalent to about 7.5 percent of its body weight. Manure -By wise management, animal manure can return to the soil 70 percent of N, 75 percent of P and 80 percent of K. Urine -Excess nitrogen from the digested protein is excreted in the urine as urea in cattle and goats. Fifty percent of the value of the waste is contained in the urine. Urine contains 2/3 of the N and 4/5 of the K discharged by an animal. Elements in urine are more quickly available because they are in solution.Urine is also an especially good activator for converting crop residues to humus.The amounts of fresh excrement produced by farm animals are subject to wide variations, being governed by the kind of animal, its age, the amounts of food it eats, its activity and other factors. The amount produced annually per 1,000 pounds of live weight is given in the following table:On the average, a ton of cow manure has NPK values equivalent to 100 pounds of 2 12-3-9 chemical fertilizer. Similarly, horse manure averages 14-5-11, sheep and goat manure 19-7-20, hog manure 10-7-8 and chicken manure about 20-16-9. In addition, this manure will supply organic matter and trace elements. 1. Choose a spot that is at least partially protected from rain.2. Gather the crop residues, animal manures and other wastes and bring them to the preparation site. 3. Pile the crop and other plant residues (15 cm thick) first. For the next layer, spread the animal manure to a thickness of about 8 cm, followed by about 3 cm of good soil. Pile another layer of the materials in the same sequence and repeat until a height of about 1.5 meters of the compost pile is attained. 4. Water the pile until it is sufficiently moist. Water regularly. 5. Turn over or mix the pile with spading fork after 3 weeks, then again after five weeks. 6. Harvest the compost in three to four months.Making three compartments permits us to keep adding to our compost pile. The compartment at left is ready for the fields while the others are still rotting.1. Fill compartment one with composting materials. 2. Add a small amount of soil or animal manure. 3. Continue in this way till the compartment is full. 4. After a month, empty the contents of compartment one into compartment two, mixing, watering and breaking up the compost in the process.5. Cover the second compartment with a layer of soil, which has to be kept humid and loose. 6, Once compartment one is empty, the process of filling it should begin again as before.7. After another month, fill compartment three with the contents of compartment two, airing the contents well without turning over. 8. Cover the third compartment with a layer of soil, 9. Fill compartment two with the contents of compartment one and cover with soil. 10. Fill compartment one with refuse and the cycle goes on.Basket composting is the process by which decomposable home garbage, garden and farm waste and leguminous leaves are allowed to rot in baskets half-buried in garden plots as a method of producing organic fertilizer. Long bamboo strips, 2-3 cm in width Bamboo stakes at least 30 cm in length Home organic garbage, farm and garden wastes, leguminous leaves ManureClean garden site, save weeds and grasses for composting. Dig at least 30 cm deep and raise the bed, Dig holes along the center of the plots at least 15 cm in depth and 30 cm in diameter. Space them 1m apart.Drive 7 stakes around the holes; uneven number of stakes (5,7 or 9) makes perfect brace for weaving. Weave the long strips of bamboo around the stakes to form a basket. Without bamboo strips, closely spcae the stakes (about 1cm apart).Plant seeds or transplant seedlings around the basket. The distance from the basket should be 15 -20 cm to prevent the decomposing materials from \"burning\" the plants. Water the seedlings while young. Eventually just water the basket. The plant roots will later move toward it.Place the most decomposed garbage and manure into the basket first. Place the undecomposed materials like leguminous leaves, grasses and weeds next.Fill to the brim with other organic wastes. Earthworms maybe added to speed up decomposition.After harvesting, composts are already used up. Remove the decomposed materials from the basket and incorporate them into the soil while cultivating. Add new composting materials to the basket for the next plants.Layout garden beds at least 12cm wide. Dig trench 8cm wide and 5cm deep along center line of bed. Place spoil (dirt from trench) on both sides of trench.Place 15 -30 cm layer of leguminous leaves and other vegetative materials. Spread layer of animal wastes over vegetative materials. Cover with layer of soil. Use 1/2 of spoil pile along side of trench. Pile another layer of the materials in the same sequence, returning all of spoils in or on trench. Shape bed by raking.Soak bed thoroughly with water. Plant seeds or transplant seedlings around the trench. After harvesting, remove the contents of the trench and work the compost into the soil around the trench. Place new compost materials in the trench for the next crop. Note: Very significant readings for iron, calcium, magnesium and zinc were also noticed.You may test leaves of other leguminous trees in your area. If leguminous leaves are not available, any green plant material may be used (e.g., Cassia siamea, Cassia spectabilis).Keep the drum always covered If a drum is not available, then a pit lined with clay or plastic sheeting or even a large earthen pot may be used.Replace the leaves with fresh ones when the liquid fertilizer has been exhausted. It is possible to raise a reasonable vegetable plot in well-dug soil (12\" -18\" deep at least), using liquid fertilizer alone. Liquid fertilizer is a critical component of a bio-intensive garden in the tropics, especially in the rainy season when leaching is common.Source: IIRR and DENR. 1989. Agroforestry technology information kit, IIRR, Silang, Cavite, PhilippinesOrganic Fertilizer Sources: Use of Green Manure T he term Green manure generally refers to the use of fresh organic materials such as leaves, twigs and small stems which are used as a soil enrichment material. The green material does not only provide the soil with needed macro elements (such as Nitrogen, Phosporous and Potassium), but trace elements as well (such as magnesium, manganese, cobalt, and iron). In addition, the green manure: (1) provides organic matter which helps improve soil structure, increases the soil's water holding capacity; (2) provides a replacement for commercial fertilizers; and, (3) helps shade weeds. Some green manures can also be grown with food crops to save and area and labor.Many plants which belong to the Legume Family are commonly used as green manures. These include cover crops such as Kudzu (Pueraria phaseoloides), \"Hetero\", (Desmodium heterophylla), Centro (Centrosema pubescens), Siratro (Macroptilium atropurpureum); upright legumes such as: Ipil-ipil (Leucaena diversifolia), Rensoni (Desmodium rensonii), Flemingia (Flemingia macrophylla), Madre de cacao (Gliricidia sepium), Rostrata (Sesbania rostrata) and Rice bean (Vignaumbellata). Non-legumes include grasses such as Napier (Pennisetum purpureum) and Guinea grass (Panicum maximum). Essentially, any material may be used as long as it is fresh and not very woody in form.There are two standard methods in using green manure. These are (1) growing the green manure crop in the crop field; and, (2) importing the green manure in fresh or processed form to the crop field.1. Growing the Green Manure Crop in the Field.This method involves growing a cover crop, usually a legume such as spineless mimosa (Mimosa invisa) or Hetero (Desmodium heterophylla), in a field and then plowing the plant in the soil after a few months' growth. The cover crop is planted for one season, plowed under and allowed to decompose. The next crop is usually a main food crop, such as corn. The green manures should be allowed to rot three to four weeks before planting the following food crop.A second method involves planting food crops that have a short growing season and leaves which do not shade the ground too much with the green manure crop. Corn and peanuts are good examples. Since the green manure crop needs some light, the food crops should be spaced further apart but seeds should be planted closer together in a row.A third method involves the planting of hedgerows of upright legumes such as Rensoni (Desmodium rensonii), Flemingia (Flemingia congesta) and Madre de cacao (Gliricidia sepium) in the field along the contour (e.g., SALT, alley cropping). These plants are periodically harvested and the leaves and small branches placed on the soil surface between the hedgerows as a mulch. The leaves are allowed to decompose. Crops may or may not already be planted in the field. In some cases, the farmer may physically incorporate the green leaves into the soil by using a hoe. If this is done, there should be a waiting period of about one month before the field crop is planted in the field.It is highly recommended that two different species (one with big leaves and another with small leaves, e.g., Flemingia and Rensoni) should be planted in the same hedgerow along contours. Flemingia has leaves which decompose slowly while the Rensoni leaves which decompose slowly while the Rensoni leaves are soft and decompose quickly.Green manures need not be grown right in the crop field. Farmers can plant them around their field as fences or in vacant areas. The branches are pruned two to three times a year and the prunings are carried to the field where they are either incorporated into the soil or used as a mulch.Green manure tea. This method is described in detail as a separate topic in another section. In general, it involves taking legume or other fresh leaves and placing them in a jute sack or the like. The sack is soaked in water for 10 days. The tea is used to water high-value crops (like sweet potato, eggplant, cabbage) while the partially decomposed leaves from the tea bag can be used as a mulch or compost material. Compost. This method involves using green legume leaves to activate a compost pile since the fresh green leaves have a supply of nitrogen. When the composting process is finished, the material is used as a fertilizer by placing it in a hole and covering it with soil. A seedling is planted on top. This method is generally used for high-valued crops such as vegetables.1. Non-legumes such as wild sunflowers are used as a green manure either by incorporating the leaves and stems directly in the soil or allowing them to partially dry before incorporation. Wild sunflower is also a phosphorous trap, as it accumulates the element as it grows. 2. Cogon and other grasses or weeds can be cut before the flowering stage and placed in crop fields as mulch. 3. Green manures can be applied to furrows or between the crop rows rather than as a blanket covering. This method concentrates the nutrients and the roots of the row crop, such as corn, will pick up the slow released nutrients from the furrow. The weed growth in the furrow or inter-row area will also be reduced. For minimum tillage systems, placing the green manure in furrows in between rows allows easier access to the crop rows for planting and weeding. 4. Farmers frequently air-dry green leaves before using them as a crop fertilizer. This is frequently done with leaves such as ipilipil. The drying process releases Nitrogen from the leaves but other nutrient elements such as phosphorous, potassium and trace elements remain in the dry leaf. This process prevents accidental fertilizer burn from fresh leaves. 5 Experience has shown there are several kinds of leaves which are not good for green manuring because they contain substances which are detrimental to the plants and the soil. These are Pine needles, Eucalyptus sp. leaves and Gmelina arborea leaves. Kakawate can be used shade and mulch and fertilizer crop for coffee and cacao and tubers such as Gabi and for Ginger Kakawate can be used as support for black pepper Kakawate is an excellent liquid fertilizer. A bag of green leaves is soaked in a drum of water and the resulting extract is diluted 1:3 with water and used Kakawate can meet all the fertiliser needs of a vegetable market garden while lowering temperatures.It also provides protection from typhoons. Kakawate seeds can be ground as used to kill rats. Kakawate leaves are also an excellent botanical pesticide. Its leaves can be used to control skin disease in animals.Kakawate is high protein can be fodder which mixed with rice straw and fed to livestock (up to 20 percent only). To improve palatability, the leaves should be allowed to wilt for 18-24 hrs Farms which use kakawate are cooler, they are rich in organic matter and allow a farmer to go organicFor maximum effects, kakawate should be grown all around the farm and in between crops/trees. Trees should be cut 1 meter above ground level at least two times a year and leaves should be applied around plants. Mud-pack bare-root seedlings when they are to be transported. Dig a hole and mix in pure clay soil and water to make a slurry. Rinse off the seedling roots and dip them in, coating them well. Wrap them in folded banana stem sections or sacks and keep them in the shade. Roots and stems are easily killed when exposed to heat or direct sunlight. If the trip is long, remoisten the containers.Outplanting Seedlings M any seedlings from the wilds die when planted out in the field. High seedling mortality is often caused by careless handling and planting. While proper species choice is of primary importance, a farmer should be able to greatly increase his success in raising trees by following these guidelines.Use only good seedlings. This means seedlings that have been properly hardened off, with a woody stem 30-50cm tall. Discard all damaged, deformed or diseased ones. Taller seedlings may be used in cogonal areas so they will soon overtop the grass. For dry and harsh environments, older seedlings with a more developed root system and thicker stem (more sugar reserves in the stem) will survive better. Potted seedlings will survive better in harsher sites than bare-root seedlings because they have a more complete roots system which will not be disturbed.Make sure potted seedlings have a well-developed rootball. Do not water them on the day they are outplanted because this will soften the soil and cause it to compact when planted. Seedlings brought from a distant nursery should be brought to the planting site and allowed to recover from the transportation shock for 2-4 weeks before outplanting. Fruit tree seedlings purchased from a commercial or government nursery usually need to be hardened off at the planting site before outplanting as this is not done at the nursery.Gently lift bare-root seedlings from the seedbed with a spade or shovel. Trim the tap root to about 20cm for easier planting. Also, trim the crown to reduce water loss through transpiration and bring it into balance with the root system. Cut back any soft green shoots, leaving at least 30cm of woody stem.Timing of outplanting is crucial. Plant at the beginning of the rainy season but only after the soil has become fully moistened. In areas with a severe dry season, make sure trees are in the ground early enough to develop a deep root system before the dry season hits. Cuttings, such as kakawate, may be planted late in the dry season so the cut end or wound dries out before the soil becomes wet. When outplanting potted fruit trees, slice off the bottom 1cm off the plastic bag. This will eliminate any bend that has begun to form in the taproot. Slice the rest of the bag down the side and remove before planting.In poor soils, plant in a hole much larger than the root ball. If manure is to be added and has not yet been allowed to decompose, put it in the bottom of the hole and cover it with 10cm of soil. If chemical fertilizers are to be used, mix them in with the soil to be used in filling up the hole. Scrape topsoil from the area around the hole and use it to fill it up after planting the seedling. Gently step on the soil around the seedling to tamp it down firmly. Some trees, such as Gmelina arborea, can be planted by stumps. Prepare as for bare-root seedlings but cut back the stem to only 1cm. Ideally, stumps should be 1cm across. This is one way of handling overgrown seedlings. They are also easier to transport to the field.In drier sites, recess the seedling slightly into the ground to form a small catchment to trap moisture. Bare-root seedling outplanting is easiest with two people, one to hold the seedling upright in the hole and one to fill the hole in and tamp the soil down. Be careful not to bend the taproot.Mulch newly planted seedlings to conserve moisture and keep soil surface temperatures cool. Apply a 10cm thick layer of mulch in a ring 10cm away from the stem. This can be renewed every two weeks. In areas where livestock are allowed to wander loose, fence newly planted seedlings off from grazing areas. Erect a temporary shade for especially valuable seedlings or seedlings that have not hardened off enough. This can be as simple as two coconut leaves leaned against each other or it can be made of cogon grass.over crops are plants which are grown to cover and protect the soil. They help add fertility, improve soil structure and water retention and have a lot of practical benefits such as animal fodder, food and added farm income.Cover crops can be used in a variety of ways in agricultural systems:1. Interplanted or relay-planted with maize or other grain crops 2. Planted alone in the cropping cycle 3. Planted under trees in orchards or plantations 4. Planted as a fallow crop when the land is being rested Note: For suggested species suitable to the above systems (1-4), please refer to accompanying table under systems applicable.Cover Crops Offer Farmers the Following Benefits:1. Improved soil fertility through the addition of significant amounts of nutrients (more than 200kg N/ha). 2. Suppressed weed growth. 3. Reduced labor demands in soil preparation and in weeding 4. Reduced cost of inputs such as fertilizers, herbicides and hired labor. 5. Improved soil structure: cover crops can provide up to 30 tons of organic matter per hectare. Improved soil structure means a better medium for plant growth; in addition, it improves the soil's ability to retain moisture during dry periods. 6. Soil and water conservation: cover crops help reduce erosion by protecting the soil surface for extended periods of time. 7. Rehabilitation of degraded marginal lands. 8. Additional benefits: human food, animal forage, fuelwood and an added source of income.There are many plants which can be used for cover crops, depending on local conditions (rainfall, soils, local farming practices) and the objectives of farmers. However, most of the cover crops belong to the family of plants known as Leguminosae (beans).The following general characteristics are considered important in selecting plants for use as effective cover crops: 1. Rapid, prolific growth habit 2. Ability to fix significant amounts of nitrogen 3. Tolerance to a wide range of soil conditions (poor fertility, texture or structural qualities, extremes in pH, etc.) 4. Good drought tolerance. This is an especially important factor since most of the green manures are grown during the dry season.5. Seed availability or the ability of the plant to produce its own seed locally 6. Shade resistance, since cover crops are frequently interplanted or grown in relay with taller grain crops or trees 7. Proven pest resistance 8. Easy to control. Cover crops must be readily removed from the farm when the time comes for land clearing.Potential Problems with Cover Crops:1. Cover crops can be difficult to establish and farmers often perceive them to require extra work. Some farmers have been concerned that cover crops might compete with their staple crops. 2. Some cover crop species can be very aggressive and may be difficult to eliminate from the farm. 3. Cover crops can become an alternate host to pests which attack food crops. 4. Rats and snakes may hide in the dense foliage of cover crops.In general, the most popular cover crops are indeterminate (continuously produce flowers and pods), single-season legume species. However, perennial species can be of great value under certain circumstances; determinate bean species and even tuber crops such as camote can be used as effective cover crops. Some of the cover crops which have been used successfully by farmers are shown in Table 9.There are many other species of plants which have been used traditionally by farmers to serve the same purpose as the abovementioned cover crops. Many of them are as yet undocumented. Additionally, there are other plants which could also be used. Cover crops are gaining attention from farmers and agricultural scientists and they deserve much more field trials and research.  Seed quality is also affected by the parent plant.A. PhotoperiodismPhotoperiodism refers to the flowering response of a plant to the length of day, or more precisely, the length of the light and dark periods. Temperature has a direct effect on flowering and seed production. Example: pea, cabbage, pechay, radish, onion, carrot, cauliflowerIn areas where the temperature is not cold, temperate plants can be induced to flower and produce seeds if they are placed in cool conditions before planting. This method is called vernalization.Vernalization is done by soaking the seeds in water and placing them (after the radicle or rudimentary root has protruded) or their plant parts (example: onion bulb, tuber of carrot) in a cold (but not freezing) place like a refrigerator. The right amount of water is needed for the growth of the plant.Hard and continuous rain is not good for seed production since:1. pollen is not transferred;2. seeds do not develop from flowers;3. the vegetative stage of the plant or the maturity of the fruit/ seed is prolonged;4. seeds germinate even if it is still not harvested from the plant;5. harvesting becomes more laborious;6. pests attack or infest the plants; and, 7. seed yield decreases.To prevent seed production during the rainy periods, plants can be spaced at wider or longer distances so that all the plants can have enough sunlight.On the other hand, lack of rain or water is not good for the plant since it will prevent the normal growth of the plant and the plant may not produce flowers and seeds. Even if flowering occurs, the quality of the seeds is not good and the the seed yield is low.The strength and direction of the wind affect the pollination of flowers.To produce good seeds, the soil amust be healthy and fertile. The right pH (acidity of the soil) for a specific plant should also be obtained.Plant seeds when the weather is good. Usually, seeds are planted during the rainy season in order to have continuous amount of water. It is good to transplant early in the morning or late in the afternoon.The distance between plants used for seed production is wider compared to that of plants used for other purposes (example: vegetable production, fodder production). More seeds need to be planted if the broadcast or sowing method is done. The distance of planting is also wider if the soil is not fertile and in the rainy season. Widening the distance will enable plants to receive enough sunlight.1. Seed Cleaning or Seed Washing -Soak the seeds in a container of water and remove the seeds that float. Seeds which float have poor quality. 2. Use of Inoculants -Some microorganisms help in good growth of seeds.Rhizobium (a kind of bacteria) gets nitrogen from air and gives the nitrogen to the plant and soil. This is usually used for legumes. Mychorrhiza (a kind of fungus) helps the root absorb elements like phosphorus from parts of the soil that cannot be reached by the root. This has been found effective in corn and different vegetables. The two inoculants can be used to minimize the use of fertilizer. 3. Seed Scarification -This method is appropriate to seeds (example: winged bean, bitter gourd, sponge gourd) that are hard and difficult for water and air to penetrate. This is done by (1) nicking off the seed coat with a knife or nailcutter; (2) puncturing the seed coat with a needle; and, (3) rubbing the seeds in sandpaper, file or any rough material. Care should be done so as not to injure the internal portion of the seeds, especially the radicle. 4. Hot Water Treatment -Pour hot water (boiled and then cooled for about 10 -15 minutes) into a container with seed (10 parts water to 1 part seed).Let stand for 3 -10 minutes or until water cools off. Seeds may be left soaking overnight. Old seeds are soaked for a shorter time than new seeds. 5. Soaking Seeds in Ordinary Water Overnight -Soak seeds in tap water for 12-48 hours (depending on the species). This method is not recommended for all seeds, especially seeds that quickly absorb water like most legumes.The following methods are important to prevent contaminating other plant varieties from the variety that is being grown.1. Planting distance -The plant being grown should be kept at a distance from other varieties and also from plants that are of the same family. Varieties of crosspollinated plants should be planted at greater distances from each other than self-pollinated plants. For selfpollinated plants, the planting distance should not be less than 10 meters. For cross-pollinated plants, the planting distance should not be less than 100 meters. 2. Planting timing -Avoid planting at the same time plants from the same family or of different varieties of the same species. This ensures that they will not flower at the same time. Proper care and the right nutrition should be given to the plant to have good and high seed-yield. Organic fertilizers are recommended.The amount and frequency of watering should be adjusted for good seed-yield. Plants need less water after flowering than during the vegetative stage.Pests and diseases affect the quality and quantity of seed yield. To prevent infestation of pests and diseases, cultural practices like intercropping, mixed or multiple cropping and crop rotation are recommended.Botanical pesticides can also be used to prevent infestation of pests and diseases. If some plants already have disease, pull them out and bum or bury them underground to prevent contaminating other plants.Use of good quality seeds (seeds with good germination percentage and without seedborne pests and diseases) can also prevent pest and disease infestation. Another way of controlling pest and disease infestation is to use traditional seeds.Source: Regenerative Agriculture Technologies (RAT) Kit. IIRR UNICEF for Philippine Department of Agriculture. 1989.Water Harvesting: Improved C onservation of rainwater so it stays in the soil profile for a longer period and is released slowly through the drainage line in that area becomes an important constituent of improved dryland farming. The average size of a land holding in India is only 2ha ranging from 0.5ha in Kerala to 4.7ha in Rajasthan. In Tamil Nadu, it is about 1 ha and the holdings are fragmented. While 87.7% of the farmers are small and marginal, they hold only about 48.7% of the area under cultivation. These farmers are poor and come under the category of \"weaker sections\". This situation leads to complications in tackling dryland agriculture in the country (An economic appraisal, Tamil Nadu, 1989).In the last two or three decades, considerable attention focused on improving rainfed agriculture. This has lead to individual farmers to adopt moisture conservation measures, encouraging contour bunds and constructing check dams. The expenditure incurred was recovered from the farmers after deducting 25% to 33% as subsidy. Because the work was not done on a watershed basis, whatever improvements made were often nullified because runoff was not controlled in the upper areas. In the past, it was not realized that all development in drylands had to be tackled on a watershed basis. This has changed since and now the efforts are taken up on a watershed basis.The following are some of the water harvesting practices to be undertaken in the watershed to conserve soil moisture and rainwater and utilize the excess water for increasing agricultural production. The treatment may be different in red and black soils and light and heavy rainfall areas. Based on soil type and rainfall, the watershed plan can be prepared and implemented with involvement of the farmers in the watershed. Many of these practices have evolved from indigenous practices. The indigenous practices are, by and large, simple, and easily constructed with locally available tools and materials. Improvements to such practices became necessary, to make them more effective and durable, and so their maintenance would be relatively easy.Water harvesting in-situ moisture conservation practices. By implementing the water harvesting programme as described above, there is a good possibility of increasing the groundwater potential in the watershed. To prevent groundwater flow outside the area in the watershed, small sub-surface dams can be constructed in water-scarce areas.In red soils, both biological and mechanical measures may often be required, in black soils, soil moisture can be augmented to a considerable extent by biological measures. No perfect erosion control structure has been evolved to conserve soil and water in black soil areas.Contour cultivation Formation of basins, furrows, random tie ridges, broad based ridges and furrows Cross ploughing in both red and black soils when rainfall is less than 750mm Formation of drainage channel in black soil areas in-situ moisture conservation is best adopted after the watershed is completely treated with soil conservation measures.Conditions where contour trenches may be used: slopes of more than 33.3%; and any badly-eroded slope.for planting tea, coffee and other plantation crops; and to intercept runoff water from field sections between trenches for safe disposal.Conditions where graded bunds may be used: suitable for soil slopes of between 1 and 10%; particularly adapted to area of high rainfall (more than 1000mm).to store water temporarily and discharge through terrace outlets.Graded Bunds (Graded Terraces)contour bunds with burrow pit could be used to retain water between the terraces. On steeper slopes burrow pits can also be used to decrease average slope of farmed areas, thus making land more farmable. Small Water-impounding Technologies S mall water-impounding refers to structures using readily available materials for the storage and/or diversion of surface water (running water from springs, creeks, streams or rivers) either for the purpose of irrigation or for domestic use. These structures are generally characterized as simple, easyto-build and maintain, inexpensive and using readily available materials. However, they are less efficient and need to be maintained frequently compared to more permanent structures. Select a portion of a stream or river that is higher in elevation than the area to be irrigated. The site should have a moderately running surface water, with normal water level of from knee up to waist deep and with more or less even stream or river bed and the area is free of flash flood. It is also necessary that the selected site can be connected by a diversion canal to the proposed area to be irrigated.  Immediately upstream of the tripod structure, construct a diversion canal with at least 0.25 meter width and depth and connect it to the area to be irrigated.Cover the interspaces between the bamboo splits with leaves, sacks and other materials starting from the bottom up to the top, to raise the water level to reach the level of the diversion canal. When not in use, remove the leaves and other materials to allow free flow of water between the interspaces.All large debris, such as logs and drift wood, should be guided to pass through the opening of the structure to minimize damage to it. Regularly check and repair the structure and the diversion canal.Is a heap structure, composed of rocks boulders and river sands covering the entire width of the stream or river with a height of up to 0.5 meter. Its function is to store water, slightly raise the water level and divert it to a diversion canal located at its side.Select a portion of a stream or river that is higher in elevation than the area to be irrigated. The site should have slow to moderately running surface water with normal water level up to knee deep and preferably with even river or stream bed.It should also be free from flash flood. It is necessary that the selected site can be connected by a diversion canal to the proposed area to be irrigated. Earth or Mixed-Material Dam -a structure composed of readily available materials (such as rocks, boulders, and earth) and is used to store water for watering and other similar purposes. The structure is usually applied in live or intermittent creeks or streams with up to three meters width and not prone to flash flooding. To make reservoir area more impermeable to minimize seepage of water, the following should be conducted: a) scrape the bed of rocks until reaching the clay surface; b) line the bed with at least 20cm thick of fresh leaves, grasses and fine organic matters; c) cover the organic materials with soil of at least 20 cm thick and compact it eliminating air spaces; and, d) allow the organic matter to rot, thus forming a sticky and impermeable layer.   For further storage efficiency of the above mentioned dams, the surface of the structure should be lined with two inches of clay materials. Planting of grasses, such as bermuda grass, can also be done to strengthen the outer surface of the dam.Box Spring -a structure that encloses a live spring for storing water and or storing and diverting water through a pipe for drinking and other domestic consumption purposes. The structure can be made up of rocks and mud lined with clean river sand or hollow blocks and cement, covered by wooden planks.Locate a live spring which is accessible and preferably 50 meters from the residence. A live spring located higher in elevation than the site of the residence can be tapped through a series of pipes (PVC or bamboo poles) while those located at the same level or lower than the house can be tapped by using water pails or other containers.Prepare sufficient amount of clean river sands, clean clay, polished stones/ rocks and wooden planks or sufficient amount of hollow blocks, cement and sands. Piping materials should also be prepared whenever necessary either of bamboo poles or PVC.Clean the area around the spring at least with a dimension of 0.5m x 0.5m. Provide a temporary outlet for the water to pass through while the box spring is still under construction. Line the area with clean clay with at least two inches thickness and enclosed it with stones/rocks mixed with clay forming a box structure with a dimension of at least 0.5m x 0.5m x 0.5m. Line the base of the box with clean river sand and cover the top of the structure with wooden planks. Allow an opening near the top for piping or to allow the flow of excess water.The ater is a scarce resource in hill farming systems. Therefore, farmers generally build community ponds to collect runoff water for livestock to drink and for bathing. Some farmers use these ponds for small-scale irrigation as well. These ponds generally make water available up to six months after the rainy season. Few ponds can make water available throughout the year.1. Catchment area. Area from which rain water flows down to the pond. This area generally consists of the gently sloping grazing ground at slightly higher elevations. Some ponds also collect water from run-off diversion (trails) flowing from the farm household.2. Catch drain. The drain guides the run-off water from the catchment area to the pond. Generally, a drain is dug at the downward contour of the elevated grazing ground or the main drain (trail) flowing from the farm households.3. Gravelled entry drain. This is the entry portion of the catchment drain and is lined with gravel to prevent scouring from run-off water. Also, cattle can enter the pond to drink or bathe. This drain is about 2m long with a gentle slope towards the bottom of the pond.A dry stone pond wall (riser) is constructed to protect the pond riser from collapsing into the pond. This wall should not be vertical, but should slope slightly towards the pond.Pond. The pond should be about 1.5m deep. Water is stored up to a depth of 1m. The main problem of constructing such a pond is the high loss of water due to porous pond bottom. This can be avoided either by packing a 6\" layer of fine clay or clayey soil onto the bottom. Take care not to disturb the original sealing while digging.As some ponds get older, their water storing capacity can improve. The fine soil particles from the run-off water enter the pond and settle on the bottom making it more impervious to water. Ponds can also be built with cement, plaster and impervious bottom soling but are very costly. The size of the pond depends upon the size of the site and the catchment area. It is advisable to plant shrubs around the pond to conserve the soil.6. Excess water outlet. This outlet is placed one-half meter above the ground level to maintain the water level and prevent overflow. The excess water is drained to a safe drainage area. The drain is made of either gravelled channel or a pipe.Source: Regenerative Agriculture Technologies (RAT) Kit. IIRR UNICEF for Philippine Department of Agriculture. 1989.ood quality ground water is very scarce in arid areas. Even where canal water has been introduced, proper methods of irrigation have not been used resulting in problems of soil salinity and waterlogging. So, in arid and semi-arid regions, every drop of water should be utilized in the best possible way. In the recent past, new methods like sprinkler and drip irrigation have been used successfully. But these methods involve heavy investments on installation and maintenance. Work done at research centers and universities in arid areas have shown that pitcher irrigation is effective in growing spreading type crops and saplings. It serves as the \"poor man's drip irrigation system. \"1. Dig a small pit with a spade or a hand-hoe; the depth of the pit should be the same as the height of the pitcher. 2. Place the pitcher in the pit. 3. Put powdered soil around the pitcher and press the soil so that it is in close contact with the outer wall of the pitcher. 4. Keep the neck of the pitcher above the soil surface. 5. Pour water into the pitcher and cover its mouth with a lid. 6. Sow seeds close to the outer wall of the pitcher when the area around it gets moistened in a day or two. 7. Refill the pitcher when three quarters of the water is used up. 8. Place a lid on the pitcher and close it firmly to reduce evaporation and prevent breeding of mosquitoes. This can be done by any indigenous method suitable to the local region.The pitcher is a round, baked earthen container which is open at the top. This indigenous container is used by village women to fetch and store water. Water stored in pitchers maintains a cool temperature in summer as water evaporates from the outer surface of the pitcher. The same mechanism is applied for pitcher irrigation. Pitchers can be of different sizes ranging from 10 to 20 liters capacity. One pitcher is sufficient to irrigate spreading type vegetables like gourd, pumpkin, melon, etc. These crops need very few pitchers per unit area.It does not require any electric or other form of energy. Once the pitcher is filled, it carries on irrigation work 24 hours a day.It minimizes usage of fertilizers. It ensures optimum utilization of water and fertilizers. It facilitates early growth of trees. In the case of the Khejri (Prosopis cineraria) from Rajasthan, the initial growth was faster, which otherwise is much slower.Encourages a cottage industry by providing work to the potters who prepare these pitchers.Promotes the use of locally available materials.Provides more employment opportunities to landless laborers as the pitchers have to be repeatedly refilled.Allows easy handling by all family members. Poses no environmental hazard.The soil around the pitcher should be powdered finely to ensure total moistening of the soil Seedlings and tree saplings should be planted in the moistened area onlyIf salinity in the water is high, the site of the pitchers can be changed every three years to increase efficiency of the method.Each pitcher costs Rs 10-15 for a 10-15 liter capacity pitcher. The cost of installation of 1000 pitchers is around Rs 17,000 -which is less than the installation cost of drip or sprinkler irrigation.There are practically no maintenance costs. In dry areas, pitchers last for more than 3 years. In the case of trees, pitchers can be removed after one or two years. Even in sandy dunes, the soil layers at a depth of one meter are moist. Once the roots move to deeper layers, the pitchers can be removed and re-utilized elsewhere. The cost of growing crops and trees will be reduced considerably.ulches have many beneficial effects upon the soil, plants and area surrounding the plants.     The selection criteria for seeds depend on the selector's needs or use (example: food, fodder). Below is a list of characteristics which can help the selector find good plants for seeds: Based on the above criteria, select the plant to be used for seeds. Put a tag or mark the plant so that it is not harvested by accident and so that special care can be given to it.Source: Regenerative Agriculture Technologies (RAT) Kit. IIRR UNICEF for Philippine Department of Agriculture. 1989.trees with good coppicing ability); and, 7. Create special effects and shapes; enhance the natural lines of a tree or shape a plant to accommodate space.Tree pruning, if done correctly, will enhance the beauty and production of a tree without causing damage and infection to the tree. Frequently, people prune a tree by cutting branches with a bolo without thought to what will happen to the cut portion of the tree. If the branch stump is not properly pruned, there is a good chance of infection to set in. Once the infection starts in the tree, it can travel to the trunk and eventually kill the tree. The damage will generally not be seen from the outside of the tree.Growth of infection in improperly pruned tree 1. After the harvest season for fruit bearing trees 2. Before the rainy season for light pruning or trimming 3. Two to three months before the rainy season for rejuvenation 4. When infection, infestation, objectionable branches and damages are noted.T ree pruning is the art of cutting or removing unwanted plant growth to make the plant grow or behave the way we want it to.1. Removal of diseased or broken branches; 2. Removal of tree parts which will inhibit the proper growth of tree such as when one limb rubs on another limb; 3. Removal of branches to allow adequate light, to promote better fruit production and to allow wind to pass through the tree canopy; 4. Trim trees to prevent interference with electric or telephone lines (or cable TV); 5. Encourage/increase flowering and fruit production; decrease the number of fruit so larger fruits are produced;There are a number of tools which are used to prune trees. These range in size from a small hand-held pruning shears to large pole cutters and chain saws. The size of the branch, the height above the ground and the reason for pruning will determine which tool to use.1. Small branchesDifferent Types of Tree-Pruning Techniques While establishing the system, the emphasis must first be given to improving the soil fertility of the land. This can be done through the use of legumes (green manuring), in situ mulching and/or composting and the incorporation of any other locally available organic matters, such as agricultural by-products and other biodegradable materials.Benefits Accruing from this System wants to establish over the long term. Focus should be given to fruits and fodder. 5. In-situ composting, green manuring and green leaf manuring should be done wherever possible for improvement of soil fertility and for water conservation.Steps to be Taken while Establishing the Agroforestry System 1. Seasonal legumes with vigorous growth, for example: cowpea, velvet bean and rice bean (masyang) should be planted in the beginning in order to have enough soil cover, thereby improving the soil condition. Planting should be dense and thick. The best time to plant these species is April-May.2. In the first year, with the onset of the monsoon, pioneer species, such as banana (at lower elevations), pineapple and some tree species can be planted following the contour or at regular intervals. At the same time, pits can be dug for other tree species. 3. The dug soil from the pit should be mixed with a little compost and returned to the pit in order to prevent soil loss. 4. Tree seedlings can be planted in the prepared pits during July-August. 5. The base of the fruit and other tree seedlings should be mulched in order to prevent soil moisture loss and to provide nutrients from the organic matter to the seedlings. 6. Weed the base of the tree regularly.Establish a diversified fruit orchard integrating mandarin orange, sweet orange, lemon, coffee, cardamom, guava, pineapple, banana, plums and pear. Plant ipil-ipil and Albezzia falcataria on the bund of terrace by direct sowing. Distance between plants should be 50 cm. Plant sisso, bakaino, neem, bamboo, koiralo and other fodder species on the boundary line of the orchard with the following distance between plants: Sisso -2.5 m Bakaino -10 m Neon -15 m Bamboo -30 m Fodder trees in between of other plants.Plant coffee, banana, orange and pineapple. Alternate orange and coffee in rows. Plant banana and pineapple throughout the fields between the orange and coffee. Intercrop various species of legumes, garlic and onion.Wherever possible, introduce hedgerow strips of tree legumes every 6-7m of about 1m deep to provide green-leaf fertilizer for upland rice. Suggested tree legumes are Kakawati, Cassia spectabilis or ipil-ipil. Select a rice variety with a growth season well within the rainfall duration. The variety should mature by the time rainfall recedes. Sow the rice seeds at the onset of the rain. A rainfall of 55-60 mm is desirable to ensure uniform and adequate plant population. Planting can be done either by broadcasting, dibbling, hilling or drilling.The land is prepared moist or dry. A modified broadcasting method is done by furrowing a harrowed field with a Iithao. Seeds are broadcast uniformly and then a peg-toothed harrow, kalmot is used to pass diagonally across the furrows. Thorough land preparation can effectively control weed population during the rice vegetative stage. Plow the field and leave it for a week to allow weeds to germinate. Harrow the field twice. Allow weed seeds to germinate. Then harrow for the third time to incorporate the weeds into the soil. When hedgerows of tree legumes are tall, prune to hedges and leave the branches on the strips to allow leaves to decompose. Keep the field free from weeds for about 40-60 days after emergence to minimize yield losses. Competition for light, nutrients and soil moisture begins early.Hand-weeding is done if seeds were broadcast. However, in modified broadcasting or row planting, mechanical weeding using a hoe can be done.In slopey areas where plowing is not possible, the use of crop residues as mulch can help control weed growth. The leaves of legumes serve as fertilizer. If there is a large amount of biomass applied into the field at pruning time, it is not necessary to put chemical fertilizers. Using a legumecereal rotation can also help improve fertility. Pest control can be done as the need arises. Integrated pest management (IPM) is highly recommended. As soon as the grains are ripe (about 80-85 percent is mature), harvest the crop. Increase productivity by intercropping and crop rotation. Legumes planted with rice or planted before or after rice can substantially improve yields with reduced external inputs.Plant alternating 2-3 rows of upland rice with a row of bushtype legume (preferably a short-maturing one). About 16-20kg legume and 50kg of upland rice is needed to plant a hectare.When the rice is at its late vegetative stage, the legume is harvested. The space occupied by the legume can be planted to corn or other crops like cassava or vegetables.After the rice harvest, plant a short-duration legume crop where the rice was planted. If the field is free from weeds, the legume seed can be drilled or dibbled. Or, plant lablab or velvet bean following upland rice.Towards the dry months Plant legumes that cover the soil during the dry season. Good potential cover crops include rice bean, batao and velvet bean.Plant rice in strips during the onset of the rainy season.After the rice harvest, plant 1-2 rows of legumes for every 2-3 rows of corn. Peanut, mung bean or cowpea can be planted as intercrop.Before the crops are harvested, plant legume cover crop to protect the soil during summer.Plant the whole field with upland rice. It is suggested that more than one variety of rice in one field should be planted to spread the risk from calamity.After the rice harvest, plant legumes. If the rice was planted in rows and the field is free from weeds, the succeeding crop can be relayed one week before harvesting rice. Cowpea, mung bean and peanut may be planted.Corn can be planted just after the legumes in case there is still sufficient soil moisture.But if the soil moisture cannot support corn growth, a third crop of cover crop like rice bean or lablab is suggested.This technology involves the intercropping of coffee, betel and rattan under the residual or logged-over areas. The residual or logged-over areas are usually cleared of underbrush (vines, shrubs, climbing bamboos, etc.), leaving naturally growing trees at 14-18 meters intervals and when necessary supplemental planting of forest trees is resorted to depending on the degree of shade provided by the canopy. Coffee saplings are planted at 2-3 meter intervals under the forest trees that act as nurse trees.The technology has been practiced by the migrant lfugaos in Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino and parts of Isabela. The areas where this technology is being applied are usually with (1) an estimated elevation range of 400-1000 meters above sea level; (2) with rolling to hilly terrain; (3) within the second and third climatic types; and, (4) whose soil are rich in litterfall or accumulated humus.The technology is an adaptation and/or modification of an indigenous practice of muyong or pinugo system (woodlot) of the lfugaos. The system is characterized by the following: has low inputs and relatively low-to-medium yields; minimizes disturbance to the forest ecosystem in terms of vegetation, fauna and physical environment; serves as shelter for wildlife and source of animal protein in terms of trapped bats and squirrels; and supports the viability of irrigated rice paddies located downstream.For developing countries like the Philippines, one of the stated limiting factors in rice production today is declining soil fertility. Consequently, farmers have resorted to the use of chemical fertilizers. However chemical fertilizers, though effective in the short run, are expensive, often unavailable to small farmers and damaging to the environment. For the majority of small farmers, the use of the 'recommended' amount of chemical fertilizer is not often possible due to lack of capital or because it does not make economic sense. For these important reasons, there has recently been a great deal of interest in nutrient cycling and in alternative sources of fertilizer.The negative effects of high-chemical input strategies (leading to the high cost of production) have prompted various agricultural institutions and development agencies to come up with alternative technologies. For its part, the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) with the financial support of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) initiated the Low Input Rice Production Project (LIRPP). This project was started in May 1986 in three sites in the Philippines namely: Negros (with the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM), Quirino (with the Quirino Livelihood Concept Foundation) and in Navarro, a lowland ricegrowing community the province of Cavite, Philippines.Through this project, IIRR has been able to test, adapt and then promote low-cost, ecologically sound, and sustainable ricebased production technologies. Important elements of the LIRPP are (1) reduction of chemical inputs, (2) diversification of farm enterprises, (3) integration of livestock and fish, and (4) introduction of practical approaches to the inclusion of biofertilizers. The objective of the project is not to establish a \"model farm\" but to offer a variety of technological options to interested users to adapt in whatever combinations they themselves prefer. The target beneficiaries are the small farmers who have limited financial resources. Rural development workers can also benefit from the LIRPP experience through training conducted on site and through the dissemination of an information kit on low-input technologies for rice.The main technologies tested at the LIRPP farm at Navarro and a summary of results are represented below.Use of bio-fertilizer: At the Navarro project site, three green manure technologies were used: Sesbania rostrata, Azolla and Gliricidia green leaf.The idea of \"organic wastes\" and \"waste spaces\" becomes obsolete: The wastes serve as additional nutrients and the waste spaces can be devoted for the production of energy, feed or fertilizer.The house is constructed nearest the component(s) that require the highest level of management.Some components are integrated to conserve labour and excess nutrients and optimize the utilization of those nutrients.It is designed to use energy and nutrients in the most efficient manner, eg.compost (which has high labour cost) is used for high value crops such as vegetables.Animals are incorporated into the system to utilize \"wastes\" and products man cannot use. Some animals may also provide draft power.manure. Sesbania rostrata was grown during the month of May and incorporated into the soil after 45 days of growth. A permanent Azolla multiplication pond (150sqm) was made to supply the inoculum for the rest of the rice paddies. In addition, seedlings of Sesbania rostrata were planted 30cm apart along paddy bunds (total of 40 meter-row) for seeds for the next year.The Sesbania-fertilized plot resulted in a rice yield of 5 tons per hectare giving a net return of more than P14,000.00/ha (Exchange rate: US$1.00 = P20.00). Soil analysis in the trial plot showed an increase in organic matter.AzoIla-fertilized plots after the sixth cropping yielded 5 tons per hectare (with no chemical fertilizers) and a net income of more than P12,000.00, a great improvement over the net income of P7,000.00 per croppingLeaves of Gliricidia sepium are an excellent source of nitrogen for rice but have not been used previously in lowland paddies in the Philippines. Green leaf manuring using Gliricidia leaves combined with inorganic fertilizer increased yield by 40-60%. The Gliricidia is planted on rice-paddy bunds/dikes so that the source of greenleaf manure is easily accessible. The bushes are pruned 3-4 times a year to reduce shading problems. In Navarro, the IIRR test plot fertilized with fresh leaves of Gliricidia (3 tons/ha) plus 20kg N/ ha applied 45 days after transplanting yielded 3.7 tons/ha or a net income of more than P7,000.00/ha after the third cropping. Gliricidia leaves also possess insecticidal properties.Problems of rice bugs and other insect pests can be reduced by stacking the branches and leaves in the corners of the rice field.Rice straw is the cheapest source of nutrients in lowland rice. Rice straw from the dry season harvest is immediately spread/scattered back across the field and incorporated during land preparation. Some rice straw is piled (mandala system) and used to feed farm animals. Straw from the wet season harvest is piled in one section of the farm and allowed to decompose. In the farmer's field, 3 tons of rice straw could be easily harvested and this could provide at least 30kg nitrogen, 6kg phosphorous and 75kg potassium and other micro nutrients. Straw incorporation can therefore reduce the fertilizer requirements of the rice crop.Livestock are an integral part of the nutrient cycling system of a farm. They directly or indirectly affect the following three aspects of nutrient cycling: Redistribution of Nutrients -Nutrients are brought in or brought up from deeper soil levels by trees whose leaves are fed to livestock. Increasing Nutrient Availability -Nutrients from crop residues and other feeds become more available for the plant when converted to manure. Increase in Nitrogen Supply -Livestock require protein and, to the extent that legumes are used in the system (either grown or brought in from the outside) to feed livestock, they cause an increase of nitrogen in the system.The contribution of livestock to farm income/savings may be summarized as follows:The Navarro farm maintained carabaos (water buffalo), ducks, pigs and native chickens. Two carabaos are raised per hectare of rice land. These animals can be used as draft power for land cultivation. They are fed on rice straw and napier grass grown along the paddies. The use of carabaos instead of hiring a fuelbased hand tractor can reduce land preparation costs by 50%. About 3 tons per year of dried manure can be generated from these 2 carabaos. The manure can be used to fertilize rice/fish paddies and vegetables.Hog Production (2 head) -Fed on rice bran, farm-grown feeds (e.g. kangkong, gabi, Azolla etc). An extra income of P500 in just 5 months can be realized from 2 head of pigs. The manure generated is used to fertilize the mini-fish pond. Ducks (25 head) -Fed on golden snails and Azolla. They are used to weed the rice field and produce eggs and meat for the family. Native Chickens -Grazed on grass or on kitchen \"left-overs. \" They produce meat and eggs for the family.Potential Alternative Sources of Nitrogen Fertilizer for Lowland Rice which Could Supply the 80kg N/ha Requirement of a Rice Crop Vegetable Component (Bio-intensive Garden):Adding a vegetable component can help ease daily household cash flow problems and improve family nutrition. While the rice is still under production a farmer can earn income in 3-4 weeks from short-duration leafy vegetables. Fertilizer for this component originates from the caribou shed .Our work in LIRPP has focused on growing fodder on paddy dikes and sorjan beds (a series of raised beds and sinks of the same size).The objective has been to produce enough feed on one hectare of riceland to meet the feed needs of draft animals when they cannot graze in vacant fields -a period of time usually period of lasting four to five months, when all rice fields are being prepared and planted. Napier grass was planted on about 500 linear meters of paddy dikes and on Sorjan bed edges. Growth in sorjan beds has been better than on paddy dikes reaching rates as high as 11kg/5 linear meters every 20 days. Production on large paddy dikes has also been good but those dikes lower than 20cm have shown relatively poor growth in the rainy season probably due to excess moisture.Weed Control Using a Hand-pushed Rotary Weeder:Use of a hand-pushed rotary weeder and handweeding is an option for controlling weeds instead of using costly chemicals and hazardous herbicides. The destruction of frogs, mudfish, catfish and edible native snails is noticed on Philippine farms using herbicides. We compared two weed control technologies: the use of herbicides (Machete) and Mechanical Rotary weeders. The cost of weeding was higher by 14% on the Rotary Weeder plot than on the herbicide-treated plot due to higher labour needs. However, the yield increase was enough to pay for the increase in the cost of weed control by using the rotary weeder. So the benefit of the Rotary Weeder will be to aid in fertility build-up by incorporating weeds and Azolla into the soil which then decompose and provide organic matter and help conserve aquatic life. Use of mechanized weeders instead of chemicals makes fish raising in conjunction with rice possible.Mini-fish Pond (100sqm.):A fish pond was constructed for 100 Tilapia nilotica fingerlings to provide fish for the family, as a drainage area for the spent water from the hog house and as a growing area for swamp cabbage. Twenty to thirty kg of tilapia could be harvested in just four months thus providing an additional income for the family. However, the greatest benefit of the mini-pond is the convenience of a fish source on the farm and the impact on family nutrition given the prevailing high costs of fish in the market.Rice/fish Culture:Raising fish and rice in the same paddy increases rice yield by 20 percent even though 10% of the land area is devoted to trenches (thus depriving the farmer of some space for rice production). The trials on IIRR's project sites have demonstrated that chemical use can be reduced by raising fish in paddies because of the reduced weeds and insect control resulting from the eating habits of fish.The fish eat aquatic weeds, worms and insects that destroy the rice crop. The activity of the fish in rice paddies, the recycling of nutrients and the release of fish faeces in the paddy also improve the nutrient status of rice paddies where fish are present. About 400kg of fish can be harvested per hectare in 120-150 days. The combined income from fish and rice can earn a net income as high as P22,000 per hectare per season. As with the mini-pond, rice/ fish culture is valuable not only for the added income it produces, but also for the added fish protein that becomes readily available to the family. on Rice-based SystemFor a developing country like the Philippines, the maximum reutilization of organic wastes and the utilization of available resources on the farm are important to the maintenance and improvement of soil fertility and to the reduction of agricultural costs. The cultivation of green manure crops (e.g. Azolla, Sesbania, Gliricidia, etc) and the incorporation of rice straw are some of the effective alternative sources of fertilizer for lowland rice. The integration of livestock, fish and vegetables in the farming system will serve as a source of food and income, and at the same time the waste materials can be used as a source of nutrients for the crops. Knowing the nutrient flows and the contribution of each component of the farm in a systematic manner will contribute towards the goals of regenerating the land and sustaining the farming system.Source: Resource Book on Sustainable Agriculture for the Lowlands. Southeast Asia Sustainable Agriculture Network (SEASAN). 1992Introduction:Green leaf manuring (using the leaves of leguminous trees for lowland rice) has been used in South Asia for centuries with yield increases of up to 2 ton/ha compared to unfertilized rice fields.Recent work with farmers in Negros and Cavite has shown that green leaf manuring works in the Philippines as well.Advantages of using green leaf manures (GLM) include: Up to 4 tons dry leaf matter (equivalent to 120kg N) can be produced from 400 trees spaced 2m apart on the bund.No need to replant green manure crops. The trees are perennial and provide leaves for GLM 2-3 times/year. Woody branches can be used for firewood. Easy to use. No complicated cultural practices for production or use are needed. GLM trees can be integrated into almost any rice farm. Three options are described here based on planting systems used in Negros and Cavite with Gliricidia sepium (kakawate or madre de cacao).Gliricidia is planted along the paddy bunds. Spacing is 50cm-2m between plants.Gliricidia is planted around field boundaries. Distance is 2m between plants. Dikes should be 50-75cm wide and 40-50cm high.Cut-and-carry system: Gliricidia is planted in areas away from the field. The major disadvantage of this system is the transport of biomass from the growing area to the field.How to use Green Leaf Manure:The practice of GLM is very simple. Any fast-growing leguminous tree species which tolerates poor drainage can be used. The leaves are lopped regularly (every 6 mos) and applied to the rice paddies during final land preparation as green leaf fertilizer. In order to reduce the labor requirements, the trees should be established at or near the rice production site.1. One day before transplanting, cut branches of Gliricidia (with leaves). Chop the tender stems. The woody ones can be used as firewood. 2. Scatter the leaves evenly throughout the field. There should be no standing water in the paddy in order to fully incorporate the leaves. 3. Incorporate the leaves into the soil during the last harrowing/leveling of the field. 4. Transplant rice seedlings immediately after incorporation.Notes on the Use of Gliricidia:Two loppings are recommended per year. If there will be no second crop to put the GLM on, the second cutting should be done 1-2 mos before the onset of the dry season. ThisQuantity of Leaves Recommended/ ha.Ipil-ipil 1,000-8,000kg/ha (fresh cut)Acacia -do-Japanese AcaciaKamachile or Kamunsil -do-Bani or Balokbalok ponggam -do-* Please note that this is not Derris elliptica or Tubli. Gliricidia sepium (kakawate) has the same quantity of leaves recommended/ha as the GLM species given above.stimulates new growth which can survive a 6-month dry season without dropping its leaves. The loppings could be used as fodder.Gliricidia may have pesticidal properties against major pests of rice.Gliricidia can serve as living stakes for climbing plants like pole beans. It is also an excellent source of firewood, building materials for livestock pens and fence materials.Two methods of establishing trees for GLM are used: seeds and cuttings. Recent work at IIRR has shown that the method of planting cuttings greatly affects the establishment and growth rates of trees. The recommended method of planting cuttings of Gliricidia is described below.Pot/Bottle Gourd Irrigation for Fruit Tree Saplings P ot or bottle gourd irrigation is a method of providing a regular supply of water in hot/arid climate to high-value plants, such as mango, without having to visit the plants every day. When small seedlings are planted, there is a risk of them drying out. This technique supplies the right amount of water for the first 1-2 years of establishment. The principle is the same as for drip irrigation: little and often, but without having to be there all that often! Clay pots, or shell of mature bottle gourds after you have taken out the seeds, are used-one pot/gourd per site. Bottle gourds are cheaper of course.1. Dig a hole large enough to bury a small pot or bottle gourd (about 1 ft. deep and 1 ft. diameter) about 1-1 /2ft (30-40cm) from a newly planted sapling.2. Cut the top off the gourd and make a small hole on the side towards the seedling. Bury the gourd or pot in the hole so the top is about 1\" above the soil surface.3. Fill the pot/gourd with water and cover it to prevent evaporation.Water will seep out of the porous pot walls or through the hole in the bottom of the gourd. About 5 liters of water should last one week. If the gourd does not empty within this time, make more holes. If it empties too quickly, put cotton wool in the hole to regulate the water flow. Refill the pot/gourd whenever empty.This technique may only be needed in the first year of tree establishment after which time the gourd will have rotted anyway. In a cold arid climate, the technique may be needed for two years because establishment growth is slower.The benefit of using the gourd is that it is free of cost. You can grow your own irrigation system!The same technique can be used for vegetable and other types of trees.Source: Regenerative Agriculture Technology (RAT) Kit. IIRR UNICEF for Philippine Department of Agriculture. 1989Climate-smart Rice Production SRI creates a triple-win situation for agriculture, climate security, and food security because it:1. Sustainably increases rice production and farmer incomes (greater crop productivity) 2. Strengthens crops' resilience to climate change and variability (facilitates adaptation) 3. Reduces rice production's contribution to climate change (helps promote mitigation)Rice yields are increased by 20-50% -sometimes >100-200%Higher water productivity gives 'more crop per drop' Reductions in irrigation water requirements -by 30-50% per hectare; and Higher water productivity -more output of grain per unit of water input -by 30-100% [1] Higher nutrient-use efficiency Less fertilizer and agrochemical inputs needed by 30-50%, and by 100% with organic SRI when relying on organic fertilization; higher nutrient uptake by larger root systems [2] Higher seed productivity and better quality Seed multiplication rate can be >1000 times, compared to 90x with standard methodsLabor productivity -higher rice yield per day of labor [4] Benefit-cost ratio higher due to higher yields with similar or lower production costs [4, 7] 2. Expansion of carbon sinks SRI rice plants sequester more carbon -higher grain and straw yield, and more root biomass Increased soil organic matter through SRI practices that improve the soil with more organic matter application and increased root exudates Associated agro-ecological practices sequester carbon, such as green manure production, integration with agroforestry, surface mulch applications, etc. Reduced carbon footprint due to less use of agrochemicals (including the manufacturing, and shipping of fertilizer)Reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from paddy soils Methane (CH4) is reduced by between 22% and 64%, as soils are maintained under mostly aerobic conditions [10,11,3] Nitrous oxide (N2O) is only slightly increased or sometimes reduced as use of N fertilizers is reduced; N20 increases do not offset CH4 reductions, so GWP is reduced [9,10,11,12] Total global warming potential (GWP) from flooded rice paddies is reduced 20-30% [10,12,3], even up to 73% [11] System of Rice Intensification (SRI)How to Produce More Rice with Less Inputs T he System of Rice Intensification is a new and promising resource-saving method of growing rice under irrigated or rain-fed conditions. Studies in a number of countries have shown a significant increase in rice yield, with substantial savings of seeds (80-90%), water (25-50%), and cost (10-20%) compared to conventional methods. SRI is not a technology, but a set of simple ideas and principles that help produce more productive and robust plants. The ideas are: I. Transplant very young seedlings, raised in an unflooded nursery. II. Transplant them carefully and shallow. III. Transplant single seedlings and at wider spacing than now. IV. Apply a minimum amount of water -no continuous flooding. V. Control weeds with active soil aeration. VI. Rely as much as possible on organic matter for soil fertilization. Steps 1 to 7 show SRI methods.Step 1Nursery preparation using available inputs and methods. Presoaking seeds in water for 24 hours and incubating in a rags for 24 hours before sowing in a well-drained, garden-like nursery helps seeds to germinate faster. Line or random sowing of seeds in nursery can be done.Step 2Seedlings at 2-3 leaf stage, ready to be transplanted. Carefully remove seedlings along with soils using a shovel to avoid trauma to roots. Use a flat item to carry the seedlings to the field. Avoid damage to tender seedlings and their roots while transporting and don't let them become dried.Step 3Transplant young seedlings (2-leaf stage plant has the potential to attain 84 tillers) and do this carefully and singly at shallow depth (2-3cm) in slightly slanting position without removing soil particles attached to the seedling roots into a well puddled and levelled field but not flooded. Use spacing of above 25 x 25cm between the seedlings by using a marked rope or small pole to get uniform distance. This not only saves the amount of seeds required, but also reduces the competition for nutrients, water and sunlight. This gives roots plentyStep 4After transplanting, leave the field moist but without flooding for at least 12-14 days. This allows seedlings to adapt to their new environment. This should be followed by alternate wetting and drying (AWD) until the flowering stage (more at Step 5). SRI fields usually appear terrible for about a month or so. But after this time, it will prosper. of space to spread out, resulting in a large number of tillers and facilitates easier weeding.Step 5In a flooded rice field, plant roots die due to lack of oxygen. So SRI recommends a series of wetting and drying cycles until the end of the vegetative stage. This can be done by flooding the field for 3-6 days, and then draining the field and letting it dry out for a similar number of days, or less depending on the weather condition, to the extent of surface cracking (except for clay soil, which needs to be kept at least moist). This wetting and drying process allows the plant roots to grow well by accessing both adequate water and air. This saves water as compared to the conventional method and results in better plant and root growth. In the reproductive stage, after flowering, a water level of 3-5cm should be maintained prior to 2 weeks of harvest, although with good root growth, AWD can continue.Step 6Carry out the first weeding at about 12-14 days after transplanting using a rotary weeder if possible. This implement not only aerates the soil but also controls weeds by turning them into soil. Subsequent weedings should be done at intervals of about 2 weeks, until the canopy closes.Step 7 SRI recommends use of FYM or compost made from decomposed biomass (straw, etc.). Their application not only improves soil structure but also enhances the number and diversity of useful soil organisms in the field. This method for improving soil fertility supports organic farming, combats deteriorating soil health, deals with environmental quality concerns, and counters the increasing cost of cultivation.Larger root systems, bigger and healthier and plants, profused tillering from a single seedling, and finally a bumper harvest for the SRI farmers. Apart from these benefits, other positive aspects of SRI are: higher milling outturn (by about 15%), better grain quality, greater pest and disease resistance, more tolerance for lodging and drought, and reduced grain maturity time by 1-2 weeks. SRI techniques, although the name implies that they work for rice only, are being adapted in India to improve other crops such as wheat, finger millet, sugarcane and mustard.There is nothing magical about SRI; nonetheless, it produces \"More Output with Less Inputs. \" Hence, it is a resource-conserving technique of rice production that is good for farmers, consumers, and the environment.Source: How to Produce More Rice with Less Input. A Field Extension Manual. Karma Lhendup, Faculty of Agriculture, College of Natural Resources. 'Description. Circle nurseries conserve water and make use of trees growing in your nursery. For fruit trees which have just been grafted and should not get wet, this is an ideal way of root watering. This method is also useful for non-grafted nurseries, and is suitable for all climates. This prevents roots from growing out of the pots and protects the sides of the trench from being eroded. Old poly pots are ideal as they allow water to percolate and feed the central tree.4. Place seedlings in polypots or clay pots in the trench.To water, place a flat rock on the side of the trench and pour water onto this so that the base of the trench is filled. Water the seedlings as required.Benefits:1. The soil in the pots will soak up the water from below, which is better for root development. 2. The central tree will receive the excess water (and leached nutrients) from the potting mix. 3. The central tree will provide shade and hail protection to the nursery plants around it and birds perching in the tree will provide insect control and manure to the seedlings. 4. The stems of the seedlings can remain dry (this is important if they are grafted). 5. Good to put seedlings in trench in order to keep roots cool and minimize water loss. The trench helps keep seedling roots cool and minimizes water loss.Source: Regenerative Agriculture Technologies (RAT) Kit. IIRR UNICEF for Philippine Department of Agriculture. 1989.t is generally perceived that rainfall patterns alone determine the success or failure of crops. What happens to the received rain water is as important as the quantum of rainfall itself. Equally important is the pattern of utilization and influence of other natural resources and life forms such as sunshine, soil, soil microbes, type of crops, local vegetation, livestock, birds, etc.Vegetative cover in the form of trees, shrubs, creepers, grasses, etc, helps intercept raindrops and retain maximum water in their canopy. Excess rainwater slowly runs down the leaves, branches and the main trunk, avoiding splash erosion and resulting in increased percolation. Vegetation also deflects wind, thereby reducing wind erosion and moisture loss. A grass cover will reduce the velocity of water flow over the ground and allow for increased percolation.In a typical dryland area, rainfall is the primary source of water. Without adequate vegetation a substantial proportion of this rainwater will be lost as runoff. Estimates of this wastage range from 40% to 90% depending on soil type, land slope and existing vegetation. The proportion of rain water retained in situ increases with increased vegetative cover. Promotion of vegetative cover in the form of trees, shrubs, creepers, grasses etc., is essential in improving the utilization and quality of natural dryland systems.A vegetative cover also provides home for a variety of insects and birds. This helps increase the biodiversity and reduce the presence of pests and diseases. Droppings and decomposition of flora and fauna add nutrients and organic matter to the soil which change the structure of soil particles. These activities enhance the water holding capacity of soils which improves the survival prospects of crops during dry spells.High vegetative cover -low run-offIn addition to enhancing the quality of natural systems, high vegetative cover also provides economic security for farmers. Trees and other plants are seen as means gain wealth for poor farmers as they provide food, fuel, fodder and building materials. They are liquid assets which can be sold in cases of crop failure as they are much less vulnerable to the vagaries of weather and markets. Increasing vegetation, therefore, provides income and reduces farmers' dependence on money lenders and unsustainable accumulation of debt.Farmers' fields are normally divided into several sub-plots using bunds. A hectare of land can have 800 to 1200m of bunds including the boundaries. All these bunds can be covered with perennial fodders like Stylo hamara and other local grasses which will help to stabilize the bunds.Trees with long rotation period can be planted on the boundary bunds with a planting distance of 2m. Internal bunds can be planted with trees of short rotation period and those which can produce maximum lea biomass. The number of each species depends on the purpose of plantation, the cropping system being followed, soil characteristics and level of precipitation.Trees that can be considered for boundary bunds are:Eucalyptus spp. (Niligiri) Tectonagranas(Teak) Thespestia populnea(Huvarsi); Albezia lebbek(Bage) Leucaena leucocephala(Subabul) Annona squamosa(Seeta phal)Tree that can be promoted on the internal bunds are:In addition to planting vegetation on the bunds, horticultural species should be planted in the field itself. Some of the horticultural species that can be considered are:Mango, 30 to 50 plants per hectare Tamarind (grafted), 10 to 20 per hectare Papaya, 20 per hectare Pomegranate, 10 to 15 per hectare Curry leaves EmblicaA systematic and planned approach should be adopted in establishing effective tree cover in drylands. Farmers should make a provision of three to five years to achieve the desired vegetative cover. Actions to be taken from year to year are detailed below.In the first year, the following activities should be done in the field where vegetative cover will be established.Establishing protection from stray cattle is absolutely essential.Normally it takes about one year to establish a fence. Some species such as cactus, Euphorbia species. Lantana, Agave and others can be used for this purpose. The live hedge should also be reinforced with thorny bushes for added protection. Non-browsable plants are preferable for a livehedge fence.Creation of internal bunds in the cultivated plots is advisable. Cultivated plots should be divided into smaller plots by erecting bunds. These will help soil and water conservation promote better tree growth. The optimal interbund distance should be kept around 20 to 30m, depending on the slope of the land.Excavating a small farm pond measuring 10 x 10 x 3m in a hectare of land will facilitate the collection of run-off rainwater and will help improve the microclimate.Prune trees on internal bunds to a height of about 5ft to avoid shading of crops.Trees on the boundary should be allowed to grow straight by pruning the side branches only. Reintroduce all leaf biomass into the soil. This increases soil organic content and promotes soil humus content and growth of soil microflora and fauna. Maintain a trench of half a foot at a distance of half a meter from the trees to cut surface roots and keep them from spreading into the field.It is essential to water the plants immediately after planting. Water the plants diligently on the first two years after planting to improve chances of survival.A good nursery of desired forest trees should be planned and established in the first year. Pelleting of seeds using cowdung and dry sowing of pelleted seed helps establish forestry trees at a comparatively lower cost.Pitting should be completed and allowed to wither before the onset of rains. The pits should be filled with organic manure, neemcake. rockphosphate and covered with top soil.Pit Size Required for Various Tree Species Year 2Planting should commence with the onset of rains. Weeding, watering and basin preparation should be done at regular intervals if the rain fails.Gap filling, weeding, watering and basin preparation should continue. Replace weak plants with healthy seedlings. Organic manure should be applied for horticultural plants.Weeding, watering and basin preparation should be continued. Depending on the survival rates, thin out closely-placed plant Pruning of the side branches of forestry species planted on the boundary should also be done. Deforestation of lands for fuelwood and fodder-leads to increased erosion. Uncontrolled grazing-increases erosion by exposing the top soil. Hazardous mining practices-increases erosion in hilly areas causing degradation of vegetation in arable lands. This leads to siltation of tanks and reservoirs. Surface runoff along the slope-concentrates and increases in volume and velocity, causing erosion in the arable lands situated downstream. This paper focuses on control of degradation occurring through surface runoff.Catch Pits/Dug-outs These are large dug-out pits situated at rill points and water-ways to trap runoff. It is adoptable in rocky areas. Pits are planted with suitable trees. This is both a mechanical and vegetative measure.These are cresent-shaped bunds formed across the slope with a vegetative pit inside. The bunds control runoff and soil erosion and facilitate the development of vegetative cover. This is a mechanical measure. This is an individually-designed channel placed across the slope to intercept and divert surface runoff and to save arable lands from being damaged due to overflow from non-arable lands. The channel is trapezoidal in shape and grown with suitable vegetative species. These are adoptable in all areas irrespective of soil and climatic conditions. This is a mechanical measure.These are benches of small width formed on contours by disturbing soil in areas having mild to steep slopes. These are planted with bushy vegetation or trees. This is a mechanical measure.These are dams made of wire-woven baskets filled with stones constructed across non-arable lands to control silt erosion in steep slopes. This is a mechanical measure.Note: Run-off from non-arable lands cannot be reduced to zero despite appropriate measures. In rainfed lowland areas which are traditionally planted to only one crop of rice per year, land use can be optimized by using the pre-and/or post-rice wet period to grow legume crops. Legumes are suitable rotational crops with rice because they:Can mature in 65-90 days. Can be grown as pre-rice crop when rainfall accumulation reaches 100 mm/mo or as post-rice crop using the receding rain and residual soil moisture. Are acceptable crops because they are easy to prepare for consumption or to sell at the market. Are drought-tolerant. Are capable of using atmospheric nitrogen and contribute nitrogen to the soil.1. Intensifies land use and increases crop production per area per year. 2. Provides an additional source of food and income to farmers. Legumes can also provide biomass for green manure and fodder.3. Sustains soil productivity through nitrogen cycling with legumes. 4. Weed production is reduced by planting an otherwise fallow area.Designing the Crop Rotation Pattern:(Refer to the figure on theoretical rainfall occurrence and proposed legume-rice sequences)1. Based on knowledge from past years or from rainfall data, determine the onset and the end of the rainy season. 2. Choose short-maturing varieties of both rice and legume crop to accommodate a three-crop sequence or to avoid water stress. 3. Estimate the planting and harvesting dates of each crop in the cropping sequence. 4. If, based on the rainfall occurrence and drainage system, only a two-crop sequence is possible, there is a flexibility to choose a longer duration crop variety which has other desired characteristics. L iquid fertilizer is made by immersing a sackload of fresh animal manure in a drum of water and allowing it to ferment. When used to water the plants, the \"tea\" makes possible the easy nutrient extraction by the plants. Depending on the availability of materials, animal manure can be substituted with fresh leaves of nitrogen-fixing trees like Leucaena (ipil-ipil) and/ or Gliricidia (kakawate) or with green grass clippings and/or fresh weeds.1. Fill the burlap bag 3/4 full of wet manure or fresh leaves or compost.2. Tie the open end then place the bag into the empty drum (regular size, 55 gallon capacity). 3. Place a big stone to hold the bag down. 4. Fill the drum with water. Cover. 5. After 3 weeks, remove the bag from the drum. 6. Dilute solution at a ratio of 1 part liquid fertilizer to 4-6 parts fresh water. 7. Apply the liquid fertilizer around the base of the plant (avoid any direct contact with the plant) 2-3 weeks after germination or immediately after transplanting. Repeat after 3-4 weeks. 8. Start over again with fresh materials following steps 1-6. 9. Smaller quantities of liquid fertilizer can be produced in smaller containers (if a 55-gallon drum is not available), using the same ratios.Source Lagenaria siceraria bottle gourdAmaranthus gracilis (amaranth), cooked Open the furrows 60 to 70cm apart across the slope in medium to deep black soils, after completion of primary tillage, during the second fortnight of July. Tie at regular intervals along their length. This technique increases sorghum yield by 50%.Keep the lands with medium and deep black soils fallowed during the kharif season.Immediately after the rains in kharif complete primary tillage first, followed by two harrowings. Construct compartmental bunds of 4.5 x 4.5m and 3 x 3m during the second fortnight of July on lands having slopes of 2% and 3%, respectively.Lay out the land into broad furrows and ridges across the slope in medium to deep black soils of 2% slope to conserve rainwater effectively and increase grain yield.Form scoops during the second fortnight of July across the slope or along the contour to increase the infiltration rate and to reduce erosion of medium and deep black soils which have poor infiltration characteristics. It is important to revive the scoops after each rain to facilitate better infiltration.Vertical mulching: The procedure involves opening trenches of 30cm depth and 15cm width across the slope at vertical intervals of 30cm, and stuffing jowar stubbles vertically in these trenches so that they protrude 10cm above ground. These vertical mulches of jowar act as intake points and guide runoff water to subsoil layers. Adoption of this technique in medium to deep stiff and clayey soils increases the grain yield of jowar by 26 to 54%.Surface mulching: Open ridges and furrows, 120cm apart, 45 days prior to planting. Perform sowing in two lines in a furrow and break the ridges during the first interculturing, thereby creating adequate dust mulch.Alternatively, apply crop residues between the crop rows to reduce (soil) evaporation and improve water intake. The procedure involves skipping one row after every two rows of sowing of safflower/sunflower/redgram or three rows of bengal gram/groundnut. A furrow should be opened along the skipped row and tied after germination has taken place.Dry seeding is the technique of placing the hardened seeds in a dry soil. The seeds are placed at a depth of 5 to 7.5 cm so they germinate at the onset of monsoon and not with the pre-monsoon drizzles. In the cases of red gram and castor, the seeds are placed in the centre of the furrow and covered with finely-powdered farmyard manure. In the cases of sorghum, pearlmillet, bengal gram, sunflower, safflower, etc., the seeds are placed in the soil using a seed drill. Dry seeding is practiced when delayed rain is forecasted.Seed hardening refers to the technique of subjecting seeds to 2-3 cycles of soaking with appropriate chemical solutions and drying. This results in remobilisation of nutrients in the embryo and thickening of protoplasm within the body of the seedling, after germination, to impart drought tolerance.Frequent deep intercultivation operations break the soil, help in closing the cracks, create dust mulch and control weeds.Treat rabi sorghum, bengal gram and safflower seeds with 0.2% calcium chloride for eight hours and subsequently shade-dry till it attains less than 10% moisture content for seed hardening. Practice dry seeding.In certain years, the monsoon is forecasted to be sluggish to begin with, but improves later. If the sowing is delayed based on the forecast, it could result in reduced crop yields. For such a situation, the management practices described below are suggested.Land configurations Formation of tied ridges at an amplitude of 90cm for redgram and 60cm for pearlmillet, castor and sunflower during the first week of June. Formation of broad furrows and ridges at an amplitude of 1.2m for sesamum, 1.8m for Setaria, sunflower + sesamum and spreading groundnut during the first week of June.Practice seed hardening and dry seeding. Redgram and pearlmillet respond well to these. Dry seeding practiced alone is sufficient for castor. Even a rainfall of 5mm is sufficient for germination of these crops and also for their revival when congenial moisture conditions are attained.Spread groundnut to the erect type. Sow in broad furrows and ridges in such a way that four rows are accommodated in each furrow (45cm row spacing).Intercrop sunflower + sesamum in such a way that 4 rows of sesamum and 2 rows of sunflower are accommodated in each furrow. Sow sunflower in the centre of tied ridges opened at an amplitude of 60cm.Select recommended crops and varieties for the red soil zones.Raise community nurseries of ragi at locations where water is available during July (for long duration varieties) and August (for short duration varieties) and transplant during August (long duration varieties) and September (short duration varieties).Mid-season droughts are the results of breaks in the southwest monsoon. If a prolonged dry spell is forecasted or experienced during the vegetative phase of crop growth, before the reproductive stage of, say, pearlmillet, undertake ratooning of the crop. In the case of kharif sorghum, ratooning may be deferred until its reproductive phase. Sometimes, it is necessary to invigourate the drought-affected plants during their revival. For this purpose, top dressing (for rag4 and foliar spray of urea at 2% (for castor and pigeonpea) are suggested.Mid-season drought situations are critical for rabi sorghum if it coincides with the flower primodia initiation [45-50 days after sowing (DAS)] or flag leaf (65-70 DAS) stages. In such events, reduce the leaf area index by removing every alternate or third row of crop at flower primodia initiation stage, and four basal leaves at flag leaf stage. Close the soil cracks by repeated deep interculturing. This further helps in retention of moisture.When a crop encounters moisture stress during the reproductive stage, it may lead to forced maturity. Moisture stress during grain filling stage causes considerable yield loss in both ragi and rabisorghum. The corrective measures are supplemental irrigation and use of surface mulches of straw or farm waste wherever possible. Avoid cracks by forming thin soil mulch using a blade hoe.Ratooning is a technique of rejuvenating stumps after harvesting the main crop, either for green fodder or for grain purposesIf a dry spell is forecasted after sowing operations, with the inherent possibility of poor germination, plan for resowing of crop rather than maintaining the poorly established plant stand so that higher yields are obtained.In addition to the abiotic stress caused by deficient rainfall or dry spells at unanticipated stages, aberrant weather conditions may also cause biotic stress in the form of multiplication of insect pests or development of crop diseases, which should be combated with a combination of chemical, biological and cultural measures.Source: MYRADA and IIRR. 1997 Fast growing species: Casuarina equisetifolia, Albizzia falcataria, Casia siamea, Leucaena leucocephala.Mix 2-3 species within the woodlot to reduce risks of insect infestation.In the first 3-6 months, weed the area around the plants to reduce shading and competition.Harvesting can be done at the end of the first year.The trees must at least be 1.5m before they are first cut.Do not cut the trees so short. Cutting must be done at least 0.5m above the ground level.Prune continuously but retain 1-2 erect shoots/tree. The prunings can be spread on the ground to serve as mulch. Some can also be fed to animals.Leave one row of trees at one end of seed production.Avoid cutting at the start of the dry season.Source: International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR). Silang, Cavite, Philippines.B iological pest control is the suppression of pest populations by living organisms such as predators, parasites and pathogens. These agents are responsible for keeping pests under control most of the time. Predators are usually other insects and spiders. Both, but particularly spiders, feed on a wide range of insects. Adults and immatures are often predatory.Praying mantis, Dragonfly, Damselfly, Assassin bugs feed on all types of insects.Lacewings, White-banded clerid, Robber flies feed on aphids and soft-bodied insects.Ladybird beetles feed on scales and aphids only. They eat 40-50 insects per day. Their larva eat even more.Toads, snakes and spiders eat insects and other garden pests. Toads eat as many as 10,000 insects and other pests in three months, including cutworms, slugs, crickets, ants, caterpillars and squash bugs.Some birds are omnivorous. Some examples from the temperate zone provide a good illustration of what birds eat. A house wren feeds 500 spiders and caterpillars to her young in one afternoon; a brown trasher consumes 6,000 insects a day; a chickadee eats 138,000 canker worm eggs in 25 days; and, a pair of flickers eats 5,000 ants as snack.Parasitic insects are usually small flies or wasps which attack one or a few closely related pest species. They are parasitic in their larval stages but free-living as adults.Complete their life cycle on insect pests. They usually attack the egg of the host pest or the caterpillar by laying an egg into its body. The wasp larva hatches inside the caterpillar body and feeds on it.Attacks eggs of butterflies and moth. This wasp produces very few side effects on beneficial insects.Feeds and reproduces on mealybugs of cassava. It has the ability to establish itself in cassava fields.Source: International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR). Silang, Cavite, Philippines. 1 Found effective, based on crude assay but further studies are needed to determine safety and residual action.2 Nantes in italic are scientific names; names in parenthesis are common/local names. 3 Based on indigenous practice of farmers. 4 Mortality is 30% or more with crude extracts. 5 Researchers who conducted laboratory tests on particular plant.Source: International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR). Silang, Cavite, Philippines. Other \"non-conventional\" feed ingredients that can be used as hog feeds.N ative pigs are important sources of income, food and manure on small farms. Native pigs are sold to friends and neighbors, used during special occasions or serve as a profitable part-time job for family members. These pigs are considered sturdy and are more resistant to various hog diseases. They can survive on kitchen wastes and farm-grown feeds or farm by-products.Backyard swine raisers may prefer to raise native pigs than the imported breeds of swine mainly due to the scarcity of capital resources to purchase initial stock and to build a house/pen and to provide commercial feeds.Considerations:1. Site --Elevated, near water source 2. Orientation --East to west orientation; with this type of orientation, floor of the pen is kept dry. If possible, pig pens should be built on higher ground, preferably near water sources. Orient the house in an east-west direction. This orientation keeps the floor of the pen dry by allowing the sun to dry the pen floor as the sun crosses the sky during the day. To give your pig room to roam, tether it on a wire or cord stretched between two wooden stakes. When the forage is eaten away, the stakes can be moved.You can house pigs under your poultry. Pigs will eat chicken manure and, if you have a nearby pond, your fish will eat any nutritious runoff.Farmers in some parts of the Philippines build open pens with thatched bamboo shades. The pigs have a cool place to rest and an open area in which to eat, defecate and roam.Try tethering your pigs to a stake, within reach of drinking water and a cool wallowing hole.In Thailand, farmers build back-to-back shelters of thatched bamboo and fencing.A variety of feeding troughs can of feeding through can be made easily with lumber.Source: IIRR, 1994, Ethnoveterinery Medicine in Asia: an information kit on traditional health care practices, IIRR, Silang, Cavite, PhilippinesHousing practices vary widely from place to place. In general, however, stock raisers do the following:People protect their animals from rain, sun, wind, cold, predators and thieves. For example: they may plant thorny bushes around the animal shed to keep predators and thieves away.They build a shed, house, barn or other structure to shelter the animals. Or sometimes, if people's homes are raised on stilts, they keep their livestock under the home.In many areas, farmers plant certain trees to provide shade near the livestock shed.They plant neem, eucalyptus or Ocimum sanctum around the shed to repel insects.They light smoky fires near or under the shed to drive away ticks, lice and insects.They do not plant mango, curry leaf (Murraya koenigii) or bamboo near the shed, as these species attract snakes and bats. For the same reason, they do not stock large amounts of firewood, hay or straw near the shed.Farmers provide enough space for each animal to lie down and stand, turn around and defecate without the dung soiling itself or other animals.They avoid overcrowding.People provide a container with clean drinking water.In certain areas, farmers build a small feeding manger to hold green or dry fodder.Traditionally in many areas, farmers slope the floor of the shed so the urine and dung can flow out. This helps keep the shed clean.They use straw from rice, wheat and other plants for bedding. They replace this regularly with fresh straw.The farmers clean away dung, urine and mud each morning.In some countries, they apply a layer of fresh mud on the floor of the shed.They may regularly sprinkle dry lime (calcium hydroxide) or powdered limestone on the floor 2-3 times a week as a disinfectant and to repel flies. Once a month, they wash the walls with limestone powder mixed with water.In India, farmers mix a handful of dung in a bucket of water and sprinkle this mixture on the floor. Over time, this produces a hard flooring that is easy to keep clean. It also keeps the ground even, so animals will not slip.They isolate or quarantine sick animals from other animals.This shed is attached to the owner's house and is made of bricks, mud, wood or stone. It houses 1-2 animals. The roof is of dried wild hemp stalks or other grasses. The floor is of mud or brick, and it slopes so mud, dung and urine flow out. A feeding manger and a container for water are built in. The shed obviously is wellventilated and cool.Farmers in the Gir Forest build a circular, thorny fence of Acacia arabica branches. They keep their buffaloes inside during the night to protect them from lions and wolves. During the day, the buffaloes are let out to graze in the forest, where they seek shade under the trees: Farmers throughout India build a thorny fence or plant cacti around their own and their animals' housing to deter predators.Farmers build a corral of trees, logs and wire. The animals rest inside the enclosure in a shed made of wood or bam-boo, roofed with grass or leaves. This shed is built at the top of the slope, so water and waste materials run out of it.Many farmers in the Philippines and Laos keep their animals under the house, or in a room next to their own living area. The house is made of slatted bamboo and/or wood. The roof is thatched with local grasses. The animals' body heat helps warm the house. Owners can give care to the animals very easily. However, pests and diseases such as mange, leishmaniasis and flies can spread from animals to humans. On the other hand, farmers in the Philippines say that-although the goats they keep under their houses have a strong and unpleasant odor-the smell helps keep mosquitoes away from the home.Gir Forest, Gujarat, Western IndiaSometimes, farmers tie their animals under a tree. In Thailand, they use a special bamboo spring on the tether. This prevents the rope from twisting and becoming tangled.Sheep and goat pens are often built on stilts. The floor is made of slatted wood or bamboo, so that the droppings and urine fall through. In India and Indonesia, there is a pit below to collect these valuable organic materials. The manure can be removed easily from beneath the pen for spreading in the fields. The roof is thatched with grass. The owners or their children cut grass from roadsides and field boundaries and put it in a manger attached to the pen for the animals to eat. Surplus grass can be stored at one end of the shed. This pen protects the animals from thieves and predators. It is clean and hygienic.In Indonesia and Sri Lanka, animals of different ages and sexes may be kept separate using dividers within the house. Pregnant animals and mothers with newborns are also separated from other animals.Semi-migratory shepherds use small branches to make moveable, collapsible fences. They erect these in the field to keep their goats and sheep in at night. The shepherd sleeps in the small shed in the center of the enclosure. During the day, the animals are released from the enclosure and allowed to graze. Outside, only animals that are too young to graze are kept inside the shed during the day with a shepherd who guards and feeds them.The shepherd moves the enclosure around the field, so that the entire field is manured at night. The farmer pays the shepherd for this manure.Throughout IndiaFarmers build a thorny fence of Acacia arabica or Acacia farnesiana around their goat houses to deter thieves and predators. The house itself is round and made of bamboo, wood and mud. The roof is thatched with palmyra leaf or grass. The floor is of mud. Animals of all ages are housed together. Some farmers clean out the dung; others use the dung as bedding.  At birth, piglets are wet and covered in a thin mucous membrane. This membrane will dry and disappear very quickly. Most piglets will not need special attention from the farmer. However, sometimes they need help. The sow makes an effort to expel the piglets, but no piglet will come out.Hard stool is putting pressure on the birth canal. Piglet is in an abnormal position. Sow is too fat and has a narrow birth canal.Ensuring that the animal is in good condition is the best way to avoid problems at farrowing time. (see the section on Feed for pregnant Sows)If a piglet is stuck in the birth canal, you will have to help. First, trim your fingernails, wash your hands and arms well with soapMake sure the piglets get some colostrum (the first milk) from their natural mother before moving them to a foster mother.might share the extra teats. Weaker piglets get the hind teats. A sow might be able to raise more piglets than she has teats. But generally, it is better to take extra piglets away and place them with another recently farrowed sow (or raise the extra piglets on cow's milk).Often, a sow will drive off or kill piglets that are not her own, but she can be fooled into accepting foster piglets. Rub the piglets and the nose of the foster sow with the urine of the foster sow or with vinegar. Also, keep the foster piglets in a box with the natural piglets of the sow so their smells will blend.Source Land area should be cleared of all weeds before the bed preparation and planting. The fence line can be utilized for planting annual and perennial plants like horseradish tree, hyacinth bean, cassava, Gliricidia, Leucaena, ubi and tugui. Biointensive gardening (BIG) can be adapted for planting the other crops for the pig-feed garden. A dequate housing provides conditions for good health and comfort of animals, high reproduction and more efficient management. Housing also minimizes, if not eliminates, theft problems. Good housing is ideally cheap, yet it can protect the animals from strong winds, draft, heavy rains, wet grounds and attacks by predatory animals. It must also be well-ventilated, welldrained and easy to clean.For good drainage, locate your goat house on a slight slope or on sandy soils; ideally, near the feed source. The goat house should be oriented in such a way that the greatest amount of sunshine and air enter the house.Use indigenous materials available in the locality, such as round timber, bamboo and cogon or nipa.1. Provide at least 15-20 sq. ft. of floor space per adult goat. A separate housing is provided for the buck.2. Raise the floor at least 3 feet above the ground to facilitate cleaning and removal of manure. 3. Do not nail the floor boards or slats closely; provide slits between the boards so that manure can fall through them. This will keep the flooring clean and dry. 4. The house should be well-ventilated. The wall around the house can be made of bamboo slats spaced 4-6 inches apart. 5. Provide a sack cover on the windside of the house. This can be rolled up when not needed.Note: For two does and one buck raised together, the size of the goat house will be 6' x 8' .Ipil-ipil. Remove bark. Soak timber in running water (river/ stream) for 3 days to dissolve the carbohydrate content of the wood. Dry. Bamboo. Mix 1 part crude oil: 2 parts kerosene. Paint this mixture on the split bamboo and season (sun-dry) for 4-7 days. Bamboo is more durable when harvested at the right time (mature, light green or yellow in color). Cut before the onset of the growing season, before the young shoots appear.Provide the goat house with the following facilities:1. Fodder rack. Elevate the feeder 1.5ft above the floor and attach it to the goat house from outside. 2. Water container. Plastic basins or pails can serve the purpose.Place this outside of the pen to avoid contamination with urine or manure. Intensive Feed Garden T he following concept of an Intensive Feed Garden (IFG) was adapted and tested in the Philippines by the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction, based on a design originally developed by the International Livestock Centre for Africa in Ethiopia. IFG aims at maximizing the cultivation of fodder per hectare through intensive cultivation of leguminous trees/ shrubs and grasses for a small area (10m x 20m). This technology is recommended in marginal areas or where there is scarcity of land, or where compound farming is practiced or where it is compulsory to confine livestock. It is appropriate where feed is scarce and not readily available on a cut-and-carry system.Provides renewable and inexhaustible sources of nutritious and palatable fodder, fuel, timber and green manure. Curbs soil erosion, conserves soil moisture and increases soil fertility. Increases the productivity of a given piece of land by interplanting diverse species of fodder trees, shrubs and grasses. Provides a stable agricultural system for semi-arid tropics and drought-stricken areas and other adverse environment. Reduces danger of toxicity problems from noxious weeds and contaminated poisonous fodder.An intensive fodder garden is usually established on a small piece of land (10m x 20m). Larger plots may, however, be used, depending on the size of the herd in the humid tropics. One of the recommended designs of IFG (yield: 20 tons dry matter/ha) with legume trees, shrubs and grasses is illustrated below: growing before planting so that they will have the ability to modulate and fix atmospheric nitrogen.On fertile land, fertilizer may not be necessary; however, on moderate to low fertility soils, decomposed animal manure could be incorporated in the soil at least two weeks before planting. If manure is not available, side dressing of 15-15-15 fertilizer (in the initial year of establishment only) at about 150 kg. per hectare (four to six weeks after planting) is done to boost initial growth of tree seedlings and forage grasses. After one to one-and-a-half year of establishment, the fertilizer requirements of the grasses can also be met by returning 50 percent to 70 percent of the cut leaves from the tree species back to the soil in the form of mulch. All the grasses and one-half to one-third of the tree leaves can then be used as animal feed. In such cases, the IFG area will have to be increased to meet the animal feed needs.Mulching along tree rows has been observed to be beneficial in the establishment of the fodder trees. Whenever possible, decomposed manure and feed refusals should be returned/applied to the garden. Cut leaves (50 percent to 70 percent of the production) can also be used to meet nutrient needs. In the absence of manure, fertilizer (15-15-15) should be applied at the rate 150 to 200kg/ha in two to three split applications per year in the initial first year. In the second year, tree leaves and/or manure will suffice. The grasses are mature for cutting in six to eight weeks, while fodder trees may require 8 to 12 weeks for the trees (depending on the season). Leave adequate leaf area to facilitate recovery. Forage trees should be cut at least one meter above the ground while grasses should be clipped close to the ground at 75cm. high to bring back the plants to a more productive stage. If possible, fence the forage garden so as to protect the A spacing of four meters between rows of trees is maintained. The space between trees in the row is one meter. The grasses are spaced 75cm between rows and 30-40cm between hills. This modification is established solely with legume trees to provide increased protein supplementation if the area has other available feed materials (e.g., cassava, tuber/peel). For such purposes, the legume trees may be planted at inter-row spacings of 1.0m with 25cm between stands (hills). This should be cut on a 10-12 week cycle for optimum productivity, while grasses and leguminous shrubs/ vines are mature for cutting in six to eight weeks. More frequent cutting will reduce total productivity.The land should be cleared of all weeds before land preparation and planting. Since forage grass (Panicum) seeds are small, they require a fine seedbed. If vegetative planting materials are used, a rough seedbed is tolerated. Flamengia, Rensonni and Gliricidia can be planted either on a flat or ridged land and must be planted ahead of the forage grass to minimize shading for the first six to six weeks. Forage trees may be planted by direct seeding or by seedlings previously raised in a nursery. Direct seeding is easier, cheaper and feasible in areas where annual rainfall is 1,200mm or more with a minimum growing season of about 200 days. Planting by seedlings is recommended at the start of the rainy season. If irrigation is available, planting can be done anytime of the year. The ideal depth of planting should be about 2.0cm, with two to three seeds per hill, four to six weeks after planting. In drier environments, one seedling per hill is desirable. Seed covers should be scarified with hot water treatment. Seeds should be inoculated with soil from areas where the trees are already area from stray animals that may trample on the plants or eat the young shoots. Feeding of the two species in roughly equal quantities in addition to any available feeds: Leucaena should constitute up to 40 percent without toxicity problems while Gliricidia and Flamengia can be offered up to 100 percent of total feed intake. However, if the smell of Gliricidia is not acceptable to the animals, allowing the leaves to dry for a couple of hours after cutting will improve palatability and increase the intake. Practice soilage or zero grazing, where herbage is cut and carried to the animals. The intensive feed garden could support more animals per hectare since there are no losses from fouling and trampling. Weed control is essential for successful crop production since weeds reduce forage production in an intensive feed garden area. In the first year, intensive feed garden production in a plot measuring 200 square meters would be sufficient to supply 25 percent of the daily intake of 3.6 small ruminants (goats or sheep). Foliage yields 9.85 to 20 tons dry matter/ha with three rows, four meters apart interplanted with four rows of grass in each alley (with crude protein if 493 kg dry matter/ha). (Reynolds and Abba-Krah 1986). It is expected that in the second and following years, the IFG will be more productive. The area under the feed garden can be increased beyond the 200 square-meter area if more animals are being maintained on the farm. (To maintain a cattle fattener, there is a need to develop 400 meters of intensive feed garden area). L ivestock production in most upland communities in the Philippines is concentrated in small farms. Around 90 percent ruminants and 70 percent of non-ruminants are raised in small farms. Livestock provides draft power to different farm operations, transportation, food, additional income and manure for organic fertilizer.Farm animals are mainly fed with the available fodder/forage within the farm. The fodder used by the farmers may be in the form of fresh or dried plant parts such as leaves and stalks/straws.One of the common sources of fodder for livestock in the uplands for cut and carry, tethering and grazing feeding systems are either natural growing or cultivated grasses.Pennisetum purpureum Napier grassFodder Trees/shrubsFodder from trees and shrubs that are available in the farm provides nutritious and palatable feeds for livestock which can also supplement other forage grasses.Gliricidia sepium Madre de cacao, kakawateOther Fodder SourcesOne of the most important feeds in small farms is the residue of various crops grown in the cropping systems. The most common residues are corn fodder/stover, rice straw, sugarcane tops and stem and leaves of leguminous crops.It is grown mainly as forage for livestock. It may be harvested after the ears have appeared, although not yet fully developed. The whole plant is fed to animals. Its palatability and nutritive value excel those of other soiling crops. The best condition for feeding is when the plant tassel and ears are in the glazing stage. Corn silage has a wide nutritive value. It should be supplemented with nitrogenous feeds to balance the ratio.It is a dried roughage that can be stored for livestock fodder. It is the portion of the corn plant left after the ears have been removed at harvest. The whole plant is air-dried in the field, then the stalks are cut and stored as feed. Corn stover is rich in carbohydrates and is very useful in maintaining the condition of work animals during the dry season. Corn stover should be protected from rain; otherwise, it will be affected by mildew and will disintegrate, making it unfit for feed. To make it more palatable, sprinkle salt over it. Dry corn stover must be stored in a roofed animal shed or barn.Sugarcane tops can be used as fodder whether green or dried. It is relished by carabaos and cattle. It contains a large amount of digestible carbohydrates in sugar form.Rice straw is eaten by carabao and cattle if other feeds are not available particularly during the dry season. To make it palatable, a small amount of salt is sprinkled over the feedstock. Dried rice straw may be stored in a cone-shaped stacked called mandala supported by a bamboo pole, firmly anchored to the ground in an open field without the danger of deterioration. The upper layer serves to protect the lower layer from getting wet. The straw should be stored when fairly dry or else, if wet, it will generate heat that will spoil its wholesomeness as fodder. The straw stack should be located on an elevated portion of the farm near the animal shed.The leguminous residues of dual purpose crops such as cowpea, soybean, mung bean, bush sitao and batao have protein content of about 12 percent or more. The stem and leaves are good supplements to improve the feeding value of other on-farm fodder, especially during the dry season when feeds are very limited. They can also be fed to the livestock as soon as they are harvested without waiting for them to dry. Leguminous crop residues are seasonal and storage is one of the major problems. However, production in dry season makes sun-drying practical.Farmers only need to be taught to store and/or protect them from rain.Source: IIRR and DENR. 1989. Agroforestry Technology Information Kit, IIRR, Silang, Cavite, PhilippinesThe Large Leafed Mulberry:A Promising Nutritive Fodder For Scarcity Period T he sporadic use of the local small-leafed mulberry \"kimbu\" as fodder is common in the hills of Nepal. In a particular area of Dhankuta, however, farmers have adopted a large-leafed local mulberry as fodder for feeding during the period of fodder scarcity and have also begun planting many trees.The generic name of mulberry is Morus. Several local species have been identified and there are also several introduced species. Local species are Morus serrata (illustration), M. australis, M. alba and M. macroma.The local name of the large-leafed mulberry located in the Dhankuta-Kagate-Hile area is Ilchiro. Its botanical name has still to be determined.Mulberry can be planted from the Terai to 7,000 feet elevation.Compared to the other mulberry species, the leaves of Ilchiro are large, averaging 6\" wide and 8\" long. The number of leaves per stem is high as well. Yield is estimated as being 40-50 kg/year from a well-grown tree. It comes into flush in February and can be fed from March until November as it is non-toxic during the flush period. It has a high crude protein content, ranging from 14-20%. It is highly palatable, including the bark, and can be fed to buffaloes, cattle, goats, sheep and pigs.Farmers generally prefer to cut large branches, 2-3 years old at the start of the monsoon and plant them in-situ. This eliminated the need for protection of new plantings as the upper parts are already above the reach of animals.Branches used for cuttings can be as long as 12 feet of which at least 2 feet is inserted into the soil. This method has one drawback: it requires a lot of planting materials to obtain one plant.Although other species of mulberry are widespread in the hills, this particular species is confined to a specific area. Introduction to new areas requires establishing cutting nurseries at several locations to eliminate the need for transporting large number of cuttings at some cost. To achieve this, a package of practices had been developed which includes the initial supply of potted seedlings and dissemination of knowledge and skills related to propagation from cuttings, including the stool bed technique, to ensure a continuous supply of cuttings.Source: Regenerative Agriculture Technologies (RAT) Kit. IIRR UNICEF for Philippine Department of Agriculture. 1989.W ith the high cost of producing imported breeds of birds for meat and eggs, the current trend for farm households is to revive the traditional family backyard poultry project using local and upgraded birds. These local breeds survive the adverse conditions found in the rural areas. By using improved feeds and management practices, these local and upgraded birds can provide at least 130-200 eggs and extra poultry meat throughout the year for the family. These birds can be allowed to search for feed on the range or in confinement using a low-cost poultry compost litter system, practiced by some farmers in Cavite, Philippines. This system can sustain 6 hens and 1 rooster or 3 hens, 30 chicks and 1 rooster for at least 3 -4 months. The compost litter is then removed and used as organic fertilizer and a new batch of farmyard manure is added. Production of a small flock in the backyard can help fill the family food requirements for eggs and meat, provide extra family income and utilize the manure as an excellent organic fertilizer.The farm family should properly select an upgraded rooster (Cantonese, New Hampshire, Plymouth Rock breeds) and hens/ layers. Other poultry birds, like Muscovy duck, native or Pateros ducks, Peking duck, geese and pigeons are hardy and can also be raised under backyard conditions. They do not require elaborate housing and can subsist on inexpensive feeds.Construct the house using local materials to minimize expenses, (cogon/nipa for roof, bamboo or used fish nets for siding and ipil-ipil/madre de cacao as posts). The house should be located in a dry, well-drained area. Perch racks, roosts, nests, feed hoppers and waterers made of low-cost materials should also be provided. The house should not be less than 2.0m in height with a floor area of 3m x 3m. The house should be fenced; or if the hens are raised with chicks, they can be raised in a separate open house. Before constructing the house, dig a pit in the floor 1/2m deep, extending the length of the house 3m and 2m wide. Once the building is completed, the pit should be filled with fresh manure of cattle, carabao or goat. Keep the manure moist for one week (to encourage the growth of worms and maggots as feed for the chickens) and then place the upgraded/native birds in the poultry house. While scratching the ground, the birds will be eating as well as hastening the composting process.The family should provide extra feed supplements, like kitchen refuse, fish entrails, corn/sorghum, ipil-ipil leaves and others. Clean, potable water should be always available. Home-made Chicken Ration 4 parts yellow corn, broken rice (binlid) or sorghum. Boiled gabi, fresh ubi, camote or cassava (bitter type should be boiled) can also be substituted.   3. Provide each duck with at least 3-4 square feet of floor space. The floor should be covered with either rice hulls, corn cobs, peanut hulls or similar materials to make it dry and clean; and to help prevent the spread of pests and diseases.4. You can provide a swimming pond for the ducks if you wish. One of 10 feet wide and 20 feet long is adequate for 50 birds. However, a pond is not really necessary in duck raising.The ducks can lay just as many eggs without it.5. Pateros ducks start laying when they are about 4-6 months old. Peking and Muscovy ducks start laying at about 6-7 months old. In breeding, you need male for every five female ducks. Select breeders that are healthy, vigorous and without defects. Skip or withdraw after 3 days. Then continue for another 3 days. Terramycin poultry formula can also be used. Follow the instructions on the package carefully. e. In order to prevent Avian Pest Disease, immunize your ducks with Avian Pest Vaccine which can be obtained free from the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAD). f. Sex your ducklings. If you desire to fatten the extra males, then grow them separately from the females. g. When ducklings are six weeks old, they can be transferred from the brooder to the growing house. h. Transfer the layers to the laying house when they are four months old. e. Also, feed plenty of chopped green leaves of either kangkong, comfrey, camote, ipil-ipil and legumes as additional feed. Give at least 10 grams of chopped green leaves per duck per day. f. You can grow and feed fresh water snails to your ducks.Giving one gallon of fresh snails a day to 24 duck layers will help increase egg production. g. Provide your ducks plenty of clean fresh water all the time. 8. If you provide a swimming pond for your ducks, limit their playing in the water to 1-2 hours a day. Too much playing in the water will tire your ducks and make them eat more feeds. 12. Duck eggs and meat are as nutritious as chickens. Eat plenty of duck eggs and meat, they are good for you and your family.accommodate 40-50 adult ducks. To prevent the ducks from destroying vegetables and other crops, they should be confined in a fenced structure made from locally available materials. Farm litter (e.g., rice straw) should be placed in the shed for laying and brooding purposes.A beginner can start with 7 ducks -one male (drake) and six female (ducklets). It is preferable to acquire ducks that are from 1-2 years of age.Muscovy ducks are voracious eaters and eat practically anything they are fed. For maximum growth, ducks should be fed with natural, local feeds such as empty grains (rice), rice and corn bran, ipil-ipil leaves, golden snails, duck weed, Azolla, banana trunks, worms, etc. They should be fed three times a day and provided with fresh water always. Used tires or old cookings utensils can be used for waterers and feeders. Twenty-five ducks can be raised in a 1-hectare farm using on-farm feeds without commercial feeds.To prevent a disease outbreak, animals should be regularly vaccinated against common diseases (e.g., Newcastle, Fowl Pox or Fowl Cholera). Deworming and other health care practices, such as proper sanitation, correct feeding and proper care and management, must be strictly implemented to ensure a disease-free flock. New birds introduced into a flock should be quarantined to ensure that they are disease-free. Sick birds should also be isolated from healthy stock during treatment.Hatching Ducks start to lay eggs after reaching 6 months of age. One medium-size duck is capable of hatching 12-15 eggs during the 30-33 day incubation period. Layers are usually productive from 12-18 months. At the end of that production period, layers should be culled and eaten or sold.The fertility of eggs can be determined using a simple technique known as candling. Eggs should be candled (on the 15th day of incubation) in a dark room using a candle, lamp or flashlight.Fertile eggs reveal a small dark spot with a network of blood vessels branching out from it or the eggs appear dark. Infertile eggs are clear with the yolk appearing as a floating shadow. Do not throw away infertile eggs; they are delicious as well as nutritious and can be eaten or processed into salted or hardboiled eggs to be sold for extra income.Young ducklings must be kept warm and dry. It is best to keep them out of water until they are 2 weeks old. However, they must have a constant supply of fresh drinking water. The ducklings should be fed fine rice bran and boiled rice. Cracked corn or rice should be fed to them after they are several weeks old. It is very important to protect the ducklings from predators such as cats, dogs, rodents, birds, etc. One method of protecting the ducklings is to confine the hen and her brood in a covered pen each night until the ducklings are 6-8 weeks old.Meat-type birds are ready to be slaughtered, dressed and marketed at 5-6 months of age.Two pen/shelter design options are presented here:The duck pen and shelter is constructed over the irrigation canal. The floor is made of bamboo slats spaced so as to allow the droppings to fall into the water below, but not to trap and injure the ducks' feet. The floor should slope slightly to allow the eggs to collect on one side of the pen, thus facilitating daily egg collection. This design allows the duck droppings to fall directly into the water and be carried to the rice paddies through the irrigation canal. One disadvantage to this design, however, is the possible danger of housing the ducks directly over the water during colder times of the year.The other design places the shelter near, but not over, the irrigation canal. Cover the floor with 4-6 inches of dry bedding material i.e., rice straw. Remove the old bedding materials weekly and place them in a compost pit for future incorporation into the rice paddies as fertilizer.Ducks should be given adequate time to forage for their food. The ducks should be released from their house in the morning after they have laid their eggs (about 7:00 a.m.). The most important consideration is that the ducks be released at the same time every morning. If they are released at different times every day, the change can upset them, causing them to stop laying eggs and even begin to molt. They should be herded back to the pen about 5:30 in the afternoon. Giving them some feeds regularly at this time also trains them to return to their pen.Ducks should be released onto the rice fields only at certain times: During plowing and harrowing After the tillering stage, but not during the flowering and heading stage of the rice crop After the rice has been harvested and threshed.When it is not possible to release the ducks into the rice field, they should be taken to an area where no crops are grown. If no such area is available, the ducks can be fed in confinement.Source: IIRR. 1990 Low External Input Technology Information Kit, IIRR, Silang, Cavite, PhilippinesCare and Management of Mini-ponds T he secret of success in growing fish in mini-ponds is proper care of the fish and management of the pond. Good pond management and care of the fish means faster growth and more fish for the family. The major points to remember are the following:Establish the mini-pond near a water source such as streams, springs, irrigation canals or manually operated pumps (pitcher pump), etc., which is free from flooding and with good drainage. The soil at the bottom and side of the mini-pond must be well packed to minimize seepage. If the soil is sandy or porous, line it with a mixture of carabao or cow dung, clay soil and cement. Plant grasses on the banks to prevent soil erosion. Grasses that grow fast and spread rapidly are ideal for this purpose. Put screens on the inlet and overflow pipes to prevent the entrance of predators and at the same time to keep the fish from escaping.Water is of vital importance in raising fish. Always make sure that it is free from toxic substances, of the right temperature and the proper volume (depth). However, the warm-water fish do not require a constant supply of a large volume of fresh water. Most freshwater fish can be raised with water temperature ranging from 20°C -40°C. The ideal water temperature ranges from 25°C -30°C. In order to maintain the right temperature, plant leguminous trees like ipil-ipil (Leucaena leucocephala), katuray (Sesbania grandiflora), madre de cacao (Gliricidia sepium) and Dapdap (Erythina) on two sides of the mini-pond, about 1.5m -2m from the bank. Orient the planting of trees on the eastwest direction to allow enough sunlight into the pond.The leaf litter also serves to improve aquatic life. Occasionally, the water in the pond becomes turbid and muddy. To check the turbidity of water. Apply lime at the rate of 1tbsp/sqm. Dissolve the lime water and sprinkle it over the pond.Maintain water depth at 1m so that the sun's rays can penetrate the water and induce the growth of plankton (natural fish food). Production of plankton decreases as water depth increases. In shallow water (.5m), the water temperature easily gets high during summer. High temperature retards fish growth. Avoid letting the water out from the pond to prevent the fertilizers and plankton from flowing out. Drain the pond once a year. Keep it dry for a period of 2-3 weeks to aerate the soil 3.The production of algae and microorganisms in the mini-pond is the most important task for the low-cost production of fish. Fertilize the pond at least twice a month for the water to remain greenish. Green color indicates that the water has plenty of small plants and microorganisms which serve as nutritious food for the fish. Any kind of animal manure can be used. However, chicken manure makes a better fertilizer. Apply .5-1kg chicken manur. The manure can be placed directly in one corner of the pond or put in a burlap sack and submerged 20cm below the water surface. Never broadcast the manure on the surface as this, in turn, will reduce sunlight entry into the water, resulting in poor plankton growth. Dried leaves of leguminous trees can also be used to fertilize the pond. Put the leaves in porous bags and submerge in water 20cm below the surface. One to two sacks of dried leaves can help fertilize the mini-pond. Dried rice straw can also be dumped directly in one corner of the pond. Occasional broadcasting of green leaves of leguminous trees (small-leaf varieties such as Calliandra, Leucaena, etc.) is also very helpful and promotes aquatic life.If a combination of organic and inorganic fertilizer is desired, 500g of organic fertilizer and 10g of inorganic fertilizer (preferably urea or 16-20-0)/m water can be applied to produce good results. On soils or water that are acidic, lime must be added. It can be broadcast on the bottom of the pond or put in a porous bag. Tie the bag to prevent it from submerging into the bottom of the pond. If lime is not available, it can be substituted by aged wood ash (not fresh ash or ash from paper).Stock only high-quality fingerlings. Secure your fingerlings from reliable hatcheries.For faster growth, fish should be given supplemental feeds. A diet consisting of 20-30% ground ipil-ipil leaves or Azolla and 70-80% fine rice bran is recommended. When affordable, supplemental feeding of 100% fine rice bran is still the most economical (when natural food plankton in the mini-pond is abundant). Feed the fish twice a day, morning and afternoon. For a more efficient feeding, mash the feeds and place in a feeding tray made of fish net.The fish can also be fed with green leaves of kangkong, sweet potato, Azolla, kitchen left-overs, boiled sweet potato, cassava, gabi, crushed golden snails and white ants (termites). Surplus tilapia fingerlings (fresh) can be crushed and mixed with fine rice bran. This diet is very nutritious. Other cheap methods of feeding fish are:Hanging a lighted lamp over the center of the pond. At night, insects are attracted to the light and hover around it. The insects will fall into the pond where the fish can eat them. Feeding the fish with maggots (small worms). To produce maggots, hang pieces of meat or dead animals on a pole 2-3ft above the water surface. Flies and other insects will lay their eggs Raise the collected fries in the nursery pond until they grow into fingerlings and stock for the next rainy season crop.After 3 or 4 months, harvest all the fish that weigh about 50g and over, using a sweep net.Harvest only the amount of fish that the family will eat for the day.Source: IIRR and DENR. 1989. Agroforestry Technology Information Kit, IIRR, Silang, Cavite, Philippines Establishing the System 1. Pond construction Establish the pond near a water source. However, the site should be free from flooding. Inlet and outlet pipes should be installed and screened. One pig can sufficiently fertilize a 100-150m 2 pond with its manure. The water depth should be maintained at 60-100cm. With this recommended pond area and water depth together with the right stocking density, problems of organic pollution are avoided.A diversion canal can be constructed to channel excess manure into a compost pit or when manure loading needs to be stopped. Nutrient-rich water from the pond can be used for vegetables grown on the pond dike or adjacent to the pond.There are two optional designs for locating the pig pen. It can be constructed on the dikes near the fishpond Preferably, the floor should be made of concrete (or other impermeable material to catch pig manure and urine) and should slope toward the pond. A pipe is necessary to convey the manure and urine into the pond. An alternative design is to construct the pig pen over the pond. In this case, the floor can be made of bamboo slats spaced just enough to allow manure and urine to fall directly into the pond but not too wide for the feet of the pigs to slip into (thus, causing injuries). The pen should have a floor area of 1m x 1.5m for each pig.Stock the pond (approximately 100-150m 2 ) with fingerlings (200 fish/100m 2 ) once it is filled up with water. Three optional fish culture systems are suggested here, of which Polyculture 2 is based on experience in Vietnam and Thailand. Both polycultures contain predators to control tilapia recruits (if these are mixed-sex). The recommended stocking rates are as presented in Table 1 Stock the pig pen with one weanling (8-10kg or 1.5 month old). Fish and piglets can be stocked at the same time.Feed the pigs twice a day. Supplemental feeds such as kangkong (Ipomoea aquatica) may be given.Harvest the fish after 4-5 months. Collect fingerlings (if present) for the next growing season; sell the surplus. Partial harvesting for family consumption can also be done as needed.Sell the pig after 4-5 months.If possible, scrape out the organic waste or mud on the pond floor and use as fertilizer for the vegetable crop.High cost of inputs for pig growing (feeds and weanlings) Consumers may be reluctant to eat fish produced in manureloaded ponds, creating potential marketing problems. Farmers want their animals close to their homes (because of theft problems) and this may not be always possible.Possible Solutions to Overcome Some of the Limitations 1. Raise crossbred/native pigs to reduce feed cost.2. Occasionally, fish from ponds, which were overloaded with manure, can have a \"muddy\" or off-flavour taste which can be removed through the following measures: Stop loading manure to the pond a few days before harvesting fish.Transfer harvested fish to a net enclosure installed in a clear pond at least 4-6 hours (better several days) prior to selling or eating them.Design 1: Pig pen on pond dike Design 2: Pig pen over pond area 1. For P100 invested, the farmer gets P176.00 2. Entire capital cost can be recovered in one production cycle and still retain a surplus 3. 1992: US$1 = P26Given the better acceptance and adoption rates of this technology in other countries in Asia, there seem to be specific constraints to this in the Philippines. Pigs are resourceintensive and need a concentrate-based diet for them to grow and produce quality wastes for fishpond fertilization. Experiments have shown that leucaena (ipil-ipil) leaves can be toxic to pigs at relatively low levels. Growing crossbred pigs and native pigs can be fed lower-quality feeds but this does not necessarily result in overall lower feed cost per unit of pig weight produced. Growth is poorer and even if feeds are not purchased, effort and other resources are needed in their use. Pig production is often affected by marketing risks and problems, which should be considered by new entrants.The scraping out of pond mud for crop and vegetable fertilization is labor-intensive and also requires a drained pond, which is not possible in many locations where rural fishponds have been sited. T he cost of livestock medication has been increasing during the past years, such that livestock raisers are demanding cheaper substitutes for imported medicines. Recently, the focus has shifted to herbal (plant) medicines which grow abundantly in the rural areas. Herbal therapy is known to be effective when the disease is still in its initial stage or recognized at the early signs of malady. Even in animal health care, farmers shared their views that they cannot afford to buy commercial medicine nor avail of veterinary services due to the remoteness of their areas. They have developed herbal medicine for animal * Livestock Specialist, IIRR, Silang, Cavite, Philippines. care guided by tradition or derived from herbalists (herbolarios) who have rich knowledge and experiences. Medicinal plants are available at no cost and can also complement some standard veterinary therapy. Definitely such an approach will cut down the cost of animal healthcare. Moreover, it will prevent unnecessary animal deaths resulting from lack of veterinary care in remote areas. This is one area of indigenous technical knowledge that needs to be pursued before valuable experiences are lost altogether. Here is a compilation of special relevance to livestock raisers:  A poultice of pounded fresh leaves is applied for sprains, fractures and rheumatism.Moringa oleifera Lam. Horseradish tree, drumstick tree (English) An orally given extract of 1/2 to 1kg leaves prevents piglet anemia if given to one-day-old piglets. The extracted juice is also effective externally to cure wounds and internally as dewormer. Young leaves fed to lactating sow or cow stimulates milk flow.Improving Native Chicken M ajority of small and marginal farmers raise native chicken in their backyards. The native chicken are nondescript, mongrel birds that have evolved from jungle fowls interbred with domesticated ones brought into the country by early Chinese, Spanish and Dutch traders and settlers. The native chicken have adapted themselves to adverse conditions in small farms -poor and scanty feeds, inadequate shelter, sudden changes of weather and rampant diseases. The birds are generally left to fend for themselves. As a result, they have acquired unusual hardiness. These native birds supply the family with a few eggs and, occasionally, meat for home consumption, for barter or for sale. Their meat and eggs are claimed to be tastier and more savory than those of purebreds. Thus, inspite of their slow growth and small size, they are more costly. It takes them a year to obtain full size (1-1.5 kilograms). Under farm conditions, the hens give from 30-50 eggs in 34 cycles a year. The eggs are small and brown. The hens become broody for a long period after laying a clunch of 10-12 eggs (farmers control the broodiness of native hens by soaking them in cold water, removing the laid eggs from their nests, or even placing some slat or powdered pepper on their cloaca and also by providing better feeds).","tokenCount":"45249"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"17bf32a14f60711182e8f9e3b8933ed9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c53f9bae-85db-4ce1-8a8d-50478ddbc85a/retrieve","id":"274145561"},"keywords":["Hannover, Rutgers, Ghent, Gembloux","biodiversity institutions (A von Humboldt, TNBIO, SJNCHJ, Smithsonian)","corporations and prívate organizations. CGIAR system linkages: Saving Biodiversity (40%)","Enhancement & Breeding (55%)","Training (4%)","lnformation ( 1%)"],"sieverID":"576d82c5-db12-4845-9b46-ae7ca1858b29","pagecount":"107","content":"Objective: To preserve the Designated Collections and employ modem biotechnology to identify and use genetic diversity for broadening the genetic base and increasing the productivity of mandated and selected non-mandated crops.Outputs: l. lmproved characterization ofthe genetic diversity of wild and cultivated species and associated organisms. 2. Genes and gene combinations used to broadcn the genetic base. 3. Mandated crops conserved and multiplied as per intemational standards. 4. Germplasm avai lable, restored, and safely duplicated. 5. Designated collections made socíally relevan!. 6. Strengthen NARS for conservation and use of Neotropical plant genetic resources. 7. Conservation of Designated Collections linked with on-farm conservation etforts and protected arcas.Gains: Small farmers of Latín America, sub-Saharan A frica, and Southeast Asia will use dozens of germplasm accessions conserved by the gene bank, as such or after improvement through biotechnology tools. Sources of disease and pest resistance will be identified for curren! and future efforts in germplasm enhancement and plant breeding. Milestones: 2003 Efficient transformation system devolved for beans. Transgenic cassava tested for resistance to stemborer. Bioreactor technology implemented for cassava and rice. Markers developed for iron and zinc in beans. Collaboration with public and private partners strengthened. Advanced backcross populations of rice characterized. Protocols for cryoconservation of seeds and tissue germplasm established. Germplasm collections regenerated. Safe-duplication and restoration continued. 2004 High throughput screening of germplasm bank and breeding materials implemented, using microarray technology. Aluminum tolerance in Brachiaria characterized. Marker-assisted selection for ACMV and whitefly resistance initiated. Transgenic rice resistan! to a spectrum of fungal diseases. Oevelopment of insertion mutagenesis population in rice, using AdDs. Gene flow studies for bean and rice completed. Links with conservation efforts in protected arcas and on farms established. Gcrmplasm collections regenerated. Jni tiation of DNA banks for core collections. Safe-duplication and restoration continued. 2005 Efficient transformation system devolved for cassava. Bean with high iron and zinc tested and transferred to CIAT A fri ca program. SNP markers developed for bean and implemented for MAS. Targeted sequencing of cassava genome. Jsogcnic of QTL in rice developcd and tcstcd. Gene expression studics. Tcchnology transfcr for rapid propagation system to NARS. Testing of AdDS population for gene identification Users: CIAT and NARS partncrs (public and prívate) involved in germplasm conservation and crop genetic improvement and agrobiodiversity conservation; AROs from DCs and LDCs, using CIAT technologies.Project Goal To improve conservation efforts in order to increase the social benefits of conservation practices 1 S ub project 1:To ma ke the collection designate meet international standards (i .e. viabi li ty, quantity and plant health aspects). In 2003 the GRU has widened the consultation possibilities of its da tabases by intemet users, and has continued to invest in digital images. Significant progress ( 4,827 clones or 84% of the designated collection) has been made in testing the slow-growth method on the entire cassava collection with view of replicating it at CIP as security back-up. This is in Jine with the current effort at the leve! of the Systemwide Genetic Resources Programme, to use existing facilities of IARCs to provide each other with security back-up services. The GRU thanks to a grant from the World Bank for the Upgrading of Intem ational Germplasm Collections in [2003][2004][2005][2006] has increased its regeneration facilities in Quilichao and Popayan. Progress has been made as to improve protocols for the long-tem1 conservation of grass germplasm, and from there applications for the conservation of seed germplasm of sorne tropical fruit species (e.g. tree tomato, mountain papaya) have been developed.Activity ar ea # 2: the Ger mplasm a nd its d ata ava ila bleThe distribution of germplasm out of the F AO designa te collections continues on the high si de (8, 179 accessions in total). This is a demonstration of the strong ínterest by CIA T projects, partners and other institutions world wide to these collections maintained in the public domain, and a salid justification to enlist them in an agreement with the lnternational Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (now in the final step towards its ra tification). As a result of the cleaning and indexing effort launched in 1996 8 1% of the cassava collection is now indexed agaínst viruses of quarantíne importance and available for distribution. As a by-product of this work 2,595 clones have been established as a 'bonsai' collection that may result in a low-cost alternative to the field genebank befare the work on the cryocollection is completed. Progress has been made in methods to control fungi of quarantine importance in Brachiaria germplasm with the use of antagonistic epiphytic bacteria Activity a r ea # 3: the Genetic and Social r elevance of the Conser vation A 14 years effort to better understand the taxonomy of Phaseolus has been comp1eted, whi le wild weed crop complexes in common bean ha ve been studied from different parts of Colombia.'l. }The diffusion of research results continues to be a priority for GRU Staff. The participation of the GRU in the The Epcot Intemational Flower & Garden Festival, Orlando, Florida, has broken records of visitors 196,760. Scientific presentations were made in nine conferences, workshops and other fora. GRU Staff provided input in five intemational/national courses . Nine papers were published during 2003.Activity area # 5: the Link with in situ Conservation on farrn and in the wildThe results of the BMZ (Gerrnany) supported project on Gene Flow in the bean model in Costa Rica indicate that gene flow through pollen movements can be substantial, although quite variable according to locations and possibly seasons. While gene flow measured in cornrnerciallines on experimental station in Costa Rica is low, it seems to be important in the wild and in rural habitats where weedy races and landraces still coexist. So far, our results indicate that gene flow occurs principally from the wild relatives of common bean into the landraces; we have evidence however of a few cases of gene flow from the cultivated varieties into the wild materials.We ha ve continued to invest into the data bases about distribution of wild relatives of Manihot, Oryza .and Phaseolus in the New World with visits to the herbaria COL, EBUM, INB, NY, QCA and US. These data will serve as background inforrnation to projects of introduction and management of transgenical crops in the Neotropics, as well as to a regional initiative in functional genomics in a few crop genera of economic importan ce.After many years waiting, the GRU has obtained a grant from the World Bank to participate into an Upgrading Plan together with the other ten genebanks of the CGIAR under the auspices of the Systemwide Genetic Resources Programme. After three months waiting, CIAT Finances has authorized the disbursement, and most of the Capital Equipment approved by the Plan has been purchased or ordered. GRU has started many activities and will continue to carry them out as approved by the donar and as per the work plan of the Upgrading.CIA T Finances has without consultation with the Project Manager quitted the budget allocated to the Cassava Field genebank (an obligation under the FAO-CIAT agreement for the designated collection). Although the Field genebank has been discontinued by the Cassava Breeding project beca use of the high incidence of FrogSkin disease, the GRU has however established a 'bonsai' collection, free of disease of quarantine importance. As compared to cassava gerrnplasm obtained from in vitro, the 'bonsai' collection can provide gem1plasm to CIA T research projects with a sure net gain of 2-3 months; this service has a cost that can be met if that budget line is restored to the GRU.As mentioned previously, a limiting factor is the lack of flexibility on the personnel side, as continuing contracts seem to be against work productivity. Moving Staff from Finances to help in the daily management of budgets would help to alleviate the burden of work for Project Staff, while diminishing duplicate tasks at Center level.•-• . ) Thanks toa grant from the World Bank for the ' Rehabilitation of Intemational Public Goods', the GRU has initiated the Upgrading Plan, an ambitious work plan to clear all backlogs and shortfalls, namely ín the seed collections by 2006. Seed rejuvenation has been carried out for aging seed stocks (3,566 and 3,377 accessions of beans and forages, respectively). The cleaning and certification of the cassava collection against viruses of quarantine importance has made significant progress, as 81% of the collection is now ready for safe distribution. An indirect result of that work is the availabi lity of 2,595 certified clones that are kept as a ' bonsai ' collection, as a low-cost alterna ti ve to the field genebank. In line with the modemization of its computer system, the GRU has added a substantial number (6,277) of images to the databases available from CIAT website in order to enable users to make more precise requests of informa ti en and germplasm. A total of 8, 179 accessions were distributed this year to CIA T projects and outside institutions, as a clear indication of the importance of that service to agricultura! development worldwide. Protocols developed for seed conservation of tropical forages and other wild species were successfully applied with minor modifications to fruit germplasm, namely papaya and tree tomate. Five intemationaV national courses benefited from GRU Staff input, and severa! trainees were personally attended. Input was provided at different times to a Working Group coordinated by the Yon Humboldt Institute of Colombia for the establi sment of a policy on access and benefit sharing of genetic resources for the Andean Region. In relation to this a consultancy on mechanisms of follow-up and control has been carried out.  • lnvestigating functional diversity for investments in agrobiodiversity • Changing wasted -and expensive to maintain -roadsides into conservation areas for wild relatives of crops and forage species in Latín America .Sub-project # l. The International Standards Output 1.0. A computerized management system Activity 1.0.1. Development of an image bank as support for CIA T websiteThe image bank has been increased with near 5,000 images, which allows website users a better utilization of the data base. The GRU has added an image for sorne accessions with particular purposes e.g. popping beans, showing how they crack and the vo lume that can reach after the cooking process (Figure 1). Table 1 shows progress achieved during this year for the image bank. We a lso initiated the including of images of biochemical characterization, e.g. globulins in tepary bean (Figure 2); this will allow an evaluation of the extent of genetic diversity of the accessions. Al so during this year 526 images of cassava have been captured with the descriptor \"root pulp color\"; these are being added to the database for access to intemet users. Table 3 shows the distribution of materials represented in the image bank. _, .. .  3 shows a total of 3,566 accessions of beans regenerated in 2003 in two localities. The regeneration of beans was done exclusively in greenhouses and meshouses due to the impossibility of multiplying seeds in the field for security reasons. The main purpose of regeneration was seed stock refreshment given CIAT's commitments to ensure the availability ofFAO designate collections in the future. For the forage collection (Table 4), 3,377 accessions have been multiplied at three localities in 2003. The major collection of legumes is multiplied in Quilichao, whi le the major collection of grasses is multiplied in Popayán.  Table 5 shows the numbers of accessions for beans (3,112) and forages (1 ,864), respectively, that have been produced, cleaned, dried, and stored at 5°C awaiting results from viability and health tests.   Once cleared by the Viability Lab (for viability above 85%) and the Germplasm Health Lab (for absence of diseases of quarantine importance), the materials are processed into the five conservation purposes: long-tenn, safe duplicates, restoration, periodical monitoring, and distribution (Tables 7-8). In this year we performed the monitoring of viability after 5 years of conservation of Phaseolus vulgaris seed kept in long term storage, for three groups of seeds: Ten 1997B, Ten 1998A and Pal1998B that were conserved during 1998. A total of 2,252 accessions were tested and the results are shown in Table 9 .The mean germination decreased 3.4 units for Ten1997B, 2.6 for Ten1998A and in 1.6 for Pall998B, after 5 years of conservation. The difference is statistically significant in all cases with confidence interval of 95%. The decrease in germination slows as the time of harvests, perhaps reflecting improvements in pre-conservation seed treatments such as drying.Similarly, the monitoring was done for forage germplasm after a period of 5 years for a group of 581 forages species packed during 1998. The results are shown in Table 1 O where the difference of the mean germination was of 9.2 units. This difference is statistically significant with confidence interval of 95%.The decrease is significant for conservation purposes; an explanation might be in the packing of seeds with sorne viability deterioration (lots up to 18 years old when packed).Accordingly, given our standard of gerrnonation above 85%, for the seed lots monitored, a total of 223 (38%) accessions of forages and 241 (10%) accessions of beans have to be refreshed by seed multiplication. The purpose of this study was to establish a protocol to conserve seeds of Solanum betaceum (tree tomato) and Brachiaria humidicola. These two species are reported as of ortodox behaviour (Hong et al. 1996), thus the same protocol was applied for both: three moisture contents (4, 8, 12%) and three temperatures: (5, -1 8 and -196 °C). The conservation time was s ix months with three monitorings (atO, 3 and 6 months).A total of 54 treatments were evaluated (factorial 2x3x3x3) in a ramdomized model of a factorial arrangement of four replicates. An analysis of variance (ANOVA; Table 12, 13) was done for the germination registered at O, 3 and 6 months (Figures 4,5 and 6), where the variation source was the individual factors (time, temperature, moisture content, and kinds of material for B. humidicola and cultivar for S. betaceum) and the interactions.In the case of s ignificant differences at probability of 5% ofF test, a DUNCAN test for mean comparison was done by using the package STA TISTICA 6.0. The analysis does not show differences between cultivar (F=1.551, p=0.214), thus the behaviour of both cultivars in relation to the conservation factors is similar (Figure 4). However, in the interactions there were statistical differences between cultivar and moisture content (F=4.561, p=O.O ll). The cultivar 'Tamarillo' had better germination values over the cultivar 'Common' in all moisture contents of the seeds. Total germination during the time of conservation had a significant decrease of 4.9% showing the majar loss in the first three months (3.8%). During the following three months the decrease was only 1.1 %..~.---------------------~ ... There was no significant difference between +5 and -20 oc (p=0.932), while at -196 there was a drastic reduction of 6.7% in gerrnination. Thus the temperature of liquid nitrogen was the one causing a lower gerrnination during the conservation period evaluated for this species.There was no statistical difference between 4 and 8% moisture content (p=0.112). In contrast, there was difference for 12% moisture content affecting the total gerrnination of seeds. A reduction of 8% in gerrnination during the six months of conservation for a moisture content of 12%, versus 3.1 and 3.4% for 4 and 8% of moisture contents, respectively.If we check the behaviour through time exclusively, we would see in the last three months of conservation for all temperatures a tendency of establishment, specially at -1 96°C. In the last period at this temperature there was no significative decrease in the gerrnination for all moisture content levels, even at 12%. Between the second and third monitoring, at 12% moisture content, there was a decrease in gerrnination of 0.5% at -l96°C, of 1.6% at +5, and of 0.8% at -20°C. This stability of seed viability in liquid nitrogen is an indication of a decrease in the metabolic functions ofthe seeds preventing the natural deterioration caused by fisioiogical activities of the seeds through the time.Vigor test for S. betaceumThe vigor test was evaluated by usmg a chamber for accelerated agmg after two periods of time conservation (3 and 6 months).Both cultivars show statistical differences in the gerrnination loss (p<O.OOl). This loss was higher in the cultivar 'Common ', 62.7% against 62% for cultivar 'Tamarillo'. This is an indication that cultivar 'Tamarillo ' has higher vigor a compared to cultivar common.In addition, at +5 oc temperature we obtained the lowest vigor in both cultivars (61.4% for 'Common' and 69.5% for 'Tamarillo'). At Jower temperatures (-20 and -196°C) we obtained higher vigour values of78.2% for cultivar 'Tamarillo' and 61.1% for cultivar 'Common' at -20 oc (Figure 3).The moisture content of 12% showed the lower values in the vigor test of 60.5 and 48.4% for cultivar 'Tamarillo ' and 'Common' , respectively, as compared to higher values of70% for the moisture contents of 8 and 4% (Figure 2). The analysis of figures 7, 8 and Table 12 does not reveal significa ti ve differences between the factors time, condition and moisture content. There was no difference between temperatures, as an indication of seed tolerances to low and extreme temperatures (liquid nitrogen). The total gennination during the first three months of conservation had a decrease of 4.3%. However, during the last three months, the gennination had higher values, resulting in a decrease in gennination of only O. 7% at six months.During the six months of conservation, the seeds without glumes had an advantage of 2.5% in the gennination over the seeds conserved without glumes. However, the behaviour of the gennination during the time of conservation in a11 factors was the same for both sorts of materials (with and without glumes) (Figures 7, 8).For both seed conditions at the temperature of +5°C, the moisture content of 8 and 12% had similar gennination between each other and lower as compared to the moisture content of 4%. At lower temperatures ( -1 O and -196°C) the moisture content of 8% gave a germination rate similar to the moisture content of 4%, and both were higher than the germination for a moisture content of 12%.These results indicate that moisture content and temperature are independent factors. Thus, the optimal moisture content has a particular behaviour at any temperature.A reduction in germination occurred in the first three months followed by an increase as shown by the final monitoring (Figures 7,8); that variation could be generated by many traits such as genetic or physiological variations among the seed lots ....  Vigor test for U. humidicola The vigor test for B. humidicola seeds showed an increase of 3.6% in the germination during the evaluation periods (3 and 6 months) in both kinds of seeds. However, there were differences between both staes p<O.OOl) . In the state without glumes the vigor was 88.% and with glumes the vigor was 87.7. Once again there is an advantage of 1.2% in the seeds withouth glumes. For the seeds conserved at the temperature -196°C we observed the lowest vigour in both states of seeds with and without glumes, 86.8 and 88% , respectively. In the other temperatures the vigour was higher,specially at +5°C in both seed states (Figure 9). As found in S. betaceum, the vigour was lower at the moisture content of 12% with 85.7% (media) for both states, against 87.8% and 98 .8% obtained for the moisture content of 8 and 4, respectively (Figure 10).The higher value of germination in this vigour test as compared to the germination of the monitoring shows the value of this test as an alterna ti ve to promote germination in Brachiaria humidicola. The high temperature ofthis test (40°C) and the high relative humidity (100%) help to soften the physic barriers of the seed cover, allowing the air interchange and water imbibition at the germination time.The heat treatment could work as a sort of stratification, condition very similar to the geographic origin of this species, which come from tropical savannahs, humid and hot areas, climatic conditions very similar to the seed-aging test.•.,• : .1 -27- The conservation of the genetic diversity of fruits in tropics is very important because many natural habitats have been reduced and many natural populations are in risk of disappearance.However, the knowledge of the physiology and behaviour of their seeds in conservation is not well known for a large diversity of tropical species. This project is focused on three groups of fruits, all are fleshy fruits and commonly used in tropical America, where they are coming from. The hypotheses to test for these fruits during 2003 were: Ho: The seeds ofthese fleshy fruits have a positive response in germination when we apply methods such as physical conditioning, a !tema te temperatures, shocks of temperatures and chemical treatments (ni trates and gibberellins)Ho: The seeds of the cultivated species of these fleshy fruits are more suitable for germination and conservation as compared to the wild species.l . Thermogradient plate A way to test the response by germination of seeds to dífferent temperatures was done by using the thermogradient plate developed by the University of Reading (Murdoch, Roberts et al. 1989). The thermogradient contains 64 cells of different temperatures in a range of 12 to 40 oc in a combination of different amplitudes. Fifty seeds were placed in each cell without any additional treatment. Germination was check every two days for 21 days and recorded by protrusion of the radicle (2 mm long).A fresh seed lot of S. betaceum cultivar 'Tamarillo' (Figure 11) and a seed lot of S. quitoense common fruit (Figure 12) were tested. S. betaceum had positive response to constant temperatures between 25 and 30 °C, and to altemate temperatures between 20 and 30 oc at 16 hours ofthermo period and between 12 and 30 oc at 8 hours of thermo period. It is an indication of the low dormancy. In contrast, S. quitoense does not have a positive response to constant temperatures. In altemate temperatures the germination was relatively low (up to 80%) as compared toS. betaceum (up to 100%) with good response between 22 and 28 oc at 16 and 8 hours of thermo period in the major amplitude (difference between lowest and highest temperature). The extraction of the seeds for all fru its was done by soaking the fruits in water without fermentation , and by cleaning all fleshy cover adhering to the seed. The seed immersion in water and hormones was for 24 hours according to ISTA (!STA 1999). Dry seeds were used as control and immers ion in water was used as another control to discard the response of increasing seed water potential in the hormones treatments. Alterna te and constant temperatures were tested in different ranges for each species. Radicle protrusion (2 mm long) was recorded as germination. For all test four replicates of 50 seeds each were used. In order to have more precise results in the analysis of variance the variable germination (percent) was transformed by the arcsine function of the square root of germination/1 OO.The germination test in Petri dishes was applied to four seed lots of S. betaceum in fi ve conditions of germination and four treatments of breaking dormancy (Annex 1, Figures 13, 14). The analysis of variance of the germination transformed data shows statistical differences between lots, conditions, treatments and interactions between al! of them. The Tukey test for mean comparison was done giving the higher results for germination to the seed lot A (\"Tamarillo\" fresh seeds, over \"Tamarillo 6 months old\", \"Common 6 months old\" and \"Common fresh\"), to the germination condition of 25115 oc for 16/8 hours of thermo period and to the treatments GA 3 2,000 p .p.m. and KN0 3 0.01 M (without differences between these two). The results show an endogenous dormancy in both cultivars of this species, better removed by gibberellins due to the natural deficit of this hormone in the seeds. 120.0 100.0• : .J. The germination test in Petri dishes was applied for two seed lots of S. quitoense, six combinations of temperatures and four treatments to break seed dormancy (Annex 2, Figure 15). The analysis of variance of the factorial using the germination data transformed to angles shows statistical differences between lots, condition and treatment. There was interaction between lot, condition and treatment only. The Tukey test for mean comparisons show the highest germination for lotE (\"Common lulo\" over \"Lulo LaSelva\"), the temperature condition 25/ 15 oc fo r 16/8 hours of thermo period and the treatment GA 3 2,000 p.p. m. The results confi rm the deep dormancy in both cultivar of this species.Tab1e 16. ANOV A procedure for germination transformed to   One seed lot of S. hartwegii was tested in six temperature conditions and four treatments to break donnancy treatments were applied (Annex 3, Figure 16). The analysis of variance of the gennination transfonned to angles show statistical differences between condition, treatment and interaction between both factors. Tukey test for mean comparisons yields the best gennination for three conditions in the same grouping: 20/30, 15/30 and 15/25 oc for 16/8 hours of thenno period, and, to the chemical treatment GA 3 2,000 p.p.m. The gennination rate was recorded by checking gennination every two days for 21 days. There were statistical differences in the rate of gennination between condition and treatment but no interaction 'r , )_ between both factors. The highest rate of germination was found in the constant temperature (25 oc for 24 hours) and in the treatment of GA 3 2,000 p.p.m. This species shows the same trend in dormancy as the cultivated species of Solanum (S. betacea and S. quitoense).  3 4 5 2 2 1 1 1 2 3 3 4 4 3 4 5 5 Treat menf Germination test of scarified seeds of P. edulis was done in paper rolls for five temperature different conditions and six treatments (Annex 4, Figure 17). All seeds were scarified manually and one set of seeds was scarified by a boiling water treatment (96 oc for 15 minutes). The ana1ysis of variance of the germination data transformed to angles shows statistical differences in condition, treatment and interaction between both factors. T he Tukey test for mean comparisons indicates that the best condition for germination is the highest temperature (20/35 oc for 16/8 hours of thermo period) and the treatment of manual scarification using dry seeds. This result confirms the physic barrier of testa as the main trait preventing germination of these seeds. The use of hormones for this species is unnecessary due to the absence of endogenous dormancy. The rate of germination was measured by applying a germination test every seven days during 30 days.No statistical. differences were found in the rate of g'ermination for any condition or treatment.  Pr>F 0.9978 0.2818 1.0000Gennination test of two lots of seeds of C. papaya was done in paper rolls for five different temperature conditions and four treatments (Annex 5, Figure 18). One seed lot consisted of fresh seed without sclerotesta and another seed lot consisted of one-year seed with sorne pieces of sclerotesta. The analysis of variance of the gennination data transfonned to angles shows statistical differences in lot, condition, treatment and interaction between all factors. The Tukey test for mean comparisons indicates that the lot without sclerotesta has better gennination. The best temperature for gennination was 20/30 and 20/35 oc for 16/8 hours of thenno period, and the best treatment was GA 3 2,000 p.p.m. The results confinn that the main factor blocking gennination in C. papaya is the sclerotesta followed by endogenous factors.  Breaking dormancy in Carica papaya11 n 1 ~?~~~~~~~?~~5~~~~~ ~ 4í;!;p ~ ¡:;¡;::¡:;4í~~5~;:<;~iü '-i'::  19). The sclerotesta was fully removed manually by soaking in water. The analysis of varían ce of the germination data transformed to angles shows statistical differences in condition. No statistical differences were found between treatments. These resu1ts indicate no dormancy in seeds of this species. The Tukey test for mean comparisons indicates that the worst temperature was constant temperature (25 °C} and heat shock for 24 hours (35 °C}; however all other temperatures gave good germination rates. The heat shock is recommended for Carica papaya as the best treatment (Wood, Pritchard et al. 2000); however for this wild close relative it is not working.This result rejects the hypothesis of easier germination in cultivated species as compared to wild species, because no dorrnancy has been found in this wild species of Caricaceae, while it is found in Carica papaya.  Breaking dormancy in Carica cauliflora  60.0?; :r: :r: :r: :r: :r:::.::: ::.::: ::.::: ::.::: ::.:::::.:::::.::: ::.::: ::.::: ::.:::Cryopreservation techniques can be divided into classical and new. CIA T has developed altematives for both kinds of techniques (Escobar et al., 1997, Escobar et al., 2000). New techniques based on encapsulation-dehydration, which are simple and rapid, would be useful for preserving large germplasm collections such as that of cassava. Not too many steps are involved as in the classic methods. Using these techniques with a wider number of clones will give a general idea about how safe this conservation method is in the long term with respect to repeatability and consistency after freezing.The encapsulation-dehydration method was implemented using materials from the in vitro bank. These materials were propagated using 4E medium (Roca, 1984) for the bud/node explants. When we tried scaling up, we considered increasing the number of beads per container (recycled baby food jars).Normally each jar with 50 g of silica gel holds 20 beads; we tested 40 beads per jar.To determine if a clone is amenable to being cryopreserved, it has to form shoots from at least 30% ofthe beads after freezing. This is considered the threshold (Escobar et al., 2001 ).To date we have received 447 cassava clones, which are being propagated to increase them up to 100-150 plants/clone to produce enough new shoots (2-3 months old and without cuttings) to use in the cryopreservation process.During the last 6 months we had a problem with dust mites infecting the production and lost 187 clones (42% of the material received). This attack made it necessary to increase propagation activities, reducing the number of clones put under cryopreservation. From the material received, we cryopreserved 348 clones (78% of material received, which corresponds to 55.2% ofthe core collection).Of the total clones cryopreserved so far, 68% have surpassed the threshold value (Table 28). Of the 145 clones tested in 2002-2003, 43% reached the threshold (Table 29).  The 40 beads in the baby food jar did not dehydrate sufficiently or homogeneously; thus encapsulated shoots did not survive freezing. In contrast, when the 40 beads were placed in a petri dish, they reached similar humidity levels to the 20 beads in a baby food jar (Fig. 1 ). These results indicate that dehydration, as expected, depends on the number of beads, the type of container and the sucrose pretreatrnent. ldeally, larger containers should be used to handle more beads; i.e., glass petri dishes with a larger numbers of beads. However, the cost of a glass petri dish is 250 times higher than a baby food jar.A routine was established to clean the growth room. It permits mi te control by combining chemical treatments specific for adults and eggs. Every 15 days we also apply mint or eucalyptus oil scents on the floor as a preventive measure to keep mi tes away. Research has been focussed to develop a conservation system that permits to reduce growth using an ethylene inhibitor.The use of silver nitrate has so far extended the subculturing time in six varieties (Mafla et al, 2000). These varieties corresponded to a small sample of the collection but are representative of behavior in conservation, as they grouped according to the subculturing lag. The study presented here was, therefore, undertaken to know whether or not silver nitrate is effective to reduce growth and increase the conservation lag on the rest of the collection.A total of 4,827 varieties have been subcultured in presence of silver nitrate (2 tubes for variety). A sample of 2,870 cassava varieties of 24 regions has been included in this group for further evaluation; this sample represents the 50% of the total collection.These clones were maintained on medium consisting of MS, 0.02 mg/1 BAP, 0.1 mg/lt GA, 0.01 mg/1 ANA, 2% sucrose, 0.7% agar (8S) . We compared this medium with a silver nitrate~supplemented medium at 10 mgllt (NP). Two explants for tube (25 x 150 mm size, covered with aluminum foil) were cultured at 23-24 o e under a 12-h-photoperiod and lighting of 1,000 lux.After 2 months of conservation, observations were recorded on stem length; each treatment included two replica tes and data of stem length were averaged. Obviously we need to continue the evaluation of these varieties in order to determine for how long silver nitrate is able to extend the time of conservation for this wide range of varieties.We ha ve found that sil ver nitra te with concentration of 1 O mg/lt reduced the growth three times less as compared to the standard medium. The general average for the 2,870 cassava varieties in silver nitrate medium was 2.7 cm and 8.7 cm in the standard medium (8S).Figure 22 show the principal effect of silver nitrate on slow growth in 2,870 cassava varieties, which represent gem1plasm coming from 23 different countries anda group ofbreeding lines.The average stem length varied from 6.0 cm to 11 .7 cm when the microplants were conserved in media not supplemented with sil ver ni trate. Addition of sil ver ni trate to standard medium reduced stem length in all va rieties, the stem length was between 1.2 -4.0 cm. The beneficia] effect of silver nitrate on microplants growth was evident in the wide range of varieties.After 7 months of conservation a total of 167 varieties that were cultivated without silver nitrate began to deteriorate showed defoliation, thus requiring carry out the subculture. It is very important to mention that these varieties have presented a behavior of quick deterioration with an average of 9.9 months to subculture. The plants that were in silver nitrate media even continued in conservation under good conditíons and had a higher number of green leaves and better aspect than those growing in standard medium.The present study has shown that the effect of silver ni trate was uniform over all varieties evaluated. In general, slow growth was observed in the plants conserved in silver ni trate medium. The evaluation is still in progress with the purpose of detetm ining the extent of increase in the conservation time in wide range of varities tested.Palms (Arecaceae) are one of the most important multi-purpose p lant families, with around 2,600 species; the multiple useful products obtained from them make palms an important resource. Many of the species are threatened with extinction making them obvious candidates for ex situ conservation. The primary method by which all palms are propagated is by seed. Germination of seeds for many species is slow and erratic, and germination percentage can be very low. Production of somatic embryos in callus tissue derived from shoot tips or in vitro culture of sexual embryos have been used to propagate a range of economically important species of palms (Reynolds, 1985).To the best of our knowledge, protocols for in vitro conservation under slow growth of palrns have not been reported, and we though of them as strategies for the conservation of this group of plants. With the purpose of beginning the research on slow growth this first step was to establish a stock of in vitro plants obtained from zygotic embryos of Bactris gasipaes ('chontaduro'), selected as a representative of the palms group.A total of eighty fruits from Bactris gasipaes were used. The fruits were washed in running water and immersed in soap for five minutes. After removing the pulp, the entire seeds were washed again with soap by 5 minutes, later were submitted to the desinfection procedure in laminar air-flow transfer hood. The seeds were immersed in ethanol at 70% for ten seconds followed by inmersion in benlate at 0.5 gr/lt for 15 minutes and then sodium hypochloride at 2.5% for 15 minutes and finally three times in steri1e distilled water. Bactris gasipaes embryo is a small conical body (about 3mm long), embedded in the endosperm, near the base ofthe seed (Figure 1). Forty embryos were cultured in the proliferation medium ( 4E) and forty embryos in rooting medium ( 17N) (Roca, 1984 ). The embryos were cultured for five days in darkness and then were transferred to 1000 lux oflight intensity, 27° C and 12-h-photoperiod.Table 1 summarizes the processes from the moment of the disinfection to the obtaining of viable embryos. The protocol used for the disinfection was effective since no contamination appears. It is probable that those seeds that did not germinate were affected by mechanic damage to the embryo. The used mediums hada very similar response in the obtaining ofviable embryos, although it is important to mention that in 4E medium the development of the plants was much higher as compared to the other growth media.In culture, viable embryos (Figure 23) swelled and elongated, between 3-4 weeks coleoptile elongation and protrusion of the first root occurred. After 6 weeks in culture completely developed plants were obtained. These plants are now to be used in the research on slow growth.The aim ofthis study, besides to obtain plants for initiate slow-growth, was to develop a protocol which would give consistently high germination rates for 'chontaduro' embryos. In vitro germination can used to improve the germination rates ofpalms. Zygotic embryos were chosen as explants because of the ease with which they can be transpÓrted from their place of origin and because embryos are the best source of somatic embryos in many species. The purpose of this study is to establish a protocol to conserve under slow growth tree tomato (Solanum betaceum) and lulo (Solanum quitoense) elite germplasms. Different culture mediums were used (Matla et al, 2002 ). After 1 O months of storage, observations were recorded on microshoot stem length (cm), number of retained leaves and dead leaves. Other evaluation was made to confirm the viability of the cultures when they exit the treatments (micropropagation capacity).Materials and methods have been described in Annual Report (SB-0 1) 2002, and modifications ha ve not been made since then.The effect of ancymidol and silver nitrate on the stem Jength, number of retained leaves, dead Jeaves and recovery explants in Solanum quitoense, 'Ginebra' clon and 'La Selva'clon, after 1 O months are shown in Figure 25a-b. Significant differences were observed between the treatments in all evaluated variables. A better quality of the material was observed when different concentrations of silver nitrate were used for both clones. The average stem Jength varied from 11.6 cm to 15.1 cm with ancymidol whereas with silver nitrate varied from 4.0 cm to 15.1 cm in the 'Ginebra' clon.The sim ilar response was observed in ' La Selva' clon; the rate of growth measured in terms of stem length presented significant differences and varied between 11.5 cm to 12.3 cm with ancymidol whereas with silver nitrate was from 4.3 cm to 12.3 cm. This result shows that silver nitrate has an effect on the rate of growth.,.f A significant increase in the number of retained leaves was observed when the microplants were conserved in media containing silver nitrate in the different concentrations. In relation to recovery rates explants were different for both clones. Silver nitrate was more effective in improving the recovery of explants in the 'La selva'clon.Although it was not possible to obtain a significant increase in conservation time is important to consider that silver nitrate could favorably be used for in vitro conservation of Solanum quitoense microplant. The strategy to follow is evaluate the silver nitrate with other temperature conditions because Solanum quitoense is a moderately cold climate crop and in this way we can detennine if it is possible to increase the time of conservation.25 Jo.------------------------------------------------ 16.------------------------------------------------------ The analysis of variance showed that ancymidol and silver nitrate in tree tomato had effect on all the characters studied with relation to control (C 1 ). In tree tomato differences in the growth of microplants were fo und; a decrease in the stem length was observed in mediums containing different levels of ancymidol and silver ni trate. After 1 O months we observed a beneficia! effect on recovery of explants in mediums with ancymido l and si lver nitrate. As for Solanum quitoense it is necessary to evaluate other mediums and d ifferent temperature conditions with the purpose of extending the conservation time.Figure 26. Effect of ancymidol and silver nitrate on the stem length (cm), retained leaves (No.), dead leaves (No.) and recovery explants (No.) during the in vitro culture oftree tomato.Activity 1.5 .4 . A comparison of different culture vessels for shipment of Manihot security backups.One of the priori ti es for next year is to ha ve a security backup of Manihot in vitro collection unde r s low growth in a nothe r place. We must find a system that provides even or additio nal security for Manihot germplams as compared to the tubes normal ly used. Other advantages such as easy handling, reduced storage space, resistance to breakage, easiness of inventory and a safer method for shipping germplasm must be looked at.Eighty varieties of Manihot esculenta were multiplied on medium with silver nitrate. Two tu bes of each variety were placed in each one of different types of culture vessels. The same conservation room conditions were used for each one.Looking for a good storage system, the follow culture vessels were used : This study examines the longevity using differe nt storage syste ms. T he systems vary in severa! parameters such as composition of container and size. Figure 27 shows the growth retardant effects of si lver nitrate in a ll the conta iners. After of three months the polypropylene tubes (b, e) produce a des iccation ofth e medium that in the long te rm can be cons ide red as undesirable. T he shoots stored in glass test tubes (a), po lypropylene culture tube (d) and bags (e) are better because desiccation is lower. Othe r 250 varieties were cultured in polypropylene culture tube (d) wi th the purpose to evaluate them under a longer period and to be able to make a dec ision on the matter. Output 1.6 Germplasm, passport and characterization data available to users Activity 1.6.1 .. Distribution of germplasm from designa te co!lections to end users A total of 1,820 Manihot accessions were distributed through 56 requests (sumrning to 10,259 samples of in vitro plants). The main recipients were CGIAR Centers (mainly CIAT Projects), who received over 79.1% of total of samples, and then the NARS with 13.8% (Table 31, Figure 28). The main purposes of distribution in cassava were basic research ( cryopreservation and classic biochemistry) with 71.6% of the total, while agronomy was of 18.7% (Table 32, Figure 29).T bi 31 n These results mdtcate that to date 94,7 % of clones presented negattve results for thts vtrus and 5,3 % positive resu1ts.The countries with high numbers of positive clones were Brazi1 (3,52 %), Paraguay (1,17 %) and Argentina (0,58 % ); however these numbers are low.The number of clones evaluated against CsXV during this year is shown in The results indicate that 93,6 % of the eva1uated clones present negative results for this virus and 6,4 % present positive results.The countries where this virus was present were Colombia ( 1, 7 4 % ), a couple of hybrid clones CG ( 1, 7 4 %), and Malasia, México, CM and SG (hybrids) with 0,58 % of incidence.Again, the presence of CsXV in the collection is stronger than the presence of CCMV, also taking into account last year data.Indexing for FSDA The number of clones evaluated against FSDA during this year is shown in The results indicate that 96,8 % of materials presented negative results in the indexing for this virus and 3,17% presented positive results.A low incidence of FSDA was observed in the Collection; only in clones of Colombia and Argentina (1,58 %), Brasil, Malaysia and SG hybrids (0,39 %) we observed the presence ofthis virus.The previous data indicate that the thermoterapy applied to erradicate the viruses mentioned in the clones has been effective.The current status of the Cassava Collection (number of negative clones for each virus and number of clones currently available for distribution, negative for the three viruses) is presented in Table 36. We continued with the growing activities of the wi1d rnaterials of Cassava in arder to finish with the indexing activities. The growth of these plants is very slow, atypic and difficult, anda lot ofrnaterials has been lost during the growing out phase in the greenhouses. However, we obtained the first results for CCMV, CsXV and FSDA in rnaterials frorn the past year.Contributors: N.C.Flor, G. Mafla, J.C. Roa.Activity 2.1 .3. Establishernent of a \"Bonsai\" Collection as safe back-up of whole Cassava Collection Since October 2001, we begin to establish one copy of the whole Cassava Collection under greenhouse conditions, because rnost of rnaterials delivered to the field genebank becarne infected with FSDA, and the Cassava Breeding Project no longer provided the service. Along our current agreernent with F AO, this back-up is necessary befare the entire collection is safely rnaintained under cryopreservation. We currently have 2,595 clones frorn different countries as it can be seen in Table 38. These materials are byproducts of the certification process against FSDA, and thus certified against viruses of quarantine irnportance.Table 38. In agreement with F AO-IPGRI genebanks standards, seeds for storage in gennplasm collections should be as clean and free from weed seeds, pests, and diseases as possible. To that purpose the Gennplasm Health Laboratory (GHL) practiced phytosanitary inspections on multiplication p1ots (fields and glasshouses), and applied indexing procedures in the laboratory to ensure that the gennplasm was free of seed borne diseases that could affect its longevity during the storage and prohibit its distribution to users.During the period October 2002-September 2003, the GHL tested 827 seed samples from projects SB-1 (Integrated Conservation of Neotropical Plant Genetic Resources), GD-01 (Bean Gennplasm Improvement) and IP5 (Tropical grasses and legumes).Phytosanitary inspections are carried out on multiplication plots (field and glass houses) of Popayán, Santander de Quilichao and CIA T Palmira. Accesions are tested in the GHL using accepted methodologies to identify seed-borne pathogens as fungi, bacteria and viruses according with those pathogens recorded in seed production areas (Annual Report 1997). The procedures utilized in the Gennplasm Health Laboratory have been described in Annual Report of 1999.Testing for sorne genera of seed borne fungi includes blotter test and agar test plate under high levels of humidity and optimum light and temperature conditions. The final step is the examination of incubated seeds on blotters or agar culture media. Seed borne bacteria (Xanthomonas campestris pv phaseoli and Pseudomonas syringae pv phaseolico/a in beans, and Pseudomonas spp., in tropical pastures) are tested. The SHL uses dilution and plating on semiselective culture media such as MXP or King B, in addition to immunoprecipitine test with specific antisera or pathogenicity tests. The lab also uses immunofluorescent techniques. Testing Curtobacterium jlaccumfasciens pv. jlaccumfasciens is achieved by subculturing on YDCA, by Gram staining, incubation under high temperature (36-37° C). Also complementary tests using a Gram-Positive ID Kit and Gram-negative (Becton Dickinson BBL Crystal™, Nippon Becton Dickinson Company Ltd.) containing different enzymatic and biochemical substrates are carried out. In addition, we used biological tests using hypersensibility reactions on Mirabi/is jalapa after bacteria! infiltration and pathogenicity. Testing for seed borne viruses includes sero1ogical methods such as ELISA, using monoclonal or polyclonal antisera and or seedling-symptom test.Beans (Phaseolus spp.) Seed samples of 386 accesions of beans project SB-1 were tested, sorne of them with destination to Bulgaria, China, India, and Peru, and the other one to conservation in the Bean Germplasm Bank (Table 39). Their health status showed 90% samples without pathogens of quarantine importance. Samples with pathogens (10 %) showed in general very low percentages of the fungi Macrophomina phaseoli, and Rhizoctonia spp. Seedbome viral infections by Southem mosaic virus (SBMV) were also detected. During the seed health analysis it was very evident that Phaseolus vulgaris seed samples from Popayan showed high seed quality as a result of the very careful seed production process and handling improved over the past few years.The presence of Gram positive bacteria was checked and only one accession of P. vulgaris showed colonies of these kinds of bacteria after subculturing on YDCA, and incubation under high temperature (36-3 rC). However, their identification with complementary tests using a Gram-Positive ID Kit (Becton Dickinson BBL Crystal™, Nippon Becton Dickinson Company Ltd.) showed Coryneform plant bacteria, but not Curtobacteriumjlaccumfaciens pv.jlaccumfaciens. Seed samples of 441 of tropical grasses and legumes from SB-1 project, distributed in 342 accesions of 35 genera of tropical legumes pastures, and 99 of Poaceae (Figure 30; Table 40). Their health status showed 53,4% of samples without pathogens of quarantine importance. In rejected samples we detected sorne seedbome fungi of quarantine importance (Ascochyta spp., Colletotrichum spp., Drechslera spp., Macrophomina sp., Pesta/otia spp., Phoma spp, Phomopsis spp.), anda very low frequency ofPoty virus, but a higher percentage of SBMV on legumes. Bacteria (Xanthomonas spp.) were detected only in legumes at very low frequency, also a Coryneform Gram positive bacteria.    ----------------------------  According to our results and keeping in mind the source of seed samples, which are produced under field conditions• (CIA T Palmira, Popayán, Santander de Quilichao ), it was possible to establish that each place had been under different disease pressure at germplasm increasing plots. The phytosanitary status of seeds produced at CIAT Palmira station showed that 81.6% ofthem were not affected by seedborne pathogens; while seeds of Poaceae germplasm from Popayan showed high percentage of infection (94.7 %). The seeds produced at Santander de Quilichao Sation showed 54.4% of samples with seedborne pathogens (Fig 31 ). Our resu1ts showed that fungi were of high incidence, while percentages of viruses and bacteria were low (Fig 30).W e see these phytosanitary status results as very important information to make decisions. Specially to refine the procedures of seed production under fie1d conditions, also as a rese. arch too! in the development ahd application of control disease methods to ensure that the germplasm is free of seed borne diseases that could affect its longevity during the storage and prohibit its distribution to users.Seed samples from GD-01 (Bean's Germplasm development) and IP5 (Tropical grasses and legumes) were analyzed (Table 41). In Phaseo/us vulgaris 58.0 % of samples did not show pathogens of quarantine importance. In rejected samples Macrophomina phaseo/i was the fungus detected with higher frequency. We also detected the bacteria X campestris pv phaseoli in low percentage and bean common mosaic virus (BCMV) and SBMV in intermediate percentages. In Tropical pastures germplasm 50% of seed samples of Brachiaria spp. showed the presence of the seed borne fungi Drechslera spp. and Phoma spp. In legumes such as Lablab spp., we detecteted Macrophomina spp. in low percentages. A total of 1,820 Manihot accessions were distributed through 56 requests (surnming to 10,259 samples of in vitro plants). The main recipients were CGIAR Centers (mainly CIAT Projects), who received over 79.1% oftotal of samples, and then the NARS with 13.8% (Table 42, Figure 32).The main purposes of distribution in cassava were basic research ( cryopreservation and classic biochemistry) with 71.6% ofthe total, while agronomy was of 18.7% (Table 43    The infonnation system implemented at the GRU is in constant evolution, therefore presents changes and improvements periodically. An example of this is the introduction of new reports, and al so the introduction process of passport data and glass-house infonnation for bean crop. This information had not been migrated in its totality. In addition to this, we improved the procedure of germplasm requests by users of CIA T web si te by adding new search parameters and a considerable amount of digital pictures.Another important activity to report is the introduction of the bar code in the information flow from field to conservation. The introduction of bar coding in the field is still in process, given the need of special printers and labels. The labels should be resistant to different climatic conditions; in fact the GRU has been testing different types of labels for almost two years with good results.In order to carry out the changes in the interna! information system of GRU we used a tool called Developer 2000 from Oracle. To make germplasm requests from CIA T Web site we used the programming language called Java. For the bar coding we used Zebra S600 printers, moving to Eltron printers dueto the low cost and the easy way to operate them. For bar code impression in the field we are currently testing two printing options: Zebra or Paxar.The interna! information system shows updated information and lets visualize seed images, helping to the identification of the material, and avoids confusions during seed multiplication processes. The introduction of a bar code on the plastic aluf!1inum bags that contain the seeds allows an easy and fast identification of its content, which avoids to reopen and to repack the seed material (with risk of increased seed moisture content).The consultation of CIA T germplasm data bases and the request procedure ha ve been made ligther. Our web site has more new search parameters which permit to do refined searches. Around 4,000 additional images of bean and tropical forages accessions ha ve been incorporated. A study was conducted in CIAT Santa Rosa station in 2002-2003 to test the efficacy of five fungic ides for the control of a fungous complex affecting Brachiaria spp. inflorescences, resulting in seed yields of low phytosanitary quality. The fungicides are listed in Table 4. Untreated plots were included as a check in the test.The tria! was initiated in 29 November 2002 using plots with Brachiaria brizantha accession 6387, and plants were in booting state (beginning with inflorescence initiation). Experimental design was a randornized complete block with 6 treatrnents and 4 replications. Fungicide applications were made every two weeks from November 2002 to January 2003, using a back Agrolaura sprayer. All treatrnents were applied in 400 Llha.Disease ratings were taken by plot befare each fungicide application, and a final rating was done two weeks after the last fungicide spraying. Evaluation of the fungi infection progress after fungicide sprays was scored using a scale with six severity grades of symptoms (CIA T, 2002).The experiment was harvested in February 2003, following GRU standard procedures. After harvesting seed samples were conditioned to establish their health status in the GHL. Of each accession samples of 100 seeds were analyzed using two methods: seed-washing test and incubation in blotter (Neergard, 1977;Agarwal and Sinclair et al, 1987). Presence of fungi was observed through the stereoscope and light rnicroscope, and their identification to genera was made by comparing descriptions and pictures in specialized references (Barnnet and Hunter, 1998;Zillinsky, 1983;Ahmed and Ravinder Reddy, 1993)The results of evaluations under field conditions about the infection progress of the fungous complex associated with Brachiaria brizantha inflorescences, after fungicide spraying on plots showed variability. The treatment efficacy considering the percentage of inflorescences affected and the affection grade are given in Table 45. Disease infection grade was more or less high, and there were no significant differences in disease among treatment plots. However, the fungicides Trifloxystrobin + Propiconazol, and Iprodione + Bromuconazol were the products with sorne treatment efficiency (Table 46). .00 e *Average values with the same font do not have significant differences at 0.05 probability, according with Tukey's test Seed health analysis using samples of seed harvested from inflorescences after treatments under field conditions showed that Iprodione + Bromuconazole (Brodione SC) and Prochloraz (Octave 50 WP) were the fungicides somewhat effective against Drechslera spp. but not against other genera offungi (Table 47). Now we need to conduct more research about control measures against Phoma spp., another important fungus affecting Brachiaria spp. seed production. lntroductionThe increase and regeneration of Brachiaria spp. gerrnplasm are carried out, under field conditions at \"Santa Rosa\" experimental station near Popayan where the seed production conditions are relatively favorable. Nevertheless under its environmental conditions (precipitation more than 2000mm, temperature 16-24 °C) the production of seeds can be affected by fungal diseases.Recent GHL studies (Garcia y Pineda 2000;Garcia et al, 2001;CIAT, 2001); CIAT, 2002) showed that Drechslera spp., Phoma sp., Curvularia spp. Sphacelia. sp., Cerebella sp., were the most frequent fungi affecting the Brachiaria spp. seed production. In other field evaluations carried out with fungicides it was found that those tested products had Jow control against above mentioned fungi (CIA T, 200 l; CIA T, 2002).Actually as an environmentally benign alteriJative is necessary to find out forros of biological control; in example using antagonist bacteria, frequently presents as epiphytic flora on plants or on its organs. On this way sorne preliminary studies with bacteria) isolates from Brachiaria spp. seeds in the GHL were initiated. The obtained results are including in this report.To assess the antagonistic potential of sorne bacteria) iso lates obtained from Brachiaria spp seeds, a screening with three groups of isolates (G land G2 , Gram-positives; G3, Gramnegative) in vitro trials was used. lsolates of bacteria were plating in Nutrient Agar and PDA culture media. They were streaked on culture media and incubated for 48 h at 28-30°C. Bacteria) suspensions were prepared by removing the colonies from the media using a sterile solution of 0.85% sodium chloride. Bacteria) suspensions were standardized to approximately l 0 8 colony forrning units( cfu)/rnL using a Spectronic 20 atan absorban ce value of 0.1 at 660 nm.For inhibition of growth tria) Patato Dextrose Agar blocks (PDA) ( 4 mm diameter) from fresh cultures of Drechslera sp., Phoma sp., Curvularia sp., Fusarium sp., and Epiccocum sp (Cerebella sp) were plated in one border of Petri dishes of (84mrn diamater) with PDA ; on the other border exactly placed in front of the PDA block bacteria tested were streaked onto PDA media. All cultures were randomly placed and incubated at 27°C during one week. The zone of inhibition between the bacteria and the leading edge of the fungal colony was measured with a metric ruler after 3, 5 and 8 days . The experiment was perforrned with three replications. Inhibition growth values were calculated using the following mathematical ecuation:After first screening, above described, other experiments were established using all bacteria( groups. Also a trial to measure the inhibition activity of culture bacteria extracts was carried out.There were interactions between bacteria -fungi growth with notable differences among the three groups of bacteria used in the first screening tria! (Table 48). Inhibition zones were observed against selected fungi on PDA. Bacteria! isolates group G3 ( Gram-negative Bacillus) were the most effectives against all genera of fungi used in this experiment (Table 48).Nevertheless the most significant interactions were when culture bacteria extracts were used (Table 49, Figure 38).On the other hand, Drechslera sp., Phoma sp. , Curvularia sp., and Fusarium sp., were the most inhibited fungi whereas Epicoccum sp.was the least inhibited (Table 49).Inhibition growth results applying the calculated values showed that all genera of fungi had high levels of inhibition when were plating on PDA with bacteria! filtrated extracts (Table 50). lnhibition growth percentages were ranged between 88.7 -98.9, values considered as very important beca use they are indicating that the antagonistic acivities of the GHL bacteria! isolates can be use in biologivcal control of fungi affecting Brachiaria seed production. Nevertheless we need to do more research activities under field conditions. One of the major problems associated with biological control agents is variable efficacy in the field that limits agronomic application.Variability is due to any factor interfering with either the population size of a biocontrol agent or its expression of activity. to compare the inhibitory capacity of each bacteria! isolate against selected fungal pathogens.  Two dimension electrophoresis (2D-IEF-SDS-PAGE) is one ofthe best experimental tools for the reliable separation of thousands of proteins in a single gel. 2D consists of a tandem pair of electrophoretic separations (Anderson, 1988;Blum et al. 1987):• In the first dimension, proteins are resolved in according to their isoelectric points (pis) using immobilized pH gradient electrophoresis (IPGE), isoelectric focusing (IEF), or non-equilibrium pH gradient electrophoresis (NEPHGE). Under standard conditions of temperature and urea concentration, the observed focusing points of the great majority of proteins using IPGE (and to a lesser extent IEF) closely approximate the predicted ísoelectric points calculated from the proteins' amino acid compositions.• In the second dimension, proteins are separated according to their approximate molecular weight using sodium dodecyl sulfate poly-acrylamide-electrophoresis (SDS-P AGE). This technique can provide molecular weight approximations (+/-10%) for most proteins, with sorne dramatic exceptions.Phaseolin, the major seed stotage protein of common bean, has proved to be an excellent -<;heap and polymorphic -marker in evolutionary studies. Analysis of phaseolin by 1D-SDS-PAGE and 2D-IEF-SDS-PAGE, reveals characteristic profiles of polypeptide subunits due to their microheterogenety in molecular weight (MW) and isoelectric point (pi) (Anderson, 1988).Although this globulin has narrow range of molecular weights (45-52 kD) and isoelectric points, so far at least 61 types and sub variants of phaseolin have been found in wild, landraces and improved bean genotypes: 29 being present in Mesoamerican materials and 32 in the Andean region. In Mesoamerican materials all 29 pattems are present in wild forms, while only four exist in cultivated forms so far. A contrasting situation prevails in the Andes where 15 pattems have been found in cultivated forms (11 with no counterpart in the wild forms so far), and 17 types exclusive of wild forms. The new phaseolin types were found in the primary center of diversity of Phaseo/us vu/garis L., using only the 1D-SDS-PAGE technique (Ocampo et al. 2000). With this study we have initiated a systematic confirmation for the new phaseolin types, using two-dimensional isoelectric focusing SDS-PAGE (2D-IEF-SDS-PAGE). In addition reported modifications of electrophoretic parameters for Two-dimensional electrophoresis.Plant material. The germplasm analyzed in this study consisted of wild and cultivated genotypes of Phaseo/us vulgaris L. collected in its primary center of diversity and rnaintained in CIAT' s gene bank (Table 51). These genotypes (seeds) were analyzed as isotypes ofphaseolin type found for each analyzed seed (nondestructive test of seed for proteins extraction). Later these seeds were planted in greenhouse, which rnade possible to conserve its genotype and to guarantee repeatability of the results obtained with this study . The work beginning with the new and simple phaseolin types reported by Ocampo et al (2000). Initially the proteins new were separated according to their molecular weight using onedimensional sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrilarnide gel electrophoresis. The slab gels were 1.5 mm thick with 15.0 % acrylamide in the running gel and 6.38 % acrylarnide in the stacking gel (Brown et al. 1981). Two-dimensional isoelectric focusing SDS-PAGE (20-IEF-SOS-PAGE) was done according to the method described by O ' Farrel (1975), using 15 % acrylarnide slab gel for SOS-PAGE, except that no stacking gel was included. For frrst-dimension separation (isoelectric focusing), the proteins are resolved in according to their isoelectric points (pis) using 5.0% acrylamide in the tube gels (6,5 cm in length and 0,75 mm in thickness) and 2.0% carrier ampholytes (pH 5-7).These new phaseolin types were first observed in 10-SOS-PAGE and confirrned later in 20-IEF-SOS-PAGE (Table 5 1). For the two-dimensional electrophoresis, we began with the simple and non simple novel phaseolin No.2, wich have been in the weedy population OT-122. In this population also reported the \"Muisca\" phaseolin by Chacón (1996). This approach allows comparisons between these three phaseolin types from the same population. In addition the novel phaseolin No. 2 (non simple type), previously has been reported with the name of the heterozygote phaseolin (S + I) in the SB-6 (Honduras), OGD-3126 (Costa Rica) and OT -122(Colombia) populations (data non published). The results show that the novel simple and non simple phaseolin types No. 2 are different by 10-SOS-PAGE (Figure 39) and also by electrophoresis 20. The \"Muisca\" phaseolin shows a 20 fingerprint very different from novel phaseolin No. 2 (Figure 40). This evidence defines that the non simple type ofthe novel phaseolin No. 2 (previous heterozygote phaseolin) is a novel phaseolin different from the known \"Muisca\" phaseolin.Figure 39. One dimension SDS-PAGE gel of the novel phaseolin types (simples and non found in common bean. However, until !10W an intennediate fonn between the wild and cultivated fonn has not been identified. These fonns are found growing Wild in dry gullies, stream beds and the foothills in and around the deserts or drier areas of the southwestem United States and northem Mexico and sparsely scattered south through the dry central highland areas to central Chiapas and Guatemala (Freytag and Debouck, 2002). The cultivated teparies are distributed in arid Mesoamerica. From results ofphaseolin (Schinkel & Gepts, 1988) and isozyme (Garvin & Weeden, 1994;Manshardt & Waines, 1983;Schinkel & Gepts, 1989) variability, it seems that the tepary might have been domesticated in only a very few places of arid Mesoamerica, and thus has limited probabilities of further genetic improvement. The potential for future tepary breeding might thus rely mostly on wild fonns (Debouck, 1992; Garvin & Weeden, 1994). The aconitase isozyme pattem (AC0-2 allozyme) found in tepary bean suggests that this species was domesticated in a single geographic region. Two ACO isozymes were detected . Whereas AC0-1 was monomorphic, two allozymes were detected for AC0-2. The allele encoding the slower migrating AC0-2 allozyme was present in domesticated tepary bean ata frecuency of 0.997, whereas the frecuency of the fast allele in wild tepary bean was found to be 0.96 (Garvin and Weeden, 1994). This allozyme rnay therefore serve as an evolutionary marker for help identifying wild and domesticated teparies, and by extension, in order to help to identify the intennediate fonn. In addition the weedy has not been reported for the teparies. As the interbreeding complexes (wild-weedy-cultivated). may be important mechanisms for the generation of genetic variability in landraces, we analyzed a complex (wild-weedy-crop) from a wild population ofteparies beans from a biochemical (seed proteins-globulins and aconitase isozyme) and morphological viewpoint in order to find evidence that suggests the existence of a true intermediate fonn in the bean tepary.We studied a population (G40177) whose original seed was collected and classified as wild in the North American state of Arizona. However, during the seed multiplication in the Phaseolus germplasm bank greenhouses rnaintained in the CIA T (In this place was introduced as increased seed), we observed segregation in seed size and colors indicating a possible wild-weedy-crop complex. For this study, we only took multiplied seed in greenhouse, being in an advanced stage of increase, which once stabilized the biological status of the seed, the rnaterials were classified as cultivated, intennediate and wild. In addition, two accessions were chosen as comparison controls for the aconitase isozyme analysis: a cultivated (G40064) from the Arizona (USA), which has the slow allele of AC0-2, and a wild (G40090) from the Mexican state of Durango with the fast allele of the AC0-2 gene. For the seed morphological traits analysis, we study the nature of the analyzed material from a mcirphological viewpoint is provided, according to the evaluation of the size seed, its color and pattem. Using starch gel electrophoresis (Garvin and Weeden, 1994 ), we examined aconitase variation in 98 seeds of the population G40 177, which 87 were analyzed as isotypes of aconitase isozyme type (non destructive test of seed for isozyme extraction) and 11 were ana1yzed with destructive test of seed. In addition we included a seed proteins analysis (globulins) by ID-SDS-PAGE (Brown et al. 1981), using a destructive test of seed.Stabilized the biological status of the seeds in an advanced stage of increase, the isotypes (87 in total) were classified as cultivated [48 (55 %)], intermediate [29 (33 %)] and wild [10 (12 %)](Table 52). This segregating population was considered to be a cornplex, since they involve wild, dornesticated and weedy forrns (Figure 41 ). This confirrn that a considerable arnount of natural hybridization occurs in the zone (Pirna County in the state of Arizona, USA) where this wild population was collected, where both wild types and landraces are locally distributed. In addition this cornplex has shown a great diversity in seed size (frorn srnall to large) and color. The aconitase isozyrne analysis shows two alleles of AC0-2 in all phases of the cornplex, frorn typical wild seeds to fully dornesticated forrns. In addition three analyzed seeds by destructive test, display a heterozygote allozyrne (Fast/Slow). Only two pattems (IX and IV) of globulins were found also in al! phases ofthe cornplex (Table 52).  The \"XI\" type is present only in domesticated accessions, whereas that the other globulin type (IV) is present exclusively in the wild teparies. However, for this study these pattems were observed only with the 1D-SDS-PAGE technique. In addition, there is a much larger variability in globulin patterns in wild tepary populations, while only two pattems are found in landraces (Schinkel & -Gepts 1988): The higher frequency of introgression between the wild and domesticated forms suggested by isozyme data correlates well with the higher frequency contributed by globulin analysis. This process of introgression has happened by seed size, seed color and pattem, globulin type and aconitase isozyme constitution of the 87 analyzed isotypes. In conclusion, these evidences suggest the existence of a true intermediate form in the bean tepary.The section of Phaseo/us currently including the tepary bean, i.e. the Acutifolii, consists of two species: Phaseolus acutifolius A.Gray (with three varieties: var. acutifo/ius, var. latifolius and var. tenuifolius) and P. parvifolius Freytag (Freytag & Debouck 2002). Schinkel & Gepts (1989) could not separate these variants by nine allozyme assays. Garvin & Weeden (1994) reported limited polymorphism for aconitase, apparently with no relationship with foliar attributes. Jaaska ( 1996) found a unique electromorph for three out of six accessions of var. tenuifolius, now classified as 'parvifolius'. In a study of 91 accessions with ten enzyme systems, Florez ( 1996) fou nd that the allele Aat-2 9 j uniquely separates the 'parvifolius' materials (12) from the rest of wild teparies. Zink & Nagl ( 1998) reported a minar difference in banding pattern of microsatellites between P. parvifolius and accessions of P. acutifolius. Muñoz et al. (2002) found in a diversity study with help of AFLPs that P. parvifolius forms a group separating from other wild teparies at the level of separation of common bean genepools. The purpose of this study was to find a biochemical marker (\"diagnostic isoenzyme\") for the recognition of either one of the varieties oftepary bean.A total of 100 accessions (26 cultivated, 72 wild and 2 \"escaped\") of P. acutifolius from the world collection held at CIA T were analyzed. These accessions represent the geographic, ecological, and morphoagronomic variability, as well as the variation of seed proteins found in tepary bean. Ten enzyme systems assayed by means of polyacrylamide and starch gel electrophoresis from different tissues were evaluated. The methodology for isozyme extraction, running and staining was the one reported by Ramirez et al. ( 1987). Globulins patterns (seed proteins) were analyzed by SDS-PAGE as in Gepts et al. (1986). For each allozyme, loci and alleles were designated as described by Koenig & Gepts ( 1989).Out of all enzymatic complexes analyzed, the as parta te aminotransferase (AA T; E. C. 2.6.1.1) system obtained from root tips and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis displayed alleles in P. parvifolius that were absent in the other varieties (Figure 42).  parvifolius (lane 3, 4, 5, 10, 11 ,12, 13, and 14).In agreement with genetics of Aat isozyme (Garvin & Weeden 1994;Garvin et al. 1989), the Aat-2 Jocus has three alleles (93, 95 and 100), all of them homozygous in the accessions evaluated.The allele Aat-2 95 is present exclusively in P. parvifolius (Table 53). The genetlcs of AAT tsozyme vanants has been reported by Garvm and Weeden (1994), wtth three zones of migration observed. Nevertheless, for the present study, only two zones of migration were observed (Fiorez, 1996).• 2 A null allele has been reported in tepary bean.Only three pattems (IX, X and XII) of globulins were found in P. parvifolius (Table 54). The \"XII\" type is dominant (present in all accessions), whereas in the other botanica1 varieties it appears with low frequency (4, 1 % in wild var. acutifolius and 9,3 % in wi1d var. tenuifolius) (Florez, 1996). In addition, there is a rnuch larger variability in globulin pattems in wild tepary populations, while only two patterns are found in landraces (Schinkel & Gepts 1988).  (Florez, 1996).The ocurrence of introgression between the domesticated form and their wild ancestor or between the Middle American and Andean gene pools seem very probable and has been propase for the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), as a consequence of intraspecific hybridisation (Paredes and Gepts, 1995;and Chacón et al. 2002). The variability in these two gene pools overlap by between-gene pool introgressive hybridization, scene that probably has happened in Colombia, because is a place of particular relevance by its intermediate geografical posicición between these two major gene pools (Debouck, 1996). Extensive wild-weedy-cultivated complexes of common bean were observed during collection expeditions in regions of Colombia where wild and cultivated beans are sympatric (Beebe et al. 1997). The single gene markers (seed proteins-phaseolins, isozymes or microsatellite) can provide valuable information to better understand gene flow. Debouck et al. 1993;Freyre et al. 1996;Beebe et al. 1997;Papa andGepts. 2003 andGonzález et al. 2003., documented severa! examples of hybridization between wild and domesticated bean plants. Hybridization has been found between the Middle American and Andean gene pools in cultivated common bean from Chile (Paredes and Gepts, 1995) and Spain (Ocampo et al. 2002). In the present study, we analyzed the complexes (wild-weedy-cultivated) from domesticated Colombian populations of common bean, from a biochernical (phaseolin and isozyme markers) and morphological viewpoint to test the hypothesis of introgression between the Middle American and Andean gene pools in Colombia.Plant material. For this study ten wild-weedy-crop complex were selected with base in a geographic sampling in Colombia. These populations were collected in sorne Colombian departments where wild and cultivated beans are sympatric (Cundinamarca and Boyaca) or in departments that are highly producing for common bean (Antioquia, Caldas, Tolima and Cauca) (Table 55). For this study, we only took multiplied seed in greenhouse, being in an advanced stage of in crease ( conserved in in the Phaseolus germplasm bank held in CIA T). In addition three accessions were chosen as comparison controls for the phaseolin and isozyme analysis: two cultivated (improved) P. vulgaris from the Andes and Mesoamerica (G4494 and G5773, respectively) anda Colombian wild (G24408) (Table 56). Seed morphological traits analysis. For the seed morphological traits analysis, we study the nature of the analyzed material from a botanical and evolutionary viewpoint is provided, according to the evaluation of the size seed, its color and pattem. Phaseolin analysis. Using onedimensional SDS-PAGE (Brown et al. 1981) and 2D-IEF-SDS-PAGE (O'Farrel, 1975) techniques for seed storage proteins, the seeds were analyzed as isotypes of phaseolin type found for each analyzed seed (nondestructive test of seed for proteins extraction). Later these seeds were planted in greenhouse, which made possible to conserve its genotype and to guarantee repeatability of the results obtained with this study. Isozyme analysis. The same seeds or isotypes utilized for the phaseolin deterrnination were used for isozyme analysis, which allows its comparison with the phaseolin analysis. Were used in this study, on1y two enzymatic complexes: peroxidase (PRX; 1.11.1.7) and diaphorase (DIA; 1.6.4.1) obtained from root tips and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, which displayed alleles that belong to both Middle American and Andean gene pools (Koenig and Gepts, 1989). The methodology for isozyme extraction, running and staining was the one reported by Ramirez et al. (1987). For the isozyme analysis only a complex was selected, being used for it thirty seeds (as phaseolin isotypes). Most of these seeds (77%) were generally characterized by a great and medium seed size and an Andean cultivated phenotype introgressed with the Middle American gene pool (Table 56). The isotypes of this complex had different phaseolin pattems, but a high percentage of them had Andean phaseolin types (67%). The rest had a phaseolin constitution representative of the Mesoamerican gene pool (including the \"B\" phaseolin and \"CH\"). The selected isozyme loci Carry alleles from both Middle American and Andean gene pools : The Dia-t95, PRX98 alleles are considered to be Mesoamerican and the Dia-1100, PRX100 alleles are of Andean origin (Koenig and Gepts, 1989) (Figure 45). The PRX locus shows a higher frequency of the Mesoamerican allele (68%) andan intermediate fi:equency for the Andean allele (32%). However, the Dia-l locus shows a higher frequency of the Andean allele (80%) anda lower frequency of the Mesoamerican allele (20%). In addition seven genotypes (23%) display a heterozygote allozyme (PRX100¡ PRX98).  Phenotypical and biochemical evidence suggest a substantial genetic interchange between Middle American and Andean gene pools in these wild-weedy-crop complexes. These evidences are:(1) Original seed in the complexes with Andean cultivated phenotype that originated genotypes with \"S\" phaseolin type and isozyme alleles that are typical ofthe Middle American gene pool.(2) A high proportion of cornplexes with an biochernical pattern characteristic (including the \"B\" phaseolin and \"CH\") of the Mesoamerican gene pool.(3) Presence of Andean phenotypes with Andean phaseolin pattern and Mesoamerican isozyme constitution. (4) Genotypes with \"S\" phaseolin and \"B\" are found in all phases of the complex, from typical wild seeds to fully domesticated forms. This process of introgression has happened in all biological states of the complex as revealed by seed size, seed color and pattem, phaseolin type and isozyrne constitution of these wild-weedycrop complexes from Colombia. In addition the existence of these complexes that are apparently hybrids between the two gene pools is explained by the existence of true wild forms and landraces in Colombia with \"S\" phaseolin and \"CH\" (present elsewhere in Mesoamerica) and ''T\" (Andean). Assuming that both wild types and landraces are local in origin, these probably have been natura11y hybridized to result in the introgressed populations (Beebe et al. 1997).Snap bean genotypes grown in Colombia are often affected by severa! biotic stresses. In order to carry out a pre-breeding process, we wanted to know the extent of genetic variability of the parental materials to be used (Kami and Gepts, 1991;Myers and Baggett, 1999). Phaseolin type is an important evolutionary genetic marker. In this paper, we wanted to compare, using morphological descriptors and biochemical markers (phaseolin), the snap bean varieties cultivated in secondary centers with the genetic pools distributed in the Americas, i.e. the Mesoamerican, Colombian or Andean domestication centers.One hundred and sixteen snap beans genotypes from URG-CIA T bean gennplasm bank coming from Europe, Asia, Africa and America, two commercial genotypes of snap beans [Blue lake Ferry and Milenio (G51158)] . As controls four common bean accessions, G4494 (cultivated material proceeding from the Andes), G23725 (Ecuadorian wild type), G21117 (Colombian wild type) and G5733 (cultivated genotype coming from Mesoamerica) were used, in order to make a comparison to the American genetic pools. Pod characteristics (fiber content 15% humidity, length, shape, seed number) and seed characteristics (color and weight) were used as morphological descriptors (Muñoz et al, 1993). Phaseolin patterns were analyzed by SDS-PAGE as in Gepts et al. ( 1986).In previous reports (Gepts 1988;Ocampo et al. (2002) most of the European materials studied by them, are Andean in origin. However, data obtained in this study are not in agreement with those results, namely with respect to data from Europe, Africa and USA (Table 57). Seven phaseolin types were found. The \"S\" type was present at the highest frequency (53% of the genotypes), followed by \"T\" type (17%), \"C\" type (19%), \"CH\" type (6.9 %), \"Sb\" type (2%), \"H 1 \" type (0.86%) and heterozygotic \"H(S+I)\" type (0.86%). We found that twenty-two accessions (28%) were atypical, showing phenotypical characteristics of Andean materials (seed type) and Mesoamerican \"S\" phaseolin type. These genotypes with contrasting morphological and biochemical characteristics were found only in traditional varieties (n=78). These genotypes have creamy and spotted seeds, medium size, and rounded or kidney shape seeds (Table 58). Fourty six genotypes out of sixty-two phaseolin S materials are traditional varieties. Nevertheless, in spite that the sample from USA is the most numerous and contains more S phaseolin genotypes, none of the access ions coming from USA showed morphotypes originated by hybridization between the American origin centers excepted the material with heterozygote phaseolin type [H(S+ 1)]. This type has been reported in common bean by Oc ampo et al. (2000). These results suggest that the contribution of Mesoamerican types to the secondary centers of domestication and diversification of snap bean, is higher than the value accepted curren ti y. f  processing; importance of a new white fly-resistant variety, quality protein maize: impact on nutrition around the developing world, biodiversity, seed banks, developmént of sweet potatoes high in vitaminA for Africa research to reduce late blight in potatoes value and uses ofyacon and arracacha, the \"lost crops of the Incas\", new products from potatoes and tubers: exotic potato chips, syrups, desserts. During this field work (December 2002-January 2003), we were interested in 1) searching more populations of wild cornmon bean in the Valle Central of Costa Rica, 2) verifying the stability of wild-weed-crop complexes spotted in previous field works (1987,1998), 3) finding more 'intermediate' materials that would deserve study by molecular markers (see section 3).The methodology followed was the one defined elsewhere to look for wild Phaseolus species (Debouck 1988). The results ofthe field work can be seen in table 59 and figure 46. • ,, , Jo)>:Figure 46 -Map ofValle Central with all populations known for wild P. vulgaris.The number of known populations for wild Phaseolus vu/garis L. has been doubled as compared to previous works (Debouck et al. 1989;Ara ya et aL 2001 ), and currently covers most of the Central Valley.The field work has revealed the low permanency of wild-weed-crop complexes once the planting of bean crop has been discontinued, as in Aserrí and Tarbaca, and to a lower extent Quircot. Of equal importance for the permanence of a complex is the maintenance of a 'weedy' environment: if farmers are using herbicides as sorne plots in Quircot, wild and weedy forms disappear. If the original humid forest vegetation is allowed to come back as in Tres Ríos, complexes and populations of wild forros tend to regress as well. If fanners are switching to cash crops (such as the year-bean, P. dumosus) instead of maintaining traditional landraces, then the complexes regress. Interestingly, the field work has revealed natural hybrids with P. costaricensis, perhaps of value in future breeding. Finally, it seems important to report that while farmers know about the presence of the wild and intermediate forros, in our case study site (= Quircot) they do not longer make selections in the segregating populations resulting from natural hybridizations.This situation is in contrast with that observed in certain parts of the Colombian and Peruvian Andes (Beebe et al. 1997). There, in the late 1980s and 1990s, farmers were still actively selecting forms of interest to them in the hybrid swarms resulting from natural hybridizations between wild and cultivated forms and among weedy and cultivated forms. Our interviews with farmers at Quircot would indicate that the proximity of markets and access to new sources of variability would not incite to make use of the variants generated through the ww-c complexes.We planto extend the field observations in December 2003-January 2004, in order to validate the above described conditions allowing the permanency of the complexes.The figure 47 is a representation of markers used on a selection of individuals; bar height shows the weight (¡~) of 100 seeds. The shortest bar represents mainly wild characteristics and the longest bar is a description of cultivated materials. The other bars show exchange among individuals of the following markers: shared SSR alleles, change in cpDNA haplotypes, seed weight, isozymes and phaseolin patterns. In individuals 1 and 2, all the evaluated parameters are \"wild\" and they have a hybrid SSR locus, which suggests a recent crossing of wild material with pollen of cultivated material. Seed size of individual 3 could be a phenotypic consequence of more than one past event of gene tlow from cultivated material into the wild form, because all evaluated parameters are \"wild\" including hypocotyl color (purple), purple tlower, 85 days to tlowering and growth habit IV. Besides, its F2 displays a weight of 10.3 g, which suggests that it has kept \"wi ld\" characteristics and acquired a \"cultivated\" seed size. Individual 8 has hybrid isozymes, \"wild\" microsatellites and phaseolin, but it has a \"cultivated\" chloroplast haplotype. Individual 9 has the same characteristics as individual 8 but it has \"wild\" isozymes. These materials may represent cases of repeated gene tlow of cultivated materials crossed with wild forms. Individual 14 is hybrid (PRX enzyme and one SSR locus), meaning that it comes from recent tlow of \"wild\" pollen into a cultivated form. The evaluation of 22 cases from Costa Rica indicates that al! materials are indeed product of a hybridization showing that the methodology implemented in the selection of the intermediate materials was the appropriate one. Papa et al. (2003) found in intermediate materials of Mexico that the contribution of cultivated parental population was significantly higher than the wild parental one. So far, for these materials of Costa Rica, we have found a more important gene tlow from wild material into the cu ltivated type.Seed weight (g) This example shows the correct identification for a population of a new species described for Costa Rica (Freytag & Debouck 1996), that has been shown to belong to the phylum of the common bean (Schmit et al. 1993) ","tokenCount":"14235"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"66e36e81891af59f7085cabd605981ff","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f44ceb7c-3fe7-4014-98d8-231fe9516026/retrieve","id":"1842619534"},"keywords":["Africa","climate change","cold induced sterility","heat induced sterility","irrigated","photosynthesis","rainfed","rice"],"sieverID":"d9847e1f-01b5-4896-8785-cd29fa79bda7","pagecount":"17","content":"This study is the first of its kind to quantify possible effects of climate change on rice production in Africa. We simulated impacts on rice in irrigated systems (dry season and wet season) and rainfed systems (upland and lowland). We simulated the use of rice varieties with a higher temperature sum as adaptation option. We simulated rice yields for 4 RCP climate change scenarios and identified causes of yield declines. Without adaptation, shortening of the growing period due to higher temperatures had a negative impact on yields (À24% in RCP 8.5 in 2070 compared with the baseline year 2000). With varieties that have a high temperature sum, the length of the growing period would remain the same as under the baseline conditions. With this adaptation option rainfed rice yields would increase slightly (+8%) but they remain subject to water availability constraints. Irrigated rice yields in East Africa would increase (+25%) due to more favourable temperatures and due to CO2 fertilization. Wet season irrigated rice yields in West Africa were projected to change by À21% or +7% (without/with adaptation). Without adaptation irrigated rice yields in West Africa in the dry season would decrease by À45% with adaptation they would decrease significantly less (À15%). The main cause of this decline was reduced photosynthesis at extremely high temperatures. Simulated heat sterility hardly increased and was not found a major cause for yield decline. The implications for these findings are as follows. For East Africa to benefit from climate change, improved water and nutrient management will be needed to benefit fully from the more favourable temperatures and increased CO2 concentrations. For West Africa, more research is needed on photosynthesis processes at extreme temperatures and on adaptation options such as shifting sowing dates.did not include climate change effects, which are still quite uncertain for rice in Africa. Possible climate change impacts on rice productivity have been simulated previously extensively for Asia (Aggarwal & Mall, 2002;Li et al., 2015;Matthews, Kropff, & Bachelet, 1995;Matthews, Kropff, Horie, & Bachelet, 1997;Tao, Hayashi, Zhang, Sakamoto, & Yokozawa, 2008). These studies suggested that future rice yield declines would be caused mainly by two factors: (i) increased heat induced sterility and (ii) shortening of the growing season. On both factors, significant advances have been made since the seminal works by Matthews in the 1990s. Earlier studies (Dingkuhn, Sow, Samb, Diack, & Asch, 1995) and later studies (Gaydon et al., 2017;Van Oort, De Vries, Yoshida, & Saito, 2015) cast doubt on the general validity of the heat sterility model in the ORYZA000 model version used by (Matthews et al., 1995(Matthews et al., , 1997)), suggesting that the original heat sterility model overestimates heat sterility in hot (semi) arid climates. This led to the development of new canopy temperature models and heat sterility models for rice (Julia & Dingkuhn, 2013;Van Oort, Saito, Zwart, & Shrestha, 2014) and for other crops (Eyshi Rezaei, Webber, Gaiser, Naab, & Ewert, 2015;Webber et al., 2016). The Julia and Dingkuhn (2013) heat sterility model was incorporated in an improved version of ORYZA2000 (Van Oort, De Vries et al., 2015). This improved version predicted yields more accurately and with less bias in a hot (semi) arid region in Senegal (Van Oort, De Vries et al., 2015). This finding is highly relevant for Africa with a large area of irrigated rice cultivated along the Senegal river, the Niger river and the Benue river systems in the hot (semi) arid Sudanian and Sahel zone. This new heat sterility submodel generally predicts lower heat sterility and simulates two adaptive mechanisms of the rice plant to cope with heat: increased transpirational cooling at higher temperatures and earlier flowering (earlier in the morning, when it is cooler) to avoid heat. On the second major cause of future yield decline reported by Matthews et al., shorting of the growing season, significant and relevant advances have been made in rice phenology modelling. The ORYZA000 model version used by Matthews et al. (1995Matthews et al. ( , 1997) assumed slower development above the optimum temperature of 30°C, while more recent experimental and modelling work suggests no delay in development rate above the optimum temperature (Van Oort, Zhang, De Vries, Heinemann, & Meinke, 2011;Zhang, Li, Yang, & Simelton, 2016;Zhang, Zhu, & Yang, 2008). Newer phenology models predict a stronger shortening of the growing season in the hotter climates and therefore more negative effects of climate change. These scientific developments on heat sterility modelling and phenology modelling call for new climate change studies with an improved crop growth model.There have to date been no comprehensive climate change impact studies for rice in Africa as have been presented for Asia. (Sultan & Gaetani, 2016) reviewed climate change impact studies for West Africa. From this overview we can see that most climate change impact studies have been on other crops than rice. Another recent study on nine crops in Africa did not include rice because rice was considered a relatively small crop in Africa and because the model used could not simulate paddy rice (Rippke et al., 2016). We found only three recent published country specific studies on climate change on rice in Africa. Gerardeaux, Giner, Ramanantsoanirina, and Dusserre (2012) and Daccache, Sataya, and Knox (2015) both used the CERES-Rice model and both found small positive effects of climate change on rice in Madagascar and Malawi respectively. Adejuwon (2006) predicted for Nigeria using the EPIC crop model that rice yields would increase with temperature changes up to +2/+3°C (T max /T min ) and decrease with a +4/+5°C change. Two global studies, by Liu et al. (2008) and Lobell et al. (2008), estimated that rice yields in West and Central Africa would slightly decline and those in East and Southern Africa would slightly increase with climate change. The very limited number of studies, all with different models, does not yield a consistent or comprehensive estimate of climate change impact on rice in Africa. Here, we present a new study covering more countries and using one (improved) model throughout.Crop growth models can be used as tools to quantify possible impacts of different climate scenarios. They integrate many effects and physiological interactions during the growing season. The manifold of processes included in these models sometimes makes it less clear why certain changes in yield emerge. Apart from using a crop growth model (ORYZA2000) to assess possible climate change impacts we also use the model in a diagnostic mode to explore the main causes of projected yield increases or declines.The objectives of this study were to simulate climate change impacts on future rice production in Africa and explore causes of impacts. We used an adapted version of the ORYZA2000 model (Van Oort, De Vries et al., 2015) to simulate rice yields for irrigated systems in the wet and in the dry season and for rainfed systems for a typical lowland soil and a typical upland soil. We analysed yield changes for all four climate change scenarios comparing the 2000s with the 2070s. As an adaptation option for farmers we simulated the effects of farmers switching to varieties with a higher temperature sum. Temperature sum refers to the cumulative degree-days which the crop requires to progress between phenological stages.The ORYZA2000 crop growth model is a point-based model, i.e. it is used to simulate rice yields for specific sites and does not model landscape hydrology. Input data can be weather station data or time series of weather data for specific pixels of gridded weather datasets. We first selected countries to cover the main rice growing areas and to assure that both irrigated and rainfed production areas were well-represented. Selected sites within each country refer to individual pixels of 0.25 °spatial resolution, the spatial resolution of the weather dataset. Pixels were selected such that they were located centrally in major rice regions and climate zones of selected countries (Grassini et al., 2015;Van Bussel et al., 2015;Van Wart et al., 2013). Table 1 lists the countries for which simulations were conducted and the number of sites simulated per country for irrigated and rainfed rice. Together, rice harvested area (based on SPAM2005; You, Wood, Wood-Sichra, & Wu, 2014) of these countries represent 74% of Africa's rice harvested area. According to the SPAM2005 data set, 26% of Africa's harvested rice area is irrigated, whereas in our dataset, the share of irrigated rice is slightly higher (32%).We simulated four climate change scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways RCP2.6, 4.5, 6.0 and 8.5;Van Vuuren et al., 2011) that differ in trend of CO 2 and temperature. We used downscaled climate change scenario data (Ramirez & Jarvis, 2008) made available by the GCM Downscaled Data Portal (www.ccafs-climate. org). We downloaded maps of maximum and minimum temperature for time slices of the 2000s and 2070s, for the four RCPs and 34 general circulation models (GCM), at the highest spatial resolution available (2.5 arc min). A listing of the available data per GCM and scenario is provided in Table S1. In summary, we downloaded a total of 954 downscaled climate maps of T max and T min . Temperature maps were overlaid with maps of rice cultivated areas as identified by the MIRCA dataset (Portmann, Siebert, & Doll, 2010). We then calculated seasonal average T max and average T min over the months included in the growing seasons and over the GCM's available. For this purpose we used the growing seasons defined in the RiceAtlas database (Laborte et al., 2017). Seasonal changes (2000s to 2070s) in T min and T max were then added to the daily weather data. The full procedure is outlined in detail in (Zwart, 2016) which also provides a link to the downloadable set of maps of changes per season and scenario for T max and T min .The CO 2 trends were assumed to be the same across the continent (Figure 1a) and derived from (Prather et al., 2013). Figure 1b shows average temperature changes for rice in the main rice growing season, averaged over the growing seasons and sites used in this paper. Figure 2 shows spatial variability in projected temperature changes for T max in the most extreme scenario. Consistent with most climate change scenarios future relative humidity was assumed to remain unchanged. Possible changes in rainfall patterns were not simulated because uncertainty in future rainfall projections is too large (Giannini, Biasutti, Held, & Sobel, 2008;Lobell & Burke, 2008;Lobell et al., 2008).For selected sites we used daily weather data from the AgMERRA dataset, which contains daily weather data for crop modelling from 1980 to 2010 at 0.25 degrees spatial resolution (Ruane, Goldberg, & Chryssanthacopoulos, 2015). Many climate change impact studies have been using as a baseline a period in the past and not recent climate (White, Hoogenboom, Kimball, & Wall, 2011). Forced by  Cropping calendar data were obtained from the RiceAtlas (Laborte et al., 2017). They were cross-checked and locally adjusted where necessary using data collected by AfricaRice and national partners.For irrigated systems we simulated with the same average sowing date for each year. For rainfed systems this is not appropriate considering large interannual variabilities that exist in the starting dates of the wet season (Sultan, Baron, Dingkuhn, Sarr, & Janicot, 2005). For rainfed systems, we searched for the first suitable sowing date within a AE30 days window around the average sowing date (from the RiceAtlas, possibly locally adjusted based on our data). A day was considered suitable if cumulative rainfall over the preceding 7 days was larger than 20 mm. This criterion was chosen based on a previous study by (Wolf, Ouattara, & Supit, 2015).This sowing rule has not been calibrated with farmers' data and one may expect that it differs locally depending on local hydrological and climatic conditions but as a general rule of thumb we expect it to be more accurate than simply assuming a fixed sowing date.Crop development rates were calibrated such that, averaged over the simulated years, simulated duration from sowing to maturity equalled actual duration from sowing to maturity according to the RiceAtlas. More details about the phenology model and its calibration are found in section 2.2.3 of this paper. For Asia (Matthews et al., 1995(Matthews et al., , 1997) ) simulated the possible changes in potential production, which is logical in Asia with its' predominance of irrigated systems. According to (Balasubramanian et al., 2007) rice in Sub-Sahara Africa is cultivated in four ecosystems: dryland (38% of the cultivated rice area), rainfed wetland (33%), deepwater and mangrove swamps (9%), and irrigated wetland (20%). Similar numbers can be obtained from Table 1. For irrigated sites we simulated potential production, for rainfed rice we simulated water limited production. Both presume ample nutrient supply and no major problems of weeds, pests, diseases and soil toxicities.The only difference is that in water limited production, effects of drought are also simulated while under potential production the assumption is that no drought stress occurs (Bouman et al., 2001).Rainfed rice yields depend strongly on groundwater depths for which there exist no reliable data at a continental scale and high temporal resolution. We therefore made two assumptions, using the following two soil types:• Rainfed lowland rice on a clayey soil, not puddled, no plowsole, 25 cm high bunds, low percolation rate, groundwater constant at 40 cm depth;• Rainfed upland rice on a sandy soil, not puddled, no plowsole, no bunds, high percolation rate, freely draining.Associated soil parameters are listed in the Supporting Information. The absence of a plowsole is common in African rice systems.Puddling is rare. Bunding is frequently applied in lowland soils and rarely in upland soils. Percolation rates in the upland soils are often so high that any standing water would be lost anyway, whether through run-off (in case of no bunding) or percolation (with bunding).Lowland soils typically have more clay and lower percolation rates, caused by sediment transport over the millennia and low hydraulic head in inland valley bottoms and flood plains. There is a continuum in the landscape position from the completely freely draining soils higher uphill towards the valley bottoms (Danvi, J€ utten, Giertz, Zwart, & Diekkr€ uger, 2016;Schmitter, Zwart, Danvi, & Gbaguidi, 2015;Windmeijer & Andriesse, 1993). With the two soil types here we simulated two contrasting positions in this continuum.The ORYZA2000 model (Bouman et al., 2001) was developed in the 1990s. Since around 2010, improvements have been made in three different versions of this original model. At the international rice research institute (IRRI) ORYZAv3 was developed as a successor of ORYZA2000 (Li et al., 2017). The physiological part of ORYZA2000 (Bouman et al., 2001) has been integrated into APSIM, i.e. the \"IRRI\" rice plant is grown on top of an \"APSIM\" soil (Gaydon et al., 2012).Uncertainties and recent improvements are discussed in (Li et al., 2017) for ORYZAv3 and in (Gaydon et al., 2017) for APSIM-ORYZA.Improvements by these two groups involved more accurately modelling soil processes (water 9 N interactions, soil carbon, root growth), multicrop sequences, effects of salinity on crop physiology (Radanielson, Angeles, Li, Ismail, & Gaydon, 2017) and interaction effects of water and N limitation on crop physiology. At the Africa Rice Centre, where the authors of this paper are employed, improvements have been made on heat sterility, cold sterility and phenology (Van Oort, De Vries et al., 2015). The latter are of particular relevance in the context of climate change studies. Some new improvements are presented below. The new version used here is called ORYZA2000v2n14s1, which builds on the ORYZA2000v2n13s14 version (Van Oort, De Vries et al., 2015) which in turn is based on the original ORYZA2000 model (Bouman et al., 2001).Research on heat induced sterility in the last decades has shown that rice has two natural mechanisms to avoid heat sterility (Julia & Dingkuhn, 2012, 2013;Matsui, Kobayasi, Yoshimoto, & Hasegawa, 2007;Van Oort et al., 2014;Van Oort, De Vries et al., 2015). Firstly, transpirational cooling of the spikelets increases at higher temperatures and higher vapour pressure deficit and is therefore especially large in hot semiarid environments, where spikeletair temperature differences as high as 12°C have been reported (Julia & Dingkuhn, 2013). Secondly, in hotter climates rice flowers open earlier in the morning, when temperatures are still lower, thus avoiding the hottest part of the day (Julia & Dingkuhn, 2012). (Van Oort, De Vries et al., 2015) showed that the heat sterility submodel in ORYZA2000 (Bouman et al., 2001) which does not account for these two mechanisms, grossly overestimates heat sterility in hot semiarid irrigated systems in Senegal. A recent study suggests that ORYZA2000 is also overestimating heat sterility in hot semiarid parts of Asia (Gaydon et al., 2017). The ORYZA2000v2n14s1 used in the current paper explicitly simulates transpirational cooling and earlier flowering in hotter climates (Van Oort, De Vries et al., 2015).Cold is relevant because in parts of Africa rice suffers from cold induced sterility and this may decrease in the future with temperature rise. In Asia, Balwinder-Singh, Yadav, and Gaydon (2015) kept the original ORYZA2000 cold sterility equation but changed the threshold temperature for cold induced sterility from 22 to 28°C, which suggests that the default equation underestimated cold stress.For Africa in Senegal (Dingkuhn & Miezan, 1995;Dingkuhn et al., 1995)  systems in the Sahel zone just south of the Sahara desert with large diurnal temperature amplitudes, requiring tropical varieties adapted to high daytime temperatures, which may be less adapted to night time cold. In East Africa cold occurs in the highlands with prolonged cold and smaller diurnal amplitudes, and varieties growing in this cooler climate may be better adapted to cold, perhaps through some yet poorly understood process of acclimation. This roughly explains the greater cold sensitivity in West Africa. We used for West and East Africa the following equations derived from data reported in (Dingkuhn et al., 2015) for variety IR64:Following (Dingkuhn et al., 2015;Julia & Dingkuhn, 2013) and reported in (Julia, 2012).ORYZA2000 simulates phenology at an hourly timestep and integrates over the day. The ORYZA2000 version used by (Matthews et al., 1995(Matthews et al., , 1997) )   A number of steps were taken to establish model credibility. In the discussion we reflect on credibility of simulated yields under climate change. In this section we reflect on credibility of simulated yields for the current situation. A recent study has shown that a very similar model as used in the current study (APSIM soil, ORYZA2000 crop) performed well in a wide range of contrasting environments in Asia (Gaydon et al., 2017). This provides some confidence that the same model, with the improvements presented here, will also predict accurately in a wide range of environments in Africa. A validation of the ORYZA2000v2n14s1model for Senegal, with the new heat, cold and phenology model was presented in (Van Oort, De Vries et al., 2015) and showed a high model efficiency for this particular environment. We simulated potential production (irrigated environments)and water-limited production (rainfed environments) which assumes no soil fertility limitations and no biotic and abiotic production constraints such as weeds, pests and diseases, salinity and iron toxicity.In reality, many of these conditions are present virtually everywhere in rice in Africa (e.g. Niang et al., 2017;Tanaka et al., 2017). Even the farmers with 10% highest yields (Tanaka et al., 2017) have yield gaps. Consistent with this, simulated potential yields were equal to or higher than these top10% yields (result not shown). This is logical but unfortunately still tells us little about whether these potential yield estimates are accurate. There are few quantified data available that can be used to validate potential yields. Therefore, two qualita- Model accuracy also depends on quality of the input data. Quality controls as defined in (Grassini et al., 2015) were applied.We used the ORYZA2000v2n14s1 model to identify the main causes of future yield changes under climate change. In the model an elevated CO 2 concentration has an exclusively positive effect on rice productivity. In the model air temperature affects rice growth and productivity in various ways (see Table 2 for an overview). From our simulation results two hypotheses emerged on which of the processes listed in Table 2 were the main causes of simulated yield decline. The following two sections describe how we tested these hypotheses.Development is faster at higher temperatures, leading to a shorter growing period and accordingly less time for accumulating biomass, ORYZA2000 simulates leaf photosynthesis at three times of the day (at different temperatures and radiation levels early morning, midday and late afternoon) and at three canopy depths and integrates over the canopy and the day to obtain the daily gross assimilation rate (Bouman et al., 2001). Leaf photosynthesis in the model depends on leaf Nitrogen (N) content, intercepted radiation, atmospheric CO 2 concentration and air temperature (Figure 3 and Supporting Information). The daily maximum assimilation rate AMAX (kg CO 2 /ha leaf per hour) is multiplied with a trapezoid shaped temperature response function with a base at 10°C, optimum from 20 to 37°C and declining sharply as daytime average temperatures increase from 37 to 43°C (solid lines in Figure 3).We tested if projected yield declines were caused by the sharp Table 3 shows average baseline simulated yields around the year 2000, with in brackets the standard deviation, showing spatial and temporal variation. Potential yields are higher in irrigated systems than in rainfed systems and interannual variability is less in irrigated systems. Simulated rainfed yields are substantially lower in rainfed upland than in rainfed lowland, which is consistent with lower water availability in the upland soils. Variation in yields is higher for rainfed systems than for irrigated systems, which is consistent with greater risk caused by drought.In many parts of the world dry (off) season irrigated crops yield more than wet (main) season irrigated crops, due to higher radiation levels in the dry season. Here the opposite was found, with on average lower potential yields in the dry (off) season. In West Africa this was caused by reduced assimilation at high temperatures in 16 hot inland irrigation systems along the Niger river (Mali, Niger, northern Nigeria, northern Benin) and the Benue in North East Nigeria.For the seven cooler irrigation systems in the coastal regions we did find higher simulated yields in the dry season (Mauritania: Rosso, Senegal: Ndiaye and Fanaye, Gambia: Sapu, Ghana: Yendi, Nigeria: Bida and Lokoja). This finding suggests that much of the dry season irrigated rice in the Sudano Sahel zone is around the 37°C tipping point (Figure 3) for which with further temperature rise dry season rice yields will decrease. Shifting rice sowing dates more into the cold dry season could be an adaptation option but might create logistic problems and human nutritional problems, because farmers now often use the cold dry season for growing vegetables (Van Oort et al., 2016). In East Africa irrigated systems simulated dry season yields were lower than wet season yields because most of the simulations for dry season irrigation systems were for sites in the cold dry winter season in Madagascar, where cold is negatively affecting potential rice yields. This finding suggests that in the future with temperature rise, dry season irrigated rice in Madagascar will become an increasingly attractive option.Yields from 2000 to 2070 are projected to decrease in all scenarios and environments (Table 4). Average yield decline is lowest in RCP F I G U R E 3 Leaf gross assimilation as affected by various factors in the ORYZA2000 model. The solid lines show the default response curves in ORYZA2000 at 1.5 g N/m 2 leaf area at two atmospheric CO 2 contents and two intercepted radiation levels. Average daytime temperature on the x-axis is calculated as 0.75 9 T max + 0.25 9 T min . The default shows a sharp decline in assimilation above 37°C.  (1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004). Yields are shown as potential yield Y p (irrigated) and water limited yield Y w (rainfed), in tonnes dry matter per hectare unmilled rice. In brackets is the standard deviation showing the interannual and site variability in tonnes dry matter per hectare. Rainfed rice is mostly grown in the wet season; in the central highlands of Uganda and Rwanda with bimodal rainfall patterns two seasons are found.scenario 2.6 (À9%) and highest in RCP scenario 8.5 (À24%). In the scenario with adaptation (varieties with higher temperature sum, \"unchanged duration\") yields slightly increased (+5% in RCP scenario 2.6, +8% in RCP scenario 8.5). Therefore, it can be concluded that shortening of the growing period is the main cause of projected yield decline and this effect is present in all sites and all growing environments. Once we account for the adaptation option referred to as \"unchanged duration\" we find systematically different responses to climate change depending on rice growing environment and region:• Rainfed rice yields increase less than irrigated rice (RCP8.5: upland: +4% to +5%, rainfed lowland +7%, irrigated +7 to +26%, exception is West Africa dry season, À15%)• In three of four irrigated systems yields increase (RCP8.5: East Africa main season: +26%, East Africa off season +24%, West Africa main season: +7%)• In West Africa irrigated rice in the dry season yields are predicted to decrease (RCP8.5: À15%)The difference between rainfed and irrigated rice indicates that frequently during the growing season the main production limiting factor is water and not CO 2 and therefore rainfed rice benefits less from CO 2 fertilization. East Africa irrigated rice yields increase as a result of CO 2 fertilization and because temperatures are often below optimum. In West Africa irrigated rice in the hot dry season yields decrease because of reduced assimilation. In the scenario with nondecreasing AMAX, the negative effect on West Africa dry season irrigated rice change (À15%) changed into a positive effect (+11%).Simulations suggested that average heat induced sterility would hardly increase. Apparently stronger transpirational cooling and earlier flowering opening times at elevated temperatures are enough to offset temperature rise, leading to almost unchanged spikelet temperatures at flowering opening time. Figure 4a shows that projected yield declines were not correlated with future spikelet fertility.Simulated yield declines were strongly correlated with the decline in maximum daily assimilation rate at daytime average temperatures above 37°C (Figure 4b).Table 5 shows the relative changes by country and environment for the most extreme scenario, RCP 8.5 in the year 2070. Figures 5 and 6 show the changes per site. The table as well as the maps show a gradient of yield decline in West Africa, with most severe yield decline in the hotter northern landlocked countries (Mali, Niger) and less in the cooler coastal countries of West Africa. In East Africa, all the cooler irrigated systems in the highlands (Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Tanzania) benefit from climate change. For Egypt, for which we simulated only for the Nile delta, if varieties with unchanged duration are adopted, a small increase in yields (+6%) is simulated. Thus in Egypt yields do not increase as strongly as in the rest of East Africa (which is cooler) and do not decrease as strongly as in West Africa (which is hotter).This study is the first comprehensive study that addresses the impact of climate change on rice productivity in Africa. Overall, yield decline is found in all scenarios if farmers continue using the current In the baseline simulations the duration (growing period) becomes shorter due to temperature rise. \"Unchanged duration\" is an adaptation option where the length of the growing period remains the same as in 2000, which would happen if farmers adapt to climate change by adopting varieties with a higher temperature sum, thus offsetting the shortening of the growing period due to temperature rise. For RCP8.5, we additionally simulated what would happen if maximum assimilation rate AMAX would not decrease at higher temperatures. For brevity this effect is only shown for RCP8.5. The overall average shown here is the average of the 8 rows above, not weighted by number of sites and therefore may differ slightly from the averages reported in Table 5. Rainfed rice is mostly grown in the wet season; in a few sites in the central highlands of Uganda and Rwanda with bimodal rainfall patterns two seasons are found.varieties. Small yield increases are predicted if farmers adopt varieties that have a higher temperature sum, thus adapting to shortening of the growing duration induced by temperature increases. Two main causes of yield decline were identified:1. Shortening growing period in all growing environments across Africa, and 2. Decrease in assimilation, but only in the hottest environment, i.e. irrigated rice cultivation in inland West-Africa during the hot dry season.Previous studies by Matthews et al. (1995Matthews et al. ( , 1997) ) identified shortening growing periods (same as this study) and increasing spikelet sterility (contrary to this study) as the two main causes of future yield decline in Asia. This has spurred much research on heat induced sterility and so called \"critical temperatures\". However, some recent studies still look at maximum air temperatures (Gourdji, Sibley, & Lobell, 2013), not accounting for transpirational cooling and early flowering. And no study so far has identified reduced assimilation at extreme temperatures as a possible cause of future rice yield reductions. Identifying these underlying mechanisms is relevant for breeders when screening for heat tolerant breeding material and can help formulate more specific follow-up research questions.The way in which effects of CO 2 and temperature are modelled can have large effects on model outcomes in climate change impact assessments (Li et al., 2015). (Adam, Van Bussel, Leffelaar, Van Keulen, & Ewert, 2011) and (Li et al., 2015) showed that the assumption of a constant radiation use efficiency is not realistic and that temperature effects need to be included. Two model approaches include such temperature effects (i) the simpler Light Response Curve photosynthesis model multiplied with a temperature function (LRC approach) or (ii) the Farquhar-von Caemmerer-Berry (FvCB approach) biochemical model of leaf photosynthesis (Farquhar, Von Caemmerer, & Berry, 1980). Li et al. (2015) found large variation in simulated biomass as a function of different crop growth models with different leaf photosynthesis submodels, but did not find systematic differences between LRC and FvCB based crop growth models.ORYZA2000 uses the LRC approach, in which the light response curve is multiplied with a trapezoid temperature response function (Figure 3). The origins of this function are unclear and the function has not been changed or tested since its' implementation in the 1990s. Notably, this trapezoid temperature response function uses daily air temperature as the explanatory (x) variable. For the hot semiarid environment of irrigated dry season rice the possibility cannot be ruled out that, in analogy with the heat sterility case, increased transpirational cooling at higher temperatures and high vapour pressure deficit (Julia & Dingkuhn, 2013;Van Oort et al., 2014) acts as a natural adaptive mechanism allowing the plant to keep up photosynthesis in extremely hot climates with ample irrigation to sustain the transpiration flow. However, such strong transpirational cooling could also lead to lower intercellular leaf CO 2 concentrations which could in theory lead to a decreasing photosynthesis rate (Leuning, 1995;Ogee, Brunet, Loustau, Berbigier, & Delzon, 2003;Wang & Leuning, 1998;Yin & Van Laar, 2005). Thus much uncertainty still remains. Albeit the existence of different leaf photosynthesis models, very limited experimental research has been conducted on rice photosynthesis in the extremely high (>40°C) temperature range. The single exception we are aware of is the study by (Stuerz, Sow, Muller, Manneh, & Asch, 2014) who measured in the hot (semi) arid delta of the Senegal river and who did not find any photosynthesis reductions even in the hottest part of the year. Closer analysis of temperatures in the study site of Stuerz et al. shows that there, temperatures were still just below the range where according to the ORYZA2000 model photosynthesis would be F I G U R E 4 Simulated change in yields in irrigated sites in the \"unchanged duration\" scenario for RCP scenarios 2.6 (blue) and 8.5 (red). The top pane (a) shows on the x-axis future spikelet fertility as affected by heat (SFHEAT, 0-1), which is 1 minus the spikelet sterility. In the bottom pane (b) the black line shows part of the trapezoid function of the temperature function with which the maximum assimilation rate AMAX is multiplied (Figure 3). AMAX is optimal (1, here scaled to 0%) from 20 to 37°C. From 37°C to 43°C, the temperature multiplier for AMAX drops to 0 (here À100%). Each dot represents a simulation for a site (53 irrigated sites Africa) in a specific season (main season or off season) and year (1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002) severely reduced (Figure 3). No rice leaf photosynthesis measurements have ever been reported from hotter environments, such as the inland dry season irrigated rice in countries like Mali, Niger, northern Benin and northern Nigeria. For these countries we are extrapolating with our model into a temperature range where models have hitherto not been tested, which makes our projections more uncertain. The uncertainties reported here probably also apply to other rice crop growth models (Li et al., 2015), as the root of the problem is the same: a lack of testing and lack of experimental data from extremely hot environments. Rice models would benefit from testing, comparison and improvement in such environments and testing across multiple environments. Our paper shows the relevance of such research and identifies target areas for such research.Interestingly and in contradiction with previous studies (Matthews et al., 1995(Matthews et al., , 1997)), the use of a new heat sterility model suggests that heat sterility in the future will hardly increase and not really become a problem. We note this is a preliminary conclusion.  (Julia & Dingkuhn, 2012). This suggests also a need for more empirical and modelling research on heat sterility models.According to von Liebig's law of the minimum (De Wit, 1992) Empty spaces mean no simulations were conducted, which in most cases means the combination is absent. For example in Egypt almost all rice is irrigated rice in the main season, so no values for rainfed rice or for irrigated rice in the \"off\" season are shown. Similar tables for the all four scenarios (RCP2.6, 4.5, 6.0 and 8.5) are presented in the Tables S3-S6. VAN OORT AND ZWART| 1039 law, these yield increases will only materialize if CO 2 is more limiting than water and nutrient supply. In line with this, our simulations showed larger yield increases in the East African irrigated systems than in the rainfed systems, because there during parts of the growing season water is more limiting than CO 2 . This suggests that to benefit from climate change, East African countries will need to improve water management. The same rationale applies to nutrient supply: to sustain projected yield increases, more nutrient uptake will be needed, while soil fertility is low in much of Africa (Haefele, Nelson, & Hijmans, 2014) and fertilizer application levels are also often low. If water and nutrient management are not improved, then yields will increase only little, or not increase. Lobell (2014) and Guan, Sultan, Biasutti, Baron, and Lobell (2017) argued that many technological interventions are as useful now as in the future and that they should therefore not be mistaken for adaptation options to climate change. They proposed a method to compute how much a technology contributes as a climate change adaptation option, by accounting for how much it would already contribute in the current climate. We applied the framework developed by (Guan et al., 2017) in Madagascar, because Madagascar is by far the largest rice producer in East Africa and because also for Madagascar our analysis suggested large yield increases (Table 5). We applied Guan's framework to two \"technologies\": (i) conversion of rainfed land to irrigated land and (ii) choice of varieties with a higher temperature sum From these two adaptation impacts can be calculated (Guan et al., 2017):½ðC À DÞ À ðA À BÞ=B ¼ Impact as a climate change adaptation option(3) Thus, for example if a technology would increase yields by 1 t/ ha in the current climate (AÀB) and also 1 t/ha in the future climate (CÀD), then from Equation (3) it follows that the net contribution as an adaptation option to climate change is zero. Results (Table 6)showed that for the current climate hardly any yield gains from converting rainfed lowland into irrigated lowland (+3%). Rainfed uplands would benefit strongly from more irrigation (+71%). These resultssuggest that with a high groundwater table (40 cm) as we assumed for rainfed lowland soils, rainfall in Madagascar is sufficient to obtain The results raise the question whether in the current climate longer duration varieties might also be a good idea (Lobell, 2014).There are three arguments against doing so in this particular case.  Firstly, a longer growing period would probably just lengthen the vegetative phase of rice growth, which is often already quite long in the cooler environment of Madagascar. In such situations, longer duration for a sink limited crop would give little yield gain. Secondly, there may be economic objections against longer duration varieties. If for example a variety with 180 vs. 150 days has a potential yield of 9 vs. 8 t/ha, then the marginal yield gain is 12.5% (= (9À8)/8) and the marginal increase in duration is 20% (=(180À150)/ 150). Since production costs (irrigation, weeding) are often strongly related to crop duration, a longer duration may not be profitable (Senegalese farmers for this reason reported preferring short duration varieties over available higher yielding medium duration varieties, see Van Oort et al., 2016). Thirdly, there is the issue of farm planning. Farmers in Madagascar often grow two crops per year, with a nonrice crop in the winter period (Harvey et al., 2014;Naudin et al., 2015). Labour availability and length of the growing period of the other crop may be a reason for not wanting to grow varieties with a longer duration, because this might create logistic problems.For these reasons, we opted not to explore the scenario of adaption of longer duration varieties in the current climate.A number of uncertainties were identified in this study. Firstly the leaf photosynthesis temperature response which we discussed above. Secondly the uncertainty about cold sterility (see our discussion in 2.2.2). A physiologically sufficiently sophisticated model would not require applying different parameters for the same variety in different regions such as we did in this study. Further empirical and modelling work is needed in this regard. Thirdly, the uncertainty caused by not accounting for soil fertility in our modelling work. We assumed the response to climate change would be similar under low and high soil fertility conditions. Recent research by Guan et al. (2017) showed in another crop that this may indeed be a plausible assumption. If projected climate change impact is negative then there would be no interaction with soil fertility, because less nutrients are demanded from the soil, so soil nutrient content does not matter. On the other hand if climate change impact shows increasing potential yields then more nutrients will be demanded from the soil.This extra nutrient uptake will be more easily met on the more fertile soils or if additional fertilizer is applied. In this scenario climate change impact would be positive only on fertile soils and be neutral on infertile soils, a three way positive interaction between soil fertility, CO 2 fertilization and crop yield. Investigation of soil fertility interactions was impossible because it would require high resolution soil fertility mapping and validation of a rice model for nutrient balances, something which was beyond the scope of this paper. Clearly studying such interactions would be most relevant for East Africa,where our simulations show increasing potential yields. The fourth uncertainty is that of possible change in rainfall patterns. Large uncertainty exists about future changes in precipitation (Giannini et al., 2008;Lobell & Burke, 2008;Lobell et al., 2008). No scenario data are available with projections of changes in within-season daily rainfall patterns. This comes on top of our assumptions on groundwater depth, for which also no high (spatial and temporal) resolutionAfrican datasets are available. Altogether we deem these uncertainties too large to allow for meaningful analyses of their effects on future rainfed rice yields. Future increased rainfall intensity might also cause increased flood risk (Aich et al., 2016), which we could not model because ORYZA2000 has no component simulating damage due to flooding and because of lack of high resolution rice maps along river systems in Africa.Relatively much awareness exist of the above four uncertainties in the scientific community. There are two uncertainties of which we are aware but for which we are even more uncertain than those listed above. These are future effects of climate change on salinity and on cyclone frequency. It is known that climate change will lead to sea level rise which will affect mangrove rice systems in coastal zones, which according to Balasubramanian et al. (2007) represent 9% of Africa's rice area. The number of unknowns is too large to allow for quantitative estimation of how far sea water intrusion will increase and how this will affect mangrove rice areas. Rice in Africa is only affected by cyclones in Madagascar, one of the largest rice producers of Africa. According to (Harvey et al., 2014) cyclones have in the last 5 years affected 51% of all farmers in Madagascar, causing severe yield losses. Cyclone frequency worldwide is in general expected to increase with climate change, but how much frequency will increase in Madagascar is still very uncertain (Mendelsohn, Emanuel, Chonabayashi, & Bakkensen, 2012). Thus there are a number of additional negative climate change effects that can be anticipated but for which the magnitude of changes as well as the possible impacts are still very uncertain. ","tokenCount":"6881"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"09571ef8de26abddba9af60976e0c9af","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b291600a-37dc-4881-a66b-6a9c4e1f7633/retrieve","id":"-526409703"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"ca71ac1b-f783-42c1-b5a8-b2108602b26a","pagecount":"32","content":"Financial support for Bioversity's research is provided by more than 150 donors, including governments, private foundations and international organizations. This report is a product of a Bioversity coordinated project conducted in semi-arid ecosystems in Benin,Traditional farming systems and conservation of local cultivars and associated indigenous knowledge are under threat and growing pressure resulting in genetic erosion of crop diversity. These systems are an essential component of sustainable crop production, household income and human nutrition for many of the poor farmers found in fragile semiarid ecosystems of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). With the signing of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 1992, in situ conservation for crops and their related genetic resources has been given prominent mention in global and national policies for biodiversity conservation. In situ strategies are an important and complementary component of the overall agrobiodiversity conservation efforts that aim to conserve not only crop genetic resources but also crop evolutionary processes. However, policy support of the science and practice of in situ conservation, lag behind CBD commitment in much of SSAThe need for activities on in situ conservation of plant genetic resources is emphasized in the CBD and in Agenda 21. Article 2 of the Convention specifically includes reference to domesticated or cultivated species. This is also anticipated in Article 8, which requires signatory nations to \"preserve and maintain knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity …\" Agenda 21 reflects this commitment to in situ conservation as an essential component of sustainable agriculture, and in Chapter 14, notes the need for establishing programmes and policies to strengthen in situ conservation. In its second meeting, the Conference of the Parties to the CBD (COP 2) identified implementation of Article 8 of the CBD as a high priority and reaffirmed the importance of regional and international cooperation for the implementation of this Article. It also stressed the importance of the exchange of relevant information and experience among all stakeholders on measures taken for its implementation (Decision II/7 of COP 2).Many national PGR programmes in SSA are unable to meet their obligations towards in situ (more specifically on-farm) conservation as stated in the CBD and the GPA because of ineffective enabling of national policy environments that do not support traditional farming systems and in situ conservation on-farm.The countries involved in the project were Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Through case studies, the project analysed farming systems in semi-arid ecosystems in these countries, focussing on how these systems supported the conservation of landraces of local and global significance. The methodology described in the present publication was designed within this project to draw out 'best' practices on how landraces have been incorporated into farming systems and/or national agricultural policies and biodiversity conservation strategies. On one hand, the farmer or resource user determines what makes the practice the 'best one', and they base their choices on a survival strategy or utilitarian point of view. On the other hand, the scientists on the project primarily judged how effective the practices are in conserving agrobiodiversity at different levels. The project attempted to reconcile the two views in developing frameworks for the determination of 'best practice'.Our hope is that the lessons learnt from project experiences will be used to develop models to begin to integrate and incorporate the approaches into national decision-making strategies on PGR at policy level. This is in accordance with article 6b of the CBD of which the COP of the CBD has requested the GEF to take action thereby advancing global efforts to safeguard the world's plant genetic resources. This report is a product of a Bioversity coordinated project conducted in semi-arid ecosystems in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Malawi, Uganda and Zimbabwe with implementation support from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and co financing from the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The authors would like to thank the United Nations Environment Programme and the Global Environment Facility for their financial and technical backing.The project that generated this report benefited enormously from the input of many experienced unnamed individuals especially farmers and communities around Africa who provided much information of value to the project. The authors would like first to thank them and the members of the National project teams in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Malawi, Uganda and Zimbabwe, particularly their country focal persons:Mr Nasser Baco, Dr Didier Balma, Professor Edwin Gyasi, Mr Godfrey Muthamia, Dr Amadou Sidibe, Mr Kingslay Kapila, Mr John Mulumba Wasswa and Mr Claid Mujaju. We are grateful to all the participants-from farmers to development workers, researchers and government officials-who helped to shape the thoughts expressed in this report.Genetic Diversity Scientist Diversity for Livelihoods Programme Bioversity International United Nations Avenue, Gigiri PO Box 30677 00100 Nairobi, Kenya Tel: +254 20 7224505 Fax: +254 20 7224501 Email: m.grum@cgiar.org It is without a doubt that plant genetic diversity is important for food security and rural livelihoods. Crop genetic diversity in itself is a resource that has local, national and global significance. For a multitude of generations, farmers have drawn on hundreds and hundreds of different plant genetic resources for food and agriculture 1 in order to breed the major crops that today feed the world. The further development of agriculture and the world's continued food security will depend on farmers and breeders continuing to have access to the plant genetic resources necessary to face new environmental and agricultural challenges.Throughout generations, and prior to the introduction of ex situ conservation 2 methods, farmers used to conserve crop genetic diversity in situ 3 , on-farm 4 , with traditional local cultivars being the initial and principal beneficiaries. Today, traditional local cultivars embody substantial diversity, and continue to provide an essential component of sustainable crop production for many of Africa's poor. This is the case especially in marginal agricultural areas where modern crop varieties and inputs are less available and less effective for resource-poor farmers. Thus the continued use of local cultivars or farmers' varieties contributes to stable food production and income.It can thus be seen today that traditional local cultivars embody substantial diversity, and continueto provide an essential component of sustainable crop production for many of Africa's poor. This linkage between diversity and food security provides the rationale for enhancing the availability and use of local crop varieties in the fragile ecosystems of arid and semi-arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa.Farmers often need diversity for three main reasons: to provide security against unstable ecological and socio-economic conditions; to enhance optimum use of the varied land resources and of the labour and capital available to the farmer; and, to meet different dietary, culinary and other consumer requirements. Farmers face multiple challenges and have different needs and concerns. The use of diversity is seen as a way of farmers solving problems or addressing concerns and meeting needs using their agricultural systems` and diverse crop varieties.For farming communities to maintain genetic diversity of the traditional varieties on-farm, they engage in certain practices 5 . These practices vary from community to community. If the use of the best of these practices within a community is scaled up throughout other communities, then on-farm genetic diversity of farmers' varieties would not only be maintained or enhanced, but would be scaled up as well. To do this, these best practices would need to be recognized or institutionalized at policy level.Simply defined, policy means a line of argument rationalizing the course of action of a government, or a plan of action adopted by an individual or a social group. Thus policy is broader than the formal rules and regulations that a government promulgates to the governed; it includes the rationale for promulgation. This further means that policy does not necessarily have to be in written form for it to be effective.Policy does not only apply to government but extends to individuals and social groups and institutions. Thus individuals can set policies on how to go about chores; organizations can set policies on 5 For the purposes of this paper, a practice is defined as a system, organization, process or behavior that, systematically repeated in a given space (from the local levels of resolution through the national and regional through to global) and over time, maintains, enhances or creates crop genetic resources and ensures their availability to and from farmers and other stakeholders for improved livelihoods on a sustainable basis.how to achieve organizational objectives; and, profitmaking organizations can set policies on how to go about doing business and principally, making profit. Thus policies, in this context are plans of action.The rationale for individuals, groups or governments laying policies, is social order. Without social order, governance would be difficult, if not impossible.For individuals and organizations, without policies, achieving goals, whether profit-oriented or not, would again be difficult.The process of moving best practices to policies to enhance conservation of genetic diversity of landraces on-farm involves identification of those barriers that hinder the spread of the practices and, examination of policy processes, instruments or mechanisms that exist that can be applied in the transformation process. This paper also provides a process guide or framework that can be applied in testing the process of transforming best practices to policies.Local communities in arid and semi-arid areas have overtime, developed ways of methods of conserving crop landraces within their diversity. The development of these ways and methods is dictated by various factors. These include but are not limited to the value the communities place on the crops, cultural orientations, land tenure, and climatic conditions.Some of these practices may be effective in conserving genetic diversity if practiced by other communities. These practices may, thus, be termed as 'best practices'. However, barriers arise that hinder the widespread of these best practices to other communities.The barriers occur at various levels: local, national and regional levels. Further, the barriers may be classified into various categories, these being environmental; cultural; political; and, aesthetic.Local barriers refer to impediments in the spread of best practices amongst local communities that are as a result of a community's indisposition to a practice. Thus, a community may not be enthusiastic in adopting a practice from another community simply because that community does not prefer doing things the way the other community does. While this could be closely related to cultural orientations and beliefs, it may also be because it is the practice in itself that sets the difference between the communities. For example, the Luo community living on Rusinga Island has a cultural practice known as 'ngweloruok'. This is a ritual that requires the head of the homestead to spend a night with his wife prior to him tasting the harvested sorghum crop before the rest of members of his homestead cultivating on the same piece of land are allowed to consume the harvest of the season. Young farmers must therefore wait until their head of the household performs Ngweloruok to harvest their own crops. 'Ngweloruok' has been found to threaten the diversity of a sorghum landrace variety locally known as 'gopari' 6 .Thus a community such as the Luo may be reluctant to adopt another practice that does not threaten the diversity of the sorghum landrace in favour of 'ngweloruok'.National barriers refer to impediments that hinder the spread of best practices as a result of a country's indisposition to a practice. A country's indisposition to a practice may be factor of the existing different legal systems between a country of export of the practice and the country of import; colonial lineage; and, system of governance. However, and more importantly, national barriers are also influenced by national legislation systems that exist in a country. The most obvious of these are national seed legislation systems, which in many situations lay out rules on what seed a farmer may use, where to buy it, and whether the farmer may save and exchange the same with other farmers. For example, in Kenya the Seeds and Plant Varieties Act, categorizes seed and requires that a farmer may only plant certified seed, and does not create or address uncertified seed, a common source of seed, particularly with regard to landraces. 7 Another example is land tenure. As in many countries there are different systems of holding land 8 , these land tenure systems also act as barriers in the sense that a particular system of holding land determines what individuals or communities may use it for. Thus practices only associated with particular land tenure systems may be hard to cross over to other land tenure systems.Regional or global barriers refer to those impediments that are a result of regional or global processes, whether political or otherwise. While political processes such as regional integration (for example, the East African Community or the European Union process) may facilitate the spread of best practices amongst practices, others do not.7 Seed for landraces is often commercially unviable, as the number of farmers who grow landraces are usually not many and often concentrated in arid areas such that commercial seed and plant breeders see no economic advantage in producing or breeding them.Every nation is a party to one international instrument or another. In the context on conservation of genetic diversity generally, there are a number of international instruments or processes that are key in influencing the spread of best practices within communities not only within a country, but also between countries. While the relevance of these instruments as regards conservation of genetic diversity on-farm by local communities is analyzed in Section 4, suffice to say, where a country is a signatory of one and another is not, implications arise as to how they would relate and exchange information. For example, the ITPGRFA establishes a multilateral system of exchange of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture for certain crops (the Annex 1 crops) and thus reduces transaction costs between member countries. Similarly, the TRIPS Agreement obligates WTO member countries to establish a sui generis system for protection of plant varieties. These international instruments or processes have implications on national policies and a country that is not a member of say, the CBD may find itself in difficulty while importing a practice to conserve genetic diversity on-farm from a country that is a member.Regional pacts and instruments such as the Treaty establishing the East African Community (EAC), the African Regional Industrial Property Organization (ARIPO), the African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI) 9 and COMESA Protocol may have similar implications as well.The basis for this categorization of the barriers that hinder the spread of practices within farming communities is that results from the studies show that the motivation to conserve is more influenced by the uses for the crop than it is on the storage and ownership of the seed. This list of categories is not exhaustive but rather is a dictate of the results so far received from the field studies.This refers to those barriers that are an influence of the agro-ecological condition in which a certain crop variety grows, and thus a practice is linked to the soil and ecological conditions of a particular crop. For example, the practices that are associated with cultivation of rice in Mali cannot be used by the banana cultivating communities in Uganda, because rice grows in totally different conditions as does bananas. 11 Only Zea mays (maize/corn) landraces that are red in colour are used for the treatment. The maize is ground into mealie meal at the victim's homestead, and then porridge is prepared using the red corn. The porridge is thereafter mixed with small pieces of copper wire (relatively small pieces able to pass through the gut, even of small children). The porridge is also blended with traditional herbs. The whole family feeds on the porridge under the supervision of the traditional healer. Human's ability to remedy lightning confirms the social belief that this is man-made. As reported by Claid Mujaju and Fred Zinanga. Report on file with the authors.eared maize is a lightning deterrent, the landrace shall survive in farmers' fields. Thus members of the Tsholotsho community have used for several years, local maize landraces for self-protection, based on cultural beliefs and food security.Political influences refer to situations where the manner in which a government of the day advances its policies, based on the political machinery available does ultimately, influence the spread of practices. For example, the Zimbabwean agricultural system had a recent significant paradigm shift. The government extension service is now emphasizing the restoration of traditional systems, which recognize farmers' varieties (landraces) that had been neglected. Local chiefs are being mobilized to start collecting and conserving various traditional landraces through community seed banks, an idea initially mooted through NGOs. 12 This paradigm shift is based on the fact that about 70% of Zimbabwe's population lives in communal areas. The population is growing at about 1.5 % per year and depends on agriculture as a source of income, food and livelihood. This sector is affected by drought, shortage of inputs and limitations of labour. Drought results in decreased diversity managed by the communities, hence the need to maintain a broader genetic base of preferred crops both on farm and ex situ.Thus by the government using chiefs (a political and government machinery) to spearhead the collection and conservation of landraces, the genetic diversity of these crops is not only being maintained but also enhanced.Aesthetic herein is taken to mean preferences based on such factors as likes and tastes. It is clear from the foregoing studies in the eight countries that some local communities conserve landraces because of the uses that they have for those landraces. For some, when cooked, they taste better than others or make better bread than others. In this sense, the reason to conserve is driven more by the use, or aesthetical value of the landrace than anything else. For example, for many reasons, the women farmers 13 of 12 As reported by Claid Mujaju and Fred Zinanga. Report on file with the authors.13 Gore women farmers have names for all the indigenous rice varieties they cultivate. For example, Mariama, Peter and Mr. Moore varieties are named after the farmers who first introduced them to the community, while Agona refers to a town in the Ashanti region of Ghana. Agongula Gore, a rural area in Ghana's Bawku District, prefer local rice to the improved exotic varieties due to its certain unique qualities.First, the grain of Oryza glaberrima rice type 14 has high gluten content and is pleasantly filling when cooked. This highly diversified rice can still be found with many farmers, especially women in northern Ghana.Secondly, the women farmers also consider several attributes of indigenous rice varieties to be superior to modern varieties, which is another reason for their maintenance. Some rice varieties have short cooking time, others are suitable for traditional dishes, such as waakye (cooked rice and beans), rice balls, etc.Other types are suitable as weaning food for babies. Thirdly, many local rice types do not shatter easily when left in the field after the optimum harvest time. This characteristic enables farmers to make the most advantageous use of their labour force and is different from improved rice varieties, which must be harvested at optimum moisture content of the grain for the best results. Furthermore, livestock readily eats local varieties' straw, while the improved rice types usually are short, with little straw available for animal consumption. Finally, indigenous rice varieties are used for parboiling. Parboiling of local rice is an important industry that engages thousands of women in Northern Ghana, providing them with income. Parboiled rice from Upper East Region of Ghana fetches high prices on the market because of its high quality processing 15 .While qualities attributed to uses of landraces are useful in conserving genetic diversity of these crops and may be easier to replicate in scaling the practices to conserve, others are not and in fact, accelerate genetic loss or erosion. For example, in Kenya's Suba District, a sweet-stalked sorghum, 'Nyaniang' has disappeared because children love to chew it like sugar cane. 'Nyaniang', which means \"the child of sugar cane\" in Luo, has been destroyed on-farm, mostly by children and intruders. In the past, this variety of sorghum was popular for chewing during the period before the millet head was fully formed. Exploiting it at this stage meant poor harvests. With time, many farmers abandoned 'Nyaniang' to avoid famine. 16 means short grain of rice in the local Kusal language, while Mui-sablic refers to the dark colour of the husk. Another variety is named 'help me buy dress'. As reported by G. Kranjac-Berisavljevic and PB Tanzubil. Report on file with the authors.14 Tropical and sub-tropical Africa is the centre of diversity for a range of crops including the African rice, Oryza glaberrima.15 As reported by G. Kranjac-Berisavljevic and PB Tanzubil. Report on file with the authors.16 As reported by Evans Mutegi. Report on file with the authors.In conclusion, what emanates from the levels and barriers that hinder the spread of best practices among local communities is that for the best practices to spread, the barriers would need to be overcome. How a country or a community would go about overcoming these barriers is dependent upon the policy choices the policy makers may make. Put differently, there are a number of policy tools that exist, that policy makers may employ to overcome these barriers. The policy tools of relevance in conservation of landraces on-farm and the principles underlying them are considered in the following section.Policy tools are basically, those policy mechanisms or processes that are at the disposal of policy makers that they may employ in the process of instituting positive actions. These actions include conservation of landraces on farm. In this section, the various policy tools that exist are outlined as are the principles that a policy maker must consider while employing the tools. It must be stated that the policy tools are analyzed in their order of flexibility.This essentially means that the least flexible tool is the constitution while the most flexible tools are budgetary measures. A constitution (particularly a national constitution) is the least flexible tool in the sense that the process of making, amending or repealing a constitution, is lengthy, financially exhausting and involves almost, if not the whole population. Besides, national constitutions as usually written are limited to general principles and rules, rather than details and procedure. As such particular measures that a government would want to take to promote conservation of landraces would not ordinarily be written in the constitution. What one would normally find in a constitution are general principles relating to conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Needless to say, landraces are natural resources.Policy tools may be classified into two: 'hard' policies and 'soft' policy tools. 'Hard' policy tools herein refer to those tools which if not observed, obeyed, or obligations not met, legal sanctions are instituted. In this category fall the constitution, legislation, subsidiary legislation and some government administrative actions. In these tools, legal obligations are created and failure to meet these obligations is met with either criminal or civil sanctions. On the other hand 'soft' policy tools refer to those tools which if not observed, criminal sanctions are not meted but civil sanctions or some other form of sanctions may be meted. In this category one finds some government administrative actions, public institutional actions, user/market/enterprise actions and budgetary measures. For example, if a public institution fails to implement a particular policy in one financial year, it may in the following year receive less budgetary allocations from the central government. Criminal or civil sanctions may not be taken against its employees. However, the same case would not apply if an individual fails to observe the law. He may be prosecuted for criminal or civil action.In the broadest sense, a constitution is a body of rules governing the affairs of an organized group. A parliament, a church congregation, a social club, or a trade union may operate under the terms of a formal written document labelled a constitution. This does not mean however, that all of the rules of an organization are in the constitution, for usually there may be other rules such as by-laws and customs.Invariably, by definition, the rules spelled out in the constitution are considered to be basic, in the sense that all other rules must conform, or must be consistent with its provisions. Implicit in the concept of constitution is that of a higher, if not the highest law, that is operative, a law that takes precedence.Every national state has a constitution, at least in the sense that it operates its important institutions according to some fundamental body of rules. In this sense of the term, the only conceivable alternative to a constitution is a condition of monarchy, or anarchy to the least. Constitutions may be written or unwritten. For example, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Kenya all have written constitutions, whereas England has an unwritten constitution. Constitutions may also be simple or complex; they may provide for vastly different patterns of governance.As a policy tool, a constitution sets out rules that take precedence over all others. Thus a constitution exists as a supreme law and all other rules must not only flow but also be consistent with it. Because a constitution is said to be made by the people it governs (not by the state or institutions such as parliament), its enactment and amendment process is ordinarily lengthy. For example, Kenya has in the past five years been engaged in the process of repealing its constitution. This process is yet to be completed.On-farm and the Underlying PrinciplesThis refers to laws made under the authority of parliament. In parliament, legislative power is exercisable by bills passed by the national assembly to become law. A bill is described as a draft of a proposed Act of Parliament. In many nations, once a bill is passed by parliament to become law, it must be presented to the President for his assent, or to be decreed as law. The procedure followed in passing bills to become law varies from parliament to parliament. For example, in Kenya a bill must receive three readings in the national assembly, with detailed discussions as to its content taking place at the relevant committee of parliament.Once a bill is passed as law, it binds everybody in the country otherwise it would be discriminatory, contravening the constitution and thus becoming void. In many jurisdictions, an Act of Parliament applies to a future event and cannot be applied retrospectively. 17Parliament as sovereign can make, amend or repeal any law subject to the constitution. The enactment of legislation is generally required to keep up with the needs and demands of a developing society.One advantage that legislation has over a constitution as a policy tool is that the process of enactment is much shorter, especially if there has been a consensus as to the need to enact before a bill is taken to parliament.Thus legislation is able to respond to anticipated situations quicker than a constitution would do, as a policy tool.Subsidiary legislation is also known as delegated legislation. Parliament when enacting legislation has authority to delegate its legislative function to another body or person. Most of the legislation enacted by parliament contains provisions delegating authority to make law especially with regard to procedural functions to another body or person. For example under the Kenya's Seeds and Plant Variety Protection Act, the Minister in charge of implementing the Act has power to make rules of procedure say, with regard to the process of certifying seeds. Local authorities are also enabled by the parent statutes to make by-laws and rules. For example, the City Council of Nairobi has power to make City Council By Laws and this power is derived from the Local Government Act. 18 The rationale behind parliament delegating its powers to make law to other bodies or persons is that it saves parliamentary time.Like legislation, subsidiary legislation must be consistent with the constitution and the parent statute.Besides consistency, process of enacting subsidiary legislation must conform to the procedure laid down in the parent statute otherwise the subsidiary legislation is ultra vires 19 .Subsidiary legislation as a policy tool responds to national needs faster than legislation, and by far, than the constitution. Another advantage of subsidiary legislation is that it is more flexible (as it can be made and revoked more quickly) and allows experts to be involved in making rules and regulations on different issues. However, too much delegated authority, and thus subsidiary legislation creates legal uncertainty as it is invariably difficult if not impossible to keep up with speed of enactment.Government administrative actions refer to those actions carried out by the executive arm of the government in providing public services or governance to the populace. As policy is not limited to legislation or pronouncements, at times, government departments do adopt plans of actions for public good. These may range from simple actions as limiting movement of goods and services or laying emphasis say, in promoting or encouraging cultivation of certain crops in agro ecological areas that suit them. For, example a ministry of agriculture may order its agriculture extension officers to encourage communities in arid and semi-arid areas to cultivate landraces, or a gene bank may on its own volition mutiply seedlings for endangered crops.A case in point is that of 'phara' leafy vegetables (mogoro/imifino). In the course of interviewing the farmers (mostly women), it occurred to one of the interviewees that only one farmer in the two villages had a few seeds left of the 'phara' vegetable. A decision was taken that the farmers would start collecting seeds of this vegetable variety the following season.Currently, 'Phara' seed is conserved in the National Plant Genetic Resources Centre (NPGRC) Genebank and ARC-Roodeplaat Genebank. A base collection is stored at the NPGRC Genebank and the working collection is stored at ARC-Roodeplaat for research purposes. Seed is multiplied at ARC-Roodeplaat Genebank with a view to supply the communities with more seed and to have sufficient seed for conserving in the genebank. 21 An advantage that government administrative actions have over other policy tools that emanate from government is that they can speedily be put in place without being bogged down by legislative procedures. Thus it is discernable from this that government administrative actions can be influential tools in policy formulation and especially in cases where wide use of best practices needs to be encouraged.For the purposes of this discussion, public institutions refer to statutory corporations (parastatals); nongovernmental organizations; and, international organizations. These are institutions, which are nonprofit making; mostly produce public goods, and are indirectly or minimally controlled by government.Public institutions in their own action plans do have policies that may dictate outcomes within communities and thus steer communities towards certain directions that may impact on decision-making, and ways of life in general.For example, a non-governmental organization may initiate within a community, a programme in promoting an environmentally sustainable farming method. For example, the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) an intergovernmental organization has promoted a farming system where maize is intercropped with napier grass to control the maize stemborer. 22 Another model is that adopted by the Southern and East African Network on Underutilized Crops (SEANUC) in promoting and commercialising underutilised crops with a view to alleviate food insecurity in Southern Africa. 23  This refers to actions by individuals or enterprise institutions, so long as they are within the law. As a policy tool, these actions may include an individual's resolve to say, consume certain plant varieties, or for an enterprise to market products based on landraces.For example, in Uganda, the presence and importance of bananas make them a major source of local wine and beer. Bananas are one of Uganda's most important crops. 25 Specific varieties of the East African Highland banana are used in the production of beer in Uganda. In Mbirizi, a community in Masaka District, their use in brewing beer has been one of the main factors ensuring the conservation of nine banana landraces. Banana brew is in high demand for social functions, boosting the incomes of both the farmers who grow the bananas and the brewers who brew the beer. The local beer is called omwenge, which can be further distilled to produce a commercial spirit called waragi.In these rural communities, beer is important for other socio-economic reasons. Currency is often limited, so locally brewed beer is used as a liquid currency. It is often used as payment for community-based labour, such as the construction of feeder roads to connect fields and farms with markets and villages. Local beer also plays a major role in gatherings such as funerals and festivals. On these occasions, people contribute either beer or bunch of bananas to be prepared and eaten during the event. In many parts of Uganda, a man must contribute banana beer to his future in-laws before a dowry is accepted. Commercially manufactured banana beer is also making inroads into the urban market in Tanzania and Kenya. 26 Thus in these communities, individuals and institutions may opt to grow certain varieties of banana as they are a source of income and livelihood.Budgets are important policy tools as they set the basis upon which resources are allocated and shared, and utilized. There are three kinds of budgets: household budgets; firm budgets; and, government budgets.First, a household budget is a household's planned income and expenditure for a given period and depends upon disposable income that a household has. 27 Household budgets as policy tools dictate the amount of capital that an individual spends and 25 According to an FAO report, Uganda produced in excess of 10 million tons of bananas in 2001; this was more than 38% of Africa's total banana production and second only to India. Bananas are so important Uganda, and throughout East Africa, that the word \"matooke\" means both \"banana\" and \"food\".saves. Thus in the context of local communities, the amount of disposable income that the communities have dictate the amount of resources that is be spent on farming and other activities. For example, in Uganda, where beer brewing from certain varieties of bananas is an income generating activity, the amount of resources that a farmer invests in the activity largely affects the income that the farmer earns.Secondly, a firm's budget is a firm's planned revenues and expenditures for a given future period. 28 Annual or monthly sales, production, cost and capital expenditure budgets provide a means for the firm to plan its future activities, and by collecting actual data about sales and product cost, to compare with budget the firm can control these activities more effectively. 29 Budgets play important roles in execution of public institutional and user/market/ enterprise actions, as expenditures in execution of policies are planned for in advance. This case is more discernable in situations involving public institutions that do not generate their own incomes such as nongovernmental organizations and intergovernmental organizations. For these institutions' projects and other core activities are donor or government funded, and thus propagation of policies by these institutions is subject to the purpose for which funds are disbursed by the donor.Finally, a government budget is a government's financial statement of the government's planned revenues and expenditures for the fiscal year. 30 The main sources of a government's revenue are taxation, principally income and expenditure taxes, fees and fines, domestic and external borrowings and grants. On the other hand, the main outgoings of a government's expenditure are the provision of public goods and services (principally wage payments to health, education, security and other public service employees), transfer payments (oldage pensions, interest payments on the national debt, etc.) and social security benefits.A government budget has two main uses: it forms the basis of the government's longer term financial planning of its own economic and social commitments; and it is an instrument of fiscal policy in regulating the level and composition of aggregate demand in the economy. Ordinarily, a government does not make expenditure on items that are not budgeted for. Thus in executing its policies, resources for expenditure must be provided for in the budget.For, example, in Kenya, when a bill is published for 28 Id., p. 44.29 Id., p. 45.30 Id.presentation to parliament for enactment as law, the Attorney General (or the Minister moving the bill) is required in the memorandum to the bill, to indicate whether implementation of the bill (once it becomes law) will occasion additional expenditure of public funds, and if so, whether a provision of this expenditure will be provided for in the Finance Bill or in the estimates. 31 Thus given that the constitution, legislation, subsidiary legislation, and government administrative actions are the main policy tools that a government wields in executing its policies, a government budget is a vital tool in policy implementation.The policy tool should be legitimate, either in law or other form of recognized basis. A policy must be justifiable and evidence presented that the policy seeks to address a present problem.The policy tool should be relevant, either in relation to existing policies or to international instruments (treaties, conventions) already ratified or to be ratified in fulfilment of international obligations.Because policies, or proclamations do not exist in isolation, the policy tool should as much as possible be in harmony with other policies. At the least, there should be a balance between the proposed policy 31 For example, see the memorandum to The HIV and AIDS Prevention and Control Bill, 2002.and other existing policies.None of the policy tools in section 4 operates in isolation. Therefore the lead institution must as much as possible consult the other stakeholder institutions.It important for the right policy tool to be sought so that maximum efficiency in decision-making and implementation is achieved.Policies are not cast in stone. They should be made such that if required to be changed due to changing circumstances, the change should be cost-effective and least time-consuming.In conclusion, making policy choices or choosing what tools to employ involves quite a number of processes and is dependent on what policy level the intervention is sought. Also, a policy tool that one would ordinarily employ to influence policy is one that falls within his sphere of influence. Employing a policy tool within one's sphere of influence does not only ensure flexibility, but also relevance (the sphere of influence vis-à-vis mandate and level of authority) but also efficiency.International processes have a bearing on the extent local communities can and are involved in the conservation of landraces on-farm. Among the outcomes of international processes are conventions and international agreements, some which are of direct relevance to on-farm conservation of landraces in arid and semi-arid areas. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is an ambitious attempt to integrate previously distinct policy goals. It recognizes the importance and distribution of biodiversity and requires protection of all biodiversity in all types of ecosystems and habitats. The CBD has three main objectives: the conservation of biological diversity; the sustainable use of its components; and, the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from such use. 32The CBD is largely a framework treaty that sets out the general parameters of the obligations and rights of member states but leaves the actual implementation of much if its components to decisions of the Conference of Parties (COP) and to the parties.Significantly, the Convention's provisions, including the access and benefit sharing stipulations, do not apply to genetic resources collected prior to the convention's entry into force. Thus, seed banks and ex situ collections in existence before it came into force do not require the equitable sharing of benefits that was envisaged under the convention.In so far as conservation of genetic diversity of landraces generally is concerned, a number of Articles relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and promotion of their wider application with the approval and involvement of the holders of such knowledge, innovations and practices and encourage the equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilization of such knowledge, innovations and practices. This essentially means that not only are the traditional practices and lifestyles of local communities in maintaining crop genetic diversity recognised, but also calls for their scaling up. The role of indigenous local communities, often found in arid and semi-arid areas is also recognised. Another Article, 8 (k), calls for parties to the CBD to, as much as possible, develop or maintain necessary legislation and/or other regulatory provisions for the protection of threatened species and populations. This has direct policy relevance, as essentially, it calls for governments to put in place policy processes to protect threatened species and populations, noting that these would ordinarily include landraces in arid and semi-arid areas.Secondly, Article 10 (c) calls for each contracting party to, as far as possible, protect and encourage customary use of biological resources in accordance with traditional cultural practices that are compatible with conservation or sustainable use requirements.Undeniably, practices developed overtime by local communities in arid and semi-arid areas in conserving genetic diversity of landraces on-farm fall within the rubric of \"traditional cultural practices\" 34 . The express reference to \"encourage customary use….\"33 Article 8 (d), CBD.34 Ngweloruok is such an example. See footnote 6.in the Article again, infers that there is legitimacy engaging in efforts to scale up community best practices that enhance the conservation of genetic diversity of landraces.Finally, Article 11 provides for incentive measures 35 . Essentially, these incentive measures are often contained in the policy instruments that the governments and governmental institutions put in place to ensure conservation and sustainable use of components of biological diversity.The TRIPS Agreement includes three items related to agriculture: geographical indications (Articles. 22-24); patent protection of agricultural chemical products (Articles. 70.8 and 70.9); and plant variety protection (Article 27.3(b)). Article 27. 3 (b) is the most relevant to the debate on conservation of genetic diversity.Art 27.3(b) states that plants and animals as well as biological processes may be excluded from patentability. However, it imposes an explicit obligation on WTO member states to provide protection for plant varieties \"by patents or by an effective sui generis 36 system or any combination thereof\".Therefore member states are given considerable flexibility in providing protection to plant varieties. They can develop sui generis forms of protection, which are consistent with their interests (provided that it is \"effective\"). For instance, systems can be created that explicitly deal with the issue relating to the conservation and sustainable use of plant biodiversity, or that contribute to a nation's ability to address food and livelihood security for its citizens.Despite the flexibility to frame a regime for the protection of plant varieties and to determine the scope, level and form of protection to be conferred, such a regime would have to comply with the minimum standards established by the TRIPS Agreement. First, the regime would need to recognize the National Treatment principle whereby like products are treated the same regardless of their origin. Second, it would also have to respect the Most Favored Nation standard, which requires that any advantage accorded to nationals of a WTO member country has to be extended to any other member country. Third, the regime would also have to confer \"effective\" protection. This qualificationcontained in the body of Art 27.3(b) -is ambiguous since the Agreement provides no criteria to judge the \"effectiveness\", nor does it define what a sui generis system is. It could be argued that the qualification goes not to the level of protection but to the availability of legal mechanisms to enforce them. This ambiguity provides some flexibility in the sense that countries are left free to determine what is 'effective' for them. Finally, in the absence of an exception, the protection should also be granted to varieties of all genera and species.The granting of a patent on a plant variety implies that parties seeking to use the plant or plant variety for any purpose in that jurisdiction must obtain permission from the owner of the patent, which may introduce both administrative and procedural hurdles that can interfere with the flow of genetic resources.Furthermore, the obligation imposed by Article 27.3(b) to establish a legal regime that grants proprietary rights over plant varieties, whether through patents or a sui generis system means that TRIPS not only affects recognition of biodiversityrelated local technologies, innovations, and practices, but it also in a sense, precludes collective ownership of these resources by local communities for the common social good.Nonetheless, there is general agreement that Article 27.3(b) gives members some leeway in fashioning national laws that are consistent with their interests and contribute to their ability to address food and livelihood security for its citizens. Indeed, many countries have taken advantage of the sui generis option for the protection of plant varieties.The FAO adopted the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) in November 2001 at its Thirty-first session. The Treaty entered into force on 29 June 2004, ninety days after it received its fortieth ratification, and now supersedes the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.The principal objectives of the Treaty are spelt out in Article 1.1: \"the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits derived from their use, in harmony with the Convention on Biological Diversity, for sustainable agriculture and food security\". It aims at ensuring that the inherited capital that PGRFA represent is conserved, and continues to supply the flow of services on which food security and development depend. Access to plant genetic resources and equitable benefit sharing therefore lies at the heart of the Treaty. This is ensured through a Multilateral System 37 of Access and Benefit Sharing in which the sovereign rights of states over their own genetic resources are recognized.While the Multilateral system covers only certain listed plant genetic resources, the Treaty sets a framework for the conservation and sustainable use of all PGRFA and establishes the institutional machinery to oversee the implementation of its provisions. This obviously includes, landraces. 38 It is essential to note that, from the outset, the ITPGRFA expressly states that it is compatible with the CBD 39 . It provides, in harmony with the CBD, for the special needs of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (hereafter referred to as \"PGRFA\"). In particular it allows for the conservation and continued flow across national boundaries of the plant genetic resources most important to sustain food security and on which all countries are interdependent.Several Articles of the Treaty are of direct relevance to the maintenance of genetic diversity on-farm, by local communities. First, Article 5.1 (c) calls for each Contracting party to, subject to national legislation, and in cooperation with other Contracting Parties where appropriate, promote an integrated approach to the exploration, conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and shall in particular, as appropriate \"promote or support, as appropriate, farmers and local communities' efforts to manage and conserve on-farm their plant genetic resources for food and agriculture\".Paragraph (c) calls for promotion or support of farmers and local communities efforts to manage and conserve their PGRFA on-farm. Where such 37 The Multilateral System includes the PGRFA listed under Annex 1 of the Treaty, which are chosen on the basis of their importance for food security and the degree to which countries are interdependent on them. The list currently covers 35 food crops, and 29 forage genera, representing more than 80% of the world's calorie intake.38 Article 2 defines PGRFA as \"any genetic material of plant origin of actual or potential value for food and agriculture\".39 See the preamble to the Treaty.efforts are lacking, then the Contracting Parties should strive to promote them. Where they do exist, the Contracting Parties should support those efforts, presumably through technical and financial support.The extent to which this support is provided, and the means by which it is provided, is left to the individual Contracting Parties to determine. An example of how this kind of support can be provided is the activities of the UNDP/GEF project in Ethiopia to promote \"A Dynamic Farmer-based Approach to the Conservation of Plant Genetic Resources\". 40 After constructing 12 community gene banks, the project is now working to link these to locally used seed storage systems in order to strengthen the seed supply and enhance its viability. This helps to preserve the traditional storage system and link it to national research stations, universities and ministries.Secondly, Article 5.1 (d) calls for contracting Parties to, subject to national legislation and where appropriate, promote in situ conservation of wild crop relatives and wild plants for food production, including in protected areas, by supporting, inter alia, the efforts of indigenous and local communities. The focus of this paragraph is the \"in situ conservation of wild crop relatives and wild plants for food production\". The wild relatives of crop plants, which include the progenitors of crops, as well as species more or less closely related to them, constitute an increasingly important resource for improving agricultural production and for maintaining sustainable agro-ecosystems. While most farmers and plant breeders normally prefer to work with existing cultivars or advanced breeding materials, as they are more productive and relatively easier to interbreed, they sometimes need to search further a field to find specific traits when faced with new or evolved pests and diseases or other ecological challenges. Wild relatives of crops are generally more difficult to work with, in that undesirable traits already present may be difficult to separate from the desirable trait. But where they are used, they can have quite dramatic results. Historically, they have contributed many useful genes to crop plants, and modern varieties of most crops now contain genes from their wild relatives. In modern varieties of potatoes, wheat, barley, rice, maize and oat, among other crops, traits from wild relatives have improved productivity as well as tolerance to pests, disease and difficult growing conditions. The paragraph specifically acknowledges the efforts of indigenous and local communities. At the same time, there is a clear statement that supporting the efforts of local communities is only one of many ways in which in situ conservation can be promoted.Finally, Article 9 provides for farmers' rights 41 . In Article 9.1, the enormous past, present and future contributions of farmers in conserving and developing plant genetic resources, particularly in centres of origin and crop diversity, and their fundamental importance to modern food and agriculture production is acknowledged. Article 9.2 makes it clear that under the Treaty the realization of Farmers' Rights is a matter for national governments. Under Article 9.2, each Contracting Party is encouraged, \"in accordance with their needs and priorities…as appropriate, and subject to its national legislation\", to take measures to protect and promote Farmers' Rights. The various limiting epithets are central to the meaning of the provision. Decisions regarding the measures, if any, to be taken to protect and promote Farmers' Rights are decisions that each government is to take as appropriate in the context of its own needs and priorities and in accordance with its own national legislation.The \"core\" content of Farmers' Rights at the national level is identified in paragraphs (a) to (c) of Article 9.2, as the protection of traditional knowledge, the right to participate in benefit sharing, and the right to participate in making decisions at the national level regarding PGRFA. It is important to note, however, that paragraphs (a) to (c) are only illustrative of the various components of Farmers' Rights, and do not exhaust the modalities by which Farmers' Rights may be realized.41 Article 9 provides as follows: \"9.1. The Contracting parties recognize the enormous contribution that the local and indigenous communities and farmers of all regions of the world, particularly those in the centres of origin and crop diversity, have made and will continue to make for the conservation and development of plant genetic resources which constitute the basis of food and agriculture production throughout the world. 9.2. The Contracting Parties agree that the responsibility for realizing Farmers' Rights, as they relate to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, rests with national governments. In accordance with their needs and priorities, each Contracting Party should, as appropriate, and subject to national legislation, take measures to protect and promote Farmer's Rights, including: (a) protection of traditional knowledge relevant to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture; (b) the right to equitably participate in sharing of benefits arising from utilization of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture; and (c) the right to participate in making decisions, at the national level, on matters related to the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. 9.3 Nothing in this article shall be interpreted to limit any rights that farmers have to save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seed/propagating material, subject to national law and as appropriate.\"The UPOV system of plant variety protection 42 came into being with the adoption of the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants by a Diplomatic Conference in Paris in 1961 43 . This was the point at which there was recognition of the intellectual property rights of plant breeders in their varieties on an international basis. The UPOV exists to provide and promote an effective system of plant variety protection, in order to encourage the development of new plant varieties. The rationale for protecting new plant varieties is that breeding new varieties of plants requires a substantial investment in terms of skills, labour, material resources, and money, and may take many years. A new variety, once released in the market can in many cases be readily reproduced by others so as to deprive its breeder of the opportunity to profit adequately from his investment. The granting to a breeder of a new variety the exclusive right to exploit his variety both encourages him to invest in plant breeding and contributes to the development of agriculture, horticulture and forestry.The UPOV Convention has five main functions. First, it sets the standard rules for the grant of protection (novelty, distinctive, uniformity, stability and appropriate denomination). Secondly, it sets the minimum scope for protection. Thirdly, the Convention provides the minimum period for protection of plant varieties (20 years for plants and 25 years for trees and vines). Fourthly, it provides for the minimum number of plant genera and species whose varieties must be protected. Finally, the convention provides for rules for national treatment and priority, which regulate relations between member States.The UPOV Convention is silent on the subject of traditional knowledge of local communities and genetic resources. However, the Convention does not forbid the granting or creation of rights in respect of traditional knowledge, or categories of plant material which are not plant varieties protected under the UPOV Convention. UPOV member States are free to establish a special system for the purpose of the protection of traditional knowledge so long as it does not conflict with the UPOV Convention.The plant variety protection system under the UPOV Convention has several special features relevant to the protection of the interests of farmers and local communities. The first feature lies in one of the conditions set for granting protection: distinctiveness.A plant variety in order to be protected must among others be distinct. Article 7 of the 1991 Act to the UPOV Convention provides that \"The variety shall be deemed to be distinct if it is clearly distinguishable from any other variety whose existence is a matter of common knowledge at the time of the filling of the application…\" Variety\" is defined in Article 1(vi) of the 1991 Act in such a way that plant groupings which do not satisfy the requirements for protection, e.g. some landraces, may still be varieties which are a matter of common knowledge for distinctness purpose. 44 This means that new varieties that are candidates for protection should be distinct from all other known varieties including those landraces and traditional varieties, as well as commercialized or protected varieties, which meet the definition of Article 1(vi) and have a reasonably fixed identity when reproduced. The UPOV system is designed to ensure that breeders cannot legally seek protection for existing landraces or local varieties as such or for varieties that are not clearly distinguishable from such landraces or local varieties.Secondly, in order to grant and enforce plant variety protection, the physical identity of the variety must be fixed in such a way that material of the variety can be identified as such, for example, in the field or in the seed cleaning plant. If necessary, as a last resort, it must be possible to convince a judge in a court of law that particular plant material is material of a particular protected plant variety. The UPOV Convention analyzes the question of varietal identity into the components of distinctness, sufficient uniformity and stability (Articles 7 to 9 of the 1991 Act). A variety must be distinct from other known varieties in order to be protected. Establishing the distinctness of a variety requires that it be sufficiently uniform in its relevant characteristics to enable a description to be prepared which will distinguish the variety from other varieties of the same species. It seems obvious that once this description is established, the variety must, when reproduced, continue to exhibit these characteristics, that is to say, it must be stable.If its physical characteristics change whenever it is reproduced, it will have no fixed identity to which a 44 Article 1 (vi) of the 1991 Act of the UPOV Convention provides that 'variety' means a plant grouping within a single botanical taxon of the lowest known rank, which grouping, irrespective of whether the conditions for the grant of a plant breeder's right are fully met, can be defined by the expression of characteristics resulting from a given genotype or combination of genotypes; distinguished from any other plant grouping by the expression of at least one of the said characteristics; and, considered as a unit with regard to its stability for being propagated unchanged.legal right can be attached. Uniformity and stability are not, as such, objectives of the UPOV Convention; they are criteria, which are essential to identify the subject matter of protection and to enable its effective enforcement. Some have proposed alternative criteria to distinctness, relative uniformity and stability, such as \"identifiability\" for the protection of plant varieties, especially for categories of plant material other than new varieties protected under the UPOV system. However, such suggestions fail to consider in any detail how varieties are distinguished from each other in practice. Consideration should be given as to whether such alternative approaches can, in practice, effectively fix the identity of the protected material and enable its effective protection. 45 Thirdly, breeder's exemption. In order to ensure the continuity and further development of plant improvement, under the UPOV Convention, a protected variety must be available without restriction, for use by others (other breeders, farmers, local communities etc) as starting material for the development of other new varieties. 46 The breeder of the resulting new plant variety must also be free, with one narrow exception 47 , to market his new variety without payment to the breeder of the protected variety used as the germplasm source.The UPOV concept is that, if the breeder of a variety uses the variety of another breeder as a germplasm source, his own variety should in its turn be freely available. Without this concept, the overall progress in plant breeding and therefore benefits for society will be greatly inhibited. It can be suggested that this needs to be carefully considered for any system of protecting traditional varieties or knowledge. The UPOV system is often contrasted with the patent system in which protected plant material may not be available for use by others as a germplasm source.The UPOV system takes into account the nature of plant breeding and endeavors to balance the interests of breeders/contributors to the improvement of genetic material throughout different generations. This principle of free access to protected varieties can be considered as a form of benefit sharing from 47 The exception is the case of essentially derived varieties.The 1991 Act extends the breeder's right to varieties that are essentially derived from the breeder's variety. The new principle is designed to protect the breeder in circumstances where others make a discrete change in his variety (e.g., the addition of a single gene by genetic engineering) and seek to exploit the changed variety.the utilization of genetic material, which is already available.Fourthly, article 15 (2) of the 1991 Act to the UPOV Convention provides that each Contracting Party may, within reasonable limits and subject to the safeguarding legitimate interests of the breeder restrict the breeder's right in relation to any variety in order to permit farmers to use for propagation purposes, on their own holdings, the protected variety. This article allows member states to, in light of national circumstance, exclude from the breeder's right the saving of part of the harvest of a holding for re-use as seed on the same holding. In this respect member states are free to establish appropriate provisions to balance the interests of both farmers and breeders in light of common practices in the country and national circumstances.Finally, The 1991 Act of the UPOV Convention contains a provision in Article 15(1) which requires States which accede to the 1991 Acts to shelter from the effect of the protection right all acts carried out for private and non-commercial purposes. As a result of this provision all acts with a protected variety of indigenous and local communities for subsistence purposes clearly fall outside the breeder's right.Equally it would seem possible for States, if they so wish, to exclude informal non-commercial seed exchanges between farmers from the effects of the breeder's right under this provision.The establishment of the African Model Legislation for the Protection of The Rights of Local Communities, Farmers and Breeders, and for the Regulation of Access to Biological Resources (\"The African Model Law\" (AML)) was an initiative of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), currently known as the African Union. Developed as a sui generis system, its main aim is to provide members of the African Union with a legal framework for the formulation of a legal instrument relevant to their national interest while providing for the protection of new plant varieties as required by the TRIPS Agreement. The principal objective of the Model Law is to \"ensure the conservation, evaluation and sustainable use of biological resources, including agricultural genetic resources as well as associated traditional knowledge in order to improve their diversity as a means of sustaining the life support systems.\" The AML recognizes \"the rights of local communities over their biological resources, knowledge and technologies that repre sent the very nature of their livelihood systems and that have evolved over gen erations of human history, are of a col lective nature and, there fore, are a priori rights which take precedence over rights based on private interests\". 48 As far as conservation of genetic diversity of landraces on farm by local communities is concerned, the AML contains the following relevant provisions: first, in article 16, the States recognize the rights of communities over, inter alia their biological resources; the right to collectively benefit from the use of their biological resources 49 ; their innovations, practices, knowledge and technologies acquired through generations; and, the right to use their innovations, practices, knowledge and technologies in the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.Secondly, Article 17 provides for the protection of these community rights. This is important because for every right granted in law, protection must be offered 50 .Thirdly, Article 21 provides that local communities shall exercise their inalienable right to access, use, exchange or share their biological resources in sustaining their livelihood systems as regulated by their customary practices and laws, and that no legal barriers shall be placed on the traditional exchange system of the local communities in the exercise of their rights and in other rights that may be provided by the customary practices and laws of the concerned local communities. The right for communities to particularly exchange or share their biological resources is at the heart of conservation and maintenance of plant genetic diversity.Fourth, community intellectual rights are recognized and protected. with rules of practice as found in, and recognized by, the customary practices and laws of the concerned local farming communities, whether such laws are written or not.The AML is soft in nature, meaning that it is intended to provide a model which Africa countries drafting legislation on matters covered by its scope can rely on. Several African countries have relied on the AML in drafting legislation and regulation, particularly that relating to access to genetic resources. An example is Uganda and Ethiopia.The rationale for this process guide is to aid countries in linking up best practices to policies with a view to conserve diversity of landraces, at different community levels. It is based on the assumption that once a community in a country, identifies a best practice and the barrier hindering its widespread amongst other communities, then, the next logical step is to take measures to ensure that the best practice is scaled up. This in return will scale up the conservation of genetic diversity of landraces onfarm.Another assumption made is that the group of persons (or participants) employing this guide do understand what policy is, and are in a position to somehow, influence the policy making process in the community or country otherwise the exercise would be rendered futile. Finally, an assumption is made that during the plenary sufficient awareness is created on the current policies in the country and how they affect conservation. This aids in facilitating debate, especially in phase II step 2 hereinbelow (where participants consider the impact each policy instrument will have in conservation of genetic diversity of landraces on-farm within communities).Essentially, the process of testing this thematic guide is through an exercise, and in phases. The participants in this exercise should include farmers, or at least farmer representatives, as farmers are the ultimate beneficiaries of the formulated policy processes. Annex II provides a list of stationery and other material that is used in the forum where this guide is used, essentially a workshop. • Once all the participants have listed the areas, the next step involves the participants, engaging in a brainstorming session, and with the guidance of a facilitator, clustering the areas written by each participant, into a number of groups 53 . While clustering the areas written by the participants, participants should not criticize what each or the other has written. An approach that what each participant has written is correct should be taken so as to bring out, as wide as possible, those areas that require policy intervention.• Following the above, the facilitator divides the participants into a number of smaller groups, each group having not more than 6-7 participants 54 .• Each group, having been assigned or chosen a cluster area to deliberate, retires for discussions.Prior to commencing individual group discussions, each group must immediately appoint a chair to lead the discussions. The chair also is responsible for reporting the proceedings and the outcome of the discussions at the plenary after the conclusion of the discussions.• Each group is required to approach discussions with regard to the cluster areas that require intervention by taking the following steps:1. Identify the policy instruments that are required in instituting policy in the areas that require intervention. The rationale for this process is for participants to think as broadly as possible, and NOT limit themselves to legislation as the only tool that may be used for intervention. For each area in the cluster that requires intervention, members of the group are required to tabulate their answers following the format given in Annex 1.53 The clustering of the areas is dependent upon the number of groups the participants can form with each group having not more that 6-7 persons to as to ensure maximum participation amongst members of each group.54 While forming the groups, the facilitator should bear in mind that each group should be composed of persons from as diverse professional and experience backgrounds as possible, so that as diverse as possible experiences are brought out in the discussions.Required to Sustain or Scale-Up Best Practices and Developing Mechanisms for their Implementation 2. The next step involves the participants considering the impact each policy instrument will have in conservation of genetic diversity of landraces on-farm within communities.3. The group thereafter considers what windows of opportunity currently, or in the near future, will exists within the country's policy making process that they may be able to influence or take advantage of. It should be borne in mind during this step, that while more windows of opportunity exist during the policy formulation process, they may also exist during policy implementation.4. Who could provide the intervention? This requires the participants in the group to identify those individuals, institutions or organizations that are in charge of the policy making process, the windows of opportunity having been identified.5. The participants thereafter consider how the individuals, institutions or organizations incharge may be influenced in the policy making process so that the areas that require intervention are captured in the policy being formulated.6. The next consideration that the participants make is the time frame that is available, or would be required to effect the policy. The policy instrument or processes to be employed dictate time frames. For example, if say, a bill in parliament is identified as a window of opportunity, then the participants could establish how relevant amendments would be made before the bill becomes law. This would ordinarily take a longer time than say, if the window of opportunity that exists is a public institution that is initiating a project in the relevant area.7. Finally, the participants identify the next immediate steps that they will take either individually or collectively, with a view to achieve the desired goal in putting the policy into effect.• Each group chair presents the results of the group discussions to the plenary in a flip chart.At the end of each presentation, members of each group are asked by the plenary facilitator to make comments on the presentation made by the group chair.• After all the group chairs have made their presentations, the facilitator requests all the participants to deliberate on the priority areas that they would like to follow up from the results listed on \"next steps\". The rationale for prioritizing the next steps is based on the acknowledgement that resources are always limited and the idea here is for participants to come up with realistic steps from which tangible goals will be achieved.• Once the participants agree on the next steps, the facilitator thereafter closes the session.There is without doubt, a pressing need to strengthen best practices that motivate farmers to conserve crop genetic diversity and landraces in particular. One way of strengthening these practices is by linking them to national policies. The practices outlined in this paper have been obtained using research based evidence. The better use of research-based evidence in development policy and practice, it has been stated 55 , can help save lives, reduce poverty, increase food security and improve lives.In this regard, for research to be effective in influencing policy, researchers need to develop a detailed understanding of the policy making process, the nature of the evidence they have, or hope to get, and all the stakeholders involved in the policy arena. 56 By giving a step by step process guide for identifying policy instruments required to sustain or scale-up best practices and developing mechanisms for their implementation, this study is a tool which researchers can use to influence policy. The importance of conserving crop genetic diversity cannot be understated. With nations continuing to recognize the value multilateral systems have in improving food security (for example, the ITPRGFA), and debates of linkages between farmers' knowledge, food security and improved livelihoods continuing, research-based evidence cannot do any better than provide the rationale for conservation.Finally, as this study has shown, research is a very influential tool in policymaking process. Thus a consideration should be made on whether all research conducted ought to have a linking-research-to-policy component. If this was promoted, the perception that researchers and policy makers live in parallel universes would cease, and policy makers would stop bemoaning the inability of many researches being inaccessible and digestible in time for policy decisions. 57 57 Id.The diversity of practices that drive landrace conservation Project Background and SummaryCommunity-based management of onfarm plant genetic resources in semi-arid areas of sub-Saharan AfricaThis IPGRI coordinated project is conducted in semi-arid ecosystems in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Malawi, Uganda and Zimbabwe with implementation support from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and co fi nancing from the Global Environment Facility (GEF).In marginal agricultural areas where modern crop varieties and inputs are less available and less effective, resource-poor farmers continue to use traditional cultivars or landraces to contribute to stable food production and income. The use of varieties adapted to particular microniches is one of the few livelihood strategies available in semi arid areas. Farmers have, over generations, identifi ed, developed and maintained useful genetic diversity within their local agroecosystems as a means to increase or maintain production. However, in the 20 th century a wide range of plant diversity was lost as farmers abandoned their traditional cultivars as a result of pressures from increased population, poverty, land degradation, environmental change and the introduction of modern crop varieties. The project is designed to better understand why farmers -even faced with such pressures -continue to maintain and use some landraces.In general, practices are grouped into management practices that looked at the processes that contribute to the maintenance of landraces on farm, and uses that maintained particular landraces. A practice is linked to at least one landrace and that practice is essential to the survival of a specifi c landrace in a specifi c case study or environment. ","tokenCount":"12306"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"20825187ade4c4e1c12b12a10704549c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/7fdfe9b2-c741-46e9-9e09-07132a47dee1/retrieve","id":"-433557710"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6403a1fe-2773-477c-b56c-bdd917771de0","pagecount":"4","content":"Environments and Institutional Settings: Experience of a Nepalese NGO A. Subedi, K.D. Joshi, R.B. Rana, and M. Subedi Abstraet This paper provides 3n overview of participatory plant-breeding (PPB) programs implomented by LI-BIRD in different environments and institutional settings in an attemp! to address vanous breeding goals, sueh as productivíty increase, researeh efficieney, bíodiversity eohancement and on-farm conservation, users' needs, capacity building, and policy changes. II draws lessons from lhese expenences and raises sorne conceros abou! strengthening PPB in tbe future.In the 19608 and '70s, sorne developing countries saw a profound impact on crop productíon from plant breeding. Modern varietíes developed from the breeding programs were seen as one of the main ways to achieve food security. Based on these experiences and research strategies, formal research systems in developing countries were gradually strengthened according to the Green-Revolution model and supported infrastructure, human-resource development, and finance. Several technologies (based on external inputs) were generated, aimed maínly at wider adaptabílíty and uniformíty and for high-production environments. However, it gradually becarne evídent tha! adoption of these teehnologies by the farming communities has been low. For the vast majority of small-scale farmers, living particularly in marginal and heterogeneous production environments, the benefits from these technologies have not been realízed. At the same time, their needs and problems have not been appropriately addressed. On the other hand, a large nnmber of farmers have been dependant on their own skills and knowledge as well as resources to improve their crops to suit their own environments and resource base. This proce5S oflocal crop developrnent i5 still an important institution of crop breeding in most marginal environments (Hardon and Boef 1993). This again has to be fully recogruzed if efficíency in crop breeding i5 lo be improved.In realízation of these concerns, therefore, sorne researchers moved ínto participatory plant breeding (PPB) and used their own approaches and methodological processes as they worked without any institutional support (Hardon 1996). However, the usefulness ofPPB is yet lo be realized. It is being considered parallel to and competing for resources with the conventional breeding systern. This view may be because ofthe lack ofrealization that it is complementary, the lack of enough empirical evidence lo dernonstrate the advantages of PPB, and the lack of opportunities for interested researchers 10 work in participatory approaches to strengthen farming communities in local crop development. However, this is now changing since the number of researchers and institutions involved in participatory plant breeding i8 growing-70 cases have already been recorded (Sperling 2000). Particípatory Plant Breeding in Diverse Produclion Environments an<!lnslitulionpl\"Se\"'t\"\"tin\"'g\"'s _______ _In Nepal, consultatíve PPB 2 was used in breeding hígh-altitude rice. The decentralízed testing of cold-tolerant riee was ínitíated in 1985 by Lumle Agricultural Research Centre (LARC) in the village ofChhomrong (2200 m). This later evolved into a consultative PPB activity, leading to collaborative PPB whíle developing a white peri-carped rice variety (Sthapit, Joshí, and Witcombe 1996;Sthapit and Subedi 2000;Witcombe et al. 1996). In this process, farmers were consulted for developing furmer-preferred, cold-tolerant rice varietíes resistant to sheath brown-rot dísease (ShBR).3 Startíng with the monitoring ofthe spread ofPPB products, LI-BIRD has undertaken several programs using approaehes based on participatory varietal se\\ection (PYS) and PPB in different production and ínstitutional envíronmenls.This paper provídes an overview ofPPB programs implemented by LI-BIRD in different productíon environments and institutional settings. It then draws upon sorne lessons from these experiences. The PPB cases diseussed here attempt lo address various breedíng goals, such as increasíng productívíty and research efficíency, enhancing bíodiversity and on-farm conservation, and recognizing users' needs, capacity building, and políey changes.PPB and production environments PPB, by definitíon, assumes decentralízed testing and evaluation in various productíon envíronments. Successful PPB case studies have ofien been reported from marginal envíronments (PRGA 1999;Ceccarellí, Grando, and Booth 1996;Sperling and Scheidegger 1996;Sthapít, Joshí, and Witcombe 1996). Consequently, it ís widely perceíved that PPB is useful only in marginal envíronments rather than in favorable envítonments. However, Hardon (1996) argues that farmers in better-endowed envíronments may also benefit from particípatory plant breedíng, for sorne of the same reasons as in margínal environments. In recent years, therefore, a large number of PPB prograrns are being initiated in íntermediate areas where agroclimatic stresses are less severe (WeltzienlSmith, Meitmer, and Sperling 1999). In thís context, LI-BIRD is one ofthe píoneering Ínstitutions to undertake PPB programs in diverse envítonments, including hígh-potentíaI productíon systems (HPPS). Figure 1 shows the distribution ofLI-BIRD's PPB projects (including PYS) across market and bíophysical environments.It is often assuroed that hígh-potential production systems are uniform, more market-oriented, and well served by formal researchJor technological options and that, therefore, there is no need for participatory crop ímprovement. The preliminary findings from four PPB projects implemented ín areas representing cornmercial and hígh-production systems indicate that there are diverse ruche conditions withín HPPS that need different locally adapted varieties, with different users' preferences (Joshí et al. 1998;Joshí et al. 1999a;Rana et al. 1999). Participatory methods such as PVS and infonnal research and development (IRD) have also been found effectíve (DTZ Peida 1999;Joshí et al. 1997).2, 11Iere seem to be different definítions of PPB, In ils broadest sense, PPB ranges from decentraliud breeding controlled by pIant breeders to vmous degrees of farmer involvement in the breedlng process (Hardan 1996), PPB ineludes both PVS and PPB, PVS is the selection of flXed lines in !he target environment by fanners using their own seleclÍon eritena (Joslú and Witcombe 1996), PPB is the selection of segregating materials by farmers in the target environment (Wilcombe et al. 1996;5th.pit, Joshi. and Witcombe 1996), According 10 PROA (1999), PPB iocludes notjust the actual mixing ofplant genes to produce new traíts but all !he joint efforts of farmers and traÍned researchers to improve and move germplasm into the field.disease is caused by Pseudomonas fuscovaginae. Inereasing productívity ís obviously an important breeding goal. Beyond this, PPB is aimed al achieving other goals, such as improving research efficiency, addressíng diverse users' needs, enhaneing agrobiodiversity, building local eapacity in local crop development and on-farm conservation, and influencing poliey changes for farmer involvement in formal breeding processes. LI-BIRD's PPB projects have also been aimed at achieving most of these goals through speeific breeding objectives (table 1).PPB assumes that the partícipation ofprimary stakeholders (i.e., farmers) is beneficial for farmers, themselves. Different PPB programs include varying degrees of participation of researchers and farmers (PRGA 1999;Ceecarelli, Grando, and Booth 1996;Sperling, Loevinsohn, and Ntabomvra 1993;Sperling 2000;Sthapit, Joshi, and Witcombe 1996;Subedi, Rana, and Joshi 1997;Subedi and Joshi 1998;Witcombe et aL 1996). But mode ofparticipation, as defined by Biggs (1989), may vary according to the stages of the PPB process: setting breeding objectives; creating or providing variabiliry, selection and evaluatíon within and between populations; and dissemination (Sthapit ","tokenCount":"1105"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1b5b5bc3c343343fa1e9dae9844965e3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/06038064-f445-4ef6-b7cf-c27355ec1169/retrieve","id":"469881594"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"04d29aa8-3012-40bd-bd6c-2c7740963d91","pagecount":"26","content":"Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above. The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used.Editing, design and layout-ODK-Collect is a phone-based replacement for paper forms that is built on the android platform. When using the ODK, users need to understand and adhere to basic principles of designing and implementing surveys and the collection of continuous monitoring data. Details on general installation and use of ODK-Collect are available at Using ODK Collect.This monitoring tool in ODK has been designed to transmit data electronically directly to a centralized database managed by ILRI on behalf of MALFC. Within the tool there are separate modules to enable fast and accurate collection of interrelated information on animals being monitored and requisite management practices implemented. Guidance has been provided on relevant constraints, anticipated range of data values to incorporate, and where necessary, choices for the variables in different sections of the tool.The data collected is linked to specific activities. These include:1. RegistrationMonitoring performanceMonitoring management practices1 RegistrationPastoralists in targeted communities who are willing to participate in the RPLRP project are required to provide their consent. This is done following interactions with the community (Core innovation groups) 1 through which objectives of the interventions and anticipated outcomes are outlined. The consent form that is signed by each participant is presented in Appendix 1.Households selected to participate in the monitoring activities need to be rearing sheep and/or goats, and belong to community-based Core Innovation Groups (CIGs). During registration, the livestock keepers provide information as illustrated in Figure 1. ii. Each registered livestock keeper is allocated a unique identification (ID) number in the system before their animals can be registered. The ID given can be easily related to a specific location for future reference.Once a livestock keeper has been registered, information on the characteristics of their household is obtained. The demographic data includes details related to members belonging to the household. Individuals who are present in a household for less than three months are not considered members of that household. Information collected on household composition provides an indication of how many people would be affected by the planned intervention.Following registration of the livestock keeper, the animals of interest that belong to the household are registered in the database. It would be desirable to have all the animals owned by the pastoralist household registered. However, the owner is permitted to determine which animals should be registered for monitoring.Each animal registered must have a unique identification. They can be identified using:i. a plastic ear tag with an electronically bar-coded or with an alfa-numeric label.ii. a radio frequency identification (RFID) microchip.At registration, the following information is obtained on the animal: its species, breed, dentition, sex, date of birth (if not a specific date, then the month and year are adequate), type of birth, body measurements, coat colour, and its parents as illustrated in Figures 2 and 3. ii. Even if an animal is sold or moved to a different owner, it will retain its original identification and related information within the database.iii. Feedback is provided to the pastoralist based on the information obtained on animals that are registered.iv. When only a sample of animals in the flocks are selected for monitoring, pick animals in the following categories:• Mature females that have never been bred and are ready for breeding• Ewes/does that have been previously bred and are less than 4 years old• New lambs/kids born to any female animal being monitored• Rams/bucks used for breeding in the flocks v. All lambs/kids born to registered animals are included in the database. Information collected on animals when born:• Parents of lamb/kid• Date of birth• Weight at birth• Type of birth (whether single or twins).It is important to monitor the performance of animals in a flock. This will help determine those that should parent the next generation, and will enable producers ensure that desired traits are maintained in the flock. Over time, many pastoral flocks have been negatively affected by the practice of 'selling off the fastest growing animals'. These animals tend to reach a desirable market weight earlier, hence are sold to generate cash. The practice has resulted in pastoral flocks retaining animals that are smaller in size and take a longer time to reach market weight. Through objective measurements, monitoring reproduction and selection of future parents at an early age, it is anticipated that communities will adopt good practices and in the long term improve the productivity of their flocks.Registered animals are monitored at regular intervals and their weight and body condition recorded. Due to the mobility of pastoral flocks and challenges in regularly accessing the animals, monitoring of mature animals should be implemented at least once every three months. Younger animals that tend to be grazed in closer proximity to the community living quarters may be monitored more regularly during the first year of their lives. However, this should take into consideration the availability of personnel to document the information. Any measurement on animals should be undertaken together with the pastoral household that owns the animals.Data related to growth performance of the animals is documented as illustrated in Figure 4. Fertility in female animals is critical to flock productivity. In pastoral systems, female animals that lamb/ kid with ease and have good mothering ability are desirable. Due to the harsh conditions in arid lands, most pastoralists indicate that female animals lamb/kid once a year. It would be desirable if they could achieve up to THREE lambings/kiddings in two years; however, this would require greatly improved availability of feed resources. The lambing/kidding rates in the flocks greatly depend on the body condition of the animals.Selection of male animals to use in the flocks, and the matching of which males to use on which females is outlined in the training module 3-Act 2 . Information to be noted when monitoring fertility of female animals in the flocks is illustrated in Figure 5.Figure 5. Details captured on fertility in female animalsData is captured on any animals that may have been disposed of for any reason. Animals generally exit the pastoral flocks through sale, death, predators, socio-cultural events or as gifts to other livestock keepers. Dates and reasons for animals leaving the flocks should be recorded. If other data on the animals is accurate, then through the database information on the age at disposal and the weights of the animals disposed can be calculated. When animals are sold, livestock keepers should be encouraged to document the weight of the animal during the sale, and the price at which each animal was sold as illustrated in Figure 6. Good livestock management requires an understanding of the well-being of the animals. Poor body condition and diseases have a negative impact on productivity. Gaps are often found in the provision of animal health services and availability of inputs for disease control. In this section, information is obtained on various measures used to control diseases and the animal health services available through different service providers. Pastoralists are also asked to give an indication of the reliability and cost of each service depending on the service providers available (Figure 7). To get an indication of the grazing resources available, pastoralists are asked to provide information on the feeding system and quality of feeds available at the time of monitoring (Figure 8). This information, alongside data on rainfall patterns in the course of the year, is used to document seasonal differences in pasture availability for sheep and goat production.Figure 8. Details captured on grazing practices adopted for the flocksLack of water is a critical constraint in arid lands. In monitoring flock productivity, it is important to understand the main sources of water available for the community, and whether or not the water is used for both domestic consumption and animal production. It is also important to understand seasonality in availability of the water. This information is very useful in planning interventions to help mitigate the harsh environmental conditions in arid areas.   Recording dates, time, images and GPS coordinatesThe ODK tools enable easy documentation of dates and times. This is through different options as illustrated below.i.To record the date and/or time for an event, use the options 'select date' or 'select time' as illustrated in Figure 12. Figure 12. Example of options for selecting the date and time of an event ii.Images: The photograph of an animal can be taken directly within the ODK tool or using the camera on the device used for data capture and later uploading images onto the tool (Figure 13). This is then sent to the database.   We would like to help improve the productivity of livestock in pastoral communities. This is through engaging with you a community member belonging to a Core Innovation Group (CIG) introduced at the start of the project.The livestock improvement activities will take place during the course of the RPLRP project and should continue within the community supported by extension personnel from MALFC when the project ends. As a CIG member, we now request you to begin to monitor the performance of sheep and goats within your flock. The project team will strive to provide regular feedback on the progress of your flock. It is our hope that the feedback will help you improve your management practices and hence the productivity of your sheep and goats.Any personal information that we collect about you as part of this activity will be kept confidential. Only the researchers in this project will have access to it. The knowledge that we obtain from implementing this project will be shared through community meetings before it is made widely available, both within and outside Africa, to help understand the impacts of changing practices in sheep and goat production under pastoral systems. Participation in this research is entirely voluntary, and refusal to participate will not result in a penalty or a loss of benefits to which as a CIG member you are otherwise entitled. As reflected when you became a CIG member, you may discontinue participation at any time. No risks are anticipated in this study, except for your time undertaking monitoring actions of your flock.I have read the foregoing information, or it has been read or translated to me. I have had the opportunity to ask questions about it, and any questions that I have asked have been answered to my satisfaction. I consent voluntarily to participate in this project.Signature/thumb print ______________________________Signature ______________________________","tokenCount":"1750"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e20abf881bb4a6ea3574874b5c65007d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c90aa6c5-9e21-40c7-852c-5012b8a52754/retrieve","id":"1797422384"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"bb7e61e0-54b2-438d-85df-b80f35a099a3","pagecount":"18","content":"Le CTA est à la disposition des Etats ACP pour leur permettre un meilleur accès à l'information, à la recherche, et à la formation, ainsi qu'aux informations dans le secteur du développement agricole et rural et de la vulgarisation.Cette leçon s'attache à bien définir le langage utilisé par la suite. Il s'agit de s'entendre sur le sens de certains termes tels que agriculture pluviale, cultures irriguées, cycles pluviométriques, etc.L'agriculture pluviale ou agriculture sous pluie dépend entièrement des pluies. Elle est tributaire du calendrier des pluies et de la répartition de celles-ci au cours des saisons pluvieuses.On parle aussi de cultures de plateau ou de cultures sèches pour caractériser ce type d'agriculture.Dans certaines régions, l'agriculture pluviale est pratiquée en un seul cycle cultural, dans d'autres, deux cycles de culture sont possibles.Dans le premier cas, il n'y a qu'une seule saison pluvieuse et une seule saison sèche dans l'année; le calendrier est dit unimodal. Plus on s'approche des tropiques (Cancer ou Capricorne), plus la saison pluvieuse est courte. Cela signifie qu'on ne peut semer les espèces saisonnières qu'une seule fois dans l'année et qu'elles doivent avoir terminé de produire au moment où les sols se dessèchent.Dans ce type de climat, le nombre d'espèces, cultivées ou non, qui arrivent à subsister durant les saisons sèches est d'autant plus réduit que les saisons sèches sont longues et les saisons pluvieuses incertaines.Dans d'autres régions, il y a deux saisons des pluies et deux saisons sèches d'inégales importances. On parle de grandes ou de petites saisons sèches ou pluvieuses, sans que ces termes, ne revêtent un caractère très précis. Le calendrier des pluies est bimodal et les cultivateurs peuvent pratiquer deux cycles de cultures saisonnières.Cela signifie que les cultivateurs peuvent ensemencer ou planter à deux périodes de l'année, par exemple en avril et en septembre. Si les espèces semées ont un cycle de production court, on disposera sur une même parcelle de deux récoltes successives dans l'année (maïs, sorgho, haricot, riz, gombo,...), alors que si les cycles de production sont de plus de six mois (ignames, taros, manioc,...), une parcelle déterminée ne pourra pas être ensemencée plus d'une fois dans le courant de l'année.Ce qui caractérise les régions à pluviosité bimodale, c'est la possibilité qu'ont de nombreuses plantes de poursuivre leur vie sans discontinuer durant toute l'année. Le bananier, le poivrier, les colocases, franchiront sans trop de difficultés les deux saisons sèches d'une région à pluviométrie bimodale, alors qu'ils ne pourraient pas franchir la saison sèche prolongée d'une région à pluviosité unimodale.Le fait d'une pluviosité bimodale est particulièrement intéressant pour l'agriculture. Il explique la luxuriance de certaines régions tropicales et équatoriales. Il permet dans bien des cas d'étaler les périodes de semis et de plantation dans l'année et de décaler certains cycles culturaux en fonction des disponibilités de main d'oeuvre.Dans le centre-ouest de la Côte d'Ivoire, le climat est bimodal. Un très grand nombre d'espèces saisonnières, plurisaisonnières et pérennes peuvent y être cultivées: le riz, le maïs, l'arachide, la patate, le gombo, l'igname, le manioc, le bananier, le palmier, le caféier, le palmier, le cacaoyer et bien d'autres espèces agricoles (photo 9). Les parcelles que l'on voit sur la photo 10 sont cultivées une fois par an, dans un système de rotation qui fait se succéder, en association ou en culture pure, le sorgho, le niébé, l'arachide et de courtes jachères.Irriguer veut dire arroser artificiellement la terre et les plantes. Si les cultures pluviales dépendent entièrement des pluies, les cultures irriguées bénéficient d'arrosages organisés par l'homme, au moyen de conduites d'eau, de canaux, de réservoirs, de pompes, etc.On parle d'irrigation totale lorsque les besoins en eau de la culture sont satisfaits par l'irrigant sans discontinuer, d'un bout à l'autre du cycle cultural. On parle d'irrigation d'appoint lorsque l'arrosage artificiel vient seulement suppléer l'arrosage par les pluies, lorsque celui-ci est déficient ou insuffisant.On distingue deux grands modes d'irrigation. Le plus courant est l'irrigation par gravité qui imite l'écoulement naturel des, eaux à la surface de la terre. Le second est l'irrigation par aspersion qui projette l'eau en l'air pour la laisser retomber sur les cultures, sous forme de pluie.Les aménagements et les équipements d'irrigation vont du plus simple au plus complexe comme le montrent les exemples qui suivent.Voici un jardin irrigué à partir d'un puits peu profond (photo 11). L'eau extraite du puits est déversée dans une citerne. Lé jardin est arrosé au moyen d'arrosoirs transportés à la main. Durant la saison pluvieuse, on n'arrose les plantes que lorsque les pluies font défaut plusieurs jours de suite. Les semis bénéficient de soins plus attentifs. jardin avec citernes au Burkina Faso Lorsque survient la saison sèche, on peut encore arroser quelques semaines avec l'eau du puits, mais celui-ci finit par tarir et le jardinage prend fin jusqu'au retour des pluies. Seuls subsistent les arbres fruitiers capables de résister à la sécheresse durant plusieurs mois. L'équipement utilisé dans ce jardin est simple et peu coûteux. Il s'agit principalement de faire l'appoint d'eau lorsque l'état des cultures, l'exige.Sur la photo 12, nous voyons un périmètre irrigué au Burkina Faso. A droite, apparaissent les casiers ou bassins dans lesquels est pratiquée la riziculture. Au fond, on aperçoit le barrage en terre et son déversoir qui permettent de constituer une réserve d'eau très importante. Le canal d'amenée d'eau est visible à gauche. C'est par lui que passe l'eau qui va être distribuée dans les différents casiers de culture. L'eau est amenée à proximité des parcelles par écoulement naturel (ou gravité), la canalisation principale étant en pente légère. Puis, elle est conduite sur ces parcelles qui peuvent être disposées soit en terrasses, soit en casiers. (leçon 43) Les investissements réalisés dans ce périmètre pour contrôler la fourniture d'eau sont importants. Les résultats sont à la mesure de cette importance: dans cette région où l'agriculture pluviale permet de cultiver un cycle de mil ou de sorgho avec une production de 800 à 1200 kilos de grains par hectare, parfois moins, l'aménagement a permis de produire du riz deux fois par an et d'obtenir de 4000 à 5000 kilos de paddy à l'hectare.L'efficacité d'un système d'irrigation ne dépend pas nécessairement du niveau d'investissement consenti. Il existe d'immenses périmètres irrigués établis à coup de milliards dont l'efficacité est très faible et les coûts de fonctionnement très élevés. D'autres périmètres plus restreints et ne bénéficiant que d'équipements minima donnent parfois des résultats supérieurs.La possibilité d'irriguer dépend de la réserve d'eau disponible. Lorsqu'on dispose d'une rivière ou d'un lac permanent, l'irrigation est possible durant toute l'année, du moins si d'autres facteurs que l'eau ne viennent pas limiter la culture. Mais, dans bien des cas, les réserves ne sont pas permanentes. Elles évoluent dans le temps en fonction de la pluviométrie du lieu même ou de régions plus lointaines et de l'état de l'environnement: par exemple; l'état de la couverture végétale sur le bassin versant alimentant une rivière.Lorsque l'eau est disponible toute l'année, on peut pratiquer successivement plusieurs cycles de cultures par an et \"gommer\" les calendriers pluviaux. On dit alors pouvoir réaliser 2 ou 3 cycles de culture par an. périmètre rizicole Lorsque les ressources en eau sont périodiques, elles peuvent être utilisées de plusieurs façons:• comme appoint au cours d'une saison pluvieuse, aux moments où les plantes risquent de souffrir d'un manque d'eau;• comme appoint pour prolonger l'arrosage naturel par les pluies, au début d'une saison sèche, et permettre l'achèvement correct d'un cycle de culture commencé durant la saison pluvieuse;• pour arroser durant une saison sèche. Dans ce dernier cas, l'irrigation permet de réaliser des cultures de saison sèche ou cultures de contre-saison. Il faut évidemment s'assurer de ce que les réserves d'eau soient suffisantes durant toute la saison sèche. L'efficacité de l'agriculture irriguée se mesure à plusieurs niveaux:• celui du rendement de la terre. Des cultures correctement irriguées auront toujours un meilleur rendement que celles qui souffriraient de pénurie aux moment cruciaux de leur cycle végétatif;• celui du rendement du travail, c'est à dire de ce que rapporte chaque journée de travail;• celui de l'étalement des travaux et de l'emploi rural. Dans bien des cas, l'irrigation permet d'occuper la main-d'oeuvre durant de plus longues périodes. Par exemple, sur le périmètre de la photo 12, les travailleurs sont entièrement occupés entre 7 et 8 mois par an. Avant l'aménagement, l'emploi se limitait aux 4 mois de la saison pluvieuse. Ils étaient donc amenés à émigrer vers les villes à la recherche d'emplois non agricoles durant les périodes creuses de l'activité agricole;• celui du risque agricole. Bien irriguées, les cultures ne subissent pas les hasards de la pluviométrie;• celui de la rentabilité financière.On parle de cultures inondées dès lors que les plantes sont amenées à pousser les pieds dans l'eau durant des phases prolongées de leur cycle végétatif. Peu de plantes supportent l'inondation prolongée. C'est pourquoi ces termes s'appliquent généralement à la culture du riz dont un grand nombre de variétés profitent bien de l'inondation.L'inondation peut être naturelle ou artificielle, contrôlée ou non, selon les circonstances locales. Dans le périmètre de la photo 12, l'inondation est contrôlée. On y a délimité des casiers de 20 à 50 ares, entourés de diguettes. La terre des casiers a été aplanie. Lorsqu'on ouvre les rigoles d'entrée des casiers, on peuty déposer une couche d'eau bien définie ou lame d'eau, puis refermer les rigoles. Diverses variétés de riz sont semées sur les terres du village que l'on voit au centre de la photo. Riz flottant croissant au rythme de la montée des eaux dans les parties inondées durant plusieurs semaines et dont les tiges croissent jusqu'à 2 ou 3 mètres de long; riz Inondé sur les parcelles où la nappe d'eau est peu épaisse et fluctuante; riz de décrue dans les endroits que l'eau atteint moins fréquemment et d'où elle se retire assez rapidement.La photo montre nettement les légères différences de relief. On y voit en bas, à gauche, des bas-fonds dans lesquels l'eau se maintient plusieurs semaines après la décrue du fleuve. L'agriculture inondée de cette zone présente les caractéristiques suivantes:• elle profite des inondations naturelles du fleuve;• les eaux débordantes amènent avec elles des argiles et des limons qui enrichissent les parcelles inondées;• les inondations dépendent du régime hydraulique du fleuve qui lui-même dépend de la pluviosité dans les hautes vallées et de l'état de la couverture végétale des versants;• l'humidité des terres de cultures ne dépend pas uniquement de l'inondation. Celles-ci bénéficient également de l'eau de pluie qu'elles reçoivent directement;• une partie des terres inondées lors des crues peut être exploitée en cultures de décrue (voir ci-dessous), en particulier dans les mares comme celle de la photo 14, dans lesquelles de l'eau se maintient entre deux et quatre mois après la fin de la saison pluvieuse. L'agriculture de décrue se pratique au moment où les eaux se retirent après une période d'inondation. Elle cherche à profiter des réserves en eau du sol constituées suite à l'inondation. Elle se déroule donc toujours en fin de saison pluvieuse.Le cultivateur malien de la photo 15 pratique l'agriculture de décrue sur les bords d'une mare. Chaque jour, il laboure la portion de terre délaissée par l'eau, la veille. Il y sème diverses espèces à cycle de vie court.Les premières parcelles qui sont les plus élevées produisent aussi les premières. Les plantes y consomment l'eau emmagasinée dans le sol. Il faut cependant que les plantes semées aient des cycles végétatifs assez courts puisque les réserves d'eau du sol ne seront pas ou peu remplacées avant l'achèvement de leur cycle végétatif.La photo 16 montre une berge du fleuve Sénégal cultivée en décrue. Les graines ont été plantées dans des trous profonds de 20 cm afin que les plantes développent leurs racines en profondeur et profitent le plus longtemps possible de l'humidité accumulée sous la berge.Les bas-fonds et les berges inondés naturellement par des crues peuvent parfois être aménagés en vue du contrôle des inondations. L'importance des investissements à consentir dépend de la configuration topographique et du degré de contrôle recherché.Le mot drainage est utilisé dans deux significations différentes.• Drainage désigne le mouvement de l'eau qui quitte un volume de sol déterminé. C'est un mouvement naturel qui se fait selon les règles de la gravité, à travers les pores du sol et du sous-sol, vers le bas.• Le mot est aussi utilisé pour désigner l'action de l'homme consistant à favoriser l'échappement de l'eau excédentaire dans ses terres de cultures.En période pluvieuse, l'eau s'accumule dans certains bas-fonds à tel point qu'il n'est pas possible d'y cultiver. Soit parce que l'eau stagne au-dessus de la surface du sol pendant de longues périodes, soit parce que la terre argileuse ou limoneuse contient trop d'eau et que les racines des plantes cultivées y dépérissent, faute d'air.Le drainage consiste alors à créer des passages (appelés drains) qui permettent à l'eau de quitter la couche arable. On en trouve un exemple sur la photo 17. A l'avant, on voit une longue rigole appelée collecteur principal destinée à recevoir les eaux excédentaires des parcelles cultivées avoisinantes. Sur la gauche de la photo, on distingue les planches de culture séparées entre elles par des drains. Lorsqu'il pleut, le bas-fond est inondé, mais les planches de culture émergent et l'eau excédentaire s'écoule des drains vers le collecteur.Il existe de nombreuses pratiques de drainage qui toutes ont pour but de se débarrasser des eaux excédentaires en les faisant circuler dans des canalisations situées à l'air libre ou placées en terre.Cette première leçon nous a permis d'approcher les modes de culture en relation avec l'économie générale de l'eau. Elle situe le contenu des parties qui vont suivre. Elle nous permet aussi de porter un regard sur la diversité des situations rencontrées en agriculture.La leçon 2 précise les formes dans lesquelles l'eau se présente sur nos terroirs et nous conduit à faire l'analyse des ressources disponibles.Les états de l'eau L'eau prend trois formes distinctes: elle est liquide, gazeuse ou solide. 'Dans chacun de ces états, elle a des comportements différents.• L'eau liquide est celle qu'on connaît le mieux. On la voit, on la boit, on la capte dans des récipients, on l'utilise pour se laver.• La vapeur d'eau est plus difficile à percevoir. On la voit s'échapper des récipients d'eau en ébullition et disparaître aussitôt, diluée dans l'air. L'air que nous respirons est plus ou moins chargé de vapeur d'eau, sans qu'on s'en rende toujours bien compte, et notre haleine en contient.La vapeur d'eau contenue dans l'air joue un rôle essentiel dans la vie des plantes, des animaux et de l'homme.• Lorsqu'il fait très froid, l'eau se transforme en glace, elle devient solide et acquiert certaines caractéristiques de la pierre. Parfois, la pluie se transforme en grêle. Les grelons sont des gouttes de pluie congelées dans la hauteur du ciel. S'il est fréquent sous les tropiques de trouver de la glace dans les réfrigérateurs, il est plus rare d'en trouver dans la nature, à part sur quelques montagnes très élevées.Ce sont les états liquides et gazeux de l'eau qui vont nous intéresser par la suite: nous parlerons de la liquéfaction ou de l'évaporation mais pas de la congélation de l'eau ni de la fusion de la glace.Dans la nature, l'eau passe constamment d'un état à l'autre. Ces transformations participent grandement à la détermination des climats mais elles sont elles-mêmes conditionnées par d'autres éléments tels que la température de l'air ou du sol, la pression atmosphérique, etc.• la transformation de l'eau liquide en vapeur s'appelle évaporation;• inversement, on parle de liquéfaction ou encore de condensation lorsque la vapeur d'eau se transforme en eau liquide;• la congélation est la transformation de l'eau liquide en glace. Elle se fait à une température inférieure à 0 degrés centigrades.Un premier pas dans l'observation concrète est de repérer où se trouve l'eau du terroir étudié et sous quelle forme.Dans ce livre, nous utiliserons le mot terroir pour désigner l'ensemble des terres d'un village, d'une ferme, ou éventuellement d'une zone agraire. Il s'agit d'un terme général. D'autres termes seront utilisés pour caractériser des entités plus précises: le champ, la parcelle, le volume de sol, etc.• Les eaux de surface sont celles qu'on voit dans les étangs, les lacs, les rivières et la mer. On distingue les eaux de ruissellement, qui se déplacent plus ou moins rapidement, des eaux stagnantes accumulées dans un endroit particulier, tel qu'une mare, un lac, une flaque, etc.Par expérience, nous savons que les unes et les autres n'ont pas les mêmes qualités. Les eaux de ruissellement, par exemple, sont chargées de limon. Elles contiennent aussi plus d'air (oxygène) et les poissons qui y vivent diffèrent de ceux qu'on trouve dans les eaux stagnantes. Ces dernières sont souvent moins aérées; il s'y développe des plantes aquatiques, des algues et des organismes différents de ceux qu'on trouve dans les eaux ruisselantes.La qualité des eaux de surface, plus ou moins acides, plus ou moins chargées de particules de terre ou de sel, est souvent un élément important pour le cultivateur, le pisciculteur ou le buveur.• Les eaux souterraines sont celles qu'on trouve sous la surface du sol, à l'état liquide ou gazeux. Elles peuvent, elles aussi, être en mouvement entre les grains de sol et de sous-sol. Lorsqu'il y a accumulation à une certaine profondeur, on parle de nappes d'eau souterraines. Certaines d'entre elles sont proches de la surface et leur niveau fluctue largement en fonction des pluies tombant dans la région. On les appelle nappes phréatiques. D'autres, appelées nappes géologiques, se situent à plus grande profondeur. Les pluies régionales ne les font que très peu fluctuer, et très lentement.Lorsqu'on creuse un puits ou un forage jusqu'à atteindre une nappe, l'eau s'y écoule et peut y être puisée. Dans ce cas, l'eau qui circule entre les particules de soi est appelée eau libre, par opposition à l'eau fixée ou captive qui est retenue par les particules de sol ou entre elles (leçon 5).Les nappes d'eaux souterraines sont constituées par infiltration des eaux de surface. Dans le sol, l'eau d'infiltration se déplace de haut en bas et latéralement. Elle peut être fixée à certains endroits de l'espace souterrain et circuler facilement à d'autres. Cela dépend de la porosité du sol. Le mot pore caractérise l'espace qui reste vide entre les grains de sol accumulés. Plus l'espace est grand, plus grande est la porosité. Plus l'espace entre les grains de sol ou les blocs de roche est large (grande porosité), plus rapide est l'infiltration. Si l'espace est très réduit (faible porosité), la circulation de l'eau est très ralentie ou nulle.Outre l'eau liquide, on trouve dans le sol de la vapeur d'eau. Elle occupe les pores entre les grains et les blocs de sol ou de sous-sol.La température du sol, et en particulier celle des quelques premiers centimètres, est un facteur important car elle détermine l'état de l'eau qui s'y trouve.On ne peut voir ce qui se passe dans le sol sauf si on dispose d'équipements particuliers, maison peut imaginer que l'eau qui s'infiltre dans le sol évolue, se déplace, s'écoule, s'arrête contre des obstacles, s'évapore, se reliquéfie, se fixe, se détache,... exactement comme elle le fait dans l'espace aérien.• L'eau biomassique est celle qui est contenue dans la biomasse. La biomasse est la masse de matière vivante, organisée en cellules, qu'on trouve sur une terre. Elle est composée de végétaux, d'animaux ou de micro-organismes. Le jus de citron, le vin de palme, le sang, sont typiquement de l'eau biomassique.Le stock d'eau biomassique d'un terroir fluctue constamment au cours des saisons, en raison des pluies, de l'évaporation, de la température, etc. mais surtout en relation avec le développement de la végétation.Nous verrons qu'il existe des échanges constants entre le stock d'eau biomassique d'une terre et les espaces aériens et souterrains qui l'entourent (leçons 17 à 20).Munis de ces quelques définitions, nous pouvons procéder à un premier repérage relatif à l'économie en eau d'un terroir, d'une zone ou d'un bassin versant. Il s'agit de percevoir et de localiser les ressources disponibles, tant sur le plan des stocks que sur celui des mouvements d'eau.Pour cela, il faut avoir bien défini les dimensions de ce qu'on veut observer. On n'analyse pas l'économie en eau d'une parcelle de culture comme on le fait pour le bassin versant d'un petit ruisseau ou d'un grand fleuve, d'un terroir villageois ou d'un échantillon de sol.Le tableau 19 est un aide-mémoire. Certaines des questions qui y sont posées trouveront une réponse précise et quantifiée. D'autres seront peut-être sans réponse et devront faire l'objet de recherche; la suite du livre nous éclairera sur les méthodes permettant d'approfondir l'analyse.Il n'est évidemment pas possible de faire un bilan précis de toutes les ressources en eau d'autant plus qu'elles sont très fluctuantes. L'intérêt de l'analyse, même incomplète, est de se rendre compte où on peut agir: augmenter ou diminuer les eaux souterraines, faire stagner l'eau plutôt que de la laisser ruisseler, augmenter le stock d'eau biomassique, etc. Des observations aussi précises que possible sont nécessaires avant toute action, en sachant que l'économie en eau de chaque lieu est fortement tributaire des lieux avoisinants et parfois même de lieux très lointains. Nous verrons par exemple que les moussons qui tombent sur certaines régions du continent sont des pluies formées par de l'eau évaporée à des centaines de kilomètres de l'endroit où elles tombent.Lorsqu'on a bien observé les faits, on peut chercher à découvrir les interrelations existant entre les diverses ressources en eau du terroir. Voici quelques exemples d'interrelations.La vapeur de l'air se condense dans les nuages qui se transforment en pluie; lorsque la pluie est tombée, il n'y a plus de nuage, mais il y a une augmentation des eaux de surface et des eaux souterraines; de même, l'eau stagnante s'évapore petit à petit dans l'air sous l'effet de la température, ce qui augmente le stock de vapeur d'eau de l'air alors que le stock d'eau de surface diminue.repérage des ressources en eau quelles sont les ressources en eau?• incluse dans les micro-organismes du sol où? quand? comment? où sont les eaux? d'où proviennent-elles ? à quels moments sont-elles présentes? comment fluctuent-elles? quelles sont leurs qualités? dans quels états sont-elles? quelle est leur importance relative? dans quel ensemble vivant: forêt, savane, champ, parc arboré..? L'homme ne peut maîtriser l'ensemble du bilan de l'eau. Il peut toutefois améliorer certains aspects à son profit. L'analyse globale de l'environnement est cependant un préalable à toute action cohérente. A quoi servirait-il d'aménager un terrain pour la culture si on sait que la prochaine inondation viendra détruire l'aménagement. Pourquoi planterait-on des arbres si on n'est pas assuré de leur approvisionnement en eau? Etc.Lorsqu'on veut intervenir pour modifier l'économie en eau d'un terroir, d'un bassin versant, d'une parcelle cultivée ou de toute autre entité topographique, il est nécessaire de se poser d'autres questions encore, afin de bien cerner les problèmes.• L'eau est-elle rare ou abondante? calme ou violente? capricieuse ou pondérée?• Quels sont les flux qu'on observe à l'endroit où l'on veut intervenir et dans son environnement?• Quelles sont les règles et les lois qui président à l'utilisation de l'eau du terroir par les habitants?• Quels types d'agriculture pratique-t-on sur le terroir? Etc.Elle est fugace. Elle est subtile ou violente. Elle est vapeur, liquide ou glace. Elle est indispensable à la vie. C'est l'eau.Comment l'homme peut-il apprivoiser cette matière a la fois si rare et si abondante? Se protéger contre les dégats causés par sa violence? Se prémunir contre la sécheresse ou contre l'inondation? Le ruissellement, l'érosion, le drainage du sol, l'irrigation des cultures sont au coeur de ce livre. Il explique les phénomènes que chacun peut observer: la pluie, l'évaporation, le splash des averses sur le sol et ses effets destructeurs, l'infiltration de l'eau dans les nappes souterraines qui alimentent les puits et les forages, les relations intimes liant les plantes à l'eau du sol et de l'air, et encore bien d'autres phénomènes naturels.Entrer dans la pratique est un autre but de ce manuel. Il se veut accessible à chacun, paysans, cadres moyens ou supérieurs, élèves. Il veut être pédagogiques traitant sous forme de leçons, de figures et d'illustrations photographiques, la multitude des sujets qu'aborde l'enseignant de ces matières.Les exemples servant de base au manuel sont tous choisis en milieu paysan. Rien de ce qui y est décrit n'est hors de sa portée, malgré les difficultés qui peuvent naître parfois de l'explication écrite. ","tokenCount":"4028"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7b2e9bce0c86e95fae7f66b7a7554578","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/11914001-4f64-467c-895e-3ecf5af47f64/retrieve","id":"1570026785"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"917b7da9-1ee5-43e6-ab87-ac1bcd88e919","pagecount":"6","content":"governments and civil society (including donors and the voluntary sector) respond to the bad and the good news? They face priority choices that involve major trade-offs between economic activities. Among these constantly shifting and competing choices, and especially relevant to organizations seeking to intervene through poverty-reducing projects, is a strategy to promote crop farming, small-scale irrigation in particular. This may offer a form of productive diversification for pastoral peoples, especially those who find that their livestock-based production system is no longer viable.The Relevance of Small-scale Irrigation in the Pastoral Regions of the Horn of Africa P astoralism in the Horn of Africa is currently experiencing intensifying pressures resulting from human and herd demographics, environmental change, contested natural resources, livelihood impoverishment and political marginalization. Some of these changes may threaten the very future of pastoralism in modern economies, at least for the poor. On the other hand, new adaptive responses to the challenges facing pastoralists are taking place, particularly with respect to markets. Furthermore, mobile pastoralism is an efficient system of natural resource management in the arid grasslands. How should growing rapidly in number (with accompanying migration and urbanization). Far-reaching land use change reflects unprecedented pressures on the land from livestock, farmers, corporations, and governments, transforming ecosystems and driving degradation in many areas. However, urbanization and international trade are encouraging increasing participation in markets: those for inputs, outputs, land and labor, resulting in the diversification of household livelihoods. Consequently, the investment landscape is changing rapidly as dryland resources are revalued upward and external actors increase their involvement. The dynamics of the human and biological systems thus pose a threat but also offer opportunities, one of which is irrigation for the markets.The droughts of the past decade have helped to focus policy directions in the region, both at the international level and in national policymaking. In general, there is some movement toward a coherent policy toward pastoralism that recognizes the value of the systems rather than seeking to replace them. This is apparent in the African Union's Policy Framework for Pastoralism in Africa and COMESA's Policy Framework for Food Security in Pastoral Areas under Pillar III of the CAADP. IGAD's drought disaster and sustainability initiative supported country planning papers for Ethiopia, Uganda, and Kenya. These statements, which sit within an existing structure of national policies and institutions relating to the agricultural and water sectors, climate and food security programs, vary in tone from more centralized (Ethiopia) to decentralized (Kenya). Kenya has recently enacted its National Policy for the Sustainable Development of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands. Development is the ultimate answer to poverty and hunger in the drylands, but many issues of local ownership, participation, and empowerment remain to be addressed. From the evidence so far reviewed, it is clear, in so far as we may generalize across the huge diversity of East Africa, that among crop agriculture options, only that of small-scale irrigation offers some scope for a transformation of mobile pastoralism, as an alternative to, or complementary with, livestock production. However, while there are considerable potentials for expanding irrigation, these potentials may still not be equal to the task of providing livelihoods for large ex-pastoral populations at improved living standards. The patchy success of many schemes shows that additional investments besides irrigation infrastructure are required, including access to improved seeds (for high-value cultivars), fertilizer and other inputs, training, maintenance services and farmers' marketing organizations (You et al., 2011Headey et al., 2011).Two key questions need asking with respect to smallscale irrigation as a solution to the \"pastoralists' dilemma:\" first, is there scope for expansion of the irrigated area? second, what can be learned from project experience about the economic costs and benefits of small-scale irrigation? At the country level, it suffices to say that abundant potential exists, even in Kenya where 85% of the land area is arid. But, at the ecological level, can this potential meet the needs of pastoral populations? According to calculations, 2.2 million ha of irrigable land, divided equally among a pastoral population of 19.3 million, could provide an average of 0.69 ha per pastoralist household in the Horn of Africa (Sandford, 2013). However, this average hides huge differences between countries (1.25 ha for Ethiopia and 0.23 ha for Kenya). The assumptions must be that the 'pastoral population' will continue to grow, if more slowly, and, if riverine pastures are brought entirely under irrigation, mobile pastoralism as we know it will be mortally wounded.Answering the second question is equally ambivalent, as few analyses have been carried out. Sandford (2013) reports on three 'pastoralistrelated' irrigation schemes in Kenya and Ethiopia, with widely divergent cost levels and output values. He concludes that (excluding the Kenya example, which is in Turkana) 'the level of net benefits that can be achieved on pastoralist-related schemes is broadly compatible with the level of capital costs actually incurred in installing the irrigation systems', provided that any opportunity costs of land and labor are ignored. This may be justified because of the low returns to alternative land uses (i.e., grazing) and non-agricultural use of labor.That small-scale irrigation makes economic sense is confirmed by the vitality of the private sector in such areas as the Wabi Shabelle River and the Mandera Triangle. It is estimated that only 2.4% of irrigable land is under irrigation in the Somali Region of Ethiopia, of which about 70% is under 'traditional' irrigation technologies such as spate irrigation, controlled or uncontrolled flooding, lift irrigation using buckets, and gravity-fed canals.In Kenya, a strong demand for horticultural products (including exports) is driving a 'new frontier' in small-scale irrigation, based on the use of low-cost technologies, wholly or partly made in the country.The technologies include rainwater harvesting, bucket irrigation, gravity' fed sprinkler and drip, treadle and pedal pumps, rope and washer, motorized pumps, wind power, and small earth dams. Purcell (n.d.). Small-scale irrigation uses an estimated 50,000 ha; the total irrigated area is 80,000 ha of a potential area of more than 300,000 ha. The Ministry of Agriculture has a target of 1.2 million acres over 5 years (Daily Nation).Significantly, small-scale irrigators in Kenya raise their own capital from private savings, attracted by good profits. Compared with farm incomes from rainfed land, which average less than US$750/ha, irrigated land can produce two-three crops a year worth US$1,400 (snow peas, French beans), US$450 (kale) or US$600 (onions). Such opportunism among farmers is not new and accords with the findings of local district studies in semiarid Machakos and Makueni districts (Tiffer et al., 1994). It may be noted that the Akamba menfolk were themselves semi-mobile pastoralists before the colonial period. Farming, which consisted of hand-hoeing and shifting cultivation, was undertaken by women.Very little attention is given in macro-scale planning proposals to the legion of issues surrounding smallscale farmers' participation in irrigation schemes.Studies at the project level are infrequent. One exception, a study of crop farming along the Wabe Shebelle River in the Somali Regional State, investigated three of some 18 'asset-building groups' that were set up in an earlier project (USAID, FIC, TU 2010). Each had about 50 farmers with shared pumps. From an examination of scheme performance and intended or actual benefits, it was concluded (disappointingly) that, when compared with pastoralism, small-scale irrigation may not remove risk. Beneficiaries had reverted to individualized operations and preferred the indigenous land-sharing and pump-renting agreements. Instead of helping destitute widows, the scheme was supporting experienced irrigators who had benefited from earlier projects. A great many technical issues were found to impact on performance. Diversity of situations and weak 'ownership' indicate that irrigation should be planned on a case-by-case basis and with full stakeholder participation from design to implementation.Given such complexity, it is unlikely that small-scale irrigation can be effectively expanded by a blue-print at a macro-scale. A guide to planning and managing small-scale irrigation schemes has been provided by FARM-Africa (Carter and Danert, 2006).But where interventions fail, private enterprise seems to flourish. In some major river valleys of the Somali Region, irrigation is already considered to exploit most of the potentially irrigable land, based on small holdings, diesel pumps, hand labor and sub-optimal fertilizer treatments-on a 'low input -low output' basis (Devereux, n.d.). Pastoralists are said to be driven into farming by their declining livestock holdings and by shortages of grazing land. They tend to accord low status to farming. The labor requirements of year-round irrigated farming are not compatible with the needs of mobile pastoralism, except for large families. But many Somalis, nevertheless, have recently negotiated access to irrigable land and water adjacent to the pre existing schemes on the Shebelle River, and the privatization of land for irrigation has led to disputes (Gomes, 2006). Its rising value also attracts speculators and entrepreneurs from the towns. The cultivated area in the state increased threefold between 1973 and 2010. Security of land tenure is an urgent issue for (ex-) pastoralists, many of whom do not expect to return to mobile pastoralism.Crop agriculture, to reduce vulnerability to drought, must be rooted in sustainable resource management and generate a level of production that satisfies the material and social needs of each family. Being sedentary automatically extends the pastoralist's agenda from livestock into farming, education, health, and market access for income diversification.Two schemes for Kereyu agropastoralists in Fentale (in the Awash River Basin, Ethiopia) make use of irrigation water on the margins of the Metehara sugar plantation (Akloweg, 2013). They accommodate 600-700 beneficiaries on land, formerly communal rangeland, allocated by the elders at 0.75 ha for a family. While their diminishing herd are grazed collectively on rangeland at 2 days' distance, the communities occupy new housing in settlements with a school, administration, and unsurfaced road to market (at about 15 km). New income streams and especially the ability to sell two or three crops at different times of the year are seen as advantages. However, an annual fee is payable to offset the capital costs of the schemes. Besides the management of land and water resources (managed by water users' associations), issues of market demand and linkages (motor transport for produce), fertilization (cost), technology (scarcity of capital funds), education (inability to sustain children's registration beyond primary level), health, and income diversification are concerns. Staff and skill shortages have affected efficiency (Flintan n.d.). Poverty still means a lack or shortage of livestock, but while irrigated farming has reduced the risk of food insecurity, the inability to acquire additional irrigable land has raised fears for the next generation, while the scope for income diversification is constrained by education and travel costs.Schemes can also be adversely affected by power shifts and conflict. Pastoralists displaced by the Shifta rebellion in the 1960s took up irrigation in the Tana floodplain with government support, but when this was removed, the farms languished until renewed support was forthcoming. Many used farm incomes for restocking and went back to mobile pastoralism. The crucial difference was and still is marketing access and costs (Farah et al., 2003). According to informants, sustainable irrigated cropping in the Garissa area depends on the removal of compulsory payments to the scheme revolving fund, better transport to market, resolving the competition for labor between farming and herding, giving equal opportunities to women (whose participation in farming is crucial), ending the inefficient underuse of field holdings, and improving efficiency and equity in water management.Small-scale irrigation is not yet a panacea for the problems faced by pastoralism. But the values of snow beans, French beans, kale, and onions in Kenyan markets illustrate increasingly buoyant markets, and the 'boom' in small-scale irrigation where urban markets are within reach, suggest positive trends in contrast to the negatives of the \"pastoralists' dilemma.\" However, small-scale irrigators may compute their business strategies (for example, by undervaluing family labor), the widespread success of farmers in gaining access to growing fruit and vegetable markets should eventually open the door to agro-pastoralists in more remote places. Even in a remote place-such as the Mandera triangle on the borders of Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia-irrigated fodder production for the market, which is the local transborder traffic in livestock, is increasing incomes, if not necessarily those of the poorest (ELMT, 2009). Success also depends on maintaining water and seed supplies (ELMT n.d.).Irrigation schemes need capital. Cost recovery problems have shadowed small-scale irrigation schemes supported by external donors or the government, with top-down management and unpopular land alienation. New models of capitalization are required. Experiments in new financial and management packages have begun to yield lessons in Kenya (Gikuchi, pers, commun.).A public-private partnership leases common or community trust land and shares capital costs between private investors and local farmers.A company manages the scheme. As profits accumulate, the leased plots are taken over by smallscale farmers, so the land stays with the community.Other innovative financial packages have been developed and experimented in Kenya (Grimm and Richter, n.d.).Private investors may have local connections and be prepared to abandon profit maximization in favor of the social rewards of philanthropy. 'Impact investments' that aim at social as well as economic benefits -for reasons other than profit maximization -are gaining ground as a new class of financial assets (Morgan, 2010). If the ASALs are to achieve economic parity with more humid zones, new opportunities for investment are required (Pipal Ltd., 2011). This thrust has been underlined in a recent report on global drylands (EMG, 2011).However, two caveats are in order (Avery, 2010).The first is that small-scale irrigation is necessarily located as close as possible to the water source. But in Kenya, where riverbank flood recession farming is traditional, cultivation disturbs soils and increases erosion, and the Water Act forbids 'tillage' within the riparian zone. The implications of water legislation are unclear, since it appears to be widely disregarded.The second caveat is that conflicts may arise where schemes are set up in the territories of wildlife populations. Damage may be caused, crop losses incurred, and fencing proved prohibitively costly to smallholders.Critical factors in the success of small-scale rainfed or irrigated agriculture include:6 high-value and innovative crops 6 integrated livestock enterprise 6 infrastructure in place 6 accessible markets 6 water harvesting, efficient management 6 well-designed gravity systems (ILRI)It is suggested that we may be on the cusp of a significant transition to growth in the small-scale irrigated sector. Enabling a transition will be the challenge for the promotion of good practice and for innovative research. ","tokenCount":"2379"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"121a317371f5fa7e085cf90d6777172a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/95c687ee-9205-413a-8a08-54e24b045289/retrieve","id":"483444793"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6e73efea-4b65-4e7b-965b-67d117a8e5c3","pagecount":"10","content":"Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above.The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used.Cover photo: ILRI/EVA Editing, design and layout-Basic trainings were previously provided to experts at regional veterinary laboratories, as well as young jobless women regarding vaccination against Newcastle disease (NCD) and deworming in small ruminants against endemic endoparasites in Banja woreda of Amhara regional state.Based on further request from regional laboratory experts in Amhara region for delivery of practical training on blood sample collection in dogs, EVA-HEARD has facilitated delivery of the training for 11 experts and private service providers, in collaboration with Amhara Livestock Resources Development Agency (LRDPA), with the key findings presented below.Build the capacity (skill) of veterinary laboratory experts and private service providers on collecting blood sample from dogs for detecting seroprevalence and seroconversion against rabies disease.Basic awareness was created to the experts on:1.The possible sites of blood sample collection in dogs (jugular vein, cephalic vein etc.);2. The need for humane handling of dogs during restraining and collecting blood sample;3. The need for taking maximum care to avoid contracting zoonotic diseases during sample collection in dogs (e.g. rabies, biting and other physical damages);4. The need for adhering to strict biosecurity protocols (safe disposal of wastes).Practical demonstration was made by the trainer on collecting blood samples from cephalic veins of selected dogs, followed by allowing each expert to exercise the same activity from the same blood site. The trainer closely monitored the training participants to avoid inserting needles into wrong sites and disinfecting the site before and after collecting the blood sample.Mobilizing training participants:In close consultation with Amhara region LRDPA and HEARD project coordination team, the training participants were selected and the training setup was arranged while paying maximum attention to the health guidelines to mitigate COVID-19 pandemic. Through woreda veterinary officers, livestock owners were mobilized to avail their dogs for the mission.Selecting the trainer:Earlier communication was made with National Veterinary Institute (NVI) and a senior expert was selected to deliver the proposed training.Basic training equipment/materials were purchased ahead of commencing the training, including dog muzzle, control poll (restraining material), vacutainer tubes, needles, gauze, cotton, bandage, biosecurity materials, first aid kit, antiseptics etc.The training was delivered through awareness creation and practical demonstration, with close follow up and monitoring of blood sample collection to avoid unnecessary risks.Participation: As per the plan, the training was delivered to 9 veterinary experts (6 regional laboratory experts and 3 private service providers in the area), out of which 2 women took part.After a series of practical demonstrations, the training participants were able to exercise how to collect blood samples from cephalic veins of dogs. Thus, it was clearly observed in the field that the experts have developed their skill on humane handling of dogs, imposing biosecurity measures, professional way of blood collection while taking care to avoid zoonosis and physical damage etc. Thus, the experts were able to collect a total of 82 blood samples (including 10% contingency) from two sites (Akena and Zufari villages).Facilitating and supporting collecting blood samples and delivery of vaccines against piloted diseases (rabies and NCD) in the same district.","tokenCount":"540"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"96a7f7743eee27b6017c0ed133e7b54b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H042695.pdf","id":"99566108"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e743d5c5-d1c1-4af5-9f27-fd4146df6d68","pagecount":"17","content":"The Government of India, on directions from the Supreme Court in 2002 and advice from the National Water Development Agency (NWDA), proposed an estimated US$120 billion National River Linking Project (NRLP) which envisages linking 37 Himalayan and Peninsular rivers (Figure 1; NCIWRD 1999). Doing this will form a gigantic South Asian water grid which will annually handle 178×10 9 m 3 /yr of interbasin water transfer; build 12,500 km of canals; generate 34 gigawatts of hydropower; add 35 million hectares (Mha) to India's irrigated areas; and generate inland navigation benefits (IWMI 2003;NWDA 2006;Gupta and van der Zaag 2007).The prime motivation behind this grand plan is India's growing concern about the need to produce additional food for its large and rapidly increasing population. The NWDA cites that India will require about 450 million tonnes of food grains per annum to feed a population of 1.5 billion in the year 2050 (NCIWRD 1999) and to meet this requirement, it needs to expand its irrigation potential to 160 Mha, which is 20 Mha more than the total irrigation potential without NRLP. This follows India's long-standing, unwritten policy of food selfsufficiency.1 An earlier version of this paper was invited as a keynote presentation at the Stockholm World Water Week, 2009.    Source: Reproduced from NCIWRD 1999.Considering that large parts of the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna Basin face recurring floods and a number of western and peninsular states face severe droughts, the NWDA ( 2006) contends that \"one of the most effective ways to increase the irrigation potential for increasing the food grain production, mitigate floods and droughts and reduce regional imbalance in the availability of water is the Inter Basin Water Transfer (IBWT) from the surplus rivers to deficit areas.However, representatives from civil society, the media and academia have strongly criticized the plan (Iyer 2002;Vombatkere 2003;Vaidyanathan 2003;Bandyopadhyay and Perveen 2004;Patkar 2004). Besides voicing concerns about the potential negative environmental impacts of the mega-project, critics have argued that the decision to go ahead with the plan has been hasty. They argue that NRLP is only one of the alternatives to ensure India's food and water security and alternative-local, cheaper and greener-options should have been given more serious consideration. A number of alternatives have been suggested including decentralized water harvesting and artificial recharge of aquifers, improving the productivity of agriculture in water-scarce regions (which, it is claimed, continue to waste precious water resources), improving the efficiency of India's public irrigation systems through involvement of stakeholders in the management of irrigation, and using virtual water trade, instead of physical water transfers, to tackle the high spatial variation in water availability across the country.While a number of these options seem plausible, all of them require further scientific exploration and study before any one of them (or a combination of several of them) can form a feasible answer to India's impending and formidable water crisis. While the Government of India has failed to share with the public its detailed studies and plans for the proposed interbasin transfers, the opponents of NRLP also do not have a studied program of action to present. The lack of such analyses has led to a polarized and opinionated debate which is preventing the nation from forming a scientific opinion about NRLP and its various alternatives (Verma and Phansalkar 2007).One of the alternatives to NRLP that has been discussed is virtual water trade within the country. Proponents of this alternative have argued that instead of physically transferring large quantities of water from the flood-prone east to the water-scarce west and south, it would be desirable to transfer virtual water in the form of food grains. This paper explores the factors that influence interstate virtual water trade in India; provides a preliminary assessment of the potential of virtual water trade to act as an alternative to the proposed IBWT; and assesses policy options for promoting and enhancing water-saving trade within the country.The term 'virtual water' was introduced by Professor Tony Allan (1993Allan ( , 1994) ) referring to the volume of water needed to produce agricultural commodities. The same concept has differently been referred to as 'embedded water' (Allan 2003), 'exogenous water' (Haddadin 2003) or 'ultraviolet' water (Savenije 2004). When a commodity (or service) is traded, the buyer essentially imports (virtual) water used in the production of the commodity. In the context of international (food) trade, this concept has been applied with a view to optimize the flow of commodities considering the water endowments of nations. Using the principles of international trade, it suggests that water-rich countries should produce and export waterintensive commodities (which indirectly carry embedded water needed for producing them) to water-scarce countries, thereby enabling the latter to divert their precious water resources to alternative, higher productivity uses.The concept was later expanded to include other commodities and services (Allan 1998;Hoekstra 2003). Several researchers (Hoekstra and Hung 2002;Hoekstra 2003;Chapagain and Hoekstra 2003;Oki et al. 2003;Renault 2003;Zimmer and Renault 2003;De Fraiture et al. 2004;Chapagain et al. 2005;Chapagain 2006;Hoekstra and Chapagain 2007a,b) have investigated the role that international trade in virtual water can play in attaining global water saving and in ensuring food security in regions facing acute physical and economic water scarcity, especially in the Middle East, North Africa region and southern Africa. Chapagain and Hoekstra (2004) employed the concept of 'water footprint' to compute nations' dependence on virtual water in the global trade system. Hoekstra andHung (2002, 2005) quantified the scale and extent of virtual water crop trade globally while Chapagain and Hoekstra (2003) developed the methodology for similar calculations in the context of trade in livestock and livestock products. The two results were then combined to get a comprehensive picture of the total agricultural virtual water trade (Hoekstra and Chapagain 2007a, b). Global water saving from this trade was estimated to be about 455 giga cubic meters (Gm 3 ) per annum (Oki et al. 2003;Oki and Kanae 2004). However, policy conclusions from these results were suitably moderated by De Fraiture et al. (2004) who noted that global water savings are caused as a result of productivity differences between importing and exporting countries and are only an unintended by-product of international trade in agricultural commodities. Following the same logic, it is also possible to argue that virtual water trade can lead to wastage of water in the situation where countries with low water productivity export virtual water to high water productivity regions.While a lot has been said about the scope, benefits and limitations of virtual water trade between countries, studies on virtual water movement within countries are, at best, sparse. As mentioned above, for countries such as India and China, it might be misleading to account for them as single entities. This is because even within these huge countries, there are wide disparities in water endowments. In addition, they demand special attention since they are big players in the international food trade, as the percentage of their domestic consumption trade is negligible and both countries are close to food self-sufficiency (De Fraiture et al. 2004). Further, virtual water trade within countries like India sidesteps the debate around food selfsufficiency-which is often used to negate any suggestion of letting the virtual water trade logic to influence India's food trade policies.Ma and others (Ma 2004;Ma et al. 2006) quantified the virtual water trade within China in the backdrop of the south-north transfer project. The study found that north China exports 52×10 9 m 3 /yr of virtual water to south China, a volume which is more than the maximum proposed water transfer volume along three routes (38-43×10 9 m 3 /yr) in the south-north Transfer Project. The study therefore concludes that if the \"perverse\" direction of virtual water trade in China can be reversed, it can act as a better alternative to physical transfer of water across basins. It is with a similar logic that the idea of interstate virtual water trade in India is being proposed as an alternative to NRLP. Hoekstra (2003) referring to Wichelns (2001) observed that \"the economic argument behind virtual water trade is that, according to international trade theory, nations should export products in which they possess a relative or comparative advantage in production, while they should import products in which they possess a comparative disadvantage.\" Thus the logic of virtual water trade follows Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage which focuses on trade based on differences in production technologies and factor endowments. It states that each country should specialize in the production of such goods and services and export them to other countries and that in the production of these each country enjoys a comparative advantage by virtue of its factor endowments.The direction and patterns of virtual water trade should be predictable and in agreement with the Heckscher-Ohlin (H-O) model of trade. Developed by Eli Heckscher and Bertil Ohlin, the Heckscher-Ohlin (H-O) model builds on Ricardo's theory to predict patterns of trade and production based on the factor endowments of trading entities. Broadly, the model states that countries (or regions) will export products that require high quantities of abundant resources and import products that require high quantities of scarce resources. Thus, a capital-rich (and relatively labor-scarce) country would be expected to export capital-intensive products and import labor-intensive products or services and vice versa (IESC 2007;Antras 2007;Davis 2007). In the context of virtual water trade, this translates to water-rich regions exporting water-intensive products and vice versa.However, even in trade of goods and services, the H-O model has been found wanting in terms of empirical evidence to support its logic. In 1954, Prof. W.W. Leontief attempted to test the H-O model by studying trade patterns between countries. To his surprise, he found that the US, perhaps the most capital-abundant country in the world, exported labor-intensive commodities and imported capital-intensive commodities. This was seen to be in contradiction to the H-O model and came to be known as the Leontief paradox.Several economists have, ever since, tried to resolve this paradox. In 1961, Staffan Burenstam Linder proposed the Linder hypothesis as a possible resolution to the Leontief paradox. Linder argued that demand, rather than comparative advantage, is the key determinant of trade. According to him, countries (or entities) with similar demands will develop similar industries, irrespective of factor endowments; and that these countries would then trade with each other in similar but differentiated goods. For example, both the US and Germany are capital-rich economies with significant demand for capital goods such as cars. Rather than one country dominating the car industry (by virtue of factor-endowment based comparative advantage), both countries produce and trade different brands of cars between them. This Linder effect has also been observed in other subsequent examinations. However, it does not account for the entire pattern of world trade (see Linder 1961;Bergstrand 1990).Similarly, proponents of the New Trade Theory (Paul Krugman, Robert Solow and others) argue that factors other than endowments determine trade. New trade theorists base international trade on imperfect competition and economies of scale-both of which are realistic but assumed away in the H-O model. Gains from increasing returns to scale at the entity level are understood intuitively but gains from industry-level scale economies (external economies of scale) often get ignored. Such gains are particularly important in the case of agriculture where the scale of production of an individual farmer is very small compared to the size of the market. However, several factors such as agricultural extension services, specialized machinery markets and fertilizer markets, marketing channels for outputs, etc., contribute significantly in determining where agricultural commodities are produced.Interstate Virtual Water Trade in India: Quantum and Direction Kampman (2007) estimated that the virtual water flow as a result of interstate crop trade in India is 106×10 9 m 3 /yr or 13% of the total water use. This estimate covers virtual water flows as a result of trade in 16 primary crops which represent 87% of the total water use, 69% of the total production value and 86% of the total land use. The estimates do not include virtual water flows as a result of trade in fodder, milk and milk products. Verma (2007) estimated that, at the current level of production and consumption, milk and milk products are unlikely to significantly add to the interstate virtual water flows since India as a whole is milk-surplus and consumption levels in states that produce less milk are much below the prescribed standards for nutritional security. However, if we consider a scenario of nutritional security (where minimum nutritional standards are met in every state), we can expect interregional virtual water flows of around 40×10 9 m 3 /yr. Under such a scenario, the interstate virtual water flows will be still higher since there would also be some interstate flows within each of the four regions (North, East, West and South).Based on certain assumptions about interstate movements of agricultural products, Kampman (2007) estimated the mean annual import (or export) of virtual water between states (see Figure 2). According to these estimates, the Punjab, 3 Uttar Pradesh and Haryana are the largest exporters of virtual water while Bihar, Kerala, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Orissa are the key importers. Aggregating the flows at the regional level, Kampman (2007) found that eastern India, India's wettest region and prone to annual floods, imports large quantities of virtual water not only from the north, west and south but also from the rest of the world (Figure 3). Figure 2. Interstate virtual water flows (10 9 m 3 /yr), as estimated by Kampman (2007). 3 In this paper by \"Punjab\" we mean the Indian Punjab. The key virtual water importers-the eastern Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa-enjoy a comparative advantage over the key virtual water exporters-the northern states of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana-if we look at the per capita water availability. The per capita water availability in all the three eastern Indian states is significantly higher than that in the northern states (see Table 1). Thus, we can see that the states which enjoy a natural comparative advantage (in terms of water endowments) actually have a net import of virtual water.The NRLP proposes to transfer excess floodwater from the eastern states such as Assam, Bihar, West Bengal, Chattisgarh, etc., to the water-scarce regions which produce the bulk of the food thereby ensuring India's national food security. However, the proponents of the virtual water trade argument have repeatedly claimed that such a transfer would only accentuate what they term as the \"perverse\" direction of virtual water trade in India. They argue that going by theories of trade, water-rich states in eastern India should be producing much of India's food requirements and exporting food grains to the water-scarce states. However, as we can also see from the figures above, at present, the reverse is happening. Rather than having surplus produce to export to relatively water-scarce regions, the deficit in eastern India is so high that it even requires imports from outside India. Critics of the NRLP argue that such a \"perverse\" direction is the result of food and agriculture policies that have been biased in favor of states like the Punjab and Haryana where farmers receive highly subsidized agricultural inputs (including water for irrigation) and are assured high prices for the wheat and rice they produce through the procurement policies of the Food Corporation of India (FCI). The proponents of the virtual water trade argument contend that if these policies were to be revised in favor of the wetter states, the so-called \"perverse\" direction of food trade would get \"rationalized\" and the water-rich states would no longer have to import virtual water from water-scarce states.Why do water-rich states import even more water (in virtual form) from relatively waterscarce states? In order to test the relationship between the water resources endowments of states and their behavior in the virtual water trade arena we checked whether the type of water endowment mattered. Figures 4 (a) to 4 (d) plot net virtual water imports (or exports) against per capita green water availability: (a) per capita internal blue water availability, (b) per capita total blue water availability, (c) per capita total [internal blue + external blue + (internal) green] water availability, and (d) as estimated by Kampman (2007). We use Figure 2 as a starting point but omit states with net inflow or outflow less than 2×10 9 m 3 /yr, given the approximate nature of Kampman's (2007) estimates.If water endowments were to influence virtual water trade as hypothesized by the virtual water theorists, we would expect that as we move along the plots from left to right, moving from the largest exporters to the largest importers, the water resource endowments would show a declining trend. The four trend lines do not depict strong correlations (R 2 in the range of 0.004 to 0.060) or point to any such trend. Thus clearly, in the case of interstate virtual water flows, better water endowments do not lead to higher virtual water exports.International trade in agricultural commodities depends on a lot more factors than differences in water scarcity in the trading nations, such as differences in availability of land, labor, knowledge and capital and differences in economic productivities in various sectors. Also the existence of domestic subsidies, export subsidies or import taxes in the trading nations may influence the trade pattern. As a consequence, international virtual water transfers cannot be explained at all, or can only be partially explained on the basis of relative water abundances or shortages (De Fraiture et al. 2004;Wichelns 2004). Yang et al. (2003) demonstrated that it was only below a certain threshold in water availability that an inverse relationship can be established between a country's cereal import and its per capita renewable water resources. As shown here, trade of agricultural commodities between Indian states is not governed by waterscarcity differences between the states.. Virtual water trade and per capita green water availability (R2 = 0.004). as estimated by Kampman (2007). as estimated by Kampman (2007).   If it is not water endowment that determines the direction of virtual water flow, then what does? In a recent paper analyzing data for 146 countries across the globe, Kumar and Singh (2005) have argued that a country's virtual water surplus or deficit is not determined by its water situation. They concluded that no correlation exists between relative water availability in a country and virtual water trade or the volume of water embedded in the food and food products traded. Several water-rich countries including Japan, Portugal and Indonesia have recorded high net virtual water imports.Further analysis of 131 countries in the same paper showed that \"access to arable land\" can be a key driver of virtual water trade. We test this \"access to arable land\" hypothesis using per capita gross cropped area data for the Indian states (Figure 5). As can be seen from Figure 5, per capita gross cropped area does seem to assert a strong influence on net virtual water exports. The correlation coefficient (R 2 = 0.39) is much higher than that related to water endowment.In our analysis of high food exports from the northern Indian states, it was suggested that \"access to secure markets\" could be a key determinant of why the Punjab continues to produce food grains. We therefore also test \"access to secure markets\" across virtual water importing and exporting states by using the proxy variable of 'percentage of rice production procured by the Food Corporation of India' (Figure 6). We find that this percentage correlates well with net virtual water exports (R 2 = 0.47). Thus we see that while the correlation between water endowments and virtual water surplus/deficit is very weak, access to arable land and access to secure markets are much more strongly correlated with virtual water exports.If the H-O model of international trade was able to explain the quantum and direction of trade, we would have expected water endowments to be strongly and positively correlated with a region's virtual water exports. However, our estimates of interstate virtual water trade clearly do not match with such a pattern. One of the reasons for this could be the method Kampman (2007) applied for estimating interstate trade. Kampman assumed that trade (import or export) is equal to the difference between production and consumption within a state. Thus, only surplus states export and only deficit states import. Such an estimation procedure implicitly assumes that all traded agricultural goods are undifferentiated commodities. But we know that products such as basmati rice, branded dairy products and other differentiated (or branded) agricultural commodities negate this assumption. However, in comparison to the total volume of virtual water traded, the proportion of virtual water embedded in branded products is perhaps small.Another reason that the H-O model fails to apply is that it requires pre-trade resource prices to be in relation to resource endowments. In the case of water, this does not happen, especially at the farm level. Farmers in water-rich states such as Bihar face a much steeper price for using water for irrigation compared to water-scarce states like the Punjab. This can be attributed to the public policy biases in favor of regions such as the Punjab. Thus while a region might be facing physical water scarcity, the farmers do not face any economic scarcity while the reverse is true for wetter regions.Thus, though intuitively appealing as a concept, the idea of using virtual water as a tool for water saving, or as an alternative to physical water transfers, has limited applicability in the current scenario. Virtual water trade theorists have often implicitly and erroneously assumed that water-abundant countries (or regions) necessarily enjoy comparative advantage in the production of water-intensive commodities. The patterns of interstate virtual water trade in India and global food trade trends discussed by De Fraiture et al. (2004) show that water endowments alone are unable to explain the direction and magnitude of trade. The Leontief paradox holds as much in the case of virtual water trade as it does for other goods. The implicit assumption behind measuring every commodity by its virtual water content is that water is the most critical and scarcest resource input. However, this assumption does not always hold. There are several key inputs that go into the production of food and these other 'factors of production' might tilt the balance of decisions against the logic of virtual water which dictates water saving as the sole criterion.Thus, the H-O model will work to efficiently allocate water resources if and only if they constitute the most critical resource in the production process. If, on the other hand, another resource such as land becomes the critical constraint, efficient allocation will optimize land use and not water use. By importing food grains from a land-rich state, a land-scarce region is economizing on its land use. Following the virtual water trade logic, this can be termed as virtual land trade (see Würtenberger et al. 2006). A land-scarce region (such as Bihar) would import crops from regions where land productivity is higher (for instance, the Punjab). In order to produce the same amount of food as in the Punjab, Bihar would have to employ more land than Punjab (Aggarwal et al. 2000). If, and as long as, land is the critical constraining resource, Bihar would like to economize on its land use, even at the cost of inefficient or incomplete utilization of its abundant water resources.The mean annual interstate virtual water trade in India has been estimated to be 106×10 9 m 3 / yr for the years 1997-2001 (Kampman 2007). While these estimates are neither precise nor comprehensive (for instance, Kampman's estimates do not include virtual water trade through trade in milk and milk products), they do illustrate that the quantum of interstate virtual water trade is comparable to the proposed interbasin water transfers proposed by the Government of India under the NRLP (178×10 9 m 3 /yr). Significantly, the estimates also show that the direction of virtual water trade runs opposite to the proposed physical transfers. While physical water transfers are proposed from 'surplus' to 'deficit' basins, interstate virtual water flows move from water-scarce to water-rich regions.The existing pattern of virtual water trade is exacerbating scarcities in already waterscarce regions and our analysis has shown that rather than being dictated by water endowments, trade patterns are influenced by factors such as per capita availability of arable land and, more importantly, by biases in food and agriculture policies of the Government of India as indicated by the FCI's procurement patterns. Given that the desperation of the 1960s and 1970s with respect to national food security no longer persists, there is a strong case for reversing this trend through changes in food procurement and input subsidy policies.According to international trade theory, there are five basic reasons why trade takes place between two entities: (1) differences in technological abilities, as explained by the Ricardian model of comparative advantage; (2) differences in resource endowments, as explained by the H-O model; (3) differences in demand, which partly explain trade between surplus entities, as explained by the Linder effect; (4) existence of economies of scale, as enumerated by the new trade theory; and (5) existence of government policies which might create new comparative advantages and disadvantages that are different from natural advantages and disadvantages (Suranovic 2007).Much of the literature on virtual water trade, just as the H-O Model of international trade, focuses almost entirely on differences caused by factor (in this case, water) endowments or on the Ricardian logic of trade. However, this paper argues that in order to have a comprehensive understanding of the behavior of agents in trade, all other reasons including endowments of non-water factors of production (such as land) need to be taken into consideration. Further, it is economic rather than physical water scarcity/abundance that influences trade and economic scarcity as defined by government policies on agricultural inputs, extension services, access to assured markets and minimum support prices.Finally, while our analysis based on estimates of trade balances at the state level provides a conceptual picture of the conflict between the two alternatives of virtual water trade and physical interbasin water transfers, the same can more accurately be evaluated by carrying out an empirical study of the potential of virtual water trade in a particular proposed river link. Three of the 30 odd links proposed under the NRLP are independent links and the first one most likely to be implemented is the Ken-Betwa link between two adjoining subbasins in central India. Carrying out such an analysis at that scale with data on actual (as opposed to estimated) trade and better estimates of water resources in the donor and recipient basins will be a useful exercise to further our understanding of virtual and physical transfers across river basins, and their possible trade-offs.","tokenCount":"4435"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a0913ade3c06287c152edbf5f5fde325","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://researchfeatures.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Chris-Dickens.pdf","id":"557011581"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f416026a-4923-4762-9b2f-626e16537a85","pagecount":"2","content":"T hey say that 'you can't manage what you can't measure'. Nowhere is this truer than for the natural resources on which society depends. There are increasingly strong indications that we are already using more resources than the Earth can provide, and this does not bode well for the future of humanity. Society requires natural resources, including those provided by the land, water, atmosphere, and biodiversity, to survive and to develop. However, unless the exploitation of these resources is sustainable, they become depleted. Increases in population and consumption, along with changes in lifestyles, are placing huge strain on the availability and sustainability of natural resources. In just one example among many, it is estimated that 80% of the world's population now live within areas where there is a high threat to water security. Exacerbated by anthropogenic climate change, these pressures could result in the collapse of natural ecosystems and loss of essential services. It would not be the first time. History can reveal examples of civilisations that collapsed following excessive depletion of natural resources (eg, the Mayan civilisation).The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), laid out by the United Nations in 2015, are the world's attempt to combat this issue. They provide a map to guide and measure our progress towards a more sustainable global future. Countries around the world have pledged their commitment to achieving these goals by 2030. However, despite climate and environmental change being the single greatest threat to mankind, the SDGs are heavily slanted towards social and economic development. 80% of the world's population already live in areas where there is a high threat to water security.It has been argued that the SDGs are too vague, lacking in practical pathways for realising the sustainable development that they seek. Dickens argues that the indicators are a particular area of weakness, as in their current form they are deliberately non-prescriptive about their achievements. Luckily, the indicators are not set in stone; undergoing continual development, there is room for improvement.Of the 231 unique indicators currently in use, just 18 (a mere 7.8%) directly monitor natural resources; a further 19 (8.2%) monitor conditions for natural resource protection but do not directly quantify them. The 18 indicators of interest fall into four main groups: land, water, air, and biodiversity.Land indicators focus on the health of agricultural soil, urban land conversion, forest area, greening of mountains, and the area of degraded land; however, there are gaps among these categories. For example, the measurement of sustainable agriculture does not include an indication of water resource availability; the degraded land indicator considers land cover and the net primary production of vegetation and carbon stock, but fails to consider soil conditions, nutrients and fertility, salinisation, or desertification. More major gaps include those related to the conversion of rural land to urban, the health of forests, the conditions of numerous ecosystems (eg, grasslands, savannah, wetlands), and the monitoring of ecosystem health at a landscape level.Even when explicitly included, some indicators are poorly constrained and lack precision, making quantitative measurements a challenge. For example, there are no clear definitions of forest degradation or restoration, which can vary greatly from place to place. In other cases, indicators are so prescriptive as to be exclusionary; for example, stating that there is a direct correlation between green coverage of a mountain and its state of health ignores the fact that high altitude and desert mountains lack green cover while being perfectly healthy. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) laid out by the United Nations in 2015, provide a map to guide and measure our progress towards a more sustainable global future.In some cases it seems that the indicators are too vague to be of use, but in others they are so specific that they become exclusionary. How do you find a balance between 'goes too far and not far enough'?There are two ways that collected data is not much use to global reporting of sustainable development. Firstly, global earth observation data is used but does not provide enough information to enable ground-level management of the resources (eg, SDG 6.6.1 relies on EO data that is only useful for lakes and excludes many aquatic resources such as wetlands and rivers). Secondly, some countries do not have the resources or capacity to provide meaningful country-level data to the global SDGs. Both of these result in inadequate data to describe the global picture and also show that country-level capacity is not fit for purpose. 'Far enough' would be that point where the data collected is fit for purpose, ie, it indicates holistically the state of the natural resource in terms of sustainability. Inadequate data means that it is impossible to make this assessment.There is a global organisation called the IAEG that includes UN agencies and country representatives. It is their responsibility to evaluate all new data and to exclude or include any. There is thus always the opportunity to improve indicators, although the process is by necessity resistant to change as the SDG indicators should be stable and should not change too rapidly. CGIAR is a global partnership that unites international organisations engaged in research about food security. CGIAR research aims to reduce rural poverty, increase food security, improve human health and nutrition, and sustainable management of natural resources. IWMI is the water organisation in the CGIAR, focusing on water resources, ecosystems, and water for agriculture. IMWI's mission is to provide water solutions for sustainable, climate-resilient development.E: c.dickens@cgiar.org T: +94 76 997 8752 W: www.iwmi.cgiar.org W: www.iwmi.cgiar.org/about/staff-list/chris-dickens Dr Chris Dickens is dependent'. Again, he suggests that forging strong links with other, existing biodiversity programmes around the world would be hugely beneficial, on the proviso that data are defined at a country level and that such links go beyond simple conversations (ideally, data from other programmes should be hard-linked to the SDG, such that one does not need to go looking for it).The examples described here are just a small number among many identified by Dickens and his collaborators. Ultimately, they conclude that, in terms of natural resources, the SDG indicators are moderately comprehensive and partially appropriate. However, they lack a holistic approach, particularly with regard to the monitoring of ecosystems and biodiversity, which are not included in any comprehensive way. Moreover, even when appropriate indicators are included, the volume of country-level data remains inadequate owing to the priority given by countries to social and economic development, and to an unwillingness and/or inability of national governments to collect data on natural resources. Dickens and his colleagues argue that the most pragmatic approach to addressing these issues is to forge stronger bridges between the SDGs and other programmes collecting relevant data to guide our progress towards a more sustainable future.Dickens argues that linking the SDGs to the data and resources of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) would be of great mutual benefit.The lack of biodiversity monitoring is arguably the greatest weakness of the SDGs. Some minimal measures are tangentially included within other indicators; for example, marine fish stocks are considered while freshwater and marine biodiversity are not. An indicator of marine eutrophication does require the evaluation of marine biodiversity, but no methodology is provided. Some indicators, once implemented, should help to protect biodiversity, but do not directly measure it; for example, those linked to the trade in animal products, financial support for land and marine resources, and placing limits on alien species. The most biodiversity-focused indicator considers the threat to 120,372 coarsely defined at-risk species, but fails to acknowledge that our planet actually supports some 8.7 million species.Dickens summarises, 'the glaring weaknesses are the health of ecosystems and biodiversity -on which all society specifically included (oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, salinity, pH). There are good reasons behind this decision -for example, choosing variables that are easy and cheap to measure, requiring only basic field equipment and skills that are globally available. However, by ignoring more comprehensive monitoring we risk overlooking serious threats to water. These include common pollutants like heavy metals and pesticides, but also emerging pollutants -natural or synthetic chemicals that are not routinely monitored but which pose a threat to human and/or ecosystem health. The main gaps come in the form of measurable variables that are not considered; for example, the volume of water in snow and ice, seasonal variation in water resources, and changes in river connectivity after dam development.There have been recent improvements to air monitoring indicators, which originally only considered particulate matter in cities (that is, the level of particulate matter of 2.5μm or smaller). In 2020, an indicator was introduced to monitor greenhouse gas emissions, although a methodology for applying this indicator has not yet been developed. Other airborne pollutants that will be considered going forward include ozone (O 3 ), nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ), and sulphur dioxide (SO 2 ). A notable omission is the consideration of air temperature, the key variable of climate change. The lack of biodiversity monitoring is arguably the greatest weakness of the SDGs. rassco/Shutterstock.com","tokenCount":"1491"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f9640ec46a3788e0cb081fbb696b6eb7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/576d5878-d0ea-467f-a70d-700cc3218ae8/retrieve","id":"-654795531"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"dd47d87e-c5ee-4b7d-8343-d817f7da2897","pagecount":"5","content":"Many opportunities to improve agricultural resilience to a variable and changing climate depend on access to high-quality local climate records and are constrained by data gaps. Addressing data quality of meteorological station observations ◼ The ENACTS approach builds capacity of a National Meteorological Service (NMS) to produce higher quality historical climate data in gridded format, ready for use by the agriculture sector for modeling and/or mapping.◼ The ENACTS approach involves collaboration with NMS to apply quality-control methods to available station data and to blend that station data with satellite measurements and reanalysis products using the IRI Climate Data Tools (CDT). The resulting gridded data products combine the benefits of high quality station data with the spatial and temporal coverage of satellite and reanalysis data products. The quality of ENACTS data products is higher than global gridded datasets because additional station data has been incorporated.◼ Online \"Map-rooms\" support access to a range of derived climate information products and tools.◼ ENACTS has already enabled 11 African countries and 2 regional centers to improve their climate services. The IRI Climate Data Tool and the ENACTS approach also offer a proven solution to needs identified in Asia and the Pacific ◼ Leveraging national and international climate finance for the food and agriculture sectors.The FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (FAORAP) is implementing a Regional Initiative on Climate Change (RI-CC) to support the Strategy and its Action Plan at regional and national levels (FAORAP, 2018). The IRI's Climate Data Tool (CDT), which does the quality control and merging in the ENACTS approach, seems to have just about reached the point where it can be shared broadly, and used independently by NMS staff with a strong background in satellite remote sensing and spatial data issues.Merging techniques produce gridded data that combine the quality of station observations with the spatial and temporal coverage of satellite and reanalysis data. Satellite remote sensing (for precipitation) and reanalysis (for temperature) offer spatially complete data, are freely available, and have relatively long time series (>30 years for satellite rainfall, >50 years for reanalysis). However, satellite data products generally have poor accuracy.Merging the two types of data corrects the errors in the spatially complete products, which in turn fill spatial and temporal gaps in station records (Fig. 1). The Climate Data Tools (CDT) software, developed by the IRI, enables quality control and merging process. The result is a daily or 10-daily time series dataset with over 30 years of rainfall and over 50 years of temperature, at a nominal 4 km grid, across the country.The quality of gridded data depends on the amount of station observations they incorporate. Because developing country NMS are stewards of much more data than are available to external organizations, they can therefore produce national ENACTS data that are of higher quality than the best global data sets.Online Map Rooms improve access to climate information and services.Access is enhanced by making information products available online. The IRI Data Library, which is installed at the NMS, provides a powerful and highly customizable platform for deriving historical, monitored and seasonal forecast tools and products based on the gridded data; and to make these products available online in the form of an interactive \"Map-room. Many applications of meteorological data for agriculture work require daily data. In response to demand from agricultural partners, through CCAFS engagement, the quality control and merging tools in CDT were expanded to be able to work on a daily time step. This supported the development of a flexible set of Map-room tools to support analysis of historical rain day frequency, mean rainfall intensity, wet and dry spell frequency (based on user-selected duration and wet/dry threshold), and rainfed growing season onset dates-for user-selected periods within the year. With added requirements for soil and temperature data, soil water balance Map-room tools translate daily rainfall data into soil water content and water balance-based agricultural drought indicators such as the Water Requirements Satisfaction Index (WRSI).New seasonal forecast Map-rooms incorporate enhancements designed to improve their usefulness for local agricultural decision-making. Major enhancements over typical forecast products include: (a) statistical downscaling onto the historical rainfall grid; (b) map views that includes probability of exceeding a user-selected rainfall amount or climatological percentile; and (c) provision of full climatological (based on historical gridded data) and forecast distributions for any user-selected grid cell (Fig 3).The expanded Map-room product suite fits well with the requirements of well-developed and tested participatory methods for providing climate information to farming communities and supporting its use for agricultural decision-making. One such workshop-based approach, Participatory Integrated Climate Services for Agriculture (PICSA), is being integrated with NMS Map-rooms in Rwanda (Fig. 4). ENACTS enables Meteo-Rwanda to provide agricultural extension and other intermediaries with ready online access to the set of graphical historical and forecast information products that they are trained to bring to groups of farmers through the PICSA process.Historical time series data are the foundation for climate services. Many options for improving the resilience of agriculture are not feasible beyond pilot scales, if climate data are not available due to gaps in time or space, limited technical capacity, and/or policy constraints.The IRI and CCAFS have demonstrated that ENACTS is a feasible and cost-effective approach to building the capacity of national meteorological services (NMS) to expand the range of gridded climate services and products, including providing tailored climate services to farming communities in partnership with their agricultural extension services. Countries in Asia face similar data challenges in their efforts to build the resilience of their farming populations and agricultural sectors. In Asia and the Pacific, there is growing interest in using the ENACTS approach to support climate resilience in agriculture. The SAMIS project in Lao PDR is an example of a capacity building project, whose climate services and products would benefit from the high-quality gridded climate data produced using the ENACTS approach.◼    Michael Sheinkman is a Regional Affiliate Expert on Climate / Disaster Risks at CIAT (mas25@columbia.edu)Beau Damen is a Natural Resources Officer at the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (FAORAP) (Beau.Damen@FAO.org)The views expressed in this brief are those of the authors, and are not necessarily endorsed by or representative of CCAFS, CGIAR, IRI, FAO, or their sponsoring organizations.","tokenCount":"1031"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c558c22b319b96e2977286a4509c0892","source":"gardian_index","url":"http://gisweb.ciat.cgiar.org/povertymapping/download/Ecuador.pdf","id":"1559839109"},"keywords":["Food security","Agricultural productivity","Market access","Rural income generation","Indigenous communities","Ecuador"],"sieverID":"87c6e297-2998-4e25-b2e2-f6dd69b2759a","pagecount":"43","content":"We examine the geographic dimensions of food consumption in Ecuador, which has one of the highest rates of chronic infant undernutrition in Latin America. We use statistical and spatial analyses to examine the distribution of * Corresponding Author.2 food consumption and food poverty and to test and generate hypotheses of food poverty estimates at the district level. Results show that the food poor are concentrated in certain locations with a significant cluster identified in the central Andean region. Geographically weighted regression shows that the processes underlying food poverty in Ecuador are also spatially variable. While our results lend support for nationwide land tenure reforms, in the central Andes these must take into account productivity constraints and communal ownership.Improvements in transport infrastructure will likely decrease levels of food poverty country-wide but could be most beneficial in the extreme south and in the province of Esmeraldas. Investment in rural enterprise development should be encouraged in all regions.Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras and Haiti are among the countries in Latin America with the highest rates of chronic infant undernutrition (FAO, 2003).Figures for Ecuador show undernutrition rates of 34% in 1986Ecuador show undernutrition rates of 34% in , 26.5% in 1998 been well documented (Steckel, 1995, Grantham-McGregor et al., 2000, Fogel, 2001, Semba and Bloem, 2001). In Ecuador, a country with high social inequality 3  (Larrea and Kawachi, 2005) and 62% of the population falling below the poverty line in 1998, pronounced social, regional and ethnic disparities in the distribution and consumption of food are to be expected.Policies aimed at reducing inequality and improving nutrition must be based on detailed studies documenting these disparities and identifying their causes.Information for policy formulation and targeting is needed to optimally deploy direct aid, development or research resources. Hentschel et al. (2000) demonstrated a theoretical reduction in resource leakage and greater coverage using a geographically targeted implementation of a pro-poor energy subsidy.Reductions in food poverty are likely to be achieved by the implementation of a range of interventions, rather than a direct cash transfer to recipients. Targeting the range of possible interventions that are not direct aid is inherently more difficult because the benefits are often limited to certain locations, sectors of the economy or demographic groups. The utility of information that improves targeting of public goods is therefore more difficult to quantify.Analyses based on household surveys, which are representative for a few regions (e.g. Datt and Jolliffe, 1999), often fail to reveal the location of the population affected. On the other hand, qualitative assessments of limited geographical extent (e.g. Hentschel et al., 1996) do not allow a country-wide investigation of the causes of inadequate food consumption and undernutrition.Other studies addressing these problems by combining survey and census data (Larrea et al., 1996, Hentschel et al, 2000) lack consideration of geographic and environmental factors. Our experience in Ecuador suggests that poor accessibility to markets and services and environmental constraints to agriculture have negative impacts on wealth and food security outcomes. Petrucci et al. (2003) deal with some of these issues for Ecuador but use data aggregated to county level, potentially hiding interactions at the household level.A spatial analysis framework offers advantages over tabular analysis. The visualization of the estimates in map form is an efficient medium for planning responses to food poverty. Spatial statistics can quantify and clarify patterns seen in maps. A spatial framework allows for incorporating spatially continuous environmental variables in the analysis. Explicit spatial analyses take into account the local nature of relationships between food poverty and its determinants.We calculated food consumption at the household level using small area estimation (SAE) techniques (Larrea, 2005) 4. We created models of food consumption using data from the 1998 Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) survey (INEC and World Bank, 1998) and the 2001 Ecuadorian national population census (INEC, 2001). These data were aggregated and food poverty indicators constructed for 990 districts (parroquias), a far finer resolution than currently published statistics 5 . Poverty indicators are measures of district-level household food consumption with respect to a specific poverty line (Lanjouw, 1998). Two studies give differing monetary values of the food poverty line in Ecuador. One study estimates the cost of a basic basket of food goods as 173,050 sucres per fortnight, which in 1998 represented US$2.2 per day (World Bank, 1996). An alternative study (Parandekar and Brborich, 1999), gives a value of 132,150 sucres per fortnight for the basic basket of goods (US$1.7 per day). We calculated the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) family of poverty indicators, including the headcount ratio, the poverty gap and poverty severity (Foster et al., 1984) for both the higher and lower food poverty lines.Together with a panel of food security experts in Ecuador, we developed a list of potential determinants of food poverty (Farrow et al., 2002). The panel identified key factors that have a hypothetical association with food poverty. These include social capital, agricultural productivity (climate, soil, management and tenure), labour market structure and access to markets.A study resulting in a nutritional profile of Ecuador (ODEPLAN-FAO, 2001) suggests that social capital and the culture of a locality influence the access to a diversity of food products and a diverse diet. Indicators of social capital have not been formally defined for Ecuador. While limited local studies investigate the role of social capital (Bebbington and Perreault, 1999), nationwide data on density of voluntary organizations (Putnam, 1993) or of social networks (e.g. Paldam, 2000) are lacking. Our analysis used a proxy variable for social cohesiveness-the percentage of each district's population classified as indigenous. Historic discrimination and social exclusion has limited the livelihood opportunities of indigenous people in Ecuador. Indigenous communities, however, have maintained a strong sense of identity. In recent decades a conversion has been made to full political participation (Larrea and Montenegro, 2005).Access to water is potentially an important determinant of rural food poverty (Rosegrant et al., 2002, GWP, 2003) since improved agricultural productivity can increase farm incomes and lower prices for consumers (de Janvry and Sadoulet, 2000). We hypothesize that areas suffering regionally from drought and locally from water stress will be unable to support sufficient production to ensure adequate food consumption. For rainfed agriculture we have developed an index of water availability calculating the number of consecutive dry months (Fig. 1) where monthly precipitation less than 60 mm is considered dry due to crop growth limitations (Peter Jones, personal communication, 2003). The number of farms with irrigation and the total amount of land irrigated were recorded in the 2000 agricultural census (INEC, 2000). We acknowledge, however, that farms with irrigation may face restriction on their use of water resources (Cremens et al., 2005). Irrigation data have been published for most counties in Ecuador.Given the lack of data at the district level, we assume that each district has the same value as the county to which it belongs.Elevation and slope are proxies for temperature and management constraints on agricultural productivity. In some very high zones (paramos), we encounter particularly fragile agro-ecosystems associated with elevated concentrations of poverty. In Ecuador, the resolution of altitude data is currently far finer than for temperature. Slope is generally expected to have a greater impact on food poverty than altitude. We calculated summary statistics of altitude and slope for each district from the Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) data set modified by CIAT (Jarvis et al., 2004).Soil quality is another constraint on agricultural productivity and presents significant spatial variation within districts and even within plots (Dercon et al., 2003). We use maps of potential for agriculture, whose classes explicitly incorporate soil quality information and limitations (BID-CONADE, in Alianza Jatun Sacha- CDC Ecuador, 2003). Potential agriculture classes are classified into suitability for pasture, crops, productive forest and natural areas (default). Actual land use, compiled from various sources from the 1990s (Alianza Jatun Sacha- CDC Ecuador, 2003), is also categorized in terms of percentage crop, pasture, productive forest, natural areas and non-vegetative land use.Deteriorating soil quality and land degradation is often the result of inappropriate land use decisions. These short-term decisions may be forced upon land managers in order to escape poverty. For each class of actual land use, we determine if it was cultivated in an appropriate location given the potential of the soil. We conclude by producing summary statistics of productive land use suitability for each district.Land tenure inequality, and as a consequence the large number of farmers without land or with less than 5 ha, is potentially related to low levels of food consumption. Data on legal status of agricultural land were made available at the county level for much of the country (INEC, 2000). Equality indicators, such as the GINI coefficient of farm size, are not formally published for sub-national administrative levels. 6 But these have been calculated for counties using data available on farm sizes (Manuel Chiriboga, personal communication, 2005) 7. As with data on irrigation, we assume that districts will have the same values for these variables as the counties.The agricultural sector is often characterized by lower incomes relative to other components of the national workforce (Elbers and Lanjouw, 2001). Districts with high proportions of agricultural workers are likely to have higher levels of food poverty. Agricultural workers receiving a regular wage may be less vulnerable than informal day labourers. Salaried workers may receive ancillary benefits such as limited health insurance that will improve welfare levels. We therefore expect districts with greater proportions of salaried agricultural workers to have lower levels of food poverty than those with non-salaried agricultural workers. The employment characteristics of household members were explanatory variables in the original SAE models (Larrea, 2005), raising concerns about the potential for endogeneity in subsequent modelling. Elbers et al. (2005) suggest, however, that the use of estimates aggregated to community level as the dependent variable does not preclude subsequent regression analyses.Access to markets is an important prerequisite for rural income generation and can improve nutrition by providing access to a wider variety of foodstuffs than would be possible from on-farm consumption alone. Jacoby (2000) showed that an improvement in access generally benefits the whole population. We would therefore expect districts with better access to markets to have higher mean food consumption and lower levels of food poverty. We produced indices of accessibility to four market types. National markets are the three biggest cities-Guayaquil, Quito and Cuenca. Regional markets are based on traditional markets in the Andes with others selected for the coastal and Amazon regions (Patricio Martinez, personal communication, 2003). Provincial markets are the capital city of each province (Fig. 2). Local markets are the major populated place in each district 8 .Spatial structure of food poverty Tobler (1970) proposes the first law of geography as \"everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things\". While this \"law\" is not universally true 9 , an assumption of association between neighbouring observations can guide our investigation of the spatial structure of food poverty.Measures of spatial association can help us discover patterns in food consumption that are hidden or difficult to discern from raw data. Our method addresses whether food poverty is distributed randomly throughout the country, whether it exhibits a high degree of spatial autocorrelation and whether it is spatially clustered.The spatial representation of districts we used in this analysis is the polygon centroid (Jenness, 2001). To analyse the distribution of food poverty in Ecuador we first utilized semi-variograms choosing intervals of 5 km. Semi-variograms are used extensively in geo-statistics and present a graphical representation of variance that can aid the analysis of patterns of food consumption 10 . The interpretation of the semi-variogram for mean consumption per person per district (Fig. 3) shows spatial dependence up to 100 km. The intercept of the variogram (nugget variance) is moderately high and approximately one-third of variation is not accounted for between districts. We discover similar levels of spatial association for all our indicators of food poverty. The semi-variograms suggest that food consumption and food poverty values are geographically clustered as opposed to randomly distributed.We measured spatial autocorrelation in our food poverty indicators using Moran's I statistic (Moran, 1950, Sawada, 1999). Values of Moran's I varied between 0.354 and 0.447 (Table 1) for all districts. Positive spatial autocorrelation was significant although not always large on account of skewness. Local Indicators of Spatial Autocorrelation 11 (LISA)-in this case Moran's I-showed outliers of significant negative spatial autocorrelation located in clusters of significant positive spatial autocorrelation. Many of these outliers represent the principal (often urban) district in each county. When these districts are excluded from the data set, we see increases in spatial autocorrelation and food poverty (Table 1).Given that food poverty in Ecuador is non-random, we used the Geographical Analysis Machine (GAM; Openshaw, 1987) to seek and visualize significant clusters of people below the food consumption poverty line. GAM searches for cases that are significantly different from the expected (global) incidence of food poverty using a Monte Carlo simulation in a multi-scale moving window to measure the persistence of clusters at different scales. One cluster of districts is easily identified (Fig. 4). This cluster has at least three foci, one in central Chimborazo, a second in western Tungurahua and the third in central Cotopaxi.These clusters correspond with those identified using LISA statistics.The existence of spatial autocorrelation in our dependent variable, and the possibility of non-stationarity in the processes that cause food poverty (Brunsdon et al., 1996), limit the inferential power of ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. Geographically weighted regression (GWR) is an alternative and is commonly used to overcome the limitations caused by spatial dependency (Miron, 1984, cited in Fotheringham et al., 2002).We ran models using available data at the district scale, even though variables for land tenure and irrigation were only available at the county scale. We acknowledge the potential introduction of artificial spatial auto-correlation in some of our independent variables, as well as possible problems of ecological fallacy (Robinson, 1950). Nevertheless, by running the models using district-level information we were able to distinguish between urban and rural areas and take full advantage of the fine resolution of the micro-scale food poverty data. The models were developed using all independent variables for seven dependent variables (see Table 2). We analysed the correlation between our independent variables to eliminate those that showed collinearity (Table 2). In the case of the accessibility indices for district, provincial, regional and national markets, we tested each index individually in all regression models, selecting the index that explained most variance. We calibrated all models using version 3 of the GWR software (Fotheringham et al., 2004). We weighted valid data points aspatially according to the natural logarithm of population of each district and rescaled so that the sum of the weight variable is equal to the sample size (670).The adjusted R 2 increases and ANOVA F-tests confirm that the GWR models explain significantly more variance than the global models (Tables 3-5). The food poverty gap (FGTI, Table 4) and food poverty severity (FGT2, Table 5) models appear to be better defined than the food poverty headcount ratio (FGT0) and mean consumption (MEANY) models (Table 3). An analysis of the local pseudo R 2 shows that despite small differences between models all areas except the northern Amazon are better explained using local rather than global models. In When we examine the coefficients of the \"independent\" variables, we can take into account both the global and the local model results. Variables that are significant in explaining variance in the global models but show little spatial variability are likely to be significant in most locations. Variables that are both significant in the global regression model and display significant spatial variation are likely to be significant in most locations but the strength of the relationship is less strong in some specific regions. Variables that are insignificant in the global models but which show significant spatial variation are likely to be positively significant in some areas but negatively significant in others. These cases merit special attention.The percentage of the population who class themselves as indigenous (INDIG) has a significant positive association with all the food poverty indicators and a negative association with MEANY. The variable also displays significant spatial variability in nearly all models. Mapping the local values of significance of this parameter confirms that all areas reflect the global model except the southern provinces of El Oro and Loja and a few remote Amazonian districts.Our climatic variable (MN_DRY) shows significant spatial variability in all seven models. The significance of determination of dry months on food poverty is strongest in the central Andean region (Fig. 6). Semi-arid coastal areas benefit from alternatives to agriculture such as fishing and tourism but even with the inclusion of a coastal dummy variable (COASTAL) the effect of climate in these areas is either insignificant or negatively significant. The proportion of farms that have irrigation equipment (PR_RIE1) is not significant for either FGT0 or MEANY. Irrigation is moderately significant in the global models of FGT1 and FGT2 as well as displaying considerable spatial variability. This variable shows a negative association with inequality in the central Andes and a positive association in the southern coast and highlands and much of the central Amazon region.Mean slope per district (MN_SLP) shows a significant positive association with FGT1 and FGT2 in all Ecuador but the relationship with FGT0 or MEANY is insignificant. There is no significant spatial variability in any of the models.Land use suitability (MN_SUIT) shows significant spatial variability in four of the seven models. As expected, we see a negative relationship between suitability and poverty in the central Andes, coast and Amazon; however, this association is reversed in the northern Andes and Amazon (Fig. 7).global models but shows some spatial variability. Fig. 8 shows two areas where the proportion of land owned by individuals is negatively associated with food poverty. The GINI coefficient of farm size is highly significant in the global regression but shows little spatial variability. A reduction in GINI is related to a reduction in food poverty; this relationship is strongest with FGT0 but weakens in the FGT2 models.Our two agricultural employment variables are highly significant in all the global models and show significant spatial variation. We find a cluster of districts in the provinces of Azuay and Cañar, southern Chimborazo, eastern Guayas and parts of Morona Santiago that do not show a strong association between the percentage of the workforce (AGR_WF) in agriculture and food poverty. In the case of the percentage of salaried agricultural workers (SAL_AGR), the relationship between salaried workers and food poverty is strong in two areasthe northern Andes and northern Amazon (from Cotopaxi northwards), and the southern Andes and southern coast (from Cañar southwards). In all other areas, the association is ambiguous.Accessibility to a provincial capital (MN_AP) is a significant global determinant in all our models. It also displays significant spatial variability in six of the seven models. This suggests that access to markets and services is universally important as a determinant of food poverty in Ecuador but that local variations occur in the strength of this relationship. Districts with significant positive t-values are encountered in the provinces of Loja, El Oro, Imbabura and Esmeraldas. Meanwhile a few districts in the provinces of Los Rios and Cotopaxi display an inverse relationship (Fig. 9).Results show that community levels of food consumption and food poverty are not distributed randomly throughout Ecuador. Clusters of food poverty may require collective or structural interventions that benefit communities rather than individuals, such as improvements in transport infrastructure or the creation of special development zones. Our results could benefit organizations wishing to apply successful interventions to places with similar food poverty conditions. We have used these results directly within CIAT to highlight the uneven distribution of some of CIAT's research efforts in Ecuador. A survey of local committees of agricultural research (CIALs) 12 showed that food poverty was not a major determinant in their location despite CIAT's mandate to reduce poverty through agricultural research.A number of studies (e.g. Bigman et al., 2000;Petrucci et al., 2003) have used community level data to improve the estimation of the absolute value and the distribution of food poverty indicators, especially when household-level data are not available. Here we were more interested in how community and broad-scale (large area) variables are related to levels of food poverty, with the ultimate aim of identifying driving forces and subsequent opportunities for interventions to reduce food poverty. We were particularly interested in testing a number of hypotheses, defined a priori by local experts outside a formal conceptual framework. Our analysis sought to generate new hypotheses guided by the results of our GWR models. We ran models for two different food poverty lines. The spatial patterns of significant parameters are fairly insensitive to the poverty line chosen. We found greater differences in spatial patterns between welfare indicators. The outputs of these models, visible in map form, show that the processes that determine food poverty are spatially non-stationary. This has implications for the design of policies to reduce food poverty and suggests that each cluster of food poverty will require different classes of interventions. We see that generally the models appear better defined for the southern and central coastal region than for districts in the Amazon. This implies that we could have chosen a different set of potential factors, or that the data were not reliable or entirely representative for those latter remote areas.The proportion of the population classified as \"indigenous\" is universally associated with higher levels of food poverty and lower levels of food consumption. Higher levels of food poverty are found in places with greater concentrations of indigenous compared to non-indigenous people. An exception is some Amazonian districts, characterized by high proportions of indigenous people that were poorly surveyed in the 1998 expenditure survey. District data on consumption and poverty may not reflect well their food security situation. Our analysis confirms other studies, which suggest that, despite high levels of social capital, being of indigenous descent limits opportunities for improving livelihood.The experience of food security experts in Ecuador and the findings of past research suggest that poor access to water will result in higher levels of food poverty. This is broadly the case in Ecuador but some areas show results contrary to our hypotheses-areas where we observe a negative association between drought and food poverty but where the effect of irrigation and coastal income sources are insignificant. These particular variables are interesting in the context of the location of clusters of food poverty (see under Methods) in the central Andes. Targeted investment in drought-tolerant varieties of crops such as maize, rather than irrigation development, might be worth considering in this region.Our panel of food security experts in Ecuador expected the appropriate use of land to be universally associated with lower levels of food poverty. But this factor varied across the country. We expected that, ceteris paribus, districts with a greater area used appropriately would have higher food consumption, lower food poverty rates and greater equality. In some areas, this is the case but for many parts of northern Ecuador we find large areas supposedly used inappropriately but with low levels of food poverty (such as the province of Sucumbios). These areas are largely dedicated to the cultivation of crops and pasture despite severe limitations. The patterns we observe may be because the exploitation of soil resources has yet to have negative impacts on productivity. These areas in the northern Amazon were colonized relatively recently. Plots are larger than in other parts of Ecuador (Murphy et al., 1997) enabling settlers to engage in extensive forms of agriculture, notably cattle ranching. Alternatively, the influence of oil production in these provinces may be enhancing district levels of food consumption and reducing food poverty.The influence of the cut-flower industry may partly explain the negative association with the proportion of land owned individually and food poverty in the north of Ecuador. The county of Cayambe has the lowest proportion of land owned by individuals and contains the districts with the highest food poverty rates in the province of Pichincha. Information on land ownership at the district levelrather than assuming the county value is representative for all districts-would improve this analysis. A more general indicator of land tenure structure is the GINI coefficient of land ownership. This is a significant factor in all the models and the association is as we expected given previous research, which found productivity to be lower on smallholdings (World Bank, 1996). Our results concur with those of Hentschel and Waters (2002), suggesting that land reform might be an appropriate policy route for reducing food poverty. However, the ownership of land by individuals, as opposed to corporate or communal ownership, may not deliver lower levels of food poverty. Land reform therefore must take into account the minimum amount and quality of land in each holding, economies of scale and the marketing power of cooperatives or informal groups of producers.The results of the regression analysis suggest that employment in agriculture is associated with higher levels of food poverty. Poverty rates are lower in communities where many agricultural workers receive salaries compared to localities where informal agricultural employment predominates. Districts with high proportions of salaried workers are found predominantly in the banana growing province of El Oro, sugar cane plantations in eastern Guayas Province and the cut-flower districts north-east of Quito. Our analysis supports the idea (de Janvry and Sadoulet, 2000) that the promotion of agro-enterprises may be a more successful route out of food poverty than dependence on smallholder farming.Policies that aim to improve transport infrastructure, to increase appropriate investment in inputs and to lend financial and technical assistance will likely promote the creation of small agro-enterprises (ODEPLAN -FAO, 2001).Our analysis confirms that greater access to markets is associated with lower levels of food poverty. Access to local district-level markets is not a significant variable. Access to provincial capitals proved to be significant. Provincial capitals and local markets have different functions. More significant commerce and income-producing activity occurs at provincial markets. Spatial patterns of coefficients that suggest that policies focused on improving access to provincial markets, for instance by investing in the transport infrastructure, would benefit all areas of Ecuador. But these policies could have greater influence in the southern Andes and north-western Ecuador. The negative relationship between time to provincial capitals and food poverty in central Ecuador may be because large towns that are important regional markets but not provincial capitals were not accessibility target locations.Our results suggest that the processes associated with food poverty do not reflect the traditional Andes, Coast and Amazon regions of Ecuador. The provincial level is a more appropriate scale of analysis than the region. Our ability to assess different policy options at the provincial level is relevant given the trend towards decentralization in Ecuador. The food poverty maps also serve as a baseline against which future interventions can be judged for evidence of impact.This study demonstrates that explicit consideration of geographic and environmental factors helps us better understand the patterns and processes linked to food poverty. A spatial analysis framework both allows the incorporation of environmental variables and helps reveal patterns from socio-economic data. As a consequence, policies and interventions can be targeted to specific areas and can be tailored to the specific combination of factors that are linked to food poverty.    6. Significance of mean number of consecutive dry months per district (MN_DRY) using geographically weighted regression where FGT2_H is the dependent variable Fig. 7. Significance of mean area of land that is being used appropriately (MN_SUIT) using geographically weighted regression where FGT_0L is the dependent variable Fig. 8. Significance of individual ownership of land per district (PR_IND2) using geographically weighted regression where FGT0_L is the dependent variable. Fig. 9. Significance of access to provincial capitals (MN_AP) using geographically weighted regression where FGT1_L is the dependent variable.       ","tokenCount":"4619"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"25ffe2c2cd97e28cbe138204ef24e09b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0f81ddd0-80e2-4659-be21-fcd305cd4a4a/retrieve","id":"1670041785"},"keywords":["Conservation agriculture","impact assessment","income","poverty"],"sieverID":"5188e61c-6405-4dd3-b975-e95dbfa58b6d","pagecount":"17","content":"Sub-Saharan Africa is grappling with surging food demand amid a growing population and challenges of climate change. Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) emerges as a holistic solution, aiming to counter these complexities and enhance livelihoods. However, the evidence remains thin and mixed. We used a meta-analysis with 18 studies to assess the impacts of climate smart agricultural practices on livelihood indicators in sub-Saharan Africa. We find that adoption of climate smart agriculture is positively correlated with crop and household income and food security in sub-Saharan Africa. We found that the adoption of climate smart agriculture is associated with reduced incidences of poverty on average and improved food security outcomes. These last two findings are, however, only statistically significant at 10%, signifying the need to integrate CSA with other measures to improve food security and to reduce poverty. We can conjecture that the positive effects on incomes are not sufficient to significantly drive-up food security and poverty alleviation.Sub-Saharan Africa is at a crossroads, with rapidly rising demand for food driven in part by population growth, increasing average incomes, and changing dietary preferences. The predominant rain-fed smallholder farming systems crucial for enhancing production and productivity are most severely affected by climate change and variability (Anantha et al., 2023;Kassiea et al., 2014). Recent assessments from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest that climate change poses high threats on agricultural yields, food security and income (Birkmann et al., 2022;IPCC, 2022).A review of the impact of climate change on agriculture shows that climate change has significantly reduced global maize yield by about 4% since 1980 (Campbell et al., 2014) and decline in average maize yield in sub-Saharan Africa is estimated at 5% over the next three decades (IPCC, 2022). This is indicative of increased risks to food security because maize yield is the main staple crop in the region (Ray et al., 2019). As a result, climate smart agriculture (CSA) has gained prominence as one of key approaches championed to address the dual challenges of climate change and the need to increase agricultural productivity (Campbell et al., 2014;Taylor, 2018). Climate smart agriculture aims to increase agricultural productivity and incomes, improve resilience and adaptation to climate change, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture (FAO, 2023;Lipper et al., 2014).The push for climate smart agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa also helps to close yield gaps, which remain among the highest at 9 t ha -1 and above in some countries (Gassner et al., 2019;Global Yield Gap Atlas, 2023;Jain et al., 2023;Silva et al., 2023). Water stress is among the common factors that result in large yield gaps (Lobell et al., 2009). Silva et al. (2023) found that yield gaps in Zambia due to water limitations follow an increasing regional gradient from Northern Province to Southern Province. This is partly because the northern region is a high region rainfall while the Southern region is characterised by low and erratic rainfall and is projected to be the worst affected by climate change (Ngoma, Lupiya, et al., 2021) . Further, increasing incidences of climate change in sub-Saharan Africa may lead to shortening of growing periods, leading to yields penalties (Ofori et al., 2021). With these variations in climatic conditions, farmers need to adapt and change their agricultural practices to those that are resilient and adapted to climate change. These challenges render climate-smart agriculture a viable adaptation option for farmers in response to heightened climatic variations (Teklewold, 2023).CSA is complex and constitutes a wide range of practices/technologies such as conservation agriculture (CA), fertilizer application, crop rotation, crop residue retention (mulching), intercropping, multiple-stress tolerant varieties, crop diversification, agroforestry among others (Rosenstock et al., 2016). CA is a climate smart agriculture practice based on three principles i.e., minimum/no soil disturbance, residue retention and crop diversification (Giller et al., 2009;Powlson et al., 2016). Intercropping involves the planting of more than one crop in the same lines or alternating lines. An example is maize intercropped with legumes. Crop rotation is the repetitive sequence of crops in the same field in a defined order i.e., when a legume is planted in the current season, a cereal (usually maize) is planted in the same field the next season (Thierfelder et al., 2015). Mulching involves covering at least 30% of the soil surface by organic residue from the previous season (Erenstein, 2002). Agroforestry integrates woody vegetation such as trees and shrubs in agricultural systems to benefit from the ecological interactions (Pantera et al., 2021;Tschora & Cherubini, 2020) leading to increased amounts of carbon in the soil and improved soil quality as a result of increased concentration of nutrients (Ospina, 2017).In this paper, we define CSA in a broad way, and includes minimum tillage (minimum soil disturbance), cereal and legume intercropping, crop rotation and drought tolerant seed varieties. In terms of adoption, we consider both full and partial conservation agriculture and CSA more generally. Partial climate smart agriculture/conservation agriculture adoption refers to use of minimum tillage and any of the following complementary practices such as crop residue retention (mulching), cereal-legume rotation, intercropping, and improved maize varieties. Full conservation agriculture includes the use of all three main principle of minimum tillage, rotation/intercropping, and mulching.Various CSAs practices are associated with improved biophysical outcomes such as land productivity, water retention and infiltration and climate resilience (Komarek et al., 2021;Thierfelder et al., 2017;Thierfelder & Wall, 2010). Thierfelder and Wall (2010) found that implementing residue retention with minimum tillage leads to higher infiltration rates and increased moisture retention levels, resulting in increased maize yields compared to conventional ploughed plots. Additionally, Jain et al. (2023) and Lunduka et al. (2019) found that the cultivation of drought-tolerant maize (DTM) varieties contributes to higher maize yields. Farmers who adopt DTM experience a notable increase in per capita household expenditure, sometimes up to 50%, compared to those using traditional maize varieties (Jain et al., 2023). Furthermore, Manda et al. (2015) found that in Eastern Zambia, farmers who embraced climate-smart agricultural practices achieved higher maize yields and per capita income compared to their non-adopting counterparts. These findings underscore the potential for climate-smart agriculture to not only enhance agricultural productivity but also improve economic outcomes for farmers in the face of a changing climate.Given its potential benefits, there have been and there are several efforts promoting the use of climate smart agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa (Thierfelder et al., 2015). Some nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society organizations have formed advocacy groups on climate smart agriculture such as the Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture in Africa (ACSAA) (Rosenstock et al., 2019) which is a partnership between the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and international non-governmental organizations such as Oxfam, Catholic Relief Services, CARE, World Vision and Concern (Zougmoré et al., 2021). The promotion of CSA fits in with the need to make agriculture an important element in transforming economies and sustaining livelihoods (Nhemachena et al., 2020) and is key to achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) 1 and 2 which aims to end poverty in all forms, end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture (UN, 2023).As the evidence base is improving on the impacts of climate smart agriculture on land productivity and other livelihood indicators in general, there is need to collate this evidence systematically for SSA where CSA practices has been promoted over the last three decades. This is necessary because there is still a dearth of evidence on the impacts of CSA on livelihoods, and yet this matters for scalability. Where the evidence exists, it is mixed and context specific, at best. Meta-analysis provides a suite of tools to collate such evidence to give more representative results than is possible from single studies. While meta-analyses have been conducted on CSA before, most have focused on adoption (Arslan et al., 2022) and biophysical outcomes such as yield (Corbeels et al., 2020;Corbeels et al., 2014). A few have focused on both biophysical and economic outcomes (Jain et al., 2023;Ngoma, Angelsen, et al., 2021). Arslan et al. (2022) found that diverse factors affect the adoption of technologies and most studies do not include adoption intensity nor adoption of many technologies at a time, while Corbeels et al. (2014) and Corbeels et al. (2020) found that adoption of minimum tillage alone does not give more benefits compared to when it is adopted together with mulching and intercropping/rotation though the practice of mulching and crop rotation face challenges as mulch is used for many other competing needs by farmers and legume cultivation is not attractive due to lack of market for legumes compared to cereals. Jain et al. (2023) and Ngoma, Angelsen, et al. (2021) focused on both biophysical and economic factors and identified labor availability, financial constraints, and economic contexts as pivotal in influencing CA adoption and indicate positive effects on crop yield in the medium to long term, while its impact on household incomes remains uncertain and varies in different studies and contexts.We complement, extend and build on previous work, especially the meta-analyses in Ngoma, Angelsen, et al. (2021) and Jain et al. (2023) that included both biophysical and economic factors in two main ways. First, we update findings on the impacts of climate smart agriculture on livelihoods in Ngoma, Angelsen, et al. (2021) by expanding the scope, and add crop income in addition to household income. Second, we add to Jain et al. (2023) by expanding by including food security and poverty indicators in our study. In sum, this paper contributes towards a better understanding of the impacts of CSA on livelihoods in SSA by collating emerging evidence using a meta-analysis.A secondary contribution of this analysis is to propose a consistent definition of CSA. This is because what constitutes CSA differs from author to author. For example, improved maize varieties as used by Bezu et al. (2013) in the study in Malawi comprise both open-pollinated varieties and hybrid maize seed, while Khonje et al. (2015) in Zambia only mentioned hybrid maize seed varieties. On Conservation agriculture, Nkhoma et al. (2017) and Zulu-Mbata and Chapoto ( 2016) use the general definition of conservation agriculture whether CA is used partially (any of the three CA principles) or fully (all three CA principles). According to Mujeyi et al. ( 2021), CSA adoption is the use of any (at least one) CSA component by a farmer's household. Makate et al. (2017) considered a household to have adopted sustainable intensification practices (SAPs) if the household adopted any of the following: residue retention (mulching), agroforestry, crop rotation, cereal and legume rotation, organic farmyard manure, inorganic fertilizer, green manure, compost, lime, and land/soil and water conservation measures.We measure livelihood outcomes using four main indicators: household and crop income, food security and poverty. Food security is measured in various ways to capture access, utilization, and consumption. Household dietary diversity score is often used to assess economic access to food. It is viewed as a reliable proxy that quantifies the number of food groups consumed by any member of a household within a 24-hour period (Kennedy et al., 2011). Another common measure of access to food is months of adequate household food provisioning, which measures how stable a household's food access is over a 12-month period (Frayne & McCordic, 2015;Sauer et al., 2018). Other measures of food security include breakeven food security, which is defined as a situation where a household has neither a surplus nor shortage of food while occasional food insecurity is defined as a situation whereby a person suffers from periodic shortage (decline) in food consumption (Manda, 2018). The food consumption score is a common measure of food security that shows the quantity and quality of food consumed by a household over a period of seven days (Mango et al. (2017). We measure household income as the sum of crop income, livestock income, non-crop income, remittances, and off-farm income. When considering poverty, it is assessed through various methods by different authors. These include asset-based measurement (Brandolini et al., 2010;Von Maltzahn & Durrheim, 2008), income and Henderson poverty lines (HPLs) (Cutillo et al., 2022;Garner & Short, 2010;Kuypers & Marx, 2018;Von Maltzahn & Durrheim, 2008) and expenditure (De, 2017;Deaton & Kozel, 2005) and it is based on a reference category or threshold. For the studies reviewed, poverty was measured using poverty headcount (Abdoulaye et al., 2018;Abdulai, 2016) and reduced coping strategies index (Setsoafia et al., 2022).Data used in this study were collected from scientific literature on the impacts of CSA on livelihood indicators in sub-Saharan Africa published between 2001 and 2023 to capture the most relevant and contemporary literature available through a comprehensive literature search for peer-reviewed publications. The literature search used the following key words and their combinations: \"climate smart agriculture\", \"conservation agriculture\", \"crop rotation\", \"intercropping\", \"livelihoods\", \"nutrition\", \"crop income\", \"household income\", \"dietary diversity\", \"improved maize varieties\", \"drought tolerant maize varieties\", \"hunger, food consumption\", \"Africa\", \"sub-Saharan Africa\", \"Malawi\", \"Kenya\", \"Zambia\", \"Zimbabwe\" in Google Scholar. The search returned about 160 articles published between 2001 and 2023. For the studies to be considered for meta-analysis, they had to have discernible and welldefined CSA technologies, coefficients, means, standard errors had to be reported or allow for their calculations from the reported data. After a search, 18 papers published between 2012 and 2022 were selected for the final dataset having met in full the required conditions needed for meta-analysis. Although this study draws evidence from sub-Saharan Africa, the studies reviewed do not represent the entire region but are biased towards southern Africa (Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe). Data was extracted from the economic papers that were selected into an Excel template which was developed in line with the objectives of this study and meta-analysis requirements comprising of study, year, country, coefficient, standard error, factor, and outcome.In terms of analytical approaches, we used a meta-analysis, which provides a quantitative assessment of the relationship between climate smart agriculture and livelihood indicators (Hansen et al., 2022). We used forest plots to collate results from various studies on the effects of climate smart agriculture on livelihood indicators. The forest plot graphically presents results of a meta-analysis showing the effect-size estimates and their confidence intervals for each study and, the overall effect size from the meta-analysis (Ngoma, Angelsen, et al., 2021;Sedgwick, 2015;Verhagen & Ferreira, 2014).We first start by giving a summary of results from literature (Table 1). These results show that the effects of CSA on livelihoods remains mixed in southern Africa. Thus, discerning patterns across the different studies would require a meta-analysis as it aids in collating and generalizing results by combining data across diverse studies. Once collated, these results from different studies highlight several nuances as discussed below.  (Abdoulaye et al., 2018;Bezu et al., 2013;Khonje et al., 2015), and improved groundnut varieties (Simtowe et al., 2012) are common. We also included per capita food and total expenditure (Khonje et al., 2015;Simtowe et al., 2012) based on the assumption that higher household income increases household expenditure (Durguner et al., 2017;Osberg et al., 2004).Although research has shown that climate smart agricultural practices increase yields and incomes (Nkhoma et al., 2017;Siziba et al., 2019;Thierfelder et al., 2015), results from the meta-analysis show that the impact of climate smart agricultural practices on household income from various studies is mixed (Figure 1, left panel). In fact, most of the studies report only weakly statistically significant results and fall within the 95% percentile band (Figure 1, right panel). Only Mujeyi et al. (2021) show that adoption of climate smart agriculture is positively and strongly correlated with increased household income. Despite mixed results from various studies under review, the overall results show that adoption of climate smart agricultural practices has a statistically significant (p = 0.03) positive effect on household income and this is consistent with results by Tambo and Mockshell (2018) who found that the adoption of conservation agriculture (partial CSA) significantly increases household income. Note 1. The horizontal lines in the forest plots are the confidence intervals (CI) and the blue areas are study weights generated in the meta function. CIs that cross the zero line indicate statistical insignificance at 5%, while those on the left (right) show statistically significant negative (positive) effects at 5%. Notes 2. IMV -improved maize variety, IGV -improved groundnut variety, CA -conservation agriculture, CSA -climate smart agriculture.Crop income is one of the purported benefits of climate smart agriculture derived from increased crop yields (Agbenyo et al., 2022;Makate et al., 2019;Nkhoma et al., 2017). The impact of climate smart agriculture on crop income has been measured using minimum tillage (Kuntashula et al., 2014), crop residue retention/mulching (Ngoma, 2016), cereal and legume rotation (Kuntashula et al., 2014;Ngoma, 2016), improved maize varieties e.g., drought tolerant maize (Martey et al., 2020;Setsoafia et al., 2022), conservation agriculture (Nkhoma et al., 2017;Zulu-Mbata & Chapoto, 2016), row planting (Martey et al., 2020), crop diversification (Makate et al., 2016) and sustainable agricultural practices (Makate et al., 2017). Productivity is also used in the same category as crop income because it is believed that increased agricultural productivity leads to increased income (Belay et al., 2023;Mutenje et al., 2019). Despite reviewed studies showing inconsistent results, the overall effect of climate smart agricultural practices adoption is positively correlated with increased crop (Figure 2, left panel) and the right panel of Figure 2 shows that most of the studies report statistically significant results and fall within the 95% percentile band. For the studies reviewed, food security outcomes were measured using household dietary diversity score (HDDS) (Setsoafia et al., 2022;Zulu-Mbata & Chapoto, 2016), adequate food (Makate et al., 2017), food consumption score (FCS) (Mango et al., 2017), months of adequate household food/grain provisioning (Sauer et al., 2018;Siziba et al., 2019), occasional food insecurity and breakeven food security (Manda, 2018), own consumption per adult equivalent unit (Ahmed, 2022;Martey et al., 2020), and household food security (Khonje et al., 2015;Mujeyi et al., 2021) while poverty was measured using poverty headcount (Abdoulaye et al., 2018;Abdulai, 2016) and reduced coping strategies index (Setsoafia et al., 2022).Results from Figure 3, left panel show mixed effects of adoption of climate smart agricultural technologies on food security with only two publications in the meta-analysis showing that the adoption of climate smart agricultural practices has a statistically significant positive effect on food security (Mujeyi et al., 2021;Zulu-Mbata & Chapoto, 2016). However, overall results on the effect of climate smart agricultural practices adoption show a statistically significant positive impact on food security at 10% (p = 0.07) and Figure 3, right panel indicates a possibility of publication bias. Unlike other indicators, the results from Figure 4, left panel on poverty are similar for all studies reviewed. The right panel of Figure 4 shows that the studies are not symmetrically distributed, and this means that there is a possibility of publication bias. Adoption of climate smart agricultural practices has a negative effect on poverty i.e., it reduces poverty (Setsoafia et al., 2022). Despite mixed effects of adoption of climate smart agricultural practices on poverty from the reviewed studies, Figure 4, left panel shows that adoption of climate smart agricultural practices has a statistically significant negative overall effect on poverty at 10% (p = 0.07). This is further underscored by Hellin and Fisher (2018) that when appropriately directed towards the right category of farmers, climate smart agricultural practices offer a viable pathway out of poverty. It is important to note that these results on poverty are based on five studies and might not be representative due to a small sample size. Our review suggests that climate smart agriculture has mixed effects on livelihood as the results do not tell one consistent story in all the studies reviewed. It is important to note that some reviewed studies had insignificant results and most of them used partial adoption of climate smart agriculture. In a nutshell, we find the following results on the impact of adopting climate smart agriculture on livelihood.First, we find a positive correlation between adoption of climate smart agricultural practices and household income. The positive impact of climate smart agriculture on household income is confirmed by Belay et al. (2023), Sardar et al. (2020), Nkhoma et al. (2017), Brown et al. (2018), Agbenyo et al. (2022), and Mutenje et al. (2019). Brown et al. (2018) found that adoption of climate smart agricultural practices leads to increased yields and increased financial benefits because of a corresponding reduction in the use of hired labour, in preferences for herbicides to control weeds. Climate change mitigation in agriculture through climate smart agriculture is further supported by Ogada et al. (2020) who found that adoption of drought tolerant crops increased household income by more than 80% in Nyando, Kenya and Mkwambisi et al. (2016) who found that climate smart agriculture adopters had higher household income than non-adopters. These results underscore the positive role climate adaptation through climate smart agriculture plays in sustaining household income.Second, the results from the reviewed studies show that adoption of climate smart agricultural practices has a positive overall impact on crop income. Our findings are consistent with findings by Asfaw and Shiferaw (2010), Rosenstock et al. (2019) and Osewe et al. (2021), Sardar et al. (2020). Asfaw and Shiferaw (2010) found that farmers who adopted climate smart agriculture in Tanzania had more than 70% increase in crop income compared to those that did not adopt. Furthermore, Sardar et al. (2020) found bundled adoption of climate smart agriculture increased crop income by about 45% and 48% for cotton-wheat and rice-wheat crops in Pakistan, respectively. This shows that bundled climate smart agriculture adoption has more benefits than partial adoption (Corbeels et al., 2020;Paul Jr et al., 2023). These findings responds to the one of the main climate smart agriculture concepts of increasing food security in a sustainable manner by increasing farm incomes (McCarthy et al., 2018). Notwithstanding, it is important to note that there are differences between climate smart agriculture adopters and non-adopters and Asfaw and Shiferaw (2010), Rosenstock et al. (2019) found that climate smart agriculture adopters are more educated, have more assets and own more livestock, have more contacts with government extension services and have a good perception of climate smart agriculture. This suggests the need for targeted interventions to ensure climate smart agricultural practices yield their full benefits.Third, we find that climate smart agriculture has a positive overall impact on household food security , despite inconsistencies in the studies reviewed. We also find insignificant results of the impact of climate smart agriculture on household dietary diversity score (HDDS), breakeven food security, occasional food insecurity, months of adequate household food provisioning (MAHFP), food security score, . This is not surprising as other studies have shown insignificant impacts of climate smart agricultural practices on livelihood, poverty (Mgomezulu et al., 2023). Nevertheless, we find overall significant positive results on the impact of climate smart agricultural practices on food security. This is consistent with the arguments on the importance of climate smart agriculture in improving livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa through increased yields leading to improved household food security (even surplus food) (Belay et al., 2023;Wagstaff, 2010). Farmers in low and middle income countries are more vulnerable to climate change and climate smart agricultural practices are important in mitigating the effects of climate change which threatens food security (Zougmoré et al., 2021). These results show that climate smart agriculture is an important element in helping improve food security (Lipper et al., 2014) and this is also backed by evidence from Wekesa et al. (2018) and (Jaleta et al., 2018) which shows that farmers who adopted climate smart agriculture are more food secure compared to those that did not.Fourth, the results from the reviewed studies show that climate smart agricultural practices have a negative and significant impact on poverty. Similar results were found by Obayelu et al. (2019), Mkwambisi et al. (2016) with Mgomezulu et al. (2023) finding contrary results. Mgomezulu et al. (2023) found that the sustained use of climate smart agricultural practices (sustainable agricultural practices used in their study) had no significant impact on poverty in selected districts of Malawi. To the contrary, the majority of results show that adoption of climate smart agriculture reduces poverty and Obayelu et al. (2019) found that adoption of climate smart agriculture (drought tolerant maize varieties) reduced poverty in Northern Nigeria. These results strengthen the assertion by Gordon (2000) that agricultural productivity can be way of improving the availability of food for households as well as increasing household income leading to reduced poverty among smallholder farmers which has worsened due to climate change (Makate, 2019).Last, the results from the reviewed studies also show that different climate smart agricultural practices can have different effects on different livelihood indicators in sub-Saharan Africa. We therefore conclude that adoption of various climate smart agricultural practices can positively impact livelihoods in the wake of intensified climatic variations in sub-Saharan Africa and there is an urgent need to devise mechanisms to enhance adoption of climate smart agricultural by smallholder farmers who are the major producers of food in sub-Saharan Africa. Climate smart agriculture enhancement mechanisms should integrate the challenge of partial adoption as evidence has shown that the use of partial climate smart agriculture is likely not to give the full benefits of the technology as compared to full adoption or bundled use (Corbeels et al., 2020;Paul Jr et al., 2023) and this could explain why some of the reviewed studies have insignificant results. In sum, the reviewed studies show that climate smart agriculture brings about desired outcomes on all the four livelihood indicators looked at in this paper demonstrating that climate smart agriculture is critical in improving livelihoods of farming households in sub-Saharan Africa. It is worth noting that the positive effects of CSA on food security and poverty are only weakly significant at the 10% significance level. This suggests that while CSA may contribute to yield and income improvements, it cannot be the sole avenue for increasing food security and poverty alleviation.Sub-Saharan Africa is grappling with surging food demand amid a growing population and challenges of climate change. Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) emerges as a holistic solution, to counter these complexities and enhance livelihoods. However, the evidence remains thin and mixed. We used a meta-analysis with 18 studies to assess the impacts of climate smart agricultural practices on livelihood indicators in sub-Saharan Africa. We use household and crop income, food security and poverty as livelihood indicators.There are several key results. First, the adoption of CSA practices shows a positive correlation with increased household income, reinforcing the findings of multiple studies suggesting that climate smart agricultural practices lead to improved yields, and reduced labor costs, and higher incomes for farming households. Second, CSA adoption is associated with higher crop income. This finding aligns with studies emphasizing the substantial increase in crop income following the implementation of CSA techniques, emphasizing the importance of bundled adoption rather than partial. Third, while the impact on food security presents mixed results across different studies, the overall result suggests a statistically significant positive effect of CSA adoption on household food security. Despite variations in specific measurements, there's a consensus that CSA contributes positively to food security, particularly through increased yields and surplus food production. This result is only weakly significant at 10%.Fourth, the analysis highlights a noteworthy reduction in poverty associated with the adoption of CSA practices. Although a few studies present contrary findings, the majority indicate a significant decrease in poverty levels among smallholder farmers implementing CSA methods, underscoring the potential of CSA in poverty alleviation. This too, is only statistically significant at 10%. The main implication of these findings is a need to devise strategies to enhance the adoption of bundled CSA practices among smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa as partial adoption may not yield the full benefits observed with bundled adoption.It is worth noting that the positive effects of CSA on food security and poverty are only weakly significant at the 10% significance level. This suggests that while CSA may contribute to yield and income improvements, it cannot be the sole avenue for increasing food security and poverty alleviation. In sum, the findings underscore the importance of CSA in positively influencing livelihood indicators for farming households in sub-Saharan Africa. The nuanced understanding provided by this meta-analysis serves as a valuable guide for policymakers and stakeholders aiming to promote climate smart agricultural practices and to improve the wellbeing of farming communities in the face of climatic challenges. As the meta-analysis in this paper is based on 18 studies, there is scope to update this analysis with more studies that will be published on the impact of climate smart agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa to increase the validity of the results.","tokenCount":"4739"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"93c565517978f3b32066223c8a32071f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/02b0c518-d32a-4a54-8db3-4192e7275444/retrieve","id":"-1936156327"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f51a84c0-f499-4130-b488-b93365f3fe4c","pagecount":"40","content":"Madame Agnes Kalibata, ministre de l'Agriculture du Rwanda, inaugure la réunion internationale des experts des TIC lors d'ICT4Ag 2013. © CTA Agricultrice utilisant son téléphone mobile au Rwanda, où la pénétration du téléphone mobile est passée de 6 à 60 % en à peine cinq ans. © Wayne Hutchinson/Alamy 65% de la main-d'oeuvre est employée dans le secteur agricole en Afrique 11 Susan Oguya et Jamila Abass, fondatrices d'Akirachix, ont créé M-Farm, une application mobile pour les exploitants des régions rurales. 9.6% pourcentage des individus en Afrique ayant accès à l'internet en 2010 © Sven Torfinn/Panos Les innovateurs et le public ont été encouragés à « apprendre et partager » pendant la « Journée Plug & Play » à Kigali. © CTA CHAPITRE 1 / Rencontrez les mordus de l'informatique Des partenariats sont créés à Trinité-et-Tobago afin de favoriser un meilleur usage des TIC.4La conférence ICT4Ag a abordé un grand nombre de questions politiques dont certaines des plus importantes sont décrites ci-après. On y retrouve le développement de meilleurs partenariats pour optimiser l'impact des TIC sur l'agriculture, le renforcement du rôle des jeunes -hommes et femmes -dans les initiatives relatives aux TIC, le soutien à l'entrepreneuriat dans le domaine des technologies numériques, et la promotion d'une infrastructure adéquate pour les TIC dans les zones rurales.Bien trop souvent, les initiatives relatives aux TIC pour l'agriculture sont développées de manière isolée, avec des entreprises et des individus de différents pays concevant des applications (apps) comparables visant à remplir des objectifs similaires. Il est capital de créer des partenariats et des communautés de pratiques favorisant une plus grande collaboration, et de travailler à partir d'approches et de modèles existants pour développer des solutions ayant un réel impact. Il sera difficile d'obtenir un impact positif et mesurable en l'absence de partenariat et de collaboration. Le CTA souhaite être un partenaire de choix pour des institutions qui partagent les mêmes valeurs et met en place un certain nombre d'activités ayant pour objectif de profiter de la convergence des canaux TIC, tels que les téléphones portables, la radio, la vidéo et l'internet, afin de faciliter la diffusion d'informations agricoles.Les TIC ont un rôle essentiel à jouer dans la circulation de l'information entre vulgarisateurs et agriculteurs. Les services de vulgarisation et de conseil devraient profiter au maximum du potentiel des nouvelles technologies et se concentrer sur des outils innovants et éprouvés qui prennent en compte l'importance d'une communication à double sens. En outre, il faut inciter davantage de femmes et de jeunes à travailler dans ce type de services. Le CTA explore la possibilité de développer une « base de données vivante » d'applications ainsi qu'un cadre pour évaluer leur efficacité dans l'appui aux services de vulgarisation et de conseil.Les petits producteurs doivent pouvoir bénéficier davantage des mégadonnées (« big data »), ces grands ensembles de données complexes et difficiles à manipuler. La conférence a mis l'accent sur l'importance d'une bonne visualisation des données, et sur la nécessité de fournir aux petits agriculteurs et autres parties impliquées dans les chaînes de valeur des données en temps réel par l'intermédiaire de canaux multiples dans un format facilement utilisable. Il est urgent de créer une plateforme d'information publique afin de réduire les doublons. Le CTA milite en faveur de TIC participatives pour ajouter de la valeur aux connaissances traditionnelles dans des domaines tels que l'adaptation au changement climatique, le plaidoyer et les processus politiques.Il est important d'améliorer la confiance des agriculteurs dans les services TIC et dans le contenu qu'ils fournissent en évitant les informations peu fiables, de mauvaise qualité et difficiles à utiliser. En effet, le contenu -plutôt que le mode de livraison -devrait toujours être la préoccupation première de ceux qui sont impliqués dans la transmission du savoir aux agriculteurs. La technologie ne devrait jamais primer sur l'information ; un signal en faveur d'un lien plus fort entre recherche et vulgarisation.Le contenu -plutôt que le mode de livraisondevrait toujours être la préoccupation première de ceux qui sont impliqués dans la transmission du savoir aux agriculteursDe nombreuses communautés rurales ont encore un accès restreint, voire inexistant aux TIC.Elles doivent pouvoir bénéficier de ces technologies, en termes de coûts, de disponibilité et de commodité. Les fournisseurs devraient adapter leurs efforts à l'échelle des ménages et adapter l'information au contexte local, tout comme reconnaître les besoins multidimensionnels des agriculteurs et de leurs familles, et encourager l'engagement de la communauté locale dans les processus politiques relatifs aux TIC. Le CTA favorise de nouvelles approches, comme la modé-lisation participative en trois dimensions (MP3D), associée à l'utilisation de la vidéo, du Web 2.0 et des média sociaux. Ces approches s'avèrent d'une grande efficacité dans l'émancipation des communautés marginalisées, la documentation de leurs connaissances spatiales et leur communication avec les pouvoirs publics.Les TIC ont un rôle important à jouer dans l'émancipation des jeunes et des femmes des zones rurales. Les technologies de l'information et de la communication (TIC) pourraient transformer les activités agricoles dans de nombreuses régions du monde. Dans certains pays, les TIC aident déjà les agriculteurs à augmenter leurs rendements et leurs revenus ; mais il reste encore beaucoup à faire. La conférence de Kigali -la plus grande jamais organisée sur ce sujet -s'est penchée sur les progrès effectués jusqu'à ce jour, et sur ce qui reste à entreprendre.'agriculture demeure l'activité économique principale de nombreux pays en développement. En Afrique, 65 % de la maind'oeuvre est employée dans le secteur agricole qui génère 32 % du PIB. Pourtant, des millions de familles d'agriculteurs, d'éleveurs nomades, d'habitants des forêts et de pêcheurs restent pris au piège de la pauvreté. Une faible productivité, des prix énergétiques élevés, un manque d'accès au crédit et des services de conseil médiocres ou inexistants les empêchent de réaliser leur véritable potentiel.Cependant, après avoir négligé l'agriculture pendant des années, les gouvernements et le secteur privé augmentent désormais leurs in-vestissements ; et la hausse des prix des marchandises rend l'agriculture et la pêche plus profitables. Les agriculteurs et les pêcheurs commencent également à profiter de la révolution digitale. Les TIC peuvent aider la transformation de l'agriculture de subsistance en une activité commerciale viable.  a déclaré au cours de la cérémonie d'ouverture Catherinerose Barretto, une femme entrepreneur dans les médias sociaux en Tanzanie. « Nous devons au contraire considérer les jeunes comme un atout ». Elle a fait remarquer que de nombreuses applications développées par le programme mAgri et couronnées de succès, ont été mises en place par des personnes de moins de 30 ans, citant en exemple l'application M-Farm développée au Kenya par trois jeunes femmes.Par ailleurs, le ministre rwandais de la jeunesse et des TIC, M. Jean Philbert Nsengimana, a déclaré que « les jeunes constituent un atout incroyablement précieux qu'il faut cultiver. Ils devraient être perçus comme faisant partie du secteur lucratif ». Le transfert de la responsabilité des affaires de la jeunesse du groupe des ministères liés aux questions sociales à celui des ministères liés aux questions économiques a constitué un signe de l'engagement de son gouvernement envers la jeunesse.Le Rwanda fait office de chef de file dans l'utilisation des TIC pour stimuler la transformation de l'agriculture et la croissance économique. Cela en a fait le lieu idéal pour la conférence ICT4Ag. « Dans la lutte contre la pauvreté, l'agriculture est une des solutions à portée de main, et les TIC en sont une autre » a affirmé Mme Agnes Kalibata, un des cinq ministres présents lors de la cérémonie d'ouverture.La conférence a eu lieu immédiatement après le Sommet Transform Africa de 2013, également tenu à Kigali. Cet évènement a défini une vision sur la façon dont les TIC pourraient stimuler la croissance économique sur le continent. « Les TIC ne sont pas un produit de luxe, mais un instrument de transformation » a déclaré le Président du Kenya M. Uhuru Kenyatta. Le sommet a coïncidé avec le lancement d'un nouveau réseau qui fournira un accès à haut débit à 95 % de la population du Rwanda dans les trois prochaines années, aidant le pays à atteindre les objectifs de « Vision 2020 ». Ainsi s'établissent les grandes lignes d'une trajectoire de développement qui vise à transformer le pays en une économie à revenus moyens, fondée sur la connaissance.Avant le début officiel de la conférence ICT4Ag, la plupart des délégués ont participé à la journée « Plug & Play », une occasion de s'informer sur de nombreuses applications, dont grand nombre vise à aider les agriculteurs, les négociants, les agents de vulgarisation, les chercheurs et les décideurs politiques à améliorer la productivité et les revenus. Au cours des trois jours suivants, se sont tenues trois sessions plénières auxquelles ont assisté tous les délégués, ainsi que 33 sessions parallèles consacrées aux trois volets de la conférence : les innovations émergentes, le renforcement des capacités, et les environnements favorables. D'autres évènements organisés par des institutions comme la BAD, l'AGRA, le CTA, l'IFPRI et le PNUD se sont tenus en marge de la conférence et ont abordé diverses questions spécifiques. Des équipes de jeunes développeurs se sont affrontés dans un « hackathon », une compétition de conception d'applications mobiles à l'intention des agriculteurs, pêcheurs et autres acteurs du secteur agricole. Des sessions assistées par les pairs ont été organisées autour de plusieurs idées innovantes afin de profiter des critiques constructives de pairs et ainsi soutenir le développement de futures applications pour l'agriculture. À la fin de la semaine, des déplacements sur le terrain ont donné aux délégués l'occasion de visiter plusieurs projets relatifs aux TIC pour l'agriculture dans Kigali et ses alentours.Au cours de la conférence, l'expression « le temps d'agir » s'est transformée en slogan et a engendré une forte interaction entre les participants. Chaque session parallèle a débuté par de courts exposés présentés par quatre, cinq, ou six orateurs. Huit animateurs et experts en gestion des connaissances, assistés par une équipe d'étudiants locaux, ont alors dirigé les sessions sur un mode interactif, encourageant chacun à contribuer, questionner et débattre. Lors de la session plénière finale, les animateurs ont résumé les discussions thématiques, évènement clé dans la formulation des recommandations qui ont abouti à la rédaction des points d'action de la conférence. n15 Lors de la première journée de la conférence, les participants se sont familiarisés avec un large éventail de TIC développées dans le but d'aider les agriculteurs et les pêcheurs à améliorer leurs conditions de vie. La journée « Plug & Play » a constitué une introduction pratique et amusante à ce sujet complexe et passionnant.idier Nkurikiyimfura, directeur général du ministère rwandais de la jeunesse et des TIC (Rwandan Ministry of Youth and ICT -MYICT), a tenu le rôle de maître de cérémonie durant la journée « Plug & Play », à laquelle ont participé plus de 300 personnes.La secrétaire permanente du ministère, Rosemary Mbabazi, a fourni une brève explication sur la façon dont les TIC ont contribué à transformer le Rwanda en une économie fondée sur la connaissance, affirmant que l'amélioration de la vie des agriculteurs, améliorerait la vie de 80 % de la population. Ernest Ruzindaza, secrétaire permanent au ministère de l'agriculture et des ressources animales (Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources -MINAGRI), a expliqué que les agriculteurs ont besoin d'informations rapidement qui leur permettent d'augmenter leur productivité et leur offrent un meilleur accès aux marchés à travers des solutions concrètes.Benjamin Kwasi Addom, coordinateur de programme du CTA chargé de l' organisation de la journée, a encouragé les innovateurs et le public à « apprendre et partager » et a garanti que les besoins et les attentes de chacun des participants trouveraient une réponse à la fin de la journée « Plug & Play ». Quelques-unes des TIC présentées lors des six sessions parallèles s' étant tenues pendant cette journée, sont décrites dans les pages qui suivent.L'une des applications de téléphones mobiles les plus remarquées a été iCow, conçue par Green Dreams Tech au Kenya, qui fournit, entre autres, un calendrier de gestation de la vache à l'intention des petits producteurs laitiers. Les éleveurs enregistrent leurs vaches par date de gestation et sont avisés par SMS du moment où ils doivent recourir à l'insémination artificielle (IA). iCow fournit également une liste des fournisseurs d'IA. Environ 128 000 producteurs kényans ont pu bénéficier de la contribution de cette application dans l'augmentation de leur production de lait de 2 à 3 litres par jour et de leurs revenus de l' équivalent de 30 USD par mois.Les communautés de pêcheurs profitent également de l'utilisation de TIC intelligentes, comme mFisheries, un ensemble d'applications mobiles et web développé par l'Université des Indes occidentales. En utilisant un smartphone, les pêcheurs peuvent accéder à des bulletins météorologiques, des outils de navigation, des conseils de formation aux premiers soins et à la réparation en urgence de bateaux, et trouver le prix du poisson sur différents marchés. Les acheteurs à terre peuvent contacter des fournisseurs et faire leurs transactions. Lancées et testées à la Trinité, ces applications pourraient rapidement s'avérer utiles ailleurs.Des intrants agricoles de contrefaçon, comme les engrais, les médicaments pour le bétail et les pesticides, peuvent avoir un effet dévastateur sur la productivité et le bien-être des petits exploitants. En Ouganda, on estime à 50 % la probabilité qu'un agriculteur achète des produits de contrefaçon ; et un ministère évalue à 30 % la part des produits agrochimiques contrefaits présents sur le marché. Pour éradiquer ce problème, le Centre international de développement des engrais (CIDE) a développé une application mobile visant à vérifier si les produits sont authentiques ou contrefaits. Les délégués ont également pu se familiariser avec des méthodes plus traditionnelles de diffusion de l'information, telles que la vidéo et la radio. Radios Rurales Internationales qui travaille maintenant avec plus de 400 sociétés de radiodiffusion dans 38 pays africains, par exemple, offre une formation en élaboration de textes radiophoniques et travaille avec ses partenaires pour développer des programmes et des campagnes mettant l'accent sur l'aide aux petits agriculteurs. La grande majorité d'individus vivant en Afrique subsaharienne n'ayant pas accès à l'internet, la radio va continuer à jouer un rôle essentiel dans le développement agricole du continent.À la fin de la journée « Plug & Play » Krishan Bheenick, coordinateur principal de programme auprès du CTA, a demandé aux participants de débattre et répondre à trois questions : « Qu'avez-vous découvert ? Quelles sont les complémentarités vues aujourd'hui ? Que souhaitez-vous voir davantage ? » Les participants ont ensuite partagé leurs opinions, pratiquement toutes positives. L'un d' eux a soulevé l'importance de l'aspect lucratif et du commerce, devant passer avant la technologie.Plusieurs mois avant la conférence, des marathons de mordus de l'informatique ou « hackathons »évènements pendant lesquels des programmeurs informatiques développent une application TIC pour résoudre un défi particulier -se sont tenus dans six pays d'Afrique de l'Est. L'objectif était de développer et de présenter de nouvelles applications pour l'agriculture. Neuf équipes de lauréats de hackathons nationaux ont ensuite été invitées à participer au hackathon régional pendant la semaine de la conférence, sous l' égide de KLab, un pôle technique de Kigali.Au cours du hackathon, les participants ont bénéficié d'une formation dispensée par les juges du concours, des experts en TIC et des entrepreneurs agricoles : conseils sur des modèles d'entreprise, sensibilisation à ce que les investisseurs recherchent, échanges avec les agriculteurs, et perfectionnement des produits qu'ils étaient en train de développer. Rebecca Enonchong, juge du hackathon et PDG de AppTech, a manifesté son enthousiasme concernant la forte implication de femmes dans la création de nouvelles technologies ». Des partenariats impliquant de multiples parties prenantes peuvent générer les TIC les plus performantes et durables. Par exemple, l'application mFisheries, développée par l'université des Indes occidentales a bénéficié de l'implication de toutes les parties prenantes dans la chaîne de valeur, y compris des scientifiques spécialistes de la pêche, des instituts de recherche, des organisations de pêcheurs et des acheteurs. De même, un grand nombre d'individus et d' organisations, parmi lesquels des petites communautés de pêcheurs, des gouvernements locaux et des experts en TIC, seBeaucoup de temps a été consacré à l'exploration d'innovations émergentes dans le secteur des TIC. Les intervenants et les participants ont présenté une grande variété de technologies, même si beaucoup ont souligné le problème de la duplication.L'accent a été placé sur le développement de partenariats, l'utilisation optimale des TIC dans la vulgarisation agricole, et le soutien aux données ouvertes.  Les présentateurs et les délégués ont accentué l'importance de la confiance entre les parties prenantes, sans laquelle les projets et les programmes qui ont recours aux TIC échoueront. Une approche plurilatérale et participative où tous doivent agir dans le même sens est capitale dans l'utilisation des TIC. Saskia Harmsen, l' organisatrice du volet concernant le renforcement des capacités, a fait ressortir le cas de Catherine Molua Mojoko, Présidente de Walana Wa Makwasi, une organisation locale au Cameroun. Agent de vulgarisation pendant 25 ans, elle a travaillé dans les communautés qu' elle continue de servir aujourd'hui car elle connaît l'agriculture, et son organisation inspire confiance grâce à cette relation de longue date.Les délégués ont insisté sur l'importance d'impliquer un grand nombre d' organisations et de personnes. Les programmes d' e-agriculture qui fonctionnent le mieux impliquent les secteurs public et privé, ainsi que les communautés locales. Favoriser une approche plurilatérale implique généralement un engagement accru de la communauté locale dans les processus politiques. Des approches TIC nouvelles, telles que la modélisation participative en trois dimensions (MP3D), associées à l'utilisation de la vidéo, du Web 2.0 et des média sociaux se sont avérées très efficaces pour habiliter des communautés marginalisées, les aider à documenter leurs connaissances spatiales et à les utiliser pour influencer l' élaboration de politiques.Les agriculteurs et les organisations qui les représentent ne tireront partie des TIC plus sophistiquées comme l'internet et les services de messagerie SMS que s'ils reçoivent une formation adéquate dérivant de la connaissance exacte de leurs besoins. Comme Saskia Harmsen l'a dit lorsqu' elle a été interviewée par le magazine IC-T4Ag à la suite de la conférence : « Il est vraiment important que vous intégriez les communautés, que vous alliez voir les gens sur leurs parcelles, que vous établissiez des relations personnelles avec chacun, et que vous cessiez de les voir comme des groupes de discussions avec qui vous allez définir des besoins ». Le renforcement des capacités doit être dicté par la demande.Au cours de la session concernant les TIC et les jeunes, un certain nombre d'initiatives ayant transformé le bien-être de communautés rurales ont été abordées. La combinaison entre jeunes et médias sociaux peut faire beaucoup en faveur de la sensibilisation à l'importance de l'agriculture comme activité professionnelle. Les communau-tés agricoles et les groupes de jeunes gens peuvent bénéficier de façon synergique de l'utilisation des médias sociaux, pour promouvoir des spécialités du marché comme les produits biologiques. Les gouvernements ne peuvent néanmoins pas toujours apporter un soutien financier aux jeunes qui devraient être impliqués dans les initiatives relatives aux TIC dès le départ.De nombreux orateurs ont rapporté des exemples de TIC qui avaient mené à une plus grande responsabilisation, une augmentation des revenus et une amélioration du bien-être des communautés rurales. Catherine Molua Mojoko, Présidente de Walana Wa Makwasi, a parlé de son expérience de travail avec des femmes en milieu rural.Grâce aux programmes de formation de Walana Wa Makwasi, quelques 2 000 personnes dans 15 communautés rurales utilisent désormais leur téléphone pour recevoir des informations sur les techniques de production et les marchés. De nombreuses agricultrices ayant peu d'instruction accèdent aux informations, avec l'aide de leurs enfants et ont formé des liens plus étroits avec les acheteurs, se passant ainsi des intermédiaires. Les sociétés de téléphonie mobile ont installé des mâts d'antenne dans de nouvelles zones. Ce chapitre traite de la création d'un environnement favorable pour les TIC, et des conditions à remplir pour garantir l'adoption de ces technologies par le secteur agricole. Les gouvernements et le secteur privé devraient soutenir et encourager l'entrepreneuriat et favoriser le développement de modèles d'entreprise efficaces. Les expériences menées dans des pays comme le Rwanda démontrent l'importance du rôle joué par le pouvoir politique pour créer les conditions nécessaires à la réussite.29 D e nombreuses sessions se sont concentrées sur différents aspects de la création d' environnements propices, un vaste sujet, couvrant à la fois les politiques et les pratiques, et l'infrastructure et les investissements. On a cherché à répondre aux questions : « Quelles sortes de politiques et de stratégies peuvent rendre les TIC plus efficaces dans le cadre du développement agricole et rural ? Quels types d'investissements sont nécessaires et quels devraient être les investisseurs ? De quelles compétences les citoyens ont-ils besoin pour profiter des TIC ? Comment pouvons-nous créer des plans d'affaires qui suscitent l'intérêt des jeunes dans les zones rurales et les encouragent à rester dans le secteur agricole ? »De nombreux orateurs ont insisté sur l'impor-tance d'avoir un bon plan d'affaires. S' exprimant lors de la séance plénière « Pourquoi cette frénésie ? », Judy Payne, une consultante en entreprise électronique auprès de l'Agence des États-Unis pour le développement international (AEUDI), a déclaré qu'il n'y avait pas que de bonnes nouvelles concernant l'utilisation des TIC dans l'agriculture. La plupart des applications TIC développées pour les agriculteurs se sont avérées peu viables sur la durée, principalement du fait qu' elles aient été financées par des donateurs. Peu d' entre elles ont été appliquées à une grande échelle. On dispose de peu d'informations sur leur impact, et la plupart ont été conçues par de jeunes entrepreneurs intelligents, mais manquant souvent d'une bonne expérience des affaires.Judy a suggéré que les personnes impliquées dans le développement d'applications pour l'agriculture tirent partie des enseignements des TIC dans le secteur de la santé. Elle a également déclaré qu'il y avait beaucoup à apprendre des activités des fournisseurs Plusieurs discussions se sont concentrées sur l'investissement. « Les gouvernements ont un rôle important à jouer en matière de création d'infrastructure à haut débit, en particulier dans les zones isolées », a déclaré Máximo Torero, Directeur marchés, commerce et institutions à l'Institut international de recherche sur les politiques alimentaires (IIRPA). « Le secteur privé a aussi un rôle clé à jouer, et la dérèglementation crée une concurrence efficace ».Le secteur public sera presque toujours responsable des principaux travaux d'infrastructure, tels que la pose des câbles. La Côte d'Ivoire a amélioré ses connexions de façon significative grâce à l'installation, en 2011 et 2012, de trois câbles sous-marins de grande capacité financés par le gouvernement. Ce sont les gouvernements, plutôt que le secteur privé, qui sont généralement responsables de la fourniture de l' électricité dans les zones rurales.Le secteur privé a aussi un rôle à jouer, particulièrement lorsqu'il s'agit de projets à petite échelle. Les nouvelles technologies permettent de réduire les coûts ; des tours d'antennes étant maintenant vendues en kit aux entrepreneurs locaux et des fréquences de télévision moins chères étant utilisées pour la connectivité. S'appuyant sur des études de cas en Afrique de l'Ouest, au Kenya et en Inde, les orateurs ont fait remarquer que la propriété locale d'émetteurs ou la fourniture d'énergie solaire présentent à la fois des avantages et des inconvénients. Les entrepreneurs locaux peuvent être la clé de la connectivité locale, mais ils doivent développer de solides arguments commerciaux pour réduire le taux d'échec actuel, qui s'élève à 60 % au Kenya selon Orange.Plusieurs sessions ont été consacrées au potentiel offert par les partenariats entre les secteurs public et privé, tels que les fonds d'accès au service universel (USAF), des taxes prélevées par les gouvernements auprès des opérateurs de téléphonie et   ","tokenCount":"3903"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a5da52b5dc5a88f0b03030eb9cd91ddd","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/c2980cbe-9960-4941-b2d1-64591a9c2d59/content","id":"167763970"},"keywords":["Key Question Areas -Guidance Document 2","1: Problem Analysis Guideline -Guidance Document 2","2: Underlying Causes Analysis Guideline -Guidance Document 2","3: Services and Enabling Environment Guideline -Guidance Document 2","4: Weaknesses Analysis Guideline -Guidance Document 2","5: Designing Interventions Guideline -Guidance Document 3: Analyzing Business Models Guideline -Guidance Document 4: Application in FACASI Guideline 00-10","3 Session 11","00-12","12","30-13","13","30-14","14","30-14","14","45-15","Session 15","45-16"],"sieverID":"462630c8-cf2b-48e0-ae71-d6f97eb77ea3","pagecount":"55","content":"The Business Model Orientation Workshop was delivered on the 8 th February, 2014 as part of the FACASI Planning event for activities in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia in Harare, Zimbabwe. The workshop was led by David Kahan, CIMMYT, and Richard Rose, iDE with participants from the public and private sectors in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. The main objective of the session was to help participants understand the business drivers for scaling-up 2WT-based technologies for CA to small-holder farmers. The workshop followed the structure of the forward plan for the FACASI business modeling activities which will commence in 2014. This structure comprises:1. Learning how business works: the development of a hypothesis and verification through engagement with market actors 2. Analyzing how business works: through the formulation of strategic interventions to strengthen the market system 3. Analyzing business models: through the extrapolation of the business model relevant to the change agent within these interventionsFurther to introductory presentations, and a recap on the previous day's engagement with local machinery dealers in Harare, the market actors invited to participate in session one provided the sector knowledge for the target markets. These market actors represented the following commercial enterprises:-Eunice Chivunga, Sales and Marketing Manager, Mealie Brand/ Zimplow Ltd (Zimbabwe) -Marllon Nyamangara, Sales and Marketing, William Bain and Company Holdings (PVT), Ltd (Zimbabwe)Participants outlining a business model which can deliver the intervention identified to strengthen the market system.-Lewis Mataba, GroNet (Zimbabwe) -Ibrahim Yassin, General Manager, AMIO Engineering PLC (Ethiopia) -Minwyelet Sema, Executive Officer, Agricultural Equipment and Technical Service Co.The sector knowledge elicited from the private sector representatives was then analyzed using the iDE Intervention Logic Analysis Framework (see presentation slides and guidance documents in the annex). The participants were facilitated by the workshop leaders to populate the Intervention Logic Analysis Further to the identification of interventions in the system, the participants were then invited to identify the key market actors which could drive the service provision required for the identified intervention. They mapped the actors and identified the relationships between the actors in the system -asking 'who does and who pays?' The business model for the new service was identified and the incentives for the actor providing the service. The participants were asked to make a presentation to the group identifying:-The intervention and how you reached it -The key change agent to establish/ strengthen the service -The business model and the deal that can be struck to make it happenThe facilitators took feedback from the groups. The key learning points included:-Understanding of the sector in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe -Importance of a structured approach to analyzing business -Understanding of the importance of the location of CA in the respective countries from a CA perspective -How much work is required to align incentives and ensure everyone has the same picture -How to analyze service weaknesses in relation to problems in the market system -That a business model must be understood in the context of a shared objective.The workshop was concluded with an overview of the next steps for FACASI objective 2.Zimbabwe giving their experiences of operating in the small-mechanization in their respective countries 1 Business models 1. Business models\"A business model is the method to acquire q customers, service them and make money in doing so\" (Business model institute) g ( )\"A business model is how a company organizes to generate revenue and sustain itself\" (Alexander Osterwalder ) (Alexander Osterwalder ) B i M d l i ti l t d t Business Models raise questions related to innovation, entrepreneurship, organization, marketing and strategic management marketing and strategic management.Design of interventions targeting supporting functions: functions:market linkages (notably linking farmers to output markets, in order to increase their purchasing power) promotion (through branding), capacity-building of private service providers (manufacturers, installers). bundling -development or strengthening of services (e.g. information, agricultural training, etc.) embedded in the price of the productImporter/ S t ccess S iImporter/ manufacturer Operators Farmers Spare part manufacturersService providerInstitutional environment (laws, regulations, etc.)• How is the business functioning?• Is the existing business model viable?• Is the existing business model viable? Asking the right questions…1. What are the problems in the system (why are the farmers not adopting the machineries?)2. What are the underlying causes for these problems?( -The intervention and how you reached it -The key change agent to establish/ strengthen the service -The business model and the deal that can be struck to make it happen • The brand will give confidence to service providers of 2WTs (who will undertake some repairs) and local mechanics (who will undertake larger repairs) as the customers for the spare parts, that the spare parts are of the required quality.• Training the mechanics will also improve quality of g p q y service for the 2WT LSPs, improving the quality of their business, and further incentivise other LSPs to engage in 2WT business (increasing sales for the importer). Considering what information you want to attain from private sector actors (PSAs) prior to contact sessions ensures that interactions are efficient, and helps build trust and respect as the development partner appears 'informed' for the meeting. Generally, it is recommended that a more detailed literature review is conducted to understand the profile and dynamics of the overall sector the PSA operates in, and which the project or development initiative is seeking to impact. As there is insufficient time for a full literature review during the Business Modelling Training, much of this information will be extracted from the interaction with the 2WT company representative in the next session. Therefore this document outlines some key areas in which questions can be formulated in to maximise the effectiveness of the session.Consider key areas of the 2WT sector where you have knowledge gaps. Some generic question areas to understand the sector in each country are included below:Formulate some questions to ask the 2WT company representative in the next session, focusing on understanding the problems and solutions the company has experienced. See if you can get information related to the question areas above. Clarify these with your partner. The problem analysis seeks to define the issues which are currently affecting the performance of the value chain or market system being investigated. Problems should be relevant (directly or indirectly) to the particular actors which the project or action seeks to support. The problems can exist in the core value chain (the movement of the good or product), or in either the supporting functions (services) or enabling environment which affect the core value chain. The problems are the direct issues which the actors in the market have to contend with and can be identified through triangulation of information in field investigation.To identify the key problems in the VC or market system Describes the problems faced by target beneficiaries and other market actors which have a bearing on their performance. Problems are the direct issues faced and can be general or specific depending upon the context List of problems experienced by the market actors as identified through field investigation.Completion of first section of the ILA table.List the problems which were highlighted through the interview. Complete the first section of the ILA.It is important not to confuse problems with their causes (this is the next analysis) and therefore problems must be understood as the most basic issue which is being experienced. For example, farmers may express that poor rains mean that productivity is low. The problem here is not poor rain but rather low productivity, which may have another 'underlying cause' such as access to technologies such as fertilisers and irrigation equipment for example. February, 2014Identified problems are often symptomatic of wider systemic issues, or underlying causes, in the market. Therefore, in order to deliver a result which will strengthen the market system sustainably rather simply alleviate these issues temporarily, it is crucial to understand the underlying causes of these issues prior to devising solutions. To understand this, it is necessary to examine the issues more closely and 'dig deeper' to understand the root causes of the problems, this is the 'why?' question which be asked constantly throughout field investigation. The underlying causes must be deduced through analysis of verified and triangulated information from the field. It is important to try to 'project back' until the root cause of the problem is identified -this can be at least two or more levels in analysis of the problems.An example for primary producers experiencing low productivity could be due to the poor application of fertilisers to their crops and poor take up of technology. However, it is necessary to deeper into the causes of these problems in order to find the root cause -why don't they apply fertilisers correctly? Why are they not adopting technology? Only through establishing the root cause of the problems can interventions be designed to tackle the systemic problems and strengthen the system.Problem 1: Producers' yields are lower than other comparable areas WHY? Underlying Cause level 1 (identified through field investigation) -yields are lower due to poor application of fertilisers and lack of adoption of high yielding variety (HYV) seeds WHY? Underlying Cause level 2 -poor application of fertiliser is due to poor access to information (poor government extension coverage in the area and single source of information is fertiliser dealer). HYV seeds available but farmers prefer to store and use their own seeds from previous year's harvest.WHY? Underlying cause level 3 -Farmers are risk averse and prefer to store seeds as part of a risk mitigation strategy as they may use them for consumption in the winter months. FACASI Training on Business Modelling ©iDE, 2013To understand the root cause of why the problem is occurringDescribes the reasons why the identified problems are occurring. May be necessary to go through 2 or more levels of analysis to find the root cause. All analysis must be logical and may require some additional field investigation to test hypotheses.List of underlying causes which explain the phenomena of problems identified in the field.Completion of second step of the ILA format.In your groups please complete the Underlying Causes section of the ILA format for the problems you have identified.It is sometimes useful to draw a flowchart for the underlying causes to show the logical progression to the identified problem. In order that interventions by systemic (driven by market actors in the system) and to avoid market distortion or duplication of activities by the development intervention it is important to map and understand current service provision in the market. This service analysis seeks to identify the services which are being provided and where weaknesses may lie in current provision, in particular those related to the underlying causes to the problems identified. The service analysis builds upon the market map developed in the field investigation stage. It is important to identify the service first and foremost rather than the individual market actors (as other market actors may be able to provide these services even though they are not doing so at present). The enabling environment represents the wider factors which exert an effect upon the operation of the market system or value chain. While at the macro-level these can often be beyond the remit of local development interventions to tackle, there may be areas such as local norms or the local socio-political context which interventions should be mindful of when intervening.To identify the key services which effect the operation of the VC in relation to the identified underlying causes Describes the services which are required for the effective operation of the VC. These may be already existing in the system or may need to be created through interventionsList of services related to the underlying causes of the identified problems. In groups use your Market Map to identify the key services and enabling environment factors which have an effect upon the underlying causes for each problem identified. List these in your ILA format table.Services are general and are not to be confused with service providers. In some cases there are very clear service providers, such as 'farm inputs supply' will clearly in most cases be through input retailers, however for others the service may be 'embedded' in a number of service providers, for example 'market information' might reach farmers through radio broadcasts, telephone exchanges with contacts at the market, or through interactions with traders at the farm level. It is important to make this distinction as often interventions call for new ways to supply services in the VC and we must not limit our thinking to existing service providers. Further to identifying the relevant services and enabling environment factors, analysis can now focus upon the relative performance of these services/ enabling environment factors -why they are not achieving the results envisaged in the Vision of Change. The provision of these services or the influence of the enabling environment (by whichever actor may be providing them) must have some systemic weaknesses which prevent them performing well for the target group. The weaknesses may be that a service or enabling environment factor is either underperforming or non-existent in the market system. These can be deduced through analysis of the field data and, if required, follow up field investigation. It is important that these weaknesses are identified in order that interventions can be designed to tackle them and strengthen the value chain or market system.To identify the areas in which the services can be improvedDescribes the weaknesses in the services and enabling environment which are negatively affecting the operation of the value chain or market system.List of weaknesses for key services or enabling environment factors.Step 5 of the ILA format.In groups list the weaknesses of the key services and enabling environment factors which are affecting the operation of the value chain. Complete Step 5 of the ILA format.When identifying weaknesses, refer to the Vision of Change as a benchmark for how the VC or market system could function effectively. Ask WHY the services and/ or enabling environment factors are either not operating well or not reaching the target groups. Interventions can now be designed to strengthen the weaknesses in the current offer of service provision in the market system. These interventions can now be targeted at specific market actors or groups of market actors which can be engaged to drive the change in the system. Decisions must be taken regarding which market actors are best placed to deliver the required change, as a rule of thumb it is generally considered to be more sustainable for market actors (incentivised by business) to deliver services rather than projects or NGOs (temporary) or government (often driven by perverse incentives, lack of customer orientation). Interventions should identify the action being taken to alter the current operation of the underperforming VC or market system, and should be clear and specific. Activities can be outlined in the next section For example, whenTo identify the actions which can be undertaken to strengthen the VC or market system Describes the key actions which alter the current modality of the VC or market system to the to make it function more effectively The identification of interventions provides the context for the development of appropriate business models. The main objective of the business modeling exercise is to identify different ways of how service provision can work. The business model can be shown in diagrams detailing how the various market players operate together in satisfying the supply and demand for a given service, with (as in the example below) different arrows representing either the flow of products or services that are provided, or the money flows between different actors.-Who are the market actors that need to be involved in this intervention? -How do they relate to each other -what is traded between them? -What is the deal that you can make with the change agent to make the service work?The existing market players in the sector will have a huge influence on how the business model will function. Therefore it is important to identify wider market actors which have an influence on the operation of the core supply and demand relationships in the business model(s) outlined.Purpose Key Issues OutputTo establish who are the stakeholders in the business model areList of all the market playersTo ensure the product / service reaches the poor / farmer producerOverview of the products / services that will be provided The purpose of the Business Modelling Training is to apply learning from the experience to benefit the FACASI Project. Therefore it is important to reflect on what has been covered over the two days and apply this to your role in the project.Objective 2: To test site-specific commercial systems of small-scale mechanization 1 Output 2.2: New or upgraded business model designed and re-designed  Focus group discussions with each market actor group to prioritize critical success factors related to actor linkages and supporting services  Multi-stakeholder roundtables to secure agreement on an action plan for the design of a new business model or the upgrading of an existing one  Ex ante business study to assess the potential impact of new/ upgraded business models (considering the size of the market, profit along the market chain etc.)  Focus group discussion to 'demonstrate incentive' (cost-benefit analysis, net present value, breakeven point) to each group of market actors (including financial institution)  Annual multi-stakeholder roundtable in each IP to evaluate and refine (if need be) the new/ upgraded business model.Split into Tanzania and Kenya groups. Building upon your list of take-aways, complete the ","tokenCount":"2891"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f8474532d62f4111cb82815bd74b5f0e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d4334130-fe0c-4482-bf69-1b371bf71f37/retrieve","id":"-1741683772"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d48d28ad-3f51-4f05-92fa-d5d37e9c310c","pagecount":"20","content":"In Uganda, the number of pigs increased significantly in the last 20 years, from 0.67 million in 1991 to 3.2 million in 2008; and the per capita consumption of pork is the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa (3.4 kg/person/year). Pig rearing is widespread in the country, with more than 1.1 million (30.9%) households involved in the activity, meaning that the large majority of pigs are in the hands of smallholders. Women participate actively in managing pigs at household level, but more importantly, pigs are raised in 31.9% of female headed households. Pigs play an important role in the livelihoods of poor families, because they are important assets, help to generate income to cover emergency needs and pay school fees, but also are means to use crop residues and kitchen left overs, and generate manure used to fertilize high value crops. In spite of these facts, the development of pig enterprises is not yet fully aligned in the national development plans and strategies for poverty reduction. Nevertheless, pig production has continued to grow on its own, and is now a reliable instrument of poverty reduction and economic growth.The efforts promoted by the Smallholder Pig Value Chains Development (SPVCD) in Uganda project, under the Livestock and Fish CGIAR Research Program, along with those of the Safe Food -Fair Food (SFFF) project under the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH), are generating evidence on the constraints and opportunities for development of the sector, particularly in the case of smallholders, as a means to contribute to poverty reduction and increased food security, and at the same time helping to prevent potential human health problems associated to the consumption of unsafe pork. The donors for the activities of the projects mentioned above are the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) / European Commission (EC) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), respectively. Also, two projects working on African Swine Fever (ASF) prevalence and genetic diversity of the virus, socio-economic impact, and modes of transmission and spread are the foundation for the identification of alternative strategies to reduce the impact of this disease by evaluating assays for rapid and accurate diagnosis, and understanding farmers' capacity to adopt simple biosecurity measures that could help to control the spread of ASF, and reduce the negative impacts on the livelihoods of smallholder pig producers. Those activities are conducted in collaboration with Biosciences East and Central Africa (BecA) and CSIRO (Australia) funded by AusAID (Australia), and with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). The SPVCD project has been designed as part of the Livestock and Fish CGIAR Research Program long term efforts of engaging with and assessing the value chain and available knowledge, and beginning to identify and test best-bet solutions to the main constraints in smallholder pig production value chains, and is working in this context; however, delays releasing the funding by the donor agency (IFAD-EC) will limit the effective engagement of a full range of value chain actors and stakeholders, and the testing of interventions in at least two cycles of production of 6-7 months each. All these would have implications for the functioning of the innovation platforms and hubs, unless new sources of funding are identified and some bridging resources from the program are assigned before the approval of any new initiatives to assure that all initial project goals are accomplished.Among several achievements of the project in 2012, perhaps one of the most significant has been to contribute creating the space to align pre-existing work and new initiatives on a better coordinated focus and effort within the context of the value chain approach, which should serve as the basis for a pro-poor R4D platform, that will identify, and eventually promote opportunities for positive changes in the value chain that should contribute developing the pig sector in Uganda, with emphasis on smallholder farmers and poor consumers. Moreover, working closely integrated with the Safe Food -Fair Food project (A4NH) is enabling the SPVCD project to develop the value chain work in a holistic manner, covering issues from production to consumption, or from farm to the table.Besides the most significant achievements described in Section A, other relevant achievements of the project in 2012 are: a. A situational analysis of the pig sector in Uganda, that assesses the conditions within which the pig value chains operate, and sets out a broader national context for the rapid and indepth pig value chain assessments and analysis at site or small geographical scales, that will guide subsequent research activities. Specifically, the report provides an overview of past trends, current status and the likely future directions in pig value chains in Uganda; and identifies the underlying challenges and opportunities faced by different actors in the smallholder pig production value chains. The report also includes an analysis of nine ( 9) policies that affects the pig sector. b. A toolkit for the rapid assessment of smallholder pig value chains that will generate the basis for the design and testing of best-bet interventions for specific production systems and settings, that combine improved feed and husbandry, disease risk mitigation practices, enhanced food safety, and increased and reliable access to key services and output markets.The toolkit takes into consideration gender issues where pertinent, and can be found at: http://livestock-fish.wikispaces.com/VCD+Uganda c. A GIS Characterization study that combines Ugandan data at district level on poverty levels, pig population and density and access to markets, that along with some soft-criteria proposed by partners, was the basis for the participatory selection of districts where the project would operate. Part of the GIS study entitled: \"TARGETING PIG PRODUCTION VALUE CHAINS FOR UGANDA\" are posted in the 'Uganda Smallholder pig project -Participatory Outcome Mapping and Site Selection workshop report', see workshop report d. Three districts (Masaka, Kamuli and Mukono) have been selected for the initial work of the project. Within these, after the analysis of additional GIS data and rapid scoping, the project and its local partners have identified nine sub-counties and 37 villages representing the three value chain domains of interest: peri urban production for urban consumption, rural to urban and rural to rural. In two of the districts (Mukono and Kamuli) the Rapid Assessment of the VCs was completed, but only considering key informants and producers. The assessment of other actors of the value chain is pending.e. A total of 11 people (4 females and 7 males) have been trained on the application of participatory methods for the assessment of smallholder pig value chains. Also, 33 people (6 female and 27 male) have been trained on Outcome Mapping methodologies. Four graduate students and one post-doc have been conducting their research in topics relevant to the SPVCD the program and Safe Food -Fair Food under A4NH, and under the supervision of project staff.As the SPVCD project has initiated activities in Uganda in 2012, it has concentrated efforts in two main outputs: (a) The development of methods for identifying and prioritizing appropriate value chain (VC) sites and interventions, and (b) Partnership and capacity building.As described in C.1, the project collaborated with other VC projects on the development and testing of a toolkit for the rapid assessment of the smallholder pig value chains. The tool has been shared with another program's project working with pigs in Vietnam. The toolkit has been already applied in two of the three districts selected by partners for project activities, and once the data are analyzed will be used for defining the pro-poor technological and institutional innovations to be tested. Also, the participatory process used for the definition of selected sites has been documented, as well as the GIS study used as part of the criteria applied for site selection. All these have been shared with local government staff in the districts where the project is operating.Another aspect that the project has emphasized is on identifying national and local partners that eventually will become part of a R4D platform for scaling up and out the lessons learnt by/through the project, and invited all to an Outcome Mapping workshop with several objectives, such as building ownership on the project activities, involving them in different activities, but also training them on Outcome Mapping methodologies, that will be the basis for them to be part of Monitoring and Evaluation, and eventually Impact Assessment of project efforts. Besides this, the project has initiated training efforts to contribute developing/strengthening the capacity of partners in the methods and approaches promoted by the SPVCD. These efforts will continue involving partners in all activities that the project will be carrying out.It is early to identify effective progress towards the achievement of outcomes at this stage, except for the improvement of the capacity of partners in those topics that have been covered in workshops and in in-service training, as well as for the engagement of stakeholders which will contribute to cultivate ownership of project achievements. More importantly, the project has been the inspiration for consolidating two pig farmers organizations, one at local level (the Kyanamukaka-Kabonera Pig Farmers Cooperative Society in Masaka district), and one at national level (the Uganda National Pig Farmers Organization).Similar to what is described under C.3 The same were also trained on the tools for the assessment of the Feeds and Feeding component. Theme 3 Feeds and Forages Objective/Outcome 3.1 Development actors are promoting and significant numbers of smallholder farmers and small scale aquaculture producers are using superior feed and forage options for ruminants, monogastric animals and fish responding to actual and evolving demands to enhance meat, milk and fish production and reduce the ecological footprint Output Targets Status Explanation and evidence Output 3.1.2 Existing feed resources are used better 3.1.2.1 Tools that help targeting feed resources to VC and prioritize and optimize their usage in VC Partially Accomplished  Rapid assessment of feeding constraints in smallholder pigs VCs have been conducted in two of the three target districts, and the third will be completed in February 2013. Results available online. .  Information on feed resources commonly used in smallholder pig systems, and previous experiences on feeding pigs using local resources have been gathered, and along with the data generated in the VC assessment will be used to identify best-bet interventions to be tested on farm, A preliminary presentation of results is online.Output environment, what they do and farmers' perception of their importance and interactions.  Production systems tool -for understand existing production systems and definition of production scale.  Social capital -involvement in collective action and benefits. Assessment also of willingness to participate in collective initiatives for those not currently involved in them.  Activity clock -gender roles in production and marketing.  Decision-making tool -assessment of decision making and control of resources.  Livelihood analysis -identification of important livelihood activities and income sources.  Value chain mapping tool -for mapping out the value chain actors, characterizing the market channels and the relations within the value chain.  Animal health and husbandry tool -for assessing current husbandry practices and animal health related constraints.  Feed assessment tools -for assessing current feeding practices and feed-related constraints.  Breed assessment tools -for assessing breeds kept, sources and breed preferences.  Food safety, nutrition and zoonoses -food safety practices and farmers awareness of zoonotic diseases.  Key informants tool -for assessing the available resources and scarcity.The toolkit is available at: http://livestock-fish.wikispaces.com/VCD+Uganda List short and long term capacity development programs; Indicate number of trainees for each, sex-disaggregated, developed/developing country of origin  A total of 19 people (4 females and 15 males, all Ugandans) have been trained on the application of participatory methods for value chain assessment. See training newsList MSc and PhD students supervised, indicating gender, developed/developing country of origin  One Ugandan male MSc student (Peter Lule Mulindwa) is using part of the VCA data for his thesis. List meetings/workshops/seminars with a significant sciencepolicy interface (e.g. multiple high-level policy makers present)  A GIS Characterization study at district level for Uganda has been completed. The criteria used were: poverty level, pig population and density, access to markets, etc.  Three districts in Uganda (Mukono, Masaka and Kamuli) have been identified in a participatory manner by national partners as part of the Outcome Mapping-Site Selection workshop using the hard criteria generated by the GIS work; along with some soft criteria (i.e., presence of partners, previous research work). See complete report of the selection process at: Outcome mapping workshop report  Additionally, using the same criteria, and after a rapid scoping a total of 9 subcounties and 37 villages have been identified for Rapid Assessment of the Smallholder pig Value Chains in Uganda. Those represent three value chain domains: peri urban production for urban consumption, rural to urban and rural to rural.  A 4th district (Gulu), not selected by the majority of partners, has been considered for future Value Chain Assessment, based on its potential for pig production, poverty levels, per capita consumption of pork, and potential access to external markets (e.g. Southern Sudan), as well as the relevance of ASF impacts on poor household livelihoods. In the past, ILRI has implemented several projects in Uganda with national partners, but was only in 2012 that ILRI brought a team of researchers to be based in the country, therefore the first efforts were to explain to potential partners about the Livestock and Fish CGIAR Research Program in general and the goals, approaches and methodologies that the Smallholder Pig Value Chains Development (SPVCD) in Uganda project is proposing. Moreover, it was an opportunity to share with them some data that show the importance of pig production, particularly for the less endowed groups in the country. This work was facilitated by a Stakeholder Consultation Workshop held in Kampala in June 2011, with potential partners who were identified at that time; all of the potential partners were visited in 2012. Another reason for visiting partners was to learn about their activities related to smallholder pig value chains, and their interest in becoming part of the project efforts.Those visits allowed project staff to confirm that pig production is not currently a priority for the government, not even in its poverty alleviation efforts, and that not many institutions are working with smallholder pig systems, and for those that do, usually these systems are not a top priority in their agendas. All recognized the relevance of initiating efforts given the relevance of pigs in the livelihoods of many poor families in peri-urban and rural areas, and the problems they face in terms of feeding, animal health, and access to markets, among others. For those not currently working with pigs, it was also important to know the efforts the program is doing with other livestock and fish value chains in other countries, and the possibility of benefiting from the lessons learnt in other countries.","tokenCount":"2453"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"33bd5182abe78a879acf02271938a3b0","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/fafc4067-64cd-4946-bfc0-927b940393a8/retrieve","id":"586402304"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"49ced08a-da60-4e44-bb3c-56f0dc4fa8ef","pagecount":"6","content":"Step Management practices that simultaneously enhance rice yield, water productivity, labor productivity, and grain quality are needed for improving crop production and mitigating the negative impact of water scarcity on food security. Among the water-saving technologies that were developed in recent decades, the alternate wetting and drying (AWD) method of irrigation is widely advocated for its potential to increase water productivity while where irrigation is interrupted, and water is allowed to subside until the water table falls down to a threshold below the soil surface, after which the field is re-flooded. Previous studies indicated an increase in water productivity under AWD compared to continuous flooding with other co-benefits including a decrease in methane emissions, a decrease in the concentration of arsenic in grains, and an increase in the internal phosphorus use efficiency. However, yield reductions were also reported under AWD particularly when the drying phase occurs during the flowering stage, or water recedes below 15 cm soil depth. The safe AWD was developed to ensure similar or higher rice yield and grain quality under safe AWD compared to continuous flooding. Despite the benefits of safe AWD, the technology is new, and not known by many stakeholders in Mali. AICCRA-Mali strengthened the capacity of 18 staff from Niger Office including 6 women in the implementation of safe AWD for producing rice with less water and less greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining rice yield and grain quality compared to the farmers' practices of continuous flooding.Keywords. AWD, rice, water, grain quality, greenhouse gas emission 1. Introduction About 27% of the calories in the world's developing countries are obtained from rice. While rice consumption per capita has stabilized in most Asian countries and declined in some of the high-income countries in Asia, it is still rapidly rising in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, local rice production is not able to keep pace with the sharp increase in rice consumption and the region increasingly depends on imports. Rice production can be increased in two ways: expansion of cultivation area and increase in land productivity. Among the major rice production systems in SSA (irrigated lowland, rainfed lowland, and rainfed upland), average rice yield is higher in the irrigated system than in rainfed lowland and rainfed upland. About 22% of the total rice area in SSA is irrigated contributing to 40% of the total rice production. Achieving rice self-sufficiency in SSA requires an increase in irrigated rice production. Major challenges to irrigated rice production in SSA included less-than-optimum input use, poor weed management, unreliable water supply, and farmers' limited access to inputs and credit. Besides, climate change is anticipated to decrease the irrigation potentials of water resources by 10 -40%, and hence adding to farmers' burden and is likely to compromise the future productivity and sustainability of irrigated systems in many African countries. Among the water-saving technologies that were developed in recent decades, the alternate wetting and drying (AWD) method of irrigation is widely advocated for its potential to increase water productivity while maintaining rice yield compared to continuous flooding. Under AWD, fields are subjected to intermittent flooding where irrigation is interrupted, and water is allowed to subside until the water table falls down to a threshold below the soil surface, after which the field is re-flooded. Previous studies indicated an increase in water productivity under AWD compared to continuous flooding. Other co-benefits of AWD were reported such as a decrease in methane emissions, a decrease in the concentration of arsenic in grains, and an increase in the internal phosphorus use efficiency. Despite the benefits of AWD, the technology is new in Mali, and not known by most of the stakeholders and farmers. In the framework of the implementation of the AICCRA project in Mali, capacity building was provided to the staff of Niger Office in the implementation of AWD.A total of 18 staff from Niger Office participated in the training. Six of the participants were women. The participants were selected based on their expertise in water management, and working experience with irrigated rice farmers. Niger Office is an irrigated farming area in Mali located about 250 kilometers downstream from the capital Bamako. Niger Office, with its 100,000 ha of irrigated land, is now one of the largest irrigated schemes on the African continent, contributing significantly to Mali's food security with an annual production of around 500,000 tonnes of rice.The presentation of the safe alternate wetting and drying (safe AWD) was made by Mr. Blaise Tchetan, Research Assistant at AfricaRice. Safe AWD is a water-saving technology that enables irrigated rice cultivation with less water than the conventional practice of maintaining the field continuously flooded. Under Safe-AWD, fields are subjected to intermittent flooding where irrigation is interrupted, and water is allowed to naturally drain until the water level drops to 15 cm below the surface of the soil, after which the field is re-flooded. Safe-AWD is suitable for irrigated rice systems where water scarcity is a major challenge. Safe-AWD is not recommended for schemes with sandy soils and deep groundwater. It can be adopted by individuals or farmers' organizations and by national governments who aim to increase rice production in irrigated systems with reduced water use.Perforated field water tubes are installed to a depth of 15 cm in the plot to monitor water depth. During the first 10 days after transplanting, field water depth is kept at 2-5 cm to suppress weeds and reduce transplanting shock. Afterward, the timing of irrigation is based on the water depth in the field water tube. When the water disappears from the tube, the plot is irrigated to a depth of 5 cm above the soil surface. At the flowering stage, the field is reflooded, and thereafter the AWD cycles are repeated until 7 days before harvest. A field water tube should be made with plastic pipe and perforated with many holes on all sides, so that water can flow readily in and out of the tube. It should have a diameter of 10−15 cm so that the water table is easily visible, and it is easy to remove soil inside. Install the tube to a depth of 15 cm below the surface of the soil in the plot before transplanting or direct seeding. Use one perforated field tube in the center of each plot. Monitor the water level in the field tube every 2 days, and irrigate to 5 cm whenever water disappears in the field tube.Maintain the field flooded during the flowering stage for 20 days.Step 5: Irrigate intermittently based on water level in the field tube after flowering stage After the flowering stage until 7 days before maturity, monitor the water level in the field tube, and irrigate to 5 cm whenever water disappears in the field tube.Demonstration of safe AWD on farmers' fields After the theoretical presentation of safe AWD, the presenter and the participants went to the farmers' fields to demonstrate the irrigation technology. Field water tubes were installed to five farmers' fields, and stakeholders were trained on how to reach the water level, and make decisions to irrigate or not the rice fields (Photo 1). Photo 1. Demonstration of safe AWD on farmers' fields 4The training enabled the staff of the Niger office to be aware of the safe AWD method of irrigation to produce rice with less water, while maintaining rice yield and grain quality, and be capacitated for its implementation. As stipulated in the sub-agreement with Niger Office, the staff of Niger Office will train, and support 30,000 farmers including 35% women in the implementation of the safe AWD method in the Niger Office zone.","tokenCount":"1260"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9a6d3b51b53eb38418d216f516412e2a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e5a9525f-a77e-45c3-ba94-b8b7c5811660/retrieve","id":"2058829569"},"keywords":["Innovation platform","participation","rural women","value chain"],"sieverID":"9e59f762-97c8-4fe0-a1c3-ccadfa8a8275","pagecount":"10","content":"This study explored the potential of the Innovation Platform approach, in improving the participation of rural female farmers in Maize value chain. It intends to identify the peculiarities, in terms of challenges and opportunities related to its application to the rural women realities. The study collected data from 120 small-scale maize producers in South Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) from 2015 to 2017, using individual interview and focus group discussion (FGD) for data confirmation. Data was analyzed using the Average Effect of Treatment of treated (ATT) and the propensity matching score to assess the effect of IP approach on rural women, who were randomly selected to participate in an innovation platform composed solely of women (100%) against those participating in a mixed innovation platform, made of 70% of men. The results show that the Innovation platform approach allowed women to address their basic challenges and improve their participation in the maize value chain. Average individual income from participation to the Innovation Platform increased from $ 100 to $ 300 per cropping season and the average earning of a women in a platform made of women solely was $552.6 higher than that of women participating in mixed platform $432.4. We hypothesized that the main benefits from the female IP would be increased maize yields. However, the analysis shows that although yield increased, the main effect was due to improved market access provided by the \"IP.\" The implementation of the innovation platform process encountered several challenges, in particular: building a consensus when the interests of the groups in place have proven to be divergent, the barrier of social consideration (social stereotype), inability of smallholder's farmers to learn quickly and fully play expected role, the traditional culture of learning, visioning the process. Despite these challenges, IPs offered small-scale maize producers many technical, organizational and material opportunities, including income generation, access to inputs and to lucrative markets, acquisition of diversified knowledge and skills, ability to work in a commercial environment, benefiting from the services of experts, accessing new sources of financing, they could not benefit otherwise. These findings imply that to be effective for rural women, an innovation platform should include individuals with no wide social disparity and diversify the sources of income, including livestock and others off farm activities.Women play a major role as agricultural producers in many regions of the world. However, their access to resources and opportunities to enable them to move from subsistence to business-oriented agriculture is much lower than that of men [1], [2]. Women-owned farming businesses face many more constraints (e.g. including lower mobility, less access to training, less access to market information, less access to productive resources, family and ethnic negative background) and receive fewer services and less support than those owned by men [3], [4], [5], [6]. These disadvantages reduce women's effectiveness as actors in value chains and reduce overall market profitability [7]. Studies carried out in Burkina Faso, Kenya and Tanzania have shown that providing women producers and entrepreneurs with the same inputs and education as men could result in an increase in their output and incomes by an estimated 10-20 percent [8].Over recent years, the Sub-Sahara African Challenge Program (SSA-CP) attempted to revolutionize innovation and diffusion processes in rural Africa using an \"innovation system\" perspective, integrating and building on knowledge and preferences from stakeholders across the production and distribution chain. Innovation systems approaches build on the premise that the capacity of stakeholder to innovate is determined by the organizations, their resources, and the policy frameworks within which they operate. It also promotes the idea that innovation itself is a result of the interactions between numerous public and private actors and organizations within the system, and that approaches to enhance innovation systems should be participatory in nature, and seek to engage not only researchers, but also representatives from appropriate government bodies as well as producers, intermediaries, customers, and financial organizations. A popular approach to bring together these stakeholders is through so-called innovation platforms that are aimed at enabling bottom-up searches for solutions to local bottlenecks [9]. Innovation platforms are acknowledged as social structures that can internalize transaction costs, facilitate efficient information flow, and reduce both farmers' risk aversion toward new technologies and income shocks through collective risk management [10]. In this context, the established innovation platform serves to develop market linkages while increasing the power of negotiation of rural producers vis-à-vis to urban buyers as a main consumption niche. Participants are envisioned to be a learning group rather than a passive absorber of information, capable of contributing to problem solving and practical solutions to agribusiness.In South-Kivu, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), an initiative to implement the innovation platform approach has been undertaken to facilitate rural producers in accessing institutional service support, improved technologies, better markets to improve their production and commercialization [11]. In the pilot implementation phase of this project in Rutsuru and Masisi, women, representing 20% of participants, were not major actors in the process. Although this pilot phase produced encouraging results, such as increase in income of beneficiaries from $120 to $400 per season [12], these mainly male-led IPs did not benefit women smallholder farmers. The unequal socio-cultural and economic status of women limited their participation in the male-led IPs. It is against this background that this research was designed, with the aim to ascertain whether the organization of innovation platforms, mainly for female actors (PlF) would better solve the problems of effective participation of female producers in the maize value chain and if would positively solve the current limitations that women face in terms of marketing their crop produce.The main objective of this research is to evaluate whether IPs that specifically focusing on women's participation lead to better outcomes for women. The study also seeks to identify the peculiarities, in terms of challenges, lessons and recommendations for the application of the IPs approach in the specific context of rural women. In addition, it intends to improve common understanding of the rural reality for women that can serve as a starting point to identify possible pathways to foster improvements in the IP's approach.Three main research questions are addressed in this paper: (1) What is the contribution of IP's approach to reducing poverty through research for development project? (2) What is the mean effect of the project for a particular type of individual having a particular prerequisite such as level of education among those who participate to the program? (3) Which particular challenges and opportunities do IPs with high relative women participation present?This study was conducted in South Kivu Province of the DRC. The region is characterized by high population density coupled with high levels of unemployment and poverty. More than 60% of the population is classified as poor and the proportion of poor women is higher than that of men [13], [14]. South Kivu has both low and high altitude agroecological regions from as low as 700 m to above 2000 m and agriculture is the dominant sector of the economy in the region accounting for over 65% of the GDP. The majority of the farmers are small-scale operators, with 86% cultivating less than 1 ha while the average size of a domestic farm ranges between 0.6 and 0.9 ha.The experiment of the IP approach was conducted under the \"Projet de Redynamisation de la recherche orientée sur le développement agricole (R4D) en République Démocratique du Congo (PRIA)\" funded by the government of RDC, from 2014 to 2017. The aim of the project was to promote agricultural innovation in rural areas, with a particular focus on developing the agricultural value chain. The implementation stage was organized as an experiment with selection of IP's treatment into the sites. The two sites selected were Miti and Kamanyola. Miti is in the hills above Lake Kivu (1583 m) and is near the provincial capital of Bukavu. Kamanyola is on the Ruzizi Plains next to Lake Tanganyika (891-973 m) and is between Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, and the modest Congolese town of Uvira [15]. The two sites receive rainfall between 1200 -1800 mm per year. This region has two growing seasons, season A from September to January and the small season B from mid-February to June.At each site, 2 innovation platforms (IPs) were established. The number of the platform members depended on the institution and services available at each site. The members were composed of different types of individuals, groups or organizations who agreed to be engaged in the IP. These included farmers, representatives of research institutions that develop new technologies, public services and NGOs involved in the dissemination of new technologies, private inputs providers and merchants, and a few key consumers in the region. The IPs had an average membership between 45 to 50 people. Each IP elected a steering committee. Farmers received improved maize seeds, inputs and training on agricultural practices. Meetings were held at the beginning of each crop season. During meetings, IP members had to decide in a participatory manner on the types of training to have, inputs types and source and markets to be targeted. Input and credit agreements and related trainings were provided by service providers (within the platforms). Other monitoring and evaluation meetings were scheduled throughout and at the end of a crop season. Demo and seed multiplication plots were established by each IP, and harvested seeds were distributed among IP members to establish their own individual maize production plot. A field monitoring committee collected data and ensured that members applied the needed recommendations. At the harvest, the committee aggregated the quantities produced, sold them to the buyers and gave each IP member his proportional share of money after withdrawing the shares due to the suppliers of inputs and credits. During the evaluation of the IPs process, individual interviews followed by the focus group discussion (FGD) were conducted to gather view of participants and nonparticipants on the process. This made it possible to understand and explain certain phenomena that were difficult to explain from the quantitative and qualitative collected data during the implementation process.Data and sampling frame The sample for this study was made of 120 farmers, maize producers, divided into four innovation platforms. Two platforms are mixed (MIX), composed by 40 men and 20 women. The other two are made up of only female actors (PFF).The study seeks to measure the effect of treatment on treated or the contribution of this program to increase women income (the effect of household participation to the study on poverty reduction / household income). The simple way of doing so is to consider the difference, let say the mean income between women who participated and those who did not participate. However, taking this difference as a causal relationship between participation and non-participation raises several problems including the selectivity bias [16], [17]. In case where this difference may be positive, it does not tell us that there is a causal relationship and whether or not participation leads to income increase. It may happen that a part of the income difference between participants and nonparticipants, existed even before project starts. It is against this background geared towards solving the selectivity bias problem that experimental and non-experimental approaches were developed.In this research we suppose that participation of women to the program would lead to heterogeneous results, as we do not expect all women to obtain the same results when participating in the IP program. To check this, the Average Treatment Effect on the treated (ATT) and the propensity matching score [18], [19] were used as it's sometimes done in the literature of impact assessment [20], [21], [22]. The propensity matching score approach allowed us to match individuals who participated in the platform with those who did not participate but having the same characteristics. The Average Treatment Effect on the treated allowed us to estimate the effect of participation in IPs.The propensity scores in this study were calculated using the platform adhesion equation, which is a Logit regression model using platform adhesion as the binary variable (1 = Adhesion and 0 = Non-adhesion). Characteristics that may affect participation were carefully examined to better assess propensity scores. In this study, we used the Epanechnikov kernel matching as in [23], established at a rate of √\uD835\uDC41 with its asymptotic normality. This allowed us to associate similar characteristics of a women adhering to the platform to that of one who did not adhere. The (households observable) characteristics associated included age, farm size, income, marital status, area and education.The equation to estimate the model in this work is given by: Li=() Individual performance = β0 + β1 (Age) + β2(Educ) + β3 (site) + β4 (farm size) + β5 (Qtyprod) + β6 (Hincom) + β7 + β8 (marstatus) + Ԑ(1)Where d=1 if the individual participates in innovation platform, d=0 if the individual does not participate and explanatory variables have the characteristics specified in Table-1. This choice was guided essentially by the nature of our data that doesn't permit to view the situation of individuals sampled before participation and after participation in the platform. But, if it were the case the double difference would be appropriated. However, the endogenous problem occurred given that some factors which affect profitability was not captured, such as the soil fertility, rain and others specific agro-ecological aspects related to maize production. Then, using a least square ordinary to estimate the effect of participation on profitability there was an underestimate of the causal effect due to residues.To avoid this problem, a regression with instrumentals variables can be used. But the main difficult is that in many cases we don't have adequate tools to support or instruct farmer's characteristics. Given that the goal of impact assessment studies was to prove counterfactual -which means that how would be the profitability of individuals who had participated if they couldn't participate and vice versa. But in reality, it is difficult to prove that because for the units in the sample, only one of the potential outcomes, Yi (0) and Yi (1), is observed and the other is unobserved or missing.Thus, if there is assurance that the status of participation in the platform is randomly determined, the impact can be evaluated by doing a difference between the average profit or income of those who participate and those who didn't participate, which is an experimental approach. In noexperimental approach, the difference in different method, the regression with instrumental variables and the propensity matching score are commonly methods, which are used. In the light of the above, the propensity matching score will be used in this study.In the case of this study the variable Y with an expected value E(Y) in a population of n household is divided into two groups, on one hand, those who participate in platform made only with women (PFF) (which represent treatment group) and on the other hand those who didn't participate (which represent control group). Consequently, we have a binary variable, which take 1 as value for those who participate in the platform and take 0 as value for those who didn't participate.As formalized in [24], the model of assessment impact assumes two values of target variable for every individual; the value of the interest variable Yi become Yi T for individuals in the treatment group and Yi C for those who are in the control group. So, the impact of participation in a platform on profitability of individual i will be the difference between those two values of interest variable as is follow.Where Gi is the impact or causal effect of participation in a platform on profitability.However, this can only be true if there is no problem of selection bias. That is, if the two populations (beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries) are homogeneous except that one is treated and the other one not treated Because it is difficult to calculate that causal effect for every individual, the literature suggests to use the average treatment effect Δ '%( which is the sum of the average impact Δ %% of the treatment group and the average impact of the control groupΔ %) .The estimation of Δ %% and Δ %) is doing within respectively samples of treatment group and control group. Is also interesting to know the conditional average impact given some characteristics of households. Let X be the vector of those characteristics. The conditional average impact of the treatment group will become:and the conditional average impact of the control group will becomeThus, the sum of those conational average impacts gives us the conditional average treatment effect:In practice, the popular method assumes that those three averages impact are equals and we have:Where Y $ is the income earned by an household I is the welfare component (Poverty status, per capita expenditures, income, productivity etc.) Δ '%( \uD835\uDC47 + is the average treatment effect., is the slope of the vectorsTo avoid some constrains, the errors terms of those two groups are assumed equals, so we have µ $ & = µ $ % . Even if this procedure is important in the estimating of average effect of participation in platform on profitability (income), other many hypotheses are necessaries to have parameters without bias. To be conclusive, let us suppose D (X) be the difference between the average of interest variable of those two groups. Thus, we have:And \uD835\uDC35 --(\uD835\uDC4B) ≡ E(\uD835\uDC4C -|X, T = 1) + E(\uD835\uDC4C . |X, T = 0) (10) by using D(x) in the estimation of Δ %%We used the meeting attendance, labor provision, payment of fees and other work organized by the group as indices to evaluate the individual participation of members to the platform activities. The intensity of individuals participation changed over the time and shows the ability of the women maize producers to engage in networks, cooperate and make use of social relationships for collective action, the so-called 'collective efficacy' [25].We did this to understand if there was a difference in relative motivation index of members (ability to get and stay motivated) between men and women. Graphs 1 and 2 show how the participation of members in the platform activities evolved over the time. Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 show how evolved the participation of men and women over the time in the platform activities. It shows difference between the two components. Whether in Miti or Kamanyola, women start timidly and when they understand the process, they increase their participation. Which is different from the observed trend for menThe quantity of seed production depends, on the area planted, the type of seed used, the climatic conditions and the cropping system applied. In the study, the platforms of the same sites, Miti or Kamanyola had the same plot size, used the same quantity and type of seed, received the same training and therefore were expected to produce the same yields, ceteris paribus. However, the results obtained in the field show a great disparity between the sites and between the platforms. Although we observed a difference between the sites, which is explained by the fact that arable land fertility is more noticeable in the plain of Ruzizi (Kamanyola) than in the highlands of Kabare (Miti), we observed a large difference between the quantities produced by different IPs. At Miti the women's platform registered a higher production compared to the mixed one, i.e. 1194 kg and 1045 kg respectively. This same trend is observed in Kamanyola where the women produced 1560 kg compared to the mixed platform, 1356 kg. This shows that, at certain extent, women have ability, once organized, to produce as men do, or even more.  Table 3 presents results of quantitative variables of individual sampling. As we can see, in the treatment group all individuals sampled are females. But in the control group most individuals are male approximately seventy percent from thirty percent of female. According to marital status of maize sellers sampling there are more married (66.2% and 56,67%) in the two groups under analysis. According to the age of sellers sampling, we saw that in the treatment group a high percent of individual was between forty-five and fiftyfive years old but in the control group individuals were between thirty-five and forty-five years old. Most of individuals sampled have a secondary level of education (70%) in the treatment group and the control group. Table 4 above shows the average income earned by the two groups. It reveals that the IPs played an important intermediary role in stimulating and influencing innovation processes such as shifting from subsistence to commercial Maize production, whereby women gained access to urban market and improved their income. Ordinary women sell maize in isolation to street traders at a price of $ 6 for a 50kg bag. The maize sold by the platform was delivered directly to the urban market at a price of about $ 18 in Bukavu per 50 kg bag, which means an increase of 300 percent of income. The average earning of a woman in a platform made of women solely was $552.6 higher than that of women participating in mixed platform $432.4. This difference between the two groups is statistically significant at 0.05 level. The average area cultivated in hectare in treatment group is not much different to the average area cultivated in the control group respectively 0.74 and 0.75. The variable years of education shows that sellers in the treatment group and control group had very close (10.95 and 11.1) years of education respectively.To perform the matching score propensity, we firstly estimated the logit model to determine the variables, which affect the probability for being member of platform. The following points showed results of this estimation. Secondly the results of matching estimation are provided.As we can see in the following table, only two variables influence significantly the probability of participation in a platform. One of them -income -affects the probability positively. To be married and areas influence the probability of being member positively, but not significantly different. The analysis of the pseudo R 2 shows that this model explains fifty-tree percent of change in participation in the platform. The results show that the signs of all coefficients were in the expected direction, but not all were statistically significant. The probability of earning more income increases significantly with farmers who have high level of education, income of the farmer in the previous season and those that have large farm sizes. However, the income earned decreases significantly with farmers' age. This can be explained by the fact that the ability to apply new technology on a specific farm clearly is influenced by the farmers' age. Young farmers seem to be more active than old farmers as far as trying new things in rural poor farming context is concerned. This means increasing age hypothetically reduces the probability of applying new technologies. This might be because of factors inherent in the aging process or the lowered likelihood of payoff from a shortened planning horizon over which accepted benefits can accrue [26]. The second line in table above (ATT, Average Treatment Effect on the treated) corresponds to the comparison of the productivity of households treated (membership of platform) and that of untreated households (no member) and having the same characteristics. This impact is estimated higher in favour of households treated. Combined with the earlier results that last season's income and education are significant, we can conclude that educated and higher income woman have a larger tendency to participate.1) During evaluation of the process it came out that women who did not have enough intellectual capacity did not achieve good records when compared to those having high education level. Responding to the question\" did you feel confident working with other platform members? Some of them (16%) said it was difficult to feel confident in a group where there was a great social disparity between participants. Social homogeneity seems to be an important factor in the collective action for rural women. It appeared that social disparity among the members, far from being a motivation to stimulate rural women participation, was found to be a source of frustration for those who did not perform well. This may explain the inefficiency of women in a mixed group which implies that platforms to be effective for rural women should include individuals with no wide social disparity. 2) About 34% of smallholder farmers complained that given the small size of farmland, they generally apply the intercropping for family subsistence. However, the increase in family income induced by the participation in the value chain (IP participation), moving from subsistence cropping (intercropping) to the marketoriented cropping (the monoculture) certainly was not enough to produce, in the short term, significant improvements in the diet of the family as advocated by the IP approach. The fact that they have devoted the full extent of land available to the production of Maize, has led to the reduction of the quantities of self-produced food, which has not necessarily been rewarded by the positive effects of the generated income which was assigned to the pressing needs at the moment, such as school fees and medical services/bills. This implies that, to be useful for rural women, an innovation platform should diversify the sources of income, including livestock and others off farm activities.3) The actors participating in this IPs process came from different horizons with different background. At the beginning of the process they showed divergent objectives and ambitions, linked to conflicting or competitive interests. The fragility of the link between different categories of members arose when the priorities had to be defined. People of different category tended to coalesce and form one block that wove one against the other. For example, private inputs providers find it too long for them to supply farmers with inputs on the credit basis and be paid at the harvest time, four months later. For farmers that was the only suitable solution. These openly expressed positions likely reinforced the status quo in IPs consensus, in which farmers had limited voice and power in decision making processes and led to lack of engagement and 'buy-in' from farmers. In these conditions it was difficult to work together trusting each other, to cooperate effectively or to share useful information with each other. The big challenge then was to build trust and consensus among the members, and lead the divergence towards common ground, a common understanding of the issues, a mutual coordination of activities to deal in a concerted way with the identified problems and thus take advantage of the opportunities that offered each part. This confirms the findings of the study in [27], who found that innovation platforms alone may not lead to system-wide change and large-scale impact if they are not systematically facilitated to improve governance, or if they are not embedded in the existing institutional environment 4) Farmers in the platform seemed not equipped with the technical, organizational and management skills needed to play their role in the platform effectively. They often showed frustration, and other actors tended to take advantage of this situation by imposing solutions that favored them. On other hand, the desire to push the actors to reach a consensus did not lead to \"solutions\" that suited all the actors involved, especially those who did not have enough power. This led to a hiring of a well experienced external facilitator who helped actors to reach shared understanding, organize themselves better and set a capacity building program to enhance members skill and ability to work as partners.This paper sought to address three key research questions. The first question was related to \"What is the mean effect (contribution) of project on women poverty reduction or what is the contribution of IP's approach to reducing poverty through research for development project?Our experience showed that the IP approach has the potential to improving women's participation as an actress in the commercial value chains. Through the platform, small-scale female producers had effective access to improved inputs such as seeds and fertilizer, received training and practical skills in maize production. This led to women's access to the lucrative market and increased income. We found that group membership leads to a significant increase in members' income, but only for those women who market their produce collectively. This underlines that it is not only the group membership that matters, but also the degree of participation in certain group activities. For how long they will still be having access to the inputs and markets beyond the project, is one of areas that need future investigation.The second question was related to: \"What are the factors that determine women participation in IPs? What is the mean effect of the project for a particular type of individual having a particular prerequisite such as level of education among those who participate to the program?\" the study showed that women who did not have enough intellectual capacity found it difficult to perform in a group where there is a great social disparity between participants. Social homogeneity seems to be an important factor in the collective action for rural women. It appeared that social disparity among the members was seen to a source of frustration for women with low education level. This implies that for platforms to be effective for rural women, they should include individuals with less social disparity. Future research needs to focus on this case, to find out how to improve participation of women in mixed IPs, because it is socially difficult to find a situation where women operate sustainably without men.The third question was related to: \"What are the peculiarities in terms of challenges and opportunities of IP approach implementation for rural poor women? The implementation of the innovation platform process encountered several challenges, in particular: building a consensus when the interests of the groups in place have proven to be divergent, the barrier for social consideration (social stereotype), inability of smallholder farmers to learn quickly and fully play expected role, the traditional culture of learning, visioning the process. Despite these challenges, IPs offered small-scale maize producers many technical, organizational and material opportunities, including income generation, access to inputs and to lucrative markets, acquisition of diversified knowledge and skills, ability to work in a commercial environment, benefiting from the services of experts, accessing new sources of financing, they could not benefit otherwise.This research was made possible by PRIA funded by RDC government. Paulin Njingulula, would like to extend sincere gratitude to the rural households and enumerators who participated in this research. ","tokenCount":"5047"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ba4f9bdfaff65f5580c96fb030c36a6e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ab242c1f-6fa9-498e-8ff6-43e1ef025c83/retrieve","id":"-15419373"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e7940239-302f-4798-b6f6-38da775f67c0","pagecount":"7","content":"THIS PAPER examines the returns to labour from cropping fallowed land and land that has been used for Stylosanthes fodder banks in the subhumid zone of Nigeria. Contrary to the farmers' claims, the results of the study show that 'fodder bank soils' are easier to ridge than the adjacent natural fallows. However, due to the additional work needed to harvest the increased yield, cropping in fodder banks requires more labour. Although the technology has not yet been widely adopted, the trial with maize reported in this paper showed that incremental earnings of about 15% are possible, allowing for labour charges and assuming the extra yield was surplus to subsistence and had a lower marginal value.ILCA has accumulated considerable evidence of the beneficial. effects of Stylosanthes pastures on soils in the subhumid zone of Nigeria. These effects have been expressed in terms of crop yield i.e. returns on land area. However, land is not a limiting factor for cropping in the study area; labour availability during the peak periods of a growing season is the critical constraint.Labour is the major input in subsistence farming and also largely determines the amount of land a farmer cultivates each year (Powell,1'986). In order to maximise the benefits from labour spent on a unit of land, the farmer usually adopts inter-cropping which exploits crops with different growing periods within the same season. With this technique, labour shortage is most critical at the time of land preparation, especially ridging which takes place during the peak period of labour demand (Ingawa, 1986). A delay in the onset of rains could aggravate this problem by shortening the period of land preparation before planting the first crop (Jones and Wild, 1975). The lack of labour needed to slash and burn land studded with bush after a natural fallow encourages farmers to continue cropping the same piece of land despite declining yields (Powell, 1986) and the need for rest periods between crop phases (Young and Wright, 1980). However, the reduction in grain yield caused by continuous cropping can in some instances be alleviated by the application of fertilizers.In the subhumid zone of Nigeria, ILCA has been experimenting with fodder banks (concentrated fenced units of Stylosanthes, established and managed near the pastoralists' homesteads) to provide supplementary feeding for animals during the dry season. Mohamed-Saleem (1986) reported that maize grown in fodder banks of various ages produced higher grain yields than maize cultivated on previously cropped or natural fallow soils. This suggests that fodder banks could be used by agropastoralists for both fodder and grain production. The finding may also encourage arable farmers who have no livestock but are interested in the subsequent benefits of the technology to cropping to lease land to landless pastoralists for the establishment of fodder banks.Farmers who are familiar with Stylosanthes experienced difficulties in tilling stylo soils, which implies the need for extra labour at the critical time of ridging. Informal interviews with the indigenes of Ganawuri (one of ILCA's case study areas in the subhumid zone of Nigeria) showed that this problem occurred with stylo that had been used for soil reclamation and allowed to become woody. In order to examine the extent of the problem, an experiment was undertaken to compare the labour inputs for cropping maize inside grazed fodder banks with those on adjacent natural fallows.The study was conducted at Abet (9°30' N, 8°25' E; 1300 mm rainfall between April and October) during the 1985 growing season. Two fodder banks of Stylosanthes hamata cv. Verano, established 3 and 4 years previously and grazed during all subsequent dry seasons, were identified. Four 15 m x 10 m plots were laid out inside each fodder bank. The plots were on sites in which the legume component was representative of that (50 to 60% stylo) found in other fodder banks in the subhumid zone of Nigeria. Comparable plots were demarcated immediately outside the fodder banks on fields that had been under natural grass fallow for at least 4 years.All agricultural operations were carried out by the same hired labourers, who were allocated randomly among the replicated plots inside and outside the fodder banks. The operations included ridging twice, two fertilizer applications and two weeding operations followed by harvesting, which comprised plucking, dehusking and shelling. The time taken to complete each task was recorded. Observations on labour input were also monitored by interviewing the workers.In May 1985 the plots were ridged at 1-m intervals to a height of 30 cm. They were planted with the TZPB maize variety at a rate of 3 seeds per hole with a spacing of 0.25 m. After emergence, seedlings were thinned to one per hole. A uniform dose of 60 kg N/ha, 60 kg P/ha and 60 kg K/ha was applied as compound fertilizer (15:15:15) prior to planting and another dose of 60 kg N/ha was applied as urea 6 weeks later. Plots were weeded 5 and 8 weeks after sowing. At harvest, the cobs were plucked and then dehusked, dried and shelled to determine grain yield. The stalks were cut and dried at 60°C for 48 hours to determine the dry weight of crop residues. All data collected were analysed using analysis of variance.Figure 1 (average of 2 sites) gives a break-down of labour requirements by operation for cropping maize inside and outside the fodder banks. Cropping within fodder banks required 129 man-days/ha on average, compared with 110 days on natural fallow. Ridging 'fodder bank soil' required significantly less labour than did ridging soils under natural fallow, indicating that the latter was more difficult to till. This finding was supported by the workers taking part in the trial, who admitted that the `natural fallow soil' was more difficult to ridge. More time was needed, however, to harvest maize grown within the fodder barks. This was because grain and crop residue yields on stylo plots were higher by 2 and 3 t/ha on average than those on natural fallow soils (Tables 1 and 2).The study reported in this paper demonstrates that the labour requirement for ridging a 'fodder bank soil' was lower than that for ridging soils under natural fallow. The relative ease of tilling a soil previously under stylo was confirmed by the workers' perceptions of labour spent on ridging. Further evidence was provided by another study in the area in which Mohamed-Saleem et al (1986) found that soils that had been under stylo for 3 to 4 years had lower bulk densities (1.42 g/cm3) than both fallows with similar grass species (1.61 g/cm3) and repeatedly cropped soils (1.72 g/cm 3 ).   Cropping causes a soil to lose its structure rapidly and to undergo compaction (Kowal and Kassam, 1978), which implies that continuously cropped soil will require more time to till.More time was spent on other operations in the fodder banks than on fallows. This increased the total labour input on stylo sites by 19 man-days/ha, amounting to 129 man-days/ha as compared with a total of 110 man-days spent on cropping outside the fodder banks. Previous studies in the zone reported 103 man-days/ha for cropping maize on similar soils under similar farming conditions (Poate, 1980).The extra labour required for weeding the cropped areas within the fodder banks was due to a greater weed growth resulting partly from the repeated emergence of stylo from a large seed reserve built up over the years. However, since the plots were weeded between July and August, which is a relatively less intense labour period (Ingawa, 1986), the labour input for this operation was not critical. Owing to the increased grain yield, the labour requirement for harvesting maize in the fodder banks was higher by 19 man-days/ha than that on natural fallows (Figure 1). During harvest demand for labour is high but assistance is available from women and children, who are not normally involved in ridging.The observed increase in crop yields on 'fodder bank soils' confirms earlier findings in two other case study areas in the zone (Mohamed-Saleem, 1986), although the maize yield on stylo soils in this study was on average 1 tonne more at similar fertilizer rates. This could be attributed to a 200 mm higher rainfall and its better distribution in 1985 as compared with that in the previous 4 years. The crop yield differences inside and outside fodder banks are related to variations in the physical properties of the soils, which could have favoured higher water infiltration and nutrient retention by the post-Stylosanthes soil (Mohamed-Saleem et al, 1986).The budgetary implications of increased labour use and crop yield are summarised in Table 3.Cropping maize inside the fodder bank increased income by 124% over growing maize on fallow land. The potential benefit to agropastoralists can be derived by comparison with a budget for a typical herd of 40 cattle. According to Waters-Bayer (1986), a herd owner in Abet derives the following income from:Sales of cattle N 2080 Sales of dairy products 940 Total N 3020 Powell and Taylor-Powell (1985) reported that pastoralists in Abet cultivate an average of 0.87 ha/household of which 0.24 ha is under maize. Hence the income from growing maize alone in a fodder bank would be 170.00.Pending research on the yield responses of the other major cereal crops, an estimate of the potential incremental revenue for agropastoralists may be derived from the assumption that the total area under cereal crops is under maize i.e. 0.722 ha (83% of the average area cultivated by pastoralists). The total annual grain income from cropping a fallow is estimated at 411.00 (569.5 x 0.722), and the gross cattle and crop income would be 3431. The incremental revenue resulting from cropping a fodder bank would then be 511.4 (708.32 x 0.722), which is equivalent to 15% of the present annual income. Data available so far suggest that fodder banks of highly productive legumes such as Stylosanthes spp. could be an alternative land use to a natural fallow in situations where high-quality fodder and the preservation of soil conditions are vital for increasing agropastoral outputs. Since labour is a major constraint, any operation that would increase labour requirement would not be readily acceptable to either farmers or pastoralists. Methods requiring low labour inputs for fodder bank establishment have already been demonstrated (Mohamed-Saleem et al, 1986). The results of the present study suggest that a cropping system with a forage legume interphase could greatly increase crop yields in addition to increasing livestock productivity which is the original objective of establishing fodder banks (Mani et al, 1986).","tokenCount":"1739"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cceb059dfe5f8240658f853a4cea23f6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/6248c44f-e952-49e7-8f70-4e1f97827394/retrieve","id":"-1674762840"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"565d9f65-7c0f-4afe-a1e6-92d6e6cfb4e5","pagecount":"12","content":"What decisions can women make in Surkhet, Nepal?Women's agency and perceptions of domestic violence ABOUT THIS DATA NOTE | The Transforming Agrifood Systems in South Asia (TAFSSA) district agrifood systems assessment aims to provide a reliable, accessible, and integrated evidence base that links farm production, market access, dietary patterns, climate risk responses, and natural resource management with gender as a cross-cutting issue in rural areas of Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. It is designed to be a multi-year assessment. Using data collected in March-April 2023, this data note describes women's say or agency in various household decisions, their physical and financial independence, their mobility, and their perceptions of domestic violence. This is one of a set of data notes that, together, provide a holistic picture of the agrifood system in the district.Average years of education of adult womenWomen make decisions alone about own health in households with adult menWomen make decisions alone about field cultivation in households without adult menWomen always need permission to go to health clinic in households with adult menWomen justify beating from husband in one or more day-to-day scenarioAverage years of education of adult women 20-88 years oldWomen make decisions alone about own health in households with adult menWomen make decisions alone about field cultivation in households without adult menWomen always need permission to go to health clinic in households with adult menWomen justify beating from husband in one or more day-to-day scenarioTAFSSA's district agrifood systems assessment aimed to interview three respondents per household: a female adult (aged 20+ years), a male adult (aged 20+ years), and an adolescent (aged 10-19 years). Information on the household and respondent sampling strategy is provided at the end of this data note.In this data note, you will get a picture of critical aspects of women's empowerment for the surveyed adult women (from the survey households), based on their responses. It begins with an introduction to background characteristics of these households, providing essential context for the sample. From there, we delve into indicators of women's financial and physical independence.You will also get insight into what decisions women can make. Respondents were asked who in the house is responsible for various decisions involving women's own health, child-related matters, expenditures, agriculture, and food. Then we examine aspects of women's mobility, as indicated by whether they need permission to travel to various destinations, including in the neighborhood, markets, healthcare facilities, or religious sites. You will also learn about their attitudes toward domestic violence against women in various scenarios that they may encounter in their daily lives.Finally, we present a comparative picture for a selected set of these indicators between households with and without any adult male members. This provides a sense of the impact of adult men's presence or absence on intrahousehold decision-making and mobility among adult women. More detail about the measurement methods are found in the following pages.   ✓ There is some variation in frequency of visiting their maternal family-about 1/4 th of women visit their maternal family once a year or once a week.Notes: Figure 3 shows ownership of financial assets by respondents. They were asked direct questions about these assets that could be answered in yes or no. 'Have own money to use' denotes the percentage of respondents with personal funds, in any form, available for discretionary use. *248 women who answered yes to having own bank account were asked if they ever used it. Figure 4 shows the frequency of traveling outside of the home to meet maternal family members.  ✓ Most women take decisions jointly with spouse in child-related matters.✓ Very few women take decisions alone about marriage of male or female children. Note: This figure shows the share of women who need to ask permission from a household member to travel outside of their houses to various places in and around the village. The respondents were presented with the option \"not applicable\" if they do not travel to a specific place that was asked about in the questionnaire.✓ Many women from households without adult men do not need permission from a household member to travel to nearby places, religious places or places within the village. ✓ Most women always need permission to travel outside the village.Households without adult men N=296Figure 9. Share of respondent women who agree that a husband is justified in hitting his wife in different scenarios FINDINGS ✓ About 1/5 th of the women respondents justify hitting from husband in any scenario presented to them.Note: This figure shows women's perceptions about a husband hitting his wife. Women respondents were presented with multiple common scenarios and asked if they think a husband is justified in hitting his wife in those scenarios. \"Any of the above scenarios\" refers to responding yes to any one of the scenarios presented. The sample includes all households with or without adult men. 1. What are the barriers to financial inclusion and how could financial independence be promoted among women?2. What strategies can promote equal say for women in household decisions, especially concerning their own health?3. What measures can households endorse and support to improve women's autonomy?1. Average years of education of adult women 20-79 years old with an adolescent residing in their household is only 4 years.2. Every 7 in 10 women are employed, with 72% of women engaged in farming activities.3. Financial inclusion is limited, half of the women have a bank account but only 6% of women have a mobile bank account.4. Decision-making agency of women is low, as women take most decisions jointly with their spouse or other household members. Women have the most say only in food preparation decisions.5. Most women always require permission to travel outside village.6. About one-fifth of the women agree that a husband is justified in hitting his wife in one or more day-today scenario.We selected 25 wards in the district with a probability proportional to the number of households that reside in each ward. Within each ward, we conducted a household listing to identify eligible households, that is, those with adolescents (10-19 years old). From the households with adolescents, we randomly invited 20 households to participate in the survey. If a household refused, we replaced that household with another randomly selected eligible household, to retain a total of 500 households in the district. Thus, the findings reported in this data note are representative of rural households from this district that include an adolescent.Within households, one adult female aged 20+ years, one adult male aged 20+ years, and one adolescent aged 10-19 years were selected as the respondents for the survey. When multiple adolescents were living in a household, the oldest adolescent was selected. In some households, an adult male was not available (often due to migration for work). In such households, the female was the only adult respondent (see Table 1 for respondent sample sizes). At the beginning of the interview, the adult in the household primarily involved in agriculture (either male or female) and the adult primarily responsible for food purchasing (either male or female) were identified as the primary respondents. We would like to thank all funders who supported this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund: https://www.cgiar.org/funders/ To learn more, contact: n.kumar@cgiar.orgTo learn more about TAFSSA, contact: t.krupnik@cgiar.org; p.menon@cgiar.org ABOUT TAFSSA ","tokenCount":"1205"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3cd1b39107e2522c4e59833b04e1eee7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/8d33a1c7-0955-42f8-aab6-156cd815d180/content","id":"-1528150958"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b7dfdc46-a5bf-47b3-a2b7-47ef8fdec525","pagecount":"12","content":"Eastern Africa is currently infested with dodders-highly invasive vines that threaten agriculture and biodiversity. We describe historical and ecological factors that have potentially shaped dodder invasion in this region. Our results reveal high levels of genetic diversity within dodder populations, which could enhance their ability to colonize new niches. Further, we identify two main population clusters in eastern and western Kenya, a pattern that is mirrored in an established invader (Cuscuta campestris) and a recent introduction (C. reflexa). Immediate control strategies are neededto limit deliberate or inadvertent seed/vine dispersal, eradicate existing populations, and monitor influx of propagules.• Invasion by dodder (Cuscuta spp.), holo-parasitic plants of the Convolvulaceae family, has recently surged in Eastern Africa. Particularly, colonization by two species, Cuscuta campestris and Cuscuta reflexa that have a broad host range and rapid invasiveness, has escalated. We examined the first assessment of genetic diversity of these invasive species in Kenya to inform subsequent management practices.• A comparative phylogeographic analysis, based on chloroplast and nuclear ribosomal DNA, was performed to determine genetic diversities, population structure, and isolation of C. campestris and C. reflexa in Kenya.• Results reveal high genetic variation in both species within populations across localities. C. campestris had more haplotypes and higher gene diversity (P = .0001) and heterozygosity (P = .004) than C. reflexa. Both species were geographically separated, evidenced by two distinct lineages that mostly corresponded to localities east and west of Kenya. Correlation between genetic and geographic distances revealed evidence of isolation by distance (IBD).• We attribute these genetic variation patterns to establishment via similar invasion routes for the studied Cuscuta spp. and suggest that Cuscuta invasion in Kenya is in the early stages of establishment. Rapid eradication is urgently needed to prevent shifts to economically important hosts, which would have devastating impacts. We recommend (i) development of targeted efforts to curb new introductions to limit the potential for genetic variability and adaptation, (ii) prevention of seed and vine dispersal from current incursions, and (iii) complete eradication of existing populations where this is feasible.Cuscuta (dodder), gene flow, highly invasive vines, invasive alien species (IAS), isolation by distance, parasitic plants, phylogeographyPhylogeography examines distribution of natural populations and elucidates ecological and evolutionary processes that have shaped patterns of population structure (Avise et al., 1987). The ongoing surge in colonization by novel invasive alien species (IAS) or expansion by naturalized ones across habitats has increased the demand for insights into biological mechanisms that have influenced these invasions (Meyerson & Mooney, 2007;Schulz et al., 2019). The ability of an IAS to survive in a locality can depend on various factors, key among them being their introduction and adaptability to new environments, evolutionary history, and anthropogenic activities that either enhance or restrict dispersal (Dlugosch & Parker, 2008;Ward et al., 2008).Understanding genetic variability can provide useful insights into patterns of local adaptation to changing environmental conditions and explain divergence among populations (Flanagan et al., 2018). In plants, pollen and seeds are key avenues for gene flow (Hamilton & Miller, 2002;Levin, 1981). A key determinant for the success of this process is dispersal of these materials, either biologically by vectors or abiotically by environmental agents, such as water and wind. Previous studies have shown that most plants adopt a leptokurtic gene flow pattern, where pollen and seeds are dispersed near a genotype's locality, and these are likely to be the most adapted (Bradshaw, 1972).Conversely, plants that lack long-distance dispersal mechanisms are expected to have highly restricted gene flow; hence, they are expected to exhibit a high genetic structure (Loveless & Hamrick, 1984;Sork & Smouse, 2006). Successful expansion of most invasive weeds into new ranges depends on their life history traits, particularly high reproductive outputs and wide dispersal abilities that ensure colonization and establishment over heterogenous environments (Sork et al., 2016). This reproductive plasticity also ensures continuous establishment of new populations amid the changing environmental conditions. Since plants are sessile, their patterns of distribution and/or divergence across different geographical settings are subject to influence by isolation by distance (IBD), isolation by environment (IBE), and isolation by adaptation (IBA) (Wang & Bradburd, 2014). For instance, highly heterogenous environments between populations may affect flowering times or pollinators, whereas long distances may restrict movement of pollen or seeds.Overall, these modes of isolation influence gene flow and affect phylogeography of plants.All Cuscuta species are considered obligate holoparasites because they lack an established root system and therefore entirely depend on host plants for support and nourishment (Kaiser et al., 2015). They attach on a suitable host via haustorium, creating a conduit for siphoning of water, nutrients, and photosynthates (Dörr, 1969;Kuijt, 1969).These parasites multiply through both sexual and asexual reproduction, and parasitize a wide range of plants (Lanini & Kogan, 2005;Masanga et al., 2021). Overall, over 200 species, with a worldwide distribution, have been identified (Kaiser et al., 2015;Yuncker, 1932).Additionally, taxonomic and molecular identification as well as character evolution and distribution of these species have been studied (García et al., 2014;Ren et al., 2020;Stefanovi c et al., 2007;Yuncker, 1932). To date, little is known regarding genetic variation and demographic patterns of these noxious weeds across habitats, with only a handful of reports describing population genetics (Elsiddig et al., 2018;Mutikainen & Koskela, 2002). Evaluating the genetic basis underlying successful invasion could offer valuable insights to inform development of control and management measures, considering that genetic variability is an important determinant of invasiveness (Kolbe et al., 2004;Tsutsui et al., 2000;Ueno et al., 2015). Specifically, IAS with a high genetic diversity are expected to have superior adaptability that enables them to cope with perturbing and stressful conditions in the new environments (Prentis et al., 2008).The overarching goal of this study was to explore patterns of genetic diversity in two distinct Cuscuta species occurring in Kenya and elucidate historical as well as evolutionary characteristics that have shaped their distribution and expansion across the landscapes.Field dodder (Cuscuta campestris Yuncker.), a North American species that is also native to the Caribbean islands, is naturalized in Africa, having been first identified in South Africa in 1918 (Yuncker, 1932) while the giant dodder (Cuscuta reflexa Roxb.), a tropical Asian species, was first reported in Mauritius in the 1970s (Holm et al., 1979).Recently, we provided the first evidence of presence of this Indian species in continental Africa (Masanga et al., 2021). Both species share ecomorphological traits (propagating by vines and seed) that allow them to colonize new localities across different environments, and in Kenya, they are co-distributed to the east and west of the country. Moreover, they are generalist parasites that infect numerous plants across various angiosperm orders (Masanga et al., 2021). To date, the role of other characteristics, such as physiological similarities, degree of virulence, habitat preference, reproductive plasticity, and human-aided dispersal remains unknown. We hypothesized that populations of the two Cuscuta species could be genetically diverse, with this diversity potentially determining their success in colonizing current and subsequent expansion into new localities. Our findings suggest the existence of similar invasion routes for both species and emphasize the need to manage invasions prior to establishment.A total of 10 and nine populations of C. campestris and C. reflexa, respectively, were collected from localities within their known distributions across Kenya. Identification and characterization of these species were carried out as earlier described in our previous work (Masanga et al., 2021). We focused on these species because (i) they are highly invasive and are currently expanding to various ecosystems across East Africa, and (ii) they have a wide host range, with potential to expand this parasitism to economically important tree crops, thereby posing danger to the agricultural sector. From each locality, we collected at least 5 individuals, at least 30 m apart, to minimize chances of resampling. Vines (5-10 cm), together with any flowers present, were collected and placed in silica gel, then stored at 4 C until DNA extraction. Sampled localities, across Cuscuta spp. ranges in Kenya are shown in Table 1. C. campestris populations west of the country included Nandi (NANC), Kisii (KSIC), Nyamira (NYAC), Vihiga (VIAC), Kakamega (KAKC), and Busia (BUSC), whereas those of C. reflexa were Kisumu (KSMR), Busia (BUSR), Kakamega (KAKR), Siaya (SIAR), Bomet (BOMR), Narok (NRKR), and Nandi (NANR).Those to the east included Machakos (MCKC), Kiambu (KIAC), Nakuru (NKUC), Nairobi (NRBC) (for C. campestris), and Nairobi (NRBR) and Machakos (MCKR) (for C. reflexa).DNA was extracted from the sampled materials, using a standard DNA isolation protocol described by Doyle and Doyle (1990), and then used for PCR targeting the chloroplast (ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase large subunit [rbcL]) and nuclear (internal transcribed spacer [ITS]) regions. For rbcL, we amplified a partial fragment using primers rbcL-512F and rbcL-1392R (McNeal et al., 2007), whereas in ITS, we targeted the 5.8S of the nuclear nrDNA region, alongside those flanking 18S and LSU (26S) genes (Baldwin, 1992). Amplifications were performed in 25-μl reactions using MyTaq™ DNA polymerase kit (Bioline, Meridian Biosciences), according to the manufacturer's instructions. Reaction mixes were subjected to an initial denaturation step of 95 C for 1 min, followed by 35 cycles of 95 C for 15 s, 30-s annealing (at appropriate temperatures for each primer) and a 1-min extension at 72 C. A final extension at 72 C for 10 min was also included. PCR products were purified using the Qiaquick™ PCR purification kit (Qiagen, USA), then sequenced, using the forward primer, on the ABI system at Macrogen (Macrogen Inc.). Sequences ITS-MT850025-MT850044 and MW080817-MW080836.The number of haplotypes (h), haplotype diversity (hd), and nucleotide diversity (π) were calculated using DnaSP 5.0 (Librado & Rozas, 2009). For phylogenetic analysis of haplotypes, we performed Bayesian inferencing (BI) using full sequences of the haplotypes. First, we used the program jModelTest version 2.1.6 (Posada, 2008) to determine the best fit model for both datasets and selected the general time-reversible (GTR) model with gamma distribution and assuming invariable sites (GTR + G + I) (Yang, 1994) in both Akaike information criteria (AIC) and Bayesian information criteria (BIC). Bayesian inferencing was performed using Mr. Bayes version 3.2.7 (Ronquist & Huelsenbeck, 2003) with four Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) chains, according to the GTR + G + I model. The run included 1,000,000 generations with sampling every 100 generations. Sequences for Ipomoea purpurea were included as outgroups.To further assess the relationship among haplotypes, we constructed median-joining (MJ) networks using popART v1.7 (Leigh & Bryant, 2015), with each indel treated as a single mutation event.Next, we investigated demographic history of both Cuscuta species using neutrality tests and mismatch analyses, by calculating Tajima's D (Tajima, 1989) and Fu's F (Fu, 1997) statistics, as well as SSD andRaggedness index in Arlequin version 3.5.2.2 (Excoffier & Lischer, 2010). The degree of genetic differentiation among localities was measured using pairwise F ST , for both species in Arlequin. To identify phylogeographically homogeneous populations, we performed a spatial analysis of molecular variance (SAMOVA) using SAMOVA v.2.0 (Dupanloup et al., 2002). Consistency of our results was assessed by performing nine independent runs for each K (representing each cluster) value, from K = 2 to K = 10. Two groups, east and west of Kenya, emerged. We then used analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA), implemented in Arlequin, to test genetic relationships within and among these groups. We evaluated the relationship between genetic and geographical distances using isolation by distance (IBD) analysis. Briefly, we used the program Origin to generate 2D kernel density plots for our sample points and then chose the most densely populated localities (Nandi and Kisumu for C. campestris and C. reflexa, respectively) as reference points. Next, we calculated Euclidean geographical distances among populations using the \"graph 4lg\" package implemented in R v.3.5.2 and then correlated these distances with pairwise F ST values using GraphPad Prism v.7 at P ≤ .05.  (Table 1). A comparison among genetic variation indices between species indicated that C. campestris had higher average gene diversity and heterozygosity across all populations than C. reflexa. Notably, this difference was statistically significant (P < .05) based on rbcL but not with regards to ITS (Table S1).We analyzed genetic differentiation among Cuscuta populations by comparing G ST and N ST , measures of differentiation that consider allelic frequencies and similarities among haplotypes, respectively.Generally, a significantly higher N ST than G ST value is indicative of phylogenetic subdivision, whereas the opposite is true for a significantly higher G ST than N ST (Pons & Petit, 1996). Estimates, based on cpDNA, To assess variation across populations, we estimated and compared variance as well as proportions of variation among groups using all populations, across cpDNA and ITS ranged from 0.76 to 0.98 (P < .01). In both species, the highest variation was attributed to groups and ranged between 46% and 98%, whereas the lowest variation resulted from populations (ranging between À0.05% to 20%) (Table 2).Since SAMOVA partitioned our taxa into two distinct groups, we analyzed potential population expansion based on these groups, using mismatch analysis and neutrality tests. Generally, negative Tajima's  3), neither of which also had a negative value of Fu's F (Table 3). Based on these data, we found limited evidence of population expansion in both species across sampled localities. Spatial distribution of the haplotypes in Kenya is shown in Figure 2. In summary, geographically proximal localities shared haplotypes from the same clade, with an overlap observed among shared ones. Notably, no haplotypes were shared between populations to the east and west of the country (Figure 2). Interestingly, Nandi, which is on the west of the Rift Valley depression and is geographically close to the western group, was genetically more like eastern populations.Kernel density estimates indicated a high concentration of points in Nandi and Kisumu for C. campestris and C. reflexa, respectively (Figure 3). Consequently, we used these as reference points for calculating Euclidean distances between populations (Tables S2 and   S3). A correlation between geographical and genetic distances (Tables S4-S7) appeared to suggest isolation by distance, although only C. campestris (based on ITS) was statistically significant.We report genetic patterns that may have shaped successful invasion by C. campestris and C. reflexa, genetically distinct species, across Kenya. These two, alongside other Cuscuta species, have invaded various ecosystems across Eastern Africa (Masanga et al., 2021). We discuss these results with regards to how modes of reproduction and ability to disperse to new environments may have shaped the current invasion. These findings are expected to inform future management strategies for control of these noxious weeds.The phylogeographic pattern of an invasive species is influenced by various factors, such as its life history characteristics, dispersal capabilities, environmental requirements, and association with ecology (Ditchfield, 2000). To understand the underlying invasion patterns, one requires to determine how much genetic divergence exists among individuals, haplotypes, and populations, as well as geographical distribution of the haplotypes (Ditchfield, 2000). Previous studies have recommended the use of multiple genes across genomes in a species, for detection of genetic structure among individuals, as these circumvent limitations associated with interpretation of historical processes brought about by a single gene (Bermingham & Moritz, 1998;Schaal et al., 1998;Templeton, 2002). In the present study, we used two genetic markers to analyze genetic variation and population structure in Cuscuta spp. Specifically, we chose rbcL due to its low-level genetic diversity, which offers high differentiation among populations and a slow rate of evolution (Gaut et al., 1992), as well as nrDNA (ITS) because it offers more variability (relative to coding regions) and has a low level of intraspecific divergence (Zhang & Hewitt, 2003).  (except H4 in C. reflexa) were shared within, but not between, localities in the east and west of the country. We also observed that populations farthest from each other were genetically distinct, albeit at no statistical significance (except C. campestris based on ITS), suggesting a small isolation-by-distance effect. The only exception to this was observed in taxa from Nandi, which despite being geographically closer to western localities, clustered and shared haplotypes with eastern populations. Taken together, these results suggest existence of more than one center of genetic diversity, on either side of the country. We attribute this allopatric pattern of distribution to multiple introductions of propagules, and a complex interaction between the invasive potential of Cuscuta and the environment. The discovery of multiple centers of genetic diversity is particularly concerning given evidence that parasitic plants are expected to have faster rates of molecular evolution across all three plant genomes, relative to their nonparasitic counterparts (Bromham et al., 2013).Although dodder seeds lack specialized adaptations for dispersion, long-distance spread through bird endozoochory (Costea et al., 2016(Costea et al., , 2019) ) and water (Ho & Costea, 2018) have been documented. In addition, we speculate that human-aided activities could be playing a key role in propagule exchange within populations. These activities could be direct, through movement of seeds and vines to new localities, as has previously been described (Knepper et al., 1990), or indirect, through habitat-modifying activities such as agriculture, hedge establishments and infrastructural developments, which have previously been shown to create alternative dispersal routes and contribute to the spread of other invasive weeds (Hodkinson & Thompson, 1997;Rouget & Richardson, 2003). Currently, naturalization of invasive species, such as Thevetia peruviana and Duranta erecta, coupled with their extensive cultivation across Kenya (as hedges) have arguably modified habitats, and created new avenues for the spread of other (invasive parasitic) weeds, such as Cuscuta spp. that parasitize them.Since Cuscuta spp. species propagate through both vines and seeds, we believe that this mode of propagation, coupled with their ability to parasitize multiple hosts, may be playing a key role in the parasites' successful invasion, and spread. The high genetic variation, observed herein, suggests frequent gene flow within regions, possibly through seed exchange or outcrossing. Previous evidence has indicated that successful invasion by alien species largely depends on their life history, population genetic parameters, particularly phenotypic plasticity (Barrett et al., 2008) and dispersal events (Arendt, 2015). These parameters shape the patterns of dispersal of propagules into a new environment, subsequent adaptation to the prevailing conditions and expansion. In many species, invaders that predominantly propagate vegetatively are expected to have a lower genetic diversity compared with their seed-propagated counterparts (Barrett et al., 2008). This asexual reproduction is advantageous when population sizes are small (Barrett et al., 2008;Lambrinos, 2001), although genetic bottlenecks may hinder successful expansion, especially in competitively more demanding environments. In addition, vegetative propagations limit a species' ability for genetic admixture, through reduced gene flow and low recombination (Eckert, 2002). As expected, all Cuscuta populations followed an isolation by distance haplotypes and clustered with those from east of the country, possibly because it could be an introduction from these localities. Overall, the lack of haplotype sharing and the IBD pattern suggests constrained long-distance dispersal across western and eastern groups.Interestingly, we noted some striking similarities in genetic variation between the two Cuscuta species under this study. First, both species exhibited an allopatric pattern of distribution, as evidenced by two clades that corresponded to localities in the west and east of Kenya. Second, both species exhibited significantly higher genetic differentiation (N ST > G ST ) across all populations, and third, the highest variation in both species was attributed to groups within, rather than among populations. Taken together, these findings suggest that both species may be employing near-similar historical characteristics during colonization and expansion into the observed localities. Conversely,  to economically important crops such as tea and coffee (Masanga et al., 2021). In other places, such as neighboring Uganda, Cuscuta spp., have been found parasitizing coffee (Coffea robusta) (Kagezi et al., 2021). We suggest that current Cuscuta spp. invasions in Kenya are at the early stages of establishment; therefore, rapid eradication of existing populations is urgently needed before spread and adaptation to economically important hosts. Emphasis should be placed on limiting new introductions across populations, before genetic mixing, as this may enhance genetic variability and increase adaptability.Because seed plays an important role in gene flow and establishment of new populations, whereas vines ensure continuity of the existing ones, we propose that efforts should be put in place to prevent deliberate or inadvertent dispersal of these propagules, while eradicating existing populations. ","tokenCount":"3322"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fac48d91959f1fbaa9c86170ad1a5665","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/fea8a133-3ce2-4ae6-b675-1008de27a276/retrieve","id":"890843533"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2354b2aa-cf73-4e4b-bf42-2fd61e5b9084","pagecount":"10","content":"Where and how do we find solutions for food systems transformation?Source: Wageningen University Source: International Institute for Sustainable DevelopmentOpen innovation approach of cocreation by centering \"users\" within everyday environments or \"real world settings\"The European Living Labs movement Multiple approaches for \"participants\"Diversity in interpretation and implementation of the conceptSource: Swedish International Centre for Local DemocracyThe Living Lab for People (LL4P)an inclusive and diverse space for people to co-design, test, demonstrate and advance their socio-technical innovations and associated modes of governance within a facilitated organizational structure.Collaborative multi-country approachTo support countries in meeting their emissions reductions objectives through transformative food systems change, without compromising food security and while delivering environmental, social, and economic co-benefits.• Gender and social inclusion• Co-production of knowledge• Benefits/motivation to participants of the LL4P• Co-benefits contributing to SDGs (esp.: low emission food system development)• Sustainable and supportive governance (MSP, locallydriven)A conceptual framework for LLs supporting food system transformationsDisentangling key elements of LL… 1) helps in design of LLs, 2) helps identifying how normative principles can be addressed 3) supports learning from experiences of LLs.","tokenCount":"174"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8bd67760b10f981260edc88f527213e1","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ae1bbd33-670e-476b-87c7-18a94a361b05/retrieve","id":"473033117"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"5d3ba703-2a38-4c93-9285-6becfb845309","pagecount":"4","content":"The population Br19 corresponds to the hybrids obtained by the cross of a tetraploid synthetic population of sexual genotypes used as female parents and CIAT 606 used as male tester. The tetraploid synthetic population of sexual genotypes consisted of the ninth cross of recurrent selection of the breeding program. The methodology to evaluate the hybrid performance starts by germinating around 8000 hybrid seeds, out of them 7144 plants were obtained, and samples were taken in order to apply marker-assisted selection to separate apomictic and sexual. As this is a trait, which segregates mendelian, near half of the population is discarded by the sexual behavior and only 3507 apomictic genotypes were established afterwards on the field to measure the hybrid performance for the following traits: Visual assessment of biomass production, vigor, high, visual assessment of leaf steam ratio and drone based measurements like biomass and greenness. The trials were stablished at two locations: CIAT Palmira and Llanos-Cabuyaro. Each trial followed an augmented design with 46 incomplete blocks. At the end, we expect to complete data for various cuttings in each location, each cutting after 6 weeks from previous one, to pursue two cuttings from the dry and two from the wet season. Currently, two evaluations have been taken in each location.First phenotypic evaluation to identify apomictic hybrids of the population Br19 that outperform the commercial benchmark in at least one of the traits of environmental and economic importance, without reducing the performance in any other important trait.1. Germination and plantlet development in the glasshouse: The process started in November from 2018 with the selection and scarification of the seeds to be planted in January 2019 (as shown in Table 1).    Still two evaluations in each trial is needed to complete the dataset.1. Complete two more evaluations in each location 2. Statistical analysis and selection: We will analyze the data using R in the friendly environment of RStudio; using packages as AsReml and Agricolae. We aim to calculate, variance components, best unbiased predictors of the means for each genotype in each location and analyses genotype by environment interaction using genetic correlations as well as AMMI analyses. Finally, a selection index will be used to identify the hybrids to be advance to the next selections phase.3. Quality measurements for pre-selection at least in one location and one cutting using NIRS equations.4. Final selection of hybrids that will be promoted to the phase of testing 2: Multienvironmental trial.","tokenCount":"404"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a7cc3e5421e73e1d6c407eb5e4d41b5b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b04c8318-0502-483a-9296-c3de70ecfc3f/retrieve","id":"2132649171"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2d719ef1-e199-4c58-9747-0e72ff2b23b0","pagecount":"8","content":"Healthy soils are the foundation of sustainable and regenerative food systems and provide several vital ecosystem services. Sequestering carbon in agricultural soils, for example, can have mutual benefits for climate change mitigation and adaptation, food and nutrition security, biodiversity, and water resilience. Despite these benefits, there are few policies that incentivize farmers to invest in maintaining and improving soil health. This policy brief highlights opportunities for the inclusion of soil health and soil organic carbon (SOC) into the National Determined Contributions (NDC) as a key step for governments to support farmers to invest in their soil. This activity builds on recent assessments including a paper that extensively reviewed the first-round of 184 NDCs concluding that only 28 countries referred to SOC, peatlands or wetlands (1). This review and the subsequent interviews with experts (n=8) indicated the importance of understanding the impact of land management on SOC storage and dynamics (1). As a follow-up, Rose et al (2)focused on the updated NDCs and found that the number of countries that included SOC in their updated NDC increased compared to the first-round NDC process (2). This review also highlighted that 19 countries highlighted the need for financing for SOC and related measures (2) . This set of policy briefs focus on the action countries in Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) (Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, Mali, Senegal and Zambia). We interviewed several key informants in each country involved in the NDC process to:1. Understand the process for the developing the NDC targets; 2. Understand why policy makers did or did not include soil in their target; and 3. Identify opportunities going forward to improve the process including the target setting.The Climate Change Act, (Number 11 of 2016) obligates the Cabinet Secretary responsible for climate change affairs to formulate a five-year National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP) in the six mitigation sectors identified by the UNFCCC (agriculture, energy, forestry, industry, transport, and waste) including the implementation of the NDCs (3). The mitigation actions were also aligned to the 2018-2022 Big Four priority development areas which are ensuring food security, affordable housing, increased manufacturing, and affordable healthcare.Electricity generation (41 MtCO2e) and agriculture (39 MtCO2e) had the highest share of the total emission in Kenya. Kenya set the highest mitigation target in the forest sector (20.1 MtCO2e) during 2018-2022. Despite the agriculture sector being the second highest emitter of GHGs, the sector was given low potential of emission reduction. Increasing agroforestry area by 200,000 acres by 2022 in the agriculture sector (3.71 MtCO2e) and Restoration of 200,000 ha of forest on degraded landscapes (ASALs, rangelands) in the forestry sector by 2022 in the forestry sector (13 MtCO2e) emission reduction actions up to 2030 (3).Agriculture is a sector highly impacted by climate change. However, it is also a major cause of climate change. Kenya has developed its Climate Smart Agriculture Strategy (KCSAS) for 2017-2026 (4). The strategy guides investments and implementation of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) activities guaranteeing productivity and food security, while addressing climate change adaptation and mitigation. Soil carbon in the agricultural landscape could play a critical role for the successful implementation of CSA and hence the NDC. Kenya's NDC could give a good framework for soil health and soil carbon related projects and programs. For example, Kenya's commitment (i) to achieve at least 10% national tree cover by 2022, (ii) to restore 5.1 million hectares of deforested and degraded landscapes under the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) and the Bonn Challenge (5), and Kenya National Adaptation plan (NAP) (6) could contribute to the building of soil carbon which could be mapped to its NDC. Countries will be required to submit updated and more ambitious NDCs every five years that Kenya may include soil carbon in its next updated NDC. To do that, it is important to develop the institutional, financial, technical, physical capacities, incentive mechanisms. NDC is mainly a national level activity that Counties should be encouraged to actively engaged in the coordination and implementation NDCs.Soil carbon in the forestry and agriculture sectors could help achieving the mitigation targets in Kenya. Agriculture is a sector highly impacted by climate change. However, it is also a major cause of climate change. Kenya has developed its Climate Smart Agriculture Strategy (KCSAS) for 2017-2026. The strategy guides investments and implementation of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) activities guaranteeing productivity and food security, while addressing climate change adaptation and mitigation. Soil carbon in the agricultural landscape could play a critical role for the successful implementation of CSA and hence the NDC. Adaptation to climate change is the priority of the Kenya for the agricultural. CSA practices are expected to increase SOC. If this is not accounted in the NDC, Kenya will under report its contributions to climate change mitigation. Although the forestry sector had the hight mitigation potential, little is known about the forest soil carbon sequestration and storage in Kenya.Stakeholders from various national and county government sectors, civil society, academia, and private sector participated in the NDC target setting process. The Climate Change Directorate (CCD) which was established under the Ministry of Environment and Forestry serves as secretariat coordinating the national NDC target setting process, planning, and measurement, reporting, and reporting (MRV). To achieve the NDCs from the agricultural sector, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Cooperatives has established a multi-stakeholder platform for climate smart agriculture (MSP-CSA) 1 . The aim of the MSP is to promote an inclusive institutional framework for coordination and harmonization of CSA implementation while fostering an enabling environment for the realization of CSA objectives.1 https://csa-msp.kilimo.go.ke/about-msp/ Information from review of technical reports, available datasets on GHG emissions up to 2020, and various consultations stakeholders were used to prepare the updated NDC. The updated NDC includes both mitigation and adaptation components, but adaptation is a priority to Kenya.The current NDC target setting, and reporting process needs to be strengthened. Several institutions such as NGOs do several NDC related activities which needs to be captured in the national NDC planning and reporting process. It is important to allocate adequate resource, including time and funding for in depth situational analysis, during the revision and NDC target setting processes. It is also important to have a continuous monitoring, evolution and learning process to successfully achieve the NDC targets.Soil organic carbon (SOC) was not included in the earlier (July 2015) 2 nor the updated (December 2020) 3 . We interviewed five key informants from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Cooperative, Kenya Forest Services (KFS), Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), Kenya Forest Research Institute (KEFRI), International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) who involved in the NDCs target setting process in Kenya. All the key respondents were aware of the contribution of soil organic carbon to climate change mitigation and adaptation. For example, The National Forest Reference Level (FRL) report ( 7) Kenya has embarked on a number of forest restoration activities including committing to plant 5,000,000 trees under the Bonn Challenge and identification of an area of 5.1 million ha that has potential for tree based restoration. Our commitment to participate in REDD+ is beyond doubt. After developing the REDD+ Proposal in the year 2012, we noted a need to enhance stakeholder involvement in the REDD+ process which slowed our submission of the relevant documents. Today we are in the process of developing the relevant tools required for REDD+ namely the National REDD+ Strategy (NRS documented the contributions of the forestry sector to mitigate climate change in Kenya. Two key informants mentioned the Kenya Agricultural Carbon Project (KACP) (8) which was implemented in western Kenya as example project aiming to sequester carbon in soils to mitigate climate change. The SOC potential in Kenya varies with type of agroecology. The humid region has SOC potential. If managed properly, the shrub and grazing lands of the drylands of Kenya have the potential to sequester and store carbon. The NDC specify practices linked to achieving soil health and SOC without explicitly mentioning SOC.According to the key informants, the main reasons why Kenya did not include SOC in its NDCs include:• Lack of institutional, sustainable finance, technical, and physical (e.g., soil lab) capacities to monitor, report and verify SOC. Kenya also lacks SOC baseline data, for example in carbon stocks in forest soils, to plan and report to the NDCs with confidence;• Lack of empirical evidence and data on the contributions of sustainable land management practices and land use systems on SOC sequestration, storage, and protection;• Soil carbon was largely considered in mitigation but less in adaptation. The Paris Agreement (Article 4, paragraph 2) requires countries to prepare, communicate and maintain successive NDCs using their mitigation measures (9); and• Most African countries, including Kenya, are more interested on adaptation and hence gave less attention to soil carbon in the agricultural sector. Despite the important role soil organic carbon has for adaptation and mitigation, there is a need to raise awareness across the sectors to demonstrate the adaptation benefits.Developing a standard metrics and methods to measure the role of SOC in climate change adaptation could help Kenya consider both the climate change adaptation and mitigation roles of SOC.Climate, land, and biodiversity operates in the same space. The key informants agreed on the need to create synergies among these three Rio conventions. The approach to implementation of these Conventions is sectoral which led to compartmentalized efforts that tends to minimize collaboration and ultimately reduces the effectiveness of implementation. The key informants highlighted the need to have a well-integrated and holistic approaches that avoid duplication of efforts at the national and County levels and across relevant stakeholders. Key informants highlighted the below challenges:• Lack of functional coordination and institutional culture to working together to synergize efforts towards the three Rio conventions. Lack of synergies that could lead to under or even over reporting of NDCs;• Lack of clear understanding of the environmental role of soil organic carbon. The soil science and research communities could play a critical role in creating common understanding on the role of soil carbon for multiple environmental benefits and develop the tools for joint implementation of the Rio Conventions• There are some discussions on aligning the three Rio conventions at the political/policy level, but there is a lack of technical discussions and implementations. Understanding the interactions between the three conventions such as the impact of climate change on biodiversity-based ecosystem functions and services is important.• It is important to develop a common framework to effectively coordinate the various activities including mitigation, adaptation, land degradation, neutrality, biodiversity conservation targets under the three Rio-conventions. The key informants capitalize on the need to have a well-integrated and holistic approaches that avoid duplication of efforts at the national and County levels and relevant stakeholders.The Ministry of Forestry and Environment is responsible for coordinating data coming from the different sectors. There have been efforts to develop ecosystem monitoring systems in Kenya. For example, the Improve Measurement for Payments to Reduce Emissions and Strengthen Sinks (IMPRESS) (10) project worked towards developing to develop a robust forest monitoring systems that enables access to climate finance. Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) has soil laboratories, but they sometimes lack inputs to optimally use the labs. Technically, is a need for standard operating protocols (SOPs) in monitoring soil organic carbon in Kenya. For example, agronomists collect soil data but rarely share it with soil scientist or documented in the soil database. The key informants stressed on the need to establish data sharing policy and incentives.High interest in carbon markets for soil carbon in Kenya could incentivize wide-scale implementation of a robust and affordable MRV of SOC system. However, there is shortage of soil scientists in the country to support MRV of SOC. The key informants advised on the need to improve the capacity of the soil scientists and reduce depends on consultants for technical support. This is partly because SOC is highly associated with mitigation than adaptation in Africa. Giving less attention to mitigation affected countries like Kenya to have limited access financial resource such as from the GCF. It is also necessary to include forest soil carbon in the national soil database.Advancements in soil health monitoring have improved the accuracy and accessibility of SOC maps. For example, the Land Degradation Surveillance Framework (LDSF) was developed by World Agroforestry (ICRAF) in response to a need for systematic landscape-level assessment of soil and ecosystem health. The methodology is designed to provide a biophysical baseline at nested spatial scales across a landscape, covering a range of indicators, from soil properties, land degradation, biodiversity, land cover, and land use, including soil organic carbon. The LDSF method has been applied in over 43 countries, across a number of projects at multiple scales (from farm scale to national level), and the methodology has been widely published in peer-reviewed journals (11)(12)(13)(14). Including in Kenya, with funding from various donors. Because the LDSF includes a robust analytical framework that builds on field data collection and uses machine learning algorithms and remote sensing satellite data to produce spatial assessments, the accuracy of these maps is above 80%. This allows for the monitoring of changes of these indicators, over time, which is needed when including such variables in NDCs and other policies. The below map is an example of the spatial variation of SOC across Kenya, using the global LDSF dataset, at a resolution of 30-m using Landsat 8. ","tokenCount":"2225"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d1ed37965fe6f9d516e1d6b71f2fec4c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/6400633a-6c92-4947-8e85-e044ca47d9b1/retrieve","id":"-506084946"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a82b7d69-626b-42c4-b907-f0ef5e949646","pagecount":"32","content":"Scaling of innovations is a key requirement for addressing societal challenges in sectors such as agriculture, but research for development programs struggles to make innovations go to scale. There is a gap between new complexity-awarescientific theories and perspectives on innovation and practical approaches that can improve strategic and operational decision-making in research for development interventions that aim to scale innovations. To bridge this gap, Scaling Readiness was developed. Scaling Readiness is an approach that encourages critical reflection on how ready innovations are for scaling in a particular context for achieving a particular goal and what appropriate actions could accelerate or enhance scaling to realize development outcomes. Scaling Readiness provides decision support for (1) characterizing the innovation and innovation system; (2) diagnosing the current readiness and use of innovations; (3) developing strategies to overcome bottlenecks for scaling; (4) facilitating multi-stakeholder negotiation and agreement; and (5) navigating the implementation process. This chapter explains how Scaling Readiness was used in the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB) and describes how Scaling Readiness informed the design and management of the RTB Scaling Fund, an instrument for identifying and nurturing scaling-ready innovations. We introduce the key principles and concepts of Scaling Readiness and provide a case study of how Scaling Readiness was applied for scaling a cassava flash dryer innovation in different countries in Africa and Central America. The chapter concludes with a reflection and recommendations for the further improvement and use of Scaling Readiness.Innovation and the use of innovations at scale form an important element for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The international community invests significant resources in the design and testing of innovations to overcome key challenges such as food insecurity, malnutrition, and environmental degradation. Many of those innovations start as bright ideas that are consequently developed in controlled conditions, to be tested with farmers and other end users. Although initial results and testing are often promising, relatively few lead to the desired positive impact at scale (Woltering et al. 2019). The agricultural research for development (AR4D) sector, in which the CGIAR is an important player, has been struggling with the question of how to best nurture impactful innovation and scaling pathways (Leeuwis et al. 2018).One of the main reasons why innovations do not lead to impact at scale is that ideas about how scaling happens are not realistic. The notion of \"find out what works and do more of the same\" (Wigboldus et al. 2016) does not take into account the complex and diverse biophysical, socioeconomic, and political contexts that shape agriculture across the globe and limit the effectiveness of one-size-fits-all approaches (Hammond et al. 2020). Furthermore, research organizations often focus on technological innovations and pay less attention to the behavioral, organizational, and institutional changes that are needed to enable the effective use of technology (Schut et al. 2016). In addition, we observe that R4D interventions often see scaling as something that happens at the end of a short-term project or program as opposed to long-term systemic change processes and that scientists have limited capacities to shape impactful processes and partnerships needed for the scaling of innovations (Schut et al. 2020).Revealing misconceptions and bottlenecks to the scaling of innovations, and supporting the development and implementation of effective strategies to overcome them, inspired the development of Scaling Readiness. In this chapter, the term \"Scaling Readiness\" (capitalized) is used as a brand name for the decision-support process that we have developed and as a key concept and metric that scores the maturity and scalability of an innovation (not capitalized).The notion of \"readiness\" refers to whether an innovation has been tested and validated for the role it is intended to play in a specific context. The concept resonates with levels of technology readiness that have been proposed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States, the European Commission (EU), and scholars in technology studies who assess advancements in technology development, commercialization, and transition pathways (Verma and Ramirez-Marquez 2006;European Commission 2014;Kobos et al. 2018).Scaling Readiness builds on the key principles of Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS) thinking (Spielman et al. 2009;Hall and Clark 2010;Hounkonnou et al. 2012). Innovation systems are the interlinked set of people, processes, assets, and social institutions that enable (or constrain) the development and scaling of new technologies, products, practices, services, and solutions to deliver impact. A key lesson from conducting innovation systems research in the AR4D sector was that complexity-aware approaches (such as AIS) need to be operationalized or translated into simple tools that can be overseen and managed by program and project teams to guide their practice (Schut et al. 2015). Without such operationalization, AIS approaches can easily be perceived as fuzzy with the risk of people abandoning their willingness to engage with systems approaches altogether.One of the aims of Scaling Readiness is to support a complexity-aware decisionmaking process that assists R4D interventions in designing, implementing, and monitoring scaling strategies in a structured and evidence-based way. To this end, Scaling Readiness proposes an iterative cycle of five steps that builds on key principles and concepts that will be further discussed and illustrated in this chapter (Fig. 3.1).This book chapter has four main objectives:In an attempt to close the gap between the science and the practice of scaling innovations, RTB developed an institutional innovation to support the scaling of RTB innovations: the Scaling Fund. Scaling Readiness was used in two distinct ways in the Scaling Fund: (1) to identify and select scaling-ready RTB innovations and (2) to nurture and support the design, implementation, and monitoring of strategies to scale those RTB innovations. Both will be explained in more detail in the below sections.It is worthwhile mentioning that the RTB Scaling Fund provided an opportunity for Scaling Readiness not only to develop scaling strategies but also to test and improve the various tools, processes, and workstreams that Scaling Readiness offers. In 2017, a first call for Scaling Fund project proposals was announced and elicited 12 submissions that were assessed by an independent panel. Five of the proposals were selected to submit full proposals. The evaluation was based on the following assessment criteria:1. Define and provide evidence on the scaling readiness of the selected RTB innovation (referred to as the core innovation). 2. Define site-specific complementary innovations or enabling conditions that are needed to scale the core innovation. 3. Scaling strategy in the proposal is congruent with existing projects and public and private partners' initiatives.From the initial batch of five proposals, the three with the highest scores were awarded a total investment of approximately USD two million to further improve and implement their scaling strategies with their partners. In 2018 and 2019, five additional Scaling Fund projects were funded (Table 3.1). After the initial selection of the Scaling Fund projects, a kick-off and capacity development workshop was organized for each batch of projects (Fig. 3.2). For 2-3 days, the Scaling Fund project teams were trained in the basics of Scaling Readiness and discussed how these would be applied and useful to their own Scaling Fund projects. At the end of the workshop, each of the project teams had a road map for the implementation of their Scaling Fund projects.To ensure sufficient capacity within the projects to manage scaling processes and implement Scaling Readiness, a key requirement was to assign several people with designated functions, including scaling champions and Scaling Readiness monitors. The scaling champion was primarily responsible for the implementation of scaling strategies and stakeholder engagement plans. They were usually people with a good understanding of the innovation and the local partnership dynamics. Their role was to broker and network for key partners to work together and make scaling happen. The Scaling Readiness monitors were mainly responsible for applying the Scaling Readiness tools to collect and analyze data with the objective to influence decisionmaking and strategy development with the broader scaling project team. They were usually research assistants with good data collection and analysis skills.Two different scaling consultants were recruited to backstop the scaling champions and Scaling Readiness monitors and to ensure cross-project learning. During the two years of implementation, the scaling champions, Scaling Readiness monitors, and scaling consultant worked closely together with the Scaling Fund project teams.One of the 2019-2020 Scaling Fund projects (a scaling approach for flash drying of cassava starch and flour at small scale in Nigeria, DR Congo, and Colombia) is used as a case study in this book chapter to explain how Scaling Readiness was used. The cassava flash drying project was selected because of its systematic use and documentation of the Scaling Readiness approach.Cassava is a starchy root crop that is a major staple food for people in developing countries. It is grown in tropical regions of the world because of its ability to withstand difficult growing conditions. Cassava in sub-Saharan Africa is generally a subsistence crop, but there is increased commercial interest here in processing cassava flour and for starch production. Rapid perishability of roots requiring agile and efficient processing is one of the greatest challenges facing smallholder cassava farmers and small-scale cassava processors. The most common practice is sundrying cassava roots to make flour, which is challenging during the extended rainy seasons in the tropics and affects the overall quality of the starch. As a result, farmers and small-scale processors face difficulties to offer their produce to industries that need regular, all-year-round supply and consistent quality for flour and starch production (IITA 2016). Flash drying, compared to sun drying, enables substantial gains in product quality and productivity by reducing the drying time from between 10 and 48 hours to a few seconds and providing constant drying conditions. Flash dryers are used mostly by large-scale processors (production capacity of >50 tons of starch/day) in countries such as Brazil and Thailand, which have highly developed commercial starch production. Small-scale flash dryers (production capacity of between 1-3 tons of flour/day) are not widely used due to a combination of factors including high energy consumption and production costs. Since 2013, more reliable methods to design energy-efficient flash dryers, based on numerical modelling, have been developed and successfully tested in small-scale pilot flash dryers (Fig. 3.3) that have proven to achieve the same energy efficiency as large-scale industrial flash dryers.The Scaling Fund Cassava Flash Drying project focusses on three countries where the scaling of small-scale flash dryers has potential: Colombia, DR Congo, andNigeria. In Nigeria, between 2006 and2016, prior to the Scaling Fund project, 157 cassava processors had invested in first-generation small-scale flash dryers to produce cassava flour. However, 50% of these are not in use anymore because of the low energy efficiency and subsequent high costs of operation. In the DR Congo, the long rainy season (1300-1900 mm/year) led to strong demands for cost-effective drying solutions such as flash drying. In Colombia, labor-intensive sun drying is costly, motivating cassava processors to seek other drying solutions to increase their production capacity and reduce costs. In each of these countries, partners who were willing to co-invest were identified and brought on board. An initial scaling strategy was proposed in 2019 to train scaling partners (equipment manufacturers and cassava processors) on theoretical and practical aspects of building and operating energy-efficient small-scale flash dryers. In addition, the Scaling Fund project would provide technical support to enable scaling partners to upgrade their existing flash dryers or to invest in new ones. During the project, the Scaling Readiness approach was used to identify bottlenecks and adjust the scaling strategy.This section introduces the main Scaling Readiness principles and concepts and describes how these were applied in the cassava flash dryer case study following the five Scaling Readiness steps (Fig. 3.1).During step 1, the project team characterizes the innovation, innovation package, and scaling contexts to explore interdependencies related to the scaling ambitions and aspired impacts. A key starting point for Scaling Readiness is that scaling is contextual. Whether something goes to scale and supports the achievement of desired outcomes or impacts depends, for example, on the specific institutional setting (including cultural values, market arrangements, legal frameworks, and policy conditions), on agroecological conditions, and on the interactions that take place within and between networks of interdependent actors and stakeholders (Klerkx et al. 2010;Schut et al. 2015). This implies that an innovation may be scalable in one context but not in another and that scaling strategies successful in one situation may not be effective elsewhere or at another point in time (Baur et al. 2003;Sartas et al. 2019). Similarly, the outcomes of scaling may vary across contexts.There has been a tendency in both theory and practice to focus on the scaling of a particular -often technological -innovation (Rogers 2003). However, research has shown that the scaling of one particular innovation (e.g., a hybrid seed variety) depends on the simultaneous uptake or enhancement of other practices and services (e.g., seed multiplication, input provision, reorganization of labor, pro-poor credit models, etc.) and/or the downscaling of preexisting practices (e.g., use of open pollinated seed). All of these require attention for successful scaling.In Scaling Readiness, we consider all innovations or changes that need to take place, including products, technologies, services, and institutional arrangements, and distinguish between \"core\" and \"complementary\" innovations. The core innovation refers to the initial innovation that an R4D intervention or project aims to develop or scale in order to achieve an assumed societal benefit, for example, the cassava flash dryer. Complementary innovations are additional advances or changes in technology, capacity, or policy on which the scaling of the core innovation depends. Together these are labelled the \"innovation package.\" 1 In view of the contextual nature of scaling, the composition of a viable and meaningful innovation package is likely to differ across contexts. That is, the package of core and complementary innovations that is advocated needs to be tailored to different contexts, different target beneficiaries (e.g., specific gender or age groups), and may also need to change over time in view of changing conditions.On target beneficiaries specifically, there is evidence that different groups in society may face diverse challenges and opportunities in having awareness of, having access to, being able to use, and/or benefitting from innovations. If, for example, market information is provided through a mobile phone-based SMS service, this may benefit men who typically have more control over the household's mobile phone than women. Additional innovations that provide the same market information through a different channel (e.g., printed information provided at a community health center where women regularly visit) may be considered while trying to address some of the underlying inequalities with regard to control over communication assets. This shows that different combinations of core and complementary innovations as part of an innovation package need to be considered for achieving a specific objective or outcome. By being explicit about target beneficiaries during step 1, different types of innovation packages can be considered and designed for different groups of beneficiaries.During step 1 of Scaling Readiness, the project team characterized the innovation and its context and formulated context-specific innovation package(s) for the three countries. In the flash dryer case study, all core and complementary innovations were defined by the project team and its partners with backstopping from the scaling consultant. A total of 15 core and complementary innovations (Table 3.2) were characterized. The innovations were classified under different innovation types including technologies (i.e., the subcomponent of the machinery), products, services, and institutional arrangements. Since the contexts are different, complementary innovations necessary to scale the flash dryer also differed among the countries.During step 2, the project team assesses the current readiness and use of the various core and complementary innovations in the innovation package with the aim of identifying the main bottlenecks toward scaling.The Scaling Readiness of an Innovation Is a Function of Innovation Readiness and Innovation UseThe notion of \"innovation readiness\" refers to the demonstrated capacity of an innovation to fulfill its promise or contribute to specific development outcomes. The level of innovation readiness increases as innovations progress from an untested idea to something that has been validated to work in an artificial setting (e.g., a laboratory or controlled project environment) all the way to settings where the innovation has fully matured and has been proven to work under uncontrolled conditions (Table 3.3). In contrast to the notion of \"technology readiness\" that is used by NASA and EU, we use the term \"innovation readiness\" to signal that the framework can also be applied to measure the maturity of non-technological innovations.Geographical relevanceThe Efficient Flash Dryer is a pneumatic-conveying dryer that reduces processing cost due to innovative design.x  However, the maturity of an innovation along the innovation readiness scale is not the only factor that is important for understanding and assessing the scalability of an innovation or innovation package in a specific context. There are many examples of innovations with a high level of readiness that were never used at scale. Similarly, there are also examples of innovations that go to scale even if their performance is limited, contested, or poorly documented. Scaling Readiness, therefore, assumes that scalability also depends on the networks in which innovations are embedded and through which their use is supported and advocated (Geels and Schot 2007;Leeuwis and Aarts 2011;Hermans et al. 2017). For example, it makes a difference whether an innovation is only being used by directly incentivized R4D project partners or whether there are partners or beneficiaries that use or promote the innovation independently from the R4D intervention. To capture the degree to which an innovation has penetrated networks, we have introduced the notion of \"innovation use\" (Table 3.3). The concept also measures the relative magnitude of use (e.g., rare vs. common) to indicate both the scalability potential and actual innovation use at scale. Innovation use is measured using a network analysis approach (Sartas et al. 2018;Sartas et al. 2020a). Scaling readiness, then, must be seen as the function of innovation readiness and innovation use.In step 2 of Scaling Readiness, these three concepts are used for diagnostic purposes. With the help of survey techniques, each innovation in a package is assessed for its innovation readiness and innovation use, and evidence of the proclaimed assessment is provided. The scaling readiness of a particular core or complementary innovation results can be found by multiplying the two scores. If the innovation readiness of a particular innovation in the package is at level 3 and innovation use at level 2, the scaling readiness for that innovation is 6 (Fig. 3.4).Based on the innovation packages defined for the flash dryer scaling work in Colombia, DR Congo, and Nigeria, the project team assessed the innovation readiness and innovation use. The first step to determine the innovation readiness and innovation use level was to collect background information via a short desktop study. The Scaling Readiness monitors gathered information about the available evidence on the readiness and use of the innovation package core and complementary innovations from academic and technical databases and repositories. To complement the desktop study, the project team also collected new data. For the innovations categorized as core innovation subcomponents, small-scale processors of cassava flour and starch and flash dryer manufacturers from Colombia, DR Congo, and Nigeria were visited at each location to collect technical information for their innovation readiness (y-axis) and innovation use (x-axis) specific to space, time, and goals (Sartas et al. 2020a) used in the analysis. For innovations categorized as services and institutional arrangements (Table 3.2), information was collected through surveys with different value chain actors, such as bankers, cassava producers, processors, and representatives of government organizations, among others. These surveys were administered during stakeholder meetings and forums in each location.The information collected via the desktop review, field measurements, and survey results were processed by the Scaling Readiness monitor to determine the innovation readiness and innovation use level for each of the innovations in the innovation package for the three country contexts. A Microsoft Excel template was used to plot the Scaling Readiness graph. The template enabled selection of innovation readiness and innovation use levels from a drop-down list and automatically generated the graph (see Figs. 3.5,3.6,and 3.7). To validate the results, the Scaling Readiness monitor presented the template to the project team and collaborators and to other key project partners who made their contributions.The innovation readiness levels ranged between 1 and 8, while the use scores ranged from 1 to 7. These indicated that innovation packages included some new ideas (e.g., organizing an innovation forum in Colombia). Some of the subcomponents of the flash dryer were at the conceptual model stage and not yet validated by the existing applied literature (e.g., fan/blower in Nigeria and DR Congo), while other innovations (e.g., continuous WhatsApp technical support mechanism) were shown to work without a support from R4D interventions in real conditions. Also, the readiness and use levels of some of the components varied among different locations. For example, contracts between the cassava producers and processors were not used in DR Congo and Nigeria beyond those contracts of the project partners, while contracts are commonly used in Colombia.The diagnosis of the innovation packages indicated that \"strengthening the feasibility of investment projects through market promotion campaigns for small-scale cassava flour\" was the key bottleneck in Nigeria. There was no campaign design that could guide the flash dryer marketing (innovation readiness level 1), and the idea of having flash dryer market promotion campaigns was still under development by the project team (innovation use level 1). In addition, some technical subcomponents of the flash dryer (i.e., hot air generator, dewatering module, and fan/blowers) were assessed at the lower readiness and use, thus needing a strategy for improvement.In Colombia, the lack of an \"innovation forum\" was identified as the key bottleneck (Fig. 3.7). \"Continuous WhatsApp technical support\" for cassava flash dryer installation and use and a \"cassava expansion testing\" mechanism for the flash dryer were prioritized as the other bottlenecks.To identify the key partners to overcome the bottlenecks, the flash dryer team used social network analysis. A survey was administered to potential partners, and results were used to characterize stakeholders and partners. Due to the limitations caused by COVID-19, only a few identified partners could be feasibly reached, and those reached did not occupy the most strategic positions in the network. Findings were captured in the stakeholder engagement reports written for DR Congo and Nigeria (Taborda et al. 2020a(Taborda et al. , 2020b)).During step 3, the project team considers different options and strategies that may be used to address the main bottlenecks to scaling for each innovation package.When the core and complementary innovations have been assessed for their level of innovation readiness and innovation use, it becomes pertinent to think about strategies to enhance the readiness of the package as a whole. Scaling Readiness directs most attention to the innovations in the package with the lowest levels of readiness and use, labelled \"bottleneck innovations,\" as they are most likely to limit the scaling of the innovation package. Unless bottlenecks have been addressed, the value added to the effort in core or complementary innovations that already have a relatively high innovation readiness and innovation use is low. This point is illustrated in Fig. 3.8, where one can observe that R4D investments (symbolized as water drops) are wasted as they leak away from the lowest stave in the barrel, which symbolizes the bottleneck in the innovation package.Scaling Readiness distinguishes strategic options (i.e., innovation management options) that may be used that address a bottleneck. The choice of an appropriate strategy may be informed by available time, financial and human resources, and organizational mandates and capacities, considering what is feasible and resource efficient (derived from Sartas et al. 2020a):1. Substitute: Can the bottleneck be replaced by another innovation with higher readiness and/or use in the given context? 2. Outsource: Are there any organizations or external experts that can more efficiently improve the Scaling Readiness of the bottleneck? 3. Develop: Can the intervention team improve the readiness and/or the use by investing available intervention capacities and resources? 4. Relocate: Can the intervention objectives be realized more effectively if the intervention is implemented in another location where innovations have higher readiness and use levels? 5. Reorient: Can the objective or outcome of the intervention be reconsidered if addressing the bottleneck is not possible and relocation is not an option? 6. Postpone: Can scaling the innovation package be achieved at a later point in time? 7. Stop: If none of the above strategic options are feasible, should the team consider stopping the intervention?The strategic options are ranked according to their resource intensity, starting with the least demanding option. The options effectively imply reconsideration of the innovation package and/or the objectives and context of scaling. While we realize that existing project frameworks, budget allocations, and partnership configurations may pose limits to choosing the most sensible and efficient option, Scaling Readiness assumes that considering all options enhances discussion and critical reflection in project teams and thus contributes to the prioritization of relevant and feasible strategies to overcome bottlenecks for scaling. Clearly, the options chosen have further practical implications in terms of who are relevant partners to work with.From June 2019 onward, the flash dryer project team, scaling champions, and Scaling Readiness monitors explored strategic options for each country. Each bottleneck was discussed, and the most viable options were explored in consultation with key stakeholders and experts. Further information on the strategies is provided in Sect. 3.3.4.2.During step 4, the proposed scaling strategies are shared and discussed with relevant stakeholders to work toward effective collaboration with partners relevant to scaling.Implementing Scaling Strategies Requires Multi-stakeholder Agreement and Coalition BuildingThe scaling of an innovation package inherently requires the involvement and cooperation of the various stakeholders. Depending on the package and bottlenecks, these may include policy makers, value chain parties, farmer organizations, community leaders, and/or service (e.g., extension and credit) providers. While AR4D projects depend on the collaboration of such partners to realize their scaling ambition, these parties may not necessarily agree with the proposed scaling strategy, nor may they be ready to take effective action (Sahay and Walsham 2006;Wigboldus et al. 2016). Thus, it is important that initiatives are taken to align interdependent actors and work toward agreement and accommodation on, for example, objectives, strategies, task division, timelines, and investment of resources to enable scaling.In essence, the process of aligning stakeholders amounts to building an effective coalition that supports change in a particular direction, even if the rationales and interests of stakeholders may only partially overlap (Biggs and Smith 1998;Aarts and Leeuwis 2010). Reaching the necessary degree of accommodation and consensus is far from automatic and often requires active facilitation of learning and negotiation (Leeuwis and Aarts 2011).From June 2019 onward, the flash dryer project team began engaging partners and broader stakeholders in multiple countries to discuss the proposed strategies to improve the scaling readiness of the flash dryer innovation package. In August 2019, combined with a training workshop on small-scale flash drying, the cassava flour processors and equipment manufacturers partners were presented the strategies, and their feedback was collected.Based on the consultations with partners and key experts and feedback from the workshop, a final strategy for scaling the flash dryer was formulated for the three countries (Table 3.4). To enhance the commitment of the partners to the new strategy, partners were requested to provide their consent and support in writing clearly specifying their intention to participate in the implementation of the scaling action plans. This took the form of an umbrella participation agreement explaining the roles, responsibilities, and commitments of the partners (processors, equipment manufacturers) and of the project team to accomplish the goals of the project.  During step 5, the project teams monitor the unfolding dynamics in relation to the implementation of agreed-upon scaling strategies and scaling action plans and signal whether major changes in the innovation package configuration or scaling context require a new cycle of Scaling Readiness assessment.Scaling Projects Need Capacity to Adjust to Emergent Dynamics When implementing scaling strategies, partners and project teams are likely to meet with unforeseen developments and unintended effects (Hall and Clark 2010;Paina and Peters 2012). This is because scaling contexts are ever-changing and, therefore, can never be fully anticipated (Schot and Geels 2008). It is quite conceivable, for example, that scaling partners meet with new constraints and challenges in their efforts to enhance the Scaling Readiness of a package, or that successful scaling appears to have unwanted side effects for the environment or for specific segments in farming communities. Thus, AR4D interventions require mechanisms to capture and navigate such emergent dynamics. Thus, project teams need to continue to invest in learning and critical reflection when scaling strategies and action plans are implemented.Relatedly, Scaling Readiness distinguishes between short-and long-term learning cycles and feedback loops (Sartas et al. 2020b). In short-term learning and feedback loops, the focus is on monitoring how the agreed-upon action plans for addressing the bottlenecks are being implemented and on whether plans must be adapted. The long-term learning and feedback loop actually involves a new round of going through the Scaling Readiness cycle, starting with reiterating the Characterize Step 1 and Diagnose Step 2 (See Fig. 3.1). Here, the emphasis is on assessing whether the scaling context has changed and on whether the implementation of scaling strategies has yielded the desired effects. Insights derived from such assessments may result in a reconfiguration of the innovation package, the identification of new bottleneck innovations, and subsequent adaptation of agreedupon scaling strategies.The flash dryer team has implemented the agreed-upon strategies presented in Table 3.4 and closely monitored the activities and whether they resulted in the desired improvements in the project. However, travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related closure of businesses necessitated changes in the strategies.In Colombia, the innovation forum was initially postponed (and later cancelled altogether) when the project team realized that the COVID-19 travel restrictions would last much longer than expected. Furthermore, the partners that would co-invest in the flash dryer suspended their commitments to the project and their investment plans. In addition, the development efforts of the flash dryer by the team for the cassava expansion mechanism did not result in desired improvements. As a result, the flash dryer team has decided to stop activities in Colombia and revisited the Scaling Readiness strategic options, adopting a dual strategy:1. Relocate and outsource: Initial consultations with processors in the Dominican Republic showed that there is large interest for the flash dryer; thus, the team decided to relocate there. Since the Dominican Republic was not one of the initial project countries and because the organizational partners of RTB do not have implementation capabilities, the team also decided to outsource the work there to a company called Angavil. The project provided technical support to Angavil to develop its investment plans in flash drying technology for production of cassava flour in the Dominican Republic.2. Reorient the flash dryer toward production of high-grade cassava starch for bioplastics and support an initiative led by the Universidad del Cauca to develop a start-up company in Colombia, funded by Colciencias, the national agency for scientific development. The flash dryer project team decided to provide technical support to this initiative.In Nigeria, the main bottlenecks were market options for cassava flash drying and inefficient fans/blowers that increased the cost of drying (Fig. 3.5). The customers of cassava flour (e.g., millers, brewers) required much higher volumes than could be supplied by small-scale producers. The buyers typically demand 30 or 60 tons per order, whereas some of the small-scale cassava flour factories can produce up to 1-2 tons per day. This situation led to underutilization of the flash drying capacity since some of the flour producers were too small to be economically viable suppliers for the large-scale buyers: Only 32 flash dryer businesses (out of 64 known flash dryers) were viable users for the cassava flash drying. The fans/blowers of the drying system presented another bottleneck in Nigeria. The team has developed the fans/blowers of the drying system by designing improvements and testing them in the flash drying producers' workshops (Table 3.4).In the DR Congo, like Nigeria, the main bottleneck was the fans/blowers (Fig. 3.6).The capacity of fans to achieve adequate air velocity was too low, resulting in low production capacity. Equipment manufacturers acknowledged that they did not have enough experience to build larger fans (due to balancing issues with the rotor) and that they did not know the methods to determine the efficiency of the fan (e.g., air velocity measurements). To address this need, the complementary innovation of flash dryer fans/blowers was added to the innovation package. The team has worked on developing the fan and is calibrating it for efficient drying (Table 3.4).In both Nigeria and DR Congo, the heat exchanger was developed with the goal of driving specific modifications to existing (diesel) heat exchanger designs as well as promoting the manufacture of a new, more efficient heat exchanger design. Out of eight initial private sector scaling partners, three had adopted this innovation by the end of 2019 and increased their processing capacity by 23-50% and profitability by 8-10% -which corresponds to an extra USD 10,000 per year per processor. Cassava producers also benefit from a higher processing capacity, which increases the demand for cassava roots and, hence, economic opportunities for farmers in the regions around cassava factories. Since the most commonly used fuel in Nigeria and DR Congo is diesel, the partners were recommended to change their heating systems to liquid propane gas (LPG), as long as the price of LPG stays competitive in the region. This is a more cost-effective solution (because there is no need to manufacture a heat exchanger) and approximately 10% more efficient with respect to the use of diesel. In 2020, two partners in DR Congo invested in this innovation.In the Dominican Republic, a scaling action plan was agreed to in early 2020 between the cassava processors, equipment manufacturers and R4D team. The plan was then revised several times through short-term feedback loops. The main feedback was related to the definition of responsibilities for the investment risk, as the cassava processor wanted a guaranteed return on investment, while the equipment manufacturer or the R4D team could not take responsibility for this guarantee due to the novelty of the innovation. Each of the partners reviewed their expectations until the scaling action plan was revised and agreed upon.The short-term learning and changes in the strategies were complemented by an annual assessment of activities. The teams initiated a second Scaling Readiness characterization Step 1, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the collection of necessary qualitative information was difficult and this step was suspended.More generally speaking, in all countries, the COVID-19 pandemic affected most of the programmed activities. For example, two project partners in Latin America (from Colombia and the Dominican Republic) postponed their planned investment in the flash dryer due to the economic impact of the pandemic and a 17% increase in the price of the flash dryer due to the depreciation of the local currency.The pandemic also caused new challenges and/or bottlenecks to emerge. For example, providing remote technical support for dryer manufacturing, installation, and testing was slower and more complicated than doing it on-site. Some instructions and recommendations provided by video conference were misinterpreted, leading to a need to repeat the work and consequent extra costs. Additionally, in some places in Nigeria and DR Congo, Internet service and electricity supply are patchy, which hindered effective communication with project partners. One strategy to provide efficient remote technical support during the pandemic was the development of protocols and video tutorials for the project partners (e.g., step-by-step assessment methodologies for drying efficiency).In Nigeria, the implementation of scaling action plans was slower than expected as most project partners delayed their decisions to invest in the flash dryer innovations. Consultation with the different actors in the high-quality cassava flour value chain revealed an emerging bottleneck that had not been identified during the initial Scaling Readiness characterization and diagnosis steps, namely, the rising cost of cassava roots in 2020 that reduced the profit margin of processing. A detailed economic analysis revealed the limited use of high-yielding varieties and good agronomic practices as two of the underlying causes for the limitations.Although the flash dryer Scaling Fund project did not have the time nor resources to contribute directly to the improvement of cassava production yields scenario, exploring synergies with other projects (see Fig. 3.5) became an immediate priority, and a cooperation with the African Development Bank-funded Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) program was established. This program has pursued an objective to provide technical assistance for efficient cassava root production in several African countries, including Nigeria. Overcoming this bottleneck will be key to reducing the cost of cassava roots and related bottlenecks on investment in processing of high-quality cassava flour.Toward the end of the project, due to the persistence of the COVID-19-related limitations, the team decided to create a virtual platform to scale the flash dryer. Having realized that returning to previous offline work is unlikely, digital solutions were considered one of the best options for advancing the scaling work.Scaling FundOne of the strengths of the Scaling Readiness approach is that innovation packages are formulated and diagnosed for different scaling contexts. This was acknowledged by the flash dryer project team and was generally appreciated by scaling project teams who used Scaling Readiness. Since each country has its particular context and related bottlenecks, strategies must be adapted to each context to define the most appropriate way to achieve scaling. For example, the teams appreciated analysis required to identify the most appropriate heat generation system for each country to reduce fuel consumption and contribute to the energy efficiency of cassava drying.To determine the degree of maturity or readiness of the innovations and the level of innovation use, it is necessary to have a deep knowledge of the context. In this regard, one of the lessons learned from the flash dryer case was that it is not enough to carry out this analysis only at the beginning of the project, but that periodic diagnoses must also be carried out, since the context is dynamic and changing, and emerging bottlenecks can arise.Collecting information to design strategies and monitor scaling progress was a challenge in the case study project. Scaling Readiness collects this information through electronic surveys, but it was found that most of the project partners were unresponsive. Some were very busy or did not believe they had the capacity to complete an electronic survey. The challenge will be to develop mechanisms that capture as much information as possible while being user-friendly for the project partners. Collecting information during project meetings or as part of workshops seemed to be more promising in terms of response rates and data quality.In the course of project implementation, differences emerged between countries in terms of the distribution of responsibilities between processors, equipment manufacturers, and the project team. This dynamic also was felt at the level of co-investment realized and the distribution of financial risks. In DR Congo, cassava processors were confident in the market for cassava flour, which is a staple food product in this country, and, therefore, were more willing to invest in flash dryers and take the financial risks without having a formal agreement. In Nigeria, the market for cassava flour is not functioning smoothly due to a combination of factors, such as low availability of cassava roots at competitive prices for flour production, high processing costs due to low energy efficiency of current flash dryers, and a mismatch between production capacity of cassava processors and demand from large buyers. Consequently, cassava processors were less confident to bear investment risks, with the majority preferring to wait for successful implementation of the flash drying innovation before investing themselves. In Latin America, investment costs (and financial risk) were significantly higher due to higher labor costs and other constraints. In addition, the market for cassava flour is not mature yet. Consequently, cassava processors were not willing to fully take on the investment risks and required that equipment manufacturers, or the flash dryer Scaling Project, offer guarantees against construction cost overruns and potential financial underperformance of the flash dryer system. This led to negotiations and written agreements in the form of a sales contract between the cassava processor and the equipment manufacturer.These examples underscore the idea that scaling projects always entail financial risk-taking, considering that innovations, by nature, are not yet fully proven with guaranteed return on investment. Therefore, a key bottleneck is finding agreement between project partners who will take on responsibility for these risks. One option to manage this is to identify and select early in the project private partners who are in a position to accept the risks. That is, partners with financial capacity for investment, confidence in the benefits of the innovation, and access to technical expertise to remedy emerging challenges before and after the construction and delivery of the equipment.We offer four main reflections:1. When the first batch of Scaling Fund projects was selected and approved -early 2018 -the Scaling Readiness approach was still under development. Although the basic principles and concepts of Scaling Readiness were defined, tested, and validated, there were no clear guidelines and workflows that supported its application with partners in controlled conditions -the Scaling Fund projects.Those guidelines and capacity development materials were developed in parallel to Scaling Fund project implementation, which sometimes resulted in confusion (e.g., What is an innovation? What is an innovation package? How to measure and document innovation readiness and innovation use? How to deal with gender and diversity among beneficiaries?). This lack of development also meant a steep learning curve between the Scaling Readiness team and Scaling Fund project teams. The second and especially third batches of Scaling Fund projects benefitted from those learnings, resulting in a more organized and tailored application of Scaling Readiness. A very concrete spin-off of such learning is the development of a gender-responsible scaling tool for identifying relevant diversity in relation to scaling ambitions (which is currently being designed and tested for use in combination with Scaling Readiness). 2. Scaling of innovation (increasing innovation use) is very different from processes related to designing, testing, and validating the innovation through basic and applied research (improving innovation readiness). For doing the scaling, different skills and competencies, language, organizational space, and incentive structures are required. Many of these skills are very different from those that scientists obtain during their PhD trajectories and require competencies related to being opportunistic, taking risks, and negotiating with scaling partners. After the first year of Scaling Fund implementation, we decided that projects had to identify dedicated scaling champions and Scaling Readiness monitors to ensure that scaling projects were not treated and organized in the same way as science projects. Having dedicated scaling champions and Scaling Readiness monitors clarified the division of tasks and responsibilities in the RTB scaling projects. In addition, capacity development on innovation and scaling processes was very much appreciated by the Scaling Fund project teams. 3. Having senior staff in charge of scaling project design, implementation, and decision-making was not always compatible with best practices for managing scaling projects. The time and responsibilities of senior staff are often fragmented, meaning they need to juggle to a broad variety of science, management, and leadership demands and expectations. Furthermore, scientists are often not on the ground in the context where scaling is desired. The environments in which the cassava flash dryer and other RTB Scaling Fund projects operate are very dynamic and require ongoing navigation and re-strategizing, which requires operational knowledge. One of the opportunities we see here is to decentralize management and decision-making in scaling projects so that on-the-ground scaling champions can act in a flexible manner based on the analysis and data provided by Scaling Readiness monitors. We have seen that Scaling Fund projects where such a decentralized model for decision making was applied seemed more successful in capitalizing on emerging opportunities and navigating change. 4. When starting Scaling Fund implementation, it was expected that in the first months of the projects, research and scaling partners would go through a cycle of Scaling Readiness steps and start implementing and monitoring their scaling strategies and action plans. This turned out to be very different in actual practice. First, the process of sense-making and capacity development took much longer than expected. Many of the project teams had very different or unclear ideas about their \"innovations\" and struggled to think critically about what scaling pathways and mechanisms would be required to actually make their products, services, or tools available to end users. Second, working with co-investing scaling partners was essential but also difficult. Scaling partnersespecially when they are co-investing -are very deliberate on whether and how to engage and need to see added value in investing their time and resources in the partnership. As in the flash dryer case, scaling partners may propose risk-sharing strategies -or pull out altogether -if the investment conditions change. It made us realize that the 2-year Scaling Fund projects were essentially about finding common ground between research and scaling partners and creating the space for negotiation, adaptation, and integration that is needed before the actual scaling can happen.The CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas has pioneered support and investment in the development and implementation of scaling strategies and partnerships to catalyze the scaling of its innovations. The consequent investment in the Scaling Fund has been timely. The entire CGIAR (2020) is reorganized around an impact-oriented approach, and scaling will figure prominently among the different parts of the organization. Several of the Scaling Fund and Scaling Readiness principles could be embedded in a new way of doing business in CGIAR.can support monitoring, prioritization, and resource allocation. Doing this in an evidence-based and structured way can increase transparency, facilitate decisionmaking, support resource mobilization, and demonstrate return on investment at both the innovation package and portfolio levels. By portfolio level, we mean the management of a broad number of innovation packages and making decisions on which ones to prioritize. 2. Combine innovation readiness and innovation use in one framework. With this idea, international organizations, such as the CGIAR, can better link research and development as part of its mandate. Within such a framework, science and applied research focusses on improving innovation readiness in close collaboration with expected beneficiaries and innovation partners, and -once proven to work -scaling can focus on improving innovation use with scaling partners. 3. Capitalize on the promise of the Scaling Fund co-investment model where research and scaling partners jointly commit funds and capacities to preparing the innovation. This recommendation would provide a more level playing field between partners and create a higher likelihood that innovations are adapted to become of real value to scaling partners. During the initial stages of sensemaking and finding agreement on what the innovation package looks like and which bottlenecks should be prioritized, a safe incubation space -such as provided in the Scaling Fund -serves to reduce risk and incentivize partners to find common ground.4. Work to create an ecosystem in which the rules and cultures of scaling are different than what people are accustomed to. This made us realize that the appropriate use of novel approaches such as Scaling Readiness and working in an impact-oriented manner needs to go hand in hand with organizational culture change, capacity development and new incentive structures that reward project teams to prioritize work on bottlenecks in innovation packages. Similarly, strategic options such as reorientation, postponing, relocating, or stopping an intervention when innovation and scaling bottlenecks cannot be overcome should be encouraged, rather than be labelled as a failure as it can avoid wasting of valuable R4D resources. 5. Ongoing efforts to make Scaling Readiness more sensitive to gender and social differentiation will need to continue. It seems promising to explore whether and how innovation packages, and scaling strategies can be tailored to groups that are at risk of being excluded. The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.","tokenCount":"8012"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a1b08b10225c1c867e14ed0748196cd8","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ff90f877-2a2e-41ba-99e9-9206a3caf43e/retrieve","id":"165710017"},"keywords":["socio-ecological systems","crop protection","IPM","information diffusion","conservation biological control","rural sociology","ecological intensification"],"sieverID":"9d04f0a9-927d-4d61-9567-880818b4aed7","pagecount":"42","content":"The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) believes that open access contributes to its mission of reducing hunger and poverty, and improving human nutrition in the tropics through research aimed at increasing the eco-efficiency of agriculture.CIAT is committed to creating and sharing knowledge and information openly and globally. We do this through collaborative research as well as through the open sharing of our data, tools, and publications.In 1992, Keith Andrews and colleagues at the Zamorano Panamerican School of Agriculture in Honduras signaled that biological control uptake was hampered by a limited two-way interaction between scientists and farmers (Andrews et al., 1992). Drawing upon their extensive expertise working with smallholder farmers in Central America, these expat scientists recognized that socio-cultural facets of integrated pest management (IPM) were routinely overlooked and called for more emphasis on social science research in the promotion of biological control.Concurrently, at the other side of the globe, similar views were expressed by e.g., Röling & van de Fliert (1994), for the particular case of biological control in Asia's expansive rice crops. Now, 25 years after Andrews and Röling's assertions, we take the pulse of biological control globally, assess trends in its promotion and adoption, and venture into the field of (digital) social research to gauge current scientific interest in this discipline. Furthermore, we identify key shortcomings of biological control technologies from a 'diffusion of innovations' perspective (Rogers, 1962), and point at ways to more effectively transfer key concepts and practices amongst a variety of end-users, including farmers, private sector actors and the general public. Amongst others, we examine the different factors that shape farmers' agro-ecological knowledge, and provide recommendations on how to ease particular obstacles in farmer learning on biological control.We conclude our paper with a comprehensive overview of today's information and communication technologies (ICTs) and their potential value in biological control education and social learning.Since the early 1900s, when UC Riverside scientists famously minted the term 'biological control', the tactical introduction, release and in-field conservation of arthropod natural enemies has resulted in effective control of multiple endemic and exotic pests, and has provided massive economic, environmental and societal benefits (e.g., van Lenteren et al., 2006;van Driesche et al., 2010;De Clercq et al., 2011). However, since the early days of 'unrestrained enthusiasm' and 'ladybird fantasies' (Warner et al., 2011), lots has changed. Although host-specific natural enemies carried out precision-strikes against cassava mealybugs and mites, averted wide-spread famine in sub-Saharan Africa, and led to a resurge of the 'biocontrol bonanza' (IITA, 1996), certain momentum has been lost over the past two decades. Overly stringent regulations for environmental risk assessment of exotic agents, shifting scientific interests and dwindling public attention have led to the abolition of biological control in core curricula of several academic institutions, and have hampered efforts to implement biocontrol globally. The future may hold lucrative opportunities under the current European legislative climate (Lamichhane et al., 2017), but those have to be examined strategically. These latter trends notwithstanding, biological control does find itself at a cross-roads, and careful analysis -from a range of different angles-is warranted to diagnose key deficiencies, identify roadblocks and point the way forward for this most valuable practice.Although global adoption rates of biological control are poorly documented (Chandler et al., 2011), notable achievements continue to be made though at a 'frustratingly' slow pace. Adoption rates of biological control vary considerably between its three main forms: classical (introduction), augmentation and conservation (e.g., Eilenberg et al., 2001). These different forms of biological control have experienced varying levels of 'success', as measured by the extent to which farmers throughout the world rely upon them for pest management (Gurr et al., 2000). Through classical biological control programs, >2,000 species have been introduced, leading to permanent suppression of more than 165 arthropod pests. In different geographies and (agro-)ecosystems, this has resulted in substantial economic benefits, which continue to accumulate annually and are regularly taken for granted (e.g., Zeddies et al., 2001;Van Driesche et al., 2010). Although a number of classical biological control programs have been scaled down in recent years, multiple initiatives remain in steady progress and continue to yield impressive results (e.g., Myrick et al., 2014). The practice of augmentation biological control has become a full-blown market-driven undertaking, gained a firm foothold in greenhouse cultivation within Europe and North America, and is regularly used in open-field horticulture in different parts of Europe (van Lenteren, 2000). However, in other parts of the world and in field crops, commercial augmentative biological control has largely failed to take root (Bailey et al., 2009;van Lenteren, 2012). One notable exception is the use of mass-produced Trichogramma spp. and Cotesia flavipes wasps on Brazil's 9 million ha sugarcane crop, or state-endorsed biological control programs in countries such as Cuba and Mexico (Rosset, 1997;Parra, 2014). Lastly, despite being the world's oldest form of pest control, the practice of conservation biological control has so far met with feeble rates of adoption globally (Cullen et al., 2008;Wyckhuys et al., 2013). Although naturally-occurring biota provide pest control services at a value of $4.5-17 billion annually in the USA (Losey and Vaughan, 2006), most growers are entirely unaware of the intricate ecological processes that occur on their farms, and lag in using approaches to encourage natural enemy colonization, in-field abundance or pest control action. Push-pull systems may be a noteworthy exception though, as those tactics have been widely adopted by African subsistence farmers to control key pests on sorghum and maize (Cook et al., 2007).The biggest stumbling block for conservation biological control is that 'from the viewpoint of an individual decision maker', it remains a 'most problematic investment' (Perkins & Garcia, 1999). While Andrews et al. (1992) already identified close farmer involvement and informed technology delivery programs as essential to the up-scaling of biological control techniques, these same constraints continue to be listed as key impediments by Gurr et al. (2000), Bale et al. (2008), Cullen et al. (2008) or Waterfield & Zilberman (2012). More so, renewed calls are being made for an in-depth characterization of end-user knowledge, attitudes and perceptions, and a subsequent deployment of comprehensive educational campaigns to promote biological control (e.g., Naranjo et al., 2015). In light of the above, we conduct a critical assessment of the extent to which social science perspectives have been incorporated into biological control research over the past 25 years. We examine whether biocontrol practitioners have effectively employed social science approaches, learned from experiences in the 1990s and embarked in cross-disciplinary initiatives, or whether those disciplines continue to be overlooked and 'social science' is simply referred to as a factor to blame farmers' lagging adoption of specific technologies?As a first step in our assessment, we ran an ISI Web of Knowledge search for arthropod biological control studies that deliberately took into account social science aspects. Covering 12,000 journals, our ISI Web of Knowledge search was restricted to abstracts of papers that were published over the time period of 1990 up till November 2016. Studies that covered IPM without explicitly mentioning biological control were not taken into consideration. A core set of papers on insect biological control was consolidated by using the search terms ((\"biological control\" OR \"natural enem*\") AND (\"insect*\" OR \"arthropod\")). These search terms were defined by the authors. Within this set, we ran the following additional queries:  ((\"farmer\" OR \"stakeholder\" OR \"public\") NOT \"public health\")), for studies that make reference to end-users;  ((\"gender\" OR \"women\" OR \"woman\")), for studies that make reference to genderaspects (solely of target adopters, and not insects);  ((\"intergeneration*\" OR \"youth\" OR (\"young\" AND \"age\") OR \"children\")) , for studies that take into account age of target adopters, or include youngsters;  ((\"knowledge\" OR \"innovation\" OR \"information\") AND (\"diffusion\" OR \"transfer\" OR \"dissemination\" OR \"training\")), for manuscripts that allude to knowledge transfer;For each of the above queries, abstracts of the resulting papers were screened and irrelevant studies were omitted from the analysis. Over the 27-year time period, a total of 11,732 manuscripts were found. The number of biological control publications gradually increased from 38 per year in 1990 to 720-886 per year in recent years (Fig. 1). Within this extensive literature base, a total of 161 studies (or 1.4%) were found in which reference was made to farmers, stakeholders, value-chain actors or the general public. Onstad & Knollhoff (2009) made similar findings, when revising economic entomology papers for the level of attention to economic aspects of pest control. Even fewer papers (i.e., a total of 28, over the 27-year time period) covered aspects such as knowledge transfer and technology diffusion. As little as four publications made reference to gender aspects, and either mentioned women or female adopters in the abstract. Lastly, no studies were found in which specific attention was paid to youth or young farmers. Among the 32 manuscripts that either covered technology transfer or gender aspects, 35% originated in Asia and 25% were conducted in the Americas. Only 9% of these studies were from Europe, and 2 studies had a global coverage. For country-specific patterns, China represented the highest number (N= 4) of studies, while Vietnam and the USA each represented three studies.Our literature search thus revealed that biological control advocates thus continue to pay scant attention to social sciences, and largely omit farmer decision-making, technology diffusion or communication facets. Given the high level of farmer heterogeneity and the context-dependent nature of biological control (e.g., Rebaudo & Dangles, 2013), one is left to wonder whether an average of 6.0 manuscripts/year with some social science 'flavor' is sufficient to effectively promote biocontrol in the world's farming systems.From our global analysis, we realize that biological control innovations have diffused to varying extent within social systems, be it farming communities or individual growers, academia, or online societies. In terms of farmer adoption in North America, we can confidently say that we have fallen short in securing wide-ranging adoption of conservation biological control, as compared e.g., to pesticide seed coatings, prophylactic insecticide sprays or transgenics. As biological control practitioners, we are left to wonder why these scientifically-underbuilt, environmentally-friendly, cost-effective and largely harmless technologies are not more popular with farmers or consumers. To understand so, we'll base ourselves upon Rogers' (1962) classic 'diffusion of innovations' theory and have a critical look at information diffusion processes and associated key attributes of biocontrol technologies. Rogers' diffusion of innovation paradigm largely saw extension as a mechanistic, linear knowledge-transfer process. In today's Information Era however, knowledge transfer is far from linear and has become pluralistic, with multi-actor, multi-level and multi-dimensional information streams (e.g., Schut et al., 2014;Servaes & Lie, 2015). Though Rogers' conceptual framework has become somewhat obsolete, we still consider it a valuable starting point to identify certain attributes of biological control that impede its broader diffusion and uptake.Rogers' conceptual framework is composed of five sequential stages, through which an individual passes when exposed to an innovation (Fig. 2). Within this framework, we identify certain elements that impede diffusion of biological control innovations, as ascribed to particular technology attributes, aspects of the decision-making unit (i.e., grower or general public), or components of the communication process. We organize these different constraints in four major categories: a) prior conditions, b) stakeholder characteristics, c) perceived attributes of innovations, and d) type of innovation-decision.Deficient knowledge on biological control innovations. Since the birth of the discipline in the early 1900s, substantial progress has been made in arthropod biological control research. With a steady output of nearly 1,000 papers annually, researchers continue to generate critical ecological insights, pinpoint effective natural enemies, and devise valuable technologies. Nevertheless, there's an immense disparity in terms of amount of available knowledge and associated 'technology packages', not only between the three forms of biological control, but also between cropping systems, socio-economic contexts and geographies.Augmentative biological control tops the ranks in terms of scientific knowledge, particularly in European greenhouse systems, where there's 'plenty of natural enemies' and substantial technological progress (van Lenteren, 2012). Although classical biological control has secured numerous successes, the threat of invasive insects to the world's agriculture remains grossly under-estimated and ever-more relevant (Paini et al., 2016). Effective natural enemies have been identified for multiple invaders, but basic ecological research waits to be conducted for far more priority species. Lastly, scant scientific knowledge is available on conservation biological control, and solid empirical evidence has only recently been generated for certain habitat manipulation tactics (e.g., Gurr & You, 2015).A significant chasm exists in terms of biological control advances between temperate agroecosystems within developed nations, and (sub-)tropical systems. Among the >230 natural enemies that were commercially available in 2011, a meager 25, 23 or 26 could be purchased in a handful of countries within tropical Asia, Africa, or Latin America respectively (van Lenteren, 2012). In farming systems across the tropics (except for rice), there's a virtual absence of sufficient and adequate information on pest ecology and associated opportunities to enhance or conserve natural enemies within agricultural fields (Sampaio et al., 2009). More so, for several major food staples and fruits in the developing-world tropics, virtually nothing is known about the identity of natural enemies, their field ecology or biocontrol potential (Wyckhuys et al., 2013). Also, 93% of the world's biological control research simply overlooks smallholder farming systems (Steward et al., 2014). In conclusion: though smallholders constitute the backbone of global food security (Tscharntke et al., 2012) and biological control might be tailormade to their respective production contexts, we regularly have very little to offer them.Divergent interests and priorities of farmers. Insect pests occasionally inflict substantial yield losses, but that's not always how farmers see it (e.g., Segura et al., 2004). Farmer perceptions, even more than economics, greatly influence on-farm pest management decision-making (Heong et al., 2002). Growers regularly prioritize soil fertility or water availability as factors that merit intervention, consider pest attack not to be economically significant, or see pests as an 'inherent part of nature'. When van Mele et al. (2009) interviewed African mango growers on insect natural enemies, farmers replied that not pests -but thieves-were an issue, and that weaver ants (Oecophylla spp.) effectively kept those thieves at bay. Making an effort to understand a farmer's priorities, even if those at first are only tangentially related to crop protection, is crucial to effectively promote biological control technologies.Feeble agro-ecological knowledge base. Over the past 25 years, social scientists and entomologists alike have embarked upon initiatives to characterize farmers' agro-ecological knowledge (e.g., Roling & Jiggins, 1998;Berkes et al., 2000). Co-author Jeffery W. Bentley, an experienced anthropologist, led one of the first endeavors to document farmers' understanding of biological control. \"Nothing kills insects… except for insecticides\" Honduran smallholders repeatedly told JWB in the 1980s and 90s. Obviously, some forms of biological control, e.g., parasitism by minute hymenopterans or the action of entomo-pathogens, are difficult to observe. But, rather surprisingly, farmers were also entirely unaware of insect predation by social wasps; conspicuous and active caterpillar-hunters that are omnipresent in local fields. Wasps (e.g., Polybia spp.; Hymenoptera: Vespidae) typically nest under the porch roof of rural homes, and fly back and forth, carrying a variety of insect prey items. Yet when JWB asked farmers what wasps ate, smallholders would pause, as if they were thinking about something mildly interesting for the first time, and say \"flowers, wasps must eat flowers.\" Though vespids do consume floral nectar, farmers were missing the point that predatory insects kill herbivorous pests. Over time, JWB learned that Honduran farmers understood that Solenopsis geminata ants and spiders ate insects, but in general farmers thought that such predation was of little importance (Bentley & Rodríguez, 2001). Some of farmers' explanations of insect ecology were wide off the mark. When local campesinos noticed that pests were increasing with the use of insecticides, they concluded that agro-chemical companies had put insects inside the pesticide bottles, instead of realizing that insecticides killed natural enemies (Shaxson & Bentley, 1991). Honduran farmers who had received training on insect ecology did learn and remember some of the biocontrol concepts, but those were largely restricted to the action of large, conspicuous predators (Wyckhuys & O'Neil, 2007a; Table 1). Scholars elsewhere in Mesoamerica also learned that local concepts of natural enemies were weak, at best. Most farmers in a Guatemalan study were completely unaware of natural enemies, even birds and other vertebrates (Morales & Perfecto, 2000). Awareness of natural enemies was low in Chiapas, Mexico, even among farmers who had been trained to use bethylid parasitoids against the coffee berry borer (Segura et al. 2004). Asian studies equally documented low farmer knowledge of natural enemies, and Javanese farmers believed that predatory ladybugs were a pest (Winarto, 2004). Farmers in the Philippines or Bangladesh thought that all insects were pests, and sprayed preventively (Palis, 2006;Robinson et al., 2007).Paradoxically, rural people can (and usually do) know a lot about insects, while paying scant attention to (minute) natural enemies. For example, a study in Nepal showed that Tharu-speaking villagers had 120 names for various small animals, particularly insects. Some misconceptions about natural enemies were astounding, e.g. that the praying mantis could pluck the eye from a person (Gurung, 2003). Paul Van Mele and colleagues studied folk knowledge of weaver ants Oecophylla spp. in Southeast Asia and in West Africa. They realized that farmers are largely unaware that ants kill insects, or believe that they only provide minor pest control services (Van Mele et al., 2009). In Vietnam's Mekong Delta, a few growers did manipulate ants to control mango or citrus pests, especially those with a long tradition of tending orchard trees. This is one of the few documented cases where farmers do have a long-established tradition of applied biocontrol, which should be used as a strategic entry point to further explain the action of other (less conspicuous) natural enemies or frame biocontrol communication campaigns.Farmer knowledge of pests and natural enemies can be seen as a matrix that compares the \"culturally important\" with the \"ease (or difficulty) of observation\" (Bentley, 1992). Cultural importance refers to items that matter to rural people themselves, not necessarily to biocontrol experts. Ease of observation is related to the size, color, habits and habitat of the organism that is being observed (or ignored); smallholders are more likely to notice and know about large, bright, active, diurnal insects in field crops than about small, cryptic, nocturnal forest arthropods. This matrix yields us four types of local knowledge, each of which presents unique challenges and opportunities for sharing knowledge with smallholders about biological pest control.Local knowledge is deep for topics that are culturally important and easy to observe. Many smallholders worldwide keep cats, not least because they kill rats and mice. The rodents are clearly a felt problem for people who store much of their food at home, and farmers easily notice their cats hauling off dead rats. Vertebrate pest control is a rich area for experts to learn from local people. Since farmers already know how to keep cats, biocontrol extension can simply reconfirm, validate or acknowledge this as exemplified in a recent training video on stored product pest management (Agro-Insight, 2017).Local knowledge is thin for things that are culturally unimportant, but easy to observe.Smallholders tend to ignore spiders, social wasps, predatory bugs or ants. These creatures are slightly more difficult to observe than house cats, but not much. Simple tools like insect zoos and agro-ecological drawings can capitalize on this area of local knowledge, though there are several limitations. For example, there is not always enough time to make multiple observations on certain organisms, or natural enemies such as robber flies and dragon flies are impractical to observe under those conditions (Luther et al., 2005).Misperception arises for areas that are culturally important, but difficult to observe. Much of insect pest biology and ecology fits here. Smallholders are keenly aware of insect pests, yet cannot usually observe that there are male and female arthropods, which lay eggs or undergo metamorphosis. All of this can be taught, although it is more difficult to observe in the field than the actions of larger predators. People may reach the wrong conclusion if they spend energy thinking about difficult topics, but without the proper tools and concepts. For example, folks may decide that insects are spontaneously generated and never die. Once such kind of misperception is held in mind, it is difficult to dislodge. Extension must carefully acknowledge farmers' beliefs and explain the best that modern science has to offer, drawing upon logic and analogies (e.g. \"insects mate, just like other animals\") and using animations, diagrams, and photos.There may be no local knowledge at all for the culturally unimportant and difficult to observe.The bulk of farmers across the globe are entirely unaware that entomo-pathogens, parasitoids, nematodes, or even sterile male flies even exist. It is tempting to conduct such research-&development on those topics behind the backs of farmers. However, we are learning that, for example, the great success of introducing and liberating parasitoid wasps to control mealybugs in Africa and Asia is now being undone as farmers apply insecticides on cassava (Bentley, 2014;Wyckhuys et al., unpublished). This means that researchers must either educate farmers about parasitism or find other technologies to replace their earlier victory.Fear of yield loss, pressure from agro-chemical companies, lack of understanding of key ecological concepts, and individual decision-making processes all play a prominent role, and each can steer farmers away from biological control or lock them into calendar spraying. In South African avocado crops, education, age and land-owner status all affect a farmer's decision to adopt biological control, with young farmers being more likely to use biological control (Van Eeden & Korsten, 2013). Also, older farmers are less inclined to employ habitat management tactics with long time-lags until payoff (Pannell et al., 2006). Household-level income is another determining factor. In certain contexts, raising incomes trigger pesticide use and the number of discarded pesticide containers in a field can easily be indicative of farmer wealth (e.g., Heong et al., 2002). Gender equally plays a prominent role in the adoption of biological control, but has somehow been overlooked. Men and women know vastly different things about farm insects, and women may be more inclined to embrace and promote safe, environmentally-sound practices such as biological control (Christie et al., 2015). However, while Vietnamese women assume a lead role in pest management decision-making, they possess little or no knowledge about biological control and steer their husband towards insecticide-based pest control (Uphadyay et al., under review).Farmer innovators and 'early-adopters' tend to be venturesome, cosmopolitan individuals who actively seek new information (Rogers, 1962). Other farmers are born experimenters and inventors, who tinker with new technologies and -when allowed access to underlying (ecological) concepts -can become generators of locally-relevant biocontrol technologies. This is exemplified by the case of un-educated Honduran smallholders devising artificial food-sprays after learning that ants control key pests (e.g., Wyckhuys & O'Neil, 2007a). Irrespective of their creativity, a farmer's attitude to risk can fast become a key impediment to the adoption of biological control. In Bangladesh, where farmers expect to lose 58% of their rice yields if they don't use prophylactic insecticide sprays (Robinson et al., 2007), it will be key to either target less risk-averse farmers or to promote biological control practices that provide tangible (and visible) benefit. c. Communication behavior Some farmers are exceptionally proficient in seeking advice and look for information through a range of channels, such as radio, extension bulletins, or newspapers (e.g., Robinson et al., 2007;Wyckhuys & O'Neil, 2007b). Pesticide salesmen or agricultural technicians are also regularly consulted, but don't necessarily guide a farmer towards biological control. Lastly, peer pressure is highly influential in determining an individual's pest management decisions (Heong et al., 2002). Some of the above pressures and farmer-to-farmer dynamics can be effectively wielded to drive dissemination of biological control practices, by creating conditions for social learning (e.g., Rebaudo & Dangles, 2013).Biological control can provide vast economic benefits to individual growers or land-managers (e.g., Zeddies et al., 2001), but those regularly remain invisible to farmers. Farmers tend to have a difficult time assessing value and relative advantage of biological control, especially of preventive innovations (e.g., Goldberger & Lehrer, 2016). Hence, any lingering technical uncertainty amongst researchers over the effectiveness of e.g., habitat manipulation tactics, could hamper further efforts for up-scaling and farm-level promotion (e.g., Cullen et al., 2008). Not only is science-based valuation of cost-benefit ratios essential, its unequivocal on-farm demonstration to growers is critical. In US cotton or urban landscapes, consumers and farmers regularly value and even express a willingness to pay for biological control, but this may be challenging to attain for other farming systems or contexts (Jetter & Paine, 2004;Naranjo et al., 2015). For commercial biocontrol agents, relative cost clearly may hamper adoption (Harman et al., 2000), unless lucrative niche market opportunities exist or can be created for farm produce.Particularly in field crops, biological control success is highly context-dependent and can be affected by field size, crop management or agro-landscape context (Schellhorn et al., 2014).While parasitoid mass releases may be profitable for large-scale sugarcane growers, the same technology may be un-economical for small-scale growers in diverse landscape mosaics. Also, it's a delicate balancing act to successfully use biological control in a crop that still requires insecticide sprays. Lastly, habitat manipulation tactics may fail to take root on 'manicured' farms where growers don't recognize positive attributes of weeds or exclusively value flowers for their esthetics.The classic 1996 study of William Settle and colleagues shed light upon the intricate trophic processes within rice agro-ecosystems, highlighting the role of organic matter and decomposers in sustaining predator communities. Transferring the full breadth of those concepts to local smallholders has proven exceptionally challenging, even when relying upon intensive, observation-based training courses (Waddington et al., 2014).Farmer's ability to engage in informal field trials and small-scale technology evaluation is a key determinant for biological control adoption (Cullen et al., 2008). Though some natural enemies are available in small (dose-sized) packages, their on-farm evaluation tends to be far more complex and requires focused observation, patience and the right attitude. This contrasts with insecticides, which are regularly sold in inexpensive, small sachets throughout the developing world, and are thus highly appreciated by farmers who run low on cash or are interested in trialing them on-farm.e. Observability Some ecological processes and trophic interactions are difficult to be observed with the naked eye, and most farmers don't fully appreciate the action of insect-killing fungi or entomopathogenic nematodes. In CABI's Global Plant Clinics or 'Going Public' extension programs, a magnifying glass or microscope is facilitated to growers to help them visualize and appreciate the role of certain beneficial organisms. The ability to see the unseen not only creates a sense of wonder for farmers, but can be a 'game-changer' in their inclination to adopt biological control.a. Optional, collective, authority Some biological control interventions depend upon farm-level intervention by individual growers, while others require concerted action or deliberate information-sharing by groups of farmers (Epanchin-Niell et al., 2010). Though this need for collective action is frequently identified as key obstacle to biological control adoption and diffusion in developing countries (Parsa et al., 2014), one needs to take into account that it is inherent to human nature to overattribute one own's behavior to situational factors (Jones & Nisbett, 1971). This so-called 'actorobserver bias' can best be exemplified and remediated through case studies and role-playing (e.g., Doohan et al., 2010). Also, authority can play a decisive role in propelling biological control technologies, as evident for state-supported initiatives in China, Cuba, Mexico, or in certain classical biological programs.As immediate response to Asia-wide, insecticide-triggered outbreaks of the rice brown planthopper, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) developed in the late 1980s the Farmer Field School (FFS) approach (e.g., van de Fliert et al., 1995;Matteson, 2000). Piloted with rice growers in rural Indonesia, FFS create a space for farmer education, collective learning and hands-on participatory research on IPM and biological control. FFS course curricula readily incorporate observation-based learning about insect ecology and agro-ecosystem functioning. A typical crop-based FFS consists of groups of 15-25 growers that meet at frequent intervals throughout the growing season, observing pest and natural enemy dynamics within a given field and comparing conventional pest management practices with alternative strategies. A central component of FFS is the so-called Agro-Ecosystem Analysis (AESA), through which teams of farmers observe the crop, take note of the soil condition, water level, crop developmental stage, and the presence of pests, natural enemies, diseases or weeds. Each team summarizes its findings in drawings, which then become the topic of (often lively) group discussion. Special topics reinforce certain themes, and the establishment of 'insect zoos' are often built into the curriculum to strengthen farmers' understanding of biological control processes, such as predation by spiders or dragonfly larvae.Under the participatory FFS learning model, biological control social learning is enhanced through a set of components. FFS make strategic use of hands-on experimentation, exchange and critical analysis to improve knowledge and decision-making skills. For biological control concepts, FFS promote 'learning by doing', by observing field-collected organisms in an insect zoo, studying life cycles, conceptualizing food webs, or observing effects of insecticides on natural enemies in small field plots. Through AESA, participants examine different interactions at the level of a food web or farming system, and jointly reach informed decisions for further crop or pest management. Oftentimes experimentation and observation-based learning is complicated, e.g., when assessing insect parasitism, or when farmers have previously been (over-)exposed to information on pesticide use. Understanding complex ecological processes requires time and, though farmers are members of FFS teams, the learning process regularly remains individual.Since their inception in 1989, FFS have spread to over 90 countries, have found a place in numerous government-run programs, and have been embraced by grass-roots organizations, NGOs and private sector actors. FFS gradually matured and evolved into full-fledged Community IPM programs (e.g., Matteson, 2000), or development of co-learning platforms such as local farmer research committees, i.e., CIALs for their Spanish acronym (Ashby et al, 2000).Over time, FFS came to cover a wide range of topics and diverse agro-ecosystems. By 2001, FFS trained >1 million Indonesian farmers on IPM and biological control, and 18-36,000 groups had been established worldwide. In recent years, FFS have been deployed for tomato leafminer (Tuta absoluta) management in North Africa, and are being considered to promote conservation biological control in Asia's rice-cropping systems (Westphal et al., 2015).Although FFS have been applauded for their creative approach in transferring complex concepts and bringing about large-scale pesticide reduction, they also encounter certain weaknesses. Through their intensive, nearly personalized, training approach, FFS do entail relatively high costs and also face certain issues with scaling (Schut et al., 2014;Waddington et al., 2014). In several Asian countries, government support for FFS has waned over the past decade, leading to escalating use of low-cost, generic and banned pesticides and -once againinsecticide-induced pest problems (e.g., Thorburn, 2013). As a long-delayed echo from the early 1990s, mounting concern is now being voiced that deficient attention to farmers' ecological knowledge and social science facets of biological control will only further accelerate pesticide over-use (Gould, 1998;Chen et al., 2013). The rice brown planthopper -prime target of the acclaimed FFS-may very well become the pest around which the world's entomologists have to converge (Bottrell & Schoenly, 2012), to either learn from the past or re-invent the wheel.Everett Rogers' theory lies behind us, and has been challenged on its linear and phased view on change, development and decision-making. Through the ontological perspective of today's actionable theory, farmers are seen as active constructers of knowledge and dynamically manage their own decision-making process. Also, knowledge-intensive innovations (e.g., biological control) flow through multiple directions and are affected by multi-level interactions between biophysical, social and institutional components (Schut et al., 2014). Current scaling approaches don't necessarily take into account these complex dynamics, and remain firmly constructed around Rogers' diffusion of innovations pillars (Wigboldus et al., 2016). In today's Digital or New Media Age though, there is a growing opportunity to incorporate complex system dynamics, which address collective or connective action (e.g., Ostrom, 2010;Milgroom et al., 2016).The new participatory approach on sharing knowledge and active co-learning incorporates a view on learning strategies (Servaes & Lie, 2014). For particular innovations and types of social actors, different learning processes can be considered, such as transformative learning, social learning, experiential learning, or reflexive learning. For technologies such as biological control, learning regularly occurs through knowledge co-creation in which farmers acquire, interpret and integrate information from a range of different sources, including first-hand experience, personal contacts and (digital) sources. New media and ICT tools can support such learning processes and accelerate knowledge co-creation, and give indigenous or folk knowledge an appropriate place within the entire knowledge system and decision-making process. By using information and communication technologies (ICTs), the dynamic, interactive and non-linear character of change can then also be further exploited (e.g., Servaes & Lie, 2015). Technologies such as mobile phones, tablets or laptops can facilitate information sharing and the co-creation of knowledge. Although today's world is infused with new technologies and communication tools, biological control advocates have not fully exploited their potential in promoting their technologies and practices.b. Film, mobile phones and tablet-based learning delivery, radio dial-up or SMS-based extension (e.g., Acker, 2011). Phones can also be tactically used to gather feedback regarding new technologies, embark on citizen-science initiatives, or collect first-hand insights into grower interests, concerns and needs (e.g., Jarvis et al. 2015).Lastly, tablet-based approaches can equally addresses specific learning strategies in the cocreation of agricultural knowledge. In rural areas that are less connected through 2G, 3G, 4G or WIFI, tablets may even be preferred over mobile phones. Tablet-based learning strategies are being piloted in Sierra Leone through Digital Farmer Field Schools (DFFS). The DFFS approach uses a digital technology model, is built upon principles of responsible innovation (Stilgoe et al., 2013), and blended with some of the former FFS training principles, such as group learning (Van de Fliert, 1995). Initial testing shows that the DFFS create new opportunities for knowledge creation and exchange, and is culturally and technologically appropriate (Witteveen et al., 2016).In the field of complex agricultural problems and extension, social learning is particularly appropriate and effective. Social learning in essence captures learning processes within a social context (Beers et al, 2016), and creates space for different world views, constructions of realities and perceptions of knowledge. Social learning is in fact collective action and reflection in which diversity is recognized and local knowledge, cultural importance, farmer-to-farmer interactions and FFS-type learning principles are essential (Keen et al, 2005). In this section, we describe two elements of social learning as directly related to the transfer of biological control concepts, tools or technologies: access to ICT-based learning and the use of visuals.Access to ICT-based learning. Inclusive digital development addresses participation through the use of ICTs. One of the fundamental conditions for participation is access, which can cover the following: (1) Motivational access (i.e., motivation to use digital technology), (2) Material access (i.e., possession of computers and Internet connections), (3) Skill access (i.e., possession of digital skills) and (4) Usage access (i.e., usage time) (Van Deursen and Van Dijk, 2009). All forms of access need to be addressed to guarantee participation and to aim for inclusive digital development. In this regard, there's an important distinction to be made between access, interaction (socio-communicative relationships) and participation (co-deciding) (Carpentier, 2011). Though access to ICT tools may be limited e.g., in smallholder communities in the developing-world tropics, strong interpersonal socio-communicative relationships may compensate for this and can further facilitate social learning of biological control.The power of visuals. Although radio may be a powerful medium for agricultural extension (Rao, 2015), it cannot communicate with visuals and is thus ineffective in addressing complex issues such as natural enemy biology or ecology facets. Novel ICTs, such as laptops, mobile phones or tablets, can effectively enable the use of visuals and incorporate animations, diagrams, maps, photos or film in processes of social learning. Over the past decade, the field of visual research has gradually gained popularity (e.g. Rose, 2016) and can be employed to assess how visuals can effectively be used in the promotion of biological control. Another relevant field is visual literacy. Some older works addressed this field in relation to agricultural extension (e.g., Boeren and Epskamp, 1992), but work is urgently needed to gauge farmers' interpretation of visuals and their contribution to biocontrol social learning.Tablets or cellphones are just some of several ICTs that could convey complex concepts and trigger social learning processes about the use of biological control. Practical instructional videos, photo-films or animated cartoons can be developed e.g., on habitat manipulation, insect life cycles, food-sprays or the use of banker plants, and help guide farmer decision-making in myriad biophysical, socio-economic or socio-cultural contexts. However, before even embarking on the development of advanced ICT-based training materials for biological control, it will be essential to use insights into \"farmers' knowledge, attitudes, and practices\" as a starting point (Litsinger et al., 2009). Also, by systematically examining specific biological control technologies through a 'diffusion of innovation' lens, one can pinpoint critical constraints and limitations to their further promotion and upscaling. In conclusion: in the New Media Age, nearlimitless possibilities are at our hands to transfer and validate technologies, alter public perceptions, and reach a 'tipping point' for biological control. Yet, in the end, it is up to us to move out of our comfort zone, embrace social science approaches as much as new technologies, and make them work to our benefit. that have taken into consideration social science aspects, over a 1990-2016 time period. Data are plotted on a log10 scale. For a particular year, the number of publications on insect biological control is contrasted against the number of papers that take into account end-users (including the general public and farmers), cover gender aspects, or make mention of knowledge dissemination.  (1962). Along this process, we list stages in which biological control innovations (e.g., concepts, technologies) tend to encounter difficulties or face critical shortcomings. Each of these components will be further elaborated in the text.Table 1. Farmer understanding of the respective role of various arthropod natural enemies, as contrasted between two different agro-production contexts and geographies. Case study #1 covers traditional maize cropping systems in Honduras, where farmers since pre-Columbian times have managed an endemic, conspicuous lepidopteran pest (the fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda) (Wyckhuys & O'Neil, 2007). Case study # 2 covers cassava production in Vietnam, where local smallholders are facing attack by a recent invader; the cassava mealybug Phenacoccus manihoti (Uphadyay et al., under review). Farmers' agro-ecological knowledge was gauged through free-listing or photo-elicitation for either respective case study, and compared between communities with differing IPM training histories.Honduras maize ","tokenCount":"6415"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9ab64a8b52ecc3e91c36e93d9e719539","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5b7ef4f4-dcee-45ad-8a0c-6a551e0e3610/retrieve","id":"-2001882999"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"cef2d9c6-5a25-4521-a5af-f522af7da348","pagecount":"26","content":"Study locations: the Greater Addis Ababa milk shed  Why does noug cake have high aflatoxin contamination?• Identify the types of Aspergillus fungi that grow on noug seed and noug cake• Study conditions that are conducive to growth and toxin production on noug and noug seed cake• Investigate storage conditions of noug seed and cake Noug cakeWhy are there regional differences in level of aflatoxin contamination within the Greater Addis Ababa milk shed?• Study the differences in climate, storage conditions and the proportion of noug cake in the feed• Study aflatoxin contamination in other milk sheds in EthiopiaAflatoxin contamination of poultry feed• Study poultry feed for aflatoxin contamination• Study its effect on egg production and impaired growth Effect of aflatoxin in broiler growth at 42 days. T1 -control T2-3 ppm of aflatoxin T6 -control + ADS ( 0.2%) (Source: Agranco Corp. USA)Chemical detoxification of aflatoxin (AFB1) in feed• Treatment of aflatoxin-contaminated feed samples with salts such as sodium bicarbonate and sodium bisulphite• Study the effect of concentration and temperature of the salt solution • Study mixture of salts treatment to maximize the detoxification How much do we know about the impact of aflatoxin on human health in Ethiopia?• Together with the Ministry of Health, study aflatoxin in human urine and breast milk• This might reveal the level of aflatoxin exposure in people who have been consuming the contaminated milk• High level contamination of aflatoxin in feed (AFB1) and in milk (AFM1)• Noug (Guizotia abyssinica) cakes are widely used in the greater Addis Ababa milk shed as cattle feed and have been found to be highly contaminated with AFB1• Further studies on the impact of aflatoxin on both human and animal health in Ethiopia are required ","tokenCount":"284"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"565f8d895978acaebbc4f4c93b7778c8","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/1bb98e96-6a24-46ac-824d-7adefaff4897/content","id":"-559215352"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"70ebc8dd-f7b3-4fd7-b100-983ab4c3ab73","pagecount":"12","content":"Application in South Asia.\" The aim of the event was to facilitate cross-country dialogues on efficient nutrient management in the region. The event saw participation from central and regional government representatives from policy and extension, private fertilizer companies and fertilizer federations, researchers from CGIAR centers, as well as representatives of the donor community. Participants came from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Interactive discussions were centred around three main themes: (a) cross-country learning and evidence sharing on policies and subsidies to promote balanced nutrient application, (b) market, policy, and product innovations in the fertilizer industry, and (c) learnings and insights on the development of innovative methods in research and extension targeted to farmers.All four countries -Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka -heavily subsidize urea. Sri Lanka subsidizes urea, phosphate, and potassium-based fertilizers at 78 percent, 83 percent, and 80 percent of the global market price in the 2019 market (Figure 1). Subsidies on P and K are smaller in Bangladesh and Nepal.In India, subsidies on nitrogen-based fertilizers are also large and represent a substantial portion of the government's fiscal outlay. The current fertilizer subsidy regime in these countries appears to distort prices and farmers' incentives. A heavy subsidy on urea that ranges from 28 percent to 78 percent across countries, and little to no subsidy on micronutrients, appears to have led to an imbalanced application of fertilizers that can influence soil degradation in intensively cultivated areas of these countries.Lesson 1: High macronutrient subsidies are common across South Asia There have been major changes in fertilizer subsidies across the region over the last 25 years. Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka all experimented with abolishing or drastically reducing fertilizer subsidies, only to restore them after a few years. The impact of temporary abolition of these subsidies on farmers' welfare, farming practices, or balanced use of nutrients are not well documented. There has been little systematic analysis of the reasons for the abolition and subsequent reinstatement of fertilizer subsidies and their rates across the three countries. Understanding the reasons for these policy reversals could assist in devising more practical and economically sound policy recommendations. While abolishing subsidies may, in theory, be a desirable approach to correct for a long history of market distortions, it is unlikely to be politically feasible nor politically viable in South Asia.Lesson 2: Abolition of fertilizer subsidies does not last Unlike the other three countries, India never completely attempted to abolish fertilizer subsidies. However, the government of India decontrolled prices of phosphate and potash in 2011, resulting in a sharp increase in the retail prices of both nutrients. Following decontrol, the Government of India now fixes the total subsidy allocations for phosphate (P) and potash (K) fertilizers and permits retail prices to float with world prices. On the other hand, the retail price of urea continues to be controlled by the government.CSISA's analysis of plot-level data on fertilizer use in India shows that the sharp increase in relative prices of P and K (Figure 1) resulted in only small changes in the application rates of the two nutrients to rice and wheat (Figure 2). Contrary to expectations, farmers' response to these changes in the relative prices of N (Urea), P (DAP), and K (MoP) fertilizers in India was surprisingly limited. This lack of response to major changes in fertilizer subsidies suggests that rationalizing subsidies, though necessary, may not, by itself, lead to balanced application of fertilizers in India. This observation has important implications for other South Asian countries. Lack of information or understanding of crop nutrient requirements among policy planners and farmers is also a major problem. Besides correcting price incentives, there is a need for extension, backed by scientific research and recommendations, to nudge farmers to change behaviour regarding unbalanced and uneconomic fertilizer use.Lesson 3: Farmers' response to sharp changes in fertilizer prices may be limited  Fertilizer blends, both general and those customized for specific soils in specific locations, have emerged as a viable option to ensure complete plant nutrition and balanced soil nutrient application. There is now a considerable body of work dedicated to studying the best ways of producing and marketing custom blends that are based on agroecological and crop recommendations, in addition to digital soil mapping efforts led by CIMMYT in the region. Nepal also plans to set up its first fertilizer-blending plant, thus putting the issue of custom blends at centre-stage of the fertilizer policy debate in the region. With the proliferation of custom blends, the issue of how subsidies should be structured to promote the use of innovative products at an affordable price for smallholders also becomes important. While one solution is to subsidize end products, much like base fertilizers, there is a need for strong checks to ensure fertilizer blends are held to the same quality standards as other single-nutrient products.The capital cost of setting up blending plants is very high, thus private fertilizer companies need strong research and development to assure the business case for investments, and to identify which technology to use for blending. Physical, or bulk, blending has been the most common process used until now.However, according to Dr Ramendra Singh of Coromandel International, this technology has also has disadvantages due to non-uniform release of nutrients from blended particles. Workshop participants discussed how this can lead to soil degradation and yield stagnation. Steam granulation and fusion blending are expensive but appear to be more efficient alternatives. A thorough cost-benefit analysis should guide decisions about which technology to adopt.Research Institute (IRRI) in Bangladesh and India has found relatively poor relationships between soil nutrient tests and patterns of agricultural productivity for maize and rice, respectively. This appears to result from a mismatch between sampling time, frequency, and the specific tests conducted (for example, total nitrogen rather than available nitrogen, and so on). Extension research by Adventz, Precision Agriculture for Development (PAD) and IFPRI in other states such as Goa, Gujarat, and Odisha also show that few farmers(2-10 percent) who received SHCs understood test results and recommendations.This does not mean that the SHC concept is a failed one. In independent projects, both IFPRI and PAD experimented with redesigning SHCs in Odisha and Gujarat. In both cases, simplifying the SHC and making it more user friendly led to significant improvement in the comprehension of soil health information. PAD and Adventz also found that repeated engagement with farmers through interactive call centers or personal visits by extension or fertilizer company staff can lead to increases in understanding of SHCs and a small, but significant, increase in the adoption of scientific soil fertility management recommendations. IRRI's experience of deploying app-based fertilizer recommendations to many farmers in different parts of India and Bangladesh also shows the need for a repeated engagement with farmers and field-level extension agents to increase understanding and generate impact. In other words, apps alone -no matter how advanced or comprehensive -are no substitute for educational efforts and dialogue with extension and farmers to advance improved nutrient management. Dr. Peter Crawford of CIMMYT also shared his experience of promoting balanced fertilizer use in Africa. He emphasized the need for farmers' needs assessments and human-centered design approaches while developing and delivering nutrient application recommendations and extension materials. In February 2016, Sri Lanka however switched to direct cash transfer of a fertilizer subsidy. Retail prices of fertilizers increased 6.5-fold and farmers received a cash transfer directly to their bank accounts. Economists often prefer cash transfers to in-kind subsidies because the former does not distort prices. However, in Sri Lanka, the government continued to control fertilizer prices even after switching to DCT. During this period, prices of all three macronutrients remained equal, but at a level several times higher than before. Furthermore, while initially only paddy growers were eligible for the cash transfer, later, the government added a few more crops to the eligibility list.Farmers were entitled to a subsidy for up to only two hectares of cultivated land.These restrictions and targeting requirements created a heavy burden of data collection and monitoring for agricultural extension and monitoring, resulting in irregularities and delays in subsidy delivery. Participants in the workshop learned that many stakeholders were dissatisfied with this system -a realization that has implications for the rest of the region. The government of Sri Lanka also returned to the old system of price subsidies soon after losing local body elections in 2018.Fertilizer prices in Sri Lanka are even lower now than they were before the introduction of cash transfers, with N, P, and K all sold at US$2.75 for a 50 kg bag.The Government of Nepal is considering using vouchers for fertilizers. The recent experience of implementing fertilizer subsidy reforms in India and Sri Lanka offers three lessons for Nepal, which hosted the policy dialogue:Firstly, governments should not rush to a voucher system for fertilizer subsidies.A rushed reform may even backfire.Policymakers should first build a reliable database of farmers with their land records, to better target new subsidy regimes and assure that smallholders' benefit.Secondly, if vouchers are to be targeted to a select group of farmers, initial targeting criteria should be as simple as possible.Complex targeting systems lead to higher probabilities of errors of omission and commission. Use of complicated indices for targeting leads to more discretion for lower bureaucrats and more errors and potential for misuse.Thirdly, the use of fertilizer subsidies as an instrument to promote certain crops and discourage others has not been successful elsewhere in South Asia.Allowing fertilizer subsidies only for paddy in Sri Lanka made subsidy distribution more cumbersome (cropping pattern data had to be collected every season) and led to increased irregularities. Thus, a crop-neutral voucher policy should be explored.There is rapidly growing interest in organic farming in all the countries in the region. With changing food and preferences and growing incomes, consumer demand is to some extent shifting towards organically grown produce, for fruits and vegetables. Several provincial governments in India have made budgetary provisions for promotion of organic farming in their respective states 2 . Independent organic farm entrepreneurs have also emerged in peri-urban areas bordering big cities, catering to an increasingly health conscious urban clientele. As demand for organic farm produce grows, governments will need to respond with appropriate fiscal and regulatory instruments to support the industry. This is also an opportunity for fostering cross-country learning on farming practices that could enhance productivity and ensure prices for organic produce remain competitive and accessible 3 .With the exception of Sri Lanka, workshop presenters and participants from India, Nepal, and Bangladesh -and especially those from the private sector -discussed their interest in growing organic fertilizer and compost markets. Although these products are likely to be best targeted to high-value horticultural and/or orchard crops as opposed to cereals in South Asia, organic amendments can over time improve soil structure, water holding capacity, and can contribute to nutrient retention and supply.They therefore are an important tool in the maintenance of soil quality and in efforts to mitigate soil degradation. Participants discussed the high transactions costs and barriers to entry for organic fertilizer products. None of the countries participating in the policy dialogue offered subsidies for organic fertilizers, although there appears to be growing demand for these products. Production of organic fertilizers from municipal wastes, particularly from South Asia's population dense cities, may also serve an added advantage as a means of ecological waste management and recycling. Studies into the viability of these programs and policy and market support mechanisms could be beneficial, as interest in this subject appears to be growing.Lesson 7: Interest in organic fertilizers and improved organic matter management is growing Unlike Sri Lanka, the Government of India plans to shift to cash transfers in a series of planned phases using new technologies to reduce transaction costs and irregularities. The government has installed point of sales (or POS) machines in all 0.22 million fertilizer retail outlets 1 . At present, farm input dealers have to validate all fertilizers sales to farmers using a biometric information unique identification document called Aadhar to control for leakages and fraud.MicroSave, an Indian organization working closely with the government in monitoring the DBT system, shared results from its process evaluation of the implementation of Aadhar-linked fertilizer sales during the workshop. Poor internet connectivity has been a major challenge in the full implementation of Aadhar-linked sales of fertilizers. Aadhar cards are also not yet linked to land ownership records or soil health cards in most states. As a result, targeting of fertilizer subsidies and using cash transfers to promote recommended fertilizer rates and use remains a challenge.Although theoretically promising, DBT of targeted subsidies therefore appears to be more challenging than universal subsidies. This is further complicated if operational landholding is used as the criterion for targeting because land records are not digitized and integrated with other farmer identity cards or citizen cards in most of South Asia.","tokenCount":"2130"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1f78927b03880e0693a7542f2a54cad4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://apps.worldagroforestry.org/downloads/Publications/PDFS/MN22031.pdf","id":"1725013530"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"dac680c2-1d75-4d96-ad16-461b5dbf20ef","pagecount":"84","content":"The authors extend special acknowledgment to all other institutions and individuals whose ideas and material have been used to improve the content of this training manual. These include John Nyaga of Kenya and Somali Agricultural Research and Consultancy Firm, who were hired as consultants at various times to help improve content of the manual. Special mention goes to Mieke Bourne, Regreening Africa Project Manager, for her support in ensuring that this manual is finalized and Marion Aluoch, Regreening Africa Communications Officer, for editorial work. Finally, the authors are indebted to the support provided by backoffice management at ICRAF towards the delivery of this FMNR Manual. This includes support by Winnie Achieng, Regreening Africa Project Administrative Officer in contracting processes for the consultant contracted for the design work to publication, Sylvia Afwande, Kenya Country Office Administrative Assistant, who played a key logistics support role in the formative stages of the manual and Danyell Odhiambo who worked on the designs that finally gave shape to the material you are reading.or reproduced without charge, provided the source is acknowledged. No use of this publication may be made for resale or other commercial purposes.All images remain the sole property of their source and may not be used for any purpose without written permission of the source.The information is based on knowledge and understanding at the time of writing. However, because of advances in knowledge, users are reminded of the need to ensure that information upon which they rely is up-to-date and to check currency of the information with the appropriate agricultural or forest officer or an independent advisor. Cover Photo: An FMNR practitioner (left) from the Ministry of Environment , Puntland demonstrating FMNR to an FMNR champion in the field during a practical session. Photo: Ahmed Mohamed/CARE Somalia. Table 1.     The Somali geographical area covers approximately 637,540 km² of land mass with an estimated population of about 12.3 million (UNFPA 2014). The country is food deficient with a high dependence on food imports. Rainfall is typically low and highly variable in most parts of the country, ranging from 63 mm on the northern coastal areas to just under 600 mm at higher elevations in the south and in the north-west. Livestock production forms the basis of livelihoods for over 60% of the country's population. Crop production is second to livestock and its contribution to household economics is growing in importance. Vulnerability to food crises and climate change has however diminished livelihood security and quality of life in the country.The last few decades have seen a declining trend in recorded volumes of annual rainfall, a loss of arable soil fertility and the disappearance of forest cover and associated indigenous biodiversity resulting in region-wide food shortages and a population that is increasingly struggling to meet its basic needs. Irrigation potential in the country is low and is mostly practised along the Shabelle and Juba rivers, and in the middle and lower catchments of the Dur-Dur Watershed in the Awdal region of Somaliland. The level of irrigation exploitation has worsened since the start of the civil war in 1991 coupled with the collapse of the central government and its associated services, thereby further worsening the country's economy. The communities are encouraged to adopt sound natural resource management practices to help rebuild household resilience by reversing losses in forest cover, indigenous biodiversity and soil fertility.Land degradation is a common phenomenon in the Somali area because of unsustainable land management practices exacerbated by ravaging droughts and floods. It manifests in unproductive cropland, grazing lands and forests due to soil erosion and/or fertility loss with vast tracts denuded. Land degradation is a key environmental issue in Somali, closely linked to desertification and drought, and to unsustainable livestock and agricultural practices. This phenomenon has an extremely detrimental effect on the lives of farmers, pastoralists and other community members who depend on land for their food and livelihoods. The need to restore such lands to a state of improved productivity is urgent if the country is to meet its poverty alleviation goals. While there are many approaches to restoration, re-establishment of trees is one of the most effective.However, a focus on tree planting initiatives is expensive and presents high chances for failure associated with low seedling survival rates, given that most of the land is water-scarce (see other challenges in Annex 1). Therefore, a more reliable approach to land restoration, dubbed Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR), is proving to be a better alternative to tree establishment for land restoration. FMNR is an agroforestry practice that relies on natural regeneration of trees from stumps and/or seeds that are stored in the soil to raise new trees.The regrown trees and shrubs help restore soil structure and fertility, inhibit soil erosion and soil moisture evaporation, rehabilitate springs and the water table, and increase biodiversity.Natural regeneration of native trees as well as naturalized exotic species is not new in many parts of the world. Farmers and pastoralists have always practised it, but the practice has received little attention from development agents in past land management initiatives, especially as an agroforestry regeneration practice. As an economic activity, FMNR can be adopted by farmers and pastoralists to restore multi-purpose indigenous trees in farmlands, pasturelands and community-managed forests by identifying regrowth from the stumps of felled trees and protecting the regrowth into new trees. This results in increasing income levels and the number of households with food self-sufficiency. Figure 1 shows regrowth of new trees from the stumps of felled trees, while plate 2 depicts FMNR champions demonstrating FMNR techniques.World Agroforestry (ICRAF), World Vision, CARE and their partners in the land restoration movement across the globe have embraced FMNR as a land restoration practice and are promoting it globally while learning to localize its scope in specific implementation geographies such as Somali. There is no fixed or prescriptive way to implement FMNR since farmers can apply what works best for them after understanding the general principles. They can practise FMNR in several different ways depending on the local context of land ownership and use. They have freedom to choose which tree species they wish to grow and which ones they wish to remove. This implies that the practice of FMNR may vary from one ecological area, geographical location, community, household or landscape to another.Forestry and agriculture extension agents, as well as other development facilitators will find FMNR a very useful land regeneration approach and feel motivated to promote it among the communities where they work, especially in this era of changing climatic regimes. They however need to have knowledge and skills on how to implement such an initiative to succeed through a realistic and implementable design. They need to know how to win trust and engage the community to make the initiative sustainable. A sustainable and potentially impactful approach to promoting FMNR has been emphasized in this manual. The manual builds on several others that have been developed in the past to support agroforestry initiatives in countries neighbouring Somalia and has been adapted to fit the context of Somalia.This manual is for community development facilitators who wish to promote an FMNR initiative within their programming. The focus of the manual is to foster FMNR initiatives that lead to a successful uptake of the practice and enhance benefits that are felt at the community level.The manual contains modules on: understanding the FMNR concept; the context of FMNR practice in the Somali context; engaging and scaling up FMNR with communities; stakeholder engagement for FMNR scaling; gender inclusion; and monitoring and evaluation of FMNR initiatives.where such a context applies, and where they judge PMNR as the more acceptable term. They can also use both terms where necessary.Module 1: Understanding the FMNR concept 1.1 What is Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR)?Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) is an approach by which a farmer/pastoralist can regrow trees on his/her land without direct planting. FMNR encourages farmers and pastoralists to identify regrowth from the stumps of felled trees and to protect and prune the regrowth into new trees. It is based on the systematic re-growth of existing tree stumps with the ability to re-sprout to new trees or self-sown tree seeds in the soil that can germinate into a forest. FMNR adapts centuries-old approaches of managing tree species that re-sprout after being cut to produce continuous harvests of trees for fuel, building materials, food and fodder without the need for frequent and costly replanting. Through FMNR, rapid and large-scale restoration of tree cover is possible.FMNR does not necessarily require the establishment of tree nurseries, sourcing of superior seed, transportation of seedlings, planting out or special care. The farmer basically selects sprouts from the stumps of trees and decides how many stems will be allowed to grow on each stump. Excess stems and side branches are pruned off every 2-6 months, stimulating faster growth rates and producing straighter stems, which are more valuable than unpruned stems. Stems sprouting from tree stumps have considerably deeper root systems with which to draw up water and nutrients, than do newly germinating or freshly planted seedlings, thereby increasing their survival rate. A living tree stump represents a well-developed support system for tree establishment that only needs a little support (see Figure 1).FMNR can lead to increased crop yields, provide building timber/poles and firewood, fodder/ pasture and shade for livestock, edible (indigenous) fruits for nutrition and medication, increased incomes and living standards for families and the community at large while building resilience to climate extremes and maintaining soil fertility.FMNR can be practised in all parts of the Somali geography ranging from sub-humid areas to semi-arid and arid lands, but its suitability in any area is influenced by ease of planting trees (and their survival), availability of tree seeds and seedlings, and culture (including the community's tree planting culture). FMNR is however more suitable for dry lands because the areas face severe shortages of water, food and pasture for animals, which is exacerbated by unsustainable natural resources management practices, including overgrazing.This approach requires a change in people's mind-sets (to conceptualize that trees do not always have to be planted from seedlings to be useful to people) and in land management practices.1.2 Why Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR)?• FMNR provides an opportunity to re-vegetate the land through management of trees that naturally sprout from living tree stumps and roots and/or from seeds that are stored in the soils. The regenerated tree species are mainly those that are adapted to the conditions of the area.• FMNR is applicable to and useful for both croplands and communal grazing lands.• FMNR helps overcome cultural biases that exist in some communities, such as those inhibiting some members of the community, especially women, from planting trees.FMNR provides the affected members with the opportunity to establish and benefit from trees on farmlands without directly planting trees.1.3 When is FMNR appropriate and for whom?FMNR is more appealing to and appropriate for:• Landscapes whose revegetation is affected by low soil moisture, unavailability of tree seeds or seedlings for planting or where successful tree planting is a very expensive venture (because it might require big holes to be dug, watering, protection from livestock and/or other challenges);• Land where there are tree stumps, roots or naturally growing wildlings that can be nurtured to regenerate into new trees;• Community members when they recognize that their environment is deteriorating especially as trees disappear due to poor land management and when they are yearning to restore land productivity;• Community leaders when they have an interest in mobilizing other members towards serving and managing natural resources for community survival. Benefits of land restoration include improved flow of water; increased food production due to improved soil productivity; increased livestock fodder and pasture; and increased plant species diversity, which gives benefits such as medicinal value, honey and wild fruits, as well as wood products such as firewood, charcoal, gums, resins (myrrh and frankincense), timber and poles for house construction and other purposes.1.4 What are the main advantages of FMNR?• FMNR respects local knowledge and builds on local assets -it starts with what many farmers/pastoralists already possess, such as land with tree stumps or stored seeds of trees that have known value and uses.• FMNR is not expensive to implement, as locally available tools are used, although some form of tree protection may be necessary such as fencing off where free-range livestock grazing is pronounced. Costly physical fencing may not be necessary; however, use of community-level by-laws (e.g., xeer) and social fencing might be more effective in such cases.• FMNR has great potential for spreading from farmer to farmer or from one pastoralist community to another over large areas under favourable policy arrangements around the environment and secure land ownership (tenure). This is mainly because, once established, the success can attract wider attention and spread using local resources and initiatives.• FMNR provides a wide range of benefits from the same land unit to farmers, herders/ pastoralists or communities.There is no fixed way of practising FMNR and/or PMNR since the land user has flexibility to adapt the practice to his or her land use context. In practice, however, FMNR generally involves the three steps listed below.i) Selection of tree species and stumps.ii) Pruning and management of regenerating trees.iii) Maintenance and utilization of trees.This step involves identification of tree species that farmers or pastoralists want to manage on their land, whether private farmlands or community-managed lands, based on their own objectives. Farmers usually keep species that provide products useful in their households, but in some projects, extension staff can negotiate for biodiversity objectives especially where benefits such as carbon credits can be tied to rehabilitation projects.Tree species selection depends on:• Natural occurrence of the trees and shrubs species (which implies adaptation to the locality);• Ability of the species to sprout from stumps (also called coppicing ability);• Local beliefs and values ascribed to the species;• Uses of the species (see Box 1 for quick guidance on some characteristics of trees for various uses;)• Characteristics such as thorniness, competitiveness with crops and growth rate;• Whether the species is invasive or not (invasive species may not be completely discarded, but a strategic management plan is needed to minimize adverse effects on the environment and local biodiversity vis-à-vis the benefits) -Annex 2 provides a list of some of the useful tree species in Somali agro-ecological areas that the community can keep in their landscapes.Timber & firewood:• Have strong wood and/or high-energy content.• Can withstand pruning of large branches and stems.• Grow into long straight stems (poles) if timber is the desired product.Source of honey:• The tree or shrub flowers for a reasonably long period in a year, particularly when herbal bee forage is not available. These flowers are preferred by bees as a source of floral nectar for making honey.Fodder:• Easy regrowth after cutting.• Can withstand regular pruning/browsing.• Leaves, bark and/or pods are palatable and nutritious for livestock.Fruit & non-timber tree products:• Produce fruits or other known non-wood products that can be used at home or sold at accesible markets. These include medicines, gums, resins (frankincense and myrrh), fibre and others.• Storage, transportation, or other value addition services are available for the products of the tree.• Good form of tree for seed collection to qualify as good quality 'mother' trees where tree seed and seedling business is established.Box 1. Primary uses and characteristics of trees and shrubs for FMNRThe following steps are useful to follow during the selection of species and stumps: i) Survey the field targeted for FMNR with the community and identify existing tree stumps -some might be difficult to identify if cut very close to the soil, so look out keenly for sprouts (Figure 2).ii) Generate a list of preferred tree species based on the five aspects listed in Box 1.iii) For each stump identified for management, choose and mark 3-5 of the most robust (tallest and strongest) shoots to protect.iv) Where there is bush encroachment, select the desired trees and cut out the rest of the bushes. When dealing with dense thickets, you may need to make decisions on the species to keep as you go, because many useful trees will not be visible or accessible until you have removed some of the unwanted ones.1.5.2 Pruning and management of regenerating trees• Remove unwanted or weak stems (coppices) and side branches, leaving only those with potential for robust growth (Figure 2). 3.Protect the stems while they are growing.1. Prune unwanted emerging shoots every 2 to six months as needed.2.Utilize tree for planned purposes:harvesting branches, portions of wood or the whole tree as necessary.Figure 2. Pruning and management of regenerating trees. Source: Rinaudo et al 2019.1.5.3 Maintenance and utilization of established trees i) Thinning -This is the removal of poorly formed trees/sprouts to allow those that remain to grow vigorously and minimize chances of inbreeding where many seedlings of the same species have germinated. Seedlings that germinate naturally from the soil seedbank (also called wildlings) usually germinate as clumps of many seedlings growing very close to each other with some being weak (less healthy) or looking less desirable than others. It is necessary to remove the weak ones.ii) Pruning -Pruning is the removal of undesirable branches starting from the lowest part of the tree crown to enhance better growth and yield (Plate 3). Pruning of trees is carried out with an objective to:• Reduce competition for light between trees and crops/pasture;• Stimulate rapid growth for taller, straighter and more useful tree trunks;• Provide early harvest of branches -wood is used for fuel or other purposes;• Enhance yields from crops because of more access to light. Source: ICRAFThe best results are obtained with regular pruning, but the frequency and extent of pruning depend on the desired use of the trees and the tree species. For instance, if firewood provision is the objective, it is desirable to retain more branches for periodic harvesting; hence, such trees are pruned less frequently than those grown for timber. When the cutting is done to harvest the wood, the most mature and desirable stem is cut, leaving the rest to grow to maturity. In this case, another stem should be selected to be groomed as a replacement for the cut stem. Propping protects the growing trees or saplings from wind damage and helps them to grow into straight trunks.The practice is especially necessary after a thinning exercise has been done, to enable remaining saplings or stems to gain the sturdiness necessary for fast establishment.1.6 Land management practices enhancing success of FMNR Although FMNR's primary pillar is regeneration of trees in the landscape, the success of the practice is interdependent on other sustainable land management practices. These practices may or may not be implemented as part of FMNR, depending on the land use type, state of land degradation and/or desired tree products and services. Community leaders might also need to apply to the appropriate state or national authority through their registered associations to participate in the conservation and management of public land.Sometimes even after going through the three steps of FMNR implementation (Section 1.5), the land parcel to which FMNR is being applied may not achieve adequate tree cover or have all species likely to meet the farmer's or community's needs. Planting of high-value tree species is therefore encouraged as a way of improving species mix (tree diversity) and tree density on the field being restored. This practice is called enrichment planting and it is enabled by the better land condition resulting from the FMNR practices already under way.Enrichment planting (Figure 5) is recommended where:i) There may be no living stumps remaining in cropland, or existing stumps may be only barely sufficient to meet the owner's other objectives;ii) The diversity of species and density on the land is low or none of the species identified meets the land user's primary needs or enterprise plans adequately;iii) Farmers wish to plant more of the species regenerating naturally on-farm to increase their density and quality -they may also want to plant better varieties of the tree species.Plate 5. Enrichment planting of Commiphora trees from cuttings in an FMNR field in Puntland Photo: CARE SomaliaThe list of species to be introduced into FMNR fields through enrichment planting can be identified at the beginning during the species selection process outlined in step 1 under section 1.5 and/or continuously as per the community action plan and/or the enterprise plans that the community develop.Enrichment planting requires procurement of good-quality tree seedlings. These can be produced in a tree nursery established by the community group or purchased from an existing nursery. In any case it is imperative to build the capacity of the farmers to recognize and/or produce good-quality seedlings that will fulfil their plans.If the community wishes to establish a nursery, there are many manuals available to guide them on production of good-quality tree seedlings. Some of the manuals are as follows:• Tree Nursery Management Guide for Land Restoration Planners (Carsan and Munjuga 2020).• Good Tree Nursery Practices: Practical Guidelines for Research Nurseries ( Jaenicke 1999).• Establishing a tree nursery in Kenya (FAO and ICRAF 2015).Denuded 1 lands are lands that are depleted of vegetation cover to the extent that the surfaces are hardened by soil physiochemical processes leading to negative change in bulk density, porosity, pH, and soil organic carbon. Some fields are completely eroded to the extent of developing rills and/or gullies. Denuded areas are often abandoned by farmers and pastoralists because there is little hope of recovery through natural processes. Such fields can however be rehabilitated by application of some of the methods listed here: a) Grass reseeding/improving ground cover -This involves sowing grass seeds on the denuded lands at the beginning of the most reliable rain season (Plate 6). The denuded land's surface may however be too hard for any vegetation to grow naturally in, which case hand hoes or oxdrawn ploughs are used to loosen or scarify the soil before reseeding. Landholdings have many of the characteristics of private property, and as a result, tenure security provided by communal recognition of land ownership has been high. Communitybased tenure varies with land quality; oftentimes land suitable only for grazing is overseen by the clan, while land that is cultivated regularly for food production is controlled by individuals to whom use-rights have been allocated.About 46-56% of the Somali land area is permanent pasture, while 20% is classified as forest and 13% is suitable for cultivation. The remaining land is not economically exploitable (UN Habitat 2006). In the rain-fed agricultural areas in the central and southern parts of the country, local farmers continue to rely on customary land tenure. Community elders and clan leaders have the authority to allocate plots of land to individual households and households enjoy rights over land they have historically owned.Cropland is mainly rain-fed, with irrigation practised in some areas. Rain-fed production is characterized by low input and unreliable agricultural production and is mainly subsistent in nature, with farmers aiming to meet the needs of rural households. Such farming occurs throughout the country except in the coastal sandy plains and high limestone areas. The major crops grown in Somalia under rain-fed systems are sorghum, cowpea, and some limited maize.Prior to the civil war in Somalia, it was estimated that about 200,000 ha of land were under irrigation. This was mostly along sections of both the Juba and Shebelle rivers. The irrigation occurs through gravity by sourcing water directly from the rivers to the farms or through a series of canal systems, i.e. primary, secondary or tertiary canals. This is mainly applicable along the Shebelle River, particularly at the lower end of the river catchment. An example of an irrigated Plate 8. Irrigated farm in Puntland. Photo:Regreening Africa project crop is shown in Plate 8.Rangelands are areas classified as arid to semi-arid and are subject to frequent droughts, characterized by scarcity of rainfall. These areas are mainly used for livestock production. The areas are occupied by the nomadic pastoralists who move about in the rangelands in search of green pasture. The collection and export of tree resin products (frankincense and myrrh) from rangelands employs large numbers of people and is a major foreign exchange earner.This is especially true in the Bari and Sanaag regions, where gum-producing Commiphora and Boswellia trees are privately owned. Indigenous vegetation is still widely used by Somalis for a variety of traditional medicines and other important local uses.Based on the main land ownership categories and production systems in the Somali context described above, the land management context where FMNR practice can best fit in has been classified into two types. These are (i) croplands, and (ii) common grazing lands. The practice of FMNR in each of the two contexts is discussed in detail in the rest of this section. An outline of the kind of tree species that farmers and pastoralists find a priority to grow is first given to guide the selection of species to regenerate through FMNR in the two contexts. Although a tree species may be identified with one category of use, many species have more than a single role in meeting household needs and are therefore referred to as multi-purpose tree species. Three important categories of trees for farmers and pastoralists in the Somali context are outlined below.2.3.1 Multi-purpose tree species for FMNR 1) Fodder trees: Many tropical trees and shrubs are traditionally known and used for their fodder. It has been suggested that technologies based on permanent feed supply from fodder shrubs could transform pastoral production systems into settled agro-pastoral systems.2) Fuelwood trees: Many woody species have been identified as fuelwood crops. The term 'fuelwood crops' refers to plants suitable for deliberate cultivation to provide fuelwood for cooking, heating and sometimes lighting.Plate 9. Goats grazing in the rangelands (L); and rangeland resources (R).3) Fruit trees:The indigenous farming systems of many developing countries often include several fruit-and nut-producing trees. These trees are well adapted to local conditions and are extremely important to the diet, and sometimes even the economy, of the people of the region, but they are seldom known outside their common places of cultivation.Cropland is the area on a farm (whether on private or communal land) that is used to produce crops on a continuous basis and comprises both land under cultivation and fields usually left fallow for some time. Trees grown alongside crops have a major impact on crop performance, as trees can buffer climatic extremes that affect crop growth such as air and soil temperature, The following are steps involved in the successful implementation of FMNR on croplandStep 1. Encourage natural regeneration of trees on the farm Unless continuous cutting back of stumps has happened for several decades during cultivation, a forest of living tree stumps and dormant seeds remain buried in cropland soils. Farmers can convert this resource into a community of new tree species as follows:• Fence off the farm (if not already well fenced) to minimize disturbance by external agents such as animals, thus allowing tree seedlings to germinate from the soil seed bank.• Avoid burning of trash in the cropland, whether crop residue or other cut vegetation including pruned or cut trees.• Avoid uprooting tree stumps and instead nurture all sprouting vegetation including shrubs and tree species -from both the seed bank in the soil and stumps -especially those with known uses.• Carry out careful weeding to allow emerging tree seedlings to grow.Step 2. Carefully select tree and shrub species to retain in cropland • Walk across the farm, and identify and generate a list of all tree species that are regenerating on the farm (be extra observant not to dismiss as weeds, shoots of tree stumps that are cut very close to the ground and note that leaves of small shoots may look slightly different from leaves of the mature trees).• Further refine the list by considering the compatibility of the species with crops and how the species are likely to affect farm work (e.g. thorniness), as shown in Table 1 (see also Box 2).• Relatively open canopy that minimizes shading of crops (this can also be managed through pruning and lopping).• Crops around the tree normally look healthy and produce better yields than crops far away from the tree Most roots grow vertically and below the crop root zone.• Is not allelopathic (it does not produce chemicals that inhibit growth of other plants near it).• Grows well with food crops.• Sheds leaves preferably towards the end of the dry season especially those whose leaves provide good mulch • Re-sprouts faster upon pruning, coppicing and/or pollarding.• Good at fixing nitrogen.• Has leaves that can easily decompose.Box 2. Characteristics of the tree and shrub species that can be good for croplandsStep 3. Tree management in croplands • Carry out enrichment planting if desirable species are not in the regenerating list.• Undertake pruning, pollarding, etc. during dry season to reduce competition with crops.• For trees that have horizontally spreading roots near the crop root zone (and for some reason have been retained), ensure root pruning.Maintain an average density of about 100 trees per hectare or more depending on average size of tree crowns. The following stepwise guidance will help in maintaining successful FMNR practices in common grazing lands:Step 1. Facilitate community governance to restrict access to the FMNR field at early phases of regeneration• Ensure a community co-ordination mechanism is in place and effective.• Facilitate agreements on access and benefit sharing. This includes negotiations between the community and absent landowners and/or with government, depending on land ownership, before carrying out any activities on these sites. Agreements should be made with landowners, to avail the land for a specific period which can assure the practising community group of fair access to benefits.• Facilitate preparation of by-laws and registration of same with authorities.• Control access to the land by either physical or social fencing.Step 2. Encourage natural regeneration of trees in the field• Fence off the land (if it is too large such that physical fencing is not feasible, use social fencing) to minimize soil disturbance and to allow tree seedlings to germinate.• Assess the land for any signs of erosion or denudation to determine if soil conservation structures are necessary and lay out the ones deemed necessary.• Carry out careful clearing of thickets to allow emerging tree seedlings to grow.• Nurture every type of vegetation springing up from the land, including grass, herbs, shrubs and tree species, especially those with known uses. A wide variety should however be managed to increase biodiversity, provide organic soil cover and improve soil productivity.• Allow sprouts to grow from stumps.• Conduct grass reseeding.Step 3. Carefully select tree and shrub species to retain in the common grazing field• Walk across the land, and identify and generate a list of all tree species that are regenerating in the farm.• Use the selection criteria listed in Section 1.5.1 as an initial guide on the species to retain in the grazing fields.• Rank the species you want to manage depending on the priority and the species utility, but ensure that you maintain a high diversity of species to capture ecological benefits.• As far as possible, record the trees that were regenerated in the record book as indicated in Table 2. Such records can help the community link up with carbon benefits or other ecosystem-based reward schemes. Step 4. Tree management in common grazing lands• Carry out enrichment planting if desirable species are not on the regenerating list.• Undertake pruning, pollarding, etc. during the dry season to improve the desired end products or carry out early harvest -at least the lower branches and thickets ought to be cleared to facilitate growth of good-quality grass underneath.• Note that the average density can exceed 100 trees per hectare, depending on the proportion of large canopy species, use of undergrowth as pasture, etc.• Undertake grass reseeding with good-quality grass and introduce other enterprises such as beehives on the trees to improve economic productivity of the land.   Community mobilization for FMNR can be undertaken (through community and stakeholder meetings) combined with other approaches such as workshops, use of local radio stations, community theatre (in the form of drama and songs, which are powerful tools for mass awareness) in village centres or markets, schools, mosques, etc., and reaching out to and meeting community leaders to win their support (Plate 13).The aim is to make sure that the community should, or is able to:• Understand the FMNR initiative, its goals and relevance to their challenges;• Get to know what is required of them;• Give insights for further capacity needs assessment and capacity building;• Outline the laws and by-laws relevant to the initiative.The aim of these meetings is to introduce the FMNR concept and link it to the community's problem context. Communities usually understand their problems and constraints but tend to expect help and solutions from elsewhere. They therefore need to own their problems and understand that the solutions are within their reach and asset base. The selection process for the community representation should ensure that vulnerable groups participate within the community co-ordination mechanism and have an active voice. The goal is to build a critical mass of community capacity to enable communities to take ownership and put them in the driver's seat.The basic characteristics required of community representatives include:• Being accountable for the community's FMNR-based decisions and actions;• Being knowledgeable about the community's socio-cultural practices but also appreciating that cultures change;• Being able to mobilize local human resources, through locally adapted or traditional forms of access and management;• Being better positioned to represent local interests and preferences in an FMNR context;• Having been influential in mobilizing people and resources for collective gain.4) Facilitate the community leaders to prioritize and select quick impact projects (QIPs) to solidify support and galvanize local participationIt is important that within your initial community engagement meetings, the community is facilitated to select a project that can provide tangible benefits to the members in the short-term to complement the long-term benefits of FMNR that come from trees. Such a project can be honey production, grass production for pasture or for broom making for sale, or a rural financing activity, for example, table banking. Such projects are called quick impact projects (QIPs) and help build the enthusiasm at the project's start-up before the project can go on to undertake related projects such as the digging of terraces and traditional water reservoirs (berkerds) that have more tangible benefits.QIPs allow several things to happen simultaneously from the outset. These include:• Build CCM members' confidence as community leaders and facilitators.• Help to convince initially reluctant members.• Enable the FMNR project team to evaluate CCM capacity and begin to identify training needs.Present the results of the initial community assessment and the proposed QIPs during the community assembly meeting so that members can agree and rank community priorities.Allow community members to add additional priorities and to discuss and reprioritize amongst themselves. Thereafter facilitate the community to select (by the most culturally acceptable method) the first activity that sets the stage towards achieving the prioritized community objective.It is important to get the community's trust and excitement during your first meetings. To build agreement and trust with the community you need to do the following:• Be inclusive of everyone, regardless of their role, gender and age.• Respect and encourage thoughtful debate on issues concerning the community.• Discuss every person's concerns and together find solutions that help everyone. There is nearly always a locally appropriate solution. Give people the opportunity to suggest it.• Always start with the assumption that each person has positive intentions and respond to misunderstandings and mistakes gently.• Whenever possible, invite people who are already practising FMNR to share their experiences and knowledge with your community. • Make sure everyone knows that they can try FMNR in their own way, on as much or as little land as they are comfortable using.Interact as much as possible with farmers who will attend the meeting to gain a sense of trust and to take ownership of FMNR practice.• Keep your word. If you promise things you cannot do, people might like you, but they will not trust you.Community engagement is a very critical step as it affects the community's wish to 'accept'' or 'decline' FMNR. To enable community participation and their embrace of the FMNR, prioritize as follows:1) Encouraging community involvement -Ensure that all community groups with interest in land use are involved when making decisions on restoration approaches. Having interested stakeholders from all backgrounds enables sharing of their experience and collaboration to conserve the environment, thereby improving the chances that the FMNR initiative being successful. These stakeholders include:• Women and men, the elderly and the youth, children, people with disabilities, those who may not directly work on the land, and any minority groups in the community;• Other important stakeholders such as herders, community leadership (clan elders, local administration, religious leaders, political leadership and technical staff in various sectors), among many other interest groups;• Local leaders, from the village to the local council level;• Educational and religious institutions.2) Building community agreement and ownership -This is necessary for the following reasons:• Land users need to broadly agree on how to manage the regenerating land and trees.• Members need to agree on necessary changes in practices, such as fencing off some areas and moving from free grazing to cut (grass)-and-carry approaches.3) Involving the community in project activities -Some examples follow:• Encourage members to collect data (using simplified tools or training of local youth to undertake more complicated tasks) and provide feedback on performance.• Form a local management institution (such as a project management committee) with good demographic representation (gender, vulnerable groups, etc.).• Encourage use of community assets as much as possible.4) Building relationships and trust -Reasons why this is important:• Trust is the expectation that arises within a community of regular, honest and cooperative behaviour, based on commonly shared norms, on the part of other members of that community as well as outsiders.• Practices such as FMNR that do not give quick rewards and require action beyond individual land holdings can best succeed when community members trust each other and are united to realize their shared goals.• The community should also not be given a reason not to trust project interlocutors.For the community to feel part of the project, ensure that they give their insights at every stage of the project and that their inputs are incorporated into the project. You can employ shared community visioning (Box 3) and action planning, principled by:• The community coming up with a vision of how they would like their land or livelihoods to look in future because of adopting FMNR;• The vision being in the form of a short vision statement (e.g. reversed land degradation and sustained increase in pasture production and water availability), or even being visualized as a drawing or a map of their area, showing how they would like their landscape to look in the future. 3  Box 3. Some tips on visioning• Identify the group to be involved in visioning depending on the problem of interest and include all important stakeholders.• Ask participants to express what they want to see in the future regarding their village, local environment or lives.• Give them time to reflect on this vision and to discuss it among themselves.• Facilitate them to use key words or indicators that are clearly understood by all, to explicitly describe the current situation and the required change for the desirable future.• Guide them to identify possible hindrances to, and opportunities for, attaining the desirable future.• Ask them to imagine how the vision can be brought about, what will need to change and what implications of the change might be, e.g. to restore degraded pasturelands, some fields might need to be closed, and livestock might require to be stall-fed, which might imply reducing stock numbers, among others.• Facilitate them to begin identifying and planning their actions and how they may monitor and learn from the outcomes of these actions, based on the reflections and discussions in bullet points 2 to 6 above.To succeed in implementing FMNR, community participation is key. The community must be made to feel they have liberty in determining what they want, including training sessions that should be in line with their needs and priorities.Perhaps there may be no perceived need to plant trees where people are only herders. In this case, enrichment planting may not be a priority and the project team may have to delay introducing the concepts despite the anticipated excitement of seeing tree nurseries and trees planted in a project area.Community reflections are necessary to test the success of an FMNR initiative and to adapt implementation approaches for enhanced success. The community reflections on FMNR should be as participatory as possible involving all target community groups involved in the FMNR interventions. This manual does not provide best fit approach to community reflections but suggests a few questions which are important and the community can reflect on. These include:• What did the community expect to happen?• What occurred?• What went well and why?• What can be improved and how? Winning the support of opinion leaders and authorities is important in tackling farmers' initial resistance.This module gives a list of options that can be implemented in scaling up, but usually none of them is singly successful. Project officers will select the bouquet that best suits their context.It is important to note that use of these approaches follows the initial community engagement efforts outlined in Module 3. Scaling-up approaches as outlined in this module assume that the targeted beneficiaries live in a similar context and are thus able to learn easily from the pilots that may have been successfully implemented or introduced.Communities are usually organized in various groups and associations of various levels, ranging from small informal groups to bigger umbrella organizations. Of primary importance to FMNR scaling are the grass roots community organizations that attract members at the local community or village level. Such groups are very common in Somali community and have been a useful vehicle for delivery of most community development initiatives.Some of the common organizations that are useful vehicles for promoting FMNR among the communities include:• Agricultural associations (village-level associations)• Agricultural committees (regional-level committees) In rare cases where the target community may have no existing groups that can participate in taking up FMNR, the FMNR facilitator can work with the community members to organize groups based on community needs and visions, as discussed in Module 3.The following six steps may be considered as the key entry point for scaling FMNR with community groups:• Identify the existing community groups or organizations.• Discuss with the group to understand their goals, visions, current activities, the assets that they possess and the constraints that bar them from reaching their goals.Introduce the FMNR approach to the group.• Jointly identify areas where the FMNR approach can help achieve the group's goals and visions.• Support the group to develop an action plan that includes FMNR as an empowerment approach.• Build capacity of the community on FMNR to increase skills, practitioners reach and accelerate uptake. Potential FMNR champions are easy to spot during early community engagement events, but development facilitators should work with community groups to select the champions to work with and avoid the risk of elite capture (Plate 15). It is also important to diversify the number of lead practitioners in a group so that a kind of specialization can be enhanced while strengthening leadership capacity at large in the community.For example, in a single community group, there can be an FMNR lead practitioner, enterprise development leader, leader on tree nursery practices, a fruit grafting specialist, a water terrace mapping specialist, etc. To ensure a good gender and youth mix, more than one lead practitioner (preferably a man and a woman) may be selected for each skill targeted. Annex 4 provides additional information on characteristics to look out for when identifying FMNR change agents, lead farmers or FMNR champions.FMNR champions are usually motivated by access to more benefits from the practice they promote and from offering specialized services that the practice may yield. Taking them through a specialized training course such as 'train the trainer' or 'facilitation' is useful, especially when they actively engage in the FMNR rollout.In providing such training, specialized skills on good agronomic practices (GAP) and financing approaches such as village saving, and loaning associations (VSLAs) can be imparted to enable them to become key community resource persons. Ideally, FMNR change agents should not be paid for their work because that is likely to negatively impact community cohesion, but they should be reimbursed any costs they may incur while sensitizing and training community members.Many extension staff have been in agriculture, forestry and other natural resources management disciplines, but have experienced challenges in the field. They are therefore likely to be looking for novel solutions and would be attracted to FMNR once they understand the approach.It is therefore important to train (retool) all interested staff by offering extension services from related national and local government departments as well as civil society organizations.Workshops and seminars may be sufficient for retooling local extension staff, but where resources allow, exchange visits can lead to great transformation.The extension workers can become excellent FMNR change agents if they are passionate and dedicated to going beyond the call of duty in training and supporting communities to practise FMNR. Where they reside and own land within the community, encourage extension staff to set aside fields for their own FMNR practice. This will increase momentum in FMNR scaling, both at farm and community levels. • Raise awareness amongst farmers and identify 'champions' for promoting FMNR, i.e. utilize organizations already involved in some farmer training and agricultural extension activities.• Train lead agents on technical aspects of FMNR and on adult learning and communication.• Create demonstration plots and a training approach based on identified needs -you may include a tree nursery where enrichment planting is necessary.• Organize demonstrations, training, field visits, etc., for interested farmer groups; and update and refine extension knowledge to remain relevant.• Establish links and partnerships with other institutions to increase the scope of the intervention.The main barrier to adoption of FMNR is that mindsets are fixed on tree planting as the main approach to tree establishment. This is also confounded by a sense of inferiority of local tree species that are more likely to be established through FMNR. These mindsets become a 'box' that needs to be dealt with for a new community vision that appreciates the value of FMNR.One way to deal with this 'box' is to conduct study tours so that participants can interact with the vision of FMNR. Community members are keen and more likely to believe their peers. Study tours are one of the most important components of a scale-up strategy and can happen in the same community, area, or country or in a different geographical area. These tours are also called exchange visits when a return trip is conducted by the group earlier visited such that both groups visit each other.Tours allow the visiting group and their hosts to forge friendships and to understand the FMNR concept and its benefits as experienced by the hosts, while the visitors can query the approach as well as share their experiences in land management; this allows them to see how FMNR will fit in their context and to make commitments. The visitors can perceive real benefits as well as become more aware of their own skills and capacities, which contributes to attitude change and ultimately adoption. Practical demonstrations make it easier to understand the concept and stimulate action. Box 4 gives some guidelines to observe when organizing study tours.Box 5. Some guidelines on organizing exchange visits Before the visit• Plan to visit a location that reveals a true picture of the envisioned change as well as the pathway to the change (challenges and how they were tackled). Consult from your networks within the project or beyond your community of practice to identify the most appropriate place to visit. Remember that remote areas could reveal a better picture (including challenges of access) than very accessible sites.• Consider seasonal calendars of both sites (visitors and hosts) to avoid visiting when agricultural labour pressure is intense or nomadic movement disrupts the intended picture. Keep in mind that dry seasons may be convenient but may not reveal much of the necessary picture. Consider this early so that it is factored into budgets to ensure timely release of finances.• Select a visiting team that represents all community subgroups (men, women, youth, extension staff, minority groups, community leaders, etc.) who have a stake in FMNR uptake. The team should be homogeneous enough to share community concerns but heterogeneous enough to capture different perspectives from the visit.• Involve the community group that will undertake the visit in defining the visit objectives to create ownership.This may depend on their earlier experience with FMNR, or the success of the sensitization events already conducted.• Keep expectations relatively low and emphasize dialogue between the visitors and hosts to promote the trust that enhances practical learning from experience.• Work out a plan to report back by the travelling team to the community members who will not travel because this creates an incentive for paying attention and making a deeper analysis of issues -encourage use of pictures, and carrying of sample seedlings (this would be difficult in cross-country visits because of phytosanitary procedures), posters, artefacts, etc. These also help in preparing for the return visit by the community they are visiting should it be considered desirable.• Use a facilitator who has the attitude of a resource person rather than an instructor to facilitate interactions and mutual learnings.• Do not just demonstrate physical facilities such as tree nurseries and demonstration plots but also social institutions and incentives that enhance success, such as survival of trees (community by-laws, social fencing, watering schedules, etc.).• As much as possible, organize for learning-by-doing sessions -pruning of trees, planting of seedlings, selecting trees to remove or keep from the identified FMNR plot, etc., to deepen learning.• Planned visit sites (different stops) should be close enough to avoid spending a lot of time travelling between sites. Always keep in mind that 'less is more' -it is better to see fewer sites and explore in-depth the interventions found there than to visit many sites that are only shallowly explored.Schools can play an important role in influencing FMNR uptake by communities if exposed to the practice. Working with schools is beneficial to FMNR uptake for the following reasons:• Children exposed to benefits of FMNR take the knowledge and skills into adulthood where many will be in positions of influence.• Children are also powerful advocates of FMNR to parents and adults in general; hence, school projects on FMNR can help shape the whole community.Children will grow to be additional practitioners of FMNR.Environment clubs or FMNR lessons can increase opportunities for children and youth to learn, and to use their knowledge to improve their lives.Schools may have open space available that can benefit from FMNR and related projects and can provide space for community discussions or even act as FMNR demonstration sites. This is most applicable to schools in the rural areas where FMNR is most needed. Schools in major towns may have no space for FMNR demonstration sites, but knowledge transfer and attitude change are also important.Government policies and institutional arrangements at various levels can act as incentives or disincentives to FMNR adoption depending on the effect they have on a community's access to FMNR benefits. FMNR adoption is facilitated by, among others, government policies that:• Give land managers ownership or user rights to natural resources including land and trees;• Allow for organizational structures such as co-operatives and development groups to exist and self-regulate with a defined set of by-laws created and agreed on by all stakeholders;• Facilitate community participation in value chains of their choice by creating financing options that are friendly to rural communities as well as developing accessible infrastructure to address challenges of product collection/delivery in remote areas;• Empower the community leadership to enforce by-laws that have been developed consultatively.humanity is in his/her hands (Lincoln, n.d)\".Favourable policies are important whether FMNR is practised in private or on community or public lands, but these contexts are impacted differently by government instruments. During the community engagement events, project officers should review and identify policies that are likely to impede FMNR adoption and empower the community to advocate for change.Creation of enabling environments includes advocating for integration of FMNR in government's plans, programmes, strategies and budgets to ensure the continuity of the practice beyond the project's life cycle. In areas where the right policies exist but community members do not know their rights, awareness creation needs to be done by project officers. It is also essential to deposit the by-laws created by the community with those local government departments (local councils or regions) in charge of social service.As adoption of FMNR increases and institutions take shape, it will be important to create networks that provide support for addressing any bottlenecks to further adoption and that also serve as platforms for sharing lessons and learning from each other. The networks could comprise different producer groups or community groups including those dealing with specific FMNR-based enterprises or value chains. Their existence, strength and robustness will play a significant role in increasing the gains of FMNR at the community level and beyond. Such networks contribute significantly to the promotion of FMNR as well as to policy and regulatory reforms, among other roles.The majority of households in rural areas, especially those in dry areas, struggle to make ends meet and often get involved in practices that accelerate land degradation when the benefits of conserving the environment are not very perceivable. To attract more community members to adopt FMNR and to sustain the practice for generations, an important early step is to identify and prioritize potential value chains for development. People will be more willing to invest in FMNR if they know that they will earn a good income from it.4.10 Providing adequate follow-ups and encouraging co-learning at the community level FMNR promotion may likely encounter numerous challenges, both in its practice in croplands and rangelands and when implemented by individual farmers, herders/pastoralists or community groups. It may take time for community members to embrace the practice, especially before actual benefits of FMNR are evident in their landscape even though such benefits as pasture regeneration can be experienced after a relatively short time. However, the practice may also face resistance if some pasturelands need to be closed. Therefore, adequate follow-up on adoption and the encouragement of farmer and pastoralist co-learning groups is important during the formative stages of uptake. Follow-up sessions provide opportunities to clarify concepts and approaches, to streamline the process of adoption and to encourage lead champions.Sharing feedback and learning may create excitement as results are observed and fears allayed (such as those on negative effects of trees on crops). As community members share these experiences (including what works well, what does not, enabling factors for success, key 'brags'or some outstanding issues they are especially proud of, etc.), more community members may become interested and want to try FMNR.Module 5: FMNR stakeholder mapping and analysisA stakeholder in an FMNR promotion initiative is an individual who, or an interest group or organization that may affect, be affected by, or perceived to be affected by a decision, activity or outcome related to FMNR activities. Stakeholders are critical to the success or failure of an initiative and influence decisions such as where and when to plant trees and which species and should always be prioritized to avoid inflaming conflicts when implementing FMNR activities.Stakeholder analysis is therefore a critical part in implementation and management of an FMNR initiative as it will help to identify stakeholders' potential roles in, relationships within, and power and influence over FMNR activities.The importance of a stakeholder is understood in terms of their role in achieving anticipated results. Their influence is judged in terms of the power they can exert over tree planting/ regeneration processes and outcomes. The two types of stakeholders are as follows:• Primary stakeholders -People or groups that will be directly impacted by the FMNR project. They can either be positively or negatively impacted.• Secondary stakeholders -All other entities that have an interest in the proposed project and are also somehow impacted by the project.Authorities and opinion leaders such as chiefs, traditional land custodians and religious leaders are important stakeholders, and it is important to win their support. Other stakeholders in FMNR include individual farmers, farmer groups and associations, development partners, civil society organizations (CSOs), government institutions/extension officers and NGOs, among others. The government institutions, FMNR practitioners, CSOs and NGOs will provide inputs of various kinds, and train, guide and mobilize farmers during FMNR activities. Some stakeholders have higher degrees of power and can decide the course of action and approve or reject decisions on the project activities. There is another set of stakeholders who can help provide expert opinions in the FMNR project implementation process.Suggested questions to stimulate discussion on participatory stakeholder analysis include:i) Who owns the land? Who manages it? Who grows crops on the land? Who grazes their livestock or collects wood?ii) What is the land tenure system in this area? How does land change hands? Where do the landowners or caretakers live? Do men and women manage different areas of land? Are there any significant land use change patterns?iii) Is the land shared by more than one village? Is there any conflict over ownership or During this step, it is important to begin thinking about how each stakeholder is important to the FMNR initiative and to record this information on a sheet as shown in Table 3. Next to each stakeholder, make a note of the interest and level of influence of the stakeholder (i.e. high, medium or low) and the proposed strategy for engaging the stakeholder in the initiative. Once you have identified the larger pool of stakeholders, now it is time to get out into the community and consult directly with as many stakeholders as possible -both primary and secondary stakeholders.  The different levels of stakeholder involvement in FMNR initiatives outlined in Table 4 are elucidated as follows:• Informed: The stakeholder is kept abreast of activities through occasional visits, phone calls, copies of reports, etc.• Consulted: The stakeholder is more actively solicited for input (e.g. information, knowledge and decisions) but is not directly involved.• Actively involved: The stakeholder has a strong voice in decision-making and works in partnership with the farmer groups.• In charge: The stakeholder is responsible for managing part of the process and/or performance of the farmer groups.Module 6: Gender inclusion in FMNR promotionIn Modules 3 and 4, much emphasis is placed on ensuring all community subgroups are engaged during FMNR promotion. Creating and sustaining competitive and equitable FMNR that helps smallholder farmers, especially women, will require a clear examination of gender issues and integration of relevant gender components into FMNR and development strategies.When FMNR programmes are designed with gender-equitable principles, they can foster both competitiveness and gender equity goals and enhance poverty reduction. Ensuring that both men and women can participate equally in, and benefit from, FMNR is fundamental to programme success.Across countries and over time, studies show correlations between gender equality and economic growth, where gender inequalities are seen to affect competitiveness by restraining productivity, growth and output and thereby indirectly hindering project performance. In Africa, women are often disadvantaged by conservative social norms and denied the entitlements or rights that the society theoretically provides.In the Somali context, the social norms in most areas have some negative effects on women's socio-economic position and gender relations regarding resource ownership and control. Sociocultural norms and practices of different communities/clans in the Somali context confer men and women with differential rights over land (private land, forest land, rangelands and trees). For example, in some communities, women do not make significant decisions on land use.Even where women have minimal rights to tree use, their access to some tree products may not be ensured. For example, they may only collect firewood but cannot fell the tree for sale or other use. In some communities, women cannot even extract medicinal products from some tree species. This is because the minimal rights conferred to them do not imply ownership and control of trees and different tree products. Therefore, it is necessary to explore a little more the actions that project officers can undertake to win on gender inclusion in FMNR.To effectively ensure gender-equitable and competitive FMNR promotion in the community, there is need to do as follows:a) Understand men' s and women' s roles and relationships in FMNR Men and women have different roles and responsibilities in relation to natural resource management and utilization. Therefore, FMNR promoters need to understand how men and women participate as natural resource managers and use this information in the design and implementation of their programme activities.To ensure equitable participation in FMNR activities in the community, there is a need to create the conditions necessary to involve both men and women in associations and groups, and participation in training and in public-private dialogues on FMNR activities.Like in all other value chains, women are actively involved in FMNR programmes as unpaid household workers, wageworkers, entrepreneurs, and leaders. The constraints facing them may differ from those faced by men. Therefore, gender equitable FMNR promoters need to recognize these differences and design activities that meet the needs of both men and women. d) Support women' s economic advancement in FMNR Gender-equitable FMNR promoters need to consider how to empower women as lead champions in FMNR activities, i.e. by setting an example for other women, and by contributing to upgrading and leading systemic change in natural resource management and utilization through FMNR. As stated in Module 4, there should be change agents for different skillsets needed to promote FMNR in a single community group. For example, there can be an FMNR lead practitioner, enterprise development leader, leader on tree nursery practices, a fruit grafting specialist, a water terrace specialist, etc. A first intervention therefore is to ensure a gender and youth mix in the selection of change agents such as by ensuring that more than one lead practitioner (preferably a man and a woman) is selected for each skill targeted.e) Promote gender-equitable FMNR-driven solutionsThe community, local leadership and private sector entities can be a catalyst in promoting gender-equality goals when they understand the FMNR potential for doing so. Gender-equitable FMNR promoters facilitate an understanding of how to address gender issues in FMNR activities and support the development of solutions that create equal opportunities for men and women in natural resource management, conservation and use.f) Design equitable benefit-sharing mechanisms in FMNR FMNR promoters should consider men's and women's participation in FMNR activities and how they will benefit from their participation. There is need for an understanding of the gender issues in benefit-sharing mechanisms related to the distribution of returns, earnings and non-monetary gains, and ensuring that men and women are adequately rewarded for their contributions to and participation in the FMNR activities.g) Include men in defining the ' gender problem' and the solution in FMNR activities FMNR promoters should include both men and women in identifying the gender issues that constrain their abilities to improve productivity and increase their returns. FMNR programmes can bring both men and women to the table to clarify their roles in undertaking the FMNR activities, i.e. to define the governance criteria in FMNR programme activities.Gender aspects need to be included in FMNR planning, at demonstration sites as well as in the project's capacity development, implementation and knowledge exchange activities. Having a facilitator who has a prior experience in gender mainstreaming in the project (or at least is available for consultation on a needs basis) is advantageous because it helps to ensure that budgetary allocations for addressing gender issues can be kept at reasonable levels.The following tips can be considered for gender inclusion.1) Create a list of the tree-based strategic and practical needs for men and women, both those directly involved in the FMNR initiative and those in the surrounding communities.The questions below can be adopted as a checklist to help collate the gender issues in the community to ensure that both men and women benefit equitably from the initiative.• What tree products are of critical need for women and men? Do women collect tree products that are important to them (nuts, fruit, firewood, grass) from the land that is to be set aside for FMNR, and will they lose access to it?• Do women and men rely on this land as an important foraging area for their animals?• Will women and men have to spend more time on fodder collection for stall-feeding or on grazing their livestock at more distant locations for some time? Which locations are these?• Do women and men differ on species to be established on the community land, e.g.through enrichment planting?• Are women likely to be the main labourers in FMNR? If yes, what tools are comfortable and efficient to use by women and/or men?• What is women's time availability like on a daily and seasonal basis? Does tree management conflict with women's time requirements for other essential activities?• Do women or men express strong interest in first obtaining other critical services/ facilities (e.g. drinking water) before providing their labour or otherwise co-operating in FMNR operations?2) Consider whether all men and all women can be considered as a group, or whether you need to divide them into subgroups (this will be the case if you determine that some subgroups have different needs and aspirations depending on the culture). If so, you can consider having a training group mainly for women and another for men. This will enable you to obtain much information, especially from the women, as some women may fear talking in the presence of men in some cultures as is the case in many pastoral communities.3) Examine whether there are barriers that must be addressed in implementing the FMNR initiative, such as differences in land ownership and labour between men and women, as well as access to technologies. During promotion of FMNR, it is important to assess the rights of men and women as regards access and control over resources in their area, including land and trees, seed, livestock, equipment, markets and income, so as to anticipate and resolve any conflicts that may hinder smooth project implementation.4) Conduct FMNR activities in a participatory and gender-inclusive manner. Ensure that in any FMNR-related demonstration or field visits, both men and women (as well as any critical subgroups) are represented. Also, expose groups of women and men to other communities where gender-equitable development is taking place.5) Ensure that gender issues are addressed in the FMNR capacity-building and training initiatives. For example, address any by-laws that may hinder women in gaining land access and ownership or men in getting involved in some manual work. Provide training to women and men on different skills, including FMNR-related business management. Also, have a clear understanding of the division of farm labour and adoption of technologies in the specific target community to help shape the training approach, and know how to put emphasis on specific groups, depending on the activity they engage in.6) Work with women's groups to build their capacities and develop their skills and knowledge on FMNR to improve their participation. You can include them as partner organizations and implementers. Establish a realistic minimum target for women's participation, for example 40%. Adopt FMNR value chains that ensure both men and women benefit from the business.Consider whether women's voices, decision-making experience, and confidence to express their views in the public sphere tend to be weaker than men's, due to cultural norms and women's lack of skills.6.3 General guidelines for gender inclusion in FMNR project implementation• Build in checks to make sure gender relations are considered specifically at the planning and implementation stages of FMNR. Programmes should assess the implications for women and men of any planned action. This might require allocation of adequate resources in the FMNR project budget to support gender mainstreaming, e.g. for recruitment of expertise, additional meetings, travel (e.g. travel of women to meetings and exchange visits), training for key participants, etc.• Assess the roles, responsibilities, constraints and opportunities for men and women in the proposed FMNR intervention site. Put a specific focus on barriers to equal participation and benefit sharing within FMNR, for example, unequal participation in forums that make community laws and/or decisions. Information gathering for this element should include participatory appraisals (focus groups and/or surveys or interviews).• Identify specific actions that will be taken, based on the localized information collected, to reduce barriers to equitable participation in project activities. These actions can include involving both men and women in discussing matters such as access to FMNR products and community by-laws, among others.• Put in place a gender-sensitive monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework that collects sex-disaggregated data where the impacts of FMNR data are collected in terms of men and women. Incorporate these data into the final reporting of the FMNR project and share lessons learned with other FMNR promoters to help in gender mainstreaming among FMNR projects.Module 7: Monitoring and evaluation and learnings from the FMNR initiative FMNR is still a developing concept in the Somali context as well as in various parts of Africa.It is necessary to conduct informative monitoring, evaluation and learning in every initiative promoting FMNR in the Somali context so that adaptive management and contextualization can be included in subsequent initiatives to make them more responsive to community needs.Monitoring 4 involves keeping track of the progress being made on the plan's tasks and activities and checking if they are going ahead as planned and meeting the community's shared goals and visions. On the other hand, evaluation 5 involves making decisions on whether the plan worked and whether the goals were achieved (with adaptive management 6 ), using the data and information that have been collected. It is about mapping the evidence of what has been achieved on the theory of change and against the set targets. This basically informs the stakeholders/decision-makers on the most successful impact pathways that can be essential for future programming.Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of community FMNR initiatives should be as inclusive and participatory as possible so that the stakeholders involved may understand its significance. It also enables stakeholders (especially at the community level) to share control over the content, the process and the results of the M&E activity, and to engage in identifying and/or taking corrective actions. This participation enhances ownership of the FMNR initiative. To have a successful M&E for FMNR, the M&E plan should be designed at the beginning of the initiative and represent the interests of all stakeholders in the target community.7.2 What can we monitor and evaluate in an FMNR initiative?In an FMNR initiative, we may need to monitor and evaluate short-term, intermediate and some long-term impacts. Some of the examples of the likely measurable impacts are shown in Table 6. The results of immediate effects monitored in the first column can be used to determine the intermediate and longer-term impacts of the FMNR initiative.  The indicators created for monitoring FMNR should be SMART, as elaborated here:• Specific: Be clear about what they are measuring. For example, the number of women farmers practising FMNR, the number of tree stumps regenerated.• Measurable: The data should be easy to collect, such as by measuring or counting. For example, it would be illogical to ask people to count the number of blades of grass that have sprouted per hectare. Seeking sensitive or confidential information should also be avoided.• Achievable: The indicators should be realistic in that participants are able to reach the targets based on resources available or the project and time for the project.• Relevant: Indicators should be linked to the community's goals and objectives, expected results and activities. For example, you do not need to measure the amount of water buffered if the FMNR was meant to provide livestock feed.• Time-bound: Indicators should relate to the correct period. Choose a time and only measure data during that period. Not all stakeholders can be involved in M&E data collection and analysis, and therefore, the results need to be shared with other stakeholders for discussions on appropriate actions to be taken. The sharing can be done through community project reflection meetings or workshops.The information-sharing workshop allows the community and other stakeholders to:• Reflect on the progress of FMNR practice towards achieving goals;• Adjust activities as required and where deemed necessary;• Exchange and evaluate information;• Systematically review and look back to the start of their activities, comparing it with where they currently are and to understand what has changed;• Reflect on what needs to be carried out for each result or activity and its indicators, one at a time.Some useful questions to consider during reflection include:• What have we achieved this season/this year, etc.?• What worked well? What did not work well?• What do we need to change? What have we learned?The reflection exercise results are used to make decisions and adjust activities when need be, so that monitoring and evaluation is a learning process. Therefore, it may be important to invite community members who have successfully implemented FMNR on their land to these meetings to elucidate how FMNR has impacted their livelihoods. Reflection meetings should take note of necessary changes and resolutions and then implement them. They should also replicate scaling approaches that have worked and FMNR enterprises that have demonstrated success.Annex 1. Obstacles to tree planting and protection in the Somali context 1. Environmental constraintsThe erratic nature of annual precipitation is usually not adequate for tree establishment and timing of planting is challenging due to the unreliable nature of rainfall and frequent droughts in the rangelands.The poor texture of the surface layers of the soil may require ground preparation techniques that could be time consuming and expensive so as to conserve the limited precipitation and make it available to the tree crop.It is difficult to obtain seeds or other planting materials of many tree species.• Little is known about correct seed handling for most species that are suited for the drylands.• Technical and managerial tasks to undertake the design, management and evaluation of tree planting programmes is a challenge due to inadequate extension services.• administrative and technical staff are limited; policymakers may not fully perceive the severity of the problem.• There is a lack of incentive to invest in tree planting and protection under the communal land ownership that characterize most rangelands.The mobile nature of most pastoral households is a major hindrance to tree planting and protection.• Livestock raising is the principal source of livelihoods and is the basis of the economy; it overrides any other form of livelihood mainly because of the harsh ecological conditions and limited production capacity of the land.The demand for trees and their products, especially fuelwood, fencing and construction materials outstrip supply in the Somali ecosystem.The increasing human population has occasioned escalating demand for energy, which is dominantly wood fuel. In fact, more trees are cut than planted in rural drylands.The high human and livestock populations also make it difficult to protect planted seedlings from grazing animals.• Some observers suggest that the perception of wood as a free product by pastoralists inhibits tree-planting and protection efforts, since people do not perceive wood as being scarce.• Many pastoral societies have gender-specific rights and prohibitions regarding planting trees and exploiting tree products.• In many pastoral communities, land and trees on the land, are a productive resource owned primarily by men.• These rights may apply not only to a husband's land, but also to land and trees owned by kinsmen. Women may plant trees only with a man's permission.Annex 2. Local tree and shrub species that can preferably be regenerated through FMNR in the Somali context  i) Excellent FMNR practitioners, who monitor their progress and experiment to solve problems with their land and trees.ii) Good citizens who have earned trust and respect in the community because of their behaviour and moral standards.iii) Passionate about spreading FMNR, and about seeing people succeed. When they are practising FMNR or teaching others, they get energized, especially by what they are doing with little show of weariness.iv) Natural teachers, who communicate patiently and clearly, willing to guide those who may not be practising in the right way, who encourage learners when they struggle and who celebrate with them when they succeed.v) Willing and able to regularly visit with community practitioners and participate in meetings and discussions about practicing FMNR.vi) Able to inspire others. Some are extroverted and comfortable leading a crowd, while others, in their own quiet way inspire one or two people at a time -both are effective, they just work differently.vii) Patient and persistent. They understand that people may take time to adopt a new idea and are willing to continue the dialogue without getting discouraged or weary.viii) Forgiving and tough skinned, when they are the object of jokes and derision, sometimes even abuse, as they practise and promote what may seem to some unusual at first. ","tokenCount":"12826"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2c633703816a8fa8ea3390b8f43a29b8","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d03ff6d0-1644-4890-a00f-f7ba4e048d8e/retrieve","id":"270308917"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"bb97acb6-0b3e-46b6-83d6-874f23967a91","pagecount":"2","content":"Description of the innovation: A methodology to identify hotspots where climate change adaptation and gender based interventions could be prioritized, mapped to three indicators: (i) the participation of women in agriculture, (ii) degree of climate risks (drought and floods, changes in rainfall patterns, and dependency on natural resources), and (iii) poverty. The resulting maps identify \"hotspots\" or high-risk areas where climatic risks overlap with a high proportion of women in agriculture. New Innovation: Yes Innovation type: Research and Communication Methodologies and Tools Stage of innovation: Stage 3: available/ ready for uptake (AV) Geographic Scope: Global Number of individual improved lines/varieties: <Not Applicable> Description of Stage reached: Tool developed and ready for use. Name of lead organization/entity to take innovation to this stage: CIMMYT -Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo / International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center Names of top five contributing organizations/entities to this stage: <Not Defined> Milestones: • Innovative tools/approaches (inc. checklists on feasibility of different CSA practices within local context), CSA technology depository, citizen science service provision and agro-eco region specific models co-developed and tested for scaling out CSA/CSVs Sub-IDOs: • 33 -Improved forecasting of impacts of climate change and targeted technology development • 29 -Enhanced adaptive capacity to climate risks (More sustainably managed agro-ecosystems","tokenCount":"209"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cf150a7bc911f3190616af52ea8db7ea","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/45ee0c97-a242-4785-9c00-e67c6a667bf3/retrieve","id":"1622207654"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"27eef4ab-1275-47d8-8e6c-f1c1595f73d1","pagecount":"4","content":"Index-based insurance continues to be promoted as an effective approach for offering formal insurance to rural households in developing countries while little has been done to assess the risk coverage provided by such products. Products with poor quality could increase risk-in a manner very similar to a lottery ticket-rather than reduce itas the term 'insurance' implies. Currently, there is little empirical evidence to support the insurance label used by designers, promoters and vendors of index insurance.The Index-Based Livestock Insurance (IBLI) product, piloted in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia since early 2010, is implemented with an accompanying research program that allows for a first-ever analysis of index insurance quality in a developing country context. This brief draws on an analysis of the IBLI product in Marsabit by Jensen, Barrett and Mude (2015). Our key findings include:Environmental shocks are drivers of poverty as well as a fact of life in many rural areas of the developing world. In the developed world, agricultural insurance provides some protection from such calamities. But conventional insurance products have not reached many rural households in developing countries due to the high costs of gathering information relative to the size of policies demanded and well-known moral hazard, and adverse selection issues that complicate product design and pricing.Recently, there has been much excitement around the use of index-based insurance, as an alternative to conventional insurance products, to extend the rural poor's access to formal insurance coverage in developing countries (Alderman & Haque 2007;Barnett, Barrett & Skees 2008;Mahul & Stutley 2010). Index insurance provides indemnity payments based on a signal that is related to covariate losses rather than actual and observed individual losses. When signals are chosen properly-those that are easy to observe in near-realtime, exogenous to the behaviours and characteristics of both the insurer and insurees, and highly correlated with the insured risk-suppliers of index insurance face much lower costs associated with adverse section, moral hazard monitoring, and validation of claims than they would if they were offering conventional policies.For instance, seasonal precipitation is highly correlated with average maize yields in some areas. In those cases, an index insurance product developed using area-average seasonal precipitation may offer maize growers protection against low maize yields associated with precipitation. Premium and indemnity rates for such products are calculated in relation to estimates of precipitation, rather than household-level losses, so that an individual's characteristics and actions have very little or no effect on either. For providers of index insurance, there is no need to collect individual level data for setting premiums, validating claims or monitoring for moral hazard.Growing enthusiasm for index insurance among researchers and development and humanitarian organizations has led to a proliferation of pilot projects across the globe. For example, interest in supporting index insurance as a development tool led to the formation of the Global Index Insurance Facility in 2009, which has now supported projects that have insured more than 600,000 farmers (GIIF 2014).Basis risk, or the risk that insured households continue to face after purchasing an index insurance contract, is a widely recognized Achille's heel of these new products and is thought to be quite sizable by some (e.g. Miranda & Farrin 2012). Such basis risk arises due to variation between farmers, leading to inevitable differences between the individual losses and average losses (idiosyncratic risk), as well as differences between the index and actual average losses (design risk). Until now, however, there have been very few empirical studies of the magnitude of basis risk associated with index insurance products for smallholder agriculturalist households in developing countries. No pilot project to date appears to have examined how insured individuals' actual losses correlate with the index on which the index insurance contract is based. If that correlation is weak, index insurance offers little risk coverage; indeed if the correlation is negative, it may increase the risk that some insurees face. For those households, index insurance represents a gamble in spite of the 'insurance' label -they pay a fee for the chance of a payout but also increase the variance of their stochastic income. Commercially loaded index insurance, for which the premium exceeds the actuarially fair price in order to cover the insurer's costs, can therefore be more like a lottery ticket than an indemnity insurance policy for some households. Without careful empirical analysis we do not know where index products fall on the spectrum between full risk coverage and lottery tickets, and for which clientele.Unfortunately, the general enthusiasm for index insurance has not been accompanied by parallel investments to ascertain the quality or extent of the coverage offered by index products and the remaining basis risk that insurees continue to bear. In response to this need, Jensen, Barrett and Mude (2015) studied the distribution of basis risk associated with the IBLI product in northern Kenya. Specifically, we decompose basis risk into its idiosyncratic and design components to better understand how the IBLI product could be improved and then examine if IBLI benefits those that purchase coverage. IBLI in Marsabit, Kenya IBLI was launched in Marsabit, Kenya in January 2010 to insure pastoralists against livestock mortality associated with drought. The insurance policy payouts are determined by an index of predicted divisionaverage livestock mortality rates. At the time of this research, IBLI used an index that was developed using statistical methods to relate historic livestock mortality to remotely sensed Normalized Differenced Vegetation Index (NDVI) measures and minimized basis risk (Chantarat, et al. 2013). 1   We used four rounds of data from an annual household longitudinal survey (2009)(2010)(2011)(2012) and IBLI index values to study the distribution of basis risk associated with IBLI across eight insurance seasons. 2 Decomposing household risk into covariate and idiosyncratic components, we found that Marsabit pastoralists face a great deal of idiosyncratic risk that cannot be covered with an index insurance product. This is surprising in this population for which severe drought-a covariate phenomenon-is recognized as being the greatest source of risk. Furthermore, regression analysis of idiosyncratic losses finds that such losses are mostly random and are unrelated to observed household characteristics or heterogeneity between communities within index regions.Histograms of the reported livestock survival rates and simulated net survival rates-the survival rate less the loaded and unsubsidized premium plus indemnity payments-illustrate the impact of IBLI coverage and give insight into the distribution of basis risk (Figure 1). IBLI coverage clearly changes the domain, expected value, and shape of the distribution of outcomes. The average net impact of full insurance on the eight season within-household distribution of outcomes is to improve skewness at the cost of reducing expected outcomes (due to the premium) and increasing variance (due to excessive indemnity payments). Put more simply, IBLI reduces downside risk exposure but at a cost of not only the premium, but also of a wider range of possible outcomes because basis risk raises the possibility that one could pay a premium and (i) suffer losses but receive no indemnity payment, or (ii) receive an indemnity payment without suffering losses.Looking only at events during which there were large covariate shocks-the events IBLI is intended to provide protection from-we find that IBLI coverage successfully provides protection from 63% of the covariate risk but that households continue to face about 69% of their original risk because of the large idiosyncratic component, even during drought seasons. These findings suggest that there is room for improving the IBLI index, but that even with a perfect index, households will always face a substantial amount of uninsured idiosyncratic risk. But those statistics alone cannot tell us if IBLI is providing insurance coverage or access to a lottery for the majority of households.To address this question, we modelled the benefits to prospective purchasers with and without IBLI coverage. 3  Consistent with the product during this research period, we maintained two contract premium regions -Upper Marsabit (Maikona and North Horr) and Lower Marsabit (Central, Laisamis, Loiyangalani) -which were then used to estimate and include the cost of premium payments in the calculations.At the subsidized rate, which brings premiums below their actuarially fair rate, households might benefit from IBLI even if it does not reduce risk since, over time, they expect to receive more in indemnity payments than they pay in premiums. At the commercially loaded premium rate, risk averse households will only prefer IBLI coverage if it offers insurance coverage (i.e. reduces downside risk) rather than a gamble. We find that most-but not all-risk averse households enjoy net benefits from purchasing IBLI, even at unsubsidized rates (Table 1).  Our analysis supports the commonly held, but rarely examined, belief that index insurance suffers from considerable basis risk. But we also found that IBLI nonetheless offers significant benefits to most households, even at commercially loaded premium levels, because it provides indemnity payments during critical periods of high livestock mortality. For that majority, IBLI operates as advertised, offering an insurance product against large drought shocks. But any index insurance product necessarily offers incomplete coverage. The community promoting these innovations might take greater care to ensure that they are indeed filling missing markets for insurance, not for lottery tickets. ","tokenCount":"1504"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3447f23a29babb6d076eab02858a4119","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c3b70ec3-dcf8-4f8c-85c4-cfcad9bef867/retrieve","id":"141734667"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c5328089-2f94-4061-b3db-27d04dde3f95","pagecount":"9","content":"The practice has always been to tie-down goats after roaming for food. Tying these animals down predisposes them to theft. With a machine like this, goats are left to roam freely and fed within the perimeter of the residence.\"The trainees in the four local government areas appreciated the Stover Crusher so much, some asked if they could rent the machine. Others plan on contributing money to buy the machine for their personal and communal use\", said Senior Research Supervisor, Joseph Abikoye. For these agriculture producers, the use of the machine automatically translates to a \"zero-wastage\" situation wherein no residue is left to be burned and the environment is better protected.For trainees in these local communities, the self-powered, locally-fabricated engine will encourage greatly goat-rearing within the localities.  ","tokenCount":"126"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"56889d4b629eebebbf89263d2d20dc41","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/49246866-5ea0-43f1-aad9-8ea562fa3c25/retrieve","id":"1334754389"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e6abf8b8-6646-4edf-afea-6f128edb1eb4","pagecount":"82","content":"The Forages for Smallholders Project (FSP) is a Southeast Asian regional program funded by AusAID that commenced in 1995. It is managed by CIAT (Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical) and by CSIRO Tropical Agriculture (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization of Australia). The FSP is a network of smallholder farmers, development workers and researchers in Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and southern China. The focus of the project is to develop forage technologies in partnership with smallholder farmers in upland areas, where forages have potential to improve livestock feeding and management of natural resources.The Forages for Smallholders Project (FSP) is a Southeast Asian regional program funded by AusAID that commenced in 1995. It is managed by CIAT (Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical) and by CSIRO Tropical Agriculture (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization of Australia). The FSP is a network of smallholder farmers, development workers and researchers in Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and southern China. The focus of the project is to develop forage technologies in partnership with smallholder farmers in upland areas, where forages have potential to improve livestock feeding and management of natural resources.This booklet is based on the experiences of researchers and farmers working with the AusAID-funded Forages for Smallholders Project (FSP) in Southeast Asia. This project is a partnership of smallholder farmers, development workers and researchers who are using participatory approaches to developing forage technologies on farms (see inside cover for details). More than 600 forage varieties were evaluated by FSP partners, including varieties selected by national programs and varieties from germplasm collections of CIAT (Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical) and CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization of Australia). This work would not have been possible without access to these extensive forage germplasm collections. All of the forages included in this booklet are being used by smallholder farmers and have significant potential for improving livestock production and natural resource management.Forages are grasses, herbaceous legumes and shrub/tree legumes that can be used for feeding animals. They can also be used for better management of natural resources including erosion control, soil fertility improvement and weed control. This booklet emphasizes forages that are being used successfully by smallholder farmers. Often they provide multiple benefits.Before you start ...Livestock are an important component of upland farming systems in Southeast Asia. In the past, feed resources were plentiful. On many farms this is no longer the case, so farmers have to spend more and more time finding feed for their animals. Planting forages can help to overcome this problem. However, no two farms have the same resources and needs. Forages that are suitable on one farm may not be suitable for other farms. The best way to develop the 'right' forage technologies for each farm is for farmers to evaluate promising forage technologies and adapt the best options to their situation.In this participatory approach the role of the development worker is to give farmers information about forages that may solve their problems. There are many forages and ways of growing them on farms. Not all will be suitable for a particular situation and need. This booklet will help development workers to select appropriate forage options to offer farmers. This booklet does not attempt to list all species and varieties that could be grown. It contains only those that grow in a wide range of conditions and either are being used successfully by smallholder farmers or have significant potential in Southeast Asia. Details on management and utilisation of these species can be found in another booklet in this series 'Developing forage technologies with smallholder farmers -how to grow, manage and use forages'.How to evaluate forages with farmers...1. Understand farmers' needs. 2. Choose suitable ways of growing and using forages. 3. Choose forages that are best adapted to climate and soil. 4. Offer farmers the best varieties, not just any variety of a species. 5. Offer a basket of choices.How to evaluate forages with farmers...1. Understand farmers' needs.Not all farmers need forages. Sometimes there is enough naturally occurring feed to meet the needs of their animals. Only those farmers who perceive a real need will be motivated to evaluate forages and adapt them to their specific situation. Another booklet in this series, 'Developing agricultural solutions with smallholder farmers -participatory approaches for getting it right the first time', describes ways of working with farmers to identify needs and to find solutions.When we know the farmer's particular problems, we can choose suitable ways of growing and using forages that will provide the best solutions.2. Choose suitable ways of growing and using forages.Useful ways of growing and using forages to solve particular problems are described below. It is important to work with farmers to understand which of these options may meet their needs and best fit into their farming systems.• provide easy access to cut feed • concentrate manure near the house for easy collectionGrazed plots • a simple way of feeding animals if land is available • need to be fenced to keep other grazing animals out• keep animals out of crops or forage plots • provide a high protein feed supplement• grown along the contour in sloping lands reduce run-off and erosion • can also be grown along fence lines or between fields The forage varieties best suited for each of these forage systems are listed in Table 1 of Section 3.No forages will grow well everywhere. Some grow well on acid soils; others do not. Some grow well in cool areas; others do not. Forages can survive in areas where they are not adapted but they will not grow well. It is important to choose forages that are adapted to local soils and climate.Important climate and soil factors affecting forage adaptation are the length of dry season, temperatures, soil fertility, soil pH and drainage. The adaptation of species to climate and soils is shown in Section 3 (Table 2 and 'Special considerations') and Section 4 'More about each species'.There are many forage species and each of these can have one or more varieties. A good example is the species Brachiaria brizantha (see Figure 1) which has three varieties. One of the varieties, 'Serengeti' is quite short and forms a sward (similar to the variety 'Basilisk' of B. decumbens) while the other two varieties of B. brizantha are tall. They also flower and produce seed at different times of the year. When farmers begin to evaluate forages, make sure you q offer a range of species and varieties, not only one or two 'favoured' varieties. q do not offer too many choices at any one time. It is difficult for farmers to evaluate a large number of new varieties. In most cases 4 to 8 varieties is ideal. q plant small areas of each variety before expanding to larger areas.It is better to work with many farmers who plant small areas rather than a few farmers who plant large areas.How to select the best forages...How to select the best forages...To select the best forages to offer farmers for evaluation, follow these steps:Step 1 Use Table 1 to choose species which are suitable for the ways farmers want to grow and use them.Step 2 Use Table 2 to find out which of these species are recommended for different climates and soils.Blank cells in Table 2 mean that this species is not adapted to this climate or soil. Species receiving two marks (qq) are the first choice for testing in this situation. Those with one mark (q) may also be suitable but are not likely to grow as well as those with two marks (qq). For example, Brachiaria humidicola, will grow well in fertile soils but received only one mark (q) as there are other species, such as Panicum maximum, which will grow better in these soils.Step 3 Check the section on 'Special Considerations' to see if any apply to your situation.Step 4 Read the descriptions of each species (see Section 4 'More about each species') you selected and identify varieties to offer to farmers for evaluation.These 4 steps are only a guide to make it easy for you to start selecting forages. If you prefer you could use Step 2 before Step 1.As you become familiar with the information in this booklet, you will find it easy to select species to offer farmers for evaluation.Section 3 only lists major forage species. Other potentially useful forage species and varieties, which may be useful in special situations, have been included in Section 4 'More about each species...'.  q q q q q qq qq q q q qq q q qq qq qq qq qq qq q q q q q qq q qq qq qq qq q q qq qq q q qq q q qq q qq q q qq ! qq q q   q q qq qq q q q q q q q qq qq qq q qq qq qq qq q qq q q q q q q qq q qq qq qq q qq qq q q q q q qq q q q qq q qq q q q Special considerationsIn addition to the information presented in Tables 1 and 2, there are particular situations which require special consideration when selecting forages to offer farmers:Do not feed Brachiaria brizantha, Brachiaria decumbens, Brachiaria mutica or Brachiaria ruziziensis to sheep, goats and young cattle. If fed large amounts, these animals can suffer from photosensitization which often results in death. Brachiaria humidicola can be fed to sheep, goats and young cattle but only in small quantities.Some species can be toxic to monogastric animals when fed in large amounts. Setaria sphacelata can be toxic for horses, since it contains oxalates. Leucaena leucocephala may be toxic to monogastric animals, since it contains the chemical compound mimosine. It is generally recommended that the diet of monogastric animals should contain no more than 10% of L. leucocephala. However, it can be fed in large amounts to ruminants (eg. cattle and goats) since they are able to break down mimosine in the rumen.Most forage species will grow as well in lightly shaded areas (such as under old coconuts) as they do in open areas. Species which are often used for grazed plots in light to moderate shade are Brachiaria humidicola, Stenotaphrum secundatum and Arachis pintoi.Farmers occasionally ask for forages to grow in heavily shaded areas. There are no species that will produce high yields in such situations, but some species are better adapted to surviving in moderate shade. Arachis pintoi, for example, can be used as a ground cover to suppress weeds in shaded areas. Other species that can survive in moderate shade are Centrosema pubescens, Centrosema macrocarpum, Paspalum atratum, Panicum maximum, Setaria sphacelata, Brachiaria brizantha, B. decumbens, B. humidicola and Stenotaphrum secundatum.Forages need water to grow, keep cool, and to take up nutrients from the soil. While there are no miracle forages that are productive throughout a long dry season, some species are better adapted to dry environments than others (see Table 2). Some tree and shrub legumes, such as Leucaena leucocephala, have root systems that can reach moisture deep in the soil. This allows them to grow and retain their leaves longer into the dry season than other forages. Some grasses and herbaceous legumes, such as Andropogon gayanus and Stylosanthes hamata, are also able to maintain green leaf long into the dry season.All forages grow well on fertile or moderately fertile soils. Some forages, such as Pennisetum purpureum and hybrids, will only grow well on fertile soils.Many of the forages recommended in this booklet will grow on infertile soils and some (such as Brachiaria humidicola and Stylosanthes guianensis) will grow even on very acid, infertile soils (see Table 2). However, no species will produce high yields on infertile soils unless manure or fertiliser is applied. On extremely infertile soils, forages may not contain enough nutrients for good animal growth.Most forage species can grow in alkaline soils. Some are particularly suited to high-pH soils. These are Leucaena leucocephala, Desmanthus virgatus and Brachiaria humidicola. One species which does not grow well on very alkaline soils is Stylosanthes guianensis.Most forages will tolerate a few days of waterlogging but few can grow well in soils which are waterlogged for extended periods. Some forage species that can tolerate waterlogging better than others are Brachiaria mutica, Paspalum atratum, Setaria sphacelata, Brachiaria humidicola, Macroptilium gracile and Codariocalyx gyroides.Most forage grasses will tolerate burning as their growing points are close to the ground (eg. Brachiaria species). Most forage legumes have all their growing points high above ground and are easily killed by fire (eg. Stylosanthes guianensis, Centrosema pubescens). However, these legumes often regenerate from seed after fire. One legume which can survive even severe fires is Leucaena leucocephala.More about species...More about each species...The growth forms and life spans of major forages included in this booklet are summarised in Table 3. More details about each forage species are given in this section under the headings of:1. Grasses, 2. Legumes (includes herbaceous, shrub and tree legumes), and 3. Other potentially useful forages (includes forages which are used for special situations only or have yet to prove their value in smallholder farming systems).The best varieties of each species are listed under their variety name. A Table relating these variety names to identification numbers and cultivar names is included in Section 5 'Appendices'.   It is easy to cut but it can tolerate grazing. It needs frequent cutting or it produces seed heads which are stemmy and unpalatable.'Gamba' can be easily planted from young rooted tillers but not old tillers. Establishment from seed is often difficult because of poor seed quality. It can be planted from rooted cuttings. Planting from seed can be unreliable because seed quality is often poor.Note: Brachiaria brizantha 'Serengeti' is a promising alternative to 'Basilisk'. It is similar in growth habit but, unlike 'Basilisk', produces high yields of good seed in many areas in Southeast Asia.1Recommended varieties:'Tully' 'Yanero'• vigorous creeping grass • good for erosion control • can tolerate heavy grazing• can grow on very infertile soils • can tolerate some waterlogging but• lower quality feed than other Brachiaria speciesBrachiaria humidicola is an aggressive, low growing grass. It spreads quickly via stolons. 'Yanero' is more leafy than 'Tully' but both varieties have a lower feed quality than other Brachiaria species. 'Tully' spreads more rapidly than 'Yanero' and is well suited to erosion control. Seed production is frequently poor in Southeast Asia.Being low growing both varieties are less suitable for cut-and-carry than other Brachiaria species, but can tolerate heavy grazing.They will grow in a wide range of soils from very infertile, acid soils to high pH sandy soils. They grow best in the wet tropics with no or short dry season. They are tolerant of waterlogging and can survive short periods of flooding. They should be grazed frequently during the wet season otherwise they produce a lot of stems which are unpalatable. Establishment from stolons is easy. Planting from seed is often difficult since it is slow to establish, even from good seed. Seed quality is frequently poor.B. humidicola can be fed to sheep and goats in small quantities only.Feeding large quantities may cause photosensitization (see Section 3, Special Considerations).Note: 'Yanero' was previously known as Brachiaria dictyoneura CIAT 6133.1 2Recommended variety:'Ruzi''Ruzi' is a leafy, medium height, stoloniferous grass which is used extensively in Thailand. It has short hairy leaves. In many areas it produces high seed yields. The seed quality and germination percentage are usually high.It is adapted to well-drained, fertile soils in high rainfall areas. In these conditions it provides higher quality feed than other Brachiaria species. It is not well suited to infertile soils, poorly drained soils or areas with a long dry season.'Ruzi' should never be fed to sheep, goats or young cattle (see Section 3, Special Considerations).It can easily be planted from seeds or stolons.• good seed production • establishes easily from seed or cuttings • provides high quality forage but• needs high soil fertility• poor persistence on infertile soils• not adapted to long dry seasonsRecommended variety:'Si Muang'• tall grass suitable for cutting • suited to more fertile soils• produces high quality feed but• must be fertilised regularly Recommended variety:'Terenos'• tall grass for cutting • grows well on infertile, acid soil• wet tropics with short or no dry season • can tolerate some waterlogging• very leafy but• not suited to long dry seasons Farmers often like 'Terenos' because it is easy to cut and has fast regrowth. It can also be grazed.It can be planted from seed, but is also easily propagated using rooted tillers.Note: A related species is Paspalum guenoarum 'Bela Vista' (see 'Other potentially useful forages'). Pennisetum purpureum and the hybrid (P. purpureum x P. glaucum) are very tall grasses which are well suited to cutting. 'King' is taller, leafier and more productive than 'Napier' or 'Mott' in soils of high fertility, but is less robust and persistent under declining fertility or during dry periods.'Mott' (sometimes called 'dwarf napier') has many more tillers and is leafier than 'Napier'. 'Mott' is better suited to planting in hedgerows than other Pennisetum varieties, although all Pennisetum varieties need a lot of nutrients and tend to compete with nearby crops. Pennisetum species are potentially the most productive grasses available, but do not tolerate low fertility or dry conditions. They are best suited to fertile soils in areas with high rainfall and only a short dry season.Fertiliser or manure must be added regularly to maintain productivity. Many farmers grow these species close to the animal shed to make it easier to apply manure.They must be cut frequently to remain leafy. If the plants are allowed to grow tall, they produce a lot of unpalatable stem.They can easily be planted from stem cuttings.Grasses 52 1 Setaria sphacelata is an erect, perennial grass of medium height. It has soft, palatable leaves and young stems. It can be recognized by the grey-green colour of its leaves. It is suitable for cutting, although it can be lightly grazed. 'Lampung' does not produce seed and has to be propagated vegetatively. 'Lampung' is best suited to the wet tropics with a short dry season. Leaf diseases can occur in very wet conditions. 'Solander' produces seed and is better suited to cooler conditions (eg. high elevations) than 'Lampung'. Although both varieties will survive in infertile soils, they need moderately fertile soils for good growth. They are able to withstand several days of waterlogging. Recommended varieties:'Amarillo' 'Itacambira' q low growing stoloniferous legume q very persistent especially under heavy grazing q good ground cover under trees q high quality animal feed q establishes easily from cuttings but q needs moderately fertile soils q not suited to long dry seasonsArachis pintoi is a vigorous stoloniferous legume that forms a dense green carpet usually with a mass of yellow flowers. It is a highquality feed for all animals including chickens, ducks and pigs. It can withstand heavy grazing or cutting. It is an excellent ground cover for weed control under trees and erosion control on slopes.There are many useful varieties of A. pintoi. Of these, 'Itacambira' and 'Amarillo' are the most widely used in Southeast Asia.A Unlike other legumes, A. pintoi needs to be cut or grazed frequently to improve its yield and persistence.It can be easily established from stolons and rooted cuttings. A special feature of this legume is that it is a peanut and produces seed under ground which makes harvesting of seed difficult. Seed quality falls quickly during storage. Establishment from seed is easy, provided good seed is available.LegumesCalliandra calothyrsus is a long-lived small tree which is very productive under regular cutting. Unlike many other legumes, it is usually free of pests and diseases. It has distinctive red flowers.'Besakih' is particularly adapted to cooler areas (eg. high elevation) and wet areas with a short or no dry season. It grows in a wide range of soils, including acid soils, but needs moderate fertility. Once established, it survives dry periods, particularly on deep soils.It is often grown as hedgerows. Sheep and goats eat it readily but cattle sometimes require a short period to get used to it. A special feature of C. calothyrsus is that it has to be fed fresh, since wilted leaves are not palatable. 'Besakih' is successfully used for fattening cattle at altitudes above 500m in Bali.Recommended variety:'Besakih' q good tree legume for cooler areas q can grow in acid soils q high leaf yield under cutting q good fire wood but q palatable only when fresh q needs to be planted from seed q slow seedling growth  It must be planted from seed. As with all tree legumes, seedling establishment is slow. For successful establishment seedlings must be protected from grazing animals, weeds and fire. Seed production may be poor in areas where there are no bats since these are known to be efficient pollinators of Calliandra flowers. q twining legumes q good for weed control q grow well with tall grasses for cut-and-carry but q not adapted to long dry seasons q need moderately fertile, well-drained soils q need to be planted from seed 'Barinas' and 'Ucayali' are vigorous twining legumes. They are a highquality feed for animals. They are better suited to cutting than grazing. They can be used as cover crops to suppress weeds in crop fallows and annual crops. They can also be grown together with tall grasses for cut & carry feed.'Ucayali' has bigger leaves than 'Barinas' and grows better in drier conditions. The white-flowering 'Barinas' is more vigorous than other varieties of C. pubescens. It produces roots from nodes, making it more persistent.Both varieties need moderately fertile, well-drained soils for good growth. They grow best in the wet tropics with a short dry season. They do not tolerate waterlogging.593 51 'Barinas' used as a cover crop in maize (shortly after harvest) in Indonesia (JH) 2 Centrosema macrocarpum 'Ucayali' has larger leaves than C. pubescens 'Barinas' ( JH) 3 'Barinas' has white and pink flowers (JH) 4 Both species (here 'Barinas')have large seeds and are easy to plant (JH) 5 'Barinas' produces roots at nodes which make it more persistent than common Centro (WS)They cannot withstand heavy cutting or grazing. They grow best if left to regrow for long periods after cutting (more than 6 weeks) and if cut leniently (not close to the ground).Both 'Barinas' and 'Ucayali' have to be grown from seed. They flower and produce seed early in the dry season. Seed production is only good if they are grown on trellises (eg. on fence lines). Seed yields are highest in areas with a distinct dry season.All Centrosema species are susceptible to rhizoctonia leaf disease during wet periods, but 'Barinas' and 'Ucayali' recover well.Legumes 60 1Recommended variety:'Chaland' q shrubby legume for cutting q grows best on fertile clay soil q high-quality feed q used for leaf meal production q easy seed production but q not suited to acid soils q needs to be planted from seed 'Chaland' is an erect bushy legume growing to 2m which is used in Thailand. Individual plants usually persist for 3-5 years. The leaves are a high-quality feed that can be fed fresh or dried for leaf meal.It can be grown in hedgerows.It is especially suited to fertile clay soils with neutral to high pH.Although it can survive in areas with a long dry season, it grows best in the wet tropics in areas with only a short dry season. q fast-growing shrub for cutting q suited for hedgerows q good quality feed q best in wet tropics but q short-lived (up to 2-3 years) q needs to be planted from seed It is best adapted to moderately fertile, neutral or slightly acid soils. It grows best in the wet tropics with a short or no dry season and is not suited to areas with a long dry season. Recommended varieties:'Retalhuleu' 'Belen Rivas'q easy to plant from stem cuttings q useful as a living fence q grows in moderately acid soils q good dry season feed supplement but q low palatability for cattle q susceptible to pests 65 There are only a few areas in Southeast Asia where G. sepium produces seed. These are areas with a distinct dry season, such as eastern Indonesia. This is not a major problem since it is easily propagated from stem cuttings. Planting from cuttings may give a shallower root system than planting from seed, making the trees less productive in dry conditions.In humid areas it can be susceptible to insect pests.'K 636' 'K 584' q highly productive q tolerant of heavy cutting and grazing q high-quality feed supplement q good fire wood q good dry season growth but q not for acid, infertile soils q not for monogastric animals q susceptible to psyllid insects q needs to be planted from seedLeucaena leucocephala is a long-lived tree that is highly productive under regular cutting. Once established it is extremely tolerant of cutting, and can also be grazed. The leaves can be used as a highquality feed supplement, especially in the dry season.  As with all tree legumes, seedling establishment is slow and seedlings must be protected from grazing animals, weeds and fire.All L. leucocephala varieties are susceptible to damage by psyllid insects. 'K636' and 'K584' are more tolerant of psyllids than other varieties (eg. cv. Cunningham).L. leucocephala should not be fed to monogastric animals in large amounts (see Section 3, Special Considerations).Note: In the future, F1 hybrids between 'K636' or 'K584' and other Leucaena species may become available. These are likely to be more productive than 'K636' and K584' in areas with high psyllid attack.Legumes 68 1 'Stylo 184' is a short-lived perennial legume (2-3 years) that grows into a small shrub with some woody stems.It is adapted to a wide range of soils and climates but is one of the few herbaceous legumes which will grow well on infertile, acid soils. It will not grow on very alkaline soils (pH >8). Unlike earlier varieties of S. guianensis (eg. cv. Schofield, Cook and Graham) 'Stylo 184' has shown good resistance to the fungal disease anthracnose in Southeast Asia.It is usually grown as a cover crop which is cut every 2-3 months. It effectively suppresses weeds and is a good feed supplement for animals including chickens, pigs and fish. 'Stylo 184' can be fed fresh or dried for hay and processed into leaf meal.Recommended variety:'Stylo 184' q erect, robust legume for cutting q highly productive q good quality feed q many uses including leaf meal production q widely adapted to low fertility and acid soils q leaf stays green into the dry season q resistant to the fungal disease anthracnose but q short-lived (2-3 years) q not tolerant of heavy grazing or frequent cutting 69 It does not tolerate being cut close to the ground since there are few buds on the lower stem for regrowth. This can be improved by making the first cut at 10-20 cm to encourage branching close to the ground. Subsequent cuts must be made higher (>25 cm) to ensure good regrowth.It is usually planted from seed, although some farmers are using stem cuttings. Seed production is possible in most areas but is best in areas with a distinct dry season.Note: In is possible that 'Stylo 184' may one day become susceptible to anthracnose. Other varieties of S. guianensis are being evaluated in Hainan, China for better resistance to this disease. The following potentially useful forage species are only for special situations, or have yet to be proven in smallholder farming systems:It is common throughout the region in poorly drained and flooded soils. In Thailand it is grown for dairy cattle in paddy fields which were previously growing lowland rice. It is not suited for drier conditions.It is a low-growing, stoloniferous, perennial grass with soft leaves. It is best suited to areas with a short dry season. Its adaptation is similar to that of Brachiaria decumbens and is of particular interest because it can be fed to sheep, goats and young cattle.It is very similar to P. atratum. It is less productive, but has softer leaves and is very palatable. It is not suited to very high rainfall areas where it is susceptible to leaf spot fungus. It is a strongly stoloniferous grass suitable for grazed plots in moderate shade. Smallholder farmers in Vanuatu use it extensively in grazed pastures under coconuts. It is adapted to the humid tropics with no or only a short dry season, and grows best in soils with high organic matter. Its feeding value is slightly lower than that of B. humidicola. 'Vanuatu' produces no viable seed but is easily propagated by stolons. Here grown with 'Amarillo'.It is an annual, twining legume which may be used as a cover crop or fallow species. Its adaptation is similar to that of Macroptilium gracile (see below). In Thailand it is used for making hay.It is a short-lived (3-4 years), small woody shrub which is very similar to Desmodium cinerea (previously D. rensonii). 'Belize' grows best in the wet tropics and can tolerate waterlogging. It is a long-lived, large woody shrub. 'Chumphon' is the most leafy and productive variety available. F. macrophylla is one of the very few shrub legumes which will grow well on very infertile, acid soils. It is best suited to the wet tropics. Leaves are not readily eaten by animals, since they contain high levels of tannins. Goats will eat leaves of F. macrophylla if they are mixed with other feed. Cut branches are useful for improving soil fertility, since leaves break down slowly in the soil.'Maldonado' is a short-lived (1-2 years), twining legume that is particularly vigorous for the first few months after sowing. It is an excellent short-term cover crop and can be used for grazing in mixtures with grasses. 'Maldonado' can be grown in a wide range of soils, including infertile and sandy soils. A special feature is that it survives waterlogging and short-term flooding. It is a fast growing, short-lived (3-5 years), single-stemmed tree.It is a high-quality feed supplement, especially for the dry season, but leaf yields are low. It is well adapted to areas with a long dry season but needs moderate soil fertility. 'Turi' dies if the main stem is cut but side branches can be trimmed regularly. Local varieties are available in many parts of Southeast Asia.A very hardy short-lived (1-2 years) legume for heavily grazed plots in areas with a long dry season. In northeast Thailand it has been oversown along roadsides and vacant areas.","tokenCount":"5077"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"06084c8535cba6e911475d55f7f2a55d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4f9f4229-f2c0-4056-9104-0e4d0d67f0f8/retrieve","id":"1532920061"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1041a827-2d27-47d1-b6ea-ad1e81bfa3ea","pagecount":"4","content":"Adapting dairy market hubs for pro-poor smallholder value chains in Tanzania Suitable organizational models have been lacking to • facilitate collective action for bulking of milk, entry to milk markets and access to inputs and services while increasing the capacity of poor cattle keepers to innovate, manage risk, reduce vulnerability, increase their incomes and ensure food security.Dairying offers opportunities for rural livelihoods and nutritional security, particularly in societies already having a tradition of cattle-keeping. Perhaps uniquely amongst agricultural pathways out of poverty, it offers many pro-poor benefits from small-scale production and marketing. These include opportunities for intensification and enhanced productivity and incomes, employment in services and marketing, and nutrition both for the smallholder household and the poor in towns and cities served by informal markets. Unlike most crop and livestock enterprises, its benefits throughout the value chain are generated daily rather than seasonally. In many cases especially in short value chains, benefits flow disproportionately to women, the landless, and other marginalized groups, an issue that has to be addressed with increasing commercialization.Many of the past and ongoing dairy development efforts in Tanzania, however, have targeted high potential areas with better-off smallholder farms able to supply sufficient, steady quantities of milk to justify establishing a processing plant.Our proposed project will target areas where resourcepoor pre-commercial men and women cattle keepers live, to provide proof-of-concept that such marginalized groups can also be targeted successfully. These households generally sell small volumes to a variety of markets and on an irregular basis (Table 1), and hence their descriptor as 'pre-commercial'. Few dairy development models have been documented that successfully target such households for sustainable increases in productivity and improvements in livelihoods. Nor are the modest levels of production conducive to creating economiesInclusive growth and reduced poverty and vulnerability among dairy dependent livelihoods in relevant rural areas in Tanzania.Rural poor are more income secure through enhanced access to demand-led dairy market business services and viable organizational options, and low-income consumers have better access to affordable milk.These aims are to be achieved through a major 5-year project with research-for-development objectives to: Inform policy on appropriate roles for pro-poor This project is primarily targeted at pre-commercial marginalized smallholder cattle-keeping men and women who do not currently participate fully in dairy value chains. The goal is to use the DMH approach to allow them to 'grow' towards greater participation. Most emphasis is expected to be on sedentary smallholders rather than pastoralists given that the migratory nature of pastoral production systems is not conducive to developing stationary milk hubs.However, there will be potential spill-overs in terms of pastoralists' access to services provided through businesses-including from animal healthcare BDS providers-that the project will aim to strengthen.of scale and other factors needed for cost-effective provision of inputs and services. As these households generally operate in informal milk markets, they are also subject to considerable risks, particularly with respect to prices, feed sources and animal health. As a result, these households are not able to invest in improving their productivity or to participate fully in the market. These organizational challenges for emerging dairy farmers have been addressed elsewhere in East Africa by 'dairy market hubs' (DMH) which are localized groups of smaller producers with common interests in accessing inputs (feed, breeding, animal health) and services (training, credit), as a means to achieve a critical mass of supply. Unlike formal systems supplying (often distant) processing plants, hubs tend to serve nearby communities, towns, and urban markets, drawing on local service providers. The pooled production of the hub offers an attractive volume of milk for traditional traders and formal sector collectors. Hubs can also become the focus for specific technologies (feed processing and storage, milk chilling plants. Such organizational forms targeting pre-commercial dairy farmers have not been tested in Tanzania, and the factors affecting the success of their establishment and sustainable operation there remain unknown.DMH are collective arrangements for dairy producers that aim to stimulate bulking of milk, facilitating both entry to milk markets and access to inputs and services. This is a marketdriven model whereby marketed volumes of milk attract entrepreneurs, whose services might be guided to achieve public health and organizational goals (so-called Business Development Services [BDS] models). DMH provide physical and organizational platforms that help increase the capacity of poor cattle keepers to innovate, manage risk, reduce vulnerability, increase their incomes and ensure food security.The proposed research will inform the introduction of DMH in Tanzania, including DMH-related innovations and commercialization that may or may not involve chilling plants depending on available milk volumes. We are particularly conscious that different situations often call for different solutionsrather than the one-size-fits-all approach that often informs establishment of dairy processing plants with the expectation that emerging resource-poor dairy farmers will respond to the opportunity and begin supplying milk to it. The existing low utilization rates of processing capacity and participationOutcome Mapping to achieve a joint vision for both the inception and research for development phases of the project, and hence establish communication, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation plans including provision for workshops to review progress. This will ensure a common vision and understanding among the partners of approaches, concepts and objectives, as well as outcome, implementation, communication, and monitoring strategies and tools. The framework can form the basis for project evaluations and impact assessment; Improve quality assurance services: • TDB, under its mandate to coordinate and regulate the development of the industry by involving all stakeholders, will be supported to undertake this activity, to expand its quality assurance and related services through BDS, liaising with local govern ment authorities as their agents. Given its central convening role of dairy industry stakeholders and promotion of dairy development in Tanzania, TDB will play a central role in communicating project outputs. Lessons from Kenya and Uganda on similar activities will help inform this activity; Initiate process to strengthen actors and their organizations: • Successful policy-oriented research is usually under pinned by effective communication and involves relevant policy actors in the research process. The main policy issues that have been highlighted are: a) weak institutions that, given their nascent nature, are unable to accomplish their mandates in governing the dominant informal sector; and b) an overregulated formal sector that processors claim stifles their growth and denies the industry the benefits of vertical integration. We expect to proactively use policy-oriented research findings from Output 1 to refine such policy issues and initiate steps to address them with the involvement of relevant actors.To enable learning, contrasting sites reflecting a range of contexts and implications for alternative models of DMH and value chains will be identified based on an evidence-based site selection process. A site selection tool and criteria will be agreed based on factors such as milk flows, access to markets, potential for collective action, predominantly sedentary producers vs. agro-pastoralists, and availability of related development activities. The project will seek to maximize positive interactions and synergies with existing dairy value chain research and/or development initiatives.The project will be managed by ILRI and implemented with Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) and Tanzania Dairy Board (TDB). A steering committee (SC) will be formed with membership composed of representatives from organizations implementing the project, key public and private sector organizations in Tanzania and farmers' organizations.To ensure these longer-term objectives can be achieved, an initial 1-year inception phase is proposed with the specific objectives to:Assess the current status of the Tanzanian dairy sector Current status of the Tanzanian dairy sector assessed and appropriate entry points and partners identified to promote more pro-poor development orientation Understand policy environment • : Conduct situational and sector-wide analysis based on available methodological tools to understand the policy environment and institutional frameworks for smallholder dairy producers; Consult and sensitize stakeholders.A major stakeholder event will be conducted at the onset of the project to listen to a wide range of views on how the project should proceed, given the pro-poor focus; Develop and implement value chain assessment tool • : Characterize and analyse value chains and stakeholders to identify their constraints and requirements including consumer preferences, opportunities for upgrading and expansion, associated risks, environmental threats and barriers to participation by poor men and women.Develop a pro-poor strategy to strengthen policy envi ronment.We will engage key stakeholders in activities such as We will survey panels of smallholder dairy households at selected sites to establish a baseline for key household, livelihood, produc tion and sales indicators, and for constraints. This would be supplemented by appraisal of market actors serving the smallholder dairy households (including input suppliers and milk marketing agents) to assess baseline market landscape, performance and constraints. The data generated will be used to monitor pilot project impact. It will also play a central role in determining which technical and institutional interventions the project implements at each site. Partnerships with Irish researchers and institutions will be explored to support components of the analysis; Develop best-bet options for pilot interventions:Based on a review of best practices and successes and failures related to pro-poor development including the results from the sectoral analysis, baseline and value chain assessments, a participatory process will be implemented and recommendations developed for pilot interventions to be undertaken after Year 1. Once a go-ahead is obtained from Irish Aid, a search for a development partner will be undertaken and a proposal developed together to agree on choices and formats/service/client types for DMH, and their establishment. ","tokenCount":"1555"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"500ad8cbcab16d0558ae9bd149fd0cc5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/eff8aa6e-6361-4f14-8567-a06e4aa649a8/retrieve","id":"-1100054942"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"81ef23d7-6159-4222-94c4-9492b325ef45","pagecount":"1","content":"Kenya's dairy industry contributes to 14% of agricultural GDP and 3.5% of the total GDP. Aspergillus fungi contaminate crops before harvest or postharvest and produce aflatoxins. Aflatoxin contaminated food/feed cause direct economic lossess (when the food/feed is unfit for consumption) and indirect economic losses due to acute and chronic aflatoxicosis in humans and dairy cattle.Several studies have reported a high prevalence of aflatoxins in maize, dairy feeds and milk in Kenya. The overall goal of the present study is to assess the economic costs of aflatoxins in Kenyan dairy value chain.16 June 2014, Helsinki, Finland. FoodAfrica midterm seminarDaniel Senerwa 1,2 Nadhem Mtimet 1 Johanna Lindahl 1 Erastus Kang'ethe 2 and Delia Grace  Five study sites were selected from four agro-ecological zones:Kwale County (sub-humid), Isiolo County (semi-arid), Tharaka Nithi (humid), Kisii (temperate), and Bungoma (temperate). A questionnaire was administered to dairy farmers, milk traders, milk consumers, feed traders, and feed manufacturers. Samples of milk, foods and feeds were collected. The samples are being analysed for aflatoxins M1, B1, and total aflatoxin using ELISA and HPLC.The total aflatoxin exposure per day in humans and dairy cattle will be used to calculate aflatoxin costs. The aflatoxin human health costs will be calculated using the formula of Rico-Sole (2012). There is need to assess the costs of aflatoxins in the Kenyan dairy value chain and suggest economically viable and socially acceptable mitigation strategies that could be followed to reduce aflatoxin contamination of foods and feeds.The results could help policymakers and the Kenya Dairy Board to implement strategies that allow the control of aflatoxin contamination in milk.","tokenCount":"262"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cb49f5427d36efaed8e1c9cbec36d950","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/f80a59cd-da55-4203-be81-0ca6d2afdba0/content","id":"-862466407"},"keywords":["heading","maturity","wheat","adaptation","GWAS","multi-environments"],"sieverID":"ec2af519-1ac1-444d-a8cc-ca7e67cbc5b6","pagecount":"13","content":"Spring bread wheat adaptation to diverse environments is supported by various traits such as phenology and plant architecture. A large-scale genome-wide association study (GWAS) was designed to investigate and dissect the genetic architecture of phenology affecting adaptation. It used 48 datasets from 4,680 spring wheat lines. For 8 years (2014-2021), these lines were evaluated for days to heading (DH) and maturity (DM) at three sites: Jabalpur, Ludhiana, and Samastipur (Pusa), which represent the three major Indian wheat-producing zones: the Central Zone (CZ), North-Western Plain Zone (NWPZ), and North-Eastern Plain Zone (NEPZ), respectively. Ludhiana had the highest mean DH of 103.8 days and DM of 148.6 days, whereas Jabalpur had the lowest mean DH of 77.7 days and DM of 121.6 days. We identified 119 markers significantly associated with DH and DM on chromosomes 5B (76), 2B (18), 7D (10), 4D (8), 5A (1), 6B (4), 7B (1), and 3D (1). Our results clearly indicated the importance of the photoperiod-associated gene (Ppd-B1) for adaptation to the NWPZ and the Vrn-B1 gene for adaptation to the NEPZ and CZ. A maximum variation of 21.1 and 14% was explained by markers 2B_56134146 and 5B_574145576 linked to the Ppd-B1 and Vrn-B1 genes, respectively, indicating their significant role in regulating DH and DM. The results provide important insights into the genomic regions associated with the two phenological traits that influence adaptation to the major wheat-producing zones in India.Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the most important food crops in the world, consumed by about 40% of the world's population (Gupta et al., 2008). It provides about 20% of the daily protein and calories requirements for 4.5 billion people worldwide (Wright et al., 2021). Over 776.5 million tons of wheat was produced globally in 2021 (FAO, 2022). In India, wheat production touched a milestone output of 109.5 million tons in 2021 with a record nationwide average productivity of 3.42 t/ha. 1 However, population growth, dietary changes, social and policy issues, the recent impact of COVID-19, and global unrest have increased the demand for staple foods such as wheat. Wheat yield is increasing by 0.9% per year, which is significantly lower than the required rate of ∼2.4% per year by 2050 (Ray et al., 2013). In addition, the present trends in wheat production are insufficient to feed the population of 9 billion people predicted for 2050 (Curtis and Halford, 2014;Aslam et al., 2022).Without effective selection of adapted plants and genetic improvement, a global decrease of 6% in wheat production is estimated for 1 • C increase in temperature (Zhao et al., 2017). The performance of a wheat variety is measured by its adaptability and yield potential under target environments, which is dependent on the genetic and environmental factors as well as the interaction between these factors. Wheat cultivation across the globe under different environmental and climatic conditions requires cultivar adaptability to a wide range of growing conditions. This adaptation is achieved by variations in phenology and related traits that affect plant architecture (Hyles et al., 2020). Wheat heading, flowering time, plant stature, and maturity time are important phenological and agronomic traits for adaptation, yield potential, and yield stability. The major genes affecting wheat adaptation include those associated with phenology and plant architecture, such as vernalization (Vrn), photoperiod (Ppd), earliness per se (Eps), and reduced height (Rht), in addition to other minor-effect loci.Heading time is a vital component of wheat phenology under a complex genetic control. Timely heading is critical for the production to avoid late-season stresses, mainly terminal heat (Joshi et al., 2007). However, this stress can manifest itself at an early stage (Kumar et al., 2021). Three gene groups, including Vrn, Ppd, and Eps, have a major influence on heading and flowering time of wheat (Snape et al., 2001;Distelfeld et al., 2009;Kumar et al., 2012;Khumalo et al., 2017). Early studies reported that the switch from vegetative to reproductive development is promoted by the prolonged cold temperatures of winter (vernalization) (Chouard, 1960). Unlike winter types, spring wheats require little-to-no environmental inducement for flowering. Vernalization requirement is typically combined with day-length-responsive flowering, such that plants that have vernalized over winter will flower rapidly as days subsequently lengthen in spring (Chouard, 1960). Vernalization occurs most rapidly at 4.9 • C and requires temperatures between −1.3 and 15.7 • C (Porter and Gawith, 1999).The vernalization requirement of wheat is controlled by the Vrn1 genes located on the long arm of chromosomes 5A, 5B, and 5D (Snape et al., 2001). The Vrn1 gene is the wheat ortholog of the meristem identity gene APETALA1 from Arabidopsis thaliana and plays an important role in floral development by triggering early flowering when expressed at high levels (Yan et al., 2003). It is expressed in both leaves and shoots, and the accumulation of Vrn1 transcripts in the shoot apex is associated with the switch to reproductive development. The vernalization-insensitive alleles 1 https://eands.dacnet.nic.in/ of Vrn1 (Vrn-A1, Vrn-B1, and Vrn-D1) shorten both the vegetative and the reproductive/maturity stages (Snape et al., 2001). The Vrn2 gene is a repressor of flowering that plays a key role in blocking the long-day flowering response before winter (Yan et al., 2004). The third gene (Vrn3), which can reduce the vernalization requirement of wheat, was identified to be completely linked to a gene similar to the Arabidopsis FLOWERING LOCUS T (Yan et al., 2006). The Vrn4 found in ancient wheat subspecies accessions from South Asia is located on chromosome 5DS and plays a role in local adaptation (Kippes et al., 2015).Spring wheat can also have varying levels of sensitivity to day length. Day-length-insensitive spring cultivars can progress to the terminal spikelet stage and flower rapidly, even on short days. Photoperiod sensitivity to day length is largely determined by alleles of the photoperiod-1 (Ppd-1) genes located on chromosomes 2A, 2B, and 2D (Keim et al., 1973). Plants having an increased copy number of Ppd-B1 and Vrn-A1 alleles (Vrn-A1, Vrn-B1, and Vrn-D1) flowered early and showed increased vernalization requirement, respectively, suggesting that copy number variation is important for the adaptation of wheat (Díaz et al., 2012). Alleles of Ppd-D1 (PPD-D1a, PPD-B1a, and PPD-A1a) that confer a strong insensitivity to day length are associated with rapid flowering under all day-length conditions (Wilhelm et al., 2009;Díaz et al., 2012;Bentley et al., 2013). Alleles of Ppd-1 that are associated with reduced day-length sensitivity are also associated with an increased rate of spikelet development and decreased spike fertility (Prieto et al., 2018). A recent study attributed a shorter duration of pre-anthesis stem elongation and a decreased number of fertile florets to Ppd-D1a, highlighting the scope for increased yield potential by selection for photoperiodsensitive alleles (Pérez-Gianmarco et al., 2019). Genes that influence the duration of the wheat life cycle under conditions where vernalization and photoperiod requirements have been met are described as \"Earliness per se\" (Eps) genes (Snape et al., 2001). Ochagavía et al. (2019) reported that allelic differences at the Eps-D1 gene on chromosome 1D conferred differing levels of sensitivity to temperature; earliness was associated with an increased sensitivity to temperature during the late reproductive phase of development in hexaploid wheat.Understanding the genetic basis of phenology and other adaptive traits in spring bread wheat is important for developing varieties adapted to various environmental conditions and stresses. In this regard, a genome-wide association study (GWAS) is a high resolution and an approach to dissect the genetic basis of complex traits. It is preferred over linkage mapping because it accounts for greater allelic diversity at a given locus and exploits the ancestral recombination events that have occurred in an existing diversity panel (landraces, elite cultivars, and advanced breeding lines) at the population level (Yu and Buckler, 2006;Zhu et al., 2008;Ingvarsson and Street, 2011;Waugh et al., 2014;Scherer and Christensen, 2016). Another advantage of GWAS is that they use available germplasm and bypass the time-consuming process of developing segregating populations. Moreover, QTL mapping by bi-parental populations focuses on specific traits, whereas a wider range of germplasm can be used in GWAS to phenotype many traits with one cycle of genotyping (Li et al., 2019). GWASs are more efficient and require less effort in analyzing complex traits under various environmental conditions (George and Cavanagh, 2015). They have been used successfully to dissect several complex traits in wheat (Breseghello and Sorrells, 2006;Crossa et al., 2007;Yu et al., 2011;Maccaferri et al., 2015;Sukumaran et al., 2015;Juliana et al., 2019Juliana et al., , 2021)). While few GWASs in wheat have identified genomic regions associated with phenological traits including heading and maturity (Zhang et al., 2018;Gahlaut et al., 2021;Muhammad et al., 2021), a comprehensive study to dissect the genetic architecture of these traits in multiple wheat production zones has not been reported. A total of 43 SNPs (single-nucleotide polymorphisms) were consistently detected, including seven across multiple environments by ML-GWAS (Muhammad et al., 2021). Nine significant marker-trait associates were identified for days to anthesis under drought stress by Gahlaut et al. (2021). Hence, the main objective of this study was to use GWAS to identify consistently significant marker-trait associations for heading and maturity, affecting the adaptation of spring bread wheat to three major zones of India where wheat is cultivated in about 25 mha under diverse environmental and management conditions.A total of 4,680 advanced breeding lines from eight South Asia Bread Wheat Genomic Prediction Yield Trial (SABWGPYT) panels were evaluated in eight consecutive crop cycles between 2014 and 2021. In each crop cycle, about 540-600 different genotypes including six high-yielding checks were planted in two replications at the research stations of the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) in the three main wheat-growing regions of India: (1) Ludhiana, Punjab [30 • 59 N, 75 • 44 E, representing the North-Western Plain Zone (NWPZ)], (2) Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh [23 • 22 N, 80 • 07 E, representing the Central Zone (CZ)], and (3) Pusa, Samastipur, Bihar [25 • 95 N, 85 • 66 E, representing the North-Eastern Plain Zone (NEPZ)]. The panels were named by the site where they were evaluated followed by the harvest year (e.g., Jabalpur panel, 2014;Ludhiana panel, 2014;Pusa panel, 2014).The lines were planted in an alpha lattice design (Patterson et al., 1978) during the optimum planting time (the second to third week of November at each location), and they received an optimum irrigation of about 500 mm of water in total from five or more irrigations. The whole experiment was divided into 10 trials with 60 entries per trial, except panel 2014 and panel 2021 (nine trials with 60 entries each). Each replicate was divided into six sub-blocks of 10 plots. The plot size was 5.016 m 2 , and the lines were sown in six rows, 22 cm apart and 3.8 m in length. Field trials were managed by standard agronomic practices recommended for the location. 2 Fertilizer was applied as 150 N/60 P/40 K kg ha −1 at Ludhiana andThe lines at all the sites were evaluated for Days to heading (DH) and days to maturity (DM) using alpha lattice design of field experiment. DH are counted visually as the number of days from planting until 50% of the spikes are visible through the flag leaf sheath. Similarly, DM was recorded as the number of days from planting to the day when 50% of the main tiller peduncles became entirely visible. In each of the 24 environments (three sites and eight panels), the best linear unbiased estimates (BLUEs) for DH and DM were obtained across replications using the META-R v6.03 software (Alvarado et al., 2020). The DH and DM were used as random effects while performing the analysis. Visualization of the trait distributions was performed using the \"R\" package \"ggplot2\" (Wickham, 2009).For the two traits, we also obtained the following statistical measures using the META-R v6.03 software: (i) broad-sense heritabilities across replications to understand the selection response, (ii) coefficients of variation for each dataset to understand whether the field trial was well conducted, (iii) the least significant differences between genotypes for comparison and selection of the best genotypes, (iv) variance components including the genotypic variance and residual variance within each dataset to understand what proportion of the variance can be attributed to the genotypes, (v) genotypic and phenotypic correlations across sites, (vi) biplot based on the genetic correlations showing the relationship between the sites, and (vii) the variance components to understand whether there was a significant difference between the genotypes and sites. Heritability (h2) was estimated following Nyquist (1991) Genotyping data for all the eight SABWGPYT panels used in this study were obtained using the genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) method (Poland et al., 2012). We estimated the SNPs using the Trait Analysis by Association Evolution and Linkage (TASSEL) version 5 GBS pipeline (Glaubitz et al., 2014). This was followed by SNP discovery at a minor allele frequency of 0.01, and the resulting GBS tags were aligned to the reference sequence of bread wheat version 1.0 (RefSeq v1.0) using Bowtie (Langmead and Salzberg, 2012). The tags were then filtered using p-values from Fisher's exact test, inbred coefficient, and chisquare as described in Juliana et al. (2021), and over 80,000 SNPs that passed at least one of these filters were obtained. We removed the markers that had greater than 50% missing data, less than 5% minor allele frequency, and greater than 10% heterozygosity. In addition, we also removed the lines with greater than 90% missing data in each panel. We obtained the following number of filtered markers and lines for GWAS: (i) panel 2014: 481 lines and 18,351 markers, (ii) panel 2015: 582 lines and 17,764 markers, (iii) panel 2016: 583 lines and 17,094 markers, (iv) panel 2017: 529 lines and 17,620 markers, (v) panel 2018: 540 lines and 16,152 markers, (vi) panel 2019: 528 lines and 16,771 markers, (vii) panel 2020: 540 lines and 16,709 markers, and (viii) panel 2021: 491 lines and 17,851 markers. Marker imputation was performed using Beagle version 4.1 (Browning and Browning, 2016).We performed GWAS for DH and DM in all the 24 datasets for each trait using the mixed linear model (Yu et al., 2006) in TASSEL version 5 (Bradbury et al., 2007). The model was fitted using population structure as a fixed effect and kinship as a random effect, which were accounted for using the first two principal components (Patterson et al., 2006;Price et al., 2006) and the genomic relationship matrix obtained using the centered identity-by-state method (Endelman and Jannink, 2012), respectively. In addition, we used the optimum level of compression and the \"population parameters previously determined\" (Zhang et al., 2010) options for fitting the mixed linear model. We obtained the p-values for the tests of significance of the marker and trait associations, the additive effects of the markers, and the percentage of variation explained by them. The GWAS results were visualized using Manhattan plots using the \"R\" package \"CMplot\" (Lilin, 2018). Correction for multiple testing was performed using the Bonferroni correction at an α level of 0.20, and the markers which had p-values lower than the cut-off level (ranging between 1.09E-05 and 1.24E-05 in the different panels) were considered to be significant. In addition, we also obtained markers that were (i) consistently significant in more than one site that could indicate the markers associated with broad adaptation to different sites and (ii) associated with DH and maturity, which could provide insights into the genomic regions that were associated with both these phenological traits. The markers that were significant in more than one dataset were then plotted on a reference map using \"Phenogram.\" 3Large and continuous variation was observed for the phenological traits in all three environments from 2014 to 2021 for the 4,680 advanced breeding lines (Table 1 and Figure 1). For DH, the phenotypic Pearson correlations across locations ranged from 0.46 (panel 2017 between Pusa and Ludhiana) to 0.84 (panel 2021 between Pusa and Jabalpur) (Table 2). Similarly, for DM, it ranged from 0.31 (panel 2014 between Pusa and Ludhiana) to 0.72 (panel 2019 between Pusa and Jabalpur). Positive phenotypic correlations ranged from 0.32 to 0.85 between DH and DM between locations. We also observed moderate-to-strong genetic correlations ranging from 0.56 (panel 2017 between Pusa and Jabalpur) to 0.92 (panel 2020 between Pusa and Jabalpur) for DH and from 0.45 (panel 2021 between Pusa and Ludhiana) to 0.83 (panel 2020 between Pusa and Jabalpur) for DM (Table 3). Dendrograms and biplots showing the genetic correlations between different traits in different locations and years were obtained (Supplementary File 1).The variance components of the traits showed that for both DH and DM, the genotypes and sites were significantly different in all the panels (Table 1).Of 23,979 unique GBS markers used in all the panels for GWAS, 23,581 were mapped to the RefSeq v1.0 and their densities within a window size of 10 Mb were obtained (Figure 2). We observed a good coverage of markers on all chromosomes with a high density on the telomeric end of chromosomes such as 4AL, 6A, 6DS, 7AS, and 7BS. The highest number of markers was on chromosomes 7A (2,227 markers) and 2B (2,148 markers), but the lowest on chromosomes 5D (296 markers), 4D (401 markers), 6D (445 markers), 1D (453 markers), and 3D (454 markers). A plot of the first two principal components in the eight panels indicated a weak-to-moderate population structure (Figure 3). The% variation explained by principal component analysis in each panel from 2014 to 2021 is given in Table 4.We performed GWAS for DH and DM using 48 datasets and obtained the p-values, additive effects, and the percentage variation explained by each of the markers in the different panels (Supplementary File 2). After Bonferroni's correction for multiple testing, we obtained 222 markers that were associated with the traits in the different datasets (Supplementary File 3). Among them, 119 markers were significant in at least two datasets and were considered as consistent significant markers (Supplementary File 4). The highest numbers of these markers were on chromosome 5B (76). The markers significantly associated with DH and DM in the different sites and panels are described in the following.In Jabalpur, among the 101 markers significantly associated with DH, 43 markers (43%) were consistently significant in more than one panel, and they were all on chromosome 5B, between 556185926 and 596948341 bps. The consistent markers had additive effects ranging between 1 and 1.95 days and explained 4.3-12.3% of the variation. Among them, marker 5B_574145576 was significant in the highest number of panels (panels 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021), with additive effects ranging between 1.45 and 1.95 days and explained 7-12.3% of the phenotypic variation. In addition, 58 markers were significantly associated in only one panel in Jabalpur, including 38 markers on chromosome 5B between 447567055 and 689895400 bps, eight markers on chromosome 6B between 185171994 and 229054418 bps, five markers on chromosome 7D between 55486522 and 58633321 bps, and markers 2D_82143828, 3B_777688779, 3D_562906853, 5A_570528289, 5A_580935013, 7A_266640411, and 7B_669973991. In Ludhiana, among the 77 markers significantly associated with DH, only seven markers (9.1%) were consistently associated in more than one panel which were all on chromosome 2B, between 53667024 and 59584538 bps. These consistent markers had additive effects ranging between 0.7 and 2.1 days and explained 4.6-21.1% of the phenotypic variation. Among them, marker 2B_56134146 was significant in the highest number of panels (panels 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2021), with additive effects ranging between 0.95 and 2.1 days and explained 4.9-21.1% of the phenotypic variation. We also observed that 70 markers were significantly associated with DH in Ludhiana in one dataset only, which included 27 markers on chromosome 2B, 14 markers on chromosome 7B, 11 markers on chromosome 4D, 10 markers on chromosome 7D, four markers on chromosome 5B, and markers 3A_21112167, 3D_56844252, 4A_684814200, and 7A_174693955.In Pusa, among the 88 markers significantly associated with DH, 68 markers (77.3%) were consistently associated in more than one panel which were all on chromosome 5B between 549777627 and 596948341 bps. These consistent markers had additive effects ranging between 1 and 2.8 days and explained 4.3-14.1% of the phenotypic variation. We also observed that six markers (5B_574145576, 5B_575270556, 5B_576348143, 5B_586610468, 5B_586805570, and 5B_586862827) were significant in five panels and they had additive effects ranging between 1.2 and 2.7 days and explained 4.5-14.1% of the variation. In addition, 20 markers were significantly associated with DH in one panel only in Pusa, including 16 markers on chromosome 5B between 549730988 and 610372912 bps   and markers 5A_481889948, 5A_580935013, 6A_559740187, and 7B_653976952.In Jabalpur, among the 67 markers significantly associated with DM, only five markers (7.5%) were consistently significant in more than one panel. This included markers 5B_574145576, 5B_575270556, 5B_592792409, 5B_594614262, and 5B_594913947 that had additive effects ranging between 1 and 1.8 days and explained 4.5-9.5% of the phenotypic variation. Marker 5B_574145576 was significant in the highest number of panels (panels 2018, 2020, and 2021) and had additive effects ranging between 1.4 and 1.75 days and explained 4.6-9.5% of the phenotypic variation. Furthermore, the 62 markers were associated with DM in Jabalpur in one panel only, which included 36 markers on chromosome 5B between 550910513 and 595649946 bps, nine markers on chromosome 7D, eight markers on chromosome 6B, two markers on chromosomes 7A and 7B each, and five markers on other chromosomes. In Ludhiana, among the 49 markers significantly associated with DM in the different panels after correction for multiple testing, only one marker (2%) was consistently significant in more than one panel. This marker (2B_56134146) had additive effects ranging between 0.6 and 1.4 days and explained 4.4-11.4% of the phenotypic variation. The 48 markers were significantly associated with DM in one panel only in Ludhiana, which included 18 markers on chromosome 2B, 11 markers on chromosome 7A, eight markers on chromosome 4D, five markers on chromosome 7D, two markers each on chromosomes 3A and 3D, and markers 1D_189345725 and 5B_601867021. In Pusa, among the 11 markers significantly associated with DM in the different panels after correction for multiple testing, only one marker (9%) was consistently significant in more than one panel. This marker (5B_574145576) had additive effects ranging between 0.95 and 1.1 days and explained 4.7-6.4% of the phenotypic variation. In addition, we also observed that 10 markers were significantly associated with DM in Pusa in one panel only.We observed that three markers (5B_562646635, 5B_569889755, and 5B_574145576) were significantly associated with DH in all the three sites (Figures 4-6) and they explained 4.3-4.7, 4.4-9.7, and 5.2-14.07% of the phenotypic variation in different sites, respectively. In addition, marker 5A_580935013 and 72 markers on chromosome 5B between 549730988 and 597098833 bps were associated with DH in Jabalpur and Pusa. These markers had additive effects ranging between 1 and 2.8 days in Jabalpur and between 1 and 4.4 days in Pusa and explained 4.3-10.3 and 4.3-13% of the phenotypic variation in Jabalpur and Pusa, respectively. Three markers on chromosome 7D including 7D_55920290, 7D_57904794, and 7D_58369927 were significantly associated with DH in Jabalpur and Ludhiana. These markers had additive effects ranging between 0.94 and 0.99 days in Jabalpur and 0.87 and 0.96 days in Ludhiana, while they explained 4.8-6.6 and 4.9-6.2% of the phenotypic variation in Jabalpur and Ludhiana, respectively. Quantilequantile plots demonstrating the ratios of expected to observe log10 (P) values for DH and DM at each location are presented in Supplementary File 5.We observed that markers 5B_574145576 and 7D_55486522 were associated with DM in Jabalpur and Pusa. Among them, marker 5B_574145576 had additive effects ranging from 1.2 to 1.8 days in Jabalpur and 0.95 to 1.1 days in Pusa and explained 4.6 to 9.5% and 4.7 to 6.4% of the phenotypic variation in Jabalpur and Pusa, respectively. The other marker (7D_55486522) had additive effects of 1.1 and 0.66 days in Jabalpur and Pusa, respectively, and it explained 4.8 and 5% of the phenotypic variation in these sites. Furthermore, three markers on 7D (7D_55529933, 7D_55920290, and 7D_57904794) were found to be significantly associated in Jabalpur and Ludhiana. These markers had additive effects ranging from 1.06 to 1.1 days in Jabalpur and 0.67 to 0.68 days in Ludhiana, while they explained 4.7 to 5.2% and 4.7 to 5.5% of the phenotypic variation in Jabalpur and Ludhiana, respectively.Eighty-four markers were significantly associated with both traits DH and DM in different sites and panels (Figures 4-6) including 41 markers on chromosome 5B (between 557138254 and 595649946 bps), 18 markers on chromosome 2B (between 43232877 and 59584538 bps), 10 markers on chromosome 7D (between 55446953, and 58633321 bps), eight markers on chromosome 4D (between 108499424 and 368596770 bps), four markers on chromosome 6B (between 186319977 and 224585504 bps), and one marker each on chromosomes 3D, 5A, and 7B.We have analyzed the variation in DH and DM in three main wheat-producing zones in India, including Ludhiana, representing the NWPZ, Jabalpur, representing the CZ and Pusa, representing the NEPZ. We observed that across all the panels, the mean DH was the highest in Ludhiana (103.8 ± 6 days) and lowest in Jabalpur (77.7 ± 6.7 days), while the mean DM were the highest in Ludhiana (148.6 ± 4.6 days) and lowest in Jabalpur (121.6 ± 4.9). This could be because of local weather conditions, mainly temperature which remains cooler in the northwest India where Punjab (Ludhiana) is located compared with central India which has the state of Madhya Pradesh (Jabalpur). Among the three sites, the mean broad-sense heritabilities for DH were higher in Ludhiana (0.93 ± 0.03) and Jabalpur (0.84 ± 0.09) than in Pusa (0.85 ± 0.07). The high heritabilities that we have observed, along with the high genetic variance compared with the residual variance in all the sites, indicate the high contribution of genetic factors to the phenological traits in the panels and environments analyzed in this study. Our analysis of variance results across sites indicated that both the genotypes and sites were significantly different for both the phenological traits, which indicates the variable performance of the genotypes  in the different sites and also the environmental differences in these sites. Our results also indicated that among the three sites, the highest phenotypic correlation for DH (0.69 ± 0.15) and DM (0.61 ± 0.08) was between Pusa and Jabalpur, while the lower correlation was between Pusa and Ludhiana (0.59 ± 0.09, 0.52 ± 0.13) for DH and DM, respectively. This could be due to the fact that wheat-growing seasons at Pusa and Jabalpur are warmer and about 2-3 weeks shorter than Ludhiana. The shorter crop duration at Pusa and Jabalpur had effect on phenological traits such as DH and DM. However, Pusa is more humid compared with Jabalpur and Ludhiana.We performed GWAS for DH and DM and reported 222 markers significantly associated with the traits in different spring bread wheat panels. On chromosome 2BL, several markers between 43232877 and 59584538 bps were significantly associated with both heading and maturity in Ludhiana with additive effects ranging between 0.62 and 2.1 days. Among them, marker 2B_56134146 that was significant in seven datasets was the closest marker to the Ppd-B1 gene (0.10 Mbs away) and is therefore linked to the gene. However, we also observed that the Ppd-B1 gene was associated with the phenological traits in only Ludhiana representing the NWPZ and not the other sites,  indicating that it contributes to specific adaptation to this zone. Díaz et al. (2012) showed that alleles of Ppd-B1 (along with Vrn-A1) were associated with an increased copy number of both genes and resulted in earlier flowering (Ppd-B1a) or increased vernalization requirements (Vrn-A1w). These results, along with a separate study in durum (Würschum et al., 2019), suggest that copy number variation is important for the adaptation of wheat.On chromosome 4D, we have identified markers between 61853654 and 368596770 bps associated with both DH and DM in Ludhiana with additive effects ranging between 0.2 and 1.6 days. Among them, marker 4D_368596770 was very close to the Vrn-D2 gene (within 141 kb) and appears to indicate a novel locus. Marker 5A_580935013 on 5AL in panel 2016 was associated with DH in Jabalpur and Pusa and DM in Jabalpur. This marker had the additive effects ranging between 2 and 4.4 days and is linked to the Vrn-A1 gene which is only 6.5 Mbps away. However, possibility of some other genes in that region may not be ruled out. Our results indicate that this gene does not play a major role in the phenology and adaptation to the three major wheatproducing zones of India in the lines and environments used in this study. The Vrn-A1 gene, which is known to play a role in frost tolerance, did not appear important as tested in this study, but has shown an increased frequency of its alleles in winter wheat (Eagles et al., 2011;Zhu et al., 2014). A previous study by Juliana et al. (2019) also did not observe a significant effect of the Vrn-A1 gene on phenology in CIMMYT's advanced spring wheat breeding lines. These results are in contrast to those reported by Santra et al. (2009), which indicated Vrn-A1a as the most frequent allele in spring wheat genotypes from the Pacific Northwest region of the United States.On chromosome 5BL, several markers between 549730988 and 597098833 were associated with DH in six panels in Jabalpur, two in Ludhiana, and five in Pusa. In addition, they were also associated with DM in three panels in Jabalpur and two in Pusa.While the additive effects of the 5B markers ranged between 0.8 and 2.8 days, the marker 5B_574145576 that was significantly associated in 16 datasets was only 0.33 Mbs away from the Vrn-B1 gene. However, we observed that the Vrn-B1 gene was associated with DH in multiple panels in Jabalpur and Pusa, but only in a few panels in Ludhiana, indicating its strong association with phenology in multiple years at the NEPZ and CZ, compared with the NWPZ of India.On chromosome 6B, markers between 186319977 and 224585504 bps were associated with both heading and maturity in Jabalpur in panel 2015 and suggest a specific adaptation QTL for Jabalpur, with additive effects ranging between 1 and 1.1 days. These markers flank Qcim.6B.5.2 linked to marker S6B_190376868 that was associated with DH in irrigated and drought-stressed environments of Obregon, Mexico (Juliana et al., 2019), and indicate the presence of the same QTL. On chromosome 7BS, markers 7B_8219840 and 7B_11773800 that were associated with DM in Jabalpur and Pusa with additive effects ranging between 0.9 and 1 days flanked the Vrn-B3 gene but were significant only in panel 2020. On chromosome 7DS, several markers between 55446953 and 58633321 bps were associated with DH and DM in panels 2020 and 2021 in Ludhiana and Jabalpur and DM in only panel 2021 in Pusa and had additive effects ranging between 0.6 and 1.1 days. While marker 7D_58633321 was 9.8 Kbp away from the Vrn-D3 gene and might be indicating this gene, the markers were in the same position as Qcim.7D.2 associated with DM in irrigated and drought-stressed environments in Obregon, Mexico (Juliana et al., 2019).While this study has validated genomic regions associated with DH and maturity in previous studies, we have also reported novel genomic regions not reported previously. The presence of Ppd-B1 genes in all the well-adapted lines of each panel suggests the importance of those genes in NWPZ, while the Vrn-B1 gene is indicated to be contributed to adaptation in the NEPZ and CZ of India. We observed a maximum variation of 21.1 and 14% explained by markers 2B_56134146 and 5B_574145576 associated with the Ppd-B1 and Vrn-B1 genes' regions, respectively, that further provide evidence to their significant role in regulating DH and maturity. We also observed that 9.1-77.3% of the markers significantly associated with DH and 2-9% of the markers significantly associated with DM were significantly associated in more than one panel, indicating a large effect of the years and environments on the traits. In addition, this could also be attributed to different lines with variable allelic frequencies that were present in the different panels and because not all the markers used for GWAS were common across all the panels.The average extent of LD in wheat was approximately 5 × 10 7 bps (Juliana et al., 2018). Therefore, finding association of candidate genes with significant markers is difficult due to the high LD in many chromosomal regions/gene intervals. Extensive LD in wheat that decays at about 5 × 10 7 bps poses a huge challenge for delineating candidate gene intervals, and candidates should be further fine mapped, functionally characterized, and validated (Juliana et al., 2018).The GWAS results for DH indicated that three markers on chromosome 5B (in proximity of Vrn-B1 gene) were constantly significant in all environments, while 72 markers were significant in Jabalpur and Pusa. Similarly, three markers on chromosome 7D were significant in Jabalpur and Ludhiana. This indicates the existence of shared genetic basis for this trait and adaption in different wheat-producing zones of India. However, for DM we observed that no marker was associated with all the three sites, while two to three markers were common between Jabalpur and Pusa, as well as Jabalpur and Ludhiana (Figure 7). While this indicates that there could be a shared genetic basis for DM in these sites, it is also worth highlighting that none of the markers were significantly associated with DM in both Ludhiana and Pusa. Finally, we also observed 84 markers that were associated with both DH and maturity in the different panels and sites with most of them linked to the Ppd-B1 and Vrn-B1 genes indicating the association of these genes with both traits. Adjusting the developmental stages and maturity of wheat through breeding is one of the best ways to develop widely adapted varieties. The combination of Vrn and Ppd genes plays an important role in adaptation to a particular environment. For example, higher productivity is obtained under early sown wheat where mild vernalization gene and relatively significant effect Ppd gene combination is preferred (Farhad et al., 2022). The results of this study are expected to provide valuable insights into the genetic basis of phenology-driven adaptation of bread wheat genotypes in the major wheat-producing zones of India.","tokenCount":"5632"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fc19109ad76ad90db9a996f8830a364a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b85f4038-8518-4f0a-b7d7-486ffa230be8/retrieve","id":"2055745771"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"ebb0a5c0-289a-454a-88dd-c678aa6db929","pagecount":"7","content":"A framework was developed and applied to identify Climate-Smart Food Systems (CSFS) business models in the Latin America (LATAM) region with the potential to implement and scale climate mitigation and resilient practices across several food production systems.Through the analysis, a pipeline of eight highimpact potential companies were identified to facilitate matchmaking with private sector investors.Selected CSFS companies include agroforestry (i.e., coffee and cocoa), regenerative livestock production and silvipastoral systems, with positive impacts on social (e.g., gender and youth) and economic aspects. Some of the most important challenges identified for implementing and scaling CSFS include: 1) access to capital, especially for longterm projects; 2) access to information and technical assistance; and 3) market validation for some products, especially fruits.Regarding technical assistance, focus should be on implementing measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) of emissions, accessing carbon markets and providing guidance for adoption of CSFS practices and project review and discussion for up-and middle-stream companies.The CIAT-CCAFS Impact Assessment Tool showed potential for evaluating CSFS performance of companies (i) potential impact assessment and (ii) additionality of investments regarding mitigation, adaptation and productivity.By 2050, the growing global population will require to approximately 50% more food compared to today's levels (FAO, 2018). Therefore, global food systems will need to become more efficient and sustainable to feed an increasing population, achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and meet the 1.5°C climate target of the Paris Agreement.As climate change affects food systems, governments, food and agriculture companies, and public and private investors need to better identify and address the numerous climate and nature-related risks they face. Some of the biggest core market failures, especially when mobilizing private capital for food systems transformation, as identified in the paper Financing the Transformation of Food Systems Under a Changing Climate, are: 1) a lack of deep pipeline of bankable projects, 2) high investment risk and lack of primary data and information asymmetries, 3) lack of intermediation to efficiently connect different pools of capital to investments.This work aims to help address these core market failures by 1) developing a pipeline of CSFS business models in LATAM that can be matched with a private impact investor;2) informing investors of scalable business models and investment opportunities in LATAM through demonstrating investment viability in sustainable food systems to catalyze more funding to the sector; and3) managing climate related risks and building resilience of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and smallholder farmers by encouraging wide-scale adoption of climate resilient practices.Therefore, the ultimate goal of the project was to develop sustainable food systems that contribute to climate change mitigation (reduced GHG emissions) and adaptation (enhanced resilience) and increase productivity linked to SDGs. It was also expected to form the basis of a framework intended to act as a blueprint for CSFS and low-emissions development (LED) deal matchmaking in the region.Results will inform financial institutions, impact investors and private companies about scalable business models and investment opportunities in LATAM and be closely coordinated with the development of a Climate-Smart Food Systems Fund (CSFS Fund). The fund, a blended finance investment vehicle, will provide long-term expansion for debt financing, coupled with a robust technical assistance package for 35 to 40 SMEs operating in the Asian Pacific, Latin America and Africa that positively contribute to nature, climate change mitigation and adaptation in food systems.Based on the initial investment strategy of the CSFS Fund, the pipeline development focused on identifying growth stage companies (with some allowance for earlystage companies) in the region within the following themes: upstream (sustainable intensification of production), midstream (value addition, efficient processing and logistics), downstream (sustainable and inclusive retail food brands) and enablers (climate technology and solutions provider). The following countries were selected from the group of 21 because of their overall favorable investment environment, agro-attractiveness and impact potential and urgency relative to the others: large size countries -Brazil and Mexico; mid-size countries -Colombia and Peru, small countries -Dominican Republic and Paraguay (Figure 1).  It is worth noting that while Argentina and Chile both showed high opportunity in agriculture productivity, the former was excluded due to high macro-economic investment risk, and the latter excluded for having the lowest relative score for impact potential and urgency. None of the micro-sized countries were selected because of their low or negative GDP growth and CAGR. Once the focus countries were defined, the next step was to select priority value chains. It was done by considering the value-chains potential GHG emission reduction as well as other positive impact on social and economic aspects.1 Fruit harvested from açai palm trees, round, black-purple, similar in appearance to a grape, which are native to South American rainforests.After defining the target countries, we selected priority value chains by considering their potential impacts to mitigate GHG emissions (Figure 2). Following these criteria, this initial assessment focused on four value chains: coffee, cacao, beef and açai berry 1 . These value chains were selected based on their high land use and GHG emissions intensities as well as their capacity to reduce GHG emissions with the introduction of best agronomic practices and avoided deforestationespecially through the adoption of improved animal  à Presumed income between 1 and 20 $ million à Website organic monthly traffic higher than 100 visitors à # employees higher than 30 feeding and nutrient management, agroforestry systems and other perennial crops, and nutrient management (Herrero et al., 2016;Poore & Nemecek, 2018;Roe et al., 2021) (Figure 2).To identify the most impactful CSFS business models, a database of approximately 2,500 companies was developed using an extensive list with information from different sources: (1) recommendations from networks (2) USDA LATAM Organic Certified Exporting Companies Database, (3) Conexsus' database -Brazilian Sustainable Community Business Map, and (4) internet research. Five hundred companies were initially selected from focus countries based on the investment mandate of the CSFS Fund, investment themes, stage of business, value chain prioritized and links to smallholder farmers. This list of 500 companies was then further narrowed down to 60 by evaluating the following aspects: year established, the most recent estimated income (USD), shareholders equity, number of active subsidiaries, number of employees, website monthly traffic and domain authority 2 (Figure 3). Since the project focused on growth stage companies, the following additional criteria was applied: (1) estimated annual income is between USD$ 1 million and USD$ 20 million, (2) website organic monthly traffic is higher than 100 visitors per month, and (3) number of employees is greater than 30 (Figure 3).Half of the 60 selected companies were represented by upstream companies, an investment theme with high impact potential across the region. The other 50% were represented by companies operating at the midstream, downstream and those providing value chain support services (Figure 4). Almost 50% of the companies were in 2 Website data, such as monthly traffic and domain authority, were considered as indicative of the business traction and effective business development and higher business Brazil (Figure 5) and the coffee production value chain, followed by cacao and livestock production (Figure 4).The pipeline was further narrowed down to 24 companies based on three dimensions: their social, environmental and business factors. Social aspects considered: (1) smallholder farmers engagement (e.g., as producers or suppliers), (2) development of social programs for stakeholders (e.g., childcare, feeding programs), and (3) promotion of gender and youth inclusion in the board, management team and employees (Figure 5). These aspects were used as an indicator of the company's commitment to social impact as part of its business strategy. During this stage, environmental impact was evaluated by the type of production system, existence of input optimization programs, provision of ecological services, use of renewable energy sources and presence of emissions reduction programs. Regarding business factors, company turnover, market size, stage of business, investment theme and fundraising requirements such as type of financing and use of funds, were considered (Figure 5). The selected 24 companies had higher impact with smallholder farmer engagement, more structured social programs and participation of youth and women across the organization, sustainable land use practices and an annual revenue of at least USD 1 million.The last evaluation of the 24 companies to select the final eight companies with the highest-impact potential, included the use of the Impact Assessment Tool provided by CIAT and CCAFS (Figure 6). The framework is comprised of two components: (i) potential impact assessment and (ii) additionality of the investment. The combination of these two components generates an overall score that determines the overall impact score of a company (Figure 6).The potential impact assessment characterizes the potential impact on adaptation, mitigation and productivity key performance indicators (KPIs) considering current and future intervention actions of investees in case the company is funded. The novel impact assessment tool is a simple Excel tool with key questions in relation to3 Impact Potential Score considers whether the investee is likely to achieve high, medium, or low impact in ate least one of the KPIs with no negative effects in the other two KPIs energy, inputs and management for mitigation; water use, water management and soil management for adaptation; and quantity and management for food loss and waste for productivity (Figure 6).The second component of the tool is the additionality assessment, by which the investor assesses the added value of their investment. Questions asked in this component provide the investor indicative information on potential climate change adaptation, mitigation and productivity impacts, which are key for early-stage prioritization purposes. These indicators help show if the investee has the intention to use the proceeds to expand production and impacts, coupled with the ability to mobilize external resources (Figure 6).The overall assessment is under the assumption that for an intervention to be climate-smart, the deal must achieve positive impact on (at least one and non-negative effects in the other two): adaptation, mitigation and productivity.In addition, each company's business dimensions were evaluated using SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis and Porter's 5 Forces framework, to analyze the company's position relatively to the market and competitors (Figure 7). In selecting the final eight companies with the highestimpact potential, primary data was obtained, whenever possible, through interviews with representatives of the companies. In addition, the following secondary data sources were used to complement and validate the information gathered in interviews: information audited by third parties such as certifications, sustainability and impact reports and business reports.The final selected eight companies were those that presented the highest positive environmental and social impact alongside high commercial opportunity. The selection of these companies was intended to facilitate matchmaking with the private sector investors. The companies were selected using a scoring system that combined both business and positive impact dimensions (Figure 8).Note that the selection of these companies considers relative comparison data between companies in the pool of 24 companies, and that all 24 companies identified present high social and environmental impact as well as attractive commercial opportunities.Results reveal a relatively high commercial opportunity for coffee and cocoa, mostly because of the premium and high-quality products that allow these companies to differentiate themselves from commoditization (Figure 9). On the other hand, beef and other fruit production are more commoditized markets, with special and premium markets that are less developed. Regarding social and environmental impact, cocoa, coffee, and other fruits are mostly produced by smallholder farmers in agroforestry systems, thus presenting high potential for social and environmental impact.Potential investments in these companies include scaling sustainable production systems, notably agroforestry and silvopastoral systems, crop production diversification, and access to premium and carbon markets.Rising public awareness, especially in the context of the climate emergency has been driving changes in agricultural production systems. The LATAM region considered in this project shows a great potential for a more sustainable and climate-smart food production system, positively contributing to the upcoming challenge of feeding a growing population in a resource-limited and climate-changing environment. Its rich biodiversity, allied to a growing economy and financing lines for sustainable agriculture projects -although these facilities are often limited to short-term projects -creates a favorable environment to develop CSFS projects through reorienting and leveraging long-term patient capital.However, companies with annual revenue above US$ 1 million are scarce. This situation opens up an opportunity to incubate or accelerate early-stage companies to support them with technical assistance, as well as to use innovative financing solutions, such as blended finance funds for leveraging CSFS (Apampa et al., 2021).The most relevant CSFS practices within companies include agroforestry, regenerative livestock production and silvopastral systems, along with reforestation programs and degraded land restoration, especially in the Amazon region, where primary forest conservation is a critical point for a sustainable development.Some of the most important challenges identified through interviews held with companies and from review of the literature include: access to capital, especially for long-term projects access to information and technical assistance, market validation for some products, particularly Andean and Amazon fruits. Public and private investors can address some of these challenges by providing farmers access to long-term finance suited for impact projects. This should include access to technical assistance. Funding could be channeled through long-dated investment vehicles, such as blended finance debt funds, or through building the capacity of local and regional financial institutions to offer longer-term credit lines. Regarding the technical assistance component, focus should be on: the implementation of MRV systems for emissions and mitigation, especially for accessing carbon markets; development of guidance on best environmental and social practices to projects focused on certain value chains and geographies designing roadmaps for the implementation of CSFS practices, especially for up-and mid-stream companies.Many opportunities rely on market trends and favorable production conditions for growing premium coffee and cocoa products. Premiums generate added value to those value chains and are based on the adoption and compliance with social and environmental practices and standards. Other relevant opportunities are local fruits offered by the rich regional biodiversity that have a potential to provide functional foods in natural and agroecological production systems, such as agroforestry. Sustainable livestock production systems also have a potentially high environmental impact, especially when compared with business-as-usual production systems, although small scale projects have shown more difficulty to be economically viable, leading to the conclusion that a certain scale is mandatory for the project viability (IIS, 2019).This work provides the first efforts of CCAFS to prioritize and promote a pipeline of high-impact CSFS business models to encourage private sector investment in the LATAM region. The work also provides a framework for selection and evaluation of CSFS companies to support deal matchmaking and facilitation. This info note presents methods for developing a pipeline of Climate-Smart Food Systems investments.Nataniel Simon (nataniel.simon@alumni.usp.br), Lucas Wadt (lucas@wadt.eti.br) and Lucas Prudenciano (lucas.prudenciano@usp.br) are Independent Consultants Richard Newman (r.newman@cgiar.org), Ashish Sharma (ashish.sharma@cgiar.org) and Mercy Zulu-Hume (mercy.zulu@cgiar.org) are part of the CCAFS Sustainable Finance team Deissy Martinéz Barón (d.m.baron@cgiar.org) is the CCAFS Regional Program Leader for Latin America Ciniro Costa Jr (c.costajr@cgiar.org) is a Science Officer for Low-Emission Development at CCAFS.Simon N, Wadt L, Prudenciano L, Newman R, Sharma A, Zulu-Hume M, Martínez Barón D, Costa Jr C. 2021. Leveraging food system transformation in Latin America through scaling high impact business models. CCAFS Info Note. Wageningen, The Netherlands: CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).","tokenCount":"2506"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a0a6be2007179874ef646b25aa28144e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/53dd7e1b-5610-4108-8b21-479703b0f2fd/retrieve","id":"1938716298"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"af379da6-74be-496f-8a59-9d7ae0997b51","pagecount":"84","content":"How humans use diversity in farming determines our food, our health, and our economic well-being and that in turn determines our political security. Whether they are used in traditional farming systems, conventional or modern breeding, or genetic engineering, the genetic resources of plants and animals are global assets of inestimable value to humankind. As genetic diversity erodes, our capacity to maintain and enhance crop, forest and livestock productivity decreases along with the ability to respond to changing conditions. Genetic resources hold the key to increasing food security and improving human well-being.Agricultural biodiversity in farming systems delivers food and nutrition, fibre, fuel, and services that contribute to people's livelihoods. Apart from health and well-being it also helps to conserve habitats. It is the fruit of thousands of years of observations, selection, exchange and breeding. The value of biodiversity is apparent in agriculture at all levels, both for meeting short-term needs and achieving long-term sustainability. Agricultural biodiversity is measured in terms of ecosystems, species, and genetic diversity.The importance of agricultural biodiversity is increasingly recognized due in part to many relatively recent international agreements such as the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) and the work of the FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture that have increasingly highlighted the issues over the last decade. Genetic resources for food and agriculture are the biological basis of world food security and directly or indirectly support the livelihoods of over 2.5 billion people (FAO, 1998). Within the agricultural sciences, a common justification for preserving biodiversity is the need to be prepared for a potential outbreak of disease and pests, and their use as raw materials for breeding improved varieties.Genetic diversity in agriculture enables crops and animals to adapt to different environments and growing conditions. The ability of a particular variety to withstand drought or inundation, grow in poor or rich soil, resist insect pests or diseases, give higher protein yields or produce a better-tasting food are traits passed on naturally by its genes. This genetic material constitutes the raw material that plant and animal breeders and biotechnologists use to produce new varieties and breeds. Without this diversity we would lose the ability to adapt to ever-changing needs and conditions. Sustainable agriculture would not be achieved in many parts of the world with different food production environments.and ecosystems provides the raw material that enables human communities to adapt to change -now and in the future. Deprived of biodiversity, the ability of humankind to meet the challenges resulting, for example, from global warming and ozone depletion would be severely limited. The diversity found within the small number of plant and animal species which form the basis of world agriculture and food production, remains a small but vital part of the earth's biodiversity. Through modern biotechnologies wild diversity can also be incorporated into crops and contribute to world agricultural development.The genetic diversity contained in traditional farmers' crop varieties and animal breeds are also the raw materials for the production of modern cultivars and commercial breeds-either through animal or plant breeding or through biotechnology. Furthermore, modern biotechnology has increased the value of biodiversity both within crop species and among their wild relatives as genes can now be moved from related or completely unrelated species into new crop varieties. Genetic diversity gives a species or a population the ability to adapt to changing environments. For resourcepoor farmers, adaptive animal breeds, crop varieties and cultivars adapted to particular micro-niches, stresses, or uses are the main resources available to maintain or increase production and provide a secure livelihood.Farming communities view the landscape as a source of natural resources for their sustainable livelihoods. Such landscapes in areas of high agricultural biodiversity typically include common lands, protected areas, forests, watersheds, larger crop fields, water bodies, home gardens and patches where uncultivated foods are found. In a given ecosystem, biological diversity directly reflects the cultural diversity of the region as it provides both goods and services to the specific culture and people. It is important to understand how communities perceive the value of biodiversity at agro-ecosystem, species and genetic levels and how their interaction affects the livelihoods and quality of people's lives.The economic value of genetic diversity for productivity and yield traits is often discussed in the literature, however, it is difficult to value many other aspects of agricultural biodiversity as these have both direct and indirect values in terms of qualitative traits as food, nutrition and environmental uses, that include adaptation to low input conditions, co-adaptive complexes, yield stability and the consequent reduction of risk, specific niche adaptation, and in meeting religious and socio-cultural needs. In general terms, as illustrated in Figure 1, agricultural biodiversity provides many goods and services of environmental, economic, social and of cultural importance; these environmental goods and services also contribute to sustainable livelihoods in a number of ways.In the context of agricultural biodiversity, Brush (2000) distinguished three different types of value of crop varieties: direct, indirect, and option value. Direct or use value is the simplest and most obvious one that refers to harvest and uses of crop varieties. Indirect value refers to environmental services or ecological health to which crop varieties contribute, though farmers may not observe or notice the relationship. Option value refers to the future use of crop varieties. From the farmers' perspective, the latter two values of crop varieties are secondary, whereas for conservationists the option value is of paramount importance. Together, the direct and indirect values of genetic resources for resource-poor farmers are expressed in the range of options in the form of crop varieties and species they use for managing changing environments. The immense genetic diversity of traditional farming systems is the product of human innovation and experimentation-both historic indigenous knowledge and on-going change in biodiversity.Home gardens and uncultivated food from wild areas or forests are equally important for households in supplementing family nutrition and meeting other household health and cultural needs.In many societies uncultivated food, or food collected from the wild, finds its way into people's diets and contributes significantly to the overall food security and micronutrients intake (preventing 'hidden hunger'). In South Asia, uncultivated food items such as leafy greens, fish and tubers-collected from ponds, farmers' fields, roadsides and common lands comprise a large proportion of the daily diet of the rural poor. At least 40 percent of the food consumed by the poor comes from uncultivated sources in Bangladesh. In Nepal, the harvest from forests or the wild is a major source of medicine, food and nutrition for ethnic communities like Chepang, Rai, Sherpa and Gurung. The Rai and Sherpa communities use 47 wild species for household consumption, 38 for fodder, 19 for medicine, 5 for religious and ceremonial purposes, 11 to make household implements, and 11 for trade as raw and processed materials.The second scenario of home gardens reflects the greater appreciation of the multiple goods and services provided by biodiversity in agricultural ecosystems. In larger ecosystems, multiple farmer concerns (e.g. yield stability, risk, and quality), environmental heterogeneity, and the absence of markets contribute to the persistence or prevalence of landraces. Social, cultural and religious uses are also important value systems for promoting conservation besides economic valuation. Home gardens are typically cultivated with a mixture of annual and perennial plants that can be harvested on a daily or seasonal basis with a wide range of plants. These gardens are microenvironments within larger farming systems containing high levels of species and genetic diversity. A single home garden has ranges of 56-602 species in West Java, Indonesia, 23-54 species in Vietnam, and 123-131 species in Western Nepal. These gardens have not only been important sources of food, fodder, fuel, medicines, spices, construction materials and income but have also been an important means for on-farm management of a wide range of plant genetic resources. Farmers reduce risk by planting different crops as well as planting different varieties to spread harvesting time and rear small livestock around homesteads. Home gardens, with their intensive and multiple uses, provide an insurance against risk and uncertainty for these households. Home gardens are often used to maximize the range of species in order to augment culinary value and food culture of a specific community and ethnicity.We found that there is a common pattern of how farmers value genetic diversity. In Begnas village of Nepal, some subsistence farming HHs grows as many as 22 different kinds of rice varieties. On an average they grow 3-4 local varieties and 1-2 modern cultivars at the HH level. In a community, as many as 69 rice varieties were found. Distribution of crop diversity is a proxy indicator of how farmers valued their crop diversity. Crop or varieties grown for food security or for the market tend to be cultivated in large areas by many households whereas crop or varieties with specific use values to particular families are grown in small areas by few households. Crop or landraces cultivated for socio-cultural (traditions, religious rituals) purposes are grown in small areas by many households whereas crop varieties with specific abiotic co-adaptive traits (such as being adapted to swamp soils, poor soils, drought) are grown in large areas by few households. This common pattern is consistent with economic rationales and there are some variations guided by specific household circumstances as well. The value of diversity for each household is reflected by the proportion of population size of variety allocated from the total cultivated area of the crop.Modern agriculture made up of major crops and livestocks depends upon a precariously narrow genetic base. Future food security is threatened by genetic erosion of diversity within and between populations of the same species over time. Genetic diversity within a crop species or animal breed is a crucial asset available to resource-poor farmers for managing vulnerability, uncertainty, shocks, and stresses. Therefore, access to and control over such resources are critical policy issues. Although genetic diversity is needed to provide the raw materials with which farmers and plant breeders produce new varieties for changing contexts, such diversity within animal and plant crops is essential to maximize yields and use options. Breeders tend to rely increasingly on a narrow set of improved varieties or breeds, making them more vulnerable to outbreak of disease and pests (e.g. blight in potatoes or bird-flu in poultry) due to lack of a broad genetic diversity base. For example, Jumli marshi rice is very tolerant to chilling temperatures and adapted to the highest elevation (3000 m asl). The population is very susceptible to leaf and neck blast because of a narrow genetic base as all landraces of Jumla originated from a single origin. In the past, plant breeders were able to depend on farmers to retain sufficient genetic diversity to provide the new genetic materials they need. Constant promotion of homogenous agriculture threatens that source of genetic diversity, and thus threatens both local and global food security. On-farm Project in Nepal improved the quality of the rice variety called Jetho Budho landrace by working with farmers to select the six best strains from samples collected by more than 350 households. They outperform local varieties in terms of disease/lodging resistance, aroma, and quality traits and milling recovery. The people who have submitted these six were asked to produce seed to share with other communities and the National Seed Board officially released the improved JB. In the same project, the rice landrace Mansara-of poor eating quality but a hardy and reliable performer on marginal lands-was crossed with the modern cultivars best suited to Nepalese farming conditions. Farmers have selected three superior populations from Mansara, which have better cooking quality and productivity under marginal conditions. This was the first PPB case in which a variety specifically adapted by poor farmers has been improved to provide better options. With the improved opportunity to access such genetic resources and knowledge, farmers can improve their ability to meet food, nutrition and livelihood needs by growing an assortment of crop varieties. On-farm management of agricultural biodiversity in NepalPlant genetic resources (PGR) are some of the few biological assets available to resource-poor farmers to improve their livelihood options and to ensure sustainable production. Hence, they can be considered to be the most valued resources. The rapid loss of genetic diversity (genetic erosion), particularly among crop landraces, is a worldwide concern. On-farm (in-situ) conservation of landraces refers to a process whereby plants or their wild relatives are conserved in the very place where they developed their present-day characteristics.What is in-situ conservation?Genetic resources are conserved through two approaches: in-situ (on-farm -in its place of origin) or ex-situ, (off-site, outside its place of origin) as in botanical gardens, field genebanks and seed genebanks. On-farm (in-situ) conservation of landraces refers to a process whereby plants and their wild relatives are conserved in the very place where they developed their present day characteristics. It includes the conservation of entire agro-ecosystems, including cultivated crops as well as their wild and weedy relatives that may be growing in nearby areas.On-farm conservation is generally used to describe a management process by which farmers maintain the traditional crop varieties that they develop in their local conditions and continue to manage and improve. Thus, the conservation of specific genotypes is secondary to the continuation of the processes that allow the material to evolve and change over the time.What factors shape crop genetic diversity?Environmental, biological, cultural, socio-economic and policy factors influence a farmer's decision to select, replace or maintain a particular crop cultivar at any given time. Additionally, farmers' search for locally adapted crops or cultivars for specific land types and farming systems, selection and maintenance of the seed they like, their preference for specific color, food, taste and type also demands diverse crop varieties. Apart from farmers' decisions, cultural identity such as traditional food culture (tastes and preferences) influences the crops and varieties grown and over time a farmer may alter the genetic structure of a crop population.Why in-situ conservation?The potential threat of the loss of genetic diversity directly targets to the world's food supply. This had been recognized, leading to the ex-situ storage of genetic materials in genebanks. Though this form of conservation remains very useful, especially for immediate use in plant breeding, it has major drawbacks in terms of effectiveness and extensiveness.On-farm or in-situ conservation, on the other hand, contributes to the conservation of diversity at all levels i.e. the ecosystem, the species, and genetic diversity within species. It also empowers the farmers to exercise control over their plant genetic resources as a major biological asset, and to use this to improve their livelihoods. Onfarm conservation strategies also promote a broader range of partnerships in conservation efforts involving a diversity of stakeholders to meet desired objectives.It remains a powerful strategy to integrate a farming community into the national PGR system.It is found that the majority of crop seed is from varieties developed over many generations of selection without direct inputs of formal plant breeding. The seed nurtured by farmers provides opportunities for continuous crop adaptation and selection. Thus, diversity in landraces coadapted to various biotic and abiotic stresses, is used as the primary breeding material for modern varieties.Who is responsible for in-situ conservation?In-situ conservation has been recognized for the conservation and sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity in several international conventions and agreements, including the CBD, the Global Plan of Action (GPA) of the FAO. Each of these instruments not only recognizes the countries' responsibilities to conserve and use their PGRFA, but recommends the equitable sharing of the benefits derived from the use of resources and technologies. The international community has also recognized the critical role of local institutions of genetic resources, whether they are identified as farmers, indigenous or local communities, as noted in the preamble to the CBD, which has been ratified by 181 countries.What basic information is needed to understand in-situ conservation?In 1995, IPGRI and its national partners launched a project, 'Strengthening the scientific basis of in-situ conservation of agricultural biodiversity on-farm' in nine countries including Nepal and Vietnam to understand four basic questions:• What is the amount and distribution of the genetic diversity maintained by farmers over space and time? • What are the processes (consciously or unconsciously) used to maintain genetic diversity on-farm? • Who maintains genetic diversity within a community and how? • What factors influence farmers' decisions on maintaining traditional varieties? Understanding of these questions provides the information needed to manage plant genetic resources on-farm, and also helps to develop economic opportunity. If crop genetic resources are going to be conserved onfarm, it must happen as a spin-off of farmers' production activities directed to his/her livelihood. This means onfarm conservation efforts must be carried out within the framework of farmers' livelihoods and income.What are the criteria for selecting in-situ conservation sites?A fundamental problem faced by any in-situ conservation effort is locating crop populations on which to focus. It is essential to consider some generalized criteria for selection of sites: ecosystems, intra-specific diversity of target species, species adaptation, genetic erosion, diverse use values, and interests of farming community, partners and government agencies and logistics for monitoring. One of the often cited disadvantages of on-farm conservation is the difficulty of accessing the material conserved. This is mainly because the on-farm conservation efforts to date have not been mainstreamed and not linked to national PGR efforts.A survey carried out by FAO in recent years illustrated that the role of the in-situ approach is increasingly appreciated as complementing ex-situ conservation. Hence, it is important to understand how farmers value local crop diversity and how much they are willing to pay for such genetic resources. Agricultural biodiversity provides many products and services of environmental, economic, social and cultural importance. These environmental products and services contribute to sustainable economy in number of ways.The least cost conservation will occur in sites that are most highly ranked in terms of public benefits and where, because the private benefits farmers obtain from growing genetically diverse varieties is greatest, the public interventions to encourage them to do so are the least. So, the crop genetic resources which have low farmer utility (current private value) and public value will have difficulty finding a place in in-situ conservation unless public interventions are made for adding benefits.How does in-situ programme provide benefits to the community? Benefits achieved can be economic, ecological and socio-cultural, for farmers, communities and society. Mainly two options can be considered in adding benefits; the first through participatory plant breeding, and the second through public awareness, better marketing, and policy incentives. The first option seeks improved quality, disease resistance, high yield, better taste, and other preferred traits through breeding, seed networks and modified farming systems. The second option includes adding value to local crop resources so that the demand for the material or some derived product Photo: Pitambar Shrestha/LI-BIRD may be increased. These diverse options will be possible only if the local capacity of farming communities and institutions are strengthened for making appropriate decisions and these partners also take up the responsibility of monitoring local crop diversity after developmental interventions.It is essential to focus on the scientific understanding of on-farm management of agricultural biodiversity and develop institutional capacity to run internally driven on-farm conservation programme. At the same time, local communities and village-level opinion leaders need to understand how they can use their own local biodiversity and mobilize social and human capital to generate financial resources for developing livelihood options and conservation actions. The following steps are considered essential for community-based biodiversity management (CBM approach) of agricultural biodiversity on-farm (Figure 1).  Step 2Locating, characterizing and evaluating of useful diversity -Diversity fairs -Diversity blocks -Diversity kits -Community biodiversity registerStep 3Locating, characterizing and evaluating of useful diversity -Diversity fairs -Diversity blocks -Diversity kits -Promoting nodal farmers community seed bankStep 8Exit strategy and sustainabilityStep 7Step 6Step 5Traveling seminar Sustainable on-farm and in-situ conservation is possible only when farmers, communities, and national institutions perceive benefits in terms of social, economic, and environmental services. Once it is understood that farmer management of local crop diversity is a primary livelihood option for a rural community, then the cost of on-farm conservation becomes much cheaper than ex-situ conservation. In the process, farmers not only derive social, economic and environmental benefits from local genetic resources but also enhance the evolutionary potential of such genetic resources. However, it is important to note that on-farm conservation per se is not a panacea on its own, it is neither recommended as a universal practice nor is a feasible method in all circumstances; it has a place and time, as on-farm conservation can be transient and subject to change over the time and that provides the major link with ex-situ conservation. Diversity can be measured at the levels of ecosystems, species, varieties, agromorphological traits and genetic markers. Three kinds of estimates are used to measure the extent and distribution of diversity:• Richness-number of types (e.g. crops, varieties, traits, genes) • Evenness-distribution of the different classes (e.g. % area covered by each variety of a crop in a given village) • Distinctness-the range of variation found Two most widely used diversity indices that combine richness and evenness are the Shannon-Weaver (Shannon and Weaver, 1963) and Simpson (Simpson, 1944) indices.The analysis of diversity is further informed by considering the ways in which it is partitioned: • Alpha (a) -diversity within a specific population (e.g. Basmati rice), site or context • Beta (b) -differences between populations (e.g.Basmati population from different districts east to west), sites or production systems • Gamma (c) -total diversity present in the system as a whole.Photo: LI-BIRD Photo Bank Biological diversity is made up all species of plants and animals their genetic material and the ecosystems of which they are a part Genetic diversity refers to the variation of genes and genotypes between and within species Species diversity refers to the variety of species within a given area Ecosystem diversity refers to interdependent communities of species and their physical environment Furthermore, diversity changes over time and space, which is often not measured. Both spatial and temporal changes are important in seed systems and they seem to affect both the numbers and identities of crops, varieties and traits. Changes in richness of rice diversity amongst land types are reflected as beta diversity.The simplest basis for measuring population genetic structure1 in in situ conservation is the distinct landrace or farmer variety:1. The number of different unique landraces in a particular sample area or domain or site (varietal richness) 2. The genotype diversity index (diversity within population of a variety; analogous to the Simpson Index or Nei Index of gene diversity)Furthermore, there are two measures to classify each landrace according to whether or not it is widespread (occurring in more than a few fields) versus localized (restricted to a few fields), and secondly whether it is common (grown in large number of farms) versus rare (grown in small fields) (Figure 1). The Nepalese in situ team devised a participatory method of Four-cell analysis (Figure 2) to understand distribution patterns of farmers' varieties in a given location.   The variety names used by the communities are an essential prerequisite for analyzing the extent and distribution of diversity at the level of the variety. This knowledge is essential for on farm conservation plans. The naming of varieties by farmers is a preliminary stage for measurement of on farm crop diversity. The traditional names given by farmers based on phenotypic traits, adaptation traits, use and quality traits reflect genetic identity in certain circumstances and provide a basic picture of diversity of a crop. Farmers allocate different landraces to different ecosystems and different landraces serve different objectives. These practices will help in the selection and improvement of preferred traits of the diversity that farmers grow and conserve in the field. A matrix is drawn on the ground (or on a large sheet of paper-Figure 1). Participants are asked the following questions: In the case of in-situ conservation project in Nepal, one of the ways to classify different varieties found in a given geographic location was to arrange them on the basis of number of HHs growing them and the mean area coverage per HH (0.5 ha)(Figure 1). This method required baseline survey data to decide cut-off points. Numbers of HHs growing a rice variety were classified into two categories: many HHs versus few HHs, with an arbitrary cut-off point of 5 HHs.First, villagers define when they regard as a piece of land in the village allocated to a particular crop a \"large area\" and when it is considered a \"small area\". They define what people refer to as \"grown by many households\" and \"grown by few households\". 'Large' and 'small' are relative measures, depending on the type of crop and production purpose. Experiences have shown that some kind of a definition usually emerges while going through the exercise of allocating the varieties to the four cells.Step 1: Prepare a list of farmers' varieties (local and modern) of a selected crop • Conduct a brief transect walk through a village for direct observation of key informants (male/female) before the focus group discussion (FGD) • Collect a list of varieties during a transect walk and review during FGD by asking participants to add up the missing varieties.Step 2: Conduct participatory FCA analysis of distribution of local crop diversity • Select 6-12 key informants mixed in gender, age group, well-being and locations for FGD. This is a very important step for ensuring quality analysis and requires good preparation with field based staff or local communities. • Now we are ready to construct the four cells. First, lay down a large sheet of paper on the ground. Draw two perpendicular axes of area (large to small) and the number of households (many to few) yielding 4 quadrants (see the Figure 1). • Developing common understanding for the terminology to be used is crucial for the method.The facilitator should encourage discussion with participants so that they come into consensus on terms such as large vs. small area and many vs. few households. • If there is difficulty defining the area, ask if the variety is grown in a large area or small area of the household. How much is large or small, if necessary, should be determined by questioning the participant about their total cultivable land and the proportion that is occupied by a specific variety. • Call out the name of variety from the list and let farmers have a discussion about where it should be placed in the quadrants. Similarly, this exercise should be conducted for all varieties listed in the inventory.Step 3: Explore use values of landraces in each cell • After completion, farmers are asked why they have placed each specific plant/crop/variety in cell A, B, C or D (Figure 1). The reasons are recorded after a group discussion and consensus is reached in a focus group discussion. • Now the facilitator should discuss with participants and elicit reasons for placing landraces in a large area or small area. Document the use values of each landrace falling into each category in four cells in order to understand farmers' rationale in greater depth.Step 4: Participatory analysis of results • This common pattern is generally found to be consistent with economic rationales and there are some variations guided by specific household circumstances as well. The value of diversity for each household is reflected by the proportion of population size of variety allocated from the total cultivated area of the crop.Step 5: Use information for diversifying livelihood options and conservation actions by communities • Helps to identify common and rare types of diversity within the community and facilitate both developmental as well as conservation action plans (Figure 2). • Helps to discuss the results with the community and ask how they wish to maintain rare varieties.If nobody wants to grow a variety then it should be sent to ex situ conservation (Figure 2). • Helps to identify cultivars grown by a few households in small areas or in large areas that are vulnerable to genetic erosion and therefore, require a range of interventions.This FCA methodology has become common tool globally and has extensively been used in assessing of the diversity of yams and rice in GEF projects of West African and Asian countries. This FCA methodology has been included in the PGR curriculum of the University of Abomey-Calavi in Benin, West Africa. Scientists from Mozambique, Mali, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Vietnam, Uganda and Malaysia have also been exposed to this method. In Uganda, Brazil, Vietnam and Malaysia the methodology required adjustment when it dealt with fruit tree species in home gardens. For perennial species, it was found to be more appropriate to use the number of trees instead of area under the variety. With local adjustments, FCA can be a powerful tool for outsiders for understanding reasons why some farmers do what they do and how best outsiders could help them in diversifying and enhancing livelihood options.Sthapit, BR, Joshi, K, Gyawali, S., Subedi, A. Among the developing countries, farming communities maintain a relatively larger number of traditional varieties that contributes a beneficial share to the livelihoods of rural poor farmers. These local varieties possess significant amounts of genetic variation. In these countries informal seed systems play a vital role in the provision of planting materials. For example in Nepal, less than 3% of seed rice was purchased from the formal sector in 1999-2000. Farmers are the managers and also the custodians in maintaining the dynamic processes of crop diversity on-farm. Farmers' seed networks remain as one of the major components through which seed and other genetic materials and knowledge based information are disseminated among farming community members. This social seed system is recognised as a vital process for the maintenance of local crop diversity.Mostly, seed are maintained and saved by individual farmers from season to season. However, there can also be significant amounts of exchange between neighbours and relatives. In Nepal, it was found that 20 -50% of seeds were exchanged between farmers. Subedi et al. (2003) showed that seed exchange processes can be extremely complex, forming reticulate networks of multiple social interactions. It was found that in any network there were some farmers who were involved in more exchanges of seed lots than others and hence suggested that these \"nodal\" farmers could play a key role in the maintenance of traditional varieties within any community.Sociometric survey is the most common source for acquiring network data to obtain relational data among individuals in a social system. Different sampling techniques can be used such as: 1) mapping of community (non-sampling), 2) representative sampling with the community, and 3) snow ball sampling. The most common and widely used is snowball sampling. In this method, information is gathered from focus group discussion (FGD) with male and female farmers.How to conduct social seed network?The following step by step process can be used for understanding the social context of a healthy seed system.Step 1 Primary group formation of starter respondents is needed from where data on sociometric links are collected. Some key questions that need to be asked to understand the flow of genetic materials in a community are:• From whom do you usually get seed and associated knowledge?• During the growing season, from whom did you obtain variety/seed or planting materials? • To whom do you usually provide seed and information? • During the last growing season, whom did you give seeds and information to? • Who usually comes to you to ask for seed and information?Step 2 Identification of nodal farmers is done by response of FGD members who are asked to name farmers whom they perceive as most experienced in their community with matters related to seed diversity, seed production, seed selection, production ecology of different cultivars and uses, who are keen on research and diversity minded and are willing to share knowledge and materials with fellow farmers.Step 3The sociometrically indicated farmers then become the second-stage respondents. The second-stage respondents are asked the same questions as listed in Step 1. These second stage respondents consequently result to the third-stage respondents and so on. This multistage survey helps to determine social links between individuals within and outside the community.Step 4 Draw network mapping from the relational data from the survey. Draw the relationship lines between HHs/ institutions. Arrows pointing in both directions indicate mutual exchange of materials and knowledge. Maps could be drawn manually or by using NetDraw 1.41 free source software (Borgatti, 2002).Identify nodal farmers from the social networks. Nodal farmers are those nodes who provide and receive seed/ knowledge within and outside communities. Nodal farmers are not necessarily leader farmers or village heads but those people of the network, who frequently search, select, maintain, and exchange knowledge and associated genetic materials with other farmers.Step 6These nodal farmers can potentially be used to strengthen on-farm conservation, deployment of diversity, strengthening seed supply systems, training fellow farmers and disseminating new information.Step 7If the study wishes to understand how farmers maintain local crop diversity in-situ, then ask the following questions to the primary, secondary and tertiary respondents:• When you obtained the seeds, how did you get them (possible answer: purchase, barter, gifts and loan) • When you gave the seeds, did you sell, barter or gift?Step 8 Repeat the survey with the same respondents after certain year intervals for at least three times to monitor the stability of a social seed network.Community based seed networks have great potential utility and success in areas with poor technological intervention or with poor access to modern varieties, fertilizers and tools. In these regions farmers are more likely to keep traditional varieties due to lack of resources, as was the case in Jumla valley. Likewise, in marginal economy and disaster prone areas, locally adapted varieties grown by farmers are at a high risk to losses due to stochastic events like bad growing seasons, floods, etc. In these areas, seed grown by neighbouring farmers can provide a viable option for conserving traditional landraces through exchange, gift and purchase of seed or planting materials. The methods in which farmers produce, select, save and acquire seeds shape the genetic diversity of crop can be considered to be seed systems. About 80-97% of farmers seed of major crops is met through informal seed systems worldwide and this proportion is much higher in the case of locally grown or neglected crops. A farmers' seed system is also considered a healthy system because it has the following important components:• Germplasm base (diversity, flexibility, selection) • Seed production and quality (germination, disease problems, quantity) • Seed availability and distribution (seed sources, networks, markets) • Knowledge and information (growing methods, utilization, knowledge of new materials) As a result farmer seed systems or crop diversity is one of the few resources available to resource-poor farmers to ensure sustainable production and livelihoods.A baseline survey in Jumla, Kaski and Bara districts revealed that the contribution of landraces for food security is significantly important in Nepal (Rana et al., 2000). Dependence on landraces for food security is radically higher in marginal environments (100%) as compared to high production potential systems (17%). Social seed networks were found to be a secure source of locally adapted seed. Since local landraces are one of only few crucial assets available to resource-poor farmers for sustaining their livelihoods and managing vulnerability, access to and control over such resources is a critical policy issue.The importance of social networks and exchange in variety maintenance in traditional communities, and the fact that most farmers in any year maintain their own seeds and regard seed exchange as a secondary option, raises important questions about the ways in which variety identity is appreciated and maintained. These networks of nodal farmers are considered to be \"local institutions\" for plant genetic resource management, have been used for \"community seed exchange\", and can play a significant role in conservation efforts as they manage the majority of genetic resources present at the community level. Although genetic diversity is needed to provide the raw materials with which farmers and plant breeders produce new varieties for changing contexts, such diversity within crops is essential to maximize yields and use options. The result shows that crop breeding programmes becomes more effective by increased use of local resistant materials and new methods to reduce crop vulnerability caused by a policy of crop uniformity.In many cultural contexts, farmer seed systems are part of the culture and heritage which increases social cohesiveness as it has been managed through individual relationships. Strengthening interventions such as diversity fairs, diversity kits and community seed banks should be given greater priority to seed access for women group members and resource poor farmers who are not able to save or purchase seeds. This has increased the extent of social inclusion and equity as well as provided economic benefits to the community.Network and network analysis assume that social seed network stability changes over time. Neither complete stability of nodal farmers exists in a social system nor would it be very useful for conservation. So network data collected over time are necessary to determine the effects of certain interventions and their consequences in a system. Studies revealed that 22-53% of nodal farmers are stable and we are yet to understand the importance of the dynamic state of some nodal farmers for the evolutionary process of creating new genetic diversity in the system. Such a study is even more important to understand the dynamics of the social system in relation to longer-term objectives of how the informal systems that prevail in the farming communities can be better strengthened in the conservation and utilisation of agricultural biodiversity.On-farm conservation projects tend to focus on persuading farmers to continue planting local varieties. Giving up varieties is seen as dangerous. In this case genetic variation is not static, but is continually being renewed. Social seed network study takes into account the social interaction and supports an increasing trend toward regarding populations of varieties as 'metapopulations' of fields interconnected by varietals exchange. Work focusing on the networks of exchange that make varieties available to farmers suggests that greater attention needs to be given to support the existing local systems of exchange.Setting up diversity fairs, or establishing communitylevel seed banks, may be valuable innovations, but they could undermine the existing local systems which link together people who trust one another's judgment and exchange seed along with other forms of goods, aid and information. Priority should be given to understanding how local diversity is sustained, so that modern introductions do not threaten local systems. Most rural farming communities lack access to information regarding agrobiodiversity and its conservation in our country, which is one of barriers in appropriate utilization of the available resources and the benefits of conservation. Wider information dissemination is needed to increase the horizon of conservation of agrobiodiversity, so that the message reaches all levels of stakeholders, including consumers, extension workers, researchers and policy makers. Public awareness regarding agrobiodiversity conservation is essential for effective participation of farming communities in research and development activities. This primarily focuses on educating farmers about the value of local crop diversity, fostering the sense of pride in their cultural heritage of local diversity. The majority of the rural farming communities lack basic access to modern information gazettes (television, radio, and reading materials) due to their economic conditions, which leaves them in ignorance. Considering these existing circumstances, a Nepal in-situ project came up with various local methods for community sensitization. These methods are used and can be used in creating awareness among a larger number of people from different stakeholder groups in farming communities. Furthermore, it also helps the rural community to undertake ownership for conservation and utilization of agrobiodiversity.Concerned stakeholders can discuss on relevant tools for community sensitization and categorise these according to suitability of stakeholders. This can be shared with the farmers for conceptualising the different methods within the farming community.Different tools can be used at different times in the same community for creating awareness, as one tool may not be effective for the entire context. There are several participatory tools, which are followed by the in-situ project and are listed below:• Village workshop is used to inform local government officials as well as the local community about the purpose of the project, which mutually helps to build a rapport with village leaders during the initial stage. It is also helpful in identifying key contact persons and fosters community participation.• Orientation/training is provided to stakeholders to make them understand the concept of the program. The best way to liberate these local communities from the vicious cycle of poverty is through empowering the control of their own natural resources and access to information and technologies. Continued training and orientation on emerging new issues will increase awareness and intelligence of women farming groups and other farmer organizations and this allows them to influence the research and development agenda.• Meeting: During a meeting the professionals and representatives from different stakeholders sit together and discuss the agenda. Regular short • Field visit is generally conducted to form a direct interaction of the professionals with farmer or target client groups to discuss and orient them to the field activities. This tool allows direct communication with local communities. According to the situation, traveling seminars, farm walks and combined treks are suggested for field visits to acquire firsthand rapport building with local people.• Social and resource mapping is used for site characterization once the villages are selected for the activity. During participatory rural appraisal, social and resource mapping is a common tool used for mapping out the social structure and resources distribution in a village. This process allows for establishing good communication between rural practitioners and local communities and helps to raise the visibility of the project.A series of Gramin Kabita Yatra (rural poetry journeys) was held during 1998 and 1999 in on-farm project sites to sensitize farming communities on conservation issues and to document traditional knowledge about genetic resources using poems and songs. It was a participatory as well as an effective process for reaching the larger mass of farming communities, particularly women farmers.A combined team of both national and local poets and poetesses' traveled together composing poems that highlighted the value of in-situ conservation.The impact of the poetic pilgrimages was very encouraging and responsive in creating awareness among a larger mass of the farming communities.The poems recited their odes to biodiversity for community before moving to the next village.Traditional knowledge on biodiversity is embedded in the folk songs and dances of every ethnic communities of our country. It is often very effective if community sensitization activities are coordinated through culturally accepted means. For instance, Teej is a special festival of Hindu women. During this festival they are free to express their feelings and sorrows in the form of songs and dances. This cultural event has been used to sensitize women farmers' groups regarding the value of agricultural biodiversity and need for conservation. It was conducted amongst women farmers' groups during the festival of Teej to assess and increase their level of awareness about on-farm conservation at the farmers' group level. It is a competition where prizes are awarded to the best group performers with the best songs related on the theme of local diversity conservation. tourism (national and international). Development and promotion of such of local menus may enhance the benefits to local diversity conservation. This kind of food fair could be integrated with eco-tourism and geo-tourism. This type of tourism sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place-its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage and the well-being of its local residents.• Diversity fair is a unique approach to increase public awareness on the value of traditional knowledge of local crop diversity. The method has been found popular not only in Nepal and Vietnam but also in Africa and Latin America. In this fair, farmers participate to display different plant genetic materials for assessing the status of genetic diversity in the area.The community organized diversity fair exclusively focuses on indigenous landraces and is useful to locate rare diversity and identify custodians of high genetic diversity. This kind of participatory event also helps to enhance social interactions and unifies communities and local organizations.• Diversity block is used to display traditional varieties under farmers' management at public places such as in front of schools, public resting places and near teashops to characterize local landraces under conditions of typical farmer management. It has an additional advantage of raising the public awareness. The block could be used for other purposes as well. Germplasm to be grown in the diversity block may be selected from the materials displayed in diversity fairs or from community members' seed stocks.• School competition: Essay or biodiversity painting competitions are organized amongst the school children on special occasions of biodiversity like World Environment Day, Maghe Sakrati etc. to promote learning from old to young generations. This kind of approach is essential to reach younger groups of future farmers.• Exchange visits are educational tours for different stakeholders across sites, which can be organized based on their needs. This kind of practice is very useful amongst farming communities as elements of social learning and sharing.Communities and their grassroots organizations are involved at all stages of sensitization programming as it helps them to understand what they do, how they do it and why they do it. Among the several tools used for community sensitization, a few tools like diversity fair, teej geet competition, rural poetry journey and rural roadside drama are found to be productive and also cost effective in providing access to information on biodiversity conservation. These are a few of the tools which the community can organize on their own. These tools can be merged with the cultural events of the society depending upon the geographic locations e.g. in the hill community teej songs while in far western region deuda songs that are the best vehicle for this type of information sharing..In Bara and Kaski eco-sites, the term biodiversity was alien to the farmers and local community before the project's intervention. Various sensitization tools were used by the in-situ project team for sensitising the farming community, which helped in creating awareness among them and resulted in the establishment of a community based organisation, Agricultural Development and Conservation Society (ADCS) in the Bara eco-site and strengthened Pratigya Cooperative in the Kaski eco-site. They are actively involved in the management of local genetic resources and income generation activity for their communities. Presently, the CBOs of both eco-sites are involved in documentation of their local plant diversity in a Community Biodiversity Register (CBR). Due to the effort of the project in community sensitization, farmers showed increased levels of confidence, which has resulted in their active participation in various meetings and workshops (local to National). They are able to make significant impacts at these meetings, raising various pertinent issues.Photo: Pitambar Shrestha/LI-BIRD Photo: Pitambar Shrestha/LI-BIRDThe capacity of local institutions can be enhanced for implementing community based awareness programmes and for which small seed money could be provided to support their conservation actions.• Community sensitization results in attitude and behavioral changes at individual and community level and brings change in action.• Community sensitization is a continuous process, which is crucial from the beginning of the programme until implementation and for sensitization of the community a set of practices is necessary, as one tool cannot sensitise an entire community. Community sensitization should be done on a regular basis, keeping in mind the tradition and culture of the particular area.• Tools applied for community sensitization increase public awareness to a large extent and help in knowledge transfer to younger generations. Drama and biodiversity fairs are useful to conduct the first year of the project as they attract large groups of people. Appropriate tools should be used showing social and economic benefits to the community. Food and trade fairs are useful in that sense.• Tools can become more effective with increased participation of rural communities if they are organized during their own cultural events.Chaudhary On-farm management of agricultural biodiversity in NepalDiversity Fair: Promoting Exchange of Knowledge and GermplasmsWhat is a diversity fair?Diversity fair 1 is a participatory tool for raising public awareness on the value of conserving local landraces, bringing the farmers from different communities together to exhibit the range of landraces so that traditional systems of seed and knowledge transmission continue to conserve. Traditionally, local seed markets and fairs constituted an important part of the community seed exchange network in the villages of many developing countries. In Nepal, local markets and haat bazaar (weeklyThis also refers to Biodiversity fair, seed fair, seed voucher and fairs, seed festivals, agricultural fair, krishi mela etc. market) provide an opportunity for the exchange of seeds and knowledge. These local seed markets are also used for maintaining healthy seed system. As a result loss of indigenous knowledge, on-farm management of local genetic resources has started to erode. One of the aims of diversity fairs is to encourage farmers to share information and exchange seeds within the locality, giving them access to a wider choice of varieties and maintaining a higher level of biodiversity. It is often organized as a competitive event so that local communities are encouraged to maintain high crop diversity and bring in rare and unique diversity for display. This is also a good opportunity for researchers and development professionals to identify the custodians and learn more about traditional knowledge. Local institutions (women's groups, Community Based Organisations-CBOs, Indigenous People Organisations-IPOs, farmers group, clubs, schools, etc.) organize diversity fairs with technical facilitation from research and development professionals. First hand information from farmers to understand why farmers grow landraces, when and where they grow landraces, and how they maintain and use them is obtained through participatory rural appraisal (PRA). These participatory methods ensure social learning for conservation and Photo: Pitambar Shrestha/LI-BIRD 6 utilization of agricultural biodiversity. The steps to be followed while organizing a diversity fair are as follows:Step 1: Participatory planning In order to sensitize farming communities, development workers and researchers to the purpose of the diversity fair, a series of participatory planning meetings with grassroots institutions should be held, in which the detailed steps and procedures, including the options for the prizes, should be followed. In this phase, interaction with local community members, farmers' groups or CBOs is important to discuss the concept, purpose and financial support for the diversity fair. Identification and agreement with the focal local institution on the organizational modality of the diversity fair should be done. Wider sharing and community level planning of the diversity fair should be visualised. Guiding principles of the diversity fair and criteria for participating community selection should be formulated. Selection of the venue and appropriate date should be finalised in consultation with local institutions. The organizing committee and sub-committees should be formed and roles and responsibilities for each committee should be defined.Step Step 3: Implementation Allocate space to each farmers' group along with the materials to decorate their stall. Field registration and registered materials should be verified, and inauguration of the fair should be instigated by the guest of honour.Farmers and invitees should be guided to visit the stalls and facilitate in sharing the information and knowledge associated with the exhibited materials. Local institutions should be encouraged to integrate a light cultural show to attract more participants and share knowledge through songs, poems and dramas.Step The weight assigned for each criterion can be mutually agreed and the indicators for measurement for each criterion can also be developed by the panel. Prior to the event the information needs be shared with all participating groups at the time of orientation training on the diversity fair.During the diversity fair in Begnas the event focused on developing new understanding on the importance of diversity of local plant genetic materials and associated knowledge among the villages, which motivated the local community to develop a community based seed production of unique varieties that allowed them to generate income from their genetic resources. It also inspired local institutions and women's' groups to register inventory in the community biodiversity register and to establish community seed banks for the conservation of local crop diversity.The event improved the understanding and increased awareness on the value of biodiversity. It also enhanced recognition and exchange of farmers' knowledge and resources and strengthened the market linkages through collective actions. The diversity fair of Begnas deeply enlightened policy makers when they were exposed to rich biodiversity and its diverse value.In general, farmers' naming of varieties is not consistent within and between the villages. So to ensure the authenticity of naming the species or varieties for the display in the diversity fair, field verification through farm visits is necessary during the crop season. CBO members must visit potential households to assess diversity in-situ, however, this is only possible if local institution takes the initiative and understands that the main purpose of the diversity fair is to encourage farmers to maintain high and unique diversity.Rare and unique species or varieties identified and collected during the diversity fair could be useful even for ex-situ conservation to prepare an inventory of crop genetic resources as well. Diversity fairs strengthen the healthy seed supply system, identify main sources of informal seed supply within the country to understand reasons for growing diverse genetic resources in terms of economic, cultural, religious, breeding and ecological values. They also promote local community to have control over their genetic resources and develop a sense of ownership using the concept of the community gene bank, linking both informal and formal seed supply systems. Diversity fairs, initially promoted by GOs and NGOs can become financially self-sustaining. Some of the essential ingredients for successful diversity fairs appear to be:• Diversity fairs being organized by local institutions creates ownership and develops local capacity to coordinate with various groups and promotes more social interaction and awareness on the importance of biodiversity conservation than a diversity fair managed by the project.  It is difficult to appreciate the richness of local crop diversity of rare and unique crop varieties present in the community. Despite the prevalence of social seed networks, all farmers do not have the access to information and genetic materials that may enhance the livelihoods of people. Experience suggests that the maintenance of diversity blocks by local institutions such as schools, CBOs or clubs facilitates sensitisation in local communities (young to old generations). Diversity blocks also help to multiply limited rare seed which could be the source of seed for diversity kits, participatory plant breeding, and ex-situ collection.Farmers use names of varieties as a basic unit of diversity for day-to-day on-farm management and often this is consistent at the household and the community levels since they use this information to exchange genetic materials and communicate associated knowledge about the materials. Farmers have a set of agro-morphological descriptors to distinguish the varieties and give specific local names to describe such unique morphology. The consistency index of variety names as a proxy indicator of diversity decreased as the distance from referenced villages increased. In Nepal, diversity of rice is measured by farmers' names and this is often a source of confusion. Landraces such as gurdi, jhinuwa, madise, basmati have several names within the group even though they morphologically can be the same or distinct. Often for traditional crops, scientific descriptors are not available and traits used by farmers (can be termed as farmer's descriptors) are often used to distinguish unique diversity.In cases where there is high consistency in variety names, farmer named varieties could be used as a unit for conservation. When the name is not consistent with the unit managed by the farmers, then other parameters need to be added in order to precisely define the unit of conservation. This is a very basic element of on-farm conservation work and therefore, the diversity block is an important practice for understanding the scientific basis of in-situ conservation of agricultural biodiversity on-farm.The purposes of the diversity block could be as follows: How to establish Diversity Block?Establishment and success of a diversity block is dependent upon the interest and level of awareness of the local community on the importance of agrobiodiversity. However, the following steps and processes can be effective to establish a functional Diversity Block.Step 1 Collect seed samples (50-200g seed per variety depending upon crop) during a diversity fair along with essential passport data, for example, name of variety, farmers' descriptor, names of farmers, habitat, altitude, name of locality, special use value.Step 2 Reiterate objectives and potential benefits from the diversity block and discuss in the community to identify interested local institutions to grow and maintain a diversity block at a strategic public place and representative domain.Step 3 Orient community members for simple field layout, planting and labelling and identify a focal person for management of the block from CBM fund. It is essential to provide conceptual and practical training to ensure proper handling and storage of seeds.Step 4 Grow available diversity of the crop under the farmers' management system. If the numbers are too high, select seeds of rare, unique and threatened varieties as priority entries for seed multiplication as well as for raising awareness and increasing seed demand. The varieties with inconsistent names can also be included for measuring distinct morphological traits and validating the names.Step 5 Keep a display board with the purpose of the exercise and name of the individual variety separately.Step 6 Conduct a farm walk of interested and knowledgeable farmers, researchers and school children in order to:• promote exchange of knowledge and recognise the variety according to farmer descriptors • test consistency of farmer-named varieties between communities and villages • collect demand for seed for future planting (5-10 kegs)• collect rare and unique seed for ex-situ conservation • regenerate seeds for the community seed banks, identify variety for PPB and plan to promote agroecotourismStep 7Harvest seed and store seed for the community seed banks. Distribute surplus seed for diversity kits, research, and interested farmers who want to multiply and share seed with at least five neighbours. In addition, maintain a diversity block of each crop as a field gene bank for demonstration and evaluation and to increase seed quantity for the subsequent year. This could be sustainable if the community recognises the value of the exercise and if it is linked with a community seed bank or community based seed production activities.Step 8 Update the database of the community biodiversity register to encourage participants for on-farm conservation and to support landrace enhancement.Photo: Pitambar Shrestha/LI-BIRD Photo: Pitambar Shrestha/LI-BIRDHow diversity block works?The diversity block method has been tried initially to test whether farmers are consistent in naming and distinguishing the varieties by names and also farmer's descriptors. One community seed bank initiated at Kachorwa, Bara, ADCS soon realised a need to multiply seed not only for the community seed bank but also for selling seed for market and for sustaining the gene bank. CBOs included the diversity block as part of community pride and demonstrated their resources to fellow farmers and visitors. Hence, the diversity block can be said as a farmer led on-farm seed conservation approach managed by community members. However, initial external support (based on local commitment and contribution) is crucial to establish a diversity block and to link it with other activities such as diversity fairs, diversity kit distribution, community seed bank and community seed production. Diversity blocks have great potential in utility and success in areas with a) high technological intervention, b) poor access to information and germplasm c) and strong community networks. Diversity blocks can provide a constant supply of seeds for these environments, ensuring relatively high production even in a sub-optimal growing environment. It is also helpful to strengthen community networks as it allows social interaction and planning for seed production and marketing.Diversity block is a simple method to demonstrate the total amount of local crop diversity at one place and has been a common place for social interaction and knowledge exchange. The diversity block as a community owned and managed activity with integrated efforts was found to be effective and sustainable. This indigenous knowledge based and low cost approach is managed by local communities. The capacity of local communities needs to be strengthened to address major technical and financial problems. The community has not yet anticipated a potential problem of managing the diversity block in the absence of guidance to diversify and enhance livelihood options using natural, social, human, and financial capitals.  On-farm management of agricultural biodiversity in NepalDiversity Kits: Deploying New Diversity to FarmersWhat are Diversity Kits?The diversity kit is a set of a small quantity of different seeds made available to farmers.  1990). In SDC funded IPGRI/LI-BIRD's home garden project, diverse types of seed/saplings are distributed as diversity kits to improve species diversity. Good practices of such experiences are used to enhance access to locally adapted materials to a wide range of farmers so that they continue to select, maintain, and exchange materials until they find other better alternatives.The practice of making diversity kits available remains an integral part of community biodiversity management (CBM) programme and is linked with diversity fairs, community biodiversity registers, diversity blocks, community seed banks and community based seed production. This practice works well when a set of practices are assembled under a certain enabling environment. Local institutions such as women's groups, clubs, schools and CBOs are encouraged to develop their own diversity kits for the deployment of diversity along with fellow neighbours. Locally available valuable seed and saplings are preferred for this kind of activity as it will generate immediate income for custodians and help other farmers to obtain new materials. The availability of genetic materials, including products of landrace enhancement, pre-breeding and PPB products, is extremely important for the success of CBM.The general steps of local crop diversity are as follows:1. Conduct diversity fairs at a regular interval of 2-3 years 2. Identify unique, rare and useful diversity using PRA or four-cell analysis 3. Grow landraces into diversity blocks for characterization and seed multiplication 4. Ensure quality of seed by testing germination, viability and health of freshly harvested seeds The following steps need to be modified for horticultural/perennial crops and livestock species. The main features of diversity kits are:• Deployment of easily inaccessible local seed/saplings • Diverse types of cultivars for providing opportunity for selection • A system of monitoring for varietal spread One of the essential steps is to monitor diversity kits, as this allows researchers and development workers to learn the factors affecting farmers' decision in choosing diversity. It is a good practice as the approach of the diversity kit maintains, enhances and creates crop genetic diversity and ensures its availability to and from the farmers and other actors for improved livelihoods on a sustainable basis. In a country like Nepal, where access to information and materials are limited or difficult because of geographical terrain and poor infrastructure, diversity kits are a practical, cost effective, and sustainable approach. Self-driven local institutions such as self-help groups, farmers' organisations, and CBOs can successfully manage this practice. In home garden projects of Nepal, local institutions charged some amount for diversity kits, and the funds collected were saved as a community based conservation fund, where as in Bara site, farmers saved funds by selling local seed and by distributing diversity kits of cereals and vegetable seeds. This approach has potential for scaling up in wider geographical, institutional and socio-cultural contexts because many development and research institutions have a mandate to improve access to locally adapted materials that generate social, economic and environmental benefits.Impacts of such approaches have been demonstrated widely in DFID funded projects of LI-BIRD and FORWARD in Chitwan and 29 other districts of Nepal. Wheat seed networks of CIMMYT in Nepal have also adapted this approach to promote improved varieties. Similarly, a minikits programme (basically with modern varieties along with chemical fertilizers) conducted by the Department of Agriculture in 1980s also showed good results. This approach has been scaled up within the institution of NARC and LI-BIRD and is being adopted by other formal and informal rural development organizations. This approach has become popular and is now extensively followed in Bangladesh by NGO, PROVA and in India by State Universities and Gramin Bikas Trust.One of the DFID funded projects in Nepal has estimated very significant economic benefits with high net present values (BSP10 m by 2010 for Nepal) and high internal rates of return (83% by 2010). Although such economic impacts have not been documented for diversity kits in three research sites of Nepal, diversity kits have ensured access to rare varieties and illustrated significant environmental benefits as the numbers of households and the area growing rare cultivars have been increased. Such examples have been reported in taro, finger millet, rice, etc. For example, 70 diversity kits of aromatic sponge gourd collected from a diversity fair in 1998 are now maintained in home gardens of 300 households in Begnas village alone. From this simple intervention, a variety that was in the threatened/rare category is now enjoyed as a common variety. This practice has also shown social benefits as access to rare and economically valuable PGR has reached not only the rich and medium economic strata of communities but also many resourcepoor farmers.Photo: Pitambar Shrestha/LI-BIRD Photo: Pitambar Shrestha/LI-BIRDThe method of diversity kits is very similar to the IRD approach. However, diversity kits aim to deploy diverse cultivars and species with the objective of enhancing diversity and reducing vulnerability from pests and diseases. There are no rigid procedures for diversity kits, which makes the approach very user-friendly. Diversity kits will be more successful if the following issues are addressed:• Identification of genetic resources for food and agriculture that are valued by resource-poor farmers • Linking diversity kits with community seed production groups, community seed bank and ex-situ collections CBR is a participatory method developed by the project team to address a range of objectives, such as protection of traditional knowledge and genetic materials from biopiracy, promoting bioprospecting, monitoring genetic erosion, developing local ownership for development and conservation actions. Basically, through the CBR process, the on farm conservation project aims to empower local communities and institutions to develop better understanding for their own biodiversity assets and their value so that they play an important role in research, development and conservation strategies at the local level. There is a significant difference in the approach of implementing CBR in Nepal. The project aims to strengthen local capacity for conservation through sustainable utilization and this is only possible through public recognition that the community controls information, materials and the decision-making process of access to and benefit sharing of locally endemic genetic resources. The protection against biopiracy from outsiders is only possible if the local communities valued the importance of biodiversity and are willing to In recent years, CBR has been debated, proposed and set up in a variety of institutional settings, and for a variety of reasons. Two distinct types of typology are emerging: first, listing of economically valuable biodiversity at the community level, assisted by a group of government professionals or university scholars, and second, empowering the local community to document important genetic resources and traditional knowledge. Figure 1 illustrates a common CBR methodology that combines both objectives of CBR and ensures the control of knowledge and information by local community and government.What are the minimum data required?Data of CBR can be recorded at the household (HH) as well as community levels. The minimum data requirement also depends upon the purpose of the CBR programme. The database should answer the following key questions:• What do we have?• What do we value most?• Why do we need to conserve these?• How do we use them?• Who are the custodians of traditional knowledge and materials?The CBR should be maintained in vernacular language with the data required to meet the objective of the mission.  Sharing rationale and purpose with community Committee formationStep 1Diversity fair for locating diversity hotspots and custodians Village or ward level contestStep 2Step 3Develop working modalityStep 4Step 11Registration and maintenance of CB at the Village Development Committee and database linked to District Biodiversity ComitteeStep 10Step 9Step 8 Training, Orientations, Exposure visits and CBR guidelines developmentStep 5Step 7Step 6The monitoring of changes in variety names (richness) and in population size (plot size per variety and number of HHs growing a specific variety in a village or community) of the target crops over time allows community to develop its own conservation plans. This information is not required if the objective of CBR is to check biopiracy.The value of CBR will be enhanced if the programme can demonstrate its benefits to the community. It is important to understand why many farmers grow some crops/cultivars in large areas whereas some crops/ cultivars are grown in small areas by many farmers.The categorization of crop/varietal diversity into a four-cell structure (also see good practice flyer on four-cell analysis) is useful to determine which crops will be necessary to The Community Biodiversity Register (CBR) method is still evolving and a team is developing this as an empowerment tool to manage biodiversity at community level. However, the impact of the exercise was so great that Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation (MoFSC), World Conservation Union (IUCN), Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperative (MoAC) and several NGOs invited the project resource persons to train their staff and sought technical inputs during the national biodiversity registration workshop. MoAC) has scaled As a result of this project farmers have realized that a large number of local cultivars are conserved by few households and thus are highly vulnerable to genetic erosion and eventual loss. This realization has encouraged 22 farmer groups to form a nodal CBO, namely Agricultural Development and Conservation Society (ADCS) in Bara, one of the in situ sites in the Terai of Nepal. ADCS established a community seed bank with seed money from the local government and the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI, now Bioversity) to store unique landraces of rice, local crops, and vegetables. It is unlikely that biodiversity registration alone by the government or local institutions is a viable and sustainable strategy for TK protection unless the process is internalized for the benefits of local communities.Traditional landraces have evolved and adapted to the local farms for many generations. Their loss not only means a loss of biodiversity, but also an abrupt end to evolutionary processes in farming communities. As farmers prefer high yielding modern varieties to maintain food security, there has been significant loss of traditional local landraces. Reasons behind this are lack of quality seeds of local landraces and policy disincentives on landraces. A research study in Kachorwa of Bara district shows that with high technological interventions and easy access to input, farmers are purchasing more high yielding modern variety seeds that are replacing traditional landraces. Such losses of local landraces make the farming community more dependent on outside sources for seeds, reducing their seed security and putting the local seed system in jeopardy.In spite of various limitations, crop landraces are still being cultivated to meet the seed requirements of variable growing environments and various household needs. However, the growing area and number of landraces is decreasing from large to small and from many households to few. In a community seed bank, local crop germplasms are collected along with important information and associated knowledge, stored, regenerated or multiplied and distributed to fulfil the seed requirements of farmers for their diverse agro-ecology and the promotion off onfarm biodiversity conservation. It is an innovative practice that conserves local landraces and provides continuity to local evolutionary processes along with providing food security to the farming community.CSB is locally maintained and managed, providing easy access to control over planting materials. Being an in-situ conservation practice, local landraces continue to evolve and adapt in their local habitats. CSB addresses all concerns of a healthy seed system. A healthy seed system should have options of diversity, stability, resilience, efficiency and equity.The community seed bank is a community-managed approach that expands local practice from the household to the community. The success of community seed banks rely upon the interest and awareness of the local community on the importance of agricultural biodiversity. However, the following major points can be effective for the establishment of a functional CSB.The community should perceive the alarming rate of landrace erosion and understand the need for conservation. This can be ascertained by referring to the Community Biodiversity Register (CBR).Step 2 A Community Biodiversity Management (CBM) committee should be formed for cooperating with the The roles of such a committee are to plan and implement village level activities that support sustainable livelihoods and biodiversity conservation actions.Step 3 Rules and regulations regarding the mechanism for seed collection, regeneration, quality control, access to genetic materials and benefit sharing should be formulated to meet the community interests. Roles and responsibilities of different participants in CBM should also be defined. The decisions should be made with consideration of the local context, customs and values for making it locally sustainable.Locally available materials can be used for the construction of a seed storage structure; the use of local materials and contributions makes the overall management locally sustainable.Step 5 Collection of local seeds based on information of the CBR, diversity fairs, nodal farmer networks, neighbours, relatives and neighbouring villages. It would be essential to provide a conceptual and practical training to ensure proper handling and storage of seeds.Step 6 Distribution of the seeds should be based upon the rules and regulations giving special emphasis to the farmers who are not in the position to save or do not have any capacity to purchase seeds. In addition, a diversity block of each crop as a field gene bank should be maintained for demonstration and evaluation and to increase seed quantity for the subsequent year. Provide enough orientation to the seed bank source user during seed distribution and before harvest to maintain quality and assure seed return. Organise seed selection training according to the crop season to encourage participants for on-farm conservation and to support landrace enhancement.Community seed banks have great potential utility and success in areas with a) high technological intervention, b) high access to input, c) marginal environments and economies and d) frequent natural disasters like floods and droughts. In areas with high technological intervention or with easy access to input (modern varieties, fertilizers and tools) farmers are more likely to neglect traditional varieties as was the case in Kachorwa. Likewise, in marginal economy and disaster prone areas, landraces are at a high risk to losses due to stochastic events like bad growing season, floods, etc. In these areas, community seed banks can provide a viable option for conserving traditional landraces. Furthermore, local landraces are better adapted to their marginalized environments than modern varieties. Community Seed Banks can provide a constant supply of seeds for these environments, ensuring relatively high production even in sub-optimal growing environments.The community seed bank initiated at Kachorwa, of Bara district is a leading example of sustainable local seed security, supporting community seed demands, and enhancing farmers' access to quality seeds, thereby promoting conservation of local crop diversity on-farm. After the community seed bank's initiative, the number of rice landraces has been increasing and the seed security system is being enhanced locally. Awareness created by the in-situ conservation project encouraged CBR members to establish a community seed bank in a systematic way, for developing storage structure, local seed collection, regeneration, distribution, rules setting and its overall management. However, initial external support (based on local commitment and contribution) is crucial to establish a community seed bank for group organization, seed bank stores and seed storage structures preparation. Being a community-managed approach with direct benefits going to the farmers, the farming community has taken the ownership of this approach making it self-sustaining after its establishment. CSB has resulted in increased social cohesiveness as it has been managed through community group actions. It also has given greater priority of seed access for women group members and resource poor farmers who are not able to save or purchase seeds (Table 1). This has increased the extent of social inclusion and equity as well as provided economic benefits to the community.After implementation of CSB the number of landraces and overall diversity has increased and seed has become abundant and accessible. With the increase in biodiversity, the community in Bara internalized the values of biodiversity. CSB has also resulted in a biologically and agriculturally healthy seed system. These changes have increased the stability and resilience of the community agro-ecosystem.Community Seed Bank is a community owned and managed activity with integrated efforts like local financial resource mobilization, creation of a conservation fund, income generation and community development activities, which was found to be effective and sustainable. Social, institutional and financial aspects are important elements of sustainability. This indigenous knowledge based and local community managed low cost approach has not faced major technical and financial difficulties, but still, there is no field guide for implementing community seed banks as the focus has been on long-term preservation in gene banks.An initial effort of this approach has shown the encouraging results in on-farm conservation of agricultural biodiversity and hence partnership between plant breeding programs, agriculture development agencies and community seed banks needs to be developed for better utilization of local crop landraces conserved at community seed banks. Further, research and development efforts are needed to ensure conservation and utilization of agricultural biodiversity with simultaneous increases in the income and economic status of the people. In order to maintain and enhance the value of agricultural biodiversity as a resource for the rural poor and for humanity as a whole, communities and institutions need to be supported, empowered, and assisted in accessing and managing their agricultural biodiversity assets to support their livelihoods. The goal of such a process is to ensure that communities have the capacity to manage the agricultural biodiversity they depend upon and to continue to shape and adapt particular diversity to meet their needs in accordance with changing environments.Formal research and development programme often fail to involve farmers and/or to strengthen the capacity of local communities for the management of their biodiversity resources. Poor capabilities of farmers and communities to make decisions on issues related to management and conservation of agricultural biodiversity and to implement these decisions are problems that often hinder a farmer's organized efforts in accessing knowledge, information, technology, capital, genetic resources, markets and other sustainable livelihood assets.Community-based Biodiversity Management is a community-driven participatory approach to strengthen the capacity of farmers and farming communities for managing biodiversity for social, economic and environmental benefits of the household and the community. The approach empowers farmers and communities to organize themselves and develop strategies and plans that support on-farm management of agricultural biodiversity such as healthy seed systems, community seed banks, community biodiversity registers, and reinforces farmers' role as plant breeders. This method results in communities taking more control of their resources with increased ownership for on-farm conservation and sustainable livelihood options with carefully selected and appropriate external inputs and risks. The CBM approach is concerned particularly with facilitating social processes; such as social networks, community institutions, collective action and decision making so as to contribute to conservation and utilization of community biodiversity resources. For example, social seed networks play a key role in determining access to seed and information. The CBM approach is based on the finding that the maintenance of a large diversity of landraces depends on farming practices, customs, traditions and livelihood needs. All of these affect the movement of genes between households, within and between villages, and to larger geographic areas.Photo: Pitambar Shrestha/LI-BIRD 11Empowerment of community members and local institution is the fundamental strategy of the CBM approach. It aims to build the capacity of farming or user communities and their institutions in ways that increase their decision making power and secure their access to and control over resources necessary for the sustainable management of community biodiversity resources. The key elements that form the basis of CBM include: (i) knowledge about biodiversity and associated landscapes, (ii) social systems facilitating maintenance and exchange of their genetic resources, (iii) local institutions that support and govern local management and access to biodiversity, (iv) technologies, processes and practices that add value to local genetic resources, (v) local financial resources such as savings and credits to ensure sustainability of continuing good practices, and (vi) necessary linkages to appropriate institutions which will sustain access to livelihood assets. CBM is a process-led approach and builds on the existing capacity of the farming communities. Establishing and promoting the CBM approach to managing community biodiversity resources includes the following steps.Raising public awareness and educating people about the value of agricultural biodiversity conservation is usually the first step in the CBM approach. It plays a crucial role in motivating farming communities in developing and implementing community-based conservation strategies. Individual farmer's actions are largely oriented to addressing livelihood goals and, therefore, though such actions might contribute to conservation, do not ensure conservation per se. Awareness and education inspires and binds individuals to show their social responsibility and contribute to the community actions aimed at conservation of agricultural biodiversity resources.The in-situ conservation of agricultural biodiversity project has identified a number of awareness raising methods about the value of and need for implementing conservation strategies. A village workshop is organized as one of the first activities (entry point) to establish a working relationship with the farming communities and initiate interactions to raise awareness about their agricultural biodiversity resources. Then community members plan and implement awareness activities such as biodiversity fairs, food fairs, rural dramas, rural poetry journeys, cultural folk song competitions, rural radio, exchange visits and so on.In the first step, the diversity fair is a good practice to understand the local context and also could be used to locate diversity, custodians and farmers' knowledge base and so on. Then, a participatory assessment of agricultural biodiversity is done using the four-cell analysis method involving community members in the process. The method helps community members and the partner organizations to identify common, unique and rare genetic resources; to understand farmers' rationale determining the extent and distribution of local crop diversity; to identify important biological assets that play vital roles in the livelihoods of local people; and ultimately to enable them to develop diversified livelihood options and conservation strategies. Step 4. Consolidating community roles in planning, and implementation CBM encourages a bottom-up programme planning process guided by the needs of the community which are assessed locally. The local institution coordinates formulation and prioritization of CBM plans through village workshops and focus group discussions (FGDs) involving community members and local stakeholders in the process. Activities are also organized to strengthen the capacity of community-based institutions to effectively coordinate and implementation of the CBM plans, and mobilize resources and funds from within as well as outside the community. A number of community-based good practices for the conservation and utilization of local genetic resources has evolved from the project and these are increasingly being internalized within the community action plans. These good practices include: biodiversity fair, community biodiversity register, diversity block, diversity kits, community seed bank, and communitybased seed production of landraces and local varieties.Step 5. Establishing a CBM Fund Implementation of CBM action plans not only requires the collective action of the community members but also the financial resources. Thus, a CBM Fund is included as an integral part of the CBM approach. In the in-situ project, such a fund was created by contribution from the project as seed money. This fund is now managed by the local institution and its members receive loan for the conservation-oriented productive.activities The interest generated from such investment helps grow the fund and utilize part of it for its management. This fund could become part of the access and benefit sharing scheme, where a portion of the benefits accruing from the use of community genetic resources can directly go to this fund and later be used for the welfare of the concerned community. The CBM Fund has been found effective in organising community members, developing ownership towards the programme and in motivating them to implement CBM action plans. It is important that the capacity of the CBM Committee is strengthened in managing such a fund. Training on accounting principles and procedures and transparent book keeping is essential.Developing monitoring and evaluation indicators and agreeing on the procedures for monitoring progress against these indicators with the active participation of farming communities are important components of the CBM approach. The project has facilitated the CBM committee to organize review meetings and traveling seminars, involving community members on a regular basis. Similarly, a CBM activity calendar, prepared in consultation with farming communities, has been found to be an effective tool for planning and monitoring of the CBM activities. Documentation of good practices is also encouraged for scaling up of learning to a wider geographical area and social context.The final step of the CBM approach is scaling up of the good practices of CBM to include a larger number of households and farming communities adopting/adapting such practices. It is useful to organize annual or biannual social learning meetings to review the progress, bring out success and failures of interventions and identify new innovations and practices that can be scaled up to other households and communities. The synthesis of social learning and good practices has been effectively used to inform policy makers and influence creation of supportive policy environments.Experiences in the in-situ project in Nepal show that the CBM approach has been quite effective in empowering farming communities to organize and act collectively to plan and implement programme for the conservation and utilization of community biodiversity resources.In both Begnas and Kachorwa project sites, a number of conservation and utilization practices, such as community biodiversity register, community seed bank, diversity blocks, production and marketing seeds of local crop varieties, value addition through processing and marketing of local crop products and so on has been fully institutionalized. Landrace enhancement and participatory plant breeding (PPB) have been used in improving competitiveness of locally adapted landraces. The CBM Committees and CBOs have evolved strongly and are effectively coordinating CBM activities. CBM Funds have also been established and are effectively being used for the benefits of the community members. Many socially excluded, poor and marginal women farmers have started to participate and benefit from the CBM programme. Women farmers, who never participated in public meetings or expressed their opinions, have been observed to be active in social activities. These women farmers have gained access to seed and small credits, without having to deposit any collateral, to purchase goats, poultry and agricultural inputs.The initial results show that the CBM approach is effective in empowering farming communities to apply a wide range of practices for the conservation and utilization of agricultural biodiversity. The effectiveness of community-based institutions could be further improved by forging effective linkage and partnership with research and development institutions. Technical support to improve quality of seeds in the community seed bank and linking community seed banks with national gene banks are areas that need further attention.Value addition for building incentives for conservation has been recognized as an effective strategy within the CBM approach for the conservation and utilization of local genetic resources. Further validation regarding the success of the value addition approach requires a long-term engagement and commitment. Similarly, capacity building does not happen overnight. It requires continuous engagement and backstopping, especially in financial and human resources management and in seeking funds to sustain and scale up their activities.Further Reading On-farm management of agricultural biodiversity in NepalParticipatory Plant Breeding: A Strategy of On-farm Conservation and Improvement of LandracesWhat is PPB?Over the past two decades on-farm conservation and genetic resources management, particularly Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB ), has developed from a little known concept to a novel approach, capturing the attention of many people. This concept of PPB has been considered to be a method for on-farm conservation and promote use of local crop diversity. It has been developed to make up for the apparent limitations and shortcomings in the present formal and centralized systems of breeding. PPB attempts to develop crops and varieties that are better adapted to farmers' local environmental conditions and give more attention to the diverse traits that farmers and consumers value in their specific localities. As a default, one of the locally adapted parents is used for hybridization as this allows for retaining some useful alleles in the gene pool. PPB is a response to various developments in agriculture occurring over the last fifty years, mainly being the following:• Strong genetic erosion caused by changes in farming systems, land use, and commercialization, which limits farmers options to produce crops and narrows the genetic base needed for rural farming communities to cope with future demands in crop improvement • Erosion of farmers' knowledge and farmers' culture to deal with new biotic (pest and diseases) and abiotic stresses (draught, cold, heat) • In general, low adoption rate of formal sector varieties by farmers in specific and difficult areas due to poor emphasis on cultural and other use values PPB involves a range of different approaches, from formal-led to farmer-led initiatives. The project focuses on development of PPB in a farmer-led environment, where farmers decide on their breeding objectives. The availability of genetic materials, including products of locally adapted landraces and breeding lines, is extremely important for the success of PPB.PPB aims to conserve local genetic resources that are endangered or are on the verge of extinction from their habitat by adding value to them. The project aims to demonstrate that the value of farmer identified landraces, some of which are threatened for survival, could be increased by a PPB process. PPB offers skill and opportunity to farmers for searching for new diversity, selection and exchange of variable populations that match their local preferences and needs. Under PPB, both the farmer and the breeder take part in selection of segregating populations from the earliest stages.Figure 1 shows two approaches of self-pollinated crop breeding. The steps of plant breeding are common to conventional plant breeding, however, the methodology and approaches for goal setting, choosing parents and Advancing and selecting in segregating generations.Generation advance, individual plant selection, selection among and within bulks selection among and within families, stress-screening nurseries in on-farm conditions.Training on the concept of segregation, selection, heritability, and genetics. Organize field visits and facilitate interaction with farmers breeders from other relevant PPB projects, joint selection by breeders and farmers to enhance selection skillsTrials on research station (disease screening and RYT) and farmers' fields (mother and baby trials) simultaneous in PPB.Evaluation of fixed lines varieties for yield, resistances, and quality in replicated trials milling and organoleptic testing.Breeder, foundation and certified seed production (formal seed supply). Facilitating informal seed supply (Truthfully labeled and quality declared seed). Marketing and popularization. Information supply.Identifying adopters and adopted varieties; collection of feedback through surveys, interviews, group discussions, four cell and molecular analysis.• Farmers' selection after F5-6 stages are multiplied and tested in many households using mother and baby trials within PPB village. Once the materials are perceived well by the farmers, this is tested further on a wider scale through PVS. The lines selected in PVS are multiplied in parallel through community based seed production programs and linked to agrovets. • Experts from the District Agriculture Development Office, seed producer groups, rice millers and merchants are involved during PVS to get their feed back to the selected lines. • Monitor the farmer to farmer spread of the bulks.The detailed studies of the most superior varieties bred from PPB are done for variety release purpose. Therefore, data right from F6 on ward generations need to be documented properly for variety release purpose. households to fields of 35 households. The main reasons for selection were better yield performance under rain fed and drought conditions, resistance to lodging, better taste and grain types similar to the local parent (Shrestha, 2006). A cross of two high quality rice varieties (Biramphool and Himali) is also doing well in Begnas village.The involvement of farmers in the breeding process not only adds value to the conservation of local crop diversity but also helps to maintain and enhance farmers' knowledge on the selection and management of local crop populations, and to enhance seed supply systems. Since the PPB group was formed, four broader effects have been noticed: 1) increased quality of farmer participation, 2) increased local capacity, 3) improved work efficiency and 4) increased social learning and feeling of ownership. There were greater realization and respect between farmers and plant breeders that together they can make a difference on crop improvement of their interest.The involvement of farmers in the breeding process not only adds value to the conservation of local crop diversity but also helps to maintain and enhance farmers' knowledge on the selection and management of local crop populations, and to manage seed supply systems. At the same time diverse farmer preferences, agro-ecological niches and local farming systems help to conserve a reservoir of genetic diversity on-farms. This reservoir can be considered to be valuable pre-breeding germplasm as it adds security to their livelihoods. Since the PPB group was formed within the CBM programme of a local institution (CBO), four broader effects have been noticed: 1) increased quality of farmer participation, 2) increased local capacity, 3) improved worked efficiency and 4) increased social learning and feeling of ownership. There were greater realization and respect between farmers and plant breeders that together they can make a difference on crop improvement of their interest. These HHs maintained 13 landrace and 1 modern cultivar.Capturing the domain of the Biramphool variety and is becoming popular due to its good aroma and yieldOn-farm management of agricultural biodiversity in NepalParticipatory Landrace Enhancement: An Economic Incentive to Support On-farmWhat are the key factors that make some diversity rich farming practices profitable and productive in the market economy? There are meagre examples that demonstrate social, economic and environmental benefits from the use of local crop diversity.results reveal that there are economic and social benefits from landrace enhancement to farming communities but its ecological cost has to be assessed with livelihood gains over time.Landraces, or farmers' traditional cultivars, are important biological resources for ensuring sustainable production and improve livelihood options and are the foundation upon which plant breeding depends for the creation of new varieties. Therefore, they have a critical public value for global food security. In Nepal, there are various local varieties that possess significant amounts of genetic variation. However, they have not yet been fully capitalized on, to demonstrate social and economic benefits of on farm conservation. Not all landraces can be conserved on farm, and not all farmers can conserve them because of the cost involved. Due to the lack of adequate incentives to the farmers for continuing conservation and lack of innovative plant breeding of local crop varieties, landraces are disappearing at an alarming rate. The challenge in many developing countries is to create incentives for maintaining diversity that can benefit the present and future generations of farmers.Traditional varieties are valued by geneticists and farmers because of diversity (a heterogeneous population), rarity (embodying unique traits) and adaptability (exhibiting wide ecological and sociocultural adaptation). One way of distinguishing those varieties that provide high public value is to classify them in terms of their immediate and future plant breeding value (Smale et al., 2004). Maintenance of landraces is important to farmers and the country because they serve both private (direct use value) and public (diversity, rarity and adaptability) values. The Onfarm Conservation Project in Nepal tested the hypothesis that landrace enhancement of unique landraces is one of the practical strategies for on farm management of agricultural biodiversity in situ (Gyawali et al, 2004a).The project team selected JB landrace population as a test case for landrace enhancement study to demonstrate the value of on farm maintenance of diversity to farmers, researchers and policy makers so that national resources are mobilized for increasing income and livelihood options. The rationales for selecting JB landrace are: 1) heterogeneous population within the valley, embodying unique quality traits, 2) adaptability to local culture and ecology, and 3) potential scope for crop improvement to add value of the landrace.  1 shows overall performance of six selected lines. Figure 2 illustrated the comparative performance of the improved JB with local JB in most of the preferred traits.Step 1Step 2Step 3Step 4Step 12Step 11Step 10Step 9Marketing of locally named rice through private sector partnershipVariety release and maintenance of breeder seed Market (Consumer) survey for economic traitsStep 5Step 8Step 7Selection of agronomic, yield and quality traitsStep 6  Gains in quality traits: JB rice is known for its quality and consumers are willing to pay the premium price (74 % higher price than Mansuli rice). A baseline study indicated that 21% of farmers from Begnas village maintained JB for its superior postharvest qualities, productivity and price stability over other common landraces. Authentic JB rice when cooked has superior softness, flakiness, aroma and better taste, as indicated by a consumer preference ranking survey. Variability in quality is the main concern of consumers and market entrepreneurs for JB rice marketing.We found the enhanced materials were highly preferred for post harvest quality traits, by the farmers (Figure 3). Selected JB had more than 72% milling recovery with a maximum range of 79%. It was also found that Jethobudho landrace meets international standards and has a potential to be marketed in Arabian markets because of its special quality traits that Arabian consumers prefer. In order to share the benefits of JB landrace development with a large number of farmers, community based seed production (CBSP) was initiated with diverse stakeholders for Jethobudho landraces. It aims to strengthen healthy seed systems adapted to ensure the sustained supply of seed of enhanced landraces to the farming communities. The project established a link between community seed producers with seed entrepreneurs and a district self reliance seed production programme for social, economic and institutional sustainability. The system has now produced 80 kgs of breeder seed and 1.7 t truthfully labeled seeds for marketing and distribution. The private sector, especially rice millers and merchants, have special interest in enhanced Jethobudho for marketing, thereby contributing to conservation through utilization. They are willing to pay NPRs 1500 per muri (70 kg husked rice) for enhanced JB compared to local JB (NPRs 1200).The National Variety Release and Registration Committee of the National Seed Board visited to assess the performance of Jethobudho in farmers' fields in Pokhara valley. The technical committee has invited the plant breeders of the in situ project to submit the release proposal as soon as possible.Participatory landrace enhancement is a quick method (7 years) for demonstrating value of on-farm conservation to community and policy makers. National partners have initiated germplasm enhancement work in rice landraces (such as Jhinuwa, Kala Namak, Ganjale Masino and Lalka Basmati) and also fingermillet populations of Kalo Dalle and Samdhi Kodo in Kaski valley.Creating market incentives for conservation and exchange of selected populations is a current challenge for the PPB team. The team is developing provision of geographic indication (GI) for landraces such as Jethobudho, the native of Kaski valley and incentives ensured through GI should go to the custodian farmers.Policy makers should translate their theoretical support for agricultural biodiversity conservation and commercialization of high value products into practice through policy reforms and legal support.At the community level, it is essential to link farmers with the market (private sectors), as the quickest way to generate income from their local products. The private sector has initiated interactions with scientists involved in the enhancement process to negotiate for making enhanced Jethobudho accessible to large number of farmers in the Kaski valley. Good PracticeValue addition is a marketing strategy of creating the demand of local crops and varieties in the market by increasing consumers' awareness, better processing, packaging and promoting nutritive and health value of the products. The hypothesis behind this approach is that it will increase demand of the products and thereby the area of depleting crops and varieties will increase and chance of survival will be enhanced. Genetic diversity of traditional crops is eroding at an alarming pace and it is replaced by the introduced crops and varieties. Farmers are maintaining diversity as a resource to fulfill their diverse production, consumption, economic and socio-cultural needs.While it is true that, in general, market forces tend to \"homogenize\" or reduce diversity due to specialization in high-value products and therefore specialization in only those species and varieties that produce these products, there is increasing evidence from current work on under-utilized crops like taro and finger millet that these same market forces can be used to conserve agrobiodiversity. There are not many cases that demonstrate commercialization supports maintenance of local diversity. Therefore, the project interventions need to use multiple strategies to use local crop diversity and knowledge for generating social, economic and environmental benefits to people.There are two market strategies to enhancing these benefits: 1) ensure competitiveness of local crop diversity as an income-producer, and 2) increase demand (locally, regionally and globally) for the target local and endemic crop diversity. The following general strategy was used to raise the value of local crop diversity:• Increase value of local crop diversity by increasing access to information and materials (e.g. nutritive value of specific crops or varieties) • Increase demand of local crop diversity through non-breeding approaches (e.g. value addition of locally processed products or developing new products or better packaging and marketing)With rapid migration of people from rural to urban areas, consumers are increasingly demanding local crops and their products, which they are accustomed to in the urban market. However, availability of the right product in the right time in the required amount at reasonable price has been a constraint for consumers. On the other hand, producers are not benefitting from local crops and varieties. This may force farmers to abandon the crop/varieties leading, eventually the loss of diversity. Another fact is that there is a very little knowledge among producers and consumers about the nutritional value and the increasingly young generation changing food habits that do not support local food culture. Therefore, there is a need to raise awareness to promote these local and neglected and/or underutilized crops. The non-breeding approach of value addition is particularly for increasing the use value of local and other neglected and underutilized crops that provides incentives for their on farm conservation. Value addition also provides options to generate incomes in rural communities through simple processing and linking with niche markets that support farmers' livelihoods. Thus, value addition improves the use values of local crops for its sustainable utilization that leads to conservation of crop genetic resources on farm.Step 8Facilitate the provision of necessary support services (inputs, credit, market information, and lab analysis) to start the business. Through meetings and workshops, opportunities to link public and private sector service providers are essential. Biodiversity/trade fairs are a good forum to bring both parties in on a common agenda.Step 9Conduct promotional activities to raise awareness to use local crops and/or crop based products among consumers and obtain feedback. Tools such as FM radio, food fair/festivals, information flyers, website, TV adds, workshops/seminars etc could be used to reach large groups of consumers to increase demand and awareness of conservation of biodiversity.Step 10 Explore and identify other national and international market outlets to link products. Collaboration and networking with strategic chain for promoting market products. In Begnas, Kaski, in situ conservation project revitalized farmers cooperative \"Pratigya\" and oriented in dealing and promoting local crops and its products. This initiative has increased the demand for Anadi rice and taro and its products (Masaura, Gaya, Tandra) in the market of Pokhara (Fig 1, 2). After successful piloting of the In situ project, this approach has been replicated in other LI-BIRD projects, e.g. linking biodiversity to the market and Community Biodiversity Register (CBR) to add value to neglected local crops in peri-urban area of Pokhara. LI-BIRD, in collaboration with NARC, initiated adding values through diversifying its products and creating awareness in one of the neglected crops: finger millet. Private entrepreneurs like Sital agro-products and Madhav's café were involved in the process under the facilitation of food experts. They produced different millet products (cookies, bread, rolls, namkin, roasted flour) targeting school children, intellectuals, diabetics, foreigners and particularly the ethnic community (Gurung and Thakali) in Pokhara. The project conducted massive awareness raising activities on the value of millet foods through FM radio, print materials, fairs/festivals, workshops and school programs. This resulted in increased demand of millet products in Pokhara. A case study revealed that such initiatives have increased the demand for millet grain more than 4 fold in 2004 as compared to base year 2001 in Pokhara (Fig. 3). In addition to millet, The Development Fund supported project facilitated entrepreneurs to produce different buckwheat products like bread, cookies, cakes, noodles. Besides, these food items also contributed to the better health and nutrition of consumers. Farmers were benefited by supplying these crops in the market through their groups and cooperatives.It has been observed that, due to added value to the local underutilized crops-based products and improved marketing strategies, area for growing these crops has increased over time and has led to the conservation of the varieties. Public awareness on value of these nutritious crops has created a potential demand in the market. This has generated income for the farming communities which has linked to conservation and sustainable utilization of agrobiodiversity on farm Sensitization and capacity building among consumers, producers and market functionaries has been found to be important to creating demand of valued local crops. Markets and marketing provide opportunities to rural farmers to earn cash income only in those local crops that have unique values. Awareness on nutrition among consumers and market intermediaries is important to promote local crops in the niche market. Attention should be given not only to the quantity of produce but also to quality of the products. Thus, the capacity of farmers' groups/cooperatives and locally operating small market intermediaries, who deal with local crops, has to be built up through training on better processing and handling. Moreover, producers, promoters and consumers will be more benefited through strong linkages. T Some other issues are listed below:1. Economic scale of production is needed to enter and sustain in the market. At the community level, one of the important good practices was to link farmers with the market (private sectors), which was found to be the quickest way to generate income from their local products. The in situ project encouraged local entrepreneurs to purchase produce, add value and market through their market outlets. A meeting with a farmers' cooperative and local entrepreneurs identified a list of local products and the amount required for marketing. However, joy was short-lived as the cooperative could not supply the agreed quantity that has standard quality and variability price offered. Local entrepreneurs were also anxious as they received more complaints from consumers for a variable quality and irregular supply. The project team thus tried to strengthen the capacity of the cooperative to organize a group of women farmers for one commodity and train women groups in quality control and hygiene and agreed to produce the minimum amount to meet the market demand. Local entrepreneurs helped to train farmers who became shareholders of the cooperative. As the business took some momentum, conflicts of interest arose on prices and the cooperative decided to set up their own market outlets by opening a shop (Gaunle Pasal-Rural Shop specialized to sell local products) in Pokhara, Nepal. The project team was ill equipped to help farmers make informed decisions about their eventual fate in the marketplace and within a year farmers realized that marketing of local products is a hard nut to crack without specialized skills, networks, and risk-bearing capacity. It was learned from this failure that farmers were good in producing the agricultural goods and semi-processed materials but it was too risky for them to take up the value addition and marketing work by themselves as the skills and investment required were different.Although the idea of value addition of local products is very appealing to local communities and policy makers, its successful implementation requires a concerted and integrated long-term professional approach from multi-partners. Many things have vanished from our surroundings Even the seeds cannot be found, no matter how much we search Tomorrow it may not remain the same So, let's save all our crops and landraces Many things of our village taste better and good Which the modern hybrids will never possess, no matter how much they tryThe above was extracted from one of the selected poem published in the Sampada volume I, written by a poet Mr. Prakat Pageni 'Shiva', emphasizing conservation and the significance of local landraces. Such poems written in the context of the value of local landraces and associated knowledge can easily draw the sentiments of farming communities. It is a unique platform where poets and poetesses have been mobilized to document the significance of plant genetic resources in the form of poems and songs. Local poets also get an opportunity to expose their talents and knowledge regarding the biodiversity of their region. It is one of the teaching tools in farmer friendly language, for the farmers, by the farmers and from the farmers.We all know that Nepal is rich in biodiversity and that there is a strong necessity for ensuring sustained economic growth and food security in the country through utilization of farmers' experiences, agricultural biodiversity and modern technologies. So, it is necessary to raise awareness among the people about the utilization and values of conserving biodiversity. The In situ project has developed a wide range of methods to increase awareness about the significance of biodiversity conservation and its utilization. Considering the geographical make-up and economic condition of the country, the dissemination tool selected has to be cheaper so that it can strike the larger mass.Every culture has some traditional knowledge which passes from one generation to another through such mediums like folk songs and folk tales. Often, traditional knowledge is embedded in folk songs, poems and folk tales. Such folksongs, tales and poems have reflected social and cultural values in the community since time immemorial. It was observed that the information or message passed on through this medium is easily acknowledged by the people and acts as an effective tool to sensitize the communities. Hence this mode can be considered as the most important and effective medium for communication with the rural population in developing countries as they are the mode of entertainment.With the vision of sensitizing and raising awareness by educating farmers about the value of crop diversity and restoring the local pride on the existing crop diversity which they have been maintaining till date, the in situ conservation project team decided to organise a Rural Poetry Journey in 1999 in association with the local cultural group named Pokherali Yuva Sanskritic Parishad at Kholakochheu, Begnas and its surrounding villages.The major objective of this approach was to sensitize the village community, including farmers and younger generations, on the significance of biodiversity conservation, to document traditional knowledge and to protect and conserve potentially useful and diminishing landraces. Sensitizing the consumers and policy-makers was also equally important as they consume these local products, and it was observed that few landraces were conserved by the farmers as they had high consumption value or high market demand.Step 1 A meeting was held between the in situ conservation project team and Pokherali Yuva Sanskritic Parishad, a local cultural club, to tell them the objective of the rural poetry journey.The date and time of the Rural Poetry Journey was fixed and the team of 6-10 on farm conservation project members and ten nationally renowned and local farmer poets were informed about the travelling schedule.Step 3The objectives, norms, and rationale of the agrobiodiversity program were explained to poets and they were then taken for a field visit to Begnas and the target site villages.Step 4The poets were encouraged to interact with the farming communities for two days to know about the local biodiversity of the region, understand the cultural context and the current situation and, most importantly, learn the value of agrobiodiversity.Step 5Poets were asked to write poems and songs using the vernacular term about the local landrace or biodiversity which was the theme of their poetry and had to recite it in front of community members every evening when the \"kavi sammelen\" was held before moving to the next village.Step 6All the recited poems were documented; they were published in the newspapers. The village poetry reading was audio taped and was planned to be relayed in regional radio-broadcasting. Step 7The best poems were selected and published in a collection called Sampada in two volumes for wider dissemination.Step 8 Funds raised from raising such publication went to community biodiversity trust funds, which support local conservation plans.This tool highlighted the importance of genetic diversity and associated knowledge, which reached to a large mass of the population regardless of age, sex, and education level. The rural poetry journey was responded to whole heartedly by the village community and it was found that besides the invited poets, farmers and school students too participated actively, reciting their poems about the landraces and the local biodiversity of that region. The participation of farmers and local people was very encouraging. This response can be utilized as a source to document traditional knowledge and protection from biopiracy.With the success of this programme, it is now seen as one of the important and effective tools in sensitization of the community. Learning from the success of this event, local clubs and NGOs have organized similar kinds of programmes alongside culturally significant events like the Teej geet competition, where the women's groups are provided biodiversity as the theme of their songs. Various women's groups participated in this competition, coming up with all biodiversity related songs. The best of these was judged as the winner. The panel of judges was formed from the in situ project team members. This cultural tool has been broadly used by NGOs for awareness programmes. The same groups used a similar methodology to stage street dramas such The publication of the poems and songs in a book also acted as an incentive to these farming communities. This has in a way helped more by educating the villagers about the landraces through traditional knowledge techniques, i.e. folk tales, folk songs etc., hence this book can also act as a mode of traditional knowledge documentation where the poems may have some hidden knowledge conveyed by an older generation. Many local institutions have now used local culture, customs and rituals as an effective medium to sensitize the community on development and social issues.It was found that a large number of people could be educated through this approach in a short period of time.People easily understand the information disseminated through poems and songs. Community members have already initiated the writing and collection of poems and songs to recite in the formal program within their own gathering. These novel initiations need to be scaled up to include more communities and wider geographical coverage. Poets from the region can re-recite popular poems in other programmes and forums. Reputed poets can also disseminate this information and knowledge in a wider scale. A few of the selected poems can be added in textbooks as compulsory poems to be read by students, while teachers can elaborately explain the importance or the status of landraces.(Contributed by Smreety Dewan, Radhakrishna Tiwari, Prakat Pageni, Deepak Rijal, Krishna Baral, Pashupati Chaudhary, Ram Rana and Bhuwon Sthapit)The in situ project has developed a wide range of methods and tools to increase awareness about the value of biodiversity conservation and its use. Among those, the rural radio programme is successfully tested as one of the means to increase awareness and dissemination of new innovations, technologies, process/methodology, research results, development and policy issues of both public and private concern and attention. It was broadcasted twice a week through Annapurna FM from Pokhara, with coverage of about 16 districts, with financial support from IPGRI. Realizing the significant contribution through initial review of the project, LI-BIRD continued the programme on its own at the later.Rural radio means the radio broadcast that contains local contents with the active participation of rural people and other stakeholders. The objective of this rural radio programme is to sensitize different stakeholders on the importance and value of biodiversity conservation and use.Step 1 Setting up a multidisciplinary team responsible for launching and guiding the radio programme with clear roles and responsibilitiesStep 2 Identification and allocation of appropriate broadcasting time for the radio programmeStep 3 Participatory designing of the day to day programme by a multidisciplinary team of professionals (issue based discussions, interviews, agriculture news and appropriate technologies, problem solving etc.)Step 4Establishing a database of contacts, linkages and networks with professionals and experts for problem solving and issue based discussionStep 5 Periodic review by stakeholders and professionals and revision of the topic of biodiversity-Includes local content and involves many stakeholders (participatory) -Common forum to form public opinion on issues and concerns on agrobiodiversity -Means to disseminate innovative ideas and information on agrobiodiversity -Experience sharing and learning forum Photo: LI-BIRD Photo BankStep 6 Feedback collection through a stakeholders review meeting and letters for refining programme; providing FM radio sets as prizes to listener quiz contestsStep 7 Programme monitoring and evaluation by a multidisciplinary team of professionals (survey, interaction, discussions, etc.)Rural radio broadcasting has been a powerful and effective tool in creating awareness among farming communities and other stakeholders (Box 1). More than 50 listeners per week are contacting the radio programme, called LI-BIRD KO CHAUTARI, to solve their problems as well as contribute to the radio programme. This has created a forum among stakeholders through increased partnership and collaboration. Seven listeners clubs have been formed to listen to LIBIRD KO CHAUTARI and make it more interactive.It was found that about 53% of the listeners of the programme were in between the age group of 25-50 years. About 56% listeners of the programme were found to be engaged in farming, In a listeners' survey, after listening to this program, the majority (36%) of the listeners were found to discuss what they had heard with neighbors followed by discussion with their own family members (32%), farmers group (22%) and development workers (11%). Thus, rural radio programmes increase social cohesiveness among people and non-listener's are also benefiting from the programming. Radio broadcasting in local language with their own voices has been a  Managing agrobiodiversity on farm is a complex process that requires multi-disciplinary inputs and multi-institution partnerships. The multi-stakeholder partnership approach has been found to be an effective institutional mechanism in promoting the sustainable management of agrobiodiversity on farm. This partnership approach is built on mutual trust and respect for comparative advantages of partner organizations, clearly defined roles and responsibilities, and transparent resource sharing.Agriculture in Nepal is characterized by farming systems which are quite diversified and complex in terms of enterprise mixes, objectives of the production, and diversity and mobilization of farm resources. Because of this, the diversity of plant and animal genetic resources managed at the farm level is usually very high. Managing such a large diversity of genetic resources, therefore, requires multi-disciplinary, multi-sectoral inputs and multi-institutions participation. With this consideration, the project \"Strengthening the scientific basis of in situ conservation of agrobiodiversity on farm\" has adopted a multi-stakeholder partnership approach involving a number of partners who have a stake and play critical roles in implementing the project and achieving its goals. The built on clearly defined roles and responsibilities and managed by creating functional management structures and formulating transparent and accountable working modalities (Figure 1). The management structure and working modalities were devised to ensure maximum contribution from each partner involved in the process.At the core of the management structure was the National Project Management Team (NPMT), headed by the National Project Coordinator (NPC) and comprised of professional experts and thematic leaders of the project activities from NARC, DoA, LI-BIRD and IPGRI.The main role of the NPMT was to facilitate planning, implementation and monitoring of the project activities (see Box 1). It also acted as bridge between project implementation by local project teams and farming communities, and was overseen by the National Project Steering Committee (NPSC). The NPSC, chaired by the executive director of NARC, was the governing body of the project and played an important role in steering, The sharing of project funds was also very participatory and transparent between IPGRI, NARC and LI-BIRDthe main implementing organizations. The agreed funds were transferred directly to the respective organizations and each had the freedom to manage the fund according to their own financial rules and regulations. This arrangement avoided conflict over financial incentives and facilitated smooth running of the project activities.This approach of building multi-stakeholder partnership for on farm agrobiodiversity management has now been widely appreciated and frequently referred to, both nationally and internationally, as effective and successful. The approach has been regarded as one of the key factors in achieving the objectives of and producing desired outputs from the project. The following outputs can be directly attributed to the contribution of the multistakeholder partnership approach adopted in the project. The value of multi-stakeholder partnership in agrobiodiversity management programmes is now well recognised both nationally and internationally. The approach has been adopted in a number of new agrobiodiversity related projects such as the GRPI project, WTLCP, Policy issues of neglected and underutilised species and so on. The in situ team, comprising NARC, LI-BIRD and IPGRI professionals Box 3: Roles of LPMT Participatory planning, decision-making through consensus building and implementation of project activities through a multi-disciplinary team, composed of members from partner organisations, were the core of the working modality of the project. Partnership was embedded in all aspects of the project work and transparency in sharing responsibilities and resources was maintained throughout the process.The project activities were grouped into thematic areas, such as crop biology, social science, participatory plant breeding, gender and community mobilization. Experts from partner organizations were teamed up to utilize their comparative advantage. This created cohesion among professionals of different disciplines as they made efforts to produce the best results in their respective thematic areas. Team building and partnership was further strengthened by transparently defined roles and responsibilities for each member and team. LI-BIRD was given the role of coordinating local level organizations, including farming communities, in the implementation of the project activities as well as leading in the thematic areas of participatory plant breeding, gender and community mobilization. NARC, on the other hand, was given the responsibility to lead the thematic area of crop biology and social science research. With its global experience, IPGRI provided overall technical backstopping. Accomplishing activities and producing good results were linked with sharing of rewards and benefits, for example, opportunities for training and expert visits to other countries, and authorship sharing for contribution to publications. The same was reflected in the performance of the partner organizations.The coordination of project activities was decentralized at different levels to ensure full participation of the partners. At the project site level, coordination with is also well recognized and frequently invited to share experiences and provide inputs on agrobiodiversity management at the national and international level.Joint contribution of the partners to national agrobiodiversity programmes.The in situ team has made significant contributions to including agrobiodiversity in national policies and plans. This includes drafting the National Agro-biodiversity Policy 2005, inclusion of agrobiodiversity in the 10th Five Year Plan, and amendment of Seed Regulation Act 1994 to include national listing of landraces/ local varieties. The team also contributed to a training curriculum on agrobiodiversity management for the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives and provided technical backstopping in the field implementation of the programme.Though the benefits of multi-stakeholder partnership are well recognized, establishing effective partnership is equally challenging and requires continuous efforts.Partnership is also a process of learning in action. From the last eight years of experience in multi-stakeholder partnership in the in situ project, the following lessons and learning have been derived.• Multi-stakeholder partnership is built on mutual contribution and respect for each others' expertise, experiences and other comparative advantages. • Multi-stakeholder partnership is smooth when founded on agreed terms and conditions that are continuously respected by all parties.• Success of multi-stakeholder partnership depends on the quality inputs and commitments of the partners. • Multi-stakeholder partnership is built on a delicate thread of mutual trust and, therefore, partnership should be dealt with adequate sensitivity. • Respecting partner organisations' institutional and working environment and accepting flexibility in mobilization of resources are equally critical for a successful partnership. • Sharing failures and obtaining inspiration from positive/ success cases are also important. • Team building by complimenting in areas of weaknesses of the partners plays a vital role in strengthening multi-stakeholder partnership. • Multi-stakeholder partnership produces the best results when it is manageable in size and includes partners who have a strong stake and commitment to the programme.Upadhyay, M.P. and Subedi, A. The process of IDP can be presented in six sequential steps (Figure 1). The first step in the IDP implementation is the 'data need assessment' that involves a brainstorming session amongst the interdisciplinary team members in the project to agree on the types of data to be collected at the plot level. Once the data need is established, researchers conduct a focus group discussion (FGD) with selected members of the farming community to understand how farmers characterize their ecosystems and on what parameters they base this characterization. Participants in the FGD also deploy varieties to specific ecosystems based on existing realistic experience. Researchers and farmers jointly select a few representative landraces and MVs from each ecosystem for the IDP exercise. Households growing the selected varieties are identified and their consent to participate Process/Steps Activities categories. Since participants do all the recording themselves, literate farmers (someone from the family) need to be selected for this purpose. Participants need to be active in farming with some years of experience because knowledge and information provided by them have to be relevant and reliable. Selected IDP farmers need to be provided with detailed orientation that includes briefing on the objectives of IDP, introduction to the subject matter, and explanation of their roles and responsibilities in the experiment.The next step in the process includes IDP land selection, conducted jointly by the researcher and participating farmers, followed by necessary measurements of the land area to ascertain input levels and production to be used in a cost-benefits analysis of landraces and MVs. One variety per plot is used in the IDP exercise. Land history of the plots in terms of cropping patterns, fallow periods, compost and chemical fertiliser use, irrigation, etc. is recorded. Soil samples are also collected from the IDPs for nutrient analysis in the laboratory. These factors help explain the performance of any variety in a given plot. The fifth step in the exercise includes the actual recording by participants of all activities and inputs applied on and outputs derived from IDPs. Researchers pay fortnightly visits to participants, verify the recorded data and observe fields and transfer the records from farmers' diaries to the main register. The recording continues throughout the crop season, from seed to seed. Finally, the collected data is analysed by a research team along with inputs from selected participant farmers. Results from the soil/plant analysis are also collated with field observations and records to explain the performance of different varieties across plots and between farms. Effort is made to formally share the findings with the farmers through FGD and to validate the results obtained.IDP experiments on four landraces and one MV of rice across three rice ecosystems were conducted in Begnas ecosite (600-1200 masl) in year 2002. In total, 90 farmers participated in the IDP experiment that involved detailed recording of production costs: inputs (seed, farm yard manure, chemical fertiliser, pesticide etc) and labour costs. We also measured grain and straw yields from the plots and converted these to monetary values (Table 1). Results suggest that in certain ecosystems (marshy) landraces are as competitive as MVs in economic return, whereas in others (rainfed and irrigated) they are the only option available to farmers. Landraces as a group demonstrated huge variations in agronomic traits, production potential, production costs and the economic return they generate. Therefore, it would be erroneous if they were treated as a homogenous entity having similar features, and rejected a priori as inferior material without proper evaluation.Farmers deploy varieties to specific ecosystems to match the performance of varieties to ecosystem characteristics.In the case of Mansara, though the landrace produced lower grain and straw yield, farmers still applied a considerable amount of manure and performed other management practices equal to those applied for other, better yielding varieties. This illustrates that farmers' differential management of varieties is not primarily on the basis of the economic return they generate; rather the decision is based on farmers' intricate understanding of varietal performance and ecosystem characteristics. This finding contrasts significantly with researchers' and developmental workers' perceptions and it would have been difficult to elicit this information any other way.In a subsistence-oriented farming system, household food security through grain production takes precedence over economic analysis of production while making decisions on variety deployment, area allotment and Photo: LI-BIRD Photo Bank management practices. Hence, farmers' management of varieties falling in different ecosystems is not driven by profit maximization; rather it is motivated by utility maximization of farmers' given resources. Yet, farmers' decisions on area allotment to varieties within an ecosystem was largely explained by economic return that the varieties generate because competition between varieties exists primarily within ecosystems and less so between ecosystems.The ","tokenCount":"21549"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"697cacd765ba2552ddcd9c467ca3fd89","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/538a545d-3dbf-4f0a-893c-3fdee9135292/retrieve","id":"680093773"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b9facabc-9287-4e06-9353-32f476272f1f","pagecount":"38","content":"ASAC CAC CCAD CCAFS (por sus siglas en inglés) CG CGIAR (por sus siglas en inglés) CIAT COMMCA CONRED EASAC ECADERT ERCC FAO (por sus siglas en inglés) GAF INDE MAG MAGA MARN NAFP (por sus siglas en inglés) NCRIP (por sus siglas en inglésLos países del SICA han visto en la Agricultura Sostenible Adaptada al Clima (ASAC) una solución integral para mejorar los ingresos y la productividad, aumentar la resiliencia y capacidades para la adaptación al cambio climático y favorecer la seguridad alimentaria y nutricional, en su objetivo por alcanzar un desarrollo sostenible que incluya las poblaciones más vulnerables. Amparados en la Alianza para el Desarrollo Sostenible (ALIDES) y en concordancia con el nuevo marco global contenido en la Agenda 2030 para el desarrollo sostenible, en el 2018 el Consejo Agropecuario Centroamericano (CAC) aprobó la Estrategia Agricultura Sostenible Adaptada al Clima para la región del SICA: 2018-2030 (EASAC).Para la implementación de la EASAC se requiere una transformación y reorientación del sector agropecuario, el fortalecimiento de la agricultura familiar, la revalorización de lo rural desde la perspectiva territorial y el reconocimiento de las dificultades y el valor de las labores de las mujeres. Esto con el fin de que la ASAC se convierta en una fuente de oportunidades para mujeres y jóvenes rurales y que, en general, ayude a reducir las desigualdades de manera significativa.Explícitamente, la EASAC en el Eje 4: Elementos habilitadores, línea estratégica 15 propone: Facilitación de mecanismos de integración del principio de igualdad y equidad entre los géneros, así como el enfoque intergeneracional y la inclusión social en las acciones ASAC.Este documento busca aportar a la implementación de dicha línea estratégica. Para eso, se ha realizado un trabajo de análisis de políticas públicas y entrevistas La Agricultura Sostenible Adaptada al Clima (ASAC), es aquella agricultura que incrementa de manera sostenible la productividad, la resiliencia o adaptación a los cambios de clima y, a la vez, reduce o incluso elimina gases de efecto invernadero, en el camino por lograr las metas nacionales de desarrollo y de seguridad alimentaria (FAO, 2010a).Consistió en una revisión documental de algunas políticas a nivel regional del SICA y de los países pertenecientes al sistema. Este análisis no examina los impactos de dichas políticas, pero proporciona información de base sobre el estado de las políticas y constituye un paso crítico para identificar las brechas político-institucional para la planificación e implementación de la Agricultura Sostenible Adaptada al Clima (ASAC) con inclusión de género.Se hizo una preselección de diferentes políticas y documentos relacionados con agricultura, cambio climático y género por país y a nivel regional del SICA. Esta primera selección arrojó 155 documentos, los cuales fueron enviados a los expertos y las expertas de CAC y el Programa de Investigación con diferentes actores de la región del SICA. Finalmente, se han identificado acciones claves en diferentes niveles: regional del SICA, nacional y en los territorios. Dichas acciones sugieren una hoja de ruta para la implementación de la perspectiva de género de la EASAC.del CGIAR en Cambio Climático, Agricultura y Seguridad Alimentaria -CCAFS (por sus siglas en inglés). Se solicitó a los y las expertas que hicieran una priorización de documentos relevantes de acuerdo a sus conocimientos y experiencias. Para la priorización se usó un valor numérico de 1 a 5, donde:1. = Esencial o indispensable 2. = Importante 3. = Relevante 4. = Importante, pero no vigenteEl resultado que arrojó la priorización fue una lista de las políticas agropecuarias y de cambio climático en los diferentes países. Adicionalmente, a nivel regional se priorizó la Estrategia Agricultura Sostenible Adaptada al Clima (EASAC), La Política Regional de Igualdad y Equidad de Género (PRIEG) y la Estrategia Centroamericana de Desarrollo Rural Territorial (ECADERT). Para complementar la priorización, durante las entrevistas con integrantes de la Red de género de CAC, del Consejo de Ministras de la Mujer de Centroamérica y República Dominicana (COMMCA) y La Comisión Centroamericana de Ambiente y Desarrollo (CCAD), se solicitó a las personas entrevistadas que hicieran recomendaciones sobre los documentos de política más relevantes de su país para nuestro estudio.Con la información recolectada se hizo una depuración y revisión minuciosa de los documentos. Se incluyeron las políticas priorizadas por los y las expertas y adicionalmente se agregaron las políticas de género a nivel nacional para identificar posibles interconexiones. La selección final quedó compuesta por políticas que pertenecen a los tres sectores de interés para la implementación del enfoque de género de la EASAC, a saber: agropecuario, ambiental (cambio climático) y género. En total se analizaron 40 documentos de política: tres documentos por país, que consistían en uno de cada sector mencionado y seis políticas y estrategias regionales de los mismos tres sectores (ver anexo 1). Finalmente, con todos los documentos recolectados se creó una base de datos de 176 políticas públicas relevantes para la perspectiva de género en los sectores agropecuario y ambiental de la región. Este estudio deja a disposición esta base de datos con todos los documentos encontrados, como una herramienta disponible para innumerables posibilidades de análisis a futuro.Para el análisis de las políticas se utilizaron las categorías de diseño de políticas con perspectiva de género promovidas por el PNUD (2000), basadas en Kabeer, N. Subrahmanian, R. (1996). Según esta herramienta, el diseño de las políticas se puede categorizar en cuatro grupos de acuerdo al grado en que reconocen y afrontan los problemas de género (ver gráfica 1): políticas \"ciegas\" a la perspectiva de género y políticas con conciencia de género. Dichas políticas con conciencia de género diferencian a los actores entre hombres y mujeres, reconociendo que tienen diferentes necesidades e intereses y que a menudo dichos intereses pueden entrar en conflicto (PNUD, 2000). Los diseños con conciencia de género (CG) pueden subcategorizarse como neutros, específicos de género y transformadores de género (Kabeer y Subrahmanian, 1996;PNUD, 2000).El análisis cuantitativo consistió en aplicar códigos, cuantificarlos y compararlos con otras políticas. En las políticas del sector agrícola y ambiental se utilizaron los siguientes códigos:Para identificar si las políticas de género habían considerado los sectores agrícola y ambiental en sus políticas creamos códigos que consideramos relevantes para la EASAC. Los códigos son:La creación de los códigos pasó por varias etapas de prueba y error. Los códigos presentados en este informe son los que produjeron los mejores resultados y sirvieron como un indicador rápido de la inclusión de género en las políticas y de la intersectorialidad dentro de las políticas de género. Sin embargo, para hacer el análisis con los indicadores del PNUD, una vez recolectados los códigos se pasó a realizar un análisis cualitativo.Gráfica 1. Las categorías de diseño de políticas con perspectiva de género.Aquellas que no hacen distinción entre actores masculinos y femeninos y, en consecuencia, están sesgadas a favor de las relaciones de género existentes y, por lo tanto, es probable que excluyan a las mujeres. Dichas políticas no tienen en cuenta los roles, responsabilidades y relaciones socialmente atribuidas a hombres y mujeres y, por tanto, tienden a percibir a los hombres como los principales beneficiarios de las políticas (Gumucio y Tafur Rueda, 2015).El diseño de políticas neutrales al género tiene en cuenta las necesidades y responsabilidades diferenciadas por género; si bien no busca abordar ninguna necesidad específica de género, tiene cuidado de no causar ningún daño intencional a un género.Apuntan a transformar la distribución existente de recursos y responsabilidades para crear una relación más igualitaria entre mujeres y hombres. Las mujeres y los hombres pueden ser el objetivo o un solo grupo puede ser el objetivo de la intervención. Las políticas redistributivas de género se centran principalmente en los intereses estratégicos de género, pero pueden planear satisfacer las necesidades prácticas de género de una manera que tenga un potencial transformador (proporcionar un entorno de apoyo para el empoderamiento de las mujeres). Es decir, cuando se abordan las necesidades estratégicas de género, la intención es cambiar ciertas prácticas o instituciones que estructuran la distribución de beneficios entre hombres y mujeres (Gumucio y Tafur Rueda, 2015).El análisis cualitativo consistió en analizar el contenido de las políticas e identificar qué tan explícitas eran en cuanto a los retos que las mujeres y jóvenes afrontan en las zonas rurales y las soluciones específicas que proponen para estos grupos en los diferentes sectores de interés: cambio climático y agropecuario. La meta era identificar si las políticas agropecuarias y ambientales tenían perspectiva de género y cómo esta perspectiva era abordada. De igual manera, para las políticas de género se identificó si incluían a las mujeres y jóvenes rurales y si consideraban al sector agropecuario y ambiental dentro de sus propuestas.Finalmente, teniendo en cuenta tanto el análisis cuantitativo como el análisis cualitativo, se clasificaron las políticas en las categorías de perspectiva de género del PNUD (ver anexo 1).Para las entrevistas se invitó a los y las integrantes de la Red de Género del CAC, en su mayoría directivos de las unidades de genero de los ministerios de agricultura y ganadería de los países del SICA. Además, funcionarios y funcionarias del COMMCA, CCAD y el CAC. Se utilizó un cuestionario semiestructurado (ver anexo 3), con temas relevantes identificados en el análisis de documentos. El objetivo era recolectar la información relevante y específica en cuanto a la implementación de la perspectiva de género en la EASAC.La dinámica de trabajo durante las entrevistas puede ser descrita como una conversación entre expertos de la red y la consultora. La meta era identificar retos y soluciones en la implementación de la línea estratégica 15 de la EASAC. En promedio, las entrevistas tuvieron una duración de noventa minutos. Se realizaron siete entrevistas utilizando plataformas virtuales con interacción sincrónica y dos entrevistas utilizando un formulario escrito. Se logró recopilar información de seis países del SICA: Honduras, Guatemala, República Dominicana, Panamá, Costa Rica y El Salvador, además de un representante de cada institución de la Red: COMMCA, CCAD y el CAC.A nivel regional del SICA  (2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020)(2021)(2022)(2023)(2024)(2025), que representa el posicionamiento del SICA sobre los principios de igualdad y equidad de género y la no discriminación contra las mujeres, siendo una política transversal y de largo plazo y la única que se acerca a un diseño de política transformativo, por esto es clasificada como una política con conciencia de género específica, cerca a ser transformativa (ver gráfica 2).A nivel general se reconoce el importante papel del enfoque de género, especialmente en la agricultura familiar, y se visibilizan los problemas de discriminación y desigualdad que viven las mujeres principalmente en las zonas rurales. La inclusión y la igualdad de género están claramente identificadas entre las prioridades estratégicas transversales de las políticas regionales analizadas, a excepción de la Política Agropecuaria de la Región SICA 2019-2030. Esto se hace visible con el análisis cuantitativo (ver tablas 1-3).A pesar de los avances, las políticas regionales carecen de una clara identificación de recursos para llevar a cabo las medidas y acciones propuestas, y ninguna de las políticas analizadas hace una propuesta clara para una redistribución existente de recursos y responsabilidades entre mujeres y hombres que permita crear una relación de igualdad sustantiva o de hecho (Hepple, 2001). Es decir, en la que hombres y mujeres puedan ejercer sus derechos universales y hacerlos efectivos en sus vidas cotidianas.Por otro lado, La Agenda del empoderamiento económico de las mujeres rurales, que se deriva de la PRIEG, hace una propuesta explícita de implementación en el empoderamiento económico de las mujeres. La implementación de esta Agenda es un paso importante en la igualdad de género en la región, sin embargo, al hacer el análisis de contenido, la agenda no contempla el papel de los hombres en la implementación de las acciones afirmativas para el empoderamiento económico de las mujeres rurales. La exclusión del papel que juegan los hombres en estas acciones puede representar un riesgo en el apoyo que reciban las propuestas de la agenda a nivel gubernamental y local al momento de su implementación.Finalmente, la ECADERT se destacó durante las entrevistas y en el análisis de contenido de otras políticas, ya que varios programas y políticas han sido influenciados por dicha estrategia. Ninguna política analizada pertenece a esta categoría.Ninguna política analizada pertenece a esta categoría. Tabla 3. Análisis cuantitativo de políticas de género a nivel SICA.Tabla 2. Análisis cuantitativo de políticas ambientales a nivel SICA.Tabla 1. Análisis cuantitativo de políticas agropecuarias a nivel SICA.Las características que hacen de la ECADERT un ejemplo en la inclusión de la conciencia de género son las siguientes:» Formulación ampliamente participativa.Contempla como uno de los principios fundamentales: la inclusión social y la equidad.El enfoque de género es transversal en todo el documento.Utiliza como concepto principal el desarrollo territorial.Incluye otros conceptos integradores como: tejido social, redes de cooperación territoriales, identidad cultural del territorio.Utiliza lenguaje diferenciado e inclusivo.» Se desarrolló con una visión a largo plazo.» Debilidad: presupuesto no especificado.La ECADERT es un ejemplo en el diseño de políticas del sector agropecuario y ambiental ya que, al ser una política con conciencia de género específica, utiliza el conocimiento de las diferencias de género en una situación dada para responder a las necesidades prácticas de género de mujeres y hombres, pero no aborda la división existente de recursos y responsabilidades. En conclusión, la PACC es una política con conciencia de género específica, ya que reconoce las diferencias de género en cuanto a cambio climático y propone una participación activa de los grupos vulnerables en varios ejes, sin embargo, la política no da una respuesta específica a las necesidades prácticas de género de mujeres y hombres y tampoco introduce indicadores segregados por género que puedan servir para medir el impacto de la política en grupos específicos.Por otro lado, existen políticas a nivel de los países que tienen un diseño con conciencia de género específico y podrían ser una base de apoyo para la implementación de la línea estratégica 15 de la EASAC (ver tabla 5). Cabe resaltar que, aunque estas políticas tienen un alto grado de integración de la perspectiva de género, ninguna define los recursos financieros asignados para la implementación y, aunque es frecuente que las políticas no incluyan asignación presupuestal en el mismo documento, las entrevistas realizadas a los y las expertas en los países confirman que la falta de asignación de presupuesto para las actividades de género es un gran obstáculo para su implementación.En cuanto a las políticas de género, en su mayoría no incluyen los sectores agropecuario y ambiental de manera específica en sus estrategias de trabajo, aunque reconocen las dificultades de las mujeres Tabla 5. Lista de políticas con diseño perspectiva de género específica.frente al acceso a la tierra, el derecho a la propiedad y la vulnerabilidad de las mujeres frente a los desastres ambientales. En ese sentido, la falta de transversalidad e intersectorialidad a nivel nacional va en doble vía. Es decir, las políticas agrícolas y ambientales han mejorado en la inclusión del enfoque de género, pero el cambio es tímido. Mientras las políticas de género rara vez hacen explícitas las necesidades de las mujeres rurales y no mencionan las oportunidades de cooperación con los sectores agrícola y ambiental.En conclusión, el enfoque de género se introduce frecuentemente en las políticas, pero con cierta falta de especificidad, no hay indicadores que permitan identificar los avances en la igualdad de género y finalmente no hay presupuestos específicos asignados. De esta manera cabe la posibilidad de que, como lo advierten Acosta et al. (2019), la incorporación de la perspectiva de género se convierta en un requisito burocrático que no logra resolver la brecha de género existente en la región. En ese sentido, la EASAC brinda una oportunidad para que los tomadores de decisiones salden la deuda que tienen pendiente en cuanto a la inclusión de mujeres y jóvenes en sus programas y puedan cumplir sus metas de desarrollo rural sostenible en las zonas rurales.Se pudo identificar, a través de las entrevistas, que los funcionarios de los diferentes sectores tienen diferentes ideas sobre qué es y en qué consiste el enfoque de género, pero, además, cómo se traslada o se debe trasladar ese enfoque a las zonas rurales de la región SICA. Esto implica una oportunidad para que el tema de género sea debatido y discutido en los diferentes espacios de interacción.En todos los países del SICA hay institutos de género que tienen nivel ministerial, es decir, son entidades autónomas, con presupuesto para su funcionamiento y están al mismo nivel que los ministerios. Igualmente, hay dos países que tienen Ministerios de la Mujer (Nicaragua y República Dominicana). Además, hay unidades de género al interior de los diferentes ministerios e instituciones de otros sectores. Sin embargo, los institutos de género tienen pocos recursos y las unidades de género dentro de los diferentes ministerios no tienen presupuesto para ejecutar proyectos. Esto puede ocurrir porque las políticas no son lo suficientemente explícitas con respecto a los indicadores de avance en la igualdad y equidad de género, ni hay líneas estratégicas enfocadas en mejorar los problemas de desigualdad. Además, aunque cada institución debería incluir el enfoque de género o variable de género en sus actividades, muchas veces no saben cómo hacerlo. Es decir, se les asigna la tarea más no se ofrecen herramientas de implementación e incluso, según algunos entrevistados y entrevistadas, a veces no es un problema de falta de presupuesto sino de no saber cómo incluir las actividades de género dentro de los presupuestos.En general, las unidades de género se apoyan financieramente a través de proyectos de Cooperación Internacional para la ejecución de sus actividades, lo que hace que el proceso de implementación sea incierto y lento. Además, en muchos casos estas unidades no tienen una oficina particular, sino que la tarea se le asigna a uno o dos funcionarios del ministerio, como una tarea adicional a otras tareas. Por eso, algunos entrevistados y entrevistadas afirmaron que las unidades de género están en un limbo legal, es decir, no están legalmente constituidas. Adicionalmente, la rotación del personal en las unidades de género de las instituciones es alta, lo que hace que los procesos de capacitación se pierdan cuando las personas dejan de ser parte de la red de género o dejan sus cargos.En conclusión, para la implementación de la línea de género de la EASAC se identificó que es necesario la articulación y colaboración de tres sectores: agropecuario, ambiental y género. Esta intersectorialidad ofrece unos retos específicos en la coordinación de actividades y en la institucionalización de la perspectiva de género. La transversalización efectiva de la perspectiva de género implica un cambio de paradigma en las estructuras gubernamentales, las percepciones institucionales e incluso en las concepciones individuales. Es decir, requiere un trabajo con las instituciones en la forma en que organizan y ejecutan sus proyectos y en la forma en que funcionan internamente, pero, además requiere un trabajo con las personas que constituyen las instituciones. Es necesario abordar dichos retos para avanzar en la implementación de la línea estratégica 15 de la EASAC.Cuatro principios para la implementación del enfoque de género en la EASAC a nivel regional, nacional y en los territorios:» La participación implica verdadero diálogo e intercambio de saberes.Las particularidades del contexto son fundamentales.Evitar crear sobrecargas de trabajo para las mujeres con las acciones e iniciativas.» Fomentar la capacidad de empoderamiento y acción colectiva.(Inspirado en Huyer and Gumucio, 2020).Es importante recordar que no es posible, ni es deseable, hacer una metodología única para la implementación del enfoque de género en la EASAC. Primero, porque no es realista asumir que existe una única \"buena manera\" de hacer las cosas y, segundo, porque la realidad de los territorios es diferente entre los países e incluso dentro de las regiones de un mismo país.Por lo tanto, lo primero es identificar qué es necesario y adecuado para cada territorio de acuerdo a sus características geográficas y agroecológicas y sus formas de organización social e institucional y la situación particular de las mujeres y jóvenes en cada caso. Por supuesto, este proceso de identificación se debe hacer de forma participativa, lo que implica generar espacios de verdadero diálogo e intercambio de saberes entre las comunidades, los y las funcionarias de las instituciones de los gobiernos y los demás actores identificados para cada caso, dando prioridad a las necesidades, propuestas y sentimientos de las mujeres y los jóvenes en las zonas en las que se va a implementar la EASAC.Desde esta perspectiva, este segmento busca dar herramientas para la implementación de la línea estratégica 15 de la EASAC. Para eso, se han identificado acciones claves en diferentes niveles:Igualmente, se recomiendan dos acciones claves para todos los niveles:El Sistema de la Integración Centroamericana (SICA) es un marco institucional que vela por el funcionamiento de órganos e instituciones que trabajan en la creación de políticas e iniciativas para el proceso de integración de la región, con la meta de traducirla en beneficios reales para la población.Generar capacitaciones y debates sobre el enfoque de género a nivel institucional, nacional y regional.Promover el enfoque de género con énfasis en igualdad, libertad, productividad, educación, salud, etc.Las acciones recomendadas para los diferentes niveles se describen a continuación y sugieren una hoja de ruta para la implementación de la perspectiva de género de la EASAC.Esto implica continuar con el trabajo conjunto entre CAC, COMMCA y CCAD para la implementación de la Agenda y la línea 15 de la EASAC, con el fin de construir sobre lo construido y generar un espacio de diálogo que sirva de plataforma para ambas iniciativas.El sector agropecuario constituye la fuente de empleo más importante para las mujeres de las zonas rurales, en la mayoría de los países en desarrollo (FAO, 2011). Por lo tanto, es importante que los sectores agropecuarios, ambientales y las instituciones de género trabajen en conjunto en soluciones coordinadas.La EASAC es una excelente plataforma para generar las sinergias necesarias entre los diferentes sectores, ya que combina elementos del cuidado de sí, el cuidado de los demás y el cuidado del territorio, a través de conceptos como la agricultura sostenible, la agricultura familiar y la soberanía y seguridad alimentaria mediante la producción de alimentos saludables.El diálogo es una relación horizontal entre diferentes actores. Es un espacio de crítica, pero en la búsqueda de un bien común. No es igual a un taller o una reunión, aunque en una reunión o taller puede haber un buen diálogo. Sólo hay diálogo cuando los y las participantes entran en una relación con un propósito conjunto y trabajan en pro de ese propósito, navegando los conflictos que surjan en vez de evitarlos.Considerar la posibilidad de que, adicionalmente a las actividades enfocadas en género, todas las actividades tengan enfoque de género. Esto implica promover y verificar la participación activa de mujeres, jóvenes y hombres a nivel regional y garantizar un porcentaje de representantes de grupos minoritarios en las reuniones.Los y las integrantes de las unidades de género de los Ministerios del sector agropecuario, junto con representantes de los Institutos y Ministerios de la Mujer de los diferentes países de la región, representan un grupo de expertos y expertas con gran potencial para el trabajo conjunto. Se propone que se fortalezca esta Red y se formalice a nivel del SICA como la Red de Género del SICA, junto con expertos del CAC, COMMCA y CCAD.Posibles actividades para el fortalacimiento de esta red:Desarollar reuniones periódicas que permitan el diálogo, intercambio de ideas, para abordar qué es y qué implica un enfoque de género en el desarrollo o implementación de acciones ASAC para mujeres y jóvenes en las zonas rurales de la región SICA.Hacer un mapeo de actores que evidencie las redes de relaciones entre ellos y así promover sinergias y acciones en el marco de la línea estratégica 15 de la EASAC. Para el mapeo de actores se puede usar la Governance Analytical Framework (GAF), una metodología práctica para investigar procesos de gobierno, basada en cinco herramientas analíticas: problemas, actores, normas sociales, procesos y puntos nodales (Hufty, M. 2011).Realizar un inventario de fortalezas y debilidades de cada país en cuanto a temas relevantes para la implementación de la línea de género de EASAC.Fortalecer los procesos de creación de políticas intersectoriales con enfoque de género en los países que no las tienen.Las acciones sugeridas en este segmento están dirigidas a los funcionarios del SICA, principalmente a los que pertenecen al CAC, COMMCA y CCAD, con la meta de facilitar interacciones a nivel regional que permitan la coordinación de actividades para la implementación de la línea estratégica 15 de la EASAC a nivel nacional y en los territorios locales.» Generar espacios de diálogo de forma periódica que permitan el intercambio de ideas y posibles sinergias entre CAC, COMMCA y CCAD. Así, los y las integrantes de los órganos del SICA pueden coordinar actividades y juntar presupuestos para tener un mayor impacto.El inventario de fortalezas y debilidades puede tener las siguientes categorías:1. Países con dificultades /facilidades para la coordinación de actividades intersectoriales;2. Países con/sin redes fortalecidas de mujeres rurales u otras redes territoriales locales relevantes para la EASAC;3. Países con experiencias significativas en el desarrollo de proyectos que involucran mujeres y jóvenes rurales;4. Lecciones aprendidas de las experiencias de los diferentes países.Hacer un inventario de proyectos exitosos en la integración del enfoque de género en las zonas rurales y que hayan sido implementados a nivel de país e identificar sus principales características y factores de éxito. En este estudio se pudo identificar, por ejemplo, que hay proyectos en marcha con mujeres rurales prestando servicios ambientales o fincas agropecuarias para desarrollar productos para mercados verdes. Proponemos identificar si dichos proyectos son replicables en otros países y cómo y conceptualizar nuevos proyectos.Fomentar intercambios de saberes y experiencias según el inventario de fortalezas, debilidades y proyectos. Hacer de estos espacios de intercambio una actividad permanente, invitando a líderezas y jóvenes líderes de los territorios a compartir sus experiencias con otras redes a nivele regional, nacional y local y con los miembros de la Red de género del SICA.Fomentar la creación de la Red de Mujeres Rurales a nivel del SICA. Para esto se puede usar el ejemplo de la Red de Mujeres Rurales de Panamá, que está organizada desde la base de los territorios, desde la cual se eligen representantes para el nivel provincial y del nivel provincial se eligen representantes para el nivel nacional.Fomentar actividades conjuntas con la Red de Jóvenes del CAC, para conocer las necesidades, posibilidades, deseos, sentimientos y preocupaciones de los jóvenes de las zonas rurales. La idea es generar un espacio de diálogo que sirva de plataforma para las actividades que ellos mismo identifiquen como deseables y realizables.Generar, mediante un proceso participativo con la Red de género del SICA, una lista de indicadores y productos que sirvan de base para la implementación de la línea 15 de la EASAC y que sea presentada como propuesta base para los gobiernos de los países.En este documento proponemos un ejemplo que puede ser utilizado y adaptado a cada país sobre indicadores de género en la implementación de la línea de género de la EASAC 1 .Para la implementación de la línea 15 de la EASAC se definieron tres productos, cada uno de los cuales cuenta con sus indicadores de verificación. A continuación, se presentan los posibles productos:Producto 1: Promoción y fortalecimiento de asociaciones socio-productivas de ASAC en los territorios priorizados por el Gobierno de cada país.Las asociaciones socio-productivas son formas de asociación solidaria que permiten que pequeños productores se beneficien de la economía a gran escala. La asociación, por ejemplo, les permite comprar insumos al por mayor y bajar los precios de producción para entrar a competir en los mercados, además, pueden hacer otro tipo de negocios juntos e incluso negociar en bloque con los organismos del estado para solicitar apoyo.En el año 2030 se cuenta con __ (número) asociaciones socio-productivas de ASAC creadas y/o fortalecidas.El __% de los cargos directivos de las asociaciones socio-productivas son desempeñados por mujeres.Los micro-emprendimientos son una alternativa viable para pequeños productores y empresas familiares del sector agropecuario. Los microemprendedores no están en condiciones de producir grandes volúmenes y por tanto su alternativa es apuntar a productos de calidad, con valor agregado y marketing en nichos de alto valor adquisitivo que paguen bien su producto, por ejemplo: productos orgánicos y sostenibles y en cadenas de comercio justo.Promover la creación de un sello de igualdad de género a nivel del SICA La propuesta es promover la creación de un Sello de Igualdad de Género en la región SICA para fincas agropecuarias sostenibles con productos para mercados verdes. La práctica del Sello de Igualdad de Género se originó en América Latina, se ha expandido a nivel mundial y consiste en que las empresas (públicas y privadas) reciben un sello de reconocimiento por alcanzar estándares específicos para promover la igualdad de género en el trabajo.Para las empresas, la implementación de estándares de igualdad genera espacios laborales más eficientes e igualitarios, incrementa el desempeño del personal y mejora su imagen pública.El concepto del Sello se enmarca en las nuevas tendencias de los mercados internacionales y la economía global y ofrece a los gobiernos una plataforma sólida para reducir las desigualdades en los lugares de trabajo, promover buenas prácticas y políticas laborales, mejorar su relación con el sector privado e impulsar la cooperación Sur-Sur. Además, es una herramienta concreta para que los sectores público y privado se unan en pro de alcanzar los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible, mediante la reducción de las brechas de género y la promoción tanto de la igualdad en el lugar de trabajo como del empoderamiento económico de las mujeres.El PNUD está promoviendo el trabajo conjunto con socios en diferentes regiones del mundo para adaptar e implementar el Sello de Igualdad de Género a los diferentes contextos y sectores productivos. En la región del SICA se está implementando en empresas privadas de Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Panamá y República Dominicana. En el caso de Costa Rica, se busca implementarlo además en las fincas agropecuarias sostenibles. Este ejemplo muestra que el sello tiene potential para ser utilizado como acción afirmativa dentro de la EASAC.El porcentaje dependerá de las características particulares de las zonas en las que se implementa el producto y de los niveles iniciales. Se debe tener en cuenta que el cambio debe ser gradual y realista, es decir, que se puede lograr en el tiempo estipulado de la estrategia. Además, es fundamental la participación de los y las integrantes de las comunidades, quienes pueden sugerir un porcentaje que les parezca alcanzable y justo para su caso particular.Ver otros indicadores en: Paso a paso para la inclusión de género en iniciativas de agricultura sostenible adaptada al clima para Guatemala (Acosta et al., 2019).El __% de las membresías de las asociaciones socio-productivas está integrado por jóvenes.Implementación de microemprendimientos de ASAC en los territorios priorizados por el Gobierno de cada país.En el año 2030 se cuenta con __ microemprendimientos de ASAC conformados y en funcionamiento.El __% de las posiciones del liderazgo de los micro-emprendimientos es ejercido por mujeres y jóvenes.El __% de los trabajadores y trabajadoras de las micro empresas rurales son jóvenes.Producto 3: fortalecimiento de capacidades técnicas, metodológicas y operativas de los funcionarios de los Ministerios de los sectores agropecuarios y ambientales de cada país, para atender a las familias que practican ASAC con perspectiva de género.» ______ (número) extensionistas han sido capacitados en asistencia técnica para la implementación de ASAC con inclusión y perspectiva de género.» ______ (número) extensionistas cuentan con equipo de transporte, equipo informático y de comunicación para mejorar el servicio de asistencia técnica a las familias que desarrollan ASAC con inclusión y perspectiva de género.Las acciones sugeridas en este segmento están dirigidas a los funcionarios y funcionarias de los Ministerios e Instituciones de los sectores agropecuario, ambiental y de género, con la meta de facilitar interacciones que permitan la coordinación de actividades entre los sectores para la efectiva implementación de la línea estratégica 15 de la EASAC a nivel nacional y en los territorios localesIncorporar el enfoque de género en las políticas, normativas, estrategias, programas, planes, proyectos e instrumentos de los Ministerios de Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (Cambio Climático) y los Ministerios Agropecuarios, principalmente en los países donde no hay avances significativos en cuanto a la intersectorialidad. Según el análisis de políticas de este estudio, los países que necesitan mayor atención en este aspecto son: Nicaragua en el sector agropecuario y ambiental; Panamá en el sector agropecuario y ambiental y República Dominicana en el sector ambiental.En cuanto a las políticas intersectoriales y la integración del enfoque de género en los diferentes sectores de interés, se pueden destacar los casos de Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala y Honduras, que tienen políticas intersectoriales con diseño de conciencia de género específico y, por lo tanto, pueden servir de guía para los demás países.Finalmente, una de las herramientas más conocidas para la implementación de una perspectiva de género en las políticas públicas consiste en la inclusión de criterios de género en los presupuestos o, también llamados, presupuestos sensibles al género. En principio, la idea es desagregar el presupuesto de los gobiernos partiendo de los beneficios diferenciados que las inversiones tienen en hombres y mujeres dentro de un contexto específico. Con esto se busca hacer evidente que los presupuestos públicos no son neutrales al género, pues el impacto de las inversiones no es igual para hombres y mujeres (Lombardo, 2006). Los presupuestos, al igual que las políticas pueden ser ciegos con respecto al género, ya que excluyen la mayoría del trabajo productivo y reproductivo de las mujeres (Waring, 1988;Carrasco, 2005). Una medida especial de carácter temporal para la implementación de una perspectiva de género es lo que se conoce como etiquetación del gasto para la igualdad de género (Gallangos, 2007). Consiste en asignar recursos a programas estratégicos para las mujeres, con el fin de acelerar el avance hacia la igualdad sustantiva. Por lo tanto, se crea el concepto de presupuestos etiquetados, no como recursos que se asignan solamente para las mujeres, sino recursos para programas cuyo impacto impulsa el avance hacia la igualdad.Esto implica que a las Unidades de Género sean reconocidas legalmente como organismos del Estado y se les asigne oficina y presupuesto para que puedan ejecutar sus actividades. Para eso, se puede fomentar que los Institutos de la Mujer de cada país, o los Ministerios de la Mujer, coordinen conjuntamente las unidades de género y gestionen presupuestos semilla para los proyectos de ASAC.Igualmente es importante generar herramientas para que las unidades de género trabajen coordinadamente en proyectos de ASAC, donde los ministerios del sector agropecuario y ambiental, junto con los institutos de género hagan sus respectivos aportes de recursos financieros y humanos.Los estándares del Sello de Igualdad de Género incluyen:Eliminar la brecha salarial basada en género.Incrementar el número de mujeres en posiciones de toma de decisión.Mejorar el balance vida/trabajo.Impulsar la participación de mujeres en empleos no tradicionales.Erradicar el acoso sexual en ambientes laborales.» Utilización de lenguaje inclusivo y nosexistaPara esto existe un Marco para Priorización de Inversiones en ASAC (CCAFS, 2015), basado en evidencia y desarrollado por CCAFS y CIAT.Adicionalmente, este estudio sugiere crear sistemas de préstamos especialmente para la agricultura familiar, como un espacio identificado para mejorar la productividad agrícola, imprescindible para la disponibilidad de alimentos y el aumento en los ingresos de las mujeres y jóvenes rurales.Crear asociaciones de usuarios protectores de los bosques, ecosistemas y fuentes de agua, en las cuales las mujeres y los jóvenes tengan al menos 70% de los cargos directivos. Se propone el concepto de usuarios porque incluye el uso sostenible de los ecosistemas, es decir, no se refiere a únicamente prácticas de protección.Características de una política agropecuaria y ambiental con conciencia de género transformadora » Un proceso ampliamente participativo para su formulación.Tener como principio fundamental la inclusión social y la equidad.Presentar el enfoque de género de manera transversal en todo el documento. Es decir, incluir el enfoque de género en toda la política y no solamente como una sección adicional. Un buen ejemplo es el Plan Nacional de Inversión en Resiliencia Climática del 2013 (NCRIP por sus siglas en inglés) de Belice.Basar la política en conceptos integradores como: desarrollo territorial, tejido social, redes de cooperación territoriales, capital social o identidad cultural del territorio, ya que dichos conceptos explican el entramado de relaciones, acciones, prácticas y saberes que se tejen y fluctúan en las zonas rurales y que afectan las actividades productivas, incluyendo la agricultura adaptada al cambio climático.Utilizar lenguaje diferenciado e inclusivo. Esto implica reconocer, como lo ha expresado la Real Academia de la lengua Española (RAE), que el idioma español es machista y, por tanto, debemos ser conscientes de no asumir el género masculino como prioritario. Al respecto, se puede implementar la integración de los artículos los y las para las profesiones y oficios.Asumir una visión a largo plazo con implementación a corto, mediano y largo plazo.Incluir presupuestos especificados y etiquetados para las acciones del enfoque género y los y las jóvenes.Reconocer y plantear soluciones a la división existente de recursos y responsabilidades diferenciadas entre hombres y mujeres de las zonas rurales. Para esto se deben tener en cuenta la división de tareas y recursos en el hogar, la comunidad y los espacios laborales.Incluir protocolos de recolección de datos desagregados por género, edad y etnia.Incorporar indicadores de género y sistemas de monitoreo y evaluación.Estas recomendaciones están dirigidas para los funcionarios y funcionarias que trabajan en la implementación de la línea 15 de la EASAC en las zonas rurales de los diferentes países del SICA.Para la participación en las capacitaciones insistir en la necesidad de la participación de dos personas del núcleo familiar, tales como: el esposo y la esposa, una madre con su hijo o hija mayor, o una abuela con la nieta. La meta es contribuir al acceso igualitario de conocimientos y tecnologías por parte de hombres y mujeres.Para seleccionar los temas de las capacitaciones en ASAC, priorizar de manera participativa las necesidades de cada comunidad, tener en cuenta la división de tareas entre hombres, mujeres, jóvenesPara esta actividad existen varios recursos disponibles como la Guía metodológica para el diseño conjunto de opciones climáticamente inteligentes con agricultores familiares (Andreu et al., 2018) y el Glosario de prácticas de Agricultura Sostenible Adaptada al Clima (CCAFS, 2019). En este estudio resaltamos las prácticas que podrían tener mayor impacto en el enfoque de género de la EASAC.» Huertas adaptadas al clima en los hogares, con diversidad de cultivos, prácticas de agricultura limpia y riego proveído por una cosecha de agua. Es relevante para el enfoque de género porque permite a las mujeres tener un ingreso sin necesidad de salir de sus hogares y mejora la seguridad alimentaria y los ingresos familiares.» Intercambio de productos dentro de la comunidad y con otras comunidades, es una práctica relevante para el enfoque de género porque mejora las relaciones en la comunidad, fomenta el tejido social y también mejora la seguridad alimentaria y los ingresos familiares.» Uso de semillas de variedades mejoradas (semillas tolerantes a sequía y fríjol o maíz biofortificado). Esta práctica ayuda a reducir el riesgo de pérdidas fuertes en las cosechas como consecuencia de las sequías. Además, mejora el aporte nutricional del fríjol y el maíz. Es relevante para el enfoque de género porque frente a una sequía, los hombres pueden migrar por motivos ecónomicos, lo que hace que aumente el trabajo para las mujeres en las parcelas. Si se usan semillas de variedad Es necesario diferenciar las preferencias y limitaciones específicas que tienen las mujeres rurales. Es decir, no se debe asumir que son un grupo homogéneo, ya que las mujeres según su edad, situación socio-económica, origen étnico, etc., tendrán preferencias, retos y desempeñarán diferentes papeles en las actividades productivas de las zonas rurales.mejoradas, se puede ayudar a reducir la migración de los hombres y de los y las jóvenes.» Riego por goteo, radica en el uso de un sistema de riego que utiliza un bajo volumen de agua localizado de tal forma que abastece principalmente la zona donde se desarrollan las raíces del cultivo, haciendo que el aprovechamiento del agua por parte de la planta sea muy alto. Es relevante para el enfoque de género porque, al igual que la práctica anterior reduce los riesgos de pérdida de cultivos en una sequía y por tanto puede ayudar a reducir la migración de los hombres y de los y las jóvenes.» Cultivos asociados, consiste en sembrar distintos cultivos en el mismo espacio de terreno, buscando diversificar la producción, aprovechar beneficios que un cultivo pueda generar sobre otro y reducir el uso de insumos. Es relevante para el enfoque de género porque al diversificar se aumenta la posibilidad de obtener cosecha en épocas de sequía o de excesos de lluvias y se reduce el uso de fertilizantes, por lo tanto, se reducen los costos de producción los riesgos de pérdida de cultivos en una sequía y puede ayudar a reducir la migración de los hombres y de los y las jóvenes.Al implementar actividades de la línea de género de la EASAC es necesario conocer y reconocer las dinámicas en las zonas rurales, si bien hacen falta datos sobre las dinámicas, responsabilidades y división de tareas, existe la necesidad de actuar y pronto. Hay dinámicas particulares en las comunidades y familias y hay que estar conscientes de las relaciones de poder pre-existentes, ya que tiene implicaciones en las posibilidades del trabajo en campo y la implementación de acciones y prácticas. Ejemplo: Un taller enfocado en las mujeres en la zona rural implica tener un lugar de cuidado para los niños y niñas y almuerzos para toda la familia. Se sugiere buscar soluciones en las que las y los participantes se organicen para el cuidado de los infantes y para la preparación de alimentos. Además, se debe involucrar a los hombres en estas actividades y hacer capacitaciones que resalten las fortalezas y beneficios de la participación femenina.Tener en cuenta siempre el concepto de gradualidad: Las acciones para la equidad de género y la conservación del ambiente y los recursos naturales deben implementarse en forma activa y progresiva, para ir modificando paso a paso normas y patrones que necesitan transformarse en beneficio del desarrollo sustentable y la equidad. La idea es evitar perjudicar a les participantes con interrupciones abruptas que pueden generar efectos adversos.Para este nivel de acción existe una herramienta llamada, Paso a paso para la inclusión de género en Iniciativas de agricultura sostenible adaptada al clima (Acosta et al, 2019), que fue desarrolla para Guatemala, pero puede ser una base para la implementación del enfoque de género en los territorios locales del SICA.Anexo 2: Entrevistas con integrantes de la Red de Género de la CACProyecto \"Generando evidencia sobre la Agricultura Sostenible Adaptada al Clima con perspectiva de género para informar políticas en Centroamérica\"Tema 1: Colaboración entre los Ministerios de Agricultura y las instituciones o Ministerios que trabajan los asuntos de género a nivel nacional y regional.» ¿Cómo funciona la colaboración entre el Ministerio de Agricultura y las instituciones y Ministerios a cargo de los temas de Género?» ¿Cuáles son los aspectos qué funcionan bien y cuáles los que pueden mejorar?» ¿Cuál cree usted que es el principal reto para lograr una integración y colaboración eficaz entre las instituciones mencionadas? ¿Cómo cree usted que este reto se pueda superar?» ¿Cree que la colaboración entre los ministerios de agricultura y ambiente y las instituciones de género está ayudando (o podría ayudar) a mejorar la desigualdad de género? ¿Cómo?Tema 2: Estrategia de Agricultura Sostenible Adaptada al Clima para la región del SICA (EASAC).Los Ejes Estratégicos y las líneas prioritarias de la Estrategia tienen elementos para la inclusión de Género. En el Eje 2: Gestión Integral del Riesgo y Adaptación al Clima, punto 8.3 dice: Facilitar y promover la formación y la participación de las mujeres, jóvenes rurales y grupos étnicos en los sistemas agro-productivos que usen sosteniblemente y conserven la agro-biodiversidad.» ¿Qué estrategias se están implementando para promover la formación y participación de mujeres, jóvenes rurales y grupos étnicos en los sistemas agro-productivos? » En dichas estrategias: ¿cuáles son los aspectos qué funcionan bien y cuáles los que pueden mejorar?» ¿Cuál cree usted que es el principal reto para lograr un verdadero incremento en la formación y participación de mujeres, jóvenes rurales y grupos étnicos en los sistemas agro-productivos?» ¿Cómo cree usted que se pueda mejorar en este aspecto en su país y a nivel de la región?» A nivel regional SICA, ¿cómo cree usted que los diferentes países puedan ayudarse para el cumplimiento de dicha estrategia de formación y participación?En el Eje 4: Elementos Habilitadores, punto 15: Facilitación de mecanismos de integración de integración del principio de igualdad y equidad entre los géneros, así como el enfoque intergeneracional y la inclusión social en las acciones ASAC. 15.1: Desarrollar lineamientos para incorporación de los enfoques de género, intergeneracional y de inclusión social en programas, proyectos y otras iniciativas de ASAC. En ese sentido:» ¿Qué estrategias se están implementando para incorporar enfoques de género, intergeneracional y de inclusión social en los programas y proyectos de su entidad?» En dichas estrategias: ¿cuáles son los aspectos qué funcionan bien y cuáles los que pueden mejorar?» ¿Cuál cree usted que es el principal reto para lograr incorporar los enfoques de género, intergeneracional y de inclusión social en los programas y proyectos de su entidad?» ¿Cómo cree usted que esto se pueda mejorar en este aspecto en su país? » A nivel regional SICA, ¿cómo cree usted que los diferentes países puedan ayudarse para el cumplimiento de dicha estrategia de incorporar enfoques de género, intergeneracional y de inclusión social?Tema 3. Algunos estudios e informes en la región del SICA han identificado que uno de los principales problemas para la implementación de programas de género a nivel nacional y regional tiene que ver con que, aunque las políticas incluyen el tema, la mayoría de dichas políticas no asignan recursos financieros para la implementación de los programas de género.» En su opinión, ¿cómo se podría mejorar la situación financiera de los programas de género?» ¿Existen programas nacionales conjuntos entre los diferentes ministerios que integren el tema de género y que sean financiados por varias fuentes a la vez? Sí, ¿cuáles? ¿Cómo funcionan? » Si no ¿es posible crearlos? ¿Cuáles serían los principales obstáculos para este tipo de trabajo interinstitucional?» ¿Cree usted que el sector agrícola puede ser una fuente de recursos y soluciones para mejorar las condiciones de desigualdad de género? ¿Cómo?Tema 4. Políticas relevantes para identificar acciones clave para la implementación de la línea estratégica de género de la EASAC.» ¿Cuáles cree usted que son las políticas más relevantes para identificar acciones clave para la implementación de la línea estratégica de género? En el momento de la entrevista le mencionaremos una lista de políticas y programas (alrededor de 10 max. 20) para usted nos ayude a identificar los más relevantes para nuestro estudio.","tokenCount":"7752"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a13602bed2ba60e9004850c81af6d562","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/fdd19b38-211a-43fb-a6ff-9a943720908b/retrieve","id":"-1920256855"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0314db1d-7aca-4d36-a207-407adbe37f0c","pagecount":"3","content":"• Land-use change is the single biggest driver of new infectious diseases that jump species from animals to people.• More than half of new infectious diseases that jump from animals to people are associated with agricultural factors. More than 30% of them are linked to land-use changes.• Rangelands and pastoralists are an important but often over-looked part of the agriculture sector. They cover almost 50% of the world land surface with an estimated 500 million people relying on pastoralism for their livelihoods• Livestock production generates large quantities of waste that can be productively used but can also pollute inhabited areas and natural environments.People and nature are healthier when the environmental hazards of livestock keeping and wildlife interaction are reduced and the positive impacts of livestock on soil, biodiversity and carbon sequestration are enhanced.New infectious diseases that threaten people's lives and livelihoods can emerge as a result of a complex interplay between people, livestock, wildlife and the environment. In particular, rapid changes in land use across the world, including clearance of forests and wilderness areas to make way for agricultural production, have led to an increasing incidence of disease (zoonoses) jumping species from wild or domestic animals to people.Such incidents, known as disease spillovers, now occur on average once every four months.Medical and public health experts are called on to tackle the health risks and results of such infectious diseases. Animal health specialists also have important roles in understanding and breaking these disease cycles. Investing through One Health strategies offers a way to bring animal and human health experts together, along with ecologists, conservationists and wildlife managers, to provide holistic surveillance and solutions.Managing the interfaces between livestock and nature produces win-win-win outcomes for nature, people and animals People, animals and the natural environment are constantly interacting. Nutrient recycling is a good example of this, with nutrients used by plants returning to the soil through the direct return of crop residues and the application of organic fertilizers derived from plant material or animal or human excreta. Without this nutrient recycling soils would become depleted, leading to crop failures and unproductive pastures -and ultimately less healthy people.Rangelands and grasslands make up an important global ecosystem and make up nearly half the Earth's land surface. Rangelands provide many benefits to people (ecosystem services) of vital importance for local communities. Rangelands provide protected areas for many native plants and animals and provide important wildlife habitats and in-situ conservation of genetic resources. One billion animals are herded by pastoralists and support the livelihoods of almost 500 million people. They are key to food security in many areas where crop production is not viable.Land-use change and disease emergence and spread are connected in ways we are still learning about. We know that land cleared of forest or other naturally occurring vegetation for agriculture can destabilize the natural dynamics of ecosystems. One way it can do this is by affecting the types and numbers of native wildlife species (biodiversity) in an area, which is known to affect disease transmission. For example, the distribution of ticks and mosquitos, which can spread zoonoses such as Rift Valley fever, can be affected by land-use change, particularly that dependent on irrigation.We know too that the potential for viruses and other germs in wildlife to spill over to people via livestock -and vice versa -increases as natural barriers between people and livestock and wildlife break down.Prevention and control programmes for zoonoses often focus solely on animal and human health risks and fail to pro-actively incorporate environmental considerations, missing out on opportunities for early warning and prevention. Indeed, driven by economic pressures, agriculture increasingly expands into previously untapped natural resources, fueling the emergence of zoonoses.The intensification of livestock production results in increased waste and pollution. This can include antibiotic waste and pollution, (see brief 3 on Anti-microbial resistance), manure from feedlots, and animal carcasses in slaughterhouses. This waste can pollute or contaminate the environment, particularly water supplies and soils. Improper handling and disposal of carcasses and other animal products can lead to disease outbreaks and sickness (see brief 4). Environmental considerations for large-scale livestock production and management need to be addressed at the planning stage. There is often a perception that livestock are major contributors to land degradation and biodiversity loss. However, people, wildlife and domestic animals interact in complex and often beneficial ways. Integrated croplivestock are crucial farming systems in the developing world (and increasingly recognized in the developed) and livestock play an important role in nutrient recycling through controlling crop residues and fertilizer from manure. Likewise, sustainable livestock grazing increases rangeland productivity in many grazing systems.One billion animals are herded by pastoralists and support the livelihoods of almost 500 million people. They are key to food security in many areas where crop production is not viable.Implementing measures to integrate livestock and environmental planning can both stem disease outbreaks and boost positive outcomes for natural resource management.A landscape approach that balances competing land-use demands in a way that is best for human well-being and the environment is critical. Invest in land-use planning and governance that integrates -and if necessary restricts -rangelands and livestock grazing along with other agriculture and environmental concerns. While tackling obvious problems such as over-grazing or erosion caused by animals, policies should recognize the productive roles that rangelands and grazing play in natural resource management and local livelihoods. Policies should seek to integrate these roles rather than regulate or ban them.Measures to effectively manage the boundaries between nature and livestock are good for both animal and environmental health as well as for human health. Direct interactions of livestock with wildlife can be limited by good biosecurity, improved risk awareness and careful land-use planning. Improved surveillance in wildlife and monitoring of potential disease carriers such as insects and ticks can also help to detect and manage risks.Well-functioning rangelands and silvopastoral systems sustain and enhance the availability of soil, water and nutrients for plants. They provide carbon and water storage, prevent soil erosion (and the associated menace of dust storms), and support other ecosystem services such as tourism. Investments should focus on increasing mutual benefits to farmers and pastoralists that link sustainable livestock production to increased biodiversity. This can include increased tenure security as well as payment for environmental services.Community-based management of natural resources is widely recognized as an essential prerequisite for sustainability and protection of the environment. Likewise, community participation and engagement in surveillance effectively ensures disease is detected at the point of emergence, saving time and resources in disease response.Investing in One Health directly tackles the wicked problems facing our health and the health of the animals and planet around us. One Health integrates and guides the collaborative efforts of multiple disciplines working locally, nationally and globally to attain optimal health for people, animals and our environment. This series of briefs provides evidence-based information on how One Health can support development efforts. ","tokenCount":"1142"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"40b6d197eda5f3f719f9b340b2ad2658","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0dcae411-b921-4657-9490-a88a0ea54b08/retrieve","id":"-103624541"},"keywords":["Tuber yield","Morphology","Sweet potato","Clonal propagation","Vitamin A","β-carotene"],"sieverID":"10b745a5-3351-4aae-a824-162a2365c5bb","pagecount":"7","content":"A preliminary yield trial was conducted with 230 clones selected from the clonal evaluation of the 1600 orange-fleshed clones in upland and lowland conditions. Morphological observations like leaf shape, emerging leaf colour, skin colour, flesh colour, weight of vine (kg) and weight of storage root (kg) were recorded. The existence of continuous and overlapping variation for all the characters indicated the quantitative nature for all the morphological characters studied. The study showed that the selection of a number of superior hybrid clones for yield and other attributes would provide a large gene pool for the recombination from which the promising variety of considerable value could be generated. The carotenoid rich clones also indicates the possibility of significantly improving the nutritive value by making more acceptable products to the consumers whereas storage roots with high dry matter and starch content are more suitable for secondary processed foods. Orange-fleshed clones with high yield can be popularized as an excellent source of β-carotene to control vit A deficiency which affects millions of children in the developing countries since β-carotene is a precursor of vit A.Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas (L) Lam), an important vegetable cum food crop is grown in the tropics, subtropics and warm temperate regions of the world for its edible storage roots. It is a cross-pollinated and hexaploid (2n=6x) crop with 90 chromosomes (Jones, 1965). The roots are used as a source of carbohydrate and dietary fibre. The crop is also a rich source of provitamin A, vitamin B1 (Thiamin) and vitamin C (Huang, 1999). Dietary fibre has the potential to reduce the incidence of a variety of diseases in man including colon cancer, diabetes, heart diseases and digestive disturbances (Palmer, 1982;Pavio and Russel, 1999). In addition to its importance as human food, it is also used as an animal feed besides serving as a raw material for the production of alcohol. The flesh colour of the root varies from various shades of white, cream, yellow to dark-orange depending upon the pigment present. In the orangefleshed sweet potato the major carotenoid present is β-carotene. Carotenoids have been linked with the enhancement of immune system and decreased risk of degenerative diseases such as cardiovascular problems, age-related macular degeneration and cataract formation (Byers and Perry, 1992). Hence, orange-fleshed sweet potato storage roots are a cheaper and complementary source of pro-vitamin A for the rural poor families who are the most vulnerable to vitamin A deficiency (VAD) (Beena et al., 2009;Binu et al., 2009;Binu Hariprakash et al., 2011a). VAD is also one of the most prevalent nutritional health problems leading to night blindness and high mortality rate in infants in the developing countries. Various studies relating to retention of carotene content after processing have promoted the use of orangefleshed sweet potato against VAD (Vimala et al., 2011b).The genetics of sweet potato is little understood and the inheritance pattern is quite complex one. Genetic information on many traits of direct economic importance in sweet potato are not available and most published information are from the clones of similar genetic back ground (Jones, 1966(Jones, , 1969;;Jones et al., 1969). Studies on the entire spectrum of the variability are therefore necessary to acquire knowledge on the inheritance pattern. The heterozygous nature of sweet potato clones and the virtually obligatory out crossing breeding systems together allow a wide range of genetic recombination with natural seed production (Nayar et al., 1984). However, cross-and selfincompatibilities in sweet potato cultivars are serious problem in breeding especially when many of the desirable parents belong to the same incompatible group. Most sweet potato cultivars are self and cross-incompatible which makes the plant incapable of producing viable seeds on self-pollination as well as cross pollination.Preliminary yield trial was conducted with 230 clones selected from the clonal evaluation trial of 1600 orangefleshed clones in the upland and lowland conditions. Each clone was planted on 4 mounds with 4 vine cuttings each. The spacing within and between the rows were 90 x 90 cm. The recommended dose of 5t/ha farmyard manure was broadcasted in the field before the preparation of mounds. Half the dose of N and full dose of P and K was applied on the mounds at the time of planting and half N was applied one month after planting. Intercultural operations like weeding and earthing up were also carried out during the application of second dose of fertilizer. Both the trials were harvested at 90 days after planting. Morphological observations like weight of vine (kg), weight of storage root (kg), leaf shape, emerging leaf colour, skin colour and flesh colour of storage root were recorded at the time of harvest as per IBPGR descriptor by Huaman (1991). All the quantitative observations were recorded 6 plants /clone/replication. βcarotene value was recorded as per the RHS colour chart developed by Burgos et al (2009) from CIP, Lima, Peru. The frequency of all traits in the selected progenies was classified and segregation pattern was analyzed.Estimation of genetic diversity of a particular crop is prerequisite for making any effective breeding programme. Morphological characterization has been used for various purposes including identification of duplicates, variability patterns and correlation with characteristics of agronomic importance (CIAT, 1993). Here, the hybrid orange-fleshed sweet potato clones from CIP exhibited high morphological variability for the shoot and storage root characters which have been summarized in figures 1 and 2.Only three types of leaf shapes were observed in the hybrid clones-cordate, 3 lobed and 5 lobed. Frequency distribution for leaf shape showed that cordate type had the maximum frequency (95.65%) which was followed by 5 lobed (3.04%) and the occurrence of 3 lobed leaf was the lowest (1.30%). In the present study, the parents were found to have cordate leaf shape, which was expressed at a maximum in the hybrid population. Sweet potato leaves are reported to be variable in size and shape even within the same plant, but lines can be divided into two basic groups from the view point of leaf shape-lines with deeply lobed leaves and the other with entire margin. Within these two basic groups exists a variety of leaf forms.The emerging leaf colour variation was broadly classified as green, purple, and light purple. Majority of the clones had green emerging leaf colour (99.13%) which was followed by purple (0.43%) and light purple (0.43%). Previous studies on the leaf colour of sweet potato are reported to be green but may also contain a considerable amount of purple pigmentation, especially along the vein (Vimala and Nair, 1988).The OFSP clones possessed a variety of root skin colour varying from cream, pink, light pink to purple. In the present study, it was observed that the pink (34.35%) and cream skin colour (33.48%) of the storage root was almost in equal frequencies which was followed by purple (24.78%) and light pink colour (7.39%). Similar results were obtained by Hernandez et al (1967) in the studies of controlled crosses between parents of rose & copper, rose & purple, as well as cream & copper reported that coloured skin is incompletely dominant over white or cream skin colour. Appearance of white colour in the progeny may be due to transgressive segregation. Characters controlled by two pair of genes include root formation, colour of root skin, colour of root flesh and nature of leaf margin (Poole, 1952). Constantin (1965) and Hernandez et al (1965Hernandez et al ( , 1967) ) have reported skin colour as a quantitative character which was controlled by several genes in complementary action. High heritability for root shape and flesh colour was observed by Jones et al (1969Jones et al ( , 1976) ) and Jones (1977Jones ( , 1988)).The 230 clones under study showed varying intensities of orange-flesh colour. The maximum frequency of dark orange flesh colour (48.70%) was predominant in the collection followed by intermediate orange (30.0%) and pale Figure 1. Frequency data for different morphological characters of OFSP hybrids orange (21.30%) respectively. In a previous study by Hernandez et al (1965) it was found that white flesh colour was incompletely dominant over orange and total carotenoid pigments appeared to be controlled by several genes, possibly 6 that are additives. This observation was evaluated based on the inheritance of 18 flesh colour of sweet potato and found that crosses between parents possessing medium to high total carotenoids produced seedlings having mean total pigment content.The vine weight was found to vary considerably between the clones as well as between the two sites-upland and lowland. The vine weight (kg) was recorded from 6 plants/clone/replication. In the lowland, it ranged from 0.5 -5 kg. Majority of the clones was found to possess 0.5 -1.0 (47.83%) followed by 1.0 -1.5 (35.22%). 32% of the clones showed a vine weight of 1.5 -2.0 t/ha whereas 2.17% had 2.0 -2.5 t/ha. Few clones (0.43%) exhibited a very high shoot yield of 3.5 -4.0 and 4.5 -5.0 kg respectively. In the lowland the available soil moisture was higher than the upland conditions. Hence majority of the clones possessed higher vine weight than the upland. In the upland, highest shoot yield was found to fall between 0.5g -1.0 kg but the percentage of clones was compared to be high (87.39%) followed by 1 -1.5 kg (12.07%). In the upland, the maximum shoot yield of 2.0 -2.5 kg was observed to be constituted by only 0.43% of clonal population.The root yield was found to vary between the clones as well as between the two locations -lowland and upland. In the lowland, it ranged from 0.5 -5.0 kg whereas in the upland the storage root yield varied between 0.5 -2.0 kg and in one clone the yield ranged between 3.5 -4.0 kg. In lowland, 46.52% clones indicated a root yield of 0.5 -1.0 kg followed by 1.0 -1.5 kg (23.48%) of the clones whereas 18.69% clones had 1.5 -2.0 kg root yield. However, few clones possessed a very high root yield of 2.0 -2.5 (3.91%), 2.5 -3.0 (4.35%), 3.0 -3.5 (0.86%), 3.5 -4.0 (0.86) and 4.5 -5.0 (0.43%) kg respectively. In the upland, majority (92.17%) of clones produced yield between 1.0 -1.5 kg whereas 6.96% of hybrid clones showed 2.5 -3.0 kg root yield. Compared to the low land yield, the clones with high storage yield was low in the upland. Only 0.43% of clones produced root yield between 0.5 -1.0 and 3.5 -4.0 kg. Root yield is said to be a variable character and studies have indicated that heritability estimates for root yield was low indicating non additive genetic variance (Jones et al., 1969;Jones, 1977;Vimala, 1993;Vimala et al., 2011c;Binu Hariprakash et al., 2011b).The β-carotene values of the 230 clones at both locations ranged between 1.32 -14.37mg/100g fresh weight (f.w.). Hence, the β-carotene values were broadly classified into 3 groups: <5mg/100g.f.w., 6 -11.0mg/100g.f.w. and 11.1-15mg/100g.f.w. About 40% of clones were found to possess less than 5mg/100g.f.w. β-carotene whereas majority of the clones (44.35%) had values between 6 -10 mg/100g.f.w. The maximum β-carotene content (11 -15 mg/100g) was observed in 21.74% of the clone. It was observed that even though little difference was noticed in the β-carotene values of the orange-fleshed clones cultivated in the lowland and upland there was no significant / drastic difference in this character. Orange fleshed clones evaluated at different locations of Orissa also indicated that there was not much difference in the total and β-carotene content (Vimala et al., 2011a). Similarly, effect of seasonal variation in carotene content from orange-fleshed sweet potato was found to have same result (Vimala et al., 2009). These studies showed that carotenoids in the orange-fleshed sweet potato is a stable character and is not affected by any environmental parameters.Sweet potato exhibits hexasomic or tetra-disomic inheritance (Kumagai et al., 1990). A wide range of variation exists among the sweet potato cultivars for the morphological as well as root characters. They differ from one another in the shape of roots, depth of rooting, time of maturity, resistance to disease and several other vegetative characters. Most of the important characters including yield are highly influenced by environment, since they are polygenically controlled (Amin and Singla, 2010). The possibility of improvement in any crop is dependent on the variability available in the crop, wider the genetic variability in the traits, better the chances of improvement through selection (Jindal et al., 2010). In sweet potato, the skin as well as the flesh contains carotenoids and anthocyanin pigments which determines its colour. The combination and intensity of these pigments vary to produce varying intensities of cream, yellow, orange, pink or purple skin and flesh colour. Attempts to demonstrate clear relationship between yield and morphological characteristics have been unsuccessful (Jones, 1966). However, with the advent of molecular markers and development of various DNA isolation protocols these problems have been solved to an extent (Binu Hariprakash et al., 2011c). Previous reports on the characterization of morphological diversity in sweet potato have been restricted to germplasm bank collections which revealed high phenotypical variability (Ritschell & Huaman, 2002;Daros et al., 2002;Mok & Schmiediche, 1999;Contreras et al., 1995). Das and Naskar (2008) have pointed out that analysis of varieties in genetic level throws more light on their genetic relationships along with morphological traits which will be of immense help in guiding the breeding programme in sweet potato for their improvement. Earlier reports showed that extensive studies have been made on the inheritance of various characters of sweet potato (Poole, 1952) while Harmon (1960) have demonstrated the quantitative inheritance of morphological characters such as leaf type, stem colour and vine length and found that deeply cleft leaf type was dominant and several genes influence the degree and pattern of purple colouration in stem. In another study, from the reciprocally intercrossed 19 sweet potato parents selected for early blooming varieties, wide variation was recorded for all the character studied (Jones, 1966). Similar results were observed in another study by Vimala and Binu Hariprakash (2011) while evaluating the morphological characters of 250 hybrid progenies generated from a controlled cross. All these studies showed that no clear cut demarcation was visible for any of the morphological traits and all the characters showed continuous variation (Vimala and Lakshmi, 1990;Vimala and Nair, 1988). From evaluating 14 sweet potato accessions, Daros et al. (2002) observed high morphological variability, concluding that the most informative descriptors were the vine tip pubescence, the abaxial leaf vein pigmentation and the shape of the roots. The traits that most contributed to the diversity were distribution of secondary flesh color, root shape, storage root surface defects and predominant storage root flesh color. Orange flesh colour is reported to be a typical quantitative character with large number of recessive alleles as several genes are involved in controlling the carotenoid pigment (Harmon, 1960). Hernandez (1963) has reported that a significant positive correlation between skin colour and carotenoid pigments while a negative correlation existed between dry matter and carotene content. The range of variation observed for all the traits makes it difficult to classify into discrete classes as both additive and non genetic variance are involved for all the characters. The existence of continuous and overlapping variation points towards the quantitative nature of all the characters studied (Vimala and Nair, 1988). Most of the morphological characters do not have any stable corelation with the root yield or yield components. In the present study, some of the hybrid clones exhibited superior seedling habit for yield and other desirable agronomic traits like flesh colour and β-carotene content. The range of variation observed for all the traits makes it difficult to classify into discrete classes, since considerable variation existed in between the classes. The existence and continuous overlapping variation points towards the quantitative nature for all morphological characters studied. The study indicated that the selection of a number of superior hybrid clones for yield and other attributes would provide a large gene pool for the recombination from which the promising variety of considerable value could be generated. The carotenoid rich clones also indicates the possibility of significantly improving the nutritive value by making more Clone acceptable products such as ice creams (Vimala and Bala Nambisan, 2010) to the consumers whereas storage roots with high dry matter and starch content are more suitable for secondary processed foods. Orange-fleshed clones with high yield can be popularized as an excellent source of β-carotene to control vit A deficiency which affects millions of children in the developing countries since β-carotene is a precursor of vit A.","tokenCount":"2720"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"0d5532809dfddd2257657c3d37455147","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/98470dc5-8a3d-4146-bd14-dfe96b3ace3a/retrieve","id":"174757623"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"36f75413-73d0-49db-b509-01e74423fae3","pagecount":"8","content":"urrent food systems fail to provide sustainable healthy diets for everyone. Globally, about 3.1 billion people -or 42 percent of the world population -are unable to afford a healthy diet; most of them live in the global South (FAO et al. 2021). Poor quality diets are the leading cause of all forms of malnutrition and common noncommunicable diseases (Afshin et al. 2019;Willett et al. 2019). At the same time, current food system activities are associated with substantial environmental degradation and biodiversity loss and are responsible for about 28 percent of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (GLOPAN 2020). While there is broad consensus that food systems transformation is urgently needed to achieve sustainable healthier diets (FAO et al. 2021;Webb et al. 2020), it is less clear what policies and actions can bring about change effectively KEY MESSAGES• Food system transformation strategies rely on consumer demand response for achieving sustainable healthy diets.• However, food consumption patterns and consumer preferences are often not well understood in many countries of the global South.• Bangladesh, a country in the take-off stage of agrifood system transformation, has experienced improvements in diet quality but also an increasing incidence of overweight, with faster increases in rural than urban areas.• Rural consumer demand is driven by strong preferences for animalsource foods, while the demand for sugar and highly processed foods increases faster than total food demand when income rises.• Agricultural value chain development can be an important policy instrument for improving household diet quality but can also lead to undesirable dietary change if food consumption incentives conflict with nutritional needs. at large scale, and what their potential dietary impact is at the population level.In considering how to bring about broad dietary improvements, we start from a consumer focus within the food system (IFPRI 2024). Two of the most important factors shaping consumer food demand and diet quality are changes in relative prices and changes in real income. This brief focuses on demand responses to price and income changes among rural households. Changes in relative prices will affect consumer demand patterns, but there is a lack of understanding about the responsiveness of consumer demand to price changes in specific settings. Increases in income can drive up demand not only for more nutrient-dense foods but also for more heavily processed foods (Ruel and Alderman 2013). Consequently, if the policy goal is to improve diet quality, it is important to understand how demand for different foods is affected by changes in income for different types of consumers in different countries.Agriculture and the agrifood system (AFS), including all activities both upstream and downstream of agricultural production, are linked closely to food consumption and subsequent diet quality in most low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). As a result, agriculture and agricultural policies are pivotal for transforming current food systems and improving diets in the these countries, especially in their rural areas. Agricultural policies, and many other AFS-related policies, aim to transform food systems from the supply side and improve diets by increasing food availability and access, and therefore potentially changing relative prices and incomes. However, these policies can work both ways -they can foster dietary improvements by making nutritious foods more affordable but can also contribute to poorer diet quality by facilitating overconsumption of one food group (for example, staple foods) at the expense of other, under-consumed food groups (such as pulses and vegetables), or can increase consumption of unhealthy, ultra-processed foods.This brief highlights the importance of understanding changes in food consumption patterns, as a baseline for developing effective food system transformation strategies, and also consumers' food preferences, as crucial factors for achieving desired dietary change. The analysis focuses on Bangladesh -a country that has already experienced rapid, early-stage food system transformation and achieved commendable progress in reducing severe food insecurity and widespread malnutrition -and, in particular, on shaping the food demand of its rural population. Bangladesh is an interesting case study country, because its recent food system transformation track record may provide important insights for other LMICs in South and Southeast Asia that are entering a phase of accelerated food system transformation. As in many other countries in the region, Bangladesh's rural population still accounts for most of the total population (with an estimated 68 percent in 2022; BBS 2022), despite the country's rapid urbanization.We first review the transformation of Bangladesh's national AFS over the decade between the global food price crisis in 2008 and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and outline new national food policy challenges that emerged within this transformation. We then discuss the results of an in-depth analysis based on data from a representative household panel survey, which tracked individual households' food consumption in rural Bangladesh over three survey rounds between 2011 and 2018. After describing household dietary changes observed in the data, the analysis turns to an examination of long-term consumer preferences for different foods and related food consumption responses to price changes, as indicated by econometrically estimated income and price elasticities of food demand. The revealed patterns of consumer behavior not only help to explain rural dietary change and AFS growth in the recent past but also allow us to make inferences about future AFS growth and promising transformation strategies in Bangladesh.The rapid transformation of Bangladesh's AFS between 2009 and 2019 occurred in conjunction with a rapid structural change in the entire economy (Diao et al. 2023). (The AFS encompasses both primary agriculture and all activities in related sectors along the value chain, such as those involved in sourcing production inputs and moving and transforming agricultural products before they are consumed.) Over this period, the gross domestic product (GDP) of the national AFS grew much faster than the agriculture sector alone, with an average annual growth rate during the pre-COVID decade of 5.4 percent compared with 3.5 percent growth in primary agricultural GDP. Hence, AFS growth was primarily driven by growth in its off-farm components, including domestic agricultural input production, agricultural trade and transport, agro-processing, and food services, amounting to 7.7 percent (with agro-processing growth reaching 9.9 percent). While the share of the AFS in total GDP declined from 30.8 to 27.5 percent between 2009 and 2019, as a result of even more rapid growth in the rest of the national economy, the share of primary agriculture alone in GDP dropped from 17.8 to 13.2 percent. Thus, in 2019 (and for a few years prior), the off-farm components generated a larger share of value added to the AFS GDP than the agriculture sector did. The share of the agriculture sector labor force in the national economy's total labor force fell from 54.1 percent in 2009 to 45.9 percent in 2019, signifying a larger reduction in agriculture sector employment than in agriculture's GDP share, suggesting that agricultural labor productivity increased.Supplying the domestic market was the dominant driver of Bangladesh's AFS growth in the 2009-2019 period (Diao et al. 2023). Value chains of import-substitutable and less-traded products contributed the lion's share of the AFS GDP but grew at a lower average rate than export-oriented value chains, and from a much lower base. Import-substitutable value chains that saw fast growth included maize, beef, and dairy products; fast-growing, less-traded value chains included aquaculture products; and wild-caught fish was one of the fast-growing, export-oriented value chains. The dual effect of higher labor productivity, especially in food value chains oriented toward the domestic market, and lower labor force participation in the agriculture sector also drove an accelerated transition in household consumption from own-produced to purchased foods. Furthermore, annual growth in food production regularly exceeded annual population growth, contributing to improved food availability across the population, and the country's self-sufficiency in rice production was steady across these years (FPMU 2021). As a result, the prevalence of undernourishment declined nationwide from 15.2 percent in 2010 to 14.3 percent in 2016 and 11.8 percent in 2019 (FAOSTAT 2024), and household diet quality improved overall. Between 2010 and 2016, household diet quality -measured by IFPRI's Reference Diet Deprivation index (ReDD) (Pauw et al. 2023) -improved throughout Bangladesh, as shown in Figure 1. Diet quality improved fastest in rural areas, but remained lower in these areas than in Bangladesh's major cities and other urban areas.These dietary improvements, combined with largescale investments in community health-worker programs and adoption of innovative methods to deliver maternal and child health and nutrition services, led to reductions in child stunting and wasting prevalence at the national level from 41.3 and 15.6 percent in 2011 to 30.8 and 8.4 percent in 2018, respectively (El-Arifeen et al. 2017;NIPORT and ICF 2020). However, child stunting remained more prevalent in rural areas than urban areas, with a rate of 32.8 percent compared with 25.4 percent in 2018. The greater availability of calorie-dense foods, combined with strong consumer demand for these foods (see below) and household income growth, also gave rise to rapid increases in the prevalence of overweight and obesity among adults. The prevalence rate of overweight (including obesity) among women of reproductive age nearly doubled nationwide, from 16.5 to 32.4 percent between 2011 and 2018, and remained considerably higher in urban areas than rural areas (NIPORT and ICF 2020). Alarmingly, the prevalence of obesity -the more extreme form of caloric overnutrition-more than doubled nationwide between 2011 and 2018 (from 2.9 to 6.5 percent), and rose faster in rural areas than urban areas (from 1.7 to 4.9 percent and from 6.4 to 10.8 percent, respectively). Associated with the growing overnutrition problem, the risk of noncommunicable diseases such as type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease has also risen (Nguyen et al. 2022;Riaz et al. 2020). Recognizing the new challenge and urgency of addressing this growing double burden of malnutrition, Bangladesh's Ministry of Food emphasizes promoting healthy diets as key to achieving the goal of the National Food and Nutrition Security Policy (NFNSP) -that is, to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals targets related to food and nutrition security and fulfilling related national and international commitments by 2030. The first three (of five) objectives of the NFNSP Plan of Action for 2021-2030 focus on the steps for achieving healthy diets (FPMU 2021, 14):1. Ensure availability of safe and nutritious food for healthy diets.2. Improve access to safe and nutritious food at an affordable price.3. Enhance the consumption and utilization of healthy and diversified diets for achieving nutrition improvements.To achieve the third objective, and hence NFNSP's goal, a better understanding of consumer behavior is crucial.With increasing real incomes per capita, rural households started to shift their diets from being heavily dominated by staple foods toward greater consumption of non-staple foods, as predicted by Bennett's Law (Bennett 1941). Estimates from IFPRI's Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS) data, which include a large, nationally representative panel sample of rural households, suggest that the share of calories from rice and other starchy staple foods in rural household diets consumed at home declined from 88.0 percent in 2011 to 73.1 percent in 2015 and 71.0 percent in 2018. In contrast, pulses and nuts, added fats and oils, and animal-source food consumption all increased steadily between the survey years, with average calorie consumption amounts up by 44.1 percent, 39.7 percent, and 23.7 percent from 2011, respectively, by 2018. While these changes in the dietary patterns of rural households' at-home consumption indicate a clear shift toward a more diverse diet better balanced across nutritionally essential food groups, the average rural diet still fell short of the recommended Bangladeshi diet (as defined in 2013 by the National Dietary Guidelines of the Bangladesh Institute of Research and Rehabilitation in Diabetes, Endocrine and Metabolic Disorders; Nahar et al. 2014). Figure 2 shows that the average rural diet fell even further short of the healthy reference diet defined by the EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health -a global reference diet that meets the nutritional requirements of most people and, if consumed by all people, would keep the world within the planetary boundaries for sustainable food production (Willett et al. 2019). In all three survey years, the shortfalls of the average rural diet in terms of the reference intakes of both the recommended Bangladeshi diet and the EAT-Lancet reference diet were largest for pulses and nuts, fruits, and animal-source foods, whereas rural households on average still vastly overconsumed starchy staples and also, in 2018, added fats and oils relative to recommended intakes.The total calorie content of the average rural diet was roughly constant and somewhat above the optimal calorie intakes of the Bangladeshi dietary guidelines and the EAT-Lancet reference diet. While the average calories consumed by rural households at home declined slightly between 2011 and 2018 (Figure 2), food consumption away from home increased. The average share of foodaway-from-home consumption expenditure in total food expenditure rose from 6.5 percent in 2011 to 8.8 percent in 2015 and jumped to 15.9 percent in 2018. 1 Increasing consumption of food away from home is a typical dietary 1 Because quantities of foods purchased and eaten outside the home were not surveyed, calorie consumption away-from-home cannot be calculated. shift characterizing the observed nutrition transition in developing countries; it has been well-documented for urban settings but less so in rural areas (Hawkes et al. 2017;Popkin et al. 2012).Estimated income and price elasticities of food demand are important indicators of consumers' revealed food preferences. They measure the expected percentage change in food consumption in response to a 1 percent change in household income or food prices. Table 1 reports the estimated, long-term income and own-price elasticities for total food demand and the demand for 15 main food groups. These long-term elasticities are estimated using two-stage food demand system models (see Ecker and Comstock 2021) and household panel data from the BIHS in 2011, 2015, and 2018. They are calculated Note: Ae = adult equivalent. Following the approach described in Headey et al. (2023), the reference adult has a total daily calorie intake of 2,500 kcal per day. Bgd = Bangladesh dietary guidelines (nahar et al. 2014). eAt = healthy reference diet of the eAt-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health (Willett et al. 2019). the food group \"added sugar & others\" includes all nutritionally nonrequired foods, such as sugarsweetened beverages and other highly processed food products, in addition to refined sugar and other sweeteners.as averages across all households and the three survey rounds. The 15 food groups are a further disaggregation of the major food groups shown in Figure 2, adopted to reflect potentially diverse preferences for foods within those major food groups.The estimated income elasticities of the demand for fruits and all animal-source foods are considerably higher than the estimated income elasticity of total food demand and show values around or notably greater than one. This implies that the consumption of these food groups tends to increase faster than total food consumption when rural household incomes grow, and at percentage rates roughly proportional to the income growth rate in the case of eggs, poultry meat, and wild-caught fish, or even more than proportional growth in income in the case of fruits, farm-raised fish, dairy products, and red meat. These strong consumer preferences have been important drivers of dietary change among rural Bangladeshis and, as main pull factors from the domestic market, the rapid development of Bangladesh's aquaculture and cattle value chains and the associated transformation of the national AFS in recent years. Given still low consumption levels of fruits and animal-source foods, rural households' desire to increase their consumption of these foods can be expected to be strong with continued economic growth.The income elasticities of the demand for staple foods and added sugars and other foods, which mostly include sugar-sweetened beverages and other highly processed foods, reveal consumer preferences that have driven other observed dietary shifts and associated public health risks in rural Bangladesh. The income elasticities, especially of coarse rice demand and starchy root and tuber demand, are much lower than the income elasticity of total food demand, indicating that consumers transition out of unrefined starchy food consumption. On the other hand, the income elasticity of the demand for added sugars and other foods is higher than that of total food demand, pointing toward strong preferences for those nutritionally undesirable foods, whose excess consumption contributes to obesity and noncommunicable diseases.Vegetable demand has an estimated income elasticity similar to that of total food demand. Hence, in rural Bangladesh, the consumption of these micronutrient-rich foods is likely to increase only at a rate similar to total food consumption. While the estimated income elasticity for pulse and nut demand is somewhat higher, the large gap observed between current consumption levels and recommended intakes is unlikely to narrow rapidly without targeted efforts, given generally very low consumption.The estimated own-price elasticities, which indicate the likely change in the consumption of a food group in response to a price change of that food group, are consistently larger for individual food groups than for total food demand, in which all food group prices are summarized in a food price index. This is because of substitution effects in household consumption between different food groups in response to relative price changes (these are captured in estimates of cross-price elasticities, not reported here). The reported price elasticity estimates suggest that the demand for fine and medium rice, pulses and nuts, dairy products, wild-caught fish, and vegetables are most sensitive to own-price changes. Agricultural value chain growth that leads to price reductions for these foods thus can be expected to increase their consumption considerably.The estimated own-price elasticities for fine and medium rice, pulses and nuts, and dairy products are also larger than unity, indicating that a 1 percent price decline increases their consumption by more than 1 percent, which requires reducing consumption of other food groups. For example, declining prices for fine and medium rice incentivize rural households to reduce their consumption of coarse rice and other cereals primarily and spend the freed income for additional fine and medium rice consumption. Similarly, declining pulse and nut prices lead to increases in their consumption associated with declines in consumption of fine and medium rice, red meat, and vegetables.Diet quality, the prevalence of overweight and obesity, and the risk of diet-related NCDs have all been higher in Bangladesh's urban areas than rural areas -a common pattern across countries of the global South. Yet, dietary change and the rise of overweight were faster in rural Bangladesh during the pre-COVID decade, highlighting the urgency for AFS transformation strategies that promote healthy diets and address the growing double burden of malnutrition in rural areas. Strong consumer preferences for animal-source foods and added sugars and highly processed foods combined with continued high demand for staple foods suggest that, with continued income growth, this nutrition transition will further accelerate in rural areas, if no policy action is taken. This brief indicates the main pathways through which policies could influence food systems transformation. First, agricultural policies have a particular role to play in changing relative prices for consumers, which could help to transform Bangladesh's national AFS and achieve sustainable healthy diets. Such agricultural policies include public investments to catalyze productivity growth within high-value horticultural crops for local markets, as specified in Bangladesh's 2018 National Agriculture Policy (MOA 2018). Promotion of the development of specific agricultural value chains such as fruits, pulses, and various animal-source foods can be an important policy instrument for improving household diets, though the promotion of other value chains can lead to undesirable dietary change if food consumption incentives conflict with nutritional needs.Second, with continued transformation of Bangladesh's AFS and income growth, households' consumption patterns gradually shift away from staple foods (see also, de Brauw et al. 2019). Policies designed to affect relative prices and further catalyze a shift toward more nutrient-dense and healthy foods could be complemented by behavior change programs designed to increase consumers' desire for those foods. While behavior change programs are effective among the poor receiving cash or food transfers in Bangladesh (Ahmed et al. 2019), their effectiveness in shaping diets among more affluent population groups is less clear and an area for complementary research to this study. Under the CGIAR Initiatives on Foresight and Sustainable Healthy Diets (SHiFT), research following the analysis presented in this brief will assess the effects of growth in various agricultural value chains on household diet quality and environmental sustainability of consumed diets, as well as the potential trade-offs of different AFS transformation paths for achieving sustainable healthy diets in rural Bangladesh.A world free of hunger and malnutrition IFPRI is a CGIAR Research Center","tokenCount":"3389"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1ddf7571857898df84995b9b9772656f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a5c6f44e-a7d0-4fd9-a449-341aae70aafd/retrieve","id":"186051008"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"77c8702e-2d86-4bcc-9d0a-22b32a467ca3","pagecount":"10","content":"GENNOVATE is a global comparative research initiative across 11 CGIAR Research Programs that addresses the question of how gender norms and agency influence men, women, and youth to adopt innovation in agriculture and natural resource management. Findings from this work are being taken up by international and national agricultural researchers and impacting how they how they target, plan and realize their research work to better reach men, women and youth.The GENNOVATE collaboration brought together a multidisciplinary team across the CRPs and enabled them to carry out a study that covers the many regions where CGIAR works. GENNOVATE researchers worked with 137 agricultural communities from 26 countries across the Global South, engaging 7,500 women and men. MAIZE & WHEAT contributed 70 (51% of total) community case studies (27 and 43 respectively). This enabled comparative analysis while maintaining emphasis on contextual specificity, and allowed participating scientists to pioneer a qualitative comparative methodology in a way that none of the CRPs and project leads could have done on their own. By putting gender norms on the CGIAR research agenda and providing an evidence base relevant to the different systems and geographies of CGIAR target regions, GENNOVATE has helped prepare the ground for CGIAR programs to tranform structures and institutions that underpin gender inequalities.We identify early signs that the results of GENNOVATE research are being utilized by agriculture for development researchers. GENNOVATE instruments are being used in the context of other studies/projects, GENNOVATE conceptual framework and methodology is inspiring other types of work, the GENNOVATE systematic content analysis approach is being used in other studies, the methodology is being used in trainings for capacity development. GENNOVATE resources for AR&D professionals used by non-CGIAR entities. Some of the outcomes of GENNOVATE research are as follows:• Built evidence base on gender norms and agency in agricultural research and development interventions and with that the argument for why CGIAR needs to engage with gender transformative approaches. Shared this knowledge with scientists and development professionals via publications, tools/resources and capacity development-thus fostering a gendered perspective on agricultural innovation and its relation to technology adoption and change; • GENNOVATE validated, applied and shared with researchers important methodological and conceptual innovations (C) (3) (e.g. rigorous, qualitative methodology that also allows for comparison and extrapolation of patterns across multiple locations); • CGIAR Center-and non-CG partner-led R4D projects have enhanced their integrated gender research design and used one or more of the 17 tools made available by GENNOVATE (B; see list below); • GENNOVATE research findings and capacity building have created the foundation for the integration of gender transformative approaches in AR4D, and for further refining our understanding of technology diffusion as a highly gendered social process and pointing to opportunities for optimizing targeting and scaling out. GENNOVATE systematic content analysis approach used in other studies: Study on Banana Xanthomonas Wilt control in Burundi (RTB). Following the GENNOVATE coding/data analysis methods, an Nvivo coding scheme was developed for the study. ","tokenCount":"488"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fd6f1b43ec8a00e4dfa9749959e8a9e0","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/23db4473-dfd3-4831-a859-e180e7158277/retrieve","id":"1221305882"},"keywords":["Amazonía","Perú Region: Amazonia","Peru"],"sieverID":"46af8a22-7db7-4dfe-be24-acf097c16a58","pagecount":"5","content":"La investigación se enfocó en el análisis bioquímico y molecular de 29 accesiones de una colección nucleo de Bactris gasipaes (\"pijuayo\") mantenida en la Estación San Roque del INIA en la Amazonia Peruana. El objetivo es identificar accesiones con un amplio rango de caracteristicas para uso culinario y variación en el contenido nutricional. The research focused on the biochemical and molecular analysis of 29 accessions from the core collection of Bactris gasipaes (\"pijuayo\"), maintained at the San Roque INIA Station in Amazonian Peru. The objective is to identify accessions with a wide range of cooking characteristics and variability in nutritional content.La investigación es no-comercial pero existe un alto potencial de beneficios comerciales dado el importante beneficio público y beneficio potencial para los mejoradores, incluyendo del sector privado. The research is non-commercial but there is a high potential for commercialisation due to an important public benefit and potential benefit for breeders, including private.Veintinueve accesiones de la colección nuclear de Bactris gasipaes mantenida en la estación de INIA San Roque, Iquitos, Perú fueron obtenidas junto con los correspondientes datos de pasaporte. La colección nuclear fue seleccionada de la colección nacional para que represente la gama de diversidad de Bactris gasipaes. Twenty nice accessions from the core collection of Bactris gasipaes held at INIA's San Roque Station, Iquitos, Peru were obtained together with the corresponding passport data. The core collection was selected from the national collection so that it represents the range of diversity of Bactris gasipaes. Órgano rector regulador de acceso: Governing body regulating access:El Ministerio de Medio Ambiente es el órgano rector a cargo de expedir las normas, orientación y supervisión del acceso a los recursos genéticos. El Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA) entidad del Ministerio de Agricultura se encarga de la administración del acceso a los recursos genéticos de especies cultivadas o domesticadas encontradas en el continente (que se distingue de los recursos marinos).The Ministry of the Environment is the governing body, in charge of issuing norms, guidance and supervision on the access to genetic resources. The National Institute of Agricultural Innovation (INIA) within the Ministry of Agriculture is charged with administering access to genetic resources of cultivated or domesticated species found on the continent (as opposed to the sea).Utilización de recursos durante el proyecto: Utilisation of resources during the project:Las frutas fueron importadas a Colombia para llevar a cabo análisis bioquímicos de algunos nutrientes (por ejemplo nitrógeno, ceniza, materia seca carotenos, almidón) y realizar pruebas de cocción para encontrar accesiones que requieran tiempos de cocción mas cortos. Análisis genético se llevo a cabo como parte de un proyecto más grande.Fruits were imported to Colombia to undertake biochemical analysis of some nutrients (e.g., nitrogen, ash, dry matter, carotene, starch) and make cooking tests to find accessions requiring shorter cooking times. Genetic analysis was also undertaken as part of a larger project.Utilización de recursos después de la terminación del proyecto: Utilisation of resources after project completion:No-aplicable, los recursos fueron destruidos durante los análisis. Non-applicable, the resources were destroyed during analysis.Utilización de información generada después de la terminación del proyecto: Utilisation of generated information after project completion:Una publicación saldrá de la investigación. Los resultados de todos los análisis han sido devueltos al proveedor de recursos. Cuando la información acerca de las características nutricionales esté disponible para los usuarios potenciales (tal vez a través de un catálogo) se espera que esta promovería una mejor utilización de la diversidad en la colección de Bactris gasipaes por los usuarios externos y/o por los mismos curadores. A publication will come out of the research. The results of all the analyses have been returned to the resource provider. When the information about the nutritional characteristics is made available to potential users (perhapsthrough a catalogue) it would promote the better utilization of the diversity in the Bactris gasipaes collection by external users and/or by the curators themselves.Bioversity International se acercó al INIA Perú con planes para un proyecto para caracterizar la diversidad de Bactris gasipaes de la colección. La Dirección de Recursos Genéticos acogió la iniciativa y puso en contacto a Bioversity con el Curador de la colección. Procedimos con conversaciones acerca de los pasos a seguir. Un Acuerdo de Transferencia de Materiales fue firmado con el país proveedor en el momento de acceder a los materiales. Los permisos sanitarios fueron obtenidos. Bioversity International approached INIA Peru with plans for a project to characterize the diversity of Bactris gasipaes from the collection. The Directorate of Genetic Resources welcomed the initiative and put Bioversity in contact with the Curator of the collection. We proceeded with conversations about the steps to follow. A Material Transfer Agreement was signed with the provider country at the time of access to the materials. Sanitary permits were obtained.Duración de la negociación desde la solicitud del permiso: Negotiation duration from the time of permit application:Factores de éxito del procedimiento de solicitud: Factors of success of the application procedure:Un factor de éxito fue el compromiso hecho en un ambiente de confianza derivado de una colaboración a largo plazo entre Bioversity e INIA Perú, colaboración que ha incluido asistencia con la exploración de temas de acceso a los recursos fitogenéticos. A factor of success was the engagement made in an environment of trust derived from long-term collaboration between Bioversity and INIA Peru, collaboration that has included assistance with exploration of issues on access to plant genetic resources.Non-monetary & monetary benefits shared:Hubo dos beneficios principales no-monetarios de la investigación: (i) la determinación de una colección central; y (ii) el Curador de la colección viajó a la oficina de Bioversity en Cali, Colombia para entrenamiento personalizado en análisis de diversidad espacial; (iii) caracterización de 29 accesiones de \"pijuayo\" asi agregando valor a la colección. There were two main non-monetary benefits of the research: (i) the determination of a core collection; and (ii) the Curator of the collection travelled to Bioversity's office in Cali, Colombia for customized training on spatial analysis of diversity;(iii) characterization of 29 accessions of \"pijuayo\", thus adding value to the collection.Concientización de los beneficios distribuidos: Awareness of benefits shared:Las autoridades nacionales son concientes de los beneficios.The national authorities are aware of the benefits.Continuación de la distribución de los beneficios: Desconocido Continuation of benefits sharing: Unknown","tokenCount":"1034"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3d062db9d08e611843095f0d4d85b345","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5eb150eb-3954-4cce-ade3-c5ea75277c4f/retrieve","id":"-493587202"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"56416c99-3c1c-4a9f-816c-dfea6e4056f1","pagecount":"1","content":"• Women play big roles as managers and drivers of dairy value chains at the production level.• Gender empowerment efforts should be directed to enhance shared benefits within households.• Training and innovations should target people according to often gender-specific livestockrelated tasks.• Public investors can take advantage of women's role in dairy production with the realized increase in cattle ownership and engagement in labour activities. This can be achieved through dairy management training. An outcome that will impact not only the household but also the national economy. • Private investors can expand the formal markets by investing in bulking and cooling centers through which dairy farmers can market their milk and also access inputs and services for sustainable dairy business.• 10% of the studied households had women owning at least a piece of land.• Observable shift in livestock ownership from the household male (baseline) to joint ownership in monitoring survey (>57% of households).• Household acquisition and disposal of livestock determined by men (reported by >47% and >63% households respectively) (Fig 1).• Joint (men and women) decision making observed on milk revenues from formal buyers (Fig 2).• Milking, processing and selling of milk were mainly by women while animal grazing was mainly overseen by men and boys.","tokenCount":"205"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fb0ba96cea351ccc783d35efd24f718d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b7efddd9-a87a-450c-9646-b9da2ebce666/retrieve","id":"-587590265"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"bcf11e4d-e658-43f2-979b-f44e10a45dce","pagecount":"42","content":"Rice is not only crucial to the food security of a majority of the world's population, but it also has an important role in regulating water scarcity and has a huge potential in mitigating the effects of climate change. Despite this, the potential of rice production systems to bring sustainable outcomes is abated by its increasing vulnerability to extreme weather events and high-emission practices. Intermittent irrigation practices, characterized by (i) single drainage or single aeration, such as midseason drainage, and (ii) multiple drainage or multiple aeration, such as Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD), midseason drainage followed by intermittent irrigation, and other AWD variants, are low-cost innovations that reduce farmers' irrigation needs and methane emissions. AWD, for example, reduces water use by up to 30%, which improves farmers' adaptive capacity in water-scarce situations, and substantially reduces methane emissions from rice paddies on the average by 45% compared to continuously flooded rice. Significant efforts to adapt these practices in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have been ongoing since early 2000s. While intermittent irrigation attained a discernable footprint in the policies and programs of national and local governments, progress in making it a dominant farmer practice in irrigated rice has been so far limited due to multiple technical, economic, and social factors. Despite that, entry-points for narrowing the gap exist, such as pursuing integrated approaches to water management and pricing, remote sensing for the monitoring, reporting and verification of AWD adoption, and carbon credit schemes. These do not only help overcome the barriers to scaling intermittent irrigation but also make rice production systems more profitable, climate resilient, and low-carbon emitting.World food security depends on rice. Rice feeds about half of humanity; it is the poorest people's main source of calories and protein and is a source of livelihood for about three billion people (Chauhan et al. 2017;GRiSP 2013). It goes without saying that rice is one of the most important economic agricultural activities for developing countries (GRiSP 2013). Most of this rice is consumed in Asia -a region with sharp growth in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and natural resource limitation. With the worsening typhoons and drought brought about by climate change, rice production systems are increasingly suffering from significant crop losses, threatening the provision of ecosystem goods and services (IPCC 2021). Despite rice's clear importance for food security, flooded rice production is a significant water user and GHG emitter. Irrigated rice alone uses 40% of the world's irrigation water and covers 30% of all irrigated cropland (Dawe 2005;Enriquez et al. 2021). Worldwide agriculture contributes 56% of all non-carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, of which 10% is attributed to methane (CH4) from rice production (ibid).This number is even higher for most of Southeast Asia where rice contributes 43% of the total agricultural emissions on the average (Fig. 1).Addressing the climate goals set by the United Nations will require an increased focus on the agriculture sector to reach the under-invested rural and developing regions of the world (UNFCCC 2017). CH4 is a powerful but short-lived climate pollutant (with Global Warming Potential, GWP 1 , 28 times that of CO2) that is responsible for nearly half of the net global warming to date. However, finance for CH4 abatement measures represented less than 2% of the total climate finance flows in 2019/2020 (CPI 2022). Rapidly reducing CH4 emissions from energy, agriculture, and waste can achieve near-term gains in our efforts in this decade for decisive action. It is also regarded as the single most effective strategy to keep within reach the goal of limiting warming to 1.5˚C. Rice is arguably the most cost-effective strategy with the highest CH4 mitigation potential in the near-term.1 GWP is a unit measure that allows for comparing the global warming effect of different gases to the earth's atmosphere where CO2 has a GWP value of 1 (www.epa.gov). This report provides a brief overview and introduction of intermittent irrigation practices and how they contribute to achieving productive and sustainable food systems in Asia. The report also discusses the progress, challenges, learnings, and opportunities for scaling farmer adoption of this technology.2 http://di.unfccc.int/ghg_profile_non_annex1 and latest NatCom data from major agricultural countries 3 https://www.globalmethanepledge.org/Source: UNFCCC NCs 2 *excludes Singapore, Brunei, East Timor, MalaysiaWater management has a crucial role in adapting rice to climate risks and reducing GHG emissions from rice cultivation. This is because lowland irrigated rice is susceptible to drought events and growing rice in irrigated lands, historically, entails continuous flooding of fields whereby anaerobic conditions trigger methanogenic bacteria that thrive in ponded soil to emit CH4. Thus, by reducing the flooding intervals and inundated conditions, irrigation water use is lowered and the archaeal CH4 production and emission is significantly inhibited. requirement. This practice involves maintaining the rice field inundated with water at a level of 3 cm directly after transplanting or after directly seeded rice (mechanical or hand sown) has sprouted. The water level is then gradually increased to 5-10 cm to remain flooded until 7-10 days before harvest when the field is drained. This is widely considered by farmers to provide the necessary and sufficient growth environment for rice. The other end of the spectrum is aerobic rice, a way of producing rice without standing water in the field similar to upland crops like wheat.Aerobic rice is a production system in which especially developed \"aerobic rice\" varieties are grown in well-drained, non-puddled, and non-saturated soils. Aerobic rice requires direct seeding as its mode of establishment (Bouman et al. 2007).Dry direct seeding is a crop establishment method that replaces the conventional practice of growing seedlings in a nursery and then transplanting them into flooded fields. Preparation involves puddling with an approach where the seeds are directly sown into a non-puddled and unsaturated field. Dry direct seeding saves water and labor costs for transplanting and can be done through mechanized operation. It is important to differentiate it from 'wet direct seeded rice' where seeds are sown in a puddled and saturated field and intermittent irrigation and drainage is practiced during the season. In dry direct seeded rice, the field lacks a hardpan so that maintained flooded periods are not possible. The latter is a non-flooded system and requires a different management approach entirely, whereas the former can be managed very similarly to a traditional continuously flooded regime (with the exception of periodic drainage/s).Intermittent irrigation 4 sits at the middle. It involves periods of flooding, then a drainage period followed by re-flooding the field. It is crucial to ensure there is enough soil water content below the soil surface so that the roots have access to water. Several variants of intermittent irrigation exist under multiple names that follow similar guiding principles (Table 1). Single drainage or single aeration is one drainage event sometime during the vegetative stage, as in the case of Mid-season drainage (MSD). Multiple drainage (MD) or multiple aeration is characterized by more than one drainage event during the vegetative stage. Midseason drainage followed by intermittent irrigation (MiDi) is an extended drainage event followed by flooding and drainage at short intervals. Safe alternate wetting and drying (safe AWD) is characterized by continuous drainage and rewetting starting two weeks after transplanting (except during flowering) where soil water content is monitored and re-flooded before it goes beyond 15 cm below the soil surface, thus avoiding any yield penalties. In the week before and after flowering, the field should remain flooded.In addition, rice production packages such as the Standard of the Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP), System of Rice Intensification (SRI), and the 'One Must Do, Five Reductions' (1M5R) practice all incorporate a reduction of water usage through recommended in-season drainage that falls into one of the above intermittent irrigation regimes.Single drainage, or single aeration, is the practice of draining the field at least one time during the vegetative growth stage for a minimum of 3 days. MSD, on the other hand, requires a single aeration extended until the rice plant shows visible moisture stress (Uprety et al. 2012). With regards to on-farm implementation, MSD may be considered a more practical alternative to practices which employ multiple drainage events, as it requires less overall maintenance and less risk of yield loss (Carrijo et al. 2017). A single drainage event for a minimum of 3 days during the vegetative stage.Alternating between flooding and drainage periods throughout the season, except for the week before and after flowering. A PVC tube pipe may be used to measure and maintain a \"safe\" threshold water depth of up to 15 cm (below sub-surface soil) before reflooding of the field.Day-dependent irrigation method. Timing and duration of irrigation is based on growth stages. After draining for 1-2 weeks between later tillering and panicle differentiation, intermittent irrigation is applied.Approx AWD was conceptualized and developed by scientists at the International RiceResearch Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines as early as the 1990s and was piloted in farmer's fields starting in the 2000s. While it takes after the logic of intermittent irrigation, AWD introduces a guiding principle and a cheap tool, which is a water tube made from PVC pipe or 'pani pipe' for easy monitoring of water depth level below soil sub-surface. This enables farmers to reliably control irrigation, wherein they schedule their irrigation days before the sub-surface water level reaches a crucial point to avoid incurring penalties in rice yields (Bouman et al. 2007;Palis et al. 2004).The practice of AWD is defined by the periodic drying and re-flooding of the rice field in cycles ranging from 2 to 10 days to provide roots and soil biota with optimal amounts of water and oxygen (Fig. 4). To achieve the best outcomes, ponded water depth is monitored (a 30-centimeter-long plastic pipe or bamboo tube with drilled holes can be used as a level gauge) and the fields are re-flooded to a depth of 3-5 cm before sub-surface water levels reach -15 cm. This method is called \"safe AWD\" because it does not cause yield decline. Proper levelling of rice fields is necessary to ensure that no areas are excessively dry or wet, which could adversely affect yields. The benefits of AWD have been extensively studied. Over 60 peer-reviewed studies provide evidence that AWD can reduce emissions by 45% on the average and water use by up to 30% without reducing yields (Carrijo et al. 2017;IPCC 2019). In fact, a meta-analysis of these results covering 56 studies shows that AWD reduced water use by 25.7% across studies conducted in Asia 6 , thereby increasing water productivity in terms of grain yield per unit of water (ibid).Water use can be reduced by 30% with AWD, which reduces pumping costs, while improving farmers' adaptability in water-scarce conditions and ensuring the equitable distribution of water resources. As droughts are projected to increase in many areas of Southeast Asia, adoption of AWD at the entire irrigation systems scale can generate surplus at catchment level through the more efficient use of water for rice production. In some cases, AWD may increase the prevalence of weeds and this should be carefully considered when recommending this practice, especially in contexts where laborers are disproportionately female -if they are negatively impacted by such an increase in labor demands (Lampayan et al. 2015). Yield may be increased from AWD in some cases due to improved root growth and soil nutrient 6 We note that this meta-analysis included severe or unsafe AWD treatments that reduced rice yield and water use.supply 7 ; however, such increases may be an exception as many AWD studies show little to no effect on yield (Enriquez et al. 2021;Bouman et al. 2007).Evidence of emission reduction at an average of 45% has been shown through the application of AWD (Sander et al. 2017;IPCC 2019). CH4, which is 28 times more potent than CO2 in trapping radiation in the earth's atmosphere, is the primary GHG emitted from flooded rice. Increased soil aeration cycles using AWD prevents CH4 production and oxidizes CH4 stored in soil pores preventing its release. The total mitigation potential from rice farming may be increased up to 80% if AWD is complemented with rice straw removal (Allen & Sander 2019). Improved timing of nitrogen (N) is advised to reduce potential increases in nitrous oxide (N2O) associated with soil drying. Without this, research suggests that the mitigation potential of AWD is offset by 15% from increased N2O (Sander et al. 2020). Other benefits of AWD on yield, human health, and environment are discussed thoroughly by Allen and Sander (2019).MD is a more recent approach being tested in An Giang Province in Vietnam located within the Mekong Delta (Uno et al. 2021). It is an adjusted version of the AWD technique which allows flexibility for farmers to decide, based on their judgement, on site-specific adjustments in depth threshold and timing of draining whether, for example, for N fertilizer topdressing or poor drainage conditions (ibid). A two-year field experiment found that applying MD can have 35% GHG emissions reduction from CH4, without significant difference in N2O emissions, and yield advantage of 22% from continuous flooding regimes (Uno et al. 2021). To date, this approach has only been introduced at limited farmer plots in An Giang Province.Based on historical records, MiDi is the first kind of intermittent irrigation practiced by farmers in Asia (Minamikawa et al. 2019). MiDi was documented in a Chinese agricultural book called \"Qimin Yaoshu\" as early as the 7 th century, which suggested that soil aeration has a positive effect on rice yield.MiDi was also mentioned in \"Krisparasara\" in the Indian agricultural texts published in the 6 th -8 th century and, a few centuries later, found its way into Japanese records in 17 th century in \"Seiryoki\" and in 18 th century \"Noukagyouji\" books (Fig. 5). Moving into the modern times, MiDi became widely known and promoted by agricultural extension systems in China and Japan. MiDi involves draining the rice field for 1-2 weeks between the stages of later tillering and panicle differentiation. This is followed with intermittent irrigation wherein the field is repeatedly drained for 3 days and re-flooded for 3 days until the final drainage (Fig. 6). According to Minamikawa (2019, p.23), MiDi provides some benefits to rice production such as:• Curbing non-productive tillers through reduced mineralization of soil N;• Reducing susceptibility to lodging and to weather by constraining the production of hydrogen sulfide and organic acids and enhancing root elongation;• Making it easy for farmers to work in the field by improving soil compaction;and, • Increasing rice yields over continuous flooding (based on a meta-analysis of studies conducted in China by Gou et al. 2017).  IRRI conducted a suitability mapping of AWD in a number of rice production areas in Southeast Asia such as the Philippines and the Central Plains in Thailand. Tables 3 and 4 show that 60% of the rice area in the Philippines is climatically suited for AWD as are the entire rice area in six provinces in the Central Plains of Thailand which translated to significant mitigation potentials for both countries (7.42 8 and 1.61 MtCO2eq per year, respectively). It is important to note that the analysis focuses on enabling climatic factors and is done independent of whether there is adequate 8 Assuming GWP of methane equals to 28.irrigation infrastructure or not. This illustrates the mitigation opportunity but also highlights the gaps and work that is still needed in scaling-out the use of AWD in Asia.  Policy frameworks that incentivize water saving and climate mitigation are necessary conditions for ensuring the widespread and sustained adoption of AWD.In developing countries in Asia, policies supporting dissemination and farmer adoption of AWD took shape in different forms. Among the key examples are:• The two decades of scaling farmer adoption of AWD generated a lot of insights on the site-and country-specific challenges and success factors for intermittent irrigation in Asia. Being intentional in addressing key challenges for scaling AWD and optimizing and transferring learnings will be crucial for accelerating the transition of rice production systems to low-carbon and resilient pathways.Challenges to the adoption of AWD are much more than a question of whether farmers can afford the low-cost PVC tube pipe. It is rather a combination of factors such as economic incentives, institutional enforcement, excludability of access to unintended users, scale mismatches, and quality of irrigation infrastructure (Enriquez et al. 2021). The following are the main cross-cutting challenges and learnings around the adoption of AWD:• Infrastructure and enforcement. The adoption of AWD has been found to be effective in instances where infrastructure enables Irrigators'Associations to reliably control the flow and off-take structures and exclude people to prevent illicit tapping (Enriquez et al. 2021;Bouman et al. 2007).In the Philippines, AWD has experienced a comparatively quick uptake in pump-based irrigation collectives than gravity-based systems because farmers can reliably access irrigation water and they are required to pay for the amount per liter of fuel used, so there is an economic incentive to pump more efficiently (Palis et al. 2004). In An Giang Province, Vietnam, the presence of full dike systems was instrumental to 52% of the adoption of AWD (Yamaguchi et al. 2019). On the other hand, the introduction of AWD in large gravity-based systems has been difficult. Particularly, in the Philippines, where there is a dwindling quality of irrigation infrastructure, the ability to exclude users and enforce compliance mechanisms and price water per volume is very difficult in such systems (Enriquez et al. 2021).• Economic incentives and risk-averseness. AWD is not just a knowledgeintensive innovation, but it can also discourage farmers from testing the approach when they see cracking of soils as the water recedes below the surface, even though this can be managed safely and does not affect the yield.This is because farmers are largely risk-averse and maintain the idea that flooded conditions mean that there will be higher rice yield and seeing cracks in the soil could mean poor yield performance (Palis et al. 2004). Given these perceptual barriers, it does not help that AWD often does not bring farmers economic incentives either through better yield or incomes (Bouman et al. 2007). In the Philippines, pump-based irrigation has been successful because farmers pay for the fuel used to irrigate their farms, and by using AWD, farmers benefit from cost-savings, which is not possible in large canal-based irrigations where there is no water pricing regulation as irrigation fees are subsidized by the government (Enriquez et al. 2021;Palis et al. 2004).• Trade-off on pest, disease, soil organic content (SOC), and weed management. Albeit AWD can curb the occurrence of non-aquatic weeds, rice blast, bacterial leaf blight, and root-knot nematode, it can, on the other hand, provide conducive conditions for pathogen survival and transfer between rotation of related aerobic crops, which may require additional knowledge on integrated pest management (Allen & Sander 2019).Conversion of flooded to aerobic soil conditions can reduce SOC quantity and limit its carbon storage functions (ibid). These issues can be addressed with specific and targeted crop management responses, but they may increase the requirement for knowledge-intensive farm management to avoid this tradeoff.• Integrated water governance. In many developing countries, water resources, including irrigation, and water-related management institutions are often fragmented, uncoordinated, and have weak capacity. This could be forest agencies and water resource boards that govern ecosystems located upstream and river basins, to water utilities that compete for water with other sectors like agriculture. Poor integrated ecosystems approach to managing land, water, and forest ecosystems could lead to technical and environmental constraints for irrigation systems, particularly the large ones.For example, forest degradation and deforestation can increase siltation and excessive siltation of dams and canals can reduce the capacity of irrigation canals to deliver larger volumes of irrigation (Clemente et al. 2020). Weak enforcement capacity perpetuates illegal access and locking of access gates to water, illegal settlers and pumping/dumping of garbage, and poor canal maintenance. This can discourage cooperation among farmers to adopt AWD, which ultimately hampers the collective adoption of intermittent irrigation whereby farmers may become disincentivized by seeing that other people around them take advantage of the current situation or are not doing anything about the governance and management issues (Enriquez et al. 2021). Behavioral studies show that strengthening social norms and enforcement mechanisms through social disapproval can improve cooperation within irrigation schemes (Tsusaka et al. 2013).Proper Generating a region-wide suitability assessment and defining current adoption rates for AWD will provide the baseline and potentials for climate mitigation opportunities and scaling the adoption of AWD. This is an important foundational step for generating a regional picture of intermittent irrigation. To date, only the Philippines and Thailand have published suitability analyses. As discussed in Section 3.1, inconsistencies in the methodology and scope of adoption studies, including the cost for field-based data collection, make it difficult to have a comparable and more frequent estimation of AWD adoption.There is a large potential for the use of remote sensing to make measurement of AWD adoption cheaper and comparable across countries. The first attempt to this was the study of Lovelle (2019) which used European Space Agency Sentinel-1a and 1b radar data together with in-situ moisture readings. Progress in this area would also benefit carbon credit schemes for AWD which could make the transaction costs for the monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) of CERs significantly cheaper. This could in-turn improve the profitability and viability of carbon credit projects for farmers. 13 Since MD and MiDi have little or no experience for adoption in the farmer's fields, the discussion is done here, based on the experience for adoption of AWD. These entry points can generally apply to other intermittent irrigation methods. (ii) Assessing \"true water savings\". This concept considers higher scales in water management. Irrigation water \"lost\" in an upstream field may still benefit downstream users. If efficiency is increased and \"lost\" irrigation water is reduced upstream, downstream users may experience reduced water supply. Thus, planning, improving, and managing irrigation systems need to happen beyond the field level implementation of AWD and to consider different scales in the basin/irrigation service area.(iii) Compensation for eventual losses. This practice is relevant in cases of irrigation water coming from larger irrigation schemes, which is out of the farmers' control. Thus, the engagement of both parties namely, water suppliers and users, is needed to support the adoption of AWD.f. Training, introducing \"local champions\", and ensuring co-ownership.Farmers' lack of awareness and training can be a barrier to behavior change.Farmers may be worried they will incur yield losses if improperly applying AWD.To achieve scaling of AWD, stakeholders should be well-informed of both the While it may be difficult logistically to incentivize farmers through carbon credits due to high verification costs, carbon credits may be used in larger irrigation system investments, allowing farmers to benefit from these 14 https://sector.irri.org/practices 15 CDM has been agreed to be phased out in the UNFCCC.improvements. Since a new carbon market mechanism is being discussed at the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (instead of the CDM) and once a new mechanism is identified, there is a need to examine how adoption of intermittent irrigation will change with regards to introduction of new carbon market schemes.Intermittent irrigation has an important historical link and role in climate adaptation and mitigation in Asia. Low-carbon irrigation practices are crucial not only for food security and the prosperity of farmers but also for mitigating the effects of climate change. Intermittent irrigation techniques like AWD have made a positive impact with tangible benefits to farmers, although within a limited scale and not without its challenges. It is undeniable that the convergence of global drivers, research-for-development, and economics has been increasingly aligned, now more than ever, creating a clear and viable pathway for making intermittent irrigation a positive tipping point needed for the low-carbon and resilient transitions of rice production systems in Asia. Working towards this end requires strategic innovations, good governance, and an enabling policy environment.","tokenCount":"3953"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3c6513e732b56694ae77ee3cbe3b245a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/753f58e2-7fb9-4d3a-a4dc-bf0563e2a59b/retrieve","id":"1576199976"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b71ccb60-4647-4427-9cf9-cead8e2f7462","pagecount":"9","content":"To develop rigorous low cost data and methods that will effectively enable planning, monitoring and evaluating climate change mitigation in agriculture at the national and subnational levelsThe agricultural sector is facing the challenge of achieving food security goals and adapting to climate change while also reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. Addressing mitigation in the agriculture sector will become increasingly important due to the scale of global emissions from agriculture and increases in population growth, consumption of meat and dairy products, and use of nitrogen fertilizers.Demand for improved emissions data is growing across the globe with the new UNFCCC requirement for Biennial Update Reports (BURs) and the need to verify emission reductions associated with Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs). Also the private sector is interested in emissions, not least for branding and labeling the products. Yet planning, monitoring or evaluating agricultural mitigation has been limited by many factors, among which by the need for methods for GHG estimations in agriculture that are both precise, meaning scientifically adequate and comparable, location and practice specific for a given purpose, and low cost, allowing for their application at large scales, by non-scientists and adapted to the context of developing countries. Agriculture planners have also lacked the information about the methods that are available. This workshop sought to address these limitations by bringing practitioners, policy makers and scientists together, with a focus on how to meet the needs of developing counties.This workshop built on a series of previous workshops organized by CCAFS and FAO/MICCA. See: http://ccafs.cgiar.org/quantification-data-unveils-opportunities-lowemissions-agricultural-developmentand http://www.fao.org/climatechange/micca/87844/en/Collecting data on farm activities, making measurements to establish emission factors, and establishing national systems for compiling and analyzing data are expensive, and uncertainties in current data remain high. In response, country representatives identified several key challenges to agricultural greenhouse gas accounting in developing countries.Countries need multiple kinds of data in order to estimate emissions, but these are often not available. For example, agricultural ministries may have national statistics on fertilizer imports and exports, but little data on crop-specific fertilizer use and area under each crop-necessary pieces of information for estimating emissions from fertilizer use.Emission factors are values that are used to relate a greenhouse gas-generating activity (such as cattle production) with the quantity of a greenhouse gas released into the atmosphere. Such values are specific to particular environments and management systems, and they are often unavailable for developing country conditions. As the emission factors in the IPCC database are mostly based on commercial systems in developed countries, up-dates and totally new emission factors are needed. The relationship between activities and emissions can also be quantified using complex models, but both approaches require numerous field measurements to calculate emission factors or calibrate and validate models. There is particular scarcity of data on livestock systems.Access to data and coordination: Generally, multiple institutions within a country collect information on agricultural activities, each for their own use. Often, data are not shared between different government units. When they are, data may be in forms that are not compatible, or different ministries may collect the same information but come up with conflicting statistics.Workshop participants developed action points for reducing the cost of greenhouse gas emission estimates in different agriculture sectors.Integrating GHG-relevant information into agricultural censuses is an efficient way to collect such data. This may become standard in 2020 census rounds, as FAO has just developed a new module for GHG-relevant data within the World Census of Agriculture. Such data can also be included in other national surveys; e.g. Malawi's National Statistics Office has incorporated questions on land management into its Integrated Household Survey.Outsource data collection to the crowd: New applications such as Geo-Wiki ask people to interpret visual images in order to improve land cover data. With the spread of texting and smartphone technology in developing countries, such \"citizen science\" approaches have big potential. Other applications such as Collect Earth developed by FAO combine freely available visual data from NASA and USGS with cloud-based processing services like Google Earth Engine to allow desk-based data collection by in-country experts.Integrate measurements and modeling: Models are key to estimating emissions without the need for direct measurement, but models need to be validated and calibrated to local conditions. Researchers undertaking measurements could collect auxiliary data such as rainfall, temperature, and crop performance to support models. When these data are known, it is possible to use models to extrapolate measurement data to other sites with similar climatic and management characteristics, thus reducing measurement needs. Models can be used to identify areas of greatest uncertainty in order to prioritize measurements. Continuous interaction between modelers and scientists doing measurements is key.Target measurements to maximize usefulness: In addition to prioritizing based on areas of greatest uncertainty, targeting key farming systems and practices and using statistical sampling to efficiently capture information can reduce data needs. For example, researchers in Costa Rica developed 17 clusters of livestock systems according to agro-ecological zones and animal management. These clusters explained most of the variability in emissions, so they were able to develop emission factors for these clusters, and not spend money on unnecessary measurements. This approach also reduced the uncertainty of estimates, because for each cluster they could describe in better detail the feeding and management of the animals.It was suggested that an expert group could support data synthesis and modeling from existing literature. This would generate much-needed additional emissions factors for more locations and management practices. Further, people conducting measurements and calibrating models should make concerted efforts to share their information in platforms such as the Emissions Factor Data Base (EFDB) and Global Research Alliance Modeling Platform (GRAMP) so it can be used at national, sub-national and international levels.Build the right capacities: \"We always just say 'we need more capacity'! But we need the right capacity,\" several workshop participants emphasized. Developing countries need not only training, but also long-term mentoring and follow-up. Capacity and strengthening of institutions are needed e.g. locally for field data collection, and nationally for identifying and using relevant tools, analyzing and interpreting data, and modeling.Link adaptation and mitigation to motivate action: Participants repeatedly emphasized that there are complementarities between adaptation-and mitigation-related information. Emphasizing adaptation benefits of mitigation options increases buy in. Explicitly linking the two can both reduce data needs and provide incentives for action.Do not let lack of data get in the way of action: Even though there is limited data, perfect data must not get in the way of good data and there is the need to move forward, with targeted increments of improvement, such as synthesis of data and improving certainty windows around emissions of key agriculture practices.Better coordination between decision makers, farmers, supporting organizations and all other stakeholders in order to improve communication of science findings. An inventory of success stories of emission estimations would enhance up-scaling. Nevertheless, sharing failures and null results is important too!","tokenCount":"1131"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"60a7d452faea094155c2df4f1b27a330","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/593f90e6-75cd-43d7-abc6-f121fcff1d51/retrieve","id":"-344243637"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"22186a01-773a-4be0-8b6f-8255c4498d6c","pagecount":"3","content":"A data-to-analytics infrastructure roadmap was developed for EiA in 2022. A critical part of this infrastructure is a global data pool or database that allows search within standardized datasets (i.e., beyond traditional metadata search) to return aggregated datasets that can directly be used for analyses. A proof-of-concept data pool was developed in Q4 of 2022, built on state-of-the-art graph database technology. Users can search the database for genderdisaggregated data, to assess gender-based differences in crop yields or fertilizer application rates. The aggregated data returned from such searches is pre-formatted for easier use in analytical tools (aligned with the Carob model) and for commonly-used AgMIP crop simulation models (as a first step toward data-to-model capability).CGIAR Innovation Packages and Scaling Readiness (IPSR)This innovation is characterized asInnovations of technical/material nature, including varieties/breeds; crop and livestock management practices; machines; processing technologies; big data and information systems.The nature of this innovation isInnovations that are new and replace existing products, systems, services and/or policies but do not cause or require major reconfiguration of farming, market and/or policy/business models.The innovation is validated for its ability to achieve a specific impact under uncontrolled conditionsThe innovation is being tested for its ability to achieve a specific impact under uncontrolled conditionsThe innovation is validated for its ability to achieve a specific impact under semi-controlled conditions PROOF OF CONCEPT The innovation's key concepts have been validated for their ability to achieve a specific impactThe innovation is being tested for its ability to achieve a specific impact under semi-controlled conditionsThe innovation's key concepts are being formulated or designedThe innovation is validated for its ability to achieve a specific impact under fully-controlled conditionsThe innovation's basic principles are being researched for their ability to achieve a specific impactThe innovation is being tested for its ability to achieve a specific impact under fully-controlled conditionsThe innovation is at idea stage For more information on this innovation please contact Medha Devare (m.devare@cgiar.org)","tokenCount":"315"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"66ebe1e3409b06d60c3573162d00be2a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/298844bf-5885-4bc9-b73b-5ee9577af74d/retrieve","id":"-1776085181"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6440a418-a681-407a-878a-5e971c616b4f","pagecount":"15","content":"From Jan to May 2012, value of milk intake at EADD supported DFBAs has decreased by 21 % 1 compared to last year. Overall, milk intake for all DFBAs from January to May was valued at US$6.6M. There are 2 hypotheses at play: 1)the drought had the usual negative impact on milk production; the decline in milk intake is due to decline in milk production in similar proportion, and 2) the traditional market was quick to adjust the prices offered to farmers upward and farmers diverted some of their milk to this market.The objective of the study was to determine the reasons for the sharp decline in milk intake at some EADD supported Kenya DFBAs. The specific objectives were:1) To assess reasons for decline in milk intake at DFBA level, 2) To document strategies followed by the DFBAs to try and counter the decline in milk intake, 3) To draw lessons in relation to the hub approach and value proposition to farmers. This first report focuses on the 2 first points.A total of 6 sites were surveyed on the criterion of extent of decline in milk intake: 2 sites with highest decline, 2 with medium and 2 with the lowest decline. Chepkorio and Sot represent sites with the lowest decline while Kipkelion and Kabiyet represented the sites reporting highest decline. Metkei and Tanykina were in the middle (Appendix).A household questionnaire was conducted to 25 randomly selected households per site from a list of farmers actively supplying milk to the DFBA 2 . Additional information was collected in focus group discussions held with key informants (CP manager, extension manager, board representative) to elucidate strategies intended to counter the current decline in milk intake and lessons learnt. The household questionnaire and checklist for interviews can be found in annex.Four sites (Chepkorio, Kabiyet, Kipkelion and Metkei) registered a decrease in average daily production from January-April and then a slight increase in the month of May and June this year (Figure 1). Unlike the other sites, Metkei registered a strong increase in May and June. In Tanykina, increase was noted from the month of June while Sot farmers reported a continuous decline up to the month of June. The average number of cows range from 3 in Sot to 5 per household in Chepkorio and Kabiyet. Comparing milk intake at the DFBA and production performance at the household level, generally there was a corresponding decline in milk production at the household level especially in the month of February and March (Figure 2). The exceptional performance in Metkei around March can be attributed to one farm which reported a sharp increase around this time. Comparing the trend in milk production between January-June 2011 and January-June 2012, the majority of farmers affirmed a decrease in milk production this year. About 66% (99/150) of respondents registered a decrease in production this year, 29% (44/150) an increase and 5% (7/150) a constant milk production (Table 1). The decrease in milk production was due to fewer cows in production (reason cited by 68 farmers out of 99 or 69%) and as well as near lactation peak (69% of farmers) (Table 2). The decrease was also attributed to unavailability of feed during that time period (59% of farmers). 3 The total count of farmers per site is greater than n because of multiple responses on reasons for decrease in milk production Speaking to key informants (CP manager, extension manager and members from the DFBA), the low production was the main reason for decline in milk delivered to the DFBA/CP (Table 3). This was attributed to the dry period in January-March followed by heavy rains between April and June. Though the rains improved the situation on forage availability, the quality of this forage was poor. Apart from impacting on feed availability, the cold season also saw most of the available energy diverted towards thermoregulation compromising on milk production. Farmers also expressed dissatisfaction with prices offered at the CP. Table 3 shows desired price increment per litre of milk to ensure loyalty. On average, a price increase of Ksh 11 per litre of milk would ensure farmers' loyalty to the DBFAs. Only one farmer in Sot reported contentment with the price offered at the CP. These finding were supplemented by findings by the EADD-Kenya production team during their field extension trainings early in the year (Box 1).Looking at the 29% reporting an increase in production, most of these farmers were from Chepkorio (52%). This increment was attributed to better management and more cows near the lactation peak (Table 4).  Unfavourable weather conditions/ No pasture/fodder-due to Prolonged drought/heavy rains  Farmers diverted to other business enterprises e.g. Maize farming, Sugar cane, Passion Fruits  Higher prices in informal markets-affected milk intake in the CP  Poor management of improved dairy breeds  Erratic milk prices-low prices de-motivated farmers  Off-take of producing cows that were secured through credits  High cost of living affected the cost of inputs-concentrates thus farmers were unable to properly feeding their animals. Dairy policy-that allow free milk hawking all over  Poor infrastructure-poor road networks  Price cold war between processors competing for the same farmers and giving them better prices at the farm gate. Slow adoption of modern technologies by farmers so as to improve the production at the farm level. Processors introduced the quota in milk supplies The DFBAs had the highest share of milk followed by household consumption (Figure 3). Unlike the other sites, households in Metkei hardly sold any milk to traders (Figure 3). This could partly be attributed to the prices offered to farmers ('We have the best price per litre in the area'-CP manager).Figure 3: Share of milk sold, by market outlet, and consumed in the household in the six sites.Medium decline milk intakeAlthough the DFBA had the highest share of milk from the dairy households, most household (67%; 100/150) recorded a decrease in volume of milk sold to the DFBAs (Table 5). In Chepkorio where 52% (13/25) of the farmers recorded an increase in milk production; most of them (68%; 9/13) reported a corresponding increase in milk sold to the DFBA. The majority of farmers (90%; 90/100) attributed this reduction to overall low milk production (Table 6). Twenty nine percent of farmers cited lower milk price offered by DFBA as reason for selling less to the DFBAs. A few (8%) farmers enjoyed services rendered by other milk outlets (this include cheaper/free transport, efficient check-off system by some processors, prompt payment, reliability in milk collection) hence diverting some of their milk to these outlets. The focus group discussions also revealed that a number of farmers, especially in Chepkorio, Kabiyet and Kipkelion, had complained of repeated insemination and subsequent loss in production due to low conception (Table 7). Farmers in Tanykina were said to be diversifying livelihood activities to crop farming (sugar cane and passion fruit farming). An incidence was mentioned in Kipkelion where a buyer failed to pay the cooler one month's pay and this demotivated farmers. All the farmers (39) registering an increase in amount of milk sold to the DFBA attributed this to higher milk production (Table 8). Fifteen out of 39 farmers also reported availability of check-off system for inputs and services as a booster for the increased milk production. Although cited by FGD participants in all sites as a competitor in the milk market (Table 9), very few households reported channelling their milk to processors (included in category 'sold elsewhere' in Figure 1). As picked from focused group discussions, some farmers who had joined the Kabiyet dairies in the understanding that milk from the cooler was sold to a particular processor where they also held shares, ceased delivering milk to the cooler after it sold milk to other markets. Table 9: Competitors of the DFBAs in the milk marketIn assessing the advantage these competitors have over DFBA, the FGDs participants pointed out that their competitors had efficient methods of accessing the farmers (Table 10). Motorbikes are more efficient when it comes to penetration of farms located off the main roads as opposed to the pick-ups or truck used by the coolers which only collect milk along the passable roads. The competitors also offered better prices as mentioned by FGDs in Kipkelion and Sot. According to participants in Metkei the prices offered by the competitors are not sustainable. Traders were also said not to be so keen on quality of milk and therefore some farmers with left over milk from previous evening were said to mix with morning milk and sell it to them. From most farmers' point of view in all the sites, except Sot, milk prices offered by the DFBA are not adjusted as the market prices change. Price variation was approximated to take about 2 months before being effected (Table 11). The majority of farmers (58%; 37/64) who said milk prices are adjusted concomitantly with existing market prices agreed that the changes are effected in the next payment. From focus group discussions the price paid to the farmers was determined by 1) the buyer at the cooler and 2) the overhead costs at the cooler. The board of directors agrees with the departmental heads on the amount required for overheads. Results from the household survey showed that majority of farmers (71%) were aware of the board's role regarding milk price (Table 12). Twenty four per cent of the farmers did not know who is involved in determining the price of milk. About 71% of the farmers interviewed use the check-off system (Table 13). About 78% of those who reported using it affirmed this system motivates them to supply their milk to the DFBAs. Farmers' ability to access the services and/or inputs and pay at the end of the month through checkoff makes them remain loyal to the DFBA by delivering their milk (Table 14). This was confirmed during the FGDs where the participants also said that the assurance of access to inputs and services by farmers without necessarily having cash at hand motivates farmers to deliver their milk to the cooler. A few of those who said the check-off system does not make them loyal to the DFBA mentioned reasons like services offered are expensive, services not being satisfactory etc (Table 15). The extension staff in Metkei, Kabiyet, Tanykina and Kipkelion is investing time in training farmers in fodder establishment and feed conservation (Table 16) in preparation for the dry season and/or prolonged rainfall season to ensure sufficient feed supply therefore sustaining milk production during this period. The extension managers will require more tactful approaches to ensure farmers' uptake of these technologies.As a measure to ensure farmers don't look for cash alternatives elsewhere, Chepkorio, Tanykina and Kipkelion plan to provide advance payment. They consider using transporters/middlemen, who are in daily contact with farmers, to make advance available to farmers in need of it.DFBAs collect milk mainly along the main roads. By so doing they lose a lot of milk from farmers in inaccessible areas to milk traders or hawkers using motor bikes to reach these farms. Chepkorio, Kabiyet and Tanykina are seeking to be more efficient even if it means using motor bikes to reach these farms. Although the DFBA maintained the highest overall share of milk produced at the farm, famers agreed there was a decline in volume of milk delivered to the DFBAs in all the sites. This was attributed to overall decline in milk production as a result of feed unavailability following the dry spell and subsequent rains. About 29% of the farmers attributed the decrease in milk sale to DFBA to the low milk prices, thus diverted their milk to other buyers. Eight per cent also mentioned access to better services like cheaper or free transport, reliable milk collection and prompt payment from other buyers. In Chepkorio where 52% of the farmers interviewed reported an increase in milk production due to more cows being in the lactation peak and better management, a correspondingly higher proportion of these farmers (69%) reported an increase in the milk sold to the DFBA. Although the decline could heavily be associated to decline in milk production, the role played by the price offered at the DFBA cannot be ignored. The DFBA's are not ignorant of these challenges. They are also aware of loop holes that need to be tightened in order to counter the fall in milk volumes delivered to the coolers.","tokenCount":"2066"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6f4121847d8c0e09b5df011d1af23013","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ec6b463d-97c7-407c-a1da-07f0e2086451/retrieve","id":"-819721927"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"622f5590-88e2-41f7-a71b-a72642d817a0","pagecount":"177","content":"The International Potato Center, also known as Centro Internacional de la Papa (CJP), is a Scientific Institution, autonomous and non-profit making, established by means of an agreement with the Government of Peru with the purpose of developing and disseminating knowledge for greater utilization of the potato as a basic food. International funding sources for technical assistance in agriculture are financing the Center.IV IThe following are excerpts from a speech given by Dr. Richard L. Sawyer, Director General of CIP, on April, 28, 1977 during CIP's Fifth Anniversary celebration.This week we are celebrating the Fifth Anniversary of the International Potato Center. New facilities are also being dedicated that have been constructed to help better respond to our mandate which is \"to rapidly develop, adapt, and expand the research necessary for the technology to solve priority problems limiting potato production in developing countries.\"In This association led to discussions concerning methods for exploiting the tremendous genetic wealth that existed in the Andean region of South America to help solve the world food problem which was becoming increasingly apparent during the late 1960 s.The Peruvian Government and agricultural officers of the Dutch, British and German embassies in Peru indicated an active interest in the development. The Rockefeller Foundation indicated they were willing to join its international Potato Program to what was being formed in Peru.In 1970 US-AID provided planning money for a two-year period to activate an International Potato Center.During this same period, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) was being formed, starting with the four international centers already activated by the Ford-Rockefeller Foundations and with the possibility of adding additional centers as justified.In 1972 CIP became the first new center to join the CGIAR network and fitst funding as an international center was received in mid-1972. There are now 11 international centers in the network of the CGIAR.To identify the priority research problems for potato production and improvement in developing countries.To identify to what extent funding would permit CIP's involvement with these problems.To involve through research contracts and international planning conferences as many institutions as possible around the world where facilities and capabilities already existed for helping solve the priority problems for potato improvement in developing countries.To develop regional locations on core program funding for the initial research transfer, the multiplication, evaluation, adaptation and redistribution to surrounding countries in order to get applicable technology to country doorsteps. To develop training programs at CIP headquarters and in the regional programs in order to have capable receivers of CIP technology within country programs.In mid-1972 upon receiving its first money as an International Center, CIP held an international planning conference entitled: \"Prospects for the Potato in the Developing World.\" Senior potato scientists from both developed and developing countries were brought to Lima to help determine what were the priority potato problems in developing countries and what research CIP should be initiating.As a result of these discussions, nine major research thrusts were identified as priority work. CIP's major research efforts are concentrated in these nine thrusts which are systematically evaluated through periodic international planning conferences and changed as indicated by progress and the identification of changes in priorities.From its initiation, CIP has attempted to get its roots into as many institutions as possible around the world to help with the development of needed technological packages and their transfer. The two principal strategies utilized are international planning conferences and research contracts.For each of the major research thrusts and their components, CIP holds an international planning conference every three years. These are rotated so that each year there are an average of three. At each conference a five-year plan for CIP activities is developed after taking into consideration the progress made and present status of research with the problem.A group of 10 to 15 senior scientists from developing countries working on the specific research problem are brought together for a week of discussions with CIP staff As a result of these conferences there tends to be a coordination of research activities among the institutions participating and CIP receives a great deal of research help at little if any direct cost.From its initiation, CIP established the policy of conducting a portion of its priority research for developing countries at institutions where facilities and capabilities already existed. Through such linkages CIP was able to move into breeding programs already underway, catalize them to an international dimension and have research material ready for distribution in a very short time. Contracts are with institutions where the facilities and scientists are already in place, and CIP provides funding for expandable supplies, extra technicians, and international travel to link the work directly to CIP and to developing countries. As specific pieces of work are completed, contracts are terminated and new ones initiated. Such a system gives excellent flexibility for changes in concentration as priorities change.Due to the problems encountered in the multiplication and distribution of a vegetatively propagated crop such as the potato, CIP has regionalized a portion of its core research program.Thus CIP has the ability on core program funding to get its technology into the various regions of the world for multiplication, evaluation, adaptation and redistribution to country program doorsteps. At this point CIP's direct responsibility stops. CIP's value will eventually be determined by the changes which have resulted in a countries food supply due to an association with CIP and the technology it has made available. This credibility must be established in the fields of potato growers in developing countries. This is where the final evaluation must take place. I would like to thank the many people that have been responsible for the institutional maturity which CIP has achieved in such a short time.First in importance is the faith and backstopping of donors who were willing to invest in a new approach to the establishment of an international center. Those donors over the past five years are listed in alphabetical order as follows: I would like to thank the scientists of international caliber who were willing to leave secure and comfortable positions in established institutions to join this CIP venture. We presently have 16 nationalities representing all major continents on the staff I would also like to thank a Board of Trustees, all of whom were working members devoting several weeks a year without pay to help in CIP's development and management. We have an international Board of Trustees with no more than two members at a time from any country. Two of the board members have been active since before the initiation of CIP, Dr. \"Wariano Segura of the /\\ilinistry of Food and Dean Jack Rigney of North Carolina State University and deserve special attention at this inauguration as they will be retiring as of this week.They have served as President and Secretary of the Board of Trustees for the past five years.And last but not least, a very special recognmon must go to the Peruvian Government for their f~ne cooperation, the donation of our original building which helped catalyze interest of the CC/AR, the donation of land in several locations in Peru, on the coast. in lfuancayo and in the jungle, and the excellent support of the many Ministries in clearances necessary for managing an international operation headquartered in Peru.Special thanks must go to the fine cooperation which has been established with the National Agrarian University, the Experimental Station in La Molina, and the staff of CRIA L In summary, we at CIP are announcing today what has been established in the past five years and is already helping improve the potato around the world. We go where opportunity exits. We do not push ourselves anywhere.CIP and its staff are nearby and waiting.Unless we are utilized, Lrnless our technology is bcinµ; tried and ei:aluatcd in the fields of growers in your countries, we are wor/dng in vain. On(v throngh association with developi11g country 11roµ;rarns and tlze bilateral agencies helping them can CIP technology for 11otato improvement get illto growers fields and the inuestmenl in this center be justified. C/P's institutional development as a Center fzas been completed (faring /:he initial five years. 011ring the second .five _vear period, the relevance of CJP to the world food problem and world nutrition needs must be established effectively.In the area of the world where 1101mlation and food are a major problem, the potato is mainly a luxurv vegetable. J.f CLP is to br relevant. the technology nwst be dcvelo11ed to make the polalo a lowcost food for sttbsistance growers in Southeast L~ia who possibly may have no more than 50 potato 11lants growing i11 their µ;ardc11 along with other vegetables. The value of the potato nutritionallv is already well established as is its an•cplalJility as a food among most cultures. The r11wlity of potato 11rotein is superior to all other major f!lant foods. The role the potato could {Jlay in lwlancing diets, if ii l>ecomes arailalilc as a low-cost food, nce<ls to be thoroughly e.'tplored.imaginations must be stretched in the develo[Jment of lhe technoloµ;y to make the potato a 11oor man's food. Exciting 11ossibilities e.rist, such as lcarninµ: how to prorluce edible /JOtatoes diref'fly from botanical seed. C/P has co11sidcrahle research in progress in the del'elopnzcnl of such tcchnoloµ;y 011d r<'cently learned that mainlawl China is already f!rowing ov1•r 10,000 hectares of cnnsu.mcr 1wtatoes a1111ua!h• from botanical seed. Such a techni11ue could dmslicafly reduce seed costs which presently are over 50 f)('rcenl of the total cost of eroduction of potatoes. This is wz <'XW1lfJle uf the tec/111'.Jlo{fy beinf!. deioeloped a11<l tn111sf(?rred and apfJlied as CJP f1cco111es nwrc relcurn/ to the world food [Jroblcms. /..-•;. CIP has taken appropriate action with regard to the issues, conclusions and recommendations presented in the Report of the TAC Quinquennial Review Mission. Appreciation is expressed for the valuable contribution of the review mission in their assessment of the scientific activities of CIP.-Approximately 10,000 of 13,000 pnm1t1ve potato cultivars in the germ plasm collection have been classified; 1,575 duplicates were removed from field maintenance and stored as botanical seed in 1977. Scientists on five expeditions collected 200 ~ild, tuber-bearing specimens; 63 have been classified as belonging to 30 different species.Thrust II -Single and combined resistances to late blight, bacterial wilt and wart diseases were verified 'under severe field conditions in selected countries. Heat-tolerant clones have been shown to have lower dark respiration levels than heat sensitive clones.Improved heat-tolerant hybrids yielding one kg per plant in 60-70 days have been distributed to nine countries. Consistent progress has been made in breeding and field testing cold-tolerant clones for the highland tropics.Thrust Ill -Many blight resistant clones have been developed that withstand the severe epidemics at Toluca, Mexico. At the International Late Blight Test in Mexico, 1,048 selected clones were screened for blight resistance.Seedling screening tests for wart and smut have been developed to facilitate rapid assay for resistance.The Peruvian program released the bacterial wilt resistant variety \"Molinera\" which has special characteristics for small farms.Good wilt and root-knot nematode resistance has been identified in Solanum sparsipilum. CIP has assembled more than 90 isolates of the wilt bacterium; both races 1 and 3 have been isolated from virgin jungle soil.Thrust V -Steady progress has been made in breeding and screening for potato leaf roll virus and \"Y\" virus resistance. Characterization of three new viruses was continued. A program to screen for spindle tuber viroid was initiated. The latex test was introduced for all routine serological checks; a comparative evaluation of the ELISA test was commenced. A new Joel JEM 1005 model transmission electron microscope was installed on an appropriate seismic resistant base. A planning conference on control of potato viruses was held in 1977.Thrust VI -Two clones of S. andigena have been identified with broad cyst nematode resistance. In trials in Peru, 360 of 2,500 species intercrosses from Cornell showed promising resistance to selected cyst populations.Only 19 of 1,937 germ plasm clones had resistance to root-knot nematodes; intercrossing and outcrossing of selected genotypes is planned to utilize these resources.Further data has confirmed resistance to aphids by entrapment of glandular hairs on foliage. A synthetic sex attractant was very efficient in attracting male tuber moths to simple water traps in the field.Thrust VII -Physiological attributes contributing to heat, cold and drought stress tolerance continued to receive attention. The capacity to produce food in two to six months in a temperature range of 43° C, a latitude range of 100°, an altitude range of 4,300 m, and a 9-hour difference in daylength range is rivaled by few crops. lntercropping and fertilizer studies in divergent ecological zones were continued throughout the year.Thrust VIII -Storage research utilizing local materials was carried out in Peru and Kenya with favorable results.Solar dehydration studies resulted in further refinement of \"black box\" technology. A wide range of routine nutritional analyses in support of various projects were active.A further need to publicize the excellent nutritional quality of potato, particularly protein, has been indicated.Expanding export of useful virus-tested breeding material to GIP regional programs was emphasized. Further efficiency through refinement characterized the tissue culture progn;im. A minimum growth storage technique requiring only one transfer of tissue per year was developed.Air shipment of aseptic tissue in vitro was evaluated.The exploration and collection of cultivated indigenous potatoes has been completed two years before the projected date, with the exception of work in Mexico and a few remote ecological areas in the So.uth American Andes. More than 10,000 of the approximately 12,000 accessions collected have been classified by morphological criteria. About 1,575 duplicates representing 191 different morphological types have been identified. After obtaining botanical seed for storage, these duplicates have been eliminated from vegetative maintenance. Prior to the elimination of duplicate accessions from field maintenance, synonymy is verified by slab electrophoresis at the lnstitut fur Biochemie, Biologische Bundesanstalt, Braunschweig, Germany. Tuber proteins of each duplicate morphotype are separated electrophoretically and electrophoretic protein patterns are compared. Under standardized conditions each genotype has its own characteristic electrophoretic pattern.In general there has been agreement to verify duplicate morphotypes by protein spectra; to present 960 clones have been examined by electrophoresis .Slab electrophoretic protein spectra of duplicate and dissimilar morphotypes.Because of the significant progress made in the collection of primitive cultivated species, collecting expeditions have been initiated for wild tuber-bearing potato species.Priorities based on specific criteria for collecting wild species were established by a group of eight international experts at a 1976 planning conference.As a result of these priorities, five field expeditions were conducted in Peru and one in Venezuela during 1977.Of the nearly 200 specimens collected, 63 have been classified as belonging to 20 different species in eight series.Some of the newly collected wild species represent the only living specimens in germ plasm collections around the world, collected in the type locality. In cooperation with the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources, a list of descriptors and descriptor states has been developed. All available documentary information relating to the entire cultivated collection is being stored in the computerized data management system of the Information Sciences/Genetic Resources Program at the University of Colorado, Boulder.In the development of a distribution and testing ne.twork, tubers of virus-tested clones, botanical seed, tuber families and multi-meristem cultures were exported from CIP during 1977. Selected clones were also shipped directly from CIP contract research. programs in the United States and Europe.In recent agreements with Australia, Canada and the Netherlands, arrangements have been made for freeing selected stock of disease to permit acceptance by quarantine services in developing countries. As part of CIP's Regional Research and Training (RR & T) program, regional centers for potato germ plasm testing and distribution have been established in five of seven regional centers. Distributed for evaluation and use in breeding from October 1976 to October 1977 were a total of 3,512 tuber samples and 450 seed lots from the germ plasm collection. A provisional computerized inventory listing accessions with specific resistance to selected pathogens and pests has been prepared for distribution to potato researchers.In cooperation with the Mexican National Potato Program, a bank of 259 clones resistant to late blight was maintained during 1977. From this collection 1, 111 samples were distributed to various countries for further blight testing; 23 selected clones were sent to 17 countries for yield trials.Seven-thousand seedlings obtained from field resistant parents at CIP-Lima were evaluated in the International Late Blight Trial at Toluca Valley, Mexico, along with 1,048 clones from the Netherlands, Germany, India, Sweden and the United States. Also in conjunction with the Mexican program, breeding stocks from developed countries and CIP clones with outstanding blight resistance were made available in seed or tuber form for maintenance and further evaluation. Through a collaborative project with the Research Institute for Plant Protection, Wageningen, the Netherlands, selected blightresistant clones from the Mexican CIP collection are freed of virus before being sent to developing country quarantine facilities.Late blight trials were carried out in Nepal with 25 clones distributed from Mexico. Possibly because of similar latitude and environmental conditions, selected clones of Solanum tuberosum performe_d very well in initial 12-plant trials. The four best clones averaged more than .. , 0.8 kg per plant, a four-fold greater yield,than local checks. Ten advanced Mexican clones in second year trials produced average yields of 25 t/ha, the best yielding 34 tons. The standard variety, \"Kufri Jyoti\", yielded 18 tons while the European variety \"Jaerla\" yielded only six tons.In a trial at Nigale, Nepal, 17 clones from CIP's \"virus-free\" program, 10 clones 1rom a Cornell contract and three clones from the National Potato Development Program were evaluated for resistance to late blight, yield, and resistance to hail injury.The Peruvian variety \"Mariva\", similar in general characteristics to the accepted local round red variety, was outstanding in performance and yielded an estimated 50 t/ha.Intensive screening for potato wart (Synchytrium endobioticum, biotype I) was also carried out in Nepal at Rolekhani, in cooperation with the Integrated Hill Development Project. Dual resistance to wart, as well as late blight, was verified under Nepalese field conditions in CIP material. The Mexican clone CFU (CIP 720047) was selected for outstanding blight resistance, wart immunity, hail tolerance and yield (30 t/ha).In addition to late blight trials in Mexico and Nepal, field trials for blight resistance were carried out in Turkey, South Korea and Costa Rica. Trials in Costa Rica involved the dual evaluation of late blight and bacterial wilt (Pseudomonas solanacearum) under a range of ~ • tropical environments at altitudes from 600 to 3,000 m. At a site in Turrialba, Costa Rica, where no solanaceous crops had been previously grown, bacterial wilt appeared 18 days after planting and developed very rapidly (Fig. • 1). Only 11 of 207 clones survived to harvest, which was indicative of the disease severity. Three of these clones, CIP 676180, CIP 676101 and Cruza 148 had ~ood adaptation and appeared resistant to bacterial wilt. The remaining eight clones were wilt tolerant and yielded up to 1.1 kg/plant. In another trial at Turrialba, 66 out of 520 clones were selected under severe late blight and bacterial wilt conditions. Trials at Turrialba have proven useful in testing CIP material for tropical adaptation as well as combined late blight-bacterial wilt resistance. At the Llano Grande site (volcano lrazu) at 2,000 in, early blight (Altemaria solani) was severe for some clones under 1977 tests.  3 percent and the percent of total protein varied between 7.5 and 15.5 percent (Table 2). Tuber texture, flavor, flesh color and depth of eyes were also evaluated in selected diploid clones. Material from the program was distributed widely in Peru as well as to CIP associates in Argentina, Bolivia and South Korea. In a breeding program utilizing recurrent selection, the heritability of dry matter content was investigated in a high dry matter population of 400 diploid clones.Selected parents were intercrossed and analyses of specific gravity made to estimate narrow-sense heritability. The results (Table 3) indicate that heritability for specific gravity is in the 0.4 to 0.6 range. Clones of various tropical short-day potato species failed to tuberize under long day conditions. Therefore, it was necessary to use breeding and selection techniques to develop more widely adapted daylength neutral lines. In research at North Carolina, populations of the diploid species phureja and stenotomum have been interbred for six cycles and selections made for clones which tuberize under a wide range of photoperiods.Daylength neutral families are now being screened for the production of 2n gametes to facilitate the incorporation of their valuable genetic traits with S. tuberosum. In breeding studies with phureja, which has no tuber dormancy, and stenotomum, with a pronounced long tuber dormancy, progress has been made in shifting the mean length of tuber dormancy.Research is continuing in the identification of new diplogynoids and diploandroids as sources of non-reduced gametes iii diploid stenotonium/phureja populations.In examination of 51 stn x phu famUies, 158 clones were found to have \"2n\" pollen, while 264 clones had \"n\" pollen.Parallel spindles have been identified (clone 66P 10.10 stn x phu) in Anaphase II, indicative of first division restitution. In various crosses involving diploandroids, in 50 of _250 Fi seedlings examined to present, 22 triploid and 28 tetraploid clones have been identified; no diploids have been observed.In contract research at the I. v. P. Agricultural University, Wageningen, the Netherlands, progress has been made in increasing the utility of genes from wild Mexican Solanum species with resistance to Phytophthora, Pseudomonas, and Altemaria.A new approach has resulted in th~ production of 150 hybrid plants derived as follows:S. pinnatisectum x S. bulbocastanum, doubled by colchicine to tetraploid Fi, which were then crossed to S. acaule females. Subsequent crossability with S. tuberosum is difficult, although . with dihaploid tuberosum 10 berries were obtained in 1977. Many berries also were obtained during 1977 from quadruple hybrids: ((doubled (S. vemei x S. bulbocastanum) x S. longipedicellatum)) x varieties (and diploids).A number of other successful complex crossings were made in 1977. In other research, viable monohaploids were obtained from S. verrucosum and from S. tuberosum dihaploids x S. verrucosum.Crossing of doubled monohaploids with a fertile dihaploid produced uniform, vigorous, and fertile F 1 's.Heat tolerance studies of andigena selections were continued under contract research at Cornell University. Plants were subjected totemperatures of 40° C during an 18-hour photoperiod and 35° C during the night, commencing 20 days after planting and continuing for three months. Although tuber yields were generally low, the testing procedure was in general agreement with previous classification of clones by greenhouse screening.The performance of single-leaf cuttings taken during the growing period was again successfully correlated with the performance of whole plants.No relationship has been found so far between heat tolerance and the capacity to photosynthesize at high temperatures.Similarly, no relationship was determined between tolerance and susceptibility to high temperature damage of leaf membranes, as reflected by ion leakage from leaf discs.However, leaves of heat sensitive clones had higher dark respiration, especially at 40° C, than did comparable leaves of heat tolerant clones. The degree of cyanide stimulated dark respiration did not seem associated with differences in heat tolerance.Five sources of germ plasm material are being used in developing populations adapted to the lowland tropics with adequate yield and disease resistance.These sources are: a) tuberosum germ plasm bred in northern latitudes from andigena clones introduced into Europe in the 16th century; b) neo-tuberosum germ plasm from an andigena population recently selected for tolerance to longer days and higher temperatures; c) phureja-stenotomum diploid material with a relatively high frequency of \"2n\" pollen which permits direct transfer at the tetraploid level; and,• d) other sources of germ plasm such as S. sparsipilum, S. chacoense, S. bulbocastanum and S. berthaultii with high levels of pest resistance. About 50,000 genotypes from these introduced and native diploid and tetraploid clones, as well as their hybrids, have been tested for adaptation to the lowland tropics. The highest and most stable yields corresponded to hybrids of the group (tuberosum x phureja) x tuberosum. The tuberosum x neo-tuberosum hybrids showed a specific adaptation to hot and humid conditions, while the tuberosum x andigena and neo-tuberosum x neo-tuberosum were unstable and unpredictable in their yield (Table 4). Frost commonly occurs during the growing season in highland potatd growing areas in the tropics and subtropics. Breeding for frost tolerance has included laboratory-scale techniques permitting rapid screening. These screening techniques have been devised in cooperation with contract research at the University of Minnesota.During four years, 175 clones tolerant to -4° C have been selected in the field from 890 of 38,670 seedlings originally screened in the laboratory.During this period 600 seedling families representing 21 species of tuber-bearing solanums have been evaluated.A total of 16,530 seeds of 128 families have been distributed for testing in eight developing country programs.Testing has been carried out at Usibamba (3,700 m) in Peru and at the Belen Experimental Station (3,900 m) in Bolivia; winter tests have been conducted at Atizapan (2,650 m) in the Toluca Valley, Mexico.There is a low correlation between yield and frost resistance in the foliage at temperatures between 0 and -4° C.However, to obtain acceptable yields no more than 30 percent foliage damage can be tolerated.An increase in frost tolerance has been observed after intercrossing parents having only moderate frost resistance. Table 5 gives a summary of yields and degrees of resistance in several groups of hybrids as compared to the resistant species curtilobum and to the susceptible species tuberosum. A strategy of population breeding for ecological adaptation has been developed based on the concept that the commercial value of a clone (X) may be expressed as the function:X=A+Y+R where \"A\", \"Y\", and \"R\" represent the effects of groups of genes for adaptation, yield and disease resistance. \"Y\" genes would be related to the efficiency of a plant to use light energy and to transform it into plant material. Data presented in Table 6 illustrates the concept of the action of \"Y\" genes as influenced by\" A\" genes associated with adaptation to daylength. The total weight of plant material in the short-day adapted phureja was nearly the same under the three daylength regimes; tuberization efficiency was markedly reduced under 13 and 15-hour photoperiods. Thus the inherent capacity of phureja genes to transform light energy into chemical energy was not changed, but the possibility for the distribution of the photosynthates was altered as no or few tubers were initiated at longer dayiengths.The yield, total plant weight and tuberization efficiency of the tuberosum material was higher than phureja, indicative of long-term selection of genes for yield.For tuberosum there was an eight-day delay in tuberization when daylength was increased from 11 to 15 hours. However, the brief delay enhanced foliage growth. The genes for adaptation maintained regulatory action and the genotype was able to overcome a developmental lag in tuberization to give an apparent increase in final yield.Improved hybrids involving the taxonomic groups tuberosum, neotuberosum and phureja have yielded about one kg per plant in growing periods of 60 to 70 days. Materials of similar genetic constitution have been distributed to Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Costa Rica, Brazil, Ecuador, Pakistan, Turkey, Brunei and Tahiti.In addition to breeding for resistance to environmental stress, 1t 1s feasible in the future to also breed for disease and pest resistance. Thus, combined resistance to late blight and cyst nematodes might be coupled with frost resistance.Or, bacterial wilt and root-knot nematode resistance might logically be associated with clones having adaptation to a hot, humid environment.Various combinations of two or three factors are being considered in response to production risks under specific ecological conditions. t .Laboratory, storage and greenhouse facilities at CIP's Santa Ana experiment station in the Mantaro Valley near Huancayo.In 1977 a booklet was prepared by GIP staff to assist field workers in the identification of some of the major potato diseases; 16 fungal diseases of varying worldwide importance were included. Research at GIP during the year was concentrated on four of these diseases: late blight (Phytophthora infestans); wart (Synchytrium endobioticum); stem canker (Rhizoctonia solani); and, smut (Angiosorus = Thecaphora solani).Field observations were made on diseases caused by Choanephora spp., Macrophomina phaseoli, Phoma exigua, Alternaria solani and Phytophthora erythroseptica.Throughout 1977 seedlings were screened for resistance to P. infestans in a standard environment favorable for late blight development. During the year 12,556 seedlings (29 percent) were selected from 42,909 seedlings belonging to 425 families which were screened for late blight resistance.Survivors from seedling screening trials were then tested under field conditions.It is important to emphasize that GIP breeding for late blight resistance is concerned only with field or general resistance. However, at present there appears to be no simple field method to separate, in all cases, general or field resistance from specific or \"major gene\" resistance. This major gene resistance was observed at Toluca, Mexico where the perfect stage of P. infestans is present. Possibly because of the scarcity of \"compatible\" hosts, the frequency of races able to overcome the resistance of the \"higher\" R-genes, e.g. R 5 , R 7 , R 8 , R 9 , R 10 , R 11 , is relatively low. Commonly, these are complex races able to attach some or all of the 10 single R-gene differentials available. Thus, what appears to be field resistance in some clones is in fact the result of the delayed appearance of an appropriate virulent and aggressive race. This is illustrated in Fig. 2 in which the development of R 1 races is contrasted with the development of R 10 races, in triplicate plots having varying numbers of plants compatible with either R 1 or R 10 races. R 1 races occurred generally in the experimental area. The late blight population in Llano Grande, at 2,300 m in the province of Cartago, Costa Rica, was found to overcome the resistance of at least eight out of nine single R-gene differentials (Table 7). (Note: Differential R 5 remained highly resistant throughout the season; R 1 R 3 differential was susceptible, indicative of the presence of a race 3.)   A comparison was made between two methods of evaluating late blight incidence at San Ramon, Peru, by: 1) estimating the percentage of foliage affected, transformed to logit units; and, 2) by scoring blight incidence on a 1-9 scale. On the basis of the regression of disease development with time for both methods, a high correlation, r2 = 0.95 and 0.97, respectively, was found. There was also a good correlation, r 2 = 0.78, between .the two types of apparent infection rate (Fig. 3). A correlation, r2 = d.67 (Fig. 4),was found in comparing components of blight resistance• in the field and in controlled growth chamber studies.•  .,. In contract research at the Swedish Seed Association station in Svalov, Sweden, the inheritance of components of leaf resistance to late blight were observed in three different materials: a) Selfed clones of S. andigenum and S. phureja were tested for resistance to entrance and resistance to invasion in the absence of \"R\" genes. Moderate levels of resistance to entrance and invasion were found.The variation among seedlings within populations was significant regarding both resistance to entrance and resistance to invasion, while among populations onlf resistance to entrance was significant. No significant differences were found between andigenum and phureja species. Based on late blight resistance the following clones were ranked: 1 -750815, 2 -676004, 3 -575012, 4 -575015, and, 5 -676003. There were no significant yield differences among these clones.The search for resistance to Synchytrium endobioticum, the causal agent of wart, was initiated in 1968 in Peru,. and was incorporated as a CIP project in 1972.During the 1970-71 growing season, 52 of a total of 500 clones were selected for resistance. In 1972-73 these were retested in the field at Casablanca, as well as in plots in which inoculum from Casablanca and Cuzco was used. An additional 500 clones were also screened during the same period.From this initial research, highly resistant clones were selected by exposure to three field populations of Synchytrium.Although possessing a high degree of resistance, most of the clones were low yielding and of poor commercial quality. A breeding program initiated in 1974-75 was aimed at the utilization of wart resistant material to develop lines with good yield, quality, and in some instances, incorporating resistance to cyst nematodes, Globodera rostochiensis.Seedling screening techniques were evaluated and an efficient method selected to screen the large number of seedlings arising from the breeding program.During 1975-1977, from the many hundreds of seedlings screened for combined wart, cyst nematode and yield characteristics, 1,374 seedlings are being used for further evaluation. Of interest has been the initial failure of European differential varieties to provide effective identifica~ tion of races of S. endobioticum in Peru. Only Ackersegen and Urgenta were resistant while the other differentials: Deodara, Blanik, Nova, Gievont, Fortuna, Ultimus, Fontana, Saphir, Apollo and Ora, were all susceptible against an isolate of Synchytrium from Casablanca, Peru. This response indicates the presence of races different than those determined in Europe.Wart is a serious disease in several areas of eastern Nepal. The prevailing race appears to be race 1. A number of clones provided by CIP to the National Potato Program were tested in the field at Rolekhani during 1977 and found to be resistant to both wart and late blight. Some of these clones also have been tested at Wageningen, the Netherlands. Clones (CIP numbers) 720047, 676003, 575010, 575008 and 575031 were selected in Nepal as potential varieties for further evaluation in commercial adoption.Rhizoctonia solani, the causal agent of stem canker and black scurf disease, is present in nearly all soils where potatoes have been grown. The severity of the disease is commonly influenced by the local soil environment. While CIP is not involved in either screening or breeding for rhizoctonia resistance, the disease was significant in some fields where CIP test plots were planted during the year. Losses have been observed of potato seedlings in excess of 50 percent within two weeks of transplanting to the field.The best protection, in response to this special problem, was to spray seedlings with 0.2 percent of the systemic fungicide \"Ben!ate\" several days before transplanting to the field. This treatment may repeated 15 days after transplanting as an added precaution.Benlate treated and control plants of the variety \"Renacimiento\" grown in soil infected with Rhizoctonia solani.Smut, caused by Angiosorus ( = Thecaphora)solani, is a tuber disease found in several Central and South American countries. At maturity, diseased tubers may disintegrate rapidly into masses of brown spores. Continuing field observations of this disease are being conducted.Losses up to 80 percent under commercial growing conditions have resulted.In 1977, 66 of 6,444 clones in the germ plasm collection in the Mantaro Valley, Peru, were affected by smut; 16 of those clones were also attacked in 1976. Smut is rather capricious in its appearance so that field screening for resistance or fungicide tests in CIP experimental fields is of limited value. While a close watch is being kept on the distribution of the disease in new experimental fields, greenhouse experiments have been initiated to screen fungicides. A number of Peruvian potato varieties have resistance to smut.Several site-specific fungal pathogens with varying seasonal severity continue to be observed as a matter of record.Altemaria solani, the causal fungus of early blight, was relatively severe in San Ramon experimental plots during 1976 and 1977. Considerable differences in resistance to early blight were recorded in late blight resistant clones.The main fungal pathogen at the San Ramon site was Sclerotium rolfsii which attacked potatoes in all stages of development. The incidence of basal stem rot was especially severe in plots where potato or peanut residues were incorporated. l,lp to 80 percent of plants did not emerge.Under very hot, humid conditions in the lowland jungle area near Yurimaguas, Peru, Choanephora blight is a common disease of beans, cowpea and soybeans during the rainy season.The species most frequently isolated was Choanephora cucurbitarum followed by C. conjuncta and C. circinans. Only isolates of C. cucurbitarum have been found to cause widespread foliage damage in potatoes following a period of dry weather. A Diaporthe also has been repeatedly observed to incite aw.et, slimy rot of soybean, cowpea and potato.Isolates of Phoma have been obtained in Ancash, Cajamarca, Huancayo and Puno in the Peruvian highlands. Most of the isolates have been identified as forms of P. exigua which differ in their capacity to form small lesions on leaves and extensive rot of potato tubers. Phoma isolated from Chenopodium quinoa and potato in the Puno area of Peru during the 1977 growing season, were found to be highly pathogenic to potato tubers.The pink rot fungus, Phytophthora erythroseptica, caused losses in germ plasm material and seed multiplication plots at Huancayo. In 1977, 762 of 6,444 clones examined were affected. Diploid material was particularly susceptible with losses of over 70 percent, depending upon the relative susceptibility of clones. Treatment of field plots with Basamid, 300 kg/ha, has resulted in substantial yield increases.Emphasis during 1977 continued to be placed on bacterial wilt of potatoes caused by Pseudomon(Jjj solanacearum.Bacterial wilt, also known as brown rot, is the most serious bacterial disease of potatoes in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world where it may limit production.Pathogenic strains of P. solanacearum attack a number of different crops. Races 1 and 3 are pathogenic on potato.In screening for resistance to bacterial wilt it is important to expose potatoes to as wide a range as possible of pathogenic biovars of races 1 and 3. A collection of more than 90 isolates of P. solanacearum has been assembled by CIP, two-thirds from potato, the remainder from other crops. Forty-eight of these isolates from the Americas have now been identified to race. Among 40 isolates from potato, 31 were race 3 and nine were race 1.Of the remaining eight isolates, six from tomato and one each from ginger and chili pepper were race 1. All 48 isolates were pathogenic on susceptible potato clones.It has been considered that race 1 of P. solanacearum originated in the lowland tropics and race 3 in the highland tropics. The latter race affects only potatoes.However, both race 1 (biovar I) and race 3 (biovar I I) have been isolated recently from wilted potatoes grown on newly cleared• jungle land in Yurimaguas, Peru, in the Amazon basin. The presence in virgin jungle of both races which are capable of wilting potatoes, indicates the continuing need to breed for resistance to P. solancearum. It also raises a question about the assumed highland origin of the low temperature race.The collection of Pseudomonas isolates is valuable in verifying the breadth of resistance to infection of a potato species or clone. For example, the response of Solanum sparsipilum to isolate 013 of race 3 suggests immunity (See Table 8).But in a preliminary study of the resistance of S. sparsipilum, as well as S. chacoense and the Peruvian variety \"Mariva\" (S. tuberosum x S. tbr spp. andigena), to a range of bacterial isolates, it is evident that variation was present, in host susceptibility to bacterial biovars (Table 9).  Haulm and tuber symptoms of bacterial wilt caused by Pseudomonas solanacearum.From a previous screening of 65 accessions for 33 species, three accessions of S. demissum and two of S. jamesii are being increased for further testing against different isolates of P. solanacearum.Substantial evidence has been accumulated of the increased inci-' dence of bacterial wilt in the presence of the root-knot nematode,In continuing studies, the resistance of S. span;ipilum is being observed with respect to the deterioration of wi It resistance in the presence of root-knot nematodes.The survival of P. solanacearum from potato crop to potato crop is influenced by the soil environment and presence of other susceptible hosts.As reported previously, in wide scale screening of common crop and weed hosts, only the tomato variety \"Marigold\", Nicotiana glutinosa and the weed, Solanum nigrum were susceptible to a range of isolates of P. solanacearuni, races 1 and 3.Recently, in contract research in Costa Rica it has been observed that bacterial populations decreased rapidly after the harvest of potato. This occurred both in Alajuela, at 800 m on the wet-dry Pacific slope, and in Turrialba at 660 m on the wet Atlantic slope. At both locations potatoes were severely infected by soil borne inoculum; over 50 percent of the plants wilted in the field and more than 40 percent of healthy appearing tubers rotted in storage.Field screening for resistance to bacterial wilt has been discontinued in CIP plots at La Molina, due to the failure to sustain sufficiently high populations of bacteria for satisfactory resistance assay. Field research has been transferred to Huanuco at 2,300 m, where bacterial wilt is an endemic problem. The failure of the disease to persist in such locations as the coastal plain of Sri Lanka, certain areas in Kenya, as well as at the Viru and La Molina sites in Peru, suggests a need to evaluate the influence of diverse soil environments on bacterial survival. \"Molinera\", a new bacterial wilt and late blight resistant clone, has been released recently by the Peruvian National Potato Program. This variety is the original clone BR 63.65 from the University of Wisconsin/GIP joint program.In Nigeria trials are continuing with material developed through earlier Wisconsin/GIP associations. Clone BR 63.5, during five year field trials at Vorn in the )tis plateau, has consistently displayed relatively high yields.Contract research at the University of Wisconsin has two main objectives: 1) the development of potato clones with combined resistance to bacterial wilt, late blight and virus Y; •and, 2) the isolation •and purification of potato lectih and the production of antisera to lectin, as part of studies of the basic mechanisms of resistance to P. pseudomonas.Approximately 470 clones selected through a greenhouse screening program for bacterial wilt resistance, were sent to Toluca, Mexico for field testing against late blight in the International Late Blight Testing Program. Of these clones, 185 had survived both bacterial wilt and PVY screening procedures.Under severe late blight conditions at Toluca, 41 clones were selected for blight resistance. The most promising clones with combined resistances are being increased in Mexico for distr.ibution to growers in areas where bacterial wilt has become severe.During .1977 standard screening procedures were continued in Wisconsin to provide additional clones for 1978 testing in Costa Rica and Colombia.Of 1,488 seedlings belonging to 21 families, 484 survived screening for• PVY. Of particular interest was the very high proportion of progenies from crosses involving \"Mirka\", \"Saphir\" and \"Annet\" that had resistance to PVY.During the past year, research at the University of Wisconsin has emphasized the further study of pathogen and host factors jnvolved in \"recognition\" of virulent and avirulent strains of P. solanacearum by potato leaf cells. Based on previous research, it has been hypothesized that lipopolysaccharide ( LPS) constituents of the bacterial cell wall are specifically bound by a lectin on the host cell wall. Virulent bacteria produce an extracellular polysaccharide (EPS) that apparently prevents binding.Thus, virulent cells are free to multiply in the intercellular fluids.Recently emphasis has been placed on developing methods to study the kinetics of lectin, EPS, LPS interactions. It was found that nitrocellulose filter membranes bind potato lectins very tightly, yet the lectin appears capable of binding to sugars that contain internal N-acetyl glucosamine groups. Binding of 14C-EPS to lectin is inhibited by \"cold\" EPS, suggesting a competitive interaction. Even though LPS has no affinity for EPS, at af>propriate concentrations it can completely inhibit binding of EPS to the lectin.However, competition studies have shown that EPS has higher specificity for binding sites on the lectin and that it displaces LPS. These results support the hyphothesis that EPS is an effective inhibitor of bacterial attachment to cell walls because it has greater affinity than LPS for the binding site on the lectin. Antisera to potato lectin has been obtained by injection of purified preparations in,to New Zealand rabbits. An antiserum specific for the lectin is being used in an effort to locate lectin in potato tissues. Also this antiserum should prevent the hypersensitive reaction if lectins bind vjrulent B-1 type P. solanacearum cells before the reaction is induced.Efforts have been made to establish the relationship between the agglutinating properties of lectins extracted from different potato clones and the resistance of these clones to bacterial wilt. This involves the extraction of lectins from each clone, their purification and assay against a wj.de range of isolates of P. solanacearum. Lectins were purified from six bacterial wilt resistant clones and tested against five strains of the pathogen representing a wide spectrum of races and biotypes.In general the most resistant clones produced lectins able to agglutinate all \"fluidal\" strains of the bacterium. The following synoptic assignment of J;lriorities was expanded into detailed recommendations to serve as guidelines for a 5-year CIP virus research program (Table 10).  PLRV Potatq leaf roll virus (PLRV) is CIP's .first priority in breeding and testing for resistance to viruses. Work continued with two potato populations established last year for the development of infection resistance through phenotypic recurrent selectiOn, one tetraploid and one diploid. The material containing PLRV resistance was taken from several sources: true seed of diploid and tetraploid crosses from Germany, as well as, tetraploid material from England, Canada and the Netherlands; and, breeding lines and cultivars with high levels of resistance from selection programs in eight different countries in North and South America and Europe. The other major sauces of crosses for the two populations were the CIP germ plasm collection and neo-tuberosum material from Cornell University with resistance to PVY + PVA and to PVX. These latter sources were incorporated into the tetraploid population.The material grown under long-day conditions in northern regions flowered poorly under short-day conditions in Peru, reducing the material's direct usefulness in breeding.A notable feature of the groups of resistant breeding lines and cultivars received from Scotland, Canada and Germany was that a proportion of each group developed strnng secondary leaf roll symptoms when grown under CIP conditions. The possibility exists that these suscepts were infected with strains of the virus which do not reveal symptoms under conditions of origin.Screening for resistance to PLRV in clonal material is being conducted by exposing rooted cuttings to infective aphids in the greenhouse, as previously described (page 36, CIP Annual Report, 1976). The cuttings are then transplanted to the field and observed for symptom development.Secondary symptoms develop directly. Table> 11 gives the resu Its of a tria in which cuttings of six Peruvian cuitivars were tested. It is of interest thal when single tubers from each of the evidently healthy Ccompis plants were replanted, 23 percent showed typical secondary symptoms.The necessitv of confirming resistance by planting tubers from evidently healthy cuttings is apparent.  A further refinement of screening for PLRV resistance in seedlings avoids the necessity of transplanting to the field and consequent losses due to fungi.In large-scale tests, open-pollinated seed of cultivars were sown in rows in trays of replicated blocks. When seedlings were 1-3 cm high, PL RV-infective aphids were placed directly onto each seedling. Two weeks later an insecticide was applied to kill the aphids. Seedlings were then transplanted to \"Jiffy\" pots and symptom readings were taken periodically.Distinct seedling symptoms developed and consisted of an upright habit, chlorosis of upper leaves, rolling of lower leaves and/or purpling of leaf undersides (i.e. typical secondary symptoms).In a preliminary trial, 30 of 33 seedlings of the susceptible variety \"Renacimiento\" developed symptoms, when only seven of 44 seedlings of the m'Ore resistant Ccompis had visible symptoms. The results of two further PLRV-seedling infection experiments are presented in Table 12. In Experiment 1, there were three replicate blocks with a total of 133-162 seedlings per cultivar; blocks were replicated four times in Experiment 2, with 82-234 seedlings per cultivar. Studies are underway to improve the reproducibility of direct aphid infection of sprouts' on tubers as a rapid method of screening clonal material. Included in these studies are more efficient techniques using complexes of chemicals to uniformly break dormancy. Small scale trials, using the resorcinol method for direct detection of PLRV in tubers, have not proven to be a useful alternative to making symptom readings in plants. Healthy tubers of some clones developed abundant, but apparently normal, levels of callose in the phloem.• New sources of resistance to PLRV continued to be monitored during 1977. For example, the native andigena cultivars (Table t2), including Hualash, Yana lmillia, Ccompis, Huagalina and Casa Blanca, appeared more resistant than Mi Peru, Merpata and Renacimiento. Infection resistance to PLRV of these five native cultivars may have played an important role in their survival as cultivars.Failure of Solanum brevidens to develop PLRV symptoms has been observed in England over a period of many years under optimal conditions for spread of this virus. In trials at CIP, it was confirmed that S. brevidens (Pl 218228) is highly resistant, but not immune, as a low level of virus can be detected in graft-inoculated plants.Similar resistance also appears to be present in S. femandezianum (Pl 320270) and S. etuberosum (Pl 245924).Clonal material consisting of breeding lines and cultivars with infection resistance to PLRV (and/or PVY) has been sent to 14 developing countries in six of seven CIP regions. Evaluation of seedlings from crosses for PLRV resistance continued at seven sites outside Peru, as previously described (page 36, CIP Annual Report, 1976).In contract research at Cornell University high levels of resistance to PLRV have been reported in clones K349-7 and NY61, the latter from a cross made in 1969. The pedigree of NY61 includes selections from Peruvian and Colombian seed lots. In five years of testing, NY61 in 10 trials, produced 13 percent more tubers than \"Katakdin\" which were greater than 5 cm diameter.In Cornell University contract research, mechanical inoculation at the seedling stage proved to be a reliable means of PVY transmission of the common New York strain. Of 641 tub x tub clones tested, 170 were resistant and 196 were susceptible. This fits a ratio of 13: 15, assuming random chromatid segregation and a single dominant gene conferring resistance.Plants that were resistant to mechanical transmission were also resistant when inoculated by aphids. TG determine the type of resistance, topgraft and approach-graft tests were made. Failure to recover the virus from inoculated resistant plants, by either grafting method, suggests that immunity is involved.The high level of resistance to PVY in andigena populations has resulted• in a decision to incorporate this resistance in all future andigena breeding cycles. In 1977 the Cornell PVY exposure plot consisted of 78 PVY resistant andigena clones from the sixth cycle planted in five-hill plots. Six showed typical PVY symptoms.Observations were also made on 660 two-hill plots of adg x tub and tub x adg hybrids which had resistant parents.Potato vjrus strain XH 8 , originally from Bolivia, is of special interest because it infects Gomphrena globosa without producing local lesions.XHB also breaks the resistance of the gene for PVX immunity fromIt is considered to belong to group two of Cockerkam's classification of PVX strains.At present studies are underway to challenge the immunity of USDA 41956 and of certain neo-tuberosum clones with PVXH 8 .In studies with new or little known viruses, characterization of Andean Potato Mottle Virus (APMV), Andean Potato Latent Virus (APLV) and Potato Virus T (PVT), were continued during 1977. APMV, a comovirus, causes severe symptoms in potatoes whereas APL V and PVT are normally mild or latent. APLV can cause severe symptoms in sensitive cultivars growing in cold conditions at high altitudes.Several new viruses of undefined importance were identified, two of which, 14R and Wild Potato Mosaic Virus (WPMV), were extensively studied. The physical characteristics of 14 R particles, the host range, sap transmission and serological relationship to tobacco mosaic virus, were determined. WPMV, isolated from Solanum chancayense growing in the Peruvian coastal desert, is not considered to be of economic importance because of a restricted host range in Solanum. WPMV appears to be the first virus studied from naturally infected wild potatoes. It represents a third PVY-type potato virus, in addition to PVY and PVA.The causal agent of the potato yellow vein disease (PYVV), which is a very common and important disease in Ecuador, was isolated for the first time by mechanical inoculation to Datura stramonium. The virus has been partially characterized.The advice of Dr. B. D. Harrison, Scottish Horticulture Research Institute, is gratefully acknowledged in studies of PYVV, APMV, T and 14 R viruses, and of Dr. R. Koenig, Institute for Virus Serology, Germany, for studies on APLV and APMV.Potato spindle tuber is caused by a viroid, a single-stranded ribonucleic acid particle withouf a protein coat, which is transmitted with usually low efficiency through pollen and ovary to botanical seed of the potato. The virus has been reported in Canada, USA, USSR, China, Poland, and Korea in potatoes, and in South Africa in tomatoes.ln contract research at Cornell University, the sensitivity of detection of PSTV by slab polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) was evaluated against tomato challenge inoculation. While 25 samples could be tested by PAGE in a day and a half, up to eight weeks and considerable greenhouse space are required for the tomato challenge assay. In a test with 146 Cornell breeding lines for PSTV by both PAGE and tomato assay, results were in agreement in 123 case~.In 23 cases, results of the original tests were not in agreement; when 20 were tested a second time, results supported the original PAGE data in all but one case. It was concluded that the PAGE assay for PSTV is more rapid and reliable than the tomato bioassay.The antisera production project has the following objectives: 1) To produce antisera to the more common potato viruses in sufficient quantities for: a) distribution to national programs in developing countries, b) routine virus checks in the CIP seed program and in virus research, and, c) developing improved serological techniques for efficient detection of viruses in large scale seed programs; 2) To produce antisera to new or little known viruses affecting potato. The distribution of antisera to developing countries is summarized in Table 13. Sera are normally sent in concentrated form, mixed with glycerine and sodium azide, as preservative.Usually a sufficient quantity of sera for 1,000 to 2,500 tests with each virus is sent, accompanied by information sheets detailing the methodology used for microprecipitation and gel diffusion testing. Requests have also been met for antisera from several developed countries: for APLV, Canada, USA, Hungary; and, for PVX, PVY, PVS, TRSV and APLV, England and the Netherlands.Very high standards of virus testing are maintained at GIP to avoid export of infected material as either multi-meristem cultures, rooted cuttings or tubers. A schedule to test for viruses has been designed to ensure that material for export from Peru is as free from viruses as modern technology permits (Table 14). The different checks are always done at least one month apart. The indicator hosts used routinely are listed in Table 15.Routine serology checks are carried out with sera to PVX, PVY, PVS, APLV and APMV. Initially microprecipitation was used for the serological detection of PVX, PVY and PVS and gel diffusion for APLV and APMV. In August, 1977, a change was made to the latex method for al! five viruses. This test has the advantage of being more rapid, easier to read, uses less antisera and is considerably more sensitive than microprecipitation.In addition to the latex test, studies are continuing in a comparative evaluation of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). ELISA is demonstrably more sensitive than the latex test and is particularly useful in screening plantlets from tissue culture. With both the latex and ELISA tests, combined antisera can be used in serological assays. The use of single diffusion in agar, being relatively insensitive, has t1een discontinued. This instrument has a resolution of 3.4 angstroms (line to line) with a magnification to 200,000. The microscope has been erected on a seismic base. Initially the microscope is being used for the routine detection and identification of viruses. Planned use for other disciplines is also intended.Breeding and screening for resistance continued to receive major emphasis in nematode research during 1977, Research was confined to two species of cyst nematodes (Globodera rostochiensis and G. pallida), to the root-knot nematode (Meloidogyne incognita acrita) and the false root-knot nematode (Nacobbus aberrans complex). Although pockets of cyst nematodes are found in restricted areas in many developing countries, the importance of cyst nematodes in the Andean zone has influenced research emphasis toward problems of this region. Rootknot nematodes tend to be cosmopolitan in warmer areas of the tropics.Two clones of Solanum andigena, 702535 and 702698, from the CIP germ plasm collection were rated highly resistant to the Huancayo cyst nematode population (G. pallida) and somewhat resistant to Otuzco and Cuzco populations (G. pallida), as well as a population from Puna (G. rostochiensis). This type of resistance has only been recently identified and is most likely broadly based.In intercrosses between partially resistant clones of S. andigena, it has been found possible to raise the level of resistance through strong selection among the progeny. Apparently \"minor\" genes are involved. Evaluation of resistance in plants grown from tubers has been shown to be more reliable than seedling assays. From 1,981 progeny derived from crosses of resistant and susceptible andigena clones, about one-third were rated resistant.Up to 80 percent of progeny with resistance to an Otuzco cyst nematode population was derived from clone 701422. About 10 percent of the progeny derived from clone 701478 were resistant to both the Otuzco and Cuzco populations.Possibly a more productive breeding approach for generalized resistance involves crosses between resistant S. andigena and resistant hybrids of wild clones x S. tuberosum (Table 16). Frost-resistant clones of S. acaule selected at CIP were screened for •resistance to Otuzco and Huancayo nematodes.Of 90 clones, H 474078-20, H 474078-30, H 474081-3HD and H 474083-ID were resistant to both cyst populations. In a separate study, dual resistance to Globodera . pallida and Synchytrium endobioticum (wart) was examined in 499 clones of S. tbr. ssp. andigena derived from crosses of six selected clones. Encouraging levels of dual resistance were found in some of the 274 clones with varying cyst nematode resistance.Field trials for tolerance to cyst nematode rather than resistance, were repeated in Chacon during 1977 in heavily infested plots (120 eggs/gm soil). Three clones each of tolerant, intolerant and control varieties in replicate plots, with and without a nematicide, were evaluated for yield.Under conditions of heavy cyst nematode infestation yield losses of less than 35 p_ercent were considered to be tolerant in comparison with nematicides treated controls (Fig. 5).Tolerance, being pathotype independent, when combined with resistance is of practical value where cyst nematodes are widespread and pathotypes are diverse.  Results showed that the Andean populations of nematodes have a wider variability than the European populations and are able to overcome H genes. Gene H 3 reduces reproduction of the Huancayo and Otuzco populations and appears to be similar to the partial resistance of some G. pallida populations identified in the germ plasm collection.When some populations were tested using cuttings of Maris Piper (H 1 genes, ex-andigena) and other varieties containing H 2 and H 3 genes, the presence of G. rostochiensis pathotypes which overcame the H 1 resistance gene were identified in populations from Peru, Bolivia and Italy. Populations of G. pallida on plants with H 2 and H 3 genes beh!3ved variably with many populations reproducing freely.Both intrinsic genetic variation, environmental factors and measurement techniques can contribute to variation in second stage larvae and cyst terminal areas. In a study of 161 populations, stylet length and distance from head tip to excretory pore in second stage larvae, and fenestral length and number of ridges between the anal pore and vulva! fenestra in cyst terminal areas were the most stable features in Globodera speciation.It is recommended that 15 observations per population be used in species identification.Comparisons of areas and perimeters of second stage larvae and males of previously identified populations were found to be unreliable for identification as determined by an Image Analizing Computer.In a comparative study of the biology of some selected populations, there appears to be no fundamental differences between British and Peruvian populations of the same species.However, the Peruvian population of G. pallida is less sensitive to temperature extremes than the \"white\" British G. pallida.In general, G. pallida populations showed better adaptation to low temperatures than those of G. rostochiensis. Daylength had an indirect effect through the host on the rate of invasion and development of both species.Studies using protein gel electrophoresis of immature females, scan electron microscopy and controlled matings of British and Peruvian populations of G. rostochiensis showed no differences between them. lnstraspecific matings between populations from various places of origin were successful.In studies of the geographical distribution, the two species coexist around latitude 15 ° S. North of th is latitude in Peru, the populations are exclusively G. pallida; southward along the Andes, and especially around Lake Titicaca, G. rostochiensis predominates, although G. pallida may also be found.It is probable that the pest was introduced into Europe in the late 1840's where it became established and was firstreported in 1881.Although data were collected during 1977 on the influence of latitude, soil type and host varieties on different populations of cyst nematodes many of the results were equivocal.In general both species of Globodera reproduced better at southern latitudes ( 16 -17 ° S) than farther north (7 -12° S). Soil types had a marked influence on reproduction; reproduction of both species on soil from Arequipa, was 10 times as prolific as soils from Tanna and Cajamarca. It was not evident from detailed soil analysis -including electrical conductance, pH, organic matter level, textural class, component fractions, available nutrients, percent N and exchangeable cations -which factor or combination of factors contributed to the wide variation in reproduction in the soils tested. lnterplanting of Tagetes minuta, Lupinus alba and Mentha viridis with potatoes dramatically reduced reproduction of G. rostochiensis but not G. pallida. Conversely, interplanting of Chenopodium quinoa var. Sajama and Cucurbita maxima increased the reproductive rate of G. • pallida yet had no apparent influence on G. rostochiensis.In 1977, 1,937 clones from the CIP germ plasm collection were tested for resistance to the root-knot nematode, Meloidogyne incognita acrita. Only 19 clones exhibited some degree of resistance and had a trace of root infection by this pest.The present status of testing cultivated potatoes for resistance to M. incognita acrita is presented in Table 17. Since the degree and frequency of resistance in the cultivated potato is rather low, intercrossing resistant material, as well as outcrossing to selected genotypes, is being considered to fully utilize these genetic resources. Data indicate that tuber and root infections are independent and there is no correlation in resistance of these structures to nematode infection. In another study, the reaction of 62 tuber-bearing Solanum speciesconsisting of 254 accessions and 3,661 genotypes -to M. incognita acrita was evaluated under screenhou!?e conditions (Table 18). Plants with high levels of resistance and immunity will continue to be retested and used in breeding for resistance to root-knot nematode.A new method using 4 oz. plastic cups as well as a suitable soil mixture was developed for seedling screening. Young seedlings approximately 5-10 cm tall were transplanted in the plastic cups containing a sterilized potting soi I mixture of either 1 : 1 sand: Jiffy mix, or 2: 2: 1 sand: Jiffy mix: Pomacocha soil. Two weeks later the plants were inoculated with 4,000 root-knot nematode eggs and were allowed to grow for six to eight weeks prior to evaluation for resistance. This method provides an efficient and rapid screening procedure for a large number of plants as well as pathotypes of both root-knot and cyst nematodes.Plastic cups (4 oz.) used in a rapid, mass screening procedure for resistance to nematodes.Elsewhere in this report (Thrust V} the pathogenic interaction between M. incognita acrita and Pseudomonas has been mentioned.It is of particular interest to note in studying the interaction of these two organisms on Meloidogyne immune, resistant and susceptible plants, that root infection by nematodes as expressed by root galling index was directly correlated, with bacterial symptoms as expressed by percent plants wilted (Table 19).Reaction of Solanuni sparsipilum and S. chacoense (root-knot nematode immune and resistant plants respectively) to P. solanacearum was directly correlated with their reaction to Meloidogyne.  In another interaction study, depression of cyst nematode development was observed on plants inoculated simultaneously with Globodera pallida and with a fungus, either Phoma exigua, P. exigua var. nonoxydabilis, P. andinum sp. nov, or Collectotrichum cocr:odes. No cyst infection by the fungi was noted in the cysts examined.Apparently fungi used in this study infected roots in the presence of G. pallida, a factor which may have retarded nematode development.With respect to individual glycoalkaloids, tomatine at concentrations from 0.05 -0.6 percent of a synthetic diet was extremely toxic to E. fabae nymphs. (A diet containing 0.6 percent tomatine is equivalent to TGA levels in fresh S. polyadenium foliage.) Alpha-solanine at the same concentration had no effect on survival.In cooperative research with Rothamsted Experimental Station, England, and Cornell University contract research, E. fabae resistance due to the presence of glandular trichomes was evaluated (Table 21 ).Accessions of S. berthaultii with both simple and four-lobed glandular trichomes had more of a tendency for smaller infestations than those with four-lobed trichomes alone. Thirty accessions of wild, tuber-bearing Solanum species differentially resistant to infestation by M. persicae and E. fabae were reevaluated in replicated trials. Accessions of S. acaule, S. berthaultii, S. chacoense, S. polyadenium and S. polytrichon averaged 90 percent or higher reduction in infestation by the potato leaf hopper compared to Katahdin, Superior and Kennebec. S. berthaultii, S. bulbocastanum and S. polyadenium had similar reductions in green peach aphids, compared to susceptible checks. Clearly, these studies demonstrate a potential for developing insect-resistant breeding lines.The nature of insect resistance was examined from chemical and physical points of view. Foliage of 11 species, differentially-resistant to nymphal infestation of E. fabae in 1976 field trials, were analyzed in 1977 for total glycoalkaloids {TGA). Levels of TGA ranged from a low of 13mg/100g fresh weight in S. bulbocastanum (Pl 275194) to a high of 688 mg/100g gresh weight in S. polyadenium (Pl 161728), for a range of about 50-fold.Nymphal infestation of E. fabae and TGA (percent fresh weight) were highly correlated ( R = -0. 75). With the exception of S. berthaultii, accessions resistant on the basis of nymphal infestation had a level of 0.17 percent TGA or greater, while those of susceptible accessions had a level of 0.05 percent TGA or less, fresh weight.Typical galls on the' roots of potatoes infested with false rootknot nematodes, Nacobbus aberrans.A comprehensive taxonomic study of the false root-knot nematodes (Nacobbus species) attacking potatoes was undertaken in cooperation with Dr. A. M. Golden, USDA nematologist, Beltsville, Maryland. A total of 26 populations collected from Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru were examined morphologically for taxonomic identification.Based on morphometrics of populations examined and on original description of N. aberrans and its three synonyms (as revised by Sher in 1970}, all false root-knot nematodes attacking the potato in South America, up to the present time, are considered to be of the N. aberrans species complex involving two or more forms rather than a single homogeneous species.As part of a study of the biology of N. aberrans, survival of the nematode under desiccation was investigated. Soil samples and infected roots collected from a heavily infested field were air-dried for four weeks. Samples of moist infested soil and infested air-dried soil were processed for nematodes.No vermiform nematodes were found in the air-dried soil. A similar number of egg masses containing viable eggs was found in both moist and air-dried soil (Table 20). The data indicate that N. aberrans can withstand desiccation and that eggs are the primary means of survival under drought conditions. Adults and nymphs of E. fabae confined on foliage of S. polyadenium accumulate trichome exudate on mouth parts and tarsi, leading to early death due to impaired feeding mobility. In field tests, resistance of S. polyadenium was equal to that of S. berthaultii.Adult of the potato leaf hopper (Empoasca fabae) showing an accumulation of trichome exudate on feet and mouth parts.S. polyadenium has two types of insect resistance: glandular trichomes and relatively high levels of toxic glycoalkaloids. The aggressive feeding of the adult Andean weevil, Premnotrypes suturicallus appears to be inhibited by both chemical and physical factors. In a laboratory experiment in which adult weevils were confined on leaf discs of a number of different Solanum species, S. polyadenium proved to be more resistant to feeding injury than the other tested species. When leaf surfaces of S. polyadenium were wiped with tissue paper to remove glandular hairs there was a significant increase in foliage feeding (Table 22). The inheritance of simple, non-lobed, exudate-secreting trichomes is being studies.In hybrids derived from crosses between the diploids S. phureja and S. berthaultii, a ratio of four non-glandular, nine rudimentary glandular and three sticky glandular hairs were distii:tguished in the F 2 generation. In an F 2 population, 19 of 282 hybrids seedlings from a tetraploid (S. tuberosum var. Pentland Crown) x diploid (S. berthaultii) cross had sticky, simple trichomes. Both ratios were similar to those expected if the development of this type of hair is controlled by two genes, one dominant and one recessive. This hypothesis will be tested by further crossings.Almost all the seedlings without sticky tips could be eliminated by visual examination before transplanting.All plants selected among the S. tuberosum hybrids proved capable of trapping a proportion of the mite, Polyphagotarsonemus latus. When adults of a larger mite, Tetranychus urticae, were pla~ed on tetraploid hybrid leaflets all were captured by the exudate on the simple hairs.A high density of glandular trichomes appears to be important in trapping very small mites.Studies were resumed to confirm the identification of virus-like particles transmitted through the action of the ovipositor by the female leaf miner fly, Liriomyza huidobrensis. These rod-shaped particles have been transmitted to \"Samsun\" tobacco plants with a high frequency by leaf miner flies collected from several hosts in the field (Table 23). Although the particles have been purified from infected \"Samsun\" tobacco plants using a technique for PVY isolation, tobacco plants checked serologically against PVX, PVY, PVS, andean potato latent virus and andean potato mottle virus gave negative results. The leaf miner fly causes feeding injury and also larval tunneling injury in potato foliage. The feeding injury is due to punctures made by the female ovipositor, the leaf sap which exudes from the puncture being consumed by flies of both sexes.a Tunneling injury (a) and feeding injury (b) caused by leaf miner fly, Liriomyza huidobrensis, on potato leaves.Resistance to leaf miner fly injury was evaluated during 1977 in 10 commercial varieties at El Asesor and in the coastal Canete Valley, Peru. Percentage of foliage damage was rated in 30-plant plots laid out in a randomized complete block design.The variety \"Tomasa Condemayta\" had significantly less larval tunneling injury (15 percent) than \"Mariva\" (21.8 percent) and \"Ticahuasi\" (22 percent), which in turn were more resistant than the remaining seven varieties tested.Feeding injury associated with ovipositor punctures in foliage was evaluated in discs 12 mm in diameter. Evaluation of data by Duncan's Multiple Range Test showed that the variety \"Merpata\" had significantly less feeding injury than \"Tomasa Condemayta\", or \"Mariva\". A direct correlation between ovipositor injury associated with feeding and reproductive activity has been established only in the case of the variety \"Renacimiento\".Comparison of leaf miner larvae (Liriomyza huidobrensis) tunneling injury in susceptible and resistant potato varieties.The potato tuber worm, Phthorimaea operculella, is a serious pest in many parts of the tropical and subtropical world. Eggs are laid singly, usually on the underside of leaves. The emerging larvae penetrate and mine leaves, often tunneling into leaf veins and continuing down inside the stem to the developing tubers. Infestation in potato storages is initiated by storing infected tubers or by entrance of moths into the storage.During 1977, field studies were undertaken in cooperation with the Laboratory for Research on Insecticides, Wageningen, the Netherlands, to evaluate the effectiveness of a synthetic pheromone in attracting and trapping male tuber moths. (Sex pheromones, produced by the mating female tuber moths, attract male tuber moths.) The effectiveness of the synthetic pheromone is apparent in that 22,225 male moths were trapped during 31 days, an average of 717 moths per night in a single water trap.During the same period, 11 males were trapped in a water control trap.In a second trap 23,537 males, 759 per night, were trapped compared to a total of seven males in a control trap. A maximum of 3,895 moths were trapped in a single night (Fig. 6).  ------------------------.... In addition to the simplicity of the traps employed, the synthetic pheromone mainta'ined its activity under field conditions for more than one year. Impregnation of the pheromone into several types of rubber appeared to be equally effective in attracting male moths. The identification of aphids under field conditions is usually very difficult for techni9ians.During the year an illustrated brochure was prepared to assist in the identification of six important potato aphids.In addition to descriptive information on feeding habits and gross visible characters, descriptive photographs of diagnostic features visible under a hand lens were included. The potential of the potato as a source of food for developing countries of the equatorial belt, between 30° N and 30° S, lies in selecting genotypes adapted to diverse environments. Not the least of the barriers to acceptance of this potential has been the widely held concept that the potato is a temperate zone crop. This view ignores the photoperiodic elasticity of the potato which thrives in a nine-hour daylength range, between a long Scandinavian summer day and a short tropical winter day.Its latitudinal growth range of over 100° exceeds that of most other crops. The capacity of the potato to grow in a 4,300 m altitude range is challenged by few cultivated plants.Its adaptability to grow in a 43° C temperature range is an indication of its genetic diversity. Its growing season can be from two to five or six months, reflecting the flexible response of potato clones to ranges in temperature, daylength and water and nutrient availability.In the development of heat-tolerant potatoes, clones and seedling populations have been evaluated for yield directly in the field under conditions of high temperature stress. A temperature of 21 ° C, at a soil depth of 15 cm, has been selected as an arbitrary minimum for testing heat tolerance.The climate at Yurimaguas, located in the Amazon basin at 180 m, is highly favorable for large-scale field tests of heat tolerance.From the data presented in Table 24 is apparent the general uniformity of temperature throughout the year. The mean monthly maximum has a range of 34.5 ± 1° C; the mean monthly minimum a range of 19 ± 2° C while the mean daily temperature fluctuates less than 1.5° C throughout the year. Other data collected at San Ramon, located in a high jungle area at 800 m, shows the relation of air temperature to soil temperature (Table 25). Because little is known about the physiology of heat tolerance, studies have been initiated to explore the endogenous factors responsible for resistance to heat stress.In preliminary studies of the role of plant hormones and growth regulators, it was observed that there was a 10-fold increase in the production of gibberellins (GA) in shoots on increasing temperature from 20 to 30° C under a 12-hour d;:iylight regime.The GA level increased 5-fold when temperature was held constant at 20° C, but the daylength was increased from 12 to 18 hours.Abscisic acid (ABA) levels remained constant at both 20 and 30° C and at 12 and 18-hour photoperiods (Fig. 7). The interaction of N supply and the GA and ABA content of shoots (S. tuberosum) has been examined. With the interruption of N supply, the level of GA in shoots decreased and the level of ABA increased.Restoring the N supply reversed the GA/ ABA ratio. It was also noted that when high rates of N were supplied after tuberization, tuber growth was inhibited and stolons formed at the apex of tubers. Interruptions of N supplies initiated tuberization again (secondary growth).The capacity of leaves of four clones to tolerate high temperature (38° C day ; 32° C night) was studied as part of thesis research supported by a contract at Cornell University. Clone 1-4 of S. acaule and clone 10-10 of S. chacoense were very sensitive to high temperature. Clones 10-3 of S. chacoense appeared intermediate in sensitivity and clone 11 -5 of S. chacoense was tolerant. Neither the rate of photosynthesis (monitored by infra-red C0 2 analyzer in controlled temperature leaf chambers), transpiration, nor cell membrane permeability under heat stress were correlated with heat sensitivity. However, there appeared to be a correlation between respiration rate and sensibility to heat (Fig. 8). In breeding for heat tolerance at Cornell, crosses of heat-tolerant clones produced 764 seedlings out of 1,960 which tuberized under conditions of heat stress: 32° C day; 24° C night.From the seedling families that tuberized, heat-tolerant clones (those that produced the largest tubers) and non-heat tolerant clones (those that produced the smallest tubers) were identified. Because of the bias introduced by comparing progeny from different size tubers, plants derived from cuttings were evaluated under heat stress conditions.The heat tolerance index of heat-tolerant clones was one-third higher than non-heat tolerant clones. There were no differences in growth rate among the clones.In a separate experiment, heat-tolerant clones did not differ in photoperiod response from non-heat tolerant clones in their capacity to tuberize.This suggests the independence of heat tolerance from photoperiod response (Fig. 9). Preliminary studies have also shown a differential increase in free proline in leaves subjected to a continuous temperature of 37 ° C. Coupled with favorable progress in breeding clones resistant to -4° C; is the increasing understanding of the anatomical and physiological basis of frost resistance.In research at the University of Minnesota, supported in part by contractual arrangements with CIP, ultrastructural differences in leaf cells of potatoes were examined in relation to their frost resistance.A four-fold increase in osmiophilic globuli in chloroplasts, from 1, 130 to 4,217 per 100 chloroplasts, occurred following cold acclimation of the frost resistant species, S. acaule, to -9° C. In contrast, in \"Red Pontiac\", a frost-susceptible S. tuberosum variety which cannot be acclimated, the globuli increased from 563 to 872 per 100 chloroplasts.Apparently lipid accumulation is associated with exposure to freezing temperatures.The disappearance of starch grains in the chloroplasts of S. acaule, while those of S. tuberosum \"Red Pontiac\" remained intact, suggests a possible protective effect of soluble sugars against freezing injury in these sensitive organelles.In obervations of leaf anatomy, nine hardy species (killing temperature -4° C and below) had two layers of palisade leaf parenchyma, while 19 non-hardy species (killing temperature -2.5 to -3.5° C) had only one layer. The leaves of hardy plants were generally thicker with the palisade layers occupying more than 65 percent of the total leaf thickness. The leaf palisade of non-hardy species comprised less than 50 percent of the total leaf cross-section.The walls of leaf mesophyll cells of S. acaule were significantly thicker than comparable walls of the S. tuberosum cultivar (Table 26). The number of stomata, relative to the total number of cells, was three times greater in the hardy than in the non-hardy species. In another study at the University of Minnesota, the frost-killing temperatures of 60 tuber-bearing species were determined in material not previously acclimated. Selections of S. acaule were resistant to -6.5° C.The average killing temperature of the 60 species was -3.5 ° C, range -2.5 to -6.5 ° C.Potatoes are grown commercially under 19-hour days as well as 10-hour days.While some clones are known to tuberize under a range of photoperiods, daylength is generally a critical factor in the control of tuberization.Because of the excellent controlled environment facilities in the North Carolina State University (NCSU) Phytotron, studies of the inheritance of tuber initiation as influenced by photoperiod was carried out under contract research in the Southeastern Plant Environment Laboratories at NCSU. Three day-neutral tuberosum, and one day-neutral and four short-day andigena clones, were used as parents. Eight genetic sets of parental, filial, and back-cross generations were developed. Tuber initiation was evaluated in growth chambers with daylengths of 11, 13 and 15 hours, a range of photoperiods normally experienced in countries of the equatorial belt.F 1 generation means from short-day X day-neutral crosses showed complete dominance of the short-day (late tuber initiation) over the day-neutral reaction (early tuber initiation). F 1 generation means from day-neutral X day-neutral and short-day X short-day crosses showed either no dominance or a tendency toward the short-day parent. A variable degree of parental heterozygosity for the loci controlling tuber initiation is indicated with the short-day clones showing the greatest genetic variability. Tuber initiation appears to be under the control of both major and minor genes. General combining ability values of 90 percent at 11 hours and 55 percent at 15 hours of daylength were estimated.Increases in daylength had the effect of delaying tuber initiation.In contract research at Cornell University, a cutting technique has been developed to permit rapid screening to evaluate \"tuberization stimulus\" under unfavorable photoperiods. Using this technique, clones capable of tuberizing under continuous light have been identified.To test whether there is a partial maternal inheritance of the photoperiod response, a clone capable of tuberizing under continuous light and a clone that required short days (usually 12 hours or less) were each selfed and also crossed in both directions. Thirty-two seedlings from each of the resulting four populations were grown under continuous light. Cuttings were taken and examined for ability to tuberize and the parent plants then were placed under 22 hours of light. Another crop of cuttings was taken and the photoperiod was shortened to 20 hours. The process was repeated until plants had been exposed to 18, 16, 14 and 12 hour days (Table 27). Yields of plants exposed to 20, 14 and 8 hour photoperiods also were measured (Table 28).  As expected the population derived from selfing the clone with a long critical photoperiod, had the greatest capacity to tuberize under long photoperiods. The population derived from selfing the short-day clone tuberized most efficiently under short photoperiods while populations from crosses were intermediate.The reciprocal crosses showed a clear maternal influence. When the clone with the long critical photoperiod was the maternal parent, tuberization and yield were significantly greater under continuous light than in the population from the reciprocal cross. Repeating the experiment with 144 seedlings from each pedigree, under greenhouse conditions, confirmed the results of the growth chamber experiments.Attention has been focused on field methods of measuring drought stress through studies affiliated with the Research Station for Arable Farming in •Wageningen, the Netherlands. Extensive trials have been conducted at CIP on the arid coastal desert of Peru where average annual precipitation is 10 mm.Each of several methods for measuring water stress had deficiencies, necessitating an integration of data for a meaningful assessment of drought resistance in the field. Pressure chamber data taken in early morning or late afternoon, together with data on the• infiltration of leaves with oils of varying viscosity taken during early afternoon, permitted the following interpretations: a) small increases in pressure chamber values at increasing soU suction (indicating an efficient root system), toget~er with open stomata (determined by infiltration), are indicators of drought tolerance; b) a large increase in water potential and open stomata are suggestive of low water conservation and early senescence; while, c) a small decrease in water potential and closed stomates for a prolonged period during a day might be favorable for the maturation of a late variety under irregular water supply.Studies were continued at La Molina (coastal desert), San Ramon (high jungle) and Yurimaguas (low jungle) in the use of mulch to modify soil temperatures. An example of the ameliorating influence of mulch on soil temperature is shown in Fig. 10.  29). * Bean = Vicia faba; Pea = Pisum sativa; Quinoa = Chenopodium quinoa.A number of field fertilizer trials were undertaken in 1977 at sites in Peru, representing divergent ecological zones. In these trials it was usual to include a control in which no fertilizer was applied.An example of a trial involving various levels of nitrogen, while phosphorus and potash were constant, is presented in Table 30. In a trial involving varying levels of a recommended fertilizer {160:200:200) application, the differential efficiency of cultivars in utilizing fertilizer is apparent (Table 31 ). It was also evident that adaptation to the experimental sites influenced yield (Tables 30  and 31 ). In a related study, the effect of different management practices upon soil erosion and run-off under different cropping regimes was measured. Two sites were involved, one with 25 percent slope, rainfall 480 mm, on an inceptisol soil over a micaceous schist; the other with a 30 percent slope, rainfall 2, 154 mm, on an entisol developed over colluvial-alluvial material.The importance of management practices was clearly demonstrated at the San Ramon site with the higher (2, 154 mm) annual rainfall (Table 32). Prototype storage with plastic exterior. walls for storing seed potatoes under diffuse light.Collection point for potatoes.Farmers bring in their potatoes and sort them for buyer's inspection.Filling an improved type of potato µit. The wooden chimney has openings in the corners and is placed in the center of the (round) pit. Pit capacity is 1 ton.Building improved type potato storages for small scale farmers. Capacity is 2 tons.A practical study aimed at evaluating the technical and economic feasibility of ware potato storage on small farms in Kenya was started in 1977. Traditionally, three storage systems have been used in Kenya: 1) earth pits for seed potatoes; 2) piles in farm buildings; and, 3) bags (traders storage). No reliable data, on storage losses incurred in these systems has been previously available.As a result, a wooden store was designed and tested in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Nairobi (Table 33). Observations in Kenya during the first season showed that earthen pits were unsatisfactory for ware storage. Bag storage was less suitable than storage in piles. Bag and pit storage studies were, therefore, discontinued.For periods up to two months, pile stores were more economical than wooden stores. For storage periods longer than two months returns to investment were about the same for the low-cost wooden store as for a medium size (150-ton capacity) commercial potato store. The higher storage losses at Ngechi (2, 100 m) than at Meru (2,300 m} and Molo (2,600 m) were attributed to consistently higher night temperatures at Ngechi during the period February to June, 1977.A study was continued throughout the year on small-scale processing of potatoes. In addition to designing and evaluating various dehydration methods, field studies of potato processing technology on small farms in the Mantaro Valley region of Peru were carried out by CIP's Social Science Unit. The contributions of this group are presented elsewhere in this Annual Report.A number of conditions must be met to obtain satisfactory solar dehydration of potato products: 1) The water in the product must trap sufficient calories to vaporize it.Calories trapped by a black surface or air will not evaporate water from the product unless such calories are reradiated to the product water. 2) The rate of diffusion of water from the center to the surface, and from the surface of the product, is determined by the steepness of the diffusion gradients. This is a function of the temperature and relative humidity of the air in contact with the product, as well as the shape and physiological nature of the product. 3) Excessive heat must be avoided during drying to prevent discoloration of the product.Various configurations of \"black box\" solar dryers have been tested. A one-meter square wooden or adobe box with sides 10-20 cm high, covered with flexible 8-mil plastic, with provision for ventilation to allow moisture escape, was a satisfactory low-cost dehydration module. Square, \"V\" and hemispheric notched floor surfaces to enhance trapping solar radiation did not justify the extra construction effort.An unpolished aluminum surface was 10° C hotter, and a reflective aluminum surface was 10° C cooler than the black-painted floor surface of a dehydration module. Air temperatures of 75-95° C and surface temperatures of 95-105 ° C are indices of attainable temperatures in a \"black box\" module.Adequate drying, without discoloration, was obtained with 1 mm-thick shreds exposed for one day at a temperature of 55° C (altitude, 3,300 m). Air movement to permit moisture escape and to maintain a temperature below 70° C was provided by raising the plastic top of the dryer 2-5 cm or by small ventilation holes in the bottom and sides of the box. At temperatures above 70° C, particularly nearing the completion of drying, brown discoloration and unpleasant flavors developed. Satisfactory drying of products other than potatoes, such as onions, yucca and sweet potatoes, offers a wide scope for black box technology in Andean food processing.A wide range of routine analyses was carried out during the year in support of a variety of research projects. Included were analyses of catalase activity; total and reducing sugars; vitamines B 1 ; riboflavin, niacin and C; total protein; relative nutritive values; available methionine; minerals -iron, copper, magnesium, manganese, potassium, zinc and iodine; glycoalkaloids; and, dry matter. As an example of routine analyses, the dry matter, total protein and reducing sugar levels determined for 12 commercial Peruvian varieties were: dry matter, mean 22:96 percent, range 1.27 -27.98 percent; total protein, mean 7. 70 percent, range 6.13 -11.69 percent; and, reducing sugars, mean 0.36 mg/percent, range 0.15 -0.89 mg/percent. Similar analyses of 249 samples involving seven species are presented in Table 34.The range in percent total protein, on a dry matter basis, was 4.5 -14.5 percent, average 7.87 percent. Relative nutritive values were lower for raw potatoes than for cooked potatoes. In a study of six varieties in storage at 5° C for up to three months, there was a gradual increase in relative nutritive value up to 45 days followed by a decline. The CIP potato cell and tissue culture program has the following objectives: a) to maintain potato germ plasm in clonal form for prolonged periods free of pathogens; b) to facilitate the international transfer of valuable potato clones; c) to rapidly multiply clonal material in a disease free condition; and, d) to adapt and develop new areas of research and application.The multi-meristem culture technique has been successfully employed for the rapid, in vitro multiplication (up to 100-fold) of the species andigena (4x), chaucha (3x), juzepchukii (3x) and curtilobum (5x).Shoot proliferation was hastened with gibberellic acid on \"organogenic calluses\" induced by cytokinin and auxin. To induce profuse shoot development in tuberosum (4x) varieties, initial shoot-tip explants were first allowed to elongate their leaves and axes slightly with the addition of a low level of gibberellic acid and a relatively high level of auxin. Thereafter, a highly branched culture with very little or no callus was produced under the influence of low cytokinin and high gibberellic acid. At present 40 of 50 different pathogen-tested clones have been processed through the multi-meristem system. During 1977, 132 aseptic multi-meristem cultures representing 71 clones were sent to 10 countries.A minimum growth storage technique has been developed for intermediate term storage requiring one transfer per year. Nodal cuttings from plantlets derived from multi-meristem cultures are maintained at 4-5° C, under low light, on media with low levels of growth inhibitors and relatively high sugar content.A reversal of these conditions enhances in vitro growth. Of interest is the differential behavior of andigena and tuberosum clones, adg clones being more subject to injury from relatively high temperatures and high levels of growth inhibitors than tbr clones. A temperature of 6° C, without growth inhibitors, was repressive to the growth of tbr clones, but not to adg clones. Recently 44 different pathogen-free clones, three or four test-tube cultures of each, have been placed in minimum growth storage conditions for observation during 1978.There is an element of concern with regard to the karyological instability of in vitro cultures due to euploidy, aneuploidy, chromosomal translocations, and possibly, mutations. Experiments are continuing to evaluate the stability of varietal characteristics of two clones. Virusinfected plants were processed through single and multi-meristem culture systems. The single culture approach gives rise to a single plant directly, while many plantlets (multi-meristem) develop on an \"organogenic callus\" derived from a single shoot-tip. Virus-free plants and plants still containing viruses (PVX, PVX + PVY) were regenerated, potted and allowed to tuberize. These tubers, together with tubers of the original infected \"mother\" plants and tubers of plants naturally free, were potted again to produce second generation tubers. These were used to compare electrophoretic patterns of total soluble tuber proteins and esterases.No changes were observed in protein and esterase electrophoretic patterns, due to either the tissue culture system or the presence or absence of viruses. Taxonomic-cytological studies, as well as evaluation of cultures being stored for intermediate periods are under continuing study.The possibilities of shipping small, aseptic tubers grown in vitro to developing countries, and the use of in vitro tuberization to study certain basic high-temperature stress problems, have encouraged studies of tuberization in culture. To present, nodes excised from plantlets arising in multi-meristem cultures have been the most convenient source of explant material for the production of a large number of tubers in a continuous fashion. Most clones have required a medium rich in sugar and supplemented with high concentration of chlorocholinchloride (CCC).The use of stem cutting and related techniques to rapidly multiply potatoes under disease-free conditions was established as a routine procedure in 1976. The use of a liquid mixture of IBA and NAA in 30 percent ethanol has effectively increased rooting of cuttings while inhibiting tuberization.The rate of propagation from tubers was increased three to four-fold by making stem and stolon cuttings from the tubers of certain slow growing clones.An adaptation of a published \"leaf-node cutting\" technique is being developed.This system involves the induction of tubers on stem segments containing an axillary bud and its subtending leaf excised from the stems of senescent plants. Thus a plant with 10 to 15 nodes on each of five stems will provide 50-75 leaf-node cuttings. When planted in coarse sand under short day conditions and relatively low temperature these cuttings would, potentially, produce 50-75 tubers.In another technique being evaluated, secondary sprouts were generated on tubers several weeks after removal of 3 to 5 cm primary sprouts and immersion of the tubers in 2.0 ppm gibberellic acid. Excised sprouts were allowed to root on wet filter paper before being planted in pots or trays.The CIP program for virus eradication in potatoes consists of a number of stages referred to as \"Generations\".Generation \"O\" has been divided into steps: Step 1, virus detection tests; Step 2, meristem culture following thermotherapy and regeneration of plants from culture; and, Step 3, confirmation of the virus-free status of regenerated plants in insect-proof greenhouses.If non-infected material is identified in Step 1, the plant is moved to Step 3, bypassing Step 2.The effectiveness of eradication depends upon the system employed (Table 35).The application of high temperature to in vitro nodal cuttings derived from multi-meristem has been effective in the eradication of PVX and PVS.More recently the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method is being evaluated as a means of detecting viruses in in vitro cultures.  Commonly, the development of an isolated meristem tip into a plantlet takes up to three months. By weekly transfers to fresh semi-solid medium with a high level of GA, plantlets four to five cm in height can be produced in three to four weeks. This technique not only accelerates the growth several-fold but also tends to favor virus eradication.During 1977 approximately 50 clones have been processed through meristem culture, usually following thermotherapy. Of these, 43 have Qeen grown in pots and moved to the greenhouse for virus retest. Thirty-three clones have entered Step 3 after meristem culture and plant regeneration, 24 of which were free of viruses and have entered . Generation I.In addition, 27 clones entered Generation I directly being found free in Step 1 and confirmed in Step 3, Generation \"O\".Five Generations are involved in the maintenance and progressive multiplication of pathogen-free seed.Generation i involves the maintenance of nuclear stock derived from Generation 0. In Generation I! pathogen-tested clones are produced for export to national programs for local increase or testing.Generations 111, IV and V are for the progressive increase of low-virus seed for routine CIP field research.Generation I : At present 88 clones are being maintained, 44 as in vitro multi-meristem cultures and 44 as both multi-meristem cultures and plants.Clones for which there is limited use are held only as multimeristem cultures.Generation 11 : Thirty-six varieties were multiplied for export. Also included were 201 tuber families, produced from true seed, which were sent to 10 developing countries for evaluation for tropical adaptation, resistance to late blight and for frost resistance. From pathogen-tested clones of this Generation, 4,430 stem cuttings were produced for the Peruvian National Potato Program and 4,500 for CIP scientists.Generations 111, IV and V: During the 1976-77 crop year, about 16.5 metric tons of seed were distributed to CIP scientists, while 2.5 tons were replanted to produce the 1977-78 crop. In addition, over 5,000 stem cuttings were produced from Generation 111 plants for CIP use. A summary of material exported during the year is presented in Table 36. In Honduras and Costa Rica long-term seed production programs have been initiated. With four tons of Super Elite seed from the Netherlands, Honduras has produced 25 tons of low virus seed. This, first year of production has served as training for local scientists and farmers.In Costa Rica, selected clon,es and varieties are being multiplied from stem cuttings. New land facilities are being organized to develop a full-scale seed project in 1978.A plan to receive and multiply meristems of Rosita and Atzimba varieties has been initiated jointly among CIP, the University of Costa Rica and the Ministry of Agriculture.The University has the facilities to carry out the initial propagation of meristem material which is then transferred to the greenhouse to produce tubers and mother plants. This material will become the basic stock for the national seed project.A problem in rooting cuttings was encountered .at Turrialba. This was traced to a nutrient deficiency in the medium.A new medium of coarse sand and bagasse, and irrigation with Hoagland's solution has produced excellent results.Upon transplanting rooted cuttings directly to the field at Turrialba, 90 percent died. However, a system has now been developed which uses paper cups for growing the cuttings and these are transplanted directly to the field. The problem has been resolved.Seed schemes are being developed in Kenya and Zambia, with some initial contacts in Malawi, Southern Sudan and Lesotho.In Kenya, the scheme proposed will involve CIP, the Kenya Seed Inspection Service, Kenya Seed Company (a commercial organization) and the Potato Research Section of the Ministry of Agriculture. The basic materials will be provided by the Research Section.In Zambia, a seed production scheme has already been started and CIP's input will be limited to supplying materials as required, periodic advisory visits and training of personnel.The stem cutting technology has been introduced to accelerate the production of first year basic seed. After solving initial problems, the production of stem cuttings from mother plants has been established. Some virus-tested clones imported from CIP as multi-meristem have been grown in Turkey.A simplified production scheme for low virus-content seed has been started in Tunisia. This aims to provide seed for the autumn crop sown in August when imported seed of the right physiological age is not available. Seventy-five tons were produced in 1977 which have already been distributed to farmers and planted. The vigor and number of stems •per unit area of this seed is far superior to farmers' seed. Depending on the time at which haulms were destroyed, the virus content has varied from four to 14 percent.A cooperative project to develop seed production in the autumn season in the plains has been started with the Punjab Government. This will support the overall national program, particularly with facilities to develop a basic seed area in the Kaghan Valley. This project is being aided by a bilateral contract.India already has the most advanced seed program in tropical countries and new techniques are not envisaged in the near future. The program however will serve as an excellent training ground for other developing country personnel.The main objective of CIP's involvement is to assist the development of a strong seed program to amplify the existing traditional systems of seed production.It will provide a means for disseminating varieties and clones already identified as having improved yield and disease resistances.Preliminary trials for introducing rapid multiplication by the stem cutting technique showed that during the dry season rooting was difficult, but by providing sufficient shade and humidity rooting was accomplished. Up to 150 cuttings could be taken from some mother plants.In transportation to the high altitude station, a high percentage of rooted cuttings survived the journey.Trials were made of a sprout cutting method. The advantages of this method are that all cuttings are available simultaneously, no mother plants have to. be raised and greenhouse space is not required. The results were encouraging, providing that temperature and humidity were adjusted as in the case of the stem cutting method.From the pathogen-tested seed produced by CIP-Lima, 17 new clones have been introduced. It had been hoped that S. andigena x tuberosum crosses would do well in Nepal. This has been realized and Mariva, a Peruvian variety, not only produced an outstanding yield, but its tuber characteristics almost exactly matched the preferred local \"round red\" variety. With its additional late blight and virus resistance it might well replace the local variety, provided that it produces equally well on the plains.Trial shipments of meristem tissue cultures of heat-tolerant material was sent to Indonesia and the Philippines.The cultures shipped to Indonesia were etiolated at the end of the three week delivery time. Rooted stem cuttings from CIP were carried successfully by courier to the Philippines. The material was of potential heat-tolerant clones. The Philippines and Korea are both exploring CIP techniques in the use of stem cuttings as a rapid multiplication tool.A Sydney University technique of sprout proliferation in vitro is being pursued in the Philippines and Korea.Sprouts 1.50 cm long are excised from a parent pathogen-free tuber. They then are grown in controlled conditions in intermittently shaken flasks.The plantlets produced are divided repeatecjly into budded cuttings.The final generation is rooted in .sand and transplanted to a screenhouse or to the field, where good quantities of seed tubers are produced from each plant.A cooperative trial with the Department of Scientific Research, New Zealand, is being conducted in the Philippines using true (botanical) seed from both selfed and controlled pollinations. Several lines have shown a high percentage of germination plus an acceptably high proportion of high yielding plants. One line in New Zealand approached commercial quantities obtained from the normal method of planting seed tubers.CIP TRAINING SCHOLARSHIPS APRIL .f978    The major activity included a three-month course on potato production (with emphasis on seed production) conducted in Peru. There were seven participants representing Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.  Region IV: Middle East and North Africa Two one-month inter-regional potato production courses were held in Tunisia (April 3-30) in French, and in Turkey (September 4-30) in English. Sixteen participants from Turkey, Tunisia, Syria, Morocco, Algeria, Rwanda and Burundi attended the Tunisian course. In Turkey, eight participants from Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Tunisia and Iran attended; GTZ, Germany, sponsored one scientist who wi'll work on a bilateral seed project in Pakistan which CIP will support technically.Several short courses involving eight trainees in potato production, seed multiplication and field roguing were given by national programs in Turkey, Tunisia and Syria assisted by CIP staff. In-depth production training was conducted for nine Turkish and Tunisian scientists. Three Turkish scientists went to the U. K. for graduate training, while a Sudanese scientist enrolled in Ph.D. studies at the University of Wisconsin.Th.e Region VI Regional Scientist spent an orientation period in Izmir prior to his assignment to India.An inter-regional workshop/seminar on potato improvement and marketing constraints was held at Izmir on October 4-14, 1977, for 23 potato specialists from seven countries in the Region.In addition to publication in English and French of production course manuals, various training materials and slides were made available to national programs. Assistance was given in the development of potato research programs in seven countries, as well as assistance in the development of research project proposals for funding.The Southwest Asian program was recently initiated and involves Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. Ir. H. Sparenberg of IBVL, Wageningen, visited Pakistan for 16 days to advise on the storage of seed and table stock under local environmental conditions. Visits were made to the Swat and Kaghan valleys in the Northwest Frontier Province and to Baluchistan.The Regional Representative was a participant at the Second FAQ/SIDA seminar, on \"Field Food Crops in the Near East and North Africa\", held at Lahore in September. The coordinator of the Pakistan National Potato Program attended the inter-regional workshop/seminar held in Izmir, Turkey, during October.Two short visits were made to Kabul, Afghanistan, in July and August for preliminary discussions with government officials.The Regional Representative visited Tehran, Iran, July 7-12, in connection with the inter-regional course and workshop/seminar in Izmir, Turkey. A potato specialist from the extension service and one from the Horticultural Station, Shahroud, attended the September potato production course in Izmir, Turkey. Two scientists from Korea spent three months at Lima specializing in breeding and post-harvest technology. A pathologist from Sri Lanka studied various techniques appropriate to research on bacterial wilt of potato. She has since gone to work with our contract in Wisconsin University, USA and will eventually embark on a M. S. study.Continuing our link with Australian institutions, a physiologist spent several weeks in Sydney University, Australia specializing in tissue culture.The physiologist will be in charge of rapid multiplication of potato germ plasm in the Philippines.The first and second seed production courses at the Plant Research Institute, Burley, Victoria, Australia, were attended by scientists from the Philippines, Korea, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. A scientist from Sri Lanka attended the IAC Potato Production Course at Wageningen, the Netherlands.Approximately 40 persons participated in a five-day production school held in Korea and supported by CIP scientists.During 1977 the Social Science Unit (SSU) narrowed its research scope to three areas: (1) post-harvest technology and utilization; (2) potato seed production and distribution systems; and, (3) farm-level constraints to potato production.Previously initiated work on socioeconomic documentation (bibliographic research and analysis and publication of national level statistics) and contract research for the comparative study of potato production and utilization (Ecuador, Chile and Kenya) was reduced in scope. In the immediate future, the SSU will concentrate most of its resources on research in the central highlands of Peru, and on the development of training materials and methods for use in CIP courses. This implies a temporarily reduced role for the social science staff in the Center's regional programs.In August 1977 the first Social Science Planning Conference was held at CIP.In preparation for this event, a position paper was prepared which summarizes work to date and outlines a work plan for the immediate future.The main elements of this plan are in-depth research on farm-level production constraints, post-harvest technology and utilization, and potato seed production and distribution systems. The planning conference participants endorsed the plan of work outlined in the position paper and stressed the importance of in-depth field research. The panel felt th~t national-level studies should not be emphasized, and recommended that, for at least two years, the SSU focus its resources on micro-level research in the Peruvian highlands. . The national-level study of potato production and utilization in Ecuador was completed in 1977. The Kenya and Chile studies are scheduled for completion by mid-1978.All three reports will be published by the Center in 1978.No other country studies will be carried out until at least 1979. The investigation of post-harvest technology is an integral part of CIP's Thrust V 111 whose aim is to develop low-cost storage and processing technology which can be used by small farmers at the village level. While the distribution (marketing) and consumption patterns are critical aspects of post-harvest technology, investigation has so far concentrated on indigenous storage and processing techniques in the Mantaro Valley region. This is where the Huancayo experiment station is located and where CIP's technical work on storage and processing methods has been concentrated to date.In late 1976 a study was undertaken to describe why and how potatoes are stored in the Mantaro Valley region.The study utilized two methods of investigation, including the key informant interview of individuals having a broad knowledge of potato production and distribution in the region. More than 70 farmers and officials wpre interviewed and numerous farm visits made to examine different types of storage techniques.During the last two weeks of study, structured interviews were held with 20 farmers to gather preliminary quantitative information. on storage practices.The farmers were interviewed without a formal questionnaire because they were questioned while working in the field. The farmers' responses were recorded after the conversation had been terminated.Information gathered from this initial sample will be compared later with results gathered in a larger sample of farmers (124) as part of a study of processing techniques. The information will also be compared to the results of a comprehensive production survey of the entire Mantaro Valley region.The most important alternatives for a farmer at harvest were found to be: (1) immediate sale or exchange; or, (2) storage for on-farm consumption, seed, animal feed or processing. All farmers who grow potatoes in the Mantaro Valley region store some part of their production, but the amount varies with the type of producer. For example, farmers with small holdings (less than two hectares in potatoes) store a larger percentage. of their production than do growers with larger holdings (see Table 38). Farmers.with small holdings store production principally for on-farm consumption and for seed, but also keep potatoes for animal feed and processing. Growers with larger holdings, on the other hand, primarily store potatoes for seed and only a minor amount for home consumption.Processing and animal feed are unimportant forms of post-harvest utilization for large growers.Besides examining the functions of storage in the overall pattern of post-harvest utilization, the study also looked at the physical types of storages.Three main types were found to exist: house storages, outbuildings, and field storages. The most common place for potato storage was found to be the farmer's house (for security, and convenience). Storage space in the house is multi-purpose; when the potatoes are not being stored, something else is kept in their place.Within the house, distinctions are often made between appropriate places for seed and ware (consumer) potatoes. These distinctions are based upon the perceived characteristics of the crop. Seed potatoes need to keep their shape and handling should be minimized; therefore, these potatoes are kept on the ground floor. The potatoes are separated from direct contact with the earth by a layer of straw or other material which provides for air circulation under the pile. Eucalyptus leaves and grasses such as mufia and retama, whose odors are believed to repel insects, are used extensively. Ware potatoes, on the other hand, need a dark place where sunlight entering through doors and windows does not turn the potatoes green, 'and therefore, the attic is a preferred location. Householders were found to prefer potatoes which had sweetened while being allowed to \"spoil\" and this preference also favored the use of the attic for ware potatoes. Outbuildings are constructed by large-scale grower's who tend to build special storage buildings, not only for potatoes, but also for tools, fertilizers, and other crops. Like house storages, outbuildings are multi-purpose, a characteristic examplified by the use of converted stables for storage.Specialized buildings for potato storage were rarely encountered. The University of Huancayo operates a potato storage facility built in the 1960's which uses wooden bins, but the design has not been copied by farmers.Field storages, built with straw and earth either above or under the ground, are used on a limited scale almost exclusively for seed potatoes. The storages are made feasible by the fact that the normal storage period for seed -April to October -is a time in which little or no rain falls.The main disadvantages noted by farmers are the high labor input required for an initial selection of the tubers and the care needed to guard field storages against widespread theft of crops.During 1977, a six-month study of potato processing was conducted in the highland province of Concepcion in the Mantaro Valley region. Fieldwork was carried out by a Dutch student of rural sociology and several Peruvian students. The group spent an initial period gathering descriptions of all food processing technology in the area, as well as information on other post-harvest practices such as sale, storage and animal feed.During the second phase of the study, a survey using a formal questionnaire was carried out with 120 farmers in the province.For purposes of the study, the province was divided into three major production zones on the basis of altitude and crop complex. The lowest zone, from 3,200 -3,400 m, is dominated by potato and corn which is often irrigation grown. The two higher zones (3,400 -3,600 m and over 3,600 m) are dedicated to dry-land production of potatoes, barley and natural pasture.In the highest zone, bitter potatoes and olluco, another Andean tuber, are important crops.Among the preliminary results of the study were:1. Food processing was found to be a common household act1v1ty carried out with home consumption as the main purpose. Over 90 percent of the households in which interviews were conducted, processed corn and barley products and nearly 40 percent processed potatoes. Women provided most of the processing labor. Of the 52 households who reported processing potatoes, only five sold part of this production.Several privately-owned mills provided the only example of village !eve! processing.2. Food processing utilizes simple and inexpensive implements commonly found in and around the house. For example, papa seca, a dehydrated product made by cooking and sundrying potatoes, needs only firewood, a cooking pot, and a sack or sheet of tin on which the cooked and peeled potatoes are placed in the sun to dry. Food processing techniques make abundant use of natural materials and phenomenon, not only sunlight, but also frost, streams and natural grasses for straw.3. The technology involved in processing potato products is highly labor intensive (see Table 39). Farmers responded that the high labor input, coupled with generally low levels of production, are the main factors limiting potato processing. Less than five percent of total production goes into processed products.4. The principle motivation of potato processing appears to be the desire to consume potatoes which cannot be eaten fresh. This category includes all the frost-resistant bitter varieties (Solanum jucepczukii and Solanum curtilobum) which must be processed before eaten because of their high glycoalkaloid content. When other varieties are used for processing, the tubers are usually small, damaged or diseased. An additional factor which limits the conversion of this type of material into processed products is their alternative use as animal feed.5. The two principle potato products, chuno and papa seca, appear to have very different uses in the Peruvian national and local diet.Chuno is primarily made from bitter potatoes by exposing the tubers to frost, pressing to squeeze out moisture, soaking in running water, and drying in the sun. Chuno is made in the higher, marginal production areas where bitter potatoes are grown, and, considered to be primarily peasant food; it is not widely consumed by the urban population. Papa seca, on the other hand, is associated with coastal and urban dietary patterns and is marketed in Lima and other large cities.  The socieconomic research on seed production and distribution has been endorsed both by the TAC Quinquennial Mission as well as the recently held Social Science Planning Conference (August 1977). It has been performed within the scope of Thrust IX: Seed technology for developing countries.The research was focused on building an information base on seed systems prevailing in some selected developing countries (Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru). The starting point was the hypothesis that the new seed technology, regardless of its origin, has to be delivered to farmers through a national seed system, which itself may become a major constraint for technology transfer.The research was, then, oriented to fu lfi II three specific objectives: a) to describe and analyze the organization and rationality of the production and distribution seed system; b) to identify tha main factors affecting its viability; and, c) to describe how they transfer the new seed technology.On the basis of the analysis of the seed systems in Colombia, Chile, Ecuador and other countries, an attempt was made to conceptualize the institutional organization needed to produce and deliver certified seed in a developing country.An institutional model for basic seed with clonal selection of varieties and with a public-private multiplication and distribution system of certified seed was developed.One notable finding was that developing countries, when initiating certified seed programs, very often forgot or did not take into account the conditions or assumptions that should be satisfied for the proper operation of the model. Four major economic and institutional barriers affecting the viability of the certified seed system in developing countries were identified and analyzed: a) the lack of capacity of the National Programs to produce a sufficient and uninterrupted flow of basic seed; b) adequate organization and know-how of potato programs; c) the rapid deterioration of sanitary levels of the certified seed on its way toward the final user; and, d) the lack of demand for certified seed at prices covering production cost and normal profit.Due to the general lack of information on seed production and distribution systems in developing countries, a socioeconomic bibliography on seed is being prepared. With a Ford Foundation grant, a research project on seed production systems has been carried out since January 1978 in Colombia and Ecuador.Micro-level research has been performed in Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Kenya. A methodology based on farm-level surveys has been applied in each country. The main focus of this research has been the use of seed and the effects of improved seed on farm output and incomes. Among others, the following hypotheses are being tested:1. Improved varieties have lower yields than traditional ones without the use of complementary inputs.2. There is a strong demand for high quality seed, which has not been satisfied by the official seed production services.3. Improved varieties are produced for market; traditional varieties are produced for self consumption.4. When production can be sold both as seed and as ware potato, price relationship between ware potato and seed is critical in deciding what proportion of the farmer's total output will be kept as seed.5. Under conditions of low input application, high quality seed impact is not expressed.An anthropological research study on potato folk taxonomies and seed networks in Peru was initiated this year by an American anthropologist.The overall objective of this research is to analyze the cultural framework and economic mechanisms whereby new potato varieties are identified, adopted, and distributed among Peruvian peasants. This objective may be broken down into two specific areas of research: the study of folk taxonomies associated with potato and the study of seed distribution networks. In 1977 a series of studies on potato production, distribution and utilization was initiated in the Mantaro River basin. The main objectives of this research are to provide data for the SSU's three areas of in-depth research and to provide a \"laboratory\" for field testing and training activities.From March until September 1977, anthropological research was carried out to define the major agricultural land-use zones in which potatoes are grown. These zones were mapped and described in terms of the.fr natural/ecological conditions, market orientation, production and post-harvest systems, land tenure and size of farm unit. This research provided the framework for a single-interview survey of 250 maize and potato growers in the region, carried out jointly by CIMMYT and CIP.By the end of 1977 data from this survey had been coded for computer processing and analysis.Beginning in late 1977, a subset of approximately 25 producers from the previously surveyed larger sample is being followed through an entire production cycle, using a multiple-interview survey technique. Producers are visited by interviewers each week, and detailed accounts are kept on their economic activities. This information is being used to analyze socioeconomic aspects of potato production technology in the region. Over the same 1977 /78 production cycle, data on soil nutrients, plant growth, diseases and pests, cultural practices, and other agronomic variables are being recorded for a large sample of producers (50 -75) and utilized in an analysis of factors limiting yields. In the 1978 planting season, on-farm experiments will be initiated in the Mantaro region to test agronomic and economic aspects of improved practices under field conditions. In Kenya, an economic analysis was made of potato production in various areas.Primary data were obtained through a farm survey in six producing areas.In the farm survey, major emphasis was placed on husbandry techniques, inputs, yields, costs of production, profits and market outlets. Between November 1976 and April 1977, a total of 460 farmers were contacted, out of which 441 grew potatoes in the six production areas.The survey data were analyzed preliminarily and the results compiled in brief reports, which were distributed to institutions and individuals involved in the potato sector. A more detailed computer analysis of the data is being prepared. Some preliminary results of the producer survey are presented in the following tables.  From the farm survey several tentative conclusions can be drawn on the production pattern in various areas.1. In Kenya, potatoes are produced on a small scale basis; average plot size is less than 0.5 ha.2. Yields per ha are generally low.3. Production costs are high and returns to producers are marginal.4. Average farm gate prices differ significantly between growing areas.Three major types of potato producing farms have been identified:(Producer area 4 and 5) : Small farm size, fair technology level (high frequency of chemical disease control, low application rates) low yields, high farm gate prices, fair profits and low share of marketed crop.Type II (Producer area 6) : Medium sized farms, comparatively high technology level (high frequency and rate of application of chemical disease control) fairly high yields, fair prices, fair profits and high marketed share.Type Ill (Producer area 1, 2, 3) : Medium to large sized farms, low technology level, low yields, fairly low farm gate prices, low profits and medium marketed share.Center Support Communications is comprised of several sections and faci I ities. \\n editorial section consists of writing and editing Center publication. 1 yping facilities include two IBM memory typewriters and a composer.The photographic facilities consist of a studio, darkrooms and a projection room which can also be used for seminars.Art work is produced in addition to layout for publications and the production of offset plates.The printing shop has an offset press and auxiliary equip\\T)ent. This section also provides routine mimeograph and photocopying services.During 1977 the Communications section acquired new personnel and reorganized part of its work activities.One scientist was transferred to the department to work jointly in communications and training activities, an English editor/writer was hired, in addition to an audiovisual technician.An editorial committee and a training committee were organized. The editorial committee supervises the release of all scientific and general CIP publications. Located within Regional Research and Training, the training committee contains two communication staff members and several scientists who are working to coordinate the production of training aids to facilitate the transfer of CIP technology.Staff continued to produce art, audio-visual, photographic and printed material, including work for the Annual Report, CIP Circular, planning conference reports and other scientific reports. For the first time the offset plates have been prepared in the section.The audio-visual and photography section have nearly finished the reconstruction of the darkroom where black and white photography is being carried out. A color slide collection has been organized for use by CIP staff, and all existing black and white photographs have been classified.Several slide sets were updated, including Potato Diseases, Greenhouse, Stem Cuttings and Storage.At year end the CIP Circular, a monthly scientific publication was recommenced on a regular basis. The Circular, which contains articles on Center research, is distributed to about 2,000 people (mostly potato scientists) in the developing and developed world. A full-color field reference handbook. \"The Potato: Major Diseases and Nematodes,\" was also published.All publications are published in English and Spanish.The department continues to host slide-shows, seminars and workshops in Its mini-auditorium which has projection facilities and a seating capacity for 20 people.A full-sized auditorium with seating for approximately 80 people was opened in mid-year in the new wing of the main building. Larger seminars and planning conferences are held there.Communications in preparing printed materials.In early 1977 the Library staff was increased by the hiring of an assistant librarian. The head librarian entered the University of Sheffield, England, on a scholarship granted by the British Council. During her one-year study leave toward the M. S. degree in Information Science, two employees were hired on a temporary basis.Toward year end the extensive socioeconomics reference collection was transferred to the Library for integration into the Centers reference collection.As CIP becomes better known there has been a marked increase in the number of visitors.During 1977 414 professionals, officials and trainees from 42 countries visited the Center, a three-fold increase over 1976.In addition many professional and interested persons from Peru visited CIP.As in previous years, language instruction was offered to staff and wives.Mr. Jorge Palacios taught Spanish to 21 staff members and 11 wives through scheduled morning lessons, normally of one-half hour duration, two or three days a week.Earlier in the year three Spanish-speaking technicians were instructed in English.  We have examined the balance sheet of THE INTERNATIONAL POTATO CENTER -CIP (a nonprofit org!.iniz!.i ti on established in Perd) as of December 31, 1977, and the relat~! statement of sour•ces and application of funds for the yeu.r then ended, Our examination was made in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards, and accordingly included such tests of the accounting records and such other auditing procedures as we considered necessary in the circumstances.In our opinion, the accompanying financial state-~ ments present fairly the financial position of The International Potato Center as of December Jl, 1977, and the source and application of its funds for the year then ended, in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles applied on a basis cansistent with that of the preceding year.Our examination has been made primarily for the purpose of forming the opinion stated in the preceding paragraph. The data contained in Exhibits 1 to 4 inclusive, of this report, al though not considered necessary for a fair pres en ta ti on of financial position and source and application of funds, are presented as supplementary information and have been subjected to the audit procedures applied in the examination of the basic financial statements. In our opinion, these data are fairly stated in all material respects in relation to the basic financial statements, taken as a whole.   At the balance sheet date, balances representing cash and amounts owed by or to CIP that are denominated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar are adjusted to reflect the current rate.Exchange gain and losses are included in determining the source and application of funds for the period in which the exchange rates fluctuate. b. Inventories are reported at estimated prices, which approximate the cost determined on a first-in, first-out bas~s.c. Fixed assets are recorded at cost. No depreciation is accounted for.Retirements are charged to the fully expended in fixed assets capital account. Maintenance and repairs are reported as application of funds as incurred. d. Operating grants restricted to research, special projects, and capital and unrestricted grants are reported as source of funds in the period in which the donor's commitment is made, In accordance with the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research instructions, the unexpended balances for core operations at year-end are carried forward to the following period, except when prior arrangements to reimburse the amounts unexpended exist; in such case the unexpended funds are reported as liabilities, Capital grants and special project grants unexpended at year-end are carried forward to the following period. A part of the operating grants is' used as working f•wtlH, according to the Consultative Group instructions.The CIP was constituted on June 13, 1972 1 in accordanee with 1111 Agreement for Scientific Cooperation between the Government of Peru and the North Carolina State University signed on JanuaryA summary of the significant provisions of the agreement follows: a. The objective is to establish through common or cooperative efforts a nonprofit organization of a scientific nature, dedicated to research and improvement or potatoes and tuberous roots and also to train people.b. The CIP is a tax exempt entity established in Peru.Exemption includes income tax.c. Non-Peruvian scientists working for the CIP are also tax exempt.d. The agreement will be in effect for twenty years beginning on January 20, 1971. This period may be extended.e. If for any reason the existence of the CIP is terminated, the land, buildings, equipment, vehicles and other assets of the CIP are to be transferred to the Peruvian government at no cost.f. The CIP is authorized to maintain and utilize checking accounts in foreign currencies for all operations, subject to the provisions of the law in effect for international organizations.J. COMPARATIVE FINANCIALThe balance sheet as of December 31, 1976   ","tokenCount":"21582"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2df9e99c0580e4c7dcfe26feef7bcfae","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/538fbfb0-a4d9-4f62-b9d4-1f3818c68c45/retrieve","id":"1596427394"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"3a105654-8b57-446b-9e39-707d6ff6a5ff","pagecount":"4","content":"Women's empowerment in collective dairy value chains Livestock are popular and important assets due to their multiple functions, providing income, food and nutrition security. They also help to stop poor households from falling into poverty, as animals can be sold to meet emergency needs and, as a source of animal traction and manure, they are an integral part of smallholder farming systems.In developing countries, it is often easier for women to acquire livestock assets -whether through inheritance, markets or through membership of a group -than it is for them to purchase or control other physical or financial assets, including land. Typically, women are more likely to own small livestock such as poultry, rather than large livestock such as cattle, goats and sheep.Ownership of assets provides a means for women's empowerment by increasing their bargaining power and authority within the household and the community. Yet, despite owning assets, many women still have to consult other members of their household, especially their husband, before making major decisions, such as to sell, give out, or slaughter their animals.Ownership of assets, while necessary, is not therefore a sufficient condition for women's empowerment. Rather, it is women's ability to make decisions on these assets and other productive resources, and to manage and make decisions on income earned through these assets that is crucial to their empowerment.When women manage income and control assets, their bargaining power may be increased, domestic violence reduced and their children's nutritional status improved. However, women's greater earning power may also have negative consequences, especially if men's spending on the household reduces as women contribute and manage more.An adapted Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) was used to compare the empowerment of women from the dairy value chain participating in collective action and those who were not.To capture the complexity and multi-dimensional nature of empowerment, indicators for measuring women's empowerment have evolved from use of single proxy indicators, such as income and women's education, to composite and multi-dimensional indicators. Common composite indicators include the Women's Empowerment Index (WEI), the Gender Development Index (GDI), the Cumulative Empowerment Index (CEI) and the WEAI.WEAI is a composite empowerment index that uses two sub-indices -the five domains of empowerment (5DE) and the Gender Parity Index (GPI). The 5DE include: (1) decisions about agricultural production, (2) access to and decision-making power over productive resources,(3) control over use of income, (4) leadership in the community, and (5) time use, and are made up of ten indicators. The GPI measures the proportion of women who are as empowered as men within their households. WEAI is calculated as a weighted average (relative importance) of 5DE and GPI. Using an adapted WEAI, this study analyzed the difference collective action made in empowerment of women actors from the dairy value chain.The WEAI was adapted to include a sixth domain, 'health', with two indicators on women's vulnerability -women's perceptions of gender-based violence (GBV) and women's decision-making on reproductive activities. A third indicator on custody of identity card was added to the leadership domain. The adapted WEAI therefore has 13 indicators.A woman is considered empowered if she has adequate achievements in four of the six domains, or is empowered in some combination of the weighted indicators that reflects 67% total adequacy as a proxy of empowerment. Analyzing the role of collective action on women's empowerment Among women, social capital is associated with increased voice, influence, power, access to support from others, access to information, and means to save and access credit, accumulate assets and access markets.Women's groups serve as support systems and provide important safety nets in times of crisis. Group formation helps to build social capital and enhance income generation among the poor. Through groups, women can come together to pool labor, resources, assets and marketable resources to break barriers that are gender-specific that may limit their participation in economic activities.The aim of the EADD project is to double the household dairy income of around 1 million people in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda through integrated interventions in dairy production, market access and knowledge application. The project uses a business hub approach, i.e. collective, farmerowned milk bulking and/or chilling plants from which farmers may also access other services, including banking and finance. The project works with groups of farmers at various levels, including production groups, cooperatives and associations. Given the role of women in dairy production, the project has a gender strategy to address gender issues in dairy-related activities.The key research question addressed was whether women participating in collective action were more empowered than women who were not. A survey of 121 households was carried out in two project sites: Tanykina in Nandi County has a well-established dairy co-operative; Sot in Bomet County is a newly established dairy co-operative. In both areas, the main economic activities are tea and dairy farming; subsistence farming is common.Most households surveyed (85%) had male heads of households, with over 40% of them having a primary education (while only 25% of women had a primary education). Each household consisted, on average, of six individuals. Average land size was 8.9 hectares and each household owned around 5.2 cattle.Households that were selling milk collectively had a slightly larger household size, and a higher percentage of male heads of households and women with at least a primary education. They owned a significantly larger number of cattle and area of land. There was a higher percentage of empowered women in the group selling collectively, compared to those selling individually. The 6DE scores were also higher for women selling collectively than for those selling individually. The GPI scores were comparable across the two groups (Table 1).For both those selling their milk collectively through dairy groups and those selling individually, women had lower 6DE scores than men in the same households.How do women fare in terms of the different domains?Looking at those that achieved adequacy in the different domains, women were least empowered in terms of asset ownership (2% achieving adequacy) and access to and decision-making on credit (7.8%). Slightly more women (17.4%) achieved the threshold for purchase or sale of assets.A very low percentage of women (3.9%) achieved adequacy with respect to GBV, although more women were empowered (27.4%) with respect to decision-making on reproductive health. The highest adequacy was achieved with respect to input on decision-making (95.2%), control over income (92.2%) and workload distribution (91.2%).Women who sold milk collectively achieved higher adequacy on several indicators, including autonomy of production, control over income, group membership, speaking in public, having an identity card and satisfaction with their leisure time. However, those who sold milk individually had higher empowerment scores with regard to health and resources.For asset ownership, more women selling collectively achieved adequacy than those selling individually. This suggests that the group support system allowed women to either purchase these assets and/or have more say in the ownership of agricultural assets in general. However, there may be other factors at play, such as proximity to collection centers, which may influence female asset ownership and marketing patterns simultaneously.The opposite was true for attitudes towards GBV and decisions on credit, where a higher percentage of women selling individually achieved adequacy compared to those selling collectively.Women's highest adequacy achievements were the same, whether they sold individually or collectively, these being decisions on crop production, and control and decisions on income and workload. Similarly, the lowest adequacy achievements were also the same, regardless of whether women sold collectively or individually, namely attitudes towards GBV, asset ownership, and access to and decisionmaking on credit.For women selling individually or collectively, the greatest contribution to disempowerment was recorded for the same indicators. There were, however, some nuanced differences. For women selling individually, the two largest contributors to disempowerment were autonomy in production and attitudes towards GBV. For women selling collectively, contributors to disempowerment were attitudes towards GBV and decisions on reproductive health. This brief is an excerpt from the study \"Evaluating the impacts of microcredit and value chain programs for livestock on women's empowerment\", led by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and conducted with Juhudi Kilimo with funding from the Ford Foundation (www.fordfoundation.org). This is one of a series of five briefs on livestock and gender, designed and produced by WRENmedia (www.wrenmedia.co.uk).The largest contributors to women's disempowerment were attitudes towards GBV, autonomy in production, ownership of assets, access to and decisions on credit, and decisions on reproductive health.While social capital and collective action are critical for giving women a voice, more policy and programmatic interventions are required to increase women's access to key productive resources that will enable them to improve their livelihoods and those of their families.One key area where women score poorly, irrespective of whether they participate in collective action or not, is their perceptions of GBV and their exercising of their reproductive rights. The addition of this domain to the empowerment index sheds light on the need to integrate women's economic development with increased awareness of women's rights, as well as addressing entrenched perceptions on gender roles, norms and issues of GBV.","tokenCount":"1494"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1c9eba1ee716471f780bed8e5ada6baf","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/f2d632c6-51f4-404a-b061-67886afa0a3a/content","id":"358893357"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"cfb467c5-5e92-4e03-8a68-408118011c3c","pagecount":"123","content":"CCAFS Reports aim to disseminate interim climate change, agriculture and food security research and practices and stimulate feedback from the scientific community. Published by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), led by the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), brings together some of the world's best researchers in agricultural science, development research, climate science and Earth system science, to identify and address the most important interactions, synergies and tradeoffs between climate change, agriculture and food security. www.ccafs.cgiar.org. CGIAR is a global agriculture research partnership for a food secure future. Its research is carried out by 15 CGIAR centers in close collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations. www.cgiar.org.This work was implemented as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS), which is carried out with support from the CGIAR Trust Fund and through bilateral funding agreements. For details, please visit https://ccafs.cgiar.org/donors. The views expressed in this document cannot be taken to reflect the official opinions of these organizations.In the last few decades, India has made great strides in agriculture and food security. Despite this, the country has one-fifth of the world's hungry people and 40 percent of the world's malnourished children and women. A smallholder farmer in India faces unprecedented uncertainties as yields fluctuate and their incomes vary. This has farreaching consequences on their long-term resilience. There are several reasons for this: small and fragmented land holdings, limited availability and poor quality of farm inputs, unremunerative farm prices of several commodities and above all the increasing frequency of extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, heatwaves and hailstorms. Three consecutive droughts in 2014, 2015 and 2016, short flood periods, high temperatures and unseasonal heavy rains during the rabi (winter) season in these years resulted in excessive losses in food production at different scales and led to increased agrarian distress. This indicates the urgency of the problem at hand in addressing the increasing climatic risks that Indian agriculture is faced with.USAID/ India partnered with CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), South Asia (CCAFS), for a four-year intervention (October 2016 -September 2020) to scale out resilient agricultural interventions through the Climate Smart Village (CSV) approach. The CSV approach promotes local, incremental adaptation and transformative options and builds local capacities to continue to innovate, experiment, and adapt. The CSV approach aims to have a positive impact on agriculture-dependent communities, and this includes ensuring the participation of women farmers and all social groups.It aims to transform and reorient agricultural systems to support food security under the new realities of climate change. The focus is generally on a basket of synergistic options, rather than on single technology to improve cropping and livestock development in targeted areas as a means of enhancing resilience to climate variability. CCAFS provided technical leadership and overall guidance to BAIF (an NGO) to implement the project on the ground. The project demonstrated a portfolio of climate resilient technologies, practices and services in 75 villages of Uttar Pradesh (Mathura district), Bihar (Nalanda district) and Madhya Pradesh (Betul, a tribal district).In the four years of the project (2016-2020), more than 11,250 farmers were able to access climate resilient agricultural technologies and best practices in 75 clusters of villages in eastern India (Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh). A suite of 16 technologies, practices, and services were targeted at 75 super champion, 1,050 champion and 10,125 CSA farmers in three districts. The project's intervention and achievements have aimed at building three types of resilience namely, economic resilience (improving yield and household incomes), social resilience (building capacity of farmers, developing farmer-based institutions and strengthening stakeholder relationships) and environmental/system resilience (improving resource use efficiency and reducing emissions along with scaling and sustaining adaptation interventions). This report therefore attempts to bring out the key interventions and resulting outcomes viewed from a resilience lens, as summarized below:Improvements in yields and incomes: The project established 4,200 demonstration plots covering 627 Ha of agricultural land for the evaluation of climate resilient technologies during the project period. Seed replacement with improved seeds, seed treatment before sowing, change in sowing/transplanting methods, Integrated Nutrients and Pest Management (INPM), new water management techniques and agronomic practices such as direct seeded rice (DSR), system of rice intensification (SRI), and alternate wetting and drying method in rice helped to improve crop yields in the project areas. On an average, yields have increase by 69% over baseline in the last three years in the demo plots. For instance, yields of wheat, paddy, gram and pearl millet have improved by 52%, 87%, 73% and 66%, respectively. Similarly, incomes from the demo plots have also improved by 96% (Rs. 60,142 per hectare or approx. USD 819 per hectare). As an example, farmer incomes have improved by 67%, 115%,94% and 109% for wheat, paddy, gram and pearl millet respectively. The adoption of improved seed, Integrated Nutrient and Pest Management (INPM) as well as ICT based weather and agro-advisories have been found to be most useful to farmersAdditionally, improved agronomic practices like minimum tillage, soil test based integrated nutrient and pesticide application encouraged reduction in urea input and replacing it with organic manure and biopesticides. Consequently, nutrient use efficiency increased by 140% on an average over baseline in all three districts for all crops. The adoption of INPM practices has also resulted in an average of 55% reduction in overall CO2 emission per ton of crop production over the project duration by reducing the amount of Urea inputs. These have been the maximum for Rice crop showing 70% reduction. The reduction in GHG emissions is also being augmented by the establishment of 34 biogas plants, some of which have replaced fuelwood as the energy source, thereby reducing emissions while also improving health conditions of household members, especially women.The project developed a very gender inclusive approach from the very beginning. More than 4,500 women farmers, majorly from the tribal dominated Betul district, across a diversified set of interventions including institutional initiatives such as Village Climate Management Committees VCMCs (25 in Betul) and CHCs (total 13 across the three districts), promotion of women friendly CSA technologies and practices, training and capacity building exercises, and promotion of entrepreneurial activities. A key outcome of these efforts has been improved agency, and community participation for these women farmers. The group-based approaches have provided them a unique platform to improve their confidence and be important stakeholders in driving adoption of climate smart technologies. Women farmers have increasingly shown interest in learning new skills and gaining knowledge, evident through their increased participation (from 17% in Year 2 to 40% in Year 4) during the trainings conducted. These trainings have enabled 318 women farmers to get engaged in entrepreneurial activities through 182 enterprises related to renting agricultural machinery, cultivation and sale of vegetables, production and sale of organic pesticides and fertilizers as well as sale of seeds of improved crop varieties. This in turn has led to increased incomes for these women farmers.Building institutional models: Combining global scientific knowledge with local needs and priorities, the project has made climate smart technologies, practices and services available to all farmers through innovative local institutions such as the Custom Hiring Center (CHC) and Cattle Development Center (CDC). The project established 13 Custom Hiring Center (CHC) involving 136 women farmers to provide farm machinery to farmers at affordable rental rates, thereby facilitating technology transfer to the local community through an institutional and business-oriented approach. The CHCs services were utilized by more than 800 farmers and covered 387 hectares of area across all the three districts. This enabled the centers to earn an income of INR 1.35 lakhs (USD 1,851) during the project duration, while helping farmers provide access to climate-smart technology.These community led institutions also contribute to building community resilience towards external shocks. An example of this was seen during the COVID-19 induced lockdown in India from March to May 2020. In the absence of required labor for harvesting of the winter crop, these women run CHCs continued to provide farm machinery on hire and in several instances, they demonstrated entrepreneurial acumen by making large farm machinery accessible to farmers in the village, by linking them with district-level equipment service providers.Three Cattle Development Centers (CDC) helped to scale out livestock focused interventions at community level benefitting more than 6,200 farmers. Promotion of improved (and more climate-resilient) breeds through Artificial Insemination technology has been the most beneficial intervention for farmers, enabling better cattle yields. A total of 5,541 Artificial Insemination (AI) were conducted in the cattle resulting in a total of 1,300 new improved breed cow/buffalo calves being born. In addition, farmers benefitted from improved goat breeds, and high yield fodder varieties such as BAIF Bajra, BAIF hybrid Napier, Makkhan Grass, and Berseem, ensuring year-round availability of green fodder. Azola cultivation and mineral mixture further added nutrition source to the feed of livestock enabling increase in milk yield.The project worked in partnership with the farming community to encourage their active involvement for successful implementation of the Climate Smart Village model. For instance, community-based institutions such as CDCs and CHCs will continue to provide services to farmers to help them access climate-smart technologies and services. The BAIF Sustainability Model (BSM) of CDC will ensure that the AI Technicians (usually a village youth) earn money through the services he/ she offers, thereby ensuring sustainable climate-smart livestock intervention. Similarly, the financial stake of CHC members (10% of total cost) along with the women empowerment outcomes will be important factors driving the continuity of these centers. The initiation of entrepreneurship activities as a result of training and capacity building exercises are also proof of the knowledge built during the project duration which will continue to benefit farmers in future. A key activity for convergence was the development of 75 village level climate resilience plans in all three districts, which were then collated to develop three district level convergence plans in the last year of project implementation. These plans proposed a total convergence of approximately INR 6.1 crore (approx. USD 0.8 mil) from on-going government programs for the 75 project villages across 3 districts. Out of this, 5.7 crores (93%) can be utilized from existing government schemes and programmes. The plan also highlights a gap of 7% (INR 41.6 lakhs) between the total amount required and the support available from the government. This indicates a potential for collaborative efforts between the government departments and private agencies, NGOs and development funds to partake in this activity (by way of co-financing and replicating existing plan) and further strengthen as well as scale out the convergence process in and beyond these villages. By implementing these plans at the district level, the project promoted adaptation interventions have the potential to reach 3,247 villages covering at least 4,87,050 households through a convergence amount of INR 272.3 crores (approx. USD 37mil). The plans received positive response from government stakeholder during district-level project closeout meeting, highlighting potential for implementation.There are several potential opportunities for BAIF to pursue collaboration with organizations such as NABARD, KVKs, Agricultural Universities and locally relevant NGOs/ CSR agencies. These linkages have been emphasized during the convergence workshops conducted in all the three districts and therefore show potential for promoting the project interventions beyond the project areas.The project developed a grounds-up approach to engage with internal and external stakeholders for dissemination of climate-smart technologies as well as for the dissemination of results through on-line and offline mediums. This included village-level awareness campaigns, farmer field demonstration plots, placement of banners at strategic locations in Climate Smart Villages to Climate-Smart Village' concept appreciation programs, programme based trainings and planned exposure visits for the district-level functionaries and farmers. Several communication materials in the form of boards, and messages on walls are also present in the villages and will continue to inform farmers about the project's intervention and its benefits. Additionally, the project has developed numerous digital outreach and communication materials for external audiences such as a project webpage, articles, info-notes and blogs on CCAFS website and publications which were re-printed or hosted on other websites. Other than that, project site of Betul was showcased as a case study in multiple high impact international publications, which helped in disseminating project results to neighboring countries and encourage further discussions on scaling CSA interventions. In addition to the above, the project team presented project results and learnings to external scientific audiences, and development players. several newsletter articles were produced highlighting project activities and circulated amongst CCAFS partner organizations in South Asia. These include scientific community members, NGOs, Private sector players and government representatives from countries including India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka among others. The project site of Betul was also represented as a case study in multiple international publications. These have also helped in showcasing the project activities to neighboring countries and encourage further discussions on scaling CSA interventions.Overall, project related innovations like commercialization of small-scale mechanization through Custom Hiring Centers, eco-system required to promote Artificial Insemination for livestock improvement, engagement with tribal communities (especially women farmers), and convergence activities have generated interest among the participants of these activities. It is therefore expected that the project's efforts will promote a better understanding of its approach and learnings to its participants of the South-South cooperation activity and encourage them to adopt similar interventions for scaling out Climate-Smart interventions in their respective regions.Scalability and sustainability: Sustainability and scalability of the project has been one of the most important indices while ideating the project. Factors supporting both horizontal and vertical scaling of the project were incorporated in the project design stage itself. The project has ensured engagement of all the relevant stakeholders to establish a sense of ownership amongst local stakeholders, especially farmers. This instilled their active engagement throughout the implementation phase as well as facilitated participatory monitoring and evaluation of the project.The mechanisms to ensure sustainability of program were inbuilt through interventions of famer training and capacity building as well as convergence with existing government schemes. The most crucial development that pinpoints to the self-sustaining capacity of project interventions include the establishment of community-led institutions and the notion of accountability and ownership on the part of participating farmers and other stakeholders. In addition, the cost-sharing approach for demonstration activities and entrepreneurship-based business models has generated significant incentives for the beneficiary farmers to continue their operations as envisaged during the project implementation.Convergence activities of the project and repeated exposure and interaction of famers and community members with government officials, private players (input suppliers) and project staff has also created a strong pathway for sustainability and adaptability of project interventions. CCAFS has developed detailed post-project convergence plans, by assessing all 75-project villages for climate adaptation and overlaying it with the types of interventions, and finally aligning it to the level of investments required from on-going government programs to climate proof all three districts. These can serve as a valuable tool for communities and policymakers to guide their decisions on future resilience and livelihoods related budgeting. This component of the program is crucial because it has the potential to generate strong spillover effects.It has laid the foundations for continued uptake and out scaling of climate smart intervention in the three project districts. Furthermore, CCAFS and BAIF will also continue to adapt this unique approach for scalability and sustainability of climate smart technologies in future programs.The overall objective of the project was to reduce vulnerability to climate risk and improve adoption of climate-smart agriculture. To this end, the project interventions introduced a combination of measures including institutional building, access to advanced technologies and improved farming and livestock management practices to build resilience among the farming operations through CSV approach.The 'Climate Smart Village' project was scaled-up successfully in three distinct agro climatic zones and socio-cultural districts in India, which is reflective of its replicability across diverse geographies. The project made a conscious decision to work in a tribal dominated in Betul to reach a highly vulnerable region not just from a climate risk perspective but also in terms of overall rural development. The project operated in very remote tribal villages where few agencies have worked. Here, the impacts are reflected not just in terms of yields and income improvements, but also in terms of the significant level of convergence done, collective action undertaken even during challenging times such as COVID-19 linked lockdown and gender outcomes achieved. This validates the appropriate selection of technologies and innovative community mobilization approaches to enhance the resilience of farmers in the most isolated and underdeveloped parts of the country. The project's experience and learnings highlight ample scope to further build on the 'Climate Smart Village' model and expand it in other regions.The project interventions have empowered farming communities through new knowledge, technology and practices and built a mechanism that has huge potential to scale them out.A unique contribution of the present intervention appears to be the creation of an ecosystem within which farming groups can connect with relevant stakeholders and markets and avail solutions to some of the institutional and regulatory bottlenecks that otherwise hamper productive farming operation. Impacts of community led approaches and convergence initiatives will continue to build the resilience of farmers and farming communities beyond the life of the project.In the last few decades, India has made great strides in agriculture and food security. Despite this, the country has one-fifth of the world's hungry people and 40 percent of the world's malnourished children and women. The agricultural sector comprises of 146.45 million farmers, most of them with less than a hectare of land 1 . These small and marginal smallholder farmers in India face unprecedented uncertainties as yields fluctuate and their incomes vary. This has far-reaching consequences on their long-term resilience. There are several reasons for this: small and fragmented land holdings, limited availability and poor quality of farm inputs, un-remunerative farm prices of several commodities and above all the increasing frequency of extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, heatwaves and hailstorms. Three consecutive droughts in 2014, 2015 and 2016, short flood periods, high temperatures and unseasonal heavy rains during the rabi (winter) season in these years resulted in excessive losses in food production at different scales and led to increased agrarian distress. This indicates the urgency of the problem at hand in addressing the increasing climatic risks that India, the fifth most affected country by climate change 2 , is faced with.In India, climate change is set to hit the agricultural sector particularly hard and threaten the livelihood and food security of millions of smallholder and subsistence farmers. Numerous studies show that the productivity of crops, fish and livestock will decline in the absence of adaptation measures. Changes in crop cultivation suitability and associated agriculture biodiversity, lower input-use efficiency, and the prevalence of pests and diseases are some of the major causes of climate change impacts on agriculture. Reducing the risks of climate change and variability to food systems is thus one of the major challenges of the 21 st century for eastern India. If the Sustainable Development Goal of ending poverty, achieving food security and promoting sustainable agriculture is to be realized, climate change adaptation and mitigation interventions need to be implemented in earnest. There is, therefore, an urgent need to identify cost-effective, inclusive (with a focus on gender and socially marginalized groups) and evidence-based integrated solutions to enhance the adaptive capacity of vulnerable farming communities.There are several potential adaptation options to reduce moderate to severe climatic risks in agriculture and allied sectors. In general, adaptation options integrate traditional and innovative technologies, practices and services that are relevant in a location to mitigate climatic risks. Research shows that changes in agronomic practices (e.g. altering inputs and the timing and location of cropping activities), the adoption of new technologies (e.g. improvement in input use efficiency, and conservation of water and energy) and the use of relevant and timely information (e.g. climate information based agro-advisories and weather index based insurance) at the farm level can be key components in improving the resilience of agriculture to climate change. Many of these interventions have been successful in increasing production, income and building resilience among farming communities in other areas. These interventions, however, come with varying costs and economic impacts and their implementation requires critical investment decisions on both on-farm capital and for wider agricultural outreach programs.The Government of India in the 2016 budget announced its commitment to increase efforts to strengthen the rural economy. This Climate-Smart Village (CSV) program implemented in the three states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh (Figure 1.1). In these three states, the population density and poverty rates are comparatively higher than in the other states. The majority of poor and food-insecure people are dependent on agriculture as the main source of household income. In these states, any changes in agricultural production can have severe consequences for the livelihoods of millions of people. ). This project selected three districts in three states (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh) of India that fell into a high level of vulnerability from these states. Mathura in Uttar Pradesh fell under the very highly vulnerable district. Similarly, Nalanda in Bihar and Betul in Madhya Pradesh were under highly vulnerable districts.Mathura is located in the western region of Uttar Pradesh, classified as very high vulnerability district. This has a direct bearing on agriculture and the livelihoods of rural people. Rice and Bajra are sown in Kharif season, while wheat, potato and mustard are sown in rabi season. Frequent drought, unusual rains and floods are major climatic risks in the district. Declining water tables and low water use efficiency, multi-nutrient deficiencies and deteriorating soil health and climate change-induced vulnerability also pose major challenges to farmers and rural communities. Impacts of climate change on livestock are in the form of elevated body temperatures, increased respiration rates, decrease in feed intake, low productivity etc. Indirect impacts can be observed in the form of a reduction in grazing land and water availability, the decline in available cattle feed, the emergence of new diseases, etc.Nalanda is located in the north-western region of Bihar, which is very sensitive to climatic change, given the high population density. Rice-wheat is the dominant cropping system in this district. Fruits like Mango, Guava, Lemon, Banana and Papaya are grown along with seasonal vegetables. In terms of climate change and variability, the region faces an increasing risk of drought and flood apart from other hazards like Heatwave, cold wave and frost. The sudden extremities also lead to an increased incidence of pest and diseases. These hazards severely affect agricultural income on an annual basis. Climatic variability directly impacts yields at crop level and also affects soil quality; water resources; brings in pests, diseases and weeds, etc. further aggravating the impact on the cropping system, thereby reducing the yield per hectare of land or per unit of livestock at the farm level.Betul is primarily a tribal district comprising of the Gond and Korku tribes. It is located in the southern region of Madhya Pradesh and is rich in forest and biodiversity. Soybean-ricewheat is the dominant cropping system in the district. Farmers also cultivate Arhar, Jowar, sugarcane, spices, vegetables, groundnut, sesamum, rapeseed and mustard, linseed and fodder crop in the district. Early season drought, early withdrawal of monsoon, unusual and heavy rains, heatwaves and pest/diseases outbreak are major climatic risks in the districts. The district's socio-economic profile also affects the adaptive capacity of the districts making it more vulnerable to future climate risks. Reducing the risks of climate change and variability to food systems is thus one of the major challenges for Betul. Hence, it was needed to identify, implement and scale out cost-effective, inclusive (with a focus on gender and socially marginalized groups) and evidence-based integrated solutions to enhance the adaptive capacity of vulnerable farming communities.Women's involvement in agriculture and their contributions to food security has been widely recognized in India. In the last few decades, women's involvements, access to productive resources and decision-making roles in agriculture and allied sectors have been the focus areas of research and development in the Indian subcontinent. A clear linkage has been shown among social, economic and gender dimensions in agriculture. Women can play a key role in improving agricultural productivity and food security in farming communities. Gender differentiated roles, responsibilities, priorities and access to resources and services at the community and household levels define the gendered inequalities leading to inefficiencies in agricultural production systems. These are further exaggerated by climate related shocks. Building the adaptive capacities of women farmers towards climate risks, therefore, goes hand in hand while developing resilient agricultural systems.The project has therefore focused on adopting a gender inclusive approach by ensuring active participation of women farmers across different activities. A gender and agriculture related assessment was conducted by CCAFS 3 to identify the districts with a high level of climatic risks as well as high female participation in agriculture. This study highlighted Betul as one of the women in agriculture and climate risks hotspot indicating that the district has a high level of women involvement in the district while also being exposed to high levels of climate risks, compared to other districts in the country. Taking Betul as the focus for gender activities, therefore, the project's aimed to improve access to climate resilient technologies and practices for women farmers, improve women's knowledge through trainings and capacity building exercises, and promote entrepreneurship through institutional initiatives.The overall goal of this project is to reduce poverty and food insecurity in the agriculture dependent communities under the changing climate. This goal was to be achieved by increasing resilience in the agriculture production system to changing climate. The increasing resilience in the agriculture production system can improve farm production and income in both good and bad weather conditions during the cropping season.The target performance indicators of this project included: if i) number of farmers/farm households who have implemented climate resilient agricultural technologies and practices in their farms, ii) number/amount of technologies or management practices under research, under field testing, or made available for transfer as a result of project assistance, iii) number of hectares of land under CSA technology and practice with project assistance, and iv) number of trainings, workshops, farm visits, farm fairs provided to farmers as well as stakeholders organizations.The envisioned outcomes of this project were: I) development of climate resilient agricultural systems, ii) improvement in farm production and income, iii) reduction of emission from crop and livestock production, and iv) strengthen gender and social inclusion through capacity building and involved in the project activities.To achieve these outcomes, all project interventions and resulting outputs can be viewed in the form of a climate resilience framework.Resilience refers to the ability of systems, communities, households or individuals to cope with or mitigate risks as well as recover from adverse events or shocks (FAO 2013). Adaptation plays a key role in building resilience and is directly related to the vulnerability of the system to shocks. From a climate change perspective, building resilience is key to strengthening the agricultural system's capacity to deal with the negative impacts of increasing weather variability and extremities. Building climate resilience of agriculture is also essential to ensure food security while focusing on improving productivity.Agricultural systems are defined by several social, economic and environmental factors that not just determine the vulnerability of the system but also define the dynamism of resilience that needs to be developed (Béné, Cet al., 2016) 4 . For instance, agriculture in a region comprised of poor farmers, with limited resources and facing severe climate risks may be less resilient to climate change compared to a region with relatively richer, resource endowed farmers facing similar climate risks. This is because the capacity of the community to adapt to climatic risks will be lower in the case of the former and may take longer to develop.  The ability of the agricultural system to build resilience is also related to the presence of support systems and mechanisms in the form of policies, institutions and knowledge access. These form the enabling environment present around a system that can impede or accelerate the resilience building process.The project's intervention and achievements have aimed at building resilience at these levels through a portfolio of interventions:• Economic resilience: improving yield and household incomes through the implementation of climate-smart technologies, practices and services in the demo plots and gender integration across activities   They are also shown some of the demo plots to understand the benefits of changing the traditional cropping practices. This ensures the spread of knowledge and the initiation of interactive learning among the farmers.The project was implemented in three districts in three states (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh) of India. All three locations varied in terms of their vulnerability to climate risks, as well as their socio-economic characteristics. The project selected 25 villages in each selected district (Nalanda, Mathura, Betul) for the implementation of climate resilient agricultural technologies. Each village represents a cluster of similar villages (5-10) in terms of cropping and livestock production systems and the status of water resources. Secondary data available at block level were used along with suggestions provided by the local stakeholders (farmers groups, KVK) for selection of the villages. Implementation of field activities began from 10 villages in the first year in each district. Field staff conducted a series of meetings with local farmers in each village to provide an overview of project activities, plan to the farmers and to identify their willingness to participate in the implementation of a range of climate resilient technologies, practices and services in their villages. The activities were scaled out to all 75 villages within the second year. Agricultural related CSA interventions were promoted in al districts of Betula and Nalanda and only 10 districts of Mathura. Given higher importance of livestock development in Mathura, 15 villages of the 25 selected in the district were provided with only livestock focused interventions other than agro advisory and capacity building.The institution of Village Climate Management Committees (VCMC) or \"Gram Jalvayu Prabandh Samiti\" was formed in every village to drive the implementation of CSA interventions at the local level. The members of this institution comprised of the Super Champion and Champion farmers. As a group, they were responsible for ensuring technology access to all kinds of farmers and therefore act as a link between the farmers and the external agencies such as the private sectors and government. The VCMCs acted as a self-governing mechanism by tracking activities and ensuring compliance of all farmers concerning their financial contributions, capacity building and awareness raising related to CSA technologies and practices. Through the VCMC, the project has disseminated the portfolios of climate-smart technologies and practices to all the direct 11,250 farmer beneficiaries. These committees have been formed to ensure equitable access to climatesmart technologies to all farmers, especially marginal farmers, and women. The activities being implemented have been selected based on participatory prioritization processes, field evaluations and farmer discussions (Table 2.1, details in annexure 2).  Key cops promoted during the project period include Rice and Bajra during the Kharif (monsoon) season covering 27% and 9% of the demo plot area respectively. Wheat and Gram were the major Rabi (winter) season crops comprising 36% and 12% of the area respectively. Additionally, the project also promoted vegetable cultivation and fodder crops for better livestock health each of which comprised 8% of the cultivated area. These demo plots covered all Super Champion and Champion farmers of the project villages.A key input in these demonstration plots has been of improved seeds. Majority of the farmers (76%) in the evaluation survey have found this input to be most useful in improving yield and income. Use of these seeds with improved sowing methods has been widely accepted by most farmers and is being increasingly adopted across all project locations.Climate variability and diverse agro-diversities across all three intervention sites necessitated a customized suite of option to build the resilience and adaptive capacity of farmers. Depending on the kind of risk as well as the cropping pattern, the project has promoted climate smart interventions to enable farmers to reduce potential losses from these risks (table 2.2). As a result, farmers have not only been able to prevent expected losses but also achieve an average increase in yield and incomes by 69% and 96% respectively during the project duration. This will enable them to move towards a more economically resilient farming system.\"Earlier, I was throwing 60-70 Kg of seeds on 1 acre of land randomly over the field. But project staff told us to practice line sowing method for cultivation. Line sowing method helped us reduce wastages as were now planting the appropriate seed quantities and our cost of production declines significantly.\" -Ms. Savita Kumare (Super Champion Farmer, Betul, Madhya Pradesh) Rice was the major Kharif crop cultivated in Betul and Nalanda. Bajra was cultivated in Mathura as a major Kharif crop. Figure 2.3. highlights an improvement in average yields and income that is also accompanied by a reduction in the overall variance of the group pointing towards the development of a resilient system. Since project inception, the project interventions have enabled the farmers to increase their yields and incomes every year. Overall average yields have been higher than 87% over baseline with a 115% improvement in income for Rice. For Bajra, yields have improved by an average of 66% along with a 109% improvement in income. On average, farmers have been able to earn a cumulative incremental income of INR 69,382 per hectare from Rice and INR 43,427 per hectare from Bajra in the two Kharif seasons.Wheat has been the major Rabi crops for the three districts across the years. Figure 2.4 highlights the improvements in yields and income since project inception for Rabi crops of Wheat and Gram. The overall variance of the group is also seen across both crops. Since project inception, the project interventions have enabled the farmers to increase their yields and incomes every year. On average, farmers have been able to earn a cumulative incremental income of INR 60,923 per hectare from wheat and INR 56,033 per hectare from Gram in the last two years. Overall wheat yields have also improved by 52% with a 67% improvement in incomes. Similarly, for Gram yields have improved by 73% while incomes have improved by 94%. As a result of continuous training, awareness generation and capacity building exercise, farmers in all the three districts have reduced usage of excess amounts of fertilizers and pesticides such as Urea and DAP in all crops. As a result, farmers have saved input costs and also achieved a reduction in nitrogen usage leading to lower emissions. The usefulness of INPM practice has also been agreed upon by the farmers where 38% of endline respondents highlighted the intervention as being useful for improving soil health.Table 2.3 shows the changes in nitrogen use efficiency across all crops in each district. The efficiency has been calculated by dividing the crop yields (output) with the nitrogen content of fertilizers (input). The significant increase in efficiency is due to two factors: reduction in fertilizer input as well as an increase in yield outputs. Overall there has been an improvement of 140% in nutrient use efficiency during the project period with Rice (196%) and Bajra (182%) showing the most improvement, followed by Wheat (163%) and Gram (17%) 2.5. Reduction in Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission 2.5.1.Excess usage of inorganic fertilizers such as Urea contributes to the increase in emission of the greenhouse gas. This can be managed through integrated approaches to the management of nitrogen fertilizer such as Integrated Nutrient Management which advocates reduced amounts and more strategically placed inorganic fertilizer. Through our project, we have promoted the reduction in Urea input by replacing some of it with Vermicompost for all crops, which has resulted in reduced usage of Urea as well as lower emissions. Table 2.4 shows that the practice has resulted in an average of 55% reduction in overall CO2 emission per ton of crop production over the project duration by reducing the amount of Urea inputs. These have been the maximum for Rice crop showing 70% reduction. Emissions were calculated using the CCAFS MOT tool. 7 These results reflect the reduction from the 1,228 acres of demo plots of the four crops in the three districts. The way in which manure from livestock is managed also contributes to GHG emissions. Different manure treatment and storage methods affect how much of these GHGs are produced. Biogas technology can help in reducing methane emissions through the use of surplus cow-dung produced by cattle, as well as a reduction in firewood burning as fuel. Table 2.5 explains the estimated amount of GHG reduction through the use of Biogas in project districts. There are a total of 34 Biogas of 2 cubic meter capacity in the three districts, 6 in Betul, 13 in Nalanda and 15 in Mathura. Firewood burning as a cooking fuel is used only in Betul and hence the calculation is done only for 6 Biogas systems in the district.The emission from fuelwood is based on the following formula by IPCC:Where, Emissions GHG, fuel = emissions of a given GHG by type of fuel (kg GHG), Fuel Consumption fuel = amount of fuel combusted (TJ), Emission Factor GHG, fuel = default emission factor of a given GHG by type of fuel (kg gas/TJ). The overall evaluation results reported largely resound with farmers view on the project's intervention. The endline evaluation positively points to improved resilience of rural livelihoods through enhanced productivity, profitability and resource use efficiency. Broadly, 91% surveyed farmers experienced improved crop and livestock productivity while 89% of farmers also pointed to improved incomes. Overall, the availability and access to food reportedly increased for 85% of respondents.Private sector partnership forms a strong base for the successful implementation of project interventions. Across the three districts, several private players are supplying the different technologies and services through the NGO partner, ensuring access to new technologies for all farmers. While several players are already a part of the CSV system, others are also willing to join in and help in scaling out climate smart technologies to other villages and provide support to farmers' custom hiring centers. Table 3.1 provides a list of current players as well as players that have been identified by the project team as prospective partners in the coming years The project has partnered with IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Ltd (IKSL), an ICT provider, to disseminate weather and climatic information using existing scientific knowledge and farm conditions. This information, sent in the form of voice calls and messages includes inputs related to new agricultural practices, livestock related information, markets and prices, along with real-time weather forecasts. The information is scheduled as per the cropping cycle of the production system and is localized as per farmers' interest and feedback. Apart from the push advisory system, the farmers also have access to a toll-free helpline number to resolve any related query. The project has provided these services to all project farmers throughout the three years of the project.The usefulness of mobile-based weather and agro-advisory services for farmers is evident through the endline survey where 83 % of respondents reported utilizing the information received on their agricultural plots. Change in sowing dates (43%) and the use of natural pesticides/fertilizers (27.5%) were identified as the most useful information received and applied through the agro advisory services. This also highlights an improvement in the awareness level of farmers about weather and crop related information, which as per the baseline report, was very limited before project interventions.The member of IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Ltd (IKSL) shared his words on the services provided by them to farmers in the project area;\"Farmers receive these advisories through both text and voice messages. They prefer to receive specific advisories on crop sowing, harvesting etc. through voice messages and information such as name of the fertilizers through text messages. Overall, they find the two information channels as complementary to each other.\" -Mr. Morup Namgail, IFFCO, Mathura.To effectively address the challenges of climatic risk faced by the farmers, different institutional approaches were developed. These were in the form of local institutions to support the CSA technology transfer process by keeping all stakeholders connected. These are primarily community-based approaches that support collective action and decision making to promote climate change adaptation. They lay emphases on the strengthening of local level institutions and cadre, play an important role in generating community-level ownership and participation in climate smart village planning and development initiatives. These institutions will continue to support and sustain the project activities beyond the project life.This section highlights the two institutional models of Custom Hiring centers (CHCs) and Cattle Development Centers (CDCs) along with the supporting mechanisms of private sector and convergence that together help in maintaining the adoption of climate-smart adaptation practices by farmers in the project villages.The institution of Custom Hiring Centers (CHC) has been established to facilitate technology transfer to the local community through an institutional and business-oriented approach.Managed by women farmers, these institutions also contribute to gender integration and empowerment in the farm community. Given the small landholdings of farmers combined with a minimal investment capacity for new technologies, the CHC promotes a technology hiring mechanism to overcome affordability barriers. Thereby making CSA technologies available at a rental cost, the CHCs are enabling farmers to overcome the technology access issue, facilitating efficient use of inputs, promoting the use of CSA to farmers in and around their locality, and earning a source of income for its members. There are 13 Custom Hiring Centers established across the three districts and provide 10 key technologies for dissemination among the farmers. Some prominent technologies include rotavator, potato planter, cono weeder, sprinkler pipe, solar pump, seed treatment machine, Paddy harvester/cutter. Knowledge sharing and capacity building sessions followed by participatory discussions with farmers enabled the selection and shortlisting of technologies to be promoted through the centers. These centers also encourage adoption of the technologies by the women members themselves. A total of 136 women farmers are running these centers.Multiple private sector players are playing an important role in making technologies, practices and services available to farmers through the CHCs. In addition to these, local institutions (VCMCs) support the centers for CSA technology transfer process by keeping all stakeholders connected. The CHCs services have been hired by more than 800 farmers and covered 387 hectares of the area across all the three districts. The centers have managed to gradually expand their presence in the project districts. They have gained momentum in the last two years of the project. For instance, last year farmers using CHC equipment increased by 69% with a simultaneous increase of 90% in the area covered by the use of the equipment (Figure 4.1). In terms of the equipment driving this increase, it was observed that sprinkler was popular equipment taken on rent by a majority of the customers in both Nalanda and Betul during the Rabi (winter crop) season. Irrigation during the Rabi season has been particularly helpful for farmers in Nalanda as the region faces heat stress during the winter season requiring a light application of water to prevent loss in crop quantity and quality. The use of sprinkler has also been popular for growing vegetables in both districts.In Mathura, on the other hand, tilling machine and solar sprayer have been most hired among the customers.  4.1). Key revenue generating equipment has been the paddy transplanter, sprinkler and zero-till machine in Nalanda, solar pumps and sprinklers in Betul and rotavator and potato planter in Mathura. In addition to the rental revenues, this model provides significant scope to help rural women build resilience towards external stresses, by enabling them to maximize economic opportunities, reduce farm related drudgery, increase agriculture productivity and household food security. These centers are also contributing to improved yields, incomes and nutrition of farmer households as also confirmed by the endline respondents. The most useful benefits from availing the CHC services included improved agricultural production (45%) followed by improved access to various farming equipment at affordable rental cost (27 % farmers).Sustainability of these institutions can be ensured through convergence with government schemes, increased involvement of the community and improved stakeholder linkages.While there are several pathways to ensure the sustainability of these institutions, the involvement of government funds through the process of convergence is important to ensure cost-effectiveness of these centers. Similarly, investments from private players in the form of CSR (corporate social responsibility) can encourage the expansion of such centers and contribute to building climate-resilient agricultural communities.Satoka Bai of Chunagosai village, Betul district of Madhya Pradesh has been a member of Custom Hiring Centre since 2018. She owns 2.5 acres of land and used to adopt flood irrigation technique for wheat crop which provided insufficient water during the maturity stage of the crop resulting in yield loss up to 40%.She then started using the sprinkler set hired from the CHC along with adopting other CSA practices including improved seed varieties, line sowing, optimum Picture: Sprinkler in Satoka Bai's field utilization of fertilizers, seed treatment practices being promoted under the project. This resulted in 43% improvement in Wheat yield as well as 30-40 % water savings.In Betul district, the CHC model has been observed as an 'innovative model' as mentioned by the district Additional director of Agriculture in the convergence workshop held by the project in August 2020. The government stakeholders also showed interest in scaling up the model to other parts of the district and to promote similar models for fruit and vegetable cropping systems. Government stakeholders in the other two districts have also suggested linking these CHCs with large market entities as well as Farmer Producer Groups to enable their expansion.Livestock in the study areas is characterized as low yielding cattle having a poor rate of conception, poor quality germplasm, and inadequate animal health care. Further, climate stresses such as drought, heat stress and excess rainfall affect the health and productivity of the animals. The farmers also lacked information and knowledge about better practices that could improve the cattle's overall wellbeing as well as productivity. Therefore, CDC, one each in the three districts have been established to promote improved breeds of cattle, provide better healthcare for the animals and build the capacity of farmers to better manage their livestock to reduce adverse climatic impacts on them. Youth participation is encouraged for managing the activities of the institution and promote the use of CDC interventions to farmers in their villages. These institutions are directly linked with the local research centers to update them about the latest technologies, practices and breeds in the field. These CDCs are providing the following services to the farmers:• Promotion of improved breed (high yielding and stress-tolerant) of cattle: Sahiwal, Holstein Friesian, Jersey, Gir (cow) and Murrah (Buffalo); and sexed semen through Artificial Insemination Service 11• Preventive animal health care: vaccination, mineral mixtures and deworming • Capacity building training for scientific management of livestock including health and feed managementThe CDCs have managed to benefit more than 6,200 farmers across the three districts (Table 4.2). Livestock is a major part of Mathura's rural economy and therefore the focus on CDC development has been more there as compared to other districts. While reasonably priced products such as de-worming tablets and mineral mixtures have been popular among most farmers, the intervention of improved breeds through Artificial Insemination (AI) has been accepted and adopted by an increasing number of farmers across the three districts. Two types of AI are provided general and sorted semen. The chances of pregnancy through a general AI are about 50%. However, through sorted semen, the chances of having a female calf are almost 95%. The two, however, differ in terms of cost. The scaling of AI has been a challenging activity for the project, particularly in Betul district. Cultural factors such as the sanctity of the cow prevented farmers to take benefit of these services. Therefore, several awareness and capacity building exercises were organized where farmers were also taken to neighbouring villages to understand the benefits of these services. The preference for this technology was also highlighted in the endline survey where Sorted semen AI and General AI were cited as the most useful livestock related interventions by 34% and 25% of the farmers, respectively.In addition to AI the project has also promoted goat development to provide an additional income source from livestock. Goat breeds have also been promoted and are being provided with natural services for rearing in Mathura and Betul. The success of the AI intervention can be captured through the success rate of pregnancy and the new calves being born (Table 4.3). A total of 5,541 AIs have been conducted during the project duration with most of them happening during the third year. The average success rate for pregnancy has been 56% with a total of 1,300 new cow/buffalo calves being born, 54% of them being female. These new calves are expected to be more productive and less vulnerable to weather stresses. Additionally, the project has also introduced breeding bucks of goat to develop goatry among households who are dependent on small ruminants for livestock-based livelihoods. A total of 48 farmers benefitted from this intervention and 176 new goat kids were conceived during the project period. To address the issue of reduced availability of green fodder for livestock, the project also promoted different types of fodder cultivation. BAIF Hybrid Napier 10 was promoted while Makkhan grass was introduced as part of the seasonal fodder system. Additionally, Azola mother culture units were also established in the farmer's field and nutri-feed was also promoted. The farmers are seeing benefits of cultivating these two types of grasses and better feed through improved animal health and productivity especially in Mathura. A total of 352 farmers benefited from Napier cultivation while 148 benefitted from Azola across the three districts. Makkhan Grass and Nutri-feed were promoted only in Mathura benefitting 300 and 246 farmers respectively.The achievement of the intended benefits of livestock interventions was visible during the endline evaluation where benefits such as improved milk and improved livestock nutrition were highlighted by 92% of the respondents.Capacity building and strengthening have been a key component of the project activities. It has played a crucial role to build resilience at the societal level by adopting multiple approaches. The objective of the training and capacity building exercises was twofold, to inform and train farmer about new CSA technologies, practices and services, and to connect them with government and private sector stakeholders to enable scalability and sustainability of the project interventions. To do this, therefore, the capacity building activities were done for three types of stakeholder groups, i.e. farmer level, field staff and local institutions, and government and private players.The initial project years focused on developing farmer capacity (through regular trainings and interactions) while gradually also involving community members (including farmers other than Super Champion and Champion in the project villages) to understand and adopt project interventions. The approaches, therefore, included training sessions including video trainings, farmer field days and farmers' fairs. Towards the final year of the project, activities focused on exposure visits to agricultural universities, and interaction meetings with government and private stakeholders to strengthen the relationships of farmers with these stakeholders.Farmers were the key stakeholder of the project. To develop resilience among the farmers required consistent efforts to train and build their capacity. The project held trainings on different thematic subjects before, during and post cropping seasons. By considering the requirements of farmers, the trainings were based on the following thematic areas:• Climate smart Agricultural practices and technologies: These included training on improved seed, seed treatment, nursery preparations, and seed production for next season. To improve the agronomical practices trainings on systematic rice intensification (SRI), direct seeded rice (DSR), broad bed furrow (BBF), line sowing practice through seed drill were also provided to the farmers. Trainings on water management including irrigation management practices like use and importance of micro irrigation system like drip and sprinkler, land levelling practices were also imparted. • Livestock Management: These involved information and training on scientific management of Livestock feed and health including information on perennial fodder cultivations using BNH10 variety, azola cultivation, nutrifeed, Makkhan grass, climate resilient housing for cattle, improved breeding through Artificial Insemination (AI), sorted semen technology in AI, use of deworming medicine, mineral mixture and vaccination.• Integrated Nutrient and Pest Management: these involves trainings on biopesticides preparations like jeevaamrit, neemastra, and brahmastra, vermicomposting, soil sample testing, understanding soil health card and application of fertilizers based on recommended dose. • Other themes: These included other areas such as awareness campaigns and trainings on crop and livestock insurance, weather information, agro advisory, usage of multiple farming equipment's, trainings for CHC members on CHC operation and management as well as with farmers on CHC awareness, information on government schemes and process of convergence.A total of 444 such trainings were organized during the project period, with 53% of them focusing on crop related to the theme of 'Climate smart agricultural practices and technologies' mostly in Betul and Nalanda (Figure 5.1). Most of the livestock management trainings were in Mathura, given the project's focus on the sector in the district. While a majority of the participants were males, women farmers participation can be seen gradually increasing during the project period, from 17% of total participants in Year 2 to 40% in year 4 (Figure 5.2). This trend is visible in all districts including Mathura and Nalanda where women from beneficiary households have also attended these sessions. The benefits of these trainings were highlighted by most endline respondents. As much as 90% of the respondents in each farmer category confirmed attending trainings organized by the project. These farmers also reported significant changes in agricultural practices such as a change in sowing method (62%) and optimizing pesticide or fertilizer use (9%).Additionally, as a result of multiple insurance related awareness camps and training, the project managed to enrol 3,314 farmers in the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (Prime Minister's Crop Insurance Scheme) for key crops including Rice, Wheat, Gram, Soybean and maize (1,715 in Nalanda, 849 in Mathura and 750 in Betul). Apart from regular trainings related to adaptation implementation, farmers were exposed to field visits or visits to the local university to gain additional practical knowledge related to both existing practices as well as new practices (exposure visits). Champion, CSA and nonbeneficiary farmers were regularly taken to the demo fields of Super-Champion farmers to understand the climate smart interventions on the field and the difference in outputs between the demo and regular plots (Farmer field days). Additionally, farmer fairs were also organized to involve a large number of farmers and highlight the adaptation benefits to nonproject farmers. All these events served as a cross-learning platform for farmers and enabled scaling out of the technologies and practices to neighbouring areas. Table 5.1 highlights the number of such events in the three districts. A total of 84 such events have taken place during the project period, cumulatively covering 4,452 farmers, out of which 19% were females, and at least half of which have been other farmers (other than direct beneficiaries). Majority of these events have been in the form of Farmer Field days  Building social resilience at community level through capacity building and training of the village-based institutions and farmers and linking them to government officials and market stakeholders has proven to be useful during the COVID-19 pandemic.With markets closed, reduced labor access, and lack of transportation to move produce, the rural areas were faced with multiple challenges during the final project months of April, May and June. However, the knowledge gained, institutions formed, and linkages developed enabled farmers to better respond to these challenges.During these months, collective action by beneficiary farmers and SHGs mentored by the project supported the sale of produce for farmers in Betul while project staff assisted farmers in gaining access to seeds and markets. Similarly, in Mathura, the village community was able to absorb the excess milk amongst themselves as markets were closed while some farmers continued to benefit from convergence activities that had been initiated before the lockdown. In Nalanda, CHC members were able to help farmers gain access to machinery in the absence of labor due to lockdown. These examples highlight the self-sufficiency of the farming communities to be able to cope with a crisis situation as a result of the capacity built and institutions set up by the project.\"During the lockdown, I was unable to sell freshly harvested tomatoes from my field. I then contacted the district officials of the Agriculture Department, from the list provided by the project team. The officials were very supportive and informed us that we can sell our harvest at designated areas from sunrise till 10:00 am. The project team has given us the confidence to talk to the government officials\" -Sangeeta Rajesh, Farmer, Betul, Madhya PradeshThere All these schemes and programmes are often implemented in silos by the respective sectoral departments of the government. However, through the Climate-Smart Village approach in Betul, it has been shown that to build climate resilience of the agricultural system, it is required that several schemes and programmes linked to the community's adaptation needs are implemented in an integrated manner. This necessitates community mobilization and awareness generation among the community about the existing schemes and programmes that they can benefit from.Certain challenges need to be overcome to successfully implement an integrated approach. These challenges include the following:• Farmers are unaware of the details, requirements, and process to avail such policies • There is a lack of a comprehensive need assessment of the farming community that is linked to their existing activities and that can help them to adapt to future climate risks • There is a lack of a forum to bring together farmer's needs, plan their requirements The project strategized to engage with Gram Sabhas and PRIs to facilitate participatory planning and convergence, for usage of these funds for scaling up CSA. Through continuous interactions and capacity building session with the village community, the project field team established a strong rapport with the respective PRIs and the community.Convergence related interventions in the project can be broadly divided into three phases (Figure 6.2). The process of convergence provides a common platform for community and local government institutions to discuss, ideate, plan and implement programs. Though, the momentum for the formation and smooth functioning of such platforms has been provided by a third party (in this case a development organization). Third party's involvement has also been instrumental in creating common understanding amongst the stakeholders. It has provided the handholding support to the community members to approach the government officials and access the government funds provided under various schemes.The project took the following steps to initiate convergence:1) Formation of community-based organizations As an initiation to participatory planning, the project formed a community-based group's titled Village Climate Management Committee (VCMC). This group was firstly capacitated, to understand the issue of climate change, and the impact it might have on their lives and livelihoods. With the help of the members of the group, participatory need assessment of the community was conducted. The groups also play a key role in monitoring all activities as well as maintaining all assets created as a result of convergence. In each of the villages, a detailed participatory exercise was undertaken with men and women farmers for assessing the socio-economic and resource status to identify developmental needs concerning the prevailing climate risks. Using different types of participatory tools (natural resource mapping, food security calendar, gender issues, etc.), the process encourages involvement from all villagers to plan and prioritize areas of intervention. This process results in village/cluster development plans with agreed commitments for cost, effort and contributions of different stakeholders. The next stage is to share these plans with the Gram Panchayat for consideration and action.In the initial phase of the program, getting the support of the elected members of the panchayat and panchayat secretary, was a challenge. Also, meeting the quorum of the Gram Sabha was also seeming difficult. As an intervention strategy to facilitate community participation, BAIF started their meetings with the local leaders of the community, who were imparted awareness and knowledge on the aspects of climate change and its impact on agriculture, CSA approach and the role of community and local government bodies can play in scaling it. The knowledge imparted to the local leaders trickled to other sections of the community, facilitating the participation of a large section of the Gram-Sabha in the planning and implementation phase. Active involvement of the community also provided the necessary fillip to Janpad, to timely respond to the applications of the community and panchayats.With the participation of the community, a Gram Panchayat Resource Map and a Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP) was prepared in consultation with Panchayat Secretary. This GPDP was then presented to the Gram Sabha for their inputs and approval.Once GPDP was passed in Gram Sabha, applications were submitted to respective government line departments at block level to request for funds and resources.From the block level, the applications go to the district level where they need to be approved by the District Planning Committee. Once approved by the DCP, it was implemented on the field. There was continuous follow up by the community representatives to ensure smooth processing of application as well as timely release of funds.The convergence happened at the panchayat level, which used the funds received from different departments to ensure implementation of the plan to meet the objectives of building resilience through climate change adaptation. Government support can be provided through different institutions including government line departments (for application), KVKs (for technology access) and universities (for trainings).The project has been successful in working extensively with state government line departments by way of joint field visits to partaking in coordination meetings convened by the government. And doing so has enabled the project access funds through several national flagship programs like the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture, Kapil Dhara Yojna and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS). The project has managed to converge an amount of approximately Rs.3.93 crores (approx. USD 535,478 14 ) through multiple schemes across the three districts during Oct 2017-July 2020 (Figure 6.3). Most of the convergence has happened in Betul district (77% of the total amount), followed by Mathura (18%) and Nalanda (5%). About 12,786 households, including 96% of the total project direct beneficiaries have benefitted by convergence in both agriculture and livestock-related activities during this period. Of these, a total of 2,022 households are indirect project beneficiaries 15 . As can be seen from Figure 5.3, an average of 93.6% of the funds has come from the government (total INR 3.67 crores) while the farming community has also contributed an average of 6.4% of the total amount (approx. INR 25.05 lakhs). groups, through a participatory approach, there is a potential to disseminate the information to a larger group of relevant stakeholders. The potential for scalability benefits also cannot be ignored in the context of the current program as the program activities are prone to generating several positive externalities with respect to advisory services, institutions, farm training activities etc. for the entire area covered in the study. Overall, efforts to establish convergence across all the three districts were corroborated through the endline survey as well where 93% of the respondents agreed to be beneficiaries of this initiative, while 63% also mentioned that they would be able to reach out to government officials themselves highlighting the capacity-building effects of the project interventions.Betul district has a high level of drought probability and faces climate risk of delayed monsoons during the Kharif season as well as less overall rainfall during Rabi season. Lack of water, as well as irrigation facilities, limit the regions crop production and productivity.Understanding the importance of efficient water usage, the project focused on developing water-smart interventions in the district this year. Water structures such as wells, farm ponds and check dams were constructed as detailed in Table 6.1. This intervention has benefitted 301 households by adding 143 new structures/equipments and expand the irrigated area by 182.4 hectares. Majority of the structures were financed through convergence. This was a participatory exercise involving regular discussions with farmers, water user groups, government officials as well as the local governing body (panchayat committee). Discussions with the Village Climate Management Committees (VCMCs) helped in identifying farmers based on well availability, crops grown and groundwater levels. Group wells were identified based on groundwater recharge zones. All plans for developing structures including wells, ponds, check dams, as well as the use of micro-irrigation systems such as drip irrigation, were discussed with the gram panchayat to explore options for convergence.Suresh Prasad, a farmer from Chandi Village, Nalanda District of Bihar, has been growing onions over the past many years. Though, limited production never allowed him to have a comfortable life, where he could provide quality education to his children Picture: Suresh Prasad with his Onion harvestAs part of the sustainability efforts, the project team developed a blueprint of climate resilience plans for all 75 villages in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. A detailed participatory exercise was undertaken with men and women farmers for assessing the socio-economic and resource status to identify developmental needs in relation to the prevailing climate risks. The identified needs were associated with different forms of climate resilience (Economic, Social and Environmental16). Thereafter, government schemes and departments were identified for addressing some of these key needs and requirements of the village through the process of convergence. The output was summarized by highlighting major areas of development and potential interventions that can be planned and scaled through convergence.These plans outline areas of future intervention to make communities' climate-resilient and where possible create greater convergence with on-going national flagship programs to cope with climate variability and extreme weather events.The project undertook another Participatory Village Development Planning (PVDP) in Q2-Q3 of the year 2018-19 that enabled the identification of local-level challenges and needs that are essential to developing a robust and resilient agricultural system to enable farming communities to adapt to the increasing climate risk in the district. A detailed participatory exercise was undertaken with men and women farmers for assessing the socio-economic and resource status to identify developmental needs relate to the prevailing climate risks. Participatory Rural Appraisal activities were undertaken with a group of 10-12 farmers in each village over 2-3 days in the final phase of the project. These activities highlighted the key challenges and needs of the farmers within the prevailing climate risks. The identified needs were mapped with different forms of climate resilience (Economic, Social and Environmental). Thereafter, government schemes and departments were identified for addressing some of these key needs and requirements of the village through the process of convergence. The output was summarized by highlighting major areas of development and potential interventions that can be planned and scaled through convergence. Tables below (6.  The project has proposed a financial plan for convergence of approximately INR 6.1 crore for the 75 project villages (Table 6.5). Out of this, 5.7 crores (93%) can be utilized from existing government schemes and programmes. It is anticipated that the below plan can be implemented within 1-2 years in the project villages. The plan also highlights a gap of 7% (INR 41.6 lakhs) between the total amount required and the support available from the government. This indicates a potential for collaborative efforts between the government departments and private agencies, NGOs and development funds to partake in this activity (by way of co-financing and replicating existing plan) and further strengthen as well as scale out the convergence process in and beyond these villages. These plans were presented in three district level workshops to seek feedback from these government stakeholders on the process of convergence and to encourage them to participate in this activity in the near future. These were organized as online meetings with the relevant officials during July and August 2020. Across all these stages, the implementing agency (BAIF) played a key role in the facilitation of meetings, and capacity building of village community, community organizations (VCMV, CHC, farmer groups), gram panchayat members, government line departments, and community resource person. Liaising with the government departments in the initial stages was also a key activity for the agency.The process of convergence aims at sustainability of current adaptation interventions by trying to achieve several positive developmental outputs. These interventions, however, come with varying costs and economic impacts and their implementation requires a more integrated approach and well-defined action plans developed at the local level with the engagement of local government bodies. The process of convergence, therefore, provides a common platform for community and local government institutions to discuss, ideate, plan and implement adaptation programs to build and strengthen community resilience to climate risks.Private and government stakeholders were regularly asked to visit project demo sites, participate in farmer fairs and stakeholder workshops organized by the project as well as be involved in interactions with farmers through trainings.• Different forum like Kisan mela (Farmer fairs) also involved government officials, where farmers exchanged their learning from the project and possible ways to do the convergence through the government schemes. Interactions of government and private players with farmers were also organized during visits by CCAFS senior project staff during the project.• In order to make the convergence initiative sustainable, the project organized stakeholders workshops (Kisan Sangosti) in all three districts in 2019 involving members of Village Level Climate Management Committees (VCMCs) and Custom Hiring Centers (CHC) established under the project, along with district and block level government officials (line department officials, NABARD representatives, scientists from KVK and Universities). The objective was to facilitate an independent process of convergence by encouraging village community members to take a lead in the process. The workshop focused on interactions between government officials and farmers. While the farmers shared their experiences of the project related to the adoption of CSA practices and technologies, the government officials shared future opportunities to upscale Climate smart Agriculture activity through government programs in respective locations. • Scientists and staff of Krishi Vigyan Kendra, in particular, were encouraged to be involved in trainings of farmers for different thematic areas.\"Attending meetings and trainings and interaction with KVKs and block officials has helped me to build a repo with them. Now we know whom to contact for getting agricultural related information or any issues related to availing benefits of a schemes\" -VCMC member (village Hathkauli, Mathura, Uttar Pradesh)As part of the project, one of the objectives was to promote South-South cooperation to enable cross-border learning with other developing countries, especially Nepal and Bangladesh, on climate smart interventions that can be replicated at scale in their respective countries. With CCAFS leading the 'Climate smart Village' approach in several South Asian countries, it regularly identifies and showcases best practices/ innovations to stakeholders in the region. This objective was therefore achieved through a series of field visits, workshops and knowledge exchange programs, to give stakeholders a practical approach for implementing resilience related strategies. Two key approaches were adopted, including planned interactions with key stakeholders of South Asian countries and communication of project results to global audiences through and conferences as well as publications.This component comprised four major steps as explained below;7.1.1.The South-South learning was initiated with a workshop attended by 15 government delegates from Nepal. The two-days' workshop held on 1-2 October 2018 aimed to promote knowledge sharing among different stakeholders and learning from field-based experiences between the two countries.The first day of the workshop included a brief introduction about the need and objective of A visit to the Bajra crop field and fodder field exposed the participants to the practices of line sowing, nutrient management, fodder management, insurance and agro-advisory which are helping farmers in improving crop yields and incomes.The participants appreciated the guidance and knowledge shared by all stakeholders and expressed their keen interest in continuing to strengthen their relationship with CCAFS and its and local implementing partners in India. Details about the visit were shared in a CCAFS South Asia newsletter article 17 . The visit was able to promote a healthy dialogue for CSV related learnings between the participants and provide a better understanding of ongoing adaptation interventions in India through the USAID project site in Mathura. Based on a short feedback during the evaluation, the participants highlighted interest in interventions such as ICT based agro-advisory and insurance for implementation and scaling in Nepal.A CCAFS South Asia regional meeting titled \"Strengthening Climate-Resilient Agricultural Systems in South Asia\" was organized in Bali-Indonesia from 6 th to 7 th October 2019. The meeting aspired to build as well as further strengthen the already existing institutional partnership. As the second step, of stakeholder interaction, during this meeting a 'South-South cooperation (SSC)' learnings session was organized wherein the project interventions were presented along with an insightful discussion among over 60 participants including representatives from the scientific community, government, NGOs and donor agencies from four major South Asian economies, including India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan. The session provided a platform for cross-country learnings and potential strategies for scaling out climate-smart interventions in the region. It focused on exploring the possibilities of cooperation among different organizations working in the Global South. The session was chaired by Simrat Labana from USAID-India and co-chaired by Suryanarayan Bhaskar from ICAR-India.Key areas discussed during the session included knowledge exchange on research, and technology demonstrations on CSA technologies and practices on a common platform such as SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation); sharing CSA success stories as well as learnings from projects with different stakeholders on a common platform; initiating cross-regional projects through collaborations with agricultural universities and governments; and exploring the potential for cross-country technology transfer, capacity building and knowledge sharing.Overall, the session participants emphasized the need to understand geopolitical, socioeconomic and spatial opportunities of each region as different areas have their possibilities. The need to involve other countries of the Global South in the discussion was also highlighted as an action point. The participants were particularly interested in several Indian project-related innovations such as commercialization of small-scale mechanization through Custom Hiring Centers, eco-system required to promote Artificial Insemination for livestock improvement, use of climate-resilient seeds, engagement with tribal communities, and convergence activities.The evaluation of this workshop through a feedback survey highlighted that discussion on knowledge exchange on research, and technology demonstration on CSA technologies were found to be most useful by the participants who were also willing to pursue this in the near future. Additionally, all respondents agreed on the usefulness of the interactions arranged and also confirmed their willingness to participate in such forums in future.Two more activities were planned by the project as part of the South-South stakeholder interactions. However, the project was unable to complete them due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and resultant lockdown and travel restrictions. These included an exchange visit for 20 Indian project stakeholders, including NGO partner and farmers, from India to Nepal in March 2020 and inviting participants from South Asian countries of Nepal, and Bangladesh for the final project workshop.During the project period, the project team from CCAFS as well as BAIF have made several presentations to external scientific audiences, NGOs as well as the private sector (Table 7.1). These presentations have helped in igniting interest about project interventions especially those related to the institutions of Custom Hiring Centers and the overall approach to involve women across activities in Betul district. The livestock-based intervention of Artificial Insemination has also generated some interest. Below are some key workshops and conferences where project related results were presented: Representation in international and regional publications Besides, several newsletter articles have been produced highlighting project activities and circulated amongst CCAFS partner organizations in South Asia. These include scientific community members, NGOs, Private sector players and government representatives from countries including India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka among others. Additionally, the project site of Betul has been represented as a case study in multiple international publications. These have also helped in showcasing the project activities to neighbouring countries and encourage further discussions on scaling CSA interventions.Some high impact publications include the following: Overall, project related innovations like commercialization of small-scale mechanization through Custom Hiring Centers, eco-system required to promote Artificial Insemination for livestock improvement, engagement with tribal communities (especially women farmers), and convergence activities have generated interest among the participants of these activities. The project team is hopeful that its efforts will promote a better understanding of its approach and learnings to its participants of the South-South cooperation activity and encourage them to adopt similar interventions for scaling out Climate-Smart interventions in their respective regions.The baseline survey conducted at the beginning of the project with 1,1250 farmers across the three districts also included questions related to gendered decision making in agriculture and livestock. It highlighted that the majority of agricultural decision making in the project areas was done by only male (61% households) as compared to only females (3% households), except for Betul. In Betul, with most of the farmers belonging to tribal communities, women enjoyed relatively higher levels of freedom when it came to decision making in the families, with 68% of households citing joint decision making. In Mathura and Nalanda, on the other hand, 77% of households agreed that male household heads made decisions on agriculture related activities. In both areas, women's participation in decision making on agriculture related activities was very low (below 8%). A similar pattern of decision making was observed for livestock production related decision making in the project areas. In the tribal communities of Betul district, both male and female farmers were involved in the decision-making process. In the other two areas, women's participation in decision making on livestock related activities was very low (below 10%). A similar pattern of decision making was observed for livestock production related decision making in the project areas. In the tribal communities of Betul district, both male and female farmers were involved in the decision-making process (76%). In the other two areas, women's participation in decision making on livestock related activities was very low (below 10%).A separate survey was conducted to see the average labor contribution of men and women farmers in agriculture. It was found that active participation of women in agricultural activities in Betul district, where women contribute almost the same number of labor days as men in the cultivation process of all the crops. In Nalanda, women are involved more in Rice cultivation whereas in Mathura it is livestock that accounts for their maximum labor inputs. Women farmers' major labor contribution goes into transplanting, weeding and harvesting of Rice which takes up 60-70% of their total labor days in Rice crop cultivation. They also contribute more labor to value addition of crops. In Nalanda, most of these tasks are performed by hired female labor, while the women in the family supervise them. In Mathura, in term of livestock activities such as preparing the feed and curing the animal's women contribute around 50% of their daily time.Women's participation and role in agricultural activities and decision-making process was considered as a basis for technology intervention design. The adaptation design focused on identification and prioritization of gender friendly climate-smart agricultural technologies, practices and services.In Betul cluster, women actively participated in all the project activities including those which are considered more male centric. Key activities where women have actively participated are summarized in Table 8.1.(especially in Betul). These included meetings with technical experts, practical demonstrations, experience sharing and exposure visitsThe promotion of activities such as capacity building in INPM, vegetable cultivation and provision of improved seeds has helped women, farmers, to take up entrepreneurial activities including the sale of vegetables, seeds as well as fodder in some cases open (Table 8.2). The institution of Custom Hiring Centers is also recognized as an activity that promotes a sense of business and entrepreneurship among the members. A total of 318 women farmers are engaged in entrepreneurial activities through 182 enterprises (mix of group and individual membership-based) and earning additional income for themselves as well as their households through project promoted activities. Women farmers from Betul comprise 55% of the total and are mostly involved in the sale of vegetables as well as seeds.Sumanti Bai, a Super Champion farmer from Betul district, Madhya Pradesh is a happy beneficiary of biogas, She says \"As a climate-smart super-champion, I have installed a bio-gas plant behind my house and have greatly benefitted from it. I just need to use the excess cow dung as input and I get natural fertilizer and clean cooking gas as a result. Also, the smokeless cookstove has reduced my cooking time by 50%. Earlier my husband and I used to go to collect firewood and had to travel 8-10 kilometres every 2-3 days. It was difficult to procure firewood most of the times as we also had to bribe the forest officials to let us pass through. We also spent a lot of money to get fertilizer though it did not seem to have much impact on the yield. Now, I don't have to do all that. I also sell surplus vermicompost at times and earn money from that.\" Project intervention have enabled empowerment of women farmers through women-led groups, primarily in the form of increased access to climate and market information, community participation and group-based agency. Listed below are project related achievements that highlight some of the key indicators of women empowerment:The participation of women farmers as part of VCMCs, CHCs as well as capacity building activities has enabled increased recognition and leadership in the community, access to knowledge and information, as well as improved participation in household decision making. They have facilitated support of the local Gram Panchayats in promoting climatesmart technologies in the village. This has also improved the representation of women in decision making and their engagement with the local government bodies which was very nominal earlier. Women farmers have increasingly shown interest in learning new skills and gaining knowledge. This has been evident through the increased participation of women farmers from 17% in Year 2 to 40% in Year 4 during the trainings conducted. The increasing participation of women has also been seen in Mathura (2% in Year 2 to 17% in Year 4) and Nalanda (18% in Year 2 to 22% in Year 4) as result of constant communication with men and women farmers about the importance of gender inclusion in agriculture.Members of the CHCs are providing equipment on rent to other farmers and this is enabling a regular flow of income for the group. This is not only helping them to earn an income but also enabling them to build their decision-making capacity. Total rental incomes during the project period ranged from INR 26,825 in Betul to INR 59,995 in Mathura and INR 49,080 in Nalanda. Besides the income from the CHC, the regular trainings provided as part of the INPM practice is helping them to replace costly chemical-based inputs such as urea with organic and natural substitutes.Entrepreneurship activities such as selling biopesticide products like Nimastra, Dasparni, Bijamrit in have helped women groups in Betul earn an average of Rs. 800 to 1200 per month which is being used as a capital investment for the business they have started on a small scale. Some of the women have kept their income as savings with themselves. In Betul and Nalanda, women were also able to sell surplus vegetables produced by them from the kitchen garden activity. This also added to their economic independence and stability. The average income earned in a season by a women farmer through this activity is INR 8,000-10,000.With the technical help and guidance of the project team, Sulanta Brajlal, a women farmer of Betul district-Madhya Pradesh started vegetable cultivation on 0.5 acres of land behind her house. Sulanta Brajlal started growing bitter-guar and chillies in her vegetable garden via employing the acquired knowledge of sustainable farming. This reduced her dependence on the market to purchase vegetables, instead after getting her fill for the household purpose she started selling surplus vegetables in the farmers market, which in-turn led to a saving of INR 12,200. This amount was much higher than the earnings she received by cultivating maize on the same piece of land (INR 2,500).ATMA, Pantnagar where we were given training on mushroom cultivation. They also provided us with good quality seeds of mushroom. The training helped me and my CHC members to improve our production practices and increased in income from mushroom cultivation. Apart from this, we were also provided with a paddy trans-planter which helped us in efficient use of resources by saving labor cost and water \" -Dharmsheela, CHC Leader, NalandaPicture: Sulanta Brajlal with her harvested vegetablesInterventions such as direct-seeded rice, bio-gas and solar pumps not only involve women's participation but also help in reducing their labor hours while enabling GHG emission reduction. Direct seeded rice (DSR) is a practice that eliminates the activity of transplanting rice, a labor-intensive activity which is mostly carried out by women. Similarly, a total of four 1HP portable solar pumps are being promoted through the CHC model in Betul. The solar pump is not only an emission smart technology but is also a tool to reduce the labor burden of women farmers. These pumps, apart from being used for irrigation of crops such as vegetables, are also being used to pump out water for domestic purposes from the village wells. Women now need to use less energy to draw water from the wells and are also able to complete the water task in a lesser amount of time. Biogas plants also have a labor reducing potential apart from reducing GHG emissions. The used of Biogas for cooking eliminates the need for firewood collection as fuel and reduces the time taken to make cow dung cakes.Women farmers in Betul have also actively sought participation in activities related to health, nutrition and sanitation, conducted by other local agencies in their villages. For instance, women in two villages of Betul are also involved in programs such as the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) program through which they are benefitting from access to assets and facilities such as smokeless chulhas, bathrooms and toilets. By participating in multiple initiatives, therefore, women are being exposed to a wide portfolio of agricultural as well as domestic interventions, thereby improving their overall life and wellbeing. Additionally, women in Betul and Nalanda have also been enthusiastic about taking up organic farming, and vegetable cultivation. These activities also help in improving family nutrition through a more diverse and healthy diet.These outcomes are also affirmed through the endline survey where more than 85% of the respondents in Mathura and Betul highlighted a positive impact on women empowerment as a result of project interventions. These were mostly in the form of improved community participation (58%), improved confidence (13%) and increased access to new technologies and practices (11%).The present project has displayed that integrated participatory approach of empowering women farmers via varied activities and technologies can significantly improve the condition of women farmers. Activities such as focused training, use of gender-inclusive technologies, institutional mechanisms, and promoting entrepreneurship among others are some of the major activities which have displayed an encouraging impact on the life of women farmers. They have not just made them economically independent, but have also assisted them in claiming their space, respect and vagility in the society. The results have also highlighted that all outcomes are context specific and are subjected to change based on the location in which they are applied. Socio-economic and cultural characteristics of a community largely influence the efforts required as well as the results expected for gender related interventions.Nevertheless, replicating these efforts would offer immense scope for empowering women farmers across the country. Introducing centre and state-sponsored agricultural schemes which become the guiding book for facilitating the integration of women farmers in their programs. Various mechanism such as providing extra subsidy to women farmers, organizing women farmers' centered training at KVK, introducing/ subsidizing gender inclusive equipment and technologies can be some of the institutional changes which can be introduced in the system.In the past four years, the project has endeavoured to build the capacity of farmers and communities through various approaches to make project activities self-sustaining. The report explains these approaches through two key sections:9.1. The CSV project model:This section explains the approach that has been adopted by the project since its inception for promoting technology dissemination and adoption. The importance of the model is highlighted through its key components that make the project design sustainable 9.1.1.Hub and Spoke Model:The project adopted the hub and spoke model for implementation which involves farmers as a key participant of the process. There are two levels of hubs, the Super Champion and the Champion farmers. Based on the learnings derived from the project model, this section highlights different approaches that have already been adopted as well as activities that can be continued in the future to ensure the sustainability of the project interventions beyond its life. It emphasises on both assets that have already been created in the form of knowledge, institutions and technical resources) as well as potential opportunities in the form of partnerships with agencies across the value chain is also emphasized. traditional cropping practices. This ensures the spread of knowledge and the initiation of interactive learning among the farmers.Learning's from the project highlight the willingness of farmers to contribute resources to the model if it is designed as per their suitability and needs. The project has therefore ensured to work in partnership with the farming community to encourage their active involvement for successful implementation of the model itself. This will help in benefitting the 11,250 project beneficiaries beyond the life of the project.The project has promoted community-based institutions such as Cattle Development Centre and Custom Hiring Centers. In the past three years, there has been an increase in the uptake of services from these two community-centric institutions, and the project team anticipates continued usage of services from them beyond the life of the project.• Improvements in livestock development through the Cattle Development Centers are expected to continue to benefit the farmers beyond the life of the project. These services are available not just for the enrolled farmers in the project but also for all community members. Moreover, these services can now be offered through the BAIF Sustainability Model (BSM), which ensures that the AI Technicians (a village youth) earn money through the services he/ she offers, thereby ensuring sustainable climate-smart livestock intervention. Improvements in livestock development will continue to benefit the farmers beyond the life of the project.• Similarly, the Custom Hiring Center model has made farm machinery accessible to villagers residing in project districts. The equipment is available on rent to the entire community. These community-based institutions promote a 'business model' to seed the concept of self-reliance and entrepreneurship in rural communities. Managed by women farmers, these institutions are also contributing to gender integration and empowerment in the farm community.In addition to these, project interventions such as vegetable cultivation, improved seeds and Napier grass cultivation has encouraged farmers who start small enterprises and earn additional income. For instance, in Betul, two groups, each comprising of 15-16 women, are selling the biopesticide products in surrounding villages and 37 women farmers are involved in vegetable cultivation and selling them in the market. These enterprises will therefore also ensure continued interest in the adoption of these project interventions by the farmers and enable strengthening off their adaptive capacity to deal with climate risks in agriculture.As another step towards ensuring community participation and ownership, from the very beginning, the project has ensured that all selected Super Champion and Champion farmers also contribute a share of the portfolio cost that is being implemented on their fields.Farmers have been contributing up to 25% of technology cost in their fields or households, which includes demonstration plots, installation of biogas plants, azola ponds, etc. They have also availed services of CDC by paying up to 70% of the cost of service.Based on the project's internal field-based monitoring, most farmers have continued to adopt improved practices during the final year of the project without project input support.For instance, 467 farmers in Nalanda adopted the Direct-Seeded Rice during Kharif 2019 while at least 500 farmers have continued to adopt improved seed and line sowing in Mathura. Enterprises formed in Betul continue to run even during the pandemic situation. Additionally, the project has managed to indirectly benefit more than 8,000 farmers majorly through interventions such as CHCs, CDC, convergence and farmer fairs.Throughout the project duration, farmers have been engaged in regular trainings in different formats. Apart from regular training related to adaptation implementation, farmers are also exposed to field visits or visits to the local university to gain additional practical knowledge related to both existing as well as new practices. Additionally, farmer fairs have also been organized to involve a large number of farmers and highlight the adaptation benefits to non-project farmers. Some of the women farmers trained on Integrated Nutrient Management are also increasingly taking part in teaching other women farmers. A few of them are also engaged in their businesses of selling the products. All these serve as a cross-learning platform for farmers and are enabling scaling out of the technologies and practices to neighbouring areas. The project has specifically focused on enhancing the capacity of Super champions and Community Resource Persons, who as part of the hub and spoke method, in turn, would impart awareness and knowledge to other members of the community.This pathway emphasis the development of partnerships to scale-out project interventions in the existing project areas (horizontal) as well as with organizations across value chains to scale out through policy and other development sector players to other geographic locations (vertical).The projects convergence initiative aims to ensure continuity of interventions within project areas by providing a platform to farmers to benefit from multiple government incentives and therefore continue to have access to the project-initiated interventions. For instance, the participatory approach adopted to ensure smooth facilitation of the convergence process promotes collective planning and implementation among different stakeholders in the village community to enable improved management of activities and work output.Similarly, certain interventions such as those related to water management result in the creation of durable assets which continue to benefit the community for a long time. These structures also create economic opportunities when converged with schemes such as MNREGA.To ensure the continuation of the convergence process for scaling out CSA intervention in the project districts, the project developed a three-step approach: First, development of village-level climate resilience plans for each of the 75 villages, second, sharing of these plans along with a district-level convergence plan with key district government stakeholders (highlighting investment required, convergence potential, interventions to implement and government schemes that can be leveraged for convergence to achieve the targeted interventions in the next 1-2 years after project closure), and third, conducting a districtlevel workshop with these stakeholders to seek feedback and to encourage them to participate in this activity in the near future.The convergence plans suggest a total convergence of approximately INR 6.1 crore for the 75 project villages across 3 districts. Out of this, 5.7 crores (93%) can be utilized from existing government schemes and programmes. It is anticipated that the plans can be implemented within 1-2 years in the project villages. The plan also highlights a gap of 7% (INR 41.6 lakhs) between the total amount required and the support available from the government. This indicates a potential for collaborative efforts between the government departments and private agencies, NGOs and development funds to partake in this activity (by way of co-financing and replicating existing plan) and further strengthen as well as scale out the convergence process in and beyond these villages.Schemes across several departments at district levels play an important complementary role in promoting climate change adaptation intervention at the village level. Mainstreaming adaptation into planning implementation of these can, therefore, provide a means to scale up local adaptation actions at the district level. It will provide a platform to support and channelize public and private-sector investments. It will also help adaptation to be aligned with existing long-term national, sub-regional development plans and thereby provide direct gains to the vulnerable communities. These plans therefore also highlight the potential of scaling these plans at the district level. By implementing these plans at the district level, the project promoted adaptation interventions have the potential to reach 3,247 villages covering at least 4,87,050 households (Table 9.1). The need to scale out interventions through farmer groups and Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO) was also emphasized upon by Nalanda government officials. They also showed their interest in continuing interaction with farmers, especially for improved seeds for vegetables and livestock-related interventions. Betul government stakeholders also expressed their willingness to continue providing support to project farmers in the form of trainings, especially for women farmers, as well as livestock development related interventions. The institution of CHC was highlighted as an innovative model and it's potential to be scaled out in other parts of the district to help farmers access agricultural technology. The Feedback received during these convergence workshops appeared positive across the three districts and the project, therefore, is hopeful of these convergence plans being implemented in the coming one to two years.When scaling up vertically, we aim to ensure that the CSV practices are integrated into various schemes and programs of government and non-government agencies at the district and/or state level. These may include organizations such as NABARD, KVKs, Agricultural Universities and locally relevant NGOs/ CSR agencies. These linkages have been emphasized during be convergence workshops conducted in all the three districts and therefore show potential for promoting the project interventions beyond the project areas. There are several potential opportunities for our implanting agency (BAIF) to pursue collaboration with these organizations including the following:• NABARD: Act as a resource agency for NABARD's Centre for Climate Change and develop training modules based on our learnings and models to integrate our approach as part of their trainings. • KVK's and Agricultural Universities: Organize visits for the organization staff to inform them about different adaptation options that can be disseminated in their regions. This pathway highlights current communication efforts that aim to reach out to a larger audience for sharing best practices, information, and success stories from the project. It also involves integrating learnings from the project into agricultural programmes and projects of the implementing NGO partner BAIF.The processes, experiences and learnings of the implementing agency need to be captured for effective dissemination. These may be in the form of short videos of the intervention or modules for training cadre and farmers. Three types of formats may be used by the implementing agency (BAIF) to facilitate knowledge sharing with other development sector players:a. Climate-Smart Village' concept appreciation programs: Specialized programs for sensitizing participants about the relevance of adopting holistic approaches to address climate change impacts, and application of the same across different project settings. b. Programme based trainings: Trainings to facilitate the integration of adaptation interventions across different programmes or projects of BAIF using different formats such as orientation programs, specialized thematic trainings/ workshops, facilitation visits, and need-based trainings. c. Planned Exposure Visits for the district-level functionaries and farmers: Exposure visits for farmers and/or government officials will be planned to introduce them to the CSV model. The exposure visit will be designed as a 'walk through' informing the participants about the different interventions, helping them understand key interlinkages between different activities and how available resources can be used to implement a similar programme in their area.The project has developed numerous digital outreach and communication materials for external audiences such as a project webpage, articles, info-notes and blogs on CCAFS website and publications which were re-printed / hosted on other websites. Other than that, the project site of Betul has been represented as a case study in multiple high impact international publications. These have also helped in showcasing the project activities to neighbouring countries and encourage further discussions on scaling CSA interventions.Additionally, during the project period, the project team from CCAFS as well as BAIF have made several presentations to external scientific audiences, NGOs as well as the private sector. These presentations have helped in igniting interest about project interventions especially those related to the institutions of Custom Hiring Centers and the overall approach to involve women across activities in Betul district.Several communication materials in the form of boards and messages on walls are also present in the villages and will continue to inform farmers about the project's intervention and benefits while also providing them with information. Examples of such communication can be seen in the below pictures.  The partner NGO carried out frequent monitoring of the project implementation to verify the quality and performance of the project. The project field staff visited the project area daily whereas the state head of the NGO visited the project area quarterly. Besides, the NGO executive members accompanied by project officials visited and monitored project sites on regular basis. The partner NGO has their Monitoring and Vigilance cell which used to monitor and evaluate the project on the yearly basis and suggested for the improvement and make the aware the project staff for any delay or technical gap in the project implementation.The project review meetings were held at a different periodic interval. The project review meetings were held monthly at the project location where the project manager and the thematic experts of BAIF reviewed the progress of the project and suggested and guided the field staff for the implementation. The quarterly review meetings were held in the presence of CCAFS project team, BAIF seniors and project field team which helped and resolved the queries of the project and ensured the project progress as per the plan. From the meetings and discussion, the project has made several strategic decisions including additional capacity building to strengthen woman participation, adoption of sorted semen technology and convergence of the project activities with existing government scheme which started with Betul, Madhya Pradesh and later scaled up at remaining two districts i.e. Mathura (Uttar Pradesh) and Nalanda (Bihar).The project has regularly submitted quarterly and yearly progress reports to update USAID on the field activities and progress. Besides, the project has also prepared 11 case studies and six supplementary reports to highlight the project's key achievements across major thematic areas. These include reports on; Convergence, gender integration, sustainability and scalability pathways, business model and implementation guidelines. The reports showcase the various facets of project interventions for internal and external stakeholders These approaches and implementation pathways can be used by diverse institutions to develop Climate-Smart Villages and climate resilient programs.CCAFS staff like the project manager and field coordinator carried out monitoring visit every month to the project locations. Additionally, the technical experts from the CCAFS visited the project locations and guided the field team. Besides the planned monitoring and review activities by project team and CCAFS team, project's dignitaries from USAID India have also made several monitoring visits to project sites. It was notable that the visits have encouraged the farmers, partners and the other stakeholders of the project.The midline survey was conducted to provide an information base against which to monitor and assess progress and effectiveness after the activities were completed in the project. The survey provided data that helped to assess project outputs, contribution to project outcomes and impacts. The specific objectives of the midline survey were; to serve as the second measure of all main program indicators as per the Performance Indicator, to highlight the project achievements since inception against the indicator targets described in the Indicators of Performance, to gather data that can inform project implementer regarding the areas that are on track or those that need further attention to achieve project outcomes. The midline surveys were conducted in all three project districts, Mathura (Uttar Pradesh), Nalanda (Bihar) and Betul (Madhya Pradesh) to capture the results of the activities in both the Kharif (2018) and Rabi (2019) seasons. In each district, 25 villages are part of the project. In each of these villages, data was collected from the Super-Champion and Champion farmers on their use of CSA technologies and practices and the resulting improvements in yields, income, resilience and the mitigation was calculated against the baseline.10.1.6. Remote Monitoring during COVID 19:Since, March 25th, 2020, with the announcement of nation-wide lockdown, routine operations in India were closed. With no access to labor for harvesting, vehicles for transportation and food markets for selling the produce, many small farmers faced difficulty to trade their produce in the market. During the project duration, several interventions were implemented to enhance the adaptive capacities of the farmers against climate risks. Capacity strengthening of the village-based institutions and farmers through capacity building and training and linking them to government officials and market stakeholders were a key activity in this regard. This has in turn supported farmers to better respond to the Covid-19 induced lockdown in India. The project team provided telephonic guidance and support to farmers during the lockdown period. CCAFS and BAIF remotely monitored the situation on the ground to understand how farmers / SHGs were organizing themselves to be better engaged with the markets-selling farm produce (milk, vegetables, grains, biofertilizers or bio-pesticides, seeds, fodder, etc.), collective purchase of seeds, and any other adaptation strategies at the farm gate while highlighting any COVID-19 related intervention that was advocated by the project team which is being adopted by farmers and communication or notification of the government shared by the project team with beneficiaries or communities during the lockdown.• A high percentage of respondents in Nalanda (97%) and Betul (95%) districts availed the benefits from CHC services. Due to higher attention of the program on livestock management in Mathura, the spread of these interventions remained limited to 26% in the district. The most useful benefits from availing the CHC services included improved agricultural production (45%) followed by improved access to various farming equipment at affordable rental cost as reported by 27 % farmers. Further, 41% women participants in the survey also reported increased participation in community activities and 25% cited improved confidence as an important outcome from their participation in overall project activities. • A resounding 83 % of farmers reported using weather and other advisory services facilitated through the project. Change in sowing dates (43%) and use of natural pesticides/fertilizers (27.5%) was identified as the most useful impact from the advisory services • In Nalanda and Betul a positive outlook on women empowerment was perceived by 89% and 86% farmers, respectively while only a handful of participants (29%) regarded the same in Mathura. Increased community participation (58%), improved confidence (13%) and access to new technologies and practices (11%) are identified as the most important impacts of project activities for women beneficiaries. These results reflect the project's level of efforts in the three districts (focus on gender in Betul and Nalanda) as well as the impacts reported in annual reports. • A key activity that appeared to be very successful was that of convergence.Convergence benefits were reported by 93% of respondents. As much as 63% of respondents also cited that they would be able to reach out to government officials by themselves highlighting the capacity building effects of the project interventions • The CSV interventions were aimed to enhanced productivity, profitability and resource use efficiency. To this end, the increase in overall crop and livestock productivity was confirmed by 87% of surveyed farmers, while increased income benefits from crop and livestock were reported by 89% of farmers. Availability and access to food reportedly increased for 85% of respondents. The report highlighted that overall sustainability and scalability of project interventions will be tested in the next two years as it is anticipated that farmers, Self-Help Groups and the Community Resource Persons continue to use technologies promoted by the project. The evolution and management of community-based institutions over the next two-three years could also provide interesting insights on the uptake of CSA technologies and the viability of Custom Hiring Centers and Cattle Development Centers.The aspect of affordability of the most popular interventions was also pointed as it was felt that interventions in future may require continued support from the government or other agencies, especially for smallholder farmers. Also, given the constraints of a phone-based survey to capture quantitative estimation of impacts with the baseline figures (average income improvement of 96% and productivity improvements of 69% as reported by CCAFS in Quarterly Progress Reports and Annual Reports), the difficulty to ascertain the extent of the improved yields and incomes for the beneficiary farmers was also mentioned. Additionally, the report pointed to the importance of sustained activities to ensure that the transitions introduced during the project keep up their pace to meet the new challenges of climate change that will emerge over time.Overall, the project was termed as an extremely important intervention that has addressed to a great extent and laid a framework to sustain these activities in future. It was noted that a literature review of quarterly reports and annual reports point to very impressive gains in yields and incomes of farmers, which was substantiated by farmers through the phonebased survey. Feedback from farmers and stakeholders has been very positive, which is indicative of successful implementation of project interventions not just in terms of improvements in yields and incomes, but also the overall strengthening of the eco-system through technical knowledge and community mobilization. This to a large extent has been made possible through a coordinated approach between a scientific organization like CCAFS and community led NGO like BAIF. It was advised that USAID commission an in-depth evaluation of the project to ascertain the impact of CSA interventions across project sites to capture the impact of this intervention, as and when possible in future. Impacts of community led approaches and convergence initiatives will make for a very interesting study on out-scaling technologies and amplifying impacts through stakeholders in the ecosystem.The following tables highlight the progress and achievements during the project period based on the indicators. The project has come up with many insights which helped the organization, community and the other stakeholders of the project to improve their skill and knowledge about the climate change and enhance their adaptive capacity to tackle the climatic risk.• CCAFS-BAIF partnership: The project achievements reflect the success of an innovative partnership between an international scientific organization (CCAFS) and an implementing NGO agency (BAIF). Each partner contributed their unique set of technical and field knowledge, to mobilize and bring together various stakeholders including several government line departments across the three districts. The symbiotic relationship observed between the two organizations during the project is a lesson for the larger development community. It highlights how scientifically proven interventions can be effectively scaled out at the field level, while at the same time highlighting how local ground-based insights and impacts can also be communicated to the larger global audiences.The project used a participatory approach for designing the project implementation plan to ensure that stakeholders and communities develop partnerships for the long-run and that primary stakeholders (farmers) have the opportunity to provide feedback on areas for improvement. All project villages in the selected districts, promising CSA technologies, implementation methods were finalized in consultation with farmers and their groups, local government organizations and implementing partners. These kinds of participatory approaches, promote learning, program improvement, and sustainability. This project learned that majority of the farmers are keen to contribute to project monitoring and evaluation if allowed to do so in ways that suit their farming activities. As implementers, therefore, the project team needs to come in with an open mind and be prepared to listen to what the primary stakeholders have to contribute. We also need to work in partnership with community stakeholders to set expectations and brainstorm actionable steps for successful implementation of the CSV approach itself as well as the recommendations arising out of it. • Single vs combination of technologies/practices: Understanding the importance of going beyond a single technology implementation model, the project designed portfolios of climate resilient technologies in the farmers' field to enhance farm production/income, improve input use efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural activities. After the implementation of a portfolio of technology, the results show that the combination of technologies/practices can significantly improve crop yield and income and the majority of farmers are willing to implement a portfolio of technologies. Several practices and technologies were found to be complementary and enabling enhancement of results such as the use of improved seed with the seed treatment enhanced the growth and yield of the crop and reduced the soil born disease. The endline results, however, point to the fact that the portfolio of technologies need not be a long list as seen for the Super-Champions. Implementation of few technologies including improved seed, nutrient management and agro advisory, as adopted by CSA farmers, can also be effective to enhance agricultural productivity and incomes. Also, providing economic incentives related to improved incomes works as an effective incentive to adopt a group approach. For instance, women farmers took more interest in the CHC model as it provided them with an additional income source, as compared to their conventional SHGs that were formed for income saving purposes. • Challenges in working with the public or private sector: It is difficult to convince the private sector to participate as their business-oriented objectives make them reluctant to enter the villages at a small scale. Similarly, with the government, it is challenging to first establish a relationship with them. A lot of continuous engagement needs to be done to convince them to participate in any capacity for the project beneficiaries. Most of the time to attract the government and private sector for the particular technology, it is important to demonstrate it at the farmer field successfully for stakeholders to be able to accept and start investing in it. • Convergence is key to building Climate resilience: Schemes across several departments at district levels play an important complementary role in promoting climate change adaptation intervention at the village level. Mainstreaming adaptation into planning implementation of these can, therefore, provide a means to scale up local adaptation actions at the district level. CCAFS has developed detailed post-project convergence plans, by assessing all 75-project villages for climate adaptation and overlaying it with the types of interventions and finally aligning it to the level of investments required from on-going government programs to climate proof all three districts. These can serve as a valuable tool for communities and policymakers to guide their decisions on future resilience and livelihoods related budgeting. These post-projects converge plans should become standardized components of future resilience projects. CCAFS and BAIF are now well positioned to orient /train other government institutions as well as donor and implementing agencies on this innovative concept of developing post-project convergence plans to build resilience in the eco-system.Based on these learnings as well as the project team's experience over the last four years, several potential pathways can be explored to promote the project's interventions across different regions, to ensure sustainability and resiliency of the food systems towards climate risks.The first such pathway explores the potential for public-private partnerships for scaling adaptation interventions. Opportunities to scale up public-private collaboration on building climate-resilient agriculture production systems are largely unexplored. However, benefits through public and private stakeholder relationships for farmers established during the project period highlight immense potential to further explore this nexus of stakeholders. Design of innovative investment mechanisms for CSV approach can help to leverage both public and private capital including the funds available through \"Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)\" initiatives and various government schemes. This bundling of a wide range of climate investments options can also provide a more holistic and comprehensive solution to climate change impacts on agriculture, focusing not just on technology provision but also on building knowledge and skill to ensure sustainability.A second pathway emerges from the convergence initiative which has highlighted that despite the availability of several government schemes and programmes, their utilization is still very limited. Several funds and schemes of agencies such as NABARD provide immense potential to focus on developing interventions aimed at improving the climate resilience of the agricultural systems in India. However, lack of understanding and awareness among the relevant stakeholders about targeting interventions in specific regions based on the local requirements limits the efficient utilization of these funds. Effective capacity building efforts therefore can play a key role in bridging this gap and ensuring effective convergence of funds from different government organizations. International development agencies, donor organizations and NGOs can be a key intermediary here to ensure that adequate capacity is built across research, implementation and policy stakeholders to collectively utilize the synergies offered by the public funds.The third pathway promotes replication of the Climate-Smart Village concept through the resilience approach. The resilience framework, as highlighted by the project, has immense scope of being replicated and expanded under varied regional and socio-economic contexts.There is a need to focus on the inter-relationships and dependencies of different stakeholders across the three levels. Focusing on only one is not sufficient and therefore efforts need to ensure that benefits have positive spillovers across all three levels. While economic resilience if often the target for most interventions, it can be further enhanced through the development of social resilience, which, at the same time, can also augment environmental resilience. Future interventions, therefore, should focus on context-specific issues defined by not just the changing climate conditions but also the prevalent socioeconomic and cultural systems. For this building and strengthening local level institutions can play a key role, as learnt from the project's experience during the COVID-19 related lockdown.To summarize, the project's experience and learnings highlight ample scope to further build on the project's achievement and expand the same across other regions. The report highlights several pathways to scale out as well as sustain the current levels of project's progress made in the three districts. ","tokenCount":"19635"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"dcc98aeec423130052605d8da50af63d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/88018cfa-4855-45a1-9b04-62939900613e/retrieve","id":"-1065730987"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"703c3d0d-7b67-4e1b-b657-c082ca76d66f","pagecount":"33","content":"• albescens • coccineus • costaricensis • dumosus Acervo PRIMARIO• vulgarisPhaseolus spp. originaron en una serie de nichos ecológicosAcervo TERCIARIO • acutifolius • parvifoliusAcervo PRIMARIO• vulgarisQué ofrece cada acervo para el mejoramiento del poroto común? • El género Phaseolus ha evolucionado en ambientes muy contrastantes y con estrategias de supervivencia contrastantes • El Phaseolus vulgaris no está bien preparado para enfrentar los cambios de clima que se acercan • El acervo terciario representa un modelo y una posible fuente de genes para mejorar el poroto común • Es factible pensar en el uso más amplio de las especies del acervo terciario, gracias a los avances en compatibilidad entre las especies","tokenCount":"110"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"bf42a17712b7f51432a60ea79ea51825","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5a2a1e33-6edf-4c7c-9378-27f6c28f3154/retrieve","id":"22158546"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"84749187-bdbb-4adb-bf37-b278ee1e2431","pagecount":"22","content":"). RTB research covers six crops-bananas (and plantains), cassava, potato, sweetpotato, yams, and other roots and tubers-and is organized around seven disciplinary Themes 1 (http://bit.ly/1hzeWAN). Under the guidance of RTB's Theme leaders, multi-year complementary funding projects on cross-crop and multicenter research were initiated in 2012 and 2013. In 2014, four complementary funding projects ended and were preparing for a two-year extension; four ex-post impact assessment studies got underway.The disciplinary Themes offer a strong basis for planning and monitoring of research products, but do not provide a coherent basis for tracking research and development outcomes. Achieving outcomes requires several Themes to come together, building on the entire stock of available technology. At the 2014 Annual Meeting, RTB scientists developed a new program structure (following CGIAR guidelines) to facilitate results-based management (RBM) based upon a linked set of discovery, delivery, and impact at scale flagship projects (http://bit.ly/1NXUbLz). RTB will move to the new program structure beginning in January 2016. In 2014, writing teams began to scope out business cases for the flagships and their respective clusters of activities. For clusters in delivery flagships, research products were identified, impact pathways were tentatively mapped out, and indicators for Intermediate Development Outcomes (IDO) were estimated. Central to putting RBM in place is securing the collaboration of stakeholdersespecially of the downstream development partners who share accountability for achieving outcomes.Impact pathways co-constructed with stakeholders. The CGIAR Consortium awarded RTB a grant in 2014 to implement a pilot project of RBM (http://bit.ly/1kBI62P). Stakeholder planning workshops were held for two clusters linked with delivery flagships: Seed potato systems in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW) management in Eastern and Central Africa (http://bit.ly/1C6tb51). Clusters integrate multiple initiatives from different sources of RTB funding. A broad range of stakeholders participated in the workshops: farmers and farmer organizations; national, regional, and international research organizations; relevant ministries and national agencies; private companies; national and international NGOs; and international development agencies. During the workshop, stakeholders and RTB scientists co-constructed more realistic, nonlinear impact pathways (http://bit.ly/1FkBU8Z). They illustrate the interactions between outcome levels and among products and outcomes. Additionally, the intervention was better contextualized, with priorities and specific strategies identified by region or by country. Scientists and stakeholders collaborated to identify enabling and disenabling factors for the causal sequences to work through. Co-constructing the results framework facilitated the definition of an agreed indicators' framework for monitoring expected changes. Participants agreed that the quantitative indicators-based monitoring approach was feasible, and that future workshops for qualitative follow-up and reflection are needed.As part of the RBM pilot, RTB scientists and partners took part in a workshop to develop a monitoring and evaluation system (M&E) for genetic gains in RTB crops. The conclusions of this workshop established a solid basis for setting up metrics by which results from laboratories, experiment stations, and farms will be evaluated for their contribution to improve, monitor, and evaluate the rates of genetic gain (http://bit.ly/1bpr8SJ).Applying state-of-the-art biological tools. The second achievement relates to the project \"Enhancing global RTB productivity through more targeted use of global RTB genetic diversity,\" which has concluded its first phase. This integrated all RTB centers and brought together conservation biologists, breeders, molecular geneticists, molecular biologists, biochemists, and bioinformatics experts to build a research platform that brings state-of-the-art biological tools to advance breeding for bananas, cassava, potatoes, sweetpotatoes, and yams. The aim was to unravel the genetic potential of the underutilized RTB crop diversity held in trust by CGIAR centers. Three main work packages were: (i) genotyping, (ii) phenotyping and (iii) breeding applications. Nearly 6,500 RTB accessions from the genebanks and elite breeding pools have been characterized using next-generation sequencing. This effort helped to identify hundreds of thousands of single nucleotide variants that together will help RTB scientists in the near future to unravel the genetic mechanisms behind key sustainability traits, including drought and pest/diseases tolerance, or those related to high productivity (e.g., heterosis), high quality (e.g., postharvest losses and consumer preferences), and high nutritional potential (e.g., high vitamin and micronutrient content).The game changer for phenotyping has been the investment in metabolomics capacity to help measure genotypic and phenotypic responses at the molecular level. Accessing this technology required improved experimental design for all crops, since small variations in metabolite concentrations need to be detected. This technology depends on extensive technical and biological replicates to accurately hone in on important gene effects. This investment has produced the first diversity metabolic compound libraries of approximately 7,000 metabolic features per crop, which will help unlock the genetic potential of current traits.For breeding applications, this project accelerated the use of genome-wide association to quickly and accurately link areas of the genome with important traits. For banana, this includes the ability to produce pulpy seedless fruit. For cassava, genes controlling cyanogenic potential have been placed in two chromosomes. For tetraploid potato, genome-wide association studies showed that regions of chromosome 4 and chromosome 5 have significant effects on traits associated with tuber initiation and bulking. In addition, feasibility of genomic selection in potato breeding was demonstrated. Prediction accuracies for traits associated with early bulking and tuberization in tetraploid breeding populations and for accumulation of minerals, vitamin C, and yield in diploid landrace germplasm were sufficiently high to merit implementation of genomic selection of superior progenitors in these two gene pools.The total budget for RTB approved in October RTB scientists are estimating IDOs for the clusters in delivery flagships, drawing on results of the RTB strategic assessment of research priorities, likelihood of adoption, and total area of adoption domain.Figures were obtained by aggregating country-specific estimates that are available for cluster business cases (e.g., adoption area, number of beneficiaries, changes in yield and income). A mass field screening for heat tolerance of 1,973 sweetpotato accessions from the CIP genebank resulted in the identification of 146 accessions that performed well under heat-stress conditions, of which at least 21 produced high yields and early bulking. Heat-tolerant clones identified in the trials are potential candidates for breeding efforts in marginal areas of Africa and Asia, where intense heat and drought are major constraints for the crop.Accurate identification of crop cultivars is crucial in assessing the impact for clonally propagated species that rely on informal seed for variety dissemination. IITA, in partnership with Michigan State University, and the Crops Research Institute of Ghana, implemented a pilot study on the utility of DNA markers to track improved cassava varieties in Ghana. A total of 917 accessions collected from 495 farming households (HH) were genotyped-by-sequencing at 56,849 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) loci along with a \"reference library\" of 64 accessions of released varieties and known landraces. CIAT identified 96 SNP, fitting on one typical type of micro-array (chip) that can fingerprint varieties, reliably and cheaply, and used this for a cassava variety adoption survey in Cauca, Colombia, with over 400 samples collected.Research into improving the management of seed degeneration (i.e., the accumulation and transmission of pathogens via planting material from one crop cycle to the next) produced improvements in theoretical modeling that argue for a more integrated approach to the problem in developing nations. Data from field studies in China and several African and South American countries were used to strengthen a theoretical model for predicting yield under different management strategies. Researchers began enhancing the model with management performance maps, which could be used to predict the effectiveness of strategies in specific regions and agro-ecologies.The aroid root crops taro (Colocasia esculenta) and cocoyam (Xanthosoma sagittifolium) are important for the food security, nutrition, and livelihoods of poor farmers in West and Central Africa, since they can be grown on marginal land and have high levels of protein, vitamins, and minerals. However, they are increasingly threatened by cocoyam root rot disease and taro leaf blight; the latter causes an estimated crop loss of US$1.4 billion annually. RTB commissioned a scoping study of the crops' status in West and Central Africa. The study calls for a more comprehensive assessment of the diseases' status, the initiation of breeding for resistance, and creation of a regional network of specialists in the crop (http://bit.ly/1aaKuup).Researchers from the four CGIAR centers, the University of Wageningen, and Kansas State University completed and analyzed 12 case studies of banana, cassava, potato, sweetpotato, and yam seed systems in Africa and Latin America as part of a cross-center effort to construct an RTB seed systems framework. Questions arose about the efficiency and value for money of rapid seed multiplication and seed quality regulation interventions. And researchers cited a need to better assess farmer demand before initiating seed system work. As the team moves forward on the framework, closer links will be established with RTB seed degeneration research (http://bit.ly/1C6wt8h).Latest research shows that well-sequenced simple and affordable steps toward sustainable intensification can effect large productivity increases in cassava and close the yield gap by up to 50% (assuming 100 t/ha fresh root yield potential). A multifactorial trial in Nigeria showed the differences in yield margins caused by different factors. The factor providing the largest yield increase was the correct choice of variety. An improved variety that was erect, resistant to Cassava Mosaic Disease (CMD), and non-branching out-yielded a similarly CMD-resistant branching variety by 23%. Many smallholders intercrop cassava, chiefly with maize. And although this practice lowers yields, such losses are more than compensated for by the income from maize (with a 30% increase of total system gross income). Sustainable intensification requires close collaboration between disciplines and the full consideration of the biophysical and economic consequences of changes to the production system (http://bit.ly/1SA5wBL).RTB launched a three-year project, funded by International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)/ European Union, in Uganda in 2014, to improve postharvest management practices for banana, cassava, potato, and sweetpotato through collaborative research. The project began with a scoping phase, in which the participating CGIAR centers (CIP, IITA, Bioversity) and their partners submitted seven business cases for review. Four were subsequently funded: (i) increase of farmer access to specialized ware potato markets through improvements in storage technologies, (ii) testing of techniques for extending the shelf life of cassava such as high relative humidity storage and coating the roots with paraffin wax, (iii) improvement of the utilization of sweetpotato and other root-and-tuber-crop byproducts as pig feed; and (iv) identification of cooking banana varieties and farming practices that will facilitate a steadier market supply and to diversify the way cooking banana is presented and sold. Each business case is being executed by a specialized team with more than 20 national organizations participating in the project. These include universities, Uganda's National Agricultural Research Organization, NGOs, private companies, and farmer associations (http://bit.ly/1NNDKiS).Research under Theme 7 is reported under sections C.3 (impact), D (gender), and F (capacity building).Progress was made towards the achievement of RTB IDOs (see Table 1) as detailed below.IDO: Productivity -potato yields tripled in Ethiopia. Over the past five years, the project \"Better Potato for a Better Life\" in Ethiopia has established close partnerships with a range of research and development partners, including five government research and extension institutions, four NGOs, three universities, and six commercial seed companies. In collaboration with these partners, decentralized seed production systems were successfully established in Tigray and the Southern Nations, Nationalities and People's Region (SNNPR). Tissue culture laboratories and rapid minituber multiplication facilities with the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, Tigray Agricultural Research Institute, the Southern Agricultural Research Institute, and two private sector companies produce disease-free planting material. This material is then further multiplied by the private sector and farmer groups and cooperatives located in major production areas. As a result, the demand for quality seed in SNNPR and Tigray can now be met through local production, thereby achieving seed self-sufficiency and reducing the risk of introducing seed-borne diseases through seed imports from neighboring regions. Farmer groups supported by the project have produced, sold, and distributed more than 16,000 t of quality seed tubers. Potato seed storage-an important bottleneck-has been alleviated through the construction of more than 860 diffused light seed stores with a total capacity of around 5,800 t. Approximately 1,200 extension agents and more than 24,000 farmers have been trained on improved potato production and postharvest technology. Participating farmers experienced average yields that increased to 22.2 t/ha (based on 133 yield measurements), from average yields of around 8 t/ha (close to national average) prior to the project. This yield increase was due to the use of (i) CIP-bred varieties that were high yielding and resistant to late blight, (ii) high-quality seed, and (iii) improved agronomic practices.IDO: More sustainably managed agro-ecosystems -dramatic reduction in banana Xanthomonas wilt.As a result of collaboration between Bioversity, IITA, and national partners in Eastern and Central Africa, banana farmers are changing their approach to managing the devastating banana Xanthomonas wilt (BXW). When BXW first struck in the early 2000s, farmers were advised to remove the male bud (attracts vectors), disinfect cutting tools, uproot infected mats, and replant with clean planting material-preferably tissue culture plantlets. The new, single diseased stem removal (SDSR) technique builds on research by Bioversity and IITA which showed that, as long as fresh infections are prevented, infected mats will recover under the combined effects of slow bacterial spread from one stem to another and latent infections. SDSR is now being evaluated on 540 smallholdings across 10 pilot sites in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Initial results showed that SDSR has reduced disease incidence to very low levels within three months. Continued control is expected to keep incidence at levels that do not imply any significant losses for farmers. The effect of SDSR on farm income is illustrated by the Katana Center trial results from DRC. Healthy stems increased from less than 20% at the onset of the trial to over 99% at eight months after trial initiation. By the end of 2014, close to 300 bunches were harvested and another 400 will be harvested before June 2015. Representing the only source of significant income, earnings from these bunches will be around US$2,300 from the 600 mats.During the early stages of the trial, the farmers also planted income-earning alternative annual crops (mainly bush beans), exploiting the low density of banana stems. The Katana pilot site (600 mats distributed over 10 plots) is now acting as a demonstration and training center.Meanwhile, a project aiming to increase scaling options, led by Bioversity and Institutional Learning and Change Initiative (ILAC), is shedding light on the interactions between livelihood strategies and BXW control in the highlands of South Kivu, with important implications for the design of intervention strategies (http://bit.ly/1PcdphW). Three important insights emerged, which will be used to redefine the goals, design, and evaluation of control campaigns. First, SDSR effectively controls BXW at low cost in individual plots in South Kivu, with the potential to convert BXW from a devastating disease that requires collective control into a disease that individuals can manage effectively and efficiently. Second, the diverse livelihood strategies of farmers, with varying roles of bananas, require a differentiated approach to BXW management. And third, household efforts to control BXW vary accordingly.Both the SDSR work and the RBM pilot for BXW management have strengthened the engagement with a broad range of stakeholders. In North Kivu, the provincial branch of the DRC Ministry of Agriculture commissioned an SDSR out-scaling project between March and September 2014, based on the ongoing SDSR pilot-site work in North Kivu (led by Université Catholique du Graben, Butembo). The project worked with five big farmer associations (in 10 villages, 2 villages per association, 21,000 members with near gender balance) and trained around 250 agronomists and lead farmers across the villages, reaching 1,500-2,000 farmers by September 2014. Further scaling is underway with other DRC stakeholders involved in the BXW-RBM pilot. Diverse communication channels have been used to spread the word. 2 IDO: Improved diets for poor and vulnerable people -doubling of dietary Vitamin A intake in Kenya.Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) causes significant rates of blindness, disease, and premature death in SSA.Orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) is an important source of beta-carotene, which is converted into vitamin A in the body. Pregnancy is an opportune time to reach women with nutritional and health interventions that can lower their risk of VAD and enhance growth of infants under 2 years. Intervention at the community level in selected health facilities across Busia and Bungoma districts of Western Province, Kenya, showed successful introduction of beta-carotene-rich sweetpotato and increases in the consumption of vitamin A-rich foods and use of antenatal care services. (These facilities were implemented within the existing USAID/Kenya AIDS, Population and Health Integrated Assistance Program Plus, 2010-2014.) During each antenatal care visit, nurses provided improved nutrition counseling along with vouchers that women used to obtain OFSP vines to plant. Over 5,900 pregnant or lactating women redeemed 4,464 pairs of vouchers for vines. Community health workers established 215 pregnant women clubs made up of 2,764 members and, together with agricultural extension agents, disseminated information on the production and consumption benefits of OFSP through community field days and food preparation demonstration activities. A longitudinal Cohort for Vitamin A study was carried out among 505 women from mid-pregnancy through 9 months postpartum to assess how uptake of the OFSP interventions impacts nutrition and health status, including uptake of health services by mothers and their children. Preliminary analysis indicates that intake of dietary vitamin A from OFSP doubled for both mothers and infants in intervention areas compared with those in control areas.IDO: National partners and beneficiaries enabled -with knowledge-sharing platform for banana.After two years of funding, ProMusa, a knowledge-sharing platform on bananas managed by Bioversity, RTB commissioned an impact assessment of the platform to evaluate its role in facilitating research for development around the world. The assessment found that users have a very positive view of ProMusa, seeing it both as a hub for dissemination of information and a platform that facilitates collaboration and networking within the banana community. ProMusa has 689 members, most of whom work in banana research or academia. It also serves a much wider audience, with some 70,000 user visits in 2014.CIP and INIA (the National Agricultural Research Institute of Peru) finalized a study that used a nationally representative survey to estimate adoption of potato varieties in Peru. This improved the estimates of adoption of potato varieties based on more than 1,000 surveys nationwide. Results showed that more than 26% of planting area is covered by varieties released under the CIP-INIA long-term collaboration ('Canchan', 'Amarilis', 'Unica', and 'Serranita'). Propensity score-matching techniques applied to a subsample of commercially oriented farmers suggest that higher adoption of improved varieties increased yields by 1.0 t/ha on average and total volume of potato sales by 2.7 t. Data produced will continue to be analyzed under the partnership with Virginia Tech to look at measures of impact on the farmers' fields.IITA finalized a study of the impact of a cassava research for development program (emergency response to the outbreak of cassava mosaic disease, 2001-2009) on farm-level outcomes in DRC. Propensity score-matching analyses show that the program has statistically significant positive effects on household participation in cassava markets, adoption of improved varieties, crop management practices, and household food adequacy. There was, however, no statistically significant effect on yields and gross margins. The program merits further promotion since these positive outcomes tend to be preconditions for realizing long-term yield and profit benefits (http://bit.ly/1OlLdex).The RTB-funded \"Gender Integration\" and \"Gender Strategic Research\" projects completed their first phase in 2014. The first project identified gender concerns and integrated gender analysis into RTB thematic research to enhance development outcomes, whereas the second focused on raising awareness, sensitizing, and building capacity on gender research. Highlights for gender integration research are presented below.Sex-differentiated trait preferences. In Nigeria, the IITA-RTB gender team worked closely with Cornell University and the National Roots Crops Research Institute in the NEXTGEN Cassava project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This helped social and biophysical scientists to understand gender concepts in cassava-producing communities and identify sex-differentiated trait preferences of cassava varieties. Scientists are currently engaging in research to transform these local descriptions of trait preferences into standardized measurable units. Linking farmers' preferences and trait descriptions can help identify genomic markers for these traits for use in genomic selection. Researchers conducted surveys of cassava trait preferences at six field sites in Southeast and Southwest Nigeria. This process will be expanded to more regions in 2015, collecting trait preferences for processing and sampling cassava products for lab analysis. Preference evaluation revealed that women's and men's trait preferences differed: women often give a higher weighting to processing quality. Better understanding of differences in trait preferences by men and women will help researchers to breed and select varieties that are more likely to match women's needs. When these varieties are released and tested, their adoption will enhance food security and income for producers and processors by increasing productivity or food quality by 15%. (http://bit.ly/1t4RZto). Scaling up with Humidtropics. RTB scientists engaged with the CGIAR Research Program on Integrated Systems for the Humid Tropics (Humidtropics) continue to grow and provide opportunities for going to scale. Linkages with Humidtropics innovation platforms and stakeholders in Uganda and DRC offer an opportunity for building capacities and monitoring the scaling of the BXW management approach on SDSR (see section C.2) with a systems perspective. Emerging results of BXW management are being incorporated into Humidtropics packages and promoted across all the BXW-affected Humidtropics action sites.Surveillance network for Africa. RTB supported an initiative of the Global Cassava Partnership for the 21st Century to organize a meeting on La Réunion of more than 40 cassava specialists from African national and regional organizations, Cirad, and IRD. The workshop was the first step in implementing a roadmap to improve management of cassava viruses and bacteria in Africa, and led to the creation of the Pan-African Cassava Surveillance Network (PACSUN). PACSUN comprises members of existing networks and organizations, extension services, NGOs, and policymakers in Africa. It will add value to the work of existing organizations and networks by providing diagnostic expertise and information on viruses, bacteria, and the whitefly vectors affecting cassava. The Network's goals include promoting the use of mobile phone technology for diagnostics, mapping the incidence of cassava diseases in Africa, and coordinating responses to halt or slow disease spread. The workshop also laid the foundation for the establishment of an International Cassava Transit site on La Réunion (http://bit.ly/1F5UQcm).Development partnerships for scaling. The FoodSTART project, launched in 2014 as a CIP-IFAD regional collaboration, looked at how root and tuber crops contribute to food security in Asia. This became a platform to explore how to partner with development organizations that scale-out innovations. This work has been undertaken with IFAD \"investment projects\" (i.e., large-scale infrastructure and development initiatives with low-interest loans and government co-financing) that operate in the same geographic areas as the FoodSTART research focus sites. Over four years of the project, mutually beneficial relationships have slowly but surely prospered. Activities included (i) participation in each other's planning and review meetings; (ii) capacity building in value chain development capacity and use of the farmer business school methodology; and (iii) preparation of enterprise development plans for small-scale enterprises based on root and tuber crops, plus support to implementation (i.e., business plan monitoring in the field). IFAD recognized the success of this research-development collaboration by inviting FoodSTART to present the approach to a large, Asia-wide regional meeting of all the investment projects in 2014. A second phase for 2015 was approved.Learning alliance for BBTD. An RTB learning alliance to contain and help farmers recover from banana bunchy top disease (BBTD) in eight African countries advanced with the establishment of field sites and capacity building for researchers from each participating country (http://bit.ly/1DEyf6Q). Amongst others, Cirad trained 20 researchers (of whom 5 were women) from the target countries in \"Banana virus diagnostics for clean seed production, safe germplasm exchange and surveillance of invasive bunchy top disease\" at a workshop in Montpellier, France. The initiative has been strengthened by the integration of three PhD students and five MSc students.Harmonizing bio-informatics. RTB established a strategic partnership with the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research (BTI), at Cornell University, to create shared databases and bioinformatics platforms to support next-generation breeding of RTB crops (http://bit.ly/1CKLbV4). Such platforms are essential for making advances in genomic research accessible and user-friendly for crop breeders around the world. Data from RTB-funded cassava gene sequencing have already been entered into the open access database, \"CassavaBase,\" which BTI created with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. RTB has facilitated collaboration among scientists at BTI, Bioversity, and Cirad on the harmonization of bioinformatics for banana and the consolidation of genomic data on a new BTI platform called \"MusaBase.\" CIP scientists are collaborating with BTI on the improvement of the potato bioinformatics platform of the BTI-managed \"SOL Genomics Network\" through the organization and integration of phenotypic and ongoing gene-sequencing data into that platform. BTI and RTB will also collaborate to develop bioinformatics platforms for sweetpotato and yam (http://bit.ly/1FvLFiO).RTB provided short-term training to 9,342 men and 22,999 women, and longer-term training to 62 men and 59 women on different topics (for more details see http://bit.ly/1bjoFcq Capacity Enhancement section). Some of the highlights are presented below.A total of 20,900 women were trained in crop management practices for sweetpotato: 15,000 in Asia (mainly Bangladesh) and around 5,900 in Africa.A course on \"Production of Quality Seed Yam Tubers to Enhance Yam Productivity in Nigeria\" trained 78 men and 139 women, including farmers, farmer groups, extension agents, and other actors in the value chain.The global Musa Genetic Resources Network (MusaNet) held a workshop to address the urgent need of Musa collection curators for an unequivocal standardized characterization of germplasm and the associated management of information. The 13 partners of the Taxonomic Reference Collection Project were joined by national and regional curators as well as scientific staff from the National Research Centre for Banana, where the workshop was held; 22 trainees benefited. The workshop unveiled the new Musa Germplasm Information System website and tested a new mobile device application for capturing data in the field (http://bit.ly/1Cc1hU9).More than 200 farmers and over 20 technicians were trained in preventing and managing Moko disease in plantain in order to help mitigate the disease's impact in Latin American and the Caribbean and benefit smallholder households dependent on this crop.There were 30 short trainings in 2014 on cassava, mostly in Zambia, DRC, and Nigeria. Topics included quality attributes of high-quality cassava flour, fortification of gari-based products, disease and pest identification and management viruses, virus indexing, virus elimination, tissue culture techniques, and virus diagnostics methods. Training on the topic \"Best-bet cassava planting techniques,\" organized in Sierra Leone, attracted 360 participants (42% women).A three-year effort to develop and test learning-by-doing training materials for a 10-day training of trainers course was held in Nigeria (in English), Tanzania (in Kiswahili), and Mozambique (in Portuguese).It culminated in the publication of the manual \"Everything you ever wanted to know about sweetpotato\" (see http://bit.ly/1JmnbNe). The course is aimed at senior extension personnel and leaders of farmer organizations who will become \"change agents\" and train others. The main intended learning outcomes are being able to (i) identify sweetpotato varieties; (ii) understand how OFSP can contribute to reducing VAD; (iii) identify, select, and conserve clean planting materials; and (iv) deliver a 5-day training on \"Everything you ever wanted to know about sweetpotato.\"The highest set of risks has to do with the obligation, receipt, and disbursement of funds from CGIAR by CIP, as lead center for RTB, and as managed by the RTB Program Management Unit (PMU). The Program Advisory Committee (PAC) assumed a proactive role in assessing and managing these and other risks, working together with the Board of Trustees of CIP. The PAC has drawn attention to a persistent mismatch between indicated and actually committed funding levels by CGIAR, with the concomitant risk that entails for the management of RTB. In October 2014, a retro-active budget reduction for the year, linked to funds commitment and disbursement, was announced. This unanticipated risk damaged RTB credibility with CGIAR participants and, most dramatically, with non-CGIAR partners not used to this system.RTB set up an internal, projectized funding mechanism out of W1&2 funds to support cross-crop and cross-center activities in accordance with the RTB program portfolio. Projects are designed for two to three years' duration with respective work plans. As such, these time-bound, concrete projects require a reliable commitment of funds as well as cash flow for implementation. Because it is not possible to commit additional funds for complementary funding projects until there is a level of funding certainty about the actual financial plan for the year (usually after June), the award, implementation, and expenditure by RTB-participant Centers and their outside partners are compromised. Signing of collaboration agreements with participating centers, and especially with non-CGIAR participants, and assembling complex teams for these projects often further delay start-up and slow expenditure.Investment in RBM. Through the RBM pilot we learned that the co-construction of impact pathways and development of M&E jointly with stakeholders can transform thinking around RTB clusters and put the IDOs and their indicators center stage. This requires a considerable investment (time and budget) in capacity development for the RBM change process, including facilitators, organizing stakeholder workshops, and designing and implementing M&E across multiple initiatives. RTB will search for buy-in from senior managers in the centers and additional resources for the RBM change process and the coconstruction of impact pathways with partners/stakeholders. There is a need for longevity of the CRP programs to allow RTB to reap the benefits of this investment. We hope that any portfolio reorganization would not jeopardize this effort.Incentives for reporting. The PMU has developed a \"traffic light\" system for evaluating planning/update of milestones in the RTB product portfolio at the start of the year and for assessing completion at the end. However, so far, no incentives or rewards exist for timely performance. In 2015 the PMU plans to introduce some financial incentives to reward compliance with reporting requirements. This will require an adjustment in budget allocation and also heavier time investment from PMU.Effective planning software. Linked to RBM, there is an urgent need for a new planning and M&E software platform. The original platform on GoogleDrive has been overwhelmed by ad hoc additions. RTB analyzed several software options-giving preference to platforms that are already in use by other CRPs-and plans to migrate to a new platform as part of the shift to the new program structure. Complementary funding projects generated specific lessons learned: Investment in data analysis. Allocate enough time and budget for centers to develop the expertise necessary to perform in-depth analysis of the huge quantity of data generated with the highthroughput technologies (laboratory infrastructure and bioinformatics skills). Phenotyping accuracy. Little can be expected toward improving genomic predictions in future generations, despite the use of high-throughput genotyping or larger training populations, if a high level of phenotyping accuracy cannot be attained for these traits. This is worth investing in because it is a one-shot effort whose results will be used extensively. Equipment and inputs for metabolomics. For the careful preparation of samples for highly sensitive metabolomics analyses, logistics were extremely challenging. The lack of appropriate supply chains and lab equipment (e.g., in the sweetpotato growing area) required the experiment to be repeated at headquarters with consequent delays. Combining social and scientific research. Action research approach through community action plans in the BBTD project involves new skills and stages of work not called for in surveys or replicated experiments. This included the integration of gender understanding, community dynamics of land tenure, attention to resource levels, and different household typologies. These are not easily addressed in replicated trials, but are essential factors in the recovery of banana production in BBTD-affected areas. Importance of sharing expertise. The participatory approach to the design of the Pest Risk Assessment project and the multidisciplinary skills of centers and partners-spanning pest and disease management, risk assessment and modeling, surveillance, diagnostics, and geospatial and economic modeling-provided many opportunities for cross-crop and cross-disciplinary sharing of expertise. This strongly benefited project start-up, planning, and implementation. Wide geographical spread of the main partners makes regular face-to-face meetings difficult. Team members have therefore planned joint field visits at both action sites and a mid-project planning meeting.Annex o Management of priority pests and diseases (Burundi, Malawi, DRC). RTB gender researchers and more than 30 RTB-linked staff are working on strategic gender research in the CGIAR-wide global Norms and Agency Study (in 13 cases data collected in Uganda, Malawi, DRC, Burundi, Colombia, and Bangladesh); pending additional cases in Vietnam, Peru, Bolivia; and data analysis in 2015.","tokenCount":"5401"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f108cb3734cb68e0bc3b0f25cc685c95","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/aea7d8d1-fc7b-49b2-bca9-fbb8f94625bd/retrieve","id":"-154867548"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"eb2bfedd-287f-4916-b8d1-092c3ed0bc8d","pagecount":"14","content":"To improve understanding of the dynamics of the cassava mosaic disease (CMD) pandemic front, geospatial approaches were applied to the analysis of 3 years' data obtained from a 2-by-2°(approximately 222-by-222 km) area of northwestern Tanzania. In total, 80 farmers' fields were assessed in each of 2009, 2010, and 2011, with 20 evenly distributed fields per 1-by-1°q uadrant. CMD-associated variables (CMD incidence, CMD severity, vector-borne CMD infection, and vector abundance) increased in magnitude from 2009 to 2010 but showed little change from 2010 to 2011. Increases occurred primarily in the two westernmost quadrants of the study area. A pandemic \"front\" was defined by determining the values of CMD incidence and whitefly abundance where predicted disease gradients were greatest. The pandemic-associated virus (East African cassava mosaic virus-Uganda) and vector genotype (Bemisia tabaci sub-Saharan Africa 1-subgroup 1) were both present within the area bounded by the CMD incidence front but both also occurred ahead of the front. The average speed and direction of movement of the CMD incidence front (22.9 km/year; southeast) and whitefly abundance front (46.6 km/year; southeast) were calculated, and production losses due to CMD were estimated to range from US$4.3 million to 12.2 million.Cassava mosaic disease (CMD) is one of the most important constraints to cassava production in sub-Saharan Africa, and causes more than US$1 billion of losses annually (Legg et al. 2006;Thresh et al. 1997). The disease is caused by several species of cassava mosaic begomoviruses (CMB) (family Geminiviridae, genus Begomovirus) (Bock and Woods 1983), which are propagated through planting infected stem cuttings and transmitted persistently by the whitefly Bemisia tabaci (Genn.) (Dubern 1994). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, an epidemic of unusually severe CMD emerged in Uganda (Otim-Nape et al. 1997) and subsequently spread to affect a large area of East and Central Africa (Legg 1999;Legg et al. 2006;Otim-Nape et al. 1997). A novel virus recombinant, East African cassava mosaic virus-Uganda (EACMV-UG) was shown to be associated with this \"pandemic\" (Zhou et al. 1997) and gave rise to unusually severe disease symptoms through a synergistic interaction with a second CMB, African cassava mosaic virus (ACMV). Severe CMD spread rapidly at estimated speeds of 20 to 30 km/year (Otim-Nape et al. 1997), driven by superabundant populations of B. tabaci (Legg and Ogwal 1998). Almost 30 years after the first reports of severe CMD from Uganda, the severe CMD pandemic continues to spread, currently advancing southward through eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and westward through central Cameroon. The pandemic of severe CMD continues to pose a threat to the world's largest producer of cassava, Nigeria, lying immediately to the west of Cameroon.Monitoring and surveillance activities have played a vital role in the CMD management effort as newly affected areas have been identified, facilitating the targeting of control interventions. An important aspect of this monitoring work has been the development and publication of maps illustrating patterns of disease spread and attempting to predict areas likely to be affected in the near future.One of the earliest maps of CMD was the illustration by Swanson and Harrison (1994) of the distribution of viruses causing CMD in Africa. This was a continental-level map showing countries from which EACMV and ACMV had been detected using monoclonal antibodies in an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay protocol. More recently, country-level maps have been produced to illustrate the distribution of CMB species (Bull et al. 2006;Ndunguru et al. 2005;Ogbe et al. 2003) or CMD incidence in regions or districts within countries (IITA 2009;Otim-Nape et al. 2001). Mapping was used to illustrate the progress of the CMD pandemic during the peak of its spread in the 1990s and early 2000s. Spread was tracked through Uganda (Otim-Nape et al. 1997) and into neighboring countries (Legg 1999;Legg and Thresh 2000) and estimates of the rate of movement of the pandemic \"front\" were used to provide forecasts for likely future patterns of spread. In northwestern Tanzania, the first \"arrival\" of the CMD pandemic from neighboring Uganda was reported in 1998 (Legg 1999). By 2005, the pandemic-associated EACMV-UG was recorded from much of the Lake (Victoria) Zone of northwestern Tanzania (Ndunguru et al. 2005) and the \"zone of epidemic expansion\" was described as covering Kigoma, Mara, and Shinyanga Regions at approximately the same time (Legg et al. 2006). Most recently, maps have been used to describe the systematic pattern of severe CMD spread through southern Uganda, western Kenya, and northwestern Tanzania over a 16-year period from 1992 to 2007 (Legg 2010). None of the mapping presented in these reports, however, has used quantitative spatial analysis techniques, with the result that many of the statements made about rates of disease spread are subjective. Similarly, predictions for likely future patterns of epidemic spread were not based on quantitative models that considered environmental variables and spatial patterns of cassava cultivation. Consequently, much potential remains for the design of mechanistic spatial models which, in addition to describing CMD epidemic development in the geographical environment from which they are derived, also offer the possibility of predicting likely outcomes in different locations, countries, or regions.Geostatistics were first applied to analyzing patterns of CMD spread in the early 1990s in Ivory Coast (Lecoustre et al. 1989), although this comprised a field-level study and did not involve mapping. Kriging and map-based spatial analysis were first used for CMD in a study that compared the results of three different types of survey in Rwanda and Burundi conducted between 2006and 2008(Bouwmeester et al. 2012). In this approach, 10 environmental variable predictor maps were combined with the CMD data to develop a regression model. This model was subsequently used with simple kriging to derive predicted CMD maps for the entire land surface areas of Burundi and Rwanda. An important result of this study was the identification of zones where the survey approaches gave divergent results. Two key conclusions were that direct data are more reliable than proxy variables (e.g., yield loss as a proxy for CMD occurrence) and that irregular coverage of survey areas reduced the power of kriging-based geostatistics.In the study described here, we aimed to address some of these deficiencies and to provide novel insights into the region-wide epidemiology of CMD by making the first attempt to monitor the spread of CMD through a predefined geographical zone within a country still being affected by the severe CMD pandemic. We planned to achieve this by carrying out three sequential annual surveys of CMD in a square of 2 by 2°(approximately 222 by 222 km) of northwestern Tanzania. Our aim was to improve structure of the data in comparison with the more usual sampling approaches that have used a structure based on administrative regions, transects limited to major roads, or areas with particular defined disease characteristics (Jeremiah et al. 2015;Sseruwagi et al. 2004b). Two key targets of the study were the application of geostatistical techniques to measure the rate and direction of spread of the severe CMD pandemic, and an examination of the properties of the pandemic front on a relatively small scale, including host, disease, and vector interactions.Location. Surveys were conducted in 2009, 2010, and 2011 in an area of northwestern Tanzania bounded by the 3°S and 5°S lines of latitude and the 32°E and 34°E lines of longitude shared between the regions of Mwanza in the north, Shinyanga in the center, and Tabora in the south (Fig. 1). This midaltitude area of Tanzania lies between 1,034 and 1,506 m above sea level. Climate in this area is classified as tropical, with 861 mm of annual average precipitation. A dry period is observed between June and August (in the range of 0 to 3 mm on average) and December is the wettest month of the year, with an average 151 mm of rain. Average temperature ranges from 21.6°C in June to 25.2°C in October (Hijmans et al. 2005). The vegetation is largely dry open woodland and savanna. Population density is greater in the north compared with the south (Tatem 2017) and the density of cassava is greater in the west than it is in the east (You et al. 2014) (Supplementary Fig. S1).Sampling and field data collection. In each of the three study years, 80 fields were sampled in the study area, 20 in each of the four 1-by-1°quadrants. Fields were sampled at approximately 10-km intervals along motorable roads, resulting in an evenly dispersed sampling pattern. Quadrant designations were quadrant 1, located in the northwest (Q1), quadrant 2, located in the northeast (Q2), quadrant 3, located in the southwest (Q3), and quadrant 4, located in the southeast (Q4). Global Positioning System (GPS) handsets (Garmin eTrex 20 Handheld GPS Navigator; Garmin) were used to ensure that 20 fields were within the intended quadrant as well as to mark and record coordinates of each sampled field. Sampling was done in the middle months of the year when it was easy to find cassava plantings of the most suitable age (3 to 8 months after planting). Sampling periods were 20 July to 7 August 2009, 2 to 20 May 2010, and 24 May to 3 June 2011. In each field, 30 plants were sampled along two diagonals running between the corners of the field. Mean or incidence values for the data recorded were calculated from results obtained for each of the 30 sampled plants. In 2009 and 2010, the owners of the selected farms were identified and asked questions about their crop. Fields and field owners were different for each of the 3 years in which sampling was carried out. In all 3 years, records were taken of the following parameters, using the protocol described by Sseruwagi et al. (2004b).  Laboratory sample collection. In 2010, in each surveyed field, up to 100 B. tabaci adults were collected with an aspirator from young leaves of cassava plants following the completion of the field data assessments. Whitefly adults were immediately preserved in 90% ethanol and stored in microfuge tubes prior to laboratory analysis. In 2009 and 2010, in each surveyed field, a single leaflet was collected from the first fully opened leaf of a plant showing CMD symptoms. The leaflet was dried by placing it between sheets of blank newsprint, covered with corrugated cardboard, and held in a herbarium press prior to being stored at room temperature in the laboratory.Whitefly genotyping. Subsamples from each of the fieldcollected whitefly samples were used for genotyping using the standardized mitochondrial DNA cytochrome oxidase I marker. DNA extraction and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) were performed using the procedure of Frohlich et al. (1999) with primers C1-J-2195 and L2-N-3014 (Simon et al. 1994). PCR amplicons, approximately 800 bp in length, were sent to Macrogen Inc. for sequencing. Sequences were trimmed, edited, and aligned with the ClustalW facility of MEGA6.0 (Tamura et al. 2011), and genetic relationships between sequences were examined using the maximumlikelihood phylogenetic analysis procedure of MEGA 6.0 with default settings and 1,000 bootstraps. Phylogenetic trees, incorporating known standard sequences obtained from GenBank, were used to identify the genotype groups of the sequences obtained from the Tanzanian samples.Virus testing. Total nucleic acids were extracted from leaf samples using a modified cetyltrimethylammonium bromide protocol (Lodhi et al. 1994). Standard PCR was then carried out using specific primers for EACMV-UG. These were UV-ALI/F and ACMV-CP/R3 (Zhou et al. 1997). PCR conditions were as described by Sseruwagi et al. (2004a). PCR products were run on a 1.8% agarose gel and PCR amplicons were visualized under UV light using a DigiDoc-It (UVP/LLC) gel documentation system. Based on these results, samples were identified as positive or negative for the presence of EACMV-UG.Hotspot index calculation. A hotspot index was calculated for each sampled location. This aimed to provide a measure of the overall potency of the CMD epidemic conditions at the field by combining index values for CMD incidence, CMD severity, whitefly abundance, and the relative proportion of whitefly-borne versus cutting CMD infection (equal to the former divided by the latter). Each of the four variables was categorized by the range of values corresponding to four index scores (between 1 and 4) and for each field. The index scores for each variable were summed to produce the hotspot index value for the field, with a minimum value of 4 and a maximum of 16 (Table 1).Two-way comparisons and correlation analyses for tabular data. CMD incidence, logarithmically transformed ln(x + 1) whitefly abundance, hotspot index, and farmer's previous year yield loss estimate were analyzed with a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedure in the SigmaStat component of SigmaPlot 11.0 (Systat Software Inc.). The Holm-Sidak method was used for pairwise multiple comparisons and, in all cases, treatments were Year and Quadrant. CMD mean severity scores from only those fields and plants where disease was detected were analyzed in R with aov function and Tukey's method for pairwise multiple comparisons between factors Year and Quadrant. Binary response data (farmer's CMD symptom recognition and presence of EACMV-UG) were analyzed with binomial generalized linear model (GLM) with logit link in R (glm function). Pairwise correlations between variables and P values were examined using the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient using rcorr function in the 'Hmisc' package in R (Harnell 2017). Whitefly genotypes occurring in each of the quadrants were compared using Kruskal-Wallis one-way ANOVA on ranks. For this analysis, two genotype groupings were designated: sub-Saharan Africa 1-subgroup 1 (SSA1-SG1) (one group) and all other genotypes (second group).Spatial prediction. Ordinary kriging was used to predict the likely values for the variables of interest at unsampled locations.Kriging is a geostatistical interpolation method that uses weighted averages of the neighboring observations for unbiased spatial prediction with minimized errors. The weights are derived from the experimental variogram, with semivariances calculated for all neighbors at a chosen discrete number and length of lags, which differed for each year and variable of interest (Oliver and Webster 2014). A smoothing function is applied to variogram values to represent the changes in the spatial correlation of observations over geographical distance. The shape of the function is characterized by the nugget (small-scale unresolved variation at short distance or due to measurement error), sill (variance of the random process), and range (distance beyond which no spatial autocorrelation is observed). For each year and for each variable, spherical, exponential, mathematical, and power variogram functions were calculated and the chosen best fit function was applied to fit the variogram model using the weighted least squares fitting method. The R package 'gstat' was used to calculate the function parameters and calculate kriging surface and kriging prediction error (Bivand et al. 2008;Pebesma 2004). The kriging function was used to predict the response variable for every cell of the predefined grid in the area of interest. It also returns the kriging variance at each location, which can be interpreted as the prediction error. The kriging variance tends to be higher in unsampled locations and locations with a limited number of neighbors and, therefore, is influenced by the sampling density, the sampling pattern, and the choice of variogram function (Goovaerts 1997). Our sampling design, in which the target area was predefined and the sampling density fixed at 20 evenly dispersed fields per 1-by-1°quadrant, helped to reduce errors in kriging variance. In some instances, values below or above the possible range of values were predicted. Because these values were not realistic, maximum and minimum values were set.Defining the front and affected area of the CMD pandemic. Kriging prediction surfaces were examined to detect the steepest gradient of change between high and low incidence and vector abundance regions in each survey year. Six histograms with the number of pixels per range of values category (0 to 1 with a 0.05 increment for CMD incidence and 0 to 1.2 with a 0.5 increment for whitefly log mean values) were constructed to guide the choice of the steepest gradient of change and identify the disease pandemic front. This selection was based on the assumption that the category with the smallest number of pixels (smallest geographical area) corresponded to the greatest gradient in incidence/whitefly abundance values. Once the CMD incidence or whitefly log mean values of the front had been determined, all areas with values equal to or greater than these were considered to be pandemic-affected and all areas with values less than these were considered to be nonpandemic. To define the predominant trend and angle of the front, we interpolated disease incidence and logarithmically transformed mean whitefly values with a first-order polynomial function using the Spatial Analyst tool in ArcGIS 10.2.1 (ESRI) and the angle of the predominant direction of the trend against the x axis was recorded. Net movement of the front in latitudinal and longitudinal directions was estimated using the net difference in the extent of the pandemic and nonpandemic area extent between 2009 and 2010 and between 2010 and 2011. The distance of change was calculated for every row of the prediction surface grid with the edge size of 1.11 km, and the mean and maximum net changes in the distance \"moved\" by the front were recorded. Trigonometric sine and cosine functions were used to calculate the net distance in the predominant direction using directional net change in distance values and angle values derived from the first polynomial trend surfaces.Correlations between survey outcomes, cassava density, monthly weather averages, and population distribution. To estimate population density in the region and at sampled locations, fine-scale gridded global population data (1-km resolution) were obtained from the WorldPop project (http://www.worldpop.org.uk/) (Linard et al. 2012;Tatem 2017) (Supplementary Table S1). Spatial Production Allocation Model data (MapSPAM2005v2.0; http:// mapspam.info/) were used to represent the heterogeneity of the spatial distribution and density of the area under cassava cultivation at 5-min resolution, corresponding to approximately 10 by 10 km at the equator (You et al. 2014). Due to the scarcity of fine spatial and temporal resolution weather station data in the area, satellite-derived datasets for the estimates of the climatic conditions were obtained. Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM 3B43; https://trmm.gsfc.  nasa.gov/) monthly data for 2009 to 2011 at 0.25-by-0.25°spatial resolution were obtained (Huffman et al. 2007). The MODIS land surface temperature (LST) product (https://modis-land.gsfc.nasa.gov/ temp.html) represents estimates of the land temperature variability in the region based on thermal bands of reflectance from the earth's surface (Justice et al. 2002). Default Kelvin degree units were converted to degree Celsius and minimum, maximum, and mean LST values were calculated for each month of the 3 years of interest. To represent the relative climatic variability in the study zone over the 3 years of interest, 3-year means and departures from the mean were illustrated in a set of three maps (Supplementary Fig. S2). Population, cassava cropping distribution, population density, and altitude information obtained in the survey were used to construct a Spearman rank correlation matrix against those values and CMD incidence, CMD severity, and whitefly abundance using the 'Hmisc' and 'stats' packages in R (Harnell 2017; R Core Team 2017).Estimating the losses due to CMD in pandemic and nonpandemic regions. Cassava production losses in the pandemic (behind the pandemic front) and nonpandemic (ahead of the pandemic front) regions of the study area were assessed using FAOSTAT estimates for cassava yield in Tanzania for each year of the study (www.fao.org/faostat/), area under cassava cultivation obtained from MapSPAM, predicted incidence values based on survey data, and constant values of average losses due to CMD in pandemic and nonpandemic regions based on previously published CMD yield loss (L) estimates (Legg et al. 2006). Using this set of variables, we derived the value of the potential yield per hectare (Y) in the study region (equation 1, below). Actual production in the CMD pandemic (Prod p ) and nonpandemic (Prod n ) areas is equal to the sum of the average disease incidence in the respective zone (pandemic = i p and nonpandemic = i n ) multiplied by potential yield (Y), area under cultivation (H p and H n ), and 1 _ average losses (L p and L n ) plus the product of the ratio of healthy crop (1 _ i), the yield potential value (Y), and harvested area H p or H n , depending on the zone (equations 2 and 3). Production loss (Loss) is equal to the difference between the production potential (harvested area multiplied by the yield potential value for each year) and the sum of actual production in the pandemic region (Prod p ) and nonpandemic region (Prod n ) (equation 4). The economic loss was then calculated by multiplying the production loss by the estimated market value for fresh tuberous roots of cassava of US $60/t (Ndyetabula et al. 2016;Sewando 2012).Changes in CMD associated variables. CMD incidence and EACMV-UG presence. Disease incidence varied significantly between years and quadrants (Table 2; Supplementary Table S2). Incidence in both 2010 and 2011 was greater than in 2009 but there was no change from 2010 to 2011. Quadrants Q1 (northwest) and Q3 (southwest) had higher incidences than Q2 (northeast) and Q4 (southeast). There was no significant interaction between year and quadrant; therefore, the pattern of incidence remained stable over time in all quadrants. Significant variation in EACMV-UG presence was observed between years and quadrants, with no interactions between factors (Table 2). EACMV-UG presence was significantly higher in 2010 compared with 2009 and significantly lower in Q4 compared with other factors across the study period.CMD severity. Mean disease severity scores from diseased plants varied between 2009 and 2010, between 2010 and 2011, and between quadrants (Table 2). The northwest quadrant (Q1) had a significantly Fig. 3. Phylogenetic tree of mitochondrial DNA cytochrome oxidase I sequences for selected Bemisia tabaci (Genn.) adult whiteflies collected from cassava fields sampled in the 2010 quadrant survey of northwestern Tanzania. The tree was generated in MEGA 6.0 using the maximum-likelihood procedure with 1,000 bootstraps. Open diamonds represent sequences from this study and filled circles are control sequences from the GenBank database. SSA1-SG1 and SG2 = sub-Saharan Africa 1-subgroup 1 and 2, respectively, and Med = Mediterranean.higher average severity score compared with the eastern quadrants (Q2 and Q4), and Q3 (southwest) had higher severity scores compared with Q4 (southeast). There were no significant interactions between years and quadrants.Vector abundance. Whitefly abundance varied between years and quadrants and there was a significant interaction between the two factors (Table 2). For both Q1 and Q3, there was a significant increase in whitefly abundance from 2009 to 2010 but no further change after that. There were no significant differences over time in Q2 and Q4. In common with the disease variables, the most significant differences through the study period were recorded in the two western quadrants.Farmers' responses. Farmers' awareness of disease symptoms varied significantly between years and quadrants, with significantly higher overall awareness observed in 2010 (Fig. 2; Table 2). Q4 (southeast) had the least awareness of disease symptoms in the study period. There were significant differences in the level of farmerrecalled losses due to CMD between years and quadrants, and there were significant interactions between the two factors (df = 3, F = 5.8, P < 0.001) (Table 2). In 2009, there were no perceived differences in losses between quadrants. In 2010, however, greater losses were perceived in Q1 and Q3 compared with Q2 and Q4 and significant changes were observed between eastern and western quadrants.Hotspot value. There were significant differences in hotspot index value between years and quadrants and there was a significant interaction between both factors (Table 2). Average hotspot index value increased from 6.5 (in 2009) to 9.3 (in 2010), and was high in Q1 (10.0) and Q3 (9.6) but low in Q2 (7.2) and Q4 (6.0). There was no significant increase in hotspot index value from 2010 to 2011.The greatest contrasts in hotspot index value between quadrants occurred between Q1 and Q4 and between Q1 and Q2 in 2011 and the greatest increase over time was recorded for Q3, where the mean hotspot value increased from 6.9 in 2009 to 10.8 in 2011.Whitefly genotypes. Five B. tabaci genotypes were identified through 46 sequences obtained from samples collected from cassava plants in the study area. These included Indian Ocean (Ind), Mediterranean (Med), and East Africa 1 (EA1), all of which are polyphagous, and two genotypes known to primarily colonize cassava: SSA1-SG1 and sub-Saharan Africa 1-subgroup 2 (SSA1-SG2). Genetic relationships between the groups identified were described through the maximum-likelihood phylogenetic analysis (Fig. 3). The largest proportion of sequences were of SSA1-SG1 (65.2%), followed by SSA1-SG2 (17.4%), Med (8.7%), Ind (4.3%), and EA1 (4.3%). Whitefly genotypes differed between quadrants and, using Dunn's method for multiple comparison, Q3 had a significantly higher proportion of SSA1-SG1 when compared with Q4. Overall, the data showed that the putative superabundant genotype of B. tabaci occurred most frequently across the sampled area. Although SSA1-SG1 was much more common than other genotypes in the western quadrants of the study area (Q1 = 76.5% and Q3 to 100%), it was less frequent than other genotypes occurring in the eastern quadrants (Q2 = 45.5% and Q4 = 14.3%).Correlation analyses. Surveyed variables. Considering datasets for all 3 years combined, strong positive correlations were demonstrated between CMD incidence and mean severity score (0.73) and moderately positive correlations with farmers' disease recognition (0.47) and farmers' estimate of loss in the previous year (0.55). Mean severity scores had the strongest correlation with a Inc = cassava mosaic disease (CMD) incidence, Sev = CMD severity, Cut inf = proportion of cutting-borne infections, Wf inf = proportion of whitefly-borne infections, Wf abund = mean whitefly number per field, Farmer Recog = farmers awareness of CMD, Farmer Loss = estimated losses in yield due to CMD, and EACMV-UG = East African cassava mosaic virus-Uganda.cutting infection (0.71), farmer recognition of CMD (0.48), and their estimate of CMD-associated loss (0.57) (Table 3). Whitefly abundance was correlated with overall CMD incidence (0.52) and previous year loss estimates (0.52), and it was more strongly correlated with whitefly-borne compared with cutting-borne CMD infection (0.58 versus 0.45, respectively). The presence of EACMV-UG had a slightly stronger correlation with whitefly-borne CMD infection compared with cutting-borne CMD (0.27 versus 0.23).The strongest correlation (0.71) was observed between farmers' recognition of disease symptoms and the estimate of losses due to CMD in the previous year (Table 3).Incidence, severity, and whitefly abundance versus environmental variables. Weak linear relationships were observed between surveyed variables and monthly weather averages, cassava distribution, and altitude at surveyed points (Table 4). No significant correlation was observed between human population density and the surveyed variables. Cassava production and area of cultivation had very week, albeit significant positive correlations with Fig. 4. Field survey results and kriging predictions at unsampled locations for cassava mosaic disease (CMD) incidence, CMD severity, ratio of plants infected by whitefly, vector abundance (natural log transformed mean whitefly count), and disease hotspot index.CMD incidence. Mean, minimum, and maximum LST had very weak but significant negative correlations with CMD incidence and severity and whitefly abundance in a range of _ 0.11 to _ 0.25. Altitude had significant weak correlations with CMD incidence and severity and vector abundance ( _ 0.31, _ 0.23, and _ 0.27, respectively). Longitude had moderate correlations with the same three surveyed variables ( _ 0.48, _ 0.43, and _ 0.47), whereas latitude was weakly positively correlated with whitefly abundance.Spatial prediction of surveyed variables. Large differences were observed in the distribution of all the variables of interest, mainly between 2009 and 2010 but to a lesser degree between 2010 and 2011 (Figs. 4 and 5). A pronounced gradient was apparent between the western zone of the study area, in which there were higher CMD incidence scores in 2009, and the largely uninfected central and southeastern portion of the study area (Fig. 4). A similar trend was observed for CMD severity scores, where the most severe In common with most of the component variables, the greatest spatial changes observed comprised the increase from 2009 to 2010, combined with a shift in the primary zone of increase from the northwest (Q1) to the southwest (Q3) from 2010 to 2011. The greatest of all spatial changes in the variables for which data were collected was recorded for the level of farmer awareness of CMD symptoms. Small numbers of farmers, concentrated in the northwestern corner, were aware of the disease in 2009 but, by 2010, most farmers throughout the study area were aware, with the exception of those in the southeastern quadrant (Q4). Similar patterns of spatial change were observed for farmer perceptions of CMD-associated yield loss, although the greatest area of change for this variable was in the western part of the study zone (Q1 and Q3), which coincided with the zone in which there were greatest increases in the CMD-associated variables. EACMV-UG became more prevalent in the surveyed area over the period 2009 to 2010 as its frequency of detection doubled. There was a clear pattern of EACMV-UG spread into the northeastern and southwestern quadrants, although this pattern of change was strongest in the southwest. The spatial distribution of the B. tabaci genotype that has been associated with superabundance (SSA1-SG1) had a strong longitudinal gradient, with a high Fig. 6. Histograms representing the number of pixels (square units of area) containing values in a certain range of cassava mosaic disease (CMD) incidence (above) and log mean whitefly count (below) derived from kriging prediction surfaces. frequency of occurrence in the west and little presence in the east. This genotype was recorded from only 1 of the 20 sampled sites in the southeastern quadrant (Q4).Characterization and movement of the CMD pandemic front. Histograms were generated which illustrate the number of pixels (units of area) present in each of a series of prediction value categories (ranges) for each of the 2010 and 2011 datasets (Fig. 6). For CMD incidence, the range of predicted values in the 0.45 to 0.50 probability of disease presence represented a small fraction of the prediction surface and, therefore, was identified as representing the disease front. A similar approach for the whitefly abundance data led to the choice of the 0.4 log mean whitefly abundance value to represent the whitefly front. Although the CMD front was clearly present in the far western part of the surveyed area in 2009, the whitefly front was represented by only a small patch in the southwestern zone (Q3). In 2010, the disease front made a clear eastward movement, particularly in the northwestern quadrant (Q1), and the whitefly front similarly advanced to the east, exceeding the range of the CMD front in the southwestern quadrant (Q3). By 2011, the fronts for both disease and whiteflies had stabilized. The position of the whitefly front was the same from 2010 to 2011 but the disease front continued to advance eastward in Q3, while retracting slightly in Q1.The CMD pandemic area was 2,216 km 2 in 2009 and increased to 5,364 km 2 in 2010, before shrinking slightly to 3,939 km 2 in 2011 (Table 5). When using whitefly abundance to classify the pandemic zone, the area affected increased from 30 km 2 in 2009 to 4,549 km 2 in 2010 before declining to 3,695 km 2 in 2011. Q2 remained entirely outside the pandemic-affected zones in 2009 and 2011 and Q4 was unaffected in 2009. The harvested area in the pandemic zone was also highest in 2010 (571 and 471.2 km 2 under CMD incidence and whitefly pandemic zones, respectively).The predominant direction of the pandemic front movement varied between pandemic front type (CMD versus whitefly) and year (Table 6). The CMD front followed a longitudinal trend from east to west in 2009. The pattern changed in 2010, with a much more pronounced 19°tilt in the same direction, while, in 2011, the angle switched to a northeastern tilt of 6.5°(Table 6; Fig. 7). Similar trends were observed for the direction of movement of the whitefly front. The net distance of the pandemic front movement between 2009 and 2010 was 22.9 km in the southeastern direction on average (Table 7). Between 2010 and 2011, the CMD front progressed by an average 7.5 km to the northeast but retracted, on average, by 17.3 km to the southwest. The pandemic trend based on whitefly abundance data had a very pronounced southeastern tilt in 2009 and 2010 (41 and 29°, respectively), which became weaker in 2011 (4.5°). The average distance of southeastern movement of the whitefly pandemic zones was larger between 2009 and 2010 (43.6 km) compared with 2010 and 2011 (9.6 km).Cassava production loss estimates. The harvested area of cassava within the CMD pandemic zone increased from 20,009 ha in 2009 to over 57,127 ha in 2010, although it decreased by almost 20,000 ha in 2011 (Table 8; Fig. 8). Based on FAOSTAT yield estimates for Tanzania of 5.5 t/ha (2009), 5.2 t/ha (2010), and 6.3 t/ha (2011), we derived potential yield values for the study area of 6.3 t/ha in 2009, 7.5 t/ha in 2010, and 8.2 t/ha in 2011 (Table 8). In 2009, the estimated loss due to CMD was 12.6% across the study area. The CMD pandemic area suffered losses estimated at 41.7% compared with nonpandemic area losses of 4.5%. Both production and estimated losses in the pandemic region were greatest in 2010 (228,083 and 186,212 t, respectively). The percent loss of total cassava production due to CMD was highest in 2010 (30.2% across the study area), although the losses in the pandemic zone were highest in 2011 (46.8%). The spatial distribution of losses per unit of area is illustrated in Figure 9. Total losses of cassava production in absolute  terms were 71,104 t in 2009, 203,030 t in 2010, and 168,733 t in 2011. The total combined value of lost cassava production is estimated to be approximately US$26.5 million over the 3-year period of the study.We used a novel approach to sample variables associated with CMD, in which a predetermined study zone was delineated that covered an area of 2 by 2°(approximately 222 by 222 km) in northwestern Tanzania. This was selected based on the prior knowledge that the CMD pandemic was moving into this zone from the northwest. Our approach differed from all previous studies of CMD regional epidemiology in not using a province-or country-level spatial scale. Otim-Nape et al. (1997) produced the first estimates for the rate of CMD pandemic spread (approximately 20 to 30 km/year) based on field studies in Uganda. Subsequently, Legg (2010) estimated rates of pandemic spread of up to 100 km/year in East Africa around Lake Victoria. In both of these cases, however, distance values were estimates. In the current study, the sampling design made it possible to take a more mechanistic approach to mapping the CMD pandemic front and using the maps to determine the rate, direction, and economic consequences of movements in the CMD pandemic front.Mapping the pattern of CMD spread through the target zone over a 3-year period (from 2009 to 2011) revealed a strong spatial association between the CMD-associated variables that were recorded, which included incidence and severity of CMD, whiteflyborne CMD infection, and whitefly abundance. All variables increased in the western parts of the study area between 2009 and 2010. Several studies have described the temporal links between such factors (Bigirimana et al. 2004;Legg 1999;Otim-Nape et al. 1997) but the current study is the first to present the spatial features of these factors. Data presented here also demonstrate that there was little significant change in the CMD-associated variables from 2010 to 2011, and CMD severity actually declined in 2011 in comparison with the previous year. Whitefly abundance increased from 2009 to 2010 but was generally lower in 2011 than in 2010, notably in the northwestern quadrant of the study area, which is a probable reason for the lack of change in CMD incidence there, although the reduction in severity might be due to environmental conditions. The weather was generally cooler and wetter in 2011 compared with the hotter and drier weather in 2010. Data from the current study, however, did not allow us to prove that weather factors caused this change. Another factor contributing to the decrease in CMD severity in 2011 could have been the increased frequency of whitefly-borne relative to cuttingborne infections, because it has been previously shown that whiteflyborne infections are associated with milder disease symptoms (Thresh et al. 1994). Changes in whitefly abundance from year to year might have been partly due to differences in weather conditions during the periods when surveys were conducted. However, the most significant pattern of variation in whitefly abundance recorded during this study was between quadrants during the same season. This gives us confidence in the significance of the spatial associations demonstrated through the study and the overall conclusions drawn about the pattern of CMD pandemic spread. These findings are further corroborated by similar findings from several studies that have confirmed spatial associations between whitefly abundance changes and patterns of CMD pandemic spread (Legg 2010;Legg and Ogwal 1998;Otim-Nape et al. 1996).It was notable that SSA1-SG1 B. tabaci individuals and EACMV-UG were both detected significantly \"ahead\" of areas affected by the pandemic zone. This suggests that these two components, which have been described as the drivers of the pandemic (Legg et al. 2014;Pita et al. 2001), move to areas in advance of the disease front prior to the appearance of high incidences of severe CMD.The hotspot index developed in this study aims to highlight those parts of the study area in which CMD epidemic conditions were most extreme and which, therefore, would represent the greater production risk to cassava growers. The progression over time for hotspot index matched the patterns of change of its components.It is relatively straightforward for farmers to recognize the symptoms of CMD and, therefore, symptom recognition has been an important component of farmer training programs for the management of cassava pests and diseases (Msikita et al. 2000;Thresh and Cooter 2005). Our data demonstrated a very strong spatial association between the presence in cassava fields of high incidences of severe CMD and the likelihood that farmers recognize the disease. This recognition was also strongly associated with a perception of production losses in the previous year. In 2009, there were clear spatial associations between farmer disease recognition and the perception of loss, as well as with the other CMD-associated variables such as CMD incidence and severity. However, in the second year in which farmer responses were assessed (2010), perceptions of loss continued to match other CMDassociated variables but farmer recognition of CMD increased to a much greater extent, with almost all farmers interviewed recognizing the disease. The only exception to this was in the extreme southeastern corner, which was least affected overall by CMD. This wider-thananticipated spread of symptom recognition by farmers is an indication Fig. 8. First-order polynomial trend based on cassava mosaic disease (CMD) incidence (above) and mean log whitefly count (below) in each year of the survey, revealing the slight variation in the predominant directions of pandemic front movements. that farmers were not relying solely on what they could see in their own fields but, instead, were receiving information about this emerging problem either from friends or relatives in affected areas or via the extension system. This is supported by anecdotal evidence from the survey teams that both extension and local research staff were active in providing training information to farmers on the effects of cassava viruses during the period of the study. This highlights the potential effectiveness of awareness-raising efforts for CMD management; although, to be most effective, these would also need to be combined with efforts to supply virus-resistant germplasm, which is the frontline approach for managing CMD (Dixon et al. 2003).Perhaps the most unique aspect of our analysis of the CMD pandemic in northwestern Tanzania was the use of several sets of spatial data to mechanistically define the CMD pandemic front. This was achieved by identifying categories of CMD incidence and whitefly abundance at which the spatial gradient between high and low values was greatest. As far as we are aware, this is the first time that this approach has been used to define and plot the advancing front of a plant virus epidemic. After defining the pandemic front, it was possible to demonstrate that it moved in a southeasterly direction approximately 23 km from 2009 to 2010 and 14 km northwest from 2010 to 2011. The maximum distance moved during the overall period of study was 85 km southeast between 2009 and 2010. It is important to mention that the front line is approximate and is somewhat affected by sampling distribution and the choice of variogram parameters. In our studies with evenly and randomly sampled fields, this potential bias was reduced.The study reveals that the CMD pandemic front is relatively complex, and that it may not always be readily described with a smooth line running through contiguous areas sharing common epidemiological characteristics. It will certainly be affected by the heterogeneity of the landscape, which is a feature of the part of Tanzania surveyed in this study. Factors that can influence the ease and accuracy with which a front line can be constructed include the lack of reliable data on host (cassava) distribution and variation in host density, as well as the relative resistance or susceptibility to virus infection of the varieties being grown. Correlation analyses did not reveal strong associations between host distribution and human population in the landscape, or with the surveyed CMD variables, albeit multivariate relationships could be further investigated in future studies using alternative approaches that take into account spatial and temporal correlation between sampled covariates.Defining the front also facilitated the calculation of yield losses in areas affected by the pandemic and areas not yet affected. Legg et al. (2006) used a whole-country-or region-level approach to estimate production losses due to CMD for all of the cassava-producing countries of Africa. Continent-wide losses were estimated at 34 million t, which would be equivalent to slightly more than US$2 billion, assuming a farm-gate fresh root production value of US$60/t (Sewando 2012). In the current study, losses predicted for the nonpandemic region ranged from 4.5 to 7.4% during the period 2009 to 2011, whereas losses in the pandemic-affected region were predicted to be much higher, ranging from 42 to 47%. Overall economic losses predicted for the 3-year period were relatively low in 2009 (US$4.2 million) and increased greatly in 2010 (US$12.2 million), before declining slightly in 2011 (US$10.1 million). Pandemicassociated losses for the seven affected countries in 2006 averaged 47% (Legg et al. 2006), which closely approximates the maximum loss value obtained for the northwestern Tanzanian study area described here. It is important to point out, however, that there are significant limitations to the FAOSTAT and MapSPAM datasets. FAOSTAT data are provided at the whole-country level, while the MapSPAM model did not predict cassava cultivation at several points where cassava fields were sampled. Nevertheless, these datasets represent the best proxy available and provide a useful basis from which to develop yield loss estimation approaches. In response to the large production losses associated with CMD infection, there have been widespread efforts to apply management approaches, most notably in Uganda, which was the country first affected.Kriging and techniques of spatial analysis have been used to plot the movement of the CMD pandemic in Tanzania in this study. Although this has been developed for a specific pathosystem, the approaches described should be of equal value in monitoring patterns of development of the CMD pandemic in other parts of Africa, as well as more broadly for the study of plant virus epidemics at the landscape scale. The parts of Africa currently threatened by severe CMD are Cameroon and Eastern Nigeria, as well as the southern shores of Lake Tanganyika in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia. The methods presented here should be of particular value in identifying CMD-affected zones, determining the direction and rate of disease spread, quantifying production losses, and helping to target control efforts.","tokenCount":"7275"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a50779f5d1daf69f4abcb0a3cb276e9d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H042471.pdf","id":"-1736393640"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"88fff4f0-42d1-44e5-9920-65db28fd4e80","pagecount":"45","content":"This paper sets out a strategy for the International Irrigation Management Institute (UMI). The strategy outlines the proposed directions for IIMI during the next 5-10 years. It follows lines proposed by Dr. Se1cukManagement Advisor to the Consulta tive Group on International Agricultural Research (CGLA.R). In particular, it uses his defi nition of strategy as one that \"describes the most desirable vision of an organization's future, outlines the essential elements of the course that it intends to follow to realize that vision, and provides justification for the identified course.\"The paper has been prepared through an extensive process of consultation involving many people over many months. We would like to express our appreciation to all the members of the TIMI staff, management, and Board of Governors who played an active part in this process. We would also like to express our gratitude to the many represen tatives of IIMI's partners who participated in an IIMI Strategy Workshop held in April 1988; and to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which provided financial support for that workshop. Finally. we would like to express our appreciation to the many irrigation researchers, consultants, policy makers, and others who have ex pressed interest in IIMI's strategy, and who have helped shape our views through various comments and suggestions.IIMI owes a special debt of gratitude to three individuals. The first is Charles Aber nethy, who as Special Advisor to the Director General in 1987 and 1988, undertook the responsibility for formuI:lting the strategy and for preparing this document and the many drafts which preceded it. The second is Gerry Egan, Professor of Psychology at Loyola University in Chicago, who proved an invaluable resource early on by acting as key consultant at a staff strategy workshop in July 1987. And the third is Selcuk Ozgediz, who critically reviewed several early drafts of the Strategy Paper and who, along with Ben Bagadion of IIMI's Board of Governors, helped lay the framework of the paper through participation in a staff workshop on strategy and structure held in early 1988.Last, it should be noted that this document first appeared as a draft in September 1988 and is now being published with a small number of changes which have emerged from subsequent reviews. For a more compact and quick reference to IIMI's Strategy please refer to Managing Irrigation in the 1990's. A Brief Guide to the Strategy of the International Irrigation Management Institute. Additional insight into how the Institute plans to implement the strategy can be found in the \" IIMI Workplan 1990 -1994.\"   Copies of both of these documents can be obtained by writing to IIMI's Information Office in Colombo.The strategy that will guide the cnl]ution of the International Irriga tion Management Institute (lIMI) over the ' 5 to 10 year period from the be ginning of 1989 has been prepared through an extensive process of con sultation involving IIMI's staff, man agement, and Board of Governors: representatives of IIJ\\,H's partners in countries where lIMI now operates or plans to operate in the future: rep resentatives of those countries and organizations which are the sources of IJ,'vII's financial support; and irriga tion researchers, consultants, and others who have a stake in n:VII's activities,The heavv investments in irriga tion development in developing coun tries in the 1960s and 1970s have in many cases not yielded benefits on the scale anticipated, Deficient man agement is considered to be a major cause of these disappointments, This is the context in which IIl'vll \\vas founded, The goals of research and development in irrigation management are identified as irnprovements in pro ductivity, equity, sllstainability, and quality of life,The groups to whom IIl\\lI should deliver benefits are, ultimately, the rural poor in developing countries \\\\'hose livelihoods depend on irrigated agriculture, However, these are dis persed groups, and the benefits can reach them only through the medium of others \\vbo are the immediate users of lIM!,s outputs, Six types of organizations ~lre defined as immedi ate user'i: irrigation management 01' ganiz:ltions, policy forming organiza tions, water users' organizations, re search institutes, unh'ersities and train ing establishments, and consultant or ganizations, IIM! is a voung organization, es tahlished in 1984 \"'irh its headquar-Executive Summary tel'S in Sri Lanka and highly decen tralized operations in more than 10 countries in Asia and Africa, Several basic values govern its strategic plan ning decisions: the promotion of llluitidisciplinary, collaborative, field based research on real irrigation sys tems; an orientation towards solving real problems: the maintenance of high standards of excellence; the strengthening of national irrigation management agencies: and the reduc tion of poverty, the promotion of social justice and [he improvement of the situation of disadvantaged groups, TIMI's comparative advantage, in relation to other institutions already active in the field, has the follmving salient features: its international status and staff of wide international prove nance and stature, its multicountry programs, its sustained presence in selected countries, and its emphasis on collaborative investigations and problem-solving, These features pro vide a flexible, multidisciplinary \"pro gram\" approach, made possible by a combination of project-specific and unrestricted funding, IIMI's mission is:In order to perform its mission, IIrvJI's five priority areas of work are: field research in specific environments; thematic research to svnthesize find ings from varied environments: adap tive, action research to determine how to implement innovations in particu lar circumstances; information ex change; and management training, The principles which guide the vi methodologies of IIMI's field work are the quantitative measurement of the components of irrigation performance, the formulation of objectively testable hypotheses about the various cause/ effect linkages in irrigation m~lJ1age ment processes, the analysis of the interactions between irrigation design and management, the encouragement of institutional change, and the appli cation of modern management principles and practices, Irrigation management is defined by II\\H as: the process in which institu tions or individuals set objec tives for irrigation systems; es tablish appropriate conditions; and identify, mobilize, and use resources, so as to attain these objectives; while ensuring that these activities are performed without causing adverse effect,,_ This definition goes far heyond the primary water-delivery function, and incorporates a variety of human, agricultural and economic aspects, Tbe domain covered by this definition can be analyzed and broken dmvn into thirteen major sectors, Of these, IIMI proposes to concentrate its principal initial efforts on exploring se\\'en, chosen by criteria of users' needs, the potential of each sectors' impacts, and IIMl's comparative advantage, The seven initial program themes are con sequently:Management of water resources for irrigationManagement of irrigation sup port services to fanners Management of change in the institutions for irrigation IIMI's field work and its action re search, will be normally conducted in the context of specific projects in active collaboration with national irri gation agencies or other suitable Of ganizations, and according to esta blished criteria for project selection. The findings and results that emerge from this work will be evaluated and compared across countries and re gions in the context of thematic re search, the aim of which is to estab lish a body of overview knowledge. From this, further conclusions and problem solving expertise can be drawn of a more general, yet direct and practical relevance to irrigation managers.Management training activities will be aimed at managers, trainers, and researchers. Indirect training systems, delivered through collaboration with national institutes, will be intended to predominate with emphasiS on training needs assessments, curricu lum development, the generation of widely usable training materials, and the profeSSional development of na tional training staff.The Institute will maintain a strong and diversified information program aimed at various audiences. Its major emphasis will be making available, through publications and other media, the findings of IIMI's thematic research, action research, and site specific projects to a wide range of people who are in positions where they can use or benefit from such results. The program will also aim to keep the wider public informed, both in developing countries and in donor countries, of the activities in IL!VII and the problems it addresses. IIMI's field operations will be built upon country units which execute collaborative field projects. The crite ria for determining in which coun tries these should be established will include the receptivity and needs of the recipient country, the range and extent of irrigation already present in the country, and the technical inter est of the project. Existing institutional strengths, tied to appropriate admin istrative arrangements and adequate donor support, will also be of rele vance in project decision making.Country units will have various levels of intensity. Currently, lIMI includes four levels of involvement: nonresident programs, resident pro grams, a strong \"branch\" program, and multicountry or regional resident pro grams. Each level requires a certain minimal institutional framework to ensure integration with broader coun try activities. These include a Memo randum of Understanding with the national government regulating the legal and fiscal status of the IIMI coun try unit, a Technical Agreement pro viding for joint activities with one or more relevant national organizations, and a Consultative Committee, bring ing together senior national irrigation managers and otllers with lIMI staff. vii lEvU envisages collaborative efforts with six types of organizations: national irrigation-managing agencies and associated research and training organizations; international agricultural research centers; other centers of excellence; international lender and donor organizations; non-governmen tal organizations; and national and international profeSSional bodies. Five major zones have been iden tified for IIMI's program activities, each possessing certain internal similarities in respect of irrigation: South East Asia, East Asia, West Asia and Kortll East Africa, Africa except the Nile Valand Latin America and the Carib bean. Initially IIMI opened up opera tions in South East Asia, and the arid/ semiarid zone of South West Asia and Africa. Within the next five years, it will initiate work in the other identi fied zones.The internal organization of IIMI is based on four Divisions, each headed by a Director: Programs, Field Operations, Pakistan, and Finance and Administration. In addition to (and working in support of) these divisions, are the Offices of Information and Project Development.The Strateb'Y's infrastructural for mulation takes into account the appropriate needs of an institute with highly decentralized operations, the additional parameters of strong coun try field operations working within this flexible structure, and the conse quent requirement for a sound and balanced portfolio of restricted and unrestricted funding. This paper sets out a strategy for the International Irrigation Manage ment Institute (JIM!), which is a rela tively young org:.mization, created in 1984. This strategy, prepared during 1987-88, is intended as having a per spective of the order of ten years.The is constructed in four parts. The first palt describes the con text (both external and internal) for which the strategy is devised. This palt considers why such an institu tion as IIMI was deemed necessary: what are the problems and opportu nities that caused its conception: what. other activities already occur in these fields. It tries to identify certain cate gories of people who have interests in IIM!,s existence and its activities. Especially important is the identifica tion of those groups to whom IIMI should be delivering benefits. Finally, this paft considers what IIMI itself at present: its values, its strengths and weaknesses, and aspects of the work pattern it has evolved since its estab lishrnent.The second part considers the broad categories of activity II~\"1I should undertake in order to accom plish its mission. This part establishes the kinds of services lIMI will offer to its previously identified clientele.It reviews the domain encompassed in the phrase \"irrigation management, ' \" and makes a selection of major themes on which lLyn will concen trate its efforts. It discusses the need for IIMI to work collaboratively with certain types of partner institutes. Training and information services are outlined.The third part considers an ap propriate structure for IIMrs programs: what relationships will it develop \\vith the countries where irrigation is im portant; how will its work in those countries be organized; what are likely to be the most fruitful kinds of col laboration at the technical level. This part also considers in which coun tries TIMI should focus its operations and what criteria it should use to guide its selection of further coun tries in which to develop operations.The final part of the paper con siders the internal arrangements that IIMI itself should make in order to implement the These include its departmenral components and its staffing and finanCing. This strategy has, as has been remarked already, a relatively long term perspective, of the order of a decade. It will he subjected to five yearly reviews. In order to COfl\\'elt it into short-and medium-term opera tional terms, a document with a dif ferent sort of focus is also needed. For this purpose JIMI will use a sys tem of \"rolling\" plans. The reader who is interested in IIMI's plan ning on this time scale is referred to these papers, starting with the \"IIMI Workplan 1990-94.\"In order to ensure that the stra tegy is, as far as possible, relevant and achievable, IIMI has in a wide process of consultation in evolving it. The process of consulta tion has involved the circulation of early versions of the Strategy for com ments by interested people in many categories: irrigation managers, researchers, and staff of donor organizations, representing many diSciplines and viewpoints. IIM!'s staff, management, and Board of Gover nors have all contributed at each stage. In April 1988, a workshop was held to which were invited senior representatives from all countries in which IIMI is developing active pro grams. This provided a major oppor tunity for refining the to con form to their perceptions of needs.There arc now about 220 million hectares (ha) of irrigated land in the world, representing about 15 percent of the total cultivated area, Of the 220 million ha, 158 million ha, or 72 percent, are located in developing countries, The irrigated area in these countries makes up 20 percent of the total cultivated area, In production terms the signifi cance of irrigated agriculture is even greater. In South Asia, for example, yields per hectare obtained from irri gated cereals average between 1,5 and 2.25 times as much as from those on unirrigated lands, \\clore than half of the region's total food production comes from irrigated lands, In the 1 and 1970s, when the increase of cereal output in these countries was running at an impressive per cent per year, more than t\\vo-thirds of this growth was attributed to irri gation, ~ot surprisingly, the developing world has made massive investments in the development of new irrigation schemes or in the rehabilitation of older schemes. Several developing countries with irrigation potential have devoted over three-fourths of their public spending for agriculture to irrigation projects, Worldwide invest ment on the scale of US$lO billion per year is often cited by irrigation professionals, Overall, the payoff for these investments has been high, In its it is doubtful whether the tremendous gains in food production achieved over the past two decades would have been possible, Despite the importance of tion in sustaining food production, most lrngation systems are perform ing far below their potential. This is true whether performance is meas ured in terms of achieving planned or in terms of the production potential created by the physical works, In other words, most of the benefits of irrigation development have stemmed from the magnitude of the investment, not from efficient and productive systems.In many systems, the area irrigated is much less than the area com manded and annual cropping intensi ties are lower than anticipated, More often than not, water is distributed inequitably between farmers near the head-end reaches of the system, where water is assured, and those less fortunate farmers located down stream, Water deliveries to farmers' fields rarely correspond in quantity and timing to the true requirements of the farmers' crops. ~et incomes of farmers and landless laborers in irri gated areas remain below their po tentiaLThe combination of reduction in operating budgets and the inability of managing agencies to recover operating costs, for social and other reasons, usually lead to deficient main tenance and declining performance. Often, irrigation must be to tally rehabilitated before the original investments are recovered, In general, net returns on irrigation investments have been disappointing, And the cost of developing new irrigation systems is rising rapidly. The cost of new irri gation projects in many tropical coun tries is now as high as US$12,000/ha. Despite these setbacks the demand for irrigation continues to increase, The question that now arises where will the increase in supply come from? Clearly, the land available for new 5 irrigation development is limited, In the future there will be an increasing demand for water by urban users for such purposes as hydroelectricity. The answer lies in improving the man agement of irrigation re sources,Irrigation is more than a water distributing, crop-producing activity. The benefits of adequate, reliable water supplies to poor fanning fami lies are considerable, The contrast bet\\veen high-risk, low-productivity, rain-fed agriculture and low-risk, high productivity, irrigated agriculture is often dramatic, Well-managed irriga tion produces sharp increases in food supplies and income. As cropping in tensity increases to two, three, and even four crops per year, the farm family gains the security of food and income at shorter intervals. Risks of food indebtedness, and im poverishment are reduced, There is less need to migrate seasonally or to suffer the disruption, family separa tion, and humiliation which migra tion often entails, Reduced migration alleviates the pressure on the already overcrowded urban areas and mar ginal lands, Successful irrigation boosts the \\vider rural economy, Household in comes and purchasing power in crease; retail traders, transport opera tors, and many other suppliers of ser vices have more business; new proc essing industries are established, The sum of these \"secondary benefits\" is often on the same order as the pri mary, crop-production benefits.When well-managed, irrigated agriculture employment and higher wages for landless laborers, New or rehabiliated irrigation schemes often entail land redistribution and settlement of landless families. The increased opportunities promote mi gration to irrigated areas, both sea sonal and permanent settlements. The benefits extend beyond the mral poor to the urban poor. by reducing the pressure on urban employment and infrastructure and by increasing the real wages of urban laborers who spend the greatest proportion of their incomes on food.At the level of the national econ omy, irrigated agriculture increases food security through higher and more stable crop production and the ease with which developing countries build and maintain buffer stocks of food. Increased and more diversified food supplies from irrigated areas generate earnings or savings of foreign ex change and buffer the economy against precarious world markets. In creased rural opportunities attract m ral investment, both private and pub lie, in rural infrastructure and thereby reverse the terms of trade between rural and urban areas.Adverse effects also occur. There is a growing concern among environ mentalists over the negative externali ties which result from poorly man aged irrigation. Each year thousands of hectares of agricultural land must be abandoned due to salinization of the soil. Whole regions can be im poverished by the effects of water logging. Water-borne diseases slich as malaria, schistosomiasis, and filariasis detract from the positive health bene fits of better nutrition that irrigation should bring. Overexp!oitation of groundwater resources threatens the livelihood of many rural communi ties. The additional work generated by irrigation may place excessive bur dens on individuals; women may find themselves \\vorking harder in less healthy conditions. If unabated, it is likely that these problems \\vill increase in the future.Every one of these wider social and economic consequences is in some way part of the business of irrigation management. The benefits or consequences that may no'.v from improvements in irrigation manage ment, or from the continued dation of systems and their environ ments in the absence of these im provements, are therefore potentially great and intensive.The potential benefits of irrigation are great; the actual achievements in many developing countries (though are not negligible) are substan tially less than the potentiaL The pros pects for improvement lie in four aspects of irrigated agriculture. If man agement can lead the way, much else will follow.The average yield of food crops on irrigated land in India is about 2 tons/hectare in Japan it is about 6 t/ha. In tropical environments cereal productivity per unit of water can exceed 1 kilogram/ cubic meter Ckg/m3) under good water controls; in practice, it is usually less than 0.4 kg/ml, but rela tively few managing record it. The potential for high as 300 percent.Low productivity has many causes: seepage and other sorts of water wastage; inadequate, unpredictable, or untimely ,vater deliveries; small areas irrigated; farmers' overcautious choices of crops and inputs, in turn a result of water unreliability. Each of these is susceptible to alleviation by man agement.Equi~y. Sharp inequity between head-and tail-end farmers is com mon, and recent research shows that the gradients of deprivation arc steep. In India's Mahanadi Project, cereal yields declined from 1,935 kg/ha at the head to 350 kg/ha at the tail end. Research in Sri Lanka and in Pakistan has revealed that tail-end farmers suf fer multiple deprivations compared 6 with those in the head or middle of the system: they receive less water less reliably, in less timely fashion and have lower yields, lower returns to labor, lower incomes, less access to selvices and less influence. Ineq uity has some physical causes, but many of these effects could be miti gated by better management.Sustainability. Irrigation systems, once constructed, should be sllstain able in the long term, continuing to achieve and indeed to exceed their original objectives. That, however, rarely occurs. Loss of sustainability derives from several factors, or their interaction: physical factors, such as salinization of the soil (especially in the arid and semi-arid countries); financial factors, such as inadequate nows of resources into the system, depressing the motivation of its par ticipants; and organizational factors, such as maintenance departments in adequate to deal with system deterio ration. Each of these factors can be alleviated to some degree by good management skills.Quality q/life. The introduction of irrigation facilities brings many physi cal and social changes, affecting people's life their environments, their relationships, their work pattern. By increasing the capacity of land to produce food and support people. irrigation causes immigration and settlement of new populations, often causing cultural, social, and political changes. The different water regimes associated with irrigation are often favorable to disease-bearing organisms and vectors. Enhanced cropping in tensity, a common goal of irrigation dC'veiopment, implies more time spent at work in the fields. The impacts on family especially on women and children, are considerable, but not yet well understood. All these considera tions call for sensitive management, aimed at increasing benefits and re ducing adverse impacts.There are already a range of groups and institutes in many coun triec; which have programs of work that are in one way or another aimed at the improvement of irrigation or of irrigation management. lIMI will main tain its awareness of, and as far as possible contact with, sllch activities in order to ensure that it is not under taking activities that can be done equally or more effectively ebewhere; thus IIMI aims to identify the particu lar sectors and situations in which it opcrates with a comparative advan tage.It is important then to summarize the ongoing activities in research, training, and information related to irrigation management.Much of the research is of a single discipline kind, following conventional disciplinary lines, c;tudying one or a few aspects of an irrigation system in relative isolation. Specialized institu tions for such work exist in many countries. Research which analyzes irrigation systems from a holistic point of view, including the phYSical, agri cultural, institutional, and operational dimensions, is far less common.In countries with large irrigation systems, there have been numerous research projects of various kinds. Some include action research, as at the Mona Project in Pakistan, the joint work of the International Rice Research 1nstitute CIRRI) and the National J rrigation Administration in the Philippines, the Egypt Water Use Project, and several projects in India.A large number of training courses in irrigation are offered around the world. Most are specialized with con tinuing divisions between three major groups of disciplines: engineer ing and hydrology, agriculture, and the economic and social sciences. There are a particularly large number of courses availabk on the technical aspects of irrigatioll engineering but few on irrigation management, although some institutes in the indus trialized countries offer such courses. However, the natLlfe of irrigation and agriculture is changing, and with it, the subjects or trends that need to be addressed. In some cases, the above organizations and research in stitutions are recognizing their staff and program to address these needs. In other cases new institutions and programs arc emerging. In all cases, the complexity of emerging issues is leading to greater cooperation and collaboration between specialized in stitutions.Foremost in the list of trends is tbe growing concern among devel opment professionals over issues of agricultural and environmental sus tainability. Due to continued popula tion growth, and the lack of employ ment opportunities in rural areas, large populations are migrating to marginal or fragile lands. The research strategy of the past two decades emphaSized maximizing productivity under high input. highly intensive farming condi tions on the most productive lands. The emerging strategy is aimed at identifying crops, livestock, and sys tems of production that are adapt able to a wide range of physical and socio-cconomic environments. The stratq,'Y is multidisciplined and holis tic in nature and encompasses the management of whole resource sys tem;; rather than their individual com ponents.A number of international agricul ture research centers both within and associated with the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) were established in the past decade to address this need. In this section we consider which groups of people, and 'J<t,~U'~~ shoukl be the main users and benefi ciaries of the results of IIM!'s work. In order to maximize its the Institute must identify these users and their needs as sharply as it can, and ensure that it targets its work towards problems that are known to affect or constrain them significantly. There are as yet few research or training institutes with an explicit ori entation towards the management of irrigation (as distinct from the tech nologies of irrigation). IIMI is there fore in a rather different situation from many other international agricultural research centers, in that it will rarely be interacting with directly compa rable national institutes. These may come into existense later, or irriga tion management may be added to the range of existing national insti tutes. lIMI has tried to ensure that the views of affected client groups have influenced the evolution of its strat egy. The main actions in this regard were the wide circulation of earlier drafts of the strategy, and the con vening in April 1988 of a Strategy Workshop, to which senior represen tatives from all countries where IIMI is developing active programs, and also some from geographical areas where IIMI is not yet represented, were invited.Origins IIMI is the first international insti tute whose efforts are devoted solely to the subject of irrigation manage ment. It was established in 1984 with headquarters in Sri Lanka, and finance was provided by an International Support Group (see box for its donor membership) constituted for this single purpose.The process that led to IIMI's crea tion began in the early 1970s, and 2. the international center approach, characteristic of CGIAR, had had notable success in alleviating other constraints to agricultural produc tion; and 3. because of the location-specific nature of irrigation and its associ ated problems, it was apparent that a major effort was needed to strengthen national institutions and programs.Although lIMT is a young organi zation, it has nevertheless existed for five years and in that time has accu mulated certain experiences and per ceptions of its appropriate role.Certain values are widely shared among IIMI's Board and staff. These values govern the conduct of its work, and guide the Institute in making choices among alternative courses of action, and in determining priorities that are consistent with its mission. They are as follows.1. Promotion of multidisciplinary, collaborative, field-based research. This involves: a) using real irrigation systems as field laboratories, rather than developing special experimen tal facilities; and b) employing a systems approach.2. Emphasis upon solving real prob lems, in keeping with IIM!,s mis sion to help improve and sustain irrigation performance. This in turn implies:a) ensuring that impacts reach clients and ultimate beneficia ries, not simply studying irriga tion systems or developing bet ter understanding of their behaviors;b) not only developing innova tions, but collaborating with client agencies for their adap tation and implementation; and c) maintaining only a relatively small nucleus of headquarters staff, so that most of the pro fessional staff are placed in di rect contact with practical man agement problems.3. Ensuring that IIM!'s products and services achieve the highest stan dards of excellence. This implies: a) international recruitment of the most qualified specialists in the field drawn from all parts of the world; b) undertaking long-term pro grams when such effort is re quired; and c) focusing efforts on those things that lIMT can do well.4. Fostering the increased autonomy of client agencies, in keeping with IIMI's mission to strengthen national efforts. The ultimate cri terion of success will be the elimi nation of the need for IlMI to con tinue its assistance.5. Ensuring that lIMY's work ulti mately contributes to the reduc tion of poverty, the promotion of social justice, and the improvement of the situation of disadvantaged groups. Irrigation has the poten tial to bring about such but does not always do so, unless there is a positive orientation of management towards these goals.All of these values are of high significance in the management of IIMl's programs, but the second one in particular may deserve some added explanatory remarks. lIMI must not become, nor be externally perceived as, an academic institution. Its orien tation toward\" real problems and prac tical solutions must at all times be evident. lIMI is by no means the only in stitution playing an active role in im proving irrigation management. It has, however, certain features that are unique to it. These features define IIMI's comparative advantage, vis-a vis other institutions in the field. lEvU will develop its activities in such ways as to use and develop these special features, which are: * An international status and open international recruit ment policies enable IIMI to be a neutral objective observer, not identified with a particular country, particular discipline; or particular solution to irriga tion management problems; * A multicountry focus enables the Institute to test potential irrigation management innova tions in various contexts, and to promote intercountry exchanges of ideas and expe riences;* A long-term presence and resi dent staff in selected coun tries enable lIMI to participate in sustained action research on important irrigation manage ment problems, and to develop familiarity with the environ ments that int1uence them; * An emphaSiS on collaborative investigations and problem solving helps lIMI to work effectively in this mode with a number of different national agencies simultaneously in a given country, rather than being tied to specific projects or agen cies;* A combination of unrestricted and project funding facilitates a broad multidisciplinary \"program\" approach and provides IIMI with sufficient flexibility to address key long range irrigation management problems, There are other institutions char acterized by some (though not all) of these features, IIMI will aim to build up partnerships with these, and to take advantage of complementary strengths, On the other hand, IIMI does not aim to develop its strengths or research facilities, in anyone disci pline, in order to rival the existing Single-discipline institutions in fields such as hydraulic engineering, irri gation agronomy, or computational modeling, It recognizes that its comparative advantage does not lie in that direction, IIMI's policy will be to develop cooperative, not competi tive, relationships with established in stitutes in such fields,In previous sections we have con sidered the nature of the problems and opportunities that arise in irriga tion management; the identification of groups that can be assisted by an organization such as IIMI; and the character of IIMI itself, as it has evolved in its earliest years, These factors combine to lead to the follow ing statement ofIIMI's mission, which has been evolved by IIMI's staff and management and reflects the set of objectives formally given to the Insti tute in its founding charter. IIM! exists for the following pur pose:* to strengthen nationalefforts to improve and sustain the performance of irrigation systems in developing coun tries, through the develop ment and dissemination of management innovations.The above mission statement is brief. Some of the expressions in it deserve This means any physical or or ganizational change in the con ditions or the processes of management that can cause improved performance of a system. It does not necessarily mean changes that are entirely novel (although that may some times be the case), but it will probably more frequently mean the introduction of some prac tice that is new to the particular system or institution, but has been successfully demonstrated in some different context.* These innovations 'will undergo development anddissemina tion. The first of these is the process of identifying, field test ing and evaluating the new ap proach, which includes deter mining the conditions required for its successful adaptation from one context to another. The second part, dissemination, involves extending the knowl edge and experience so gained to IL\\U's partners and clients, * Performance of irrigation systems. The improvement of performance is IIM!' s major goal, so it is essential to know what it is, Performance is often taken to mean the degree to which a system achieves its objectives, But objectives differ for indi vidual systems and may be reset from time to time by a management decision. IIMI,s concern is with absolute stan dards of performance, so one of its early tasks is to develop consistent definitions and meas urements of each compronent of performance; productivity (i.e., crop output per unit of each major input; land, water, labor)' equity, reliability, sus tainability, profitability, and quality of life.In the discussions that led to the Institute's establishment, and in the process of self-examination that led to the current strategy, two questions were often raised, First. even in those situations where management defects are obvious, how can the Institute ensure that its activities will make a difference? The recent history of development is strewn with examples of projects whose anticipated benefits have failed to materialize, or have been realized only to a modest extent. IIMI must ensure that its activities do not follow the same path, Second, if the anticipated benefits do materialize, to whom will they go? What sections of society seem most likely to gain from any successes by IIMI? Crities often accuse irrigation de velopment of contributing to increases in social inequity; how can lIMI feel confident that the benefits of its ac tivities will go to those who need them most? IIMI cannot answer these ques tions fully, because both are affected by the broader consequences of national government policies. How ever, partial answers are possible.In regard to the first issue, IIMI's situation is in many ways analogous to that of the older international agricultural research centers at the time of their establishment. In 1960, there was no guarantee that hybrid technologies and associated practices would be embraced in traditional farming communities, that a \"Green Revolution\" would in fact take place. What could be identified at that time was the existence of opportunities; and (less clearly), the receptiveness of individuals to new initiatives.Both of these factors are present in regard to irrigation management. Opportunities are clear, because of the kinds and seriousness of prob lems noted earlier. A search for answers and willingness to change, by those responsible for managing agencies have become apparent during the past decade. ~ew organ izational structures are being contem plated in many countries: the move towards \"turnover\" of systems or parts of systems to some kind of newly created farmers' organization is one example. So are the efforts by many agencies to mobilize resources for operations through self-finanCing. Nevertheless, some agencies may hesi tate to introduce changes because of the risk associated with change. In these cases, IIMI's activities will serve as a catalyst through its emphasis on action research, which seeks to de termine the best ways of introducing new management practices. Once identified, IIMI's multicountry opera tions will provide a ready vehicle for disseminating agencies' experience in introducing change among other countries where similar conditions prevaiL As to the second issue (the identi fication of the beneficiary groups), there are several reasons for assum ing that benefits from better irrigation management should diffuse Widely through the economy and the popu lation.One function of irrigation manage ment is to ensure that water is deliv ered eqUitably throughout the com mand area -that all farmers, regard less of their location in the system, receive their due share. When this occurs, poorer farmers, who are frequently located in the disadvan taged sections of the system, receive immediate benefits; their families ul timately benefit from the increased quantity of food produced on the farm and the security that ensues.In cases where water is conserved and managed to increase cropping intensity, farmers throughout the system have the opportunity to grow three crops a year instead of one or two, and the total food production and associated income of the system can increase considerably. This sets off a chain of events which reverber ates throughout the local community including an increase in labor require ments within the system itself, an increase in demand for agricultural inputs and processing services, a downward pressure on informal inter est rates, and a general reversal of the terms of trade which attracts public investment in rural infrastruc ture and private investment in rural business. All these increase the demand for labor throughout the ru ral community.Irrigation is not undertaken just for fanners -if it was it would not attract the investment it does.Irri gation enables farmers to produce the surpluses that go to feed and clothe urban populations. When these sur pluses are weak, there is importation of agricultural products. When the surpluses are strong (as good man agement should help to ensure) for eign exchange can be put to other uses that benefit the entire popula tion.Improved lrngation management can also lead to sustainable farming systems. When farmers feel assured that they will receive water deliveries that correspond in timing and quan tity to field crops, they will be more willing to take the risk of diversifying into new crops, This is particularly of cropping systems reduces economic tive environmental impacts mentioned true for irrigating non-rice crops, and biological risks associated with thus far: salinization, siltation, and which have highly specific water growing a single crop. water-borne diseases. Such benefits requirements, in irrigation systems Last improved irrigation manage often accrue to the disadvantaged designed for rice, The diversification ment can alleviate most of the nega-rural families.PART IIIn many spheres of activity, recent decades have seen some form of managerial revolution, IIMI's mission implies a sustained, interna tional collaborative effort to bring the benefits of such a change to Third World irrigation, I1MI should serve during this period of change as a center for innovation. It perceives itself as engaging in two principal businesses:1. development of management innovations through research; and2. assistance to national irrigation agencies in generating, implement ing, and adapting such innovations in their own particular circum stances.These major businesses can be further divided into several sectors which will be reflected in the princi pal units of I1JvII's organizational struc ture in order to ensure that each receives adequate and sustained attention.1. field research on irrigation man agement systems in specific envi ronments; and2. thematic research to develop generic innovations that may be applicable in a variety of environ ments.Assistance to strengthen the man agement capacities of national irriga tion agencies requires: l. adaptive research and action research programs, whose purpose is to field-test management inno vations in specific circumstances;Major Strategic Areas 3, information services, Each of these five work areas is reviewed in separate sections which follow. From the point of view of IIMI's own organization, areas 1 and 3 above are intimately related and will often be performed by the same staff group, possibly as consecutive phases of the same project, so they are reviewed together in the section on Collaborative Field Research, Before these work areas are reviewed, however, some general principles governing IIMI's activities, and the specific themes on which 11,' \\111 will concentrate its efforts, are outlined. IIMI's role, in relation to the national organizations whose efforts it seeks to strengthen, improve, and promote, needs special attention, All of IIMI's work must be founded upon collaboration with such agencies, If there is not a complementary effort aimed towards management develop ment on the part of a national agency, there would be little that IIMI can do. other than research alone. which we have already stressed lIM! does not wish to see as an end in itself Since collaboration is essential, questions will arise as to the extent and limits of IIMI's role. There can be no general answers to these, since the character and functions of the agencies with which lIM! relates are very diverse. However, it will not generally be sufficient for IIMI simply to prescribe solutions; that is neces sary but lIM!,s tasks must usually in clude some share in a phase of im plementation and adaptation, Irriga tion usually has numerous site-spe cific features that make localized adaptations essential, IIMI must also stay in contact with the practical im plementation process for long enough to ensure that it is capable of suc ceeding,In pursuit of the general aim of practical relevance, IlMI will make arrangements for internal and exter nal assessments of its own perform ance; for developing measurable criteria of its own productivity; and for making itself accountable to its client groups, There are certain principles that must guide the methodologies of IIMI's studies and will animate all its work, regardless of the particular pro gram theme. All of these principles are permanent characteristics of IIMI's work. In this section we identify a set of major elements into which the subject area of irrigation management may be divided. This leads us to the subsequent section in which we make a selection of some of these, on which IIMI's work will initially concentrate.IIMI defines irrigation management as:the process in which institu tions or individuals set objec tives for irrigation systems; establish appropriate condi tions; and identify, mobilize, and use resources, so as to attain these objectives; while ensuring that all activities are performed without causing adverse effects.It is also worthwhile to clarify the term \"irrigation,\" and what it includes. This then leads to the analytic frame work that seems appropriate for study ing its management.Definitions of irrigation are numer ous. The word is used with two levels of meaning -a narrow, func tional one, and a broad one that incorporates social, institutional, agri cultural, and other connotations. In its restricted, functional sense (which is referred to here simply as \"irriga tion\") a suitable definition is:Irrigation is the totality of means employed by people to augment and control the sup ply of water to the soil, for the purpose of enhancing the pro duction of crops.This \"water-delivery\" definition constitutes the original meaning of irrigation. However, when speaking of managing irrigation, it is not enough to consider whether water is manipulated correctly, although this is certainly vital. It is also necessary to ensure that a variety of human, agricultural, and economic are taken into consideration before an as sertion is made that an irrigation en terprise is adequately and sustainable.It is precisely because of these two interpretations that the terminology \"irrigation water management\" has emerged, which is taken to mean the arrangements for del1vering water to fields at prescribed places, amounts and times. \"Irrigation management,\" on the other hand, is more often interpreted to mean management related to the broader scope of irrigation, which is IIMI's interpre tation too.IIMI divides the components of irrigation management into five very broad categories:1. setting objective::,~'and acquiring resources, for the achievement of those objectives;3. controlling processes towards achievement of the objectives;4. performing all these activities in ways that are appropriate to the external can text; and 5. arranging renewal of the system, from time to time, so as to en hance its capacities.Others may add a sixth com ponent -monitoring, to see whether or not objectives are achieved. That is a vital task of managers. It is, however, an integral part of the third component, process control, which cannot be performed properly in the absence of monitoring and its associated follow-up activities evaluation and feedback into correc tive measures.The five components above correspond to the follOWing five questions.1. What results do we want to achieve?2. What resources and facilities do we need, in order to achieve these results?3. How should we use these resources and facilities so as to achieve these results?4. What external factors should be considered so that in achieving the results we do not harm the exter nal environment, and so that external activities do not harm the internal operation?5, How can we arrange to adapt and improve the system from time to time, so as to incorporate new ideas and technologies, and to deliver steadily improving results?These five concerns a pply to national irrigation plans and to individual projects. But they are also present in every subsector of irriga tion management, and in each case the same five questions must be answered.This leads to the identification of the major sectors of the field of irrigation management.The following scheme of thirteen major sectors includes most of the issues that give rise to practical management problems. Each sector is linked to one of the five compo nents listed above.Objectives There are many interactions among these sectors, but they are sufficiently distinct so that each can be treated as a separate topic of analysis.An important feature is the relationship between the organizations that manage irrigation and the users (or farmers). They are joint parti cipants in the business of crop pro duction, and irrigation cannot succeed without the best efforts of these two groups. However, the farm com munity is not under the direct control of the management organizations. Some of the sectors in this analysis (such as the management of water) are usually subject to the direct control of a managing agency, and others (such as the management of land and crops) are usually not. Because the performance of the system is affected by those aspects that are outside its direct control, a managing agency cannot ignore what happens in these sectors. Instead, it must find ways of influencing them.From the set of irrigation manage ment sectors identified above, IIMI has chosen initially a smaller group of seven major program themes upon which it intends to concentrate its efforts.The selection of this subset of major themes is not to be regarded in a negative sense. It does not mean that IIMI will neglect other aspects of irrigation management; on the contrary, it must strive to maintain contact and awareness of develop ments in all of them. But the Institute is not a large one, and it must beware of the dangers of excessive disposal of its available resources across the very large field that is irrigation management. Its seven major themes will be the areas inwhich IIMl seeks to make the strong est impact.The themes will guide staff recruit ment policies and ensure an appro priate balance of interests and disciplines. The application of a thematic structure to IIMI's programs will also optimize the use of a small nucleus of headquarters staff, whose function is to integrate or synthesize the results of country-specific studies, to perceive general trends, and to make inter-country comparisons (see section on Thematic Research).In selecting its seven themes, IIMI has been guided by three considera tions.1. Users' needs. TIMI will address 19 problems that correspond to needs felt and expressed by its primary user group, the irrigation agencies, and will aim towards developing practical solutions.on those problem areas in which solutions seem likely to have maxi mum impact.3. Comparative advantage. IIMI will concentrate on themes where it possesses a comparative advantage relative to other institutes study ing aspects of irrigation. This implies special attention to multidisciplinary questions and to integrated management, rather than single-discipline issues.The seven themes on which IIMI proposes to build its programs are as follows:Institutions for irrigation manage ment Under this heading, IIMI will con centrate on determining the most ap propriate institutional conditions for managing irrigation systems.This will involve research on such issues as the merits of schemes run by central management agencies ver sus those managed by farmers; or those that treat farmers as tenants as contrasted with those that give farm ers transferable land titles. Of par ticular importance will be the exami nation of the impact of such funda mental institutional choices on irriga tion performance under varying envi ronmental and social conditions. For those systems managed by central management agencies, research issues will include determining the numbers, quality, knowledge, and skills of agency personnel; assessing alterna tive information gathering arrange ments and communication systems; and analyzing the advantages and dis advantages of different institutional mechanisms for cost recovery.Governance, also subsumed un der this theme, is a significant part of the total set of management concli tions, yet its relationship to system performance criteria such as produc tivity or cost-effectiveness has been Strategv a/the International Irrigation Management Institute remarkably little studied. A wide variety of organizational models are in use, ranging from centralized min istries of government and single system para statal corporations to farmer-managed systems in which government agencies have no controlling voice. Within the farmer managed sector itself, there are again a great many variants.The institutions that affect irriga tion are not only those that manage it directly. Other kinds of institutions condition the legal, social, political, and economic environment within which irrigations must function. and these can have significant impacts on system performance.The justification for this theme comes from the second and third criteria quoted above: etJective work in this field has high potential for impact, and lies well within lIMI's area of comparative advantage. There will be substantial interaction between this theme and all others, but especially with the next two.This theme concerns processes in the physical water supply, delivery, and disposal systems. In canal it encompasses operations down to the delivery of water to farmers or farmer groups, so it implies awareness of crop needs for water, and of the constraints on water delivery that may be imposed by such aspects as soil type or land shaping. (However, IIMI does not expect to extend its research effort into these latter areas; it needs aware ness of, but not research activity on them.)The past decade has seen a number of field studies on tertiary water distribution, often going under the name \"on-farm water manage ment.\" There have been far fewer 20 studies of what are referred to as \"main-system\" operations, and on the second of our theme-selection crite ria (impact potential) this is chosen as an area where the lack of past analyses suggests considerable possi bilities of improvement.Many of the present problems of canal operations are the result of changing objectives of canal systems (or changing external demands, not always explicity recognized in restated objectives): such changes are happenthrough gradual evolution of the irrigated agricultural system, through unintended environmental impacts, or rapid changes in cropping patterns as farmers adjust to economic changes. In its work thus far IIJ\\U has found that main canal operations, with their preponderance of hardware, are perceived by agencies as already operating efficiently, when the oppo site is frequently the case. In these cases, lIMI must first prove that prob lems do exist and then seek solu tions.Other stresses on operational processes arise from defIcient main tenance, so there will be significant interaction between this theme and that of maintenance and rehabilita tion (below). A major focus of IIMI's work on this theme will relate to the operation of irrigation systems under changing conditions.Canal operations are still the predominant area of irrigation water management in developing countries, but other features are steadily gaining importance. Groundwater development and conjunctive use of ground and surface water resources have helped many countries (notably in the Indian subcontinent and in northern China) to modify the sea sonality of their irrigation supplies, and at the same time to combat waterlogging due to rising water tables. There are often special prob lems of heterogeneous management, since surface water is usually a public resource, whereas wells are often private.Having identified the management conditions that a system requires, there arises the associated question of mobilizing resources (usually financial) in order to secure and sustain these conditions, Budget cut backs and the rising cost of rehabili tation have moved this problem to the forefront of agency considerations; thus, by our first criterion, clients' interest, it is a prominent issue. Expenditure may be defrayed in many ways: sometimes by recovery of irrigation services fees from benefici aries: by beneficiaries' contributions in cash or in-kind, particularly labor; or, more commonly, by way of direct funding from national treasuries.IIMrs comparative advantage lies not in the narrower financing ques tions of how much should be collected and from whom; but rather on the broader, interdiSCiplinary ques tions of the interactions among finance, agency performance, and overall system performance. Strategies have to be determined that will mobilize resources in ways that increase accountability and financial responsibility of agencies and hence the performance and sustainability of systems. This is a case for action research, in collaboration willi irriga tion management agencies willing to develop and field-test alternative methods for resource mobilization.Despite its current importance to agencies, the theme of finance should not rest there. The problem of moti vating two major groups of people agency officials and farmers -to secure maximum performance from systems will always be closely asso ciated with finance. There have re cently been notable cases where performance (measured by crop production) has collapsed as market rewards to cultivators dropped below motivating levels. Nor can farmers' service fees be pushed to the level that it becomes a disincen tive to farming, or crop selection, par ticularly when the underlying flow of resources into the system, from markets or central purchasing authori ties, is deficient. The linkages of these factors to management and perform ance are intimately related.Irrigation systems deteriorate physi cally like any other physical struc ture. Structures may rust or be willfully damaged; weeds grow and sediment accumulates in canals; all sorts of obtrusions like animals, vehicles, garbage, may cause the banks and beds of canals to become deformed from their initial shape. Nearly all such deterioration detracts from the system's capacity to meet its objec tives.Management must develop an appropriate response to this fact, and the responses Virtually always fall into one of two categories: maintenance or rehabilitation. These can be con sidered as, respectively, continuous or discrete methods of accomplishing the same basic objective of keeping the system approximately in the con ditions for which it was intended. There is a substantial difference, how ever, in that rehabilitation, conducted after a Significant number of years, is usually also taken as an opportunity to upgrade and update the system: to enhance the capacity of the system to meet new objectives. So the distinction between maintenance and rehabilitation goes well beyond the simple distinction between current cost and capital reinvestment.The problems most widely per ceived managing agencies, in this theme area, are two. First, many coun tries with mature irrigation systems are currently making large investments in the rehabilitation of irrigation systems. Because systems include physical facilities, organizational struc 21 tures, and management processes appropriate mixes of hardware am software are required in order te upgrade the performance potential and then to sustain it at the neVI levels. Many alternative rehabilitatior strategies are currently being imple mented, and offer opportunities te compare costs, benefits, impact, ane sustainability of systems rehabilitated Second, under current maintenanc( policies, systems must be maintainec in a condition sufficient for th( achievement of objectives. Th( organizing and financing of adequat( maintenance is presenting difficultie: to many agencies (and is indeed on, of the motivations behind the searcl for better financing arrangements an( for turnover schemes; so these theme: have clear interlinkages).As described earlier, managemen of irrigation systems includes not onl: management of water but als( management of people an( management of information. In man: developing countries, irrigatiol bureaucracies administer irrigatiOl systems with emphasis on the suppI: of water as an input to agricultura production and on following rules anI procedures. But the essence management is to monitor not onl' the inputs but also the outputs, the process, and the feedback, and t( make the necessary changes in rea time operations in response to sud feedback.Shifting from al administration mode to a managemen mode in operating systems b, enhancing the management capacit of the decision-making and operatin: personnel of irrigation agencies is th. key to achieving and sustaining hig] levels of irrigation systen performance. In addition, if irrigatiol are to adopt better cam operation practices and use them 01 a large-scale and sustained basi~ profound changes in both thei 0 internal structures and processes and the policy environment influencing them will be required.IIMI thus proposes to devote special attention to the following policy decisions, institutional arrangements, and organizational and management changes that will make the implementation of improved canal operation practices possible. In conducting such work, IIMI will build on its experience to date on the subject, particularly in Sri Lanka and Indonesia.• Change strategies (involving policy, organizational, and management innovations) to assist irrigation management agencies to shift from an administrative mode to a more dynamic innovative management mode.• Methodologies for monitoring and evaluating the performance of the management process (i.e., of the agency itself) for operational use by irrigation agencies.• Strategies to increase accountability of agencies, particularly to farmers, and to improve coordination among agencies.• Organizational and management techniques to enhance the communication and information management processes of irrigation agencies.Governmental institutions play a variety of roles to help develop and manage irrigation systems in developing countries. In some instances, governmental agencies are directly responsible for the management of irrigation. In other instances, governmental institutions play more indirect roles. These roles include promoting irrigation development through the provision of credit and technical assistance services to farmer groups or individuals; assisting in the rehabilitation and reconstruction of systems owned and operated by farmers; and helping farmers improve operations, maintenance and management standards through water management advisory extension services and allied mechanisms. In addition, governments are generally responsible for coordinating the provision of seeds, fertilizers, credit, and other inputs required to increase the productivity of irrigated agriculture.In a growing number of cases (see \"Management or Change\" below) government agencies originally established to play a direct role in the development, construction, and management of irrigation systems are now being asked to change their approacb and play an indirect role geared towards providing support services to individuals or farmer groups responsible for farmer managed systems. Such indirect roles, however, require management approaches as sophisticated as those required by irrigation agencies directly responsible for water supply and distribution. For example, they require the organization of credit and technical assistance services; the mobilization of labor and financial resources from farmers; and the coordinating of delivery of inputs and services provided by different agencies and private sources. They also require skills -in dealing with large numbers of small farmers, in working with farmer organizations and NGOs, and in recognizing the role of small farmer-managed systems in agricultural production -staff of traditional irrigation agencies and departments frequently do not• possess. The need for management innovations and management training in the development of more effective irrigation support services to farmers is therefore great.In addressing the management of 22 irrigation support services to farmers, lIMI intends to build on its work to date in Nepal, Sri Lanka, and other countries on improving the effectiveness of governmental assistance to traditional farmer managed irrigation systems. Small irrigation systems built and managed by farmers exist in many of these countries, and in some (such as Nepal) they represent a majority of the irrigated areas.The themes described above relate mainly to aspects of performance and management within an established institutional system. There are times when it becomes appropriate to make fundamental changes to an existing set of institutions: to introduce new ones, to abolish old ones, or to relocate the interfaces and redefine areas of responsibility between institutions.The process is akin to modernization of the physical system. It involves (partially) returning to the system design stage, and establishing new management conditions. However, it is often much more difficult to achieve, because existing groups and institutions may resist the change.The foremost example of this in the current decade is the trend to promote development of farmers' organizations, and to turn over to them certain functions, such as channel maintenance and perhaps fee collection, which were previously discharged by government agencies. Studies of this \"turnover\" process will form IlMI's main initial activity under this theme. A number of countries I,OW have active policies in these directions, so IIMI's interest in it conforms to the criterion of clients' needs.Physically, the turnover process amounts to shifting the interface between agency and farmer group, say from the field channel head to a larger distributary channel head, Organizationally it is much more complex. It involves questions about the appropriate constitution, financial status, and extent of authority of these stronger farmer organizations; land tenure; relationship with transfer of employment of some operation and maintenance staff to a new employer; and much more. The ways in which these matters are decided must have many implications in regard to the subsequent performance of the system, especially its output and equity.The problem here is twofold: to determine the most desirable arrangements to achieve after the transfer, and to manage the period of transltlOn. All proposals for institutional change present these two problems, and the turnover question is the most prominent of them today.Turnover is clearly a case where IIMI's multidisciplinary approach should display its comparative advantage; and its impact potential is also obvious.Collaborative field research projects conducted on irrigation management systems in specific environments will be a key element of IIMI's work to develop management innovations. Frequently, such research will include components of adaptive or action research. The typical form of IIMI's field projects will continue to involve IIMI staff in collaborative activities with some national institute or management organization. The day to-day control of such projects, and the compiling of reports when they end, will be primarily the business of the staff of IIMI's country units.Projects will usually (although not always) be financed by external donors. The process of project formulation will generally, therefore, involve at least three parties: IIMI, a national agency, and a donor. For these reasons, project formulation will ineVitably require significant amounts of time, and project planning must normally begin between one and two years before the desired inception date. IIMI's basic sources for fresh information on irrigation management practices and problems will come from its field research programs. In general such research will be a part of some specific problem-solVing exercise for which IIMl's participation has been invited, so research and innovation development aspects will proceed together. In all cases there should be a national organization willing and able to collaborate effectively with IIM!.National collaborators may be of several kinds: irrigation management agencies and research institutions; universities and professional training establishments; and irrigation users' organizations, Other international agricultural research centers may occasionally also be partners, but their presence would not usually be sufficient, since IIMI would also seek to establish a national-level interest in all its field work.In its selection of projects to pro pose to its potential collaborators and funders for their support and partici pation, fIMf will apply the following criteria: Another part of lIMI's activities relates to implementing the selected project design with living irrigation systems operated by national in the field to confirm the suitability of the design; to innovate improvements during implementation, as needed; to evaluate the results; and to de cide on the suitability of the tested modes for system-wide applica tion.\"This statement describes well IIMrs own view of its role in field opera tions, and of the relationship between such operations and thematic research (see following section). IIMI's field operations involve two study phase. whose purpose is to in which proposed changes are tested types of work (between which there understand a given system; and an in practice and modified in order to is not a sharp boundary). There is a implementation or innovation phase, optimize their effects in the given system.As noted earlier, the development of management innovations requires not only field research on irrigation management systems in specific environments, but also thematic re search to develop generic innova tions that may be applicable in a variety of environments. For this reason, research leading to generic descriptions and solutions of irriga tion management questions, organ ized along the lines of the seven themes defined in the section on IIMI's Thematic Research Programs, will be a second key element of IIM!'s work to develop management inno vations. IIM!'s field research activi ties, as described in the section on Collaborative Field Research, will be a significant source of field data and experience for input to IIMI's thematic research.IIyn's proposed work on thematic research will build on the experience and data that the institute has already acquired through its field research work to date. However, special effort will be made to analyze this experi ence, comparing it with those pub lished by other researchers, contrast ing different country experiences, and developing conceptual frameworks that will connect and explain such findings and ultimately give them a predictive capacity. A significant ele ment of the latter activity will be the formulation of objectively testable hypotheses about the various cause and effect linkages in the processes of irrigation management -one of the principles of IIMI's work outlined in the section on Major Strategic Areas.An important aspect of IIMI's thematic research work will be the prepaFdtion and periodic review and updating of \"state-of-the-art\" analyses of the present state of knowledge on each of IIMI's seven themes. Such reviews will help integrate or synthe size the results of the work of lIMI and others, and perceive general trends; help inform irrigation manag ers, policy makers, and researchers about the major developments in the field of irrigation management in a systematic and regular manner; and serve as a secure foundation for the further work of lIMI in each of the seven themes through the identifica tion of principal gaps in knowledge as well as areas requiring research. IIMI's clients, partners, and donors all show high interest in bringing about a \"management revolution\" in irrigation. If this is to occur (as IIMI believes it will) an essential ingredi ent will be training and professional development, especially oriented towards introducing fresh manage ment ideas and oppOltunities at the middle and upper strata of managing agencies, where such ideas can most readily be adapted and implemented.In this section we examine first, A corollary of points 1 and 2 above is that IIMI's training should not aim to develop general irrigation skills or understanding of irrigation technology. There are numerous institutions already supplying this field, and IIMI's management emphasis would be diluted if it allowed itself to become involved in these aspects.The recipients of training towards whom lIMI will direct its activities are in three major groups.1. Managers, especially those in (or likely soon to be in) positions where they can introduce or influence change and innovation in their organizations.2. Trainers. lIMPs management training efforts will also include a component directed towards developing national cadres of research staff with the capacity to conduct research leading to the development and dissemination of management innovations in their own countries. Such a component will require efforts on several fronts, not all of which will be strictly in the domain of IIMI's training staff. They will include (1) on-the-job training of staff of partner/client institutions seconded to IIMI for participation in collaborative action research projects;(2) fellowships for staff of national research institutions in developing countries; and (3) career internships for post-doctoral and other highly qualified staff of national research and training institutes. Of particular importance will be the development of cooperative action research programs in which national institutes take on primary responsibility for the conduct of research. Such programs could build on the experience that lIMI has achieved to-date through on going cooperative activities in the Philippines, India, and Sri Lanka.These roles on the boundary between research and training will be explicitly recognized in IIMI's system of Special Awards and Research Fellowships.As noted above, most of IIMI's training efforts will be applied to indirect delivery of training services. This implies that lIMI will require national partners through whom to channel these services. There is no standard model for these partners, since national institutes explicitly concerned with the management of irrigation do not (in genera]) exist at present in most developing countries. Sometimes, the training agency will be the same irrigation agency with which IIMI forms its research collaboration; sometimes, it may be a university, an institute of management studies, or some other type of establishment.It is to be hoped that national irrigation management institutes will, in due course, evolve, and in countries where this occurs lIMI's management training task is likely to be easier and more effective.A task that lIMI is well equipped to perform is the assessment of training needs in Ifngation management. These needs vary. Needs assessments are desirable both at a national level and at the level of indivicjual agencies. IIMI will formulate general methodologies for making such assessments, and will thus be ready either to perform the assessments itself, or to help others to implement its methodologies.The topics of IIMI's proposed training activities can be divided into two groups. There are some subjects on which it is appropriate to develop regular or frequently repeated courses, which aim at establishing common bodies of understanding, attitudes, methods, etc., within an organization. Other subjects are more suited to occasional, hnonrepetitive\" presentations or seminars in relatively restricted groups.The latter style borders very closely upon nYu'S information program. It is appropriate for the initial dissemi nation of new ideas and insights, especially among people. It is to be expected that this will be a normal mode of imparting the results of TIM!'s thematic studies and also for exposing the information gathered from a particular country program or project to wider audiences from other countries.Regular trammg is appropriate in three major subject areas.1. Management of the irrigated agriculture sector. To make the irri gation sector function effectively, many agencies and organizations must operate in a coordinated way. Each actor in this complex system has his own restricted objectives. To keep these in harmony with the objectives of the whole system there is a need for mechanisms that initiate and guide decision-making processes by these various participants.The role of training in this respect is one of creating an awareness of the complexity of the irrigation system and its overall objectives and the role each actor is expected to play in this complex system so it will achieve these objectives.The focus of such training should be on systems thinking, communica tion skills and methods, information sharing, and joint decision making.Management has been defined earlier as the process in which institutions and individuals set objec tives for irrigation systems; establish appropriate conditions; and identify, mobilize, and use resources to attain these objectives.Improving irrigation systems' per formance through improved manage ment therefore means the improve ment of the process by which institu tions do these things. It is in this respect that distinctions can be made between administrative and manage ment modes of operation.In the administrative mode irriga tion visualize their responsi bility in terms of the way they do their work. The emphasis is on being technically correct, efficient, and timely. To meet these responsibilities, most irrigation agencies in the administrative mode tend to be self oriented and input-focused.In areas with severe water short age and strong rules defining equi table sharing of the limited water supplies, this mode of operation may be justified, provided it is indeed tech nically correct, efficient, timely, and cost-effective.In situations where there are less stringent water conditions and more potential and flexibility for matching system operation to changing agricul tural opportunities, there is a need for organizations to operate in a more managerial mode, more oriented to clients and more concerned with agricultural outputs.Presently the administrative mode of operation is a common phenome non, even in situations where a more managerial mode could generate con siderable benefits. Benefits could be realized through the introduction of improved management processes, appropriate and adapted to the local institutional, cultural, social, and tech nical environment.The role of training in this context is one of assistance to irrigation insti tutions in the introduction of man agement innovations. At the same time however, there is an aspect of creat ing an awareness of the potential benefits that could be obtained from improved management processes and conditions. Such improvements do not always need to have far-reaching con sequences, as for instance the intro duction of an improved management information system. A redefinition of tasks and responsibilities, as for in stance in turning over the responsi bility for parts of the system to its users, could on the other hand have considerable consequences for the agency. In both cases the role of train ing is to enhance the capacity oLthe agency to realize the required man agement changes.There are many individuals involved in irriga tionnot only 'individuals from irri gation institutions (government or non-government) and farmers, but also individuals from other govern ment or non-government institutions like extension services, credit organi zations, etc. Management training can help individual participants in irriga tion management to understand, define, and implement their own roles within this organizational system.A clear distinction has to be made between decision making on the one hand and the physical implementa tion of what has been decided on the other. As decision-making proc esses (or management in general) are usually not part of an irrigation tech nical training, there is indeed a need to fill this gap by management train ing fOCUSing on the specific require ments in relation to managerial responsibilities for operation and maintenance of irrigation systems. Such a program will have to deal primarily with management principles and practices and their application to irrigation management. Enhancement of individual management capability skills is the major objective. This does not mean that irrigation skills can be ignored. On the contrary, proper irri gation management requires a basic knowledge of the physical possibili ties of the system to be managed. If such knowledge is lacking, irrigation management training should also pro vide opportunities to fill this knowl edge gap.The two principal operational objectives of IlMI's information work will be (1) to provide an adequate support format for the varied requirements of the Institute in terms of information output (during a period when the Institute's research activities will begin to generate significant information materials); and (2) to identify selected segments of IIMI's partners' and clients' information needs to which IIMI could have a comparative advantage in selectively catering. lIMI has clearly identified three levels of target audiences for information exchange that must be reached for IIMI to fulfill its mission. At the first level are those people who are in positions where they can put into practice management innovations developed by lIMI and its collaborating agencies_ Second are those people concerned with the study or analysis of irrigation management, and who are themselves engaged in developing management innovations. Third, are those people who maintain an interest in IIMI's activities and progress, including representatives of donor agencies and other stakeholders of IIMI.The first of these groups involves people in middle to senior management positions and at policy making and decision-taking levels, predominantly in ministries and irrigation management organizations. In some cases, these people will be in the countries where an innovation is developed and thus where the innovation may be readily applicable; in other cases they will be in other countries where conditions are similar, and where the innovation may be adapted.managers and researchers in the management organizations and research and training establishments. Some of these individuals may reside in developed countries, within universities or specialized institutions.The third is a more diffused group induding most of IIMI's stakeholder and funder groups, as well as other international agricultural research centers whose work is directly or indirectly related to irrigation management.For all of these groups, IIMI's information services are based, first, on the provision of materials that are developed within IIMI's own thematic research and field operations programs. Although other institutions can supply general information on irrigation management, lIMI is in an excellent position to do the conceptual and analytical work needed to identify problem areas, collect and analyze information, and disseminate the information to those people who need it most. Second, lIMI will provide more general information on its own activities as well as act in an information interface capacity to comment or advise on wider irrigation management issues and developments as it deems appropriate in the fulfillment of its mission. Third, it will assist other institutions and individuals involved in irrigation management information exchange. Fourth, the Institute's information services will provide product support for its training and professional development programs.The Institute does not currently see a comparative advantage in mainra111111g Widely accessible databases, or in collating abstracts of relevant publications by others. Activities of these kinds, based upon assisting people to access aspects of irrigation management literature generated outside of IIMI, are already performed by others such as the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (lCID), and the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux International (CAB International). Nevertheless, lIMI will contact appropriate organizations in the field of multilateral, multidisciplinary network and referral systems in the field of irrigation management information exchange, where there is probably a comparative advantage in assisting in coordination of existing networks, and participating in defining, implementing, and substantively supporting such coordinatory mechanisms or bodies. The Institute will also assist the irrigation management community in enhanced access to selective information of use in innovation and decision making. JIMI will also maintain and expand its internal library and information database for use by the Institute and its collaborators, although it does not aim to build up a general external service based on these. It will maintain close relationships with similar information gathering groups to ensure IIMI's access to those materials. and to ensure that those institutions have access to materials published by JIMI. And progressively. it will build on capacity to advise national research centres on relevant documentation and technical information technology.Within the overall information thrust, publication is the activity which will generate, initially, the greater volume of output most readily available to target audiences. Specific funded projects usually contain contractual requirements in terms of project reporting, be they initial, interim, or final reports. Also, IIMI's work since its inception has accumulated a critical mass of ongoing research and results which can now form the genesis of a strong publications program. In addition, an information/publications component will be built into project design to ensure that the information gathered during the course of a project is converted into an information product which can be used by intended audiences.IIMI's publications actlvltles will concentrate on the folloWing outputs:1. Project Reports. which describe in full detail activities and results of specific field-work. These are of ten reqUired as part of contractual project ob liga tions and conse quently respond to a project specific format. They are often site specific, and are written to comply with the requirements of the relevant national client depart ment and collaborating institute, and the project funder. They may also have a relatively small exter nal audience.late discussion among people interested in different aspects of irrigation management. They make available the results of recent ongoing research. and the informed opinions of lIMI staff members and collaborators, as early as possible.3.1 Research Papers. These are aimed at wider international audiences, broadly in the second audience category. They review, in a more con densed format, principal find ings, especially th ose that seem to be of more general relevance. Such papers may be derived directly from IIMl's field-work; but they may also be commissioned, for example under lIMI Special Awards, from non-lIMI people with relevant experience. These are usually short in length (20-80 pages) and will be sent to selected mailing targets and on demand.3.2 Monographs. These are longer works 000-400 pages) des tined for similar audiences. Publications will normally be written into project or research design. New formats for IIMI publications will be designed to promote both the research and practical aspects of the Institute's work For example, lIMI's clients have shown a strong interest in receiving gUidelines, manuals, and stan dards for irrigation manage ment practices.These will be summaries of findings of major research. Primarily intended for middle-to senior level irrigation officials, they are similar to fact sheets pro duced by extension organiza tions and disseminate quickly those pieces of information that IIMI thinks are of widest relevance. Management briefs generally describe the essence of some finding; readers with particular! y high interest in that finding are told how to obtain the next. more detailed level of publication that am plifies it.ject and program collabora tors will be encouraged, with information services support, to publish their research in the foremost scientific journals in the field. OtTprints will be made of these articles for dis tribution to IIMI's own audi ences.3.5 Newsletters. IIMI will publish network information and theme-specific research results, such as the current FMIS and other newsletters, which are aimed at the second audience grou p, irrigation management profes sionals and researchers.3.6 Seminar Proceedings. II?vII will organize research seminars given by senior staff and selected visitors. The proceed ings of these seminars will be published as a \"state of the art\" series on relevant topics.Research Papers, this series contains works of relevance mainly in their country of gen eration, and most of JIJ\\II's country programs will pro duce works of this nature, as a result of their field activi ties.In addition to its technical publi cations, IIMI will develop a commu nications and public affairs network with a view to providing more general news, information, and dissemination of results to enhance its overall interest, good will, and objectives. The quarterly IIMI Review, press releases, and other information materials will be issued on a regular basis, as well as reports and commu nications on the Institute's overall, \"corporate\" activities, such as Annual Reports and the Program and Budget documents.Closely linked to this will be a progressively stronger effort in the area of audiovisual communication. Videos and other types of audiovisu als will be used to support the public affairs network as well as the research staff, and others who wish to make visual presentations of their work It will be a particularly important com ponent of training and professional development activities.English will serve as the working language of the Institute. However, with the establishment of important country and regional programs in West Africa and Morocco. French is increasingly needed as a second work ing language, initially in the region, but with wider connotations there after. It is to be noted that whereas in Asia many languages are used, in Africa the three main languages of communication are Arabic, English, and French. IIMI also recognizes the importance of disseminating material in other languages that are Widely used in its collaborator countries, such as Urdu, Tagalog, and Bahasa Indo nesia, and later. Spanish, Chinese, and Hindi. IIMI will endeavor to arrange with its national partners and consul tative committees for translation into national languages those outputs with special significance to a particular country.In keeping with its mission to strengthen national capacities in irrigation management, IIMI proposes to carry out its field-work through a set of country operations. The logic of this is clear; unlike many other kinds of agricultural research, nothing of significance in irrigation management can be studied in a laboratory, and because of location specific influences relatively little can be studied theoretically. IIMI must therefore put its staff into direct contact with diverse irrigation management situations in the field, and country operations provide a vehicle for doing this.Country operations can be organized at differing levels of involvement, according to circumstances and resources. The CGIAR Study Team on Water Management, whose 1982 report led to the establishment of lIMI, proposed six different levels of IIMI involvement, of which IIMI proposes to initially develop four.1. Non-resident operations. in which lIMT undertakes those functions that can be done intermittently: seminars, workshops, information and staff exchanges, and encouraging national participation in network research.fields one or two international staff and aims to provide them with supporting resources sufficient to pursue collaboration in action research and in training, and to extend research capacity by sponsoring nationals as research associates or fellows. This model can also accomplish all that the non-resident model does, but itdoes not usually sutlke to cover IIMI's complete thematic range.A strong \"branch P operations, in which TIMT places a fully multidisciplinary team, capable of operating across IIMI's range of themes and services. So far, this type has been implemented only in Pakistan, and because of its relatively high cost it \\vill be appropriate only to cOllntries with large amounts of irrigated land.4. Multicountry or regional resident uperations, in which a staff group is based in one country, but is intended to relate also to a number of neighbouring countries. This type of operation is being implemented in West Africa, and will be appropriate in regions where the extent of irrigation in individual countries is insufficient to justify the development of single-country lIMI operations.Although lEvU has initially chosen the above framework, it will be necessary to rnaintain fleXibility in its procedures. In some cases, lIMI may choose to playa more catalytic role, or a more advisory role in managing and supervising work by others. An example might be an IIMI research network. wherein staff assist in the development and management of research projects carried out by network members.Country operations, whether of the branch, resident, or non-resident types, require careful management arrangements.These must be designed to ensure that each operation will:1. contribute to IIMI's strategic, and especially thematic, objectives;2. contribute to the growth of national efforts, especially in irrigation management research and development; and 3. maintain effective and productive relationships with all significant national organizations concerned with the management of irrigation.In addition. because most of the country operations' component activities must be funded through project grants, the activities will also be constrained by the need to satisfy objectives that are set by those donors.To achieve these aims. IIMI's country operations will normally have three regulatory or control elements.1. An Agreement, or Memorandum of Understanding, between IIMI and the national government, that regulates the legal and fiscal status of the lIMI country unit and its personnel.2. A Technical Agreement, or series of such Agreements. between IIMI and key national irrigJtion organizations, which provides the framework for institutional collaboration in field-work and other technical activities.3. A Consultative Committee, compnsl11g senior national irrigation managers and other appropriate people, as well as IIMI staff. At present, IIMI's Consultative Committees meet about two or three times a year. to ensure that IIMI's activities are in concurrence with national objectives and IIMI's own strategic objectives. These will also ensure that IIMI's activities remain \"user-driven.\"Following the adoption of IIMl's overall international strategy, component national workplans will be developed to guide program development in each of the countries where JIMI has active operations, in ways consistent with the overall strategy, but reflecting also the particular needs and priorities of each country.IIMI does not intend to make country operations permanent installations. Operations must remain in place long enough to be economically and strategically viable. To remain in agreement with IIMI's mission to strengthen the capacity of national agencies and institutions, the goal of every country operation will be that over time IIMI's activities would be taken over by those institutions and agencies. For that reason, achievements will be evaluated on a regular basis by IIMI's Board, staff, and the host country Consultative Committees. This will also increase the accountability of each operation.In deciding where it should estab lish country operations, and the vari ous levels of activity (above) which should take place, IIMI will be guided by the following criteria.1. Receptivity. Because IIMI's work cannot be implemented without active national collaboration. it must feel assured that its presence and its inputs are strongly desired by significant national irrigation institutions.2. Need. IIMI must locate its staff in places where there is evident need for the kind of work it can do, in order to ensure that the outputs have beneficial impacts.lIMI will presumably find more management problems and oppor tunities in countries v.iith consid erable numbers of irrigation proand considerable diversity of irrigation types. Resident JIM] staff in such countries will therefore generate a wider range of infor matjon to feed into IIM1's thematic studies.tries have developed special con centrations of effort, or have had notable success, with some aspect of management such as farmer managed systems, turnover policies, or conjunctive use of groundwater. IIMI will have clear reasons to place staff where they can study such special experience.5. Institutional strengths. The inten sity of IIMI's own effort will be influenced by national capacity to contribute to these efforts. Where, for example, there are strong 34 national research institutes, the national role in a collaborative project can be greater, and 11Mb correspondingly less.6. Administrative cnnmp,ements. lEvU must negotiate separate agree ments, covering its legal and fiscal status, in each country where it proposes to place resident opera tion teams. The negotiations for these can be lengthy and costly. and IIM! will therefore prefer coun tries which offer acceptable ar rangements most readily. 7 Donor supp011. IIyU does not ex pect to have unrestricted funds on an adequate scale [0 finance its country operations. Each new resi dent operation must therefore find donor support, sufficient in dura tion to justify the substantial effort of establishing a new office.There are over 70 countries in the world that have more than 100,000 ha of irrigated land. Most of these are developing countries. lIMI will have offices and operations in a relatively small proportion of these. The ap propriate total number of such coun try operations will have to be dis covered through experience. IIMI must avoid the complementary dan gers of excessive dispersion (which could lead to superfiCiality, and a heavy administrative and logistic bur den) and of excessive concentration (which could reduce the range of IIMI's experience and relevance).In implementing its country pro grams, lIMI makes partnerships and collaborative ventures a key element in its approach. CoUabordtion provides lIMI with access to operating irriga tion systems, and allows resident staff the opportunity to access local knowl edge and capitalize on the existing facilities and staff of collaborating agencies and partners. There are at least six types of institutions with which lIMI will collaborate:1, national irrigation-managing agen cies, and associated research and training organizations;2. international agricultural research centers;3. other centers of excellence;4. international lender and donor or ganizations;S. non'governmental organizations; and6. national and international profes sional bodies.Collaboration with national agen cies and research institutions is fun damental to carrying out IIMI's mission for several reasons.mission is an enormous one, rela tive to its staff and financial resources. To achieve sufficient impact, IIMI must involve others, act as a catalyst. and extend its efforts through collaboration with several national partners, rather than concentrate its efforts at single locations.innovations. The development and testing of management innovations involve major problems of imple mentation, and cannot be done without the active collaboration of existing managing agencies. To be effective, IlMI's researchers must do more than prepare reports: they must be partners in a joint effort, with national agencies, to develop innovations, and to see whether and how they can be imple mented.agencies. Joint ventures between IIMl and other international agricultural research centers are also highly prom ising because of the critical role that such centers play in world agrkul 35 ture. There is strong complementarity among IIMI's field-oriented opera tional research approach, the experi ment station approaches of such centers as IRRJ, and the broad policy perspectives of such centers as the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Collaboration be tween IIMI and other resource man agement centers such as the Inter national Board for Soil Research and Management (IBSRAM) which focus on key factors of production could also be beneficial.Collaboration with scientific insti tutions and regional or international organizations located in (or sUPPolted by ) industrialized countries is also of high importance, since it enables IIMI to increase operational flexibility and to benefit from (rather than dupli cate) the highly specialized expertise available at such institutions. lIMI expects to collaborate with sllch institutions and to commission stud ies by them when these are required to further its own work. IIMI also proposes that it collaborate with reputed consulting firms, when such firms have specialized expertise of value to lIM!, or when they are engaged in activities that directly support IIMI's mission.IIMI proposes that it work in part nership with international lending agencies, particularly international or regional development banks such as the World Bank, the Asi:ln Develop ment Bank, and the African Develop ment Bank, other multilateral organi zations such as the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and national agencies for development assistance, such as the US Agency for International Development. Such organizations playa key role in improving irrigation performance, not only because they directly finance numerous irrigation projects around the world, hut also because of their large and increasing influence on irrigation policy, design, and manage ment questions. Collaboration with the international lending organizations could in some cases take place through the technical assistance ac tivities that such agencies provide to governments in connection with their loans in the irrigation sector.Non-governmental organizations of many kinds conduct activities that are relevant to IIM!'s mission. Some have a national focus, others operate inter nationally. The range of types is wide, and they offer IIMI numerous oppor tunities for interaction as well as more formalized collaboration.National-level non-governmental organizations often play a signific:mt role in promoting and developing the farmer-managed irrigation sector, and will therefore he relevant to IIM!'s operations on the theme of manage ment of support services to brmers. They are relevant for similar reasons to the management of institutional change. especially in the matter of developing adequately strong farmer organizations in systems turnover schemes.National and international profes sional bodies are significant in pro moting information exchanges. IIMI has a Memorandum of Understand ing with the International Commis sion for In-igation and Drainage, which organizes triennial congresses and operates various information services from its New Delhi headquarters.IIMl's efforts to help integrate multicountry experience will clearly be more useful and move faster, among countries that face broadly similar technical situations. For this reason, IIMI has distinguished five major zones, within each of which there is some broad similarity of irri gation problems, in relation to the major determinants cited in the two previous sections.It should be stressed these are in no sense homogeneous zones: in This zone was IIMI's early focal area and is characterized by predomi nantly rice-gowing irrigation systems. Climates generally display at least one, and in many places two, seasons of generous rain: so rain-fed production of non-rice crops is quite strong. Recent tectonic and volcanic activity has raised steep mountain systems which rise to very river systems and great, fertile alluvial plains and deltas. These inherently produc tive conditions have led to vely high population densities, so land hold ings are typically quite small, and ir rigation agencies have to deal with very large numbers of individual par ticipants. Although nonirrigated pro duction is Significant, the population generally is well in excess of the ca pacity of nonirrigated agriculture to feed them; so irrigation for a staple food crop is in essential. The zone has in recent years achieved notable success in raising its rice pro duction more rapidly than its popula tion growth, which has presented some new management issues such as marketing and diversification away from rice.The major countries of this zone are Bangladesh, Burma, the eastern seaboard states of India, Indonesia, Kampuchea. Laos. Malaysia, Nepal, Sri I.anka, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam.The Several of the systems have in modern times become stretched to the limits, notably on the Nile, where virtually all the surface water resources have been captured; improved man agement is then the only way for ward. and the national goal must be to increase productivity per unit of water. The zone also displays some of the most severe environmental problems of irrigation; the nat gradi ents of the alluvial plains make drain age difficult: high evaporation rates into the hot dry air cause salt deposi~ tion in the topsoil; and the introduc tion of perennial irrigation into for merly seasonal water systems tends to create conditions favorable to dis ease vectors.The major lrngation countries of the zone are India (except the east ern states), Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt. and Sudan.Apart from the Nile Valley, Africa's reliance on irrigation has hitherto been quite low. Population densities arc usually lower than in Southeast Asia, and over great parts of the continent rain-fed production has sufficed for these levels of population. In gen eral, initial irrigation development was organized to'V',rards commodities other than staple foods: cotton, sugar, to bacco, and fruits, often aimed at formarkets. These conditions are changing as populations grow and pressure on food resources increases. There is a wish by several countries to develop irrigation, especially moti vated by climatic variability and the consequent wish for food security. There are not, however, the estab lished irrigation bureaucracies typi cal of Southeast Asia, so institutional 37 formation is a management issue here. A recent history of decline in per capita food production implies certain wider agricultural problems, involving market mechanisms and the general motivation of the agricultural sector, which pose difficult manage ment prospects related to financing and sustaining irrigation.The countries of the ,\\1editerranean littoral have been among the first to surpass their rain-fed resources, and have therefore moved rather further down the road of institutional devel opment for irrigation; \\,,~ith the continent's population, is following suit; and a succession of other countries will be impelled along this course.I.atin America is (in an sense) less homogeneous than any of the zones so far described. South America has several of the features of the African situation; substantial rain fed production still remains. and irrigation has focused on com modities like sLIgar or high-value exports, rather than staple cereal crops. But there are substantial pockets (like northeast Brazil, north west Peru, and central Chile) where this is not so, and a recent desire to expand irrigation (espeCially in Brazil) has resulted. In Central Amer ica and the Caribbean, the situation is more reminiscent of Southeast Asia, in that irrigation is necessary to feed the population. There are, however.[ev,' of the natural irrigation opportu nities presented by great rivers and alluvial systems, so management units (except in Mexico) are usually of small-to medium-scale.Having identified these five great zones, within each of which there is some broad similarity of management ( ) FiRllre 1: ilJajor ap,ro-c!imatic zones, issues, and hence some prospects of promoting communicltion and cross fertilization, how should IIMl deploy its efforts and limited staff resources among them? IIMI's headquarters is itself located in zone 1, so it naturally began its operations in that zone, It extended at an early date also into West Asia and North East Africa. These seemed natural choices, Their dependence on irrigation is high, there are large managing agencies to study and inter act with, and there are objective rea sons for saying that the potential gains from improved management could be great.In 1985, IIMI began to explore the possibility of entering other parts of Africa. This operation was undertaken in a deliberate fashion, beginning with missions to review the possibilities, leading to the development of a strat egy document for the zone. On the basis of that strategy, country opera tions began in 1988. Initially lIMI will relate only to the western portion of the zone.It is not likely in the immediate future that IIMI's resources will grow to the point where it can safely undertake the substantial extra effort of embarking on resident programs in another zone, either East Asia or Latin America, even though these would hold great interest. A phase of consolidation and program develop ment in the present zones must precede that, and any added resources that become available should pro bably be aimed at making more com prehensive efforts in the Arid/Semiarid Zone and in Africa, IIMI will how ever, aim to initiate programs, at least at the visiting level, in both East Asia and Latin America during the next five years(l990-94).In the longer term, IIMI will aspire to have a fully international set of programs, with country units in all five zones. The possibility of achieving this is not in IIMI's hands alone, but depends on country inter ests and on the flow of donor funds. When it seems that the time is be coming ripe for such extension, the approach followed in Africa, with an initial exploratory team drafting a zone strategy paper, will serve as a model.IIMI now has the experience that at least a three-year time lapse must be anticipated between the first explora tory visit and the first country pro gram activity, so a degree of forward planning of this kind of initiative will be necessary.IIMI's mission relates to assisting the developing countries. That does not mean that it neglects the experi ence already gained in industrialized cOllntries. On the contrary, IIMI must seek to learn from successful irriga tion systems in such countries, and must aim to become a channel for the selection and transfer of relevant parts of their methods to IIMI's own clientele. This means that IIMI should develop relationships with irrigation management and reseach organiza tions in those countries.The relevant countries where re liance upon irrigation is substantial include the Mediterranean countries of Europe, the United States, the Soviet Cnion, Japan, and Australia. PART IVEarlier parts of this paper have considered why IIMf exists and to whom it should try to deliver bene fits; we have also considered the services it will offer, the themes it will address. and the ways in which it will operate in order to achieve these various aims. In this last part we consider hm\". lIMI will itself, internally, for these purposes, and what arrangements it to make in regard to human resources, financial resources, and physical facilities.First, we consider the tional structure.considerations in the design of an appropriate struc ture include the following.1. There mllst be organizational arrangements that ensure attention to the development of thematic understanding and of broader learning derived, initially, from field project 2. There must be arrangements that ensure effective implementation of field projects to the satisfaction of both donors and collaborators.3. There must be organize and publications program of a more general nature than the location specific reports usually as project outputs. to susta in a 4. There must be careful attention to preparation of fresh for submission to potential donors and partners in a timely manner that will ensure a smooth flow of activity for project-oriented coun try units.effective delegation of project control to project leaders and heads of IIMrs country but should also provide effective arrangements so that such in dividuals can obtain the necessary professional support when encounter difficulties in all project commitments with the staff and disciplines available to them.To satisfy these various ments and constraints, lIMI will be organized in four pIincipal Divisions: provided for in IIM!'s Charter, the Di rector General will be responsible to the Board for the administration of the Institute, the operation of its pro gram, and the implementation of the decisions of the Board. The Board will formulate IIMI's policies, approve, review, and evaluate its major pro grams, approve the budget, review the financial condition of the Insti tute, and undertake all other such functions necessary for the fulfillment of the Institute's objectives.This Division is responsible for IIMI's thematic program. It will be controlled by the Director, Programs (DP). This Division will have three tasks:1, thematic research; 2. regional or multicountry pro and 3, management training.Thematic research staff will not have day-to-day operational respon sibilities for field projects. They will be responsible for developing con ceptual analyses of irrigation manage ment processes; integrating the proj ect experiences (both of lIMI and of other institutions active in these fields) to provide general descriptions, analy ses and explanations of irrigation management processes; and develop ing and implementing the thematic publications program. The DP will work closely with the Director, Field Operations (DFO) and the Director, Pakistan, in the design and develop ment of field projects, to ensure that such projects support and are integrated with IIMI's thematic strat egy. The DP will also be responsible for continuous review and evaluation of IIMI's programs and for organiza tion of the Institute's annual Internal Program Review.IJe permanently attached to the Programs Division; some will be seconded to it from the Field Opera tions Division for agreed terms (for instance, after successful completion of a field project). Further, not all such staff will be located at head quarters; it will be possible for staff at country units to be assigned fre quentlyon a part-time basis.Ultimately it is envisaged that the thematic staff will include several theme managers, who oversee all work conducted on each one of IIMJ's seven strategic themes. While much of the thematic work can be done using restricted project funds, the coherence. quality, and continuity will depend on support by unrestricted funds. Ways will be sought to obtain funds to support specific pieces of thematic work. The degree of suc cess in obtaining both restricted and unrestricted support will determine the number of thematic staff that can be supported.IIMI headquarters staff undertak ing regional or inter-regional projects will also be attached to the Programs Division, since (usually) the aim of such projects is to explore some chosen theme or topic in several different countries. These staff will also constitute a pool of resources from which Field Operations or Pakistan project resources can be temporarily augmented: for example, when a project requires certain in puts which the country operations cannot provide, such staff may fill this role. IIMI's training staff will be, at least initially, attached to the Programs Division. Such staff will be respon sible for developing all IIMI's management training activities, and giving advice to heads of country operations in regard to country proj ects \",rhich have a training content.All staff for thematic analyses. regional or inter-regional projects, and managemenr training, will work closely together as an integrated unit under the overall supervision of the DP.This Division will be responsible for all the Institute's country-specific collaborative field projects with the exception of those in Pakistan. It will be controlled by the Director, Field Operations (DFO), to whom all heads of country operations other than the Director, Pakistan, will report. The DFO will be responsible for routine supervision of the implemen tation of country and regional pro grams, including allocation of re sources, provision of necessary pro fessional support to country program heads, monitoring of project budgets and performance, development of new country programs, and donor re lations. The Director \\vill also be re sponsible for working closely with the DP to ensure that lEvU's field projects are operated in such a way as to contribute to and support lIM!'s broader thematic interests. The DFO will have a small staff to provide sup port in all these functions. This Division will be responsible for all Institute activity in Pakistan. It will be headed by the Director, IIMI Pakistan. who will function as the chief scientific and executive officer reporting to the Director General.The Director, IIMI-Pakistan, will provide leadership in conceiving, for mulating, and implementing all IIMI Pakistan projects under tbe direction of the Director General and in regular consultation with other Di rectors. He wiH also take principal responsibility, in consultation with the Director General, for continuing inter national recruitment of a first class multidisciplinary, professional assist the Institute in attracting finan cial support from bilateral and multi lateral sources; develop field programs in consultation with collaborating agencies; maintain diplomatic and policy relationships with the host country; operate and maintain IIMI Pakistan's office in Lahore and its field facilities in Punjab and other prov inces.The internationally recruited statf of IIMI-Pakistan will, predominantly. be engaged in the implementation of agreed collaborative projects with of the host country. In addi tion, they will be expected to con tribute to the broader intellectual and thematic program of lIMI. One mecha nism that will be employed to achieve this objective will be the temporary secondment of such staff to the Programs Division, as outlined earlier. Three other functions are also envisaged:1. participation in regional or multi country projects contributing to the thematic analysis under the DP;2. participation in preparation of further projects; and3. preparation of material for the Information Office.This Division will be for planning and directing the finan cial, purchaSing, personnel, housing and administrative support services of the Institute. It will be headed by the Director, Finance and Administration (DFA).The DFA will develop, under the direction of the Board and Director General, the long-and Hnancia\\ po\\i.cies and budgets of the Institute; supervise the administration of its financial resources; direct the management and disbursement of IIM!'s annual budget; and recommend adjustments when necessary. He will also assure adequate cash flow through financial management con trols and planning within the available resources; supervise the maintenance of accounts and books consistent with accepted accounting coordinate outside audits; manage all Institute accounts and powers; direct all disburse ments; supervise the management of IlMI's headquarters facilities and services; and assure compliance with international and local tax require ments.This Office will be responsible for IIMI's information activities and publication facilities and for the pub lic relations and affairs of the Insti 45 rute. It will be led by the Head of Information.The Head of Information will be responsible for coordinating the Institute's publishing programs of reports, books, periodicals, and articles. and the library and informa tion databases. The material for the thematic publications program will be provided through the DP; project re ports will be provided through the DFO, the Director. Pakistan, or the country operations, The Informa tion Office will be responsible for the production of such publications, and for their design, presentation, and dis tribution, and will ensure that publi cations and other information materi als reach the appropriate target audi ences, by maintaining properly rep resentative mailing lists. The Head of Information will also be responsible for the Institute's public relations and affairs, and for advising the Institute on information needs relative to irrigation managementThis office \\vill be responsible for the Institute's Management in identifying, formulating, funding, and monitoring of new projects. It will be headed the Project Devel opment Officer (PDO).The PDO will participate in nego tiations with donors and collabora tors during the definition of the scope and schedules of new projects. or fresh of existing projects. (Such negotiations will, of course. generally be led or be initiated by lIMI Direc tors or the Director General.) The PDO will work closely with the DP, tbe DFO. the DFA. and the Director, u\"\"\",CU\", all of whom are closely interested in the successful execution of such work. The PDO will also have monitoring functions, in sup port of the Institute's operations. To fulfill its mission, IIMI does not need to possess extensive research facilities of its own. The management of irrigation systems has to be stud ied on real systems belonging to In order to implement its Strategy. IIMI will need a mixture of interna tionally recruited staff, and staff from each of its countries of operation.International staff will be recruited on the widest possible oasis, and the recruitment operations will be gUided in particular by the values expressed in the section on the Internal Envi ronment. These imply that IL\\l1 will seek people of exceptionally quality, with a broad perspective, and well suited to the collaborative modes of work to \\vhich IIMI is committed.Staff selection will take account of the various disciplines involved in irrigation management, so that in each unit there are, as far as possible, people of complementary experience and knowledge. Several major groups or disci pUnes can be recognized within the general framework of irri gation management as it is described in the section on Elements of Irriga tion Management. These include, in alphabetical or der:Agricultural science, including agronomy and soil Economics, including agricultural economics;Engineering, including civil and agricultural engineering; national agenCies, farmers' organiza tions, and so on. As \\\\iC' have seen in earlier sections. this leads to a decen tralized structure.The nucleus of this structure \"\"illOrganization and management; andSocial science, including anthro pology and rural sociology, Ultimately, lIMI \\\\iill aspire to develop staff members whose knowl spans all or most of these dis ciplines as they affect irrigation, and who do not perceive themselves as belonging to anyone particular disci pline, However, that goal will take time to achieve.To ensure availability of a variety of experience, IEvlI will generally aim to develop each of its country programs to a level that can support at least two or three internationally recruited staff of complementary disciplines.The need to ensure that ample attention is given to the staff search, evaluation. and selection process means that an international recruit ment specialist will be a penmment feature of the organization structure. lIMI will provide a working environment that will permit staff to achieve the highest level of indivi dual and Institute performance. lIMI's policies \\\\iill seek at all times to: *' provide fair and equitable treat ment for all staff; continue to he the Institute's head quarters in Sri Lanka, In ils other countly operations IL\\II's staff will frequently be accommodated in of fices provided by a collaborating or ganization.encourage and provide self development opportunities; discourage in every form discrimination in employment because of sllch factors as ethnic origin, nationality, race, color, sex, age, marital status. religion, or political affiliation; * provide opportunities for pro motion and advancement:provide secure and well• equipped working environ ments: and encourage and provide op portunity for staff communica tion and involvement in matters of their concern.\",ational staff policies will vary to some extent from country to country as the quantity and quality of rele vant local resources are not the same everywhere. In keeping with IlMI's collaborative approach, some mixture of nationally recruited rr:vn staff and seconded staff from national institu tions will usually be expected, with a preference for seconded staff for re search and riekl operations. and for nationally recruited staff for adminis trative and ancillary services. Criteria in regard to the choice and utiliza tion of national research staff will in clude the following: * IIMJ's mission involves strength ening national efforts, and also disseminating management innovations, Such processes will be accelerated if cant numbers of national staff can be associated with IIMI's programs, ideas, and method ologies, The funds which make IIMI's work possible come from a variety of donors and under a variety of arrangements, Among these IIMI will distinguish two major categories, Unrestricted grants, These are grants provided without any con ditions imposed as to the pur poses for which they may be spent, Their utilization is therefore at the discretion of the Director General and the Board, Restn:cted funds. These are funds provided for a specific purpose, Most commonly, they are given in order to enable IIMI to execute some defined project, Unrestricted grants are currently provided to TIMI through its Support Group, which meets annually, and whose members pledge funds to IL\\H on an annual basis, Cnlike other, more centralized international institutes, IIMI is able to secure substantial restricted funds through bilateral or special project funding, provided that the reseach undertaken in any country responds to the development needs of that country, This will enable IIMI to take advantage of financing opportunities component for staff of national institutions, and IIMI should arrange that this benefit is spread as widely as possible, * IIMI has, in many projects, a requirement to work along with other participating organiza tions, and to deliver its outputs according to some schedule, IIMI must have sufficient control over seconded Finance which would not be available through unrestricted sources alone.Each of these types of funding has its own advantages and contraints. IIMI's approach vvill be to seek a balanced portfolio of unrestricted and restricted income, With an appropri ate mix of both types, lIMI will be able to achieve more varied objec tives and operate a more flexible workplan than could be arranged under either type alone. The follow ing characteristics of the two types of funding are most pertinent. Thematic research will be funded as far as possible from unrestricted grants. \\X!bile ways will be sought to obtain restricted funds to support spe cific aspects of IIMI's thematic work, the overall integrity, coherence, qual ity, and continuity of IIMI's thematic research cannot be realized on a piecemeal basis. For this reason the evolution, growth, and impact of IIMI's thematic research will depend substantially on basic support through unrestricted funds.Field Operations and the regional projects side of the Programs Divi sion will be funded principally from specific project (restricted) funds.The Pakistan Division will be funded, like Field Operations, princi pally from specific project funds.The Finance and Administration Division, Director General's Office, and Board of Governors, will be fi nanced principally by applying an indirect-cost on all grants, which will be recalculated annually.Infonnation and management train ing will be financed by a combina tion of unrestricted and restricted grants. As far as possible, in both of these areas IIMI will aim to prepare and offer to donors appropriate pro jects, and minimize these units' need for unrestricted funds.Typeset and Primed at Stamford Press Pte Ltd Tel: 7485111 Fax; 7467310","tokenCount":"19779"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3c2dd3c7193d774a00f25682857140ca","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f7fa4df3-e828-4b39-8666-5baf18d86605/retrieve","id":"1511968167"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2945a43e-1bb1-483d-abec-0ab064cd1f34","pagecount":"4","content":"Better data is urgently needed for improving livestock health and productivity in Vietnam and the rest of the world, according to experts who gathered in November 2018 in Vinh Phuc Province, Vietnam. The meeting of the Livestock Data for Decisions (LD4D) Community of Practice brought together key people from academia, NGOs, donor agencies and industry to address the challenge of missing or poor data, and develop innovative approaches to inform policies and investments in the livestock sector. The meeting was hosted by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).Around the world, hundreds of millions of poor people depend on livestock for nutritious food, income, and on-farm assistance. Low productivity and poor health of livestock in these regions results in low incomes for smallholder farmers. Governments and donors require relevant data in order to select and design the best livestock strategies for improving productivity and health.The LD4D community is unique in its aim to help 'data suppliers' and 'data users' interact effectively, and ensure data supply and demand are met,' said Andy Peters, director of the Supporting Evidence Based Interventions (SEBI) program which facilitates LD4D at the meeting.The issues are particularly relevant to Vietnam and other Southeast Asia countries where the livestock farming has rapidly intensified to feed more people and to respond to the need for animal source foods, said Hung Nguyen, ILRI regional representative for East and Southeast Asia.At the three-day meeting, delegates presented ongoing collaborations and projects including:  On 26 November 2018, the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE) of Vietnam and ILRI signed a memorandum of agreement that will pave the way for deepening their collaboration in research for development.From left: Dang Duc Anh, director general of NIHE and Shirley Tarawali, assistant director general of ILRI (photo credit: ILRI).A senior delegation from ILRI joined a global conference on Accelerating the End of Hunger and Malnutrition in Bangkok on 28-30 November 2018. The event provided a platform to accelerate the sharing of existing knowledge, approaches and tools that have led to success in many countries, so others can learn, adapt and accelerate their own work to reduce hunger and malnutrition in sustainable ways.Antibiotic resistance, zoonotic diseases and food security in focus for SIGHT Award 2018Johanna Lindahl, ILRI senior scientist in veterinary-epidemiology, was awarded the SIGHT Award 2018 and SEK 100,000 by the Swedish Institute for Global Health Transformation, SIGHT. The prize is awarded for excellent scientific contribution to global health.Experts work to understand link between livestock farming and vector-borne diseases in VietnamOn 5 July 2018, Vietnamese animal health and zoonoses experts met in Hanoi to explore ways of reducing mosquitoborne diseases in the urban areas of Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. The meeting was part of the 'Metropolitan mosquitoes: understanding urban livestock keeping and vectorborne disease in growing tropical cities' project, which is researching the association between livestock keeping and mosquito-borne diseases.A farmer spraying insecticide to control mosquitoes in a cattle farm (photo credit: ILRI).The Safe Food, Fair Food (SFFF) for Cambodia team and partners met on 5 September 2018 in Phnom Penh to review the successes and challenges of the project's efforts in addressing food safety in animal-source foods in the country.In November 2018, Vietnamese One Health experts further deliberated on the modalities of establishing a One Health centre that will bring together human and animal health sector experts in the country to advance the translation of One Health research into policy.Bioaerosol sampling to detect avian influenza virus in Hanoi's largest live poultry marketIn October 2017, a team made up of researchers from the Duke University, the National Institute of Veterinary Research (NIVR) and ILRI used aerosol samplers to conduct surveillance for avian influenza at Ha Vi market, the largest live wholesale poultry market in Hanoi. This pilot study tested surveillance methods for screening large poultry markets for avian influenza virus. The results were recently published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.ILRI research on animal health and food safety featured at 15th symposium of veterinary epidemiology and economics Exploring the use of 'nudges' to improve pork safety in VietnamThe idea of promoting good 'nudges' (interventions or incentives) to change the behaviour and improve the practices of various actors along the pork value chain in Vietnam was discussed by partners of the 'Market-based approach to improving the safety of pork in Vietnam', or SafePORK project, at a Hanoi workshop on 27 November 2018 that was co-led by the Royal Veterinary College and ILRI.  Trainees visited pig farms in Hoa Binh Province, Vietnam (photo credit: ILRI).ILRI continues capacity development for the Southeast Asia One Health University Network (SEAOHUN) through its hosting of one DVM student (Phally Pha) from Royal University of Cambodia and a lecturer in health sciences from Naresuan University, Thailand (Narong Jaturas). Pha and Jaturas have conducted research on food safety and a Vietnam One-health case study, respectively.Researchers collect samples at Ha Vi market, Hanoi (photo credit: NIVR).","tokenCount":"811"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6392cf15c6b697c53fa0ac9587565569","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/2e129b28-8a81-4d2c-8097-58ee086c73ca/retrieve","id":"961429153"},"keywords":["insects","nematodes","bacteria","virus","potato cyst nematode","bacterial wilt","Mbale","smallholder farmers"],"sieverID":"7c9278ec-b302-41e2-8899-c5aa374cee5c","pagecount":"34","content":"CIP publications contribute important development information to the public arena. Readers are encouraged to quote or reproduce material from them in their own publications. As copyright holder CIP requests acknowledgement and a copy of the publication where the citation or material appears. Please send a copy to the Communications Department at the address below.Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is an important crop for food security and income generation. The crop is also nutritionally rich in carbohydrates, vitamins (C and B), proteins, minerals (potassium) among other nutritional constituents and surpasses cereals in terms of the amount of dry matter and protein per cropping unit area (VIB, 2019). In Uganda, potato has been recognized as a crop with potential for nutrition security and income generation (PASIC, 2016), as it is in most of the highlands of Africa (East and Central Africa). Despite these benefits, potato yields have suffered substantial fluctuations over the last two decades (FAOSTAT, 2018), and currently average potato yield (4.8 t/ha) in Uganda is significantly lower than average yields in Kenya (8 -10 t/ha) and far below than attainable global average yield (30 to 40 t/ha), owing to several biotic and abiotic production constraints, from poor agronomic practices (i.e. limited use of fertilizer by farmers), to lack of quality potato seed, and/or high prevalence of pests and diseases.Pests including, but not limited to, potato tuber moth, root-knot nematodes and diseases such as early blight, late blight and bacterial wilt have been reported to severely affect potato production in Uganda (Coyne et al., 2014;Okonya et al., 2019). Recent reports on insect pests of economic importance in potato include the potato tuber moth (PTM) (Phthorimaea operculella Zeller), leaf miner flies (Liriomyza spp.), aphids (Aphis gossypii, Aphis fabae, Macrosiphum euphorbiae, and Myzus persicae) in Uganda and Kenya (Okonya and Kroschel, 2015;Okonya et al., 2019). The PTM is a major insect pest of potato affecting potato yield through infestations of leaves, stems, and harvested tubers. Harvested tubers infested by PTM often initiate tuber infestation in stores causing losses of stored tubers of up to 70 % (Raman and Radcliffe, 1992;Kroschel and Schaub, 2013). Traditionally, nematodes have been reported to play a significant role in yield reduction amongst tuber and root crops. Nevertheless, due to its microscopic nature and the scarcity of nematologists, this type of pests remains overlooked while its detrimental impact on crops' productivity is largely underestimated, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa (Coyne et al., 2018). Among all the pest affecting potato, the potato cyst nematode (PCN) has been considered the most detrimental pest for this crop and it is subject to strict quarantine regulations in over 100 countries (EPPO, 2017); the presence of the two species of PCN (G. rostochiensis and G. pallida) has been recently reported in Kenya (Mwangi et al., 2015;Mburu et al., 2018) and in Rwanda G. rostochiensis has been reported for the first time in 2019 (Niragire et al., 2019). In both cases, PCN has been isolated in areas neighbouring south-west (from Rwanda) and north-east Uganda (from Kenya), indicating that these detrimental pests could be widespread across the East Africa region. Amidst these challenges, it is imperative to direct research towards reducing the negative impact of these pests and diseases on potato production and productivity. Therefore, in order to develop and implement an effective plant health strategy to assist farmers to manage pests and diseases of potato in Uganda, is crucial to establish the current prevalence and distribution of the same.The current study was aimed at assessing the incidence and prevalence of key pests and diseases affecting potatoes in Uganda. The results from the current survey should assist IFDC to identify areas in eastern and western Uganda that would be likely to have low pest and disease pressure, which could be suitable for healthy seed potato production; in addition, this new survey adds on the survey commissioned by IFDC to IITA in 2014 (Coyne et al., 2014) related to the situation on invasive pests, such as PCN, after the findings of Kenya and Rwanda. The results of this survey shall also shade light on the potential implications that the presence of PCN should have on the potato seed industry in Uganda. Three surveys scattered between 2018 and 2019 were conducted. The first survey was conducted between 20 th -23 rd of November 2018 (north-east Uganda) and the second one was conducted between 9 th -23 rd June 2019 (north-east Uganda), both in Mount Elgon region; the third one was conducted between 26 th -30 th October 2019 (south-west Uganda). The surveys were aimed at establishing the incidence and prevalence of the major biotic constraints (diseases, nematodes and insects) of potato and to have a better understanding of farmers' practices. In the north -eastern (NE) region, the surveys were conducted in the districts of Mbale, Kween, Namisindwa and Kapchorwa; and in Kisoro, Kabale and Rubanda for the south-western (SW) region. Namisindwa was specially selected due to its proximity to the Kenyan border town of Lwakhakha known to have high cross border agricultural trade and thus a gateway for introduction of pests and diseases of potato. In NE region, a comprehensive epidemiologic study to determine the incidence of pests and diseases took place, leading to the collection of both soil and plant samples (i.e. stems, leaves, roots) for microbiological and molecular analyses at the laboratory. In the SW region, only soil samples were collected in a bid to re-ascertain the potential presence of PCN since the last survey conducted this side in 2014. This was particularly important after a report from neighbouring Rwanda confirmed presence of this group of nematodes in countries directly bordering Uganda. A total of 132 fields were surveyed (Table 1), including 99 from the NE region (Mount Elgon bordering Kenya), with and 33 from south western region bordering Rwanda (Figure 1).Potato fields at least 2 km apart from each other were selected, with the support of IFDC technical staff and NARO extension officers. Sample collection within each field followed a zig-zag transect for both soil and plant sample collection. During collection of plant samples, 10 plants were randomly collected along the same Z transect from each field. From each of the 10 plants uprooted, a pulled sample of eight stem portions were collected, and wrapped in parafilm to prevent dryness; three leaves were hand picked off individual plants, and pooled together for a composite sample, and, finally, 3 tubers per field were also collected for analyses; for each field, all these samples were kept individually in paper bags for microbiological and molecular analyses for detection of bacteria, virus and fungi. The same procedure was used for collection of root and tuber samples meant for nematode analyses. Root samples from individual plants were also pooled together to form a composite sample, alongside with the potato tubers. For soil collection, up to 20 soil cores were drawn per each farm using a hand trowel from the upper 30 cm along the same Z-transect.Soil cores were pooled together to form a composite soil sample (2 Kg) per field. * From each plant, samples from leaves, stems, tubers and roots were collected for analyses in the laboratory.Following each sampling event, all the collected samples were kept in cool-boxes for preservation until analysis. Samples, especially leaves, tubers, stems and roots were transported to IITA analytical laboratories in Kawanda and Sendusu every 2 days of sample collection, for advanced processing and preservation, and to prevent degradation of the same. Geographical coordinates (GPS sampling points) were recorded all the study sights and data downloaded to excel. Also, farms' physical perimeter was obtained by walking around the limits of the fields, in order to have an accurate estimate of the size of each of the sampled farms. Geo-referencing was done for all study points using QGIS version 3.8.3-Zanzibar (2019). Finally, a structured questionnaire 1 was administered in every farm, after prior consent of the interviewee. Questions captured farmers' practices related to potato cultivation (i.e. use of fertilizers, implementation of rotation systems, type of potato cultivars planted) or elements related to house-hold (HH) decision making, including questions to better understand role of men and women related to potato cultivation (i.e.who responsible for selecting potato varieties, who does pest scouting at HH level). Sampling preparation and processing for assessment of nematode presence Soil, root, and tuber samples were subjected to nematode extraction; root samples were cleaned under running water to free the of earth material. Roots where chopped into smaller pieces which1 Questionnaire has been shared as Annex 3 during the interim report presented in April 2019. The metadata of this survey is presented in the final report as an excel matrix with all the information available in a softcopy.were eventually homogenized to create a composite sample. Similarly, tuber samples were also gently washed under running water before peeling them with a knife prior to nematode extraction;the peels from each composite sample were chopped into smaller pieces and homogenized. For nematode extraction, 20 g of homogenised roots and potato peels were measured and use to prepare a modified Baermann tray (Coyne et al., 2007), for the extraction of the mobile infective larval stages (J2) present within the root tissues and on the potato peels.Prior to extraction of nematode cysts from soil, samples were thoroughly mixed, air-dried, Sampling preparation and processing for assessment of potato diseasesIn this report we present the analyses of the 68 samples (Table 1) that were collected from the field during the survey conducted between 9 th -23 rd June 2019 (north-east Uganda) 2 . Samples received from the field were kept in a refrigerator at -20 0 C (stems and leaves) while tuber samples were kept on shelf at room temperature. Composite samples were obtained from the tubers, stems and leaves respectively collected from each field. For detection by culture on media, tuber, stem, and leaf tissues were surface sterilized for 30 seconds in 1.5% sodium hypochlorite, one minute in 70% Quantification of viral load was achieved using the ELISA plate reader.Extraction of DNA for further molecular detection Genomic DNA was extracted from tubers, stems and leaves using a modified Cetyl Trimethyl Ammonium Bromide (CTAB) protocol; 200 mg of leaf, stem and tuber tissue were crashed with little sand and 700 μL of extraction buffer (CTAB buffer). Samples were placed in 1.5 ml tubes and vortexed to obtain a uniform mixture. The samples were incubated at 65 0 C for 30 minutes in a water bath with occasional mixing. An equal volume of chloroform: isoamyl alcohol (24:1) was added and the tubes gently mixed and then centrifuged at 10000 rpm for 10 minutes. The upper aqueous phase was pipetted out and transferred to a clean tube and, an equal volume (500 μL) of chloroform: isoamyl alcohol was again added. This procedure was repeated twice. The tubes were incubated at -20 0 C over night to precipitate the DNA. The DNA was pelleted by centrifuging at 13000 rpm for 10 minutes in a chilled centrifuge. The supernatant was discarded, and the DNA pellet was washed with 800uL of cold 95% ethanol. The tubes were invented on a clean paper towel for 1hour to air dry the pellet. 50 μL of 1x TE buffer was added to dissolve the pellet. Finally, 2 μL of (10 mg/ml) RNase was added and, the mixture was incubated at 37 0 C for 30 minutes in the water bath to degrade (RNA). The quality of DNA was checked by electrophoresis on 1 % w/v agarose gel. Its quantity and purity were determined using the NanoDrop 2000C spectrophotometer (Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Pittsburgh, PA, USA). The DNA was stored at -80 0 C for future pathogen analysis.Data were recorded on the scores of Ralstonia solanacearum, Phytopthora infestans, Fusarium 3. Aphid and whitefly abundance assessment: Ten plants were searched for both aphids and whiteflies. The number of aphids and whiteflies per plant were counted.Infestation rates, incidence and prevalence were assessed visually and calculated based on the equations listed below. Data for infestation rates/incidence, prevalence and severity were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) using SAS software (SAS Institute Inc, 2008). Results from nematology analyses Higher diversity of plant parasitic nematode (PPN) species was observed in NE region, compared to SW (Table 2). Just like in the NE region, soil samples registered higher PPN diversity than root samples. Soils act as reservoir for pathogenic nematode species just waiting for a suitable host to infect. These observations in part may be evidence for survival of these species on alternative weed hosts in absence of their preferred hosts, multiplying inoculum for crops in subsequent seasons. prevalence (Figure 3). Mbale district registered the highest number of fields with plants infested with nematodes (61% prevalence), while Kapchorwa district recorded the least number of fields with plants infested with nematodes (24% prevalence). Overall, 44% of the 88 fields from which root samples were collected in the eastern region had their plants infested with nematodes and showed symptoms in their tubers (Figure 3) or in the roots (Figure 4).   In addition to the identification of G. rostochiensis, another cyst nematode species has been isolated. Globodera artemisiae has been identified molecularly in one field in Mbale (MBL04); this species can be frequently confused with G. rostochiensis, a species that infects Artemisia.Further molecular, morphological and pot tests studies are currently being conducted to confirm this report and explore the potential implications of the presence of this species in potato growing areas of Uganda. Overall, 81% of all fields recorded nematode infestation, considering both soil and plant samples. Presence of these nematode species in potato roots is evident to the wide host-range preference of these organisms, particularly RKN, and prevailing susceptibility of underlying potato cultivars grown by respective farmers.Prevalence of bacterial wilt (Ralstonia solanacaerum): On Kelman's Tetrazolium medium, redpinkish colonies were observed (Figure 6) and, on 2% Peptone agar medium, white mucoid colonies were observed (Kinyua et al., 2012). All farms surveyed in Mbale had bacterial wilt infection while Kapchorwa had 92% of farms infected. Namisindwa had 33% farm infection and Kween 86.4%. These observations were confirmed with NCM-ELISA tests (Figure 7); DAS-ELISA scores are summarized in Table 3. Microscopic examination of cultures on PDA medium detected Fusarium spp which had a purplish color with micro and macro conidia (Figure 8).    All districts were positive for all the potato viruses tested PVX, PVS, PVM, PVY, PVA and PVRV (Figure 2). Related to regions, the highest incidence of viral diseases was found in Kween (19.9 % of the fields) while Namisindwa had the lowest (7.6%).Related to viruses, the most prevalent was PVS (15.9%) while the least prevalent was PVA (1.5%);See detailed information per district in Table 4.  Results from potato insect pest analysesPotato tuber moth (PTM) damage: infested potato fields as absent in one (Namisindwa) of the four districts sampled (Figure 10). PTM prevalence rates was highest in Kapchorwa and Kween districts (92n%) and lowest in Mbale district. Despite the high prevalence rates in the two districts, incidence levels were relatively low i.e. < 35 % (Figure 11). Severity levels (PTM foliar defoliation rates) were also very low (<1%) in all the three districts (Table 5).Leaf miner flies (LMF) foliar damage: LMF damage was seen in less than half of the sampled fields and only in Kapchorwa, Kween and Mbale districts (Figure 10). The number of plants showing LMF damage per field were also relatively low in the three districts (3-34 %). The severity of LMF damage on leaves was equally very low in the three districts ranging from <1 to about 2% (Table 5).Aphids occurred in all the four districts sampled and in all farmers' potato fields Namisindwa district (Figure 10). However, prevalence rates in the other three districts was below 50%. Except for fields in Namisidwa district, less than a quarter of the potato plants within a field were infested by aphids in the other three districts; the average number of aphids per plant was highest in Namisidwa at 172.1 and lowest in Kapchwora (< 1). Aphid infestation was generally low (< 2 aphid per plant) in Kapchorwa, Kween and Mbales districts.Whitefly abundance: White fly infestation was absent in Kapchwora and Kween districts and generally low (< 40%) in Mbale and Namisindwa districts (Figure 10). The infestation rates and number of whiteflies in the two districts were very low (< 1 whitefly per plant) (Figure 11; Table 5).   sector and a fundamental step for the implementation of a regional strategy for contention and mitigation of PCN.Based on the results obtained in this survey, bacterial wilt caused by Ralstonia solonacearum is also a widespread threat to potato producers, as it featured as the most prevalent potato disease that was detected across all the farms surveyed. This is a quarantine pest that seriously hampers potato production, and its impact is aggravated in fields where PPN are present, as bacteria in the soil have easier access to the vascular cylinder of the plants through the wounds infringed in the roots by the infective nematodes. Noteworthily, the prevalence levels of other pathogenic fungi from the soil were very low, suggesting that most of the soil health problems could be derived from the bacterial wilt-nematode combination. Another concern is the silent but fast spreading of several virus diseases, as was evidenced by the visual observations in the fields, but also from the results obtained in the laboratory using molecular techniques. The high prevalence levels of bacterial wilt and viruses could be as a result of low-quality potato seed, usually recycled over a few seasons, being distributed in the sub region, coupled with lack of information on the potential importance of such plant health threats. Efforts should be made to further survey more areas for purposes of characterizing the bacterial wilt strains and viral diseases of potato.Beyond RKN, that were widely present in the survey regions as expected, the lesion and spiral nematodes may not have potato as their preferential host, however, these use potato as a transition host until such a time when their preferred hosts are re-cultivated. These conditions may in part be responsible for the recurrent prevalence of not only these species of nematodes but also several other species among farmer fields. Except for the high aphid numbers recorded in Namisindwa district, insect infestation intensity levels observed in the current study were very low. This could be due to routine application of insecticides. All farmers interviewed indicated that they use insecticides (several different products) and that they use them alone or in combination and, mostly, on a calendar basis, usually with more than 4 applications per cropping season. Farmers in Mbale and Kapchorwa have previously reported using tank mixtures containing both insecticides and fungicides on a routine basis in their potato fields (Okonya and Kroschel, 2015).The high number of aphids recorded in Namisindwa could be because this is a major potato producing area and only few farmers had planted potato during the survey period. The elevation of Namisindwa district was also lower than that of the other three districts meaning that temperatures here are higher and hence favour faster insect pest development.   Mburu, H., et al. 2018. Plant Dis.102:8. e-ISSN: 1943-7692 Mwangi, J. M., et al. 2015. New Dis. Rep. 31:18. http . ","tokenCount":"3190"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"22160674d88e3c034baaa91f72c7591f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f4b568bc-2681-4893-a869-bdcbd37ed614/retrieve","id":"-2126659327"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7c2f4458-f228-4626-bd60-0e0611b549bd","pagecount":"54","content":"Land cover changes in the Upper Great Ruaha (Tanzania) and the Upper Awash (Ethiopia) river basins and their potential implications for groundwater resources. Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management Institute (IWMI). 49p. (IWMI Research Report 184).Unprecedented resource demands due to population growth, increasing food demand and urbanization, exacerbated by climate change, have led to unsustainable development pathways in many parts of the world. Information about the status and trends of land and water resources is a critical requirement for long-term policies and strategies for equitable and sustainable development. Satellite remote sensing offers cost-effective, rapid and reproducible methods to monitor indirectly the utilization patterns and trends of several natural resources such as land and water resources.This report presents the results of a land cover change analysis conducted in two headwater catchments of river basins in sub-Saharan Africa, where impoverished communities critically depend on local land and water resources: the Upper Great Ruaha River Basin (UGRRB) in Tanzania (20,823 km 2 , approx. 800,000 people) and the Upper Awash River Basin (UARB) in Ethiopia (10,695 km 2 , approx. 5.3 million people). The two basins represent areas which are significantly different in terms of agricultural development and patterns of water resource use. UARB represents an agricultural region, which has emerging commercial farms, expanding urban centers and threatened natural vegetation. UGRRB still has significant areas under natural vegetation but expanding areas under irrigation. In UGRRB, surface water is the main source of irrigation water, while in UARB, groundwater resources are increasingly used for irrigation by smallholder farmers and commercial farms.Land cover changes were assessed over a 15 to 20 year period up to 2015 or 2016 using land cover maps at the start and end of the period. Changes in UGRRB were analyzed between 1994-1995 and 2015-2016 (20-year period) and changes in UARB were assessed between 2000 and 2015 (15-year period). Land cover maps were prepared using remote sensing imagery, secondary maps and ground truth information. Satellite imagery from various Landsat sensors with a spatial resolution of 30 m was used. A post-classification change analysis was conducted to estimate the changes in each land cover type and the patterns of land cover transitions between different categories.In general, both basins witnessed an expansion of agricultural areas at the expense of natural land cover, as well as an expansion of human settlement/urban areas at the expense of natural land cover and rainfed agricultural areas. The UGRRB still possesses significant areas under natural land cover (75% in [2015][2016], but such natural land cover has almost vanished in the UARB (15% in 2015). A transition from natural land cover to rainfed agriculture is the prominent trend in UGRRB. An increase in irrigated agriculture and expansion of human settlement/urban areas from previously rainfed agricultural lands are the dominant trends observed in the UARB.This study provides detailed results of the nature of land cover transitions in the two basins. The results show that the land cover changes are not a unidirectional phenomenon except in heavily built environments (human settlements) and irrigated agriculture, but follow multiple trajectories, providing important insights about the changing land use patterns. The analysis further shows that patterns of land use change in the UGRRB and UARB resemble those of the general patterns witnessed in many low-income countries. The patterns represent different, successive stages of development from agropastoral systems to urbanized areas and more intensive farming systems, with the UARB being more developed, while the UGRRB being more vulnerable to further development.This vulnerability is also reflected in the realized and remaining potential for groundwater development in the two basins. The UGRRB, though less developed in terms of groundwater withdrawals for irrigation, will likely be more sensitive to the environmentally harmful impacts of intensifying groundwater-irrigated agriculture, due to the local and downstream presence of critical and protected terrestrial and wetland ecosystems.Improved access to water, food and health services has helped to increase life expectancy in many parts of the world. The world population has grown by 1 billion people in the last 10-15 years, and the current global population of 7.3 billion is expected to reach 9.7 billion by 2050 (UN DESA 2015). Finite natural resources of the world are under pressure due to the increasing requirements of the growing population for food, freshwater and energy. Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005;IPBES 2019). The technological developments and increased economic and trade activities have enabled and accelerated the use of natural resources. These sustained and intensive human interactions with land and water resources have resulted in substantial gains in human well-being. However, achievements in economic growth in some regions have been associated with degradation of land and water resources as well as deterioration of related ecosystem goods and services, such as biomass, carbon storage, soil health, water storage and supply, biodiversity, and social and cultural services (FAO 2011).Intensive resource utilization is reflected in rapid changes in land use and land cover. Globally, agriculture, plantations, pastures and urban areas have expanded in recent decades at the cost of natural landscapes. Agriculture currently uses about ca. 11% of the world's land surface, and the net cultivated area (land under agricultural crops) has grown by 12% over the last 50 years, mostly at the expense of forest, wetland and grassland habitats (FAO 2011). Only biomes relatively unsuitable for agriculture, such as deserts, boreal forests and tundra, have remained largely untransformed by human action (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). While agriculture and pastures are the most extensive forms of land use change (Lambin and Meyfroidt 2011), urbanization of land surfaces is one of the most irreversible human impacts on the global biosphere (Seto et al. 2011). Urbanization not only results in the loss of natural and agricultural lands, but also significantly changes hydrological systems and affects local biodiversity; it also presents opportunities for efficient resource use and management.Africa has the highest rate of population growth among major geographical regions, increasing at a pace of 2.6% annually during the period 2010-2015 (UN DESA 2015). Matima et al. (2009) reported that the major form of land use change in East Africa is the conversion of natural land cover to agricultural areas and identified the major driver for this change as the need to address food security, particularly through large-scale farming. Urbanization in Africa is largely attributed to population growth rather than the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate (Seto et al. 2011).Changes in land use and land cover could detrimentally affect water resources in the region, not only by altering replenishment, storage and demand patterns but also by affecting risks to water-related disasters such as floods and droughts. It has been found that the influence of large-scale land use change on groundwater recharge may be more pronounced over the next decades than climate change (Favreau et al. 2009;Taylor et al. 2013). With the increasing reliance on groundwater for domestic use and economic (agricultural and industrial) development in Africa (Braune and Xu 2010), there is a need to understand how land use change affects groundwater use and resource availability, primarily through recharge processes, amounts and quality of water, and how land use policies could be informed by the availability and renewability of water resources, especially groundwater.Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the poorest regions in the world. Sustainable use of land and water resources is critical for poverty alleviation in the region, especially under scenarios of a changing climate and increasing water demand. Developing sustainable resource utilization strategies requires updated information and continuous monitoring of the status of the resources and trends in water use.The objective of this study is to quantify historical trends and patterns of land use and land cover change at the distributed river basin scale in sub-Saharan Africa. Such analyses inform quantitative evaluations of the sustainability of resource use pathways and susceptibility to degradation under conditions of various drivers. The study was conducted in two river basins: (i) the Upper Great Ruaha River Basin (UGRRB) in Tanzania, and (ii) the Upper Awash River Basin (UARB) in Ethiopia.A key focus of these analyses is the identification of trends or patterns in agricultural areas and human settlements, which are susceptible to intensive utilization of land and water resources.The scope of the analysis is mostly limited to identifying the patterns of land cover transition and estimating the changes that occurred in the recent past. While identifying the specific drivers of various patterns of land use change is beyond the scope of this analysis, some of the major socioeconomic processes driving the overall transitions at basin level are explored. Finally, the report describes how the observed land use and land cover changes may impact groundwater resources in the study basins.The Upper Great Ruaha River Basin (UGRRB) is part of the Rufiji River Basin of Tanzania, which covers an area of about 83,970 km² (NEMC 2006) (Figure 1). The UGRRB lies between longitudes 33° 30.9' E to 35° 35.7' E and latitudes 7° 18.7' S to 9° 35.5' S and covers an area of 20,823 km². The lower discharge point of UGRRB is at the outflow from the wetland at NG'iriama (Kashaigili et al. 2006a). The altitude of the UGRRB ranges from 1,003 meters above mean sea level (mamsl) to 2,966 mamsl, with the higher altitude regions located in the southern part of the basin. The mean annual rainfall ranges from 500 mm to 1,600 mm, which is received in a single rainfall season extending usually during the period between late November and June (Kashaigili et al. 2006a). The mean annual potential evapotranspiration is around 1,900 mm (SMUWC 2001a). The long-term mean annual runoff at about 80 km downstream of the basin outlet (Msembe Ferry) is 2,442 million cubic meters (Mm³) (Kashaigili et al. 2006a). The Upper Great Ruaha River is a major tributary to the Rufiji River. The headwaters rise in the Kipengere mountains in southwest Tanzania and drain through the broad alluvial Usangu plains and the Ruaha National Park. The Rufiji River runs for about 600 km and drains to the Indian Ocean in an easterly direction. The Usangu plains encompass the Usangu wetland (about 1,800 km 2 area), which is one of the most valuable ecosystems in Tanzania from a conservation perspective. The wetland provides habitat to a large number of flora and fauna, and supports numerous livelihood activities such as agriculture, pastoralism, fisheries and small-scale industries (Kashaigili et al. 2006b).The major land cover types in the UGRRB include natural forests and woodlands, savanna grasslands, bushlands, wetlands and agriculture. Major crops in the region are rice, vegetables and maize, of which rice is irrigated, and the others are cultivated under rainfed conditions. There was a rapid expansion in the irrigated area (about 10,000 ha to 40,000 ha) near the Usangu wetlands between 1970and 2000(SMUWC 2001a;;Kashaigili et al. 2006b). While the total population of the Rufiji River Basin is approx.6 million (Mwakalila 2011), the study area (UGRRB) is home to approx. 800,000 people (CIESIN 2017) with a population density of 38/km 2 . Over the last few decades, the increasing demand for agricultural land due to population growth has led to the clearance of natural vegetation and degradation of soil, wetlands and water resources (Taylor et al. 2011).The Awash River Basin is a major drainage system in Ethiopia, extending to about 110,000 km 2 (Figure 2). The river originates in the Ginchi area in the West Shewa region of central-west Ethiopia and flows for a length of about 1,200 km. Unlike most rivers in Ethiopia, which flow towards south or west, Awash is the only major river flowing towards the northeast. Most other rivers have higher annual flows compared to Awash, but flow mostly through canyons and deep valleys and are thus largely inaccessible for direct human use; sections of the Awash River are relatively accessible and offer greater possibilities for human utilization (FAO 1965). The annual rainfall of the Awash River Basin varies from about 1,600 mm near its origin to 160 mm close to the northern limit of the basin with a mean of 850 mm. Rainfall is bimodal, with the main rainfall season occurring from June to September and a shorter, less intensive rainfall season occurring from March to April. The mean annual potential evapotranspiration ranges from 1,810 mm in the upper basin to 2,348 mm in the lower part (Berhe et al. 2013). The long-term mean annual runoff of the Awash Basin is about 4,900 Mm³ (Edossa et al. 2010).This study was conducted in the upper headwater catchment of the Awash River Basin, which drains to the Koka reservoir. The UARB is located between longitudes 37° 57.0 E to 39° 17.5' E and latitudes 8° 11.2' N to 9° 19.0' N and covers an area of 10,695 km². The altitude ranges from 1,584 mamsl to 3,576 mamsl.Geographically, agriculture is the largest land cover type in the UARB. Bushland and grassland also cover significant areas of the basin. However, with Addis Ababa city (the capital of Ethiopia) located within the basin, the most prominent land use in UARB is urban areas. The basin also has several other townships and industrial establishments.The population of UARB in 2015 was approx. 5.3 million, of which approx. 3.1 million lives within the Addis Ababa Regional State (Figure 2). While the population density of UARB is 497/km², the area outside Addis Ababa Regional State has a population density of 213/km².Land cover change in human-modified landscapes is a continuous process, influenced by a multitude of socioeconomic, political and climatic factors. Remote sensing technology has been widely used to develop land cover maps and assess the land cover changes over time. With an array of satellite sensors providing repeated coverage of the Earth's surface, advancements in processing algorithms and computational power, and with extended periods of data availability, remote sensing offers increasingly efficient tools to assess land cover changes. Although the UARB and UGRRB are quite different with respect to the patterns of land use, and changes as well as the factors influencing them, the challenge is to identify comparable techniques for assessing these changes over similar time frames. Both basins are agrarian in nature with a significant presence of smallholder farms and small townships, while the large conurbation of Addis Ababa is unique to UARB (Figure 2). Moderate resolution datasets such as Landsat images (30 m) are suitable to characterize the changes in basins of this magnitude and with these types of landscapes. Time periods were decided based on the requirements of the study and data availability. While higher resolution images such as Sentinel-2 MultiSpectral Instrument (MSI) 1 from the European Space Agency (ESA) are available in later time periods, Landsat images offer the best resolution in a cost-effective way for earlier time periods. It was decided to use Landsat images for the mapping of all the time periods to obtain a consistent resolution suitable for the change analysis. Land cover maps from secondary sources based on Landsat images of earlier time periods were also used for the analysis. The time periods selected enable a change analysis to be carried out for approximately the last 15 to 20 years, which represent a period of unprecedented changes.For each river basin, land cover changes were estimated using land cover maps of two time slices. Changes in the UGRRB were analyzed between the periods 1994-1995 and 2015-2016 (20 years), whereas changes in the UARB were analyzed between 2000 and 2015 (15 years). Land cover maps were prepared for each time period using remote sensing imagery acquired, secondary maps and ground truth information.Land cover classification of complex, human-modified landscapes using satellite imagery often requires multiple approaches and datasets. The accuracy of the classification relies upon the spectral reflectance properties and the distinguishability of distinct land cover types at the sampled locations. The classification is performed by analyzing the similarity between the spectral reflectance pattern of an area or pixel and the signatures of various land cover types derived from sample locations. In other words, the success of the classification depends upon the statistical separability of signatures of various land cover types. It is essential to develop signatures that represent the land cover types accurately and uniquely. In landscapes where mixed land cover is present and interspersed at a finer scale, the signature development that satisfies this requirement is a challenging process, and obviously depends on the ¹ Sentinel-2 Multispectral Imagery from ESA. The images are available at 10 m, 20 m and 60 m resolution for various bands. spatial scale of the analysis. Sample data for signature development may be gathered from image interpretation, ground measurements or any other trusted or verified source of information (Egorov et al. 2015).Analysts often modify and adapt the standard datasets and algorithms to enhance the signature separability. A single image is a snapshot of the land cover at a particular time that the image was captured. However, an important characteristic of vegetation cover is the intra-annual variation of biomass across different seasons. Therefore, the variability in seasonal changes between different land cover types can be used as an important complementary input to enhance the differentiation between spectral signatures of various land cover types. Several studies have included images from multiple seasons within a year, or over several years, in the classification process (Krishnaswamy et al. 2004;Senf et al. 2015).Multispectral images from various Landsat sensors were used for this study. Various vegetation, soil moisture and urban/built-up indices derived from multi-seasonal Landsat data were used along with the multispectral bands of the images. Details of the Landsat images and the spectral indices used for this study are provided in the section Data Sources. The diagram in Figure 3 illustrates the datasets and methods used for developing the classified land use maps.The images were classified using the supervised classification techniques Random Forest Classification (Breiman 2001) and Maximum Likelihood Classification (Settle and Briggs 1987). Parametric classification approaches such as Maximum Likelihood Classification are often less efficient in heterogeneous landscapes, where it is difficult to obtain a sufficient number of homogeneous sample locations required for developing spectral signatures with a normal distribution. Ensemble learning algorithms such as Random Forest Classification (Breiman 2001) have been producing better results for such landscapes. In this study, the Maximum Likelihood Classifier algorithm was used in UARB, and the Random Forest Classifier algorithm was used for the more heterogeneous landscape of UGRRB. Analysis in terms of classification and mapping for the two time periods in each basin was performed systematically and consistently, enabling easy comparison of temporal changes.Ground truth information collected through contemporary field surveys and from secondary sources, high-resolution images from Google Earth, visual interpretation of the images used for classification, and secondary maps were all used as supportive material for the classification. The results were visually cross-checked with Google Earth and Landsat images and refined through iterative manual editing. Agricultural areas were classified through a twostep process. The entire agricultural area was considered as a single category in the first step using the supervised classification techniques. Subsequently, the agricultural areas were classified into irrigated and rainfed areas using spectral indices such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI) (see section Spectral Indices for Classification), capturing the seasonal vegetation and moisture status of agricultural areas.A post-classification change analysis was carried out to estimate the transition of land use and land cover from the earlier time period to the later time period. The method involves separately classifying images from different time periods to develop land use maps and compare the classified images, pixel by pixel, to assess the temporal change. This analysis minimizes the atmospheric impacts on the multi-temporal images and provides information on the quantity and spatial distribution of change and transition from one land class to another (Lu et al. 2004).Overall, this study follows the approaches used by several earlier studies that employed seasonal change information captured in multi-seasonal images for land cover classification (e.g., Mtibaa and Irie 2016), and well-established procedures for post-classification change analysis. However, appropriate modifications were incorporated in the procedures to suit the land cover characteristics of each of the basins, especially for the segregation of irrigated and rainfed areas.Remotely sensed data from Landsat satellites were used for the preparation of land cover maps for different time periods. Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) 2 data were used for developing land cover maps for the period 2015-2016 for both basins. Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) data were used for the year 2000 for the UARB, and Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) images were used to modify an existing land cover map of 1994 to develop the land cover map for the period 1994-1995 for the UGRRB.The standard Landsat Level-1 products and the atmospherically corrected surface reflectance data products (Level-2) (USGS 2015, 2016a) of these sensors were downloaded from the online satellite data archive EarthExplorer (USGS 2016b). The characteristics of Landsat images used are provided in the Appendix.Landsat surface reflectance data products provided by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) were used to develop various spectral indices for the classification. Surface reflectance data are produced after the removal of atmospheric effects on satellite data, which enables comparison of data acquired from various locations and for different time periods. The surface reflectance data  2020b).Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is one of the most widely used spectral indices derived from remote sensing data for vegetation studies. NDVI is highly correlated with many vegetation parameters, such as crown closure, leaf vigor, and canopy biomass and leaf area index, and is the most robust of the vegetation indices developed (Lyon et al. 1998). Variability in NDVI across seasons estimated from multi-seasonal satellite imagery can be used to study the phenological variations in land cover (Reed et al. 1994).Most land cover types in UGRRB and UARB exhibit a seasonal change. NDVI derived from multi-seasonal images provides estimates of the abundance and density of the vegetation and the seasonal change in various vegetation types.NDVI is calculated as a ratio involving the reflections in the two spectrums: Red (RED) and Near Infrared (NIR), using Equation ( 1):(1)Values of vegetation indices such as NDVI can be affected by the reflectance from exposed soil surface, where the vegetation cover is low. The Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI) was developed to minimize the influence of soil on vegetation reflectance by incorporating a constant soil adjustment factor L into the NDVI equation (Huete 1988).The Modified Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (MSAVI) is a modified version of SAVI, which replaces the soil adjustment factor L (which requires prior information about the vegetation densities of the area) with a selfadjusting L factor and hence does not require prior knowledge of the vegetation densities (Qi et al. 1994).From grasslands and bushlands to agricultural areas and plantations, most areas of the study basins have a significant presence of exposed soil. MSAVI provides an important measure of vegetation spectra in these areas.The MSAVI values, in combination with NDVI values, provide estimates of the densities and variations of vegetation in various land cover types. MSAVI is calculated using RED and NIR values with an inductive L function applied to maximize the reduction of soil effects on the vegetation signal (Qi et al. 1994).(Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI) NDMI estimates moisture levels stored in vegetation.The index is derived based on the absorption of water by the Shortwave Infrared (SWIR) band compared to the NIR band (Wilson and Sader 2002). NDMI was included as a variable in the classification to capture the seasonal moisture variations in vegetation in various seasonally changing land cover types.NDMI is calculated using NIR and SWIR bands using Equation (3):(3)For Landsat 5 and 7, band 5 was used as the SWIR band, and for Landsat 8, band 6 was used as the SWIR bandLand Cover Classification and Change AnalysisThe land cover classification scheme adapted for the two catchments was broadly similar with some variations to suite respective local conditions. Land cover categories were decided based on discussions held with a group of researchers familiar with the areas and on the visual exploration of the images. The definitions were mainly adopted from Vesa et al. (2011), but modified to include additional categories to represent the actual land types present in the study basins.The ten land cover classes identified for mapping are given below:1. Mapping of UGRRB includes all ten categories, while forest plantation and woodland were not included in the mapping of UARB. The 'forest' class in UARB does not always exhibit all the characteristics of the natural forest class as defined here due to the fragmented nature and may therefore include tree clusters rather than a continuous stand of trees.Landsat images acquired for multiple dates representing different seasons were used for classification of the scenes. The advantage of using multi-seasonal imagery over single date imagery for classification purposes is that the former is more likely to capture the seasonal variations of vegetation and is likely to enhance the spectral variability required for the classification.Three Landsat scenes are required to cover UGRRB (Figure 4), whereas two scenes are needed for mapping UARB (Figure 5). The extent of the scenes and scene overlap are shown in Figures 4 and 5. For UGRRB, the overlap area was mapped using the 169/66 scene, which covers majority of the area. The scene 168/54 was used for the overlap areas between the scenes in UARB.Since agriculture is an important category of the analysis, images acquired during the crop season are the most appropriate for the classification (Wardlow and Egbert 2008). However, since much of the crop season of the region corresponds with the rainfall season, the availability of cloudfree images for the study period was limited. Images for three dates per basin, period, sensor and scene were selected for the analysis taking into consideration the availability of cloud-free images and temporal correspondence with crop seasons (Table 1). The dates were selected to approximately represent pre-sowing, full crops/growing, and post-harvest conditions of the crops. These three dates are also suitable to capture the seasonal changes in natural vegetation in the basin. However, for some of the scenes for the earlier period, images for only one or two seasons were available due to cloud cover. The small northern area in UGRRB (Figure 4) covered by the scene 169/65 is mostly woodlands and did not require complex classification routines to prepare the land cover map. The image from only one season was used for this scene.Ground truth datasets for classification of the selected satellite images were gathered from three sources: (i) field surveys providing Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates and visual information on land cover, (ii) high resolution images in Google Earth, and (iii) secondary maps.Primary field surveys were conducted by the project team in UGRRB during June 2016 to collect GPS coordinates and associated land cover information from various land cover categories in a spatially representative manner. For UARB, GPS coordinates of irrigated croplands were collected from government agencies.For UGRRB, the field survey followed the most optimal route to collect information from various parts of the basin and to cover all major land use and land cover types. Despite accessibility constraints spatially limiting the data collection to areas accessible by roads, samples from all major land cover categories were obtained. A total of 200 locations were sampled to collect the ground truth information. A 'location' consisted of a plot larger than 60 m x 60 m with approximately uniform land use. Part of the survey data was used for training the classifier and the remaining was used for validating the results (see sections Land Cover Classification for the Late Time Period and Accuracy Assessment).While some of the plots had multiple land cover types, care was taken to ensure that the assigned land cover was dominant enough to consider the plot as a representative sample for that land cover category. The plot size corresponds to 2 x 2 pixels of Landsat imagery. GPS locations were recorded near the center of the sampled area. For agricultural areas, additional information such as crop types, crop seasons and water source(s) over the year was also recorded. Assessments of plot size, location of the plot center and percentage of land cover types were based on approximate visual estimations.For UARB, data from 79 locations with irrigated agriculture were obtained from the Ministry of Agriculture, Ethiopia.The survey methods used for the collection of these plot data are not known. Ten of these locations were used for training the irrigated area classification. The remaining locations were used for validation of the classification of agricultural areas into irrigated and rainfed areas (see sections Classification of Irrigated Areas and Accuracy Assessment).The high-resolution images (up to 0.65 m) available in Google Earth 3 were used for developing classification training sites in areas where primary ground truth data were not available. Google Earth data were also used for verification and refining of the classification outputs.Although the images are of a very high resolution, it is not possible to conclusively determine certain land cover categories solely based on Google Earth images. This is particularly true for determining the irrigation status of agricultural areas. Since GPS coordinates were available for some of the land cover classes in UGRRB, Google Earth was primarily used to identify croplands in general and  for developing training sites for woodlands, bushlands and human settlements. In UARB, sample locations for classifying croplands, urban areas and various natural vegetation classes were obtained from Google Earth.A land cover map of UGRRB in 1994 (Figure 6) prepared by the Institute of Resource Assessment (IRA), Tanzania, was used as a base map for preparing the map for the period 1994-1995. This base land cover map was prepared using a Landsat 5 TM image acquired on August 14, 1994, with nine land cover categories. These categories are mostly similar to the land cover classes defined for the current classification scheme (see section Classification Scheme). The permanent swamp and urban areas mapped in the earlier classification are similar to the wetland and human settlement areas in the new classification, respectively. The remaining classes are comparable in both classification schemes, except that the old map does not distinguish between irrigated and rainfed agricultural areas. The land cover categories in the 1994 map were represented by IRA using significant generalization. Spatial lumping of land cover areas in maps derived from remote sensing is a common practice to remove unwanted local variations and thus improve the spatial coherence and visual appearance (Fierens and Rosin 1994). As a result, many areas with a complex land cover mixture appear relatively uniform in the map. At the same time, the map provides an excellent broad overview of the land use and land cover of that period. The 1994-1995 map for this study was prepared by modifying the 1994 map by retaining the complexity of the land cover pattern at a much finer scale and including additional categories such as irrigated and rainfed agriculture using satellite images of the same period (Landsat 5 TM, Table 1).One cloud-free image for each scene was selected as a primary image for the classification process. A set of additional variables derived from multi-season satellite images was also used along with this primary image to incorporate information on seasonal changes in the classification process.Images from the following dates were used as the primary images for the classification for each scene ( The Landsat 8 (OLI and TIRS) imagery has 11 spectral bands. Seven spectral bands, from 2 to 7 and band 10, were selected for the classification process. Band 1 (coastal/aerosol), band 8 (panchromatic) and band 9 (cirrus) were not used for the classification because these bands have limited information to classify land cover. Similarly, only one band (band 10) out of the two thermal bands (bands 10 and 11) was selected for the classification.As described earlier (see section Spectral Indices for Classification), the Landsat 8 surface reflectance data products available from USGS EarthExplorer were used to derive various spectral indices. NDVI and NDMI were derived for each image of the three stages of the crop growing period selected for both basins. In addition, for UGRRB, MSAVI was derived for each of the multi-season images. A set of four measures per pixel was calculated over the cropping season based on these multi-date spectral indices to quantify the seasonal variations, i.e., seasonal mean, seasonal standard deviation, and two change layers between successive pairs of images (presowing to full crops; full crops to post-harvest) to represent two change trajectories (Krishnaswamy et al. 2004). While the multi-season mean of these spectral indices represents the quantity of the measured phenomena, the standard deviation and the change layers are representations of seasonal changes of each measured variable. Finally, for UARB, a built-up index (BUI) was also calculated using the method proposed by He et al. (2010) for the primary image selected. The method initially calculates a Normalized Difference Built-up Index (NDBI) (Zha et al. 2003) and then calculates the BUI by subtracting the NDVI from NDBI.(4)(5)These additional variables were appended to the primary Landsat 8 OLI/TRS layer stack, which was used as the input imagery dataset for the classification.The land cover classification of UGRRB was performed using the Random Forest Classifier in the Google Earth Engine 4 platform, whereas the classification of UARB was done using the ERDAS IMAGINE 2013 software.⁵ ERDAS IMAGINEwas used for development of the training sites,⁶ signature evaluation and validation of results for both basins.Spectral signatures were developed for each land cover type, from training site polygons at representative sample sites obtained from ground truth data collected during the field surveys and Google Earth images. Multiple signatures were developed for each land cover type to account for the variations in vegetation structure and density. Some additional subcategories were also defined to account for the variability within each vegetation type. These subcategories were later merged to form the final land cover categories defined earlier. The classification of agricultural areas into irrigated and rainfed areas was done using a different method, which is explained in the section Classification of Irrigated Areas. The distinction between irrigated and rainfed areas was not done when developing signatures.Transformed Divergence (Swain and Davis 1978) was used as a statistical measure to evaluate the signature separability. The transformed divergence gives an exponentially decreasing weight to increasing distances between the signatures (Jensen 1996). The scale of the divergence values can range from 0 to 2,000. As a rule, if the result is less than 1,700, the separation is poor.The training sets were iteratively refined to achieve an acceptable level of separability between the signatures. The final set of training sites were exported to Google Earth Engine using the Fusion Tables⁷ platform.The selected Landsat 8 spectral bands (bands 2 to 7 and band 10), and the mean, standard deviation and two change layers derived from seasonal spectral indices were stacked together to define the base input dataset for the classification. The classification results were visually compared with Google Earth imagery using ERDAS IMAGINE. Manual editing techniques were used to refine the outputs wherever necessary. The manual editing was particularly useful in correcting misclassifications between water bodies and wetlands.The early time period for UGRRB was 1994-1995 and for UARB, it was the year 2000. The classification methods used were different for the two basins. For UARB, land cover mapping for the year 2000 was performed through the method described in the section Land Cover Classification for the Late Time Period.Landsat ETM+ images were used for the classification. Due to cloud cover, only two season's images were available for the analysis (Table 1). The image for December 5, 2000, was selected as the primary image for classification of the Landsat scene 168/54 and the image from November 26, 2000, was selected for the Landsat scene 169/54. The BUI and the mean and standard deviation of NDVI and NDMI were derived and appended to the multi-spectral bands of the selected primary images to form the base dataset for the classification. Signature development, evaluation and classification procedures were followed as described in the section Land Cover Classification for the Late Time Period.For UGRRB, as mentioned earlier, the map of 1994 prepared by IRA was used as a base map for the 1994-1995 classification (Figure 6). The base map was developed from the Landsat TM image of August 14, 1994, using unsupervised classification techniques. A visual comparison between this map and the satellite data used to develop it, showed that the heterogeneous land cover at finer scale in many areas is presented after significant generalization of the classification output. It was noted that many small or fragmented patches of agricultural areas were removed due to the generalization process. The grassland and bushland classes were similarly affected. As a classification using a single date imagery, the base map prepared by IRA was not capturing the variability in wetland extent over the seasons. In this study, the classification for 1995 was done by retaining the complex heterogeneity of the land cover at fine scale following the supervised classification methods used for the 2015 mapping.Classification for the 1995 map was done using multiseason Landsat 5 TM images (Table 1). The primary images of each Landsat scene used for the analysis are as follows:• 168/66: June 23, 1995 • 169/66: June 30, 1995Based on the visual exploration, it was decided that the areas covered by the scene 169/65 did not need to be modified further. The additional variables based on the spectral indices were developed and the input layer stack for the classification was developed as described in the section Land Cover Classification for the Late Time Period.Neither ground truth information nor high-resolution images from Google Earth were available for the year 1995. Hence, training sites for classification were developed through visual interpretation of Landsat images.Similar to the approach followed for the 2015 classification, the signatures were evaluated and refined using ERDAS IMAGINE and later exported to Google Earth Engine using Fusion Tables to perform the classification using Random Forest Classifier. All the Landsat 5 bands and the measures derived from multi-season spectral indices were used as the base dataset for classification. The classification outputs were used to modify the land use map of 1994 and produce the final land cover map for further analysis.The irrigated and rainfed areas were not distinguishable through the initial classification using multi-spectral data and spectral indices, and the supervised classification.In UGRRB, irrigation mainly occurs in the wet season (Villholth et al. 2013). Therefore, classification techniques using temporal information, principally temporal variations in vegetation and moisture indices, were not suitable. Figure 7 illustrates the seasonal growth pattern, in terms of NDVI, of irrigated and rainfed areas along with the temporal rainfall distribution at two representative locations in UGRRB. The NDVI and rainfall profiles were derived from a time series of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) 16-day NDVI data (250 m resolution) and Climate Hazards group InfraRed Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) rainfall images (about 5 km resolution) for the same period. The trends shown in Figure 7 were developed by time series of a single pixel from each of the sites. As evident in Figure 7, there are no significant differences between the temporal growth pattern of irrigated and rainfed crops. However, the peak NDVI values are marginally higher in the irrigated areas.Since the initial multi-spectral classification methods and temporal differentiation techniques were not successful in the classification of irrigated and rainfed crops, the temporal distribution of various spectral indices for irrigated and rainfed areas were explored in more detail. A set of 20 sample locations in all the irrigated and rainfed areas was selected from a subset of the UGRRB ground truth dataset, which included a variety of crops (irrigated and rainfed). Pixel values from all the spectral index layers, such as NDVI, MSAVI and NDMI derived for the initial classification, were explored. Additionally, the seasonal mean, seasonal standard deviation and the seasonal difference values for each variable were also explored. It was observed that the mean NDVI and mean NDMI are the two variables offering a marginal, but relatively consistent, differentiation among these variables (Figure 8). Both mean NDVI and mean NDMI were higher (not statistically tested) in irrigated areas compared to rainfed areas. NDVI and NDMI values have been successfully used in several studies to map the irrigated areas (Chance et al. 2017;Sharma et al. 2018). These indices are used in various ways -either separately or together with other potential information layers -based on the characteristics of the study area.The irrigated and rainfed areas were differentiated by developing suitable thresholds for these two variables applicable for the entire basin. For UARB, thresholds were developed based on a set of 25 sample locations selected from the available ground truth data.An accuracy assessment of the classification performed was carried out for the late time period (2015-2016) for both basins. This was done using a subset of the ground truth data and a set of stratified random validation points generated for the underrepresented categories in the ground truth surveys using Google Earth images.For UGRRB, there were no GPS data with samples from wetlands, water bodies and forest plantations. Also, bushland and natural forest were underrepresented. Random points were generated for these classes to supplement the ground truth dataset. The actual land use types at the randomly generated locations were determined using Google Earth images. The final dataset consisted of 189 points, with 136 points from the ground truth data and 53 randomly generated locations. The comparison of reference data and classification results was carried out statistically using an error matrix (Story and Congalton 1986). The error matrix was used to estimate the user's accuracy, producer's accuracy and the overall accuracy of the map. User's accuracy is an estimate of the proportion of correctly classified pixels in the map and the producer's accuracy is the proportion of correctly classified reference points.For UARB, the accuracy assessment was carried out in two steps due to the nature of the available reference data.Because the available GPS coordinates from the ground truth dataset from the Ministry of Agriculture contain only information on the irrigated agriculture class, accuracy of the rainfed class could not be determined. Also, the status of irrigation cannot be conclusively determined based on the Google Earth images. Therefore, for the initial step, the irrigated and rainfed classes were combined to form a single agriculture class.First, a set of 224 validation points were generated using a stratified random technique, with a minimum of 30 locations in each class. Actual land use types at these locations were identified using Google Earth Engine. The comparison of reference data and classification results was carried out statistically using an error matrix as done for UGRRB.Second, accuracy of the irrigated agriculture class was evaluated separately using the secondary ground truth data provided by Ministry of Agriculture. In this step, the accuracy assessment was carried out only for the irrigated agriculture class.It was not possible to carry out the accuracy assessment for the early time period classification, because neither ground truth data nor high resolution images were available for that period. Quality assurance for this period was performed qualitatively for UGRRB by visually comparing the output with the satellite images and the available secondary map provided in Figure 6. A post-classification land cover change analysis was carried out to assess the changes that occurred between the two time periods for both basins using the final landUpper Great Ruaha River BasinLand cover maps developed for UGRRB through the classification process are shown in Figure 9. The land area covered by each category, estimated from the land cover maps, is provided in Table 2.  The results of the accuracy assessment of the UGRRB classification for 2015-2016 are provided in the form of an error matrix in Table 3. Overall, the results show a good agreement (77.8%) between the output and reference data. Both irrigated and rainfed agriculture classes show good accuracies, with producer accuracies of 73.7% and 76.3%, respectively, and user accuracies of 87.5% and 84.9%, respectively. Natural vegetation types such as grassland, bushland and woodland show relatively lower producer accuracies of 60%, 82.4% and 63.2%, respectively, and lower user accuracies of 64.3%, 63.6% and 63.2%, respectively. The error matrix shows the potential misclassification of rainfed agriculture, which would have resulted in an overestimation of these categories. The nature of fragmented small-scale agriculture adjacent to the grassland, bushland and woodland areas could be a reason for this. All the random sample reference points collected from the wetland and water body classes were correctly classified, and this resulted in a 100% producer accuracy for these classes.However, the error matrix shows that there are other categories misclassified as wetland and water body, which resulted in user accuracies of 87% and 80%, respectively. This indicates that there is a small overestimation of wetland and water body classes due to the misclassification of other categories as these classes, most importantly irrigated agriculture and bushland. Human settlements in the area generally have a mix of trees and small agricultural plots. Additionally, most houses in smaller settlements are built with natural roofing material. This has affected the success of identifying smaller settlements, but the identification of larger settlements and small towns were relatively successful. The human settlement class has both user and producer accuracies of 71.4%.Various aspects of the land cover change dynamics in UGRRB were explored through a post-classification change analysis using the final land cover maps. The map in Figure 10 shows the distribution of areas that underwent and did not undergo land cover change during the study period.The map shows that a substantial part of the catchment experienced changes during this 20-year period (from 1994-1995 to 2015-2016). It is estimated that 619,874 ha or 29.8% of the catchment underwent changes. There is a tendency for more intensive changes towards the center, i.e., the lowlands, of the basin.Table 4 and Figure 11 provide an overview of the changes in each land cover type. The decrease (loss), increase (gain) and the net change in area of each land cover type are summarized in Table 4. Interestingly, most land cover types show substantial changes in both directions (Figure 11). Details of the loss and gain or changes to each land cover class are described in the next section Land Cover Transitions.The data show that both agriculture classes (irrigated and rainfed) had a net increase in the total area. However, both categories also experienced a decrease or conversion to other categories in some areas. Rainfed agriculture shows the highest net increase among all categories with 154,346 ha, which is a 57.4% increase from the situation in 1995. Irrigated agriculture also had a substantial increase during this period. The total irrigated area more than doubled (from 37,311 to 88,704 ha, Table 2), with a net increase of 51,393 ha (137.7%). The built-up areas (human settlement class) in the basin have increased from 1,460 to 7,384 ha showing a fourfold net increase (405.8%) in the total area of that category.Grassland, bushland and woodland are the major natural land cover types in the basin. Of these, grassland and bushland show a major net reduction (26.7% and 15.5%) in the total extent, while woodland shows a smaller net reduction of 7.2%. There is a fairly large extent of wetland areas within the basin, covering almost 76,793 ha in 2016. During the study period, the total wetland area had decreased by 11.4%, but as stated earlier, it is not clear whether this is a long-term trend or a natural seasonal variation.Tables 5 and 6 report the transition of various land cover types in UGRRB from 1994-1995 to 2015-2016 in absolute (Table 5) and relative (Table 6) numbers. The change matrix provided in these tables illustrates the detailed conversion between the various land cover types present in the basin. The values along the rows (except the gray boxes, indicating areas of land cover that did not change) indicate how much of the earlier extent (1994)(1995) of each land cover type was converted to other land cover types over the study period. In other words, these values indicate the losses in the area of each land cover type. Conversely, the values along the columns show the extent of land cover type that was added from other land cover types in the late time period (2015-2016).There was a significant increase in the irrigated and rainfed areas from 1994-1995 to 2015-2016 (Table 4). Table 5 shows that these additions were mainly from woodland and bushland areas. During this period, 100,546 ha of woodland and 69,681 ha of bushland were converted to rainfed agriculture. This is 10.15% and 14.96% of woodland and bushland areas, respectively, in 1994-1995 (Table 6). Similarly, 12,595 ha of grassland also got converted to rainfed agriculture. Irrigated areas showed similar trends of conversion from woodland, bushland and grassland areas. In addition to these, 15,428 ha of rainfed areas were also converted to irrigated areas. While the overall agricultural extent shows an increase, it may also be noted that in some areas, previous agricultural (rainfed) land was converted to grassland (9,252 ha) and bushland (7,271 ha) (Table 5).  In line with this, the major natural land cover types showed a decrease in their overall area (Table 4).The reduction in bushland and grassland is quite significant at 15.5% and 26.7%, respectively (Table 4). Although, there was a substantial conversion of grassland to rainfed agriculture (12,595 ha), the largest conversion from grassland was to bushland (81,248 ha), corresponding to 36.6% of grassland. A similar trend in the conversion of bushland to grassland and woodland can be observed.Another major land cover type of the basin is wetlands (4.16% in 1994-1995, Table 2). While ca. 84% of wetland areas remained unchanged during this period, irrigated agriculture was a major land use that encroached into wetland areas (7,687 ha or 8.9% of wetland area in 1994-1995). Note: a Change in area (%) is calculated with respect to the area of the land cover type in 1994-1995 (Table 2). Note: The percentage of losses is calculated using the area of the initial period (1994)(1995) as the base and the percentage of gains is calculated using the area of the later period (2015-2016) as the base.-   Upper Awash River BasinThe land cover maps for UARB for the years 2000 and 2015, developed through the classification process, are shown in Figure 12. The area of each land cover type and the percentage of each type within the basin for 2000 and 2015 are provided in Table 7.Land cover of the basin was classified into eight categories in both years. The results show that agriculture is the dominant land cover type in the UARB, covering 65.9% of the basin in 2000 and 80.6% in 2015. Within the agricultural areas, irrigated agriculture occupied 1.1% in 2000 and 2.0% in 2015. Area-wise, built-up areas (human settlements) occupied a relatively small but significantly increasing part of the basin -1.6%in 2000 and 4.5% in 2015 (Table 7). Land cover maps (Figure 12) show that much of these built-up areas are concentrated around Addis Ababa in the northern part of the basin. Agricultural and built-up areas, the two non-natural land cover types found in the basin, show an increase between 2000 and 2015.Bushland, grassland and forest are the major natural vegetation types in the basin. Among these, bushland covered the largest area in 2000 (22.5%), followed by grassland (5.3%) and forest (3.9%). In 2015, bushland, grassland and forest covered 4.7%, 6.3% and 2.9%, respectively.Water bodies and wetlands are also found in various parts of the basin. The combined area occupied by these land cover types is less than 1% of the basin in both years. The results of the accuracy assessment for the UARB classification of 2015 are provided in the form of an error matrix in Table 8. The analysis shows an overall accuracy of 81.3%. Highest reliabilities were observed for wetland and human settlement, where the producer accuracy was more than 90%. The agriculture and forest classes also have a high accuracy with both measures (user and producer accuracies) being more than 80%. The separate accuracy assessment, which was carried out only for the irrigated area within the agricultural areas, shows a 73.9% accuracy for the irrigated agriculture classification (cf. section Accuracy Assessment under the section Land Cover Classification and Change Analysis). The omission error is highest for grassland with a producer accuracy of only 63.2%. This could be due to the insignificant The overall distribution of land cover change in the basin during the study period is visualized in Figure 13. Although the changes are widespread, the distribution and intensity of the changes are not uniform across the landscape, though there is a tendency for more intensive changes toward the boundaries, i.e., the highlands, of the basin.It is estimated that 364,464 ha or 34.1% of the basin witnessed land cover change in some form over the 15year period (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015). Wetland TotalTable 9 provides estimates of the net changes in each land cover type in the basin. Area-wise, bushland (-190,585 ha) and rainfed agriculture (147,526 ha) experienced the largest net changes. These changes amount to -79.1% and 21.2% of the earlier areas of bushland and rainfed agriculture, respectively. Percentagewise, human settlements showed the largest gain (179.5%, corresponding to a net increase of 30,870 ha), followed by irrigated agriculture (127.5%, corresponding to a net increase of 9,493 ha).The area estimations in Table 9 show that most land cover types underwent changes in both directions, i.e., increase in area in some locations and a reduction in area in other locations. Along with Table 9, Figure 14 illustrates the nature of the relative changes in the basin. Except for built-up areas (human settlements), all categories show a bidirectional pattern of change. Table 9 shows that some of the categories, although the net change is low, have substantial counterbalancing loss and gain in different areas. Grassland (loss of 45,370 ha, gain of 56,028 ha) and forest (loss of 32,765 ha, gain of 22,560 ha) are two such categories that underwent substantial changes. Except for human settlement and agricultural areas, most land cover types display a strong bidirectional pattern of loss and gain during the study period (Figure 14). Tables 10 and 11 and Figure 15 summarize and illustrate the transition of each land cover class from 2000 to 2015. Much of the areas that were covered by human settlements, and irrigated and rainfed agriculture in 2000 remained the same in 2015 by retaining 100%, and 90.8% and 89.6%, respectively (Table 11). However, classes such as grassland, bushland and forest showed substantial changes by retaining only 20.6%, 12.4% and 20.9%, respectively, of the earlier areas.Although the original agricultural areas in 2000 remained mostly unchanged, the irrigated agriculture class had substantial gains from other classes, with an addition of 10,176 ha (Table 9). Much of this addition was contributed from rainfed agriculture (5,910 ha), followed by bushland (2,923 ha) (Table 10). The net increase in rainfed agriculture (21.2%, Table 9), on the other hand, was primarily from bushland (170,481 ha) and grassland (36,048 ha). Similarly, a significant portion of the rainfed agricultural area was converted to urban areas (18,720 ha). It can also be seen that 15,419 ha of the rainfed area were converted to forest, which indicates the proliferation of tree plantations in agricultural areas. However, the largest change in rainfed area is the conversion to grassland (31,953 ha). Note: a Change in area (%) is calculated based on the area of the land cover type in 2000 (Table 7).Among the natural land cover, bushland was occupying the largest share with 22.5% of the entire basin in 2000 (Table 7), and it underwent the largest net change during this period (-190,585 ha) (Table 9). Only 12.4% of the earlier bushland area remained unchanged (Table 11). While 70.7% of earlier bushland was converted to rainfed agriculture, bushland was also converted to grassland (9.1%) and human settlements (3.3%) (Table 11). At the same time, large areas under forest cover (15,896 ha) were converted to bushland. These changes have resulted in a net overall reduction of bushland from 22.5% of the basin in 2000 to just 4.7% in 2015 (Table 7). While major parts of the grassland and forest classes were converted to rainfed agriculture, these categories also partially gained from a reverse change from the same categories elsewhere. In aggregate, there were only marginal changes in the total areas of grassland (5.3% to 6.3%) and forest (3.9 to 2.9%) (Table 7). However, there was a clear location shift evident in these categories because only ca. 20% of the earlier areas remained unchanged (Table 11).A noticeable feature of the land cover change in UARB is the expansion of human settlement areas. The analysis shows that while almost the entire area occupied by this category in 2000 remained unchanged, substantial areas of other land cover types were converted and added to built-up areas (human settlements). As a result, there was an almost threefold increase in human settlement areas in this period (1.6 to 4.5%, Table 7). Much of this expansion was at the expense of rainfed agricultural areas (18,720 ha) and bushlands (8,034 ha) (Table 10).Figure 14. Gains and losses of different land cover types in UARB between 2000 and 2015.Note: The percentage of losses is calculated using the area of the initial period (2000) as the base and the percentage of gains is calculated using the area of the later period (2015) as a base.-   Land cover changes in diverse tropical agrarian landscapes are complex in nature. This study quantifies and analyzes the patterns of change in two upper basins in Ethiopia and Tanzania using satellite images from two periods, approximately two decades apart. The results of the analysis demonstrate the varying nature of the patterns of change. Apart from quantifying the changes in each land cover category, the study quantifies the transitions between different land cover types and provides information about the dominant characteristics of the change. The results of the land cover mapping were partially validated using field information collected through ground truth datasets. The ground truth data collection and validation were carried out only for the late time period (2015-2016) as there were no suitable datasets available for the early time periods (1994)(1995) for UGRRB and 2000 for UARB) for validation. While there are no defined standards, generally, an overall accuracy of 80 to 85% and no single land cover class having an accuracy lower than 60% are considered acceptable for thematic land cover classification. However, it is often difficult to achieve this in highly complex landscapes such as UGRRB. The overall accuracy of the classification for 2015-2016 was 77.8% for UGRRB and 81.3% for UARB; the accuracy of individual land cover classes for both basins is within the acceptable limit, indicating that the classification is reasonably successful in capturing the land cover patterns. However, the inability to validate the results of the early time period due to the lack of field data is a shortcoming of this study.The results show that 29.8% and 34.1% areas in UGRRB and UARB, respectively, underwent some form of land cover change during the study period. Despite the satisfactory validation results, there is a certain amount of misclassification between the land cover classes. Misclassification between spectrally similar land cover categories is the key source of uncertainty in thematic classification using remote sensing data. Land cover classes such as fallow agricultural land and grassland, rainfed and irrigated agriculture, woodland and natural forest, etc., are potential pairs of misclassification. While the results illustrate the overall trends, incorporating intermediate time periods in the analysis would have provided more insights about the trajectory of change, especially if there were any shifts or variations in the rate of changes. The following sections discuss the results in each basin.The major human-dominated land cover types in UGRRB are agriculture and human settlements. Both these land cover types showed substantial growth in their extent between 1994-1995 and 2015-2016. The net change in the area of irrigated agriculture was 138% and that of rainfed agriculture was 57% (Table 4). The human settlement areas had an increase of 406%. From the transition table (Table 5) and Figure 16, it is evident that while the expansion of agricultural areas was mainly in the previously natural land cover areas such as woodland and bushland, the growth of human settlements was mostly from the conversion of rainfed agricultural areas.As defined in the classification scheme, the human settlements include built-up structures for residential/ commercial purposes, which may be interspersed with small farmlands or other fragmented land uses. The loss of human settlement areas to forest plantations indicates the conversion of small farmlands and tree clusters within settlements to monoculture tree plantations.Major parts of UGRRB are covered by natural land cover types. The major natural land cover classes include grassland, bushland and woodland, which covered 80.6% in 1994-1995 and 70.8% in 2015-2016. All these land cover types showed a considerable reduction in net area during the study period from 1994-1995 to 2015-2016.However, the transition tables (Tables 5 and 6) indicate that a substantial area of these three categories (grassland, bushland and woodland) exchanged between each other. These exchanges show that while there is an overall reduction in these areas, large parts of the natural land cover in the basin are showing a regeneration of vegetation. Table 12 is an extract from the land cover transition table (Table 5). The conversion to denser vegetated areas is shown in green whereas the conversion to less vegetated areas is shown in light brown. A pair-wise comparison between each of these categories illustrates a shift towards denser vegetation types. The change indicated by the values in the green cells is considerably higher than those in the light brown cells. Together, the conversion to denser vegetation in these three categories is almost twice the conversion to less vegetated areas. These three categories covered almost 80% of the basin in 1995. Further, similar changes can also be observed in natural forest. Overall, it can be stated that excluding the conversion to agriculture and human settlements, the natural land cover types in the basin predominantly exhibit a shift towards greener or more woody vegetation.This increase in vegetation cover may be linked to specific local factors or broader-scale regional drivers of change.The spatial distribution of the greening trend indicates that a significant part of it occurs in the alluvial plains (fans) around the wetland region (Figure 17). Past studies have reported a drying up of the Great Ruaha River during the dry season and occurring since 1993 for many years, presumably due to expansion of irrigation (Kashaigili et al. 2006a(Kashaigili et al. , 2009)); some studies link earlier degradation of the wetland ecosystem to unregulated cattle grazing (SMUWC 2001b; Kihwele et al. 2012).  Note: The conversion to denser vegetated areas is shown in green whereas the conversion to less vegetated areas is shown in light brown.Overgrazing has a direct detrimental impact on vegetation cover by trampling and burning of vegetation by shepherds. In an attempt to restore the dry season flow and wetland ecosystem, the Government of Tanzania expanded the Ruaha National Park (RNP) to include the Usangu wetland in 2008 and restricted cattle grazing (Kihwele et al. 2018). Figure 17 indicates that the major portion of the areas exhibiting an increase in greening is within the newly added areas of RNP. The increasing greening close to the wetland region may have links to the recovery of wetlands and reduction in grazing due to the expansion of the RNP and removal of cattle.Similar to the increase in greenness in the natural vegetation, agriculture in the basin also witnesses an intensification and expansion of irrigated areas. There has been an increase of 137.7% (51,393 ha) in the irrigated area within the basin during the study period (Table 4). The expansion of irrigation is mostly occurring in the southern fans of the wetland region (Figure 17). As shown in Figure 17, much of the greening trend (both agriculture and natural vegetation) is within the alluvial plains. The trend of increase in natural vegetation cover is also witnessed in areas away from the alluvial plains.While there may be local factors influencing such changes, it must be noted that similar patterns have been observedin other regions of Africa. A general increase in greenness or vegetation productivity in several semi-arid areas in Africa after the 1980s has been reported by studies based on Earth observation data (Huber et al. 2011;Hickler et al. 2005;Eklundh and Olsson 2003). These studies, based on different datasets and different methods, also report significant regional variations in this observed trend, including vegetation decline in many areas. There could be several explanations for these trends, including recovery from drought, precipitation changes, and a possible effect of a tropical carbon sink and/or local factors such as resource use affecting the vegetation cover. Local factors such as afforestation, irrigation development or a shift in the dependence on the natural ecosystems may also result in such changes. However, it was reported that even seemingly similar increases in greenness or vegetation cover in different areas may have widely different explanations (Fensholt et al. 2012). The bidirectional nature of changes observed in natural vegetation types in UGRRB during the study period concur with the reported trends of vegetation change in several other parts of Africa. Much of the increase in vegetation cover in UGRRB is occurring in areas in or adjacent to the alluvial plains, which were included in RNP in 2008 (Figure 17), indicating that the reported local factors such as expansion of the protected area and restriction in grazing could be drivers of change. Agriculture is the largest land cover type in UARB and has undergone a major expansion between 2000 and 2015.Agricultural areas covered almost 65.9% of the basin in 2000 and increased to 80.6% of the basin by 2015 (Table 7). Figure 18 illustrates the land cover types converted to irrigated and rainfed agriculture during this period, based on Table 10. While a major part of the expansion of irrigated agriculture was due to conversion of bushland and rainfed agriculture, the expansion in rainfed agriculture was mostly due to conversion of bushland.There was a fourfold increase in human settlements in the basin during this period, from 17,202 ha in 2000 to 48,072 ha in 2015 (Table 7). Figure 18 shows that this expansion was mainly from the conversion of rainfed agricultural areas and to a lesser extent from bushland areas. Figure 12 illustrates the distributed expansion of agriculture and urbanization between 2000 and 2015. The dominant pattern emerging from this analysis is schematically shown in Figure 19. Comparing Figures 16 and 18, it is evident that many of the overall land cover transitions are similar for the two basins, illustrating a general trend across these landscapes that includes a transition of natural land (such as grassland, bushland and woodland/ forests) first to rainfed agriculture and subsequently to irrigated agriculture, and then a transition of parts of agricultural areas (mostly rainfed) to human settlements (Figure 19). Some encroachment on wetlands was also seen, in the case of UGRRB. Human settlements and irrigated areas did not seem to be significantly transitioning back to other land cover types, presumably because of the significant and concentrated investments in associated infrastructure. Note: The x-axes are scaled differently.-500 500 1,500 With nearly 80% of agricultural areas and 4.5% of human settlement areas (Table 7), the natural land cover in UARB is alarmingly low. The pattern of greening or shift to more woody vegetation types, as observed in UGRRB, is absent in UARB. If the trend shown in Figure 19 continues, the basin might lose the remaining natural land cover in the near future.For UGRRB, the situation is somewhat different. Here, the agricultural areas and human settlement areas cover only 24.6% and 0.4%, respectively (Table 2), of the basin, while natural land cover types cover the remaining area. Therefore, the basin is under relatively less stress. However, it should be emphasized that the UGRRB encompasses a very critical ecosystem of wetlands, upstream of significant conservation areas and hydropower dam infrastructure (Villholth et al. 2013).In addition, the area has a relatively higher degree of irrigation development as of 2016 (17.3% of agricultural areas versus 2.0% in UARB), indicating relatively more intensive use of the water resources. However, irrigation is also picking up significantly in UARB, with a long-term average annual development rate of 8.5% in irrigated areas compared to 6.9% in UGRRB (Table 13).  While the annual expansion rate of human settlements in UGRRB (20.3%) is higher than UARB (12.0%), it must be noted that the recent net change in the human settlement area in UGRRB (5,924 ha) is much less than UARB (30,870 ha) (Tables 4, 9 and 13). The higher rate of expansion is due to the fact that the human settlement area was marginal in the early time period, so even a small increase resulted in a higher expansion rate for the category. So, while the catchments may be seen as following a parallel trajectory, some significant differences are observed, i.e., irrigation development occurred relatively earlier in UGRRB, while urban development has been a more prominent feature of UARB, though irrigation development seems to be increasing currently.Land cover patterns and transitions of a region could be significantly influenced by a combination of sociopolitical conditions, economic activities, demographic profiles, ecological characteristics, and biophysical factors such as climate, water resource availability, etc. Although identifying specific determinants of particular land cover changes occurring in these basins or their implications was beyond the scope of this study, it would be worth discussing some of the major aspects of the basins, which could have an impact on the observed patterns of changes. These characteristics were identified based on the analyses and conclusions reported by similar studies from the region.Globally, food production and economic activities to support a growing population are major drivers of land cover change. The results indicate significant growth in human settlements and expansion of agricultural areas in both the basins. Population growth increases the demand for food, feed, fuelwood and infrastructure, and has been a major driver for intensifying natural resource use. Growth of industrial production and commercial trade is also likely to increase the requirement for land resources for constructing infrastructure. Ethiopia and Tanzania have been experiencing substantial population growth rates in recent decades, e.g., 2.5% and 2.9% in 2020, respectively.⁸ With the presence of the large urban agglomeration around Addis Ababa city, UARB has the largest concentration of urban population and industries in Ethiopia. A fairly good road network and direct access to the international maritime port of Djibouti, which is Ethiopia's main import/export outlet, provide better access to both domestic and international markets and promote commercial and industrial investment, production and trade in the region. The construction of the Ethio-Djibouti Railway (1897-1917), connecting Addis Ababa to Djibouti, which passes through the eastern part of the basin, has facilitated early development of commercial and industrial ventures in this region (Oqubay 2018).Awash River Basin is one of the most intensively cultivated basins in Ethiopia since the introduction of modern agriculture (Berhe et al. 2013;Gedefaw et al. 2019). The growth of population, urban centers and industries in the basin also provides opportunities for large-scale commercial agriculture. The modern irrigation systems were introduced in Ethiopia in the 1950s, initially in the Awash Basin for growing commercial crops such as cotton, sugarcane and horticultural crops (Awulachew et al. 2007). Studies from elsewhere in Ethiopia reported population increase as one of the major reasons for the conversion of natural vegetation to agriculture in many areas of the country (Gashaw et al. 2017;Hassen and Assen 2018;Hurni et al. 2005). The shift from rainfed to irrigated agriculture in UARB also underlines the need for increasing food production.Unlike UARB, UGRRB is not an economic-industrial hub promoting urbanization. Rather, ecosystem services provided by wetlands attracted pastoralists and farmers from elsewhere in the country to UGRRB in the 1980s and 1990s (Sosovele and Ngwale 2002;Kashaigili et al. 2006a), which was later restricted by the government (Walsh 2012). Sosovele and Ngwale (2002) have attributed the expansion of residential areas to population growth during this period. Kashaigili et al. (2006b) reported that population growth in UGRRB has led to the expansion of agriculture in areas with natural vegetation in the basin. Although modern agriculture and irrigation were introduced in the basin in the 1940s, major population growth was associated with the rapid expansion of irrigated areas after the 1970s (Kashaigili 2008).Changes in vegetation cover can directly affect various hydrological processes such as runoff, infiltration, evapotranspiration, etc. In a previous study, Kashaigili et al. (2008) reported significant changes in the flow regime and its impact on the Usangu wetland in UGRRB due to the effects of deforestation and an increase in irrigated areas. Our study identified an increase in woody vegetation and green biomass in certain areas of the basin, which can be primarily attributed to the expansion of the RNP in 2008 and restrictions imposed by the government on cattle grazing (Kihwele et al. 2018). It would be worth exploring the impact of this increase in vegetation cover on dry season flow and restoration of Usangu wetland. Similarly, in UARB, Beyene et al. (2018) found that streamflow had increased during the wet season and reduced during the dry season, and surface runoff had increased, due to the conversion of natural vegetation to agriculture.Changes in natural ecosystems may have negative consequences on the livelihoods of dependent communities. For example, conversion of grassland into other land uses would reduce the availability of fodder for livestock, which would further impact a series of livelihood activities prevalent in an agrarian society. In northwestern Ethiopia, a reduction in grassland led to a shortage of livestock, which further impacted farming activities such as plowing, transporting, manuring, etc., and reduced income from animal products (Zeleke and Hurni 2001). The drying up of the river and reduction of wetlands in UGRRB after 1993 (Kashaigili et al. 2006a), and again in 2013 and 2015 (Stears et al. 2018), presumably due to anthropogenic influences, had a profound impact on regional biodiversity, which was evident in the water stress and mortality rates of associated species in the downstream RNP (Kashaigili et al. 2006a).Significant land cover changes in UGRRB and UARB over the last decades, exacerbated by climate change, imply intensified land and water use, including groundwater.There is good evidence that groundwater is increasingly being developed to meet growing water needs for both urban and rural community water supplies and productive uses, such as irrigated agriculture (Worqlul et al. 2017;Villholth et al. 2013), as well as providing a buffer against droughts and climate change more generally in the basins (Birhanu et al. 2021;Hyandye 2019). In Addis Ababa, the relative use of groundwater for public water supply has increased from around 9% to more than 50% since the early 2000s (Healy et al. 2022). With more dependence on groundwater, the question naturally arises, how will land cover and water use changes likely affect groundwater resources and dependent ecosystems in these basins in the future.From a qualitative assessment, and building on previous assessments, the following impacts on groundwater resources (recharge, storage and quality) are projected.Rainfed agriculture underwent a large increase of 57% and 21% in UGRRB and UARB, respectively.If the original natural vegetation is more water consuming than agricultural crops (e.g., more deep-rooted vegetation like bushland or forest), this transition could lead to increased groundwater recharge and raised groundwater levels. This effect has been observed widely across the relatively flat Sahel (Favreau et al. 2009). On the other hand, groundwater recharge could be significantly impaired if land becomes degraded in the process (e.g., increased cultivation or livestock rearing and overgrazing on unstable or easily erodible hillslope areas). Land degradation is a real hazard in the Ethiopian highland context in the UARB, where erosion in upper catchments with higher slopes is a significant issue (Daba and You 2022). It is, therefore, important to protect land cover, especially in important recharge areas of major aquifers (e.g., through the use of exclosures, contour bunding and proper road construction [Mekuria et al. 2009]).The largest relative land cover change is conversion to larger human settlement/urban areas (increase of 406% and 180% in UGRRB and UARB, respectively). This change could imply a decrease in groundwater recharge, due to an increase in paved/impermeable surface areas. On the other hand, recharge may increase due to the increased import or impoundment of surface water in the basins, which could give rise to more groundwater recharge from these surface water storages or indirectly when wastewater is discharged after use into unlined canals, wastewater treatment ponds, etc. Large water losses from inefficient urban water supply distribution systems could also enhance recharge (Birhanu et al. 2021). As urbanization increases, and reliance on groundwater grows, as exemplified by Addis Ababa, the net result may be a decrease in groundwater storage. In any case, urbanization would also imply a larger contamination load and pressure on groundwater resources, e.g., from poor solid waste and sanitation management. Understanding these processes and policy implications is vital to ensure sustainable groundwater use in urban contexts (Healy et al. 2022).The second-largest relative land cover change is conversion to larger irrigated agricultural areas (increase of 138% and 128% in UGRRB and UARB, respectively). The impact of this change on groundwater resources largely depends on the source of water for these expanded irrigated areas. If these areas are primarily served by surface water, groundwater levels and groundwater outflow to surface water bodies from significant irrigation return flows, as observed in the Awash Basin (Kebede et al. 2021), could take place. However, as groundwater is increasingly used as the sole or supplementary source of irrigation water, there is a risk of further depleting the resource. Groundwater quality may also be impaired significantly as a result of these land cover changes. More agrochemical leaching (from fertilizers and pesticides) from soils and more salinity due to lower river flows to dilute salts are some of the potential harmful consequences to groundwater resources. There is a need to use groundwater andsurface water conjunctively (Birhanu et al. 2021) to increase irrigation and water-use efficiency (Birhanu et al. 2021), and to provide capacity and incentives for more land restoration and regenerative agriculture (Reij 2015).In addition, climate change impacts may influence groundwater resources. Extreme rainfall events may increase infiltration potential, due to lower evapotranspiration losses and more focused recharge and preferential flow into the subsurface (Cuthbert et al. 2019). However, intensive rainfall may also accelerate surface runoff and increase soil erosion, hampering diffuse recharge, especially in degraded highlands. Climate change is possibly compounding the effects of land cover changes (e.g., land degradation) and intensified water demand, especially for irrigation, in extended drought periods (Daba and You 2022). Climate change is possibly also enhancing the risks of groundwater contamination due to flooding intercepting human waste and poorly-packaged, stored or soilapplied chemicals (Geris et al. 2022).Land cover change in a traditional agropastoral landscape like that found in the Upper Great Ruaha River Basin (UGRRB) in Tanzania and the Upper Awash River Basin (UARB) in Ethiopia involves transitions from natural landscapes to intensively utilized landscapes, associated with population growth, economic development and the evolution of more complex production systems.The pace of these transitions varies vastly between regions based on their historical, geographical, ecological, social and political characteristics, but with some common features, as observed in this study. Examples include the early transition to rainfed agriculture, shifting to increasing levels of irrigated agriculture, and agricultural, mostly rainfed, areas gradually giving way to human settlement/urban areas. Climate change may modify certain trajectories, as impacts on resources are manifested and human demands change.Except in heavily built-up environments and intensive irrigation systems, the transitions are not always unidirectional. Investigating the multiple trajectories is necessary to comprehend the underlying patterns and overall land cover changes.The analysis, covering the period 1995-2015, shows that UGRRB and UARB, broadly speaking, are at two successive stages of transition to more urbanized and more intensive farming systems, which is consistent with the findings from previous studies in low-income countries (Damtew et al. 2022;How Jin Aik et al. 2021). While UGRRB is still dominated by natural land cover (75% in 2015-2016), the natural land cover in UARB is almost vanishing (15% in 2015). The transition from natural ecosystems to agropastoral systems and further to urban systems supported by intensive agriculture is similar in both basins, but at successive stages, with UARB being at a more advanced stage. However, it must be noted that intensive irrigated agriculture already expanded in UGRRB early on, from the 1970s.Another notable feature is that UARB has predominant land cover changes towards the perimeter (i.e., the highlands and headwaters of the basin), making it subject to land degradation and soil erosion. However, in UGRRB, development appears more concentrated towards the central plains, where there is still unutilized land and water resources, though the ecological functioning of the vital wetland and downstream conservation areas and hydropower infrastructure are already stressed. This trend appears partially tempered by a significant observed greening trend, presumably driven by a policy change to expand the Ruaha National Park in 2008.Though not investigated in detail, the results indicate the need for analyzing land cover changes in these upper basins in a broader basin-scale context. There is a critical need to understand not only simple land cover changes, but also broader ecological, water consumption and water resources, and developmental and socioeconomic issues at the larger basin scale.Observed land cover changes may affect and be affected by water use. As the reliance on groundwater for meeting human demands increases, while maintaining its role in providing ecosystem services remains critical, it is vital to understand the implications of land cover changes for this resource in these increasingly stressed basins and under climate change.More broadly, the results of this study provide water resource managers and land use planners with valuable information to improve future land use and land cover policies and practices and develop basin management strategies for the UGRRB and UARB, with the goal of enhancing equitable and sustainable water and land resource use and building resilience. Note: * ETM+ Band 6 was acquired at 60 m resolution, but the data products are resampled to 30 m pixels.The Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) carried on the Landsat 5 satellite was operational from March 1984 to January 2013, and provided images acquired in seven spectral bands. Landsat 5 had a 16-day revisit cycle and the swath width was 185 km. The Landsat TM spectral bands are given in Table A3. Note: * TM Band 6 was acquired at 120 m resolution, but the data products are resampled to 30 m pixels.Landsat Surface Reflectance data products provided by USGS were used to develop various spectral indices for the classification. Surface reflectance data are produced after the removal of atmospheric artefacts on satellite data. Removing atmospheric effects make remote sensing data acquired from various locations and various time periods comparable. The Surface Reflectance data for Landsat 5 and 7 were developed by using Landsat Ecosystem Disturbance Adaptive Processing System (LEDAPS) (USGS 2020a), whereas Landsat 8 OLI surface reflectance data are generated through the Land Surface Reflectance Code (LaSRC) (USGS 2020b) algorithm.","tokenCount":"13839"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fed2c9c917254c802394ab8393271607","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5fd21115-dc3a-4384-990a-26b4989e9cca/retrieve","id":"948526614"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6c92e293-2449-4e42-b9ef-96651641b430","pagecount":"1","content":"Land use planning and landscape restoration decisions require detailed and spatially distributed information about the condition of resources and associated drivers at different levels. The availability of such information at the required scale and accuracy is limited in developing regions and remote areas. Most of the tools designed to facilitate land use and resources management planning also require complex data and modelling structure. There is thus a need to design 'easy to use' approaches and tools that can help make informed decisions using easily available data.Lulseged Tamene, Kindu Mekonnen, Kifle Woldearegay, Tesfaye Yaekob, Girma Kassie, Zenebe Adimassu, Quang Bao LeSimple tools that can easily be used by local planners and extension workers to evaluate the sediment yield reduction potentials of different land management options helps understand the impacts of conservation practices. This can raise awareness and facilitate technology out-scaling.The main objectives include to: a) design a simple tool to assess the sediment yield reduction potential of different land use and management interventions at landscape scale (Fig. 1); b) test the applicability of the tool in a participatory manner.The modelling interface (Fig. 3) facilitates: 1) data input, visualization and inspection; 2) selecting and/or adjusting coefficients; 3) running model for 'business as usual' and different scenarios; 4) viewing results in different formats, and 5) exporting outputs to facilitate integrated data analysis. The model is also designed to facilitate active participation of stakeholders in the adaptive land-use learning/planning cycles: identify hotspot areas of intervention and suggest potential management intervention for each specific location (Fig. 4). We demonstrate the structure and functioning of the tool formulated based on the commonly used Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) incorporating spatially distributed sediment delivery ratio (SDR) to approximate the sediment delivery efficiency of landscapes (Fig. 2). In most cases a range of default values are suggested (for the different factors as well as coefficients) so that users can adjust considering their local conditions. In order to facilitate interpretation of results, the tool is designed to generate outputs in terms of quantitative values (mean, minimum, maximum, standard deviation), map and graphs. The model out puts (hotspot areas of concern and impact of management options) were tested with local farmers and extension agents.   Annual soil loss rate of about 19 t ha -1 year -1 was observed for a watershed size of 15249.8 ha. Protecting (afforestation, enclosures, etc.) steep slope areas of more than 20 degrees, can reduce sediment yield reduces by about 39%. Through targeting gullies, net soil loss can be reduced by about 16%. This improved when we include managing gully buzzer zones. Conserving/enclosing soil loss areas of more than 10 t ha -1 year -1 can reduce sediment yield by 83%. When all the three options are combined, net soil loss will reduce to about 1.5 t ha -1 year -1 (88%), which is well below the tolerable limit of 2-12 t ha -1 year -1 . ","tokenCount":"483"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"947696312241cec04a3389358bb3c610","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4b6adba0-35c2-4210-ab83-f1570f33ba41/retrieve","id":"-1685515670"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"58195b74-ef7a-410d-9c4f-51d1c87a39f8","pagecount":"29","content":"Climático (IPCC) es un organismo establecido con el propósito de entregar información científica, técnica y socioeconómica a las autoridades, de manera políticamente relevante pero neutral.Octubre, 2016El café representa el rubro principal de exportación de Centroamérica generando en todo su ciclo empleo y divisas además incidir positivamente en aspectos sociales, ambientales y económicos de las zonas donde se explota este cultivo. Desde el punto de vista económico el café representa el principal sustento de un sinnúmero de familias en su mayoría de escasos recursos 1 . Sin embargo, el café no está exento de las afectaciones de la variabilidad climática que afectan a todo el istmo centroamericano, estas variaciones afectaran las formas tradicionales de producción lo que conllevara a la búsqueda de nuevas opciones, técnicas y medidas de adaptación del cultivo al cambio climático. Los diferentes institutos, centros de investigación y entidades especializadas al cultivo (ANACAFE, PROMECAFE, IHCAFE, ICRAF, CIAT etc.) están trabajando en identificar y desarrollar estrategias de adaptación desde el nivel de finca hasta los niveles nacionales ya que los modelos de cambio climático predicen que en los próximos años el cultivo de café pierde su adaptabilidad debido a factores relacionados con la disminución de la precipitación y al aumento de temperatura 2 .El Panel Intergubernamental sobre Cambio Climático (IPCC)3 define el cambio climático como: cualquier cambio en el clima a través del tiempo, ya sea debido a su variabilidad natural o como resultado de la actividad humana. Según estudios realizados por el CIAT en el año 2012 para Nicaragua y Guatemala afirman que según los Modelos Globales de Circulación que el IPCC usan para proyecciones climáticas, la precipitación anual disminuirá y las temperaturas máximas y mínimas mensuales se incrementarán moderadamente para el año 2020 y continuarán aumentando progresivamente para el año 2050. El clima en general se volverá más estacional en términos de la variación a través de los años con un aumento en la temperatura en las zonas cafetaleras de 0,9 ºC para el 2020 y 2,1 ºC en el 2050 y será más estacional en precipitación con un número acumulativo de meses secos que disminuye de 5 meses a 4 meses y una reducción de 93 mm en la precipitación anual. Las implicaciones de estos cambios serán que la distribución de las tierras aptas para café disminuirá seriamente para el año 2050, de forma tal que para ese año las tierras óptimas para el cultivo serán de un 30-50% de las que actualmente son (CIAT 2012) 4 .Por otro lado, se entiende por vulnerabilidad al cambio climático cuando un sistema (natural o humano) es susceptible, o no es capaz de soportar los efectos adversos del cambio climático, incluida la variabilidad climática y los fenómenos extremos. La vulnerabilidad está en función del carácter, magnitud y velocidad de la variación climática al que se encuentra expuesto un sistema, su sensibilidad, y su capacidad de adaptación. En vista de este aspecto y los anteriores expuestos se hace inminente realizar análisis de vulnerabilidad que nos permita entender y conocer de manera directa los diferentes efectos que causaría el cambio climático en los sistemas alimentarios y en las diferentes estrategias de vida de las familias productoras de café. La metodología debería de incorporar herramientas participativas con familias rurales de forma tal de poder realizar un análisis multidimensional de los efectos del cambio climático para entender las razones de la vulnerabilidad de las familias, los aspectos donde son más vulnerables y como afecta directamente la seguridad alimentaria.Para ello este estudio se basó en la metodología propuesta por Ulrichs et al. 2015 denominada \"análisis de vulnerabilidad al cambio climático y seguridad alimenticia\" como un método eficaz y participativo con familias rurales como medio para identificar participativamente la vulnerabilidad climática en los sistemas alimenticios y estrategias de vida, valorando el potencial comunitario para la adaptación al cambio climático en cinco aldeas de Guatemala y cuatro comunidades de Nicaragua separadas por el estrato altitudinal de producción. También esta metodología permitió determinar las principales medidas de adaptación que los comunitarios implementan como respuesta ante la variabilidad climática con el apoyo de las principales organizaciones, asociaciones, entidades estatales y ONG que inciden en los diferentes ámbitos de las comunidades en función de la variabilidad climática. El tema de género se tomó en cuenta para los análisis y se muestran en los estudios específicos en cada país.Grupo de trabajoBabeltzap, Guatemala.Octubre, 2016Los análisis de vulnerabilidad se realizaron en dos países de la región de Centroamérica (Nicaragua y Guatemala) donde el café es un rubro de mucha importancia en la generación de divisas para el sustento de las familias productoras. A la vez en cada país se coordinaron las actividades con el apoyo de dos centrales de cooperativas que agremian cantidades considerables de productores de café.Figura 1. Mapa de ubicación de la zona de estudio en Nicaragua.Para tener un análisis que permitiera establecer diferencias en la aplicación de técnicas o medidas de adaptación se eligieron comunidades y aldeas que se ubican en la parte alta y baja de las zonas cafetaleras de cada país.En la figura 1 se muestran la zona de intervención del área de estudio en Nicaragua teniendo el apoyo de PRODECOOP quien aglutina aproximadamente 2,300 familias productoras y su zona de trabajo está ubicado en el norte de Nicaragua en la zona denominada como las Segovias. Mediante coordinaciones y consenso con directivos y técnicos de PRODECOOP se seleccionaron las comunidades de El Horno y LaOctubre, 2016Laguna en la parte alta de producción de café, estas están ubicadas a 1320 y 1200 metros sobre el nivel del mar respectivamente. En su totalidad la producción de café de estas comunidades es comercializadas a través de PRODECOOP con la diferencia que en el Horno se cultiva de manera convencional y La Laguna la producción es orgánica. Con respecto a la parte baja, las comunidades fueron Samarkanda y San Lucas, las que se encuentran a una altura de 870 y 950 metros sobre el nivel del mar respectivamente. también se comercializa a través de PRODECOOP siendo su producción completamente orgánica.Figura 2. Mapa de la zona de estudio en Guatemala.En la figura 2 se muestra el área de intervención en Guatemala contando con el apoyo de ASOBAGRI, organización que aglutina a 1179 familias asociadas de la parte noroccidental del país. Con el apoyo del equipo técnico se seleccionaron las aldeas de Balli, Puente Alto y Babeltzap con alturas de 1715, 1496 y 1575 metros sobre el nivel del mar respectivamente. Con respecto a las aldeas de la zona baja productora de café, las seleccionadas fueron Cocola y Nuevo San Mateo con alturas de 1022 y 1055 metros sobre el nivel del mar respectivamente. La producción de café de estas aldeas es completamente orgánica y se comercializa en su mayoría a través de ASOBAGRI, otro aspecto de importancia es que son aldeas deOctubre, 2016origen indígenas y el idioma que se habla es Q'anjob'al, las personas menores de edad además de esta lengua tienen hablan castellano debido a la influencia del sistema escolar predominante en Guatemala.Este análisis se realiza para identificar función del tiempo los diferentes eventos que han marcado las comunidades donde se realizó el estudio ya sean de origen social o natural. Para la realización de este estudio fue de mucha importancia la participación de productores de más edad para tener información de un lapso más grande de tiempo.Figura 3. Numero de eventos naturales y sociales que han afectado la productividad del café en la parte baja y altas de las zonas de estudio de Guatemala y Nicaragua. En la figura 3 se puede visualizar la cantidad de eventos sociales y naturales de los cuales los pobladores consideran han afectado de alguna manera la producción de café en sus localidades en la parte cafetalera de la parte alta y baja de Nicaragua y Guatemala.En Nicaragua las aldeas más afectadas por fenómenos sociales y naturales han sido San Lucas en la parte baja y El Horno en la parte alta. Con respecto a los fenómenos naturales que han afectado la parte baja de Nicaragua son: Huracanes Juana y Mitch, sismos, fuertes lluvias, tornados ataque del gorgojo descortezador, fenómeno del niño y escasez de agua. Los fenómenos sociales que han afectado en las comunidades de la parte baja son: desplazamiento de la población por efectos de la guerra, creación de Comités Agrícola de producción, la reforma Agraria y cambios de gobierno.Con respecto a la parte alta cafetalera de Nicaragua, a los eventos naturales han sido: el paso de los huracanes Gilbert, Juana, Mitch y Félix, aparición de la roya, ondas de calor, gorgojo descortezador, ataques de broca y sequía. Los eventos sociales han sido: la Guerra civil de Nicaragua, Migración y desplazamiento de la población, cambio de gobierno, retorno de la población desplazada por la guerra, incentivación al cooperativismo y cambio de uso de suelos por efectos de la guerra.En Guatemala la aldea que reporta más eventos de origen natural en la parte baja es Cocola y la que más eventos sociales reporta en el mismo estrato altitudinal es Nuevo San Mateo. En la parte alta la aldea que más afectaciones de tipo natural y social ha sido Balli. Los fenómenos naturales que afectan la parte baja cafetalera de Guatemala son: sequia, aparición de roya, ojo de gallo, afectaciones en el cultivo de cardamomo, ataque de broca del café, lluvias fuertes, derrumbes en las aldeas. Los eventos sociales han sido: formación de una nueva aldea por falta de terrenos productivos, conflictos por tierras, proyectos de agua potable, escases dinero, influencia del idioma castellano en la aldea y comienzo de la guerrilla.Con respecto a la parte alta cafetalera de Guatemala los eventos naturales que han afectado son: sequia, ataque de roya y ojo de gallo. Los eventos sociales han sido: inicio de la guerra, introducción de lengua española, acuerdo de paz, introducción de luz eléctrica, dificultad para acceder a dinero, conflictos con hidroeléctrica, migración de gente a México, baja del café e inestabilidad política Balli, Guatemala.Octubre, 2016Para determinar los principales medios de vida, se realizó la consulta con los pobladores para determinar cuáles rubros generan más ingresos para la seguridad alimentaria familiar. Estos se recopilaron en función del grado de prioridad y por estrato altitudinal en los paisajes cafetaleros de Nicaragua y Guatemala.Como se puede apreciar en la tabla 1 el principal medio de vida de todas las familias es el rubro café, en las comunidades entrevistadas de Nicaragua existe la particularidad que en la parte baja la producción se realiza de forma orgánica y en parte alta de manera convencional. El segundo lugar lo comparten una serie de rubros y actividades que difieren en cuanto al valor comercial de cada zona. En la parte alta de Nicaragua es de mucha importancia, las musáceas, el llenado de bolsas para viveros de café y la venta de mano de obra, en cambio en Guatemala, la migración, el cardamomo maíz y frijol son de importancia. En parte baja de Nicaragua las musáceas y la apicultura tienen un grado de importancia dos y en la parte alta de Guatemala lo corresponden los cultivos de cardamomo, maíz y frijol.En el tercer lugar de importancia en la parte alta de Nicaragua tiene mucho peso la migración tanto al interior del país como fuera y la venta de mano de obra para siembra de café, en la parte alta de Guatemala maíz y frijol continúan siendo importantes. En la parte baja de Nicaragua los cítricos, maíz y frijol y negocios propios ocupan este lugar en cambio en la parte baja de Guatemala lo ocupan el maíz frijol. El cuarto, quinto y sexto puesto de importancia de medios de vida lo ocupan una mescla de rubros para ambos estratos altitudinales donde podemos identificar, cacao, güisquil, aguacates aves de patio, huertos familiares etc. Tabla 6. Principales medios de vida por estrato altitudinal y país de las zonas de estudio de Nicaragua y Guatemala. Octubre, 2016Para determinar la clasificación de riesgo se determinó en función de la escala de tiempo y de la consulta con los participantes en los eventos, cuáles han sido las principales amenazas climáticas que han afectado en las comunidades desde que los participantes tienen memoria. Una vez listados por medio de votación se pidió a los participantes clasificaran con escala alta media y baja el impacto que estos eventos han tenidos sobre los diferentes medios de vida en las comunidades de Nicaragua y aldeas de Guatemala. Al mismo tiempo de la clasificación los participantes opinaban sobre las principales respuestas a dichos eventos para afrontar las adversidades ante cada situación.Grupo de trabjo El Horno, Nicaragua.Octubre, 2016  Como se observa en la tabla 2 los fenómenos naturales que tiene mayor recurrencia en la parte alta de Guatemala es las lluvias fuertes afectando a nueve de los diez medios de vida, en segundo lugar, se encuentra la sequía afectando a ocho medios de vida, y en tercer puesto lo comparten el argenio (combinación de neblinas con rayos directos del sol), los huracanes y los vientos fuertes.Por otro lado, los huracanes y el argenio son los fenómenos naturales que causan un impacto desastroso en al menos dos medios de vida de la parte alta de la zona cafetalera de Guatemala, fenómenos como las lluvias fuertes y los vientos afectan a uno de los medios de vida con un impacto desastroso. Los medios de vida más susceptibles a los fenómenos climáticos son el maíz, el frijol y la migración.La respuesta a los diferentes fenómenos está orientadas a prácticas de manejo de cultivos como es conservación de suelos, manejo de sombra y aplicaciones de riego, aunque en la mayoría de los casos los productores no pueden hacer nada ante la aparición de estos eventos climáticos. Tabla 2. Calificación de riesgo parte baja de Guatemala.Octubre, 2016  Como se observa en la tabla 3 en la parte baja cafetalera de Guatemala, los eventos con mayor recurrencia en orden de afectación a los medios de vida son: lluvias fuertes, afectando a ocho medios de vida, sequia afectando a siete medios de vida, frio afectando a seis medios de vida, combinación de lluvia con sol afectando a cuatro medios, los vientos y neblina afectando a tres y dos medios respectivamente. A nivel desastroso los eventos con mayor impacto son: la sequía, el frio y la combinación de lluvia con sol que afecta los cultivos.El maíz, frijol, cardamomo y el café son los cultivos que son más vulnerables a diferentes amenazas. Las respuestas están orientadas hacia prácticas de manejo de los cultivos, pero al igual que en la parte alta, no se puede hacer nada ante la presencia de estos fenómenos.Tabla 3. Calificación de riesgo parte alta de Nicaragua.En la tabla 4 se puede apreciar que para todos los medios de vida de la parte alta cafetalera de Nicaragua los fenómenos climáticos que afectan son los huracanes, las lluvias fuertes y la sequía. Haciendo el análisis por el grado de impacto, los huracanes tienen el mayor efecto desastroso en al menos cinco medios deOctubre, 2016vida, de igual forma el impacto desastroso que genera la sequía afecta al menos un medio de vida. Las respuestas antes los eventos que causan impacto están dirigidos al manejo agronómico, riego, conservación de suelos, migración y a la espera del apoyo de organizaciones internacionales y de cooperativas que trabajan en el sector café.Tabla 4. Calificación de riesgo parte baja de Nicaragua.Octubre, 2016  Octubre, 2016En vista que este estudio se basa en la vulnerabilidad de las familias en paisajes cafetaleros y que el medio de vida principal lo constituye el rubro café, se procedió a recabar información sobre los valores promedios de producción cuando se produce en mayores cantidades, cuando es normal la producción y cuando se produce menos, tomando en cuenta la bianualidad de las cosechas de café. Sin embargo, una variable de mucha importancia y como dato reciente es el ataque de roya en las plantaciones de café en Latinoamérica en el cual Guatemala y Nicaragua no fueron la excepción, por lo tanto, se identificaron los valores promedios con y sin roya.Figura 4. Productividad de la parte alta de Nicaragua en quintales pergamino antes y después del ataque de roya.La figura 4 representa la productividad de la parte alta de Nicaragua, los valores promedios máximos están en la producción de café convencional cuando no hubo roya, este se mantenía en un promedio de 46.1 y 33.7quintales pergamino por hectárea. Sin embargo, los mismos cafetales de producción convencional bajaron los rendimientos promedios en un 37 y 33% cuando fueron atacados por roya. Es importante aclarar que para este estudio en las comunidades de la parte alta consultada la producción de café orgánico es incipiente y se maneja de forma cero insumos por lo tanto los rendimientos expresados fueron sin el ataque de roya. Cuando este tuvo incidencia de roya los cafetales se perdieron y por esta razón no se reflejan datos en el grafico anterior. Octubre, 2016Figura 5. Productividad de la parte baja de Nicaragua en quintales pergamino antes y después del ataque de roya.En la figura 5 se muestra la productividad de las comunidades consultadas de la parte baja de Nicaragua, donde la producción de café se realiza de forma orgánica, sin embargo, se obtuvo la información de algunos productores de café convencional de la zona. La producción máxima promedio de café orgánico sin roya fue de 41.1 qq de café pergamino por hectárea, para la misma comunidad cuando hubo el ataque de roya la producción bajo en un 52% hasta el 100% en la comunidad de Samarkanda. En cambio, en la producción de café convencional los rendimientos promedios rondan 46.1 quintales por hectárea, al presentarse el ataque de roya la producción mermo un 25% siendo el dato de 34.8 quintales por hectárea. Las diferencias entre los porcentajes de perdida en la producción por causa de la roya pudieron deberse a las deficiencias en la nutrición de las plantas manejadas orgánicamente. Cafetal en La Laguna, Nicaragua.Octubre, 2016 Figura 6. Productividad de la parte alta de Guatemala en quintales pergamino antes y después del ataque de roya.La figura 6 muestra la productividad de las aldeas consultadas de la parte alta de Guatemala, donde la mayor parte de la producción de café se realiza de manera orgánica. Los mejores rendimientos se expresan cuando no hubo ataque de roya en las plantaciones y este valor promedio es de 45 qq de café pergamino por hectárea en la aldea de Babeltzap. Al presentarse el ataque del hongo la producción mermo en un 50%. En las demás aldeas las pérdidas fueron más severas, presentándose en Puente alto una merma del 65% de la producción y en Balli hasta del 75%. Con respecto a la producción convencional también tuvieron una merma en la producción del 75% con respecto a la producción de café sin roya.En las aldeas situadas en la parte baja de Guatemala, el rendimiento promedio máximo se produce en la aldea Cocolá, (figura 7) y este es de 33.75 quintales por hectárea de café pergamino. Al darse el ataque de roya este promedio mermó un 66%, produciendo apenas 11.25 quintales promedio. En la aldea Nuevo San Mateo la disminución en la producción también fue drástica con un 55% de merma pasando de 22.5 qq/ha a 10.13 quintales por hectáreas de café pergamino. Al igual que en Nicaragua, la disminución en la producción de café ante el ataque de roya pudo estar influenciada en métodos ineficientes de aplicación de nutrientes lo que pudo haber causado en debilidad en la planta en el momento del ataque de la enfermedad. Octubre, 2016Figura 7. Productividad de la parte baja de Guatemala en quintales pergamino antes y después del ataque de roya.Para realizar este análisis se procedió con la metodología del diagrama de Venn, identificando de esta forma las diferentes formas organizativas desde las comunidades, es decir la forma en que los pobladores de una comunidad o aldea se organizan con el fin de gestionar y resolver problemas internos de la misma comunidad. En el mismo ejercicio se identificaron también los actores externos que visitan la comunidad con el fin de promover el desarrollo social, económico y ambiental en función de la fuente de financiamiento que estos tengan. En la tabla número 6 se muestran el número de organizaciones identificadas en los estudios de vulnerabilidad. En total en dos comunidades de la parte alta y baja de Nicaragua el número de organizaciones internas es de 18, es importante recalcar que el mismo gobierno ha promovido la Octubre, 2016 organización comunitaria denominada los \"Gabinete de Familia Comunidad y Vida\" (GFCV) como un ente donde se discuten y se consensan las necesidades de la población y se canalizan hacia las municipalidades y de esta forma se construyen los planes operativos anuales traduciéndose estos en proyectos sociales hacia las comunidades. Las organizaciones internas existentes en Nicaragua están en función de: Los GFCV, organización de padres de familia, brigadistas de salud, Comité de Agua Potable y Saneamiento (CAPS), grupos religiosos, brigadas contra desastres naturales entre otros. Las organizaciones de Gobierno que atienden estas comunidades están en función de la salud, educación, medioambiente, agua potable, vigilancia, prevención de desastres, fomento a la producción, crédito, asistencia técnica.Con respecto a las ONGs presentes en la zona, estos orientan sus acciones hacia temas en específico, como: la producción de café, atención a la niñez, producción sostenible, agua y saneamiento entre otros, en tanto las organizaciones privadas son las que tienen relaciones comerciales con las comunidades y acá se ubica casas comerciales de agroquímicos, cooperativas de ahorro, crédito y servicios y asociaciones más grandes como PRODECOOP que además de la compra de café, beneficia a los comunitarios con proyectos sociales.En las aldeas de Guatemala de la parte alta y baja, también existen organizaciones promovidas por el gobierno denominadas COCODE, las funciones de estos grupos son: i) Promover el desarrollo económico, social y cultural de su comunidad, ii) promover la participación efectiva de la población en la identificación y solución de sus problemas, iii) identificar e inventariar las necesidades de la comunidad y determinar las correspondientes prioridades para la formulación de programas y proyectos, iv) proponer al Consejo Municipal de desarrollo las necesidades de cooperación para la ejecución de programas y proyectos, cuando éstas no puedan ser resueltas por su comunidad, v) coordinar las actividades que promuevan o Grupo de trabajo, Puente Alto, Guatemala.Octubre, 2016realicen los grupos de comunidad para evitar la duplicación de esfuerzos y gestionar los recursos económicos y financieros que requieren para sus programas y proyectos de desarrollo local. Pero también existen organizaciones internas orientadas a temas como salud, educación, religión, tenencia de la tierra, cooperativas, atención a las mujeres embarazadas entre otros.Con respecto a las instituciones de gobiernos que atienden las aldeas consultadas de Guatemala están relacionadas a educación, salud, fomento a la producción, gobiernos municipales, fondo de tierras. Sin embargo, los pobladores expresan que la presencia en los territorios es mínima y que estos las visitas para temas puntuales. Las ONGs presentes en la zona son pocas y estas apoyan sobre todo temas como agua, saneamiento y educación, también se incluyó dentro de estas a la iglesia católica. Y para finalizar como empresas privada se encuentra ASOBAGRI en ambos estratos altitudinales como un ente comercializador de café y de apoyo en asistencia técnica y crédito.Después de haber analizado las principales amenazas en los diferentes medios de vida y de levantar las principales respuestas ante las adversidades de la variabilidad climática, tanto los consultados de las comunidades de Nicaragua y aldeas de Guatemala dan a conocer cuáles han sido las principales estrategias que estos han puesto en práctica para hacer sostenibles sus diferentes medios de vida.En la gráfica 8 se muestran por orden de relevancia las principales medidas de adaptación que los productores cafetaleros han implementado en sus unidades productivas con el fin de lograr la sostenibilidad económica y ambiental y de esta forma obtener una mayor seguridad alimentaria.Cambio de variedades de café, en este caso en Nicaragua se está sustituyendo las variedades caturras, catuais, maragogypes por catimor, paraynemas, lempira y marsellesa; en el caso de Guatemala estas mismas variedades se sustituye por catimor, sarchimor y Villalobo. Aunque estas variedades tienen tolerancia a roya presentan susceptibilidad al hongo ojo de gallo sobre todo en climas más fríos y a mayores alturas. Otro problema lo genera la calidad de la taza que es mucho menor con respecto a las variedades sustituidas.Figura 8. Principales prácticas y medidas de adaptación mencionadas como efectivas por los caficultores de Guatemala y Nicaragua. Octubre, 2016Conservación de suelos, existe una diversidad de técnicas de conservación de suelos que se han impulsado en los diferentes sistemas de producción de las familias rurales de Centroamérica. En el caso de Nicaragua en los paisajes cafetaleros las prácticas de conservación más comunes son barreras vivas, cercas vivas y acequias, en el caso de Guatemala las prácticas son terrazas individuales, barreras vivas y siembra en contorno. También se realizan muchas otras obras de conservación en dependencia de las condiciones del relieve y necesidad de cada finca.Manejo integrado de plagas, en vista que la mayoría de las comunidades consultadas son de producción orgánicas, a través del apoyo tanto de PRODECOOP en Nicaragua como de ASOBAGRI en Guatemala, los productores están familiarizados con algunas prácticas para el control de enfermedades, entre estas están la elaboración de caldos sulfocalcicos para el control de hongos, trampas para el control de broca y regulación de sombra para contrarrestar enfermedades fungosas como la roya. Sin embargo, los productores tienen muchas deficiencias en los recuentos de plagas y umbrales económicos son de mucha importancia para hacer aplicaciones y controles de forma oportuna y efectiva.Opciones orgánicas, acorde al ítem anterior los productores están en la búsqueda de una caficultura orgánica por tener un mayor precio en la venta del café sobre todo en mercados selectos como es los que promueven ambas centrales de cooperativas. Sin embargo, muchos productores consideran que el manejo orgánico es la no aplicación de ningún insumo tanto de origen químico como natural cayendo en un mal manejo de las plantaciones lo que se traduce en una merma de la producción y de plantas más susceptibles a plagas y enfermedades.Manejo de sombra, debido al recién ataque de la roya en todo Centroamérica, los productores han buscado opciones de bajo costo para contrarrestar la enfermedad, esto ha incidido en que se ponga especial atención a la sombra de los cafetales, en este sentido se busca hacer arreglos de siembra que permitan la penetración adecuada de la luz de forma tal de brindar al cultivo mayor circulación de aire y evacuación de humedad evitando así un ambiente propicio para el desarrollo de la roya. La desventaja de esta práctica es que muchas especies forestales de gran fuste están siendo sustituidas por especies de poca sombra como las ingas y otras.Con respecto a los cultivos alternos, ante la caída de la producción de café producto de la roya, cultivos que se siembran en asocio con el café han tomado auge como generadores de divisas, en el caso de Nicaragua las musáceas, raíces como malanga, cítricos y flores van teniendo cada día mas presencias en los plantíos de café, en el caso de Guatemala además de las anteriores descritas sobresale el cultivo de cardamomo.Diversidad de sombra, muy relacionado con el acápite anterior, los productores están modificando los arreglos de sombra de sus cafetales de manera tal de obtener ingresos alternos al cultivo del café. En su mayoría están buscando el establecimiento de especies frutales y algunas maderables que permitan la penetración de la luz en los plantíos.Octubre, 2016Fertilización, por un lado, en Guatemala los productores de más edad afirman que la fertilización de los cafetales es una actividad que ha venido a intensificar la producción de los cafetales, que en tiempos anteriores no se realizaba ya que la producción era para autoconsumo. En vista que la producción de orgánica es común que los productores elaboren bocashis, biofertilizantes, aplicaciones de foliares. También se ha generalizado el uso de la pulpa de café para la elaboración de los viveros de café, el uso del agua miel para regar los cafetales y la aplicación de enmiendas a base de cal para bajar acidez del suelo.Optimo uso del agua del beneficio y venta de café en uva, en su mayoría los productores consultados son pequeños productores de escasos recursos y pequeñas áreas de producción que no tienen fuentes de agua para el lavado del café dificultando a estos el beneficiado de su producción. también en vista de la aplicación de las leyes ambientales para la conservación de las redes hídricas, estos han tenido que buscar alternativas para uso eficiente del recurso agua. Entonces es común encontrarse con varias opciones: beneficios de café familiares, beneficios ecológicos de café, beneficios colectivos a nivel de cooperativa y por ultimo aplicado por PRODECOOP la compra de café en uva para los pequeños productores que no tienen recursos para el beneficio de la producción.Cafetal en San Lucas, Nicaragua.Octubre, 2016Las comunidades en Nicaragua y las aldeas en Guatemala han tenido afectaciones por eventos de naturaleza antropogénica y natural, en el primer caso la guerra extendida por muchos años fue un factor que causó cambios en los medios de vida de los habitantes de las zonas afectadas. En ambos países hubo muertes, migración, exilio, persecución, destrucción, también se impuso modelos sociales desconocidos para los productores ocasionando desperdicio de recursos económicos cambios y un desarrollo económico lento. Con respecto a los fenómenos naturales en Nicaragua el paso de los huracanes ha marcado un hito en la historia de las comunidades y en ambos países el ataque de plagas, enfermedades y periodos de sequía han sido de especial importancia. En las últimas décadas las comunidades en Nicaragua y aldeas en Guatemala han retomado la normalidad en la vida cotidiana, aunque en los últimos años en Guatemala ha surgido otro conflicto social por la construcción de hidroeléctricas.El 100% de las comunidades entrevistadas tiene como principal medio de vida el café, medios secundarios también se derivan de esta actividad como es el llenado de bolsas para vivero de café, la siembra de plántulas de café en terreno definitivo o venta de mano de obra para labores de café en fincas de productores con mayores áreas productivas. Las Musáceas juegan un rol importante en Nicaragua, pero no fueron mencionados en Guatemala, de igual forma el cardamomo es importante en Guatemala no así en Nicaragua. En general se concluye que los sistemas de producción en Guatemala son más diversificados en comparación con los de Nicaragua.Llama la atención que en las comunidades y aldeas próximas a las fronteras de los países la migración se convierte en un medio de vida de mucha importancia. En el caso de Nicaragua la población migra a Honduras para cortar café y en el caso de Guatemala los pobladores viajan a México y Estados Unidos a las plantaciones de naranjas y otros.Los eventos climáticos que más afectan en ambos países son las lluvias fuertes y sequias ya que tienen una recurrencia anual. Por otro lado, si se analiza por la magnitud de daño que ocasionan, los huracanes son los que más impacto desastroso causan en los medios de vida de ambos países. En los últimos años en las comunidades de Nicaragua se reporta la ocurrencia de sismos o temblores que han causado daños materiales en las viviendas y parcelas de los productores, en tanto en Guatemala se reporta la ocurrencia de \"argenio\" como un evento especifico de las aldeas de Guatemala que se refiere a la caída de neblina seguida de la aparición del sol que provoca quemaduras en las plantas.Se produjeron descensos en la productividad de las plantaciones de café posterior al ataque de roya, las perdidas más bajas fueron en Nicaragua en la comunidad de San Lucas, con una merma del 25% con respecto a producciones sin roya. En las demás comunidades en Nicaragua y aldeas en Guatemala tanto para la producción convencional como orgánica bajo el ataque de roya, mermó la producción entre el 50 y el 100% con respecto a años de producción normal.En todas las comunidades existen organizaciones orientadas a fomentar el desarrollo social y económico, sin embargo, en Nicaragua existe mayor presencia de entidades estatales en relación a las aldeas de Guatemala, igual sucede con el número de ONG presentes. Nuestro análisis muestra que las aldeas en Guatemala tienen una estructura interna más fuerte en comparación a las comunidades en Nicaragua. Por lo tanto, las comunidades en Guatemala son más resilientes en tiempos de escaso apoyo externo, y más unidas para la adopción de prácticas agroecológicas. En cambio, las comunidades en Nicaragua dependen mucho más del apoyo del gobierno y organismos internacionales.Las principales practicas o medidas de adaptación al cambio Climatico en orden descendente que los productores mencionan como viables son las siguientes: cambio de variedades, conservación de suelos, manejo integrado de plagas, opciones orgánicas de producción, manejo de sombra, cultivos alternativos, diversidad de sombra, fertilización, uso óptimo del agua y la venta de café en uva.","tokenCount":"5469"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ed120ad3d9cbc52ccf40afc24f3aaf29","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/ed9463b0-57f3-4ff8-b2aa-6c72d25bc068/content","id":"1811965469"},"keywords":["wheat quality","on-farm","GGE analysis","flour yellowness"],"sieverID":"c55eeec5-8049-451b-bb28-3851791a3ae4","pagecount":"8","content":"BACKGROUND: Durum wheat is key source of calories and nutrients for many regions of the world. Demand for it is predicted to increase. Further efforts are therefore needed to develop new cultivars adapted to different future scenarios. Developing a novel cultivar takes, on average, 10 years and advanced lines are tested during the process, in general, under standardized conditions. Although evaluating candidate genotypes for commercial release under different on-farm conditions is a strategy that is strongly recommended, its application for durum wheat and particularly for quality traits has been limited. This study evaluated the grain yield and quality performance of eight different genotypes across five contrasting farmers' fields over two seasons. Combining different analysis strategies, the most outstanding and stable genotypes were identified.Representing 6% of the total wheat production, durum wheat (Triticum turgidum subsp. durum (Desf.) Husnot), also known as pasta wheat, is cultivated on nearly 13 million ha worldwide, with an estimated global production of 33.8 Mmt in 2020-2021. 1,2 The milling of the durum grain yields semolina, which is used to make pasta, and other products such as couscous and unleavened and leavened breads. 3 Despite its importance as a staple crop, the production of durum wheat faces challenges due to diseases, pests, climate change, and environmental/management constraints such as drought and heat. 4 In addition to this, the grain produced should have enough quality to be accepted by the processing industries, which in the case of durum is linked to high gluten strength and bright yellow semolina color.Developing a new wheat cultivar typically requires between 8 and 12 years 5 and its performance is assessed in on-station trials in which the majority of the field conditions are controlled (irrigation, fertilization, and diseases). As a consequence, the outcomes of standardized procedures tend to differ in comparison with management practices utilized by farmers, which might vary greatly depending on the technology and resources applied. Beres et al. 6 calculated durum yield gaps by comparing farm yields and attainable yields for certain durum producing regions and discovered yield gaps of 50% in Italy, Greece, and Cyprus; in Mexico, they observed a reduced yield gap of approximately 25-30% due to irrigation production. In this regard, Clarke et al. 7 examined the yield increase in Canadian durum wheat from 1960 to 2010, observing 0.6% genetic gains each year, but when synergy of genetic gain and different agronomic techniques were examined, 1.2% gains per year were recorded. Laidig et al. 8 also reported considerable differences between on-station and on-farm trials, which should be taken into account when developing new crops adapted to heterogeneous environments and farming systems. 9 These findings highlight the importance of evaluating new lines under real production conditions in addition to on-station trials in order to characterize their performance more accurately.Despite the fact that yield remains the main objective in breeding programs, there is a growing demand for specialized quality improvement targets to meet the requirements for distinct and diverse quality features of various types of wheat-based products. 10 For this reason, further efforts are required to ensure improvements in most yield and quality traits, taking into account their high level of interaction with the environment, which makes the selection process more difficult. 11 Thus, developing new wheat durum varieties that satisfy future demands requires breeding programs that combine high yields and high quality with selection methods under different management practices to assess variability and performance in real field conditions used by farmers.The objectives of this study were: (i) to evaluate the grain yield and quality performance of eight different genotypes across five different farmer's management practices over two seasons; (ii) to identify the most outstanding and stable genotypes through genotype and genotype-by-environment (GGE) analysis;(iii) to develop information to assist farmers for more efficient and sustainable use of resources for the management practices and environments under analysis.The trials were conducted in five different farmers' fields during the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 seasons, at the Yaqui Valley, Sonora, Mexico. The lines analyzed included eight genotypes consisting of three commercial varieties and five candidate lines (full data, names of the genotypes, and pedigree are provided in Table S1). The experimental design, the same for all farmers' fields, was a randomized complete block with three replicates and each experimental unit had an area of 32 m 2 (10 m length × 3.2 m width). Trials were sown between the end of November and the first week of December and harvest dates ranged from the last week of April to the first week of May. No preceding crops were cultivated for any of the seasons. Different combinations of irrigation and nitrogen fertilization were applied depending on each farmer´s field (considered as different management practices, hereafter) as shown in Table 1, where the name of each management practice is represented as a combination of the irrigation and total fertilization levels. The first and second irrigations were applied 60 and 90 days after sowing, respectively. Third and fourth irrigation were applied during grain filling. The first fertilization was applied prior to the pre-plant irrigation, which took place approximately 18 days before sowing and at the end of tillering (second fertilization), then 50 additional kg ha −1 of N were applied in some trials close to heading (third fertilization). Pesticides and herbicides were applied depending on the practices used by each farmer, and weeds, diseases, and insects were controlled. Meteorological conditions during the two crop seasons were obtained from the NASA Prediction of Worldwide Energy Resource (https://power.larc.nasa.gov/). Monthly precipitation for the period between November and May was 4.8, 0. Grain yield values (kg ha −1 ) were adjusted to 12% of moisture after harvesting. Test weight (TESTWT, kg hL −1 ) and thousand kernel weight (TKW, g) values were registered through the digital image system SeedCount SC5000 (Next Instruments, Canterbury-Bankstown, Australia). Grain protein content (GPC, %) was determined by near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), using NIR Systems 6500 (Foss, Hilleroed, Denmark) calibrated based on official American Association of Cereal Chemist (AACC) methods 39-10, 55-30, and 46-11A 12 and reported at a 12.5% moisture basis. For milling, grain samples were processed according to the official AACC method 26-95 12 and milled into flour using a Brabender Quadrumat Senior mill (CW Brabender, Duisburg, Germany). Sodium dodecyl sulfate sedimentation volume from flour samples (FLRSDS, mL) was measured as described by Peña et al. 13 Flour yellowness (FYELLOW) was obtained as the b value of a Minolta color meter (Konica Minolta, Tokyo, Japan).Analyses of variance were performed with R software version 4.0.1. 14 The statistical model applied is detailed in the File S1. To complement the analysis and facilitate the identification of the best genotypes across the different field conditions, genotype and genotype-by-environment analysis 15 was carried out to analyze detail genotypic and management practices interactions in more detail using the 'GGEBiplots' package 16 for R. For this analysis, data from both growing seasons were averaged. Four different GGE biplot analyses were performed: 17 (i) The 'mean against stability' analysis, which facilitates the visualization of the mean performance and stability of genotypes; (ii) the 'ranking genotypes' tool, which defines an ideal genotype that has the highest performance in all environments and is absolutely stablethose genotypes closer to the ideal genotype show the best performance and stability; (iii) the 'ranking environment' tool, which allows the identification of an ideal environment (management practice in this case and defined as the most discriminating and representative) and compares all environments to it, and (iv) the 'which-won-where' analysis, which groups environments (management practices) into mega-environments (M-E) indicating similarity among them.Genotype, management practices, year, and their interaction effects on grain yield and quality traits Six traits related to grain yield and quality were studied in eight different genotypes across five different management practices during the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 seasons. Analysis of variance values for all the traits including the significance of genotype (G), management practice (M), year (Y), and interactions effects are shown in Table 2. All the triple interactions (G × M × Y) were significant except for grain yield and FYELLOW. For the double interactions (G × M, G × Y, and, M × Y) significant P-values were observed except for the FY G × Y interaction. The three main effects (G, M, and Y) showed significant P-values for all the traits. The influences of each effect on traits were also calculated (Fig. 1). The genotypic effect explained most of the variation in TKW (40.3%), FLRSDS (41.8%), and FYELLOW (75.2%). The management practice effect, represented by the farmer's fields, showed the highest influence on variability for grain yield (56.4%) and GPC (48.3%) and influenced TKW and FLRSDS considerably. Finally, the year effect explained the highest variation only in TESTWT (29.1%) with much less influence on the other traits (3.8% on average).We then performed Tukey tests for all the double interactions and main effects. Similar trends were found among all analyses, for each trait, for cultivars, management practices, and years. For this reason, and to simplify the report of the results, Fig. 2 shows differences among genotypes, farmer's field conditions, and years based on the principal effects (results were then compared and confirmed through GGE biplot analysis).When genotypes were analyzed, different ranges of variation were observed. While grain yield showed the highest ranges (at least a 2.1-fold difference between the minimum and maximum values), TESTWT had a narrow range (1.05 on average). Differences in the mean values for all the traits were also identified and significance among genotypes depended on the trait. For instance, the Tukey test found two subgroups for grain yield but five subgroups were identified for FYELLOW. When genotypes were assessed individually, some patterns were observed: genotypes 2 and 7 (both check lines) had the highest grain yield values but low performance for quality traits, with the lowest values for GPC, FLRSDS, and FYELLOW. Genotype 1 (also control line), performed well in terms of yield and related traits, acceptable values for GPC, the lowest values for FLRSDS but the highest values for FYELLOW. Among the candidate lines, genotypes 5 and 8 showed similar performance with high grain yield and TKW, intermediate values for GPC but one of the lowest values for TW and especially for FLRSDS and FYELLOW. Genotype 6 showed lower grain yield in comparison with control lines (however it was not significantly different from the other lines) with high values for TW and TKW; this genotype had the highest values for GPC and FLRSDS and one of the highest for FYELLOW. Genotype 4 showed a similar grain yield to genotype 6 but lower values for TW and TKW; at quality level, it ranked second for GPC and FLRSDS but showed intermediate values for FYELLOW. Finally, genotype 3 had one of the lowest overall performances for grain yield and quality traits with the exception of FYELLOW showing the second highest value.When management practices were compared (Fig. 2), grain yield had the greatest variability (at least a 1.93-fold difference between the minimum and maximum values) while TESTWT had  a narrow range (1.05 on average). FLSRSDS showed the highest number of subgroups identified by the Tukey test (five in total) while TESTWT had the lowest one (two in total). The different management practices had a clear influence on grain yield and quality traits. While R341 and F341 had the highest grain yield and TESTWT values and the lowest performance for quality traits, management practices R291, and F291, on the contrary, had the lowest performance for grain yield and TESTWT but the highest values for GPC and FLRSDS. FYELLOW had a mixed response with R291 in the top followed by F295 and R341.The 2015-2016 season had the widest ranges for most of the traits with the highest values for TESTWT, TKW, GPC, and FLRSDS when the year effect was analyzed (Fig. 2). The 2016-2017 season had the highest mean values for grain yield and FYELLOW and the lowest for quality traits, which was most likely due to a wetter season than the previous one.Specific Tukey test analyses for genotypes for each management practice were also performed (Table S2). With a few exceptions, similar trends to those mentioned above were discovered. For grain yield, genotypes 2 and 7 performed well in most of the management practices; genotypes 4, 1, and 8 also had remarkable values for management practices F291, F295, and F341/R341, respectively. The tendencies for genotypes 4 and 6 with a slight reduction in yield and high values for quality traits remained for most of the management practices (except for F291 where quality performance was lower for both). Under certain management conditions, some genotypes showed exceptional performance for quality traits. Genotypes 1 and 3, for instance, had the greatest GPC values at F341 and F295, respectively. For FYELLOW, genotypes 1 and 3 ranked first in all management conditions followed primarily by genotype 6. Finally, because phenology has a strong impact on adaptation, days to anthesis and days to maturity were analyzed for each genotype and management practice for the 2016-2017 season. The Tukey test showed that no significant differences were found between genotypes for any of the management practices (Table S2).Genotype and genotype-by-environment biplot approaches were used to complement and confirm the previous analyses and facilitate the identification of the best genotypes across the different field conditions. The plots obtained for each analysis and trait were overlapped to facilitate the description of the results (Fig. 3).With the GGE biplot analysis we identified the best and most stable genotypes based on their proximity to the ideal genotype. As expected and consistent with the Tukey test analyses mentioned above, genotypes performed differently depending on the trait. Genotype 2 showed the highest mean and stability values for grain yield; however, it had some of the lowest values for the GPC and FYELLOW traits. Genotype 7 followed genotype 2, with high grain yield values but low mean value for GPC. For GPC, and FLRSDS, genotypes 4 and 6 showed their superiority and stability by being the closest to the ideal genotype. For FYEL-LOW, genotypes 1 and 3 showed the best performances, combining high mean values and high stability. For grain yield, management practice, F341 was the closest to the ideal environment, as expected, whereas for TESTWT and TKW management condition F295 performed better. For GPC, and FLRSDS, environment R291 was the closest to the ideal environment followed by those practices with high doses of nitrogen (F341 or R341). For FYELLOW, in contrast to the other traits, the management conditions did not show much dispersion, being F291 and R341 the closest to the ideal environment. Finally, the GGE biplot analysis identified 5 M-E for all the traits (indicated by different background colors in each plot). For some traits, the management conditions were grouped in only 1 M-E (TKW, FLRSDS and, FYELLOW), in two (TESTWT), or in three (Yield and GPC), showing how management conditions could influence in the variability of each trait. Some patterns could be derived from the GGE biplot analysis combined with the ANOVA and Tukey test analysis. Genotypes 2, 7, and 8 performed best for grain yield with acceptable stability across management practices; however, these genotypes had different performances for quality traits: for GPC, genotypes 2 and 7 had the lowest values while genotype 8 intermediate performance, for FLRSDS genotypes 2 and 8 showed values similar to the general media while genotype 7 had one of the lowest performances; on the other hand, genotype 7 had good performance for FYELLOW while genotypes 1 and 8 showed the lowest values. Genotypes 4 and 6 had the highest values for GPC, and FLRSDS, being highly stable across field conditions; nevertheless, their grain yield performance was lower when compared with the top cultivars showing the Tukey test significant differences only in two management practices. Genotype 3, one of the furthest cultivars from the ideal genotype has one of the lowest and most unstable performances for grain yield, TESTWT, and TKW in any of the management practices and intermediate/low performance for quality traits, making it a candidate to be discarded from the breeding program. The ideal environment, on the other hand, indicates the most discriminating and representative environment. R291 was the closest to the ideal environment for most of the traits, but F291 was the furthest awaya candidate to be discarded if resources are limited in the breeding programs.The different regimes of irrigation and nitrogen fertilization were evaluated to develop information for more efficient and sustainable use of resources. Data from management practices F291, F341, R291, and F341, which allowed a full comparison of treatments across these conditions, was used for this analysis. Table S3 summarizes the results for the six traits including mean values, P-values and Tukey's test comparison for the main effects and their interactions. The irrigation by nitrogen interaction was significant only for FLRSDS (where reduced irrigation and low doses of nitrogen showed the highest mean values). For the rest of the traits, the main effects were significant (P < 0.0001) except for the irrigation effect for TESTWT and nitrogen level for TKW. From the analyses, we observed that full irrigation was not necessary to maximize grain yield but high doses of nitrogen are suggested. According to our results, reduced irrigation with 291 kg ha −1 of nitrogen was enough to maximize GPC and FYEL-LOW values.To develop high-yielding, high-quality cultivars it is necessary to assess the phenotypic variation caused by the genotype, the environment, and their interaction in order to determine the stability of each genotype across environments (Lin and Binns 1994). Although yield gaps between on-farm production and attainable yield have been reported, 6 and evaluating candidate genotypes for commercial release under different on-farm conditions is a strongly recommended strategy for assessing the performance and stability of new cultivars in different farming systems, its application in durum wheat and particularly for quality traits is limited. In this study, eight durum genotypes represented by five candidate lines and three commercial varieties, exposed to different on-farm management practices during two growing seasons at the Yaqui Valley, Sonora, Mexico, were evaluated for grain yield and quality traits. Our studies revealed that the genotype and/or management practices effects explained the majority of the observed variability. The small size of the influence of the year effect might be explained by similar conditions between seasons and the fact that a considerable portion of the variation was absorbed by the contrasting management practices. The influence of the genotype was the highest for FYELLOW, FLRSDS, and TKW while the management practice effect was remarkable for grain yield and GPC. The impact of management practices and/or the environment on grain yield and GPC was expected, as reported in other studies, [18][19][20] although, differences in the influence of principal effects were observed. Environmental factors or management practices, as in our study, were shown as the main sources of variation for grain yield. 18,19,21 However, contrasting tendencies have been reported for GPC, where in some cases the genotype was the main source of variation 18,21 but in others it was the environment. 19,22,23 In addition to the main effects, we observed that the majority of the double and triple interactions were significant, as in previous studies. 18,20,22 The significant impact of the environment or management practices as well as the interactions on grain yield and GPC highlight the importance of testing under real field conditions in order to characterize the potential of new genotypes with greater accuracy. It has been suggested that TESTWT and TKW are usually explained by climatic conditions. 23 According to Li et al. 19 the genotype effect was predominant for TESTWT while the environment effect was higher for TKW. For Magallanes-López et al. 18 TW and TKW were mostly explained by the genotype rather than the water regime while for El Hassouni et al. 24 the effect of multiple-environments under different water regimes explained main variation in TKW. In bread wheat, Bilgin et al. 25 observed that TESTWT and TKW variations were mainly explained by the genotype effect while for Guzmán et al. 26 the environment explained most of the variation for these traits. In our study, the year effect explained the highest variation in TESTWT whereas TKW was mainly influenced by the genotype. Interaction effects have also influenced the two traits differently: for TESTWT the G × M interaction was the most representative, but M × Y was the most important for TKW. The discrepancies in the references cited, combined with our findings, suggests that there is no clear trend of dominant effects for these traits, and thus the development of new varieties will be dependent, in each case, not only on the germplasm used but also on the management conditions applied by farmers and their interaction. The FLRSDS is an important quality trait because it reflects protein quality (gluten strength). In our case, FLRSDS was primarily explained by the genotype effect followed by the management practices; several studies noticed this tendency in both durum and bread wheat. 18,19,23,26 FLRSDS can be influenced by GPC which is strongly influenced by the environment; 19 however, there was no direct relationship between the two traits, as genotypes with similar GPC had significant differences in FLRSDS. This could be explained by differences in the proportions of gluten proteins accumulated due to genotype and management effects as well as their interaction. 27 FYELLOW is another determinant quality attribute for durum wheat where high yellow color is desired. In this work, we showed the high influence of the genotype effect which is associated with high heritability in other studies. 18,19,22,23,28 Based on this and the small environmental influence, the selection of new varieties with the desired phenotypes for this trait, under different field conditions, should not be an impediment in the breeding programs.The Tukey test and GGE biplot analysis were used to determine the best and most stable genotypes across management practices. This strategy was used in different studies to determine the optimal genotypes in M-E trials. 25,29 The incorporation of control lines to the field tests proved to be an effective approach as it allowed us to identify which of the candidate lines were superior depending on the desired phenotype. Currently, grain yield continues as the main objective of most wheat breeding programs. 10 Check lines, specifically genotypes 2 and 7 showed the highest grain yield values with high stability but lower quality values compared with potential candidates lines. In this sense according to GGE biplot analysis, genotype 8 with similar grain yield but higher GPC values than control lines, is the indicated to be selected. Due to increasing market demand for high-quality durum wheat, quality improvement has become one of the goals of breeding programs. 22 Although genotype 6 had a lower but acceptable grain yield, it showed the highest values for GPC and FLRSDS being a candidate for farmers if end-use quality is the priority. It also showed one of the best values for TESTWT, a highly desirable commercial trait in the cereal market. 30 Clearly, genotype 3 had the lowest values for most of the traits and management practices, being a candidate to be discarded unless it is used as a source of variation for FYELLOW in future breeding programs.Phenology is an important factor in crop adaptation because it influences grain yield and quality. All the genotypes tested in this study were bred for the same growing area, so anthesis and maturity occurred at similar times for all of them. We found no significant differences among management conditions (despite the fact that in F295 sowing occurred 1 week earlier than the rest of the conditions) indicating that the contrasting management practices applied in this study had no effect on adaptation. Other studies had similar results: Li et al. 19 found no differences in phenology when they examined several genotypes under different heat and drought conditions.The GGE biplot studies were effective in characterizing each management condition and identifying the closest practice to the ideal environment (the most representative and discriminative one). When breeders have limited resources to design multi-environment trials, this is a valuable technique for deciding the locations in which trials should be conducted. The management practice with the highest resources (F341) was, as expected, the closest one to the ideal environment for grain yield whereas R291 was the closest one to the ideal environment for quality traits. Different studies showed higher grain yield values under non-restricted conditions and higher values for some quality traits because of limited resources. 18,[31][32][33] Management practice F291, on the other hand, was less discriminative and a candidate to be discarded as a location for future characterizations.Finally, to identify the most efficient use of resources in the different farmers' fields under study, the individual irrigation and nitrogen effects and their interaction were analyzed. Based on our results, it seems that full irrigation is not necessary to maximize grain yield and TESTWT, so farmers could reduce the use of water. Similar results were observed by Yang et al. 34 and Walsh et al. 35 in trials under varied irrigation levels. On the other hand, Dai et al. 36 showed that GPC decreased when irrigation increased but it increased due to N fertilization. 31 Reduced irrigation combined with low doses of nitrogen (291 kg ha −1 ) showed the highest values for GPC under our management conditions.Understanding the genetic basis, the environmental effects under different management conditions, and their interactions on grain yield and quality traits is key for durum wheat-breeding programs. This study revealed the results of on-farm multilocation trials conducted for eight distinct genotypes over two seasons with different management practices commonly used by Mexican farmers. We observed that the genotype, the management practices, seasons, and their interactions exerted different influences depending on the evaluated trait. The statistical and GGE biplot analysis allowed the identification of the best genotypes in terms of grain yield/quality performance and stability. Genotypes 6 and 8 are potential candidates for commercial release depending on whether grain yield or quality is prioritized. Assessing genotypes in heterogeneous farming systems is a valid strategy that, in addition to controlled trials, allows for a more accurate characterization of the performance of novel cultivars to improve the breeding process and resources applied by farmers. This could contribute to increasing and stabilizing future durum wheat production, as well as the durum industry's future growth. and the Spanish State Research Agency (Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities) for funding through the Ramon y Cajal Program (RYC-2017-21891).","tokenCount":"4382"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8105ebe686ea8b6661831211ed23dd9b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/de7708bd-667e-4d27-9230-31766b3dc7c8/retrieve","id":"930734528"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a2fd283a-9ac1-418c-97c3-a1a5402ccde9","pagecount":"32","content":"• One Health is the collaborative effort of multiple disciplines working locally, nationally, and globally, to address critical challenges and attain optimal health for people, domestic animals, wildlife, and our environmentOne Health Commission (http://www.onehealthcommission.org/ )• The One Health concept is a worldwide strategy for expanding interdisciplinary collaborations and communications in all aspects of health care for humans and animals. One Health Initiative (http://onehealthinitiative.com/)• One Health' is a cost-effective, sustainable, and practical approach to find solutions for problems which need holistic, multidisciplinary approaches, particularly in resource-constrained countries Background:• Eco-Health -Introduced by IDRC to the region mid of the 2000 -Regional but informal researcher network  Multidisciplinary teams• Yuanmou (CN)• Hana (VN)• Chachoengsao (TH)• Pangalengen. ID Source: Hung Nguyen, 2013Where is FBLI active? ","tokenCount":"120"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1c28d89a93fe4bab251816e7becfd911","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5419ac54-4bd9-403c-9464-e541ee3178c6/retrieve","id":"125233096"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"fe5e364a-f7d2-4b26-97e6-5402647b4a59","pagecount":"45","content":"Les agriculteurs et les chercheurs utilisent un mélange subtil de savoirfaire traditionnel, de connaissances scientifiques et d'expertise professionnelle dans le travail qu'ils effectuent conjointement dans la région des Grands Lacs pour exploiter et par là-même conserver l'une des plus riches diversités de bananiers au monde.Le défi de ce projet, explique Eldad Karamura, le coordonnateur régional de l'INIBAP pour l'Afrique orientale et australe, était de montrer aux agriculteurs qu'il n'y avait pas de contradiction entre la préservation des valeurs traditionnelles et la réussite dans l'économie de marché contemporaine. « Les agriculteurs se trouvaient face à un choix difficile : accroître leurs revenus ou préserver leur identité culturelle », dit Eldad, lui-même un enfant de la culture bananière du sud-ouest de l'Ouganda. Néanmoins, en consultant longuement et patiemment les communautés associées au projet, Chaque maison digne de ce nom avait une petite bananeraie et la valeur d'un homme en tant qu'agriculteur et chef de famille était révélée aux yeux de ses amis et ennemis par l'état de sa bananeraie de son environnement. Elle est entrée dans le monde moderne comme enseignante, mais elle a choisi de revenir à la ferme où elle est devenue une productrice de bananes et de produits laitiers qui réussit. Maintenant elle réemploie ses compétences de pédagogue avec succès, en se faisant la propagandiste enthousiaste d'un projet innovateurfinancé par le Centre de recherches pour le développement international du Canada (CRDI), et mis en oeuvre par l'INIBAP -sur la préservation de la diversité des bananiers pour des raisons à la fois culturelles et économiques.Kintu, l'ancêtre considéré comme le fondateur du royaume de Buganda, arriva, dit-on, dans la région avec une vache et des rejets de bananiers, représentant les cinq principaux types de bananiers des hauts plateaux : Nakitembe, Musakala, Nakabululu, Nfuuka and Mbidde. En dehors de ses usages pratiques, notamment pour le traitement de désordres gastriques et intestinaux ou du paludisme, la tradition exigeait que la bonne variété de bananier soit utilisée pour célébrer la naissance de jumeaux ou pour pleurer la mort d'êtres chers -des variétés différentes étant employées pour la mort d'un homme ou d'une femme.Nakitembe, que l'on pense être l'un des plus vieux cultivars dans la région des Grands Lacs en Afrique centrale, était le cultivar d'une femme dès sa naissance : immédiatement après la venue au monde d'une petite fille, son placenta devait être enterré, au cours d'une cérémonie, sous un plant de cette variété. Pour les petits garçons, le cultivar était Nsowe et de même, leur placenta devait être enterré en-dessous d'un massif de cette variété. Quand le garçon devenait adulte et se cherchait une femme à marier, il avait besoin du cultivar Mpologoma (« le lion ») comme apport pour la dot. S'il se mettait à délaisser son foyer et sa jeune épouse, celle-ci pouvait recourir aux services du cultivar Enzinga dont les bananes disposées en spirale étaient censées empêcher que les maris ne batifolent.Les forces du marché qui ont poussé les agriculteurs à cultiver uniquement quelques unes des variétés de bananiers productives pour les marchés urbains menaçaient de couper des communautés entières de leurs racines culturelles. Considérer les moyens de subsistance dans une perspective plus large a aidé les producteurs à réfléchir sur la façon dont ils pouvaient tirer parti de la diversité des bananiers pour construire leur capital social ainsi que pour accroître leurs ressources financières et naturelles. En restaurant les usages traditionnels de la banane, tout en en concevant de nouveaux, les agriculteurs ont pu renforcer la cohésion de la communauté et préserver les cultivars traditionnels.dans la région de la Kagera en Tanzanie et dans les districts de Masaka et Bushenyi en Ouganda, les animateurs du projet ont pu examiner tous les aspects possibles de la question. « Le problème de la pauvreté », dit encore Eldad, « et la nécessité de cultiver uniquement ce que le marché peut écouler a été soulevé et discuté à toutes les réunions. Etait-ce la guerre entre culture et modernité ? Absolument pas ! Nos cultivars traditionnels pouvaient-ils réellement répondre dans le même temps à nos obligations culturelles et à nos problèmes de revenus ? Voilà la problématique à laquelle devait s'attaquer le projet. »En explorant ensemble une large gamme d'aspects sociaux et biophysiques de la situation, les agriculteurs et les chercheurs ont découvert qu'ils pouvaient accroître la valeur culturelle et économique de la diversité des cultivars et, ce faisant, contribuer aussi à freiner l'érosion de la base fragile des ressources naturelles. La pression démographique et le défi de subvenir aux besoins de familles qui s'agrandissent sur des parcelles de terre en constante diminution constituent un problème fondamental dans toute la zone du projet. La région des Grands Lacs au coeur de l'Afrique abrite l'une des populations rurales les plus « Les agriculteurs se trouvaient face à un choix difficile : accroître leurs revenus ou préserver leur identité culturelle »Un producteur de bananes a-t-il besoin d'une vache pour réussir ?Dans la légende de Kintu, les peuples du sud-ouest de l'Ouganda étaient traditionnellement à la fois éleveurs et producteurs de bananes. Ceux qui s'occupaient sérieusement de leur bétail avaient habituellement des vaches Ankole aux longues cornes -et de fait, l'allure de ces vaches et la forme de leurs cornes semblent toujours être un motif de grande fierté pour les éleveurs. Mais avec l'augmentation de la pression foncière, les agriculteurs ont mis au point de nouvelles techniques pour intégrer plus étroitement l'élevage et la culture de la banane. Au lieu de laisser paître les vaches de manière extensive, pour utiliser les résidus des pâturages comme des cultures, les producteurs soumettent les vaches à des régimes de « zéro pâture » : la vache (ou, dans les exploitations les plus modestes, la chèvre) est mise dans un enclos, au moins la plupart du temps, et on lui donne du fourrage.Ceci suppose beaucoup de travail. Pour qu'une vache soit productive, en particulier pour qu'elle donne des produits laitiers de grande valeur, il faut des grandes quantités de fourrage et aussi d'eau. Les agriculteurs sont toutefois nombreux à penser que l'investissement en travail en vaut la peine. Certains des plus gros gains peuvent être réalisés lorsqu'un producteur a les moyens d'investir, en plus, dans la construction d'un sol en ciment incliné pour l'enclos. Les chercheurs et les agriculteurs ont constaté que l'urine des vaches contribue bien plus à la fertilité des sols que le fumier. Et certains vont même jusqu'à penser que l'urine repousse les charançons du bananier. Toutefois pour que le zéro pâture donne les résultats optimaux, l'agriculteur doit également faire attention à la génétique des vaches : des croisements entre les races traditionnelles et des vaches laitières plus productives sont nécessaires pour maintenir la résistance aux maladies et pour, dans le même temps, récupérer l'investissement en main d'oeuvre avec l'augmentation de la production laitière. S'il y a des signes de conflit entre les membres des associations d'agriculteurs de Bushenyi, c'est parce que la demande de vaches laitières dépasse l'offre actuelle.denses du continent, avec des niveaux dépassant dans certaines zones les 500 personnes au kilomètre carré. La pression sur les ressources naturelles est d'une intensité équivalente.Les communautés ont choisi collectivement de se concentrer sur différents aspects du problème ou de rechercher divers types de solutions. Des sites de référence, représentatifs de chaque région, ont été choisis comme bancs d'essai pour les nouvelles techniques et méthodes susceptibles de contribuer à régler chaque problème ou ensemble de problèmes recensés. Le projet offrait une approche souple visant à repérer les similitudes et les différences entre les situations des communautés participantes, à en retirer des enseignements et à les valoriser par le biais de l'échange et de la formation.A Bushenyi, dans le sud-ouest de l'Ouganda, la baisse de la fertilité des sols conjuguée à l'attaque du charançon du bananier a été ciblée. Dans ce site de référence montagneux, quelques agriculteurs ont choisi de mettre à l'essai les mesures de lutte contre l'érosion des sols et de les démontrer ; d'autres agriculteurs se sont consacrés à la préparation de fumier à partir de résidus de cultures, de semences et de déjections d'animaux généralement rejetés par les marchands de bananes. La stratégie a consisté à conditionner et vendre les bananes séparément et non en régimes entiers. Sur les marchés des villes, cela a élargi les possibilités de vente aux personnes voulant seulement quelques fruits et non tout un régime.De l'autre côté de la frontière en Tanzanie, les agriculteurs d'Ibwera, près du lac Victoria, ont désigné les charançons comme étant leur plus gros problème. Ceux-ci non seulement décimaient leurs cultivars traditionnels mais ils diminuaient aussi considérablement leur production de bananes plantain destinées à être vendues sur les marchés de rue dans la ville de Bukoba. Par ailleurs, les producteurs de Chanika, le plus éloigné des quatre sites du projet, devaient examiner le problème des pertes après les récoltes. Comme il n'y avait pas de marchés de fruits frais à proximité, ils ont évalué les stratégies permettant d'assurer une plus longue durée de commercialisation et d'accroître la valeur de leurs fruits, comme le séchage au soleil des bananes et la préparation de vins.Mieux connaître et mettre en valeur la grande diversité de variétés de bananiers dans la région ont appuyé la recherche de solutions aux problèmes de production et de commercialisation et ont été domestiques. L'action visant à intégrer le bétail a été renforcée grâce au couplage avec le projet ECOTRUST financé par l'USAID qui fournissait les vaches, ce qui a permis d'avoir du fumier pour fertiliser les champs. (Voir Un producteur de bananes a-t-il besoin d'une vache pour réussir ?) A Lwengo Masaka, sur un terrain au relief plus doux, plus près de la capitale ougandaise, Kampala, la principale option retenue a été un mode de commercialisation novateur réglant le problème du débouché pour les cultivars donnant des petits régimes -     A la fin des années 1970, la culture des bananes plantain en Colombie était en butte aux mêmes difficultés que celles que connaît l'Afrique de l'Ouest aujourd'hui. Les bananes plantain étaient le plus souvent cultivées en association avec du café ou du cacao, des maladies inconnues jusque là faisaient leur apparition et la demande était forte alors que l'offre était faible. Le système de production traditionnel avait besoin d'une impulsion technologique.A l'époque, Sylvio Belalcázar, aujourd'hui collaborateur scientifique honoraire à l'INIBAP, travaillait pour l'Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario (ICA), devenu plus tard CORPOICA. En tant que directeur du programme sur les bananiers plantain, il avait constitué une équipe pluridisciplinaire pour insuffler un souffle nouveau dans la culture des bananes plantain. « La demande de produits alimentaires augmentait », se souvient Belalcázar, « et nous devions trouver une façon de faire progresser les rendements sans accroître les coûts de production pour éviter une hausse du prix des bananes plantain. » Accroître la densité de plantation semblait être un point de départ évident, mais il fallait en évaluer les avantages et désavantages. Les coûts de production calculés par kilogramme récolté baissent effectivement quand la densité augmente, mais pas indéfiniment. Les chercheurs devaient déterminer le moment où la loi des rendements décroissants allait s'appliquer.L'INIBAP a accompagné la validation scientifique des travaux sur les plantations à haute densité en Amérique latine et dans les Caraïbes et a grandement contribué à leur diffusion par le biais de projets, de stages, de séminaires et de publications. « Chaque année, nous organisons entre 5 et 10 stages », dit Franklin Rosales du bureau régional de l'INIBAP. « Plus de 5000 personnes ont reçu une formation au cours des sept dernières années. Nous avons été dans tous les pays producteurs de bananes plantain. » Cette pratique est particulièrement prisée à Cuba où elle est en cours d'adaptation pour la banane dessert. L'un des aspects les plus contraignants des plantations à haute densité, la plantation annuelle, l'est moins dans des pays comme Cuba où, si les agriculteurs ne déracinent pas les plants, ce sont les ouragans qui le font.Le bureau régional de l'INIBAP vient d'achever une étude à Talamanca, au Costa Rica, sur les aspects économiques des plantations annuelle et bisannuelle à hautes densités (2500 et 3000 plants/ha) à laquelle ont participé 10 producteurs. Les inondations dont ont souffert les plantations ont compliqué l'analyse des données, mais la solution la plus rentable était la plantation annuelle d'une densité de 2500 plants/ha, suivie par une plantation bisannuelle de la même densité. Ne pas renouveler la plantation permet d'économiser sur les coûts de la replantation, mais d'autres coûts, liés notamment à l'effeuillage et au tuteurage, ont augmenté au cours du deuxième cycle de production.A   Le BSV appartient au genre badnavirus de la famille des caulimoviridae. Le virus pénètre la cellule végétale et commence à se débarrasser de sa couche protéinique. L'ADN viral entre alors dans le noyau où il est transcrit en ARN via les enzymes produits par l'hôte. Il s'ensuit alors, dans le cytoplasme, une transcription inverse en ARN viral, qui sert aussi d'ARN messager pour produire des protéines virales. On parle souvent du BSV comme d'un pararétrovirus, mais ce mot, d'après Andrew Geering, virologiste au Queenland Department of Primary Industries en Australie et membre du Comité international sur la taxonomie des virus, n'a pas de valeur taxonomique. « On utilise le terme pararétrovirus uniquement pour différencier ces virus des rétrovirus. » Même le concept de BSV comme espèce à part entière fait l'objet de critiques. « Ce qu'on appelle BSV est en réalité un ensemble de divers virus » ajoute Andrew. Il a comparé les séquences de quatre isolats de BSV d'Australie avec d'autres badnavirus et a observé que « la distance génétique qui les séparait était si grande qu'il serait incorrect de les considérer comme des souches », Comme il le fait remarquer, la plupart des badnavirus sont des découvertes relativement récentes, ce qui explique peut-être le fait qu'il existe peu de directives sur ce qui constitue une souche et ce qui constitue une espèce. Le virus se propage via le puceron du bananier, Pentalonia nigronervosa. Une infestation des cultures par cet insecte est bien moins évidente à détecter que lorsqu'il s'agit d'autres espèces car ses colonies, relativement petites, restent la plupart du temps cachées dans les bases foliaires qui se chevauchent et forment le « tronc » de la plante. Le puceron entraîne peu de dommages visibles lorsqu'il se nourrit et les premiers symptômes du virus qu'il a transmis peuvent n'être évidents que pendant le cycle de croissance suivant, lorsque le rejet, censé remplacer le « plant mère », sort sous une forme sévèrement rabougrie. Les cultivateurs des grandes plantations sont extrêmement disciplinés, ils arrachent les plants infectés au premier signe de maladie et se préservent ainsi de la maladie. Les plants infectés par le virus ne peuvent produire aucun fruit, mais les petits producteurs, ne comprenant peut-être pas la nature de la maladie ou l'urgence de la menace, peuvent laisser la plante devenir une source d'infestation pour le reste de l'exploitation. « Lorsqu'ils se rendent compte de la gravité du problème et obtiennent un diagnostic juste de la maladie établi par un agent de vulgarisation, il est généralement trop tard pour sauver la culture », explique Gus. « De nombreux agriculteurs n'ont pas les ressources et les réserves nécessaires pour se remettre d'un tel désastre ».Comme bien souvent avec les problèmes de ravageurs et de maladies, en particulier ceux impliquant des maladies à vecteur dont la propagation furtive peut être mal comprise par les agriculteurs, il faut commencer par former l'agriculteur pour parvenir à une solution. Dès que les agriculteurs comprennent les problèmes de parasites et de maladies, ils sont mieux armés pour décider en connaissance de cause des mesures à prendre, notamment toute décision concernant les investissements à faire dans de nouvelles technologies telles que les plants issus de culture de tissus.Pendant ce temps, les chercheurs ont fort à faire pour que cette maladie soit mieux comprise. Ils ont par exemple besoin de découvrir si les nombreuses autres plantes qui servent d'hôte aux vecteurs sont importantes pour l'épidémiologie de la maladie et si d'autres cultures ou espèces sauvages peuvent servir de réservoir pour le virus. Pour l'instant, les chercheurs ne savent même pas si d'autres cultivars, comme Saba, une banane à cuire également populaire aux Philippines qui ne présente pas les symptômes du virus, abritent la maladie.organismes du secteur public vont probablement continuer à être partenaires dans la mesure où ils vont fournir un appui technique, peut-être un contrôle de la qualité des plantules, et surveiller les menaces qui pourraient plus tard peser sur le système. Le gouvernement philippin a suffisamment confiance dans l'avenir de cette initiative pour avoir pris le relais du soutien financier des donateurs internationaux de l'INIBAP à la phase actuelle du développement, et il est déjà question de monter un projet à l'échelle nationale.Pendant ce temps, l'INIBAP continue à travailler avec certains des partenaires de recherche pour mettre en place les prochaines étapes et étudier d'autres options pour développer un système de production viable et résilient. Parmi les questions toujours en suspens, il reste à déterminer combien de temps un agriculteur peut compter tenir avant d'avoir besoin de replanter des bananiers issus de culture de tissus et quelles sont les meilleures cultures à utiliser en rotation avec les bananiers pour éviter la prolifération de nématodes. Gus estime qu'un replantage annuel ne sera nécessaire que dans les régions où l'incidence du virus du bunchy top est élevée; des recherches sont en cours, par exemple sur son épidémiologie, pour essayer de comprendre ce qui, dans ces régions, favorise le virus. • Les recherches sur le protocole de cryoconservation applicable aux méristèmes en prolifération et reposant sur une méthode de congélation simple ont montré que dans le cas des cultivars Cacambou, Grande naine et Williams, le taux de régénération des pousses augmentait après l'application de 0.1 à 0.5 mM de cholestérol, sitostérol ou stigmastérol dans le milieu de préculture à base de sucrose. Les taux de régénération après décongélation pratiquée par vitrification n'ont pas été modifiés par l'apport de stérols.• En général, l'apport de 1 mM de polyamines et d'amines aromatiques au milieu de préculture ou de régénération n'a pas influé sur la régénération des méristèmes du bananier, après décongélation des pousses. L'ajout de tyramine dans le milieu de préculture a accru le taux de régénération des pousses après décongélation de Cacambou et Williams, pour lesquels avait été appliquée une méthode de congélation simple.• Un technicien a été recruté par KULeuven et formé à la technique de cryoconservation pour commencer à travailler sur une collection de sauvegarde qui sera mise en dépôt dans un autre lieu et servira d'assurance contre le risque de perte de la collection hébergée à Leuven.• • Le Laboratoire de cytogénétique et de cytométrie moléculaires de l'IEB a fini de déterminer le degré de ploïdie des 1150 accessions détenues au CTI, à la fin du projet. Pour ce faire, la méthode de cytométrie en flux a été appliquée. Elle permet de mesurer le contenu d'ADN nucléaire, lequel est directement proportionnel au nombre de chromosomes. L'analyse a confirmé la ploïdie de 958 accessions et révélé le degré de ploïdie de 81 accessions qui était jusqu'ici inconnu (Figure 1). Dans le cas de 88 accessions, le degré de ploïdie s'est révélé différent de celui accepté auparavant.• Les activités de caractérisation financées par le Generation Challenge Programme (unlocking genetic diversity in crops for the resource-poor-exploiter la diversité génétique des cultures au profit des plus pauvres) sont présentées dans la section sur le Consortium mondial sur la génomique de Musa, en page 29.• Dans le cadre d'un projet financé par l'IFAR, la diversité génétique de 15 populations de Musa balbisiana venant de Chine a été étudiée à l'aide de la technique AFLP. Des degrés élevés de diversité génétique ont été mis en évidence. L'application de la méthode AFLP sur 281 plants a donné 199 bandes.• Dans un autre projet financé par l'IFAR, des microsatellites ont été utilisés pour différencier 10 hybrides FHIA afin de faciliter leur identification et la conservation de la stabilité génétique de ces variétés. Dix microsatellites ont suffi pour distinguer FHIA-01 de FHIA-18, mais pas les autres hybrides.• En 2004, le CTI a envoyé, dans 32 pays, 919 accessions représentées par 3425 échantillons de cultures de tissus, ce qui constitue une hausse de 33% par rapport à 2003. Cette progression s'explique essentiellement par le démarrage, en 2004, de l'activité de vérification en champ menée dans le cadre de la régénération de la collection.• La majorité des échantillons (64%) ont été envoyées sous forme de plantules enracinées. • Au total, 5174 accessions venant de 17 institutions ont été intégrées dans la base de données MGIS.• La base de données MGIS est maintenant reliée à la base de données SINGER (Réseau d'information à l'échelle du système sur les ressources génétiques) du CGIAR.• Dans le cadre de l'évolution de la base de données MGIS, un lien est en cours d'établissement avec le système de gestion de la banque de gènes du CTI.celui du Cirad, en France. Aucun résultat d'indexation n'a été communiqué cette année. La proportion des plants exempts de virus et de ceux infectés par un virus est présentée sur la Figure 2.Utilisation de la diversité pour l'amélioration génétique• Des cals embryogènes ont été obtenus pour Mbwazirume et Nakinyika et des suspensions cellulaires ont été formées.• Les suspensions cellulaires du cultivar Sukali ndizi (AAB) continuent de donner de bons résultats.• Une transformation induite par Agrobacterium et réalisée avec le gène marqueur GUS a été opérée sur des suspensions cellulaires de Sukali ndizi et a permis de confirmer l'applicabilité du système de transformation induite par Agrobacterium, mis au point à KULeuven.• Le matériel de cryoconservation a été acquis et la cryoconservation des suspensions cellulaires a débuté en février 2004. Dix sept lignées cellulaires ont été cryoconservées et treize d'entre elles ont été remises dans un milieu liquide. Toutes les lignées cellulaires qui se maintenaient bien en milieu liquide (autrement dit les cellules se multipliaient et augmentaient de volume) et conservaient leur potentiel embryogène avaient moins d'un an au moment de la cryoconservation.• L'action inhibitrice d'une cystatine de papaye sur le développement du charançon du bananier (Cosmopolites sordidus) a été renforcée par la production de mutants dotés d'une stabilité et d'une capacité de fixation améliorées (Figure 3). A partir de l'analyse des séquences des acides aminés, 18 mutations ont été créées et leur capacité à inhiber les enzymes digestives a été évaluée. Lors des essais préliminaires, l'inhibition a été améliorée dans 11 des 18 cystatines mutantes.• Une banque d'ADNc a été constituée avec des plants artificiellement infestés par des oeufs de charançons et des plants non traités. Divers produits de la soustraction ont été isolés et clonés. Les inserts obtenus après digestion avec des enzymes de restriction ont été séquencés. Les séquences semblent appartenir à une famille de gènes variables qui peuvent intervenir dans la résistance aux charançons.• Une technique permettant aux nématodes Radopholus similis et Pratylenchus coffeae d'absorber des substances dans un milieu liquide a été mise au point. Elle donne la possibilité de pratiquer des essais sur diverses lectines et par conséquent d'identifier les gènes à même de lutter contre les nématodes.Avec l'aide d'un financement de la Belgique, l'INIBAP poursuit son travail de perfectionnement des protocoles   Donateur : Commission Interaméricaine de lutte contre l'abus des drogues -Organisation des Etats AméricainsPartenaires par pays : Bolivie : VIMDESALT, associations de producteurs de bananes But : Réhabiliter la production de bananes dans la région d'Alto Beni, en Bolivie, en renforçant les associations de producteurs et en développant la culture biologique de la banane pour les marchés urbains et internationaux.• Ce projet de deux ans s'est terminé en mai. Une phase de transition de six mois a été accordée pour jeter les bases de la seconde phase du projet qui doit démarrer en 2005 mais dans laquelle l'INIBAP ne jouera plus un rôle de coordination. • Les données sur le deuxième cycle de production ont été collectées dans 31 parcelles de démonstration constituées, l'année précédente, dans les sept pays participants.• Les producteurs ont participé à 14 essais pour évaluer les qualités gustatives des variétés améliorées.• Les préférences des producteurs mettaient en jeu la taille du régime, la qualité en termes de goût et la valeur marchande.• Les agriculteurs et les techniciens de terrain en Guinée, au Nicaragua, en Ouganda et en RDC ont suivi les performances des cultivars dans les parcelles des agriculteurs, constituées l'année précédente.• Les partenaires en Equateur, au Honduras, au Nicaragua et en Ouganda ont constitué 200 parcelles de multiplication supplémentaires. • Plus de 1000 hectares dévolus à la production de bananes biologiques ont été réhabilités et près de 600 exploitants ont bénéficié de cette opération.• Des agronomes ont été formés et affectés à des associations de producteurs, et les agriculteurs ont été formés à diverses techniques de production.• Des manuels sur la production biologique ont été réalisés.• Des systèmes d'irrigation, des systèmes de transport aérien par câble, des postes de conditionnement, des unités de transport et de mûrissement ont été mis en place pour améliorer la qualité du fruit et augmenter les quantités traitées.  • Au Bénin, 120 participants ont été formés à une technique de multiplication par rejet et à la constitution et la gestion de parcelles de bananiers.• Le projet s'est terminé en 2004.(Pour en savoir plus, se reporter à l'article « Quand l'Afrique de l'Ouest rencontre de l'Amérique latine » en page 10). • Les études pilotes faites au Cameroun et en Côte d'Ivoire ont clairement mis en évidence le potentiel de ce système de culture pour accroître les rendements en Afrique centrale et occidentale.• Au maximum de la croissance végétale, le couvert dense sur les parcelles à haute densité de plantation a considérablement réduit la quantité de soleil atteignant le sol et ainsi pratiquement stoppé la croissance des mauvaises herbes.• La taille des parcelles utilisées pour les essais était trop petite pour créer les conditions climatiques qui inhibe ou retarde le développement et l'expression de la maladie des raies noires. De ce fait, un traitement fongicide a été nécessaire pour lutter contre la maladie, et par voie de conséquence, les rendements ont été plus élevés dans les parcelles traitées que dans celles non traitées, indépendamment de la densité de plantation.• Le nombre de bananes par régime et le poids du régime ont diminué quand la densité de plantation augmentait. Toutefois, comme le nombre de régimes récoltés était supérieur dans les parcelles à haute densité de plantation, les rendements ont été plus élevés dans les parcelles à 2500 et 3300 plants/ha que dans les parcelles traditionnelles, à densité moindre. • Plus de 200 ménages ont été interviewés pour établir l'importance de la banane et de la banane plantain, les associations de culture les plus courantes et les stratégies de lutte utilisées ainsi que pour évaluer leur degré de sensibilisation aux ravageurs.• Les résultats de l'étude ont permis d'identifier un certain nombre de techniques adaptées à la région qui sont actuellement en cours d'évaluation dans des champs de producteurs sélectionnés.35 • 645 nouvelles entrées ont été ajoutées à MUSALIT.• 696 demandes d'information ont été traitées en 2004.• Le CD-Rom MUSADOC 2004 est sorti en octobre et a été distribué à 1500 utilisateurs.• La base de données BRIS des chercheurs travaillant sur la banane comprend maintenant 913 entrées, dont 43 sont nouvelles.• Tout le site internet de l'INIBAP a été remanié, reconfiguré avec la technologie PHP et lancé, dans sa nouvelle version, le 30 septembre 2004.• Le nombre moyen de visites par jour est passé de 351 l'an dernier, à 476.• 53 500 Mb de publications ont été téléchargés. • La présentation du rapport annuel a été modifiée pour pouvoir inclure quatre articles de fond sur l'impact de projets donnés ainsi qu'un sommaire des activités réalisées pendant l'année. Pour la première fois, le document a été intégralement traduit en français et en espagnol et publié dans chacune des trois langues.• Le projet d'une exposition itinérante sur l'avenir de la • Les partenariats dans le domaine de l'information ont été renforcés avec différents réseaux africains, notamment ASARECA-RAIN, CORAF/WECARD, FARA et SACCAR. Un stage de formation sur l'information a été organisé pour des documentalistes francophones au CARBAP, en novembre. Seize stagiaires de 12 pays africains y ont participé.• Le centre régional de documentation créé au CARBAP, au Cameroun, est maintenant opérationnel.• Trois numéros du bulletin RISBAP (région Asie-Pacifique) ont été publiés.• Le réseau d'information africain a fourni 102 références bibliographiques à MUSALIT et le réseau Asie-Pacifique en a fourni 32. ","tokenCount":"4719"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7cbb6b229636c9a10b736f8f551f72b5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/3d9afed9-8cdc-49c9-84ad-e9207b7c0cdd/retrieve","id":"649822532"},"keywords":["Michael Halewood","Chef","Policy Research Unit","Bioversity International","Via dei Tre Denari","472/a","00057 Maccarese","Rome","Italie","Email:"],"sieverID":"ac21adb3-ba51-4e97-9c9e-521e2c233a06","pagecount":"35","content":"Publié sous licence Creative Commons 2.0 Attribution -Non Commercial -NoDerivs * Les auteurs sont reconnaissants au gouvernement des Pays-Bas pour son soutien, au travers du projet GRPI-2, qui a permis des recherches spécifiques par pays. Le projet GRPI-2 fonctionne sous l'égide du Programme commun de renforcement des capacités des pays en développement, établi par l'Organisation des Nations Unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture (FAO), le Secrétariat du Traité international sur les ressources phytogénétiques pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture (TIRPAA), et Bioversity International, pour la mise en oeuvre du Traité et de son Système multilatéral d'accès et de partage des avantages. Les auteurs remercient aussi pour leur soutien le Programme de recherche sur le changement climatique, l'agriculture et la sécurité alimentaire (CCAFS) (conduit par le CIAT) ainsi que le Programme de recherche sur les politiques, les institutions et les marchés (PIM) (conduit par l'IFPRI). Nos plus vifs remerciements vont aux personnes suivantes qui ont commenté par écrit les versions précédentes de cet article :Les objectifs de la Convention sur la diversité biologique (CDB) et du Traité international sur les ressources phytogénétiques pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture (TIRPAA) sont, pour l'essentiel, identiques -promouvoir la conservation et l'utilisation durable de la diversité biologique et le partage équitable de avantages découlant de son utilisation. 1 Toutefois, les systèmes d'accès et de partage des avantages par lesquels ces accords internationaux engagent leurs États membres dans la poursuite de leurs objectifs communs sont très différents. D'un côté, le système établi en vertu du TIRPAA vise à renforcer la mise en commun et le partage au niveau international des ressources génétiques pour la recherche agricole et la sécurité alimentaire. De l'autre côté, le système de la CDB a pour objectif de permettre à chaque pays de contrôler soigneusement l'accès à ses ressources souveraines, soumises au cas par cas à des accords de partage des avantages.La mise en oeuvre nationale de ces deux systèmes s'est révélée bien plus lente que prévue. Ce retard est notamment dû au fait que les décideurs nationaux ne savent pas vraiment comment gérer l'interface entre ces deux systèmes d'accès et de partage des avantages. En outre, ce problème est exacerbé par le fait que, dans de nombreux pays, les ministères de l'Agriculture ont la responsabilité de la mise en oeuvre nationale du TIRPAA alors que celle de la CBD dépend des ministères de l'Environnement, cependant que, souvent, ces agences ne coordonnent pas suffisamment l'élaboration de  avantages du TIRPAA. 4 Les étapes proposées ici pour mettre en oeuvre le Système multilatéral ont été développées avec les responsables de huit équipes de projet national soutenues par le GRPI-2, et sont actuellement mises à l'essai dans ces pays.1.1 Le Système multilatéral d'accès et de partage des avantages du TIRPAA (Système multilatéral)Le TIRPAA a instauré un système multilatéral par lequel les Parties contractantes consentent à mettre en commun de façon virtuelle un sous-ensemble des ressources génétiques de 64 espèces alimentaires et fourragères à des fins d'utilisation et de conservation pour la recherche, la sélection et la formation pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture' (Article 12.3(a)). L'attrait principal de ce système est que les participants peuvent profiter d'un effet multiplicateur. En échange de l'inscription de leurs ressources phytogénétiques pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture (RPGAA) dans les genres énumérés au sein du système, leur accès aux RPGAA de tout autre État membre (actuellement au nombre de 127) est facilité par des coûts de transaction minimes.Plusieurs études ont confirmé que les pays ont, de façon proactive, tiré pleinement parti d'autres systèmes d'accès facilité similaires et qu'ils ont ainsi reçu une large diversité de ressources phytogénétiques, souvent bien plus qu'ils n'en avaient inscrites. 5 Le Système multilatéral fonctionne en utilisant la toute première formule convenue au niveau international pour le partage des avantages associés à l'utilisation des RPGAA. Les avantages monétaires découlant de la commercialisation (ou de donations volontaires) sont versés dans un fonds international de partage des avantages, lequel distribue des subsides sous la direction de l'Organe directeur du Traité. Les actions de sensibilisation et de renforcement des capacités pour mettre en oeuvre l'accès et le partage des avantages dans le cadre de la CDB et du TIRPAA ont également été en grande partie conduites séparément et distinctement. Il s'agit d'une tendance qui s'est répandue 'de la base vers le sommet' parce que, dans la plupart des pays, les agences responsables de la négociation et de la mise en oeuvre des accords sont différentes. Cette tendance a aussi été renforcée 'du sommet vers la base' du fait de l'aide internationale au développement délivrée par des canaux spécifiques par secteur.Il serait judicieux que les ressources mobilisées pour la sensibilisation traitent des questions relatives à l'accès et au partage des avantages pour toutes les ressources génétiques existantes dans le pays conformément au droit international applicable. A défaut, les ressources ne seront pas utilisées d'une façon optimale, les possibilités pour coordonner la mise en oeuvre (là où la coordination est nécessaire) seront délaissées, et il sera plus difficile de résoudre les problèmes liés à la concurrence qui existe parfois entre les ministères quant à l'accès et au partage des avantages.Comme souligné dans la première partie de cet article, malgré le fait que le TIRPAA et la CDB aient des objectifs pratiquement identiques, leurs approches pour régir l'accès et le partage des avantages sont extrêmement différentes. Les dispositions de la CDB sur l'accès et le partage des avantages ont été développées en grande partie en réponse aux injustices perçues de l'exploitation incontrôlée par les pays développés des ressources des pays en voie de développement. L'attention portée à cette question a été exacerbée par le fait que les pays développés aient exercé des pressions pour étendre les droits de propriété intellectuelle dans les négociations commerciales internationales et par l'essor concomitant des actions boursières des sociétés de biotechnologie dans les années 1980. 70 Les contrôles de l'accès qui ont surtout été mis en place par les pays en voie de développement conformément à la CDB sont conçus pour mettre fin à de telles pratiques et pour forcer les utilisateurs à payer un juste prix pour l'accès aux ressources. 71  ","tokenCount":"1007"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"20f49053905a3e16cec57162c0dc8a6e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a03459ec-7b40-41c2-b900-3c62088b2154/retrieve","id":"-493653405"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"41c4f82b-1919-4cb0-a134-6ca30393e789","pagecount":"272","content":"CIP publications contribute important development information to the public arena. Readers are encouraged to quote or reproduce material from them in their own publications. As copyright holder CIP requests acknowledgement, and a copy of the publication where the citation or material appears. Please send a copy to the Communications Department at the address below.The project is phased out. Six objectives (1-5 and 8) were fully achieved; two were partially achieved: objective 6 (Provide new diversity to use yam bean seed for human consumption) and objective 7 (Make available evidence of livelihood impacts associated with increasing yam bean production in Central and West Africa). For objective 6, a concept note has been written (see Appendix 8) to search for further funding; the International Atomic Energy Agency/Austria is a potential donor). Objective 7 has been taken up by Social and Health Sciences and Innovation Systems (SHIS) at CIP to finalize impact estimates from increasing yam bean cultivation in Central and West Africa. The work of SHIS on yam bean is carried out in the context of the project \"Enhancing nutrition, food security and income through sustainable system intensification with roots and tubers crops in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa,\" a new activity being funded by Consortium Research Program PIM (Policies, Institutions and Markets, led by the International Food Policy Research Institute). According to the project proposal the first target country in 2015 is Benin. Furthermore, the yam bean has been taken up by two other projects: \"Improved Soil Fertility Management for Sustainable Intensification in Potato Based Systems\" in Kenya and Ethiopia (BMZ funded), and \"Developing Optimal Soil Fertility Management and Sustainable Intercropping Systems with Sweet Potato\" in Mozambique (funded by the Reaching Agents of Change). The latter project includes a PhD thesis with the working title \"Soil fertility Improvement in Sweetpotato/Yam Bean Rotation and Intercropping.\"At the beginning of the project, the yam bean was never investigated for its potential in the CGIAR. It is a close relative of the soybean and the small genus Pachyrhizus in the sub-tribe Gycininae comprises three cultivated yam bean species: Mexican yam bean (P. erosus), Andean yam bean (P. ahipa), and Amazonian yam bean (P. tuberosus). It was reported that all yam beans are exclusively used for their storage roots, although the seed yields are high. The crop has an extreme diversity with respect to local given names-for example, ahipa, Ashipa, Chuin (Peru); jicama (Mexico); bunga (Philippines); mishrikand, ram-kaseru, sankalu, sankeh alu, bangkoewang (Indonesia); dòushǔ or liáng shǔ (China). At the beginning of the project we gathered a list of 28 names for yam bean which already might reflect a very wide adaptation of the crop. It was commonly understood that yam bean storage roots, with exception of some Amazonian yam beans from Peru, are all low in storage root dry matter (DM) and are consumed raw as a root fruit/vegetable for its refreshing taste (Sørensen et al. 1997). However, there was no access to high DM yam beans on a clear legal basis. It was known that yam beans are high in protein and iron in storage roots, that the root system fixes a considerable amount of nitrogen, and that it is efficient in phosphor uptake due to mycorhiza association. It has been estimated that the yam bean (P. erosus) is fixing about 200 kg of N/ha (Woomer 1979), with a range 160-260 kg of N/ha in P. ahipa (Rodríguez-Navarro 2009). It has been also been reported that the crop can adapt well to drought-prone areas in West Africa (Zanklan et al. 2007). P. erosus requires 850 L of water for 1 kg of seed production, plus 0.56 kg of storage root dry yield production, as calculated across 16 accessions on basis of yields and water supply form Zanklan et al. (ibid.). This compares quite favorably with soybean, which requires 2,000 L of water for 1 kg of seed production (Pimentel et al. 2004). Before starting this project, only the low DM Mexican yam bean (P. erosus) has made its way out of the area of origin. P. erosus became known until the end of the 20 th century across nearly all of Asia, where low DM yam bean nowadays reaches about 5% of the cultivation area of sweetpotato as root fruit/vegetable. High DM yam bean never became known in Asia. In Africa that crop was never cultivated on farm, and in Central Africa it was not known for research and development (R&D) at all until the start of this project. Furthermore, there was very limited knowledge about yam bean and its (1) seed in addition to storage roots (these seeds are not eaten because of toxic compounds); (2) high storage root DM contents (these so-calledThe availability of yam bean germplasm has been improved. Greater diversity of cultivated yam beans is now available through CIP for R&D than in the past (about 100 accessions in 2014 compared with 15 accessions in 2009 are now maintained in CIP's genebank). This diversity comprises (1) low storage root DM accessions for use as root vegetable and raw consumption (traditional use in Asia, Mexico, and the US); (2) high storage root DM accessions for processing (a new way to use yam beans); and (3) segregating breeding populations comprising high DM yam bean bulks (about 18 segregating populations are maintained in CIP's genebank). These populations are in Uganda and Rwanda as part of two PhD studies, and promising high DM breeding lines have been selected. Our work eased the bottleneck of the availability of high DM germplasm in the yam bean gene pool. This enabled abundant material for both yam bean types (low DM for traditional use and high DM for processing use) to be introduced into Benin, Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and DRC (in this project), as well as into Kenya, Mozambique, and Cameroon, through seed requests of other projects, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and national agricultural research systems (NARS). Finally, there is now one yam bean accession available (CIP-209054) that has no acute toxicity in animal studies, and one accession with high potential not to be toxic (CIP-209038). But this does not mean that we have made the yam bean gene pool available for seed consumption.On the basis of the results of the project in West and Central Africa, the project partners have chosen a set of yam bean accessions for demonstration trials (Table 1). These accessions might be of interest to new projects with the yam bean across all tropical and subtropical regions of the world, and reflect a major portion of genetic diversity among yam beans.To date, there are about 100 yam bean accessions at CIP; all are under international trust status. There are 13 P. erosus, 28 P. tuberosus, and 22 P. ahipa farmer accessions (accessions that trace back to collections), 9 breeding accessions (accessions that trace back to crossings by breeding), and 18 breeding populations in breeding stage F2.One of the project's major successes was obtaining permission from Peruvian authorities, including those that represent indigenous communities from the Amazonian lowlands of Peru. Known as the \"Permiso para distribuir Ahipa: permiso para distribución de 11 accesiones y híbridos de P. tubersosus,\" this permit made high DM yam beans available for international R&D. This success has so far not been exploited much by CIP, INIA, CGIAR, and the Belgium embassy in Peru. The background is that Peru has national rights on the known high DM yam bean accessions because the yam bean is not among the \"Annex 1 Crops\" of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources,\" and high DM yam beans are relatively new collections, so that this treaty applies to all found high DM accessions and derivatives. CIP is now allowed to use four high DM accessions from Peru for R&D, including derivatives and cross population with these high dry DM accessions. However, the situation applies to nearly all neglected/underutilized crops and new germplasm acquisitions and collections for these crops, so our approach and agreements can serve as a model for others. Critical voices articulate that under current international conventions, it is nearly impossible to work on a legal basis with neglected crops and their genetic resources. Yet we have demonstrated in this project that it is possible. In addition, making available high DM yam beans and breeding populations is certainly a clear step forward to broaden the use of yam beans, because high DM genotypes are more suitable for processing.Note that seven P. erosus accessions and eight P. tuberous accessions at CIP's genebank were obtained by germplasm exchange from CATIE/Costa Rica. All are low DM yam beans. AFRICA (2009AFRICA ( -2010) ) In 2009-2010 we provided yam bean seed to the following organizations: UCL obtained 300 seed samples for rotenone determination in yam bean seeds. These 300 samples have been used to develop precise methods to determine rotenone and pachyrrhizine in yam bean seed and extend calibrations of the fast through-put near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) method for rotenone determination in yam bean seeds.have obtained two P. erosus accessions-209018 from China and 209019 from Mexico-in larger quantity (200 seeds per accession) in 2009; followed by a second shipment comprising five P. ahipa (209003, 209004, 209006, 209007, and 209021) and two P. erosus (209016 and 209017) accessions in smaller quantity (20 seeds per accession). In 2010 Benin obtained six high DM P. tuberosus x P. ahipa hybrids (209037, 209039, 209040, 209041, 209044, and 209045). But soon after this shipment we had to inform INRAB that none of the accessions should be used and must be destroyed, because CIP had not yet received all required permissions for this shipment. From CIP-Benin the material was introduced into Ghana via CIP-Ghana. on storage root DM basis (up to 78%), and high iron content on storage root DM basis (up to 52 ppm). The high DM and starch contents in P. tuberosus and hybrids are similar or slightly higher than the average found in cassava germplasm, and the high iron content corresponds to the average found in Phaseolus vulgaris germplasm. The extreme wide range of DM and starch in P. tuberosus can be explained by the fact that low DM P. tuberosus Ashipa accessions were evaluated together with high DM P. tuberosus Chuin accessions.In this study, 58 accessions of the three cultivated Pachyrhizus species were characterized by AFLP molecular markers in order to estimate genetic diversity and interspecific relationships. Shannon's diversity indices for each species were 1.04 (P. ahipa), 1.07 (P. tuberosus), and 2.42 (P. erosus), while the total diversity index was 2.45. Phylogenetic analysis, principal coordinate analysis, and analysis of molecular variance (FST = 0.796) all showed significant species differentiation. All accessions were diploid (2n = 2x = 22), which is characteristic of the tribe Phaseoleae and the sub-tribe Gycininae. The species P. tuberosus and P. ahipa are more closely related compared with P. erosus. Within P. tuberosus, low DM Ashipa types and high DM Chuin types form separate groups within the species at high levels. The eight P. tuberosus Chuin x P. ahipa hybrid breeding lines in later breeding stages used in this study appear to be clearly hybrids between these species. Moreover, one P. ahipa accession was found to be a P. ahipa x P. tuberosus hybrid, one P. tuberosus accession was found to be a P. tuberosus x P. erosus hybrid, and in all three species accessions were found containing 2-20% genome from another yam bean species. This indicates that all three cultivated yam bean species are very closely related and exchange in nature and/or cultivation genes by open pollination.The study has been published as: Santayana, M., G. Rossel, J. Núñez, M. Sørensen, M. Delêtre, R. Robles, V. Fernández, W.J. Grüneberg For this reason, we studied the recombination and frequency of successful crosses (pod and seed formation) among three P. ahipa, three P. tuberosus Chuin, and three P. erosus accessions (see Table 4). P. ahipa (AC) x P. tuberosus (TC) interspecific hybridization do not appear to be much different with respect to the success rate of crossings from intraspecific crosses P. ahipa (AC) x P. ahipa (AC) and P. tuberosus (TC) x P. tuberosus (TC). However, P. erosus (EC) x P. tuberosus (TC) interspecific hybridization do not appear much different with respect to the success rate of crossings from intraspecific crosses of the type P. tuberosus (TC) x P. tuberosus (TC). But they do differ with respect to intraspecific crosses of the type P. erosus (EC) x P. erosus (EC), as the frequency of successful recombination is 16.1% for P. erosus (EC) x P. erosus (EC) versus 6.2% and 4.7% for P. erosus (EC) x P. tuberosus (TC) and the reciprocal cross P. tuberosus (TC) x P. erosus, respectively.Our results show that the success of recombining among yam bean species can be much higher than reported in previous studies (Grüneberg et al. 2003). The success of crossing yam beans might strongly depend on environment and technical skills of labor as in many other crops. As expected, we observed that all yam bean species can be considered as one primary breeding, which means that an 9 FINAL TECHNICAL REPORT: THE YAM BEAN CENTRAL AND WEST AFRICA PROJECT incorporation of high DM attributes from P. tuberosus Chuin into P. ahipa and P. erosus is relatively easy. Even a complete introgression of the three species and development of \"one new hybrid yam bean species\" appear to be possible. On the basis of our results, taxonomy even could consider to merge P. ahipa and P. tuberosus into one species. However, recombination success within P. erosus appears to be different from that of the interspecific P. erosus x P. tuberosus recombination. Note: The opinion of whether to merge P. ahipa and P. tuberosus into one species is also shared by Marc Deletre based on Simple Sequence Repeat marker studies in yam beans (personal communication, 2015).A manuscript for this study is available: Heider, B., E. Romero, R. Eyzaguirre, and W.J. Grüneberg. Interspecific hybridization between three species of cultivated American yam bean (Pachyrhizus sp. DC).Table 4 Recombination among P. ahipa (AC), P. tuberosus Chuin (TC), and P. erosus (EC) and frequency of successful intraspecific and interspecific hybridizationA total of 38 yam bean accessions were made available in Central Africa in 2010/11 through CIP-Uganda (see Section 2.2.1 above). All accessions were low DM Pachyrhizus accessions comprising 11 P. erosus, 20 P. ahipa, and 7 P. tuberosus Ashipa accessions. This set of accessions was considered to be sufficient to study the yield and adaptation potential of yam beans in Central Africa. Three strategies were applied to identify adapted, high-yielding yam beans for Central Africa. The first was multi-environmental trials (METs) across Central Africa (Uganda, Rwanda, and East DRC) organized by CIP-Uganda in cooperation with the project partners in Central Africa under supervision of Silver Tumwegamire. The second strategy was independent on-station and on-farm trials/selections by the partners RAB (Rwanda) under supervision of Jean Ndirigue, ISABU (Burundi) under supervision of Astère Bararyenya, and INERA (DRC) under supervision of Georges Bouwe. The third strategy was yield and adaptation studies in the MSc and PhD studies at Makerere University under supervision of Phinehas Tukamuhabwa (see also Section 9 below and Appendix 9).METs with the abovementioned material (32 out of 38 accessions, complete design) were established in:  Uganda: Namulonge (forest zone, 1,150 masl, 1,500 mm); Serere (savanna zone, 1,140 masl, 900-1,300 mm); and Kabale (highland zone, 2,150 masl, 1,750 mm)  Rwanda: Rubona (highland zone, 1,650 masl, 926 mm) and Musanze (highland zone, 1,850 masl, 900.6 mm) DRC: Mulungu (highland zone, 1,700 masl, 1,200-1,700 mm) and Ruzizi Valley (savanna zone, 900 masl, 800-950 mm)  Burundi: Bjumbura (savanna zone, 830 masl, 900-1,000 mm); Mpalambo (900 masl, 900-1,000 mm); and Imbo (900 masl, 800-950 mm).The MET locations ranged from 830 masl (Bjumbura) to 2,150 masl (Kabale), with an annual rainfall from 798 mm (Bjumbura) to 1,750 mm (Kabale). The METs at Mvuazi in the Bas-Congo province and in Southern DRC close to the Zambia border at Kipopo were not planted. However, at both locations, observation trials for yam beans were planted (see Appendix 4). All seeds for these METs are provided by a seed multiplication under quarantine conditions at CIP-Kampala at Namulonge to ensure that all partners are working with the same material. For more detail on the accessions used in the METs, see the annual report for the current project (CIP 2011). With respect to yield estimates, it must be taken into account that at Namulonge and Serere two harvests per year were achieved with the yam bean (i.e., Naulonge 2011a and 2011b, 2012a and 2012b; Serere 2011a and 2011b, and 2012a and 2012b). For cassava, only one harvest per year can be achieved at these locations.Average yam bean fresh storage root yields of up to 23.6 t/ha (CIP-209019) across the Central African environments in the MET study were observed (Table 5). Most high-yielding accessions were P. erosus; but high yields across Central Africa for P. tuberosus and P. ahipa can also be found, with average yields up to 12.3 t/ha (CIP-209055) and 9.5 t/ha (CIP-209024), respectively. The study shows that the Amazonian yam bean can also be well adapted to Central Africa at relative high altitudes (i.e., CIP-209055, CIP-209060, and CIP-209058). This agrees with the findings of P. tuberosus up to 1,800 masl in Bolivia (Ørting et al. 1996).The highest average yam bean fresh storage root yields across season were observed at Bjumbura in Burundi with 57.9 t/ha (CIP-209019) (Table 5). Considering annual storage root yields across two growing season, similar yields were observed at Namulonge and Serere in Uganda. The results are consistent with yields in experimental trials reported by Zanklan et al. (2007), with 44.8 t/ha across 14 accessions of P. erosus and two environments in Benin. For P. tuberosus and P. ahipa, storage root yields up to 15.8 and 21.2 t/ha were observed at Namulonge and Rubona, respectively. The upper limit of yam bean cultivation in Central Africa appears to be around 2,100 masl (see yields at Kabale in Uganda, Table 6). At the elevated altitudes of Rubona in Rwanda and Mulungu in Eastern DRC we observed that more P. ahipa accessions were among the top 10 yielding accessions compared with Namulonge and Serere. A striking result is that P. ahipa is not surpassing P. erosus yields at higher altitudes. However, note that P. ahipa does not need much more than 120 days from sowing to harvest, whereas P. erosus needs around 150 days. Namulonge, Uganda † 1,150 masl EC CIP-209016 (28.9), EC CIP-209017 (27.9), EC CIP-209018 (26.5), EC CIP-209051 (26.1), EC CIP-209019 (23.4), EC CIP-209050 (19.2), EC CIP-209052 (17.3), EC CIP-209046 (17.1), AC CIP-209024 (15.8), and TC CIP-209055 (15.8).Serere, Uganda † 1,140 masl EC CIP-209017 (23.2), EC CIP-209052 (17.1), EC CIP-209051 (16.8), TC CIP-209055 (15.7), EC CIP-209016 (15.1), EC CIP-209050 (14.5), EC CIP-209018 (14.3), EC CIP-209019 (11.5), TC CIP-209060 (11.2), and TC CIP-209058 (9.3).Kabale/Kachwekano, Uganda 2,150 masl EC CIP-209016 (6.2), EC CIP-209017 (5.8), EC CIP-209046 (5.7), TC CIP-209055 (5.1), EC CIP-209018 (5.0), EC CIP-209050 (4.9), AC CIP-209036 (5.5), AC CIP-209035 (4.3), AC CIP-209030 (3.5), and AC CIP-209032 (3.5).Rubona, Rwanda 1,650 masl EC CIP-209019 (30.0), EC CIP-209018 (28.5), EC CIP-209052 (23.3), AC CIP-209029 (21.2), EC CIP-209050 (12.9), TC CIP-209055 (12.3), AC CIP-209032 (12.0), AC CIP-209023 (11.9), EC CIP-209016 (11.8), and AC CIP-209024 (11.3).Mulungo, DRC 1,700 masl EC CIP-209017 (31.1), EC CIP-209051 (21.4), EC CIP-209016 (21.3), AC CIP-209052 (19.5), AC CIP-209035 (17.7), EC CIP-209018 (17.6), AC CIP-209032 (17.4), EC CIP-209050 (17.3), EC CIP-209046 (14.8), and AC CIP-209022 (14.5).Bujumbura, Burundi 830 masl EC CIP-209019 (57.9), EC CIP-209018 (46.5), EC CIP-209017 (37.0), AC CIP-209051 (19.5), AC CIP-209023 (26.8), AC CIP-209036 (23.2), EC CIP-209052 (22.2), AC CIP-209032 (19.7), AC CIP-209031 (19.3), and AC CIP-209007 (15.4).(i.e., EC CIP-209017, EC CIP-209051, EC CIP-209052, EC CIP-209050, TC CIP-209055, and AC CIP-209029). Such accessions can be labeled as high yielding and widely adapted in Central Africa. However, among P. erosus there appears also a specific adaptation (i.e., EC CIP-209019 and EC CIP-209018 at Bjumbura and EC CIP-209016 at Serere). Among P. ahipa accessions there is a more pronounced adaptation to the elevated locations of Rubona and Mulungu (i.e., AC CIP-209029, AC CIP-209023, AC CIP-209032, AC CIP-209024, and AC CIP-209036). As mentioned before though, P. ahipa accessions are not surpassing P. erosus accessions at higher altitudes as long as days from sowing to harvest are taken into account. We expect that early harvest (120 days after sowing) leads to yields in P. ahipa compared with P. erosus at higher altitudes. A limitation of the MET in 2012-2013 is that only low DM yam beans were used, because high DM yam beans were not available in Africa before 2012 and were multiplied in 2013. However, in 2014 yields and DM content of some high DM yam bean accessions relative to high-yielding low DM yam beans were evaluated in observation trials by CIP-Kumasi in Ghana (Table 7). With respect to fresh storage root yields, high DM yam beans yield up to 45% (i.e., CIP-209041) of extreme high-yielding low DM FINAL TECHNICAL REPORT: THE YAM BEAN CENTRAL AND WEST AFRICA PROJECT accessions (i.e., CIP-209018 and CIP-209019). With respect to relative storage root DM yields, high DM accessions can surpass yields of low DM yam beans (i.e., CIP-209014, CIP-209015, CIP-209037, and CIP-209041 compared with the checks CIP-209018 and CIP-209019). High-yielding high DM yam beans exhibit starch content on fresh weight basis in the range of 21-30% (i.e., CIP-209013, CIP-209014, CIP-209015, CIP-209037, CIP-209040, and CIP-209041). Given the background of trace mineral deficiency in Africa, especially iron, it is worth noting that 100 g of fresh, high DM yam beans contain 0.83-1.74 mg of iron, which is twice as high as the average iron contents of sweetpotato as reported by Tumwegamire et al. (2011) in East Africa.   One MSc study and the first manuscripts of the PhD studies emphasized yield and adaptation across a larger range of yam bean accessions.Yam bean storage root products have been developed for Central Africa and include local products made from traditional root crops. The target was to demonstrate the development of at least two local food products from the yam bean.INERA reported the development of porridge, fufu, and fritters. The products fufu and porridge were developed based on two formulations: (1) up to 100 % with yam bean and (2) in combination with maize flour (50:50). The product fritters, made with wheat and yam bean flour (50:50), had the highest scores for appearance, taste, and consistency of consumer acceptance studies. The second highest score was for porridge made 100% from yam bean. The results and recipes are presented in Appendix 4; INERA has also printed a small manual about yam bean processing.RAB demonstrated the processing of yam bean storage roots to ugali, weaning food with mixed flour, and juice. Selected famers from on-farm trials participated in taste tests for each product. Remarkable is the scoring of yam bean juice. A consumer preference assessment of yam bean juice was conducted by 30 panelists, who scored the samples of juice based on sensory attributes given. Pineapple juice was used as a control. The results showed that most of the panelists preferred yam bean juice (from low DM yam beans) over pineapple juice. A yam bean juice protocol was developed where a clear and stable juice was created (see Appendix 3). It is worth noting that yam bean juice was also among the most favorable products developed reported from Benin. Juice and processing of different food products should go hand-in-hand with yam bean processing.ISABU reported the testing of chips, salad, and katogo preparation from yam bean (see Appendix 5).Selected famers from on-farm trials participated in taste tests of each product. Yam bean salad and katogo protocols were developed; more focus was put on katogo and salad. The development of storage root products in Central Africa was linked with a training component for one MSc student from Uganda. The student, Ms. Lydia Nakagiri, was among the best students and leading the group of \"yam bean students\" at Makerere University. Unfortunately, she was the only MSc student who did not complete her thesis-she simply \"disappeared\" and is no longer responding to emails. There are rumors that she is now living in Ghana. Some of the processing work with women's groups in Uganda can be seen in Appendix 11. Favorite products were ugali, made from composite flour 50% yam bean and 50% maize; pancakes from dough made from ripe dessert banana and yam bean flour; porridge made from composite flour 50% yam bean and 50% maize; and atap made from yam bean, cassava, sweetpotato, and sorghum. (Fortunately, there is a good draft of Ms. Nakagiri's thesis available and from which the recipes of the food products she developed with women's groups can be extracted.) We will meet with Silver Tuwegamire in July 2015 (since 2013 he has been working for the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture) to extract the recipes from Ms. Nakagiri's thesis draft and to merge these with the recipe manual for yam bean developed by INERA. We also note that the BSc thesis of James Muhangi (see abstract below) is of such good quality that we still want to revise it with an editor and print it with ISBN number.Cost Benefit Analysis of Processing Yam Bean into Flour used to make Atap/Ugali Food Product in Serere and Luwero DistrictsA benefit/cost analysis (BCA) was conducted to determine the viability of processing yam bean introduced by International Potato Centre (CIP) in Uganda. The analysis was found important to determine if the expenditure on production and processing is economically viable for the target communities in the Serere and Luwero districts. Both qualitative and quantitative data was collected using a pre-tested questionnaire. The data included costs and benefits (direct and indirect) met by farmers in undertaking the production and processing activities. The major study respondents were individual farmers who participate in growing and processing of yam bean. In addition, focus group discussions were employed to capture vital qualitative information regarding yam bean production and processing. Results of the benefit cost analysis show that yam bean processing and production are financially viable enterprises in the target area with regard to selling of flour and fresh yam bean roots. As expected, for every Ugandan shilling invested in production of yam bean, farmers obtain 1.32 and 1.37 shillings for both Luwero and Serere respectively. For every one Ugandan shilling invested in a bprocessing, a 1.41 and 1.56 Ugandan shilling is obtained for both Luwero and Serere respectively. These results imply that commercial production and processing of yam bean into flour used to make Atap and Ugali or porridge is viable and worthwhile to farmers. 90% of the farmers in Luwero district preferred consumption of processed yam bean because of various uses when processed, whereas 62.5% of the farmers in Serere preferred consumption of fresh yam bean because of the fresh taste involved with it and the low dry matter content.Based on the findings, the following conclusions were made: i) Processing of yam bean into flour is viable whether homegrown or purchased roots are used.ii) Yam bean has the potential of improving household incomes of rural people and can hence be instrumental in fighting rural poverty due to the viability of both production and processing. iii) Yam bean has the potential of improving the nutritional status of citizens in Uganda due to its nutrient content base.Finally, two yam bean demonstration processing units were constructed: one at Namulonge in Uganda and the second at Gisozi research station in Burundi. These processing units will also be used for sweetpotato and cassava processing. In West Africa, especially Nigeria and Benin, such units were and are still used successfully to market cassava, and today are found throughout rural areas. In contrast, they are rarely found in rural areas in Central Africa.This part of the project was very successful. Processing of yam bean storage root products in West Africa has been significantly improved. We even can state that the project might have led to a fundamental change in how the yam bean is considered to be used. In the past, yam bean was only considered as a fruit/root vegetable to be eaten raw. The project has developed a wide array of products based on yam bean that, so far, has driven the success of adoption of the crop in Benin.In 2000 the yam bean was introduced into Benin/West Africa for scientific purposes. This led to a paper that emphasized storage root and seed yields of the crop under West African growing conditions (Zanklan et al. 2007). However, the paper already reported demonstration of processing yam bean storage roots to gari. Gari is the most important root crop food product in West Africa and eaten by millions on a daily basis. In the project we demonstrated not only improved processing from yam bean to gari; we also developed and tested a multitude of products and most promising products were compiled into a marketing strategy, which was linked with dissemination efforts.In a first step it was reconfirmed that gari processed from yam beans can indeed be addressed as gari. This was done in cooperation with Department of Agrotechnology and Food Sciences of Wageningen University, The Netherlands. The work was integrated into the MSc study of Ms. Renee Wassens (Wassens 2011). However, only low DM yam beans were used in this study, because high DM yam beans were not available at that project stage, as mentioned above in the discussion on Peru's national rights on high DM P. tuberosus Chuin and its derivatives. The results were very positive, except that the conversion rate of the storage roots to gari of about 4.5% from low DM yam beans was very low. It was reconfirmed that yam bean storage roots can be processed to produce gari. However, gari prepared from yam bean with the traditional cassava procedures was at first much browner than cassava gari. But protein, calcium, iron, and zinc levels in yam bean gari were three to four times higher than those in cassava gari. Moreover, organoleptic quality of yam bean gari was judged as very good by 53%, good by 27%, and quite good by 20% of the consumers. Ms. In a second step, two strategies were applied: (1) INRAB in Benin was searching/testing for other products from yam bean storage roots that are economically more attractive, and (2) CIP-Peru was emphasizing the demonstration of the difference between conversion rates from low and high DM yam beans to gari.In Benin 14 low DM yam bean accessions were available in 2010, of which two high-yielding P. erosus accessions were multiplied on a large scale to provide seeds for on-farm activities and farmer participatory processing studies; two vitamin A-rich OFSP were also disseminated. On the basis of this material, INRAB has shown that yam beans can be processed into a very wide range of products (e.g., juice, soups and stew, gari, gari in mixtures, starch, chips, snacks, and even yogurt and alcohol). For gari processing aiming at a product in mixtures with traditional cassava gari, see Padonou et al. (2013). Most important was linking of juice processing and gari processing to get an economically viable processing chain. The juice can be used directly or pasteurized as a bottle refreshment; it was valued highly in a taste test at weddings. And the pulp can be easily processed within the flexible gari processing chain around cassava, which is well established in Benin and other West African countries. Alcohol distillation was also mentioned as an economically very attractive product from yam bean juice, because usually palm wine is used in Benin for alcohol production, which is very expensive. Our aim, however, was certainly not to support alcohol production in Benin.The product development was mainly driven by Wilfrid Padonou from INRAB. We are still compiling all recipes from Benin together into a processing manual (including those developed in Peru). The range of products processed and tested is only illustrated in Appendix 12, but here we report juice and gari processing for mixtures.The juice obtained in processing yam beans after grading and pressing is an important product with monetary value (Fig. 3). The process to obtain bottle refreshments for markets is as follows:Ingredients Amount Ingredients 250 g Sugar 10 ml Aroma 10 kg Yam bean Procedure  Peel, wash, and grate yam bean. Put the mash into a woven bag and press under a screw press to extract the effluent. Filter the effluent and retrieve the supernatant. Heat the supernatant until 80-90°C and remove the foam. Cool down and filter the liquid, fill, and cap tightly cleaned and sterilized bottles. Pasteurize by heating the filled bottles in water at 80°C for 20-30 min. The pulp of yam bean after grading and pressing can be processed into various products, one of which is called \"yam bean-fortified gari\" (Padonou et al. 2013) (Fig. 4).Raw yam bean storage roots 5 kg Raw cassava roots Procedure  Peel and wash separately yam bean roots and cassava roots. Mix the two kinds of roots. Rasp together the peeled roots. The processing at CIP-Peru mainly sought to:  Determine conversion rates of high DM yam beans to gari, because this yam bean type could not be made available for the project in Africa until 2012. Washing  Process under controlled conditions to determine true plant-iron concentration in fresh yam beans, yam bean products, and bioavailability studies of plant-iron in yam beans and yam bean products, in cooperation with Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Furthermore, a product was developed, Mazamorra, which is typical for Latin America, including the Amazonian zone of Peru. The yam bean Mazamorra also uses OFSP to get an iron and pro-vitamin Aenriched product. It can be considered as a ready-to-eat breakfast to be prepared in 5 min.Two high DM yam bean, accessions CIP-209013 (TC354) and CIP-209020 (TC362), and two low DM accessions, CIP-209016 (EC041) and CIP-209018 (EC533), were used for conversion rate studies. The materials were grown at two locations-that is, San Ramon and Oxapampa (both in Peru and the humid tropics) in two plot replications.Harvest index of roots after peeling was around 89% and 75% in low and high DM yam beans, respectively. With respect to the three products (i.e., juice, sieved and dry gari and remaining fiber), the harvest index from peeled storage roots was around 50%, 4.5%, and 0.1% in low DM yam bean and about 25%, 19%, and 0.4% in high DM bean, respectively. The results show that conversion rates to gari are about four to five times higher in high DM yam beans than in low DM yam beans. Moreover, in both processing cases juice was obtained in significant amounts to justify further use and/or processing and treatment of this part of the harvest. Differences in peeling and remains between low and high DM yam beans are due to shape and damage of storage roots. The low DM yam beans in this study have very high yields, have a pronounced round shape, and are easy to peel.The nutrient contents of two yam accessions (one low DM and one high DM) and yam bean products are given in Table 9. Processing yam beans to gari results in (1) the product yam bean gari, which has high protein (5.6-8.2%) and high iron content (2-2.8 mg/100g), and (2) additionally in the product juice, which has high protein (0.65-4.65g/100 ml) and iron content (0.3-1.6 mg/100 ml). Consuming yam beans raw, as juice, and/or as processed products such as gari can improve the nutrient status of vulnerable populations, especially in the case of pronounced iron deficiency in the population (the iron bio-availability in yam beans and the yam bean product gari is very good; see section 5.2.3). Eating raw yam beans and drinking yam bean juice might contribute significantly to iron intake in food supply. The yam bean gari certainly contains 3.9-5.6 mg of iron in 200 g (Table 9)-an iron-dense plant food product that easily can be  -209013), which are due to clear differences in iron content among low and high DM yam beans. We still do not know why low and high DM yam beans are different with respect to iron content in storage roots. However, with respect to yam bean gari developed from low and high DM yam beans, the differences in iron content are less pronounced and show a cross-over in ranking. As a result, the iron content of yam bean gari from low DM yam beans is higher than that of yam bean gari from high DM yam beans (Table 9). (NB: All our samples were checked for non-plant iron contamination by determination of aluminum concentrations in samples.) We assume that our protein, iron, and zinc results for gari will be principally similar for some other yam bean products, such as yam bean porridge. Moreover, we note that, according to the Food and Nutrition Board ( 2001), the recommended daily allowance of iron is 11 mg for infants (6-12 months), 7 mg for children (1-3 years), 27 mg for pregnant women, and 18 mg for non-pregnant women. To get more than 10 mg iron into the food supply on a daily basis is extremely difficult without using animal food products. And usually the iron bio-availability in plant food products is relatively low compared with iron bio-availability in animal food products.In collaboration with Cornell University, we obtained iron bio-availability estimates for the yam bean measured by in-vitro digestion/Caco-2 cell culture. For accession CIP-209018, Cornell estimated iron content of 12.2 μg/g (1.22 mg/100 g dwb) and corresponding Caco-2 ferritin/mg protein was 11.9. For CIP-209013, an iron content of 23.6 μg/g (2.36 mg/100 g dwb) was estimated; the corresponding Caco-2 ferritin/mg protein was 16.7. Also for the product yam bean gari, Caco-2 ferritin/mg protein was very high. These results for yam beans are much better (often by a factor of 10 or more) compared with ratios for iron content and ferritin values in different types of common beans (Ariza 2007). The reason for this might be the low phytate and high vitamin C concentrations in raw yam bean. Vitamin C reduces tremendously after processing, so that bio-availability of iron in processed yam bean products reduces but still remains high because of low phytate concentrations. We think yam beans have the potential to help alleviate iron deficiency in children and women, especially in populations where there is very low consumption of animal products. Certainly it merits further investigation to quantify potential and contributions to alleviate iron deficiency in human food supply by increasing yam bean consumption (fresh as well processed). Anecdotally, we report here rural knowledge from Sumatra/Indonesia (an area with traditionally very high production of yam beans), which says that pregnant women should consume yam bean for well-being (personal communication, Abidin Putri Ernawati, 2013). Independently, consumers in Benin and Uganda said that consuming yam bean makes them more active. We have speculated that these effects could be related to more iron and very good iron bio-availability through yam bean in food of populations where prevalence of anemia is high.  vitamin K,boron,chromium,copper,iodine,iron,manganese,molybdenum,nickel,silicon,vanadium,and zinc. Washington,DC: National Academy Press, MAZAMORRA MADE WITH SWEETPOTATO GARI AND YAM BEAN GARI (30:70) Mazamorra (from Spanish, \"Moor's dough\") is a traditional Latin American food that originally was a maize porridge. In Peru, mazamorra is traditionally made with a local type of maize, maiz morado, rich in anthocyanin that gives the porridge a deep purple color. The Peruvian mazamorra is often served to guests and in restaurants by cooking the maize with pineapple, cinnamon, and sweetpotato flour. Our idea was to make a micronutrient-enhanced mazamorra, which was derived from comments of teachers in the \"Instituto de Educación Superior Tecnológico Publico \"Ashaninka\" (IESTP\"A\") at Puerto Ocopa, Peru, where most Amazonian children have only a glass of \"masato de yucca\" (a drink made from cassava) as food before school. As an alternative we wanted to create a traditional and ready-to-eat breakfast based on pro-vitamin A-rich sweetpotato and iron-rich yam bean. For sweetpotato we used in the mazamorra preparation-the OFSP variety 'Sumy', which was recently launched as a new variety in the area of the Amazonian Peru (areas around the rivers Ucayali, Tambo, and Ene). For yam bean in the mazamorra we used the accessions CIP-209018 and CIP-209013. Figure 5 illustrates the preparation of yam bean x sweetpotato mazamorra. Our mazamorra can be prepared in the morning within minutes, and is a mixture of 30% sweetpotato sieving (similar to gari) and 70% yam bean sieving (similar to gari). It became obvious that through food processing and a simple formula, the micronutrient density in traditional food products can be enhanced (Table 10). The yam bean x sweetpotato mazamorra contains in 200 g (mixture of 30% sweetpotato and 70% yam bean) 5.7-7.3% protein, 0.9 mg of pro-vitamin A, 1.9-2.8 mg of iron, and 0.8-2.0 mg of zinc, depending on the yam bean type used.  We have not tested the use of yam beans as animal feed, except for the feeding of giant African snails (considered a delicacy and sold in gourmet restaurants in Benin). A contact for these studies is Charles Pomalegni (animal production scientist at INRAB/Benin). These snails are relatively easy to raise and feed at a very small pace, and are considered a source of protein as well as on-farm income.See also: Adapting Ahipa in Africa: http://cipotato.org/wp-content/uploads/Cipnewsletter/CIP-Newsletter-March-2012.pdfFrom Uganda we have heard that yam bean is tested as pig feed, and from Thailand that it is used to feed elephants. However, peelings and remains of processed yam beans are generally given to animals such as chickens and goats.The marketing strategy had two goals. One was to convince farmers and consumers that the yam bean is a desired product. The second goal was to establish the yam bean on farm and on markets in Benin in order to (1) generate more income among famers and food processors; (2) achieve greater food security; (3) increase the nutrient density in food supply; and (4) manage farm resources and farming systems more sustainably, with respect to the soil nutrient cycle and water consumption.The strategy for objective 5 in this project was to enable the yam bean (and the benefits discussed above) to penetrate Benin's existing, cassava-dominated root and tuber (R&T) market.In the first year of the project, we carried out a baseline study to evaluate the present situation in Benin for (1) farming systems, (2) processing and food systems, and (3) marketing systems that are based on R&T crops. The results for production, consumption, and marketing systems of the baseline study were:  Production systems. The main systems were characterized for seven sites by (1)  dishes.  Ease of cooking. Adoption is facilitated if the product can be readily consumed without any major preparation/cooking (such as gari) so that even children can prepare it when parents are not at home.  Health implications. Adoption is facilitated if the product does not have any ill and/or health implications.We concluded that consumers will be motivated to adopt a new product if (1) the price is lower and/or it tastes better than existing products; (2) the texture can be the same as or better than the existing one;(3) the new product is of better quality than the existing one; (4) the on-farm trial outcome is the same as the one given by researchers; and ( 5) the crop has a long shelf life and the taste does not change during storage.FINAL TECHNICAL REPORT: THE YAM BEAN CENTRAL AND WEST AFRICA PROJECTTo facilitate the diffusion of the new product yam bean, the project deployed three communication strategies: (1) word-of-mouth, (2) megaphone by town crier, and ( 3) multimedia (radio/TV) campaigns in urban areas.During the first two project years, it turned out that of these strategies for a completely new product in rural areas of an entire sub-region, word-of-mouth might likely be the most effective to start in focus villages, compared with a town crier or multimedia (radio/TV). However, these latter two strategies can become more effective when they have been shown to be successful in focus villages. Moreover, this information can be used later in communication by town crier and multimedia campaigns, an approach that makes them more reliable and effective.For these reasons, Wilfrid Padonou created a road show on how to use-especially how to process-the yam bean in locally known and/or desired products. It appears that whenever yam bean was introduced during the second and (especially) the third and fourth years of the project by someone using a word-ofmouth strategy, other processors learn how to prepare it mainly as a group. When there appears to be an advantage of the crop, people test it and, when the advantage is shown, they soon recommend the product to others.Direct marketing of yam bean storage roots was not of interest as a marketing strategy until the end of the project, because buyers/traders do not know the crop and are searching for crops that they can sell and trade without too much risk. We learned that the word-of-mouth strategy should be the focus in village groups. It should demonstrate directly how to plant the yam bean and how to use and process the yam bean storage root into locally known food production and/or food products that are in demand, such as juice. (For details, see chapter 5 and objective 4 of the project.) For example, yam bean juice was quickly in high demand for weddings in rural areas because it is tasty, easy to obtain/produce in rural areas, and relatively cheap.The health benefits of the crop (i.e., its high iron content and high bio-availability) appeared not to be a key factor in the first steps of marketing the yam bean in rural areas; however, these nutritional facts are welcomed. Most likely this is because micronutrient deficiency and anemia-in other words, \"hidden hunger\" -are to a certain extent abstract. After testing the crop and consuming yam beans more regularly, such information becomes more important because it is promoted as \"the crops make you stronger.\" Anecdotally, we can report that the notion that \"the crop makes sexually more active\" spread among men. Direct marketing of yam bean storage roots during the project was only of interest in a few cases, such as close to supermarkets in the main city of Benin Cotonou. Very high prices were realized, comparable to those in the supermarkets of Mexico and the United States. This could change, however, with sustainable establishment of the crop in Benin and when buyers and traders would most likely start to search for the crop in rural areas.In addition to word-of-mouth, megaphone by town crier, and multimedia campaigns, the project relied on agriculture fairs and/or field days as a communication and promotion strategy. (But from our experience, these venues do not reach many famers or rural community groups with the results of testing a new product or crop.) Such fairs, however, appeared to be important to inform and lobby among farmers with large landholdings (although they do not farm by themselves) as well as policymakers about the new crop yam bean. These fairs are considered in section 9, \"Promote awareness, communication, training, and capacity building,\" or objective 8 of the project. The surveys in 2013-14 revealed the following information: The average sales price of fresh yam bean storage roots (without processing) was relatively low, with 20 Fcfa/kg (about 3.4 cents and about US $338 for a 10-t harvest 1 ). However, the processed storage root to flour and/or gari had average sales prices of 1,630 Fcfa/kg (about $2.73/kg). In contrast, the average sales price of raw OFSP storage roots was 105 Fcfa/kg (processed OFSP sells on average for 160 Fcfa 160/kg). The main advantages of cultivating the new crop, as reported by farmers, were high storage root yields in combination with high grain yields, which facilitates rapid propagation and dissemination (the yam bean is propagated by true seed), as well as various options for small-scale storage root processing (e.g., gari, juice, yogurt, alcohol, snacks, and flour). The main constraints related to the cultivation of yam bean are its laborious cropping operations, tedious tilling, and limited knowledge of planting techniques.Until the end of 2014, there was information from CIP-Ghana that the yam bean is already used by at least 1,000 farmers in Benin. INRAB-Benin concluded in their report (Appendix 6) that yam bean can become an integral part of farming systems in Benin.The NGO BØRNEfonden-Benin has been working with the project for about two years (2012-2014) and the yam bean in their intervention areas in Benin (in Bonou, Adjohoun, Dangbo, and Zakpota; southern part of Benin, northeast of Cotonou, and northwest of Porto Novo-about 100 km from Lagos, Nigeria).In total 71 farmers have reported their harvests. The storage roots yields of the crop were remarkably high: 25.0, 16.7, 15.8, and 14.6 t/ha across farms in the area of Bonou, Adjohoun, Dangbo, and Zakpota, respectively. Awareness campaigns were undertaken by BØRNEfonden-Benin in conjunction with INRAB-Benin to promote processed food products from yam beans via road shows (see Appendix 7). The major advantage of the new root crop-apart from yield, processing options, and nutritional quality-is certainly the relative ease of supply of seed to farmers that made success on-farm possible. That is, during the project period, BØRNEfonden-Benin could supply only 8 farmers with OFSP planting material compared with 80 farmers who were supplied with yam bean seed for 500m 2 per farm.For the area of yam bean dissemination covered by BØRNEfonden-Benin, detailed questionnaire records are available, which as of the writing of this report have not been analyzed. In 2015 BØRNEfonden-Benin continued to work with the yam bean based on its own funds. The NGO stated that it believed that the yam bean would need only two years of moderate investments (about $10,000-20,000/year) to \"really take off\" in the southeastern part of Benin, close to the border with Nigeria. For this reason, we suggest this particular area of Benin as a medium-to long-term post-project study area of yam bean adoption in Benin.Furthermore, we want to report that the yam bean entered Nigeria via Benin through the support of National Root Crops Research Institute of Nigeria. However, we have no information about the size of on-farm yam bean cultivation in Nigeria. There is some additional yam bean cultivation around Kumasi, Ghana, and in North Ghana, both of which trace back to introductions from CIP-Ghana. Yet nor can we give information about the size of on-farm yam bean cultivation in Ghana.The project wanted to develop a set of at least two genotypes to demonstrate that yam bean seeds can be used for human consumption and to have a group of parents to open a pre-breeding population for this target. This target was not met, although one genotype was found that appears to have no acute seed toxicity-namely, CIP-209054 (P. tuberosus). And the crop continues to be an untapped source for seed consumption. It can be discussed whether the reason for this failure is lack of commitment to screen among the thousands of mutation lines generated in the project. CIP-209054 was found in the yam bean germplasm by screening about 100 accessions; we therefore hypothesize that our inducted mutation lines are full of yam bean mutants with no actuate seed toxicity.The background is that flowered, unpruned yam beans (as a production technique, flower pruning is usually done to increase storage root yields in yam beans, which results in no seed yields) have very high seed yields of 5.2 t/ha (based on estimates across 14 P. erosus accessions across two locations in Benin; Zanklan et al. 2007). In case no pruning is done, seed yields are not much reduced by drought stress (5.7 t/ha with no drought and up to 4.7 t/ha with drought stress). This is an exception among legume grain crops and is an attribute that might be due to the reserves of the yam bean storage roots. Grüneberg et al. (1999) have shown that yam bean seed protein and oil contents are similar to those of soybean. We have calculated that 1 kg of P. erosus seed requires about 850 L of water and that 0.56 kg of dry storage root yield is produced. This compares quite favorably with soybean, which requires 2,000 L of water for 1 kg of seed production (Pimentel et al. 2004). We think that the yam bean would have already been a much more important crop if its seed were not toxic.The major challenge with respect to this objective of the project became obvious in 2012. That is, the toxicity in yam bean seeds is not only due to rotenone and pachyrrhizine as commonly referred to in the literature. Indeed, all references that rotenone causes yam been seed toxicity can be traced back to Santos et al. (1996).In the first steps of the project at UCL, precise and fast screening methods for rotenone and pachyrrhizine were developed and the acute and chronic toxicity levels in yam bean seed for safe consumption were determined (for details, see Appendix 8). The range of rotenone in yam bean seeds is usually 1-3 mg/g, which corresponds to 1,000-3,000 ppm, or 0.1-0.3%. This is only one-third of the magnitude reported by Santos et al. (1996) based on fewer accessions and less-precise methods. With respect to rotenone, an intake by humans of more than 0.015 mg/kg/day-this corresponds to a rotenone intake of more than 0.75 mg of rotenone/day in adults-can provoke acute toxicity. Chronic toxicity effects may occur if the rotenone intake is higher than 0.0004 mg/ kg/day (this corresponds to a rotenone intake of more than 0.02 mg/day for adults). The working group at UCL began to doubt whether a fatal case of yam bean and rotenone toxicity (Narongchai 2005) is correct, based on intakes reported. In an animal study, standard feed was provided to Wistar female rats in group 1. It contained twice the rotenone concentration as did yam bean seed; in group 2 the rats were fed with yam bean seed flour. Wistar female rats consuming feed with twice the rotenone concentration as in yam bean survived, whereas those consuming yam bean seed flour died. There are many plant compounds that can result in such toxicity in legumes, including rare amino acids. In 2013-2014 of the project, activities at UCL were nearly completely devoted to finding out what makes the yam bean seed toxic.The toxicity of yam bean seed is mainly located in its lipidic fraction. In-vivo tests of yam bean seed clearly showed that their toxicity is not only due to rotenone and pachyrrhizine, but also at least to one or more additional lipophilic compound(s). Fractionations followed by in-vivo toxicity tests allowed UCL to identify these potential compounds as (1) 12-hydroxypachyrrhizone, (2) munduserone, (3) 12hydroxydolineone, and ( 4) dehydroneotenone. The toxic activity of 12-hydroxypachyrrhizone and 12hydroxydolineone on inhibition of in-vitro respiration has been compared with the activity of rotenone by Nath et al (1980). It was observed that at weak concentrations (0,5.10 -7 M), these compounds (12hydroxypachyrrhizone and 12-hydroxydolineone) were less toxic than rotenone (12-hydroxypachyrrhizone being more toxic than 12-hydroxydolineone), whereas at higher concentration (1.10 -6 M), the compounds are more toxic active on NADH-oxydoreductase than rotenone. It has been reported that the rotenoid metabolism is essentially oxidative and hydroxyled rotenoids are detoxified more slowly. Munduserone has been reported to be less toxic active than rotenone (Crombie et al. 1992). No information was found on dehydroneotenone's toxicity. From literature data it seems that the six toxic compounds are also biosynthetically linked (Fig. 6). It is hypothesized that there are close genetic correlations among these compounds in yam beans; however, so far it has been shown that rotenone and pachyrrhizine concentrations in yam bean seed are correlated (Lautié et al. 2013). UCL observed that the accession P. tuberosus (CIP-209054) has very low rotenone content and did not contain any 12-hydroxypachyrrhizone. The accession was not toxic when it was tested in vivo on Wistar rats at the dose where other samples were toxic. No toxicity was either detected for the same accession dried 7 h at 100°C. One further interesting accession is CIP-209038 (P. ahipa), which was found to have a quantity of rotenone lower than the lower limit of quantification; but the accession was not tested in Other procedures to reduce toxicity in yam bean seed and young pods. As mentioned above, the toxicity of yam bean seed is mainly located in its lipidic fraction, so the protein content of the seed could still be valorized after the extraction of the toxic fraction. For example, UCL was able to extract more than 70% of rotenone from yam bean seed flour with a local alcohol. UCL also tested different thermic/cooking processes to lower rotenone content, as this compound is sensitive to temperature. Drying and roasting of whole seeds seem to be the more effective processes, allowing a degradation of up to 70% of the initial content of rotenone. Moreover, it was observed that the toxicity (in vitro and in vivo) decreased with rotenone content. Young yam bean pods are reported to be eaten occasionally in Asia. For pods and leaves, rotenone contents lower than in seeds were observed. Leaves contain between 0.3mg/g and up to 1.6 mg/g rotenone, whereas young pods contain levels so low that they were often under the limit of detection, although levels of up to 0.8 mg/g rotenone were also observed. Rotenone content increased with the maturity level of the pods. Surprisingly, sun drying did not lower the rotenone content in the leaves.The studies resulted in several publication: At CIP-Lima, NIRS calibration was developed to determine rotenone and pachyrrhizine in fast throughput screening. Based on the samples analyzed by the reference laboratory method (see work at UCL), the calibration of the NIRS equipment was initiated at CIP-Lima. So far, NIRS achieved in a first batch (N = 60) the results of a significant correlation between reference laboratory values and NIRS of r = 0.61, which appears to be low. The reason for this low correlation might be that 60 samples are still very low for good NIRS calibrations. Usually NIRS calibration developments start with 100-120 samples. Another reason for the low correlation can be that the range of rotenone content in yam bean seed (1,(0)(1)(2)(3)000 ppm to be considered generally as large) is not large enough to discriminate well by NIRS among genotypes with high, medium, and low rotenone contents. However, we think that NIRS wavelengths respond well to rotenone, and samples with very low contents should be detectable as outliers with our currently available calibrations.Moreover, CIP-Peru determined the optimal mutagenic treatment of yam bean to induce mutations with no or low toxic compounds. Three mutagenic compounds were tested: N-nitrozo-n-methylourea (MNUA), sodium azide (SA), and ethyl methanesulphonate (EMS). In total 2,400 seeds were treated (six accessions, nine treatments, and one control). All compounds are useful to develop fertile M1 plants with high frequencies of mutations. The optimal concentrations are 0.5% EMS, 2mM MNUA, and 4mM SA. M1 plants have been evaluated to find an optimal mutagenic treatment. Seeds from M1 plants were harvested. These M2 seeds from M1 plants were developed into M2 plants and M2 lines in M3. In total, there are now about 5,000 M2 lines in M3 available at CIP to be screened for the six toxic compounds and additionally 20,000 M2 seeds. Certainly, a part of this material could have been screened by NIRS with the rotenone and pachyrrhizine calibrations available-especially the M2 lines in M3-since an assistant was allocated to this work for four years, but not during the phasing-out component of the project. The material would have been screened if the phasing-out component would have been two years and not one, and the funding for this component would have been €750,000 as originally expected. Evidence of livelihood impacts associated with increasing yam bean production in Central and West Africa was made available. However, impact assessments remain incomplete.  Owing to propagation as true seed, the yam bean creates considerably lower costs in maintaining germplasm and disseminating germplasm to national agricultural research systems and among farmer groups compared with traditional R&T crops. This attribute was well noticed in this project during the dissemination efforts of INRAB and BØRNE-fonden-Benin, and could be compared to OFSP, which was disseminated simultaneously.  True seed propagation makes the yam bean crop easy to handle by farmers from one to the next growing season. Planting can be made timely (using growing/rainy seasons properly) without delays as they often occur with sweetpotato, cassava, or potato cultivation. Owing to true seed propagation, virus-related yield declines are expected to be much lower in yam beans than with sweetpotato, cassava, and potato.  Yam bean gets 150-200 kg of nitrogen into the farming system. The crop has the capacity to improve the phosphor nutrient cycle in the farming system due to an intensive mycorrhiza association; this must be seen against the background that fertilizers in Africa are 85% more expensive than in Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand. And the world's supply of phosphate fertilizer is expected to become soon-within the next decades-much more limited.We can report that we never observed in our trials (on-station and on-farm) problems that could have been related to nutrient deficiency.  Yield estimates on-farm are 20-25 t per growing season for low DM yam beans (i.e., CIP-209017 and CIP-209018 estimated on large scale); for high DM yam beans (i.e., CIP-209013 and CIP-209041) yield estimates are supposed to be 8-12 t per growing season. Certainly for high DM yam beans, there is still more room for genetic improvement compared with low DM yam beans, because the latter have been bred by farmers for many centuries. Yield estimates for yam beans have to consider that they can be grown in many locations twice per year. This is a clear yield advantage compared with cassava, which can only be grown once per year.  Yam bean harvest is easy to store for a long time (easily for 3-4 months) and has a much longer shelf-life than cassava and sweetpotato. This makes yam bean flexible in processing chain into which it can enter when there is no fresh cassava available, which usually needs to be directly processed and cannot be stored.  Cost/benefit ratios for yam bean cultivation are currently estimated as 1:1.4 in Uganda with high-yielding, widely adapted low DM yam beans (i.e., CIP-209017 and CIP-209018). This requires processing to food products such as gari, atap, or other traditional products. So far, the exploitation of juice as an additional product in food processing, which is valued as good or even better as pineapple, is not considered. Cost/benefit ratios are estimated similar to cassava in Benin, but these estimates currently are based on the difficulty of finding buyers for yam bean harvests. The estimates might change in favor of the yam bean when the crop and processing knowledge become more widely known among buyers and traders. Note that farmers consider it a weakness of the yam bean that \"pruning\" cultivation is laborious. On the other hand, farmers consider it as a strength that two harvests per year are possible, that harvests are easy to store, and that yam bean has more options (fresh consumption and various processing options) than cassava production. This is particularly true with the processing of juice from yam bean, which has to be valued and considered in cost/benefit estimates.  With high-yielding medium to high DM yam beans, different scenarios of cost/benefit ratios must be taken into account where processing is emphasized (i.e., on juice or on gari). For example, conversion rates to gari from high DM types (i.e., CIP 209013 and CIP 209041) are 14-22%, but this results in less juice production.  The market strategy developed in Benin shows that processing is needed for the yam bean at the current stage in Africa to enter on the market; there are still no markets and buyers for the fresh yam bean storage roots. In the future this could change if the crop is better established and more widely known among traders.  Processing root crops in West Africa is mainly women's work. Women might have more opportunities to enter into market niches with the yam bean, because the crop has more options in processing than cassava and yam bean products such as gari have clearly higher nutrient density than cassava. Yam bean is a crop that can be made easily available in rural areas. It can be eaten raw in larger quantities than any other root crop, and can be processed in very different traditional food products. These attributes, together with extreme good bio-availability of iron in yam beans, can be used to reduce iron deficiency in people exposed to prevalence of high anemia. (NB: Prevalence of anemia in Africa is estimated to be 68% among pre-school age children, 57% among pregnant women, and 48% among non-pregnant women.) The positive dietary iron attributes of the yam bean include:-200 g of fresh yam bean is estimated to provide 0.7-2 mg of iron, depending on the yam bean type (low or high DM types) -0.333 ml of yam bean juice is estimated to contain 0.9-3.5 mg of iron, depending on the yam bean type used in processing -200 g of gari-and most likely other processed food products such as yam bean porridge-is estimated to contain 4.0-5.5 mg of iron, depending on the yam bean type used in processing.  Certainly this iron nutritional aspect of yam bean merits further investigation, and must be considered in impact assessment estimates. So far, this attribute of the crop, combined with the good iron bio-availability, is not well known.With respect to potential genetic improvement in the medium and long term, the crop is easy to breed (abundant flowering and easy pollination). This potential of the yam bean can be summarized as follow: (1) high-yielding, widely adapted low DM types can directly enter into variety release; (2) high-yielding, widely adapted high DM types are available, but much better genotypes are possible if investments were made in a small-scale breeding program (which can be made quite cheap through farmer participation but must last at least three years); and (3) in the long term, the crop offers a huge potential through its high seed yields, which could be made available for human consumption if a \"genetic block\" can be generated to avoid the production of the toxic compounds in yam bean seed. (For details see previous chapter and objective 6.) Yam bean seed yields are surpassing soybean yields in the tropics and subtropics, and yam beans appear to need much less water than soybeans. This suggests that the yam bean would already be a major food crop if seeds were not toxic.CIP and INRAB collaborated for social science research on constraints and opportunities in gari markets. This was done to understand the market potential that gari made partly or wholly from ahipa would face (Adegbola et al. 2013;Hibon et al. 2011)  Although the \"Permiso para distribuir Ahipa: permiso para distribución de 11 accesiones y híbridos de P. tubersosus,\" successfully made high DM yam beans available for R&D, it delayed studies with the high DM yam bean in Africa. These delays could not be fully compensated for until the end of the project. This was especially true for the processing and market studies in Benin with high DM yam beans, and the PhD studies on high DM x low DM breeding populations in Uganda and Rwanda.Two staff departures affected the project: Kerstin Hell (Benin) in 2012, and Silver Tumwegamire (Uganda) to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture at the beginning of 2013. Mr.Tumwegamire was an excellent assistant for the project and highly interested in the crop, which could not be compensated for later in 2013-14. Moreover, we want to note that work with a neglected crop has a trade-off, which can be seen in staff commitment. The result is that as soon as work and/or opportunities with major crops arise, the priority is given in the direction of the major crop. This is a general perspective and does not hold true in individual cases (e.g., the work of Wilfrid Padonou at INRAB in Benin with respect to processing and his very innovative road shows in farmer communities about how to use and process the crop, as well as the work of Nestor Alokpaï at BØRNEfonden-Benin in selected farmer communities 50 km north of Porto-Novo; the farmer groups are recommended for further ex-post project reviews). Project actors at BØRNEfonden-Benin believe that with quite moderate funding for two more years, yam bean would have really taken off in southwest Benin. Even so, the NGO continued to work with the crop out of their own funds.The phasing-out component of the project, which lasted only one year, was quite short for such a complex project involving so many partners. The project \"Re-collection, evaluation, and conservation of genetic resources of Pachyrhizus spp. (P. tuberosus and P. ahipa) in Peru\" was carried out in Anexo Campo Verde in EEA Pucallpa. The objectives of this subcomponent of the larger yam bean project were to broaden the genetic base of Pachyrhizus spp. conserved in genebanks, and to create a database for the crop (passport data, plant attributes, traditional management, environmental favorable characteristics, etc.), with collected material in the lowland central forest of Peru.Three collecting missions were conducted: (1)  The neotropical genus Pachyrhizus DC. (yam beans) is a legume with edible storage roots. The Pachyrhizus species could be used as a new non-traditional source of flour and starch. The crop is native to South and Central America and the main cultivated species are P. tuberosus, the yam bean of the Amazon region and grown in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Brazil; P. erosus, the Mexican jacatupe or jícama and cultivated in Central America and the Caribbean; and P. ahipa, the Andean jícama or ahipa and found in the Bolivian Andes and northern parts of Argentina (Forsyth et al. 2002).P. ahipa was cultivated by the Inca civilization, but its consumption and production decreased significantly with the collapse of indigenous cultures after the conquest of America. The indiscriminate use of natural resources and traditional practices contributed to a degradation of natural ecosystems as well as extinction and genetic erosion of species especially used as staple foods (e.g., native roots and tubers). In the case of ahipa (P. tuberosus and P. ahipa), there is an alarming decline in cultivation, which can result in extinction. These issues deserve the management, conservation, and sustainable use of valuable unknown crops, with the aim to rescuing germplasm by collecting genetic material across Peru. Efforts should also include botanical and agronomical characterization, and the documentation of this work in order to identify their agricultural and agro-industrial potential.The main characteristics of the yam bean are the (1) accumulation of starch in the storage root, which is of industrial interest, and ( 2) presence of rotenone in seeds and leaves. The root is consumed raw as a fruit or cooked; the skin is very easily lifted from the inner fleshy portion, which is mostly white (Milanez and Dallaqua-Moraes 2003). The commonly accepted definition for functional foods refers to food or ingredients that provide a physiological benefit in addition to their contribution to basic nutrition concerns (Day et al. 2009). The roots and flour from yam bean may be considered as alternative foods because of its high starch content and its incorporation as an ingredient for gluten-free foods. Most valuable for processing is Pachyrhizus germplasm, with high dry matter (DM) in storage root-so far, only known in the Amazonian area of Peru. (NB: most often Pachyrhizus germplasm has low DM in storage root, so that the roots are consumed raw as fruit, root, and/or salads.) Although this high DM germplasm was found in the early 1990s, it is unavailable in the germplasm collections of national or international genebanks.Collection sites: The sites where the genetic material from Pachyrhizus spp. was collected were selected based on field reports of the Facultad de Agronomia, Universidad Nacional de la Amazonia Peruana, Peru, and an analysis of the crop distribution sites through the use of geographic information system (GIS). Three locations were selected: Ucayali River Basin (upper Ucayali), central forest (Route San Ramón -Oxapampa, Ciudad Constitución), and the Tambo River area.Location and ecological characteristics of the evaluation sites: The P. spp. accessions were collected in Anexo Campo Verde, EEA Pucallapa, located at Km 44 of the highway Federico Basadre, district of Campo Verde. This agro-ecological zone is very humid lowland forests at an altitude of 205 masl; south latitude 08° 31' 57.5\", west longitude 74° 53' 19.7\" (tropical climate with an average annual temperature of 25°C; annual rainfall of 1,560-1,777 mm, and relative humidity of 83%). Soil: The soil used in the EEA Pucallpa belongs to the height physiographic unit of the Ultisoles series, strongly acidic (pH 5.40 and 71% aluminum saturation), with sandy clay loam texture and with good drainage.Genetic material: Twenty-nine accessions were collected during the three collection trips. The root samples of the collected P. tuberosus accessions came from the EEA Pucallpa INIA and the International Potato Center (CIP). The roots were received at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Genomics (INIA) and processed immediately. We proceeded to wash the roots with water to remove any solid residue after which they were dried at room temperature. For each of the analyzed components, a recommended method was used. For humidity, the AOAC (1990); for DM, the AOAC (1990) method; for reducing sugars, the spectrophotometric method (Wood and Col. 2013 For starch, the gravimetric method was used, whereby fresh selected roots were peeled and cut into slices to a certain size. To determine starch by this method, 10-80 g of roots were triturated with water in a blender and the pulp obtained was sifted according sieves ASTM 200, 270, and 325 in order to remove fiber. Subsequently, after decanting the starch, it is recovered and dehydrated in a forced air oven to constant weight, and the results were expressed as a fraction over the initial amount of root used.The number of accessions collected are listed in Tables 1 and 2. The accessions analyzed in the laboratory are provided Table 3.  The accessions, 27 Pachyrhizus spp., storage roots were obtained from the EEA Pucallpa INIA and CIP. The roots were received at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Genomics (INIA). For sample we analyzed for moisture content, DM, reducing sugars, fiber, vitamin C, protein, iron, and starch (methods used see above).We first present data of morphological characterization and yield evaluation of 19 accessions planted in 2013. The evaluated accessions are of a distinct growth type, with predominantly dark green stems (74%), dark green trifoliate pubescent leaves, central lobulated (58%) and oval lanceolate (42%), and the inflorescence is a raceme with simple white flowers (95%). The fruits have long pod shapes, smooth exocarp cream to dark-brown color at harvest time, and the grains are predominantly black (53%). The roots have irregular, elongated predominant shape (26%), white colored pulp (32%), and speckled (26%).Root yield was evaluated with harvested samples 8 months after planting. Accession BEH05A had the highest storage root yield, 3.6 t/ha. This accession has mottled grains (cream with red) and yellow flesh. Moisture contents were between 73.1% and 92.7% for accessions BEH05B-1 and CNA005, respectively (see Annex B, Table 5). The average values of DM were between 7.3% and 26.9%, belonging to accessions CNA005 and BEH05B, respectively (see Annex B, Table 6). The results of crude fiber for the different accessions were among 0.4% and 2.3%. Accessions CC003 and BEH05A had higher values compared with the other accessions (see Annex B, Table 7). The content of reducing sugars evaluated according to the spectrophotometric method (Wood et al. 2013  9).The evaluation of the protein content of the different accessions according to Kjeldalh (AOAC 920.152, 2012) produced results between 0.7% and 6.3% (see Annex B, Table 10). The evaluation of the iron content by atomic absorption spectroscopic method (AOAC 975.03, 2012) shows content between 1.7 and 28.1 mg/kg per sample for accessions BEH10A and BEH13B, respectively (see Annex B, Table 11). The evaluation of the content of starch using ASTM sieves of different mesh and gravimetric methods resulted in starch values between 15.7 and 0.3 g/100 per sample for accessions CC004 and BEH05A, respectively (see Annex B, Table 12).Annex C displays various photos of collect yam bean accessions. All the accessions established (19 accessions) in the 2013 campaign were morphologically characterized and evaluated.  Storage root yields were only up to 3.4 t/ha for accession BEH05A. 10 additional accessions were collected in the Tambo River area in the province of Satipo, Department of Junín.  We are currently maintaining 29 accessions in the field for conservation and further characterization. Field data were entered into Excel spreadsheets for the respective statistical analysis. The national collection of tropical roots and tubers of INIA has been strengthened. The results of moisture on the yam bean samples were found to be between 73.1% and 92.7%, similar to those reported by other researchers (Ramos-de-la Pena et al. 2013).  The DM contents for the yam bean accessions showed values between 7.3% and 26.9%, higher than those reported for P. ahipa, P. tuberosus, and P. erosus (Ramos-de-la Pena et al. 2013).  Accession BEH05B-1 had the highest total protein content (6.3%), but lower than those reported by other researchers (Doporto et al. 2011;Ramos-de-la Pena et al. 2013).  Accession BEH13B had the highest iron content (28.1 mg/kg per sample), similar to that presented by Norman et al. (2007) and lower than those reported by Leterme et al. (2006) and Ramos-de-la Pena et al ( 2013).  The starch content reached 15.7% for accession CC004, higher than those reported by Forsyth and Shewry (2002) for P. ahipa (12.3%).  Most important, we collected a larger number of high dry yam bean accessions and maintained them in the seed bank of INIA and CIP. This is the first time that such material became available to genebanks for research and development. Keep and maintain replicas of the collected germplasm in the seed bank of the SUDIRGEB for future studies.  Collect more often in order to have greater representation of the genetic variability of Pachyrhizus spp. in the Amazonian area.  Complete the morphological characterization of all accessions collected.  Make more studies to find suitable processes for the production of flour and starch from yam bean roots.  Complete the biochemical characterization of the National Germplasm Collection of yam bean at INIA. This effort will reveal the contents of rotenone on seeds and leaves, their functional properties, the content of essential amino acids, as well as suggest applications of the roots in the development of new products.  Take into account the phenology of yam bean in order to have the roots for chemical analysis.Alvarez-Jubete, L., Arendt, E. K., and Gallagher, E. 2010. Nutritive value of pseudocereals and their increasing use as functional gluten-free ingredients.       Collect at least 60 accessions of the species mentioned  Broaden the gene pool and record passport data in order to contribute to the conservation of genetic resources in danger of extinction  Make collection trips to different areas of Peru during 2010-2013.The technical cooperation agreement between CIP and the Instituto Nacional de Innovación Agraria (INIA) was signed on 19 October 2010. Attached with it was a request for access to yam bean genetic resources, which had been approved by INIA. Therefore CIP took the initiative to establish communication and coordination with the various Federations of AIDESEP and participated at the following meetings: XXIV ordinary Congress of CART, held on 18-20 August 2010. Coordination meeting with the regional organization AIDESEP-Pucallpa, held on 11 November 2010.  Presentation of technical cooperation agreement between CIP and INIA to Organización Regional AIDESEP Ucayali (ORAU), held on11 November 2010.During the meetings with CART, it was suggested that before starting collection activities, an agreement should be signed with the organization leaders. AIDESEP-Ucayali gave its approval to enter into their native communities to make the first collection of ahipa.Coordination with the AIDESEP members was continuous, and the following activities took place:  On 31 January 2011, a trainee related to CART was hired, through the signature of an agreement of training with the Instituto Superior Tecnológico Públic Ashaninka-CC. NN. Puerto Ocopa-Rio Tambo Satipo, the Ministry of Labor, and Mr. Jacob Américo Campos Motiquiri, for three months. The training was to be conducted at the Estación Experimental Agraria La Molina, Lima, in order to instruct on the use and importance of yam bean as part of human diets and because of an ancient tradition of conservation. CIP gave incentives to conservationists and donors of seed and to other participants of the seed fair. It was possible to distribute 22 yam bean accessions (P. tuberosus and P. erosus) with a total of 9,580 seeds to 19 farmers of native communities of the Peruvian Amazon region. With Mr. Joshua Faquin Fernández's authorization allowing us into ORAU's native communities, we started the journey on the route of the Pachitea River basin, between Pucallpa and Atalaya, in the Department of Ucayali, and visited 15 native communities. Of these, 10 belonged to the ethnic group Shipibo, 4 to the ethnic group Ashaninka, and 1 to the ethnic group Yine (Piro). For each single collection, CIP and INIA received a copy.As a result of the first collection trip, we obtained until August 2013, 12 accessions (BEH1, BEH2, BEH5A, BEH5B, BEH6, BEH7, BEH8, BEH10A, BEH10B, BEH13A, BEH13B, and BEH14) that survived and were multiplied in two campaigns during 2011-2012 and 2012-2013.Accessions BEH3, BEH4, and BEH12 died from nematodes, and accessions BEH6 and BEH9 were motheaten and the seeds failed to germinate. Furthermore, accession BEH11 did not survive because, when it was received, the seedling was small and weak.After the first harvest on 15 February 2012, a CIP code was assigned to each of the 12 accessions and were put into the CIP genebank with a total of 9,650 virus-free seeds. A total of 140 seeds of 7 accessions (BEH5B, BEH6, BEH7, BEH8, BEH10A, BEH10B, and BEH13B) were given to INIA-Pucallpa so they could restore its collection of the first collection that was attacked by nematodes.A second multiplication campaign was harvested on 1 February 2013. A total of 17,218 seeds of 12 accessions were obtained. Some 5,740 seedlings of the 12 accessions were donated to the native communities of the Federations CART, UNAY, and FECONAYA on 27 June 2013.Data from the first collection trip are shown in Tables 1-4.   The genetic material of the two campaigns was installed in the greenhouses of San Ramon experimental station, located 835 masl. During 2011 and 2012, seed was multiplied, the allocation of CIP numbers was requested, and 9,650 seeds were delivered to CIP's genebank on 20 February 2012, for conservation and further distribution. All the genetic material remained so far are free of the yam bean mosaic virus. The number of seeda obtained with the two multiplication campaigns amounts to 39,846 for the 12 accessions. All this material will be delivered to the CIP genebank for storage and distribution.Once access to the yam bean genetic resource was obtained, and the agreement about informed consent and the conditions to access to the collective knowledge of Pachyrhizus spp. (P. tuberosus and P. ahipa) was signed, a second trip was scheduled to collect yam bean.In coordination and with the approval of UNAY and FECONAYA, located in the Department of Pasco, between the districts of Oxapampa and Ciudad Constitución, represented by its leaders Mr. Arnaldo Cruz Sebastian and Mr. Héctor Colina Soto, the second trip was scheduled from 6 to 8 August 2012. It was led by Ing. Elisa Romero and Vilma Aliaga (CIP), Ing. Wilfredo Guillen (INIA), and Mr. Arnaldo Cruz Sebastian (president of UNAY) as a translator and guide. Seven accessions of yam bean were collected, each with passport data and collective knowledge. Seeds were multiplication at CIP-San Ramon (see Table 5 and Table 6, for seed stock).  On 6 August, the first harvest of the accession of the second collection has been made, and there are still immature vines that are beginning to mature. With accession BEH15, 400 seeds were distributed to the native communities in the fair seed of 27 June 2013.The third collection was coordinated with CART and authorized by its head, Mr. Hector Sebastian Naomi, on 3 August 2012.Because of a change in leadership of CART, and adverse weather conditions, we (CIP, INIA, and CART) decided to postpone the trip and make it from 9 to 14 June 2013. Members on this trip were Mr. Carlos Flores Marquez (CIP), Mr. Wilfredo Guillen Huachua (INIA-Pucallpa), Ms. Magaly Sebastian Pitsasati (CART), and Mr. Arnaldo Cruz Sebastian (UNAY).According to plan, on 10 June the members of the third collection trip met at the experimental station of CIP-San Ramon and began the journey to Satipo by land to Puerto Chata, Rio Tambo jurisdiction on the province of Satipo, Department of Junin. The group then traveled by boat to the native communities of Rio Tambo.We had the support of CART and UNAY for collection in the communities of Rio Tambo. Nine native communities were visited; three of these, Vista Alegre, Mayapu, and Cushireni, no longer grow yam bean, so no plants could be found there.Yam bean was collected in five native communities: Betania, Cheni, Anapate, Oviri, and Mazaroveni. The samples were mostly vines that were just starting their physiological maturity but had moths.Of the 10 collected accessions (BEH22, BEH23, BEH24, BEH25, BEH26, BEH27, BEH28, BEH29, BEH30, and BEH31), 9 germinated. Only accession BEH25 died, because the seeds were heavily moth-damaged (data given in Table 7).  The yam bean manual is being revised. During the three collection trips conducted from November 2010 to August 2013, on the routes Pucallpa-Atalaya, Oxapampa-Ciudad Constitution, and Rio Tambo, 31 accessions of Pachyrhizus spp. were collected, each with passport data. Twenty-eight of these 31 survived and were multiplied at CIP-San Ramón experimental station.  During 2011 and 2012, the seeds of the 12 surviving accessions from the first collection were multiplied and entered into CIP's genebank on 20 February 2012, free of viruses, for preservation and distribution. Also, seeds of 7 of these accessions were given to INIA-Pucallpa so they can restore their material for the first collection. This same material had a second multiplication campaign in order to have more seed to return to the native communities.  During the second collection trip on the route Oxapampa-Ciudad Constitución, between 6 and 11 August 2012, 7 accessions were collected. This genetic material was multiplied from August 2012 to August 2013. Very recently the first crop was harvested, and there are still some immature vines on the greenhouse to harvest later on.  During the third collection trip (10-15 June 2013), in the communities of Rio Tambo, 10 accessions were collected. To date, 1 accession has died because it was fully moth-eaten; the other 9 have germinated. The harvest of this material is planned for August 2014.  Finally, on 27 June 2013, the yam bean seed fair was conducted at the CIP-San Ramon experimental station. The CIP yam bean project gave an incentive to conservationists and donors of seed and to other participants and distributed 22 accessions (P. tuberosus and erosus spp.), with a total of 9,580 seeds to farmers in 19 native communities within the collecting areas. This was done in order to return the donated genetic material to encourage its dispersion, and prevent the loss of this ancient crop of the Peruvian Amazon.According to the objectives set out in the Technical Cooperation Agreement between INIA and CIP, the collecting goal was achieved. We got 30 accessions on the three collection trips.CIP and INIA intend to use the yam bean collections of the Peruvian Amazon to increase the genetic pool and avoid their extinction. In addition, we hope to get small farmers involved with this crop so that they can incorporate it into their diets.We recommend that all the information obtained so far be published, and that the seeds continue to be conserved and distributed to farmers and researchers.        The maintenance of introduced accessions through in-situ and screenhouse multiplication was done both at Rubona (Figs. 1a and 1b) and Karama research stations, to rejuvenate, restore, and maintain all yam bean accessions with interesting characteristics/traits. Rubona is located in Huye, South Province district at 1,650 masl, 29 o 46' longitude E; 2 o 29' latitude; Karama at 1,457 masl at latitude 02°17.18 S, 030°15.49 E.In total, 37 accessions with interspecific 27 hybrids (from the six parental lines) were maintained: 10 P. ahipa accessions, 11 P. erosus, and 2 P. tuberous accessions. Accessions 209032, 209031, and 209018 multiplied gave the highest seeds weight: 145 g, 750 g, and 600 g, respectively. Through regional collaboration, accession 209013, which has high dry matter (DM) content, was introduced and multiplied through ISABU/Burundi, where this high DM accession performs well.In accordance with objective 2 of the project, high-yielding yam bean accessions were identified across locations. Accessions 209018 and 209019 were identified as high-yielding accessions for both low-and mid-agro-ecological zones of Rwanda (Table 1). Accessions 209029, 209032, 209033, 209034, and 209035 were high yielding and selected for low zones. The bush yam bean type (P. ahipa)-namely accessions 209034 and 209035-were selected by most farmers for intercropping due to early maturing characteristic. In term of taste, the P. ahipa yam beans (209033, 209034, and 209035) were more preferred than the climbing P. erosus yam bean, such as accession 209018. Mean performance of fresh roots yield in t/ha showed that introduced yam bean accessions yielded high at Rubona and Karama -especially root yields of 209018 and 209019 (two P. erosus accessions) can be incredible high (Fig. 2). Note that results from the location Musanze (high altitude at the border of Uganda) were not included due to very low performance of the crop at this location. The highest storage roots yields were produced by genotype 209018 (111.3 t/ha) and genotype 209019 (108.0 t/ha); this corresponds to good sugar beet yields in temperate regions of the world. However, P. ahipa and P. ahipa x P. tuberosus hybrids also showed high yields and slightly elevated DM: 209033 and 209029 with 38.28 t/ha and 30.25 t/ha, respectively. Genotype 209003 had the highest DM, with 20.8%. (NB: This evaluation was conducted before high DM yam beans were introduced and evaluated in Rwanda, which required special permission form Peruvian authorities.) Variety 209032 appeared to have large adaptability across locations. Fresh root yield was poor in higher altitudes of Rwanda (>2,000 masl), which indicates that yam bean is not performing well at these altitudes, which are characterized by low temperature and lots of rain and low temperatures. This was confirmed by genotype by environment study in term of mega environments of yam bean adaptability in Rwanda (personal communication, Ndirigwe, 2014). Related to objective 3, fresh storage roots for the four high-yielding accessions (209032, 209033, 209035, and 209018) were tested for storage root food products (e.g., flour-making, ugali preparation, mixed flour for weaning food preparation, and juice). Selected famers from on-farm trials participated in taste-testing of each product. Only protein content was determined for the four promising accessions. More focus was put on making juice and weaning food as a way to help promote the adoption of yam bean, as more Rwandese like juice.A protocol was developed for producing a clear and stable yam bean juice. Chemical analyses of processed juice were done to study its nutritional quality. A consumer preference assessment of juice was conducted by 30 panelists who scored the samples of juice based on sensory attributes (Figs. 3a and  3b). Pineapple juice was used as control. The results showed that most of the panelists preferred yam bean juice (from low DM yam beans) to pineapple juice.Figures 3a and 3b. Panelists tasting yam bean juice at Rubona research station.Protocols were developed for yam bean porridges, where three formulas were made. A consumer preference assessment of the porridges was done by 30 panelists. A mix of sorghum and maize was used. The results showed that consumers preferred the formula that contained high amounts of yam bean. Selected accessions of yam bean were promoted through various agri-shows and international exhibitions in Kigali and provinces (Figs. 4 and 5). Results for nine accessions in terms of protein content showed that there were no significant differences between locations for protein content in tubers of yam bean accessions. But among yam bean accessions there appears to be wide variation in terms of protein content (Fig. 6). In all locations, accession 209032 had the highest protein content (13.8%), whereas accession 209034 had the lowest protein content (8.1%). Since protein is associated with iron and zinc contents in yam bean (and many other crops), we assume that there is also variation among yam bean accessions for iron and zinc. Note that there were some challenges due to lack of appropriate food processing equipment and adequate skills for analysis of iron and zinc in yam beans.   Adaptability trials with farmer's participation showed that Rwanda is suitable for yam bean production.The best performing genotypes that were identified as promising for adoption are accessions 209018, 209032, 209033, and 209035. Parent 209018 was also used as parents in three out of nine interspecific hybrid populations currently under selection. These four accessions may be used either as future parents in breeding programs or as direct cultivars (after variety release) in yam bean production for processing products. Results on hybrid lines (F2 and F3) still have to be analyzed for publication. Another outcome for Rwanda agriculture is the acquisition and conservation of this new crop can enrich Rwanda crop diversity. Further research is needed in term of promoting and diversifying the use of yam bean.     In 2012/2013 emphasis was given on seed multiplication activities in fields at Mulungu and Mvuazi, after plants passed all quarantine inspections in the greenhouses (Figs. 2a and b, 3a and 3b). In total 44,795 seeds were produced in the field (Table 3).Figures 2a and b. Seed multiplication in field in Mvuazi and in Mulungu.     The study was carried out at INERA-Mulungu, South-Kivu, to assess the consumer acceptance of products processed from yam bean (Figs. 5a-c). Accession 209035 was used in the study. Different products were made using yam bean flour as a basic ingredient, either alone or mixed with wheat flour, cassava flour, and/or with orange-fleshed sweetpotato flour.The food products tested were:  Fufu developed with 100% yam bean flour (Product A)   Yam bean flour is one of the primary products used as an ingredient for processing of value-added yam bean processed products. The flour is made from yam bean storage root, as illustrated below. Fufu is a cooked dough often made with flour from the cassava plant (or alternatively another flour, such as that made from maize). Fufu can also be made from yam bean flour alone or a mixture of yam bean and maize flours. The color can vary from yellowish to brownish, depending on the ratio of product constituents. Fufu is a dish that is very important in DRC, because it is the staple food for the majority of Congolese. On basis of results for yam bean flour and yam bean gari, it is concluded that yam bean-based fufu can contribute to nutritional health because it has considerable more protein and iron than traditional cassava porridge. Use a kitchen grater to grate if a small quantity of grated product is needed. Use a manual grater if a large quantity of grated product is neededThe grated yam bean are put in jute bags and the water is pressed out of the product by twisting strongly the bag Then the product is dried in sunlight for 3 to 6 days depending on atmospheric temperature.Afterwards, the dried yam bean is ground in the mill to obtain flour.Select mature and healthy tubers; use knife to peel  Add maize flour slowly while stirring with a wooden cooking utensil. Leave it cooking for about 5 min, but keep stirring it so that it does not burn. While the dough is simmering, slowly add yam bean flour while mixing. Knead until the dough is thick. You can control the hardness of the fufu by the amount of flour you add.The whole cooking process takes 10-15 min (Fig. 8). Porridge is considered in temperate regions of the world as a dish made by boiling ground, crushed, or chopped cereal. But in Africa, it is often made from root crops alone or in mixture with sorghum, maize, and even beans (e.g., gari is usually made from 100% cassava, so can be considered as a special type of porridge). In DRC, yam bean porridge can be made from yam bean flour alone or from yam bean x maize flours cooked with water to form a thick liquid. Independent processing and taste panel studies in DRC, Uganda, and Burundi have shown that an excellent tasting porridge can be made from yam beans and that there significant taste differences among varieties. The color is yellowish to brownish depending on the ratio of product ingredients. Owing to the results for yam bean flour and yam bean gari, yam bean Yam bean-based fritter is a small fried bread made out of yam bean and wheat flours (Fig. 10). Wheat fritters are widely eaten in DRC; children are especially fond of them for breakfast and at school. Fritters contribute to nutritional health as a good source of protein and carbohydrate. The color is usually golden brown. Mix the yam bean flour with wheat flour in a bowl along with yeast and sugar. Add water and knead till to get a firm smooth paste. Leave the dough to rise (at least 1 hr). Make small equal pieces of the dough with spoon; plunge them into preheated oil and keep turning until it is golden brown (Fig. 11). The root and tuber crops produced by legumes have long been recognized as important crops, and the Food and Agriculture Organization has recommended them as a source of human nutrition to improve protein supply. In contrast with other legume root crops, the yam bean shows by far the widest adaptation and the highest yield potential. A legume closely related to soybean, yam bean was placed to the subtribe Diocleinae, tribe Phaseoleae, with the legume family (Fabaceae) (Lackey 1977), and was recently replaced into the sub-tribe subtribe Glycininae (Doyle and Doyle 1993;Lee and Hymowitz 2001;Espert et al. 2008).The yam bean complex comprises three cultivated species:  Pachyrhizus tuberosus (Amazonian yam bean) Pachyrhizus erosus (Mexican yam bean) Pachyrhizus ahipa (Andean yam bean).However, there are no crossing barriers among cultivated yam bean species and the complex could be reclassified into one species in the near future. P. erosus is most widely cultivated, more because of its higher yield than lack of agriculturally attractive features in P. ahipa and P. tuberous (Grum 1990).There are also two wild species, P. ferrugineus and P. panamensis (Lackey 1977). Most likely P. panamensis is the common ancestor of P. ahipa and P. tuberosus, while P. ferrugineus is the ancestor of P. erosus (Sørensen 1996).Yam beans are cultivated in the Andean highlands, the Amazonian rainforests, across nearly all countries of South and South-east Asia, as well as locally in West Africa, mainly due to the activities of this project. The wide adaptation of the yam bean is illustrated by a target set of yam bean production areas, which correspond to the environmental data of the experimental environments used by Zanklan et al. 2007. However, there is the need to prove yam bean adaptation and yield potential in Burundi, Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Rwanda in the environments, which appear to be more suitable for the Andean yam bean and Amazonian x Andean yam bean interspecific hybrids.New discoveries have made the yam bean a potential source to develop a new nutrient-rich staple. These include adaptation to environmental stress conditions (drought stress periods as well as heavy rainfall), no need for nitrogen fertilizer (plants have an efficient symbiotic relationship with rhizobia that results in N fixation of up to 200 kg/ha), high storage root starch yields linked with high protein contents (up to 18% on storage root dry matter basis), micronutrient concentrations (up to 70 ppm iron 1 on storage root dry matter [DM] basis), and the possible human consumption of seeds (provided that toxic compound in seed can be eliminated technically or by screening breeding material). There are clear indications that the yam bean can lead to greater food availability, improved food quality, more sustainability of farming systems, and new options for income generation for the rural and urban poor in sub-Sahara-Africa. It has been proved that ( 1) the yam bean is well adapted to the root-crop and millet-sorghum farming system in West Africa; (2) the crop fits into the West African food system by the development of yam bean gari, similar in texture and taste to cassava gari, which is eaten by millions in West Africa on a daily basis; and (3) the yam bean gari has five to seven times more protein content than its cassava form.The objectives of this project by ISABU in Burundi have been to ( 1) prove the high production potential of the yam bean as a storage root crop for a wide range of Burundi farming systems; ( 2) demonstrate the development of traditional storage root food products from yam bean storage roots-for example, fufu (also called ugali) and chigwanga-with farmer groups (mainly girls and women) and to confirm that these food products have a higher nutritional value (protein, iron, and zinc) than those processed from commonly grown tropical root and tuber crops (cassava, sweetpotato, and yam); and (3) establish yam bean storage root production and food products in farming systems.The objective was to introduce and multiply the yam bean germplasm for the project studies in Burundi.During the reporting period, ISABU acquired additional seeds of yam bean germplasm from CIP-Uganda as well as INERA-Mulungu in DRC (Table 1). This was in addition to the batch of germplasm (28 accessions) received in 2010 from CIP-Peru, which unfortunately was partially affected in seed multiplication by high altitude conditions (cold temperatures) at Gisozi/Burundi (especially P. tuberosus from the Amazonas region). Thirty yam bean accessions are currently present and maintained in Burundi. The maintenance of introduced accessions through in-situ and screenhouse multiplication was done at Bujumbura, Gisozi, and Moso research stations (Fig. 1). Gisozi is located in Mwaro Province at 2,200 masl and Bujumbura is located in lower land at 800 masl. Seed multiplication activities were conducted in the screenhouses (using potted plants) and in the field.In the field, spacing was at 60 cm between rows and 30 cm between plants; stakes were used for climbing accessions. Seed-maturing period was long, varying 4-8 months with some accessions exhibiting continuous flowering and seed production. P. erosus accessions 209016, 209017, and 209019 produced more seed than the rest of the accessions. Accession 209013, which has high DM content, was multiplied at Moso Research Station where this high DM accession performs well and was distributed in the neighboring countries.Owing to seed multiplication, ISABU decided to use 22 accessions out of the 30 accessions for multi-site adaptability and 5 accessions for demonstration trials. The trials were established at three sites: Imbo Centre (800 masl), Mparambo (900 masl), and Murongwe (mid-altitude 1,800 masl). The planting dates were April 20 th for Imbo Centre and Mparambo and May 12 th for Murongwe. The experimental design used is described by Zanklan et al. (2007). Spacing was 30 cm in row and 80 cm between rows; stakes were used for climbing accessions. No fertilization or insecticides were applied in the trials. Irrigation was done dry in the tree sites. Weeding was made with hand tools. Pruning was done in all treatment to increase root yield (Zanklan 2003). The germination rates were good in Mparambo, with an average of 60%, but a little bit low in Murongwe (59%) and Imbo Centre (50%) (Table 2). The poor germination at Imbo Centre was due to a lot of irrigation water. In some areas like Mparambo and Murongwe, we were able to harvest 4 yam bean tubers per plant (Fig. 2). Table 3 show some results obtained under pruned and unpruned treatments at across locations. The best accessions were selected and evaluated on farm (i.e., 209013, 209017, 209031, 209054, and 209060) at two sites of Ngozi Province (Kiremba and Tangara Commune; Fig. 3). Regarding objective 3, fresh storage roots for 7 accessions-namely, 209013, 209017, 209018, 209031, 209032, 209054, and   A processing unit has been established in Gisozi Research Station in June 2014 in order to initiate yam bean processing (Figs. 7a-c). This processing unit will also be used for sweetpotato and cassava processing. Planned activities on development of yam bean products were changed due to this processing facility. The topic of his project research was \"Effect of plant density populations and manure application on growth and yield of Yam Bean in Burundi.\"The overall objective of the study was to promote the adoption of yam bean varieties within Burundi's major farming systems for crop diversification, food and nutritional diversity, and environmental stewardship. The specific objectives were to determine:  An optimum yam bean plant population for high and stable yields in Burundi. The effect of organic manure soil amendment on growth and yield of yam bean in Burundi.Two introduced yam bean accessions were selected for the study (209031 and 209058) and are introduced from CIP-Uganda (Namulonge screenhouse). The choice of these accessions was imposed by seed availability. These accessions are being multiplied at Moso Research Station to generate more seeds for next trials (Table 4). In this study, three plant density populations were used at planting: 40,000 (P1); 60,000 (P2), and 80,000 (P3) plants/ha. The planting dates were April 13 th in Imbo-Centre and April 11 th in Moso. Treatments were arranged in a split plot experimental design, in a randomized complete block with three replications. In each strip and replication, subplots were established randomly, and consist of nine treatments resulting from the factorial arrangement and growing population. In each experiment, spacing differed between rows: 0.75, 0.80, and 1.00 m.Each experimental unit consisted of two rows of 10 plants each and one seed per hole. Each accession had 9 treatments. No fertilization or insecticides were applied in the trials. Irrigation was provided because of dry season. Weeding was done with hand tools. Pruning was done in all treatment to increase root yield (Leidi, et al. 2004;Zanklan 2003). Data on emergence rate, growth parameters, and yield component were taken. Yield component was essentially root weight (g/plant), which was determined using a balance, number of tuber/plant, and tuber size.Significant differences were observed among locations, accessions, and season for most of the characteristics. The highest mean storage root fresh yield was obtained under 80,000 plants/ha, with an overall mean for storage root fresh yield of 13.43 t/ha; followed by 60,000 plants/ha (10.29 t/ha), and the lowest yield was identified in 40,000 plants/ha (7.58 t/ha).The storage root fresh yields were significantly different across the different seasons (p<0.001). Season 2013A had the highest mean yield (14.17 t/ha) and 2012B (6.71 t/ha, LSD 0.05 = 2.496). Most of the traits presented their higher value at Moso than at Imbo-Centre. The ideal season for yam bean production was 2013A with mean storage root fresh yield (14.17 t/ha) and 2012B (6.71 t/ha). Weight of big roots, total numbers of big roots, and fresh tuber size are important yield components in yam bean improvement (Figs. 8a and b).No significant effect of plant population was observed on yam bean accessions for the most of the traits, except for plant height, fresh storage root yield, and biomass in one location. This is probably due to the range of plant population used, which was not so wide for us to conclude the right plant population recommended for yam bean production in Burundi. Another reason could be the number of rows per plot.In our experiment, two rows per plot were planted. Probably there was not enough competition for light and nutrients.Figures 8a and b. Yam bean field trail and an overweight yam bean storage root at Moso site.The same material as in study 1 was used. The two accessions selected were 209031 and 209058, introduced from CIP-Uganda (Namulonge screenhouse). The study was conducted in the same location as study 1 at research stations of ISABU-namely, Moso Research Station and Imbo-Centre station.Treatments were arranged in a split plot experimental design, in a randomized complete block design with three replications at the two locations. There were four treatments or level of organic manure: 0 t (0), 5 t (125), 10 t (250), and 20 t (500) per hectare (g/plant).Each plot consisted of two rows of 10 plants each and one seed per hole. In the experimental plots, planting distances were 0.80 m between rows and 0.30 m within a row.No fertilization or insecticides were applied; irrigation was provided. Weeding was done with hand tools. Pruning was done in all treatment to increase root yield (Leidi, et al. 2004;Zanklan 2003).Significant effect was observed among organic manure levels for storage fresh root yield, biomass, and harvest index across different locations. Most of the values were higher under 500 g/plant. Accession 209054 was the highest yielding in terms of storage root yield and biomass, followed by accession 209031. High values of most of the traits were observed in Moso; therefore, the ideal site for yam bean production in Burundi would be Moso (Figs. 9a and b).No significant difference in terms of effect of organic manure on the yam bean accession was noticed in this study, except storage root yield, the total biomass, the vines and leaves weight, and the percentage of damage to storage root by nematodes. Participatory trials showed that Burundi is suitable for yam bean production, especially at Moso, where we observed a 11-kg yam bean tuber. The best performing genotypes that were identified as promising for adoption are accessions 209013, 209017, 209018, 209031, 209054, and 209060. Accessions 209013 and 209060 may be used either as future parents in breeding programs or directly as cultivars (after variety release) in yam bean production for processing products. Another outcome for Burundi is the acquisition of a processing unit that can be used for yam bean, sweetpotato, and cassava products.Accession 209013 was able to produce seeds only in Burundi and has high DM content. Further research is needed in term of promoting and diversifying the use of yam bean.     Owing to its potential to improve quantitatively and qualitatively nutritious staple food for the population, we found that the crop contributes to sustainability of rural farming systems and can generate new sources of revenues for resource-poor farmers. This study documents yam bean dissemination in Benin. It analyses the status of adoption and factors that influence the continuation of yam bean cultivation in the communities where it has been introduced.A total of 101 producers were surveyed in 75 villages across 19 communes of 12 departments in Benin, covering six of the country's total of eight agro-ecological zones (AEZs). Across AEZs we estimate currently an adoption rate of 47% for the yam bean compared with that of 31% for orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP). The baseline of OFSP production in Benin is close to zero and was therefore used as a reference with respect to adoption rates. The West-Atacora AEZ presents the best yield average for yam bean grain production (true yam bean seed), with 301 kg/1,000m 2 . The best average storage root yields of the yam bean were recorded in the Cotton Zone of Center-Benin, with 3,566 kg/1,000m 2 . In contrast, the best average storage root yield for OFSP was recorded in the zone of terres de barre, with 1,050 kg/1,000m 2 . The average selling price of raw yam bean storage roots is relatively low-20 Fcfa/kg (conversion rate of 2.7.2015: Fcfa/USD = 591.93). However, the processed storage root to flour and/or gari has an average selling price of 1,630 Fcfa/kg. In contrast, the average selling price of raw OFSP storage roots is 105 Fcfa/kg (processed OFSP has an average selling price of 160 Fcfa/kg).The main advantages of cultivating the new crop are high storage root yields in combination with high grain yields, which facilitates rapid propagation and dissemination (this root crop is propagated by true seed) and various options for small-scale storage root processing, including gari, juice, yogurt, alcohol, snacks, and flour. The main constraints related to the cultivation of yam bean are laborious cropping operations, tedious tilling, and limited knowledge of planting techniques. The project falls well within the scope of Benin's agricultural policy, which aims through the 2011 Strategic Plan to boost the Agricultural Sector and improve agricultural performances to sustainably ensure food self-sufficiency and alleviate poverty in Benin. It is estimated that 12% of Benin households are food insecure and that about 13% of food-secure households are likely to become food insecure (WFP 2009). Food insecurity is linked to nutritional insecurity. More than one-third of Benin children (aged 6-59 months) suffer from chronic malnutrition, and 9% of Benin women have chronic energy deficiency (ibid.). About 37% of Benin's population lives below the poverty line, with an incidence of 39% in rural area against 35% in urban area (EMICoV 2009).Maintaining the self-sufficiency ratio in staple foods under the current population growth rate in Benin compels farming households to intensify land use with low fertilizer application and reduced fallow periods. This leads to rapid soil depletion and results in poor fertility of soils and poor sustainability of farming systems. Land depletion is a major constraint to farm production in Benin (DSCPR 2007). It is necessary to move toward diversifying production by introducing new crops or technologies that can help alleviate poverty, food insecurity, children and women's malnutrition, and soil depletion. Yam bean has a high potential to improve staple food supply, to contribute to more sustainable cropping systems, and to generate new sources of revenues in Benin.Promotion of yam bean in the framework of this project comprised four components: (1) producing seeds and establishing seed supply; (2) conducting research to develop adapted technical itineraries; (3) developing yam bean-based food products; and (4) evaluating the profitability of the crop by processing it into gari and to conduct research activities on the market. In addition to the research work, there has been a component of large-scale dissemination of the yam bean and of its derivative products obtained by processing, which started in 2011. This study documents yam bean dissemination in Benin. It analyses the status of adoption and factors that influence the continuance of yam bean cultivation in the communities where it has been introduced. The report is structured as follows: Section 2 presents the study objectives. Section 3 describes the strategy to promote yam bean in Benin. Section 4 presents the material and methods used to conduct this study. It is subdivided into three subsections that describe, respectively, the agro-ecological zones (AEZs) where the study has been conducted, data collection methods, and analysis methods. Section 5 presents and discusses the results. The last section gives perspectives and implications.The overall objective of this study is to analyze the dissemination and adoption of yam bean cultivation in Benin. Specifically, this is to: experimenters. A pair of scissors was offered to producers to remove flowers. Producers were trained in how to prune flowers to avoid pod formation. The advantages related to ahipa storage root production (about 50% storage root yield increases), when flowers are removed were also explained. This operation does not allow farmers to produce seeds themselves. It is therefore planned to produce seeds from INRAB trials with the collaboration of NGOs. Multiplication trials of EC-533 and EC-KEW accessions were conducted in N'Dali in North Benin and in Missérété in South Benin.The study was carried out in the 12 departments of Benin (except Alibori, which was not included in the dissemination phase). The study zone covers six of the eight AEZs of Benin except for the extreme North zones (Zone 1) and cotton North (Zone 2) of Benin (see map of Benin AEZs in Annex 1).Four of the AEZs covered in this study are characterized by Sudan-Guinean climate type with two rainy seasons with important intra-and inter-AEZ rain variations (Zone 5: 1,100-1,400 mm/year; Zones 6 and 8: 800-1,400 mm/year; Zone 7: 900-1,300 mm/year) (MEPN 2008). In these zones the rainy seasons cover the period March-November, with a brief interruption in August before resuming in September (Fig. 1). The climate is a Sudanese type with only one rainy season of 900-1,300 mm/year in Zone 3, whereas it varies from Sudan-Sahelian to Guinea-Sudanese with a yearly rainfall of 800-1,300 mm/year in Zone 4. The rainy season is generally from May to October In Zone 5, the soils are tropical ferruginous types on crystalline basement with varied characteristics. In addition to these soils, there are vertisols and hydromorphic soils in the depressions and/or river valleys that cross the zone. These vertisols are deep, melanized, fertile soils but difficult to cultivate (characterized as Zone 7, they have a very high production potential) (INSAE 2005). In Zone 6, the soils of terres de barre are mostly degraded but deep and easy to cultivate. In Zone 8 the soils are very fertile alluvial and less fertile sandy types on the littoral. Zone 3 soils are tropical ferruginous with very varied characteristics, average fertility, and very sensitive to leaching. Zone 4 soils are ferruginous soils on basement that are often deep, with low water reserve and fertile except in the lowlands.Infrastructure like roads, warehouses, markets, and schools exist in almost all the AEZs covered by this study. The Cotton zone has the shortest distance (4.73 km) from the village to the most popular market and the Fisheries zone has the shortest distance to school (0.42 km) (Table 3). Survey activities were carried out in 75 villages scattered in 19 communes in 12 departments in Benin. These villages are those in which seeds of Pachyrizus spp. and OFSP were distributed to voluntary producers in 2011-2013. To these were added the villages of producers who have grown Pachyrisus spp. at their own initiative.The surveyed producers were those who have grown Pachyrisus spp. from seeds received from the project in 2011 and 2012 and who were present during the surveys. Surveys were also conducted with producers who have seen Pachyrisus spp. with the first producers and who have grown it. A total of 101 producers were surveyed in all visited villages. Table 4 presents the number of producers who participated in the first phase of dissemination in 2011-2013 and the number of surveyed producers per commune and AEZ. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected in May 2014. Interviewers received training on the content of the questionnaire and the interview guide. A focus group discussion was organized in each village using an interview guide in order to have the producers' perceptions on the constraints and the opportunities of Pachyrhizus spp. cultivation. Then individual surveys were conducted with a sample of 101 producers using a structured questionnaire developed by CIP. It should be specified that in the case of groups of producers, only one questionnaire was administered. In the case where each member of the group had a plot of Pachyrhizus spp., the questionnaire was administered by each of them. At the end of the surveys, the geographic coordinates and the measures of the plots sown in 2013 and 2014 were taken using Global Position System. In each village, resource persons identified during the dissemination phase gathered producers in a public place or the team of interviewers went to each Pachyrhizus spp. producer. Thus all Pachyrhizus spp. and OFSP producers were met, except those who had traveled, those who were sick, those who have moved out or died, or finally those who refused to be interviewed.Content analysis is the main method used to explore qualitative data collected. It was completed using score computation to prioritize the advantages and constraints of Pachyrhizus spp. cultivation. For example, the score of the constraint or the advantage i is calculated as follows:Major crops vary from one AEZ to another. Thus the cropping system in Zone 3 is based on yam. Sorghum is often added to yam and there is a strong expansion of cotton and maize. In Zone 4 producers grow cowpea, fonio, yam, sorghum, groundnut, cassava, bambara groundnut, and rice. Major crops grown in Zone 6 are maize, groundnut, and cassava, and there is an abundance of palm oil tree and wine raffia palm. In Zone 7, cropping systems are based on palm oil tree in association with maize as dominant crop accompanied, depending on the case, by cassava or pure stand of cowpea or sometimes market gardening. The cropping system in Zone 8 is essentially based on maize, cowpea, and market gardening. Maize and cassava dominate in non-sandy areas and out of the mangrove zones.Crop rotation is practiced in the majority of the AEZs covered by the study. All surveyed producers (100%) in the Depression zone and in the Fisheries zone practice crop rotation (Table 5). Only 33% of the surveyed producers in the Food Crop zone South-Borgou practice this. The same is true for crop association, which is practiced by none (0%) of the producers in the Fisheries zone. Land preparation (plowing) is practiced by all surveyed producers. Ridging and tilling are almost generalized and practiced by, respectively, 86% and 84% of the surveyed producers. Of all these cropping systems, crop rotation has a particular interest in most of the zones. with : score of constraint i percentage of producers who have attributed rank j to the constraint i;is that rank (varies from 1 to 6). To compare Pachyrhizus spp. and OFSP with major crops grown by producers in the dissemination AEZs, maize, bean, and cowpea were retained as three reference crops. Yields estimated by the surveyed producers of these three crops are presented in Table 6. Table 7 provides information about the available and cropped areas and the areas cropped with yam bean. It can be seen that the area cropped with yam bean does not depend on the available area. In fact, the West-Atacora zone, which does not have the largest available area, is the zone with the largest cropped area for yam bean (0.14 ha). Table 8 provides information on the average production and average yield of yam bean and OFSP. With respect to the cultivation of yam bean, the zones of terres de barre and Depression have the highest average production (11 storage roots/m 2 ), followed by the Cotton zone Center-Benin with 10 storage roots/m 2 . For OFSP, the Food Crop zone South-Borgou yields on average 15 storage roots/m 2 , followed by the zone of terres de barre and the zone of depression with on average 12 storage roots tubers per m 2 . In terms of yam bean grain yield, the West-Atacora zone presents the highest yield average (3,010.56 kg/ha). For yam bean storage root the highest average yield was is recorded in the cotton zone of 665.85 kg/ha) The best average yield for the storage root of OFSP was recorded in the terres de barre zone, with 10,500 kg/ha. Storage estimates were not carried out for yam bean in the Food Crop zone of South-Benin, in the zones of terres de barre and Depression. For OFSP, storage was estimated in the Cotton zone Center-Benin (Table 9). About 16.7% on average of yam bean production was stored in the Fisheries zone, 68.8% was stored in the Cotton zone Center-Benin, and 70.7% of the yam bean production was stored in the West-Atacora zone. For OFSP, 30% was stored in the Cotton zone North-Benin. The analysis of these results shows that yam bean was stored more than OFSP. There are four categories of constraints related to production for the entire study zone. These are weather problems, fungal/bacterial attacks, insect damage, and vermin problems. In the Food Crop zone of South-Borgou and West-Atacora zone, producers are faced with weather problems and attacks by termites and worms (Fig. 2). The observations reveals that all the producers (100%) in these two zones (3 and 4) are faced with weather and vermin problems. To these two categories of constraints is added insect attacks in the Cotton zone North-Benin and in the Fisheries zone. In the Cotton zone Center-Benin and the terres de barre zone, producers are faced with all categories of constraints.These different categories of constraints have adverse effects on the yield, the tubers, the pods, and even on the growth of plants. Table 10 presents damages caused depending on the categories of constraints per AEZ. Producers in the Food Crop zone of South-Borgou and in the zones of the terres de barre and Fisheries did not observe storage problems with yam bean and OFSP products. However, producers in the Food Crop zone of South-Borgou and in the zone of the terres de barre do not store any of these two products, and those in the Fisheries zone stock only yam bean. In field-storing yam bean and OFSP, the producers reported more problems with fungi/bacteria than with insects and vermin (Table 11). Figure 3 shows the market share of yam bean and OFSP at the raw step and the processed step. The production of OFSP at the raw step has an important market share, about 39%. The estimate of the market share of processed yam bean is 5.2%. Raw root of yam bean has had in our study the smallest market share (1.0%). We conclude that currently producing yam bean in Benin will only be profitable for the producer when yam bean is processed. This is in contrast to the relatively large raw yam bean market in Central and North America and Asia. With OFSP it is not necessary to process the crop to bring it to the market.Source: Results, survey May 2014. Information in Table 12 confirms the previous hypothesis according to which the cultivation of yam bean will currently only be profitable when it is processed. In fact, the average selling price of raw root of yam bean is at present only 20 Fcfa/kg compared with 1,630 Fcfa/kg for the processed yam bean storage roots. The selling price of the raw root of OFSP is 105 Fcfa/kg compared with 160 Fcfa/kg for processed storage roots.  The average sales price of raw root of yam bean (20 Fcfa/kg) is relatively low compared with that of the reference crops (raw maize, raw bean, and raw cassava): 150 Fcfa/kg, 290 Fcfa/kg, and 94 Fcfa/kg, respectively (Tables 12 and 13). This might be because the yam bean is still an unknown crop in Beninand processed, it comes more closely to known food products. For raw OFSP (105 fcfa/kg), the sales price was very close to cassava (94 fcfa/kg). The situation changes when yam bean is converted from raw to a processed product. Then the price is relatively high (1,630 fcf/kg) compared with the sales price of reference crops of processed maize, processed bean, and processed cassava-that is, 187 fcfa/kg, 372 fcfa/kg, and 84 fcfa/kg, respectively (Tables 12 and 13). The Cotton zone in Center-Benin has the greatest number of adopters of yam bean (25) and OFSP ( 9) in our study on 101 farms across the country. We observed that the yam bean adoption rate is higher for yam bean than for OFSP (Fig. 4).Source: Results, survey May 2014. Table 14 shows that in our study group, the yam bean is more known among farmers than is OFSP (100% of farmers know yam bean v. 84% for OFSP). Among those who know the crops, the percentages of those who have used them at least once are 97% for yam bean and 42% for OFSP. The highest adoption rates were observed with 47% for yam bean and 31% for OFSP (Table 14).  Figure 5 shows that in the Food Crop zone in South-Borgou, the percentage of producers who intend to continue growing OFSP is less than half of the study group (33%). In general, the percentage of producers who intend to continue growing yam bean is higher than that of those who intend to continue growing OFSP.Source: Results, survey May 2014.  4, see also subsection 4.2). Figure 6 shows the dissemination of yam bean and OFSP in Benin. Moreover, a self-dissemination of yam bean has been observed. Thus 15 producers have cultivated yam bean on their own initiative after having seen it with their neighbors and/or relatives. According to the surveyed producers, there were several reasons for this decision: sensitization was made about the derivative products, the good taste of the storage root, the quality of the gari made in association with cassava, its ability to enrich soils, the diversity of products made from its processing, and for its nutritive value.Others who have also seen the crop were reluctant to crop it. The main reasons given were the absence of market to sell it, the lack of knowledge of the uses of yam bean, and cooking problems compared with other root and tubers. Producers have used yam bean storage roots in very different ways (Table 15). Most of the producers have processed the tubers into gari mixed with cassava. They have also used it to feed animals in certain villages. In fact, the yam bean storage roots are very appreciated by consumers because of its good taste when raw.Many farmers plan the cultivation to improve soil fertility through rotten upper biomass. According to farmers, the crop can give strength to people who consume it and improve the health condition of any animal.Table 16 gives an overview of the main advantages of the yam bean perceived by the surveyed producers.Source: Results, survey May 2014.Table 16 shows that the three main advantages are obtaining gari after mixing it with cassava; the good organoleptic, energetic, and nutritional quality; and its low production cost. Despite all the advantages of yam bean, several constraints were mentioned and are related to its cultivation as well as its consumption (Table 17). The analysis reveals that there are three main constraints: hard cropping operations of yam bean, tedious tilling, and non-mastery of planting techniques. This study analyzes the dissemination and adoption of yam bean cultivation in Benin. The results show that, despite a self-dissemination of yam bean, its current adoption rate is 47%.In all AEZ, crop rotation has a particular interest. It is practiced by all surveyed producers in the Depression zone and in the Fisheries zone. The market share of yam bean processed is currently 5.2%, with raw yam bean root having the smallest market share (0.98%). This is an interesting aspect since in the Americas and Asia the yam bean market is only for raw yam bean storage root. For Benin we conclude that the cultivation of yam bean can only be profitable for producers when the crop is processed. As to the average sales price, it is relatively low for raw yam bean root (20 Fcfa/kg), but for the processed storage roots it seems to be high (1,630 Fcfa/kg).The main advantages related to the cultivation of P. erosus yam bean are fourfold: (1) gari obtained from mixing it with cassava, (2) good organoleptic taste, (3) energetic and nutritional quality, and ( 4) its low production cost. Despite all the advantages related to yam bean, several constraints were mentioned and are related to its cultivation and its consumption: (1) hard cropping operations of yam bean, (2) tedious tilling, and ( 3) non-mastery of planting techniques.Most of the farmers highly wish/appreciate training courses on ahipa processing and are looking for markets to sell the product. Yet most ignore ahipa processing techniques. Therefore, we consider training on processing as a key to introduce ahipa into the local diet of Benin. For the introduction of such a new crop in farmers' fields, we recommend to the CIP project the methodology of INRAB and that national development structures be informed and/or associated in each cropping zone.At the end of the activities carried out and the results achieved, we sincerely thank CIP for its decisive financial support for the implementation of this study. The technical and administrative support from the National Agricultural Research Institute of Benin (INRAB) was indispensable in conducting this study. We express our gratitude to all its managers. Our sincere thanks also go to the surveyed producers in the different AEZs for their frank collaboration.  This report is the second and the final report on the cooperation of BØRNEfonden-Benin with the Ahipa project (2013-2014), as stated in the letter of agreement between BØRNEfonden-Benin and the International Potato Center (CIP) with respect to ahipa on-farm trials.The Ahipa project has involved 80 producers at BØRNEfonden-Benin Development Unities and BØRNEfonden-Benin intervention areas. At the time of reporting, 71 farmers have already achieved the production process up to harvesting. This report highlights the yam bean harvesting and the different uses from yam bean processed products.The yam bean trials were harvested from 1 to 30 November 2013. Harvest was supervised by the field advisors recruited by BØRNEfonden in the framework of the project.The result of the production yield shows that the trials were more successful in 2013 than in 2012. The average storage root yield across all producers in the BØRNEfonden-Benin intervention areas was 25 t/ha in the area of Bonou; 16.7 t/ha in Adjohoun; 15.8 t/ha in Dangbo; and 14.6 t/ha in the area Zakpota (see Annex 1).The highest root yields obtained was about 49.7 t/ha (in Bonou), whereas the lowest was 3.6 t/ha (in Zakpota). This year, as we have started the production process earlier, the farmers' selection and required technical procedures were strictly followed up so that activities fit into the growing season. The timing for cultivation was the best possible, and we did not face any drought as we did with the bad weather in 2012. A seed production trial covered about 100m² per farm, but it was a bit difficult to estimate precisely because some farmers had hidden some part of their products in order to plant them next year or to sell. More detailed information on the ahipa trials in 2013-2014 are provided in the questionnaire survey that we implemented and shared with CIP.The market price for ahipa has been aligned with the one defined last year (i.e., 150 CFA F/kg and compared with cassava, which is the reference product). This is a good price (1 kg of cassava is sold at 75 CFA F). However, ahipa cultivation is twice as difficult than cassava production, but it can allow for two harvests per year. It is mainly the pruning operation required for ahipa that is the more difficult operation mentioned by the farmers. This has a huge impact on the cost of ahipa production compared with cassava production. However, farmers are aware that ahipa has more options than cassava with respect to processed products likely to be more valued at markets.In 2013-2014 about 50% of the whole yam bean production has been processed for advertising and marketing (this activity will be ongoing in 2014/15 based on own funds of BØRNEfonden-Benin). About 50% was used as food for families, in kindergartens, and during nutritional sessions with nursemaids and children. About 1,000 persons have tasted the crop during three public sessions in the communities where BØRNEfonden is working (see Annex 2) and during a local fair organized by BØRNEfonden. About 30% of the total production has been processed in various products such as gari, juice, yogurt, liqueur (alcohol), chips, and flour and sold at this fair. In advance of the fair, the farmers (men and women) who have abilities in food processing have been trained by Dr. Wilfried Padonou. After the training sessions, the farmers and others who were trained did a great job by producing many ahipa-processed products especially for the fair and the tasting sessions. The yam bean products have been very appreciated by the participants at the fair and at the tasting sessions. In addition, eating fresh ahipa was also very appreciated, especially with roasted groundnuts.In the kindergartens and through the nutritional sessions, about 300 children and mothers have eaten ahipa products. Producers are advised to organize ahipa consumption sessions in their home and villages. For the tasting sessions, two videos were produced and many photos were taken during those sessions. Although these actions helped to promote ahipa, the crop remains largely unknown by the general public. Moreover, the producers do not have opportunities to sell it on the market because we did not attend to any fair and did not have tasting sessions in the big towns such as Porto-Novo, Cotonou, and Bohicon.However, with the production level of this year (2014), we greatly need this kind of promotion in urban markets. We plan to organize further ahipa marketing in our largest towns. BØRNEfonden is also planning to contact some customers in Cotonou (restaurants and individual consumers) and in the harbor.With respect to OFSP production, we received some planting materials (vines) in December 2013, for eight famers in the area of Bonou; trials are going very well so far. Actually, Bonou is the largest area of sweetpotato cultivation in Benin and farmers are used to this crop. The OFSP accessions received from CIP-Ghana are Lanwara, Ejumura, and Carote-C.In general, yam bean trials on-farms in BØRNEfonden's area of intervention were very successful in 2013-2014. The objectives of BØRNEfonden the next year are to help farmers to gain access to markets by promoting ahipa products and making ahipa and OFSP production better known to the people of Benin and more profitable. BØRNEfonden also plans to introduce yam bean consumption into the eating habits of the rural communities and in the towns, especially for children and young people, and help train some women and men on yam bean processing.Finally, we thank CIP for the financial support given to BØRNEfonden for implementing the ahipa project. We hope to continue the collaboration The Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) contributed to the specific objective 6 of the Ahipa projectnamely, \"to provide new diversity to use yam bean seed (YBS) for human consumption,\" and particularly search for genotypes with low/no rotenone or other toxic/anti-nutritional factors in their seeds in order to allow human/animal consumption.The yam bean is a legume root crop in the genus Pachyrhizus and the sub-tribe Glycininae with high storage root yields and very wide adaptation (in Mexico the crop is known as jicama, and in Peru and Bolivia as ahipa). In addition to storage root yields, the yam bean has high seed yields: Zanklan et al. (2007) reported a seed yield of 5.7 t/ha (and remarkably 4.7 t/ha under drought-stress conditions) across 14 P. erosus accession in Benin, West Africa. However, YBS are only used to propagate the crop because they are toxic. At the beginning of the project, the assumption was that the toxicity of the yam bean is due to rotenone (a potentially toxic isoflavonoid). This is reported in several publications, but most are traced back to Santos et al. (1996). No detailed studies have been conducted that makes YBS toxic; however, it appears that YBS protein and oil are quite similar to soybean protein and oil (Santos et al. 1996;Grüneberg et al. 1999). Note that there are very few reports about fatal cases of YBS toxicity (Narongchai et al. 2005), although the crop is widely grown and used as a root fruit and/or root vegetable in Central America and Asia.Note: After Activity 7, the activities changed compared with the original project plan. No large-scale screening among mutation lines were carried out. Instead, the activities focused on the identification of the compounds which make YBS more toxic as expected due to their rotenone and pachyrrhizine content.Activity 1. Establish an analytical method to quantify rotenone in YBS. To find accessions with low/no rotenone (a potentially toxic isoflavonoid in YBS) content, it was necessary to quantify it in seeds. A first analytical method was developed for its quantification. This three-step method was fully validated and was simple enough to be transferable in any laboratory equipped with an HPLC system (see abstract of Publication 1).Activity 2. Develop fast through-put methodology to quantify rotenone in YBS. Owing to the high number of samples to quantify, a faster methodology using microwave extraction and U-HPLC was developed and validated. Moreover, it allowed simultaneous quantification of rotenone and pachyrrhizine, a known phenyl furanocoumarin whose cytotoxicity is reported to be lower than rotenone but also potentially toxic to human being (see abstracts of Publications 2 and 3).Activity 3. Develop reference methods and fast through put methodology by NIRS. These validated methods gave reference values for the development and calibration of a fast through-put quantification method by NIRS on milled YBS, which will be used in Peru to screen a high number of samples (publication in preparation).Activity 4. Screen seed samples from different species and accessions and grown in different environments. After the development of quantification methods, they were applied at UCL for the screening of seed samples from different species and accessions, and grown in different environments. A total of 227 seed samples from Peru, Uganda, and Burundi were quantified for rotenone and 127 for pachyrrhizine.Activity 5. Test feasibility of using food processing to decrease the rotenone content of YBS. To determine the feasibility of using food processing to decrease the rotenone content of YBS and allow their use in food, six different technological processes applicable to African local environments were studied in terms of their ability to degrade rotenone in the YBS (see abstract of Publication 4). The toxicity of the extracts resulting from these degraded samples was compared with the extracts of the initial seeds in vitro on two different cell lines (CHO and WI38) and in in-vivo experiments.Activity 6. Determine whether pods at different development stages and leaves can be used as human food or animal feed. To determine whether pods and leaves could also be used as human/ animal food, the analytical method was modified in order to measure rotenone and pachyrrhizine content in pods and leaves. Six different accessions from the three species P. erosus, P. tuberosus, and P. ahipa were cultivated in Uganda. Their pods were collected at three different maturity levels while the leaves were collected and divided in two batches: one just freeze dried and the other sundried and freeze dried. Activity 9. Purify the more toxic fraction in YBS. The compounds of the more toxic fraction were further purified and their structure identified by up-to-date techniques (high-resolution mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance).Activity 10. Develop a concept note for a new project proposal for YBS. A concept note for a new project proposal to make YBS available for human consumption (potential funding by International Atomic Energy Agency in Austria) was written.Rotenone values found in the different analyzed samples (227 for rotenone and 127 for pachyrrhizine) of YBS were between 0.6 and 3.5 mg/g (pachyrrhizine values between 0.2 and 3.3 mg/g). One seed sample from Peru was found to have a quantity of rotenone lower than the lower limit of quantification (P. ahipa, accession CIP-209038) and one seed sample from Burundi was found to have a quantity of rotenone lower than the lower limit of quantification (P. tuberosus, accession CIP 209054). We also observed that rotenone and pachyrrhizine content may vary according to environmental factors, so this low content has to be verified in different cultivation areas, before being considered as safe for human consumption.We also observed on in-vivo experiments that the toxicity of YBS is mainly located in its lipidic fraction, so the protein content of the seed could still be valorized after the extraction of the toxic fraction. For example, we were able to extract more than 70% of rotenone from YBS flour with a local alcohol.If seeds and flour could be used for human consumption after food processing, we tested different thermic/cooking processes to lower rotenone content. This compound is sensitive to temperature: drying and roasting of whole seeds seem to be the more effective processes allowing a degradation of up to 70% of the initial content of rotenone. Moreover, it was observed that the toxicity (in vitro and in vivo) decreased with rotenone content.The study on the pods was meant to provide data on a part of the plant already used as a food in some areas of Asia. The study on the leaves was meant to provide data for farmers willing to use the leaves as fodder. It was shown that both the pods and the leaves had rotenone content lower than in the seeds: leaves-between 0.3 mg/g and up to 1.6 mg/g of rotenone; pods-between levels so low that they were under the limit of detection and levels higher than 0.8 mg/g of rotenone. Surprisingly, sun drying did not lower the rotenone content in the leaves. We also observed that rotenone content was increasing with the maturity level of the pods.In-vivo tests realized to determine the acute toxicity of YBS clearly showed that their toxicity is not only due to rotenone and pachyrrhizine, but at least also to one or more additional lipophilic compound(s). In fact, YBS were shown to be far more toxic than what was expected based on their rotenone contents. Fractionations followed by in-vivo toxicity tests allowed us to identify these potential compounds as 12-hydroxypachyrrhizone, munduserone, 12-hydroxydolineone, and dehydroneotenone. In a previous study by Nath et al. (1980), the activity of 12-hydroxypachyrrhizone and 12-hydroxydolineone on inhibition of in-vitro respiration has been compared to the activity of rotenone. It was observed that at weak concentrations (0,5.10 -7 M), these compounds were less toxic than rotenone, 12-hydroxypachyrrhizone being more toxic than 12-hydroxydolineone. At higher concentration (1.10 -6 M), they were more active on NADH-oxydoreductase than rotenone. Moreover, it was reported that, as the rotenoids metabolism is essentially oxidative, hydroxyled rotenoides are detoxified more slowly. Munduserone has been reported to be less active than rotenone (Crombie et al. 1992), whereas no data were found on dehydroneotenone's toxicity. From literature data it seems that the six toxic compounds are also biosynthetically linked (Fig. 1). It is hypothesized that there are close genetic correlations among these compounds in yam beans (so far it has been shown that rotenone and pachyrrhizine concentrations in YBS are correlated; Lautié et al. 2013). We observed that the accession of interest from P. tuberosus (CIP-209054) with very low rotenone content did not contain any 12-hydroxypachyrrhizone and was not toxic when it was tested in vivo at the dose where other samples were. No toxicity was either detected for the same accession dried 7 h at 100°C. These results confirm that (1) one accession with low rotenone content has no acute toxicity (chronic toxicity should be tested further), and (2) this biosynthetical pathway can be interrupted without damaging the plant and without an accumulation of rotenone if it is one of its precursors.However, when the flour from the seeds of this accession (CIP-209054) is supplemented with rotenone at a resulting level inferior to rotenone NOAEL, a toxicity is observed. This toxicity is nevertheless lower than the one exerted by a P. erosus accessions (EC 533) at the same rotenone concentration. These results make us think that rotenone has an important role in the acute toxicity of YBS, but its action is reinforced by the presence of the other rotenoids. The pathway leading to these compounds has to be interrupted if we want to make YBS available for human consumption.Our project will not reach the target to screen yam bean mutation lines generated in this project for these six compounds. So far, NIRS (as a fast through-put method) has been calibrated to detect rotenone and pachyrrhizine in milled YBS samples but not for the other derivatives. In total there are about 5,000 M2 lines in generation M3 available to be screened for the six toxic compounds, and additionally about 20,000 M2 single seeds. We hope some of them could show very low/no rotenoid content to allow human consumption.New diversity to use YBS for human consumption has been provided, but so far no material is available that can be disseminated for human consumption. However, our results have increased the chances of success of a new project allowing the use of YBS for human consumption.Abstract: This study describes the development of a validated method for the quantification of rotenone in yam bean. The milled seeds were submitted to a Soxhlet dichloromethane extraction which allowed extracting 90% of the seeds rotenone. Elimination of the lipids was obtained via solid phase extraction. Rotenone was eluted with dichloromethane/methanol and the solution dried under vacuum and solubilised directly in methanol before injection in HPLC. The whole process was realised as much as possible protected from light and at temperatures lower than 40°C which allowed high recovery rates of spiked rotenone. Total error was used as criterion for the validation process and accuracy profiles drawn. The method allows the quantification of rotenone in yam bean seeds from 0.07% up to 1.25% (w/w). This method was applied to the quantification of rotenone in the seeds of several accessions of Pachyrhizus erosus and P. ahipa. The results range from 1.13 to 2.76 mg/g dry material. Abstract: The purpose of the research was to develop and validate a rapid quantification method able to screen many samples of yam bean seeds to determine the content of two toxic polyphenols, namely pachyrrhizine and rotenone. The analytical procedure described is based on the use of an internal standard (dihydrorotenone) and is divided in three steps: microwave assisted extraction, purification by solid phase extraction and assay by UHPLC. Each step was included in the validation protocol and the accuracy profiles methodology was used to fully validate the method. Finally the validated dosing intervals range from 0.25 mg to 5 mg pachyrrhizine per gram of seeds and from 0.58 mg/g to 4 mg/g for rotenone. More than one hundred samples from different accessions, locations of growth and harvest dates were screened. Pachyrrhizine concentrations ranged from 3.29 mg/g to lower than 0.25 mg/g while rotenone concentrations ranged from 3.53 mg/g to lower than 0.58 mg/g. This screening along with PCA and DA analyses allowed the selection of the more interesting genotypes in terms of low concentrations of these two toxic polyphenols. Abstract: The purpose of this research is to screen different processes, which could potentially decrease or even eliminate rotenone, a toxic isoflavonoid, from Pachyrhizus seeds. These seeds have very interesting nutritional characteristics, especially their high proteins and lipids contents, and could potentially increase food security in under-nourished populations. Different processes (drying, roasting, boiling, frying, alcohol extraction), tegument-removal and traditional Beninese culinary recipes were tested and rotenone was quantified in end-products by a validated method, associating microwave extraction, solid phase extraction (SPE) and HPLC-UV. With these processes rotenone removal of up to 80% was obtained. The most effective methods were the drying and roasting of the seeds and the maceration of their flour in local alcohol. The rotenone degradation and elimination was confirmed by cytotoxic assays, effectively inducing a decrease in sample toxicity. ) is a legume crop originating from the Americas but also cultivated in Asia and some parts of Africa. It is grown almost exclusively for its nutrient rich storage roots because seeds contain toxic polyphenols . Anyway young pods have been reported to be used as food in Mexico, Thailand or Indonesia. The valorization of the aerial parts of the plant is also important in order to extend its use as an alternative legume crop in countries of West-and Central Africa. So we decided to quantify the content of rotenone and pachyrrhizine, two toxic compunds, in yam bean pods and also to evaluate the impact of the maturity of pods on these concentrations. For this purpose, pods from two accessions of the three cultivated Pachyrhizus species were grown in Uganda. The quantification procedure was modified from a validated method. It used an internal standard and consisted of three steps: a microwave assisted extraction, a purification by solid phase extraction and the assay itself by UHPLC-DAD. Concentrations ranged from 0.123 to 0.808 mg/g dry material for rotenone and from 0.060 to 0.802 mg/g dry material for pachyrrhizine. The results were between 3 and 5 times lower in pods than those reported in seeds alone. The study revealed also that the lower the level of maturity, the lower the amounts of both compounds. Genotype and environmental effects on the production of these compounds by the plant were also detected. Finally, one P. tuberosus accession (209054) seemed to be very interesting because of its very low content of pachyrrhizine and rotenone at every levels of maturity. Abstract: This international and multidisciplinary project aimed at showing that this underutilized and highly nutritious legume root crop, showing a wide adaptation and high yield potential, can lead to greater food supply, more sustainable farming systems and new options for generating income in the rural and urban poor Central and West Africa. During this four-year initiative main results were obtained in:1. Improving the availability of yam bean germplasm for Central and West Africa especially high-yielding genotypes 2. Developing the gari processing of storage roots 3. Studying the chemical content of seeds, pods, and leaves in order to provide a diversity of use of these by-products. While YBS are known to contain a toxic isoflavonoid, different strategies were developed in order to make them usable for consumption in a close future as pods are consumed in Asia. First different genotypes were screened using different kinds of analytical tools as microwave assisted extraction-solid phase extraction-ultra high performance liquid chromatography or near infrared spectroscopy to identify the less toxic ones. Then the feasibility of decreasing the amount of toxic compounds through food processing was studied and, in-vitro and in-vivo models were used to test the toxicity of different samples. The influence of the maturity of the seed containing pods was also studied. Lautié, E., Rozet, E. , Hubert, P. , and Quetin Leclercq, J. 2010. A validated method combining SPE and HPLC-UV for the quantification of rotenone in seeds of yam bean (Pachyrhizus sp.). Drug Analysis, Anvers, Belgium. Abstract: Due to the nutritional content of its roots and seeds as well as its agronomical yields and the resistance of the plant itself, there is a great deal of interest for the yam bean (Pachyrhizus sp.). The seeds are especially interesting as they contain several minerals, essential amino acids and a high amount of proteins and lipids. Nevertheless, in order to be used as a food crop, it is necessary to obtain seeds as poor as possible in potentially toxic compounds such as rotenone. This compound which is known to be present in these seeds has been shown to inhibit the complex I of the mitochondrial respiratory chain and was formerly used for its insecticidal activity. Its toxicity linked with dopaminergic neuronal degeneration causes many features of Parkinson's disease in animal models and may contribute to this disease in man as well. Thus we developed a method to quantify rotenone in yam bean seeds. In this study, 1 g of seeds flour from Peruvian P. erosus was submitted to Soxhlet dichloromethane extraction. A process of 80 cycles (about 8 hours of extraction) allowed extracting about 87.5% of the rotenone present in the seeds. The lipids of the extracts were cleared up using solid phase extraction (SPE) on silica and rotenone was then eluted with dichloromethane/methanol (98:2), dried under vacuum and solubilised directly in methanol before its injection in HPLC. The whole process for the separation of the other potentially toxic rotenoids has already been developed, which is a step further for their future quantification. 3. One mutation with very low rotenone content has been identified and tested in vivo. It showed no signs of acute toxicity at a dose where other accessions showed acute toxicity. This indicates that in addition to the storage root, the YBS might also have a potential for human consumption. Furthermore, no 12-hydroxypachyrrhizone has been detected (by a very sensitive LC-MS method) in this last genotype. It allows us to think that these kinds of compounds are not essential to the plant's development and that some/most of them could be eliminated/not produced without damaging its development. 4. It is known that the production of secondary metabolites by a plant can be influenced by the environment (climate, presence of parasites, nature of soils, etc.). We observed during the project, for leaves, that the content of rotenone could differ in function of locations. 5. From our point of view, two targets/axes of research detailed below should be investigated to allow seeds to be used for human consumption. They can be done in parallel as they can both give an interesting feedback to each other. Moreover, some of the investigation of target 1 can also be realized during cultivation periods of target 2.1. To end the characterization of the toxic compounds in YBS, another fraction has to be investigated. This other fraction was identified as slightly toxic during the initial fractionation of P. erosus, which led to the identification of 12-hydroxupachyrrhizone, 12-hydroxy dolineone, munduserone, and dehydroneotenone. The compounds responsible for the toxicity of this other fraction have to be identified as well, even if their toxicity is probably less important. More precisely, this fraction results from the fractionation by vacuum liquid chromatography of the hexane Soxhlet extract eluted with hexane/dichloromethane (50:50). 2. Isolation/hemisynthesis of 100 mg or g quantities of potentially toxic lipophilic compounds and evaluation of their toxicity alone, in vitro and in vivo.-Are all compounds exerting their toxicity through the inhibition of NADH-oxydoreductase? Or are the other mechanisms of action of rotenone involved too in the acute toxicity as the inhibition of ornithine decarboxylase, the induction of apoptose, or the modification of the microtubules organization (genotoxicity)? This information could be obtained by in-vitro models existing in the literature. -If the isolated compounds do not act by the same mechanism, identification of this mechanism, in-vitro or in-vivo models should perhaps be developed, depending on the findings obtained. -Does the acute toxicity result from the addition of the activity of all toxic compounds, or is there a synergetic action between compounds (meaning that the suppression of one compound would lead to a higher decrease of the toxicity)? In-vitro and in-vivo tests in combination will have to be performed. -How does the rat model fit the metabolism of these compounds in the human being? How transferable are the results? This will need metabolic analysis and analytical method development.www.afsca.be), or other similar agencies. This final stage should be subcontracted or realized by a specialized laboratory.  The students in Group A are pursuing their PhD thesis. They have successfully defended their proposals, have acquired full admission to Makerere University, and are in final stages of field research (year 3).  Evaluate yam bean accessions for adaptation to different agro-ecological zones in Rwanda (field trials completed).  Determine inheritance of earliness and its components in yam bean through nine P. ahipa x P.tuberosus interspecific hybrid populations (field trials in year 3).  Determine heritability of root yield and its components in yam bean through nine P. ahipa x P.tuberosus interspecific hybrid populations (field trials in year 3). Twenty-three yam beans for adaptability in three agro-ecological zones of Rwanda have been evaluated. Testing of 40 accessions of yam beans at Namulonge, Kabanyolo, and Soroti has been completed.  F1 hybrids received from CIP have been advanced to F3 and are to be planted in a trial at Namulonge once the rains get started in 2014.  Mr. Agaba was trained in use of near infrared spectroscopy equipment at NaCRRI and gained skills that he is already applying in analysis of F1s data and the germplasm used for objective 1.As mentioned with Jean Ndirigue, Mr. Agaba will also require an extension of the fellowship for at least one academic year to enable him to complete the study successfully. Fortunately, this challenge is being followed up by CIP (support at least until June 2015).In this category we have two students who have completed their studies, defended their thesis, and have graduated. Objectives:  Determine the composition of seeds from three cultivated yam bean species (P. erosus, P. ahipa, and P. tuberosus).  Determine the functional and pasting properties of defatted yam bean seed flour (P. erosus). Determine the characteristics of yam bean seed protein (P. erosus).The study shows that yam bean seed is a good source of protein, fat, and carbohydrates. P. tuberosus exhibits the highest protein content, P. erosus the highest fat content, and P. ahipa the highest total carbohydrate content. Functional properties of both flour and isolate indicate that both have potential to be used in food systems as well as in a variety of industrial applications (e.g., adhesives, paper, textiles, bioplastics, biodiesel, and composites). However, yam bean seed protein was seen to have average score in emulsion and foaming capacities and may not be suitable for application where these properties are required, such as in mayonnaise.The study indicated that yam bean seed protein has a high in-vitro protein digestibility, which contributes to its protein quality. The study shows that albumin is the most dominant protein fraction in yam bean seed; this suggests that the seeds can be a good source of high nutritional quality protein. Further research is needed to establish the safety of the defatted flour and the isolate to promote utilization for food and feed. It is necessary to determine the performance of yam bean seed flour and isolate as ingredients in food and non-food industrial applications. There is also need to undertake breeding activities for rotenone-free seeds to fully utilize the seeds of the crop.  Characterize legume root crop germplasm in Uganda using morphological traits. Determine the yam bean seed storage properties for long-term conservation.A significant amount of germplasm is held at MUARIK for Pachyrhizus, comprising P. ahipa, P. tuberosus, and P. erosus. However, for other storage root-forming legumes, only a very limited number of accessions could be obtained for this study (see also Table 4). With respect to agronomic and morphological traits, there is significant genetic variation among the yam bean accessions, which can be used to distinguish accessions and useful for improvement through breeding. It was observed that yam bean seed can be desiccated to 5% without damage, suggesting that yam beans can stored for the long term for conservation. It was noted that seed stored at 7% moisture content at room temperature maintained the highest viability.The students in this category have completed their research work and are finalizing writing of the theses; they are enrolled for MSc in different fields. There was significant difference in the performance of the yam bean accessions using different agronomic practices. Farmer participation in evaluation of the accessions might speed up identification of high-utility yam bean accessions. The determination of the agronomic performance of the yam bean accessions should offer a basis for adoption and further research in Uganda. There is need to explore postharvest traits and market value of yam bean storage roots for wide-scale acceptability. To promote the adoption of yam bean varieties in major farming systems of Burundi for food yield and diversity.conducts two season of experimentation to achieve more reliable results. Note that Mr. Bulambo had to take intensive English classes to improve his language skills in order to attend courses and to write his thesis. The student in this category is at high risk of not finalizing her thesis. ","tokenCount":"27151"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3b03465ffccfccbacdb26dbabfb71514","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/cf1a4638-5521-4321-a0e8-397ac52c2cd0/retrieve","id":"-1379202376"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"25760dfa-091c-4c59-8c59-3a91ebc52304","pagecount":"8","content":"A narrow focus on biophysical aspects of ecosystem restoration fails to acknowledge the centrality of people in restoration and risks inequitable and unjust restoration planning, implementation and outcomes.National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans and their implementation should integrate people-centered and rights-based approaches to ecosystem restoration to contribute to achieving Target 2 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF) -'Restore 30% of Degraded Ecosystems' -as well as Targets 1, 3, and most other targets.Putting people at the center of ecosystem restoration aligns with the goals of other global multilateral environmental agreements and relevant processes (e.g., the Sustainable Development Goals, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, AFR100, the Bonn Challenge, etc.), and lessons and tools from these processes can provide insights for effective integration of human dimensions in ecosystem restoration.Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaborations that equitably include social and natural sciences and traditional knowledge can guide the implementation of Target 2 and other targets under the KM-GBF.Supporting the empowerment of IP & LCs contributes to equitable ecosystem restoration.Monitoring the outcomes of restoration should include critical measures from the human system, such as improved health, livelihoods, empowerment, food, nutrition and tenure security.Ecosystem restoration is a priority in the face of the biodiversity, climate and food security crises. With 75% of the land surface significantly altered, 66% of the oceans facing negative impacts and over 85% of wetlands lost, the very fabric of life and human resilience are at stake. 1 Over half a million (about 9% of the world's estimated 5.9 million) terrestrial species have insufficient habitat for long-term survival, and are expected to go extinct unless their habitats are restored. 2 Land degradation is already negatively impacting the well-being of more than 3.2 billion people. 3 In response, Target 2 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF) calls on Parties to \"Ensure that by 2030 at least 30 per cent of areas of degraded terrestrial, inland water, and coastal and marine ecosystems are under effective restoration, in order to enhance biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, ecological integrity and connectivity.\" 4 Ecosystem restoration includes both biophysical and human dimensions and takes place in a social-ecological system. 5 People depend on ecosystems for their livelihoods; countries depend on ecosystems for their economy; and Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IP & LCs) depend on ecosystems for their spiritual, cultural and overall wellbeing. Although the impacts of ecosystem degradation are felt across the globe, their intensity is uneven, and most acute for IP & LCs whose livelihoods are closely dependent on ecosystems.In the context of ecosystem restoration, the term 'human dimensions' refers to how and why people restore (or degrade) ecosystems, what influences their decisions, and in turn, how people influence, or are affected by, ecosystem restoration (or loss). Necessarily broad, the term acknowledges that there are several elements situated in the human system that have direct impacts on the ecological system. These include, for example, drivers of ecosystem loss or gain, cultural and value systems, motivations that influence behavior towards the ecosystem, the historical, socio-cultural, institutional and political contexts, and underlying power dynamics shaping how ecosystems are managed (or mismanaged), and much more. In Australia, Benin and India, for instance, IP & LCs have conserved and restored sacred forests for generations due to their spiritual value. 6 A recent framework recognizes five pillars of human dimensions, resting in the context, motivations, activities, influencing factors, and outcomes of restoration. 7Notwithstanding, to date, restoration research and practice have emphasized biophysical dimensions, such as technological practices, and species and site selection based on ecological characteristics, with much less attention paid to human dimensions. 8 This reflects the profile of lead organizations, Ministries, agencies and experts involved in ecosystem restoration. Understanding the human dimensions that shape and are shaped by the restoration process is paramount to its success since all choices and decisions related to both ecosystem degradation and restoration are inextricably linked to people.A narrow focus on biophysical aspects of ecosystem restoration fails to acknowledge the centrality of people in restoration. Despite the rhetoric around multiple objectives for ecosystem restoration, priorities for recovering biodiversity or carbon/ biomass have dominated restoration agendas. 9 In practice, other than job creation, due consideration to the many human dimensions that intersect at all stages of a restoration process remains limited.Ambitious socio-political and economic goals are often absent or compromised because of short term thinking in restoration programs. Although restoration is a long term process, decision-makers tend to think in terms of quick fixes and short-term project and political cycles, leading to unrealistic expectations of 'easy wins' with limited consideration given to local human needs. As a result, restoration objectives, targets, and their monitoring tend to focus on easily quantifiable measures, such as numbers of trees planted or jobs created, rather than less tangible socio-political aspects. A review in Colombia, for example, found that social and political change was monitored in only 5% of restoration projects. 10 Longer term thinking, synchronous with long-term restoration processes, requires broadening this approach to consider medium and long term human outcomes such as improved health and livelihoods, empowerment, food, nutrition and tenure security. Such outcomes need to be integrated in restoration monitoring plans, processes and systems.Restoration can have negative impacts on people if not carried out in a just, respectful and contextuallyappropriate manner. Many restoration processes take place in contexts with insecure or unclear tenure rights, and can lead to negative impacts on human rights. For example, restoration may take place on lands that are assumed to be free but on which IP & LCs depend. 11 Such cases may result in land dispossessions, thereby transgressing the needs and rights of IP & LCs, and causing significant negative long-term impacts on their livelihoods and ultimately, on the sustained conservation and restoration of ecosystems. 12 Context matters in ecosystem restoration and there can be no one size fits all. The restoration of ecosystems takes place in diverse social, economic, institutional, historical, political and cultural settings. 13 Frequently, restoration initiatives overlook human diversity, historical context, and longstanding 9 Erbaugh and Oldekop, 2018  10 Murcia et al., 2016  11 Rakotonarivo et al., 2023  12 Fleischman et al., 2022  13 Fleischman et al., 2022 ; Mansourian et al., 2024  social injustices. 14 Yet accounting for the human context within which ecosystem restoration takes place is critical to the local relevance, acceptability, and sustainability of restoration initiatives. This complex diversity is poorly addressed in step-by-step prescriptive restoration guidelines that are devoid of context.Successful integration of human dimensions in ecosystem restoration will support the achievement of several KM-GBF targets, and of the Framework as a whole. The introductory section of the KM-GBF stipulates that the \"implementation of the Framework should follow a human-rights based approach\". 15 The same section recognizes the \"important roles and contributions of indigenous peoples and local communities as custodians of biodiversity and partners in the conservation, restoration and sustainable use\", and that \"the Framework's implementation must ensure that the rights, knowledge, including traditional knowledge associated with biodiversity, innovations, worldviews, values and practices of indigenous peoples and local communities are respected, and documented and preserved\". Moreover, the KM-GBF recognizes and considers the diverse value systems that mediate human relations with nature as an integral part of its implementation.Concerns for gender equality, cultural values, and equitable rights to resources are reflected in Targets 22 and 23, and in the Gender Plan of Action (2022-2030) 16 that accompanies the Framework. Addressing tenure insecurity, including women's land rights, in a restoration effort contributes, among others, to Targets 2, 3 and 23. Similarly, the full, meaningful and effective participation of women in the development of restoration plans and throughout the restoration process is in line with Target 23, which recognizes women's equal rights to participation and leadership \"at all levels of action, engagement, policy and decision-making related to biodiversity.\" 17 Specific provisions in National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) should be included to ensure that these human dimensions, which are transversal to the Framework, are addressed in relevant actions toward Target 2 at national and local levels, to contribute to achieving not only the restoration target, but also Targets 1, 3, 5, 9 and 21-23, among others.Human dimensions must be considered at all stages of a restoration process -from assessing to planning, implementing, analyzing, adapting, through to learning. 18 Understanding the central role of people in restoration across the restoration process helps to identify strategies to collaborate with key stakeholders and rightsholders at every stage to find solutions that yield benefits for people and the ecosystem (recognizing that the two are intertwined). For example, tree ownership framed in Ghana's 2012 Forest and Wildlife Policy provides a strong incentive for farmers to grow trees on their cropland. 19 Likewise, native seed collector networks in Brazil that structure communities around a profitmaking enterprise established to supply seeds to restoration projects have yielded positive impacts both for people and the environment. 20The implementation of Target 2 can benefit from lessons from work in other areas, such as on protected areas, which has increasingly acknowledged the importance of participation, inclusion, equity and diversity. Whereas Target 2 falls short of specifying the importance of human dimensions of restoration, Target 3, \"Conserve 30% of Land, Water and Seas\", highlights the need to respect the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, recognize Indigenous and traditional territories, and govern such areas in an equitable manner. 21 Targets 1, 5, 9, 21, 22, and 23 also explicitly mention human rights and can guide the way for developing language that ensures a human-, justice-and equity-centered approach to ecosystem restoration. Nations Convention to Combat Desertification [UNCCD], AFR100, the Bonn Challenge, etc.). The principles of ecosystem restoration outlined under the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration clearly identify the importance of human dimensions, such as the promotion of \"inclusive and participatory governance, social fairness and equity from the start and throughout the process and outcomes\" (Principle 2), and the incorporation of \"all types of knowledge and [promotion of] their exchange and integration throughout the process\" (Principle 6). 22 Strengthening human dimensions in Target 2 will contribute to improving restoration initiatives under these other processes.Enablers of ecosystem restoration are situated in the human system. Enablers contribute to facilitating restoration implementation and include supportive policies and incentives, such as those that pay farmers for setting land aside for restoration or improving the institutional environment as highlighted by the CBD's Short Term Action Plan for Ecosystem Restoration (STAPER). 23 They also include multistakeholder dialogues that bring stakeholders to the table to discuss and agree on restoration priorities and objectives, and promote collaboration throughout the restoration process. Trusted local facilitators or brokers in restoration initiatives can act as enablers, as can locally-driven innovations and solutions, grounded in traditional knowledge. The revision of NBSAPs presents an opportunity to include these enablers in restoration planning and action, to support the implementation of Target 2 of the KM-GBF and all other relevant targets.-such as environmental economics, behavioral psychology or environmental anthropology -can contribute fundamental insights for addressing human dimensions in the implementation of Target 2. For example, understanding stakeholders' motivations for degrading or restoring ecosystems through the lens of behavioral psychology contributes to the design of effective and targeted restoration strategies. 24 Moreover, several social science tools developed under a range of disciplines, such as rural development or agriculture, are directly relevant to 22 FAO et al., 2021  23 CBD/COP/DEC/XIII/5 24 Mansourian, 2021   the incorporation of human dimensions in restoration. For example, many bilateral donors and UN agencies have developed tools that support conflict resolution (e.g., SDC's 'Conflict analysis tool' 25 or UNDG's tool for 'Conducting a conflict and development analysis' 26 ), which can also be valuable in the implementation and negotiation of multiple, and sometimes competing, objectives for ecosystem restoration. 27Interdisciplinary collaboration and the integration of diverse knowledge systems as part of a whole of society approach improves the knowledge base for restoration. Ecosystem restoration can greatly benefit from multiple skillsets, experiences and types of knowledge, which reflect the diversity of people involved and of issues to address throughout the duration of a restoration process. 28 Specifically, recognizing traditional knowledge, innovations, practices and technologies of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, accessed only with their free, prior and informed consent (Target 21 29 ), can improve restoration action and its local acceptability. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has raised the importance of such pluralistic approaches 30 that can be included in the development and implementation of NBSAPs so that achievement of multiple targets, including Target 2, can be locally-grounded.A rights-based approach to ecosystem restoration requires the full and effective engagement of those whose livelihoods depend directly on the ecosystem to be restored, in particular IP & LCs. They should be involved in defining restoration objectives and implementing restoration, and should benefit equitably from the outcomes. 31 For example, supporting the empowerment of rightsholders through the recognition of customary tenure or of locally-defined institutions provides an avenue for better long-term ecosystem management as well as ecosystem restoration. 32 The Gender Plan of Action (2022-2030) 33 provides indicative actions to ensure that this is done with due consideration to gender equality. Recognizing the roles of diverse community members allows for locally-adapted restoration, in line with Decision 15/3 34 , which promotes the organization of \"international dialogues with indigenous peoples and local communities and relevant stakeholders, including women and youth, on progress in the implementation of the Framework and the Gender Plan of Action (2023-2030).\" • Adopt people-centered approaches that recognize the centrality of human dimensions and enable socially just, sustained and effective ecosystem restoration. Ecosystem assessments should tap into the social sciences and incorporate the various historical, cultural, institutional and social dimensions that shape an ecosystem and directly impact on its restoration.• Include human rights, justice, and equality as integral principles in ecosystem restoration (Target 2) and throughout the NBSAPs. The meaningful and effective participation of women, Indigenous Peoples and local communities is necessary in the development of NBSAPs and in planning and implementing activities under Target 2.• Establish interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary teams that bring together many social sciences (as well as natural sciences) and traditional knowledge systems to support the operationalization of ecosystem restoration.In such pluralistic approaches, complementary disciplines and knowledge systems reflect the diversity of people involved in, and affected by, restoration and can significantly advance implementation of biodiversity conservation and ecosystem restoration. 37• Learn from other processes that better integrate human dimensions, and apply and adapt relevant tools from other areas. Incorporating human dimensions in Target 2 can benefit from existing tools and experiences in related areas, such as protected area management (Target 3), and can also contribute to improving implementation of associated processes, such as initiatives to achieve the SDGs.• Monitor the outcomes of restoration paying special attention to impacts on the human system, such as improved health, livelihoods, empowerment, food, nutrition and tenure security. Monitoring these outcomes in the context of Target 2 is also relevant for assessing progress towards other KM-GBF targets, including Target 3.37 Reyes-Garcia et al., 2022   Recommendations","tokenCount":"2507"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"86c30c03904680ae4d2a2233d304a63d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/69107b26-9223-46ea-8f4e-e689818205a0/retrieve","id":"-349753360"},"keywords":["adaptation traits","biochemical mechanisms","Fe-toxicity tolerance","physiological mechanisms","rice"],"sieverID":"f7a2a84c-65b9-4fbd-8102-e56616ca8b46","pagecount":"13","content":"Iron (Fe) is a fundamental element involved in various plant metabolic processes. However, when Fe uptake is excessive, it becomes toxic to the plant and disrupts cellular homeostasis. The aim of this study was to determine the physiological and biochemical mechanisms underlying tolerance to Fe toxicity in contrasting rice varieties adapted to African environments. Four varieties (CK801 and Suakoko 8 (tolerant), Supa and IR64 (sensitive)) selected from our previous work were analysed in more detail, and the first part of this study reports morphological, physiological and biochemical responses induced by Fe toxicity in these four varieties. Morphological (shoot length, root length, number of lateral roots), physiological (photosynthesis rate, stomatal conductance, transpiration rate, fluorescence, relative water content and cell membrane stability) and biochemical (tissue Fe, chlorophyll pigments, soluble sugars, protein and starch) traits were measured, as appropriate, on both shoot and root tissues and at different time points during the stress period. Fe toxicity significantly (P 0.05) reduced growth and metabolism of all the four varieties. Tolerant varieties showed more lateral roots than the sensitive ones, under Fe toxic conditions as well as higher photosynthesis rate, chlorophyll content and cell membrane stability. Strong dilution of Fe concentration in cells was identified, as one of the additional tolerance mechanisms used by CK801, whereas Suakoko 8 mainly used strong mobilisation of carbohydrates at the early stage of the stress period to anticipate metabolite shortage. Traits associated with Fe toxicity tolerance in this study could be specifically targeted in trait-based breeding programs of superior lowland rice varieties tolerant of Fe toxicity.Iron plays pivotal functions in plant respiration, cell division, synthesis of chlorophyll, and electron transport chain of photosynthesis (Müller et al. 2015). However, Fe 2+ also acts as a catalyst in Fenton reactions, producing reactive oxygen species (ROS) that are potentially harmful to the cell and that induce oxidative damage in plants (Kao et al. 2001;Onaga et al. 2016). Therefore, when Fe is absorbed in excess by plants, it can shift the cell redox balance towards a pro-oxidant state, causing alterations in the morphological, biochemical and physiological characteristics of the plant (Hell and Stephan 2003) and in the most severe cases, lead to plant death. To maintain balanced levels of Fe that enable optimal plant cell functions while avoiding the harmful effects of Fe-induced oxidative damages, plants must establish tight control mechanisms of cellular Fe levels.Rice plants can absorb Fe both in the divalent (Fe 2+ ) and trivalent (Fe 3+ ) forms. However, under aerobic conditions, the dominant Fe 3+ form is often complexed in the soil and less available to plants. In flooded conditions, as it is the case in lowland rice growing environments, the reduction of Fe 3+ into Fe 2+ is favoured, especially under acidic and low redox conditions and the Fe 2+ form is soluble. Hence, lowland rice cultivated in Fe rich environments under constant or partial flooding, without good water management, faces the risk of being exposed to Fe toxicity at any stage of growth. When rice plants experience Fe toxicity, they usually develop orangebrown spots on the leaves. This symptom is commonly called leaf bronzing and it is thought to occur as a result of oxidative stress (Apel and Hirt 2004). In addition, strong growth depression and damaged root systems can be observed on rice plants grown under excess Fe conditions.As evidenced by many studies, rice plants under Fe toxicity stress display a wide range of responses as part of their strategies to overcome the stress. These strategies include both avoidance and tolerance mechanisms and their efficiency may vary with the type of Fe toxicity occurring in the growth environment, its duration and intensity (Becker and Asch 2005;Frei et al. 2016). Studies conducted by Dufey et al. (2009) reported that in severe cases of iron toxicity, rice plants showed reduction of the water content, and chlorophyll content index and an increase in the stomatal resistance, shoot iron uptake and iron concentration of the roots and shoots. Stomatal resistance has also been found to be positively correlated with leaf bronzing index in iron toxic conditions (Dufey et al. 2009). According to Goicoechea et al. (2001) a rice plant closes its stomata in order to limit the transpiration rate, which may affect the CO 2 exchange rate and related photosynthetic functions, meaning that plant growth would be reduced. However, in the case of the genotypes used in the study conducted by Dufey et al. (2009), stomatal resistance was observed to be a late mechanism of survival after a high iron concentration had been reached in the leaf tissue, since the more sensitive plants presented both higher stomatal resistance and high iron concentration. Several studies have also reported a reduction in chlorophyll pigments in association with stomatal closure, leading to a reduction in photosynthesis (Dingkuhn et al. 1999;Sairam and Saxena 2000;Awal and Ikeda 2002). Such complexity may explain why mainly minor quantitative trait loci (QTL) were identified for Fe toxicity tolerance (Dufey et al. 2009;Wu et al. 2014;Onaga et al. 2016). Although several reactions and cellular adjustments are required to circumvent the harmful effects of Fe toxicity, most of the genetic studies on this stress have looked at tolerance traits at the plant level (e.g. leaf bronzing, plant height, biomass). It is indeed challenging to evaluate traits at a tissue or cellular level on large populations. However, understanding the specific traits contributing to Fe toxicity tolerance in potential donors and singling out individual factors that contribute to these traits could be a first step towards more tailored mapping studies and greater successes in rice improvement for diverse Fe-toxic environments.In this study four varieties contrasting in Fe toxicity tolerance (including two potential donors) were studied for various physiological, biochemical and anatomical traits with the aim of gaining a holistic perception of traits underlying rice tolerance mechanisms to Fe toxicity and recommend breeding target traits. This work focuses on the first part of the study, which investigated morphological, physiological and biochemical changes induced by Fe toxicity over time and traits associated with Fe toxicity tolerance.Four rice varieties were used in this study (Table 1). Seeds of all varieties were obtained from AfricaRice. All the varieties tested are adapted to lowland ecology and belong to Oryza sativa L. ssp. indica. Previous studies reported that IR64 is moderately sensitive (Wu et al. 1997;Dufey et al. 2012). Suakoko 8 is well known for its tolerance to Fe toxicity (Audebert and Sahrawat 2000;Sikirou et al. 2015) and Supa was reported as sensitive to Fe toxicity (Onaga et al. 2013). The other variety CK801 was selected based on preliminary experiments (KN Drame, unpubl. data) and recommendations of the national Agricultural Research Institute of Guinea (IRAG).When Fe concentration is high in a solution it tends to precipitate with other elements, especially phosphorus (P), Table 1. Effects of iron treatment (Fe), variety (Var), growth stage (time) and their interactions on the variation of relevant plant traits measured in this study and average performance of plants grown under control and excess iron conditions over the duration of the growth period (3 weeks) Units of measurement are the same as in Figures 1 and 2 resulting in a low availability of both elements. In order to minimise such precipitation, different compositions of Yoshida (Yoshida 1976) and Magnavaca (Magnavaca et al. 1987) nutrient solutions were tested in Fe toxic conditions using Geochem software (Shaff et al. 2010). The most stable solution was obtained with optimised Magnavaca nutrient solution (Magnavaca et al. 1987;Famoso et  ). Available Fe 2+ and P concentrations in the nutrient solution were confirmed by daily measurement for 15 days using ferrozine and molybdate assay respectively. In brief, a sample of culture solution was cleared by centrifugation at 3220g for 5 min and 20 mL was mixed with 600 mL of 1 mM ferrozine. Absorbance at 562 nm was measured and concentration of Fe 2+ in mM was calculated according to Stookey (1970) using the following formula: [Fe 2+ ] = A 562 /(27900  DF  10 3 ) where A 562 is the absorbance at 562nm and DF is the dilution factor. To determine available P, a sample of the cleared solution was mixed with 0.1 mM sulfuric-ammonium molybdate at equal volumes and absorbance at 882 nm measured. Concentration of P in the sample was determined using a standard curve plotted using known concentrations of P (0, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10, 50 and 100 mM in optimised Magnavaca solution). All rice seeds were incubated at 50 C for 5 days to break possible seed dormancy. They were surface-sterilised by soaking in 70% ethanol for 10 min and thereafter thoroughly rinsed with de-ionised water. Then, the seeds were soaked in de-ionised water for 48 h at 32 C and germinated on wet paper towel rolls at 32 C for another 48h. At the end of the incubation period, the paper rolls holding the seedlings were transferred to the screenhouse to acclimatise at ambient conditions. The following day, the seedlings were transferred to culture trays containing the optimised Magnavaca nutrient solution (Famoso et al. 2010). Seedlings were allowed to grow for 2 weeks before excess Fe (5.4 mM Fe 2+ added as FeSO 4 * 7H 2 O) was applied to half of the trays. The other half was used as control. The pH of the culture solution as well as the concentrations of P and Fe 2+ were monitored daily as described above and adjusted to their respective initial values. The culture solution was renewed every 5 days. The experiments were set up in a split-plot with randomised complete block design.All morphological and physiological parameters were measured at the beginning of the stress treatment and thereafter, once a week, except the destructive measurements which were done only at the end of the experiment. Morphological traits included shoot length, root length and number of lateral roots. Shoot length and root length were measured from the culm base to the tip of the longest leaf and from the culm base to the tip of the longest root, respectively. The number of functional lateral roots was counted on each plant. After 16 days of Fe treatment, leaf bronzing was scored on the basis of a visual assessment of Fe toxicity on the whole plant following the Standard Evaluation System (SES) (IRRI 2002). Physiological parameters included chlorophyll fluorescence (expressed as electron transport rate, ETR), leaf stomatal conductance, relative water content (RWC), content of chlorophyll pigments and carotenoids and membrane stability. Gas exchange measurements were done on the youngest fully expanded leaf on three plants per variety per replication and per treatment between 0900 and 1300 hours.Chlorophyll fluorescence was monitored using the pulse amplitude modulation (MINI-PAM, Walz). Leaf stomatal conductance was measured using an automatic porometer (AP 4, Delta-T Devices). Cellular CO 2 , transpiration, and photosynthesis rates were measured using a portable photosynthesis system (LI6400XT, LI-COR Biosciences) following the manual's guidelines. Internal parameters were fixed at a photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) of 1200 mmol m À2 s À1 by using a LED light source at a reference CO 2 concentration of 400 ppm. For the quantification of photosynthetic pigments (chlorophyll a (chla), chlorophyll b (chlb) and carotenoids), leaf samples were collected and freeze-dried for 3 days. The dry weight of the samples was determined and the samples placed in 15 mL vials covered with aluminium foil to protect the extracts from the light. To these vials, 10 mL of 95% ethanol was added and samples were incubated in the dark for 24 h. Absorbance was measured at different wavelengths and chlorophyll and carotenoid concentrations were calculated according to Lichtenthaler and Buschmann (2001):Damage to the photosynthetic apparatus was determined as the ratio between total chlorophyll and carotenoid contents: (C a + C b )/(C x+c ). Membrane stability was assessed using the electrolyte leakage test. Fifteen leaf discs were freshly cut (0.5 cm 2 each) and rinsed three times (2-3 min) with distilled water to remove ions on the cut surfaces and rinsing was done gently to avoid mechanical damage to the leaf that would increase the amount of ion leakage. Leaf discs were then floated on 10 mL of distilled water for 16 h at room temperature under constant shaking. Ion leakage in the solution was measured using a conductivity meter. The leaf discs were then incubated in an oven (90 C) for 2 h and the conductivity measured. The percentage of cell membrane stability was expressed as (100 -((EC 0 /EC f )  100)), where EC 0 and EC f are the conductivity before and after heating respectively (Agarie et al. 1995). To determine RWC, fully expanded leaves were sampled and immediately weighed to determine the FW. Leaves were then immersed in Petri dishes containing 5 mM CaCl 2 overnight at room temperature in a closed box to reduce vapour loss. The next day, leaves were removed and quickly blot-dried on a tissue paper then weighed to determine turgid weight (TW). DW was determined after oven-drying the leaves at 74 C for 3 days. The RWC of the leaf was calculated using the formula RWC = ((FW -DW)/ (TW -DW))  100.Biochemical analyses were done on root and shoot samples collected at five different time points during the stress period, with 4-day interval between two samplings. The sampling scheme was as follows: sampling point 1 = just before excess Fe application; sampling point 2 = 4 days after the application of Fe treatment; sampling point 3 = 8 days after; sampling point 4 = 12 days after; and sampling point 5 = 16 days after application (end of experiment). All samples were snap-frozen in liquid nitrogen immediately after collection and transferred to À80 C. Later, the samples were ground to fine powder using liquid nitrogen, making sure to avoid their thawing. The ground samples were weighed and used for the various analyses as follows.Samples (200 mg) of ground shoot and root were mixed with 7 mL of 80% ethanol, vortexed at maximum speed for 2 s and centrifuged at 2465g for 5 min. The supernatant was collected and the process was repeated twice, adding 3 mL of 80% ethanol the third time. The supernatant was adjusted to 25 mL using 80% ethanol and the container covered with parafilm to avoid evaporation (Fales 1951). A sample assay was prepared with different proportions of the shoot and root samples extracts. For root samples, 0.1 mL of extract plus 1 mL of anthrone were used whereas for shoot samples, 0.05 mL of sample, plus 0.05 mL of 80% ethanol and 1 mL of anthrone were used. All the samples were incubated in a water bath at 95 C for 10 min and the reaction stopped in an ice bath. All samples were vortexed at maximum speed for 2 s before absorbance readings were taken at 620 nm using SPECTROstar Nano (BMG Labtech). Total soluble sugars were determined by plotting absorbance readings on a standard curve obtained with different concentrations of glucose and expressed as the amount of sugar per unit DW of tissue sample used in the extraction.Dry residues from the sugar assay were weighed together with 10 mg of starch standard and they were mixed with 2 mL of acetate buffer. All the samples were incubated in a water bath for 3 h at 95 C with regular mixing, every 20 min. The mixture was cooled to 55 C and 1 mL of amyloglucosidase in acetate buffer was added immediately. The samples were vortexed at maximum speed for 2 s and incubated for 24 h at 37 C, after which the samples were centrifuged at 2465g for 10 min and the supernatant transferred to a 25-mL volumetric flask. Solid residues were cleaned using 3 mL of Nano pure water vortexed and centrifuged at 2465g for 10 min. The supernatant was added to the previous one and the extract volume was toped up to 25 mL using Nano pure water. The starch sample was used to prepare the standards. The sample assay was prepared by mixing 0.6 mL of the extract with 3 mL of peroxidase-glucose oxidase/o-dianisidine (PGO) enzyme colour reagent, vortexing the mix at maximum speed and incubating it in the dark for 30 min (Draeger et al. 1988). Samples absorbances at 450 nm were determined using SPECTROstar Nano (BMG Labtech). Starch content was expressed per unit DW of tissue sample used in the extraction.Samples (200 mg) of finely ground shoot and root tissues were kept on ice to inactivate any enzyme and 2 mL of cold extraction buffer (100 mM HEPES-KOH, pH8.0) was added immediately before the samples thaw. The samples were vortexed at maximum speed for 2 s, agitated at 4 C for 10 min and centrifuged at 10 000g, 4 C for 10 min. The crude extract was collected and the residue discarded (Tomlinson et al. 2004). This crude extract was then subjected to dialysis for 24 h, with constant agitation at 4 C and changing the dialysate every 6 h to ensure maximum purification of the proteins. Purified proteins were quantified following Bradford (1976).In addition, to these traits, tissue Fe content was determined at the end of the experiment from the four uppermost and the three lower leaves of the harvested plants. The leaves were detached from the roots at the culm base and weighed to determine FW. Roots were rinsed thoroughly using distilled water, blotdried on tissue paper, and their FW determined. The fresh roots were incubated for 3 h at 25 C in 45 mL of a solution (pH 6.5) containing 0.27 M sodium citrate (Na 3 C 6 H 5 O 7 * 2H 2 O), 0.11 M sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO 3 ) and 3 g of sodium dithionite (Na 2 O 4 S 2 ), to remove the Fe plaques on the roots. The washed roots and shoots were oven-dried at 70 C for 3 days and the DW determined. The dried samples were finely ground in a stainless electric grinder. Subsamples of 300 mg of ground samples were ashed in a furnace at a temperature of 325 C until all smoke dissipated. Complete ashing was then done overnight at 490 C. The samples were cooled at room temperature and the ashes suspended in 50 mL of 1N HCl. The dissolved ashes were centrifuged at 10 000g for 10 min and intracellular Fe determined in the extracts using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer (Shimadzu, model AA60IFG).Statistical analysis of the data was done using the Statistical Tool for Agricultural Research (STAR) (IRRI 2013) and R i386 ver. 3.2.2 (The R Foundation for Statistical Computing Platform, 2015). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed using the general linear model (GLM) procedure. Treatment means were separated using Duncan's multiple range test (DMRT) at P 0.05.For all the morphological, physiological and biochemical traits studied, the effect of Fe treatment was significant (P 0.05) to highly significant (P 0.0001). The effect of time was significant (P 0.05) to highly significant (P 0.0001) for all the traits except transpiration, although variety effect was not significant for cellular CO 2 and conductance (Table 1).For morphological traits, the interaction between Fe treatment and time (Fe  time), time and variety (time  Var), Fe treatment and variety (Fe  Var) and between Fe treatment, time and variety (Fe  time  Var) was significant (P 0.05) to highly significant (P 0.0001) for all the traits measured. For physiological traits, the effect of Fe  time interaction was significant (P 0.05 to P 0.01) on the variation of all the traits whereas the effect of time  Var interaction was only significant at P 0.05 and not significant for cellular CO 2 and conductance. The effect of Fe  Var interaction was significant (P 0.05) to highly significant (P 0.001) for all the traits except conductance. The interaction Fe  time  Var had a significant effect (P 0.05 to P 0.01) on trait variation except for transpiration and conductance. For the biochemical traits, all interactions had highly significant effect (P 0.0001) on trait variations (Table 1).Over the growth period in this experiment (3 weeks), overall performances of plants subjected to excess Fe were reduced compared with the control plants, except for chlorophyll fluorescence, lateral roots and starch content. Reduction of growth traits varied between 11.1% (root length) and 15.4% (shoot length) whereas metabolic traits reduced by 16.5% (soluble sugars) and 60% (proteins). The highest reduction among physiological traits was observed for conductance (61.9%), transpiration (53%) and photosynthesis (50.2%) (Table 1).At moderate (after 6 days of exposure to excess Fe) and severe (after 12 days of exposure to excess Fe) stress levels, CK801 and IR64 maintained more or less the same shoot length in the stressed plants as in the control plants. Under moderate stress, Suakoko8 slightly boosted plant growth compared with control plants but under severe stress, a slight decrease was noted. Shoot length in Supa decreased under both moderate and severe stress levels (Fig. 1). Similarly, CK801, IR64 and Suakoko8 showed minor difference of root length between stressed and control plants at moderate stress level whereas in Supa, a decrease of root length was noted in stressed plants. At severe stress level, decrease of root length is observed in all the varieties under excess Fe conditions. The number of new lateral roots, under both moderate and severe stress levels, increased in stressed plants of all the varieties compared with control plants. The largest increase of the number of lateral roots and the highest number under excess Fe conditions were observed in CK801 followed by Suakoko8, then IR64 and Supa (Fig. 1).Concerning physiological traits, a reduction of photosynthesis rate was observed in all the varieties under both moderate and severe stress conditions with the decrease being much more pronounced after 12 days of exposure to excess Fe than after 6 days (Fig. 1). The strongest reduction and the lowest photosynthesis rate under excess Fe conditions was observed in IR64. Under severe stress conditions, CK801 showed the highest photosynthesis rate among the four varieties. For cellular CO 2 , there was no difference between stressed and control plants of IR64 and Suakoko8 at moderate stress level. In the same conditions, a slight increase of cellular CO 2 was observed in CK801 and Supa. At severe stress level, a decrease of cellular CO 2 was observed in all the varieties with CK801 showing the smallest variation between stressed and control plants (Fig. 1). Chlorophyll fluorescence increased under both moderate and severe stress levels in all the varieties with the values under severe stress being higher than in moderate stress. Under excess Fe conditions, CK801 presented the lowest chlorophyll fluorescence whereas Supa showed the highest (Fig. 1).Although the interaction Fe  time  Var was not significant for transpiration and conductance, differential varieties' responses were also observed for these traits. At moderate stress level, transpiration significantly decreased in stressed plants of CK801 and IR64 compared with control plants whereas in Suakoko8 and Supa higher transpiration rate was observed in stressed plants. Transpiration rate decreased in all varieties under severe stress level. Stomatal conductance decreased at both moderate and severe stress levels in all the varieties but with different magnitudes (Fig. 1).In addition, CK801 presented the healthiest plants under excess Fe conditions with an overall leaf bronzing score (LBS) of 3 and higher relative water content and chlorophyll content than the other varieties (Table 2). It was followed by Suakoko8 which recorded similar level of membrane stability than CK801 despite a higher LBS. IR64 and Supa presented comparable levels of leaf bronzing and chlorophyll content but IR64 had higher water content (within the same range as Suakoko8) than Supa. Suakoko8 recorded the highest carotenoid content followed by Supa and CK801, and lastly IR64 (Table 2).For all the varieties, tissue Fe concentrations in the upper leaves were higher than in the lower leaves and in the roots (Table 2). Across tissues, the highest Fe concentration was recorded in Supa, followed by CK801 and IR64. Suakoko8 presented the lowest upper-leaf and root Fe concentrations among the varieties. Supa recorded the highest tissue Fe concentrations in the lower leaves and the upper leaves. The highest inner root Fe was recorded by CK801, followed by Supa, IR64 and Suakoko8 (Table 2).Variation patterns of biochemical traits were significantly different across Fe treatments, sampling times and varieties. In Fig. 2, overall variation of soluble sugars, starch and proteins by Fe treatment and variety were presented. It appeared that the amount of soluble sugars in stressed plants were lower than in control plants, independent of the variety. However, Suakoko8 accumulated the highest amount of soluble sugars under both Fe treatments compared with the other three varieties. Supa, which recorded the second highest amount of soluble sugars under control conditions, became the lowest under excess Fe conditions. In both Fe treatments, the amounts of soluble sugars in CK801 and IR64 were comparable. For starch, only small variations were observed between Fe treatments and between varieties except in Suakoko8. This variety accumulated significantly higher amounts of starch in stressed plants than in control plants and much more than the other varieties in any of the Fe treatments. For proteins as well, there were very little changes between Fe treatments. However, comparison between varieties showed that IR 64 recorded the highest amounts of proteins in both control and excess Fe treatments (Fig. 2). In Fig. 3, tissue-specific variations in soluble sugars, starch and proteins in response to excess Fe were presented at the different sampling points for each variety. For all the varieties, the amounts of soluble sugars, starch and proteins present in the roots were lower than in the shoots. On average, Suakoko8 recorded the highest amount of soluble sugars in both the roots and shoots, whereas Supa presented the lowest values and CK801's sugar levels were comparable with IR64 in both tissues. In the roots, average amount of starch in CK801 was the highest among the varieties whereas that of Supa was the lowest. In the shoots, average amount of starch in IR64 was the highest, followed by Suakoko8 and the average starch level in CK801 was within the same range as in Supa. For protein contents in the roots, IR64 recorded, on average, the highest amount of proteins followed by CK801, Supa and Suakoko8. In the shoots, tolerant varieties Suakoko8 and CK801 had lightly higher protein contents than IR64 and Supa, which were comparable.Concerning varietal differences at the different time points, it was noted that at sampling point 1 (prior to plant exposure to excess Fe), Suakoko8 recorded the highest amounts of soluble sugars and starch in both roots and shoots, whereas CK801 recorded the highest protein content in both tissues. At sampling point 2 (after 4 days of exposure to excess Fe), the protein and sugar levels in Suakoko8 were still the highest in both tissues and its protein content was the highest in the shoots. In the roots it was Supa which recorded the highest amount of proteins. Starch and soluble sugars in the shoots of CK801 and IR64 could not be measured at this sampling point. At sampling point 3 (after 8 days of exposure to excess Fe), CK801 recorded the highest amounts of soluble sugars in both root and shoot tissues. IR64 and Supa presented the highest amounts of starch in the roots whereas in the shoots, it was CK801. CK801 also recorded the highest level of proteins in the roots whereas in the shoots, the highest amount of proteins was observed in Suakoko8 and Supa. At sampling point 4 (after 12 days of exposure to excess Fe), CK801 and IR64 recorded the highest amounts of soluble sugars in both root and shoot tissues. CK801 also showed the highest starch content in the roots whereas in the shoots it was IR64. For protein contents, IR64 outperformed the other varieties in both tissues. At sampling point 5 (after 16 days of exposure to excess Fe), CK801 and IR64 recorded the highest amounts of soluble sugars and starch respectively in the roots and in the shoots. As well, IR64 recorded the highest amount of proteins in both tissues (Fig. 3).Previous studies have reported differential responses of rice varieties under Fe-toxicity. However, in the present work we have presented one of the rare time course studies of Fe-toxicity induced responses (up to five time points) in different tissues (roots and shoots) and with varieties of different tolerance level (tolerant, moderately sensitive and highly sensitive). Further, care was taken to undertake this study with varieties whose tolerance levels in nutrient culture solution had been previously confirmed in the field in various studies, to ensure that selected tolerance traits would also express in natural field conditions. The tolerant varieties used in this study, CK801 and Suakoko 8, were both selected at known Fe toxicity hotspot sites, respectively at Kilissi (Guinea) and Suakoko (Liberia) and Suakoko 8 has been extensively used as a tolerant check in different studies (Dramé et al. 2011;Sikirou et al. 2015Sikirou et al. , 2016)). Analyses of varieties' performances depending on Fe treatment and stress duration revealed differential responses between the varieties and within the same tolerance group, in few traits. In response to toxic Fe concentrations, rice varieties, irrespective of their tolerance levels, actively altered their morphological, physiological and biochemical attributes to overcome the stress and limit damages.In all varieties, a reduction in root length was observed as the stress increased, confirming root growth inhibition as one of the negative effects of Fe toxicity (Li et al. 2015). Other reports have shown that roots are considerably damaged by Fe toxicity and usually they become short, coarse, blunted, and dark brown in colour (Genon et al. 1994). However, in the present study, the tolerant varieties formed new roots despite the stress as opposed to the sensitive varieties. This was viewed as a mechanism used by the tolerant varieties to enable them to continuously absorb nutrients to support growth and avoid the possible effects that could result from nutrient precipitation on the active root nutrient uptake sites. Kang et al. (2011) showed the formation of lateral roots in tolerant NERICA sister lines and suggested that it could be closely associated with reducing Fe absorption. A similar phenomenon was also reported in other rice varieties screened for Fe toxicity tolerance (Engel 2009). In addition, in the case of CK801, strong biomass production under stress, as evidenced by high shoot growth was observed. These findings agree with those of Rout et al. (2014) who reported increased shoot growth in tolerant rice cultivars under Fe-toxic environments. Production of a large volume of shoot decreases Fe toxicity effects through Fe dilution (Audebert and Fofana 2009). Further, CK801 recorded the highest relative water content in its tissues which may lower the internal concentration of Fe further. Becker and Asch (2005) explained that translocation of Fe in the xylem follows the transpiration stream. Hence, stomatal closure could be a mechanism of avoidance in order to limit the uptake and translocation of Fe in the aerial parts. Low stomatal conductance under Fe toxic conditions was reported in different studies (Dufey et al. 2009;Engel 2009;Stein et al. 2009Stein et al. , 2014)). However, in the present study, both tolerant and sensitive varieties significantly reduced their stomatal conductance from the first week of Fe treatment, suggesting that this mechanism may be a common reaction in response to Fe toxicity. A very low stomatal conductance and almost null transpiration rate were observed respectively in Supa and IR64, in the second week of stress. Such extreme reactions could be more harmful than beneficial because of the immediate consequences on gas exchanges and photosynthesis. Reports have shown that limiting transpiration rate may affect CO 2 exchange rate and related photosynthetic functions, resulting in reduced plant growth (Goicoechea et al. 2001). Therefore, the difference between tolerant and sensitive varieties may reside in their capacity to balance efficiently stomatal closure and transpiration without drastically compromising gas fluxes through the stomata. This was evidenced by the high CO 2 concentrations and correlated high photosynthesis rates observed in the tolerant varieties CK801 and Suakoko8, compared with the sensitive varieties as well as their high levels of both chlorophyll a and b pigments. Several studies have reported reduction in chlorophyll pigment as being associated with stomatal closure, leading to reduced photosynthesis (Dingkuhn et al. 1999;Awal and Ikeda 2002;Sairam and Saxena 2000).According to Suh et al. (2002), excess Fe in the plant gives rise to a significant increase in Cytochrome b 6 /f content of thylakoids, which results in a higher susceptibility of PSII to photoinhibition and, consequently, lower photosynthetic rate and higher rate of singlet oxygen ( 1 O 2 ) production. Similarly, Kampfenkel et al. (1995) reported that excessive amounts of Fe led to photo-inhibition, increased reduction of PSII, and higher thylakoid energisation in Nicotiana plumbaginifolia cuttings exposed to excess Fe. This could explain why chlorophyll fluorescence increased with stress duration in all the varieties, although lower levels were observed in tolerant varieties compared with sensitive varieties. In addition, rising fluorescence could be related to the high dissipation of internal energy generated from the excitation of electrons as a result of damage caused by Fe toxicity on the photosynthetic apparatus. Inefficient energy transfer in the photosystems can lead to the production of ROS as a result of electron leakage from the Fe-S centres of PSI and reduced ferredoxin (Mittler et al. 2004;Gechev et al. 2006). It could also result in ROS production from PSII as well as increased heat dissipation, causing photo-oxidative damage to the photosynthetic apparatus and thereby reducing photosynthesis. Similar findings have been reported for sorghum (Netondo et al. 2004). Hence, the relatively high photosynthesis rates and growth maintenance observed in tolerant varieties under excess Fe conditions may indicate that they were able to circumvent or limit stress-induced photo-oxidation of the photosynthetic organelles and better control ROS production. In contrast, sensitive varieties recorded relatively low photosynthetic rates and CO 2 concentrations, suggesting a possible degradation of the thylakoid membranes (Marschner 1995) and oxidative damage. Similar results were reported for rice under Fe-toxic conditions (Stein et al. 2009(Stein et al. , 2014)).The analysis of Fe concentration in the upper leaves, the lower leaves and the roots from all varieties indicated high accumulation of Fe in the upper leaves, especially in the sensitive variety Supa. Thus, the high leaf bronzing score for Supa could have resulted from the accumulation of high levels of Fe in the shoots. Similar findings were reported by Silveira et al. (2007) and Stein et al. (2009), who observed similar pattern of high tissue Fe in Brazilian cultivars sensitive to Fe toxicity. CK801 recorded higher levels of Fe in the upper leaves and the roots compared with IR64 but lower leaf bronzing score (3 vs 7 for IR64). Such pattern indicates the ability of CK801 to successfully deal with high amounts of intracellular Fe and maintain growth under Fe stress. However, it does not dump Fe in the old leaves (lower leaves) that are photosynthetically less active, as suggested in some reports (Audebert and Sahrawat 2000;Becker and Asch 2005;Majerus et al. 2007, Stein et al. 2009;Engel et al. 2012). Instead, CK801 may use other leaf mechanisms such as ROS detoxification or Fe storage in less reactive forms to tolerate high levels of Fe in the shoots (Wu et al. 1998;Asch et al. 2005;Engel 2009;Stein et al. 2009) and to some extent, compartment Fe in the roots.In contrast, the other tolerant variety, Suakoko8, had the lowest Fe content across tissues. In previous studies on Fe toxicity, both types of tolerant varieties were reported and they were distinguished as tolerant includers (high Fe content, low LBS) and tolerant excluders (low Fe content, low LBS) (Becker and Asch 2005;Engel 2009;Onaga et al. 2016). The low tissue Fe in Suakoko8 can be attributed to the exclusion of ferrous Fe at the root level. Rice plants can achieve this by using their roots' oxidising power, whereby molecular oxygen is released by the roots to precipitate ferrous Fe into ferric oxides and avoid a high influx of this toxic form (Fe 2+ ) into the plant tissues. Root oxidising power was proven to be an efficient tolerance mechanism in rice for growing in Fe-toxic environments (Engel et al. 2012;Wijerathna et al. 2012). However, in environments where Fe toxicity extends or occurs at late growth stages, this mechanism may be less efficient because root oxidising power decreases with age (Becker and Asch 2005).Starch is a major storage carbohydrate in plants. It fuels plant metabolism and growth when plants are unable to photosynthesise at night in the absence of light (Smith and Stitt 2007;Sulpice et al. 2009). Plants tend to store starch in their leaves for the short-term and in roots and seeds over long periods. Hence, starch stored in the leaf plays a pivotal role in the plant's daily carbohydrate metabolism (Gibon 2004;Streb and Zeemana 2012). In accordance, in this study higher amounts of starch were recorded in the shoots of all varieties compared with those in the roots. Also, starch content was higher in the Fe-treated seedlings than in the controls for the tolerant varieties, particularly in Suakoko 8. This may have resulted from either an increased rate of starch synthesis or a decreased rate of starch breakdown in the tolerant varieties in response to Fe toxicity. Whether this is a way of anticipating starvation because Fe toxicity deeply affects photosynthesis or the result of the overall reduction of plant metabolism under Fe toxicity needs further investigation. Compared with the other varieties tested, CK801 stored a significant amount of starch in the roots under excess Fe conditions. This may have prepared it for longer starvation periods than the other varieties. According to Pantin et al. (2011) andGeiger et al. (2000), starch could serve to temporarily increase local sink strength to supply carbohydrates during periods of carbon hunger for sustained growth and metabolic processes.In all the varieties tested in this study, decreasing levels of soluble sugars were observed in plants exposed to excess Fe. This could result from reduced photosynthesis as some studies have reported that soluble sugar fluctuations under abiotic stresses involve changes in CO 2 assimilation and source-sink carbon partitioning (Roitsch 1999;Gupta and Kaur 2005). Another explanation could be related to the dual effect of sugars in ROS control. According to Couée et al. (2006), soluble sugars can be involved in, or related to, ROS-producing metabolic pathways, but they can also feed NADPH-producing metabolic pathways, such as the oxidative pentose-phosphate (OPP) pathway, which can contribute to ROS scavenging. Thus it is tempting to suppose that rice maintains a low level of soluble sugars to control ROS production, but this can also make the plants vulnerable because soluble sugars are important sources of carbon and energy that support growth.Tolerant varieties CK801 and Suakoko 8 were observed to accumulate high starch in the shoots and roots, respectively, while maintaining high biomass. This positive correlation between starch and biomass indicates that these two varieties were able to maximise growth with increasing starch reserves, thus balancing their carbon supply and their growth. The sensitive variety Supa recorded increased starch content as well as increased soluble sugar under Fetoxic conditions. This shows that the variety immobilised its starch reserves and sugars, and this could be attributed to the compromised growth observed in this variety, implying that assimilated carbon, which could be used to produce new photosynthetic biomass, languishes as an unproductive storage compound. However, the premature exhaustion of carbohydrate reserves observed in tolerant variety CK801 at sampling point 2 in the shoots could also be detrimental if this is not supplemented by reserves in the roots as it may trigger a starvation response in which valuable components of the cells (such as proteins) are degraded to support cellular housekeeping activities to keep the plant alive (Yu 1999).This work shows the responses of four lowland rice varieties to Fe toxicity and their ability and strategies to adjust plant growth and metabolism to overcome the stress. Differential responses were observed between the varieties and within the same tolerance group, suggesting the use of different adaptation mechanisms by the varieties. A general strategy of the tolerant varieties identified herein was sustaining nutrient absorption through continuous production of new lateral roots and balancing stomatal closure in such a way that gas exchange necessary for photosynthesis is enabled while excessive Fe flow was limited. Besides, CK801 showed Fe dilution effect by maintaining high water content in its tissues and strong shoot growth as well as late mobilisation of carbohydrates in roots and shoots. In contrast, Suakoko 8 rapidly accumulated carbon reserves as a means of surviving through the stress period. Further analysis of traits related to root Fe exclusion and ROS control are needed for a more comprehensive understanding of Fe toxicity tolerance in the potential donor varieties CK801 and Suakoko8.","tokenCount":"6791"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cf27a39c8cc553724bb1158683d98840","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/de23ee29-2086-40b3-8faa-5580082c1a75/content","id":"-1826988180"},"keywords":["niche","reduced tillage","no tillage","energy-saving technology","erosion, water use efficiency","residue trade-off","innovation platform"],"sieverID":"36ab6403-f831-4d94-b61d-f6c9c0120fd7","pagecount":"20","content":"Since the paper by Giller et al. (2009), the debate surrounding the suitability of conservation agriculture (CA) for African smallholders has remained polarized between proponents and opponents. The debate also gave rise to a few studies that attempted to identify the \"niche\" where CA would fit in the region, but the insight offered by these studies has been limited. In this paper, we first analyze the rationale of adoption where it occurred globally to define \"drivers\" of adoption. Our analysis suggests that CA has first and foremost been adopted under the premises of being energy-saving (time and/or power), erosion-controlling, and water-use efficient, but rarely to increase yield. We then define the niche where CA fits, based on these drivers of adoption, as systems where (1) the energy available for crop establishment is limited and/or costly (including labor and draft power);(2) delayed planting results in a significant yield decline; (3) yield is limited or co-limited by water; and/or (4) severe erosion problems threaten the short-to medium-term productivity of farmland. In Eastern and Southern Africa, this niche appears rather large and likely to expand in the near future. When implemented within this niche, CA may still be limited by \"performance challenges\" that do not constitute drivers or barriers to adoption, but limitations to the performance of CA. We argue that most of these performance challenges can (and should) be addressed by agronomic and socio-economic research, and provide fourConservation agriculture (CA) is defined as the simultaneous application of minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover through a surface mulch of crop residues or living plants, and crop rotations [1]. In Eastern and Southern Africa, CA has been intensively promoted for more than a decade as a means to increase crop productivity while conserving soil and water. However, since the paper by Giller and colleagues [2], the debate surrounding the suitability of CA for African smallholders has remained polarized between proponents and opponents [3].The debate also gave rise to few studies that attempted to identify the \"niche\" where CA would fit in the region. Tesfaye and colleagues [4] delineated recommendation domains in Ethiopia, Kenya and Malawi where CA investment should be prioritized. They used three biophysical variables-soil texture, surface slope, and rainfall-and three socioeconomic variables-market access, human density (as a proxy of market demand) and livestock population densities-in their work. These variables, however, were selected on the assumption that CA is first and foremost a yield-increasing set of principles: the three biophysical variables were selected based on a literature search on yield response to CA in Africa, and two of the socioeconomic variables were selected assuming that CA would lead to an increase in farm production (market access and human density as a proxy of market demand). However, CA seldom increases yield in the short term and yield increase is rarely a motivation to adopt CA (see Section 2).Andersson and N'Souza [5], adapting a framework from Sumberg [6], made another attempt to understand the barriers to CA adoption. They distinguished adoption constraints (i.e., \"goodness-of-fit\" between the innovation and the potential users) from prerequisite conditions (i.e., contextual factors that cannot be influenced by the innovation-development process). Prerequisites refer mainly to (1) the accessibility by the target group of potential users of the inputs necessary to implement a particular innovation; (2) the existence of demand for the output of the innovation; and (3) the conduciveness of the environment for the particular innovation [6]. Therefore, the notion of a prerequisite for the particular case of CA implicitly assumes that the innovation will lead to an increase in input use and in output production, i.e., intensification. As already mentioned, CA may not primarily be a yield-increasing set of principles in the short-term. Moreover, this framework is only useful for well-defined, homogeneous technologies, but not for the very polymorphous basket of technologies promoted as CA in Africa (ranging from dibble stick planting, to manual planting basins, to semi-permanent raised beds shaped with a local plough, to the use of chisel-tine rippers and imported Brazilian implements pulled by draft animals [7][8][9]). These different seeding technologies have very different input requirements and need very different supporting environments, making generalization difficult. Finally, focusing on barriers to adoption is very much a technology-centered approach (even though the authors ironically call for less technology-centered approaches when it comes to CA research and development (R&D) and more consideration for the context): it looks at the specifications of the technologies and lists all the possible factors that could lead to poor performance.In this paper, we favor an approach that emphasizes the rationale of adoption where it occurred (rather than the hypothetical causes for non-adoption everywhere else) and learn from these successful examples with the aim to define \"drivers\" of adoption. In addition to these factors that condition whether adoption takes place or not, we identify \"performance challenges\" that do not constitute drivers or barriers to adoption, but limitations to the performance of CA. We argue that most of these performance challenges can (and should) be addressed by agronomic and socio-economic research.Below, we first look at drivers of adoption globally (i.e., what motivates farmers to adopt CA). Landscapes or farms where at least one of these drivers is found could be defined as part of the niche where CA fits. Outside of these landscapes or farms, CA may not be a priority under the current context. In a second section, we look at performance challenges, which are often confused with barriers to adoption. Agronomy can propose solutions to alleviate these challenges. We strongly feel that it is the role of research to not only document these challenges, but to turn them into research questions that lead to the development of innovations (technical or institutional) to overcoming them. Our opinion thus points to the need for more research efforts and resources to be channeled towards development of appropriate solutions to identified challenges and less towards simply pointing at these challenges. Various cases from the experience of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT, www.cimmyt.org) and its partners in Eastern and Southern Africa are used to illustrate this section. In a third section, we describe an R&D approach-iterative and multi-scale-used by CIMMYT and its partners in Eastern and Southern Africa to overcome challenges associated with the implementation of CA by African smallholders.The vast majority of CA adoption (more than 95% of the area under no tillage) has occurred in the Americas, Australia, Russia and China, where it is practiced on large-scale mechanized farms [10]. In these farming systems, the reduction in fuel (and machinery cost) has been a major incentive to adopt CA [11]. Indeed, although this depends on site-specific soil properties (e.g., texture, soil moisture), reduced or no tillage cuts energy requirements by about half compared to moldboard or disc ploughing [12]. Therefore, it appears that CA has mostly been adopted in the world as an energy saving technology, and that adoption has been driven by the need to establish crops with as little energy as possible.Energy is the product of power by time. A lower energy demand could thus enable the use of smaller and cheaper power sources [13]. It could also reduce the time needed for land preparation and seeding, a major benefit in agroecologies characterized by a short optimum planting window (i.e., where the yield potential declines dramatically with delayed planting). In the Indo-Gangetic Plains, early planting has been a major driver of adoption of no-tillage for wheat [14]. Indeed, delayed planting of wheat after mid-November in this agroecology results in a loss of potential yield of 1% to 1.5% day −1 , while no-tillage allows for wheat to be planted one to three weeks earlier than conventional crop establishment methods [14]. Early planting also reduces the risk of terminal heat stress [15]. Interestingly, in this rice-wheat farming system, no-tillage has mostly been adopted for wheat, but rarely for rice, for which similar incentives do not seem to exist [10].In addition to energy savings for crop establishment, a major driver for CA adoption in the US and Brazil-the first and second country in the world, respectively, in terms of area managed under CAhas undoubtedly been erosion control. In the US, adoption of less intensive tillage practices started in the Great Plains region, following severe wind erosion problems during the mid-1930s \"Dust Bowl\" [16]. In Brazil, CA adoption started in the State of Paraná (Southern part of Brazil) in the 1970s, primarily as a response to severe erosion problems [17,18]. Similarly, lower cost of crop establishment is evidently part of what drove CA adoption in Australia-the fourth country in the world in terms of area managed under CA-but the primary driver of adoption in part of the country appears to be soil moisture management, at least in the regions of New South Wales and Queensland [19].This brief analysis suggests that CA has first and foremost been adopted globally under the premises of being energy-saving (time and/or power), erosion-controlling, and water use efficient. The primary motivation of CA adopters has rarely been to increase yield, except perhaps where water is a major limiting factor or where delayed planting leads to severe yield penalties. In most situations, yield increase has been a side effect of CA, occurring after several years of gradual physical, chemical and biological improvement of soils. Thus, it is not surprising that global analyses of large data sets (as the one conducted recently by Pittelkow and colleagues [20]) find that CA tends not to increase yield: yield increase may simply not be the primary purpose of adopting CA. Such analysis would be more enlightening if they included e.g., energy use efficiency or rainwater use efficiency as target variables, and e.g., planting date as independent variables.Although adoption in still low in the region, Eastern and Southern Africa does not appear to be an exception to this global trend: CA has been found to equally be energy-saving, erosion controlling and water-use efficient in the region. Firstly, except in the case where adoption has been accompanied by a change in power source (in particular, where adopters shift from animal draft power to human muscle power), CA dramatically reduces the time needed to establish a crop (Figure 1), as the number of operations required to prepare the land (and the intensity of these operations) is reduced. As a consequence, CA adopters in the region tend to plant their crop earlier than farmers using conventional land preparation: 12-23 days earlier in Zimbabwe [21]. Similarly, in Zimbabwe, the time of planting was found to be more important than the type of tillage in explaining the performance of different CA systems, with a 5% yield reduction per week planting was delayed [22].Comparison of the average time required for conventional land preparation and conventional planting of maize (land preparation using an animal drawn maresha and planting by hand), for conventional planting of maize only (following conventional land preparation), and for direct seeding of maize using a 2BFT-100 seeder powered by a 15 HP two-wheel tractor in an untilled land in Hawassa Ethiopia (source: [23]).Secondly, in dry environments of Eastern and Southern Africa, CA generally improves rainwater use efficiency (Figure 2).for conventional practice and conservation agriculture in Zimuto, Zimbabwe (source: calculated from [24]).Thirdly, CA reduces water runoff and soil losses, even with moderate slopes (Figure 3), if sufficient quantities of crop residues are retained as surface mulch. In Zimbabwe, extensive studies in the 1990s clearly demonstrated the efficiency of CA in controlling sheet erosion on both sandy and clayey soils [25]. The niche where CA fits, from the understanding of what drives its adoption globally, is characterized by systems where (1) the energy available for crop establishment is limited and/or costly (including limited and/or costly labor and draft power); (2) delayed planting results in a significant yield decline (this point being a particular case of the previous); (3) yield is limited (or co-limited) by water; and/or (4) severe erosion problems threaten the short-to medium term productivity of farmland. Other technologies apart from those based on CA principles could be used to control erosion and increase water use efficiency (e.g., physical soil and water conservation structures [27], agroforestry [28], drought resistant genotypes [29]), but there are little alternatives to CA when it comes to minimizing the energy required to establish a crop. Therefore, we see constraint/cost of energy at land preparation/planting as a primary driver of CA adoption, and water-limited yield and severe erosion problems as secondary drivers.How large is this niche in Eastern and Southern Africa? Firstly, many farming systems in the region are characterized by farm power shortage, including for land preparation and seeding [13]. This is the result of stagnating-or even declining-numbers of tractors (a result of the collapse of tractor hire schemes, which were popular up the 1990s) and numbers of draft animals (a result of increasing biomass shortage, diseases such as the East Coast Fever, and/or recurring droughts) in many countries. Human muscle power has also declined in many countries of the region as a result of an ageing and feminizing farming population (a consequence of rural-urban migration) and the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which has dramatically reduced the available labor force on-farm. Secondly, about 20% of Africa is characterized by strong to extreme water erosion [30]. In Eastern and Southern Africa, the Eastern African Highlands represent an extensive area considered a hotspot of erosion-induced soil degradation [31]. Thirdly, crop production is limited by water (or co-limited by nutrients and water) in large parts of Eastern and Southern Africa [32]. Therefore, in opposition to Giller and colleagues [2] who concluded that \"CA is inappropriate for the vast majority of resource-constrained smallholder farmers and farming systems\" in Eastern and Southern Africa, we argue that the niche where it fits in the region is large. The low adoption of CA in the region may thus reflect more poor targeting than unsuitability of CA. This niche is also likely to expand in the near future as (1) the cost of energy for farming operations is likely to increase (increasing cost of fuel [33]; increasing cost of maintaining draught animals due to feed shortage [34]; and increasing cost of labor due to rural-urban migration [35]); (2) the area affected by erosion is likely to expand as farming is moving into more marginal areas [36]; and (3) the area where yield is limited by water is likely to increase as a result of climate change, particularly in Southern Africa [37,38]. However, in large parts of this niche, the performance of CA is limited by other challenges. Below, we present case studies at different scales (plot-scale, farm-scale and landscape-scale) illustrating how CIMMYT and its partners are developing technical and institutional innovations to overcome some challenges that may be observed when implementing CA in the region.The cases below only aim at illustrating how adaptive research can be used to overcome challenges when and if they arise during the implementation of CA. They were only selected to illustrate a diversity of possible challenges and their solutions: this choice implies by no means that the challenges selected are to be expected whenever CA is implemented in the region.The adoption of CA drastically modifies N dynamics compared with conventional practices. Firstly, reduced or no tillage leads to lower N release from the mineralization of soil organic matter compared to ploughing [39]. Secondly, the retention of dead plant material with a wide C:N ratio (such as cereal residues) may lead to temporary N immobilization, even when retained as surface mulch and not incorporated in the soil [40]. As a result, N stress is commonly observed early in the season in CA systems leading to depressed plant vigor and growth [41]. Indeed, in a trial conducted in Zimuto Communal Area, Zimbabwe, the chlorophyll content (the \"greenness\" of a maize plant is a proxy for its N status) early in the season was found to be lower for maize in the CA treatment compared to maize in the conventional treatment when fertilized in a similar way (Figure 4a). However, from about 50 days after emergence to maturity, the trend was inversed, with maize in the CA treatment having higher chlorophyll content than maize in the conventional treatment (Figure 4a). CA may not lead to an increase in the crop N demand, but it appears to affect the timing of this demand (as illustrated by the two different curves in Figure 4a), seemingly with a higher demand early in the season and a lower demand later on.However, N is a highly mobile nutrient and its availability to the crop is affected by rainfall amount and distribution (both highly variable in Eastern and Southern Africa) as well as water dynamics (e.g., surface run-off, evaporation) making recommendations on N fertilization for crop production in general and in CA systems specifically, challenging. SPAD (Single Photon Avalanche Diode) meters could be used to monitor the crop N status, but these devices are expensive, and their wide use by extension agents and other service providers is therefore unlikely in the near future. A cheaper alternative to predict in-season crop N requirements is the use of hand-held sensors measuring the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) of the crop canopy [41]. The company Trimble recently designed a \"pocket\" hand-held NDVI sensor, commercially available for a price of about US$500 per unit (Figure 4b). Equipped with such a device, a single extension agent could advise dozens of farmers on optimal N management at any time during the cropping season [42]. Based on this assumption, CIMMYT and its partners are currently calibrating the Trimble pocket hand-held NDVI sensor for maize and wheat in various agroecologies of Eastern and Southern Africa. The adoption of CA drastically modifies soil water dynamics compared with conventional practices (e.g., infiltration, runoff, evaporation). This modification often affects crop production positively in areas where water is a major limiting factor, such as large parts of Southern Africa [45]. Elsewhere, it may have neutral or even negative consequences for crop production. Although the retention of an organic mulch generally improves water infiltration and reduces evaporation and runoff, it may also exacerbate problems of waterlogging in high rainfall areas, thus depressing plant growth [46]. Conversely, with the retention of insufficient quantities of crop residues as surface mulch, which is common in Eastern and Southern Africa where productivity is low and where there are several competing uses for crop residues [47], CA may lead to lower rainwater infiltration and lower yield, particularly on soils that are prone to crusting and compaction [48], until the physical properties of the soil are improved. This, however, can take several years.In such contexts (negative effect of surface mulching or insufficient quantities of crop residues available for mulching), CA systems have to be adapted for the water balance to be improved and the short-term crop productivity not to be affected negatively. This can be achieved by purposefully increasing the surface rugosity in these systems. For example, CIMMYT, Mekelle University, and other partners adapted a CA system in Northern Ethiopia based on semi-permanent raised beds, reshaped every year with the traditional maresha plough ( [9]; Figure 5a). Tef (Eragrostic tef (Zucc.)Trotter), a major crop in this part of Ethiopia, is a short cereal for which grain cannot be harvested without harvesting the major part of the straw as well. Thus, when the preceding crop is tef, the quantity of biomass retained as mulch is insignificant. In such cases, however, results from a long-term experiment (on a slope of 3%) demonstrate that semi-permanent raised beds reduce water runoff by more than half compared to conventional practices (Figure 5b). Similar adaptations have been made in other parts of Eastern and Southern Africa to minimize runoff and maximize infiltration in CA systems with little or insignificant quantities of surface mulching. For example, planting basins-commonly used in hand-hoe based CA systems of Southern Africa-have been found to improve water harvesting and increase the soil moisture content compared to conventional land preparation in Zimbabwe and Zambia [49]. Similarly, through a study conducted across semi-arid areas of Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia where little or no surface mulch was retained, Rockström and colleagues [50] consistently found that opening rip-linescreated by using an animal drawn modified plough or a chisel-tined ripper-increased water infiltration compared with conventional practices and led to higher maize and tef yields. The examples above demonstrate that CA principles should only be viewed as a means to an end. It is important to focus on processes (in this case, water infiltration) rather than technologies (surface mulching). When the primary driver of CA adoption is increasing water use efficiency, increasing soil moisture is not enough: additional moisture should translate into productivity gains and/or stability. However, this is not always the case. In Southern Ethiopia, CIMMYT and the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research found that CA significantly increased the quantity of soil water under sole maize at the time of harvest (Figure 6a). However, no significant difference was found in maize yield between these two treatments (Figure 6b): the extra rainwater harvested and stored in the CA treatment was not converted into extra grain. In comparison, when a legume intercrop (common bean) was included in the CA treatment, soil moisture at maize harvest time was significantly lower than in the sole maize CA treatment, implying that more soil water was used by the crops (Figure 6b), and an additional grain yield (maize and bean) of about 2 t• ha −1 was harvested. for sole maize under conventional practice (CONV), for sole maize under conservation agriculture (CA) and for maize-bean intercropped under conservation agriculture in 2013 in Hawassa, Ethiopia (source: [51]).Stem borers are the most damaging insect pests for cereals in Africa [52]. Crop residues carry over larval populations form one season to the next. Annual crop rotation is an effective control method, but this practice is rare in most of Eastern and Southern Africa. Alternative recommended control methods involve removal, destruction or burying (through tillage) of crop residues. Therefore, the retention of crop residue as surface mulch and the suppression of tillage, two pillars of CA, may increase the population of stem borers. In Southern Ethiopia, where the stem borer species Busseola fusca (Fuller) is a main cause of maize yield losses, CIMMYT and Wageningen University are testing low-cost management options that stimulate the population of natural enemies of stem borers (predators and parasitoids). Through this research, perennial elements of the farming landscape-such as hedgerows and ensete (Ensete ventriculosum (Welw.) Cheesman) fields-have been proved to act as reservoirs of generalist predators such as rove beetles (Figure 7a) and ants (Figure 7b), as well as parasitoid wasps (data not shown).Building on this preliminary data, CIMMYT and Wageningen University are testing various landscape configurations to advise on the design of farming landscapes that are pest suppressive, thanks to the judicious reorganization of maize fields and perennial elements, alleviating a major challenge to CA in the area. A similar approach could be used elsewhere in the region, where CA has been found to increase the abundance of certain pests, such as white grubs (larvae of Phyllophaga ssp. and Heteronychus spp.) in Mozambique and Malawi [24]. Competition between soil mulching and livestock feeding has been stated as one of the main challenges to CA implementation in Africa, which is dominated by mixed crop-livestock systems [47]. Although CA systems can be adapted to perform satisfactorily-in the short-term-with minimum quantity of residue retained as mulch (see Section 3.2), regular inputs of organic material are needed in the long-term to maintain soil organic matter. As animal manures and plant biomass (other than crop residue) are both scarce and bulky (their collection, transport and application are labor-intensive, constraining their use as amendment), and as crop residues represent the most abundant organic material available to farmers [54] while their retention in situ does not require any labor, solutions have to be devised for crop residues to be shared-in the long-term-between the livestock and the soil.CIMMYT and the University of Addis Ababa have recently analyzed an example of collective action where a community implemented farmland exclosure i.e., the application of year-round zero-grazing in farmland [55]). The implementation of this institutional (rather than technological) innovation resulted in more standing biomass in the farmland, in the form of trees (and grass on the contours to a lesser extent). Thus, more tree biomass could be used as livestock feed (Figure 8a), releasing significant crop residues to be retained in the field: the proportion of crop residue retained in the fields within the farmland exclosure was double that in neighboring fields open to aftermath grazing (Figure 8b), after eight years of implementation of farmland exclosure. Moreover, because more wood was available, livestock dung was less used as fuel and more as soil amendment. Compared with the neighboring farmland open to aftermath grazing, the soil organic matter content in the topsoil was almost double in the farmland exclosure, and the mean tef yield was about 70% higher. Interestingly, these shifts in biomass utilization did not affect negatively livestock density and productivity, which both remained similar inside and outside the farmland exclosure. This example illustrates that competition for crop residues in mixed crop-livestock systems is not a barrier to the adoption of CA, but a challenge that can be overcome through appropriate interventions, such as farmland exclosure. Baudron and colleagues [56] and Mupangwa and Thierfelder [57] have highlighted a number of additional interventions that can reduce crop residue tradeoffs for African smallholders and concluded that the question should not be \"if\", but \"how\" crop residues can fulfill the need of both the soil and the livestock.The four cases above (Section 3) illustrate the importance of focusing on processes (e.g., N dynamic, water infiltration, dynamics of pests and their natural enemies, impact of grazing) rather than technologies (e.g., reduced or no tillage, surface mulching). In Eastern and Southern Africa, CA has too often been promoted as a goal in itself, and too rarely as a means to an end (and when it did, it was often promoted as a means to the wrong end, such as the promotion of CA to increase yields, which inevitably takes 2-5 cropping seasons until a significant yield benefit is observed, Thierfelder and colleagues [58] except where water is a major limiting factor or where delayed planting leads to severe yield penalties). The success or failure of CA interventions should not be measured by the intensity of tillage or by the quantity of surface mulch in the target area, but by the impact of the intervention on e.g., cost of production, erosion control and water productivity. This implies that attention should be placed on understanding who the target groups (\"clients\" of the innovation) are, and what their demand is (e.g., performance, cost, labor demand), similarly to the design-specification process used in the industrial and commercial sectors [6].The four cases also illustrate the importance of an iterative approach. As biophysical processes are being modified by the adoption of CA, new challenges emerge (e.g., buildup of the populations of residue-borne pests, see Section 3.3) as well as new opportunities (e.g., additional available soil moisture, see Section 3.2), both calling for the adoption of new innovations (e.g., stimulation of the populations of natural enemies of pests, inclusion of an additional crop to increase rainwater productivity), which in turn bring additional challenges and opportunities. This calls for mechanisms to enable interaction, collective learning and adaptive management between farmers and other stakeholders who are key to bring about the desired change (e.g., private sector, development institutions, extension services, and local policy makers). This can be provided by multi-stakeholder innovation platforms, which have become increasingly popular in agricultural R&D [59]. The four cases above also illustrate the importance of a multi-scale approach (Sections 3.1 and 3.2 describe processes at plot-scale, Section 3.3 describes a process at farm-scale and Section 3.4 describes a process at landscape-scale). Processes at a given scale both control and are controlled by higher scaled processes (i.e., \"panarchy\"; [60]). For example, pest control at farm-level is an emerging property arising from nurturing natural enemies in some patches of the farm (see Section 3.3). Conversely, residue retention in a given plot is conditioned by grazing arrangement at landscape-level (see Section 3.4). This implies that research needs to target each of these scales with adequate approaches and methods. We see the role of research at plot-level as designing (and re-designing) innovative systems; at farm-level as adapting to the local socio-ecological context of different farm types; and at landscape/community level as accompanying scaling-out/up (Figure 9). Below, we describe each of these iterative steps, as used by CIMMYT and its partners in Eastern and Southern Africa. Design. Following a diagnostic conducted within the multi-stakeholder innovation platform, and highlighting constraints and opportunities of the current farming systems, specifications of the desired innovation should be spelt out (e.g., performance, cost, labor demand, skills needed). Researchers may then design new systems, based in these specifications, their expertise and experience and knowledge from other locations (innovation de novo, [61]). The point here is to enable researchers to express their creativity, and generate a diversity of systems that meet the specifications and perform well from a biophysical point of view, before \"fusing\" academic knowledge with local knowledge. For such fusion to take place, we feel it is important for researchers to first \"make an offer\" of technological innovations and demonstrate these innovations in controlled environments. Confronting academic and local Diagnostic knowledge too early could limit the \"creativity\" of researchers (participatory \"lock in\"): broadening the range of what is possible is a fundamental role of research. Controlled environment (such as in on-farm experiments) also allow for detailed measurements to be taken, in order to better understand underlying mechanisms (e.g., nutrient dynamics, soil biology). Data on these processes can also be used for the calibration of mechanistic models and run \"virtual experiments\" [62]. It is also useful for these trials in controlled environment to be run as long-term ones, for biophysical constraints to be identified in the trials before they occur on adopting farms, and for effective anticipation of challenges.Adaptation. The farm-scale is a critical scale for R&D, as this is the scale at which decisions (in terms of adoption and resource allocation) are made. It is also the scale where innovative systems are being adapted through co-construction between academic and local knowledge [61]. Besides studying this process of adaptation and what Brown [63] has described as \"fusion knowledge, neither strictly local or traditional, nor external or scientific\", the role of research in this phase is to understand how innovative cropping systems fit in existing farming systems. Tradeoffs are conspicuous in African smallholder farms, which are generally resource-constrained. Understanding how the adoption of CA modifies these trade-offs is thus fundamental (e.g., [64]). Understanding the way farmers combine different technologies [65] and the sequence of this adoption (described as a \"ladder\" by Aune and Bationo [66]) is another research area of prime importance at this scale. The question of which farms to work with is a crucial one. Ensuring that the selected farms are representative of the overall population is important for the sake of replicability, and this can be achieved by selecting a stratified sample of farms based on a typology of farms. Typologies have become \"fashionable\" in the recent few years and various methodologies, all with their strengths and their weaknesses, are commonly used to delineate typologies, from (quantitative) statistical methods [67] to (qualitative) participatory methods involving experts and farmers [68]. Working with \"positive deviants\" [69], who would be described as \"statistical outliers\" for a particular farm type, could yield additional insight.Scaling-up/-out. Ultimately, adoption of innovations \"at scale\" is the goal of any R&D intervention. \"Scaling-out\" is the spread of the innovation from farmer to farmer, within a particular landscape, while \"scaling-up\" is the institutional expansion that accompanies the geographical spread of the innovation [70]. Scaling-out/up is relatively downstream on the R&D continuum. Nonetheless, research has a crucial role to play in this phase, to serve as a catalyst for and to better understand the social processes that accompany the spread of innovation, and to propose interventions within multi-stakeholder innovation platforms that foster collective action (see Section 3.4 for example) and new partnerships (e.g., with the private sector). In addition, new research questions arise from the change of scale (related to e.g., delivery systems of inputs, enabling policies and institution), what Coe and colleagues [71] call research \"in\" development.Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning. The iterative approach depicted on Figure 9 calls for a continuous monitoring and evaluation of the innovations being designed, adapted and scaled out/up, and a continuous learning. Multi-stakeholder innovation platforms are well designed for such process, which must be markedly participatory. The process should also be multi-scale-as what makes the best resource management within a CA system (e.g., allocation of crop residue to soil mulching vs. livestock feeding) depends on the scale at which trade-offs are analyzed [64]-and multi-criteria, to capture the economic, environmental and social dimensions of CA. The MESMIS (Spanish acronym of the Framework for Assessing the Sustainability of Natural Resource management Systems) offers an interesting framework to achieve such a multi-scale and multi-criteria monitoring and evaluation [72]. MESMIS is designed to evaluate the performance of complex systems in an interdisciplinary and participatory manner. It is primarily a tool for system re-design that has been well tested in developing countries. It is also purposefully designed for cyclic processes such as the one proposed here (Figure 9). The cycle includes six steps, with the first three steps aiming at characterizing the system and the last three steps aiming at integrating information and making a decision about the management of the system: (1) definition of the evaluation object; (2) determination of the critical points; (3) selection of diagnostic criteria and indicators; (4) measurement and monitoring of indicators; (5) presentation of results; and (6) conclusions and recommendations.Delineating the niche where CA fits in African smallholder farming systems has become a burning issue. We argue that previous studies focusing on the topic have offered limited insights and may have approached CA from the wrong angle. They assumed CA to increase yield in the short-term (which only occurs in rare cases: where yields are strongly limited by water or where delayed planting leads to severe yield penalties) and confused challenges to CA (for which R&D can offer solution) for being barriers to adoption. When understanding CA as being an energy-saving, erosion-controlling, and water use efficient set of principles, the niche where CA fits in Eastern and Southern Africa appears large, and increasing. We recognize the low adoption of CA in the region, but argue that it may be more the result of poor targeting than of the unsuitability of CA for farmers in the region. However, applying CA in any part of this niche requires local adaptation, which can be achieved through multi-stakeholder innovation platforms, supported by an iterative, multi-scale R&D approach as described in this paper.","tokenCount":"5794"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"40a08ccc671b713e8bfe812d831a7921","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/8e4f1614-9d0f-4c52-9f2f-13386ad134ad/retrieve","id":"-931761301"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"32dafe11-c20f-4214-aaf7-dc8e9ea115c2","pagecount":"50","content":"This report is the first on activities undertaken in the Africa RISING-Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) Project Phase II. Reporting in Phase I was arranged according to research outputs (ROs) and thematic drivers of integration within those ROs. In order to encourage increased disciplinary research integration, the ESA Phase II Project proposal was developed to relate more to intended outcomes as this would result in integrated research designs that would better address sustainable intensification. This report is therefore presented to reflect the achievements of the first six months that relate to the five project outcomes (reworded during the inception workshop to reflect better the intentions of Phase II) being:1. Productivity, diversity, and income of crop-livestock systems in selected agroecologies enhanced under climate variability. 2. Natural resource integrity and resilience to climate change enhanced for the target communities and agroecologies. 3. Food and feed safety, nutritional quality, and income security of target smallholder families improved equitably (within households). 4. Functionality of input and output markets and other institutions to deliver demanddriven sustainable intensification research products improved. 5. Partnerships for the scaling of sustainable intensification research products and innovations operationalized.This reporting period covers the cropping season in ESA. Most of the activities are, therefore, those that cover the planning and installation of field trials that are building upon and consolidating progress achieved during Phase I, as well as expanding to new sites and introducing and testing of new innovations. The implemented activities reflect multidisciplinary planning.New sites were identified in Babati for research on the benefits of increasing crop cycles through integration of maize and vegetables, as well as the use of screen houses for efficient micro irrigation of high value vegetables. Potential customers are attracted by the minimal use of agrochemicals for pest control. In Malawi, the project has expanded to new districts of Machinga and Mangochi, with special attention to extension planning areas (EPAs) that present a climate stress gradient. Application of the doubled-up legume technologies to these EPAs required integration of responsive water management strategies to reinforce household resilience to the climate stresses, and also production of legume seeds to meet the demand caused by the technology uptake. The Kongwa/Kiteto site has been the center for introducing and testing drought-tolerant crop varieties. During this period, a set of 50 intermediate maturity and another set of 50 early maturity, drought tolerant, high-yielding maize varieties have been introduced in some villages to evaluate their performance. This is in addition to the advanced trials that are validating new varieties of groundnuts, pigeon peas, sorghum, pearl millet, and quality protein maize (QPM) varieties which were identified by farmers for performance and quality during the previous seasons.At several sites in Tanzania, trials and demonstrations planted in December failed due to the extended drought in the region. These were replanted in February. In some cases biomass measurements and plant allometrics were taken, e.g., for the crop-forage integrated trials in Seloto village of Babati, before clearing and replanting the trials (crop was at flowering stage).The main livestock-driven studies in Babati were the continuation of those designed to test the effects of napier grass-based feed rations on milk production, which were started in Phase I. A new study to calibrate the current yields of forage and crop residue per land unit in different agroecological zones was initiated, aimed at establishing yield gaps and therefore inform the planning for scaling of improved feed ration interventions. Data collection also continued on the experiments set up in 2015 to determine the performance of local chickens under different production systems on smallholder farms in Babati district.Progress made during this period on postharvest management is a continuation of experiments initiated during the 2016 harvest season. These were storage experiments to examine the effect of postharvest management and handling practices on storability, quality, and safety of maize grains. Seven experimental treatments comprising different improved postharvest technologies were deployed, each being replicated by 10 households. New technologies are combined with traditional practices in order to understand the factors that influence the quality and safety of maize grains under farmers' reality, and the potential consequences on the eventual adoption of the new technologies. Planning and preparatory arrangements were made to conduct a survey to assess the adoption of PICS bags and the willingness to pay for improved postharvest technologies (shelling machines).Studies on nutrition that have been initiated during this period include (i) an assessment of determinants of vegetable intake in Babati district involving 257 households, the results of which are being analyzed, (ii) continuation on the determination of the link between postharvest technologies, food safety, nutrition, and health, where a new cohort of 60 positive deviance mothers (20 per village, respectively, identified from Laikala, Mlali, and Moleti) will be engaged in the anthropometry of their children under five years of age to act as key individuals for studies on food safety and nutrition technology. This is in addition to continuing with the 60 mothers who participated in the same study last year.Some technologies that have positive biophysical attributes were subjected to participatory cost-benefit analyses. Fertilizer innovations deployed in Babati, including diammonium phosphate (DAP), Minjingu Mazao, Minjingu rock phosphate, farmyard manure, and a combination of farmyard manure and Minjingu Mazao (mixed option), were compared in terms of financial benefits. Key messages from initial results show that (i) most of the fertilizer options under this study are better than farmers' practices in terms of net benefits, returns to labor, and benefit-cost ratio; and (ii) DAP, Minjingu Mazao, and Minjingu granular can be taken as good options for risk averse farmers whereas a combination of manure and Minjingu Mazao would be favored by highly risk averse ones. Similar analyses have been planned for other promising technologies.During the reporting period a broad qualitative gender consultancy was conducted in Malawi to determine the interaction of Africa RISING activities with gender relations in the target communities. The research consisted of 11 focus group discussions, an extensive review of relevant documents, and additional key informant interviews. A report is in preparation and will be published after final revision.Platform meetings were held in Babati at district level during November 2016 and at ward level (three wards) during February 2017. These are entry activities for identifying partners for scaling. The Babati meetings ratified the platform constitution, reviewed progress of research activities over the last four years, endorsed changes of committee members to enhance competence and mitigate running costs, and drafted a 2016/17 work plan. Ward innovation platform committee members and five district level platform members were trained on group dynamics, leadership, and management.There is a strong drive to strengthen partnerships with local administration authorities at district level in all the project areas so as to leverage key support for the scaling activities. Strategic meetings and engagement of the concerned officials in filed activities is ongoing. Existing partnerships for scaling are being strengthened; these partners are identified in the list of project institutional partners.The Zambia component of taking technologies to scale succeeded in supporting the production of breeder, foundation and certified seed with the planting of new released varieties of groundnuts (5), pigeon pea (1), soybean (2), and cowpea (1) on a total land area of about 260 ha; promotion of complementally agronomic practices at 96 demonstrations; and setting up of irrigation systems at Masumba and Msekera research stations to support off-season seed production.During the reporting period, progress was also made in scaling of orange fleshed sweet potato (OFSP). The International Potato Center (CIP) continued to monitor and strengthen capacities of the initial cohort of decentralized vine multipliers (DVMs). Additionally, they also recruited, trained and provided 8,400 vine cuttings to 21 new DVMs in Chipata, Katete and Lundazi districts. A total of 64 demonstration plots were planted with OFSP to demonstrate the improved and high-yielding OFSP varieties and their associated production technologies.For sustainable intensification of low input maize/legume systems, this has been considered as the best year of implementation so far and the yields are expected to be way above average. In all, 744 conservation agriculture trials were established, 51 trials on green manure cover crops, and 17 (eight of which are continuing) on livestock manures.Between October 2016 and March 2017, farmer sensitization on aflasafe TM and on-farm trial establishment was successfully implemented in Region I, II, and III agroecological zones (AEZs) of Zambia to determine product efficacy and value. With regards to product registration, two preregistration dossiers have been prepared, one for each aflasafe product. The dossiers will be resubmitted to the Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA) when the three project implementers, i.e., The Zambia Agriculture Research Institute (ZARI), the National Institute for Scientific and Industrial Research, Zambia (NISIR), and IITA sign the technology transfer agreement.These activities were implemented under two opposite climate situations; the drought and sporadic rainfall in Tanzania that necessitated replanting of fields (by both researchers and farmers), excessive rains in Malawi and Zambia which made weed management a challenge and caused yellowing of crops due to water logging. There is a potential risk of some matured crop rotting or germinating right in the field if the rains continue. Science needs to constantly addressing the climate challenge issues.Graduate training has not changed from the last reporting status (6 PhD and 23 MSc students in various stages of progress). Short-term training, especially for farmers, has improved steadily.Six published manuscripts are a promising beginning of several other publications expected to come out of Phase I activities.Figure 1 shows the ESA-wide georeferenced sites where Africa RISING was implementing either research or technology dissemination activities during the reporting period.   Three research trial sites were identified in Bermi, Matufa, and Shauri Moyo villages of Babati to establish seed production units for enhancing sustainable vegetable value chains. Nurseries for seed production were established for Ethiopian mustard and African nightshade.In Kongwa and Kiteto, 15 community seed banks have been formed (Table 2); six women groups, six men groups, and three youth groups as follows: two groups in Laikala (men and women), three groups in Mlali (youth, women, and men), three groups in Moleti (youth, men, and women) three groups in Chitego (youth, men, and women), two groups in Manyusi (men and women), and two groups in Njoro (men and women). The main crop is pigeon pea in all villages while in Laikala, pearl millet, and in Moleti, sorghum is included. More details will be provided in the next report. Five satellite tree nurseries are being maintained in Laikala, Manyusi, Mlali Moleti, and Kongwa district headquarters to supply seed for studies and scaling out efforts (Plate 1). In Malawi, 300 farmers are producing seed for groundnut and soybean at 0.1 ha each and targeting at least 1200 kg/ha productivity level (Plate 2). In Kongwa and Kiteto, this activity builds on Phase I of Africa RISING where superior ecotypes of local chicken were identified. This activity is in the third year of experimentation. During this reporting period, superior parent material and offspring are being maintained by two host farmers in Mlali. Farmers have been mobilized into groups for community breeding activities in Mlali (Kongwa) and Mwanya (Kiteto) villages. The partnership has been expanded to include a poultry breeder (Dr Said Mbaga) from Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA). In Babati, support for brooding and supply of indigenous chicks to small-scale farmers has been planned; it is also farmer-based and selected farmers will form \"incubation points\". The process of purchasing incubators for these farmers has been initiated.Assessment of fodder and wood production in landscape-based agroforestry practices (shelterbelt, trees on contours, and farm boundaries and woodlot) continues in 2017 activities, entering the third year of experimentation in Kongwa and Kiteto. This will be the first year of impact evaluation. Destructive sampling of wood and foliage is ongoing and obtained data will be used to develop biomass equations for prediction of wood and foliage yield. In Babati, forages have been introduced as part of the soil-crop-forage interactions, including determination of the environmental efficacy, and trials have been established in Sabilo, Seloto, and Tsamatsi villages.The following is an abstract of a paper 1 in review by PLOS ONE ournal that is addressing hypothesis-based typology development with an illustration from the Africa RISING-SIMLEZA Zambia site.\"Creating typologies is a way to summarize the large heterogeneity of smallholder farming systems into a few farm types. Various methods exist, commonly using statistical analysis, to create these typologies. The methodological decisions on data collection, variable selection, data-reduction and clustering techniques can bear a large impact on the typology results. We argue that the typology development should be guided by a hypothesis on the local agriculture features and the criteria and mechanisms of differentiation among farming systems. That hypothesis is based both on the typology objective and on prior expert knowledge and theories of the farm diversity in the study area. Here, we present a methodological framework that aims to integrate participatory and statistical methods for hypothesis-based typology construction. This is an iterative process whereby the results of the statistical analysis are compared with the reality of the target population as hypothesized by the local experts. We illustrate the effects of analysing the diversity from different angles, using different typology objectives and different hypotheses, on typology creation by an example from Zambia's Eastern province. Five separate typologies were created with principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA), based on three different expert-informed hypotheses. The greatest overlap between typologies was observed for the larger, wealthier farm types but for the remainder of the farms there were no clear overlaps between typologies. This result highlights the importance of using a well-defined hypothesis and the relevance of the presented methodological framework which consolidates the hypothesis through local expert knowledge for the creation of typologies\".The following abstract is taken from an \"accepted for publication\" paper 2 by the journal Information Processing in Agriculture, also on the construction of typologies that are flexible and adaptive, and allow for extension on the basis of newly gathered information. Farm data from the Tanzania action area of Africa RISING is used as one of the case studies to illustrate the approach.\"The applicability of statistical typologies that capture farming systems diversity in innovation and development projects would increase if their adaptability would be enhanced, so that newly encountered farms can be classified and used to update the typology. In this paper we propose Naïve Bayesian (NB) classification as a method to allocate farms to types by using only a few variables, thus allowing the addition of new entries to a typology. We show for two example datasets that the performance of NB classification is already acceptable when 50% of the original survey dataset to construct the typology is used for training the NB classifier. For our datasets, the performance of Naïve Bayesian classification was improved when membership probabilities for multiple types were used, requiring a sample size of 30% of the survey dataset.Based on the results in this paper, we argue that NB classification is a powerful and promising statistical approach to increase the adaptability of farm typologies\".Outcome 2: Natural resource integrity and resilience to climate change enhanced for the target communities and agroecologiesIdentifying the benefits of these technologies requires some long-term investment. Studies on the environmental and economic costs of soil erosion and conservation benefits are continuing on from Phase I in Tanzania and have been initiated in Malawi. Data collection on the effect of residual tied-ridging is in progress-both under run-off plot and under integrated landscape systems in Kongwa and Kiteto districts. Data are being collected on soil loss, run-off loss, and nutrient loss. This activity builds on Africa RISING Phase I studies that tested efficacy of in situ soil water harvesting technologies on crop performance. In Phase II, investigations aim to elucidate the long-term benefits of these technologies to the environment and crop productivity.Installation of soil moisture access tubes was successfully conducted in the established soil and water conservation (SWC) trials in Babati and periodic monitoring is ongoing. Together with climatic data collected from the automated weather stations (rainfall, temperature, and radiation), they constitute important inputs for detailed soil and crop growth simulation models as well as modelling SWC from farm-scale to landscape. Data collection and analysis are ongoing; model initiation and data entry have started. In Malawi, farmers were excited about the introduction of water management practices alongside good agronomic practices that increase soil fertility (Plate 3). Despite the 2016/2017 cropping season having above normal rainfall, farmers indicated that responsive water management was still vital as seasons such as the current one are now very rare. Here too, the research team installed three more automated weather stations (Plate 4) in three EPAs (Mtubwi, Nsanama, and Nyambi) in Machinga District to better understand the water-nutrient nexus across climate gradients. This is in addition to the four weather stations that were set up during Phase I in Dedza, Ntcheu, and at the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Malawi (LUANAR). With good weather data, we are better positioned to investigate robustness of technologies that can be deployed to mitigate the effects of frequent droughts and building of resilience. The data will be made available to the Malawi meteorological services as a public good. The Malawi team identified extension planning areas in the new Mangochi and Machinga districts (Fig. 2) in which the team conducted participatory engagement of farming communities using Phase I-proven grain legume-based sustainable intensification technologies involving soybean, groundnut, and pigeon pea. The aim was to enable more optimal production of the intercropped and/or sequenced legume with the staple maize (Plate 5), with a net effect of increased resilience to climate shocks. Implementation of field activities started in December 2016 and harvesting of some trials started in March 2017. The adaptation benefits of doubled-up legume systems involving trees, now in its third year, is being evaluated at researcher-managed sites (mother trials) in Manyusi and farmer-managed research sites (baby trials) in Mlali and Laikala in Kongwa and Kiteto. Data collection on the effects of Gyricidia intercropping started in the 2015-2016 cropping season as the trees matured, and is continuing. In Babati, three on-farm trials, one in each of three ecozones, addressing the pigeon pea integration within maize-based cropping system were planted. Sampling for characterization of N-fixation within the three trials was done.Drought challenges still present themselves and require thought-through alternatives. In Babati, for example, despite the excellent establishment of the fields (Plate 6), the bean crop was completely wiped out by the unexpected drought.Plate 6: One of the trials intended for evaluation of options for increasing bean productivity (in Seloto) before the drought. Photo credit: Job Kihara/ CIAT.A related study involving vegetables in place of legume crops was initiated to assess potential and benefits of increasing cropping cycles within a season through integration with vegetables.On-farm trials were implemented in two farmer fields within the medium elevation high rainfall ecozone of Babati. Maize has been planted and short-duration vegetables will be planted after harvest to utilize the residual soil moisture.A study to determine the effectiveness of using micro irrigation techniques to produce vegetables in a screen house was initiated, dubbed \"drip irrigation techniques and smart irrigation kit\". A total of 96 farmers (44% female) from Babati received information and shared their views on the sites to be selected for screen house demonstration trials in five villages; in addition, information was also delivered to 11 government staff, four district technical staff, and six village extension agents. Eight farmers' plots/sites were selected in the villages of Galapo and Seloto based on farmer and site selection criteria. A group/farmer agreement contract on the screen house research trial was developed, followed by the construction of the screen houses (Plate 7). Three more screen houses were constructed in Bermi, Matufa, and Shaurimoyo villages for demonstration. Two crops (tomato and sweet pepper) were selected by farmers as starter crops. Healthy seedlings are being raised (Plate 8) for transplant in the screen houses. Contracts for the purchase of drip kits were initiated and comparisons are being done before procurement. In Babati, trials were conducted to demonstrate the best bet practice (the improved practice both with DAP and Minjingu Mazao as P sources) identified during Phase I studies against an unfertilized control under four improved maize varieties, and also to include economic analysis of the technologies through a participatory process with farmers. The extended drought resulted in the destruction of the initial experiments. This happened after plant height had been recorded. Figure 3 shows better crop performance with the application of DAP. This experiment was replanted as rains improved, just like the farmers did in their own fields. The appropriate time for this activity is after the harvest season when crop residues form the bulk of the animal feed during the dry season. This reporting period was devoted to developing training materials to support forage and local chicken interventions. The training materials were produced in English and are being translated to Kiswahili. Posters on improved forages and enhanced use of crop residues have been produced (see list of posters).Data are being collected to assess soil-crop-forage interactions for improved productivity and targeting the appropriate agroecological domains in Babati. The partnership focus was with the district agriculture, irrigation and cooperatives officers and village agricultural extension officers who identified the \"target\" farmer beneficiary areas. In Malawi, a postdoctoral fellow has been recruited to take lead in a similar activity.In Kongwa and Kiteto, three sets of oxen-drawn tillage implements have been fabricated During the reporting period, a broad qualitative gender consultancy was conducted in Malawi.The consultancy team gathered data on the interaction of Africa RISING activities with gender relations in the target communities. The research consisted of 11 focus group discussions, an extensive review of relevant documents, and additional key informant interviews. A second draft of the consultancy report was submitted to the consultancy supervisors in March 2017 together with recordings and transcriptions of interviews. The report contains a revised literature review, data presentation, and analysis. It will undergo another round of revision and editing before it is made public. Also, a manuscript on the evaluation of maize-fertilizer interventions in Babati was drafted.Linking postharvest management technologies with food waste and safety of crop (grain and legume) varietiesSeven experimental treatments comprising the different improved postharvest technologies (mechanical shelling, drying on collapsible drying case, etc.) replacing some of the manual operations of farmers used in combination with other traditional practices were established in Babati. Data collection is ongoing, building on progress started during the previous reporting period (Table 3). Data collection on general loss assessment (number of insect-damaged grains, weight loss, etc.) is ongoing. Preliminary trends are shown in Figure 4, and will be better interpreted at the end of the study. Planning for the piloting of new storage technologies to reduce pest infestation on grain legumes during storage was initiated with partners (ICRISAT, SUA, ARI-Hombolo) in Kongwa and Kiteto. In Malawi, graduate students are developing research projects to investigate the efficacy of different storage equipment.  This study is being conducted on both varieties generated by the maize breeding team at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the \"farmers' maize varieties\". Thus, in order to understand consumer preferences on various maize varieties cultivated, a short survey was conducted with farmers in Babati and Kiteto districts in order to determine the cause/reasons for the cultivation of their local varieties despite the availability of high-yielding hybrids. Preliminary findings are that in Babati (Seloto and Long villages), the hybrids mostly cultivated are SeedCo 627, DK 8031, and Pioneer 2553. Other varieties are Pannar and Meru Agro introduced and cultivated under trial conditions. The hybrids have the following characteristics: (i) large grain size, (ii) easily damaged by insects during storage, (iii) high kernel breakage during dehulling to make a local food called kande. The local maize varieties are Kunti and Mehh/Irroq. They have the following characteristics: (i) sweet (preferred for roasting), (ii) suitable for making flour for cooking ugali as it is used in small amounts to make enough meal for the family, an (iii) good for preparing kande.In Kiteto (Njoro village), farmers grow hybrids such as Kilima, Pannar, SeedCo, Meru Agro, and Stuka. However, farmers recycle the grains as seeds over several seasons as opposed to the recommendations of seed companies and the extension officers. Due to this practice, these varieties have become popular and farmers regard them as local varieties. The local maize variety cultivated is called Gunzi jekundu (red cob). This variety has big cob size and large grain (kernel) size. Kilima variety is also preferred for preparation of kande, for roasting because it is sweet and the kernel is hard, for cooking ugali due to its swelling power, and because it is resistant to damage by insects.During Phase I, 200 mothers were trained on nutrition and food safety, e.g., in home gardening (Plate 10). From these, 60 positive deviance mothers from that cohort (20 each from Moleti, Mlali, and Laikala villages of Kongwa and Kiteto) are being engaged on the anthropometry of their children under five years of age to act as key individuals to scale out the food safety and nutrition technology. A new cohort of another 60 mothers is being recruited and will be linked with the AR-Phase I positive deviance mothers from the same villages for the second study. Thus a total of 120 mothers will be engaged along with their children and families. In Babati, a study on \"Assessing Determinants of Vegetable Intake in Babati District, Tanzania\" was conducted from 3 to 18 February 2017 and data entry is in progress. A total of 257 consuming households were sampled from eight villages and 60% of the respondents were women. In Malawi, a graduate student has drafted a proposal on profiles of food available during the postharvest period in selected communities.Plate 10: Farmer being trained to produce vegetables to augment legume and cereals as part of nutrition activities. Photo credit: Yacinta Muzanila/ARI-Selian.The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has produced a draft paper on the link between production diversity and dietary diversity using Africa RISING data from Malawi. The paper examines the link between agricultural production diversity and dietary diversity. Given the non-random selection into the program and the possible simultaneity between production and consumption decisions, instrumental variables to examine the link are used. The average treatment effect on agricultural income and, considering the program's focus on maize and pulses, on household total and disaggregated food expenditure was estimated. Program participants have a more diverse (into pulses) and valuable production, relative to nonparticipants. Their food expenditure is also higher, due entirely to more consumption of carbohydrate (starchy) foods versus the diversified pulses that are rich in crucial micronutrients and have better (and higher) quality protein than other grains. While an overall positive association between production diversity and dietary diversity is observed, the effect of production diversity on dietary diversity does not vary by participation status. These findings highlight that planting different and better quality (and high value) crops may not translate into better quality diets, at least in the immediate term. As such, production-oriented interventions may need to be accompanied by other efforts, such as nutritional education, to maximize their health benefits.Research teams are initiating economic evaluations (an identified valuation domain for SI) of technologies under investigation. Five fertilizer options deployed in Babati were evaluated with respect to financial returns and risk. Three economic indicators, i.e., gross margin (TZS/ha) (GM), benefit-cost-ratio (BCR), and returns to labor (TZS/person day) (RL) were computed. Variability of GM was calculated to show the risk associated with each option. The Stochastic Efficiency with Respect to a Function (SERF) algorithm was used to rank the production options 3 .Most of the applied soil fertility management options increased net financial returns when compared to the farmers' practice. DAP fertilizer yielded the highest net returns followed by Minjingu Mazao, Minjingu rock phosphate, and the mixed option. However, differences among these options are statistically not significant, implying that farmers could use any of the options without offsetting much income (Table 4). Surprisingly, the net return associated with farmyard manure alone is lower than that of the control which is without fertilizer. The SERF results (Figs 5 and 6) show that farmers' practice and using farmyard manure alone are dominated by the others. Minjingu Mazao is the most risk efficient option relative to the farmers' practice, but combining Minjingu Mazao with farmyard manure would be the most preferred for more riskaverse farmers. More information is available at: https://africa-rising.net/2017/05/03/pushingback-against-fertilizer-use-myth-in-northern-tanzania/   Gross margin analysis was applied for pigeon pea producers in Babati District when comparing the use of improved technologies with farmers' practice. The profit margin for producers when they used improved technologies was higher than farmers' practice due to high yield obtained with the improved varieties. The profit margin per hectare was estimated to be TZS 1,322,000 and TZS 182,900 using improved technologies and framers' practices, respectively.A survey was designed to generate information on farmers' willingness to pay for the use of mechanical maize shellers and the awareness/adoption of hermetic storage technology. Questionnaires were developed and enumerators were hired for the study. The survey will be conducted in April and May 2017; it will cover about 400 randomly selected households in seven villages that have been selected from the Africa RISING-NAFAKA intervention areas where the technologies have already been introduced.A working paper on \"Motivation for project-promoted sustainable intensification options among smallholder farmers in Tanzania and Malawi\" is being prepared. So far, we have advanced on the multivariate analytical procedure and produced compressed motivation data using cluster analysis, descriptive summaries, and stepwise ANOVA model results. The compressed variables produced are SI benefits, SI costs, external motivation, intrinsic motivation, identified motivation, and autonomy and are further used in subsequent models.Also field feedback sessions on selected farms in Babati were conducted as part of a trade-off analysis objective. Using initial Wageningen University survey data, a number of farms were selected and categorized using different resource endowment levels. Three groups of farmers were selected to represent the study sites. Selected farms were evaluated for on-farm profitability and organic matter balance. Farms were also adjusted by incorporating current changes with selected farmers during personal visits and introducing new technological innovations encouraged by Africa RISING to get feedback from farmers on new farm configurations using Farm DESIGN model results.The monitoring and evaluation (M&E) team finalized a draft paper on the socioeconomic and biophysical correlates of technology adoption using Africa RISING data from Tanzania. This study analyzes primary data to examine the determinants of adoption of six sustainable intensification practices (SIPs)-improved maize varieties, maize-legume intercropping, maize-legume crop rotation, organic fertilizers, contour ploughing, and leguminous trees. Econometric modelsmultivariate and ordered probit-are estimated to quantify the correlates of adoption of each SIP and all the SIPs combined as measured by the count of SIPs adopted (adoption intensity). While socioeconomic and climatic factors are associated to a differential adoption of specific SIPs, education, access to credit, agricultural extension services, and tenure security all increase the intensity of adoption. On the other hand, good soils, food insecurity, remoteness of the plot, distance to basic services, and drier agroecologies all reduce the intensity of adoption. Overall, the findings suggest the importance of policies that support agricultural capital, education, and economic infrastructure in promoting the adoption of SIPs that are critical for ensuring sustainability as well as food and nutrition security.An article was published in Agricultural Economics about farmer targeting and early impact assessment within the Africa RISING Malawi project (see Reports and Publications). Agronomic analyses of new technologies are often conducted under carefully controlled research station conditions or trials managed by self-selected farmers. Oftentimes, the technologies are then scaled up with minimal evaluation under real-world conditions. Yet the interim step between agronomic trials and large-scale promotion is crucial to generate evidence on the social and economic impact of technologies that are both internally valid and generalizable. The paper focuses on participatory action research data from Malawi. The socioeconomic characteristics of farmers testing technologies were examined and evidence of systematic targeting of betterendowed farmers was identified. After controlling for observable differences using matching and a doubly robust estimator, we find evidence of early positive effects on maize yield and harvest value, although placebo tests suggest possible selection on unobservables. It is advised that attention should be given to program design and household characterization to better define and improve targeting criteria, technology selection, and external validity.Through the ICRISAT Innovation Hub one ICT incubatee, Keansa (www.keansa.com) that has developed a similar ICT platform for linking banana farmer producer organizations to markets in India has been contacted. Pilot development of the interphase has been discussed and will be initiated in May 2017.We are now in the third year of the partnership between Africa RISING and NAFAKA to enhance scaling of agricultural productivity innovations in Tanzania. The focus of the partnership is on the introduction of improved crop varieties (maize/legumes, rice, and vegetables), good agricultural practices, natural resource management, improved household nutrition, reduction of food wastage and spoilage, and community capacity building. By the end of 2016, about 13 000 hectares of land were under improved technologies and 10 400 farmers were using the technologies, achievements that are within the project targets. Yields of key crops have increased from 0.5 t/ha for maize, and 1.4 t/ha for rice at baseline (in 2011 when NAFAKA and Africa RISING were separately launched), to 1.5 t/ha for maize and 3.3 t/ha for rice in 2016. Detailed reports of these achievements can be accessed from the following link: https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/69072Africa RISING has also worked with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in Zambia on green manure cover crops (GMCC); in Tanzania on vegetable integration, and plans have been initiated to work together to take the doubled-up legume technology in Malawi. Action planning meetings were held between Africa RISING and CRS in Tanzania (Dar es Salaam-6 March and 11 April) during which the two teams discussed priority items for collaboration, operationalization, modalities, and timeframe.We view working with the national and local extension services as a main framework for promoting long-term targeting adoption of Africa RISING technologies. Our engagement contributes to favoring conditions for the dissemination and exchange of information among researchers, producers, farmer organizations and other different partners in order to promote sustainable farming. District Agriculture, Irrigation and Cooperative Offices (Tanzania) (DAICOs) and Village Executive Officers (VEOs) of target villages in Kiteto, Kongwa, and Iringa were engaged to leverage key support for the scaling activities; 2-3 meetings were held in each district during December and February to plan for the cropping season. These meetings included courtesy calls, telephone discussions, and onsite visits to experiments. In Malawi, District Agriculture Development Offices (DADOs) and the research team independently visited field sites to monitor project activities as a basis for advising research and scaling activities. In Babati, DAICOs and VEOs have additionally taken up major roles of platform leadership.Strengthening of innovation platforms (IPs) at village level in Kiteto and Kongwa districts is ongoing. New members have been selected by the village communities, many of who are engaged in the R&D activities. Sensitization of new members on their role in the IP at ward level was done in February 2017. R4D platforms spearhead co-learning of SI technologies during field days. In Malawi, the Ntcheu platform initiated early planning for a postharvest workshop, to include all district agriculture actors, but mainly targeting marketing of produce.In Babati, the R4D Platform (JUMBA) held an annual meeting in November 2016 to ratify the constitution, review progress of research activities over the last four years, endorse changes of committee members to enhance competence and mitigate running costs, and drew a 2016/17 work plan. Among the work plan activities was to start ward-level innovation platforms. Inception meetings were held in three wards (Dareda, Gallapo, and Bashnet) towards the end of February 2017. Participants consisted of farmer representatives, agro dealers, policy makers, and extension agents (Table 5). In each ward participants streamlined main agricultural challenges and opportunities and elected a 10 member management committee. All ward innovation platform committee members and five district level platform members were trained on group dynamics, group leadership and management, soil and water conservation, and record keeping. The training was pioneered by the vegetable theme. CIAT in Babati has identified potential partners to approach for partnership discussions (Table 6). Introduces new technologies and knowledge to smallholder farmers. Potential provider for drip irrigation kits for projectDealing in grain storage and the supply drip irrigation kitsPotential provider of drip irrigation kits for projectThe implementation of Africa RISING activities in Zambia reflects more of an operationalized Outcome 5 because most of the activities are scaling in nature, are engaging development partners, and are specific to identified opportunities defined as themes. Only one of the four themes (Theme 3) has a research component. The achievements during this reporting period will be according to the themes: 1. Improving legume seed delivery systems. 2. Strengthening OFSP planting material systems.3. Sustainable intensification of low input maize-legume systems.This theme aims at ''stimulating the commercialization and distribution of improved legume seeds by establishing a well-functioning pipeline for producing and disseminating improved varieties''. Two key achievements scored during the period under review are (i) support for production of breeder, foundation and certified seed of new released varieties of groundnuts (5), pigeon pea (1), soybean (2), and cowpea (1), and (ii) promotion of complementary agronomic practices, including the setting up of irrigation systems at Masumba and Msekera research stations.During this reporting period, IITA planted 1 ha of soybeans (Mwembeshi) at IITA-SARAH campus in Lusaka, while ZARI-Msekera planted 0. (1 ha), Wazitatu (1 ha), and Lupande (0.5 ha) were planted in Lilongwe Malawi. ICRISAT also planted 0.5 ha of pigeon pea (MMP2). Breeder seed is maintained at ZARI; the current maintenance area is given in Table 7. To promote complementary agronomic practices such as the use of inoculants, plant spacing, and time of planting in soybeans and cowpea production, IITA and ZARI set up 16 demonstrations (referred to as Mother demos) in 12 camps located in Lundazi ( 5), Chipata ( 6), and Katete (5) to demonstrate the application of rhizobia inoculants, correct plant spacing, and timely planting. These demonstrations hosted 600 learners who will host baby demonstrations.ICRISAT set up 60 groundnut demostrationss in Lundazi (8), Chipata (48), and Katete (4); and 30 pigeon pea demonstrations in Lundazi (4), Chipata (15), and Katete (2).Work on the rehabilitation of the irrigation system at Msekera and Masumba research stations during the period under review has reached an advanced level. So far, irrigation pipes and two 5000 liter capacity tanks have been installed at Msekera and the similar capacity at Masumba Research Station. What remains is the laying of the drip lines and connecting them to the source of water. The overall project goal of the current intervention is to scale up technologies and delivery mechanisms to reach 6000 farming households that will be growing and consuming OFSP in the 2016/17 season. The program adopts an innovative approach whereby CIP and partners will scale up technologies that have been developed and validated from 2011 to 2015, and applying a model that integrates agriculture, nutrition behaviour change, and marketing.During this reporting period, CIP monitored old vine multipliers where 42 were found to have reliable water sources and actively growing disease-free vines. These farmers were strengthened and encouraged to expand where possible, depending on water source and capacity to handle bigger plots. Further, 21 new decentralized vine multipliers (DVMs) in Lundazi, Chipata, and Katete districts were recruited, trained, and provided with vines. These were 8400 vine cuttings that were sourced from early generation, open-field multiplication plots for further multiplication.A total of 64 demonstration plots were planted in collaboration with the Zambian Agricultural Research Institute (ZARI) and the Ministry of Agriculture to demonstrate the improved and highyielding OFSP varieties and associated production technologies. ZARI is also evaluating four advanced OFSP genotypes on-farm and on-station in preparation for validation after 2017 according to ZARI protocol for variety release. Two promising and consumer-preferred varieties have since been earmarked for official submission to the variety release committee for further evaluation.In creating more awareness and demand for adoption of OFSP for both growing the crop and making it part of the household meal and a source of income, consumer and farmer education is critical through trainings during recruiting of vine multipliers and vine dissemination approaches. For the same purpose, flyers and a radio advert have been developed for distribution and airing, respectively, in the harvesting months (April-July).  Regularizing the national sweet potato seed systems CIP facilitated the registration of vine multipliers with the seed regulation unit in ZARI. Fifty-nine vine multipliers from 34 camps across the three districts were registered as suppliers of high-quality vines in the three districts. Buyers of vines that come through the district agricultural coordinator (DACO) and ZARI are expected to be directed to these farmers. On record, more than 15 000 vine bundles were produced by the vine multipliers. (A bundle value is at ZK7, or US$0.70.) Of these, 5392 bundles were distributed, and 10 000 known records were distributed by nongovernmental organizations. The target of 50 vine multipliers to be reached by recruiting, training, and strengthening in 2016/17 has been achieved as there are 59 multipliers.CIP partnered with Strengthening Agricultural Input and Output Markets (SAIOMA) to pilot the linking of vine multipliers to agro-dealers for vine sales to ensure access to varieties in communities. It is anticipated that vine multipliers will sustain the activity if they earn income through the sale of vines. In partnership with CIP, SAIOMA is therefore facilitating the recruitment of DVMs through agro-dealers (Table 8). These agro-dealers are responsible for identifying capable multipliers within their proximity. SAIOMA is responsible for the technical training of vine production and clustering of the DVMs to agro-dealers. Upon demand of vines at an agro-dealer shop, DVMs will be contacted to supply the vines. In the 2016/17 season SAIOMA created 16 clusters to which 160 DVMs are linked in the three districts.  14). The objective of this field experiment is to select clones for higher yield potential, beta-carotene, appreciable resistance to major diseases and pests, drought tolerance, the ability to produce enough planting material, and a shorter period to harvest (early maturity, about 3 to 4 months after planting). This experiment was laid in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Olympia and Chumfwa were inserted as checks. PVS trials were planted from 9 to 18 January 2017. PVS is an important activity in variety development as the data from on-farm trials will be required for official varietal release. Five field testing sites of candidate varieties were set up in each of the districts of Chipata, Lundazi, Katete, Sinda, and Petauke. Genotypes under testing are Zambezi/2, NC 09350 MUSG, EXCEL 8, MUSG 0614-24/32, and Olympia as a check. This is the second year of testing those varieties selected by farmers from the 2015/16 PVS.Plate 14: Sweet potato variety evaluation trial at Msekera. Photo credit: Felistus Chipungu/CIP.In collaboration with ZARI and the district extension office, CIP devised an efficient way of reaching beneficiaries with vines of improved OFSP varieties as well as production practices.Mother-and-Baby trials (MBTs) have been used to disseminate vines and demonstrate the varieties and associated technologies to beneficiaries, starting during this reporting period. Sixty-four demonstrations in 25 camps of Lundazi, Chipata, Katete, and Sinda districts were planted in order to equip \"Mother\" and \"Baby\" host farmers with OFSP varieties and improved production practices. MBTs were planted from December 2016 to January 2017. Each Mother demonstrates two OFSP varieties ('Olympia' and 'Chumfwa') and hosts 50 learners, being beneficiary farmers who have received a bundle of either 'Chumfwa' or 'Olympia' vine cuttings for planting in their fields. Technologies under demonstration on Mother plots include demonstrating the use of disease-free planting material, timely planting, the right spacing, timely weeding, pest and disease identification and management, crop rotation, harvesting, grading and storage of roots, processing, and utilization.Communities, farmers, consumers, service providers, marketers, and other stakeholders need to be informed about the benefits of OFSP for increased integration into their farming systems as a crop, in markets as roots and vines, and in diets. In 2015/16, billboards and signposts for vine multipliers and radio programs were implemented as promotional approaches for increased OFSP integration, and are being continued. In 2016/17, a flyer was developed on root production for dissemination for farmers' use. Further, an advert on the nutritional importance of OFSP on radio Breeze during prime time is being developed to reach more people of different categories and service providers.Community Market for Conservation (COMACO) is a CIP partner organization that promotes wildlife conservation by engaging communities in agriculture to earn income for livelihoods that does not destroy wildlife. Among other activities, COMACO is promoting OFSP production for food and nutrition security and also as a source of income through the sale of roots and vines. COMACO buys some of the agricultural produce for value addition through processing. One of the products being produced for sale is sweet potato powder (Plate 15), which is meant for an instant porridge for babies and all family members.Plate 15: Sweet potato powder processed by COMACO: Photo credit: Felistus Chipungu/CIP.An experiment on intercropping sweetpotato and maize (Plate 16) was planted on 8 December at the Msekera Research Station to determine the yield and quality component of sweet potato in the intercrop arrangement and the incidence of sweet potato weevil attack on sweet potato roots and as influenced by different plant populations. Maize was planted first and fertilizer was only applied to maize at the recommended rate of 200 kg/ha. However, the maize grew vigorously thereby overshadowing the sweetpotato. The time between the planting of the maize and sweet potato was 19 days. The delay in planting sweet potato was caused by the dry spell that occurred after the germination of the maize. The potato plant population trial on ridges was designed to investigate the possibility of planting multiple lines on large ridges to maximize yields and economic returns while maintaining the culture (Fig. 2). The experiment was planted on 9 December 2016 at ZARI Msekera. Introducing sweet potato into conservation agriculture was through three different tillage methods (pot holes, rip line, and ridges). The experiment was planted on 12 December 2016.Plate 16: Maize-sweet potato intercrop trial at Msekera. Photo credit: Felistus Chipungu/CIP.The key achievements for this theme during this reporting period are the (i) well-established onfarm and on-station trials and out-scaling plots in almost all areas-this has been the best year of implementation so far and the yields are expected to be way above average-and (ii) the increased interest and uptake of improved technologies promoted through scaling partners in all communities. Theme 3 continued with the following activities: A yield study was designed in Lundazi and Chipata where COMACO is implementing Gliricidiamaize intercropping fields. As agreed during the planning meeting, a uniform maize OPV was purchased and distributed to 120 farmers who will form part of the yield study in 2017.Sampling will be done on five year-old and three year-old Gliricidia stands in April and adjacent fertilized and non-fertilized maize fields will be used as controls. A soil sample will be collected at the same time to increase the data availability from the trial. So far, all farmers have been recruited and have signed letters of agreement with COMACO. The trial is on track and awaits sampling. Labor data will be collected from the trials.Manure samples have been collected and are in the process of being analyzed for quality of protected and unprotected manure during storage. Before implementation, 37 farmers (30 men and 7 women) and 10 extension officers (eight men and two women) were trained jointly by ZARI, Grassroots Trust, and MAWA on how to implement better quality trials. The training covered both manure handling and GMCC intercropping trials. This season, nine new manure trials were implemented in Chipata alongside eight from the past season. Visual assessment in the field showed lack of response to manure at some sites and yield assessment will show the real impact of the different manures.A total of eight QPM on-farm trials were successfully planted on-station. The trials showed good progress given sufficient rains this cropping season. The QPM trial consists of 12 QPM hybrids including the farmer variety as a control. The GPS coordinates have been collected for easy identification of the trial sites. Of the 12 entries in the trial, two were selected by Kamano Seeds last year and have been entered into the national performance trials for registration. It is expected that the two hybrids will pass the performance trial and DUS test. CIMMYT increased the pre basic seed of these hybrids and supported Kamano for further increases. ZARI has managed to send some of their hybrids and lines for screening under the CIMMYT MLN screening facilities in Nairobi Kenya. ZARI successfully planted four regional trials in Msekera and Golden Valley. These trials are still under evaluation and we expect results in May 2017. During the field tours, a range of media houses send their affiliates to cover the work we are doing under Africa RISING. The teams joined in to visits all sites in Chipata, Sinda, and Lundazi. A range of interviews were recorded by NAIS, Radio Maria, Radio Breeze, and the Zambia Daily Mail.Between October 2016 and March 2017, farmer sensitization and on-farm research trial establishment were successfully implemented in agroecological zones (AEZs) I, II, and III of Zambia to determine product efficacy and value. With regard to product registration, two preregistration dossiers were prepared, one for each aflasafe product. The dossiers will be resubmitted to ZEMA when the three project implementers (ZARI, NISIR, and IITA) sign the technology transfer agreement.The second on-farm aflasafe efficacy field trial was set up in three districts: Sesheke, Kasungula, and Serenje districts of Western, Southern, and Central provinces, respectively. Sesheke and Kasungula are found in Region I AEZ, while sites in Serenje were selected for Region III AEZ. Farmer identification, sensitization, and selection was conducted in December 2016, with 367 farmers (205 female and 162 male) sensitized in the three districts. Aflasafe application in selected fields was implemented between January and February 2017. For this, two tonnes of aflasafe (one tonne each of Aflasafe ZM01 and Aflasafe ZM02) were imported from Tanzania. In total, 42 groundnut and 80 maize fields belonging to 43 female and 60 male farmers were treated with either of the two aflasafe products. Each treated field was paired with a control field.Two tonnes of Aflasafe (one tonne each of Aflasafe ZM01 and Aflasafe ZM02) were imported from IITA-Tanzania in January 2017. Lead farmers, together with selected farmers affiliated to Share Africa Zambia (59 female and 58 male) in Chipata and Lundazi districts, were sensitized about aflatoxins and trained on pre and postharvest means of mitigating the problem in January 2017. In addition, demonstrations were held in groundnut fields to give farmers hands on experience on how to apply aflasafe. The two tonnes of aflasafe were distributed to 116 farmers (58 male and 58 female) through lead farmers and community agrodealers for field treatment. After aflasafe deployment, a field monitoring visit was organized by IITA/ZARI to verify if the product was correctly used by respective farmers.Following the launch of the Aflasafe Technology Transfer and Commercialization (ATTC) project in November 2016, Chemonics, a business development consultancy firm, was sub-contracted by IITA to conduct a feasibility study for aflasafe in Zambia. An assessment report prepared by Chemonics is currently under review by IITA.In 2016, IITA and implementing partners were advised by ZEMA to revise and resubmit aflasafe product registration dossiers. For this, two important documents (letter of consent and technology transfer agreement) were requested by ZEMA to form part of the supporting documents for dossier resubmission. Although IITA drafted the technology transfer agreement, the document is still being reviewed by legal teams from ZARI and NISIR and is yet to be signed by each of the aflasafe development and project implementation institutions. This has delayed the re-submission process. Once the document is signed by IITA, ZARI, and NISIR, a letter of consent authorizing NISIR to use the aflasafe brand name will be provided by IITA and the dossier submitted to ZEMA.The contract for this project was extended to 31 August 2017 in order to complete two additional tasks under the original contract that were agreed upon at the time of the extension. These tasks included:1. Spatial analysis of optimal conditions for sustainable intensification in Zambia, using remote-sensing data. 2. Refinements to the existing system dynamics model, using data from the Integrated Land Use Assessment (ILUA) II report.The spatial analysis was completed in March 2017, and submitted as Addendum A to the original project final report. The refinements to the existing model using data from the ILUA II report have been delayed due to unanticipated delays with the release of the ILUA II report. The project team was able to secure a draft copy of the report, but will not release an updated model until the ILUA II report is released in its final form, and available to the public. The contract was also amended to reflect the contribution of additional funds by the USAID/Zambia mission for additional deliverables, including the development of a new system dynamics model at a finer-scale (e.g., game management area).The project team is in communication with staff from the USAID/Zambia mission, along with partners and stakeholders (including the USAID-supported Tenure and Global Climate Change initiative, South Luangwa Conservation Society, and Zambia Carnivore Programme) regarding the identification of a game management area that is well suited for the examination of agricultural-environmental linkages that are within the scope of this project. Data collection related to the development of this new model will begin in July 2017.The project team has two draft manuscripts in preparation for publication: A new pest has emerged in the region by the name of fall armyworm which has affected some farmers and experiment maize fields-especially those that planted late. Pesticides were used to control the pest but this poses a real danger to cereal production.The remote trial sites of some of our development partners (e.g., COMACO and CRS in Zambia) make effective monitoring and scientific oversight very challenging. In Tanzania, NAFAKA is bringing new districts on board but these are far from the Africa RISING research sites. The project would need more resources to support this more efficiently.Drought and sporadic rainfall were key challenges in Tanzania this season. A few fields that had been planted in December were badly affected. As measures, plant growth (height, leaves, and basal diameters) and biomass data (at flowering stage) were taken from selected treatments. The fields were planted again in February. In the low rainfall ecozones, there are trials to evaluate climate smart options such as in-situ water harvesting. In addition, the project has been proactive to diversify and plant short duration crop varieties in order to compensate for the season. In Seloto, Babati, for example, as a result of replanting in some areas, two short duration varieties (SeedCo 403 (Tumbili) and TNV1) were introduced; likewise in Tsamatsi, SeedCo 403 was planted. In Malawi and Zambia, however, the major challenge was the impact of excessive rains which made weed management a challenge and there was some general yellowing of crops due to water logging. Also due to prolonged rainfall this season, there is a risk of some matured crop rotting or germinating right in the field (especially, groundnuts and soybeans).There was a challenge of availability of research input materials for postharvest studies, i.e., quality protein maize grains for postharvest testing of storability and quality. The revised arrangement was to source seeds which would be planted during the current season and postharvest evaluation carried out in 2017/2018. In order not to make the postharvest aspect of the project redundant, we have substituted this aspect with evaluating farmers' local varieties and the improved varieties that they grow and utilize currently.In aflasafe trials, the recommended rate of 10 kg/ha was not adhered to. Although ShareAfrica supplied 65 kg of groundnut seed, enough for planting in 1 ha, most farmers planted the seed in more than one field and this made farm size determination a challenge since some of the farmers did not follow the recommended spacing. For 60% of the farmers, project implementers were able to determine farm size using a GPS and as such the right quantity of aflasafe was used.Limited sharing of information, even within a family, can lead to undesirable consequences. One member of a certain household who attended sensitization and training on aflasafe but did not share the information with other family members had them mistake aflasafe for a fertilizer or a pesticide for fighting the fall armyworm outbreak. The misunderstanding was cleared when IITA together with ZARI and SAZ officials visited the farmers after aflasafe distribution but prior to application and resensitized the farmers on a case by case basis. This calls for continued sensitization and mass sensitization exercises in the region before the product can be rolled out.Misconceptions about aflatoxin and farming practices exist. During the sensitization meetings, it was realized that some extension officers and some farmers practicing CA generally believed that it can reduce aflatoxin in the food value chain and as such they didn't see the need for aflasafe treatment. Unfortunately, there is no data proving the effectiveness of CA in minimizing the aflatoxin burden in food crops. This points to a need to conduct an assessment as well as education of extension officers, producers, and processors on what really works in mitigating pre-and postharvest aflatoxin contamination.To reduce costs associated with aflasafe manufacture, importation, and distribution in Zambia, aflasafe was manufactured in Tanzania and transported by road to Zambia for the 2016/2017 cropping season. Although the product was manufactured in time, challenges associated with obtaining export permits from the Tanzanian government delayed the entire process of aflasafe importation and distribution in Zambia. Consequently, some of the selected farmers missed treating their farms as their crops had exceeded the recommended stage for treatment. This calls for either having a manufacturing facility in the country or importing aflasafe way in advance, which is depended on fund availability. Related to this is the bureaucracy in some finance and contract departments of some institutions which delays disbursement of funds to implementers and consequent late start of activities. These need to be addressed in future.Experience from Zambia shows that seed production especially for GMCC and grain legumes has to go hand in hand with its promotion. There is currently a shortage of lablab and pigeon pea seed, which will be filled from seed supplies in Zimbabwe and Malawi. However, this is not a lasting solution and will need to be addressed in the coming cropping season. Other seed has been multiplied by CIMMYT and will be used to support further scaling in the short term. Indeed after creating awareness and seeing the increased yields and incomes, the majority of the farmers in Babati, Tanzania, are now willing to use the new improved maize, pigeon pea and common bean seeds, and fertilizers for planting.Experiences from Kongwa and Kiteto indicate that farmers' selection of technologies for adoption during scaling out, may not necessarily follow the scientist technology packages. The scientist technology packages though, provide a good technology portfolio for farmers to choose from. Thus, to successfully scale up technologies we will need to gain a deeper understanding of the drivers including gender and socioeconomic dimensions. District authorities, while willing to engage in scaling-out of technologies, will require a phased approach for them to deploy budgets and human resource. A multiple approach is thus needed.Experience with aflasafe application indicates the need for coming up with a reliable tool for determining farm sizes for smallholder farmers if the recommendations on product usage are to be followed. This is likely also applicable other inputs like fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. ","tokenCount":"9943"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"012e897299aee9c9b66476caa8eb0bf6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9de84b25-68bb-4b98-bb91-5a406bb2cc3c/retrieve","id":"-384332087"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"99875536-2da0-4c85-994f-5e45da03a5a7","pagecount":"7","content":"From agenda to action: How the Agriculture Breakthrough Agenda report is spurring action from 17 signatory countries 0From agenda to action: How the Agriculture Breakthrough Agenda report is spurring action from 17 signatory countriesClimate Impact PlatformFrom agenda to action: How the Agriculture Breakthrough Agenda report is spurring action from 17 signatory countries A core function of CGIAR's Climate Impact Platform is to foster global critical thinking. This function is being implemented through Module 2 of the Platform on Synthesis and Gaps research.Recommendations in the Breakthrough Report led to framing international priority actions for 17 countries.CGIAR plays a crucial role in advancing the Glasgow Breakthrough Agenda -an unprecedented global effort to align on concrete actions to help keep global warming to 1.5°C in reach. Launched by a coalition of 45 world leaders at COP26, it outlines an international clean technology plan and provides a framework for countries, businesses, and civil society to strengthen their annual emissions reduction efforts in key emitting sectors.Recognizing CGIAR's more than 50 years of experience in research on agriculture for development, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office of the United Kingdom (FCDO) commissioned CGIAR to author the agriculture chapter of the 2023 Breakthrough Agenda Report. The chapter pulls on recommendations from the CGIAR 'Achieving Agricultural Breakthrough: A Deep Dive into Seven Technological Areas Report and provides an independent, authoritative assessment of the agriculture sector, offering insights into global collaborative actions needed by 2030 . It also highlights the most urgent and high impact opportunities to accelerate progress towards the Breakthrough goals.As part of this Module, and in collaboration with scientists from several CGIAR centres and initiatives, CGIAR Climate Impact Platform led the writing of the 2023 Agriculture Breakthrough Report.The CGIAR Achieving Agricultural Breakthrough: A Deep Dive into Seven Technological Areas Report intensively explores solutions to pressing global challenges in agriculture -challenges that must be overcome in order for climate-resilient, sustainable farming to be possible for millions of farmers in low-and middle-income countries by 2030. These small-scale farmers are disproportionately affected by increased floods, droughts, and other impacts of climate change.The Report outlines four key principles for agricultural breakthroughs:o Reduced GHG emissions from agrifood sector.o Sustainable increases in agricultural productivity and incomes, particularly in LMIC contexts o Improved soil, water resources, and natural ecosystems o Improved adaptation and resilience to climate change for smallholder producersThe Agriculture Chapter in the Breakthrough Agenda report, makes five recommendations for international actions, ranging from increased climate finance to strategic dialogues on international trade.1. Increased climate finance should be directed to supporting the deployment of agricultural technologies and approaches for which science has generated evidence on effectiveness, including agroecology, reducing food loss and water, reducing livestock methane emissions, reducing emissions from fertilizers, and crop and livestock breeding. 2. Commit to a long-term process to test, develop evidence and share learning on policy and implementation. This should prioritize the redirecting of subsidies to support agriculture to move toward sustainability and climate resilience, and the facilitation of faster uptake of proven technologies in the sector. 3. Develop common metrics and indicators to track the adoption of key sustainable agriculture solutions and to monitor the state of natural resources on which agriculture depends. 4. Deliver higher levels of investment in agricultural research, development and demonstrations to be maintained over the course of this decade. 5. Strategic dialogues on how to ensure international trade facilitates and does not obstruct the transition to sustainable agriculture. This should be complemented with international sharing of best practice on mobilizing private investment and engaging consumers.These principles and pathways will contribute to implementing priority actions developed collaboratively by countries participating in the Agriculture Breakthrough and leading initiatives and seeking to build on the range of important wider work underway and planned across the international landscape. The priority actions are :1. International climate finance. Deliver greater quantity and quality of climate finance to support the deployment of sustainable agricultural technologies and approaches with proven effectiveness. 2. Test, develop evidence, and share learning on policy and implementation. There should be a focus on the facilitation of faster uptake of proven technologies and approaches to support climate adaptation and improve sustainability. 3. Advance discussions with the aim of developing common principles and criteria for metrics and indicators to track the adoption and impact of key sustainable agriculture solutions.4. Begin strategic dialogues on how to ensure international trade facilitates the transition to sustainable and resilient agricultural systems. 5. A6 Landscape Coordination to enhance the coordination and transparency of international collaboration on climate-resilient, sustainable agriculture.See the priority actions here Each participating country will formulate its own national pathway to transition its agriculture sector to climate resilience and sustainability, and with full recognition of the many excellent wider international activities and partnerships already underway, the CGIAR intends to prioritise its international efforts to advance specific priority international actions and projects. Experience shows us that actions are more effective and sustainable when private sector and civil society colleagues are engaged from the outset. Therefore, we strongly encourage coordinating bodies and partner initiatives to include private sector and civil society representatives where possible.The report also highlights the role of international collaboration in advancing breakthrough technologies across seven priority areas. Importantly, it includes practical solutions to address challenges small-scale farmers are facing worldwide.Seven groundbreaking technologies emerge as the drivers of this agricultural revolution:o Reduced emissions from fertilizers: A strategic move to optimize fertilizer use and minimize environmental impact.o Alternative proteins: Aiming to counterbalance the carbon-intensive nature of animal-sourced food with a rapidly expanding market for sustainable alternatives.o Reduced food loss and waste: Tackling losses and waste across value chains, with a focus on both low and high-income countries.o Crop and livestock breeding: Aiming for climate-resilient varieties and addressing the demands of consumers, farmers, and processors.o Reduced methane emissions from livestock: A critical intervention in an emissions-controversial sector supporting millions of pastoralists.o Agro-ecological approaches: Providing a viable pathway to mitigate climate risks and reduce anthropogenic GHG emissions.o Digital services: Empowering farmers with knowledge and skills to adapt to climate change while improving food production.In the global agriculture sector, the Breakthrough Agenda has emerged as a vital initiative following discussions at COP26 and COP27. We would like to thank all funders who support this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund: www.cgiar.org/funders.To learn more about this Initiative, please visit this webpage.To learn more about this and other Initiatives in the CGIAR Research Portfolio, please visit www.cgiar.org/cgiar-portfolio © 2023 Climate Impact Area Platform. Some rights reserved.This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International Licence (CC by 4.0).","tokenCount":"1088"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"19862dabec09d02c7a8975a5c28e4d12","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/7787e9c4-e2f1-4a3b-b270-d02c7f3a0607/retrieve","id":"870805561"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"75d085fb-3861-4c7e-976b-2ed9f3968388","pagecount":"9","content":"Key messages ◼ Agroecology has been promoted by strong political advocacy by grassroots organizations, in combination with special attention by the Peruvian gastronomy at national and international level ◼ Peru has launched public policies for agroecology with PLANAE 2021-2030 and the Direction of Agroecology at the Ministry of Agriculture. Peru has 8 policy instruments, and 7 programmatic interventions related to agroecology at MIDAGRI (Agrorural), MINAM (ReSCa, SIPAM), MIDIS (Haku Wiñay, Qali Warma)◼ 20 actors interviewed mentioned 55 limiting factors for current upscaling agroecology in Peru. Those factors belong to 6 dimensions, rated from greatest to least importance, as follow: i) market, ii) knowledge, iii) alliances, iv) productive resources, v) economic and vi) political. The key factors identified as barriers were the lack of transferring and co-creating knowledge for young people, the lack of access to seeds and the lack of access to credit for production.Particularly in Latin America, agroecology has had a tangible and positive impact on crop yields, resource conservation, food security and food sovereignty (Altieri &Toledo, 2011). It is important to highlight that agroecology has been traced back to its origin as an expression of resistance to industrial agriculture and the green revolution, a tool and an approach to achieve food sovereignty and as an alternative to current agri-food systems (Val & Rosset, 2020).According to Parmentier (2014), Nicholls & Altieri (2018), Tittonell (2019), the scaling up of agroecology implies not one transition, but several simultaneous transitions, at different scales, levels and dimensions; social, biological, economic, cultural, institutional, political. This process leads to more families trying to optimize their management practices in increasingly large territories, involving more people at the technical-productive level in the processing, distribution and consumption of food derived from agroecology. Moreover, if we consider that scaling combines vertical (enabling policies) and horizontal (farmer-farmer networks) processes (Rosset & Altieri 2017), in our study, we focus on vertical processes, which emphasize institutional and political dimensions as enablers of agroecology scalability (Le Coq et al., 2019).However, from an institutional perspective, specific policies designed in favour of agroecology have rarely been recognized in Latin America (Sabourin et al.,2017;Le Coq et al, 2020). Therefore, for this study, at the level of the policy framework we assessed whether some of the various dimensions of the concept of agroecology were addressed as a policy objective if these objectives existed, how they were implemented; if, on the contrary, there were no specific policies for agroecology; if any other instruments or programs had the potential to contribute directly/indirectly to the scalability of agroecology.The main objective of public policy analysis is to clearly identify the actors involved in the process of defining, deciding and implementing a policy, and to shed light on the positions and interests of these actors (Roth, 2006;Fuenmayor, 2017). A policy's visibility tends to create commitment by both officials and civil society role-players who have to implement the policy from the bottom up, as well as politicians who have to support it from the top down. Ownership of a program reflects multi-level advocacy, implying administrative and political commitment (Brynard, 2009). Therefore, in order to understand the possibilities of scaling up agroecology, an in-depth analysis is needed of how the policies implemented directly or indirectly affect the various levels (local, regional or national).In order to promote resilient and climate-adapted agriculture in Perú, the study focused on identifying barriers and opportunities, and defining viable pathways for scaling up agroecology in Perú through the elaboration of a Roadmap.The following questions were addressed: i) What are the policies that are allowing or constraining the scaling up of agroecology in Perú? ii) What are the main limiting factors for the scaling up of agroecology in Perú? and iii) From the experience of the stakeholders involved, what are the actions needed to scale up agroecology in Perú?The political and institutional framework consists of strategies, laws and plans that can affect agroecology. Relying on the concept of policy mix (Flanagan et al., 2011), we consider agricultural, environmental, social, and economic policy as the main domains that can affect the scaling up of agroecology. The objectives and actions are detailed in the political and institutional framework documents. However, in order to understand how this framework affects the scaling up of agroecology, policy implementation must be evaluated (see Figure 1). that constitute the actions' programmatic grid. These instruments can be implemented both by public officers and international cooperation partners.Enabling policies have the potential to create the conditions for the agroecology transition in multiple phases (alternative practices substitution and agroecosystem redesign), at different territory scales and dimensions such as i) agricultural resources, ii) policy, iii) market, iv) alliances, v) knowledge and vi) economic, (Anderson et al.,2019;Mier Y Terán Giménez Cacho et al.,2018;Gliessman, 2016).The study followed 3 steps in line with the research questions. The first step consisted of public policy documents review to identify policies, budgets and programs that contribute to the scaling up of agroecology. The second consisted of 20 interviews with 8 types of actors representing the various components of the food system (see Table 1).The third consisted of a workshop validation where the study results were presented, and actions suggested by the actors to promote the scaling up of agroecology. Agroecological movements have had a strong presence in Latin America. For example, in Peru, the Agroecological Network (RAE) began in 1989 and promoted the approach in various local organizations, including the National Association of Ecological Producers (ANPE) in 1998. Today ANPE has 20 regional bases, more than 30,000 members and it has been holding its annual National Meeting of Ecological Producers (ENPE).The development of public policies in favour of agroecology in Peru found an opportunity within the political-institutional framework through the recognition of the organic production (see Figure 2).From 2006 to 2011, organic and ecological production instruments were promoted through regulations and the formalization of national and regional commissions (CONAPO and COREPO).In The actors interviewed mentioned a great diversity of limiting factors for the scaling up of agroecology. These factors were ordered by major dimensions and considering the number of mentions by the interviewees (see section 3.2.2 and 3.2.3 of the Peru report 2 ). The factors related to the following dimensions were prioritized in order of importance: i) market, ii) knowledge, iii) alliances, iv) productive resources, v) economic and vi) political (See Figure 3). This prioritization consolidates the diverse visions/experiences that stakeholders have with respect to the factors that they consider limiting agroecological scaling up.The key limiting factors identified by the stakeholders were the following: in the knowledge dimension (lack of infield assistance and co-learning spaces), in the productive resources dimension (lack of access to native seeds and agricultural resources), and at the economic dimension (lack of feasible loans for agroecological production) The market was the dimension with the highest number of limiting factors (15), where 3 of the most important factors were highlighted. The first is the limited consumer awareness at the national level regarding the health, social and environmental benefits provided by agroecological foods.In addition, the interviewees mentioned that consumers do not know how to differentiate between organic and agroecological labelling systems.The second is the lack of government approval of the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) scheme. In spite of the working groups on the regulation, no consensus has been reached yet that would allow the scheme to be recognized for marketing in short circuits at the national level. The third is the lack of formal sanitary authorizations adapted to agroecological production, as well as the promotion of farmers' associativity so that they would be able to access broader commercialization channels.In addition, stakeholders mentioned i) the price of agroecological products has increased, instead of becoming popular and accessible for everyone; and ii) a need to add value to fresh food products to avoid food loss and to reach new market niches.The knowledge was the second dimension that had a large number of factors mentioned, with (9) limiting factors, where 3 factors of major importance were highlighted. The first is the lack of knowledge sharing from elders to younger people in rural areas, as well as to students studying careers related to agriculture. Therefore, in general, young people do not understand how to implement the agroecological approach in the different areas where they operate.The second is the lack of field assistance, especially when pests appear, and co-learning spaces such as farmer field schools. The interviewees considered crucial for the agroecological transition the promotion of local leaders, who can be trained and provide assistance at the local level. The third is the lack of sustainable technological innovation, where traditional knowledge can be used. These innovations could be carried out through university research, especially if this technological innovation contributes to minimizing post-harvest and distribution losses.Alliances was the third important aspect with (7) limiting factors, where 2 of the most important factors were highlighted. The first one, collaborations between farmers' associations and grassroots organizations are key, so it is necessary to reinforce connectivity and support, especially in isolated areas without internet access. The campaigns and advocacy that have been carried out in recent years have been successful due to the networking capacity of the organizations.The second is the lack of collaboration between academia and farmers to work together in research topics taking into account the traditional knowledge of farmers. The interviewees considered that academia should provide guidelines based on scientific evidence in policy dialogues between producers and officials. As well as assessing how PGSs can have better credibility and trust with consumers through a data recording system.Within the productive resources dimension, 8 limiting factors have been mentioned, of which 2 are the most important. The first is the lack of access to native seeds. The second is the lack of biological inputs and pest controllers.Both are crucial to achieve the transition and subsequent scaling up of agroecology.Despite the producers know how to produce their own inputs (bio-fertilizers.), they mentioned that there is a great shortage/high cost of resources (e.g., biological pest controllers). Therefore, it is necessary that these resources become accessible in time/price through development of local bio-factories.Within the economic dimension, 6 limiting factors have been mentioned, where 2 of the most important factors are highlighted. The first is the lack of specific credits for agroecology that would allow the farmers to continue the transition. Differentiated credit requirements and public incentives are urgently needed in order to begin a transition from conventional production to a more sustainable one. The second is the lack of economic insurances for crop protection against extreme weather events. This requires farmers to be able to calculate the profitability of their agroecological production.Within the political dimension, 6 limiting factors have been mentioned, where 2 of the most important factors are highlighted. The first is that agroecology has not been yet considered in public budgets from its provision of ecosystem services and public health. The second is the lack of knowledge about the contribution of agroecology to After recognizing the wide diversity of barriers to the scaling up of agroecology, we evaluate to what extend the limiting factors were addressed by the current public policy instruments in implementation. Thus, a prioritization of the limiting factors was made according to the current degree to which they are addressed by public policies and programs 3 .Based on this prioritization, a roadmap proposal was derived that takes up the actions proposed by the actors interviewed 4 and discussed during a virtual workshop held in November 2021. After the workshop, actions proposed by stakeholders were reorganized according to time scale (short, medium and long term), considering in the short term the relevant actions for the scaling up of agroecology that can benefit from a policy framework or ongoing programs, in the medium term, actions that may take longer to implement due to the complexity of the factors identified as barriers and for which instruments already exist but need to be strengthened, and in the long term, actions that address factors that are more complex to resolve and for which policy instruments do not yet exist to facilitate them.Hereafter we propose pathways for the scaling up of agroecology in Peru presented as a roadmap including 8 strategic guidelines and 45 strategic actions, distributed among 3 strategic temporal axes.1. Short-term: Promote agroecology from a welfare policy, youth integration, integrated rural development and public health.With advances in the construction of policy and political frameworks, there are already multiple opportunities for scaling up agroecology. In particular, the recognition of ecosystem services (Law No. 30215) and the promotion of healthy eating (Law No. 30021) can be leveraged in favour of scaling up agroecology. iii.Encourage the descendants of agroecological producers to become solidarity intermediaries (a dynamic actor in local commerce) through incentives for agroecology-focused enterprises. These incentives could be in the form of productive and economic resources (without return) through programs such as INNOVATE PERU, RETO BIO, among others (Ministry of Production), which would allow them to market local agroecological products based on their local contexts.i. Promote a multicultural education (primary, secondary, higher education) where agroecology is made visible in all regions of the country through a curriculum structure by the Ministry of Education (MINEDU).ii.Promote co-learning spaces using the \"Field Schools\" methodology through the development of a curriculum created by AGRORURAL in collaboration with INIA and SENASA.iii. Promote local \"Consultation Centers\" to train local facilitators/leaders (Yachachi) to accompany producers in the agroecological transition. This can be done through MIDAGRI programs such as SENASA and AGRORURAL.iv. Build a registry of traditional knowledge to serve as an input for designing learning programs in field schools.v.Taking advantage of the 1500 Field Schools currently existing in the country to develop learning exchange programs for rural youth and university students, through agreements with Agrarian Universities, farmer associations and SECIGRA AGRARIO (draft law on agrarian civil service), which would allow the promotion of research that integrates traditional knowledge within contemporary innovations.2. Medium-term: Guarantee the productivity of agroecology through access to productive resources and a differentiated distribution and consumption policy.To strengthen/consolidate the process of scaling up agroecology in Peru in the medium term, it is also necessary to improve the availability of seeds and other productive resources, as well as consolidate market access for agroecological products through different mechanisms. 3. Long-term: Promoting consumer awareness, social connectivity and facilitating economic funding for agroecology.Although the essential principle of agroecology is food sovereignty. Access to markets has been considered relevant by those interviewed in order to maintain it over time. A factor of great importance is the massive connection with consumers and their awareness of the socio-environmental benefits of their consumption. However, to achieve this, it is necessary to increase connectivity at different scales: i) at the level of government sectors, ii) between producers and consumers, iii) between producers and sources of financing, and iv) road and telecommunications infrastructure. ","tokenCount":"2450"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"55529883d495fa16a6e196ed65f1efa2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b1ff35e7-fd17-423a-86a0-8fb94ed45212/retrieve","id":"-228487651"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f0f2689f-fd13-489c-9c66-40b319545e59","pagecount":"4","content":"What it is: When your lactating cow shows a sudden drop in milk yield, swelling, edema and hardness of the udder, feels pain in the udder, has fl akes in milk, early spoiling of milk, etc., it is considered as mastitis. Not all of these but even a single symptom is suffi cient to consider development of mastitis in the cow. Harmful substances produced by mastitis causing microorganisms called toxins damage the milk producing tissues of the udder. Mastitis causing microorganisms as well as the infl ammation process result in decreased milk production and compositional changes in milk from infected quarters or from the udder as a whole.There are mainly two types of mastitis-(i) Clinical mastitis and (ii) Sub clinical mastitis.Clinical mastitis: Clinical mastitis is characterized by sudden onset, change of milk composition and appearance, decreased milk production, and the presence of the visible signs on the udder of your cow. Clinical mastitis becomes noticeable.Apart from loss in milk yield of your cow, mastitis costs you in various other ways. In case of acute (clinical) mastitis, you have to face heavy fi nancial loss in terms of expenses incurred on treatment and medication;  During the unproductive period you have to spend money for feeding, on hired labour and devoting your time on care and management of the cow without any return.;  There will be a total loss of milk yield during treatment and withdrawal period. By not giving proper treatment the total loss will extend to the entire lactation period;  As the disease goes unnoticed in sub clinical mastitis, the loss incurred can be either for the entire lactation or even for life time of the cow if the damage to the udder becomes irreversible. In such case, it will heavily cost you with one of your high yielder cow;  With possible spreading of contamination to the other healthy cows of the herd may lead to further development of mastitis in them;  You will lose market for milk because of its less demand caused by poor/inferior quality and fetching a lower price. Microorganisms-A large number of microorganisms including bacteria (e.g. Staph. aureus), fungus (e.g.Candida) and algae (e.g. Prototheca);  Trauma/injury-Various forms of trauma/injury done by -friction with a very rough fl oor, threshing by hoof of other cow, injury while trying to jump over a fence or concrete wall (as in a manger), fi sting type of milking practice or even a polyp developed inside the teat canal;  Injudicious use of antibiotics-Farmers tend to often discontinue the use of the course of antibiotics against mastitis prescribed by the veterinarian. They just stop it on seeing the disappearance of the visible symptoms. This is one of the causes of relapse of the disease and occurrence of sub clinical form of the disease. They also use antibiotics of their own choice without having a prescription from a qualifi ed veterinarian. This kind of practice leads to increased incidence of fungal mastitis and development of bacterial resistance to the antibiotic given. The udder of your cow becomes hard with nonfunctional tissues and although the cow is totally free from the infective cause, she will not be in a position to give a good milk yield.  Damage done to the mammary gland and, even to the body system, by the toxins produced by the pathogens which are not destroyed by antimicrobial drugs. Strictly maintain farm hygiene. Regularly clean and disinfect the fl oor, manger & waterer and drainage system.  Strictly maintain personal hygiene by washing hands before milking, wearing face mask, clean cloths/ apron, keeping nails trimmed, etc.;Face mask, apron to be used during milking  Wash the udder before milking and dry it by wiping with a clean cloth after milking is over;  Never practice fi sting method of milking and also never use oil on the teats to make them slippery during milkingMustard oil used during milking  Check the pH of milk periodically using pH paper strip for detection of subclinical mastitis; Do routine testing of milk using California Mastitis Test kit; Always call a veterinarian for treatment of any kind of disease in your farm and avoid using medicine at your own choice. ","tokenCount":"702"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cb6afb5c4243692fe78c268dbfbbfce5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/08a606da-d7ad-472d-a2a5-e24cabad6245/retrieve","id":"-581410200"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2dfdece0-3efa-4d5c-9720-9c9c0d0c25d4","pagecount":"1","content":"•Since the 1960s, but more intensely since the 1980s, the factors affecting agricultural innovation adoption in the so-called developing world have puzzled scholars and development institutions.•Although early studies recognized that adoption is affected not only by the promise of economic profitability but also by other attributes of the innovation, such as compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability, economic analysis that barely touched upon sociological factors or the non-contingent character of extension programs dominated the literature until recent years.•Despite the availability of sustainable technologies and practices, adoption levels are, and have been, historically low.•Scholars and institutions have analyzed both external factors such as credit constraints, risk, and information or internal constraints such as farm size, farmer behavior, and land tenure patterns, showing how these factors affect agricultural innovation adoption (Figure 1).•Even when constraints are lifted or improved, adoption does not seem to increase in overall terms. To explain so, new constraints have been researched, such as gender, age, and belonging to a social network but the answer is still elusive.•We found that, first, farmer's social and cultural constraints must be properly mapped to explain, more in depth, the limiting factors to diffusion and the shortcomings of adoption incentives.•Second, we found that perfectible transference strategies lay at the core of agricultural technology adoption, and thus we aim to amplify the debate on to how to map societal constraints and how, if so, new narratives and mechanisms should be put in place to achieve more successful innovation processes.•This study reviews and summarizes evidence on experiments of agricultural innovation adoption, particularly those related to improved pastures and forage seeds in the Global South.•It does so by focusing on reports, scientific and academic literature on the subject.•Diverse studies in several geographies continue showing that education, access to credit, land tenure, access to extension services, and belonging to a social network are determinants of the adoption of agricultural technologies. •Yet, adoption of agricultural technologies is so contingent on the type of technology and the socio-economic and environmental context that all variables need to be reassessed when devising extension programs of policies for each technology.•Most recent approaches, particularly those involving participatory research, take into account farmer's needs to devise extension services. These approaches prove to have a higher impact on the adoption of new agricultural technologies because receive farmer's feedback and can learn better from farmer's needs. •Productivity on milk and beef production increases with the adoption of improved grasses but not necessarily the efficient use of natural resources. Meeting the challenges of climate change will require a combination of strategies found across different agricultural technologies in order to increase rates of adoption of complex nature resource management such as silvo-pastoral systems.Triana N 1 ; Campuzano L 2 ; Burkart S 1 . 1 Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, Cali, Colombia; 2 Independent Researcher, Universidad Andrés Bello, Santiago de Chile CONTACT: n.triana@cgiar.org ","tokenCount":"475"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"32c6c809b018dccddb3f40c5876b32c9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9d832d73-8a3d-4092-94fb-faa5d4e25c70/retrieve","id":"1074552564"},"keywords":["Climate change","migration","youth CHIRPS Climate Hazards Infrared Precipitation Station"],"sieverID":"050b30b0-0958-430b-bcca-cbc2def4c8b4","pagecount":"57","content":"Titles in this series aim to disseminate interim climate change, agriculture and food security research and practices and stimulate feedback from the scientific community.Human activities are estimated to have caused approximately 1°C of global warming above preindustrial levels, with a likely range of 0.8°C to 1.2°C (IPCC 2018). According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), while climate models project robust differences at various levels of confidence in regional climate characteristics, there is an overwhelming agreement that, if warming continues to increase at the current rate, global warming is likely to reach 1. 5°C, if not beyond, between 20305°C, if not beyond, between and 20525°C, if not beyond, between (IPCC 2018). Among many other potential impacts, it is estimated that, globally, an average warming of 1.5°C or beyond raises a number of risks, including heatwaves, heavy rainfall events, crop productivity decline, reduction in water availability, undernutrition and habitat loss (IPCC 2018).One of the expected consequences of these massive changes in the climate is an unprecedented level of human migration. Climate change is anticipated to influence human mobility in all regions of the world -although the specific types of impact and magnitude depend on both biophysical and socio-economic factors (Piguet andLaczko 2013, IPCC 2014a). Existing evidence shows that climateinduced migration is already taking place across the world, (Foresight 2011, Ionesco et al. 2016, Rigaud et al. 2018) making it imperative to learn more about and plan for this migration. Unplanned, large-scale migration at breaking point for the affected communities creates humanitarian crises, logistical complications (Foresight 2011) and, potentially, political crises, especially if most of the migrants are working-age youth.Climate change will hit poor countries and communities relatively harder due to their limited coping and adaptive capacity across sectors and the reliance on environmental resources and vulnerable ecosystems as a source of livelihoods in poor countries (WRR 2017). At a household and individual level, poor people might be heavily affected by climate change even when impacts on the rest of the population are limited (IPCC 2018). Regions that are dry are expected to become dryer and experience extreme heat events more frequently, (Trenberth et al. 2014) impacting livelihoods of the resource-poor population living in these coutriers.Most of the world's poor live in agriculture-dependent countries in Africa and Asia, and climate change is expected to have strong negative effect on agriculture (Ray et al. 2019). While extreme weather events such as floods, cyclones and drought are visually striking, the long-term, negative effects on production, productivity and risk exposure may be more damaging for agriculturedependent countries and communities. For example, farmers' access to agricultural land could decline due to landslides, land degradation, flooding or salination. At the same time, deterioration in the quality and availability of forests, water and other ecosystems could result in decreased farm productivity, fishing and other related activities -impacting food security.The increased risk of climate change contributes to large scale migration by exacerbating existing migration drivers. This requires a concerted effort among countries to minimize unplanned displacements and to facilitate safe and orderly migration. Recent international conventions and agreements recognize and reflect this need for international cooperation and coordination. For example, following the request from the 2015 Paris Agreement, the Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage associated with Climate Change Impacts established a task force that can develop recommendations for integrated approaches to avert, minimize and address displacement related to the adverse impacts of climate change. The 2016 New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants (UNHCR 2018) also highlights the importance of a coordinated response. The declaration emphasizes that large movements of refugees and migrants have political, economic and social consequences that cross all borders, demanding global approaches and solutions (UN 2016). Similarly, the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development calls for member countries to facilitate orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people, including the implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies. This study aims to contribute evidence for the need to translate these intiatives into effective policies. The study assesses the nexus among climate change, agriculture and international migration in eastern Africa. While the link between environmental shocks and internal migration in Africa has been relatively well researched, (Gray and Mueller 2012, Kubik and Maurel 2016, Mastrorillo et al. 2016) there is not much work on the impact of climate change on international migration. This study will help to fill this gap.Agriculture is the main source of livelihoods in Africa, including in East Africa (WB 2019). Across the continent, the sector contributes around 60 percent of jobs and about 25 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) (African Development Bank 2016). There is sufficient evidence to suggest that African ecosystems are already being affected by climate change, that these changes will grow worse in the future, and that the agricultural system is becoming more vulnerable over time (IPCC 2014b).Even though most African countries depend on rain-fed agriculture, and as such are vulnerable to climate impacts, the region has not attracted as much research as other vulnerable regions. For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2014c) highlighted that current climate adaptation knowledge in this region relies heavily on case studies. Similarly, there is a considerable amount of uncertainty in climate projections for East Africa. This is partly due to the coarse resolution of global climate models which do not reliably capture local processes and features, such as the complex topography of the region (Yang et al. 2015, Rigaud et al. 2018).This study contributes to filling these gaps by studying the complex nexus between climate change, agriculture and international migration in East Africa. The study provides an extensive review of the existing literature on the climate-migration link and a conceptual framework that shows the different channels through which climate change can lead to migration in East Africa. The study employs regional climate models to show trends of climate extremes, such as drought, in East Africa and provides climate projections in the coming decades. Using combined climate model estimates for dry days and migration data from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) (UNDESA 2017a), the study also quantitatively analyzes the relationship between climate change and migration in East Africa. As this study is especially interested in the youth dimension, it highlights findings that are particularly relevant for the region's youth.The study covers eight East African countries, including Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. As the focus of the study is on international migration, the data used in the quantitative analysis is based on stock of international migrants from these eight countries as reported by UNDESA (2017a). In this study, we define youth as those between the ages of 15-34, as suggested by the African Youth Charter (AU 2006).The main limitation of this study is availability of age-disaggregated data. Most of the studied countries do not have national-level international migration data for use in this analysis. While the UNDESA data provides uniformly measured international migration data for all the case study countries, the data have three basic weaknesses that limit the level of quantitative analysis that can be conducted: i) given that the data collection is based on stock of legally registered migrants in the destination countries, it misses irregular migrants, ii) it is not disaggregated by age, hence separate youth international migration figures are missing, and iii) while the data covers 27 years , it is reported in a five year gap. With only eight countries in the sample, this low frequency data means our quantitative analysis is limited by the relatively low sample size.The study uses regional climate modelling that performs better than the global model in simulating key processes relevant for regional extremes. However, given the limited scope of the study, the analysis did not disaggregate within the country. The climate variables in the drought analysis are averaged at the country level rather than over specific drought prone areas or hotspots of the country. Similarly, the climate analysis was based on annual data instead of crop growing seasons.Despite these limitations, it is expected that the climate trends and forecasts from the regional climate models capture the real trend very well.Migration is a growing and complex global phenomenon. Although there is a consensus among researchers that climate change is expected to significantly influence human mobility, (Foresight 2011) empirically documenting the link between climate change and migration is not straightforward. For example, the widely cited projections on 'climate refugees' (Myers and Kent 1995) is challenged by many researchers because it suggests that all those vulnerable to climate change, including youth, will migrate, which is not necessarily the case (Foresight 2011). In addition to climate, a multitude of factors influence migration decisions including personal, political, economic and environmental conditions. The complexity of migration decision-making as a whole and the difficulties of causally linking climate change with specific migration decisions is acknowledged and extensively debated in the literature (Tacoli 2009, Warner et al. 2010, Black et al. 2011, Foresight 2011, Maystadt and Mueller 2012, Nicholson 2014, Bettini 2017, Sudmeier-Rieux et al. 2017). Recent work on the topic provides a more useful framing of the climate change and migration relationship which focuses on how climate change influences the already acknowledged drivers of migration (Foresight 2011, Rigaud et al. 2018).The obvious link between climate change and migration is through displacement caused by extreme weather events, such as cyclones, hurricanes, drought, etc. Climate change, however, also interacts with other drivers of migration, mainly social, economic, political, environmental and demographic (Perch-Nielsen et al. 2008, Warner et al. 2010, Black et al. 2011, Foresight 2011, Rigaud et al. 2018). These interactions will create an even stronger migration pressure, although the link may not always be obvious. For example, climate change may accelerate political migration due to an increase in conflict caused by resource competition among individuals and groups (Foresight 2011). Considering these indirect interactions, this study proposes a conceptual framework that discusses the main channels through which climate change could trigger migration for agriculture-dependent countries and communities (see Table 1 for major links and references that show empirical evidence for each of the links described).For farm households, the main effect will be climate change's effect on agricultural productivity and agricultural risk that could impact food security. Climate change is expected to increase landslides, Climate change, in addition to causing displacement from extreme weather events, interacts with social, economic, political, environmental and demographic drivers to create even stronger migration pressure.land degradation, salination and a reduction in the quality and availability of complementary natural resources such as forests, water and other ecosystems. These changes will diminish the size, suitability and productivity of farmland that is the basis for agricultural livelihoods, eventually pushing farmers and the youth to migrate. For example, a study from Nepal shows that migration increases with perceived decline in land productivity and vegetation cover (Massey et al. 2010).Climate change is also expected to increase rainfall variability and causes frequent episodes of extreme weather events, such as drought or floods. This will increase production risk and the livelihood vulnerability, eventually leading to more migration. Large panel data studies from Indonesia, Pakistan and Latin America suggest that an increase in temperature and rainfall variability influences long-term migration patterns more than natural disasters (Bohra-Mishra et al. 2014, Mueller et al. 2014, Thiede et al. 2016). Extensive empirical evidence on agricultural livelihoods shows that migration is one of the most common adaptation responses to environmental shocks and the reduction of agricultural income. For example, a study assessing the effects of drought on population mobility in Ethiopia shows that land-poor households, especially youth, are the most vulnerable to this climate extreme (Gray and Mueller 2012). As climate change is expected to create more environmental shocks in the coming decades, we are likely to see increased migration.The effects of climate change on agricultural production and productivity is not limited to farmers in rural communities. What happens in the agricultural sector will also have significant effects on nonfarm households through local and urban labor markets, as well as its effect on the national economy. For example, a decline in production and productivity of agricultural activities will push more farmers, especially young farmers, away from farming into non-farm wage employment. This move will eventually lead to international migration as the increased labor supply depresses wages for unskilled labor (Maurel and Tuccio 2016). A slowdown in the agricultural sector in these agriculturally-dependent economies will also result in slower economic growth and, overall, fewer economic opportunities because of the linkage between agriculture and the rest of the economy (Dell et al. 2012).Table 1. Impact of climate change on agricultural livelihood and its potential effect on youth migration.Impact  (Black et al. 2011, Foresight 2011, Gemenne 2011, Jakobeit and Methmann 2012, Bettini 2017). Many of these projections also build-on or refer to a single publication from 1995 (Myers and Kent 1995) that is itself criticized for methodological weakness (Foresight 2011).As previously discussed, the main challenge in assigning a specific number to climate migrants arises from the fact that migration has many drivers. While displacements caused by extreme weather events are easier to account for and attribute, such displacements account for only a small share of migration.Despite this, due to the short-and long-term effects of climate change, the scales provide some suggestive evidence for the linkage between climate change and migration. For example, in 2017 alone, about 19 million people were displaced by sudden-onset disasters within their own country, and between 2008 and 2016 an estimated 228 million people were displaced by disasters (IOM 2018). This does not include cross-border migration for which data is not available (IOM 2018). Although many disaster-related displacements are presumed to be temporary and internal, there is increasingly more evidence to suggest that, for individuals and communities that are economically and socially vulnerable, the temporary displacement due to climate-related risks can easily turn to permanent migration (IPCC 2014c). Moreover, as discussed above, climate change will trigger more and longer-term migration through its impact on other drivers of migration, even if it is not easy to identify its separate effect.Most climate migration in developing countries is expected to be movement within the same country, often from rural to urban areas (Rigaud et al. 2018). This is partly because the effect of environmental changes is stronger and more direct on agricultural activities, which are typically located in rural areas (Marchiori et al. 2012). Massive internal migration poses a significant challenge for any country, but it can be especially demanding for developing countries that often suffer from poor infrastructure, weak institutions and binding financial constraints. It is likely that such displacements spill into neighboring countries and could create transboundary problems involving young climate migrants. Moreover, national and international migration is essentially interlinked. A rapid increase in internal youth migration, especially from rural to urban areas, is likely to increase the level of international youth migration due to pressure on the urban wage (Marchiori et al. 2012).The impact of climate change on international migration is not well researched, especially youth migration. This is partly due to the challenges of attribution discussed earlier and the lack of detailed and reliable data on international migration, particularly from developing countries. The limited evidence on the link between international migration and climate change is often based on the analysis of macrolevel cross-country data that exploits the information available from developed countries as receiving nations. These studies often use temperature and precipitation to assess the correlation between variations in these environmental factors and migration flow. Cai et al. (2016) used 30 years of bilateral international migration datasets for 163 origin countries and 42 destination countries. They tested the hypothesis that climate change affects international migration through its effect on agricultural livelihoods. They estimated a country-pair fixed-effects regression model that links origin country weather variations to its international out-migration. Interaction terms between weather and agricultural dependence are included in the model to assess the agricultural link. The study found a positive and statistically significant relationship between temperature and international out-migration.Supporting their hypothesis, the results show that this relationship holds for agriculture-dependent countries. The study also shows that extreme heat and heat stress are correlated with both lower crop yields and higher flows of out-migration. The GDP of agriculture-dependent countries are also more negatively affected by higher temperature than non-agriculture-dependent countries (Cai et al. 2016).Another study, by Backhaus et al. (2015), also found a similar, positive association between temperature and migration. In this study, Backhaus et al. (2015) applied a gravity model on panel migration data from 142 migrant sending countries for the period 1995 to 2006. They found a positive correlation between temperature and migration, and similar to the study by Cai et al. (2016), the Backhaus et al. study also shows that the positive correlation between migration and temperature holds for agriculture-dependent countries. There are more studies that demonstrate similar, positive correlations between temperature and international migration based on cross-country studies (Afifi andWarner 2008, Naudé 2009). There are, however, very few studies that explore the linkages between environmental change and international migration based on time-series or panel data at a national level. Two studies on Mexico -US migration show that a decrease in precipitation is significantly associated with US-bound migration, especially for dry Mexican states (Feng et al. 2010, Nawrotzki et al. 2013). Feng et al. (2010) went further to provide an estimate of the number of future migrants due to climate change. The study reported that, at a higher global warming scenario, more than six million adult Mexicans will emigrate by the end of the century as a result of agricultural productivity declines alone, with most of these migrants likely to be younger and productive members of the Mexican population.To summarize, the research exploring the link between climate change and international migration found that changes in temperature and precipitation are closely correlated with migration flow. While there is some variation in the findings, the research is consistent in showing a stronger impact of climate change on agriculture-dependent countries and communities. There is, however, a lack of research analyzing the relationship between climate change and international migration for Africa and none focuses on the relationship's impact on youth international migration.In 2017, there were 258 million people in the world residing in a country outside of their country of birth (UNDESA 2017a). Youth are overrepresented in migration relative to their share in the total population.For instance, the estimated number of young migrants (aged 15 to 24) rose from approximately 22 million in 1990 to 31 million in 2019. In 2019, young migrants accounted for 11.4 percent of the total migrant population but only 5.1 percent of the total population of all ages (UNDESA 2019). Globally, there is more youth migration from and within Africa. The number of emigrants between 15-30 years of age accounts for a quarter of the international migrant stock and one-third of international migrants in Africa. When expanding the age group to include those between the ages of 10-34 years old, the share of adolescent and youth migrants in Africa increases to 51 percent (UNDESA 2017b).Men are slightly more likely to migrate than women. In 2017, women accounted for 48.4 percent of all international migrants worldwide and 46.8 percent of international migrants in Africa (UNDESA 2017a).While there is a dearth of literature on the specific implications of climate change on international migration for youth and women, evidence from related literature suggests that the youth and women may be affected differently. In the next two sub-sections, we highlight some of the issues relevant for female and youth international migration as it relates to climate change.Although the youth may not have a higher level of exposure to climate change compared to other sections of society, lessons from labor migration research suggest that the youth, often in the age group of 15-30, are more likely to migrate in search of better livelihood (Lipton 1980, De Haan 1999, Castles et al. 2013). As discussed above, climate change is likely to compromise the livelihoods of youth in agriculture-dependent countries. Climate-induced environmental change is going to reduce both the quality and quantity of land available for farming, resulting in fewer livelihood sources for aspiring young farmers and other youth joining the agricultural labor market. Since youth are often unencumbered by family and social responsibilities, they are more likely than other members of the community to migrate in search of better livelihoods. The younger population, including those in eastern Africa, generally have better information and education when compared to previous generations, increasing the likelihood of climate-driven international migration from the continent.Young people are more likely to migrate in search of a better livelihood.Climate change is expected to have a disproportionate impact on women in developing countries due to their culturally assigned roles, social positions, limited control over resources and other socio-economic vulnerabilities (Arora-Jonsson 2011, Eastin 2018). For example, a decline in the availability of water due to climate change is expected to increase the amount of time and effort women spend in collecting drinking water for the family. It is not obvious, however, whether women are more or less likely to migrate due to climate change. Women and men differ both in the pressure they experience from climate change and in terms of their adaptive and outmigration capacities. On the one hand, a reduction in the availability of suitable agricultural land and other environmental resources reduces women's absolute and relative access to economic resources, even more than before, increasing their incentives to migrate. On the other hand, the cultural constraints on women's mobility, their lack of information and resources for international migration and their socio-cultural obligation to less mobile members of the family will make women less able to out-migrate.Women may also be differently affected by the migration experience itself (Cannon 2002, Chindarkar 2012, Antman 2013, Zhang 2018). Since women in developing countries often have fewer skills and less education, migrant women are less likely to secure formal sector employment compared to migrant men. When migrating as a family, the nutritional status of poor women may deteriorate further as they prioritize their children and men of the household (Cannon 2002). In the cases where the rural household responds to environmental stress by sending out male members of the household to urban areas or abroad, the women who stay behind experience a significant increase in workload in the short run as they are forced to cover the household chores, child rearing and farm activities. Women, particularly single women, are also more likely to be exposed to trafficking and sexual abuse during international migration.\"Climate change is expected to have a disproportionate impact on women in developing countries.\"The livelihood of populations in many parts of Africa is strongly tied to subsistence and rain-fed agriculture.Climate extremes, such as frequent droughts and water stress, account for widespread food insecurity and failures in several key sectors (e.g. agriculture, energy, water resource management) that contribute to the regional economy. Although global climate models are based on well-established physical principles and have been demonstrated to reproduce several aspects of observed large-scale climate features, they need proper evaluation to assess climate change at regional and local scales. This is because global models have a limited capacity to simulate key processes which are relevant for the generation of regional extreme events due to their coarse resolution, missing processes or parameterization of sub-grid scale processes (Brasseur et al. 2017). It is also important to understand the role of local to regional scale processes, such as land-atmosphere interactions, orographically enhanced precipitation, and convective storms, in modulating the intensity and evolution of regional extreme events. Such meso-scale processes are better represented and simulated by high resolution regional climate models. In fact, numerous studies (e.g.Jung et al. 2012) have been carried out to assess the level of performance of high-resolution regional climate models, demonstrating that, while large-scale mean climate features are reasonably simulated by coarser resolution models, fine-scale resolution regional models are better in simulating convective One of the objectives of this section is, therefore, to characterize the drought patterns and the frequency of extreme dry days in the current climate using observations and high-resolution regional climate model simulations to avoid the aforementioned shortcomings of coarse-resolution global climate models. We are also interested in investigating the characteristics of these extreme climate events, such as droughts, and how they are projected to change by analyzing the current and future climate simulations under the realistic worst-case scenario for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions using the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 for East Africa. This section is focused on producing climate modelling data for the region that highlight past and future trends in extreme events that are directly relevant for agriculture.The relation between occurrence of extreme events in each country and its impact on migration will be investigated in the next section.a water balance approach using precipitation, evapotranspiration and antecedent soil moisture. In this study, we utilize two different meteorological indices from the first category (i.e. using only precipitation dataset) to characterize historical and future droughts over East Africa. The first one is the number of dry days, which can be computed annually or for a specific growing season as it reflects the overall condition of extreme climate conditions for rain-fed agriculture. We define a dry day when the cumulative daily precipitation values are less than 1mm. The frequency of dry days is computed on an annual basis. These  (2003). Another advantage of SPI is that it can be calculated over different time scales to allow for the interpretation of drought from a monthly to multiyear scale. In this study, year-long drought (SPI12) is computed at a spatial scale of one degree to represent long-term meteorological drought patterns in East Africa. We will focus on the occurrence of drought, defined as the total number of drought events below -1.5 (i.e. for severe and extremes ones) in the entire study period (i.e. past, present and or future periods).The number of dry days is important for the estimation of meteorological drought. Figure 1    It should be noted that minor biases are unavoidable, even in regional model simulations, despite the significant improvements in capturing the local and regional spatial scale events. For example, RegCM4simulations show an overestimation of annual dry days over northeast Ethiopia. It must also be noted that extreme precipitation estimates from observational data are only reliable for regions with dense station networks like those near cities and densely populated areas.Figure 3 shows the occurrence of severe to extreme droughts based on the definition of SPI using observational and present-day simulation data. Results based on the CHIRPS precipitation data suggest that severe and extreme droughts frequently occur over central Tanzania, regions bordering Sudan and Eritrea, Ethiopia and northern Somalia. It is important to note that SPI is a normalized index and, hence, the frequency of drought is not influenced by the level of aridity of the region. Analysis of the simulated drought generally suggests the models reproduced some aspects of the observed drought pattern. In particular, the regional model simulations are able to reproduce the prevalence of drought occurrences over northern Somalia, southern Ethiopia and Tanzania as demonstrated in Figure 4. There are, however, important differences between the observed and simulated drought patterns. For instance, the frequency of severe to extreme droughts over Tanzania and the region near the border of Sudan and Eritrea may have been underestimated to a limited extent. This study also investigates how droughts are projected to change under future climate scenarios. The spatial distribution of the projected changes in the climatological mean of the dry-day frequency in future climate is displayed in Figure 5. Both simulations (Figure 5a and Figure 5b) consistently project an increase in the frequency of growing-season dry-days throughout the regions where summer is the main rainy season under the RCP 8.5. The increase in the EC-EARTH driven RegCM4 simulation (Figure 5b) is, however, not uniform across the region or the national and sub-national level. For example, the simulation shows less impact over the main parts of the Ethiopian highlands but indicates an increasing intensity along the peripheries within Ethiopia. Since the region is already experiencing food insecurity under the current climate, the projected increase in dry days suggests the potential for higher, future vulnerabilities in this region due to further climate warming. The spatial pattern of the change in the occurrence of severe to extreme drought episodes in the late 21 st century is given in Figure 6. Unlike the number of dry days, which measures short-term droughts, the frequency of long-term extreme droughts, measured by SPI12, does not show a significant increase in droughts in the future, even though this measure is increasing and still poses a substantial threat to the region's agricultural productivity and livelihoods. This implies that climate change is expected to affect the frequency of droughts differently over different regions within East Africa. The results also show that the pattern of change is different in the two simulations (Figure 6a and Figure 6b) due to the difference in the driving data, even though the two simulations are derived from the same regional climate model. For instance, the projections from the HadGEM2-driven (Figure 6a) regional model show a decrease in the frequency of long-term drought over Somalia and southern Ethiopia and an increase in drought prevalence over central Tanzania. The EC-EARTH-driven simulation (Figure 6b), on the other hand, projected an increase in drought frequency over much of Tanzania and northernEthiopia. The decrease in the frequency of severe to extreme droughts in HadGEM2-driven simulations, over Somalia and southern Ethiopia, is correlated with the increase in annual precipitation in many IPCC CMIP5 models. This relationship suggests that the decrease in drought occurrence is the result of fewer, but more intense, precipitation events rather than the outcome of a higher number of rainy days distributed across the year or growing season, which is more desirable for agriculture. Another International migration in Africa has steadily increased over the past few decades. In 2017, 38 million Africans were living outside of their country of origin, the majority of whom (65 percent) were residing in another African country (IOM 2018). According to the UNDESA database, in 2017, emigrant stock from Africa are estimated to have accounted for around 15 percent of total international migrants in the world. Figure 7 shows migration trends in Africa (UNDESA 2017a). The number of emigrants found in Africa stagnated for a long period of time, increasing only in recent years. Like most of Africa, the eastern region has experienced significant, increasing international migration trends. Table 2 shows international migration from East African countries included in this study (i.e.Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda). Total international emigrant stock from the region almost doubled in the last two decades, from around 4.6 million in 1990 to 8.7 million in 2017. As seen in Figure 8, this is closely and positively correlated with the rapid growth of the youth population in the region. It is essential to note, however, that the emigrant stock reported here captures only documented emigrants. Consequently, the total number of international emigrants who have left the region is likely to be even larger than what is reported here. In fact, various studies note (Shaw 2007, Marchand et al. 2017), many African migrants migrate through irregular or alternative routes and are often not recorded in official statistics. A closer inspection of the data on emigrant stock originating from each sample country shows that the size of international migration from eastern Africa has varied over time and across countries in the subregion. In terms of absolute size, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan had, by far, the largest number of international emigrants in 2017, while in the 1990s, Ethiopia had the largest number of emigrants.Table 3 reports the intensity of emigration for each of the case study countries. Intensity is given by the stock of emigrants as a share of total population in the source country. Tanzania consistently recorded the lowest emigration rates, with less than one percent (0.6-0.8 percent) of the population living abroad in the reporting period. Kenya has a slightly higher, constant emigration rate at one percent. Somalia has the highest emigration rate, with more than 10 percent of the population living outside of the country in all reporting periods. For other countries, the emigration rate fluctuates over time, often following incidences of political instability.   (2017a, 2017c).While most international migrants from the case study countries live within Africa, there is also significant migration to Europe, North America, the Middle East and other regions of the world. Table 4 presents the share of East African emigrants who live outside of Africa. In 1990, only two out of 10 international migrants from the case study countries emigrated to a non-African country. In the following two decades, however, the share of emigrants from eastern Africa who lived outside Africa steadily increased, peaking in 2010 at about 44 percent. The most recent data from 2015 and 2017 show this share is declining (UNDESA 2017a). Projected effects on overall migration in the region: LiteratureThe eastern Africa region has recently suffered from repeated drought, floods and other disasters, resulting in significant displacement. In 2016, the region had the highest number of displacements in all of Africa, accounting for 63 percent of the continent's displacement associated with sudden-onset disasters (IDMC 2017). With the changing climate, it is expected that the region will see more displacement and climate induced migrants in the coming years, with estimates placing the number of climate migrants in eastern Africa as high as 10.1 million by 2050 (Rigaud et al. 2018). Eastern Africa is expected to be both a hotspot for in-migration (receiving migrants) and out-migration (sending migrants), due to the effects of climate change. The most recent climate and population model projections suggest that the Lake Victoria Basin in the GHoA and the eastern highlands of Ethiopia are expected to be hotspots for in-migration, while coastal regions of Kenya and Tanzania, western Uganda and parts of the northern highlands of Ethiopia will become hotspots for out-migration (Rigaud et al., 2018). Note, however, that these figures are not for international migration.\"In 2016, East Africa had the highest number of displacements in all of Africa.\"Below we discuss the empirical relationship between climate variables and international migration from East Africa. The analysis is based on migration data from UNDESA and climate data produced by our own climate modelling. Figure 8 shows the scatter plot and fitted, non-parametric regression between the drought indicator (annual dry days) and international emigration. The vertical axis shows the number of international emigrants from the study country, reported as a stock of emigrants in that year, and the horizontal axis shows the average number of annual dry days for the source country. We believe that the effect of drought in a particular year on the stock of emigrants is observed with a lag, and that insufficient rain in one year may not be enough to trigger migration. Hence the dry days in the horizontal axis show the average for the previous five years.The plot shows that there is a positive correlation between the number of dry days the country experienced in the last five years and the number of international migrants from that country. The relationship is non-linear, with the effect of dry days increasing at higher levels. We also conducted a simple regression analysis where the number of dry days is regressed over the stock of emigrants. We controlled for trend by including a year variable. We also included agriculture's share of employment as an additional regressor, as the relative size of agriculture may have implications for emigration from these countries. Table 5 reports the results from the linear regression. Before discussing the results, we want to highlight that, given the data limitations discussed in Section 2, 1 we will only identify correlations and will not claim any causal relationship. In line with the non-parametric regression, we see that the number of dry days a country experienced in the past five years is positively correlated with the number of international emigrant stock from that country. More specifically, a one day increase in the number of annual dry days in a country is associated with approximately 3,400 more emigrant stock from that country. This relationship is significant at the 5 percent level. The size of agriculture in the economy is also positively correlated with the magnitude of emigrant stock, but it is not statistically significant. We see a strong, positive trend of emigration from the case study countries. More particularly, emigrant stock from these countries increases by almost 16,000 every five years.Given the small sample size, we are reluctant to claim causality or emphasize the size of the effect.Despite the limitations, however, the overall results are in line with the results from previous empirical studies based on micro-level data. For example, earlier studies in Ethiopia and Tanzania show that migration is one of the most common responses for environmental-related shocks, such as drought (Gray andMueller 2012, Kubik andMaurel 2016). The Tanzanian study shows that a one percent reduction in agricultural income, induced by short-term weather shocks, increases the probability of migration, on average, by 13 percent within the following year (Kubik and Maurel 2016). Similarly, a longitudinal study on population mobility and drought in Ethiopia shows that men's labor migration increases with drought and that land-poor households are the most vulnerable (Gray and Mueller 2012), demonstrating the linkage between climate extremes, agricultural livelihoods and migration.In 2017, about 31 percent of international migrants were young people between the ages of 15 and 34 (UNDESA 2017a). Female youth accounted for nearly 47 percent of the total youth international migrants in the same year. This figure is based on age-disaggregated data available from receiving countries. Unfortunately, published quantitative data on youth international migration from Africa, as well as from other developing regions, is not available to directly examine the magnitude and trends of youth migration from the case study countries.Africa has the youngest population in the world, with 60 percent below 25 years of age (UNDESA 2017c).Currently, there is a large youth population joining the labor market in both urban and rural areas, often with more education than previous generations. African economies, including those in eastern African countries, need to rapidly create a large number of jobs to meet the livelihood needs of the new labor force. However, as these are predominantly agricultural economies, it is increasingly difficult to create jobs that are suitable and attractive enough for the youth, resulting in large rural-urban migration (Bezu andHolden 2014, Fox et al. 2016). This is likely to get worse and generate more international migration unless the sector is significatlly transformed with a higher number of jobs that are innovative and which attract young people. These structural economic problems are exacerbated by the pressure from climate change as the environmental and agroecological changes result in lower crop productivity, more land scarcity and higher risks of extreme weather events (Rigaud et al. 2018). Data from case study countries in SSA show that 60 percent of internal migrants are between the age of 15 and 34 years old (Mercandalli and Losch 2017).Within Africa, eastern Africa has been deemed a climate \"hotspot,\" or a place where a changing climate could pose grave threats to food security and human well-being (Woolf et al. 2018). The East African region is perhaps even more likely than the rest of the continent to experience a rapid increase in youth international migration. The share of the youth population in eastern Africa at 35 percent, is the highest in Africa (UNDESA 2017d). Since subsistence agriculture is the main source of livelihoods in this region, the youth are mostly engaged in agricultural activities. The region experienced repeated and significant weather-and climate-related shocks in recent years and is vulnerable to further climate change impacts.All of this suggests the possibility of significant, climate-induced migration in the coming years. Since its launch by the FAO in 2009, CSA has increased in popularity at the international and national levels. CSA is an approach to transform agricultural systems and to support food security under a changing climate by providing context-specific and flexible solutions (Lipper et al. 2014). CSA practices can be heterogeneous over time and across locations and may encompass technological, institutional and policy solutions (Mirzabaev 2018) In addition to damaging the current asset-base of the population and inducing the displacement of both adults and youth, climate extremes will also reduce the confidence of people to invest in productive  Malawi, shows that social protections tend to reduce the need for out-migration. However, the authors argue that this may not always be desirable as it could increase mal-adaptation, trapping people in unsustainable livelihood strategies in the context of deteriorating conditions. They recommend that apart from smoothing consumption, social protection policies should be designed to enable rural households to diversify their income sources, including through migrating. On the contrary, Woolf et al.(2018) used biophysical data, collected from Ethiopian regional states, with results indicating thatIn cases where the damage from climate variability and change on the natural environment and associated ecosystem services is such that the landscape is unable to support the existing population, it is important to plan for relocation and resettlement. Ignoring and delaying policy responses in such cases may result in unmanageable, large-scale migration, resulting in humanitarian, logistical and political crisis (Foresight 2011). Moreover, the most vulnerable group may be trapped in uninhabitable places, becoming even more impoverished and threatened with irrevocable damage to their health. Planned relocation or resettlement of people from areas vulnerable to climate or weather extremes is, thus, an important climate adaptation strategy (Raleigh et al. 2008, Foresight 2011, Rigaud et al. 2018). Migration in this climate-induced system can be voluntary or incentivized to motivate people to move from areas exposed to climate hazards to safe environments within or outside a given country. Typically, such measures are planned and executed by governments, perhaps in conjunction with civil societies and human rights groups. However, it is important to note here that government induced resettlement in developing countries has not been popular in the past and experienced various degrees of failure (Black et al. 2008). For example, following severe droughts in Ethiopia between 1984-85, the government resettled about 600,000 people from drought-affected central and northern Ethiopia to southwest Ethiopia, where the land is more fertile and favorable for sustainable agriculture (Rahmato 1989). This program was highly contested and faced several challenges at the time (Ezra andKiros 2001, Black et al. 2008). In 2003, a new voluntary resettlement program was again initiated by the government as part of its national food security strategy. Although hailed by the Ethiopian government and some scholars as a success (Kassa 2004, Lemenih et al. 2014), the renewed resettlement program has been criticized for inadequate planning and resourcing, marginalizing the poorest of the poor and blocking access of nongovernmental organizations, civil society and other independent observers from the resettlement schemes (Hammond andDessalegn 2004, Hammond 2008). It is imperative to learn from past mistakes to design a forward-thinking resettlement plan. A reactive relocation in an emergency is a sign of adaptation failure (Frankhauser 2017).• 63 percent of the continent's displacement associated with or triggered by sudden-onset disasters is accounted for by East African countries.• Migration from eastern Africa almost doubled in the past two decades, with the stock of international emigrants from the region increasing from 4.6 million in 1990 to 8.7 million in 2017. This figure does not include irregular migrants.• Most eastern African migrants live within Africa; however, recent trends show an increase in the share of emigrants living outside of Africa including the Middle East, Europe, Australia and North America.• There is significant difference among eastern African countries in terms of intensity of emigration. Less than one percent of Tanzanians live outside of their country while for Somalia, that share is at 10 percent. For the region, the rate is two to three percent in the period 1990 to 2017.• Quantitative analysis shows that international migration in eastern Africa is correlated with drought.• A higher number of average dry days for a country is positively correlated with a higher stock of emigrants from that country.• An increase in the number of annual dry days is associated with increased emigration. For every one day increase of annual dry days in a country, 3,400 emigrants can be expected from that country.• Given the significance of agriculture as a livelihood source, the positive correlation between climate change indicator dry days and emigration is not unexpected, in line with other findings in the literature. However, given the limited sample size in our data, this result needs to be interpreted with caution.• Africa has the youngest population in the world, with 65 percent of the population below 25 years.• The share of the youth population in eastern Africa is 35 percent, making it the highest in Africa.• The eastern African region is poised to experience significant youth migration in the coming decades due to direct and indirect impacts of climate change on livelihoods.• The youth in eastern Africa are more likely to be unemployed, less encumbered with family responsibilities and have more education than previous generations. All of these increase the likelihood of youth migration in the context of climate change.• Age-disaggregated statistics on emigration from East Africa are not readily available and there are few studies on international migration from Africa. Existing, indirect evidence, however, suggests there is higher migration among the youth in Africa.• For example, statistics from case study countries show that 60 percent of internal migrants are between the ages of 15 and 34.6. There are various potential adaptation measures, but success depends on careful planning and policy coordination• CSA: Existing evidence from several SSA countries suggests that the adoption of CSA improves agricultural yields, food security, livelihoods and income in the context of climate change and variability. However, adoption of effective CSA technologies and practices by smallholder farmers in Africa remains limited.• Weather Index Insurance: Empirical evidence from Ethiopia and Kenya indicates that this adoption strategy is promising in terms of protecting assets and facilitating improved technology adoption, possibly reducing the forced out-migration of labor. The main concern with this strategy is that it is difficult to insure all affected when climate change affects a large group of people simultaneously.• Safety-net programs: Safety-net programs can be useful instruments to cope with weather shocks caused by climate change, such as droughts. There is some evidence from East Africa suggesting that such programs reduce out-migration. However, there have been concerns over the crowding effect of such programs on private and informal insurance.• Relocation and resettlement: Planned relocation or resettlement, from areas vulnerable to climate change, is an important climate adaptation strategy. However, due to the size and logistics needs, resettlement and relocation demand strong government involvement.Unfortunately, past government-led relocations in Africa have not been successful and any new relocation strategy needs careful assessment.There is ample evidence in the literature, across different countries, showing that agricultural households' resort to migration as a response to environmental shocks and as an income diversification strategy in the face of risk. Not all individuals, however, are able to migrate as an adaptation strategy, but may be displaced without preparation after they exhaust their resources and capacity. Proactive migration as an adaptation strategy can increase the climate resilience of vulnerable rural populations dependent on agriculture.Our extensive review of research on climate change and migration identified key research gaps that need to be filled to craft informed policy and programs, including: ","tokenCount":"7906"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"566a87471137cb3fe7d48b285e867642","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/74eb8f74-4a2c-4e92-a9aa-7bab2e728d41/retrieve","id":"917285475"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"360840a4-f05a-4286-9610-696070c14b4f","pagecount":"6","content":"According to the Uganda Demographic and Health report 2006, nearly 38% of Ugandan children below 5 years are stunted, 6% are wasted and 16% are underweight, which places Uganda among the few countries with the highest malnutrition rates. These persistent high rates of malnutrition in these children are symptomatic of the larger problems of inadequate access to food and suboptimal infant feeding practices leading to poor health. Malnutrition plays a major role in child morbidity and mortality and micronutrient deficiencies like iron and zinc are a major component with various health complications for expectant mothers and other adults.I officially write to you as the newly appointed Head of Legumes Program, NaCRRI and I look forward to working with all staff and our different partners to enable Legumes research grow exponentially. We appreciate Dr. Michael Ugen for the 13 years he steered this ship and wish him well in his new appointment as Director NaSARRI Serere.Following the maiden Legumes News brief, this issue highlights the new 5 high iron and zinc varieties released in Uganda under the NAROBEAN name series. We try fighting global hunger and malnutrition with technologies such as these. We also bring you some insights from the promising drought lines that are under evaluation as we develop technologies that can help legumes adapt to severe climatic changes. Additionally, we share our headway in research on bean root rot evaluation experiments You'll also find progress from the entomology area that recently held an inception meeting for the Bean Leaf Beetle project. From some of the field activities, the team received information from farmers on unorthodox ways of curbing the pest using human urine.We trained farmers in general bean Agronomic practices and were able to produce over 33MTs of grain for the Precooked Beans factory, despite the severe effects of drought that nearly destroyed the crop in the last season of 2016A. partnership with HarvestPlus, CIAT, USAID Feed the Future, developed, tested and released the first high iron and zinc bean varieties which include three bush and two climber growth types.The development and eventual utilization of crops biofortified with increased levels of micronutrients would be one strategy The central theme of the project is to investigate the bio-ecology of the bean leaf beetle with the aim of utilizing the knowledge generated in developing easily available diagnostic tools and readily adaptable and sustainable bean leaf beetle management practices.The project inception took place on the 16 th -17 th May 2016 at NaCRRI was attended by Legumes staff, ZARDI technicians, district agriculture extension officers, members of academia and project team members from abroad with the Director of NaCRRI, Dr. Godfrey Asea as the Guest of honour.The meeting was presided over by Dr. Michael Otim who welcomed all participants and invited Dr. Godfrey Asea who officially opened the meeting deliberations. Dr. Asea praised the project setup and remarked that it was unprecedented because it com-the urine with water and applies it during the pre-flowering to podding period (when insect population is high by sprinkling the urine onto the plants from the container (since no one was willing to lend him a sprayer). He is very affirmative and asserts that it is very effective in controlling pests.For any researcher, it is always refreshing to get the farmers' perspectives on how they deal with the universal problem of insect pests in the garden. The observations, ideas and innovations range from the routine to insightful and at times simply outrageous and they vehemently declare that these practices work effectively.The BLB project conducted surveys on the pest distribution, (Continued on page 4)A farmer in Amuria district uses human urine to control the bean leaf beetle and other pests as well. Every morning each family member is expected to deposit his/her urine into a container and this is stored in a secluded cool location where the urine is allowed to ferment for about 2 weeks to a month so that it loses its recognizable smell and prevent it from 'causing corrosion of the plants'. He then dilutes The bean leaf beetle is a major pest of the common bean in Uganda particularly in Northern Uganda where it is known to cause up to 100% yield loss under severe infestation. Furthermore, its existence is being reported by farmers in areas where it was previously non-existent or had a low population such as South Western Uganda. This is particularly alarming due to the fact that the common bean accounts for 45% of dietary protein intake in Uganda and this pest is substantially reducing bean production in the country. Thus it is a straight forward conclusion that this pest poses a clear and present danger to food security and income generation in Uganda and also other African countries where it exists.Precooked bean project: Enrolling farmers for grain production impact and population dynamics in the agro -ecological zones of the Northern moist farmlands and the Kyoga basin respectively. During the interactions with farmers, a series of answers were given for how they control the said pest.Farmers mentioned that during the preflowering period, they released their chicken into the gardens to predate the bean leaf beetles and other insect pests as well. This was quite effective since chicken are voracious insectivores and quickly bring down the insect populations. However, the shortfalls of this approach is that once flowers emerge, the chicken start feeding on the flowers as well so the farmers have to restrain them or chase them away from the gardens for the duration of the flowering period.Farmers also mentioned the use of ash to repel the beetles. They simply sprinkle the ash on the bean plants in the gardens and the hypothesis is that this forms a layer on the leaf surface that acts as a physical barrier against the bean leaf beetles. The extent of the effectiveness of this method is in question and hence there is potential for research particularly to assess if the control is simply physical or if a chemical component is involved as well.Lastly some farmers said that regular weeding also goes some way into controlling the beetle populations in their gardens. This needs further investigation because it contradicts with existing theories such as Finch and Collier's theory which asserts that insects tend to land more often in areas with less vegetative cover since the host plants are prominently seen by the pests while in areas with high vegetation cover the host plants are physically obstructed or visually hidden by other plants from the pests.In conclusion, farmers offer useful insights and invaluable components that researchers can borrow and examine since they (farmers) are not bound by limitations like cliche modern science procedures that tend to limit simple and easily applicable innovations. (Images sourced online)collective responsibility encourages farmers to work hard for the benefit of the entire group which minimizes defaults.While farmers exhibited enthusiasm and the will to work together, more effort is required to strengthen the aggregation system. Farmers will establish standard collection points to hold their produce in the bulking process before it's bought by the processor. Selected farmer residences are used as temporary holding grounds currently.In the next season, the project will train farmers on how to strengthen their groups for collective action, how to preprocess beans for better quality, promoting group saving and credit to minimize grey selling and how to build trust within groups. These trainings aim at promoting better market engagements for farmers' produce.Launched in October 2014, the precooked bean project promised to benefit bean farmers through strengthening their capacity to produce and market bean grain. As one of the key actors in the bean value chain, farmers are poised as the greatest beneficiaries from the project.The Legumes programme, before supplying seed, trained the grain farmers in Mubende, Mityana and Kiboga districts before the Season 2016A.Though the season was poor due to the prolonged drought, farmers say the skills they got from training -timely planting, pest and disease management practices, use of fertilizers and proper weed management -helped them greatly.As part of its contribution in creating sustainable supply systems, the legumes programme in collaboration with Community enterprises development Organization (CEDO) supplied 4.36 tons of bean seed of NABE 4, NABE 14, RWR 2154, NABE 6 and NABE 17 to farmers. The seed was supplied to 12 farmer groups with 168 farmers who were able to produce 33.1 tons of grain worth UGX 66.124 Million. This is the collective action model that the project is testing to ensure sustained supply of the raw material for the precooked bean processing factory.From the above model, farmers receive and plant beans individually and aggregate them during the time for marketing. While using the seed credit model (also under testing by the project), seed is supplied on credit and the farmers pay after harvest. To ensure enforceability of repayment, the group signs a contract on behalf of the individual farmers upon receiving seed. This P a g e 4 L e g u m e s Q u a r t e r l y B r i e fV o l u m e 1 , I s s u e 2Sclerotium root rot is one of the commonest bean diseases affecting bean yields in Uganda. The introduction of resistant varieties is so far the only reliable means of curbing this disease but unfortunately to date, there is no known source of resistance to Sclerotium rolfsii in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris).In the struggle to find a probable source of resistance, we did several random screening experiments on the available germplasm from different origins. These screen house experiments are aimed at screening germplasm for resistance or tolerance to sclerotium root rot caused by sclerotium rolfsii so as to identify new source of resistance to the pathogen.During screening, different germplasm lines are sowed in planting trays by planting 16 seeds per variety in a tray. The experiments are always replicated thrice making a total of 48 seeds of a particular variety in one experiment. In each of the planting trays, 5 varieties are planted 4 of them being germplasm lines and the 5 th is a susceptible check for root rot CAL 96. Each planting tray consists of a total of 10 seed rows where each of the planted varieties shares two rows (16 seeds).Evaluations commence as early as 14 days after sowing (DAS) with germination data to record how many seeds germinated out of the 48 seeds planted per variety. At 28 DAS, disease incidence and severity data is also taken to access how the different varieties considered in that experiment have reacted to sclerotium rolfsii Sacc Pathogen following a 1-5 scale.   Legumes staff pledged continuous support to Dr Nkalubo so as to keep flying the Legumes flag higher and make excellent progress together as is the practice.Annually, the Uganda National Farmers Federation organizes an Agricultural and trade show at the source of the Nile show grounds. This year's event marked the 24 th edition held between 11 th and 17 th July. This event was an avenue for people from different worlds to converge and share experiences on how sustainable agriculture that adapts to climatic changes.The Show was officially opened by the President of the Republic of Uganda, His Excellency Yoweri Kaguta Museveni who showed special interest in cassava farming and the UBIC stall in light of the pending Bill on Biotechnology and GMOs.The Legumes programme, as a usual participant, exhibited legume agricultural technologies, value added bean products and information material through researcherfarmer interface. Legumes programme set up technology demonstration plots with 10 bean varieties including the 5 recently released high iron and zinc varieties that captured stall visitors' attention.The most persistent question from several stakeholders was how to access the seeds especially of the latter varieties. The challenge is to get all the varieties to the grassroots as most private seed sector dealers concentrate on a few earlier released bush varieties and rarely deal with climbers.There is need for a different approach to get climbing bean seed varieties to farmers.In addition, the severe drought in season 2016A was mentioned as a major constraint and farmers asked for drought tolerant bean varieties that they could opt for in order to ensure food security. This was a great concern from farmer in the North East and Northern region who were urged to take up farming of NABE 15 and NABE 18 that are more tolerant to extreme dry weather as we await drought candidate lines.Bean pests and diseases are major bean production constraints and serious challenges to various stakeholders in the Agricultural sector. To this effect, information was availed to the public in form of brochures of bean production and posters on management of bean diseases. These were in different local languages which enabled a wider reach and the initiative was applauded by the different stakeholders. There was also a lot of direct researcher-farmer interaction.We also showcased locally made bean value added products namely, cupcakes, daddies, cookies, bagia, salted bean snack and flour which were a wonder to the public especially those with business interest. The products were made using short and inexpensive procedures and many received brief explanations on how to make the flour and incorporate bean content in confectionery.The show enables researchers receive feedback on several released technologies and crop commodities which results into improvement of approaches of dissemination. Through this event, there was massive public awareness, promotion of technologies to achieve food security and mitigate malnutrition and poverty across different categories of men and women .","tokenCount":"2243"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d382cc7e7b66f9922e4b10241eb97d02","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/45df1543-76ee-401f-9f2a-453a0f6ce023/retrieve","id":"831316389"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"dcf0125f-a2ea-4f9f-b149-c455314ef414","pagecount":"16","content":"s a term, it does not exactly trip off the tongue. But whatever its semantic shortcomings, 'collaborative protected area management' is widely being touted as the best practical approach for conserving biodiversity in the developing world. The concept is based on the premise that poverty cannot be eliminated without protecting the environment, and that the environment cannot be protected without tackling poverty. In a nutshell, the idea is to manage terrestrial, wetland, coastal and marine environments in such a way as to achieve the twin goals of economic growth for local people and the long-term sustainability of the natural and cultural resources on which their livelihoods depend. Give people an incentive to look after their surroundings, goes the theory, and they will invest more in preserving them for the future.The notion stands in marked contrast to the old-style paternalistic formula, which saw conservation as something to be dished up to poor rural communities whether they liked it or not, and often involved separating them from the very biological, physical and cultural resource bases on which they relied. The idea of designating land and seascapes as protected areas has gathered growing momentum in recent years. The 2003 United Nations List of Protected Areas shows that since records began in 1962, the total number of sites has risen from 1,000 to more than 102,000, covering 18.8 million km 2 , or 12.5% of the global land surface. But in SPORE 112 • PAGE 1 In this issue Of Humans and Nature. In this issue of Spore, you will find out a lot about the intense and sometimes turbulent relationship between the two. How each one must find its proper place, without encroaching on that of the other: plants and animals offer their benefits to humans, so long as humans do not invade or disrupt their habitats. In the same way, the soil -farmers' primary resource -ends up rebelling if humans pummel and pound it too much. But it rewards those producers who listen to it and protect it from harmful outside forces. Likewise, species can turn into conquerors, colonising land and water, often helped by humans who transport them long distances from their place of origin. Plants, animals and humans -they all need to step up their efforts to get the better of invaders Website: spore.cta.int spite of such progress, there is concern in some conservation circles that focusing on the quantity of protected areas set aside may ignore the quality of the conservation effort or of the biodiversity contained within those zones. Just as importantly, there are doubts about the land and resource rights of people living in or near protected areas, and how their costs and benefits are distributed. It is now widely agreed that in order to be effective, local people have to be at the very core of management. Successful outcomes have involved an inclusive approach, where rural people are able to share in both the responsibility and the rewards. \"Traditionally, people were kept out of protected areas, but there is now a general shift towards planning them with and for people, rather than against them as sometimes happened in the past,\" said David Sheppard, head of the World Conservation Union's (IUCN) Protected Areas Programme, in an interview with Spore. \"To a large degree, whether they work or not depends on whether people are involved, and on the extent to which they can see the benefits.\"At their best, community-based protected areas deliver a range of advantages to rural communities, including jobs, income and other tangible benefits such as health centres and schools paid for with revenue from activities that are compatible with conservation. In South Africa's Richtersveld National Park, rural communities are paid rent for parkland, with the funds kept in a trust and used for local educational and social purposes. In Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, park management authorities return a portion of gate fees and other revenue to local people.With demand growing for nature-related leisure pursuits, ecotourism offers good prospects, generating income for rural dwellers, while also fostering a sense of the economic value of natural resources. Wildlife management is one area where the ecotourism approach has proved particularly successful, with animals once seen as a threat to crops and livestock now prized as a source of income, through gate fees or hunting fees. In the forest of Teifoula, Burkina Faso, a comanagement scheme launched with the backing of the World Bank has turned former poachers into park rangers. Men who once tracked and killed local populations of elephant, lion and antelope are now just as keen to protect them.Around the world, various forms of comanagement systems are being developed, in parkland, forestry and fisheries sectors. One model taking hold in post-apartheid South Africa is the contractual parks scheme, where conservation areas that were formerly Stateowned have become the domain of rural people. Under this arrangement, poor rural communities are involved in managing natural resources, in tandem with conservation agencies. There are stipulations about rights and roles, and these often involve a trade-off.\"Often, there is a need for compromise, and this sometimes means taking decisions that are not readily acceptable to all parties,\" said Sheppard. In the northern part of Kruger National Park, the Makuleke people have had to agree not to live on the land or use it for agricultural purposes, in exchange for economic benefits and jobs from ecotourism.In some cases, the move towards more community-based management has been accelerated by lack of funds to conserve plant and wildlife diversity, and lack of resources to police them. Law enforcement remains a problem in many protected areas, especially in those where memories of heavyhanded treatment are still raw. But experience has shown that it works best when communities themselves are drawn into the process. The Kibale Semuliki Conservation and Development Project in western Uganda formed a partnership between park officials and rural communities to monitor illegal activities.Conservation efforts in the world's coastal areas are less advanced. Marine resources are suffering critical declines, yet less than 1.7 million km 2 (or 0.5%) of the global ocean area is protected. A number of initiatives around the world, however, have shown that nature conservation can be an important tool in the fight against poverty in coastal areas. The Caribbean Regional Environmental Programme is operating more than a dozen protected area sites, based on co-management and aimed at developing fisheries and tourism in a sustainable way. In the Pacific island of Samoa, 38 coastal communities have set up Village Fish Reserves to combat over-fishing, and enforced laws banning the use of explosives and chemicals. Already, stocks have increased and there are signs of recovery in reefs damaged by destructive fishing methods. Six West African countries -Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Senegal -have joined forces to establish a network of Marine Protected Areas, aimed at restoring fisheries to sustainable levels, preserving the cultural heritage of local communities and developing ecotourism. In Papua New Guinea, with its rich but vulnerable ecosystem, villagers in the Sepik River Basin are being helped to develop conservation areas and to create enterprises for the sustainable harvesting of crocodiles.Whether on land or at sea, the general verdict is that management-sharing still has a long way to go. At times, conservation agencies and rural communities make uneasy bedfellows, and conflict can easily arise over competing interests. \"Sometimes, conservation organisations working in protected areas are more focused on Nature than on people,\" remarked one protected areas official. Communities themselves may be divided. The 6,000 rural dwellers who co-manage the Richtersveld National Park are far from united in their vision of the park's future, with divisions occurring along ethnic, political and geographical fault lines. In Jamaica, a co-management scheme launched for four protected areas has run into difficulties because the community management team is not seen as truly representative of the people.Sometimes, benefits do not match up to expectations, with the number of jobs generated turning out to be fewer than hoped for, or revenues from tourism dropping significantly due to changes in the worldwide economy and security concerns. Conversely, partnerships which have succeeded have generally been based on full community involvement at the earliest planning stage and an understanding by all of the possible shortcomings as well as the probable benefits.In Belize, a process of consultation during the feasibility study for the ambitious Meso-American Biological Corridor has paid dividends, with indigenous communities joining forces to create and manage several micro-corridors. In some of the other seven countries involved in the project, where community involvement was less evident, the advent of the corridor was seen as a threat rather than a blessing.Photo: Joël Orempuller © IRD T hey receive less media attention than the disappearance of natural habitats or the over-exploitation of flora and fauna. But the proliferation of invasive alien species constitutes the third largest cause of biodiversity loss on the planet. These foreign species cover the whole gamut of living organisms, ranging from plants, both aquatic and non-aquatic, to rodents, insects, fish, trees and micro-organisms. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) has identified 217 culprits. The 100 most dangerous ones feature on its black list. In tropical countries, two plant pests are among the most destructive and common invaders: the water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes), which needs no introduction, and Siam weed (Chromolaena odorata), which is devouring African pasturelands.The IUCN defines these aliens as foreign species which, when they \"become established in natural or semi-natural ecosystems or habitat, are agents of change, and threaten native biological diversity\". Far from their original environments and with no natural enemies, there is nothing to halt their expansion. They often gain the upper hand over local species, sometimes forcing them into extinction. The consequences are \"immense, insidious, and usually irreversible,\" says the IUCN. No continent, and no environment, be it land or water, is immune. The rich but fragile ecosystems of small island states are the most vulnerable. In the Seychelles, rats (Rattus rattus and R. norvegicus) are threatening six bird species with extinction.This ecological challenge, recognised as a global priority by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), carries very high financial and human costs. Each year, invasive species inflict losses amounting to several billion US dollars in the crop, forestry, fisheries and livestock sectors. In South Africa, 10 million ha, or 8% of the land area, has been colonised by invasive plant species. The proliferation of aquatic plants encourages the spread of diseases such as bilharzia by creating an environment that favours the disease hosts -in bilharzia's case, aquatic gastropods (Bulinus spp.).This scourge has been recognised and studied for decades, but it is only in the past few years that a coordinated international response has been mounted. The Global Invasive Species Programme (GISP), supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), was set up in 1997. A global strategy to control or eradicate alien species requires the involvement of the countries themselves. It also means investing substantial physical and human resources. In South Africa, for example, the Working for Water programme has a workforce of no fewer than 42,000 people.Tactics to halt invasions may be physical (manual or mechanical), chemical (using herbicides), biological (introducing natural enemies) or integrated (a combination of methods). Integrated approaches have produced some encouraging success stories in Africa, notably on Lake Victoria in Uganda. In Senegal, the targeted introduction of a weevil species (Cyrtobagus salvinia) has halted the spread of the water fern (Salvinia molesta), which took hold after a dam was built. In Benin, the introduction of another weevil species has managed to check the spread of the water hyacinth.By turning the problem on its head, some communities have come up with yet another solution -using the alien species as a source of income. For example, the water hyacinth can be turned into compost (see In Brief ), biogas, fishmeal and even paper. In Thailand, plaited hyacinth stems are used to make furniture and basketwork for sale in Europe. In Burkina Faso, the water lettuce (Pistia stratiotes) is being used as a water purifier (see Spore 83).In the field, initiatives aimed at ousting invasive species are often launched by small groups of individuals who lack adequate support and information. Mauritius had to use volunteers to restore a forest reserve on the island of Rodriguez.In the absence of a cure, preventiondeliberate or accidental -seems to be the most promising solution The IUCN has adopted the principal that \"every alien species needs to be managed as if it is potentially invasive.\" That is a huge challenge at a time when global trade and mass tourism are creating the perfect conditions for a wide variety of species to be on the move.See Links, page 10The spread of invasive alien species is a worldwide problem. Given the costs involved, it is proving to be one of the most serious challenges facing development. The globalisation of trade makes prevention difficult, but out in the field, small-scale initiatives are attempting to control and sometimes exploit these uninvited guests.armers, put aside your ploughs, hang up your hoes. That is the advice being given by a growing body of researchers who maintain that, far from improving the land, tilling is actually the main cause of soil degradation and erosion. The golden rule is never to allow the soil to lie bare, but instead to protect it at all times with a layer of leaves and stalks from previous crops, or with suitable cover crops. Soil covered in this way offers better resistance to invasive species, is less susceptible to run-off and is better protected against wind erosion, goes the argument. And it does not become compacted, allowing roots to penetrate more easily and water to filter down to where it is needed. The layer of mulch slowly enriches the soil and fosters the development of fauna, especially earthworms, which play a key role in soil fertility. To sow, just make an opening in the covering and dig a small furrow; place the seeds in the furrow, in direct contact with the soil.This revolutionary technique has been dubbed 'zero tillage' or 'conservation agriculture', since it enables farmers to conserve lost soil properties, or even restore them. It flies in the face of standard practices and the advice meted out by agronomists over the past few decades. But it has already taken hold in much of the United States of America, where 20 million ha are cultivated using this method, and in several Latin American countries, including Brazil, where some 13 million ha are now under zero tillage. Used on large farms it can cut costs significantly -for labour, as land preparation is no longer necessary, for machinery and the fuel needed to power it, and for fertilizer, as far less is required because the mulch gradually nourishes the soil.\"Conservation agriculture produces yields comparable to those produced by modern intensive agriculture, with the advantage that it does so in a sustainable manner,\" notes the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).In fact, productivity increases rapidly using this method, and crops are less vulnerable to climate changes. In some cases, yields may double or even triple. From both an ecological and an economic point of view, it is a technique that pays dividends. It has been estimated that in the past 10 years, Brazil has preserved more than 1 billion tonnes of arable land and saved US$ 11 billion and 1.3 billion litres of fuel! The farmer is not the only one to benefit. Better water penetration replenishes the water table. And, with reduced erosion, the water table contains less soil. It is also less polluted by chemical products. Furthermore, the researchers say, the organic matter that builds up in the soil traps carbon, preventing it from escaping into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide, thereby helping to counter the greenhouse effect.But in spite of the widely acclaimed advantages of the system, its use in Africa and Asia is almost negligible. And yet, particularly in Africa, the cultivation of fragile, marginal soils and the reduced use of fallow have combined to produce worrying levels of soil erosion and declining fertility. In areas where the soil is most seriously degraded and demographic pressures are strongest, there is an urgent need to restore soil productivity to supply the growing demand for food. Sustainable agriculture techniques such as zero tillage enable farmers to preserve their capital -the land -while ensuring regular and plentiful harvests. \"Zero tillage is a system which brings hope to both people and the planet,\" says Lucien Séguy, an agronomist specialising in the technique, at the Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD) in France. \"By imitating the forest ecosystem, which is known for its natural sustainability, it also allows us to grow and eat healthier food.\" In hot tropical zones where organic matterCovering the soil to make it more fertile More and more agronomists and producers are turning their backs on conventional sowing methods and opting for a new technique: sowing without tilling and covering the soil with a protective blanket of cover crops or mulch. Proponents claim this approach offers better soil conservation and reduces the need for chemical inputs. But Africa's small-scale farmers have yet to be convinced.decomposes rapidly and crop residues are often used as animal feed and fuel, the decline in soil fertility is becoming irreversible.To halt this degradation, it is important that the soil is disturbed as little as possible and is protected by a covering layer of vegetation, either 'dead' (mulch) or 'alive' (cover crops); if the latter, their spread can be checked by a light application of herbicide. Cereal, cotton and soya seeds may then be drilled directly through the layer.The aim is to use plants with good coverage and high biomass, which, when they decompose, produce a thick enough mulch to protect the soils throughout the year. Climbing legumes have these properties, with the added bonus that they are nitrogen-fixing species.This direct sowing technique, which has been closely studied by agronomists at CIRAD, has been found to have many advantages apart from the obvious one of dispensing with the need to plough. It cushions the effect of temperature changes, keeps the base of the plants cool and helps control the growth of weeds which find it hard to compete with cover crops. The species chosen are selected partly for their powerful root systems, as these help improve soil structure.They act as biological pumps, sending soil nutrients back up to the surface.To be effective and sustainable, zero tillage must be used in tandem with crop rotation, to encourage biodiversity in the soil. CIRAD is currently conducting trials in Cameroon in an attempt to increase cotton yields while cutting back on fertilizer and other chemical inputs. The system entails cropping Crotalaria, a legume species, with cotton, in rotation with maize. In Mali, where other trials are under way, the goal is to develop a system for Sahel countries involving a rapid increase in the production of biomass which can then be used as livestock feed.In conservation agriculture, a major problem remains -keeping weeds at bay. Rather than resorting to weed killers, agronomists are studying the allelopathic properties of certain plants whose roots act as natural herbicides and which can check the growth of self-propagating plants. The risk of fire and termites are other concerns that discourage some farmers in developing countries. In addition, zero tillage requires special tools, such as an animal-drawn seeder and a planting stick, used to make an opening in the covering layer and to dig a hole for the seeds.The basic principles of zero tillage are simple, but putting them into practice is a delicate process. For each climatic region, the right combination of suitable cover and rotation crops must be identified. This involves field trials over several years before the most appropriate combinations can be recommended to small-scale farmers. Many of these farmers are highly sceptical about new methods and want to see positive results before they are willing to take any risks. But for commercial and small-scale producers alike, the rewards are considerable.To date, only a few large-scale farms in Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe have embraced this new technology. As in Latin America, farmers who have done so can be found swapping experiences in associations set up to promote zero tillage.Small-scale farmers using the technique are few and far between, though some initiatives have been launched in parts of Southern and Eastern Africa, including Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Changing to zero tillage is a slow process, with farmers needing assistance for a number of years. They have to be helped to understand how it works and the advantages it brings, as well as to choose the best system for their particular conditions.The transition period may prove a difficult time for farmers, who will not see the benefits immediately. But once they grasp that, with less work and lower costs, they are getting bigger harvests, they are unlikely to need any more convincing.Photo: M. Raunet © CIRAD Photo: © CIRADIt is early winter in Vakinankaratra, the coldest area in Madagascar, where temperatures can fall below zero. But, nothing daunted, three young men are busy sowing seeds. One makes a furrow with a small trowel, while the other two throw in seeds and quickly cover them with the rice straw which covers the soil. Peas, oats and radishes for animal feed will be their out-of-season crops this year. It is a new development; normally, no crops are grown in this period, and farmers bury cassava plants beneath the soil to protect them from frost. This is the third year that Jean Do and his friends have used zero tillage. They have begun selling oat seeds and have seen their rice yields grow. \"But I use half conventional sowing and half zero tillage as this latter technique takes far more time for follow-up and for adding more cover,\" he explains. Technical staff maintain zero tillage saves time and money in the long run; \"working a hectare of rice field costs 1,200,000 FMG (€ 80),\" explains Célestin Randrianarisoa, from Tafa, an NGO which is promoting zero tillage in the area. And that is without taking into account the other benefits: using Bracaria fallows -a grass favoured by cattle and used as cover -and the chance to grow crops all year round.Almost 10 years ago, an experimental site was set up in a nearby village to demonstrate the advantages of zero tillage. In the surrounding areas, about 30 farmers have adopted the system. \"We're getting the message across slowly,\" says the Tafa official. In the area as a whole, there are now about 200 farmers who have gone over to the new technique.For further information: Bamboo rhizomes are effective at holding topsoil on steep slopes, so staff are planting them in the highlands and along riverbanks to combat erosion. Some species of bamboo grow long straight culms that can be sustainably harvested and used as wind breaks. Bamboo is also a valuable source of firewood, because of its high calorific content and fast growth. Making charcoal with bamboo is still a new technology in Africa, but ICRAF is planning to import cheap equipment from India to process bamboo for biogas and charcoal production. One of bamboo's great strengths is its prolific growth. Arundinaria alpina, the species native to Kenya, can yield up to 20,000 12 m-high culms per hectare each year. ■ The Ugandan government is investing US$ 2 million in a plan to introduce fruit trees as a cash crop in the Kigezi highlands. This area of south-western Uganda has no definite cash crop, and subsistence crops such as sorghum and potatoes generate little in the way of income for households. Fruit is much more profitable, but until now thought to be impossible to grow on the highland slopes, where altitudes reach 1,800 m. The few apple and avocado trees that were planted took too long to mature, and yields were low. At present, apples and other fruit are imported from South Africa, at prohibitively high prices for most families.Now, an ICRAF project is using grafting techniques to boost fruit yields. The programme has tested four types of fruit tree -apple, pear, peach and plum -in four orchards. Results show that the grafting method can produce fruit trees that are short, mature early, and yield abundant fruits, even at high altitudes. To speed up the process of seedling production, ICRAF plans to train grafters who can move around and perform the grafting operation for farmers in the field. The injection of funds from the Ugandan government puts the seal of approval on the plan to introduce fruit farming to the highland region. It will be used to set up nurseries, procure germplasm and fund training for fruit farmers and nursery operators.For ICRAF address, see above ■ Farmers in Kenya have proved reluctant to grow Crotalaria grahamiana -a shrub that is valuable for improving soil fertilityfor fear of attracting large populations of Amphicallia pactolicus, an insect that commonly feeds on this species' leaves. Now, an effective biological method has been developed to control the pests. The leaves of another tree, the silver leaf (Desmodium unicinatum), have been found to trap both the adults and larvae of A. pactolicus.The Desmodium silver leaf can be intercropped or planted on the boundaries of a C. grahamiana fallow, without the need for costly and harmful pesticides.Once insects touch the silver leaf tree, there is no escape. Butterflies which accidentally land on the plant are trapped by the hairs on the leaf and stem.Young larvae searching for food, and more mature ones moving to pupate, are trapped in a similar fashion. When used in rotational fallow, the nitrogen-fixing C. grahamiana has been shown to supply almost all the nitrogen requirements of the subsequent crop -maize in the case of Kenyan farmers. It also produces fuel wood and plays a valuable role in suppressing weeds.■ The hygiene and quality of traditional street food often leaves much to be desired, though few seem to worry about this. But sometimes, improvements can be made with very little input. These are the findings of the Institut Pasteur de Madagascar (IPM), which analysed 120 samples of koba ravina, a popular cake made with rice flour and groundnut flour and rolled up in maize or banana leaves. The microbiological analyses showed that there were problems, and the institute initiated training courses to provide the makers and sellers of koba ravina with a basic knowledge of hygiene and microbiology. The trainees were also given tips on how to improve the production process and the presentation of their product for sale, such as: do not stock groundnuts, work on a table rather than a rough plank, install protective windows. If they follow these suggestions scrupulously, the cake can be kept, at no risk to the consumer, for up to 3 days at room temperature and 10 days if refrigerated.Makers have been quick to adopt these simple measures. The many producers and sellers of traditional foods available on Africa's streets could follow their lead to ensure better quality, better preserved streetfood.■ A cool chamber developed by researchers in Ethiopia could help horticultural producers extend the shelf-life of their fruits and vegetables and reduce wastage due to spoilage. The chamber, adapted from an Indian design, uses inexpensive locally available materials, including bricks, bamboo and riverbed sand to keep produce fresh for up to a month after harvesting. Tested in Adet, where average temperatures reach a maximum of 26˚C, the storage structure uses the cooling power of evaporation to stop metabolic breakdown and fungal deterioration. The chamber is made of double walls, built of brick, with a 15 cm space in between them which is filled with wet riverbed sand. The sand is watered each morning and evening to maintain the required temperature and humidity. Healthy green peppers and sweet oranges were stored in the cool chamber, to test its efficacy. Similar products were kept at room temperature as a control. After 9 days, all products kept at room temperature were unfit for consumption. But 86.3% of the products kept in the chamber were still in good condition. Some 50% of the products were still healthy after 18 days in the storage unit. In the case of green peppers, some of those stored in the chamber were still fit for consumption after a month. Its goal is 'the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of their use'. This treaty better protects the rights of farmerswho are, after all, the main guardians of plant biodiversity. For all those countries that have ratified the treaty, it offers access to plant resources for research and training purposes in the areas of agriculture and food production.■ In the past 2 years the cultivation of arabica coffee has spread rapidly in the foothills of Foutah Djallon in Guinea, unaided by any development project. The growth is due entirely to private nursery owners promoting arabica cultivation through roadside stalls selling coffee and providing plants for local farmers. Thousands of hectares have now been planted with arabica; it is even being grown in the tapades, the permanently cultivated fenced gardens. Local traders jostle each other to buy coffee from the producers at 1,500 Guinean francs (€1.15) a kilo. This is an astonishing success for a crop that is doing so badly elsewhere of the world. In much of the area it is replacing citrus fruit which, for several years now, has been attacked by cercosporiosis (Phaeoramularia angolensis), also called 'the AIDS of orange trees', a devastating disease caused by fungi and found in some 20 African countries.■ Meetings where small farmers are the main players are rare. But at an innovation workshop fair held in March in Segou, Maliwhich brought together farmers' organisations from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali and Niger -it was the farmers themselves who took centre stage to present the results of their ideas and experiments: 17 inventions, three of which won prizes. Some of the presentations are outlined in the side columns on this page and page 9. The stands at the fair were crammed with brochures, films and posters. In the meeting rooms, the farmers took turns describing and demonstrating their inventions, some speaking in Dioula, some in Mooré, several in a hesitant French, but always with pride. The public, made up of farmers, researchers and donors, listened and watched with keen interest. Working group networks were quickly formed. Everyone agreed that the best way to disseminate information on the innovations was to strengthen ties through such networks, to convene fairs such as this one, to organise study trips and to involve the media. This fair, organised with the support of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), CTA and Inter-Réseaux Développement Rural, a network for rural development, was rich in ideas and inspired everyone who took part in it. Officials from the World Conservation Union (IUCN) have calculated that the scheme will pay for itself in 5 years. Restoration of 90% of the floodplain would create annual benefits of €2.5 million, according to IUCN estimates, so that the €12 million cost would be absorbed in just 5 years.The figures are from a report, The return of the water -restoring the Waza Logone floodplain, which puts forward the case for financing the complete restoration of the floodplain. The Waza Logone floodplain has suffered badly in the past two decades from low rainfall and the construction of a dam. The once fertile region became a dustbowl. The loss of dry season pasture, fishing, flood farming, water, wildlife and plant resources proved devastating to local communities. One third of the rural population, or almost 8,000 households, suffered annual losses of nearly €2.5 million. Experiments with partial artificial re-flooding have already led to improvements in the rural economy. Over 1,700 tonnes of fish have been caught in the restored areas. Perennial grasses have returned, leading to a 260% increase in the number of cattle in the region. The provision of clean drinking water has reduced water-borne diseases by 70%. The benefits of these experimental releases are put at €871,000 per year. The IUCN, which man-ages the pilot project through an agreement with the government of Cameroon, is now hoping its various partners, including the Netherlands Ministry for Development Cooperation, the European Commission and WWF, will be able to raise enough finance to complete the restoration and help the region continue along its path to sustainable development.■ Zaï la sida is the name of a farmers' association in Yatenga, a dry region in northern Burkina Faso. Since 1997, the association has built five schools in the region to teach farmers how to make use of improved zaï, a traditional soil conservation technique.The courses are free and begin each January after the end of farm work. They last a day and take place once a month. The farmer-students come from almost all over the country. In the rainy season, the field schools are kept going by association members. Produce from the schools is sold to buy the agricultural inputs and equipment needed to keep the schools running. Today, zaï is practised throughout Yatenga and has spread to Niger and Nigeria. The dry, encrusted fields are green again and the crops are showing much greater resistance to drought.■ In Mali, the Association des organisations paysannes professionelles (AOPP), a farmers' organisation, is playing a major role in the seed supply chain. The national seed service, SSNM, supplies seeds to producers and certifies the production process. Trained farmers, identified by AOPP, grow the seeds on their plots in 21 of the country's regions. AOPP then buys the certified seeds which it sells through a network of village shops.■ By listening to pastoralists, and by disseminating information through radio, newspapers or listening groups, the Réseau de communication sur le pastoralisme (RECOPA) , a pastoralism communication network, has been able to prevent and resolve a great number of conflicts related to herding in Burkina Faso. Other notable achievements of the network include the creation of herding trails and grazing areas and the setting up of villagers' negotiation committees.■ In some parts of Niger there is no longer any need to go to town to buy fertilizer -farmers can now go to the village inputs store to buy whatever they need. Not only that. They can also get advice and training at these outlets. The Fédération des producteurs du Niger, the national producers' federation, representing 300 farmers' groups, has already set up 17 such outlets and, not surprisingly, they are proving popular with local farmers.Tackling diabetes with herbal tea ■ Medicinal plants in many ACP countries offer affordable health remedies for local communities. But they also present a way of making money for small-scale producers, while at the same time protecting biodiversity. In South Africa, scientists believe that three species from the Eastern Cape have potential as a low-cost treatment for diabetes, a growing problem in much of the developing world.Apart from its health implications, the remedy offers hope as a cash earner in this economically depressed region. Nurses running rural clinics in the Eastern Cape were the first to become interested in the plants after seeing their effects on patients when administered by traditional healers. In the past 18 months, a series of laboratory tests has produced what researchers at the Cape Town-based Diabetes Research Group for the Medical Research Council describe as impressive results.A consortium of researchers and traditional healers has been formed, and clinical trials are due to start before the end of the year. Tests for toxic substances and for effectiveness have been carried out, starting with lab tissue culture and moving on to experiments using three species of rats.All were successful. Vervet monkeys are now being used to double-check the tests in a 3-6 month process which monitors the primates' blood, kidney and liver functions.For now, the names of the indigenous plants are a closely kept secret, in order to protect both the plants themselves and the traditional healers who have long used them to treat diabetes. Meanwhile, the Agricultural Research Council's Post-Harvest and Wine Technology division is investigating the creation of small herb farms, with a small processing plant on site to turn the dry ingredients into herbal teas. Diabetes is soaring in Africa, mainly because of urbanisation, processed Westernised food and reduced physical activity.■ For a long time, farmers in Bolivia have used small metal silos to protect their harvests from predators. Now, Senegalese farmers are drawing on this experience, with the help of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), as well as the government of Senegal and the Association sénégalaise pour la promotion du développement à la base (ASPRODEB), a Senegalese association for the promotion of grassroots development.Bolivian technicians have travelled to Senegal to teach 58 artisans how to make the silos. Nearly 2,000 silos have already been built. With capacities of between 125 kg and 1,800 kg, they will be used to store foodstuffs that are vulnerable to attack by bruchids, beetles that resemble weevils and whose larvae eat the stored grains of leguminous plants such as peanuts and cowpeas. The silos have significant advantages over the barrels or the simple bags used until recently to store millet, maize and sorghum. Demonstrations have been held in various regions of the country, and a local-language users' guide has been published to show the effectiveness of the silos in reducing post-harvest losses.■ Now that water hyacinths can be used to make compost, market gardeners on the banks of the Niger are quickly clearing the river of this invasive plant. Today, 13 market gardening cooperatives are producing compost from it. The technique is simple. First, dig a pit and line it with layers of straw, finely chopped water hyacinth and animal manure, and repeat until the pit is full. Next, apply a covering of matting and plastic sheets. Two weeks later, turn the contents over, and after 45 days, the compost will be ready to spread on the fields. So, no longer any need to buy costly chemical fertilizer for a good harvest -and the river breathes easier too!■ The dream of all farmers is to sell their entire crop at a good price, and it has become a reality for the rice producers of the Mogtedo area in Burkina Faso -thanks to good organisation and a strict adherence to the rules. At the start of the harvest, producers and vendors fix the market selling price of paddy and dehulled rice. The producers sell their rice directly to the cooperative, where it is bought by women who have it milled by the dehullers and then sell it at the market. Only white rice can be sold to traders from other areas. The approved measuring instrument is a plate that can hold about 4 kg of rice. Supervisors watch to make sure that the rules are respected and they have the power to impose penalties. Everyone gets a fair deal: producers are assured of their income, and the women vendors and out-of-town traders are assured, well in advance, of the price.■ With no radios of their own, women depend on the goodwill of men to listen to programmes -all too often, programmes not of their choice. Against this background, an association called Munyu ('the voice of women') in Banfora in Burkina Faso,sought to set up a radio station producing programmes of interest to its members. The plan was simple. Munyu mounted an advertising campaign with the slogan, 'One woman, one radio', then it set up a tontine (shared) radio station, costing 200 CFA (€0.30) per person per week and then, assisted by grants from Oxfam and Terre des Hommes (an international NGO), it placed an order with a supplier. The result is that 8,000 women can now listen to their own radio station, unyu, which has quickly become a valuable communication tool and source of information. The anti-mine plant ■ Thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) is a strange plant. Genetically modified by Danish scientists, it has acquired the curious property of changing its colour from green to red in 3-5 weeks when in the presence of certain heavy metals and explosives found in antipersonnel mines and unexploded ammunition. This bio-detection system could prove useful in the 75 countries where landmines remain after wars and other conflicts. Until now, detecting such devices has meant using dogs or special equipment, operations that are not only delicate, but also long and costly.The first field trials involving the plant will take place soon, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. In some countries, such as in Mozambique and Angola, despite the return of peace, agricultural development continues to be hampered by the presence of landmines. Farmers dare not go back to their fields for fear of losing a limb, or their lives, by stepping on one inadvertently. Thale cress has the advantage of reproducing itself naturally by self-pollination and, having sterile stamens, its spread can be easily controlled, according to the scientists who have developed it.n order to tackle the problem of invasive species, one must first know how to recognise them and be sure of identifying them properly. For this purpose, the global database set up by the Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG), part of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), is a mine of information. It can be consulted on-line and is regularly updated. It provides a description of 217 invasive species, many with photographs. Here you will also find the blacklist of the 100 most destructive species. The names -common, Latin and local -are given for each species. Also listed are the countries where the species are creating havoc, as well as descriptions of successful control strategies. For each species, a main source of in-formation is given, offering the chance to delve further. Another useful site is the Global Invasive Species Programme (GISP), which provides excellent up-todate information on invasive alien species.Exchanging experiences on prevention and control strategies is crucial, be it between one country and another, or between continents. The 'bible' here is a document on the Web summarising a book published by CAB International (CABI). Invasive alien species: A toolkit of best prevention and management practices presents about 100 case studies, as well as a whole host of links and downloadable documents about these species in various parts of the world. For the Pacific islands, the Pacific Island Ecosystems at Risk (PIER) website provides outlines on a country-by-country basis. And for the Caribbean, there is a report published on the ISSG website entitled Invasive species threats in the Caribbean.IUCN's Species Survival Commission (SSC) has published an on-line report with guidelines on how to reduce the threats posed by invasive alien species to global biodiversity. Regrettably, there are no websites dealing with potential uses of invasive species, such as aquatic plants, which would be useful for those wrestling with the problem.For futher information:Invasive alien species: A toolkit of best prevention and management practicesor anyone interested in exploring protected areas in greater depth, look no further than the World Conservation Union (IUCN), which brings together government agencies, NGOs, scientists and experts from around the world. Its dynamic Programme on Protected Areas (PPA) serves as the secretariat for the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA), an organisation which covers all aspects of the selection, planning and management of protected areas. The IUCN-WCPA partnership co-publishes a range of books and journals on the issue. Two that deserve a special mention offer guidelines for management planning and sustainable tourism in protected areas. See also the very readable Parks series of magazines, which can be downloaded free from the IUCN-WCPA website or ordered as hard copies.The UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC) is the biodiversity assessment arm of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and its website is well worth a visit if you are after facts and figures. A link takes you to the 'Protected Areas' section, which offers a well-organised searchable database. This is the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA), the largest source of global information on the subject. Other services directly accessible from the WCMC site include a virtual library and an array of maps downloadable from the Internet, showing the distribution of protected areas by region or country.For information about comanagement initiatives in ACP countries, WWF is a good source in Africa and the Pacific, while the Caribbean Conservation Association has a range of interesting projects linking people and conservation in the Caribbean.A little green gem ■ The little green data book 2004 is a pocket-sized ready reference source, packed with key environmental data for over 200 countries. The information is organised under the headings of agriculture, forestry, biodiversity, energy, emission and pollution, and water and sanitation.World Bank, 2004. 240  Extension agents face the challenge of helping small-scale farmers achieve increases in food production in a cost-effective manner, while at the same time conserving the natural resource base. As anyone who does this job will know, that is no easy task.One of the problems farmers most often complain of is crop pests and diseases, and many of them believe that the only effective solution is to spray with chemical pesticides. This quartet of booklets seeks to help extension agents in their sometimes uphill task of spreading the word about integrated pest management (IPM), now widely held to be the best method of plant protection, and one which leaves no scar on the environment. Written by one of the top IPM extension experts in Africa, the guides outline the general principles of IPM before moving on to describe strategies for the various crop groups.Each booklet identifies the major crop pests and diseases for its category, as well as their natural enemies. Written in clear, simple language, the booklets contain drawings of pests and their predators. The guides' slim, light format makes them perfect for taking out on field visits to farmers. ■ Each year, up to 30% of the world's cocoa harvests are lost due to cocoa black pod rot, a disease caused by various species of the genus Phytophthora. The most virulent and damaging species, P. megakarya, is currently wreaking havoc on cocoa production in Côte d'Ivoire, the world's leading cocoa producer. In an attempt to tackle this pest once and for all, researchers from Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, France and Trinidad joined forces to find ways of breeding cocoa trees with greater resistance to Phytophthora. This book is the result of the 5-year project, which was based at the French research centre, Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD). The scientists have made substantial advances in their efforts to breed cocoa trees with greater resistance, and some varieties have already been planted as a result of the research.The team has also developed tests which will greatly accelerate the rate at which resistant plants can be identified. As well as holding out hope for producers threatened by the dreaded cocoa black pod rot, the project, and the study which came out of it, also offer lessons and techniques for preventing other cocoa diseases, such as witches broom, monilia and vascular streak dieback. Spreading the word about IPM■ This book contains original research conducted to understand how culture and religion influence women's land rights in Africa. It takes seven African countries -Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Uganda -and looks not just at land ownership, but also at the extent to which women are able to participate in decision-making about land use and benefits. The answer is that, although the degree to which women control land differs from one country to another, there are many similarities in their situations -and many imbalances to be redressed. Common to almost all African women is the gap between the rights that they hold in theory, and their inability to enforce them. Whether in a Christian or an Islamic setting, power is concentrated in the hands of men when it comes to managing land, deciding on how it should be used and holding the household purse strings. With the exception of Madagascar, South Africa and a few countries in North Africa, the potential for irrigation development has not been effectively tapped in Africa. Out of a total arable land area of about 874 million ha, the current area under managed water and land development totals only 12.6 million ha, or 3.7% of the surface area of sub-Saharan Africa. In spite of this potential, and the demand for more dependable sources of water, the development of irrigation has lagged behind over much of the continent. In January 2003, 16 experts from six countries -■ Given the growing trend towards globalisation, State withdrawal and privatisation, rural dwellers are increasingly likely to become the main players in their own development. But in order to make the right decisions, they need to have proper and timely information.They also need more skills and the self-confidence to carry them along the path towards change. First published in French, this handbook offers approaches and experiences in rural development that have already proved successful in West Africa, and may be adapted to other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. The book is aimed at development practitioners, extension agents and technical staff involved in rural development projects, and the emphasis is on practical advice. Every method described in these pages has been tried and tested in the field and has produced worthwhile results. The result is a book which lends itself to dipping into, rather than reading from cover to cover. A whole range of topics is covered, among them farm management, farmers' organisations, natural resource management and product management. The product management chapter gives detailed advice on how to help small-scale farmers find markets and pitch their products at the right price in order to make a sustainable profit. A special section looks at women and development, and the increasingly important role they play in the rural economy. The book argues that some kind of specific support for women is vital.But it urges an approach which takes both sexes' inter-dependent roles into account, rather than one which may lead to divisive segregation.  ■ This is the follow-up to the widely acclaimed Africa environment outlook, published last year (Spore 103 p. 13). The second time around, the authors take a different approach, homing in on case studies to analyse examples of how environmental change is affecting the people of Africa.Whether it be the impact of deforestation on communities in Cameroon, the effects of land degradation in the drylands of northern Namibia, or the consequences of rapid industrialisation in Saldanha Bay, South Africa, the picture that emerges is an alarming one. For while, traditionally, African communities have shown great versatility in adapting to environmental patterns, the pace and scale of the changes currently reshaping the continent are proving an intolerable strain on many coping strategies, and are increasing communities' vulnerability to poverty, food insecurity and disease. It is not all gloom, however.One chapter reveals how Mauritius has done battle with the major environmental health scourge of malaria, and won -at a cost of less than US$ 1 per head per year. Netherlands, festivities and congratulations were the order of the day. Former and current directors and country representatives of CTA filed into the conference hall for a session of speeches, punctuated by knowing nods when mention was made of the past and hopeful smiles when the talk was of the future. Among those present was one of CTA's oldest friends, Bernard Njonga, Secretary General of the Service d'appui aux initiatives locales de développement (SAILD), a grassroots development organisation in Cameroon. Also there was Professer Monty Jones, winner of the 2004 World Food Prize for his work on New Rice for Africa (NERICA). These celebrations of CTA's 20th anniversary provide a good opportunity to look back at its history, and ahead to some of the challenges still to come… \"Knowledge is power\"The birth of the CTA, 20 years ago, was the result of a compromise. At the time, the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of countries wanted a fund to support their agricultural sectors. The European Union (EU) Member States did not agree and opted instead for an approach based on partnership: a technical centre financed by the European Development Fund (EDF), aimed at improving the profitability of small-scale agricultural producers and enterprises in ACP countries. It was decided to focus on the transfer of agricultural information and, in time, on access to and management of information technologies. The goal was to increase agricultural output, within the context of development as an economic process.At first, the emphasis was on North-South technology transfer, using conventional technologies to, as Haniteli 'Ofa Fa'anunu, the current Chairperson of the CTA Advisory Committee, put it, \"convert information to make more food\". Since then, CTA has concentrated more on South-South knowledge exchange, especially through its support for seminars. Mr Njonga observed that CTA recently supported a seminar on European exports of frozen chickens to Africa by paying the participants' travel expenses, adding that what he found constructive about CTA is the way it \"supports interesting initiatives without imposing them. We dream of a sub-regional dimension. CTA has helped us with this and we in turn have become its point of reference for Central Africa.\" It is all part of CTA's moves towards decentralisation.The advent of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) has brought many changes to CTA's work and opened new doors, especially with the recent proliferation of portable telephones, which has widened the potential of technologies for developing countries, according to Carl B. Greenidge, the Centre's third and current Director. On the political front, several major developments have had an impact on CTA. Under the Cotonou Agreement, the Centre has seen its mandate change to reflect a stronger supporting role for national agricultural policies. For Heleni Boulkou, outgoing Chairperson of the Advisory Committee, political dialogue \"is a pre-condition for implementing cooperation, that will not only be economic, but also political.\" At a socio-economic level, CTA is also adjusting its approach. As Mr Njonga observed, \"The small-scale farmer does not just need bread, he has other concerns. The support of CTA is welcome, but too often it is dominated by concerns of agricultural development.\"According to Mrs Boulkou, the main problem now facing small-scale producers is that they find themselves caught up in the global market system, and yet locked out of it. They are asked to be more competitive when they do not have the means to do so, she said, and have to meet food standards imposed, for example, by EU sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures and by Northern hypermarket food chains. CTA tries to help alleviate poverty by keeping ACP smallholders well-informed and linking them to markets, she added. Mr Fa'anunu pointed out the need for much more market information, specifically geared towards ACP countries. \"CTA will have to be able to meet the demand,\" he observed.Mr Greenidge noted that before the extensive opening up of EU markets in 2007, investments must be made in the trade infrastructure in many ACP countries. \"That is, an ability to get whatever they produce to market,\" he said. To offset the probable negative impact of full trade liberalisation on ACP countries, the Centre plans to step up information on product diversification, he added. \"Information is going to be critical with regard to the trade of traditional commodities produced by ACP countries exported to Europe, such as coffee, cocoa and bananas, given their declining prices,\" he continued. \"The question now is how to get them to invest in areas such as wood products, leather products, off-season flowers. And more than investment, what is needed is management capacity, and information critical to management. If the flowers are not delivered on time, they are dead…. We can offer that service to the holders, to strengthen their management capacity in that regard\".Getting young people interested in agriculture is crucial, both for rural development in the Caribbean and for securing the future of young people in the region. One initiative lauched recently in Antigua and Barbuda is already yielding positive results.n the Leeward Islands, where the Gilbert Agricultural and Rural Development Centre (GARDC) is based, the average age of people in the farming sector is 50 years old. This vital economic activity is further threatened because many young people do not view farming as offering gainful employment. It still carries a slavery image, with connotations of drudgery, high risk and small returns. One of GARDC's goals is to show that farming is a business and is a worthy and economically viable occupation.Some of the problems facing our Caribbean people have arisen as a result of structural adjustment programmes, downsizing, declining budgets and the increasing effects of multilateral and bilateral trade agreements.And 11 September 2001 shocked many people when, for several weeks, air and sea travel were suspended, blocking all imports and exports of food and other products to our countries. The repercussions from all of this include a rise in youth unemployment, crime and violence, the continuing degradation of our environment and increased poverty.Through our work at GARDC, we have witnessed the negative impact on Caribbean youth. For example, during our Enterprise Development Course for Unemployed Women, it became very evident that as a result of a lack of skills, poor institutional support systems and poverty, a number of young women find themselves trapped in relationships that end up in teenage pregnancy and parenting, abuse, drugs and HIV/AIDS.In our small island tourist economies, young people working in the tourist industry are exposed to drug use through contact with some visitors and traffickers posing as tourists. Rural youths often face the additional challenges of poor educational, health and recreational facilities. Ours is one of a number of community-based organisations which are trying to address these problems. GARDC's mission is to improve the living standards of young men and women through their involvement in agricultural and rural enterprises. Our aim is to give them greater access to income-generating opportunities.The process involves training in, for example, crop and livestock farming, agro-tourism, agro-processing, soap making, beekeeping and the production of handicrafts. There is a revolving loan fund to assist with start-up expenses, and business management training provides help with preparing business plans, product development, marketing research, packaging, costing and pricing, financial management, record keeping and developing negotiation skills.For those who require land for their enterprises, the Centre collaborates with the Ministry of Agriculture. We also run a 5-acre demonstration farm for hands-on training, complementing the classroom sessions. The farm is being developed to demonstrate the use of: agro-ecological practices such as the use of cover crops and green manure crops for enhancing fertility, weed management, composting, mulching and bio-pesticides; and small farm equipment, with the emphasis on the introduction of light farm tools and equipment for women.It is very satisfying to see young people turning their lives around. At the end of one of our training courses, a young woman told the touching story of how she could not believe that she had been able to present her business plan in front of the class. She said that she had always been someone who sat at the back of a room, but she had gained so much self-confidence, as well as the knowledge and skills to start her own business. She is now one of Antigua's new and promising young agro-processors.She has built her own processing unit and has developed a range of hot pepper products, including hot pepper sauces mixed with mango, tamarind and other interesting ingredients, and hot pepper powder, jelly and even candy. Her income has greatly increased and she and her husband have been able to build their own house.Yet, more needs to be done. Governments in the region should promote agriculture with as much enthusiasm as is done for other professions.There must be a major drive to encourage young people into agriculture and its related industries and to provide the necessary microfinance facilities to support youth enterprises. There also needs to be greater awareness of the potential of young people and their unique qualities. We must recognise that there is much more to youth than age! Email: gardc@candw.ag \" Farming is a business and is a worthy and economically viable occupation \"","tokenCount":"10033"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"81bf3ce8f4630b2e43c474dcfe4181c0","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/2eee2c87-df44-4012-a1d5-b167714ad4b5/retrieve","id":"-2026893688"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"fc34dce8-7975-4c1c-a623-03fdfa7d0094","pagecount":"48","content":"This work was prompted by a desire to bring to the attention of cassava growers, particularly in Africa, currently available information about of main discases ofthis crop. African cassava mosaic. This summary is based on field reports all regions of the African continent and also on scientific observations and experiments made by teams of researchers working in various national and international organizations.In an effort to update this information an international seminar was organized in Yamoussoukro (Ivory Coast), 4 to 8 May 1987, on the \"African cassava mosaic disease and its control\".communications given there form the basis ofthc information contained in this report.In spite of considerable progress in years in our knowledge of African cassava mosaic we do not yet know thcrc is to know The factors for example, to depending on -East Africa or West Africa, forest zones or savanna zones. Thus, there remain areas of uncertainty which research is endeavouring to clarify.Nevertheless. cxpcricnce so itif not to cradicatc African cassava mosaic, at least to its effects by relatively techniques that are within the means of small-scale farmers.These practices must be disseminated and popularized in the African peasant communities as quickly as possible, so as to check the spread of the disease and curb the resulting widespread losses of productivity. The problem of nutrition is so crucial in Afiica that any information -even partial that could make a contribution to solving it must be made available as rapidly as possible to anyone who can make use of it government authorities, staff of concerned departments, teachers, researchers, farmers etc. This short report was prepared with this need in mind.The world production of cassava in I985was estimated at 136 million metric tonnes (equivalent roots) a 3% increase from the preceding year, according to the information of the United Nations Food and AgricultureOrganization (FAO). with 57 million metric tonnes of cassava, Africa remains the main world producer, with a rise of 4 million metric tonnes, which is the most part of the total recorded increase in 1985 next come Asia 1.7 million metric tonnes) and Latin America (28 million metric tonnes).Since the beginning of the cassava has become an export product that is particularly in demand in the EEC, which imported 5.5 million metric tonnes in 1985 (5% more than in as tapioca and. for livestock feed.is the exporting country (95% of the world total), with 7 million metric tonnes sold mainly in Europe, Japan, and Israel: next are Indonesia and China, with less than 300 000 metric tonnes.Africa does not export cassava.In spite of the increase in the import demand, the cassava market has been falling for several years. In 1985.it had fallen in real value to the lowest level in years, because of the level of stocks and of competition from maize (a 15% drop).Thus, though it is the foremost region of world cassava production, Africa does not share in its international trade. In this region, cassava is a food crop grown in subsistence though in most countries of the continent the urban market constitutes a non-negligible secondary outlet.The economic future of cassava is difficult to predict : will it become an appreciable financial resource for the African continent ? It appears that the developing pattem of animal feeding in the industrial will not favour this outcome. Cassava nonetheless remains of the foremost food crops in tropical Africa, and an indisputable nutritional asset in a region that is less and less self-sufficient in food. It is grown throughout the intertropical from Timbuktu (600 millimetres of rainfall annually) to Buea, at the foot of Mount (8000 millimetres), for example.Considering the agricultural, dietary, and in some cases economic importance of cassava, the parasites that its growth have repercussions for the populations of many developing countries that consume or export cassava, whether these countries are in Latin America, or AfricaIn the latter continent in particular, African cassava mosaic disease is ( I ) Report and prospects on products. FAO, symposium \"FAO: Economic and Social Development\". no. 40. Rome, 1986. ( 2 ) Mosaic disease affects all the African cassava crops. It also India and Sri America, however. seems free it. The genus family comprises more than a hundred species that have the same number of chromosomes (2 n 36 chromosomes). It can be broken down into 98 species, only one of which is cultivated :Crantz.is a domesticated in the Americas, and is unknown in wild state. The ancestors of cultivated cassava were plants with tuberous roots by man during his migrations into South America. Several cthnobotanical studies suggest that cassava was used in northwestern South America 2000 to 4000 years BC. In 1986. fossils of cassava were discovered in the Casma valley, Peru carbon-dating placed their period at 1500-I800BC. Furthermore, cassava seems to have been domesticated more than once, in regions of South America tral origin).Although 39 of 50African countries now grow cassava. obtaining a total production of 57 Furthermore, a strictly Amazonian origin of cassava does not seem cotnpatible with thefact that most known species thrive better in the sun.Other historic and archeological evidence points to other possible centres origin :-One could be in Mexico and Central America (Guatemala and Honduras). This 1850 it was only a minor crop in all of Africa, except around Lake Tanganyika. where it had come in from the west. It is thus during the past 50 years that its cultivation has become really prominent. In Asia, it was again the Portuguese who introduced cassava. first into India and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) as early as the eighteenth century. centres of origin of cassava are in Central and South America, in different regions according to different authors :eastern Brazil, Venezuela, western and southern Mexico, Guatemala (see above).Although cassava comes second to such foodstuffs as rice, sorghum, and yams in some countries, in many others as the Congo. the Central African Republic. and Zaire) it constitutes the staple food of the great majority of the population. In Burundi, for example. tuber and root crops, including cassava, are being grown increasingly, while leguminous plants and cereals are losing ground.The production per hectare is 5 to metric tonnes (versus a theoretical potential of more than 80 tonnes). This low yield is compensated for by the large area of land under cultivation and the number ofgrowers. In most of the producing countries, cassava is still grown mainly by traditional methods, though there are important industrial production units in Nigeria and Liberia. In the traditional setting, cassava is most oRen grown in combination with maize, groundnuts, rice, etc. (See the table on page \"Cassava in agriculture and nutrition\").It is found wherever climatic conditions are favourable. and is grown all year long, giving the best yields when the growth cycle is well synchronized with the seasonal cycle. Its range extends from to and up to an altitude of 2000 metres. It is tant but nevertheless prefers an annual rainfall of to 2000 Aside from phic soils, which do not suit it, cassava thrives in a variety of soils, muddy, alluvial, or providing that there is good aeration and good drainage of water.Each country has a collection of to more than cultivars (varieties used in agriculture). Countries such as Malawi, the Congo, Zaire. and the Ivory Coast have collections of more than cultivars.Finally. cassava is multiplied mainly use of seeds is confined to research centres. to those saw it appeared to be body. This plant was considered to be a message from the gods and was of Mani.From P. Silvestre and M. Le The limitations on productivity are for the most part related to the traditional growing practices, and in particular come under the following headings :-the structure and functioning of those systems of cultivation in which cassava generally comes at the end of a rotation the use of poor-yielding growing techniques combined with the absence of inputs (especially fertilizers) :the strong preference for traditional varieties which do not perform well and are more sensitive to diseases and pests the rapid decrease of the fertility of the soil, related to how it is managed attack by diseases and pests -the absence of a steady, able market.The root is the part of the plant that is most oRen eaten but in central Africa rundi, Congo, Central African Republic, and Zaire) and. a in West Africa (Liberia). is as a constituting an important source of protein.'There is a multitude of traditional techniques (see box on principal cassava products) for the preparation of cassava: the varieties are sometimes eaten raw. Various treatments give preparations that can be stored to various degrees. In Central Africa, cooking and fermenting, people produce a cassava bread, chikwangue there and in West Africa the flour and granulated flours of cassava have various names : foufou, (tapioca), attieke.Cassava is attacked by the following principal diseases : African cassava mosaic (ACMV), which is by far the most widespread vascular bacterial disease anthracnosis ( gloeosporioides) and to a degree cercosporiosis ( The most cited pests are the mealybug ( the green spider ( and the stinking locust African mosaic attacks all the cultivars. though the degree of susceptibility vanes from one cultivar to another. In each producer country the presence is related to the density of the cassava population and to the climatic characteristics.most humid regions seem to be the most affected. The effect of the mosaic seems much more marked on young plants than on old ones. Accepted estimates of the losses of yield caused by African mosaic range from 20 to 80%. The vector of the mosaic is the whitefly which swarms at the beginning of the rainy season. This whitefly is found in all cassava-producing regions. The cassava plant is not its only host: the insect also colonizes the leaves of the cotton plant, of tobacco. and of potato, but the African mosaic virus infects only cassava. (See the table \"Rank of mosaic disease among the limiting factors\").The strategies for control are as follows :-Research programmes taking into account the study of the etiology and epidemiology of the disease, complemented by the development of resistant varieties. Studies to this end are in progress in several countries (Zaire, Nigeria, Congo, Liberia, Kenya, Ivory Coast. Togo). but their scope differs from one country to another. A great many countries would like to strengthen their provision for research in the subject.-Setting up a development programme to, among other things, multiply resistant varieties and popularize them with the farmers.In many countries (Liberia, Burundi. Rwanda, Nigeria, Malawi and Zaire), such development programmes already exists, but the intensity varies according to the means ble. There is a real need to create such arran-gements or to strengthen them where they already exist.-The introduction of clones resistant to African mosaic disease. At this level, the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). which has vast experience in the subject, is the approved body for discussions with almost all the producer countries of Africa. except for the Congo and the Ivory Coast, which for now are at the stage of introducing resistant varieties. African cassava mosaic virus (ACMV) is, as was mentioned in the preceding section, a disease that is widespread throughout the African continent, where it occasions considerable losses of tuber production. We must note that it is also rampant in Sri Lanka, and that in India the losses of productivity are estimated to be at least 50%.The disease is still unknown in South America.The pathogen agent of cassava mosaic disease is a called African cassava mosaic virus (ACMV). This geminivirus grows in the cultivated varieties of cassava (Manihot esculenta), and in other Euphorbiaceae. in particular which is used as an plant, and in six species of cassava, one of which, Manihot vii, is present naturally. Experience shows that the role of these plants in contamination is minor and that is principal reservoir of the virus.isolates from cassava plants from various regions of Africa and Indian subcontinent reveal the existence of three distinct groups. Group A (Angola. Ivory Coast, Nigeria, South Africa, and western Kenya), group B Kenya. Madagascar, and Malawi), and group C (India and Sri Lanka) coincide with the three routes by which cassava was introduced into Africa between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries they support the hypothesis that when it was established the plant was contaminated by three variants of geminivirus which were endemic in the three geographic regions, and that the exchanges of cassava between these three regions have been very small in the past. or at least have not upset the biological equilibrium. whitefly,Naturally the virus is transmitted by the whitefly, identified as a vector of African cassava mosaic disease in West Africa, eastern Kenya, Nigeria, and India. Other species whitefly. such as have not been studied well-enough so that we can be sure that they do not also the disease. The healthy aleyrodid acquires the virus from an infected cassava plant. 10 acquire the virus it has to remain on a young leaf for at least 3 hours. a period of about 8 days, this whitefly can in the virus into a healthy plant. Transmission not take place either via the eggs of the whitefly or via the seeds of the cassava.virus-bearing capacity of the did population in a cassava field is no more than a few per cent. Depending on the variety used as a test plant and on the whitefly sample, the recorded percentage of that is infected ranges from 0 to 1.7%. with an average of 0.45%. is a small ( 2 long) whitefly whose ecology and biology are not well understood. It is. moreover.to distinguish from other species of as this can only be done at the pupa stage. is very widely distributed throughout the regions globe. and its role as a plant-virus vector is in many other parts of the world and for many other crops.The adult is about 2 long.FROM \"NATURAL SPREAD\"TO \"AGRICULTURAL SPREAD\"If the \"natural spread\" of African cassava mosaic diseasefrom the natural environment to healthy cassava by whiteflywere the only route for the spread of the virus, its propagation and extension would probably remain very limited :the proportion of infested whiteflies is. indeed, small (of the order of 1%). In addition, the wild plant species that serve as the natural of the virus. the endemic state, do pot seem to be particularly active sources of contamination.Various observations,in Kenya and in the Ivory Coast, show a low infection level for mosaic-free fields. In Kenya, over a 5-year period, this level was less than 2% for most of the cultivars used, whatever the size of the fields (from 0.02 to hectare), the of cultivation (in a research station or a plantation), the year. and the climatic conditions of the region (whether coastal or continental).Reservoir for geminivirus Some of the experiments were conducted in a forest zone with two rainy seasons (2000 of annual precipitation). and the others in a savanna zone with just one rainy season (1000 of precipitation). In these there was always more contamination in forest than in savanna : to 88%in forest.But the main lesson of these case studies always higher in the most heavily inated site. it was not proportional to the contamination levels. In the forest, the least contaminated field actually contained the gest population of flies. In most if virus-infected cassava was upwind of healthy plots, these flies were more numerous and more virulent.The apparent transmission capacity (ATC) of whiteflies is the ratio of the cumulative number of per plan: the cumulative percentage of contaminated plants per plot.Fields with a high ATC had no diseased cassava upwind. while those with a low ATC were surrounded by fields of virus-infected cassava. These results strengthen ihe hypothesis that cassava is a reservoir both ACMV and for its vector, tabaci. As the wind passes over virus-infected cassavafields, it carries virus-bearing whiteflies which land in healthy plots. These are more numerous and more virus-bearing when there are virus-infected cassava plants upwind of the healthy plots.Cassava, the main factor in the spread of cassava mosaic diseaseThe from these various observationsis that virus-infectedcassava represent the determining factor for the spread of African cassava mosaic disease.From this point of view, man appears to be a central factor in the spread of African cassava mosaic. In Africa, cassava plants are multiplied by cuttings taken from the stems of older cassava. Since the farmers are not aware of the symptoms disease on the leaves and their significance for the tubers, they are not motivated when choosing cuttings. to distinguish between plants that look healthy and those that are contaminated. Even if they were careful to choose only healthy they still would not eradicate the disease at some stages cassava plants carrying the virus do not show any symptoms. Nevertheless. the farmers could considerably reduce the risks, we will see later.In any case, a cassava plant contaminated from the cutting stage loses much more yield ( 5 5 to 77%) than a plant contaminated. even very young, by whitefly (35 to 60%). If the contamination by vector takes place days the planting, there is no longer any detectable effect on yield. This then illustrates, in a simple way, that using healthy cuttings to plant offers considerable gains in productivity. The location of the virus and the whiteflies on the same young leaves makes it virtually impossible to determine whether it is the leaf or the whitefly that is mainly responsible for the contamination. The prevalence of on young cassava leaves facilitates both acquisition and inoculation ACMV. and hence its spread in the field.Changes during the year relations thus maintain contamination in both directions, without it being clear exactly which, vector or plant, is the principal source of the phenomenon. The complexity of these exchanges of virus between the plant and the insect is all the greater in that they fluctuate during the year with the seasons, the maturity of cassava, and changes in the whitefly populations. apparently in different ways for different regions.In Kenya. a single period of infection has been reported that peaks in the rainy season and declines in August, September and October. A second, smaller surge is seen later, in association with a more or less predictable short season between September and December. In 1985 there was no correlation between the number of and the incidence of the disease. On the other hand, one can see a possible coincidence between the period of the strongest leaf and plant growth. and the maximal infection.Also, in Kenya the spread of the mosaic takes place over very short distances, tens of metres. Beyond a kilometre, the contamination stabilizes at an extremely low level.Ivory there is an annual fluctuation in response to three interacting variables : the whitefly population, leaf growth and temperature.inoculum pressure is high from March to July. and low from August to November. Obviously, this fluctuation in inoculum pressure is observable only if virusfree material is available for planting and if plantings are made at different dates. Such conditions are generally not fulfilled in Africa. where the vast majority of plant material is virus-infected. Thus it is not surprising that this fluchiation of inoculum pressure is not mentioned in the \"national questionnaires\".The 3 variables that affect the inoculum pressure are :-The whitefly population: High from February to June, low from July to October. This fluctuation of the aleyrodid populations during the year. in combination with the climatic data, was oRen noted in the national questionnaires. The relation between peaks in the aleyrodid population and the dry season was noted several times.-Growth of cassava leaves : High from February to May. low from June to September, this that there are certain periods favourable to the cultivation of cassava.-Temperature : Although the amplitude of the variations is small, the highest temperatures are observed from February to May and the lowest from June to October.By way of an attempt at explanation, it should be emphasized that the climatic conditionsin particular the temperature level - So,on the basis of the interplay between these variables, predictions can attempted relating to the annual of contamination, defining probable periods of high and lowThe factors of propagation of African cassava mosaic disease have been identified. as can be seen in the preceding sections. They involve multiplication by contaminated especially in the context of local farms, and also the activity of the whitefly -Bemisia in the plantations. The determining character of both factors seems to vary in importance depending on the region (contamination mainly by cuttings and subsequently by man in East Africa; contamination by the whitefly in West Africa, accepting that in this region cutting remains essential, both in local and in other contexts). In any case, these two phenomena feed and reinforce each other.Whether or not it is the major vector of the virus, is a very small whitefly (2 long) whose movement is by wind velocity. This constraint on its flight autonomy is worth noting because cassava can exploit it to limit the magnitude of its contaminating effects.A whitefly in the windThe whitefly moves by two types of : short-distance movements within the canopy of a plot, corresponding to its dispersal in the site in search of food or a place to lay eggs and long-distance movements at the mercy of transporting breezes, to change for example the nature of its nutrition by finding a new plant host. Although, within the canopy, it prefers the light winds of the early part the day (from 0.1 to 0.4 metres per second, oRen between 6 and 9 in the region of Adiopodoume in the Ivory Coast), it can be carried passively by stronger winds above the canopy or outside the fields. This behaviour might explain the concentrations of whiteflies in the edge areas exposed to the wind.Epidemiological studies have shown that several aspects of the spatial spreading of ACMV (disease gradients. and primary and secondary levels of contamination) are liable to be related to the movements of whiteflies.Their spread in the plot is composed of 4 movements :1) the flying above the field (not yet studied), 2) the \"influx\"of whiteflies that land in the field, 3) the consisting of the movements within the field and of the multiplication of the insects, and 4) the that take off from the cassava field.The four types of movements are all seen at once, but their relative importance changes throughout the growth of the the climatic conditions (in particular the direction and intensity of the wind) can obviously influence some of them. in all directions, but on average moves in a circular perpendicular to the barrier around a zone calm at its centre. Some insects approaching the barrier in the incident wind will be carried above and this zone will be scattered within.the bubble by turbulent shear layer and will be blown about there by a re-entering near its downwind end.A cassava canopy, like a windbreak, is a natural obstacle that creates turbulence phenomena and the plot, and course above the canopy. The size the zone will be the canopy's height and roughness, thefoliar index, and course the wind speed. Turbulence then the landing insects floating in the air current above boundary layer.The wind speed begins to slow well the plot. This reduction is maximal at the edge the plot and depends on the level relative to the height the canopy. as in the case the vertical the strongerwind in the open air, the greater the reduction of the speed. However, strong winds can change the architecture canopy, with the result that sometimes the reduction at the edge will be less.Above the canopy, the reduction is 40%. whereas in the lower third part the vegetation, the reduction is varying between 90 and 100% according to the wind speed.In the case of viruses transmitted by insects, the spread of the contamination depends mainly on the movements of the vector. These, in the case of African cassava mosaic, are closely correlated with the movements and direction of the wind. In the cases studied, the modes of distribution of the disease have several points in common. The infection was not homogeneousover all the fields :the edges exposed to the wind were more contaminated than the others and more than the centre of the Cassava mosaic disease is mainly a of the primary type, and the virus reseem to be situated upwind. and to be some distance from the fields, sometimes as far as severalThe propagationand distributionof whiteare extremely important, because these continuouscassava planting~will have proportions of virus-infected plants. This observation is evidence that, however necessary it may be, a policy of selection of cassava plants as a function of their symptomatology is not enough : while it can limit and check the expansion of the mosaic disease, it cannot claim to eradicate it.   varieties that will enable them to choose clones with an acceptable level resistance to the transformational properties that are valued in the country in question.The African farmers have selected, rately or not, clones of cassava that have a non-negligible degree of resistance. This made it possible to identify resistant varieties of cassava, so-called \"local varieties\", which have been widely tested in East and West Africa. This biological fact means that all African It seems therefore that there are in Africa many cassava clones with a certain level of resistance to African cassava mosaic disease,  2000of annual precipitation) and the other in a savanna zone with a single rainy season ( 1000of precipitation). showed some variation from year to year, but a slightly correlation between the places.Cassava was selectedfor resistance against ACMV, with symptoms in particular used as the criterion. Thls component In fact turned out to be major. AN the components of the resistance exerted in the same direction :the more vectors and the more virus-injectedplants there were. the more symptoms and the more there would be, all the clones taken as a group, and this was truefor a collection of 54 clones.The resistance components studied on two collections showedjust the same correlations. aside from the concentration of virus, which suggests that the system is stable and reproducible, though In the second year the vector populations were much smaller. Good year to year correlations were seen between the various resistance components. It seems that there was also good of the resistance of cassava against ACMV. in time and in space, and in two over several years.Although the clones that result from selectionfor resistance would naturally be class together in the resistant group, it is surprising also in this group such local clones as thosefrom the east coast of Kenya and India. Thefew South American ones tested were all extremely susceptible.So it seems that cassava, or at least the clones studied has a considerable wealth of resistance. This wealth has not been totally especially as regards the resistance to the vector and above all to the distribution of the virus.whether these be in gene banks of research institutes or in the national collections. But this wealth remains to be exploited and utilized.There is not a single resistance to mosaic disease, but various types of resistance, The selections made in East Africa took account both of the expression of symptoms of resistance to the spread of the virus in an infected plant. The selections made in Nigeria concerned yield and thus tolerance of the plants to diseases, and subsequently to the virus disease, as well as to the expression of symptoms.A study carried out in the Ivory Coast demonstrated the existence of various components in the mechanisms of resistance, particularly to the expression of symptoms, which is closely linked to a resistance to the multiplication of the virus. There is also a resistance to the vector, which is practically independent of the other types. Finally, resistance to inoculation has been suggested, but this remains to be clarified for likely future use.In the case of cassava, the mechanisms of resistance have not yet been spelled out in detail, but there is clearly a rather wide variability of \"resistance\".This shows that it would now be possible to set up organized selection schemes that would utilize the various components of resistance, in order to integrate them into a genome and thus distinctly improve the general level of resistance of cassava.there is no immediate possibility of eradicating the disease, especially on local farms by means of sanitation, it would be beneficial to the magnitude of the symptoms, only by taking advantage of the existence of cultivars that show tolerance to the mosaic.Reversion, another index of cassava capacity for resistance Epidemiological studies are based largely on trials in which the contamination of healthy cassava plants is monitored. The first difficulty for a programme on the epidemiology of ACMV was to find large quantities of healthy material :all the available cuttings are infected, because of the vegetative transmission of the virus. Sophisticated techniques such as culture, or thermotherapy combined with culture in can be used to purify some cassava clones. However, these techniques are difficult to put into practice in Africa. A natural phenomenon, which we call reversion, sometimes occurs in cassava fields : a certain percentage of diseased plants give rise to healthy plants. Though this percentage is in some cases very low. it has nevertheless made it possible, under certain conditions, to select and multiply six clones of healthy cassava over of several hectares within three years in the Ivory Coast. For other clones, in contrast. such reversion is much more frequent and can even reach which makes it possible to rid plants of the virus \"naturally\".Contamination initiated more than 60 days after planting does not have much on yield. This is the case with the IITA variety 1425, which is moreover moderately resistant to symptoms. This flexibility of resistance and multiple intra-and interspecific susceptibilityof cassava permits the use of multiple procedures to control African cassava mosaic disease. Some of these are technical and scientific, aiming at the creation of new varieties, and others more empirical with the aim of eliminating the most affected plants in the field. or even the most susceptible varieties.Africa, which is the foremost world producer of cassava, is also a paradise for cassava mosaic disease, a scourge raging uncontrolled in the intertropical zone. Mosaic disease seems so well entrenched there that it appears like an inevitable phenomenon, or even a natural and normal fact in cassava fields. In some African regions, a healthy cassava plant would be a collector's item, or even a monstrosity.By force of habit, the African continent is adjusting to cassava mosaic disease, accepting considerable losses of normal, and forgetting that the genetic diversity of cassavas grown there could make it possible to take effective action against the disease and that simple techniques of eliminating infected plants would rapidly reduce the effect of the disease on the harvests.Actually, two principal cards can be played :sanitation. which consists ing from cultivation all plants that are manifestly virus-infected and selection. by means of which varieties resistant to African mosaic disease can gradually be substituted for the susceptible varieties. A combination of these two strategies would undoubtedly improve a situation which, outside of research stations, is continually deteriorating.The situation of cassava in Africa today is comparable to that of potato in Europe up to the beginning of the twentieth century. Sanita-tion first, followed by selection, made possible. in just a few decades, a from a situation in which 100%of plants are virus-infected to one in which fewer than are.Producing virus-free plant materialThe cassava plant is multiplied vely. and control would consist of producing virus-free cuttings for all new plantings.For some cassava clones, it is possible to select healthy cuttings from plants that do not show symptoms. This is the result of the biological phenomenon called \"reversion\", which produces virus-free plants from a contaminated mother plant. This is achieved by a mechanism of resistance to the spread of the virus which, in the contaminated plant, is manifested in the next generation. This mechanism of reversion, though it is neither for all clones nor steady with time, has nevertheless made it possible to produce hectares of healthy cassava plants of several clones in Kenya and the Ivory Coast.For other clones the percentage of reversion is nil : in this case. in order to produce healthy plants, it is necessary to fall back on meristemculture techniques or thermotherapy, which are in use for cassava.In both cases. and upon the hypothesis of a major cassava sanitation programme, vegetative micropropagation by culture in could easily be put into operation.The in vitro of cassava resolves the of preservation and the of generic resources. Every selector knows the problem involved in maintaining several cultivars in a collection of living plants in (diseasesand disasters,etc...). In vitro can be usedfor this purpose in 2 ways I ) Storing in slowed growth mokes possible for periodic 1500 cultivars are stored at CIAT in thisform.2) The freezing of meristems protected by  The potential benefits of applying methods of sanitation are obvious and A virus-free cassava cutting will germinate more easily, will grow better, will put out more tuberous roots, and will produce more, even if the plant is later contaminated by whiteflies.The effectiveness of the method depends on the rapidity with which virus-free plant material is contaminated, on the availability of stocks of cuttings of the chosen varieties, and on the of producing them. The most important factor is undoubtedly susceptibility to recontamination, which, in the following generation, will determine the degree of blockage of the other As cassava is cultivated mainly on a small scale, large-scale application of sanitation can be really effective only if it is carried out by the small farmers themselves, using the local varieties of cassava, at least There are local and selected varieties of cassava that have a percentage of reversion permitting selection, and which are not too quickly recontaminated. The selection technique is simple in its reliance solely on the recognition of characteristic symptoms of the virus infection, but in other respects it is more difficult to apply. It assumes that the African farmers will adopt two main patterns of behaviour : F i i y , if, as is now thought, cassava is at present its own reservoir of virus and vector, there will be a correlation between the intensity of cassava cultivation and the inoculum pressure. The more diseased cassava a region grows, the more difficult it will be to apply techniques of sanitation.In West Africa, where the resistant varieties arrived only in where the dry is broken by rains, which favours the multiplication of the vector. where there is no cassava farming at high altitudes and where the intensive cultivation of cassava is maximal, it is more understandable that the contamination pressure appears to be so high and methods of sanitation seem more difficult to put into practice.Growing practices and arrangement of crops Planting dates, growing practices, and the arrangement of the crops can have a considerable on the vector populations and on the spread of the virus. This has been demonstrated in studies on ACMV, although only limited information is available and more work necessary before advice can be given to small farmers what are the most appropriate practices to adopt. Even then, there will probably be great difficulties in putting a programme into operation, because of the small size of most farms. The limited number of appropriate sites available imposes serious restrictions on the size, shape, and layout of plots. Also, a need is oRen felt for continuous food production for the family or for local consumption, which the spread of the virus by leading to plantings made one another in quick succession. difficulties are less acute in large commercial agricultural organizationsor in official establishments which aim to produce virus-free cuttings for distributionto the farmers. In these circumstances,it is necessary to emphasize the development of growing practices that reduce contamination and facilitate the control of the disease.Cassava cuttings take root well, and this usually leaves a certain latitude in the choice of planting dates. The main thing is to avoid exposing the plants to serious risk of nation when they are young and in a very stage of growth. Theproduction of healthy plants an effective method. since in Francejewer than 3%of plants are virus-infected as a rule, but the method is exacting and costly (employing 80 technical Improvements in varietal resistance can only reduce all these limitations.In the coastal regions of Kenya, the principal dissemination of ACMV is between mid-May and mid-July, during the first rains. Later planting may have advantages, provided that the crop's establishment and later growth are not seriously affected. This is the case in forest regions of West where the spread is higher from March to July and less from August to November during the last part of the rainy season. Equivalent information from other regions is needed, because changes in the planting dates can be decided rapidly, without great inconvenience or excessive cost.In the Ivory Coast it has been shown that the incidence of ACMV expressed as a percentage of contaminated plants is higher for a low plant density than for a high one. This provides an argument persuade peasant farmers to plant their crops at a consistentlyhigh density. However, more evidence is needed regarding other regions, and regarding the implications of between cassava and other crops, a practice which is current in many regions of Africa.A characteristic of experiments carried out in the forest zones of the Ivory Coast is that the number of whiteflies and the incidence of the virus are higher in the peripheral ranges of plantations, notably those that are oriented perpendicular to the direction of the predominating southwest wind. This suggests that there are advantages in planting large compact blocks and in orientating the plots lengthwise rather than perpendicular to the direction of the prevailing wind, to lessen the proportion of plants situated in the most vulnerable outer zones. It would also perhaps be reasonable to abandon the outer rows of plots intended for the propagation of virus-free planting A medium-term solution would be to use windbreaks or to grow rows of another crop to serve as a barrier, intercept the vectors, and reduce the spread of the virus, but this possibility has scarcely been considered.Recent experiments carried out in the Ivory Coast have shown that adult whitetlies carried by the wind can propagate the disease over considerable distances, and these same experiments have emphasized the importance of older sources of contamination upwind. The young plants are at greatest risk when sources of contamination are upwind, but the probability of spread is slight when the sources of contamination are downwind and rather far away. It could turn out that the spread would be limited by consecutive plantings in an upwind, not downwind, direction, so as to lessen any possible interference between two plantings.Making good use of this information obviously depends on how the soil is used,on the cassava production, and on the property of the soil. It is more important in the zones where cassava is not grown much or when the plantations are very distant from one another, and in the unusual situations in which cassava of the same age is planted in largePast studies and observations make it possible to recommend easy-to-use techniques that can help to limit mosaic disease :-reducing nitrate fertilizer and sing potassium fertilizer, growing improved clones with a level of resistance at least compatiblewith a profitable level of production.Certainly these techniques are not easy for the African farmer to carry out. But well-managed provide major assistance in making them at least partly effective. These techniques arc nevertheless merely requiring vigilance because of the instability of resistance.Subsequently varietal selection must play a major role in holding the pressure of the disease down to an tolerable level. This point is important, because it seems that a minor attack -up to level 2 or 2.5 -has only a minor impact on the yield :consequently, a very moderate infection is perfectly tolerable.This results in complementary strategies as selection :1) a aiming at total immunity : This is surely not unrealistic, because of the probable potential that exists within the other species of the genus The range of more than 90 species is a vast field for exploration in this regard. can be considered for such use.In the selection process. to be carried out in a naturally infected setting, the only technique is to eliminate the susceptible clones in successive cycles. In connection with this. the problem arises of evaluation and of quantifying as validly and accurately as possible the incidences of mosaic disease. As a matter of fact, the level at which it begins to have effect is to define. both overall (for the whole of an ecology) and more precisely (for a given clone), -isvariable,elusive. and sometimeslocalized, for a single plant. Safe, effective screening methods are therefore necessary to get valid, coherent results.For the the main prospects arc of three kinds :-better understanding of the mechanisms of infection and of the of the environment (climate and soil) are the essential factors in any improvement of the of the selection processes. This must go together with detailed genetic studies (not easy because of the heterozygosity of the clones) which are also needed -thejudicious use of methods of varietal improvement based on the knowledge thus obtained will make possible, on the one hand, a rational choice of parent plants based on the genetically determined resistance. and. on the other hand, the choice of a method in accordance with how well it works with heterozygous material -the use of species other than Although this poses a technical problem, which can always be solved by appropriate methods, including tissue culture, this route offers certainIn the question of varietal improvement,  ","tokenCount":"6923"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c6ea151365244be063a39098d352d97a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/810ecca6-f20e-482c-b2e6-29699c59ab81/content","id":"-1349745655"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c3d95322-09d8-437e-9f8b-ebc8e9ce7400","pagecount":"2","content":"Nematodes of the genus Xiphinema are ectoparasites that feed on extensive range of hosts. Some species of this genus are economically important pests of agricultural plants and others are vectors of Nepovirus. In April 2018, during a survey, specimens of dagger nematode (Xiphinema spp.) were collected from soil around the rhizosphere of onion (Allium cepa L.) with poor growth appearance and low yield from Ouled Dahou, Souss-Massa region of Morocco (Fig. 1). Nematodes were extracted from soil using a modified Baermann technique (Hooper, 1990). On an average, nine nematodes per 100 cm 3 soil were obtained. The collected nematodes were subjected to morphological and molecular characterization. All specimens were identified as Xiphinema pachtaicum based on the alpha-numeric polytomous identification key codes developed by Lamberti et al. (2002). The females had a body forming a close C after fixation. Lip region was distinctly offset by constriction. Odontostyle was robust and odontophore had weak flanges. Morphometric measurements of Xiphinema pachtaicum are listed in Table 1. The morphometric data of described Moroccan specimens were perfectly fit within the two populations of Xiphinema pachtaicum recorded by Orlando et al. (2016) from Italy.To confirm the identity of X. pachtaicum, DNA was extracted from single females (n = 2) by using the protocol described by Holterman et al. (2006). Two primers were used: forward D2a (5′ ACAAGTACCGT-GAGGGAAAGTTG 3′) and reverse D3b (5′ TGCGAA-GGAACCAGCTACTA 3′) for the amplification of the D2D3 region of 28S rRNA (Nunn, 1992). The PCR products (represented by accession Nos. MK622911 and MK622912) were sequenced, aligned and compared with published sequences by means of BLAST search in the database. The comparison revealed 99 to 100% similarity, with sequence corresponding to X. pachtaicum and 97% or less sequence similarity with other Xiphinema spp. To our knowledge, this is the first report of X. pachtaicum parasitizing onion in Morocco.In 2018, during a survey in Souss region of Morocco, the dagger nematode Xiphinema pachtaicum was found parasitizing onion, (Allium cepa L.). The populations of dagger nematode were identified on the basis of their morphological and morphometric characters and by sequencing and analysing the D2D2 region of 28S rRNA. Microscopic observation of females demonstrated the occurrence of Xiphinema pachtaicum on onion. The 28S D2D3 sequences shared 99 to 100% similarity with sequence corresponding to X. pachtaicum in GenBank. To our knowledge this is the first report of Xiphinema pachtaichum infecting onion in Morocco.Morocco, Xiphinema pachtaicum, Detection, First report.  ","tokenCount":"401"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1a413dabac0cc45822e76543930259da","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/03e400a9-9239-42f1-875c-908e3cc2d8f6/retrieve","id":"-639394735"},"keywords":["India's investment in innovation for sustainable agricultural intensification","Colombo, Sri Lanka: Commission on Sustainable Agriculture Intensification","10p"],"sieverID":"ec05d744-1241-46af-8f6a-a3961529a49c","pagecount":"10","content":"India faces crucial challenges of food security and sustainability. The country needs to grow a significantly higher quantity and quality of food to provide adequate nourishment to a population that is expected to increase to 1.6 billion by 2050. Furthermore, its environmental factors are already severely stressed. For instance, India has only 4% of the world's freshwater resources but has 17% of the global population. Given the nature of agriculture in India which relies heavily on groundwater, the country is facing severe depletion in a large majority of its aquifers. A switch to more sustainable agriculture practices is critical for India, and greater investments in sustainable agriculture are critical.This case study provides an overview of investment patterns for agriculture as well as SAI innovation in India with analysis of both the key sources of funding and segments of the agriculture ecosystem receiving investment.The study estimates that India spends over USD 3 billion annually (~USD 25 billion for the period 2010-2018) on agricultural innovation, including investments by the government, development partners, and PE/VC firms. The SAI investment as part of innovation is estimated to be ~USD 120 million annually (less than 5% of overall innovation funding). The Indian government eclipses other funders in the country with ~USD 2.5 billion of innovation 1 investments annually. In the absence of data from the private sector 2 , the fast-growing PE/VC sector comes a close second with ~USD 600 million of annual innovation funding 3 . Almost all the SAI innovation investments come from public spending and amount to approximately USD 120 million annually.Spending on agricultural innovation. More than 50% of the USD 2.5 billion public innovation funding is driven by the central Ministry of Agriculture; the state governments make up ~25% of innovation funding. Almost all the public investment is directed to research institutes (50%) or government agencies (50%). Unsurprisingly, more than 70% of the innovation investment is directed to crops. Much of the ag-tech investments by institutional investors (~USD 600 million annually) have been used to enhance market linkages through agri-marketplaces. Lastly, OECD bilateral/multilateral funders contribute about USD 60 million annually in innovation funding 4 -mainly towards adoption rather than core R&D.Spending on SAI innovation. The Indian government is estimated to be the biggest funder of SAI innovation (~USD 120 million annually), though the project-level descriptions of intentions are limited in detail. Most of this SAI investment goes into the production systems layer, specifically on inputs with research into fertilizers (e.g., judicious use and organic manure), standing out. Investments in water and soil management follow next, led by the Integrated Watershed Management Program in India. Other sources contribute little: PE/VC investors often lack environmental and human dimension in their intentions, and even though a larger proportion of multilateral funding is tagged as SAI, it is significantly smaller in absolute numbers.The Indian government is the largest funder of agricultural innovation 5 in India by a wide margin and spends ~USD 25 billion annually on agriculture (USD 240 billion cumulative for the decade), of which about 10% (~USD 2.5 billion annually) is estimated to be towards innovation. More than 50% of the public funding on innovation is driven by the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers' Welfare, focusing on farmer financing, irrigation schemes, agricultural inputs, and research. While agriculture is a state subject in India, the state governments make up only ~25% of total agricultural innovation spending (2019). However, state expenditure has more than doubled from 2016 to 2019 leading to a rise in a stagnating trajectory of investments from 2010 to 2016.Institutional investors (mainly PE/VC) are likely the next biggest funder 6 group contributing ~USD 600 million annually (~USD 5000 million cumulative for the decade) to innovation. More than 60% of innovation investments are focused on enhancing market linkages through agri-marketplaces, focusing on inputs such as seeds and fertilizers, as well as access to end consumers. It is worth noting that the number of startups in the space is growing significantly; there existed over 500 VC-funded agtech start-ups in 2019. This growth is mostly led by global investors like Tiger Global Management, Accel, Blackstone, and Syngenta Ventures, to name a few.   In India, most of the public innovation funding, and consequently overall innovation funding, goes towards research institutes and government agencies. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), an autonomous body responsible for coordinating agricultural research in India, is the largest recipient of research funding. Similarly, among government agencies, the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (WDC-PMKSY) stands out, aiming to ensure improvement in productivity and livelihood. Agricultural startups are the next biggest category of innovation-funding recipients, representing ~25% of the total funding. In 2019, most of the start-up funding was directed towards tech-enabled supply chains to create market linkages to procure farming inputs (e.g., Agrostar, DeHaat) and to sell final produce (e.g., Bijak, Crofarm) 7 Lastly, NGOs/NPOs receive a very small share of the funding.    8 Based on intentions around the dimensions of sustainability. According to a strict definition, investments with intentions of productivity and environment, along with one of social or human condition are tagged as SAI. In the narrow definition, investments with intentions or either productivity or environmental are tagged as SAI. Please refer to the methodology document for details of calculation. 9 Estimated through manual tagging of individual projects based on stated intentions in project titles and descriptions. It is important to note that often government descriptions are not detailed and lack granularity.An analysis of the investment intentions reveals that across both the public and institutional investments, economic and productivity stand out, but descriptions of intentions of environmental sustainability and the human condition are weaker. As a result, fewer investments get tagged as SAI 10 , compared to other sources such as bilaterals where the intention descriptions across domains are stronger. While there is substantial spending on agriculture in India, the per capita spending on agricultural innovation is less than USD 2 per person per year, even though in absolute terms, it is very significant (USD 3 billion annually). A recent report by OECD 11 , estimates this number to be less than USD 1 per person per year. And the funding for sustainable agricultural innovation seems to be no more than 10 cents per capita per year. Only 8% of the public innovation spending in agriculture seems to be, overtly, focused on environmentally sustainable agriculture. Keeping in mind the environmental challenges of growing more food in India, a business-as-usual approach will not suffice, and substantially more innovation investments are needed in SAI. A coordinated approach to investing for sustainable agriculture that defines clear metrics, encourages collaboration between different categories of funders is likely to prove very useful going forward.The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture Intensification (CoSAI) brings together 21 Commissioners to influence public and private support to innovation in order to rapidly scale up sustainable agricultural intensification (SAI) in the Global South.For CoSAI, innovation means the development and uptake of new ways of doing things -in policy, social institutions and finance, as well as in science and technology.Contact us: wle-cosaisecretariat@cgiar.org wle.cgiar.org/cosai","tokenCount":"1170"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"195c7cc8ed251a0c42ee9fc6b370a53f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9517cdf8-d354-4c7d-be2e-41b3d84c34c7/retrieve","id":"2000440076"},"keywords":["value chain","market opportunities","innovation","smallholders","rural livelihoods","agrobiodiversity"],"sieverID":"0a7fab4a-920b-4d54-8b42-362ced960583","pagecount":"12","content":"Palabras clave adicionales: cadena de valor, oportunidades de mercado, innovación, pequeños agricultores, medios de vida rurales, agrobiodiversidadOlvidadas anteriormente por los consumidores urbanos, las papas nativas andinas son hoy ingredientes esenciales para algunas de las gastronomías más sofisticadas del mundo. Desde chips de colores hasta vegetales \"delicatessen\" e incluso licores, nuevos productos se están abriendo camino en nichos de mercado de altos ingresos. Al mismo tiempo, las papas nativas continúan cumpliendo su función básica de brindar seguridad alimentaria a muchos hogares rurales de los Andes, los cuales fueron los responsables de su domesticación. Hoy en día, estas familias continúan sembrando papas nativas en diversas mezclas varietales que podrían contribuir a una adaptación a largo plazo al cambio climático.El Centro Internacional de la Papa (CIP) encontró una oportunidad para reposicionar la papa nativa como un cultivo comercial con valor agregado al expandir su uso para procesamiento y alentar su venta para satisfacer las preferencias de los consumidores de mercados emergentes en ciudades pequeñas y grandes, así como de mercados de exportación.En este artículo, examinamos cómo las papas, en particular las papas nativas, pueden mejorar los medios de vida de los agricultores pobres en Perú, destacando el papel de la biodiversidad como un recurso para vincular a los productores andinos con los mercados. Ofrecemos ejemplos de la aplicación de un enfoque para fomentar la innovación en favor de los productores en las cadenas de valor, el Enfoque Participativo de Cadenas Productivas (EPCP), que originalmente se desarrolló para aumentar la competitividad de los pequeños productores de papa aprovechando la diversidad de las papas nativas. Estas variedades de papa nativa se han comercializado con éxito entre consumidores que las vinculan con la herencia cultural del Perú y que desean apoyar la agricultura tradicional a pequeña escala que usa pocos insumos externos.En Perú, la producción y el consumo de papa han crecido significativamente, alcanzando en el 2017, los 83 kg per cápita consumidos anualmente frente al consumo promedio per cápita en América Latina de 25 kg (FAO, 2020). El renacimiento de la producción de papa y del área sembrada en Perú durante los últimos 20 años ha significado un desarrollo notable en la región, atribuible a políticas públicas y privadas, inversiones en infraestructura rural, expansión del comercio en supermercados, y una fuerte relación con el sector gastronómico para la promoción de alimentos y productos andinos.Los avances en la reducción de la pobreza en América Latina en las últimas décadas han pasado por alto, en gran medida, las áreas remotas y montañosas de los Andes, donde las familias viven con activos limitados en términos de tierra, capital y acceso al mercado. Se cultivan más de 4,000 variedades de papa en esta parte del mundo, las cuáles se siembran desde hace 7,000 a 10,000 años. Los agricultores andinos de Bolivia, Ecuador y Perú cultivan papas nativas adaptadas a grandes alturas, consumiéndolas y vendiéndolas para satisfacer las necesidades del hogar. La biodiversidad y el capital social de la papa creados entre sus productores representan recursos únicos que compensan parcialmente los otros activos limitados de los pequeños productores.Promover la acción colectiva entre los agricultores y fortalecer la interacción con los agentes del mercado y los proveedores de servicios agrícolas puede transformar a las papas nativas en una fuente de ventaja competitiva (Meinzen-Dick, Devaux, y Antezana, 2009).Los términos \"papas nativas\" y \"variedades nativas\" se utilizan para designar tipos o variedades locales de papas que han sido desarrolladas mediante la domesticación y selección de genotipos locales muy diversos y valorados por los agricultores andinos. Las variedades nativas se diferencian de las \"variedades mejoradas\", siendo estas últimas el producto de programas formales de mejoramiento de papa que buscan deliberadamente estándares y rasgos particulares, como amplia adaptación, alto rendimiento y resistencia a plagas o enfermedades. Los tubérculos de las variedades nativas son visualmente atractivos y vienen en todas las formas, colores y tamaños. Constituyen una fuente relativamente buena de vitamina C, antioxidantes, hierro y zinc, que ofrece un nuevo mundo de posibilidades para luchar contra la pobreza y la desnutrición asegurando al mismo tiempo el suministro de alimentos en los Andes (de Haan et al., 2019). La conservación de papas nativas in situ (en los campos de los agricultores) y ex situ (en bancos de germoplasma) cuenta con el apoyo de instituciones de investigación y desarrollo como el CIP. Debido a que las papas nativas crecen mejor en mayores altitudes (por encima de los 3,300 metros sobre el nivel del mar), donde predominan los pequeños agricultores, el CIP decidió enfocarse en ellos a través de una iniciativa regional, Papa Andina, para apoyar el desarrollo basado en las innovaciones del mercado (Horton et al., 2020). El foco en las papas nativas constituyó un \"filtro de pobreza\" para dar una ventaja competitiva a los agricultores andinos pobres que las cultivan (Thiele y Devaux, 2011). El enfoque aplicado reunió a organizaciones de investigación y socios de la cadena de valor con el objetivo de intervenir en una serie de innovaciones tecnológicas e institucionales complementarias.Hasta principios de la década del 2000, la mayoría de los grandes agricultores de Perú cultivaban un puñado de variedades mejoradas de papa para venderlas en los mercados urbanos, mientras que los pequeños agricultores cultivaban numerosas variedades nativas para el consumo doméstico, vendiendo una pequeña parte en los mercados locales cercanos. Los altos costos de transacción para los pequeños agricultores, la mala conexión con los mercados, el acceso limitado a la información y la baja capacidad de negociación, limitaban su acceso a mercados más grandes y dinámicos en las principales ciudades, los que podrían ser más rentables (Escobal y Cavero, 2012). Las escasas variedades de papas nativas disponibles en las grandes ciudades eran consumidas, principalmente, por familias que habían migrado de las áreas rurales a las urbanas.Desde una perspectiva comercial, el mercado peruano de papa está segmentado en tres sectores principales: papas blancas mejoradas o papas comerciales, papas nativas amarillas y papas nativas de colores (Figura 1). Las papas blancas son cultivadas principalmente como fuente de ingreso principal de los agricultores más grandes quienes tienen una ventaja comparativa debido a la escala de producción y el acceso a los mercados y a la información. Vinculado a las preferencias de los consumidores urbanos, la papa nativa amarilla está bien posicionada en el mercado nacional y puede describirse como semi comercial. También, tienen potencial de exportación a peruanos residentes en el exterior, principalmente en Estados Unidos. Por último, las papas nativas de colores representan el nivel más alto de biodiversidad, pero hasta hace poco eran un recurso con potencial, sin explotar, para ser promocionados en los supermercados locales como un producto gourmet ligado a características visuales, nutricionales y culturales específicas. La creciente preocupación por la calidad e inocuidad de los alimentos también ha estimulado la demanda de alimentos cultivados localmente, incluidas las papas nativas altoandinas (Ordinola et al., 2011;Shimizu y Scott, 2014).Abordar las limitaciones de comercialización de los pequeños agricultores fue un punto de entrada importante para la iniciativa Papa Andina del CIP. Las políticas macroeconómicas y las del sector agropecuario, que se iniciaron en la década de 1990 en Perú, habían creado un contexto favorable para este tipo de enfoque. Complementadas con un creciente reconocimiento internacional de la cocina peruana y una nueva imagen de la papa como fuente de orgullo nacional, estas políticas constituyeron factores que estimularon la demanda interna. Satisfacer esta demanda de papas nativas significó mejorar la presentación y la calidad del producto, así como garantizar un suministro regular y de calidad a los consumidores durante todo el año.El EPCP es un enfoque de innovación flexible que involucra a pequeños agricultores, agentes del mercado, investigadores y otros proveedores de servicios, en un proceso estructurado para identificar y aprovechar oportunidades comerciales potenciales que beneficien a los agricultores, así como a otros actores que participan en la cadena de valor (Bernet, Thiele y Zschocke, 2006). Implica una secuencia de actividades que se implementan normalmente en un periodo durante 12 a 18 meses. Inicialmente, los profesionales de la investigación y el desarrollo (I&D) juegan un papel clave en la facilitación del proceso. Más tarde, a medida que los actores de la cadena de valor construyen confianza entre ellos, acuerdan objetivos comunes y se involucran más activamente, los profesionales de I&D se alejan del papel de liderazgo y sólo asesoran el proceso y la aplicación de los métodos.El EPCP tiene tres fases distintas. Durante la fase 1, los profesionales de I&D conceptualizan e identifican la cadena de valor a través de un diagnóstico de la cadena y mapean los actores clave, sus intereses y desafíos. La fase 2 tiene como objetivo generar y evaluar alternativas para mejorar la comercialización de productos específicos seleccionados (en este caso, papas nativas). Esta fase implica el trabajo en grupo de los actores de la cadena de valor y los proveedores de servicios con el apoyo de profesionales de I&D. En la fase 3, comienza el trabajo de desarrollo de innovaciones comerciales prometedoras. Los éxitos tempranos pueden alentar a las personas y a los grupos a seguir interactuando e innovando en el futuro. Como resultado, esta interacción puede generar otros tipos de innovaciones, como ajustes tecnológicos para los agricultores, desarrollo de nuevos productos y cambios novedosos para crear un entorno institucional propicio.Del 2001 al 2010, la iniciativa regional Papa Andina tuvo como objetivo mejorar la competitividad del sector de la papa en Perú, trabajando con más de 20 organizaciones públicas, privadas y no gubernamentales para estimular la producción y comercialización de papa (Devaux, Ordinola y Horton, 2011; Ordinola et al., 2011). La implementación del EPCP, liderada por el CIP, identificó innovaciones comerciales trabajando con supermercados, empresas procesadoras, escuelas culinarias y medios de comunicación para elevar el perfil y los usos de nuevos productos en base a papas nativas para mercados de alto valor a nivel nacional y para potenciales nichos de mercado en el exterior.Este trabajo desencadenó procesos de innovación que beneficiaron a las familias campesinas participantes y al sector de la papa en su conjunto en el Perú y países vecinos, mejorando el acceso al mercado para los pequeños agricultores y generando el reconocimiento de su papel en la conservación de la diversidad de la papa nativa. El EPCP también brindó a un grupo diverso de sectores interesados en la cadena de valor de la papa nativa su primera oportunidad de explorar opciones y desarrollar innovaciones que podrían beneficiar mutuamente a los agricultores, procesadores, chefs y comercializadores en diferentes etapas del mercado.Durante la implementación del EPCP, el CIP trabajó con varios proveedores de servicios agrícolas locales para satisfacer las necesidades técnicas de los agricultores y procesadores para capitalizar las nuevas oportunidades del mercado. En Perú, el CIP y el Programa Nacional de Papa (a través del Instituto Nacional de Innovación Agraria, INIA) identificaron y seleccionaron 61 variedades nativas de papa aptas para procesamiento, incluyéndolas en el registro oficial de variedades administrado por el Servicio Nacional de Sanidad Agraria (SENASA). Este registro permitió la difusión de estas papas nativas como variedades comerciales. También se desarrollaron medidas y sistemas de control de plagas y enfermedades más eficaces para mejorar la calidad de las semillas de papa nativa. Los pequeños agricultores podían entonces cultivar papas nativas de manera más eficiente y acceder a semillas de calidad. Se creó un grupo de trabajo multisectorial para establecer el \"Día Nacional de la Papa\", que se celebra anualmente el 30 de mayo, desde el 2005.Se lanzaron al mercado dos nuevos productos: Tikapapa, la primera marca peruana de papas nativas gourmet de alta calidad, con envasado en fresco, y Jalca Chips, la primera marca de chips de papas nativas de colores. El éxito de estos productos estimuló a otros empresarios a desarrollar nuevos productos adicionales y, con el tiempo, la innovación se ha convertido en una característica destacada de las cadenas de valor de las papas nativas.Se desarrollaron varios productos nuevos de papa fresca y procesada, incluyendo papas nativas de alta calidad y liofilizadas tradicionalmente empaquetadas, y un \"puré de papa andino\" instantáneo. El interés de los actores del mercado a gran escala llevó a la creación de una variedad de nuevos productos a base de papa y diferentes marcas de chips de papas nativas de calidad superior, que van desde productos de multinacionales como Frito Lay y el Grupo Gloria con sede en Perú hasta los producidos por pequeñas empresas locales en respuesta a las diversas demandas de los mercados. El CIP continuó apoyando el desarrollo del sector de la papa en Perú y los procesos de innovación, trabajando con los formuladores de políticas, participando en la toma de mayor conciencia pública y en la incidencia política, y desarrollando la capacidad de las organizaciones locales.El éxito inicial atrajo el interés de otras organizaciones por promover el uso de la papa nativa como producto gourmet para los mercados de exportación. AGROPIA, una organización de agricultores en la región de Huancavelica, con el apoyo de Agrónomos y Veterinarios Sin Fronteras (AVSF) y la organización no gubernamental Centro de Desarrollo Integral de Comunidades (CEDINCO), apoyó la producción y venta de chips de papas azules y rojas, que fueron introducidos en los mercados europeos orgánicos y de comercio justo, bajo la marca Ethiquable (www.ethiquable.coop). Después de obtener la certificación de Comercio Justo en el 2012, AGROPIA también obtuvo una certificación de agricultura orgánica para ingresar en los mercados internacionales y nacionales en sectores de alta calidad. Con el apoyo del municipio local de Huancavelica, esta iniciativa permitió revitalizar la producción de papa nativa en este territorio altoandino como estrategia para combatir la pobreza. Hoy, los 150 miembros de las familias de AGROPIA están obteniendo mayores ingresos gracias a los altos precios que ofrecen los mercados de exportación de comercio justo y los nichos de mercado nacionales de alto valor.Como otra innovación en el sector privado, la empresa Inka Crops (www.inkacrops.com) exporta productos procesados de papa nativa y coordina con aproximadamente 25 asociaciones de agricultores en las regiones de Junín y Huancavelica en la sierra del Perú. Sus mercados de destino son Estados Unidos y Europa bajo la marca Peruvian Potato Chips, e Inka Crops es actualmente el principal exportador de papas nativas (Agraria.pe, 2020). En estos contextos, el EPCP \"desencadenó\" un proceso de innovación mediante el cual la segunda y tercera generación de innovaciones, que surgieron después del ejercicio del EPCP, continuaron evolucionando y, a menudo, fueron más importantes que las desarrolladas durante la aplicación inicial del enfoque EPCP (Figura 2).El conjunto de intervenciones complementarias y nuevas aumentó significativamente la oferta y la demanda de papas nativas en Perú, abrió mercados de exportación para nuevos productos y generó beneficios para los pequeños productores, procesadores y otros actores a lo largo de la cadena de valor. En 2010, los agricultores que cultivaban variedades nativas vendían el 28% de su cosecha en comparación con el 60% de los que cultivan variedades mejoradas. Sin embargo, esto representó un aumento del 40% en las ventas de papas nativas desde el 2000, en comparación con un aumento del 5% para las variedades mejoradas durante el mismo período. Dado que los precios en chacra también habían aumentado, especialmente para las papas nativas, el valor total de la producción de papas aumentó durante el período. Entre el 2000 y el 2011, el valor de las ventas de variedades de papa mejoradas y nativas aumentó en un 67% y 159%, respectivamente. Se estima que 70,000 agricultores están vendiendo papas nativas (Horton y Samanamud, 2013). Recientemente, el Banco Mundial estimó que el valor de las exportaciones totales de papa nativa en Perú (snacks, congeladas, deshidratadas y frescas) aumentó de USD 821,000 en el 2010 a USD 2.5 millones en el 2015, siguiendo la tendencia de aumento del comercio entre la región andina y los mercados de exportación. Casi el 70% de este valor provino de la categoría de snacks, que incluiría chips de papas tradicionales y papas nativas, entre otros productos (Banco Mundial, 2017;Málaga, Ávila-Santamaría y Carpio, 2019).La experiencia en Perú fue replicada por los sectores público y privado en Ecuador. El CIP, la empresa privada INALPROCES, el Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIAP) y la organización de agricultores CONPAPA colaboraron para desarrollar oportunidades de mercado basado en variedades de papa nativa\" (Devaux et al., 2020). Conjuntamente, comenzaron a identificar papas nativas adecuadas para procesamiento que podían Figura 2. Influencia del EPCP en el proceso de innovación de nuevos productos de papa nativa en Perú. Fuente: Horton et al. (2020). ser producidas y suministradas por CONPAPA. Para la producción de chips de papa de calidad se seleccionaron dos variedades de colores obtenidas por el INIAP: INIAP-Puca Shungo (Corazón Rojo) e INIAP-Yana Shungo (Corazón Negro). La principal característica de estos chips fue una intensa coloración rojiza o violácea en su pulpa, lo que indica la riqueza de antioxidantes que los diferencia de los chips obtenidos a partir de variedades mejoradas más conocidas. Bajo la marca Kiwa, los chips de papas nativas de color estuvieron disponibles para la venta en el 2011 en más de 30 países de Europa, América del Norte y Medio Oriente (Acosta, 2018). Esta innovación comercial también catalizó una serie de innovaciones tecnológicas, incluida la producción de semillas de alta calidad y servicios de capacitación para agricultores. Por su emprendimiento en los chips de papas nativas, el modelo de negocio promovido por INALPROCES ha ganado varios premios, entre ellos el premio \"Taste 11 Award\" de Anuga Food Fair en el 2011 por ser una innovación de punta.Una lección importante que se puede extraer de la iniciativa Papa Andina del CIP es que aumentando la competitividad de las cadenas de valor de papa utilizando la diversidad genética se contribuye a las estrategias para desarrollar los medios de vida de los agricultores andinos.La promoción y el uso de la biodiversidad, como filtro de pobreza para construir una ventaja competitiva para los pequeños productores y ayudarlos a vincularse con los mercados, logró las metas de revalorización y cambio cultural sobre la biodiversidad de la papa. La reconocida experiencia con la papa nativa en los Andes fue compartida por el CIP y desencadenó procesos similares en otras regiones y con otros cultivos, en paralelo con una mayor conciencia y demanda de alimentos funcionales, a nivel mundial. Las papas nativas de colores y sus chips, por ejemplo, ahora se ven en mercados tan lejanos como Estados Unidos, Canadá y Europa.El EPCP contribuyó a la revalorización y uso de papas nativas. En consecuencia, los consumidores urbanos ahora identifican a las papas nativas como parte de la identidad cultural peruana y una fuente de orgullo nacional para Perú y otros países andinos. La disposición a pagar por productos que ayudan a preservar la biodiversidad ha aumentado significativamente y representa un incentivo para que los agricultores continúen cultivando papas nativas. Por otro lado, las oportunidades de mercado para las papas nativas deben seguir identificándose, pero tomando en cuenta que por sí solas no son suficientes para conservar la agrobiodiversidad. Por lo tanto, además del desarrollo de la cadena de valor, se debe implementar, simultáneamente, un conjunto completo de intervenciones de conservación. Algunos ejemplos incluyen ferias de semillas, bancos de semillas locales y pagos por esquemas de conservación de la agrobiodiversidad (Tobin et al., 2018).El mercado para las variedades de papa nativa y los productos procesados ha crecido de manera impresionante y las innovaciones continúan desarrollándose en esta área. Esto es especialmente visible en el sector gastronómico de Lima y otras ciudades importantes de la región andina, así como en nichos de otros países que han sido explotados por empresas privadas. Las ventas de papas nativas en diferentes formas han aumentado y ahora son vistas como \"delicatessen\" por los consumidores de mayor poder adquisitivo. Sin embargo, la producción de papas nativas por pequeños agricultores aún enfrenta limitaciones tanto tecnológicas como institucionales para responder al desarrollo del mercado y se continúan desaprovechando oportunidades. La productividad y la calidad del procesamiento pueden verse afectadas por las duras condiciones de cultivo, y la estacionalidad marcada limita un suministro constante.La crisis actual debido a la pandemia por COVID-19 ha creado desafíos adicionales. El sector de la gastronomía, uno de los principales impulsores del desarrollo de la cadena de valor de la papa nativa, ha sido el más afectado y aún se desconoce cuándo y cómo se recuperará completamente. Durante el 2020, las cadenas de valor se interrumpieron y las comunidades rurales aplicaron bloqueos estrictos para evitar la propagación de la COVID-19 en sus áreas. El transporte de productos desde la región andina a ciudades más grandes y áreas metropolitanas fue restringido y el acceso a los mercados se volvió una preocupación importante. Sin embargo, los efectos de la COVID-19 no implica que el desarrollo del sector de las papas nativas vuelva al punto de partida, ya que se mantendrán muchas de las innovaciones institucionales que las acompañan y las preferencias de los consumidores por estos productos. Muchas empresas exportadoras y supermercados han respetado los contratos y continúan comprando variedades nativas. Una vez que se aclare la \"nueva normalidad\", los agricultores rurales andinos necesitarán inversión y apoyo adicionales para superar cuellos de botella similares a los que enfrentaron antes, y para recuperar los ingresos que han estado perdiendo.Aún no se conoce con certeza la contribución real del desarrollo de las cadenas de valor de la papa nativa a la reducción de la pobreza en los Andes. Sin embargo, el acceso mejorado al mercado y los precios de las papas nativas más altos han permitido a muchos agricultores mejorar sus medios vida, un legado importante de estas increíbles papas que forman parte de la herencia andina.Este artículo es una traducción literal de un artículo publicado en ingles en la revista Choices: Link La publicación de este artículo recibió el apoyo financiero del Centro de Investigaciones Internacionales de Canadá (IDRC, por sus siglas en inglés) a través del Programa de Investigación del CGIAR (CRP) sobre Raíces, Tubérculos y Bananas (RTB) liderado por el CIP y apoyado por contribuyentes del Fondo Fiduciario del CGIAR (Link).La Agencia Suiza para el Desarrollo y la Cooperación (COSUDE) fue una de las fuentes principales de financiamiento del trabajo descrito en el artículo.Valcárcel por el apoyo en la traducción y la edición sugerida de este artículo. También agradecemos los comentarios y sugerencias recibidos de dos revisores anónimos.Enhance Competitiveness (English).\" Washington, DC: World Bank Group. Available online: Link","tokenCount":"3698"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"15b4169bbb4c976705936bf4d2255bbe","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/eea44380-edea-4776-a247-07a47a0967df/retrieve","id":"2002785298"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"da7db7f7-1f9e-49c1-a38f-5e08ffc68848","pagecount":"3","content":"Two Farmer Producer Companies (FPC) in Odisha, India aim to further sustain their increased yields and bridge productivity gaps by facilitating and activating women's entrepreneurship in paddy seed production. This blog is a part of IRRI's 2024 International Women's Day campaign.The FPC allowed these women to break into a domain traditionally dominated by men and largeholder farmers -enabling them to engage in a capital-intensive business line previously considered beyond their reach. However, it was not all easy. Both in Kalahandi and Loisingha, women faced multifold challenges, including being members of marginalized castes and tribes. While land ownership continues to be a challenge, possession of a Farmer ID has proven instrumental in mitigating these challenges as these provide official recognition. This enables women to access resources, government schemes, and support programs. They have overcome some challenges and pool resources for ventures previously considered beyond their reach.Before their affiliation with the FPC, the women farmers procured seeds from various outlets, ranging from government agencies to local shops and some relied entirely on the seeds saved from the previous harvest. Champa, a woman farmer, encapsulates the collective sentiment stating, \"The seeds we used previously didn't perform well. Joining the FPC changed everything. Now, we can access quality seeds with significantly improved yields.\" This encouraged them to shift to seed production where returns are higher. \" Financial gains allowed us to explore poultry farming, invest in our children's education, and contribute more to our households,\" shared Rani, a woman from Loisingha, highlighting the multifaceted impact beyond income.The journey of these seed producers is marked by tangible outcomes. \"Being part of the FPC empowered me financially; I am now able to support my family and invest in my children's education,\" shared Priya, a member of the FPC. Echoing a sentiment prevalent among these women. Kavita, another active participant, remarked, \"Through the FPC, I learned new farming techniques and gained valuable skills in seed production, enabling me to improve crop yield and quality.\"Beyond individual growth, their engagement in FPCs has catalyzed community leadership, providing a platform for women to become influential voices in the community. Sunita, a dedicated member, expressed, \"The FPC provided me with opportunities to become a leader in my community. I now have a voice and actively contribute to decision-making processes.\" These narratives of financial empowerment, skill enhancement, and leadership highlight the multifaceted impact of FPCs on women in seed production, underlining the transformative power of their involvement in these organizations.What can be learned from the FPC promotion efforts in India??Strategies for advancing women's inclusion in FPCs should go beyond a mere focus on women's numerical participation and center on holistically engaging women through inclusive, sustainable, and empowering approaches.• Tailored and comprehensive skill development is key An effective strategy involves prioritizing tailored education and skill development programs specifically crafted for women. By sharing practical knowledge on seed production techniques, crop management, and business skills, these initiatives can significantly bolster the capabilities of women farmers, enabling them to confidently engage in various aspects of agricultural ventures.The Women Entrepreneurship Program (WEP), often likened to a mini MBA program implemented by ALF, has played a crucial role in empowering women in their agricultural business endeavors.• Nurturing women's leadership Promoting women's involvement in leadership capacities within FPCs, households, and communities is crucial to leveraging their contribution to agricultural decision-making. This necessitates a variety of multidimensional approaches that are informed by cultural and contextual specificities to engage women in leadership positions in various ways. Implementing structures such as advisory committees or task forces at the FPC and community levels offers avenues for women to contribute their expertise and insights. Other similar interventions can be designed to facilitate women's assumption of leadership positions without the need to ascribe formal leadership titles to them. Moreover, crafting specialized roles aligned with individual skills-like marketing, quality control, community outreach, or knowledge-sharing-can effectively engage women in specific areas in which they conventionally do not participate. This fosters their active participation and impact and sows the seeds for social change.• Policies and schemes that can ease women's access to resources Ensuring access to resources like land, finance, and technology is critical. Land ownership restrictions have persistently hindered women's participation in seed production. Addressing this challenge through policies that grant women equitable access to land and credit can notably enhance their involvement in seed production initiatives and within FPCs.The Loisingha and the Adarsh FPCs are a testament to the empowering potential of the seed systems for women producers and the learning from this experience has immense potential to inform future efforts for engaging women in enterprises such as paddy seed production, by drawing on the power of collective action and enabling partnerships.","tokenCount":"777"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"fb073bf81a418023ad08745a7381115b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a2b0d4df-91d0-4b1c-853d-baefc101cd96/retrieve","id":"-777890701"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f3010f91-abcf-4c78-89e7-ceb8f54a96d0","pagecount":"20","content":"Berhanu Belay is a Consultant at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA).Relevance and quality of education are ensured by updating the curriculum with contemporary data and experiences. Universities and staff teaching courses must update the curriculum to make our curriculum need-based and meet the current changes and experiences. Including local data in our teaching and learning documents is an equally important issue. Including local data arouses students' interest and motivation to learn and ensure the relevance of education. A researcher may have data and articles from the research endeavors, and using the same data for teaching and learning eases the understanding of the chapter or the topic in the face of the students. The experience shall also help the teacher make the topic more relevant because the data is generated from the researcher's experience. The case studies could also be picked from the local research outputs, which could ultimately make part of the teaching resources to ensure the relevance of the teaching and learning efforts. ","tokenCount":"170"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"faf4af8d815896fa977b852496522942","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/065b6640-a7b6-4dd0-a43e-66306cc18fde/retrieve","id":"-369684036"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"32f7a25d-960d-49b5-8115-cc332464065e","pagecount":"79","content":"Tables Table 1: Indicators for classification of traditional livestock production systems in Odisha, by production zone  Odisha is a coastal state situated in the eastern part of India. The state ranks 8 th in terms of land surface area and 11 th in terms of population -accommodating 3.5% of the country's total. About 33% of the Odisha population lives below the poverty line, earning less than USD 2 per day (NITI Ayog 2019). Four-fifths of the population lived in rural areas as of the latest census (Government of India 2011) and the primary occupation of about 63% of the rural workforce is in agriculture, including livestock (Government of Odisha 2021). Odisha is prone to natural calamities such as cyclones, floods and droughts.Odisha's economy has been growing since 2010, driven mostly by the service and industry sectors. The agriculture and allied sectors contributed about 21% of the gross state domestic product (GSDP) of Odisha in 2020-21, and of this, livestock production is an important component (Government of Odisha 2021). The share of livestock farming in agricultural GSDP has been increasing faster than that for crops in the past decade, due to rising demand for livestock products resulting from growth in income, population and urbanization. However, the contribution of livestock production to total and agricultural gross domestic product has been lower in Odisha than in India as a whole: the value of livestock farming in Odisha contributes 3% to GSDP and 23% to agriculture GSDP compared to 4.5% to National GDP and , and 25.5% to national agriculture GDP (Government of Odisha 2020a).Besides contributing to agricultural GSDP, livestock production can have an important role in reducing poverty. Many of the rural and urban poor keep livestock and use them in various ways beyond income generation (Randolph et al. 2007). Multiple development frameworks therefore view livestock as capital assets that can be reproduced to generate wealth (Carlson-Bremer et al. 2018).The Odisha livestock policy (Government of Orissa 2002) identified livestock as a poverty reduction instrumentmore than 80% of rural households own livestock, and this generates up to 30% of their income. Although crop production is the principal activity, livestock is an important source of secondary income for many small-scale and marginal farmers in Odisha who may own only a few animals. Livestock products such as milk, meat and eggs also provide important macronutrients (proteins and fats) and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) to farm households.To facilitate increases in public and private investment and budget allocations for livestock development, the Fisheries and Animal Resources Development Department in the Government of Odisha, through Samagra Governance 1 , requested that the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) provide technical assistance for the development of an Odisha livestock master plan (OLMP) supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This initiative aims to increase appropriate investments in the livestock sector, and improve livestock contributions to achieving state development goals. The main objectives of the OLMP are to:• build robust state capacity to undertake a livestock sector analysis and develop a livestock sector strategy (LSS) that will facilitate investment planning and support implementation of livestock policy and investment options.• conduct an evidence-based livestock sector analysis that facilitates the development of alternative scenarios to be considered in the foresight analysis of the LSS and investment road maps.• develop a long-term (15-year) livestock sector strategy based on foresight analysis.• develop an investment action plan with commodity value chain 'road maps' that can also support efforts to promote livestock development and related advocacy.The OLMP process comprises three stages:1. a livestock sector analysis that describes current characteristics and contributions of livestock production and likely future growth over the next 15 years without additional livestock sector investment.2. development of a livestock sector strategy that analyses the impacts, benefits, costs, and trade-offs associated with additional investments or policy initiatives, in order to identify priority actions to promote livestock development at the state level.3. delineation of a five-year livestock master plan comprising an investment plan with commodity-specific road maps that indicate the required actions by value chain stakeholders and relevant timelines.This document provides the Odisha livestock sector analysis, a diagnostic assessment for a business-as-usual scenario that establishes a baseline for comparing investment alternatives assessed in the LSS (Bahta et al, 2022b). The LSS provides quantitative and evidence-based justification for public and private investments in the Odisha livestock sector's recommended and prioritized commodity value chains. As part of the analysis, the Odisha livestock sector experts identified development objectives with measurable indicators, and the Fisheries and Animal Resources Development Department concurred with these objectives. These development objectives are impacts or contributions anticipated to result from the investment and policy interventions recommended in the LSS and the investment plans (road maps). The objectives comprise:• poverty reduction: improvement in household incomes that move some households above the poverty line.• economic growth: increased contribution of the livestock sector to agricultural GSDP and GSDP.• food and nutrition security of rural people, especially women and children: increased availability of, and access to, animal-source foods for women and children with food access below recommend levels.• export potential: increased value of livestock products provided to the rest of India and neighbouring countries.• social equity: reduced inequality in household and post-production incomes; greater empowerment of women; employment and investment opportunities for women, youth and specific minority ethnic groups.The baseline analysis was developed with data inputs from experts, and secondary sources integrated using quantitative tools from the livestock sector investment and policy toolkit (LSIPT) 2 . A core component of the LSIPT is a herd and economic sector model that was used to evaluate the trajectory for livestock production, and its monetary value over the next 15 years based on the sector's current technical and economic performance but without additional investments in technologies or changes to policies. This analysis was undertaken for each priority livestock value chain. To complement this, separate analyses identified specific livestock production systems which have the potential for greater positive impacts on gender outcomes. Analysis of gender issues included a review of published and grey literature, government surveys, stakeholder meetings and virtual key informant interviews. This provided an initial assessment of the potential and differential impacts of proposed technology or policy interventions on men and women.This document describes the livestock sector analysis and is organized as follows: Section 2 describes livestock systems and production zones, and documents the population, production and contribution of the sector. Section 3 describes livestock-related institutions, programs and policies, noting constraints and opportunities. Section 4 summarizes livestock production constraints and factors facilitating growth opportunities. Section 5 provides projections for production and consumption of priority livestock products through to 2035/36 and a baseline analysis for the next phase (the livestock sector strategy). Finally, Section 6 provides a summary of key findings.This section summarizes the distinguishing characteristics of the livestock systems in each of the three production zones of Odisha. It describes the livestock population and geographic distribution for major species, as well as the production and value of livestock products from each species. It also discusses the major gender and social inclusion considerations in these livestock production systems.The development of the livestock sector analysis was supported by the continual involvement of state livestock experts, and consultation with a wide range of key sector stakeholders. The systems and zones were discussed and agreed upon in a series of meetings and workshops with the livestock experts of Odisha, and other key sector stakeholders involved in the state's livestock sector. These consultations included technical staff from the Government of Odisha; experts from agricultural universities and the research institutes of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research; policymakers; livestock project staff from donor-supported development projects; and technical staff from ILRI. Details of the department staff and experts involved in the discussion process are provided in Annex VI.The agricultural sector plays an essential role in Odisha's economy, contributing about 20% of GSDP and employing more than 63% of the population. Odisha is divided into ten agro-climatic zones 3 (Hoda et al. 2021). For the OLMP, we considered three agricultural regions in the state -northeastern, western and southern -which correspond to the livestock production zones of 'coastal plain', 'northwest', and 'hilly and mountain' respectively. The northeastern region has the greatest distinction between 'kharif' (monsoon season) and 'rabi' (winter season) crops, and its intercropped area contains rice with pulses. Agriculture in the western region is a mixture of rice paddies, maize, cotton and other cash crops. Farmers in the southern region grow rice, maize, vegetables, millets and tree crops like coffee. The economies of these regions are based primarily on crop agriculture. The northeastern region has the highest cropping intensity (the proportion of land used for crop production), followed by the southern and western regions.The production systems of livestock can be classified using many indicators. Indeed, there can be as many system classifications as there are possible combinations of criteria used (Jahnke 1982;Wilson 1986;Mortimore 1991;Seré and Steinfeld 1996;Otte and Chilonda 2003). In this study, the Odisha livestock production systems are classified based on the Seré and Steinfeld (1996) approach, which combines criteria with the farming system concept. It classifies livestock systems into four types: 1) landless livestock production systems (which may be monogastric or ruminant), 2) grassland or grazing land systems (in which crop-based agriculture is minimal), 3) mixed-rainfed systems (mostly rainfed cropping combined with livestock keeping), and 4) mixed irrigated systems (in which a significant proportion of cropping uses irrigation and is interspersed with livestock).According to Dixon et al. ( 2001), a farming system is defined as a group of farms with a similar structure, such that individual farms are likely to share similar production characteristics. Studying and classifying livestock production systems into production zones based on agroecological criteria and farming systems characteristics provides an opportunity for grouping production systems with similar challenges and opportunities, and can thus simplify the planning of development options/interventions.Accordingly, the Odisha livestock production systems have been classified into three production zones: hilly and mountain; northwest; and coastal plain (Figure 1 and Annex III). Within these three production zones, commercial or specialized livestock production systems exist. These systems include urban and peri-urban dairy, and layer and broiler poultry.Classification of livestock production systems in the three regions considers dominant species, feeding practices, and the potential for future improvement (Table 1). Cattle dominate in the coastal plain zone, whereas goats and poultry are more common in the northwest and hilly and mountain zones. There are large differences in feed management between the zones: farmers in the coastal plain zone mostly depend on commercial feed, but unimproved grazing dominates in the hilly and mountain zone. The landholding size is small (0.77 ha) in the coastal plain zone compared to other zones, and stall-feeding predominates. However, the coastal plain has better irrigation facilities and thus better access to water than the other two zones. The frequent occurrence of cyclones and floods in the coastal plain zone hinders investment in both ruminants and poultry production. • Semi-intensive (grazing and stall feeding);• extensive (sheep and goat)• Semi-intensive (stall feeding, grazing);• intensive feeding for crossbred cattle;• more dependence on the market  The coastal plain zone also has a relatively better marketing infrastructure. In contrast, the northwest and hilly and mountain production zones have larger areas of forest and grazing lands that sustain goat and poultry production.The demographic structure of the human population also differs in the livestock production zones (Table 2). There is a considerably higher population density in the coastal plain zone than in the northwest and hilly and mountain zones. The female-to-male ratio is higher in the hilly and mountain zone, which is dominated by the tribal population. The literacy rate is higher in the coastal zone, while the poverty rate is higher in the hilly and mountain zone. There is not much difference in the workforce in the three livestock production zones (Government of Odisha 2020b). In all zones, women provide most of the labour in caring for livestock and traditional poultry. Land utilization differs between livestock production zones (Figure 2). The land used for cultivation (net shown area 4 ) is highest in the coastal plain zone, whereas the other two zones have much larger proportions of forest cover (>40%). The land area under permanent pasture is smaller than both these uses in all three livestock production zones.4. Net shown area represents the total area sown with crops and orchards. An area sown more than once in the same year is counted only once. http:// eands.dacnet.nic.in/PDF_LUS/Concepts_%26_Definitions.pdf (accessed 1 July 2021).Tree & groves, 3% Permanent pasture, 3%Culturable waste, 2%Non-agri Use, 14%Barren & uncultivavle land, 3%Current fallow, 13%Other fallow, 2%Net shown, 42%Forest, 43% Data on livestock numbers and production for 2020-21 are not yet available for most species. For this reason, values for livestock farming other than commercial chicken production were projected using values from the 2018-19 livestock census and observed growth rates from the previous livestock census published in 2012. Using data from these two censuses, a seven-year growth rate was calculated for each species, and the average annual growth rates were used for the projection (Table 3). This assumes that the rate of growth during the past two years has been equal to the previously observed annual average, despite the potential effects of factors like the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2020/21 data for commercial layers and broiler chickens were collected from the Directorate of Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Services, Odisha. According to the projections for 2020-21, Odisha has considerable numbers of cattle, goats and chickens, and a smaller number of sheep (Table 4). Most animals (especially cattle) are managed in non-commercial production systems; the number of cattle in peri-urban and urban dairy systems is quite small as a proportion of the total. Although the Odisha livestock population is still large, the numbers of bovine species (cattle and buffalo) have been declining for more than two decades (Figure 3). Overall, the total number has declined by more than 30% since 1997, with a larger decline for indigenous cattle breeds. Despite the overall decline in bovine animals, the number of crossbred cattle was 14% higher in 2019 than in 1997, and the share of crossbreeds reached 16% of the total cattle population. The decrease in the total bovine population is due to a decrease in the indigenous cattle population. In addition, implementation of artificial insemination programs has resulted in an increased share of the crossbred population. Source: Estimated from 16 th , 17 th , 18 th , 19 th and 20 th livestock censuses (Government of India 2003, 2005, 2010, 2014, 2020).For other livestock species, the patterns of change are different (Figure 4). Although the number of sheep has experienced a pattern of decline similar to that of cattle, there has been some growth in the number of goats from 2003 to 2019. The structure of the livestock population has changed from 2012 to 2019, but the changes differ by zone based on available data (Government of India 2020 and 2014. The overall number of cattle has decreased in all zones (Figure 5), but the patterns differ by sex and genetic potential. The female cattle population has increased by 9% in the coastal plain zone but declined in the northwest and hilly and mountain zones. Crossbred female cattle have increased in all zones, with the largest proportional increase in the hilly and mountain zone and lowest in the northwest area. Overall, the female crossbred population increased by 36% in 2019 as compared to 2012 in the whole state (Figure 6).  Both male and female populations have decreased in the hilly and mountain and northwest zones, while there is little change in the coastal plain zone (Figure 7). The number of male cattle has decreased for all zones, as has the number of females for local breeds. The largest decrease for the local cattle population occurred in the coastal plain zone, with smaller decreases in the northwest zone, and the lowest decrease in the hilly and mountain zone. The high decrease in the local cattle population in the coastal plain zone could be attributed to increased mechanization in farming and the promotion of crossbreeding. The total populations of goats, sheep and pigs in Odisha also decreased from 2012 to 2019. (Figure 8). There were modest increases in goat and sheep populations in the hilly and mountain zone, but these were offset by decreases for all species in the other two zones: the pig population decreased by 52%, the sheep population by 24%, and the goat population by 2%. The current livestock density (animals per hectare) differs by production zone and animal species (Figure 9). Cattle and buffalo density is highest in the coastal plain zone -more than double the density of the other two zones. In all zones, local cattle breeds are much more common than crossbred animals. Goat and sheep densities are similar in the coastal plain and northwest zones, but the density for all livestock species is lowest in the hilly and mountain zone. The coastal plain zone also has a poultry population density nearly twice that of the northwest and hilly and mountain zones (3.1 versus 1.6 and 1.2 birds/ha). Red meat production is largest in the northwest production zone (Table 5). Both the northwest and hilly and mountain zones contribute more than three-quarters of the total meat production from ruminants. The quantity of sheep meat is low compared to that from goats, which contribute about 85% of total small ruminant meat production in Odisha. Annual milk production in the most recent year is about 20 lakh t (Table 6). Nearly all this milk derives from cattle. About two-thirds of the total milk production is from the coastal plain production zone, and the rest of the milk is produced in the northwest (about 22%) and hilly and mountain zones (about 11%).  Commercial dairy contributes only 2% of the total cow's milk production. Draught power and manure are other important products from cattle: indigenous cattle are almost the sole source of draught power, and all species produce manure. The distribution of these products follows the pattern of cattle numbers in the different production zones.Meat production increased by 306% between 2003-04 and 2017 (Figure 10), an average annual compound increase of about 8%. Although meat production doubled from 2003-04 to 2014-15, growth was much more rapid from 2014-2015, averaging 27% per year. This recent more rapid growth is primarily attributed to an increase in poultry production.  2001, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010a, 2011, 2015a, 2020b).Milk production in Odisha has increased by 243% between 1999-2000 and 2017-18, an average annual compound growth rate of about 5% (Figure 11). The fastest rate of growth (5.9% per year) was in the hilly and mountain zone, but more than half of the increase in total milk production occurred in the coastal plain zone.Egg production in Odisha also increased markedly over the past two decades (Figure 12), with an average annual compound growth rate of about 6%. Two-thirds of the increase in production occurred in the coastal plain zone, which grew at more than 8% per year. Production in the other two zones was highest in 2014-15, and then declined until 2017-18 by 10% in the northwest zone and by more than 60% in the hilly and mountain zone. The declining trend in the hilly and mountain zone could be attributed to a decline of the backyard poultry population in the region.  2001, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010a, 2011, 2015a, 2020b).Figure 12: Egg production by production zone, selected years Source: Estimated from district statistical handbooks (Government of Odisha 2001Odisha , 2005Odisha , 2007Odisha , 2009Odisha , 2010aOdisha , 2011Odisha , 2015aOdisha , 2020b)).Changes in per-capita availability (production divided by human population) is another way to assess changes in livestock production. Milk production per capita increased in Odisha from 2001-02 to 20017-18, but at a slower rate than for India as a whole (Figure 13), and per-capita availability in Odisha has been only about one-third of the value for India. Although egg production has increased in Odisha, per-capita egg availability in 2018-19 was lower than in 2013-14 (Figure 14) due in part to production declines noted previously for zones other than the coastal plain. Notably, the rate of increase in per-capita egg availability has been greater for India as a whole than for Odisha.   Source: Government of India 2019.According to data from the Directorate of Economics and Statistics Odisha, livestock production made an important contribution to GSDP during 2019/20, with a value of about INR 18,800 crore (USD 2.5 billion at current exchange rates), using values at current basic prices, i.e. nominal GSDP. Projections using the approach 2 0 0 1 / 0 2 2 0 0 2 / 0 3 2 0 0 3 / 0 4 2 0 0 4 / 0 5 2 0 0 5 / 0 6 2 0 0 6 / 0 7 2 0 0 7 / 0 8 2 0 0 8 / 0 9 2 0 0 9 / 1 0 2 0 1 0 / 1 1 2 0 1 1 / 1 2 2 0 1 2 / 1 3 2 0 1 3 / 1 4 2 0 1 4 / 1 5 2 0 1 5 / 1 6 2 0 1 6 / 1 7 2 0 1 7 / 1 8 2 0 1 8 / 1 9 described above resulted in an estimated value for livestock output in 2020-21 of about INR 21,000 crore (USD 2.8 billion at current exchange rates). Cattle accounted for more than 80% of the value of livestock products in 2020-21 (Table 7), with large contributions from milk production, manure and draught power. Most of this value was provided by indigenous cattle rather than crossbreds. Draught power continues to be an important product from cattle in Odisha. Both cattle and buffaloes provide draught power, and crop production still depends on these animals (Akila et al. 2016;Kurup 2003). Source: Values projected using the livestock sector investment and policy toolkit.Each of the three production zones contributes about one-third of the economic contribution from livestock in Odisha (Table 8). Commercial dairy and chicken production are not reported by production zone, but they contribute about 9% of the value of livestock production overall. Source: Analysis using the livestock sector investment and policy toolkit.3 Policy and organizations relating to Odisha's livestock sectorThe Government of Odisha has implemented several policy measures with the objective of improving livestock productivity and reducing poverty. In 1996, the state formulated its first comprehensive agricultural policy that included livestock, and in 2002, it became the second Indian state to formulate a separate state-level livestock policy. This policy aimed to make the livestock sector an engine for socio-economic development of the rural poor and to increase household income, rural employment and quality of life. In 2020, the Government of Odisha launched a new agricultural policy known as Samrudhi (Government of Odisha 2020a). This policy supports individual farmers and women's self-help groups (WSHG) on egg and poultry meat production.Despite the increasing contribution of the livestock sector to GSDP, the proportion of the state budget for agriculture that is focused on livestock has grown less rapidly than for agriculture as a whole since 2013/14, with its share declining from 3% to 2% (Figures 15 and 16). The budget for the livestock sector constitutes a small fraction of the state agricultural budget, which seems inconsistent with the large share of agricultural GSDP generated by livestock and the stated priorities to leverage improved livestock production for economic growth and poverty reduction.Figure 15: Government of Odisha budget for agriculture and livestock development.Source: Estimated from agriculture budgets (Government of Odisha 2013Odisha , 2014Odisha , 2015bOdisha , 2016Odisha , 2017Odisha , 2018bOdisha , 2019Odisha , 2020c This section reviews the current major policies and organizations affecting Odisha's livestock sector and discusses institutional constraints, evidence and suggested/recommended actions for priority livestock production systems in Odisha. The information in this section derives from many studies, including major policy documents, government directives, regulations, acts, laws, strategies, previous road maps and research papers. The review covers general topics in animal health, animal breeding, animal nutrition, livestock research and livestock extension services; it then discusses areas relevant for more specific livestock species or products: milk (dairy), poultry (chickens) and goats. This section concludes with a discussion of the important issue of gender inclusion.Figure 16: Livestock share of state agriculture budget and livestock contribution to agricultural gross state domestic product (GSDP).Source: Estimated from agriculture budgets (Government of Odisha 2013Odisha , 2014Odisha , 2015bOdisha , 2016Odisha , 2017Odisha , 2018bOdisha , 2019Odisha , 2020c)).Animal health plays an important role in livestock production, especially as Odisha's tropical climate facilitates contagious and parasitic diseases (Sethi and Tripathi 2017). Despite appreciable growth in the animal health service sector, there is still a prevalence of economically important diseases, including foot and mouth disease, mastitis, brucellosis, haemorrhagic septicaemia, black quarter, theileriosis and infectious bovine rhinotracheitis. The main deterrent behind more effective animal health services is the inadequate availability of doorstep services (services provided at the farm/home rather than the veterinary hospital/dispensary) and insufficient veterinary institutions.With the addition of more mobile veterinary units in all the state blocks (especially in inaccessible pockets), doorstep services have increased remarkably in recent years. However, health services are dispersed and not always accessible to female farmers who rear goats and backyard poultry, or to farmers more generally in the hilly and mountain zone. Sahoo et al. (2020) argued that coverage is very low despite a zero-cost vaccination policy in a disease-endemic region. The low uptake of livestock vaccination appears more strongly associated with social and cultural factors rather than economic ones. Similarly, Nayak et al. (2019) found that the outbreak of animal diseases like anthrax in the tribal region is attributed to poor vaccination coverage and unsafe handling and disposal of contaminated carcasses. Despite all districts having a disease diagnostic lab as a referral unit for testing pathological samples, the units are not performing at capacity. This is because of a shortage of subject matter specialists and lab assistants, or a lack of reagents and equipment. Additional constraints include a lack of quality control and service regulation, and an inadequate disease reporting system. Optimizing the reproductive performance of an animal is one strategy for enhancing the sustainability of livestock production (White et al. 2015). Animal breeding services have made considerable progress in advancing this strategy for the bovine sector in recent years. The state has a breeding policy covering all geographic regions that focus on species-breeding issues. It recognizes the importance of research institutes, and includes a uniform curriculum on AI training. However, the policy doesn't encompass a regulatory authority to govern the use of germplasm, or an institutional framework for implementing a regulatory framework, including a strategy on monitoring AI. Nor does it establish an animal identification authority or mention strategies for adapting to climate change.There is a high incidence of repeat breeding; however, it is difficult to identify the specific causes for this. Other constraints include inadequate monitoring, an irregular supply of liquid nitrogen, poor semen quality, a shortage of manpower, and a disproportionate and untargeted allocation of AI.Recommended policy action includes revisiting and properly implementing the breeding policy; privatizing AI services; reinforcing genetic improvement; encouraging private and public partnerships; developing a breed standard and initiating herd/clock books for existing local breeds; providing extension services and training to farmers; establishing an identification, registration and performance testing system for purebred animals; ensuring adequate expertise and infrastructure; and establishing livestock breeders' associations and societies.Until breeder associations are formed and are functional as proposed by the perspective plan, it would help if breeding bucks could be supplied from government farms. Moreover, given that more than 80% of goat production is in the hands of female farmers, the policy needs to involve women during implementation. Furthermore, government schemes and policies targeting poor and marginalized livestock farmers should not include land ownership as a prerequisite to receiving goats, backyard poultry (BYP) or even cattle, as women rarely have land registered in their names.Animal nutrition is an important component of livestock production. Studies have found that a higher intake of animal feed generally increases production and quality (Garg 2012). The currently observed mean values of milk production per cow (both crossbreed and indigenous) suggest that dairy animals' genetic potential for milk production is not fully exploited (Sethi and Tripathy 2017). This is likely due to a shortage of feed resources, and feeding of unbalanced rations. Animal feeding in Odisha is traditional and depends mainly on locally available feed resources, including crop roughages like paddy straw and home wastages. In addition, female goat farmers depend on common property resources to graze their animals, and forests to collect fodder grass.There is insufficient land and water to produce the number of cultivated feeds (grains and forages) necessary for improved animal diets. In addition, there is a lack of technical support services for fodder cultivation, inadequate fodder seed/stem, and a non-existent fodder market. On top of this, the relief code that compensates agricultural crop damage caused by natural calamities or by wild animals doesn't cover fodder crop damage, which discourages farmers from cultivation of fodder crops in Odisha.The Government of Odisha plays an active role in making land available for feed production, establishing feed quality standards and monitoring, regulating forage seed markets, supplying high-yielding multi-cut forage varieties, and establishing policies, regulations and incentives to support private sector investment in animal feeding. It recognizes that policies enabling women to access and sustainably develop common property resources (CPR) and forests result in better availability of green fodder, and an increase in subsequent production. Likewise, introducing simple technologies like cultivating Azolla or making mineral blocks can enhance productivity and incomes.To further enhance animal nutrition, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change could encourage the planting of fodder trees during tree plantation drives and afforestation exercises. In addition, the Animal Husbandry Department can improve feed marketing and supply channels by strengthening animal feed factories and distribution selling points, supporting community fodder banks and technologies, and providing training, extension and professional education for farmers. The extension service plays an important role in raising farmers' awareness of improved technologies that can enhance farm efficiency, income and welfare (Purcell and Anderson 1997). Livestock aid centres and additional veterinary assistant surgeons, functioning under the Animal Husbandry Department, provide extension services in their jurisdictions. In most cases, there are uniform and adequate extension materials. Similarly, during their routine visits to villages, livestock inspectors are expected to share useful information and promote department activities -but often this does not happen. In addition to AHD, other agencies involved in livestock programs like KVK provide extension services, but are unable to do so effectively as most have few veterinarians. Moreover, the coverage of, and access to, these agencies is limited. Some private entities, such as poultry integrators, provide both inputs and technical know-how to their clients.Within livestock extension, services are primarily focused on milk production rather than other roles of livestock, and are concentrated in areas of high potential. Veterinarians provide multiple services related to animal health (i.e. routine, urgent and important care) but are also expected to provide extension services that include breeding, feeding, marketing and management for all livestock and poultry species. As a result, not all intended extension messages reach target clients. This is most pronounced in the case of the (mostly female) owners of small ruminants and poultry, who are not targeted for extension meetings, and whose species are not given adequate attention. Livestock extension through agencies like KVK and OUAT is not realistic as their major focus is on crops. Extension for animal husbandry requires a completely different knowledge base and skillset and hence a dedicated workforce that engages with both male and female livestock farmers close to their farms.Policy recommendations include improving coverage of livestock extension to include all livestock species, and considering a restructuring of AHD to include extension programs with both male and female extension staff. In addition, sensitizing extension workers on gender issues could improve extension by facilitating the inclusion of both a husband and a wife in training sessions. In conjunction, training for women's groups would be more effective if situated at venues close to women's homes, with childcare and separate bathrooms provided. For female farmers, in particular, ICT (information and communication technology) can strengthen the linkages between extension, research and farmers. The Animal Husbandry Department should therefore invest in the creation of communication and training materials that use smartphones, cell phones, radio, TV and the internet, where appropriate, to disseminate extension and advisory services to female farmers.Moreover, there is also a need for strong partnerships between the public sector, private sector, local and international NGOs, farmer organizations, and research and education agricultural institutions. Besides a sufficient quantity and quality of knowledge, other factors also important for the delivery of an efficient livestock extension service: linkages between farmers, research and training; adequate infrastructure in strategic locations; and local facilities.Although the share of milk in the total output value of the livestock sector is declining, dairy farming remains a major source of income among small and marginal farmers in rural Odisha. Production and marketing for the dairy sector have not developed in Odisha as they have in other northern or southern Indian states. Given the growing demand for milk, the dairy industry has an opportunity to expand profitable production, but this requires strong institutional support, improvement of the milk value chain, better rural infrastructure and health-care facilities, and improved availability of good quality feed. Private sector investment in dairy infrastructure is also needed in the state.Appropriate policy actions include monitoring and supervising AI service delivery, strictly enforcing a breeding policy, enhancing the capacity of field staff, providing additional training for farmers, strengthening quality control, running educational campaigns to improve the quality of milk and dairy products, improving the monitoring of feed quality, increasing the capacity of formal milk processing, and strengthening the marketing chain.Small ruminants are reared predominantly by the landless, marginal farmers and smallholders, for whom they have considerable value. Despite this, small ruminant production faces numerous challenges. Organizations that provide basic services are largely absent in rural areas. In addition, the sector is constrained by inadequate availability of good quality feed, a lack of effective policy for using CPR, the absence of a market for goat feed, poor health-care services, a lack of regulation for vaccine quality control, and inadequate extension services.Appropriate policy actions to improve the goat sub-sector include improving service delivery for animal health, nutrition and breeding, enhancing the availability of good quality feed, formulating effective policies for better utilization of CPR, strengthening goat breeding farms and fodder farms, and enhancing access to input and output markets by encouraging the formation of farmer producer organizations. Strengthening women's participation and leadership roles in existing or new livestock-related groups through rules such as a rotating leadership or a 30% reservation in the board would also facilitate the dissemination of knowledge. For CPR, AHD should work with the relevant departments to help livestock farmers gain access to communal land for growing fodder grasses and trees (subabul, sesbania) sustainably. Concurrent training for women and youth about feed production and animal nutrition (e.g. formulating rations) could reduce feed costs and increase productivity.The poultry development program in Odisha encompasses most aspects of poultry, meat and egg production in the state. In 2015, the Government of Odisha initiated a new policy for improving the poultry sector (Government of Odisha 2015c). The main objective of the Poultry Policy 2015 is to create an environment conducive for both commercial and backyard poultry farming, and increase egg and meat production. The government has implemented different initiatives, but production remains constrained by multiple factors: limited availability of feed resources, poor quality feeds, limited research in improving local breeds of chicken, an inefficient marketing system, inadequate processing facilities and technical support services, a lack of basic infrastructure such as storage and transportation, limited assessment of investment options and inadequate access to credit.Appropriate policy responses include strengthening the quality audit and compliance of commercial feeds, creating an environment conducive to public-private partnerships in the sector of feed provision, improving disease control and supporting genetic improvement. Other solutions include improving marketing infrastructure, providing additional technical support to farmers, and facilitating credit access for farmers and others in the value chain. The poultry sector would also benefit from the provision of low-cost hatcheries in backyard poultry areas at the community level, for WSHG and rural unemployed youth in particular.Strengthening facilities for hygienic meat processing and storage of eggs could be linked with improved marketing. In addition, strengthening the capacity of research scientists working on chicken nutrition and health would support the development and dissemination of relevant production technologies. Further evaluation of low-input technology (LIT) birds as an income-generating option is required, as desi birds often are an accessible livelihood option for low-income households. LIT birds have the potential to provide animal-source protein sufficient to combat undernutrition, especially for women and children.Hides and skins are an important by-product that comprises a major input to the leather industry, contributes significantly to farmer incomes and earns foreign exchange. Although there is a large goat population in Odisha, formal processing of hides and skin is limited and the market is not well organized. As a result, the Odisha leather and footwear industries are not as developed as those in other states (Government of India 2011). Leather processing in Odisha comprises about 13 facilities (one public) but is constrained by a lack of modern treatment plants, high taxes and an irregular power supply. Most leather processing is concentrated in a small number of locations in the coastal region of Odisha, including Bhubaneswar, Berhampur, Cuttack, and Jatni (Government of India 2011). There are no large abattoirs in the state from where good quality hides and skins can be retrieved; instead, these hides and skins come from informal slaughterhouses.An appropriate policy response is to create an environment that enables the private sector to build good quality leather-processing industries. There is a need to increase awareness of the industry among livestock farmers, and initiate support mechanisms such as tax breaks and subsidies to encourage existing leather industries. Moreover, improved management of production resources (land, water, biodiversity) and enhanced breeding strategies, along with an improved value chain and marketing for hides and skins, are crucial. Likewise, strategies are required for accumulating critical volumes of good quality products that attract buyers, so that differential prices can be negotiated.Demand for livestock and livestock products in terms of quantity and quality is expected to increase in the future due to an increase in per-capita incomes and urbanization. However, the marketing and processing system in the livestock sector is relatively unorganized compared to that for other products. For example, more than 80% of milk is sold outside of formal milk marketing channels, and 100% of goats are sold through informal channels.Most goat keepers, especially female farmers in remote areas, lack market power compared to middlemen or goat traders and may not benefit sufficiently from seasonal increases in demand, such as that provided by the Eid festival. The presence of multiple intermediaries in the marketing chains for informal livestock products probably contributes to higher transaction costs. Small and marginal farmers have a very small marketable surplus, and these higher costs reduce any market benefits they can derive. The development of organizations that vertically integrate small and scattered producers could benefit these producers if they can reduce costs and increase bargaining power.Recommended actions to improve livestock marketing include creating extension and communication campaigns to improve farmers' awareness about the importance of quality and hygiene standards; enhancing the livestock market information and research system; strengthening monitoring and certification of standards; encouraging the formation of farmer producer organizations in rural areas; and encouraging private sector investment in the processing of livestock products. AHD focuses on production and does not have a mandate for the processing or marketing of livestock products. Forming linkages with other departments is therefore recommended; these departments include the Department of Agriculture and Farmers' Empowerment, the Department of Mission Shakti, the Directorate of Export Promotion and Marketing, and the Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water Department in the Government of Odisha, as well as the Odisha Rural Development and Marketing Society and Panchyati Raj. Likewise, partnerships between AHD and the private sector could help train women on food safety and hygienic milking practices, entrepreneurial and technical skills in product development, animal-source foods, and value addition (e.g. by producing ghee, paneer and sweets).The Samrudhi Agriculture Policy 2020 acknowledges the role of women in agriculture and mandates that at least 30% of horticulture and small livestock scheme budgets are dedicated to women. The scheme extends interest-free loans for WSHG up to 5 lakh, and tracks the share of women in the total number of beneficiaries in government assistance initiatives. However, the policy does not mention women's role in livestock farming as separate from crop production; therefore, interventions for empowering women in the livestock sector do not get enough attention. The need for extension material to cater for women engaged in backyard livestock/ poultry farming has been stated, but there is as yet no clarity on how this will be institutionalized given the limited outreach of AHD. It is recommended that AHD employs dedicated staff for carrying out extension activities related to livestock, especially small ruminants and BYP, and village-level Prani Mitra vets can be trained for this purpose.The Samrudhi policy document focuses on BYP but fails to acknowledge desi birds and LIT birds as two distinct production systems. While desi BYP is done traditionally by almost all rural female poultry keepers, LIT birds have been introduced (as a livelihood support mechanism) through various government schemes, and make poultry farmers dependent on inputs like day-old chicks and poultry feed. Economic analysis suggests that BYP are more lucrative than LIT birds in terms of enhancing livelihoods. Evaluation of whether farming of LIT birds genuinely supports livelihoods should therefore be carried out before more schemes are launched.Samrudhi also states that female vaccinators should be available to administer poultry vaccinations, but that subsidized vaccines are to be provided only by the Government of Odisha. This has implications for program effectiveness, as budgets for vaccination are limited and there are not enough to cover the entire population of BYP and small ruminants, especially after discounting vaccinations for large ruminants. NGOs have successfully piloted various models for paid vaccinations in Odisha and other states, and these need to be scaled up.Creating awareness of the advantages of preventive health care, and the availability of vaccines (with private sector involvement) and vaccinators, would decrease mortality and increase production. Vaccinations of goats and BYP would also benefit from a vaccinator-private sector partnership to ensure that vaccination is timely, with each entity in the value chain standing to benefit. It is recommended that a mass vaccination program runs as a sustainable business model, with vaccines supplied by the private sector, services delivered by Prani Mitra, and services paid for by female farmers. The involvement of Prani Mitra as a service provider will increase employment avenues for rural women and provide role models for young girls.Many Government of Odisha policies, programs and schemes are directed towards increasing the incomes and agency of rural women, and have included goat and BYP keeping as a livelihood option. These programs can serve as a platform for AHD to increase its outreach and enhance livestock production by female farmers. This convergence is imperative since the activities of AHD are focused on enhancing the health of livestock and providing adequate bullock power for agricultural operations: they do not necessarily include managing social aspects to achieve this mandate. Moreover, AHD does not have an extension department enabling it to share upto-date technologies or conduct training with farmers of both genders.Under the Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana National Rural Livelihoods Mission of central government, OLM aims to mobilize and organize poor women -building their skills, facilitating access to credit, providing marketing assistance, and offering other livelihoods services. Around 18 lakh women are connected with OLM through 1.6 lakh self-help groups spread across 24 districts. OLM supported the training of 2,120 Prani Mitra vets through modules on poultry and goat rearing lasting 15 days. It intends to support about 20,000 households in backyard poultry activities, and another 10,000 households for goat rearing.The Department of Women and Child Development's Mission Shakti program has provided support to help operationalize about 6.02 lakh WSHG, involving more than 70 lakh women of Odisha State. For livestock, Mission Shakti has supported commercial layer farming using a deep litter system, in order to increase egg production in convergence with Odisha's Directorate of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Services. This will increase egg production in Odisha State, as well as enhance the nutrition of women and children. More joint programs with Mission Shakti can help AHD to reach female farmers using WSHG.The Odisha Rural Development and Marketing Society (ORMAS) has widened WSHG's marketing scope through the 'Pallishree Mela' and 'Sisir Saras' crafts and produce fairs. Linking female farmers in WSHG to ORMAS so that they can sell value-added livestock products would enable them to increase production of animal-source foods.Change is needed within AHD. The role of female livestock keepers needs to be acknowledged, appreciated and applauded by AHD first; then communities and households will follow suit. Some additional gender-responsive policy recommendations include:• AHD should collect sex-disaggregated livestock data to inform the design of gendered policies for the livestock sector.• AHD should consider recruiting a gender focal person, or assigning someone from its department for this role, and training him/her in mainstreaming gender into all activities and schemes.AHD should include gender issues in its induction program in order to sensitize staff members to the differential needs of male and female livestock farmers to encourage them to provide services accordingly. This will also help AHD staff to acknowledge women as primary livestock farmers and their main clients.The livestock sector plays a vital role in economic development and poverty reduction in Odisha. However, it must confront several limitations: a lack of improved germplasm; an inadequate supply of good quality semen; the frequent occurrence of diseases, floods and cyclones; an acute shortage of feed and fodder; and limited market linkages. Furthermore, many socio-economic and institutional factors -such as shrinking common lands for grazing, and a lack of access to markets, credit, and information about livestock technologies -restrict farmers from realizing the production potential of their animals. Overcoming these challenges and constraints requires suitable development strategies targeted to the regions and species that can generate significant economic and social gains without causing damage to the environment and natural resources.In the 2010-20 perspective road map of the Government of Odisha's Fisheries and Animal Resources Development Department, efforts were made to identify the problems faced by the livestock sector and the interventions required to achieve targets by 2020 (Government of Odisha 2010b). However, this analysis was not systematic, nor was it detailed with priority value chains and livestock production zones. This section of our analysis highlights the most important constraints to current production and identifies factors that could facilitate future growth -considering feed resources, animal health, animal breeding, and processing and marketing challenges. This information provides useful background information for the identification of potential interventions, as set out in the foresight scenario analysis of the state's livestock sector strategy (Bahta et al, 2022b). The information on constraints and facilitating factors derives from discussions with experts and published materials.The cattle sector in Odisha is constrained by low productivity, a lack of access to good quality feed, and a frequent occurrence of diseases. Low productivity is due to several different factors, including low-yielding breeds, poor animal health and insufficient feed and fodder (Swain et al. 2015). Research into, and reduction of, these constraints are crucial for improving productivity in the livestock sector (Hardenberg 2016).Odisha State has made significant improvements in milk production. However, milk productivity is still low compared to the national average and to that in neighbouring states like Andhra Pradesh. Lower production is attributed to the low percentage of crossbreeds and other improved breeds within the bovine population, and low milk yield from available indigenous breeds. Milk production per cow for indigenous breeds in Odisha is only about half that for indigenous breeds across the whole of India (Government of India 2019). At the same time, demand for milk and milk products within the state is increasing with growing urbanization and increased percapita income. An increase in milk production would not only help meet this demand but would also substantively benefit marginal and landless households and provide additional employment to rural women .The Government of Odisha has undertaken various measures supporting cattle production in the state. However, various constraints and challenges still exist within the sector (Table 9), as do factors facilitating opportunities for growth. The sheep value chain focuses on both small and large sheep farms. Many of the constraints and facilitating factors for sheep (Table 11) are similar to those for goats, but sheep production differs in that it is less widely practiced. The chicken value chain comprises both production in BYP systems and the commercial and specialized production of broilers and layers. Keeping backyard poultry can be an effective way to enhance access to micronutrients and protein-rich foods, and combat malnutrition in children and anaemia in women. It is an appropriate traditional activity for women because chickens are valued for various socio-religious ceremonies in tribal households. Notably, poultry birds are among the very few assets that a female farmer owns, and for which she has the power to decide on sales and usage of income accrued. Despite these advantages, BYP presents both challenges and factors facilitating growth (Table 12), as do commercial layer (Table 13) and broiler production (Table 14). 5 Projections of production and consumption: the business-as-usual scenarioPrevious sections have described the historical performance of Odisha's livestock sector, summarized key policy initiatives and recommendations, and identified factors constraining or facilitating future growth of specific livestock value chains. This section complements the previous ones by projecting the future supply of, and demand for, livestock products (and their monetary value).Projections of supply are made using quantitative tools from the livestock sector investment and policy toolkit. The LSIPT is a spreadsheet-based program that facilitates the integration of production and economic data to project future trajectories for livestock production and its monetary value. It was developed by a group of international agencies under the aegis of the African Union Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources.A core component of the LSIPT is a herd and economic sector model, which requires data inputs relating to current herd demographics and productivity, as well as per-unit product values. The LSIPT calculates future livestock numbers and the amount and value of livestock products. The model can be used to evaluate the trajectory for livestock production and its monetary value over the next 15 years based on the sector's current technical and economic performance but without additional investments in technologies or changes to policies. This is the business-as-usual scenario and is undertaken for each of the priority livestock value chains. This analysis can provide useful information for planning, and facilitates the assessment of future impacts of alternative investments.One limitation of the LSIPT framework is that it requires each of the inputs to be entered as annual values over the projected (15-year) time horizon. Accurate prediction of future values for factors like mortality and prices can be challenging, which means that the projections (for baseline and investment scenarios) are best interpreted as approximations. Another important limitation of the model is the limited feedback between production parameters and factors like profitability, and limited interactions with the demand trajectory (which is calculated independently of the LSIPT).The LSIPT also assumes average values that apply to all sets of producers, whereas there is often a good deal of heterogeneity among producers (especially smallholders), and for future investments, the impacts on adopters and non-adopters may differ substantially. Previous dynamic analyses of investments in technology adoption (e.g. Simões et al. 2019) have indicated that each of these factors can be important for future projections and assessment of investments.Projections from the LSIPT indicate that the numbers of most ruminant species are expected to decline through 2035/36 (Table 15), although by less than 1% per year over the 15-year-period for most species and herd sizes.The numbers of crossbred cows and chickens are projected to increase, with growth in the number of chickens being particularly rapid. Crossbred cows are projected to increase from 18% to 27% of the total cattle herd by 2035/36, which implies an increase in average milk produced per cow.  3. The compound annual growth rate is calculated as: (value from 2035/26/value from 2020/21)^(1/number of years) -1. For comparison with Table 3, average annual growth rates from 2012 to 2019 were: -3.0% for indigenous cattle, 2.9% for crossbreeds; and -2.0% for all cattle, -2.7% for sheep, -0.2% for goats, 2.3% for desi backyard chickens, 5.1% for improved crossbred backyard chickens.Changes in livestock numbers imply changes in projected production through 2035/36, with 33% more milk production, a more than doubling of chicken meat production, and four times as much egg production (Table 16). The economic value of all livestock production is projected to increase by about 14% by 2035/36 (Table 17), with decreases in the highest-value category of draught power more than offset by increases of about one-third in meat and milk production. The value of eggs shows the largest increase, more than doubling by 2035/36. By species, the value of chickens (i.e. eggs and meat) is projected to nearly double (Table 18), the value for cattle is projected to increase less than 1% per year, and the value of small ruminant production is set to decrease.  Projections of future consumption complement projections of future production and help in planning future investments. Although projecting consumption and production increases separately does not ensure consistency, comparing these projections can indicate the degree to which incentives may exist for expanded consumption and production. In principle, projections of consumption and production should be linked, and other factors such as inter-regional trade accounted for.By definition (conservation of mass), it is not possible to have an actual gap (or surplus) in consumption that equals the difference between the projections. This is because market conditions are affected by a change in demand relative to supply, implying changes in prices or inter-regional trade that would bring the two quantities more closely into balance. A gap between 'actual consumption' (which is affected by prices and income) and 'potential consumption' is possible, but is difficult to assess using simple projection methods.Future consumption is projected using information on current estimated per-capita consumption, the expected growth in population, and the effects of income growth as measured using an income elasticity value. (An income elasticity value indicates the percentage change in consumption for a 1% increase in income.) Using an income elasticity of demand (η) for a given livestock product, annual growth rates (γ) of real per-capita GSDP, and baseline per-capita consumption (LC 0 ) of a given livestock product, projected per-capita livestock product consumption (LC t ) based on annual compounding (Sarma 1986) for a given year t can be calculated as:The projected total consumption (TLC t ) of a given livestock product in period t can be calculated by multiplying the projected per-capita consumption with the projected population (POP t ) for a given period t:The data inputs required for these calculations derive from a number of sources. Data on per-capita annual consumption (LC0) for livestock products in Odisha were not available for the base year 2020/21. The most recently available per-capita annual consumption data that are used in this study are from National Sample Survey (NSS) 68 th round conducted during 2011 to 2012 (Table 19). Data on the average per-capita income from 2011/12 to 2019/20 were obtained from the Odisha Directorate of Economics and Statistics and were used to calculate an average annual growth rate in real per-capita GSDP of 6.5% that is assumed to apply through to 2035/36 (Table 20).A figure for the population of Odisha for the baseline year was not available, as the last census in India was conducted in 2011. We therefore used data published by the Odisha Directorate of Economics and Statistics indicating a constant annual population growth rate of 1.02%. The population was disaggregated by location to allow for the use of income elasticity values that differ for rural and urban locations. An annual urbanization rate (the proportion of the total human population living in the urban areas) of 11% -the rate of urbanization from 2001 to 2011 -was used to compute urban and rural populations from the aggregate population.Values for income elasticities (η) were derived from studies using data from the NSS 68 th round consumer expenditure surveys conducted during 2011/12 (Table 21). Income elasticity estimates for milk, eggs and chicken (urban consumers) are based on Chengapa et al. ( 2016) but adjusted to reflect the situation in Odisha. Income elasticities for goat and sheep meat are based on the study by Gandhi and Zhou (2010), which used household consumer expenditure data from the 2004/2005 NSS 67 th round. Note that elasticities from these studies are derived from analyses of household income rather than the GSDP value projected, but as changes in the two quantities are often highly correlated, they are acceptable as an approximation.   Consistent with higher income elasticity values, the projected increases in per-capita consumption are largest for eggs and smallest for milk and milk products (Table 22). At a minimum, projected per-capita consumption is expected to triple during the next 15 years and increase to more than four times the current value for eggs. The projections suggest that consumption is likely to grow more rapidly than production for all livestock products (Table 23). The largest differences between production and consumption projections are for milk and milk products (consumption growth is projected to be more than eight times production growth) and for eggs (consumption growth is projected to be more than twice production growth). The differences suggest that the production share of consumption in Odisha would decrease by 2035/36 in the absence of market responses. This implies a potential for increases in prices and profitability for Odisha livestock producers over the next 15 years, tempered by the availability of products transported from other regions or countries. This report assessed and estimated values for livestock population numbers, production and GSDP, according to the Odisha livestock production zones, species and sub-systems. We have carried out this assessment in order to provide a baseline that will be used in the LSS foresight scenario analyses (ILRI 2022). Although many values were estimated for 2020/21, these estimates generally align with the observed data available from government sources.The key findings for this assessment include:• Livestock production is an important economic activity in Odisha, comprising about 3% of GSDP in 2020-21, with an estimated value of about INR 21,000 crore (USD 2.8 billion), or about 20% of the total value of agricultural production.• Products and services from cattle accounted for about 80% of the value of livestock products in 2020-21.• The cattle population has declined overall over the past two decades; however, there has been an increase in the number of crossbred animals which has allowed milk production to grow at roughly 5% per year.• The number of sheep has also declined during this period, and the number of goats is roughly unchanged.• In contrast to the dynamic of ruminant animals, there has been a marked increase in chicken and poultry production, particularly since 2012.• Three different livestock production zones (coastal plain, northwest and hilly and mountain) in Odisha have experienced different development dynamics during the past two decades, in part due to differences in biophysical environments (e.g. land-use patterns and climate) and other economic activities (industrialization).Factors constraining or facilitating the future growth of livestock production are therefore somewhat different for each zone.• Low productivity due to limited genetic potential and feed availability, a prevalence of animal diseases, and under-developed marketing systems affects most forms of livestock production in Odisha other than commercial chicken production (which benefits from technologies that can be promoted by private integrators).• Multiple limitations have been noted for existing policies and programs to promote livestock production, especially a low budgetary commitment relative to livestock's economic contribution, the lack of focus on animals other than cattle, and limited support for those species and production systems where female farmers play an important role. Suggested responses to these limitations have been noted but not yet more fully assessed.• The quantity and gross value of production in Odisha is projected to increase by 2035/36 for eggs (295%), chicken meat (136%), milk production (32%) and manure (4%), but to decline for other livestock products.• Consumption in Odisha is projected to increase based on available data and assumptions about population growth, income growth and urbanization. The projected increase by 2035/36 for milk and milk products is 230%. Egg consumption is projected to increase by 510%, whereas goat and mutton, and chicken are set to increase by 249% 232%, respectively.• For all livestock products, consumption is projected to grow more rapidly than production, providing additional incentives for both the production and sourcing of livestock products through inter-regional trade.The livestock sector and investment policy toolkit (LSIPT) was developed by a group of international agencies that include French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Livestock Research Institute and others under the aegis of ALive at the African Union Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) .The LSIPT is a very rigorous livestock sector analysis tool that uses mathematical models, format questionnaires, and other aids. The LSIPT consists of a set of interacting and individual tools and checklists, which operate in three phases of the analysis:• Based on an initial survey of the importance of livestock (Module 1), a first phase looks at how well livestock is represented in the national development strategy and budget documents, and whether the sector has unnoticed and unrealized potential. A set of tools in Module 2 helps set up a preparatory analysis of the needs (manpower, budget) and participatory mechanisms (steering committee, stakeholder consultations) required for a detailed, quantitative sector analysis.• In the second phase, the tools in Module 3 help to develop a typology of prevailing livestock production systems, carry out a detailed analysis of the contribution of livestock to the household economy for each of these production systems, and assess the defined key quantitative (volume) and financial parameters of the main value chains. Then, the tools in Module 4 help illustrate the sector's direct and indirect contributions to the national economy and provide instruments for assessing the main technical (feed, genetics, health), political and institutional constraints.• In the third phase, the tools in Module 5 allow for a participatory process in order to set development priorities for evaluating the impact of alternative policy investment scenarios following these priorities. In addition, the third phase uses Module 5 tools to test the economic, social, nutritional and environmental impact of these scenarios. Module 6 then guides monitoring and evaluation.The LSIPT enables in-depth and systematic quantitative analysis of the livestock sector's significant constraints and the effects of proposed interventions on economic growth and poverty alleviation. The LSIPT uses cost-benefit analyses of proposed policy and technology investment options to enable investment scenario analysis, providing guidance for prioritizing investments according to their potential impacts on private and social development goals.ALive, housed in AU-IBAR, provided a team with training and technical support for implementing the LSIPT. It also advised on how to best capitalize on data in order to develop livestock sector analysis. Then, the LSIPT was used to analyse the livestock sector of many countries: Zambia, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uzbekistan and Bihar (India). There is also huge interest from other countries on using this tool in their livestock sector analysis.Further description of the LSIPT methodology can be accessed at the LSIPT website (www.alive-lsiptoolkit.org).Please contact the authors of this report to obtain a username and password.          1. The specialized or peri-urban dairy system is not classified by production zones. It has uniform farming systems across the three production zones      ","tokenCount":"10679"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d8874aea318f04233645715be50445c4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/0d0a929a-cff3-4e6c-9d98-dc721a112920/content","id":"749869274"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f3686d0c-8773-42a7-b6af-7123d8f6d73b","pagecount":"29","content":"Introduction Wheat (Triticum aestivum), the major rabi food crop is planted on all major agro-climatic conditions of the irrigated Punjab. Presently, a large number of wheat varieties are grown in different wheat areas of Punjab. Farmers grow these cultivars according to their own preferences, knowledge and perceptions. In spite of the role of seed organizations and other agencies involved in the dissemination of these newly-released cultivars, the rate of adoption is slow (Akhtar et al. 1986;Heisey et al. 1988;Sharif et al. 1988). Promising wheat varieties that were released even in the early eighties still are not widely adopted by many of the farmers in the area.This study was undertaken as part of a regular annual exercise carried out by the social scientists of AERU, Faisalabad, to assess wheat varietal adoption and to find out the farmers' reasons for growing banned wheat varieties in different areas of irrigated Punjab. The major purpose of this report is to present the existing diffusion and adoption of different wheat varieties for breeders, policy makers and all other segments involved in the wheat industry.For the 1988-89 wheat crop, a survey was conducted in late March, 1989, in the three main ecological zones of the irrigated Punjab. Previously this exercise was limited to two zones only, the rice zone and the cotton zone. One more representative area, the mixed zone of central Punjab was included in the sample. This addition was made to extend the scope of the study and to provide a more complete coverage of irrigated wheat in the Punjab. From the rice and cotton zones, the same randomly chosen villages were surveyed. These villages were chosen from two cropping systems, i.e. rice-wheat in the northern districts and cotton-wheat in the southern districts of the irrigated Punjab. Twenty four villages were selected from three adjacent Tehsils in both zones. Ferozewala, Gujranwala and Daska Tehsils were selected from Sheikhupura, Gujranwala and Sialkot Districts respectively for the rice zone (Figure 1). Lodhran, Mailsi and Bahawalpur Tehsils were selected from Multan, Vehari and Bahawalpur Districts respectively, for the cotton zone. For the mixed zone, twenty four villages were randomly selected from three Tehsils having the highest area under wheat. Jhang, Samundri and Toba Tek Singh Thesils were selected from Jhang, Faisalabad and Toba Tek Singh Districts respectively. The main cropping pattern of the mixed zone are rice-wheat, sugarcanewheat, cotton-wheat and maize-wheat etc. Fifteen farmers were interviewed from each sample village to give a total sample size of 1080 farmers. Data were analyzed on a microcomputer using the SPSS package. Data in Table 1 show the breakdown of sample farmers by cropping zone and Tehsils. Overall, 54, 26 and 20 percent of the farmers were in small {<5 ha), medium {5-10 ha) and large {>10 ha) farm size categories, respectively. Furthermore, farm size distribution reveals the higher proportion of small farms in the rice and mixed zones as compared to the cotton zone in the irrigated Punjab. Average farm size and area planted to wheat are presented in Table 2 for the rice, cotton and mixed zones respectively. Generally, farmers were allocating more than half of the farm area to wheat in all zones. In the rice and mixed zones, small farmers were devoting about the same area to wheat as medium and large farmers. However, in the cotton zone, small farmers devoted a larger share of area to wheat than large farmers. This is mainly due to large farmers keeping land fallow for the main cash crop cotton, while small farmers have less fallow and more of their land in a cotton-wheat rotation. In all representative wheat areas, almost three fourths of the farmers were growing only one wheat variety (Table 3). However, a large proportion of medium and large farmers was planting more than one variety. This was done to accommodate the differences in planting dates for wheat in all zones, a spread of approximately two months in the cotton zone (Byerlee et al. 1987) and slightly less for the rice zone (Sharif et al. 1989). Information regarding number of varieties grown in the irrigated Punjab reflects no discernible change over time (Akhtar et al. 1987, Sharif et al. 1988). In all three zones, approximately fifteen varieties of wheat were in use. The break-up of area under different wheat varieties by tehsil is given in Appendices i, ii and iii.For the year 1988-89, in the rice zone, over one-half of the wheat area was under Pak-81, followed by Blue-Silver/Sonalika (6%) and Punjab-85 (5%) (Table 4). In the mixed zone, the major varieties were: Pak-81 (26%), WL-711 (15%), Punjab-81 (12%) and Blue-silver/Sonalika (7%). In the cotton zone, Blue Silver/ Sonalika (35%), Pak-81 (17%), WL-711 (14%) and Bahawalpur-79 (9%) were the most widely used varieties for this year (Table 5). The results from 1985 to 1989 show that the area under Pak-81 has increased over time in the rice zone (Figure 2). Overall, no obvious replacement for Pak-81 has emerged so far, so a very high proportion of area was planted to this variety, especially in this zone.The other important finding of this study is the decrease in the area under the banned variety WL-711 being mainly replaced by Blue Silver/Sonalika variety in the cotton zone, where it was grown previously on a large area (Figure 3). Its area was decreased from 23 percent in 1987-88 to 14 percent in the year 1988-89. Another banned variety, Yecora, also declined in the rice zone. Some uncertainty existed in identifying one non-recommended wheat variety. Wheat breeders identified this as Chenab-79. However, the farmers named it as a \"low seed rate\" variety (applying 12 to 15 kg/ac seed compared to 40 kg/ac for Pak-81). The main reasons reported by the farmers for its adoption were the low seed rate and better yield characteristics. For this year, area under this variety was 4%, 6% and 1% percent in the rice, mixed and cotton zones, respectively.  source: Akhtar et al. (1985-86 and1986-87) and (Sharif et al. 1987-88) Table 5.Area under different wheat varieties in the Mixed and cotton zones of irriqated Punjab, durinq 1985Punjab, durinq -86, 1986Punjab, durinq -87,1987Punjab, durinq -88'and 1988  Noori, Chenab-70, Mexi, Pawan, etc. Source: 1985-86 and 1986-87 data, Akhtar et al. 1986and 1987, respectively. source: Akhtar et al. (1985-86 and 1986-87) and Sharif et al. (1987-88).Varieties were further classified into new recommended (released since 1980), old but still recommended (released before 1980) and banned or not recommended (see Akhtar et al. 1987). Under this criterion 77%, 55%, and 34% of 1988-89 wheat crop were planted to new recommended varieties in the rice, mixed and cotton zones, respectively (Table 6). Similarly, 14%, 18% and 47% of area was planted to old recommended varieties in the above mentioned three zones respectively. In the cotton zone, this relatively large area planted to old recommended varieties is attributable to the recent popularity of Blue Silver/Sonalika, an early-maturing variety. Area under banned varieties was considerably higher in the mixed and cotton zones. WL-711 and Yecora are the main banned varieties in these zones. Information regarding the reasons for planting banned varieties is presented in Table 7. For WL-711, the majority of the farmers in the rice and cotton zone ranked the nonavailability of other varieties seed, the ready availability of own seed, a strong preference for home consumption and more bhusa quantity as important reasons for its planting. In the mixed zone it was planted mainly because of its high yield performances. For Yecora, farmers reported that it was planted mainly because of its higher yield characteristics, its high quality for consumption and the non-availability of new seed. Analysis of varietal use by farm size and by zone suggests that small farmers were relatively slow in adopting new recommended wheat varieties (Table 8). The percentage of area under banned varieties was higher on small farms than on large farms, in a11• three zones. Likewise, the area under varieties released since 1980 was significantly higher on large farms as compared to small farms in the rice and mixed zones. But, in the cotton zone, a higher proportion of small farmers grow recommended varieties than large farmers. The results concerning wheat area planted to different varieties by zones and farm size are presented in Appendices iv, v, and vi.  (1986 and 1987) and Sharif et al. (1987-88) conducted the wheat varietal verification survey for 1985-86, 1986-87 and 1987-88 wheat crops in the same villages of both zones. These data can be used to analyze the change over time in the adoption of wheat varieties (Table 9). The area under new recommended varieties increased from 31 to 77 percent in the rice zone. Correspondingly, the area under banned varieties decreased from 43 to 6 percent. In the cotton zone, the area under new recommended varieties has slightly increased from 31 to 34 percent, but the area under banned varieties decreased sizably from 46 to 17 percent. Overall, some healthy trends have been observed over time as farmers have switched from banned varieties towards new recommended varieties. For the first time, the varietal survey covered all major growing environments of the irrigated Punjab. The area under banned wheat varieties continued to decline, especially in the rice zone. In all zones, new recommended varieties increased their share of total wheat area. Pak-81 continued being the dominant variety of the rice and mixed zones. In the cotton zone, however the banned variety WL-711 was replaced mainly by Blue-Silver/Sonalika. on the basis of the results the following conclusions may be drawn:Firstly, a very high share of wheat area is now planted to one variety, Pak-81. With no obvious replacement, this concentration on one variety could increase in the next few years. There is a danger that Pak-81 might become disease susceptible, thus putting a large area of the wheat crop of Punjab at risk. There is an urgent need for varietal diversification for the study area, especially in the rice zone.Secondly, the pace of adoption of new semi-dwarf wheat varieties remains very slow. For instance, it has taken almost a decade for Pak-81 to achieve widespread adoption. For this survey, farmers were asked why they prefer to grow particular varieties, especially the old and banned varieties. One reason for the slow adoption of many newly released varieties was the marginal yield difference between the new available varieties and the older and banned ones,in years of low incidence of diseases. Other main reasons were preferences for quality for eating purposes or for bhusa yield and quality. These preferences were especially noticeable amongst small farmers. This emphasizes the need to improve quality of future wheat varieties to make them. more acceptable to small farmers.Thirdly, the majority of the small farmers are slow in adopting new cultivars because of the limited availability of seed and lack of knowledge of new varieties (Heisey ed. 1988). To increase the dissemination rate on small farms, it is recommended that seed be distributed at more accessible locations.Finally, regular monitoring of wheat varieties in the Punjab is needed to assess the adoption patterns of farmers, along with better understanding why o~ farmers grow particular varieties. ","tokenCount":"1846"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b8fd0c50b230b1575d0836c20cc9db19","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/ac7d9a71-8456-4867-9ba7-78f84fbe7adf/content","id":"1611299567"},"keywords":["land cover","remote sensing","neural network","Malawi","Africa"],"sieverID":"e0c71594-aa21-44f2-b8ca-01fff7e62659","pagecount":"23","content":"We examine Land Use Land Cover Change (LULCC) in the Dedza and Ntcheu districts of Central Malawi and model anthropogenic and environmental drivers. We present an integrative approach to understanding heterogenous landscape interactions and short-to long-term shocks and how they inform future land management and policy in Malawi. Landsat 30-m satellite imagery for 2001, 2009, and 2019 was used to identify and quantify LULCC outcomes based on eight input classes: agriculture, built-up areas, barren, water, wetlands, forest-mixed vegetation, shrub-woodland, and other. A Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) neural network was developed to examine land-cover transitions based on the drivers; elevation, slope, soil texture, population density and distance from roads and rivers. Agriculture is projected to dominate the landscape by 2050. Dedza has a higher probability of future land conversion to agriculture (0.45 to 0.70) than Ntcheu (0.30 to 0.45). These findings suggest that future land management initiatives should focus on spatiotemporal patterns in land cover and develop multidimensional policies that promote land conservation in the local context.Global ecosystem services are finite resources stressed by global environmental change with pressures from both natural processes and human activities [1]. According to the United Nations World Population Report, nearly 55% of the world population lives in urban areas, while a significant percentage (90%) of Sub-Saharan Africans (SSA) live in rural areas [2]. Most of Africa's population is dependent on the land for subsistence farming, small human settlements, and raw materials from forests [3]. Malawi's 9.4 million hectares (ha) of land exemplifies these concerns and national environmental resources face increasing pressures [4]. In Malawi, 61.4% of all land is in agricultural production [5] accounting for over 38% of Malawi's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and providing livelihoods for 85% of Malawi's population, which is largely smallholder farmers [1].More than 1.6 million smallholder farmers in Malawi grow maize as the primary crop, cultivating an average of 0.4 hectares of land [1]. Regular droughts, as well as limited availability of input resources for soil amendments exacerbated by over-cultivation of soils, threaten crop yields [6][7][8][9]. Moreover, the high demand for forest products and lack of energy alternatives to firewood and charcoal have contributed to deforestation, and forest and land degradation [10]. Land-tenure insecurity also remains a challenge along with the slow implementation of land reforms [11].The government of Malawi has applied short-and long-term localized-national strategies (labeled the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS)) to advance agricultural development aimed at food and nutrition security, as well as improving economic growth and infrastructure development [12,13]. Recently, the Malawi government launched the Vision 2063 plan, the end of which corresponds to 100 years of self-governance in Malawi. Vision 2063 commits to addressing the interconnected challenges through improved governance in land tenure systems and sustainable land management, emphasizing the role of public-private partnerships and transformations through investments in community engagement [12,13].Land cover and land use are inherently coupled. To capture these related systems, indicators of anthropogenic changes are often quantified in the form of land use land cover (LULC) change trajectories using remote sensing imagery as well as models of driving factors and predicted land-cover changes [14][15][16][17]. Methodological advances enable the integration of imagery and underlying drivers. For example, Markov Chains embedded within diverse statistical models are good predictors of the probability of land cover change [18][19][20]. Advanced computation, such as Cellular Automata-Markov chain spatial modeling, predicts changes using a set of replicable rules, and are robust approaches when applied together more so than individually [21][22][23].Previous studies that have utilized robust statistical techniques and algorithms in land use retrieval include the use of the support vector machine (SVM) algorithm to identify non-linear relationships in land use/land cover change for rural to urban transition in Hyderabad, Pakistan [24]; the use of integrated approaches, including landscape fragmentation, machine learning algorithm and fuzzy logic model to determine built-up expansion probability in English Bazar Block, West Bengal, India [25]; as well as the use of multiple classifiers (SVM, Maximum Likelihood (ML) and Random Forest (RF) with multi-modal imageries (Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2) to understand unique spatial landscape features such as natural resource distribution, human settlements and cultural landscapes in the Sahel region of Niamey, Niger [26].Recently, studies using Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), a neural networking model together with Markov Chain (MC) to model spatiotemporal land-cover change based on driving factors such as socio-environmental variables across landscapes have emerged. One study used an MLP-MC predictive model to analyze dynamic rural landscapes with complex environmental gradients across the Eastern Mediterranean region in Turkey, and the results showed human-induced land conversion as well as positive trends of afforestation [27]. Other studies using predictive models show rapid urban expansion of Jodhpur and Patna in India, respectively [28,29]. Neural networks have been used to show land cover transitions caused by deforestation [30], as well as to model intense urbanization around major historical sites such as the Great Pyramids in Cairo, Egypt to assist decision-makers in sustainable development planning [16].In Malawi, past studies used LULCC scenario-based analyses to assess the impacts of human activities including management strategies and practices, on forest cover [31][32][33]. Other studies examined spatiotemporal land-cover change in Malawi's river catchment areas [34,35] or forest-cover change and modeling of carbon emissions crucial for developing national forest monitoring systems and improving REDD+ project design and implementation [36]. Two studies modeled Malawi's streamflow and sediment transfer in water catchment areas using MLP neural networks [37,38], and recently, [39] developed a CA-Markov Chain model for land-cover changes and predictions for 2025 and 2035 to show an increase in agricultural lands while reporting decreases in other land covers.Our study attempts to quantify, simulate, and predict spatiotemporal dynamics across two heterogenous landscapes to understand anthropogenic and environmental processes embedding short-and long-term drivers that affect future land management and policy planning in Malawi. We focus on two rural districts in Central Malawi that are similar in many social-environmental aspects but present quite differently. The objectives are: (1) to determine land use and land cover (LULC) change for two districts in central Malawi using three-time epochs (2001, 2009, and 2019), (2) to determine the main drivers of LULC changes in both districts between 2001 and 2019 and (3) to use the observed drivers to simulate and predict future land use and cover scenario for 2050. The outcome from this study gives quantifiable spatial-temporal information that can inform short-medium term policies at the district level to promote sustainable landscape management aligned with Malawi's Vision 2063.The Dedza and Ntcheu districts are in Central Malawi and adjacent; however simultaneous socio-environmental factors impact their land-cover change trajectories differently justifying the choice of the two districts for this study (see Figure 1). farm sizes are larger than in Dedza (Malawi, National Statistical Office) [40]. Ntcheu has greater landscape heterogeneity with two distinct terrain types; upland areas are mostly located in the west and are mostly covered in natural and mixed vegetation cover while the terrain on the eastern side, is dominated by the Shire River valley that contains fertile alluvial soils [43]. While poverty-count statistics are high for both districts, Ntcheu has a lower share of the population that is poor-56.8% versus 61.7% for Dedza [39]. Remotely sensed Landsat satellite images between 15 August and 1 October (dry season) were collected for each of the three sample years and used to quantify Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) change. The imagery consisted of 2019 Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), and 2009 and 2001 Landsat Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) sensor Surface Reflectance Tier 1 images, both produced by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) but sourced through the Google Earth Engine [44] (see    The Dedza district is larger in area, population size and density, is more mountainous and has a larger share of forest cover, protected forests (reserves in the west, center, and eastern side), and agricultural land use (nearly half of total area); whereas Ntcheu has a more heterogeneous landscape, larger mean farm sizes, and a population that grew faster than Dedza, and had a different set of major project interventions.Additionally, the two districts were chosen because they were also part of an agriculture research project funded under the Feed the Future initiative of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to improve food productivity in maizemixed farming systems. The primary goal of this project, the Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation (Africa RISING), was to improve food productivity in maize-mixed farming systems. This project had built a research infrastructure, local knowledge, and data and information that helped to contextualize our study and was a factor in the choice of study districts. Further, although the two districts were similar in an aggregate sense, the four study site communities (Linthipe and Golomoti in Dedza, and Kandeu and Nsipe, in Ntcheu district) were selected under the (Africa RISING) project to maximize both intra-and cross-district variability.The Dedza district is located approximately 50 miles southeast of Malawi's capital city, Lilongwe. Population statistics from the Malawi National Statistical Office (NSO) show that in 2019 the population of Dedza, a district of 3754 square kilometers (km 2 ) in area, was approximately 840,000, indicating a density of 221 persons per km 2 . The region has experienced high annual population growth of 2.8% from 2008 to 2018 [40] partially attributed to an influx of refugees from Mozambique beginning in the mid-1980s, some of whom remained [41].Dedza comprises smallholder farmers practicing cereal-legume systems consisting mostly of maize, common bean, cassava, millet, rice, sorghum, and tubers (sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes) [40]. Some farmers keep goats, pigs, and poultry [42]. Dedza has a relatively high elevation ranging from 500 m to 1600 m, a mean annual temperature of 18 The Ntcheu district has a lower population of 660,000, and although its population grew faster than Dedza's (3.1% annually between 2008 and 2018), its population density was lower at 203 persons per km 2 on a smaller land area of 3251 km 2 [40]. The district is like Dedza but has a greater variety of integrated crop-livestock systems [42]. Many families also depend on the land for cultivation, livestock grazing, firewood collection and charcoal production. Ntcheu's elevation range is like Dedza's, 550 m to 1500 m. The mean temperature and precipitation are like Dedza's.Both districts have moderately developed trading centers and a few paved roads (routes M1, M5, M10) connecting each district to the capital city of Lilongwe; however, most farming communities are located in more rural settings. Locally, farmers own or rent one or multiple fields that on average range from 0.58 to 0.91 hectares; however, Ntcheu's farm sizes are larger than in Dedza (Malawi, National Statistical Office) [40]. Ntcheu has greater landscape heterogeneity with two distinct terrain types; upland areas are mostly located in the west and are mostly covered in natural and mixed vegetation cover while the terrain on the eastern side, is dominated by the Shire River valley that contains fertile alluvial soils [43]. While poverty-count statistics are high for both districts, Ntcheu has a lower share of the population that is poor-56.8% versus 61.7% for Dedza [39].Remotely sensed Landsat satellite images between 15 August and 1 October (dry season) were collected for each of the three sample years and used to quantify Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) change. The imagery consisted of 2019 Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), and 2009 and 2001 Landsat Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) sensor Surface Reflectance Tier 1 images, both produced by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) but sourced through the Google Earth Engine [44] (see Table 1).The Landsat imagery products were already atmospherically corrected and radiometrically calibrated. Cloud-free imagery was derived by masking cloud pixels by using the Landsat cloud quality metadata. Each image collection (15 August to 1 October) was composited, and the median values were applied to each stacked collection, resulting in 3 groups of 3 monthly composite surface reflectance images for 2001, 2009 and 2019. The administrative boundaries for the Dedza and Ntcheu districts were obtained from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO-UN), Global Administrative Unit Layer (GAUL), a second-level administrative units' dataset. To determine agricultural land use, a time series (2001-2017) of mean Gross Primary Productivity (GPP) estimates derived from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) for the growing season were used. GPP shows differences in greenness and photosynthesis in crop phenology such as the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). However, GPP estimates can potentially be used to estimate yields [45]. A total of 150 observation points were extracted within the 500 m-by-500 m GPP pixel grid, across four study sites and surrounding areas of the districts and assessed in the field in Summer 2018 over a 200 km 2 area (Figure 2). Field-observed sample points were collected within the 500 m-by-500 m GPP pixel grid while approximate Global Positioning System (GPS) locations were recorded as close to the sample points as possible where land was inaccessible [46]. Figure 3 shows various field site photographs taken of agricultural fields during the summer of 2018 field work.of 150 observation points were extracted within the 500 m-by-500 m GPP pixel grid, across four study sites and surrounding areas of the districts and assessed in the field in Summer 2018 over a 200 km 2 area (Figure 2). Field-observed sample points were collected within the 500 m-by-500 m GPP pixel grid while approximate Global Positioning System (GPS) locations were recorded as close to the sample points as possible where land was inaccessible [46]. Figure 3 shows various field site photographs taken of agricultural fields during the summer of 2018 field work.  Past studies in Malawi show that land use and land cover changes are impacted by myriad social and biophysical drivers/causes. These include population density, infrastructure such as roads, and biophysical features such as soil properties, slope, and loca- Past studies in Malawi show that land use and land cover changes are impacted by myriad social and biophysical drivers/causes. These include population density, infrastructure such as roads, and biophysical features such as soil properties, slope, and location near riverbanks [5,10,22,47]. The static or dynamic properties of driver variables have the potential to either constrain or enable certain land-cover changes [26,36,48]. Assumptions were made based on past studies that project future land-cover changes using existing drivers that change over time. For example, distance from major roads or rivers and population density are well known to drive urban and/or agricultural expansion and other land-cover changes. Driver variables such as slope, elevation and temperature have generally stable characteristics and static properties and are thus considered physical constraints to landcover change [29,39,49]. These drivers were used as explanatory variables to estimate the expected quantity of change in land cover (see Table 1).Soil data were extracted from the iSDA Soil texture and properties 30 m Africa layer and subset for Dedza and Ntcheu district boundaries (https://www.isda-africa.com/ isdasoil/ (accessed on 15 April 2021)). Elevation and Slope were derived from the 30 m Shuttle Radar topography Mission (SRTM) dataset using the Google Earth Engine. Population estimates were extracted from the gridded population of the world version 4 (GPWv4) data set that contains global human population distributions from 2005 to 2014 at 1 km spatial resolution using the Google Earth Engine. This layer was subsequently resampled to 30 m resolution using ArcGIS software, assuming even distribution of people within each parent 1-km pixel to align spatial resolution with the other driver variables. Vector datasets for roads and rivers were derived from the Malawi Spatial Data Platform (http://www.masdap.mw/ (accessed on 1 April 2021)), and buffer zones were calculated at 30 m and 50 m of roads and rivers, respectively, using ArcGIS software. These buffer sizes were chosen to exclude restricted buffer zones based on the local Malawi department of roads and surveys because areas for land use are predominantly outside these zones based on a recent study [39] (see Table 1).The Google Earth Engine machine learning algorithm was used to generate the training datasets along with sample points collected from field observations. Specifically, 100-200 random sample pixels were derived from Landsat for each time epoch for each land-cover class, except water, for Dedza where fewer samples were collected because of its small water surface area [44]. Google Earth explorer imagery (2001, 2009, and 2019) was used for visual identification of land cover for signature development and as well as the 150 samples collected for ground truthing. A temporal comparison between 2018 Landsat imagery that is similar to the ground truth period and Landsat 2019 imagery for the same study location showed minimal differences (Table 2: The Random Forest supervised classification method in Google Earth Engine machine learning software was used to classify the land classes (described in Table 3). Most (80%) of the sample pixels were used as training data and the remaining 20% for assessing accuracy for each image year (2001, 2009, and 2019)  [44]. Random Forest supervised classification uses a random selection with replacement to classify pixels using an ensemble of decision trees [50,51]. Lastly, a post-classification image change analysis in ArcGIS v 10.7.1 was carried out; land-cover output maps and land-cover change maps across the land-cover classes for all years (2001,2009,2019) were completed. Figure 4 depicts the logical flow of the methodology used in this study.   Land change modeling was carried out using the land change module (LCM) of TerrSet Software, Version 19.0.5 [48] and specifically, the multilayer perceptron (MLP) artificial neural network model. MLP contains several interconnected nodes or (points/entities) then sums weighted inputs received from other nodes and uses an activation function mapping (that is; a function that helps the model adapt to a given variety of input data to the linear or non-linear approach). In this case, the neural network examines potential transitions for each land-cover class based on the driver variables for the modeled landscape [48,53]. MLP uses a backward stepwise constant forcing procedure that looks at how Land change modeling was carried out using the land change module (LCM) of TerrSet Software, Version 19.0.5 [48] and specifically, the multilayer perceptron (MLP) artificial neural network model. MLP contains several interconnected nodes or (points/entities) then sums weighted inputs received from other nodes and uses an activation function mapping (that is; a function that helps the model adapt to a given variety of input data to the linear or non-linear approach). In this case, the neural network examines potential transitions for each land-cover class based on the driver variables for the modeled landscape [48,53]. MLP uses a backward stepwise constant forcing procedure that looks at how driver variables predict change and gives the best fit model as described further below [48]. The potential for change in land cover is based on the relationships among the transitions of landcover classes between 2001 (t1) and 2019 (t2) as dependent drivers and six independent variables: environmental and social drivers; elevation, slope, soil texture, distance from roads, distance from rivers, and population density as described in Section 2.3 above (Table 1).We run separate sub-models for four transitions: Forest-mixed to Agriculture, Barren to Agriculture, Wetland to Agriculture, and Shrub-Woodland (occurred only in Ntcheu District) to Agriculture using the six input variables for each sub-model.; minor land transitions are not selected due to limited influence on the study area [29,48]. Randomly selected sets of pixels were fed through the neural network classifier using 10,000 iterations [48]. The model builds a network of neurons that starts from the input to output through a hidden layer and a signal travels from node to node and is modified by the receiving node which sums the weighted signals from previous layers and applies a non-linear function to the node before the signal is passed to the next layer [53]. The back-propagation algorithm computes a training error per iteration (training error is computed when network output is compared with desired output), this error is back-propagated through the network, and then adjusts the weights through the connections to improve model accuracy [48]. The RMS error decreases as the weights are refined [48]. The validation data are used to calculate the skill measure which is the difference between the measured transition prediction accuracy and the accuracy expected by chance [54]. The model outcomes are transition potential maps for each sub-model showing the probability for each land-cover class to experience change over a specific time interval [19].Malawi's long-term strategic vision for 2050 and 2063 focuses on food security and strengthening a sector of the economy influenced by climate-related shocks and environmental degradation [11,13]. To simulate current land-cover change and what it might mean for planning and policy making to attain Malawi's strategic vision, we used the transition potentials map outputs from the MLP as inputs for future prediction for the year 2050 based on Markov chain modeling in TerrSet 2020 v.19.0.5 software.A Markov chain is a random model that creates a matrix to estimate the area for each land cover class and assumes that the probability of a land-use system in a certain state and at a particular time can be determined if the state at a prior time is known, provided that the change observed during the calibration (T 1 to T 2 ) is constant during the simulation period (T 2 to T 3 ) [28,29,49]. Determining the change process and outcome for each transition is beneficial to understanding the functioning of the land use systems under different scenarios as it can help to inform management and policy making [29].In this study, land classifications for 2001 (T 1 ) and 2019 (T 2 ) are used to examine land use for potential land transitions. While the outcome of this model is a future scenario, typical land-cover validation methods cannot be employed for future (T 3 ) time steps (2050). For model validation, this study used a quantitative measurement known as the relative operating characteristic (ROC) that assesses the model's ability to specify location changes and predict accurately [55]. ROC calculates the sensitivity rates for the areas changed between the predicted and actual reference maps of 2019, representing the percentage of correctly predicted changes reported as a Kappa index statistic [55,56]. For the study area, the Kappa index represents the accuracy of agreement between the real and predicted maps of 2019. Dedza had a moderate Kappa index value of 0.54% while Ntcheu had 0.72%. Moreover, validation was carried out from predictions for the 2019 land-cover map referenced with the original 2019 land-cover map.The central geographic areas across the study area are dominated by agriculture and built-up classes interspersed with brush/woodland but distributed in a dispersed and fractured manner reflecting the fragmented nature of these forest and agrarian landscapes (Figure 5). The main forest areas are in protected forests-forest reserves. Dedza has concentrated forest areas, particularly in the eastern highlands of the Dedza/Salima Escarpment that stretch across the Dedza/Salima Forest Reserve and Mua/Livuklezi Forest Reserve, central Dedza and southwestern Dedza (Chongoni Forest Reserve).. In contrast, Ntcheu was already more degraded than Dedza and much of the remaining forest cover is distributed on the western side where pronounced areas of shrub-woodland abound, reflecting forest degradation. Wetland land cover occurs along a latitudinal gradient mainly along river/stream courses in the northern-northeastern regions of Ntcheu. Surface water was detected mainly in the northeast region of Dedza. The 'other classes' category spreads to varying extents across both districts. This class constitutes unknown cover classes not covered by the seven main categories included in the land-cover class definitions for our study area (Figure 5). Findings for Dedza show significant changes in land cover across the major cover classes during the 18 years, dominated by the conversion of forest-mixed to agriculture and bare/barren lands (see Table 4). While remaining the dominant land-cover type, agriculture increased in area from 48.0% to 52.4% and 59.7%, respectively, across the three time periods. The share of barren land was relatively low in 2001 but doubled by 2019 (4.7%, 5.4%, and 9.6% in 2001, 2009, and 2019, respectively). Most notably, the largest decrease in forest-mixed was during the last 9 years (2009-2019), an approximately 8% drop from 24.4% to 17.4% of cover while wetland area remained moderate but with small decreases during the period (8-9%).  Findings for Dedza show significant changes in land cover across the major cover classes during the 18 years, dominated by the conversion of forest-mixed to agriculture and bare/barren lands (see Table 4). While remaining the dominant land-cover type, agriculture increased in area from 48.0% to 52.4% and 59.7%, respectively, across the three time periods. The share of barren land was relatively low in 2001 but doubled by 2019 (4.7%, 5.4%, and 9.6% in 2001, 2009, and 2019, respectively). Most notably, the largest decrease in forestmixed was during the last 9 years (2009-2019), an approximately 8% drop from 24.4% to 17.4% of cover while wetland area remained moderate but with small decreases during the period (8-9%). Summary land-cover statistics show more stability in land-cover classes for the already degraded landscapes (forest-mixed) of the Ntcheu district as revealed in the small changes in most land-cover classes over the 18-year study period (Table 5). Thus, agriculture cover remained within 36-39%, with the second time epoch (2009-2019) while experiencing some minor loss in agriculture land use, and low losses in built-up areas (13%, 11%, and 9%) for 2001, 2009 and 2019, respectively, while the forest-mixed class had (12%, 8%, and 10%) with gains observed during 2009-2019. Increases were also observed in the brush/woodland class across the three time points (9%, 15%, and 24%, respectively), indicating forest degradation. Wetlands class decreased by more than half between 2001 (15%) and 2019 (7%), and the 'other' class category had land-cover losses between 2009 (6.3%) and 2019 (3.1%). Agriculture and the barren classes registered modest increases while the shrub-woodland class registered the biggest increase from 15.1% to 24% suggesting forest degradation. Notably, findings show that while both deforestation (reduction in forest cover, 1.8%) and forest degradation (as illustrated by the increase in shrub/woodland cover, 15.5%) occurred during 2001-2019, the latter transition was much more (more than 8 times) dominant than the former. Spatially explicit examination of the land-cover transitions for Dedza (Figure 6) demonstrates that major persistent areas where land cover underwent no measurable change (yellow in the figure) were mainly agricultural lands and forested areas, particularly within forest reserves. Major transitions were mainly losses (red coloring) in the forest-mixed class and wetlands, and relatively gains (green coloring) in the agriculture class. The visual spatial change distribution indicates that the gains in agricultural land of 11.7% (Table 4) occurred mainly in eastern Dedza as well as central Dedza around Chongoni Forest Reserve and river valleys. The 7.1% loss in the forest-mixed class was also largely in the same areas of the district.Spatially explicit examination of the land-cover transitions for Dedza (Figure 6) demonstrates that major persistent areas where land cover underwent no measurable change (yellow in the figure) were mainly agricultural lands and forested areas, particularly within forest reserves. Major transitions were mainly losses (red coloring) in the forest-mixed class and wetlands, and relatively gains (green coloring) in the agriculture class. The visual spatial change distribution indicates that the gains in agricultural land of 11.7% (Table 4) occurred mainly in eastern Dedza as well as central Dedza around Chongoni Forest Reserve and river valleys. The 7.1% loss in the forest-mixed class was also largely in the same areas of the district. Gains in agricultural land cover were mainly on the western side while losses were prevalent on the eastern side of Ntcheu (Figure 7). Agricultural land is persistent on the eastern side and found mainly in the Shire River valley. Losses in forest-mixed cover occurred along a longitudinal gradient, with persistent forested lands found mainly in the western upland and plateau areas. Wetland cover had major losses across the district except in a stable area in the northeastern part. Shrub-woodland had gains across the region during this same time frame with increases of 15.5% (Table 5), suggesting significant forest degradation. Gains in agricultural land cover were mainly on the western side while losses were prevalent on the eastern side of Ntcheu (Figure 7). Agricultural land is persistent on the eastern side and found mainly in the Shire River valley. Losses in forest-mixed cover occurred along a longitudinal gradient, with persistent forested lands found mainly in the western upland and plateau areas. Wetland cover had major losses across the district except in a stable area in the northeastern part. Shrub-woodland had gains across the region during this same time frame with increases of 15.5% (Table 5), suggesting significant forest degradation. A standard accuracy assessment was conducted on the Landsat imagery classified based on Random Forest supervised classification algorithm (described in Section 2.4) and used to generate confusion matrices (supplementary materials: Tables S1-S6) and kappa statistics (including coefficient) for 2001, 2009, and 2019 [57,58]. Overall accuracy for both A standard accuracy assessment was conducted on the Landsat imagery classified based on Random Forest supervised classification algorithm (described in Section 2.4) and used to generate confusion matrices (supplementary materials: Tables S1-S6) and kappa statistics (including coefficient) for 2001, 2009, and 2019 [57,58]. Overall accuracy for both districts was very high and ranged from 93% to 99%. (Tables 6 and 7). The producer's accuracy, which shows the percentage of pixels that were correctly classified in each class, was also very high ranging from 92% to 99% across the classes. The user's accuracy was also calculated. This shows the percentage likelihood that a pixel correctly classified to a particular class represents that class on the ground, and values ranged from 91% to 99%. Overall, the accuracy and the Kappa coefficients support the LULC products and their use in diverse post-classification methods [57,59]. Similarity in spectral signatures for land-cover classes particularly in savanna and woody savanna landscapes has been found to reduce accuracy in forest-mixed and cropland spectral classification [60]. In this study, shrub-woodland areas as found mainly in the more fragmented landscapes of the Ntcheu study area, and rural built-up areas (such as grass-thatched housing) have similar spectral signatures and are difficult to distinguish at the 30 m spatial resolution of the Landsat imagery used. Classification was also aided by field observations and Google Earth Explorer as references for ground truthing and features identification [46].The Land Change modeler (TerrSet Software, Version 19.0.5) analyzes explanatory variables of land-cover change and simulates predictions of future changes. For accuracy, the model uses a backward stepwise constant procedure as described in Section 2.5, to evaluate how well driver variables can predict change [48]. Land change modeling outcomes show each land class transition map, with the potential of change between two classes, as well as future change projection.MLP modeling revealed moderate land-cover transition model accuracies across Dedza and Ntcheu landscapes based on the sub-model skill measure value that represents the overall accuracy of how well the predictor variables explain change in the past. Dedza's sub-model accuracies varied between 56% and 58%, with the highest accuracy associated with sub-model transitions from the forest-mixed to agriculture (58.1%) and from barren to agriculture (58%) sub-models. The wetland to agriculture sub-model had slightly lower accuracy (56%) (Table 8). Each sub-model predicted varying degrees of transition and persistence. The wetland class skill measure revealed high persistence rates of 0.5909. The class skill measure (ratio) can be less than 0.1 or as high as 0.99 [49]. The wide range between the different land-cover classes may be due to variances affecting their ratio, such as land-cover classification accuracy as change is not controlled entirely by the drivers modeled [49]. RMS values for training and testing the model are within a range of 0.48-0.49 which is acceptable as RMS values between 0.2 and 0.5 indicate that the model can predict the data relatively accurately [49]. In Ntcheu (Table 9), the highest accuracy sub-model (67%) is associated with the transition from wetlands to agriculture, followed by the forest-mixed to agriculture, barren to agriculture and shrub-woodland to agriculture transitions. Their accuracies ranged between 60% and 59% while moderate rates of transition were predicted from wetland to agriculture at 0.53 and from forest-mixed to agriculture at 0.31 class skill values. Additionally, the RMS values ranged from 0.45 to just below 0.50. This indicates that the model can reliably predict transitions as the RMS values fall in the upper range of the recommended 0.20-0.50 range [16]. Dedza's land transitions show generally low probabilities of land transition (10-40%). Areas with a high probability of transition (70-90%, and red in color in Figure 8), were limited in spatial scope, mostly to eastern Dedza and for transitions to agriculture. Land transitions from forest-mixed or barren to agriculture (30-70%) are likely to occur in central Dedza locations, while land transitions from wetland to agriculture had a probability of 40-60%.  For the Ntcheu district there is a moderate overall probability (45-70%) of land transitioning from forest-mixed to agriculture, but mostly in the southeastern parts (Figure 9). Transitions from barren to agriculture also had moderate but slightly lower probabilities (40-65%). The probability of land transitions from shrub-woodland to agriculture is also moderate (45-70%) across Ntcheu. In contrast, the probability of transition from agriculture to wetland is relatively low (10-40%). For the Ntcheu district there is a moderate overall probability (45-70%) of land transitioning from forest-mixed to agriculture, but mostly in the southeastern parts (Figure 9). Transitions from barren to agriculture also had moderate but slightly lower probabilities (40-65%). The probability of land transitions from shrub-woodland to agriculture is also moderate (45-70%) across Ntcheu. In contrast, the probability of transition from agriculture to wetland is relatively low (10-40%).For the Ntcheu district there is a moderate overall probability (45-70%) of land transitioning from forest-mixed to agriculture, but mostly in the southeastern parts (Figure 9). Transitions from barren to agriculture also had moderate but slightly lower probabilities (40-65%). The probability of land transitions from shrub-woodland to agriculture is also moderate (45-70%) across Ntcheu. In contrast, the probability of transition from agriculture to wetland is relatively low (10-40%). MLP-Markov chain modeling was used to predict land use change by 2050 using drivers of observed past change along with the probability of change at past and current time stamps of land cover to model future land-cover maps. By 2050 there is a high probability (80%) that most of Dedza land will be agriculture (see bold values in Table 10), while Ntcheu has a lower probability of 43%. Moderate to high probabilities were observed for conversion to built-up (from agriculture) at 72%, to barren at 66%, and to forestmixed at 48%. Ntcheu's (italic values in Table 10) likelihood of conversion from other classes to agriculture, built-up, shrub-woodland, barren and wetland is 30% or above, while the transition from forest-mixed is slightly lower at 26%. There are slight gains from forest to shrub-woodland at 28%, wetland to shrub-woodland (29%), and the \"Other\" class to shrub-woodland at 29%. MLP-Markov chain modeling was used to predict land use change by 2050 using drivers of observed past change along with the probability of change at past and current time stamps of land cover to model future land-cover maps. By 2050 there is a high probability (80%) that most of Dedza land will be agriculture (see bold values in Table 10), while Ntcheu has a lower probability of 43%. Moderate to high probabilities were observed for conversion to built-up (from agriculture) at 72%, to barren at 66%, and to forest-mixed at 48%. Ntcheu's (italic values in Table 10) likelihood of conversion from other classes to agriculture, built-up, shrub-woodland, barren and wetland is 30% or above, while the transition from forest-mixed is slightly lower at 26%. There are slight gains from forest to shrub-woodland at 28%, wetland to shrub-woodland (29%), and the \"Other\" class to shrub-woodland at 29%. The MLP-Markov Chain models project a considerable increase in agricultural land cover that will dominate the landscapes of Dedza and Ntcheu by 2050 (Figure 10). The predicted land-cover map is in large contrast to 2019 and reveals that the agriculture class transformation and dominance will be much more pronounced for Dedza than for Ntcheu districts (Figure 10). Projections of forest conversion include encroachments into forest reserves, and for Dedza, forest cover decreases to 8.8% of total land cover (Table 11), a major source of concern. In Ntcheu, the shrub/woodland class category is projected to be the next largest class (16.0%) from agriculture, suggesting gradual forest thinning and degradation as forest cover shrinks to 7.6% ( The MLP-Markov Chain models project a considerable increase in agricultural land cover that will dominate the landscapes of Dedza and Ntcheu by 2050 (Figure 10). The predicted land-cover map is in large contrast to 2019 and reveals that the agriculture class transformation and dominance will be much more pronounced for Dedza than for Ntcheu districts (Figure 10). Projections of forest conversion include encroachments into forest reserves, and for Dedza, forest cover decreases to 8.8% of total land cover (Table 11), a major source of concern. In Ntcheu, the shrub/woodland class category is projected to be the next largest class (16.0%) from agriculture, suggesting gradual forest thinning and degradation as forest cover shrinks to 7.6% (Table 11).  Projections show a significant change in agricultural land by 2050, with Dedza agriculture land area increasing from 232,291 ha in 2019 (Table 4) to 329,697 ha in 2050 while most of the other land classes decreased over time. Similarly, Ntcheu's projections indicate significant expansion for agriculture though at a slower pace, from 120, 057 ha in 2019 to 189,258 ha, while most other land classes decreased over time (Table 5).Our land-cover change findings for Dedza and Ntcheu districts demonstrate low stability, with the agriculture class showing continued dominance, but transitions vary across the change periods. The findings that gains in the agricultural area were higher during 2009-2019 than during 2001-2009 for Dedza, while the reverse was true for Ntcheu, i.e., higher gains during 2001-2009 than from 2009 to 2019 might reflect the different initial states for the two districts. Dedza started off in 2001 with nearly half of the land already in agriculture and over a third in combined forest and wetland cover area, and the higher population growth accelerated the conversion of mainly forest and wetlands to agriculture during 2009-2019. The continuing degraded state of Ntcheu reflected in a near doubling of shrub-woodland during 2001-2009 combined with a steeper decline from the higher starting cover wetland, might account for the higher increase in agricultural land use. This might also reflect a growing trend in irrigated agriculture of wetlands locally called dimba during the dry season. Overall, population growth related to driving forces and terrain drivers such as lower slope and elevation accelerate land conversion to agriculture and account for observed increases in agricultural area as well as in settlement building, as noted in earlier findings [5,10].The increase in barren areas during 2001-2019 in both districts suggests land-cover clearance or abandonment. This could be explained by farm practices where farmers burn or incorporate crop residues while making ridges after a harvest season, as well as by some land areas left bare of ground cover and undergoing localized soil erosion during rainfall events [61,62]. Moreover, these practices have become more challenging given the current limited use of fallows and diverse crop rotations on declining sizes of land holdings due to population pressures and lagging adjustments to government policies on land allocation [7]. The much larger increase (near doubling) in bare land for Dedza during 2009-2019 might also suggest increasing encroachment into the forest reserves and suggest the need for more protection and improved management, including the Dzalanyama Forest Reserve at the southwestern end [31].The higher decline in the forest-mixed class in Dedza during 2009-2019 was mostly attributed to gains in agriculture, a trend also observed in previous studies. For example, local farmers contributed to an empirically observed decline in forest cover between 1999 and 2015 in Dedza due to agricultural expansion, and the use of forest products for fuelwood, charcoal production, and construction [10]. Although most of the remaining forested areas are confined to forest reserves, tree plantations, and mixed agro-forestry cropping systems are also common. It is notable that Ntcheu gained in forest areas during 2009-2019, possibly due to a combination of locally improved farming practices that incorporated tree planting and forest management. For instance, the 2009 Improved Forest Management for Sustainable Livelihoods Programme (IFMSLP, 2006(IFMSLP, -2009(IFMSLP, , and 2011(IFMSLP, -2015) ) supported communities in forest-based income-generating activities, including honey, timber, and firewood production through proper forest management [63]. Other recent efforts have enhanced the growth of highly vegetative and nitrogen-fixing legume crops such as pigeon peas as well as 'fertilizer trees\" such as Glirididia sepium, Faidherbia albida, Sesbania sesban and Tephrosia vogeii in mixed cropping systems with the improvement of soil organic matter and crop cover as major objectives [64,65].The near linear increase in shrub-woodland areas that were dominant over the Ntcheu district (larger than 2.5 times increase during 2001-2019) suggests continuing disturbance and degradation of forest cover and succession or recovery, as also seen in earlier studies [33]. The shrub-woodland class is also prone to spectral signature similarity to built-up areas (grass-thatched, wood, mud, and tin housing and scattered trees in home gardens) and is prevalent in rural areas in Malawi [66]. Wetlands showed significant declines-by more than half-between 2001 (15%) and 2019 (7%) in Ntcheu. This phenomenon is also seen in a recent participatory mapping study aimed to facilitate discussions on how communities understand their landscapes, during which participants identified and mapped newly cultivated areas that used to be wetland areas [43]. Additionally, participants linked hotspots for land-cover types signifying degradation to the incidence of illegal land renting and changes in climate patterns affecting sustainable land management [43]. Similar studies across Africa reported the highest gains in land use were in agricultural land and most losses in grasslands and woodland and forests [22,31,60].Land Change Modeling (LCM) between 2001 and 2019 revealed a dynamic landscape with significant projected land transitions to agriculture as influenced by the group of six variables. A previous study [10] showed comparable outcomes from land modeling in Dedza between 1991 and 2015, which local farmers attributed to proximity to roads and population growth. Distance from the water was locally perceived the least important driver [10]. Land transitions for Ntcheu appeared to occur along a longitudinal gradient; found mainly in western upland-plateau areas where land-cover losses to agriculture were more prevalent. Conversion to agriculture is an ongoing process; thus, fragmentation of the landscape is expected to continue in the future.Overall, there is no clear pattern of synoptic intensification across the sub-region, as agricultural land use remains persistent. This pattern of a fragmented agrarian landscape with some trees is evident across the landscape in Malawi where agro-forestry and soil amendment models increase tree cover while large contiguous plots of forest decline (also see 36). In such landscapes, one pathway in addressing sustainable land management is to understand the effectiveness of current delivery by agricultural extension in improving knowledge on landscape function and farming practices that increase landscape resilience [67] while also observing land-cover management at the forest/agrarian landscape interface [36,61].The projected LULC changes by 2050, reflecting agricultural cover-class dominance and a higher probability in Dedza (80% for transition to agriculture, 72% built-up, and 66% to barren land) are supported for Dedza by a previous study [39] that also predicted increases in agriculture, built-up and barren areas by 2025 attributed to unsustainable farmland practices and township growth. Despite Ntcheu's lower transition probability, there are still significant rates of change (43%) for agricultural land, particularly from shrub-woodland, forest-mixed, and significantly wetland classes, indicative of underlying landscape fragmentation and environmental degradation. Malawi's wetland conversion and degradation has been understudied given its growing importance to enhance food and livelihood security through supplemental dry-season irrigated farming in a predominantly rain-fed agricultural system, but one paper recognized wetland degradation caused by longterm pressures from poor farming practices, and population settlements on upland areas, which are predicted to increase in response to climate change [68]. Land-use management plans may need to be developed to equip communities and multiple stakeholders including government extension staff by first consolidating the diverse knowledge from multiple perspectives and emphasizing socio-economic and environmental benefits of functional landscapes such as wetlands to facilitate community engagement and promote sustainable land use management [69].We acknowledge some study limitations associated with using high-medium spatial resolution remotely sensed satellite imagery to capture land-cover patterns, as well as to model biophysical and social drivers of change in heterogenous landscapes. This study uses 30 m spatial resolution imagery to model six explanatory drivers assumed to directly capture LULCC processes without consideration of indirect drivers such as climate change and assumes a business-as-usual scenario. Spectral signature separation across some landcover classes such as between shrub-woodland and forest-mixed, and among wetland, agriculture, built-up, and the other class categories was difficult at this spatial resolution, although classification was significantly aided by primary ground truth data. The use of higher spatial resolution data would enhance the analytical rigor of future studies but as such data increase the temporal extent of historical data and as prices come down.Lastly, predictive modeling is data intensive and tries to capture multi-scale and multilevel driver interactions. However, some drivers such as social and economic drivers of LULC change, are not captured in remote sensing spectral sensors, thereby undermining the reliability of modeling outcomes [70]. Moreover, we mentioned previous studies in the introduction section that utilized integrated methodological approaches for land use retrieval to better understand rural to urban transition and urban growth prediction [24,25] as well as the use of multiple integrated approaches and multi-sensor satellite imagery to capture unique heterogeneous landscape features that are non-existence in current land-cover products [26], this study also contributes to filling this methodological gap.Also noteworthy are limitations associated with the temporal framing of the image datasets. For example, we used the 'dry season' timeframe in this study and could have captured space-time information outside the space-time frame as indirect impacts can spill over to the land [71]. Future studies could mitigate this limitation by exploring how model performance is influenced by seasonality (dry versus growing season) to maintain a realistic estimation. Moreover, future research could explore constraints and economic incentives, as well as short-long term policy implementations.This study sought to advance knowledge in quantifying spatial-temporal gains and losses in LULC across Dedza and Ntcheu districts of Central Malawi, and modeled land transitions using driver variables among the land-cover classes and produced predictions of land cover to 2050. The study used a mixture of remote sensing and ancillary datasets, geospatial analysis and land-cover modeling based on Markov chains to generate spatially explicit land cover and transition products to advance knowledge and inform policy within and beyond the study sites and regions.Our study informs stakeholders of spatial-temporal patterns of LULC change and its varying drivers across Dedza and Ntcheu districts. Modeled changes and future projections show significant landscape changes and a need to develop landscape-level policies that raise awareness among farming communities and policy makers. Enhanced understanding of land-use change, especially in areas that are projected to experience the most significant land transitions, can better inform policy interventions on sustainable land and other local natural resource management strategies (e.g., mandatory sub-district and district development plans) as well as shape national level policies. They could also inform the design of socio-economic incentives to encourage sustainable agricultural production and improve multifunctional use of the landscapes and enhance the targeting of conservation and restoration interventions to reduce or reverse land degradation and mitigate climate change.The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https: //www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/rs14143477/s1, Table S1: A Confusion matrix summary 2001 for Dedza district. (* 100 value accuracy has been rounded off). Table S2: Confusion matrix summary 2009 for Dedza district (* 100 value accuracy has been rounded off). Table S3: Confusion matrix summary 2019 for Dedza district. (* 100 value accuracy has been rounded off). Table S4  ","tokenCount":"7947"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2a6344d05123f097e8a7d615a535b719","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/7799d77f-3e85-45fc-986d-4b678e220bfc/retrieve","id":"-1133512208"},"keywords":["biofortification","quality protein maize","provitamin A","kernel zinc","vitamin E"],"sieverID":"273f548a-8f89-4b04-b1fe-2fb20d79dd92","pagecount":"16","content":"Maize is a major source of food security and economic development in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), Latin America, and the Caribbean, and is among the top three cereal crops in Asia. Yet, maize is deficient in certain essential amino acids, vitamins, and minerals. Biofortified maize cultivars enriched with essential minerals and vitamins could be particularly impactful in rural areas with limited access to diversified diet, dietary supplements, and fortified foods. Significant progress has been made in developing, testing, and deploying maize cultivars biofortified with quality protein maize (QPM), provitamin A, and kernel zinc. In this review, we outline the status and prospects of developing nutritionally enriched maize by successfully harnessing conventional and molecular marker-assisted breeding, highlighting the need for intensification of efforts to create greater impacts on malnutrition in maize-consuming populations, especially in the low-and middle-income countries. Molecular marker-assisted selection methods are particularly useful for improving nutritional traits since conventional breeding methods are relatively constrained by the cost and throughput of nutritional trait phenotyping.Maize and its products constituted 30% of the food supply in the Americas, 38% in Africa, and 6.5% in Asia, and thus, is a major source of food security and economic development. Maize is major staple food and the most important energy source in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with intakes ranging from 50 to >330 g/person/day, and providing daily energy, protein, and micronutrients. In Latin America, maize consumption ranges from 50 to >300 g/person/day. Additionally, maize is part of the livestock-to-meat cycle across the world (Tanumihardjo et al., 2019). In addition to calories, maize is a source of micronutrients and phytochemicals, such as phenolics, carotenoids (yellow and orange maize), anthocyanins (blue, purple, and black maize), phlobaphenes (red maize), insoluble and soluble dietary fiber, and polar and non-polar lipids, providing health benefits and helping prevent diseases (Figure 1).High per capita consumption of maize and limited diet diversification in several countries across Africa, Latin America, and Asia signifies that the greater part of people's diets in these countries lack some of the essential micronutrients, such as zinc (Zn), vitamin A, and vitamin E, as well as essential amino acids, such as lysine and tryptophan. More than two billion people in Asia, Africa, and Latin America suffer from one or more micronutrient deficiencies that commonly lead to retarded physical growth, impaired cognitive development, complications during pregnancy, diminished work and income earning capacity, and increased risk of morbidity and mortality (Bailey et al., 2015;Rautiainen et al., 2016).The concentrations of various nutrients in maize kernels depend on the genetic background or the genotype, agronomic management, interaction between genotype and the environment, and post-harvest handling (Ekpa et al., 2019). Although the concentrations of most micronutrients in commonly used maize worldwide are not enough to have a nutritional impact on consumers, there is large genetic variation in maize that allows development of improved cultivars with higher concentrations of certain micronutrients, through biofortification (Bouis and Saltzman, 2017). Additional or complementary technologies in crop management and food science can also contribute to enhancing the nutritional impact of maize-based diets (Nuss and Tanumihardjo, 2011;Ekpa et al., 2018).Maize scientists have been developing improved cultivars with enhanced nutritional value, such as quality protein maize (QPM) rich in two essential amino acids (Prasanna et al., 2001;Atlin et al., 2011); orange maize biofortified with provitamin A carotenoids (Pixley et al., 2013); and high-Zn-enhanced maize (Andersson et al., 2017). Higher content of lysine and tryptophan, kernel Zn, and provitamin A have been successfully increased in maize through conventional breeding.In SSA, the spread of QPM cultivars has been faster than in Asia, mainly because maize is predominantly used as food in SSA. In Asian countries including India, maize grains are utilized more as poultry feed (~60-70% of the produce), and synthetic lysine and tryptophan are added as supplements. Besides grain corn, nutritional enrichment of sweet corn is another possibility. Sweet corn has emerged as an important source of income for farmers in Asia; US$1,034 million worth of preserved sweet corn is imported globally, while the same for frozen sweet corn was $423 million (FAOSTAT, 2017).There are now significant opportunities for more effectively developing nutritionally enriched cultivars of both grain and specialty corn, due to various factors, including availability of large genetic diversity for the target traits, advances in understanding key biochemical pathways for metabolite biosynthesis, analytical tools for screening germplasm for quality traits, and the possibilities to utilize molecular markers and genome editing approaches to accelerate product development (Reynolds et al., 2019). In this review, we have highlighted the recent advances in breeding for nutritionally enriched maize, especially in the tropics. Essential amino acids such as lysine and tryptophan not only act as building blocks of proteins but also serve as neurotransmitters. The recommended daily allowance of lysine is 30 mg kg −1 body weight for adults, and 35 mg kg −1 body weight for children. As regards tryptophan, the daily requirements are 4 and 4.8 mg kg −1 body weight per day for adults and children, respectively (WHO/FAO/UNU, 2007). Deficiency of these amino acids leads to reduced appetite, delayed growth, impaired skeletal development, and aberrant behavior (Tome and Bos, 2007).Several smallholders and their families in the low-and middle-income countries in SSA and Latin America are dependent on maize not only for their calorie requirement but also for dietary protein. Such populations, along with their monogastric livestock, run the risk of incurring health problems associated with amino acid deficiency, as maize is deficient in two essential amino acids, lysine and tryptophan. Improving the quality of maize endosperm protein by increasing its lysine and tryptophan content has, therefore, been a goal of maize breeding programs of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), and several national programs. This has led to development of an array of QPM cultivars having approximately twice the content of tryptophan (0.07-0.08% in flour) and lysine (0.25-0.40% in flour) compared to conventional maize cultivars (tryptophan: 0.03-0.04% in flour; lysine: 0.15-0.20% in flour), and consequently having greatly improved nutritional quality (Bressani, 1992;Bjarnason and Vasal, 1992;Zarkadas et al., 1995;Prasanna et al., 2001).Development of QPM cultivars involves manipulating three distinct genetic systems (Bjarnason and Vasal, 1992;Prasanna et al., 2001): 1) the simple recessive allele of opaque2 (o2) gene in homozygous condition; 2) modifiers/enhancers of the o2o2containing endosperm to confer higher lysine and tryptophan; and 3) genes that modify the opaque2-induced soft endosperm to hard endosperm. Phenotypic selection followed by biochemical analysis are required to select desirable genotypes that combine the three systems. Genomic screening methods may be used to enhance the efficiency of this selection process (Babu et al., 2005).The deployment of o2 located on chromosome 7 along with the endosperm modifiers led to the successful commercialization of diverse QPM hybrids worldwide with enhancement of both lysine (from 1.6-2.6 to 2.7-4.5% in protein) and tryptophan (from 0.2-0.6 to 0.5-1.1% in protein) (Vivek et al., 2008). The search for a novel mutation that can be successfully utilized to develop high lysine maize continued in the new millennium until Yang et al. (2005) reported another recessive mutant from Robertson's Mutator stocks and named it as opaque16 (o16). Simple sequence repeats (SSRs), umc1141 and umc1149 were identified as the closely linked markers to o16 (located on chromosome 8) using F 2 mapping population developed between Chinese inbreds, QCL3024 (o16) and QCL3010 (wild type). o2o2/o16o16 was reported to increase lysine by 30% over o2o2 or o16o16 alone (Yang et al., 2005). Sarika et al. (2017) studied two F 2 populations derived by crossing wild type (CML533 and CML537) and o16-donor line (QCL3024). Genotypes with o16o16 possessed on average nearly two-fold more lysine (0.247% in flour) and tryptophan (0.072% in flour) compared to normal maize (lysine 0.125% and tryptophan 0.035%, in flour), although the wide variation for the two traits across populations (lysine: 0.111-0.376% in flour; tryptophan: 0.027-0.117% in flour) suggested the possible influence of modifier loci. Yang et al. (2013) reported that average lysine in o16o16based BC 2 F 4 seeds was 0.352%; some of the segregants (o16o16) possessed comparable lysine and tryptophan usually observed in o2o2 genotypes, thereby suggesting that o16 can be used as replacement to o2 in the QPM breeding program. Sarika et al. (2018a) reported that the seed endosperm of o16o16 was vitreous and phenotypically similar to wild type (O16O16). The mutant did not influence the degree of kernel opaqueness in o2o2 genetic background as opaqueness in o2o2/O16O16 and o2o2/o16o16 was similar. Grain hardness of o16o16 was comparable with the normal and QPM maize. The pattern of microscopic organization of proteinaceous matrix and starch granules, and zein profiling of the storage protein in o16o16 were found to be similar with normal maize endosperm, but distinct from the o2o2-soft genotype.A strong recognition of the relevance of QPM came through the award of World Food Prize to Surinder Vasal and Evangelina Villegas in the year 2000, leading to a resurgence in QPM breeding and release of cultivars [both open-pollinated varieties (OPVs) and hybrids] across SSA, Asia, and Latin America. In Asia, more than 40 QPM cultivars have been developed and released through conventional breeding, with India, China, Indonesia, and Vietnam having the highest number of releases. Several of the QPM cultivars were initially identified through CIMMYT International Trials distributed to partners, while national programs in India and China further released an array of QPM cultivars with introgression of the QPM trait in commercially relevant genetic backgrounds.In India, marker-assisted backcross breeding (MABB) for o2 led to the development and release of a single-cross QPM hybrid, 'Vivek QPM-9' in 2008(Gupta et al., 2013). It possessed 41% more tryptophan and 30% more lysine over the original hybrid . Later, o2 allele was introgressed into the parental inbreds of three popular non-QPM hybrids. These hybrids viz., 'Pusa HM-4 Improved', 'Pusa HM-8 Improved', and 'Pusa HM-9 Improved' have been released in 2017 for commercial cultivation in India (Hossain et al., 2018a), possessing nearly double the concentrations of lysine and tryptophan as compared to normal maize. These four hybrids are in the flint background, and did not show any yield penalty over the original hybrids (Yadava et al., 2018). At CIMMYT several inbreds were converted to QPM versions (e.g., CML244Q, CMl246Q, CML349Q, and CML354Q) using MABB; the grain yield performance of these QPM versions were at par with the original versions. Several institutions under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and State Agricultural Universities (SAUs) are now using markerassisted selection (MAS)-based breeding methods for developing new QPM cultivars (Hossain et al., 2019).The Institute of Crop Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) developed diverse QPM inbred lines by marker-assisted backcrossing in different genetic backgrounds (Tian et al., 2004;Jiang et al., 2005). Zhang et al. (2010) combined o2 and o16, and reported an enhancement of 23% lysine in o2o2/o16o16 progeny over the o2o2 inbred comparison. Zhang et al. (2013) further pyramided o2 and o16 in waxy genetic background, and reported higher accumulation of lysine (0.616% in flour) in the pyramided lines compared to o2o2 segregants (0.555% in flour). Yang et al. (2013) introgressed the o16 allele from QCL3024 into two Chinese waxy lines, QCL5019 and QCL5008 using MAS. The o16o16-based waxy inbreds possessed 16-27 and 18-28% higher lysine than the waxy parents, respectively. Liu et al. (2016) developed the functional marker qg27 linked with endosperm modification, which provides an important technical support in breeding QPM, although laboratory analysis is still needed for quantification of lysine and tryptophan.Marker-assisted breeding has also been initiated in India to combine both o2 and o16 for developing QPM hybrids with enhanced levels of lysine and tryptophan (Sarika et al., 2018b;Chand et al., 2019). Sarika et al. (2018b) introgressed o16 into the parental lines of four commercial QPM hybrids (HQPM-1, HQPM-4, HQPM-5, and HQPM-7) released in India, using MABB. Reconstituted hybrids showed an average enhancement of 49 and 60% in lysine and tryptophan over the original hybrids, with highest enhancement amounting 64 and 86%, respectively. The degree of endosperm modification in these hybrids was similar to the original QPM hybrids. The grain yield potential of these o2o2/o16o16 hybrids was also at par with the original o2o2based released hybrids, indicating that o16 could be a novel genetic resource for enhancing lysine and tryptophan without influencing the degree of kernel opaqueness and grain yield potential.Vitamin A plays a vital role in vision, and lack of it causes night blindness and partial or even complete loss of eyesight in humans. An adult non-pregnant and non-lactating woman requires 500 mg day −1 of vitamin A, while children of 4-6 years require 275 mg day −1 (Andersson et al., 2017). SSA has recorded the highest rates of vitamin A deficiency or VAD (48%), followed by South Asia (42%) (UNICEF, 2016). Pregnant women, breast-feeding mothers, and their children younger than 5 years of age are at the highest risk of having VAD (Bailey et al., 2015). In some countries in SSA, VAD in the most vulnerable populations is associated with reduced immune response, which can lead to increased infections, such as diarrhea, measles, or respiratory infections, which may either decrease provitamin A intake through reduced appetite or deplete existing vitamin A stores through excessive metabolism (Alvarez et al., 1995;Mitra et al., 1998).Maize has been targeted as one of the major food crops for provitamin A (PVA) enrichment and delivery under the HarvestPlus Program (Pfeiffer and McClafferty, 2007;Bouis and Welch, 2010). The main objective of the PVA enrichment in maize breeding program has been to develop high-yielding, provitamin A-enriched maize cultivars that are profitable to farmers and acceptable to the consumers, and with proven effectiveness in reducing vitamin A deficiency (Bouis and Welch, 2010). Yellow maize naturally accumulates PVA carotenoids, including a-carotene, b-carotene (BC), and bcryptoxanthin (BCX), which can be metabolically converted to active vitamin A in the human body (Asson-Batres and Rochette-Egly, 2016). However, kernels of yellow maize cultivars commonly grown by farmers contain less than 2 mg g −1 of PVA (Ortiz-Monasterio et al., 2007;Pixley et al., 2013), which is insufficient to meet the recommended daily requirement in a diet (Institute of Medicine, 2012). Considerable efforts have thus been made to increase the concentrations of PVA carotenoids in maize through conventional and molecular marker-assisted breeding (Pixley et al., 2013;Giuliano, 2017;Andersson et al., 2017;Menkir et al., 2017).The breeding target for PVA in maize deemed sufficient to impact human health was set at 15 µg g −1 of BC equivalents, by a multidisciplinary team that included plant breeders, plant geneticists, biochemists, nutritionists, and food processing specialists (Hotz and McClafferty, 2007). PVA content was estimated as one part of BC plus one and a half part of BCX, based on the number of unmodified b-rings and number of retinol molecules that can be derived from them (Von Lintig, 2010;Wurtzel et al., 2012). The first step in developing PVA maize was screening of more than 1,500 genotypes for their carotenoid profiles. The majority of inbred lines surveyed had BCX and BC content averaging from 1 to 2 µg g −1 and PVA content of 2-3 µg g −1 (Ortiz-Monasterio et al., 2007;Menkir et al., 2008), but a few temperate lines had PVA levels approaching 15 µg g −1 (Ortiz-Monasterio et al., 2007). Nonetheless, the levels of PVA carotenoids in adapted tropical and sub-tropical maize inbred lines were far below the breeding target of 15 µg g −1 of PVA set for maize (Bouis et al., 2011), emphasizing the need for accessing and mining novel sources of favorable alleles to boost PVA concentration to new levels. The less complex nature of control of provitamin A content, high heritability, mode of inheritance regulated primarily by additive genetic effects, and statistically non-significant correlation between PVA and agronomic performance suggested that concurrent improvements of PVA carotenoids and grain yield would be possible (Suwarno et al., 2014;Menkir et al., 2018;Ortiz-Covarrubias et al., 2019). Through systematic breeding efforts, significant improvement has been made in enhancing provitamin A content of tropical maize inbred lines developed at CIMMYT (Figure 2).Selection for PVA content has focused mostly on increasing BC; however, new evidence suggests that BCX may be more bioavailable (Howe and Tanumihardjo, 2006;Schmaelzle et al., 2014;Sugiura et al., 2014) and less susceptible to degradation than BC. Recent studies (Dhliwayo et al., 2014;Ortiz et al., 2016;Taleon et al., 2017;Sowa et al., 2017) suggested that breeding for PVA carotenoids should aim to increase BCX more than BC due to the increasing evidence of low stability of BC, higher BCX bioavailability compared to BC, and BCX's similar bioconversion and bioefficacy to BC (Schmaelzle et al., 2014), in addition to the genetic diversity found for BCX (Suwarno et al., 2015;Menkir et al., 2018). Breeding efforts have started in this regard and inbred lines have been developed and are currently being used in the development of new hybrids and synthetics. Research focused on minimizing carotenoid degradation is also needed.The carotenoid biosynthesis pathway is well-studied and genes controlling key steps in the pathway have been cloned and characterized. Allelic variation in key genes has been exploited to identify and develop DNA markers associated with BC and BCX, the main carotenoids with PVA activity. Use of MAS in combination with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)/ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) analysis has been more effective than biochemical screening alone (Zhang et al., 2012;Simpungwe et al., 2017).Most of the breeding work until about 2011 was based on phenotypic selection and biochemical analysis was used to quantify PVA levels in selected lines (Pixley et al., 2013). Polymorphisms were identified in two genes: b-carotene hydroxylase1 (CrtRB1) which catalyzes the hydroxylation of BC to BCX (Yan et al., 2010), and lycopene epsilon cyclase (LcyE), which converts lycopene to zeta (z)-carotene and ultimately to a-carotene (Harjes et al., 2008). The favorable allele at CrtRB1 reduces hydroxylation of BC into BCX whereas LcyE reduces flux into the a-branch of the pathway (Von Lintig, 2010). Both alleles increase PVA content, but the favorable CrtRB1 allele is more effective in increasing PVA content than the favorable Lcyє allele (Yan et al., 2010;Babu et al., 2013).Three functional polymorphisms were thus identified in the two genes: CrtRB1-5′TE, CrtRB1-3′TE, and LcyE 3′Indel. Babu et al. (2013) evaluated these three polymorphisms in CIMMYT maize germplasm and reported more than two-fold increase in BC associated with the favorable allele at CrtRB1-3′TE, irrespective of the genotype at CrtRB1-5′TE. The favorable allele LcyE 3′Indel reduced the ratio of a to b-branch carotenoids by up to 30%, without a notable increase in BC or PVA content. Effectiveness of the CrtRB1-3′TE polymorphism in increasing PVA content was also demonstrated by Zunjare et al. (2018). The maximum PVA content that can be achieved by selecting for both the CrtRB1-3'TE and LcyE 3′Indel polymorphisms is unknown, partly because of a large genetic background effect or epistasis (Babu et al., 2013). Nevertheless, donor germplasm with >20 µg g −1 have been developed using MAS targeting the favorable alleles for the two polymorphisms in a pedigree breeding scheme. Foreground MAS selection was done in segregating F 2 or F 3 populations, selecting seeds that had the homozygous favorable alleles at the CrtRB1-3′ TE and LcyE-3′Indel polymorphisms. However, combining foreground and background MAS may be preferable to reduce linkage drag considering that most of the PVA maize donor germplasm is agronomically inferior (Zunjare et al., 2018;Ortiz-Covarrubias et al., 2019).During 2011 to 2015, CIMMYT's PVA breeding program at Mexico was manually chipping and genotyping 10,000 seeds per season and selecting homozygous individuals (~20-25%) for planting. This process saved land and labor resources by ensuring that only individual plants that carried the favorable alleles were planted while enabling development of inbred lines that reached or exceeded the breeding target coupled with good yield potential, disease resistance, grain quality traits, and other agronomic traits. However, the gel-based assays were expensive and the manual seed chipping method was laborious and timeintensive. Scientists at CIMMYT and IITA developed the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers, which have been used to develop an automated high-throughput assay with an external service provider. Currently, in SSA, MAS for the favorable CrtRB1-3′TE is done in combination with MAS for maize streak virus 1 (MSV1) that is associated with resistance to the viral disease maize streak virus (Nair et al., 2015).According to the World Health Organization, Zn deficiencies affected 17% of the global population (www.harvestplus.org). Zn deficiency is widespread and particularly prevalent in Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, and South and Southeast Asia (Caufield et al., 2004). In young children, it increases the risk of diarrheal disease, pneumonia, malaria, and mortality from those diseases. Based on the estimated average requirement (EAR) of 1,860 µg day −1 of Zn in maize, the breeding target established by HarvestPlus for maize was 33 µg g −1 (Bouis and Welch, 2010). Andersson et al. (2017) indicated a new EAR of 2,960 µg day −1 for women and 1,390 µg day −1 for children. The baseline content for Zn in maize is about 20 µg g −1 ; assuming 90% retention of Zn after processing and 25% bioavailability, at least 33 ppm of Zn needs to be accumulated in the maize grains. Thus, an increase of at least 13 µg g −1 is targeted by breeding, which is achievable due to significant genetic variation for kernel-Zn concentration in tropical maize germplasm. With the availability of high-Zn tropical maize genotypes, studies on nutrient retention, bioavailability, and efficacy are being planned.Biofortification of maize kernels with high-Zn has been undertaken at CIMMYT and IITA, in active partnership with public and private sector partners. Substantial genetic variation for kernel-Zn (4-96 ppm) was found in tropical maize germplasm (Bänziger and Long, 2000;Ortiz-Monasterio et al., 2007;Menkir, 2008;Chakraborti et al., 2011;Prasanna et al., 2011;Hindu et al., 2018), including landraces, inbreds, hybrids, and OPVs. Unlike crops like wheat and rice (Guzmán et al., 2014), in maize no statistically significant correlation was observed between kernel Zn and Fe contents. In fact, high Zn maize normally contain between 18 and 20 ppm Fe, which is the average content in maize kernel. In addition, factors like limited genetic variation and the high target levels needed to reach nutritional impact in the consumers affected Fe biofortification in maize using breeding strategies.Breeding efforts at CIMMYT and IITA were initiated to meet the target level of 33 ppm kernel-Zn (dry weight) (Bouis et al., 2011). The initial focus has been on Latin American countries including Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Colombia, and Western African countries, including Ghana, Benin, and Nigeria. Zn biofortification breeding at CIMMYT has utilized whiteendosperm and high kernel-Zn lines with QPM background. Three QPM CIMMYT Maize Lines (CMLs)-CML176, CML491, and CML492-were found to be particularly important for improving kernel Zn in tropical maize, and have been used extensively as founder lines in pedigree-based selection. These elite QPM lines were derived from CIMMYT maize Population 62 (white flint QPM) and Population 63 (white dent QPM), which underwent several cycles of intra-population recurrent selection in the 1980s (CIMMYT, 1998). Population 62 traces back to ETO composite, whose main components were the tropical Colombian landraces, Comun and Chococeño, and the Venezuelan landraces, Puya and Cubano Amarillo. Population 63 traces back to Tuxpeño-1 composite, whose main component was the Mexican landrace Tuxpeño (CIMMYT, 1998). Adapted yellow and white endosperm maize inbred lines derived from broad-based populations, bi-parental crosses, and backcrosses with high Zn content have been used for generating pedigree populations at CIMMYT and IITA to develop new high Zn inbred lines.Interestingly, above-average concentration of Zn in the kernels was found in the QPM germplasm as compared to non-QPM/ normal maize germplasm (Chakraborti et al., 2009;Chakraborti et al., 2011). However, not all QPM germplasm is high in kernel Zn, and it is possible to have some non-QPM germplasm with high kernel Zn. Zn plays an important role in tryptophan biosynthesis, which is increased in QPM. Using 923 lines to conduct genomewide association studies (GWAS) for kernel Zn, Hindu et al. (2018) reported that only 31 were QPM or had QPM background and 33.3% had Zn values higher than 30 µg g −1 on dry weight (DW) basis. In contrast, out of the 892 non-QPM used in the panel, 19.9% had values higher than 30 µg g −1 DW, and about 6% of them had values higher than the breeding target (33 µg g −1 DW). Taken together, these results indicate great potential to develop high Zn maize alone or in combination with better protein quality in biofortification programs.Quantitative trail locus (QTL) mapping studies confirmed that kernel Zn accumulation is under the control of several genetic loci (Qin et al., 2012;Baxter et al., 2013). Complexity of the trait is further increased due to higher environment and genotype × environment interaction (GEI) effects. Over the past few years, genomic regions influencing Zn concentration have been detected through GWAS and biparental QTL mapping in maize. GWAS of 923 tropical/sub-tropical CIMMYT maize inbred lines, phenotyped at three locations in Mexico and genotyped using high density genotyping by sequencing (GBS), identified a total of 20 SNPs significantly associated with kernel-Zn. This effort constitutes the first large-scale screening of tropical/sub-tropical public germplasm for kernel Zn. A set of 11 SNPs identified in GWAS have been subsequently validated in independent biparental populations using single factor QTL analysis, and some of these SNPs explained a relatively high proportion of variance (Hindu et al., 2018). Qin et al. (2012) identified three stable QTLs for kernel-Zn concentrations in two populations across two environments. Šimić et al. (2012) identified two QTLs on chromosomal bin 3.05 and 4.08 which explained small percentage of the variation in a temperate biparental population phenotyped at two locations. Jin et al. (2013) conducted a meta-QTL study with QTL mapping studies published for kernel Zn and many related minerals, and identified nine meta-QTLs across the maize chromosomes that could have an influence in kernel-Zn concentration. Earlier studies identified some major QTLs for kernel Zn trait in chromosomal bins 3.04 (Qin et al., 2012), 4.06, 5.04 (Jin et al., 2013), and 9.06-07 (Qin et al., 2012;Jin et al., 2013); significant SNP markers were identified through CIMMYT GWAS and validation studies. To assess their utility in breeding program, these SNPs were further analyzed in parental lines selected for high kernel-Zn at CIMMYT, including analysis of the frequency of favorable alleles in the breeding pool. The favorable allele frequency ranged between 0.09 and 0.94 in CIMMYT's breeding lines for these SNPs/ haplotypes. Three haplotypes were selected on chromosomes 5, 7, and 9 based on their favorable allele frequency and effect size of favorable alleles. In a set of 1,880 breeding lines from pedigree crosses entering stage 1 testing in the kernel-Zn breeding pipeline, it was seen that the selection for the three favorable haplotypes increased the population mean kernel-Zn content by 16.3% (Sudha K Nair, unpublished).Genomic selection (GS) has been demonstrated as an effective approach to accelerate genetic gain in maize breeding for improvement of complex traits (Zhang et al., 2015;Cao et al., 2017;Yuan et al., 2019). The genomic prediction accuracy for kernel Zn content in maize has been estimated at CIMMYT in different types of maize populations with repeat amplification sequencing and GBS markers. Moderate to high prediction accuracies, ranging from 0.35 to 0.65, were observed across different types of populations and genotyping platforms (Xuecai Zhang, unpublished). Thus, kernel Zn content in maize could be improved by implementing MAS and GS in a stepwise fashion, where the SNPs/haplotypes detected and validated in the association mapping and linkage mapping analyses can be used in forward breeding at an early generation when there are larger numbers of selection candidates, followed by genomic selection at advanced stages of breeding or the SNPs/haplotypes can be fitted as fixed effects in GS models to improve prediction accuracy.Breeding for high kernel Zn has been a challenge to the maize breeders worldwide, primarily due to involvement of large number of loci with minor effects and existence of very high GEI (Colangelo and Guerinot, 2006). Moreover, bioavailability of Zn in maize grains is only 20% in the human gut (Andersson et al., 2017). The major impediment of low bioavailability of Zn has been the presence of phytic acid/phytate that constitutes nearly 75-80% of the total phosphorus in maize grains (Raboy, 2001). Maize kernels generally contains ~3.2 mg day −1 of phytic acid with a range of 2.4 to 4.1 mg day −1 (Lorenz et al., 2007). Phytate being negatively charged has a strong tendency to chelate positively charged metal ions, such as Zn, thereby resulting in highly insoluble salts with poor bioavailability of the nutrient (Zhou and Erdman, 1995). Monogastric animals including humans, poultry, and swine cannot digest phytic acid in their gut, since they lack phytic acid hydrolyzing enzyme phytase. Phytate is thus expelled directly to the environment through excreta posing a serious concern as continuous expulsion of high phosphorus load causes pollution in the nearby water bodies (Jorquera et al., 2008). Hence bringing down the phytate in maize could be an important strategy for Zn biofortification.Low phytic acid (lpa) mutants are available in maize (Raboy et al., 2000). These mutants produce seeds that have normal levels of total phosphorus but greatly reduced levels of phytic acid phosphorus. The lpa mutations do not affect the ability of a plant to uptake phosphorus and its transportation to a developing seed; instead, they block the ability of a seed to synthesize phosphorus into phytic acid (Pilu et al., 2003). Recessive lpa1-1 mutation causes up to 55-65% reduction of phytic acid in maize grain and is due to a mutation in trans-membrane transporter protein (MRP). The lpa2-1 mutation causes 50% reduction in phytic acid, and is due to a mutation in inositol phosphate kinase (IPK) enzyme (Raboy et al., 2000). lpa241 mutation which reduces phytic acid up to 90% originated from mutation in myo-inositol(3)P1 synthase (MIPS) enzyme (Pilu et al., 2005). Ertl et al. (1998) developed low phytate maize genotypes via backcross method. Beavers et al. (2015) generated low phytic acid maize population without negatively affecting seed quality through three rounds of selections in broad-based synthetic populations. Though lpa241 showed 30% reduction in germination (Pilu et al., 2005), no negative effects on germination, initial establishment, growth, and response to pests and diseases were observed for lpa2-1 and lpa1-1 (Raboy et al., 2000). Considering this, lpa2-1 and lpa1-1 have been used in various breeding programs. In India, lpa2-2 allele was successfully introgressed into well-adapted and productive elite inbred lines viz., UMI-395 and UMI-285 through MAS (Sureshkumar et al., 2014;Tamilkumar et al., 2014). Recessive lpa1-1 and lpa2-1 mutants have also been combined with high provitamin-A and QPM traits in elite genetic backgrounds (Bhatt et al., 2018). Though there is no report of release of low phytate maize cultivars, the lpa genotypes developed by different research groups hold promise for their deployment to alleviate Zn deficiency. It is important to integrate low phytate program with breeding for high-Zn content, as the benefits of lpa mutant can be best realized in genotypes with higher kernel Zn. In addition to genetic interventions, phytate content can also be reduced through maize processing methods like lime-cooking and fermentation (Ekpa et al., 2018).Vitamin-E is an essential micronutrient in human body, and plays vital role in scavenging of various reactive oxygen species (ROS) and free radicals, quenching of singlet oxygen (high energy oxygen), and providing membrane stability by protecting polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) from lipid peroxidation (Fryer, 1992). Vitamin-E helps in preventing Alzheimer's disease, neurological disorders, cancer, cataracts, age-related macular degeneration, and inflammatory disease (Bramley et al., 2000). Supplementation of vitamin-E in the feed also ensures enhanced quality and prolongs stability of animal meat (De Winne and Dirinck, 1996;Sanders et al., 1997).Recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for vitamin-E is 4 mg day −1 for 0-6 month's old child, while the same for ≥14 years old is 15 mg day −1 for both males and females (Institute of Medicine, 2000). It is estimated that over 20% of the examined people both in developed and developing countries possess plasma a-tocopherol lower than the recommended level (Li et al., 2012). In a study in South Korea, two-third of adults were reported to have suboptimal vitamin-E level and almost one fourth are deficient (Kim and Cho, 2015). About one-third of the pregnant women in rural Nepal are severely affected by vitamin E deficiency (VED) (Jiang et al., 2005). In Bangladesh, VED is more critical, as about two-third of women in early pregnancy were found to be severely vitamin-E deficient (Shamim et al., 2015).Wide genetic variation in tocopherol components has been observed in maize (Rocheford et al., 2002;Egesel et al., 2003;Li et al., 2012;Feng et al., 2015;Muzhingi et al., 2017;Das et al., 2019a). Estimation of tocopherol fractions (a-, b-, g-, and d-) is simple and fast (~15 min/sample) using HPLC, but it involves high cost (US$25-30 per sample). Selection of key genes that enhance tocopherol in maize, therefore, provides cost-effective (US$0.5/ sample of PCR) solution. Several earlier studies (Wong et al., 2003;Shutu et al., 2012;Feng et al., 2013;Lipka et al., 2013;Diepenbrock et al., 2017) reported QTLs for higher accumulation of kernel atocopherol, g-tocopherol, and total tocopherol in maize. The pathway for vitamin-E biosynthesis is also well-characterized (DellaPenna and Pogson, 2006). Several genes viz., homogentisate phytyltransferase (VTE2), homogentisate geranylgeranyl transferase (HGGT), methyl transferase (VTE3), tocopherol cyclase (VTE1), phytol kinase (VTE5), and g-tocopherol methyl transferase (VTE4), play important role in regulating the pathway. Among these genes, VTE4 was identified as the key gene that enhances the accumulation of a-tocopherol by converting gtocopherol (Li et al., 2012). Two insertion/deletions (InDel7 and InDel118) within the gene VTE4 were found to significantly affect the level of a-tocopherol. InDel118, located 9-bp upstream of the putative transcription start site, controls a-tocopherol content by regulating VTE4 transcript level, whereas InDel7 affects translation efficiency. Association of VTE4 with higher accumulation of atocopherol was also reported by Lipka et al. (2013). Das et al. (2019b) later identified one SNP (G to A), and three InDels (14 and 27 bp) in the VTE4 gene comprising a favorable haplotype (0/0) which can differentiate low and high a-tocopherol accumulating maize lines. These newly identified SNP and InDels in addition to the previously reported InDel118 and InDel7 can be useful in selection of favorable genotypes with higher a-tocopherol in maize. Das et al. (2019c) screened large number of maize inbreds of diverse pedigree using gene-based markers specific to InDel118 and InDel7 of VTE4 and identified inbreds with favorable haplotype (0/0: deletion at InDel118 and InDel7) of VTE4. CML560 and CML496 possess the most favorable haplotype (0/0) for VTE4 (Figure 3). Das et al. (2019b) developed hybrids using inbreds possessing the favorable haplotype of VTE4, and reported higher mean a-tocopherol (mean: 21.37 ppm) than the check hybrids (mean: 11.16 ppm). In some of the hybrids viz., MHVTE-2, MHVTE-18, MHVTE-28, MHVTE-10, and MHVTE-3, a-tocopherol constituted ≥50% of the total tocopherol.Considering the major effect of VTE4 in accumulating higher a-tocopherol, Feng et al. (2015) transferred the favorable allele from a suitable donor parent (SY999) to four Chinese shrunken2based sweet corn lines (M01, M14, K140, and K185) through MABB. Average increment of 7.73 ppm of a-tocopherol was observed among the MABB-derived progenies, with atocopherol as high as 15.99 ppm, compared to 3.14 ppm in recurrent parents. In India, favorable allele of VTE4 has been introgressed into four provitamin-A rich QPM elite inbreds using MABB that led to the increase of a-tocopherol to 15.2 ppm over 8.0 ppm in the original inbreds (Hossain et al., 2018b). Though a-tocopherol (>30 ppm) has been reported in maize germplasm, the extent of increase due to introgression of favorable allele of VTE4 depends on the base level expression of the other important genes in the pathway, and further interaction with background genome (Das et al., 2019c).High-throughput analytical methodologies are critical for integration of biofortification strategies into mainstream plant breeding as well as for assurance of the nutritional quality in the seed that reaches farmers and consumers (Guild et al., 2017). Given the fact that several of the nutritional traits are not visible to a naked eye, it is extremely important that these are measured in an appropriate laboratory where such methodologies are wellestablished. To achieve the level of precision required while optimizing costs, different analytical methods may need to be employed during the process of breeding for the target traits, as well as quality assessment/quality control (QA/QC) of seed of parental lines (Gowda et al., 2017) post-cultivar release (Table 1).Near infrared spectroscopy and X-ray fluorescence methodologies can be effectively used for early breeding generations to identify and reject materials that have low values of PVA. However, for advanced generation materials or commercial samples, it is always recommended to conduct the wet chemistry analysis, using chromatography and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES).Garcia-Oliveira et al. ( 2018) pointed out that apart from the actual germplasm and environmental influence on kernel-Zn concentration, there could be numerous possibilities for introducing variation in the results of different studies, ranging from sensitivity of the method used for the quantification of Zn contents, improper postharvest handling of the samples, and the significant variability among microenvironments for Zn. Spectroscopic methods, such as ICP-OES and atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS), are therefore used to provide robust and accurate results on kernel Zn content in maize. Limits of detection span a wide analytical range from percentage by weight to parts per billion (ppb) levels. Sample digestion can be done chemically or by using micro-wave methods, which increase the processing throughput prior to analysis. For early stages of high-Zn  maize breeding, where large number of samples are screened, X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is extensively used (Hindu et al., 2018;Palacios-Rojas et al., 2018). The cost of analysis per sample by XRF is typically lower [approx. 6 US dollars (USD)] than ICP-OES (approx. 14 USD) (Table 1). Additional benefits of the method include simplicity, avoiding the use of hazardous chemicals, and less costly sample preparation. Unlike organic micronutrients, such as PVA carotenoids, degradation is not an issue for high-Zn maize grains; however, the potential for contamination during the sample manipulation and analysis is high due to the high abundance of Zn in the environment. In the case of maize, use of flour is required due to the heterogeneity in grain shape; use of flour also improves data reproducibility and accuracy compared with whole grain analysis. It is important to ensure that grinding is performed using a grinder with non-contaminating material such as zirconium. When ICP-OES is performed, aluminum determination is used as an indicator of sample contamination (Guild et al., 2017).Tropical maize inbred lines with enhanced nutritional quality (especially QPM, PVA, and high-Zn) and other desirable agronomic and adaptive traits developed at CIMMYT and IITA have been used in several countries to develop agronomically competitive hybrids or OPVs or synthetics (Menkir et al., 2018). Figure 4 shows the varietal release status with regard to provitamin A and high-Zn maize in SSA, Asia, and Latin America.Extensive multi-location evaluations of PVA-enriched OPVs and hybrids in collaboration with public and private sector partners in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Ghana, Nigeria, Mali, Malawi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) led to the selection of promising hybrids and synthetics for further evaluation in national performance trials (NPTs) and farmer participatory on-farm trials. These testing schemes led to the release of 47 PVA-enriched hybrids and synthetics that meet 50-80% of the current PVA breeding target in nine countries, including Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania, DRC, Ghana, Mali, and Nigeria (Menkir et al., 2018). In addition, the high PVA inbred lines developed at CIMMYT and IITA have been effectively used as PVA donors by the national maize breeding programs in Asia (e.g., China and India) and Latin America (e.g., Brazil and Panama) to develop improved, nutritionally enriched maize cultivars (Muthusamy et al., 2014;Liu et al., 2015;Zunjare et al., 2018;Goswami et al., 2019;Listman et al., 2019).The first PVA-enriched maize hybrids and synthetics released in SSA in 2012 had an average PVA content of about 6.0 to 7.5 µg g −1 , or 40-50% of the breeding target. Since then several hybrids exceeding 10 µg g −1 PVA have been released (Andersson et al., 2017). A hybrid with >90% of the PVA breeding target (14.1 µg g −1 ) was released in Malawi in 2016. In each of the target countries, PVA-enhanced cultivars are released either by the national research institutes or by private seed companies working in those countries.HarvestPlus and national governments in SSA have invested significant effort in creating awareness and consumer demand in the target countries where market preference is for white maize. These efforts seem to be paying off; Zambia now has more than 500 tons of certified seed of PVA maize cultivars, covering an estimated 200,000 ha. Further, linkages were established with FIGURE 4 | Provitamin A-enriched and high-Zn maize cultivars developed using conventional and molecular marker-assisted breeding and released for commercial cultivation in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America (modified from Listman et al., 2019).millers and food processing companies to ensure that farmers have access to markets for their excess grain. Despite the awareness campaigns, school feeding schemes that are funded by non-government organizations (NGOs) and the government remain a substantial part of the market for high PVA maize, raising questions about what will happen when that support is not sustained. Influencing national policy on balanced nutrition and health appears to be the most viable way to create and sustain demand for PVA-enhanced maize because most governments in the target countries provide subsidies to farmers and buy most of the grain as part of a national food security strategy (Simpungwe et al., 2017).CIMMYT, in collaboration with public and private sector partners in Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, and Colombia, has been working on development and deployment of elite high-Zn maize cultivars in Latin America. Extensive multi-location trials showed relative yield parity and similar performance for other agronomic traits, relative to commercial checks, indicating the competitiveness of the these products in the lowland tropics of Latin America. So far, four high-Zn maize cultivars (two hybrids and two synthetics) have been released in Latin America. These cultivars have 90 to 110% of the target kernel Zn content set under HarvestPlus and are competitive for grain yield and other adaptive traits with the commercial checks (Listman et al., 2019).A schematic depiction of decision tree for molecular markerassisted breeding workflows to accelerate progress toward nutritional trait targets is shown in Figure 5. The workflow decisions are based on relative eliteness and adaptation of initial nutritional trait donor breeding parent, genetic complexity of the target nutritional trait, and relative cost of phenotypic assays, traitlinked marker assays, and genome profiling. Efficacy of a converted line via MABB or gene editing refers to the nutrient level of the converted line relative to the target. Equivalency of a converted line refers to performance of the new version relative to the elite recurrent parent for important agronomic and adaptive traits.In recent years, elite maize inbred lines and hybrids with multiple nutritional quality traits, especially combinations of QPM, provitamin A, low phytate, and vitamin E traits, have been developed in India and China, through molecular marker-assisted FIGURE 5 | A schematic depicting the strategy with decision tree for molecular marker-assisted breeding workflows to accelerate progress toward nutritional trait targets. TPE refers to the target population of environments of the product profile with the target nutritional trait(s).breeding (Table 2). Stacking multiple traits essentially requires raising of large population size in MABB program compared to a population segregating for one target gene. Since traits like QPM, provitamin A, vitamin E, and kernel Zn are not associated with yield penalty, they can be generally stacked together. One of the elite hybrids with a stack of nutritional quality traits (QPM and Provitamin A), Pusa Vivek QPM-9 Improved, developed by ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute has been officially released in India in 2017 for commercial cultivation. Three MABB-derived hybrids, including one provitamin A hybrid, Pusa Vivek Hybrid-27 Improved, and two QPM + provitamin A-enriched hybrids, Pusa HQPM5 Improved and Pusa HQPM7 Improved, have been approved for release in India in 2019. High provitamin A trait has been introgressed in both traditional and QPM genetic backgrounds (Muthusamy et al., 2014;Andersson et al., 2017). In addition, the germplasm resources developed through stacking of provitamin A and vitamin E could be potentially used for analysis of carotenoid stability.Genome editing represents a powerful technology for enhancing and stacking nutritional quality traits in maize. Liang et al. (2014) reported editing of the genes involved in phytic acid synthesis (ZmIPK1A, ZmIPK, and ZmMRP4) in maize. Since several of the important genes influencing nutritional quality traits, such as QPM and provitamin A, have been well-characterized, gene editing could provide a powerful system for stacking these traits in agronomically superior genetic backgrounds. For example, if one wants to stack a PVA trait in an elite QPM line, editing the elite line for CrtRB1 could potentially simplify the breeding process. Similarly, it should be possible to design a PVA target and edit two to four key carotenoid biosynthetic pathway genes in elite climate-resilient maize germplasm.Challenges in agriculture and food production keep evolving. In the 1950s, the world needed a large boost in food production to combat famine, in the face of rapid population growth and recurring natural disasters. In the 21st century, the challenge is not only to produce enough to feed the growing population, but also providing nutritionally balanced diets. Moving away from overemphasis on calorie security, the food today on everyone's plates must be of appropriate quantity, nutritious, and produced in an environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable manner. The EAT-Lancet Commission Report (Willett et al., 2019) highlighted the importance of promoting diets that are nutritious and which can reduce the environmental impact of food systems. The sum of different agricultural and nutrition sensitive strategies could contribute to sustainable and nutritional food systems.Although not a silver bullet solution, biofortification has proven to be an efficient strategy to combat malnutrition. CIMMYT, IITA, and national partners [especially in Africa, Asia, and Latin America (LatAm)] have employed conventional breeding and molecular tools, to successfully develop and release several nutritious maize cultivars without compromising grain yield levels or other important agronomic and adaptive traits. Many of these biofortified maize cultivars are currently grown by farmers and accepted by consumers in many countries (Talsma et al., 2017;Manjeru et al., 2019). Advances in phenotyping coupled with molecular breeding facilitated achievement of the breeding targets for various nutrients in maize. Going forward, the focus should be on mainstreaming breeding for nutrient enrichment into maize breeding efforts to deliver highperforming climate-resilient maize cultivars with improved nutritional quality to farmers and consumers. Efforts need to be  made to develop elite maize cultivars stacked with multiple nutrients to address multiple nutrient deficiencies that are prevalent especially in SSA, LatAm, and Asia, as well as in combining biofortification with complementary strategies like dietary diversification, and enhancement of nutrients through agronomic and/or food processing interventions. Nutrition and health have become the main factors influencing people's diet. The combinations of nutritional quality traits, including QPM, PVA, high-Zn, etc. in both maize grain and in fresh corn has consumer appeal, and contributes to national initiatives and sustainable development goals for enhancing nutrition. The rapid advances that have been made in understanding the genetic control of many macro-and micro-nutrients in maize grains, coupled with the availability of new tools/technologies such as genomic selection, will accelerate the rate of genetic gain for improved nutrient content in maize.Specialty maize including sweet corn, waxy corn, and popcorn has experienced tremendous growth during the last 30 years, and improving its nutritional quality will stimulate further development of this market. The key to the future development of biofortified specialty maize cultivars is to continue to increase the level of heterosis, seed production, and diversification of the products to meet the changing dietary needs and consumer preferences.Interdisciplinary work and more effective integration of national and international research efforts are key for enhanced development and dissemination of biofortified crops. For biofortified maize cultivars to succeed in the market, it is important to understand the market dynamics. Value chains that effectively link the farmers to the processors and the consumers need to be improved. Only through such linkages can the value of biofortified crop cultivars can be fully exploited, malnutrition alleviated, and new markets opened.","tokenCount":"7992"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"008775a79118e534caa7472a5a29cd2d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/5a91f17a-ffb9-45fb-bdbc-6e2464b14180/retrieve","id":"1613906800"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a2d59763-2cc0-45ee-b266-f08801a759b2","pagecount":"75","content":"Photo: ILRI/Georgina Smith CGIAR is a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for a food-secure future. The CGIAR Research Program on Livestock provides research-based solutions to help smallholder farmers, pastoralists and agro-pastoralists transition to sustainable, resilient livelihoods and to productive enterprises that will help feed future generations. It aims to increase the productivity and profitability of livestock agri-food systems in sustainable ways, making meat, milk and eggs more available and affordable across the developing world.The Program thanks all donors and organizations who globally supported its work through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund.A generalized approach to the evaluation 4 Table 3 OECD evaluation framework 6 Table 4 Design matrix for executing the evaluation questions 7 Table 5 CapDev implementation by various Flagships One-off formal training under the Livestock Genetics Flagship in 2019 One-off formal trainings under the Livestock Genetics Flagship in 2020 Academic trainings under the Feeds and Forages Flagship One-off trainings under the Feeds and Forages Flagship Participatory trials and studies under the Feeds and Forages Flagship  One-off trainings under the Livestock and Environment Flagship Table 13 Knowledge exchange activities in Tunisia One-off trainings under Livestock Livelihoods and Agri-Food Systems    Use statistics for some tools developed by the Livestock and Environment Flagship Table 19 Training participants in Livestock CRP target countries  Value of production and sales from crops, livestock, and off farm activities   Three spheres of changes engendered by project interventions• All outputs/deliverables/milestones from the Livestock CRP annual reporting cycles were scored for the extent to which they integrated CapDev actions, i.e., not applicable (n/a), not targeted (0), significant (1), and principal (2). Between 2017 and 2020, of the deliverables that were scored as either significant or principal for CapDev, 73% were significant and 27% were principal. Overall, the flagships on Feeds and Forages (FP3) and Livestock and Environment (FP4) jointly accounted for 71% of the total CapDev deliverables over the four years. The programmatic interventions by the Livestock Livelihoods and Agri-food Systems (FP5) had the least degree of integration of CapDev actions, followed by Livestock Genetics (FP1).• The CapDev interventions were comprised of longterm academic trainings at Bachelor of Science (BSc), Master of Science (MSc), and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) levels; short-term trainings like one-off workshops and training visits; and other engagements with a bearing on CapDev such as knowledge exchange (i.e. focus group discussions, some of the Flagships were either not informed or only slightly informed by the priorities of the CapDev Strategy. A few Flagships, though, had activities that were reportedly completely informed by the CapDev Strategy.• At least in the priority countries of the Livestock CRP (i.e., Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Vietnam), CapDev activities were implemented as part of an integrated country work plan. As per the CGIAR requirements, the planning and reporting system used by the CRP does not include information on specific CapDev activities at the annual planning stage. Instead, it was based on deliverables such as proof of the completion of an activity or set of activities. The reports were, however, required to indicate if any of the deliverables involved trainees and, if so, to specify the number, gender, and types of these trainees. In the Managing Agricultural Research for Learning and Outcomes (MARLO) report, all reported Flagship activities were selfscored by project coordinators as to whether the activity which the deliverable evidences had a specific focus on CapDev. This possibly introduced a degree of subjectivity in the reported levels of CapDev actions.• CapDev was a vision in the mind of the Flagship leaders, but generally did not have specific delivery targets, at least at the annual planning stage. Moreover, the degree of Flagship engagement with the CapDev Unit team to jointly identify the CapDev elements for implementation was, in most cases, unclear. Thus, CapDev was either expected as an incidental outcome to a main activity or implemented as an unplanned sub-activity, depending on the exigencies of the Flagship, with no clear linkages to the CRP CapDev strategic priorities.• In many of the countries, project activities were bilaterally funded; but there were no clear linkages between bilateral projects and country-level intermediate indicators to allow aggregation of results. Program output indicators (e.g., number of CapDev participants) were not clearly linked to bilateral project output indicators, and this probably led to under-reporting on deliverables. However, in some cases, alignment with the country's strategic areas was one way of adapting CapDev actions to country context.• As indicated above, the planning and reporting system used by the Livestock CRP does not include information on specific CapDev activities and associated targets at the annual planning stage. This may pose a challenge for the evaluation of implementation effectiveness. However, based on perceptions of the implementing teams, the extent to which various Flagships completed implementation of the CapDev activities was different depending on the target country. This was gauged by the responses offered by the Flagship and Cluster leaders to the following question: 'To what extent were you able to implement the intended CapDev activities in each of the targeted countries?'• On this basis, the Livestock Genetics Flagship reportedly completed 80 -100% of the CapDev activities in all the priority countries, at least by July 2021. The Livestock Health Flagship did not complete all the CapDev interventions in any of the three targeted countries of Uganda, Vietnam, or Mali. The Feeds and Forages program indicated an 80-100% completion rate in four of the nine targeted countries: Colombia, Kenya, Tunisia, and Vietnam. The Livestock and Environment Flagship targeted four countries, but only managed to complete the implementation of intended CapDev activities in two countries: Tanzania and Tunisia. The Livelihoods and Agri-Food Systems Flagship also targeted nine countries for delivery of CapDev interventions, but only three (India, Kenya, and The Gambia) registered completion of the activities. In addition, the priority countries of Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Vietnam all registered CapDev activity completion rates of below 49%. Perceptively, this means that over 51% of intended CapDev activities were pending in these countries at the time this review was conducted; but we could not ascertain whether these pending activities were later implemented.• Disruptions by the coronavirus disease -2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, delays in funding and getting ethical approval, late onset of implementation of some projects, engagement with new partners, and lack of implementation capacity (in The Gambia, for example, the lead scientist had left) were some of the reasons cited for non-completion of CapDev activities.• The general approach to introducing the Feed Assessment Tool (FEAST) involved an initial training of master trainers. At every project site, the technical people participating in that project were enlisted for training on the tool, i.e., how to use it to process data, interpret data, and write reports. The trainees were then allowed to go out on their own to conduct the assessments to prove that they could use the tool and produce reports and recommendations on which interventions to follow up on. The master trainers would in turn cascade the training to other partners. As a result, the tool has been used in over 22 countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and promoted independently by a range of civil society, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and government and private sector organizations in various countries without any support from the CRP partners. Sustainability of FEAST use is likely in various contexts, and this could be aided by integrating additional components (e.g., soil analysis) and introducing it within an innovation platform setup.• The success of the Rural Household Multi-Indicator Survey (RHoMIS) tool has relied on multiple trainings of, and outreach to, research and development organization partners. The RHoMIS innovators provide trainings to partners wishing to use the tool and support simple analyses to produce results quickly. By 2018, the RHoMIS tool had been adopted by 13 different research and development organizations to guide investments and generate information on 24,000 households in 31 countries.• Community conversations are knowledge cocreation forums that have been successfully applied to guide discussions among rural farming communities in Ethiopia, focused around livestock health management, gender, and zoonotic disease risks. Capacity development has driven the success of the conversations. Training programs on the approach were organized for key partners. Internal capacity development of other team members in other projects were also organized to help them develop their own community conversation materials, demonstrate the community conversations techniques, provide the tools, and help participants to develop their own materials. There has been a continuous synthesis of experiences and refinement of technique as informed by learning from the field. Ultimately, a master training course on the community conversation approach in animal health was developed. Community conversations were piloted in the Livestock Health Flagship, but have since been taken up by the other Flagships. The facilitated conversations have been shown to have positive effects on knowledge, attitudes, and practices of participating farmers as well as behaviour change and transformation of gender relations at the household and community levels.The Ethiopian government is keen on mainstreaming community conversations in the national extension system.• The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) facilitated collective action of youth groups for market-oriented sheep production in the highland regions of Ethiopia through communities of practice (CoPs). Specifically, the youth groups were trained on entrepreneurial skill development and dynamics of group formation. The sheepfattening groups are highly motivated and doing well. Membership has grown by over 40% across three of ICARDA's intervention regions. Another outcome is with regard to how the self-propagating CoP concept around the youth groups has auspiciously evolved into platforms of cooperation among the implementing partners, an interesting case of 'reverse' capacity development. Initially, the implementing partners worked in silo mode and never related to each other in any meaningful way; but now, they go to sites together and work together with the farmers. The CoPs have since been replicated in the other highland regions of Ethiopia where ICARDA is active mainly through peer-to-peer learning, with good results.• The ICARDA-led community-based breeding program (CBBP) has become the Ethiopian government's strategy of choice for small-ruminant genetic improvement. The CBBPs were introduced through training modules and have been very successful due to their participatory model. Implementation of the CBBP focused on building capacity of partners through short-tailored trainings. ILRI and ICARDA initially trained national partners, who in turn trained other value chain actors. Moreover, a module on CBBP was integrated into the livestock genetics curriculum of three Ethiopian universities and a tailored MSc training on breeding and genetics was introduced in two universities. The CBBP was incorporated in the Ethiopian livestock master plan and is now owned and promoted by the national systems, especially in the small ruminant sector.• Capacity development was at the core of the successful adoption of joint village land use planning (JVLUP) to protect shared resources in Tanzania. Significant capacity building of partners (NGOs and government) was undertaken with strong influencing and awareness-raising activities that helped to strengthen support for replicating the approach in other areas. These included, among other things, training of staff and partners on gender and conflict management, undertaking of a civil society organization (CSO) national dialogue, learning visits to other countries, and hosting from other countries to learn about the JVLUP experiences. All of this helped to build the case for JVLUP and the issuing of group certificates of customary rights of occupancy (CCROs) to livestock keepers. So far, JVLUP includes grazing lands for local livestock keepers in four clusters of villages covering 175,000 hectares of grazing land.• Under the Livestock CRP, business linkages in the pig value chain have expanded the horizons of many entrepreneurs. Multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs)social spaces for communicative stakeholder interactions -were created to provide business and networking opportunities and agribusiness linkages to emerging SMEs run by farmers and young entrepreneurs in the pork value chain in Uganda.The pig MSPs have enhanced peer learning and strengthened linkages between value chain actors. Capacity development in specific areas, largely undertaken by third parties (i.e., value chain actors previously trained by ILRI), have greatly facilitated actor linkages and success of agribusinesses. More than 1700 value chain actors were trained.The training mainly focused on the following: profitable pig breeds and breeding, pig housing and management, feeds and feeding, closed cycle pig farming, and silage making, as well as animal health, vaccines, feeds and feeding, food safety, and marketing.• An intervention designed to improve the hygienic handling and safe consumption of milk among the Borana pastoral community in Ethiopia had impressive results in terms of changes in the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of women who produce and sell dairy products. The intervention consisted of 16 hours of training on good milk production practices and prevention of milk-borne diseases. A total of 120 women were trained and six months post training, the overall practice score increased from 49.5% at pre-training to 64.7%, a statistically significant change.• Key informants across flagships felt that lack of capacity of national partners was a drawback to technology uptake and scaling efforts. Thus, developing the capacity of national partners to independently execute research and undertake downstream scaling efforts should be prioritized in future CapDev interventions.• The pooled funding projections in the CRP Proposals apparently did not materialize for most of the Flagships, which had to rely on ongoing bilateral agreements to fund CapDev and other activities. Some Flagships did not have suitably qualified technical personnel in some focus countries, and this was closely tied with the sector under-funding.• Lack of trust as well as exploitative power relations were apparent among some stakeholders (e.g., in the pig value chain in Uganda). Adoption of innovation platforms as social spaces for facilitated dialogue by stakeholders on key issues would help address the power disparities that were apparent in the Ugandan pig value chain.• Strong institutional partners, institutional structures, and the stage of development are key to programmatic success in target countries. The stage of development, for example, may partly determine where one stands with respect to readiness to take things up (i.e., technology uptake) and hence impact at scale.• Medium and smallholder farmers are the main adopters of technologies for feeds and forages. This is an important lesson for targeting future upscaling efforts for feed and forage technologies.• Community conversations that have registered remarkable successes at the grassroots level in small ruminant value chains could serve as a mechanism to instigate bottom-up change management to help navigate enduring system rigidities that undermine innovations in some countries like Ethiopia.• Tools developed by one flagship could easily have been deployed in another for greater efficiency. An example is the Integrated Package Tool developed by Livestock Health Flagship, which had components that could have been employed in the youth sheep-fattening enterprise in Ethiopia. However, the capacity to pick up innovations fermented in one flagship and inoculate them elsewhere within the CRP was lacking. The concept of site integration need not be only for codelivery; it should really be about co-learning and co-design.• There is need for a paradigm shift in the way the CRP views CapDev of national partners within countries. Currently, CapDev is meant to help take the practices, technologies, and tools developed by the CRP to scale in the targeted countries largely through training, knowledge exchange activities, and participatory approaches like community conversations. These CapDev approaches principally stimulate capacity enhancement at the individual and perhaps organizational levels. However, ownership and sustainability of project results ultimately hinge on the existence of systemic capacity in a country. Ability to independently execute research, agility to spur local innovations, and resilience to shocks are some attributes of a viable systemic capacity. A few key informants talked about learning-by-doing as a means to strengthening partner capacity. Such an approach may potentially engender organic structural changes to a system. However, no clear details were adduced as to how this approach was implemented in practice nor how the results thereof were tracked.• Additionally, taking the developed technologies and tools to scale entails more than knowledge of the technology or how to use a decision support tool; it is closely connected with the embeddedness of the technology or tool in the system or social structure. For example, the fact that some farmers were averse to the use of semen from cross-bred animals in some target countries is an issue of the institutional or social embeddedness of the semen technology. While the farmers were knowledgeable about the crossbreed semen technology, the Livestock Genetics Flagship needed to employ non-tangible aspects of CapDev through the African Dairy Genetic Gains program in order to navigate their resistance. An example of an effective approach would be a digital feedback system that provided evidence of genetic gains for crossbred animals directly to farmers.• By invoking systems thinking, which posits capacity as an emergent system attribute, CapDev -especially targeted at systems strengthening -should be increasingly viewed as a complex adaptive process (as opposed to a directed, linear and predictable one) to be approached by nuanced experimentation, learning, and reconfiguration rather than the exclusive implementation of predetermined activities. This demands time; yet the CRP is time-constrained to show results, especially to development partners, usually by the end of the cycle. Thus, a framework for the emergence of systemic capacity for agricultural innovations must be conceived, initiated, and steered by the national governments. External CapDev interventions such as those by the CRP will then only supply a necessary component of facilitation to an endogenously driven and ongoing wider process.• The aims and purposes of CapDev are mentioned in the theories of change (TOCs) of the CRP and flagships. What was perhaps needed was a lucid domestication of the theory of change (TOC) at the flagship level, at least from a CapDev angle. Seemingly, the CapDev Strategy itself did not specify exactly how the prioritized activities contributed to the CRP or flagship TOCs. An internal conceptual disconnect is thus apparent between strategy and operationalization, which may mar implementation. This calls for strengthening the ownership of strategy and monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) capacity within the CRP.• Currently, CapDev actions are only attached ex post to the main Flagship activities and rated based on perception as to whether they were 'not targeted', 'significant', or 'principal'. Specific effects and experiences from the CapDev actions were not formally tracked, save for follow-up studies that implemented partners on KAPs for some interventions. Therefore, subject to proper budgetary outlay, a pragmatic approach to MEL is called for, based on reflection on practical experience in attempting to achieve CapDev goals.• Uggla (2020 2 ), in a review of the CapDev activities in the Livestock Health Flagship, asserted that the 'flagship should stick more consistently to the principle of 'training the trainers (ToT)' by primarily directing information and teaching efforts to regional partners and the animal health extension workers rather than directly to farmers'. Improve livestock health and health service delivery.Increase livestock nutrition by identifying, testing, and delivering superior feed and forage strategies and options.Reduce the environmental footprint of livestock production across both rapid and fragile growth trajectories, while ensuring that livestock systems in target countries are able to adapt to global environmental changes.Maximize livestock-mediated livelihoods and resilience to risk among smallholder and pastoral producers and their communities, while enhancing availability and access to animalsource food for rural and urban consumers.As the Livestock CRP winds up at the end of this year, 2021, it was deemed necessary to: 1) evaluate the gains from the numerous capacity development activities implemented under the CRP, and 2) use the opportunity to address the comments from previous external evaluations of the CRP as they pertain to capacity-development work. Thus, the evaluation focused on the capacity development activities implemented by the five FPs, and assessed and documented the overall nascent changes that the capacity development (CapDev) programs have influenced, how effective the changes have been, and whether the outcomes are sustainable.The findings of the evaluation are expected to: 1) contribute to the Livestock CRP's and CGIAR's understanding of capacity development work, 2) identify lessons learned and best practices to inform future programming, 3) make recommendations on how capacity development activities can be carried out in the future, and 4) provide insights relevant to CGIAR management and researchers, donors, and other external partners. Moreover, as recommended in the Livestock CRP Review of 2020 (Uggla 2020 4 ), the evaluation sought to provide guidance on CapDev aims, how the CRP will work with other key actors such as national universities and national agricultural research systems (NARS) in achieving these aims, review the CapDev targets, and determine how the CRP will measure progress and align its efforts with national-level needs.   The integrative and multi-faceted nature of capacity development precludes linear prediction of outcomes and appeals to the dual systems and complexity dynamics inherent in complex adaptive systems. Thus, viewed from a complex adaptive systems perspective, capacity can only emerge organically and endogenously (rather than being externally directed) from multiple processes that are complex, evolving, and unpredictable.  Total by CapDev Element 5 5 2 5 3 3 0 2 0 41. Flagship program 2. Capacity developmentThis review sought to determine and synthesize project deliveries at the sphere-of-control level and nascent changes registered at the sphere-of-influence level with identified boundary partners. The potential users of the evaluation results are understood to be: a) CGIAR management and researchers, b) donor partners, and c) other external partners. The evaluation process should foster learning among partners so that they fully appreciate the nature, role, and importance of capacity development. Equally, the results obtained therefrom should inform the design and implementation of subsequent capacity development efforts. The general evaluation approach based on the perceived evaluation objectives is shown in Table 2. Flagship-based mapping was employed in the synthesis of CapDev actions over the four years or so of CRP implementation. A mixed-method approach was adopted to review the results in each of the FPs. Complex adaptive systems perspectives were invoked to probe the sustainability of realized Photo: ILRI/Paul Karaimu techniques were employed, where applicable, to assess the processes of interactions and interrelationships as well as emergent and non-linear effects of the capacity development interventions. The data collection techniques mainly involved online surveys, online one-on-one key informant interviews, and document review. Sustainability of outcomes was judged in terms of the implied social/ institutional, economic, and environmental/natural resources dimensions. The evaluation evidence for each of the FPs was systematically aggregated and consolidated across the FPs in order to extract an overriding synthesis of achievements, challenges, and lessons for the Livestock CRP. These overriding performance trends and experiences across the FPs constituted the basis for recommendations to improve the enabling function of CapDev in the next CGIAR strategic dispensation.The study design was based on the evaluation questions proposed in the ToR: These evaluation questions can be likened to the OECD performance evaluation criteria (encompassing relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact, and sustainability) defined in Table 3, which will constitute the framework for the current evaluation, as shown in Table 4. To bring out the effectiveness dimension more clearly, an additional evaluation question (Q5) was proposed and agreed upon with the ILRI team, as indicated in Table 4.Table 3: OECD 1 evaluation frameworkThe extent to which the stated objectives and program components correctly address the identified problems and real needs of its target groups.Effectiveness: What difference the program made in practice, as measured by the extent to which the intended beneficiaries really benefitted from the products or services it made available. In the previous external evaluation of the Livestock CRP 2 , effectiveness was qualified as follows:• The extent to which planned outputs and outcomes had been achieved by 2021determined through quantitative and qualitative assessments of the CRP's (and FP's 3 ) performance against planned milestones in relation to the level of risk assigned (annually and for the five years under review).• The extent to which achieved outcomes contributed to broader goals and cross-cutting issues (e.g. capacity development)• The extent to which the program's management and governance has supported the CRP's effectiveness• The extent to which the CRP and its Flagship Programs have made progress along their Theories of Change, including an assessment of the quality of those theories of change.The extent to which the various activities have transformed the available resources (inputs) into the intended results (outputs) in terms of quantity, quality, and timeliness (value for money).The longer-term positive and negative economic, social, and environmental changes produced by the supported activities, directly or indirectly, intended or unintended, as well as an understanding of the impact pathways.The likelihood of continued, long-term benefits from the program interventions after donor funding has been withdrawn.  • Key informant interviews (with representatives of the major stakeholders) to collect qualitative information using structured and semi-structured interviews on key evaluation questions (see Appendix 3) to complement quantitative analysis.• Online semi-structured questionnaire surveys (based on selected evaluation questions, see Appendix 3) targeting implementers and beneficiaries of capacity development interventions by the various Flagships.Key changes and lessons associated with implementation of capacity development activities in the various FPs were systematically synthesized based on the evaluation questions. Strict data safety protocols were observed in retrieving, processing, and reporting data and information from the respondents. Quantitative data derived from the interview responses were presented in tables and figures. Oral interviews were transcribed and the transcripts coded into NVivo software for qualitative analysis. The themes were selected based on their relevance to the key research questions. Structured summaries were extracted and reinforced, in some cases, by direct quotations from respondents. Systematic investigations using case studies and most-significant-change methodology were also applied to document the intended and nonintended outcomes for some selected interventions.Photo: ILRI/Charlie Pye-SmithThe review was intended to secure responses to online surveys and key informant interviews from a cross-section of stakeholders including implementing partners, beneficiaries, and donor agencies. In the end, we only managed to interview four Flagship leaders, country coordinators for Ethiopia, Kenya, Tunisia, and Uganda, and two beneficiaries from Tunisia. Thus, the data might seem rather biased towards the implementing partners. Fortunately, the CRP had conducted a number of outcome and impact studies on some of the CapDev interventions that helped provide information related to beneficiary perspectives.We believe that there are enormous benefits of the CRP CapDev actions to national partners in the over 19 targeted countries. However, this review was primarily virtual and relied mostly on secondary data to elucidate such benefits. Attempts at online interviews with the national partners, at least in the four priority countries, were unfruitful chiefly due to the limited planning timeframe and other logistical hurdles. Ideally, face-toface interviews with the CapDev beneficiaries in situ would be the best way to directly elucidate the gains; but this was beyond the scope of the review.To the extent possible, the evaluation intended to adopt a utilization-focused approach that encouraged maximum involvement and participation of potential users of the results. Ultimately, evaluation in itself is a component stage of a fairly cyclic capacity development process (Fig. 1). As such, apart from accountability to development partners, the evaluation process should foster learning among partners so that they fully appreciate the nature, role, and importance of capacity development. The evaluation and synthesis exercise, however, coincided with a very busy season because the CRP and the entire CGIAR had already embarked on preparations for a transition into the next program cycle. As such, the availability of the CRP partners themselves was limited and the logistics for reaching beneficiary partners were equally hampered.Lastly, the Terms of reference (ToR) also demanded a review of the CapDev targets and determining how the CRP will measure progress and align its efforts with national-level needs. However, the planning and reporting system currently in use by the Livestock CRP, as per CGIAR requirements, does not include information on specific CapDev activities (nor their targets) at the annual planning stage. This made this component of the ToR largely inexecutable.Photo: ILRI/Joyce MaruThe data quality assurance process involved the following: all questionnaires and key informant interviews were jointly reviewed with the CapDev personnel of ILRI, where possible, to ensure consistency and identify potential errors. Data analysis and interpretation followed a logical flow and plan: coding, entering, and cleaning; analysing; interpreting and reflecting. Frequent online meetings were held with the concerned ILRI CapDev staff to review progress, address any emerging challenges, and-where necessary-readjust the delivery dates.   • Training of Ugandan herd health champions at SLU in 2020.• Hybrid (remote/on-site) training in prudent and medically rational use of antibiotics in 2020.• Training to improve the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of women regarding hygienic milk production and handling in Ethiopia in 2020.• Autopsy trainings for veterinarians in Ethiopia.• Pig herd health trainings for Ugandan veterinarians (one in Uppsala in 2020 and two in Uganda in 2021).• Three trainings on antimicrobial use in Uganda, 2020-2021.• A national face-to-face training course on anaemia in small ruminants in Tunisia in 2018 and 2019 attended by 67 participants (32 women).• Regional trainings on the use of ODK tools to carry out surveys on animal health and animal-related studies in Tunisia in 2018 and 2019, attended by 94 veterinarians and technicians (over 50% women).• A training course on chronic weight loss in ruminants in Tunisia in 2019, attended by 29 participants (nine women) in 2019.• A training on trematode infections of small ruminants in Tunisia in 2020, attended by 47 veterinarians (20 women).Year-by-year details on participation rates in various types of trainings, disaggregated by gender, are given below.  14 . In 2020, a total of 547 milk vendors in Ethiopia (30% women) were trained to improve their knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding hygienic milk production and handling in the Borana pastoral area of southern Ethiopia 15 , and field researchers in various parts of the globe were trained. Training was also conducted on participatory epidemiology and its toolbox. Hybrid (remote/on-site) training in prudent and medically rational use of antibiotics was also undertaken 16 . An integrated training manual on herd health and biosecurity for smallholder pig value chain actors in Uganda was also developed in 2020 17 . Using community conversations, training modules for specific animal health issue areas were developed and rolled out, and new modules on antimicrobial use and animal welfare were also developed and tested.In 2017, farmers and other actors were engaged in focus group discussions on risks in target value chains in Ethiopia (e.g., mastitis in pastoral production systems) and in a national workshop on toxoplasmosis in Central Tunisia (i.e. management constraints in relation to prevalence of infection with Toxoplasma gondii in sheep). These knowledge exchange activities were attended by a total of 90 participants (about 66% women) in both countries.In 2020, 200 mixed participants (50% women) attended monthly webinars on operationalization of the One Health for Humans, Environment, Animals and Livelihoods (HEAL) community of practice. The webinars were jointly facilitated with the ILRI One Health Center for Africa. for possible adjustments and improvements, thus contributing to refinement of extension activities (Uggla 2020 19 ). Targets for the review were extension and training actions linked to small ruminant farmers in Ethiopia and pig farmers in Uganda. The main recommendations from the review include:• There is a need to develop capacity to diagnose animal diseases, both clinically in the field and confirmatory in laboratories, in most countries involved in the Flagship. Animal health workers often did not display hands-on skills and attitudes during clinical examinations.• Field diagnostic procedures should be emphasized, while results from properly conducted laboratory diagnostic tests should be interpreted with caution.• Animal welfare should be included in training and extension activities• The Flagship should stick more consistently to the principle of 'training the trainers' by primarily directing information and teaching efforts to regional partners and animal health extension workers rather than to farmers.• A strategic plan should be developed concerning which diseases, syndromes, or other areas require new printed/digital leaflets; the leaflets should be published as a series with a clear purpose and recognizable graphic profile. This would enable implementation partners to have access to a collection of extension leaflets with a logical progression.• Extension messages from the Livestock CRP Flagships should ideally be delivered in a more integrated package to increase efficiency.• ICT-enabled tools should be developed, including large-scale production of information and training videos. • Genetic diversity study on Napier grass (Cenchrus purpureus) collections and progenies;• Evaluation of nutritive value and farmer preference of chickpea varieties for food;• Participatory farmer forage validation, performance testing of selected forage varieties, and integration in selected districts of Amhara region, Ethiopia;• Participatory farmer forage validation and integration in Amhara;• In 2020, two CGIAR staff (one woman) were reportedly enrolled in BSc programs in Colombia and Nicaragua. It was not clear, however, whether these were additional to the three BSc students reported for the two countries in 2019. Three researchers (one woman) were undertaking MSc studies in Cambodia, Laos, Tunisia, and Vietnam; while ten CGIAR staff and partner researchers (six women) from Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Tunisia were in PhD programs. The postgraduate researchers produced various outputs that contributed to the Flagship deliverables, as shown in Table 11.  A summary of the knowledge exchange activities conducted in Tunisia between 2017 and 2020 is shown in Table 13. What was important with these events was the deliberate targeting of youth and students so that they could develop an interest in environmental systems. In addition, the Flagship achieved the following CapDevrelated milestones:• Capacity building of decision makers at the national level continued as part of the Livestock Master Plans in Ethiopia, India, and Tanzania.• In Uganda, the CRP conducted due diligence on six stakeholders applying digital technology solutions to improve smallholder pig farming in Uganda and facilitated needs assessments from the flagships for various capacity development activities.• The 'eWeigh' mobile application (app), which uses heart girth as a proxy measure to estimate live weight, was tested by Kenyan dairy farmers.• An improved scaling approach led to high uptake of improved sheep-fattening practices and technologies in Ethiopia.• A training on participatory system dynamics methods was conducted internally at ILRI in Hanoi and with partners on CRP-mapped bilateral projects in Bihar, Myanmar, and India. The material presented in this section was derived from online surveys and one-on-one interviews with key implementers (especially Flagship leaders, country coordinators, and national partners) and beneficiaries.Approximately The extent to which the reported CapDev interventions reverberated with the needs of the national partners varied across the Flagships. For example, in Livestock Genetics, training needs assessments were independently conducted at the beginning of some of the bilateral projects (e.g., on fish breeding) to identify the training needs and align them with the focus of the project. The Animal Health Flagship also carried out participatory epidemiology and gender analysis, at least in Ethiopia, to identify the priority diseases, their possible causes, and the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) gaps, in order to inform the intervention strategies and associated CapDev actions. In the case of Feeds and Forages Flagship, the interventions were in response to the demand for feed. For example, the FEAST tool was developed over the past 12 years based on the need for a guide to forage selection for farmers, and the heavy use of the tool is evidence of the demand. Thus, it may seem that the CNAs conducted by the CapDev Unit of ILRI, apart from the fact that the exercise was rather belated, could have been perceived by some of the Flagships as a superfluous undertaking since they had already conducted their own in-house capacity needs assessments and responded to perceived stakeholder demands with specific tools. However, according to one key informer, the CNAs conducted by the CapDev Unit were meant to identify the 'on-the-go' capacity development support that the Flagships needed while they were implementing their various projects. Perhaps the intention was to reveal the capacity gaps that might not have been captured in the initial in-house needs assessments but became apparent later on during implementation.At any rate, the CapDev Unit had to lobby the Flagship teams to take on board the prioritized areas in the CapDev Strategy.  Disruptions by the COVID-19 pandemic were cited as the main cause for non-completion of planned CapDev activities for the majority of the target countries. Additionally, in Colombia, Ethiopia, and Myanmar, there was civil unrest and political upheaval. Delays in funding and getting ethical approval were additional reasons for non-completion of project activities in Rwanda. In some countries, implementation of some projects started just over a year ago (e.g., Uganda and Zambia for the Livestock Genetics Flagship; and India, The Gambia, and Vietnam for the Livelihoods and Agri-Food Systems Flagship). In Kenya, the reasons for non-completion included new engagements in the country related to the dairy sector, and partner (e.g. private-sector and county government) delays. Lack of implementation capacity was an additional reason for activity delay in The Gambia, as the lead scientist there reportedly left.A few illustrative examples of how CapDev was instrumental in the success of some Flagship interventions are given below, along with prospects for sustainability of the interventions beyond the project timelines.The Feed Assessment Tool (FEAST) allows for a systematic assessment of local feed resource options, which helps in the design of intervention strategies to optimize feed utilization and animal production across various landscapes and regions. This tool's main purpose is to identify the constraints and opportunities around feed development in a specific location. Community conversations are knowledge co-creation forums that leverage indigenous (by rural communities) and scientific (by Flagship-implementing partners) knowledge practices. In the Livestock CRP, it was initially employed around herd health management. The conversations have been successfully applied to guide discussions among rural farming communities in Ethiopia focused around livestock health management, gender, and zoonotic disease risks. The facilitated conversations have been shown to have positive effects on knowledge, attitudes, and practices of participating farmers as well as behaviour change and transformation of gender relations at the household and community levels. Due to the apparent success of the approach, the Ethiopian government is keen on mainstreaming its use in the national extension system. More details on this tool are given in the case study below. By 2018, the Rural Household Multi-Indicator Survey (RHoMIS), a rapid, standardized, cost-effective agricultural performance tracking tool, had been adopted by 13  No exotic sheep or goat breeds are introduced from external sources; only local breeds are selected and used. The community groups are engaged to identify suitable breed traits or breed characteristics (i.e., good sires, good breeding rams, and he-goats) using indigenous knowledge systems. Thus, the main factor which makes the program successful is the use of locally available breeds. ICARDA's approach to community-based breeding has now been integrated into Ethiopia's national livestock master plan. The program has also been linked to a cloud-based genetic database platform to improve data quality, data collection, and information processing.Biological and socio-economic performance evaluations of three pilot CBBPs in Ethiopia since their inception in 2010 have shown that:• Sheep/goat farming, once a side activity for farmers, is now a main business activity and the linchpin of their livelihoods.• Most participating households in Menz (one of the CBBP sites) graduated from the government-run safety-net program and now use income from sheep sales to buy food.• 'Best of stock' breeding lambs/kids that were previously sold and slaughtered ('negative selection') are now being kept to improve the breeding stock.• Increased income from sheep production and increased mutton consumption are directly linked to CBBP production at the Bonga, Horro, and Menz sites.• Farmers' sheep/goats have shown an improvement in performance, such as lamb growth rate, lambing interval, and reduced mortality. They also tend to attract higher prices in markets compared to sheep/goats from farmers who are not members of breeding groups.• Most of the established cooperatives have been able to build capital (e.g. the Boka-Shuta cooperative has capital of about USD 100,000).The genetic gains and socio-economic successes of the CBBP have led to their adoption and implementation by various partners in Uganda, Malawi, Liberia, South Africa, and Burkina Faso.Adoption of joint village land use planning (JVLUP) by the Government of Tanzania to increase tenure security for livestock keepers.Capacity development was at the core of the successful adoption of joint village land use planning (JVLUP) to protect shared resources in Tanzania, including grazing lands for local livestock keepers in four clusters of villages covering 175,000 hectares of grazing land. The intervention was funded by IFAD through the Sustainable Rangeland Management (SRM) Project piloted by ILRI, the Government of Tanzania (GoT) and other partners. The GoT has since up-scaled JVLUP with a Global Environment Facility (GEF) grant across 22 villages in five districts, covering almost 13,000 households (69,555 people) over 30,000 hectares. Significant capacity building of partners (NGOs and government) was undertaken with strong influencing and awareness-raising activities that helped to strengthen support for replicating the approach in other areas. These included, among other things, training of staff and partners on conflict management and gender, undertaking of a CSO national dialogue, learning visits to other countries, and hosting from other countries to learn about the JVLUP experiences. All of this helped to build the case for JVLUP and the issuing of group certificates of customary rights of occupancy (CCROs) to livestock keepers. The SRM project has worked very closely with government partners, for example, to provide sub-grants for implementing activities such as trainings and arranging learning visits.The Livestock CRP generated evidence on gaps and opportunities in the pork value chain through assessments leading to intervention tests, at both farm and market levels. The work also established multi-stakeholder platforms-social spaces for communicative stakeholder interactions providing business and networking opportunities and agribusiness linkages to emerging SMEs run by farmers and young entrepreneurs. This capacity development has expanded their horizons and provided business opportunities in training, selling feeds, providing pig AI services, and trading in pork. Under the Livestock CRP, business linkages in the pig value chain have expanded the horizons of many entrepreneurs. Pig multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs) have enhanced peer learning and strengthened linkages between value chain actors. Capacity development on specific areas, largely undertaken by third parties (value chain actors earlier trained by ILRI) have greatly facilitated actor linkages and success of the agribusinesses. More than 1700 value chain actors were trained. The training mainly focused on the following: profitable pig breeds and breeding, pig housing and management, feeds and feeding, closed cycle pig farming, and silage making. Other trainings were on animal health, vaccines, feeds and feeding, food safety, and marketing.The effect of an intervention designed to improve the hygienic handling and safe consumption of milk on the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of women who produce and sell dairy products was tested among the Borana pastoral community in Ethiopia.The intervention consisted of 16 hours of training on good milk production practices and prevention of milkborne diseases. A total of 120 women were trained and changes in their KAP were assessed. Six months post training, the knowledge score of the participants relative to the baseline value increased by 14.4%, the overall attitude score by 2.6%, and understanding of correct practices by 15 The training helped realize 73,558 responses in 314 surveys related to various aspects of perceptions of ticks and tick-borne diseases by various actors. The popularity of the tool augurs well for sustainability beyond the project timeline.As alluded to above, the Flagship developed a number of training tools that are expected to have been widely used and will continue to be used in different countries.The usage statistics for some of the tools can be proxied by the online download and views data as indicated in Table 17 below. Of the Livestock CRP target countries, the greatest usage statistics for these tools pertain to Ethiopia, Kenya, India, and Senegal. The trainings on CLEANED R and CLEANED X were well received and the tools are being taken up by national partners (e.g., in Kenya and Burkina Faso). The usage statistics for some of the CapDev tools developed by the Flagship are indicated in Table 18. Of the CRP targeted countries, the CLEANED tools were mainly used in Colombia, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Nicaragua. The other tools on land-use planning and management were initially developed for Ethiopia, but interest in their use has since been registered in Kenya and Eritrea. How valuable were the results to the national partners and/or organizations involved?It is instructive to note that the main CapDev actions as prescribed in the Livestock CRP's CapDev Strategy took effect in 2019. Since benefits from CapDev actions usually have a time lag, it may perhaps be too early to speak of results from these interventions, barely two years from inception. However, the CRP implemented a range of CapDev actions outside the priorities speci-fied in the CapDev Strategy, and some nascent changes from these interventions are already apparent. A list of reported areas of demonstrable success posted by the various Flagships over the last four years is given in Appendix 1.We illustrate below the valuable results to national partners using two case studies from Ethiopia, namely: community conversations and community of practice groups for sheep-fattening in the Ethiopian highlands.The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) developed a gender-transformative participatory tool called community conversations to improve the role of women in livestock health management. The tool consists of training modules to guide discussions among rural farming communities focused around livestock health management, gender, and zoonotic disease risks. It is one way of fostering participatory community engagement, which shares the same principles as other participatory community approaches. Community conversations are knowledge co-creation forums that leverage indigenous (of rural communities) and scientific (of Flagship implementing partners) knowledge practices and have been successfully applied in herd health management, gender relations, and feed and forage recommendations to farmers.In 2016 the Livestock Health Flagship conducted participatory epidemiology and gender analysis in Ethiopia. The purpose of this analysis was to identify the situation, i.e. the disease situation, the major disease constraints, and some of the priority interventions against disease. The assessment revealed major knowledge, attitude, and practice gaps of the community members in terms of causes of disease, transmission pathways, and control measures. It also became apparent that the level of gender understanding and gender knowledge at both the community and service-delivery levels was quite weak. Based on these assessment findings, a possible community engagement approach was designed, which became known as community conversations.An initial guide was developed to aid frequent interactive engagement with the team. Later, a facilitation guide on community conversations, gender, and animal health was developed. Using this guide, a number of community conversations were held at different Livestock CRP sites. From these pilot conversations, a reflective and insightful report on the lessons learned was compiled. Furthermore, based on a synthesis of all the lessons from these conversations, guidelines were developed for how to integrate community conversations on animal health in extension approaches. Further experimentation and more experiential learning across different sites enabled the development of further extension guidelines.Training programs on the approach were also organized for key partners. Internal capacity development of other team members in other projects has continued, i.e. helping them develop their own community conversation materials, demonstrating the community conversations techniques, providing the tools, and helping them to develop their own materials. There has been a continuous synthesis of experiences and refinement of technique as informed by learning from the field. Ultimately, a master training course on the community conversation approach in animal health was developed. Since 2018, three rounds (modules) of community conversations have been tested, on gender roles, zoonotic diseases, and female livestock ownership and decision-making. A fourth round was also organized in 2019 to review and reflect on the process and participants' learning experiences. Scope exists for adding community conversation modules/sessions on new topics, e.g. livestock breeding, rangeland management, animal welfare, and other aspects of livestock husbandry.Outputs/outcomes Community conversations were piloted in the Livestock Health Flagship, but have since been taken up by the other flagships. The modules were launched in the highland and lowland regions of Ethiopia and 1,600 farmers participated. The effects of these facilitated conversations on the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of participating farmers were evaluated and the results indicate successful behaviour change and transformation of gender relations at household and community levels. The observed behaviour changes include: i) adoption of safety practices when handling sick animals, ii) improved access to farming information for women, iii) more equitable sharing of responsibilities in the homestead, iv) inclusion of women in non-traditional incomegenerating activities, v) increased awareness of the risks of anti-microbial resistance among community members, and vi) a better understanding of responsible anti-microbial use among local animal health service providers (Mulema et al. 2020 41 ). Due to the apparent success of the approach, the Ethiopian government is keen on mainstreaming its use in the national extension system.According to Lemma et al. (2019 42 ), community conversations alone may not be enough to promote sustainable transformations, e.g. with regard to gender roles and the prevention of zoonotic diseases. Individual relational characteristics influence how effective these conversations can be. Moreover, participants reported challenges in sharing information with household members and with other community members. However, in situations where couples attended the community conversations together, post-event sharing of information and knowledge application became more effective. Certain issues to be addressed in community conversations can be deeply ingrained in the cultural setup of the community. Hence, there is need for patience and well-planned facilitations in trying to navigate such issues through community conversations.A number of lessons have been adduced around community conversations on gender relations and zoonotic diseases by Lemma et a. (201944). Examples include: i) for good outcomes, there is need for effective facilitation skills, reflective writing skills, and thorough documentation; ii) to bring changes in attitudes and practices, community conversations must be linked to ongoing development interventions that tie people together; iii) people with high social esteem in the community should be brought on board in the conversations to foster the accountability and social pressure needed for reinforcement of the take-home messages; and iv) through social learning, peer influence, and sheer homophily, community conversations are powerful tools that enable communities to take charge of the change they desire for themselves. Indeed, 'a learning environment centred on people's own experiences facilitates (peer) learning and generates understanding through feedback and knowledge supplementation, leading to changes in perspectives and practices.' (Lemma et al. 201944).The community conversations approach is promising for changing the way extension is performed. In Ethiopia, it is being taken up by new livestock development projects and this creates the opportunity for further scaling out and embedding the approach in the national extension system. Community conversations are an important tool to spur collective actions around key issues affecting the livestock sector and can be scaled out to influence critical livelihood outcomes in other countries. The small ruminant value chain is a very important source of livelihood for communities living in the Ethiopian highlands. The population density in these areas is very high and sheep farming is the predominant source of livelihood. Engaging the youth in agricultural activities is really core for Ethiopia right now because most of them are, just like everywhere else, migrating from the rural areas into the cities in search of economic opportunities. Facilitating formation of youth groups for market-oriented sheep production in the highland areas of Ethiopia was one of the main capacity development interventions under the Feeds and Forages Flagship. This activity was led by ICARDA as from 2017.ICARDA initially conducted an in-depth analysis of the small ruminant value chain in Ethiopia. A major finding of the analysis was that feeding and nutrition was largely contributing to the underperformance of small ruminant production and productivity in Ethiopia. Sheep-fattening was identified as a very important livelihood component of the farmers in the highland areas due to its agribusiness potential. The traditional sheep-fattening cycle takes 6 months or longer until the farmers are satisfied that the sheep are well fattened. Farmers attribute the long fattening period to lack of adequate and quality feed and to poor management arising from lack of skill and knowledge of improved fattening practices and supplementary feeding methods. Farmers had limited knowledge on feed formulation and would just give feed to the animals without consideration of the nutritional composition in terms of proteins, energy, minerals, and their balance. So, improving the feeding and nutrition aspects of small ruminant value chains became one of the core intervention areas for the Feeds and Forages Flagship in the second round of the Livestock CRP. Specifically, ICARDA initiated sheep-fattening through short-term intensive feeding prior to sale, based on formulations from locally available feed sources.Another study conducted by ICARDA on the sheep-fattening systems in Ethiopia revealed four main types: commercial, urban and peri-urban, smallholders, and cooperatives. Commercial and cooperative sheep farming are not widely practiced in Ethiopia. Sheep-fattening cooperatives initiated by local governments across the country were barely in existence because of insufficient training and funding opportunities for members and a lack of coordination among government bureaus that resulted in a stifling of the business environment.As of 2014, modification of existing flock-feeding practices to improve fattening performance was facilitated by ICARDA. Feed formulation and balancing the nutritional composition of locally available feed resources were key interventions. Emphasis was placed on the following production principles: identifying existing context-specific feed resources, feed gaps, and production practices using the FEAST tool; accelerated sheep-fattening (i.e., for a shorter as opposed to a long period of time); improved husbandry (such as castration of rams); and clean feeding. With farmers investing so much energy into sheep-fattening, they obviously expected to reap rewards from it. Emphasis was placed on timing and selling off at the right time. Unfortunately, most farmers would take their fattened animals to the market expecting huge returns, only to find dismal price offers. The disillusioned farmers would trek back home with their animals and completely lose interest in the fattening enterprise. The condition of the animals would then start to deteriorate altogether. Realizing that there was an entrepreneurial gap, ICARDA stepped in and recommended timing for the sheep sales as well as selling in groups for better bargaining power. Initially, sheep farmers were elderly folk whose worldview on issues was hard to change; ICARDA decided to focus on the youth, who were more aggressive and willing to learn new ways of doing things. ICARDA came in and trained the groups on entrepreneurial skill development and dynamics of group formation. This has provided the push factor, a favourable environment for enabling market-oriented sheep-fattening. But there was also need of a pull factor, i.e., the existence of a market with incentive prices. The collective sale of sheep by the youth groups has given them stronger negotiating power, and brokers at the marketplace now offer better prices for fattened sheep.The sheep-fattening groups are highly motivated and doing well. The membership has grown by over 40% across three of ICARDA's intervention regions. Adoption rates of the commercial sheep-fattening enterprise are higher because of this pull factor of the market. Members emphasize the quality of feed given to their flock. Moreover, they have extended their focus beyond the animals and embraced forage production and sale of feed supplements to enhance their feed base. Most of the youth in the groups are school dropouts, mainly due to high poverty levels in Ethiopia. But, as a result of engaging in this sheep-fattening enterprise, many of them are now going back to school with the proceeds that they are earning. They are able to multiply their animals very quickly. Initially, they would come in with one animal, and ICARDA matched them up with another animal, so that they started out with two. In a span of two years, many of them have multiplied their flocks to between 16 and 30 sheep!Another outcome is with regard to how the CoP concept around the youth groups has auspiciously evolved into platforms of cooperation among the implementing partners. Initially, the partners never related to each other in any meaningful way, so that there was a silo mode of operation in which the gender team went to the site and did their own work, the livestock team went and did their own work, and the vets went and did their own work. Everybody used to go independently to the farmers; but now, they go together and work together. They say things like, 'I'm going there on gender, can you come with livestock?'. This improved communication has fostered viable community conversations around pertinent issues affecting the group enterprise.Government legislation on registration of cooperatives slowed down entry of youth farmers into new markets (licenses are needed for cross-boundary sale of animals; yet licenses are only given to registered cooperatives). Youth groups have had to merge between 20 and 50 persons to enable registration as a cooperative. Moreover, the competence required to manage cooperatives is lacking among the youth, particularly in women-only youth groups, because of their low literacy levels. Continuous upgrading of skills to manage cooperatives is vital.  Changes in the partnering and engagement capacity of local partners is significant to support implementation and scaling of technical and institutional innovations in the small ruminant value chain sector. Local partners are mandated institutions who own and lead development processes in their localities. Institutional development of partners in terms of new perspectives of working with community groups and diverse stakeholders, facilitating coordination, knowledge generation and sharing, and increasing gender and sectoral outcomes is rewarding for individuals, organizations, and communities. Local service providers are now engaging with communities in a more meaningful way, exploring and learning together with communities, identifying priority issues, and supporting communities in implementing solutions. Communities are now getting better avenues for expressing their views, concerns, and priorities through community engagement processes.Capacity development actions are broadly perceived and provided in different contexts and forms. The various consultative processes such as participatory needs assessment and priority-setting engagements, partner planning and review processes, monitoring and coaching visits, implementation engagements with partners, training programs on technical and institutional areas, and development of guidelines, implementation methods, and tools contribute to mindset changes as well as individual and organizational capacities.The main bottleneck is attitudinal and mindset challenges. Partners are used to conventional working approaches, and they are new to participatory processes and working with and learning from communities. Strengthening capacity for partnership and engagement at the local level takes time and patience. It cannot be expected that more impactful and sustainable changes will happen overnight. Continuous engagement in the form of problemsolving and coaching support, needs-based training, and documentation of changes and lessons requires more time, energy, and funding. For example, local partners in Ethiopia developed action plans for integrating gender in their organizations and programs after they received gender capacity development and coaching support, but they lacked adequate funding to implement their action plans. Similarly, the communities of practice for local partners require continuous support initially to help the groups mature and sustain themselves on their own. This requires more funding for project implementing partners to provide local partners with the necessary coaching and problem-solving support and to document capacity development outcomes and lessons.The ). In Figure 3, the sub-IDOs and IDOs correspond to the sphere-ofinfluence level, while the system-level outcomes (SLOs) relate to the sphere of interest. It would be unrealistic to attempt to propose any prescriptive measures on the best way for the CGIAR to do CapDev going forward based on the outcome of this review and synthesis of Livestock CRP CapDev actions over the last four years. However, the following general observations may feed into the general CGIAR thinking on future CapDev actions:• Co-creation and co-design of technologies, tools, and practices enhances their suitability to the context and priorities of end-users, with important implications for sustainability. This demands some co-creation capacity, at least on the part of the CGIAR.• Efficiencies of scaling out technologies, tools, and practices hinge on the absorptive and uptake capacities of end users in target countries and the point of entry by the CGIAR as facilitators and intermediaries of local innovations. Photo: ILRI/Geoffrey Njenga Capacity gaps of farmers and other actors on the ground-The extent to which program interventions can be impactful depends on the knowledge levels and adoption capacity of beneficiaries and ultimate users.Generally, the quality of the agricultural labour force crucially determines the extent to which the knowledge domain can be gainfully deployed to improve farm productivity. Formal schooling of agricultural workers and provision of extension and advisory services are expedient policy measures to improve the quality of agricultural human capital for better farm allocative efficiencies and improved productivity. Developing the capacity of 'next users' was a deliberate objective in the CRP's theory of change. Unfortunately, key informants across flagships still felt that lack of capacity of national partners was a drawback to technology uptake and scaling efforts. Thus, developing capacity of national partners to independently execute research and undertake downstream scaling efforts should be prioritized in future CapDev interventions.Insufficient budgets-Some key informants were of the view that the livestock sector has suffered sustained neglect in terms of funding in many countries compared to other sectors, although the current and potential contribution of the sector to agricultural GDP is significant. The pooled funding projections in the CRP Proposals apparently did not materialize for most of the Flagships, which had to rely on ongoing bilateral agreements to fund activities. Moreover, the CRP Overall and Flagships Narratives Proposal had indicated that a Strategic Investment Fund was set up as an adaptive management instrument to fund special short-term initiatives such as CapDev that complement the crosscutting agenda within the CRP. This Fund was to derive from an approximately 5% contribution from W1/2 of the CGIAR Trust Fund. However, whether the account became operational and the extent to which it aided CapDev activities by the Flagships was unclear.Lack of human resources-Some Flagships did not have suitably qualified technical personnel in some focus countries and this was closely tied with the sector's underfunding. Lack of trust among stakeholders-for example, aggregators and farmers in the pig value chain in Uganda. The aggregators took advantage of the farmers and reaped most of the benefits at the farmers' expense. Moreover, the aggregators were unwilling to cooperate with project implementers and intermediaries seeking to find amicable solutions to contentious issues with the farmers. Adoption of innovation platforms as social spaces for facilitated dialogue by stakeholders on key issues would help address the power disparities that were apparent in the Ugandan pig value chain.Implementation timelines-Flagship programs are currently tied to the CRP cycles. This can be limiting especially for breeding, whether of forages or livestock, which often requires a long-term perspective. In the case of forages, the strategy is to have a continuous pipeline which produces new breeding products every two or three years. In this way, one has a range of products at various stages-some at discovery stage and others ready for scaling. However, to reach the point of pipelines for breeding programs, one needs at least 10 to 15 years (perhaps more for perennial crops), which obviously transcends the normal fiveyear CRP cycle. For animal breeding, large bilateral funding endowment has enabled the Livestock Genetics Flagship to try something longer-term with more sustainable thinking. Thus, adoption of dual funding approaches -pooled or bilateral -can help overcome the time limitations imposed by the CRP program cycles. The only caveat is that many bilateral projects come with donor preferences and expectations, which may be at variance with the aspirations of the CRP. The project implementers must weigh the risk of honouring donor requirements at the expense of the CRP goals. This risk can, however, be addressed by aligning the project objectives with the CRP goals at the proposaldevelopment stage.Enabling environment-An unfavourable political environment limits engagement of private actors, while institutional limitations (e.g., unfavourable regulatory and IPR regimes) discourage development of seed supply systems -in this case, for forages. Particular cases were cited for Ethiopia and India. Strong institutional partners, institutional structures, and the stage of development are also key to programmatic success in target countries. In particular, the stage of development determines where one stands with respect to readiness to take things up (i.e., technology uptake). In terms of scaling up of technologies, this was probably one of the overriding criteria for target country selection in the current CRP cycle.This adversely affected CapDev delivery across all the flagships. Face-to-face CapDev engagements were substituted for by online delivery formats at the peak of the pandemic, which included most of 2020. Program meetings were also held effectively online via various platforms. Thus, on a positive note, the pandemic revealed the potential efficiency gains (e.g., from cost and time savings) due to adoption of ICT-based program delivery options.Globally, the main adopters of new feeds and forages technologies are medium and smallholder farmers. In Latin America, for example, there are some big farmers but they are not the main clientele for increasing or intensifying the system. The reason is that very big land holders have a lot of land, and therefore are the first to intensify and improve based on improved feeds or improved forage. However, even private sector investors targeting the larger land holders for profit have apparently failed. Large landowners have a feeling of self-sufficiency that makes them relatively resistant to change. On the other hand, the landless also find it difficult to adopt new technologies because one needs someplace to produce feed. The landless may also be resource-poor, and the option of renting land to invest in feeds and forage production may not be viable. So, medium and smallholder farmers are the main adopters of technologies for feeds and forages. This is an important lesson for targeting future scaling efforts for feeds and forage technologies.Working with policy-making agencies and policy dialogues to encourage endogenous system changes -This may be practical in some countries like Kenya where open dialogue is encouraged, but could be challenging in jurisdictions like Ethiopia where the political climate stifles freedom of expression. However, the community conversations approach that has registered remarkable successes at the grassroots level in the small ruminant value chains of Ethiopia could serve as a mechanism to instigate bottom-up change management to help navigate enduring system rigidities that undermine innovation.Cross-flagship learning and knowledge exchange within the CRP-An Integrated Package Tool was developed in Uganda to help farmers optimize productivity. It addresses aspects of health, housing, feeding, food safety, fattening, and more. For example, if one wants to do fattening, the integrated package will give advice on what to do for one's animals to help them gain weight. Although it was just the tool that the community sheep-fattening groups of the Ethiopian highlands needed, they never had an opportunity to use it. Apparently, the capacity to pick up innovations fermented in one flagship and inoculate them elsewhere within the CRP for more effective delivery and outcomes was lacking. Yet, from the outset, the CRP intended to test the hypothesis that integration of research activities across the various flagship areas could result in 'packages' of technologies that are greater than the sum of their parts. In any target country, the 'site integration' concept -facilitated by country coordinators whose roles were supported by an endowment from the CRP Management Fund-provided the platform to test this hypothesis. Unfortunately, in the Integrated Package Tool, the CRP lost a perfect opportunity to test the hypothesis.Phot: ILRI/Apollo HabtamuThe CRP elaborated a theory of change (TOC), which articulates the theoretical grounding of how increases in livestock productivity, underpinned by technological interventions in the various Flagships, lead to System-Level Outcomes. The idea is to develop and deploy research-based solutions that will drive the transition of smallholder producers, value chain actors, consumers, pastoralists, and agro-pastoralists from near subsistence to productive small-scale enterprises and/ or resilient livelihoods. Thus, the CRP aims at enabling 'livestock keepers to choose their destination' in the projected structural transformation. This underlines the essence of CapDev: empowerment of beneficiaries to take charge and steer the change that they desire. The spirit of the theory of change (TOC) was integrated by the various Flagships, and CapDev is specified as a cross-cutting enabler. The sort of changes in behaviour and capacity targeted are clearly outlined in the CRP's TOC. Moreover, it is indicated in the CRP Overall and Flagship Narratives Proposal that an analysis was done at the flagship level, based on each Flagship's TOC, to identify the key areas where capacity development was most needed. This analysis informed the strategic CapDev actions and budgets outlined in the CRP Overall and Flagship Narratives Proposal. Thus, we feel that the aims and purposes of CapDev are clearly enunciated in the TOCs of the CRP and Flagships. However, most program leaders interviewed could not relate what they were doing in CapDev to a perceived TOC. Indeed, the CapDev Strategy itself did not specify exactly how the prioritized activities contributed to the CRP or Flagship TOCs. An internal conceptual disconnect thus exists between strategic design and its implementation. For the aspirations of 'site integration', for example, to come to fruition, a shared vision of success by all CRP personnel is imperative. This calls for strengthening ownership of strategy and monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) capacity within the CRP.CapDev actions were not targeted as independent deliverables by the Flagships and the CapDev Strategy did not come with a MEL framework. Considering that there were no specific targets for CapDev actions, the MEL becomes a bit problematic. Actor configuration for delivery of development interventions in the agricultural sector has hinged on three organizing principles or system concepts progressively elaborated over the years, namely: the national agricultural research system (NARS), the agricultural knowledge and information system (AKIS), and agricultural innovation systems (AIS) paradigms.The NARS focuses on the generation of knowledge with the public agricultural research agencies as the epicentre, AKIS on the generation and diffusion of knowledge, and AIS on the generation, diffusion, and application of knowledge (Roseboom 2011 46 ). The AIS recognizes the role of markets in agricultural knowledge transactions, being cognizant of the fact that all actors, including smallholder farmers, are endowed with knowledge capital. As a construct for CapDev, the AIS postulates that capacity can only emerge as a complex adaptive system rather than being developed or directed in a linear, logical, and deterministic way. In other words, capacity is realized through endogenous processes of self-organisation, adaptation, and emergence.So, while a deterministic and detailed CapDev strategy would be good for planning, in the end it may be counterproductive in so far as it may not allow the flexibility for explorative learning and redesign. It is good that some of the projects implemented by the CRP (e.g., the MilkIT project in India and Tanzania) have embraced innovation platforms, which is one way of operationalizing the AIS. The CapDev Unit needs to embrace systems thinking in the design of a CapDev 'Guide' that allows for different approaches, reflection, and redesign of CapDev actions. Indeed, the various Flagships demonstrated divergence in their perceived CapDev objectives, and this is all the more reason for a multiplicity of approaches that encourage learning, identification of levers of change, and redirecting of resources and strategies to realize needed capacity.  Obviously, there were compelling reasons for target country selection, some of which have been discussed above; but, potential for scaling appears to have been the central criterion for a number of the Flagships. In addition, a number of CapDev actions were bilaterally funded and, in that regard, the CRP perhaps had little leeway in the choice of target countries. Nevertheless, where possible, future interventions need to display some degree of equity in the selection of beneficiary countries.The issue with funding is twofold: CRP allocation to CapDev and mode of funding. The Livestock CRP Overall and Flagship Narratives Proposal contains budget lines for CapDev in each of the Flagships, presumably under W1/2 and bilateral funding streams. It appears that the projected W1/2 funding projections never fully materialized in the lifetime of the CRP and the Flagships had to rely on existing bilateral funds to implement CapDev interventions. Some key informants decried the allotment of insufficient funds to CapDev at the program design stage. Others suggested that the CapDev Unit should have a separate budget line to support the activities they recommend to the Flagships rather than leaving the Flagships to search for funds on their own.'At the design level of the programs, enough resources should be allocated to CapDev instead of relying on modicum amounts because often people forget that CapDev takes money. A small amount of funds may be allocated at the beginning and, in the middle, the reality strikes that you don't have funds to access anything. So that is also somewhere we need to improve a bit'.It may be imagined that pooled or core funding like W1 allows for flexibility in allotment to activity implementation. Bilateral funding, on the other hand, may be locked to specific aspects of interventions depending on the agreement with the donor. This may compromise the global strategic goals of the Flagship. However, some Flagship leaders indicated that it is through bilateral funding streams that they have been able to sustain research beyond the CRP cycles.Photo: ILRI/Paul Karaimu Highlands, Son La province.• A total of 265,823 individuals (24% women) participated in CapDev activities implemented by the Livestock CRP between 2018 and 2021. Kenya registered the highest number of CapDev participants followed, in decreasing order, by the Livestock CRP priority countries of Uganda, Tanzania, and Ethiopia.• All outputs from the Livestock CRP annual reporting cycle were scored for the extent to which they contributed to CapDev, i.e., not targeted (0), significant (1), or principal (2). Between 2017 and 2020, about 73% of the total outputs with embedded CapDev deliverables were deemed to have made a significant contribution, while 27% made a principal contribution. Overall, FP3 and FP4 jointly accounted for 71% of the total CapDev deliverables over the four years. The least CapDev implementation was recorded in FP5, followed by FP1.• The CapDev interventions were comprised of longterm academic training at BSc, Master, and PhD levels, short-term trainings like one-off workshops and training visits, and other engagements that were deemed to be of CapDev import like knowledge exchange (i.e., focus group discussions, roundtable discussions, policy dialogues), trials and studies (i.e. participatory trials and studies), and co-creation events (i.e. taskforce meetings). The trainees included CGIAR and national partner researchers, policy makers and regulators, extension agents, farmers, and other value chain actors.• For national partners, it is uncertain as to whether there were clear guiding criteria or bases upon which the academic trainings were decided on in terms of area of study (or technical discipline), level of study (BSc, MSc, or PhD), target country, or even partner organizations within the target countries from which the beneficiaries were selected. Livestock, that 'for postgraduate researchers, we find the general approach to developing skills ad hoc and project driven. Each student's experience is different and highly dependent on their host organization or personal background. We conclude that more could be done to create a collegiate postgraduate learning experience in CGIAR and in CRPs with a set of learning activities that are more closely aligned with national postgraduate programs and aims'.A more systematic and targeted channelling of academic trainings to the national partners would ensure relevance, create clear exit strategies, impart efficiencies in the scaling up of technologies and tools, and ensure sustainability of impacts from CRP interventions.• The one-off trainings were on technologies, methods, and practices of relevance to the objectives of the Flagships. Most of them concerned the deployment and scaling up of various decisionsupport and extension tools (including manuals and guides). The usage statistics for some of the tools can be proxied by the online downloads and views data. However, for better tracking of their use, the CGSpace online repositories for the tools could be configured to document additional user statistics. For example, those viewing or downloading the tools can be requested to provide information such as their vocation (e.g., researcher, student, or private sector) and purpose for download.• All prioritized activities in the CRP CapDev Strategy were firmly rooted in the CGIAR's overarching CapDev Framework. However, the CapDev activities implemented by a majority of the Flagships were either not informed or only slightly informed by the priorities of the CapDev Strategy. A few activities in some flagships, though, were reportedly completely informed by the CapDev Strategy. Given the disparity between strategy and practice, it may seem that the CNAs conducted by the CapDev Unit and the ensuing CapDev Strategy, apart from the fact that they were rather belated, could have been perceived by the Flagships as superfluous and non-compelling. Indeed, one Flagship had reportedly conducted its own in-house capacity needs assessments and responded to perceived stakeholder demands with specific tools.• At least in the priority countries of the Livestock CRP (i.e., Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Vietnam), CapDev activities were implemented as part of an integrated country work plan. As per the CGIAR requirements, the planning and reporting system used by the CRP does not include information on specific CapDev activities at the annual planning stage. Instead, it was based on deliverables, that is, proof of the completion of an activity or set of activities. The reports were, however, required to indicate if any of the deliverables involved trainees and, if so, to specify the number, gender, and type of these trainees. In the MARLO, all reported Flagship activities were scored for the extent to which they had CapDev components.• CapDev was something in the mind of the Flagship leaders, but never had any particular delivery targets. The degree of the Flagship's engagement with the CapDev Unit team to specify the CapDev elements for implementation was, in most cases, unclear. Thus, CapDev was either expected as an incidental outcome to a main activity or implemented as a spurious subactivity, depending on the exigencies, with no clear linkages to the CRP CapDev strategic priorities.• In many of the countries, project activities were bilaterally funded; but there were no clear linkages between bilateral projects and country-level intermediate indicators to allow aggregation of results. Program output indicators (e.g., number of CapDev participants) were not clearly linked to bilateral project output indicators, and this probably led to under-reporting on deliverables. However, in some cases, alignment with the country's strategic areas was one way of adapting CapDev actions to country context.• The planning and reporting system used by the CRP does not include information on specific CapDev activities and targets at the annual planning stage, which may pose a challenge for evaluation of implementation effectiveness. However, based on perceptions by Flagship implementing teams, the extent to which various Flagships implemented the CapDev activities was different depending on the target country.• For Livestock Genetics, CapDev activities were completed (80-100%) in all the priority countries. The Livestock Health Flagship did not complete all the intended CapDev interventions in any of the three targeted countries of Uganda, Vietnam, or Mali. Feeds and Forages completed CapDev implementation in only four out of nine targeted countries: Colombia, Kenya, Tunisia, and Vietnam. Livestock and Environment targeted four countries, but only managed to complete CapDev implementation in two countries: Tanzania and Tunisia. The Livelihoods and Agro-Food Systems Flagship also targeted nine countries for delivery of CapDev interventions, but only three countries (India, Kenya, and The Gambia) registered completion of the activities. In addition, the priority countries of Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Vietnam all registered activity completion rates of below 49%.• Disruptions by the COVID-19 pandemic, delays in funding and in getting ethical approvals, late onset of implementation of some projects, engagements with new partners, and lack of implementation capacity (e.g., the lead scientist in The Gambia had left) were some of the reasons cited for noncompletion of CapDev activities.• Training on the use of the FEAST has led to its adoption in over 22 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where the tool has been promoted independently by a range of civil society, NGO, government, and private sector organizations. Sustainability is likely in various contexts and this could be aided by integrating additional components (e.g. soil analysis) and introducing it within an innovation platform set-up.• CoPs for sheep-fattening-Initially introduced by ICARDA, this market-oriented collective action driven by the youth has been replicated in other neighbouring regions of the Ethiopian highlands through peer-to-peer learning. Moreover, the youth groups have since extended their focus beyond the animals and embraced forage production and sale of feed supplements to enhance their feed base. Most of the youth in the groups were school dropouts, mainly due to high poverty levels in Ethiopia. But as a result of engaging in this sheepfattening enterprise, many of them are now going back to school with the proceeds that they are earning. They are able to multiply their animals very quickly. In a span of two years, many of them have multiplied their sheep flocks to between 16 and 30 sheep! The self-propagating CoP concept around the sheep-fattening youth groups has auspiciously evolved into platforms of cooperation among the implementing partners, a kind of 'reverse capacity development'. Initially, the partners did not relate to each other in any meaningful way; but now, they go together and work together with the farmers.• Community conversations-these are knowledge co-creation forums that leverage indigenous and scientific knowledge domains to midwife solutions to community challenges. They are used to guide discussions among rural farming communities on issues affecting local livestock farming. The facilitated conversations have been shown to have positive effects on KAPs of participating farmers as well as behaviour change and gender relations at household and community levels. The observed behaviour changes include: i) adoption of safety practices when handling sick animals, ii) improved access to farming information for women, iii) more equitable sharing of responsibilities in the homestead, iv) inclusion of women in non-traditional income-generating activities, v) and increased awareness of the risks of anti-microbial resistance among community members. The Ethiopian government has mainstreamed the conversations into the national extension system.• Training on good milk production practices and prevention of milk-borne diseases for women of the Borana pastoralist community in Ethiopia has resulted in improved KAPs and a statistically significant increase in the age of women adopting the improved practices. Six months post training, the overall practice score increased from 49.5% at pretraining to 64.7%, a statistically significant change.• Community breeding programs, introduced by ICARDA through training modules, owe their success to their participatory model. The CBBPs are now owned and promoted by the national system in Ethiopia. The program is very consultative and uses local breeds selected from the herds of the community groups. The approach to communitybased breeding has now been integrated into Ethiopia's national livestock master plan. The program has also been linked to a cloud-based genetic database platform to improve data quality, data collection, and information.• Key informants across flagships still felt that lack of capacity of national partners was a drawback to technology uptake and scaling efforts. Thus, developing capacity of national partners to independently execute research and undertake downstream scaling efforts should be prioritized in future CapDev interventions.• The pooled funding projections in the CRP Proposals apparently did not materialize for most of the Flagships, which had to rely on ongoing bilateral agreements to fund activities. Some Flagships did not have suitably qualified technical personnel in some focus countries, and this was closely tied with sector under-funding.• Lack of trust and exploitative power relations were apparent among some stakeholders (e.g., in the pig value chain in Uganda). Adoption of innovation platforms as social spaces for facilitated dialogue by stakeholders on key issues would help address power disparities such as were apparent in the Ugandan pig value chain.• Strong institutional partners, institutional structures, and the stage of development are key to programmatic success in target countries. In particular, the stage of development determines where one stands with respect to readiness to take things up (i.e., technology uptake) and hence impact at scale.• Medium and smallholder farmers are the main adopters of technologies for feeds and forages. This is an important lesson for targeting future scaling efforts of feeds and forage technologies.• Community conversations that have registered remarkable successes at the grassroots level in the small ruminant value chains could serve as a mechanism to instigate bottom-up change management to help in navigating enduring system rigidities that undermine innovation in some countries like Ethiopia.• Tools developed by one flagship could easily have been deployed in another for greater efficiency. An example is the Integrated Package Tool developed by Livestock Health Flagship, which had components that could have been employed in the youth sheep-fattening enterprise in Ethiopia. However, the capacity to pick up innovations fermented in one flagship and inoculate them elsewhere within the CRP was lacking. The concept of site integration need not be only for co-delivery; it should really be about co-learning.• Currently, the CRP equates CapDev largely with training, save for a few participatory approaches like community conversations. A few key informants talked about learning-by-doing as a means to strengthening partner capacity without any clear details as to how this approach was implemented in practice nor how the results thereof were tracked.Inherent in these approaches is the notion that capacity development is a linear and predictable change process that can be directed by the implementation of some external inputs to a system. However, contemporary development practice of CapDev affirms that this is not true.• Additionally, achieving impact at scale entails not only, for example, knowledge of a technology or how to use a decision support tool developed by the CRP; it is more to do with the embeddedness of the technology or tool in the system. That some farmers were averse to the use of semen from cross-bred animals is an issue of institutional embeddedness of the semen technology. Although the farmers were knowledgeable about the crossbreed semen technology, the Livestock Genetics Flagship needed to employ non-tangible aspects of capacity (i.e. use of a digital feedback system to directly appraise farmers on the evidence for breeding gains) to be able to navigate their resistance.• There is need for a paradigm shift in the way the CRP, and indeed the CGIAR, views capacity development. By invoking systems thinking, which posits that capacity is an emergent system attribute, CapDev should be increasingly viewed as a complex adaptive process to be approached as a process of experimentation and learning rather than the implementation of predetermined activities.• The aims and purposes of CapDev are clearly enunciated in the TOCs of the CRP and Flagships. However, most program leaders interviewed could not relate what they were doing in CapDev to a perceived TOC. Indeed, the CapDev Strategy itself did not specify exactly how the prioritized activities contributed to the CRP or Flagship TOCs. An internal conceptual disconnect thus exists between strategic design and its implementation. For the aspirations of 'site integration', for example, to come to fruition, a shared vision of success by all CRP personnel is imperative. This calls for strengthening ownership of strategy and MEL capacity within the CRP.• Currently, CapDev actions are only attached ex post to the main Flagship activities and rated as to whether they were significant or principal based on perception. Effects and experiences from the CapDev actions were not formally tracked. Therefore, a pragmatic approach to MEL, based on reflection on practical experience in attempting to achieve CapDev goals, is called for.","tokenCount":"14508"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a81278d54231aaced8ef7623c6501548","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/6a4944b8-8ca2-4ed2-bacc-7b33abdb850d/retrieve","id":"-99262374"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"3f46bf70-7cc8-4e64-933f-a8abbfd61467","pagecount":"2","content":"This project aims to facilitate better data management in farmer-owned cooperatives, associations and farmer's organisations, as well as aid their development. It focuses on transforming agriculture for smallholder farmers through joint ventures to reach new markets and by using aggregated data to provide better services for their members and to inform policy-making. Digitalisation of agriculture is driving an exponential growth in the amount of data on agriculture being collected. This calls for new tools and approaches to gather, manage, analyse and use this data. CTA's project, Data4Ag: Agricultural data systems to transform smallholder farming, focuses on transforming smallholder agriculture through the use of data management by agri-enterprises.","tokenCount":"107"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b0fefe4bfe56fc526b7a7f3843eb0c31","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d4aa7022-61d5-4c3d-a071-ce8269c0a14d/retrieve","id":"-572321441"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"2b14f06d-ca2a-4603-8ec2-bda7b937f8c2","pagecount":"5","content":"y Within the approaches to sustainable cattle farming, supplementation with legumes is one of the effective alternatives to boost productivity, efficiency, and sustainability of the sector, which is mainly related to the greater capacity cattle systems with supplementation have to respond during periods of drought.y Economic evaluation shows that optimizing the conditions of the traditional production system with Bothriochloa pertusa (Colosuana) pastures and supplementing with the legume Canavalia brasiliensis contributes to improving the productivity indicators of the system, translating into higher benefits and a lower risk of economic loss.y The conducted trial involved a characteristic productive system in the Caribbean region and demonstrated how it can be improved with appropriate technical management and supplementation with legumes. These results can be shared with smallscale cattle farmers to initiate changes in traditional production systems.Without improvements, the existing cultivated land will not be able to meet the demand for food by the year 2050 anymore. Therefore, intensive cattle farming plays an indispensable role in global agricultural policy and food security (Mottet et al., 2017;Röös et al., 2017). The cattle sector is of significant importance to the rural economy of Colombia, contributing 1.3% to the national gross domestic product (GDP), 19.8% to the GDP of the agricultural sector, and 47.2% to the national livestock GDP (FEDEGAN, 2023). In the dry savannah of the Colombian Caribbean, the grass Bothriochloa pertusa (Colosuana) has been widely adopted in cattle systems (Cuadrado et al., 1996). However, its productivity and quality decrease during droughts. Empirical evidence indicates that supplementation with the legume Canavalia brasiliensis is an effective solution to this problem (Castro-Rincón et al., 2016;Mojica-Rodríguez, 2017). The objective of this document is to assess the profitability of improving the pasture conditions of the traditional Colosuana system and integrating supplementation with the legume C. brasiliensis.As reference technology, the traditional Colosuana grazing system with low investment in the pasture was considered. This grass is a perennial plant with a height of 50 cm before flowering and 90 cm at maturity (Cook et al., 2020). The improved technology involved optimizing pasture conditions and supplementation with C. brasiliensis. This material grows well in acidic and alkaline soils and is also used to restore soil structure due to its strong root system (Cook et al., 2020). It was provided at three fixed daily inclusion levels (IL) to the animals. In all IL levels, results superior to the traditional technology were observed. However, for the economic analysis in this document, the most successful case was selected, which is the IL of 1.5% dry matter (DM) of For the economic evaluation, we employed a discounted cash flow model, which consolidates investments and the difference between income and costs (Miranda, 2022). This yields a net cash flow per period for the traditional and improved scenarios. Using this data, profitability indicators such as Net Present Value (NPV) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR) were calculated.Through their comparison, the more profitable technology is determined. Subsequently, a probabilistic analysis with Monte Carlo simulation was performed on the NPV using @Risk software. This allows for more robust estimates of the indicator, estimating the probability of economic loss, and identifying the factors that determine profitability. The cash flow model was projected for 8 years, based on the characteristics of the productive system.Table 1 compares the indicators of the traditional Colosuana grazing system with the improved system with pasture management and supplementation with C. brasiliensis hay (IL 1.5%). Both technologies are profitable, with a positive NPV and an IRR higher than the discount rate (6.9%). However, the indicators of the improved system are significantly superior. The NPV increases from US$2,994 to US$26,988, and the profitability, according to the IRR, increases by 8.9%. The analysis was projected for 8 hectares.The results of the Monte Carlo simulation can be observed in Table 2. With this technique, the more robust mean values of the NPV and IRR were obtained. The mean NPV increases from US$4,225 to US$25,115, and the average IRR grows by 7.2%.The CV decreases from 69.78 to 26.75. Therefore, the precision of the estimation increases. In the case of the riskTraditional IL 1.5% of economic loss, the probability decreases from 0.059 to 0.These findings are visualized in Figure 1, which depicts the probability distributions for the two scenarios.Figure 2 shows the variables that have the greatest influence on the NPV or profitability. Accordingly, milk productivity (MP) explains 77.6% and 73.4% of NPV in the traditional system and the IL of 1.5%, respectively. The second most relevant variable is the discount rate (DR), explaining 21.4% and 23.8%of the profitability indicator. In third place is the milk price ($ M) (US$/l), which has a very small influence, ranging from 0.8% to 2.5%.The profitability gains reported in our study for this type of The improvement in pasture management and supplementation with C. brasiliensis improved the productivity indicators of the traditional Colosuana system. Milk productivity and animal stocking rates increased. The positive productivity results were reflected in better economic performance of the system where both NPV and IRR increased significantly. Additionally, probabilistic analysis showed a reduction in the probability of economic loss. Such representative case studies for the region are important for disseminating improved feeding technologies and practices, promoting their adoption, and increasing the resilience, profitability, and sustainability of cattle production. Future research could delve deeper into the benefits of supplementation. Aspects of hygienic quality add value to the product, so their measurement could further pinpoint the impact of adopting new productive technologies. ","tokenCount":"905"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"d833c1563348646b5f8842c537c34114","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/1e8d82c9-a27e-4d4c-a8d6-1f6b6fca165f/retrieve","id":"2073937747"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7e5722b0-0d4f-4ca8-b71d-10ffd3c1f94e","pagecount":"2","content":"All types of outputs -publications, reports, posters, articles -resulting from work of a CGIAR initiative or platform can be added to CGSpace to facilitate wide dissemination as well as performance tracking.The following are steps you need to follow to add outputs to CGSpace:To avoid duplication, before adding a new entry, search your publication title on CGSpace. If the publication is not in CGSpace, then it can be added as a new entry.If you find a publication, you will just 'map' it to your collection.If you do not find the output already in CGSpace, prepare the required metadata (such as authors, title, issue date, investors, etc). It is very important to be consistent with author names, citations and other information as this is critical to later use the content.Login to the system using your CGIAR or e-mail authentication (see 'Registering' if ou are a new user) .Go to cgspace.cgiar.org and select \"CGIAR 2030 research initiatives (2022-2024)\" from the list of 'Communities in CGSpace\". Click on the initiative of your choice. You will see 'Su mit a new item to this collection'.Follow the various screens to enter relevant information. Some fields are required. Include information on the CGIAR initiatives, impact and action areas. For consistency, 'click to see available values' whenever possible to select from prepopulated list of entries. You can hold on the 'Ctrl' key to select multiple entries in the dropdown lists.Upload one or more files except for journal articles for which there is legal restriction. You can use the output type to include as the 'file description'When you click on next, the system will duplicate check and then you will have chance to review and correct any mistakes. If everything is correct, then you will grant the distribution license and complete submission.After you submit, the item enters a workflow review where any errors can be corrected.Abenet Yabowork a.yabowork@cgiar.orgAuthor names. Each author has a separate value in the database. CGSpace asks for the Family name and First name(s) nter as full as possi le For an institution author, enter the full name under 'famil name' Alwa s 'click to see availa le values' or browse existing authors to check how someone is entered.","tokenCount":"363"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f502bfbd73ea13a276aeed69ef66393f","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/f8f8a6ce-c2f7-49f8-8fbe-2459c98963a9/retrieve","id":"-929704596"},"keywords":["Seed Value Chain","Rice","Potato","Vietnam"],"sieverID":"8be074dd-2841-4bd1-8765-14e5324a3487","pagecount":"57","content":"This work was implemented as part of the International Potato Center (CIP) and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), which is carried out with support from CGIAR Fund Donors and through bilateral funding agreements. For details please visit https://ccafs.cgiar.org/donors. The views expressed in this document cannot be taken to reflect the official opinions of these organizations.Seed is an important entry point for promoting productivity, nutrition and resilience among smallholder farmers. Seed can be the conduit for moving new varieties, giving farmers access to more productive and yield-enhancing traits. New seed can be linked to strategies for improving nutrition with bio-fortified varieties selected for elevated micro-nutrient levels. In response to climate variation, stress-tolerant varieties or clusters of diverse varieties are promoted as \"good practice\" to enhance system resilience: multiple options can allow farmers to shift crop or variety portfolios in response to changing conditions. To summarize, seed is a vehicle linked to promoting productivity, nutrition and resilience: one entry point that can potentially move forward multiple goals.The importance of good seed holds true for Vietnam as well, a major rice producing country of the world where rice is commonly grown in two seasons of the year. In the northern provinces, rice is also rotated with potato as a temperate crop in the cool winter months (from October to February). Of all the inputs, quality seed is most crucial to increase productivity and production of rice and potato and, aiming to improve national food security and livelihood of rice and potato growing farmers.Thus, this study aims to understand the composition, distinctness and variations within the seed sector of Vietnam with a focus on rice and potato as the two case-study crops. The study analyzes the roles of the formal and informal seed systems and complexity within each. It helps to identify specific seed systems by their domain of operation (farmers, public, private, non-government organizations, others), the types of crops and varieties in general, and for rice and potato crops in particular; types of farmers targeted, types of seed quality assurance and seed dissemination mechanisms. The results of this study are expected to identify the challenges in the existing seed system and develop specific interventions for improving the rice and potato seed systemsThe methodology of this study follows several systematic steps (Dominic, Smith et al 2008;Subedi and De Boef 2013). It started with secondary data collection through a detailed desk review of the most relevant publications such as reports, articles, and secondary information.The next step was collecting primary data through qualitative data collection methods like focus group discussion (FGD) and key informant interviews (KIIs). Two sets of guiding questions were prepared for conducting the FGDs and the KIIs. The format of these interviews was semi-structured; although standard questions were also asked to each participant, followup questions varied based on spontaneous responses from the individual participants. The interviews were later transcribed in their entirety. The FGDs were conducted to gather data from the farmers and the KIIs were carried out to interview other various stakeholders from the seed value chain of rice and potato crops.Four communes each in one district of each of the four provinces were chosen for FGDs and KIIs. These include two provinces Bac Ninh and Thai Binh representing the North of Vietnam where both rice and potato are grown. For the centre and the south; Quang Binh province and Can Tho province were chosen, respectively. In these two latter provinces, only rice was studied because potato is not grown there due to warm climatic conditions.In each commune (village), two to three groups comprising of 8-10 farmers per group were formed for FGDs. Four to five KIIs were also conducted with various levels of government employees and officers at each province.Interviewees included officers and senior staff of the provincial department of agriculture and rural development (PDARD), district crop production offices, district agricultural extension station, cooperative crop production managers and senior staffs of the provincial seed agencies.At the national level, selected KIIs were also conducted with the representatives of the Crop Production Department (CPD) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), national research institutions and research centers.The field surveys were conducted from 24 October to 28 November 2019. Based on objectives of the study, several FGD meetings and key informant interviews with the various stakeholders and actors in the rice and potato seed value chain were conducted. Annex 1 and Annex 2 provide the questionnaires for FGDs & KIIs; and Annex 3 presents a list of the stakeholders who participated in the discussions and interviews. The discussions were aimed at collecting qualitative and quantitative information; exploring the bottlenecks and their causes and identifying opportunities for future interventions and improvement.Entire seed value chain was mapped to find out value addition at each stage and the relationship between various stakeholders at these stages. The stakeholders include input suppliers, seed producers, seed distributors and end consumers/ food processors.Qualitative and quantitative information collected from this study was used for analysis by linking it to the study framework and objectives. Any information requiring clarification was verified by further discussion with selected stakeholders on an individual basis. Based on these, the report presents key conclusions and recommendations.1. The Importance of Agricultural Sector in Vietnam 1.1. Agro-ecological ConditionsLocated along the eastern edge of the Indo-Chinese peninsula, Vietnam is a narrow, S-shaped country with a north to the south distance of more than 1,600 km, covering an area of 330,000 km 2 (not including islands) with hilly and mountainous areas accounting for nearly 75% of the whole territory.Vietnam consists of three main zones. North Vietnam, or Bac Bo, covers about 35% of the total territory and 40% of the country's population. This is the region of extremes, with mountains of over 3,000 meters, and lowland of just 1-3 meters above sea level. While the Northern provinces have the lowest population density in the country, the Red River Delta (RRD) has the highest population density. Central Vietnam (Trung Bo) is the 900 km long and narrow \"stiff\" which shares a mountainous backbone with Laos and Cambodia. Although this region makes up 40% of Vietnam's landmass, it contains only some 25% of the total population, concentrated on narrow coastal areas. South Vietnam (Nam Bo) is relatively smaller, making up about 25% of the country's territory, but 35% of the total population. The Mekong River and its Delta, located in the South, is the most important agricultural production region of    According to the CPD of MARD (2018), most of the total rice area was planted with conventional (inbred) rice varieties and the area of high grain quality rice has been increasing in recent years. In contrast, the hybrid rice area occupied only 7.4% of the total rice area and decreased from 610,000 ha in 2015 to 538,000 ha in 2017. The yield of hybrid rice ranged from 6.7 -6.8 ton/ha which is not much higher than that of conventional rice. The decreasing area under hybrid rice cultivation was attributed to the high incidence of pest and disease, high seed cost (80 -100 thousand VND/kg which is 3-4 times higher than that of inbred rice seed), and lack of varieties with good grain quality. Farmers also complained about dependence on imported seed sources which are varying in quality and not always timely available with the right varieties familiar to them.Maize is the second most important food crop and it was grown on 1.143 million ha/year during 2015-2017, producing 5.22 million tons. The production is concentrated mainly in NMM, SES, and the RRD.Among the three major root and tuber crops, cassava is the most important and it was grown on 557,000 ha, producing 10.66 million tons of cassava storage roots which is then mostly processed into cassava flour for export mainly to China. Sweet potato was grown on 122,000-127,000 ha/year with an average yield of 10.72 ton/ha. There has been a decreasing tendency of sweet potato production in the recent years, probably due to the low profitability of the crop compared to that of several other upland crops grown on the same sandy coastal lands such as soybean and groundnut.As a temperate crop, 90 percent of the country's potato is grown as a winter upland crop under the rice-based cropping system of the Red River Delta which has cool climatic conditions during late October -early February suitable for the crop. The annual planted area ranged from 20,500 ha to 21,700 ha during 2015-2017 at an average yield of 14.57 tons/ha. The potato area under spring crop (planting in December and harvesting in March) is quite small and is mainly used for seed multiplication for the next winter crop. Like in many other agriculture-based countries, seed is often considered as the essential input for improving crop production in Vietnam. Seed is a medium through which a new crop variety of high yielding potential, high adaptability and stress tolerance, disease resistance and other desirable economic traits is transferred to farmers. When farmers have access to more and better seed sources, there is a higher probability of adoption of improved varieties. Therefore, enhanced seed availability through formal or informal sources will help smallholder farmers improve their food security, family income, and household livelihood. Thus, farmers' access to quality seed, as well as the introduction and adoption of improved varieties is crucial.Recognizing the importance of good seed for improving agricultural production, the Vietnamese Government has been paying great attention and efforts to improve the country's seed sector. As a result, the established seed system has made great contributions to meeting the country's food demand and security of its continuously expanding population; while producing a large surplus of rice for export. Positive effects of such an improved seed system were also found in other crops such as coffee, cashews, black pepper, fruits and even cassava each of which has its annual export value of more than a billion US$ in recent years.A good seed system has also helped farmers in diversifying their crop production, thanks to the availability of different crops varieties for their choice in crop production planning and rotation.As a result, the improved crop diversification has changed daily diets of Vietnamese people, improving their living standards and promoting tourism of foreign visitors.From a future prospective, a well-developed seed industry will continue to play a crucially important role in enabling the country's food security, especially under the growing pressure of population increase, high rate of loss of agricultural land for expanding population, industrialization, urbanization and land degradation caused by salinity and climatic change.Under such circumstances, a climate-smart seed system needs to be developed, to produce more high-quality food at limited expense of natural and human resources, while still contributing significantly to protect and conserve the environment.The great achievements in rice production have opened several opportunities for future improvement in production and marketing. Farmers have gained considerable experience in growing and managing the crop for high yield and economic returns under different agroecological conditions. Farmers have also gained experience in growing good quality rice to meet the demands of international markets.However, the rice industry of Vietnam still faces a lot of challenges for future development (Demont and Rutsaert 2017). In recent years, the role of rice as an engine for rural growth and poverty reduction has subsided. Rising input costs, including those of fertilizer, fuel, and labor, have outpaced nominal increases in producer paddy prices (World Bank 2012). According to the World Bank Report, 40% to 50% of the costs of exportable rice are associated with imported fertilizer and agro-chemicals. Due to increasing production costs, the Vietnamese rice export sector can no longer rely on cost-competitiveness, a strategy it has successfully maintained for decades. Farm households with very small landholdings are no longer able to advance their standard of living by making incremental productivity gains in rice monocropping. Consequently, they have to rely increasingly on off-farm sources of income and employment.The Vietnamese rice sector is also dealing with severe environmental issues. Strategies for increased production have mainly focused on intensified rice farming systems, using highyielding varieties and increased use of agrochemicals. The overuse of fertilizers led to high pest and disease infestations and resulted again in even higher usage of pesticides. Also, future problems should not be ignored. The Mekong Delta has been identified as significantly vulnerable to climate change, which is leading to increasing water shortages in the dry season.All these factors suggest that the sector needs urgently to move towards structural quality-based competitiveness, to be prepared well to tackle global competition, increase standards of food safety and hygiene, and adapt to reduced international demands for imports from countries that are implementing ambitious national food self-sufficiency programs.Unlike the rice crop, much smaller improvements have been made in the potato crop in the past three decades with regards to the production area, tuber yield, and total production. The current planted area is only some 20,000 ha a year and does not expect an increase in the future. This can be explained by the fact that due to the climatic conditions, potato can only be grown once a year during cool winter months in the Red River Delta. These conditions make it difficult for farmers to keep the seed for 9 months for the next crop, leading to increased potato production cost and lowering crop profitability. Therefore, continued efforts should be pursued to make the potato seed available at affordable prices to farmers, and to apply mechanization in crop production practices, making the crop more attractive and profitable to farmers.According to Kaplinsky and Morris (2000) value chain mapping enables one to visualize the flow of the product from conception to end consumer through various actors. It helps to identify different actors involved in the value chain and to understand their roles and linkages. This is also to visualize networks to get a better understanding of connections between actors and processes, demonstrate interdependency between actors and processes in the value chain (Dominic Smith et al 2008).Considering different dimensions and sources of information, a value chain map of rice and potato seed in Vietnam is depicted in Figure 2.The key processes of seed value chain in Vietnam are: 1) input supply; 2) seed production; 3) seed distribution; 4) seed use for commercial production, and 5) crop produce utilization. In each process, several actors perform different activities and add value to the seed chain. Some processes are performed by more than one actor, and some actors perform in more than one process.The  Once a variety has been officially released and its breeder seed is made available, it normally takes just 3 -4 cropping seasons to multiply enough certified seed which can then be distributed timely to farmers for use in commercial rice production. The seed production process often takes 2 years for the northern provinces of Vietnam where rice is grown in only 2 cropping seasons a year, and it takes a shorter time for the southern provinces because this region can grow three rice crops a year. It often takes a short time in 1 to 2 weeks for distributing the ready-to-use seed to farmers for their commercial rice production.Detail discussion on the value chain actors and activities involving in each process are presented below.For Seed Production of the seed value chain to take place, there is a need to provide essential production inputs which are of 2 types: seed-related inputs and the non-seed-related inputs.The seed-related inputs include varieties as genetic diversities of a crop; and seed as planting material to maintain such a crop from one generation to another. The non-seed inputs include fertilizers, water, insecticides, and even solar radiation which help raise a crop under the field condition to produce seed.There are two groups of crop varieties for seed production purposes. These include the group of well-established varieties which have been used by farmers for a very long time. Varieties of this group are often traditional varieties or the ones that were originally bred/ introduced by a research institution a long time ago but now have become \"public goods\". Such varieties often possess several preferred characteristics such as high quality and adaptability to the local conditions; however, they also have several weaknesses such as low yield, low crop purity, high incidence of disease and pests. To help farmers in improving or overcoming such weaknesses, several actors such as breeding institutions and public seed agencies have undertaken activities to purify and rejuvenate such varieties, enabling farmers to have cleaner and healthier varieties to produce.The second group of crop varieties includes all improved varieties which are bred or introduced mainly by public breeding institutions, national seed companies, and recently also by some strong provincial seed companies and private/ foreign seed companies. In Vietnam, there are These are also some seed companies working on breeding new varieties, such as Vietnam National Seed Joint Stock Company (VINASEED GROUP), Southern Seed Cooperation (SSC), Thai Binh Seed Company and An Giang Seed Company which conduct their own breeding and import certain rice varieties to contribute to meet the seed demand of the country.In addition, there are also several multi-national or international seed companies such as Syngenta, Bioseed, C.P, Bayer, Advanta India, that currently have their business in Vietnam, including the introduction of new hybrid varieties of rice, maize, vegetables.For the non-seed inputs such as fertilizers, insecticide, farm implements, and other materials, there are many actors involved. Farmers have easy and timely access to all kinds of production materials subject to their purchasing ability or negotiating credit terms with the supplier.  The national regulations also encourage every stakeholder to take part in seed production and supply. It is commonly found in practice that:-Breeder seed is produced by an original breeding institution which is the author of such a given crop variety. These can be the state's own breeding institutions such as FCRI, CLRRI, AGI; national and provincial seed companies such as VINASEED, Thai Binh Seed, Quang Binh Seed; or private seed companies.-Pre-basic and basic seed are produced by all breeding institutions and provincial seed agencies.-Certified seed is mainly produced by national and provincial seed companies and private seed companies. Lately, some state-owned breeding institutions also produce certified seed to raise funds for supporting their breeding activities. Interestingly, it was found from field surveys that contract farmers play an important role and are involved extensively in producing basic and certified seed through contacts with national or provincial seed companies. In this collaboration, the seed companies provide farmers with the core seed source and technical supervision in seed production. Some companies also provide farmers with other production inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides at favorable prices, low or no interest and easy credit terms. The seed companies will buy all the harvested seed (grain for rice and tubers for potato) and bring it to their seed collecting site for processing, seed quality testing, storing and packing for later seed supply and distribution.For rice seed, there are various actors involving in the process of seed supply and distribution.These include seed producers of all kinds (breeding institutions, formal and informal seed companies/ agencies) and their marketing strategies are different from each other. There are also some differences from one region to another. The survey results in the two northern provinces, for example, show that in Thai Binh province, rice seed from the breeding institution and provincial seed companies are often distributed to the authorized seed agents who then contact the farmers cooperatives or individual farmers for marketing seed. In Bac Ninh province, however, the predominant mechanism involved seed supplier contacting District's Agricultural Extension Office for seed distribution to farmers or farmers representative at the village level. In Quang Binh -a typical province of the central region of Vietnam, Quang Binh Provincial Seed Agency markets their rice seed directly to farmers and farmers cooperatives at the communal or village level. This way, they have been able to eliminate several middle-men led transactions in marketing their seed. However, the agency did not share any further information on their rationale behind this practice.Compared to rice seed, potato seed distribution is much simpler. As commercial potato is grown only one crop a year and the production and storage of potato seed is more difficult, there are just a few actors involved in potato seed multiplication and marketing. These include Root and Tuber Crops Research Center of the FCRI, some private companies such as Huong Que Company, Hoa Nam Company, Nam Dinh Provincial Seed Company. The stakeholders often import seed tuber of certified quality class from Germany, Netherlands, and Australia.The imported seed is then multiplied in the spring season (from December to March) to economize the costly imported seed and the harvested seed is put into cold storage until early October for the next winter commercial potato production.These seed providers can market their potato seed tuber directly to individual farmers or farmers cooperatives. Also, because the seed tubers must be stored in cold storage, there is no opportunity for other actors who do not have such storage facility to get involved in potato seed business. This also explains the fact that farmers have almost no choice in selecting different potato varieties for their commercial production as the availability of any particular variety is a function of what is available with cold storage facilities.Farmers are the end-users of rice and potato seed for commercial production and their knowledge and skills in crop cultivation practices are critically important in adding values into the seed value chain. These include their capabilities in identifying the right rice and potato varieties to cultivate and raising a crop productively and profitably. Farmers' practices for crop production also differ from one province to another, and from the northern region to the central region and so on. These differences will be elaborated further in relevant sections of this report.In the process of crop produce utilization, consumers, food processors and food exporters often greatly influence the value chain of rice and potato seed. Their preferences on the crop produce will affect the rice and potato varieties chosen for commercial production, quality standards/ criteria of the crop produce, and even the competitive production cost to be offered, especially nowadays when Vietnam is open to and is entering deeper into the international markets with a lot of competitive pressures. According to Kaplinsky (2000), the dominant value chain actors play a facilitation role. They determine the flow of commodities and the level of prices. The results of this study, especially of the field surveys reveal that the major formal and strong seed companies such as National Seed Company (NSC), Southern Seed Company, and Thai Binh Seed are key value chain governors. The seed market was heavily dependent on the rice seed supply and therefore the rice seed value chains were highly influenced by these companies. The predominating influence is also reflected in the large volumes of rice seeds supplied by them to farmers every year. According to a report of the Crop Production Department of MARD (2019), only the four biggest formal seed companies, including NSC, SSC, Thai Binh and An Giang Seed Company, have been satisfying 40% of the national rice seed demand. The NSC produces and supplies nearly 30,000 tons of rice and maize seed each year, covering 1000,000 ha of rice and maize grown in the North. SSC supplies some 10,000 tons of seed every year, mainly hybrid maize, hybrid rice and vegetable seed. Thai Binh Seed is a very strong seed company that supplies a large quantity of seed, and their seed market is expanding in different regions of the country.A Marketing channel is a business structure of interdependent organizational activities that starts from the point of product origin to the final consumer with the purpose of moving products to their final consumption destination (Kotler and Armstrong, 2003). Analysis of marketing channels is intended to provide a systematic knowledge of the flow of goods and services from their origin (producer) to the destination (consumer).As a case study from the survey with three provincial seed companies in Bac Ninh, Quang Binh and Can Tho provinces, the rice marketing channels of these companies are presented in Table 3.The results indicate that there are four main channels through which provincial seed companies often market their seed. These include 1) Farmers and farmers cooperatives; 2) Seed agencies/ seed shop/ wholesalers; 3) by advanced seed contract, and 4) other channels. The most common channels are through farmers and farmers cooperatives (as much as 78.4% and 87.4% of the seed marketed by Quang binh and Can Tho Seed Company, respectively; and through seed agencies/ seed shop/ wholesales (as high as 70% of the total seed marketed by Bac Ninh Seed Company). These survey results imply that each provincial seed company has its own strategies and effective approach in seed marketing, which have been long developed from their own experiences and partnership with their local collaborators. The marketing channel for potato seed tubers is much simpler than that of rice seed. It was found from interviewing several potato specialists and potato seed businessmen that when the seed tuber is imported into Vietnam, the seed dealers distribute it as soon as possible to the seed multiplication areas. Then the large seed tubers are cut into 2-3 longitudinal pieces for seed multiplication, to reduce the seed cost. The imported seed is multiplied in winter-spring crop (planting December and harvesting in March). The resulting seed is then sorted, stored in cold storage until October for raising commercial ware potato. Many farmers also informed that they retain small size tubers of the winter potato crops as seed, then send to the contract cold storage to prepare seed tuber for the next winter potato crop. The seed is used for 1 to 2 crops for commercial potato production, due to a high rate of disease and pest infection and fast degeneration of seed under tropical humid conditions of North Vietnam.  When asked for elaboration, QBSC has provided the following information:-The production costs of 12,000 VND/kg for basic rice seed and 11,000 VND/kg for certified seed have already covered: payment cost to contract farmers for the raw seed they produced (which is ranging from 1.2 -1.5 time of the paddy rice, depending on production seasons and rice varieties), salary for the company's staff who worked with contract farmers in seed production, administrative cost for the local partners and transportation cost to bring raw seed from the farmers' place to the company processing area/ stores -The differences between seed production cost and selling price are not the net profit.Payments are still needed for the following expenses/costs: processing, quality testing, and certification, seed storing, packing with colored printed labels/ trademark (1,700 VND for a 1-kg sized bag and 1,080 VND for a 10-kg sized bag), seed lost after storing (3.5-4.0%of the initial volume), bank interest (0.6-0.7% per 12 months), transportation cost during seed marketing, depreciation cost, commission to the seed dealers/ wholesaler, taxes, staff salary, and company's operation cost. Hence, the net profit for each kg of rice seed sold is not very high. The Company reported selling paddy rice at cost or even negative profit in cases where produced seed is not sold completely.It was found from the KIIs with potato specialists/ seed dealers that during 2015-2018, each year Vietnam imported 2130 tons of potato seed tubers, which are all of the certified seed class.The shares of different varieties were: Marrabel (59%); Atlantic 29.7%, Solara 1.9%, and the two Dutch varieties Rosegold and Marki 9.4%. The imported seed prices ranged from 22,000-24,000 VND/kg which was very competitive among the seed dealers. Except Atlantic arriving in Vietnam in late October, seed of all the other varieties often arrive in late November which is then used to plant winter-spring potato for seed. Farmers informed that the purchased seed price ranged from 27,000-29,000 VND/kg. It is therefore speculated that purchased price is not high, because the seed dealers have to pay many other expenses similar to those of the mentioned rice seed. The loss of potato seed tubers is even much higher when the seed is taken out of containers to transport to farmer's farms under ambient low moisture conditions.5.1. Variety DevelopmentVietnam has a diverse and complex agricultural system with highly variable soil, precipitation pattern, temperature and cultivation systems, as well as increasingly complex input supply and marketing conditions. A diversified ecosystem of research institutions and universities is functional in Vietnam. Several of these institutions have the task to develop new improved varieties to meet the demands of a rapidly changing agricultural system and to ensure a continuous supply of core elite seed to seed producers for further multiplication.Rice breeding is a long process and It generally takes at least 10 years to develop and release a new rice variety (Acquaah, 2007). The breeding process consists of three stages: hybridization, line fixation and field trials (Figure 3). Plant breeding is a large-scale logistical operation that may involve hundreds of thousands of plants in the initial line fixation stage, but numbers are greatly reduced to a select few advanced breeding lines by the end of the breeding process.Nearly 99% of the original starting material in a breeding program is rejected and discarded in the selection process. Most countries have an independent government-led system for evaluating the \"best\" advanced breeding lines compared with the current varieties, which usually requires two years of testing.One key time-consuming component is the \"line fixation\" stage. Since breeding material is not genetically uniform or \"stable\" (i.e. plants are not homozygous) until at least 6 to 8 generations (i.e. self-pollination events), homozygous lines required for advanced field trials take time to develop. Furthermore, time is required to produce enough seed during the breeding process (i.e. for subsequent field trials) because seed of a new breeding line originates from only a single plant. Therefore, it generally takes about 10 years to develop a new field crop variety, although there are differences between crop species and varietal testing requirements across countries (Acquaah, 2007). The mentioned process is also commonly followed by Vietnamese rice breeding institutions.Breeding objectives are based on the study of the agricultural context and farmers' preferences, they are usually agro-ecosystem-specific and are increasingly demand-driven and oriented toward export opportunities. Conventional breeding methods are commonly used at all research institutions. The common steps of the breeding process include crossing, selection of segregating generations by pedigree or bulk methods, pure line selection, testing for disease and pest resistance and for tolerance to unfavorable growing conditions such as salinity, drought, cold stress; chemical testing for product quality; yield potential, followed by onstation and on-farm yield trial and multi-location testing in replicated trial systems. Once a promising line is developed, it undergoes the process of evaluation and approval, before it can be released for farmers' applications in commercial rice production. A large number of promising rice and potato varieties are evaluated over-location annually. Several rice crop varieties with high yield, short duration, good grain quality and resistance to major pests and diseases are being developed, especially in the Red River Delta and the Mekong River Delta.Improved rice varieties introduced to the local farmers during the last two decades have contributed to sharp increase in yield and total production of the country.It is generally recognized that varietal and crop diversification may contribute to controlled pest infection, reduced pesticide application through integrated pest management and improvement, and stabilization of the agricultural production.At the national level, the evaluation and testing process are mainly carried out by the research institutions themselves through NCVTSC. The breeders and research institutions send their promising varieties for testing under different conditions. Due to the limited human resources and funding, only testing programs for four major crops rice, maize, soybean and groundnut have been conducted by NCVTSC so far. The center, however, plays a role only as a referee in the evaluation process. Promising varieties reported by the breeders are reviewed by the Council of Science and Technology of MARD which makes the exclusive decision of recognizing a certain variety as \"Testing variety\" or Regional variety\" or \"National variety\". Step 1) Regional on-location yield trials conducted in RCBD with 3 -4 reps; over at least 3 cropping seasons of which 2 are in the same season (winter or spring for potato for example) and over at least 3 locations each of which represents one province of the same agro-ecological region (the RRD for example).Step 2) Regional on-farm trials on at least 500 m 2 /farmer-farm; preferably with several farms per location. To shorten the process, regional on-farm trials can be conducted at the same time as the regional on-location yield trialsStep 3) Demonstration trials (1-2 ha/location with a farmer field day to be organized) toshowcase the results. The total accumulated demonstration area must be at least 50 ha (for example with potato) if a variety is recognized to complete the regional testing and at most 200 ha (for example with potato) before being considered for official release.Once the above 3 steps are completed, the variety breeder (either organization or individual) must:-Apply for an official certification and evaluation from each Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (PDARD) where the variety was tested. In that paper comments are given on strengths and weaknesses of the variety and recommendation for releasing or not.-Make an application to MARD for consideration to officially recognize and release the proposed variety. Among several other needed documents of this application, the key one is the scientific report which clearly shows the origin of such variety, the comprehensive results of on-station advanced yield trials (if any), regional trials with certificate of all the related PDARDs.After receiving the completed application, MARD Minister or his Deputy forms a scientific committee for peer review of the application and make recommendation for the MARD leader to decide on release of the variety.A variety is recognized at 2 levels. The first one is a temporary (candidate) variety for pilot demonstration (Step 3) before formal release and the second is a formal released variety. Within a maximum period of 3 years, if a candidate variety is not promoted to a formal one, the variety ceases to be listed as the candidate.  29 traits, covering the whole process of crop growth until harvesting, including degree of pest and disease incidence, stress tolerance, rice grain quality. 29 traits, covering the whole process of crop growth until harvesting, including degree of pest and disease incidence, stress tolerance, potato tuber quality. 2Required types of yield trials to be conducted 2.Conducted in RCBD with 3 -4 reps; over at least 3 cropping seasons of which 2 are in the same season and over at least 3 locations.Conducted in RCBD with 3 -4 reps; over at least 3 cropping seasons of which 2 are in the same season and over at least 3 locations.Conducted with at least 1000 m 2 /farmer-farm; preferably with several farms per locationConducted with at least 500 m 2 /farmer-farm; preferably with several farms per location 2.3 Demonstration trials 1-2 ha/location with a farmer field day to be organized to showcase the results. The total accumulated demonstration area must be at most 150 ha if a variety is recognized to complete the regional testing; from at least 500 ha to at most 2000 ha before being considered for official release.1-2 ha/location with a farmer field day to be organized to showcase the results. The total accumulated demonstration area must be at most 50 ha if a variety is recognized to complete the regional testing; from at least 50 ha to at most 200 ha before being considered for official release. 3 Other technical requirements Details are presented, including methodology for data gathering, report format, application forms for proposing recognition and release.Details are presented, including methodology for data gathering, report format, application forms for proposing recognition and release.At the provincial level, each PDARD also has its own program for variety testing that evaluate adaptability and yielding ability of the new varieties introduced by breeders/ research institutions to find out the most suitable ones to be recommended for growing under their provincial conditions.According to Crop Production Department of MARD (2019), a total of 184 rice varieties comprising of 110 conventional (inbred) varieties and 74 hybrid rice varieties have been nationally recognized, approved and released into production thus far. These varieties have generally satisfied the farmers' demand for new rice varieties suited to production in different agro-ecological conditions of Vietnam, contributing significantly into the improvement of rice yield and quality, farmers' income, meeting the country's food security and increasing rice export values. Once a new variety is approved for production, it is disseminated by various actors involved in the seed value chain. These include breeding institutions and seed companies which provide the highest quality core seed stock (breeder seed) from which the national seed companies will further multiply (pre-basic seed) to distribute to the seed agencies (for production of basic and certified seed). The extension system facilitates demonstration trials and pilot production.Technical information about new varieties is also provided to farmers through trainings, field days, and mass media. These actions have been helping farmers considerably in learning about and adopting new varieties in their production.Though several rice varieties have been nationally recognized and released into production, only a dozen of such varieties have been well established and extensively used by farmers in commercial production. According to a report published by Crop Production Department of MARD (CPD, 2015) on rice varieties used by farmers, 12 major rice varieties used by Vietnamese farmers accounted for 8.66 million ha of rice in 2015. These include: IR50404 (covering 13% of the total rice area), OM5451 (7%); OM4900 (6%); Khang Dan 18 (4%); OM6976 (4%); BC15 (3%); Jasmine 85 (2%); OM4218 (2%); Bac Thom 7 (2%); OM5954 (2%); Nhi Uu 838 (1%); TH3-3 (1%). The remaining area (53% of the total) were planted with 54 other common varieties. This data indicates that farmers are wary of using new rice varieties and tend not to readily change a variety that has been well established and they are familiar with. Farmers express diverse opinions related to the frequency and reasons for changing to a different variety for a given crop. For varieties that are well adapted to local conditions, farmers are reluctant to change them in order to avoid any perceived risk. Farmers often keep a large portion of their field with familiar, well established variety/ies and may try out new varieties in smaller fields. Some farmers keep a part of their field for testing new varieties every season and multiply the best performing ones in the following seasons for their own use. In cooperatives, a group of advanced farmers is responsible for variety testing, selection and multiplication to supply to others.In general, farmers across Vietnam are aware of the implications of a varietal change, but farmers in the Mekong River Delta have more opportunities to get seed of different sources, than those in the coastal region. Commonly, farmers prefer the following characteristics in rice variety: 1) High yielding ability;2)Good grain quality (long and translucent grain; preferably with aroma; high rice recovery rate after milling; especially for export); 3) high disease and pest resistance (mainly to rice blast; leaf sheet blight, brown plant hoppers); 4) high cold tolerance during seedling stage for spring rice grown in the northern provinces, 5) other desired characteristics include resistance to water logging, good tilling and short growth duration.However, farmers preferences of a rice variety are also very location specific. For example, the survey results in Quang Binh province found that farmers in the region still use the very old rice variety VN20 in a large area of their commercial production in spite of it being considered as very low quality rice variety for human consumption. The reasons that Quang Binh farmers still use it is the high amylose content which makes the variety highly suitable for making rice noodles and vermi-noodle. Farmers also state that this variety has high adaptability to local growing conditions and fits well to the existing cropping systems of the region.Another example is the case of rice variety IR50404 which is covering 13% of the total rice area, equivalent to 1.13 million ha a year and is mainly grown in the Mekong River Delta. This is an IRRI variety introduced into the region more than 20 years ago. IR50404 has a low grain quality which is suitable only for processing rice noodle and rice vermi-noodle and fetches rather low exporting price. The government at different levels has tried to persuade farmers to shift to other varieties. However, farmers in Can Tho province reasoned that they found several desirable traits in IR50404 that are not observed in many other newly developed varieties.These include a shorter growing duration of 95 days which enables them to grow three productive rice crops a year, low level of fertilizers required, high adaptability to local conditions and to different growing conditions. Farmers have appreciated their long familiarity with this variety, where there is minimal risk of crop failure due to pest and disease attack and erratic unfavorable growing conditions. For potato: Some of the key preferred traits for potato varieties include: 1) High tuber yield;2) high disease and pest resistance (late blight and bacterial wilt); 3) early maturing (85-90 days in winter crop); large-sized and smooth tuber skin; tuber skin and tuber flesh are in dark yellow color; high dry matter and starch content. -The national regulation for inbred rice seed covers 4 categories of seed quality: Breeder's seed, pre-basic seed, basic seed and certified seed. There are two sub-categories for certified seed: Certified 1 is the seed multiplied from basic seed, and Certified 2 is the seed multiplied from Certified 1. For the hybrid rice seed, the regulation covers the management and use of rice parental lines and F1 hybrid seed.-The regulation also specifies technical conditions and infrastructure facilities to be maintained by organization/ individual to be eligible to produce and market any kind of rice seed quality categories.-For seed quality inspection and certification, it is specified that the production of pre-basic rice seed and multiplication of hybrid rice parental lines must be field inspected and quality is to be laboratory tested by the NCVTSC of MARD. Rice seed of basic class, hybrid parental lines and F1 hybrid seed must undergo field and laboratory inspection and quality certification by a certifying body. Production of Certified 1 and Certified 2 rice seed is also mandated to include the field and laboratory quality inspection, but not compulsorily quality-certified by an independently certifying body.-To implement the core seed quality regulation document, seed producers also have to refer -Due to limitations of laboratory seed testing in most provincial seed agencies, proper field inspection is considered the most feasible and effective means to ensure the quality of the seed produced. In general, seed produced by national as well as provincial institutions satisfy the minimum requirements for formal production.Most of the farmers interviewed in FGDs in the four survey provinces (Thai Binh, Bac Ninh, Quang Binh, and Can Tho) reported using farm saved seed in the past. However, it is no longer their routine practice and they change seed source every planting season, because: 1) rice seed is always available in place and in time; 2) seed cost forms a small share of the total production cost for a rice crop; 3) farmers do not have to process and keep their farm-saved seed and pay attention to maintaining seed purity and seed health. Farmers also stated that the benefit from using their own saved seed could never be as high as that from the seed they purchase every cropping season. Their opinion is in line with a report of CPD that reports that 80% and 65% of the planted rice area in the north and the south respectively in 2018 had been planted with certified quality seed class supplied by the formal and informal seed players. It could be speculated that the remaining 20% and 35% of the rice area was planted with farmers own farm saved seed or the seed they exchanged with neighbors or cooperatives.As discussed in the earlier Section 4.2.2, for potato seed tubers, it was found from the FGDs and KIIs that farmers still use a large proportion of farm-saved seed which is multiplied in winter-spring potato crop for raising next winter crop.There is a big difference between the northern part and the southern part of the country in rice growing practices. In the north, transplanting is extensively employed wherein farmers raise rice seedlings in the nursery and transplant them into the field when rice seedlings are at 14 -20 days old stage (depending on planting seasons). The results from the surveys indicate that farmers nowadays can manage to use only 35 kg (ranging from 27 to 41 kg) of rice seed to raise enough seedling for transplanting one ha.In the south, however, broadcasting is employed by all farmers at a seed rate of 150 kg/ha for spring rice crop and 165 kg/ha for summer and autumn rice crop. The reasons for using a higher seed rate in summer and autumn rice crops are explained by farmers that the unfavorable weather conditions in the summer-and autumn rice are more severe than that in the spring crops, especially during the broadcasting time, which may cause some rice seed fail to establish into rice plants. By employing this practice, farmers can therefore save spending time in retransplanting the missing plants caused by bad weather conditions.The survey results also reveal that for growing potato crop, 1350 kg of potato seed tuber is commonly applied to grow one ha of potato.Considering the mentioned seed rates, the estimated total seed demands for rice and potato crops are presented in Table 6. It is found that the whole country need 952,250 tons of rice seed to grow 7.758 million ha of rice every year, of which all the northern provinces need around 90,500 tons to grow 2,348,000 ha of rice, mainly in spring and winter crops and with a small area of autumn rice; and the southern provinces need 861,750 tons to grow 5.410 million ha of rice per years. For potato, the total seed demand to grow 20.000 ha is 27,000 tons of potato seed tuber a year.Of the total annual rice seed demands, it is also estimated from different sources that the formal seed sector now can meet 70% of rice seed in the North and 45% in the South, 45-50% for maize seed and 50-60% for potato seed tubers. The remaining demands are basically supplied by farmers farmed saved seed, suggesting that technical assistance to farmers are highly needed for improving their seed production and quality.Farmers' explanations for their use of high seed rate do not seem very convincing and need further efforts from research institutions and extension organizations to help them reduce it.Company and some others, aiming at introducing transplanting practices to farmers, by teaching them to raise seedlings on concrete yards or in plastic boxes and transplant in the fields, even with using transplanting machines. These efforts should be further encouraged, so that farmers can learn and benefit faster, not only in reducing in seed rate, but also save working labors, free women from hard work of manual broad-casting or transplanting. According to International Seed Foundation, Vietnam imported 53,300 tons of seed for sowing in 2017, amounting 49 million US$ of which the shares of vegetable seed and field crop seed were 12 and 37 million US$, respectively. This report did not mentioned in detail different kinds of field crop seed were imported, however, it is speculated that they include mainly hybrid maize and hybrid rice seed.According to the Crop Production Department of MARD (2018), 92% of the total 7.758 million ha of rice area in 2017 was planted with conventional (inbred) rice varieties, hence the hybrid rice area is only 620,000 ha, accounting for 8% of the total rice area. Farmers often use 50 kg of hybrid rice seed to grow one ha, hence the demand for hybrid rice seed is some 30.000 tons.Vietnam has already been satisfying and will continue doing so for its demand of conventional rice seed. For hybrid rice seed, however, it is reported that the country can meet only 35% of the total demand. The remaining is imported from China and India, amounting some 35 million US$ a year. The National Program for Crop Variety and Seed Production Improvement set a goal for 2025 that 75% of the total hybrid rice seed demand will be produced locally.For potato crop, as mentioned Section 4.2.2. that during 2015-2018, the country imported 2130 tons of potato seed tuber each year and this amount is multiplied in spring potato crop to provide seed for the next winter ware potato crop. Assuming that an optimistic multiplication rate of 3 is achieved, this imported seed will satisfy 6390 tons of the total demand of 27,000 tons of seed each year. It is also mentioned from different source that some 10,000 -15,000 tons of table potato is imported from Yunnan China every year to be used as seed for growing winter ware potato crop in the Red River Delta. The remaining of the total demand 27,000 tons is satisfied by the local seed system, including farm-saved seed stored in the cold stores for 9 months. It has therefore generally agreed that the unavailability of high quality seed tubers has long been the major constraint for improving potato production in Vietnam, and that no significant effort in the field of potato seed research and development has been made in many years, leaving great potential of potato unexploited as a profitable crop for farmers.Vietnam agriculture is mainly based on food crop production with rice as the most important crop grown nationwide. In the Red River Delta, rice is also rotated with potato as a temperate crop in the cool winter months. Over the past 30 years, the crop production sector has achieved great progress, contributing to the country's success in poverty reduction, national food security and social stability. Vietnam now produces not only enough food for its growing population but has become one of the world's top exporters of rice, coffee, cashews, black pepper and several other crop commodities.The great achievement in crop production has been a result of several factors of which improvements in crop seed sector have been a major contributor. Vietnam has a mature seed sector with a diverse range of stakeholders, including more than 25 public breeding institutions, 63 national and provincial seed companies, 192 small seed enterprises, with an extensive national and local agriculture and seed extension network. The seed sector has developed and introduced for production 184 rice varieties; meeting the total demand of inbred rice seed and 35% of hybrid rice seed for growing 7.758 million ha of rice annually. It also satisfies 50-60% of the national tuber seed demand to grow 20,000 ha of commercial potato each year. The seed sector therefore plays a crucial role in improving crop production in different agro-ecological conditions of Vietnam, contributing significantly to the improvement of crop yield and quality, farmers income, national food security and export earnings.The country's great achievement in terms of crop yields, output and exports, however, has outpaced its gain in efficiency, farmers welfare, and product quality. This fact could, among several others, be attributed to the drawbacks of the existing seed system, which is reflected in the fact that very few rice varieties out of a large number introduced are being used extensively by farmers in commercial production; and only limited improvement in breeding and seed production of hybrid rice and potato crop has been achieved thus far. Further improvements in existing seed sector are highly needed for better growth in crop production with increased efficiency, innovation, diversification, and added value.In order to improve breeding of crop varieties for farmers, research institutions should broaden genetic material background by fully exploiting the available national plant genetic resources and via international cooperation in order to incorporate desirable crop traits into developed varieties. Breeding cycle need to be shortened as much as feasible by employing advanced accelerated breeding methods in combination with conventional ones. Greater attention should be paid in selecting promising lines/ clones of better quality-focused traits such as high grain quality for export and high resistance to rice blast and brown plant hopper in inbred rice;improved grain quality and disease and pest resistance in hybrid rice breeding and high starch content and processing quality in potato.For seed production and supply, though Vietnam has been able to satisfy its demand of inbred rice seed, further improvement is still needed in seed quality management such as variety trueness and higher cleanliness of seed-borne diseases. Better agronomical practices in seed use such as sowing, seedling raising and transplanting, field land leveling and using water to control weed should be encouraged/ introduced for farmers adoption, so as to reduce seed rate, especially in the MRD where farmers use up to 150 -160 kg/ha for broad-casting as compared to only 35 kg/ha for seedling transplanting in the RRD. Vietnam's seed sector may also explore the possibility of exporting high quality inbred rice seed in the near future. Greater efforts are similarity needed to introduce and employ more capable seed technologies to sharply reduce production cost of hybrid rice seed and potato tuber seed and increase seed volume affordable to farmers and to reduce imported seed.It appears that the regulations of Vietnam seed sector are still very complicated and may not be completely in line with the international regulations. It is therefore necessary to revise the existing legislation and make recommendations for improvement/ revision/ simplification at the earliest, so that the seed sector can better support agriculture and crop production. Farmers' use of farm saved seed and their opinions (Question to be addressed separately for rice and for potato crop) 9.1. Of your total planted area per year, how many percent (5) are planted with your own/ neighbors' farm saved seed? 9.2. Why do you use your own/ neighbors' seed? (easy access, low cost, no credit = lack of money to purchase improved seed, no information/ lack of confidence about the benefits of purchased seed…? 9.3. What problems had you experienced with using your own/ neighbors' farm saved seed and how did you solve/ overcome/ draw lessons from such experiences? 9.4. In your opinion, what are the best ways/ practices to improve quality of farm saved seed? Q10. Farmers' knowledge, experiences and practices in identifying and checking the quality of a seed source when purchasing. Based on:-Experiences gained from a long-term partnership with seed suppliers of high trustiness and creditability.-Recommended by the official extension workers/ production managers.-Introduced by relatives/ neighbors/ close friends -Others -Q11. Farmers challenges/ constraints in benefiting crop seed value chain for improving their productions -No easy access to a good quality seed source? -High cost/ high price for renewing the old seed stock? -Seed is not available on time and in place? -Lack of technical information/ training on the newly improved crop varieties which prevent farmers from trying to afford the seed of such new varieties for production? -Changes in climatic/ weather conditions or the prevalence of disease/ pest attack which make farmers difficult to look for a right crop variety to cope with? -Fast changes in the customers' preference and/or the market demand for their harvest produce sold out easily and profitably?-Lack of guidance from the local extension network or production management.-Other?Q12. Others -Who do you interact with for seed purchase, crop production and marketing? More details for rice and potato? -Are there any government subsidy? Was there a time for a government subsidy on seeds? -How does the subsidized seed system work, if there is any? ","tokenCount":"9261"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7ebd6ff034a9a44f541fc7a6ed338a31","source":"gardian_index","url":"http://redd.pbworks.com/f/WP%201-3%20Payment%20Mechanism%20(Meine)%2011.6.pdf","id":"-336101723"},"keywords":["Payment mechanisms","distribution and institutional arrangements i Full Implementation Workshop","SBSTA","UNFCCC","G8","Etc"],"sieverID":"82590726-6c36-435c-b5a0-017a9bf11e8b","pagecount":"127","content":"Figure 0.1 Timeline for Indonesian national preparations, aligned with the international meeting schedule, for inclusion of REDD mechanisms in a post-Kyoto regime' How is the price formed? How should carbon transactions be regulated? How can we prove that reduced deforestation has really taken place? What can be done to reduce deforestation? What would it take to implement it? How much would it cost? Where to start from? How much forest will be lost in the future? Payment distribution mechanism International carbon markets ($) Monitoring Reduced Deforestation Baseline How will carbon payments be distributed to provide incentives to reduce emisissions? Who deserves and who has a legal entitlement to receive payments? Who is entitled to sell forestry carbon? Who are the potential buyers? How is the price formed? How should carbon transactions be regulated? How can we prove that reduced deforestation has really taken place? What can be done to reduce deforestation? What would it take to implement it?The release of carbon into the atmosphere from forest conversion and exploitation is estimated to be 18% of global carbon dioxide emissions, and thus a significant contributor to the increase of atmospheric CO 2 (and other greenhouse gas) concentrations that is linked to global climate change. Global climate change affects rainfall patterns, temperature, sea level rise, spread of diseases and frequency of 'extreme events'. This in turn affects all life on the planet, but especially groups that are already vulnerable and have fewer opportunities to adapt due to environmental degradation due to lack of access to alternative resources and poverty (IPCC, 2007).The existing UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is aimed at reducing negative impacts of climate change through prevention, mitigation and adaptation, but has not so far included a mechanism to provide incentives for these emissions from forests and peatlands. The Kyoto Protocol that set emission reduction targets for countries with high per capita emissions will end in 2012 and current discussions focus on inclusion of incentives for reducing these emissions from deforestation and forest/peatland degradation (REDD) in a post-2012 international climate regime of commitments and incentives. This would complement the existing incentives for planting trees on land that lost its forest cover before 1990 (A/R CDM).Indonesia is taking a proactive role in the international negotiations of new regimes of commitments and incentives and will try to prove during the 2008 -2012 period of the Kyoto protocol that REDD mechanisms can work in Indonesia and that the global community can benefit from a full-scale REDD inclusion in a post-Kyoto regime. Figure 0.1 indicates a timeline for the 2007-2012 period of preparations for a 'post-Kyoto' regime starting on January 1 st 2013, hopefully with an expanded and deepened international commitment to bring climate change under control via reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.The Indonesian Forest Climate Alliance (IFCA) was set up to assist the Government of Indonesia to take the necessary steps in three stages (see timeline):Pre-readiness (to be presented at Bali COP13) ! Initial analysis and consultations ! Criteria & ideas for pilot selectionReadiness ! Establish the necessary infrastructure for REDD implementation. ! Implement strategies to reduce deforestation and degradation ! Address governance pre-conditions (spatial planning, rights to sell carbon/ receive payments).Carbon Finance (REDD Pilots) ! Carbon transactions with available multilateral funds and/or on the carbon markets.The current study is part of the initial analysis and consultations, to be finalized prior to the COP13. This study on PAYMENT MECHANISMS, DISTRIBUTION AND INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS was planned as part of a series of studies (Fig. 0.2) and has benefited from a range of consultations and discussions with national and international partners and stakeholders.How will carbon payments be distributed to provide incentives to reduce emisissions?Who is entitled to sell forestry carbon?Who are the potential buyers? Figure 0.2 Design of a series of studies on options and modalities for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation in Indonesia; the current report forms the last step of this sequenceThe objective of REDD payment distribution mechanisms is to support policies and measures that reduce deforestation and degradation through transfer of revenues from international REDD funds or carbon markets to (or within) national levels. This will provide benefits of three types: a) Shared responsibility for reducing a major driver of global climate change, b) Financial payments and coinvestment that exceed the economic opportunities foregone from decisions to maintain carbon stocks, and c) Co-benefits through the other environmental service functions that well-maintained forests can provide. To ensure demonstrable results on emission reduction, these mechanisms must be effective in targeting the wide range of agents involved in deforestation and degradation. They must reward good performance and incentivise improved performance compared to reference scenarios, and adequately compensate agents that suffer losses from changed practices. International payments are likely to be performance based, both in terms of emission reduction at national scale and the environmental and social impacts of the system, meaning that accountability, transparency, risk management, adequate benefits transfer and administration mechanisms will be essential for attracting investment. Indonesia will be effectively competing for attention and REDD funds with other countries with currently high emissions and/or large forest areas. A strong international 'bargaining position' requires that internal conflicts and strategic positioning be overcome.This paper is organised in four sections. The first section outlines the underlying challenges in establishing REDD payments systems that meet the primary objective of reducing deforestation and degradation in Indonesia, and the principles on which a national REDD payments system should be established. The second section reviews existing experience with regulatory, fund and market based incentive mechanisms in Indonesia. The third section combines the principles, existing learning and the constraints arising from possible REDD carbon market frameworks to outline the main options and safeguards for establishing a national REDD system. The final section describes a possible process for establishing REDD pilot projects in Indonesia.Triple accountability to people, profit and planet requires the emergence of incentive systems that 1) are efficient in reducing emissions at affordable cost, linking local to international scales in ways that are accountable for emissions but that are as simple as possible, 2) address 'climate justice', equity and fairness, within improved systems of governance and accountability from local to international scales, 3) support transformations to sustainability for the long term within the local context of options and aspirations, and 4) express a commitment to learning and accountability for the process.If Indonesia is to reduce its net emissions from deforestation and degradation of forests and peatlands, and on that basis access international REDD funds or markets, it will have to achieve progress on a number of challenges. It will have to:1. Provide efficiency as well as fairness: Focus on the areas, drivers and sectors that are currently most directly linked (legally or illegally) to emissions from deforestation and forest/peatland degradation, AND provide appropriate incentives to areas, drivers and sectors that actively contribute to resource conservation and provide new options to those at a cross-roads of alternative development pathways, 2. Develop and operationalize a vision of a long term transition to sustainability that meets the Millennium Development Goals, transcends economic dependence on extractive industries and finds a balance between ecosystem 'goods' and 'services', 3. Improve the transparency and accountability of governance systems that link the local to the national scale, address the multiple conflicts over access and rights to lands and forest resources, by setting performance-based standards for dialogue and conflict resolution, 4. Enhance the REDDiness of local and national stakeholders by creating active learning with effective feedback, enhance awareness, develop local monitoring skills, and support local creativity in finding effective solutions through appropriate incentive systems. Each of these principles can be operationalized at the level of criteria, indicators and verifiers. Overall REDD architecture (and payment distribution mechanisms within this framework) will need a combination of functions, provided by appropriate institutions. Important components already exist; others are missing or are not yet fully performing the functions required.Existing funding and incentives schemes in Indonesia give insights into the way that REDD mechanisms might work, offer possible options that could be used in payment distribution mechanisms and possible issues that could arise. ! Funding mechanisms from central government to local governments, companies or direct to communities ! Smaller-scale redistribution mechanisms at a local level within villages, between local government and communities and between companies and local communities Both of these are relevant to possible future configurations of payment schemes in national REDD mechanisms in Indonesia.The evidence indicates that most of these systems are subject to risks in a number of dimensions: ! Lack of transparency and accountability and high corruption ! Opportunities for rent seeking and high transaction costs related to long transaction chains ! Perverse incentives ! Elite capture and in-migration into areas where incentives are offered ! Lack of demand Safeguards can be put in place to minimise some of these risks, which mainly relate to increasing accountability between actors through formalised third party audit processes and 'paper trails', ensuring inclusive consultation processes and improving the bargaining power of different stakeholders by enhancing legality and access to legal processes. The conditionality requirement of REDD mechanisms (i.e. that benefits are only received once performance has been verified) is likely to improve safeguards in REDD. Many of the existing systems in Indonesia have low conditionality requirements, with the exception of PES, company-community partnerships, KDP and timber certification.Learning from existing fund and incentive management, the future REDD system should have the following features: (a) create incentives for good practice; (b) be transparent and accountable in fund management; (c) support local initiative within clearly stated goals; (d) focus on outcomes and not just inputs; (e) establish a relationship between outcome/performance and funding; (f) support clear property rights and rules on benefits, responsibilities and sanctions at the local level; and (g) facilitate and strengthen local institutions.Designing an Indonesian national REDD payments system will involve decisions over the best way to configure financial transfer mechanisms at different scales, how to allocate revenues, payment form and timing, the establishment of new institutional structures and new risk management options.The first issue to consider in REDD transfer mechanisms in Indonesia, is where primary transaction with international buyers or funders takes place. There are two options: (1) transaction with the central government and (2) transaction with lower government levels or directly with projects (Fig 0 .1) in accordance with the relative share of the location in the national baseline. Each of these options implies a different form of redistribution mechanism in Indonesia. Option 1 is more centralised and government funds would need to be redistributed from a central fund held at national level. Option 2 is more decentralised, but a tax or levy placed on REDD activities at sub-national level would need to be collected to pay for administrative functions such as national level monitoring and accounting. Funding mechanisms would still be required in this option in order to redistribute revenues accrued through the tax or levy. There are two main ways that funds can be transferred within these routes; either through the state budget or through an independent financial system. The advantages of integrating funds into the state budget include the possibility for more effective monitoring by the government and parliament; more systematic financial management at national level; the application of the existing performance-related budgeting system, which would allow target-setting for REDD; and contributions to government revenues depending on the form of contract with international buyers or donors. The disadvantages include possible delays in disbursement of funds; changes to the legal system in relation to central and regional financial management; and the possibility of rent seeking at different government levels. An independent REDD funding system could avoid some of these problems if properly established, but it would have to be well linked with government institutions given the multiple roles of government in forest management.Further redistribution of funding might be needed. For example, if the Kabupaten level has a baseline, and receives REDD funding in proportion to how well it performs against this baseline, it might need to redistribute funding at the sub-Kabupaten level. The mechanisms used would vary with the type of stakeholders involved and the type of land use, but should be openly negotiated to avoid excessive influence by any given interest group. If dealing with a private company some form of Payments for Environmental Services system could be used. Benefit sharing between the company and local communities might then take the form of a company-community partnership. In general the more levels in the distribution system the more likely there will be opportunities for rentseeking and increased inefficiency. It may therefore be favourable for REDD transactions to occur as close as possible to stakeholders implementing or involved in policies and measures to reduce deforestation and degradation. The benefit flows, responsibilities of different parties, liabilities and carbon accounting configurations will be different depending on which transaction options and redistribution options are chosen. Section four gives a more detailed account of two possible scenarios based on the main options given above.There are both horizontal and vertical dimensions to the allocation of REDD payments. The horizontal dimension relates to the distribution of revenues between stakeholders at a particular scale, for example between the islands of Indonesia or between different stakeholders in a REDD project. The vertical dimension relates to allocation within different administrative levels, for example between national, provincial and district governments.The question of allocation within both of these dimensions is linked to who should be the legitimate recipients of REDD revenues. In order to meet the overarching principles outlined in the first section, possible criteria for establishing who is a legitimate recipient are those that:! Change their behaviour and reduce emission rates in the long term ! Suffer legitimate losses from mandated REDD implementation ! Maintain low carbon emissions rates (continued conservation) ! Provide sustainable low C emission alternative livelihoods ! Act legally and have rights to sell carbon (provided this does not disadvantage the poor and those with customary rights not recognized by government) ! Exhibit high accountability, transparency and good governance ! Have included provisions for capacity building ! Include elements of long term learning Competitive bidding processes are a possible way of deciding horizontal allocation. Precautions may need to be taken to ensure that this is not abused by decision-makers (e.g. through multi-stakeholder review panels) and does not discriminate against local communities who lack experience framing such proposals (e.g. by supporting NGOs to help fill capacity and information gaps). In practice in Indonesia it will probably be necessary to establish a REDD system by providing some level of initial funding to all regions and stakeholders in order for them to develop REDD systems, before introducing conditional and competitive processes that might discriminate against marginalized groups.One of the major problems Indonesia will face in allocating REDD revenues will be to adequately incentivise areas with high rates of deforestation to reduce rates, whilst also incentivising those with low rates to maintain low rates (the 'efficiency' versus 'fairness' tradeoff). This is a problem that has also emerged between different developing countries at the international level and the same problem arises between different areas of Indonesia (e.g. different islands). One possible solution to this problem is to create a 'stabilisation fund' for areas low rates of emissions, stocked through a tax placed on the REDD market system that is driven by a search for 'efficiency' and thus attracted by the most negative baselines.Legality of current actors engaged in activities that lead to CO2 emissions from forests and peatlands is not easily established. For example, major Pulp and Paper mills maintain that they a) have no engagement whatsoever in illegal logging, but nevertheless b) may have to close their business if current 'illegal logging control' operations continue. As use of forest resources usually requires more than one type of permit, revoking forest use concessions may lead to claims for compensation. Land ownership does not necessarily coincide with the right to change the vegetation and hence terrestrial carbon stock. Separate regulation of 'rights to sell' (as the most functional dimension of 'ownership') of carbon storage and/or other environmental service (ES) is feasible, but in the implementation the various (and often conflicting) claims on land ownership need to be taken into account. ix These issues are further complicated by definitions of 'forest'. \"Forests\" without trees as well as \"nonforest\" lands with full canopy cover of trees can occur side-by-side. For REDD to work payment systems must be able to transcend these differences and address changes in carbon stocks. Local government entities (e.g. at Kabupaten (district) scale), may be the most appropriate scale for assessing net changes in terrestrial carbon stocks, regardless of the institutional control over the lands and vegetation. Current 'decentralization' laws specify the primary responsibility for maintenance of 'protective'' land cover through forests at the Kabupaten level, while timber exploitation rights are decided nationally. These different domains of decision-making would need to be reconciled.Vertical allocation depends on where value addition occurs in the REDD 'supply chain' and the opportunity costs occurring at each level. For example, in a national system it can be assumed that the Indonesian government will bear the costs of establishing the national system, national scale monitoring and verification, implementation of national policy reforms and national level administration of the system, as well as opportunity costs related to lost tax revenue, for example. It can be assumed from past experience that the greater the level of devolution, the higher these relative costs will be, as will be the opportunities for rent seeking in the system. From an efficiency perspective it is therefore preferable to try to minimise the number of stakeholders in the supply chain.For every moment a forest is conserved, the opportunity exists for it to be deforested. To ensure permanence, implementation of REDD implies that a theoretically infinite series of foregone opportunities should be compensated. How can this be managed? There are two main payment schedules that could occur under REDD: A lump sum upfront payment would involve transferral of the agreed amount of funding all at once but this would need to fund forest protection perpetually or in the long term (a minimum of about 100 years). This would favour current beneficiaries but it could severely restrict land use options for future generations, and they would likely demand compensation for this. Weak or biased enforcement would also undermine ability to translate agreement into reality. An alternative option is to distribute payments over time. Although current beneficiaries might gain less, a distributed payment schedule incentivises long term carbon storage, and therefore is more likely to address the permanence issue. The main challenge to be overcome, will be to secure long term financing for such distributed payments.Payments could be made to individuals or to groups. If all stakeholders are well identified, then individual payments matching their opportunity costs are likely to be most effective and there is less likelihood of elite capture if they are able to assert their rights to payments. However, the transaction costs of dealing with large numbers of individual contracts gives rise to a trade-off. Payments to groups might involve lower transaction costs for those making the payments, but mechanisms for equitable decision-making on rules and procedures for benefits sharing within the group are likely to be required.Payments for REDD can be made as cash and non-cash transactions. For cash transaction, the carbon credit international buyers for example could pay in cash to the sellers (government, community or company) through bank transfer based on an agreed terms of conditions. The sellers may then redistribute the cash to those who participate in C REED value chains. The community-company partnership scheme provides an example of this cash payment. For non-cash transaction, funding from international to national levels could be delivered through conditional Debt for Nature Swaps (DNS), although this would be unlikely in a market-based system unless accompanied by systems for carbon accounting. It also carries the risk of infringing upon community rights through excessive state control over forest access. Because access to and use rights of forest lands remain a major stumbling block for sustainable rural development, conditional use rights within a 'community based forest management' (HKM) or 'village forest' (Hutan Desa) framework may be more effective than financial transfers in reducing emissions. Local negotiations on the 'currency' that is of the highest relevance are needed.Existing legal frameworks will influence both fund-based and market-based approaches to REDD, particularly where financing is incorporated into the state budget. Revenue Sharing Funds (DBH), IFCA: Payment mechanisms, distribution and institutional arrangements x General Allocation Funds, and Special Allocation Funds (DAK), describe revenue sharing between national and sub-national government entities and will play a role in allocation decisions for REDD. Laws describing decentralisation of forest governance and define how authority over decisions relating to production and protection forests is divided up will also play have a major influence in the design of REDD, especially in relation to the level at which responsibility lies in implementing REDD policies and measures on different land categories and who is liable in case of failure. These will need to be streamlined with payment systems and imply that a number of different types of mechanism will be needed for different types of REDD strategy.Existing institutions will need strengthening and new institutions will need to be created for REDD. These will include fund managers for receiving and redistributing funds; registries for tracking emissions reductions credits; legal institutions for adjusting existing laws, enforcing REDD related laws and resolving disputes; monitoring and verification entities for ensuring that emissions reductions are real and achieved in environmentally and socially acceptable ways; implementing and administrative organisations for handling contracts and logistics; and the sellers of carbon themselves who may need to organise internal redistribution mechanisms.The main difference in terms of institutional responsibility will be the role of the national government, which could act as a seller of carbon to international buyers, a buyer of carbon from sub-national entities, an intermediary and a regulator of the system. It is assumed that in any form of national REDD system that the government will play a role in monitoring, accounting for emissions reductions and technical support. From an accountability perspective it may be preferable for the government not to be involved in financial transactions as a buyer or seller (i.e. transactions should occur at lower levels). To guarantee fairness clear mechanisms for checks and balances from independent third parties will be required, whichever institutions are involved.Experience with carbon markets indicates that different forms of risk play an important role in investor decisions about transactions. Risk reduction will therefore be a key issue for REDD in Indonesia. Some of the most important types of risk include: ! Governance risks (e.g. low transparency, accountability and high corruption, or the risk that the national government reverses policies related to REDD) ! Permanence and leakage risks at national and project level ! Project risks, especially those related to land ownership and conflict Governance risks are difficult to reduce, without improved governance performance across a wide range of indicators. Financial reporting, auditing procedures and transparency policies will need to be established for ensuring payments reach legitimate recipients. The new 'Badan Layanan Umum' (BLU) as defined by government regulation number 23/2005 (PP N0.23/2005) on Public Service Body could be an option to use at both national and local levels for this purpose. The supreme auditor, financial intelligence unit and the Anti Corruption Unit should also be involved with REDD in order to improve governance of REDD funds. values to the creation of emissions reductions from REDD. The stars indicate the relative importance between stakeholders; the larger the star, the more importance the stakeholder plays in that part of the value chain; the values in the bottom row are illustrative and will require empirical testing; the five columns on the right hand may be jointly considered to be part of the 'transaction costs' that can probably be reduced if wide-scale use of C REDD becomes a reality, leaving a larger share of funds for the left two columns; direct international -local actor contracts may have to be taxed to provide funding for the higher level functions Six components will be needed for with permanence and leakage risks at the national level. They include:! A national level baseline in combination with a national level forest carbon monitoring and reporting system, which collates and reports the aggregate effects of changes in carbon stocks from all of Indonesia's forests (as described in the Methodologies paper). In this way, emissions from a particular forest area would be balanced out by conservation of another forest elsewhere in Indonesia; ! A national registry which records REDD credits and their movements; ! A geographically-referenced land titles office (or equivalent) through which the national Government could identify which forest areas had avoided emissions, and which forest areas had resulted in emissions, enabling payments to be distributed to legitimate actors; ! A national 'buffer' pool of carbon which withholds some REDD credits from sale as permanence insurance; ! The devolution of liability for project failure to the project developer(s) to enable them to be held accountable for replacing credits.xii At the project level, different operational lifetimes can be used to ensure permanence:! Perpetual, which implies that the project activities (in this case, avoided deforestation or degradation) must continue forever; ! Nominal, long term lifetimes (e.g. 100 years) in which credits are assumed to be permanent; ! Temporary, in which credits have to be replaced after a short time period (e.g. 5 years).Ensuring accountability and transparency in the Indonesian REDD system will be essential in order to secure investments from external buyers or funders. The processes established to do this will have two components relating to tracking emissions reductions 'up' the supply chain and financial transactions 'down' the supply chain. In practice this will mean establishing systems for monitoring, reporting and third party verification of emissions that meet certain standards, which are compatible with the systems used at the national level.Third party verification of carbon accounting systems at both national and project level will be required in order to increase accountability and reduce risk. Standard verification processes and accredited organisations for carrying out verification already exist and could be used in an Indonesian REDD system. Voluntary standards to increase project quality, especially in relation to social and environmental impacts (such as the Climate, Community and Biodiversity standard), could be used for REDD and could even be made mandatory by government.Project risks relating to land ownership and conflict can be reduced through the use of tools such as Rapid Tenure Assessment (RaTA), spatial planning (Rencana Tata Ruang) and gazzettement.An important factor that must be considered in developing risk reduction tools for REDD is the trade off between complexity and accountability, and equity of access to REDD benefits. Highly accountable systems can entail high transaction costs and the ability to understand complex technical procedures, which can act as a barrier to certain stakeholders. Care must be taken to reduce transaction costs and ensure that they are borne by stakeholders who can meet these costs if equitable participation in REDD is to be achieved.In the selection of pilot areas for testing REDD in the next 2-3 years, the primary contrasts to be explored will have to focus on the most appropriate approach in 'current emission hot spots' as well as those for 'core forest areas' (criteria 1). The geographic and economic opportunities differ between Sumatra, Kalimantan, Papua and Sulawesi plus other islands in eastern Indonesia (criteria 2). The other three criteria are economic transition level from forest exploitation to forest conservation, level of governance, and REDD readiness. These site-based pilot activities aim to generate the following lessons (a) learning to balance efficiency and equity by appropriate mix of market and fund allocation processes; (b) learning how to initiate and support a transition to sustainable resource use; (c) learning how to improve and sustain governance systems; and (d) experience in effective capacity building approaches. Global concerns over climate change have passed the 'tipping point' (Stern, 2006) response has become a rapidly declining minority voice. The recent award of the Nobel Peace Prize to scientific and popular advocates of the climate change issue signals the recognition of the concerns that the human and political consequences of climate change are a threat to world peace and that new approaches are urgently needed. However, the interface of climate change and Millennium Development Goals (especially 1 and 7 on poverty reduction and sustainable development) urges attention to adaptation by the most vulnerable groups, and for making sure that mitigation measures do not, without appropriate compensation, exclude rural poor from land use options that could get them out of poverty. Innovative solutions on the interface of adaptation, mitigation and poverty reduction are much needed yet are still being teste (Scherr et al., 2004).The United Nation Framework Convention Climate Change (UNFCCC) was established to avoid the negative effects of human-induced climate change on humankind and earth ecosystems. The evidence that such change is already occurring and bound to increase, as compiled by the Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) reports, makes clear the urgent and immediate need for reduction in net emissions of greenhouse gasses. The omission of about 20% of global emissions, in the form of deforestation and land use change, from the global rules of the game is not acceptable anymore. Efforts to deal with much smaller fractions of total net emissions, through A/R CDM (Afforestation and Reforestation as form of Clean Development Mechanism), can hardly be taken seriously if these much larger fluxes from deforestation and other carbon stock degradation are not brought under control.Based on the range of possible emission reduction strategies and the expected future price of carbon credits, the total international transfers for REDD to Indonesia may well become a hundred million $ to several billion $ per year. For some this creates hope, for others concern. Learning from the post-Tsunami conflict resolution in Aceh, and conflict re-emergence in Sri Lanka, we can safely predict that expectations of a REDD Tsunami of carbon money will raise the stakes on the debate on the forest margins where deforestation and degradation occur. Depending on the way the benefit sharing is achieved, these extra funds can help to find peace or can lead to increased open conflict. Payment distribution mechanisms are therefore highly political and contested. This paper tries to assist the national stakeholders in their analysis of options. At the current stage of international negotiations we can expect a strong linkage between debates at the local, national and international level, and the current internal debate in Indonesia will certainly reflect on what can emerge internationally. It is easy to see how mixed messages of theory and practice 6 can undermine any positive outcome. It will be much harder to avoid such conflicting messages to the international community in the face of real tradeoffs. The 'business as usual' scenario that is associated with current emissions has clear stakeholders and benefit sharing mechanisms -the REDD alternatives not yet.Two types of financial transfers have so far been proposed to provide incentives for reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation: the creation of a separate REDD fund, with a mandate to target emission reductions in forested countries, and the creation of tradable rights to emit, that could be the basis for a market in emission reduction credits. With both options on the table, the negotiation position for a country such as Indonesia is likely to depend on the answer to the following five questions (Figure 1.1):A. How can Indonesia access REDD funds and/or emerging international markets? Why should funds be paid to Indonesia's REDD efforts rather than to other countries or other emission reduction approaches? B. What can 'payment distribution mechanism' + internal markets deliver within the country?What internal institutional arrangements are needed? C. How can emission reductions from the REDD domain, relative to a reference scenario of land use change, be compared to other (e.g. energy related) emission reduction options and how can it lead to 'tradable credits'? D. What international institutional arrangements are needed? How can returns on investment be generated for countries providing upfront investment for REDD, and hence what type of replenishment of the fund can be expected in future? E. Will it help to manage (reduce) climate change and reduce negative effects on Indonesia? Figure 1.1. Basic architecture of the relations between a country such as Indonesia and countries with commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere; A…E refers to five questions that are part of current debate Different segments of society may place different weights on these questions, in line with intrinsic positions of trying to maximize short-term financial gains, long-term sustainable development and concerns about environmental degradation.An alternative way of posing these questions is in terms of: o Slicing the cake: who will get which part? (competition and bargaining for a specified resource) o The size of the cake: how can the total amount to be distributed be increased? (strategies for competition at higher level, influencing rules of the game) o How palatable and attractive will the cake be? How will it taste and smell? What's the recipe?(\"masih ada bau BAU (business as usual)\", need for performance criteria) o Who will pay for the cake? Will it provide a 'free lunch' or come with strings attached? The issues about size of the cake and the rules for slicing it occur at multiple scales: between the sovereign countries that consider signing and ratifying an agreement, and between administrations, sectors and actors within each country. Three types of arguments, referring to 'poverty', 'rights' and 'shared responsibility' (see below) are and will be used in various combinations for maximum effect to increase the bargaining position by combinations of 'threat' and 'trust'. Overemphasis on the 'rights' card may come across as blackmail. Overemphasis of the 'shared responsibility' aspect will lead to 'lack of additionality', while the 'poverty' card is more effective when expressed in terms of evolution towards equitable per capita emissions.Should Indonesia get a large (market) share of the 'avoided deforestation' because it has a track record of high emissions so it can show emission reduction? Should the province of Riau be where most of the funds go because it has a track record of high emissions so it can show emission reduction? Should the providers of raw material to the pulp and paper sector in Riau get most of the funds because they have a track record of high emissions and deforestation so they can show emission reduction? Or, should the attention go to countries, provinces and actors that have a track record of protecting their forests and thus be trustworthy partners? At each scale that this question is asked, there is a 'moral' or 'justice' dimension to it, and a 'pragmatic' or 'efficiency' one. The challenge for the 'distribution mechanisms' is to strike a balance between these two dimensions.Figure 1.2 Reduction of emissions from deforestation and degradation will have to be accountable to people, planet and profits -if it only addresses one or two of the concerns it will not function Triple accountability to people, profit and planet (Fig. 1.2) requires the emergence of incentive systems that meet four principles 1) are efficient in reducing emissions at affordable cost, linking local to international scales in ways that are accountable for emissions but that are as simple as possible; 2) address 'climate justice', equity and fairness, within improved systems of governance and accountability from local to international scales; 3) support transformations to sustainability for the long term within the local context of options and aspirations, and 4) express a commitment to learning and accountability for the process.We will review the people, profit, planet triangle by first looking at three of the sides: people & planet, planet & profit and people & profit, to identify some of the major challenges in meeting the principles.Indonesia may well be the largest global emitter of CO 2 and other greenhouse gasses from the land use change and forestry (AFOLU or LULUCF) 7 sector (Table 1.1; Murdiyarso and Adiningsih, 2007), and third overall after China and USA if fossil fuel emissions are added. The details of the emission and ranking are contested, but the emissions are a serious concern to all, and reduction is urgent in the light of the targets set by the UNFCCC. The emissions from peatlands, both those due to drainage for agricultural use and the drainage-induced fire risks in dry years, come to more than half of Indonesia's total emissions, although peatland is a relatively small area and have relatively small economic benefits.  \"While reaffirming and upholding the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and the sovereign rights of countries over their natural resources, we recognize the primary responsibility of industrialised nations for the current atmospheric interference leading to global warming and its consequences, including the resulting mitigation and adaptation challenges. We note with concern the recent findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which indicate that forests may be among the main victims of climate change resulting in dire impacts on the environment, ecosystems and the livelihoods, particularly of those populations that depend directly on forests. \"\"While recognizing that many developing countries can contribute to combat climate change through reducing emissions from deforestation, forest degradation and land-use change, we understand that the challenge to reduce emissions from land use change is complex and cumbersome for developing countries as for developed countries reducing emissions from industry and energy sectors. We are committed to cooperating among our nations to slow, stop and reverse the loss of forest cover and to promote the rehabilitation of degraded forest lands, forest management and conservation.\"\"We call for the fulfilment of commitments, including those of Annex I countries under the UNFCCC, to support our voluntary efforts through capacity building, research and development, transfer of appropriate environmentally sound technologies. Further, we call for mobilization of new and additional financial resources sufficient to implement non-restrictive policy approaches and positive incentives, under the UNFCCC, and other international fora, to support our voluntary efforts in reducing greenhouse gas emissions as well as enhancing sequestration through sustainable forest management and forest conservation, and increasing carbon sinks through afforestation and reforestation, including support for early action from 2008-2012 along with expanded activities post-2012. Furthermore, we call for protected areas to be given special consideration by the international community. \" Why should anyone receive funds or rewards for NOT damaging the global ecosystem? The answers to this question are usually a combination of: ! \"Poverty means we have few options other than degrading the forest -we need help to develop sustainable livelihoods\"; ! \"We have rights to manage our lands the way we want; some countries that deforested in the past are now rich\"; ! \"Sharing responsibility: We are committed to do our share of the global clean-up and work to protect the environment and reduce emissions, but there are real 'opportunity costs' that need to be compensated\".Various permutations of these answers have been presented over time, and the international community has responded with a mixture of guilt, commitment and business-sense. Investing in 'clean development', either under the rules of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) or in voluntary forms, has provided ways to enhance the standing of the investor and have been more cost effective than further efforts to reduce emissions at home. The UNFCCC is an agreement between sovereign nations, and has to respect the diplomatic negotiations in which the poverty, the rights and the shared responsibility arguments are used for maximum gain. Recent positioning of the main forest countries refers to commitments and shared responsibilities (Box 1) in the search for constructive solutions and international benefit transfers.Indonesia as a middle-income country still has an 'ecological footprint' per capita that is below an equitable share in global resources, but is rapidly approaching the threshold of exceeding a fair and affordable share (Fig. 1.3). If 'sustainable development' is interpreted as high Human Development Index at affordable ecological footprint, there are no countries yet that can serve as role models. Figure 1.3B Components of the total ecological footprint in their relationship with Human Development Index; Indonesia is in the HDI range where forest fibre use (e.g. for pulp and paper, construction wood) starts to exceed the area required for fuelwood ('bioenergy') consumption, where the area needed to compensate for fossil fuel use starts to exceed the area needed for food production and where the total footprint starts to exceed what is a globally equitable share.Scope: partial accounting FAO (2000) classified land into three main categories based on forest cover and land use. The categories are forest, other wooded land and other land (where trees occur outside forests). There are seven forest change processes that can be categorized either as land use changes (deforestation, afforestation, and expansion of natural forest) or internal changes (reforestation, regeneration of natural forest, degradation, and improvement). Figure 1.4 describes these forest change processes. FAO classifies agroforestry and grazing as non-forest categories. In Indonesia there are currently many \"grey zones\", given that significant areas of state forests no longer have any trees while nonforest areas do. Clear definitions of deforestation and forest degradation are therefore necessary to avoid confusion in REDD. ), Indonesia has a comparatively high 'forest degradation' rate, both in absolute terms and in relative terms of rate of 'deforestation'. This may in part reflect the different nature of forest conversion. In Brasil nearly all forest conversion is based on clear felling followed by conversion to pasture with little if any trees. In Indonesia a gradual loss of large and smaller trees takes place before final conversion. Indonesia thus is directly interested in a REDD rather than RED program. Although Indonesia has no shortage of land area that lost its forest cover before 1990 (Murdiyarso et al., 2006), the widespread expectation that the afforestation /reforestation approach to Clean Development Mechanisms (A/R CDM) could find widespread application and lead to sustainable development benefits has not so far materialized. No project designs have yet been approved by the Designated National Authority (DNA), despite considerable efforts from local, national and international partners. The main challenges, according to van Noordwijk et al. (2007c), to implementation of the current A/R CDM mechanisms are in 1) the definition of forest and its institutional implications, 2) the projectization that is embedded in the definition of CDM, 3) nonlinear baselines related to forest transitions that complicate attribution, 4) inherent lack of synergy with other development activities and 5) high transaction costs and temporary nature of credits. Chomitz (2007) distinguished three types of forest in relation to likelihood of imminent change: 'core forests', 'forest margins' with rapid loss of forest cover and contests over land use rights, and 'mosaic forests' in the (partial) recovery phase after land rights were established. Baselines of the change in forest cover and/or carbon stock probably are usually non-linear, at least a t a local scales of assessment, and make transitions from a degradation into a rehabilitation phase in the absence of specific interventions. The relationship between the 'degradation' and 'rehabilitation' phases of a landscape are still debated (Tomich et al. 2005, Geist et al., 2006). In the environmental literature the phenomenon is discussed by reference to the Kuznetz curve (Ranjan and Shortle, 2007), or 'forest transition' (Mather, 2002;Angelsen, 2007). A number of Asian countries already show an increase in forest area (but not necessarily in terrestrial carbon stocks) in their national statistics, based on plantation forestry (Mather 2007). Rudel et al. (2005) suggested two possible pathways for advanced forest transition. One is the \"economic development route\", where the agricultural population declines as Industrialisation and urban migration proceed, and abandoned agricultural land is spontaneously reforested (this has happened in parts of Europe and N America). The other, is the \"forest scarcity pathway\", where scarcity of forest products drives up price and stimulates tree planting. There are, however, considerable time lags in this response (Palo, 2004). Generosa (2007) found mixed results on forest transition patterns in 20 Asian countries, with some evidence for a key role of market incentives in channelling private and public investments in expanding forest plantations and forest carbon sinks. López and Galinato (2005) studied the shape of the environmental Kuznets curve for forests as influenced by governance and trade openness. Trade shifted the forest-income curve up (down) for countries that have a comparative disadvantage (advantage) in the production of crops encroaching on forest areas, such as Brazil and the Philippines (Indonesia and Malaysia). Amore democratic country will have a farther turning point than a less democratic country, but whether the environmental Kuznets curve shifts up or down is country specific.Box 2. Fire: cause, method or symptom CO 2 emissions can be distinguished by the temperature at which carbon oxidation occurs, separating 'fire' from 'cold oxidation'. Fire is rapid and has associated risks of propagation in the landscape and smoke/haze production, but in terms of greenhouse gas budgets the cold oxidation of gradual decomposition is comparable at a time scale of say 5-10 years. Fire is sometimes listed as a cause of emissions, along with logging and/or land conversion. However, there is an ongoing discussion on which part (if any) of fires can be considered to be natural rather than human-induced. The Climate Change convention is specifically focussed on the human-induced emissions (Canadell et al., 2007). Fires tend to occur mostly in years with long dry seasons, but without logging or drainage fires would probably have little chance to spread. Among the human-facilitated types of fire, we can distinguish the use of fire as a tool for land clearing, from the use of fire as a weapon and the spread of fire as 'accident', escaping from control. Tomich et al. (1998b) and Suyanto (2007) discussed the 'fire as a weapon' version as a symptom of land conflict and subsequent research has provided solid evidence on this, although quantification is difficult. The main problem of dealing with fire in mechanisms to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation may well be that the occurrence of fire is linked to weather. Annual accounting may thus underestimate the fire risk in wet years and overestimate it in dry years. From an accountability perspective a form of 'insurance' or risk sharing is needed, as even 5-year accounting periods are too short to expect a fair representation of the long term impacts on net emissions. With some form of insurance, e.g. provided at national scale, it may be appropriate to make local governments accountable for both 'fire' and 'cold' CO 2 emissions, to provide incentives for the prevention of conflicts (and associated use of fire) as well as over land use change that is the more ultimate cause of CO 2 emissions, regardless of the method used.The necessity of 'whole system' accounting for net anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gasses is gaining ground (Schimel et al., 2001;Cowie et al., 2007: \"Ideally, the accounting approach should cover all significant biospheric sources and sinks, avoid biased or unbalanced accounting, avoid leakage and require no arbitrary adjustments to remedy unintended consequences\"). The current system of rules and its 'path dependence' (O'Riordan and Jordan, 1999), or stepwise evolution from precursors under the selection pressures of the day, is under scrutiny and a wider set of alternatives is needed (Benndorf et al., 2007). This is particularly so for the net emissions from land use and land cover change (globally about 25% of the anthropogenic emissions; Watson et al., 2000;Skutsch et al., 2007), where only a partial accounting has been achieved so far.The current discussions on REDD (again) focus on a subset of the total Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) or AFOLU emissions. Indonesia may well be the country where 'Degradation' is more 'important than 'Deforestation' (Figure 1.5). It will likely focus on 'gross deforestation', i.e. on areas of forest that drop out of the 'forest' category (with a country specific definition, bounded by international rules), plus degradation within the forest domain. In terms of the scope of the current discussions it may be important to specify which parts of the LULUCF (AFOLU) emissions outside of Annex-I countries will not be covered (Figures 1.6 and 1.7):! emissions from lands that dropped out of the 'forest category' before reference year X (yet to be selected), or never qualified as forest. Quantitatively, the peatlands are the most significant contributor in this regard. The long-term nature of peatland emissions, based on a few percent loss from a huge C-stock, contrasts with the rapid loss of above ground biomass (potentially a near complete loss of a moderate C-stock), makes the choice of X important in this regard.! sequestration by lands that re-enter the forest category, even if they have been only marginally below the forest threshold. ! C sequestration through reforestation of lands deforested after 1990, and thus not eligible for A/R CDM.Emissions The estimated 2000 million tonnes (t) of CO 2 emissions from peatlands form two-thirds of the total emissions for Indonesia. Details of the numbers and calculations are uncertain and some would say controversial, but it is clear that Indonesia's top ranking among the world's main emitters depends on dealing with these peatland emissions.The current discussion on REDD mechanisms to deal with forests include, by default, the 'forested peatlands' as they are part of the forest. A key difference between peatlands and mineral soils is that the peatlands loose their (much larger) carbon stock over a much longer period of time after conversion. Currently emitting peatlands lost their forest cover in the 1990 's, 19880's, 1970's and some even before then. If the 'scope' of the REDD mechanisms currently discussed would refer to 'forest and peatlands', instead of 'forested peatlands', the large emissions from these lands can be taken into account -and actions to reduce emissions be taken and rewarded. If not, Indonesia will likely remain in the top of the list of CO 2 emitters as half (or more) of the land-based emissions will continue to be excluded from the incentive mechanism. Schematic representation of the scope of currently discussed REDD modalities relative to other LULUCF and energy/industrial source of emissions, distinguishing source protection from sink creation; depending on the definitions to be used for REDD a substantial part of the avoidable land-based emissions, such as those from peatlands that lost their forest cover before the year X that will be chosen as reference year will be in the 'other' category on the source conservation side; 'other' sinks are those that have not been brought under the A/R CDM framework for reasons of administrative complexity and transaction costs, and/or because they do not meet one or more of the eligibility criteria   (Tomich et al., 1998a; based on standardized methods described in Hairiah et al., 2001); between unlogged and logged forest (commercial practice, not following TPTI regulations) a difference in C stock of about 300 t/ha was noted ('forest degradation'); some of the 'non-forest' (or 'deforested') categories (rubber plantation and rubber agroforest) had C stocks only slightly below that of degraded forest and higher C stocks than the industrial timber plantation (HTI) plots (Paraserianthes falcataria) that are included in the forest definition; changes in belowground C stock on mineral soils are generally small relative to the efforts to quantify them given the variation between soils; dead wood ('aboveground necromass' is a significant component of aboveground C stock in land uses reflecting recent land use change; Palm et al., 2005 combined these data in a global analysis.For newcomers to the field, the units of measurement and the names of the different greenhouse gasses is confusing. This forms a challenge for accountability of the REDD mechanisms. Carbon storage in vegetation or soils is usually expressed as 'carbon stock', with units of t per ha. If the vegetation is burnt, however, or subjected to decomposition, most of the carbon will be emitted to the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide and contribute to the greenhouse gas effect, that reflect part of the energy (heat) that the earth would otherwise emit to outer space. Per unit carbon stored, 3.67 (=44/12) units of CO 2 are emitted. 'Carbon emissions' are thus measured in different units from 'carbon stored' and in comparing market prices, there still is confusion between prices quoted per ton CO 2 and prices per ton of carbon. Beyond CO 2 , two greenhouse gasses play a role in the land use and forestry sectors: methane (CH 4 ) and 'laughing gas' or nitrous oxide (N 2 O). Their quantities are less, but greenhouse forcing effect per molecule are higher. Methane emissions derive from wetlands, ricefields, animal husbandry and organic waste disposal. Nitrous oxide emissions are linked to fertilizer use, abundance of leguminous (N 2 fixing) trees and partially wet soils. They play a lesser role in the direct conversion or degradation of forest. There is some confusion on the issue of carbon-monoxide. This gas is produced in combustion engines and is a major part of urban air pollution. It does not play a significant role in the greenhouse gas effect. In the various discussions on REDD in Indonesia some interesting perspective emerged: the association of global warming, urban activities and the term greenhouse (which translates to 'glass house' in Bahasa Indonesia), has lead some to believe that the stained glass of modern buildings is the direct cause of the problem. The air conditioners that make such buildings possible are indeed linked to CO 2 emissions, as is much of the urban lifestyle with which these buildings are associated, but otherwise the words used may be the source of confusion.Data for carbon stocks that cover the full range of tree-based land cover in Indonesia are still scarce. But the data that exist (Fig. Accountability for C emissions will require more sophisticated distinctions of land cover types that are more closely aligned with C stock data (and that ideally span only a range of 50 t C/ha or even less). If the full set of AFOLU accounting rules were to be followed there wouldn't be cracks to fall into -if only the forest chapter is used, all possible transitions need to be considered in discussions of 'leakage'.The combination of REDD + A/R-CDM will (still) have considerably smaller scope than the accounting rules for Annex-I countries, which include all positive and negative fluxes in the AFOLU domain. The main alternative is to broaden the scope of the current REDD negotiations to include all the chapters of AFOLU accounting and converge on the accountability rules for Annex-I countries in this respect (but with a new way of deriving the baseline/targets/emission caps).The two primary ways to affect net greenhouse gas emissions are to reduce the emissions by conserving the sources, or to increase sequestration by creation of sinks. Both in terms of source conservation and sink creation, the combination of REDD plus A/R CDM will provide only partial accounting. Most of the energy and industrial sector emission reduction is of the 'source conservation' type, which will potentially shift fossil fuels from current to future use. The main difference between A/R CDM and other types of emission reduction is that 'sink creation' has to be associated with responsibility for future emissions of the carbon stored temporarily (hence the 'temporary credits'); while source conservation does not (under current rules) imply responsibility for future emissions based on the source saved for now. Where 'fossil fuel conservation' is the basis for C-credits, there is no fundamental difference in the degree of permanence between forests and fossil fuel stocks conserved over a certain period of time. Quantitative estimates of the LULUCF emission reduction potential not covered by REDD + A/R-CDM are not yet available (see the 'Peatland' study) but are quickly becoming relevant for the debate. In earlier stages of the UNFCCC implementation rules, a commitment by 55 of emission sources was taken as benchmark in the ratification of the Kyoto protocol (Article 25, Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change);the absence of countries with a joint emission share of less then 20% was used as an 'excuse' for non-ratification by some countries 8 . Clearly, the credibility and effectiveness of a new global mechanism is at stake if it only covers part of the avoidable emissions.Emission reduction in one area can increase emissions elsewhere, e.g. market demand seeks alternative sources of supply and local people seek alternative employment and livelihood opportunities. Such negative external effects of positive changes in limited areas and sectors, is the basis for the leakage concern. Leakage is a bigger concern in the AFOLU (LULUCF) domain then in the energy/industrial sectors, and hence it is a major part of the debate on how to establish credible mechanisms. The urgency has become more pronounced, the contribution of non-energy emission sources better articulated; inter-agent trust may well be the primary hurdle, with high expectations of financial gain a distractor Technical aspectsThere was substantial uncertainty over the quantitative aspects of emissions, while high quality monitoring had high costs There has been progress in remote sensing techniques, both at the high quality and the public scrutiny level, although the tradeoff between quality and costs is still an issue 4. Baselines (targets) for emission reduction There is no 'objective' choice between various ways to establish reference levels of emissions as basis for 'emission reduction'; for Annex I countries an emission cap was negotiated per country; non-Annex I countries did not want to commit to a total emission level With a shift from 'project' to 'national scale' accounting, the reference scenario will get more the character of 'shared responsibility' and negotiated targets (such as committed by Annex-I countries), without use of the word cap The role of leakage, additionality and permanence concerns in the REDD debate In the discussions leading up to the Marakesh accord, a number of obstacles were identified for a carbon crediting scheme that tries to reduce emissions from deforestation. While progress has been made on some of the most important issues, the challenges of effective rewards for REDD without incentives for simultaneously increasing threat and emissions elsewhere is still a serious challenge (Table 1.2; Trines et al., 2006;Schlamadinger et al., 2007a,b). Perverse incentives on existing forests was one of the issues with allowing selective A/R CDM (Niesten, 2002), although the solutions found to deal with the lack of permanence (ton-year approach, temporary credits, connected through the concept of leasing emission reduction certificates; Dutschke, 2002;Cacho et al., 2003;Marland et al., 2001)) have reduced the attractiveness of A/R CDM but also guarded against perverse incentives.Leakage is the main reason that 'avoided deforestation' cannot be implemented at small scale -if forest degradation is avoided in one place but no data is provided on what happens elsewhere, the emission reduction is literally not credible and no credits can be provided. The emerging view is now that it is essential that accountability exists at national scale, before activities at subnational or sectoral scale can be accredited (draft resolution text for the COP13). The issue of 'international leakage' and shifts of pressures to other forested countries is valid where international markets for timber or pulpwood are the drivers of forest degradation. However, between-country transfers of economic activities are seen as a potentially positive element of gain in overall efficiency in other cases. The primary issue is whether or not the emissions that would increase by 'leakage' are accounted for elsewhere or not. If only a few 'tropical forest countries' would agree to reduce deforestation, the global market pressures will likely shift to the others and little global emission reduction will be achieved. The precedence in international environmental regulation is not to require full coverage, but a substantial (at least 50%) of emission opportunity. We can expect that the REDD negotiations will want to impose a benchmark for the inclusion of tropical forest countries, and the 'forest eleven' (Box 1) have clearly shared interest in the negotiations, even though they are competing for limited resources in REDD funding.In anticipation of an international agreement on REDD, a 'voluntary market' for REDD-like activities is already emerging (Hamilton et al. 2007) and can provide significant opportunity to learn about successes and pitfalls for a mandatory or regulated market. If the international negotiations fail to reach agreement, such a voluntary market will continue to be the 'fallback' option. Though nascent, given its size and characteristics, it is important to assess the current 'negotiation risk'. At this stage, and in the absence of an international agreement on modalities, there is a 'voluntary market' for REDD-like activities, out of the reach of A/R CDM. The voluntary market will have to fill the gaps on the peatland emissions if the scope of REDD is not enlarged.The current range of options can be described as a number of dichotomies (Figure 1.9): a) Agreement, versus no agreement b)Protocol such as Kyoto versus Fund; c)National versus project scale of accounting as basis for international engagement; d)Changes in C-stock or 'deforestation rate' as basis for transactions; e)Freedom to design country-specific internal systems within a bottom line of emission reduction, or specific rules for implementation.In the discussions on implementation rules for CDM in the LULUCF domain following Kyoto, the issue of 'avoided deforestation' was amply discussed, but no agreement on its scope or modalities could be reached. The Marrakech accord thus only set rules for certain forms of temporary credits for afforestation/reforestation projects on lands deforested before 1990. The combination of complex rules, temporary credits and high transaction costs have meant that A/R CDM has found little application yet (CD4CDM, 2007), while numerous energy and industrial sector CDM projects received approval and funding. A number of obstacles were identified for reducing the emissions from deforestation and land use change (  While the outcome of current negotiations is uncertain, it may help to assess the degree to which positions and opinions have shifted on some of the major concerns that prevented agreement to be reached earlier. While significant progress has been made on all the issues that were seen as stumbling blocks in the earlier discussions, a number of questions remain and will require the negotiating parties to focus on the unacceptable costs of failure current negotiations. Yet, a stepwise approach towards an agreement on principles of a 'bottom line' to be followed by more detailed negotiation of quantitative implications is still feasible.National boundaries are the primary focus of international agreements and determine the scale at which accounting has to take place and accountability has to be achieved. In principle, countries should retain flexibility in how they implement emission reduction rules, as long as the overall effect is achieved. A number of countries, including Costa Rica and Mexico, have set up national systems to provide financial incentives for forest conservation and management (Karousakis, 2007 ). Such systems replaced earlier arrangements that were perceived as 'forest sector subsidies' and deemed undesirable in global trade negotiations. Although the payment systems are not directly linked to preservation of carbon stocks and have watershed protection and biodiversity conservation as more prominent objectives, they have also likely reduced carbon emissions. The discussion on the effectiveness of the systems with respect to the actual level of threat to different types of forests continues. Public acceptability in Costa Rica of the system that favours 'land owners' is linked to other national policies that have a social welfare and equity focus.Regardless of the details of implementation, accountability at national borders in systems that have to be open to public scrutiny as part of a trust building drive, will require a number of functions to be fulfilled (Figure 1.10). The safeguards that are needed to build trust in the system, and deal with the leakage, additionality and permanence concerns, will have costs. The experience so far with 'transaction costs' taking at least 50% and often more than 100% of the funds available (Cacho et al., 2003, Cacho, 2006) is humbling in this respect, but may be unavoidable at the pilot level or early learning. However, the design of the systems must be ready for full-scale application with a reasonable cost share for 'added value' institutions. Sale process for ex post credits can be considerably higher than ex ante investments, reflecting the various categories of 'buyers risk' (see markets study). Such a price differential will be the primary economic justification for involvement of national scale governance systems, but further studies will need to establish standards for efficiency in this respect. Figure 1.10. Functions to be fulfilled in a national translation of international agreements on emission reduction, with appropriate levels of institutional independence between regulation, implementation and audit functionsREDD will provide benefits of three types: a) Shared responsibility for reducing a major driver of global climate change and hence a stronger basis for negotiating global emission reductions and reduce negative effects on Indonesia, b) Financial payments and co-investment that exceed the economic opportunities foregone from decisions to maintain carbon stocks, and c) Co-benefits through other environmental service functions that well-maintained forests and peatlands can provide.Internationally, the recent declaration of the 'forest eleven' (Box 1) set a tone of 'sharing responsibility' and used the word 'commitment' in referring to the developed as well as the forest rich countries. In line with the sovereignty of nations, there will be considerable scope for countries participating in REDD to set rules for engagement within their domains, and restrict or support direct linkage between administrations, actors and sectors with international agents. However, the primary performance criteria for emission reduction will have to be measured and accounted for at national scale, and this will be influenced by both positive and negative changes in emission rates at the level of land units.The emerging mechanisms will have to deal with two parts: voluntary (market-based or fund-based) options to get rewards for commitments to forego rights to emit (e.g. existing logging concessions, conversion forest use, peatland utilization), and strengthening of governance systems to deal with currently illegal emissions (e.g. due to logging beyond sustainable levels permitted, illegal use of deep peat soils, illegal logging, encroachment into protected areas). International agreements will be an essential step in the global chain to link current knowledge to action, but not enough by themselves.The conditionality (commitment as basis for international co-investment in transitions to sustainability) agreed at the national border, has to be disaggregated into smaller entities in a way that can address 'leakage' and 'additionality' concerns.Co-benefits tend to complicate the assessment of 'additionality' in A/R CDM (Leimona et al., 2006). Thus, the way 'additionality', i.e. the difference between emissions from deforestation and degradation under a 'business as usual' or reference level (RL) and those with specific REDD interventions, is interpreted in REDD mechanisms and payments will have to be scrutinized. To get an order of magnitude of the financial value potentially involved, we may assume that 60 out of the 110 million ha of Indonesian forest has been degraded and that thus the remaining forest as the object of REDD is only about 50 million ha. If we assume a reference scenario of 2.8 million ha of annual deforestation + degradation, different degrees of control and different prices of 'carbon emission reduction' credits, the potential yearly value for Indonesia can be USD 0.1-5 billion. This is certainly a large number. It provides reason to be in interested from a business perspective, from a taxation perspective, from an accountability and transparency perspective or from a social equity and fairness perspective. The reference scenario discussion provides a 'perverse incentive': the more negative the 'business as usual' scenario can be portrayed to be, the higher the potential financial gains. Hence, we can expect a lot of politicking at all scales.Emission reduction policies within countries that have Annex I status in the Kyoto protocol, are not specifically dependent on any definition of forest: the accountability and reporting regime cover all aboveground and belowground terrestrial carbon stocks and the changes in their status, and all activities that enhance or reduce these stocks. If not covered in one category, emissions or sequestration is covered in another.In non-Annex-I countries, by contrast, the term 'forest' and its derivatives 'deforestation', 'reforestation' and 'afforestation' have obtained special significance under the Kyoto protocol. In practice, however, these terms are still subject to considerable confusion because they refer in common parlance to multiple concepts:-current vegetation with trees (with formal definition of minimum area, tree crown cover and minimum size of 'tree' (Verchot et al., 2007b;Schoene et al., 2007); -cyclical processes of regeneration (with temporary absence of trees maintaining a 'forest' status of the land under certain conditions); -the type of tree (with certain woody perennials such as rubber, coffee, palms, bamboo) that otherwise meet the definitions excluded; -policy domains (Kawasan Hutan) that are based on former vegetation and linked with the jurisdiction of forestry departments.The UNFCCC and Kyoto protocol have followed a tradition set by FAO that defines forests by a combination of vegetation and institutional aspects:\"Forest\" is a minimum area of land of 0.05-1.0 hectare, with tree crown cover (or equivalent stocking level) of more than 10-30 %, with trees with the potential to reach a minimum height of 2-5 metres at maturity in situ. A forest may consist either of closed forest formations where trees of various storeys and undergrowth cover a high proportion of the ground or open forest. ([EB28 Rep,para36] as quoted in: Mizumo, 2007) In the combination of these concepts, we have ambiguous entities such as 'forestlands without trees' and 'nonforest lands with trees'. The Government of Indonesia (GoI) has allocated 110 million hectares of its land area to six forest functions, with differentiated restrictions on how above-and belowground resources can be used (Table 1.4). The government implements different management schemes and policies for each category of forest. Official statistics report an addition of one million hectares during the past five years. Meanwhile the farmer-managed agroforests and homegardens stay outside of the statistics, although they meet the international forest definition based on crown cover, and do represent nonnegligible carbon stocks (Roshetko et al., 2002;Tomich et al., 2002;van Noordwijk et al., 2005) Based on the types of restrictions on use we can distinguish four basic regimes that influence the legality of changes in forest condition: ! kawasan hutan -protective + conservation forest, with regulations against extraction of timber and disturbance of the vegetation and soils, but exceptions in the context of mining concessions with a strict regulations such as open-cast mine exploitation, environmental impact assessment, and reclamation. ! kawasan hutan -production forest, with logging regimes (sustainable selective logging or clear-felling and replacement by plantations) regulated by the Department of Forestry. ! kawasan hutan -convertible forest, with an expressed government intent to hand over control from the forestry department to local government, often in the context of commercial plantation concessions or transmigration sites (and associated 'land reform'). ! non-kawasan hutan forest, with commercial plantations and private/community management of natural forest, agroforest, homegardens and smallholder plantations.Across the different forest categories within the Kawasan Hutan there is a considerable range of policy instruments to share rights and responsibilities for forest use and maintenance between the State, private parties ('concessionaires') and local communities. These go by names such as Taman Hutan Rakyat (TaHuRa: protection forest, a form of province managed conservation forest), Hutan KeMasyarakatan (HKM, community based forest management, in production or protective forest) or Hutan Tanaman Rakyat (HTR, 'peoples plantations' on production forest).The incentives for protection or emission of terrestrial carbon stocks differ between these categories.As in other countries, there are (and have been) 'perverse incentives' against tree planting on nonkawasan hutan lands, as existing tree cover (regardless of the natural, managed or planted status of the trees) has been used as basis for legal control over the trees, and even ownership of the land.Land ownership is a key aspect of the legality of current activities that decrease terrestrial carbon stocks, with the primary legal basis established in the Constitution, the Agrarian law and the Forestry law. According to recent data from the Ministry of Forestry 9 , only 10% of Indonesia has completed the legal requirements to be considered Kawasan Hutan Negara; 53% is Kawasan Hutan with a contested legal status (and incomplete legal process of ownership verification), and 37% of lands are outside of the forest domain, controlled by the state, by state-sanctioned concessionaires, local communities or private land owners. Obtaining more clarity on the issues of land ownership and community versus state control of resources has been a recognized priority for conflict resolution and development. The REDD issue will add further weight to the resource rights question in Indonesia's designated forest areas. If REDD approaches are to succeed, new and more rapid methods must be developed to address the sensitive question of who has legal rights over which parts of the \"forest area\". In discussion on reducing emissions of greenhouse gasses the primary reference to deal with this confusion will have to be the emissions of gasses, directly linked to the changes in terrestrial carbon stocks in the case of CO 2 , the dominant gas under consideration.Forest use and land use change within the Kawasan Hutan is regulated by forestry authorities although different levels of government play different roles. Table 1.3 provides an outline of government roles for different forest types. The central government plays a part in planning, regulating and decision making. The central government together with provincial and district governments budget activities in the various forest categories. District and lower levels of government implement policies and deal directly with people and forests. All levels of government are involved in inter-sectoral coordination.9 Only 10% of the 120 million hectares classified as forest zone (kawasan hutan) has been demarcated through forest delineation process, leaving 108 million uncertain and undetermined as to the nature of rights attached and therefore resulting in questionable forest zone legally (Contreras-Hermosilla and Fay, 2005;Fay et al, 2000;World Bank, 2000). The forest degradation rate has been increasing substantially over the last twenty years, at an average of 1.8 million ha annually between 1985 and 1997, 2.6 million ha from 1998 to 2000, and 2.8 million ha after the year 2000. There is no sign that the many programs to combat illegal logging have succeeded in reducing the rate of degradation through improved forest governance or law enforcement. Indeed, the Minister of Forestry, M.S. Kaban has stated that a total of 60 million ha has been degraded in Indonesia due to illegal logging. 11Specific causes of and stakeholders in deforestation and degradation in Indonesia are shown in Tables 1.5 and 1.6. Apparently all levels of government, forest and logging companies, wood based industries, local communities and other sectors contribute directly and indirectly to deforestation and degradation (DD). Incentive payment distribution should consider these actors in order to reduce emissions from DD effectively. In combination of these processes, the patchwork of legal, semi-legal and illegal activities that currently drives the emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in Indonesia is complex (Lusiana et al., 2005). Even in countries where land ownership is clear, land use planning has been in operation for a long time and economic incentives for tree-based land use are clear, the introduction of new incentives for reducing global CO 2 emissions has lead to serious conflicts between the State and the private sector (Box 5). New Zealand has a strong and viable 'farm forestry' sector, using private lands for growing (pine) trees and sheep. The farmers/foresters and the government got locked in to a classical 'prisoner's dilemma': if the private sector does not cooperate there will be no national emission reductions, if the state does not ratify and comply with the international agreements, there will be no market outlet for emission reductions. Analyzing the case of New Zealand may help us understand the complexity of the issue for implementing REDD in Indonesia with efficient and equitable sharing of benefits.Shortly after ratifying the Kyoto Protocol in December 2002, the Government of New Zealand announced that it would retain ownership of any credits or debits arising from Article 3.3 of the Protocol, from plantations established after 1990 on both public and private land. Prior to this announcement, private landowners had anticipated that carbon rights would be devolved to the landowner. Anticipation of additional revenue from carbon and other market factors resulted in unprecedented rates of new plantation establishment, culminating in a record high of 98,000 hectares established in 1994 (Figure Box 2-1).The 2002 decision to nationalise ownership of forestry credits removed carbon-finance related incentives for planting new forest. This and other market factors contributed to a significant decline in the area of new plantings, down to 5,000 hectares in 2006 -the lowest rate since 1959 (NZ Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, 2007). At the same time, approximately 12,800 hectares of forest land were not replanted, resulting in a net decline in New Zealand's production forest area -an outcome in direct conflict with the Government's greenhouse gas reduction targets. The policy was strongly opposed by New Zealand's forestry industry. The debate centered around the concept of forest carbon as a property right, with the industry group Kyoto Forestry Association (KFA) arguing that landowners had the right to own carbon sequestered on their own land. In response to lobbying by the KFA, forest industry and environmental groups, the issue became heavily politicized and New Zealand's major political parties formed alternative policy positions on forest carbon devolution mechanisms. Following a series of consultations, the Government effectively reversed its policy in September 2007, announcing the structure of a new emissions trading scheme for New Zealand in which forest carbon credits and associated liabilities would be devolved to forest owners. Participation in the emissions trading scheme would be optional for post 1990 forest owners, and the Government would retain the credits and liabilities of post-1990 forest owners that do not participate in the scheme. In line with the rules for Kyoto, pre-1990 forests will not be eligible to earn credits but would accrue debits if converted to non-forest. The Government plans to allocate free emissions credits to pre-1990 forest owners to cover this liability. Grants will also be offered for afforestation. The Government hopes this suite of new policies will help incentives new plantings, and reverse New Zealand's rate of deforestation, while contributing towards its greenhouse gas reduction target. Legislation to establish property rights for forest carbon is a critical step to commoditise forest carbon and thereby facilitate trade. Assigning property rights to forest carbon allows the atmospheric benefits provided by the forest to be sold separately from the forest and the land itself. In some cases, carbon property rights can also define ongoing forest management responsibilities, and liability in the event of forest carbon loss. In other cases, these responsibilities and liabilities are addressed via contractual law.Forest carbon rights are usually registered on the land title, and ideally should be perpetually enforceable against all future owners of the forest land. In some cases however, establishment of long term carbon rights (eg: 100 years) may be more feasible.Australia has led the way internationally in the development of forest carbon rights legislation. In 1998, the state of New South Wales in Australia created the world's first official carbon legislation, with the introduction of the Carbon Rights Amendment Bill. The bill enabled forest owners to legally separate ownership of the carbon, trees and land by an amendment to traditional profit à prendre rights, established under the Conveyancing Act 1919 (S 88AB). Profit à prendre is defined as the right to take or profit from something (in this case, the atmospheric benefits of sequestered carbon) from another person's land. As a perpetual encumbrance on the land title, profit à prendre rights were considered ideal for carbon rights legislation, since they establish a legal liability for future reemission of the forest carbon, thereby addressing the permanence issue.Other states in Australia have followed the lead of New South Wales in establishment of carbon ownership legislation. For example:! In Victoria an amendment to the Forestry Rights Act 1996 (S. 12) establishes the \"right to commercially exploit carbon sequestered by trees\"; ! In South Australia, the Forest Property Act 2000 (S 3A) states that \"The capacity of forest vegetation to absorb carbon from the atmosphere is a form of property (a \"carbon right\") ..:\" and \"a carbon right attaches to the forest vegetation … and ownership of the right passes with ownership of the forest vegetation unless (otherwise sold)\"; ! The Western Australia Carbon Rights Act 2003 (S 5-15) establishes a carbon rights as an \"interest in the land\" and that \"A proprietor of a carbon right has the legal and commercial benefits and risks arising from changes to the atmosphere that are caused by carbon sequestration and carbon release occurring in or on land in respect of which the carbon right is registered.\"In the absence of carbon rights legislation, a legal definition of carbon as a tradable commodity must be established between relevant stakeholders via a contract on an individual project basis. These contracts often require significant legal input and can be quite expensive to prepare and therefore, the transaction costs are very high.A full list of Australian legislation, including carbon rights legislation, can be accessed at: http://www.austlii.edu.au/.Finally, REDD as currently discussed provides an opportunity to work on the interface of three circles: global concern over climate change and GHG emissions, global/national concerns about poverty, sustainable development and Millennium Development Goals and largely national concerns about institutions for forest management (Fig. 1.11). In the interface of these three agenda's, we would expect to find pro-poor, community-friendly forms of REDD. However, three domains that match only two of the three circles are important for consideration: A. a 'forestry REDD' version that ignores concerns of 'forest people' and traditional managers of forest mosaic landscapes (Griffiths, 2007), B. forms of community-based forest management that let C stocks decline, and C. opportunities for emission reduction from land uses not covered by REDD (including peatland and forms of agroforestry).Forest people interests ignoredModalities other than REDD needed A test case for the emerging mechanism for Indonesia will be the degree to which it can contribute to 'Peace on the Forest Margins' -this may require the type of effort that deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, but there is enough at stake for all stakeholders to justify thinking outside of the institutional boxes.While there is considerable overlap between the 'mitigation' and 'adaptation' agenda's of the international climate debate, especially where trees can play a role in both (Verchot et al., 2007a, Kandji et al., 2006), overall concepts such as transitions to sustainability have to take prominence over mechanisms that deal only with a subset of the bigger issue at stake and risk providing perverse incentives outside of their direct sphere of influence. Figure 1.12. Nesting of the scales at which the management and use of any forest or peatland patch interacts with global net greenhouse gas emissions, and the scales at which leakage, additionality, permanence and risk can be addressed To make the system work, the interactions across the horizontal scales (neighbouring land areas), the vertical scales (governance hierarchy) and temporal scales (short, medium, long term) need all to be addressed (Murdiyarso and Herawati, 2005;Murdiyarso and Skutsch, 2006). The concepts leakage, additionality and permanence in essence refer to these three types of scale transitions, respectively, but they also be considered as resting with local, intermediate and national scale stakeholders in the governance hierarchy. A major challenge in this regard is that the longer term transitions to sustainability (or 'permanence' agenda) needs to connect between local scale 'visions' of desirable futures (Evans et al., 2006) and formal economic and spatial planning procedures at intermediate and national levels of government. While current articulation at international level may be overly dramatic ('sustainability or collapse': Constanza et al., 2007), there is a clear agenda connecting all current global debates on trade, development, environment and conflict resolution.With a number of recent empirical studies of the relationship between poverty, inequity and pressures on forest resources (Miyamoto 2006a(Miyamoto , 2006b ; ;Sunderlin et al., 2007 ;Suyanto et al., 2007 ) existing paradigms of simple relationships between forests and poverty are seriously challenged (Chomitz, 2006;Tacconi, 2007).If Indonesia is to reduce its net emissions from deforestation and degradation of forests and peatlands, and on that basis access international REDD funds or markets, it will have to achieve progress on a number of challenges that relate to the four principles identified in section 1.1. where the global fund can be used to build capacity and provide initial investment, while the market can -provide a performance-based follow up. 4) There still is considerable ambiguity in 'tree cover' versus 'institutional' definitions of forest as the basis for REDD eligibility and A/R CDM applications. A considerable part of the land covered with trees falls through the cracks. 5) A considerable part of the CO 2 emissions of the past 15 years has been illegal or 'semi-legal' at best. Accepting this as part of a 'baseline' can lead to a moral hazard problem. High emissions in defiance of rules also shows that a purely rule-based approach has a poor track record and that more performance-based mechanisms are necessary. 6) With essential roles played at local, local government, private sector, national government, private sector C REDD credit buyers and international regulators, the resulting mechanism will have to provide tangible benefits at all levels or fail; as a complex version of a 'prisoners' dilemma, this requires extraordinary effort to think and act outside of the box of vested interests for all global stakeholders 7) Within both 'market' and 'fund allocation' versions, there is likely to be a tradeoff between 'efficiency' and 'equity/fairness' if performance is measured against a negative baseline of declining C stocks; the tradeoff will need to be managed to secure both measurable emission reduction and long term incentives towards a low emission future. Experience with both 'fund' and 'market-based' approaches exists across the forest and land use spectrum in Indonesia; this experience needs to be reviewed and synthesized (see part II of this study) before options for institutional design can be analyzed (part III of this study) 8) The value chain for REDD at national scale ends at the 'production' of tradable certificates of emission reduction. These are 'commodities' for international trade. However, many steps are needed to produce them, with the focus shifting from local to national scales. The institutions needed to deliver CER's will have to effectively link local to intermediate and national scales. 9) The objective of REDD payment distribution mechanisms is to support policies and measures that reduce deforestation and degradation through transfer of revenues from international REDD funds or carbon markets to (or within) national levels. This will (potentially) provide benefits of three types: a) Shared responsibility for reducing a major driver of global climate change, b) Financial payments and co-investment that exceed the economic opportunities foregone, and c) Co-benefits through the other environmental service functions that wellmaintained forests can provide. 10) To ensure demonstrable results on emission reduction, these mechanisms must be effective in targeting the wide range of agents involved in deforestation and degradation. They must reward good performance and incentives for improved performance compared to reference scenarios, and adequately compensate agents that suffer losses from changed practices. 11) International payments are likely to be performance-based, both in terms of emission reduction at national scale and the environmental and social impacts of the system, meaning that accountability, transparency, risk management, adequate benefit transfer and administration mechanisms will be essential for attracting investment. 12) Indonesia will be effectively competing for attention and REDD funds with other countries with currently high emissions and/or large forest areas. A strong international 'bargaining position' requires that internal conflicts and strategic positioning be overcome.In This chapter provides lessons on how fund and market-based incentives have been created and distributed in Indonesia in relation to forest management and maintenance of environmental services. These lessons can be used to develop scenarios for REDD fund payment mechanisms and market incentives that 1) are efficient in reducing emissions at affordable cost, linking local to international scales in ways that are accountable for emissions but that are as simple as possible, 2) address 'climate justice', equity and fairness, within improved systems of governance and accountability from local to international scales, 3) support transformations to sustainability for the long term within the local context of options and aspirations, and 4) express a commitment to learning and accountability for the process. Law No 41/1999 provided the general framework for forestry regulation; Law 32/2004 set out the shared authority between local and central government over various governmental affairs, including forestry, while in Law No. 17/2004 Indonesia ratified the Kyoto Protocol As funds from carbon credits might be part of deconcentration funds or shared finance, the payment distribution will also be affected by Law 33/2004 on revenue sharing, Law 58/2005 which laid out rules for local governments to manage and administer funds they receive from various sources, and No. 34/2000 on local taxation and retribution.A number of Indonesian laws (Undang-Undang -UU) and government regulations (Peraturan Pemerintah -PP) implicitly mention environmental services (ES) or Jasa Lingkungan. For example, the UU No. 5/1990 described that conservation forests provides ecosystem benefits and it provides guidance how to utilize such benefits. Nevertheless, it does not regulate clearly the zones for these purposes. On the other hand, UU No. 41/1999 and PP No. 34/2002 also have framed environmental service issues explicitly. UU No. 41/1999 about Forestry pointed out that individual, cooperation, private and state-owned company can utilize environmental services at protection and production forests by applying ES utilization permit. PP No. 34/2002 operationally followed up this UU. This PP No. 34/2002 has some limitations such as (1) limited scope of environmental services regulated; (2) the District governments are the only authorized body that can give permits. This might cause inflexibility of management and difficulties in cross-scale integration at provincial and national scale; (3) size of forest areas and length of permits are uniform for all utilizations; (4) voluntary private schemes have not been accommodated. Furthermore, there is no regulation directing ES issues for community forests.The paragraphs above show that there is no regulation yet for coordinating the environmental service issues of forest lands in Indonesia. The Ministry of Forestry has initiated development of an academic draft for such ES regulation. The scope of this draft includes protection, production, conservation and community forests. Three institutions noted in this draft: managing, financing and intermediary organizations. The managing organization would function to implement their action plan for all ES in their unit management, to evaluate feasibility their operation and to raise funds. The sources of funds are (1) government funding (APBN/APBD, DAK, DR, Dana GERHAN, etc.); (2) carbon trade through CDM, REDD or other carbon market mechanisms; (3) corporate social responsibility funds from companies; (4) voluntary community funds. This managing organization can be local community institution, national/provincial joint ventures, cooperation, privates, national park managers or other newly established institutions as needed. The financing organization can function as a fund and investment manager. The last one is the intermediary organization to bridge between managing organization and donors.Whether 'fund' or 'market' based, the benefit sharing mechanism will have to provide for tangible benefits at the local level, provide positive reason for local -district -provincial and national governments, as well as private sector with existing use rights and private sector operators with obligations to reduce net emissions. Given the layers of players involved, this may be a tall order. The 'value chain' will add consecutive layers of 'transaction costs'. The question is what value-added the higher scales can provide.Forests have played a major role in Indonesia's economy and its industrial development. Under a centralized government during the New Order era, forests were used to reduce the country's dependency on foreign earnings from oil and gas. They also provided important direct revenues for the central government for financing general governmental services especially in the forestry sector and for financing reforestation and replanting of degraded forest areas. Forests were also important sources for financing improvements in the welfare of low paid military and police officers (Barr, 2004). Under the Reform era, Indonesia's already degraded natural forests continue to play an important role in financing local economic growth. In this era regional governments have more autonomy in promoting local businesses and they look at forests as resources for improving local economies and increasing their own-source revenues (PAD).The two main sources of central government revenue from forests have been Forest Resource Rent Provision (PSDH) and Reforestation Funds (DR). Before introducing the government Non-tax State Revenue (PNBP) in 1997, the Ministry of Forestry managed all these funds and the President had discretionary power over their use, especially DR. Since the Reform era, all of these funds are paid directly to the Ministry of Finance.Under good governmental financial management, timber revenues should be part of the annual state budget (APBN) and should be managed transparently and accountably. In the past, timber revenues, especially DR were recorded as non-budgetary funds, and their management was far from being transparent and accountable. The central government can tell the amount of its annual timber revenue receipts, but it has trouble producing information on balance of the funds, who they were paid by, or where and when they were paid. Such practices have led to corruption and misuse of funds. Instead of spending DR for reforestation, the fund has been used to finance many things over the years, including developing Indonesia's aerospace industry.In the autonomy era, demands are increasing for transparency and accountability in the government's management of timber revenues. Under the fiscal balancing law, regional governments receive a share of the funds, which are an important source of financing for regional government expenditure. With the current government accounting system, it is difficult to assess how appropriate the fiscal balancing and revenue sharing of these timber revenues is.If the timber revenue system functioned as described in regulations it would be possible to estimate the size of annual timber revenues and to monitor the actual amounts received annually by the central government. It would also be easy to monitor how much each district/municipality contributes annually, and distinguish between timber revenue originating from DR and PSDH. A properly functioning timber revenue system is fundamental to the efficient and effective sharing of timber revenues with regional governments.In reality, the timber revenue system has not functioned properly, particularly in the regional autonomy era. District/municipal heads selected by local legislative assemblies (DPRD) or directly by local communities neither report to nor are accountable to the Minister of Forestry or the Minister of Finance. There are no sanctions for not filing the monthly timber revenue payment reports obliged by the law. Consequently, heads of contributing districts/municipalities send no reports to the ministers. It is therefore extremely hard to trace exactly how much districts/municipalities contribute to government revenues from the forestry sector. This practice has significant implications on revenue sharing calculations as discussed below, and in the long-term on the quality of forest management in contributing districts/municipalities. The central government has to share the timber revenues collected with provincial and district/municipal governments. The mechanism used to share the timber revenues is known as a balancing fund. The central government not only shares timber revenues with regional governments, but also other central government revenues such as land tax, personal tax, mining revenues, etc.A 60% (sixty percent) share of revenue from Reforestation Funds (DR) goes to the central government and the remaining 40% (forty percent) goes to contributing districts/municipalities. Prior to 2005, DR was shared with regional governments through Special Allocation Funds (DAK) in the same ratio.To secure its 40 percent share of DR revenue, the provincial government of the contributing districts/municipalities must submit annual forest and land rehabilitation proposals. The provincial government then coordinates forest and land rehabilitation activities in all contributing districts and municipalities in the province. For example, Jambi province used the following criteria and weights for DAK-DR allocation in Jambi (a) projection of receiving DR by districts (30%); (b) Forest degradation and critical land level in priority watershed catchments (20%); (c) damage level of watershed ecosystem (30%); (d) continuity of reforestation and land rehabilitation (10%); and (e) institutional capacity (10%).Contributing districts/municipalities must use the 40 percent share of DR revenue for forest and land rehabilitation in accordance with rehabilitation plans agreed on by the stakeholders in the district/municipality. 13 The funds must be deposited in Forest Development accounts in the name of the district head or mayor of the municipality. They are then distributed via bank accounts in the form of loans to corporate bodies, forest farmer groups, or cooperatives. They cannot be used for rehabilitation support activities.The Central government's 60 percent share of DR revenues should be deposited in a Forest Development account in a bank determined by the Minister of Finance. Interest on the account should be transferred to the state treasury and used for forest and land rehabilitation activities. The Minister of Forestry and the Minister of Finance then develop a five-year forest and land rehabilitation plan, which is financed by the forest development fund. The fund is also used for providing loans to corporate bodies, cooperatives, and forest farmer groups for undertaking forest and land rehabilitation. The Minister of Forestry will propose distribution of DR loans to the Minister of Finance.Contributions from Forest Exploitation Rights (IIUPH) and Forest Resource Rent Provision (PSDH) are divided at a ratio of 20% (twenty percent) for the central government and 80% (eighty percent) for the region concerned. DBH is the 80% regional share of IIUPH and should be divided at a ratio of 16% (sixteen percent) for the province and 64% (sixty-four percent) for the contributing district/municipality. DBH is the regional share from PSDH and should be divided 16% (sixteen percent) for the province, 32% (thirty-two percent) for the producing district/municipality, and 32% (thirty-two percent) distributed equally between other districts/municipalities within the province.13 Government Regulation No.35/2002 on the Reforestation Fund Based on a conservative calculation of timber consumed by wood industries in 2004 using the lowest rate for DR of USD 13 per m³, we would expect the central government to have collected about USD 447.52 million or IDR 4 trillion in DR revenues that year. The Ministry of Forestry only collected IDR 2.8 trillion or 70 percent of this figure. In another words, the Ministry of Forestry and Ministry of Finance failed to collect 30 percent of DR payments in 2004. Although this study was initiated with the Ministry of Finance, the ministry is unable to provide data on timber revenues.A similar amount went uncollected in 2005; the central government should have collected USD 393.6 million or IDR 3.5 trillion from DR that year, yet only managed to collect IDR 2.5 trillion or 70 percent of potential revenue based on actual timber production.The central government seems to have faired better at collecting PSDH. Using the lowest rate of IDR 30,000 per m³ for PSDH, the central government should have collected IDR 1.01 trillion in 2004. In fact, the Ministry of Forestry collected IDR 1.1 trillion. In 2005 however, the central government failed to collect the full amount of potential timber revenue from PSDH; it should have collected IDR 900 million but only collected IDR 653 million or 73 percent.As suggested earlier, timber production used in this analysis is a conservative figure collected and estimated by the Ministry of Forestry, which has no access to timber produced and used by wood industries supported by local governments. Therefore, the amount of uncollected timber revenues was probably a lot higher than 30 percent.With this poor performance collecting and sharing timber revenues, we should also expect an equally poor performance spending DR funds on rehabilitation and reforestation programs. Controlling spending is much harder that controlling timber revenues as spending for rehabilitation and reforestation programs involves millions of people. Many reports have suggested the misuse of DR funds due to corruption and inappropriate seedlings for tree planting. Late payment of rehabilitation program funds provides a key opportunity for misappropriating DR funds; government officials can say the timing of the payment was inconsistent with planting timing, and governments have to spend their budgets if they do not want to be considered incompetent.The steady decline of commercially viable forest estates over the last few decades clearly shows that unsustainable forest management has been the prevalent practice in five major islands of Indonesia (Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku and Papua). The number and area of forest concessions declined sharply from 582 concessions (Hak Pengusahaan Hutan, HPH) with a total area of 62 million ha in 1994, to 285 HPHs covering 27.72 million ha in 2005. Timber production also decreased sharply from 22 million m³ to 5.72 million m³ over the same period (Prasetyo et al., 2007). Diminishing the number of forest concessions would lead to increasing numbers of abandoned and open access loggedover forest. Forest without clear management and ownership would potentially lead to further degradation and deforestation.As indicated by Kartodihardjo and Priyono (2000), data from the Ministry of Forestry and Estate Crops show that as of June 1998, 69.4 million ha of forest area had been allocated to 651 HPHs. Of this total area 34 million ha (49%) were managed by 291 HPHs in their first term of operation (first 20years) and 35.5 million ha (51%) managed by the 359 other HPHs, whose first term concession rights had expired. In 1998, forest degradation resulting from HPH operations had reached 16.57 million ha. This area would be rehabilitated, changed to different land use categories, and reserved for other uses. More than 21 HPHs with a total area of 1.91 million ha converted into forest plantation, transmigration, and agricultural land. According to Chowdhury (2006), in Indonesia proximate causes of forest change also include smallholder agricultural expansion (World Bank, 1990;Indrabudi et al. 1998) in addition to tree crop production, oil palm estates (Dove, 1993;Osgood, 1994;Chomitz & Griffiths, 1996;Casson, 2000), timber extraction and conversion to industrial plantations (Angelsen, 1995;Fuller & Fulk, 2001;Dennis & Colfer, 2006).In the simple scheme, production forest is not convertible for other land uses, although it can be converted to intensive tree plantations. In practice, however, part of the ex-HPH areas has been legally converted to other land uses. These conversions show that a focus on 'convertible forest' as target for REDD with clear 'additionality' (because this forest was slated for conversion) can only be acceptable if 'leakage' to other forest categories is controlled.Source: Kartodiharjo and Supriyono, 2000.In the New Order era, the Indonesian government and particularly President Soeharto supported the development of industrial timber plantations hoping to become the world's largest producer of industrial timber plantations and pulp. To facilitate sources of wood for pulp companies, the government provided them with soft loans to accelerate timber plantation development. The soft loans included non-interest bearing loans and direct investments in the companies. Unfortunately, the scheme was mismanaged resulting in a number of people being prosecuted and sent to jail. The fund was used to finance development of Indonesian national airplane, non forestry projects, and unsuccessful timber plantation projects involving mark-up planting areas.Despite its bad experience managing incentives for industrial timber plantations, the Ministry of Forestry has continued with a new program. Using an improved state financial mechanism, it established the Forest Development Payment Centre (P3H). P3H is managed using the new Public Service Agency (Badan Layanan Umum -BLU) state budget management mechanism. BLU are agencies at echelon II level in any government office tasked with managing budgets in a more businesslike manner. They have to produce the financial and accountability reports usually required by state-owned companies. Accordingly, the BLU has flexibility in utilising its revenues and spending its budget wisely. The BLU system is still new and has yet to be tested in the forestry sector. The risk of repeating a past mistake appears to be looming.The Ministry of Forestry has recently introduced the Community Plantation Forest (Hutan Tanaman Rakyat, HTR) program to provide local people, especially farmers with access to production forests and cheap funding. Using the BLU mechanism, the Ministry of Forestry will provide local communities with rights and funding to produce plantation forests specifically for supplying pulp industries. The same risk, even higher, applies to this program too.Under this new policy, the government will establish 9 million hectares of new timber plantations in Sumatra and Kalimantan by 2016 (Sinar Harapan. 2006;Agro Indonesia, 2007a). Of this, approximately 5.4 million hectares will be allocated for HTR, whereas the remaining 3.6 million hectares will be developed as industrial timber plantation estates HTI (Hutan Tanaman Industri) (Agro Indonesia 2007f, g;Sugiharto, 2007a, b, c).The main component of this new policy, HTR plantations, will result in the allocation of 3.7 million hectares of land in Kalimantan and 1.7 million hectares in Sumatra (Sugiharto 2007d). Over the next four years (2007)(2008)(2009)(2010), the Indonesian government will distribute 1.4 million hectares of land annually to approximately 90,000 families on both islands. It is expected that once productive, these new plantations will produce enough raw material not only to close the current supply-demand gap, but also to allow for new capacity growth in the forestry sector (Kompas, 28 April 2006). Over the 10-year period (2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016), the HTR plantation program will cost approximately IDR 43 trillion (USD 5 billion) and is expected to generate employment for over 1.5 million people in rural areas (Agro Indonesia, 2007a;Bisnis Indonesia 2007;Sugiharto, 2007a;Sinar Harapan 2007).The Indonesian government realizes that getting a mega plantation development program of this scale off the ground will require a major incentives package. As of July 2007, the government authorities have put together the following set of incentives in order to stimulate the development of HTR plantations: # Vast areas made available for plantation development. The MoF has allocated 1.7 million hectares and 3.7 million hectares of degraded forest, defined as Logged-over Forest (LOF), for HTR in Sumatra and Kalimantan respectively (Akbar 2007). These LOF areas are located mainly in current or former logging concessions of the state forestry companies PT Inhutani I-V. These companies will play the leading role in the HTR program (Agro Indonesia 2007f, g, h); van Noordwijk et al. ( 2007), however, found that there are major inconsistencies between areas indicated for HTR and the situation oin the ground. Large areas of community-managed agroforests in North Sumatra are now targeted for HTR development, although they already have a productive and profitable tree cover. # Streamlined project design. The HTR program will be implemented mainly through HTR-Developer (HTR-D) schemes whereby timber plantation companies run plantation projects for the first 8 years and subsequently distribute parts of the planted areas to participating communities for a management cycle of up to 60 years (Agro Indonesia 2007c, h;APHI 2007;DJBKP 2007;Sugiharto 2007d;Widyantoro 2007 ). # Simplified license application procedures. Verification of the degraded nature of LOF in proposed HTR project sites will be carried out by the applying concessionaries themselves (e.g. PT Inhutani I-V) (Agro Indonesia 2007b). HTR permits will be issued by district (Kabupaten) authorities (Agro Indonesia 2007d). Provincial institutions (governors) will be involved in cases where HTR projects cover more than one district. # Funding facilities. HTR-D license holders will be able to use the available natural timber stock in project sites as collateral for commercial bank loans (Koran Tempo, 2 August 2006). They will also be able to access the government HTR fund of USD 5 billion, derived from the Reforestation Fund (DR), for the period of 2007-2016(Sugiharto 2007a, g), g). HTR-D licensees will also be able to benefit from project joint-ventures involving direct foreign investment (Sugiharto 2007f). # Tax exemption. HTR-D plantation ventures will be afforded an 8-year grace period on DR loans taken from the MoF (Sugiharto 2007a). # Simplified operational procedures. The transport of HTR-D timber will not require SKSHH (Surat Keterangan Sahnya Hasil Hutan) legality certificates (Bisnis Indonesia, 11 May 2006). Instead, a company invoice (faktur) will be sufficient. The companies will also employ a newly approved silvicultural system called TPTII (Tebang Pilih Tanam Intensif Indonesia, Indonesian Selective Cutting, and Intensive Planting System) which will allow for more efficient extraction and replanting.While it is widely accepted that timber plantations are necessary for the long-term sustainability of Indonesia's forestry sector and that timber plantations are crucial for Indonesia to benefit from carbon credits either through CDM or REDD, the plan to develop 5.4 million hectares of HTR timber plantations by 2016 is fraught with problems. Among key problems are the following:# Possibility of extensive deforestation. While the officially stated objective of the HTR policy is to rehabilitate degraded forest, it is likely that in practice this will mean the replacement of the residual natural forest cover with fast-growing softwood species. Among most critical issues here is the fact that the term \"degraded forest\" is equated with \"Logged-over Forest\" (LOF, or Hutan Bekas Tebangan) (Akbar 2007;Sugiharto 2007d). This is very significant because an LOF is for the most part still a closed-canopy forest with substantial volumes of commercial and noncommercial timber (standing stock). # Furthermore, the simplified verification process of the forest cover in proposed HTR project sites by the concessionaries themselves increases the likelihood that the status of good quality production forest will be downgraded for HTR concessions. # Finally, the application of the TPTII silvicultural method, which is in many ways similar to an earlier system called TPTJ (Tebang Pilih Tanam Jalur, Selective Cutting and Row Planting) means that mechanized logging will be undertaken in strips every 15 meters, essentially removing the standing tree cover all together. # Limited tenure incentives and uncertain economic feasibility of community timber plantations. The MoF has heralded the 5.4 million ha HTR program as a breakthrough for rural communities in Indonesia in terms of land tenure (Djadjono 2007). The initial drafts of HTR policy envisioned both independent (family) and village (cooperatives) based timber plantations projects, where DR loans would be made available directly to the grassroots (Agro Indonesia 2007c). It was also proposed that communities would enjoy landuse rights for up to 100 years (Van Noordwijk et al. 2007).In practice, however, concessionaire dominated HTR-D has become the model of choice and the community landuse rights have been trimmed to 60 years. In addition to diminishing community tenure incentives, there are also major questions about the economic feasibility of community timber plantations -especially those growing fiber for pulp and paper mills (Sugiharto 2007i).There are indications that community timber plantations can only make a profit if the plantation softwood is used by the high-end segment of the wood-working sector (e.g. furniture), or if intercropping with other agricultural produce or hardwood timber species is undertaken (Van Noordwijk et al. 2007;Widyantoro 2007).# Lack of transparency in the application procedure. Since verification of the degraded nature of LOF in proposed HTR project sites will be carried out by the applying concessionaries themselves (e.g. PT Inhutani I-V) (Agro Indonesia 2007b), this will essentially constitute \"self-approval\" and may lead to irregularities. # Limited capacity of local government institutions to effectively manage the HTR program.While deconcentration of decision-making power in Indonesia's forestry sector has been an important element of decentralization and regional autonomy in Indonesia over the last several years, it is important to draw lessons from past experiences with district/province level forest/timber utilization licenses. Between 1999 and 2003, a wide variety of such permits (e.g. IPPK, IPKTM, IPKMA) have been issued by local authorities in nearly all forested areas in Indonesia (Casson and Obidzinski 2002;Obidzinski and Barr 2003;Tokede et al. 2005;Barr 2006). Minimal oversight and communication breakdown between different levels of forestry administration had resulted in widespread abuse of these licenses for illegal logging and illegal timber trading, leading to their eventual cancellation. # Excessive subsidies and opportunities for rent seeking. While it is widely accepted that timber plantations anywhere in the world require some sort of financial support (e.g. Bull et al. 2006), HTR-D plantation licensees will be able to access at least four major sources of funding before planting a single tree. First, they can use the standing stock in the residual natural forest as collateral for commercial bank loans. Second, they can harvest the remaining hardwood timber and sell it either to pulp and paper or plywood/sawn timber mills. Third, HTR-D companies will be able to access USD 5 billion in DR loans and enjoy the 8-year grace period before repayment. Fourth, they will gain major benefits from direct foreign investment As a 'case study ' van Noordwijk et al. (2007) analyzed these maps and reports for an area in North Sumatra where we have done recent fieldwork: the Batang Toru watershed in Tapanuli Utara, Tapanuli Tengah and Tapanuli Selatan. We overlaid the map that indicated areas that could be used for HTR according to a recent FORDA report, with three other datasets in our geographic information system: -current vegetation based on an interpreted 2005 satellite image (the expectation was that most HTR would have a 'shrub' (semak/belukar) type of land cover, -indicative forest function (TGHK or RTRW), the expectation was that all HTR would be in 'production forest', -land ownership, with the expectation that HTR would be part of the Kawasan Hutan Negara, where the Ministry of Forestry has indeed the right to develop contracts such as HTR.In fact, all three expectations proved to be seriously in contrast with the data. There are indications, however, that the recently announced national policy to bridge the supplydemand gap in Indonesia's woodworking sector through a rapid expansion of timber plantations over the next 10 years may be on a crash course with the VPA process. It appears that the centrepiece of this timber plantation expansion policy (i.e. HTR), if implemented in its current form, may contradict the VPA framework on a number of counts and undermine the credibility of the VPA process both in the EU and in Indonesia.  From 2004From -2007, the rehabilitation areas will amount to 500,000, 600,000, 700,000 and 900,000 hectares per year consecutively.The budget for GERHAN was provided by the government, amounts to more than one trillion rupiahs at the beginning and continued to increase. Thirty four percent of this is for seedling procurement, 56 % for planting and land conservation building (dams, terracing etc.,), and 10 % for a supporting fund. However, the government is not the only source for funding. Other funding comes from grants, debts for nature swaps, carbon trade, commercial companies, and land owners are also encouraged. GERHAN emerged in 2003 because the government believes that catastrophes such as floods, landslides and long dry seasons are primarily caused by up river deforestation. Forest areas in the upper rivers are no longer able to function as water filtration and catchments. Rehabilitation is the only way to reduce the magnitude and frequency of these catastrophes.The Coordinating Minister of Community Welfare decreed the governance of GERHAN through Decree No. 18/KEP/MENKO/KESRA/X/2003 for \"The guidelines for executing a national movement for the rehabilitation of both forest and land\" dated 3 October 2003. This decree acts as the guidelines for various stakeholder communities, private companies and the central and local governments in conducting and monitoring environmental improvement through rehabilitation and reforestation.GERHAN is arranged into three functions (coordination/advisory, control and implementation) and at three levels (national, provincial and district). The coordination function is only at the national level, that is undertaken by the Coordination Team for Environmental Improvement through National Rehabilitation and Reforestation (Tim Koordinasi Perbaikan Lingkungan Melalui Rehabilitasi dan Reboisasi Nasional or TKPLRRN). The controlling teams are located at the national level that is they are directed by the TKPLRRN secretariat that consists of 15 people from various ministries and army.At the provincial level the governor is responsible for controlling the implementation of GERHAN with support from the Controlling Team, at provincial level. This team comprises the provincial officials of forestry, environment, agriculture, public work, education, land use, army and police. The main duty of this team is to regulate, supervise, execute, monitor and report to the controlling team at national level. The implementation of GERHAN located at the district level, which is called Execution team of GERHAN at district level. The district mayor directs/manages this particular . However, the District Military Commandant directs the team in the practical execution of the GERHAN programme, with the Head of the District Forestry acting as the team secretary. Perhutani and INHUTANI (state own companies) and other related governmental institutions make up the team members. The main duty of the team is to execute/implement/manage/oversee GERHAN activities in the fields.The government reported that GERHAN had successfully planted 70.21%. of the planed tree plantings, in 15 provinces, up until the end of April 2004. However, some NGOs reported that there was little to no community participation at any levels. The planning was top down. The types of trees GERHAN has been planting do not meet the aspirations of the local communities and local farmers.The imbalance of information among stakeholders in GERHAN exists and can affect the control of money and material flows within GERHAN. In the money flow, the Forestry Unit, the Watershed Agency and companies play the most important roles in the field. The Watershed Agency buys seedlings indirectly from the companies via a tender system. The company, which wins the tender, delivers the seedlings to the Forestry Unit, under the quality assurance provided by universities. The Forestry Unit then delivers the seedlings to the farmer groups to be planted in the previously chosen fields. The question is who monitors this money and material flow and do they hold all information concerning this monitoring. This situation encourages 'rent-seeking' and 'free-riding' behavior, thus reducing the effectiveness of the program.GERHAN is a top agenda in government programmes. However, the current institutional setting of GERHAN creates an imbalance of information among its stakeholders and actors. There is a serious imbalance of information between the Forestry Unit and the community. This situation makes transparency and social movement on forest and land rehabilitation impossible (Purnomo 2006).Debt for Nature Swap (DNS) is a financial incentive provided by lenders (usually governments of developed countries) to borrowers (usually governments of developing countries) for reducing loan payments to lenders if borrowers are willing to invest their own local money on environmental projects including forestry projects. Developed countries have offered several forms of DNS mechanisms to the Indonesian government. However, only the DNS offer from the German government has secured its support.The German and Indonesian governments have agreed to reschedule loan payments of EUR 91 million and EUR 106 million. The first Debt swap agreement on the first loan package (EUR 91 million) was to swap EUR 25 million of loans with the IDR equivalent of EUR 12.5 million for an education project. The debt swap process on the first loan package then continued with forestry programs in several national parks in Sumatra including one in Mount Leuser National Park. The value of loans to be swapped with forest conservation is still small; the German and Indonesian governments have only agreed to swap about EUR 12.5 million in loans for EUR 6.25 million of forest conservation programs. The second debt swap program with the German government worth EUR 106 million also includes a forestry program.The German government DNS offer is winning the support of the Indonesian government due to its clear incentive feasibility and its simplicity. The Indonesian government should dedicate a budget only half the size of the proposed loans to be swapped for the purpose of forest conservation. There is no additionality in terms of funding and forest conservation activities to be eligible for this debt swap scheme.Securing the incentive is also simple; the Ministry of Forestry only has to submit a forest conservation proposal with budget support from the Ministry of Finance to enter the DNS scheme with the German government. The Ministry of Finance will then invite the German government or its representatives to discuss the proposal. If the proposal is approved, the Ministry of Forestry should undertake the activities agreed upon in the DNS contract. Before the loan can be reduced, an independent auditor will review the Ministry of Forestry's management of the project.Arguments suggesting the DNS schemes will have a negative affect on governments' ratings is not necessarily true, particularly if the DNS schemes are encouraged by lenders. The Indonesian government Ministry of Finance will not ask for DNS schemes in paying its financial obligations. However, if lender governments or groups of lenders are willing to apply DNS schemes to address two problems in most developing countries, i.e. large debts and environmental degradation, then a DNS scheme should not signal that a developing country has difficulty repaying its obligations. Furthermore, rating agencies consider the size of loans under DNS schemes to be immaterial.The Kecamatan Development Program (KDP) is a national Government of Indonesia program, implemented by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Community Development Office aimed at alleviating poverty, strengthening local government and community institutions, and improving local governance. KDP began in 1998 at a time of tremendous political upheaval and financial crisis. Currently, KDP is in its third phase, and is expected to run until 2009. The program is funded through government budget allocations, donor grants, and loans from the World Bank. It provides block grants of approximately Rp. 500 million to 1.5 billion (approximately US$50,000 to US$150,000) to sub-districts (kecamatan) depending upon population size. Villagers engage in a participatory planning and decision-making process to allocate those resources for their self-defined development needs and priorities. KDP focuses on Indonesia's poorest rural communities and operates under a number of principles:. A major innovation was the focus on bottom-up decision making on priorities for fund allocation, through a competitive process at local scale. Villages within a subdistrict have a chance to make their own case, with strict rules on transparency, accountability, requirements of co-investment (usually in the form of labour) and eligibility of cost types. Most of the investment so far has been made in local infrastructure (feeder roads, bridges), but local service provision is eligible as well. From 1998 to 2006, KDP has covered 34,233 of the poorest villages in Indonesia, covering approximately 49 percent of the entire 69,956 villages in the country.For the current REDD discussion, the governance mechanisms of the KDP can be of interest. Making additional funds available through KDP for 'green' objectives (such as REDD) can be an alternative to the use of BLU (Public Service Agency).Indonesia so far has one ongoing experiment in the 'conservation concession' domain. BirdLife Indonesia, with international support, has bought the concession rights for 55 years for the Harapan (= Hope) forest in Jambi and South Sumatra province. The forest block had been commercially logged but still has considerable conservation value -especially because lowland Dipterocarp forest is hardly represented in the protected area network of Indonesia, despite its high species richness. Without the intervention of a conservation agency the forest is very likely to loose all biodiversity value over the next 5-10 years through legal and illegal logging and conversion to timber plantations. The conservation concession is located in 'production forest' domain, but is explicitly used for 'ecological restoration' -with an option of sustainable low-impact logging after 20 years of restroration.In June 2004, as a result of the BirdLife initiative, the Indonesian Government issued the Minister of Forestry decree No. SK 159/Menhut-II/2004 on 'Ecosystem Restoration in Production Forests'. This regulation introduces a new type of license for the management of designated production forests -the license for ecosystem restoration. In September 2005, The Minister of Forestry declared an area of 101.355 ha in Jambi and South Sumatra Provinces (Sungai Meranti/Sungai Kapas Forest blocks) as an ecosystem restoration area in production forest (SK.83/Menhut-II/2005).The concessionaire is responsible for the normal taxes and fees for the area and provides the local and national government the revenues that could otherwise be expected from legal logging operations. It thus forms the most direct 'pioneer' of what a REDD mechanism would have to do to off-set the opportunity costs that forest use would otherwise bring to a considerable range of local and national stakeholders. The concessionaire also pays for the costs of protecting the area from external agents interested in logging or conversion of the forest. It tries to provide alternative employment in the local economy and thus off-set local stakeholders. The expectation of additional environmental service benefits plus the recovery of natural capital form the 'net benefit' that national stakeholders can expect to derive from this type of arrangement.Timber certification in Indonesia includes two main components, namely certification of sustainability of forest management and product certification (Chain of Custody-CoC), that allow you to trace the origin of wood raw material and that its status and qualifications meet sustainability standards by using third party independent auditors recognized by the Forest Stewardship council (FSC) and/or the Indonesian Ecolabelling Institute (LEI). At present there are some 1,046,000 ha of certified forests in Indonesia, of which some 147,000 have been certified under the LEI system. More than 700.000 ha are certified using both the FSC and LEI systems (Table 2.1). The potential benefits of certification can be divided into market benefits and non-market benefits. Market benefits of certification may include market share, a 'green' price premium and the stabilization of forest economies associated with increased security of a supply base (Sedjo and Swallow, 1999). However, evidence for this is less than convincing. Market studies in the United Kingdom and the United States have shown a potential market share of up to 19 percent, with a price increase of up to 13 percent (WWF, 1994;Winterhalter and Cassens, 1994).Some suppliers report price premiums ranging from 5% to 65% for certified tropical milled timber and plywood. However, the higher premiums refer to speciality retail products which represent only a small portion of the output of most mills. According to Simula et al. (2005), the management of a mill associated with the Indonesian concession PT Diamond Raya Timber in Riau Province, estimated that CoC (Chain of Custody) Certification led to an average 8% increase in wood product prices. This concession also granted by the Ministry of Forestry gave the company the privilege to self-approve its annual work plan and to harvest ramin (Gonystylus bancanus), which is listed as a protected species in Appendix 3 of CITES. Particularly significant for the company is the fact that it is not subject to reductions in annual allowable cut required by the national soft landing policy mentioned above.A study in East Kalimantan revealed that about 70% of timber products produced from this province are destined for Japan and China. As long as there is no tangible sign that these markets are introducing significant changes to their procurement policies in favour of verified and certified timber products, forest concessionaires and woodworking industries in East Kalimantan will probably continue to show reluctance towards certification. Moreover, legal and political instability in the province gives rise to conflicts among various levels of the government bureaucracy and results in business uncertainty. In this kind of environment, forestry companies struggle to maintain basic operations and have a difficult time planning for the long term. Forest concessionaires also point to the apparent unwillingness of international buyers to pay substantial premiums for certified timber as a factor that is hindering certification efforts in East Kalimantan. Interestingly, many concessionaires say they are not as interested in obtaining 'green premiums' as they are in having the bureaucratic red tape reduced.Indeed, the Indonesian government has put forth a number of administrative incentives to this effect. For example, companies in the process of being certified may maintain their original annual allowable cut instead of having it reduced as the government planned with its soft landing policy; they also have their annual work plans approved automatically. If maintained, such measures would indeed constitute a significant incentive in favour of certification, but government inconsistency in this and other areas is counter productive.In general, distortion in the certification incentive can be caused by: ! Unclear market demand/signals for legal versus illegal timber products, although strong signals are now coming from buyers and some governments in Europe and North America, and are beginning in Japan. There should be developed estimates of price premiums for legal timber and certified products that would represent an incentive for producers, if the market was found to be substantial. ! Demand for sustainable forest products does not necessarily translate to a willingness to pay for the additional costs of sustainable production ! Companies in Indonesia are less likely to respond to demand from companies that they are not trading with since there are significant costs and risks related to switching markets and the benefits are not always clear. ! Environmentally sensitive companies are mainly concerned about their reputations, and need assurance that the products they purchase are approved by activist NGOs in their home markets.The price of illegal timber is lower than legal timber, if there is limited or absent law enforcement. Buyers do not seem to tolerate a premium price of more than 5% for certified products, an insufficient margin to pay for certification costs (CCIF, 2002). Meanwhile the amount of premium price on products is defined by buyer preference. Upton and Bass (1996) cite evidence that 80 percent of consumers in U.K. and Canadian markets are willing to pay more for environmentally friendly commodities, while Stevens et al. (1998) reports a substantially smaller share revealed by industry members in the U.S.If demand for certified wood is small relative to overall demand, if the costs of certification are significant, and if the amount of new demand created by certification is modest, then the market is less likely to generate a price premium for the certified product, even if there are substantial numbers of consumers \"willing to pay\" a premium. However, to the extent that the costs of certification are small and certification with labelling creates significant new demand, the two-price alternative is increasingly likely to be generated by voluntary market activities.Forestry companies struggle to maintain basic operations and have a difficult time planning for the long term. They need sufficient support from government to remain in the forestry business. Otherwise they will get out of the business and shift to more profitable options that potentially contribute to forest degradation or deforestation such as plantations, oil palm or biofuel.There is a new paradigm in environmental policy to recognize and to reward for the provision of environmental services. A popular example is the 1996 forest policy reform in Costa Rica. This policy introduced a new concept in the form of payment for environmental services, based on the principle that the providers of the environmental service will receive payment to compensate them for the benefits that accrue to the Costa Rican society (de Camino et al, 2002). The intent of this policy is to increase income from forest production activities to make them competitive with alternative land uses. The National Forestry Financing Fund has been established as the main agency to administrate the fund. The major source of financing for the Fund comes from national sources (including a fuel tax) and from international agencies. This policy has been successfully implemented. The implementation of such kind of mechanisms, however, is limited in outside Latin America. Costa Rica is one of leading country, who has implemented PES, begin in 1996 with the dramatic change of forest policy reform, by recognizing the environmental services: mitigation of gas emission, protection of water resources, protection of biodiversity and scenic beauty.The government issued the forestry law no.7575. This law introduced a new concept that is a payment for environmental services, based on the principle that the provider of the services (Forest Owners) will receive payment to compensate them for the benefits provides to the Costa Rican society. Creation of the National Forestry Financing Fund (FONAFIFO).as a main agency that administrated the fund for environmental payments.Costa Rica has, among the tropical countries with a forest heritage, been a pioneer in providing incentives for 'forest owners' to voluntarily maintain their forest. This has become known as a 'payment for environmental services' or PES program, although there has been relatively weak conditionality and doubts have been raised over the 'additionality, or degree to which forests would be preserved anyway. Costa Rica has through various channels attempted to 'resell' the environmental services internationally, but has probably been most successful in portraying a 'green' image to the ecotourism world and benefit at national economy scale. Costa Rica is one of the forerunners in getting REDD on the international climate negotiation table.At least as relevant for the Indonesian context is the experience in Mexico, which has a complex land ownership history, land reform and role of local communities. The Mexican Government has initiated the Plan Vivo project (De Jong et al., 2007). The Plan Vivo) which is now selling voluntary carbon credits to national and international institutions and uses the funds to provide financial incentives and technical assistance to farmers interested to participate in the project. It avoids many of the procedural steps of A/R CDM and yet applies rigid rules for baselines, accountability and leakage (De Jong et al., 2005). It has several characteristics in common with the scenarios explored here for Indonesian landscapes. It uses a 'moderate degree of targeting', in which the sitespecific likelihood of forest conversion plays a role in the financial incentives, but incentives for long term conservation are also provided beyond the zone if immediate threat.In both Costa Rica and Mexico, the primary reason for forest conservation is a combination of watershed functions and unique biodiversity. The carbon side is used to attract finance, while the mechanism is explicit on the multifuncti0nality of the landscape (and avoids the associated pitfalls of 'additionality' proof by shifting C accountability to a larger scale).I n the Southeast Asian region initial work on developing environmental services market has begun. One example is the work carried out by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in building a consortium among the international and national research centres, government and non-government organizations and other interested parties to conduct action research for rewarding the upland poor in Asia for environmental services they provide (RUPES). This programme is funded by a grant from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The overall goal of the project is enhanced livelihood and resource security for poor upland communities in Asia. Improved livelihoods in this context refer to: improved food security, income and welfare of poor households and communities in upland areas; improved nutritional status; greater access to and control over the use of resources. The project objective (purpose) is proven institutional mechanisms for recognizing and rewarding poor farmers for the environmental services they provide. Appropriate methods for transfer payments to upland communities will be tested and monitored through action research.The terminology of Payments for Environmental Services (PES) suggests that there is at least one buyer, at least one seller, and a service to be sold (Wunder, 2005).There is considerable variation along at least seven important dimensions (van Noordwijk et al., 2006(van Noordwijk et al., , 2007a)):! the source of the payment (freely usable financial capital, investment in public services, trust funds for specified activities) ! the degree to which the 'buyer' and 'seller' make the agreements voluntarily, within the existing framework of rules and regulations (Box 11)In developing countries' and Latin American settings -specifically Costa Rican case, it is common that the smallest institution unit of ES providers is individual land owner. The purpose of this PES program is to encourage forest protection and management by paying forest owners for four environmental services provided by their forests: biodiversity, carbon, watershed management and landscape beauty. Simply no literatures mentioned involvement of local provider institution involved in the PES process.Compared to presented RUPES cases, farmer groups are perceived as the most optimal scale where a set of working rules are established in negotiating and complying the contracts. In this case, involvement in a RES scheme is only possible when an individual is a member of a farmer group and either ES intermediaries or buyers will negotiate at this level. Compliance at group level becomes one of monitoring indicators -in this case, the concept of 'tanggung renteng' from Cidanau case is an obvious example.Existing intersect or overlap of the interest of groups with those of the larger collective would drive the emergence of efficient institution. Focusing individuals' benefits and recognizing individuals' rights can support the establishment of efficient institution at local level, where farmer or community groups become the smallest unit of ES providers to negotiate.The RUPES case studies indicate that operational rewards for environmental service schemes involve multilayered institutions. At the bottom of this scheme, farmer groups or community institutions represent the ES sellers. Another layer of institutions also exists that usually mediate the transaction and regularly manage the budget. The common form of these institutions is multi-stakeholder ones, such as the watershed community forums at three sites in Indonesia or even local government institution. Some of these institutions have been formalized and others still informally operate.! the duration and contractual form of the relationship. The implementation of the reward for environmental services scheme involves conservation contracts between ES providers and ES beneficiaries. ES providers agree to manage an ecosystem according to a set of agreements and receive rewards (in kind or cash) conditional on compliance with the contract [Box 7 shows the process of endorsing a conservation contract with community and its contract elements. In developing a contractual agreement, the community should become the main actors who actively give inputs to the contracts. In addition to that, similar perceptions in understanding the contract should be built between stakeholders. This can be followed up by a series of trainings to ensure sufficient capacity of farmers in accomplishing the contracts.RUPES team facilitated an endorsement of land and water conservation contracts among private coffee farmers in Sumberjaya watershed, Lampung. Design of contract components were based on focus group discussion with coffee farmers in the target villages, which were designed to gather information on farmer preferences for soil conservation techniques and estimates of required labor investments.The contracts offered specified the following:Soil conservation activities # Sediment pits: 300 per hectare, standard dimensions size: 100x150x40 cm evenly distributed # Ridging: 50 percent of plot # Vegetation strips: surrounding pits and ridging # Maintaining all the land conservation structure above for a year. Payment schedule 50 percent at inception; 50 percent at one year contingent on performanceOne year with monitoring every three months; termination if 50% contracted activities not completed by midterm monitoring dateCancellation or non-compliance results in:# ineligibility for second payment installation # friction and conflict among community members # indication of corruption Force majeur provision for contract terms in the event of natural disastersThe period of the contract is one year. The activity would be monitored and evaluated by local forestry service extension workers accompanied by ICRAF staff every 3 months. The contract would be paid in two installments: 50% after signing the contract and 50% at the end of the contract in one year as suggested by the focus group discussions. The second installment of the payment would be withheld if they farmers broke the contract and performed poorly.In addition to that, a series of cross visits and field trainings were conducted as capacity building efforts to uniform their understanding on these techniques.Source: Leimona et al (2007) ! the conditionality of payments and service delivery (with conditionality expressed at the level of the service, the condition of the land cover, the activities of the 'seller' and or the communityscale management of the resources) ! the degree to which the agreements refer to specific cause-effect relationships that relate to the continuation of the service(s) (avoided degradation) and/or restoration ! the level of payment in relation to the opportunity costs (options forgone) for the seller and the costs of alternative provision of the service to the buyer [Box 8 shows a reverse auction as a tool for determining level of payment and allocating contract that is sufficient for farmers in involving in a conservation program.] ! the degree to which underprivileged (by wealth or gender) stakeholders (among buyers and/or sellers) are affected and included (degree to which mechanism can be considered to be of 'propoor')The incentives provided by the ES beneficiaries must be adequate to make providers able and willing to commit to biodiversity conservation. Many cases show that this process is based on voluntary commitment or negotiation among stakeholders. This approach may be weak due to asymmetric information held by each stakeholder group. It is also possible that an imbalance of power between ES providers and beneficiaries will lead to suboptimal agreements.Farmers will reveal their costs to participating in the conservation program while the program administrators will share their information about the significance of environmental assets that exist on farmlands. In practice, when the rewards or compensation offered to ES providers is lower than their opportunity cost or willingness to accept for participating in a conservation program, compliance with the contracts may be problematic. On the other hand, ES beneficiaries usually have a limited budget and wish maximize their environmental benefit gains. Therefore, to increase the effectiveness and sustainability of conservation contracting, a strong scientific basis is essential to designing viable contracts.Reverse auctions to elicit landholders' willingness to accept conservation contracts have been successfully implemented in the United States, Australia and Europe, and are growing in popularity in developing countries.Lessons show that the award of contracts on the basis of competitive bidding is a method frequently used in procuring commodities for which there are no well-established markets, such as in markets for environmental services. Conservation auctions are a method for allocating of conservation contract for private provision of environmental services, compensating individuals for the provision of public goods.In addition to ensuring that conservation contracts provide adequate incentives, auctions also present the potential to maximize the cost effectiveness of conservation funding. The competitive bidding nature of the auction under a fixed budget makes it in the farmers' best interest not to overstate their true costs, which would jeopardize their probability of winning the auction. Governments or the public sector can potentially play three roles in the interactions between sellers (providers) and buyers (beneficiaries) of ES. They can act as 1) buyer on behalf of 'downstream' stakeholders, 2) seller in international interactions, 3) intermediary or 4) market regulator. While different levels of the public sector or government can be involved in these different roles, a clear separation of roles is expected to be needed for transparency and for public control.The governments' primary role as 'marker regulator' needs to be reflected across a range of scales from the local community to the national scale, with international conventions as an umbrella for crossboundary issues. Depending on the degree and success of 'decentralization', the different levels of government may either support each other in this role across scales, or, more often, contest overlapping authorities and thus substantially add to the transaction costs.Unfortunately, much of existing regulation can be interpreted as not maximizing the overall efficiency, but at maximizing opportunities for rent seeking as intermediary (to help smooth out the pathway through a regulatory jungle). Where government entities that regulate also (intend to) operate as seller (e.g. forestry departments in applications of the 'clean development mechanism') public scrutiny of the conglomeration of roles is warranted (Figure 2 The first two categories of costs occur before the institutional arrangements for collaborative management of natural resource are made. Therefore, the first and second categories are referred as exante (investment) costs and ex-post (operational) costs for the third category.The overall transaction cost can be broken down into two components (1) transaction cost covering interactions between buyers and intermediaries (B!I) and (2) transaction costs covering interactions between sellers and intermediaries (S!I). Transaction cost of B!I will decrease as the scale of the intermediary increases. The reason is that larger scale intermediaries allow buyers to more easily deal with larger tracts of land or larger quantities of ES in single transactions. However, intermediaries will have more difficulties in dealing with larger numbers of individual farming household as ES sellers. Therefore, the I!S transaction cost will increase.We may expect that the total transaction costs are minimized at some scale of organization in between the two extremes. This is the 'optimum' scale of I from a buyer and seller perspective -it may, however, not be the optimum one from the business perspective of intermediaries or buyers who can control the process. Under certain circumstances and presumably buyer and intermediaries often have more bargaining power, a combination of two 'brokers', one representing buyers and one representing sellers may be more effective than a single one. When we separate the 'negotiation' and 'implementation' phases, we may expect that the I!S transaction cost is more strongly scale dependent, and as a consequence, the optimum scale of I shifts to the left.We can take lessons from company-community (CC) plantation forest partnerships to understand the mixed approaches to fund and market-based incentives particularly in community level payment distribution mechanisms. A partnership is also recognized as an out-grower scheme. Central and local governments endorse this type of partnership to reduce land conflict and improve local community livelihoods. A partnership is categorized as a fund-based approach because the company provides a corporate social responsibility (CSR) fund to establish a partnership on concession land. In the case of a partnership on community land, both parties work based on the principle of supply and demand to maximize their profits given the opportunity cost for the community.CC partnerships emerged from land disputes. Plantation forests in Indonesia are located on state land, some of which local communities had previously used to grow trees and crops to provide their primary source of income. Land disputes between local and customary communities and forest companies were suppressed by the military and local government during the Soeharto era (New Order regime, 1966-1998). Soeharto's resignation in May 1998 constituted the beginning of the movement by customary communities to demand their customary rights including communal land rights.The failure of forest owners and managers to prohibit user groups from exploitative extraction of forest resources has forced them to opt for a collaborative management approach, termed joint management (Kant and Nautiyal, 1994) or out-grower plantation forest schemes (Nawir et al., 2003). Conflicts between local communities and companies broke out over: (1) land appropriation processes; (2) environmental impacts; and (3) recruitment of employees (Sakai, 2002). The main reasons for forest companies establishing company-community partnerships are resolving conflicts and securing company plantations, while local communities expect to secure extra income, use companies' roads and utilize any unused land.The Musi Hutan Persada (MHP) acacia plantation located in South Sumatra, in operation since 1990, developed two partnership schemes with local community members in 1998 to resolve land use issues and secure the MHP concession. The schemes were: 1) community forest management partnerships on community land outside the concession area (POC); 2) collaborative forest management partnerships within the concession area (PIC). Other plantation forests like Wira Karya Sakti (WKS) in Jambi and Finantara Intiga in West Kalimantan have developed similar and comparable CC partnerships; the former on both concession and community land, and the latter on concession land (Nawir and Santoso, 2006). POCs are basically fund-based partnerships, while PICs are market-based.The Musi Hutan Persada POC partnership schemes shown in Table 10 are either on community land or state land claimed and controlled by community members. The company provides seeds, the costs for establishing the plantation and employment opportunities. Community members provide land and manpower, while village and subdistrict governments facilitate coordination and conflict resolution. According to contracts, the share of profits after one rotation, which is seven to eight years for acacia, would be 60% for the company and 40% for community members. Although the shares might be questionable, the scheme seems to work quite well. Many community members are interested and have submitted proposals, but less than 10% have been accommodated by the company.The POC scheme has attracted rich people from nearby cities to buy land from community members, some of whom thought they got higher prices for their land. Thus, new landlords have emerged in the area and submitted POC proposals to the company, which would invariably give them priority as they have more land and therefore lower transaction costs. Clear tenure helps the POC scheme work more effectively and peacefully, but a few rich people accumulate large areas of land.  -Official tax revenue -Undocumented incomes for some government officials -Some government officials (village and subdistrict heads) receive small amounts of money from production feesAll POC schemes are legalized by village and subdistrict heads, and have two distribution mechanisms. First, in a POC between the company and a landowner (LO), then payment simply involves handing over 40% of profits to the LO after measuring and selling wood to buyers. Second, in a POC between the company and a group of landowners, payment will be made to the group head and LOs (Figure 13). Clarity over who LOs are, contract details and the head responsible for the LO group will ensure a smooth distribution mechanism. All PIC schemes are legalized by village and subdistrict heads. Fees and plantation contracts flow from the company to community members through the PIC village or subdistrict. Figure 14 shows the flow of partnership fees. In case of a PIC contract between the company and a village, the company pays the PIC village, which subsequently distributes it to its management, advisers and members. In the case of a contract between the company and a PIC subdistrict/village group, the company pays the fee to the PIC subdistrict, which then distributes it to its management, its advisers and its PIC villages. PIC villages then distribute fees to their members. The basis for the formulation of fee payment was unclear, and there was an imbalance when it was drafted. Production fees per cubic meter of acacia for instance varied from USD 0.25 -1. Beside the fee, the company offered communities projects in plantation operations. However, due to collusion between the company and local elites these projects never advantaged the grassroots people.Imbalance and rent seeking both distort the payment mechanism from the company to the community.Disputes broke out between PIC villages over the position of village boundaries, with each village tending to extend its land claim to secure bigger fees from the company. Village history, boundaries between villages and state forest (boswesen), and boundaries between different villages were all subjects of dispute with PIC subdistrict/village groups.In PIC villages there were problems involving the allocation of money to members, its management and village elites. In most PICs there were no rules of play. Fees were not large enough to distribute to all members, and village elites, including informal leaders and customary leaders, claimed they deserved a larger share because PIC land belonged to their ancestors. They would sometimes disagree to all villagers becoming PIC members. PIC management and advisers tried to get some money aside from the fees, but there were no agreed mechanisms for doing so. Although the sums of money involved were small, PIC village members still wanted fees to be distributed evenly between all members. However, they rarely had any influence in PIC village decision-making processes, and village elites tended to capture most benefits from PIC schemes. The International forest community for several years has focused on clearing of forests linked to illegal logging for timber and the diversion of land to oil-palm plantations. However, the other part of international community such as the international energy community supports development of biofuel project in Indonesia. By 2025, Indonesia might put 1.4 million hectares, or an area 2.5 times as big as the island of Bali, under oil-palm plantations to meet biodiesel demand. 14When the international forest community pressure the Indonesian government to link debt write off of Indonesian forestry company debts under control of the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) with reduction in their mail capacity, other part of international community support IBRA fire sales program of forestry company debts. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the economic team of the World Bank did not support a call for special debt settlement for forestry companies as requested by the Indonesian Working Group on Forest Finance (IWGFF). This request is consistent with the International forest community demand for forestry reforms in Indonesia. 15The forest related incentive system can be summarized in Table 2.5. The table provides objective, principles, main beneficiaries, basis for fund transfer, institutional structure, financial transfer mechanism form of payment, risks and safeguards for each strategy and activity.Indonesia has experience with a range of fund and market based incentives in forestry development such as reforestation funds (dana reboisasi or DR), timber certification and payments for environmental services (PES) with various degrees of successes and opportunities to learn from failure.The followings are the lessons can be learnt from the existing incentives:1. In the past, the DR was recorded as a non-budgetary fund, and its management was far from transparent and accountable. The central government has not sofar been able to publicly produce information on the balance of funds, who they were paid to, or where and when they were paid. Such practices have led to corruption and misuse of funds. If a REDD fund were to follow the same pattern it would deserve very low external credibility 2. Intense DR allocations from the central government to reforest deforested areas also has caused disincentives for conserving forests (or, a perverse incentives to deforest). To overcome this situation, Jambi province for instance used the following criteria and weights for DAK-DR allocation within the province (a) projection of receiving DR by districts (30%); (b) Forest degradation and critical land level in priority watershed catchments (20%); (c) damage level of watershed ecosystem (30%); (d) continuity of reforestation and land rehabilitation (10%); and (e) institutional capacity (10%). 3. The new policy of community timber plantation (HTR) development that uses DR through the development of a Public Service Agency (Badan Layanan Umum or BLU) can potentially create new incentive for replacing natural forest with fast growing species leading to net CO 2 emissions from a reduction of time-averaged carbon stocks, excessive subsidies and opportunities for rent seeking. 4. The top-down planning and information asymmetry among stakeholders, such as found in the National Forest and Land Rehabilitation Program (GERHAN), can negatively affect the control of money and material flows within GERHAN. This situation encourages 'rent-seeking' and 'freeriding' behavior, thus reducing the effectiveness of the program. 5. Timber certification is an opportunity to use market-based incentives to improve sustainability of forest. Nevertheless, this incentive can be distorted by unclear market demand/signals (as only part of the international market is interested in certification) and lack of willingness to pay for the additional costs of sustainable production. 6. Market-based Payments for Environmental Services (PES) are possible where there is at least one buyer, at least one seller, and a service to be sold. Currently there is variation along at least seven important dimensions: (a) the source of the payment; (b) the degree to which the 'buyer' and 'seller' make the agreements voluntarily, within the existing framework of rules and regulations; (c) the duration and contractual form of the relationship; (d) the conditionality of payments and service delivery; (e) the degree to which the agreements refer to specific cause-effect relationships that relate to the continuation of the service(s) (avoided degradation) and/or restoration; (f) the level of payment in relation to the opportunity costs (options forgone) for the seller and the costs of alternative provision of the service to the buyer; and (g) the degree to which underprivileged (by wealth or gender) stakeholders (among buyers and/or sellers) are affected and included.7. Flows of money to forested land without clear property right can potentially create or enhance conflicts between community members, and between grass root people and elites. On the other hand, new land lords at local level can emerge when lands are privately owned by local community members. Rich people buy and collect land from local community members to take advantage of market-based incentives. In any condition money from REDD incentives can trigger institutional reforms at local and higher levels. Facilitation of institutional strengthening and legalizing community organizations is necessary to make communities benefit from carbon schemes.These lessons can be grouped into the four following principles of incentive system that should be in place to make REDD work:1. Provide efficiency as well as fairness.Outcome-based systems are needed to guarantee the investor value for money. Jambi and Papua provinces have developed the criteria for DAK-DR allocation to achieve the efficiency and fairness of DR. However, clear outcomes in terms of the right trees actually growing in the right places are rarely reported and analysed. Fair distribution of the inputs used is also lacking. Therefore, REDD in 2012 should be outcome-based with clearly measurable (observable) performance criteria. A considerable capacity building or learning process will be needed in the period 2008-2012.Current land use and forest management plans do not yet reflect a shared vision by all stakeholders on how transformations to sustainable livelihoods can take place. Linking forests to current and future livelihoods of communities will need to be clearly articulated, along with a framework that calculates the consequences for the local economy and for carbon stocks. Both planted and natural forests will have to play a role in a portfolio investment for achieving a better environment and livelihoods. Current land use plans and the procedure to develop them have made progress compared with the past, but there is still some way to go before realistic landscape/lifescape visions are reconciled with spatial reality. Translating this to the levels of emission reduction that are feasible in the long term is needed to state commitments at local level that are both appealing to outside investors and attainable. The cross-sectoral linkages that will be needed are stronger at the local rather than higher scalers in the government hierarchy, suggesting that districts should play a key role in the REDD implementation.Good governance is a key to success of all forest activities. Good governance is characterized by engagement of civil society in the exercise and control of power, political stability, rule of law, government effectiveness and control of corruption. Being transparent in all process related to financing activities, site selection, tender, outcomes are a way to improve the governance. Involving civil societies e.g. university, NGO, people organization in decision making will contribute toi control of elite capture and administrative corruption. Strengthening institutions, coordination and facilitation is a must in order to make REDD operational and sustainable. As a new initiative REDD needs to be properly understood and communicated. At all levels, multi-stakeholder dialogues have to be continuously conducted and improved. An appropriate and inclusive REDD body at national level to document and facilitate learning process need to be established. At local level alternative livelihoods with less carbon emission should be creatively investigated. We have noticed that implementation of GERHAN, at least in some locations, has improved through time based on collaborative learning processes. This learning process can be accelerated in REDD to maximize the usefulness of REDD in improving forest and community livelihoods.A successful REDD initiative will depend on a payment mechanism that can bring buyers (or funders or external co-investors) and sellers (or local co-investors) of carbon together to make beneficial transactions. This payment mechanism should avoid the past mistakes made by previous international and national initiatives yet capture their strengths. It should provide a clear net benefit to all parties involved and be fully accountable and transparent. Section I of this paper stated four major challenges to the overall REDD architecture for Indonesia in this regard, based on four overarching principles that reflect concerns at the 'people, profit and planet' level Section II reviewed the Indonesian experience in managing forests (and other natural resources) through a combination of regulation, fund allocation and market-based instruments, in the light of these four challenges. A number of positive experiences exist to build on, while lessons have been learnt on approaches that did not combine accountability for outcomes, accountability for financial inputs, fairness in allocation, efficiency and commitment to learning and gradual improvement. This section will discuss the options Indonesia has to set up a REDD architecture that is simple, efficient, fair, accountable and open to learning at the pilot stage, with clear possibilities for scaling up to national level application in the post 2012 international climate regime that is currently discussed.The aim of an Indonesian REDD payment distribution mechanism will be to transfer revenues from international REDD funds or carbon markets to (or within) national levels, to support policies and measures that reduce deforestation and degradation rates. To ensure demonstrable results, the mechanism must be effective in targeting the wide range of agents involved in deforestation and degradation. It must reward good performance and create incentivise for improved performance compared to reference scenarios, and adequately compensate agents or actors that (legally) suffer losses from changed practices. Payments are likely to be performance based in terms of the extent to which emissions have been reduced, with safeguards for environmental and social impacts of the system. If Indonesia as a country is to reduce its net emissions from deforestation and degradation of forests and peatlands, and on that basis access international REDD funds or markets, it will have to achieve progress on the four challenges outlined at the end of the previous section, and the payment mechanism must align with these.There is a wide range of strategies to reduce deforestation and degradation rates, ranging from direct regulatory changes such as altering land classification systems and withdrawing concession permits, to economic incentive schemes such as payments for environmental services and imposing or changing taxes on certain activities. Within these options, incentive payments or compensation for opportunity costs can be made either directly to individuals or more generally, through local, regional or national development projects. Each of these strategies could require different types of distribution mechanisms.This section outlines the possible architecture of a REDD payments system in Indonesia, the processes through which it would work and the safeguards that are needed to ensure that it works in a way that ensures REDD is credible.Figure 3.2: Configuration of buyers (or funders) and sellers in the two out of the four main options for REDD mechanisms described in the text. Arrows indicate financial flows. In both cases it is assumed that the national government monitors at a national level and operates a national registry.Government Regulation PP 6, 2007 (PP = Peraturan Pemerintah) clearly e stablished the 'Integrated Forest Management unit' or Kesatuan Pengelolaan Hutan (KPH) as the management entity for the government defined forest area (kawasan hutan) at different levels (district and province) and across forest functions (production, protection and conservation). Meanwhile, the district (kabupaten) is the key government administration entity at local level. REDD payment distribution mechanisms need to consider both district and KPH's as entities involved in generating and selling carbon credits (as a seller) and in any payment distribution received from higher government layers.There are advantages and disadvantages of using either KPH or district as the primary RE D D unit in a payment mechanism. The advantages of using KPH are (a) KPH tend to use natural boundaries in the landscape ; (b) KPH 's can coordinate inter-district interests; (c) KPH 's integrates different forest functions. Meanwhile, the disadvantages of using KPH are (a) it does not have a mandate for forests outside the kawasan hutan; (b) it may not have much influence on important drivers and actors of deforestation; (c) investment in sustainable alternative livelihoods may well require locations and activities under district control outside of the KPH mandate .Considering both advantages and disadvantages, we suggest that both KPH and district approaches are used in pilot testing , with clear evaluation of performance and difficulties arising. In a mixed model, the KPH can coordinate all activities within the kawasan hutan to reduce emission from deforestation and degradation, while the district authority is responsible outside the kawasan hutan for transitions to sustainability.There are four main mechanisms through which international REDD funds could link to REDD action on the ground in Indonesia. Three relate to different modes through which funds can move from national government to lower levels, regardless of how these funds arrive at the Indonesia national scale (from an international fund or from active participation of Indonesia in an international C rREDD .market). The fourth is similar to option 2 above, in which a direct link is formed between international and local investors and the national government only plays an administrative and certification role. There four main mechanisms through are: In terms of ecology and macro-economic planning the 'island' level has relevance in between the national scale and provinces, but political empowerment at this level runs counter to well-established concerns for national integrity. Recent initiatives such as the 'Heart of Borneo' articulation of the need to harmonize policies for the upstream part of three provinces may be relevant to appeal to international; investors, but can not be strong organizing level in the REDD architecture, without risking a further increase I n levels of bureaucracy.Each of the four mechanism has its advantages and disadvantages (Table 3.1). Deflection of pressures on forest from one location to another, contributing to leakage, ultimately requires a national bottomline in the carbon accounting scheme. The first option seems the most appropriate if the different levels of government can reduce state capture and administrative corruption, but may introduce excessive layers of bureaucracy. New REDD schemes will not be immune to the broader governance context in which they are embedded, making this a crucial design parameter. It is just a matter of how existing governance practices can be improved.. To accomplish this, civil society involvement is essential. A combination with the third option would also show how well REDD works at the site level.International project based may strengthen accountability in the short term by reducing the number of transactions, but may be less sustainable in the long run. The next thing is REDD based carbon credits. If an agreement is reached in the UNFCCC protocol during COP13 then a road map of REDD regulated market will be clear, otherwise a voluntarily market will emerge. Either way, determining reference levels, ensuring commitment to reduce emissions from DD and monitoring are all problems that will need to be addressed. Table 3.2 shows the advantages and disadvantages of market-based incentive distribution mechanisms. High leakageA key distinction between options 1 and 2 is that in the first the district (Kabupaten) plays a key role, while in the second the 'forest management unit' (KPH) is the focal point for local action. The forest management unit has the advantage of a more ecologically logic entity that links forest functions and can cross administrative boundaries, facilitating two important dimensions of integration. The district level, however, allows for a cross-sectoral integration at the livelihood level, and can articulate the transitions to sustainability that reduce pressure on forests by developing alternative employment and economic attractors.The fourth option that will need to be considered is the case of international carbon buyers establishing contracts directly with regional governments or projects. This is essentially the voluntary carbon markets before 2012 but it could also become a working model after 2012. If it occurs before Indonesia establishes a REDD system as part of an international agreement or alongside it, then the central government will need to put in place measures for redistribution of REDD funds 'up' the supply chain, for example through taxing (or exerting a levy on) voluntary projects or charging an administrative fee. This would cover the administrative costs associated with ensuring credits from the voluntary project area are not 'double-counted' with credits from the regulatory system. It should also compensate for opportunity costs for the central government that may arise through REDD policies and measures. In the case of Indonesia, if the seller is a central government, the payment will be treated as non-tax government revenues (PNBP). But if the seller is a local government, the payment will be accounted as local government revenues. Under current regulations, PNBP can be shared with local governments both in provinces and districts or cities. A new national regulation would be needed to request local government revenues to be shared with sub district governments and in turn used to support actual land users at the village level. A direct linkage to the real actors and agents of change at the local level will still be needed (see below).The central government is likely to play an important role in redistributing REDD related revenues, whether it is selling REDD emissions reductions to international buyers directly or whether it is accruing and redistributing tax revenues related to REDD projects in Indonesia.The central government transfers decentralization funds, deconcentration funds, assistance funds, and vertical funds to local governments and its vertical organization in the regions (vertical funds). Decentralization fund is the largest fund to be transferred by the Central government. The central government transferred Rp.259 trillion or US$29 billion in decentralization fund. This fund includes balance funds (97%) and special autonomy funds (1.6%). Balance funds include general allocation fund (64%) and profit sharing of natural resource revenues (14%).There are at least three methods of transfer for decentralization funds. The most direct transfer is for special autonomy funds where central government can directly calculate amount to be transferred based on laws on special autonomy for Papua and Aceh governments. The second method of transfer is based on definitive allocation where amount to be transferred is based on a definitive percentage as stipulated in laws such as general allocation fund (DAU) and special allocation fund (DAK). This transfer method is considered relatively accountable. The most difficult transfer methods are those used for transferring natural resource funds and tax revenues. This method is based on an estimation of revenues, known as estimation allocation method. Since the central government does not have a proper accounting system for natural resource revenues especially from forests, it is very difficult to estimate how much forest revenues should be allocated to each district and city in Indonesia. For REDD to work properly such information would be essential and systems will have to be developed to ensure such information is periodically captured.Options for the management of funds would include the integration of REDD funds into the state budget, or to assign the management of funds to an independent body. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. If REDD funds are integrated into the state budget, they would be managed by the Ministry of Finance, and their use could be coordinated by the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Forestry and other relevant agencies at the national and provincial levels. For regions, the funds could either be distributed to provincial government accounts or directly to district governments, depending on the scope of provincial and district government authority in REDD activities. For example, if REDD activities are coordinated at the provincial level, it would make more sense to distribute REDD funds through the provincial government. Similarly, if REDD activities are implemented by district governments, then distributing REDD funds directly to district governments would be more appropriate.The transfer of REDD funds to regional governments could either follow the pattern for shared revenue distribution in existing natural resource income, or be distributed on a more regular basis (e.g. monthly payments to regional governments). However, further steps will be needed to ensure adequate incentives reach the actors of forest protection while investment is made in transitions to sustainability.Funds could be distributed through the graphic shown in Figure 16, provided that an adequate way be found to implement 'conditionality' through a link of local performance measures to actual reductions of emissions at district, provincial and national level. or conditionality that needs to be build into the disbursement There are several advantages to integrating the funds into the state budget. First, control over the funds could be monitored more effectively as not only the government, but the parliament too could monitor their availability and use. Taking lessons from the reforestation fund of the 1990s into account, the fund was not integrated into the state budget, and the government would often use it for unrelated purposes. Where Parliament has an oversight role, active involvement of 'civil society' will be needed to prevent sidetracking of funds and in testing and requesting transparency. Second, integration of the fund into the state budget would make financial management more systematic at the national level and could potentially reduce the possibility of corruption. The government is currently prohibiting government agencies from creating their own accounts for so-called 'non-budgetary funds'. Third, the government is currently applying a performance-related budgeting system, in which government agencies announce the budgets required in achieving intended outcomes. Linking REDD funds to such a mechanism would enable both the government and the parliament to set realistic targets and determine the REDD funds necessary for achieving those targets. Fourth, interest on the REDD fund would contribute to national government revenue, unless there are clauses in the agreement between the government of Indonesia and REDD donors governing interest from the REDD fund.Integrating the REDD fund into the state budget also has its disadvantages. First, if the fund is channelled through the government system, delays in its disbursement to the districts and ultimate beneficiaries will be inevitable. Experience from the distribution of revenue sharing funds in forestry show how allocation to regional governments can been delayed; the funds are disbursed close to the end of the fiscal year, making it hard for regional governments to plan and implement programs properly. Second, and probably more importantly, the integration of REDD funds would require changes to Indonesia's legal system, particularly in respect to central and regional government financial management, since the government requires a relevant regulatory framework on the collection and allocation of funds to the regions. Third, since there are several actors in the channels, from those in central government and regional government, some funds may be lost to so-called 'administration fees' (i.e. rent seeking). Fourth, calculations of how much emissions could be reduced by in particular regions (province or district) in dependence of the potential allocation of REDD funds will require time for negotiation, as numerous actors and types of forest are involved. Complex transfer mechanisms in existing natural resource funds indicate high inefficiencies, which would imply that minimising the central government's role in fund distribution (e.g. by promoting transactions closer to beneficiaries) would increase the efficiency of REDD. We may learn from the experience with auction systems at the local scale (see BOX 13 in section 2) and derive the national emission target accordingly. An independent REDD funding system could avoid some of these problems if properly established, but it would have to be well linked with government institutions given the multiple roles of government in forest management. Figure 3.3 outlines the financial mechanism of KDP, which is reviewed in section 2.2.3. Clear REDD performance measures would have to be established upfront to solicit local initiative in action on removal of pressures and threats from forests and bottlenecks to sustainable development, in addition to existing KDP mechanisms. The previous section focussed on financial transfer mechanisms between central government and lower government levels. Such mechanisms will be needed if the responsibility for achieving REDD is passed on by the national government to provincial or district governments. However, further redistribution mechanisms are likely to be necessary, whether transactions for REDD credits between international buyers and the national government or directly with lower government levels. For example, if a district government is responsible for achieving emissions reductions against a baseline, it could achieve this through a number of means, including:o The strengthening of existing policies and measures (e.g. law enforcement); o Direct regulatory changes in the sub-district region (e.g. prohibiting development of HTI in peat forests);o Indirect regulatory changes that might affect deforestation/degradation rates (e.g. changes to road building programmes); o Economic incentives (e.g. negative ones such as increased taxes or positive ones such as tax breaks, subsidized transaction costs for timber certification that may lead to higher revenue or conditional access to and use rights on forest lands as form of rewards for environmental services); o Direct infrastructure changes (e.g. damming constructed canals on peat land).In practice it is likely to put in place a range of policies and measures, some related to building capacity for managing the system, and a mixture of indirect incentives (e.g. broader development projects supporting education or healthcare programmes) and direct payments to individuals, corporations or communities (where customary rights are collective). Some of these smaller scale benefit sharing options are reviewed in section 2, including local PES schemes, company-community partnerships and the KDP model of village groups. The exact systems used are likely to vary significantly between regions depending on a range of contextual factors.Clarity on the principles and high level criteria can create space for appropriate local initiative and possible co-investment from international partners.The current government has stated clearly that its fundamental development stance is pro-growth, propoor and pro-employment. So, in order for a REDD mechanism to work in harmony with the government's development stance, REDD fund activities should consider economic growth, poverty alleviation and employment generation. The allocation methodology will also have to take into account the existing allocation laws and laws relating to special autonomies of Aceh and Papua described in the previous section. More specifically, the allocation methodology for REDD funds or the redistribution of any revenues accruing from REDD activities carried out in the country, should be based on the four principles outlined at the end of section two. These can be applied through the development of criteria, indicators and verifiers for REDD (see section IV).There are both horizontal and vertical dimensions to the allocation of REDD payments. The horizontal dimension relates to the distribution of revenues between stakeholders at a particular scale, for example between the islands of Indonesia or between different stakeholders in a REDD project. The vertical dimension relates to allocation within different administrative levels, for example between national, provincial and district governments.The question of allocation within both of these dimensions is linked to who should be the legitimate recipients of REDD revenues. In order to meet the principles outlined in the first section, possible criteria for establishing who is a legitimate recipient are those that: o Change their behaviour and reduce emission rates in the long term o Suffer legitimate losses from mandated REDD implementation o Maintain low rates (continued conservation) o Provide sustainable low C emission alternative livelihoods o Act legally and have rights to sell carbon (provided this does not disadvantage the poor and those with customary rights not recognized by government) o Exhibit high accountability, transparency and good governance o Have included provisions for capacity building o Include elements of long term learning A possible process for deciding on horizontal allocation of REDD funding would be to apply these criteria in a competitive bidding process. For example, in a system where the national government holds REDD funds, every Kabupaten could make their own plan with their own redistribution scheme and bid for funding for their proposal. Such 'reverse auction' processes have been used in the United States, Australia and Europe, and are growing in popularity in developing countries. Precautions may need to be taken to ensure that this is not abused by decision-makers (e.g. through multi-stakeholder review panels) and does not discriminate against local communities who lack experience framing such proposals (e.g. by supporting NGOs to help fill capacity and information gaps). As discussed in the previous section, the RUPES project in Indonesia has tested such an auction for mechanisms to reduce sediment emissions into streams from coffee gardens. In practice in Indonesia it will probably be necessary to establish a REDD system by providing some level of initial funding to all regions and stakeholders in order for them to develop REDD systems, before introducing conditional and competitive processes that might discriminate against marginalized groups.One of the major problems Indonesia will face in allocating REDD revenues will be to adequately incentivise areas with high rates of deforestation to reduce rates, whilst also incentivising those with low rates to maintain low rates (the 'efficiency' versus 'fairness' tradeoff -see table 14). In deciding on the level of payment, the system must not only determine the rate, but also the reasons for that rate (i.e. distinguish 'above par' from 'below par' performance) (Box 15). This is a problem that has also emerged between different developing countries at the international level and the same problem arises between different areas of Indonesia (e.g. different islands). One possible solution at the international level has been to propose the creation of a 'stabilisation fund' for countries with low rates of emissions. Such a fund could also be applied in Indonesia and would imply that two different components might be required for the Indonesian REDD payments system. Such a fund might be stocked through a tax placed on the REDD market system that is driven by a search for 'efficiency' and thus attracted by the most negative baselines. Sathaye and Andrasko (2007) discussed baselines can be how regionally stratified to explicitly acknowledge the heterogeneity of carbon density, land use change, and other key baseline driver variables across a landscape. As the competition for scarce funds between provinces and districts has already started in Indonesia, more objective, standardized and transparent methodologies are needed than the project-specific experience to date. Models at a range of complexities are available and experience with their use is building up (Brown et al., 2007;Chowdury, 2006;Suyamto et al. 2003Suyamto et al. , 2006aSuyamto et al. , 2006b;;Suyamto and van Noordwijk, 2005)   A formal representation of the efficiency-equity problem is possible on the basis of a number of assumptions about the shape of the baseline and the relative abatement costs in different phases of the landscape. Depending on the parameter values selected, an efficiency driven allocation of funds will tend to get as close to the forest margin as is financially feasible (i.e. only high abatement costs at the forest margin will drive towards allocating funds to forests with less immediate threats (Figure 3.4; see appendix A for further detail). If the 'baseline' is non-linear, as it tends to be in reality, at least at the more local scales, market-driven investment in REDD can clearly identify 'low hanging fruits' with high expected returns; however, to achieve balance on the fairness-efficiency trade-off, a balancing mechanism is needed that re-directs some of the net benefits across the forested landscape.Legality of current actors engaged in activities that lead to CO 2 emissions from forests and peatlands is not easily established. For example, major Pulp and Paper mills maintain that they a) have no engagement whatsoever in illegal logging, but nevertheless b) may have to close their business if current 'illegal logging control' operations continue. As use of forest resources usually requires more than one type of permit, revoking forest use concessions may lead to claims for compensation.As explained in section I.3, the term 'forest' is, In an Indonesian policy context, primarily interpreted as an identifier of an institutional domain. Forests without trees as well as non-forest lands with full canopy cover of trees can occur side-by-side. Where the international concerns refer to CO 2 emissions linked to changes in terrestrial carbon stocks, the applicability of REDD has to be ensured beyond the institutional domains of 'forest lands' ('kawasan hutan') in Indonesia. Local government entities (e.g. at Kabupaten (district) scale), may be the most appropriate scale for assessing net changes in terrestrial carbon stocks, regardless of the institutional control over the lands and vegetation. Current 'decentralization' laws specify the primary responsibility for maintenance of 'protective'' land cover through forests at the Kabupaten level, while timber exploitation rights are decided nationally. These different domains of decision-making would need to be reconciled. At the international agreement level, reference to the IPCC National Reporting guidelines for Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses (AFOLU) could provide clarity in the scope of the REDD mechanism, and hence its domain of eligibility.Land ownership does not necessarily coincide with the right to change the vegetation and hence terrestrial carbon stock. Separate regulation of 'rights to sell' (as the most functional dimension of 'ownership') of carbon storage and/or other environmental service (ES) is feasible, but in the implementation the various (and often conflicting) claims on land ownership need to be taken into account. Efforts should be made to incorporate customary claims to forests in compensation schemes so local communities have incentives to retain carbon stocks, and so that REDD instruments do not lead to harmful outcomes to the poor (e.g. exclusion from forest areas; prohibition of current land uses without compensation).Vertical allocation depends on where value addition occurs in the REDD 'supply chain' and the opportunity costs occurring at each level. For example, in a national system it can be assumed that the Indonesian government will bear the costs of establishing the national system, national scale monitoring and verification, implementation of national policy reforms and national level administration of the system, as well as opportunity costs related to lost tax revenue, for example (Table 3.4). It can be assumed from past experience that the greater the level of devolution the higher these relative costs will be, as will be the opportunities for rent seeking in the system. It is therefore preferable to try to minimise the number of stakeholders in the supply chain from an efficiency perspective.Payment mechanisms could involve payments to individuals or to groups. If all stakeholders are well identified, then individual payments matching their opportunity costs are likely to be most effective and there is less likelihood of elite capture if they are able to assert their rights to payments. However, the transaction costs of dealing with large numbers of individual contracts gives rise to a trade-off. Payments to groups might involve lower transaction costs for those making the payments, but mechanisms for equitable decision-making on rules and procedures for benefits sharing within the group will be required. Alternatively, payments could be designed in such a way that all members of the group benefit, for example if a local development project is established that benefits a whole community. Yet instruments to facilitate widespread awareness on the conditionality of such benefits is needed to ensure such benefits flows serve as an incentive for continued investment in reduced emissions.Payments for REDD may not necessarily be made as cash transactions. For example, funding from international to national levels could be delivered through conditional Debt for Nature Swaps (DNS), although this would be unlikely in a market-based system unless accompanied by systems for carbon accounting. It also carries the risk of infringing upon community rights through excessive state control over forest access. Because access to and use rights of forest lands remain a major stumbling block for sustainable rural development, conditional use rights within a 'community based forest management' (HKM) or 'village forest' (Hutan Desa) framework may be more effective than financial transfers in reducing emissions. Lipper and Cavatassi (2004) provided a framework for identifying situations where investment in removal of institutional bottlenecks may be the primary investment needed to reduce poverty as well as increase net carbon sequestration. So far this case has been made for 'restoration' situations rather than forest conservation.For every moment a forest is conserved, the opportunity exists for it to be deforested. Implementation of REDD implies a theoretically infinite series of foregone opportunities should be compensated. A question arises as to the most appropriate schedule of payments.There are two main payment schedules that could occur under REDD: ! Lump sum upfront payment; or ! Dispersed schedule of payments.A lump some upfront payment would involve transferral of the agreed amount of funding all at once. Conventional discounting procedures tend to favour benefits occurring upfront. Therefore lump sum upfront payments would yield a higher net present value for Indonesia than a dispersed schedule of payments. For the avoided emission to be considered permanent, however, it is assumed the forest must be 'locked up' for perpetual or long-term storage. This could be achieved through a conservation easement where all future development rights are sold and this is enforced. Such approaches are being tested in Indonesia, but it is too early to judge their viability and scope for wider application (see section II..2.4).A main concern on accepting severe restrictions to land use is the livelihood options for future generations. They are not yet here to demand compensation, but will be ionclined to reverse decisions currently made, unless investment in 'transitions to sustainability' has provided real alternatives. A number of options for alternative livelihoods have been proposed in the forest strategy studies, but a more comprehensive 'rural development' approach is needed that brings in existing expertise outside of the forestry sector. .An alternative way to compensate future generations for foregone opportunities is to distribute payments over time to incentivises long term carbon storage The main question that arises is how long carbon payments must be sustained for in order to ensure permanence. Ideally carbon payments must be made over the short, medium and long term. If this is not the case there is a risk that paying people for forest protection and then removing such incentives could lead to a backlash which creates larger future DD than would have otherwise occurred. This would be a risk especially for those already protecting forest functions. One problem with this approach might be that the amount of payment required to compensate short, medium and long term opportunity costs may be prohibitive. One way around this might be to 'bundle' a series of ecosystem services provided by the forest. For example, international carbon finance might be used for short-term compensation, domestic payments for watershed protection might be used for medium term protection, and other ecosystems services of local, national an d international relevance might come on line at a later stage (pharmaceutical prospecting, biodiversity, landscape beauty etc). Another way to minimize the benefits flows required to sustain carbon storage is to seek ways to align planning on the type or degree of carbon storage with a broader set of cultural and economic functions of forests of local importance, building on the concept of \"social carbon\".Option two is clearly preferable from the perspective of permanence, equity and corruption, if suitable financial mechanisms can be established.Existing legal frameworks have a potential influence fund-based and market-based scenarios. The assumption is that money coming from carbon credits would be incorporated into the state budget; therefore the following regulations have to be taken into account. Appendix D describes the regulatory hierarchy in Indonesia of constitution, laws, and various types of government decrees.Currently , Government Regulation No. 28/2007, and Law No. 32/2004and 33/2004 describe decentralization of forest governance to regional governments, district governments in particular. Basically, district governments do not have sole authority over most decisions relating to production forests and protection forests, but have to consult with provincial governments for guidance and assistance. National forest decisions, including allocation for conversion, are still in the hands of the central government, which in most cases only takes a role in providing forest management criteria and indicators to ensure sustainability. Other countries have attempted to partially substitute regulatory functions of this nature by an incentive-based system that allows local flexibility. Changes of this nature have a reach beyond the scope of the current REDD discussion, however, and are not likely to be implemented soon.In addition, Law No. 41/1999 and the recent Government Regulation No. 6/2007 on Forest Management provide general guidance on the management of forest resources with a specific article regulating the management of environmental services. These laws, combined with Law No. 34/2000 and Government Regulation No. 65/2001 on Regional Taxation, will also have a significant impact on payment distribution.According to Law No. 33/2004 on Fiscal Balancing between Central and Regional Governments, balancing funds consist of:  BLU could be an option to manage REDD fundThe institutional structures required for REDD are likely to vary depending on the type of mechanism established. One of the main factors in the variation relates to where the primary transaction with international carbon buyers or funders is occurring. As outlined above, the transaction could take place with national governments, with a lower government authority (e.g. district government) or directly with projects. The main difference in terms of institutional responsibility will be the role of the national government, which could act as a seller of carbon to international buyers, a buyer of carbon from subnational entities, an intermediary and a regulator of the system (figure 3.5).It is assumed that in any form of national REDD system that the government will play a role in monitoring, accounting for emissions reductions and technical support. The poor track record of government as a mediator of fairness (***REF**) indicates that its role in redistribution decisions related to 'who benefits and how' will require clear mechanisms for checks and balances from independent third parties. This is another reason for having transactions for carbon take place as near to potential beneficiaries as possible (i.e. transactions between international buyers and the subnational level). In such a system the central government will mainly play a role as a regulatory authority and intermediary, approving projects and carrying out marketing to attract further investment. This has been an approach used in China to accelerate the development of a market for CDM projects, which has lead to large-scale investment (although sometimes at the cost of advances in sustainable development). In contrast the Indonesian Designated National Authority has been much less successful in attracting investment then expected (see section ***). It will be important that any similar institution for REDD makes it as easy as possible for external investors to establish REDD projects, whilst ensuring they meet the standards and regulations specified by Indonesia. Wherever the primary transaction occurs, to ensure all contributions are appropriately valued, accountable and transparent a possible institutional structure for REDD in Indonesia would be to form a National Body for REDD which would be responsible for registering all sub-national bodies (districts, provinces, or management units) that are committed to implementing REDD and to record reference emissions and emission reduction at the sub-national and national level. It would also lay down standard regulating rules and guidelines to ensure effective disbursement of the benefits to subnational players, for minimizing losses and for monitoring actual disbursement and compensation. The national reference emission for REDD should be revised as the number of participating districts/provinces increases. Within these national structures, participating local governments will coordinate with local stakeholders, including business, civil society and government to determine implementation of the REDD. Table 3.6 describes the entities and their roles and responsibility in REDD system.To avoid misappropriation of REDD incentives the payment mechanism should be accountable, auditable and transparent. It should involve government auditor agencies, private accountants, the Financial Intelligence Unit, and the Anti Corruption Commission, all of which should play a part in preventing irregularities and enforcing the REDD incentive mechanism. Active feedback from civil society can be directed into capacity building initiatives for these units, so that they become attuned to the particular forms of corruption and mismanagement that emerge in the context of REDD. ! provide upfront financing to invest in REDD activities, ! receive money from the (future) sale of verified emission reductions, ! redistribute payments to actors that reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation, and ! market 'Green Indonesia REDD credits' to international buyers. National/regional/local registries (e.g. BPN, BaPlan) ! record how many REDD credits have been created and provide publicly verifiable information on spatially explicit REDD performance (to avoid double accounting, address permanence concerns), ! track movements of carbon between actors. Monitoring entities, linking local to national scale (e.g. BPS, civil society, contracted service providers)! quantify C stocks and emissions, ! calculate emission reduction relative to a baseline or target, ! ensure payments made by national fund manager go to the actors that have really reduced emissions, ! assure buyers that there have been no negative social or environmental impacts resulting from the REDD strategy, or that these have been adequately compensated for through mutual agreement. National/regional/local legal institutions (Legislative, DepHut, BPN)! develop regulations to facilitate REDD mechanisms and transitions to sustainability (e.g., by securing forest carbon rights) , ! adjust existing forestry laws and property laws if necessary (e.g., to recognize customary or informal rights governing current use, so that the poor do not become marginalized through REDD), ! help enforce laws relating to the REDD system, ! help resolve disputes between actors and help in ensuring equitable access by actors to REDD funds. Emission reduction agents and providers of alternative livelihoods ! community-scale agents and companies need to establish processes for redistributing financial benefits from REDD to local stakeholders and provide accountability for outcomes. Auditing (e.g. BPK, KPK and PPATK) and verification entities, with international credibility ! ensure the money is distributed and governed according to agreements and that cases of corruption -and weaknesses in the system allowing corruption -are duly reported, ! provide independent oversight over the entire REDD system.Weak financial governance in managing government funds is well documented and understood by the Indonesian government. They are working hard to remedy this problem by introducing several new laws on public finance, new government accounting standards, and new state auditing procedures. One innovation by the Ministry of Finance that is worth exploring is the introduction of General Service Agencies or Badan Layanan Umum (BLU) in managing government funds. A government unit at echelon 2 in the government hierarchy, can manage its own budget under BLU mechanism as long as it has met criteria set up by the Minister of Finance. The government unit that earns full status of BLU can manage its own budget as if it were run as an independent company. They can manage their own revenues and their use. They can also retain budgetary balances in their own bank accounts. Without full BLU status, revenues and budgetary balances must be deposited in state accounts directly. However, BLU is required to maintain proper accountability and transparency in the management of its budget. It has to be audited by an independent auditor and its financial reports must be available to the general public.The BLU could be used to manage revenues under a national REDD distribution mechanism. In addition to increasing accountability and transparency it could increase the efficiency of fund management by allowing professionals rather than bureaucrats to manage funds, to sit on a board of directors and to serve in audit committees. The ability to civil society to track performance based on BLU financial reports and performance can also be built as part of broader REDD capacity building initiatives.To improve accountability of REDD payment mechanisms, financial reports of organizations responsible for managing payments of REDD initiatives should be audited by independent auditors or the Indonesian Supreme Auditor (BPK). The audit reports should be made available to the general public.To prevent corruption and other misuse of funds, independent auditors, BPK, independent reviewers, and other professionals working under a framework of this payment mechanism should be required by law as reporting parties to the Indonesian Financial Intelligent Unit (PPATK). They can also make a report to the Indonesian Anti Corruption Unit (KPK). A reporting party should submit a report to PPATK if it has identified evidence of money laundering as defined by law. It is also required by law to implement information disclosure to all its customers.The office for the REDD payment should have a transparency policy that guides allocation and reporting procedures. This policy should include policies on publication of financial reports, audited reports, and management reports related to all activities under this payment mechanism. The general public should have ready access to these reports either through from websites or through reports available in the REDD PM office. Management of the office for the REDD payment should also produce a guideline of ethical conduct for themselves and office employees. The recipients of REDD incentives should also be required to reveal details of the bank accounts they use to deposit REDD money.Governance related risks play a large role in the decisions of carbon market investors to invest in carbon projects in developing countries. For Indonesia to attract such investment for REDD, assuring investors of the quality of the REDD system and of governance in general will therefore be crucial. Good governance also pays a very large development dividend, and an improvement in governance can boost a nation's per capita income. On the other hand, income can improve governance. Therefore improvements in governance are likely to increase the chances for wider development benefits to accrue from carbon market investment in Indonesia.Governance is a key word for sustainable forest management at different levels, but how can the quality of governance be measured? CIFOR (2002) characterized governance according to level of participation, transparency, accountability, rule of law, effectiveness, and equity in both decisionmaking processes and their outcomes. Although many elements of good governance are universal, some dimensions depend on context and the way government structure has historically evolved (Mayers, 2002). Kaufmann et al. (2005) of the World Bank generated Worldwide Governance Aggregate Indicators (WGI) comprising six aggregate indicators, as follows:1. Voice and accountability, measuring political, civil and human rights;2. Political stability and absence of violence, measuring the likelihood of violent threats to, or changes in, government, including terrorism; 3. Government effectiveness, measuring the competence of the bureaucracy and the quality of public service delivery; 4. Regulatory quality, measuring the incidence of market-unfriendly policies; 5. Rule of Law, measuring the quality of contract enforcement, effectiveness of the police and courts, as well as the likelihood of crime and violence; and 6. Control of Corruption, measuring the exercise of public power for private gain, including both petty and grand corruption and state capture.They applied these indicators in all countries, including Indonesia, and found evidence of interdependence of the indicators (Thomas, 2007). Based on the existing analysis, we may group these indicators into three categories: 1. Voice and accountability; 2. Political stability and absence of violence; 3. Control of Corruption, as an aggregate indicator for the 3 rd , 4 th , 5 th and 6 th WGI indicators, given their interdependence.These three aggregate indicators can be used to measure the readiness of government at national, provincial and district level in piloting and implementing REDD. CIFOR's work moved beyond the use of indicators alone to use of multiple means of assessing governance. These include: criteria, or 'A standard that a thing is judged by'; principles, or 'A fundamental truth or law as the basis of reasoning or action'; indicators, meaning 'a trend or fact that indicates the state or level of something'; and verifiers, or 'data that enhance the ease of assessment of an indicator'. Altogether these form a hierarchy of PCIV (Principles, Criteria, Indicators and Verifiers), which can help to operationalize in less ambiguous terms each of the above indicators -taking universal and context-specific concepts of good governance into consideration.As outlined in the study on REDD markets and scenarios, permanence is a key issue associated with the carbon market and one of the major elements of risk in AFOLU based carbon projects. There are number of ways of dealing with permanence and it is useful to look at the Joint Implementation (JI) mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol as an example.The JI mechanism uses the following structural elements to address permanence: ! National level baseline; ! National level forest carbon monitoring and reporting system; ! National registry; ! Geographically-referenced land titles office (or equivalent); ! National 'buffer' pool of carbon; and ! Devolution of liability for project failure to the project developer(s).These structural elements could be adapted for trade of REDD credits between Annex I and non-Annex I countries, as described below.If Indonesia were to establish a national level baseline, it would take on a commitment to reduce emissions once it sells emissions reductions credits against this baseline. A national level baseline effectively provides a commitment to the international community that Indonesia will reduce deforestation emissions below a certain baseline. Current proposals on the international negotiation table (Box 17) assume that such an approach will be mandated unless C REDD will be restricted to a small (yet to be decided) fraction of the forest area and for a limited (yet to be decided) period of time for initial learning. While for many forest countries building up the national spatial databases will require considerable effort (Minang et al., 2007), Indonesia and other countries in SE Asia (Lasco, 2002) have a favourable starting position if existing data would be effectively combined (see Methodology study).The national level baseline, when combined with a national forest carbon monitoring and reporting system, provides a mechanism to deduct REDD credits from Indonesia's 'national account' in the event of a REDD transaction. Indonesia's national monitoring and reporting system would collate and report the aggregate effects of changes in carbon stocks from all of Indonesia's forests (as described in the Methodologies paper). In this way, emissions from a particular forest area would ideally be balanced out by conservation of another forest elsewhere in Indonesia. An Annex I buyer would purchase REDD credits at a national level, not at a project level. As long as Indonesia achieves a sustained reduction in deforestation rates in the aggregate, within-country changes in carbon stocks will not compromise permanence.The national Government would record REDD activities in a national registry. A 'registry' is a database to ensure the accurate accounting of the issuance, holding, transfer, acquisition, cancellation and selling of credits. Purchases of REDD credits would be deducted from Indonesia's national accounts in much the same way as under the JI mechanism, providing transparency to all transactions.By having geographically-referenced land titles (or equivalent), the registry can reconcile national level reporting of forest carbon stock with project level changes in carbon stock. The national Government could identify which forest areas had avoided emissions, and which forest areas had resulted in emissions. Credits could be devolved to individual project developers based on these changes in carbon stock, as the national Government saw fit.Permanence is therefore only an issue at the national level if Indonesia oversells REDD credits. In the event of overselling, it is likely that Indonesia would have to replace the credits. Overselling may also reduce buyer confidence in the integrity of Indonesia's REDD credits. There are two ways Indonesia could avoid overselling of REDD credits: ! By withholding a reserve national pool of carbon, to act as buffer against the risk of unexpected emissions; and ! By devolving liability for project failure back to the project developers.The national 'buffer' pool of carbon is a reserve pool of carbon that can be drawn on to substitute for offsets sold from 'failed' REDD projects. To create a national buffer pool of carbon, Indonesia might retain a nominal percentage (say 20 -30%) of total REDD credits created from each individual REDD project. The national pool of carbon would provide international buyers with additional confidence that Indonesia's REDD credits are permanent emission reductions. This approach is already adopted by a number of Annex B countries, such as Australia.To ensure that the national buffer is continuously replenished, Indonesia could devolve liabilities for replacement of credits to the project developer, in the event of project failure. This could be done through some sort of contract or agreement between the national Government and the project developer. Project developers would be held accountable for replacing offsets from failed projects, by forfeiting credits, free-of-charge, from other REDD projects managed by the project developer. If the project developer did not have other REDD projects, they would be required to provide cash payments for replacement of the REDD credits. In the event of bankruptcy of a project developer, this loss would have to be absorbed by the national buffer pool of carbon. Indonesia could manage these risks by requiring 'high risk' REDD projects to allocate a larger proportion of their REDD credits to the national pool.At the project level, permanence is addressed either in the contract, or through the project design document (in the case of the CDM). Permanence can be dealt with by specifying the operational lifetime of a project. The operational lifetime is defined as \"the period during which the project activity is in operation\". Either of three operational lifetimes can be specified:! Perpetual ! Nominal ! Temporary A perpetual operational lifetime implies that the project activities (in this case, avoided deforestation or degradation) must continue forever. In practice, this means that the forest would have to be conserved forever. A conservation covenant or easement, registered on the land title, is often used to ensure conservation in perpetuity. A conservation covenant can be removed, providing that any REDD credits associated with the land are 'refunded'. Shortcomings in law enforcement, future pressure on forests for meeting local livelihood needs and limited ability to repay may undermine the potential of this approach in the Indonesian context.In practice, a number of schemes have adopted a nominal approach to specification of operational lifetimes to facilitate auditability. Long-term nominal lifetimes are usually chosen, such as 100 years, and offsets are considered to be 'permanent' if the operational lifetime has been met.Under the CDM, the project developer is required to nominate a project lifetime and an operational lifetime. The only specification regarding the operational lifetime is that it exceeds the crediting period (i.e. 20 years twice renewable, or 30 years maximum). At the conclusion of the operational lifetime, the forest can be harvested or revert to another land use. Therefore the CDM only awards temporary credits. The market implications of temporary credits have already been discussed in this paper.Existing regulatory carbon markets and most voluntary carbon markets insist on third party verification of carbon projects, which can significantly increase investor confidence. Verification usually takes the form of audits of project documentation and spot checks at the project site. Third party verification is likely to be needed in any Indonesian REDD system, at a number of levels: 1. At central government level, verification of the carbon credit registry and documentation relating to interactions between the government and buyers and with any sub-national entities. In a future regulated REDD market the UN system might stipulate rules and modalities for these verification processes in a similar way to 'Expert Review Teams' under current frameworks. 2. At the sub-national level verification would be needed in relation to any transactions between subnational entities and to projects themselves. Existing verification entities such as SGS might perform such a function, or Indonesia might establish its own verification bodies that comply with international standards, to increase the 'added value' benefits of establishing a national REDD system.At the site level, voluntary standards schemes can be used to ensure the quality of REDD projects, both in terms of the validity of claims to have reduced emissions and the wider social and environmental impacts surrounding projects.  The strong linkage between land tenure and benefits from REDD raise the question of how legal rights to land for rural communities will be ensured to avoid further marginalizing the poor. This will likely include formalizing customary rights (individual or communal) and practices, but this is a topic of considerable complexity that requires full analysis. The complexity of the issue is one of the main reason that progress in this domain has been slow, despite considerable investment of effort and resources. Legal and institutional mechanisms for land allocation and conflict resolution include spatial planning processes (Rencana Tata Ruang P/K, TGHK), and formal forest gazetment. There application has to depend on context.As a first step in location-specific negotiations of land tenure and as assessment of the risk of conflict, an appraisal is needed of the existence of multiple claims on land ownership. Experience has shown that full legal clarity is not always needed to achieve workable, negotiated modalities for land use and forest protection (Kusters et al. 2007). The RaTA (Rapid Land Tenure Assessment) tool (Galudra et al., 2007)  The previous sections have highlighted a range of safeguards that will be needed in order to reduce risks associated with REDD. A key issue this raises is the level of complexity in the implementation of REDD and the potentially high transaction costs in the system.Learning from the CDM (see study 4) indicates that complex methodologies and high transaction costs can be a large burden for carbon sellers, resulting in difficulties in competing in the marketplace. One approach to reduce this burden has been to develop simplified methodologies for smaller projects (which benefit less from economies of scale than larger projects) and to try to reduce administrative fees involved in registering projects. To increase the equity of access to REDD funds in Indonesia it will be important to keep mechanisms as simple as possible. In the case of competitive, market-based systems, options and technical support for small-scale producers that will enable them to compete will Box 17. The \"Nested Approach\": A Flexible Mechanism to Reduce Emissions from DeforestationThe \"nested approach\" proposal is defined as a mechanism that grants trade-able emission reduction credits to participants in REDD projects while promoting action on both the national and sub-national level. REDD mechanism is seemed exclusively built on national accounting. Such a mechanism will be accompanied by the establishment of a national crediting system, reference emission level and monitoring system. Given the complexity of forest problems in developing countries such as Indonesia then unlikely the developing countries have capacity to fulfill these requirements. Therefore, it is important to design mechanisms that assure successful sub-national REDD projects will be credited regardless of possible under-compliance at the national-level.Developing could decide on their initial level of participation in this mechanism. However, once the total area of a participating country reaches XX% of its forest territory or, alternatively, more than YY years have elapsed since the start of the first sub-national activity, such country would have to adopt a national emission reduction goal. At the national level, non-Annex 1 countries are encouraged to negotiate internally and externally national target GHG emission levels from deforestation and degradation. REDD credits shall be issued for any emission reduction below the agreed national target emission level. But XX% of the REDD credits issued from a country would not be traded to Annex I countries and will be hold in a mandatory reserve account of the host country to guarantee compliance with the agreed target in future verification periods.At Sub national level, REDD project can be start earlier, independently from activities at the national level. Such REDD project should have their own emission reference level and may be registered prior to (or after) reporting of the national target emission level. REDD credits from project activities shall be real, measurable and additional. They would be issued directly to the authorized project participants. Leakage-prone project types would be avoided by strict eligibility criteria. In addition, project leakages detected and independently verified would be: ! Verified and subtracted in the calculation of emission reductions attributable to the REDD project; ! Added to the national target emission level, once this level will have been negotiated and registered. This flexible mechanism allows developing countries to learn how to conduct REDD project at different level, and at the same time to attract private and public investors to participate in the REDD development at sub-national level.CATIE et al. The Nested Approach: A Flexible Mechanism to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation. The proposal builds on a UNFCCC submission by CATIE and BVEK (http://unfccc.int/essential_background/library/items/3599.php?rec=j&priref=500004142#beg be essential. Research in this piloting phase can help to identify a minimum set of support services required to enable smallholders to benefit from REDD schemes.To reduce transaction costs it may well be preferable for the central government to facilitate the establishment of REDD projects at District and sub-District level by providing an appropriate regulatory framework for reporting to the national registry, instead of redistributing payments from a centrally managed fund. In this case project developers would bear transaction costs and overall transaction costs would be reduced through shortening the 'paper trail'.1. There is a range of possible modalities for an Indonesian REDD payments system. The options depend on which actors are involved in transactions from international to national levels and the redistribution architecture within the country. Cost-benefit analyses of all potential options should be carried out prior to implementation. 2. Transactions for REDD between Indonesia and international funders or buyers could take place at central government level or directly with lower government levels (e.g. district governments). Transactions closer to beneficiaries are likely to be preferable in terms of efficiency of the REDD distribution system, reducing corruption and rent seeking, reducing transaction costs and increasing investor confidence. 3. Redistribution within the Indonesia could take a number of forms. If REDD revenues are accrued at a national level, either the state budget or an independent fund could be used to transfer revenues to lower administrative levels. There are pros and cons with each approach. 4. At more localised scales REDD payments can be used in five main ways: strengthening existing systems; supporting direct regulatory changes; supporting indirect regulatory changes; providing economic incentives; and implementing direct infrastructure changes. They can also be targeted at a broad range of stakeholders (e.g. through local development projects) or directly at individuals. 5. The allocation of REDD funds has both horizontal and vertical dimensions, both of which depend on being able to identify who the 'legitimate' receivers of REDD financing are and at what level. Competitive bidding processes might usefully be used to encourage participation and improve performance. In the horizontal dimension trade-offs between efficiency and fairness will need to be addressed, possibly through redistributing funds from areas with high deforestation rates to those with low rates. Identifying legal stakeholders will also be an issue, given the existing lack of clarity over land ownership in many areas. In the vertical dimension, the distribution of funds should relate to the 'added value' each level offers to the production of the carbon commodity. 6. REDD payments could either be made to individuals or groups (which would possibly require further means of benefit sharing) and in either cash or non-cash form. Which options are most appropriate is likely to vary between different areas and with different stakeholders. 7. Payments can be made upfront or disbursed over time. Upfront payments are generally preferable for the seller, but to encourage compliance and increase permanence, disbursed payments over a number of years might be preferable for the buyer. 8. Legal frameworks for payment distribution mechanisms will have to take into account existing legislation particularly relating to fiscal balancing between central government and the regions. 9. Six main institutions will be required for REDD implementation in Indonesia, some of these exist already but some will need to be created: National/Regional/Local fund managers (e.g. BLU); National/regional/local registries (e.g. BPN, BaPlan); Monitoring entities, linking local to national scale (e.g. BPS, civil society, contracted service providers); National/regional/local legal institutions (Legislative, DepHut, BPN); Emission reduction agents and providers of alternative livelihoods; Auditing (e.g. BPK, KPK and PPATK) and verification entities, with international credibility. 10. Central government will play an important role in the REDD system and could simultaneously act as seller, buyer, intermediary and regulator of the system. Separating regulatory from fund management and trading roles will be crucial in order to increase accountability. It is also likely to increase efficiency if the central government adopts a role as regulator of the system, with transactions happening between district government and buyers directly, rather than using a highly centralized system. 11. Accountability and transparency in the REDD system will be essential. The BLU, BPK, Indonesian Financial Intelligent Unit (PPATK) and the Indonesian Anti Corruption Unit (KPK) are important institutions in this regard and they will need to be included in REDD design.12. REDD mechanisms are likely to entail high risks, which will have to be well managed in order to attract investors. Permanence is one of the key risks, which can be more easily managed when there is a national accounting system. The REDD accounting system will need to maintain reserve 'buffers' as insurance against project failure and include mechanisms for devolving liabilities down the REDD supply chain in a way that safeguards the interests of those who less able to meet those liabilities. 13. Third party verification processes, voluntary standards such as the Climate, Community and Biodiversity standard and land conflict reduction tools are likely to increase confidence between different actors in Indonesia and amongst international buyers. They could be specified by central government for all REDD projects. 14. High standards are desirable for REDD but careful attention must be paid to ensuring that the REDD mechanism is as simple as possible to encourage participation and to increase access to funds by a wide variety of stakeholders.The aim of REDD payment distribution mechanisms is to transfer revenues from international REDD funds or carbon markets to (or within) national levels, to support policies and measures that reduce deforestation and degradation rates. To ensure demonstrable results, these mechanisms must be effective in targeting the wide range of agents involved in deforestation and degradation. They must reward good performance and incentivise improved performance compared to reference scenarios, and adequately compensate agents or actors that (legally) suffer losses from changed practices. Payments are likely to be performance based in terms of the extent to which emissions have been reduced, with safeguards for environmental and social impacts of the system.The REDD initiative is a new international forest policy for addressing the same old forestry problems: deforestation and degradation. The international forest community should learn from this failure and recognized their past mistakes. They should also learn from failures of many national forestry programs to stop deforestation including programs for rehabilitation and reforestation of forest and land and many programs for developing timber plantation. All these programs have spent billions of dollars of donor funds and government budgets and yet failed to reduce deforestation and degradation.The proposed REDD initiative to be negotiated in Bali at the end of 2007 offers financial rewards for activities that can reduce carbon dioxide from clearing, converting, or degrading forests. It is a reward for not being carbon dioxide emitters. It is about rewarding policies and business practices that do not support deforestation and degradation.If Indonesia as a country is to reduce its net emissions from deforestation and degradation of forests and peatlands, and on that basis access international REDD funds or markets, it will have to achieve progress on a number of challenges. It will have to:1. Provide efficiency as well as fairness: Focus on the areas, drivers and sectors that are currently most directly linked (legally or illegally) to emissions, while providing appropriate incentives to areas, drivers and sectors that actively contribute to resource conservation and provide new options to those at a cross-roads of alternative development pathways, 2. Develop and operationalize a vision of a long term transition to sustainability that meets and surpasses the Millennium Development Goals, transcends economic dependence on extractive industries and finds a balance between 'goods' and 'services', 3. Improve the transparency and accountability of governance systems that link the local to the national scale, address the multiple conflicts over access and rights to lands and forest resources, by setting performance-based standards for dialogue and conflict resolution, 4. Enhance the REDDiness of local and national stakeholders by creating active learning with effective feedback enhance awareness, develop local monitoring skills, supporting local creativity in finding effective solutions and appropriate incentive systems.Each of these 4 principles can be operationalized at the level of criteria, indicators and verifiers.Overall REDD architecture (and payment distribution mechanisms within this framework) will need a combination of functions, provided by appropriate institutions. Important components already exist; others are missing or not yet fully performing the functions required.There is, consequently, likely to be a tradeoff between 'efficiency' and 'equity/fairness'. If performance is measured against a negative baseline of declining C stocks it may appear to provide perverse incentives for increasing the level of threat where threat is not yet urgent, to claim a stronger negative baseline. Alternatively, if most of the benefits flow to areas and actors already protecting forests, little emission reduction can be claimed. The tradeoff will need to be managed to secure both measurable emission reduction and long term incentives towards a low emission future.There are also a number of ways to reduce deforestation and degradation rates, ranging from direct regulatory changes to economic incentive schemes such as payments for environmental services and imposing or changing taxes on certain activities. Within these options, incentive payments or compensation for opportunity costs can be made either directly to individuals or more generally, through local, regional or national development projects.Law No 41/1999 provided the general framework for forestry regulation; Law 32/2004 set out the shared authority between local and central government over various governmental affairs, including forestry, while in Law No. 17/2004 Indonesia ratified the Kyoto Protocol As funds from carbon credits might be part of deconcentration funds or shared finance, the payment distribution will also be affected The national body would be responsible for a register of all sub-national (districts, provinces, or management units) that are committed to implement REDD and for recording reference emissions and targets for emission reduction at the sub-national and national level. The national reference emission for REDD should be revised as the number of participating districts/provinces increases. Within these national structures, participating local governments will coordinate with local stakeholders, including business, civil society and government to determine implementation of the REDD.In the selection of pilot areas for testing REDD in the next 2-3 years, the primary contrasts to be explored will have to focus on the most appropriate approach in 'current emission hot spots' as well as those for 'core forest areas' (criteria 1). The geographic and economic opportunities differ between Sumatra, Kalimantan, Papua and Sulawesi plus other islands in eastern Indonesia (criteria 2). The other three criteria are economic transition level from forest exploitation to forest conservation, level of governance, and REDD readiness (Appendix C). These site-based pilot activities aim to generate the following lessons (a) learning to balance efficiency and equity by appropriate mix of market and fund allocation processes; (b) learning how to initiate and support a transition to sustainable resource use;(c) learning how to improve and sustain governance systems; and (d) experience in effective capacity building approaches.Figure AppA.1. Relationships between carbon stocks, emission rates and relative efficiency of investment in REDD in different phases of the non-linear baseline of forest degradation (virtual time steps, e.g. commitment periods), based on the model; the degree of curvature of the baseline is likely to depend on the scale of evaluation: from the step function of a single tree, through the landscape ecological scale where percolation theory applies to the approximately linear baselines that may be found at national scale; the example shown with strongly non-linear baseline at a = 3.5 would probably apply in relatively small areas A 'registry' is a database to ensure the accurate accounting of the issuance, holding, transfer, acquisition, cancellation and selling of credits. To provide transparency to the REDD system, Indonesia could record changes in national level carbon stock in a national registry. Upon transaction C REDD 's would be deducted from Indonesia's registry and transferred to the registry of the international buyer. Each C REDD would be issued with unique identification number, and should be geographically linked to individual forest areas. In that way, the registry could trace individual C REDD 's back to the source forest. This would allow the national Government devolve benefits to sub-national entities according to changes in carbon stock and other factors, as described in section 0. The registry would not only record transactions, but would also function as a project database, providing information about individual REDD projects. This would provide buyers with specific information about the nature of the REDD project itself, such as co-benefits. In other words, the system would not be 'project-blind'. Data in the registry should be accessible to all parties involved in the REDD supply chain.A national forest carbon monitoring and reporting system would interface directly with the registry, such that the number of C REDD 's in the registry would directly reflect national forest carbon estimates. The national monitoring system would collate and report the aggregate effects of changes in carbon stock from all of Indonesia's forests. Wall-to-wall satellite imagery would be used to calculate national carbon estimates, as described in the 'Methodologies and Baselines' paper. Carbon estimates derived from satellite imagery could be verified with field inventory data. Villages, concessionlicence holders and other parties in the REDD supply chain would be encouraged to collect sitespecific inventory data for registered REDD forests. This would improve the accuracy of the national monitoring system, and create jobs for displaced forestry workers. Where villages and concession holders do not have the capacity to implement field inventory, they could rely on more conservative estimates from the national level system.An additional design element that would assist Indonesia in managing its liabilities as well as bring integrity to the C REDD system would be a national 'buffer' pool of carbon. This is a quantity of carbon held in reserve to prevent overselling in the event of underperformance. To create a national buffer pool of carbon, Indonesia might retain a nominal percentage (say 20 -30%) of total C REDD 's from each individual REDD project.The national Government may choose to devolve benefits to the sub-national level via a scheduled series of payments, rather than as a lump sum. A distributed payment schedule incentivises long term carbon storage. It also addresses intergenerational equity issues by compensating future generations for foregone timber harvesting opportunities.The flow of benefits would be devolved in accordance with the net emission reductions achieved by each Province or District, as well as other socio-economic factors. Whether the national Government distributes benefits directly to the Provincial Government, or to the District Government, would depend on how the baselines are determined. If baselines are determined on a provincial level, then benefits should logically flow directly to the Provincial Government. Likewise, District level baselines would imply devolution of payments directly to District Governments. Direct transfer of payments to the village level would place a significant administrative burden on the national Government, which would likely be inconsistent with Indonesia's autonomy laws.In either case, the Provincial or District Government could then distribute funds to the relevant parties involved in implementation of the REDD activities. The appropriate recipient of benefits will likely depend on whether or not a concession licence has already been issued for the forest.In cases where a concession licence has been granted, the licence would need to be revoked. In this case, it is likely that a significant portion of funds might be needed to compensate the concession licence-holder. Forest carbon standards 23 could be used to ensure the concession-holder addresses the socio-economic concerns of the villagers and other stakeholders. Indonesia could develop its own standard, or use an existing standard. The Provincial or District Government would only distribute REDD benefits to the concession licence holder if the requirements of the standard are met. This approach would reduce regulatory burden for the Provincial or District Government. However the approach would rely heavily on independent verifiers to assess compliance. Notwithstanding this issue, the concession-holders are likely to be able to pay for a verifier, and the approach might create significant employment opportunities for verifiers.In cases where a concession licence has not been granted, then the benefits could flow directly from Provincial or District Government to the village(s). In cases where the village lacked social cohesion, payments may also need to be distributed down to the clan level. In exchange for the payments, the village would be required to maintain the carbon stock of its surrounding forest. Forest carbon stock could be verified either through the national monitoring system, or audited at project level by an independent verifier. Payments could be directly transferred into a specially created village bank account. To prevent misappropriation of funds by village heads, withdrawal of funds would require counter-signing by at least two other individuals. This approach is already proposed for use in Papua, where payments from REDD projects can be withdrawn from the village bank account only upon signatory of three different representatives: the customary leader, religious leader and Government leader. Spending of the funds could be decided by the village as a whole, or by a specially established Village Council. Ideally, the funds would be used for community projects such as schools and infrastructure, and for industry diversification/job creation.To facilitate accountability and transparency across the entire payment distribution system, independent financial 'watchdogs' run by could be invited to monitor and reconcile REDD transactions in the accounts at each layer of Government. This process would highlight any misappropriation of funds.In the case of a 'Rights Forest' (Hutan Hak) 24 , the land title holder is classified as the legal owner of the forest (Hadiputranto, Hadinoto & Partners 2007). It is assumed this includes ownership of the carbon stored in the forest. In this case, the forest owner may be required to legally transfer ownership of the atmospheric benefits of the forest to the national Government, in order to for it to be sold.In the case of 'State Forests' and 'customary rights forests', the forest is publicly owned by either the state or the local community 25 , meaning it has no individual ownership rights (Hadiputranto, Hadinoto & Partners 2007). , Therefore concession licence holders have no legal ownership rights to the carbon benefits provided by State Forests. Therefore there would be no need for legal transfer of carbon ownership up the supply chain. Resolving the multiple claims between 'state' and 'customary law communities', however, is still needed.For both State/Customary Rights forests and Rights forests, where forest inventory data has been collected, the raw or processed data could be submitted directly to the national registry. There would be no need for this data to be reported to the District or Provincial level, as they would have access to the data via the registry.The responsibilities of the Provincial and District Governments would be to implement the REDD actions. These could include a range of activities such as enforcement and verification; direct regulatory changes (such as changes in forest land classifications); indirect regulatory changes (such as changes to planning schemes); economic incentives and infrastructural changes (such as construction of canals on peatland). Provincial or District Governments would also be responsible for approval of IUPJL licences for utilisation of forest environmental services (see 'Liabilities' below).In exchange for REDD payments, the concession licence-holder would be required to meet the criteria of a forest carbon standard. They would also be required to engage verifiers to assess compliance with the standard.In order to improve accuracy of forest carbon inventory estimates, the concession licence holder and/or village may conduct a field inventory. They could also be trained to develop carbon estimates from the forest inventory data for submission to the national registry.Finally, the primary responsibility of a village would be to maintain the carbon stock of the forest. This could be done in the first instance by avoiding clearing of the forest, and subsequently through protection and enforcement activities such as appointment of village wardens.To ensure that sub-national entities are accountable for continuity of REDD activities for the duration of the REDD accounting period, the national Government would need to devolve its liabilities to the sub-national level. There are four main instruments that can be used to devolve these liabilities down the supply chain:1) Contracts;2) Carbon property rights;3) Risk buffer; and 4) Standards and verification.Contracts between successive parties in the supply chain would delineate responsibilities, and outline procedures in case of default. For example, a contract between the District Government and a village might specify that payments will only be made if the village maintains carbon stock in the surrounding forest. In the event of default on contract terms resulting in loss of carbon, the defecting party may be required to replace the carbon, either through substitution or direct cash payments. Alternatively, the defecting party could be prohibited from further participation in the REDD system; fined, or prosecuted.Legislation to establish carbon property rights for forest carbon is a critical step to commoditise forest carbon and thereby facilitate trade. Carbon property rights legally separate ownership of the forest, carbon and land. When combined with a contract, carbon property rights establish the legal basis for continuity of REDD activities, and liability in the event of forest carbon loss. Indonesia already has the legal framework for establishment of carbon property rights, under the existing Undang Undang Law No 41/1999. These laws grant the right for individuals or companies to utilise the environmental services of Production and Protection forests, providing they have an IUPJL licence (Izin Usaha Pemanfaatan Jasa Lingkungan licence). To ensure permanent C REDD 's, the duration of the IUPJL would likely need to be extended from the current 30 years, to either an infinite duration or more realistically, a nominal long term period such as 100 years.The national Government could manage risks by requiring 'high risk' REDD projects to allocate a larger proportion of their REDD credits to the national buffer pool.As described previously, accountability of sub-national entities could be ensured through the use of standards and verification. In this way, benefits would not be devolved to projects that do not meet the required standard. 4B.The main difference of these two regulations is in the obligation of establishing an inter-ministry team in discussing the regulation draft. In making the Government Regulation, the initiator(s) are ordered to establish an inter-ministry team in discussing the draft Government Regulation. In preparing for a Presidential Decree, the establishment of inter-ministry team is non-mandatory. Article 40 of Presidential Decree 68/2005 says that initiator(s) may establish an inter-ministry team in discussing the Presidential Decree draft.The non-mandatory rule in establishing an inter-ministry team in making a Presidential Decree creates the assumption that making a Presidential Decree is easier than making a Government Regulation. This assumption is also proved by the fact that in practice, making Government Regulations takes more effort since it usually involves two or more ministries. However, by understanding the essence and substance of Government Regulations and Presidential Decrees, the need for inter-ministry cooperation and coordination it appears to be advisable to target a Government Regulation in the case REDD, given the complexity of the substantive side and the cross-cutting issues on land use outside of the forest, the local livelihoods and issues of public governance. Coordination between a number of ministries will be essential to create a legal basis for a well functioning REDD mechanism.","tokenCount":"39629"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"330eee7155a74ffc1dc65063885b2174","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://publications.iwmi.org/pdf/H029654.pdf","id":"-1381161930"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c80f1642-fc16-453d-819a-500014bbc0c3","pagecount":"17","content":"Gujarat experiences drought every third year. Despite five decades of planning and more than a decade of \"Drinking Water Missions\" there are many \"No source\" villages and their number is growing constantly. Most of Gujarat's 18000 villages had own reliable drinking water source when the state was carved of out of the Bombay state in 1960. Only 1500 villages were without adequate source of drinking water. But today 15000 villages of North Gujarat, Saurashtra and Kutch regions are facing acute water shortage. According to the records of the state water supply and Sewage Board, 700 villages in Bhavnagar district, over five hundred villages in the Amreli and Jamnagar regions and more than three hundred villages in Kutch, Sabarkantha and Surendranagar districts are in need of immediate redressal of the problem of water shortage. As per the official record, 85 o of its underground water has already been extracted and areas like North Gujarat, and Saurashtra have been declared as 'Dark Zones'.How did this water crisis emerge? The current water crisis of Gujarat highlights the hydrological climate and topographical diversity of the state causing skewed distribution of water across space and time. Until 1960, Gujarat was heavily dependent, on rainwater for its agriculture. After 1970, water demand for irrigation accelerated. In the absence of perennial rivers, North Gujarat, Kutch and Saurashtra regions started meeting their water demand for irrigation from underground water. This led to over use of ground water over a period of time. Of course over use of underground water has been on the increase at the national level too, but Gujarat is way ahead. Gujarat also increased its water demand by consuming and in the process polluted a large amount of fresh and sweet water. Industrialisation and urbanisation also played a role for increasing water consumption. Rising population, irrigation, industrialisation, and urbanisation are major water users of underground water from deep acquirers resulting in the drying up of shallow acquirers. The systematic development of water resources for irrigation since independence has led to a severe imbalance in the distribution of water causing scarcity in several parts of the state.A significant aspect of the water scarcity is that the burden of bringing water from distant sources has fallen on women, irrespective of age. Women in several rural and even in urban households have to face hardships because of lack of easy access to water for cooking and other household purposes. It is clear that ensuring access to safe drinking water to all has not been a priority in our planning.Women, as the prime water carriers, managers, end-users and family health educators are directly affected by availability or non-availability of water. Women and young girls often spent five to six hours a day for water fetching from distance place. They are also responsible for preparing and cooking food, cleaning utensils, washing clothes, child rearing and cattle By virtue of their domestic functions, they are in constant contact with water, and therefore women have chances of being affected. Particularly in developing and underdeveloped countries women's role is well established as a main water supplier. Women and girl and child often spent five to six hours a day for water fetching from distance place and come in close contact with water. When the distance is even greater, animal power or auto vehicles are put to use for transporting water and particularly when men manage water collection, but not when the distance is covered by foot and the water is carried only by women. Such hardships adversely affect her time, energy mental hygiene, her status and her development.During recent decades, awareness has been increased for rational use of water resources all over the world. The United Nations General Assembly at its 1980 session proclaimed the period 1981-1990 as the \"International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade\", during which member states were to assume a commitment to improve substantially the standards and levels of services of water supply and sanitation by the year 1990. At the Rio-De-Janeiro summit of 1992 on \"Environment and Development\" the UN Members also agreed to improve different environmental aspects on the global agenda. The Earth Summit in 1992 also emphasised sustainable development by declaring Agenda -21 as the plan of action for sustainable development for the twenty-first century. This plan included a separate chapter on \"Women\".During the last decade the concept of significance of women in relation to the sustainable development of natural resources has received much attention worldwide. After the Summit it is widely accepted that, the economic development exploited not only the poor but women and nature too. The Earth summit also raised the point of role of women in \"Environment and Development\" and discussed the absence of women in development process. \"Despite the demographic majority and substantive work performance at global level, women continued to be considered as a marginal components of the world economy. This devaluation of her work has resulted in devaluation of her status also, which led to practice such as gender discrimination in food and wages\" (Krishna Patel, 1995).From this discussion two issues have emerged: \"women\" and \"environment\", which are affected negatively by development process. The joining of both can produce sustainable development for all. Today both these exploited components have merged into what has come to be called as \"Eco-Feminism\".As far as specific topic of water is concerned, the relevance of women has become apparent. As the economic value of water has increased, due to shortage, the economic return to investing in domestic water supplies is undervalued because women are located in the traditionally invisible domestic area and insufficient quantity and quality of water for domestic use are also borne by women. These costs are (1) more time in water collection, (2) less water for drinking and other purposes, (3) loss of income from water intensive activities, (4) poor quality of water for domestic use which increase incidents of diseases, (5) loss of educational opportunities. These are the costs of development paid by women at present in some regions, particularly drought prone areas like Gujarat. Changing practices of resource management have similarly affected men and women but the inputs are different in terms of physical labour as well as in terms of their status within the home and society. The close association between women and natural resources is more valid and primary in rural context, while urban women are not conscious about ecological issues.Therefore the subject of this paper leads to a discussion of one of the most important issues affecting our lives -depleting of water resource and emerging water scarcity. The aim of this study is to understand the relationship between water resources and women at micro level and in detail.The aim of this paper is to find out how water scarcity affects the status of women in the family as well as society. Questions of our inquiry are• How has water scarcity emerged?• How are water resources and women related?• How does the condition of water resources affect women's life in terms of her daily routine, her social interaction, her economic role, her health and her educational development?As part of the project \"Water and People\" (with special reference to women's emancipation), carried out by Centre for Social Studies, Surat, this researcher had an opportunity to visit the interior drought prone areas of four districts of Gujarat, namely, Ahmedabad, Amreli, Bhavnagar and Rajkot. The author of this paper stayed at all eight study villages and came in close contact with people, particularly the women. This paper is an out come of her field experience of the eight villages.For this study, we have divided these villages into two groups in terms water resources and the condition thereof. First one is the average category; the second one is a worse category. At the time of our fieldwork January -June 2001 all villages except Praladgadh of Bhavnagar district depended for their water requirement on an outside source, particularly Gujarat Government Water Supply and Sewage Board. As mentioned in table -3, before drought and in normal days, these villages had their own source of water. No doubt, drought has already become a permanent phenomenon in north-Gujarat, Saurashtra and Kutch regions. Here, the purpose is to show that before drought every village had its own original source of water, which is now disappearing. According to the people, at that time, water could be fetched at the time convenient to them, although there was no tap connection available then. But after the disappearing of all water resources of the villages and entry of Government Water Supply and Sewage Board, people have to collect water according the convenience of the water supplier, which is extremely inconvenient. Experience shows that any welfare or beneficiary schemes had lose their significance when typical government body enters the scene. Though water is the first and prime need of people, the work schedule of the whole day totally depends on water availability, no regularity in arrival of water tankers was found in villages. They have only one excuse of delaying and cancellation of water tanker that is failure of power supply.In a village like Otaria, during a normal monsoon, with people's participation, the leader of the village tried to fill up all the three ponds, which were disappearing, and due to effective local contact with government department, water supply to the public Hoj was quite regular. However, the amount of supply and quality of water were not satisfactory. Moreover out of 215 households, 80 households have their own under ground water tank to store the rain water was provided by government at subsidised rates. People use this water for drinking and cooking purpose. Some families of Lauva Patel, Rajput and Koli have this facility. In the absence of rainwater, people try to fill up the under ground water tank by purchasing water from Dholera, a nearby village.In fact, this village is a major wheat producer, called \"Bhalia\", which has brought prosperity to some people. At the time of our fieldwork, after two years of failed crops, some people could maintain their standard of living. Families of this group, purchase water from outside the village. The real hardship was faced by marginal farmers, landless labourers, SCs of the village.Sangasar village falls in the second that is worse category. In normal days the village pond used to be the main source of water. It was filled up by people themselves during monsoon. The pond water was enough for domestic consumption of entire village. But at the time of our fieldwork, the pond had dried and the source of water was the public Hoj, filled up by Water Supply and Sewage Board of government. Sangasar is a interior and remote village, away from Otaria to 10 km. Sangasar is not as lucky as Otaria in terms of getting water from the water supply Board. Water is made available, not according to the need and convenience of the villagers but that of the Board. Intervals of two-three days between consecutive water supply is common, and it is already accepted by people too. Here also, some big farmers of Koli, Lauva Patel and Rajput have built up underground water tanks. Real hardship is faced by other marginal and weaker groups who have no power to store or purchase water from outside the village. Women of this group always are in search of sources of water.Helpless people try to steal water from the nearby village Ontaria, creating tension between women of the two villages. Whenever, these groups of women meet, they start quarrelling on this issue. This has led to bitterness between the two groups.Villages like Babapur and Dudhalabai of Amreli district were dependent on the water supply board of the government for its water requirement. In both the villages' water tankers come and people collect water from the tankers. The difference between the two villages, however, is, in the frequency of water supply. Moreover, in Babapur Sarvodaya Ashramshala has its own bore well, with reasonably satisfactory good level of water due to the efforts of Shree Gunvantbhai Desai. His knowledge about water recharging and farsightedness has led to conservation of some amount of water in their well. Sometimes people come and collect water from Ashramshala, too. Moreover the awareness of the people of this village forced the Water Supply Board to maintain the time and frequency, which is not happening in Dudhalibai village. This is why Dudhalibai is in a position worse than Babapur. In normal days, the bore well in Babapur is the main source of water while in Dudhalibai a hand pump is the main source of water. In both the villages, in normal days people have enough time for water collection, which was not the case during drought years, particularly at the time of our fieldwork.In Bhavnagar district, Prahladgadh village of Gadhda taluka comes in the average category of water condition, while Kanpar of Vallabhipur taluka falls in the worse category. In Prahladgadh, river Kalubhar, a hand pump (public and private), and a bore well are the sources of water. At the time of our fieldwork river Kalubhar was dry and the level of under ground water of hand pump had also gone down making the hand pump dysfunctional. The only water source was a private bore well, but the water level in the bore well had a peculiar characteristic. All farms of Prahladgadh are divided in north-south part of the village. Because of Kalubhar dam lying at north part, the bore well from in the north had good amount of water while the one in the south had not. The entire village was dependent on a private bore well for their drinking and other domestic water consumption. The owner of the borewell, who is a leader and the sarpanch of the village, so he allowed all people for their water demand. People have stated worshipping him. During our stay, we also experienced his kind heartness. Though all water sources had dried, people hardly felt as helpless as people in other villages. This condition places Prahladgadh in the average category, which is totally different from another village of Bhavnagar district like Kanpar.In Kanpar, the sources of water were four government wells, a public water tank provided by the water supply Board of Gujarat and 95 private bore wells in normal days. At the time of our field work, due to drought all water resources had disappeared, except the public water tank, and out of 95 private bore wells only twenty bore wells had some amount water; out of twenty bore wells, only five bore wells had substantial amount of water, which was available for only two-three hours a day on a distant farm. Here also, though the public water tank is the main source of water, the time and frequency of water tankers are not regular, which add to the hardship faced by the people.Some villages of Rajkot also fall in the \"No Source\" village list. Virnagar and Chitaliya villages of Jasdan taluka come as samples of this study. As per our criteria Virnagar comes as an average village and Chitaliya comes as a worse village, in terms of water resources. In normal days, water supply in Virnagar was provided through taps from house to house by Water Works operated by the local Gram Panchayat itself. A private bore well was also at the farm. At the time of our field work the level of water works borewell had touched the rock level of the land and extraction of water by electric motor was already stopped. Water supply provided by the water supply Board was the only source of water. At the time of our fieldwork twenty tankers provided water instead of ten, which was the case earlier. By submitting a memorandum to the local and district level authorities and following a strong agitation by women group, the district and taluka level government bodies took some steps and increased the water tanker frequencies. Awareness of people forced the government authority to add to the number of water tankers. Of course twenty water tankers were not sufficient for the population. But Chitliya village, which is only five km away from Virnagar, does not fall in the average category. Its water condition places it in the worse category. In a normal situation too, this village has poor water availability. Only two three private bore wells were the source of water, which had dried up in drought years. At the time of our field work the water tanker was the only source of water. It is not necessary for water tanker supplier to come everyday. As a norm, the water tanker comes once a day at the interval of two-three days. This hardship creates serious tensions between the upper castes and SCs. This is the condition of water resources of eight drought prone villages of Gujarat, which also come under Narmada Command area. What is the reason behind its water scarcity? A simple answer is mismanagement and indiscriminate use of water. Except Otaria and Sangasar, all other villages of this study have a bore well for irrigation, which is the major user of water in this area. This has created drinking water scarcity. Those, who utilise water for irrigation, have prospered compared to the weaker sections of the village. Today also, by using money and influence a small group of people try to meet their drinking water needs, but actual hardship comes to the weaker sections of the society, though they are not responsible for this overuse.After studying the two types of villages through fieldwork, it has been found that the women belonging to villages of the average category have more access to water that has a positive influence on their overall life style. Women from Otaria, Prahladgadh, Babapur and Virnagar, for instance, seem to have a better status and more awareness in thinking in comparison to those from Sangasar, Dudhlabai, Kanpar and Chitliya, seem to suffer from an inferiority complex, looked helpless and had a lower standard of living. Of course this is a result of gradual development and not only a result of the past two years of drought. However, what is significant is the immediate changes between two types of villages. The overall impression leads us to recommend that creating and conserving water resources in rural areas is now a must for gender justice, and sustainable development.Any scarce item influences social structure and gets distributed in accordance with power of groups: caste, class and gender. All the three types of stratification systems of society have a strong relationship with water. In the area of water management the role of women is that of \"a provider\" at household and community level. As a main water supplier of the family, it is she who decides which water source should be used and stored, how to transport and carry water, etc. In a situation of scarcity, she has to walk long distances to fetch one pot of water. Carrying water from distant places takes away much of her time and energy. Clearly playing the role of a provider, women suffer most severely due to depleting of water resources.But does this hold true for women of all categories? It is necessary to look more critically at different categories of women. The diversity among women: rural and urban, upper caste and lower caste, upper class and lower class, educated and illiterate, women from developed countries and women from underdeveloped countries differ from one another so much so that a general categorisation is difficult.Of course there are some common problems and characteristics that all women might share, but at the same time there are some differences in priorities and roles of women across time, space and classes. Therefore the process of development does not affect all women in the same manner.This is applicable to this study region. As per the local social hierarchy, ownership of a private well, power to purchase water, a water tap and a water tank are found in a descending order of status. Women from the ownership of well are top in the status pyramid. Naturally women of this group enjoy more comfort compared to the rest of the groups. In all the eight villages, families from upper strata of economy have their own source of water like a well or an underground water tank. Most probably they use the same water for drinking and other domestic purpose. This comfort has increased their status the village. Women of this group do not go outside for water collection, which is the reason for their higher in the society. But this is a luxury only of five-six families of each village.Women of this group, feel lucky. But my minute observation showed another side of the coin. The luxury of not going out to fetch water is seen as a favour to the women by their male counterparts. By providing water at home, many male members say that it is the responsibility of women that men are carrying out. So it is a duty of women to feel thankful for being as born and/or married in such a family. This is only a sign of male dominance of our strong patriarchy society model. Such a practice is common within the upper class of Koli, Rajput, Lauva Patel, but the condition is reverse in the Darbar caste. As per social custom and tradition, women from Darbar community do not go outside the house for water collection. In the Darbar caste most probably water collection duties are carried out by male and unmarried girls. At first, it looks like relaxation to women, but this does not increase their status. This is also to justify a patriarchal model and male dominance in the society.Relatives of upper class group enjoy some comfort asking for water with less hesitation. But is it as easy as it looks? No, here the price is paid by women as a special care has been taken to maintain the relations. Whether they like it or not, they have to initiate talk with those families who have status through water. In this sense, women of this group feel inferior, a cause for their status below the upper class group of women.Water purchasing from outside the village is also a luxury of those families who have some extra saving for survival during the last two years of crops failure, and those families who have a regular and fixed income. A little group of some families from each village manages their water needs by spending some money. Collecting water from outside the home is below status for some upper class families. They do not want to decrease their status by sending women outside the home for water collection.To maintain their social status, in the absence of their own water source, they try to purchase water from outside the village. The reason for purchasing water from outside is different in the middle class and educated families. By paying some amount of money for water, this group wants to minimise the struggle of women. Of course it is a force on women to use less and less water with best of reuse. Women of this group always apply their minds to minimise water use. This type of women also consider themselves lucky, but their number is small.At the bottom of the hierarchy are those women who receive water from a water tank or a water tanker, on foot after facing hardships. A large number of families fall in this category. Collection of water is a major job for the women and girls of this group. For this group consumption of time and energy are higher, which makes women inferior. Except the females below 8 years and above 65 years, all the women of all the villages directly or indirectly are engaged in the duties of water collection. Though young girls do not directly participate in fetching water, they assist their mother by standing in a queue for her mother's early turn, which takes away their time for education. As per our age group data, young girls between 10 to 18 are the prime water collectors of their families. One of the hypotheses of this study was that the dropout rate from schools among girls would be high. Field experience also shows that the girls are the prime water carrier, but questionnaire data does not justify the question about drop out data on girls. This led us to check school registers and we found full attendance of girls at school. After a cross check with teachers, the reality revealed was that a special permission is given to girls for water collection at the time of arrival of water tanker. Everybody even school teachers, accepted that the first duty of girls was water collection. In short, though the water scarcity does not make a list of girls drop out in school register, it is an official and granted drop out of girls that is invisible. In my opinion, it is an invisible dropout. In the long term these girls will again come in shadow of male dominance due to educational backwardness perpetuating the present situation.The caste factor also plays a major role in the status of women in terms of water resources and collection. Experience of all the eight villages, indicates extra hardship and humiliation of this women group. In all the eight villages, during our focus group meeting, the women of SCs demanded a separate water resource for their consumption to avoid quarrels that took place at the time of water collection. In Kanpar village at the time of water tank allotment, there was a separate tap allocated to the SCs; it has been functioning for some years. When, women of other castes noticed the advantage of the women from the SC group, that is due to their small number they got more water in less time, the former slowly started to collect water from the tap meant for the SCs, and gradually they started to push them and snatch away the separate tap which was provided only for the SCs. Now it is a general tap, but women from the SCs have to stand aside. Instead of getting water from the tank as their right, now it is an obligation from some kind-hearted women from upper castes.Moreover when the water tanker failed to arrive in village, or when water supply was in short, sometimes women from upper castes dared to ask for the water to other women, who had some amount of water from their farm and most probably they succeeded receiving water, but lower caste women could not even dare to ask for water. Again women of this lower caste group remain at the bottom of the status pyramid within the women group. More or less, the same has happened in all villages. Due to prestige and educational atmosphere of Sarvodaya Ashramshala in villages like Otaria and Babapur, the upper caste people dare not avoid the SC people and allow them for water collection freely. However, the SCs of these villages have been demanding a separate water source for their community. Virnagar and Chitliya villages of Rajkot district also face group rivalry between the upper castes and SCs. In both the villages, during our focussed group meetings, differences of caste group comes out openly. Both the groups had demanded a separate water source. In Kanpar village of Bhavnagar district, women from upper caste snatched the separate water tap allotted at the time of installation by hook or cook. All these examples lead to derive that caste stratification plays its role within the women group also. It implies that the women, who belong to lower castes, also have a lower social status among women groups.Consecutive droughts of two years have affected economic and social life of people.Crops have failed and there is severe shortage of drinking water. Shortage of cattle feed and water, force the people to reduce their cattle. Before drought, women used to spent most of their time in agriculture and cattle rearing activities, thus contributing to the economy. Their invisible support was a main source of income. But the drought situation led women away from income generating activities and brought them near the water tank and most of their time is now spent in water collection that has no economic value in our society. Reduction in the number of cattle also affects women's life in many ways. It means reduction in milk and milk based diet. As per the Indian customs and traditions, in the family, more nutritious food is first offered to the male members of the family, and then if anything is saved, it is served to women and girls. Moreover, reduction in number of cattle means reduction in cowdung, which is the main source of fuel in rural areas. Now these women have to search for the fuel too along with water. In this list one more hardship is added: the loss of her own exclusive personal things, her ornaments. Surplus buffer stock and savings are already exhausted, due to failure of crops. First, people started borrowing money from the moneylender, co-operative society and from relatives. But after a certain limit beyond which borrowing was not possible, ornaments of women were the only resort to get some cash. In my observation during fieldwork, most of the women were seen few ornaments. It was found that most of the families had sold or mortgaged the ornaments.Economic crisis affects not only women, but also young girls. Young girls are the prime water collectors for their families. Under the tension and hardship of fetching water, these girls fail to concentrate on their education. In fact, she has to sacrifice the time meant for her development and education, a weak link in our patriarchal society. The theories of tradition and patriarchy still continue their role and girls of this group remain far behind in terms of development, keeping them in the shadow of male dominance.A positive sign emerging from this water crisis is that more and more young girls have joined diamond cutting and polishing work to earn extra income. At the first glance, it seems to be a bright sign of women empowerment. The darker side of this cloud, however is, that the girls engaged in income generating activities, are the only work force. Constant water scarcity of this area has caused failure of crops. The deteriorating economic condition of families have made these young girls feel worried about their Kariavar and dowry. To avoid bitter experiences in married life in future, girls themselves have started to earn for their Kariavar and family support. Their families also have allowed them to work outside, keeping their male ego aside. At first look one can say, it is a positive sign of women empowerment, but to me, \"it is a shifting of responsibilities from male to female shoulder\". Though they are working independently, yet their accounts are maintained by their brothers and father, and their household responsibility is not reduced, they still have to fulfill the demands of their future in-laws, which is not a sign of their independent status and empowerment. Let's hope that this increases their status in the family and society. This is the best example of how tradition and change go together: the society has accepted and allowed the girls and women to work out side. In fact it is a compulsory and convenient to send their girls for outside work, on the name of \"change\", \"progress\" and \"liberation\". This is only hypocrisy for if women's work outside the home is a sign of progress and change, then why do they have to continue with the Ghunghat? This is not a step towards women empowerment; it is sheer exploitation of women. Here women are victimised not only from natural calamities and traditions but also on the name of so called \"change\", \"progress\" and \"empowerment\".Inspite of all, women still remain the prime water collectors, providers and managers of their families. The existing scarce availability of water sources had changed her role in some manner. In the present condition, she is not only the water collector, but also someone in search of water resources. Previously her hardship and burden were limited to collecting water from the nearest available source, but in the changing situation, she has to worry about numerous issues like locating sources of drinking water both for the family as well the cattle and collecting water for other domestic consumption. These are the direct efforts of women in search of water and management thereof. Their indirect efforts are also plenty. Any scarce item has its own high value and in a scarcity value and demand forever goes higher. The owner of the scarce item automatically becomes more powerful which results in a weakness of others. Water is one of most scarce items of the present era; Kanpar village is not an exception. As per the traditional role and household duty of women in terms of water collection, they are trying to maintain relations with those families who are rich in water amount. This compromising situation has caused mental stress to some women. Sometimes they have to bear insults also. As the manager of water, it becomes the duty of women to control misuse of water. Sometimes in doing this duty, there are so many cases of bitterness in the family, at times leading to family break-up. Cases of partiality for water uses create serious quarrels between family members too. For all these incidents, women are blamed.Recycling water is also an additional burden that follows water shortage. Generally people use the same water two-three times, and try to save clean water. They never use clean water for cleaning and sanitation. After washing the clothes, they never throw the water away; they try to reuse this water in sanitation. Which water should be used for bath? What was the reuse? All these worries keep women always in thought of water recycling, instead of doing and thinking of other meaningful work, which could help them in their development and empowerment. All these are new worries and duties of women that are a direct outcome of water scarcity.Water scarcity of Gujarat is not a crisis only of Gujarat, but of national and global level. It is a serious issue of environment, of development process, and of gender justice. Water scarcity affects social and economic life of people, particularly that of women. \"The active participation of women, who comprise approximately half the world's population, is critical for ensuring sustainable human development through their actions on environmental management\" (Cecilia Tortajada, 2000). Even after 55 years of independence of India, many regions do not receive safe drinking water.Politicians and bureaucrats are to be blamed for environment and natural disasters like drought. But our experience and facts are different. It is a widely held view that lack of attention on development in rural areas is fuelling unsustainable development; it is increasing the demand of water and water related services, regardless of whether the demand is satisfied by more efficient use of existing supply, or by increasing level of supply. The water demand per unit of gross domestic product is dependent on how these two components of economic growth are combined.This is what exactly has happened in the north part of Gujarat and Saurashtra region. Rapid growth of irrigation extracted ground water on one hand and, on the other hand neglect of conservation of water has caused the crisis. \"In 1960, a large majority of Gujarat's agriculture was rainfed. Even-by 1970-73, only about 14 per cent net area was sown under irrigation. Gujarat, being a semi-arid region, does not have many perennial rivers. Ground water is therefore the major source of irrigation. By 1970-73, ground water already contributed to about 78 per cent of all irrigation sources. In 1993-96, the area under irrigation was 31 per cent and ground water's contribution was about 80 per cent. Ground water exploitation has been increasing at the national level also. Its contribution was 24 per cent in 1970 and 53 per cent in 1992-93.Compared to all India figures, Gujarat was way ahead in 1970 and continued to do so even in the 1990s\" (Sudarshan Iyengar, 2000).This is what has exactly happened in Kanpar village too. Rapid rise in exploitation of ground water has adversely affected the drinking water sources. High increase of demand for water in agriculture led to a severe stress of drinking water. More and more exploitation of ground water from deep acquires has resulted in drying of shallow aquifers which was used for drinking purpose. Nobody thought about, it would be dried and empty one day. Thoughtless and indiscriminate steps create water scarcity, which ultimately affects women's life. Of course, the whole family is seriously affected by water scarcity but there is a difference between lives of men and those of women, due to traditional social norms and customs, due to lack of far sightedness, and due to male oriented point of view planning. Study of these villages clearly indicates how women become victim, not only due to natural calamity like drought, but also due to indiscriminate use of water and lack of water conservation planning. Increasing demand of foodgrain and concept of green revolution of other states has brought more and more land under cultivation. Here women are not responsible for the enormous waste and overuse of natural resources, but now they are suffering, they have to carry extra burden of water fetching, they are suffering from health problems, their daily routine has disturbed, their time of education has suffered, their extra burden of household work has increased, their time of livelihood has reduced, their pleasure is gone, their status has decreased, and their livelihood is now heavily dependent on men.Krishna Ahooja (Krishna Ahooja, 1995) rightly pointed out, \"Despite these economic and social consequences, few policy statement made during the debate by the preparatory committee for UNCED (August) connected women to other international economic or global environment at the macro level. The committee focused on \"urbanisation of poverty\", \"environmental expenditure\", \"responsibility for waste\", and \"over consumption of natural resources\". From all these topic women were omitted, being regarded as neither beneficiaries nor contributors. Now India is going towards fully acceptance of globalisation policy. Upto this time, results of our development projects, clearly indicate that, our development process has created wider gap between development and women. Result of Kanpar village have already proved these facts. In these circumstances the process of gloablisation will also be affected. Within international institutions, national structures and local communities, the process of globalisation has already begun. In 1991, India accepted the globalisation policy with so much hope that foreign market and investors will invest their capital and opportunities of employment will reach all. Now it is well accepted that the assumption of that time does not come true in reality. From that time none of our politicians have paid enough attention at the local level. To earn the foreign capital, India already has opened its doors for foreign investors, but at what cost? The first need of the development process is, to minimise the gap between development and women. There can be no development without taking the human beings into account. If a development harms a large number of people and environment to a great extent, it can hardly be called development. Results of the eight villages clearly show a wide gap between women and development. The women who comprise approximately half of the population, are becoming more and more dependent on men, are turning away from education, have lost their livelihood as well as their social status too.If we want more sustainable development, we have to think again for conservation of natural resources. Instead of economic globalisation, we have to think about how our natural resources could be preserved, how could planning save our natural resources, how could we ensure sustainable development. In a true sense, if we want to go towards the path of globalisation, we have to bring women in the mainstream.Overuse of natural resources makes women backward. It is necessary that \"governments should develop comprehensive long-term national plans for water management and conservation. Integrated management of water resources should be a central feature of development policy\" (Krishna Ahooja Patel, 1995), and women should be a main part of our development process.","tokenCount":"6713"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ce0f977e2032c943d620a61b1d35f612","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/ed37643b-bc01-4c6f-a17a-9f3705ca06fe/retrieve","id":"-237478765"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6f10d0b1-3a43-442e-a0b2-394583a7f62b","pagecount":"2","content":"The International Potato Center (known by its Spanish acronym CIP) is a research-for-development organization with a focus on potato, sweetpotato, and Andean roots and tubers. CIP is dedicated to delivering sustainable science-based solutions to the pressing world issues of hunger, poverty, gender equity, climate change and the preservation of our Earth's fragile biodiversity and natural resources. www.cipotato.org CIP is a member of CGIAR. CGIAR is a global research partnership for a food-secure future. Its science is carried out by 15 Research Centers in close collaboration with hundreds of partners across the globe.Sweetpotato is one of the world's most important food crops in terms of human consumption, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, parts of Asia, and the Pacific Islands. First domesticated more than 5,000 years ago in Latin America, it is grown in more developing countries than any other root crop. Despite its name, sweetpotato is not related to the potato. It is a root, not a tuber, and belongs to the Convolvulaceae family. Many parts of the plant are edible, including leaves, roots, and vines, and varieties exist with a wide range of skin and flesh color, from white to yellow-orange and deep purple.• Sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas) belongs to the Convolvulaceae family. In spite of its name, it is not related to the potato. Unlike the potato -which is a tuber, or thickened stem -the sweetpotato is a storage root. Despite a physical similarity, yams are not related either.• Sweetpotato can grow at altitudes ranging from sea level to 2,500 meters. It requires fewer inputs and less labor than other crops such as maize, and tolerates marginal growing conditions (e.g., dry spells, poor soil).• Sweetpotato comes in varieties with skin and flesh color that range from white to yellow, orange, and deep purple. Orange-fleshed sweetpotato is an important source of beta-carotene, the precursor to Vitamin A. Just 125g of fresh sweetpotato roots from most orange-fleshed varieties contain enough beta-carotene to provide the daily provitamin A needs of a preschooler.• Sweetpotato is also a valuable source of vitamins B, C, and E, and it contains moderate levels of iron and zinc.• Though its origins lie in Latin America, Asia is now the largest sweetpotato-producing region in the world, with figures showing over 90 million tons produced annually. China is the world's biggest producer and consumer of sweetpotato, where it is used for food, animal feed, and processing (as food, starch, and other products).• The importance of sweetpotato as a food crop is growing rapidly in some parts of the world. In Sub-Saharan Africa, it is outpacing the growth rate of other staples.• Sweetpotato is used for both human consumption and as a healthy, cheap source of animal feed. Recent studies suggest that animals fed on high protein sweetpotato vines produce less methane gas than with other feed, potentially contributing an important reduction in harmful global emissions.• Sweetpotato has a long history as a life saver. The Japanese used it when typhoons demolished their rice fields. It kept millions from starvation in famine-plagued China in the early 1960's and came to the rescue in Uganda in the 1990's, when a virus ravaged cassava crops.Sweetpotatoes produce more edible energy per hectare per day than wheat, rice or cassava. They are good sources of carbohydrates, fiber, and micronutrients. The leaves and shoots, which are also edible, are good sources of vitamins A, C, and B (Riboflavin).Orange-fleshed sweetpotato is an important source of beta-carotene (the precursor to Vitamin A). Just 125 g of fresh roots from most orange-fleshed varieties contain enough beta-carotene to provide the daily pro-vitamin A needs of a preschooler. This is particularly important in Sub Saharan Africa and Asia where vitamin A deficiency is a leading cause of blindness, disease and premature death among children under five and pregnant women. Nutritionists identify different levels of beta-carotene according to varying pigmentation in orange-fleshed varieties by means of a color chart. Sweetpotatoes also contain phenolic compounds that provide the root with antioxidant properties that have health promoting and disease preventive benefits. Purple fleshed sweet potatoes contain a significant content of anthocyanins comparable to that of other high anthocyanin containing fruits and vegetables such as grapes, plums, sweet cherries, raspberries and eggplant al., 2010). Anthocyanins from purple fleshed sweetpotato have been shown to exhibit stronger radical scavenging activity than anthocyanin pigments from red cabbage, elderberry, grape skin and purple corn.A recent study to evaluate the biotransformation of anthocyanins from two purple-fleshed sweet potato accessions in a dynamic gastrointestinal system shows that unabsorbed anthocyanins and their metabolites protect intestinal cells against reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated within the gut and attenuate ROS-mediated gut inflammatory conditions. ","tokenCount":"768"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2f68011985dab2225749c62586fd74f4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/5656fc24-c86c-4c7a-bca2-4f239b790b28/content","id":"-1045843011"},"keywords":["turfgrass","quality","lateral spread","spring density","genetic color"],"sieverID":"1a7bd20b-5ff2-4ab7-9b42-2ab82760f552","pagecount":"4","content":"Hybridization and selection has been one of the methods used to generate turfgrass cultivars in buffalograss improvement. Three half-sib populations were developed by crossing three buffalograss female genotypes, NE 3296, NE 2768, and NE 2769, with NE 2871, a male genotype, to 1) investigate the pattern of genetic variability generated for turfgrass characteristics through hybridization; 2) assess the effect of parental change on the level of genetic variability generated in a buffalograss diploid population; and 3) predict the performance of a progeny generated from two heterozygous parents for turfgrass performance. The four parents and 20 random F 1 progeny selected from each population were established in 2006 at the John Seaton Anderson Turfgrass Research Facility located near Mead, NE. A randomized complete block design (RCBD) was used with the progeny nested in the crosses. A visual rating scale of 1-9 was used to evaluate the population. Mean population lateral spread, genetic color, density, and turfgrass quality from early summer to fall ranged from 3.5 to 4.5, 7.1 to 7.9, 6.9 to 8.1, and 5.2 and 6.8, respectively. There were significant differences among the crosses and the parents for all the traits studied except quality in June and August. The progeny nested within crosses differed for turfgrass genetic color and quality. Best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) indicated a high improvement potential for turfgrass lateral spread and spring density in NE 2768 • NE 2871 and for turfgrass genetic color in NE 3296 • NE 2871. From these findings, it can be concluded that hybridization breeding is a worthwhile approach for generating and identifying transgressive segregants for specific buffalograss traits.Buffalograss is a warm-season (C 4 ) grass species that originated in Central Mexico (Quinn and Engel, 1986;Quinn et al., 1994;Shaw et al., 1987;Webb, 1941). It is a fine-leaved, stoloniferous perennial grass species grown for turf in the Great Plains of North America (Shearman et al., 2004). Its inherent sod-forming characteristics (Wenger, 1949) makes it suitable for golf course, sports, home lawn, and utility turfs (Riordan et al., 1993). Buffalograss is a dioecious and selfincompatible species (Chase, 1979). Outcrossing is obligate and generates highly heterogeneous populations. Thus, buffalograss is highly variable with plants growing side by side differing in certain vegetative or reproductive characteristics (Wenger, 1949).The genetic make-up of buffalograss is complex. It exists in several ploidy levels that are essentially alike phenotypically and indistinguishable from one another (Budak et al., 2004;Huff et al., 1993;Johnson et al., 2001;Reeder, 1971). The most prominent difference among ploidy levels is geographical adaptation (Shearman et al., 2004). The diploids are thought to be the original forms from which the upper ploidy levels evolved and are adapted to the southern regions of buffalograss-growing areas in North America. The tetraploids are southern and central-adapted, whereas the hexaploids are generally more widely adapted, but some, like '609', are more suited to the southern range of buffalograss adaptation (Huff et al., 1993;Johnson et al., 2001). A molecular study of buffalograss genotypes of different ploidy levels observed a linear increase in the number of alleles in the hexaploids as compared with tetraploids and diploids (Budak et al., 2005). This increased number of alleles is believed to have contributed to the broadbased adaptation of the hexaploids.Early buffalograss improvement efforts emphasized on selection and hybridization mostly to develop forage types (Wenger, 1949). Germplasm collections were found to have extensive variability from which increased vigor, green color retention, taller seed stalks, and increased disease-resistant types could be selected (Beetle, 1950). However, the level of improvement that can be achieved through hybridization is not well known. Recently, results from a buffalograss pseudo-testcross progeny study for improved seed production in Nebraska indicated that seed yield could be increased up to 10-fold by selective parental hybridization (Abeyo and Shearman, 2009). Organelle and nuclear analyses of buffalograsses with different ploidy series indicated that chloroplast and mitochondrial genomes are uniparental and variability was mainly the result of nuclear genome (Budak et al., 2005;Gulsen et al., 2005). Nevertheless, the potential amount of buffalograss improvement for turfgrass quality, pest resistance, and stress tolerance that may be achieved through hybridization has not been established.It is essentially impossible to generate inbred buffalograss lines by self-fertilization because buffalograss is a self-incompatible, dioecious species (Brewbaker, 1957). Hence, the genotypes available for breeding are always heterozygous. The advantage of planned hybridization of heterozygous genotypes needs to be extensively studied for subsequent exploitation for the improvement of various traits in the breeding program.This study was conducted to evaluate halfsib populations with the following objectives: 1) investigate the pattern of genetic variability generated for turfgrass characteristics through hybridization breeding; 2) assess if change in one parent has an effect on the level of genetic variability generated in a buffalograss diploid population; and 3) predict the performance of a progeny generated from two heterozygous parents for turfgrass performance.Parental genotypes and generation of halfsibs. Three diploid female genotypes (NE 3296, NE 2768, andNE 2769) and one diploid male genotype (NE 2781) were selected for use in this study based on their sex expression, turfgrass quality, and chinch bug resistance. The three female genotypes were pollinated with the male to generate three half-sib populations. The crosses were made in isolation from other sources of buffalograss pollen in the greenhouse at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, East Campus in Lincoln, NE, that was maintained at 33 °C maximum and 16 °C minimum temperatures, ± 2 °C, and a photoperiod of 15:9 h (light:dark) with supplemental light provided by Philips 400-W metal halide bulbs (MH400/U; Day-Brite Lighting, Tupelo, MS).The pots of the female and male parents were arranged next to each other on the bench for effective pollen transfer to the female inflorescences. The burs were hand-harvested from each female parent and then kept in a seed storage room at 40 °C and 40% relative humidity. The caryopses were removed from the burs using 1-to 2-s pulses of an electric coffee grinder (Krups GX4100 Coffee Grinder; Cookware Inc., Boston, MA) adapted from Riordan et al. (1997). The caryopses were germinated on trays filled with a soil mix of sand-soil-peat-perlite in 2:1:3:3 ratios (v/v) covered with a thin soil layer (%3.0 mm) distributed over them. A seed establishment blanket (Master Gardner Co., Spartanburg, SC) was used as a mulch to cover the top of the tray to avoid the disturbance of the germinating seed while watering. The tray was hand-watered daily to keep the soil and the geminating seed moist.When the seedlings reached the four-to five-leaf stage, they were transplanted to 15 cm diameter • 15 cm deep pots containing a 35% peat:32% vermiculite:9% soil:24% sand (v/v) soil mixture. Soil was saturated every 2 weeks with nutrient solution (21N-3.5P-15K) containing 200 mgÁL -1 nitrogen, 35 mgÁL -1 phosphorus, and 150 mgÁL -1 potassium. The greenhouse was maintained at 25 ± 1 °C with supplemental light supplied by Phillips 400-W metal halide lamps with a photoperiod of 15/9 h (light/dark). Stolons from the plants grown in the pots were cut into pieces containing one node each and planted in 5.0 cm depth • 5.0 cm width cells filled with the soil mix described previously.Field establishment and management. The three half-sib populations represented each by 20 progeny and the four parents were planted in the field in May 2006 at the John Seaton Anderson Turfgrass Research Facility located near Mead, NE. Two-month-old, vegetative plugs of each progeny and the parental genotypes were planted in a Tomek silty-clay loam (fine smectitic mesic Pachic Agriudolls). Plugs were planted 60 cm apart. The experiment was laid out with three crosses and four parents as seven treatments in a RCBD with three replications. Twenty progeny were nested within a cross of parental genotypes, whereas 20 clones were nested within the parental plots.A starter fertilizer (18N-20P-0K) was applied at 60 kg nitrogen (N) per hectare at planting time. Post-establishment fertilizer was also applied at 60 kg N per hectare using sulfur-coated urea (46N-0P-0K) in July 2006 and in mid-June and mid-July in 2007. Irrigation was applied at 25 mm per month including rainfall. Oxadiazon [2-tert-butyl-4-(2, 4 dichloro-5-isopropoxyphenyl)-D-1, 3, 4oxadiazolin-5-one] was applied at 3.14 kg/ a.i./ha for pre-emergent weed control. Quinclorac (3, 7-dichloro-8-quinolinecarboxylic acid), was applied at 0.84 kg/a.i./ha to each treatment plot for post-emergent weed control. The plots were maintained at 5-cm mowing height weekly and clippings were removed.Data collection and analysis. In 2006, only lateral spread data were collected. Genetic color was recorded on 8 May 2007, density was evaluated early in the summer (3 July 2007), and turfgrass quality data were collected on 12 June, 14 Aug., and 16 Oct. 2007. A visual rating scale of 1-9 was used for all the traits considered with 1 = light tan and 9 = dark green, 1 = 0% to 10%, and 9 = 80% to 100% stand density and 1 = poorest, 5 = acceptable, and 9 = best for color, density, and quality, respectively.Mixed model analysis (SAS Version 9.1; SAS Institute, Cary, NC) was used to detect differences among the half-sibs and their parents and to estimate the BLUPs (Henderson, 1975) for the progeny in full-sibs. In the mixed model analysis, the parents and the crosses were considered as fixed effects, whereas the progeny within the crosses was considered random, because they were randomly selected from a population of sibs as indicated in the model:where i designates the replications (i = 1-3), j designates the crosses and parents (j = 1-7), and k the progeny (k = 1-20). Furthermore, k (i) indicates that progeny are nested within crosses.To predict the prospect of identifying superior progeny by hybridizing two or more genotypes, the progeny population, both at full-sib and half-sib levels, needs to be evaluated. This step requires further analysis to predict if a cross will generate the intended variability for the traits of interest. Best linear unbiased prediction has been used in plant breeding for the estimation of random effects of a mixed model (Dutkowski et al., 2002;Piepho et al., 2008;White and Hodge, 1989;Xiang and Li, 2003). In this experiment, the parental crosses were considered as fixed and the progeny as random effects. The BLUP corresponds to the conditional expectation of the random effect given observation on the corresponding random factor in the experiment (Panter and Allen, 1995). This procedure enables the estimation of overall progeny performance from a cross by using a few random progeny and is a feasible method in predicting the significance of hybridization breeding.There were highly significant (P < 0.01) differences among the crosses and the parents for all the traits studied except for quality evaluated in June and August (Table 1). The progeny nested within crosses differed only for turfgrass genetic color and turf quality observed in October. The significance for turfgrass quality in October indicated the genetic variability of the progeny for green color retention in the fall, which is an important characteristic for warm-season turfgrass.The targets of selection in the breeding process are the transgressive progeny. Based on the direction of improvement sought for a particular trait, the target of selection can be either the lower or the upper extremes of the variability. Therefore, variability within the progeny of a full-sib family must be evaluated for improvement potential over the parental values. This circumstance requires further analysis to compare the progeny at the fullsib level and each with their parental means Lateral spread is measure of lateral growth of genotypes as visually evaluated using a 1-9 scale (1 = least, 9 = most). y Genetic color is the measure of greenness of the genotypes as visually evaluated using a 1-9 scale (1 = straw brown, 9 = dark green).x Spring density is the measure living plants or tillers per unit area of the genotypes visually evaluated using a 1-9 scale (1 = least dense, 9 = most dense).w Quality is based on visual rating scale of 1-9 with 1 = poorest, 5 = acceptable, and 9 = best. *Significant at P = 0.05; **significant at the P = 0.01; NS = nonsignificant.or the best parental value for each of the traits. It was evident that some progeny outperformed their parents for the traits considered, indicating the significance of hybridization and selection for improvement over the parental means.The parental genotypes NE 2769 and NE 2768 had very competitive lateral spread. None of the progeny means was better than these two parental genotypes. The four parental genotypes NE 3296, NE 2768, NE2769, and NE2781 (male parent) had a mean genetic color scale of 7.1, 7.9, 7.9, and 7.3, respectively. Genetic color improvement was observed only for the NE 3296 • NE 2781 cross (Table 2). Spring density is another important trait for warm-season turfgrasses, especially those growing in regions where they remain dormant from early fall through late spring. Improvement in spring density was observed for the progeny of the cross involving NE 3296 as the female parent (Table 2). This improvement was over the female and not the male parent. The three maternal genotypes, NE 3296, NE 2768, and NE 2769, had mean spring density ratings of 7.1, 7.3, and 7.4, respectively. To extend the appealing look of the turfgrass, early spring green-up and green color retention in the fall are two important characteristics sought in warmseason turfgrass improvement.Turfgrass quality is one of the most difficult traits to measure quantitatively and the relative ratings are based on a combination of uniformity, color, density, texture, and growth habit (Beard, 1973). It also considers pests resistance and stress tolerance. Thus, it takes into account aesthetic and functional aspects of the turfgrass (Morris and Shearman, 2009). In late spring or early summer, it was difficult to differentiate the quality performance of the parents and the crosses. In mid-June, NE 3296 had an average turfgrass quality rating 5.7, which was the lowest rating as compared with the quality performance of the other parental genotypes and progeny families (Table 2). In mid-August, only NE 2768 had an average quality rating of 6.8, which was significantly higher than the quality performance of other parental genotypes and progeny families. Mid-October turfgrass quality ratings were reduced for all the genotypes and families with the range between 5.2 and 6.1 (Table 2). The maternal genotype, NE 2768, had a high average quality rating of 6.1. This result indicated variation for green color retention and growth among the genotypes. NE 2768 also showed consistent turfgrass quality performance over the growing season, and none of the progeny or other parental genotypes outperformed it.The relative performance for other traits also needs consideration when selecting among genotypes or within progeny. The two parental genotypes, NE 2768 and NE 2769, that had the best lateral spread exhibited average genetic color and spring density. The mean turfgrass quality rating was highest (6.5) in August but reduced to 5.6 in October (Table 2). This reduction is because light quality and quantity and temperature reduction directly affect chlorophyll decomposition and regeneration of warm-season grasses in the fall. As a result, the warm-season grasses reduce their photosynthetic rates and drift into dormancy. In this study, only diploids were evaluated, which, as previously mentioned, are southern-adapted. Late in November, when most other higher ploidy-level buffalograsses were dormant at the research site, the diploids were still growing, and they experienced severe winter injury and had considerable stand loss by the next spring.There were both positive and negative values indicating the importance of a particular progeny in relation to other progeny within a full-sib family (Fig. 1). The BLUP analysis is used to broaden the inference range to the F 1 segregating population from which to select a progeny of interest. From this random sample, an interpretation can be made for the entire population of a particular cross and predicts which cross combination can bring about a significant improvement for a trait or combination of traits.There were progeny with improved lateral spread characteristics, which offer improved establishment rate and sod-forming potential (Fig. 1). Cross NE 2768 • NE 2781 had low positive improvement potential based on the mean prediction values. This evidence strengthens the importance of selection for parental genotypes to make a cross that generates good genetic variability for effective selection. For spring density, considerable positive and negative predictions could be made for the NE 2768 • NE 2781 cross. A significant level of predicted positive improvements was found for genetic color in the cross NE 3296 • NE 2781. The other two crosses had low predictor values.In conclusion, results from this experiment indicate that crossing genotypes to generate variability is a worthwhile practice to improve turfgrass quality characteristics in buffalograss. Hybridization of two distinct genotypes can generate significant genetic variability for the traits that are of particular interest from which genotypes combined two or more 3.9 b 7.6 bc 6.9 c 5.9 cd 6. 3.5 c 7.3 d 7.8 a 6.3 ab 6.3 b 5.2 d z A visual rating scale of 1-9 was used for all the traits considered with 1 = light tan and 9 = dark green, 1 = 0% to 10% and 9 = 80% to 100% stand density, and 1 = poorest, 5 = acceptable, and 9 = best for color, density and quality, respectively. y Any two means within a column followed by the same letter are not significantly different from each other (P # 0.05).x Genetic color is the inherent color of the genotype based on a visual rating scale of 1-9 with 1 = straw brown and 9 = dark green. w Density is a visual rating on a 1-9 scale of living plants or tillers per unit area with 1 = least and 9 = most. v Quality is based on visual rating scale of 1-9 with 1 = poorest, 5 = acceptable, and 9 = best. improved traits can be selected. As true for other plant breeding programs, careful parental selection is needed before crossing to generate sufficient genetic variability. Because most of the loci are heterozygous as a result of outcrossing characteristics of buffalograss, it is imperative to include parental genotypes that have diversity in their genetic make-up for the traits needing improvement.Based on the BLUP analysis for lateral spread, the NE 2768 • NE 2781 cross gave the greatest level of variability and subsequently better potential improvement for establishment and sod-forming characteristics. This same cross is expected to bring about a significant improvement in spring density. For genetic color, the cross NE 3296 • NE 2781 would be expected to make an improvement over the best parent. From the result of this investigation, it can be concluded that progenies generated from crossing two distinct heterozygous genotypes can generate a superior progeny. This breeding system enables buffalograss breeders to use the partial heterosis prevailing in such outcrossing species.","tokenCount":"3104"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"81f09136cf102aa3c45635ee7e349a1a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/80231893-a3d1-4b55-a70f-69fe32e4d94a/retrieve","id":"274436272"},"keywords":["Tropical soil","aggregate distribution","peres size","structural stability","management systems"],"sieverID":"ca2a9ad3-48c5-45c4-926a-e6b5878da5c2","pagecount":"13","content":"fI1CSOGSIT \"f.J;jj?' bf~30 COlECClON HISTORICA VIII CONGRESO COLOMBIANO DE LA CIENCIA DEL SUELO U';ltA\", D\" I -. ',,,fO'•\",-'''•'''\\',1' ti '.La productividad y sostenibilidad de los suelos depende de la obtención y/o conservación de un equilibrio dinámico adecuado entre las prqpiedades y procesos flsicos, qulmicos y biológicos del suelo, los cuales determinan la disponibilidad de agua y nutrientes para el cultivo en el volumen de suelo explorado por raices a través del ciclo vegetativo.Una de las propiedades más sensibles a cambio por la intensidad de uso y manejo de los suelos es la estructura, especialmente en los suelos tropicales. La distribución de agregados de diferentes tamaños, así como su estabilidad, constituyen un buen índice para determinar el efecto de la intensidad de uso en las caracter/sticas estructurales resultantes en el suelo.En el presente trabajo se presentan y discuten resultados obtenidos en términos de distribución de agregados superficiales 10 • 2.5 cm I y de estabilidad estructural de agregados procedentes de cuatro sistemas de manejo de suelos: sabana nativa, Brach/aria pura, Brachiaria + leguminosa y monocultivo en tratamientos que desde hace siete aflos se vienen realizando en las fincas Matazul V Primavera en las cercanías de Pta. Lopéz en los UanosOrientales. En ambos casos, el suelo es un Tipic haplustox isohipertérmico caolínrtico. Los resultados muestran diferencias entre tratamientos e indican que el 050 (diámetro medio del 50% de los agregados), es un buen indicativo para diferenciar intensidad de uso V puede en el futuro convertirse en un índice de evaluación de estado de degradación.Palabras claves: suelo tropical, distribución de agregados, tamaflo de poros, estabilidad estructural, sistemas de manejo . Edafológicamente la estructura del suelo deberla definirse como tamaño, forma, arreglo y continuidad de poros y de espacios vacios (voidsl; asl como su capacidad para retener y transmitir fluidos y sustancias orgánicas El inorgánicas y la habilidad para permitir un vigoroso crecimiento y desarrollo de ralees (Lal, 19911. La estructura gobierna la suplencia de oxIgeno, agua y nutrientes a plantas y.microorganismos y la dinámica espacial y temporal de las poblaciones microbiales (Crawford et al, 19931.Aunque la estructura ha sido estudiada extensivamente es todavía la menos entendida de las propiedades trsicas que tienen efectos significativos en la producción de cultivos, sostenibilidad agrlcola y calidad ambiental, por el hecho de que la estructura tiene gran complejidad de atributos (Lal. 19911. La principal razon para estudiar la estructura del suelo es que ésta es la propiedad intrínseca del suelo que más fácil y frecuentemente se altera por la labranza (Hamblin, 19851. La buena estructura del suelo para el crecimiento de los cultivos depende de la presencia de agregados de partículas entre 1 y 10 mm de diámetro. Tales agregados deben ser estables al agua cuando se humedecen y poseer un buen volumen de poros (mayores de 75pm de diámetro), de tal manera que permanezcan aeróbicos en tiempos lluviosos, y puedan retener agua útil para las plantas (poros de 30 a 0.2 pml. Los poros entre agregados deben ser lo suficientemente grandes como para permitir una infiltración rápida y buen drenaje (Tisdall y cades, 1982).La agregación del suelo es una de las propiedades más dinámicas con las cuales tiene que enfrentarse un investigador que tenga que ver con labranza, erosión y otros problemas de orden flsico de suelos {Voder, 19361.Existen varios métodos para la caracterización de la estructura del suelo tanto en campo como en laboratorio (Burke et al, 19861. Los más comunmente utilizados son: distribución de diferentes tamaños de agregados, caracterización del espacio poroso utilizando las curvas caracterlsticas o el porosímetro de mercurio. adsorción de gases y uso de imagenes por métodos microscópicos. El uso de uno u otro método depende de la disponibilidad de equipos. pero es aconsejable hacer métodos combinados {Darbyshire et al, 19931...Cuando un suelo es cultivado permanentemente los agregados son expuestos a fragmentación por rápido humedecimiento, por impacto de las gotas de agua lluvia y por el impacto directo de los implementos de labranza. El efecto neto de ésto es que se expone la materia orgánica que antes era inaccesible a descomposición por los microorganismos y por lo tanto se produce pérdida de materia orgánica. Este decaimiento en materia orgénica usualmente esta acompañado de una disminución en el porcentaje de agregados estables al agua (Tisdall y Dades, 1982).Los suelos sometidos a laboreo intensivo estén sujetos a la pérdida de la estructura por acción mecénica debida a los implementos de labranza y por acción química debida a la pérdida de la materia orgánica, ésto implica que los suelos tropicales asr tratados sufren procesos severos de degradación. Como degradación de suelos debe entenderse la pérdida actual o potencial de la productividad y utilidad como resultado de factores naturales o antrópicos. Se refiere al decaimiento de la capacidad inherente del suelo para producir bienes y cumplir funciones ecológicas. El grado de degradación depende de la susceptibilidad del suelo a los procesos degradativos {Lal, 1993}.La labranza juega un papel importante en la dinámica del proceso de degradación. Propiamente usada puede ser una herramienta restaurativa importante para mejorar los limitantes ffsicos del suelo e incrementar su potencial de productividad y utilidad. Impropiamente usada puede causar un amplio rango de procesos degradativos como deterioro de la estructura, erosión acelerada, disminución de la materia orgánica y de la fertilidad del suelo y cambios en los ciclos del agua, del carbono V de los nutrientes (Lal, 1993).Con el fin de encontrar parámetros sensibles a degradación que puedan ser usados como indicadores de sostenibilidad, se realizó un muestreo intensivo en las fincas Matazul V Primavera len la via Puerto López -Puerto Galtánl. en un suelo Typic haplustox isohipertérmico caolinltico, para evaluar la influencia de diferentes usos y manejos de suelos, en el comportamiento de algunas propiedades estructurales.El muestreo se realizó en lotes experimentales en los cuales por alrededor de 7 años se vienen aplicando cuatro tratamientos de uso y manejo de suelos que se describen a continuaci6n: En cada tratamiento se tomaron 10 submuestras superficiales ~ntre O y 2.5 cm con un cilindro de 7.2 cm de diámetro que conformaron una muestra. Se tomaron tres ..J muestras por tratamiento.'.La toma de muestras se hizo superficial porque es la superficie del suelo la que está sometida a los mayores impactos ambientales y de manejo y por lo tanto es la que más sufre degradación, que en los suelos de los Uanos se manifiesta en pérdida de estructura y en sellamiento y encostramiento superficial.En las muestras asl tomadas se hicieron determinaciones de distribución de agregados y de estabilidad estructural siguiendo las instrucciones de Kemper y Rosenau (1986) y utilizando el método de Chepil (1962) y de Voder (1936) respectivamente. En el análisis de estabilidad de agregados se tuvo en cuenta los contenidos de partículas minerales gruesas. Se utilizaron los siguientes diámetros de malla: mayores de 6, 6-4, 4-2, 2-1, 1-0.125 Y menores de 0.125 mm para tamizado en seco y mayores de 2, 2-1, 1-0.5, 0.5-0.25, 0.25-0.125 y menores de 0.125 mm para estabilidad estructural.Separadamente se tomaron muestras volumétricas no disturbadas para hacer determinaciones de curvas características (Amézquita, 1989) para determinación de la distribución de tamaño de poros (Amézquita, 1981).La distribución porcentual de tamaño de agregados en Matazul (Cuadro 1) muestra que se presentan diferencias significativas entre tratamientos. Los agregados mayores de 6, entre 4-6 y entre 4 y 2 mm han disminuido notablemente por acción del monocultivo, respecto a sabana nativa. Los agregados entre 2-1, 1-0.125 y menores de 0.125 mm, aumentaron significativamente su proporción respecto a sabana nativa, indicando que el uso permanente de rastra disminuye notablemente el tamaño de los agregados. Los otros tratamientos que contienen Brachiaria y que dé alguna forma han recibido labranza, muestran cierto deterioro respecto a sabana nativa. En la Primavera se observan las siguientes tendencias respecto a los tratamientos. En los tratamientos que han sido intervenidos: renovación tradicional y renovado con arroz, tienen a tener dominancia de agregados pequeños 12-1, '-0.125 Y < 0.125 mml, presentando porcentajes acumulados de 60 y 69% para agregados inferiores a 2 mm. El tratamiento puro sin renovación, para el mismo tamaño de agregados, presenta un porcentaje de 44.3% confirmando el poder reestructurador que tienen las gramrnas. La sabana nativa acumula 50.5% para agregados inferiores a 2 mm. '. 3.2. Diámetro medio del 50% de los agregados 10 60 1Con el fin de visualizar majar el comportamiento de los tratamientos respecto al tamaño de agregados, se utilizó el 05D' Conceptualmente el 0 50 indica el diámetro medio equivalente que divide el 50% de los agregados, es el limite de diámetro por debajo del cual existe el 50% de agregados. Los resultados se presentan en las Figuras 1 y 2. Para el caso de Matazull se puede observílr que el mayor Dso (1.90 mmllo presenta sabana nativa y el menor 10.40 mm) arroz-monocultivo, reflejando que el uso intensivo del suelo ha degradado la estructura superficial. Los tratamientos asociado-renovado 1'.35 mm) y puro-sin renovación 10.85 mm) presentan valores intermedios. Entre estos tratamientos el asociado-renovado es el que mejor está conservando ylo posiblemente recuperando la estructura, por lo cual es uno de los usos que debe tenerse en cuenta en manejo de' la estructura.En la Primavera, el tratamiento puro-sin renovación presentó el mayor valor de D 60 (1 ;80 mm) y el menor (0.64 mml fue para puro-con renovación tradicional, lo cual indica que este Oltimo tratamiento es el que más está destruyendo la estructura. Los tratamientos sabana con D60de 1.50 mm y asociacio-renovación con arroz (0.85 mm) presentaron valores intermedios, pero se observa claramente que la renovación con arroz, la cual implica el uso de rastras, ha bajado el Dso respecto a sabana nativa. Tendencias a disminución en el tamaño de agregados como resultado del uso de maquinaria han sido reportados por otros investigadores ISaldock y Kay, 19871.La distribución de tamaño de poros, como una medida de la estructura IGreenland, 19791 se presenta en el cuadro 2. En ambos casos, Matazul y La Primavera, lo general es que hay un dominio de microporos (>0.2pm), sobre meso (60 y O.2¡.¿mJ y macroporos (>60pm). Se observa también que el volumen de macroporos es más variable que el de las otras categorfas. Esto concuerda con lo expresado por Greenland 11977, 1979) en relación a que los macroporos son los que se ven más afectados por las acciones de uso.En relación a funcionalidad de poros, los datos muestran que sólo aproximadamente la mitad de la porosidad total es funcional, lo que indica que es absolutamente necesario desarrollar a través de labranzas y de prácticas de desarrollo y de mantemiento de la estrucutra, una relación de poros más funcional y más continua en profundidad.En Matazulla estabilidad estructural ¡Cuadro 3) estuvo dominada por los agregados superiores a 2 mm, especialmente en la sabana nativa, la cual además presentó mayor porcentaje de estabilidad (diferencia altamente significatival que los otros tratamientos. Este comportamiento demuestra que la intensidad de la labranza ejerce una acción negativa en los materiales cementantes, posiblemente el más afectado es el contenido de materia orgánica (Lal, 1993;Hamblin, 19851  ","tokenCount":"1821"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1ce27a2bb97acb7a90f6927208ee21ba","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/fe8f142a-1ebc-4c1d-9e65-3b75e23ed9fb/retrieve","id":"-1645990463"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"8301c18d-ed35-4f40-897e-1ca5853119ff","pagecount":"35","content":"Proposals for the publication of a state of knowledge reports on browse in Africa. Proposals for an international cooperative programmehave to be raised in the nursery, and the young stocks are subsequently planted out in the field. This method mainly applies to exotic species and/or arid environments where rainfall is unreliable and watering is necessary during the early stages. Planting density depends on many factors, including soil conditions, rainfall, species and the intended management method. It may vary from 20-200 trees per ha up to 4000-5000 bushes. In the case of the latter, plant spacing is geared to accessibility for livestock where direct browsing is planned, or to harvesting requirements.Experimental data on plantation establishment costs are available, but unfortunately they are not consistent and do not always appear meaningful. They cover establishment by direct sowing or by raising plants in the nursery before planting out in the field. Although they refer to plantations launched in many different parts of the world, only data relating to experiments carried out in Africa are dealt with here, with occasional reference for the purposes of comparison, to experience elsewhere. This approach led to the impression that establishment costs for these plantations were sufficiently uniform to be representative of conditions in tropical Africa as a whole. Establishment costs include soil preparation, water and soil conservation where necessary, arid maintenance, consisting of weeding and ploughing before the productive period begins. To a great extent they depend on labour costs, which account for 80% of total costs when soil preparation is almost entirely carried out manually. Mechanization does not bring any appreciable reduction in costs, which merely break down differently, with a greater burden on the trade balance of the country concerned. The salaries of technical staff are not taken into account, nor is the purchase price of the land used.To the establishment costs should be added those of enclosures to protect the plants. Enclosures may consist of barbed wire fences or thorn hedges. The former are much more expensive than the latter, especially in tropical Africa where, according to such estimates as were available the cost price of barbed wire fencing is about US $ 3/metre, amounting to US $ 450/ha to cover an area of 10 ha or so. The cost of a double-row thorn hedge, on the other hand, is estimated at US $ 150/ha, but hedges have to be planted 2 or 3 years before the plantation itself, so as to afford proper protection, a factor which prolongs the unproductive period of the land by this amount of time. Investment in enclosures, whether barbed wire or hedges, therefore constitutes an important entry and often a very substantial one in the overall establishment costs for a plantation. For this reason these costs have been systematically isolated in the calculations of cost prices and profitability carried out here.Estimating operating costs has proved somewhat more problematic. Since very little information was available, these data have had to be estimated on the basis of a number of assumptions. It has been assumed, for instance, that since this type of enterprise is primarily extensive, operating costs largely consist of fixed costs (mainly those of patrolling the plantation) which are independent of production, the latter being governed by ecological factors such as soil type and aridity, or socio-economic factors affecting management. Nonetheless, it was also argued that although browse plants can theoretically be used without variable operating costs since the feed can be consumed on the spot by the animals, the offtake of wood implies cutting and transport costs which are directly linked to the level of output. This approach may have led to some underestimation of operating costs, especially for plantations which were deemed to have the benefit of good management.In several cases where reliable data were lacking production was estimated on the basis of different assumptions in relation to yield, so that management differences could be taken into account and profitability thresholds also determined, so long as the range of yields adopted was felt to correspond to what could theoretically be achieved under extensive conditions. Estimating the value of production also caused complications, owing to the difficulty of establishing shadow prices for animal feeds. Shadow prices have important implications for calculating the internal rate of return (IRR), the factor under. consideration here. Generally speaking the price of livestock feeds depends on their energy value (measured in forage units-FU-or any other unit directly or indirectly indicating the number of calories contained in the feed) and their protein content (measured in digestible protein-DP-per kg of feed). On the basis of these two factors and of market prices for the main livestock feeds (cereal brans, oil-cakes, meat meal), the prices per FU and per kg of DP were estimated to average US $ 0.16/FU and US $ 0.24/kg of DP during the year 1979. The relation between the two is unstable, since any movement in the relative prices of livestock feeds, especially between those with low and high protein contents, for example cereal brans against cakes, leads to distortion of the FU/DP price ratio (see Table 1) which may at times be considerable. Leaving aside the results for the years 1975 and 1976, which were affected by the sharp rise in cereal prices on the world market, the price per kg of DP is generally higher than the price per FU. The ratio was about 1.5:1 for the period 1975-1979, and for the year 1979 itself. values are very low on account of low producer prices for cereal brans: 5-7 US cents per kg, as against 13.6 cents on the world market. These estimates, biased by the low prices of cereal brans as recorded at the place of production, do not appear truly representative of the real value of animal feeds in African countries. As noted above, when they are used cereal brans carry high transport costs which considerably increase their cost price to the final user.Taking into account other animal feed products with a low protein content, such as molasses, Acacia albida pods and even maize, completely reverses the FU and DP price structure (US $ 0.16/FU and US $ 0.16 per kg of DP in Senegal for 1979/ 80), bringing it closer to that of the world market over the same period. In short, given the unreliability of FU and DP price estimates, the structure prevailing on the world market is probably the most representative. In the end, owing to the lack of other reliable data, it was therefore adopted as the basis for the FU and DP shadow prices used to calculate the IRR on planting browse trees and bushes in tropical Africa.Adopting rather high FU and DP shadow prices is not very satisfactory, since in Africa livestock are fed at low cost on natural forage produced for the most part on land unfit for cultivation. However attractive from a financial point of view, browse plantations at the shadow prices identified by this method would probably have no economic applicability. An attempt has therefore been made instead to estimate FU and DP cost prices directly, assuming a given IRR, i.e. an opportunity cost of capital more easily determined on the basis of interest rates. Further difficulties arose in the attempt to identify two separate prices (per FU and per kg of DP), and also because browse trees and bushes can be used for several purposes, among which the production of wood at the same time as forage. For DP and FU prices a fixed structure at the level found on the world market in 1975-79 was assumed, giving a ratio of 1.5:1 between them.In pastoral areas there is little incentive to produce wood alongside browse owing to the high cost of transport from production to consumption areas 1 . In the first place it was therefore assumed that browse trees and bushes are cultivated primarily for forage production, with wood being counted as a by-product with no market value, so that all investment and operating costs could be attributed to browse production. Thus the FU and DP cost prices are those which, for a given IRR, balance the discounted flow of income and expenditure resulting from the production of browse alone.1. In Senegal the cost of acacia wood was around US a 50/tonne in urban areas in 1980.On the other hand, Pterocarpus lucens wood was priced at under US $ 30/t in Niono, Mali, at the same time, after the seller had devoted between 24 and 30 hours to collecting it in the bush. Taking into account the opportunity cost of his labour and other outlays (depreciation of the donkey and cart used for transport), the cost price of wood in the bush would certainly not be over US $15-16/t. To avoid any risk of overestimation, this was the level chosen for the shadow price of wood (acacia) used in the IRR calculations.Secondly, however, it can be assumed that browse trees and bushes are cultivated for both wood and forage, which would mean that the various costs should be shared between the two activities. The breakdown of investment costs incurred for both types of enterprise was made to reflect the distribution of earnings from the two production alternatives, although this distribution is itself dependent on the shadow FU and DP prices being calculated 2 . Operating costs, however, were broken down somewhat arbitrarily. Whatever the uncertainties to which it gives rise, this twofold approach allowed a range of FU and DP cost prices to be identified, which supplemented the estimates already carried out for IRR. Nonetheless, since the shadow price of wood is fairly low, the second part of the approach proved to have a fairly small impact on FU and DP cost prices.2. The following procedure was followed for investments: an initial breakdown of earnings using the shadow prices adopted for the IRR calculation followed by a second breakdown on the basis of estimated average cost prices; this enabled a second estimate to be made, which was considered as final. As regards operating costs it was decided that all fixed costs (patrolling) could be attributed to forage production, while variable costs (cutting and transport of wood) were attributed to wood production.Assessing the viability of browse tree and bush plantations raised one final issue, that of evaluating the opportunity cost of land. As already mentioned above, the purchase price of land was not included in the establishment costs of the plantation. In order to take this factor into account, the probable land use changes resulting from the establishment of the plantation have to be considered, especially as regards utilization of the grass stratum which had been previously used for feeding animals, with the result that investment and operating costs have to be analysed in terms of the incremental FU and DP production generated.However, a further problem immediately arose: how to assess the value of the forage production lost, generally during the pre-development period, and specifically, what shadow price should be applied. In dry areas unsuitable for cropping the value of forage is generally thought to be very low, not merely because the opportunity cost of land is low but also because grass is relatively plentiful when it is available during the growing period, whereas the value of browse lies in its ability to supply extra feed during periods when livestock are undernourished.In other words, according to this theory the opportunity cost of land and the value of the unused grass stratum can be rated at zero.This assumption fails to take into account the rising numbers of animals stocked on tropical African rangeland and the resultant growing scarcity of grass. For this reason the production of browse should not compete with grass but should complement it, if pastoral production systems are to survive. The same shadow prices were therefore adopted for both grass and browse plants. This decision theoretically implies underestimation of the IRR, although the impact appears fairly low. It is also open to the same objection as made above, that the shadow price of forage is too high given the conditions prevailing in tropical Africa, but the objection can be met with the same answer, that of estimating FU and DP cost prices on the basis of a given opportunity cost of capital, still assuming that the two prices are the same for grass and browse plants.Simple types of management involving direct browsing were generally envisaged, although more sophisticated systems could have been imagined, involving deferred or rotational grazing or browsing, and implying lower stocking rates in the short term but improved yields in the long run. A more dynamic approach would also have taken into account the stabilizing effect of browse reserves on herd numbers during serious droughts. But an approach of this kind would have needed more reliable data than those available at present.The plantations analysed below concern browse tree and bush species with highly variable production characteristics, so that the results obtained allow comparison between different combinations of enterprise-browse and wood, browse and gum, browse and improved crop yields-in different environments.Highly resistant to drought, Atriplex species can grow on heavy, salty or alkaline soils with an average rainfall of 150 mm per year. They do not adapt well in some arid tropical zones such as the West African Sahel, but on the other hand they seem well suited to conditions found in the dry zones of eastern Africa. They provide browse with a high crude protein (CP) content (15 to 25% of DM), and plantations can be directly grazed without incurring any specific management problems. The grass stratum can thus be used at the same time as 3 the browse, as soon as the plantation reaches maturity. Finally, Atriplex plantations can also be used for producing wood, although its quality is rather poor and producer prices are definitely low owing to transport costs. Wood yields from Atriplexplantations are broadly similar in terms of weight to the leaf production used for browse. On the other hand, Barrachette (1980) calculates investment costs at US $ 475/ha for a recent plantation of 2000 stocks/ha in Tunisia, with costs spread over a period of 2 years, counting US $ 400 for the first years and US $ 75 for the second. This was the estimate used in the present IRR calculations for tropical Africa. To these costs should be added those of enclosures amounting, as noted previously, to US $.450/ha for barbed wire fencing and US $ 150/ha for thorn hedges covering an area of approximately 10 ha.3. Costs were re-evaluated using the UN index of unit values of manufactured goods exported by developed countries (UNCTAD, 1978/79).As the Atriplex wood is marketed, the management system consists of allowing the animals to browse the leaves directly whenever the branches are cut. As a result, operating costs primarily consist of patrolling the plantation, estimated at US $ 12/ha/year (4 man-days), and wood cutting, again estimated at US $ 12 for an output of 2.5 t of wood.Atnplex plantations established either with plants raised in the nursery or by direct drilling reach maturity in 2 or 3 years. When properly managed, leaf and wood production could reach 2.5 to 5 t of DM/ha each during the development phase, between 4 and 7 years. Nevertheless, output was assumed to be well below this figure, so as to take into account lower management capabilities at smallholder level, and browse production levels between 1.25 and 5 t of DM/ha were adopted, i.e. between 500 and 2000 FU. On this basis wood cutting costs are estimated between US $ 6 and US $ 24/ha/ year, according to the assumption with regard to production. The value of production has been estimated using the FU and DP prices shown in Table 1, derived from livestock feed costs on the world market in 1979 and amounting to US $ 0.16/FU and US $ 0.24/kg of DP, and acacia wood prices in tropical Africa 4/ . Owing to its inferior quality the costs of Atriplex wood have been estimated at half those of acacia species, amounting to US $ 7.8/t. Overall, the value of output varies from US $ 126 to US $ 504/ha (Table 2). It was also assumed that the plantation was established on grazing land producing about 200 FU/year with a DP content of 125 g/FU, i.e. having a value of US $ 38 on the basis of FU and DP shadow prices, and that the land cannot be grazed during the first 3 years of predevelopment, or the first 5 years when the plantation is enclosed with thorn hedges, in other words before it reaches maturity. The IRR reaches at least 15% when browse and wood production are 2.5 t of DM/ha, and is still above 10% when output is equal to or above 1.25 t of DM/ha and no enclosure costs are included. When yields become more substantial the IRR is over 20%, and even reaches 30% without enclosures. The FU cost price at this level is only US $ 0.3-0.5/FU, with a 10% opportunity cost of capital, and US $ 0.4-0.8 for an IRR of 15%, a level well below the shadow price (Tables 3 and 4). According to the results in Table 4, the FU and DP cost prices are always higher than shadow prices if browse production is very low (500 FU), except when there are no enclosures and the opportunity cost of capital is 10%. When browse yields rise to 1000 FU/ha, FU and DP cost prices remain higher than shadow prices when the plantations are fenced with barbed wire and the IRR is 15%. Using thorn hedges instead slightly improves both IRR and FU and DP cost prices, but not very significantly in view of the difference in investment costs (a ratio of 1:3). The prolonged unproductive investment period largely offsets the savings achieved by not using barbed wire fencing. In all other cases cost prices are lower than shadow prices. a. DP cost price is assumed to be 1.5 times higher than FU cost price ; project life is 20 years. FU and DP cost prices are lower than shadow prices.To sum up, Atriplex plantations in tropical Africa allow forage with a high nutritive value (owing to its favourable protein) to be produced at moderate cost as soon as yields are over 1000 FU/ha.Acacia is a genus of the Leguminosae family, probably consisting of over 900 species which vary considerably in appearance from low bush to tree and which are distributed almost throughout the semi-arid tropical zones of the world. Many of them adapt well to sandy environments and can be used for stabilizing sand dunes and protecting the environment, while others, such as Acacia albida, have long been grown in agropastoral systems, usually involving millet, or raised for the production of gum arabic, as in the case of A. senegal. About a dozen of these species are considered to produce leaves and pods which form an excellent quality forage, rich in protein and phosphorous although poor in glucides.Acacia cyanophylla, as well as, to a lesser degree, other species related to the phyllodineous Australian acacias (A. salicina, A. ligulaca, A. cyclops, A. victoriae and A. pendula), have been used in forestry for 40 to 60 years on many thousand hectares in North Africa from the humid coastal strip to the arid zone, mostly for fixing coastal sand dunes but sometimes those of the interior also. The browse output from leaves, branches and pods is somewhat higher than from A triplex, and may reach 6 t of DM/ha on well managed plantations, although FU and DP yields are similar and slightly lower respectively (see Table 5) than those found on Atriplex plantations. Growth of the grass stratum may approach zero when the planting density is around 800 to 1000 bushes/ha. Wood production is high and its quality is better than Atriplex. The tree can be used by cutting and carrying, by direct grazing after trimming, or by direct browsing with periodic pruning. The impact of the various management methods is, however, little understood. Production of browse and wood can generally begin after 3 years, building up gradually to full development. Expressed in terms of DM, wood and leaf production are identical, such that 3 kg of wood are produced for each FU. A properly managed plantation above the 200 mm isohyet can produce 3000 kg of DM in phyllodes and 3000 kg of wood per ha and per year. However, four different assumptions as to production have been chosen, so as to represent management systems of varying efficiency (Table 5). On this basis, and taking into account the shadow prices of acacia browse and wood, the value of output varies between US $ 127 and US $ 510 per ha, with 20°/ attributable to wood and 80% to browse. It has also been assumed that since the grass stratum would be unable to grow at this plant density the value of the original grazing is lost throughout the development period, amounting to US $ 38/ha on the basis of an output of 200 FU with a DP content of 125 kg/FU.At equal production levels, and despite a higher shadow price of wood, IRR levels are much lower than for Atriplex plantations. They are below 5% when browse production is 500 FU/ha, with FU and DP cost prices between two and six times higher than shadow prices, and are still under 10% in enclosed plantations when it reaches 1000 FU (3 t of DM/ha), a level roughly equivalent to that achieved elsewhere on properly managed plantations. The IRR remains less than 20% when production reaches about 6 t of DM per ha (2000 FU), unless no enclosures are used (Table 6). The FU and DP cost prices at this level are fairly low for a 10% opportunity cost of capital, especially if wood is produced at the same time as browse. When browse production is a around 1000 FU/ha the FU and DP cost prices are only lower than shadow prices when certain favourable conditions are also fulfilled, namely when IRR is 10%, and no enclosures costs are incurred or both wood and forage are produced (Table 7). a. cost price is assumed to be 1.5 times higher than FU cost price; project life is 20 years. FU and DP cost prices are lower than shadow prices.Two factors explain these rather unpromising results. The first is the non-utilization of the grass stratum throughout the entire project life, while the second is the relatively high cost of investments (US $ 600/ha, as against US $ 475 for Atriplex plantations). If the impact of not using the grass stratum were ignored and a zero opportunity cost of land assumed, the IRR on Acacia cyanophyllaplantations would approach that on Atriplex, although always remaining somewhat lower (see Table 6), and profitability thresholds would be fairly similar for the two.Browse cost prices would be lower than shadow prices if yields were 1000 FU/ha, except in the least favourable cases, and even when yields were 500 FU/ha and conditions at their most favourable, with no enclosure costs, IRR at 10% and simultaneous production of wood and browse. On the other hand, if yields rose to the levels achieved on plantations with optimum management (1500 or 2000 FU/ ha), FU and DP cost prices would in most cases fall to fairly low levels (Table 8). Assumptions as to the value of the grass stratum therefore have a real impact only when browse yields are very low. However, when this is the case other factors, especially investment costs, weigh all the more heavily on the profitability of these plantations. Hamel (1980) has carried out estimates on the Senegalese production of phyllodineous acacias from Australia (Acacia holosericea and A. linaroides), species which seem to have acclimatized successfully so far, although they have not been tested in the more demanding zones.In this country the establishment costs of a plantation with a density of 1000 bushes/ha have been estimated at around US $ 500 to 600, a figure slightly below those for A. cyanophylla plantations. To this figure should be added the usual enclosure costs of US $ 450/ha for barbed wire fencing and US $ 150/ha for doublerow thorn hedges. Operating costs have not been specified, but it can be estimated that they must be close to those previously adopted for Atriplex and Acacia cyanophylla plantations when direct grazing is used, namely US $ 12/ha for patrolling and US $ 12 for cutting and transporting 2.5 t of wood, i.e. US $ 20 per year for an output of 4 t of wood.According to Hamel's assumptions, browse production can begin in the third year with output at 1250 kg of DM/ha, reaching 2000 kg during the fourth year and 2500 kg in the fifth year, while wood production is 2 t/ha/year. Using FU and DP shadow prices estimated respectively at US $ 0.16 and US $ 0.24, the value of output during the development period is US $ 332/ha. A lower production assumption than Hamel's has nevertheless been adopted, according to which browse and wood production are sustained at 1250 kg of DM and 2 t of wood per ha throughout the development period (Table 9). It has also been anticipated that non-utilization of the grass stratum during the pre-development period results in a primary production loss of 200 FU and 25 kg of DP with a value of US $ 38/ ha. Although investment costs for barbed wire are very high, the IRR is over 15% for plantations with enclosures of this kind, while browse production is 2500 t of DM/ha (Table 10). It even reaches 20% when no enclosures at all are involved. As already observed, thorn hedges, although three times cheaper than barbed wire fencing, only marginally improve the IRR. When browse production is low (500 FU/ha) the IRR is below 10% for plantations with enclosures, and FU cost prices reach US $ 0.35 in the least favourable cases, when IRR is 15%, barbed wire fences are used and wood is not produced. On the other hand, when enclosures are not used the IRR reaches 16% for this level of production. However, the FU and DP cost prices are above shadow prices if, for a 15% opportunity cost of capital, wood is not produced together with forage (Table 11). A similar situation is found-IRR above 15%, FU and DP cost prices higher than shadow prices-when, given a 15% opportunity cost of capital and production at 1000 FU/ha, the plantations are equipped with barbed wire fences or thorn hedges. In most cases where FU cost prices are lower than shadow prices, these tend to lie at about US $ 0.10-0.15/FU, only falling to below US $ 0.05/FU under the most favourable conditions, namely with IRR at 10%, no enclosure costs and production at 1000 FU/ha. The main production objective in plantations of Acacia Senegal is gum arabic. Forage output is low, the tree only being available for browse outside the gum collection period, in other words at the beginning of the rainy and dry seasons, giving it only a marginal value as a supplementary source of feed during drought periods. Two plantations have been subject to particular study: both are found in the Sahel zone in areas receiving some 450 mm of rain per year, one in Senegal and the other in Sudan.The M'Bidi plantation in Senegal covers several tens of hectares, at a density of 620 trees/ha. According to Koné (personal communication), establishment costs were probably about US $ 330/ ha, spread over 4 years (US $ 240 during the first year and US $ 30 during the 3 following years). These costs do not include enclosures, estimated as usual at US $ 450/ha for barbed wire fences or US $ 150/ha for hedges. The El Obeid plantation in Sudan has, according to Seif el Din (personal communication), a density of 610 to 630 trees/ha, similar to the figure for M'Bidi in Senegal. However, establishment costs for this plantation, excluding enclosures, were estimated at under US $ 200/ha (as against US $ 330 in Senegal), spread over 2 years at US $ 160-180 for the first year and US $ 20 for the second. Apart from the usual patrolling costs estimated at US $ 12/ha, operating costs primarily concern the harvesting and transport of gum. They are estimated to average US $ 66/ha in Sudan, a figure thought to be representative of conditions throughout the region.Gum production is estimated at 250 g/ tree (155 kg/ha) from the fifth year onwards and over a period of 35 years, at the end of which the plantation has to be entirely renewed. The trees are therefore cut down and the wood is sold in bulk at the end of the project period. Browse production, consisting of leaves, can be estimated at 1 kg of DM of leaves per year, with a feed value of 0.33 FU/kg of DM, i.e. 200 FU/ha with a DP content of 200 g/FU. The annual value of production during the development period lies at US $ 163/ha, with the salvage value of wood when the plantation is cut down at the end of the project standing at some US $ 290/ha (Table 12). The grazing land taken up by the plantation cannot be used throughout the pre-development period, and the forage production lost during these first 5 years has been estimated at 150 FU/year with a protein content of 125 g of DP/FU. The IRR, which is slightly higher for the El Obeid than for the M'Bidi plantation owing to lower investment costs, is under 10% when the plantations are equipped with enclosures and between 10 and 13% when no enclosures are used (Table 13). A. senegal plantations are primarily intended for gum production, and consequently it has been assumed that in contrast to the former cases browse production could take place at the same time as gum production, or at least be treated as a by-product of the latter. In this case the FU (or DP) cost price, designated the marginal cost price (Table 14), is the one enabling the discounted cash flow from net expenditure to be balanced when profits from the sale of gum are deducted. According to the results in Table 14 the average FU and DP cost prices are always higher than shadow prices, even in the most favourable cases-when no enclosure costs have to be included and when the opportunity cost of capital is 10%. The discounted cash flow resulting from FU gains and losses becomes negative when the plantations are hedged, owing to the longer unproductive investment period, during which the grass stratum cannot be used. Treating browse as a by-product of gum improves cost prices, which fall below shadow prices when the plantations are not enclosed and the opportunity cost of capital is 10%. The FU cost price falls in this case to US $ 0.10 and even to zero in Sudan, where lower investment costs mean that gum production by itself is enough to ensure financial equilibrium at this level of IRR. A. senegal plantations are thus only marginally attractive in terms of browse production. a. DP cost price is assumed to be 1.5 times higher than FU cost price. b. Simultaneous production of gum and browse. c. Browse considered as a by-product of gum production. d. Discounted cash flow of FU and DP lost is higher than that from browse production. e. Gum production alone is enough to provide financial equilibrium at an IRR of 10%, so that the FU cost price can be rated at zero. FU and DP cost prices are lower than shadow prices.Acacia albida is very widespread between sea level and 1800 m in the semi-arid and subhumid zones of tropical Africa. Unlike most deciduous tropical trees it loses its leaves during the rainy season and keeps them throughout the dry season. It is traditionally planted in millet, cowpea and groundnut fields in areas with an annual rainfall of 400 to 800 mm, forming part of an agricultural system used by several African peasant civilizations. Millet is cultivated between and beneath the trees, and the interception of light by the foliage during the growing season is negligible, so that shading has no effect on the crops growing at their foot. Also, as the leaves fall at approximately the same time as ploughing begins, most of them are ploughed into the soil and act as fertilizer, improving crop yields. It has been estimated that millet yields in fields planted with A. albida can be 2 to 2.5 times higher than yields in open fields without fertilizer. Under the conditions found in the semi-arid zones of West Africa this means that millet yields can increase from 500-800 kg/ha to around 1000-1500 kg/ha. In addition, pod production, reaching an average of 400 to 600 kg/ha/year, provides livestock with a protein-rich feed to supplement their roughage. A. albida pods were being sold at 45 CFA francs (US $ 0.21) per kg in Senegal in 1980, around US $ 0.30/FU (1 kg represents 0.7 FU).A. albida generally lives to about 80 years. The tree becomes productive only after 15 years and is adult at the age of 25. Fruit production is therefore zero between 0 and 15 years, then gradually increases. The fertilizer effect, which also increases gradually, does not begin to show before the trees reach 10 to 15 years, and probably takes about 10 years thereafter to reach its full extent, at about 25 years when the tree is mature. The final plant density of A. albida is usually 10 to 50 trees/ha, but given the length of the production cycle it is preferable to have a higher density at the outset in order to meet losses, with subsequent elimination of some of the trees as they reach maturity.Planting costs have been estimated at US $ 1 per plant, i.e. US $ 0.55 for planting as such and US $ 0.03/tree/year for maintenance until the trees become productive, that is until aged about 15 years. These figures add up to a total of US $ 100 for an initial planting density of 100 trees/ha, US $ 55 for the first year and US $ 3 for the next 14 years, to which should be added any enclosure costs (US $ 450/ha and US $ 150/ha respectively, according to whether barbed wire or hedges are used). No further costs are incurred, apart from collecting the pods and cutting the branches when pruning, but these were considered negligible.On the basis of the yields estimated above and of shadow prices of US $ 0.16/FU and US $ 0.24 per kg of DP, somewhat lower than the price for pods quoted on local markets in 1980, the value of pod production is US $ 73/ha between years 15 and 24 and US $ 146/ha from year 25 onwards. Wood production is very low, consisting of the sale of the 50% of trees eliminated after 20 years. On the other hand, the impact on crop yields is thought to be substantial with as already noted, at least twofold increases taking place within 10 years, between years 15 and 25 (Table 15).Table 15. Impact of Acacia albida plantations on browse, wood and crop production. Despite the length of the production cycle and the delay before A. albida plantations become productive, the IRR is generally higher than 10%, except when the plantations are supplied with barbed wire fencing. It is even close to 20% when no enclosures are used (Table 16). This result is astonishing, if the very long-term impact on crop and animal production is taken into account, although this positive aspect has hardly any impact on IRR when the depreciation period is extended to 80 years. The reasons why the Sultan of Zinder, in Niger a century or so ago, decreed that anyone cutting down an A. albida tree would himself be decapitated can easily be understood. Since the value of a cash flow often becomes negligible after 30 years, the FU cost price calculation (Table 17) has been limited to a period of this length, although the actual life of A. albida is 80 years. Over 30 years, browse production alone is enough to balance income and expenditure when no investment is made in enclosures, even with a 15% opportunity cost of capital. Taking into account the improvement in agricultural productivity lowers the FU and DP cost prices to below the shadow price when plantations are provided with thorn hedges (but not barbed wire fences) and the opportunity cost of capital is 10%. In all other cases the FU and DP cost prices are well above the shadow prices adopted for calculating IRR. In the most favourable cases-no enclosure costs and a 10% opportunity cost of capital-the FU cost price is US $ 0.03, or US $ 0.06 subtracting the improvement in crop yields. a. DP cost price is assumed to be 1.5 times higher than FU cost price; project life is 30 years. FU and DP cost prices are lower than shadow pricesAlthough they have been more widely studied and are therefore better understood, Atriplex and acacia are by no means the only species used for livestock feeds in tropical Africa. Others with characteristics not fundamentally different from those analysed above can be cited, amongst which Prosopis spp., which closely resemble acacias in terms of the nutritive value of their leaves, branches and pods, although they tend to be less rich in protein (approximately 100 g of DP/FU). Prosopis spp. can also be used for wood production. Several varieties have been grown for browse in various arid zones throughout the world, especially P. chilensis and P. juliflora in the arid tropics of Africa and the Middle East. P. cineraria in Asia arid P. tamarugo in Chili. In the latter country some 30 000 ha of P. tamarugo have been planted in the northern desert, with a density usually around 100 to 120 trees/ ha. According to Robertson (1980), establishment and maintenance costs during the pre-development period were US $ 0.32 per plant, i.e. US $ 32/ ha for a density of 100 trees, while browse yields were 7 t/ha/year.In tropical Africa a plantation of P. juliflora and Parkinsonia aculeata has been established in an area of the Cape Verde Islands receiving 100 to 300 mm of rain per year. According to Sabra (personal communication) it cost about US $ 0.526 per plant, in other words US $ 210/ha for an average density of 400 trees per ha, which is far higher than the Chilian example just cited. The costs were spread over 2 years, at US $ 150 for the first year and US $ 60 for the second. They include raising the plants in the nursery and transporting them to the planting site, soil preparation, digging of holes, water conservation measures, and finally, watering after planting out. No investment costs for enclosures are included. Operating costs are evaluated at US $ 5.5/ha during the development period.The minimum production estimated in preliminary studies (measurement of primary production and evaluation of secondary production) was around 2 t of DM, of which 1 t was actually consumable, i.e. 350 FU/ha or 0.35 FU/kg of DM between the sixth and twentieth year of the project (Le Houérou, 1980;Lepape, 1980). Wood production can be estimated at 1200 kg of DM/ha/year, i.e. 13 kg per tree. Production during the development period can therefore be valued at US $ 83/ha (Table 18). It has also been assumed that the production losses due to non-utilization of the grass stratum during the pre-development period amount to 100 FU/ha/year with a DP content of 125 g/FU. Owing to the fairly low establishment costs, the IRR is higher than 20% when the plantation is without enclosures, falling to somewhat less than 10% when barbed wire fences are used and 12% for thorn hedges. Given the relatively low production levels possible in the arid zone, installing enclosures, especially barbed wire, would remove much of the financial attractiveness from Prosopisplantations. Average FU and DP cost prices, often higher than the shadow prices, only fall to under US $ 0.10/FU (or US $ 0.05) when plantations are left without enclosures and the opportunity cost of capital is 10% (Tables 19 and 20). a. DP cost price is assumed to be 1.5 times higher than FU cost price. FU and DP cost prices are lower than shadow Prices.Leucaena leucocephala is a leguminous tree of central American origin, found only in the subhumid tropics between 600 and 1800 mm of rainfall. It can be grown for both wood and browse. It gives not only a browse product of high quality, with a protein content similar to that of lucerne (25% CP), but also a high yield, reaching 20 t/ha/year. Leucaena nonetheless contains a toxic amino acid, mimosine, which limits the proportion it is advisable to include in the feed ration of ruminants to a maximum of 30%, expressed in DM.A project involving small plantations managed by peasants was launched in Malawi during the 1970s in order to boost the national production of high percentage concentrates. According to Beale (1980), investment costs can be estimated at US $ 272-318/ha, of which US $ 93 to 151 were devoted to the enclosures deemed necessary to protect the plants from damage by goats. However, these costs would probably have been considerably reduced (perhaps by 50%) if large-scale plantations had been involved, allowing substantial economies of scale, especially for enclosures. Operating costs were estimated at US $ 66/ha/year for a production of around 2 to 3 t of DM/ha. The leaves are purchased from producers at US $ 0.08/kg of DM, while the wood is not sold commercially, being used for drying the leaves. The sale of the latter shows a return of US $ 160 to 240/ha/ year for the smallholdings financed by the project.Available data were not sufficient to calculate the IRR and FU and DP prices using the same approach as for the other plantations. However, in the feasibility studies Leucaena leaves, as a cash crop, were considered the best production alternative, allowing small farmers to make a net profit of US $ 153/ha, whereas under local conditions profits from mixed farming are barely over US $ 120/ ha.It is difficult to throw very much light on the economic value of browse tree and bush plantations owing to the unreliable nature of the data used for the IRR calculations. The most consistent estimates are those relating to operating costs, but this is because they were carried out by the present authors owing to the lack of concrete information available elsewhere. In general terms it was assumed that these costs were fairly low owing to the extensive nature of the plantations studied, the fact that labour requirements to protect them and ensure their productive output are fairly modest, and that labour costs in tropical Africa are in any case low. It is possible that operating costs have been underestimated in several cases, a factor which will have overvalued profitability.Estimates for investment costs, largely based on concrete examples, are more widely dispersed. In general terms the costs of establishing a plantation stand at between US $ 200 and 500/ha excluding enclosures, with some exceptionally high values (Acacia cyanophylla, US $ 600) and others which are very low (A. albida, US $ 55; Leucaena, US $ 150). Unit costs nevertheless appear less widely dispersed, usually varying around US $ 0.50 per plant, with some values appreciably lower (US $ 0.20-0.25) when the planting density is high, as for Atriplex, or when planting is carried out by direct drilling and not by transplanting young plants raised in the nursery (Leucaena and Prosopis tamarugo). Direct drilling, which is very much less expensive, cannot be used for the time being in the semi-arid and arid zones of tropical Africa, where it is too risky. In areas where rainfall is unreliable even transplanting nursery plants is not without risk, and so requires special care (the plants must be watered) to ensure survival. As a result tree and bush plantations in these areas are fairly expensive. A second factor further increases plantation establishment costs, namely the high cost price of barbed wire fencing. An alternative solution, far less expensive south of the Sahara, consists of planting thorn hedges. However, this solution has the drawback of prolonging the nonproductive pre-development period. In short, it may be estimated that in tropical Africa a forage tree or bush plantation with a density of 1000 stocks/ha costs on average US $ 500/ha without expenditure on enclosures, and that establishment costs can very nearly double when the plantation is equipped with barbed wire fencing.Evaluating production also posed a number of problems. The yields of browse trees and bushes are less well understood under tropical African conditions, so that sometimes several different levels of production have to be assumed in order to cover the range of yields possible at given levels of technology. To this initial cause of uncertainty may be added the further difficulty of estimating forage shadow prices. The criterion adopted, prices on the world market, has certain drawbacks since the resulting shadow prices are fairly high given animal feed conditions in tropical Africa. Naturally the prices adopted have some impact on the profitability of the operation under study, so that the world market price is probably only-applicable if browse plants are thought of as a supplementary feed supply to replace concentrates during a drought period.A related problem arises in the form of non-utilization of the grass stratum, the value of which has been estimated on the basis of the same shadow prices as those used to assess browse production. As has been seen, this assumption was based mainly on the idea that grass is becoming scarce in tropical Africa, so that browse should not be produced to the detriment of grass but rather as a complement to it, enabling livestock to be supplied with forage throughout the year at reasonably low cost. Estimating cost prices on the basis of the more easily determined opportunity cost of capital thus not only obviated the need to rely on shadow prices which were more or less meaningless, but also provided a range of prices, which turned out to be a more useful approach. Uncertainties regarding investment costs and the level of forage yields have also been used to analyse the sensitivity of browse cost prices, with the different figures being considered as variables enabling profitability thresholds to be determined.The IRR thus appears extremely sensitive to variations in investment costs and forage yields, especially when these are low. This emerges clearly from Table 21, which reproduces variations in average IRR for different plantations as a function of investment and yield variations.According to these results the IRR falls by almost 0.5°% when investment costs rise by 1%. IRR variations in relation to browse yields are even stronger when these are low, with IRR doubling when browse production moves from 500 to 1000 FU/ha, and increasing by almost 50% when production rises from 1000 to 2000 FU/ha (Table 21). If a level of 10 or even 15% is identified as the minimum IRR, it appears that on the basis of the FU and DP shadow prices adopted the profitability of browse plantations is assured at all production levels when investment costs do not include enclosures, and that this threshold generally seems to rise to 1000 FU when investments include barbed wire fences. Using hedges instead helps to improve IRR slightly, but even with them it usually remains below 10% (Table 22). b. Production lost throughout the project period owing to non-utilization of the stratum is evaluated using the same shadow prices as for browse.The production of wood or other products at the same time as browse (for example the improvement in crop yields produced by Acacia albida) nevertheless appears in several cases to lower the FU and DP cost prices significantly, resulting in the improved financial viability of browse production. Nonetheless, even when wood is produced at the same time, the production levels generally anticipated for tropical Africa only appear likely to allow browse production at sufficiently low prices (under US $ 0.10/FU) when no enclosures at all are used (Table 23).Table 23. FU and DP cost prices on browse tree and bush plantations a .- a. Without wood production/with wood production. DP cost price is assumed to be 1.5 times higher than FU cost price; project life is 20 years (30 years for Acacia albida) b. Cost prices are higher than shadow prices c. Production lost throughout the project period owing to non-utilization of the grass stratum is evaluated using the same shadow prices as for browse.A further factor which has not so far been quantified is that planting trees and bushes in particularly arid zones is rather a risky undertaking. Risks can be indirectly taken into account by raising the opportunity cost of capital adopted for estimating the FU and DP cost prices. A comparison between the cost prices when IRR is 15% instead of 10% is interesting in this respect (Table 23). Except in a very few cases, with IRR at 15% browse cannot be produced at sufficiently low cost (under US $ 0.10/FU) when yields are lower or equal to 500 FU. When yields are 1000 FU/year, FU cost prices are only lower than US $ 0.10 when conditions are at their most favourable, with no enclosure costs, simultaneous production of wood, and use of the grass stratum at the same time as production of browse. When the opportunity cost of capital is 15%, yields have to approach 1500 FU/ha before browse can be produced at prices which are low enough (under US $ 0.10), or even 2000 FU when the grass stratum, evaluated similarly to browse, cannot be used at the same time as the latter (Acacia cyanophylla).To sum up, the economic viability of browse tree and bush plantations appears uncertain from many aspects, when all the factors liable to limit profitability under current African conditions are taken into account. Given environmental constraints, initial efforts to improve this situation should probably involve lowering the investment cost of enclosures and maintaining the option to use the grass stratum during the development period, so that investment expenditure is kept at sufficiently low level not only to enable maximum growth of net forage output, but also to provide a high-quality supply during periods when livestock are severely underfed. Seen from this angle, browse tree and bush plantations would appear to provide some solution, and probably a more efficient one than the unreliable supply of feed concentrates, to the problems of livestock feed supplies in Africa. Their value is beyond question if their advantages in terms of energy supplies (wood) and environmental protection are also taken into account. Efforts should therefore be made to gain a better understanding of the very real opportunities offered by various species, and of the conditions under which they can grow and be used to help satisfy the vast browse and energy requirements of the arid and semi-arid zones of tropical Africa.However optimistic, such a prospect nevertheless leaves unsolved the problem of effectively implementing plantations and distributing their produce to the pastoral population. Considering the probable costs involved, distribution would under any circumstances have to rely on a fair price for the services rendered.","tokenCount":"8561"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e391157a05116d68aa1403b2935bcd9e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e1a6d36b-8aaa-4e95-af74-3542eba64839/retrieve","id":"-500748347"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1907c842-2999-48ce-88ee-a5a636509146","pagecount":"4","content":"• A trained sensory panel was developed to assist with breeding for sweetpotato quality preferences of consumers in West Africa.• Lexicons of terms to precisely describe boiled and fried sweetpotato sensory quality have been developed using trained sensory panel.• Trained panel results showed that there is no direct relationship between sugar content and sweetness in boiled sweetpotato.• Results showed that consumers liked the new high yielding varieties ranging from sweet to low sweet.• Different clusters of consumer preference were detected and will help targeting of breeding efforts.Prior to the establishment of the SASHA breeding platform for West Africa in Ghana, experienced colleagues from the region told us that sweet taste, meaning a sugary taste, was a constraint to wider sweetpotato adoption in this region, where low sweet starchy staples such as cassava and yam predominate. So breeding for low sweet taste became a focus of our breeding effort, which did not exclusively emphasize orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) but included other flesh colors as well. We had low sugar germplasm from global and local sources (Ghanaian varieties were not very sweet), and we had laboratory equipment for the rapid determination of sugars in samples from our trials, which we assumed would help us efficiently select low sugar/low sweet genotypes. We knew, however, that sugars in sweetpotato can change during cooking as starch is converted to the sugar maltose, so we needed to update our methods to be able to rapidly determine sugars in cooked samples. Furthermore, breeding trials were underway using participatory approaches, and we were surprised when farmers and other consumers told us that they liked most of the varieties we offered them, including sweet ones. We realized we didn't have a clear enough understanding of the sweetpotato quality preferences of consumers in Ghana and West Africa where sweetpotato is primarily eaten boiled or fried, so needed more information to be able to guide our breeding effort. We also needed to know how we could most efficiently breed to meet consumer preferences through the use of laboratory techniques (such as measuring sugars) or other approaches.To help us in our effort to effectively breed to meet consumer preference in Ghana, we turned to the tools of food science. We recruited and trained a sensory panel of 10 to 12 individuals with the ability to precisely distinguish sensory characteristics (appearance, taste, texture, mouthfeel, and aroma). We then used this panel to develop vocabularies (lexicons) to describe sensory attributes of boiled and fried sweetpotato using a broad range of sweetpotato germplasm available to us. We included yam as a reference given its importance in Ghana, and similarity of use to sweetpotato in boiled or fried forms. Our lexicon for boiled sweetpotato currently has 30 terms while that for fried sweetpotato has 22 (Fig. 1).Multivariate statistical approaches allow us to picture the \"sensorial space\" for boiled or fried sweetpotato, and to map sweetpotato varieties onto that space (Fig. 2). We can now take existing and new varieties from the breeding program and present them to groups of consumers to tell us whether they like them or not (Fig. 3). We thus gain insights into the characteristics of the varieties that consumers like, which may vary depending on socioeconomic or other characteristics, and we can gain insights on how to efficiently breed for the combination of sensory characteristics desired by consumers in a good variety. to the advanced and on-farm trial stages, where inputs by producers, processors, and consumers help to guide decisions about release. Genotypes that are superior to the current leading varieties or which have potential in a new niche, such as purple flesh color, are put forward for release and dissemination. The testing network in Ghana covers major production zones In the northern and the southern agroecologies. Efforts of the program have also focused on developing delivery systems (commercial seed systems) and demand, mainly for orange-fleshed sweetpotato in order to help combat vitamin A deficiency with this biofortified crop. The consumer sensory evaluations reported here were conducted in urban centers where we presented a set of 5 varieties with varying flesh color and sweetness (the varieties presented in Fig. 3 and 6) to over 700 consumers in boiled or fried form and asked them for their preferences.The first thing we found out with our trained sensory panel was that there is little relationship between the perception of \"sweetness\" and the actual sugar content of the genotypes evaluated, meaning that analyzing all of our boiled root samples for sugars was not really helping us to identify genotypes that were more or less sugary (Fig. 4). This does not mean that sugars have no importance to sweetpotato sensory qualities, since we know that certain types of sugars contribute to browning during frying of sweetpotato, and aromatic compounds produced from sugars during cooking contribute strongly to aroma and perhaps taste. We also observed (data not shown here) that, following cooking, there was a significant reduction in starch content, with a much smaller increase in maltose (the sugar resulting from enzymatic breakdown of starch) during cooking.The next findings came from consumer sensory evaluations of boiled and fried sweetpotato in urban centers including Accra and smaller towns in regions where sweetpotato is important (Fig. 3 and 6). For boiled sweetpotato, consumers overall preferred the moderately sweet Okumkom, followed by the sweeter Nan, and the low sweet PGA14372-3, with the least sweet genotypes, Bohye and PGA14351-4, least preferred (Fig. 5). However, clusters of preference could be distinguished, with some consumers preferring the the least sweet types. Mapping the clusters to the sensorial space generated by the trained panel provided information on the sensory attributes (from the lexicon) that helped to distinguish the preference clusters. A cluster was associated with Nan (the OFSP), and 13 traits from the lexicon, including appearance (1), aroma (4), mouthfeel (4), texture (3) and the basic taste, sweetness (1), contributed more stongly than others to differentiate this cluster. Another preference cluster, was associated with the low sweet PGA14351-4, and 7 different traits, including appearance (3), texture (3) and umami or savory taste 1 contributed strongly to defining this cluster. For fried sweetpotato, Nan was preferred over other genotypes, with appearance contributing heavily to this positive evaluation. Preference clusters were associated with the contrasting genotypes Nan and Bohye, with 10 traits contributing strongly to the first cluster and 8 different traits to the second.Encouraging results from the SASHA breeding effort in Ghana include the selection and release of superior varieties, including Nan, a higher dry matter OFSP, which is being rapidly adopted. More superior genotypes bred in Ghana are reaching the advanced stages of selection. For example, PGA14372-3, one of the genotypes included in our consumer sensory survey, was the top-ranked genotype both agronomically and with respect to boiled eating quality in second year farmer-participatory on-farm trials in northern Ghana in 2018. It, along with at least one other highly ranked candidate, will be put forward for variety release in 2019.During the course of SASHA, we have learned how to breed sweetpotato in the challenging environments of West Africa, including mastering crossing, and identification of testing locations, with advances made more rapidly in the north than the south. Our breeding efforts are generating varieties that are highly acceptable to consumers in both boiled and fried forms, with a range of quality traits, including low and high sweetness, and a range of flesh colors. We have also made strides to improve our ability to target consumer preferences and breed for quality traits. However, more work is required to target consumer preferences and breed for quality traits. Progress will come in the context of demandled breeding. Awareness of and interest in sweetpotato, particularly OFSP, is accelerating in Ghana, and is helping to create year-round markets (an increasingly important driver of adoption) for sweetpotato roots and processed products made from the crop. A comprehensive approach to sweetpotato demand development is required, particularly in the northern regions of Ghana and neighboring countries in West Africa, paying particular attention to women who play a key role in household food preparation, but may not be allowed to own land, limiting their role in driving sweetpotato adoption. Women in northern Ghana placed emphasis on selection of varieties for leafy green production as well as root yield. ","tokenCount":"1373"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2cabcfe3aab1e73c58ff896f7a63da53","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/11260c63-b242-4a0d-a1e0-c70f556ab8cb/retrieve","id":"-47490743"},"keywords":["Dairy, Beef, Small Ruminants, Pasture & Range, Non-ruminants Climate Change Management Section Vice President Office (VPO) Ministry Agriculture Ministry Livestock & Fisheries Research & Development","Crop Development","Food Security","Land Use Planning","Mechanization","Training Technology Dissemination"],"sieverID":"a4a5f480-60f2-4381-a42f-a7275d2a9b45","pagecount":"45","content":"Feeding systemsFeed is a critically limiting factor in the productivity of smallholder dairy systems in East Africa. FEAST Rwanda • Most farmers feed their animals Napier grass, natural vegetation, and crop residues: sweet potato vines, banana leaves and pseudo stems, and bean and maize stalks. • 61% of all herds faced a minimal energy feed gap, and 55% a crude protein gap.• Feed gaps were more prevalent in the grazing than in the cut-and-carry site, although feed losses are likely to be high--up to 30-50%--in cut-and-carry systems. • In Rwanda, zero grazing or cut-and-carry feeding are practiced in Nyanza (Southern) and Burera (Northern) districts, while a mix of grazing and cut-and-carry is found in Nyagatare (Eastern). FEAST Tanzania • Livestock contributes 18 -52 % of household incomes.• Feed availability and feeding practices are highly seasonal, with shortages in the dry season and abundance in the rainy season. • Most farmers do not provide adequate food and drinking water to animals, which critically limits livestock productivity.• Diverse livestock and feeding systems exist along an intensification gradient: exclusively zero-grazing of few cross-bred cows on small land sizes to grazing larger local cattle herds, and a mix of both systems. • Grazing systems were more labor-intensive per tropical livestock unit than cut-and-carry systems, and most feeding-related labor was provided by men.Field trials show that:• Guatemala grass produced low biomass compared to the other 13 forage technologies, which therefore stand a good chance to improve forage production in Tanzania. • Regarding forage-food crop integration, maize-Desmodium and Mulato II-Desmodium showed reduced severity of pests and diseases and higher dry matter production. • Milk production grew by 15% in cows fed Brachiaria Cobra. Less Cobra grass was ingested compared with common forages, suggesting better forage efficiency. • Involvement of multiple players including farmers, administrators, and the media in forage promotion works well.• Learning by seeing and visiting fellow farmers elsewhere is key for livestock keepers.• Soil samples returned low levels of soil phosphorus and nitrogen. For forage production to thrive, soil amendments can restore these key elements. • Further, soils are acidic, curtailing access to nutrients for growing forages.• Improved forages are context-specific; the choice of species and varieties matters.• A negative impact on forage crops due to climate change is projected.• An annual 10 % milk increase is associated with feeding planted, improved forages.• This goal is feasible and realistic in terms of farmers' willingness to allocate the necessary area to forages: 0.1 acre per cow or 3-8% of available cropland on farms. • The milk increase jumps to 25% if forages are dried, stored, and fed in the dry season.When managed properly, Napier grass showed better digestibility than Brachiaria and Rhodes grasses despite higher fiber content.Factsheets on improved forages; posters; policy briefs.• The average milk production by each household is 8.9 and 11.4 kgs/day in Rwanda and Tanzania, respectively.• Most livestock feed ingredients are produced and used on the farm; there is little external sourcing.• Deficits of feed basket adequacy are reported between June and October in Rwanda and between July and December in Tanzania.• Male household members spend more time on forage-related land preparation, planting and sowing, manure application, and weeding than other members.• Women tend to be involved in feeding rather than the cultivation of forages.• Forage adoption tends to reduce men's workloads while increasing cash income at the household level; for women, adoption not only increases their workloads but also shifts milk income control to men.• While both men and women expressed similar preferences for traits related to productivity, ease of harvesting and handling were particularly important to women because of their role in feeding animals.• Most of the surveyed HHs get agricultural information from their own farmer groups and government extension services.• Formal information and seed distribution pathways tend to be focused on men despite women's important role in fodder production and livestock feeding.Achieving targeted milk yields and production through improved feeding systems alone is projected to increase methane emissions from enteric fermentation and manure management, as well as the amount of land and water required to produce feed for the national cattle population.• Methane emissions from enteric fermentation and manure management are projected to increase by 11% to 4.6 MtCO2-eq in Tanzania and by 30% to 0.24 MtCO2-eq in Rwanda.• Emission intensity, the amount of methane emissions from enteric fermentation per l of milk produced, decreases from 2.5 to 1.9 kg CO2-eq per l milk in Tanzania and 1.7 to 1.3 kg CO2-eq per l milk in Rwanda for improved breeds but cannot compensate for the projected growth in the cattle population that drives the overall increase in emissions. • The land required to produce feed is projected to expand by 12% to 33.3 million ha land in Tanzania and to shrink by 13% to 667,000 ha land in Rwanda. • The amount of water required to produce feed is projected to jump 9% to 28.2 billion liters in Tanzania and 3% to 690 million liters in Rwanda. • Consistency in methods and data used for national feed and environmental impact assessments with methods used in LMPs can deliver greater outcomes and impact.CLEANED assessed wet-and dry-season feed baskets for 3 regions of Tanzania, and found the following:• Improved feeding interventions can have negative environmental impacts, such as requiring more land, which can be a limiting factor. • Improving wet-season feeding when intensifying dairy production had positive impacts on the reduction of GHGe intensities.• Greenhouse gas emissions--CH 4 and N 2 O--from the manure of cattle fed with tropical forage grasses are lower than the IPCC default values for Africa. • Enteric fermentation emissions from cattle fed with Brachiara, Napier, or Rhodes grasses are not significantly different.• Soil samples show low soil organic carbon content in Njombe and Mufindi districts and low phosphorous and nitrogen levels in all districts, which limit forage and crop growth productivity. • For forage production to thrive, farmers need to apply soil amendments such as manure and fertilizers in order to improve soil carbon and restore other key elements such as phosphorous and nitrogen. • Improved forage grasses have 2 to 3 times higher sequestration rates than food crops.• Land restoration can be achieved by adopting sustainable land management practices in cropland areas: contour planting of forages as grass strips to control erosion and enhance carbon sequestration.• Most manure produced is used on-farm, as fertilizer, with substantial losses.• Manure is classified as a key farm product in Rwanda.• Manure from cattle fed with tropical forage grasses without supplements is low in nitrogen content so greater amounts of manure are required to meet fertilizer crop demand. Task: Review key messages for each stakeholder groupGoal: As a group, choose which of these messages are most relevantThe following slide group are the original messages discussed in the workshop. The next section contains revised key messages incorporating workshop feedback.• Underfeeding and inadequate water supply (keeping in mind the milk is almost 80% water) stifles livestock productivity, compared to animal health and genetic variables. • Crop residues (e.g. maize) do not have the nutritional profile needed for good milk production.• Feeding dairy cattle improved forages, such as Brachiaria species, or Brachiaria species combined with a legume such as Desmodium, can increase milk production per cow significantly. (should we say up to 15%? -Forage feeding trials TZ, Mwendia) • There are many options of improved forages, each with their own range of needs for soil quality, water, and temperature in order to grow well.• Forages also differ in the qualities they produce: dry matter weight/biomass, protein/ nutritional value, fiber content (impact on digestibility/ GHG emissions), animal uptake, dry season growth, suitability for grazing, silage or hay (drying), regrowth rate, etc. • Farmers should choose forages that will grow in their climate and soil type, and for their preferred feeding strategy to provide enough dry matter and nutrients through the dry season. • Making hay or silage is an effective way to increase milk production and earned income, especially during the dry season when the supply tends to be low and the price of milk is high. • Purchasing hay or silage to feed cattle during the dry season can increase milk production enough to ensure adequate household milk supply.• Hay and silage production can be a profitable crop to trade in the market, especially for women and youth, and for groups. The nutrient quality differs among grasses and should be chosen for the appropriate market product. • Since the grasses can be maintained over several years, soil fertility is key, also keeping the fields free of weeds.• People who own larger land can mechanize forage production.• Forages do not require heavy initial investments.• Forages can be planted on terraces and field edges to reduce soil erosion and increase farm productivity • Planting 0.1 acre (400m2) of improved forages can increase milk production by 10%.• Planting improved forages can displace land otherwise used to grow food crops; however, the increase in milk production sales can provide immediate profit \"income smoothing\" to farmers rather than waiting for payment at the end of season harvest. • Unproductive land can be restored through planting forages and brought into production, increasing farmer income and nutritional security• Inadequate quality and quantity of feed stifles milk production.• Crop residues (e.g. maize and beans stalks) do not have the nutritional profile needed for good milk production.• Most farmers do not provide enough drinking water to animals (keeping in mind the milk is almost 80% water). Underfeeding and inadequate water supply critically limits livestock productivity, compared to animal health and genetic variables. • Feeding dairy cattle improved forages, such as Brachiaria species combined with a legume such as Desmodium, can increase milk production per cow significantly. (should we say up to 15%? -Forage feeding trials TZ, Mwendia) • There are many options of improved forages, each with their own range of needs soil quality, water, and temperature in order to grow well.• Forages also differ in the qualities they produce: dry matter weight/biomass, protein/ nutritional value, fiber content (impact on digestibility/ GHG emissions), animal uptake, dry season growth, suitability for grazing, silage or hay (drying), regrowth rate, etc. • Farmers should choose forages that will grow in their climate and soil type, and for their preferred feeding strategy to provide enough dry matter and nutrients through the dry season. • Ministry of TZ is working with KEPHIS to register seeds and allow seed companies to import from Brazil; RW to follow suit.• Making hay or silage is an effective way to increase milk production and earned income, especially during the dry season when the supply tends to be low and the price of milk is high. Brachiaria species may provide a better buffer throughout the dry season, while Rhodes grass is easier to make hay. • Hay and silage production can be a profitable crop to trade in the market, especially for women and youth, and for groups. The nutrient quality differs among grasses and should be chosen for the appropriate market product. • Since the grasses can be maintained over several years, soil fertility is key, also keeping the fields free of weeds.• People who own larger land can mechanize forage production.• Forages do not require heavy initial investments.• As demand for animal products increases, the demand for milk will rise, and the need for reliable feeds will become more important.• With financial and capacity support, dairy cooperatives and milk collection centers could facilitate shared hay or silage making equipment at an economy of scale • Women's access to dairying is not the same as men for a wide variety of reasons; commercialization intensification risks marginalizing women away from profits that were otherwise securely theirs • Unproductive land can be restored through planting forages and brought into production, increasing farmer income and nutritional security• RW/TZ cows produce 3-5 liters of milk per day, well below their potential of 12-15 liters, due to poor quality and quantity of feed, breed genetics, and veterinary care.Inadequate quality and quantity of feed stifles milk production • Feed availability and feeding practices are highly seasonal, with shortages in the dry season and abundance in the rainy season.Feeding dairy cattle improved forages, such as Brachiaria species combined with a legume such as Desmodium, can increase milk production per cow significantly. (should we say up to 15%? -Forage feeding trials TZ, Mwendia)Livestock is the main contributor to agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, and thus a key entry point for climate change mitigation in East Africa.Increasing livestock productivity contributes to better incomes, better nutrition and reduced greenhouse gas emissions per unit livestock product of both milk and meat.As demand for animal products increases, the demand for milk will rise, and the need for reliable feeds will become more important.Decision-makers can use the generated insights to prioritize feeding technologies and target investments.Further investment is required to improve varieties of forage feed to make them suitable for local conditions, and to improve access to forage feed for farmers.Registration of new varieties should become smoother, faster and cheaper.Support is needed to establish commercial forage seed production, through partnerships with private sector seed companies, so that larger quantities of high-quality seed can be made available to farmers.Markets are key to encourage farmers to improve production: higher profits for better quality milk will incentivize farmers to invest in better feed and husbandry practices.Women's access to dairying is not the same as men for a wide variety of reasons; commercialization intensification risks marginalizing women away from profits that were otherwise securely theirs • With financial and capacity support, dairy cooperatives and milk collection centers could facilitate shared hay-or silage-making equipment at an economy of scale • Transportation costs between milk production areas and urban centers necessitate regional processing centers (i.e. in Southern Highlands) • Future-proofing the dairy sector can attract more funding.Manure greenhouse gas emissions from forage grasses were found to be lower than the internationally used default emissions factor.Cross-sector collaboration between livestock, agriculture and environment ministries is needed to align goals and activities• Feed availability and feeding practices are highly seasonal, with shortages in the dry season and abundance in the rainy season.• Inadequate quality and quantity of feed stifles milk production: crop residues (e.g. maize) do not have the nutritional profile needed for milk production.• Increasing livestock productivity contributes to better incomes, better nutrition and reduced greenhouse gas emissions per unit livestock product of both milk and meat. • As demand for animal products increases, the demand for milk will rise, and the need for reliable feeds will become more important.• Feeding dairy cattle improved forages, such as Brachiaria species, or Brachiaria species combined with a legume such as Desmodium, can increase milk production per cow significantly. (should we say up to 15%? -Forage feeding trials TZ, Mwendia) • Making hay or silage is an effective way to increase milk production and earned income, especially during the dry season when the supply tends to be low and the price of milk is high. • Hay and silage production can be a profitable crop to trade in the market, especially for women and youth, and for groups. It is important to understand the nutrient quality of the products in order to market well. • Since the grasses can be maintained over several years, soil fertility is key, also keeping the fields free of weeds.• People who own larger land can mechanize forage production.• Forages do not require heavy initial investments.• Support is needed to establish commercial forage seed production, through partnerships with private sector seed companies, so that larger quantities of high-quality seed can be made available to farmers. • Capacity building is needed in forage development and selection -including breeding. This would also enhance the reach of forage seed marketing in the region. • Farmers sell milk to cooperatives (larger quantities) and private or direct to vendors (higher price). In the wet season, when forages and milk production (supply) are higher, the price of milk drops. • With financial and capacity support, dairy cooperatives and milk collection centers could facilitate shared hay-or silage-making equipment at an economy of scale.• Women's access to dairying is not the same as men for a wide variety of reasons; commercialization intensification risks marginalizing women away from profits that were otherwise securely theirs• Inadequate quality and quantity of feed stifles milk production: crop residues (e.g. maize) do not have the nutritional profile needed for milk production. • Increasing livestock productivity contributes to better incomes, better nutrition and reduced greenhouse gas emissions per unit livestock product of both milk and meat. • Feeding dairy cattle improved forages, such as Brachiaria species, or Brachiaria species combined with a legume such as Desmodium, can increase milk production per cow significantly. (should we say up to 15%? -Forage feeding trials TZ, Mwendia) • Grasses have the potential for stabilizing soil, sequestering carbon in soil, and decreasing erosion.• Registration of new varieties should become smoother, faster and cheaper.• Making hay or silage is an effective way to increase milk production and earned income, especially during the dry season when the supply tends to be low and the price of milk is high. • Hay and silage production can be a profitable crop to trade in the market, especially for women and youth, and for groups. It is important to understand the nutrient quality of the products in order to market well. Since the grasses can be maintained over several years, soil fertility is key, also keeping the fields free of weeds. • People who own larger land can mechanize forage production.• Forages do not require heavy initial investments.• As demand for animal products increases, the demand for milk will rise, and the need for reliable feeds will become more important. • Further funding is needed to support research to reduce the environmental impact of livestock keeping, and to support the design of poverty-reduction programs that include livestock. • Manure greenhouse gas emissions from forage grasses were found to be lower than the internationally used default emissions factor.• Little research has been conducted on grasses and legumes native to East Africa.• The degree to which climate smart forages can mitigate nitrogen loss depends heavily on seasonal characteristics and is not fully understood • Researchers can improve and validate modeling approaches that require detailed feed baskets.• Intercropping forage grasses with food crops may allow farmers to increase their land use efficiency, but the appropriate combinations under differing seasonal and agroecological conditions is unknown. • Improved forages require fertilization and management, which need to be optimized for local conditions.• Better understanding is needed about different soil type impact on tropical forage growth.• Few studies exist that measure greenhouse gas emissions in African systems, resulting in underrepresentation internationally.Underfeeding and inadequate feed quality and water supplies-since milk is almost 80% water-stifle livestock productivity.Feeding dairy cattle improved forages, such as Brachiaria species combined with a legume such as Desmodium, can boost milk production per cow by 15-40%. Many Brachiaria cultivars are drought tolerant, bridging the feeding gap during the dry season. Desmodium is a good protein source for cows, aiding in higher milk production and easier digestibility. Farmers can strategize land use intensification by intercropping Desmodium with food crops or other forages to boost productivity and profit per acre and per cow.There are many options of improved forages, each with their own range of needs for soil quality, management, water, and temperature in order to grow well. Forages also differ in the qualities they produce: dry matter weight/biomass, protein/ nutritional value, fiber content (impact on digestibility/ GHG emissions), animal uptake, dry season growth, suitability for grazing, silage or hay (drying), regrowth rate, etc. Farmers need to understand and choose forages that will grow in their climate and soil type, and for their preferred feeding strategy to provide enough dry matter and nutrients through the dry season.Farmers can plant forages on terraces, in contour grass strips, and along field edges in order to reduce soil erosion, bring unproductive land into use, restore soil quality, increase farmer incomes, and enhance nutritional security.Making hay or silage is an effective way to elevate milk production and earned income, especially during the dry season when the supply of milk tends to be low and its price high. Brachiaria species may provide a better buffer throughout the dry season, while Rhodes grass is easier to use for hay. Since the grasses can be maintained over several years, soil fertility through amendments is key, along with keeping the fields free of weeds.Growing forages in place of food crops can increase milk production sales that provide immediate income smoothing and regular profits for farmers, rather than waiting for payment at the end-of-season harvest.Gender-differentiated labor requirements and profit division are important considerations for integrating improved forage feeding practices into overall production systems and for designing extension programming for improved forage technologies. Male household members spend more time on forage-related cultivation activities, while women tend to be involved in feeding.• Rwandan dairy cows produce 3-5 liters of milk per day (LMP 2017), well below their potential of 12-15 liters, due to poor quality and quantity of feed, together with breed genetics and veterinary care. Most farmers feed their animals wild vegetation, Napier grass, and crop residues (e.g. sweet potato vines, banana leaves, bean and maize stalks) (Nyangaga, 2019). The national feed balance (ratio of feed required for an attainable milk production level to actual feed supply at individual herd level) for dairy cows is positive in an average year, producing 6.4 MT of dry matter where 4.1 MT dry matter are needed (Waha, 2019).Feeding dairy cattle improved forages, such as Brachiaria species combined with a legume such as Desmodium, can increase milk production per cow between 15-40% (Gonzalez et al 2016). Many Brachiaria cultivars are drought tolerant, bridging the feeding gap during the dry season (June to October). Desmodium is a good protein source for cows, aiding in higher milk production and easier digestibility. Farmers can strategize land use intensification by intercropping Desmodium with food crops or other forages to boost productivity and profit per acre and per cow. Further investment and action are needed to improve varieties of forage feed to make them suitable for local conditions and to ensure that farmers can access and use forages suitable to their local climate and production system.Increasing livestock productivity through improved forages contributes to higher incomes, better nutrition, soil benefits, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions per unit livestock product, creating a quadruple win. If larger herd populations and improved breeds alone were to deliver achievements in targeted national total milk production as envisioned by the Livestock Master Plan, emissions from enteric fermentation and manure management, as well as the amount of land and water required to produce feed for the national cattle population, is expected to increase substantially. Improved feed interventions, on the other hand, can be considered climate smart because they decrease the environmental impact per unit of milk produced while satisfying the increased demand for animal source foods. Forage grasses also provide soil and environmental benefits including stabilizing soil, decreasing erosion, restoring soil health, and sequestering 2 to 3 times higher more soil carbon than food crops.Support is needed to establish commercial forage seed production, through partnerships with private sector seed companies and master farmers, so that larger quantities of high-quality seed can be made available to farmers. Cross-sector ministries should facilitate inspection units in sync with seed distribution services in order to reduce red tape for farmers interested in engaging in seed multiplication.Women's access to dairying is not the same as men for a wide variety of reasons; commercialization intensification risks marginalizing women away from profits that were otherwise securely theirs. The introduction of improved forage technologies should be packaged with an intervention point enhancing gender awareness training that accounts for social dynamics of labor division and profit division.Greenhouse gas emissions (CH4 and N2) from manure of cattle fed with forage grasses are lower than the IPCC default values for Africa.Future-proofing the dairy sector can attract more funding.• Tanzanian improved family dairy cows produce 1.5-2 liters** of milk per day (LMP 2018), well below their potential of 12-15 liters, due to poor quality and quantity of feed, together with breed genetics and veterinary care. Most farmers feed their animals wild vegetation or a suite of Napier, Rhodes or Guatemala grasses and crop residues (Nyangaga 2019), resulting in 61% of all herds faced a minimal energy feed gap, and 55% a crude protein gap (Paul, 2019). The national feed balance (ratio of feed required for an attainable milk production level to actual feed supply at individual herd level) for dairy cows is negative in average good weather years: there are 30.5 million cattle that require 58.2 to 80.5 MT dry matter, where only 20.9 to 46.6 MT livestock feed is produced (Waha, 2019).Feeding dairy cattle improved forages, such as Brachiaria species combined with a legume such as Desmodium, can increase milk production per cow between 15-40% (Gonzalez et al 2016). Many Brachiaria cultivars are drought tolerant, bridging the feeding gap during the dry season (July to December). Desmodium is a good protein source for cows, aiding in higher milk production and easier digestibility. Farmers can strategize land use intensification by intercropping Desmodium with food crops or other forages to boost productivity and profit per acre and per cow. Further investment and action are needed to improve varieties of forage feed to make them suitable for local conditions and to ensure that farmers can access and use forages suitable to their local climate and production system.Increasing livestock productivity through improved forages contributes to higher incomes, better nutrition, soil benefits, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions per unit livestock product, creating a quadruple win. If larger herd populations and improved breeds alone were to deliver achievements in targeted national total milk production as envisioned by the Livestock Master Plan, emissions from enteric fermentation and manure management, as well as the amount of land and water required to produce feed for the national cattle population, is expected to increase substantially. Improved feed interventions, on the other hand, can be considered climate smart because they decrease the environmental impact per unit of milk produced while satisfying the increased demand for animal source foods. Forage grasses also provide soil and environmental benefits including stabilizing soil, decreasing erosion, restoring soil health, and sequestering 2 to 3 times higher more soil carbon than food crops.Support is needed to establish commercial forage seed production, through partnerships with private sector seed companies and master farmers, so that larger quantities of high-quality seed can be made available to farmers. Cross-sector ministries should facilitate inspection units in sync with seed distribution services in order to reduce red tape for farmers interested in engaging in seed multiplication.Women's access to dairying is not the same as men for a wide variety of reasons; commercialization intensification risks marginalizing women away from profits that were otherwise securely theirs. The introduction of improved forage technologies should be packaged with an intervention point enhancing gender awareness training that accounts for social dynamics of labor division and profit division.Greenhouse gas emissions (CH4 and N2) from manure of cattle fed with forage grasses are lower than the IPCC default values for Africa.Cross-sector collaboration between livestock, agriculture and environment ministries is needed to align goals and activities.Future-proofing the dairy sector can attract more funding.• Rwandan dairy cows produce 3-5 liters of milk per day (LMP 2017), well below their potential of 12-15 liters, due to poor quality and quantity of feed, together with breed genetics and veterinary care. Most farmers feed their animals wild vegetation, Napier grass, and crop residues (e.g. sweet potato vines, banana leaves, bean and maize stalks) (Nyangaga, 2019), resulting in 61% of all herds faced a minimal energy feed gap, and 55% a crude protein gap (Paul, 2019). The national feed balance (ratio of feed required for an attainable milk production level to actual feed supply at individual herd level) for dairy cows is positive in an average year, producing 6.4 MT of dry matter where 4.1 MT dry matter are needed (Waha, 2019).Feeding dairy cattle improved forages, such as Brachiaria species combined with a legume such as Desmodium, can increase milk production per cow between 15-40% (Gonzalez et al 2016). Many Brachiaria cultivars are drought tolerant, bridging the feeding gap during the dry season (June to October). Desmodium is a good protein source for cows, aiding in higher milk production and easier digestibility. Farmers can strategize land use intensification by intercropping Desmodium with food crops or other forages to boost productivity and profit per acre and per cow. Further investment is needed to improve varieties of forage feed to make them suitable for local conditions, and action to ensure that farmers can access and use forages suitable to their local climate and production system.Increasing livestock productivity through improved forages contributes to higher incomes, better nutrition, soil benefits, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions per unit livestock product of both milk and meat, creating a quadruple win. If larger herd populations and improved breeds alone were to deliver achievements in targeted national total milk production as envisioned by the Livestock Master Plan, emissions from enteric fermentation and manure management, as well as the amount of land and water required to produce feed for the national cattle population, is expected to increase substantially. Improved feed interventions, on the other hand, can be considered climate smart because they decrease the environmental impact per unit of milk produced while satisfying the increased demand for animal source foods. Forage grasses also provide soil and environmental benefits including stabilizing soil, decreasing erosion, restoring soil health, and sequestering 2 to 3 times higher more soil carbon than food crops.Support is needed to establish commercial forage seed production, through partnerships with private sector seed companies and master farmers, so that larger quantities of high-quality seed can be made available to farmers. Cross-sector ministries should facilitate inspection units in sync with seed distribution services in order to reduce red tape for farmers interested in engaging in seed multiplication.Women's access to dairying is not the same as men for a wide variety of reasons; commercialization intensification risks marginalizing women away from profits that were otherwise securely theirs. The introduction of improved forage technologies should be packaged with an intervention point enhancing gender awareness training that accounts for social dynamics of labor division and profit division.Knowledge gaps surrounding improved forages remain; further research and support is needed to better understand which forages work best in different agroecological climates of Tanzania, how to implement socially inclusive rural development surrounding forages, and quantifying how much and where GHG emissions (CH4 and N2) can be mitigated in soils, enteric fermentation and manure management through the use of improved forages.• Tanzanian improved family dairy cows produce 1.5-2 liters** of milk per day (LMP 2018), well below their potential of 12-15 liters, due to poor quality and quantity of feed, together with breed genetics and veterinary care. Most farmers feed their animals wild vegetation or a suite of Napier, Rhodes or Guatemala grasses and crop residues (Nyangaga 2019), resulting in 61% of all herds faced a minimal energy feed gap, and 55% a crude protein gap (Paul, 2019). The national feed balance (ratio of feed required for an attainable milk production level to actual feed supply at individual herd level) for dairy cows is negative in average good weather years: there are 30.5 million cattle that require 58.2 to 80.5 MT dry matter, where only 20.9 to 46.6 MT livestock feed is produced (Waha, 2019).Feeding dairy cattle improved forages, such as Brachiaria species combined with a legume such as Desmodium, can increase milk production per cow between 15-40% (Gonzalez et al 2016). Many Brachiaria cultivars are drought tolerant, bridging the feeding gap during the dry season (July to December). Desmodium is a good protein source for cows, aiding in higher milk production and easier digestibility. Farmers can strategize land use intensification by intercropping Desmodium with food crops or other forages to boost productivity and profit per acre and per cow. Further investment is needed to improve varieties of forage feed to make them suitable for local conditions, and action to ensure that farmers can access and use forages suitable to their local climate and production system.Increasing livestock productivity through improved forages contributes to higher incomes, better nutrition, soil benefits, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions per unit livestock product of both milk and meat, creating a quadruple win. If larger herd populations and improved breeds alone were to deliver achievements in targeted national total milk production as envisioned by the Livestock Master Plan, emissions from enteric fermentation and manure management, as well as the amount of land and water required to produce feed for the national cattle population, is expected to increase substantially. Improved feed interventions, on the other hand, can be considered climate smart because they decrease the environmental impact per unit of milk produced while satisfying the increased demand for animal source foods. Forage grasses also provide soil and environmental benefits including stabilizing soil, decreasing erosion, restoring soil health, and sequestering 2 to 3 times higher more soil carbon than food crops.Support is needed to establish commercial forage seed production, through partnerships with private sector seed companies and master farmers, so that larger quantities of high-quality seed can be made available to farmers. Cross-sector ministries should facilitate inspection units in sync with seed distribution services in order to reduce red tape for farmers interested in engaging in seed multiplication.Women's access to dairying is not the same as men for a wide variety of reasons; commercialization intensification risks marginalizing women away from profits that were otherwise securely theirs. The introduction of improved forage technologies should be packaged with an intervention point enhancing gender awareness training that accounts for social dynamics of labor division and profit division.Knowledge gaps surrounding improved forages remain; further research and support is needed to better understand which forages work best in different agroecological climates of Tanzania, how to implement socially inclusive rural development surrounding forages, and quantifying how much and where GHG emissions (CH4 and N2) can be mitigated in soils, enteric fermentation and manure management through the use of improved forages.• Increasing livestock productivity through improved forages contributes to higher incomes, better nutrition, land and soil restoration, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions per unit of livestock product for both milk and meat. • Feeding dairy cattle improved forages, such as Brachiaria species combined with a legume such as Desmodium, can increase milk production per cow by 15-40% (Gonzalez et al., 2016). Feed availability and feeding practices are highly seasonal, with shortages in the dry season and abundance in the rainy season. Many Brachiaria cultivars are drought tolerant, bridging the feeding gap during the dry season (June to October in Rwanda and July to December in Tanzania). Desmodium is a good protein source for cows, aiding in higher milk production and easier digestibility. Farmers can strategize land use intensification by intercropping Desmodium with food crops or other forages to boost productivity and profit per acre and per cow. • There are many options for improved forages, each with their own range of needs for soil quality, management, water, and temperature in order to grow well. Forages also differ in product qualities: for example, in dry matter weight and biomass, protein and nutritional value, fiber content, which impacts digestibility and emissions; animal uptake; dry season growth; suitability for grazing, silage or hay (drying); and regrowth rate. Capacity building can ensure that farmers choose forages that will grow in their climate and soil type, and for their preferred feeding strategy to provide enough dry matter and nutrients throughout the year. • Making hay or silage is an effective way to increase milk production and earned income, especially during the dry season when the supply of milk tends to be low and its price, high. With financial and capacity support, dairy cooperatives and milk collection centers can be an entry point for shared hay-or silage-making equipment at an economy of scale. • Business opportunities, including hay and silage making, fresh forage feed, and seed production and sales, exist along the forage value chain and should be strengthened. Hay and silage production can comprise a profitable trade crop, especially for women and youths, and for groups. It is important to align the forage growth cycle and the nutrient quality of the products in order to market them well. • Women's access to dairying is not the same as men's for many reasons; commercialization and intensification risk marginalizing women and diverting profits that were otherwise securely theirs. The introduction of improved forage technologies should be packaged with an intervention point enhancing gender awareness training that accounts for social dynamics of labor division and profit division.","tokenCount":"6114"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"16b31b4729d4d62f67353776caec1077","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/3bbfbcb9-8d37-4ef9-bed5-7bc6211963f7/retrieve","id":"-368281375"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6a5e3ed7-d86d-4d4d-b420-737688916b44","pagecount":"213","content":"Versión electrónica disponible en inglés en www.ccafs.cgiar.org Versión electrónica disponible en español en http://map.catie.ac.cr/ Publicado por el Programa de investigación del CGIAR en cambio climático, agricultura y seguridad alimentaria (CCAFS) AutoresEn años recientes se ha observado un aumento en la frecuencia y severidad de los eventos climáticos extremos -desde altas temperaturas que han marcado récords, a graves sequías en algunas regiones, hasta patrones erráticos de precipitación en otras partes del mundo-. Estos fenómenos tienen implicaciones significativas para la producción en países en desarrollo, en donde la mayoría de los actores rurales -hombres y mujeres-dependen de la agricultura para asegurar sus medios de vida y la seguridad alimentaria. Sin embargo, los roles y responsabilidades de género asignados por la sociedad y la cultural determinan cómo cada grupo experimenta de forma diferenciada los efectos del cambio climático.En el desarrollo de estrategias y políticas es indispensable comprender las diferentes opciones que hombres y mujeres adoptan para reducir su vulnerabilidad ante el cambio climático. Esto requiere de sólidas habilidades de investigación participativa y el uso efectivo de herramientas cualitativas para la recopilación, la síntesis y el análisis de datos que, en conjunto, expliquen cómo mujeres y hombres se adaptan al cambio climático y fortalecen su seguridad alimentaria.Este manual presenta una diversa gama de herramientas y estrategias participativas que guíen la implementación de la agricultura climáticamente inteligente y las iniciativas para lograr la seguridad alimentaria en las comunidades rurales. El público meta de esta obra son los profesionales de ONG y diseñadores de programas interesados en el diagnóstico y la investigación-acción sobre programas relacionados con el cambio climático socialmente incluyentes y sensibles al género.El manual ofrece a los usuarios una sección introductoria en la cual se definen los conceptos básicos de género, cambio climático, vulnerabilidad, capacidad adaptativa e investigación-acción participativa. En la siguiente sección se describen los pasos para la elaboración de una guía de planeación de la investigación, el proceso para la conformación de un equipo de investigación y el establecimiento de los procedimientos de muestreo. En las secciones posteriores se introducen herramientas participativas claves para el análisis de contextos y para recopilar información sobre las percepciones de riqueza, empoderamiento y dinámicas socioeconómicas generales en una comunidad. Los usuarios de este manual podrán explorar los problemas asociados con el acceso, uso y control de los servicios de información climática y cómo se perciben los cobeneficios de las intervenciones climáticas. La sección final contiene una serie de guías de fácil utilización sobre cómo organizar y analizar datos cualitativos a partir de la investigación-acción participativa. CCAFS, FAO, ICRAF y otros socios esperan que este manual de capacitación sea un aporte significativo a las intervenciones sobre cambio climático que mejoran la capacidad de adaptación y las perspectivas de seguridad alimentaria de hombres y mujeres en las zonas rurales.Con el incremento de las desigualdades sociales en casi todo el mundo, las poblaciones más pobres y vulnerables son las más afectadas por las actuales crisis mundiales. Las crisis económicas, los desastres naturales, la degradación ambiental y los conflictos impiden el desarrollo en muchas regiones del mundo. El cambio climático amenaza con agudizar esta situación, al generar riesgos e incertidumbres adicionales para las poblaciones vulnerables, aumentar la severidad y frecuencia de los desastres y poner en peligro los logros de desarrollo alcanzados.Es esencial continuar apoyando los medios de vida productivos y la recuperación de las poblaciones ante eventos que causan serios impactos. Además, debemos trabajar conjuntamente para buscar soluciones más duraderas a los factores desencadenantes del riesgo y la vulnerabilidad, que fortalezcan la capacidad de adaptación y desarrollen la resiliencia a largo plazo.El Programa de Aprendizaje para la Adaptación (PAA), desarrollado por CARE International, promueve la adaptación comunitaria participativa en donde el enfoque en las desigualdades sociales y, en particular, las desigualdades de género es clave para la obtención de resultados exitosos. Trabajamos con personas cuyo sustento depende de la producción agropecuaria en Nigeria, Ghana, Kenia y Mozambique. Hemos observado cómo la distribución inequitativa de los recursos y del poder a todos los niveles, incluso dentro de las comunidades, limita las opciones de muchas personas para emprender acciones con respecto al cambio climático. Parte de la respuesta del PAA a este desafío ha consistido en mejorar y promover el conocimiento sobre cómo optimizar la identificación de los temas relacionados con la vulnerabilidad y la capacidad de adaptación. En otras palabras, analizamos las causas y la forma en que los medios de vida de distintos grupos sociales se ven afectados por el cambio climático de diferentes maneras, así como los factores que determinan las aspiraciones y las estrategias adoptadas por hombres y mujeres en distintas situaciones sociales.Todo el que se dedica a la implementación de actividades e investigación de base comunitaria comprende lo importante y lo delicada que es la tarea de entender rápidamente, durante las primeras etapas del proceso, las complejas relaciones sociales en cualquier contexto dado. Las relaciones y las desigualdades de género afectan a las personas y a las instituciones en todos los niveles y en todas las esferas, pero siempre son dinámicas, siempre sensibles y siempre cambiantes. La capacidad de involucrarse de manera sensible es indispensable, pero a menudo inexistente entre los profesionales que trabajan en investigación y desarrollo. Nuestro aporte a este manual consiste en ayudar a cerrar la brecha al momento de involucrarnos de manera sensible en diferentes contextos; para ello ofrecemos algunas de las metodologías que han sido ensayadas y evaluadas por CARE para el análisis de los temas de género y poder.Para garantizar que este manual sea relevante y acorde a la realidad de las comunidades marginadas, CCAFS y PAA han unido esfuerzos para combinar la investigación y la aplicación práctica, con el fin de refinar los métodos que utilizamos para mejorar nuestra comprensión de los contextos en los que trabajamos. Esperamos que esta herramienta sea de ayuda a los investigadores en la evaluación de su trabajo práctico y les permita ampliar el valor y el impacto de nuestro aprendizaje colectivo mediante el alcance combinado de nuestros respectivos programas. Nuestro aporte a este manual ha sido una parte importante de la relación entre CCAFS y CARE: la evaluación en comunidades del programa PAA en el norte de Ghana. Esperamos que sirva de orientación, que inspire a los usuarios y los ayude a generar nuevas perspectivas para informar a las comunidades, a los encargados de la toma de las decisiones y a los investigadores que enfrentan la compleja relación entre género y cambio climático en ámbitos agrícolas en todas partes del mundo.Esta idea inició hace varios años cuando el Programa de investigación del CGIAR en cambio climático, agricultura y seguridad alimentaria (CCAFS) y la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Agricultura y la Alimentación (FAO) se reunieron para analizar las metodologías de investigación participativa enfocadas en el tema de género y determinar cuáles serían las más efectivas para abordar los desafíos del programa CCAFS en esta materia. Sin embargo, pronto nos dimos cuenta de que estas cuestiones claves debían ser definidas conjuntamente con los socios locales que trabajan con las familias agricultoras en las zonas rurales. A medida que esta relación avanzó, también evolucionaron las metodologías. Como resultado de este proceso, se cuenta actualmente con una serie de módulos de aprendizaje, que han sido probados en el campo con ONG e investigadores locales en distintos ámbitos. Idealmente, esto debería hacerlos más útiles, no solamente para los investigadores, sino también para los socios que trabajan por el desarrollo y tratan de respaldar de la mejor manera los enfoques transformadores de género. Esperamos que estos recursos sean útiles en la investigación de los equipos de desarrollo para pasar de métodos de investigación puramente de diagnóstico, bastante \"extractivos\", a la investigación en acción que empodera a los hombres y a las mujeres.El cambio climático es un problema social. A medida que el mundo avanza hacia respuestas climáticamente inteligentes que conectan los temas de seguridad alimentaria, resiliencia y mitigación de los gases de efecto invernadero (GEI), los expertos y los científicos enfrentan el desafío de lograr respuestas que sean socialmente relevantes y sensibles al tema de género.Estamos conscientes de que la brecha de género existe en la agricultura, y que esta brecha determina cómo los hombres y mujeres contribuyen, responden y se adaptan a los cambios del clima. Uno de cada cinco hogares en las zonas rurales son encabezados por mujeres y en general las mujeres rurales representan el 40% de la mano de obra agrícola en los países en desarrollo (FAO 2011); sin embargo, producen menos que sus pares masculinos debido a las persistentes desigualdades que restringen sus experiencias. Entre los retos que aun se tienen que enfrentar al promover la adaptación y desarrollo equitativo están el acceso de las mujeres a la tierra y a la tenencia legal, su menor representación política y de poder en la toma de decisiones en la gobernanza local, el poco acceso al capital financiero, el nivel de empoderamiento, las barreras a la participación en capacitaciones y servicios de extensión. En este contexto, el desarrollo de la resiliencia radica en comprender cómo las normas y las relaciones de género, junto con otros factores críticos (p.e. las castas, la clase social, la edad, la discapacidad y la orientación sexual) afectan el acceso, uso y control de los recursos, el acceso al poder y a la toma de decisiones, y cómo esta diferencias influyen en la capacidad de adaptación.Con el fin de respaldar una agenda sobre agricultura adaptable al clima que sea, al mismo tiempo, más inclusiva y relevante para hombres y mujeres, para esta caja de herramientas se consideran varios puntos claves:• La información debe ser desglosada por sexo (cuando sea relevante) para reconocer a las mujeres como agricultoras individuales en vez de contarlas como miembros de un hogar. • El tipo y nivel de diferenciación social que se utilicen deben basarse en el objetivo del estudio y en el programa de desarrollo sobre el cambio climático en el cual se basan. • Los temas de género e inclusión social se deben integrar desde la fase de investigación y diseño del programa, en vez de pensar en incluirlos en una fase posterior. • El desarrollo de capacidades para el análisis social y de género es importante para los profesionales y técnicos que se ubican en todos los niveles en una organización. • Un enfoque participativo en la investigación respaldará el conocimiento generado conjuntamente y reflejará más fielmente las distintas necesidades, desafíos y oportunidades de las mujeres, los hombres y los grupos vulnerables.El objetivo de la caja de herramientas es apoyar a los diseñadores de programas, profesionales y científicos en el desarrollo de una investigación socialmente inclusiva y sensible al género. La caja de herramientas está divida en cuatro secciones: a) un panorama general de los conceptos relacionados con los temas de género, cambio climático, participación, investigación cualitativa, análisis de género y social; b) actividades de reflexión y aprendizaje en equipo para respaldar los conceptos de género e inclusión; c) una guía de planeación y logística que apoye las mejores prácticas en estrategias de muestreo, desglose de información por sexo y trabajo de campo; d) herramientas de investigación participativa en temas como coproducción de conocimiento, agricultura resiliente al clima, información climática y mitigación para la recolección y el análisis de información diferenciada socialmente. La caja de herramientas tiene un formato modular en el que cada actividad puede ser utilizada de manera independiente o secuencial, según las necesidades del usuario.Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaAprendizaje social y la caja de herramientasLas herramientas y los conceptos planteados en este documento fueron desarrollados gracias al apoyo de CARE International, el Centro Internacional de Investigación Agroforestal (ICRAF) y el programa de investigación sobre cambio climático, agricultura y seguridad alimentaria (CCAFS) del CGIAR. En colaboración con docenas de especialistas, científicos, agricultores, profesionales de ONG y académicos, se realizaron múltiples talleres, pruebas de campo, sesiones de reflexión y foros. Para el CCAFS, la caja de herramientas es parte de su enfoque de aprendizaje social, el cual se sustenta en plataformas de aprendizaje compartido, autorreflexivo e iterativo que buscan integrar una diversidad de actores y fuentes de conocimiento. Esta integración es una manera de alejarse de los enfoques verticales (de arriba hacia abajo) basados en el conocimiento experto; a la vez, este es un mecanismo de apoyo a la participación de los hombres y mujeres con menor capacidad de influir en el debate sobre el cambio y la adaptación climática (CCAFS 2011).La \"Caja de herramientas de género e inclusión; investigación participativa sobre cambio climático y agricultura\" se concibió inicialmente como una revisión de la Guía de capacitación producida por el CCAFS y la FAO en el 2012: \"Investigación de género y cambio climático sobre la agricultura y la seguridad alimentaria para el desarrollo rural\". El manual FAO/CCAFS fue el resultado de la colaboración entre ambas organizaciones para probar diez herramientas de investigación en tres regiones: Bangladesh, Uganda y Kenia. Los documentos generados ofrecieron una serie de recomendaciones sobre cómo mejorar el uso de la herramienta; esta recomendaciones sirvieron de base para la actual caja de herramientas. En este sentido, esta caja de herramientas se desarrolla a partir de las fortalezas del manual FAO/CCAFS; sin embargo, se modificó significativamente a medida que los distintos actores codiseñaron el contenido en procesos de aprendizaje social que se llevaron a cabo durante el periodo 2013-2014.Este es un documento interactivo. El CCAFS y CARE agradecen los comentarios y los aportes a partir de sus actividades de investigación en torno a los temas de género y de inclusión social. Al hacernos llegar sus reflexiones o informes pueden ayudarnos a mejorar los métodos y desarrollar la capacidad de la comunidad de especialistas dedicados a la investigación-acción participativa (IAP) y a los temas de género. Comuníquese con nosotros a través de nuestra página web: www.worldagroforestrycentre.org/gendertoolboxActividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis Bibliografía género ¿Por qué género?Las desigualdades sociales exponen a muchas personas de escasos recursos a ser los primeros afectados por el impacto del cambio climático y, a la vez, limitan sus opciones para tomar medidas con el fin de reducir dicho impacto por medio de la adaptación. A menudo, el género es un factor decisivo para enfrentar las barreras a la adaptación. Por consiguiente, es clave tener una concientización crítica y contar con medidas efectivas para abordar las desigualdades de género en la lucha contra el cambio climático. Un camino crucial hacia la igualdad de género y la resiliencia es el empoderamiento de las mujeres y la participación de los hombres en un proceso en el que ambos trabajen en forma conjunta en la toma de decisiones, como agentes del cambio con igual reconocimiento, desde el nivel de hogar hasta el nivel mundial (Castaneda y Acquah 2012).Las diferencias sociales relacionadas con el género son \"aprendidas y, a pesar de estar enraizadas profundamente en cada cultura, se pueden cambiar durante un periodo de vida o de varias generaciones.Tales diferencias varían ampliamente tanto dentro como entre las culturas. El género, junto con otros factores como la riqueza y la etnia, a menudo determinan los derechos, los roles, las oportunidades, el poder, el acceso y el control de los recursos para las mujeres y los hombres en cualquier cultura\". Los esfuerzos por la igualdad de género \"no significan que las mujeres, las niñas, los hombres y los niños sean iguales, sino que sus posibilidades de disfrutar de dichos derechos y oportunidades de vida no se rijan ni estén limitadas por el hecho de haber nacido de sexo masculino o femenino\".Se requiere la participación inclusiva y significativa de todos los grupos de la comunidad pero, en particular, de los más vulnerables, en cada una de las fases de la programación para enfrentar el cambio climático -desde la valoración hasta la implementación y durante las actividades de monitoreo y evaluación-. De esta manera, se fomenta el empoderamiento y la participación de hombres y mujeres, lo cual es vital para lograr una adaptación y un desarrollo positivo y sostenible (CARE International 2011).El análisis de género es un intento sistemático por identificar cuestiones claves que contribuyen a las desigualdades de género, las cuales en su mayoría también contribuyen a resultados de desarrollo deficientes. En este proceso se analiza cómo las relaciones de poder entre géneros dan lugar a la discriminación, subordinación y exclusión en la sociedad; en particular cuando se superponen a otros aspectos de marginación por clase social, etnia, casta, edad, discapacidad, sexualidad, etc. El CIDA (2014) describe el análisis de género de la siguiente manera:• La diferencia entre \"sexo\" y \"género\"• La desigualdad de género se refuerza con otras formas de desigualdad, como la desigualdad de clase, etnicidad o sexualidad• Las normas de género pueden cambiar con el tiempoActividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis Bibliografía ? ? ?\"La variedad de métodos que se utilizan para comprender las relaciones entre hombres y mujeres, su acceso a recursos, sus actividades y las limitaciones que enfrentan en comparación con sus contrapartes. El análisis de género proporciona información que reconoce la importancia del género y su relación con la raza, la etnia, la cultura, la clase social, la edad, la discapacidad o cualquier otra condición, para comprender los distintos patrones de participación, comportamiento y actividades que realizan mujeres y hombres en las estructuras sociales, económicas y jurídicas\".El proceso de análisis de género busca recopilar, identificar, examinar y analizar información sobre los diferentes roles de mujeres y hombres. El análisis de género tiene como objetivo primordial entender y dar respuesta a tres preguntas esenciales:1. ¿Cuáles derechos relacionados con el género no son reconocidos en contextos específicos? ¿Cómo influyen la desigualdad de género, la discriminación por género, la subordinación y la exclusión en la negación de los derechos? ¿Cómo se combinan estos abusos con otras áreas de discriminación (etnicidad, cultura, clase social, edad, discapacidades).2. ¿Cómo inciden las relaciones de género en el logro de resultados sostenibles? Por ejemplo, si el resultado sostenible del proyecto consiste en incrementar la productividad de las pequeñas agricultoras, entonces las normas de género en la asignación del trabajo y de las tareas del hogar pueden influir enormemente en los resultados de la producción.3. ¿Qué efecto tendrán los resultados propuestos en el estatus de hombres y mujeres? ¿Se acrecentarán o reducirán las desigualdades?El análisis de género examina los roles y las relaciones de género a nivel interpersonal, familiar, comunitario, provincial y nacional. Además, considera tanto las dimensiones públicas como las privadas relacionadas con las experiencias vividas por las personas; busca comprender las diferencias en las prioridades, necesidades, actividades y responsabilidades de los hombres y las mujeres, de los niños y las niñas en las diferentes etapas de la vida y en los distintos roles que desempeñan (como hijos e hijas, amantes, madres y padres, ciudadanos, vecinos, jornaleros). Mediante un análisis de los temas de género se deben reconocer otros factores de diversidad que afectan a todos los miembros de la sociedad, tales como edad, etnia, clase social, casta y otras condiciones socioeconómicas (CARE International 2012).Fuente: FAO (2009) Recuadro 1. Preguntas clásicas sobre el análisis de género• ¿Quién se encarga de hacer qué? ¿Cómo? ¿Dónde? ¿Cuándo? ¿Por qué? (mano de obra)• ¿Quién utiliza qué? ¿De qué manera? ¿Dónde? ¿Cuándo? ¿Por qué? (acceso)• ¿Quién controla qué? ¿De qué manera? ¿Dónde? ¿Cuándo? ¿Por qué? (toma de decisiones y control = poder)• ¿Quién sabe qué? ¿De qué manera? ¿Dónde? ¿Cuándo? ¿Por qué? (información = poder)• ¿Quién se beneficia de qué? ¿De qué manera? ¿Dónde? ¿Cuándo? ¿Por qué? (compartir beneficios)• ¿Quién está incluido en qué? ¿De qué manera? ¿Dónde? ¿Cuándo? ¿Por qué? (participación)Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis Bibliografía ¿Cómo influye el género en la vulnerabilidad al cambio climático?La vulnerabilidad y la capacidad de un grupo social para adaptarse o cambiar dependen, en buena medida, de los activos que posee (Moser y Satterthwaite 2008). Además de su ubicación física, los activos de las mujeres -tales como recursos y tierras, conocimiento, tecnología, poder, posibilidad de tomar decisiones, educación, atención en salud y alimentación-han sido identificados como factores que se suman a la vulnerabilidad y a la capacidad de adaptación. En términos de género, la información recolectada en distintos países del mundo indica que las mujeres tienden a tener un acceso menor o más limitado a diferentes activos o recursos (capital físico, financiero, humano, social o natural).En el Cuadro 1 se detallan ejemplos ilustrativos en cuanto a algunas de las maneras en que el género puede determinar la vulnerabilidad de los hombres y las mujeres al cambio climático. Pueden emigrar para tener acceso a oportunidades económicas.La posibilidad de emigrar en busca de oportunidades económicas hace que sea más fácil para los hombres enfrentar la crisis y generar beneficios para la familia en general. Sin embargo, la migración de los hombres incrementa la carga de trabajo a las mujeres, quienes quedan con la responsabilidad por la familia y el trabajo productivo. Además, puede aumentar la exposición de la mujer a otros riesgos, tales como la violencia de género y contagio de VIH.Producen productos agrícolas y pecuarios para el consumo familiar.Producen productos agrícolas y pecuarios para el mercado.Tanto los cultivos como el ganado se ven afectados por el cambio climático y esto tiene graves consecuencias en la seguridad alimentaria de las familias. Con frecuencia, los hombres se apropian de las tierras más seguras o más fértiles para la siembra de cultivos para la venta; esto hace que los terrenos destinados a la producción familiar sean los más vulnerables o menos fértiles.Se encargan del almacenamiento y preparación de los alimentos.Se encargan de la venta de productos agrícolas y ganado.Además de los desafíos mencionados anteriormente, el cambio climático tiene implicaciones en la preparación y almacenamiento de alimentos (agua para la cocina, vulnerabilidad de los lugares de almacenaje a eventos climáticos extremos como ciclones e inundaciones). Las cosechas pueden verse diezmadas o incluso arrasadas por las inundaciones o las sequías. Esto afecta los precios del mercado y la disponibilidad de excedentes para la venta; en consecuencia, hombres y mujeres tienen que buscar otras fuentes de ingresos y reducir gastos mayores (p.e. educación). En tiempos de escasez de alimentos, se espera que las mujeres alimenten a los miembros de la familia antes de satisfacer sus propias necesidades.Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaVulnerabilidad al cambio climáticoTienen menores ingresos y es más probable que sean dependientes económicamente.Tienen mayores ingresos y es más probable que tengan su propia tierra y otros activos.Por lo general, los hombres tienen más dinero y otros activos que las mujeres. Los ahorros de los hombres sirven de \"colchón\" durante las épocas difíciles y, junto con otros activos, hacen más fácil que ellos inviertan en otras formas de conseguir sus medios de vida.Tienen menos acceso a educación e información.Tienen mayor acceso a educación e información.El manejo de los riesgos relacionados con el clima, que afectan la producción agrícola, requiere información, habilidades y tecnologías como el pronóstico del tiempo por época del año, el análisis de riesgos y prácticas agrícolas con bajo consumo de agua. Es más probable que los hombres tengan acceso a estos recursos y el poder de utilizarlos y, por consiguiente, están mejor equipados para adaptarse. Las mujeres por lo general poseen el conocimiento tradicional que puede contribuir a los esfuerzos de adaptación. En el contexto de la adaptación, tanto la información nueva como la vieja son importantes.Tienen menos poder sobre las finanzas y otros activos de la familia.Tienen más poder sobre las finanzas y otros activos de la familia.Sin el poder para decidir sobre los recursos y las finanzas de la familia, la mujer tiene una capacidad limitada para manejar el riesgo, por ejemplo, mediante la diversificación de cultivos, almacenaje de alimentos o semillas, o el ahorro.Tienen una participación limitada en la política comunitaria.Tienen mayor participación o poder en la toma de decisiones en la política comunitaria.Es probable que los hombres tengan más influencia sobre la gobernanza local para promover políticas y programas que no necesariamente apoyen los derechos y las prioridades de las mujeres.Enfrentan un gran número de restricciones o prohibiciones culturales para desplazarse.Enfrentan menos restricciones o prohibiciones culturales para el desplazamiento.El desplazamiento es un factor clave para el acceso a información y servicios. Además, es esencial para escapar del peligro que representan eventos climáticos extremos como las inundaciones. Por lo tanto, a menudo las mujeres están en mayor riesgo debido a estos eventos.Fuente: CARE International (2010).Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaDiferencia entre \"desagregar por personas\" y hogares de jefatura femeninaExisten diferentes maneras de contar personas de forma desagregada. Pueden ser desagregadas sencillamente por sexo (masculino o femenino), pero a menudo es conveniente hacer una diferenciación más detallada, incorporando los grupos etarios o el estado civil (soltero, casado, divorciado o viudo/a). Es importante estar consciente de que contar el \"número de hombres, mujeres, niños o niñas que tienen acceso, se benefician o participan en algo\" no es lo mismo que desagregar los hogares según jefatura (masculina o femenina).¿Qué es la información desagregada por sexo?\"La información desagregada por sexo es recopilada y analizada por separado para mujeres y hombres. Generalmente, implica hacer las preguntas que empiezan con \"quién\" o \"quienes\" en una encuesta al hogar: ¿quién realiza el trabajo?, ¿quién toma las decisiones?, ¿quién posee y controla la tierra y otros recursos? También es posible preguntar a hombres y mujeres sobre sus roles y responsabilidades individuales.Cuando se habla sobre información desagregada, no nos referimos a comparaciones entre hogares encabezados por mujeres u hombres. Este tipo de información se puede recopilar mediante prácticas comunes. Sin embargo, limitar los análisis solo a la comparación por sexo es problemática porque crea confusión entre lo que es género y la estructura del hogar. Los hogares con jefatura masculina y femenina no son comparables en la mayoría de casos debido a la manera en que se definen. En general, los hogares de \"jefatura masculina\" incluyen a todos los hogares en los que las mujeres están casadas con hombres, mientras que los hogares con \"jefatura femenina\" usualmente son aquellos en los que no hay presencia de hombres adultos. Con frecuencia, los hogares con jefatura femenina tienen más limitaciones de mano de obra y de recursos que los hogares de jefatura masculina; sin embargo, estas disparidades no se pueden atribuir necesariamente al sexo del jefe de familia. A menos que se hagan preguntas en una encuesta sobre las personas en el hogar, nos faltará información importante sobre las mujeres que viven en los hogares de jefatura masculina -es decir, de la mayoría de las mujeres del mundo-\".Fuente: Doss y Kieran (2014)Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaA menudo, las encuestas cuantitativas utilizan el hogar como su unidad de análisis y solamente desagregan los resultados por cabeza de familia. Aunque esto es útil, es importante tener en cuenta que este tipo de detalle no nos dice más que las diferencias y similitudes entre los hogares con jefatura masculina o femenina. No proporciona información sobre las relaciones más amplias de género; es decir, entre hombres y mujeres y entre diferentes etapas de la vida (p.e. entre niños y niñas, o entre mujeres casadas y hombres casados).Tanto los hombres como las mujeres cabeza de hogar son una categoría distinta a hombre o mujer. Cuando un hogar tiene jefatura femenina, esto se debe a menudo a circunstancias específicas tales como la migración temporal o permanente, la enfermedad o fallecimiento del esposo, el divorcio o separación de la pareja . Con frecuencia, las mujeres cabeza de hogar deben hacer frente a la exclusión y a la discriminación en el acceso a los recursos, pero algunas veces tienen más control sobre los recursos que, por ejemplo, las mujeres que viven con sus esposos. A menudo, las mujeres de los hogares con jefatura femenina asumen las tareas y funciones que sus esposos no pueden realizar temporal o permanentemente, pero es posible que enfrenten barreras jurídicas cuando tienen que tomar decisiones sobre activos productivos (p.e. la tierra) o desean acceso a los servicios de extensión rural (Ayers et al. 2012).Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaSexo se refiere a las características biológicas y fisiológicas de los hombres y las mujeres (Mikkola 2012).género no se refiere a las diferencias biológicas entre hombres y mujeres, o entre niños y niñas, sino más bien a una serie de atributos sociales asociados con el hecho de ser hombre o mujer, los cuales se aprenden por medio de la socialización. Las relaciones de género son las formas en las cuales una sociedad o grupo de personas definen derechos, responsabilidades e identidad de hombres y mujeres y cómo deben interactuar unos con otros. Las relaciones de género se basan en el poder y las negociaciones entre hombres y mujeres; los roles de género están estrechamente relacionados pues influyen en la definición y desarrollo de unas y otros (FAO 2012).Además de los roles atribuidos a los hombres y mujeres y la interacción entre ambos, existen múltiples roles que son asumidos por mujeres y hombres. \"Por lo general, los hombres realizan sus tareas en forma secuencial y se enfocan en una sola actividad productiva; las mujeres, por su parte, asumen roles simultáneos y deben encontrar el equilibrio entre todos según sus limitaciones de tiempo\". Las divisiones de trabajo por género, dentro y fuera del hogar, son influencia directa de las condiciones socioeconómicas que hasta cierto punto determinan los roles que asumen hombres y mujeres (FAO 2012).Debido a que mujeres y hombres desempeñan roles distintos, a menudo enfrentan diferentes limitaciones culturales, institucionales, físicas y económicas, las cuales en su mayoría se encuentran enraizadas en la discriminación y exclusión sistemática (FAO 2012). Recuadro 2. Múltiples roles de hombres y mujeres a nivel de la comunidad Rol reproductivo: la responsabilidad de tener y criar los hijos y las tareas domésticas realizadas por la mujer son necesarias para garantizar el mantenimiento y la reproducción de la fuerza laboral. Esto incluye no solamente en la reproducción biológica, sino también en el cuidado y mantenimiento de la fuerza laboral (su compañero, ella misma y los hijos que trabajan) y la futura fuerza laboral (bebés, niños y niñas que estudian). Normalmente, este tipo de trabajo no es remunerado.Rol productivo: trabajo realizado por hombres o mujeres por una remuneración en dinero o en especie. Incluye la producción para el mercado con un valor de intercambio, así como la producción para el hogar y la subsistencia con un valor de uso real y valor de intercambio potencial. Para las mujeres que se dedican a la producción agrícola, esto incluye trabajo como agricultoras independientes, esposas de campesinos y jornaleras. Este trabajo puede ser tanto remunerado (a menudo mal remunerado) o no remunerado.Rol de gestión en la comunidad: actividades llevadas a cabo principalmente por la mujer a nivel de la comunidad, como una extensión de su papel reproductivo, con el fin de garantizar el suministro y mantenimiento de los escasos recursos de consumo colectivo (agua, fuentes de energía, educación y cuidado de la salud). Este es trabajo no remunerado que se realiza en el tiempo \"libre\".Rol en la política de la comunidad: actividades realizadas principalmente por hombres a nivel de la comunidad, organizados a un nivel político formal, a menudo dentro del marco de la política nacional. Normalmente, este trabajo es remunerado, ya sea directa o indirectamente, a través del estatus o del poder.Fuente: Moser (1998) La equidad de género es un proceso que busca asegurar que hombres y mujeres tengan una existencia justa. Para garantizar tal justicia se debe contar con estrategias y acciones que compensen las desventajas históricas y sociales que impiden el desarrollo de mujeres y hombres en un contexto de equidad. La equidad lleva a la igualdad (CARE International 2009).La igualdad de género -o igualdad entre hombres y mujeres-se refiere al disfrute equitativo de los derechos, oportunidades, recursos y retribuciones por parte de mujeres, niñas, hombres y niños. Un aspecto vital de la promoción de la igualdad de género es el empoderamiento de la mujer, el cual se enfoca en la identificación y modificación de los desequilibrios de poder.La igualdad no quiere decir que los hombres y las mujeres sean iguales, sino que el disfrute de sus derechos, oportunidades y cambios en la vida no deben limitarse por el hecho de haber nacido hombre o mujer (CARE International 2009).El empoderamiento de la mujer implica la concientización, el desarrollo de autoestima, la posibilidad de escoger y un mayor acceso y control sobre los recursos y las acciones que permiten transformar las estructuras y las instituciones que refuerzan y perpetúan la desigualdad y la discriminación por género. El empoderamiento surge desde el interior; las mujeres se empoderan a sí mismas. Pero es posible aumentar el empoderamiento de las mujeres si se les facilita el acceso al poder, a compartir el poder y desde el poder; esto ayudará a avanzar hacia objetivos comunes desde las fortalezas individuales y colectivas, sin coerción ni dominación (CARE International 2009).Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaLa incorporación de la perspectiva de género se define por las Naciones Unidas como el proceso de evaluar las implicaciones sobre hombres y mujeres que tienen las acciones emprendidas en todas las áreas y niveles de los programas de desarrollo. Esto significa que las preocupaciones y experiencias de mujeres y hombres son una dimensión integral de todos los esfuerzos de desarrollo rural y agrícola (FAO 2012).Enfoque transformador de género se refiere a enfoques o actividades de programas que buscan construir normas y estructuras sociales equitativas, así como un comportamiento individual respetuoso del género, mediante el abordaje de las causas y las fuentes fundamentales de la desigualdad de género. En el caso de la investigación agrícola para el desarrollo, el enfoque transformador de género es crucial para entender que los resultados mejores y más duraderos se conseguirán a partir de intervenciones que combinen esfuerzos para mejorar el acceso a los recursos, tecnologías y mercados y que, además, desafíen los contextos sociales que perpetúan las inequidades de género (CARE International 2011).CARE comprende que se necesita mucho más que sencillamente incluir a las mujeres en sus proyectos para lograr un avance hacia el empoderamiento de la mujer y la igualdad de género. CARE define el empoderamiento de la mujer como el efecto combinado de cambios en:• El conocimiento, las habilidades y las capacidades propias de una mujer (capacidad de actuar).• Las normas, costumbres, instituciones y políticas sociales que determinan sus opciones en la vida (estructuras).• Las relaciones de poder a través de las cuales la mujer negocia su vida (relaciones).El entendimiento integral de empoderamiento no sólo requiere incrementar la capacidad de las mujeres para decidir y actuar por sí mismas, sino también necesita cambios en las barreras estructurales que permitan los cambios de normas, políticas y relaciones coyunturales establecidas por la sociedad y la cultura, de forma que se permita a hombres y mujeres entrar en nuevos roles.Fuente: CARE International (2011)Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaRecuadro 4. Pautas de Bioversity para la investigación con perspectiva de géneroEl enfoque en la producción agrícola tiende a priorizar las actividades de campo relacionadas con el cultivo de productos para el consumo familiar y la venta, y deja en un segundo plano las múltiples actividades que requieren un uso intensivo de conocimiento y mano de obra, las cuales son realizadas por hombres o mujeres en los bosques y huertos, en la selección y conservación de semillas, la comercialización, el saneamiento, el procesamiento de alimentos, entre otros.La esfera reproductiva se refiere a las actividades que se requieren para el mantenimiento del hogar y de los miembros de la familia, tales como cocinar, limpiar, criar a los hijos, etc. Además de contribuir a la producción agrícola y al manejo de los recursos naturales, las pesadas responsabilidades de la mujer en la esfera reproductiva limitan sus oportunidades de realizar otras actividades.Las mujeres y los hombres pueden sembrar diferentes cultivos o desempeñar tareas específicas en la producción de un cultivo. Por ejemplo, los hombres pueden preparar la tierra para el cultivo, mientras que las mujeres se encargan de la siembra y del deshierbe; hombres y mujeres pueden realizar la cosecha conjuntamente, pero desempeñan tareas distintas del proceso. Las mujeres pueden aportar una cantidad significativa de mano de obra en la producción de cultivos controlados por los hombres; sin embargo, por lo general no se reconoce su aporte.Las actividades de hombres y mujeres varían a lo largo del año; no existe una lista específica que incluya todas las diferentes actividades del año. El explorar la variabilidad en las actividades es importante para entender las restricciones de mano de obra que hombres y mujeres enfrentan en momentos específicos durante el año. Los calendarios estacionales diferenciados por género -una herramienta del análisis de género-son una forma bastante efectiva para visibilizar los diferentes roles y diferenciar las actividades de hombres y mujeres en momentos específicos del año.En general, las mujeres tienen menos acceso a las instituciones formales o a las diversas formas de empleo, pero participan intensamente en instituciones y organizaciones informales así como en la economía informal.Los ingresos de diferentes fuentes pueden ser pequeños pero muy significativos para hombres y mujeres; por ello deben ser incluidos en el análisis de los medios de vida. Los ingresos pueden ser de carácter monetario o no monetario; por ejemplo, un producto puede ser intercambiado por otro sin que medie dinero.Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaLas mujeres tienden a cultivar pequeñas cantidades de diversos productos que son muy importantes para sus medios de vida y asegurar el sustento de sus familias. Estos cultivos no solo se encuentran en los patios o parcelas que utilizan las mujeres, sino también en los bordes de las parcelas utilizadas por los hombres.Los hombres y las mujeres utilizan diversos recursos forestales, además de la madera, controlados por hombres o por organizaciones comunitarias. Los PFNM se pueden utilizar tanto para el consumo como para la venta y la época en que se obtienen puede coincidir con periodos de escasez (antes de la cosecha cuando la disponibilidad de alimentos es baja); por ello son particularmente importantes para la seguridad alimentaria. Las mujeres ven en muchos PFNM una fuente de ingresos, lo que los hace muy apreciados.Con frecuencia, las mujeres participan en la recolección de PFNM y en la producción de cultivos para consumo doméstico, más que con fines de comercialización. Esta importante contribución a la seguridad alimentaria de los hogares es ignorada cuando los estudios se centran exclusivamente en las actividades que generan ingresos.Las actividades pecuarias no son un campo exclusivo de los hombres. De hecho, en algunas regiones las mujeres son las principales encargadas de la cría de animales. Por lo general, las mujeres crían un número menor de animales mayores y se concentran en la cría de aves y animales menores. Las mujeres también pueden asumir la responsabilidad total por los animales, incluyendo el abastecimiento de forraje, el procesamiento y la comercialización de productos pecuarios. Sin embargo, su aporte a estas actividades con frecuencia es ignorado.Se considera no solo la tenencia de tierra, con frecuencia poco evidente para las mujeres, sino también otras formas importantes de acceso a los recursos, tales como los derechos de acceso a los árboles y a sus productos, ya que este derecho no necesariamente coincide con el derecho sobre la tierra en la que crecen los árboles.Con frecuencia, los hombres y las mujeres aprovechan espacios diferentes. Por ejemplo, las mujeres tienden a recolectar productos (PFNM, leña) en espacios públicos y tierras no cultivadas, como matorrales y espacios entre los campos. Estos espacios, que son cruciales para el sustento de las mujeres, son frecuentemente ignorados en los análisis que se enfocan en tierras \"productivas\".Aunque las mujeres pueden tener acceso a ciertos recursos, es posible que no tengan la posibilidad de decidir sobre el destino de dichos recursos (cómo utilizarlos, disponer de sus productos, transferirlos). Es importante saber quién controla los recursos para comprender los procesos de manejo de los recursos.Fuente: Elias (2013)Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis Bibliografía• La diferencia entre clima y estado del tiempo• La diferencia entre hacer frente, adaptarse y mitigar• Las principales disparidades de género en el cambio climáticoDesde hace algún tiempo, la comunidad científica tiene evidencia de que el planeta se está calentando a una velocidad cada vez mayor y que la actividad humana es uno de los factores determinantes del cambio climático. Aunque la atmósfera contiene en forma natural gases que producen el efecto invernadero (GEI), tales como el dióxido de carbono, metano y óxidos nitrosos, el nivel de gases producidos desde la revolución industrial, a mediados del siglo XVIII, ha alterado la composición de la atmósfera y ha generado un incremento en el efecto de invernadero.Entre las actividades humanas que generan emisiones de GEI están la quema de combustibles fósiles para el transporte y la generación de energía, así como la agricultura y la silvicultura. En el sector agrícola, las emisiones de GEI se generan a partir de la producción y uso de fertilizantes, la producción de arroz, la quema de biomasa, entre otras actividades. Los sectores de la agricultura, forestería y uso de la tierra contribuyen en forma conjunta con el 24% de las emisiones de GEI (IPCC 2014).En general, se reconoce que la ocurrencia de eventos meteorológicos extremos será cada vez más incierta debido al cambio climático. El impacto y la intensidad de dichos cambios variará de un lugar a otro. Según FAO-CCAFS (2012), algunos ejemplos del impacto del cambio climático incluyen los siguientes:Incremento en la temperatura• En general, la temperatura promedio está aumentando y seguirá en aumento. Esto quiere decir que los días más fríos serán más calurosos y que los días más calurosos serán todavía más calientes.• La frecuencia de los días fríos disminuirá y aumentará la frecuencia de días calurosos.• En algunas regiones aumentará la frecuencia de periodos calurosos y fenómenos conocidos como \"olas de calor\".• El número y la intensidad de los incendios forestales aumentarán.Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis Bibliografía• En muchas regiones aumentará la frecuencia de lluvias torrenciales.• Habrá un incremento en el número y en la intensidad de inundaciones y deslizamientos de tierra.• El riesgo de sequías aumentará en muchas regiones.• Se estima que el nivel del mar aumentará hasta 60 cm para el año 2100 a nivel mundial (IPCC 2007). Sin embargo, todavía no se tiene una buena comprensión de algunos procesos biofísicos importantes.(FAO-CCAFS 2012)El lector interesado encontrará explicaciones completas de los procesos biofísicos del cambio climático en el curso virtual ofrecido por el Instituto de las Naciones Unidas para la Capacitación y la Investigación (UNITAR, por sus iniciales en inglés), el cual está disponible en internet en la siguiente dirección http://www.unitar.org/free-ecourse-everything-you-need-know-about-climate-changenutshellSegún la CMNUCC, la mitigación del cambio climático implica reducir las fuentes de emisiones de GEI o mejorar los sumideros que ayuden a extraer el CO 2 de la atmósfera mediante la intervención humana. Existen muchas maneras de mejorar los sumideros en la agricultura, tales como la reforestación, las prácticas de cultivo mejoradas, el mejoramiento de suelos de turba que retienen CO 2 . El mejoramiento de los sumideros también se lo conoce como secuestro de carbono.La adaptación al cambio climático se refiere a los procesos macro, mediante los cuales las comunidades y los sistemas hacen frente a las consecuencias del cambio climático, tales como la reducción de los medios de vida, la inseguridad alimentaria o la degradación de las tierras de cultivo. Existe un gran número de prácticas de adaptación que pueden ayudar a desarrollar la resiliencia ante estos desafíos, pero que no reducen (ni mitigan) las fuentes de emisiones de CO 2 .Para muchas organizaciones, la agricultura climáticamente inteligente es el camino a seguir para integrar el desarrollo de la resiliencia y la adaptación de las comunidades, el secuestro y la mitigación del carbono y el logro de las metas nacionales de seguridad alimentaria y desarrollo sostenible. Para los campesinos en los países en desarrollo, el objetivo principal de este tipo de agricultura es garantizar el desarrollo de los medios de vida rurales y producir alimentos y otros productos que se puedan usar directamente o vender en el mercado. La mitigación del cambio climático y el secuestro de carbono no son necesariamente las actividades primordiales en la vida de los agricultores rurales; sin embargo, tales actividades se pueden incorporar a muchas prácticas cotidianas, en el contexto actual de toma de decisiones de las familias agricultoras y los incentivos y cobeneficios que estas prácticas pueden ofrecer. Las prácticas y proyectos de agricultura climáticamente inteligente que, específicamente, buscan integrar las actividades de mitigación a las prácticas agrícolas se denominan proyectos de carbono.Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaCuadro 2. Tipos de proyectos de carbono en la agriculturaUn proyecto de reducción de emisiones de metano generadas por el ganado podría lograrlo mediante la introducción de diferentes tipos de alimento.Un proyecto de emisiones evitadas podría sustituir combustibles fósiles por bioenergía generada por madera, residuos de finca, algas o residuos de pescado.Un proyecto de eliminación de emisiones mediante actividades agrosilviculturales, por ejemplo, podría secuestrar carbono de la atmósfera.La mitigación es un cobeneficio que podría ser remunerado en el futuro mediante diferentes esquemas de pagos. La experiencia actual sugiere que los beneficios económicos reales para los agricultores provendrán del incremento en la productividad debido a prácticas climáticamente inteligentes. Los pagos específicos, que incluyen los mercados del carbono, no serían de gran importancia para los pequeños agricultores en los países en desarrollo (adaptado de FAO-CCAFS 2012).Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaAdaptación significa incorporar y ajustar medidas para proteger a las poblaciones de los efectos perjudiciales actuales y esperados del cambio climático, aprovechar toda oportunidad que se presente y garantizar la sostenibilidad de las inversiones e intervenciones de desarrollo, a pesar de condiciones difíciles. La adaptación busca reducir la sensibilidad de hombres, mujeres, niñas y niños a los efectos del cambio climático (SPC 2011).Capacidad de adaptación es el potencial que un ecosistema tiene para ajustar, modificar o cambiar sus acciones y características para moderar posibles daños a futuro, aprovechar oportunidades y hacer frente a las consecuencias del impacto o del estrés causado por el cambio climático (Brooks 2003).Secuestro de carbono es el proceso de aumentar el contenido de carbono en un reservorio, sumidero o depósito diferente de la atmósfera (IPCC 2014).Clima se refiere a las características promedio de las condiciones meteorológicas, calculadas durante un largo periodo (típicamente de 30 años o más).Seguridad alimentaria existe cuando todas las personas, en todo momento, tienen acceso físico, social y económico a suficientes alimentos inocuos y nutritivos que satisfagan sus necesidades dietéticas y sus preferencias alimentarias para una vida saludable y activa (FAO 2014c).implica la reducción de las emisiones de GEI y/o el mejoramiento de la capacidad de los depósitos de GEI, con el objetivo final de estabilizar su concentración en la atmósfera y reducir la exposición mundial a los efectos del cambio climático (SPC 2011).Agricultura climáticamente inteligente es aquella que incrementa la productividad, mejora la resiliencia (adaptación), reduce o elimina los GEI (mitigación) en donde es posible y facilita el logro de las metas nacionales de seguridad alimentaria y desarrollo (FAO 2014a).Sistema de información climática es la información relevante para la adaptación al cambio climático, la planeación a largo plazo y los sistemas de alerta temprana.Cobeneficios son los beneficios que se obtienen de las políticas que se implementan por diferentes motivos y en forma simultánea -incluida la mitigación del cambio climático-. La mayoría de las políticas diseñadas para abordar la reducción de las emisiones GEI también tienen otras justificaciones que a menudo son de igual importancia (p.e. las relacionadas con los objetivos de adaptación al cambio climático, el desarrollo, la seguridad alimentaria, la sostenibilidad y la equidad). El término coimpacto también se utiliza en un sentido más genérico para abarcar los aspectos positivos y negativos de los beneficios (FAO 2014b).Resiliencia se refiere a la capacidad de prevenir desastres y crisis, así como de anticipar, asimilar, ajustarse o recuperarse de ellos de manera oportuna, eficiente y sostenible. Esto incluye la protección, la restauración y el mejoramiento de los medios de vida para enfrentar las amenazas que afectan la agricultura, la alimentación, la seguridad alimentaria y la inocuidad alimentaria (FAO 2014b).Riesgo es la combinación de la probabilidad (o la frecuencia) de ocurrencia de un peligro definido que ocasione consecuencias adversas, con la magnitud de dichas consecuencias, dada la interacción del peligro con las propiedades del sistema expuesto (SPC 2011). Adaptación inadecuada (maladaptación) es una respuesta inadecuada al desafío presentado por el cambio climático, mediante la cual las intervenciones de desarrollo \"normales\" que ignoran las implicaciones del cambio climático, inadvertidamente ocasionan un incremento en la vulnerabilidad al cambio climático (FAO 2014b).Sumidero de carbono se refiere a cualquier proceso, actividad o mecanismo mediante el cual se elimina, acumula y almacena un gas de efecto invernadero, un aerosol, o un precursor de aerosol o de GEI que se encuentran en la atmósfera (IPCC 2007).La vulnerabilidad al cambio climático es la medida en la que un sistema, una persona o un grupo de personas son susceptibles e incapaces de hacer frente a los efectos adversos del cambio climático. La vulnerabilidad depende de la exposición al cambio climático, la sensibilidad a sus efectos y la capacidad de adaptación (FAO 2012, p. 133).La exposición a la variación climática depende principalmente de la ubicación geográfica. Por ejemplo, las comunidades en áreas costeras estarán más expuestas a los ciclones y a la elevación del nivel del mar, mientras que las áreas semiáridas podrían estar más expuestas a las sequías (Daze et al. 2009).El tiempo se entiende como las condiciones meteorológicas (temperatura y presión del aire, humedad, velocidad del viento y precipitación) que predominan en un lugar determinado en un momento dado.Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaSensibilidad es el grado en el que una comunidad o un ecosistema determinado se ve afectado por factores de estrés climático. Por ejemplo, una comunidad que depende de la agricultura de secano es mucho más sensible a los cambios en los patrones de precipitación que una comunidad en la que la minería es la forma de sustento principal.De manera similar, un frágil ecosistema árido o semiárido es más sensible que un ecosistema tropical a una disminución en la cantidad de lluvia, debido al impacto posterior en los caudales de agua (Daze el al. 2009).A nivel mundial, las mujeres tienden a estar en mayor riesgo al cambio climático porque representan la mayor parte de los pobres del mundo. Para las mujeres que viven en las áreas rurales, los tres principales factores de vulnerabilidad al cambio climático, por razones de género, son la desigualdad en el acceso a los recursos, la disparidad en las oportunidades para modificar o mejorar sus medios de vida y la exclusión de la toma de decisiones. Los riesgos directos e indirectos pueden afectar la posibilidad de obtener sus medios de vida, el tiempo que deben destinar diariamente para obtenerlos y la expectativa de vida en general. Los hechos siguientes sustentan lo anterior:• Es evidente que las mujeres son más vulnerables a los efectos de los desastres naturales, cuyos impactos están estrechamente relacionados con la pobreza. Algunos estudios realizados después de desastres ocasionados por ciclones e inundaciones en Bangladesh en 1991 revelaron que la tasa de mortalidad fue de 71 por cada 1000 mujeres con edades entre los 20 y los 44 años; en comparación, solo murieron 15 de cada 100 hombres en edades similares (WEDO 2008, p. 51).Con mayor frecuencia, el trabajo agrícola es responsabilidad de las mujeres a medida que los hombres se dedican a trabajos no agrícolas. En todas las partes del mundo, excepto en Europa, la proporción de mujeres en la fuerza laboral agrícola total se ha incrementado durante las últimas cuatro décadas (Doss 2011, p. 6).A menudo, las responsabilidades de las mujeres, tales como abastecerse de agua, recoger leña y cuidar a los niños, las hacen más vulnerables que los hombres a los impactos del cambio climático (Wright y Chandani 2014).En muchos países en desarrollo las mujeres son las principales recolectoras, usuarias y administradoras del agua, por lo que la sequía y la escasez pueden incrementar su carga de trabajo (UNDP 2010).Las agricultoras producen menos que sus homólogos masculinos, pues tienen menos acceso a la tierra, utilizan menos insumos y tienen menos acceso a servicios importantes como los servicios de extensión. En muchos países, las mujeres tienen solo la mitad de la probabilidad de utilizar fertilizantes en comparación con los hombres (FAO 2011, p. 38, 45).Si tuvieran el mismo acceso a los recursos productivos que los hombres, las mujeres podrían aumentar los rendimientos en sus fincas entre 20-30%. Esto podría incrementar la producción agrícola total en los países en desarrollo en 2,5-4%, lo cual a su vez podría reducir el número de personas que sufren de hambre en el mundo en 12-17% (FAO 2011, p. 5).Los hombres tienen mayor acceso a la información que las mujeres. Por ejemplo, en Kiengeza, Uganda, el 80% de los hombres escuchan el pronóstico del tiempo en la radio diariamente, mientras que solo el 20% de las mujeres lo hace (Kyazze et al. 2012, p. 12). En vista de lo anterior, las intervenciones relacionadas con la reducción del riesgo climático y el manejo del riesgo social deben prestar atención a la necesidad de mejorar la capacidad de las mujeres de manejar los riesgos del cambio climático, con miras a reducir su vulnerabilidad y mantener o aumentar sus oportunidades de desarrollo.Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis Bibliografía• La participación empodera a hombres, mujeres, niños y niñas para encontrar soluciones a sus propios desafíos de desarrollo. Es una actitud y una filosofía que estimula el aprendizaje, el descubrimiento y la flexibilidad (Hannah y Jost 2011, p. 12).• La participación supone la igualdad entre expertos externos y los miembros de la comunidad.• Los especialistas en enfoques participativos deben ser rigurosos en términos de la implementación y la interpretación para limitar la influencia del sesgo en los resultados (Kristjanson et al. 2014, p. 1).• La implementación debe tener en cuenta los ámbitos socioculturales; la comparación de los resultados entre comunidades debe ser el desafío.• \"Un enfoque de género requiere la comprensión de las dinámicas locales diferenciadas socialmente y una estrategia para el logro de metas de género adecuadas\" (Kristjanson et al. 2014).Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaEl valor único de los enfoques participativos radica en que motivan a los miembros de la comunidad y a expertos externos a trabajar conjuntamente para recolectar y analizar información, desarrollar la capacidad analítica de las comunidades y empoderarlos para buscar información y soluciones a problemas locales que lleven a acciones locales sostenibles (Kristjanson et al. 2014). Idealmente, cuando se emplean métodos participativos para la recopilación de información en una comunidad, las personas deben tener una participación equitativa en el diseño, la implementación, el análisis y la difusión de la actividad. Pretty et al. (1995) describieron una tipología de participación en la cual la pasividad representa el nivel más bajo y la auto-movilización el nivel más alto. En las diferentes etapas de un programa de género y cambio climático es posible que se requieran distintos tipos de participación. Es posible que la automovilización no sea factible durante las fases iniciales, cuando el objetivo es recolectar información que sirva de base para una intervención, pero sí en el momento de identificar soluciones a problemas o durante el codesarrollo e implementación de planes de acción. Tipos de participación (Pretty et al. 1995, p. 14):• Participación pasiva: se da en aquellos casos en que las personas reciben información acerca de lo que va a suceder o lo que ha sucedido. Se trata de un anuncio unilateral por parte de la administración o de la gerencia de un proyecto; no se busca escuchar las respuestas de las personas. La información que se comparte proviene de profesionales externos. Esta es la forma de participación más frecuente en el caso de jóvenes y mujeres, especialmente en las áreas rurales.• Participación para el suministro de información: las personas responden a preguntas planteadas por investigadores cuyo objetivo principal es recolectar datos por medio de encuestas, cuestionarios y herramientas similares. Las personas entrevistadas no tienen la posibilidad de influir en los procedimientos; los resultados de la investigación no se comparten ni se verifica su exactitud.• Participación por consulta: las personas son consultadas y el personal externo escucha sus opiniones. Los profesionales externos definen los problemas y las soluciones y, eventualmente, pueden modificarlos a partir de las respuestas recibidas. Este tipo de proceso consultivo no incluye la participación en la toma de decisiones; los profesionales no tienen la obligación de tener en cuenta las prioridades de las personas consultadas.• Participación por incentivos materiales: las personas participan mediante el aporte de sus recursos a cambio de un incentivo material; p.e., mano de obra a cambio de alimentos, dinero y otros. La mayor parte de las investigaciones en finca corresponden a esta categoría, debido a que los agricultores facilitan sus campos pero no están involucrados en la experimentación ni en el proceso de aprendizaje. Esta forma de participación es muy común; sin embargo, por lo general las personas no tienen interés por continuar con la actividad cuando se acaba el incentivo.• Participación funcional: las personas conforman grupos para cumplir con objetivos previamente establecidos por un proyecto, los cuales pueden implicar el desarrollo o la promoción de organizaciones sociales impulsadas por agentes externos. Este tipo de participación tiende a presentarse después de que las decisiones importantes han sido tomadas, y no desde las primeras etapas de desarrollo de un proyecto. Estas instituciones tienden a depender de los agentes externos, pero pueden llegar a ser autosuficientes.• Participación interactiva: las personas participan en el análisis conjunto, lo cual lleva a la formulación de planes de acción, al establecimiento de nuevas instituciones locales, o al fortalecimiento de las instituciones existentes. Normalmente, implica el uso de metodologías interdisciplinarias para buscar múltiples perspectivas y utilizar procesos de aprendizaje sistemáticos y estructurados. Estos grupos asumen el control de las decisiones locales, de tal manera que las personas tienen interés por mantener las estructuras o las prácticas.Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis Bibliografía• Auto-movilización: las personas toman iniciativas independientes de las instituciones externas con el fin de cambiar los sistemas. Establecen contactos con entidades externas para la obtención de recursos y la asesoría técnica que necesitan, pero mantienen el control sobre la forma en que se utilizan los recursos. Es posible que este tipo de movilización y acciones colectivas por iniciativa propia desafíe la distribución inequitativa del poder y la riqueza.En cualquier comunidad se presentarán obstáculos para la participación, muchos de los cuales se asocian directamente con las normas de género (Hannah y Jost 2011, p. 63). Los especialistas en enfoques participativos deben estar conscientes de las dinámicas relacionadas con el tema de género, así como con la pobreza, organización, comunicación e instituciones que limitan la participación de los grupos marginados de una comunidad; asimismo, deben abordarlas de manera proactiva en los programas de investigación o desarrollo, de tal manera que se garantice la participación de todos los miembros de la comunidad.Ausencia de organizaciones comunitarias apropiadas• Se divulga información acerca del programa y del desarrollo que se persigue.• Se fortalecen las organizaciones existentes, en particular los mecanismos inclusivos de toma de decisiones.• Se invierte en habilidades de liderazgo de hombres y mujeres para una participación y cooperación más activas.• Capacitación informal por parte de organizaciones comunales• Se ayuda a los líderes a programar las reuniones.• Se plantean temas a tratar a los miembros.• Capacitación formal sobre manejo de documentación, etc.• La organización construye redes de comunicación entre sus miembros.• Algunas tareas se subdividen.• Se promueve el diálogo en grupos pequeños.• Se promueve el empoderamiento y desarrollo de capacidades de los marginados; en particular, las mujeres y personas sin confianza en sí mismas o de bajo estatus social.Divisiones internas y diferencias en los intereses económicos• Se mantiene al mínimo la necesidad de cooperación entre los grupos en conflicto.• Se diseñan incentivos para el fortalecimiento de las organizaciones locales.• Se apoyan los procesos que unifiquen a las personas que deben cooperar.• Se desarrollar mecanismos de control del sistema.Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaSi se tiene conciencia de los obstáculos a la participación y se toman medidas para enfrentarlos, es posible manejar el sesgo. Sin embargo, el sesgo va más allá, pues se encuentra arraigado en las percepciones y observaciones humanas, a menudo de manera involuntaria. Es indispensable reconocer y manejar el sesgo para utilizar los enfoques participativos para la investigación y el desarrollo de manera efectiva.Los especialistas en enfoques participativos deben entender los sesgos, porque pueden ser una fuente valiosa de información. Por eso es que con frecuencia empleamos técnicas diferentes a la selección aleatoria en el diseño de nuestro trabajo de investigación. Al profundizar y comprender el sesgo, abrimos la puerta el proceso analítico de la \"triangulación\" (Hannah y Jost 2011). Una de las reglas básicas es que la información ofrecida por una persona encuestada es una opinión, pero si es repetida y confirmada por varias personas, se convierte en una evidencia interesante. Buscamos explorar y comprender los factores que motivan las opiniones de un encuestado y balancearlas con información adicional brindada por personas con opiniones diferentes. Reconocemos la marginación y buscamos las opiniones y los puntos de vista de las personas marginadas. Al balancear el grupo de entrevistados, es posible relativizar el valor de opiniones sesgadas, y así entender el sesgo y los factores que lo generan. Esto nos permite determinar si tales factores obstaculizan la solución de problemas y si debieran ser abordados antes de hacer frente al problema mismo.A continuación se describen los diferentes tipos de sesgos que se deben tener en cuenta al diseñar un estudio (Chambers 1983, p. 26):Sesgo espacial: un área de estudio se selecciona por razones de comodidad y facilidad de acceso. A menudo los investigadores se desplazan por tierra a áreas de estudio escogidas por su proximidad a carreteras en buen estado. Las personas que viven en las comunidades más remotas (por lo general, las más pobres) no son representadas en el estudio.Sesgo de proyecto: se selecciona un área de estudio donde ya existen otros proyectos debido, por una parte, al mayor nivel de actividades en la comunidad y, por otra parte, a que los pobladores se sienten cómodos en presencia de los investigadores externos. Con frecuencia, los visitantes y los investigadores son encaminados hacia aquellas áreas donde ha habido proyectos activos y, así, la mayor parte del trabajo se concentra en dichos lugares.Sesgo de personas: para aplicar las encuestas se selecciona a personas de fácil acceso e interacción. Las opiniones de ciertos tipos de personas (influyentes, ricas, abiertas, etc.) pueden resultar sobrerrepresentadas en las entrevistas, y es posible que dichas personas estén sesgadas en contra de las personas de menos recursos o desconozcan sus necesidades. A pesar de no es representativa de la comunidad como un todo, a menudo la \"élite rural\" es la que más voz tiene durante las entrevistas grupales, e impiden a los demás expresar sus puntos de vista. Los investigadores deben hacer un esfuerzo especial por incluir a los miembros marginados de la comunidad (como las mujeres); para ello se las debe abordar en ámbitos en los que se sientan cómodas para expresar sus opiniones.Sesgo temporal: la recolección de información se hace durante una época del año que no necesariamente es representativa de las actividades, roles, beneficios o desafíos en otras épocas del año. Por ejemplo, los índices de desnutrición, morbilidad y mortalidad pueden ser mayores al final de la época seco. Las encuestas que se realicen en otras épocas del año podrían pasar por alto estos problemas.Sesgo diplomático: es frecuente que los informantes oculten parte de la información por respeto o vergüenza debido a que el problema puede tener un estigma social negativo. Para muchas comunidades, la pobreza es un tema que da vergüenza y, algunas veces, las necesidades de los más necesitados son ignoradas o incluso ocultadas por los mismos pobres o por los funcionarios que trabajan con ellos.Sesgo profesional: el investigador filtra la información a través de la óptica de la capacitación profesional propia, en vez de considerarla objetivamente tal como se suministra. Por ejemplo, es posible que los profesionales en el campo de la salud introduzcan sesgos debido a su conocimiento previo de las enfermedades y los tratamientos; como resultado, no llegan a entender verdaderamente lo que los encuestados tratan de decir sobre su salud. En la epidemiología, el sesgo profesional puede ocasionar problemas a nivel técnico, e impide que los equipos de trabajo comprendan adecuadamente la base de conocimiento tradicional.Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaHannah y Jost (2011, p. 17) detallan los siguientes principios claves del enfoque participativo.• Comportamiento y actitud » Escuchar, aprender y respetar. » Ser sensible cultural y socialmente. » Estar preparado para dejar de lado actitudes y estereotipos negativos o sesgos personales, culturales o de género. » Actuar como agente facilitador, no en calidad experto.• Las personas » Saben de temas que son importantes para sus medios de vida. » Poseen perspectivas valiosas y únicas; por eso, es indispensable reconocer el conocimiento que poseen los hombres, las mujeres y los jóvenes. » Co-aprendizaje » Intercambiar conocimientos, experiencias y análisis. » Combinar el conocimiento local y profesional para diseñar acciones aceptables y efectivas.• Las personas son racionales » Existe una percepción interna y externa del comportamiento. » La mayoría de las personas toman decisiones racionales a partir de la información disponible. » El surgimiento de un comportamiento irracional significa que existe un malentendido.• Conocimiento óptimo o ignorancia óptima » Existe un equilibrio entre la necesidad de información y la necesidad de tomar decisiones oportunas.• Orientación hacia la acción » Hay que estar preparado para tomar medidas en vez de simplemente recopilar información.¿Qué significa DRP y IAP? Chambers (1994) define el diagnóstico rural participativo (DRP) de la siguiente manera:\"… DRP describe una serie cada vez más numerosa de enfoques y métodos que permiten a la población local compartir, dilucidar y analizar su conocimiento acerca de la vida y las condiciones, para planear y tomar acciones\".El DRP es una de las formas más comunes de consulta participativa que se emplean en la actualidad. Este tipo de valoración significa un avance con respecto a su antecesor, la evaluación rural rápida, en el sentido de que se ha pasado de la extracción de información de las comunidades por parte deActividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis Bibliografía expertos académicos con fines de planeación y publicación, al empoderamiento de la comunidad mediante la valoración del conocimiento disponible y el mejoramiento de la capacidad analítica, con el objetivo de lograr un cambio institucional sostenido (Chambers 1994). El DRP implica el uso de una serie de herramientas dinámicas para la visualización de la información, las cuales mejoran el detalle y la comprensión por parte de los encuestados y los expertos; además permite la participación equitativa de encuestados letrados e iletrados. Baum et al. (2006) definen la investigación-acción participativa (IAP) de la siguiente manera:\"La IAP tiene como finalidad entender y mejorar el mundo mediante su modificación. En esencia, [este tipo de investigación] se refiere a la consulta colectiva y auto-reflexiva que los investigadores y los participantes llevan a cabo para entender y mejorar las prácticas en las que participan y las situaciones en las que se encuentran. El proceso reflexivo se relaciona directamente con la acción, es influenciado por la noción que se tenga de la historia, la cultura y el contexto local y está arraigado en las relaciones sociales. El proceso de IAP debe generar empoderamiento y llevar a las personas a tener mayor control de sus vidas\".En la agricultura, la IAP es una metodología que comprende ciclos repetitivos de consulta simultánea por parte de las comunidades y los especialistas para evaluar posibles soluciones a problemas en ámbitos locales realistas. Abarca los principios y elementos del DRP en un enfoque horizontal para la adopción de las mejores soluciones para los problemas más urgentes relacionados con la agricultura en una comunidad.Esta guía representa el primer paso en un ciclo de investigación-acción participativa, el cual busca desarrollar de manera conjunta el conocimiento que se requiere para planear un programa de IAP.¿Por qué la IAP en la generación de conocimiento?La IAP elimina la forma usual de producir conocimiento en el área de la agricultura. En vez tener científicos que identifican problemas en sus oficinas y desarrollan y evalúan soluciones en los laboratorios, las comunidades y los expertos trabajan conjuntamente para comprender los activos y los problemas locales e identificar posibles soluciones que consideren las fortalezas existentes de la comunidad. Por lo tanto, el empoderamiento surge cuando las comunidades desarrollan habilidades para el análisis y la solución de problemas, las cuales sean sostenibles en el tiempo aun después de que acaben las acciones de los proyectos.La metodología permite la evaluación directa de tecnologías y prácticas mejoradas en el terreno en el ámbito local. Esto permite desechar rápidamente soluciones imprácticas y la adopción oportuna de soluciones que puedan funcionar para la comunidad. Se evitan así las trampas en la definición de la escala, propias de los métodos clásicos, pues los/las productoras comparten su nuevo conocimiento con sus vecinos en su comunidad y funcionan como especialistas locales; así en las comunidades vecinas, los agricultores pueden conocer y ajustar rápidamente las nuevas opciones a sus propios contextos. Asimismo, la evidencia \"real\" de los mismos agricultores puede ser más convincente para los formuladores de políticas que la información que proviene de un laboratorio o de un centro de investigación.Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaLos profesionales que utilizan los enfoques de investigación acción participativa son también facilitadores del proceso de investigación. Se debe recordar que las personas no poseen, de manera natural, buenas habilidades para la facilitación. Las habilidades para manejar conflictos, escuchar con atención y garantizar una participación significativa se deben practicar y desarrollar con el tiempo.El mejoramiento de la sensibilidad de género y la conciencia crítica acerca de las diferentes dinámicas sociales, políticas y culturales en el proceso de investigación también son habilidades que se adquieren con el tiempo. Idealmente, el desarrollo de la capacidad en torno a la facilitación para la investigación inclusiva debe ser un componente clave de un proyecto o programa. A continuación se ofrece un listado de las competencias básicas que debieran desarrollar quienes trabajan en investigación de la inclusión social y, especialmente, en IAP:El razonamiento \"inductivo\" \"... la ausencia de reglas prestablecidas abre un campo de oportunidades a las habilidades, el conocimiento y la intuición del investigador. Entrevistar es un oficio que se aproxima más a un arte que a métodos científicos sociales estandarizados\" (Kvale 1996).El razonamiento \"deductivo\" se encuentra más frecuentemente en las ciencias naturales. Por enfoque deductivo se entiende cuando las cuestiones y supuestos de la investigación se fundamentan y desarrollan principalmente a partir de una comprensión académica del tema. De esta manera, los investigadores deductivos se interesan más por recopilar información que les ayude a evaluar la validez de una serie de preguntas de investigación previamente establecidas.Otro de los enfoques es el razonamiento \"inductivo\", en el cual los investigadores utilizan sus observaciones e interacciones con la comunidad para formular las preguntas de investigación. Con frecuencia, la investigación inductiva ofrece más espacio para incorporar los contextos sociales, políticos, culturales y ambientales al enfoque de investigación. Este enfoque puede ser intimidante, pues requiere que los profesionales empiecen con una amplia serie de preguntas, que se van reduciendo para aclarar el enfoque de la investigación a lo largo del proceso.• La investigación cualitativa y participativa tiene el poder de revelar múltiples puntos de visata, no la \"verdad objetiva\".• La reflexión y la capacidad de comprender el entorno deben ser características esenciales de los facilitadores.• Los investigadores pueden promover espacios de investigación abiertos y seguros para mejorar la calidad de la información y promover la participación de las voces marginadas.Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaEl contar con sólidas habilidades de investigación inductiva puede ser muy valioso para los equipos de género y IAP. La investigación inductiva puede permitir una mayor retroalimentación entre las comunidades y los equipos de investigación y, además, facilita que los hombres, las mujeres o grupos de interés específicos mejoren su capacidad de tomar decisiones para definir prioridades, beneficios y creencias.Los facilitadores deben tener clara su propia visión personal, la cual puede incluir sus creencias, valores, poder y expectativas personales en comparación con las de la comunidad. La autoconsciencia requiere una capacidad de reflexión crítica acerca de nuestra propia identidad y cómo esta puede influir en el espacio de investigación, las jerarquías, el género, las normas culturales y la forma en que responden los miembros de la comunidad.Los buenos facilitadores en género e inclusión no solo deben estar conscientes de su propia posición, sino que también deben ser capaces de ajustar y modificar aspectos de su comportamiento para promover el libre intercambio de ideas en los grupos.El equipo de investigación debe esmerarse por comportarse como invitado respetuoso de la comunidad y esforzarse por establecer buenas relaciones. Lo que pudieran parecer pequeños detalles, a menudo se convierten en aspectos cruciales que determinan la disposición y la calidad de participación de los grupos focales. Idealmente, los miembros del equipo de investigación deben trabajar conjuntamente para seleccionar cuidadosamente el lugar de la investigación, organizar las sillas en el salón, ajustar sus propias actitudes y lenguaje corporal o verbal y, en general, estar preparados para explorar las normas socioculturales conocidas y desconocidas de las comunidades con las que trabajan. Muchas de estas cosas se pueden lograr si el equipo investiga con antelación las normas de la comunidad, pide permiso para ingresar a las comunidades y ajusta el poder que podría ejercer en un espacio de investigación.A diferencia de las encuestas o cuestionarios, la recopilación de información cualitativa de calidad mediante la IAP puede depender de la habilidad de escuchar por parte de los facilitadores. Para escuchar con atención y concentrarse verdaderamente, se requiere disciplina y práctica. El desarrollo de esta habilidad puede incluso requerir el abandono de roles y hábitos que se han aprendido con el tiempo y estar más consciente del rol que debemos cumplir como facilitadores.La importancia de contextos complejos y múltiples percepciones es un componente esencial de la investigación de género e inclusión. Las mismas formas de realizar investigación sobre cambio climático, tales como entrevistas, grupos focales o actividades de IAP pueden revelar realidades diferentes y distintos niveles de información. Por lo tanto, la investigación acción participativa no plantea una sola 'verdad' o realidad objetiva. Esta es la razón por la cual la respuesta a preguntas aparentemente sencillas sobre la periodicidad de las lluvias o sobre prácticas agrícolas puede suscitar distintas afirmaciones que incluso pueden ser contradictorias. La capacidad de quien facilita para valorar y evaluar las percepciones en cuanto a la búsqueda de la \"verdad\" es una habilidad que le exige ser capaz de interpretar significados.Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaLas actividades descritas en este manual se basan, en buena medida, en actividades con grupos focales. En esta sección se describen los aspectos generales relacionados con los conceptos y mejores prácticas para los grupos focales.Un grupo focal es un grupo pequeño de personas seleccionadas por el equipo de investigación para dialogar acerca de los temas de interés de la investigación. En general, los grupos focales deben estar conformados como mínimo por cinco personas. En promedio, el número ideal de participantes para el diálogo es de 10 a 12 personas.La composición del grupo focal es fundamental para la investigación cualitativa y de género. La desagregación por sexo, estatus socioeconómico u otras características debe justificarse con los objetivos de la investigación. La diversidad en el grupo puede estimular el intercambio de ideas, pero también puede reforzar las jerarquías o las normas de género que, a la postre, podrían silenciar ciertas voces. Por ejemplo, una conversación sobre temas delicados relacionados con la salud reproductiva pudiera funcionar mejor si se trabaja con grupos focales de hombres y mujeres por separado. Sin embargo, si el equipo de investigación no toma en cuenta la composición etaria, es posible que las mujeres más jóvenes no estén muy dispuestas a compartir sus experiencias en presencia de mujeres mayores como sus madres, tías o vecinas. Es importante seleccionar la composición del grupo focal y justificar cómo se va a desagregar.La estructura lógica y básica de una sesión con un grupo focal 1 puede ser como sigue: • Vuelva a hablar del proyecto para crear 'distancia'; mencione lo que se piensa hacer con la información o si el equipo de investigación regresará.• Asegúrese de registrar lo que sucede después de terminar la sesión; esto es también información.Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaEn general, las preguntas que se plantean a un grupo focal deben ser claras, sencillas y conversacionales. Se debe evitar el uso de frases o lenguaje técnico que sean intimidantes o que causen prejuicios. Las preguntas se deben concentrar en un solo tema, en vez de traer a colación varias ideas. Existen diferentes tipos de preguntas que los facilitadores deben tener presentes:El diálogo en los grupos focales tiene como fin fomentar respuestas y comentarios significativos.Por este motivo, las preguntas abiertas son ideales para los grupos focales y son preferibles a las preguntas cerradas. Las preguntas abiertas a menudo indagan sobre \"por qué\" y \"cómo\" y motivan a las personas a compartir sus sentimientos, expectativas u opiniones. Con frecuencia, las preguntas cerradas se contestan con un sí o con un no o mediante respuestas técnicas cortas.¿Qué cultivos va a sembrar en esta temporada?¿Cómo decide usted qué cultivos sembrar en esta temporada?Quienes facilitan pueden fácilmente incurrir en el error de hacer preguntas que induzcan a los participantes a una respuesta dada. Las frases que se escojan pueden darles a los participantes una idea sobre el tipo de información que se busca en vez de permitir que los participantes contesten desde su propia perspectiva.¿Tiene usted problemas con el funcionario del programa de extensión rural?¿Qué opinión tiene usted sobre el funcionario del programa de extensión rural?? ?Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaEn algunas ocasiones, las preguntas bien formuladas no son suficientes para estimular el intercambio de ideas en un grupo focal. Así, algunas personas facilitadoras pueden tender incluso a ofrecer sugerencias a los participantes y evaluar si el grupo focal está de acuerdo o en desacuerdo. En casos como este es mejor utilizar preguntas de sondeo o preguntas de apoyo que ayudan a obtener ideas y guiar la interacción. Como investigadores, cuando ingresamos a una comunidad ya hemos estudiado mucho sobre los temas con los que trabajamos. Existe el riesgo de suponer que los conceptos y la terminología que consideramos normales son conocidos por todos los miembros del equipo de investigación y de las comunidades. Como investigadores, debemos primero dedicar tiempo a definir la terminología junto con el equipo de investigación. Todos deben trabajar con las mismas definiciones y los mismos conceptos para garantizar la recopilación de datos adecuados y relevantes. Posteriormente, el equipo de investigación debe definir los términos complejos junto con los participantes de la comunidad antes de iniciar el diálogo en grupos focales. No se debe imponer la terminología técnica al equipo de investigación y a las comunidades, ni emplear repetidamente palabras que no se comprenden adecuadamente pues, como resultado, se obtienen respuestas vagas. En el tema de agricultura y cambio climático es muy probable que haya términos que generen confusión.• Tiempo/clima-En algunas culturas no existe un término que diferencie entre ambos conceptos.• Año-En algunas culturas el tiempo no se organiza en años; es posible que utilicen diferentes calendarios o indicadores de las estaciones.• Sequía-Según el lugar, sequía puede ser periodo seco, temporada seca o ausencia de lluvia.• Buena o mala temporada de lluvias-Lo que constituye un año \"bueno\" o \"malo\" depende en gran parte del contexto de la comunidad. La duración o la época en que se presentan las estaciones puede variar entre comunidades. Además, en algunas comunidades es posible que haya varias estaciones de lluvia con distintas características.• Lluvia-Algunas culturas tienen muchos términos para la lluvia.• Predicción meteorológica-Desde una perspectiva lingüística, la predicción se puede traducir literalmente como un \"estimativo\", probabilidad de un 50-50, etc.• Normal, promedio-Estas palabras tienen múltiples y diferentes definiciones.• Posibilidad, probabilidad-Las definiciones de probabilidad dependen de la lingüística y pueden llevar a malentendidos.• Exactitud-La definición del término, para los agricultores y los científicos, puede ser muy diferente.Fuente: Basado en Roncoli (2013)Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaDesde un punto de vista práctico y ético, es esencial obtener el consentimiento de los participantes del grupo focal así como de los líderes de la comunidad. Esto implica escribir una carta, enviar invitaciones, convocar o realizar una reunión miembros de la comunidad y sus líderes. En algunos casos, es posible que las mujeres necesiten el permiso de alguien para participar en las actividades de investigación, lo cual hace que el consentimiento sea una parte esencial para garantizar su participación.Es importante que los participantes establezcan sus propias reglas básicas para sentirse seguros durante las sesiones. Asegúrese de que hombres y mujeres puedan expresar sus expectativas para llegar a un consenso en cuanto a las reglas básicas. Se puede hacer referencia a estas reglas durante las sesiones para que los miembros del grupo asuman sus responsabilidades. Las reglas básicas deben plantearse en términos afirmativos y no negativos; evite que las reglas empiecen por \"no se debe\" o \"no\".Al iniciar la sesión, informe de las metas u objetivos del día. Esto ayuda a los participantes a enfocar sus ideas y motivar a todos a trabajar por el logro del mismo objetivo.Cuando se trabaja con comunidades que no han trabajado antes con organizaciones de desarrollo o investigación, es esencial ser transparente en cuanto a lo que aportará o no aportará la investigación. Dedicarse a un trabajo de investigación con base en expectativas exageradas puede ocasionar tensión y la ruptura de la confianza que se ha logrado con la comunidad.Cuando se trabaja con mujeres o grupos sociales que ya de por sí tienen múltiples responsabilidades en el hogar, la finca y la comunidad, hay que asegurarse de respetar el tiempo de estos grupos. Se debe escoger una hora y un lugar para reunirse que sean convenientes para el grupo. Algunas veces, esto significa seleccionar un espacio público para no generar desconfianza, y a una hora en que los participantes estén menos ocupados. También se debe estar consciente acerca de las limitaciones de tiempo en diversos momentos del año. Es probable que los agricultores estén más ocupados al principio y al final del ciclo de cultivos que después de la cosecha.Cuando se coordina un grupo focal hay que estar consciente de las dinámicas de poder que se transmiten. ¿Quién facilita se coloca delante de los miembros del grupo, como en un salón de clase? ¿Quién facilita está de pie, por encima de los participantes? En la mayoría de casos, es mejor organizar los asientos en un círculo para que la conversación pueda fluir en varias direcciones; hay que evitar a toda costa las exposiciones largas por parte de quien facilita. En algunos lugares, a las personas externas a la comunidad se les da un asiento o un trato preferencial. Se debe tratar de evitarlo y sentarse siempre al mismo nivel de los participantes, sin permitir que la tecnología u otros objetos que indican un estatus superior sean motivo de distracción o intimidación. Asegúrese de vestir en forma socialmente adecuada.Con la debida anticipación, infórmese de la conformación del grupo focal para evitar participantes inconvenientes. Por ejemplo, si un anciano de la comunidad va formar parte del grupo, es probable que los demás participantes estén menos dispuestos a hablar sobre temas relacionados con la política de la comunidad. Se puede optar por entrevistar a las figuras de autoridad por separado, pues pueden ser informantes claves muy valiosos. También es crucial prestar especial atención a las relaciones de poder local entre hombres y mujeres, o entre los diferentes grupos étnicos antes de llegar al espacio de investigación. De esta manera, se puede ajustar el trabajo de facilitación en la mayor medida posible para incluir las voces marginadas.La creación de un espacio de investigación seguro y el establecimiento de buenas relaciones entre el equipo facilitador y la comunidad son parte esencial del trabajo de IAP y de género. A continuación se ofrecen algunas sugerencias para establecer un ambiente abierto para los grupos focales.Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaLos equipos de investigación deben estar conscientes de su lenguaje verbal y corporal durante las sesiones. Los facilitadores deben darle prioridad a captar la atención de los participantes y hacer contacto visual con ellos. De ser posible, varias personas debieran encargarse de tomar apuntes para no interrumpir el flujo de la conversación. Asegúrese de no emplear jerga ni terminología científica. Si trabajan más personas en el rol de facilitación, es conveniente hacerse recordar estas sugerencias durante la sesión de trabajo.Para muchos investigadores, el silencio durante las sesiones puede parecer aterrador. En la mayoría de casos, un momento de silencio puede dar a los participantes tiempo y espacio para asimilar y formular ideas. Compensar el silencio hablando mucho, puede tener el efecto opuesto en los participantes -pierden interés por hablar y reaccionan únicamente a la interpelación directa-.Existen muchas maneras de manejar los conflictos en los grupos focales sin aumentar la tensión. Por ejemplo, si una persona es muy activa o, por el contrario, muy pasiva, en vez de interrumpir la sesión para manejar ese comportamiento perturbador, el co-facilitador puede llevar a este participante aparte mientras la sesión principal continúa.El equipo de facilitación debe ser capaz de hacerse a un lado para permitir que los participantes lideren la conversación. Esto puede significar dar apoyo a los participantes más tímidos (en especial, las mujeres o los miembros marginados de una comunidad), o pedir a los participantes más activos que den a los demás la oportunidad de expresarse. Si se trabaja en una dinámica participativa o en una actividad de IAP se debe permitir que los participantes solucionen los detalles por su propia cuenta. El equipo de facilitación debe además aprender a mantener la conversación bien encarrilada, estimular la reflexión y rescatar la información no esperada.Es importante finalizar las reuniones de los grupos focales de una manera lógica y sin tropiezos. Asegúrese de explicar los pasos a seguir, programar las visitas posteriores y agradecerle al grupo por su participación. Siempre se debe permitir que se hagan más preguntas después de terminar una sesión.Se debe contemplar la posibilidad de dejar copias u originales de los productos del grupo focal (mapas, gráficos o imágenes) como una manera adecuada de concluir. También es importante que al finalizar los talleres con grupos focales se dediquen unos minutos a evaluar las metodologías y herramientas utilizadas, lo cual permitirá al grupo de investigadores potencializar el uso de ciertas herramientas sobre otras que no fueron consideradas como relevantes por los participantes.Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaEsta caja de herramientas busca ofrecer pautas para la recopilación de información necesaria en la investigación de género e inclusión social, como parte de programas de desarrollo para enfrentar el cambio climático. La caja de herramientas también promueve actividades de IAP para promover el intercambio más equitativo entre comunidades e investigadores y, a la vez, ofrece opciones para el análisis y la validación de información bajo el liderazgo de la comunidad.Las metodologías descritas en esta caja de herramientas están diseñadas para complementar o interconectar distintos marcos de análisis. Cada usuario debe seleccionar el marco de análisis que mejor se ajuste a sus intereses de investigación. A continuación se identifican algunos de los marcos existentes que pueden apoyar a los proyectos de adaptación y mitigación al cambio climático. Estos conceptos se han adaptado del trabajo de Daze et al. (2009).Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis Bibliografía tipo reconoce que la población pobre, desplazada y afectada por la guerra tiene derechos inherentes esenciales para asegurar sus medios de vida, los cuales son validados por las leyes internacionales.Los siguientes perfiles de marcos de análisis fueron de gran utilidad en el desarrollo de esta caja de herramientas y pueden servir de referencia para otros proyectos.Resumen: El marco de análisis socioeconómico y de género (ASG), desarrollado en 1993, es un enfoque para el contexto del desarrollo y ayuda humanitaria basado en el análisis de patrones socioeconómicos y la identificación participativa de las prioridades y las potencialidades de hombres y mujeres.Aplicaciones: Este enfoque permite incorporar el tema de género en el cambio climático, la agricultura y la seguridad alimentaria, ya que facilita el análisis de las dinámicas sociales que determinan cómo viven y responden los distintos miembros de una comunidad o de un hogar a los efectos del cambio climático. Al colocar a las personas en el centro del análisis, el ASG contribuye a garantizar que los proyectos, las iniciativas y las políticas relacionadas con el cambio climático satisfagan las necesidades de las personas más vulnerables.El carácter participativo del ASG garantiza que hombres y mujeres que están siendo afectados por los efectos del cambio climático en sus vidas cotidianas, sean quienes participen en la búsqueda e implementación de soluciones para los problemas asociados con el cambio climático.Los roles y las relaciones de género tienen una importancia clave.Las personas y los grupos desfavorecidos son prioritarios en las iniciativas de desarrollo.Su participación es esencial para el desarrollo sostenible y la adaptación al cambio climático.El ASG emplea una amplia gama de herramientas del diagnóstico rural participativo y listas de verificación para analizar capacidades, vulnerabilidades, recursos, medios de vida e instituciones de la población meta. Las herramientas se pueden clasificar en tres amplias categorías: análisis del contexto, análisis de los actores y análisis de los medios de vida. A continuación se resumen cada una de estas categorías.Comprender el contexto en una comunidad en particular -los patrones socioeconómicos de cómo mujeres y hombres de distintos grupos socioeconómicos obtienen sus ingresos y otros recursoses útil para entender los patrones de vulnerabilidad a distintos tipos de riesgo, incluidos los riesgos climáticos. A continuación se plantean algunas preguntas que pueden ser útiles para comprender el contexto de la adaptación y mitigación del cambio climático:• ¿Cuáles son los patrones ambientales, económicos, institucionales y sociales más importantes de la comunidad? ¿Tienen los hombres y las mujeres las mismas opiniones sobre estos patrones?• ¿Cómo eran las condiciones climáticas anteriormente? ¿Cómo son ahora? ¿Cuáles son los pronósticos a futuro? ¿Hombres y mujeres reconocen los impactos? ¿Cuáles son las percepciones de los hombres y las mujeres sobre dichos impactos?• ¿Qué intervenciones están siendo implementadas para asegurar la adaptación o la mitigación del cambio climático? ¿Cuáles son las limitaciones?• ¿Cuáles son los impactos diferenciados del cambio climático en hombres, mujeres, niños, niñas?Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaEl análisis de los medios de vida se enfoca no solo en la manera en que las personas, los hogares y los grupos de familias se ganan la vida, sino también en el acceso de mujeres y hombres a los recursos y servicios. Este tipo de análisis revela las actividades que las personas llevan a cabo para satisfacer sus necesidades básicas y generar ingresos. Algunas preguntas incluyen las siguientes:• ¿Cómo se ganan la vida las personas? ¿Cómo se comparan los medios de vida de hombres con los de las mujeres o los de los niños y las niñas? ¿Cómo se comparan los medios de vida de los distintos grupos socioeconómicos?• ¿Cuáles son los impactos probables del cambio climático en las estrategias actuales para obtener los resultados esperados de los medios de vida? ¿Son ciertos sectores o grupos de la población menos o más vulnerables? ¿Por qué? ¿Cuáles son las percepciones de los hombres y las mujeres al respecto?• ¿Qué tan diversificadas son las actividades de los medios de vida de hombres y mujeres? Describa las actividades.• ¿Cuáles son los patrones de uso y control de los recursos claves? ¿Por sexo? ¿Por edad? ¿Por grupo socioeconómico? ¿Cómo se verá afectado el uso de recursos por parte de hombres y mujeres debido a la variabilidad en el clima?• ¿Cuáles son las fuentes más importantes de ingresos? ¿Cuáles son los gastos por género de cada grupo socioeconómico? ¿Existen grupos tribales e indígenas?Los actores son todas las personas e instituciones que tienen algo qué ganar o perder al realizar una actividad específica. Para cada actividad de adaptación y mitigación que se plantee, se identifican los distintos actores y se determina dónde se presenta algún conflicto o alguna alianza.Algunas de las preguntas claves son:• ¿Qué actividades de adaptación plantean los hombres y las mujeres? ¿Para qué?• Para cada actividad de adaptación o mitigación, ¿quiénes son los actores? ¿Qué tan grande es su interés? ¿Cuál es la relación histórica entre los distintos actores?• ¿Existe algún conflicto entre los actores? ¿Existe alguna asociación?• ¿Cómo perciben los diferentes actores los riesgos asociados con el cambio climático? ¿Cómo perciben los hombres y las mujeres los beneficios de las actividades para la mitigación y la adaptación?• ¿Cómo se pueden balancear las necesidades de los distintos actores a corto y a largo plazo?• ¿Se beneficiarán los hombres y las mujeres por igual?• ¿Se beneficiarán equitativamente los hombres y las mujeres diferenciados por grupo económico?• ¿Se garantiza la participación de la mujer? ¿Se asegura la participación de otros grupos marginados? ¿Quién garantiza esta participación?• ¿Se garantiza el acceso a la información? ¿Quién lo garantiza?Si desea una explicación más detallada sobre el enfoque del ASG consulte la página web de la FAO en la siguiente dirección: http://www.fao.org/docrep/008/y5702e/y5702e04.htmActividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaResumen: El empoderamiento de la mujer varía de una cultura a otra y de un contexto a otro.El marco global de CARE asocia las definiciones y prioridades de las mujeres en cuanto al empoderamiento con 23 dimensiones claves del cambio social, las cuales han demostrado ser muy relevantes para el empoderamiento de la mujer en varios estudios y contextos.Aplicaciones: CARE define el empoderamiento de la mujer como el efecto combinado de los cambios en la capacidad de actuar, en las estructuras y en las relaciones [de poder]. Para quienes investigan los temas de género en relación con el cambio climático, el uso de este marco global puede ayudar a contextualizar el papel de las mujeres en la agricultura y su capacidad de adaptación en función de dichos cambios. La capacidad de un sistema para garantizar el derecho y el acceso equitativo a recursos y activos básicos es una característica fundamental para la adaptación. El derecho a los recursos que se necesitan para la adaptación se pueden diferenciar por edad, etnicidad, clase social, religión o género (entre otros grupos). La representación y la participación en instituciones claves también es esencial para facilitar la distribución equitativa de recursos. El acceso a los recursos, la participación en los procesos de toma de decisiones y el empoderamiento son elementos fundamentales de esta característica.Para la adaptación exitosa se requiere información y comprensión del cambio a futuro, conocimiento sobre las opciones de adaptación, capacidad para evaluarlas y para implementar las intervenciones más adecuadas. En el contexto del cambio climático es importante garantizar que se cuente con sistemas para la diseminación de información relevante a nivel regional y nacional. Adicionalmente, se deben realizar foros para facilitar el diálogo e intercambio de ideas entre todos los actores.Una de las características claves de la capacidad de adaptación se relaciona con la posibilidad que el sistema tiene para apoyar la innovación y la toma de riesgos. La innovación puede ser planeada, tener una orientación técnica y estar dirigida hacia innovaciones a gran escala, o puede presentarse en forma de iniciativas autónomas a nivel local que ayuden a la población a adaptarse a los cambios en el clima local. Es necesario contar con un ambiente facilitador que promueva y permita la experimentación y la exploración de soluciones destinadas a nichos específicos para aprovechar nuevas oportunidades y hacer frente a los desafíos presentados por el cambio climático. El ambiente también debe protegerse contra el posible fracaso asociado con la innovación.5. Toma de decisiones y gobernanza flexibles y con visión de futuro: La toma de decisiones informadas, la transparencia y la priorización son aspectos claves de la capacidad de adaptación. Si las organizaciones locales están bien informadas acerca de las futuras tendencias climáticas podrán tomar medidas para planear cómo hacer frente a su impacto. De manera similar, la flexibilidad para permitir que los sistemas -y las instituciones que los rigen-evolucionen y se adapten a un entorno cambiante es una característica fundamental de la capacidad de adaptación.El lector interesado podrá encontrar información detallada sobre el marco de trabajo CAL en la página web de CARE: http://www.careclimatechange.org/Actividades de aprendizaje Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaResumen: El modelo de los cinco capitales, desarrollado por el Foro para el Futuro, sirve de marco para explicar la riqueza, los recursos y el flujo en términos de cinco tipos de \"capitales\".1. Capital natural.-Los recursos naturales (energía, medio ambiente y materia) y los procesos que necesitan las organizaciones para producir sus productos y prestar sus servicios.2. Capital social.-Todo valor agregado por las relaciones, las asociaciones y la cooperación humana a las actividades y a los resultados económicos de una organización.3. Capital humano.-Incorpora la salud, el conocimiento, las habilidades, los productos intelectuales, la motivación y la capacidad a las relaciones de una persona.4. Capital físico o construido.-Se refiere a los activos materiales y a la infraestructura física, familiar, comunitaria y productiva que son propios, alquilados o controlados por una organización o comunidad, tales como herramientas, tecnología, maquinaria, edificaciones y toda forma de infraestructura.5. Capital financiero.-Refleja el poder productivo y el valor de los otros cuatro tipos de capitales, e incluye aquellos activos monetarios de una organización que se pueden comercializar (incluye ahorros, préstamos y donaciones).Aplicaciones: El modelo de los cinco capitales se complementa con herramientas analíticas de género, como el análisis socioeconómico y de género y los lineamientos de CARE para el empoderamiento de la mujer. De manera similar a la capacidad de adaptación local, el enfoque de los cinco capitales puede agregar aspectos adicionales para promover un enfoque de desarrollo integral.Aunque el modelo ha sido desarrollado para satisfacer las necesidades de empresas sostenibles y una economía ecológica, la aplicación de estos cinco tipos de capitales a la investigación sobre el cambio climático puede ser útil para analizar el desarrollo a nivel comunitario de una forma más integral y a largo plazo. Los cinco capitales también pueden ayudar a los investigadores a facilitar en cuáles capitales se ha hecho poco o demasiado énfasis en la investigación sobre género y cambio climático.Si desea una explicación más detallada sobre el marco de trabajo de los cinco capitales, consulte la página web del Foro para el Futuro: http://www.forumforthefuture.orgParte 2 aCtividades de aPrendizaje Participantes: De 10 a 25. Preferiblemente, un número similar de hombres y mujeres.Parte A -género y sexo Paso 1. Se pide a los participantes que piensen en las primeras palabras que se les vengan a la mente cuando escuchan las palabras \"hombre\" y \"mujer\". Se escriben las respuestas del grupo en dos columnas en un papelógrafo: \"HOMBRE\" y \"MUJER\".Asegúrese de que se incluyan algunas palabras relacionadas con características biológicas; por ejemplo, \"pene\" en el caso de hombre, \"senos\" o \"menstruación en el caso de mujer. Los componentes biológicos aparecen resaltados en negrilla en el listado siguiente.Respuestas posibles en la definición de sexo y género Paso 2. Cuando se hayan completado los listados, la persona que facilita hace las preguntas de verificación y promueve el intercambio de ideas en cuanto a si algunos de los roles se pueden invertir.• ¿Se pueden utilizar algunas de las palabras de la lista \"hombre\" para describir a las mujeres también?• ¿Se pueden utilizar algunas de las palabras de la lista \"mujer\" para describir a los hombres también?• ¿Cuáles de las palabras son exclusivas de los hombres o las mujeres?• ¿Puede una mujer ser policía? ¿esposo? ¿padre? ¿poderosa? ¿libre? ¿fuerte? ¿graciosa? ¿generosa? ¿sostén de la familia? ¿noble? ¿infiel?• ¿Pueden las mujeres beber?• ¿Puede una mujer tener pene?• Si las mujeres están en capacidad de ser policías (por ejemplo), ¿por qué hay tan pocas mujeres policía?• ¿Puede un hombre cocinar? ¿ir al mercado? ¿ser delicado? ¿ser sumiso? ¿ser hermoso? ¿tener senos? ¿ser chismoso? ¿ser amable, de buen corazón? ¿menstruar? ¿ser atractivo? ¿ser esposa? ¿puede un hombre ser justo? ¿ser pasivo? ¿ser tolerante? ¿ser obediente?• Si los hombres pueden cocinar o ir al mercado, ¿por qué no hay más hombres que cocinen o hagan las compran para sus hogares?• ¿Por qué algunos hombres que trabajan como cocineros no cocinan para sus propias familias?Se debe explicar que estas listas de verificación ilustran las diferencias entre sexo y género. Consulte las definiciones de la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) en cuanto a sexo y género.El sexo se refiere a las características biológicas que definen a los seres humanos como hombre o mujer. El género se refiere a los atributos y a las oportunidades económicas, sociales y culturales que se tienen en un momento dado, por el hecho de ser hombre o mujer.Paso 3. Se divide a los participantes en grupos de cuatro a cinco personas del mismo sexo. Se les pide a los grupos que traten de explicar o representar gráficamente lo que ellos entienden por hombre o mujer ideal. El grupo podrá hacer uso de hojas de papel y marcadores. Cuando hayan terminado, se le pide a cada grupo que exponga ante todos los participantes.» Si se cuenta con los materiales, los participantes pueden utilizar arcilla para modelar, tela, globos, alambres, lápices y otros materiales para hacer una escultura.» Dependiendo del tiempo disponible y del número de participantes, se le puede pedir a cada grupo que haga dos dibujos (un hombre y una mujer) o solamente un dibujo.Reacciones comunes a la actividad de diferenciar entre género y sexo A continuación se presentan algunas de las reacciones más comunes que tienen los participantes después de finalizar esta actividad. Para iniciar el intercambio de opiniones con el grupo, use algunas o todas las preguntas de la lista de verificación 2 como punto de partida; haga preguntas adicionales de sondeo si fuese necesario. Estimule el debate y esté listo para analizar los temas delicados o controversiales que pudieran aparecer.A continuación se incluyen ejemplos de respuestas en algunas de las preguntas para dar una idea de hacia dónde se dirigen las preguntas. Resiliencia: capacidad de prevenir desastres y crisis, así como de anticipar, asimilar, ajustarse o recuperarse de manera oportuna, eficiente y sostenible. Esto incluye la protección, la restauración y el mejoramiento de los medios de vida frente a las amenazas que afectan a la agricultura, la alimentación, la seguridad alimentaria y la inocuidad alimentaria.Ejemplo de la vida real: Dimensión de género: ¿Cómo afecta a los hombres y a las mujeres?Definición 9:Riesgo: es la combinación de la probabilidad (o la frecuencia) de ocurrencia de un riesgo específico que ocasiona consecuencias adversas y la magnitud de dichas consecuencias, dada la interacción del riesgo con las propiedades del sistema expuesto.Ejemplo de la vida real:Dimensión de género: ¿Cómo afecta a los hombres y a las mujeres? Paso 2. Se le pide a cada grupo que exponga el resultado de su trabajo. Se analizan los distintos escenarios y se les pregunta a los participantes si las definiciones concuerdan con los ejemplos y si las dimensiones de género de cada escenario tienen sentido. Quien facilita debe ser capaz de evaluar el nivel de claridad que tienen los participantes en cuanto a los temas de género y cambio climático. Asegúrese de aclarar los distintos conceptos y obtener ejemplos de parte de las personas participantes. aprendizajeParte B -vulnerabilidad al cambio climático Paso 1. Quien facilita reagrupa a los participantes y les explica que desea recopilar las diferentes definiciones que se han analizado para evaluar el concepto de vulnerabilidad y cómo esta afecta de diferente manera a hombres, mujeres y menores, y a los distintos grupos sociales.Es importante dejar en claro que la vulnerabilidad se refiere a la capacidad de un grupo social de adaptarse o cambiar, dependiendo en gran parte de sus activos. Por consiguiente, los activos de las mujeres determinan en gran medida cómo se verán afectadas y cómo responderán a los impactos del cambio climático. Tanto los riesgos directos como los indirectos pueden afectar sus oportunidades de obtener los resultados deseados de sus medios de vida, el tiempo que tienen disponible para cuestiones personales y la expectativa de vida en general. Además de agravar los riesgos existentes, el cambio climático puede revelar nuevos riesgos que han estado ocultos.Paso 2. Quien facilita presenta el siguiente diagrama (Figura 3) al grupo y se toma el tiempo para explicar el concepto de vulnerabilidad. Solicite al grupo que piense en un evento de exposición (p.e., inundación, sequía o enfermedad), sus posibles impactos (a nivel de hogar, en términos de seguridad alimentaria, ingresos, salud, empoderamiento de la mujer, aspectos culturales u otras dimensiones socioeconómicas), sus capacidades de adaptación más importantes (capacidades actuales de las mujeres en áreas rurales) y cómo estos aspectos afectan la vulnerabilidad de las mujeres en la comunidad.Paso 4. Como mecanismo para profundizar en la elaboración del tema, la persona que facilita podría trabajar cada escenario pero cambiando el grupo meta. Si se ha trabajado un escenario enfocado en menores de edad, se puede repetir el escenario con población adulta mayor. Si se ha trabajado un escenario enfocado en las mujeres, se puede luego analizar cómo difiere la situación para los hombres. Se deben señalar las diferencias después de haber concluido el análisis de cada escenario. Utilice la matriz anterior como referencia para el trabajo en grupos.Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaActividad 3: Ejercicio de reflexiónTodos hemos participado de alguna actividad colectiva en nuestras vidas; por ejemplo, la votación es una forma de participación colectiva en un proceso democrático. Es probable que muchos de nosotros hayamos utilizado enfoques participativos para hacer actividades en nuestra vida profesional, sea en la oficina, al capacitar a otras personas o al trabajar en una comunidad.Divida al equipo de trabajo en grupos de tres personas y pídales que contesten las siguientes preguntas:¿En qué tipos de proyectos participativos ha participado usted? Elabore una lista de los proyectos o actividades mencionadas; pida a cada persona que describa el proyecto que mencionó.¿Tienen otros ejemplos de actividades o proyectos participativos? De nuevo, haga un listado y solicite que los describan brevemente.Para cada proyecto, ¿qué nivel de participación considera haber logrado en los grupos meta del proyecto y por qué? Utilice la tipología de Pretty et al. (1995). Para efectos del proyecto, ¿fue óptimo ese nivel? ¿Qué habría podido hacer el equipo del proyecto o de investigación para mejorar el nivel de participación?Permita que los grupos trabajen con todos los ejemplos mencionados. Solicite que cada grupo escoja uno de los ejemplos con los que trabajaron y lo presente ante el grupo en pleno; asegúrese de que se describa el proyecto, el nivel de participación logrado y cómo se habría podido mejorar la participación.Paso 1. Se divide el equipo en los mismos grupos de tres personas y se le da a cada grupo una copia de la siguiente actividad para que la lleven a cabo. Estos ejemplos han sido adaptados de un manual para profesionales de la organización One Health (Hannah y Jost 2011, p. 27).Paso 2. Después de finalizar el ejercicio, pida a cada grupo que regrese a la lista de proyectos participativos del Ejercicio 1 y dialoguen acerca de las siguientes preguntas, para cada uno de los proyectos:Después de una reflexión por parte de la persona que mencionó el proyecto, ¿qué tipo(s) de sesgo se presentaron en ese proyecto? Utilizar la tipología de Chambers (1983).A menudo, estos tipos de sesgos se introducen porque involucramos a distintos actores, los cuales tienen sus propias prioridades individuales. ¿Qué habría podido hacer usted para «controlar» el sesgo que identificó?Introducción Conceptos básicos Logística y guía de planeación Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaEn los espacios en blanco, identifique el tipo de sesgo asociado a cada situación en particular.1. Una madre menciona que una nueva enfermedad está afectando a sus hijos. Ella describe síntomas clínicos similares a los observados en casos de dengue, enfermedad que se ha presentado en el área durante bastante tiempo. El investigador supone que la madre está equivocada al afirmar que se trata de una nueva enfermedad.Tipo de sesgo: ______________________________________________________________.2. Un facilitador le pregunta a un funcionario del Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadería sobre la ubicación de comunidades que estén presentando altos niveles de incidencia de enfermedades del ganado. El funcionario le envía a la aldea ubicada sobre una carretera principal entre dos pueblos importantes.Tipo de sesgo: ______________________________________________________________.3. El trabajo de campo se lleva a cabo durante los meses de junio a agosto. Quien facilita pregunta a los miembros de la comunidad sobre los problemas agrícolas que se presentan en su comunidad.Tipo de sesgo: ______________________________________________________________.4. Se le pregunta a un líder de la comunidad sobre una enfermedad prenatal asociada con pobreza e inseguridad alimentaria. Él niega la existencia de dicha enfermedad en su comunidad, pero afirma que se han presentado casos en una comunidad cercana.Tipo de sesgo: ______________________________________________________________.5. Un facilitador analiza, junto con un grupo focal, si la información climática que se ha recibido recientemente es útil para la agricultura en una comunidad. Los hombres contestan la mayoría de las preguntas con seguridad, mientras que las mujeres se sientan alrededor, sin expresar su opinión al respecto.Tipo de sesgo: ______________________________________________________________.6. Varias comunidades en una región cuentan con monitores de la comunidad que han recibido capacitación de parte de una ONG sobre la lectura de pluviómetros y han distribuido información meteorológica o climática. Un funcionario de la ONG recomienda incluir estos poblados en un estudio, porque los monitores de la comunidad conocen muy bien las prácticas agrícolas relacionadas con el impacto del cambio climático en su comunidad.Tipo de sesgo: ______________________________________________________________.En el transcurso del proyecto, ¿recopiló usted información de informantes? Piense en alguno de los informantes con los que habló y pregúntese si es posible que tal persona le haya proporcionado información sesgada. ¿Qué le hace sospechar que la información estuvo sesgada? ¿Qué habría podido hacer usted para sondear y triangular dicha información para comprender el sesgo y balancearlo con otra información?Pídale a su equipo que identifique un nuevo lugar en el país en donde desearían trabajar para ayudar a una comunidad agrícola con su adaptación al cambio climático. El primer paso del equipo sería trabajar con la comunidad para identificar cuáles son los problemas relacionados con el cambio climático y cuáles posibles soluciones ya se han identificado y si es posible implementarlas en mayor escala.El equipo piensa realizar esta tarea mediante la IAP. Identifique los miembros de la comunidad que el equipo de investigación desearía incluir en la actividad de IAP y justifique los criterios para su selección Para cada miembro de la comunidad responda las siguientes preguntas:¿Qué obstáculos enfrenta este miembro de la comunidad para su participación?Si este miembro de la comunidad no participa, ¿cómo se podría sesgar el estudio?¿Cómo se podrían superar las barreras para la participación e incluir a este miembro de la comunidad en el estudio? La identidad de una persona facilitadora puede desempeñar un papel importante en la configuración del proceso de investigación. La reflexión sobre el poder, los privilegios, las actitudes y los comportamientos dentro del ámbito de la investigación puede ayudar a desentrañar algunos de los factores que determinan las dinámicas de las entrevistas o de los grupos focales. Este ejercicio consiste en ayudar a los facilitadores a identificar diferentes aspectos de su identidad, cómo son percibidos y cómo negocian su propio poder en el ámbito de la investigación.La \"rueda de la identidad\" (Figura 4) representa diez aspectos de la identidad de una persona. Estos aspectos se pueden ajustar, si fuese necesario, y tienen como propósito servir de herramienta de auto-reflexión para comprender la posición de una persona en diferentes comunidades.Paso 1. Piense en una experiencia de investigación específica en la que haya participado anteriormente. Puede ser una experiencia como facilitador o simplemente como \"persona externa\" en una comunidad en la que trabajó.Cada participante puede tomar hasta diez minutos para marcar un punto en cada escala de identidad. Se debe indicar cómo cada aspecto puede reforzar o desacreditar su posición en una entrevista o en un grupo focal. Entre más cerca se encuentra la marca del centro de la rueda de identidad, mayor será la percepción del aspecto como \"incapacitante\" y, por el contrario, entre más alejada esté del centro de la rueda de identidad, más habilitante será el aspecto para usted como investigador/a. Sugiera a los participantes que usen las preguntas de la lista de verificación 1 para completar el ejercicio. Complete cada una de estas mediciones y conecte los puntos para obtener una rueda de identidad de personalidad basada en su reflexión sobre una situación de investigación específica.Lista de verificación 1: desarrollo de la rueda de la identidad• ¿Cómo ayudan las percepciones de otras personas a superar ciertas barreras con los grupos de la comunidad?• ¿Se percibe el aspecto de manera similar entre los distintos grupos de la comunidad? Por ejemplo, mujeres mayores y mujeres jóvenes, hombres mayores y hombres jóvenes; personas de menor o mayor estatus socioeconómico.• ¿Gana usted respeto gracias a ese aspecto?• ¿El aspecto hace que las personas se sientan cómodas?• ¿Le permite el aspecto tener acceso a cierta información?• ¿Cómo modifica usted su comportamiento para ajustarse a estas percepciones?• ¿Cómo modifica usted su gestión de facilitación para ajustarse a estas percepciones?Paso 2. Comparta su rueda de identidad con otras personas en el grupo; explique cómo los distintos aspectos afectan su enfoque de investigación. Tenga en cuenta las siguientes preguntas:¿Se pueden modificar o controlar estos aspectos? ¿Están relacionados los diferentes aspectos? ¿De qué manera?¿Son algunos aspectos menos importantes que otros? ¿Por qué? La auto-reflexión puede ser una habilidad crucial para los profesionales. Muchos profesionales necesitan desarrollar empatía con las personas y las comunidades con las que trabajan. La empatía es la capacidad de reconocer y comprender las ideas y los sentimientos de otras personas. Al tener en cuenta los aspectos humanos, los investigadores pueden desarrollar mejores relaciones, hacer preguntas más relevantes y comprender mejor las complejas perspectivas y motivaciones asociadas con la toma de decisiones.Paso 1. Solicite a los participantes que formen grupos pequeños de 2 o 3 personas.Paso 2. Analice junto con todo el grupo las características del \"participante ideal en la investigación\"; es decir, a quién está dirigido el programa. ¿Se trata de un joven en una comunidad rural? ¿Una madre que sostiene a una familia grande? ¿Cuáles son las voces más importantes que usted y su equipo deben escuchar? Paso 3. Después de haber decidido sobre una persona (o personas) específica, redacte un enunciado sobre el punto de vista que se relacione con la agricultura, el cambio climático o el género. Utilice el siguiente formato para estructurar dicho enunciado o afirmación. Ejemplos:Una joven de esta comunidad debe desplazarse a un sitio distante para recoger agua durante una sequía.Una mujer casada de esta comunidad se ve afectada por violencia intrafamiliar.Paso 4. Teniendo en mente a la persona ideal, tómese el tiempo para completar cada una de las secciones del mapa de empatía. La siguiente actividad de reflexión puede ayudarle a comprender la necesidad del análisis de género y los metodologías de trabajo para el desarrollo integral.1. Identificar las fortalezas y debilidades de su organización o proyecto con respecto al género y la inclusión.2. Identificar los marcos de trabajo más apropiados para el tipo de trabajo que usted realiza actualmente.Participantes: De 10 a 25 personas Paso 1. Tómese un tiempo para reflexionar sobre la manera en que los distintos marcos de trabajo se relacionan con su trabajo en general, o con el de su organización. ¿Cuáles son los vacíos que se deben llenar? ¿Cuáles marcos de trabajo pueden ayudar a llenar esos vacíos y por qué?1. Programas y servicios de género e inclusión social: Explique cómo se abordan actualmente en su organización los temas de género en los programas de desarrollo o investigación.2. Mencione ejemplos de políticas, proyectos o servicios que abordan satisfactoriamente los temas de género y diferenciación social en su organización o en su trabajo:3. ¿Qué marcos de trabajo se ajustarían más a los proyectos actuales o programados en su organización? ¿Cómo o cuáles de los componentes de este marco de trabajo agrega valor a su organización? Su equipo de investigación constituye la base de su proyecto de investigación. Para el desarrollo de un sólido equipo de trabajo se requiere orientación y el desarrollo intencional de capacidades en los procesos de género e investigación-acción participativa. La inversión de tiempo en el desarrollo del equipo puede en realidad determinar la calidad de la investigación.Como investigadora principal o coordinadora del proyecto de investigación, usted tiene la responsabilidad de seleccionar a los miembros del equipo de investigación y desarrollar su capacidades. Específicamente, pudiera ser necesario que se contraten, como mínimo, dos personas locales para la toma de notas (relatores) y dos personas para la facilitación.Involucrar a líderes locales en este proceso puede ser útil para promover la transparencia y la participación; asimismo, puede facilitar las actividades de investigación en la fase preparatoria.Se debe prestar especial atención a la composición de género del equipo, tanto en la facilitación como en la relatoría. Esto permitirá máxima flexibilidad cuando se realicen las sesiones de los grupos focales. Los miembros del equipo deben anticipar que tendrán que ajustar sus roles u opiniones para superar los desafíos de desarrollar confianza y espacios de investigación que tomen en cuenta los temas de género. Contar con facilitadoras puede mejorar la confianza en los grupos focales de mujeres. En otros casos, tener facilitadores de distinto género podría funcionar mejor.Habilidades prácticas que deben tener las personas que faciliten y tomen notas:-Alguna experiencia con el trabajo de campo o con investigación acción participativa.-Algún conocimiento técnico de los temas de desarrollo, género y cambio climático.-Familiaridad con la comunidad local (en caso de no pertenecer a la comunidad).-Sensibilidad cultural a las prácticas de la comunidad.-Domino del idioma local.Después de haber seleccionado el personal, se debe dedicar un tiempo a orientar y capacitar a cada miembro del equipo para que entiendan bien sus funciones y responsabilidades y permitir que trabajen conjuntamente por un objetivo común. Es importante que todos los miembros del equipo tengan claridad de los siguientes puntos:1. El objetivo de la investigación. ¿Cuál es el objetivo global de la investigación? ¿Se trata de una investigación inductiva o deductiva? En cada caso, ¿qué significa eso? ¿Cuáles son las principales cuestiones o temáticas de investigación que se desea explorar? ¿Cómo encajará la recopilación y el análisis de datos en el contexto institucional general de su organización o del proyecto?Si se trabaja a partir de un marco analítico, es recomendable presentarlo durante las primeras etapas del proceso, explicar la terminología y analizar las preguntas, indicadores y/o temas de investigación, para garantizar que todos los miembros del equipo comprendan plenamente el objetivo. De esta manera se orienta el trabajo de facilitación y toma de notas y, a la vez, que las tareas sean más enfocadas, relevantes y adecuadas.2. Lógica y expectativas. ¿Por qué se ha optado por la IAP que tiene en cuenta las cuestiones de género? ¿Cuáles son sus expectativas y su visión de un proyecto «exitoso» de investigación de género y socialmente inclusivo? ¿Cómo lo definen los miembros de su equipo de trabajo? ¿Cuáles son sus expectativas y su visión con respecto a una participación «exitosa»? ¿Cómo la definen los miembros de su equipo de trabajo? Es conveniente tener este acercamiento desde las primeras etapas para establecer las normas y los sistemas de apoyo del equipo; así, no solamente se aclara la lógica de la investigación, sino también se ayuda a los equipos a comprometerse mutuamente y con el proyecto.Se deben aclarar además las expectativas acerca del tiempo necesario, la remuneración y todas las funciones esperadas; por ejemplo, desde el primer momento se debe dejar en claro que entre las tareas de los miembros locales están no solo la traducción, sino también participar en el registro de la información todos los días. Los miembros del equipo deben entender claramente lo que se espera de ellos para mantener la unidad y la transparencia del equipo.• La calidad del estudio depende de la información recopilada por quien toma notas. • Durante la capacitación, el equipo de investigación debe decidir acerca del nivel de profundidad de las notas. En el caso de una investigación cualitativa, resumir no es suficiente; es necesario anotar citas textuales de las intervenciones y relatos de experiencias. • Si la carga de trabajo es demasiada para una sola persona, considere la posibilidad de incorporar un segundo relator al equipo. • Durante la revisión y prueba previa de las herramientas, quienes van a fungir como facilitadores y relatores deben practicar juntos algunas técnicas para garantizar la calidad de la información anotada. Una de ellas es el parafraseo -quien facilita repite lo que el participante dice para validar el comentario del participante y permitir que el relator tenga más tiempo para registrar con exactitud el comentario o la experiencia-. • Además, durante la revisión y prueba previa de las herramientas, el equipo debe completar la parte de ingreso de datos con el fin de acostumbrarse y descubrir formas de mejorar la toma de notas para la recopilación de información real. • Para las pruebas reales, las sesiones se pueden grabar pero solamente con el fin de ayudar a los relatores. El equipo siempre debe tomar notas detalladas. • En las pruebas reales, el equipo de investigación debe trabajar junto al finalizar cada día para completar la transcripción de las notas y la recopilación de intervenciones y anécdotas. No se puede contratar a alguien para que realice el registro de datos cualitativos. Solamente el equipo de investigación puede compilar una base de datos y el relator juega un papel clave en este proceso.Actividades de aprendizaje Introducción Conceptos básicos Módulos de investigación Análisis Bibliografía3. Revisión de la metodología y pruebas previas. Para muchos equipos, los enfoques participativos pueden desafiar su propia sensación de comodidad y revelar sesgos. Es importante dedicar un tiempo para asegurarse de que todos estén cómodos con los enfoques participativos y para abordar los temores que los miembros del equipo pudieran tener. Para sentirse más cómodo con la IAP, es aconsejable analizar cada herramienta junto con el grupo. Primero se analiza el propósito y las prioridades y, luego, se recrean situaciones reales en las que los miembros del grupo asumen un papel. La recreación de situaciones les permitirá a los miembros de su equipo empezar a comprender cómo se utilizan las herramientas, cómo trabajan en equipo, qué ocasiona confusión o significa un desafío para quienes facilitan y toman notas En estos simulacros se debe practicar, en particular, la toma de notas, pues esta actividad es tan importante (y quizás más) que la facilitación en el proceso de recopilación de información. Consulte el recuadro sobre recomendaciones para la preparación de las personas encargadas de tomar notas (relatores).Cada actividad debiera probarse previamente en una comunidad antes de iniciar el proceso de evaluación. Esta prueba previa en una comunidad es crucial para ayudar al equipo a familiarizarse y sentirse cómodos con el uso de las herramientas en una situación real y, a la vez, para decidir cómo se pueden utilizar las herramientas de la mejor manera en el contexto de investigación. Además, los miembros del equipo aprenderán a trabajar juntos para recolectar más información a medida que facilitadores, traductores y relatores practiquen las técnicas para la recopilación efectiva, ética y detallada de información.Si se van a utilizar grabadoras o videograbadoras, el equipo debe recibir instrucciones sobre cómo manejarlas. Es recomendable utilizar grabadoras, pero solamente si las comunidades están de acuerdo y solo como fuente de información de apoyo. La toma de notas y el registro de información en formularios deben suministrar la mayor parte del contenido para la base de datos.4. Desarrollo de capacidades sobre género y cambio climático. Es muy aconsejable repasar junto con el equipo de investigación los conceptos básicos y las actividades de aprendizaje que se describen en este manual, antes de iniciar la investigación. Cuando se llega a la investigación teniendo clara la terminología y bien informados sobre el tema y los conceptos de la investigación, el equipo podrá trabajar de una manera conjunta y efectiva.Antes de visitar la comunidad o las comunidades para llevar a cabo el trabajo de investigación, es indispensable realizar una investigación preliminar. A continuación se ofrecen dos listas de preguntas sobre (1) el ámbito institucional (quiénes son los actores) y (2) las tendencias sociales, económicas y medioambientales. Ambas son de utilidad útiles para garantizar la identificación de los problemas socioeconómicos y de género desde el comienzo de la visita de campo.• Hay que asegurarse de recopilar toda la información disponible sobre el área; por ejemplo,• Estadísticas e informes de ministerios y entidades gubernamentales• Documentos de programas y proyectos de organismos gubernamentales y no gubernamentales• Estudios y encuestas de universidades e instituciones de investigación Esta información preliminar no debe guiar el análisis, pero puede brindar información sobre actores y problemas claves sobre los cuales se debe estar enterado. Es posible que las respuestas a preguntas no se obtengan fácilmente; sin embargo, es conveniente estar consciente del contexto local en la medida de lo posible.Lista de verificación 1: preguntas sugeridas para conocer el contexto institucional• ¿Existen grupos locales organizados en torno a problemas medioambientales (cambio climático, usuarios del bosque, usuarios del agua)? ¿Participan mujeres y hombres en dichos grupos?• ¿Existen grupos locales organizados en torno a problemas económicos (créditos, producción agrícola)? ¿Participan mujeres y hombres en dichos grupos?• ¿Existen grupos locales organizados en torno a problemas sociales (salud, alfabetismo, religión, juventud)?• ¿Existen grupos exclusivamente para mujeres? De ser así, ¿cuál es el enfoque de dichos grupos? ¿Qué ganan las mujeres con estos grupos? ¿Están abiertos los grupos a todas las mujeres?• ¿Existen grupos en los que se excluye a las mujeres? ¿Cuáles? ¿Por qué? ¿Qué pierden las mujeres debido a su falta de participación?• ¿Existen grupos exclusivamente para la población de escasos recursos, separada por género? De ser así, ¿cuál es el enfoque de dichos grupos? ¿Qué gana la población de escasos recursos con estos grupos?• ¿Se excluyen a hombres y mujeres pobres de alguno de los grupos locales? De ser así, ¿de cuáles grupos? ¿Por qué? ¿Qué pierde la población de escasos recursos por su falta de participación?• ¿Existen grupos exclusivamente para jóvenes y están separados por género? De ser así, ¿cuál es el enfoque de dichos grupos? ¿Qué ganan los jóvenes con estos grupos?• ¿Existen grupos de los que se excluyen a las personas jóvenes? ¿Cuáles? ¿Por qué? ¿Qué pierden los jóvenes debido a la falta de participación?• ¿Cuáles son los vínculos entre los grupos u organizaciones locales y las instituciones externas (ONG, partidos políticos, entidades gubernamentales)?Logística y guía de planeaciónLista de verificación 2: preguntas sugeridas para investigar las tendencias locales• ¿Cuáles son las tendencias medioambientales más importantes (sequía, deforestación, erosión, otras tendencias meteorológicas)?• ¿Cuáles son las tendencias más importantes en la producción agrícola y la seguridad alimentaria?• ¿Cuáles son las tendencias económicas más importantes (empleo, jornal, precio, costo de la vida, rendimiento de cultivos y número de animales)?• ¿Cuáles son las tendencias demográficas más importantes (índice de natalidad, mortalidad infantil, migración interna, emigración, aumento en el número de hogares con jefatura femenina o de menores, el papel del VIH/SIDA?• Qué otras tendencias son importantes (gobernanza, cambios sociales, cambios en las políticas gubernamentales)?• ¿Cuáles son las relaciones entre estas tendencias?• ¿Existen vínculos o causas que se deriven de los niveles intermedio o macro?• ¿Qué está mejorando? ¿Qué está empeorando?• ¿Qué tendencias afectan a hombres y mujeres o a niños y niñas de manera diferente? ¿Cómo?• ¿Qué tendencias impactan más fuertemente a las personas pobres que a las ricas (salud, acceso a recursos, etc.)?• ¿Existe alguna diferencia en los roles de género por etnia, clase social, etc.?A medida que se exploran estos temas, se debe tener presente que las preguntas son un punto de partida. Cuando se ingresa a la comunidad, es posible encontrar que las personas con las que se habla perciben tendencias diferentes o priorizan los desafíos de manera diferente a lo que se averiguó durante la preparación preliminar. Además, es posible que la comunidad utilice términos o maneras diferentes de expresar lo que perciben sobre su entorno. Será necesario unificar el lenguaje, el vocabulario y las barreras conceptuales. Además, será necesario tener cuidado de no guiar la conversación hacia las tendencias sobre las cuales se ha leído, sino más bien utilizar dicha información solamente para facilitar el diálogo entre los miembros de la comunidad (FAO 2012, p. 37-38).Logística y guía de planeación Decidir dónde se trabajará y con quién se hablará forma parte de la \"estrategia de muestreo\". Esta estrategia debe basarse en sus objetivos y en los de su organización. Para comenzar, trabajemos con algunas preguntas sencillas:• ¿Cuál es la misión de su organización?______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________• ¿Por qué está llevando a cabo el presente estudio? ¿Qué va a hacer su organización con la información que se recopile? ______________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________ Este es el objetivo del estudio. Ahora está listo para decidir dónde se realizará el estudio:• Si su organización trabaja en un lugar específico, como una cierta comunidad o distrito, su estudio se realizará en dicho lugar.• Si su organización está buscando un nuevo lugar para trabajar, se debe tener en cuenta la misión de la organización y escoger un lugar que concuerde con dicha misión.» ¿La misión consiste en ayudar a los agricultores a mitigar el cambio climático? En ese caso, debe seleccionar un lugar que ofrezca la posibilidad de almacenar carbono en los campos de los cultivos y pastizales, o mediante la conservación de los bosques.» ¿La misión consiste en ayudar a los agricultores a adaptarse al cambio climático? En este caso, se debe seleccionar una comunidad donde los agricultores ya hayan empezado a notar el impacto de los cambios en el clima.» ¿La misión consiste en ayudar a los agricultores a tener acceso y utilizar información sobre el clima? En este caso, se deben seleccionar contemplar lugares que tengan buen acceso a la radio y a buenos servicios de apoyo.Con el fin de facilitar su trabajo, es aconsejable seleccionar comunidades que cumplan con los siguientes criterios:• Un lugar donde la misión de su organización se pueda realizar y donde se pueda tener un impacto significativo.• Los líderes de la comunidad deben estar dispuestos y en capacidad de suministrar información relacionada con lo que se desea estudiar. Además, la comunidad no debe ser muy pequeña (no menos de 50 hogares).• Una comunidad se define como:Logística y guía de planeación» Un lugar donde las personas actúan como \"comunidad\", en el sentido de que existe un nivel de interacción y dependencia entre ellas.» Un lugar donde es posible definir quién forma parte o no de la comunidad.» Un lugar donde es posible comunicarse con los habitantes (p.e. a través de un líder o reunión con los pobladores) (FAO 2012, p. 62).Para seleccionar la comunidad ideal para trabajar, es necesario decidir si se requiere seleccionarla aleatoria o deliberadamente.La selección intencional es recomendable en las siguientes circunstancias:• Cuando se tiene una o varias comunidades donde se sabe que se va a trabajar durante los próximos años y se desea codesarrollar conocimiento con los residentes para lograr una comprensión profunda de los problemas y las prioridades y una comprensión común sobre la manera de proceder en el futuro.• Cuando se sabe que hay algo único o especial en una comunidad, que le ofrecerá información y puntos de vista a los que no se tendría acceso en ningún otro lugar.• Cuando su organización va a trabajar en una área extensa, como una provincia o una cuenca hidrográfica, y no es posible estudiar todas las comunidades; entonces, se selecciona una muestra representativa de todas las comunidades.• Cuando se desea realizar un análisis estadístico de los resultados, es necesario aleatorizar la muestra y seleccionar suficientes comunidades a encuestar para que sean representativas de la diversidad de todas las aldeas.Si se desea seleccionar las comunidades aleatoriamente, siga los siguientes pasos:1. Demarque el área de trabajo. Esta es toda el área en la que su organización desearía trabajar en el futuro. Se puede usar un mapa y un marcador rojo para dibujar una línea alrededor del área.2. Si el área es uniforme (un solo distrito, una sola cuenca hidrográfica, etc.) se puede utilizar un muestreo aleatorio simple, lo cual es una buena manera de involucrar a los líderes de la comunidad para que puedan ver que no hay sesgos en la selección:a. Identifique todas las comunidades en el área.b. Escriba el nombre de cada comunidad en tiras de papel por separado, doble las tiras y colóquelas en un sombrero o en un cesto.c. Saque una tira a la vez y escriba el nombre de la comunidad hasta que tenga el número de comunidades que necesita muestrear.3. Para un muestreo aleatorio simple se puede utilizar una hoja electrónica en Excel para reducir posibles sesgos en la selección de los participantes:a. Digite el listado de comunidades en una hoja electrónica en Excel de la siguiente manera: 4. Si el área no es uniforme (diferentes tipos de terrenos, distritos diferentes, sistemas de producción diferentes, etnias diferentes en distintos lugares) debe estratificarse la muestra. Para ello se crea una hoja de cálculo diferente para cada tipo de categoría. Por ejemplo, puede tener una hoja de cálculo para comunidades en valles, otra para comunidades en montañas y otra para comunidades en llanuras. Para cada hoja de cálculo, siga los pasos indicados anteriormente.Determinación del tamaño de la muestra: si se escogen las comunidades mediante selección aleatoria, primero se debe determinar el número de comunidades que se deben estudiar.1. Cuente el número de comunidades en el área donde va a trabajar durante los próximos años.2. Calcule el tamaño de la muestra a con dos fórmulas básicas; una para calcular un tamaño preliminar de la muestra y otra para corregir el cálculo para una población finita (CRS 2012). Varios sitios en internet ofrecen cálculos a nivel de muestra con base en estas fórmulas; por ejemplo, las de Creative Research Systems (http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm). Nótese que al utilizar estas fórmulas para determinar cuántas comunidades se deben incluir en el estudio, el número que se utilice para pop (población) corresponde al número total de comunidades, no al número total de personas.Se observará que si se tiene un número pequeño de comunidades, el tamaño ideal de la muestra como proporción del total será bastante grande. Por ejemplo, con 70 comunidades, un intervalo de confianza de +4 y un nivel de confianza de 95%, se deben incluir 63 comunidades en el estudio. Es posible que usted considere que esto no es realista. Simplemente se debe recordar que entre menos comunidades haya en el estudio, menor será el nivel de confianza en términos de la representatividad de los resultados de toda el área. Por ejemplo, se puede tomar la decisión de incluir en el estudio el 10% de las comunidades en el área. Eso parece ser una proporción grande de las comunidades. Si tiene 70 comunidades, esto significaría estudiar siete de ellas. Pero el nivel de confianza se reduce de 95% a 35%. Los objetivos de seleccionar las comunidades aleatoriamente son los siguientes:• Evitar introducir sesgos (como el sesgo de carreteras) en la selección, de manera que, incluso si se selecciona un número pequeño de comunidades, por lo menos se habrá hecho una selección no sesgada.• Evaluar la significancia estadística de los resultados que se obtengan -si es importante que los resultados sean representativos de una población mayor, se debe hacer un esfuerzo por estudiar el número recomendado de comunidades a partir del cálculo del tamaño de la muestra.Ahora se debe decidir con cuáles personas de la comunidad (informantes) se va a hablar, al menos en el principio. Nuevamente, empecemos contestando algunas preguntas sencillas:• ¿Hay categorías específicas de personas en las que se concentra su organización (p.e. mujeres)?• ¿Hay tipos de personas más importantes para la misión de su organización? Por ejemplo, si su organización tiene como fin ayudar a los pequeños agricultores a adaptarse al cambio climático, usted pudiera enfocarse en los agricultores, y no en quienes no trabajan en la agricultura, como los fabricantes de ladrillos.• ¿Mediante la investigación preliminar se logró identificar categorías de personas que podrían estar marginadas en la comunidad (madres solteras, etnias minoritarias, familias de escasos recursos, personas sin tierra, etc.)?• ¿Hay personas en la comunidad que puedan servir como informantes claves por poseer conocimiento especial sobre un tema importante?Escriba sus respuestas. Tome nota de las categorías importantes de personas que deben absolutamente participar en los grupos focales que usted va a facilitar.Para cada herramienta que se utilice de esta guía es necesario seleccionar los informantes para establecer los grupo focales. Por consiguiente, para cada herramienta se necesita una estrategia de muestreo. Quienes utilizan esta guía, normalmente empiezan con el mapa de la comunidad que se detalla en el Módulo de coproducción del conocimiento.Conceptos básicos Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaSi está utilizando la selección intencional, consulte con los líderes comunitarios los tipos y cantidad de personas que desearía tener en cada grupo focal y coordine para que sean ellos quienes les inviten. Consulte en la sección sobre ingreso a las comunidades las sugerencias para el trabajo con los líderes y las invitaciones. En algunas comunidades es apropiado que el líder de la comunidad envíe a un mensajero hasta las casas de las personas con la invitación a participar en un grupo focal. En otras comunidades se debe enviar una carta de invitación a cada persona. En otros casos, se considera más apropiado realizar una reunión de orientación con todos los miembros de la comunidad y solicitar voluntarios para ciertos grupos focales. Si se utiliza este método, se debe prestar atención para recordar quiénes se están ofreciendo como voluntarios. Si hay categorías de personas que se están quedando por fuera, quizá sea necesario que usted o los líderes de la comunidad se comuniquen con ellos individualmente para invitarlos. Independiente del método que se utilice, no se debe sorprender cuando otras personas o transeúntes se presenten y se unan a la reunión. Cuando esto suceda, cerciórese de que el grupo focal tenga un ambiente inclusivo y que dichas personas sientan que su participación es bienvenida.Si los participantes en los grupos focales se seleccionan de manera aleatoria, se recomienda utilizar el procedimiento sugerido por FAO-CCAFS (2012):1. Desarrolle dos listas, una con los nombres de todos los hombres y otra de todas las mujeres de la comunidad. Es recomendable incluir información como grupo etario y ocupación.2. Si utiliza el método del sombrero, coloque los nombres de los hombres en tiras de papel en un sombrero y el de las mujeres en otro.a. Para el primer grupo focal de mujeres, saque nombres del sombrero y colóquelos a un lado hasta tener el número de personas que necesita en el grupo. Luego, coloque todos los nombres nuevamente en el sombrero para el próxima sorteo.b. Siga el mismo procedimiento para el primer grupo focal de hombres.c. Si es un grupo mixto, seleccione la misma cantidad de hombres y mujeres y saque el mismo número de nombres de cada sombrero.d. Para cada actividad con grupos focales, siga el mismo procedimiento.e. En algunas ocasiones, es posible que se requiera una categoría específica de hombres o mujeres; por ejemplo, hombres agricultores o mujeres jóvenes. En ese caso, vacíe el sombrero y busque a todos los hombres o mujeres que encajan en dicha categoría, luego coloque los nombres nuevamente en el sombrero para hacer la selección.3. Si utiliza Excel, cree una hoja de cálculo para hombres y otra para mujeres y siga el procedimiento desde el paso 3a hasta el paso 3m de las instrucciones mencionadas anteriormente para la selección aleatoria de las comunidades.e. Cada vez que haga una nueva selección para un nuevo grupo focal, empiece con el nombre debajo de la última persona que seleccionó y continúe en orden descendente en la lista.f. Si desea tener tipos específicos de personas, como mujeres agricultoras u hombres adultos mayores, estratifique primero la lista con base en dicha característica. Corte y pegue esos nombres en una nueva lista. Luego, siga las instrucciones para la aleatorización y selección de los informantes.Actividades de aprendizaje Introducción Conceptos básicos Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaPara la implementación de proyectos de investigación, es importante mantener una ética de investigación permanente a lo largo de todo el ciclo. Por ejemplo:• Obtenga el consentimiento -El primer paso antes de iniciar el trabajo de investigación es obtener el consentimiento de los participantes. También se debe obtener el consentimiento de los líderes que juegan un papel fundamental en la vida de la comunidad. El consentimiento puede ser verbal o escrito, pero en cualquier caso se les debe preguntar claramente a los participantes si están dispuestos en participar. A continuación se ofrece un ejemplo del lenguaje que puede utilizar para presentarse y obtener el consentimiento de la comunidad:Ejemplo de un enunciado para definir la ética de investigación\"Me llamo _____________ y me desempeño como ____________ para la organización ______________. La misión de nuestra organización consiste en ____________________ y hoy nos encontramos aquí para solicitarle su permiso con el fin de hacerles algunas preguntas sobre las diferentes características sociales, económicas y políticas de su comunidad durante el transcurso de los próximos _______ días.La información que usted nos suministre será muy valiosa para que nuestra organización se entere sobre los distintos roles y responsabilidades y sobre cómo los hombres, las mujeres y los niños y niñas de la comunidad toman las decisiones sobre el manejo de la agricultura y los recursos naturales. La mayoría de las conversaciones con ustedes se realizarán en grupos de hombres y mujeres por separado.Esperamos que usted se sienta cómodo hablando con nosotros y que podamos grabar (o tomar notas de) las valiosas ideas y opiniones que ustedes tengan a bien compartir con nosotros. Nos gustaría grabar cada conversación pues consideramos que su voz es importante y, en vez de resumir, nos interesaría captar sus ideas detalladamente. Si alguno de ustedes no se siente cómodo con esto, por favor hágamelo saber y yo me aseguraré de que no se escriba su nombre y de que la información que nos comparta sea manejada anónimamente. Su participación en este proyecto es completamente voluntaria y cada quien es libre de retirarse en cualquier momento.Si tuvieran dudas o preguntas, con mucho gusto trataremos de aclararles\".Actividades de aprendizaje Introducción Conceptos básicos Módulos de investigación Análisis Bibliografía• Explique las metas de la investigación-Se debe explicar no solamente el objetivo de la investigación, sino también como se utilizará la información en el futuro. ¿Con quién se compartirá la información?¿Qué impacto podría tener la investigación?• Garantice el anonimato-Se debe ser explícito sobre la confidencialidad y crear confianza entre los participantes para que estén seguros de que sus palabras no serán malinterpretadas ni utilizadas con fines diferentes a los indicados. No se identificarán ni se individualizarán personas sin su previo consentimiento expreso.• Seguimiento -Es recomendable que los investigadores den seguimiento al trabajo con las comunidades; se deben presentar resúmenes o hallazgos preliminares a la comunidad al finalizar el periodo de investigación. Una vez concluido todo el proceso, es conveniente regresar y presentar los resultados, las publicaciones o los planes de intervenciones en el futuro.• Compensación -Es necesario contemplar cuidadosamente los tipos de compensaciones que se les dará a los participantes. En algunos contextos, el no ofrecer una compensación a los participantes ayudar a reforzar su valía y sus derechos. En otros contextos, las comunidades esperarán una compensación monetaria debido a las normas locales y a sus relaciones con otras organizaciones de desarrollo e investigación. La remuneración que se ofrezca marcará las pautas y sentará un precedente para el trabajo que se realice con la comunidad en el futuro; no solamente para su equipo de trabajo, sino también para las otras organizaciones que vayan a trabajar con la comunidad. Además, es posible que ocasione tensiones cuando personas no seleccionadas traten de unirse a las sesiones.Una forma de compensación no remunerada es ofrecer el almuerzo durante las sesiones de trabajo con grupos focales. Este puede ser un incentivo a la participación poco costoso y transparente. Si se realizan entrevistas semi-estructuradas más extensas con personas u hogares, podría ser más apropiado darles una compensación en alimentos como granos básicos, azúcar, café, etc. Si se exige una remuneración monetaria, los miembros del equipo de investigación deben ser cuidadosos para no crear expectativas altas o irrealistas en cuanto al dinero. Averigüe cuánto vale un día de trabajo agrícola y use ese monto como referencia.Actividades de aprendizaje Introducción Conceptos básicos Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaEs muy importante establecer una comunicación buena y transparente con los líderes y personas de la comunidad con la que se va a trabajar. Asegúrese de reunirse con las autoridades de la comunidad y obtener el consentimiento de los participantes antes de realizar cualquier actividad.El equipo de investigación debe estar consciente sobre las dinámicas sociales y políticas de la comunidad en la que se trabaja. Las comunidades cuentan con líderes formales e informales que pueden ser aliados estratégicos importantes cuando se emprende una investigación. Estas personas por lo general representan a un nivel específico de la élite de la comunidad, y tienen el poder de facilitar u obstaculizar su trabajo. Por esta razón se debe guardar mucho respeto por las jerarquías que funcionan en el ámbito del liderazgo. Los líderes de la comunidad pueden dar legitimidad a su trabajo, ayudar a movilizar a los participantes y proporcionar una perspectiva valiosa sobre el tema de la investigación.Usted se debe esforzar por involucrar a las personas en posición de liderazgo en los distintos aspectos del proceso de investigación, pero no permitir que sean ellos quienes determinen o influyan en los participantes. Cerciórese de comentarles que usted está interesado en comprender las perspectivas de diferentes tipos de personas y que espera que ellos le ayuden a motivar a los miembros de la comunidad para que se expresen.Para mantener a los líderes comprometidos con el proceso, es aconsejable pedirles periódicamente que evalúen cómo van las actividades de investigación. Si tienen comentarios o sugerencias para mejorar la participación, esto podría ayudar a definir mejor sus roles como facilitadores de su trabajo.Existen diferentes maneras de ingresar a una comunidad. Es importante tener presentes los lugares y las formas de comunicación más apropiadas culturalmente; cómo dirigirse a las mujeres, a los jóvenes o a otros grupos específicos; a quiénes seleccionar en la comunidad para ganar legitimidad y presentar el proyecto de investigación.• Cartas de invitación -Si se opta por escribir cartas formales a cada participante y líder de la comunidad, se debe tener en cuenta que los hogares podrían estar registrados solamente bajo el nombre del esposo. Para invitar a las mujeres a los grupos focales por medio de cartas, podría ser necesario visitar los hogares físicamente o recurrir a los líderes para que ellos les hagan llegar las cartas a las mujeres.Recuerde especificar exactamente si se está invitando a un hombre, a una mujer, a niñas o a niños (indicando la edad) para la actividad de investigación.Dependiendo del contexto, es posible que deba ir acompañado de un líder o de un funcionario local cuando entregue las cartas (FAO 2012).• Invitaciones verbales informales-La realización de un evento público con la colaboración de los líderes locales puede ser una buena plataforma para presentar la investigación. Tenga presente que no todas las comunidades tienen el mismo nivel de alfabetismo y que las cartas no son apropiadas en todos los casos. Asegúrese de que el anuncio a la comunidad no coincida con la fecha de bodas, funerales, días festivos, días de mercado, etc.Si se desea involucrar a los jóvenes, averigüe a qué hora acaba la jornada escolar; escoja diferente lugares para dirigirse a este público.Asegúrese de bien manejar las expectativas cuando se presenta el proyecto de investigación. Tenga en claro que la palabra \"proyecto\" implica la promesa de una actividad de desarrollo. A continuación se describen algunas pautas para la introducción del trabajo a la comunidad:• Explique quién es usted y a qué se dedica su organización.• Explique el tema y el objetivo de la investigación ¿Para qué es la información?• Sea transparente sobre las fechas y el cronograma de su trabajo.• Haga promesas realistas; deje en claro que, como investigadores, su objetivo principal es reflejar las voces de la comunidad (no prestar servicios ni introducir intervenciones de desarrollo).• Solicite comentarios y permita la oportunidad de hacer preguntas.Las actividades de investigación deben concluirse d manera clara y objetiva. Como investigadores de género y de IAP, es recomendable compartir los resultados de la investigación con la comunidad en un evento público, incluso si se trata de presentar un panorama general de los resultados. Después de la presentación, aliente las preguntas y comentarios de las personas presentes. Apoye el intercambio de experiencias y deje en claro que el proceso acaba allí.Si tiene planes concretos de regresar a la comunidad, comuníqueselo a los participantes en esa reunión.Según FAO-CCAFS ( 2012), es conveniente llevar un registro escrito de todas las actividades. Este registro debe incluir información que va desde las sesiones de capacitación, la aplicabilidad de las herramientas en los ámbitos respectivos, el proceso de control de calidad, los desafíos o las barreras que se enfrentaron, hechos interesantes que se encontraron a partir de las herramientas y acciones en particular, hasta los pasos a seguir cuando se analicen los datos y se generen los informes escritos. Este registro se puede sustentar en los formularios de investigación y reuniones diarias con el equipo de investigación.Para cada una de las herramientas descritas en el siguiente módulo se ofrece un formulario que permite generar el informe final de la herramienta a partir de la información obtenida con los grupos focales. Cada formulario debe ser trabajado junto con todos los miembros del equipo al finalizar la sesión correspondiente. Es necesario recordar que no se deben sacar conclusiones propias, sino enfocarse en resumir los resultados.Actividades de aprendizaje Introducción Conceptos básicos Módulos de investigación Análisis BibliografíaAsegúrese de que se completen los formularios de investigación respectivos cada día, al finalizar las sesiones; así se garantiza que se ingresen todas las notas de los relatores. En la medida de lo posible, asegúrese de que se transcriban las citas textuales de palabras dichas por los participantes, así como las experiencias relatadas. Se debe registrar, además, toda interferencia o posible sesgo. El producto del trabajo en grupos (mapas, diagramas, etc.) debe ser fotocopiado, fotografiado, o reproducido en los formularios respectivos, para llevar un registro completo de las actividades. Los formularios y otros productos de investigación se pueden compartir a través de la plataforma interactiva en internet con profesionales e investigadores en todo el mundo.Análisis BibliografíaEl módulo de coproducción de conocimiento tiene como fin la creación de una plataforma más equitativa para generar información y una visión compartida de adaptación y resiliencia. Las herramientas detalladas a continuación han sido diseñadas para generar más transparencia y confianza entre el equipo de investigación y la comunidad, y crear un espacio de investigación que motive a los miembros de la comunidad y a grupos marginados específicos a definir sus prioridades. Mediante este módulo también es posible recuperar una amplia variedad de datos que se pueden agregar a la línea base de su estudio o proyecto.Este módulo contiene una serie de herramientas que, de ser implementadas secuencialmente, proporcionan la información preliminar necesaria para el diseño de un programa de agricultura que integre los temas de género y tenga en cuenta especialmente a los grupos más vulnerables.Mapa de recursos y usos de la comunidad Dos sesiones: hombres y mujeres Definición de la línea base para entender la distribución de la comunidad, identificar los recursos de los que depende la población para su subsistencia, los recursos deficitarios y los conflictos por los recursos, en opinión de mujeres y hombres.Mapa de la comunidad (cont.) y Árbol de metas Dos sesiones: hombres y mujeres Prioridades y visiones de la comunidad para el futuro.Una sesión mixta Diferenciación social en términos económicos para identificar a los grupos vulnerables y sus características.Empoderamiento de género, antes y ahora Dos sesiones: hombres y mujeres Definiciones de \"empoderamiento\" según los hombres y las mujeres; a partir de esas definiciones, ¿qué tan empoderadas considera cada grupo que están las mujeres actualmente y cómo se encontraban en el pasado?.Este módulo se puede utilizar de manera independiente para elaborar un programa de agricultura resistente al clima, o junto con cualquier otro módulo para desarrollar un programa con objetivos en los temas de género y cambio climático. Si se utiliza junto con otros módulos, el equipo de investigación debe planear cuidadosamente el despliegue secuencial de las herramientas para evitar la repetición. Por ejemplo, el mapa de línea base de la comunidad elaborado en el Módulo 1, se puede agregar al Módulo 2 para identificar los recursos de subsistencia y compararlo con el Módulo 3 para identificar áreas de posible mitigación. Las herramientas descritas en este módulo están diseñadas para ser desarrolladas secuencialmente. Sin embargo, si ya se cuenta con la información generada a partir de una o varias de las herramientas, se pueden omitir fácilmente para concentrar el tiempo y los recursos en las demás herramientas.En el mapa de la comunidad lo importante no es la precisión cartográfica, sino obtener información útil sobre las percepciones locales de los recursos por parte de los hombres y las mujeres. Los profesionales deben determinar el contenido del mapa enfocándose en lo que consideren importante. Es probable que la percepción de lo que es importante y el uso de los recursos varíen entre géneros y grupos vulnerables, por lo que hay que asegurarse de que se seleccionen los participantes y se conformen los grupos focales adecuadamente.Prepare para cada uno de los grupos: papelógrafos, marcadores, tiza, lápices y otros materiales que sean necesarios para el desarrollo óptimo del ejercicio ¿En cuáles recursos quiere enfocar el aprendizaje? _______________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ¿Existen maneras específicas en las que se deban desagregar los grupos para obtener información relevante de los temas de interés? ____________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Paso 1. Preséntese usted, presente a los miembros del equipo y luego explique la actividad.Paso 2. Pídales a los participantes que se presenten. Escriba el nombre y la información especial sobre cada uno (joven, adulto mayor, discapacitado, etc.) Paso 3. Pídale a uno de los participantes que sugiera un punto de referencia importante en la comunidad. Coloque una piedra en el centro del círculo y pídales a los participantes que marquen otras cosas importantes en la comunidad usando tiza u otros objetos hasta haber dibujado toda la comunidad.No se debe interrumpir a los participantes a menos que paren de dibujar o marcar, en cuyo caso se pueden hacer preguntas de seguimiento.Paso 4. Después de que cada grupo haya terminado su dibujo, hágales preguntas de seguimiento acerca de características importantes que pueden estar relacionadas con el proyecto. La siguiente lista de verificación contiene algunas sugerencias.En la ejecución de los mapas se deben utilizar símbolos, imágenes y diagramas para que las personas iletradas puedan participar.En muchas ocasiones, la manera en que un grupo decide dibujar el mapa puede reflejar las complejas agrupaciones sociales y políticas de una comunidad. Preste atención a cómo se dibujan los linderos y si se omiten del mapa a ciertos grupos étnicos, clases sociales o poblaciones marginales. Se puede llamar la atención del grupo acerca de las omisiones, aunque tal omisión ya es de por sí información valiosa. Paso 8. El mapa de la comunidad constituye una oportunidad para sondear recursos específicos, así como labores de género asociadas con ellos. En la lista de verificación 3 se ofrecen ejemplos de recursos específicos que a menudo son específicos de un género, junto con pregunta de sondeo sobre el acceso, uso y control basado.Lista Recuadro 8. variantes de mapas para actividades en la comunidad 1. Mapa de movilidad. Esta variante se puede usar para comprender la movilidad y el acceso a los recursos por género o grupo social. A partir del mapa básico de la comunidad, se puede sondear a los participantes en cuanto a con qué frecuencia, por qué y qué distancia se desplazan dentro o fuera de la comunidad. También se puede preguntar acerca de factores facilitadores o limitantes para viajar, tales como permisos requeridos, gastos, seguridad y otros factores que afectan el desplazamiento.2. Mapa de recursos actuales y pasados. Esta herramienta permite identificar recursos que antes había (p.e. hace unos 30 años) y los que existen actualmente. Este mapa se puede emplear para hablar sobre los cambios en los recursos.Se solicita a los participantes que señalen qué cosas desearían ver en su comunidad, pero que no se tienen en la actualidad -en otras palabras, hacer un dibujo de cómo les gustaría que fuera la comunidad en el futuro. Esto permite tener algunas ideas de planeación preliminar y motiva a los participantes a expresar sus opiniones desde el inicio del proceso participativo.4. Desglose social. Además de crear grupos separados de hombres y mujeres, a partir de la clasificación por nivel económico, se pueden crear también otros grupos focales por edad, nivel económico y vulnerabilidad. Se puede incluso crear un grupo por nivel de liderazgo.Agregue una fotografía del mapa de recursos y usos de la comunidadAgregue comentarios u observaciones que tenga sobre la sesión en general. ¿Qué sesgos afectaron la sesión y de qué manera? ¿Cómo cree usted que esto se refleja en los datos recopilados?Recursos y usos (de ser necesario, agregue otras categorías) • Cerciórese de haber terminado el mapa de la comunidad.• Recorte de 10 a 20 círculos en papel de colores para usarlos como \"frutos\" del árbol. Deben ser lo suficientemente grandes para que todos alcancen a leerlos desde donde están sentados.• Prepare papelógrafos y otros materiales necesarios para el óptimo desarrollo del ejercicio.• Organice a los participantes en un círculo.• Coloque el mapa de la comunidad al centro del círculo.• Despeje el espacio para que todos puedan ver y utilizar un área grande.Paso 1. Preséntese, presente a los miembros del equipo y luego explique la actividad.Paso 2. Pida a los participantes que se presenten y anote los nombres, así como cualquier información especial (joven, adulto mayor, alguna discapacidad, etc.) Paso 3. Solicite a los participantes que piensen en el futuro y en lo que es importante para ellos como miembros de la comunidad. Use una pregunta como la siguiente:Paso 4. Enfoque a los participantes nuevamente en el mapa de la comunidad y entregue al grupo de 10 a 20 círculos de papel. Solicite que en cada círculo escriban o dibujen lo que han imaginado para su comunidad en el futuro, y que los coloquen sobre el mapa. Inste a los participantes a pensar no solo en cambios físicos y mejoras, sino también en cambios sociales, políticos y personales, tales como mejores relaciones entre hombres y mujeres, vínculos más fuertes con los servicios gubernamentales, etc. Esta actividad tiene como fin ayudar a crear una imagen del futuro que los participantes ven para su comunidad, no la imagen de alguien externo.Quien facilita debe dejar en claro que esta actividad busca imaginar un futuro que la comunidad misma pueda construir.Mapa de recursos y usos de la comunidad (cont.) y el árbol de metas Paso 5. Reúna todos los círculos escritos o dibujados y preséntelos uno a uno ante todo el grupo para asegurarse de que la idea formulada es clara. Las metas se pueden modificar, moldear o desarrollar más durante esta presentación. Paso 6. Después de retirar el mapa de la comunidad , muéstrele al grupo un dibujo grande de un árbol (es recomendable dibujarlo directamente sobre el suelo o con tiza si se está en un lugar bajo techo). Pídales a los participantes que imaginen que el árbol tiene muchos frutos que la comunidad desea comer. Cada meta o círculo representa una \"fruta\". Puede haber frutas al \"alcance de la mano\" en la parte inferior del árbol, las cuales pueden ser fácilmente recolectadas por las personas de la comunidad. También puede haber frutas en la parte superior del árbol y para alcanzarlas hay que hacer mayores esfuerzos. Pida a los miembros del grupo focal que organicen las frutas según la facilidad de alcanzarlas.Paso 7. Como facilitador, usted puede enfocarse en frutas específicas relacionadas con su proyecto. Trate de indagar las razones por las cuales han organizado el árbol de esa manera. Pregunte cuáles logros son más factibles y por qué, cuáles son los más importantes y por qué; incluso se puede ir un poco más allá y preguntar por los pasos que se requieren para lograr dichas metas. Participantes: De 6 a 14. Es muy recomendable conformar grupos de hombres y mujeres por separado para captar información específica de género.Duración: De una hora media a 2 horas• Reflexione sobre qué tipo de información agrícola, socioeconómica o de género usted está interesado en analizar para los objetivos del programa. Antes de iniciar esta actividad, lea cuidadosamente la lista de verificación 2 y seleccione todos los temas que su organización debe conocer sobre la comunidad; agregue otros si lo considera necesario.• Organice a los participantes en un círculo.• Despeje el espacio para que todos puedan ver y utilizar un área grande.• Es importante tomarse un tiempo para explicar el objetivo de la clasificación por niveles de riqueza para evitar posibles conflictos. Este ejercicio permite encontrar definiciones locales sobre pobreza y riqueza, en vez de imponerles definiciones externas. Además, esta es una oportunidad para garantizar la inclusión de la población marginada y comprender mejor las tendencias de la riqueza en la comunidad como un todo.A menudo, los participantes se refieren a los hogares de jefatura femenina como hogares sin hombres. El desglose con base en esta definición no es suficiente pues no considera los hogares en los que hay hombres, pero las mujeres son el principal sostén de la familia. Asegúrese de abordar esta definición junto con la comunidad antes del ejercicio. Deje en claro qué significa un hogar de jefatura femenina, o cabeza de hogar en general.Paso 1. Preséntese, presente a los miembros del equipo y luego explique la actividad.Paso 2. Pida a los participantes que se presenten y anote los nombres, así como cualquier información especial (joven, adulto mayor, alguna discapacidad, etc.) Paso 3. Empiece con preguntas generales sobre la comunidad tomadas de la lista de verificación 1.Lista de verificación 1: caracterización de la riqueza y la vulnerabilidad• ¿Cómo está conformado un hogar típico en esta comunidad? ¿Quién forma parte del hogar? (cerciórese de definir lo que es un hogar y tener claridad sobre familias nucleares y no nucleares, conjuntas y la diversidad de núcleos familiares).• ¿Cuántos hogares hay en esta comunidad?• ¿Se está presentando algún cambio en la población de la comunidad en general? ¿Por qué sí o por qué no?• ¿Qué es un hogar de \"jefatura femenina\"?• ¿Cuántos hogares son de jefatura femenina? ¿Cuántos son de jefatura de menores?• ¿Se está presentando algún cambio en el número de hogares de jefatura femenina? ¿Por qué sí o por qué no?• ¿Se está presentando algún cambio en el número de hogares de jefatura de menores? ¿Por qué sí o por qué no? Paso 4. Dibuje una línea en el centro de la página en el que uno de los extremos representa el grupo más pobre mientras que el otro extremo representa los menos pobres. Dibuje tres círculos a lo largo de la línea para representar tres grupos básicos de riqueza.-Garantice la confidencialidad a los encuestados y no hable sobre los rangos ni sobre familias específicas, sino más bien de un promedio representativo.Figura 6. Representación gráfica de riqueza y vulnerabilidad Paso 5. Saque las piezas para contar (unas cien) y explique que esos elementos representan el número total de hogares en la comunidad. Solicite a los participantes que dialoguen por su cuenta y dividan los frijoles en tres categorías distintas, según la riqueza. Deles tiempo de hablar y formar los grupos de frijoles. Déjelos terminar esta actividad sin intervenir. Paso 6. Una vez que los participantes hayan terminado, pregúnteles qué nombre le dieron a cada categoría. Note que la comunidad ya tiene términos para nombrar a cada grupo. Promueva diálogo sobre la conformación de un hogar típico en la categoría intermedia; deje que los participantes utilicen sus propios criterios. Repita el procedimiento con los otros dos círculos.Paso 7. Una vez que usted tenga claros los criterios de clasificación usados, pregunte si no habrá categorías intermedias de riqueza. ¿Hay alguna persona en la comunidad que no encaja en ninguna de estas tres categorías? De ser así, agregue un tercer o cuarto círculo y defina un hogar típico en estas categorías.Paso 8. Ahora que ya se tiene una idea básica de las diferencias entre categorías de riqueza, repase cada categoría nuevamente; para ello use la lista de verificación 2 para hacer preguntas específicas que respondan a los objetivos del programa con el fin de obtener un panorama más completo. • ¿Cuántas personas enfermas o discapacitadas hay en este grupo?• ¿Tanto los niños como las niñas van a la escuela? ¿A qué tipo de escuelas asisten?• ¿Cuál es el nivel de educación de los hombres? ¿De las mujeres?• ¿Venden los hombres su propia mano de obra? ¿Con qué frecuencia? ¿Lo hacen las mujeres? ¿Con qué frecuencia?• ¿Cuáles son las mayores dificultades o los peores desastres que ha sufrido este grupo?• ¿Cuántas veces comen al día?• ¿Qué tipo de alimentación tienen?• ¿Cuántos meses son autosuficientes las familias en cuanto a los alimentos?• ¿Cuántos meses trabajan las familias para tener seguridad alimentaria?• ¿Cuántos meses compran alimentos las familias?• ¿Cuánta tierra para cultivo poseen?• ¿Qué tipos de cultivos producen? (híbridos? locales? insumos?)• ¿Practican la agrosilvicultura? ¿Qué variedades?• ¿Qué tipo de casa tienen?• ¿Qué tipo de ganado tienen? (¿Cuántas cabezas? ¿híbrido? ¿local?)• ¿Utilizan equipos agrícolas alquilados? ¿Cuántos equipos son propios?• ¿Qué tipo de transporte poseen?• ¿Cuántos celulares? ¿Televisores? ¿Radios?• ¿Participan en alguna actividad de grupo (apicultura, cultivo de hortalizas, grupos de crédito, etc.)• ¿Desempeñan algún papel especial de liderazgo en la comunidad (iglesia? escuela? gobernanza local?)• ¿Hay algún líder electo en este grupo?• ¿Hay personas a las que otras personas recurren para pedir consejos?• ¿Cuál es su principal fuente de ingresos? (¿giros? productos agrícolas? pequeñas empresas?)• ¿Cuáles de estas son en general las mayores fuentes de ingresos?• ¿A qué tipos de créditos tienen acceso? (comerciales? cadenas de ahorro informales? auto-ayuda o microfinanzas?) Paso 9. Regrese a los círculos y explique que usted está interesado en comprender cómo las personas pueden moverse de un grupo de riqueza a otro. Se puede empezar haciendo algunas de las siguientes preguntas:• De estos grupos, ¿cuáles están creciendo de tamaño? ¿Por qué?• ¿Cuáles grupos están disminuyendo? ¿Por qué?• ¿De cuál grupo es más difícil salir? ¿Por qué?Como alternativa, se puede analizar cada una de las categorías y preguntarles a los participantes cómo las familias pasan de un grupo de riqueza a otro (si es que sucede). Enfóquese en los distintos valores, activos y factores que facilitan la movilidad.Paso 10. Por último, realice un sondeo acerca de las tendencias generales en la comunidad. Solicite que identifiquen la categoría que tiene el mayor número de:• Hogares con jefatura femenina• Hogares encabezados por menores, ya sean niñas o niñosA medida que identifique estas tendencias, asegúrese de preguntar por qué una categoría específica tiene una concentración de este tipo de hogares.• ¿El número de hogares de jefatura femenina en esta categoría está aumentando o disminuyendo?• ¿Qué factores hacen que esto mejore o empeore? ¿Por qué? (Repita el proceso para los hogares encabezados por menores y otras categorías).Recuadro 9. variaciones para el ejercicio de riqueza y vulnerabilidad 1. Cambios en el tiempo. Agregue una actividad de clasificación después de los tres pasos básicos. Pida a los participantes que piensen cómo eran las cosas hace diez años. ¿Cómo era la distribución de los frijoles (hogares) en las distintas categorías en ese entonces? ¿Por qué ha cambiado? o ¿por qué no ha cambiado? Este paso adicional puede aportar información valiosa para el análisis de la comunidad. 2. Grupos grandes. Si la comunidad ha sido seleccionada como lugar de un proyecto, la clasificación participativa de la riqueza es una buena herramienta para trabajar con un grupo tan grande como sea posible. Esto mejora la transparencia del proyecto, pues la mayoría de los habitantes de la comunidad definirán y ayudarán a identificar posibles beneficiarios del proyecto a través de esta actividad. 3. Identificación de hogares reales. Esta actividad también se puede realizar usando hogares específicos de la comunidad. En vez de utilizar frijoles para contar, los facilitadores pueden elaborar un listado de los hogares (agregando o eliminando hogares después de verificar con la comunidad). Para cada hogar se hace una tarjeta y el grupo las clasifica en grupos, según las categorías de riqueza. Esta versión de la actividad puede suscitar intercambios enriquecedores y reflexiones sobre la movilidad y el dinamismo económico en la comunidad. Lo mejor es realizar la actividad con el mayor número posible de participantes para garantizar un producto inclusivo. Los facilitadores tendrán que hacer un esfuerzo adicional para mediar en los conflictos que pudieran surgir cuando se usan los nombres de familias reales en las tarjetas.Agregue comentarios u observaciones que tenga sobre la sesión en general. ¿Qué sesgos afectaron la sesión y de qué manera? ¿Cómo cree usted que esto se refleja en los datos recopilados? ¿Cómo está constituido un hogar típico? ¿Qué es un «hogar de jefatura femenina»?Tendencias globales en la comunidad (de ser necesario, agregue otras categorías) Número de personas influyentes (líderes)Número promedio y tipos de grupos a los que pertenecen los hombresNúmero promedio y tipos de grupos a los que pertenecen las mujeresFuente principal de ingresos no agrícolas Tipos de créditos a los que tiene acceso Tipo y frecuencia del venta de mano de obra Tipo y frecuencia de arrendamiento de equipos agrícolas Tipo de equipos agrícolas propiosNo. promedio de comidas al díaNo. promedio de meses en los que se compran alimentosNo. promedio de meses de autosuficiencia alimentariaTendencias en los grupos vulnerables (de ser necesario, agregue otras categorías) Participantes: Grupos de hombres y mujeres por separado (de 8 a 10 personas), de diferente estatus socioeconómico.Duración: De una a una hora y media Preparación de la actividad:• Organice a los participantes en un círculo y despeje el área en el centro.• El equipo de investigación debe responder con antelación a las preguntas siguientes: ¿Hay algún aspecto del «empoderamiento», por ejemplo, capacidad de actuar, estructura o relaciones, que le interese particularmente? ______________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ¿Cómo cree usted que afecte el empoderamiento de la mujer los objetivos del programa o del proyecto? ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Paso 1. Por medio de sus propias preguntas o las sugeridas en la lista de verificación 1, solicite al grupo que describa el empoderamiento. A medida que los participantes hablen sobre los aspectos del empoderamiento, anótelos para usarlos como criterios para el paso siguiente.Lista de verificación 1: conceptos locales de empoderamiento• ¿Había escuchado antes el término \"empoderamiento de la mujer\"?• ¿Cómo lo define?• ¿Cómo es una mujer empoderada? ¿En la casa? ¿En la comunidad?• ¿Cómo es una mujer que no está empoderada? ¿En la casa? ¿En la comunidad?• ¿Pueden una mujer empoderada y un hombre empoderado vivir en la misma casa? ¿Por qué sí o por qué no? Paso 2. Dibuje una escala de 1 a 5 en el piso o en papel. La definición de empoderamiento es mucho más compleja de lo que se representa en esta escala. Este paso tiene como objetivo valorar los cambios en la percepción sobre el empoderamiento y el motivo de los cambios.Paso 3. Tome unas cien piezas (frijoles o maíz) y explíquele al grupo que esos objetos representan a todas las mujeres en la comunidad. Pídale a alguien que distribuya las piezas a lo largo de la escala para representar el grado de empoderamiento de las mujeres en la comunidad: 1 = poco empoderadas, 5 = muy empoderadas\".Figura 7. Representación de la dinámica de conteo para caracterizar empoderamiento de las mujeres Paso 4. Solicite ahora que redistribuyan las piezas según el grado de empoderamiento de las mujeres en la comunidad hace diez años.Paso 5. Promueva el diálogo alrededor de los resultados. Si hubiera diferencia entre la situación actual y la de hace diez años, pídale al grupo que explique qué es lo que ha cambiado. Utilice sus propias preguntas o algunas de las preguntas sugeridas en la lista de verificación 2.Relator: De ser posible, registre las ideas y las experiencias que se compartan y no solamente los \"aspectos del empoderamiento\". Con ello se ayuda al facilitador al desarrollo del ejercicio.Lista de verificación 2: caracterización del empoderamiento de las mujeres• ¿Por qué se han presentado estos cambios?• ¿Qué ha facilitado el menor o mayor empoderamiento de las mujeres?• ¿Cuáles fueron los factores más importantes?• ¿Qué opinan los hombres o las mujeres de los cambios?• ¿Estos cambios han provocado conflictos en el hogar? En caso afirmativo, ¿cómo?• ¿Estos cambios han afectado el papel que desempeñan mujeres y hombres en el hogar? ¿En la finca? ¿En actividades realizadas fuera de la finca?• ¿Son las mujeres mejores agricultoras en la actualidad? ¿Lo eran anteriormente?• ¿Son buenas las mujeres para cuidar animales en la actualidad? ¿Cómo eran anteriormente?• ¿Son buenas las mujeres para tomar decisiones sobre la agricultura y la seguridad alimentaria en la actualidad? ¿Cómo eran anteriormente?• ¿Las mujeres son buenas para los negocios en la actualidad? ¿Cómo eran anteriormente?• ¿A qué tipos de activos tienen acceso las mujeres en la actualidad? ¿Anteriormente?• ¿Qué activos poseen las mujeres actualmente? ¿Anteriormente?• ¿Qué decisiones toman las mujeres actualmente? ¿Anteriormente?Recuadro 10. variantes de las actividades de empoderamiento de la mujer Usando la misma escala, de los siguientes aspectos del trabajo agrícola actualmente y hace diez años, agregue los que sean relevantes para su proyecto:• Acceso de las mujeres a información sobre nuevas prácticas o tecnologías agrícolas• Uso real por parte de las mujeres de nuevas prácticas o tecnologías• Capacidad de las mujeres de tomar decisiones sobre sus propias parcelas.• Capacidad de las mujeres de tomar decisiones sobre las parcelas familiares o compartidas.• Acceso de las mujeres a los mercados para la venta de sus productos.• Participación o posesión de pequeñas empresas por parte de las mujeres.• Capacidad de las mujeres de controlar sus propios ingresos provenientes de las fincas. Presente los resultados de esta consulta para relacionarlos con el empoderamiento en general y cómo afecta a las mujeres en estos aspectos en particular.De ser posible, complete este formulario junto con todo el equipo de investigación (facilitador(es), cofacilitador(es), relator(es) y todos los que participaron de alguna manera) para elaborar un informe completo de la sesión para su base de datos.Lugar de la reunión: Grupo: Fecha: Relator: Facilitadores: Miembros de los grupos focales (incluya el número de participantes y agregue las categorías que considere necesarias).Cuaderno de datos: Incorpore la transcripción completa de la sesión antes de seguir adelante. Trabaje como equipo para registrar las palabras y frases exactas utilizadas por los participantes en la sesión.Aporte las ideas o las observaciones que tenga sobre la sesión en general. ¿Qué tipos de sesgo considera usted que afectaron la sesión y de qué maneras? ¿Cómo cree usted que esto se refleja en la información? ¿Sobre cuál tema necesito más información? ¿Sobre cuál tema necesito aclaración? ¿Qué información recopilada respalda o refuta información recolectada con otras herramientas? ¿Qué temas no se vieron, pero aun deseo poner sobre la mesa?La agricultura adaptable al clima incluye una amplia variedad de prácticas que aumentan la productividad y resiliencia de manera sostenible, reducen o eliminan las emisiones de gases con efecto invernadero en donde sea posible y facilita el logro de las metas de desarrollo y seguridad alimentaria.Este módulo contiene una serie de herramientas que, de ser implementadas secuencialmente, proporcionan la información preliminar necesaria para el diseño de un programa de agricultura que integre los temas de género y tenga en cuenta especialmente a los grupos más vulnerables.Cuadro 5. Herramientas sugeridas para el módulo de agricultura resiliente al climaMapa de recursos y usos de la comunidad Dos sesiones: hombres y mujeres Permite entender la distribución de la comunidad e identificar los recursos de los que la población depende para su subsistencia, así como las deficiencias y conflictos por los recursos.Una sesión mixta Permite hacer una diferenciación social en función de renglones económicos para la identificación de los grupos vulnerables.Matriz de sistemas de subsistencia Dos sesiones: hombres y mujeres Permite determinar las actividades más importantes que se realizan dentro y fuera de las fincas, así como su importancia relativa para los ingresos, consumo y seguridad alimentaria de hombres y mujeres y la estabilidad de los hogares.Permite determinar los principales factores que impulsan las prácticas agrícolas a lo largo del año, incluidos la mano de obra agrícola de hombres y mujeres, las condiciones climáticas, seguridad alimentaria y disponibilidad de recursos.Permite determinar los tipos de actividades realizadas por hombres y mujeres en un día típico para comprender los roles y las responsabilidades en las labores domésticas y agrícolas en la actualidad y anteriormente.Cambios en las prácticas agrícolas Dos sesiones: hombres y mujeres Permite determinar las factores, usuarios e impactos de los cambios agrícolas y nuevas tecnologías o intervenciones.Permite determinar los organizaciones, grupos y personas claves que trabajan en la comunidad y sus servicios, trabajo en red y participación en la comunidad.Permite entender las estrategias y los enfoques institucionales para la inclusión y participación de grupos marginados.Este módulo se puede utilizar de manera independiente para elaborar un programa de agricultura resistente al clima, o junto con cualquier otro módulo para desarrollar un programa con objetivos en los temas de género y cambio climático. Si se utiliza junto con otros módulos, el equipo de investigación debe planear cuidadosamente el despliegue secuencial de las herramientas para evitar la repetición. Por ejemplo, el mapa de línea base de la comunidad elaborado en el Módulo 1, se puede agregar al Módulo 2 para identificar los recursos de subsistencia y compararlo con el Módulo 3 para identificar áreas de posible mitigación. Las herramientas descritas en este módulo están diseñadas para ser desarrolladas secuencialmente. Sin embargo, si ya se cuenta con la información generada a partir de una o varias de las herramientas, se pueden omitir fácilmente para concentrar el tiempo y los recursos en las demás herramientas.Esta herramienta se puede adaptar para recopilar información de primera mano acerca de los recursos reales o percibidos que son importantes tanto para hombres como para mujeres. En el Módulo de coproducción de conocimiento se ofrece una descripción detallada de esta actividad. Remitimos al lector a la sección correspondiente en la página 84.Esta herramienta se puede adaptar para proporcionar información de base acerca de las diferencias entre grupos socioeconómicos definidos por la comunidad.. En el Módulo de coproducción de conocimiento se ofrece una descripción detallada de esta actividad. Remitimos al lector a la sección correspondiente en la página 97.Participantes: Grupos de hombres y mujeres por separado (de 8 a 10 personas), de diferentes edades y estatus socioeconómico.• Las personas encargadas de la toma de notas deben preparar sus notas utilizando el formato que se muestra en la Cuadro 6.Cuadro 6. Formato para caracterizar los medios de subsistenciaResponsabilidades, toma de decisiones y control Mercadeo Manejo de los ingresosCol crespa Las mujeres cultivan col crespa sin ayuda de los hombres Las mujeres venden en los mercados locales, sin la participación de sus esposos.Las mujeres guardan los ingresos y gastan en alimentosPor lo general son las mujeres quienes se dedican a la producción de leche de vaca y de cabra, pero los hombres también realizan esta actividad.Los hombres revenden la leche a los distribuidores locales.En general, los hombres guardan los ingresos, pero en algunas ocasiones los comparten con las mujeres.• Organice a los participantes en un círculo.• Despeje el espacio para que todos puedan ver y utilizar un área grande.Paso 1. Preséntese, presente a los miembros del equipo y luego explique la actividad.Paso 2. Pida a los participantes que se presenten y anote los nombres, así como cualquier información especial (joven, adulto mayor, alguna discapacidad, etc.).Paso 3. Divida el grupo focal en dos subgrupos. Pida al primer subgrupo que hagan un listado de las fuentes de ingresos más importantes en la finca para las mujeres (o para las hombres, si se trata de un grupo de hombres). Pídale al segundo grupo que hagan un listado de las fuentes de ingresos más importantes provenientes de actividades fuera de la finca. Pídale a un voluntario o al cofacilitador que escriba o dibuje en tarjetas las fuentes de ingresos a medida que se vayan presentando.Paso 4. Reúna al grupo completo y solicite a un voluntario que organice, de más a menos, las tarjetas que representan las actividades en finca que generan ingresos para las mujeres (o para los hombres).Paso 5. Pídale a otra persona voluntaria que clasifique las actividades que se realizan fuera de la finca. Ver ejemplo ilustrativo siguiente.Clasificación de las actividades de las mujeres dentro y fuera de la fincaLas mujeres en la finca 1. Maíz 2. Frijol 3. Ordeño 4. TomateLas mujeres fuera de la finca 1. Elaboración de cestos 2. Lavado de ropa 3. Secado de peces pequeños Paso 6. Una vez que se tengan las dos listas por género de su grupo focal, haga preguntas de sondeo (lista de verificación 1) relacionadas con cada actividad dentro o fuera de la finca que le interesen a usted.Es probable que quien facilita encuentre diferentes percepciones entre los hombres y las mujeres acerca de las responsabilidades y la toma de decisiones con respecto a la producción, comercialización e ingresos. Es posible que tanto los hombres como las mujeres vendan productos, a pesar de acuerdos previos diferentes en el hogar o sin informar a su pareja durante los tiempos de escasez. Es importante que quien facilita sondee con sensibilidad sobre cómo los hombres y las mujeres negocian sus roles.La ganadería, la pesca u otras actividades se pueden incluir en \"actividades en la finca\". Paso 7. También es posible hacer un sondeo individual más profundo sobre las actividades dentro y fuera de la finca empleando algunas de las preguntas de la lista de verificación 2.Lista de verificación 2: caracterización de las actividades dentro y fuera de la finca Acceso y uso de la tierra• Si se trata de un cultivo, ¿dónde se siembra? ¿En su huerto casero?, ¿en su propia parcela?, ¿en la parcela de su esposo?, ¿en parcelas compartidas?• ¿Es usted propietario único de alguna tierra o conjuntamente con alguien más?• ¿Es usted propietario único de la tierra que cultiva, o comparte la propiedad con otras personas de su familia?• De no tiene tierra, ¿cómo tiene usted acceso a la tierra? ¿Se la arrienda a alguien? ¿Intercambio de mano de obra por el acceso? ¿Tiene una parcela comunitaria o grupal?• ¿Tiene su esposo o su esposa parcelas por separado en las que trabaja la agricultura?• Si el cultivo o el producto se vende, ¿quién se encarga de hacerlo? ¿Los hombres, las mujeres, ambos, en grupos?• ¿Debe usted pedir permiso a su pareja antes de vender?• ¿Quién guarda los ingresos de la venta? ¿Los hombres, las mujeres, se comparten?• En épocas de emergencia o escasez de alimentos, ¿se vende este cultivo o producto para obtener ingresos adicionales? ¿Se hace esto con o sin permiso de su pareja?Recuadro 12. variantes de las actividades para la caracterización de los medios de subsistencia 1. Acumulación proporcional. Cuando se realizan ejercicios de clasificación, a menudo es difícil que un grupo recuerde un largo listado de aspectos a clasificar. Para solucionar este inconveniente, se puede dibujar un círculo sobre el piso para cada aspecto y escribir el nombre o hacer un dibujo explicativo. Reparta entre los participantes un puñado de 100 frijoles y pídales que dividan los frijoles para mostrar la importancia relativa de los aspectos en términos de su aporte a la seguridad alimentaria de los hogares. Una vez agotado el tema y el conteo, recoja los frijoles y repita el ejercicio; primero para ingresos del hogar y luego para ingresos de las mujeres.1. Agrupación. Dependiendo de las percepciones que esté tratando de recoger, se puede dividir el grupo focal en diferentes subgrupos para que aborden los distintos temas de género. Por ejemplo, se les puede preguntar a los grupos de hombres y mujeres las mismas preguntas pero con respecto a las principales actividades de los hombres.Aporte las ideas u observaciones que tenga sobre la sesión en general. ¿Qué tipos de sesgo considera usted que afectaron la sesión y de qué maneras? ¿Cómo cree usted que esto se refleja en la información?Responsabilidades, toma de decisiones y control Comercialización Manejo de los ingresosResponsabilidades, toma de decisiones y control Comercialización Manejo de los ingresos¿Sobre cuál tema necesito más información? ¿Sobre cuál tema necesito aclaración? ¿Qué información recopilada respalda o refuta información recolectada con otras herramientas? ¿Qué temas no se vieron, pero aun deseo poner sobre la mesa?• Organice a los participantes en un círculo.• Despeje el espacio para que todos puedan ver y utilizar un área grande.Paso 1. Preséntese (presente a los miembros de su equipo) y luego explique la actividad.Paso 2. Pida a los participantes que se presenten y anote los nombres, así como cualquier información especial (joven, adulto mayor, alguna discapacidad, etc.).Paso 3. Aclare que usted desea conocer más sobre los roles de los hombres y de las mujeres, tanto dentro como fuera de la finca, en un año típico. Para iniciar la conversación, pídales a los participantes que le indiquen cuál es el producto principal que cultivan y consumen en el hogar.Paso 4. Solicite que describan todos los pasos necesarios para producir dicho cultivo -desde la compra de semillas hasta el almacenamiento después de la cosecha. Cerciórese de anotar todo equipo, insumo o técnica de manejo especial que se mencione. Regístrelos en forma de un diagrama de flujo como el siguiente. Repita el procedimiento para cada cultivo específico en el que esté interesado.Cuadro 8. Formato para caracterizar actividades y prácticas agrícolas Paso 5. Vuelva sobre los pasos mencionados y analice cada labor sondeando a los participantes sobre quién en el hogar se encarga del trabajo. Sus roles de trabajo pueden ser compartidos o llevados a cabo colectivamente, por lo que se debe aclarar si el trabajo es principalmente responsabilidad del hombre o de la mujer. Ese también puede ser un buen momento para preguntarles acerca de la tenencia y el acceso a la tierra. ¿Quién es propietario de la tierra donde se produce este cultivo? Si los participantes no son los ¿cómo logran el acceso a la tierra?Repita el proceso para cualquier otro cultivo que le interese. Paso 6. Ahora que ya tiene claras las responsabilidades por las labores agrícolas para cada cultivo, cambie el tema de conversación hacia el calendario. Explique al grupo que usted desea analizar ampliamente cómo es un año típico en la comunidad por temporada/estación.Después de presentar el calendario al grupo, normalmente es más fácil empezar preguntando sobre las estaciones y los patrones de lluvia. Pida a los participantes que definan cuáles meses representan una estación lluviosa típica -use colores diferentes para cada estación-. Repita este proceso para otros eventos climáticos o estacionales. Consulte la lista de verificación para sugerencias.Paso 7. Consulte ahora su listado de roles y responsabilidades agrícolas y agregue cada paso al calendario.Paso 8. Es aconsejable sondear qué cambios se han dado en los roles laborales, en cualquiera de los temas sugeridos en la lista de verificación 1 en los últimos 5 o 10 años.Lista de verificación 1: cambios en las labores según época del año Tiempo y clima:• Temporada de lluvias Recuadro 13. variaciones del ejercicio práctico de roles de género y calendario anual 1. Actividades no agrícolas. ¿Cuáles son las principales actividades no agrícolas de la población en la comunidad ? Relacione las cinco principales actividades generadoras de ingresos. Indique la época del año en la que se elaboran estos productos y cuándo se venden. Indique quién los elabora (hombres o mujeres) y quién los vende.2. Infraestructura. Análisis de la disponibilidad y uso de la infraestructura y de los riesgos asociados por temporadas.3. Nutrición y salud. Análisis de la condición y riesgos para la salud humana desglosados socialmente y por estación, los cuales pueden estar relacionados con patrones del clima y de producción.Inserte una fotografía del cronograma elaborado.Aporte las ideas o las observaciones que tenga sobre la sesión en general. ¿Qué tipos de sesgo considera usted que afectaron la sesión y de qué maneras? ¿Cómo cree usted que esto se refleja en la información?Cultivos (agregue los cultivos y los pasos que desee) Participantes: Grupos de hombres y mujeres por separado (de 8 a 10 personas), de diferentes edades y estatus socioeconómico.Duración: De media hora a una hora• Elabore dos relojes, uno para el día (6:00 a.m. a 6:00 p.m.) y el otro para la noche (6:00 p.m. a 6:00 a.m.), ya sea en papel para afiches o en el piso en el medio del círculo, como se ilustra a continuación.6:00 a.m.3:00 p.m.12:00 md 9:00 a.m.6:00 p.m.3:00 a.m.12:00 md 9:00 p.m.• Organice a los participantes en un círculo y despeje el área en el centro.• Repase el calendario de estaciones para recordar el mes o la época del año en que la carga de trabajo es más pesada para los hombres o para las mujeres.• Tenga en cuenta lo siguiente: ¿Hay alguna época del año que le interesa particularmente a usted o a su proyecto? ________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Figura 8. Reloj de actividades diarias ¿Hay ciertos roles de labores domésticas o agrícolas sobre los cuales usted definitivamente desearía preguntar? ___________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ ¿Está interesado en registrar también las percepciones de los hombres y las mujeres sobre los papeles de sus homólogos? De ser así, contemple la posibilidad de dedicar un tiempo para las variaciones ofrecidas.Paso 1. Preséntese, presente a los miembros del equipo y luego explique la actividad.Paso 2. Pídales a los participantes que se presenten. Escriba el nombre y cualquier información especial sobre cada uno (joven, persona adulta mayor, persona con algún grado de discapacidad, etc.).Paso 3. Pida a los participantes que identifiquen el mes o el período en el que su carga de trabajo es más pesada. Explíqueles que usted desea conocer qué hacen en un día típico durante esa época.Paso 4. Pregunte a qué hora se despiertan y qué es la primera cosa que hacen. Déjelos hablar para tratar de llegar a un consenso sobre un \"promedio\". Trace una línea desde el punto central hasta la hora mencionada como inicio de la actividad y una segunda línea desde el punto central hasta la hora mencionada como final de la actividad. Escriba o dibuje la actividad en el espacio creado en el diagrama circular. Paso 5. Solicite voluntarios que se encarguen de dibujar y escribir para mostrar todas las actividades de las 24 horas del día.Quien facilita debe preguntar sobre los roles del otro género, si se están dando cambios (y cómo) en sus roles. Estas preguntas pueden estimular un mayor intercambio de opiniones.Quien toma notas debe prestar más atención a la discusión que se suscite durante el ejercicio, y no tanto al registro de los detalles del reloj. La mayor parte de la información no queda plasmada en los relojes.En el caso de actividades simultáneas que requieran mucho tiempo, como el desyerbe y el cuidado de criaturas, escríbalas en la misma sección del círculo. En el caso de actividades que se superpongan, pero que no demandan el mismo nivel de atención, escriba o dibuje la actividad principal en el gráfico circular y use un arco por fuera del círculo para la actividad secundaria. Paso 6. Utilice sus propias preguntas de sondeo acerca de los roles en las labores domésticas y agrícolas de hombres y mujeres, o consulte la lista de verificación 1.Lista de verificación 1: roles en las actividades diarias• ¿Realizan los hombres alguna tarea doméstica? ¿Limpian? ¿Cocinan? ¿Cuidan a los niños? ¿Van a traer agua?• ¿Cree usted que esto está cambiando o que alguna vez va a cambiar?• ¿Estos cambios han afectado o creado conflictos dentro del hogar?• En la actualidad, ¿cuáles son los roles principales que SOLAMENTE tienen los hombres o las mujeres en la finca?• ¿Cuáles son los papeles compartidos en la finca?• ¿Cómo han cambiado estos roles en los últimos diez años?• ¿Por qué han cambiado estos roles?• ¿Cómo han afectado estos cambios la dinámica familia?• ¿Son estas actividades diarias diferentes para cierto grupo de hombres o mujeres en la comunidad? En caso afirmativo, ¿de qué manera son diferentes?• ¿Son estas actividades cotidianas diferentes para ciertas familias, por ej. Familias extendidas, hogares de jefatura femenina, hogares jefeados por personas ancianas, etc.?Recuadro 14. variantes de los ejercicios prácticos sobre roles en las actividades diariasEs aconsejable que se divida el grupo focal en grupos más pequeños para realizar esta actividad. De esta manera se pueden registrar más variaciones en las labores, y así representar mejor la realidad de grupos diferenciados socialmente. Puede ser interesante realizar este ejercicio en grupos de personas que comparten una misma forma de subsistencia. ¿Cómo es el día de una familia ganadera en comparación con una familia agricultora?Se le puede pedir a los grupos que realicen el mismo ejercicio para una estación/temporada diferente. Es posible que usted esté interesado, por ejemplo, en cómo es la carga de trabajo de un grupo durante una parte del año durante la cual hay poco trabajo.Además, se le puede pedir al grupo de mujeres que elabore un reloj para el hombre promedio y viceversa. De esta manera se podrán comparar posteriormente las percepciones de hombres y mujeres sobre las actividades del otro.Intente además desglosar los grupos por edad; pida a los hombres adultos o a las mujeres adultas que dibujen un reloj para los adolescentes (mujeres y hombres). Esto será de utilidad para comprender la importancia del trabajo de los menores en relación con la educación y la subsistencia. Además, puede brindar una cierta idea de la valorización de la educación por parte de quienes toman las decisiones en el hogar.Se debe ser creativo en el uso de las diferentes secciones del gráfico circular, de manera que se represente la información visualmente. Por ejemplo, cuando hayan terminado el reloj, reparta un puñado de frijoles para ilustrar las actividades que consideran más exigentes, o que requieren de mayor cantidad de mano de obra. Como alternativa, pueden ilustrar las actividades que les parecen más placenteras y gratificantes. Otra opción es pedir que coloquen una piedra o algún otro marcador para mostrar las actividades durante las cuales obtienen otros beneficios como, por ejemplo, compartir información con otras personas. ¿Sobre cuál tema necesito más información? ¿Sobre cuál tema necesito aclaración? ¿Qué información recopilada respalda o refuta información recolectada con otras herramientas? ¿Qué temas no se vieron, pero aun deseo poner sobre la mesa?• Tenga en cuenta las siguientes preguntas:¿Sobre cuáles prácticas de cambio deseo aprender por medio de esta herramienta? ________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ¿Cuáles categorías incluiré en el cuadro para analizar con mayor detalle ___________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ¿Qué periodo de tiempo puede ser más útil para el trabajo que realizo? ¿5 años? ¿10 años? _________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Paso 1. Preséntese, presente a los miembros del equipo y luego explique la actividad.Paso 2. Pídales a los participantes que se presenten. Escriba el nombre y cualquier información especial sobre cada uno (joven, persona adulta mayor, persona con discapacidad, etc.).Paso 3. Prepare a los participantes preguntándoles sobre desastres y eventos climáticos durante ese periodo de tiempo. Este tipo de eventos es más fácil de recordar y menudo la mayoría de las personas coinciden en cuanto a los detalles del evento (sequía, hambruna, inundación, huracán, etc.).La persona que facilita o que cofacilita debe anotar estos eventos en el cronograma junto con su descripción detallada y, de ser posible, año y mes en que ocurrieron.Paso 4. Utilice la información que usted obtuvo con antelación para conversar con el grupo acerca de los cambios principales en las prácticas agrícolas que a usted le interesan. Anote el año y el cambio en el cronograma.Utilice preguntas de sondeo durante la sesión; ver modelos en la lista de verificación 1. • ¿Cómo ha sido la estación de lluvias este año? ¿Cómo fue hace dos, cinco años? ¿Cómo era más antes? ¿Por qué se están dando estos cambios?• ¿Cómo se ha visto afectada la agricultura por estos cambios?• ¿Cómo afectó a los hogares? ¿A quiénes afecta más (hombres, mujeres, niños)? ¿De qué manera?• ¿Cómo afectó los ingresos o los costos?• ¿Cómo afectó la alimentación?• ¿Cómo afectó la seguridad y la integridad física?• ¿Cómo afectó la seguridad alimentaria?• ¿Cómo afectó el rendimiento de los cultivos, las condiciones del suelo, la calidad del agua, etc.?• ¿Ocasionó algún cambio en las relaciones de pareja?• ¿Provocó tensiones entre grupos sociales? ¿Entre hombres y mujeres? ¿Ricos y pobres?Cambios en nuevas prácticas o tecnologías:• ¿Cómo supo usted de esta nueva práctica? ¿Quién le suministró la información? ¿Estuvo dirigida primero a hombres o a mujeres?, ¿a población de escasos recursos o adinerada?• ¿Quiénes implementaron el cambio primero, los hombres o las mujeres?, ¿familias en particular? ¿Cómo se diseminó?• ¿Qué se necesitaba para hacer el cambio? ¿Se necesitó alguna nueva tecnología o nueva información? ¿Cómo procedió para obtener lo que necesitaba para hacer el cambio?• Si el cambio requirió una nueva tecnología, ¿quiénes poseen la tecnología, los hombres o las mujeres? ¿Quiénes la utilizan, los hombres o las mujeres?• ¿El cambio ocasionó algún problema? ¿A quién, a hombres o a mujeres?• ¿Enfrentó usted obstáculos (institucional, organizacional, cultural, personal) a la hora de implementar el cambio? ¿Cuáles fueron los obstáculos?• ¿Se mantuvo con la nueva tecnología o se regresó a las prácticas anteriores?• ¿Qué le está impidiendo realizar más cambios a las prácticas agrícolas para hacer frente a los desafíos que se le están presentando?• ¿Está aumentando o disminuyendo el uso de la tecnología o la práctica? ¿Por qué? variante Se puede usar el mismo ejercicio para la planeación con una comunidad. En este caso, la base del cronograma representa el presente y, a medida que se sube por la línea, se va yendo hacia el futuro.Aporte las ideas o las observaciones que tenga sobre la sesión en general. ¿Qué tipos de sesgo considera usted que afectaron la sesión y de qué maneras? ¿Cómo cree usted que esto se refleja en la información?Cambios en las condiciones y las prácticas(inserte condiciones o prácticas adicionales y tantas columnas como sea necesario) Participantes: Grupos de hombres y mujeres por separado (de 8 a 10 personas), de diferentes edades y estatus socioeconómico.Duración: De media hora a una hora• Corte de 20 a 25 círculos de papel de tamaño pequeño, mediano y grande.• Si usted conoce organizaciones que trabajan en la comunidad, imprima los logotipos para usarlos en la actividad.• En papel para papelógrafo, haga un cuadro con tres columnas; escriba los siguientes encabezados: \"Organizaciones\", \"Grupos\", \"Personas\".• El relator puede dibujar en su cuaderno el cuadro siguiente para facilitar la toma de notas (Cuadro 12).Cuadro 12. Formato para la recolección de datos para los resultados de la actividad práctica diagrama de Venn Preparación de la actividad• Organice a los participantes en un círculo y despeje el área en el centro.• Asegúrese de haberse respondido a la siguiente pregunta antes de iniciar la sesión:• ¿Cuáles organizaciones, grupos o personas conoce usted en la comunidad? ¿De cuáles le interesa saber más en detalle? __________________________________________________________ Paso 1. Preséntese, presente a los miembros del equipo y luego explique la actividad.Paso 2. Pídales a los participantes que se presenten. Escriba el nombre y cualquier información especial sobre cada uno (joven, persona adulta mayor, persona con discapacidad, etc.) Paso 3. Solicite a los participantes que identifique organizaciones locales y externas que prestan servicios relacionados con su área de enfoque (p.e. proyectos y actividades para mejorar la agricultura). Pregunte luego por organizaciones que no se dedican a temas agrícolas (finanzas, salud, empoderamiento de la mujer, etc.).Paso 4. Repita el procedimiento para \"Grupos\" y \"Personas\".Paso 5. Una vez completa la lista, indague sobre la labor de las organizaciones, los grupos y las personas en la comunidad. Consulte la lista de verificación 1 para posibles preguntas de sondeo.Facilitación: A menudo hay grupos de jóvenes, mujeres, asociaciones agrícolas y grupos de financiación que trabajan en las comunidades. Si nadie los menciona, podría ser útil preguntar por estos grupos.Para que el ejercicio sea manejable, no incluya en la lista más de 15 organizaciones en total.Lista de verificación 1: caracterización de organizaciones locales y externas• ¿Cuáles son los objetivos de la organización?• ¿Desde hace cuánto tiempo existe la organización en la comunidad ?• ¿Cuál ha sido su proyecto más exitoso en la comunidad ? ¿Por qué? ¿Quiénes se beneficiaron?• ¿Tiene dicha organización algún vínculo con organizaciones externas? ¿Con qué fin?• ¿Quiénes son los principales beneficiarios? ¿Hombres, mujeres, jóvenes, adultos mayores?• ¿Goza la organización de un mayor acercamiento con grupos (sociales y/o de género) específicos? ¿Con cuáles? Información (acceso, fuentes, usos)Inclusión social (no solo de género; además, personas mayores, grupos marginados, jóvenes)• ¿Quiénes desempeñan las funciones de toma de decisiones en la organización?• ¿Cuenta la organización con la participación de hombres y mujeres? De ser así, ¿de qué manera participan?• ¿Las mujeres aportan sus ideas en esta organización? De ser así, ¿cómo reaccionan los hombres?• ¿Trabaja la organización específicamente con mujeres en la agricultura o en el manejo de los recursos naturales?• ¿La organización suministra información sobre prácticas agrícolas? En caso afirmativo, ¿ qué tipo de información?• ¿Quién tiene acceso a la información suministrada por la organización? ¿Los hombres? ¿Las mujeres? ¿Cómo tienen acceso a la información?• ¿La institución tiene en cuenta las necesidades específicas de los jóvenes y los adultos mayores? En caso afirmativo, ¿de qué manera?• ¿La institución tiene en cuenta necesidades específicas de grupos marginados, p.e. marginados étnica, financiera o socialmente? En caso afirmativo, ¿de qué manera?Recuadro 15. variante para la actividad práctica diagrama de venn Se pueden agregar otros elementos a los diagramas de Venn para recuperar más información que simplemente la importancia de una organización o el nivel de vinculación con otras organizaciones.Por ejemplo:1. Se pueden agregar líneas para crear un diagrama de red que represente las relaciones formales. Por ejemplo, organizaciones que se reúnen una vez al mes para dialogar y hacer planes para la seguridad alimentaria en la comunidad . Se pueden emplear distintos tipos de líneas (punteadas, discontinuas o continuas) o distintos colores para diferentes redes.2. Se pueden agregar flechas para mostrar la dirección del flujo de información relacionada con su campo de acción dentro de la red. Se puede indicar la utilidad de la información mediante la intensidad de la flecha (mayor o menor grosor) o la frecuencia de la comunicación.3. Se pueden usar círculos de diferentes colores para indicar percepciones acerca de grupos de organizaciones. Por ejemplo, se puede usar verde para indicar organizaciones que son percibidas por los participantes como amigables y cercanas; rojo para aquellas que utilizan demasiada terminología científica o que, aparentemente, no respetan a los campesinos.4. Trate de realizar este ejercicio con informantes claves de las organizaciones para tener una idea de cómo las percepciones de los trabajadores de las organizaciones de investigación o desarrollo coinciden con las percepciones de los miembros de la comunidad.Aporte las ideas o las observaciones que tenga sobre la sesión en general. ¿Qué tipos de sesgo considera usted que afectaron la sesión y de qué maneras? ¿Cómo cree usted que esto se refleja en la información?Actores en el área de enfoque (incluya los nombres adicionales que considere necesario) Participantes: Identificar una o dos personas que participan en las actividades de cada organización (preferiblemente un hombre y una mujer).Duración: De 20 a 45 minutos• Analice el diagrama de Venn y los resultados del cronograma elaborado en el ejercicio sobre los cambios en las prácticas agrícolas; identifique las organizaciones que tienen actividades o proyectos en la comunidad.• Analice cualquier otro perfil organizacional o institucional que se haya elaborado en la región; por ejemplo, el estudio de línea base organizacional del CCAFS.• Haga una lista de las organizaciones identificadas, de las cuales usted desearía conocer más, incluidas organizaciones comunitarias, grupos de familias agricultoras, grupos locales de mujeres, asociaciones de agricultores, ONG locales, organizaciones internacionales, grupos de la sociedad civil, gobierno local, servicios de extensión, etc.• Comuníquese con las organizaciones y agende citas para entrevistas.Paso 1. De la bienvenida a la persona que va a entrevistar, presente a los miembros del equipo de investigación y explique el objetivo del ejercicio.Usted se podría presentar de la siguiente manera:\"Gracias por participar en esta entrevista. Estamos interesados en conocer más sobre los tipos de nuevas prácticas agrícolas que han sido adoptadas por hombres y mujeres. Queremos saber cómo y porqué han surgido dichos cambios. Quisiéramos saber también sobre el proyecto o la actividad en la que usted está participando. Mucho le agradeceremos si pudiera contestarnos algunas preguntas sobre los enfoques, las estrategias y los acuerdos institucionales que ustedes utilizan para la implementación de su proyecto y los beneficios que esperan alcanzar\".Paso 2. Perfil organizacional: Enfóquese primero en la organización. No se trata de conocer todos los detalles del proyecto, sino más bien de \"sonsacar\" lecciones sobre estrategias, enfoques, reglas, etc. que se están utilizando (o no) para mejorar la participación de hombres y mujeres de bajos ingresos y los beneficios de dichas iniciativas. Consulte la lista de verificación 1 con preguntas sugeridas.Lista de verificación 1: caracterización del perfil organizacional• ¿Qué tipo de organización (organización comunitaria, entidad pública, ONG) es y en qué nivel trabaja (a nivel local, nacional o internacional)?• ¿Cuál es el objetivo o el enfoque de su organización?• ¿Desde hace cuánto tiempo trabaja en la comunidad?• ¿A qué tipo de personas de la comunidad está dirigida su organización? ¿Quiénes tienen acceso a los servicios que ofrece su organización? ¿Tienen los jóvenes y los adultos mayores acceso a los servicios? ¿Goza la organización de un mayor acercamiento con grupos (sociales y/o de género) específicos? ¿Con cuáles?• ¿Cuál es la importancia relativa del cambio climático en la agenda de su organización?• ¿Cuáles son los objetivos de su organización en relación con el apoyo a la agricultura resiliente al clima?• ¿Qué está haciendo la organización con respecto a la mitigación o la adaptación al cambio climático?• ¿Qué está haciendo bien la organización?• ¿Qué han logrado en el campo de la resiliencia climática que pudiera servir a otros?• ¿Hay algún área de posible expansión de las actividades relacionadas con el clima que su organización no está en capacidad de respaldar?• Teniendo en cuenta todas las organizaciones que trabajan en la comunidad, ¿cuáles considera usted que son áreas de posible expansión?• ¿Cuáles organizaciones están vinculadas a su organización? ¿De qué manera? ¿Con qué fin? Paso 3. Actividades agrícolas adaptadas al clima: Concéntrese en las actividades de la organización en la comunidad de su interés. Explore las actividades relacionadas con la agricultura sostenible adaptada al clima. Puede utilizar las siguientes preguntas tomadas del análisis socioeconómico y de género (lista de verificación 2).Lista de verificación 2: caracterización de la organización en la comunidad• ¿Qué tipos de prácticas agrícolas se están implementando?• ¿Quiénes están participando en el proyecto? ¿Cuál es el porcentaje aproximado de hombres y de mujeres? ¿Cuál es el porcentaje aproximado de jóvenes y adultos mayores?• ¿Cómo participan ellos? (en forma individual, en grupos)• ¿Cómo se comparten los beneficios?• ¿En qué acciones participan las mujeres agricultoras? ¿Están las mujeres involucradas en la estructura de liderazgo o en la toma de decisiones?• ¿Comparadas con los hombres, enfrentan las mujeres limitaciones para vincularse con el proyecto? De ser así, ¿cuáles son esas limitaciones?• ¿Cuáles intervenciones benefician más a las mujeres que a los hombres? ¿Viceversa? ¿Qué enfoques se han utilizado para lograr una justa distribución de los beneficios?• ¿Qué tipos de estrategias y enfoques se han utilizado para fomentar la participación inclusiva? (mujeres y hombres de bajos ingresos, jóvenes, otros grupos marginados)• ¿Qué estrategias han empleado para motivar a los grupos marginados a adoptar mejores prácticas agrícolas y de manejo de los recursos naturales? Paso 4. Brinde la oportunidad a la persona entrevistada de preguntar o agregar cualquier cosa, hacer aclaraciones o comentarios generales o específicos sobre los problemas del estudio. Agradézcales por la información brindada, que sin duda será de gran valor para su propio trabajo.Módulos de investigación / Servicios de información sobre el clima 158La información climática es relevante para la adaptación al cambio climático, la planeación a largo plazo y los sistemas de alerta temprana. Se espera que con este módulo se identifiquen y comprendan las fuentes posibles y disponibles de información meteorológica y climática en una comunidad, cómo se divulga dicha información y cómo las creencias, el acceso y el uso han cambiado con el tiempo. Además, existen herramientas para ayudar a evaluar los pronósticos meteorológicos en distintas épocas del año para entenderlos y usarlos mejor.Este módulo contiene una serie de herramientas que, de ser implementadas secuencialmente, proporcionan la información preliminar necesaria para el diseño de un programa de agricultura que integre los temas de género y tenga en cuenta especialmente a los grupos más vulnerables.Cuadro 13. Herramientas sugeridas para el módulo de servicios de información sobre el clima Herramienta Uso sugeridoDos sesiones: hombres y mujeres Evaluar diferentes fuentes (personas y organizaciones) de información meteorológica y climática y su credibilidad, legitimidad y preponderancia.Dos sesiones: hombres y mujeres Creación de perfiles de acceso y control de los canales de información.Con este cuestionario se evalúan los niveles de comprensión y uso de los pronósticos del tiempo por estación.Comprensión de las estrategias y los enfoques institucionales para la inclusión y la participación de grupos marginados.Este módulo se puede utilizar de manera independiente para elaborar un programa de agricultura resistente al clima, o junto con cualquier otro módulo para desarrollar un programa con objetivos en los temas de género y cambio climático. Si se utiliza junto con otros módulos, el equipo de investigación debe planear cuidadosamente el despliegue secuencial de las herramientas para evitar la repetición. Por ejemplo, el mapa de línea base de la comunidad elaborado en el Módulo 1, se puede agregar al Módulo 2 para identificar los recursos de subsistencia y compararlo con el Módulo 3 para identificar áreas de posible mitigación. Las herramientas descritas en este módulo están diseñadas para ser desarrolladas secuencialmente. Sin embargo, si ya se cuenta con la información generada a partir de una o varias de las herramientas, se pueden omitir fácilmente para concentrar el tiempo y los recursos en las demás herramientas.Participantes: Grupos de hombres y mujeres por separado (de 8 a 10 personas), de diferentes edades y estatus socioeconómico.• Repase los conceptos de 'tiempo', 'clima' y 'probabilidad'.Es necesario que quien facilita tenga muy clara la diferencia entre tiempo y clima antes de hablar sobre los pronósticos con el grupo focal. Pudiera ser que, primero que todo, deba definir junto con el grupo focal lo que es el tiempo, ya que muchos idiomas no tienen una palabra específica, sino que hacen referencia a lluvias o estación seca o húmeda. En general, el tiempo se refiere a condiciones a corto plazo, tales como precipitaciones, temperatura, humedad, viento, inundaciones o granizo. Por consiguiente, una predicción del tiempo se refiere a la lluvia, temperatura o humedad durante los próximos 1 a 10 días. El clima, por otra parte, se refiere a los patrones promedio del tiempo en una región durante un periodo dado.Con frecuencia, los pronósticos emitidos por el Servicio Meteorológico Nacional se basan en la probabilidad de precipitación, la cual normalmente se expresa como \"posibilidad de lluvia\". Si se predice una posibilidad de lluvia del 40% en la provincia X, esto significa que los meteorólogos tienen una \"confianza\" del 40% de que va a llover. Esto significa además que los meteorólogos tienen una \"confianza\" del 60% de que no lloverá.• Respete las creencias locales.Se debe esperar que esta actividad ayude a develar el conocimiento y prácticas tradicionales para pronosticar el clima. Es posible que haya señales, mitos, creencias e historias que han pasado de generación en generación, las cuales determinan la comprensión local acerca del tiempo y del clima. Es posible que al inicio quienes entrevistan encuentren poca respuesta en torno a las fuentes tradicionales por varias razones, como:• La información es exclusiva de ciertos grupos o de personas de cierta edad.• Se considera que la información es sagrada o confidencial.• Se considera que la información ya está \"pasad de moda\".• La información está en conflicto con una identidad en particular.Se deben anotar los cambios en las actitudes en torno a la validez, valor o uso de dichas creencias y sondearlos en más profundidad, si fuese necesario.• Reflexione sobre las fuentes específicas de información climática y meteorológica en las que su proyecto está interesado. ¿Cuáles son esas fuentes? ________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________ • Si ha identificado fuentes de información específicas para su proyecto, puede usarlas en el ejercicio de clasificación para valorar las percepciones sobre su \"credibilidad\" y \"preponderancia\" (pasos 6-8).• Organice a los participantes en un círculo.• Despeje el espacio para que todos puedan ver y utilizar un área grande.Paso 1. Preséntese, presente a los miembros del equipo y luego explique la actividad.Paso 2. Pídales a los participantes que se presenten y anote los nombres así como cualquier información especial sobre cada uno (joven, persona adulta mayor, persona con discapacidad etc.) Paso 3. ¿Qué es probabilidad? Es recomendable preparar al grupo focal hablando primero sobre los conceptos locales de \"probabilidad\". Es posible que el concepto local desafíe los pronósticos científicos. Este diálogo inicial puede revelar información importante sobre confianza, mito, religión y ciencia, así como cambios en las creencias culturales debido al aumento en la variabilidad del tiempo debido al cambio climático. Utilice las preguntas de verificación ofrecidas en la lista 1.Lista de verificación 1: caracterización de los conceptos relacionados con el clima, tiempo y probabilidad ¿Existe una palabra o concepto local para 'probabilidad'? ¿Puede alguien explicar qué significa probabilidad? (no solamente en términos del tiempo) ¿Han tomado decisiones a partir de una probabilidad baja o alta de que sucediera algo? ¿Han tomado este tipo de decisiones a partir de una probabilidad relacionada con el tiempo? Paso 4. Cuando ya se tiene clara la idea de 'probabilidad', introduzca el tema de información sobre el tiempo y sobre el clima. Haga un listado de las distintas fuentes de información sobre el tiempo (condiciones del tiempo a corto plazo) usadas por los miembros de la comunidad. Por medio de las preguntas de la lista de verificación 2, realice un sondeo de cada fuente.Quienes toman notas deben prestar atención a si se habla del tiempo o del clima. A menudo, los participantes del grupo focal tienden a confundir los dos tipos de información; asegúrese de ingresar la información en forma correcta en su cuaderno de notas y en los formularios.Paso 5. Repita el procedimiento para la información climática (patrones de largo plazo o condiciones propias de cada estaciones climática; esta información es de gran valor para las prácticas agrícolas).Lista de verificación 2: caracterización del clima en una comunidad ¿Cuáles son las fuentes de información sobre el tiempo (o sobre el clima) que se conocen en esta comunidad?¿Quién produce dicha información?¿Qué información específica obtuvo usted la última vez que recurrió a dicha fuente? ¿Qué hizo usted con esa información?¿Quién tomó la decisión de actuar? ¿El esposo, la esposa, los y las jóvenes, los niños o las niñas? ¿Qué sucedió? ¿Ha cambiado con el tiempo su opinión sobre el tipo de información que utilizó? ¿Por qué? Paso 6. Una vez que se hayan completado las listas de fuentes de información, proceda a la valoración de cada una.Empiece con las fuentes de información sobre el tiempo. Dibuje o escriba cada fuente principal en el piso o en papel; dibuje un círculo alrededor de cada fuente. Coloque un puñado de 100 frijoles en el centro y pregunte a los participantes cuál fuente consideran que es la de mayor \"credibilidad\" (la que les genera mayor confianza). Una vez que se hayan distribuido todos los frijoles, haga preguntas de sondeo para conocer las razones de la calificación. Si lo desea, puede utilizar preguntas como las que aparecen en el listado de verificación 3 Paso 7. Repita en ejercicio con las mismas fuentes de información meteorológica, pero con la \"preponderancia\" como criterio de clasificación.El hecho de que una fuente sea la más confiable o de mayor credibilidad no significa que sea la más \"preponderante\" (sobresaliente). Se entiende por información preponderante aquella que es relevante para las necesidades de los agricultores. ¿La fuente de información les proporciona información valiosa que pueden utilizar? ¿Es oportuna?, ¿sobre cultivos y prácticas de interés para los agricultores, ¿de implementación demasiado costosa? Todos estos factores afectan la \"preponderancia\" de una fuente de información.Haga preguntas de sondeo para comprender el porqué de la clasificación a partir de la preponderancia.Paso 8. Repita el proceso para las fuentes de información climática.Lista de verificación 3: comprobación de la confianza en las fuentes de información sobre el clima ¿Por qué esta información es más útil que las otras? ¿Qué tiene esta información que la hace menos relevante para sus necesidades?¿Por qué existe una brecha tan grande en el nivel de confianza que usted tiene en la información proveniente de esta fuente en comparación con las demás?164Aporte las ideas o las observaciones que tenga sobre la sesión en general. ¿Qué tipos de sesgo considera usted que afectaron la sesión y de qué maneras? ¿Cómo cree usted que esto se refleja en la información?Fuentes de información meteorológica Participantes: Grupos de hombres y mujeres por separado (de 8 a 10 personas), de diferentes edades y estatus socioeconómico.Duración: una hora a una hora y media• ¿Qué tipo de información tiene planeado dar a conocer con el proyecto? _____________________• ¿En quiénes se enfocará el proyecto (hombres, mujeres, jóvenes, población marginada, población sin tierra)? ___________________________________________________________________• Con base en la audiencia y las necesidades de su proyecto, usted y su equipo deben preparar uno o dos escenarios específicos para hacer este ejercicio con la comunidad.Cuadro 14. Ejemplos de escenarios de flujo de información Tipo de información: Información estacional a largo plazo Enunciado del escenario: \"El servicio meteorológico nacional pronostica un extenso periodo seco en esta temporada\".Información dirigida a mujeres en edad fértil.Enunciado del escenario: \"La clínica realizará un taller sobre nutrición, salud infantil y salud materna\".Enunciado del escenario: \" Una nueva enfermedad está afectando al ganado por lo que es necesario vacunarlo\".Enunciado del escenario: \"Hay una nueva variedad de semilla de corto tiempo de maduración a disposición de los agricultores\".Prepare sus propios escenarios ____________________________________________• Organice a los participantes en un círculo.• Despeje el espacio para que todos puedan ver y utilizar un área grande.Paso 1. Preséntese (y a su equipo de trabajo) y luego explique la actividad.Paso 2. Pídales a los participantes que se presenten y anote los nombres así como cualquier información especial sobre cada uno (joven, persona adulta mayor, persona con discapacidad, etc.).Paso 3. Explique al grupo que van a hacer un juego para comprender cómo viajan las noticias por la comunidad.Empiece leyendo el enunciado del escenario en voz alta, luego pregunta \"¿Cómo llega esta información a una comunidad?\". De ser necesario, haga más preguntas para guiar el tema: \"Con base en ese punto de partida, ¿cómo fluye la información entre las diferentes personas?\" y así sucesivamente.Paso 4. En un pliego de papel vaya dibujando la información que las personas aportan (actores, tecnologías, lugares y reuniones).Debe prepararse un mapa para cada escenario. Recomendación: Es importante captar la información en forma de una imagen que forma parte una red. Siempre pensamos en la información fluye en forma lineal, desde una fuente (arriba) hacia los destinatarios (abajo), o hacia arriba y hacia abajo cuando hay retroalimentación. Sin embargo, en una comunidad la información frecuentemente viaja a través de una red de lugares y personas que funcionan como nodos de dicha red. Al visualizar dicha red, los facilitadores y los participantes pueden ver lo rica y compleja que es y descubrir quiénes son los que más ayudan a difundir la información y porqué.Paso 5. Después de leer los escenarios en voz alta, presente el mapa nuevamente al grupo focal. Utilice sus propias preguntas de sondeo o las que aparecen en la lista de verificación 1 para tratar de obtener más información de interés.Figura 10. Afiche con flujo de información Lista de verificación 1: caracterización de los flujos de información en las comunidades• ¿Quién se entera primero (hombres, mujeres, ricos, pobres?)?, ¿por qué?• ¿Son las mujeres las primeras en recibir información? ¿Por qué sí o por qué no?• Qué grupo o personas de la comunidad son las últimas en enterarse? (o no se enteran del todo) ¿Por qué?• En su opinión, ¿el acceso a información importante es equitativo o inequitativo entre las diferentes personas de la comunidad ? ¿Por qué sí o por qué no?• En caso de ser inequitativo, ¿cómo se puede mejorar? Paso 6. Si su proyecto se concentra en tecnologías o plataformas específicas para compartir información, contemple la posibilidad de utilizar las preguntas de la lista de verificación 2 para entender mejor los problemas de acceso, uso y control de la información.Lista de verificación 2: caracterización de los problemas de acceso, uso y control de la información Acceso Control Uso Tecnología:• ¿Quién tiene acceso a este tipo de tecnología? ¿Quién no tiene acceso? ¿Por qué?• ¿Quién posee la información? ¿Se comparte? ¿Quiénes no la tiene? ¿Por qué?• ¿Necesitan los hombres, las mujeres o los jóvenes permiso para usarla? ¿Permiso de quién? ¿Hay personas a las que no se les permite usarla? ¿A quiénes? ¿Por qué?• ¿Con qué frecuencia es utilizada por hombres, mujeres o jóvenes? ¿Por qué?• ¿Es fácil o difícil de utilizar? ¿Por qué?Reuniones/Plataformas:• ¿Quién asiste a las reuniones? ¿Quién no asiste? ¿Por qué?• ¿Necesitan los hombres, las mujeres o los jóvenes algún permiso para asistir? ¿Pueden asistir solos o solas? ¿Hay personas a las que no se les permite asistir? ¿Por qué?• ¿Es fácil o difícil asistir? ¿Por qué? Incluya el pronóstico científico presentado y anote toda información adicional proporcionada por los participantes acerca de la sesión del pronóstico meteorológico que no haya sido captada en el recuadro anterior.Aporte las ideas o las observaciones que tenga sobre la sesión en general. ¿Qué tipos de sesgo considera usted que afectaron la sesión y de qué maneras? ¿Cómo cree usted que esto se refleja en la información?Participantes que utilizan pronósticos científicos Participantes que no utilizan pronósticos científicos ¿Quiénes los utilizan? ¿Quién no los utilizan?Would they like to receive forecasts? Why or why not?¿Quién produjo el pronóstico que utilizan? ¿Dónde y con qué frecuencia utilizan este pronóstico? ¿Con quién comparten la información?¿Qué factores los llevan a confiar o desconfiar del pronóstico?¿Cómo se puede mejorar la confianza?Canales preferidos y factores de dicha preferencia.Participantes: Identificar una o dos personas que participan en las actividades de cada organización (preferiblemente un hombre y una mujer).Duración: De 20 a 45 minutos• Analice el diagrama de Venn y los resultados del cronograma elaborado en el ejercicio sobre los cambios en las prácticas agrícolas; identifique las organizaciones que tienen actividades o proyectos en la comunidad.• Analice cualquier otro perfil organizacional o institucional que se haya elaborado en la región; por ejemplo, el estudio de línea base organizacional del CCAFS.• Haga una lista de las organizaciones identificadas, de las cuales usted desearía conocer más, incluidas organizaciones comunitarias, grupos de familias agricultoras, grupos locales de mujeres, asociaciones de agricultores, ONG locales, organizaciones internacionales, grupos de la sociedad civil, gobierno local, servicios de extensión, etc.• Comuníquese con las organizaciones y agende citas para entrevistas.Paso 1. De la bienvenida a la persona que va a entrevistar, presente a los miembros del equipo de investigación y explique el objetivo del ejercicio.Usted se podría presentar de la siguiente manera:\"Gracias por participar en esta entrevista. Estamos interesados en conocer más sobre los tipos de nuevas prácticas agrícolas que han sido adoptadas por hombres y mujeres. Queremos saber cómo y porqué han surgido dichos cambios. Quisiéramos saber también sobre el proyecto o la actividad en la que usted está participando. Mucho le agradeceremos si pudiera contestarnos algunas preguntas sobre los enfoques, las estrategias y los acuerdos institucionales que ustedes utilizan para la implementación de su proyecto y los beneficios que esperan alcanzar\".Paso 2. Perfil organizacional: Enfóquese primero en la organización. No se trata de conocer todos los detalles del proyecto, sino más bien de \"sonsacar\" lecciones sobre estrategias, enfoques, reglas, etc. que se están utilizando (o no) para mejorar la participación de hombres y mujeres de bajos ingresos y los beneficios de dichas iniciativas. Consulte la lista de verificación 1 con preguntas sugeridas.Lista de verificación 1: caracterización del perfil organizacional• ¿Qué tipo de organización (organización comunitaria, entidad pública, ONG) es y en qué nivel trabaja (a nivel local, nacional o internacional)?• ¿Cuál es el objetivo o el enfoque de su organización?• ¿Desde hace cuánto tiempo trabaja en la comunidad?• ¿A qué tipo de personas de la comunidad está dirigida su organización? ¿Quiénes tienen acceso a los servicios que ofrece su organización? ¿Tienen los jóvenes y los adultos mayores acceso a los servicios? ¿Goza la organización de un mayor acercamiento con grupos (sociales y/o de género) específicos? ¿Con cuáles?• ¿Cuál es la importancia relativa del cambio climático en la agenda de su organización?• ¿Cuáles son los objetivos de su organización en relación con el apoyo a la agricultura resiliente al clima?• ¿Qué está haciendo la organización con respecto a la mitigación o la adaptación al cambio climático?• ¿Qué está haciendo bien la organización?• ¿Qué han logrado en el campo de la resiliencia climática que pudiera servir a otros?• ¿Hay algún área de posible expansión de las actividades relacionadas con el clima que su organización no está en capacidad de respaldar?• Teniendo en cuenta todas las organizaciones que trabajan en la comunidad, ¿cuáles considera usted que son áreas de posible expansión?• ¿Cuáles organizaciones están vinculadas a su organización? ¿De qué manera? ¿Con qué fin? Paso 3. Actividades agrícolas adaptadas al clima: Concéntrese en las actividades de la organización en la comunidad de su interés. Explore las actividades relacionadas con la agricultura sostenible adaptada al clima. Puede utilizar las siguientes preguntas tomadas del análisis socioeconómico y de género (lista de verificación 2).• ¿Qué tipos de prácticas agrícolas se están implementando?• ¿Quiénes están participando en el proyecto? ¿Cuál es el porcentaje aproximado de hombres y de mujeres? ¿Cuál es el porcentaje aproximado de jóvenes y adultos mayores?• ¿Cómo participan ellos? (en forma individual, en grupos)• ¿Cómo se comparten los beneficios?• ¿En qué acciones participan las mujeres agricultoras? ¿Están las mujeres involucradas en la estructura de liderazgo o en la toma de decisiones?• ¿Comparadas con los hombres, enfrentan las mujeres limitaciones para vincularse con el proyecto? De ser así, ¿cuáles son esas limitaciones?• ¿Cuáles intervenciones benefician más a las mujeres que a los hombres? ¿Viceversa? ¿Qué enfoques se han utilizado para lograr una justa distribución de los beneficios?• ¿Qué tipos de estrategias y enfoques se han utilizado para fomentar la participación inclusiva? (mujeres y hombres de bajos ingresos, jóvenes, otros grupos marginados)• ¿Qué estrategias han empleado para motivar a los grupos marginados a adoptar mejores prácticas agrícolas y de manejo de los recursos naturales? Paso 4. Brinde la oportunidad a la persona entrevistada de preguntar o agregar cualquier cosa, hacer aclaraciones o comentarios generales o específicos sobre los problemas del estudio. Agradézcales por la información brindada, que sin duda será de gran valor para su propio trabajo.La mitigación del cambio climático implica reducir los gases de efecto invernadero y/o mejorar la capacidad de los sumideros de GEI. El objetivo es estabilizar su concentración en la atmósfera con el fin de reducir la exposición global a los efectos del cambio climático(SPC 2011). Las herramientas de este módulo se pueden utilizar para identificar prácticas agrícolas que abordan el tema de la vulnerabilidad climática para mejorar los cobeneficios y los impactos de la mitigación. También pueden servir entender mejor la cohesión y la equidad social a nivel comunitario e implementar proyectos de mitigación y distribución de beneficios.Este módulo contiene una serie de herramientas que, de ser implementadas secuencialmente, proporcionan la información preliminar necesaria para el diseño de un programa de agricultura que integre los temas de género y tenga en cuenta especialmente a los grupos más vulnerables.Cuadro 16. Herramientas sugeridas para el módulo de mitigaciónCambios en las prácticas agrícolas Dos sesiones: hombres y mujeres Identificación de prácticas de mitigación y adaptación, y de los actores claves y los beneficiarios a los cuales están dirigidas.Comprender los posibles incentivos para la comunidad y los desafíos para la adopción de los proyectos de mitigación propuestos.Este módulo se puede utilizar de manera independiente para elaborar un programa de agricultura resistente al clima, o junto con cualquier otro módulo para desarrollar un programa con objetivos en los temas de género y cambio climático. Si se utiliza junto con otros módulos, el equipo de investigación debe planear cuidadosamente el despliegue secuencial de las herramientas para evitar la repetición. Por ejemplo, el mapa de línea base de la comunidad elaborado en el Módulo 1, se puede agregar al Módulo 2 para identificar los recursos de subsistencia y compararlo con el Módulo 3 para identificar áreas de posible mitigación. Las herramientas descritas en este módulo están diseñadas para ser desarrolladas secuencialmente. Sin embargo, si ya se cuenta con la información generada a partir de una o varias de las herramientas, se pueden omitir fácilmente para concentrar el tiempo y los recursos en las demás herramientas.Participantes: Grupos de hombres y mujeres por separado (de 8 a 10 personas), de diferentes edades y estatus socioeconómico.Duración: De media hora a una hora Preparación de los materiales:• Dibuje el cuadro siguiente en su cuaderno para facilitar la toma de notas.Beneficios (incluya el número de frijoles asignados)Limitaciones (incluya el número de frijoles asignados)Preparación de la actividad• Organice a los participantes en un círculo y despeje el área en el centro.• Repase el listado de prácticas agrícolas que usted ya conoce o que registró durante el ejercicio Cronograma para el cambios en las prácticas agrícolas.• Tenga en cuenta las siguientes preguntas: Paso 1. Preséntese, presente a los miembros del equipo y luego explique la actividad.Paso 2. Pídales a los participantes que se presenten. Escriba el nombre y cualquier información especial sobre cada uno (joven, persona adulta, persona con discapacidad, etc.) Paso 3. Inicie la conversación preguntando sobre un cambio agrícola o no agrícola en el que usted esté interesado. Trate de entender los diferentes beneficios y dificultades asociadas con cada práctica.Paso 4. Después de haber anotado los beneficios y dificultades, pídale a un voluntario que los dibuje en varias hojas de papel o en un afiche grande.Paso 5. Tome 100 frijoles y explique que ellos representan a todos los hombres y mujeres de la comunidad. Pídales que distribuyan los frijoles entre los beneficios de cada práctica. Motive al grupo a trabajar en forma colaborativa para hacer una distribución con la que todos estén de acuerdo. Un ejemplo de esta actividad se presenta en la Figura 11. Paso 6. Repita el paso 5 para las dificultades asociadas con la adopción de la práctica. Asegúrese de que todos los participantes aportan sus puntos de vista, para así formarse una idea clara de las percepciones de los beneficios y las dificultades expresadas.Paso 7. Siga el mismo procedimiento para cada práctica de su interés. Registre los beneficios, las limitaciones y las notas que se tomaron para cada práctica.Utilice sus propias preguntas de sondeo o las que aparecen en la lista de verificación 1 para tratar de obtener más información de interés. • ¿Cómo afecta esta actividad a la calidad del suelo?• ¿Cómo afecta esta actividad a las fuentes de agua?• ¿Cómo afecta esta actividad a los recursos forestales?• ¿Cómo afecta esta actividad a la diversidad de cultivos?• ¿Cómo se relaciona esta actividad con la tenencia de tierras? ¿Se requiere tierra? ¿Se arrienda? ¿Se comparte? ¿Es propia?• ¿Quién tiene control sobre la tierra? ¿Quién tiene acceso a la tierra? ¿Cómo logran acceso a la tierra aquellas personas que no la poseen?• ¿Cómo se comparte la carga de trabajo para esta actividad? ¿Quién realiza la mayor parte del trabajo? ¿Se realiza en grupo?• ¿Esta actividad requiere la adquisición o el arrendamiento de equipos? ¿Todos los grupos o personas en la comunidad están en capacidad de adquirir los equipos? De no ser así, ¿cómo se comparten los equipos? ¿Quiénes no están en capacidad de adquirirlos?• ¿Existe alguna limitación de tiempo o de época del año para el uso de los equipos? ¿Quién maneja los equipos? ¿Quién los alquila?Prácticas agrícolas y no agrícolas:• ¿Qué tanto tiempo exige esta actividad? ¿Cómo afecta a la cantidad de trabajo para hombres? ¿Para mujeres? ¿Para niños y niñas?• ¿Se requiere algún conocimiento especial para realizar esta actividad? ¿Quién posee este conocimiento? ¿Quién no?• ¿Cómo afecta esta actividad al consumo o a la seguridad alimentaria del hogar?• ¿Tiene esta actividad algún beneficio nutricional? ¿Quién toma la decisión de invertir en nutrición? ¿Quién en la familia se beneficia más en términos de nutrición?• ¿Cómo afecta esta actividad a los ingresos de la familia en general? ¿Quién guarda los ingresos? ¿Se comparten?• ¿Los ingresos provenientes de esta actividad se destinan a inversiones a largo plazo como educación, negocios, pago de préstamos? ¿Quién toma la decisión de invertir? ¿Quién se beneficia más?• ¿Cómo se comparte la información dentro de un grupo de productores que se dedica a esta actividad? ¿Cómo se comparte entre personas?• ¿Hay empresas pequeñas que hayan crecido a partir de esta actividad? ¿Son estas empresas manejadas por hombres, mujeres o jóvenes? ¿Existen asociaciones que administren la empresa? ¿Son los miembros de las asociaciones principalmente hombres o mujeres? ¿Cómo se toman las decisiones en las asociaciones? ¿Cómo se comparten los beneficios?Aporte las ideas o las observaciones que tenga sobre la sesión en general. ¿Qué tipos de sesgo considera usted que afectaron la sesión y de qué maneras? ¿Cómo cree que esto se refleja en la información?Importancia relativa:Práctica:Limitaciones (incluya el número de frijoles asignados)Práctica:Beneficios (incluya el número de frijoles asignados)Notas ¿Sobre cuál tema necesito más información? ¿Sobre cuál tema necesito aclaración? ¿Qué información recopilada apoya o refuta información recolectada en otras sesiones? ¿Qué temas no se vieron, pero aun deseo poner sobre la mesa? Este manual tiene como fin brindarle herramientas y técnicas de IAP para la recopilación de datos de calidad que sean relevantes para proyectos, programas e investigaciones sobre cambio climático que tengan en cuenta los temas de género. Este manual no pretende guiar el análisis de datos, pues este proceso puede ser muy diferente dependiendo de los objetivos y del propósito de la investigación. Sin embargo, a continuación ofrecemos un listado de buenas prácticas y algunos conceptos y técnicas útiles, como ayuda para aquellas personas que son nuevas en el proceso de investigación.Decida si hará una investigación inductiva o deductiva. Si se decide por la investigación deductiva, defina previamente el propósito y los objetivos de la investigación y asegúrese de que el equipo entienda claramente sobre qué se va a recopilar información. Si se decide por la investigación inductiva, el propósito y los objetivos de la investigación se definirán durante el proceso de investigación con la comunidad; para ello, el Módulo de coproducción de conocimiento, elaborado a partir de las metas, prioridades y realidades definidas por la comunidad misma, será de gran ayuda.Haga que el análisis forme parte del diseño de su proyecto. Desde el principio del proceso de investigación, usted debe decidir cómo se realizará el análisis. Cómo se mencionó, la calidad del análisis depende de la calidad de la información; por ello, para asegurar la recolección de información sustancial para el análisis es primordial decidir y afinar el diseño de recolección de datos para obtener información importante por medio de herramientas primarias y luego hacer una triangulación con otras herramientas. El registro diario de información con todo el equipo de investigación es parte esencial para garantizar información de calidad. Durante todo el proceso de recolección de información, siempre es conveniente hacer análisis preliminares. Después de que el equipo termine el registro de datos, o cuando usted se prepara para presentar sus resultados a la comunidad, rescate la información recolectada que fue particularmente relevante y trascendental.Decida con anticipación la unidad de medida. Desde el principio del proceso de investigación, usted debe decidir qué unidad de medida es la que más le conviene -personas, hogares, toda la comunidad, todo el distrito-. Después de tomar esta decisión, podrá ajustar las herramientas y las preguntas para asegurarse de obtener la información que mejor responda a la unidad de medida escogida. Si, por ejemplo, realiza un sondeo para obtener información sobre los cambios a nivel del hogar, no puede extrapolar ni hacer afirmaciones generales sobre lo que está sucediendo a nivel de comunidad o distrito. Si la unidad de medida no se decide desde un principio, ni se adaptan las herramientas, es muy probable que usted vaya a tener problemas de validez.Logística y guía de planeación Actividades de aprendizaje Introducción Conceptos básicosBibliografía Reflexione sobre los sesgos de investigadores y participantes. A medida que vaya completando los formularios que aparecen al final de cada herramienta, después de cada sesión, tómese un tiempo para analizar cómo las identidades de los participantes (políticos locales, funcionarios gubernamentales, jefaturas) y de los miembros del equipo de investigación (vinculaciones con organizaciones que prestan servicios o suministran información), o el contexto mismo de la sesión (ubicación, duración, interrupciones) pueden haber afectado la información recolectada. Hacer una reflexión sobre los sesgos durante todo el proceso será útil para mejorar la calidad de la información, pues ayuda a determinar lo que se debe triangular y sondear con mayor profundidad para confirmar o refutar la validez.¡No se debe realizar ningún análisis mientras se toman notas! Las notas que se registran deben ser lo más fieles posibles a lo que digan los participantes; o sea que se deben registrar en las propias palabras del actor. Si quienes hacen la labor de relatoría solamente registran un resumen de las intervenciones de los participantes, entonces ya han analizado la fuente principal de información. Han excluido lo que no consideran importante y han registrado solamente lo que consideran la idea principal. Los resúmenes dan como resultado información incompleta y una posible tergiversación de lo que los participantes dicen y piensan sobre sus experiencias. Quienes toman notas deben practicar durante la revisión y prueba de las herramientas para desarrollar la habilidad de registrar exactamente lo que digan los participantes. De esta manera se garantiza que el análisis se lleve a cabo por separado de la recolección de datos y se obtiene información más exacta.Identifique los principales asuntos o temas de interés. Antes y durante el proceso de recolección de datos, esboce los temas específicos sobre los que desea información precisa. Especificar el enfoque desde el inicio hará que la recolección y el análisis de datos sean más manejables y direccionados.Decida sobre un método sistemático de análisis. Después de terminar de recopilar la información en las comunidades, decida sobre una estrategia para el procesamiento de la información. Es posible que tenga una base de datos extensa que deba sintetizar en un informe. Para lograr esto, es recomendable tener en cuenta el uso de técnicas como la categorización, la codificación y la contextualización, las cuales se definen más adelante en esta sección.Involucre a los miembros del equipo en el proceso. La investigación cualitativa es única en el sentido de que quienes recopilaron la información pueden brindar perspectivas críticas para el análisis de datos. Considere diferentes maneras de incorporar al equipo de investigación en el proceso de análisis de datos; por ejemplo, en la categorización o codificación. Es posible que los miembros del equipo hayan interpretado de una manera diferente los comentarios escuchados o las situaciones vividas; por eso, el hablarlo durante el proceso de análisis puede generar perspectivas increíblemente ricas y un análisis más integral.Logística y guía de planeación Actividades de aprendizaje Introducción Conceptos básicosBibliografíaEl éxito del análisis depende directamente de la amplitud, profundidad y calidad de la recolección y registro de la información. A medida que se realiza el proceso de recolección de información, asegúrese de incorporar los siguientes conceptos claves que incidirán en el análisis posterior.Durante una entrevista o grupo focal, se explora la congruencia interna de la información suministrada por las personas por medio de un sondeo con preguntas guiadas. Cuando una persona entrevistada responde una pregunta, normalmente quien entrevista hace preguntas adicionales para verificar y profundizar su comprensión sobre el punto de vista del participante. El sondeo le permitirá conocer más sobre una afirmación o una anécdota compartida por un participante.Cuando se está recolectando la información, se deben tener en cuenta los conflictos de intereses u otros posibles intereses que las personas encuestadas podrían tener. Las motivaciones de los participantes son importantes para reflexionar e interpretar la información que se recopile. ¿Por qué están participando en la sesión? ¿Cómo se benefician y cómo esto afecta su participación?Cuando empiece a escuchar muchas opiniones durante la reunión con el grupo focal, pondere la evidencia recolectada de diferentes fuentes para hacer una valoración sobre qué se debe priorizar e investigar en más detalle. Usted tiene limitaciones de tiempo, desplazamiento y logística para realizar el proceso de investigación en la comunidad; por eso, es indispensable que pondere la evidencia para fijar las prioridades de la investigación.Al elaborar su plan de investigación, considere cómo se pueden utilizar las diferentes herramientas y las entrevistas para triangular la información que está recolectando. La triangulación es un proceso analítico para comparar la información recolectada a través de distintos métodos y fuentes de información. Se utiliza para explorar patrones y coherencia, y para comprender el sesgo de los diferentes encuestados. Una forma de triangulación, durante un grupo focal, es pedir la opinión de los participantes sobre un mismo tema. También se triangula al comparar los resultados del grupo focal con las estadísticas nacionales, por medio de un análisis cruzado o durante el análisis final cuando se ya tiene toda la base de datos.Cuando usted se está preparando para su proyecto de investigación, debe considerar el tipo de información que va a buscar. Puede recopilar datos cuantitativos, semicuantitativos o cualitativos, los cuales permiten obtener diferentes tipos de información a partir de los mismos datos. Cada tipo de análisis tiene ventajas y desventajas que se deben sopesar con anticipación. Es aconsejable usar métodos combinados con información cuantitativa y cualitativa para que el análisis sea más integral.La investigación cuantitativa mide \"cuánto\" hay de algo, y se expresa como una cifra específica y una unidad de medida. Por ejemplo, una distancia de 10 kilómetros. La información cuantitativa puede ser más fácil de analizar pero, en algunos casos, solo es posible recopilarla de maneras limitadas.En la investigación semicuantitativa, los investigadores asignan una cantidad numérica a datos específicos de información, aunque la unidad de medida puede ser irregular. Es posible generar información a partir de datos cualitativos, por medio de un sistema de clasificación o jerarquización, como las herramientas de análisis de cobeneficios y clasificación de la riqueza y la vulnerabilidad, ofrecidas en esta caja de herramientas. Este tipo de análisis puede permitir realizar algunas pruebas estadísticas, pero la información es más difícil de recopilar.Logística y guía de planeación Actividades de aprendizaje Introducción Conceptos básicosBibliografía La investigación cualitativa es más descriptiva y, hasta cierto punto, subjetiva. En vez de una cantidad y una unidad de medida específicas, una distancia podría ser descrita como \"más alejado\" que otro lugar. El análisis cualitativo permite registrar una amplia variedad de respuestas, pero es más difícil de analizar.Esta sección se basa en Jost (2014); un taller de capacitación sobre investigación de género e investigación participativa patrocinado por CARE/CAAFS en Bolga, Ghana.Este manual pretende ofrecerle las habilidades, herramientas y métodos necesarios para la investigación y análisis cualitativos principalmente, y algunos análisis semicuantitativos. A continuación le ofrecemos algunas herramientas para el análisis cualitativo de la información de la base de datos que usted ha compilado a partir de los formularios para cada herramienta. Estas técnicas le ayudarán a procesar en forma sistemática las grandes cantidades de información que ha recolectado, y a entender y sintetizar los datos.La categorización es una técnica útil que implica segmentar y reorganizar la información en categorías que faciliten el conteo o la comparación entre cosas en las mismas categorías. La categorización también puede ser muy útil para organizar la información en temas más amplios, e identificar y simplificar variaciones y tendencias en los datos. Todo el equipo de investigación puede fácilmente participar en el proceso de categorización; cada miembro puede hacerse cargo de algunas categorías en particular y segmentar la información a medida que se analiza la base de datos.La codificación es una técnica empleada en la investigación cualitativa para marcar o indexar texto. Cuando se codifica, el equipo de investigación segmenta el texto en unidades analíticas que respondan a los temas definidos por el equipo. Estos términos se definen por lo que incluyen y excluyen. Por ejemplo, un código para \" labores agrícolas\" incluye la distribución del trabajo, ganadería, toma de decisiones sobre cultivos, comercialización, pero excluye las labores domésticas y actividades fuera de la finca. Los datos se segmentan a partir de estos códigos definidos para identificar temas que se presentan en repetidas ocasiones en los datos.La contextualización es otra técnica útil para la comprensión de la información. Cuando se contextualiza, se buscan relaciones que conecten los procesos y los eventos así como antecedentes y consecuencias dentro de un contexto. La identificación de estas relaciones será útil para revelar un todo significativo y coherente, que capte y transmita la complejidad y los matices.","tokenCount":"40829"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e322cf4bf2e25531a6bfc744db11374b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/c74fb10c-1104-4462-8867-d20319228769/retrieve","id":"2125969477"},"keywords":["Papyrus Papers (Pvt) Ltd rain water harvesting, conservation agriculture, supplementary irrigation, fertilizer, Africa planning, implementation, technology evaluation, selection of germplasm, and project Fosu, M., Sawadogo-Kabore, S., Bationo, A., Tabo, R., Buah, S.S., Kanton, R., Bonzi, M., Fatondji, D., Hassane, O., Abdou, A. 2008. Efficient rainwater harvesting and nutrient management for high crop productivity in the Volta Basin. In: Humphreys, E., Bayot, R.S., van Brakel, N., Gichuki, F., Svendsen, M., White, D., Wester, P., Huber-Lee, A., Cook, S., Douthwaite, B., Hoanh, C.T., Johnson, N., Nguyen-Khoa, S., Vidal, A., MacIntyre, I. and MacIntyre, R. (eds). Fighting poverty through sustainable water use mulch, water use efficiency, rainfed, basin planting, zero tillage planting basins, zai, fertilizer, farm labor, organic matter reduced tillage, crop residue, rotation, rainfed, maize, soybean rainfed farming system","agricultural research","No-till","stubble mulch","water productivity","soil and water conservation Quesungual, crop water productivity, slash and burn, shifting agriculture dry spells, moisture stress, rainfed agriculture, water productivity fertility, field-crops, modelling, risk, water-productivity, APSIM crop model, rainfed, dryland, Africa, CERES, DSSAT tillage, mulch, incorporation, residues, CERES, DSSAT stochastic dominance analysis, participatory research, production function water productivity, water balance, integrated management APSIM, sub-saharan Africa, maize, ground nut, pigeon pea Oryza, boro, sowing date, water use, irrigation, salinity hydrological model, methodology flow chart, smallholder farmers, technology, out-scaling erosion, sedimentation, rainfall-runoff, degradation, SWAT supplemental irrigation, rainfed, environmental flow, runoff mapping rain water harvesting, irrigation, crops, dry season, pump irrigation, small dams, water productivity, water use Fertilizer microdosing, West Africa, capacity building, net gains, productivity farmer organizations, markets, credit, net benefits, inputs, crops Sub-Saharan Africa","technology transfer","resource poor farmers","poverty alleviation","non adoption"],"sieverID":"b08ec34a-3576-4b3e-9118-1c96ac9858ad","pagecount":"320","content":"The workshop was sponsored by the CGIAR Challenge program on Water and Food (CPWF), through Theme 1: Crop Water Productivity Improvement and through participating CPWF project funds. We are all grateful to all 37 workshop attendees for their enthusiastic participation in the workshop, and for the papers produced for these proceedings. The participants came from 18 countries and 11 projects (The majority of the world's rural poor people depend on rainfed crop and livestock systems for their food and incomes. When the productivity of these systems is low, as is so often the case, food insecurity, impoverished livelihoods and land and water degradation often prevail. Yield and rainwater productivity are much lower than potential in many rainfed environments because the rain often falls in a relatively small number of large events, with dry spells and droughts in between. Furthermore, soil water holding capacity and fertility are often low, and many farmers grow old varieties with low drought (or other stress) tolerance. Rainfall variability and the frequency of extreme events are likely to increase in the future as a result of climate change.Fortunately, there is high potential to increase land and water productivity in smallholder rainfed crop, livestock and crop-livestock systems through improved soil and water management and germplasm, as demonstrated by many of the projects of Phase 1 of the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF). In fact, a full 75% of the additional food needed to feed the world's population in the coming decades could be met simply by raising the production levels of rainfed farmers. Better use of water and other inputs are central to making this happen.The CPWF seeks to increase the productivity of water for food and livelihoods, in a manner that is environmentally sustainable, socially acceptable and that alleviates poverty for all disadvantaged groups. During Phase 1 (2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008) of the CPWF there were projects in 9 benchmark river basins around the world, working across 5 major themes. The focus of Theme 1 was \"Improving Crop Water Productivity\", and this was a major theme for 14 Phase 1 projects. During Phase 2 (2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013) the CPWF will continue to work in 6 of the original benchmark river basins (Limpopo, Nile, Volta, Ganges, Mekong and Andean system), and the major topic for the 3 African basins will be \"Improving Rainwater Management\".Thus it was very timely that in September 2008 CPWF held an international workshop on \"Increasing the productivity and sustainability of rainfed cropping systems of poor smallholder farmers\" at Tamale in northern Ghana. The workshop was organized by the CPWF Theme 1 Leader (Liz Humphreys) and Assistant Leader (Bing Bayot). The objectives of the workshop were to compile, review and synthesize findings from phase 1 projects focusing on increasing water productivity in rainfed cropping systems. The focus was on the use of infield water harvesting and conservation strategies, supplementary irrigation, the application of crop models to study these systems, and scaling out -downstream consequences and strategies for achieving widespread adoption. The workshop also sought to develop recommendations for research priorities for the Improving Rainwater Management topic for phase 2. The 21 workshop papers presented in these proceedings, together with an overview which seeks to synthesize the main findings and recommendations, provide a timely stocktake of progress to date and future needs and opportunities. The majority of the world's rural poor people depend on rainfed crop and livestock systems for their food and incomes (Peden et al. 2007;Rockström et al. 2007). When the productivity of these systems is low, as is so often the case, food insecurity, impoverished livelihoods, and land and water degradation often prevail. Over the past 50 years, expansion of land under rainfed agriculture has been a key driver of the degradation of ecosystem services (MEA 2005). Fortunately, there is great potential to increase the productivity of rainfed systems, and in ways that benefit the environment. This is true across a wide range of environments from arid and semi-arid temperate regions to the semi-arid and sub-humid tropics, as this paper will show.In 2002 the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) launched a proposal to significantly increase the productivity of water used for agriculture (CPWF 2002). The implementation of research projects commenced in 2004, with \"Improving Crop Water Productivity\" as one of 5 themes, and this was the major theme for 14 of the Phase 1 (2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008) projects. A key element of these projects was to improve rainwater productivity, and some of their major achievements are summarized by Humphreys et al. (2008a), together with key research and adoption gaps, and future research priorities. In September 2008 the CPWF convened an international workshop on \"Increasing the productivity and sustainability of rainfed cropping systems of poor smallholder farmers\" at Tamale in northern Ghana. The objectives of the workshop were to share, review and synthesize findings of those CPWF Phase 1 projects targeting increased water productivity in rainfed cropping systems. The focus was on the use of in-field water harvesting and conservation strategies agriculture, supplementary irrigation, the application of crop models to study these systems, and scaling out in terms of both strategies for achieving widespread adoption and the downstream consequences of such levels of adoption. The workshop also sought to develop recommendations for future research priorities.Twenty-one papers from members of 11 CPWF Phase 1 projects were prepared by the workshop participants for these proceedings. The papers are organized into four thematic sections, although many of the papers contain insights relevant to more than one theme.Section 1 presents the findings of in-field technologies for increasing water productivity of rainfed cropping systems. The emphasis is on aspects of the three pillars of conservation agriculture (minimum tillage, mulching and crop rotation), applied in a wide range of environments from low rainfall temperate regions of the Yellow River Basin (<400-700 mm rainfall) to the semi-arid tropics of the Volta, Nile and Limpopo Basins (600-1,200 mm) to the steep slopes of the sub-humid tropics in Central America (1,200-1,500 mm).Section 2 provides several examples of the evaluation and application of crop models for rainfed cropping and in-field rain water harvesting and conservation agriculture technologies, again in a range of environments in the Volta, Limpopo, Nile and Yellow River Basins. These papers are among the first published attempts to use crop models to simulate conservation agriculture technologies in general, and in these regions in particular. The case studies also include three quite different but instructive examples of the application of models to optimize the availability of scarce fresh water resources, to assess the profitability and riskiness of in-field technological options, and to identify the impacts of climate change and possible adaptation strategies.Widespread adoption of technologies that improve crop productivity in farmers' fields in rainfed regions will affect components of the water balance, including runoff to surface water bodies, and deep drainage to ground waters. However, very little is known about how these effects will scale up at micro-catchment to Basin scales. Section 3 of the proceedings thus provides three early examples of frameworks and models to assess the downstream effects of changing land use and management at sub-catchment and catchment scales.Finally, Section 4 presents five papers providing case studies of approaches to enhance the adoption of improved soil and water management technologies, and the resultant benefits to farm households in terms of crop productivity, food security and financial gain. Levels of adoption, constraints to adoption and potential approaches and interventions to facilitate adoption are also discussed.One reason why rainfed systems have such great potential is that rainfall is often not as scarce as is commonly thought (Rockström et al. 2007). In the wetter semi-arid and dry sub-humid regions, total seasonal rainfall generally exceeds crop water needs. The distribution of rain over the cropping season is often more important than the total amount. Yield and rainwater productivity are much lower than potential in many rainfed environments because rain often falls in a small number of large events, with large runoff and erosion losses, and with long dry spells in between rains. The distribution of the rains over the growing period is often more important, with greater effects on yields, than the total quantity of rainfall. Furthermore, soil water holding capacity and soil fertility are often low, and many farmers grow local traditional varieties with low drought tolerance, without fertilizers or other inputs, using inferior technologies.A range of in-field water harvesting and conservation agriculture technologies have been evaluated by CPWF projects and others in various rainfed environments and cropping systems in Africa, China, and Central America (Mupangwa et al. 2007;Bongani et al. 2009;Castro et al. 2009;Fatondji et al. 2009;Fosu et al. 2008;Kihara and Bationo 2009;Twomlow et al. 2009;Wall and Thierfelder 2009;Yan et al. 2009). The majority of these technologies involved adoption of at least one of the three principals of conservation agriculture -reduced or zero tillage, surface cover, and crop rotation. Notably, few studies involved adoption of all three principals, whereas there is evidence from intensive maize-wheat cropping systems in Mexico that failure to adopt all components (in that case no tillage in the absence of mulching) can result in declining system performance (Govaerts et al. 2007). In continuous maize in western Kenya, Kihara et al. (2009) also found a consistent trend for lower yields of maize with reduced tillage in the absence of residues (2 t ha -1 ) than in the presence of residues over 6 seasons, but the differences were never significant. There was no such trend with conventional tillage. Twomlow et al. (2009) also reported lack of yield response to mulching in farmers' fields (straw levels up to 3 t ha -1 ) and research station trials (straw levels up to 10 t ha -1 ) in Zimbabwe. In contrast, Wall and Thierfelder (2009) found significant yield increases for maize and groundnut with 3 t/ha of mulch, in the drier environments of Macia and Chokwe, Mozambique. In continuous maize in the Yellow River Basin, Yan et al. (2009) found significant yield increases with maize straw retention in both conventionally tilled and non tilled treatments. The amounts of residues retained in China were much higher (6-7 t ha -1 ) than in the African studies, and the residues remained in the field from the time of harvest of the previous crop, rather than being applied at or after sowing.All three principals of conservation agriculture were tested in the relatively wet environments of western Kenya (rainfall 1,000-1,400 mm) (Kihara et al. 2009). Inclusion of a legume in a maize rotation resulted in similar maize yields without the need for N fertilizer, while rain water productivity of both the maize and soybean was unaffected by tillage method or residue retention, over 8 consecutive crops. On steep slopes in the sub-humid tropics, the Quesungal Slash and Mulch Agroforestry System (QSMAS) in Honduras also adopts all three principals of conservation agriculture (Castro et al. 2009). QSMAS is an indigenous production system which is being practiced by 6-7,000 resource-poor smallholders in south west Honduras in hilly to mountainous regions. Here annual rainfall is high (~1,400 mm), with very intense rainfall events at the start of the rainy season, but with a long dry season of up to 6 months and thus only one crop per year is feasible. In both the low and high rainfall situations, there were increases in available soil water and soil organic carbon or carbon sequestration in the mulched, no-till treatments in comparison with conventional tillage in bare soil (after removal or crop residues or slash and burning). Castro et al. (2009) also found that the QSMAS system had greatly reduced runoff and erosion losses, and a much lower global warming potential than the traditional slash and burn system. Crop water productivity was greatest in the young QSMAS systems (< 2 years old) where N fertilizers were used.One of the most common technologies evaluated in Africa by the CPWF projects was \"planting basins\". Planting basin systems, with a variety of basin sizes and spacings, are practiced in various part of Africa under several names such as the Zai system in Mozambique, Mali and Burkina Faso, the Chololo system in Tanzania (Mati 2005), the Trus system in Sudan, and the Tassa system in Niger. Seeds are sown in the basins, often with small amounts of organic and/or inorganic fertilizers. The combined use of planting basins with the application of small doses of fertilizers directly to each plant (microdosing) is sometimes referred to as Precision Conservation Agriculture (PCA, Twomlow et al. 2009). The objectives of the basins are to reduce runoff and increase infiltration through breaking the surface crust and creation of a depression, and to increase soil fertility through reduction in erosion. Planting basins are a form of minimum tillage, as only a small area where the seeds are to be planted is cultivated. The technology is particularly suited to smallholder farmers without animal or mechanical draft power, as it is done using a hand hoe. The technology greatly increases labor requirement on a per hectare basis (Magombeyi and Taigbenu 2008), but this may or may not incur a cash cost depending on household labor availability. The preparation of the basins may be spread over the dry season, enabling timely planting due to reduced reliance on borrowed or hired draft animals, and the labor requirement declines with time (Twomlow et al. 2009). Furthermore, if use of the technology is associated with large productivity increases, the increased labor requirement may be offset by the fact that less land may needed for crop production, and with the additional benefit of reduced land area for weeding and other crop management activities. Planting on ridges and tied ridges (soil bunds spaced 1-2 m apart connecting the ridges to prevent runoff along the furrows) has also been quite widely evaluated in Sub-Saharan Africa by CPWF projects (Fosu et al. 2008;Mustafa et al. 2009) and others. Several reports from west and southern Africa show reduced runoff and/or reduced soil loss with a range of technologies including reduced and no till with mulching, and ridging across the slope (Agyare et al. 2008;Ncube et al. 2009;Wall and Thierfelder 2009).The main objective of in-field rainwater harvesting and moisture conservation technologies in rainfed systems is to increase soil water availability for the crop, a result of increased infiltration and reduced soil evaporation. This was shown to be the case in a wide range of environments examined in the workshop papers, e.g. China (Nangia et al. 2009;Yan et al. 2009), Honduras (Castro et al. 2009), Mozambique (Momade 2006 in Ncube et al. 2009), Niger (Fatondji et al. 2009), S. Africa (Magombeyi, M.S. and Taigbenu 2008), Zambia (Wall and Thierfelder 2009), Zimbawe (Mupangwa 2009;Wall and Thierfelder 2009). In some situations the technologies resulted in higher yields, and in low rainfall years the technologies made the difference between no yield and some yield. However, increased soil water availability did not always translate into higher yield (Bongani et al. 2009;Wall and Thierfelder 2009;Yan et al. 2009), and in some situations the water conservation technologies led to loss of yield or water productivity (Bongani et al. 2009;Kihara et al. 2009;Yan et al. 2009). Lack of yield response to rainwater harvesting and moisture conservation can be a result of many factors, such as adequate and well-distributed rainfall on the one hand, and prolonged drought during critical stages on the other. The lack of response to increased soil water availability can also be due to many other factors including low soil fertility and poor crop management practices. Heavy rainfall, especially early in the season, can lead to greater waterlogging damage and yield loss with in-field rainwater harvesting and conservation, especially on clay soils. In some environments the soil temperature depression due to mulching can delay establishment and early growth, leading to loss of yield. The yield response to water harvesting and conservation technologies is variable within sites, largely as a result of variable rainfall across seasons. It is also variable across sites as a result of many factors including climate, soil physical properties, slope, crop/variety, soil fertility and agronomic management. The interactions among these factors have not been adequately investigated. There is a need for \"process based experiments\", with plausible hypotheses, to understand the mechanistic processes underlining the observed phenomena to develop the capability of predicting the optimum technologies for different agro-ecological situations. Simulation models (Section 2) greatly increase this predictive capability, but they must be developed and refined based on sound process understanding.A common factor across the many locations where in-field rainwater harvesting and conservation agriculture technologies are being evaluated is the importance of improving soil fertility, especially nitrogen. Often, the yield or rain water productivity responses to fertilizer are much higher than the response to the rainwater harvesting technologies (e.g. Fosu et al. 2008;Kihara et al. 2009;Mustafa et al. 2009). Often the biggest benefit comes through a combination of improved soil fertility and water management, as in the case of the use of microdosing of N fertilizer on the yield of groundnuts in Mozambique (Wall and Thierfelder 2009), in some of the trials with tied ridges and N fertilizer in Ghana (Fosu et al. 2008), and with Zai pits and organic manures in Niger (Fatondji et al. 2009).Only one paper in these proceedings examines the potential for supplementary irrigation to increase land and water productivity of rainfed cropping systems. Over three very different rainfall seasons (390-1,400 mm) in the Limpopo Basin, Magombeyi et al. (2009) found large yield responses to supplementary irrigation of maize, ranging from 67 to 314%, with the highest responses in the driest years. The amounts of supplementary irrigation to achieve these responses were relatively small -110 mm in the driest year, and 50 mm in the wettest year. Crop water productivity (WPET) was increased more than 3-fold, from 0.11 to 0.35 kg mm -1 ha -1 in the driest year, and by 50% (from 0.3 to 0.45 kg mm -1 ha -1 ) in the wettest year. The significant response to a small amount of supplementary irrigation even in the wettest year reflects the erratic rainfall pattern typical of the semi-arid tropics, and the potential for supplementary irrigation to bridge long dry spells at critical stages. Supplementary irrigation can be practised without water harvesting structures where ground water or surface water resources are available. Water harvesting systems can also be constructed to provide a source of water for supplemental irrigation where sufficient rainfall flows as runoff. However, the results of Magombeyi et al. (2009) also demonstrated the potential for in-field rainwater harvesting -even in the lowest rainfall year (390 mm), runoff losses from the rainfed plots were large (100 mm).The potential for supplementary irrigation was also investigated by a CPWF project in the semi-arid Karkeh River Basin (Tavakoli et al. 2008). As for in-field water harvesting/conservation, the biggest opportunities for increasing yield and water productivity occurred when supplemental irrigation (SI) was combined with N fertilizer and improved varieties. Use of a single supplementary irrigation (50 mm) to bring forward the start of the growing season by 2-4 weeks roughly doubled yields of wheat and barley by giving enough time for good crop establishment before the onset of winter frosts. While full supplementary irrigation to satisfy crop water requirements gave maximum yield, it required more irrigation water, and water productivity was maximized with a single irrigation. Applying one irrigation (100 mm) in spring also increased wheat grain yield by about onethird, but with much lower irrigation water productivity (0.9 kg m -3 ) than for a single irrigation prior to sowing (3.4 kg m -3 ). In water scarce situations, the timing of the supplementary irrigation is critical.The above in-field water harvesting and conservation agriculture studies demonstrate the considerable potential to greatly increase land and water productivity using these technologies. The studies also demonstrate that the benefits of these technologies are maximized when they are used in combination with improved fertility and other management. However, the results also show that the technologies do not increase productivity in all situations -the effects are variable across sites and seasons, and there are complex interactions between a range of factors affecting crop response to the technologies. Clearly there is need for systematic evaluation of the technologies over a range of site (e.g. soil type, slope, cropping system), weather (especially rainfall) and agronomic management conditions. Detailed analysis of crop yields on the basis of long (more than 10 years) series of weather is crucial, especially to better understand risks, and also to better appreciate how farmers respond because of risks.Good crop and soil monitoring are essential parts of such evaluations to generate good process understanding to help identify the agro-ecological and management conditions under which the technologies increase productivity. Gomez-MacPherson et al. (2009) provide a useful example of a relatively simple methodology for estimating whole of season crop water balance, but more detailed crop and soil water monitoring is needed for process understanding. Magombeyi et al. (2009) provide a good example of the use of soil water monitoring and knowledge of soil hydraulic properties to help understand water limitations to crop yield. However it is very costly, and in fact impossible, to properly evaluate all technologies of interest over all likely site, seasonal and agronomic conditions. Simulation models deal with many of these interactions and can be used to help identify the most promising technologies for different conditions, if properly calibrated and validated. Furthermore, crop models can be used to estimate important parameters that are too difficult to measure in the field, such as some of the components of the water balance and thus water productivity (e.g. evapotranspiration, WPET, deep drainage). Crop models can also be used to evaluate the riskiness of technology options by taking into account weather variability. The information generated by crop models can then be used in combination with economic, social and cultural factors to identify the best bet technology options taking into account the farming family situation for that location. The family situation includes their ability to take risks (many poor farming households cannot afford to take risks). The data generated by crop models, especially the water balance data, can also provide critical inputs for spatial scale models (e.g. catchment models), as in the framework proposed by Bongani et al. (2009).However, before crop models can be used to help develop management guidelines, to inform decision making, or to provide inputs for spatial scale models, they must be calibrated and validated for the environment and types of applications of interest. There are few examples to date of the evaluation of crop models for rain water harvesting and conservation agriculture technologies for rainfed crops in the CPWF benchmark basins or similar environments. The papers in these proceedings present three early examples: an evaluation of DSSAT/CERES Millet v4.5 (Tsuji et al. 1994) for conventional tillage and in Zai pits on a very degraded soil in Niger (Fatondji et al. 2009), evaluation of DSSAT/CERES Maize v4.5 with the new tillage/mulch module in Shanxi Province, China (Nangia et al. 2009), and evaluation of APSIM (Keating et al. 2003) for maize, groundnut and cowpea with conventional tillage in Limpopo Province, South Africa (Dimes and du Toit 2009). Kpongor et al. (2008) and MsCarthy et al. (2009) both evaluated DSSAT CERES Sorghum v3.5 and APSIM for sorghum in northern Ghana, as part of one of the CPWF projects. Performance of all models was generally good across a range of crop and soil water parameters including total biomass, grain yield and soil water content over time throughout the root zone. In fact, the ability to accurately simulate soil profile water changes over time was a highlight of the performance of the models in all three studies presented in these proceedings, giving confidence in their ability to simulate components of the water balance. In Niger, CERES Millet also performed well in predicting the crop response to manure application for both conventional tillage and Zai pits, but greatly over-predicted the response to the addition of millet residues (3 t ha -1 ) to the Zai pits and the conventionally tilled treatment. Possible reasons included underprediction of immobilization of nitrogen, and low phosphorus availability (the millet model in DSSAT v4.5 does not account for phosphorus limitations to growth). In Ghana, CERES Sorghum v3.5 also performed well in predicting crop response to N at rates from 0 to 120 kg N ha -1 (Kpongor et al. 2008), while APSIM performed well in predicting response to both nitrogen and phosphorus rates (McCarthy et al. 2009). In China, predicted yields of maize grown with tillage (with and without residues incorporated) and without tillage (with and without mulching) were within 3-12% of observed yields over two seasons (Nangia et al. 2009).While performance of all models was encouraging, it is important to note that all the evaluations were done on data sets from the same experiments used to calibrate the models and/or to develop model inputs (except for the studies of Kpongor et al. [2008] and McCarthy et al. [2009]). Furthermore, there was a lack of measured input data for some of the key parameters at all sites, especially in relation to soil initial conditions and soil hydraulic properties. There needs to be significant investment in good data sets for model calibration and evaluation to capitalize on the predictive capacity of crop models in rainfed environments. Rigorous evaluation of models, using independent data sets (i.e. not the data sets used for calibration) is essential. Ideally, the determination of crop genetic coefficients should be based on results from several sowing dates and seasons.The modeling papers include three instructive and quite different examples of the application of crop models to identify technologies to optimize crop water productivity.In the salt-affected coastal areas of Bangladesh, where there is traditionally only one crop each year (rice during the rainy season), the challenge is to intensify the cropping system by including an additional crop during the dry (boro) season.During the dry season, most of the fields lie fallow because the water in the rivers becomes too saline to use for irrigation part way through the cropping season.With the help of the ORYZA2000 model, Sharifullah et al. (2009) determined the area of boro rice that could be planted and grown through to maturity in a case study polder, by irrigating with fresh water stored in the canals and old river channels within the polder after the surrounding rivers became too saline. The stored water was taken from the river before it became too saline. They also used the model to identify the optimum planting date to maximize rice production, taking into account tradeoffs between the effect of planting date on yield and the amount of stored fresh water needed to finish off the crop. They found that about 15% of the polder rice area could be grown to maturity in 50% of years, and that the area could be increased to 40% if the canals were dredged. The work also implied that the potential cropped area could be increased further by the development of cold tolerant varieties, as these could be planted earlier, reducing the amount fresh water needed from the canal to grow the crop to maturity.(ii) Dimes and du Toit (2009) used APSIM to predict the effects of climate change on crop productivity at Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. As expected, potential yields of all crops (sorghum, maize, groundnut and pigeon pea) were decreased (by about 7%) by reduced rainfall, but this was roughly offset by elevated carbon dioxide levels. Increased temperature had a much greater effect, reducing yields of all crops (except pigeon pea) by 16-30%, due to greatly reduced crop duration. Yields of pigeon pea were hardly affected as it has a much longer duration than the other crops. Importantly, the analysis suggested that adoption of longer duration germplasm would be the appropriate adaptation response for sorghum, maize and groundnuts. This is in contrast to much current thinking which points to the need to breed shorter duration cultivars to deal with assumed shorter growing periods and increased moisture stress under climate change. The shorter crop duration due to climate change resulted in higher residual soil water content at harvest, suggesting relay cropping as another adaptation opportunity to be investigated further. However, the most important observation made by Dimes and du Toit (2009) was that the impacts of climate change on yield pale into insignificance in comparison with the large impacts on yield which could be achieved by increasing the use of nitrogen fertilizers now (as well as under the expected future climate). This observation is consistent with the findings of many field studies evaluating the impacts of nitrogen fertilizer in sub-Saharan Africa (Fosu et al. 2008;Kihara et al. 2009;Mustafa et al. 2009;Wall and Thierfelder 2009). Yet the majority of smallholder farmers use no or little fertilizer -at the end of the 20 th century, average fertilizer use in Africa was only 8 kg/ha, compared with around 100 kg/ha in Asia (Kelly et al. 2007 as cited in Denning et al. 2009).(iii) To date, there have been few rigorous economic evaluations of the performance of technologies for increasing water productivity. At best, partial budgeting and gross margins have been used to compare technologies, and these analyses are based on the performance of the technologies over a very limited range of conditions and seasons. The analyses usually only take into account the value of the grain, and not the straw, which usually has a value as animal feed. Nor do most economic analyses consider the medium to long effects that technologies may have, such as build up in soil fertility and its effects on yield or input requirements, as in the approach used by Singh et al. (2008) for wheat direct drilled (\"no till\") into rice residues (in comparison with residue burning and tillage). The outputs of (validated) crop models can be used to provide probabilities of yield as inputs into economic assessments. Mustafa et al. (2009) used the results of field experiments comparing farmers' practice and a range of technologies and monthly rainfall to develop an empirically derived model (based on a Cobb-Douglas production function). The model was used to predict the yield of barley in the Eritrean highlands, as affected by seasonal conditions (monthly rainfall over 13 years). The predicted yields were used to determine crop water productivity and net returns, and to identify the most profitable agronomic practices and their associated levels of risk (variability). Compared with farmers' practice, all the treatments (N fertilizer, tied ridges, and weeding, used alone and in all possible combinations) increased grain yield and water productivity at all locations. However, only the treatments that included N fertilizer (alone, or in combination with rainwater harvesting or weeding) had higher average net returns than farmers' practice, at all three study locations.Rainwater harvesting alone was less profitable than farmers' practice at all locations. Only two treatments, N fertilizer and N fertilizer plus weed control, were less risky (lower variability) than farmers' practice. The use of process crop models such as APSIM (Keating et al. 2003) and DSSAT (Tsuji 1994) in such an approach is highly desirable, as such models can be applied in a far wider range of situations than empirically derived production functions. The main need is that the models are capable of simulating the treatments of interest. Both the DSSAT and APSIM models simulate responses to water and N fertility, and APSIM has an intercropping module which can be used to simulate the response to weeds. When used in cropping system mode, both modeling platforms can be used to simulate long term effects of the technologies on some important properties such as soil organic C and N.Water management in rainfed cropping occurs in small fields on small farms of less than 5 ha (Rockstrom et al. 2007). Runoff, lateral sub-surface flows and deep drainage in farmers' fields may all be affected by changed management (section 2). Runoff and deep drainage water quality may also be affected by changes in crop management practices. Widespread adoption of rainwater harvesting, conservation agriculture, and improved management in general, may have substantial downstream impacts if they result in diverting significant amounts of rainwater or soil moisture from recharge (deep drainage to aquifers), and/or in diverting rainwater from one micro-catchment to another. Therefore the consequences of scaling out of technologies for increasing rainwater productivity on water flows and quality for downstream water users, including ecosystems, need to be considered at micro catchment, catchment and basin scales. This information is needed to inform land and water resources planning to optimize food production, poverty alleviation, and environmental sustainability.Many approaches have been developed to model water flows at a range of spatial scales, and some of these are being tested in and adapted to catchments, sub-basin and basins in CPWF benchmark basins (see papers in Humphreys et al. 2008). These efforts include assessment of the impacts of changed land or water management in upper catchments of CPWF benchmark basins, but most of these focus on small to medium scale irrigation developments (e.g. van Giesen et al. 2008;Love et al. 2008;Kemp-Benedict et al. 2008). To date, the development and application of methodologies to predict the downstream impacts of widespread adoption of changed management at the farmer field scale has received inadequate attention. Two of the papers in these proceedings provide examples of modeling approaches to estimate the impacts of changed management in upper catchments on downstream flows (and sediment load in one case) (Awulachew and Tenaw 2009;Hessari et al. 2009). A third paper proposes a framework for systematically and comprehensively investigating the impacts of out-scaling in-field and ex-field rainwater harvesting (Ncube et al. 2009). The framework incorporates consideration of socio-economic factors in addition to crop yields and water flows. Hessari et al. (2009) determined the potential area for supplementary irrigation in the upper Karkeh River Basin (KRB) based on slope classes and distance from streams (water sources). They used monthly flow and rainfall records over 30 years to develop rainfall-runoff relationships at the sub-basin scale. They combined this with a simple water balance in a GIS framework to assess the impacts of adoption of different supplementary irrigation strategies on monthly stream flow within each sub-basin, and the combined effect on flows into the Karkeh reservoir. The results indicated that implementation of supplementary irrigation would reduce flows by 9-15% in an average rainfall year, and by 5-10% under dry conditions. Awulachew and Tenaw (2009) studied rainfall-runoff and sediment-runoff relations in the Gumera watershed in the Blue Nile River Basin, and calibrated and validated the SWAT model for this watershed against observed flows and sediment loads at the outlet of the watershed. The data showed that the peak sediment concentration preceded the peaks for rainfall and runoff, and that most of the sediment enters the river during the first three months of the rainy season, at a time when there are large areas of exposed soils due to cultivation and over-grazing during the dry season. The results also showed that both runoff and sedimentation can be reasonably simulated using the SWAT model, and the simulations predicted that the use of 5 and 10 m wide vegetation strips (\"filters\") reduced sedimentation by 52 and 74%, respectively.The five papers in this section of the proceedings provide a range of experiences of adoption of improved technologies, and insights into factors constraining or facilitating adoption, in Sub-Saharan Africa (Agyare et al. 2009;Awulachew et al. 2009;Bediako 2009;Tabo et al. 2009a,b). Bediako (2009) presents six case studies, whose findings included: the importance of participatory research with farmers, in their fields, so that the recommendations are appropriate for farmer circumstances; the importance of involving extension workers in onfarm research with the farmers; and the need for strategies to provide cash loans to farmers. Constraints to adoption of technologies included lack of understanding by those introducing technologies of the constraints and opportunities faced by rural farmers, high fertilizer prices, inadequate and untimely supply of fertilizers, low levels of technology dissemination within the context of a relatively low level of investment in soils research, and lack of adequate training of farmers in new technologies. The multitude of NGOs controlling technology dissemination and competing with each other in northern Ghana, with little government supervision, was also noted as a problem.Many of the CPWF Phase 1 crop water productivity projects recognized the need for knowledge and understanding of the farmers' circumstances (financial, assets, family labor, knowledge, information networks, market opportunities etc.) as critical considerations in the development of technologies suited to their circumstances. Farmer training is another important step to ensure the technologies are properly utilized. Many projects undertook quite comprehensive investigations using a range of methods including surveys and discussions groups. A good example of the conduct and application of a range of socioeconomic studies in the development, evaluation and adoption of technologies for improving water productivity and livelihoods of farmers is those undertaken as part of CPWF PN10 'Coastal resource management for improved livelihoods') and its predecessor project (UK DfID CRF Project R7467C on Accelerating Poverty Elimination through Sustainable Resource Management in Coastal Lands Protected from Salinity Intrusion) in the Mekong delta (Hossain et al. 2006;Hoanh et al. 2006). However, how (or whether) this information has been used to help design appropriate technologies is less clear in most cases, as the findings of the surveys have often emerged well after the selection of technologies for development and evaluation was well underway. The findings of many of these socio-economic investigations are not readily available to date.Participatory research was also a feature of many of the CPWF Phase 1 crop water productivity projects, with farmers, extensionists, national researchers and sometimes policy makers actively involved in various phases of the research. Participatory approaches were probably most developed in PN10 (above, Mondal et al. 2006), and in PN2 'Water productivity improvement in Eritrea', where all stakeholders (farmers, extension, local government, researchers, and Ministry representatives) were involved in research andThe low use of fertilizer in Africa despite the well-established large benefits requires a good understanding before it can be resolved. Pre-conditions of fertilizer use are that (i) the harvested crop can be sold for cash, which requires sufficient yield beyond subsistence and the presence of reliable markets, (ii) profitability -sufficiently high output/input ratios; in Africa, grain prices are relatively low and fertilizer prices are relatively high at the farm gate due to many things including expensive transport costs between producers and suppliers, and (iii) farming households need to be able to take the risk of losing the investment in fertilizer prior to harvest. All these conditions seem to be negative in large parts of semi-arid Africa. Therefore there is a renewed belief that the re-introduction of subsidies on fertilizers, on a large scale, is an important part of the solution (e.g. Denning et al. 2009;Vitousek et al. 2009;Morris et al 2007).Fertilizer microdosing has been evaluated extensively with hundreds of farmers in several parts of West Africa over several years, including in CPWF projects (Tabo et al. 2009a).Overall grain yields and net returns were double those of traditional farmer practice. However adoption of improved technologies that involve additional inputs (such as fertilizers and seeds of improved varieties) requires the inputs to be affordable and readily available locally, at the right time, and in appropriate-sized packages (Simpungwe et al. 2008). Simpungwe et al. (2008) showed that farmers are more likely to try fertilizer if it is supplied in small, (more affordable) packages.The warrantage or inventory credit scheme is a means of providing farmers with credit by allowing them to mortgage their grain at harvest time to secure a loan, and to avoid having to sell their grain at harvest time when prices are low (Tabo et al. 2009b). The system involves a secure storage for the grain, which is sold later when prices are higher. Ideally the farmers would use the loan to conduct income generating activities, and to buy inputs to improve their crop productivity in the following season. The system is run by farmer groups who are linked with decentralized financial systems, such as the \"Caisse Populaire\" in Burkina Faso, who provide micro credit. Storage facilities and input shops are built, and credit and savings schemes are established. Warrantage systems have been tested in West Africa over the past few years, with net financial benefits to the farmers wherever they have been practiced, and which probably explains the increasing farmer participation over time after these systems are introduced. Constraints to their implementation include lack of sufficient capital in the decentralized financial systems to grant loans and for supervising bodies to provide guarantees, lack of good linkages between farmers' organizations and lending bodies, lack of infrastructure for storage of grains, unavailability of fertilizers at the right times, inappropriate packaging of fertilizers (Simpungwe et al. 2008), and poor roads and thus movement of produce to markets and inputs to farmers. While results of initial trials of warrantage are promising in terms of farmer participation and financial benefits to farmers, results from longer term trials to assess their sustainability are needed. Whether the availability of credit and other benefits of the system really do lead to significantly increased adoption of improved crop production technologies is also yet to be demonstrated.There are many technical options to enable better use of rainwater by crops for poor, small holder farmers, including improved varieties, improved fertilizer and agronomic management, in-field water harvesting, conservation agriculture, and supplementary irrigation from ground and surface water sources. For maximum benefit, integrated crop, nutrient, soil and water management is essential. And the improved technologies must be used by very large numbers of poor farm families if they are to make a substantial difference to rural food security and quality of livelihoods. However, widespread uptake of technologies also requires the presence of enabling policies and institutional arrangements, such as investments in dissemination strategies, improvements in access to micro-credit and input and product markets, and investment in infrastructure such as roads. Widespread adoption of technologies to increase land and water productivity of rainfed cropping systems will affect patterns and quality of runoff to surface water bodies and deep drainage to groundwater systems, with possible consequences for downstream water users, including surface and groundwater dependent ecosystems. Therefore a focus on integrated land and water resources management is as important, and this must be done across scales, from groups of small fields to communities, to sub-catchments and catchments, and ultimately to whole river basins.Soil and water conservation, and in-field water harvesting, are the logical entry points for improved water management in rainfed agriculture (Rockström et al. 2007). These strategies are often relatively cheap and can be applied anywhere, and should be optimized before water from external sources for supplementary irrigation is considered. Supplementary irrigation can bridge critical yield-reducing dry spells, stabilize yields, and greatly increase crop water productivity.The yield response to water harvesting and conservation agriculture technologies is variable within sites, largely as a result of variable rainfall across seasons. It is also variable across sites as a result of many factors including climate, soil physical properties, slope, crop/variety, soil fertility and other agronomic management. There is therefore a need for:Recommendation 1 -systematic evaluations of the technologies, which should include good monitoring of crop and soil water dynamics to increase process understanding and help identify generic knowledge; in particular, which technologies perform best under which conditions.Recommendation 2 -Such analysis needs to be informed by the results of crop simulation modeling. The use of simulation models enables evaluation of technologies over the likely range of seasonal conditions, taking into account soil type and a range of management factors. Crop models also enable estimation of components of the water balance and crop water productivity, parameters which are extremely difficult to measure in the field. Models also allow analysis of risk, and tradeoffs between yield, water depletion, deep drainage, runoff etc. However, there needs to be significant investment in good data sets for model calibration and evaluation and process understanding to capitalize on the predictive capacity of crop models in rainfed environments. This is currently a major gap in poor, smallholder, rainfed cropping systems.Widespread adoption of rainwater harvesting, conservation agriculture, and improved management in general in farmers' fields, may have substantial impacts on downstream surface and groundwater systems and those dependent on them, including wetlands and groundwater dependent ecosystems. ThereforeRecommendation 3 -models and other approaches for assessing these impacts at a range of scales from micro-catchment to basins are needed. A range of tools and approaches have been developed for estimating water and pollutant fluxes across a range of spatial scales. Some of these are in the process of being tested and adapted to catchments and sub-basins where rainfed cropping is an important land use. However, there have been few studies to date of the impacts of widespread adoption of conservation agriculture, in-field rainwater harvesting, and small scale ex-field water harvesting technologies on water, sediment and other pollutant fluxes, and their consequences for downstream people and ecosystems.Achieving widespread adoption of improved technologies in rainfed cropping systems is a major challenge. Most or all of the technologies discussed above are not new, however determining which technology will be beneficial to which farmers, in terms of both productivity and profitability, needs to be systematically assessed taking into account local site conditions, farmer circumstances, social and cultural factors. Some of the major constraints to adoption of improved technologies include lack of availability of access to inputs, microfinance to purchase inputs, and output markets. The warrantage system was developed to address these constraints. While results of initial trials of warrantage are promising in terms of farmer participation and financial benefits to farmers, In field technologies for increasing water productivity of rainfed cropping systemsAt a recent meeting on Soil Quality in Rome 1 the more than 50 delegates agreed that \"ample evidence now exists of the successes of CA (Conservation Agriculture) under many diverse agro-ecological conditions to justify a major investment of human and financial resources in catalysing a shift, whenever and wherever conditions permit it, from tillage-based production systems to those based on minimal soil disturbance, organic residue retention, and crop rotations and combinations.\" This statement clarifies that CA is not a technology, but a general description of varied agricultural systems based on three central pillars or principles.The ample evidence of the successes of CA is born out by the adoption of no-tillage agriculture on about 100 million hectares worldwide (Derpsch, 2008). Although no-tillage agriculture is not necessarily CA, the three principles of CA appear to be followed on a significant proportion of the area of no-tillage, although statistics are generally not available to define agricultural systems in such detail. Most of the area of no-tillage (and of CA) is on large, mechanised farms, but increasingly in many parts of the world there is adoption by smallholder farmers as techniques and technologies to apply the principles of CA are adapted to their particular circumstances (Wall, 2007), especially in Brazil, Paraguay, Ghana (Ekboir, 2002) and Zambia (Haggblade and Tembo, 2003). There are reports of much CA in China but it is difficult to get information on what constitutes these CA systems. However, there are at least 200,000 ha of potatoes seeded under CA conditions by simply placing the seed in the residues (Kaiyun Xie, CIP, personal communication). In the Indo-Gangetic Plains there are at least 1 million hectares of zero-tillage wheat, but the soils are intensively tilled for the rice crop, destroying any benefits to the soil accrued in the wheat season.The spread of CA in different parts has been spurred by different benefits: in Brazil the main initial driver was overcoming erosion (Ekboir, 2002), in Bolivia it was the efficiency of use of machinery and reductions in fuel costs (Wall, 2002); in the Indo-Gangetic Plains the main initial driver of no-till wheat in the rice-wheat system was the ability to plant the wheat on time (Erenstein and Laxmi, 2008) although weed control and, later, costs savings have also been important drivers (Hobbs, 2007;Erenstein and Laxmi, 2008) . However, in numerous surveys of smallholder farmers the benefit most often cited is the reduction in the amount and drudgery of labour (e.g. Sorrensen et al., 1998;Ekboir et al., 2001) although, if herbicides are not used for weed control, labour requirements under CA may be high and onerous in the first years of adoption (Rockstrom et al., 2001). Also digging the basins in Conservation Farming systems being promoted in Zambia and Zimbabwe involves considerable initial labour although this may be spread over the dry season and declines with time (Haggblade and Tembo, 2003).Nutrients and water are generally considered to be the most important factors limiting yields of the major crops on smallholder farms in southern Africa. Although total rainfall may be sufficient to achieve the yield potential of the area, as much as 75% of the rainfall may be lost to surface run-off and evaporation (Roskstrom, 1999). Results in other parts of the world have shown that CA practices result in greater water infiltration (and therefore less water run-off and erosion) and less evaporation of soil water. The studies reported here were designed to quantify some of these effects under conditions representative of two major production areas of southern Africa.Researcher-managed \"on-station\" trials Infiltration and water runoff were measured (three replications per plot) in January of both years on all replications at both sites using a small rainfall simulator described by Amézquita et al. (1999). Simulated rainfall of 95 mm h -1 was applied to an area of 36cm x 44cm for 60 min and runoff measured on an area of 32.5cm x 40cm (0.13 m 2 ). The remainder of the water that did not run off was assumed to have entered the soil.Soil moisture at 5, 15, 25, 35, 50 and 80 cm depth was monitored regularly (generally twice per week) during the cropping season using a capacitance probe (PR-2 probes from Delta-T Devices Ltd., UK) inserted into previously installed access tubes (3 access tubes per plot in 3 replicates). We report here the data from the 0-60 cm horizon.Cobs from twenty samples of 5 linear meters of row were harvested from each plot for yield analysis. Two cobs were taken from each sample, combined, threshed, the grain weighed and grain moisture measured immediately using a moisture tester (Dickey John MGT). Grain yield was then calculated on a per hectare basis at 12.5% moisture.Data analysis was carried out using the commercial statistical package \"Statistix 9\" (Analytical Software). Yield data were analysed using the general Analysis of Variance routine, and infiltration and soil water content samples using the Descriptive Statistics routine to obtain the standard error of the mean.On-farm demonstration plots comparing two CA options with the conventional farmer land preparation practices, were initiated in each of two communities in Zimbabwe in 2004: one community in the Zimuto Communal Area of central Zimbabwe with extremely sandy soils (92-94% sand) and low rainfall (mean = 634mm) and one with clay-loam soils and higher average rainfall (mean approx. 880mm) near Shamva in the north-east of the country. One of the CA treatments is rip-line seeded with seed and fertilizer placed by hand in a narrow slot opened by a ripper tine attached to the plow frame after removal of the mouldboard shear, while the other is direct seeded using the Fitarelli seeder described above which dribbles fertilizer and seed into a furrow made by the machine. Demonstration plots have continued on the exact same area each season. The seven sites installed in Zimuto and six installed in Shamva each comprise a replication of a randomised block trial. Each replication is on a different farmer's field in the community and managed by a farmers' group with orientation from the local (Ministry of Agriculture and/or NGO) extension officer. All treatments and sites within the same community are seeded with the same variety and receive the same fertilizer application (47-23-12 [2004 and 2005] and 81-23-12 [2006 and 2007] in Zimuto and 81-23-12 in all years in Shamva). In Zimuto in 2005 and in Shamva in all seasons, 2.5 l ha -1 glyphosate was applied to half of the two CA treatments at seeding. All other weed control in these plots and in the farmers' check was done manually. As post-seeding weed control was uniform, grain yield data presented below is a mean from both the glyphosate treated and untreated areas.At harvest, ten samples of 10 linear meters of row were harvested from each plot, and the cobs from each sample weighed. A subsample of two cobs was taken at random from each sample, weighed, shelled, weighed again and the moisture content measured (Dickey John MGT moisture meter) to allow correction of the cob yields to grain yields on a per hectare basis at 12.5% moisture.Trials under the Water and Food Challenge Programme Project 1 for the Limpopo Basin \"Increased food security and income in the Limpopo Basin through integrated crop, water and soil fertility options and public-private partnerships\" were conducted in the Macia and Chokwe Districts of Gaza Province of Mozambique in 2005/06 and 2006/07 to identify the principal factors that limit water productivity. Soils are extremely sandy and rainfall is low, and after the first season of the PN1 trials it was evident that maize was far too risky and that groundnuts were the most reliable annual crop, especially in the Macia District.In the 2005/06 season one replication of a split-plot groundnut \"Mother Trial\" was harvested. This trial compared three varieties (main plots) with (3 t ha -1 ) and without mulch and with and without a \"micro-dose\" N fertilizer application (20 kg/ha N) arranged as a 2 x 2 factorial. Also four \"Baby Trials\" from different farmer's fields where each consisted of one replication of the mulch and microdose 2 x 2 factorial were harvested. However, different varieties were used at different sites. These trials were analysed together as seven replications of a 2 x 2 factorial trial of mulch and microdose N fertilizer, where the effect of variety was confounded with site and replication. The mulch, generally of \"thatching grass\", was only applied after seeding, so any possible benefits of pre-season moisture storage with the mulch were not achieved in these trials.A similar set of trials was conducted on maize in the 2005/06 season, and one replication of the Mother Trial with three varieties, and five replications (sites) of the 2 x 2 factorial mulch x microdose trial with different varieties at different sites were harvested. Again this was analysed as eight replications of a 2 x 2 factorial where varieties were confounded with replication and/or site.In the 2006/07 season the Mother-Baby groundnut trials compared treatments with and without mulch (3 t ha -1 of thatching grass), two varieties (Nametil and Mamani), all with and without 20 kg ha -1 of nitrogen fertilizer as a starter fertilizer on these extremely sandy soils.Unfortunately only four Baby Trials survived the season, allowing just one complete replication. The only comparison that could be made with these Baby Trial results was the effect of mulch.There were no significant differences between treatments in total water infiltration during the one hour of the simulated rainfall at HRS in early 2006. Infiltration in the basin treatment was surprisingly low in this season, possibly associated with significant soil movement during hand-hoe weeding. However, in the 2006/2007 season the total infiltration was significantly greater (P< 0.01) in the direct seeded treatment than in conventionally tilled treatment ( Mean infiltration curves over the period of the simulated rainfall are shown in Figure 1. In the Figure it is clear that the infiltration rate in the tilled treatment generally fell below the CA treatments shortly after the start of the infiltration test. This suggests that soil surface conditions are important factors in determining water infiltration at these sites, and adds weight to the hypothesis that the low infiltration rate of the basin treatment in 2006 at HRS may have been due to soil surface movement and damage to surface porosity by hand-hoe weeding. The soil moisture in the 0-60 cm horizon at both MFTC and HRS in both seasons is shown in Figure 2. At HRS the two CA treatments (DS and CF) had more moisture in the profile than the tilled check throughout almost the whole cropping period in both seasons. At MFTC the differences were less marked, but the basin treatment tended to have more moisture in the profile throughout most of both seasons. Soil moisture content at Permanent Wilting Percentage (PWP) in the whole of the 0-60 cm horizon would be approximately 80mm and it is evident from Figure 2 that the soil did not reach PWP, and nor were there many stress periods in either season. At HRS in the 2005-06 season the soil started the season at close to Field Capacity (FC), and the soil moisture in the 0-60cm was above FC for most of the season. This is because the land is on a slight slope and water from further up the slope kept the area almost completely waterlogged for much of the season. In the more normal 2006-07 season the plots were seldom above FC but also did not reach PWP. However, especially after flowering the crop had less than 50% of the potential available water in the profile and therefore probably suffered at least mild stress.Soil moisture content tended to be far more variable in the basin treatment than in either the conventially tilled or the direct seeded treatment. The standard error of the mean moisture content of the basin treatment was approximartely double that of the other treatments at the Monze site in both years and at HRS in the 2005/06 season. At HRS in the 2006/07 season, the standard error of the mean soil moisture content (0-60cm) was approximately the same for all treatments.  The average of the bi-weekly measurements of soil moisture in the top 60cm of soil at both sites in the two seasons is shown in Table 2. In general there was more moisture in the profile over the season in the CA treatments at HRS, but little effect of treatment on mean soil moisture at MFTC. There are no statistical differences between treatments. However, this appears to be due to variability brought about by variations in soil texture over the trial sites. We believe that variation in texture over the trial site leads to the high variability and we are in the process of analysing soil texture alongside each access tube to allow for the correction of the available soil water.Given that there was little moisture stress in either season at either site and that fertilizer levels were the same on all treatments, differences in yield between treatments at both sites and in both seasons were small (Table 3). At HRS there were no significant differences between the three treatments in either year and only in the first year of the trial -the wetter season -were there any significant differences at the MFTC when the basin treatment did yield significantly more (P<0.05) than the tilled treatment, while the DS treatment yield was intermediate and not significantly different to the other treatments. Yield results from the on-farm demonstration plots for the first three seasons at the seven sites where plots were initiated in the 2004-05 season in the Zimuto Communal Area are shown in Table 4. The 2004/05 season was exceptionally dry and no yield was obtained from four of the sites. There are no significant differences (at PF = 5%) between treatment yields in any of the three seasons, because the variability associated with having the different replications at different sites is high, while the yield trend over time evident in Table 4 is simply a function of annual rainfall. However, it is worth noting that when the project started, the concept of CA was completely new to the Zimuto farmers, and so they were very reluctant to give \"prime\" land for the demonstration plots, and all seven demonstration plots were established on fields that had been abandoned to agriculture due to their low productivity. Even though the results are not statistically significant, they are very significant to many of the local farmers who are now beginning to experiment with CA.Whereas at the Zimuto site the plots have been under continuous maize to date due to farmer reluctance to include a rotation crop, at the sites near Shamva a maize-soybean crop rotation is used in the demonstration plots with the plots on any one farm being sown to maize in one season and soybeans in the following season. Although this makes it difficult to compare trends over time, the results of the 2006/07 season are shown in Table 5. The effects of mulch and microdosing of N fertilizer on the yields of maize and groundnuts in Gaza Province in the 2005/06 season are shown in Table 6. Whereas the groundnut results all come from the Macia District, three of the maize \"Baby\" Trials were in Chokwe. The results in Table 6 show two sets of maize results: one for all sites including Macia and Chokwe Districts, and the other with only the Macia results.Mulch had a positive effect on maize yield both with and without a small dose of N fertilizer, but almost doubled yield when both mulch and a micro-dose of N were applied (although this interaction was not statistically significant). In the case of groundnuts, the positive effect of mulch on grain yield was highly significant, while there was no significant effect of the N fertilizer microdose on yield. The interaction of mulch and N fertilizer was also significant as there was a small reduction in yield with N fertilizer in the absence of mulch, but a larger positive effect of fertilizer when mulch was present.In the 2006/2007 season the only comparison that could be made from the few trials harvested (4 Baby trials) was the effect of mulch. Mulch gave a 27% yield increase (1.37 vs. 1.05 t ha -1 ), but because of the lack of sufficient replication, this effect was not significant. The results presented show marked positive effects of CA technologies on soil water infiltration, soil water, and, especially in the on-farm results, on yield. These benefits are apparent after only a short period (1-3 years) of the application of the technologies, suggesting that a) the mulch cover provides benefits in water infiltration even from the first season, especially under dry or moisture-limited conditions, and possibly also that b) there are changes in soil physical structure in the short term associated with stopping tillage.However, one feature that runs through these results is the relatively high variability which results in few statistically significant differences, at least at the commonly accepted level of 95% probability of making the correct inference. This is a common feature of on-farm work, and also of measurements on small areas of a heterogeneous substrate, such as soil. While increased replication can help increase the probability of statistical significance -but not decrease the variability -this is costly and has important implications for on-farm work under restricted budgets. Are we being too strict? Is a 20% level of probability of significance not more realistic and cost-effective? The answer to this question, which has been argued widely, is likely associated with the risk of negative consequences if an error is made, and is unlikely to be of major importance when risk is low. For instance, with CA technologies, where one of the major benefits seen by farmers is not a yield benefit, but rather the savings in energy -either in fuel or in the amount and drudgery of manual labour -the risk in making an error in attributing yield increases is not appreciable, although the risk in not attributing significance to yield decreases may be high.The other avenue to increase statistical significance is improved management, either of field plots or of evaluation techniques. While the latter is definitely beneficial and as much precision as possible should be the objective of measurements and evaluations, improvement of plot management especially in applied on-farm research should only be to the level attainable by the target group (recommendation domain) of farmers. Excessive management to try to obtain statistical significance only serves to reduce the applicability of the results.Rockstrom J., Kaumbutho, P., Mwalley, P., and M. Temesgen. Conservation farming among small-holder farmers in E. Africa: adapting and adopting innovative land management options. In: García-Torres, L., Benites, J., and A. Martínez-Vilela (eds.). In the drier areas of southern Africa, farmers experience drought once every two to three years. Relief agencies have traditionally responded to the ensuing famines by providing farmers with enough seed and fertilizer to enable them to re-establish their cropping enterprises (UNEP 2002;MEA 2005;Cooper et al. 2008). However, because of the lack of appropriate land and crop management interventions, vulnerable farmers are not necessarily able to translate the relief into sustained gains in productivity and incomes (Rockstrom et al. 2009;Twomlow et al. 2008a).To improve crop production in the marginal rainfall regions of southern Africa, farmers have to adopt cultural practices that conserve fragile soils and extend the period of water availability to the crop, be it grain or forage. National and international research and development organisations have mostly focused on developing improved genotypes, tillage/soil management systems, and integrated pest/disease management packages.Unfortunately, many of these outputs, although technically sound, have failed to perform well in farmers' fields. They were largely developed and tested in researcher-managed trials, with limited consideration to the problems and priorities of smallholder farmers for whom they were intended (Anderson 1992;Ryan and Spencer 2001;Shiferaw and Bantilan 2004;Twomlow et al. 2006). Unfortunately, efforts to develop African agrarian economies and achieve the MDGs must contend with the increasing challenge of climate change (see for example, Love et al. 2006;Stern 2006;UNDP 2006;Cooper et al. 2008). Most scientists now agree that global warming is inevitable, (IPCC 2007), and that it will have major impacts on the climate worldwide and agricultural productivity, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa (Tadcross et al. 2007;Cooper et al. 2008).Conservation agriculture (CA) is being promoted as a potential solution to the production problems faced by smallholder farming families in sub-Saharan Africa (Haggblade and Tembo 2003;Hobbs 2007;Rockstrom et al. 2009). Conservation agriculture is a suite of land, water and crop management practices that aim to improve productivity, profitability and sustainability (IIR and ACT 2005). The primary principles promoted for hand-based and draft animal powered cropping systems are: disturb the soil as little as possible,  implement operations, particularly planting and weeding, in a timely manner,  keep the soil covered with organic materials (crop residues or cover crops) as much as possible, and  mix and rotate crops (IIR and ACT 2005).Conservation Agriculture is generally defined as any tillage sequence with the objective of minimising or reducing the loss of soil and water; operationally a tillage or tillage and planting combination which leaves at least 30% or more mulch or crop residue cover on the surface (SSSA 1986;IIR and ACT, 2005). In the drylands of southern Africa, CA has been loosely applied to any tillage system whose objective is to conserve or reduce soil, water and nutrient loss, or which reduces draft power (human, animal, and mechanical) input requirements for crop production. With the cropping period in most semi-arid regions being relatively short, the timing of field operations is critical.The following CA techniques have been evaluated and actively promoted in Zimbabwe since the 1980s: no-till tied ridging; mulch ripping; no-till strip cropping; clean ripping; handhoeing or zero till; tied furrows (for semi-arid regions) and open plow furrow planting followed by mid-season tied ridging. These have frequently been promoted in combination with mechanical structures such as: graded contour ridges; dead level contour ridges with cross-ties (mainly for semi-arid regions); infiltration pits dug at intervals along contour ridge channels; fanya juus (for water retention in semi-arid regions); vetiver strips and broad-based contour ridges (mainly used on commercial farms) (Mupangwa et al. 2006;Twomlow et al. 2006).Unfortunately, despite nearly two decades of development and promotion by the national extension program and numerous other projects, adoption of CA has been extremely low in the smallholder sector of sub-Saharan Africa, compared to other continents such as South America, North America and Europe due to various constraints (Erenstein 2003;Goddard et al. 2008;Gowing and Palmer 2008). These include: a low degree of mechanization within the smallholder system; a lack of appropriate implements; a lack of appropriate soil fertility management options; problems of weed control under no-till systems; poor access to credit; a lack of appropriate technical information for change agents and farmers; blanket recommendations that ignore the resource status of rural households; competition for crop residues in mixed crop-livestock systems, and the availability of labor (Hobbs et al. 2007;Gowing and Palmer 2008).Despite these constraints, a number of different initiatives have recently begun to re-examine the potential for CA to improve crop production within the smallholder sector of Zimbabwe.For the purposes of this paper we have adopted the terminology of the Zimbabwe Conservation Agriculture Task Force (ZCATF), as it has been noted that many organisations use the terms CA and conservation farming (CF) interchangeably in their reports and proposals as if they were the same, yet the two are different.Conservation Agriculture (CA) is a broader term that encompasses activities such as minimum tillage and zero tillage, tractor powered, animal powered and manual methods, integrated pest management, integrated soil and water management, and includes CF. It is generally defined as any tillage sequence the objective of which is to minimize or reduce the loss of soil and water; operationally a tillage or tillage and planting combination which leaves 30% or more mulch or crop cover on the surface (SSSA 1986;IIR and ACT 2005), equivalent to more than 3 t ha -1 of crop residues. Conservation Farming (CF) is the particular technology developed by Brian Oldrieve using planting basins and soil cover. This is a modification of the traditional pit systems once common in southern Africa and is a variation on the Zai Pit system from West Africa, which may also be considered a CF technology. Both are a sub-set of the broader CA term. Precision Conservation Agriculture (PCA) is a modification of the CF-planting basin approach that includes the precision application of small doses of nitrogen-based fertilizer to achieve higher nutrient efficiency from available basal fertility amendments (from organic and/or inorganic sources) concentrated in the planting basin.In order to ensure that a consistent message on CA was delivered by the many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working in Zimbabwe, the United Kingdom's Department for International Development's Protracted Relief Program for Zimbabwe, on behalf of other humanitarian relief agencies, tasked the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Emergency Office for Zimbabwe to establish a broad-based partnership that would coordinate CA activities. The CA Task Force for Zimbabwe (ZCATF) was initiated in March 2004 and its successes to date have been summarized in Twomlow et al. (2008b).The interventions currently being promoted/tested in Zimbabwe include: Planting Basins and Shallow Planting Furrows using a hand hoe,  Ripper tines, attached to the beam of the animal drawn moldboard plow, to prepare planting lines in un-plowed soil for households with limited access to draft animal power; and Specialised No-Till/ Direct Planting Seeders aimed at the emerging commercial farmers with unlimited access to draft animal power.All of these interventions are being compared with the traditionally applied practice of overall spring plowing with an animal-drawn moldboard plow and planting, sometimes referred to as 'Third Furrow Planting'. Seed is dropped into every third or fourth furrow opened by the plow (October through to December depending on the start of the wet season) when the soils have been softened by the rains. The next pass of the plow covers the seed, which is then left to germinate in a weed-free seedbed. Unfortunately, all too frequently many households with limited or no access to draft animals have to wait until betterresourced households have completed their own planting before they may borrow or hire a team of draft animals (Twomlow et al. 2006). This often means that the poorer resourced, most vulnerable households, typically plant 4 to 6 weeks later than other households. Some plantings occur as late as January, with resulting losses in yield potential. Figure 1, derived from field data collected by ICRISAT during the 2005 seasons, clearly shows the decline in yield as plantings get later and later in the season. Some may ask why land preparation does not take place in the dry season -a good question as a standing extension recommendation is to carry out winter tillage. Unfortunately, by the time all crops have been harvested and the land is ready for tillage the condition of the communal herd, which includes the draft animal resource, has declined due to a reduction in available forage. The central component of the 'basin tillage package' is the planting basin. Seeds are sown, not along the usual furrow, but in small basins -simple pits that can be dug with hand hoes without having to plow the whole field. The technology is particularly appropriate to southern Africa, given that the majority of smallholder farmers struggle to plant their fields on time because they lack draft animals (Twomlow et al. 1999;2006). The basin tillage concept was first developed by Oldrieve in Zimbabwe (1993), and subsequently modified and promoted in Zambia by the Zambian Farmers Union Conservation Farming Unit (Haggblade and Tembo 2003). This practice spreads labor for land preparation over the dry seasons and encourages more timely planting, resulting in reduction of peak labor loads at planting. The basic components of the CF practice agreed by the ZCATF are listed in Box 1.Planting occurs in Nov/Dec after the basins have captured rainwater (and then drained naturally) at least once. Smallholder farmers without draft power can plant soon after an effective rainfall event, 1 rather than waiting for draft animals to become available several weeks into the season. In addition, farmers are encouraged to spread whatever crop residues might be available as a surface mulch to prevent soil losses early in the season, conserve moisture later in the season, and enrich the soil with nutrients and organic matter as the residues decompose.When the basins are combined with the precision application of available basal soil fertility amendments and micro-doses of inorganic nitrogen fertilizer as top dressing (Twomlow et al. 2008c) it is termed 'Precision Conservation Agriculture' (PCA) irrespective of the quantity of surface residues retained as mulch.This paper presents results from three related studies on the PCA package (basin planting plus targeted application of fertility amendments) for vulnerable households in southern Zimbabwe promoted through the relief and recovery programs operating in the country since 2004. The first study was the wide-scale testing of the PCA concept across multiple locations in southern Zimbabwe through relief and recovery programs (Hove and Twomlow 2008;Mazvimavi et al. 2007;Twomlow et al. 2007Twomlow et al. 2008d)). The second study was a series of researcher-managed trials both on and off station to begin the disaggregation of the various components of the PCA package (Mashingaidze et al., 2007;Mupangwa et al., 2007). The third study focused on an initial quantification of the longer term impacts of various crop establishment practices, weeding regimes, fertilizer rates and mulching on crop yields, and water-use efficiency using systems simulation modeling.The first step in preparing a field using CF methods is to remove all weeds. This should be done soon after harvesting in May/June. Weeding is done using implements such as hand hoes and machetes that disturb the soil as little as possible. The importance of weeding before land preparation is to ensure that the plot is weed-free at basin preparation and also to prevent the dispersal of weed seeds.Planting basins are holes dug in a weed-free field into which a crop is planted. The basins are prepared in the dry season from July to October. The recommended dimensions of the basin are 15×15×15 cm, spaced at either 75×60 cm for Natural Region II and either 75x75 cm or 90×60 cm for Natural Regions III, IV and V. The basins enable the farmer to plant the crop after the first effective rains when the basins have captured rainwater and drained naturally. Seeds are placed in each basin at the appropriate seeding rate and covered with clod-free soil. The advantage of using basins is that they enhance the capture of water from the first rains of the wet season and enable precision application of both organic and inorganic fertilizer as it is applied directly into the pit and not broadcast.Crop residues are applied on the soil surface in the dry season, soon after harvesting. The residues must provide at least 30% soil cover. The mulch buffers the soil against extreme temperatures (thereby reducing soil evaporation), cushions the soil against traffic, and suppresses weeds through shading and improves soil fertility.Fertility amendments are applied soon after land preparation in the dry season. In CF, the application of both organic and inorganic fertilizers is recommended as they complement each other. Organic fertilizers such as manure and/or composts are applied at a rate of at least a handful per planting basin. More can be used in wetter areas.Inorganic basal fertilizer is also applied soon after land preparation before the onset of the rains. One level beer bottle cap is applied per planting basin and covered lightly with clod-free soil. This is equivalent to 80 kg of compound fertilizer per hectare. Application rates can be increased in wetter areas and may depend on crop types.Nitrogen fertilizer is applied to crops at the 5 to 6 leaf stage soon after the first weeding at a rate of one level beer bottle cap per basin. This is equivalent to 80 kg of ammonium nitrate fertilizer per hectare. Application is done on moist soils. Precision application ensures that the nutrients are available where they are needed. Application rates can be increased in wetter areas and may depend on crop types.In conventional tillage systems, farmers plow/cultivate repeatedly in order to suppress weeds. With reduced tillage, weeds can be a problem requiring more effort initially. One strategy is to weed in a timely manner (ie, when the weeds are still small) preventing the weeds from setting seed. Timely weeding in combination with mulch should eventually lead to effective weed control.Rotating crops is one of the key principles of CF. Cereal/legume rotations are desirable because the cereal benefits from nitrogen produced by the Rhizobium associated with the legume, and the legume benefits from the residues produced by the cereal. The advantages of crop rotation include improvement of soil fertility, controlling weeds, pests and diseases, and producing different types of outputs, which reduce the risk of total crop failure in cases of drought and disease outbreaks.The PCA concept was introduced by NGOs and donors with technical assistance from ICRISAT in 2004/05 to a very small group of farmers. Since then the number of farmers practicing PCA has increased significantly over the intervening seasons (Figure 2). Over the fours seasons for which data are available from a nationwide system of 0.2 ha paired plots (0.1 ha under basins and 0.1 ha under traditional farmer practice), the basin package has consistently increased average cereal yields by 50 to 300% (Figure 3) in more than 50,000 farm households, with the observed yield increase varying by rainfall regime, soil types, fertility and farmers resource status. Farmer Practice Precision Conservation AgricultureUse of volunteer farmer clusters, rather than lead farmers or farmer field schools to demonstrate these principles, is leading to higher spontaneous uptake (Mazvimavi et al. 2007). For instance, in two wards in southern Zimbabwe, where paired plot demonstrations were established on less than 10% of farms, more than 1000 farm households have since invested their own capital and other resources, representing spontaneous uptake by nearly 90% of the population. Although the area under PCA is not large enough yet to create a marketable surplus, food security has increased substantially. As expected, farmers are adopting these techniques incrementally (Mazvimavi and Twomlow 2009). The area under PCA has doubled from around 0.1 ha per farm in 2004 to more than 0.3 ha per farm in 2008 (ICRISAT unpublished survey data), and this small area is accounting for 35% of household cereal requirements on average.Precision conservation agriculture also enables diversification in cropping patterns and more reliable legume production. Returns to labor have been about two times higher than conventional practices on average (Table 1). Although making the basins requires time and effort, once prepared, the same planting position can be used repeatedly. With each successive season preparing the basins and weeding should become easier. Maintaining all other production costs constant, CF remains more profitable than conventional farmer practice, even when significant yield gains can be achieved from farmer practice in higher rainfall conditions with fertilizer use (Mazvimavi and Twomlow 2009). These swift yield gains from planting basins are achieved because the technology enables farmers to plant and carry out all field operations in a timely manner. 2 The concentration of water and available soil fertility amendments within the planting basin is reducing the risk of crop failure, even under drought conditions.It is estimated that throughout most of Zimbabwe, irrespective of rainfall regimes, if a household were to devote at least 0.6 ha to CA it would meet their basic cereal requirements in all but the worst rainfall season, with many seasons producing a surplus (Mazvimavi et al. 2007). This would then allow farmers to diversify the crops they are growing on the rest of their land holdings, making crop rotations feasible and giving many option of cash crop production and sustainable livelihood improvement and commercialisation. Additionally, yield increase and stabilisation will produce more biomass for mulching and/or stockfeed.The impact of basal and top dressing fertility management regimes on maize grain yield responses to basin tillage and conventional spring plowing are summarized in Figure 4. There is a strong interaction between basal fertilizer application, top dressing and tillage system. Without any form of basal fertility amendments the basin tillage systems performed only slightly better than the farmers' traditional spring plowing -1621 kg ha -1 compared to 1476 kg ha -1 . However, from Figure 4 it is clear that when farmers have access to a combination of manure and inorganic fertilizers, particularly inorganic fertilizer for top dressing, then significant grain yields can be achieved. Top dressing with inorganic nitrogen fertilizer increased yields by more than 30%. Thus, for smallholder farmers to derive longterm yield benefits from the basin tillage technique beyond the current relief and recovery programs, additional investment will be required to ensure that smallholder farmers have access to inorganic fertilizers locally, particularly inorganic nitrogen-based fertilizers for top dressing.High weed infestation is one of the major constraints facing farmers converting from conventional tillage to CA. Under conventional tillage, weeding labour accounts for more than 60% of all costs for producing a maize crop (Ellis- Jones et al. 1998). Smallholder farmers would welcome a reduction in weed pressure as out migration of males in search of off farm income and the HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa has exacerbated household labor shortages in the smallholder sector (Gowing and Palmer 2008). Unfortunately, very little research has been undertaken to assess the impacts of mulching on weed ecology. Data presented by Nyagumbo (1999) showed no reduction in weed pressure with mulching when maize was grown using the ripper tillage. However, recent studies by ICRISAT have shown that as the amount of maize residues is increased, mulching significantly reduced (P=0.01) weed pressure when maize was grown using planting basins at Matopos Research Station (Table 2). Similarly, the average soil water content in the top 15 cm of the profile was observed to significantly increase (P=0.01) with increasing mulch rate. However, for this sandy soil, the significant reduction in weed density and increase in soil water content, observed with increasing mulch rate, were not translated to significant increases in stover and grain yields (Table 2). Similar lack of impacts of increasing mulch rates on crop yields have been observed for subsequent seasons (Mupangwa pers. comm.).Two experiments were also conducted at West Acre (clay) and Lucydale (sand) in Matopos Research Station to determine the effect of different levels of residue retention on crop and weed growth over two seasons (Mashingaidze et al. undated). On both soil types, retaining the entire residue produced neither increased crop yield (Table 3) nor suppressed weeds (data not shown), which is to be expected given the small quantity of residues available in these environments. ). Increased yields were only observed when farmers mulched their own fields with 6 t ha -1 or more of crop and plant residues. Smallholder farmers rarely achieve this level of stover production. Also, it is still questionable how much mulch farmers will retain on their fields, given that a major source of household income in these mixed crop-livestock systems is from the sale of goats and sheep (ICRISAT unpublished data). Unfortunately, some organizations that are currently promoting CA, are encouraging their collaborating farmers to harvest what ever sources of plant residues that might be available from the communal resource base, in an effort to achieve the 3 plus t ha -1 of mulch advocated by the Global CA constituency. This is done without any due consideration of the potential social conflicts that might occur between households that have a strong bias to livestock production and those that are adopting CA.Study 3: Evaluation of effects of CA technologies on land and water productivity using the APSIM modelThis exercise was carried out with the objective to disaggregate conservation agriculture (CA) technologies and understand their effects on crop grain and stover yield and also on the soil water balance (runoff, drainage and evaporation). The simulation tool used was the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM) model (Keating et al 2003)  Ncube et al., 2008), and weed management (Robertson et al. 2005;Shamudzarira and Robertson 2002), and has been successfully used in the cereal based farming systems of southern Africa (Whitbread et al. 2004;Ncube et al., 2008). A short-duration maize variety (SC403) was used to simulate maize growth and development to various crop production scenarios. The four main crop production scenarios simulated are as follows:1. Farmer practice -crop planted using overall spring plowing from mid December through to late January, followed by a single weeding 35 days after sowing (typical scenario for farmers with limited or no access to draft animals) (FP1weed)2. As for farmer practice, but with two weedings at 25 and 50 days after planting (FP2weed)3. Basin planting without residues with a planting window set 20 November -31 December and two weedings at 25 and 50 days after planting (Basins) -equivalent to PCA.4. As for basins but with crop residues applied at a rate of 3 t ha -1 which represents 30% soil cover applied on 19 November each year.Superimposed on the four crop production practices were four fertilization routines 1. No soil fertility amendments (zero nitrogen) 2.Basal fertilizers applied at planting, equivalent to 7 kg N ha -13. Top dressing with ammonium nitrate fertilizer equivalent to a rate of 28 N kg ha -1 (micro-dosing) applied 35 days after planting (Top Dress) 4. Basal and Top Dressing applied (35 kg N ha -1 ).Full details of the models parameterization for these soil types are available on request.A total of 16 treatment combinations were simulated for each site for the 38 year period.Average simulated incremental yield responses for the four fertilization regimes superimposed on the four crop production practices and associated water productivities with respect to evapotranspiration (WP) are summarized in Figure 6. As might be expected from the literature, the highest yields and WPs for both soil types are observed for the Basins+residues, with the lowest yields and WP observed on the FP1weed. This is in contrast to the field observations made to date, which suggest that residue retention below 3 tons ha -1 in the short term does not have a positive effect on crop yields (Tables 2 and 3; Figure 5). However, the question remains -\"Is the incremental grain yield increase observed between Basins and Basins+Residues of 400 kg ha -1 for the clay loam, and 180 kg ha -1 for the sandy soil, enough to compensate the farmer for loss of animal feedstuffs?\". The largest incremental yield gain across the four crop production practices was achieved through the targeted (point application near the plants) application of 28 kg N ha -1 35 days after planting.Basin tillage with or without residues offers an opportunity for poor vulnerable households with no access to draft power to produce as much if not more grain per unit area than households with full draft power in the drier areas of Zimbabwe. Furthermore, if the access to nitrogen fertilizer can be improved there is a great chance that households will move from a food insecure state to one of surplus. PCA spreads labor for land preparation over the dry seasons and encourages more timely planting, resulting in a reduction of peak labor loads at planting, higher productivity and incomes. Over four years these simple technologies have consistently increased cereal yields by 50 to 300% in more than 50,000 farm households (with the yield increase varying by rainfall regime, resource status of the household, soil types and fertility, and market access). Although the area under PCA is not large enough yet to create a marketable surplus, food security has increased substantially. As expected, these farmers are adopting these techniques slowly. The area to which they have applied PCA has more than doubled from 0.1ha to 0.3 ha per farm and this small area is accounting for 35% of household cereal requirements on average. PCA also enables diversification in cropping patterns and more reliable legume production. Returns to labor have been about two times higher than conventional practices on average and making planting basins every year leads to build up of soil fertility and organic matter over time resulting in a more sustainable system.While PCA promises to have potential to increase productivity of the crop-livestock systems in the smallholder sector of southern Africa, the promotion of the four principles should be sequenced in a manner that reflects the social, economic and biophysical constraints that these smallholder farmers face. Currently, crop residues are extensively used as feed and using them as mulch is bound to be unacceptable to farming communities as a whole in the short term. It is proposed that when promoting PCA in these systems, the initial focus should be on raising the productivity of the systems through the optimization of other management variables: planting on time, efficient use of organic and inorganic fertility amendments and effective weeding. When adequate crop residues for feed and mulch are produced, mulching can be encouraged in a sustainable manner.Producing more food with less water has been proposed to address the growing human populations' food demands, to avert a world crisis that could be ignited by fights for water, to enhance ecosystem sustainability, to keep up with changing lifestyles and eating habits, and to enhance competitiveness among competing uses (FAO-AGL 2002). Current changes in lifestyle aggravate water demands, and future projections show a world of increasing food scarcity (Ringler and Msangi 2007). The large gaps between current and potential crop water productivity (CWP) with respect to ET clearly indicate opportunities for improvement for many crops (Zwart and Bastiaanssen 2004). This may be achieved through both more efficient water capture and improved management of other yield increasing factors. Low agricultural productivity is the main cause of poverty and food insecurity in Africa, and improving water productivity through integrated water, crop and nutrient management is one of the approaches to help reverse this situation.Conservation agriculture (CA), which involves reduced tillage (RT), soil cover and crop rotation, is receiving increasing attention in Africa as it can increase yield and CWP through its effects on soil-plant interactions. Studies have shown soil structure improvements (Madari et al. 2005), reduced runoff, decompaction, better root growth and penetration (Busscher et al. 1995), and increased crop yields (Belay et al. 1998) resulting from CA approaches. Surface mulching with crop residues (CR) can impede water runoff and soil loss and increase infiltration, resulting in better water utilization. Rockstrom et al. (2003) observed that 70 to 85% of rainfall in sub-Saharan Africa is lost as non productive green and blue water flows. In the humid-tropics, farmers are faced with twin residue problems: the limited availability of crop residue (CR) to apply as mulch and its fast disappearance (breakdown), both of which constrain the degree of soil protection which may be achieved through the use of residues. It is thus necessary to investigate the potential for limited amounts of CR to increase CWP.Research conducted by the Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility institute of CIAT over the last 15 years has demonstrated that use of inorganic fertilizers and their combination with organic resources result in significant yield increases. Such approaches result in better crop establishment and increase the efficiency of crop water utilization (Bouman 2007). Large rotational benefits to cereals in legume-cereal rotation systems cannot be attributed only to the effects of nitrogen (N) fixation by the legume crop (Carsky et al. 1997). Additional effects such as soil water conservation during the legume phase of the rotation benefit the succeeding cereal. These benefits could result in greater CWP in such rotations compared to the common farmers' practice of continuous maize.In this study, we investigated the effects of tillage, CR and fertilizer on CWP on a Ferralsol in the sub-humid environment of western Kenya. The research question that we sought to answer is \"how do tillage system, CR application and fertilizer application affect rain water productivity under continuous maize and soybean-maize rotation systems in western Kenya\"? The study sought to determine those effects through the following objectives:1. Assess how tillage practices and residue management affect crop water productivity over several seasons in western Kenya 2. Determine the effects of N and phosphorus (P) fertilizers on crop water productivityThese were achieved through an on-farm researcher-managed experiment which started in March 2003 in western Kenya. The experiment involved two tillage systems (RT and CT), two residue management systems (plus and minus CR) and two cropping systems (continuous maize and soybean-maize).The study was conducted in Nyabeda in western Kenya. The site is at an altitude of 1420 m a.s.l., a latitude of 0° 07ʹ N and a longitude of 34° 24ʹ E. Annual rainfall ranges from 1200 to 1600 mm and is normally distributed in two rainy seasons; the long rainy (LR) season from March to August and the short rainy (SR) season from September to January. Long-term mean, minimum and maximum daily temperatures are 23, 14 and 31°C, respectively. Daily rainfall was measured using a manual rain gauge installed on the experimental farm. Figure 1 shows seasonal rainfall during the first eight seasons. Seasonal rainfall (mm)The soil is a Ferralsol (Sombroek et al. 1980) with 64% clay, 21% silt and 15% sand at the 0-15 cm. At the start of the trial the soil had 1.3% organic carbon, 0.15% total N content and pH in water (1:2.5) of 5.1. Prior to establishment of the experiment, the farm had been grazing land under mixed native vegetation of grasses and shrubs.The study was conducted within a long-term conservation agriculture experiment run by AfNet/TSBF-CIAT and involving a factorial combination of tillage system in main plots (RT and CT), crop residue management in split plots (plus and minus CR), cropping system in split-split plots (continuous maize and maize-legume rotation) and N or P in split-split-split plots (Table 1). Crop residue was surface applied in RT, while it was partially incorporated in CT during tillage; the practice of CT followed the common practices among small-scale farmers in the area and therefore a treatment of surface CR under CT was not implemented.In the continuous maize system, four levels of N fertilizer (0, 30, 60 and 90 kg N ha -1 ) were applied to assess N fertilizer response. For the maize-legume rotation, three fertilizer combinations were used; control (without N and P), minus N plus P, and plus N plus P.Application of N only was not included as the response to N without P, in soils that are Pfixing (i.e., where P is immobilized) was not expected. The design was a split-split-split plot with 4 replicates. The main plots (tillage treatment) were 14 m x 60 m while sub-sub-sub-plots measured 7 m x 4.5 m. Initial land preparation was by hand plowing to 15 cm depth for all plots. Subsequent seasonal land preparation in CT was done in the same way as the initial land preparation, while the preparation in RT was by surface scratching to about 3 cm depth using a hand-hoe and only in the places with weeds. Weeding was done using hand hoes by shoveling to about 10 cm depth in CT, and in RT it involved surface scratching. Each season, there were three (3) such weeding operations in each tillage practice. Crop residue (maize stover of the harvested crop comprising stalks and leaves) was chopped into pieces (about 25 cm in length) and applied seasonally at 2 t ha -1 at about one week before planting; the residue was surface applied in RT and incorporated in the case of CT during tilling operations. At the beginning of LR2007 cropping season, the crop residue was characterized as having 40% C, 0.35% N, 0.04% P, 0.98% K, 4.0% lignin and 0.51% polyphenol. Phosphorus and potassium (K) fertilizers were applied at 60 kg P ha -1 and 60 kg K ha -1 each season as triple supper phosphate (TSP) and muriate of potash. The fertilizers were hill-placed below the soil surface (at about 3-5 cm depth) with the seed at the time of sowing. Fertilizer N (urea), was split-applied with 1 /3 at planting and 2 /3 at knee height (5 weeks after planting). The fertilizer (urea) application at knee height was placed on the soil around the base of the stems, when the soil was moist. Maize (Zea mays L.) Hybrid 513 was sown in season 1, Hybrid 502 (from Western Seed Company) in seasons 2, 3, 6 and 8, IR (Imidazolinone-Resistant) during seasons 4 and 7 and Hybrid 403 (Western Seed Company) during season 5. For the legumes, common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) was used in season one and soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr) (TGX 1448-2E, locally known as SB20) was used in subsequent seasons. Legume above-ground residues, minus pods removed at harvest, were left on the respective plots where they had been grown. The maize was planted at 0.75 m (row spacing) by 0.25 m (hill spacing) by placing 2 seeds per planting hill. The crop was thinned to one seed per hill 2 weeks after germination, giving 53,000 plants ha -1 . The soybean was planted at 0.75 m x 0.05 m (i.e., seed rate of 266,667 seeds ha -1 ).The crops were harvested from the net plots at maturity leaving 2 border plants (0.25 m spacing) on either end and one row (0.75 m spacing) from the sides to eliminate edge effects. The maize cobs were separated from the stover and the fresh weight of each determined. Moisture content of grains and stover was determined on sub-samples by air drying the cobs, after which the grains were separated from the cobs, oven dried at 60°C for 48 hours and dry weights determined. A similar procedure was followed for the legume crop parts. Dry grain and stover/straw yield were calculated from fresh weight and moisture content.The disappearance of CR at the soil surface was determined in both RT and CT systems in the maize-legume system, in the minus N plus P treatments. The selected plots had received CR seasonally at 2 t ha -1 since beginning of the experiment in 2003. Four litterbags of 5 mm mesh size, containing 50 g (dry weight) of maize stover were placed on the soil surface in each plot at the beginning of the March-August 2007 cropping season. The litterbags allowed soil macro-and meso-fauna, mainly termites, to access CR. One of the litterbags was retrieved from each plot at 4, 7, 11 and 15 weeks after planting. Crop residues recovered from the litterbags were carefully washed with water to remove soil, oven dried at 105°C for 48 hours and resulting dry weight determined. The loss of CR from the litterbags is here termed 'disappearance'.At the end of the eighth season, soil samples were taken from 0-15 cm depth, at 5 points in each tillage x CR x cropping system plot in each replicate, mixed well, and a subsample was taken for analysis. The samples were air dried to constant weight before analysis for available P. The analysis, done at ICRAF laboratories in Nairobi, was based on a modified Olsen extractant (0.5 M NaHCO3 + 0.01 M EDTA, pH 8.5) according to ICRAF laboratory protocol (ICRAF 1995).Experimental data for the first eight (8) seasons were used to calculate CWP using dry grain yield as the numerator, and (1) in-season rainfall and (2) pre-sowing (30 days before planting) plus in-season rainfall received as the denominator (Rockstrom et al. 2003). In both analyses, rainfall received during the last two weeks before harvest was not included as this was taken as not contributing to crop water use since the crop had already senesced. Pre-sowing rainfall can be preserved within the soil profile and contribute to CWP, as demonstrated using presowing irrigation by Li et al. (2001). The statistical analysis was done using mixed model procedure of SAS version 9.1 statistical software for Windows to derive least square means.Regressions of yield and seasonal rainfall did not include season 6 which had drought.Crop water productivity for maize varied from 0.1 kg/m 3 in the driest season (season 6) to 0.8 kg m -3 in season three, a moderate rainfall season (Table 2). There was no significant effect of tillage on CWP in any season. However, there was a consistent trend for higher CWP for maize with CT than RT within respective CR treatments in both cropping systems except in the drought year. There was also a consistent trend for lower CWP in RT-CR than RT+CR in the continuous maize, but the differences were never significant. There was no such trend in the maize-legume rotation. There were no differences in the productivity between RT plus CR and CT±CR in the continuous maize cropping system; however RT minus CR had lower productivity (P<0.05) than CT±CR during seasons 2 (the season of lowest rainfall) and 5 (which had intra-season drought between 84 and 120 days after planting when only 40 millimeters rainfall was received).For the maize-legume rotation, maize CWP was lower (P<0.05) in at least one of the RT treatments than in CT during the initial 4 seasons, but with no further significant differences thereafter. Also, maize rainwater productivity for maize grown in rotation with soybean was in the same range as that grown in continuous maize system, despite the fact that fertilizer N was added only in the latter cropping system. The significantly lower CWP in CR treatments during the first season is interesting; since no N had been applied, and there was no biological N fixation benefit from a previous crop during this season; CR application likely immobilized available plant soil nutrients and thus reduced crop growth. Taking pre-season rainfall into account decreased CWP for maize.Soybean grain CWP averaged over the first 8 seasons of experimentation ranged from 0.18 to 0.20 kg m -3 across the 4 tillage x CR treatments (Figure 2). There were no significant differences in the productivity among the tillage or CR treatments for the 8-season average, or in any of the 8 seasons. 1 calculated using in-season rainfall from planting to maturity 2 calculated using seasonal and pre-season (one month) rainfall; there was an extended dry season prior to sowing in the first season, so no differences in the two CWP determinations Data in the same column followed by the same letter are not significantly different RT=reduced tillage, CT=conventional tillage SE=standard error of means, 60 kg N ha -1 was applied to each crop in continuous maize cropping system treatments, but no N was applied in the maize-legume system. Averaged over the eight seasons, maize CWP in continuous maize increased with fertilizer N application (Figure 3). The increase was significant at N rates up to 60 kg N ha -1 for RT and up to 30 kg N ha -1 for CT. As reported earlier, CWP for maize was always increased in CT compared to RT regardless of the fertilizer application rate. In the maize-legume system, application of P more than doubled CWP (increase of 120%) over the no input control (-N-P), while addition of N with P increased productivity by another 34% (Figure 4). The same case was observed under continuous maize where P increased CWP by 129% and addition of N with P increased CWP by a further 20% (data not presented). Seasonal rainfall had a significant effect on maize CWP in both cropping systems (p<0.01; data not shown), and CWP decreased with increasing rainfall (Figure 5). The decrease in CWP with rainfall is probably due to greater non-consumptive rainwater losses during higher rainfall seasons. Crop residue disappearance was fast, with almost half gone after 4 weeks, and 85% disappearance in 3.5 months (Figure 6). The residue disappearance rate was similar for both CT and RT except at 11 weeks after planting when there was significantly less residue remaining in RT. The increased rate of residue loss in RT relative to CT may be an indication of increased activity of soil macro-and meso-fauna following changed micro-environment in RT. The generally fast residue disappearance rates in the study site are attributed to a high activity of macro-and meso-fauna, specifically termites. Surface CR application with RT increased yield over RT without CR in all seasons except the wettest season which received 986 mm (Figure 7). There was a strong linear inverse relationship between the yield increase due to CR and rainfall. In contrast, there was no effect of residue incorporation on productivity of maize in CT plots in any of the two cropping systems (Table 3).  Available P concentration was only 8.6 mg P kg -1 soil in RT minus CR, significantly lower than the 23 to 24 mg P kg -1 soil observed in RT plus CR and in CT treatments (P<0.05; Figure 8). With CR application, P in RT was similar to that in the CT treatments. Crop water productivity was used as a measure of efficiency of utilization of applied (rain) water. Crop water productivity tended to be higher in CT than RT, more so during the first 5 seasons, but with few statistically significant differences. This may have been due to greater water percolation in the soil matrix following loosening of surface by tillage. Such loosening could also increase water storage in the root zone (Bouman 2007). Perhaps the large macropores that act as water conduits in RT (Olaoye 2002) were not yet sufficiently developed for water infiltration, and surface crusting was visually observed in the RT system. Even though greater soil-water evaporation is expected from the loosened CT plots than in RT, such evaporation may be small relative to the greater amount of rainwater that infiltrated in CT than in RT. The similar CWP of the tillage systems after the fifth season in both cropping systems could indicate progressive improvement in RT with time (e.g., in soil structure and microbial activity). Such progression could ultimately result in greater productivity in RT than CT (Ozpinar and Cay 2005;Six et al. 2002) but after more than the 4 years of our experimentation. An alternative explanation can be that, except for the crop failure season 6, water was not limiting (e.g for the last two seasons where rainfall was over 900 mm and well distributed) in any of the tillage practices during those last seasons. Thus, to confirm these findings, further assessments are necessary so that the CWP in the two tillage systems can be compared for a range of rainfall seasons.Surface CR protects soil from erosion and surface evaporation (Lal 1974), promotes infiltration of water into the root zone and adds nutrients to the soil when mineralized (Wang et al. 2006). In the RT system, for example, the surface residue is known to benefit crop plants by reducing runoff and thus loss of nutrients (Erenstein 2003;Russell 1991), and several studies have reported positive effects on yield following such residue application (Doran et al. 1983;Erenstein 2003;Lal 1974). In our site there was a consistent trend for higher yield following surface mulching with CR in RT in continuous maize, especially at low rainfall, although the differences were never significant. This shows that even with application of only moderate amount of CR, CWP is increased and this could cushion farmers against low yields during seasons of low rainfall. The positive effects due to CR in the RT practice is partly attributable to reduced nutrient losses in runoff, the most likely reason for higher available P in RT with CR compared with RT without CR, as also reported elsewhere (Andraski et al. 2003). In other words, loss of P in runoff could be partly responsible for the lower CWP in RT minus CR than in the other treatments. But the short residue residence time due to fast comminution by soil macro-and meso-fauna could decrease CWP, especially within RT where also surface crusting commonly occurred, resulting in increased surface runoff. The residue disappearance rate was fast compared to 50% disappearance over 4 months during summer in Zimbabwe (Nhamo 2007) and 60% disappearance of millet straw over 6 months in Burkina Faso (Mando and Brussard 1999), but slower than the 85% over 2.5 months reported for irrigated millet straw in Niger (Fatondji 2002). A combination of warm and sub-humid conditions in our case could lead to the fast residue disappearance due to effects on population and activity of soil macro-and meso-fauna involved in breaking down the residues into debris, and which differ from site to site. Increasing the amount of surface residue to more than the 2 t ha -1 used in our study could increase its residence time and reduce non-productive outflows such as through runoff and thus increase CWP in RT. The other approach to increase rainwater infiltration into the root zone for RT is subsoiling and ripping (Bouman 2007).We suspect that the somewhat low response under CT to residue retention was due to some nutrient immobilization (Blaise and Ravindran 2003;Jensen 1997) as the residue was low quality maize stover, and due to increased soil evaporation as a result of tillage. Indeed, the results showed that application of CR without also applying mineral fertilizer N is not appropriate as this resulted in lower CWP as observed for the maize-legume system during season 1. For both tillage practices, leaving whole (un-chopped) CR as a surface mulch and ensuring limited incorporation during tillage operations could be a good practice.Legume-cereal rotation usually results in substantial rotational benefits to the cereal crop. The similar maize CWP of maize grown without N fertilizer in rotation with soybean and maize grown under continuous maize system indicate that maize benefited from the having a legume in the rotation. One of the main benefits would have been biological fixation of N in the soybean phase. There may also have been differences in residual soil water content at harvest of the maize or soybean, affecting water availability at time of planting the subsequent maize crop. In our case, soybean achieved earlier and greater soil cover than maize, and could thus suppress soil evaporation relative to maize, which may help explain why CWP of soybean was similar in RT with and without mulching. Given the similar soybean CWP in RT and CT and the large additional benefits (e.g. reduced labor, environmental) of reduced tillage (Landers 2008), soybean is better grown under RT than CT in this environment.Nitrogen and P have been identified as the main nutrients limiting crop production in several parts of Africa (Schlecht et al. 2007), and their application led to much greater crop productivity in our experiment. There are many reports of higher yield due to fertilizer application (Fapohunda and Hossain 1990;Fatondji 2002). Thus in order to increase CWP, addressing crop nutrient limitations through appropriate fertilizer application is major prerequisite. As the quality of water outflows from agricultural fields is also of concern (FAO-AGL 2002), fertilizer application should be optimal and, at the present state of maize production in western Kenya, our data suggest that N application should not exceed 60 kg N ha -1 .Crop water productivity was generally low and reflects the low crop productivity in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Greatest CWP was observed for seasonal rainfall between 400 and 700 millimeters, with a large decline in CWP when rainfall was around 900 mm. Thus to increase productive rain water utilization by crops during seasons when rainfall is not the limiting factor, more effort is needed focusing on strategies such as genetic improvement of the crop itself (Bouman 2007) or addressing other limitations such as soil fertility. Crop water productivity during seasons of highest rainfall was similar to that of 0.40 and 0.55 kg m -3 irrigation water productivity observed for irrigated maize in Tanzania (Igbadun et al. 2006). The lower CWP during season 6 than during season 2 (both had similar total seasonal rainfall) indicates the importance of seasonal distribution of the rainfall and points to the need for targeted supplemental irrigation during intra-season or end of season drought spells. Also, with reliable weather forecasting, short-duration drought tolerant varieties could be used during such a dry season.In the continuous maize cropping systems, CWP tended to be lower with reduced tillage (RT) than conventional tillage (CT) for the first few seasons, and reached similar CWP after about 5 seasons. Reduced tillage plus mulching with maize residues (CR) also lead to higher CWP of maize than without CR. CWP of soybean was similar regardless of tillage treatment and residue management. Crop water productivity of maize increased significantly with N application up to 60 kg ha -1 , with RT and 30 kg ha -1 with CT, in the continuous maize system. Crop water productivity decreases with increased seasonal rainfall beyond about 700 mm, and this shows the need for identifying and overcoming constraints to higher productivity. Maximum CWP was achieved by using N and P fertilizers in combination. The results suggest that continuous maize and maize-legume cropping systems have similar maize CWP in the short to medium term. They also suggest that fertilizer N for maize can be greatly reduced if grown in rotation with soybeans, but that some N should be applied at maize sowing if mulching with CR.  significantly increased grain yield in both years, however yields with tillage were significantly higher than no-till, both with and without residue retention, and the reasons for this require further investigation.The Yellow River Basin (YRB) is the birthplace of Chinese civilization. The Basin is situated in Central China, between latitudes 32-42N and longitudes 96-119E. It has a catchment area of 795,125 km 2 stretching from the Bayankala Mountain in the west to the Bohai Sea in the east, and from the Yinshan Mountain in the north to the Qinling Mountain in the south. The Yellow River originates in the west on the border of Qinghai and Sichuan Provinces and flows through Gansu, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia, along the boundaries of Shanxi and Shaanxi, and finally through Henan and Shandong Provinces before it empties into the Bohai Sea.The Basin has a fairly rugged topography. About 80% has an elevation less than 2500m; approximately 75% of the basin is covered with mountains and hills, while plain areas account for only 17%. Most of the YRB is arid and semiarid: the annual average precipitation is 466mm, and most falls in the 7 monsoon months from April to October (and the 4 months from June to September account for more than 60% of annual precipitation). Precipitation varies greatly within and between years. Severe flood and drought occur frequently in the Basin. Soil erosion, poverty and water shortage are three major problems that affect the development of agriculture in the YRB. Severe soil erosion removes the most fertile topsoil and leads to decreasing soil productivity and sedimentation in the river bed which exacerbates flooding in the lower reaches. Erosion is particularly prevalent in the sloping drylands, the principal location of rainfed agriculture. The incidence of poverty (defined as income of less than 1,067 Yuan per capita per annum) was over 20% in the YRB in 2007 (Wong Shiyou and Wang Biqiang 2008), which amounts to approximately 70 million people.Agriculture is generally the main source of income for households in this region; therefore, increasing agricultural system productivity and water use efficiency is urgently needed to improve farmers' livelihoods.Following the classification of the Ministry of Land and Resources, arable land can be divided into irrigated paddy, rainfed paddy, irrigable fields, rainfed fields and vegetable fields (see Table 1). Irrigable and rainfed fields account for 34% and 62% respectively of the total arable land in the YRB. The irrigated paddy is for wetland crops such as rice or lotus, and can be irrigated when needed. The rainfed paddy is still for wetland crops, but lacks irrigation facilities and so crop production depends on rainfall. In the irrigable fields water supply channels are well established, and irrigated or rainfed crops, including maize and wheat, can be cultivated. Rainfed fields lack irrigation infrastructure and are used for rainfed crops only, including maize and wheat. Vegetables, including melon, cabbage and carrot, are planted in the vegetable fields.In the YRB farming systems the main crops are wheat, maize, millet, potato, oil plants and cotton. The cropping intensity depends on the climate, varying from one crop per year, to three crops per two years and two crops per year. Pasture/cropping ecotone regions predominate in the upper region of the YRB, such as between Xining and Lanzhou, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia, where only one crop per year is possible. In the middle region, such as the northern part of the Wei River Basin and the valley area of Wei-Fen River Basin, three crops can be cultivated in two years due to greater water availability and solar radiation. In the irrigated regions of the lower YRB, such as the southeastern plain of Shandong and Henan, two crops per year are common (Liu Xunhao 2005). Thus, the cropping index in the southern plain of Shandong, Henan and part of Shaanxi, which has fertile soil and abundant water resources, can be as high as 140~170%, in contrast to the cold dry north of Inner Mongolia and parts of Shaanxi and Shanxi Provinces where the cropping index tends to be below 80%. One of the most promising options for sustainable agriculture, if not the only option in the long term, is Conservation Agriculture (CA), which offers an approach of integrated farming systems improvement. It is characterized by the following basic principles: reduction in tillage, with the ultimate goal of no-till seeding systems that normally disturb only a small fraction of the soil surface, reducing carbon loss and physical deterioration of soils; crop residue retention on the soil surface, with the ultimate goal of protecting the soil from water and wind erosion, reducing run-off and evaporation and enhancing soil fertility, in the long term of improving soil health; effective crop rotations with the ultimate goal of creating viable, diversified crop rotations to foster weed, disease and pest control and improved soil health; and annual economic benefits, with the ultimate goal of reliable farm household food security and livelihoods, reduced production costs, increased economic productivity and reduced production risk.In recent years, the Chinese government implemented a series of policy and economic measures to promote the adaptation and extension of CA in the YRB. Since 2002, the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) has established 59 CA demonstration counties to extend CA, including five counties in which the CPWF project also operates (Table 2). With significant subsidies for CA machinery and support for CA training, it is estimated that components of CA have been adopted at a rate of about 3,300 hectares of arable land per CA demonstration county per year up until 2007 (authors' estimates). In general, CA was adopted faster in irrigated land, especially under summer maize-winter wheat rotations. Because of different climate, soil, landform, farming system, and level of rural economic development, the experience with the development and impact of CA varies widely across the YRB (Yan Changrong 2006). The characteristics of traditional and improved farming systems vary across the YRB. In the northern part of the loess plateau in Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia and Qinghai, Shanxi and Shaanxi Provinces, single cropping of winter wheat or summer maize is common. For improved water and soil conservation CA options of reduced or no-tillage with stubble and straw mulching are being tested. More than 10 cm of standing wheat stubble is left in the field after combine harvesting: the wheat stubble, straw and loose residues amount to 8-10 t/ha and provide soil cover during the fallow period. Sometimes, the stubble and straw are flattened with a stone roller. Before the sowing of the subsequent crop, the loose residues are raked into heaps in the tramlines (Figure 1) and 3-4 t/ha of organic fertilizer are broadcast. About 150 kg N and 80 kg P2O5 per hectare of inorganic fertilizer are utilized -the P2O5 and half the N fertilizer are banded below the seed at sowing, and the remaining N fertilizer is broadcast at flowering. After sowing, the wheat residues in the tramlines are spread across the sown area. After about 3~4 years of this practice the field is subsoiled, the straw is buried and the land is left fallow for one crop season (Wang Zhaohua, 2001).In the upper region of the YRB, especially the ecotone of agriculture and pastoralism in Inner Mongolia, northwest Gansu and southern Ningxia, only one crop is cultivated per year, commonly wheat, maize, potato or oats. For large scale CA, the key technology is a reduced tillage and strip intercropping system (3.6~8.4 m wide strips) (Figure 2), largely to reduce wind and water erosion. This strip intercropping system involves no-till and stubble retention for oats. In spring, oats are direct seeded (no-till) in the former potato strip, while the former oat strip, with about 20 cm of oat stubble which remains after some oat straw has been collected for feeding, is tilled for sowing potato. A novel stone mulching CA technique is used in Ningxia and Gansu Provinces, using stones of about 3~5cm diameter to a depth of about 10 cm. This mulch lasts for about 10 years, allowing farmers to plant cash crops such as melon and vegetables in such stone mulched fields.The Huanghuahai Plain in Henan and Shandong Provinces is the food bowl of the lower reaches of the YRB, where two crops are cultivated per year, commonly winter wheat and summer maize. Whereas maize residues are removed after harvest before wheat, a subsidy from government has successfully encouraged the use of no-till and direct seeding CA machinery for maize after harvesting wheat. In this system, the harvester leaves about 15 cm of wheat stubble standing in the field and the balance is chopped and spread by a straw chopper at the back of the combine harvester. In eastern Shanxi Province and western Henan, one crop per year is the main dryland cropping system; crops include spring maize, oats, millet and potato and common rotations are maize-maize, millet-maize, and less often maize-potato. Maize residue is chopped for mulch during harvesting, allowing no-till seeding (with simultaneous fertilizer application) the following spring. This process is used on about one third of the maize area now in Shanxi Province (Figure 3).  4. These counties were selected to cover a range of rainfall, geographical features and dryland faming systems (Yan Changrong, 2009). In this paper we present results from the site in Shouyang County. The experimental site is located in Zongai village located at 37º58´N，113º54´E and elevation 1135m, in Shouyang County, Shanxi Province. The climate is warm temperate, and relevant climate data from Shouyang County weather station, 10 km from Zongai village, are summarized in Table 3. Annual precipitation is generally low (350-550 mm) with uneven spatial and temporal distribution, and heavy rainstorms are common. Droughts are very common, in 60 to 80% of years; and the probability of combined spring and summer droughts is 53 to 77%. Precipitation is much lower than potential evapotranspiration. The main crops are maize, millet, buckwheat and soybean, and a typically there is a fallow year between crops. Maize-fallow-maize is a common rotation (Du Jiantao 2008). The trial has been conducted since 2005, with four tillage/residue retention treatments and three replicates on plots of 200 m 2 (Table 5). A fifth treatment (no till, without straw -NTWS) was added in 2008 . Spring maize (Jindan34 bred by Shanxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences) was planted at the end of April each year, at 0.6 m row spacing. After emergence was completed the crop was thinned to 49500 plants/ha in all treatments. The tillage x residue management treatments are described in Table 5. All treatments were sown and fertilized used a human drawn chisel plough. Ammonium polyphosphate (600 kg ha -1 -206 kg N ha -1 and 90 kg P2O5 ha -1 ) was banded at a depth of about 10 cm, 5 cm from the seed row, in all treatments. This paper presents detailed results from the 2007 and 2008 maize seasons.Treatments NotesMost residues of the previous maize crop were removed for fodder, leaving 10-15 cm standing stubble on the field after harvest (in October), after which the field was plowed by a tractor drawn plough to 20-25 cm depth, turning the soil over. During spring (in April), the field was harrowed (to 5~8 cm depth) by tractor drawn harrows, just before sowing. A human-drawn chisel planter was used for sowing. At the same time, fertilizer was applied by hand.All residues (6-7 t/ha) of the previous maize crop were plowed into top 20-25cm soil layer by a tractor drawn plough, shortly after harvest. In spring, the field was harrowed (to 5~8cm depth) by tractor drawn harrows. Sowing and fertilization as for CT.No tillage with mulching (NTSM) All residues (6-7 t/ha) of the previous maize crop were flattened and mulched in the field. There was no tillage. Sowing and fertilization as for CT.One-third residue with rotary till (RRT) All maize residues were removed after harvest, and about one-third of maize residues (~ 2 t/ha) were chopped and incorporated into the top 15 cm soil layer in autumn using a rotary plow. Sowing and fertilization were performed in spring using a tractor drawn no till planter (a locally produced semi precision planter)No tillage without straw (NTWS) (new 2008) All residues of the previous maize crop were removed for fodder, leaving 10-15 cm standing stubble in the field. There was no tillage. Sowing and fertilization as for CT.Note: Fertilizer application for all treatments was 206 kg N and 90 kg P2O5-90 per hectare.An automatic weather station was established in the trial field in 2005, and rainfall and other weather parameters were measured daily from 2006.Gravimetric soil water content was determined every ten days, from planting to harvesting, in 2008. Soil water content was measured in 20 cm layers throughout the profile to a depth of 200 cm. The soil was sampled in each plot with a soil drill on each occasion. Soil temperature was measured at 10, 20 and 40 cm soil depth in all treatments from March 25 to May 10, every 2 days, in 2008.Soil organic matter was determined by wet oxidation (Black 1965) and the percentage of organic carbon was calculated by applying the Van Bemmelen factor of 1.73. Soil samples were collected from the 0-10cm soil layer in March 2008 (3 replicates of each treatment, bulked by soil layer).The number of emerged plants was counted every 2-3 days from the commencement to the end of the emergence. Counts were performed on two 2 m rows in each replicate.Crop yield was measured on the total plot area in early October each year. Water productivity (WP) was calculated as:where WP represents water productivity (kg/mm/ha), Y is grain yield of maize (kg/ha), and CWC is crop water consumption (mm) during the crop growth period. CWC was calculated from the water balance equation: CWC=P+IΔW DR, where P is precipitation during the crop growth period, I is irrigation water application, ΔW is soil water difference between seeding and harvesting; D is percolation loss of water from soil; and R is surface water runoff. There was no irrigation, and the values of D and R can be assumed to be zero in this trial, so the equation reduces to: CWC=P-ΔW.Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS 11.0 for Windows. One-way ANOVA was applied to analyze means and determine the least significant difference.The effect of tillage and residue retention on soil water content and temperature Soil water content was strongly influenced by rainfall (Figure 5) and crop water use. The trends in soil water content for all treatments were similar, however soil water content was generally higher under ASRT. Soil water content was relatively constant from seeding to seedling emergence (Figure 6). At this stage the crop water requirement is limited and the differences in soil moisture mainly stem from treatment effects. Soil drying in NTS and CK was greater than in the other treatments. During the period from July to August there was net soil drying because of high crop water requirement due to both rapid leaf area expansion and high evaporative demand. From early July to mid-August, soil water content dropped to its lowest level. From mid-August, temperature and crop water requirement gradually decreased. Figure 6 also shows the soil water content at different soil depths. In general, below 160 cm, soil water content maintained a steady state of about 20%. However, soil water content in CT and NTS tended to be lower than in the other treatments. The data suggest that no tillage and mulching can increase soil water content.Soil temperature is a critical determinant of maize germination, with a threshold value of 10-12 o C. Our results show that soil temperature at 10 cm increased over time from April 25, and exceeded the threshold for germination in all treatments on the same date (April 29) (Table 6). However there was a consistent trend for lower soil temperature in NTSM and NTWS at 10 cm than in the other treatments up to May 7, with a larger temperature depression in the mulched treatment (NTSM). There was also a consistent trend for lower soil temperature at 20 cm in NTSM. The results are consistent with many studies showing that mulching decreases soil temperature e.g. Sidhu et al. (2007). Figure 7 shows that crop establishment was delayed slightly in the no till treatments compared with the tilled treatments. Fifty per cent emergence was delayed by about 1 day in no till in the absence of straw residue (NTWS) compared with conventional tillage (CT) in the absence of straw, and addition of mulch (NTSM) further delayed 50% emergence by one day.There was little effect of residue retention on the rate emergence with straw incorporation (ASRT) compared with CT. These results are consistent with the lower soil temperature in the no till and mulched no till treatments. The effect of tillage and residue retention on soil organic carbon Soil organic carbon (SOC) declined with depth, from at least 10 g/kg in the 0-5 cm layer to around 1 g/kg at 90-100 cm in all treatments (Table 7). However, in the upper layers, SOC differed significantly (P<0.05) among the tillage/residue management treatments four years after the treatments were initiated. In the 0-5cm layer, organic matter content increased with decreasing tillage intensity and residue retention. No tillage with surface mulching had significantly higher SOC in the top 10 cm than all other treatments, including the two tillage treatments with full and partial straw retention (ASRT and RRT, respectively). At 10-20 cm, SOM was lower under NTSM than ASRT or CT. The ASRT and RRT treatments incorporate residues into a larger volume of soil and therefore increase the rate of organic matter decomposition and C mineralization (Salinas-Garcı´a et al., 2002) by increasing the contact between soil microorganisms and crop residues (Henriksen and Breland 2002). Long-term ASRT did not increase the SOC in the 0-20 cm layer in comparison with CT after 4 years (Table 8). The effects were extended to the 20-40 cm depth, where ASRT had higher SOC than all other treatments except RRT and NTSM at 20-30 cm (Table 7). Below 50 cm, the treatments with full straw retention, ASRT and NTSM, had higher SOC than RRT and CT.Table 7.  SOC stock has been identified as a good indicator of carbon dynamics under different management systems (Farage et al. 2007). Comparison of horizon and cumulative carbon stocks showed significant (P<0.05) effects of the tillage and residue retention treatments. At 0-20 cm, NTSM had significantly (P<0.05) higher stocks than all other treatments. At 20-40 cm ASRT had higher SOC stock than other treatments. After 4 years, CT (55.4 Mg C/ha) and RRT (56.4 Mg C/ha) had about 19.5% lower (P<0.05) total carbon stocks in the 0-100 cm soil profile than ASRT (65.9 Mg C/ha) and NTSM (67.8 Mg C/ha). These increases in carbon stocks indicate attainable carbon sequestration by converting from conventional tillage to straw return tillage and no tillage systems (Table 9). Grain yield in 2008 was much higher in 2007 than in 2008 in respective treatments. Total precipitation in both years was fairly similar (535 and 509 mm), however precipitation during the growth period of 2007 was higher than that of 2008, while the reverse was true in the fallow period. The higher yields probably reflect higher solar radiation in the drier 2008 growing season, plus the importance of precipitation in the fallow period. Storage of precipitation during the fallow period can provide enough available water for establishment and can diminish the effect of spring drought (Moret et al. 2006).The tillage and residue management treatments had significant impacts on grain yield and WP, and treatment trends in grain yield were similar each year (Table 10). Yields with no tillage were significantly lower than yields with tillage, in respective treatments with and without straw retention, in both seasons. Residue retention had a significantly positive effect on grain yield for both mulching with no till and plowing into the soil. This is consistent with the findings of Wang and Cai (2000) who reported that straw incorporation out-yielded straw mulching in terms of improvement of water use efficiency and grain yield for spring maize in Shouyang county. ASRT had the highest yield and WP in both seasons.In maize-wheat systems in Mexico, Govaerts et al. (2007) showed the importance of residue retention on the soil surface in no till systems, where yields declined in the absence of residue retention after the first few years. In other studies, higher yield and water use efficiency (WUE) were also always observed in treatments with no till and stubble mulching in dry years or in normal rainfall years (Eckert 1984;Hussain et al.1999;Su et al. 2007;Patil et al.2006). However, during wet years, yields tended to be lower (10%-15%) with no-till than with conventional tillage in Shouyang County (Wang et al. 2007) due to lower soil temperature and delayed germination and early growth. The frequency of in-season drought in this region is 50%, but there was no drought experienced during the 2007 and 2008 seasons, as rainfall was adequate and well-distributed, and therefore there was no benefit of the mulch in reducing soil water deficit stress. In our study, no till with mulching lowered soil temperature by up to 3 o C during the sowing/establishment period, which only slightly delayed crop emergence. Cai et al. (2002) also found that the topsoil temperature under mulch during the seeding period was 2-6 o C lower than with stubble removed or incorporated.The effect of delayed emergence on crop performance and yield in this region is not known.Yields were higher in the no till mulched treatments than in the bare no till treatments, while emergence in the mulched treatment was delayed by only about 1 day. Elsewhere, Griffith et al. (1986) found that the lower soil temperature early in the growing season due to mulching delayed germination and growth, and resulted in reduced grain yield. Well drained soils with light to medium texture and low humus content are more suitable for conservation tillage than fine textured and poorly drained soils (Butorac, 1994). The trial results and analysis confirm that CA is a promising sustainable agriculture option for YRB. No tillage and reduced tillage CA treatments can greatly improve soil moisture and increase SOC stocks which combat land degradation and CO2 emissions. However, crop yield decreased with no tillage or reduced tillage compared with CT; and the reasons for this are not known and further investigations are needed. Within tillage treatments, crop yield increased with straw retention (incorporation or mulching). In the study area, the higher soil moisture achieved by adoption of appropriate tillage and residue management is critical for the grain yield due to spring drought which occurs frequently, but not in the two years of our study when rainfall was adequate in terms of both distribution and amount. This points to the need for longer term studies and the use of simulation models (Nangia et al. 2009) to evaluate the tillage/residue retention treatments over the full range of likely seasonal conditions. No-till with residue mulch could have positive effects on crop growth in dry years due to improved soil moisture.Humphreys and other colleagues are greatly appreciated. The contents represent the opinions of the authors and do not imply any specific policy of the CAAS, CIMMYT or CPWF. The Quesungual Slash and Mulch Agroforestry System (QSMAS) is a smallholder production system with a group of technologies for the sustainable management of water, soil and nutrient resources in droughtprone areas of hillside agroecosystems of the sub-humid tropics. QSMAS integrates local and technical knowledge and provides resource-poor farmers with an alternative to the environmentally unfriendly slash and burn (SB) traditional production system. The main objective of this study was to determine the key principles behind the biophysical resilience of QSMAS and its capacity to sustain crop production and alleviate water deficits on steeper slopes with risk of soil erosion. Activities included the evaluation of QSMAS performance compared to the traditional SB system in terms of water dynamics (including crop water productivity), nutrient dynamics, and greenhouse gas fluxes (including global warming potential). Results indicate that the application of the four principles behind QSMAS productivity and sustainability (no slash-and-burn, permanent soil cover, minimal disturbance of soil, and improved fertilizer practice), has positive effects on the soil-plantatmosphere relationships, soil quality, and on landscapes and the environment. Validation in Nicaragua and Colombia underpin the potential of QSMAS to enhance support for livelihoods in vulnerable rural areas in sub-humid tropics.The Quesungual Slash and Mulch Agroforestry System (QSMAS) is a smallholder production system consisting of a group of technologies for the sustainable management of vegetation, water, soil, and nutrient resources in drought-prone areas of hillside agroecosystems of the sub-humid tropics. QSMAS is an indigenous production system that was identified by agricultural officers and extension agents of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and then improved in collaboration with local farmers, resulting in a suitable option to replace the slash and burn (SB) traditional system. QSMAS is being practiced by smallholders in southwest Honduras to produce major staples (maize, bean, sorghum), where the system has been successfully adopted by over 6,000 resource-poor farmers on 7,000 ha.Widespread adoption of QSMAS has been driven by its biophysical and socioeconomic benefits at multiple scales ranging from farm (increased crop-water productivity, food security) to landscape (better amount and quality of available water, resilience to extreme water deficits and to excess water) (FAO 2005;Ayarza and Wélchez 2004). Adoption of QSMAS has contributed to improved livelihoods of the rural poor through increased water resources and food security in sub-humid hillside areas, while maintaining the soil and plant genetic resources for future generations. The main objective of the work described in this paper was to define the key principles behind the biophysical resilience of QSMAS by determining the role of the management components of the system and QSMAS' capacity to sustain crop production and alleviate water deficits on steeper slopes with high risk of soil erosion.The performance of QSMAS was studied in southwest Honduras, within the Lempa River upper watershed department (district) of Lempira, from 2005 to 2007. Mean annual (bimodal) precipitation is approximately 1400 mm, falling from early May to late October, with a long dry season of up to 6 months. Field plots were established in April 2005 to compare five main treatments (replicated on three different farms): QSMAS of three different ages (<2, 5-7 and >10 years old), the traditional SB system, and secondary forest (SF) as reference. The four production system treatments (QSMAS of different ages and SB) were split in order to apply a fertilizer treatment (addition vs. no addition).Consistent with the traditional practices, SB and QSMAS plots were established (in 2005) or prepared (2006 and 2007) in April, before the start of the rainy season. The establishment of SB system had different management compared with subsequent management over the years. In 2005 the system was established through complete slashing of trees and shrubs, removal of firewood and uniform burning of the remaining dried material throughout the plot. Since the SB plots have a significant reduction in biomass production, in 2006 and 2007 the biomass was slashed and then piled and burnt in isolated sites within the plots. The QSMAS plots were managed in the same way in all three years, with the partial, selective and progressive slashing and pruning of trees and shrubs; manual and/or chemical control of weeds; fertilization of maize (Zea mays L.) and common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) crops; and the homogeneous distribution of litter, and biomass of trees, shrubs and of crop residues shortly before and at the middle of the cropping season.Every year maize and common bean were established in the early (late May) and later (late August) part of the rainy season, respectively, and managed following the standard timing, spatial arrangement and management practices used in the region for the production systems under comparison. In the fertilized treatments, the maize received 49 kg N ha -1 and 55 kg P ha -1 at 8-10 days after planting (DAP) and 52 kg N ha -1 around 30 DAP; the common bean received 46 kg N ha -1 and 51 kg P ha -1 around 8-10 DAP.Measurements and observations included: monitoring and analysis of soil water dynamics, crop yield and water productivity, nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) dynamics, greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes, global warming potential (GWP), emergy 1 sustainability index and ecological footprint index. Water dynamics were monitored through the assessment of infiltration, runoff and soil water availability during the rainy and dry seasons of 2007. Water infiltration and runoff were measured through rainfall simulation for 30 minutes using two intensities (80 and 115 mm h -1 ). Soil water content was determined through soil sampling at three depths (0-10, 10-20 and 20-40 cm). Susceptibility of the soil to erosion was assessed in erosion plots (5 m length x 1.5 m width) over 3 years. Soil losses were determined through the comparison of the indices of soil erodibility K-USLE [(t ha -1 h -1 MJ -1 mm -1 ] and Ki-WEPP (kg -1 s -1 m -4 ), corresponding to the Universal Soil Loss Equation (Wischmeier and Smith 1978) and to the Water Erosion Prediction Project (Nearing et al. 1989), respectively. Nutrient losses through erosion were quantified by determining total contents of N, P, K, Ca and Mg from samples of eroded soils. Water quality was assessed through the determination of NO3 -, NH4 + , total P, PO4 -3 and soluble solids in samples collected 45 DAP. Both eroded soil and water samples were collected in the erosion plots in 2007. Crop water productivity (CWP), expressed as kg of grain produced per m 3 of water used as evapotranspiration, was calculated using the crop yield and soil water data obtained in 2007 and by estimating the evapotranspiration according to the method of Penman and Monteith (FAO 1998).Measurements for the study on nutrient dynamics were carried out during three years, from 2005 to 2007, and included: (1) nitrogen (N) aerobic mineralization (NH4 + and NO3 -+ NO2 -), determined by mineralization of the whole soil (Anderson and Ingram 1993); and (2) partitioning of soil total phosphorus (P) following a shortened sequential P fractionation (Tiessen andMoir 1993, after Hedley et al. 1982).GHG fluxes including N2O, CH4 and CO2 were determined using a closed chamber technique, with 16 sampling dates from July 2005 to July 2006. Global warming potential was determined using CH4 and N2O fluxes, and C stocks in soil (soil organic carbon) and in tree biomass. GWP values were extrapolated to the region where QSMAS is practiced and were projected in time considering land use change. An emergy evaluation was conducted as in Diemont et al (2006) to quantify resource use and system sustainability, using data from plots and relationships (energy input per unit of energy output) reported in other studies.Evaluation of water dynamics at the middle of the rainy and dry seasons of 2007 showed a lower infiltration and higher runoff in SB system. During the rainy season, SB had the lowest infiltration 2 (29.8 mm) and highest runoff (12.0 mm); in contrast, QSMAS >10 years had the highest infiltration (38.5 mm) and lowest runoff (4.8 mm). During the dry season differences between treatments in infiltration and runoff were small. Infiltration ranged from around 44 1 Emergy is defined by H.T. Odum (1996) as the total solar equivalent of available energy that is needed directly and indirectly in making a product, good or service. mm in both QSMAS treatments to 41.9 mm in SB. Runoff ranged from 0.91 mm in QSMAS to 2.4 mm in SB. In 2007, precipitation andevapotranspiration (after FAO 1998) were 1005 and 491 mm in the early part of rainy season, and 419 and 272 mm in the later part, respectively. In the early part of the rainy season available soil water (0-40 cm soil depth) varied between 0.09 and 0.104 m -3 m -3 , with QSMAS <2 and QSMAS 5-7 and was 10 and 16% higher, respectively, than in SF. In the later part of the rainy season the amount of available soil water varied between 0.11 and 0.127 m -3 m -3 in SB and QSMAS <2, respectively. The mean value of available soil water content (0-40 cm) in QSMAS systems (average of the three different ages) was significantly greater than that of the SB system (Figure 1), suggesting increased availability of water for crop growth. These improvements in QSMAS were related to changes in soil porosity due to increases in mesoporosity (30%) and macroporosity (19%), and decreased the soil bulk density. This increased the plant available soil water storage capacity and availability of water for crops in the dry season, and increased the capture of rainfall at the beginning of the rainy season. QSMAS value is the average of the three different ages.The highest soil loss occurred in 2005, and was markedly higher in SB followed by QSMAS and SF (Figure 2). The same trend was observed in 2006 and 2007, although differences were more remarkable in 2005 due to higher rainfall intensity and to the recent conversion of SB plots from SF that resulted in bare soil and therefore higher susceptibility to erosion. Total soil losses over the 3 years from SB were 5.6 times greater than from the three QSMAS treatments, and 22 times greater than from SF. As a result, the SB system had the highest nutrient losses (kg ha -1 ) of N (9.9), P (1.3), K (6.9), Ca (22.8) and Mg (24.2), while SF had the lowest losses of N (1.7), P (0.2), K (1.2), Ca (2.6) and Mg (2.7).Water quality was poorest in the SB system, with highest concentration (mg L -1 ) of total P and PO4 3− (2.30 and 0.29, respectively), and was best in QSMAS >10 (0.18 and 0.25, respectively). SB also had the highest concentration of (mg L -1 ) of NO3 − and NH4 + (7.97 and 0.70, respectively), while QSMAS 5-7 had the lowest concentration of NO3 − (6.13) and QSMAS >10 of NH4 + (0.24). Highest soluble solids (mg L -1 ) was observed with QSMAS 5-7 (183), and lowest with QSMAS <2 (83.3). SF had values (mg L -1 ) of 0.65 for P, 0.43 for PO4 3− , 4.73 for NO3 − , 0.92 for NH4 + , and 25.0 for total soluble solids. There was no interaction between land use system (LUS) and fertilizer treatment on crop water productivity (CWP). CWP for maize was greatest in fertilized systems of QSMAS <2 (0.48 kg grain m -3 ) and least with QSMAS >10 (0.18 kg grain m -3 ) (Figure 3). In plots with no fertilizer application, the highest CWP was observed with QSMAS <2 (0.26 kg grain m -3 ) and the lowest with SB (0.10 kg grain m -3 ). In both fertilized and non-fertilized systems, CWP for common bean was greatest in QSMAS <2 (0.32 and 0.27 kg grain m -3 , respectively) and least with SB (0.10 and 0.07 kg grain m -2 , respectively). Fertilization increased CWP of maize (by 92%) and common bean (by 23%). These results may reflect adequate available soil water during the maize crop (from sowing to grain physiological maturity) in the early part of the rainy season, as precipitation was higher than evapotranspiration (ET). In the case of common bean, commonly growth in the later (drier) part of the rainy season, available water content in the soil decreased from flowering to physiological maturity, with lower precipitation than ET and therefore with a negative water balance. Under these conditions, QSMAS showed greater available water content in soil that resulted in greater grain yield and CWP. Total soil N content across the years showed a trend to decrease with time in the SB system while it increased significantly in QSMAS >10, with and without fertilization. The comparison of total N in SB system vs. QSMAS <2 (with a similar period under production) and SF (the natural condition which is disturbed for the establishment of either QSMAS or SB), suggest that the use of SB can rapidly reduce this nutrient in the landscape while QSMAS maintains and even increases the pool of N. Over the 3 years, potential N mineralization (Nmin) was also higher in QSMAS >10, although it was only significantly higher than in SF. The study on P dynamics showed no differences among LUS in total P content across the years, although different trends were observed in SB and QSMAS, with SB showing an increase in the organic (Po) pool and QSMAS increasing its inorganic (Pi) pool. In terms of P availability, over the years the average size of the different P pools relative to total P were: available P (AP) 12% of total P, moderately available P (MAP) 29%, and residual (not available) P (RP) 59%. The non-available RP pool tended to increase and the MAP and AP pools tended to decrease over time in the SB system relative to SF, while QSMAS (average of <2 and >10 years old plots) exhibited the opposite tendency (Figure 4). The similar behavior in N-min and available P pools among production systems is a positive finding, because it implies the following: (i) QSMAS is as good as SB as a source of N and P, even though in QSMAS their content is more a result of biologically mediated process than of an accelerated process that drives immediate availability of nutrients as a result of burning; and (ii) QSMAS performs consistently over time, suggesting that this form of management may provide a sustainable source of N and P. Additionally, at similar rates of Nmineralization, the N balance in the SB system is expected to be less positive than in QSMAS, considering that yearly SB has lower additions of N (no fertilization and fewer sources of biomass) and higher losses of N through burning (volatilization losses of ammonia and windrelated losses of ash) than QSMAS.Results from the study on GHG emissions showed that QSMAS and SF were CH4 net sinks, with values (mg CH4 m -1 year -1 ) of -102 and -36, respectively. The only CH4 net source was SB, with 150 mg CH4 m -1 year -1 . All LUS were found to be N2O and CO2 sources, resulting from natural processes (soil organic matter decomposition) and from management (fertilization). QSMAS presented a much lower GWP (10.5 Mg Equiv. CO2) than SB system (40.9 Mg Equiv. CO2) (Figure 5). SF had a very low GWP (1.14 Mg Equiv. CO2). According to land use change trends, when projecting GWP to the region where QSMAS is practiced and using a 20-year time horizon, we estimate a decrease of 0.10 Tg Equiv. CO2. Higher C stocks in soil and tree biomass indicate a gradual accumulation of C in SF and QSMAS >10.According to the emergy evaluation SF and QSMAS had less environmental impact than SB as noted in the Environmental Loading Ratio (with values of 0.63, 0.14, and 0.02, respectively), the Ecological Footprint Index (1.02, 1.14 and 1.63, respectively) and the Energy Sustainability Index (4124, 136 and 35, respectively), indicating higher sustainability in SMAS and SF. The improved knowledge and understanding of the QSMAS system and the results from field studies lead to the following general conclusions: The set of technologies responsible for the success of QSMAS can be synthesized in four basic principles of conservation agriculture that contribute synergistically to its superior performance: (1) no SB, through the management of natural vegetation; (2) permanent soil cover, through the continual deposition of biomass from trees, shrubs, and weeds, and through crop residues;(3) minimal disturbance of soil, through the use of no tillage, direct seeding, and reduced soil disturbance during agronomic practices; and (4) efficient use of fertilizer, through the appropriate application of fertilizers. Management practices based on the key principles result in increased C synthesis and accumulation, accelerated nutrient cycling, and improved crop water productivity in a resilient production system, thereby enhancing support for livelihoods through water-efficient and soil-conserving technologies in vulnerable rural areas in the hillside agroecosystems of sub-humid tropics. Experience in on-farm participatory validation suggests that QSMAS will be readily accepted and adopted by smallholders in similar agro-ecosystems, and it also could receive strong support from local authorities and policy makers. Increasing the productivity of rainfed agriculture which caters for 60 % (OECD 1998;FAO 2008) of the worldʹs food, would help make strides towards global food security. However, the potential to improve yields for the growing populations in semi-arid regions, home to 2 billion people of which half are poor (DFID 2003) depends on appropriate adaptation to rainfall patterns. Even though total seasonal rainfall might be adequate for maize cultivation, poor distribution during the growing season often results in total crop failure, disrupting livelihoods. Research from semi-arid tropical regions shows that the occurrence of 2 to 4week dry spells during the growing season is more frequent than yearly droughts (Botha et al. 2003). Magombeyi and Taigbenu (2008) reported the occurrence of 14-day intra-seasonal dry spells in the Olifants River Basin of South Africa with a probability of 0.52 and the associated shortfall in the average family food requirement of 500 kg ha -1 year -1 occurring once every two years. Similar results from Kenya and Tanzania were obtained by Barron et al. (1999) of a 20%-30% chance of dry spells exceeding 10 days during the crop growing period. Supplementary irrigation can help increase water productivity (produce more crop per unit of water) and stabilise rainfed agricultural production in resource constrained regions of the semi-arid tropics (Rockström 2002;Rockström et al. 2002;DFID 2003;Mupangwa et al. 2006).Over the years, yields of maize (a staple food) have plummeted in Ga-Sekororo, Olifants River Basin. The farmers are vulnerable to recurrent droughts and dry spells which significantly reduce yield and consequently their income, thereby making them fall back on social grants from the central government (Magombeyi and Taigbenu 2008). Furthermore, the high cost of irrigation infrastructure is beyond the reach of resource-constrained subsistence farmers. Further, major developments of irrigation water sources in the study area are unlikely, unless through irrigation water savings, as Olifants River Basin is a closed basin with 70 % of the catchment water consumed by agriculture (DWAF 2004). This paper quantifies the effects of supplementary irrigation on rainfed maize to assist farmers to avoid crop yield failure due to climate and weather variability.The study area is located in Ga-Sekororo (part of the B72A quaternary catchment) in the Olifants River Basin of South Africa (Fig. 1). The Olifants is a sub-basin of the Limpopo River Basin shared by South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Botswana. The total rural population is estimated at around 56,000 (South Africa Census 2001).The area is characterized by high temperatures, erratic rainfall and recurrent droughts. Rainfall average is 630 mm; with potential evapotranspiration rates above 1500 mm (actual evapotranspiration is around 840 mm). The permanent wilting point, field capacity and saturated volumetric water content for the sandy loam soil in the study site is 9.5 %, 20.7 % and 45.3% respectively (Rawls et al. 1982;Mzirai et al. 2001).Compared to rating guidelines by Marx et al. (1999)  Maize is grown by more than 70 % (Magombeyi and Taigbenu 2008) of the farmers as a stable food for the community even in zones where success is not guaranteed, yet it is still the preferred choice for cultivation. The above formed the basis for choosing the maize crop for analysis.  Using data on precipitation, supplementary irrigation, soil moisture, and runoff a seasonal root zone soil water balance over a daily temporal scale for three cropping seasons (2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008) was constructed from Equation (1) (Walker and Ogindo 2003;Zhang et al. 2006).where all parameters have the units mm season -1 , and D is the deep drainage beyond the 1 m (Ali et al. 2007) root zone, P is the daily precipitation, I is the irrigation amount, R is the runoff from the field, Ec is the evapotranspiration and ∆S is the change in soil-water content (soil moisture at harvest minus soil moisture at sowing) in the root zone. D was determined as a residual in Equation 1.The maize crop actual evapotranspiration was estimated by Equation (2) (Chow et al. 1988;Allen et al. 1998;Moroizumi et al. 2009):where Ec is the actual evapotranspiration (mm d -1 ), Ks is the water stress condition, Kc is the maize crop coefficient, and E0 is the reference evapotranspiration (mm d -1 ). E0 was calculated by the FAO Penman-Monteith equation (as a function of net radiation, air temperature, wind speed and vapour pressure). Kc values from SAPWAT for maize were used according to the maize growth stages.SAPWAT is a computer program based on FAO, Penman-Monteith method (FAO 2002) developed to estimate crop water requirements (not a crop growth model) only for areas within South Africa (van Heerden and Crosby 2002). It uses local climate, irrigation systems and planting dates which represent the general production patterns found in the area. The Ks value was calculated using Equation (3) (Chow et al. 1988;Moroizumi et al. 2009):Where θ is the soil water content at any day and θwp is the soil water content at the wilting point (9.5% in this study). The value of θt was calculated from Equation (4) (Moroizumi et al. 2009):) (Where θfc is the field capacity water content (20.7% in this study). A value of p = 0.43 for maize was adopted based on Allen et al. (1998) (θt = 15.9% in this study).Crop water productivity (Wp) was calculated from the ratio of yield (kg ha -1 ) to seasonal water evapotranspired (mm) (van Der Zel et al. 1993;Rockström et al. 1998;DFID 2003;Grove 2006;Zhang et al. 2006). Marginal supplementary irrigation water productivity (MSIWP) was calculated from the ratio of change in yield to change in irrigation water applied (assuming no irrigation water loss to deep drainage), with other inputs held constant (Ali et al. 2007).Soil parameter analysis in 2007/2008 gave the following results: nitrate (12.3 ppm), phosphate (11.2 ppm), potassium (207 ppm), calcium (2 090 ppm), magnesium (311 ppm) and organic carbon (1.33 %). Compared to rating guidelines by Marx et al. (1999) of low nutrient levels (nitrate: < 10 ppm, phosphate: < 20 ppm, potassium: < 150 ppm, calcium: < 1000 ppm and magnesium: < 60 ppm), phosphate levels in the study site are lower than recommended levels for maize. Hence, phosphate is the most limiting nutrient in the soil. The 2007/2008 soil nutrient status showed an improvement from the 2005/2006 season.The seasonal rainfall during the three seasons for maize varied from 388 to 1422 mm (Table 1). The 2006/2007 season was very dry, well below the long-term average (630 mm), while 2005/2006 season received more than double the average rainfall. The average evapotranspiration (Ec) under rainfed and supplementary irrigation for the three seasons was 344 mm and 431 mm respectively. The observed Ec values are less than the general maximum (500-800 mm) required by a medium maturity maize crop for maximum yields (FAO 2002). Water balance components, maize grain yield and water use efficiencies (kg dry matter grain per mm rainfall) for the areas studied are shown in Table 1. (kg mm The variation of grain yield with evapotranspiration (Fig. 2) for rainfed and rainfed plus supplementary irrigation showed a strong correlation. This implies that the yield potential of maize increases as the Ec and seasonal rainfall increases. Maximum grain yields in fields with supplementary irrigation ranged from 1.45 to 2 t ha -1 , while yields in exclusive rainfed fields ranged from 0.35 to 1.2 t ha -1 (Table 1). Similar results were reported by earlier researchers working on maize in South, East and West Africa (Rockström et al. 1998;Oweis and Hachum 2003). Maize yield was affected by seasonal rainfall (Fig. 3) and its erratic distribution throughout the growing season, as reflected in the soil moisture changes in the rainfed plots (Figs 5a-c). The strong correlation between yield reduction of rainfed relative to supplementary irrigated maize and rainfall during the crop growing period (Fig. 3) suggested that lack of soil water during critical crop growing stages reduced maize grain yield. Grow ing period rainfall (mm) Yield reduction (%) Supplementary irrigation during dry spells increased yields on average by 196% (Fig. 3 and Table 1). Fox and Rockström (2000) reported a similar result of 180% yield increase in semiarid Burkina Faso. During the dry seasons 2006/7 and 2007/8 the grain yield reduction without supplementary irrigation ranged from 206 % to 314 %, while for the wettest year (2005/2006) the yield reduction was 67% indicating greater yield improvement with supplementary irrigation in drier years. There was high potential maize yield due to the more favourable high and evenly distributed rainfall in 2005/2006 season. Hence, the yield gap between rainfed and supplementary irrigation was smaller compared to drier seasons (2006/2007 and 2007/2008). Surface runoff and drainage (Fig. 4) from the field showed a strong linear relationship with seasonal rainfall. These results indicate the great potential for surface runoff water harvesting and groundwater recharge at the site as the quantity of rainfall increases. Runoff was high as the rainfall events occurred in pockets of 2-4 consecutive days which allowed little time for infiltration. The field results indicate there is a significant scope for improving water productivity in rainfed farming through supplemental irrigation from local runoff harvesting, especially when combined with soil fertility management as reported in other parts of Africa (Rockström 1999;Fox and Rockström 2000).Figs -5a-c show the variation of soil moisture in the experimental sites for the three seasons from sowing to harvest. On some days the volumetric soil moisture content of the rainfed treatment fell below the permanent wilting point (9.5% volumetric water content) (Mzirai et al. 2001), causing severe crop water stress. In addition, the sub-soil acidity (pH < 5) in the study area could have further restricted water uptake by the crop roots (Robertson et al. 2003). Despite high annual rainfall of 1422 mm in 2005/2006, the rainfed crop suffered from periods of water shortage during the vegetative stage (Fig. 4a) (18-32 days after sowing) and flowering (50-70 days after sowing). In the 2006/2007 season (Fig. 4b) crop water stress at soil moisture content less than 15.9% (Moroizumi et al. 2009) occurred in the vegetative and grain filling stages, while in 2007/2008 (Fig. 4c) crop water stress was experienced in the rainfed crop from flowering through to grain filling (80-100 days after sowing) (Rockström et al., 1998;FAO 2002).  Dry spells that were greater than 10 days resulted in volumetric soil moisture levels falling below 5 %. Soil moisture deficits adversely affected plant growth and yield attributes under rainfed plots due to increased total resistance in the soil-plant system resulting in reduced photosynthesis and growth (FAO 2002). In 2006/2007 the rainfed maize grain yield was reduced to 350 kg ha -1 because of the soil moisture stress experienced in the early growth stages (12-25 days after sowing) which could have reduced the crop leaf area index and radiation use efficiency and thus dry matter accumulation in plants (Rockström et al. 2002;Ali et al., 2007), and during grain filling. Soil moisture levels could be used to determine the onset of crop water stress for the efficient utilisation of irrigation and precipitation (Abraha and Savage 2008). With improved timely and adequate supplementary irrigation coupled with good soil management, farmers could ensure minimum crop water stress to crops thereby enhancing families' food and income.The MSIWP is a good indicator for assessing the performance of supplementary irrigation management methods, to ascertain whether higher crop yields offset the cost of supplying additional water (Rockström et al. 2002). The MSIWP ranged from 9.8 to 16.7 kg mm -1 ha -1 (average of 12.8 kg mm -1 ha -1 ) for 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 seasons respectively (Table 1). The results are higher than 2.5-7.6 kg mm -1 ha -1 reported in Burkina Faso (Rockström et al. 2002) but on the lower side on comparison with 15-62 kg mm -1 ha -1 of supplemental irrigation elsewhere (Li et al. 2003;Tingem et al. 2008). With the current ( 2008) price of maize grain at South Africa Rand (ZAR) 2.0 per kilogram, on average a timely application of 1 m 3 of irrigation water can produce ZAR 2.56 equivalent to US$ 0.26 (using 2009 exchange rate of 10 ZAR = 1 US$) worth of maize. The monetary return per m 3 of supplementary irrigation is five-fold higher than the cost of 1 m 3 water under full irrigation of ZAR 0.5 m -3 . The values demonstrate the large gains possible with timely and adequate supplementary irrigation to bridge dry spells.Shifting from exclusive rainfed to supplementary irrigation maize production in the study area increased average crop water productivity with respect to evapotranspiration (Wp) from 1.1 to 4.5 kg mm -1 ha -1 (a 309 % increase) (Table 1). The corresponding average yield increase was from 800 kg ha -1 to 1144 kg ha -1 . The results are comparable to average grain water productivity increases from 1.5 kg mm -1 ha -1 for rainfed to 3.5-10 kg mm -1 ha -1 with supplementary irrigation (Rockström et al. 2002). The yield improvement can be attributed to timely water application to crops to avoid severe water stress and the availability of more soil water for the plant. Similar results from Burkina Faso reported tripling yields from 460 kg ha -1 to 1400 kg ha -1 by combining supplemental irrigation and fertiliser application (Rockström et al. 2002). On the other hand, for seasons with severe dry spells, e.g., 2006/2007 in Ga-Sekororo, the result was a complete crop failure in the absence of supplementary irrigation.The results indicate that water harvesting for supplementary irrigation for dry spell mitigation can play a critical role in avoiding crop failure during cropping seasons with severe dry spells. There is need to investigate the levels of nutrients at which supplemental irrigation perform best, including nitrogen and phosphorus, which were below optimum at the study site.The daily soil moisture from water balance can be used to investigate the impact of dry spells on soil water availability during the crop growing season, and its impact on yield, and to determine when to schedule supplementary irrigations. Supplementary irrigation to bridge the intra-seasonal dry spells greatly increased maize yield. The benefits were greatest when rainfall was below average and unevenly distributed throughout the season. Ex-field rainwater harvesting from a river weir offers one way of realizing supplementary irrigation.More appropriate rainwater harvesting techniques should be employed to harness the large amounts of surface runoff generated in the study area. With the water productivity for rainfed agriculture lower than with supplementary irrigation, the results demonstrate the great opportunities that exist for upgrading rainfed agriculture and ensuring food security in rural communities through timely and adequate supplementary irrigation to bridge dry spells.John Dimes This paper describes field experimentation conducted in the 2007/08 cropping season in which crop and stover yield and water use of maize, cowpea, and groundnut were measured. The observed results were used to evaluate the performance of the crop-soi model APSIM in simulating the water balance, yield and water productivity of maize and legume crops in the Limpopo Province, RSA. APSIM was able to simulate very closely the observed range of crop yields in terms of both total biomass (3750 to 7000 kg ha -1 ) and grain yield (1250 to 2900 kg ha -1 ). It also simulated the observed differences in soil water content over time under the 3 crops, reflecting differences in crop water use due to planting date and crop duration and soil water distribution patterns. Using in-crop rainfall, the water productivity (WP) of the 128 day maize (fertilized) and groundnut crops was the same (6 kg mm -1 ha -1 ) whereas it was 3.8 kg mm -1 ha -1 for the 94 day cowpea. Using model outputs to fill measurement gaps at the start and end of the crop cycle, WP with respect to total water input (rainfall plus soil water depletion), was reduced to 5.5 and 3 kg mm -1 ha -1 for maize/groundnut and cowpea, respectively. Including the total seasonal rainfall, which was above average, in the total water input reduced WP to about 4 kg mm -1 ha -1 for maize and groundnut and to only 1.8 kg mm -1 ha -1 for the short duration cowpea crop.The Challenge Program for Water and Food (CPWF) project, \"Integrated Water Resource Management for Improved Rural Livelihoods in the Water Scarce Limpopo Basin\" (PN17), aims to improve the livelihoods of resource poor smallholder farmers in the Limpopo Basin through the development of an integrated water and soil resource management framework. The project recognises that while increasing water productivity (WP) is largely an issue of management of farming systems, the resulting upstream-downstream impacts and need for water re-allocation at the basin scale can only be resolved institutionally. Accordingly the project has a focus on institutional development and reform in addition to participatory technology development.At the core of any institutional or technological innovations that emanate from this project will be the need for reliable information on the water balance at the various scales of land management -plot, farm, catchment and basin level. In adopting a multi-scale, integrated platform, there is an onus upon the project to develop and use an analytical framework that adequately quantifies surface runoff and deep drainage, since these site-specific flows interact with and contribute directly to the water balance of the catchment and basin systems.However, this is a difficult task. Firstly, runoff and deep drainage are difficult to measure experimentally, and measurement is rarely done. Hence scarcity of data and the need to extrapolate are major challenges for the project. Secondly, rainfed farming systems in the Limpopo Basin are afflicted with highly variable and un-predictable seasonal rainfall patterns. Any experimental data derived in the relatively short time-frame of a 3 to 5 year project should therefore be considered with an appropriate degree of caution. Further, the vast array of cropping systems and management options for which the runoff and drainage terms would need to be quantified experimentally would quickly exhaust available resources. Lastly, site-specific runoff and drainage flows have impacts at the watershed and basin system levels as amalgamations of these flows from adjoining units of similar (and dissimilar) land management in the landscape. Quantifying these flows across land units and ensuring conservation of mass in the overall water balance is perhaps the most daunting analytical challenge that the project faces.Crop-soil simulation models are useful research tools when they adequately describe the key bio-physical and management interactions of the farming system of interest. In rainfed semiarid farming systems, simulation models, in conjunction with long-term climate data, offer a cost effective tool for capturing the effects one of the most important factors influencing crop response functions, namely rainfall variability both in season and between seasons. The capability to simulate a continuous water balance for the plant-soil-atmosphere system also makes modelling a valuable tool for quantifying water productivity for a range of crop species, environmental factors and management conditions. Where surface runoff and deepdrainage are included as outputs from the crop-soil simulation model, the modelling tool has the necessary attributes and capabilities to form part of the analytical framework to help overcome the challenges outlined above for PN17, and which can be assumed to apply more broadly across CPWF projects.The cropping systems model APSIM (Keating et al. 2003), has been described and promoted previously for use in the Limpopo Basin CPWF (Dimes and Malherbe 2004). However, for the uptake and application of APSIM as a key analytical tool in the current project, there is a need to evaluate APSIM performance and establish local credibility of its simulation output.To pursue this initial objective, field experimentation was conducted in the 2007/08 cropping season in which crop yield and water use of maize, cowpea, and groundnut were measured at one site in Limpopo Province, RSA. This paper describes the field experimentation and the results of the evaluation of APSIM against observed grain and total biomass yields and soil water data. It also examines the simulated estimates of components of the water balance and WP of maize and legume crops using APSIM.Field experiments were conducted at Tafelkop, a smallholder-farming village located on the Nebo Tableland in Sekukhune District of Limpopo Province, RSA. The soils are shallow (up to 1.0m rooting depth) loamy sands to sandy loams. The rainfall season is uni-modal (October/November to March/April) with an average total of 500 mm (2002-2008 rainfall). The smallholder cropping system is dominated by maize production, but farmers experience high seasonal variability of maize yields due to the unreliability of the seasonal rainfall and its distribution.The Grain Crops Institute and the smallholder farmer association at Tafelkop established varietal trials of groundnut and bambara nut in the 2007/08 cropping season. Separate trials were established for each legume species, with 6 cultivars and 3 replicates laid out in a RCBD design. Plot sizes were 3m x 5m in groundnut and 4.5m x 3m in Bambara. Each plot contained 4 rows of plants. Demonstration plots of maize (PAN6479) and cowpea (Betch White) were established with the farmer association in plots (10 m x 30 m) adjoining the legume varietal trials. The groundnut and maize crops were sown on November 14, whilst the bambara and cowpea crops were sown on December 5 th . The maize received 120 kg of starter fertiliser (3:2:1(25) containing 15 kg N ha -1 ,10 kg P2O5 ha -1 and 5 kg K ha -1 ) at planting and top-dressed N fertiliser (14 kg N ha -1 as lime ammonium nitrate) on January 14, 2008. Both fertilisers were banded along the plant row. On the same date, the groundnut also received N top-dressing (11.2 kg N ha -1 ) to compensate for yellowing of the plants following high rainfall. The maize was harvested on April 29, groundnut on March 26 and cowpea on March 18, 2008. For the purposes of model evaluation, replicated treatment plots of Nyanda groundnut and SB7-1 Bambara were sampled (9.1 m 2 ) at crop maturity for stover and grain yield. Bulk samples were also taken from the maize (stover 72 m 2 , grain 109 m 2 ) and cowpea (36 m 2 ) demonstration plots to determine stover and grain yield.ICRISAT monitored the trial plots for changes in soil water content during crop growth using gravimetric methods. Initial soil samples were collected on December 12, 2007 in the groundnut and bambara trials. Subsequent samplings took place on February 22 (all 4 crop areas), March 29 (groundnut, maize and cowpea) and May 5 (bambara), 2008. Sampling depth intervals were 0-0.1m, 0.1-0.3m, 0.3-0.6m and 0.6-0.9m. Each replicate of the groundnut (Nyanda and SB7-1) cultivars was sampled on each occasion. For maize and cowpea, 3 in-plot areas of the final harvest area were sampled on each occasion. Gravimetric soil water content was converted to volumetric using a bulk density of 1.5g cm -3 in all soil layers. Soils collected on Dec 12 th were analysed for soil pH and %OC. The farm owner of the trial field recorded daily rainfall at the site.Plant biomass, grain yield and soil water balance of the maize, groundnut and cowpea crops were simulated using the APSIM cropping systems model (Keating et al. 2002, Version 6.0), and the model outputs were compared to observed data. Model input parameters for the maize (Pan6479) and groundnut (Nyanda) cultivars have been previously estimated (Dimes andCarberry 2008, Ncube et al. 2008). Growth and yield of Betch White cowpea was found to be adequately simulated using the short duration 'Banjo' cultivar description in APSIM. (As yet, there is no bambara module in APSIM Soil description parameters for simulation of the soil water and N balances in the nominated rooting depth of the soil (0.9m) were specified as shown in Table 1. The crop lower limit of plant extractable water (LL) and the soil drained upper limit (DUL) were derived using the measured soil water contents as a guide. The plant available water capacity (PAWC) of the soil layers to the nominated rooting depth is 90mm. The Runoff Curve Number and soil evaporation coefficients were chosen based on previous simulation studies in these environments (e.g. Ncube et al. 2008) Soil water and N conditions at sowing of crops were not measured. The start date of simulations was therefore chosen as October 1 st with the initial soil water content of layers specified at LL and starting mineral N in the profile set to 15g NO -3 -N ha -1 and 5 kg NH + 4-N ha -1 . The model output was used to provide estimates of the soil water conditions at sowing of the crops on Nov 14 th and Dec 5 th . 1 5 / 1 1 / 0 7 2 2 / 1 1 / 0 7 2 9 / 1 1 / 0 7 6 / 1 2 / 0 7 1 3 / 1 2 / 0 7 2 0 / 1 2 / 0 7 2 7 / 1 2 / 0 7 3 / 0 1 / 0 8 1 0 / 0 1 / 0 8 1 7 / 0 1 / 0 8 2 4 / 0 1 / 0 8 3 1 / 0 1 / 0 8 7 / 0 2 / 0 8 1 4 / 0 2 / 0 8 2 1 / 0 2 / 0 8 2 8 / 0 2 / 0 8 6 / 0 3 / 0 8 1 3 / 0 3 / 0 8 2 0 / 0 3 / 0 8 2 7 / 0 3 / 0 8 3 / 0 4 / 0 8 1 0 / 0 4 / 0 8 1 7 / 0 4 / 0 8Marble HallThe climate data inputs for ASPIM include daily maximum and minimum temperature, solar radiation and rainfall. Only daily rainfall data was collected at the site. The temperature and radiation data from a nearby (20 km) climate station (Marble Hall, 29º 37ʹ E, 25º 03ʹ S, altitude 878 m) in conjunction with the measured rainfall was initially used in simulations. However, two issues arose in regard to the climate data. Firstly, the Tafelkop site has an altitude above 1200m and it was found that the simulated duration of all 3 crops was under-predicted using the lower altitude Marble Hall temperature data (crops maturing in late February (cowpea) or early March). Consequently, daily temperature data from another site in Limpopo Province with similar altitude to Tafelkop (Polokwane, altitude 1153amsl) were used in the simulations. Secondly, the rainfall record collected by the farmer appeared to comprise cumulative period totals at times, rather than daily amounts (Figure 1). In particular, the 40 mm on March 23 and 80 mm on March 27 had a large influence on over-prediction of simulated soil water content on March 29 (all above DUL) in comparison with observed data. These two rainfall amounts were adjusted based on the rainfall distribution recorded at Marble Hall (Figure 1) and elsewhere -the 40 mm was re-allocated as 20 mm on Feb 29 and 20mm on March 16, while the 80 mm was reduced to 30 mm, in line with the rainfall recorded at another Met Bureau rainfall station (Groblersdal, within 20 km of site). This dramatically improved the prediction of soil water content on March 29 th , with only small changes in simulated plant yields (+30 to 150 kg ha -1 for grain, +35 to 240 kg ha -1 for biomass).The simulated changes in soil water content from Oct 1, 2007 to sowing of the experimental crops are shown in Figure 2. At sowing of maize and groundnut on Nov 14, the soil profile contained 85 mm of PAW to 0.9 m. Notably, the predicted profile distribution indicates that none of the 180 mm of rainfall to this date had yet drained below the sampled rooting zone.At sowing of the cowpea on Dec 5th, after a further 134 mm of rainfall, simulated soil water content shows free draining water in the profile (i.e. above DUL). The model output shows that 10 mm of drainage below 0.9 m had occurred by this date. Predicted runoff of the presowing rainfall was 31 mm up to Nov 14 th and a further 48 mm of runoff up to Dec 5 th . The corresponding amounts of simulated soil evaporation in these periods were 84 mm and 45 mm. There was very close agreement between observed and predicted total biomass and grain yield (RMSDgrain = 257 kg ha -1 , RMSDtbm = 436 kg ha -1 ) of the 3 experimental crops grown at Tafelkop (Figure 3). There was closer agreement for predicted and observed maize yields compared to the two legume crops, for which both grain and biomass yields were slightly under-predicted. However, in general, the observed differences in plant growth and yield due to species and crop duration and the interaction of these effects and planting dates with rainfall distributions (e.g. wet Dec and Jan, much drier February, Fig. 1) were very well captured by the APSIM modelling platform used in this analysis.The observed and predicted soil water content at sampling dates in maize, groundnut and cowpea plots are shown in Figure 4. There is close agreement between the predicted and observed soil water content (RMSDtsw = 7mm) and its distribution in the sampled rooting layers, for all 3 crops, on December 12. This is partially to be expected since the observed data for Dec 12 were used to help determine the DUL boundary condition of soil layers, at least below 0.3 m. Similarly, fairly close agreement for observed and predicted soil water on February 22 can be expected as the observed values on this date were used to determine the crop LL of the soil layers. However, for groundnut, simulated soil water use by the crop below 0.3 m was noticeably over-predicted on Feb 22. The real test on the water balance simulations was therefore how well the model predicted the water content and distribution of the soil layers as measured on March 29, following the late rainfall in March. In this regard it is unfortunate that the observed rainfall at the site for this period appeared to have cumulative period totals rather than daily amounts, and had to be adjusted. However, having done the adjustments in line with ancillary rainfall data from nearby sites, the observed re-filled profile distributions of March 29 were very well predicted by the model in all 3 crops. Overall, the performance of APSIM in predicting changes in profile soil water content under the maize crop was the most reliable (RMSDtsw = 7mm), followed by cowpea (RMSDtsw = 10 mm) and groundnut (RMSDtsw = 14mm). For groundnut, over-prediction of simulated soil water use by the crop below 0.3m on Feb 22 nd contributed to the poorer overall performance of the model for groundnut.The simulated in-crop water balance (sowing to crop maturity) of the maize and cowpea grown at Tafelkop in the 2007/08 season shows both runoff and soil evaporation higher than crop transpiration (Table 2). For groundnut, simulated crop transpiration was the largest component of the water balance, but there is some uncertainty with this estimate given the over-prediction of crop water uptake implicit in the predicted soil water contents at Feb 22 seen in Figure 4. Using in-crop rainfall in Table 2 as the benchmark water input for crop productivity and the measured grain yields in Figure 3, the calculated water productivity (WP, kg grain per mm of rainfall ha -1 ) of the 3 crops is maize = 6.0 kg mm -1 ha -1 , groundnut = 6.0 kg mm -1 ha -1 and cowpea = 3.8 kg mm -1 ha -1 . Including crop water use of pre-sowing water storage, (i.e. delta_sw and rainfall), the WP estimates are reduced to: maize = 5.6, groundnut = 5.4 and cowpea = 3.0 kg mm -1 ha -1 . However, given the uni-modal rainfall distribution and the long dry season of semi-arid environments, the overall productivity of crops in such an environment is perhaps best compared using the seasonal water balance as shown at the bottom of Table 2. In this case, crop WP is reduced even further, to: maize = 4.2, groundnut = 4.1 and cowpea = 1.8, kg mm -1 ha -1 . What is notable about using the seasonal water balance is the much higher proportion of the water balance attributable to soil evaporation (>40%), which largely accounts for the lower WP estimates using this approach. Another notable aspect of this analysis is the very low WP of the short duration cowpea relative to the longer duration maize and groundnut. However, all these results can be considered to be highly seasonal-dependent, and it is likely that in lower rainfall seasons, the short duration cowpea could provide the higher WP outcomes. There were shortcomings in this model evaluation study due to issues related to the climate data and the lack of independent data to determine the soil water parameters for model input. Despite these detractions, there are reasons to be encouraged by APSIM's good performance in simulating the observed crop growth and yield of the three crops and the associated observed changes in soil water contents in the rooting zones.Firstly, reliable prediction of total biomass is a prerequisite to simulation of the soil water balance. This is because simulated crop water uptake and canopy cover estimates by the crop have important feedback mechanisms on the simulation of soil water balance processes such as partitioning of rainfall into runoff and infiltration, and soil evaporation. Secondly, reliable partitioning of biomass to grain yield across the species is essential in determining estimates of WP that can be used with confidence in comparing the different cropping options, from a biological yield perspective or, more particularly, on an economic basis (e.g. to take account of the high value of legume grain relative to cereal grain). Thirdly, while the only component of the soil water balance measured in the experiments were changes in soil water storage, the good agreements achieved in predicting the different soil water distribution profiles observed over the course of the crops provide indirect evidence for having confidence in the simulated output for the other components of the water balance, namely crop water use, runoff, drainage and soil evaporation.As a consequence, the model was able to provide estimates to fill measurement gaps in water balance components of the field experiments, thereby allowing more detailed and appropriate calculations for comparing the WP of the different crops. Such measurement gaps can be expected to be a common feature of field evaluation studies commissioned by the CPWF. Further, the analysis presented 3 alternative approaches to calculating the WP. Which approach will be adopted and used by the CPWF for consistent analysis within and between basins is perhaps an important issue yet to be resolved. What is clear from this study is that crop-soil simulation modelling can, and should play an important role in these analyses, firstly by adding value to any field experimentation (as done here) and secondly, as a cost effective means of extrapolating the experimental results to alternative management, environment and seasonal conditions. But ultimately, for research projects such as PN17 with a focus on improved water management within a basin across multiple users, it becomes an essential tool to provide estimates of the changes in water balances components (deep drainage and runoff) of proposed crop improvement interventions that have clear consequences for water users and ecological needs beyond the field scale.Water use and yield of millet under the zai system: understanding the processes using simulation In the drylands of Africa about 90% of the population are rural and depend on subsistence agriculture for their livelihoods. There is increasing pressure on natural resources due to high population growth, and farmers are forced to cultivate marginal lands due to limited availability of good cropping land, thereby compounding the land degradation problem. Low and erratic rainfall, its poor distribution within the growing season, prolonged dry spells, lack of adequate water infiltration due to soil physical degradation (crusting) and nutrient shortage adversely affect crop growth and yields. To address these problems, indigenous, easy to implement innovations such as the zai system may help increase productivity.The effect of three planting techniques (flat, zai pits of 25cm or 50cm diameter) and three fertility management options (none -control, crop residue, cattle manure) were tested at Damari, Niger in 1999. Soil water content was monitored weekly throughout the growing period.Data from that experiment were used to determine the ability of the CERES-Millet model of the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT) to predict yield response to the zai water harvesting system. The model simulated the observed yield response of the control and the manure amended plots with high r-squared (0.99), low residual mean square error (340 kg ha -1 for total biomass and 94 kg ha -1 for grain yield) and high dstatistic (0.99), but this was not the case for the crop residue treatment where yield was over-predicted. Soil water content and extractable soil water were also well simulated for the control and manure treatments. This evaluation of DSSAT provides a starting point for research to evaluate the performance of these technologies over wider areas in West Africa. The application of models for such studies must be interpreted in the context of limitations of the model to address constraints related to soil and climate. Nevertheless, the highly variable crop response to technologies in this region due to the interacting effects of rainfall, management and adverse soil conditions make this an extremely important approach in planning for outscaling technology adoption and in interpreting results from experimental field research.In the dry lands of Africa, about 90% of the population are rural and depend on subsistence agriculture for their livelihoods (Bationo et al. 2003). Low and erratic rainfall, its poor distribution within the crop growing period, prolonged dry spells, lack of adequate water supply due to soil physical degradation (soil crusting, low water retention) and nutrient shortage often adversely affect crop growth and yields in this zone (Zougmoré 2003).According to Sundquist (2004) desertification along the Sahara desert proceeds at an estimated 1000 km 2 every year, which further increases the pressure on arable land. One reason for this is mounting population pressure (3% yearly growth on average) and limited availability of fertile land. Many researchers have studied a wide range of management practices for increasing productivity, including use of better adapted varieties, inorganic and organic fertilizer (Buerkert et al. 2002;Schlecht et al. 2004;Bationo et al. 1995;Yamoah et al. 2002;Tabo et al. 2007), crop rotation and residue management (Bado et al. 2007;Fatondji et al. 2006;Adamou et al. 2007), and rain water harvesting (Agyare et al. 2008;Roose et al. 1993).One of the techniques studied is the zai system, an indigenous technology that combines rain water collection (Roose et al. 1993;Fatondji 2002), and nutrient management. Research has shown that the zai technology increases crop yield and straw (residue) production on highly degraded soils and helps to alleviate the adverse effects of dry spells, which are frequent during the cropping period in the Sahel (Roose et al. 1993;Hassan 1996;Fatondji et al. 2006).The improved crop performance results from soil fertility improvement derived from the applied amendment, and wind-driven materials that collect in the pits, and from improved soil water status following the breakage of the surface crust and consequently higher water infiltration (Fatondji 2002). Applying the zai technology on crusted soils results in rapid progress of the soil wetting front, which may drain to deeper layers to recharge ground water and also leach nutrients (e.g., nitrates, Fatondji et al. 2007). Depending upon the soil and crop growth conditions, the proportion of drained water is variable. Using the zai system or other soil and water conservation techniques for crop production may improve productivity and help eliminate hunger in the dry land of West Africa. However soil type, climate and other conditions vary over time and space and influence the ways those technologies interact.Because many studies do not collect enough data to understand the interactive effects of soil, weather and management conditions that impact on crop yield, it is difficult to extrapolate results from specific experiments to other soil and weather conditions. Crop simulation models deal with these interactions and have been used to predict the effect of management technologies across sites and seasons, and may also help identify better management techniques for a wide range of conditions. However it is not clear whether the models are suitable for predicting crop performance in the degraded soils and extreme climatic conditions of West Africa. Although models have been used in many studies in Africa, they usually take into account only 1 or 2 limiting factors, such as variable rainfall and fertilizer input. Degraded soils have a number of factors that interact to limit crop growth and yield in complex ways. In order to use crop models for those conditions, they first need to be calibrated and tested in experiments in which measurements are made to provide all of the needed soil parameters, weather conditions, initial soil conditions, management inputs and soil and crop growth responses. If the models perform well, they can be used to predict performance of the technologies for a range of site and seasonal conditions, and reduce the need for expensive and time-consuming field experimentation across regions. They can also be used to predict parameters which are very difficult or expensive to measure, such as evapotranspiration (ET) and crop water productivity with respect to ET.Crop models in the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT) (Tsuji et al. 1994;Jones et al. 2003) have been used widely worldwide. This modeling system was designed for users to create computer experiments, simulate the outcomes of the agricultural practices, soil, and weather conditions, and suggest appropriate solutions for specific sites (Jones et al. 1998). The millet model (CERES-Millet; Singh et al. 1991), like other models in DSSAT, is designed to be independent of location, season and management since it simulates the effects of weather, soil water, cultivar, and nitrogen dynamics in the soil on crop growth and yield. This model has not been evaluated for simulating production using zai technologies.An experiment was conducted on a farmer's field at Damari in Niger (West Africa) to evaluate management systems that would increase yield and water productivity of millet (Fatondji et al. 2006). The overall objective of that work was to study the productivity and resource use efficiency of millet under rainfed conditions in the zai system as compared to flat planting on a highly degraded soil. In this study, we used data from that experiment to determine the ability of the CERES-Millet model to predict yield response to the zai water harvesting system. This experiment was selected because of the potential importance of the zai system in the Sahel, which has highly degraded soils, and because an intensive set of data was collected on soil physical and chemical properties, daily weather, weekly volumetric soil water at different depths, and crop yields. The soil and climate conditions of this site challenge the capability of crop models because of the extreme values of some of the soil physical and chemical properties and intensive rainstorms. The low soil water holding ability, soil crusting, low organic carbon, variable quality of organic amendments, low fertility, low pH and intensive rainfall events, when combined, may stretch the limits of crop models beyond their capabilities. In this study we hypothesized that millet crop performance and soil water status in the zai technology could be predicted with the CERES-Millet crop model using carefully measured weather and soil data at the experimental site. The specific objective was to evaluate the ability of this model to simulate the performance of millet in the zai system.The experiment was conducted in 1999 in a farmer's field at Damari in Niger. Damari (13°12' N and 2°14' E) is located 45 km from Niamey, the capital city of Niger. The long-term average annual rainfall at Damari is 550 mm, which falls between June and September. The long term monthly average minimum and maximum temperatures vary, respectively, between 16°C in January and 28°C in April and May and between 32°C in January and 42°C in April and May (Figure 1). Monthly potential evapotranspiration (PET) is very high; monthly rainfall exceeds PET only in August (Sivakumar et al. 1993). During the experiment in 1999, weather conditions followed this trend; total rainfall for the season was 499 mm (Figure 2).The soil at the experimental site at Damari is a Kanhaplic Haplustult (Soil Survey Staff 1998).Table 1 shows measured soil properties (0-600 mm) at the experiment site. The soil is highly acidic (pH-H2O = 3.6 -4.5), with 84% sand content, low effective cation exchange capacity (ECEC) (2.8 cmol kg-1), and very low soil water holding capacity (PAWC = 25mm to 600 mm soil depth). Because of the soil properties and intense rainfall events in the region the soils are prone to surface crusting (Casenave and Valentin 1989) and high runoff. The soil organic carbon ranged from 0.04 -0.14% (Fatondji et al. 2006), even lower than the typical levels in Niger (about 0.22%, Bationo et al. 2003). The nutrient levels of soils in the region are very low (Bationo et al. 2003) and severely limit yield compared to the genetic potential of the rainfall environment. Available P was far below the level of 2.1 mg/kg reported by Sinaj et al. (2001) typical of the soils of the Sahel, indicating the advanced degradation status of the soil. Total nitrogen level was also very low compared to the average levels for Sub-Saharan Africa reported in Bationo et al. (1996). For other details on the experimental site, refer to Fatondji et al. (2006). Despite these extreme conditions, farmers are forced to use soils such as this for producing crops because of limited land availability. Water harvesting technologies are therefore used to assure better soil water conditions for the crop. Due to the high price of mineral fertilizer, and also the risk of leaching of nutrients, farmers mostly use organic manure in the zai technology.These amendments are often of variable quality and with variable decomposition properties. The effect of planting technique (planting on the flat vs. planting in zai pits of 25 cm or 50 cm diameter -15 to 20 cm deep) and amendment type (none -control, millet straw, and cattle manure) on millet growth and development were studied. The zai pits were dug during the dry season in the third week of May 1999. When digging the pits, the excavated soil was placed perpendicular to the slope on the lower side of the pit so that water flow would be oriented into the pit. The organic amendments were applied 36 days before sowing at 300 g dry weight per pit or pocket (location of the plants on flat plots) (i.e. 3 t/ha for both manure and straw). When applied in the flat planting treatments, the amendment was incorporated to 5 cm depth to protect it from wind that could displace it. When applied in the zai pit, it was not initially covered, but it was covered later due to accumulation of sand and plant material blown and washed into the pit. Where needed, the field was kept free of weeds throughout the growing season by hand hoeing. In fact weeds did not grow between the crop lines in most of the plots.The millet straw used as amendment in the study had been collected from experimental fields at Sadoré and cut into small pieces of 10 cm length, and the cattle manure was collected from a barn on the same station. Urine was mixed with the faeces, which increased N and K content and improved the quality. Table 2 presents the chemical composition of these amendments. The 2.53% N concentration of the manure was higher than the 1.2% N for cattle manure typically collected in farmers' corralled fields (Esse et al. 2001).The experimental design was a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with 3 amendment treatments and 3 planting techniques (9 treatment combinations) replicated 4 times. Millet variety Sadore (the locally grown landrace) was sown on 28 June at a planting density of 10000 pockets per ha and harvested at maturity. Plants were thinned to 3 plants per pocket, approximately 3 weeks after planting. At maturity, grain and straw dry weight were collected from whole plots after excluding one border row on each side of the plots. The data were used to calculate grain and total biomass yields on a per hectare basis.Volumetric soil moisture content was measured weekly at 15 cm intervals (0-15, 15-30 cm etc) down to 210 cm depth using a neutron probe (Didcot Instrument Company Limited; Wallingford, UK). The probe had been calibrated in-situ for the soil of the experimental site using the gravimetric method suggested by the manufacturer (Fatondji et al. 2006). The raw neutron probe data were converted to volumetric soil water content (cm 3 cm -3 ). Two 48 mm inner diameter aluminum access tube were installed in each experimental plot. One tube was installed between the planting pockets while the second was about 5 cm from the plants on flat as well as in the pits (in zai-treated plots). Data of the tubes installed close to the plant (on the pocket or in the zai pit) are reported in this paper. The first measurements were made before the first rainfall on 7 June in 1999 and were continued throughout the growing period until harvest. To study the progress of profile wetting, several dates were selected to match soil water measurements with the dates of other observations. These were the date of first measurement before planting, the day of planting, and the days of plant sampling.Extractable soil water was calculated as the difference between the stock of water at field capacity (or soil water drained upper limit, DUL) in the soil profile to the maximum rooting depth of 60 cm and the stock of water in the same soil profile at permanent wilting point (or lower limit). Rainwater productivity was calculated as the ratio of total biomass or grain yield to the amount rain between planting and grain harvest dates and was expressed in kg per ha per mm of rain water (kg ha -1 mm -1 )The CERES-Millet model in DSSAT (Tsuji et al. 1994) was used to simulate the effects of the planting methods and amendments on straw and grain yields, soil water content, and extractable soil water. The CERES-based organic matter and nitrogen dynamics module (Godwin and Singh 1998) was used. Measured soil properties and weather parameters were used to provide the needed inputs to the model. These inputs are: (1) the initial chemical and physical status of the soil, which was determined through soil characterization measurements made on samples collected on 12 May 1999, prior to the installation of the experiment; soil samples were collected up to 200 cm depth to measure nutrient content (including nitrate) and particle size distribution;(2) nutrient contents of the amendments; (3) initial soil water content, determined using the first neutron probe measurement on 7 June before rain started;(4) weather data, collected with an automatic Campbell scientific weather station at the site (daily rainfall, solar radiation, and minimum and maximum air temperature); (5) crop phenology, monitored throughout the cropping season. For comparison with the simulated variables, grain and straw yield and weekly soil water content and plant extractable soil water were determined. The root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE) and d-statistic (Willmott 1981) were used to assess the agreement between simulated and observed values.For the determination of all soil parameters at different depths in the zai treatments, the first measurement started from the bottom of the pit as the rooting zone of the crop sown in the pit started from this level. This was taken into account in the initial conditions and in the soil characteristic input parameters for the model. Therefore 9 sets of initial conditions and soil analysis were used, one for each treatment combination tested.Some model parameters are difficult to measure directly and must be estimated from other measurements. In this study, three soil parameters were estimated using weekly soil water content at different depths in selected treatments: the lower limit of plant available water (LL), the drained up limit (DUL), and the surface water runoff curve number (ROCN).Although there are pedotransfer functions for estimating LL and DUL, from measured soil texture, these functions are not reliable for specific field sites (Gijsman et. al 2003).To estimate LL, we took the average of the soil water contents of the first two soil layers (0-15 and 15-30 cm) measured on 7 June before the first rain of the season. Due to the long dry season from October in the previous year, these first two layers were dry. The average volumetric water content of the two layers was 0.024 cm 3 cm -3 . To estimate DUL, the water contents of the flat-planted control and 50 cm zai control treatments after significant rain were used to estimate DUL for each layer for flat and zai treatments, respectively. The soil water content at saturation (SAT) was estimated from SAT= Fs*(1-BD/PBD) where Fs is the fraction of the porosity that is wet when water is applied which ranges from 0.93 to 0.97 (we used 0.95), BD is bulk density, and PBD is particle bulk density. The results are reported in Table 3 Due to soil crusting, runoff was high in the flat-planted treatments. Therefore a high coefficient ROCN was set for this treatment by comparing the time series of measured and simulated soil water contents in the control and manure flat-planted treatments. Iteratively, ROCN values were changed until simulated soil water vs. depth and time of season in these two treatments were in good agreement with observed soil water contents. Following this procedure, a runoff coefficient of 98.4 was obtained for the flat treatment. To estimate the runoff coefficient for the two zai pit sizes, we calculated the proportion of area occupied by a zai pit relative to the total area per pocket (1 m 2 ). Although water falling between the pits has a chance to be captured in the pits, for simplicity we assumed that any water falling between the pits would runoff at a rate determined by the ROCN of the flat treatment and that all rain falling on the area of the pit would be retained. Based on this assumption we calculated a weighted average ROCN using the runoff coefficient of the flat planting and relative area of the zai hole to the area not in the hole. Therefore we obtained a ROCN of 93.5 for the zai of 25 cm diameter and 79.1 for the zai of 50 cm diameter. One ROCN was used for each planting technique regardless of amendment.Genetic coefficients were estimated using measured biomass and grain yield and physiological maturity date for the zai manure treatments. Ideally, genetic coefficients should be estimated using data collected in experiments without water and nutrient stresses, but this is not possible in many cases such as in this experiment. We used the zai manure treatments as water and nutrient stress would be least in these treatments. Following Boote et al. (2003); Mavromatis et al. (2001), the coefficients for a variety in the DSSAT millet cultivar file were initially used, and phenology coefficients (P1, P2R, and P2OP5) were adjusted so that the simulated maturity date closely approximated the mean observed date for the  4). Afterwards, coefficients that determine biomass production and its partitioning into grain yield were considered. However, this was done simultaneously with adjustments to the soil fertility factor (SLPF), which must be used to account for limited nutrients in the soil that are not included in the model. Other researchers (e.g., Singh et al. 1994;Naab et al. 2004) found that values ranging between 0.63 and 1.00 were necessary for some soils in India and Ghana. In this case, it was noted that soil P levels were very low, which justified our modification of this factor. Thus, G5, the parameter that partitions assimilates into grain, and SLPF were modified together using both grain and biomass yield as criteria.Maximum rooting depth is determined by a root growth factor (SRGF) in each soil layer. Layers down to the maximum root depth have values computed from the DSSAT software, and values below that were set to 0.0. In this study, it was assumed that due to Al toxicity and low pH below 30 cm depth, roots would not grow below 30 cm. This was consistent with the neutron probe data that showed no soil water extraction below that depth. Therefore SRGF was set to zero for all layers below that depth.Although all these estimates were obtained by indirect methods, they were based on measurements that provided consistent predictions taking into account the many interacting factors. Soil water content: Figure 3 shows soil water content vs. depth for different measurement dates for the 25 cm zai and flat planted treatments. The soil had wetted up to below 200 cm depth in comparison with initial soil water content in the zai, (Figure 3 a, c, e), whereas in the flat treatments the depth of wetting ranged from about 25 to 115 cm (Figure 3 b, d, f). The same trend was observed for both pit sizes, but soil water content in the zai of 50 cm diameter was much higher to the measurement depth (200 cm) throughout the profile. The results indicate that even though the structure of the soil is sandy, breaking the surface crust and digging the pits was highly favorable for water infiltration compared to the flat treatment.Volumetric soil water content (VWC) was also higher at deeper layers in the zai than in the flat control and residue treatments, respectively, even towards the end of the season. However soil water content in the zai and flat manure treatments was similar in the latter part of the season.In general, the soil water profile was drier in the manure treatments than the other treatments regardless of planting technique, especially towards the end of the cropping season, reflecting high water consumption of the crop due to increased biomass production with manure (Table 5). In the flat treatment amended with cattle manure, the wetting front remained at 60 cm during the whole growing period, which is an indication of lower water infiltration and/or increased crop water uptake due to increased biomass production.  In the flat-planted treatments, extractable soil water (to 60 cm) was lower than in the zaitreatments regardless of the amendment type (Figure 4). This was more pronounced in the manure treatments, probably due to higher plant consumption as reported in Fatondji et al. (2006). Biomass and grain yield in these treatments were much higher than in the control.The same thing may have happened in the 25 cm diameter zai amended with manure where extractable soil water dropped substantially from day 240 until the end of the cropping season, which was not the case of the zai of 50 cm diameter. This suggests that more water was collected in pits of 50 cm diameter as grain and straw yields in 25 and 50 cm zai were similar (and therefore crop water use would have been similar) in respective amendment treatments (Table 5).Straw and grain yields: In the control non-amended treatments, the zai treatment increased straw yield by a factor 3 for both pit sizes, while grain yield increased by a factor 19 for pit size 25 cm diameter and 9 for pit size 50 cm (Table 5). Nevertheless the yields were extremely low compared to the average millet grain yield in Niger, which is 300 kg ha-1 (Bationo et al. 1989). No farmer would crop a field that would produce 1 kg ha -1 of grain. This is an indication that crop production would not be possible without external nutrient inputs in the soil where the experiment was conducted. It also shows that water is not the major constraint.In general zai increased straw yield by factor 2 regardless of the pit size, and the increase was statistically significant (p = 0.008). Manure application significantly (p < 0.001) increased straw yield by factors of 4 and 18 compared to crop residue and the control (none), respectively. There were statistically significant interactions between soil management and amendment type (p < 0.001) only in terms of straw yield. Zai significantly increased straw yield (3461 kg ha -1 and 3796 kg ha -1 for the 25 cm and 50 cm zai, respectively) compared to 1863 kg ha -1 for flat planting, when cattle manure was applied. Straw yields were similar among soil management treatments when crop residue was applied.Manure application significantly (p < 0.001) increased grain yield by factors of 7 and 110 compared to crop residue and control (none) respectively. No significant interactions were observed between the factors in terms of grain yield. However a 39% grain yield increase was observed (1156 kg ha -1 and 1100 ka ha -1 for 25 cm zai and 50 cm zai, respectively) compared to 705 kg ha -1 for flat planting in manure amended plots (Table 5). This shows that by breaking the crust by digging the zai pits and application of manure, better conditions were created for crop growth. This may have also helped the crops to escape from the effect of dry spells. In the Sahel, and particularly during this experiment, dry spells resulting in two weeks without rain were frequent (Fatondji et al. 2006). No statistically significant differences were observed between the zai pit sizes in terms of straw and grain yield. This could be due to high variability in the data because of the harsh conditions of the experiment, particularly in the control and the crop residue amended treatments. The residual mean square error was even higher than the treatment mean for crop residue amended treatments. Nevertheless, we speculate that soil nutrient content was so low that water availability alone without application of nutrients made only small differences in crop productivity between the soil management techniques.These data show that for better results with the technology there is a need of additional input of good quality. Nevertheless due to the excess of water that would collect in the zai it may be preferable to use organic amendment as the basis of this input to minimize leaching losses.Table 6 shows the effect of organic amendment type on observed rain water productivity and simulated results for the same parameter for comparison. Manure application in the zai resulted in total biomass yield of 12 kg ha -1 mm -1 of rain on average versus 0.6 kg ha -1 mm -1 of rain for the control. Grain yield per mm of rain water also increased by factors of 64 and 128 for zai 25 cm and zai 50 cm, respectively, compared to the control non-amended plots. On flat-planted treatments manure application increased rain water productivity by a factor 31. All the differences observed were statistically significant. These results indicate that the crop made better use of rain water in the zai when manure was applied. Similar results were reported by Fatondji et al. (2006) on another experimental site where the same technologies were tested.   Soil water content: Figure 5 shows the simulated soil water contents for the control flat planted treatment for soil layers 5-15 and 15-30 cm compared to the observed data. In general there is a good prediction of the movement of the wetting front on the layer 5-15cm all along the sampling period except for slight under prediction of soil water content on the 4 th and the 14 th samplings which occurred shortly after rainfall (the 4 th sampling was taken one day after 3 days of rain -total of 26mm, and the second one day after rain of 21 mm). Water content on the 7 th and 10 th sampling dates, which were taken after 11 and 7 days of dry spell respectively, were over-predicted.In the 15-30cm layer the model under-predicted soil water content at the second sampling, which was 4 days after rain of 48mm, and in the third sampling which was 2 days after rain of 10mm. Subsequently the model tended to slightly over predicted water content, except for samplings 11, 13 and 14, which were taken 4 days after cumulative rains of 39, 38 and 20 mm which were well predicted. In both soil layers the dry spells were over-predicted. In the layers to 45cm and 60cm soil water content was under-predicted from the 3 rd to 7 th and overpredicted later. However the RMSE was low (0.01) and the d-statistic was high (0.8).Figure 6 shows the simulation results of the control 25 cm zai for the same soil layers. The general trend was well simulated but the model simulated more peaks which were not observed from the field measurements. Similar trends to layer 30 cm were observed in layers 45cm and 60cm with a RMSE of 0.02 and d-statistic of 0.6. However the r-squared was very low at 0.3. But in layer 45cm except for three, most of the samplings were highly overpredicted Figure 7 shows the simulated soil water content in the manure amended 50 cm zai. In general the measured trend was captured; nevertheless the 11 th sampling that was after 4 days of cumulative rainfall of 39 mm was not simulated accurately by the model. Similar trends were observed in layers 45cm and 60cm with a RMSE of 0.01, d-statistic of 0.8 and r-square of 0.8. There was no consistent relationship between soil water content and the number of days before or after rainfall events. Nevertheless we have to admit that the time resolution of this model would not allow this level of detail. There will be some errors in prediction due to the fact that the model has a daily time step and uses an assumed distribution over time for rainfall, whereas the rainfall generally occurs at much smaller time steps, and the soil measurements were taken at an instant in time. Overall, the ability of the model to simulate over most of the season was pretty good as supported by the low residual mean square error (RMSE = 0.01), high d-statistic of 0.9 and r-square of 0.7 in most cases. Nevertheless further studies may be needed to address these details which may help us understand why the model over-predicted water content in some cases while in other less water content was predicted compared to the observed value.  One of the major effects of the zai technology is the breakage of the soil crust while digging the pits. Depending up on the size of the pit, the amount of water collected may differ. The results presented here were obtained by using a different runoff curve number for each land management treatment (flat, zai 25 cm and zai 50 cm) to try and reflect this. The general trend was that almost no water extraction occurred below the top 45 cm of soil, which according to Fatondji (2002) was the depth above which 98% of the plant roots (dry weight basis) were concentrated. High Al content (29%) of the experiment soil (Fatondji et al 2006) hampered root growth beyond the zone of application of the organic amendment, which could explain why water extraction did not occur at those depths. Nevertheless some water would move upward from the 30-60 cm layer as the upper layer dries out, and thus plants will extract some of the water from the 30-60 depth due to diffusion even if roots are not in that layer.Table 7 shows statistics comparing simulated vs. observed total biomass and grain yields for flat-planted and 25 and 50 cm zai treatments with manure and with no amendments (6 treatment combinations). Although the manure treatments were used to estimate the genetic coefficients, these results demonstrate good ability of the millet model to simulate differences among these six treatments, with high r-squared and d-statistics and low root mean square errors between simulated and observed data. Due to the marginal conditions of the experiment in terms of soil physical and chemical characteristics, the crops were so stressed in some treatments that they could hardly grow and simulated growth was very low relative to the crop's genetic potential (control non-amended plots). Although these conditions are extreme to be simulated by conventional models, these results show that by setting the parameters for conditions in this experiment the model was able to simulate the observed responses to these six treatments.However, the simulation results for the crop residue treatments substantially over-predict the observed yields (Figure 9 -circled symbols). The model may have under-predicted immobilization of N following addition of the high C:N residues in this treatment. One other possibility is that the low response observed with crop residues relative to simulated yield may have been due to the very low phosphorus content in the crop residue. Phosphorus concentration in the crop residue was 0.10%, whereas it was 0.94% for cattle manure. The version of the millet model in DSSAT v4.5 used in this study did not account for phosphorus limitations to growth, although this option is available for other crops (Dzotsi, 2007). This means that simulated yields for this experiment were based only on water and nitrogen availability in addition to weather and genetic coefficients. When soils have very low phosphorus levels, and very little or no phosphorus is applied as an amendment or fertilizer, the model may over-predict biomass growth and grain yield, which is what happened in the crop residue treatments. It is also possible that the nutrient content of the crop residue was highly variable and inputs for this amendment were not accurate. In manure treatments, as manure decomposed it released about 9 times more phosphorus than the decomposing crop residue (Fatondji et al. 2009), which apparently favored crop growth and yield. This trend is not captured by the model as the phosphorus module is not yet available in DSSAT for millet.The model performed very well in terms of rain water productivity for manure and control treatments, but the effect of crop residue was not well captured in the model outputs (Table 8). This implies that water productivity estimated by the model can be used to estimate rain water productivity for comparing the zai with manure amendment vs. control flat planted management systems in other years or locations if the required soil, weather, amendment, and planting technique model inputs are known.   This study addressed the challenge of simulating the low productivity of millet due to the combination of crusting soils (with adverse effects on infiltration), extremely low PAWC soils, nitrogen and phosphorus constraints on crop growth and low and erratic rainfall. We explored the possibility of simulating millet production in one of the extreme conditions that farmers have to deal with using an experiment in which detailed data were collected on soil physical and chemical properties, organic amendment properties, weather, yield components, and weekly soil water content vs. depth measurements for nine treatment combinations of planting technique and organic amendment. These carefully-collected data provided a good test of how well the millet model would predict the range of responses that were observed. But even with the extensive data set, we found that several input parameters needed by the model had to be estimated using indirect methods. Although this need may exist in other conditions, the model was highly sensitive to these uncertain inputs for the conditions at this site. The most sensitive inputs that had to be estimated indirectly were the genetic coefficients for the variety used in the experiment, the runoff curve number for different zai vs. flat planted treatments, and the soil fertility factor. Nevertheless, simulated yield results were very good for the control and manure treatments on flat planted and zai treatments, predicting straw yields with manure that ranged between about 2022 and 4434 kg ha-1 and grain yield ranging between about 700 and 1200 kg ha-1. For the control treatments, simulated and observed straw and grain yields were all very low, and represented crop failure.The output of the model in terms of rain water productivity as a ratio of straw/total biomass or grain production to the amount of rain from planting to harvest was captured when compared to the observed data, particularly for manure and control treatments. This indicates that the measured data were adequately used to estimate the model parameters.The model calculates the amount of rain received during the cropping period based on weather data. Therefore this result could be expected as those two treatments were well simulated in terms of total biomass and grain yield.Water harvesting techniques are one of the means to help combat desertification in the sub-Saharan Africa. They are mostly used on the prevailing degraded bare land of the region.The results of the field study demonstrated that the zai is a powerful technology, which under extreme physical and chemical conditions, substantially increased crop yield and provides conditions for crops to escape from the adverse effects of dry spells. Even though zai technologies are indigenous ones in some countries, there is a need to extend them for broader use by others. A study for evaluating their effectiveness across environments is therefore needed because, among the water harvesting technologies, the zai is the simplest and easy to implement by farmers as it requires locally available material.We contend that simulation analysis of these options can be used to provide insight on the effectiveness of alternative management systems. However, realistic inputs are needed for environments to be studied, and results must be interpreted relative to uncertainties in the inputs as well as limitations in the models. For example, the comparison of manure amendments in zai vs. flat planting, based on these results, could be simulated for a range of similar soils and climates with a reasonably high confidence. However, simulating the use of lower quality amendments, particularly in similar highly degraded soils, would need to be interpreted in the context of limitations of the model. Although this is always true for model applications, the harsh conditions in this region make this an extremely important issue when conducting and interpreting results from such studies. In China, the easily eroded soil of the Loess Plateau dryland region is intensively cropped with dryland maize (Zea mays L.). Rainfed croplands comprise about 80% of the total cultivated land (Shan 1993). Rainfall distribution is uneven, with more than 60% concentrated in the July-September period. Water is the most limiting factor for crop production. In this region, maize is planted in late April and harvested in mid-September. Because planting occurs right at the beginning of the rainy season, crop yields strongly depend on the amount of rain stored as soil moisture and this often mitigates the annual variation in precipitation.Traditionally, farmers leave their fields fallow during summer and practice conventional tillage (CT) to maximize soil water levels. But conventional farming with extensive cultivation and little use of crop residues exacerbates soil, water and nutrient losses, causing decreases in water availability, soil fertility and crop productivity. This has led to low crop yields and low land and water productivities. Conventional tillage in the dry farming areas of northern China involves moldboard plowing (animal drawn or motorized) to a depth of 16-18cm, followed by a sequence of harrowing, smoothing, rolling and hoeing. These operations are done with all crop residues removed, being used as fodder for animals or as fuel (Gao et al. 1991). Burning of crop residues has increased during the last few decades (Wang et al. 1999). Intensive plowing has contributed to increased risk of soil erosion by wind and water, soil compaction and the formation of a hard pan in the subsoil layer (Cai and Wang 2002). It has also resulted in the depletion of soil organic matter, and reduction in soil structural stability, soil fertility and soil water retention (Cai et al. 1995).Conservation agriculture (featuring reduced or zero tillage, mulching, crop rotations and cover crops) offers a possible solution. Conservation agriculture systems typically result in increased crop water availability and agro-ecosystem productivity, reduced soil erosion, increased soil organic matter and nutrient availability, reduced labor and fuel use, and increased biological control of pests. But the effectiveness of conservation agriculture on land and water productivity depends on soil type, crop water use requirements, rainfall distribution and amount, and soil-water storage capacity (Hemmat and Eskandari 2004). Some researchers found that switching from conventional tillage to conservation tillage improved soil-water storage capacity and crop yields (Oleary and Connor 1997;Pikul and Aase 1999;Tolk et al. 1999;Li and Gong 2002;Li et al. 2005;Gicheru et al. 2004;Fabrizzi et al. 2005;Govaerts et al. 2005;Sayre et al. 2005), but Merril et al. (1996), Tan et al. (2002) and Mark and Mahdi (2005) observed no difference among tillage systems in volumetric water content. Furthermore, Guzha (2004) found that zero-till grain yields were lower than with CT, and Lampurianes et al. (2002) found no difference among tillage systems in volumetric water content and water productivity. Baumhardts and Jones (2002) compared conservation and conventional tillage and observed diverse results. Thus, before conservation tillage practices are widely adopted in any particular region, the suitability of this system should be assessed locally.Several advances with conservation agriculture have been made in recent years in the northern provinces of China. Most of these studies have been in irrigated areas and have resulted in positive results (Wang et al. 2003;Li et al. 2005;Su et al. 2007). The conservation practices generally involved a reduction in the number and intensity of tillage operations compared to conventional tillage, with direct sowing (\"zero\" or \"no\" till) as the largest reduction. Crop yields and water productivity have increased (by up to 35%) following the implementation of reduced tillage practices (Wang et al. 2007). Under no-till, crop yields are equivalent to or higher than those from conventional tillage methods, especially in dry years. However, during wet years yields have tended to be lower (by 10-15%) with no-till.Crop growth simulation models can be useful in evaluating the impacts of different tillage systems on the changes in crop productivity and soil-water balance components. Compared to field experimentation, the use of crop models to evaluate crop responses to a wide range of management and environmental scenarios can give more timely answers to many management questions at a fraction of the cost of conducting extensive field trials. DSSAT is a package which incorporates the CROPGRO and CERES crop growth models. The CERES-maize model is used to simulate maize cultivation. A detailed description of the CERES models can be found in Ritchie et al. (1998). The CERES models can predict growth duration, average growth rates and the amount of assimilate partitioned to grain and straw.The soil water balance in DSSAT is based on Ritchie's model, where the concept of upper and lower drained limits of soil water is used as a basis for the available water in the soil (Ritchie 1981a, b). In simulations, the modified Priestly-Taylor method is used to estimate evapotranspiration. We used DSSAT version 4.5 which includes the new tillage model based on the improved CERES-Till (Dadoun 1993) -a model used to predict the influence of crop residue cover and tillage on soil surface properties and plant development. CERES-Till has been tested for maize and has demonstrated the ability to simulate differences in soil properties and maize yield under several tillage systems. Andales et al. (2000) improved the CERES-Till model which now accounts for residue incorporation and its effects on the soil nutrient balance as well as the water balance and soil temperature. The model has provisions for the input of tillage date, type of tillage implement, and tillage depth, and it accounts for changes in soil physical properties (bulk density, hydraulic conductivity, porosity, surface residues and soil temperature) caused by tillage. A detailed description of the improved CERES-Till model can be found in Andales et al. (2000).The experimental site is located in Zong Ai village, Shouyang County (37º 32´-38º 6´North latitude, 112º 46´-113º 54´East longitude) (Fig. 1) which belongs to the warm-temperate zone and semi-arid grassland region in the sub region of Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia gully region of loess plateau. Table 1 describes some of the climate characteristics for the experiment site.The annual precipitation in Shouyang is generally low and is distributed non-uniformly in space and time, and often as large rainstorms (Fig. 2). Droughts are very common with frequency in the range of 60 to 80%. Drought frequency during the spring to summer period ranges from 53 to 77%.The longest drought period was 140 days in 1973.Since precipitation is low and much less than PET, there is not enough soil moisture to grow more than one crop per year. Monoculture is a common practice in the region.   Maize (cv Jindan34) was grown from April-September each year. There were three conservation agriculture treatments and one conventional tillage treatment on four adjacent fields (Yan et al. 2009). Each treatment was replicated 3 times. Crops were planted on April 29 of each year at 60030 plants/ha, 10-15cm depth, and row spacing of 0.6m. Ammonium polyphosphate was applied at planting alongside the seed at a rate of 600 kg/ha (N-P2O5-K: 20-60-0) on April 29 of each year. Each plot was 667 m 2 in size. There was a 7-month fallow period between harvest of the maize in autumn (October) and planting in spring (May) in the following year.Table 2 describes the four treatments carried out at the experiment site. For the conventional tillage (CT) treatment, most residues of the previous maize crop were removed for fodder, leaving 10-15cm stubble on the field after harvest (in October), after which the field was plowed by a tractor drawn plough to 20-25 cm depth, turning the soil over. During spring (in April), the field was harrowed (to 5-8cm depth) by tractor drawn harrows, just before sowing. A human-drawn chisel planter was used for sowing. At the same time, fertilization was done by hand. For the ASRT treatment, all residues of the previous maize crop (3 t/ha) were plowed into top 20-25cm soil layer by tractor. In spring, the field was harrowed (to 5-8cm depth) by tractor drawn harrows. Planting and fertilizer application were as for CT. In the NTSM treatment all residues of the previous maize crop were flattened and mulched in the field. Direct seeding and fertilization were performed by hand in the spring. For RRT treatment all maize residues were removed after harvest, and about one-third of maize residues were chopped and incorporated into the top 15cm soil layer in autumn using a rotary plow. Direct seeding and fertilization were performed in spring using the no till planter. Maize residues were removed after harvest; in spring, one third of the residues was chopped and spread across the field, and seed and fertilizer sown in a single pass Gravimetric soil water content was measured on samples collected (using soil drill) from different depths up to 200 cm, at three locations within each plot. Measurements were made at 10-14 day intervals from May 2005 to October 2006. Soil moisture was determined by calculating the difference between the weight of soil samples before and after drying in an oven at 105°C for 24 hrs. Soil samples were collected from the 0-10cm soil layer (3 replicates for each treatment, bulked by soil layer) for determination of soil organic matter by wet oxidation (Black, 1965), and the percentage of organic carbon was calculated by applying the Van Bemmelen factor of 1.73. Soil bulk density was measured at 0-15, 15-30, 30-60, 60-80 and 80-100 cm depths at three locations within each treatment. The soil bulk density was measured in April 2005 a few days before planting. For the 100-150 depth, soil bulk density was derived using the SBuild pedotransfer function in-built into DSSAT (Uryasev et al. 2003).The particle size distribution (clay, silt and sand content) and hydraulic conductivity were acquired from the Shouyang County Soil Survey handbook. Table 3 presents the measured and calculated soil properties used in the model. Maize grain yield was determined by harvesting an area of 4 m 2 in each plot at maturity. The maize grains were dried in an oven at 80°C for 24 hours. Maize maturity date was based on the advice of the research staff in-charge of the experiment site. he date was chosen when the bract of the ears completely became pale, a black layer formed on the grain and the kernel moisture content reached about 33%.Weather data (including maximum and minimum ambient air temperature, precipitation and solar radiation) for the county weather station were downloaded from the Chinese national weather service website. The weather station is located approx. 20 m from the experimental plots. The 2006 precipitation was measured using an automated weather station installed at the experimental site using a tipping-bucket automatic rain gauge. The DSSAT model was run in its \"sequence analysis\" mode for this study. In \"sequence analysis\", the soil parameters at the end of a simulation year are carried over to the first day of the following simulation year. This way there is a continuation of simulation unlike the \"experiment mode\" in which the model is reinitialized on the first day of the following simulation year. The model was calibrated by adopting the procedure laid out by Hu et al. (2006) using site-specific soil hydraulic properties and plant growth parameters for the site and the crop being simulated. Field measured values of weather parameters, crop management and soil properties were used for setting up the DSSAT model. Missing data such as soil drained upper limit, the lower limit and saturation soil water content were estimated using the soil data tool-SBuild pedotransfer function (Uryasev et al. 2003) in DSSAT. The initial C:N ratio was set to 11 (default DSSAT value) and soil mineral nitrogen to 0.022%. We used the iterative approach of Godwin et al. (1989) to reach reasonable estimates of the genetic coefficients of the DSSAT crop models through trial-and-error adjustments to match the observed phenology and yield with simulated values. A literature review was carried out and values for an irrigated maize cultivar grown in north China (Yu et al. 2006) were used as the baseline values. We modified the coefficients one at a time to check sensitivity of output to their change. We searched for optimum values of coefficients in increments of 5% between specific lower and upper bounds, based on literature and default values available. We calibrated the model for maturity date, grain yield at harvest and soil moisture content of different layers for all treatments during the growing season. The accuracy of the model predictions was determined by computing the percentage error in crop yield prediction and the root mean square error (RMSE) in predicting daily soil moisture. The RMSE is defined as:where n is the number of values, pi and oi are the predicted and observed values, respectively.Using the calibrated model, we simulated the medium-term (1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)) effects of the conservation agriculture and conventional tillage treatments on land and water productivity and components of the water balance. The field-scale soil water balance can be written as: was s ing advice of fellow regional researchers. Crop water productivity was defined as:where ДS is the change in soil-water storage, P is precipitation, E is soil evaporation, T is crop transpiration, D is deep percolation and R is surface runoff. In this study, deep percolation et to zero followwhere WP represents water productivity for crop (kg/m 3 ), Y is grain yield of maize (kg ha -1 ) and ET (mm) is the evapotranspiration during the year.Calibrated genetic coefficients for plant growth are listed in Table 5. In addition to the genetic plant growth coefficients, we modified some soil-water parameters to match the field observed soil moisture data with the model predicted data. We changed the runoff curve number from model default value of 81 to 73, soil albedo from the model default value of 0.13 to 0.10, soil fertility factor from the model default 1.0 to 0.8, soil slope from 0 to 2%, and soil drainage rate from 0.4 to 0.5. By changing these parameters, we found a better match for soil moisture and grain yield; and predicted PET (900mm yr -1 ) was also very close to the 852mm yr -1 reported for Shanxi Province in Wang et al (2007). The combination of cultivar and soil-water parameters that gave the minimum error for yield, daily soil moisture and maturity date was selected.Grain yield at harvest for all four treatments during the two cropping seasons of the experimental period, 2005-2006, was used for model calibration.  (2002). They reported that, spring maize seedling emergence with conservation tillage (subsoiling between rows or no-till with whole maize stalk mulching after fall harvest, and direct seeding the following spring) was 2-3 days earlier and 17-23% higher in a dry spring in Shouyang County, but that the benefit of conservation tillage was much less in a relatively wet year. In their study surface temperature under mulch during crop establishment decreased by 2-6°C compared with stubble removed or incorporated, thus affecting establishment and crop yield. While the differences between observed and predicted yields of the conventional and conservation agriculture treatments are generally small, the results show that the model is sensitive to the differences between treatments. Soil layers of thickness 5-15, 15-30 and 30-45 cm are important for simulating correct plant water uptake and thus the soil-water balance. Soil moisture dynamics in the surface soil layers (0-5cm) are more complex than deeper layers due to high spatial and temporal variations in organic matter content, macroporosity, and other properties. Fig. 3 shows very good agreement in soil water content of simulated and observed values throughout the profile to 45 cm in the conventional tillage treatment. There was similar agreement between the model predicted and field observed values of the daily soil moisture for all treatments (data not presented) with the RMSE ranging from 0.03 to 0.06cm3 cm -3 . Furthermore, simulated as well as observed soil water content was higher at depth under all three conservation agriculture treatments than under conventional practice (Yan et al. 2009), resulting in up to 15% more deep percolation for ASRT treatment in 2006 (normal rainfall year). Soil moisture for all treatments was relatively constant from seeding to seedling emergence. At this stage the crop water requirement is limited and the differences in soil moisture mainly stem from treatment effects. In general, the soil moisture strongly depends on the rainfall.Once there was satisfactory agreement between observed and model predicted values for crop yield and daily soil moisture content, we applied the model for predicting medium-term changes in land and water productivity with the adoption of conservation agriculture practices at the site.  Simulations were conducted for 1995-2004 to predict the medium-term field-scale changes in yield, soil-water balance components and water productivity for NTSM and ASRT in comparison with CT. As there was a very high prediction error during calibration of the model for RRT (Table 6), we did not include that treatment in the medium-term analyses.Predicted yields varied with seasonal conditions; for example, yield of CT varied from about 4500 kg ha -1 in 1997 to about 7500 kg ha -1 in 2002 (Fig. 4). The NTSM and ASRT conservation agriculture treatments always had similar or higher crop yields compared to CT. During the first three years of simulation (1995)(1996)(1997), the differences in crop yields between treatments were small but were much larger after that. In maize-wheat systems in Mexico, Sayre et al. 2005 also found that the benefits of conservation agriculture treatments only became apparent after several years. The reasons for the relatively small differences between yields of CT and NTSM and ASRT during later years (2003 and 2004) are not known. Growing period rainfall of 2001 (235.5 mm) was very low compared to long-term average rainfall of 413 mm. In that year NTSM and ASRT generated about 36% higher crop yields than CT. The yield trends were affected by pre-season (fallow) rainfall which was better conserved in NTSM and ASRT than CT. During normal rainfall cropping periods also the crop yields for NTSM and ASRT treatments were higher by 5-27%. In maize-wheat systems in Mexico, Govaerts et al. (2007) also showed the importance of residue retention on the soil surface in no till systems, where yields declined in the absence of residue retention after the first few years (Govaerts et al. 2007). The soil-water balance comprises gains and losses in the soil-water storage (∆S). In dry areas such as Shouyang County transpiration is a beneficial loss, while run-off and deep drainage are losses to the cropping system (but may have downstream and ecosystem benefits). Soil evaporation in such places is a non-beneficial loss. The predicted soil-water balance was compared for CT, NTSM and ASRT over the crop and fallow periods. The fallow period is generally used for recharging the soil moisture (Huang et al. 2003). But at this site the rainfall magnitude and distribution is such that except for the 1995 cropping period, and the 1997 and 1999 fallow periods, there was a net loss of soil water in all crop and fallow periods (Table 7). This is consistent with the fact that there is a 60 to 80% probability of drought in the Shanxi Province to which this site belongs. These results are also in line with Wang et al. (2007) who report a water deficit of 414-493mm/yr for Shanxi Province.Fig. 5 shows the relative change in crop yield, soil water and water productivity with respect to ET for the three treatments. The two conservation agriculture treatments performed better than CT in terms of grain yield and water productivity. During 9 out of 10 years, grain yield of NTSM and ASRT was higher than of CT. During 6 out of 10 cropping periods and all 9 fallow periods the evaporation losses of NTSM and ASRT were lower than of CT, however the differences were very small, the greatest values being about 10 mm (Table 7). This probably reflects the generally dry conditions in this region, and thus the limited scope for mulch to reduce evaporation. The largest benefits of the conservation agriculture treatments were reduced runoff, by up to 43 mm during the cropping season. Soil erosion caused by surface runoff is a major problem in the Yellow River Basin. This is degrading water quality in the Yellow River. The conservation agriculture treatments reduced runoff and thus may help reduce erosion (Table 7).To evaluate the potential to improve land and water productivity with adoption of conservation agriculture practices, the DSSAT crop model was calibrated and applied to the Shouyang County experiment site in the Shanxi Province of the Yellow River basin of China.The calibration results gave satisfactory agreement between field observed and model predicted values for crop yield with differences between observed and predicted values normally in the range of 2.8-12%. There was good agreement between observed and predicted daily soil moisture contents for all treatments with RMSE in the range of 0.03-0.06cm3/cm3. While these results are encouraging, more rigorous calibration and independent model evaluation are warranted prior to making recommendations based on model simulations.The calibrated model was used for analyzing the medium-term changes in crop yield, soilwater balance and crop water productivity for CT, NTSM and ASRT. The conservation agriculture practices increased grain yield by up to 36%, soil-water storage by up to 81%, and water productivity by up to 28%, while runoff was reduced by up to 93% or 43 mm. The reductions in soil evaporation with the conservation agriculture treatments were always very small during both the fallow period and cropping season.  1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Change in water productivity (%) Eritrea's economy is largely based on subsistence agriculture, with over 80% of the population living in rural areas and dependent on farming and livestock production for their livelihoods. Rainfed crop production constitutes 95% of the national crop production. Cereals are the dominant dietary component, and barley accounts for 16% of total crop production. Barley is one of the staple crops in the Highlands of Eritrea where it is widely used in various preparations as human food and in beer making. The straw is an important source of animal feed. Barley is grown both as a single crop, and also in a mixture with wheat known as hanfets.War, droughts and famines have resulted in major disruptions and population movement in Eritrea. In addition, there are many major technical constraints to crop production including highly variable and erratic rainfall, with recurrent droughts; genetic erosion of indigenous landraces; land degradation due to erosion and mining of soil nutrients by crops; minimal use of inputs; and lack of improved cultural practices and cultivars adapted to local conditions. All these factors led to food production dropping by about 60% over the last decade. In addition, little change has taken place in the technology base over the last 30 years.A key challenge to increasing crop production in the highlands of Eritrea is to increase the productive use of rainfall, which is often more than adequate for high yield, but unreliable and poorly distributed in relation to crop need. In the case of rainfed agriculture, on which the poorest farmers depend, the only way to increase water productivity is through increasing crop yield with the given rainfall. This can be achieved through the use of improved varieties, increased use of inputs and improved management. This may involve actions such as the use of drought and disease resistant varieties, timely planting, use of fertilizers, and use of soil management technologies that increase capture and infiltration of rainfall (such as tied ridging) and that conserve water (such as mulching and removal of weeds).The objective of the paper is to evaluate the effects of different agronomic practices on improving farmers' income and reducing the risk associated with production of rainfed crops in the Highlands of Eritrea. Participatory approaches were used to develop and evaluate, in partnership with farmers, barley management practices that will increase crop water productivity, minimize risk and ensure sustainability of production (CPWF/ICARDA 2007). This involved evaluation of a range of management practices in replicated experiments in farmers' fields, and use of the results to develop production functions that predicted yield in response to management practices and seasonal rainfall. Identification of the most productive and most economic management practices, taking into account seasonal rainfall variability and its effects on yield and net returns, was undertaken using production functions and stochastic dominance analysis.The Cobb-Douglas production function A production function approach was used to estimate barley yield as function of monthly rainfall during the growing season (July-October), fertilizer application, tied ridging and weed control, while holding all other input levels fixed. Since our primarily interest is in forecasting the level of barley output (yield) given a description of its inputs, estimates derived by Cobb-Douglas (CD) production function may be acceptable (Varian 1984). Moreover, the CD function can easily be extended to the case of n inputs, and takes the form:where Y is output level, Xi are input levels and A and ai are parameters to be estimated. The equation in logarithms form is linear for the parameters A and ai and thus estimation of these parameters by the use of the ordinary least squares method. The derived CD production function can be used to predict the effects of different agronomic practices on yield as affected by climatic (seasonal rainfall) conditions, and the outputs can be used to provide inputs for optimizing an objective function.The predicted yields of barley were then used to calculate total and net returns to determine economically efficient sets of agronomic practices for risk averse producers in the highland of Eritrea, using stochastic dominance analysis.Stochastic Dominance (SD) analysis is theoretically superior to other available methods for selecting an efficient set from a given number of alternatives. Under SD analysis, pairwise comparisons of probability distributions from a finite set of choices are made to determine if one alternative is inefficient and therefore should be discarded from the efficient set. The efficient (dominant) set of alternatives is obtained by ranking cumulative density functions (CDF). Cumalative density functions indicate the likelihood of obtaining a given return or less of production activities. The given return should be based on the producer's preferences. As a decision criterion, SD generally states that a risky prospect dominates another stochastically if the consequences of the dominant distribution are at least as preferred as the dominated distribution for all possible values within a specified range and are preferred for at least one value (Anderson 1974).There are three alternative stochastic dominance approaches depending upon the assumption regarding a producer's behavior, illustrated in Figure 1. The first degree (FSD) approach is based on the assumption that the producer prefers more net returns to less. The second degree stochastic dominance (SSD) approach is based upon the assumption that the producer not only has an increasing utility function of net returns but is also risk averse. This requires that the second derivative of the utility function to be negative, i.e. U'(X) > 0 and U\"(X) < 0. Third degree stochastic dominance (TSD) is based on the assumption that U'\" (X) ≥ 0 in addition to the two assumptions for SSD. This last assumption implies that the decision maker becomes decreasingly averse to risk as he gets wealthier.In Figure 1, the probability distribution f(X), labeled 'F1', dominates the probability function g(X), labeled 'G1', as the CDF curve of f(X) lies more to the right than the CDF curve of g(X), and this is an example of FSD. In Figure 1, F1(X) dominates H1(X) if the area A exceeds the area B between the CDF curves, and this is an example of for a SSD.The efficiency criteria are transitive. In addition, two conditions are required for a distribution to dominate another in any degree. The lowest value of a dominant distribution cannot be smaller than the lowest value of the dominated one, and the mean of the dominant distribution cannot be smaller than that of the dominated distribution (Anderson et al. 1977) Plot size was 5m x 2m (10 m 2 ); the barley cultivar used was Yeha, a landrace recommended for planting in the study area; planting was done in the first week of July each year at a seeding rate of 100kg ha -1 .Data collection included barley grain yield, rainfall, the costs of seeds, fertilizer, ridging, weeding and other management practices, harvesting, threshing and transportation, and the price of barley.Barley yield and inputs of the different treatments and monthly rainfall for the growing season in the three locations over the three seasons (2005)(2006)(2007) were used to estimate the production function using the ordinary least square (OLS) method. The Cobb-Douglas production function was suitable to reflect the nonlinear relationship between barley yield and the seven explanatory variables included in the analysis. Logarithmic transformation was used to transfer the Cobb-Douglas function into a linear function that allowed use of the OLS method of estimation.In each location there were only 24 yield observations, a small sample for the estimation of a production function. Therefore, the data from the three locations were pooled resulting in 72 observations. To determine whether this pooling would affect our results or not, two production functions were estimated; one with two dummy variables for the three locations and one without the dummy variables. The Chow test was used to test the hypothesis that the two regression equations were the same (Gujarati 1978), and the test accepted this hypothesis. Thus, the regression equation without the dummy variable was used to estimate the effects of rainfall and different agronomic practices on barley yield.The estimated production function was used to predict the barley yield of the different agronomic practices for the years 1995-2004 at Adi Guadad and Wokerti, and for the years 1999-2004 at Tera Emni, using the monthly rainfall data for the barley growing season (July-October) in each location. Availability of weather data was the reason for selecting these periods. The predicted yields were used to calculate: Rain water productivity for barley under the different agronomic practices, to see the effect of seasonal rainfall on the performance of these practices. Total and net returns of barley for each practice in all locations.Water productivity was calculated by dividing barley yield by the total amount of rainfall during the growing season.Theil's inequality coefficient (U) was used to evaluate the accuracy of the predicted data where this data can be compared to actual data. It is defined as:Where:= predicted value forThe numerator of U is the root mean square (rms) forecast error; it provides a measure of the ability of the model to forecast well. The scaling of the denominator is that U will always fall between 0 and 1. If = 0, U s t Y = for all t and there is a perfect fit. If U = 1, on the other hand, the predictive performance of the model is as bad as it possibly could be (Pindyck and Rubinfeld 1981). The calculated value of was 0.072, meaning that the predictive performance of the model (the CD function derived from our data) is good.To evaluate the effects of these practices on farmers' income and the associated risk, the costs of each practice, total and net returns under different practices and different climatic conditions were considered.Two methods of price specification can be used to calculate total returns. The first takes barley price as fixed at the 2006 level. The second uses the naive expectations model -the expected price is the same as the market price in the previous year. Fixed price was used in this study to eliminate economic variability so that the results would reflect the effect of the agronomic practices on yield variability. The costs of different barley agronomic practices were calculated. Input quantities such as seed rate, fertilizer, labor for moisture conservation and weeding were established for different agronomic practices. Only variable costs were considered in this study, and they were taken at their 2006 levels. Fixed costs of production were excluded because they were identical for all agronomic practices.Using fixed output prices for this analysis, total returns were derived by multiplying the estimated yields by the price of barley. Net returns were derived by subtracting the corresponding costs from the total returns. For each of the agronomic practices, a set of 13 replications for Wokerti and Adi Guadad (9 for Tera Emni) were made using 1995-2007 rainfall data.The highest yields were achieved each year at each location from the application of fertilizer and from a combination of fertilizer, weeding and moisture conservation treatments (Table 1). The lowest yields were obtained from the control (farmers' practice). The differences between the yields of most of the treatments and the control were statistically significant in 2005 except for the yields of weeding plus moisture conservation treatments in Tera Emni and Wokerti. In 2006 and 2007, yields at all sites were significantly higher than the farmers' practice except for the yields of the weeding treatment in Adi Guadad. Yields were highest in Adi Guadad and least in Tera Emni for the same treatments.An example of the variable costs, total returns and net returns for the experiment data for Tera Amni in 2006 is presented in Table (2). The estimated parameters (coefficients) for the Cobb-Douglas production function of barley are presented in Table 3. These coefficients are elasticities, measuring the percentage change in yield resulting from a percentage change in the explanatory variables. The results show that July and September rain are very significant in barley production and have positive effects, while August rain was insignificant and October rain had a highly significant negative effect. This reflects the negative effect of pre-harvesting rain. Decreasing rainfall and all the input variables by 10% will decrease yield by 73%, with 57% of the decrease caused by the decrease in July rainfall, and 12% caused by the decrease in September rainfall. However, a 10% decrease in October rainfall will result in 9.7% increase in yield. Fertilizer can cause a 6.8% increase in yield for a 10% increase in fertilizer use. A 10% increase in moisture conservation or weed control led to 3.3% and 1.7% increases in yield, respectively. The R 2 shows that about 70% of the change in yield is explained by the changes in the explanatory variables. An F test was used to test the significance of the explanatory variables included in the model. Comparing the computed F value (20.91) with the tabulated critical value (2.82, p=0.05) shows that the group of variables included in the model were statistically highly significant determinants of yield. Average water productivity predicted from the CD function, and average net returns and their coefficient of variation (CV), are presented in Table 4, and the details of net returns each year are presented in Table 5. The fertilized treatment had the highest average NR in all three locations, but with a very high CV at Adi Guadad and Wokerti. For most of the practices there was very high variation in NR.  The water productivity results also showed that all the treatments in the three locations increase water productivity compared to farmers' practice. However, the average water productivity at Tera Emni, is higher than in the more favorable areas under farmer practice as well as under the interventions, despite the lower yields in Tera Emni (Table 1). This is due to the lower rainfall at Tera Emni. While all agronomic practices increase water productivity compared to farmer practice, the case is not the same for net returns, which reflect changes in both yield and variable production costs. Average net returns for farmer practice is higher than that of many of the other agronomic practices, namely moisture conservation, weed control and moisture conservation plus weed. However, fertilizer application shows a very significant positive impact on net returns compared with farmer practice. The highest net returns at all three locations were with fertilizer alone. Fertilizer plus moisture conservation plus weeding control has higher total returns but similar or lower average net returns than farmer's practice in two locations due to the high costs associated with the three actions included in this practice. The increment in yield due to fertilizer application was high enough to make the additional return exceed the additional cost of fertilizer and generate higher net return. However, the marginal increments in yield for the other practices were not high enough to compensate for the additional costs associated with these practices, and thus generated lower net returns.The coefficient of variation (CV) measures the variability in net returns, which reflects the risk associated with each practice; a higher CV reflects a more risky practice. All practices at Tera Emni have a lower CV, usually considerably lower, for net returns than the same practices in the other two locations. Net return for farmers' practice has the lowest CV at Tera Emni, and the second lowest at Wokerti (Table 2). That means all other agronomic practices are more risky to farmers than his/her practice. This reflects the clear tradeoff between yield level and its variability across different practices. This trade off demonstrates the need for formal analysis that takes into account both yield level and its variability to draw sound recommendations.Although yield and total returns for all intervention practices are much higher than those of farmers' practice, the net returns of these practices are sometimes lower than or similar to those of farmers' practice due to the higher costs of the intervention practices.The results of the stochastic dominance analysis are presented in Table 6. The results for Adi Guadad and Wokerti were similar, and showed that fertilizer application dominated all the other practices except for the farmers' practice. The riskiness of farmers' practice and fertilizer application or its combination with moisture conservation or weed control were similar (\"undetermined\"). However, farmers' practice was risk efficient with respect to four other practices; moisture conservation, weed control, combination of weed control and moisture conservation and combination of fertilizer, weeding, and moisture conservation.In Tera Emni, fertilizer application dominated all the other practices including farmers' practice. Farmers' practice was also dominated by the combination of fertilizer and weed control, and the combination of fertilizer, moisture and weed control. Farmers' practice dominated the three other practices. At Tera Emni the riskiness of farmers' practice and the combination of fertilizer and moisture conservation were similar. The combination of fertilizer and weed control dominated all the other practices other than fertilizer application alone. The combination of fertilizer, moisture and weed control was risk efficient with respect to five other practices, while moisture and weed control practices were inefficient and dominated by all the other practices in all locations.and weed control were the risk efficient practices that dominated all the other practices, while SSD suggested that fertilizer application was the only efficient practice at Tera Emni (Table 7). All seven intervention practices (fertilizer, moisture conservation, weeding, and their combinations) increased water productivity compared with farmers' practice in all locations; however, the high costs associated with these practices off set the returns from productivity improvement. In addition, this improvement was accompanied with increased variability that reflects the increased risk associated with these practices.The estimated parameters of the production function show that July and September rain are very significant in barley production and have positive effects that sum up to 69% increase in yield when the rainfall of these two months increases by 10%. However, increasing October rainfall has a highly significant negative effect on yield. A 10% increase in October rainfall will result in 9.7% reduction in yield as October rainfall coincides with crop harvesting resulting in crop damage. Fertilizer, moisture conservation and weed control have less effect on yield than rainfall, with a combined average effect of 11% yield increase for a 10% increase in all 3 interventions.The seven agronomic treatments all had higher average water productivity than farmers' practice in all locations. However the benefits of weeding and moisture conservation were very small. Adding fertilizer gave water productivity increases of around 50%, and there was no or little additional water productivity increase from combining fertilizer with moisture conservation or weeding. Average water productivity in the low rainfall area, Tera Emni, was higher than that in the more favorable areas under farmers' practice as well as under all respective interventions. This has important implications in the sense that the introduced treatments were more effective in enhancing water productivity in low rainfall areas. This suggests that enhancing water productivity in more favorable rainfall areas requires a different set of treatments. One potential intervention is to introduce an improved variety that is highly responsive to more rainfall.Pairwise comparisons of probability distributions of net returns from the set of alternative practices showed that fertilizer application in all locations was a risk efficient practice, with a similar risk (2 locations) or lower risk than farmers' practice. In Adi Guadad and Wokerti, farmers' practice was risk efficient with respect to four practices: moisture conservation, weed control, combination of weed control and moisture conservation, and combination of fertilizer, weeding, and moisture conservation. In Tera Emni, farmers' practice was risk inefficient with respect to three practices: fertilizer application, combination of fertilizer and weed control, and combination of fertilizer, weeding, and moisture conservation.FSD suggested that, in Adi Guadad, fertilizer application and farmers' practice dominated all other practices, while in Wokerti, the combination of fertilizer and weed control was efficient in addition to these two practices. For Tera Emni, farmers' practice was not risk efficient and only fertilizer and the combination of fertilizer and weed control were efficient. SSD suggested the same results as FSD except for Tera Emni, where fertilizer application was the only efficient practice.Farmers' practice was one of the efficient practices in Adi Guadad and Wekerti, this meaning that the increase in yield of the dominated practices was not high enough to cover the additional costs associated with these practices; i.e. the net returns of these practices are not high enough to trade off the high variability associated with them.The sets of efficient practices do not necessarily result in maximum water productivity. If water productivity is used as the selection criterion between the dominant practices, fertilizer application is recommended over farmers practice as water productivity of fertilizer application was higher (range 0.39 to 0.47 kg m -3 ) than that of farmers' practice (range 0.25 to 0.29 kg m -3 ) in all locations. Meanwhile, the combination of fertilizer and weed control is recommended over fertilizer application in Wokerti and Tera Emni since its WP is higher (range 0.38 to 0.49 kg/m 3 ) than that of fertilizer alone (range 0.42 to 0.47 kg m -3 ). Also the combination of fertilizer, weed control and moisture conservation (range 0.43 to 0.53 kg m -3 ) is recommended over fertilizer application alone in the three locations since its WP is higher.Fixed prices were used in this study to eliminate economic variability and study only the effect of the agronomic practices on yield variability. Using variable prices would reflect both economic and yield variability. Work will continue to study the effect of economic variability as well as yield variability and see their effect on decision criteria and the choice of efficient practices.Helena Gómez-Macpherson 1  , Mohammed H. Maatougui 2 , Asmerom Kidane 3 , Iyassu Ghebretatios 3The Participatory Breeding Component of project CPWF PN2 \"Improving Water Productivity of Cereals and Food Legumes in the Atbara River Basin of Eritrea\" works in 18 different conditions if we consider the combination of rainfall and soil type and depth.The breeding crosses are based on visual evaluation done by farmers and researchers and on the grain and straw yield obtained in previous years. The last shows large variation among sites probably as a result of the interaction between different stresses as trial management is generally the same. In rainfed conditions drought is consider the major limitation, however, in Eritrea soil fertility and weed competition are also relevant. In fact, common yields of 1 t/ha are low for rainfalls of more than 400 mm and favorable photothermal quotients indicating that water is not always the main constraint (Sadras and Angus 2006;French and Shultz 1984).Yield components are formed at different time. For example, in the case of wheat and barley, the final number of fertile florets is mostly determined between booting and anthesis whereas grain weight is obtained during grain filling. Therefore, a drought period at heading will decrease grain number but if it occurs after anthesis then grains will be smaller. Understanding the dynamics of water availability and matching the phenological development accordingly would increase water productivity and yield (Gómez-Macpherson et al. 2003). Furthermore, crop management should also match the prevailing system in order to assure maximum water productivity. For example, most rainfall in project sites occurs between July and August but often early rains occur as well and any option that advances sowing date will allow better fit of the crop to the rainfall period and lower evaporative demand (Gómez-Macpherson and Richards 1995;Fischer et al. 1998). Direct sowing is one of the options explored by the project that goes in this sense.This paper presents the methodology that will be followed along the season to determine the water balance and to record phenological stages and crop management. The methodology requires least field work due to transport difficulties in the country and a large number of sites to follow.The water balance will be calculated using measured rainfall and soil water content at sowing and at harvest and estimated evapotranspiration. Rainfall (R, mm) and maximum and minimum temperature (Tmax and Tmin, °C) will be measured daily with Decagon stations in 4 sites and with rain gauges and Hobo thermometers in the rest of sites.Soil water content will be measured at sowing and harvest with hand auger in three points of the check variety plots. Soil will be sampled at least to 0.6 m deep, but preferably to 1.2 m, by layer: 0-15, 15-30, 30-60, 60-90 and 90-120. Samples will be dried at about 105°C and the gravimetric water content (%) calculated as ((weight wet soil sample-weight dry soil)/weight of dry soil)*100. Bulk density for each layer will be calculated from intact soil cores obtained with special auger (dry weight of soil core/volume of core; g/cm³). The volumetric water content of layer will be calculated as gravimetric water content (%) x bulk density (g/cm 3 ) x depth of layer (cm) x 0.1 (multiplier to give mm water).Soil water content at field capacity (fc, cm 3 cm -3 ) will be estimated from soil samples taken 2 days after a heavy rain whereas soil water content at wilting point (wp, cm 3 cm -3 ) will be estimated from samples taken before the start of the rainy season.iration.Crop evapotranspiration (ETc) will be calculated using FAO method (Allen et al. 1998) by which reference evapotranspiration (ETo) is multiplied by a dual coefficient that considers separately direct soil evaporation from plants transp ETo (mm d −1 ) will be calculated using the Hargreaves equation (Hargreaves and Samani 1985) as it requires only daily mean, maximum and minimum air temperature (T, Tmax, Tmin, °C) and extraterrestrial radiation (Droogers and Allen 2002):Ra (mm d −1 ) is the water equivalent of the extraterrestrial radiation calculated according to Allen et al. (1998).The dual crop coefficient includes the basal crop coefficient (Kcb), which represents primarily the transpiration component, and the evaporation component (Ke). The basal crop coefficient curve will be adjusted by the fraction of soil covered by vegetation (fc), the crop height (h, m) and the recommended values for the initial stage and maximum development (Kcb,ini and Kcb,mid in Table 1, from Allen, et al. 1998) according to:The average fraction of total available soil water that can be depleted from the root zone before moisture stress occurs (p) and ETc is reduced, and maximum root depth (Zr, m) are taken from Allen, et al. (1998) as well (Table 1). Maximum root depth will be substituted by soil depth the last is smaller than the values proposed in Table 1. The data required from the crop includes sowing and harvest dates and fortnight information on fraction of soil covered by vegetation (fc), crop height (h, m) and phenological stage (Zadoks et al. 1974). Field sheets will be used for each trial to record this information and any management event; they will include also target check points of seedlings m -2 , shoots m -2 , spikes m 2 , kernels m -2 and kernel weight and possible constraints if current values disagree substantially with the targets (Gómez-Macpherson et al. 2003).The fraction of soil covered by vegetation (fc) can be estimated by looking at the crop 2 metres in front through a circle formed with the thumb and index finger and held about 10 cm from the eye (Gómez-Macpherson et al. 2003). The ground area covered by leaves and shadows should be guessed, repeating for different areas and looking in different directions. The best time of the day to estimate ground cover is midday.Runoff can be calculated when first soil layer is saturated and there is a rainfall. Additionally, a visual soil assessment will be carried out following Shepherd et all (2008).The water balance will be calculated using an excel sheet. The water deficit in time can be visualized as is the example provided in Figure 1. This example corresponds to an average wheat line sown on 25th of June 2007 at Halhale (Eritrea) in a deep silt soil with heading occurring on 20th September and harvesting on 7th November. The figure shows how water stressed occurred during grain filling while there could be enough rain in June to cover the early needs of the crop. In fact, rainfall pattern in the project zones is bimodal with some rain occurring between March and June, which in some cases represent a significant amount (e.g. 370 mm at Tekondae or 120 mm at Wekerti in 2006 corresponding to 40 and 27 % of total amount, respectively). Target sowing date should be revised with historical weather data to explore best used of stored soil water of early rains.For comparative purposes, water productivity will be calculated as grain yield (or biomass yield) divided by ETc, seasonal or total rainfall. John Dimes The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) projections for Southern Africa (based on the outputs of 21 Global Circulation Models (GCM), using the A1B greenhouse gas emission scenario) suggest average annual temperature increases of 3.1°C and changes in annual rainfall of between -12 and +6%. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels for this scenario are expected to increase to around 700ppm from the current 370ppm. How might these changes impact on crop productivity in the drier semi-arid cropping systems of the region? This paper reports an analysis of the combined positive (CO2 fertilization) and negative (higher temperature, lower rainfall) impacts of these projected climate changes on crop productivity using the crop systems simulation model APSIM with its climate change module, together with the long-term daily climate data from Bulawayo (1951Bulawayo ( -2001)). In undertaking these simulations, the effects of the climate change scenarios on the potential grain and stover yields of maize, sorghum, pigeonpea and groundnut was examined.APSIM output shows that increasing CO2 concentrations will increase crop yields by around 6-8%. Similarly, reduced rainfall had the expected negative impact on grain yield. However, it is increasing temperature (and not reduced rainfall) that has the most dramatic impact on grain yields; reductions of 16% for the two cereals and 31% for groundnut, but only 3% for pigeonpea. Hence, for the combined effects of climate change, it appears that pigeonpea will be the least affected crop, incurring an 8% reduction in potential grain yield compared to the current potential yield. In contrast, groundnut can be expected to incur a 30% reduction, sorghum a 22% reduction, and maize a 25% reduction. Model outputs on crop duration, water productivity and stover yield were further analyzed to explain the differences between crop species in response to climate change and their implications for animal feed production.An important implication of this analysis is that adoption of longer duration rather than shorter duration germplasm would seem the more appropriate response in dealing with the main effects of climate change. Another is the preliminary indication that opportunities for increased cropping intensity and increased use of legumes in the farming system could emerge under climate change. However, the largest scope for dealing with reduced cropIn 2002, the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) provided strong evidence of accelerated global warming. In Paris in February 2007 they released the most recent assessment that reinforced the link between human activity and global warming beyond any reasonable doubt (IPCC 2007). Since then, many key investors and stakeholders in agricultural development in the developing world have recognized that, while the exact nature and extent of the impacts of climate change on temperature and rainfall distribution patterns remain uncertain, it is the poor and vulnerable who will be the most susceptible to changes in climate. This is especially true for those communities who live in the drylands of Africa and who rely largely or totally on rainfed agriculture for their livelihoods. It is they who are currently most vulnerable to existing climate variability and shocks.While climate change predictions point with a high degree of certainty to a warming world within the next 50 years, the impact of rising temperatures on rainfall distribution patterns in Africa remains far less certain (IPCC 2007). However, climate change is likely to make matters worse with increases in rainfall variability being predicted for the semi-arid tropics (SAT) region. The prognosis for rainfall in Southern Africa is particularly poor, with almost the entire region having a reduction in rainfall (unlike India for example where the predictions are for areas of increase and decrease and in equal proportions), and up to 20% reduction in length of growing season with consequent effects for cropping area, distribution, productivity and ultimately food production in a region that consistently experiences food deficits (Scholes 2008;Bwalya 2008;Ager 2008). At the same time, Conservation Agriculture is being strongly promoted as an appropriate response to climate change in rainfed cropping systems because of its better management of the rainfall resource for crop production (Bwalya 2008;Nyagumbo 2008).What has been less forthcoming is quantitative information on the likely extent of crop yield reductions. This is to be expected given the uncertainty in how rainfall patterns will change with rising temperatures, but also because there are likely to be positive (e.g. CO2 fertilization) as well as negative impacts on crop productivity with climate change, and how the interaction of these effects will play out is difficult to analyze.In this study we have applied a soil-crop simulation model in conjunction with actual and modified long-term historical climate data to assess the potential impacts of climate change on crop productivity in semi-arid regions of Zimbabwe. The soil-crop modeling tool is APSIM (Keating et al. 2003) which contains well-tested algorithms that deal with temperature effects on crop growth and development as well as soil water and nitrogen dynamics (including in Zimbabwe, Ncube 2007). The model includes a 'climate change' module that allows temperature and rainfall data to be adjusted by nominated amounts and, for some crop modules, includes carbon assimilation algorithms that respond to increased CO2 concentrations.In the analysis we disaggregate the effects of increased temperature, reduced rainfall and increased CO2 concentrations on crop productivity as well as investigate the combined effects. The focus of the analysis is assessment of the impacts of climate change on crop productivity at the field level, with the aim of identifying the main mechanisms by which climate change will impact on crop yields and the magnitude of such impacts. The analysis does not attempt to extrapolate the findings to national or regional levels and does not make inferences for future food security.We used the climate change scenario for the greenhouse gas emission scenario associated with Storyline A1B considered in the IPCC deliberations and analysis. The A1 storyline and scenario family describe a future world of very rapid economic growth, a global population that peaks in mid-century and declines thereafter, and the rapid introduction of new and more efficient technologies. The major underlying themes are convergence among regions, capacity building and increased cultural and social interactions, with a substantial reduction in regional differences in per capita income. The A1 scenario family develops into three groups that describe alternative directions of technological change in the energy system. The three A1 groups are distinguished by their technological emphasis: fossil intensive (A1FI), non-fossil energy sources (A1T), or a balance across all sources (A1B) (where balanced is defined as not relying too heavily on one particular energy source on the assumption that similar improvement rates apply to all energy supply and end-use technologies). The expected climate change impacts of this scenario across the 21 Global Circulation Models (GCM) used by IPCC are given for southern Africa in Table 1. For Zimbabwe, we have taken the 50% percentile values for temperature change (3.1°C) in the growing season (DJF+MAM) and explored a 10% reduction in rainfall, even though the prediction is that rainfall in the growing months will, on balance, be unchanged. We have also examined the impact of increased greenhouse gas emission. For the A1B storyline, CO2 levels will increase from the current 350 ppm to 700ppm by the end of the 21 st century.We used the 'climate change' module associated with the cropping systems model APSIM, together with the long-term daily climate data from Bulawayo (1951Bulawayo ( -2001) ) for this analysis. A summary climatic description is given in Table 2. At Bulawayo the cropping season rainfall falls predominantly between November and April. Bulawayo has an altitude of 1350 masl. The legume growth modules in APSIM are able to respond to increased carbon dioxide levels by modifying the transpiration efficiency coefficient and the N concentration optimum for photosynthesis. Neither the sorghum nor maize modules currently have this capability; hence different scenarios were simulated for the cereal and legume crops.Based on the climate change predictions given in Table 1, we examined the following scenarios through APSIM simulations:1. Baseline. This scenario looked at simulations derived from the unmodified current climate data.2. Carbon dioxide fertilization. This scenario examined the impacts of increasing the CO2 level from 350 to 700ppm, keeping all other parameters constant.3. Increased temperature. This scenario examined the impacts of increasing the maximum and minimum temperatures by 3.1°C, keeping all other parameters constant.4. Reduced rainfall. This scenario examined the impacts of decreasing daily rainfall by 10%, keeping all other parameters constant.5. Combined effects -carbon dioxide, plus temperature plus % rainfall changes.Cereal crops 6. Increased temperature. This scenario examined the impact of increasing the maximum and minimum temperatures by 3.1°C on cereal production, keeping all other parameters constant.7. Reduced rainfall. This scenario examined the impact of decreasing rainfall by 10%, keeping all other parameters constant.8. Temperature plus rainfall. This scenario looked at the combined impact of increased temperature and reduced rainfall for cereal production.We examined these scenarios for sorghum (early hybrid cultivar), maize (early hybrid), shortduration pigeonpea and short-duration groundnut varieties.A common planting moisture criterion (20mm rainfall over 5 days, 15mm plant available water in profile) during the window (Nov 20 to Jan 10) was used to trigger sowing in all simulations. Input plant populations (plants m -2 ) for the respective crops were: sorghum -6 , maize -3.7 and groundnut -10. The soil was shallow sand (1m rooting depth, PAWC = 59mm), the curve number for runoff was set to 85, and crop residues were removed after harvest. The soil water balance was simulated with accumulated effects of crop growth and rainfall across years (i.e., there were no resets).In undertaking these simulations, we examined the effect of the climate change scenarios on potential crop yield. In other words, we ran the simulations under nutrient non-limiting conditions, with no pest occurrences or weed infestation. Soil mineral N supply was maintained at 75kg N ha -1 distributed throughout the profile for each day of crop growth. A low N treatment for maize was also simulated, and in this case soil mineral N was re-set to 16kg N ha -1 at each crop sowing.If water balance conditions for planting within the nominated window were not met, a sowing was simulated to take place on the last day of the window regardless of water availability (i.e., a 'dry sow' on Jan 10 th ). As reliable information is not available on how climate change will affect distribution of rainfall within the cropping season, the forced sowing rule ensured all available rainfall distribution patterns were sampled in quantifying the effects of climate change on plant growth. A consequence of this rule is that crop failures due to lack of sowing rains are not included in the simulated yield distributions in this analysis.Grain yield, crop duration and water use.Simulated average potential grain yield of sorghum, maize, groundnut and pigeonpea at Bulawayo are presented in Table 3, along with the average main effects of the climate change scenarios. APSIM output shows that increasing CO2 concentrations will have a positive effect on crop yields, on average 8% and 6% for the two legume test crops. Similarly, a reduction in rainfall amount had the expected negative impact on grain yield, although with 6-8% yield reduction across species, it is a lower reduction than the 10% reduction in rainfall. This suggests some improvement in water use efficiency with reduced rainfall in this environment, probably as a result of less runoff.Clearly, the scenario of increasing temperature has the most dramatic impact on crop grain yields, at least for the two cereals, which had a reduction of 16%, and particularly for groundnut, which had a 31% reduction. Interestingly, pigeonpea yield was little affected by the temperature increase -its 3% reduction in yield was even less than the reduction due to rainfall. Hence, for the combined effects of climate change, it appears that pigeonpea will be the least affected crop, incurring an 8% reduction in potential grain yield. In contrast, groundnut can be expected to incur a 30% reduction compared to current potential, sorghum a 22% reduction and maize a 25% reduction. However, it must be noted that of the four test crops, short-duration pigeonpea has by far the lowest current yield potential at Bulawayo. What explains these differences in response to climate change between crop species? It is primarily related to a shortening of crop development phases with increased temperatures and consequent change in plant use of available resources, namely, solar radiation and soil water?Under the combined effects of climate change, all crops have large reductions in days to maturity (13-18%), and all have a large reduction in total biomass (18-27%) except pigeonpea, which shows a 4% increase (Table 4). For maize and groundnut, there is also a decrease in average harvest index (HI) and water-use efficiency (WUE) because the grain filling period for these two crops suffers a larger reduction (19 and 14%) compared to the vegetative phase (17 and 11%). Sorghum, on the other hand, experiences greater shortening of the vegetative phase (18%) relative to the grain filling phase (14%), resulting in increased HI while retaining a WUE of 6.7 kg ha -1 mm -1 . The higher HI for sorghum thus results from much lower total biomass, resulting in the 22% reduction in grain yield shown in Table 3.In contrast, pigeonpea has the largest reduction in crop duration (18%), yet shows an increase in total biomass and an increase in WUE. A more favourable soil water balance for the pigeonpea explains this result. Under the current uni-modal rainfall conditions (and latitude), the crop has a very long duration such that grain filling takes place under declining rainfall and increasing water stress. Higher temperatures under climate change shorten the crop duration so that it matures when the wet season is still active. This is particularly so for the duration of the grain filling period, which is reduced by 31% on average.In terms of relative change, sorghum and pigeonpea grain yield demonstrated the most resilience of the four test crops under climate change (Table 3) as a consequence of increased HI and WUE. However, it can be seen in Table 4 that WUE itself is dependent on crop duration and in-crop rainfall, both of which are reduced by climate change. An important associated result is an increase in residual soil water under climate change, from 8-22mm (current climate) to 11-34mm across species. If, under climate change, the length of the rainy season is assumed to be unchanged (as in this analysis), then the predicted shortening of crop duration and higher residual soil water are indicative of opportunities for increased cropping intensity, especially on soils of higher water holding capacity. Stover production.In extensive mixed farming systems in SAT regions, grain production is important for food security purposes. However, in these systems, crop stover is of equal or higher value as a feed source for livestock during the long dry season. Cereals provide the bulk of this feed source because there are limited plantings of legumes, typically less than 10% of croplands. This is the situation even though legumes have a higher stover N content and therefore higher nutrient value than the cereal crops.The probability distributions for crop stover yields (Figure 1) show that, under current conditions (and with non-limiting N supply), cereal crops compared to the legumes potentially produce more stover. However, under conditions of climate change, the cereal stover yields are more sensitive to the shortened crop duration than the legumes, and show dramatically reduced stover yield distributions, especially in the more favorable seasons. Under climate change, the 50 percentile yield for groundnut stover is similar to that of maize and sorghum, and because of its higher N content, may become a more attractive crop as a source of animal feed under the climate change.A comparison of simulated maize grain yield probability distributions at the low levels of N fertility typical of farmer management in the SAT and at non-limiting N is shown in Figure 2, along with the respective responses under climate change conditions. The distributions show that in the drier 15% of years, maize yields at low N are higher than with N non-limiting, illustrating the strong interaction of N supply and water supply in determining grain yields in these environments (Bongani 2007). Also evident is the fact that for N constrained crops, climate change will adversely affect yields in the driest 30% of seasons, but will have no or a slight increase in yield for the majority of seasons (the simulated small increases in yield with climate change are probably related to more favorable plant N balance as a result of shortened crop duration, smaller biomass production and higher soil N mineralization with higher soil temperatures). In other words, if farmers in the SAT maintain their current management practices and yield levels, climate change will be largely inconsequential due to the over-riding constraint of fertility on crop yield. For the potential yield scenario (high N), climate change substantially reduces maize yield for the better 85% of the seasons. However, for almost all of these better seasons the potential yield under climate change still exceeds yields of current farmer practice (low N) by a much larger margin than the reduction in potential yield due to climate change. This highlights the large yield gap that smallholder farmers in these rainfed farming systems are forgoing in the better seasons, and points to the large scope that exists for dealing with future climate change impacts on food production if we could only find solutions to the chronic low productivity of these farming systems under current climate conditions, especially solutions to the low use of N fertilizers. The crop simulation analysis has shown that for the chosen climate change scenario (A1B), potential crop yields in the Zimbabwe SAT will be substantially reduced under climate change: by 8-30% for the crop cultivars used in this analysis. The results also point to increased temperatures (the aspect of climate change that is seemingly most certain) as the main mechanism by which climate change will have a significant impact on crop productivity (through reduced crop duration, radiation interception and biomass accumulation). By comparison, the effects of predicted reductions in rainfall or increased CO2 concentrations are relatively small in this analysis. This could be an important insight because much current thinking points to a need to breed shorter duration crop cultivars to deal with assumed shorter growing periods and increased moisture stress under climate change. This analysis suggests that the easy and readily available solution would be to adopt current longer duration germplasm under climate change conditions. At the same time, the simulation output on soil moisture, crop duration and stover yields is indicative of possible opportunities for increasing productivity under climate change, for example, an increased opportunity for relay cropping and increased use of legumes in the cropping system. However, it should not be overlooked that this analysis has considered the effects of a climate change scenario that is predicted to take place at the end of the 21 st century. The analysis also adopted potential grain yield (in relation to rainfall, temperature and radiation conditions of the test environment) in assessing the impact of the climate change scenario. The yield levels for the analysis are therefore much higher than those which smallholder farmers are typically producing, especially in the SAT where soil fertility is generally poor and investment in fertilizer by farmers is very low. While the analysis has shown that future climate change could have significant impact on crop productivity in the SAT, and there is need to prepare for this outcome, the research agenda should not lose sight of the fact that there is much that can be done now to help smallholder farmers increase their current crop productivity. Doing this in the context of current climatic risk is perhaps the best way of providing smallholder farmers with appropriate strategies for coping with future climate change (Cooper et al. 2007). Salinity intrusion prohibits the use of river water for irrigation of dry season (boro) rice in the coastal zone of Bangladesh. This can be overcome by using water stored in the canal networks within the polders for irrigation when the river water becomes saline. It is not yet known, however, whether this technology can be adopted on a large scale. By using systems approaches, this study compared the water demand of boro rice with the storage capacity of the canal networks to assess the area of boro rice that can be grown in the polders. A two-season field experiment was carried out in a typical coastal polder to quantify responses of crop growth, yield, and irrigation water demand to different planting dates. Experimental results were used to calibrate and evaluate the model ORYZA2000, which was then used to quantify the probabilistic yields and water demand of boro rice over a 20year period. Rice crops planted in October suffered from low temperature during the reproductive period, resulting in low harvest index (HI). Delaying planting after 10 November did not result in yield gain but increased the water requirement from the canal storage substantially. Oryza2000 simulated satisfactorily the total rice biomass, and water requirement, but needs to be improved to take into account the effects of low temperature on HI to enable it to satisfactorily simulate yields of boro rice. The optimum planting time for highest productivity with respect to storage water was from 1 to 10 November. The area of boro rice that can be irrigated from water storage was about 15% of the rice area of the polder in at least 50% of years. This can be increased to 40% of the area if the canals are dredged according to the plan by the Bangladesh Water Development Board. The potential of large-scale adaptation of boro rice warrants the investment to increase the water storage capacity of the polder. Development of cold-tolerant rice varieties can further increase the potential area because they can be planted earlier and hence reduce water requirements.Bangladesh faces an enormous challenge in trying to achieve food self-sufficiency for its growing population. The coastal zone of Bangladesh, covering an area of 2.83 million ha, is the least productive agricultural zone. Because of salinity intrusion in the dry season, rice cultivation is limited to a single rainy season crop (aman rice). The area, however, has potential for development. Mondal et al. (2006) showed that with proper water management an additional rice crop could be grown in the dry period after the aman rice in the coastal polder areas. Growing dry season (boro) rice in the area involves two distinct stages of irrigation. The first stage (when river water salinity is low, with electrical conductivity EC < 4 dS m -1 , usually before mid February) is gravity irrigation by letting river water in through sluices at high tides. The second stage starts when the river water EC > 4 dS m -1 . Just before the river water becomes saline, it could be taken into and stored in the internal canal networks of polders (old river channels). The stored water could be used to irrigate the dry season rice by pumping onto the fields until shortly before harvest time. The possibility of out-scaling the technology, i.e. for wide scale adoption of boro rice cropping, has not been systematically investigated. This is hampered by the lack of data on: (1) the water requirement of the boro rice crop; (2) the optimal planting time for high yield and water productivity with respect to the amount of water pumped from the canal network; (3) the storage capacity of the internal polder canal networks; and (4) the time when river water becomes too saline for irrigation.The main objective of the study was to determine the potential for increasing boro rice production in the polder areas in the coastal zones of Bangladesh through effective utilization of the available land and water resources. This was achieved through a systems approach, combining field activities and crop modeling using ORYZA2000 (Bouman and van Laar 2006). This approach was used to quantify probabilistic yields and water requirements of boro rice crop for different times of establishment and varieties, and to balance the water requirement with storage capacity of the internal canal networks of a typical polder in the coastal zone.The study site (Polder 30,between 22° 37ʹ and 22°46ʹ North and 89°27ʹ and 89°33ʹ East) is located in Batiaghata Upazila in Khulna district, southwestern Bangladesh. The gross area of the polder is about 7725 ha with a net cultivable area of about 4867 ha (IPSWAM 2007). The polder is protected from high tides by an embankment 40 km long and 4.3 m wide at the crest. The hydraulic system of the polder is controlled by a system of sluices. The water level of the surrounding rivers fluctuates daily due to tidal effects. During high tide, the water level can rise from 1 to 2.8 m above land level, creating opportunities for gravity irrigation when the water river is not too saline.The research was organized in three activities as schematically shown in Figure 1. An experiment was carried out in the 2005-06 and 2006-07 dry seasons (DS) with a split plot design. The main plots were four dates of seeding (D1 = 22 nd Oct, D2 = 1 st Nov, D3 = 7 th Nov, and D4 = 15 th Nov). The subplots were two cultivars (BRRIdhan 28, a popular variety also known as BR-28 and PVS B8).The seedlings were transplanted when they acquired four leaves, at three to four seedlings per hill and spacing of 20 cm x 20 cm. All plots were irrigated until 2 weeks before harvest. The amount of irrigation water applied to each plot was measured using a V-notch weir. This amount was checked against daily subsidence of the water level in the fields, measured by a staff gauge. The subsidence was equivalent to total field water requirement (evapotranspiration (ET) + percolation (P) + seepage (S)). Two 1 m x 1 m GI tanks (0.4 m height, installed to depth of 0.25 m) one with a bottom and one bottomless, were installed in the four main plots. Subsidence of water level in the tanks was monitored daily for the measurement of ET and P (calculated by difference). A rain gauge and a class A evaporation pan were installed in the field.Urea was applied at 120 kg N ha -1 in four equal splits (basal, 25 days after transplanting (DAT); 5 to 7 days before panicle initiation (PI), and heading). Basal incorporation at last harrowing also included 60 kg P2O5 ha -1 , 40 kg K2O ha -1 , 10 kg ZnSO4 ha -1 , and 60 kg CaSO4 ha -1 .Crop phenology, biomass, its partitioning and leaf area index (LAI) at critical growth stages, grain yield, and yield components were monitored following standard procedures. Water and crop data were analyzed with standard split-plot analysis of variance (ANOVA) techniques.The EC of the river water was monitored daily to check its suitability for irrigation. When river water EC approached 4 dS m -1 , the sluice gates were opened at high tide to fill the canals with river water to their maximum capacity. Storage water was used for irrigation from this time until the end of the season. The daily recorded EC of the river water at the study sites did not differ significantly from those recorded at Khulna, a national permanent water quality monitoring station. Daily Khulna EC data were subjected to frequency analysis to determine the 50% probability of exceedence (Pexcd) of the date when EC = 4 dS m -1 , beyond which (cut-off date) the river water cannot be used for irrigation.Crop data from the third seeding of the 2006-07 DS crop were used to generate variety-and site-specific parameters required by ORYZA2000. They were the crop development rate, percentage partitioning of biomass into its components, indigenous nitrogen uptake, and S&P.The model was then evaluated using data from 2005-06 and other seeding dates of the 2006-07 crops, according to the procedure described by Bouman and van Laar (2006). The third step involved scenario analysis over a period of 20 years (using climatic data from Khulna) of the effects of eight different seeding dates (every 5 days from 15 October) on crop yield and water requirement of the two varieties.Total hydraulic storage within the polder was determined from the length and cross-sections of the canal networks and other small water bodies (ponds/ditches) within the polder. Since most of the canals in the study polder were silted, the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) developed a plan to dredge and widen the canals (IPSWAM 2007). This plan was consulted to determine the future storage capacity of the water bodies of the polder.In both years, grain yields varied with seeding date and variety. Grain yields of the first two seeding dates were significantly lower than those of the later seeding dates (Table 1). The lower yields of the earlier seeding dates were mainly attributed to their lower number of spikelets m 2 and lower percentage of filled spikelets (data not shown), resulting in significantly lower harvest index (HI) than those of the last two seeding dates (Table 1). Earlier seeding dates exposed the reproductive stage of the crop to low temperature, affecting the spikelet formation processes. This is supported by the linear correlation between HI and the average daily minimum temperature from panicle initiation (PI) to the flowering stage of the crop (Figure 2, for BR 28 -similar results were obtained for PSV-B8).The average ET increased from 1.7 mm d -1 in November to 3.5 mm d -1 in March; and the average S&P rates from 2.1 mm d -1 to 3.6 mm d -1 over the same period. The total irrigation amount of D1 was significantly lower than those of other treatments in 2006-07 (Table 1).There was no significant difference in total irrigation water among the last three seeding dates. The effects of higher daily ET and S&P of the later seeding dates on water requirement were balanced by their shorter duration (due to higher temperature during their crop period), resulting in equivalent water requirements. The amount of irrigation taken from canal storage increased as the seeding dates were delayed. The difference of maturity period for the first and last seeding dates was about 15 days; however, almost twice the amount of irrigation water was taken from the canal storage for the last seeding than for the first seeding (Table 1, for the 2006-07 DS season). In the experiment, river water remained suitable for irrigation until the end of January, and most of the irrigation for the D1 crop came directly from the river because the crop matured at the beginning of March, while the D3 and D4 plots had a higher dependency on canal storage water to meet the irrigation water demand after January until they matured in April.The long-term salinity data analysis indicated that the cut-off date corresponding to Pexcd = 50% for using river water was the second week of February. The storage capacity of the canal system was about 2,592,164 m 3 . After subtracting the \"dead volume\" and the volume needed for fisheries, the extractable volume was 2,137,445 m 3 . If the canals are dredged and widened according to the plan of BWDB, the extractable volume for irrigation will increase to 5,575,118 m 3 . The simulated LAI, total biomass, and ET (Figure 3a, b, and d) satisfactorily agreed with the measured values. In Figure 3c, the simulated yields that exceeded the measured values corresponded to the early seeding dates (15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31). The poor agreement between measured and simulated yields for the early sowing dates is because ORYZA2000 does not adequately taken into account the effects of low temperature on spikelet formation and pollination. Rice yields obtained by multiplying the simulated biomass by HI (which was obtained from Figure 2) agreed well with the measured values. This method of yield simulation was used in the scenario analysis. Simulation using 20 years of climate data showed that rice yield increased steadily from about 2,000 to 5,000 kg ha -1 as the seeding date was delayed from 15 October to 10 November at all probabilities of exceedence. Seeding later than 10 November did not increase yield but increased considerably the amount of irrigation water taken from the canal storage (Figure 4). As a result, the maximum water productivity with respect to irrigation from canal storage was obtained when seeding was carried out on 5 November. At Pexd = 50% the maximum water productivity was 2.2 g kg -1 .The area that can be brought into boro rice cultivation declined steadily as the seeding date was delayed (Figure 4, showing the future scenario when canals are dredged according to the BWDB's plan). The total boro rice production, however, maximizes at a seeding date of 5 November (Figure 4), corresponding to the seeding date with maximum water productivity (with respect to irrigation water from canal storage). With this seeding date and at Pexd = 50%, the boro rice area that can be irrigated from the storage of the present canals (i.e. silted) is 740 ha (15% of the rice area). This can be increased to 1,924 ha (40% of the rice area) if the canals are dredged. These will bring an additional 3,700 t (present canal conditions) and 9,600 t (dredged canals) of rice to Polder 30, compared with 13,000 t presently produced by the aman rice crop. The time of seeding had contrasting effects on the two components of water productivity of boro rice grown in the south western coastal region of Bangladesh. Seeding before November resulted in very low yields due to cold stress at the critical reproductive stages of boro rice. Late-seeding required more water to be taken from the limited storage capacity of the canal network, and therefore will reduce the area that can be irrigated. A systems approach, using crop modeling, allowed us to analyze the trade-offs between the two components over a 20year period. With the optimum dates of seeding around 1-10 November, and with proper water management, 15% of the rice land can be planted with boro rice after the aman season. The percentage can be increased to 40% with some investments to improving the conditions of the canals. Developing cold-tolerant varieties that can be planted early, hence reducing water required from the canal storage, can also increase the area of boro rice.The Limpopo Basin is one of the benchmark sites of the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Challenge Program on Water and Food Crop (CPWF). The basin has low annual rainfall (530 mm) and it covers most semi-arid regions of Southern Africa (Harrington et al. 2004). Crop production is one of the major activities in the basin, but farmers face many challenges, especially smallholder farmers. The low rainfall and frequent droughts that are experienced during the growing season make rain-fed farming a risky business (Butterworth et al. 1999;Twomlow and Bruneau 2000;Unganai and Mason 2002).There is competition for water among countries and communities within the region (Basson and Rossouw 2003;Mazvimavi 2004;Mugabe et al. 2007;Nyabeze 2004;Vörösmarty et al. 2000). The CPWF program in the Limpopo Basin is therefore addressing issues of improving the productivity of rainfed cropping systems by introducing drought resistant varieties, suitable crop and soil management practices, appropriate water policies and governance, and adopting a basin approach to water management (Harrington et al. 2004). Smallholder rainfed farming remains the dominant economic activity for a large part of the southern African population. Given the constraints on availability of blue water for full-scale irrigation, which are likely to remain the case for the medium term future, the improvement of smallholder rainfed farming must be a priority (Love et al. 2006). Green water use efficiency (that proportion of rainwater that is converted to transpiration) is very low in sub-Saharan Africa (15 %, Stroosnijder 2008). The need for technologies that increase the efficiency of use of the limited water in both crop production and domestic use is therefore very clear (Ngigi 2003).Rainwater harvesting (RWH) is one of these technologies.Rainwater harvesting is broadly defined as the collection and concentration of runoff for productive purposes (crop, fodder, pasture or tree production, livestock and domestic water supply etc.) (Ngigi 2003) or the process of concentrating rainfall as runoff for use in a smaller target area (Botha et al. 2003). The rainfall harvested can either be in-field (tillage techniques, pits etc.) or off-field (micro-catchment or runoff farming and supplementary irrigation). The advantages of RWH include increases in infiltration and groundwater recharge, and the potential to harvest water from small rainfall events that do not always produce increased stored water for irrigation (Li 2008). Field scale studies in the Limpopo basin have so far looked at some of the RWH technologies (Woltering 2005;Magombeyi and Taigbenu 2008, Mupangwa et al. 2007and 2008;Mwenge-Kahinda et al. 2007), but the impacts of up-scaling the techniques are not known and are not easy to quantify.Rainwater harvesting may have a substantial downstream impact if it results in: (i) diverting significant amounts of rainwater or soil moisture from recharge, overland flow or stream runoff into transpiration, (ii) diverting rainwater from one micro-catchment to another microcatchment, or (iii) both. Where RWH diverts incoming rainwater that would otherwise have been lost through interception or soil evaporation it does not exert a demand on the terrestrial water balance and can be said to have minimal downstream impact.Water tends to build asymmetrical relationships between people and communities within river basins because of water flow down slope (Figure 1). The activities of upstream users impact on the downstream users but not vice versa. To equitably share blue and green water resources in a catchment implies that upstream users have to forego some potential water benefits (van der Zaag 2007). Under the international water laws (Thompson 2006) that deal with equitable and reasonable allocation of water in trans-boundary river basins (in this study the Limpopo River Basin), upstream states support rules that give them control of the waters that originate in their territory, in line with the absolute territorial sovereignty doctrine, while downstream states/communities on the other hand appeal to the doctrines of prior appropriation and absolute territorial sovereignty that would provide them with unaltered flow quantity of the waters that enter their states/ catchments.Helsinki Rules would consider the water that falls on the drainage basin and used before flowing into a common river as beneficial water use (e.g., rainfed agriculture, in-field RWH, natural forest and groundwater use) for the state/user having benefit of the water, whereas the UN Convention (United Nations 1997) would not consider any water use from outside the watercourse as part of the water to be equitably used (Thompson 2006). In the future the water to be shared in Southern Africa will change from actual water flowing in the river (SADC Revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses Systems), as required by UN Convention, to rainfall over the basin (Thompson 2006). Under such circumstances the impacts of in-field RWH would need to be assessed to avoid tensions and conflicts between upstream and downstream users at local or basin level. Different RWH techniques influence hydrological processes at different spatial scales in a non-linear mode. Processes governing rainfall and runoff partitioning operate at a variety of scales (Blöschl and Sivapalan 1995). At the micro-catchment and field scales (approximately 10 -3 to 10 1 km 2 ), factors such as infiltration (which is spatially variable) and the length of the slope (distance of overland flow before entry of runoff into a stream) control the proportion of site runoff that is discharged from that scale as runoff and the proportion that is redistributed to become soil moisture (van de Giesen et al. 2000). At the meso-catchment scale (approximately 10 1 to 10 3 km 2 ), processes after runoff generation operate upon streams, for example the transfer of water between streams and groundwater or redistribution and reinfiltration in wetlands. This has been shown to sometimes lead to the estimation of (apparently) less conversion of rainfall into runoff at larger scales. Flow monitoring in a semiarid area at different spatial scales showed that the runoff coefficient varied from 46 % at field scale to 12 % at basin scale in Kenya (Ngigi et al. 2005) and from 6.3 % for a 41 km 2 catchment to 0.7 % for a 1,386 km 2 catchment in Zimbabwe (Love et al. 2007). Due to this scale dependent complexity, the estimation of (apparent) diversion of rainwater from runoff generation to transpiration can be affected by the scale at which water balance measurements are made. These complex scale relationships and the potential for changes to downstream stream and groundwater flow make it important to assess the hydrological and socio-economic impacts (positive and negative) of out-scaling of RWH.Despite the anticipated socio-economic impacts related to farm decision-making and farmer actions, out-scaling of RWH techniques, beyond a certain limit, may lead to hydrological and environmental impacts (Ngigi et al. 2005;Woyessa et al. 2006). Therefore, it is important to know the impacts of in-field and ex-field RWH techniques at catchment and basin scales. Furthermore, an understanding of the optimum level of adoption at catchment or basin scale that maximizes land and water productivity while minimizing negative hydrological and ecological impacts is important for sustainability of RWH technologies. This paper seeks to present small plot and farmer field scale case studies of RWH technologies conducted in the Limpopo River Basin, and to propose an approach for systematically investigating the impacts of out-scaling such technologies to catchment and basin levels.In-field RWH field experiments were conducted at several locations in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa. All experiments included treatments with 'Planting Basins'. Planting basins systems, with a variety of basin size and spacing, are practised in various part of Africa under a variety of names such as the Zai system in Mozambique, Mali and Burkina Faso, the Chololo system in Tanzania (Mati 2005), the Trus system in Sudan, and the Tassa system in Niger. Crops are planted in the basins, often with small amounts of organic and/or inorganic fertilizers. The objectives of the basins are to reduce runoff and increase infiltration through breaking the surface crust and creation of a depression/pit/hole, and to increase soil fertility through reduction in erosion. Modelling studies were also conducted to evaluate RWH options. Some of the rainwater management techniques increase demand for labour, and their suitability for adoption will depend on economic viability and other factors such as acceptability to farmers. Another relevant issue is the required land versus land availability for these practices, as well as the need to coexist with other farming techniques such as inter cropping.The effect of planting basins and ripping on surface runoff and soil water storage in cropped fields was assessed over two cropping seasons in the semi-arid Mzingwane Catchment in Zimbabwe (Mupangwa 2009). The planting basins were dug using a hand hoe and each basin measured 0.15 m (length)  0.15 m (width)  0.15 m (depth). The basins were dug at 0.9 m  0.6 m spacing. The rip lines were created at 0.9 m inter-row spacing using a commercially available ripper tine (ZimPlow) attached to the beam of a donkey-drawn mouldboard plough. The planting basins gave the lowest seasonal runoff losses regardless of soil type and field slope (Figure 2). Despite the below average rainfall of 328-353 mm during the period of experimentation (2006/07 and 2007/08 seasons), planting basins consistently gave the highest soil water content particularly during the first half of the cropping period. Despite the higher soil water content and lower surface runoff in the planting basin system, there were no significant (P > 0.05) maize yield differences between the four tillage systems regardless of the different rainfall distribution each season.The results from the two year study indicate that planting basins have the potential to: i) promote infiltration of rainwater, ii) minimize soil, water and nutrient losses from the field, iii) reduce siltation and pollution (by agrochemicals) downstream of the fields, and iv) increase groundwater recharge as soil water is lost through deep drainage especially on sandy soils. However, during high rainfall seasons water logging (the severity depending on the soil type) can occur and affect yield. High surface runoff from each tillage system is likely during seasons with above-normal rainfall on the predominantly sandy soils of Gwanda and Insiza districts. Modelling studies were carried out to assess the potential for in-field RWH in the semi-arid region of Chókwè in Mozambique (Niquice 2006). The studies examined planting date, RWH, and storage of water in the root zone for rainfed maize. The main objective of these modelling studies was to maximise the use of rainwater captured by plants by looking at the effects of catchment area (through changing planting density) on final grain yield. Other effects such as soil texture and type, different RWH techniques, agronomic management and varieties were not considered. There were some limitations in the models in that they simply estimated the runoff to the plants with the assumption that no runoff from the field is generated.The results indicated that total seasonal evaporation always exceeds rainfall in this part of the Limpopo River Basin near the coast, despite the relatively large rainfall here. Figure 3 shows the effect of \"rainfall harvest area\" factor (horizontal axis) on relative grain yield. The \"rainfall harvest area\" factor is the ratio of the area of runoff collection per plant to the runoff area per plant for the recommended planting density. A factor of 1.0 means using the recommended planting density, and a factor of 3.0, for example, means that the area per plant is three times larger than with the recommended density, increasing the area (three-fold in this case) of for runoff collection per plant (Niquice 2006).Moving from the recommended plant density with a \"rainfall harvest area\" factor of 1.0 to lower planting densities with a factor of 5.0, the expected relative yields increased from 65 to 82% of potential yield (with water non-limiting), as shown on the left hand graph in Figure 3. The standard deviation tends to decline slightly due to limited increment of yield as the factor increases, determined by the soil water storage capacity within the root zone. The right hand graph shows that as the runoff area for RWH increases, the chances of getting certain threshold of relative yields increases (Niquice 2006). Studies were carried out in three locations within Chókwè District to assess maize and cowpea yields grown using Zai Pits (planting basins), in comparison with the same crops produced under farmers' practice (control), i.e. mixed cropping systems (maize intercropped with cowpea, cassava etc.) using conventional tillage. The dimensions of the Zai pits were about 0.6 m diameter and 0.3 m in depth. Four to eight seeds of maize or cowpea were sown in each pit, and the seeds were evenly distributed within the pit. The planting density in the Zai treatment was half that of the control.The maize grain yield was 14 and 111 kg ha -1 for the control and pits respectively. Although the yields were very low in both treatments due to low rainfall, the pits increased yield 8-fold. Grain yield of cowpeas was increased from 92 kg ha -1 to 131 kg ha -1 by the pits.The Zai pits tended to increase water availability in the root zone, especially in loam-clay soils . On sandy soils, the technique has some limitations due to poor soil structure (low water holding capacity). Although the study has shown a potential for increased RWH, its effectiveness depends on rainfall patterns, soil type, crops and other agricultural practices like planting date and density, and mulching. Further work is required to identify situations where Zai pits are likely to be beneficial and to develop associated crop management guidelines. The surprising result from these studies was that 21% of farmers (including those who were already implementing Zai pits before these studies) in the study area have adopted the pits despite the need for further study (Momade 2006).Rainwater harvesting studies were also conducted at the field level in the Olifants Catchment, South Africa. In-field RWH techniques (Chololo pits or ridges) were compared with conventional tillage at 2 locations. The potential benefits of ex-field RWH for supplementary irrigation were also studied in separate experiments.The dimensions of the Chololo pits were 0.22 m in diameter and 0.3 m in depth. The pits were spaced 0.6 m apart within rows and 0.9 m between the rows, which ran along the contour. Conventional tillage involved ploughing then levelling and sowing in lines 0.9 m apart with 0.40 m between plants within rows. Three maize seeds were sown per pit, and plant density was 4 plants m -2 in both treatments. There were two replicates of each treatment at each site, and plot dimensions were 6 m x 13 m. Deep drainage (D) was determined from volumetric soil water content (, measured) and soil hydraulic conductivity, using Darcy's equation (Stephens, 2000;Reshmidevi et al. 2008). Van Genuchten's (1980) equation was used to estimate soil hydraulic conductivity, K(), and crop evapotranspiration (Ec) was calculated as the residual term in the water balance equation:where P is precipitation, R is runoff (measured), D is deep drainage below root zone and ∆S is change in soil water content (harvest soil moisture minus sowing soil moisture).Table 1 shows the maize crop water balance components, yield and cost of each technique from the two sites. Precipitation during the crop season was very low at both sites, and the RWH treatments made the difference between no yield and yields of 585 or 335 kg ha -1 at Worcester and Enable, respectively. Yields with Chololo pits at Worcester were higher than yields with tied ridges at Enable, despite the lower rainfall at Worcester. Good results (yield tripling) under Chololo pits have also been reported in East Africa (Mati 2005). The water harvesting treatments reduced runoff, and increased deep drainage slightly. There was much greater soil drying in the Chololo pits at Worcester than in the other treatments, reflecting the better crop growth at that site. However, during high rainfall seasons, leaching and water logging could adversely affect crop yield.The Chololo pits required much more labour than conventional tillage, and they cost almost 5 times as much to implement (Table 1), but the technique produced grain yield in a low rainfall year when conventional methods produced no grain yield. Farmers have shown enthusiasm for the technique, with a number of them adopting the pits in their small vegetable gardens. The pits also reduced runoff by 100% in small to moderate rainfall events (Magombeyi et al., 2008;Botha et al., 2003). The ridges required about one third of the labour of the Chololo pits, and at about one third the cost, but were also more labour demanding and expensive than conventional tillage. However, they also made the difference between no yield and some yield during this low rainfall year. Ex-field rainwater harvesting for supplementary irrigation Components of the water balance and yield were compared in rainfed plots and plots receiving supplementary irrigation over 3 seasons (2005)(2006)(2007)(2008) at 2 sites in the Olifants catchment (Magombeyi et al. 2008). Ex-field RWH by means of a weir across a stream was used to create the water supply for supplementary irrigation to 1 ha plots in farmers' fields.Plant density was 3 plants m -2 in all plots. Supplementary irrigation increased water productivity with respect to evapotranspiration from an average of 2 kg mm -1 ha -1 under rainfed conditions to 4 kg mm -1 ha -1 with supplementary irrigation. This was associated with an increase in average maize grain yield from 0.7 t ha -1 under rainfed to 1.7 t ha -1 under supplementary irrigation, an average increase of 143 % when compared to exclusive rainfed maize farming. Huge benefits of supplementary irrigation were realised when the crop growing period rainfall was below average and unevenly distributed throughout the season, as in the 2006/7 and 2007/8 seasons, when supplementary irrigation increased yields more than 4-fold. The study concluded that timely and adequate supplementary irrigation could be fundamental in ensuring farming families' food security and improved livelihoods by bridging the frequent intra-seasonal dry spells characteristic of semi-arid areas. However, extraction of water for supplementary irrigation reduces downstream flows. Hence, there is need for hydrological studies to estimate the crop area that can be brought under supplementary irrigation in the catchment without causing adverse impacts on downstream users and the environment.The few small plot and farmer field studies presented above indicate that there is considerable potential for RWH technologies to increase yield and water productivity within the Limpopo River Basin. However, there are no studies showing what impacts these technologies will have upstream or downstream, both at catchment and basin levels. There is a need to find ways of up-scaling these techniques to catchment level and to understand what impacts these technologies will have. We want to answer questions such as: at catchment or basin scale what is the impact of these in-field and ex-field RWH techniques?; what level of adoption will maximize land and water productivity while avoiding unacceptably adverse hydrological and ecological impacts at these scales?; how to define \"unacceptably adverse\" impacts? A methodology model (flow chart) (Figure 4) is proposed for a systematic approach to assessing the biophysical and economic impacts of RWH to inform policy formulation and institutional reform processes regarding adoption of RWH practices that may promote integrated water resources management (IWRM).  Indicators that could be used to assess the environmental impacts of increased RWH include relative reduction of runoff and river flows for average, high and low flows; irrigation water demands due to adoption of RWH systems (if more water is captured in the soil profile under in-field RWH, less irrigation water is required); and increased crop yields and income from crop sales.The RWH techniques could be classified according to factors such as: agronomic productivity, riskiness, economic viability, and attractiveness of the technology to farmers. Social acceptability of the technology is also important for up-scaling to catchment level, and the socio-economic aspects which shape the water demand and ability to adopt the RWH technology by the farmers need to be included.A spatial hydrological model is needed to answer questions such as: What are the potential areas where RWH technologies could be applied in the catchment? If you implement RWH what is the impact on flows downstream and sediment yields?  What percentage of land can be put under RWH so that the water requirements for downstream users and environment are still met (the level of adoption that is sustainable). Do the farmers accept the RWH techniques (acceptability)? Work on modelling farmer adoption of RWH and supplementary irrigation adoption was reported in He et al. (2007). Is there a need for it? What's the current level of water supply in the catchment? Do they have money to build the RWH facilities or structures (affordability of the RWH techniques)?It will be important to know what amount of runoff (overland flow) is retained by farmers. This is important because cumulative effects of hydrological processes at the field scale influence and regulate what happens at the larger catchment scale. The level of reduction in river flow that results from overland flow retention upstream will also be important. The impacts of reduced surface land flow could become significant as the RWH is adopted by a larger population in the catchment. Possible sources of data for up-scaling would include Landsat and remote sense images.Hydrological models are only as good as the available input data. Hence, it is paramount to validate and verify input data. There is an increasing degree of uncertainty and complexity in water fluxes when moving from field scale to catchment scale hydrology, meaning that it is not valid to directly extrapolate or interpolate results from one spatial scale to another. The dynamic socio-economic conditions (family annual income and labour) of the farmers also pose challenges in setting up the integrated impact model (Figure 4).In-field and ex-field rainwater harvesting technologies are promising technologies for the semi-arid regions such as the Limpopo River Basin. Field scale studies have shown substantial crop yield benefits to smallholder farmers. However, RWH technologies often require more labour and additional cost to implement than normal farmer practice, and the magnitude of the yield gains varies depending on seasonal and site conditions. There is a need to systematically identify under which situations RWH technologies are likely to increase productivity and profitability. There is also a need to find ways of out-scaling the technologies for a greater impact on the livelihoods and food security of the very large numbers of poor farming families in the Basin. However, as we find ways of out-scaling, there is also need to understand the up-stream and down-stream impacts of out-scaling infield and ex-field RWH at catchment and basin levels. Development of a decision support tool in the form of an integrated model presented in this paper could answer several questions on the impacts and sustainable levels of RWH adoption and aid policy makers.Soil erosion is a major watershed problem in many developing countries, causing significant losses of soil fertility and productivity, and environmental degradation. Generally, soil erosion and the ensuing sediment transport are functions of many processes. Erosion from the land surface takes place in the form of sheet, rill and inter rill, and gully erosion, and part of the eroded soil is delivered to rivers. This, together with in stream bed and bank erosion of rivers constitutes the sediment load in the river. The Blue Nile River (Abay) contributes up to 62% of the Nile River flow measured at Aswan, and a similar proportion of the sediment in the Nile. The upper Blue Nile River is heavily affected by watershed management problems caused by overpopulation, poor cultivation and land use practices, deforestation and overgrazing. This results in significant loss of soil fertility, rapid degradation of natural systems, significant sediment deposition in lakes and reservoirs, and sedimentation of irrigation infrastructure such as canals. Unofficial data describes that 70% of the cost of operation and maintenance in the Blue Nile part of Sudan is spent on sediment related and canal maintenance. A massive surface water harvesting effort is being undertaken in the dry lands of Ethiopia to supplement rainfed agriculture with irrigation. However, most of the water harvesting schemes are under serious threat due to siltation (Tamene et al. 2006).Sedimentation is a serious problem that reduces the economic life time of reservoirs. In many places the sediment erosion rate is higher than the soil formation rate, and many small reservoirs and micro dams have lost their dead storage capacity in a short period of time.The use of filter strips is one of the most effective of many watershed interventions to reduce erosion and sediment yield in rivers.. This method has been tested in micro watersheds in Ethiopia, and soil loss was reduced by grass strips by 55 %, 73%, 72 %, 57, 84% and 81% at five soil and water conservation research stations at Maybar, Andit Tid, Anjeni, Gununo, and Dizi , respectively (Tenaw 2008).Modeling erosion and sedimentation, and evaluation of the impacts of watershed management interventions on the sediment budget, is a difficult task. The most widely used empirical model for predicting erosion is the universal soil loss equation (USLE). The USLE model estimates average annual soil loss by sheet and rill erosion on those portions of landscape profiles where erosion but not deposition is occurring. However the model does not predict single storm loss, nor does it predict gully erosion (Dilnesaw 2006). Both the USLE and the Modified/Revised method (M/RUSLE) estimate erosion in small catchments based on relationships established using soil conservation site data. Applying such relationships in basins such as the Blue Nile is difficult, as such models are not primarily designed for such large scale systems, and obtaining pertinent data for calibration, validation and impact evaluation is also difficult.SWAT is the acronym for Soil and Water Assessment Tool, a model developed by United State Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (USDS-ARS). SWAT is a physical process-based model that simulates processes at a catchment scale (Arnold, et al. 1998;Neitsch, et al. 2005). The objective of SWAT model development was to predict the impact of land management practices on water, sediment and agricultural chemical yields in large complex watersheds with varying soils, land use and management conditions over long periods of time. SWAT has been applied in catchments ranging in size from a few to thousands of hectares. Currently, SWAT is used widely in many watersheds of the world and has been evaluated in a range of environments. For example, in the 932.5 km 2 Upper North Bosque River Watershed in north central Texas, SWAT-predicted monthly sediment losses matched measured data well, but prediction of daily output was poor (Saleh, et al. 2000). In the Thur River basin ( area 1700 km 2 ) in Switzerland, SWAT simulations of sediment transport processes at the catchment scale provided good results (Abbaspour, et al. 2007).This paper presents a typical case study watershed used to analyse rainfall-runoff relationships, sediment-runoff relationships, and the sensitivity and accuracy of the SWAT model in a catchment in the Gumera watershed of the Blue Nile River. Using the calibrated model, we then analysed the impacts of vegetation filter strips on the sediment budget.The wider scope of the study related to this paper schematizes the Blue Nile as in Figure 1 below and also shows how sediment modeling is addressed at various scales in the entire Blue Nile basin. These scales include: a) micro watershed, b) watershed c), sub-basins and major lakes, basin outlets and large reservoirs, and d) downstream of outlets and large reservoirs. The Basin level sediment predictions were earlier addressed by Steenhuis et al (2008) and will not be repeated here. Currently, we are also testing a revised version of a rainfall runoff model to improve the distributed runoff predictions without changing the discharge predictions at the outlet (White et al., 2008). This paper presents the results of using the SWAT model based on extensive work reported in Tenaw (2008) in one of the selected catchments known as the Gumera watershed. The study was intended to model runoff and sediments, and to evaluate the impacts of interventions. Thus, it is focusing only on scale b) of the larger study. Figure 2 shows Gumera watershed and the 29 micro watersheds within the boundary of Gumera. We used water balance-based rainfall-runoff and runoff-sediment relationships at the watershed outlet according to the Modified Universal Loss Equations (MUSLE) after Williams (1995), and actual measured data for Gumera watershed. For detailed discussions, refer Tenaw (2008). Sensitivity analysis was carried out to identify which model parameters are the most important in flow modeling. From this analysis, ten parameters, including initial curve number, available water capacity, average slope steepness and hydraulic conductivity, were identified as the most sensitive parameters that significantly affect surface runoff and base flow generation.The calibration and validation of SWAT were carried out using data measured at the outlet of the watershed at Gumera bridge on the main road of Bahir Dar to Gondar. To evaluate the efficiency of the model, three measures were employed: the Nash-Sutcliffe simulation efficiency (ENS), the correlation coefficient (R 2 ), and the mean deviation of errors (D). In the model, we also used filter strips of 5m and 10m width to estimate the impact on the potential reduction in sediment delivery. The filter strip trapping efficiency for sediment, nutrients and pesticides was calculated as Tef = 0.367 (WF) 0.2967 (Neitsch et al 2005), where Tef is the fraction of the constituent loading trapped by the filter strip, and WF is the width of the filter strip (m).Data requirements for the model flow and sediment calibration and validation related to digital elevation, land use and soil properties were obtained from previous studies of the Ministry of Water Resources, Ethiopia, such as the master plan studies BCEOM (1998) and MOARD (2004). Daily river flow and sediment discharges at the gauging station, obtained from the Ministry of Water Resources, Ethiopia, were used for discharge and sediment yield calibration and validation of the modeling work.Analysis of rainfall and runoff shows that, in the rainfall season, the peaks of sediment concentration and sediment load come before the peaks of rainfall and runoff. The annual sediment concentration (sediment weight per volume of water) measured in mg/l shows that sediment load distribution is concentrated in June to September, with the highest peak is in July, while the rainfall and runoff peaks occur in August. Figure 3 is a typical example of Blue Nile tributaries, in terms of the long term monthly average sediment concentration of Ribb river at Addis Zemen. The river is a medium-sized watershed tributary with a catchment area of 1592km 2 draining to Lake Tana. The cumulative consequence at the downstream end within the watershed and across the boundary is problems such as aggradation of river beds, difficulty of operation of hydraulic infrastructures, loss of storage capacity and heavy cost of operation and maintenance for sediment management. Figure 4 (Awulachew et al 2008) shows the consequential sediment concentration at the downstream end in Sudan, at the border with Ethiopia. Note that Figures 3a and 4 are comparable figures in terms of concentration distribution and magnitude of concentration. Calibration resulted in a Nash-Suttcliffe simulation efficiency (ENS) of 0.76, correlation coefficient (R 2 ) of 0.87, and mean deviation (D) of 3.29 %, showing a good agreement between measured and simulated monthly flows (e.g. Figure 5). Similarly, the validation results also show good agreement between measured and simulated values, with ENS 0.72, R 2 0.82 and D 5.4%.The erosion predictions showed good agreement between calibrated monthly sediment and measured sediment yields with ENS 0.74, R 2 0.85, and D 14.2% (e.g. Figure 6). Validation results also showed good agreement between measured and simulated values, with ENS 0.62, R 2 0.79, and D 16.9%.The spatial distribution of annual sediment generation for the Gumara River watershed shows that 18 out of 29 sub-watersheds (micro-sheds) produce average annual sediment yields ranging from 11-22 t/ha/yr, while most of the low land and wetland areas in the north west region produce 0-10 t/ha/yr. Simulation showed that implementation of vegetation strips in 7 high erosion sub-watersheds reduced average annual sediment yields by 52 % to 62 % using a 5m buffer strip width, and by 74.2 to 74.4% for 10m strip width. This shows that it is possible to reduce the amount of sediment yield effectively by employing watershed management interventions such as vegetative strips. Such measures at micro watershed levels can have significant cumulative effects at sub-basin and basin levels, and can reduce sedimentation problems in lakes, man made reservoirs and natural river systems. The current levels of degradation leading to erosion, sediment transport and sedimentation are causing considerable loss of soil, and deposition in rivers and reservoirs, and can cause irreversible soil degradation, loss of livelihoods, and significant canal and reservoir sediment cleaning costs. The Basin is providing significant flow but also a heavy sediment load. The analysis of data at various stations shows that seasonal sediment distribution is highly variable, and that the highest sediment concentration occurs in July, when most of the land is cultivated using traditional practices that lead to significant loss of soil and nutrients from agricultural fields in the form of erosion and sediment. The consequence is rapid accumulation and losses of capacity of small reservoirs built for agricultural or other water supplies, and rapid filling of the dead storage of large reservoirs and natural and man-made lakes. This paper also demonstrates the usefulness of modeling tools such as SWAT to model a complex and data scarce basin. Through modeling of the Gumera watershed we showed that runoff and sediment can be simulated with reasonable accuracy. This also indicates that long term data can be generated for ungauged basins in the Basin. As demonstrated by the vegetative filters, the impact of similar interventions can be quantified and the results suggest that vegetative filters can provide a significant reduction in sediment load to the upper Blue Nile. Actions taken at the farm, field or irrigation scheme level have broader basin-wide impacts. Application of the vegetative filter and other interventions throughout the basin could help to reverse land degradation and improve the livelihoods of the people upstream, and at the same time reduce the cost of operation and maintenance of hydraulic infrastructure and other sedimentation damage downstream.The Karkheh River Basin (KRB) covers about 43000 km 2 in southwestern Iran. The basin has a semi-arid to arid climate. Most of the agricultural area in the upper KRB is rainfed, where livelihoods depend mainly on dryland farming. Iran's agricultural strategy identifies water productivity improvement as a top priority. Annual precipitation in the upper catchments of the KRB ranges from 350 to 500 mm. GIS-based methods have been developed to better geographically target areas suitable for various water productivity (WP) enhancing practices such as SI. Supplemental irrigation is applied essentially to rainfed crops during dry spells to provide sufficient moisture for normal plant growth, in order to improve and stabilize yields.Results from SI research show substantial increases in crop yields in response to the application of relatively small amounts of SI (Oweis, et al., 1998). Supplemental irrigation (SI) is strongly recommended to increase crop and water productivity in rainfed systems of upstream KRB (Tavakoli and Oweis, 2003). The optimal SI amount and timing, the economic feasibility of investment, and the presence of biophysical limitations are the major issues for investigation. The objective of this work is to examine the potential for SI implementation in rainfed areas of the upper KRB and the consequences on downstream flow. The assessment is made in 3 stages: 1) Iso-potential mapping suitable lands for SI; 2) Water resource requirements for SI and environmental flow; and 3) Flow allocation and assessment of different scenarios of SI.Monthly flow records for the years 1975 -2004 were extracted from the Tamab Database.Gauging stations operating over the entire period were selected, yielding a set of 53 stations. The ArcHydro extension (Maidment 2002) in ArcGis9 was used to derive the drainage patterns of the Karkheh catchments from the digital terrain model. Raster analysis was performed to delineate the gauged watersheds. Some watershed boundaries were corrected manually using 1:25,000 topographic maps. Given a grid of precipitation values and a grid of watersheds (defined with the same cell size), a table of the mean precipitation in each watershed was determined. Based on computed 30 year mean flows for each station, the net measured inflow for each of the 53 watersheds was computed, and then the net measured inflow was normalized by the watershed area and expressed in mm/year. The average runoff per unit area (mm) versus average rainfall (mm) for all delineated watersheds was calculated.Information from the outlying points was used to create a map of actual runoff. Using the inference of scale-independence, the expected runoff function was applied to the precipitation grid to create a spatially distributed map of expected runoff. A grid of actual runoff was created by combining net runoff information at the watershed scale.De Pauw et al. ( 2008) presented a methodology for using GIS tools and expert criteria to identify potential areas for SI in Syria. The assumptions used are that such areas: are basically rainfed; are characterized by the presence of arable soils; have non-constraining slopes; and are within the proximity of existing irrigation schemes that do not require substantial investment in irrigation infrastructure. The method is based on the assumption that the irrigation water discharge (from either surface or groundwater) available in existing irrigated schemes, that is currently used to fully irrigate summer crops, could instead (or in addition) be used fully or partially in winter for SI of winter crops. Since the water requirements for SI of winter, rainfed crops are a fraction of that for non rainfed fully irrigated summer crops, the areas that could be irrigated in winter, using same amount of water, are much larger than the areas currently used for summer full irrigation. The method uses a simple model to calculate the additional rainfed area that can be irrigated by shifting from spring/summer fullyirrigated crops to supplementally-irrigated winter/spring crops. The potential SI area is identified by combining with a water allocation procedure for the surrounding rainfed areas based on suitability criteria. In this research, the method used in Syria was applied to the KRB.Slope classes determine the suitability land for different types of irrigation. Figure 1 shows slope classes in two sub-basins of the KRB. The slopes used for different irrigation methods are: surface (less than 5%), sprinkler (5-8%), and trickle (8-12%). River surface flow is assumed to be the sole source of water for irrigation. Potential rainfed areas for SI were considered within buffers of 1000 m around the streams lines. The buffer is based on expert knowledge of the maximum distance that is feasible for conveying water away from water source. The stream buffer area layer is overlayed on that of the slope classes of the 53 subbasins, from which the iso-potential map for SI is derived. The monthly irrigation requirement for each sub-basin is calculated based on the SI map. In this research, the long term monthly streamflow data of gauge stations along the river were considered as the available water for allocation to SI. Available stream flow is allocated for SI in autumn and spring. Water requirements include: existing needs (irrigation, industry, domestic), new supplemental irrigation and environmental flow requirements (EFR). At each gauge station flows in excess of the domestic, industry and environmental needs are recorded. Thus the recorded stream flow data assumes all existing needs are satisfied. The available water was considered for SI with the following strategies: (i) applying a single irrigation of 100 mm in autumn; (ii) applying two irrigations of 75 mm each in the spring.Available water in each sub-basin is based on daily and monthly base flow of the stream in addition to available groundwater resources. Discharge data variation and the wet and dry thresholds of surveyed sub-basins and base flow in sub-basins determine the water available for allocation. The challenge is to determine the amount of water, and its quality, that should be allocated for the maintenance of the ecosystems through an \"environmental flow allocation\" and water that can be allocated for agriculture, industry, and domestic services (Ramsar Convention Secretariat 2007). Methods for estimating EFR include: hydrological methods, hydraulic rating, habitat simulation and holistic methods (Mazvimavi et al. 2007).In this research, 15% of the mean annual runoff was used as an EFR. By subtracting EFRs from monthly flow data, available water for allocation to SI areas of all sub-basins was determined.Allocation of water is made according to location, planting calendar and available water in sub-basins. In this study, long term monthly flow data of gauge stations along the river were used to estimate the available water for SI in suitable rainfed areas. One scenario of allocation water for SI will be drought situation. A higher level of water stress was considered, with the (river) resource availability set at 80% of the occurrence probability as a drought condition. A FORTRAN program was developed to calculate the available and required water volumes for each sub-basin based on the suitable area for each slope class and to route the remaining water from the upper sub-basins to the Karkheh dam. The program first calculates the potential available flow for each sub-basin by subtracting all current downstream uses computed from the observed incoming and outgoing flows (gauge data) of each sub-basin.The outflow estimation before and after applying SI strategies allowed evaluating: i) the impacts of different SI strategies on stream flow; ii) assessment of the water demand at each sub-basin; iii) the water allocation pattern; iv) the response of each sub-basin to SI intervention; and v) the available and allocated water based on each strategy. Tables 1 and 2 present the impacts of implementing the three SI scenarios on the areas and the flows downstream, respectively. Allocations of water may be adjusted based on water availability and priorities and the comparative benefits among various uses within the basin. The critical factors affecting water management are the temporal and spatial characteristics as associated with the national objectives of the upstream-downstream development. Figure 2 shows results of comparison of the 3 rainfall/flow conditions and the potential supplemental areas. Expected reductions in the downstream flows under the average, average with environmental flow and dry conditions are 9-15%, 9-16% and 5-10% of the available flow, respectively. Thus the results indicate that implementation of SI in the rainfed areas does not substantially reduce the average annual flow to the Karkheh reservoir significantly. At the same time, SI provides considerable benefits for yield and water productivity in the upper With a human population estimated at 77 million in 2007, and which grows by some 2.8% annually, Ethiopia is the second most populous country in sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria. Its economic mainstay is agriculture, which contributes about 45% and 85% to the GDP and national export earnings, respectively. Largely dependent on highly variable rainfall, and coupled with rampant land degradation, agricultural productivity continues to decline or stagnate and thus perpetuate poverty and food insecurity. Recurrent drought is one of the major threats to food security and sustainable use and conservation of natural resources in Ethiopia. The country's rural poor are often trapped in a vicious cycle between poor access to resources (poverty), land degradation and recurrent drought. In the face of currently soaring food prices in international markets, importing agricultural products through purchase or aid is becoming more challenging than ever before, calling for substantial increases in agricultural productivity. Thus, the widespread implementation of improved land and water management systems that ensure sustainable increases in agricultural productivity is urgently needed.About 10 million hectares are cultivated in Ethiopia, some 20% of the total arable land. The land that is under improved AWM irrigation is less than one million hectares, of which only about a quarter of a million hectares are under formal irrigated agriculture. The irrigation potential of the country is about 3.7 million hectares, thus the current level of irrigation is about 6% of the potential. Although there is some large-scale commercial irrigation, producing mainly industrial or export crops, semi-subsistent and traditional rain-fed farming together with limited small-scale traditional irrigation contribute the largest share of total agricultural production. Further details about irrigation in Ethiopia are provided in Awulachew et al. (2007).The major crops grown in the country are cereals -bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L), durum wheat (T. durum Desf), tef (Eragrostis tef), maize (Zea mays) and barley (Hordeum vulgare) -plus various other crops such as pulses, oil seeds, root crops, fruit crops, sesame (Sesamum indicum), cotton (Gossypium sp.), sugar cane (Saccharum), chat (Catha edulis) and coffee (CSA, 2006). Cereals, pulses and oil seeds cover about 95% of the total cropped area. Cereals alone cover 75% of the cropped area, out of which tef covers the largest area followed by maize, sorghum, wheat and barley in that order. In terms of production, however, maize contributes the largest tonnage, followed by wheat, tef, sorghum and barley. All these crops are largely cultivated as rain-fed crops. Coffee, cotton, sesame and sugar cane -which have high export earning potential -constitute a small proportion of the total crop production.Rain-fed agriculture contributes the largest share of total Ethiopian agricultural production. Its contribution is expected to increase in the foreseeable future as indicated in the sustained increase in land area under rain-fed farming. According to CSA (2006), the area of agricultural land occupied by rain-fed agriculture increased from 9.5 M ha to 10.4 M ha between 2003/04 and 2005/06, a 9.5% increase (average 4.7% per year), while production increased by 12 to 15% every year. The yield increase can be attributed to the increased use of improved inputs such as fertilizers, and to favorable weather conditions during that period. Rainfed production increases have not, however, kept pace with population growth in the past, and production can be substantially increased.Irrigation is among the technological interventions believed necessary to achieve a major increase in agricultural productivity to meet the growing demands for agricultural products in Ethiopia. The major crops commonly grown under irrigation are sugar cane, cotton, sesame, fruit and vegetables. These crops are grown under small and traditional as well as medium to large-scale irrigation schemes. While the major food crops are under the rain-fed system, irrigation has been seen as a means to provide employment opportunities and increase the livelihoods of rural people by enabling them grow cash crops. Most Ethiopian farmers can develop access to small scale or traditional irrigation, which is inexpensive, and which can be easily integrated into rain-fed and livestock farming systems. These initiatives are, however, at very small scales, and the contribution of irrigation to the economy is insignificant. According to Hagos et al. (2008), irrigated agriculture contributed only 5.7% and 2.5% of Ethiopian agricultural output in 2005 and 2006, respectively. This is despite the relatively high efficiency of smallholder managed irrigation systems. The latter generate an average income of about USD 323/ha compared to an average income of USD 147/ha obtained under rain-fed system (Hagos et al. 2008). Expanding the use of irrigation systems will, it is thought, increase the incomes of smallholders and thereby stimulate rural development and system intensification. Also, its increased contribution to agricultural and overall GDP will fuel the overall economic development efforts of the country.Various ex situ and in situ AWM technologies are practiced in Ethiopia. Huge resources are being allocated to develop and promote diverse low cost technologies in many developing countries including Ethiopia. In the last few years, many low cost AWM technologies have been developed for use by smallholders. In spite of these huge investments, their impacts remain unknown. The main objective of this paper was, hence, to explore whether adoption of selected AWM technologies has led to a significant reduction in poverty, and if so, to identify which technologies have higher impacts.The overall objective of this section is to review the use and suitability of AWM technologies and to identify promising technologies for scaling up. The method of collecting data and information included a literature review from both local and international sources, and key informant interviews at federal, regional, and, in some instances, at zonal and woreda levels.In addition, a questionnaire was designed and distributed to relevant experts in various institutions (government and non-government organizations, UN agencies, private, etc.) to capture diversified information on AWM practices, ranking of technologies and associated constraints. Where feasible, site observations were made and discussions with individual farmers were also held. In total, 38 different types of AWM technologies for rainfall and water conservation/control were identified which are practised at both micro catchment (e.g. stone terraces, trash lines) and macro catchment (e.g. ponds, small dams, diversions) scales. The list of these technologies are provided in Loulseged et al. (2008).Very often, AWM technologies are advocated in isolation, for a particular function. Based on this inventory, interviews and ranking exercises, the most promising AWM technologies in the four major regions of Ethiopia were identified (Table 2). The socio-economic survey data, on which this study is based, were gathered from 1517 households from 29 Peasant Associations (PAs) in four Regional states (Fig. 1). The PAs were selected based on the presence of the above promising technologies. For more details on the identification of promising technologies through key informant interviews, see Loulseged et al. (2008). The households from each PA were selected randomly, and stratified into those with and without access, following a non-proportional sampling approach. Details of the sample households by type of technology from the four regions are given below in Table 3. The data were collected for the 2006/2007 cropping season. The poverty impacts of AWM technologies were assessed using standard poverty analysis techniques (Foster et al. 1984) to explore whether those with access to AWM technologies have higher consumption expenditure per adult equivalent than those without access (for details see Hagos et al., 2008)  The poverty analysis followed six steps. First, we chose household consumption expenditure as a welfare measure, and adjusted this for the size and composition of the household. Second, the consumption poverty line was set at 1821 Ethiopian Birr (ETB) per annum (1USD=9.2 ETB), an inflation-adjusted poverty line using the baseline poverty line of ETB 1075 set in 1995/96 corresponding to some minimum acceptable standard of living in Ethiopia (MOFED 2006). We also used an inflation-adjusted poverty line of 1096 Birr as the absolute food poverty line based on the corresponding 1995/96 food poverty line. These lines were chosen to enable meaningful comparison of poverty levels in Ethiopia between various groups and over time. Third, poverty indices such as the number of poor (incidence), poverty gap (depth) and poverty gap squared (severity) were calculated. Fourth, we constructed poverty profiles showing how poverty varies over population subgroups (for example, users vs non-users of different AWM technologies) or by other characteristics of the household (for example, level of education, age, asset holding, location, etc.). This type of poverty profiling is particularly important as what matters most to policymakers is not so much the precise location of the poverty line, but the implied poverty comparison across subgroups or across time. Fifth, we did ordinal poverty comparisons using stochastic dominance to test the robustness of the poverty orderings. This is important because the estimate of the poverty line could be influenced by measurement error. Lastly, we explored the determinants of poverty using multivariate regression analysis. We analyzed the correlates of poverty against household and demographic factors, specific individual/household head characteristics, asset holdings including adoption and use of AWM technologies, village level factors, and policy related variables (access to services). By doing so, the marginal impacts of access to AWM technologies on poverty were assessed while controlling other possible covariates.  We now turn to poverty analysis using consumption expenditure per adult equivalent.Using the absolute overall poverty line of ETB 1821, about 48% of the AWM technology user households are poor. On the other hand, about 62% of the non-users are poor. The test results also show that there is significant difference in poverty levels between users and non users.There is about 22% lower poverty among users compared to non-users. In other words, households with access to AWM technologies are in a better position to meet their consumption requirements, both food and non-food. There are also significant differences in the poverty gap and severity of poverty between users and non-users, implying that AWM technologies are effective instruments to narrow the poverty gap and inequality (see Table 6). However, the results also suggest that the overall level of poverty has increased compared to the baseline poverty of about 39% in 2004/05 (MOFED 2006;p. 23) calculated based on poverty line of ETB 1,075. However, this apparent increase in poverty may be due to failure to adjust the poverty line to properly account for other factors affecting poverty such as unemployment and devaluation. where z denotes the poverty line, and  is a nonnegative parameter indicating the degree of sensitivity of the poverty measure to inequality among the poor 5 The z-statistic is derived using Kwakani's (1993) formulae to test for equality of poverty measures. The critical value for the test statistic is 1.96 at 5% level of significance 6 We compared those using AWM technologies with non-users 7 Note that the in situ technologies used here are terraces and soil bunds. However, there are much more effective technologies such as zai pits, mulching, etc. which can make more substantial productivity impact, e.g. Amede et al (2008) 8 We compared those using different water application technologies against non-usersWe disaggregated users by the type of AWM technology to measure the poverty impact of specific technologies. All the ex situ AWM technologies considered in this study had significant poverty reducing impacts. However, deep wells, river diversions and micro dams had higher poverty impacts compared to ponds and shallow wells, perhaps largely due to scale benefits such as larger plots and more reliable water sources. Deep wells, river diversions and micro dams led to approximately 50, 32 and 25% reduction in poverty levels compared to rainfed systems. On the other hand, the in situ AWM technologies (terraces and soil bunds) had no significant poverty reducing impacts. Those using in situ AWM technologies had higher poverty levels in terms of incidence, poverty gap and severity of poverty indices. We do not have any clear reason for this counter intuitive result. However, the in situ technologies were only soil conservation (erosion reduction) measures with little immediate impact on productivity growth; at the same time they may divert labor from direct agricultural crop production to conservation that contribute to household welfare directly.We also disaggregated poverty levels by type of water withdrawal and application technologies. The most common withdrawal and application mechanisms included gravity flooding (63.3%), manual (cans) (33.7%), treadle pump (6.7%), and motor pump (8.4%). Sprinkler (0.2%) and drip (0.2%) are hardly used, although there are signs of households gradually adopting these technologies. Those using motor pumps had a significantly lower poverty level than treadle pump users. In fact, as a result of using motorized pumps, there was more than a 50% reduction in the incidence of poverty mainly due to scale benefits. As far as water application technologies are concerned, households using gravity had significantly lower poverty levels than those using manual application. We also disaggregated poverty by the type of water use -that is, whether the water was used for supplementary or full irrigation. Those who used AWM technologies for full irrigation had significantly lower poverty levels compared to those using supplementary irrigation and non-users. This implies that supplementary irrigation could contribute to poverty reduction; a significant contribution comes, however, from full irrigation. This will have an important implication on technology choice for effective poverty reduction.We also estimated poverty profiles using an absolute food poverty line of ETB 1096. Accordingly, 23% of the users and 34% of the non-users are identified as food poor. These indices could be taken as food security indices. This implies that the level of food security has increased compared to 38% in 2004/05 (MoFED 2006; p. 27) calculated based on the poverty line of ETB 647.8 (no adjustment for inflation or devaluation). However, we feel that the food poverty line used should have been adjusted to account for price changes to make meaningful comparisons.When disaggregated by type of AWM technology, as in the case of overall poverty, deep wells, river diversion and micro dams are associated withthe highest reductions in food poverty. Ponds and wells, however, have also led to significant poverty reduction compared to non-users. However, in situ AWM technologies have not led to significant reduction to food insecurity. On the contrary, those using in situ AWM technologies had higher poverty levels in terms of the head count, poverty gap and severity of poverty indices. Furthermore, households using AWM technologies for full irrigation have relatively lower food poverty compared to those using water for supplementary irrigation. We consider that the lower poverty with full irrigation reflects greater reliability and adequacy of water supply as well as availability of labor for water management.Our results show that there was significant reduction in poverty due to adoption and use of ex situ AWM technologies. There was about 22% less poverty incidence among users compared to non-users of ex situ AWM technologies. We found the poverty orderings between users and non-users are statistically robust. Furthermore, from the poverty analysis (severity indices), we found that AWM technologies were both poverty-reducing and also equity-enhancing technologies. While poverty analysis techniques do not have in-built mechanisms of creating comparable groups, and hence could lead to attribution bias 3 , our results from the propensity score matching indicated that the average treatment effect of using AWM technologies is significant and has led to an income increase of, on average, USD 82/household. The magnitude of poverty reduction was technology specific. Deep wells, river diversions and micro dams were associated with 50, 32 and 25% reductions in poverty incidence, respectively, compared to the purely rain fed system. The use of modern water withdrawal technologies (treadle pumps and motorized pumps) was also strongly related to lower poverty. The use of motorized pumps was associated with more than a 50% reduction in poverty incidence. Similarly, households using gravity irrigation had significantly lower poverty levels than those using manual (cans) application because of scale benefits. These results suggest that the promotion of modern water withdrawal and application technologies can enhance poverty reduction. While access to AWM technologies seems to unambiguously reduce poverty, our study also indicated that there is a host of factors that can enhance this impact. The most important determinants include asset holdings, educational attainment, family labor and access to services and markets. To enhance the contribution of AWM technologies to poverty reduction, there is, hence, a need to: 1) build assets; 2) develop human resources; and 3) improve the functioning of labor markets and access to markets (input or output markets).The Upper East Region of Ghana is heavily dependent on agriculture with over 65% of the working population having agriculture as their main occupation. Despite being the main economic activity, agriculture barely sustains many households in the Region. The Region also experiences erratic rainfall for a period of about five to six months (see Figure 1) resulting in persistent seasonal food shortages. Often the yields of the main growing (rainy) season are not enough to guarantee a household's livelihood. With high rainfall variability and a limited rainy period in the region, 65 % of the working population is without work for most of the year where there is no form of irrigation.As a coping strategy, households engage in off-season economic activities to supplement their incomes. The youth migrate to southern Ghana to seek often non-existing economic opportunities at the end of the growing season, and return to till their farmlands during the farming season. Dry season farming, which involves the use of various types of irrigation systems, has become an increasingly important source of livelihood for a greater number of people in the area. It also helps to keep most of the migrating young men and women at home.A vital ingredient for the modernisation of agriculture in Ghana is irrigation. Unfortunately, the total area under irrigation is tiny -estimated at 11,000 ha in 1996, only 0.44 % of the total land area (Memuna and Cofie 2005)   Irrigation is needed because of the occasional dry year such as the one that occurred in 1983, when total rainfall was 719 mm compared to mean annual rainfall of 990 mm from 1961 to 2004 at Navrongo. The seasonality of rains is another issue that seriously affects agricultural operations. For example, the rainfall pattern in Navrongo (Figure 1) shows a unimodal rainfall pattern of short duration and rainfall is exceeded by evapotranspiration in all but 3 months. The duration of the dry season in these areas tends to be distinct and long (nearly 6-7 months). The implication is that under rainfed agriculture farming is possible only for a period of 4-5 months each year, and the cultivation of long-duration crops is impossible or risky without irrigation.In the past, the government owned and managed the irrigation schemes with farmers seen as beneficiaries with little or no voice in the day-to-day operations and management of the schemes. Profitability of the schemes was not a priority. The government paid salaries of staff and provided money for maintenance work with farmers contributing little or nothing for using the schemes (Ayariga 2008). In most cases the choice of crops was dictated by irrigation staff and they were also responsible for land and water allocation.This management system certainly has had its own problems. With an increasing number of schemes, the government could no longer afford the budgets associated with maintaining the irrigation schemes. This led to rapid deterioration of most schemes with farmers not assured of continued access to land under the schemes.Currently, the government's intention is to construct and/or rehabilitate the irrigation schemes but leave the management and maintenance of the medium-scale schemes to District Assemblies (DA) and farmers. Small schemes are to be completely farmer-managed through their democratically run Water Users Associations (WUA) with the DA providing public interest regulatory functions.Historical accounts trace irrigated agriculture in Ghana to a little over a century ago (Smith 1969) but the practice on a small scale dates back to as early as 1880 in the Keta area on land above flood level between the lagoon and the sandbar separating it from the sea. The first scheme that the government conceived was in 1920 as part of the then Winneba Water Supply Project (Smith 1969).Formal irrigation was introduced to the Upper East Region in the early 1950s when small dams were built for livestock watering, vegetable production in the dry season and for soil conservation. The responsible government agency, GIDA, built and operated these schemes on behalf of government. At present, there are two medium-scale irrigation schemes, namely Tono and Vea in the Region. The Tono and Vea dams have irrigable areas of 2,638 ha and 1,417 ha but operate far below their capacities at about 30% and 28 % utilisation capacity, respectively (Table 1). The Upper East Region has numerous small dams that are basically the conventional clay earth-fill dam walls connecting two sides of a valley and retaining rainfall run-off. There are about 160 such dams with irrigable area in the range of 1-36 ha as shown in figure 2 (Liebe 2008). Their reservoir capacities range from 1.0 million down to 50,000 m 3 . The dams usually have an inlet-outlet structure for water delivery from the reservoir. Also, there are more than 70 dugouts usually constructed by borrowing earth material from the adjacent relatively flat terrain to form an embankment for the purpose of harvesting rainfall run-off. Dugouts are constructed mainly for livestock watering rather than for irrigation, and do not have inletoutlet structures. There are also indigenous, traditional or informal irrigation methods involving crop production on small plots fenced off with thorn bushes or stalks along valley bottoms, seasonal rivers and other water bodies for the purpose of producing vegetables (mainly tomatoes, onions and peppers) at the end of the rainy season. Irrigation water is obtained from shallow wells dug within the fenced area or fetched with buckets, gourds or calabashes directly from the water body. In some cases the wells are dug within dried river beds or lowland areas. This system is possible because of the shallow groundwater table. Though the number of farmers and acreage involved in this practice are yet to be documented, preliminary studies by Laube et al. (2008) indicate that it is predominantly carried out in the Kasena Nankana District with farmers creating about 100-200 ha of vegetable gardens. This is made up of gardens with sizes of about 0.06 ha and 0.2 ha for farmers using buckets and pumps to lift the water, respectively. There has also been a rapid increase in the adoption of shallow groundwater irrigation over the past 5-15 years as a result of population increase and the increasing unreliability of rainfed farming which is attributed to climate change (Laube et al. 2008).In addition to the formal (modern) gravity fed irrigation systems (medium-and small-scale irrigation systems based on gravity using lined canals) and traditional or indigenous irrigation systems, the use of pumps to draw water directly from the White Volta River is on the ascendancy (Table 2). In response to the need for irrigation facilities to aid dry season farming activities, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) and some NGOs are leading efforts towards the promotion of riverine pump irrigation in the region.  Financial performance of irrigation as affected by system scale Mdemu (2008) and Laube et al. (2008) compared the profitability of different irrigation options per unit area (medium-and small-scale reservoirs) in the Upper East Region (Figure 3). There were 59 farmers with a mean plot size of 0.7 ha and 60 farmers with a mean plot size of 0.2 ha involved at Tono and Dorongo, respectively. Their work showed that small-scale reservoir irrigation at Dorongo had similar land profitability (LP) compared to the mediumscale reservoir of Tono. The financial return to water was about 58% and 64% of the mean total revenue with an estimated value of water at 0.20 US$ m -3 and 0.31 US$ m -3 at Tono and Dorongo, respectively (Mdemu 2008). The contribution of water to the total return was much higher than that of other inputs (Figure 4), indicating the importance of water to dry season tomato production.  In analysing the economic performance of the pump irrigation system, Agyare et al. (2008) considered production factors such as labor, water and fertilizer productivities as the main factors constraining production in the dry season. The observed mean return to labor of GH¢3.31 per man-day (Table 3) was more than twice the mean daily wage for labor at the time of the study. Agyare et al. (2008) also observed performance as affected by age, gender and education (Table 4). The productivity factors were classified as low if less than one and high if greater than one. The estimated productivity indicators were highest for the age group 41-50 and also for men. This was attributed to the fact that people in this age group tend to be both mature and experienced and could improve productivity on their fields by taking the right farming decisions. In the study area, dry season farming is largely dominated by men because they have easier access to farm lands and also could cope with the drudgery associated with pump irrigation itself. It is evident from Table 4 that people with formal education (Basic, Secondary or Post Secondary) have higher total factor productivity and water productivity, with Basic education being the most important. Irrigation management has two major components, namely management of the scheme as a business entity and irrigation water management.The business managerial function is the overall direction and coordination of the decisionmaking process which usually involves monitoring those factors which influence the irrigation system performance, namely resources (i.e. finance, manpower and equipment), skills (i.e. technical, management and communication know-how) and the motivation of staff (i.e. salaries, bonuses, material and non-material incentives, promotions, job satisfaction and recognition of exceptional contributions by individuals). This function is generally performed by Ghana Irrigation Development Authorithy (GIDA), but as a government agency with limited budget and staffing, it is not able to maintain adequate technical expertise in all departments of irrigation and so cannot ensure higher productivity on projects. Political interference and lack of timely release of project funds are serious constraints.The adoption of appropriate water management policies will lead to substantially increased crop production with regards to yield, which on the average is higher than under rainfed conditions. This includes water distribution (i.e. system operation), systems maintenance and irrigation extension. Simple moisture sensing and flow measuring devices to give an indication of how much and when water is required, so as to improve on irrigation efficiency, are usually lacking. Proper land preparation needed to ensure efficient water management to enhance even water flow is usually not well done. Therefore the problem of low or high spots affecting water distribution is a common feature. There is high wastage leading to problems such as rise of water table, water logging, leaching of nutrients, erosion, as well as waterborne and water-related diseases. % Increase in Credit Access % Change in Irrigated Area Dessalegn (2006) highlighted the importance of access to credit in increasing the area cultivated under irrigation (Table 5). This emphasizes the fact that farmers are willing to expand the irrigated area if the necessary resources are provided.A key production constraint that came out of the focus groups discussions held with dry season pump irrigation farmers in five communities in the Upper East Region is the high cost of pumps and accessories (Agyare et al. (2008). However, the issue of access to credit, pests and diseases, fertilizer and agrochemicals cost and fuel are equally important. Other constraints such as the lack of fences to keep livestock out of the fields, the undulating nature of the land, maintenance problems, and theft were of lower importance.What is very Important for achieving agricultural industrialization in Ghana is not only focusing all efforts on expanding the area under irrigation but also improving on the water productivity or yield per unit water use of existing structures and future irrigation schemes to an appreciable level. Also, there is the need to support farmers with adequate credit facilities to enable them expand their farm sizes and use the necessary inputs to increase productivity. The choice of irrigation option must take into consideration social and economic factors as well. However the key factors that must be considered are profitability, efficiency and sustainable use of the schemes. Whether the choice is for dams, underground abstraction or river pumping it must be based on these criteria.Poverty and food insecurity continue to create suffering across the semi-arid Sudano-Sahelian zone of West Africa. Unpredictable droughts cause food shortages for both humans and the livestock on which they depend. The predominantly sandy soils in this zone are of very low fertility, particularly in phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N), with P being more limiting to crop growth and yield than N (Bationo et al. 1998a, b). It was reported that crop response to nitrogen was minimal when crop phosphorous requirements were not met (Traore 1974). Sivakumar (1992) reported that the limited arable land in the Sudano-Sahelian zone is gradually decreasing due to the southward creep of the 400 mm isohyet as a consequence of land degradation, drought and other human activities. In addition, the high population growth rate (3.4% per annum) and resultant increasing population density have put a lot of pressure on the cultivated lands, which leads to a significant decrease, and disappearance in some cases, of fallow lands. Because of this, farmers are increasingly being forced to cultivate marginal and degraded lands where moisture and nutrient stress significantly constrain crop yields, and which also results in further land degradation. Stoorvogel and Smaling (1990) reported that because of these problems, increases in crop production have resulted more from the expansion of the cultivated area than from increased crop yield.It is widely believed that the only real cure for hunger in the West African Sahel is the intensification of agriculture and in increased productivity of the arable land through the use of external inputs, mainly inorganic fertilizers (Van Keulen and Breman 1990;Breman 1990). Soil fertility enhancement technologies have been developed over the years for the main staple food crops in West Africa, such as sorghum and millet. However, these technologies have not been adopted by resource-poor farmers due to the high cost and unavailability of the inputs. Consequently, yields of the major staple food crops such as sorghum and millet have continued to decrease.To address these constraints and increase the productivity of these major staple food crops, various national and international research institutions working in the Sahel joined forces and developed an effective technique to increase fertilizer use efficiency and reduce investment costs for resource-poor small scale farmers (Bationo et al., 1998a, b;Buerkert and Hiernaux, 1998). This resulted in the development of the fertilizer microdosing technology, which involves the application of small doses of fertilizer in the hill of the target grain crop at planting rather than broadcasting it all over the field. The amount applied is typically 60 to 80% of the recommended rates for maximum yield. Microdosing is affordable to the poor because of the reduced investment cost, and it results in more rapid early growth, thus avoiding early season drought, and an earlier finish, avoiding or reducing the impact of endof season drought while increasing crop yields (Tabo et al. 2006, Tabo et al. 2007). A vigorous plant with a large root system is able to exploit moisture at greater depth later in the season when soil moisture at the surface of the soil is low. This paper reports the results of on-farm evaluation trials and demonstrations of the microdosing technology in three countries in West Africa, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.Demonstrations and on-farm trials involving microdosing technology were conducted in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger between 1998 and 2004. These field experiments were designed by researchers but were managed by the farmers, with training and technical backstopping from extension agents, NGOs, and scientists. Experimental plots and types of fertilizers used varied across the study sites depending on the local conditions and the availability of inputs.The on-farm field experiments consisted of three adjacent plots per farmer, each plot measuring approximately 300 m 2 . Three treatments were compared in Mali: (1) farmers' practice, using their normal sowing method (often broadcast), and fertilizer practice (usually none), (2) the recommended fertilizer application (about 100 kg NPK (15:15:15) per ha broadcast before sowing), and (3) fertilizer microdosing at 4 to 6 g per hill of NPK (15:15:15) (40 to 60 kg NPK per ha), or 2 grams of diammonium phosphate (DAP) per hill (20 kg DAP per ha), or 2 g of DAP (20 kg DAP per ha) at sowing + 1 g of urea (10 kg urea per ha) at thinning, 3 to 4 weeks after sowing. Farmers were asked to plant the fields when they felt that soil moisture was adequate for germination of the seeds. There were usually two farmers who applied the microdosing technique, with one person digging the hole and the second placing the measured quantity of fertilizer and seeds into the planting hole and closing it. Weeding was done at least twice during the cropping season. Thinning to 3 plants per hill was done two to three weeks after sowing. Harvesting was done by farmers in each plot under the supervision of field technicians, who collected the yield data. The panicles were weighed and then threshed for grain yield measurement.In Burkina Faso and Niger, only treatments 1 and 3 were compared. In Niger the test crops used were millet and sorghum. Plant density under farmer conditions ranged from 5,000 to 6,000 hills per ha while plant density in the microdose plots ranged from 10,000 to 20,000 hills per ha.In Burkina Faso, 30 villages and 210 farmers in the Central North Zone were involved in these studies from 2002-2004. In Mali the on-farm trials were carried out in 44 villages in the region of Mopti, Segou, Koulikoro, Mande and Beledougou, with 321 farmers, in 2002 and 2003. In Niger, approximately 1,536 demonstrations and field experiments were established in 254 villages in five departments in southern Niger, namely Tillabery, Dosso, Tahoua, Maradi and Zinder, from 1998-2004.In addition to the field trials, an economic evaluation was carried out to assess the performance of fertilizer microdosing. Net gain was calculated as the difference between the revenues from the grain using the prevailing price at harvest each year and the total cost of fertilizer as:where, NG = net gain; R = revenue from sale of grains; and C = cost of fertilizer Net gain was expressed in FCFA (Franc Communauté Financière Africaine) per ha. The cost of labour was not included as the data were collected from plots that are not large enough and the data were not reliable. The value of the straw (used for animal feed) was not included in the revenue.Field technicians, extension agents and farmers in all the three participating countries were trained in the laying out of the demonstration plots and in applying fertilizer microdosing. This included demonstrations in the field of how to measure the recommended amount of fertilizer per plant (microdose), how to apply it correctly, and how to manage the field after sowing. Emphasis was also put on the best way of collecting agronomic as well as economic data from the trials set up.Throughout the study period (2002 to 2004), average yields with microdosing were higher than yields of the farmers' traditional practice. The yield advantage of microdosing for millet ranged from 44 % in 2002 to 75 % in 2003, while sorghum grain yield increase with microdosing ranged from 47 % in 2002 to 82 % in 2003 (Figures 1 and 2). Farmers obtained net returns from their millet with microdosing that were three times higher than the revenue with the recommended rate with fertilizer broadcast (12575 FCFA ha -1 as compared to 5175 FCFA ha -1 ). The net gains for sorghum were approximately 2.5 times higher with microdosing (22780 FCFA ha -1 vs. 9255 FCFA ha -1 ) Sorghum and millet performed better with microdosing than with the recommended practice and farmers' practice. Average millet and sorghum grain yields with microdosing were 61-90 % and 69-107 % higher, respectively than the control (Figures 3 and 4). Millet under microdosing gave net monetary gains of 119690 FCFA (US$200.00) ha -1 which were 68 % higher than the net returns from the traditional practice with 71167 FCFA (US$119) ha -1 and 33 % higher than the net gain from the recommended practice (89959 FCFA ha -1 = US$150) In all the 58 fields, over 3 seasons, microdosing resulted in similar or higher (by up to 89%) grain yield compared to farmers' practice (Figure 5). The yield increase with microdosing averaged 44% or about 300 kg ha -1 , and in approximately half (44%) of the fields yields were at least doubled.  The results show that fertilizer microdosing has great potential to improve crop yields and profitability, in a range of environments and rainfall situations. Overall grain yield increases using microdosing were double the yields obtained from the farmers traditional practice. The technology offers the resource poor small scale farmers a good opportunity to reduce risks to investment under the unpredictable environment of the semi-arid tropics while it enables a significant increase in crop yield. Because of the low rates of fertilizers used, farmers can reduce greatly their costs of production. As farmers see the benefits obtained from these small quantities of fertilizer, they are more willing to invest in fertilizers and increase fertilizer use. The fertilizer microdosing technology is therefore an entry point for increased use of fertilizers in farmers fields, which can lead to sustainable development.As with any promising technology there is a need to build the capacity of various stakeholders including extension agents, NGOs and researchers to enhance the dissemination of the technique as well as ensuring the sustainability of the systems. Demonstrations and farmers field schools approach have proven to be an effective means for the promotion of this technology.An issue that requires further investigation is the possibility of soil mining arising from using the fertilizer microdosing technology. As grain yields increase and very little organic matter (OM), including crop residues, are returned into the soil there is the likelihood that nutrient imbalances will develop with time. There is therefore a need to ensure that organic matter is added and incorporated into these soils to improve their structure so that their capacity to store adequate moisture and nutrients even after crops are harvested is enhanced.Our results suggest that fertilizer microdosing has the potential to greatly increase yields across a range of agro-ecological zones in West Africa, from the drier Sahelian zone to the wet Sudano-Guinean environment. Overall, millet and sorghum grain yields were 50 to 120 % higher with microdosing than with the earlier recommended fertilizer broadcasting rates and farmers' traditional practices. This simple technology is affordable to resource poor small scale farmers in the semi-arid tropics as it enables them to reduce the risk to investments and increase crop yields. As this technology requires two people to implement, there is a need to further look into various strategies to reduce labor input, such as the use of mechanical seeders and fertilizer application equipment.van Keulen, H. and H. Breman. 1990. Agricultural development in the West African Sahelan region: a cure against land hunger? Agric. .Institutional innovation: the potential of the warrantage system to underpin the green revolution in Africa Countries in the West Africa semi-arid tropics (WASAT) are among those designated by the United Nations as the least developed countries in the World on the basis of low national income, weak human assets and high economic vulnerability. The majority of the inhabitants of these countries live and work in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. The fast growing human population in these Sahelian countries is placing enormous demands on the food production systems. Given that more than 90% of the food consumed in the WASAT comes from local production, the economic and physical well-being of poor people in these countries will depend on stabilizing and increasing agricultural productivity through more effective and efficient practices and technologies. Growth in agricultural productivity is critical because it means more food and higher incomes, and thus improved ability to purchase food and other basic necessities, for the many food-insecure, poor people who earn their livelihoods through agricultural production. Growth in agricultural productivity also translates into increased food supplies and lower food prices for consumers. However, increased in agricultural productivity must be achieved and sustained without jeopardizing the productive capacity of the natural resource baseIn these semi-arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa, agricultural productivity is low and stagnating due to low and erratic rainfall and the long term decline in soil fertility, compounded by limited use of inputs (such as fertilizer and seeds of improved varieties). Socio-economic factors like lack of access to credit and inputs are major constraints to the use of inputs. Crop yields and net returns to inputs can be significantly increased through the adoption of improved technologies, and especially through the use of fertilizers in a more efficient manner (i.e. fertilizer microdosing, Tabo et al., 2009), and through improved soilwater-crop-nutrient management techniques and improved high yielding varieties (Fosu et al. 2008;Sawadogo et al., 2008;Twomlow et al., 2009) . However, liquidity constraints often prevent farmers from intensifying their production systems, and it is clear that credit systems are needed to help remove barriers to the use of fertilizer and improved seeds.The warrantage or inventory credit system has been practised in Asia for many years, but was recently introduced in the Sudano-Sahelian region of West Africa. Farmers in the region are aware of the benefits of fertilizers, but they usually cannot afford them. Thus, recognizing the widespread low crop productivity in the region as a result of the slow adoption rate of improved soil management technologies, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in collaboration with ICRISAT and other partners initiated the \"warrantage\" system to solve farmers' liquidity constraints.The warrantage system allows farmers and producer organizations to mortgage their cereals at harvest time to secure a loan in order to meet their daily needs and to carry out incomegenerating activities during the off-season, without selling their grains into a glutted market at a lower price. These cereal grains and grains of other crops are kept in a clean store with a double lock -representatives of the Farmers Organization and the Decentralized Financial Systems (DFS), which are the village level credit and savings schemes, each place a padlock on the doors thus ensuring that both partners are present and agreeable to open the doors. The products are sold by farmers 6 to 7 months later when the supply of grain declines in the market and prices are higher. The establishment of this credit scheme allows households to smooth their consumption patterns, thus reducing the risk of food shortage. The credit system is being popularized with the assistance of farmers' organizations, FAO, some commercial banks, NGOs and donors.The warrantage system can be used as a link between credit, cereal grain markets, and input markets, and can help remove the inaffordability barrier to the adoption of fertilizers and other inputs. To make inputs accessible to farmers, farmer-based business enterprises and cooperative organizations are developed, storage facilities and input shops (boutique d' intrants) are built, and credit and savings schemes are established. These facilities are managed by members of the cooperatives. Linking farmers to input or product markets, and the vertical integration between these, are believed to be prerequisites to the uptake of agricultural technologies. Efforts to develop institutional arrangements likely to improve the linkages of rural households to major markets are often major development challenges.The issue of potential surplus in the Sahel and Sudanian zones of West Africa is also important. In most years, since farmers need cash, a glut of grain goes on the market at harvest time, causing prices to collapse. It is important to manage the surplus by storing it and dispersing it to the market in a gradual and orderly way, including perhaps through the expansion of national and regional emergency grain reserves.This paper reviews the findings of studies that were conducted in West Africa with financial support from USAID and the Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) (Tabo et al. 2005;Tabo et al. 2007). The USAID funded project on microdosing and the warrantage system was implemented in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger from 2002 to 2004 while the CPWF funded project was executed in Burkina Faso and Ghana from 2004 to 2009. In the paper we also review the socio-economic, political and cultural conditions under which this system works, identify gaps in understanding that need to be filled to help the implementation of the system, and suggest mechanisms for promoting the adoption of the scheme by resource poor farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa.The warrantage system was evaluated in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger from 2002 to 2004, during which approximately 60 farmer organizations were involved in the study, with a total credit of 73. 6 million FCFA (Franc Communauté Financière Africaine) or about US$150 000 from the DFS.The Farmer Organizations (FOs) stored their excess production in their warrantage stores.The excess grains were used to guarantee the cash loans that the farmers took from the Savings and Credit Scheme (CREP) /bank/micro credit system. The credit was for short duration (maximum of 6 months) and was intended only for carrying out income generating activities. The amount of credit which could be granted to the producer was equal to 75% of the value of the stock which he/she put into the store. The remaining 25% was the guarantee for the risks. The interest rate was 15%. At the end of the loan period, in agreement with the farmer, the store keeper sold the entire or part of his stock to pay the capital and the interest of the loan. This sale was done through the organization of a cereal sale or through contracts signed with cereal traders, processors, etc. At the same time, for the storage period, the farmer paid overhead charges to the co-operative. The additional value of the stock above the loan, loan interest and overhead charges was paid to the farmer.The warrantage credit system was initiated in 2003 in Burkina Faso with only 8 farmer organizations in the targeted areas. Some villages were already receiving financial assistance from the DFS, that were affiliated to the NGOs operating in the villages, to undertake incomegenerating activities. In 2004, 176 farmers in the targeted areas participated in the microcredit program (Table 1).  2 and 3). The farmers were charged a loan fee of about 2.5% of the loaned amount.  In Niger, 40 farmer associations were involved in the warrantage credit scheme in 2003-2004compared to 23 in 2002-2003. In 2002-2003, the DFS financed about 34.1 million FCFA (US$ 68,150), or approximately 93 % of the value of the stored grains under the warrantage system. Income generating activities that were pursued by farmers using this credit included groundnut oil extraction, vegetable gardening, sheep fattening, small trade, etc. In 2003-2004, the local DFS was able to raise 11.5 million FCFA (US$ 23,000) for the warrantage activities in the targeted areas (Figure 1). However, these funds were not sufficient to meet the demands of the producers at the opportune time. The acuity of the problem was particularly severe in the regions of Zinder and Maradi, where no financing was available. Farmers from regions that received some credit undertook various income-generating activities (i.e., small trade) and purchased inputs. Producers, for the most part, stored millet, sorghum, and groundnuts. Because of the lack of cash from the DFS during the year, out of the 2.873 million FCFA (US$ 5,774) loan amount requested, farmers were granted only 1. 4 million FCFA (US$ 2,900), or about 49 percent of the amount asked (Table 1). Furthermore, only farmers in the north zone of the country were granted credit, as requests for credit in the center and middle-center zones were denied due to lack of liquidity in the banks. The lack of credit in those areas was a great impediment to the conduct of income-generating activities during the dry season. This situation did not, however, eliminate the advantages of the warrantage system since farmers got higher prices for the stored products later in the season when the supply of grains had decreased in the market. The profit margins could have been higher if the farmers had been able to obtain cash loans and engage in dry season income generating activities. The lesson to be drawn from this situation is that efforts should be made to link the DFS with commercial banks that could make cash available to the village banks, thereby enabling the farmers' organizations to provide cash loans to the farmers against their stored products.The amount of the loan depends on the liquidity in the banks. However, even without receiving a loan farmers can store their products and make profits later when prices go up. The lack of a loan is mainly an impediment for the conduct of income generating activities.The net benefits obtained by farmers' associations from the sales of their products 6 to 7 months after storage were about 2.64 million (US$ 5,305) in 2002-2003 and 2.68 million FCFA (US$ 5,360) in 2003-2004 (Tables 2 and 3). The farmer associations involved in warrantage activities used the credit to undertake income-generating activities (i.e., steaming and trading of rice, sheep fattening, small business, groundnut oil extraction, etc.). The farmers also used the profits realized under the warranting schemes to purchase fertilizer and seeds of improved varieties for the next cropping season.Niger Figure 1 shows an example of the variation in how the system functioned in different regions in Niger during 2003/2004. In some regions such as Dosso and Tillabery the system performed well as the farmers were given the equivalent amount of cash loan against their warranted products. This was an indication that the DFS had enough liquidity because of a good linkage to the commercial banks and their own savings and credit systems. These two regions are closer to the capital city of Niamey, where there are large commercial banks that provide loans to the DFS, than the other regions in the study. Because of the close proximity with the villages where the warrantage systems are operating, the representatives of the commercial banks are able to visit the warrantage infrastructure and determine their credibility. These visits offer an opportunity to the banks to have more confidence in the warrantage system. In addition, the presence of several projects funded by GTZ, FAO and the European Fund for Development near these two regions provided an opportunity for training and financial support to the DFS. Due to this enabling environment, farmers organizations were able to have better access to credit and also to save more money in the banks. In contrast, the warrantage system did not work well in Maradi and Zinder where there was not enough cash in the DFS to give cash to the farmers for their stored grains. These two regions are farther away from the capital city of Niamey and do not have much contact with the large commercial banks. In such cases, efforts are needed to link the DFS to commercial banks to ensure that funds are available for loans to the farmers who are willing to place their products as collateral and get some credit to enable them meet their daily needs and undertake income generating activities.Burkina FasoParticipatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) studies conducted in 2005 in Burkina Faso enabled us to characterize the 2 project sites (Saala and Ziga) in terms of socio-economic status including infrastructure, internal and external relationships between farmer organizations, and development partners (public, private and NGOs). Infrastructure included the farmers' capacity for product storage to secure the warranted products. In each village, warehouses that can contain up to 30 tons of products were identified. Overall, partnerships between the various stakeholders were poorly developed due to lack of consultation and lack of financial means to meet and engage in common activities. The project had to develop a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the decentralized financial institution, namely the \"Direction Régionale des Caisses Populaires\", farmers' organizations and the Project 5 (PN 5) in each village. The protocols described in detail the role of each partner in the warrantage system as well as the conditions for farmers to access credit and to repay the loans.Table 4 shows the quantities of warranted products in 2005-2006 (year 1) and 2006-2007 (year 2). There was a higher number of product types stored in Saala compared to Ziga because of greater diversification of the cropping systems in Saala which had higher annual rainfall and better soil fertility than Ziga. In the second year (2006)(2007), the quantity of products used in the warrantage system increased by 34% in Ziga and 493% in Saala as there was increasing interest of farmers in the warrantage system following their experiences with it in the first year (2005)(2006). Farmers saw the merits of storing their harvest safely until prices go up before selling them.  ) and Hunger project took part in this workshop. The objectives of the workshop were to acquaint the partners in Burkina Faso with the warrantage credit system, to draw from the experiences of Nigerien farmers with the system, and to assess the feasibility of starting the credit system in some villages of Burkina Faso. The participants interacted to define the action plan and the framework within which the USAID TARGET Project was to launch the warrantage credit system in Burkina Faso. The participants also visited the demonstration of fertilizer microdosing trials in the Kaya and Malgrentega regions, and interacted with farmers in these regions.Under CPWF PN 5, approximately 100 farmers were trained in the various aspects of credit and market management in 2005-2006. This resulted in the capability of the farmers to make informed decisions and to better manage the credit and income generation activities. Each village formed its own management committee comprising a credit manager, a stock manager and a warehouseman/store keeper.There is general agreement in the agricultural research, policy and development community that enhancing farmers' access to more efficient and equitable markets is a crucial pathway out of widespread poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Ndjeunga and Bantilan (2005) concluded from their case studies in Mali and Burkina Faso that farmers who are close to markets are likely to apply more fertilizer to derive more surplus for sales. They further stated that farmers located in environments with better access to the main roads are more likely to invest in fertilizer because they incur less transport cost in bringing their products or purchasing inputs and other consumption goods from the markets. They recommended that policy makers should foster investment in road infrastructure to reduce transport or transaction costs and provide an enabling environment for the development of input and product markets. Successful agricultural development, and in fact any rural development strategy, must target and address the challenges (such as poor access to both input and output markets) that the millions of small farmers face. The number of poor living on small farms in Sub-Saharan Africa continues to increase at an alarming rate along with a reduction in average farm size and degradation in land quality, posing a daunting challenge to research and development efforts in the region. Research and development are particularly essential if the strategy of introducing improved technologies that increase smallholder farmer productivity is to lead to better farmers' income, family health and improved well-being for those rural populations. Wider uptake of improved agricultural technologies is often inhibited by lack of inputs, finance (credit and loan) and output markets, important preconditions for effective input demand and to increase in surplus production by farmers.Linking farmers to inputs like fertilizer and seeds and product markets, as well as effective coordination and integration of these two markets, are important prerequisites for the adoption of agricultural technologies. Although in these case studies, data have not been collected or fully analyzed to demonstrate the link between warrantage and the adoption of new and improved technologies, we hypothesize that as farmers have better access to credit, inputs and markets through the warrantage system, they are more likely to increase their investments in intensifying their production systems and to take additional risks in trying improved technologies. As more functional warrantage systems are established in the villages and as the DFS become better linked to larger commercial banks which can provide some with needed capital, future efforts will focus on studying and strengthening the connection between the warrantage system and the adoption of improved technologies.Some of the major constraints to the development of warrantage systems include: i) the lack of sufficient capital for the DFS to grant loans and for supervising bodies to provide guarantees; ii) interference of the government through the dumping of imported commodity onto the market; iii) lack of storage infrastructure at the village level, and iv) the lack of wellorganized of farmer associations (Table 5).These constraints can be addressed through: i) support to the DFS to source funds with commercial banks and to negotiate good interest rates; for example, in Niger the Credit Rural du Niger (CRN) and la Banque Regionale de Solidarite (BRS) help to identify banks and advise and assist in linking the DFS to commercial banks; ii) sensitization of people to mobilize savings; iii) negotiation with the DFS to value stocks of products; iv) diversification of products to be stored; v) sourcing information to anticipate the de-stocking of products; vi) negotiation with government for the purchase of products covered by the warrantage system; vii) establishment of secondary warehouses in new villages; viii) sensitization of farmers' organizations to the construction of warehouses; ix) seeking support from other projects providing assistance for the establishment of community infrastructure; x) training of farmers organizations in warehouse management; xi) training of farmers organizations in management bodies and their roles, and xii) training of farmers organizations in the keeping of management documents (Table 5).The key interventions that will lead to adoption of improved technology and reduction of poverty include the following:(i) Institutional changes: The warrantage or inventory credit system is critical to enhance farmers' access to inputs at reasonable and affordable prices and to offer them the opportunity to sell their outputs at good prices. Key ingredients of the institutional changes needed include: input-output market development and efficient coordination to ensure access to credit and availability of inputs; establishment of linkages between farmers' organizations and DFS. The provision of small packs of fertilizers (1, 2, 5, and 10 kg) in input shops provides the opportunity for small poor farmers to be able to afford to start using fertilizers (Simpungwe et al., 2008). This is first step towards the intensification of production through increased use of fertilizers (Tabo et al. 2009).Government policy is also critical for viable farmer input-output market linkages that would enhance returns to investment in integrated soil fertility management. According to Doss (2003), institutional factors, such as the policy environment, also affect the availability of inputs and markets for credit and outputs and, thus, the profitability of a technology. Ajayi et al. (2003) note that adoption of soil fertility management options cannot happen in a policy vacuum. The promotion of high-value agricultural enterprises is one policy direction that is likely to generate increased income and investment in integrated soil fertility management (Place et al. 2003).(ii) Capacity building: to foster the emergence of farmer-leaders and agro-dealers, strengthen credit systems, train managers of DFS, train extensionists and farmers in crop technologies and warrantage, build capacity to supply fertilizers, diversify fertilizer supply sources (input shops) and build capacity of farmer organizations.(iii) Provision of infrastructure: Construction and renovation of roads to facilitate movement of goods and inputs such as fertilizers; construction of -stores for keeping grains and inputs under safe conditions, workshops for construction and repairs of farm equipment; mechanization of farm operations to reduce labor costs and improve efficiency; establishment of input shops to keep fertilizers, seeds, chemicals and other inputs that will be accessible to farmers at the right times and at affordable prices; establishment of micro-finance institutions to make credit available to poor smallholder farmers; establishment of a good communication infrastructure that will deliver market information to producers. -Training of FOs in management bodies and their roles.-Training of FOs in the keeping of management documents.The warrantage or inventory credit system has shown its potential in enhancing farmers' access to credit and cash, inputs and output market. This scheme is gaining increasing support from donors for its wider promotion in Sub-Saharan Africa. Constraints to the development and implementation of warrantage systems include the lack of capital for the decentralized financial systems (DFS) to grant loans and for supervising bodies to provide guarantees, the interference of the government through the dumping of imported commodities onto the market, the lack of infrastructure at the village level, and the lack of well-organized farmers' associations. These constraints should be taken into account when promoting the scheme. Five major priorities for intervention to facilitate adoption of the warrantage system are: (1) Capacity building (of farmers, farmers' associations, and other service providers) for effective production, marketing and decision-making; (2) Creating innovative production and marketing ventures and strengthening market information systems;(3) Identification and mitigation of policy constraints, and creation of incentives; (4) Dissemination and promotion to farmers and farmers associations; and (5) Monitoring and evaluation of the performance and impacts. In the future, efforts are needed to study and demonstrate the link between the warrantage system and the adoption of improved technologies.About 60 -85% of the rural populations of Sub-Saharan Africa engage in agriculture as a means of livelihood. However agricultural productivity, especially in the food sector, is low and at subsistence levels. The situation results in severe poverty and stagnant rural economies, low labor productivity and under-employment. According to John W. Mellor (1966) \"a dynamic contribution to economic development from the agricultural sector and significant improvement in rural welfare depend upon the modernization of agriculture through technological change\". Recent experiences in countries like Malaysia, India, Thailand and Vietnam also suggest that the adoption of improved technologies in agriculture is one of several necessary conditions for the development and modernization of rural economies. Technology improvement is the process by which humans modify nature to meet their needs and wants. It involves the application of science, knowledge and tools to manipulate the environment for the benefit of humans, ideally without damaging the environment.Two types of technologies have been identified. The first consist of hard technologies which are science based and improve the technical coefficients of production and processing. Hard technologies impact on technical relationships (input/output). These technologies can have faster pay-offs to the producer or processor by reducing cost per unit, thereby reducing the amount of inputs for the same level of output, or by increasing output for the same level of inputs. Returns on these types of investment, which normally occur over the short term, could be high if well adopted. The second type, known as soft technologies, involves changes in market or other environmental requirements and result in improvements in productivity.Examples are changing demand in food quality, food safety, product certification, product traceability as in beef and milk for instance, market information (pricing efficiency), forward contracting agreements, business skills, and access to credit. The returns on investment for many of these technologies may be harder to measure and take a longer time to materialize than for the hard technologies.Even though several technologies of both types have been introduced to farmers in developing countries, the adoption rate of the majority of these technologies have been minimal and most often unproductive or short lived. This paper highlights some experiences of technology transfers to small-scale resource poor farmers in Ghana and Kenya using case studies. The purpose of the review is to acquaint readers with work on some technology developments in agriculture, the dispersion procedures used, and the extent of adoption and causes of non adoption. Such information can assist decision makers in selecting technologies for promotion, and methods for achieving higher adoption and productivity.The methodology for the review was adopted from Taylor (1998) in her paper \"Efforts to Help the Small-Scale, Resource Poor Farmer in International Agricultural Development\". Using the model of Exploratory Literature Review, she highlighted important issues essential to improving in small-scale farm productivity. Likewise, this paper reviews the evaluation of efforts made to introduce agricultural technologies to resource poor farmers, their successes and failures as well as the constraints hindering their adoption.The review covered six cases of technology promotion, summarizing each promotion by focusing on the title, objectives, methodology, results and the main conclusions (Table 1).The review covered the following studies:1. Adoption and Impacts of Improved Maize Production Technology: A case Study of the Ghana Grains Development Project This case study was one of a series of adoption evaluations coordinated by the Impact Assessment and Evaluation Group (IAEG) of the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). It examined the adoption of improved maize production technologies developed by the Ghana Grains Development Project (GGDP), a subsidiary of the Crops Research Institute (CRI), which operated from 1979 to 1997 (Michael et al. 1997).The study sought to achieve the following objectives:1. To evaluate the success of the GGDP in developing improved maize production technologies and transferring the technologies to farmers.2. To assess the impacts of the technologies at the farm level.Three of the most important technologies studied were:1. Improved maize varieties (germplasm) 2. Fertilizer recommendationsData on the adoption of these technologies were collected through a nationwide survey of maize farmers. A sample of 420 farmers was drawn for interview by a three-stage clustered, randomized procedure. Questions centered on maize production, consumption and marketing practices, preferences for maize varietal characteristics, knowledge and access to inputs such as seeds and fertilizers. Analytical procedures consisted mainly of statistical inferences including the estimation of percentages, frequencies and standard deviations.The results of this study indicated that the GGDP adopted an extremely effective research strategy. By extensively testing experimental technologies at the farm level, researchers were able to foster the active participation of farmers in the technology development process; this helped ensure that the recommendations developed through the project were appropriate for farmers' circumstances. The GGDP was able to link its research component with an effective extension strategy. During the technology development phase, considerable efforts were made to familiarize extension officers with the technologies by involving them in on-farm testing activities. Once farmer recommendations had been formulated, the same extension officers played a key role in implementing a national program of demonstration trials that served to widely publicize the technologies.However, the following prevailing key factors affected adoption of the technologies.Characteristics of the technology, including the complexity of the technology, and its profitability, riskiness, divisibility and compatibility with other technologies or practices. Characteristics of the farming environment into which the technology is introduced, including agro-climatic conditions, the nature of prevailing cropping systems, the degree of commercialization of the cropping enterprise, factor availabilities, farmers' knowledge and access to technical information, availability of physical inputs.Characteristics of the farmer making the adoption decision, such as the farmers' personal circumstances, including ethnicity and culture, wealth, education, gender, and security of access to land. Institutional and policy factors, including the existence of: effective extension services, efficient inputs distribution systems, and appropriate economic incentives which could enable a technology to make a meaningful impact at the farm level.This study focused on technology adoption by small-scale farmers in the Mamprusi area of the Northern Region of Ghana. The central hypothesis was that the strategies used for diffusion of improved technology to small-scale farmers in the north have been inadequate or inappropriate and that this is why the aims of development agencies have not been realized in this region (Owusu-Baah 1995).The objectives of the study included the following:1. a review of the aims and strategies pursued by rural-development projects, such as the Northern Region Improvement Project (NORRIP), in their attempts to diffuse improved technology among the peasants of the Mamprusi area;2. conduct of a preliminary survey of the areaʹs farming community to outline the factors relevant to the adoption of technologies in this district;3. conduct of formal and quantitative surveys to test hypotheses suggested by the preliminary survey;4. suggestions for decision-makers of ways to facilitate the adoption of technology by rural farmers.After a preliminary survey of official and farm sources, detailed interviews were conducted with a sample of 69 randomly selected farmers to obtain information on farm households and farming practices and to identify some of the constraints to increased food production.Results indicated that essential ingredients are missing in technological packages introduced to small-scale farmers. For instance, while prices of fertilizes are too high, the situation is compounded by untimely and inadequate supply and poor accessibility since fertilizer depots are normally few and far from many farming areas. Other problems include the multitude of NGOs controlling technology dissemination and competing with each other with little government supervision.The study recommendations included: The Government of Ghana should take control of agricultural-technology policies and play a leading role in achieving their objectives. NORRIP should be restructured to coordinate the activities of the development agencies and eliminate duplication in their work. The development agencies should come up with strategies to advance loans in the form of cash or agricultural inputs to farmers. Canals and dams should be built to conserve excess water from the heavy rains since modern technologies cannot rely on rains only. The development agencies operating in the Mamprusi area should take advantage of the governmentʹs new policy on fertilizer imports to import their own fertilizers and other agricultural inputs for farmers in their catchment areas. Ministry of Food and Agriculture should team up with the development agencies to solve the marketing and storage problems of producers.This study investigated the role of social learning in the diffusion of new agricultural technologies in Ghana (Conley et al. 2004). The role of social learning in promoting growth and technology diffusion has been featured in the endogenous growth literature (Romer 1986;Lucas 1988;Aghion and Hewitt 1998). Social learning is also an integral part of current practice in agricultural research and extension systems in developing countries. New technologies are introduced either by farmers' own experimentation or through formal sector intervention and the process of social learning encourages their diffusion (Bindlish and Evenson 1997;Rogers 1995).Data for the study were drawn from a two-year survey (1996-98) of approximately 240 households in southern Ghana. The sample was constructed in two stages. The process began with the purposive selection of four 'villages' near the towns of Nsawam and Aburi, the center of the recent growth of intensive vegetable cultivation in the Eastern Region. The second stage was a random sample of married individuals: 60 couples (or triples when there are two wives) were chosen by a simple random sample in each village. Two enumerators lived in or near each village and interviewed each respondent in 15 rounds at intervals of approximately six weeks.Data on farmers' communication patterns were used to define each individual's information neighborhood and the set of others from whom he/she might learn. A basic form of the model used states that farmers are trying to learn about the responsiveness of output on plot (i) to a discrete-valued input which is fertilizer (Equation 1) Empirical logistic correlation is applied to test whether farmers adjust their inputs to align with those of their neighbors with whom they share information.The results indicated that farmers adopt unusually successful neighbors' practices, conditional on physical, economic and demographic factors including common growing conditions, credit arrangements, clan membership, gender, wealth, family ties and religion. The relationship of these input adjustments to farmers' experiences further supports their interpretation as resulting from social learning. Although no evidence of learning was found when the methodology was applied to a known maize-cassava technology, indicating strong traditional experience in these crops, social learning was found to play a significant role in the cultivation decisions of pineapple, a relatively new enterprise requiring the use of fertilizers and perhaps chemicals. Looking at the magnitude of innovations in fertilizer use, results indicate that a farmer is willing to increase his dosage of fertilizer after someone with whom he shares information achieves higher than expected profits with more fertilizer than he used, and decreases his dosage when the reverse occurs.Since the 1980s the problem of soil degradation in Ghana has been on the ascendancy. Apart from international climatic factors like CO2 emissions and associated erratic rainfall patterns which are beyond our control, a myriad of local causal factors have been blamed. Some of these are bushfires which deplete the land of humus accumulation, especially in the northern sector, the shortening of the fallow period, and population pressure with associated fragmentation of land and migration. The resulting manifestations are declining food production per capita and poverty. The future livelihoods of farmers continue to be threatened and effective dissemination of soil management technologies, many of which have been developed and used, is therefore crucial to help reverse the situation.Although soil fertility improvement technologies have been successful in increasing longterm yields, becoming widely adopted in some areas where farmers are investing in soil fertility in response to increasing rural population density, the uptake of soils research outputs has mostly been low in Ghana. It had also been established that technically proficient and participatory research does not necessarily produce appropriate outputs, and that dissemination of research outputs in packages, rather than as targeted advice in terms of agro-ecological concepts already known to farmers, may impede uptake and adaptation (Thorne et al. 1999). Innovations where outputs of soils research were presented as decision trees had began to address this (Palm et al. 1997), and the need for gender specific dissemination of soils research outputs in Africa had also been demonstrated (Gladwin et al. 1997). The collaborating target institutions (FORIG, MOFA and IITA) have expressed the need for a methodology for disseminating soils research outputs which could be used by international research centers, and by local and international NGOs working directly with farmers throughout West Africa. A Soil Management Action Plan for Ghana had already been produced (Bonsu et al. 1996), as well as a National Soil Fertility Management Action Plan (MOFA 1998) which recognized the low inherent fertility of soils in Ghana and the low uptake of soils technologies. It sets out a diverse range of projects (recommendations) aimed at improving soil fertility management in Ghana.The study sought to achieve the following objectives :1. to explore the reasons for low adoption of outputs from soils research in Ghana; 2. to develop effective dissemination strategies; and 3. to suggest ways to bridge a perceived knowledge gap between soils research, dissemination and adoption.The project was therefore aimed at addressing the identified fact that technically feasible outputs from participatory soil fertility research have not enjoyed high adoption rates (NRSP Workshop in Reading 1997 andICAR Workshop Bhopal 1998).The research started with an initial in-country workshop followed by a review of available information on soil fertility research outputs (Fergus et al. 2001).The analysis involved use of statistical inferences, evaluation matrices, generation and flows of knowledge and the development of a methodological framework and tools for soil fertility research and dissemination strategies.The results indicated general reasons for low adoption of techniques to improve soil fertility and crop yield in Ghana which were already well understood and recognized by government. They included the high price of inorganic fertilizer, lack of availability of organic material, and a low level of dissemination activity within the context of a relatively low level of investment in soils research. There is need to undertake effective soils research and dissemination to overcome these constraints. A more essential constraint is the absence of an effective means of focusing research and dissemination on farmers with different circumstances. The available soil fertility technologies were found to be suitable for only a fraction of rural farmers, predominantly those male farmers producing high value cash crops, while technologies directly relevant to women farmers and other marginalized groups were not in place. This mismatch between the technology options being made available and the circumstances of poorer farmers in the forest savanna transition zones of the country were due to (i) lack of understanding of the different sets of constraints and opportunities faced by rural farmers, and (ii) absence of an effective means to focus research and extension activities on farmers' circumstances.In line with the terms of reference, a framework and tool kits were designed to increase the relevance of soils research and dissemination. The tools which are used within the framework comprise of: Options were provided for wide application of the vital aspects of the framework and tools, with appropriate national and local adaptation. Where there is limited market development, few opportunities exist for profitability, and with poor access to highly priced inorganic fertilizers the process of agricultural intensification can become blocked since marketing issues are highly significant to the profitability of different food crops in the country. In some areas market inaccessibility is a problem, whereas in others seasonally low prices or markets flooded by crops (glut) reduce profitability. Improvements in post-harvest storage technology, agricultural credit and farmers' ability to manage cash flow in conjunction with the adoption of improved soils technologies could contribute to more profitable farming.Strategies to improve soil fertility management should not therefore focus on soils technologies alone. Another aspect of technology development and adoption failure is that international and national scientific knowledge is not fully utilized during the development of technologies, and that there is insufficient documentation within the National Agricultural Research Services (NARS) about research activities (Moss 2001). Nor is there adequate information about the livelihoods of rural people for researchers to draw upon, even at the district level. Indications are that the socio-economic and national policy environment is not sufficiently taken into account in the design of research and dissemination activities.Moreover, research results do not always reach farmers due to poor functioning of the extension services. Both the research and extension systems over-rely on external sources of funding for maintaining activities (MOFA 2001). This approach commonly leads to a breakdown in services when sources of funding are finished and are not sustainable.This study evaluated the adoption of a modified traditional high grade mud silo storage technology horizontally transferred to districts where farmers had been using a low grade type that is easily attacked by termites and rodents (Bediako et al. 2005). The initial promotion campaign on the merits of the technology had been very successful in view of the frequent storage loses farmers endure with their traditional inferior structures. The transfer process started with a baseline study in Gushegu/Karaga, the beneficiary district. The use of a bottom-up approach was recommended to ensure community participation in decisions specific to beneficiaries including choice of villages in view of local material availability for construction and maintenance (Stevenson 1999). Farmers were to be informed to procure and prepare local construction materials well in advance of constructions as artisans moved from village to village. Some farmers in each community were to be trained during the construction to ensure sustainability of the new technology.The impact assessment, three years after the installation of the storage structures, had the following objectives:1. to identify the weaknesses and strengths of the promotion process;2. to determine the opportunities offered and the challenges of the new storage structures to beneficiaries; and 3. to examine the experiences of the technology transfer, which may serve as guidance for future promotional campaigns.The methods used consisted mainly of Participatory Rural Appraisals (PRA) procedures with limited questionnaire administration and analysis by statistical inferences and matrices.Results of the study indicated that violations of the baseline study recommendations lead to quality control limitations and a setback to the long-term adoption of the technology. In an attempt to satisfy the unprecedented high demand and huge rush for the technology, the following errors resulted. The know-how, skills and experiences of many of the appointed builders were inadequate, while in many villages 'alternative' building materials were used in place of those recommended leading to the provision of weak structures with wrong designs. The payment of the artisans was on a 'piece-work' basis, (i.e. payment on number constructed) which led to undue haste and shoddy workmanship. The scale of the promotion within the stipulated period, which had itself induced considerable demand by farmers, prevented adequate supervision of the artisans. The recommendation to train community members for future construction and repair works were overlooked.Thus, in spite of its usefulness to farmers and the highly positive response for its adoption, the high rate of breakage (Fig. 1) deterred continued interest in the technology. The socio-economic situation of farmers in the study area are similar to those in many other Sub-Saharan African countries where most farmers are faced with the problem of low income, high population pressure, small land size, and low availability and therefore high cost of labor. In addition, the present economic policy of liberalized markets due to globalization has led to the prices of conventional fertilizers and other farm inputs like hired animal traction and tractor services to rise faster than farm produce prices which are controlled by seasonal local demand forces with only a marginal external demand. Consequently, the adoption of any soil fertility technology option is rationally subject to farmers' perceptions of its economic benefits and limitations. The importance of such requirements makes this study of particular significance for small-scale farmer technology adoption.The overall objective of the study was to carry out an economic analysis of some nonconventional fertilizer materials (agroforestry shrubs) used to improve food production in Vihiga district in Kenya (Kipsat et al. 2001). The results of the study, however, have a wide range of implications for technology adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa.The primary data source was a random sample of 150 farmers selected from three of the six divisions of Vihiga district with official source secondary data. Gross-margins and cost to benefit ratios were used as the main tools in data analysis.The primary results confirmed the supremacy of conventional fertilizers over nonconventional organic counterparts by their higher levels of productivity for both maize and beans. However, results obtained for phosphate rock (PR) fortified organic fertilizers, like fortified Crotalaria, fortified compost, fortified farmyard manure and others (Table 2) show significant increases in yield for both crops compared to organic fertilizers without fortification with PR, and compared to the control (or no application of any type of fertilizer) as practiced by some farmers. Based on crop yield responses, fortified Crotalaria was the best of the organic matter technologies in improving yields of both maize and beans in Vihiga by on average 157 and 112 % respectively, followed by fortified Tithonia by 134, and 93.7 % respectively. The results suggest that PR fortified organic materials are capable of serving as alternatives to inorganic materials in crop production in the study area as well areas with similar conditions.However, the use of organic materials is labor intensive and leads to significant increases in cost where labor is limited, as in areas suffering from rural-urban migration in Sub-Saharan Africa. Economic analysis indicated that there are indeed significant profitability differences between the non-conventional fertilizers, and that the use of fortified Crotalaria and Tephrosia on maize and bean production gave the best profitability in relation to the other nonconventional fertilizers considered (Table 3). Although fortified Tithonia gave higher crop yield than fortified Tephrosia, the net value was lower (Table 3) due to high labor demands and thus high cost. Fortified farmyard and compost manures had relatively low crop yields plus high labor costs, lowering the returns to their use. The Net Present Value) of using unfortified Tithonia and production under conditions of no fertilizers are negative. This means that farmers who produce under these two systems are incurring losses in maize and bean production and should be advised to find alternative use of the invested labor, land and capital. These two technologies resulted in very low Benefit Cost Ratios (<1) while the rest of the soil fertility management technologies under consideration had favorable BCR values. The results show that farmers can achieve positive returns by using the other non-conventional fertilizer technologies, whichever is more convenient to her/him in maize-bean production, although the relative returns vary from technology to technology. Through participatory studies, farmers, scientists and agricultural extension agents should consider profitability differences in the choice of technologies to promote in Vihiga district and in areas of similar soil and environmental conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa. Based on complaints about the lack of seeds of agroforestry shrubs, increasing availability of the seeds to farmers can improve the adoption rate of the profitable technologies and enhance food production in the study area and related areas.Even though farmers' cooperation in adopting technologies is essential, the causes of technology non-adoption in Sub-Sahara Africa result from both farmer and non-farmer sources. The study reveals non adoption causes originating from the technology promoters themselves, and that many of these causes could be avoided through properly designed and executed strategies that fit the needs of farmers, their circumstances and their diversity.","tokenCount":"73285"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e459b1ba7e1779aeced83e59eea3a460","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/1e8ce7b9-cf42-458d-9961-3916bf661b76/retrieve","id":"1941827111"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"81d10d9f-92c3-42fe-a472-5f4af7c93350","pagecount":"1","content":"• How do peace agreements influence land markets in post-conflict zones? Despite extensive research on armed conflict, little is known about the effects of peace agreements on land transactions. This study addresses that gap by exploring rural land markets in Caquetá, Colombia, following the FARC peace agreement.• While there is extensive literature on armed conflict, evidence on the effects of peace agreements on post-conflict land transactions remains limited.• This research pioneers the use of Certificates of Tradition and Liberty (CTL), legal documents that compile agricultural land transaction data.• Caquetá is a department historically affected by the armed conflict, which is a determinant of extensive cattle ranching as an economic activity in the region.• The assumption of parallel trends is fulfilled, in the pre-period there are no significant differences between the treatment and control groups, and in the post period the average difference increases (Figure 2).• The signing of the peace agreements decreases the number of transactions of the agricultural land closest to the conflict by -0.02, relative to the average this is a decrease of 40% (Table 1).• Our results are robust, when we replicate the estimation for the cases of conflict caused by other armed groups or when we apply placebos, since we do not find significant results.• The signing of the peace accords produces a decrease in agricultural land transactions of farms closer to the armed conflict.• The mechanism by which transactions decrease is due to the reduction of uncertainty and the recovery of land tenure security.• Through the CTLs we study the legal land market, however, in developing countries, non-legal land is predominant, therefore, the overall effect on the land market is unknown.• Our findings suggest that post-conflict areas may experience reduced land market activity due to increased land tenure security. This has important implications for policymakers seeking to stabilize rural economies in post-conflict regions.• Spatial data of 140 cattle ranches in Caquetá, Colombia• We also utilize public spatial data on conflict cases from the Observatorio de Memoria y Conflicto.• Identification strategy: We determined the treatment group as the farms closest to conflict cases (Figure 1).• CTL: Transaction information throughout the history of each of the farms.• We employed a difference-in-difference estimation, a method that compares trends in land transactions before and after the peace agreement, between conflict-affected and non-affected areas. • The peace agreements reduce perceived land uncertainty and insecurity.• Qualitative evidence suggests that after the peace agreements, cattle ranchers are less inclined to sell their land and more likely to make productive investments.'Yes, it has changed, and as far back as I can remember, I was in the time when, after six in the evening, there was a curfew; anyone moving around on the roads was a military target. We were very confined, I don't know. And, well, nowadays, after the whole issue with Juan Manuel Santos and the peace process, let's say that the region has grown economically a lot, from what I have observed. How does one notice? By the same way investors were arriving. They were getting to know tourist spots in Caquetá.'• Qualitative and quantitative evidence suggests that farms closer to the conflict are now selling at higher prices.• Evidence of how the end of the conflict has a greater effect where social order was determined by territorial disputes.  ","tokenCount":"548"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2071b7459510387404f7f659bd0a26d8","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/625ae5a3-ff95-49df-a390-bdd20975752a/retrieve","id":"-1837606289"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"1757b494-2458-4bbd-af4b-5db4a8e11633","pagecount":"22","content":"As Ihe above-menlioned names of local paddy species show, Ihey are many and Ihey possess Ihe qualities lo wilhsland maximum rain and Ihe cold climalic condilions of Ihe place. Therefore, as Ihe people had no olher means lo find oul aboul species Ihal have Ihese qualilies, Ihe local people conlinued lo cullivale Ihe species available lo Ihem locally. In Ihis conlexl, in Ihe year 1996 wilh Ihe cooperalion of U-SIRO and Ihe local farmers, Ihe Participalory Planl-Sreeding Program was inilialed.lmmedialely afterlhe program was slarted, U-SIRO dislribuled improved seeds M-3 and M-9 lo five farmers in Ihe village. After Ihe paddy was planled, il was found Ihal Ihese species of paddy were capable of wilhslanding Ihe climalic condilions of Ihis village. So Ihe people of U-SIRO and Ihe Crealive Molhers' Group wenl lo Ihe field area lo inspecl Ihese species of paddy cullivaled on an experimenlal basis. The inspeclion and sludy of Ihe paddy was made on various faclors, like produclion, Ihe heighl of Ihe paddy slraws, and Ihe shape and size of Ihe rice grains. After Ihorough mulual discussions and giving priority lo Ihe farmers' inleresls, Ihe species M-3 and M-9 were accepled as Ihe righl choice for cullivalion. The qualities that we farmers would want in our paddyThe paddy musí have long slraws, full and so Id rice grains. II musí be delicious lo lasle, fragranl, able lo lolerale heavy rains, able lo lolerale Ihe cold, able lo lolerale Ihe fertilizer. II will nol f1ower, nol easily fa 11 , give heavy paddy crops, lake less lime lo ripen, and increase in volume in cooking.As these qualities were no! available in the paddy, we continued to cultivate the local variety. But in the year 1996, LI-SIRO not only brought the M-3 and M-9 varielies but also 144 other varieties of paddy. In the land that belonged to Indra Prasad Poudel, the nursery was made and all the differenl varieties of seed were planted in that plot of land. At that time, due to hailstones, the experiment suffered setbacks, but even then, among them, 30 species were saved and selected for our purposes. In this experiment, three groups were actively involved: U-BIRO, the Mothers' Group, and the Progressive Youth Club.In this way, in the year 1998, the 30 species-selected on the basis of discussions among the local organizations-were distributed among the 30 households of the village, so that each household got to cultivate one particular variety. On the other hand, in the year 1996, U-SIRO had sent us 25 species of paddy and we had also cultivated them. Among the 25 species, our farming community had selected one particular variety on the basis of the harves! produclion, the height of the straw, the taste of the rice, the shape of the rice grain, etc.Among the 144 varieties from 1996, only 30 species were selected, and from the 30, three (the process of selection is continuing).In 1999, from among the 25, one variety was selected. This species was cultivated by Maheswor Poudel in 1999 in two separate fields, and in 2000, he is planning lo cultivate il in Ihree fields. Moreover, al the instigation of the local club, we are planning lo cullrvate that single variety at the rale of 5.5 and 9 by buying the seeds ourselves. We do no! know the name of this paddy. Now In the year 2000, under the joint auspices of U-BIRO. the Mothers' Group, and the Youth Club, we are golng to give it a name.1. The height of the straws and the productivity of the paddy crop 2. Falling/not falling 3. Less chance of disease and size of the rice grain 4. CapabJe of tolerating the cold and wet conditions and quick ripening periodThe above-mentioned basis tor selection was made after the field inspection and discussions in the group meelings among our participant farmers and club members. In this. the local organization relays the information and also tea ches us how to do Ihe work. In the end, we review the whole matter and wilh the participation of the entire farming community, we selec! the paddy species.We appreciate this program highly, for it respects our experiences and the traditional technology that we have been following in farming. When looking into the statistics available. we found that without the participation of the farming communily at the nationallevel. there had been recommendations made for more than 42 species of crops, allhough this sort of selection had nol much affecled Ihe people living in Ihe hlgh hilly areas. Therefore, il is most necessary that we have a participalory planl-breeding program among uso For example, we can take Ihe case of paddy species M-3 and M-9 thal we have been cullivating in our own village.1. A partlclpalory program means the collective presence of the farming communily: they can selee! tor themselves the paddy species that suit their soll and cllmatic conditions.2. The farmers themselves are more aware oftheir own needs and requlremants.3, In the seleetlon of the paddy species, the farmers themselves are participants.The farmers leam the technology about how to breed between two speeies to ereate several varieties, Reasons 1. Climatie conditions differ according to altitude and have different affects on farming.Land and climatle conditions differ in the hilly region.3. When improved species are selected according lo the suitability ofthe particular place and climate, they have a high degree of tolerance and survivability.The disappearanee of the local species. For example, after the introduction of M-3 and M-9, Ihe local species called Kalo patla and Reksali have gradually disappeared.In the process of developing a plant-breeding program, we must remember to include the local species so that the genes of Ihe local wilt not disappear completely.Important and active organizations in our village are the Progressive Youth Club and Creative Mothers' Group-two local organization Ihat haya worked closely with the Participatory Plant-Breeding Program since 1996. The most important work has besn to develop M-3 and M-9 improved seeds and so we have sent to LI-BIRD and other agricultural organizations about 5 muri of improved seeds in 1998. The local organizations continue to develop the improved seeds and distribute them for cultivation. For example, in areas like Lumle, Paudur, and Salyan VDC, Ihe improved varieties like M-3 and M-9 have already been sent.• to give continuity to the work carried out by the Participatory Plant-Breeding Program• to develop and distribute the improved Machhapuchhare-3 and -9 paddy species• to conserve, develop, and distribute the selected species• to distribute to Ihe farmers the newly developed improved seeds sent by olher research centers• to increase the village's agricultural production under the leadership of local organizations• to develop systematic and sustainable methods of paddy conservation from the nursery to storage• to inerease our own leaming skilts and technology among ourselves• to develop new improved paddy speciesPriority is given lo persons who have been successful in order to encourage and bring maximum participa tia n of farmers. Or Ihe farmers have themselves selected one among them or have won the confidence of Iheir farming community.Among the 25 species, one variety was selected and it is cultivated in the field of Maheswor Poudel. This species of paddy was cultivaled al his inltiation. He has said that he took this iniliative because this species has all the good qualities to be found in paddy. As he says, this variety has good tasle lo ea!, long slraws, salid grains of rice kernel and Ihe grains are nol Ilkely lo fall off easily from the plants. Therefore, Ihis species of paddy without name as ye!, has the grea! possibility of becoming popular in this village.The official and scientific research trom LI-BIRO was carried out under !he leadership of Indra Bahadur Poudel. In lhis paper, fanners describe lhe agroecology of Bagnas and the diversíty of crops grown lhere.Bagnas is a small hilly village to the northeast and 16 kilometers away from the well-known tourist center Pokhara. Facing the north-south direction, the village lies about 600 lo 1400 meters aboye sea level. II lies in lhe mid-hill region, and like Ihe rest of the other villages in Nepal, it is equally remarkable for agricultural diversity.A variety of agricultural production and one single crop with a diversity of species is the greatest wealth of this village. Sorne time ago, farming was carried out in Ihis village on the basis of absolutely personal Interest and experience. But since the lasl 1010 15 years, we farmers have been attracted to collective and partlcipatory farming systems. Caste-wise, the village has a majorlty of Brahmins, and 97% of the population is dependent upon agricultura.The land is su eh that in the north are Ihe steep hilly areas, and there are plenty of gullies and hil!ocks wllh narrow strips of land between them. So comparatively speaking, the upper areas of Ihe village are cold and dry/parched, and the lower bell is molst and hot. On Ihe basis of our experience and experiments, in the north belt we grow millet, maize, and Ghaiya (a type of paddy), and in the lower part of the land, we cultivate paddy. There is no irrigation system, so we are entirely dependent upon the monsoon rain. Although during the monsoon months of Ashadhl Srawan (June-September), we collee! water in small man-made reservoirs and pools forfarming. Slnce the main erop in this village is paddy, we are fully involved in cultivating paddy. We are nol engaged commercially in agriculture but in terms of sustaining our lives.The following is a proposal aboul the Participalory Plant-Improvement Program and our experiences and suggestions about paddy cultivation in our Begnas Village.We, the villagers of Begnas, have been eultivating crops aecording lo our long traditional methods of trial and experienee so tha! we have been able lo study wha! sort of erops are suitable in one place and what crop at which time. Having observed !hese details, we have been eullivating our fields. The common crops tha! we have been cultivating are as follows: .• Pakho (hillside, slanted, uncultivable slope): Millet, maize, Ghaiya (paddy), Pidalu, sugarcane, buckwheat, and vegetables (potatoes, radishes, gourds)• Field (for paddy plantatíon): Paddy (and also minimum cultívation of whea! and mustard)The proeedures for cultivating the paddy specíes have been based on the traditional technology followed by our forefathers. Actually, the majority of the farmers in the village follow the same methods offarming. Even now, the local species ofpaddy have a grealer influenee in the choice ofThe Importance o( Crop Improvemenl in Conserva/íon of Díversíty cullivation, although in some places, improved specles of paddy are also being used by some farmers. The common varletíes of paddy belng cultivated are Mansuli, Taichung, and'Radha-7, while some years back, we (one-third of the farmers) culllvaled the varielies called Mansule, Madhise, Chhote, and Radha-7 in order lo make a beller profit. Bul Ihese improved varieties needed chemical fertilizers, good irrigalion facilities, and pesticides to control pesls and diseases. When Ihese requiremenls were not fulfilled, we losl half the harvest in some years.  We farmers want improvement in the quality and quanlily of the paddy according lo our interests and needs. Bu! we lack the knowledge and technology lo do Iha!. Therefore, the farmers must select the species through their own presence and participation in the process so that by crossing differen! species, a grea! variety of species can be obtained, ye! also keeping the original breed, so that the improved species can be strong and withstand local conditions. Hence, we feel confident that with the help of the in situ Program we will surely succeed in Improving the local species.Our conclusions and recommendations are that !he in situ Program will surely assist Ihe farmers of this small Begnas Village in conservíng the diversity of the local species of paddy and inspiring Ihe local farmers lo participate in collective activities, so we not only conserve !he local species bu! also bring together maximum participalion of the farmers so that the standard of life of the local farmers will also improve ..Q.1. Everybody stressed crossing bul who is aclually doing it? Farrrers? Scientists? Or is il done jointly?Ans: The farmers in the village initiated Ihe crossing program with lechnical support from U-SIRO as and when needed.Q. 2. Where do the male and female plants come from in maize crossing?Ans: The male is an improved variety-ganesh-1-from NARC, and!he female is a locallandrace-Thulo pahelo.Q.3. Are you willing lo share the seeds of your crossing? If 'yes,' why? If 'no,' why no!?Ans: Farmer 1. Seed from crossing is community property, so it's up lo !he community to decide whether or not to share il.Ans: Farmer 2. We are willing lo share and, in fact, have already done so by supplying 250 kg.If our new varieties help improve the production of olher farmers, we will share il.Q.4. Today, large companíes have Ihe polential to spread biolechnology as a form of imperialism. Gandhi used the spinníng wheel as a symbol of freedom. What should be the symbol of the farmers to fight against such domination?Ans: One way lo be self-reliant ís lo improve our seeds/varieties so Ihat Ihey are more productive or competitive, before Ihe large companies grab away our genetic materials. The farmers should have control over the genetic resources.Q.5. How will the new Unes coming out of crossing s8thi be developed and studied?Ans: The decision lo select or rejee! the outcome of !he cross rests in community. No individual holds absolute rights over developing !he lines.Bidakanne Sammamma DDS woman tarmer from Andhra Pradesh, Soulh India Abstract A farmer from Bangladesh describes crop diversity in her fields and gives the reasons tor encouraging diversity versus mono-cropping.I am trying here to explain the soU type, the problems associated wilh the soil in my area. You will find a 101 of stones there. so farming is very difficul!. The soil is black and you can see the amount of stones. In the areas where lhere ís red soil, lhe depth is very shallow-not more Ihan five lo six inches-and below II there Is a complete sheet of rock. So keeplng in mind Ihe soil types and Ihe problems associated wlth ralnfed agriculture in my area, the women try to grow a lot of crops in a given area so ¡hat they can be sure of getting at leas! one crop in the crop season.We slore different types of seeds of differen! crops and mix all these crops. Women, especially, playa vital in this mixing. Keeping In view lhe soil fertility, we observe the soil-which type of crop can be grown in a certain patch of land the woman owns. So women playa vital role and they mix al! the different types of crops that can give foed. fadder, and add to lhe fertility of Ihe soll.We grow a range of crops-al leasl eighl lo 10 crops in a year in a given area: you can see crops like jowar (sorghum), red gramo field beans, and cow peas. We grow Ihis many crops lo gel so me of Ihe crops al one time and others at anolher time. So me crops will mature first. so they are harvested first. so we get toad when we are hungry.The maln reason behind growing so many crops in a glven period is lhat even if. due lo any reason, some crops fail, we are sure of getting something. So we will be harvesting differenl crops over a periad of a season of six months. Every time we go to Ihe field, we will gel something to lake back to our homes to cook. At the same time, there won't be much work because during the periad of six months, one crop will be coming al one time and anolher Ihe nexl lime and anolherlhe nex!o So the load is spread evenly on the women and not all at one time.The second reason is lhat lhere are different varieties of jowar-compact-headed and loose ones.In our area, we sometimes gel rain at lhe harvesting stage. When we gel rain al lhis time, Ihe compact-headed seeds germinate in the head itself. So we also grow lhe loose-headed variety. Even if there is drizzle for two or lhree days, lhis variety can overcome that problem. Unless there is a big drizzle tor one week, I am sure of getting at least some jowarfor consumplion.Keeping in mind lhe soil fertility, I also mix legume crops like field beans and jowar. We grow jowar also because of the fodder requirements of the animals we own.Cow peas and field beans may nol be importan! to you, and although we sow lhese crops in jusi a few rows, they are very importan! to us because they take care of the soU fertility and we also gel very good nutrilious food out from them. So lhey are importanl lo us even though they are grown in small quantitíes. Now I will explain about lhe multiple uses of crops like red gramo We use lhe pulse for dhal, a curry Iha! we eat wilh our bread and rice. We use the stalks of red gram for fuel wood and for thatching. This crop is very important lo us; il is useful to us in a number of ways.In Ihe rabí (winter) season, we also grow a range of crops. We grow mus!ard wi!h whea! for pest control because some insects thal a!tack wheal will be atlracted to mustard, and in this way pesls will be conlrolled.Foxtaíl millet is the firsl crop of the season in our area. When we don't have anything to eat in our homes, Ihis is the firs! crop thal will meel our hunger needs because most of the !hings stored from the earlier season will have been used up.When we grow crops, we also keep in mind the fodder requirements of the animal s we own. Thal is the reason we grow some varieties that will give more fodder for our animals.One agricultural practice in our area is this: after harvesting red gram, the farmers plow back lhe land, so lhal whatever leaf-fal! Ihere is from Ihe red gram will immedialely go back lo the 50il. We are consciou5 of whatever we exlracl from Ihe soíl and we Iry lo give back Ihe same amounl of Ihings Ihat we are extracting from Ihe soil. This is very important lo usoThe more crops we grow, Ihe more the load will be evenly spread on us for harvesting them. More lhan that, we will al so get more employment. The greater lhe diversíty of crops, lhe more harvesting lhere is for differenl crops at different times; people in lhe víllage will gel more employment when there is more diversity.Women in our area do not prefer mono-cropping. The grealer lhe diversity, lhe fewer the grains of each crop, so lhe women won't want lo seU lhís smaU quantity of grain in Ihe market. Neilher will the men bother because of the small quantity; they will lhink Ihal \"even if I take this lo Ihe market, wha! is it lha! I am getting?\" When you see each crop individually, il will be very small, bu! when we compare the grain produetion for all of lhem, lhere will be more grain in total. Whatever inputs we are using for farming. Ihe resources should be avaílable loeally and the farmer should not depend on any external resources. We want lo use our own products; we want to use some of the green-Ieaf manuring crops. We give a 101 of importance to soil fertility management. Whatever variety you may grow, unless lhe soU is fertile, we cannot achieve anythíng; we eannot achieve the potential yield even though Ihe genelie potential may be lhere. So soil fertility is one of Ihe mos! important lhings we are trying lo address.Our way of looking at lhe productivity of a farm is different. We generally don't look al yield only or yield per unil of land only or only general yield. There are many things we getfrom lhe farm, like uncultivaled greens, medicinal planls, vegetables, fodder. So ifyou monitor all these things, Ihey will be more lhan wha! you would get from a single crop. Everything is equally important in this whole farming system, so we look at different things in farming and nol at a single lhing.Raksya Begam Woman (armer from Bang/adeshA farmer trom Bangladesh describes her experiences growing a modem rice variety.I'm trom Bangladesh and my name is Rabia. 1 am here to talk about our experiences. The scientists told us, lhe farmers, tha! you can lake a variety and planl il in your fields and you will gel plenty-20 mounds of rice per acre. We were very simple; we believed il and were very happy lo hear the news. We actually planted Ihis variety. It was a dwarf variety, and the kind of straw we gol from lhese planls was the type Ihal if there was rain lhen alllhe straw gol rolten and was no good for fodder for liveslock, nol even as fodder for the scavenger chicken. Allhough the straw mixed with cow dung created many insects. which were useful for chickens to ea!. We also had lo use pesticides and fertilizers and soon the whole land became hard like rock.Previously we used to cultivale Ihe local rice varieties of Aaush and Aamon. The slraw of Ihese varietíes was long-taller-and was very good for fodder. 1I ensured thal we could keep livestock and poullry.Now, Ihe scientisls have always made claims. They showed us Ihe profil_hat we will gel trom Ihe production of Iheir varlelies-bul they never actually calculated the losses, the olher losses thal lhe farmers have lo pay the cosl foro Now we, the farmers, have realized these other costs.The situation right now is that Ihe soll has become just like rock and the fertllity is not the same as il was before. Now il also requires a lot of money to cullivate paddy or to remain in agriculture and the relums lo Ihe farmers are very peor.Previously, Ihe kind ofvariety we used to cullivate was laslier, compared lo Ihe modem varielies.lt was also not a source of disease: il did not conlain any pesticide or pesticide residues. After consuming thase new rice varieties, we are now suffering trom many diseases, so lhere are health problems along with the olher problems. There are health problems in the livestock and poullry also, so the managemenl of lives!ock and poultry is more difficult now.On Ihe olher hand, uncultivated food is not available any more, al leasl il has really become scarce. But the scientists never calculated lhis serious cast to Ihe tarmers. So we tarmers have now realized !hal we have had to pay too much for !hese new varieties and il is lime lo realize !ha! we need lo gel away from Ihem.The older varielies had many other uses. We could use Ihem as sources of energy and also as a kind of organic fertilizer. The dwarf--or modem--variety is no! useful as the older varie!ies.There ís a proverb in Bengal, \"Don't go lo lhe field in the ea s!. \"This is a local saying, which means, \"Don't go lo a place where you will hear bad informalion; il looks like !he sun bul it is no! the sun.\" Now we realize thal to the scientists, Ihe farmers were not lheir objective-their main focus was nol really lo serve the interests of !he farmers.15 There an Imminent Crisis in Agriculture?Abu Taher Rahamani Farmer from Bangladesh Abstract A farmer from Bangladesh, with 22 years of experience, predicts an imminent crisis in agriculture, I have been practicing modern agriculture for quite a long time and received the Presidential Award twice. I am here lo share some of my experiences wi!h the different varieties, especially !he modem varieties, tha! I have planted on myown farmland.ln terms oflhe productivityof a single crop, I have been able to demonstrate that some of the varieties performed well, but economically, I did nol galn. In my 22 years as a farmer planling modem varieties, one Ihing I would like lo say is Ihat we are heading for an imminen! crisis in agriculture. And we need the collaboration of the government and the scientists with the farmers. As scientists have noticed, the organic maller is very low, now it is 0.50 (the lowest) and 1.63 (lhe highest). This is the range in one area. We can talk about plant breeding or talk about Ihe inlroduction of modern varieties, bul unless we take care of Ihe problems of organic maller in the sOI', we will not be able lo resolve Ihe crisis in agriculture, On my farmland, I am Irying lo make available more organic maller from my farm and I am also reducing Ihe use of pesticides. Despile the fac! that many people are aware of the dangers of pesticides, the use of pesticides Is increasing, partly because of the companies' aggressive marketing techniques. Farmers are somellmes confused with Ihis type of aggressive markeling and eventually they pay Ihe cost of using pesticides, In my experience and from Ihe literature available lo me, none of the pesticides I am familiar with can reduce Ihe allack to 50% or 60%, In conlrast, partly from my own experience, from my own practice, and al the same time from some of Ihe training I got for inlegrated pes! management (IPM), I have been able to reduce the attack of pests by 80%-90%.Al the same time, seed is a very vital issue. You have lo have good-quality, healthy seeds for Ihe farmers. So this is a very sensitive area for the farmers. You have to have good-quality seeds for the experiments that we are trying.And now there is more promolion of hybrid seeds around the world. They say thal the hybrid cannot contribute lo the interests of the farmer because they cannot keep Ihe seeds. The farmers will not know the characteristics of the seeds the way they know the lraditional varieties, So eventually i! canno! be good for the welfare of the farming community,'My general feeling aboul the technology is thal when you prom ate a technology, it is very importan! to understand the nature ofthe technology, whose interests il is serving, and how it is good for the farmer, or for thal maller, who the consliluencies of Ihe technology are. Unless you know very c1early about that, !hen eventually the technologies will not be very fruitful.When we decide about technology, certain characleristics are very important. One is Ihat jt should no! be costly or it should be al leas! wilhin Ihe reasonable reach of farmers. Second, il should be verified by scientific procedures and by an indication !ha! it can perform as they are claming it Is going lo perform. Third, it should be gainfullo Ihe farmer-the recipient who is receiving it. 1I should be sustainable and also should be used by a large number of farmers.So I appeal to Ihe scientists lo note what I ha ve said. I hope you will take it as coming from the farmers and that you will take interest in Ihese issues.l. Translator 's commenL He (the farmer) is emphasizing the question ofwhether the farmers can really keep these seeds in me ","tokenCount":"4524"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"cc53e9792b70a5e934ea471d99488ce1","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/7d6e6994-7078-47c7-92fa-5f90a03998b1/retrieve","id":"1143148401"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"59a442c6-cd09-4b4c-8733-82f53aad422c","pagecount":"7","content":"the Pan-Africa Bean Research Alliance (PABRA), which is part of the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), held a focused workshop with the aim of empowering small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to take the lead in adding value to the agribusiness sector in East and Southern Africa. This Newsletter has been prepared with the support of PABRA for the CGIAR Food Systems Accelerator (CFSA) as part of the CGIAR Initiative on Diversification in Eastern and Southern Africa (Ukama Ustawi).It focuses on selected entrepreneurs from various African nations who are involved in agro-processing and nutrition and are supported by PABRA's acceleration programs. These individuals are working with PABRA to implement sustainable agriculture, improve nutrition, and promote economic growth within their communities. The newsletter focuses on capacity enhancement in the areas of food processing and technologies and showcases their dedication to enhancing nutrition and well-being by promoting nutrient-rich foods produced in climate-smart agricultural environments by smallholder producers.The Alliance through PABRA, conducted an intense, results-driven workshop in September 2024, aimed at empowering small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to take charge of value addition in the agribusiness sector across East and Southern Africa.Focused on breaking barriers in nutrition, food safety, and economic growth, this initiative promises to elevate incomes and transform food security in some countries across the continent. The two-day event brought together trailblazing SME leaders and experts from Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, ready to disrupt the status quo and drive Africa's agribusiness future forward. The workshop shared insights on technology and industrial processing practices, focusing on supporting agribusinesses through innovation, particularly in the bean value chain.Dr. Eliud Birachi from PABRA emphasized that agribusinesses are vital for value addition, enhancing food security by improving food safety, sustainability, and nutritional value. Dr. Eliud Birachi, a PABRA Project Leader, kicked off the conference by highlighting the critical role of innovation in the bean value chain. He emphasized that SMEs are the foundation of Africa's agricultural sector, playing a vital role in promoting food security and fostering sustainable agricultural practices.After the introductory remarks, Justice Munthali, a PABRA expert in Nutrition and Food Technology, outlined the organization's role, operations, and commitment to nutrition. He highlighted PABRA's approaches and models and how it supports agribusinesses that contribute to food security and sustainable agriculture, playing a vital role in combating malnutrition and poverty across the continent.The sessions were facilitated by Dr. Johnson Mwove, a Chuka University Food Technologists and Nutrition expert with close to 10 years of experience in the fieldHe led discussions on innovative food processing techniques, with a special focus on the bean value chain-one of Africa's most important crops. Dr. Mwove emphasized the need to merge tradition with modernity, drawing on local methods while improving food safety and efficiency. One of the standout examples was the commercialization of Mursik, a traditional Kenyan fermented milk product. Dr. Mwove illustrated how local innovations can bring traditional foods to the modern market, offering both safety and authenticity. He encouraged SMEs to find a balance between cultural heritage and innovation, making their products both marketable and safe.A particularly powerful session highlighted the growing role of functional foods-products that offer health benefits beyond basic nutrition. Justice Munthali presented a compelling case study on High Iron Beans in Rwanda. In Huye, Rwanda, a pioneering efficacy initiative utilized iron-biofortified beans (Fe-Beans) to address widespread iron deficiency among young women. This case study demonstrates the effectiveness of functional foods in improving health outcomes.A case study from Rwanda conducted with 195 young women aged 18 to 27 consumed Fe-Beans daily for 128 days. Initially, 86% of participants were iron-deficient. The results were promising, showing significant increases in hemoglobin and body iron levels, which led to improved energy and vitality among the women. A second study followed 125 female university students over 18 weeks. Although their iron status improved significantly, the connection between enhanced nutrition and physical performance was more nuanced.While overall work efficiency did not show notable increases, anaemic participants saw meaningful improvements in performance as their haemoglobin levels rose.This case illustrates the potential of functional foods like Fe-Beans to improve nutritional status and empower individuals. Rwanda's continued implementation of innovative biofortification strategies sets a powerful example of how targeted nutrition can strengthen community health and resilience.  Ahead A highlight of the conference was the opportunity for participants to engage in peer-to-peer learning. They were paired to review each other's business models, offering advice on innovations and improvements. Theenergy and enthusiasm in these sessions were palpable, with many participants continuing their discussions well beyond the formal sessions.The bonds formed at the conference laid the groundwork for future collaborations, as participants expressed a shared commitment to driving innovation in the bean sector. The connections made during the event will likely spark further growth and development, pushing African agribusinesses to new heights.The PABRA conference was more than just a gathering of mindsit was a launchpad for innovation, collaboration, and growth in Africa's agribusiness sector. SMEs left with actionable strategies, new partnerships, and a clearer vision of how they can drive food security and nutrition outcomes across the continent.As Africa continues to face challenges in security, events like these remind us of the power of innovation and the critical role agribusinesses play in shaping a healthier future.In the fight against malnutrition, functional foods are emerging as one of the most powerful tools. Functional foods are foods that offer health benefits beyond basic nutrition. They may be fortified with vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and fiber, or they may naturally contain high levels of these beneficial ingredients.These foods, designed to offer health benefits beyond basic nutrition, are proving especially valuable in regions where access to a balanced diet is limited. At the recent PABRA (Pan-African Bean Research Alliance) workshop, Justice Munthali, PABRA Nutrition and Food Technology Expert, highlighted a case study from Rwanda showing the transformative potential of functional foods.Iron deficiency is a serious issue in Rwanda, especially among young women. Traditional methods to improve iron levels haven't always worked well. However, ironbiofortified beans (Fe-Beans) offer a promising solution. These beans are enriched with extra iron and could be a sustainable way to boost iron levels and overall health.Two important studies were conducted to see how Fe-Beans affect iron levels and physical performance in Rwandan women. In the first study, 195 women aged 18 to 27, all with low iron levels, were divided into two groups. One group ate Fe-Beans, which contain more iron, while the other group ate regular beans. Over 128 days, both groups TO PAGE 6 5 consumed about 336 grams of beans daily. The results were impressive: women eating Fe-Beans had significant increases in their hemoglobin levels, showing that these beans helped improve their iron status.In a second study with 125 female university students, the focus was also on how Fe-Beans affect physical performance. After 18 weeks of eating Fe-Beans, the students showed better iron levels. While overall work performance didn't improve dramatically for everyone, those who started with low iron levels noticed a positive change in their ability to perform physical tasks.The results from these studies highlight the benefits of Fe-Beans. They not only improve iron levels but also help women feel more energetic and active in their daily lives. For many, this means being able to take on more responsibilities at home, at school, or in their communities.This approach also shows the potential of biofortification to tackle nutritional problems. As Rwandan women become healthier, they can contribute more to their families and communities, leading to better economic outcomes.The journey to combat iron deficiency in Rwanda with Fe-Beans demonstrates the link between nutrition and empowerment. These studies show that biofortified beans can make a real difference in women's health, helping them lead healthier, more active lives and creating a brighter future for themselves and their families.At the recent PABRA (Pan-African Bean Research Alliance) workshop, one of the most transformative discussions focused on food preservation-specifically, the shift from traditional drying methods to canning and precooking. While beans were a central topic, the conversation extended to other agricultural products, highlighting the potential of canning and precooking to enhance the value chain across various sectors.As Africa continues to face challenges related to food wastage and malnutrition, canning and precooking presents a viable solution to not only improve food safety and reduce wastage but also significantly increase shelf life, making a wider range of products available yearround.For many SMEs across Africa, drying has been the primary method of preserving crops like beans, grains, and vegetables. However, drying comes with limitations-it can affect the nutritional quality, taste, and longevity of products. Canning and precooking offers a more robust solution. By preserving food in airtight containers, canning and precooking maintains nutritional value, locks in flavor, and extends the shelf life of products, whether beans, vegetables, fruits, or sauces.Canning and precooking ensures that these nutrient-dense foods are available year-round, even in areas with limited access to fresh produce. The process also allows for better control over food safety, reducing the risk of contamination and spoilage. By sterilizing the beans and other products during the canning and precooking process, agribusinesses can significantly reduce the risk of bacterial contamination, making the product safer for consumers.One of the most exciting aspects of the discussion was how canning and precooking can open new markets for SMEs. While the initial investment in equipment may be high, participants recognized that the long-term benefits far outweigh the costs. Canned products not only offer a longer shelf life but also appeal to both local and international markets, where demand for ready-to-eat and shelf-stable products is growing.During the workshop, participants shared their own experiences with food preservation. Several SMEs from Kenya and Zambia discussed how they have begun to adopt canning and precooking processes to meet growing demand while ensuring their products maintain high nutritional value. These SMEs are leading the charge, showing how innovation in food processing can enhance food security and create sustainable business models.Extended Shelf Life: Products that would typically spoil within days can now last for months or even years, allowing SMEs to reach new markets and maintain a steady supply. Food Safety and Quality: The canning and precooking process involves sterilizing products, which reduces the risk of bacterial contamination and ensures that consumers are getting safe, highquality food.Market Expansion: With longer-lasting products, SMEs can explore new markets, both locally and internationally. Canned goods appeal to consumers seeking convenience, particularly in urban areas where demand for ready-to-eat foods is growing.The shift to canning and precooking aligns with the broader push for innovation in Africa's agricultural sector. While the initial investment in canning and precooking technology may seem high, the long-term benefits for SMEs are immense. From beans and vegetables to sauces and fruits, canning and precooking allows businesses to diversify their product offerings, reduce wastage, and ensure that nutritious food is available yearround.As Dr. Johnson Mwove, the workshop facilitator, emphasized, \"Canning and precooking is not just about preserving food; it's about preserving the economic and nutritional value of what we grow. This is the future of agribusiness.\" By transitioning from drying to canning and precooking, African SMEs can not only improve food security but also strengthen their position in the global market, offering products that meet international standards of safety, quality, and convenience.","tokenCount":"1873"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"00af1304c59ae696f5fbce7ce3054888","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/02a08bb1-c0f0-4810-8a1c-c07abea91832/retrieve","id":"346702572"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7dafe8e1-8aac-4297-9e85-c2fe6eaea196","pagecount":"25","content":"This article offers a critical approach towards adopting new technologies as a mitigation strategy. It provides a comprehensive analysis that helps illuminate the adoption process and the sociocultural factors intersecting and informing it. Using a capability approach lens and qualitative and participatory data collection methods, this study presents and analyses the testimonies of smallholders living on Colombia's Pacific coast, currently exposed to a series of interventions that promote changes in production decisions to contribute to reducing national greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, improved forages, silvopastoral systems and new practices, such as the implementation of rotational pasturing, have been promoted as relevant new approaches. The results show that access to new technologies generates new Unauthenticated | Downloaded 08/08/24 09:26 AM UTC Marcela Ramos et al 2 capabilities, for instance the ability to plan for the challenges imposed by climate change or to develop new strategies to allow the soil to recover naturally. However, these new possibilities are unevenly distributed, creating disadvantages for groups that generally experience conditions of vulnerability, such as young farmers and women. The testimonies also show that many of the promoted initiatives emphasise the need for adaptation and change on the part of smallholders without considering the limitations of technology, the gender issues that affect the inclusion of women and the dynamics that set barriers to young smallholders due to economic restrictions or power issues. Therefore, the study contends that, when understanding technology adoption, it is not only a question of what farmers do or do not do but of what they can be and do in increasingly demanding contexts.The scientific community has developed technologies to mitigate climate change effects and enhance adaptation possibilities among smallholders. Specifically, improved forages (pastures artificially produced to improve livestock production while reducing greenhouse gas emissions), silvopastoral systems (a grazing system that combines forage grasses, herbs, shrubs and trees to contribute to sustainable land use) and changes in the management procedures (rotational pasturing, improved fertilisation plans, use of silage) have been promoted as critical resources and practices (see, for example, Ruíz et al, 2016;Bravo Parra et al, 2018;Charry et al, 2018;Enciso et al, 2019;2022).Improved forages have the potential to increase animal production and productivity, improve soil quality and reduce the environmental footprint of cattle activity (Enciso et al, 2019;Enciso Valencia et al, 2021;Lascano et al, 2005;Rao et al, 2015;White et al, 2013). The silvopastoral systems can be used for mixed crop-livestock systems, to restore soil fertility and biodiversity; to increase forage and wood biomass and to meet food security needs associated with environmental conservation in agriculture and livestock ecosystems (Lemaire et al, 2014;Gumucio et al, 2015;Mauricio et al, 2019). Silage technologies are critical to face extended periods of drought or unexpected climate changes affecting animals' production and health (Reiber et al, 2013). However, as the research on technology adoption, technological change and climate change adaptation in smallholder agriculture has shown, the expected contribution and impact of these technologies and practices is also mediated by the actual capacity of farmers to use, value and make sense of their contribution. That is, in the dynamic relationship between farmer and technology, which involves learning, context and individual experience.In this taken-up space, structural factors, sociocultural categories and climate change interact (Chandra et al, 2017;Kaijser and Kronsell, 2014;Mehar et al, 2016;Rola-Rubzen et al, 2020). However, the relational aspects of technology adoption and uptake remain largely unexplored in the case of Latin America (Rao et al, 2015;Triana Ángel and Burkart, 2019;2023). This is even more the case in Colombia, where technological adoption has been studied mainly through surveys whose questions focus on the access and distributive aspects (Ruíz et al, 2016;Díaz et al, 2018) rather than the adoption process (Tschakert, 2012) and the sociocultural components (Curry et al, 2021) that shape the exercise and practice of technological change.The research presented in this article documents the experiences of a group of diverse smallholders who have been exposed to initiatives aimed at changing their farming practices to promote greater use of technologies that can contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Using qualitative and participatory data collection methods, we study the uptake and adoption of these technologies and strategies through a case study developed in Patía, Cauca department in south-western Colombia. The participants are women and men between the ages of 30 and 75. Most of them self-identify as Afro-Colombians, constituting 6.68 per cent of the national population, almost 3 million people (DANE, 2018).Sen's capability approach (Sen, 1980;1999) is used as a key conceptual framework to explore and evaluate the dynamic relationship between participants and new technologies. A key feature of Sen's capability approach is that it privileges a comprehensive view of people's well-being and freedom. Sen (2009) distinguishes between two aspects: the opportunity aspect, which refers to the opportunities available to individuals, and the process aspect, where the space of agency and choice is located. This allows not only the distributional components of new opportunities (access to new resources and management strategies in this case) to be explored and prospectively evaluated, but also the relational aspect -the possibilities of effectively using these opportunities for the ultimate well-being and functioning of people's lives (Schlosberg and Carruthers, 2010). Thus, the adoption and use of new technologies is understood as a process, and the focus is not simply on access, but on the extent to which these new tools and practices are meaningful and could be adopted by a diversity of smallholders (Tschakert, 2012). Unlike other studies that take the value of technology as a given (see, for example, Smithers and Blay-Palmer, 2001;Rose et al, 2018;Chavas and Nauges, 2020), this study understands technology as a means that can be useful if employed, and if it matters.Based on this relational ontology of the capability approach, three primary research questions were identified: (1) how have climate change-induced events affected smallholder farmers' practices; (2) what are the opportunities and barriers that smallholder farmers face in using new technologies and strategies in the day-to-day management of their farms; and (3) how does the practice of new technologies and strategies impact on and expand sustainable agricultural capabilities? Research questions one and two seek to feed the exploratory phase Unauthenticated | Downloaded 08/08/24 09:26 AM UTC of the research, first to understand from the participants' perspective the impacts of climate change and how helpful and feasible the new technologies are in such challenging contexts. Research question three goes deeper into this dynamic process and seeks to identify the extent to which access to, and uptake of, new technologies and strategies contribute (or do not contribute) to the development of sustainable agricultural capabilities.Technology adoption in agriculture and food production systems (meat, dairy) have long been promoted as the more efficient way to increase farm productivity and reduce poverty, particularly among smallholders. In current contexts of climate change and food crises, technology adoption intersects with the aim of enhancing sustainable food production systems and is aligned with various Sustainable Development Goals: 1 (no poverty), 2 (zero hunger), 10 (reduced inequalities), 13 (climate action) and 15 (life on land).Smallholder farmers (less than two hectares), who provide 35 per cent of the world's supply (Lowder et al, 2021), are a target group for the use of technologies such as improved forages. However, studies in different contexts have shown that adoption and use of new technologies among small producers is limited. Ruzzante et al (2021) conducted a meta-analysis of a large sample of studies from different contexts in the developing world. They found that, on average, farmer education, household size, land size, access to credit, land tenure, access to extension services and membership of organisations are positively correlated with the adoption of many agricultural technologies. Curry et al (2021) analysed the sociocultural aspect of technology adoption to understand the constraints to adoption. They used a series of case studies, also in developing countries, and argue that the explanation of structural factors is not sufficient. Sociocultural elements, such as how the technology is aligned with the indigenous knowledge or value system of a particular community, can affect how farmers relate to new tools and limit what is theoretically defined as positive. Feola et al (2015) conducted a literature analysis to evaluate the impact of three stressors -climate change, trade liberalisation and violent conflict -on the practices of Colombian farmers. The researchers argued that the relationship between farmers and technology needs to be addressed in a more complex way. This means not reducing adaptation to technical, informational or economic measures. Instead, they, along with others in the field, call for mapping the different factors that enhance or constrain the use of new technologies. Among these, climate change stands out. The processes associated with climate change have transformed the boundaries of production, posing new challenges to small-scale farming in Colombia. Regarding the impact that these transformations have, the literature notes the following: changes in crop phenology (Eitzinger et al, 2018); quality of underground water and water availability; animal and milk production, livestock diseases and biodiversity (Rojas-Downing et al, 2017); land degradation and desertification (Ramirez-Villegas et al, 2013).Similarly, Glover et al (2019) add a further layer of complexity to our understanding of technology adoption, arguing the concept of 'adoption' can be limited because what is happening involves technological change, with a sociocultural component alongside the technical and subjectivity aspects. In this dynamic space, gender, age and power relations intersect with the capacities and possibilities farmers foresee in technology and the changes it proposes.Technology studies using a feminist lens, for example, sustains that technology is not gender neutral, as it interacts with material and social worlds 'and perform gender as they propel the power relations inscribed in them' (Mukhopadhyay and Prügl, 2019: 706). In this interaction, as important as the types of assets women manage (for example, land and animal quality) are the domains in which they are recognised as productive actors and have space and agency to make decisions. The literature shows that there are also differences between women themselves, as their opportunities and choices in the smallholder and agricultural sector are often shaped by their age, marital status, ethnicity, and the ownership and quality of their assets.Another space where gender issues intersect and impact access and use of technologies is extension services (Kawarazuka, 2018;Peterman et al, 2014). This is manifested in the design, dissemination and outputs delivered by these programmes (Enciso et al, 2022;Mehar et al, 2016). For instance, initiatives are designed to be channelled through cooperatives, and women participate less in these organisations than men; or the programmes are blind to the knowledge and skills that women require (Bantilan and Padmaja, 2008;Rola-Rubzen et al, 2020).Like gender, age also affects technology adoption in the context of climate change (Ansell, 2016;Huijsmans, 2016;Triana Ángel and Burkart, 2023;White, 2020). Regarding the use and exercise of technology, the literature shows that young farmers' possibilities are strongly defined by structural factors (education, land ownership), national processes (migration, conflict), identity and familiar dynamics (poor generational transfer among rural families) (Lombana-Bermudez et al, 2020;Triana Ángel and Burkart, 2023;Wittman et al, 2021). In this vulnerable context, it is difficult for young farmers with fewer resources to realise the value (rather than the cost) of adopting new technologies. Even if they are willing, the question is to what extent they can manage the need for change and the experience associated with new learning.Approaching technology adoption as a dynamic and non-binary process (adopt/ not adopt; success/failure) allows opening the black box of technology change and exploring smallholders' relationship with new opportunities. The capability approach provides a conceptual framework for analysing this relationship, based on the capabilities and functionings that farmers do or do not deploy thanks to access to new learning, and the factors that mediate this process, which the capability approach calls 'conversion factors' and which we will explain in the following section.Sen's capability approach is used descriptively and prospectively (Alkire, 2008) to explore the relationship the participants have with new technologies, and to understand to what extent these new resources expand (or not) sustainable farming capabilities. In the case of the Patía farmers, it is essential not only to explore whether technology is useful but also who it serves and why -what are people now able to do and be, which they could not do and be before. In line with intersectional literature on climate change and adaptation (Kaijser and Kronsell, 2014), the capability approach allows us to problematise the idea of 'treated communities as socially homogeneous' as there are differences in using and applying technology.To operationalise this relational approach to individuals' opportunities, two concepts are key: capabilities and functionings. Functionings are achieved beings and doings. There are basic functionings, such as feeding, moving from one place to another, and riding a bike; and more complex ones, such as playing a musical instrument, debating, and writing essays. Capabilities, meanwhile, represent the space for achieving functionings: what we can be and do, and what we value to be and do (Robeyns, 2020). As for the relationship between functionings and capabilities, Sen explains that the capability approach is concerned with both concepts as 'the former [is] about the things a person does and the latter about the things a person is substantively free to do' (Sen, 1999: 75). The distinction between functionings and capabilities is significant to this study: it provides the conceptual space to critically explore actual farming practices (the space of functionings); and the different possibilities, choices and opportunities open (or not) for the diverse farmers while having access to new technologies and new farming strategies (the space of capabilities).Another key concept in the capability approach is conversion factors (Sen, 1992). Simply defined, conversion factors constitute the level to which a person can convert a resource -a good, a service, a tool such as a new technology -into functionings. Robeyns (2005) categorised conversion factors into three groups: personal conversion factors (for example, the physical or mental health of a person); social conversion factors (this relates to the society in which one lives, the health of democracy, how issues of class affect, or not, people's possibilities); and environmental conversion factors, which emerge from the external conditions in which a person lives (for instance, climate, means of transportation and communication). According to Sen, conversion factors limit (negative) or enhance (positive) the development of functionings or capabilities. Therefore, while assessing people's well-being, it is crucial to acknowledge the context and circumstances that characterise their life.Some scholars in the capability approach propose that capabilities can be developed individually and collectively. For example, being part of an agricultural cooperative that accesses new learning opportunities can generate collective capabilities among its members. Collective capabilities do not represent the sum of capabilities of a diversity of people but rather those capacities generated through interaction, working together and collaboration, which could not be achieved individually (Ibrahim, 2006;Ballet et al, 2007). In this article, collective capabilities are explored, considering some of the participants are active members of agricultural cooperatives, which in many cases are in charge of coordinating access to new technologies and learning opportunities. Thus, in addition to asking whom the technology serves and what individual capabilities it expands, it is also relevant to understand whether collective capabilities are expanded and how they reach the diversity of participating farmers. Ibrahim (2006) argues that collective capabilities affect people's capabilities in two ways. The group influences the perception of what is essential to people and can also help achieve functionings and thus reach new spaces of well-being, agency and freedom. In this way, the person gains a new set of choices due to participating in a collective.While groups can help build capacity, it has also been documented that some groups 'can also cause social conflict' (Stewart, 2005: 186-8), either because they engage in exclusionary practices (Cleaver, 1999;Das Gupta et al, 2000) or because of the logic of power that characterises their relationships. The analysis also pays attention to the potential negative effect of farmers' cooperatives, particularly when considering gender and generation dynamics.The fieldwork was conducted in the Patía municipality in the Department of Cauca (see Figure 1). Patía municipality was selected because of the predominant presence of small-scale farmers and family farms, most of which are farmed for sale and selfsubsistence (Hristov, 2005). Also, in this location, project partners International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) had demonstration sites and had existing connections with some of the participants. Based on these connections and a snowball sampling strategy, participants were selected. Ethical approval for the project was granted following University of Glasgow procedures. Participants were given oral and written information about the research project, and after discussing the study and having the chance to ask questions, they were asked to record their consent. To minimise response bias and avoid influence from partners' projects in participants' responses, interviews were conducted one-on-one with the smallholders and focus groups were conducted within local cooperatives spaces. While the sample may not represent all of the Patía municipality, it does represent a range of personal and contextual realities concerning socio-economic, cultural, gender, age and farm production systems. Data collection was designed in two stages, exploratory and participatory (see Figure 2). Stage one included the realisation of two focus groups (women and men farmers, different ages) with ten participants in total and semi-structured interviews with 11 smallholders (six men and five women). The focus groups are divided by gender, as research in agriculture has shown that women speak less in mixed groups (Pignatti et al, 2015). The focus groups allow the identification of leaders within the group and issues that concern the participants and emerge from the collective conversation; simultaneously, they inform part of the semi-structured interview schedule that is applied individually to some participants.After the focus groups, walking interviews were conducted. This type of interview is used in geography to explore participant experiences (Dorward et al, 2017). The current study allows the farmer to talk about their experiences and support their reflections and claims while 'showing in the field' their achievements and the issues faced. At the same time, it allows the researcher (urban, foreign, with no experience in farming) to understand the challenges associated with working under adverse conditions (high temperatures, drought, unexpected changes in the climate) and limited access to information and resources, especially in the case of women.The interview schedule consisted of two sections. In the first part, personal demographic farmer information was collected by questionnaire to obtain a socio-economic characterisation of the participants (see Tables 1 and 2). Section two comprised semi-structured questions on four themes: production and farm management, use of improved pastures and new strategies, extension programmes, experiences and decisions associated with climate change. Interviews were conducted in Spanish. Each interview lasted approximately one hour. All interviews were recorded verbatim and transcribed for analysis in Spanish. Participants received pseudonyms in the course of the analysis.The participatory phase (stage two) was conducted in November 2019 with two objectives: to communicate and share stage one findings with stage one participants and identify sustainable agriculture functionings and capabilities they have reason to value. In this participatory process, both capabilities and conversion factors were discussed with the participants. This aligns with the participatory approach of the design and seeks to be consistent with the capability approach, which understands that identifying relevant capabilities requires a participatory and democratic process where communities are consulted (Clark et al, 2019). Stage two comprised two focus groups, conducted in Spanish and lasted one hour each. The recording was transcribed for analysis in Spanish.In addition to the questionnaires, interviews and focus groups, the researcher's notes were considered part of the data. Field notes were taken during and after the focus groups and interviews in stages one and two. These notes were used in data collection to enrich questions and support topic identification and qualitative analysis. These included thoughts on the interview content and reflections on the focus groups and interviews, and the research process itself.The first round of interviews was conducted in September 2018, immediately after the dry season (generally running between June and August each year). During this season, particularly after August, smallholders are looking for the forthcoming rainy season. While analysing the data, the bias introduced by the seasonal factor needs to be acknowledged, particularly with the following key themes: current forage management practices; drivers, challenges and areas for further improvement; farmer main concerns, activities and capabilities. Stage two of data collection was conducted during a rainy season to bring the farmers the opportunity of sharing experiences during different seasons.  Thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) was performed first at the group level (separated by gender) and then individually. First, stage one's focus group and interview transcripts were coded, and an initial coding framework was developed. Second, the coding framework was refined, and themes were identified for groups and subgroups -specifically, the men and those who have leadership tasks versus the younger ones. Between the women, two subgroups were identified. Those women who work supporting their partners or families under a 'collaborativefamily' logic, and those who undertake farmer labour in an independent logic. After comparing and refining the initial coding, codes were combined to form themes, and these themes were again compared to the data to ensure that nuances and variations were captured.The subgroups logic allows the researcher to map different capabilities and functionings that characterise the different groups and the barriers some farmers face. Also, conversion factors play a role in the 'translation' from a resource (technology) and service (extension programmes) into a capability. Third, group analysis is conducted to check similarities and differences within and between groups. After the first round of analysis, preliminary themes were identified and defined to be shared with stage one participants. This analysis process was repeated for the second round of data collection following a group/subgroup and individual logic.The findings are discussed under theme headings, and linkages between the explored themes are supported by illustrative quotes from participants adjusted to correct English while maintaining meaning. The themes analyse current farming conditions in the face of climate change. Second, smallholders' relationship with new technologies and the lessons and experiences from the uptake process. This is followed by a review of the capabilities and conversion factors identified in the participatory phase (see Figure 3).Climate change has impacted the work of smallholders in four areas: (1) use of local knowledge in making decisions about what, how and when to produce;(2) animal health; (3) access to water; and (4) possibility of generating reliable and transferable learning experiences, in particular on how to manage soil and pastures and production decision-making. A shift in maize production provides an illustrative case:In El Patía, maize used to be grown a lot. In earlier times, during the first days of September, people used to sow in dry conditions because the rain was guaranteed, and winter would come. However, now that no longer happens. The rains have been delayed. Now the weather has changed a lot, so maize is hardly grown, explains JAV, 40 years old, who manages a farm with his wife and two daughters. Waiting for the rain in September was an inherited knowledge from the grandparents, recalls JAV. 'The week of the 8th of September, or perhaps before, they used to prepare Unauthenticated | Downloaded 08/08/24 09:26 AM UTC themselves to seed corn or some other plants … Nowadays, that is impossible. Now it hardly rains in September. Sometimes it rains in October or November'.In recent summers, something similar has started to happen with mangos due to the 'dry wind', says JUA, a male farmer in a focus group on our second visit. He explains:The mangos blossomed a lot but did not load much. There was much wind, and the air was very hot, which affected the fruit. Mangos need cold nights and warm, very warm days to encourage them to flower. But when the fruit is already there, you do not need that; otherwise, they fall off. The other thing that happens at very high temperatures is a disease, in mango and citrus.JUA is one of the leaders and senior members of one of the Farmers Cooperatives in Patía and is highly knowledgeable about pastures and soils.Temperature changes also affect the health of the pasture. 'When the day is hot, and it rains at night, that change is good for the pastures. However, when there is a change in temperature and no rain, the grasses do not recover well', describes RAB, a male who is also a senior member of the cooperative. If that happens, RAB explains in a focus group, the pasture 'flowers prematurely'. This is called 'physiological stress' and can be combated 'with a fertilisation'. Nevertheless, 'for the application of the fertiliser to be effective, rain is necessary', he explains.Another manifestation of climate change are shifts in the water cycle and the amount of water that falls or fails to fall from year to year. 'Fifteen years ago, the weather could be predicted', explains ALJ. But in the current times, 'there are years in which the quantity (of water) that should fall in six months falls in two or one. Then a long dry term comes'. Other interviewees describe new weather phenomena, such as hailstorms, which damage plantations. 'When I was a child, here in Patía, there were hailstorms, but they were not harmful. Whereas now this occurs and affects  the economic part and the fruit trees greatly because the lemon knocked by a hail becomes rotten and the watermelon, the melon, everything gets damaged', raises JAV. According to JUA, extremely high temperatures in the dry season affect the fruit, pasture and animals' production levels and their fertility. 'The heat affects the fertility of the bull. The temperature of the testicles rises more than necessary, and although the cow is mated, she does not get pregnant because the quality of the semen is poor', he describes.FRE is a woman, 57 years old, working one of the farms inherited from her father. FRE grows lemons and has six cows, 'which we milk in the mornings, and that is what we live on with my husband and my two daughters'. According to FRE, the main effect of climate change is the length of the dry seasons and how this impacts the possibility of feeding animals properly. She recalls:A poorly fed cow falls and does not stand up anymore because it is fragile. There was one summer when they fell because of a lack of food. If they have food, they have strength. However, without food, there is nothing. And they die. They lie down. If two days go by and they cannot stand up, they die. We have tried to stand them up, but the weakness will not let them.ARI is one of the group leaders of a women farmer cooperative of approximately 40 women from Patía. She says they are the first women's group in charge of a farm granted by the state. Gradually, the women who make up the cooperative have begun to organise their work on the land. However, climate change has made their task much more complex. 'Summer affects too much because, if you have nowhere to get water to irrigate a bush, everything dries up, everything dies, and you have to start again when it rains, which is a delay', she points out. The uncertainty also makes it difficult to plan. 'Summer here is supposed to go from May to August, and the most intense month is supposed to be August. However, with climate change, it has been extended to September, even October', she explains.In the last five years, some of the farmers interviewed had accessed, installed and used the following technologies: electric fences powered by solar energy, improved pastures, and silage pumps. In addition, all of them had attended training workshops to develop techniques to better cope with climate change -for example, the strategy of dividing the farm into small stables and separating feed for silage and saving it for times of scarcity. 'We make silage, we make feed blocks', says FRE, a woman farmer who works closely with her husband. In this way, they prepare for the summer and 'no longer let the cows die'. In the workshops, they have also learned to recognise native species that can be used as 'natural fences', which provide shade and food for the animals in the harsh dry seasons. 'For us, the matarratón helps us a lot. When we run out of silage, we use living fences, matarratón, nacedero, guásimo, leucaena', adds INA, a woman, in a focus group. In general, both men and women understand and appreciate the possibilities of new resources and ideas. However, their application and reach are strongly influenced by individual categories, contextual factors and by the design of training schemes, which do not always manage to reach everyone.Unauthenticated | Downloaded 08/08/24 09:26 AM UTCThe installation of the solar-powered electric fence is one of the technologies to which some participants had access, as it was part of a project developed jointly by CIAT and the University of Cauca. The fence changes the relationship with the animals; it is valued by the producers and relates to a profound cultural change. It implies putting an end to the idea of the farm as a large piece of land. 'We were not used to grazing on small plots. Everyone had one big paddock, so there was nowhere to put it if the grass ran out. We learned to conserve grass with this new technique', explains ARI, the leader of the women's cooperative.Dividing the fence into plots has several advantages: it allows the rotation and feeding of the animals to be organised so that the pastures thrive and can be renewed, and plots can be 'saved' for times of scarcity. 'Many people on farms are implementing rotation because it has worked for them. The result is that the farm stays grassy. If there were water, it would be green', explains ARI. On a restricted plot, the cattle eat what they can and do not walk forever searching for food, which means a significant economic benefit. LEA, man, young administrator, who manages a farm with 30 animals and makes his living from milk and meat production, explains it very clearly: 'By dividing up the farm, the food yields more. In addition, it commands the animals. [With the solar-energy fence] animals are compelled to eat and are more disciplined', he says.Replacing barbed wire with solar-energy fencing also makes the work safer. 'With barbed wire, both the animals and the farmer are at risk. A cow full of milk gets out and scratches a teat and loses that quarter. A 20-litre cow that loses a quarter is losing five litres of milk, so you have to think about selling it', says RAB. Switching to solar fencing also has other economic and environmental benefits. The wood used to build the barbed fence is more expensive and has to be planted closer than in electric fences.The advantages of the solar fence are diverse but installing them is difficult and expensive and is associated with an economic capacity that not everyone possesses. In RAB's case, the solar fence was built with the help of CIAT and the University of Cauca. They explained it to him, and he installed the solar panels. This allowed him to organise around eight paddocks on his farm, where he planted various grass types. So did JUA, who, as the administrator of the cooperative, has several pasture trials surrounded by solar fences, which gives it enormous advantages over other producers, especially the younger ones. In the case of women, only those from the women's cooperative had access to solar fences among the interviewees. This was due to their agreement with the University of Cauca and CIAT. They were given several hectares to install pastures as a laboratory, and in exchange, the researchers built the fences, but only in a specific area of the property.For the other women, this facility has not been possible. 'I would like to have better grass, a fence put in here. I only have this little piece to rotate them, but it is minimal. They were going to build a solar-energy fence here, but it did not work. They have not brought it', says ESTI. As she has no fence, her management of the animals is very restricted. 'If I do not divide it up, the cows go from one side to the other whenever they feel like it', making it impossible to leave areas for the grass to grow, which is the best way to take care of the resources for the summer. ESTI is single, 62 years old, and has a farm on which she works to support herself and her eight-year-old nephew. ESTI grows lemons and mangos and has cows that produce Unauthenticated | Downloaded 08/08/24 09:26 AM UTC milk which she uses to make kumis, a kind of yoghurt sold in the area. In the case of ESTI's sister FRE, the fence was installed but did not work either.The use of solar fencing is closely related to improved pastures. In fact, the more experienced farmers, such as RAB and JUA, installed the solar fences and then planted a variety of improved pastures, creating a sort of 'laboratory' on their farms. Experiments like this, which they have carried out with support from CIAT and the University of Cauca, are the best way to understand better pastures, animals and the soil type. All of this is vital knowledge for farming in climate change.RAB, for example, learned that improved pasture requires between 90 and 120 days to be suitable for grazing animals. In addition, improved pastures require investment by smallholders. He explains: 'Improved pastures are quite demanding in terms of fertilisers. They have to be given much feed, unlike the traditional pasture'. RAB believes that this investment is worthwhile, as the improved grasses are more resistant to drought and temperature changes: 'I have tall grass now, and it is challenging to see grass like this now. Everyone is still without grass', he describes. In addition, the quality of the improved pasture is better, he explains: 'It has a higher fodder yield, higher protein content. The animals like it more. They eat it more willingly', RAB says. According to his records, another effect of this pasture is that it makes the animals gain weight. 'The improved pasture has to be managed. You have to fertilise it, rotate animals, consider the rotation of the plots with the cattle, do not leave it too long because they overgraze it, and it erodes and kills the grass', says JUA. How long does it take to learn this management? Almost two, three years, JUA explains.In a focus group, JUA highlights other advantages of improved pasture: 'There is a high initial cost for seed, but it reduces another cost for me, weed control. I will not have any more problems with weeds, there are hardly any, so it is a cost I am saving. Furthermore, it improves the quality of the milk'. RAB says that the aim of the training is that everyone has the opportunity to learn how to manage improved pasture, 'but it is something that is being done little by little because we have to change the culture'. More than resources, RAB says, what influences adoption is that people see that there are results, that the grass works. 'You know that what is good has to put resources into it. What is good is worth it and costs money', he says.ARI's testimony allows us to understand the weight of economic reasons. Moreover, what is seen as cultural change often has more to do with what is possible in a context where opportunities depend not only on the willingness or agency of smallholders, but on the multiple factors shaping the adoption process. 'What people have most is native grass because the animal eats it, and if it rains, it comes out quickly', she explains. 'So people say \"well, maybe this is better because it is quicker. Besides, we do not put anything on native pasture\"'. The improved pasture involves extra work: buying seeds, preparing the land, watering the seed and waiting for it to grow. ARI explains:For one hectare, you need about 8 kilos, and if you suddenly lose it, you have to put it back, and the time, you have to leave it until you can put the animals in, then you also have to find a place to leave the animals. So it is a long process.Therefore, moving from native grass to improved pasture is seen by some interviewees, mainly women and younger farmers, as a huge change, a risk if one does not have the necessary back-up resources. 'Putting in the improved pasture means ploughing the land (350,000 Colombian pesos per hectare, $74 US per day), buying seeds, sowing, waiting, and killing the weeds. And waiting costs money' sums up JAV, one of the younger producers.In the context of climate change, keeping land waiting has a present and future cost, and in unstable family economies, this cost is often difficult to pay. In addition, you are investing in an uncertain future, which is even more expensive. Moreover, according to JAV, it is not so clear that the animals produce more. According to him, his animals 'produce more milk with native grass'.MAR thinks that native grass is easier to manage but less productive. 'The improved grass did not grow well for me. Some people did well with it, and others did not', she describes. Now she is waiting for 'the winter to come in' so she can plant again. 'One of the many lessons they taught us is that we should not put the milk cows in, but rather the small calves, so that they can strengthen the roots of the grass. When the big animals go in, they will not pull out the roots', explains MAR, a woman farmer. FRE, another woman, says that the native grass supports the animal but does not increase the milk. 'When I introduced Toledo (a type of improved grass), the milk increased. Although this could also be the result of the climate, you have to keep testing'. FRE liked the Toledo variety. However, when asked if she has thought about acquiring new seeds from this pasture, she does not know where she can get them. 'I do not even know where they sell Toledo or how to plant it'.This section explores to what extent access to new technologies enhance sustainable farming capabilities, on which capabilities the technology acts and why is this important and what conversion factors are mediating in this process. Five essential farming capabilities were identified based on the testimonies collected and participants feedback. Capabilities are analysed at the individual and collective levels. Personal (age, gender, land ownership, land quality, education), social (gender inequalities, unequal distribution of resources, membership of the cooperative, networks, use of the farm as a laboratory, extension services) and environmental (climate change, access to water) conversion factors are identified by some of the participants as key factors mediating technology taken up and the opportunities or constraints that smallholders anticipate in terms of the use and benefits of new technologies and practices.RAB has vocational studies and belongs to the group of senior farmers of the Patía Cooperative. Currently, his income comes mainly from the sale of animals, but he wants to move into milk, as it ensures a steady flow of money. 'Milk gives you a daily income. It takes me two years to get the male to 500 kilos. Two years of investment, and he gets fat. With milk, more money circulates. That is why I want to have a dairy', he explains. Moving into dairying is a process, and access to technology has allowed RAB to go down a path. First, he planted improved pastures and divided his farm into small barns. Then he put up a solar-powered fence to rotate the animals. Now he is worried about getting water 'to irrigate all the plots'. Water is key to feeding the cows. 'I need to bring water to the farm to have a better pasture to feed the cows. Because the cow is very demanding in terms of food, she eats more because she has to feed herself, milk, feed the calf '.ARI and her colleagues received 100 hectares of land from the Colombian state to start their women's cooperative. A first step was to understand the characteristics and possibilities of the land and the challenges they faced. They then established a cooperation agreement with the University of Cauca, which allowed them to set aside some plots of land for experimentation with new pastures and the use of solar-powered fencing. One of the cooperative's businesses is animal fattening. They receive the 'cattle for profit'. An initial price is set, and what is fattened is paid, 50 per cent to the owner, and 50 per cent to them. But ARI and her team have gradually realised that they have to make changes for the business to be worthwhile. 'There are animals that take a year to reach the necessary weight, but others take longer. Furthermore, start calculating what you have invested in salt, the worker, looking after them, vaccinating them. It does not add up'. For this reason, ARI and her partners have begun to move the farm towards the cultivation of fruits and vegetables.They also plan to set up a dairy farm.For us, lemons, pumpkins, passion fruit, is more profitable than having cattle for fattening. That could change if we organise a dairy farm. That would give us results because we can have animals for fattening, and the cows will give us milk, which is a daily wage, and the offspring, and with that, we can sustain ourselves.Climate change also forces people to plan, as the threat of shortages is always present: 'We are learning to adjust. If you used to have ten cows, you do not, now you have four or five, so you can manage them better. You know it is not going to rain, and the pastures will run out, so you have to plan', says a member of the women's cooperative in a focus group. ALJ is a senior farmer and cultivates both crops and livestock. On his two-hectare farm, he has planted cocoa, lemons, yucca, sugar cane and bananas. In another place, he keeps eight animals that produce milk. Each part of the farm has a specific purpose, 'because you run out of one thing and you have another'. JAV, a young man, plants lemons 'to bring in more money', to have a Plan B when milk production drops due to the heat or poor feeding of the animals. 'Lemon, like milk, produces immediate profit and requires less work than grass', he explains. Lemon allows you to 'work on your own and not worry so much about food', he adds.The use of improved pastures and the exercise of new animal rotation practices require a more thorough knowledge of the land on which they are planted and the type of livestock being fed. The Patía Cooperative farm, administered by JUA, was selected to be the laboratory for testing pastures, allowing the farmer to get to know and understand the different potentialities of the new technologies. 'I understand pasture as a crop. It is not a given resource, even if it is native, it needs to be taken Unauthenticated | Downloaded 08/08/24 09:26 AM UTC care of […] I understand that the relation between pasture and soil is dynamic [the pasture quality is related to the soil quality]', he explains.JUA recites from memory the characteristics of different pastures. 'Mombasa: good pasture, good recovery; Tamani: excellent, suitable for recovering animals; Patía: excellent, complete, good for recovering animals; Cayman: soft, the cows like it. It is the first thing the cows attack, and they finish it off'. JUA puts the cows out to pasture, and the next day he looks at the ground where they were, and the grass remains in the paddock. This way, he can see the improved pasture's effects and resistance. According to the type of pasture, JUA distributes the animals: if they are going to calve, if they are skinny, if they are calves.One of the smallholders' difficulties is choosing from this diversity of pastures. JUA's answer seems simple: 'the soil tells me what pasture I can plant'. To know the soil, it is necessary to do analyses, which have a limited duration. It is also helpful to test different sowings, as JUA has been able to do. Among the new technologies being worked on is access to satellite images that could improve the type and quality of information smallholders have about soils and pastures. The interviewees were asked about what kind of information they would like to have during the conversations. All agree that access to new data is relevant. However only JUA identifies specific needs. JUA believes that satellite images and drones can show him fruit trees in trouble, as they turn yellow at the top first. 'When you see that it is yellow at the bottom, the problem is already complex'. JUA believes that the satellite can also show where there is deep water.The capability of networking Foster and Handy (2008) introduce the term 'external capabilities' for those capabilities that a person acquires due to being directly connected to another person. In this case, improvements, access to technology, and working with professionals from CIAT and the University of Cauca motivate some farmers to pick up the phone and communicate directly with researchers. Photos are sent, and consultations are made, contributing to learning and increasing the individual capabilities of farmers, professionals and cooperatives as knowledge is shared. ALJ, JUA, RAB and JOR, the senior farmers, belong to the same cooperative and talk among themselves and with researchers from CIAT and the University of Cauca. This is to understand what to do and how to deal with unexpected climate changes. RAB takes photos of new bushes and sends them by mobile phone to professors at the University of Cauca, who tell him about the new bushes, and this knowledge is shared with peers. Women or younger producers do not experience these close connections and support. However, when evaluating their achievements, senior farmers tend to explain their best results as a consequence of their effort and talent rather than as a product of these advantages as well.A member of the women's cooperative says in a focus group that access to 100 hectares has allowed them to understand the limitations they face in the daily practice of Unauthenticated | Downloaded 08/08/24 09:26 AM UTC farming and the tasks they have to leave to the men because they cannot do them themselves. 'The work done here on the farm is too hard for us, so we have to pay the men to do the fumigations, fencing, all the tougher things'. However, they have also developed other skills collectively, which before, not being part of a women's cooperative, they had no way of experimenting with.Above all, we have learned to negotiate, do something that men in our culture always do, and now we women are doing it. When suddenly someone cannot go from the board to look at the cattle, we have men who collaborate with us, and we call them: 'there are some animals in such a place. Go and see how much they are'. And we give them an indication: 'they have to be this size, you are not going to bring them like this, you are not going to accept them like that'. We are the ones who give the guidelines.The findings from this study show that, despite the potential disruptive characteristics of the technologies and practices learned, the activities developed allowed the diversity of farmers to change feeding practices, rotate animals and explore new ways of food conservation. The experience was crucial for challenging deep cultural practices. For example, they divided their farms into paddocks instead of keeping animals in large areas. In this way, they can make better use of resources, give the pastures time to grow stronger and healthier and prepare for seasonal extremes of temperature, which is important as it helps avoid animal deaths due to lack of feed. They also learned about native species that could be used as natural fences and as a source of feed for livestock, which has both economic and environmental benefits. The initiative also allowed farmers, researchers and technical staff to exchange knowledge on soil, pasture and animal management and establish support and communication networks that did not previously exist.However, the testimonies also show that the opportunities, learning, new networks and benefits identified and associated with access, implementing and using new technologies, are not equally experienced. Specifically, those who benefit most from the new possibilities are the senior smallholders, men who have more education, connections, resources and or leadership roles and have the economic capital and support to try out new techniques and strategies and to understand the new possibilities of pastures, which often means investing, taking risks and making mistakes. A case in point is improved pastures. These, according to the scientific community, are decisive in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but they are only available to farmers with more assets and connections, which are basically senior men producers. Groups with fewer resources, less quality assets, voice and representation -women, younger and older farmers -are more likely to be witnesses than direct users of the opportunities associated with implementing these new technologies. In fact, despite valuing the new pastures, some of the women interviewed hardly identify their names or know where to buy them.But the findings also show that women's experiences vary. Personal conversion factors, such as working independently of their partners or having access to goodquality land; social conversion factors, such as belonging to a women's cooperative;Unauthenticated | Downloaded 08/08/24 09:26 AM UTC and environmental conversion factors (such as developing critical links to specific markets) shape their opportunities and, just as importantly, their reflections on their farming capabilities and the importance of access to certain technologies.The consideration of personal, social and environmental conversion factors is relevant in this study as most participants are working in challenging contexts and with limited access to resources and services, which set potential limitations to the development of personal skills and the exercise of agency while using new technologies. Most of the participants self-identify as Afro-Colombians and according to the World Bank, approximately 41 per cent of Afro-Colombians live in poverty (World Bank, 2021). At the same time, smallholders in Colombia are considered the most affected by social and political exclusion and unequal access to land ownership in their country (Suarez et al, 2018).The literature also shows that in contexts of climate change, the roles and sociospatial actions of smallholders change. In India (Ogra and Badola, 2015;Ravera et al, 2016), Kenya (Njuki et al, 2016;Basu et al, 2019) and the Philippines (Chandra et al, 2017), men and women smallholders begin to carry out new tasks, and the loosening of gender-biased norms appears to be a precondition for women to join new activities. These shifts in norms, women's voices and the gender division of labour can and do occur, but not automatically, and could generate new mobility and livelihood options, as this case shows for the women's cooperative. As a result of getting access to land, technology and new practices, some of the women participants have managed to organise themselves and create new networks that have given them access to extension services. They have also looked critically at their farming management decisions. They decided to switch from cattle to dairy production and crops. In short, the new scenario, mediated by the possibility of managing their own land, opens up concrete opportunities for women to try out new techniques, to decide to compete and to organise their own cooperative.However, the literature also consistently shows that men generally dominate the markets, especially cattle, which means that women have to look for other opportunities. Farmers in leadership positions and with more resources use their networks to set up laboratories on their land, test new pastures and diversify their production, generating differentiated capabilities and a more sustainable approach to land and livestock systems. Younger farmers try new crops, and those who are married explore small livestock, practice silage and generate new products to face climate change. Thus, the different identities and trajectories mediate technology use, take-up and the practices of new management strategies. Figure 3 summarises the relationship between technology, conversion factors and the opportunities and capabilities that some smallholders develop as a result of new practices and learning.This study illuminates three critical issues regarding technology adoption processes and change. First, as documented by the political ecology perspective (Pimbert, 2015;Chandra et al, 2017;Taylor, 2018), and studies that critically analyse the concepts of adaptation and resilience, technology is an element that can promote new opportunities but also affect some groups, to the extent that it deepens inequalities or problems of recognition. Therefore, when designing, implementing and evaluating Unauthenticated | Downloaded 08/08/24 09:26 AM UTC interventions to promote the use of new resources, it is central to ask critical questions about the characteristics of the intervention and the technology being used. For example: who decides what is relevant technology, which farms should be targeted for demonstrations, and what structural conditions may affect access and take-up of technology? If personal, social and contextual factors intersect the possibilities of using new technologies and exercising new practices -for instance, the lack of quality land and water among certain groups -then, in creating new technologies and developing mitigation resources, a focus might be on enhancing technology sociocultural functionings and capabilities. This means the relevance of the technology in a particular context.In the design and implementation of extension services, capacity building and development programmes, it is central to consider three elements: access, take-up and exercise of new practices that go beyond the 'adaptive capacity' or willingness of the beneficiaries. This complex way of approaching new technologies is consistent with the guiding principles of climate justice, which include distributive, procedural and recognition aspects related to people's identity and diversity (IPCC, 2022).Our case study illustrates some of the challenges and opportunities faced by smallholder farmers in demanding contexts. To understand farmers' uptake of new technologies and the extent to which they are relevant across a range of experiences, it is ideal to follow the same farmers over decades, as many of the processes that affect them occur over longer time scales (climate change, market variability and land degradation, for instance). We were able to follow the participants for two years, capturing their experiences over two weather seasons. In addition, this case shows the experiences in a particular geographical and sociocultural context.","tokenCount":"9094"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"3162f14c10b1f7bf3fa3dbfef84ff8d4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4fe2c252-fff2-484e-9fa0-8ed843e4a114/retrieve","id":"-1241597819"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"82726c02-d3f0-41ef-8dcd-a24f1247c32e","pagecount":"7","content":"The Community Land Act 2016 is premised on three key pillars: registration, protection and recognition of communities and their land. The law in essence reinforces the notion that communities have the capacity to manage their resources, particularly land and natural resources. As part of the community land registration process, a certificate of registration is issued to communities by the community land registrar.The Fourth Leg of participatory rangeland management is about how a rangeland unit, the community or communities within that unit, and their planning processes relate to government and where applicable, traditional governance systems. Strengthening the Fourth Leg includes ensuring communities have legal recognition for their governance structures and their management efforts. Success in undertaking the registration process under the Community Land Act will strengthen the security of tenure over rangelands and the resources therein, and can be key to a strong Fourth Leg.Key elements in registration, protection and recognition 1.General understanding of the legislation, policy and plans for the management of rangelands and resources at community levels in a partnership framework.a.Defining a registration process, composition and nature of the community.Defining the community in their institutions, types and composition.Developing key guiding principles, values, norms and practices.Preparing the community members a.Creating awareness to foster better understanding of the process.Facilitating a dialogue process towards confirmation and consensus on the individual roles, shared roles, etc. Working with the communities on the role of the traditional institutions and mechanisms for conflict management.b.Taking into account existing legislation, policies and institutions.c.Generating an understanding of local-level conflict sources and trends (participatory conflict mapping and identification of solutions).Step 1: Laying the groundwork• Defining the community: an initial step would be to consult with relevant government officials and community members about how best to define and determine the level of \"community\" that will undertake the community identification for registration activities.• Community visioning: community members reflect, visualize and analyse their situation.• Establishing expectations and terms of engagement.• Defining the responsibilities of the community and the facilitating organization: this includes clarifying how the community and the facilitating organization will interact throughout the community identification, defining and registration process, and their roles in protection of natural resources.Step 2: Documenting community lands• Participatory community mapping• Identify groups of people to talk to about community lands and their perceptions of their local resources.• Cluster the groups as defined for the process of community mapping.• Define the areas and locations by geography and size.• Boundary harmonization• Communities meet with their neighbours to negotiate and agree on shared boundaries.• Shared resources• Identify and define resources for mapping, documenting and recording.• Identify and agree on the shared and cross-boundary resources.The community defines:• their institutions;• the structures, formation and leadership of these structures;• systems of management in the past and present; and• conditions of the past and present for rangelands and other natural resources.Then the community begins its plan for a thriving and prosperous future.• Define specific roles and responsi¬bilities.• Establish clear expectations to reduce confusion, inefficiencies and delays.• Dispute and conflict resolution• Define the different conflicts, trends and causes.• Train community members to resolve land conflicts peacefully and supported by respected and trusted local leaders, mediate disputes that communities cannot resolve on their own.• Documentation of agreed boundaries.• Communities hold large ceremonies to draft and sign memoranda of understanding with their neighbours to formally document all boundary agreements.• They also plant boundary trees or lay down other locally accepted markers to indicate the limits of their lands.• Facilitators support communities to take technical measurements of their boundaries using coordinates collected with a Global Positioning System (GPS) device, by using high resolution satellite imagery, or through a land survey completed by a licensed surveyor.Decisions related to identifying and documenting community lands will be based on the community's objectives and on the depth of information required. For example, separate groups of men and women might be useful because women and men might use different resources; women will map the resources they think are important (such as water and firewood sources) and men will map the resources they think are important (such as grazing land and infrastructure). However, it might be necessary to break down the population into further categories (such as ethnicity, well-being, or caste). Groups of five to ten local analysts should reflect any relevant and important social divisions.Community self-definition is challenging because of a range of complex, interacting factors:• Overlapping definitions of authority, territory and identity.• The nested quality of rural social organization, in which small spatial or social units of organization are contained within larger units, which themselves may make up components of even larger units.• The structure of decentralized government, which may not always align with traditionally or locally recognized social structures.• Differences between locally recognized or customary boundaries and boundaries recognized by the state or government administration.• Historical fracturing and division of social units often based upon intra-and inter-family conflict or scarcity of resources.• The existence of common areas shared between populations that identify themselves as separate communities.• Historical migration patterns, ecological changes and infrastructure development.• Competition over valuable or scarce natural resources.Tool 4-2: Rangeland Management and the 2016 Community Land ActThe \"community\" and the rangeland unitThe Community Land Act is flexible regarding what may constitute a \"community\". As described above, the geographic extent of the community is to be determined by the community members themselves in consultation and negotiation with their neighbours. In this toolkit, on the other hand, we refer to a rangeland unit which is to be the main geographic unit for the planning and implementation of rangeland management activities.In some cases, it may be appropriate for the rangeland unit and the community to be the same thing. That is to say, where a group of people have already begun working together to manage a rangeland unit and have established a collective rangeland management institution, they may decide that the next step will be to register as a community under the Community Land Act. The other way around also works: if a community has registered under the Community Land Act, they may decide to treat their community as a rangeland unit and manage their resources according to the principles and methods described in the toolkit.However, in many cases, the most effective scale for rangeland management may be larger than communities under the Community Land Act. Certain provisions of the Community Land Act require regular general meetings at which a minimum percentage of all adults in the community attend. It may be difficult to consistently adhere to provisions such as this if the community's territory is very large, encompassing many settlements spread over a large area. Yet in some settings, large scale might be the ideal level for decision making on rangeland management. In such cases, the rangeland unit may be made up of several \"communities\" and the rangeland management institution could be made up of representatives from each community.This is something to be decided on a case by case basis by the communities themselves based on their circumstances. Some of the factors to consider in deciding on the scale of the community and the rangeland unit are listed in the text box above. RECONCILE is a regional policy research and advocacy NGO registered in Kenya and implementing programmes in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia through research on environmental and natural resources policy and law. RECONCILE coordinates ILC's Rangelands Initiative Africa, a programme that seeks to secure rangelands tenure security for rangelands users. The programme is actively supporting members and partners of ILC in eastern, Central and western Africa.The International Land Coalition (ILC) is a global alliance of civil society and intergovernmental organisations working together to put people at the centre of land governance. The Rangelands Initiative is a programme of ILC.","tokenCount":"1280"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6d0537dc11d0011860a2502dba020a33","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9e8a5e63-6f93-4151-92dd-5cda9f9711aa/retrieve","id":"40518673"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6ba2ca52-9a26-4316-b574-c9464e939a54","pagecount":"8","content":"Intermediate Outcome #1. Increased and in gender equitable manner utilization of improved and marketable bean varieties , new crop management techniques and micro-nutrient rich bean based products particularly by women P.I. #1.1. Number of HHs (m/f) simultaneously utilizing combinations of accessed technologies and practices in 1.Activity Set # 1.1.2.1. Study, validate and document the genetic, physiological, pathogenic and pest mechanisms conferring resistance to different environmental stresses (linking with capacity building) and generate new stress resistant bean germplasm 1.1.2.1.4. Identify sources of resistance to angular leaf spot, rust, anthracnose, aschochyta, web blight and halo blight, BSM, bruchids, aphids and whiteflies in various countries across PABRA (UG -partly funded by ATAAS). ECABREN: BU, RW, DRC-E. linked to 1.1.2.1.2During the year 2011, 14 bush bean differentials and 13 climbing bean differentials were utilized to evaluate the main diseases of the region such as : Angular leaf spot (ASL), Anthracnose, Ascochyta, rust, root rot and Bean Common Mosaic Virus (BCMV) The Table I    The following environmentally friendly ISFWM management options were evaluated on station and onfarm during the year. These options were: Tithonia vegetation, manure, compost and fertilizers. The farmer's implication decided at more than 50% (men and women) on the use of Tithonia, manure, and compost. At farmer's level, manure and compost were adopted at 50% by men and women. They rejected fertilizers because the financial difficulty and traditional believe; They argued that the fertilizers reduce soil fertility and make foods loosing taste. 1.2.1.1.2.1 Identify simple environmental friendly ISFWM options and scale up with partners. ","tokenCount":"252"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"84dc89113c08ab1b0388b056225b42d2","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e681edbe-081c-491f-ba4f-44548278963d/retrieve","id":"2031011292"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"24b095c9-9189-4b9a-815f-2f4ebee75b47","pagecount":"16","content":"Dispatches 16 Tech Talk Social connections Brenda Zulu I CTs have become essential for delivering agricultural information to rural farmers. Specially developed software collates and distributes market data to farmers' cell phones. Radio broadcasts detail the symptoms and treatment for crop diseases. Videos demonstrate pest control techniques. And web pages provide satellite imagery and analyses of local soil and Support for advisory services ICT Update issue 62, October 2011ICT Update is a bimonthly printed bulletin with an accompanying web magazine (http://ictupdate.cta.int) and e-mail newsletter. The next issue will be available in December 2011.vegetation. The technology provides the NGOs, research institutes and international organisations that have taken over extension services from underfunded government departments with the means to reach remote producers quickly and efficiently.ICTs also make it possible for farmers to find and share information with other communities. The remote village of Macha in Zambia, for example, rarely received visits from extension services. Like rural areas in many ACP countries, it had limited access to electricity and poor quality roads connecting to even the nearest market opportunities. But, rather than wait for outside sources to come along and improve their situation, the community worked together to develop a solar-powered satellite system to connect them to the internet.By the time a cell phone network arrived in Macha, they already had internet for two years and had extended it throughout the village via wireless network. A new radio station, along with social media, is helping the community deliver advice to other villages who want to set up similar initiatives. So far, eight other communities, including one in Zimbabwe, are developing their own services using Macha's unique model to deliver information services.Similarly, a project in Madagascar is using ICTs to extend the reach of extension material and improve the efficiency of agricultural advisory services. Advisory for Change in Agriculture in Madagascar (AKAMA) works within a network of advisory institutions and agencies to gather documents and data currently scattered around the web, and concentrate them into one database.The organisation adapts the information to make it more relevant to the country's farmers by providing it in the local Malagasy language and publishing it on the web, where extension officers and decision makers can also find it. AKAMA produces audio and video material based on the information for NGOs, cooperatives and individual farmers to use to improve the country's agricultural systems.The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) uses an existing network of specialists to support extension services. Its Agro-Dealer Programme (ADP) trains the people who sell agricultural inputs -such as fertiliser, seeds and pesticides -to provide farmers with specific information relevant to their area and crop type. The farmers regularly visit agro-dealers in the course of their work anyway. The advantage of using the dealers is that they can supply the inputs along with advice on how to use them correctly.ADP has trained more than 10,000 agro-dealers in 11 African countries, including Nigeria, Ghana and Malawi. The project has developed a database with contact details of each dealer, plus the GPS coordinates showing the location of each business. The information, available on a Google Map, is useful for other suppliers and transporters involved in the local value chains, while ADP can also use the database to alert dealers to new developments, such as the latest pest control information, through SMS messages sent to their cell phones.There is, of course, still a need for the face-to-face contact and detailed explanations that extension officers working in the field provide. But these initiatives have developed methods of using technology to increase the reach of advisory services, to provide support to existing institutions and to deliver information to farmers as and when they need it. ◀ M ost farmers in ACP countries learn their trade from an early age, by listening to and watching their parents, grandparents and others around them. They continue to improve and adapt their skills over the years through practice and experimentation, and from sharing experiences and ideas with fellow farmers. They rely on this mix of information when they have to make decisions that will affect their limited resources. It is essential, therefore, that they have confidence in the information they receive.Farmers often listen to radio, join community discussions and, in recent years, use cell phones to access advisory services. Telecentres equipped with computer and internet access are also spreading across Africa. And most farmers are open to exploring new methods and innovations that could improve their productivity and income.However, technological advances should only be seen as a tool to improve the delivery of advisory update their information in a format that is readily applicable to the situation found in many communities.As the extension workers reach greater number of farmers, they are also linked with colleagues working elsewhere in the country and across the continent, along with researchers and others in the agribusiness sector. The extension worker, therefore, becomes part of a larger team, providing the link between researchers and policy makers and the communities.But the most promising aspect of the RAILS expansion, known as eRAILS II, is the involvement of young people in the provision of agricultural advisory services. They have the potential to develop more integrated extension services using ICTs as they are often more tech savvy and open to learning new ways. As such, eRAILS is currently working with agricultural college graduates who can act as national facilitators of advisory services to communities. They provide a communication link between farmers and researchers, and can assist farmers to make better use of the opportunities afforded by ICTs.FARA is encouraging African governments to invest more in an integrated system that maximises the combined use of research and extension. It also encourages the private sector to provide targeted advisory services to rural communities. There are several examples of businesses already providing such services, using ICTs to deliver agricultural advice and market data, and there are even some communities who have decided to develop their own information networks [see page 4].There is, of course, no single solution to providing improved extension services. It is not a matter of simply delivering tools and services through internet, radio, or cell phones. We have to use all the available tools and make them part of the mix of resources that the farmers already know and trust. ◀ Myra Wopereis-Pura (mwopereispura@fara-africa.org) is director of knowledge at the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (www.fara-africa.org) services. ICTs cannot replace the traditional system of face-to-face interactions between farmers and extension workers. These tools make it possible to give farmers information quickly, when it is needed, but it has to be in a format that can be easily understood and applied.FARA, for instance, has developed a system to facilitate the exchange of agricultural information and innovation. RAILS (regional agricultural information and learning system) encourages those involved in agriculture -from farmers to extension workers and researchers -to continue learning more about the subject.The information systems used are practical and focused on how people can apply them, and the various methods are only adopted and promoted if they meet the specific needs of the farming community. The intention is to develop the skills and knowledge of the community so that they will be able to operate beyond the support of the project.RAILS is now entering a new phase where it is investing in methods other than the internet to reach farmers. FARA has worked for several years to establish national learning teams that can encourage information exchange, and promote agribusiness opportunities and investments. The project is building on the 'question and answer' service developed by ISICAD and CTA.The intention is to connect farmers, extension and agricultural researchers through targeted services. For example, an individual farmers can ask a specific question to a trained extension worker, who then sends emails or calls a number of research institutes to find the most relevant answer. The farmers pay for the service based on their level of satisfaction with the responses.This method uses technology to access a combination of indigenous and scientific knowledge. Farmers are provided services through social contact -the extension worker -which gives reliability and accountability. The extension workers are able to reach more farmers with reliable and current advice as research partners regularlyJOerg BOethlIng / lIneAIrExtension workers need to be part of a team that includes policy makers, researchers and communities.T here have been very few studies into the effects access to broadband internet can have on agriculture in rural Africa. The reason for that is simple: broadband internet is still very rare in rural Africa. But in Zambia, a rural community, called Macha, does have broadband. There, internet and agriculture -and much more -combine as part of an integrated project to inspire the local community to reach its collective potential.Macha, in southern Zambia, is 70 km from the nearest town, Choma, and 380 km by road from the capital city, Lusaka. The village is set in open savannah woodland around 1100 meters above sea level, and receives seasonal rainfall. Traditional villagers live in small, scattered homesteads. There are no commercial farmers or industries in the area.Traditionally, people have earned their living here through subsistence farming, mostly growing maize. Although agriculture always sustained the community, cultivation practices had not changed in many years. NGOs and internationals consultants came and went. And Macha remained a typical rural area with bad roads, scattered water pumps, limited electricity, patchy mobile phone coverage, dilapidated schools and health facilities.In the past, the community relied on oral reports from travellers for its news and information about the outside world because Macha had no newspapers and no outside radio broadcasts reach this remote location.They rarely had visits from extension officers, so the travellers were mostly family members, or traders arriving from urban centres to buy the excess crops. Cell phone coverage only arrived at the end of 2006. But, by then, Macha was already connected to the internet.In 2003, in a cooperative effort, community members came together to build a wireless network that would connect Macha to the internet via a satellite connection. They started with a VSAT link that offered download speeds of up to 128 kbps. The service soon became so popular that the bandwidth could not cope with the volume of internet traffic. The problem eased in 2011 when Macha upgraded the connection to a microwave link via a newly available cell phone network, which offered speeds of 2 Mbps, making it truly broadband.The internet link is further distributed throughout the community via a wireless local area network (WLAN). There are more than 100 wireless access points, offering connectivity to both offices and homes. Surveys and measurements show that Macha has an active internet community of around 200 individuals, 67% of whom are on line for more than three hours a day. Half the users access the internet from home, and 71% use it frequently to surf the web for educational purposes.As well as having a channel to communicate with friends and family outside of the community, access to the technology produced a discernible difference in agricultural practices within the first year. One community member found information on the web about sunflower farming, and decided to give it a go. A few years later, sunflower farming has blossomed in the village and it is now the community's second most important cash crop.From the outset, the community took the view that the broadband project should be developed by people living in the area. They started MachaWorks, with so-called 'local talent' taking the lead. They take whatever steps the community deems necessary, and implement solutions that work within the context of their own situation. In this way, the community overcomes two fundamental factors that often inhibit rural development projects -the lack of capacity to attract and retain talented local people, and the high distribution and transaction costs caused by inadequate infrastructure and distances from urban centres.For example, when a talented and innovative head teacher leaves a village school because there are few possibilities for developing his or her skills in the local area, it becomes harder to retain health professionals and entrepreneurs in the community as they see less opportunity for their children. Also, many one-off interventions and pilot projects fail because they tend to address just a single aspect of rural development, such as agriculture or education, not realising that their implementation might improve some parts of village life, only to create deficiencies elsewhere.By 2004, Macha had developed the internet connection for the village. While MachaWorks is concerned with the overall development of village services, eight 'focus units' concentrate their efforts on particular sectors within the community, including transport, bio-energy, building,With little access to formal extension services, a rural Zambian community set up an internet connection to develop local agriculture, education and energy facilities. the community is now using local radio to encourage other villages to do the same.Gertjan van Stam (gertjan.vanstam@worksgroup.org) is social entrepreneur at Macha (http://gertjanvanstam.blogspot.com)education and health. One of these eight units, known as LinkNet, focuses on developing rural internet networks by training ICT engineers and students, and raising awareness of the benefits of ICTs in other communities.The initiative inspires people in rural communities to reach their collective and individual potential. It aims to make it attractive for talented people to stay, and even encourage those who have left to return to rural areas. There are several examples of this in Macha. Oscar Kaate, for instance, came back to the village after struggling to make a living selling hair extensions in Lusaka. He is now a network server engineer for LinkNet. Kennedy Hamatunga, works for MachaWorks' hospitality department after gaining experience working in hotels in Livingstone, Zambia's tourist capital. Michael Mweembe chose not to leave the area but stayed in the area to build houses for the ever-expanding activities. He is now a building supervisor.Macha Works shows that people's decisions to stay in rural areas are linked to opportunities to learn and develop. A good standard of education and an entrepreneurial learning environment are key factors that help villages and small communities to hold on to their local talent. The process evolved in three fundamental steps: 1) internet connectivity, which expanded relationships through the ability to communicate; 2) encouraging the use of locally available skills; 3) support of community initiated ideas.People in the community describe the introduction of the internet as 'when the light went on' . Many had felt they would have no opportunity to explore beyond their limited geographical area, but exposure to the internet brought new opportunities, and provided the means to build the relationships to act on them.Because the whole community was involved, with its health institution, schools, entrepreneurs and professionals, the high cost of internet connectivity (which is far higher than in most developed countries) is shared, and the expense becomes bearable. Institutions and donor-organisations came together in public-private partnerships to provide funds for the initial investment. Donors also subsidised the sending of large consignments of second-hand computers for use in health and education programmes. Users pay through a voucher system, which varies according to how much they use. This has enabled LinkNet to break even over the past few years in their not-for-profit-not-for-loss endeavour.With the combined efforts of each of the eight focus units in Macha, and their ability to use the internet to make connections and build relationships with government and other organisations., they are now enhancing the local infrastructure. Water supplies and energy sources are being developed in the community to ensure that it will continue to grow. Each of the units, along with other institutions in Macha, has set about developing the skills and services on offer in the community and in neighbouring villages.For example, the village is connected to the electricity network, but there are frequent power cuts. So Macha Works is supporting the construction of a biooil plantation of 500 hectares on lInknet Macha Works shows that people's decisions to stay in rural areas are linked to opportunities to learn and develop previously unused land. The aim is to be energy self-sufficient, prevent soil erosion and start spin-off businesses such as soap production.The broad inter-disciplinary approach of Macha Works has led to economic improvement throughout the community. New buildings have been built and local people have been given the opportunity to take part in training programmes in nursing, agriculture, education, communications and other areas. This progress was possible because all the ideas, projects and improvements are fully managed by local people. They are put into place as part of a gradual process; first by developing awareness, then concentrating on acquiring the necessary skills, and only then implementing the plans and taking on operational control.The sensitisation phase involves a lot of interaction with local, regional and national leaders, especially with traditional leaders. This stage aims to bring together everyone concerned and to encourage 'local talent' to get involved and catalyse progress. As the people then develop their skills and learn more about a particular subject, whether agriculture or health, the talented individuals work with the community, to build the necessary infrastructure(s) and takes charge of the project's operations.This whole process, within its specific cultural setting, can easily take more than five years. But the gradual and grounded approach adopted by Macha ensures that the aims of each project are attainable, sustainable and can be replicated by others. It is an approach that helps to ensure support from the majority of people, all of whom are aware of the local situation, the obstacles and opportunities.For instance, in 2004 Macha was looking to speed up the process of distributing the information acquired through the internet to all members of the community, particularly those who did not yet have web access. For seven years, they lobbied for a local radio licence, then in 2011, the community FM radio station finally started broadcasting. It was able to reach villages within an 80-km radius. Local people decide what programmes to broadcast, based on the priorities of the day and their own research. This participatory approach proved very popular, and encouraged the villagers to set up a video channel on YouTube to spread their ideas and successes further afield.To support the development of skills in the community, Macha Works established a training institute in early 2004. Known as the LinkNet Information Technology Academy, it was initially housed in storage rooms, and later moved to purpose-built facilities. More than 400 students have since graduated with internationally recognised certificates in computer literacy or advanced ICT engineering skills.The community is also working with tertiary level institutes such as the University of Zambia. This has brought many national and international students to the area to work on applied research projects in various aspects of rural development. There are now projects covering agriculture, energy, engineering, transport, finance, and management.In 2009, after planting 600,000 Jatropha trees as part of the bio-oil project, people from other communities started to notice what was happening in Macha. They too wanted to set up a bio-oil plantation, so they received training from Macha villagers, planted seed, and now another 400,000 trees have been planted.While most internet users in Africa access material that originates outside the continent, Macha has encouraged more intra-village conversation, mainly through instant messaging on social networking sites. Facebook and Twitter are the most popular, accounting for about a quarter of all internet traffic in Macha. Analyses show that more than half of the messages sent were between local users.Since it was established, Macha Works has created about 300 full-time jobs and 700 seasonal jobs. The community is thriving, with lots of activity in other areas of life too. Many people are building new houses or setting up businesses and support activities. As word of success spreads, other villages are starting to adapt and replicate the processes.Seven rural communities in Zambia and one in Zimbabwe have now started their own cooperative activities, including developing rural internet access. These have come about through working with, for instance, the Zambia Initially, the site collected details of projects, organisations, institutions and farmers' associations that practise, disseminate and/or provide agricultural training, along with the types of courses offered. The themes covered on the site relate to both general and more specific agricultural topics, from natural resource management, to processing, post-harvest preservation and marketing.The website presents the information with text, graphics, audio and video in Malagasy in an effort to be as accessible as possible. The idea is that small-scale farmers would be able to research any agricultural theme in the format most suitable for them, and even download multimedia content for later viewing or listening.However, estimates show that only 2% of the population in Madagascar has access to the web. The internet does not yet cover the whole country, and is often too costly if a connection is available. Low levels of literacy make it difficult for farmers to make good use of text on the web, even if it is in the local language. Because of this, AKAMA has started working with farmers' associations, related organisations, the media and existing projects that have the financial and logistical means to convey the information to farmers.Currently, much of the information that could be interesting to farmers is scattered all over the web, which makes it difficult to find. The quality of information varies greatly and is often presented in a means that is not readily available to farmers. By working with a network of organisations, AKAMA hopes to highlight what information is already available and, just as importantly, point out what is missing, lacking quality or difficult to access.The website, therefore, is not only intended to be used by farmers, but by anyone involved in the sector, including decision makers, to guide them and to help them understand the weak points and the strong points of the agricultural system in Madagascar.AKAMA is much more than just a website, however. The main aim is to supply multimedia content. The web is only the means of diffusion. The team see the internet and multimedia as potentially very efficient alternatives to traditional extension practices. Many extension officers have to travel large distances (tens of kilometres, often on foot). They can waste a lot of time trying to find village leaders and organising community gatherings. And they can run up a lot of expenses trying to find a solution to farmers' problems, which in the end is not appropriate as it requires more specialised knowledge. But the technology reduces distances, waiting times and costs while still offeringfarmers the benefit of effective information.The website was developed by just two people from FTA, a web designer and a project manager, who has good knowledge of agriculture. Their challenge was to find a way of creating a low-cost, attractively designed portal that was stable and readily available. They decided to use WordPress, a freeto-use open source content management system originally developed for blogging. It is relatively simple, flexible and offered enough features to meet the needs of the project. Several partner organisations and institutes contributed to the original conception and to the selection of content presented on the site.The website went live on the web in April 2011 and was advertised for a month on local and national radio stations as well as in local newspapers. It is mainly extension workers, larger-scale farmers and agricultural development professionals who currently use the site. Many users also send suggestions and questions, which the team try to deal with and incorporate in regular updates. Farmers meet with partner organisations to provide further feedback.These are still early days, too soon to tell if the site has already made a difference to the long-term processes in which farmers are involved. However, a pilot study introduced farmers to a video describing cultivation techniques for sweet potatoes. Yields have already improved, giving the team high expectations for the longer-term benefits of the site.In the near future, AKAMA plans to continue adding content to the site with more video and audio resources, which are more useful for farmers, especially those with low literacy levels. Ideally, farmers and extension agents will be able to access the information, on and offline, from centres spread around the country. The team hopes to further develop its network of partners and contributors to help the portal evolve and make it the foremost agricultural resource in Madagascar. ◀ A local language website gathers content from a wide range of sources and presents the information to Madagascan farmers and extension officers in a variety of formats.Andrianjafy Rasoanindrainy (r@andrianjafy.com) is the manager of the Advisory for Change in Agriculture in Madagascar (http://123fta.com/akama) A video production has already helped farmers increase their yield of sweet potatoes.Ben Depp / hh Kehinde Makinde (kmakinde@agra-alliance.org) is the AGRA Country Officer for Ghana and programme officer for the Agro-Dealer Programme in West Africa. ADP is an initiative of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (www.agra-alliance.org) A isha Zachariah, from Tamale in northern Ghana, used to grow seed to sell to other farmers in her community. She wanted to expand her business and provide other merchandise such as fertilisers and crop-protection products. Aisha knew she would first have to improve her technical and business management skills, so she followed a training course run by the Agro-Dealer Development Programme, an initiative of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). She has since opened a shop selling a range of agricultural inputs, and is also offering valuable information on crop production.Aisha is just one of thousands of people trained by the Agro-Dealer Development Programme (ADP) since it was established in 2007. The project operates in 11 African countries, including Ghana, Mali, Mozambique and Uganda, to train agro-dealers (entrepreneurs selling agricultural products) to provide the farmers that visit their shops with advice on new cultivation techniques and good agricultural practice.'This is a market-based approach to give farmers access to the skills and inputs they need to enhance productivity and increase income, ' says Kehinde Makinde, a programme officer with ADP in Ghana. 'It is not enough to provide only information, as extension officers do, or to provide only inputs, asAgro-dealers in several African nations use cell phones to network with other traders and advisors, and keep farmers updated on the latest agricultural techniques.traditional agro-dealers do. Farmers need to have access to both if they are to be able to use the inputs effectively and get the best return for their investment. 'The advantage of training agrodealers to deliver crop information is that they come into regular contact with farmers and are also aware of the local conditions, such as soil quality, climate and common pest threats. They can give farmers very specific advice on how to cultivate and treat their crops to achieve the best results in that area. But ICTs also allow the agrodealers to provide the latest market prices and put farmers in touch with buyers, processors and transporters.After their initial training, which involves setting up a network of information sources, the agro-dealers stay updated using cell phones tocommunicate with other dealers, local associations and other information services. They often use their phones to organise delivery times with suppliers, ask for and share advice with colleagues, and receive regular automatic SMS messages containing market data.The ADP developed a database of agro-dealers that they use to quickly send SMS alerts, either to all the dealers or to selected smaller groups.The system has been used to inform dealers about the availability of new seed stocks and deals offered by suppliers. The database has become a directory of agro-dealers that includes information on the types of products they sell, whether or not they have received training, the GPS coordinates of their location and contact details.The team is now using the location data to develop maps of agro-dealers and publishes the data on Google Maps. The project team can then use maps to identify areas where there are fewer agro-dealers, which helps them to plan future training services.All the agro-dealers are trained locally, as near to their shops as possible in order to minimise the time they spend away from their business. Experts from AGRA and other partner organisations, such as the IFDC and CNFA, deliver the training courses.The courses are flexible and can be taken as a series of short sessions spread throughout the growing season, or in a single module lasting around six days. At the end of the course, dealers receive certificates that are recognised by their national regulatory authorities. This ensures that government departments are kept informed about the courses, and know which dealers have been trained. The ADP also works with smaller agrodealer associations, helping them to set up and offer training courses to individual agro-dealers, and eventually to other associations.The ADP team cooperates with colleagues on other AGRA programmes, especially those working with farmer organisations and other small and medium-sized enterprises. The various programmes combine their electronic databases to identify and develop connections between the various parties involved in agricultural markets. Farmers are encouraged to operate in organised groups to buy inputs in bulk, and negotiate prices for the larger, combined quantities of goods.Another aspect of AGRA's work is tracing the value chains for various commodities to ensure that information flows to everyone involved in the system, starting with the researchers in the university agricultural departments. The project team links plant breeders and soil scientists with seed production companies, and continues the connection through to the agro-dealers themselves by providing them with information on best agricultural practices which they can pass on to farmers.The agro-dealers are encouraged to set up demonstration plots, establish information centres and organise input exhibitions as methods of delivering practical information to farmers. They also have a role in creating awareness of issues such as pest-management techniques that may arise in the course of the growing season.'The agro-dealers learn that their business is dependent on the farmers they supply, ' adds Makinde. 'If they provide wrong or inappropriate information, the farmers will soon realise this, and stop buying from that particular dealer. The training course also shows the dealers that they should broaden their range of products in order to give farmers a greater choice. 'If they are to provide more products, the agro-dealers need extra financing. It can be difficult for small-businesses to obtain credit from a bank, so the ADP acts as a loan guarantor with a number of financial institutions to. But for dealers operating in rural areas, there is often no bank nearby. In such cases, the ADP makes use of mobile banking services, ensuring that the loans go directly to the cell phones of dealers.'We have to work with the banks to help them understand that the perceived risk of lending to small agribusinesses is much greater than the actual risk, ' explains Makinde. The banks are starting to see that now because more than 80% of loans are repaid on time, and that figure is as high as 95% in some areas. The loans and electronic payments have introduced many agrodealers and their associations to banking services for the first time. 'The agro-dealers are not expected to replace extension officers. AGRA hopes that their newly-trained entrepreneurs will complement the work of other agricultural information services. 'Both methods are necessary, ' says Makinde. 'The extension system in Africa is very weak. Extension officers are not adequately mobilised by their governments to meet the information needs of farmers. The ADP develops skills and institutional strengths and ensures that the latest information gets from the research institutes to smallscale farmers. ' So far, AGRA has trained more than 10,000 agro-dealers. 'It has been quite an achievement to train so many, ' says Makinde, 'but it is still a long way from what we need to be able to get agro-dealers close to every community of farmers. ' It remains a challenge to develop agribusinesses in very remote areas where there are no roads to deliver supplies on a regular and dependable basis.AGRA's research has shown that, on average, Ghanaian farmers, for example, have to travel 9 km to reach their nearest agro-dealer, with some going as far as 15 km. The next step of the agro-dealer programme is to expand the input businesses in these under-served areas. And Makinde is confident that their system can make a difference to farmers.'In the places where we have worked we have seen major changes in the lives of farmers and the landscape, ' he says. 'The dealers who have had the training show greater understanding of their clients' needs. But most importantly, the farmers no longer have to go as far to get the inputs and information they need. For instance , the average distance they now travel is down to 6 km in some parts of Ghana, and we will continue working to keep improving conditions for farmers. ' ◀ kAte hOlt / hh Trained agro-dealers can provide farmers with the products they need, and give practical advice on how to get the best use out of them.educational animations can be left on the phones of community members, and viewed at any time.One of the big problems with many development messages, especially those created and tested in the academic community, is that these ideas are often placed in peer-reviewed journal articles, making it very difficult for educators to access these materials in a format that would allow them to take the information to target populations in the field. But SAWBO's animations have overcome this barrier and are easy to access and distribute.When we hear the term 'animation', many of us will think of Saturday morning cartoons, but the medium has come a long way in the last few decades with the advent of high-quality threedimensional animations. One of the great advantages of animation is that it can be used to show concepts and techniques that are often hard to capture with live-action filming. This art form is now being used extensively in the medical profession to show biological processes. And SAWBO's videos mark the first time that this technology has been used to help low-literate learners, and to bridge the gap between the academic literature and practical educational tools.Since its inception, SAWBO, an initiative of the University of Illinois, has produced four animations. Three focus on pest control strategies for dealing with insects that attack cowpea plants, and one deals with cholera prevention.The cholera prevention animation can be viewed in many languages, including Haitian Creole and Hausa from Niger. Half a dozen new animations on both agricultural and medical subjects are currently being developed for both agricultural and medically related issues.The scripts for the animations draw on scientific literature, extension documents, and material from international aid agencies that has already undergone considerable testing and previously been used educational in programmes.Animations developed to be viewed on cell phones provide a unique way of delivering agricultural advice, as the short videos can be adapted for a variety of languages.Borders (SAWBO) develops educational materials designed to help learners with low levels of literacy in developing nations. They use threedimensional animations to convey agricultural and medical advice that can be used to improve the quality of people's lives. These two-minute animations can be viewed on a range of electronic devices including cell phones with video capacity. Using Bluetooth technology, the animations can be transmitted from cell phone to cell phone. The voice-overs for each animation can be easily adapted for a range of local languages.The animations are shared on an online journal called the Sustainable Development Virtual Knowledge Interface (SusDeViKI). This journal specialises in educational material for semi-literate learners in impoverished settings. Educators can easily search for, view, and download SAWBO's animations onto their computers. They can then transfer them onto cell phones for use in the field as part of ongoing educational programmes. The Barry Pittendrigh (pittendr@illinois.edu) is an endowed chair professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (www.illinois.edu), and a researcher with SAWBO, together with Julia Bello-Bravo (juliabb@illinois.edu), Francisco Seufferheld ((fjseuffe@illinois.edu)Once an animation is complete, the team works with partner groups, and experts in the relevant field to make sure the animations are technically correct. They also work with partners to translate the scripts into many major world languages, including French, Spanish, and many local and regional languages and dialects.To date, SAWBO has worked with several partner groups in West Africa who are working on the problem of protecting cowpea crops from insect attack. The animations are being tested and used as part of a wider educational initiative taking place in five countries and aimed at on protecting dry grains and pulses. This project is funded through the CRSP USAID research programme.Several strategies for deploying the animations are being tested, including transferring the videos from cell phone to cell phone, as well as distributing disks to farmers' groups and farmers field schools. There are also plans to distribute the disks to video viewing clubs.As the cost of cell phones decrease, especially ones with video and Bluetooth capacity, SAWBO's focus is to research the most effective networks for dissemination, so that when new animations are completed, the content can be efficiently distributed. ◀The cell phone-ready versions of the videos are available on the web: Many individuals, local and international groups, and research institutes around the world gather information on agriculture. They all want to get their advice and information to farmers, who can then apply new techniques to improve production, increase income and achieve food security for their communities.However, it can be difficult to ensure that farmers get accurate information that is relevant to their specific needs at the right time and in the right way. ICTs can be very effective in delivering timely and applicable information to small-scale producers, even those living in remote areas.TECA is an internet-based platform for the documentation and exchange of agricultural technologies and practices. Developed by the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the platform strengthens the link between researchers, extension officers and farmers by providing practical advice aimed specifically at helping small-scale producers.TECA (http://teca.fao.org/home) has two main features: Technologies & Practices and Exchange Groups, or online forums where producers can share their own advice and experiences. Both are accessible from the main content section of the homepage or from the left-hand sidebar.This section offers users the opportunity to search for information on a wide range of agricultural and related topics, including advice on growing techniques for many types of crops. It also gives details on marketing, livestock, forestry, fishing, and climate change adaptation.To search for advice, click on 'Technologies' in the left sidebar or the link 'find technologies & practices' on the main page section.A 'Search & browse' page opens allowing you to either browse by category or enter a keyword. The categories you can search include capacity development, disaster risk reduction, natural resource management and post-harvest marketing. Click on any of the categories to see the list of corresponding technologies.For example, clicking on 'capacity development' opens a page showing a selection of available resources including 'Beekeeping: How to make protective gear', 'Soil nutrient management in Uganda' and 'Strategies for improved soil and water conservation practices in hillside production systems' . Click on the titles to read the full details.The technologies page also has a search field where users can enter keywords to find a specific technology or practice.For example, entering the words 'pest management maize' produces a list of results matching the search terms, including 'Integrated crop management of maize, beans and other smallholder crops in East Africa' and 'Growing soybean and maize in rotation' .Click on the title of a technology, from either the categories section or the search function, to see a summary of the information, its source, and applicable countries. Click on 'read' to see the full details, or download a pdf file of the full technology which can be read offline, printed and distributed.The page on 'Growing soybean and maize in rotation' shows that the information comes from Nkoola Institutional Development Associates, is relevant to Uganda, and offers a pdf for download with the full details. One piece of advice recommends that farmers 'buy seed of improved soybean variety with good haulm and grain yield from a reliable seed company. 40-50 kg soybean seeds per hectare is required. 'Other technologies, such as 'Rice transplanting' (http://teca.fao.org/ read/7214), bring the information in video format, which you can watch directly from the page.WAyne hutchInSOn / AlAMyThe exchange groups are an important part of the TECA website. They are online forums where farmers, extension officers, researchers and anyone involved in agriculture can share experiences and ideas.To participate, users first need to register. Click on 'Register' in the sidebar, fill in the form with an e-mail address, password, and first and last name. Agree to the terms of the site, and enter the code to create a new account.There are currently two exchange groups available: Beekeeping (also available in French and Spanish) and Uganda. You can specify on the registration form which you would like to participate in.Click on the group name in the sidebar to view a summary of the group's aims, related events, resources, news and a list of recent discussions.For example, the Beekeeping Exchange Group has recently been discussing the role of beekeeping for development, and pollination services for sustainable agriculture. The events section mentions the ApiEcoTech Apimondia Symposium,which will be held in February 2012. And the 'news' section contains a report on a recent IFPRI survey on the potential of agricultural technologies. Among the resources are pdf files on basic and advanced beekeeping manuals, and bees and their role in forest livelihoods.It is not necessary to register to view the entries; any visitor to the site can read the available information. ◀ TECA's information on technologies and practices can be downloaded or printed and distributed to farmers.With the subtitle, Procedures for Assessing, Transforming, and Evaluating Extension Systems, this book (available as a PDF) from the World Bank looks at the steps extension services can take to transform and strengthen their work. The authors, Burton E. Swanson and Riikka Rajalahti, focus on the technical knowledge, management skills, and information services that small-scale farmers need to improve their income and the economies of their communities. ➜ http://goo.gl/ZUp3CThis briefing paper, prepared by USAID, describes various methods of using ICTs to support and improve agricultural extension services. The authors focus on approaches that are financially sustainable and capable of reaching large numbers of farmers. The authors point out some challenges that exist in many extension programmes, including the translation of information to local languages, low literacy rates, and the need for a good business model to ensure the system is cost-effective. The Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service now provides expert seed advice to farmers via SMS. One system is dedicated to maize seeds, and allows farmers to send a short message code (the word MAIZE along with their district name) to receive information on which variety of maize gives the best results in their area. Another service lets farmers check whether their seed provider is licensed, and therefore more likely to provide genuine seeds of an acceptable quality that have been stored properly. ➜ www.kephis.orgPractical Action have built on their success of using podcasts with farmers in Peru (featured in ICT Update issue 37: http:// goo.gl/GonLq) by expanding the idea to Zimbabwe. The podcasts -regularly produced audio files that can be uploaded to MP3 or other audio players, such as a iPod -contain information to help improve the livelihoods of people in remote rural areas. Based in the northern part of Zimbabwe, in areas with no electricity, radio signal or cell phone coverage, the project delivered agricultural, veterinary and medical advice in the local Shona language to 110,000 people in the region. ➜ http://goo.gl/m8P0UWhat are the main problems involved in delivering agricultural information to millions of small-scale farmers spread all over the world? ➜ Small-scale farmers are usually based in rural areas, far from the providers of agricultural information and advisory services. Over the last decades, there has been insufficient investment in developing extension services, that they are now unable to reach isolated producers and help them to adjust to the challenges they face, improve their organisation and to give them a voice.While ICTs have developed rapidly, little thought has been given to how accessible they are to rural people. This is particularly challenging given that many semi-literate small-scale producers require information in a format they can easily understand and use. Despite numerous pilot projects demonstrating that ICTs can be used to reach small-scale farmers, the up-scaling of such initiatives to the national level has remained a challenge in many ACP countries.How do large international organisations such as the FAO reach those farmers? ➜ In the Research and Extension Branch (OEKR), we work mostly with national governments. We assist them to make their research and extension systems more relevant and responsive to the needs of small-scale producers and to promote demand-driven advisory services.In order to achieve this, we encourage the use of participatory approaches that give people in rural communities, including farmer representatives, a role in assessing and planning extension programmes and services. We also encourage the use of communications tools and methods for development, and we help people to develop the skills they need to use ICTs to connect to others working for the development of agriculture.How does FAO use technology to reach small-scale farmers? ➜ At OEKR, we have developed a website called TECA [see Bookmark,page 11] where you can find practical information on agricultural technologies and practices that help small-scale producers. It combines a database of technologies with web 2.0 tools that allow discussions on topics relevant to particular countries or on specific themes such as beekeeping. Based on the experiences of a rural user group from Uganda, the platform has been designed so that it can now be easily used either by rural advisors working closely with small-scale farmers or by the farmers themselves.Is one type of technology -the internet, or cell phones, for exampleparticularly effective for reaching farmers, or is a combination of technologies necessary? ➜ Cell phones have proven a very effective technology for reaching farmers, especially for sharing market price information and weather details. However, for sharing more complex information and encouraging learning, cell phone use needs to be integrated with the internet and traditional means of communication.We need a careful, local-level assessment to determine the information needs and conditions. That means assessing what already exists, what is widely accepted by farmers and affordable for them, what sources of information are currently available and which support services and skills exist at the local level, before deciding the most efficient ways of reaching farmers.How has TECA adapted to technological changes over the years? ➜ When we started TECA, it was simply a system for documenting agricultural technologies. It has since expanded from a database to an open source content management system that has tools that allow commenting technologies and practices, as well as social networking in so-called exchange groups.We share the system with national partners and together we develop new functions as the need arises and as new developments emerge. We have been collaborating with rural partners who use cell phones to link TECA's content to the farmers through their community workers. We had previously been involved in a similar project in east Africa where we supported networks that combined the internet, cell phones and information boards in villages to share market price information and market offers. The lessons we learned from this helped us with the further development of TECA's interactivity.➜ I am convinced that databases and communication technologies are essential tools in future extension service, but they cannot completely replace face-to-face interaction between farmers and extension agents. We know from our experiences with TECA that face-to-face meetings or phone calls are often necessary in the initial phase of setting up an online-community. People who know each other personally are more likely to exchange through online discussion groups.The role of extension officers has widened to include services such as mediation in situations where there is conflict over natural resources. They also support institutional development processes that cannot easily be replaced by ICTs alone, but call for a more personal interaction. ◀ An initiative supported by UNDP aims to give phone numbers to more than three million people in Africa and South Asia. Users of the system do not need their own cell phone, or even a SIM card. Instead, they can make use of any cell phone to log on and call or send SMSes from their individual number. The system, known as Cloud Phone, was developed by the social enterprise company, Movirtu, and will be introduced to 12 countries by early 2013 through the Business Call to Action (BCtA) programme.The team behind the project expects that most subscribers will be women in rural communities who will be able to use their own unique number to make and receive calls, and access information and services such as banking or agriculture support.'It is a basic fact not everyone in the world can afford their own mobile phone, ' said Ramona Liberoff, of Movirtu. 'Our goal is to increase the earning potential of those on US$ 1-2 a day by saving money and allowing them to access the economic benefits of a full mobile identity. ' ➜ For more, see the BCtA website: www.businesscalltoaction.orgA major telecommunications association has announced a project to deliver agricultural information via cell phones to two million farmers in developing countries. The GSMA, which represents around 800 cell phone network operators around the world, launched the mFarmer Initiative at a conference in Cape Town. With funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the association will encourage its members to enter partnerships with public and private sector agricultural organisations to provide advisory services to the world's poorest farmers.'There are over 2.3 billion people living on less than US$ 2 day, a large number of whom are rural smallholder farmers in developing countries and who face many issues which inhibit their agricultural productivity and limit their incomes, ' said Chris Locke, executive director of the GSMA Development Fund. 'Through the mFarmer Initiative Fund, the GSMA Development Fund's mAgri Programme will accelerate the provision of high-quality agricultural information services through mobile and by 2013 we aim to provide two million farmers in developing countries with an invaluable and transformative business resource. 'The association hopes that the extra boost to agricultural information services will lead to an increase in farmers' incomes and improve food security in rural areas. Cell phone technology provides a cost-effective and scalable solution to address these challenges. ➜ Visit the mFarmer Initiative website: http://goo.gl/sdtFlZOhrA BenSeMrA / reuterSA recent evaluation of the World Bank's ICT projects shows that the Bank's support has increased access to communications technology in difficult environments. The Bank's efforts have also led to greater reforms of the telecommunications sector, increased competition and improved investment compared to countries where it was not active. The study, Capturing Technology for Development by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), acknowledges the strong results achieved by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) -the private sector arm of World Bank -in ACP countries, helping small-scale entrepreneurs become major operators in cell phone network provision.From 2003 to 2010, the World Bank invested US$ 4.2 billion, with around US$ 2.9 billion going to the poorest countries. However, the bank failed to meets its targets in areas where telecommunications services were not commercially attractive, leaving millions of people in the most underserved parts of the world with limited access to ICTs. The report's authors recommend that the World Bank shift its priorities in future efforts to encourage competition and further policy reform in client countries. The Bank should also support more publicprivate partnerships to develop broadband internet services and increase its focus on building ICT skills.Director-General of the IEG at the World Bank, Vinod Thomas, confirmed the organisation's future commitment to technology: 'ICT is an area where the Bank Group can continue to play a catalytic role, especially in ensuring access for the poorest ➜ Read the full report: http://goo.gl/qO4uG I hope to get a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 soon too. I like this because it makes use of the cell phone network to connect to the internet. Where I live, there are not so many WiFi connections. I really think that the future of technology in Africa will be mobile, so any mobile device will be popular on the continent. ◀","tokenCount":"8716"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"767e4309076554ace04f00a3ba38364c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0842b08f-1e78-407c-8353-8d4704173646/retrieve","id":"275591333"},"keywords":["maize variety","multi stress tolerant","farmer criteria","guinea savanna","Nigeria"],"sieverID":"773cf002-65ee-45e3-8e44-b58c923a3480","pagecount":"8","content":"Maize productivity is limited by multiple stresses in the savannas of West and Central Africa. Field trials were conducted in northern Guinea savanna of Nigeria in 2011 and 2012 to evaluate the performance of multi-stress tolerant maize varieties. Thirteen varieties including Local Check replicated three times were tested in randomized complete block design. Plant and ear heights were significantly higher for LNTP x LNP-WC3 and 2004 TZE-W DT-Maize (Zea mays L) is the third most important cereal crop in the World after rice and wheat. It is the major staple food for more than 1.2 billion people in Africa and Latin America (FAOSTAT, 2013). Maize is produced primarily for human consumption either as fresh or processed product. In addition, maize is produced for animal feed and industrial uses such as starch, flour, ethanol, cooking syrup and crisp (Izge et al, 2009). According to FAOSTAT (2013) a total of 885.3 million metric tons of maize was realized worldwide from 171.8 million hectares in 2011. Out of this total, Africa contributed 65.7 million metric tons or 7.4 % from 34.6 million hectares while Nigeria realized 9.2 million metric tons or about 1.03% of the world total from 6 million hectares. The average grain yield per unit area was 5.2 tons ha -1 for the World total, 1.9 tons ha -1 for Africa and 1.5 tons ha -1 for Nigeria in 2011 (FAOSTAT, 2013). Thus maize grain yield per unit area in Nigeria is less than 30% of the World average Historical trends have suggested that the major factor responsible for increase in maize production in Nigeria is expansion in land under its cultivation rather than an improvement in yields per unit area. The total land area under maize cultivation in Nigeria has been on a steady increase from 0.65 million hectares in 1984, 4.5 million hectares in 2004 and 6 million ha in 2011 (FAOSTAT, 2013). Currently, Nigeria's yield per hectare remains lower than the world average of the 1960's (1.9 tons ha -1 ). It ranged between 1.63 and 1.76 tons ha -1 between 2004 and 2007, much lower than the world average which has ranged between 4.88 and 4.93 tons ha -1 for the same period (USDA, 2008).The major reasons advanced for this trend are farmers use of unscientific production practices, decline in soil fertility, bush burning; intensive cropping, overgrazing and soil erosion (Law-Ogbomo and Remison, 2008). Other reasons advanced for the low yield are low use of fertilizers, herbicides and improved seeds, unreliable and erratic rainfall sometimes resulting in drought (Fakorede et al, 2001). The savanna soils in Nigeria are low in organic matter and available Nitrogen and hence reduc-ing maize yield by as much as 40% (Baenziger and Lafitte, 1997). However, as a result of high cost of N fertilizer, poor distribution system and low purchasing power (Fakorede et al, 2001), farmers apply an average of 13 kg ha -1 as against the world average of 100 kg/ha or FAO recommendation of 200 kg ha -1 (Omonona, 2013). Drought can result in grain yield reduction by as much as 90% when it occurs from a few days before tassel emergence to the beginning of grain filling (NeSmith and Ritchie, 1992). The risk of drought stress is especially high in Sudan savanna where rainfall is unreliable and its distribution is erratic. Grain yield losses from Striga infestation of maize fields can range from 10-100% depending on the number of stress factors that affect the crop simultaneously (Oswald and Ransom, 2001). These multiple stress factors often occur simultaneously and results in the abysmal low grain yield that is more common at the farmer level. Drought and low nutrient status aggravates Striga parasitism on maize, but grain yield reduction in plots with both Striga and drought stress ranged between 56 and 77% when compared with yield reduction from Striga alone (Kim and Adetimirin, 1997).Efforts in maize improvement for grain yield potential and stability in Nigeria have advanced over the years since 1950. Maize breeding efforts which began with the introgression of genes for pest and disease resistance (Fakorede et al, 2001) to the development of maize genotypes (open pollinated varieties and hybrids) with high grain yield potential as well as adaptation to different ecologies and stress factors (Kim, 1997) such as Striga hermonthica (Del) Benth, and drought, have resulted in the development and release of productive maize varieties for different agro-ecologies in Nigeria. Kamara et al (2004) reported genetic gain in grain yield of 0.41% year -1 in open pollinated maize varieties developed for West and Central Africa between 1970 and 1999 across the West African savannas.However, it is critical to select a suitable environment that optimizes genetic gain both within and across environments (Zavala-Garcia et al, 1992). New maize varieties that are resistant or tolerant to multiple biotic and abiotic stresses developed from diverse sources of germplasm are being assessed for environmental adaptability, grain yield stability and farmer acceptability. These new varieties could surpass the performance of those previously released or commonly grown among the farmers in the region. Modern cultivars have been improved for various biotic and abiotic stresses such as drought, waterlogged soils, N deficiency, root lodging, pre-mature death, stalk rot, insects and barrenness (Duvick, 1997). A large fraction of yield improvement in maize may be ascribed to the ability of newer cultivars to better tolerate stress conditions, like night temperature during the grain filling period, soil moisture and weed interference (Fanadzo et al, 2007).Field experiments were conducted at Askira research station (Latitude 10°38.24'N, and Longitude 12°55.04'E, 472 m above sea level) in northern Guinea savanna of northeastern Nigeria during 2011 and 2012 rainy seasons. Average annual rainfall is about 1,000 mm and the length of the rainy season is about 130 days occurring between late May and early October. There is little variation in the pattern of wind orientation between the months of November and April while between June and October, the wind direction changes and rain bearing winds blow mainly from the southeast. The maximum temperature is about 40°C Although the performance of the new maize varieties could be high under the controlled on station research level of the Research Institutes, there is need to test these varieties across the farmer ecologies in Nigeria. This is because maize grain yield could differ across ecologies depending on the adaptation of the varieties to weather, stress factors and soil conditions prevalent across the diverse ecologies. In other words, the performance of a variety could be location specific. Multi-stress tolerant maize varieties may provide the panacea for reducing the multiple maize production constraints farmers are grappling with at the farm level.A key link in Agricultural Research for Development effort is the search for solutions to farmer production constrains identified during field diagnosis.The key factors that constrain farmers' adoption of technologies are inappropriateness of the technologies, unavailability of required inputs and farmers' socio-economic conditions (KARI, 1996). Technologies that do not meet farmers' preferences, objectives and conditions are less likely to be adopted. Farmer evaluations help scientists to design, test and recommend new technologies in light of information about farmers' criteria for usefulness of the innovation (Ashby, 1991). The present study was an effort towards identifying maize varieties that are tolerant to low soil fertility, drought and Striga being the major constraints limiting maize productivity in the study area. The mother -baby trial is a research process to raise awareness and encourage farmers to test basket of technology options applicable to their environment (Ellis-Jones et al, 2004). The design aims to bridge the gap between breeders and farmers and also ensure that new varieties satisfy farmers' preferences and suit their socioeconomic situation (Baenziger and de Meyer, 2000). This article reports the results of mother trial established to assess the performance of new maize varieties that are multi-stress tolerant in a farmer environment. The specific objectives were to: i) determine the performance of the multi-stress tolerant maize varieties in the farm environment; ii) determine farmer selection criteria for variety adoption; iii) identify varieties for nomination for on-farm demonstration and subsequent adoption.also applied by side dibbling 15 cm away from the stand at four WAS. Weeds were removed manually at two and four WAS using the African hand hoe. Maize stands were earthen up at four WAS during second weeding. These operations were repeated during the two years of the experiment. All plots were harvested in November each year.Farmer field days were organized on 2 nd November 2011 and 20 th October 2012 to showcase the performance of the varieties and ginger farmer response for variety selection. A total of 112 persons (72 males and 40 females) including farmers and community leaders drawn from 4 communities participated during the field day in 2011, while 154 persons comprising 82 males and 72 females participated in 2012. Farmer representatives went round and inspected the performance of the varieties in each plot. The Farmers outlined their selection criteria for a maize variety. Pair-wise ranking of the selection criteria was made by the farmers in 2012 to determine their ranking.Growth and development parameters such as plant and ear heights were measured at harvest. Number of days to 50% tassel and 50% silk, anthesis-silk interval (ASI); and yield parameters such as number of ears plant -1 , single ear weight and grain yield ha -1 were collected. Striga counts were made from 1.0 m 2 quadrat randomly chosen from 5 places in each plot at 10 WAS. Grain yield was taken from a net plot of two central rows leaving the two outer rows and four outer hills as discard. Data collected were subjected to ANOVA F-test using Statistix Analytical Software (Statistix, 2005). Treatment means were compared using Duncan Multiple Range Test (DMRT) at 5% level of probability. Linear correlation was calculated to determine the degree of association among agronomic parameters measured. especially in April while minimum is about 18°C between December and January.Analysis of the surface soil (0-15 cm) at the experimental site prior to establishment showed that the texture was sandy loam comprising 75.5, 15.0 and 9.5% sand, silt and clay, respectively. The soil reaction was slightly acidic (6.21) and electrical conductivity (EC) was generally low (< 0.40 d Sm -1 ). Organic carbon was also low (< 10 g kg -1 ) while total nitrogen was moderate (1.7 g kg -1 ). Available phosphorus was low (3.00 mg kg -1 ) and exchangeable potassium was moderate (0.40 Cmol + kg -1 ). Exchangeable calcium was also moderate (5.40 Cmol + kg -1 ) while exchangeable magnesium was high (4.70 Cmol + kg -1 ). The soil is classified as Ustalfs according to USDA soil taxonomy.The rains started as early as May during the two years. However, the rains did not establish until second week of July. The distribution was erratic and the events were few before establishment. There were beginning of season drought for three weeks in 2011 and two weeks in 2012, which delayed crop establishment. Although floods were observed in August in 2012, about 10 days end of season drought was observed between September and October. The study was conducted under natural rainfall and farmer environment.Twelve improved maize varieties representing 15 years (1994 to 2009) of breeding efforts were sourced from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Ibadan (Table 1) and one local check was selected for the experiment. Randomized Complete Block Design was used to evaluate the 13 varieties which were replicated three times. Each variety was grown in a plot comprising 4 rows each 5 meters long.Maize was sown after land preparation with oxdrawn plough at 75 cm x 40 cm on 22 nd and 21 st July 2011 and 2012, respectively. Maize seedlings were thinned to two plants stand -1 at two weeks after sowing (WAS). Recommended fertilizer rate of 100:50:50 (Onyibe et al, 2006) was applied in 2 split doses. The first dose of 50:50:50 was applied 10 days after sowing using NPK (15:15:15) by dibbling 8 to 10 cm away from the stand. The second dose of 50 kg N ha -1 was The performance of the maize varieties showed that plant height was significantly higher for LNTP x LNP W C3 and 2004 TZE-W DT STRC4 than EVDT 99-W STR and 2009 TZEW DT STR (Table 2). There was no significant difference among the other varieties including the Local Check. A similar trend was Maydica electronic publication -2014 observed in ear height where LNTP x LNP WC3 had significantly higher ear height during the first year, while 2004 TZEW DT STR C4 and EVDT 99 W STR QPM significantly produced superior ear height during the second year and across the years. The varieties EVDT 99-W STR, 2009 TZEW DT STR and EVDT 2000-Y STR QPM significantly produced the shortest ear height.The expression of plant and ear heights depends on the variety and the environment. Plant and ear heights are among the growth characters for Distinctiveness, Uniformity and Stability (DUS) of a variety. Apart from the inherent genetic ability, several environmental and agronomic factors such as plant density, fertilization, pests and diseases influence the expression of these characters. LNTP x LNP WC3 being a low nitrogen tolerant variety realized taller plants and exhibited favorable response to the environmental conditions. Baenziger et al (1999) demonstrated that improvement for drought tolerance also resulted in specific adaptation and improved performance under low nitrogen. However, the realization of superior vegetative growth does not automatically result in superior grain yield. This is because the translocation rate of assimilates to the kernels of shorter hybrids was found to be greater than that of taller ones (Be-  2). These varieties combine Striga tolerance with drought or low nitrogen tolerance which could reduce Striga emergence more. Badu-Apraku et al (2004) reported that use of varieties resistant or tolerant to Striga is considered the most economically feasible and sustainable approach for reducing Striga damage to maize in the savanna region of Africa. The Striga counts had no significant effect on grain yield probably due to the level of tolerance/resistance inherent in the varieties or due to their low population or both. Maize yields are usually much more closely related to Striga damage symptoms than to Striga  3). Days to silk were significantly delayed for LNTP x LNP WC3 than DTW STR SYN, EVDT 99 W STR and 2009 TZEW DT STR that had the earliest period to silk. The Local Check and LNTP x LNP WC3 apparently flowered and matured latter than the other varieties. Herrero and Johnson (1981) reported that delay in silk emergence results in a decreased kernel number, which in turn results in lower grain yieldThe Anthesis -Silk Interval (ASI) was significantly lower for TZE COMP3 DT WC2, 2004 TZE W DT STRC4 and EVDT 99 W STR than EVDT 99 W STR QPM and ACR94 TZE W POP STR in 2011 (Table 3). The Local Check had significantly higher ASI in 2012 which was comparable to 2004 TZE W DT STRC4, EVDT 99 STR QPM, and DT Y STR SYN. Results for the combined mean showed significantly higher ASI for EVDT 99 W STR QPM which was comparable to the Local Check and ACR94 TZE W POP STR. The shortest values of ASI were observed for TZE COMP3 DT WC2, EVDT 99 W STR, 2009 TZEW DT STR and 2008 DTMA Y STR, respectively. The short period between tasselling and silking of these varieties indicate high traits for drought tolerance. Baenziger et al (1999) concluded that a variety with shorter ASI, the presence of stay green trait, increased ears per plant and increased biomass under drought are associated with high grain yield. A reduced ASI is a symptom of increased partitioning of assimilates to ears around flowering time enabling stress tolerant genotypes to reach silk earlier and to have greater ear biomass at anthesis. An asynchronous flowering can limit grain production due to lack of pollen, loss of silk receptivity or early kernel abortion (Carcovas and Otegui, 2001).The measure of prolificacy among the maize varieties was determined by the number of ears produced per plant. Number of ears plant -1 was significantly lower for the Local Check, Pool 18 SR, EVDT 2000 Y STR QPM, and EVDT 99 W STR QPM than the other improved varieties (Table 4). Significantly higher number of ears was observed for DTY STR SYN, EVDT 99 W STR, DT W STR SYN and 2004 TZE W DT STRC4, respectively. The variety 2008 DTMA Y STR significantly realized higher number of ears per plant across the years. The number of ears per plant of 2008 DTMA Y STR (1.62 ears plant -1 ) and DTYSTR SYN (1.56 ears plant -1 ) was almost double that of the Local Check (0.84 ears plant -1 ) across the two years (Table 4). The Local Check, EVDT 2000 Y STR QPM and TZE COMP 3 DT WC2 significantly produced the lowest number of ears plant -1 and thus were the least prolific among the varieties tested. The level of prolificacy has direct bearing on grain yield. Yield increases in improved strains of maize are usually associated with increased prolificacy. Durieux et al (1993) found that the yield per ear of non-prolific hybrid was higher .than that of the prolific hybrid, but that, the total yield per plant of the prolific hybrid was higher because of the formation of a second ear.Ear weight of the maize varieties significantly differed in 2012 and across the two years (Table 4). There was no significant difference in 2011. The Local Check significantly produced heavier ears than 2009 TZEW DT STR for the combined mean. The improved varieties that slightly realized heavier cobs were EVDT 2000 Y STR QPM, EVDT 99 W STR QPM, TZE COMP 3DT WC2 and ACR 94 TZEW POP STR, respectively. It is apparent that most of the improved varieties that were prolific compromised ear weight probably due to the interplay of genotype and intraplant competition.Grain yield per ha was significantly superior for DT Y STR SYN, 2008 DTMA Y STR, and EVDT 99 W STR QPM across the years (Table 4). The three vari- and TZE COMP 3DT WC2 that were the least prolific and had superior ear weight significantly realized the least grain yield. Thus the prolificacy of a maize variety was the major determinant of grain yield in the present study. Kling et al (1997) also found significant positive correlation between grain yield and ears per plant.The linear relationship among the agronomic parameters of the maize varieties showed that grain yield per ha was positively associated with ears per plant, days to silk, days to tassel and ear height (r = 0.22* to 0.56***) (Table 5). Thus grain yield increased with increase in number of ears per plant, number of days to flowering and ear height. Mason et al (1974) reported that dry matter yield showed a significant positive correlation to plant height and to ear height. Ears per plant, which is a measure of barrenness, were very strongly related to grain yield. Ears per plant was negatively correlated with ear weight (r = -0.59***), which explains the superior yield realized by varieties that were more prolific but with low ear weight. Thus ear prolificacy and ear weight were mutually exclusive for increasing grain yield. The ASI was positively correlated with plant height, ear height and days to silk (r = 0.23* to 0.36**). Taller varieties had longer ASI and prolonged period to silk which probably interfered with 'nick' timing due to drought. Drought stress accelerate pollen shed, often resulting in a poor timing 'nick' between pollen shed and silk emergence. Varieties with prolonged ASI realized lower grain yield probably as a result of incomplete ear filling as increase in ASI reduces number of kernels per ear (Sangoi et al, 2002). The varieties selected by the farmers as promising during the field day were EVDT 2000 Y STR QPM, 2009 TZE W DT STR, EVDT 99 W STR QPM, 2008 DTMA Y STR, and DTY STR SYN. The farmers' criteria for variety acceptance were in the order: Striga tolerance > nutritive value > drought tolerance > flour value > good taste > high yield > early maturity (Table 6). The top ranking requirements in a variety were Striga tolerance (STR), presence of high quality nutrient such as quality protein as in quality protein maize (QPM) and beta carotene as in yellow maize (Y); and drought tolerance (DT). Most of the varieties preferred by the farmers' right from the field coincidentally exhibit two or more of these attributes. Kamara et al (2006) reported that farmers in market driven systems preferred early maturing and high yielding drought tolerant maize varieties, while those in relatively low resource production system preferred extra-early maturing varieties to provide food security than high yielding varieties. The trend in the present study showed farmer preference for nutritive maize and mitigation of environmental stress accentuated by Striga and drought.The response of the maize varieties tested to the biotic and abiotic constraints prevalent in the study ","tokenCount":"3497"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8061b472085911031346f79b53fe0fc7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/15d44c6d-ab33-4d5c-a832-49d9590f1b47/retrieve","id":"1288640895"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"266b4059-fa2c-4da4-bbb1-81bfb1a074d6","pagecount":"2","content":" Restoring order and reducing human suffering are essential first steps after a disaster!  Agriculture is the only productive sector that can be reactivated with the least delay!  Development objectives should not be set aside during crises and after disasters.  There must be a clear plan to move agriculture from relief to recovery!  The private sector has a critical role to play in rehabilitating agriculture after disaster!  Financial institutions, including Credit Unions, are important to the recovery process!This stage is particularly important as communities in post-disaster situations risk becoming dependent on short term aid activities in the absence of a transition to long-term planning. A reason advanced for problems in making the transition is the changing conceptual frameworks on part of donors and beneficiaries and the inadequately linked and different timetables (Dabelstein 2001;Hines et al 1998).Among the ideas suggested to enhance success of relief-development transitions include: -integration of short and long term plans should be at the initial planning stages a shared vision of end goals between the donor community and key local actors a joint needs assessment that prioritizes the essential elements of basic needs and reconstruction and peace-building efforts clear schedules and assigned responsibilities for hand-over from emergency agencies to their successors undertaking rehabilitation and development programs the ongoing participation of community based organizations from the needs assessment through to long-term planning performance and utilization-focused monitoring integrated into planning the development of an exit strategy at the planning stage of the relief operation (Dabelstein 2001;CIAT, CRS, ICRISAT 2001;O\"Keefe and Kirby 1997;Pratten 1997;WFP 1998) In preparing agriculture to make the transition from short to long term planning, short-term and long-term strategies must be integrated from the outset. Development objectives need to be maintained throughout the emergency. They should incorporate elements of prevention and preparedness which reduce susceptibility to disasters (FAO 2002). Despite strong arguments that an integrated approach will better address farmer systems\" changing needs, there is a large gap both in practice and in the literature (Remington 2001;WFP 1998). There are several situations where vulnerability to hazards will result in disasters!  Disasters will result in significant damages to agricultural crops, livestock and farm assets!  To find the \"silver lining\" after a disaster, there must be a well planned and executed relief, recovery and reconstruction stimulus package that acts as a catalyst for a new agriculture after disaster!  Relief-Recovery packages must include build-in strategies to enable agriculture to make the transition into long-term growth and development!  Disasters can be the trigger for the much-needed agricultural revolution in the Caribbean!  A post-disaster agricultural revolution should be driven by interventions that foster good practices, innovative enterprises and market driven products that provide a platform for to sustainable development. Mitigating risk, rebuilding confidence in agricultureThe issue of unmitigated risk presented by natural hazards and hence the attractiveness of agriculture must receive priority in planning recovery strategies after disaster. \"Deficient and uncoordinated risk management measures\" as well as \"Lack of financing and new investments\" are two of the nine key binding constraints to agricultural development in CARICOM prioritized in 2004 for collective regional action. Issues of agricultural insurance and innovative micro-financing are re-emerging as areas of interest for risk mitigation in the Caribbean.After disasters, the private sector is a critical partner to government in offering much needed relief and fast tracking the recovery process. Insurance companies are critical, since they provide farmers with immediate cash to replant, clear lands, hire workers and seek loans from commercial banks in the form of collateral following the natural disaster.The United States Department of Agriculture has provisions in place that allow farmers affected by disaster to be able to apply for an emergency loan equal to 100% of their projected losses. In many Caribbean economies, this level of assistance is difficult to replicate. Far too many farmers still do not have crop insurance at all or only but the bare minimum that is not enough to withstand a really devastating year.There is an ongoing debate that public subsidies for premiums are necessary to make premiums more affordable to farmers, particularly those growing crops that provide a quick turn over and could become vital in securing food supplies and fuelling recovery after disaster.Present data show that in Latin America and the Caribbean, the volume of agricultural insurance premiums is a miniscule share of total insurance premiums. Some have advocated the need for governments to have a vital role to play in providing the necessary information needed to measure, evaluate, and monitor risk, in maintaining an auspicious but sound regulatory and supervisory framework, in helping with reinsurance and catastrophic disaster relief, and supporting private insurance providers with technical assistance and training.Credit unions, present in most Caribbean countries play a pivotal role in reviving the economy after a natural disaster. Many farmers have themselves formed co-operatives that provide the basis for finances to cultivate their farms. The loans by these credit unions provide for replacement or repairs to property and infrastructure not covered by insurance, including damage to crops and pasture. There are 580,000 cooperatives in India with a total membership of nearly 380 million individual members. Around 65% of the cooperatives are agriculture-related. Each and every village in the country is linked to cooperatives. A majority of the farmers obtain credit, input supply and marketing services from their cooperatives. Cooperatives in India are broad-based and thus can influence the members and community to take measures for mitigating risks.After disaster, agriculture is perhaps the only productive sector that can be reactivated with the least delay.Clearly, the task before the Caribbean in the aftermath of a disaster is to continue the process of transformation of agricultural to advance the development of the processed food industry to supply consumers with quality and affordable foods and ensure reasonable profits and improved quality of life to producers. Prioritizing agriculture recovery is particularly critical since scarce resources already allocated for development programs are diverted to crisis relief and rehabilitation. Two immediate and critical actions that need to be taken to set the stage and pace for relief and recovery efforts should be: Coordinating the relief phase is an essential first action in the aftermath of a disaster.Such coordination should comprise a multi-disciplinary of regional and international experts, matched with local stakeholders in the affected countries, to assess the nature and scope of the disaster in agricultural production at the time of impact, and to develop and coordinate relief and recovery. That team will also be critical as a mechanism to make the transition from recovery to development planning, particularly with respect to building research and innovation technologies capabilities of the region, since in many instances the initial outpouring of support after a disaster is not sustained. The need for coordination is imperative. There is no substitute for strong leadership from Governments authorities to identify the most appropriate actions to take, as well as who is best equipped to implement. Adequate and readily accessible funding is also essential to drive the recovery effort.The rapid mobilization of a relief package is a critical base for recovery and should match the urgency and comprehensive cover with which \"stimulus packages\" were provided to \"bail out\" financial institutions after the disaster of the financial crisis. The relief package should address crop disaster losses and replanting, access to improved seeds, plant stock and their associated improved technologies and practices from planting to harvesting to inculcate a new culture of innovation and productivity in farm operations, and in that context as well, restoration of agriculture health and food safety systems. It should also embed the requirement to adopt good practices as a complement to the risk mitigation tools that should be provided, such as insurance.A well defined, well resourced strategy, supported and implemented by appropriately skilled personnel from both the public and private sector, will expedite the delivery of assistance in a manner most beneficial to producers, whether as individuals or as part of a rural, commodity or producer group. Having such a strategy is an important aspect of moving agriculture from recovery to sustainable growth.3 2","tokenCount":"1345"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"7275ee57d6f77a7ae11d5ddbee3db64a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/3c8dd167-bb5d-4bb5-87ad-bc23c6a0b5a3/retrieve","id":"1192952860"},"keywords":["COI","Cytochrome oxidase subunit I gene; mtDNA","mitochondrial DNA"],"sieverID":"3bf4f18b-d439-48c5-b7ee-789e885ffe59","pagecount":"16","content":"After 2007, upsurges of whiteflies on cassava plants and high incidences of cassava diseases were observed in Central African Republic. This recent upsurge in the abundance of Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) was directly linked to serious damage to cassava crops resulting from spread of whitefly-borne cassava mosaic geminiviruses (CMGs). There is currently very little information describing whitefly populations on cassava and associated crops in Central African Republic. The current study aimed to address this gap, and to determine whether the increasing damage associated with B. tabaci whiteflies was the consequence of a new invasion, or an upsurge of a local population. The molecular genetic identification and phylogenetic relationships of 898 B. tabaci adult individuals collected from representative locations (54) throughout CAR were determined based on their mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I sequences (mtCOI). Field and ecological data were also collected from each site, including whitefly abundance, CMD incidence, host plants colonized by B. tabaci and agro-ecological zone. Phylogenetic analysis of the whitefly mtCOI sequences indicated that SSA1 (-SG1, -SG2), SSA3, MED, MEAM1 and Indian Ocean (IO) putative species occur in CAR. One specific haplotype of SSA1-SG1 (SSA1-SG1-P18F5) predominated on most cassava plants and at the majority of sites. This haplotype was identical to the SSA1-SG1 Mukono8-4 (KM377961) haplotype that was recorded from Uganda but that also occurs widely in CMD pandemic-affected areas of East Africa. These results suggest that the SSA1-SG1-P18F5 haplotype occurring in CAR represents a recent invasive population, and that it is the likely cause of the increased spread and severity of CMD in CAR. Furthermore, the high mtDNA sequence diversity observed for SSA1 and its broad presence on all sites and host plants sampled suggest that this genetic group was the dominant resident species even before the arrival of this new invasive haplotype.Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz, Euphorbiaceae) is a major staple crop in sub-Saharan Africa due to its high calorie content, low production cost and ability to adapt to different soil types and climatic conditions, most particularly in central Africa [1]. For example, in Central African Republic (CAR), annual production of cassava is approximately 2.4 million tons of fresh tuberous roots, equivalent to 600,000 t of chips, ten times higher than maize and groundnuts [2]. Production of cassava in Africa is currently constrained by pests and diseases, the most significant of which are cassava mosaic disease (CMD) and cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) [3,4] and annual losses to CMD alone have been estimated at more than US$ 1 billion [5]. CMD occurs wherever cassava is grown in Africa, and is caused by nine cassava mosaic geminiviruses (CMGs) (family Geminiviridae, genus Begomovirus) [6] occurring singly or in mixed infections. The disease is known to be more severe where African cassava mosaic virus (ACMV) occurs in mixed infection with one of the several East African cassava mosaic virus (EACMV) -like viruses [7,8]. Yield losses attributed to CMD were minor to moderate for many years, following the first outbreaks occurring during the 1920s-30s. Nevertheless it became much more damaging following the development of an unusually severe form of the disease in Uganda that spread to neighboring parts of East and Central Africa and became a regional pandemic [9]. CBSD is known to be caused by two plant RNA viruses, Cassava brown streak virus (CBSV) and Ugandan cassava brown streak virus (UCBSV) (family Potyviridae; genus Ipomovirus), occurring alone or in co-infection. This disease has recently affected much of the Great Lakes Region of East and Central Africa [10][11][12].In CAR, previous disease surveys conducted in seven areas during 2005 and 2006 revealed CMD incidences (associated with ACMV and EACMV-UG) ranging from 67 to 97%, with tuberous root yield losses estimated at 49% [13,14], but no CBSD was recorded. The common key factor driving both diseases spread is the occurrence of super-abundant populations of the whitefly, Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae), causing not only physical damage to cassava but transmitting CMGs [15,16]. Both biological and genetic evidence suggest that these populations of insects have changed in a way that has enhanced their adaptation to cassava [17][18][19]. The whitefly B. tabaci is a complex of genetically distinct cryptic species, with 35 putative cryptic species that have so far been identified worldwide [20][21][22]. Although major studies on B. tabaci have been performed in East and West Africa, little is known about the distribution and frequency of the various species in the countries of Central Africa. So far, the sub-Saharan African clade has been reported in this region [19] (which includes the sub-Saharan species together with their genetic groups called: SSA1-SG1, SSA1-SG2, SSA1-SG3, SSA1-SG4, SSA2 and SSA3). However, for the Central African Republic, the frequency of the species on cassava or other associated crops, and their genetic sub-divisions remain largely unknown.The main objective of this study was to provide the first detailed description of the diversity of B. tabaci species in CAR on several host plant species. This will provide a good basis for answering questions about species dynamics in relation to super-abundance, virus diseases, as well as providing valuable information for developing management programs.This study was conducted in CAR during the months of February 2008 and 2013. CAR is located in the central part of the African continent, and bordered by 5 countries (Cameroon, Chad, Sudan, Republic of Congo and Democratic Republic of Congo). The climate is tropical with two seasons: the dry season from November to April and the rainy season from May to October.Adult B. tabaci individuals were collected from the shoot tips of 3-5 month old cassava plants and weeds during surveys of 14 district areas (54 localities) distributed in three agro-climatic zones where cassava is cultivated: Guinean Forest (GF), Sudano-Ubanguian (SU) and Sudano-Guinean (SG) zones (S1 Table ). Host-plants were selected along two diagonal transects across each cassava field, and whitefly abundance was recording according to the method described in [23]: whitefly abundance was determined as the total number of adults from the topmost five leaves of each of the plants of the diagonal surveyed. Altitude, longitude, latitude, abundance of whiteflies, and CMD incidence were recorded in each field, as well as geo-coordinates using a global positioning system (GPS) handset. Immediately following collection, the adults were preserved in 90% alcohol, and stored in a freezer at -20˚C following survey completion. The number and distribution of sampling sites differed from year to year and between areas. In all cases, B. tabaci adults were collected from several cassava plants per sampled field and a single sample tube of at least 32 insects was collected from each sampled field, hereafter referred to as a site. A total of over 5000 whiteflies were collected during the dry seasons of 2007-2008 and 2013. From this total, 898 individuals were further processed in this study, of which 98 from 9 sites from 2007-2008 (mostly in the Bangui area) and 800 from all the other sites sampled in 2013. Samples were collected from all major cassava-growing areas of CAR. Adults were morphologically sexed under a binocular (x40) stereomicroscope [24] before DNA extraction. Host plants of the sampling period of 2013 included one weed species (Sida acuta) and six cultivated plants (groundnut: Arachis hypogaea, tomato: Solanum lycopersicum, eggplant: Solanum melongena, cassava: Manihot esculenta, sweet potato: Ipomoea batatas, and cotton: Gossypium sp.), whereas only cassava were sampled in 2007-2008 (S1 Table ).Data analysis were performed with the software R (version 3.2.2 Development Core Team, 2015). The effect of agro-climatic zones was tested on whitefly abundance (assuming a Poisson distribution), using a Generalized Linear Model with a likelihood ratio test (Chi-square test or Fisher test in case of over-dispersion), and Tukey's pairwise mean comparison test, as described in detail previously [25]. The distribution of whitefly on each host plant such as cassava cultivars and sites was also tested.No specific permits were required for this study, as it did not involve human participants and/ or tissues, vertebrate animals, or embryos. Whiteflies are not considered as an endangered or protected species according to the IUCN criteria. The sampling was carried out on private lands (i.e. fields), and for each location the owner of the land gave permission to conduct the whitefly sampling on the site.Only females were used in this study. Each field-captured whitefly was incubated in 25 μL extraction buffer [50 mmol/KCl, 10 mmol/L Tris-base (pH 8), 0.45% IGEPALCA-630, 0.45% Tween 20 and 500 mg/mL proteinase K (Sigma)] at 37˚C for 15h, then a last step of incubation was performed at 90˚C for 10 min. Extracts were briefly centrifuged between each step. A volume of 35 μL of pure HPLC water (CHROMASOLV1, Sigma-Aldrich) was added, and extracts were finally stored at -20˚C until use.At least fifty individuals were chosen from each sample. Mitochondrial COI (mtCOI) sequences were obtained by PCR amplification with the general primer set C1-J-2195 (5 0 -TTGA TTTTTTGGTCATCCAGAAGT-3 0 ) and L2-N-3014 (5 0 -TCCAATGCACTAATCTGCCATATTA) [26]. The PCR was conducted in a final volume of 20μL, 2x Type-it master mix (QIAGEN), 20μmol/L of each primer, and 10 ng of insect DNA extract. A first step of denaturation at 94˚C for 5 min was followed by 40 cycles at 94˚C for 20sec, 52˚C for 30sec, with a final elongation step for 10min at 72˚C. Each PCR product was sequenced (Macrogen Inc., Sequencing Service, Korea). DNA sequences produced in this study were identified using the BLASTn algorithm of GenBank (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) and submitted to GenBank. Eighteen other mtCOI sequences were obtained from public sequence databases using the Tax browser (http://www. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/taxonomyhome.html). Multiple sequence alignments were constructed using the CLUSTALW-based alignment tool available in MEGA version 6 [27] and by manual editing.The full dataset comprised 898 sequences, of which 587 were trimmed to a length of 504 nucleotides (nt) and 298 were trimmed to 450 nt. This second group of shorter sequences was only used for putative species diagnostic purposes (used for the overall distribution in CAR and host plant association) and not included in the sequences analysis.A minimum-spanning tree was built using the software Phyloviz V. 1.0 (http://www. phyloviz.net) [28] in order to display the relationships between haplotypes and to assess mutational steps between them. A new data set was created on Phyloviz using only the 74 unique sequences retrieved among the 587 trimmed sequences.Four different tests of selective neutrality and population stability were performed with DnaSP software [29]: Tajima's D test, Fu and Li's D Ã and F Ã tests, and the MacDonald-Kreitman test [30]. To infer the long-term demographic history of the populations, the R2 statistic was calculated. That measure is based on the difference between the number of singleton mutations and the average number of nucleotide differences among sequences [31]. The significance of R2 was evaluated by comparing the observed value to the distribution of R2s simulated under the standard coalescent, using the empirical population sample size and the observed number of segregating sites implemented in the software. Those neutrality tests were performed on three different population groups, comprising three different haplotypes: Med, SSA1-SG1 and SSA1-SG2.Sequences were loaded into CLUSTALW with other close reference sequences from different species of B. tabaci from the GenBank database for sequence alignments (Table 1). To infer relationships between the different populations sampled, the 74 unique sequences of a standard 504 bp mtCOI fragment were used to generate the phylogenetic tree. An initial approximate maximum likelihood phylogeny for large alignments of the selected sequences was built, under the General Time Reversible model of nucleotide substitutions and varying substitution rates across sites (GTR+nt), with the software FastTree v2.1.7 [32]. Branch support was calculated by Shimodaira-Hasegawa-like local branch support (SH-like test), as implemented in FastTree. Trees were visualized with FigTree (V1.4.2) [33]. The 74 unique haplotype sequences were submitted to the EMBL database.B. tabaci adults were most abundant in the SU and GF zones (> 17 adults per plant). Whiteflies were significantly (P<0.005) more abundant in the SU (30.56±0.33) and GF (28.21±0.20) zones (Fig 1). There were no significant differences between SU (30.56±0.33) and GF (28.21 ±0.20) zones (Fig 1). In all cassava sampled fields CMD symptoms were observed at least on one cassava plant, which meant that the prevalence of CMD was 100%.Tests for neutrality. Tests for neutrality on the SSA1-SG1data subset were significant (Tajima's D = -2.45317; Fu and Li's F Ã = -4.05475; D Ã = -3.92597, all with P < 0.05), although the equivalent test results for SSA1-SG2 or MED were not significant, (MED: Tajima's D = -1.48233; Fu and Li's F Ã = -1.63609; D Ã = -1.48356; SSA1-SG2: Tajima's D = -1.53850; Fu and Li's F Ã = -1.72045; D Ã = -1.57025; all at P > 0.05). Significant values obtained for these criteria for SSA1-SG1 could be indicative either of the action of selection on this population or of demographic expansion. To untangle both hypotheses, the McDonald-Kreitman test, which is a robust measure of demographic changes, was performed. This test did not give any evidence for departure from neutrality (Fisher's exact test, P-value = 0.09). We consequently assume that the SSA1-SG1 population has undergone an important growth of size. This was confirmed by the ''R2\" test of Ramos-Onsins and Rozas [31] (R2 = 0.0906, P-value = 0.03).Phylogenetic analysis. There was considerable diversity among B. tabaci populations sampled, both between and within crop plants that were colonized (S1 Table ). Phylogenetic analyses revealed six putative species of the species complex of B. tabaci, which included: sub-Saharan species/genetic group (SSA1-SG1, SSA1-SG2, SSA1-SG3 and SSA3), Mediterranean (MED), Indian Ocean (IO), Middle East Asia-Minor 1 (MEAM1), and another cassava species-Bemisia afer Priesner & Hosny (Fig 2). SSA1-SG1 sequences were the most numerous (n = 536 out of the 587 sequences analyzed) and exhibited the highest haplotype diversity (n = 48). Most of the SSA1-SG1 haplotypes (n = 370) clustered with Ugandan SSA1-SG1 (Mukono8-4 (KM377961) 100% nt identity) (Table 2) [38]. A very divergent SSA1 sequence (96% nt identity) was found (P2G3) which was closely related to SSA1-SG3. Twenty-seven individuals split into three different haplotypes were identified as SSA3 with the closest relative from GenBank being 5_Imo_state_SSA3 (Table 2). Another group comprised three haplotypes (n = 11), and was in the species group previously referred to as SSA2 [39], which was originally described from Uganda as Ug2 [40] (Fig 2). Fifty-nine individuals of non-cassava-colonizing putative species were also recorded. These included: IO (n = 1), MED (n = 51) and MEAM1 (n = 7). The MED species group individuals were found to be closely related to the B2.6 (HQ908639) [41] sequence described from Burkina Faso (100% nt identity) (Table 2).Minimum spanning network analysis. A minimum spanning network was assembled to complement the phylogenetic analysis by illustrating the mutational steps between sequences (Fig 3). For the mtCOI sequences and the level of diversity analysis, 74 unique haplotypes were recognized from the full dataset of 587 sequences, and these were used in the network analysis (Table 1). A GoeBurst analysis was performed and a diagram based on a minimum spanning tree for all the unique haplotypes was drawn. Seven major haplotype groups corresponding to the species groups and several smaller satellite complexes were observed (SSA1-SG1, SSA1-SG2, SSA1-SG3, SSA2, SSA3, MED, IO, MEAM1 and B. afer). The SSA1-SG1 group exhibited the highest level of haplotype diversity (n = 47) and signs of most mutational steps, although there was a single dominant haplotype (P18F5, n = 370). The MED group showed less diversity and fewer mutational steps with a dominant haplotype (P1G4). The mitochondrial sub-group SSA1-SG3 (P2G3, P21A2F2) was found in only one locality out of the 54 (Fig 4  ). This haplotype group was separated from SSA1-SG2 by only 3   1). The tree was constructed using an approximate maximum likelihood phylogeny. Branch support was calculated by Shimodaira-Hasegawa-like local branch support (SH-like test). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0182749.g002 step mutations. SSA1-SG2 was represented by 7 haplotypes. SSA3 haplotypes were separated from the SSA1 group by at least 32 mutational steps (Fig 3). Four other haplotype groups were observed, three of them from non-cassava whitefly species (IO, MED and MEAM1) and one  Results demonstrated a geographic and host plant distribution of B. tabaci genetic group. The predominant genetic group in all geographic regions was SSA1-SG1. MEAM1 and IO were observed only in southern regions. MED individuals were observed in western and eastern regions.Our sampling mainly targeted cassava fields (78% of the whole dataset, and 51 sites out of 54). These samplings were made all over CAR and on eight different cassava cultivars. The second most sampled host plant was tomato, representing 10% of our sequences and 16/54 sites (Figs 4 and 5). Using the complete set of sequences (898), SSA putative species were dominant on cassava (93%) with the sub-group SSA1-SG1 occurring most frequently (79.9%). Within SSA1-SG1, the dominant haplotype P18F5 was found on all host plants (S1 Table, Figs 2-5). Nevertheless, this haplotype was not found on cassava in the sampling of 2007-2008 (although only 9 sites out of 54 were sampled during this period and 98 sequences processed). Other SSA putative species were found on all other hosts sampled, but in lower numbers (n = 177, representing 19.7%). SSA3 was found on cassava (n = 29, representing 4.3% of cassava samples), cotton, eggplant, groundnut and tomato. This putative species was the second most frequent in the dataset (n = 59, representing 7% of the whole dataset; Fig 5). The non-cassava putative species MED, MEAM1 and IO, were found on the other sampled plants (except on sweet potato, groundnut and the weed S. acuta where only SSA putative species were found). Tomato was the host plant on which MEAM1, IO and MED were most frequent, although SSA1-SG1 occurred more commonly than all three non-cassava putative species on these plants. B. afer was found sporadically on all host plants except sweet potato and the weed S. acuta. Most of the putative species of the B. tabaci species complex were found on tomato, including: SSA1 (-SG1 and -SG2), SSA3, MED, IO, MEAM1 and B. afer. From the 54 sampled sites, SSA1-SG1 was the dominant genotype (49/54) and, SSA1-SG2 (20/54) was always found in sympatry with SSA1-SG1. The same was found for SSA3, although this occurred less frequently, at eight sites, and it was less abundant (34/702) on cassava (Figs 4 and 5, S1 Table ). Our data reveal that P18F5 occurred in all agroecological and geographical areas of the CAR in 2013.A high abundance of adult whiteflies (> 17/plant) was recorded in the three agro-climatic zones sampled (SU, GF, SG), contrasting with the abundance values recorded in 2007 (1.5/ plant) by Zinga and colleagues [13] and in Uganda during the severe CMD epidemic of the 1990s (7.1/plant) [23]. Legg [42] used a mean whitefly abundance value of '5' as an arbitrary dividing line between countries or regions with low and high whitefly abundance. Using this definition, CAR has moved from the low to the high abundance category between 2007 and the time of the current study. Indeed, our results provide strong evidence that CAR is facing an upsurge in populations of the B. tabaci vector of cassava viruses and that the situation has changed recently (i.e between 2007 and 2013).The current study examined 898 B. tabaci individuals collected from cassava fields and associated crops in 54 sites spread throughout CAR (Table 1, Fig 5). Three sub-Saharan Africa putative species and three of their genetic sub-groups [SSA1 (-SG1, -SG2, -SG3); SSA2 and SSA3] plus three other non-cassava putative species of the B. tabaci complex (IO, MED and MEAM1) were found on seven host plants sampled. The SSA group [SSA1 (-SG1, -SG2, -SG3); SSA2, SSA3] was mostly found on cassava (n = 624, 93%), but also occurred frequently on other sampled plants (n = 177, 78% of sequences obtained from whiteflies on non-cassava plants). The exception was cotton, where MED was the predominant species. The non-cassava putative species IO and MEAM1 were only found on non-cassava crops.Our results show a close association between B. tabaci putative species and host plants, as reported elsewhere [18,39,43,44]. In addition, the results were also congruent with the reported occurrence from East Africa of SSA1-SG1 on a diversity of crop and weed host plants [45]. MED was the only B. tabaci putative species to be recorded from cotton in CAR. Similar results have been reported elsewhere, where MED (Q and ASL biotypes) were found on cotton [46]. The presence of whitefly on crops was also reported in Senegal on tomato for MEAM1 and MED [47]. The occurrence of four putative B. tabaci species on cassava in CAR (SSA1, SSA2, SSA3 and MED) highlights the diversity of B. tabaci there. These results are comparable with those reported in southern and East Africa where the same species were found, albeit in different proportions [18,40]. Whilst MED, IO and MEAM1 occurred on a diverse group of annual crop and weed hosts, we only found them in three cases on cassava. Indeed, previous studies involving transfer of B. tabaci individuals between crop host plants have shown that non-cassava species were unable to reproduce on cassava [48][49][50]. SSA3, SSA2, SSA1-SG1, -SG2 and -SG3, which are considered to be cassava-colonizers, were also recorded on most of the other host plants sampled, although no nymphs were collected, which would have given an indication that the genotypes were successfully colonizing those plants. However, it has been demonstrated in Uganda that cassava-colonizing genotypes have a broader host range than was initially assumed [45], and this seems also to be the case in CAR. The infrequent occurrence of non-SSA putative species on cassava suggests that the small number of individuals recorded may have been visitors rather than residents. Sampling of late-stage nymphs for diagnostic sequencing could clarify this, since their presence on cassava would indicate successful colonization.Although we identified eight genetic groups within the B. tabaci samples sequenced, there was one group (SSA1-SG1) that predominated (74% out of the 898 dataset), and roughly half of these were from a single haplotype (P18F5, n = 370 representing 55.7%). Furthermore, this haplotype was not found in 2007-2008 (but only 9 sites out of 54 were sampled), despite the dominance of SSA1-SG1 with several different haplotypes (n = 10). In view of the predominance of this putative species on cassava, it might be suggested that this is the group mainly responsible for the spread of cassava viruses in CAR and the increased incidence of the disease that they cause. It may also be possible that the upsurge in B. tabaci abundance noted in recent years is associated with the pre-eminence of this group and the specific haplotype, as has been postulated for neighboring parts of East and central Africa [19]. The predominant SSA1-SG1 haplotype recorded from this study had 100% sequence identity with an SSA1-SG1 haplotype from Uganda [Mukono8-4 (KM377961)] (Table 2). Within the haplotype network the dominant haplotype was surrounded by a high diversity of haplotypes with few mutational steps, suggesting that the upsurge of SSA1-SG1 in CAR could be the result of a recent new introduction of this invasive haplotype, also suggested by its absence in the sampling performed in 2007-2008. Furthermore, negative and significant values obtained for the neutrality tests performed on this group, plus the demographic tests indicated a signal of demographic expansion for SSA1-SG1. Nevertheless, the occurrence of other smaller satellite SSA1-SG1 haplotype groups, the high overall diversity of these haplotypes, and their preeminence both in 2007-2008 and 2013 suggest that although SSA1 is likely to be the predominant and resident species group, there is evidence that haplotype P18F5 is a recent invasive population which has given rise to the upsurge in abundance in recent years. In East and Central Africa, SSA1-SG1 is often the group found where B. tabaci populations are abundant on cassava. Consequently, it has been associated with the spread of the cassava viruses causing severe CMD and CBSD in this region. In view of the apparent increased abundance of B. tabaci on cassava in CAR in recent years, coupled with the high incidences of CMD that have been recorded in this study and in [14], it seems likely that SSA1-SG1 may be playing a similar role here. Molecular studies of B. tabaci have provided evidence for a substantial degree of polymorphism between populations from distinct geographic regions [49,51]. Results obtained from the current study may partially explain the cause of the outbreak of whiteflies in CAR on cassava. Although SSA2 was the putative species earlier associated with the spread of severe CMD in Uganda [40], super-abundant populations were shown in subsequent years to be dominated by SSA1-SG1. Data from the current study indicate that a similar change may have occurred in CAR, although the lack of any earlier data on B. tabaci putative species distribution and their haplotype diversity in CAR, means that it is not possible to confirm this. This highlights the importance of regular sampling B. tabaci populations in order to determine patterns of population change.Characterizing B. tabaci populations occurring on cassava, as well as other crop and weed hosts has led to a better understanding of the association between particular B. tabaci genotypes and their host plants in CAR. A high level of genetic diversity was revealed, although cassava-colonizing populations were predominantly SSA1-SG1 and of one specific haplotype (P18F5)-identical to a haplotype previously recorded from cassava in Uganda. Population genetics indicators applied to the whitefly sequence data obtained through this study suggest that SSA1-SG1 populations have undergone a recent expansion. The upsurge in populations of these cassava-colonizing whiteflies in CAR is likely to be the cause of the increase in CMD incidence observed between 2007 and 2013. Elevated populations of B. tabaci in CAR will additionally pose a significant threat in the near future for the spread of the other major virus disease affecting cassava in Africa, which is cassava brown streak disease. This has already been reported from neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo [10], and is expanding its range westwards [12]. These developments highlight the importance of developing and disseminating effective whitefly management strategies.","tokenCount":"4303"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6c487e403afcae5b3539e5a172fe9b4a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/Books/SOF-2021-08E.pdf","id":"-1208139670"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"d84ec2f9-9373-4eaa-9b91-860e910e6e1e","pagecount":"26","content":"Over a quarter of deforestation (27 percent) is caused by land use change attributed to the production of commodities (Curtis  et al. 2018). Estimates of tropical forest lost attributed to expanding cropland, pastures and forest plantations range from between 62 to 80 percent (Pendrill et al. 2019, Hosonuma et al. 2012) with 26 percent of tropical forest loss attributed to the international demand for commodities (Pendrill et al. 2019). Deforestation has thus been seen as a worldwide responsibility, since products linked to deforestation in a specific location are sold and consumed worldwide. It has been estimated that 10 percent of deforestation is linked to the consumption of unsustainably sourced commodities within member countries of the EU, caused by imported commodities since deforestation within Europe is negligible (Cuypers et al. 2013). This phenomenon results in what is currently known as forest-risk commodities and commodity-driven deforestation. Commodities associated with imported deforestation produced in Central Africa are palm oil, cocoa, coffee, natural rubber, timber and cotton.The concept of \"zero deforestation\", which implies that no forest areas are cleared or converted to other land uses, originated at the end of the 2010s. Civil society organizations began linking the production of agricultural commodities entering international trade -such as palm oil, soybeans, paper and cocoa -with deforestation, and pressuring large companies producing these commodities to eliminate deforestation from their value and supply chains.The similar term \"imported deforestation\" is defined as the production of imported agricultural goods that drives tropical deforestation. A considerable share of agricultural commodity production intended for export results in countries such as those in the European Union (EU) \"importing deforestation\" (IDDRI 2017) as imports of raw materials or processed products whose production has contributed, directly or indirectly, to deforestation, forest degradation or the conversion of natural ecosystems outside the national territory (Gouvernement France 2017).Direct drivers include the production and extraction of commodities when production involves landuse change and so directly affects forest cover.Focusing on direct drivers in decision-making process and policy design -shown in Figure 8.1can be pragmatic but can limit the vision and the success of policy implementation, and needs to be contextualized within debates about indirect drivers, commodity value chains and their impacts. Indirect drivers of deforestation include multiscale social, economic, political, cultural and technological processes affecting commodity production and extraction (Kissinger, Herold, and De Sy 2012; IPBES 2018).National economies in Central Africa exhibit little diversification and are heavily dependent on the export of agricultural commodities and mining products. Strategies to combat imported deforestation, most of which are designed by importing countries, therefore risk negatively affecting the development trajectories planned and implemented by countries in the subregion, if due care is not taken. While strategies to combat imported deforestation are expected to have positive environmental impacts on forest ecosystems in Central Africa, their potential socioeconomic impacts on the region's people and governments are less well understood. Commodities like cocoa, whose production involves hundreds of thousands of small farmers, are of particular concern. This chapter aims to better inform stakeholders in the value chains of the Central African products affected (palm oil, cocoa, coffee, wood, rubber and cotton) about ongoing efforts to combat imported deforestation and their current and potential impacts. It also explores the feasibility of different approaches to implementing strategies to combat imported deforestation in Central Africa.Debates around zero and imported deforestation embrace diverse disciplines and concepts which use different terms and methodologies, leading to diverse definitions. The main concepts used here are defined below (see also Chapter 1). In the sense often used by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a forest is not necessarily a forest as we might ordinarily understand it; rather it is the carbon stock and a set of environmental services (see also Chapter 1).Since its creation in 1945, the FAO has carried out a Forest Resource Assessment every 10 years and since 2000, every 5 years. Given that definitions of 'forest' differ over time and by location, the FAO has developed its own definitions over the years. It eventually adopted a single definition based on the 2000 Forest Resource Assessment, which it still uses today. This definition has been adopted by several stakeholders.It is based on four variables: (1) the percentage of the ground area covered by the projection of the tree crowns (canopy cover); (2) the minimum area used to calculate this percentage; (3) the minimum width of the area used to calculate this area; 4) the minimum height of the trees (in adulthood). According to the FAO definition, a forest must have: a canopy cover of 10 percent (previously 20 percent for forests in Western countries) over at least 0.5 ha, with a minimum width of 2 m, and a minimum adult tree height of 5 m (Gold 2003).Other definitions are however used at the international level. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) definition was adopted in 2001 as part of the Marrakesh Accords on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). This definition is based on ranges rather than specific values for three of the four variables: canopy cover of 10-30 percent over at least 0.05-1.0 ha, with a minimum tree height of 2-5 m (UNFCCC 2002).The EU definition (Joint Research Centre -JRC) was adopted as part of the Global Land Cover 2000 project. It is based on remote sensing and specifies that forests must have: canopy cover of at least 15 percent and a minimum tree height of 3 m. This definition has been relaxed in later work by the JRC, which claims to use a 'flexible' interpretation of the UNFCCC definition (subject to technical constraints). A team from the University of Maryland working with remote-sensing data has developed a configurable tool that allows users to measure the area covered by tree formations depending on the percentage tree cover required by their chosen definition of forest.In parallel, many countries have adopted their own definitions. A 1999 compendium listed 69 countries that had quantified one of the four variables used by the FAO. By 2011, a further 16 countries had adopted a definition of forest and 10 had either refined or modified their existing definitions. Since 2007, countries wishing to participate in the UN REDD+ process have been required to adopt a national definition of forest (COP13 2007, Bali Action Plan). To date, 58 countries have signed up to the process and around 20 have adopted a quantified definition for the first time. Another 30 or so have reviewed and/or modified their definition, while the rest are still deliberating. In Central Africa, only four countries have defined their forests (Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea and the Republic of the Congo), with the remaining seven countries still deliberating.Depending on the definition used by an organization or a country, a forest might be physically present when the data is collected ('land cover') or physically absent, but counted in an area legally designated as forest ('land use'), making comparisons difficult. Even when a clear definition has been established, forest cover estimates for a given country can vary widely depending on whether they are primarily based on forest inventories conducted on the ground, satellite imaging or a combination of the two.Oil palm plantations are usually excluded from these definitions, as (to a lesser extent) are most tree plantations whose primary purpose is to produce a commodity other than wood, such as cocoa or rubber. Nevertheless, the area they cover is sometimes included as forest area, because it is difficult to distinguish on the satellite imagery widely used to support or replace field inventories.This satellite imagery provides highly variable information depending on its spatial resolution, the spectral bands used by the sensors, the spectral indices that they make it possible to calculate and analyse, and the time series available.The ambiguities that cloud the definition of 'forest' find their parallels in the definition of 'deforestation'. Indeed, deforestation can only be quantified with careful reference to the chosen definition of 'forest' and the method used to estimate forest area. Deforestation as estimated by the FAO for each country will not match that estimated by the University of Maryland using satellite data, nor indeed that estimated by the approximately 75 percent of countries whose national definition differs from the FAO's.It is especially important to consider the concepts of 'land cover' and 'land use'. Taking a land-cover approach, deforested describes an area from which the forest has disappeared, regardless of the reason. This could be due to clear-cutting followed by the establishment of a new tree plantation or farmland, or due to the natural disappearance of the forest after a storm, which will be followed by natural regrowth. Following the land-use approach, using the same examples, only land on which an agricultural crop has actually been planted would be classed as deforested. However, land that is still covered with forest may also be described as deforested, if its land-use designation has changed and it is explicitly destined to be transformed into farmland or a built-up area. The landuse approach is also tied up with questions around the existence and demarcation of permanent and non-permanent forest domains, and issues related to legal and illegal logging. While legal logging in the permanent or non-permanent forest domain might not be considered deforestation, illegal logging would be considered deforestation, except perhaps in the non-permanent forest domain.'Gross deforestation' and 'net deforestation' are two more key concepts in discussions on deforestation. Gross deforestation describes the area of forest cover that has disappeared, whereas net deforestation refers to the (negative) difference between the forest area destroyed each year and the forest area planted or that naturally grows. Reducing net deforestation will certainly have a positive impact on forest carbon stocks, but will not prevent biodiversity loss. Current discussions aimed at achieving \"zero imported deforestation\" in countries producing and consuming products like soybean, palm oil, cocoa, rubber, beef, wood or paper pulp tend to focus more on net deforestation, whereas, ecologically speaking, gross deforestation should be of greater concern.Each country currently uses its own definition of forest (and therefore of deforestation) to justify and quantify its international commitments, without any real consideration of their ecological relevance. The four Central African countries that have adopted their own definition of forest have not opted for the same rules, despite their forest formations being very similar in terms of their structure and floristic composition. The same intensive logging activities might be termed deforestation in DRC, but only degradation in Cameroon, with different consequences for the countries' deforestation statistics and the funding mobilized in response.Adopting a standardized definition based on the recognized ecological characteristics of these forests should be a priority for the region, where population growth is increasing demand for farmland. Considering the risk to exports to countries committed to zero deforestation, the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) deemed this a matter of urgency and, in 2021, the ECCAS secretariat organized a regional discussion workshop on the definition of the terms 'forest' and 'deforestation'.Currently, coffee, cocoa and cotton are the main export crops that continue to be linked to imported deforestation from Central Africa, and whilst palm oil is not a major export crop, its production in mono-plantations is associated with deforestation. The following short descriptions show how these cash crops are associated with significant, historical deforestation and continue to embody imported deforestation. The increased production of timber, cocoa, coffee and rubber is expected, in both large scale and smallholder systems, which given previous trends and current land use, is expected to take place in lowland, moist forest zone, and cause deforestation directly and directly.Timber is both an export and domestic commodity, with the majority of tropical hardwood in Central Africa currently extracted from natural forests and forest concessions (Nasi, Billand, and van Vliet 2012; de Wasseige et al. 2014). In this section the focus is on planted timber as an agrocommodity. In colonial times, large-scale planted timber plantations were developed on savannahs around Pointe-Noire in Congo (Feintrenie 2014) and in Cameroon (Kollert and Cherubini 2012). Since the 1990s there has been renewed interest and national and international investment in timber plantations for wood and as carbon sinks for the carbon market in Cameroon (Ayous in Batouri, teak in Bazzama), Congo (eucalyptus in Brazzaville and EFC in Pointe Noire), DRC (acacia in Goma and plateau Bateke) and Gabon (Rougier/Lignafrica/Okume in Plantations Forestières de la Mvoum), mainly on degraded and already deforested land, and as part of afforestation programs (Marien and Gourlet-Fleury 2006; Hawkins and Wigglesworth 2018). Stable timber production is expected from the region in general.Palm oil has been produced for centuries in Central Africa from the indigenous oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), primarily for domestic consumption. Oil palm plantations cover less than 0.5 million ha, mainly located in the DRC, Gabon and Cameroon. Oil palm grown in agroforestry systems is not included in these figures. In plantations, productivity is quite low: the highest rates in Cameroon are around 14 tons of fruit per hectare and 6 t of oil per ha, compared to average productivities of 16 to 18 t of fruit per ha in Asia 1 (FAOStat 2021). The main palm oil exporting countries are the DRC, Gabon, 1 https://www.fao.org/countryprofiles/index/en/?iso3=CMR accessed June 2021 Cameroon. Gabon and Cameroon export to Europe, and to West African countries Côte d'Ivoire and Benin. Regional production does not meet demand, shown by the import volumes with CEEAC countries (COMIFAC plus Angola) being net importers of palm oil: in 2018, they exported 19,000 t and imported 375,000 t mainly from Malaysia and Indonesia. Gabon is a net importer of palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia and over time it has imported less and exported more. In 2018, Gabon exported 7,200 t and imported 8,900 t of palm oil. The size of plantations in Gabon have increased over the past decade and it is possible it will become a net exporter in the future. In 2018, Cameroon imported 31,700 t of palm oil from Southeast Asia and exported 3,700 t to Europe. Cameroon's palm oil production is insufficient for its domestic needs. In Cameroon, industrial scale production started around 1907 under German colonization in Littoral region. Today, production continues with a large agro-industrial sector and milling, smallholders in contract with agro-industries and traditional, artisanal independent smallholders with family farms, and rural and urban investors in rural plantations. Smallholders with less than 5 ha of oil palm represent over 75 percent of oil palm growers but account for less than half of national production due to very low yields. However, national production is insufficient to cover domestic consumption. The government considers the oil palm sector (both artisanal and industrial) as important to alleviate poverty and to generate national revenues (Lyabano et al. 2014). The DRC is also net importer of palm oil, importing 47,600 t and exporting 6,300 t to Burundi and Uganda, its neighbors and probably also to Rwanda. But cross-border statistics are imprecise and highly likely underestimated. Increased production is expected in the region generally.Cocoa is mainly an export crop, cultivated in Cameroon, the DRC, RoC, and Gabon since the late 19 th century, with larger colonial, larger scale plantations developed directly from forested land in the 1920s and 1930s (Battini 1999; Kaberry 2005; Wessel and Quist-Wessel 2015). Cameroon has long been and is currently the main Central African producer, exporting mainly to Europe via the Netherlands. Productivity at 416 kg/ha is the best in the Central African region, but is lower than Ghana (549 kg/ha) and Côte d'Ivoire. Cameroon's objective to increase production from 300,000 to 600,000 tons by 2020 was postponed to 2030 as it was not achieved. As yields per hectare have remained stable, the prospect of expansion into forest areas in response to government and partners support programs is likely. However, except for Cameroon, the cocoa export trade from Central Africa faded into insignificance after independence and has been subject to boom-bust-boom cycles. When coffee growers in DRC were hit by disease, many such as ESCO in Eastern DRC switched to cocoa in the 1980s. The Association of Cocoa & Coffee Exporters ASSECCAF estimates that North Kivu and Ituri (estimated 50,000 ha) is now the main cocoa region, with 15,000 ha from Equateur and Bas Congo, where yields vary from 500 to 1,200 kg/ha. Exports have grown from 600 tons in 2000 to 10,000 in 2015, although production maybe higher than official figures, at around 35,000 tons due to smuggling to Uganda where export taxes are lower. Most DRC cocoa is double certified UTZ and organic, or aimed at fine flavor markets via traders such as Olam and specialty chocolate makers such as Theo Chocolate, Japanese Tachibana, Elan RDC and Original Beans. DRC has no large scale grinding capacity, with most exports via Kenya to Switzerland, Belgium and growing US and Asian markets. 2 A few companies, such as Original Beans, produce chocolate in country. In Gabon, after independence, the sector was neglected in favor of higher income generating extractive industries. In 1970 over 6,000 tons of cocoa were produced, decreasing to 1,920 in 1990 and by 2010 to 370 tons. 3 Industrial plantations were introduced in the 1980s. Since then production has been steady at around 500 tons. The decrease in oil prices around 2014 led to an economic diversification strategy, with the Stabilization and Equalization Fund (CAISTAB) investing USD 8.63 million/EUR 7.63 million since 2017 in restarting abandoned cocoa plantations and training new cocoa growers via the Jeunes Entrepreneurs Café-Cacao (Young Coffee and Cocoa Entrepreneurs). In 2018, sales and exports of cocoa fell 38.7 percent and 40.3 percent respectively, despite increased production of 21.2 percent to 115 million tons. 4 With the corona crisis, CAISTAB has sought to protect growers by setting a national purchase price. 5 Global food manufacturer Nestlé has been purchasing Gabonese cocoa via traders since the 2000. Local entrepreneurs and diaspora increasingly produce and export small quantities of specialty chocolate, such as Julies Chocolate. In Sao Tomé, cocoa is the nation's largest earner accounting for 79 percent of total exports, with cocoa and cocoa preparations exported to Gabon. Production has decreased from a peak in 2013 of USD 20 million to USD 6 million in 2019 (United Nations COMTRADE database). 6 Increasing cocoa production is expected in most countries.Coffee is primarily an export crop in Central Africa, with some domestic consumption. Around 1 percent of the global coffee (Robusta and Arabica beans) production comes from Central Africa (OCDE 2007) Coffee was introduced in colonial run plantations in the DRC, Congo, Gabon and Cameroon (Clarence-Smith and Topik 2003). All Central African countries produce some coffee except Chad. Small countries like Rwanda and Burundi hold a relatively important place among the region's coffee exporters. In 2010, Cameroon was the region's main coffee exporter, accounting for about 2 percent of global production in 2015 and producing around 32,000 tons in 2015 (Conseil international du Café (ICC) 2015), since then exports have plummeted, exacerbated since 2017 by the conflict in the Anglophone regions. In the DRC coffee production was nationalized in the 1970s, and by the early 1980s, coffee was DRC's second-largest export after copper, with coffee production coordinated under the state Office National du Café (ONC). Production peaked in the 1980s with around 250,000 tons and declined significantly in the 1990s due to conflict and instability, a transition to small holder systems, liberalized market and lack of government support, with around 120,000 tons of Robusta a year produced in the mid-'90s (Cafe Imports Europe 2021), accounting for about 1.8 percent of global production in 2015 (Conseil international du Café (ICC) 2015). Export focused production now occurs in the North and South Kivu, and some traditional production in Kongo Central, Equateur, Kasaï and Ituri. About 250,000 coffee farmers produce around 600 tons of Robusta and arabica in mainly smallholder farming systems with varying amounts of shade and intercropping, selling largely to specialist coffee buyers and roasters, some larger scale buyers such as Starbucks (Wilkins 2019) and unrecorded exports to neighboring Uganda and Rwanda (Cafe Imports Europe 2021). An unknown quantity of coffee has been certified since around 2010 under VSS such as organic, UTZ and Fairtrade (Cafe Imports Europe 2021). In 2012, the government launched the Strategy Document for the Recovery of the Coffee Sector 2011-2015 with USD 100 million earmarked in South Kivu province. The private sector has lobbied for looser regulations and market liberalization (Coffeehunter.com 2021). In the CAR, internal conflict and the covid pandemic have dramatically decreased production of coffee, one of the country's major 3 https://ressources-magazine.com/focus-en/gabon-breathing-new-life-into-the-cocoa-sector/ 4 https://www.cairn.info/revue-geoeconomie-2014-3-page-85.htm 5 https://cemac-eco.finance/cocoa-and-coffee-farmers-in-gabon-reassured-of-good-prices-despite-coronavirus-shocks/ 6 https://tradingeconomics.com/sao-tome-principe/exports/gabon/cocoa-cocoa-preparations export products 7 , accounting for about 0.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2010, down from 1 percent in 2000 (Conseil international du Café (ICC) 2015). In general, stable or slightly increased production is expected, among these producing countries. 8Cotton is produced mainly in smallholder farms, as a cash crop combined with other crops and economic activities in degraded savannah forest areas of the region, and is largely exported. There was a large increase in the land area planted with cotton in Central Africa from 1960 to 2009 mainly in response to market liberalization, falling global yields and to maintain incomes due to the long term downward price trend on international markets (Hussein 2005) and climate change negatively affecting production. Cameroon now exports to China, and Chad to Turkey. The CAR produces some cotton but conflict and the covid pandemic have dramatically decreased production. 9 Before 2005, Central African countries exported to Europe and Asia, thereafter mainly to Asia. The decline in Cameroon's cotton exports in 2018 was quite steep, and the decline in Chad slower, producing around 200,500 tons in 2015. It is not expected that cotton production will increase from the region.Wild or red rubber (Landolphia, Funtumia, etc.) exports experienced a boom in the 1880s particularly in DRC followed by a massive drop, as wild resources became over-exploited (Gewald  2006). In 1940s, wild rubber for industrial use and export recommenced and rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) plantations started in Gabon, Central African Republic, DR Congo and Cameroon. In Gabon, despite intercropping experiments (Enjalric and Ngoua Assoumou 1998) most rubber is grown in large scale plantations by government and private companies, with a tendency the region towards privatization of state plantations and joint ventures (Assembe-Mvondo et al. 2016). Prices and expansion in the 1970s were halted by the 1980s financial crisis, and in the 2000s Asian investment became more prominent. In Gabon international trader Olam has been active since 1999 and engaged in joint ventures with the government in 2012. In the South, Centre and southwest regions of Cameroon, production is dominated by two private agro-industrial entities Hevecam (54,000 ha) and Sudcam (45,000 ha), both owned by Halcyon, with expansion in the Sangha region associated with deforestation (Orozco and Salber 2019; Seale 2019; Assembe-Mvondo et al. 2016). In 2017, 53,000 tons of natural rubber were produced from Cameroon. 10 In Cuvette in Republic of Congo, the expansion of plantations in the 1970s and the last decade is linked to deforestation (Orozco and Salber 2019; Seale 2019; Assembe-Mvondo et al. 2016). In the CAR, rubber production has steadily increased since a dip due to the financial crisis, to 1200 tons in 2019 (FAOStat 2021). 11 Rubber production in the region is expected to increase slightly. 7 http://iaco-oiac.org/sites/default/files/docspage/seudieu-session_2-women_youth-iaco.pdf et https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/pressrelease/2020/11/30/perspectives-economiques-en-republique-centrafricaine-diversifier-leconomie-pour-renforcer-la-resilience-et-favoriser-lacroissance 8 http://www.ico.org/ 9 https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2020/11/30/perspectives-economiques-en-republique-centrafricaine-diversifierleconomiepour-renforcer-la-resilience-et-favoriser-la-croissance 10 http://www.rubberstudy.org/Cameroun 11 https://www.tilasto.com/en/topic/geography-and-agriculture/crop/natural-rubber/natural-rubber-production-quantity/central-africanrepublicFaced with this new situation, stakeholders involved in the production and export of forest-risk commodities have taken steps to mitigate the impact of anti-deforestation initiatives on their operations. In counterpoint to this needless controversy, citizens and consumers in the global North are making their own demands, as demonstrated by European countries through the Amsterdam Declaration.It is extremely reductive to present this initiative as a threat to development in the global South. Deforestation also poses an existential threat to local communities (e.g. ecosystem services, including water and food). These measures, which often involve different types of actors (government, NGO and private sector), range from participation in anti-deforestation initiatives to promoting certification, and from awareness raising to capacity building and regulatory measures.To understand the past, current and potential future impacts of imported deforestation and zerodeforestation commitments and initiatives in COMIFAC 12 and Central African countries, we must first consider how farmers, the public and private sectors, and NGOs define imported deforestation and zero deforestation in relation to commodities and their value chains. 13 This can be seen in the public discourses different actors use. A discourse is \"an ensemble of ideas, concepts, and categories through which meaning is given to social and physical phenomena, and which is produced and reproduced through an identifiable set of practices\" (Hajer 2006). Different actors have different views on if, and how deforestation is caused, if deforestation is a problem and if so, which approach can be used to solve the problem. These discourses shape the approaches actors such as governments, business and NGOs use and justify in their \"theory of change\" or \"impact logic\", i.e., why they prefer a certain approach. These determine the interventions they make on the ground, and resulting expected outcomes and long-term, high level impacts of these interventions. The main approaches are described in Box 8.1.A summary of the impact logics -showing outputs, outcomes and anticipated impacts -for different approaches used in commodity chains perceived to drive deforestation in the Congo Basin, is shown in Figure 8.1. 8.1, globally six main discourses have been identified driving the approaches and interventions used in forest-risk commodity value chains (Ingram et al. 2020a). In Central Africa, four different discourses can be recognized. Multi-stakeholder initiatives that involve most relevant stakeholders play an important role in reproducing discourses by referring to a common goal and strategy. Discourses are often interrelated and combined together by commodity trading companies.To better position themselves to combat 'illegal' deforestation linked to the production of agricultural and forestry commodities, Congo Basin governments have signed up to several bilateral and multilateral forest protection initiatives. For timber, these initiatives include Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) under the EU Action Plan for Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT), the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI) and the Tropical Forest Alliance (TFA). The Republic of the Congo (2010), Cameroon (2010) and CAR (2011) have signed VPAs with the EU while Gabon and DRC are currently negotiating a similar partnership framework with the EU. These agreements are at various stages of implementation in those Congo Basin countries that have1. Regulatory -state regulations and government policies governing commodity value chains and the landscapes which the commodities originate from 2. Landscape & jurisdictional -refer to initiatives at a scale that match administrative boundaries of local, regional, sub-national or national governments in commodity producing countries or production and ecosystem areas. These approaches tend to cover actors at different stages of one commodity chain, with producers most widely represented numerically.-standards to which producers voluntarily adhere, requiring them to improve their production practices across a variety of sustainability indicators, used in all stages of commodity value chains, such as FSC and PEFC (timber, rubber), RSPO (palm oil), Better Cotton Initiative (cotton), Rainforest Alliance, Organic and Fairtrade (coffee, cocoa, cotton) and the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB).4. Corporate pledges -corporate social responsibility, self-regulation and declarations, whereby a business (or association thereof) pledges and then monitors and ensures active compliance with the spirit of the law, ethical standards, and national or international norms on CSR. These include actions that appear to further a social or environmental goods beyond the interests of the firm(s) and what is required by law. Often in the trading, manufacturing and retailing stages of value chains.-Platforms, networks, associations, partnerships and agreements between private sector and public sector, and often also research, civil society (CSO), and non-governmental (NGO) organisations collaborating on a common goal of sustainability with a declared policy or programme and plan of action. Many PPPs include governments in producer and consumer countries, and large companies in trading, manufacturing and retailing stages of value chains.6. Due diligence mechanisms -include individual and joint actions, investigations or the exercise of care by companies to avoid committing an offence. The offence maybe due to a legal obligation or a voluntary initiative on taking responsibility in chains. These include traceability mechanisms, third-party campaigns and investigations, voluntary disclosure initiatives and moratoriums -which commonly occur at the supply and consumer ends of commodity chains. signed them. Finally, on the economic front, Congo Basin countries are striving -more so now than before -to diversify the destination of the wood they export. Consequently, over recent years, timber exports from the subregion to China, countries in South Asia (e.g. India and Vietnam) and the Middle East 14 are gaining momentum, in particular at the expense of EU countries. It should be noted that apart from tentative efforts to organize the domestic timber market, such as in Cameroon, virtually nothing has yet been done by signatory states to alleviate the problem. Efforts have also been made to raise awareness and build stakeholder capacity as regards the characteristics and requirements of FLEGT VPAs (awareness-raising and capacity building on procedures and traceability, for example).On the economic front, countries in the subregion appear committed to reducing their log exports and promoting more advanced local wood processing 15   • More secure land tenure, which discourages forest conversion,• Better governance frameworks, resulting in permit and tax regimes that do not incentivize economic actors to convert forests or carry out illegal activities. 16 The TFA, meanwhile, is a multi-stakeholder partnership platform set up in 2012 to support key actors in the production of commodities like palm oil, soybean, beef, cocoa and paper to transition to deforestation-free supply chains. DRC, CAR, Cameroon, Republic of the Congo and Gabon have been members of the TFA since 2015, in particular through its flagship initiative, the African Palm Oil Initiative (APOI). The APOI aims to promote the sustainable development of the oil palm sector in accordance with countries' ambitions for emergence, while respecting good environmental and social practices. With technical and financial support from TFA-APOI, these countries have drawn up national principles and action plans for the sustainable production of palm oil, which are now being implemented. Going further, three countries (CAR, Republic of the Congo and DRC) have signed the Marrakesh Declaration (2016), which sets out regional guiding principles for the responsible development of the palm oil sector.Beyond the initiatives described above, which involve almost all countries in the subregion, there are other country-specific initiatives, such as, Gabon's certification standards initiative and Cameroon's Roadmap to Deforestation-Free Cocoa.In September 2018, Gabon made FSC certification mandatory for all its forestry concessions from 2022. This shift from a private and voluntary governance instrument to a binding national instrument aims to combat unsustainable logging practices, including deforestation. The approval of the RSPO standard as a national standard for palm oil production by the Gabonese Standardization Agency (AGANOR) in 2019 is also part of the Gabonese Government's commitment to combating unsustainable commodity production practices, including deforestation. Moreover, as part of recent efforts to revise Gabon's national interpretation of the RSPO (December 2019-July 2020), the government has shown political will despite the RSPO being, in essence, a civil society and private sector-led mechanism. Through these initiatives, the Gabonese authorities hope, among other things, to ensure that Gabonese goods have access to markets aware of the need to combat imported deforestation or to avoid Gabonese goods being boycotted by consumers and NGOs. This motive also drives the Cameroonian authorities adoption of the Roadmap to Deforestation-Free Cocoa in Cameroon. This roadmap provides a shared framework for action and was developed by stakeholders in the cocoa value chain from 2019 through a participatory process supported by IDH, The Sustainable Trade Initiative. The objective of this action plan is to promote the production of deforestation-free cocoa that meets the government's production ambitions and sustainability standards, compliance with which is increasingly required to access certain international markets. Through the Standards and Quality Agency (ANOR), the Cameroonian Government is also working to standardize agricultural and forestry commodities. Such standards include APNC 2895-96-97 on sustainable and traceable cocoa and ARSO/AES 2014 on timber, which are currently being revised or adopted and could help the country to adjust to the requirements of deforestation-free value chains.In addition to the actions taken above, governments in the subregion are engaged in projects or processes not explicitly aimed at mitigating the impacts of initiatives to combat imported deforestation, but that are likely to help them comply with the requirements of deforestation-free agricultural value chains or manage the effects of initiatives seeking to prevent the destruction of forest cover for agricultural purposes. Such initiatives include REDD+ processes (DRC, Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, CAR), diversifying agricultural production (Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, Gabon), promoting climate-smart agriculture (Republic of the Congo), land-use planning (Gabon, Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, DRC) and the decision to focus large-scale agricultural projects on savannah areas (Republic of the Congo).Imported deforestation is of interest to several international and national environmental NGOs working in the region. Between 2017 and 2020, several international environmental NGOs, often in collaboration with national environmental NGOs, organized or facilitated workshops in a number of countries in the subregion to raise awareness or build capacity among stakeholders involved in producing or trading commodities. They covered different aspects of imported deforestation and the requirements imposed by initiatives to prevent it. Beyond building the technical capacity of these stakeholders, some of these NGOs sought to support stakeholders -including small producers -to build their organizational capacity. These awareness raising and capacity building efforts aimed to help stakeholders avoid or mitigate the negative consequences of measures to combat imported deforestation by enabling them to comply with the requirements of organizations, governments, investors and consumers in buyer countries. They also aim to help these stakeholders to harness the opportunities offered by organizations, governments, investors and consumers in buyer countries as part of efforts to combat imported deforestation. These interventions aim, on the one hand, to help stakeholders to defend against the negative consequences of measures to combat imported deforestation by enabling them to comply with the new requirements and, on the other, to help them to harness the opportunities offered by organizations, governments, investors and consumers in buyer countries as part of efforts to combat imported deforestation.Policies on imported deforestation adopted by countries in the global North impact commodityproducing countries, and private sector companies that produce and sell raw materials in particular. The private sector in Central Africa has responded to these policies in two main ways. Companies either take steps to comply with the requirements of the deforestation-free production and sale of commodities through sustainable production commitments or they circumvent them and reorient themselves towards alternative markets. These commitments to sustainable production mainly take the form of corporate sustainability policies, on the one hand, and the certification of their forestry and agricultural operations, on the other.Commitments to greater sustainability in forestry and industrial agriculture operations in Central Africa remain modest, as illustrated below. In response to the introduction of increasingly strict anti-deforestation policies by countries in the global North, some companies (especially forestry companies operating in Central Africa) are diversifying their markets and shifting to more permissive markets in Asia, in particular China, India and Vietnam. This trend has been fuelled by, among other things, the intensification of multisectoral cooperation between Congo Basin countries and China over recent years and the massive influx of Chinese capital into the Central African forestry sector.A case in point: between 2005 and 2019, the number of Chinese-owned forestry companies in Cameroon increased from 4 to 12 and the forest management unit area controlled by them increased from around 50,000 ha to 110,000 ha (Zongang 2019). This shift means that countries in the global North can ease their conscience by not importing products that contribute to deforestation, while not actually doing anything to prevent it in producer countries.In response to increasingly vocal pressure from NGOs, civil society and consumer groups, a number of public policies and market-based, private sector initiatives (including voluntary sustainability standards for agricultural commodities and timber) have emerged at the international level, especially in Europe, North America and China.European countries are currently considering several possible ways to implement a policy to combat imported deforestation. They range from government regulations enforced by national or supranational public bodies to private governance mechanisms under which companies voluntarily work to produce commodities without causing deforestation or severe forest degradation.Over the past 20 years, private sector actors have increasingly defined and monitored their own performance when it comes to sustainability, either via certification standards or by developing their own procedures and criteria. These voluntary approaches have often been criticized for only covering a minority of companies and failing to reach other producers who supply markets that are less sensitive to the sustainable production of agricultural commodities. These voluntary private approaches are also criticized because a large number of companies fail to fulfil their commitments, particularly when they commit to deforestation-free production practices. Year after year, multinationals make little to no progress towards the goals set by the New York Declaration or the Bonn Challenge.Companies' lacklustre performance on combating imported deforestation should not, however, overshadow the significant progress made by certification standards over the past 15 years as regards their operational content on sustainability. The place of standards is relatively settled in some sectors, such as FSC and PEFC certification for wood and Rainforest Alliance certification for coffee and cocoa. This has not however been the case for other tropical agricultural products. Though now accepted, standards and certification procedures applicable to such products were largely absent over the past decade and often controversial. The overarching goal of private standards is sustainability. But so far they have failed to incorporate substantial provisions to prevent deforestation or limit forest degradation. Moreover, some standards underperform on a number of social criteria, the implementation of which is often criticized.As importing countries consider how to implement policies to combat deforestation, it is useful to examine how far existing sustainability standards could help them move towards this goal. To this end, Table 8.1 presents four sectors that have a worrying impact on Central African forests (palm oil, cocoa, rubber and wood) and, by way of example, the requirements set out in the French Strategy to Combat Imported Deforestation (SNDI). These requirements are grouped into three categories: (i) environmental impacts, such as forest and peatland degradation, the use of the High Conservation Value (HCV) and High Carbon Stock (HCS) approaches; (ii) social impacts, such as labour law, free, prior and informed consent, respect for the legal and customary status of land; and (iii) how the standard is applied, including access to certification for small producers.and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) system, for forest risk commodities in addition to timber, as well as promoting voluntary third-party certification and labels.Since the launch of the communication in 2019, the focus and discussions have been centered around the preparation for additional measures related to the EU demand side, particularly regarding measures to minimize the risk of deforestation and forest degradation associated with products placed on the EU market, including mandatory labelling, certifications schemes, legality standards, country benchmarking, carding systems, et cetera. Based on experiences with the EU Timber Regulation, a more comprehensive understanding has been gained of how the due diligence approach can be applied on a wider range of commodities, such as cocoa, coffee, palm oil, soy, beef and timber. A legislative proposal to minimize the risk that products linked to deforestation be sold in the European market was published in 2021.As the European Commission carried out a fitness check of EUTR and FLEGT Regulations in 2021, the experiences from Central African countries are of critical importance to help evaluate the functioning of both regulations to combat illegal logging and to provide insights into how a similar system can be applied for commodities other than timber. The demand side public policy making in Europe should be ensured to contribute to impacts on the ground and reflect, service the needs of producer countries.The United States is a major consumer of forest-risk commodities, such as beef, soybeans, palm oil and wood products, although compared to Europe and China, the total imported volume of these commodities from tropics is less significant. 23 Since 2008, the U.S. Lacey Act, which previously applied only to wildlife trade, was amended to include the banning of imports and the trade in illegal timber and wood products from foreign countries. The imported volume of wood product has declined and prices for tropical hard wood has increased, as the country shifts to domestic wood sourcing. In the meantime, since the Lacey amendments took effect, 24 China has become a major exporter of timber to the United States. However, the amount of tropical wood in these imports which originated from China has dropped.Research has shown that the impacts of Lacey Act mainly result from avoiding high-risk area and high-risk products. 25 Hence the exact effects on the ground in tropical timber producer regions is unclear. More global measures and research have to be carried out to better understand its global impacts on solving illegal logging and protecting world's forests. The sustainability agenda in China has been slow moving in the last decades. However, although still in nascent stage, in the past few years, enabling factors in both public and private sectors emerged which create a promising environment to speed up and scale up current efforts to address deforestation linked to commodity imports. China is the largest importer for tropical timber, soy and beef, and second or third largest importer of palm oil. 29 Hence the sustainability of commodity trade and related forest protection agendas cannot be discussed without looking at the huge Chinese market.In 2017, China included 'ecological civilization' into its constitution as the framework for its pathway to sustainable development. 30 The government committed to be a responsible power on tackling climate change and biodiversity loss. Some green supply chain policies and guidelines 31 have been enacted. The ongoing formulation of the China green value chain strategy combined with the South-South cooperation and partnership through Green Belt and Road Initiatives could have positive implications for Central African Countries. China's intention to ensure legal timber imports and future deforestation-free palm oil imports could create synergies and align with global efforts.In June 2020, the draft of an updated \"Green Bonds Endorsed Projects Catalogue\" was published by the People's Bank of China, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the China Securities Regulatory Commission for public consultation. This draft includes the recognition of sustainable agricultural commodities certified by international certification schemes, such as Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS), Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). This marks a significant step for the official regulation to include international standards. It sends a strong signal to the private sector and reflects that the Chinese market actors are changing to align more with international environment as many Chinese companies and investment sector start to expand their operations overseas.A policy study report to greening China's soft commodity value chains was published by the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED, 2020). 32 In addition to a national green value chain strategy, the Council suggested that the government to adopt mandatory and voluntary measures to reduce the import of commodities that are illegally harvested and to strengthen due diligence and traceability systems. This could be built upon the International companies made commitments to move towards Zero Net Deforestation (ZND) through the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) in 2010. The objective was to eliminate net deforestation from their value chains by 2020. These commitments were reinforced in 2014 by the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF), through which 190 organizations including 57 multinationals committed to eliminate deforestation from their production and supply chains by 2020.In the cocoa sector, NGO pressure has stimulated companies to avoid risk, take collective action and mitigate negative publicity. The private sector, as part of corporate social responsibility or sustainability commitments, has made public commitments to sustainable development and, specifically concerning biodiversity, human rights, deforestation and climate change. Many multinational industrial agribusinesses operating in Central Africa have committed to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains, either through certification or through their internal sustainability policies. For example, the Cargill Group, alongside its Cameroonian partner Telcar Cocoa Ltd, has committed to, among other things, reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its supply chains by 30 percent by 2030. 35 Similarly, the Olam Group, which has a major presence in Gabon's palm oil sector and Cameroon's cocoa sector, has set itself the objective to develop responsible and sustainable agricultural supply chains, in which prosperous farmers and producers, flourishing rural communities and healthy ecosystems can coexist. 36 Halcyon, the parent company of SudCam and Hevecam, has committed in its sustainability policy to avoid deforestation in all its operations by applying the High Conservation Value (HCV) and the High Carbon Stock (HCS) approaches. 37 Many multinationals operating in the Congo Basin have committed to combat deforestation, mainly in response to the anti-deforestation regulations and campaigns implemented by governments, international environmental NGOs and consumers in those countries importing the commodities. In a similar vein, private sector companies are also engaging in multi-stakeholder platforms aimed at protecting natural ecosystems and promoting sustainability in the production and marketing of agricultural commodities, among other things. This is the case for several companies that have joined the TFA (e.g. Olam, Socfin, Feronia, Cargill, Nestlé). 38 In committing to this initiative, companies undertake, among other things, to reduce deforestation in their supply chains. However, it is still too early to assess how effective this commitment has been when it comes to reducing deforestation in practice.Voluntary sustainability standards are used to demonstrate commitments and sustainable production processes to suppliers and consumers. The Central Africa region has lower coverage of sustainability certification both in terms of volume and hectares certified than other major commodity-producing regions.There are a number of certification schemes for wood that could impact forest conservation. They have emerged on the market in response to increasing pressure from consumers concerned about the environmental credentials of products entering their markets. This is the case for the FSC, PEFC and other certificates of legality (OLB, LegalSource, etc.) for wood and RSPO for palm oil. At present, 3,653,948 ha of forest are FSC certified in the Congo Basin (in Cameroon, RoC and Gabon), while 596,822 ha 39 are PEFC certified and 9,543,857 ha 40 have a certificate of legality. The FSC and PEFC certification systems are also championed by Fair&Precious, a collective and collaborative brand created by the International Tropical Timber Technical Association (ATIBT) and its members, whose objectives include the sustainable management and protection of tropical forests. 41 As regards the certification of other agricultural products, currently only Olam Palm Gabon has an RSPO-certified palm oil plantation (112,455 ha) and the company plans to certify all its operations in Gabon by 2021. 42 In Cameroon, the Socapalm (around 70,000 ha) and Safacam (around 9,000 ha) plantations are in the process of obtaining RSPO certification. In DRC, Feronia (Plantations et Huileries du Congo S.A., with 107,301 ha) 43 has stated that it is also undertaking RSPO certification. 44 Current debates centre on the sustainability and legality of tropical timber and the slow growth in demand for certified tropical hardwood (Tropenbos International 2014).For rubber, only Hevecam (21,140 ha planted), a subsidiary of the multinational Halcyon, is undertaking the FSC certification process. There are no other similar initiatives for rubber in the Congo Basin, but it should be noted that Olam Rubber Gabon (11,000 hectares planted) is working to combat deforestation at its plantation in northern Gabon, in particular by protecting nearly 25,000 ha of HCV land. 45 For cocoa in the Congo Basin, 11 producer groups have been certified by UTZ/Rainforest Alliance, 46 with the support of several buyers/exporters (Olam, Telcar/Cargill, Sic Cacaos/Barry Callebaut, Agroproduce Management Services LTD (AMS)/Theobroma, Ferrero). Certification gives these growers access to a niche market offering premium prices to stakeholders in these value chains. Certification should also enable them to maintain their access to consumer markets where anti-deforestation requirements apply. No Rainforest Alliance certified coffee is produced, but organic and Fairtrade certified coffee is grown in the Kivu region of DRC.Existing private certification systems have enabled several sectors to make significant progress towards deforestation-free production. This is the case for timber, for which the PEFC and FSC standards meet most of the demands of France's National Strategy to Combat Imported Deforestation (SNDI), although the application of certain criteria could be improved. The RSPO certification for palm oil is also largely compatible with the SNDI criteria, but there are still issues around product traceability and the treatment of forest degradation. These two shortcomings are also found in the Rainforest Alliance standard for cocoa, but most of the SNDI criteria are covered.Despite the mixed performance of these standards across these sectors, they share several weaknesses when it comes to compliance with public policies aimed at preventing imported deforestation:• These sustainability standards are still ill equipped to estimate deforestation, forest degradation or impacts on peatlands; • The HCS approach is still not used to full effect, unlike the more common approach of identifying HCV areas, although monitoring of HCV areas is still inadequate; • Most of the social criteria included in the SNDI are also included in most of the standards, but they are poorly monitored in practice, according to NGOs, among other stakeholders; • Product traceability is almost always a challenge, because it is rarely possible to trace products back to where they were grown; • The independence and transparency of certification audits are often questioned; • Small-scale producers in the global South still struggle to access certification.Private sustainability standards, in their current form, are not therefore able to take a leading role in efforts to stop imported deforestation. Two aspects must be addressed to better equip them to support the implementation of the SNDI policy. On the one hand, in the short term, the content and implementation arrangements must be revised, and many standards are currently in the process of doing this. On the other, their linkages with other approaches that could complement the implementation of this policy should be considered. These approaches could include the negotiation of bilateral or multilateral agreements between producer and consumer countries, the management of geographic risk in production areas, or the territory-level certification of areas that are firmly committed to sustainable development.Globally, international, national and local NGOs such as Global Witness, Forests 500, Supply Change by Forests Trends, Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 (TFA 2020), CDP Disclosure Insight Action, the Accountability Framework, WWF's Collaboration for Forests and Agriculture (CFA) and SPOTT have developed traceability mechanisms to spotlight and assess negative environmental and social impacts, show legality and forest-risk along value chains and demonstrate the (lack of) exercise of due diligence in commodity value chains. Third-party campaigns and investigations have sought to reveal the (lack of) due diligence at corporate, chain and sector scale (Ingram et al. 2018)  disclosing practices based on field research which are published in reports, via the media and on interactive websites. Specifically focusing on the Congo Basin moist forests, NGO investigations into timber related deforestation have been the most common, often with a focus on illegal logging, such as Global Forest Watch and Obster. In the cocoa sector, the Cocoa Barometers (Fountain and Hütz-Adams 2018) campaign by Mighty Earth (Higonnet et al. 2018) have created negative publicity about the deforestation due to cocoa production in West and Central Africa generally. Campaigns, reports and websites directed at consumers and companies on illegal expansion and deforestation due to palm oil plantations in Cameroon by Greenpeace, 47 CED, 48 Reseau de Lutte contre la Faim (Fight Against Hunger Network -RELUFA) 49 and ICENECDEV 50 , and on the rubber sector in Cameroon and Republic of the Congo (Seale 2019, Orozco and Salber 2019) have led to disinvestment, free, prior and informed consent processes and changes to corporate policy.There appears to be consensus around the need to combat deforestation among different direct and indirect stakeholders involved in land management in Central Africa. Nevertheless, the policies and approaches adopted and implemented to this end can have serious social and economic consequences for producer and exporting countries in this region.Importing countries in Europe and America adopt binding consumer-side policies under the influence of activist civil society organizations. By the end of 2021, the EU is expected to adopt binding legislation prohibiting the importation of products suspected of contributing to deforestation, the underlying assumption being that deforestation is only a tropical phenomenon, linked to the production of commodities traded on international markets. The products most affected in Central Africa are palm oil, cocoa, rubber, wood and, to a lesser extent, coffee. The technical arrangements for implementing these policies and measures to combat imported deforestation in importing countries are still unclear or not yet defined. Barriers to the development of credible implementation strategies include the lack of consensus on how to define forests and, therefore, deforestation. Nevertheless, the certification approach has been applied to timber products for around 20 years and is increasingly applied to palm oil and cocoa. It offers a technical solution, both in respect of the production units and the territorial entities that have made commitments.Central African producers and exporters are increasingly aware of and compliant with the new requirements of zero-deforestation policies and measures to combat imported deforestation adopted by developed importing countries. This is all the more relevant, given that Central African countries understand the threat that such policies pose to their national economies. Central African stakeholders have responded in two ways: 1) by diversifying their markets to export more to less demanding markets, and 2) by adopting sustainable management practices for the production of the commodities concerned, by increasing efforts to eliminate deforestation from production chains. Central African approaches are led not just by governments, but also by private sector and civil society actors. 47 https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/legacy/Global/usa/planet3/PDFs/HeraklesCrimeFile.pdf 48 http://www.cedcameroun.org/projets/reducing-footprint-of-palm-oil-on-forests/ 49 https://news.mongabay.com/2020/06/if-they-take-our-lands-well-be-dead-Cameroun-village-battles-palm-oil-giant/ 50 https://www.icenecdev.org/Land-Grabbing-in-Cameroun.pdf","tokenCount":"8975"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"c40b5ebc93efc6fd2f721818c82ac8e0","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/12cf2cde-d4da-4f93-b133-abe6d93eb766/retrieve","id":"-1292616181"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"91dd4b2b-7f8f-4fb1-99ba-16961bb4c739","pagecount":"28","content":"The authors would like to thank our farmers and staff of the Department of Agriculture at various intervention districts …Climate change remains a major threat to Ghana's agricultural productivity and food security. One of the promising pathways to achieving sustainable food production is building communities' resilience to climate risk through technology parks, which can serve as platforms to promote climate-smart agricultural technologies. Thirty-one (31) technology parks were established across twenty (20) communities in five AICCRA intervention regions to promote different gender-smart CSA technologies to aid sustainable production of yam, sweet potato, maize, and cowpea. The value chains piloted were maize (13 parks), yam (3 parks), cowpea (13 parks), and sweet potato (2 parks). For each technology park, the community selected and compared the validated Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) practices with the conventional practices. In addition, 274 lead farmers were supported to establish and manage smaller technology fields on their farmers. Farmer field schools (FFS) organized across the localities brought together a total of 2,341 farmers, extension officers, and other stakeholders directly. 1155 representing 49 % were women. Again 988 representing 42% were below the age of 35 years. On average, improved maize seeds, land preparation, good agronomic practices, harvesting, and marketing technologies disseminated were scored as having low drudgery (60%) and no displacement of women or their roles (90%) for maize, cowpea, and sweet potato. Compared to the national yield average, AICCRA intervention fields recorded 64% and 128% increases in maize and cowpea yields respectively. Again, the AICCRA intervention field recorded 65% and 118% more income than farmer practice. While average yam tuber yield from AICCRA fields was about 40% higher than FP fields, sweet potato weevil-damaged tubers were more than 200% on FP fields compared to AICCRA intervention fields. In all the intervention communities, farmers ranked bundled CSA technologies as the most preferred technologies to help reduce the impact of climate risks. Two hundred and seventy-four farmers are using AICCRA technologies with 42% being female. AICCRA interventions have shown a high potential for improved yield and income, and this has important implications for climate policy in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Ghana.The negative impact of climate variability and change on global agriculture, food security and nutrition, and the livelihoods of millions of people in several communities, cannot be underestimated. The significant contributions that climate-induced extremities such as droughts, variations in rainfall intensity, and patterns, have on the emergence, establishment, and outbreak of pests and diseases and the consequential effects on the productivity of major staple crops like maize, cowpea, yam, and sweet potato cannot be overemphasized. In Ghana, for example, Essegbey et al., (2020) reported that climate change has contributed to an increased yield gap and post-harvest losses of major food crops. This has negatively impacted all farmers with women and the vulnerable being the most affected. To overcome the challenges, climate-smart agricultural technologies, practices, and services that are also gender-smart are being scaled up among farmers by the AICCRA project to increase productivity, build their resilience, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the community/farm level. Promoting gender-smart CSA technologies promote inclusivity and increases agricultural productivity and food security.An effective and efficient means of scaling up CSA technologies is through the use of community technology parks. Such parks not only demonstrate workable technologies but also bring all stakeholders together to interact to ensure speedy adoption. This report summarises various technologies promoted, farmers reached with the technologies and brief outcome of the climate smart CSA technology parks established in AICCRA intervention communities based on the value chains. It again highlights the usage of some of the technologies.The AICCRA project together with its partners and champion/lead farmers established 31 demonstration parks across its intervention districts to showcase community-specific bundled CIS-CSA and One health technologies for different value chains (Table 2). The parks demonstrated technologies for the sustainable production of yam, sweet potato, maize, and cowpea. Farmer field schools (FFS) brought together different actors and stakeholders including extension officers, opinion leaders, and policy actors to observe, learn, share experiences, and interact about the different technologies to facilitate adoption.Technology developers from the CGIAR and NARS shared expertise on the CSA technologies being demonstrated in the parks. For all the FFS, media organizations were invited to broadcast the technologies to other people through radio, print, and television, thereby increasing the number of beneficiaries reached. For each technology park, the community selected and compared the validated CSA practices with the conventional practices in the locality. The bundled CSA technologies demonstrated are presented in Table 1. Neem leaf powder as a soil amendment, onion intercrop, planting pests and diseasefree vines, Orange-flesh variety, planting on ridges Yam Neem leaf powder for seed yam treatment and soil amendment, ridging as an alternative to mounding, trellis/minimum staking, Aeroponics /hydroponic generated seed yam,Maize and cowpea were the dominant value chains exhibited across the districts with yam and sweet potato recording the least (Figure 1). Generally, each region demonstrated different technologies in at least two of the value chains.Practice.Community field days organized across the intervention areas directly reached 2,341 participants of which 1155 (49%) were females (Figure 2). Of the participants 42% were below the age of 35 years (Figure 3).     Before the AICCRA intervention, farmers confirmed they had no knowledge/means of managing soil borne pathogens (nematodes) and arthropods in yam production However, farmers now testify that the introduction and use of the OH approaches sustainably managed soil borne pathogens and arthropods in yam production 3 Utilizing the one health approach in yam production led to over 200 % reduction in nematodes and soil arthropod attacks and damage on yam tubers. Three out of 10 (30%) tubers harvested from conventional/farmer practices plots were damaged showing severe symptoms of nematodes and soil arthropod attacks like tuber galling, crazy rooting, and holes in tubers compared to (10%) from one health intervention plot (Figure 4). Similarly, the application of the CSA One Health technology reduced the incidence of sweet potato tubers damaged by weevils compared to conventional practices. This means more marketable tubers were 3The Leaf Helping Yam Farmers Stop Pests : CGIAR Yam Farmer (bbc.com)AICCRA One health Technology Farmer/Conventional Practice obtained from OH intervention fields than FP. An average of 6 % tuber damage was observed from AICCRA intervention fields compared to a 20 % incidence on conventional fields (Figure 5). In effect, utilizing the one-health technology increased quantity of marketable tubers by about 238% confirming the efficacy of technology in protecting the sweet potato plant from the devastating effects of sweet potato weevils. Climate-smart pest management build resilience of farms and landscapes to changing pest threats and therefore reduce pests infestation (Altieri et al., 2015). The One-health crop system requires smallholder farmers to use quality seeds adapted to local climate and pests and undertake climate smart integrated pests management to reduce pest and disease infestation.Figure 5: Impact of AICCRA intervention on the incidence of sweet potato weevil damaged/infested tubers at harvestBeneficiary farmer confirms an increase in income following application of OH interventions which resulted in increased yield (Figure 6). Again, the reduced activities of soil borne pathogen and arthropods following the neem leaves powder application resulted in higher number of marketable tubers harvested compared to FP (Appendix 9). Application of OH technologies on AICCRA intervention fields increased yam yield by 39.0 % more than FP. (Figure 13). The higher the number of yield and marketable tubers,  In Techiman North, Kintampo North, and Kintampo South (Bono East Region) the top-ranked intervention for yam is the promotion of seed yam multiplication technologies (Table 3a). Biological soil and seed treatment ranks second, followed by staking options to reduce deforestation in yam production. Organic amendments for improving soil health are the fifth-ranked intervention, and enhancing access to climate information ranks sixth. In the same region, the highest-ranked intervention for maize and cowpea is the use of improved maize seeds that are tolerant to drought, striga, and low nitrogen. The second-ranked intervention is using improved cowpea seeds that are tolerant to pests and diseases. Biopesticides for managing pests and diseases in cowpea and maize rank third, followed by organic amendments or leguminous crops to improve soil health. Enhancing access to climate information is the fifth-ranked intervention for both maize and cowpea. In the Northern Region where the focus was on Tolon district, the top-ranked intervention for maize and cowpea is the promotion of stress-tolerant improved varieties, including those that are drought-tolerant, early maturing, and tolerant to striga and low nitrogen levels (Table 3b). Organic amendments or leguminous crops to improve soil health rank second, followed by enhancing access to climate information. The least-ranked intervention is the use of minimum tillage for maize and cowpea production. In Cape Coast and KEEA in the Central Region, the highest-ranked intervention for maize is the use of improved maize seeds that are tolerant to drought, striga (a parasitic weed), and low nitrogen levels (Table 3C). For cowpea, the top-ranked intervention is the use of improved cowpea seeds that are tolerant to pests and diseases. Neem leaf powder and onion intercrop for sweet potato weevil management rank third, followed by organic amendments or leguminous crops to improve soil health. Enhancing access to climate information is the fifth-ranked intervention for both maize and cowpea in this region. In the case of sweet potato, the highest-ranked intervention for sweet potato is the bio-control of the sweet potato weevil. Enhancing access to climate information ranks second, followed by the promotion of vine multiplication technologies. Organic amendments or leguminous crops to improve soil health are the fourth-ranked intervention, and vine technology for cutting and planting ranks fifth. Lawra and Jirapa (Upper West Region) recorded the top-ranked intervention for maize as the promotion of disease and pest-tolerant maize and cowpea varieties (Table 3C). For cowpea, the highest-ranked intervention was the use of mucuna pruriens or cowpea/maize intercropping to build soil carbon stocks. Organic amendments or leguminous crops to improve soil health rank third, followed by enhanced use of biopesticides in maize and cowpea systems. Enhancing access to climate information is the fifth-ranked intervention for both maize and cowpea in this region. A similar trend was observed in the Upper East Region. Changes in farmers' knowledge due to their participation in activities of the technology parks led to increase use of CSA technologies such as improved seeds and the one health technologies. In 2023, 274 lead farmers were supported to establish and manage smaller technology parks on their farms. These farmers used at least one of the CSA technologies (Figures 7 and 8). One hundred and fifty (150), 92, and 32 farmers adopted maize, cowpea, or sweet potato technologies respectively (Figure 19). Of the total number, using the technologies 42% were female with the rest (58%) being males (Figure 10). Again, Forty-five percent of these farmers adopted the cowpea and sweet potato technologies on their fields.Interestingly, 55 % of these were female (Figure 11) confirming that these are women crops. Figure 12 shows the results from the survey of farmers to determine women friendliness of the various technologies around maize disseminated. On average, improved maize seeds, land preparation, good agronomic practices, harvesting and marketing technologies disseminated were scored as having lower drudgery (59.6%) and displacement of women of their roles (95.9%) (Figure 12). The results of the survey of farmers to determine women friendliness of the technologies around cowpea disseminated is presented in Figure 13. On average, improved cowpea seeds, land preparation, good agronomic practices, harvesting, and marketing technologies of cowpea dissemination were scored with low drudgery (56.2%) and displacement of women of their roles (94.9%) (Figure 20). This makes the technologies gender-sensitive and women-friendly. The results of the survey of farmers to determine women friendliness of the sweet potato technologies disseminated is showed in Figure 14. On average, improved cowpea seeds, land preparation, good agronomic practices, harvesting and marketing technologies focused on sweet potato disseminated were scored low in terms of drudgery (64.4%) and displacement of women of their roles (79.2%) (Figure 14). The CSA technologies culminated in high-quality yield produced for all the value chains. There was a 64% increase in maize yield compared to the national average yield. An average maize yield of 5.02 t/ha was obtained from AICCRA technology parks compared to 3.06 t/ha reported by MoFA-IFPRI (2020) as the national average. The interventions led to a 60%, 83%, and 50.3% increase in maize yields over the national average in the Southern, Middle, and Northern belts respectively (Figure 15&16). The provision of smart maize seeds (i.e drought-tolerant and early maturing varieties) bundled with soil and crop management climate-smart technologies have the potential to increase yields and increase the revenues of farmers (Amadu, 2020). The increase in yield could be attributed to resilience that is built into the farming system and the less money spent on pesticides. and 0.8 t/ha. An average yield of 1.82 t/ha was however obtained from AICCRA intervention fields which is about 128% more than the maximum national average of cowpea (Figure 17). The implementation of CSA practices (i.e. seed and nutrient management technologies) significantly increased crop yield and income of farmers due to the improvement in the farming system.  AICCRA Intervention National Av bundled with CSA/One Health technologies. Across all the communities, it was observed that employing CSA technologies increased the yield of both maize and cowpea above the national average yield. This clearly translated into an increased yield income of more than 65.0 and 118.0 % for maize and cowpea farmers respectively. Similarly with yam and sweet potato, employing the one health technologies helped to controlpests and diseases in these value chains thereby improving their yield quality and income of farmers. Across all the intervening communities, farmers selected and ranked AICCRA interventions as the most preferred technologies to help them adapt to climate change and increase productivity. Two hundred and seventy-four beneficiary farmers who participated in the AICCRA activities were identified as early adopters who using the technology in their field. Interestingly, 42% of these adopters were female farmers, a sign that women farmers will readily adopt technologies they identify as gender friendly.The impact of AICCRA activities on the field is highly encouraging especially in the number of primary adopters recorded in the year. To increase the numbers, it is recommended that the farmers (adopters) use the technologies to train other farmers. To sustain the gains made, there should be increased access to CSA technologies promoted and the most impactful interventions ranked by each district should be given priority in future implementation/promotions.","tokenCount":"2401"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"098edc34c9a55acea1aafacf0c08e27d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/1108a482-5715-4543-8c02-bf37e1d721df/retrieve","id":"90236725"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f7e898ce-4a32-47d5-a598-4e9bb29a58d8","pagecount":"33","content":"systems ULLIS Glenda Bonilla (MIS/UNA) Emilio Perez (UNA) Carlos Ruiz (UNA) Rein van der Hoek (CIAT) Diana Kurzweg (BOKU) Bernhard Freyer (BOKU) University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU) Universidad Nacional Agraria (MIS/UNA) Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT)Table of contents Acknowledgements .Organic farming is for many farmers more and more an alternative to manage successfully their farm. Advantages are: reduced costs for agricultural inputs, reduction of soil erosion, development of soil fertility, higher yields and in some cases better income by linking to international organic markets. In tropical countries like Nicaragua where traditional agriculture is predominant, organic farming practises are less common, but gain an increasing interest among the farmer communities. Often, the economic situation of the farmers doesn't allow for agricultural inputs, except the most important ones like seeds, and sometimes fertilizer and pesticides. Optimal use of natural resources is therefore key to maintain or increase soil fertility. Specific research for organic farming cropping systems in tropical environments is very rare. There is a need to invest more in the development of especially legume based systems to sustainably increase crop yields. Effects of such systems in Nicaragua (e.g. Schmidt & Orozco, 2003) and in Kenya (e.g. Lelei, 2004;Lelei et al., 2004) had shown convincing results.Legumes are of major importance in agriculture worldwide. Many of them (Fabacaea) have root nodules being evidence of symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria (Rhizobium) allowing a crude protein content of the plant up to 35% and even increasing nitrogen availability for other non-nitrogen fixing crops like cereals. Furthermore, biomass yields of many legumes are high, making them suitable as cover crops maintaining soil humidity and providing green manure, reducing erosion, suppressing weeds and strengthening of the antiphytopathogenic potential of the soil. The high protein content in combination with an often regular or even good palatability makes legumes also an important source of protein for livestock.The use of drought tolerant forage legumes as animal feed is an effective strategy to reduce production decrease in the dry season. This research focuses on the introduction and evaluation of new forage germplasm. Species and accessions having shown reasonable yields and a decrease of less than 48% in biomass production in the dry season are considered for further evaluation. In pastures, addition of forage legumes enhances animal production twofold: through higher biomass production and through increasing the overall nutritive value. Small farms based on maize and beans and often including cattle characterize the dominant farming system in Central America. Soil nutrient depletion is a common problem leading to degraded soils, a decline in agricultural productivity, and, eventually, to food insecurity and poverty. Legumes can decrease soil erosion, optimise farm-energy balance, and increase soil fertility and soil waterholding capacity.Preceding activities in the research region (CIAT, Universidad National Agraria (UNA), local partners) consisted of workshops with local farmers in which current problems were articulated identifying causes and interactions between crop management and soil resources. Main focus was the evolution of the production systems over time and reasons for change. These workshops were the first step in a learning alliance process with farmers in San Dionisio (Orozco & Franco, 2001). A survey on the use of organic matter in San Dionisio (Dohmeyer, 2003) showed that, although local and national organizations have been working on cover crops/green manures (CCGM) in San Dionisio in the last decade, there were only 36 farmers who knew about the benefits of CCGM, and only 30% of them can be considered of having integrated CCGMs into their production system. Studies on the nutrient flows at farm levels revealed crop residue management as a main cause for decreasing soil fertility. As above ground residues are burnt, and in the case of beans below ground residues are pulled out (and subsequently burnt), soil organic matter decreases and nutrient balances are negative. Decreasing crop yields are the consequences, which can not be made up for through increased chemical fertilizer application. In order to complete the process of learning about soil resources in San Dionisio we conducted a characterization survey (\"feria de suelo\" (Trejo et al, 1999)), where farmer matched local soil quality indicators with scientific ones, including physical (texture, colour, infiltration, consistency), chemical (pH, SOM), and biological parameters such as rhizobia presence and soil fauna. Farmer groups then conducted maize experiments with different N-P-K fertilizer levels to identify the most important nutrient on their fields. Nitrogen resulted as the most important nutrient throughout the watershed, while the application of P only resulted in a marginal effect on maize yield. Potassium had no effect.From the above described activities and results it was concluded that traditional fertilization can be substituted through a single legume crop prior to maize crops. There are options to enhance farmer production systems in the dry hillsides of Nicaragua and reverse the current tendency of these soils to degrade leaving farmers with higher yields and lower production costs. This report presents an overview of the project results of the experiments during both project periods, the first from February 2005 to October 2007 and the second from November 2007 to April 2010.The objective of this project jointly carried out by the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, Austria, the Universidad Nacional Agraria (UNA), Managua, Nicaragua and CIAT is to develop options based on legumes as green manure and animal feed. More specifically, the original targets of the project as mentioned in the project document were as follows:(a) On-station trials: 1. To find out the impact of different legume species / varieties, planted in the dry season, on soil organic matter after a four year rotation (see 2.1). 2. To study the performance of different legume species / varieties about root biomass, above ground biomass, nitrogen fixation and the effects on subsequent maize performance (see 2.1).(b) On-Farm trials: 3. To investigate the impact of cover crops/green manure (CCGM) improved residue grazing in the dry season on subsequent maize performance in comparison with non-grazed cover crops/green manure (CCGM) rotations, as well as their labour and economic impacts (see 3.1). 4. To analyse the impact of cover crops/green manure (CCGM) species / varieties on subsequent maize performance, as well as their labour and economic impacts (see 2.1). 5. To implement support strategies for farmer/researcher to farmer training / knowledge transfer, experience exchange -combining on station trial knowledge with farmer specific knowledge (site specific techniques) accompanied by B.Sc. / M.Sc. students and local farmer organizations (see 3.2).This chapter consists of two parts:• An experiment carried out by the Universidad Nacional Agraria to evaluate the adaptability of 16 genotypes of forage legumes. • A research carried out by a Danish student (Signe Borgen, University of Copenhagen) together with the Universidad Nacional Agraria to evaluate (1) (potential) N-contribution (N-fixation, mineralization) of four cover legumes (as green manure) to the soil and subsequent crops and ( 2) research the adoption (potential) of green manure and other organic production methods by farmers.This part reflects the outcomes and conclusions as presented in technical reports of UNA and the thesis by Mrs. Borgen (Borgen, 2007). • Germination rate: measured up to 15 days, hereafter the proportion of surviving plants per furrow and per plot. • Cover height: to be assessed every 15 days in the three central furrows of each experimental plot.• Biomass (kg): in each parcel three square metres, at the onset of the flowering stage.• Cover %: every 15 days till the end of the biological cycle of the cropsAfter the establishment of the experiment on 08/10/05 assessments were done every 15 days of the following variables: germination rate, survival rate, cover % and cover height. We found that some treatments showed low germination rates. This might be due to the seed quality. In subsequent assessments germination rates of some accessions increased slightly. In addition, rabbits ate the few plants that survived. On 26/11/05 the penultimate assessment was done and the survival rates varied between 13% and 60%. Based on these results it was decided to replant, but results were disappointing, leading to our conclusion that the seed germination quality was low. A next assessment on 10/12/05 showed that rabbits had eaten the few remaining plants.• The Lablab purpureus accessions and Canavalia brasiliensis showed relatively better germination rates • Germination rates of Vigna unguiculata were very low • Only Vigna umbellata \"testigo\" showed a germination rate of over 50% • Canavalia ensiformis did not germinate at all • There was no significant difference between blocks• There were no significant differences between blocks and between species (p<0.05), however it was possible to identify the robustness of the different germplasm. • Survival rates show the same tendency as germination rates, the Lablab purpureus accessions performing relatively well, as well as Vigna umbellata \"testigo\" • Survival rates of Vigna unguiculata are low• Although not mentioned in the original report, another factor leading to this disappointing outcome was a prolonged drought period (personal communication by involved UNA personnel). It is therefore recommended to do a next trial in the primera (from May to August) instead of the postrera (from September to December) growing season. • It is highly recommended to do germination tests with seed intended for an experiment.However,the heterogeneity of seed material has always to be taken into account. • It is recommended to protect plots against rabbits and other animals (chicken wire might be too expensive, but there are also other options).• Low seed quality and other natural limiting factors can extensively affect yields, even of improved germplasm.(based on the MSc. thesis by Signe Borgen)Adaptation of four legume species was evaluated in the sub-humid hillsides of Nicaragua for its i) N fertilizer potential and ii) social adoption potential.The first component tested the biophysical niche of the legumes at the end of the rainy season, represented by the following hypothesis:Hypothesis 1: Canavalia brasiliensis, Lablab purpureus, Vigna unguiculata and Vigna umbellata are drought resistant and biophysically well-adapted to conditions in San Dionisio and similar environments as green manures established at the end of the rainy season.The social analysis evaluated the human, social and physical capitals in relation to green manure use and three other organic production methods as well as farmers' adoption behaviour and is embodied by the following hypothesis:Hypothesis 2: Factors related to social, human and physical capital hinder farmers' adoption of green manure and organic production methods in general.The legume trial had a randomised block design consisting of four legumes (Canavalia brasiliensis, Lablab purpureus, Vigna unguiculata and Vigna umbellata) with and without compost application in three replicates, resulting in 24 plots of 4x6 m with an actual sample size of 5x3m.Only Canavalia brasiliensis persisted, while the three other legumes performed poorly. Germination rates were low (estimated at 40%, probably caused by chickens eating the seed).Vigna umbellata disappeared within 45 days after planting, and only few plants of Lablab purpureus and Vigna unguiculata survived till maturity.The trial was further impaired by pests (mainly beetles and ants), which affected Canavalia brasiliensis less than the other legumes. Canavalia yields were estimated at 900 kg/ha DM (2500 kg/ha fresh weight) for the control plot and at 1000 kg/ha with compost application (2600 kg/ha fresh weight). In comparison to literature and local data from CIAT experiments (with yields up to 5300 kg/ha fresh weight) these yields were low. The positive effect of compost on biomass production is likely caused by higher water retention in the early stages and a possibly higher nutrient availability later on. N 2 fixation rates (measured using the Natural Abundance Method) were high, though the poor biomass production indicated that the plants were not performing well. Total N contributions from fixation were calculated, and compared for the compost and control treatment. The pot experiment verified that nodules were present and actively fixing N 2 in the local soil. Compatible rhizobia were present for both Lablab purpureus and Vigna unguiculata, and symbiosis could therefore be expected, even without inoculation. Due to lack of seeds, Canavalia brasiliensis was not included in the pot experiment, but nodules were present and active in plants in the field. Vigna unguiculata and Lablab purpureus did not associate with the same Rhizobium genus: the first with the slow-growing Bradyrhizobium Rhizobium strains and the latter with a fast-growing strain of the Rhizobium genus. Average nodule numbers per plant were 8.8 and 7.7 for Vigna unguiculata and Lablab purpureus respectively. N 2 fixation was 81 and 52 %Ndfa for Lablab purpureus and Vigna unguiculata respectively, and nodules were actively fixing without inoculation. Canavalia brasiliensis was found more suitable than the other legumes as a late rainy season green manure, resisting pest and drought stress. This plant showed the highest N contribution (estimated at 13.5 kg N/ha after 180 days with an N 2 fixation of 64% Ndfa). Compost application had a negative effect on N 2 fixation but increased biomass production, resulting in a similar net N contribution. Further experiments including on compost quality are needed to determine if compost should be recommended to increase N contribution from dry season green manures.Two incubation experiments were done, one to determine inorganic N content of the compost during four weeks with weekly measurements and a second to determined mineralization patterns of Vigna unguiculata, Canavalia brasiliensis and Lablab purpureus during four weeks with measurements every 14 days. Water content of all soils was 50% of their water holding capacity. Compost and plant material were added in a quantity of 11% and 1% of soil weight respectively. Incubation took place at 25ºC under aerobic conditions. Samples were mixed with 1 M KCl for 45 min, filtered and analysed for nitrate and ammonium by flow injection analysis (FIA).The net N mineralization of Vigna unguiculata, Lablab purpureus and Canavalia brasiliensis varied according to material quality and the soil used for incubation. The trial residues immobilized between 0 and 65 mg N/ha after four weeks incubation with an N content of the plant residues close to 2% of DM. Experimental conditions like residue particle size and incubation period may have led to a higher immobilization compared to field conditions. In conclusion, Canavalia brasiliensis is not considered an immediate N source, but contributes to long-term soil fertility build-up, with potential for remineralization after one month.Together with three UNA students an evaluation of human, social, and physical resources influencing green manure adoption was conducted. The survey was conducted with 182 representative farmers selected by a stratified sampling procedure using the following criteria: farm size, farm type and membership of an organization. The themes covered were live barriers, composting, green manure and biological pest control. Some farmers mentioned lack of information as the most important constraint for all themes, in spite of high awareness of (in descending order) live barriers, composting, and green manure. Awareness and know-how was very high for live barriers (95% and 80%), composting (86% and 59%) and green manure (72% and 48%) but lower for biological pest control (72% and 48%), which might be due to the less precise description of this method. Adoption rates found were 57, 37, 33 and 17% for live barriers, composting, green manure, and biological pest control, respectively, and were higher for farmers with higher education and belonging to an organization. Adoption of green manure was especially limited by lack of access to seed. Land tenure influenced adoption live barriers more than the other factors. Lack of information was mentioned most often (28% of the farmers) as the main constraint to use organic production methods. Almost half of the respondents claimed to know how to use green manure and a third had actually practiced this.A positive correlation was found between organization membership and knowledge level. Knowledge level tended to increase with farm size, but no differences were found in adoption rates of organic production methods of small (70%), medium (78%) and large (65%) farmers. Hence, knowledge of methods does therefore do not automatically lead to their application, possibly because from the point of view of these farmers they are not suitable for larger farmers who are more mechanized.There is generally a high awareness and knowledge on organic production methods in San Dionisio, but this has generally not been translated into their concrete application at farm level limiting farmers' experience.. Human capital seems therefore not the most limiting factor for adoption of organic production methods. Social capital is more important: a positive relation exists between organization membership and adoption. The institutional presence in San Dionisio is quite large, which is reflected in relatively high adoption rates of especially live barriers. Approximately 40% of farmers in San Dionisio are farming under insecure tenure conditions. This influences adoption of long term organic farming methods, reducing the use of live barriers with 24% and using of green manure with 10%. These results comply with general findings indicating that tenure and especially lack of access to land restricts adoption of green manure and other organic production methods. Physical capital, primarily in terms of availability of seeds and land, was the main limiting factor for 61% of the respondents in the adoption of green manure, lack of seeds accounting for more than 60%. Labour availability could also be a constraining factor if short-duration legumes are planted at the end of the rainy season and incorporation would coincide with harvesting coffee and postrera beans in December/January. Incorporation in March/April of long-duration green manures such as Canavalia brasiliensis would not be likely to compete with other farming activities.It could be argued that the poor agricultural production in areas such as San Dionisio could be increased by facilitation of credit schemes enabling purchase of chemical inputs. However, whereas mineral fertilizers -especially phosphorus -increase production, organic soil improving methods are much more effective, especially at the long-term. For instance, the post-Mitch situation (after the hurricane Mitch in October 1998, which devastated large parts of Honduras and Nicaragua) emphasized once more the importance of increasing agroecosystem resilience. Additionally, organic fertilizers require less monetary inputs and green manures could play an important role by providing nitrogen and organic matter to increase soil fertility. This research showed that Canavalia brasiliensis can be used as a green manure in the late rainy season, with potential N remineralized and available for the following crop. Further trials are necessary to determine the biomass potential of Vigna unguiculata, Lablab purpureus and Canavalia brasiliensis planted at the end of the rainy season. Biological pest control could probably reduce pest attacks, however to identify strategies, an elaborate research design is to be established. Use of green manures is not widespread in San Dionisio. However, biophysically adapted species are available. Limiting factors are lack of physical resources, such as seed availability. This constraint can be lifted in various ways, most requiring intervention from government or development agencies.A seed system also offering access by the poorest farmers should be established. Lending schemes show potential, but are not accessible to everybody. Distribution and access to land is another barrier, where political action is needed.Sustainable and/or organic farming practices are being already implemented in San Dionisio and awareness and use of live barriers is widespread. However, one practice alone clearly cannot sustain an organic production system and it is arguable whether the present soil fertility levels and fragility of agro-ecosystems can allow sufficient production with immediate effect without the application of agrochemicals. On the other hand, results suggest that integrating organic components like legumes and compost offer better long-term solutions and it is therefore recommended to embark on a gradual conversion to organic production. The presence of agricultural organizations in San Dionisio promoting organic methods is a first step. Appropriate and adaptable, innovations could spread spontaneously. Farmer involvement in project formulation, implementation and identification of objectives is also a positive step. Dissemination of the concept of sustainability of environmental as well as social aspects might create an innovative spirit amongst farmers, enabling adaptation of farming methods according to individual needs. The land tenure issue is not likely to hinder adoption of organic production methods if yields increase while labour and financial inputs remain equal or decrease. Institutional support from development organizations and the Nicaraguan government, focusing on seed availability of cover legumes and distributing information on organic farming, may provide a solid starting point.Since the project activities had only been partially fulfilled, it was decided to restart in October 2007. Representatives of the implementing institution UNA (Universidad Nacional Agraria), as well as research sites and students were identified and experiments were designed.The targets of the project as mentioned in the revised project document are as follows:(a) On-station trials: 1. To find out the impact of different legume species / varieties, planted in the dry season, on soil organic matter after a four year rotation. 2. To study the performance of different legume species / varieties about root biomass, above ground biomass, nitrogen fixation and the effects on subsequent maize performance. (b) On-Farm trials: 3. To investigate the impact of cover crops/green manure (CCGM) improved residue grazing in the dry season on subsequent maize performance in comparison with non-grazed cover crops/green manure (CCGM) rotations, as well as their labour and economic impacts. 4. To analyse the impact of cover crops/green manure (CCGM) species / varieties on subsequent maize performance, as well as their labour and economic impacts. 5. To implement support strategies for farmer/researcher to farmer training / knowledge transfer, experience exchange -combining on station trial knowledge with farmer specific knowledge (site specific techniques) accompanied by B.Sc. / M.Sc. students and local farmer organizationsThe following four main activities were carried out:1. Evaluate 16 genotypes of forage legumes in trial plots at two experiment sites in the Pacific region of Nicaragua and their effect on maize production (project target 1, 2, 4). These experiments took place at the Ranch Ebenezer and the Finca Santa Rosa. A complete randomised block was established with 16 treatments and three replicates (see Annex 2 for details). 2. Evaluate the effect of four genotypes of leguminous shrubs/trees at one experiment site (El Plantel, research farm of UNA) on soil fertility and maize production (alley cropping) (project target 2, 4) (see Annex 3 for details). 3. Evaluate the agronomic and production characteristics of five forage legumes in semi-arid conditions (project target 3, 4) 4. On-farm and community research. This part includes a Participatory Rapid Appraisal (PRA) and training workshop on use of both introduced and local herbaceous forage legumes and leguminous shrubs for improvement of soil fertility and animal feed in Pacora, San Francisco Libre, Managua (project target 5). Additionally a student from the University of Potsdam -BOKU did research on (1) the behaviour of both indigenous and introduced legumes and their effect on maize during the growing period and after mulching and (2) a community analysis on development project activities, their effectiveness, lessons learned and success factors.UNA Personnel and students involved in the project: Plant development differed considerably per site. Though at both sites legumes performed quite well, at Niquinohomo the maize harvest failed due to drought. An important agronomic characteristic is tolerance to pests, and therefore pest incidence was evaluated (Table 2). At both sites, Centrosema plumieri was most resistant. The Vigna and Legume N-content N-content of varied considerably between the different legumes (Table 4). The Vigna umbellata accessions showed relatively low contents (under 2%), whereas Lablab purpureus accessions contained up to 3% of nitrogen, with Canavalia brasiliensis and Clitoria ternatea also in the upper ranges. Cowpea accessions showed intermediate results.The main objective of this experiment is the evaluation of the effect on maize of intercropping with legumes. The following production indicators were evaluated: plant height (Table 5), stem diameter, germination rate and incidence of pests and diseases.  In Santa Rosa, intercropping with Vigna unguiculata 284/2 provided best results, in contrast to the combination with Vigna unguiculata FHIA and Vigna umbellata 24360. At the Niquinohomo site Lablab purpureus 2 (Dl) and Vigna unguiculata 131-2 were mostThe trial was established in June 2008 at the UNA \"El Plantel\" farm. The climate is characterized by an annual rainfall of 1100 mm with a rainy season of six months (May to November) within which a relatively dry period during August and September. Average temperature is 26 degrees C. Soils are Mollisols of volcanic origin, with intermediate soil depth and well drained (Table 7, for more details see Annex 4). Four leguminous shrubs were planted as alley crops with maize: Gliricidia sepium, Leucaena leucocephala, Caesalpinia velutina and Erythrina poeppigiana. Canavalia brasiliensis was planted between the alleys. Calopogonium sp. was also evaluated. Soil samples were taken and analysed.The experimental test design consisted of three randomised blocks, each block was divided into 5 experimental plots of 300 m2 each. The measured variables were: survival rate, plant height, plant diameter, maize height, biomass production of Canavalia and Calopogonium sp., the soil was analysed for pH, organic matter, nitrogen, available phosphorus and potassium, calcium, magnesium and electric conductivity.• Highest plants: Leucaena leucocephala • Leucaena leucocephala and Gliricidia sepium show best agronomic results• Leucaena leucocephala is suitable as an intercrop (alley) with the most productive legume Canavalia brasiliensis.The experiment took place at the Finca \"Santa Rosa\" of UNA, altitude 80 masl, characterized by sandy loamy soils, with a pH from 6-7, with Organic Matter content of approx. 4% but low fertility (see Table 1 and Annex 4 for more details). The climate is sub-humid, with annual rainfall between 800 and 1200 mm, and a relative humidity between 60 and 90%. Treatments consisted of five forage legumes: three accessions of Vigna unguiculata (Verde Brasil, 9611 and IITA 284/2), Vigna radiata and Pueraria phaseoloides.General: assess the agronomic and production characteristics of five forage legumes in semiarid conditions Specific:• determine the agronomic behaviour of five forage legumes • determine biomass production (fresh and dry), as well as production of seed • select the best performing species/accessionsThe experimental area (512 m 2 ) consisted of five plots, each of them was planted with a different forage legume in eight rows, with a distance of 0.4 m between rows and 0.3 m between plants. The agronomic variables were germination, growth, plant height, cover, pest and disease incidence. Production variables were biomass weight (fresh and dry) and seed production (number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod)Vigna unguiculata 9611 and IITA 284/2 showed both highest biomass and seed production, and a sustained growth even during the first part of the dry season. Biomass and seed production of Vigna unguiculata Verde Brasil was lowest. Pueraria phaseoloides established well but was attacked by pests (insects) leading to loss of the plot (Table 8). • The Vigna unguiculata accessions 9611 and IITA 284/2 are suitable materials for semiarid conditions, showing reasonable biomass and seed production and good pest resistance.4.4.1 The behaviour of local and introduced legumes and their effect on maize during the growing period and after mulching This research was done by the MSc. student Diana Kurzweg in collaboration with UNA and took place in Pacora, a community of the municipality of San Francisco Libre situated approx. 30 km. north of Managua, close to lake Managua, with approximately 250 habitants in 50 families. The region is relatively dry, with an annual rainfall from 1000 -1200 mm (mainly during the wet season between May and October), usually with long dry spells. The soils are loamy and poor (N = 0.9 g/kg, P = 0.00 ppm).The objective was to investigate the behaviour of Canavalia brasiliensis (CIAT 17009) and Vigna unguiculata (9611) and their effect on maize production, in comparison to maize as a monocrop without and with fertilizer. Methods Both legumes were intercropped in rows between maize to observe their growth characteristics and their effect on the maize plants, when sown ten days after the maize and used as mulch at flowering. These treatments were compared to fertilized and unfertilised plots without legumes. The treatments are presented in Table 9. Expected outcomes included a dense plant cover to protect against erosion, to keep soil temperature low reducing evaporation, and to decrease growth of weeds. An additional treatment included cutting the legumes before flowering and using them as a mulch, in order to increase the amount of plant available nitrogen in the soil for the subsequent (maize) crop. Legume biomass and total N content were measured at the onset of the flowering stage for a first estimate of the potential N release.Average biomass production was 599 kg DM/ha for C. brasiliensis and 308 kg DM/ha for V. unguiculata. Although -because of unusual drought -these values are far lower than usual, the plants stayed green and vital throughout the experiment. No differences were found in maize yields between fertilized and unfertilized plots, even though the maize plants in the fertilized plots were higher and showed more resistance to wind.Additionally, a field trial was carried out comparing the performance of Canavalia brasiliensis CIAT 17009 with the three indigenous legume species Teramnus uncinatum, Macroptilium atropurpureum, Centrosema macrocarpum under local conditions. The three tested indigenous species showed good drought resistance and little vulnerability against pests and diseases once they were established. They performed however poorly in comparison with C. brasiliensis. Germination rates were low, as well as the survival rate during the initial stage and biomass production. Reasons were probably strong weed pressure (especially from Cyperus spp.), heavy pest attacks during the initial growth, low rainfall and poor soils.• The legumes Canavalia brasiliensis CIAT 17009 and Vigna unguiculata 9611 showed resistance against drought but did not directly affect maize production under unusual conditions of drought. Additional experiments would be needed to elaborate further on these results. • When compared to indigenous legumes, C. brasiliensis showed better resistance against weeds, pests and drought.Additionally to the field trials, the MSc. student Diana Kurzweg carried out a community analysis during her four months' fieldwork. General objective:To identify how and why local farmers participate in activities of research and development agencies at community-farm level.Qualitative formal and informal interviews were held with members of 14 families in Pacora on development project activities, their effectiveness, lessons learned and success factors. The research evaluates former rural development projects and influence of research that have been done in that village, including their impact on poverty reduction and contribution to protect natural resources. The focus was on transfer of knowledge, but also on donations and external influences in general. Reasons for success of projects as well as for failure are explained and recommendations for further work are given. Different types of projects are compared regarding their success. These types include top-down approaches, participatory research, farmer trainings, farmer-to-farmer programs, offered possibilities for farmer to do research on their own, implementation of local businesses, and on-site trials.It was assumed that ecological obstacles for new crops were a reason for failure of transfer knowledge to the people. That means that people did not adopt new practices that aid agents tried to introduce, because in their case the practices just did not work convincingly. Adverse ecological conditions is one reason why people rarely implement new crops or cropping practices, such as use of legumes or planting of fruit trees and vegetables. However, various other obstacles have been detected leading to failure of projects, including:• difficulties in spread of knowledge due to lack of communication and community feeling • difficulties to implement knowledge into daily life, for instance because big changes of routine are unusual -new methods are often perceived as too labour intensive, effects are usually not directly visible or only provide long-term benefits • techniques not adapted to the local situation • lack of (financial) resources implement new practices Livelihoods have not improved much due to lack of self-initiative from the community members, to lack of input of knowledge and ideas, a bias towards prestige and western values rather than basic principles for survival and a healthy life and external influences causing unwanted side-effects. The effect of the variety of different project approaches and research activities has generally been small. However, some contributions and knowledge have been accepted well by the people, and could partly contribute to protect natural resources, mainly because they fitted well in local practice and did not require much extra labour. The objective of the appraisal and workshop was to obtain and share information on native and introduces forage legumes, to improve farm management applying a combination of local knowledge and introduced technologies on use of forage legumes in dry conditions.The appraisal included the use of participatory tools like group meetings, semi-structured interviews and field visits and involved 5 students. The workshop consisted of a training on use of forage legumes. The activities were facilitated by the university teachers who participate in the project.Plant species and parts used as animal feed by the different farm animals were identified. Apart from this, 21 community members received a training on use and management of legumes. The PRA consisted of collecting, identifying and determining the use of the forage species, using the following elements as mentioned in Table 10: The results were analysed statistically and presented to the community to share, discuss and confirm the findings Results:• A total of 16 shrub and 16 tree species were identified • Shrubs and trees are part of the diet of most livestock species, especially cattle and small ruminants • Most consumed shrubs are Palo Grande, Chagüite, Flor Amarilla, Zorrillo Blanco, Malva, Guacimito and Chilillo de Gallina • Most consumed trees are Leucaena (Leucaena leucocephala), Marango (Moringa oleifera), Guácimo de ternero (Guazuma ulmifolia), Brasil y Tamarindo (Tamarindus indica), of the fruits Marango (Moringa oleifera), Guácimo de ternero (Guazuma ulmifolia), Brasil, Tamarindo (Tamarindus indica) and Carbón (Acacia pennatula) • The components most consumed of shrubs are leaves (70%. The other parts (branches, flowers, fruits account each for approx. 10%). • The components most consumed of trees are leaves (55%) and fruits (45%).Leaves of shrubs and trees are mainly eaten by cattle, followed by horses, goats and sheep. Branches (of shrubs) are predominantly consumed by cattle and goats, followed by horses and sheep.Table 11 provides an overview of the different sites and participants of the project. Farming systems research: Some data are still being analysed or need some further work and final results will become available by the end of 2010. However, it can already be concluded that this project has contributed significantly to increasing the understanding of the (potential) role of herbaceous legumes in mixed crop-livestock farming systems in Nicaragua, especially regarding their adaptability in conditions of drought and poor soils, and as intercrop with cereals (maize) and shrubs/trees.The project has contributed substantially to institutional and individual capacity development within the partner UNA (Universidad Nacional Agraria), in the form of graduated students (10) and involved staff members (3). Furthermore, two students from universities from the North (BOKU in collaboration with University of Potsdam, Germany, and University of Copenhagen) did their fieldwork as a basis of their MSc. graduation. As pointed out in the introduction, the project built on preceding activities in the research region (CIAT, UNA, local partners) based on farmers' issues on causes and interactions between crop management and soil resources. The involvement of BOKU (in the form of Prof. Freyer and participating MSc. students) has led to a strengthening of North-South cooperation between universities (BOKU-UNA) and research centers (BOKU-CIAT).Research results (thesis, other publications) and developed capacities in the form of graduated students (UNA, BOKU, University of Potsdam, University of Copenhagen), staff (UNA) and farmers in the research areas are direct sustainable outcomes of the project.The project has a direct impact on over 20 farmers in the community of Pacora, participating in experiments, surveys and receiving training. Indirect impact can be expected from disseminated research results translated into extension messages for farmers, but above all use of these results as inputs for further research, contributions to content of curricula and other teaching materials, and project proposals. For instance, recently a new project partly based on ULLIS and named \"Eco-efficient crop and livestock production for the poor farmers in the sub-humid hillside areas of Nicaragua \", was started. The activity leans heavily on on-farm work, is funded by ADA and implemented by CIAT in collaboration with BOKU, UNA and the Nicaraguan Agricultural Research Institute -INTA.","tokenCount":"5983"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"14b0fd415b47257cd3e1435ef37ef165","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4597fc1e-9883-4d75-a053-6fecd8b8578e/retrieve","id":"1564596769"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6b31c819-cbca-40a8-9e65-423bb6905861","pagecount":"8","content":"As the CCAFS pre-proposal states, climate change is a grand challenge that requires a response from the agricultural research and development community that integrates food security, adaptation, and mitigation. Part 1 of the CCAFS pre-proposal is very well written, compelling, and makes a strategic case for a stand-alone CRP to address the challenges of climate change. The Theory of Change has been revised, and impact pathways are well-elaborated. In Phase II, research activities will be further integrated with AFS and I-CRPs, particularly through Climatesmart Villages (CSVs)the centrepiece of its site integration plans. The pre-proposal also provides compelling narratives on the lessons learnt from Phase I. In 2013, CCAFS re-oriented its research activities to focus on Climate-smart Agriculture (CSA). CCAFS Phase I established strong, relevant external partnerships, and the CRP continues to develop/deepen partnerships with other organizations committed to delivering the CSA agenda. CCAFS is the knowledge partner of the Global Alliance on Climate Smart Agriculture (GACSA). It has a strong consideration of cross-cutting themes on capacity building and enabling environment, and will have a stronger focus on gender (compared to Phase I) through its new Gender and Social Inclusion (GSI) strategy.The strategic purpose of CCAFS is to marshal the science and expertise of CGIAR and partners to catalyse positive change towards climate-smart agriculture, food systems, and landscapes. Considering 'climate change' as a grand challenge and the need for agriculture research for development (AR4D) to address this, there is a well-written, compelling case in the pre-proposal for a stand-alone program in the CGIAR to be a highly significant contributor to the global response on climate change. Looking to the future (5-10 years down the line), explicit strategies for mainstreaming this program or parts therein within the CGIAR could be given further consideration and elaborated at the full proposal stage (ISPC commentary on extension proposal). CCAFS comprises four flagships (FPs): FP1 -Climate-smart practices; FP2 -Climate information services; FP3 -Low-emissions development; FP4 -Food systems governance under climate changeall centred on climate change and its related challenges. The vision and challenges for the FPs are ambitious. CCAFS describes its pathway to impact as critically dependent on its capacity to integrate the adaptation-led FP1 and FP2 with low-emissions strategies (FP3) and institutional approaches to food systems (FP4). Several FP hypotheses are inter-dependent, and FPs may be seen as logical steps, derived from the grand challenge.CCAFS is closely linked to all proposed CRPs except Genebanks, which also implies that its success or failure will depend on the performance of other CRPs. This is so because CCAFS is dependent on technical and scientific input from other CRPs, particularly in FP1 and FP3: in part, it is a science and information 'broker' that, through its integrative systems science, mainstreams innovations developed by AFS-CRPs and selected non-CGIAR partners 1 . Structurally, plans and mechanisms for integration with CGIAR and non-CGIAR partners are spelt out very well, through six learning platforms and three twinned flagships (with WLE, PIM/A4NH and FTA), and in other CRP pre-proposals (for example, RAFS and FTA pre-proposals indicate co-investments and joint research plans). Annex 5 of the pre-proposal also provides an example of how boundaries between CRPs are clarified in SE Asia, and is evidence that CCAFS is purposefully planning for its articulation with other CRPs. Operationally, success (or failure) in integration will become evident as work scales up in Phase II, and as co-investments come through and implementation plans are formulated. At the full proposal stage, it would be helpful for CCAFS to spell out an M&E plan for integration as this could become a useful prototype of the learning process for integrative CRPs.The scientific and academic arguments fit, appear credible, and are very similar to the ones used in the extension proposal (conditions have not changed to such an extent as to require changes in justification). Citations include many CCAFS publications that fall in the category of 'grey literature', which works to establish the CRP's credibility in this space, but do not provide a basis for judging where assertions/approaches/strategies fit within current debates in this field. It is accepted that this was not called for in the pre-proposal, but a broader range of references would be essential in the full proposal. For instance, there is substantial empirical evidence that questions the relevance and appropriateness of farmer-level index-based agricultural insurance products for smallholders. While Greatrex et al. 2015 refute these doubts through a presentation of case studies and some of these cases are based on rigorous evaluations, evidence from other cases is questionable. This is one example where critical assessment of the broader economic theory and empirical evidence should continue to be an integral part of research within the FP, and evidence of such assessments at the full proposal stage would strengthen the overall arguments and FPlevel ToCs. In addition, details on the actual research, beyond background and persuasive justification sections, and the potential for advancing knowledge in Phase II should be made evident.The pre-proposal provides detailed narratives on learning from Phase I as well as from earlier ISPC commentaries. For instance, CCAFS updated the ToC, and it will attempt greater integration with other CRPs, through co-investments and site integration. A stand-alone research theme 'knowledge-to-action' was dropped (now mainstreamed), and there is a new Gender and Social Inclusion (GSI) strategy. Such attention to feedback and record of acting on lessons is appreciated. Elaboration of the what, why and how prioritization of strategic (or non-strategic) activities was done would be helpful in the full proposal.CCAFS has identified focus countries and five geographies for each of the Flagships. Site integration is based on the Climate-smart Village (hereafter CSV) approachthis appears appropriate and in line with the CRP strategy. CSVs are described as a multi-stakeholder learning platform at key sites. NARES are key partners in most CSVs, and local private sector actors will be involved in Phase II. Presumably, these partnerships will enable research outcomes (and impacts) at scale. At full proposal stage, it would be helpful to understand the rationale for the CSV approach (over and above the testing and learning platform function) as well as the rationale for the choice of specific CSV sites, and how these will be integrated or successes from CSVs scaled-up in different contexts.The Theory of Change (hereafter ToC) has been revised based on the ISPC commentary on the extension proposal, and these changes are highly appreciated. Annex 7 of the pre-proposal presents the CRP-level and Flagship (1-4) ToCs. The ToC on how large-scale adoption of climatesmart practices, services and institutions might occur is based on Lipper at al. 2014: while informative and clear, this work is more of a concept or approach proposed for CSA at scale, than a theory of change in its proper sense. Hence, while the hypotheses underlying ToC(s) are clear, some are so general that they seem to be statements of aspirations rather than testable hypotheses. This need for sharply-stated testable hypotheses is more of an issue at the Flagship level and is considered in Section 6. While the basic theory of change and how change can be reached needs revision in successive rounds, impact pathways have been well-elaborated. Annex 4, Figure 4.1 illustrates the alignment of CCAFS within the CGIAR SRFthis is compelling and suitable. While it is not appropriate for every CRP to address every SLO and IDO, if claims are made, justifications should accompany the narrative. For instance, the link between optimized consumption of diverse nutrient-rich foods (SLO-2 improved food and nutrition security for health) and research activities currently appears tenuous because a causal relationship is not described, and the existing empirical evidence suggests a long, complicated pathway from agricultural research to nutrition outcomes and impacts. Critical reviews at regular intervals are required to produce a clearer alignment.CCAFS has redefined its gender strategy, and elevated its Gender and Social Inclusion (GSI) theme through a new appointment. It intends to setup a system-wide gender and climate change network, and the full proposal should include a description of the rationale and functioning of the network in relation to the existing CGIAR Gender and Agriculture Network. Gender receives considerable attention in the pre-proposal. Yet, since gender objectives and work plans are under development, the specifics can be better assessed in the full proposal. Considering limited success of other actors including development agencies, and the early stages of gender mainstreaming in the CGIAR and its evolving nature in CCAFS, critical assessment of strategies and objectives is important. The full proposal should include focused hypotheses based on critical examination of evidence. Through its gender audits and RBM, CCAFS intends to penalize, vis-à-vis budgetary adjustments, insufficient attention to gender research. In testing and implementing such a system, CCAFS may come up with lessons for other CRPs appropriate consideration of gender in research. Compared to the gender strategy, incorporation of the cross-cutting theme \"youth\" is minimal. This lack of detail suggests that the youth strategy is \"under development\", and we look forward to more details in the full proposal on how youth will be targeted.CCAFS is choosing to target a sub-IDO 'increased capacity of beneficiaries to adopt research outputs' under 'enabling environment improved' rather than a capacity development sub-IDO. This sub-IDO is embedded in all FPs. Enabling environment is also a centrepiece of their partnership strategy. Consideration of enabling environment is substantial, and comes across as integral to the CRP. Having said that, the narrative is at a fairly high level, and information on specific activities and evidence of success or failure to-date in delivering this rather tricky sub-IDO would be helpful. Capacity development of institutional partners as well as potential endusers of innovations is embedded in all Flagships, and is well-integrated into the proposal. It constitutes 35% of overall budget vis-à-vis partnership component, and staff and operational costs. Academic capacity building is done via MSc and PhD courses at University of Galway (listed as a strategic partner, US$1.5 million invested by CCAFS over 2017-2022). While the CRP's commitment to capacity development is unquestionable, selected rigorous IA of efforts could form a critical piece of evidence (for example, an IA of CD efforts undertaken with Pan African Farmers Organization for UNFCC and Alliance for CSA in Africa).Windows 1/2 funding (post 18% cut in 2015) remain at the same levels, in USD, representing 40% of the overall budget in 2017-2022. Bilateral funds are 20% of the total budget for 2015 (post 18% cut); and set to grow in value from 34% of budget in 2017-2019 to 56% of budget in 2020-2022, representing an opportunity to leverage W1/2 as well as a risk (if funding does not come through or a mission drift in terms of strategy). But, CCAFS notes that it is cognizant of the demands bilateral funding could place on its portfolio of activities.FP1 has the highest share of budget (33% of overall budget in 2017-2022) much like in Phase I. FP1 is followed by FP4 (25%), FP3 (23%) and FP2 (20%): it is difficult to comment on changes in relative allocations across FPs in Phase I and Phase II given the re-planning of the portfolio of Flagships. Changes in allocation between FPs in 2017-2019 and 2020-2022, for example increases for FP2 and FP3, appear suitably justified.ISPC noted in its extension proposal commentary that CCAFS was outstanding in its commitment to work with relevant strategic partners for key functions such as governance. The pre-proposal narrative indicates that the CRP has continued to improve the governance structure and management in purposeful ways (for example, by hiring a Gender and Social Inclusion leader). In terms of structure, no change in the strong leadership structurecomprising the CRP Director, FP leaders (2 from within CGIAR, 2 located at non-CGIAR research institutions), Regional Program Leaders, 2 cross-cutting leaders as well as a Program Management Committee (PMU)is envisioned. However, for a program focussed on testing and identifying portfolios of CSArelevant technologies as well as an explicit objective to influence policy, there are relatively few political scientists or impact assessment specialists in the core team (with the exception of IFPRI/FAO scientists in FP4). CCAFS has a strong Results Based Management (RBM) system in place, but there is an absence of M&E role(s) at the CRP level. Considering the importance placed on internal learning processes and the 2030 outcomes envisioned, this might become consequential in the long run.CCAFS has been commended in the past for its partnership strategy. Differentiation between new strategic (or key) partners, and providing a rationale as well as narrative on how the relationship has deepened or evolved is needed in the full proposal to assess progress (for instance, as the engagement with the private sector deepens in Phase II). Given the reliance on its upstream partners for technical and scientific input in some FPs, and downstream partners for scaling, the full proposal should also consider how CCAFS will manage the risk of its partners failing to deliver. The proposed establishment of a Partnership Advisory Committee (PAC) that will meet on the sidelines of global conferences is an interesting approach to ensuring relevance of partnerships. Information on how the PAC will feed into PMU and ISC decisions is needed.A major challenge for the CGIAR remains the provision of compelling evidence that transformation to climate-smart agriculture can be a means to address food and nutritional insecurity, and mitigate additional stressors resulting from climate change on the livelihoods of agriculture-dependent households, particularly the poorest among them. FP1 is the heart of CGIAR strategy on climate change, and combines its excellent comparative advantage in science (technologies, practices, and related innovations) with strong downstream partner strategy for delivery i.e., ensuring science shapes programing of CSA investment programs and projects. The point made earlier about CCAFS playing the role of a science or information broker (between CGIAR and downstream partners, in particular) is salient in this regard, and this role is appropriate. At its most basic, the FP ToC states that adoption of Climate-smart Agriculture (CSA) will enhance adaptive capacity, food security, and reduce GHG emissions of agricultural systems, particularly those managed by smallholder farmers.Application and testing of CSA-relevant innovations occurs at Climate-smart Villages. Details on site selection, strategy for prioritization of CSA portfolios, and the how-to of scale-up needs elaboration in the full proposal. CoA 1.7 (Learning Platform 2) is innovative in concept, and has high potential to feed into priority setting for CGIAR and NARES research programsdetails on how this will occur should be included in the full proposal. The full proposal should also explicitly consider the role of rigorous ex-ante impact assessments to inform CSV activities in CoAs 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3. Additional details on how ex-post impacts are (or will be) documented would be welcome in the full proposal. For instance, does FP1 monitor a range of socio-economic and environmental variables at varying scales (from household to field to landscape) in CSVs? CoA 1.4 draws on 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 experiences to put together a coherent story, with a high potential for integrative research IPGs. In the case of CoA 1.6, CGIAR's comparative advantage in identification of innovative business models and financial instruments to incentivise CSA adoption, and large-scale investments is not evident and requires some discussion.As with the broader pre-proposal, gender and capacity development have received serious attention. Enabling environment for CSA is covered in other FPs, and articulations of the connections between technologies and practices on the one hand, and policies and institutions on the other deserves more attention.FP2 is strategically relevant with a clear ToC: the argument that better forecasts and predictions are essential for adaptation planning and implementation is convincing. The justification for focus on weather insurance and safety nets as one of the many risk management options (including existing informal) is credible. But, CCAFS should continue to critically examine prospects for significant insurance adoption by smallholder farmers. FP2 hypotheses 1 &3 and related assumptions are clearly stated, even if they are complex, and are testable subject to development of appropriate indicator(s) for 'enhanced capacity' or long-term monitoring of risk mitigation (achieved or potential). Hypothesis 2 could be better formulatedit is not evident what is meant by \"investment\" here or how investment is evidence-based. Perhaps it is the choice of investment instrument that is evidence-based?The Flagship's strategy for research partnerships is clear. That is, FP2 partners have expertise that complement core strengths or bring capacity to an area for rapid progress, for example, IRI on climate science or University of Reading on meteorological data. It has established partnerships with private sector actors in the communication and media technologies sector. These partners may become critical to delivery of CoA 2.2 (farm communities receive appropriate climate information and advisory services). Cross-cutting issues appear well-covered, but information on data management or open access are essential in the full proposal given the FP's focus on information services. Overall, FP2 research includes a good mix of scientific questions spanning a range of disciplines, and while one could question CGIAR comparative advantage in some areas, CCAFS appears to have adroitly turned this into a collaborative advantage through excellent partnership strategy and establishing an integrative learning platform.Topically, FP3 is strategically relevant and has the principal charge on mitigation of agricultural GHG emissions while ensuring food securitytwo of the three goals of CSA. In the full proposal, a clearer case for the comparative and collaborative advantage of CCAFS in mitigation should be made as the proposed activities span several thematic areas (livestock, forests, nutrition etc.), and this is not always evident. For instance, under CoA 3.1, will CCAFS invest in controlled trials to quantify GHG emissions of smallholders? If CCAFS considers such trials critical to its work, elaboration and justification (including cost-benefit analyses) of the methods that will be used is also needed. The full proposal should also include explicit justification of the focus on smallholders as one of the key target groups (and beneficiaries) of FP3. One of the positive developments in FP3 Phase II is the increased focus in terms of the types of interventions and production systems (geographies). However, the full proposal should state how (and what) priorities were identified in the context of the relatively 'newer' activities to avoid coming across as more about strategic partnerships than strategic research. For example, it is not obvious how technologies under CoA 3.2 (AWD, rangeland management, conservation agriculture) etc. were identified for various countries/regions. Additionally, a number of activities and research questions predate the existence of CCAFS. While there may still be a need to continue studies of, for instance, commodities like soy or oil palm, is there a sufficient case that such studies will advance knowledge (in the sense of IPGs)?The ToC and CoA hypotheses require some clarification and better justifications, even as the inclusion of assumptions for ToC is very welcome. For instance, H1 is framed as \"development interventions in crops, livestock, and trees\" having the potential to drive a shift to LED practices. What is meant by 'development interventions' here? This hypothesis also needs to consider the trade-offs involved. In the case of hypothesis 2, how is 'institutionalized change' going to be measured? CoAs do build on each other, though some (for example, CoA 3.5 on opportunities for mitigation in food systems, including through dietary changes and food waste management) are less developed than others (for example, CoA 3.4 on supply chain governance to avoid deforestation, a twinned FP with FTA). CoA 3.3 has framed excellent research questions on enabling environment that could help achieve FP3/CRP objectives, such as \"What information can inform policy, incentives and finance to lead to successful farm-level changes in practices at large scales? What is the economic feasibility of LED and sustainable business models and mechanisms for financing transitions to LED?\" etc. Gender and capacity development issues appear to be well-recognized, much like other CCAFS FPs.Agricultural research has been criticized in the past for not focussing sufficiently on food systems. Ensuring that food systems are resilient to a changing and variable climate by influencing policies and institutions at various levels, and enabling equitable food systems, is an important challenge worthy of a CGIAR FP. ISPC comments on the extension proposal noted that CCAFS could have a role in such policy engagement research, but sought clarity on \"research hypotheses on policy and institutional change, particularly mechanisms in varying contexts\". CCAFS FP4 needs to be reconceptualized to ensure it can effectively address this challenge and advance knowledge i.e., it should demonstrate clear R4D potential with IPGs. At the FP level, the hypotheses are long and wordy, and provide background and context rather than hypotheses. All hypothesis statements could benefit from reformulation to emphasize testable elements, and assumptions underlying hypotheses should be supported by science. For example, is there any evidence that governance systems can 'optimize' consumption of diverse nutrient-rich foods? It is also unclear if methods exist (or can be developed with available funding in a five-year timeframe) to deliver results. For example, one of the research outputs is a characterization of different levels of resilience, but methods to quantify even a single level of resilience do not yet exist, much less ones to undertake comparisons.Since CoA 4.1 (climate science, environmental research and agricultural modelling) is tightly linked to other CoAs (4.2 and 4.4), a critical question in engaging such work is assessing the availability and quality of data. Activities in CoA 4.1 do have the potential to focus on quality of data and account for trade-offs, but it is questionable if improving access to available weather and climate information is sufficient to enable better policy-related decision-making. There is emerging evidence from research on effectively communicating information on climate change, for instance, that suggests that scientific data alone may not be sufficient to change behaviours or influence decisions (an assumption underlying FP4 ToCthat decision makers recognize the need for scientific evidence). In that sense, activities in CoA 4.2 that challenge existing policies and explore their drivers, and CoA 4.3 on influence of donors might be relevant. ISPC welcomes the continued collaboration between CCAFS, PIM and A4NH on generating (science-based) scenarios, and exploring the utility of scenarios in public and private sector decision-making. This Flagship has the potential to deliver a range of outcome indicators related to increased investments in climate-smart and food-smart systems informed by CCAFS science and use of projections and priority setting, but it is not yet convincing and needs to be significantly rewritten in the full proposal. CCAFS FP4 needs to be reconceptualized to convince reviewers that it can effectively address the challenge of supporting resilient food systems  Hypotheses should be reformulated to emphasize testable elements  Significant rewriting required","tokenCount":"3740"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"278b6797e2ec617d8cbf0e2ec24892d6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/6a44aa6e-49ff-4084-8ea1-40413284d109/retrieve","id":"1449927653"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b7e3b410-c553-4b34-bbf3-e5310491aaf7","pagecount":"14","content":"Agri-food Systems: 10 Years after the SOFA 2010-11. What has Changed?Motivation and goals: Take stock, assess progress towards, and understand what has proven effective in narrowing the gender gaps identified in the 2011 SOFA Incorporate advances in understanding the gender gap in agriculture, including some underlying causes (e.g. norms and structures) New framing focuses on enabling gender-transformative change in food systems rather than \"gender gaps\" This requires addressing persistent structural barriers that are the root causes of gaps by gender and intersecting social differentiation. Include greater nuance, e.g. intersectional identities that magnify inequalitiesOverarching chapter: Setting the stage Fostering an enabling environment for equality and empowerment in agri-food systems Making complementary agricultural resources, technologies, and services more gender-responsive Measuring women's empowerment in agriculture: Innovations and evidence Beyond crops: Towards gender equality in forestry, fisheries, aquaculture, and livestock development Addressing gender inequalities and strengthening women's agency for climate-resilient and sustainable food systems Closing gender gaps in productivity to advance gender equality and women's empowerment Women are not only vulnerable victims of climate change but also have important contributions to make Women often adopt practices that have broader implications for climate resilience:• Managing certain types of livestock • Crop and livelihood diversification • Food storage and processing practices • Informal seed systems and networks Addressing gender inequalities in agri-food systems and climate responses is not only important for the goal of gender equality, women's empowerment also has instrumental valueNew studies use a hotspot mapping approach to identify areas where high levels of exposure to negative climate impacts overlay areas where social and gender inequalities are also significant (Chanana-Nag and Aggarwal 2020; Koo et al. 2022) Gendered livelihood roles within food systems determine men's and women's level of exposure and sensitivity to climate shocks and stressors-and these roles vary by context Gender differences in food security, nutrition and health status also influence sensitivity-to the extent that women are less food secure, this has implications for their physical capacity to withstand shocks Climate change can also exacerbate other shocks such as conflict and gender-based violence (Masson 2022)Gender differences in: Access to and control over resources Human and social capital Access to services (e.g. climate information, extension, and financial services) Patriarchal norms Lack of agency in selection of preferred climate responsesThere is strong evidence that climate policies and programs at multiple scales do not adequately integrate gender (and intersectional social identities) or budget for stated outcomes (Acosta et al. 2019;2020;Ampaire et al. 2016;Ampaire et al. 2020;Huyer et al. 2020; Mersha and van Laerhoven 2019) Lack of women's voice and agency in policy processes (e.g. the subordination of women, particularly indigenous, in the design and implementation REDD+ policies) Limited government/organizational capacity to integrate gender Private sector mechanisms ignore gender and equity concerns (e.g. climate finance, carbon and biodiversity offsets)Responses to climate change have implications for gender equality and women's empowerment Short term coping responses hit women and girls particularly hard Outcomes for women are not always straightforward-as with the case of climateinduced migration Climate change also affects gendered labor allocation-generally increasing the intensity of women's work intensity, relative to men's Adoption of new farming practices and technologies has gender implications-especially for women's work burden Commercialization of smallholder production also disadvantages women who face greater constraints to value chain participation and remuneration","tokenCount":"544"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"ef12dfcad63394578ac835ee6dc3e6c1","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/33a901c0-f7e1-4cbc-9e1b-aaa4945ff5b7/retrieve","id":"1902808640"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"08277ab9-090d-4eb7-94b3-a33f10a77b88","pagecount":"16","content":"Children continue to be an important source of labour for agriculture, often working in dangerous conditions. But this sector also offers opportunities for young people to socialise and learn skills. For this reason, a pragmatic approach is needed, which takes into account the poverty of the families concerned.t's very simple: we want to sell straight after the harvest, at pre-harvest prices, or otherwise be paid in advance\", quips a farmer immortalised by a cartoonist. Of course, every producer wants to sell the fruits of his labour at a fair price and to be paid quickly enough to enable him to buy seeds and fertiliser for the next season, without having to get into debt. But that remains a dream for many, especially small-scale African farmers who, after years of being protected by State marketing bodies, have found themselves left brutally exposed to the vagaries of free agricultural markets, following liberalisation in the 1980s.As a result, the private sector has been forced to take over from the State in marketing agricultural products, though it is often ill-prepared to do so. Lack of access to credit, caused by a weak and inadequate banking system, together with insufficient storage facilities and an absence of tools that might cushion price volatility, have for a long time hampered the development of small and medium-sized agricultural enterprises. The weakness of this crucial link in the chain that stretches from producer to consumer has far-reaching implications in Africa. It forces farmers to shoulder the financial burden and risks of storage in places where post-harvest losses are high. Producers cannot protect themselves against the risk of price drops for their products. This situation encourages traders to buy small quantities, to avoid having to finance the purchase of costly stocks. The knock-on effect is often an increase in retail prices for consumers.SPORE 124 • PAGE 1 In this issue Infinitely small. Nanotechnology promises to usher in a new era, bringing major changes to many sectors -this issue of Spore offers some insight into what may be in store. It will almost certainly mean more upheavals for ACP producers, just as the liberalisation of agricultural markets did in the 1980s. What is the state of play of the various marketing tools, such as warehouse receipts, introduced since then? Spore's front page article will help you find out. When it comes to using new tools and improved technologies, women are often the frontrunners. In Viewpoint, you can read how some of them are using these strategies to make agriculture more appealing to young people. The potential is there. Infinitely large.As agriculture becomes more professional, so too are the marketing strategies used to position agricultural products. In Africa, where marketing tools are emerging, producers, both large and small, will only benefit if the rules of the game are clear. In an effort to disrupt this vicious circle, which hinders trade, consumer demand and hence production, a range of new marketing tools has been introduced (Spore 122, page 14), including the warehouse receipt system -also known as warrantage, warrantage credit and inventory credit -and agricultural commodity exchanges.The warehouse receipt system allows a borrower to obtain a loan from a bank or microfinance institute (MFI) guaranteeing the sum against crops (often cereals) as opposed to offering property assets as warranty, which are usually required by credit institutes. It also introduces a third player-the professional warehouse operator. The borrower may be a trader, a group of producers or a farmer with a sizeable quantity of produce at his disposal. Traditionally, farmers store their surplus harvest in their own granaries, in the hope of selling it at a better price in the lean pre-harvest months. But this strategy has two major disadvantages. The farmers have to bear all the storage risks -with losses estimated at between 6 and 8% of the maize harvest in Ghana for periods of 3 to 7 months. And they have no access to cash at a time when they most need it, for example to prepare for the following season (buying fertiliser) or to launch into new short-term ventures (small-scale livestock rearing, market gardening, etc.)The producer chooses a warehouse operator and entrusts his harvest to him, in exchange for a receipt (certificate or warehouse warrant) which serves as warranty for the bank. Farmers are responsible for storage charges. Depending on the system, they may either be entitled to withdraw their goods at any time, and hence repay the bank, or they may be obliged to wait the full term of the contract. The reliability and professionalism of the warehouse operator are the keys to this mechanism, which is reminiscent of the cereal banks of the 1990s. Most of these failed precisely because of their lack of professionalism and their poor management. In this system, the lender plays a dynamic role. Commercial banks must be left to play the game freely, unfettered by the State, and taking care to adapt to the needs of the client by offering reasonable repayment rates and terms.This system can only really flourish if the State refrains from any kind of intervention in loans and especially in trade factors (price, volume, movement) -the slightest hint of price-freezing threatens to discourage borrowers, who are naturally counting on a rise in prices between the time of harvest and the pre-harvest period of the following season (from 30 to 100%, depending on the country and the product).In order for all partners to enjoy a winwin situation, there must be a mutual climate of trust. In many African countries, there should also be a change in attitude, not least on the part of the State, so that traders and intermediaries in general are no longer stigmatised and shunned as parasites but are seen as indispensable economic players.With the advent of liberalisation, the State no longer has a direct role in marketing, but its does have the duty to create favourable conditions for the benefit of all. \"Inventory credit can only function in a conducive policy environment. It also requires the availability of support services such as market information systems (MIS),\" observes Jonathan Coulter, a British trade expert from the Natural Resources Institute (NRI). He is of the opinion that any form of political interference threatens to seize the system, whereas flexible commercial legislation, which allows for negotiation on warehouse certificates, makes storage more secure and gives the practice more impetus. But rules valid for the African states should also be observed by donors. Food aid has often been accused of distorting trade and serving as competition to local production.What role is there for producers, especially the smallest ones, in this system of agricultural warrantage? For them, as for the warehouse operators, the mechanism will only prove viable if the volumes stored are sufficient to offset the expenses entailed. This encourages producers to group together and form cooperatives, and requires them to adopt a new, more dynamic attitude when it comes to trading. The successful example of the village community warehouses in Madagascar, under the management of the Savings Bank and mutual agricultural credit funds (CECAM), shows how inventory credit can help small-scale rice producers (Spore 123). In Niger, the warrantage system means farmers no longer have to sell their crops off cheaply at harvest time and enables them to buy fertiliser.At the other end of the scale, beyond the realms of household food security, some countries in eastern and southern Africa are using more advanced warehouse receipt systems. This can be seen in Kenya (maize), Tanzania (coffee and cotton), Uganda (coffee), Zambia (cereals) and Zimbabwe (coffee and soya). South Africa has led the field in this sector, just as it has in the setting up of agricultural commodity exchanges which handle thousands of tonnes of cereals each day.These exchanges usher in a new climate of profitability and efficiency for the marketing of agricultural products. One of the findings of the experts' consultation organised by CTA on new marketing tools in November 2005, was that the best examples of exchanges are to be found in countries where there are higher numbers of large farms. Agricultural commodity exchanges work as a cash market for the physical delivery of merchandise, and as a more virtual futures market, along the lines of a classic exchange. This latter model provided the foundation, in 1987, for the development of the South African Futures Exchange (SAFEX) which in 1995 opened the Safex Agricultural Derivatives Division for the quotation of agricultural products (maize, wheat, soya and sunflower). Other projects are under way or being studied in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria and Uganda.Experts believe that inventory credit \"can be a first step towards creating more sophisticated systems.\" But all of them depend on the same preconditions -clear rules for the game and transparent markets.See Links page 10  Cocoa production is directly implicated, as reported in a field study carried out in Cameroon in 2004 by the agency Jade, on behalf of the ILO. Outside ACP regions, Brazil also has high levels of child workers on its sugarcane, sisal and tobacco plantations, as do Egypt and the USA, where, according to an ILO report in 2002, some 300,000 young migrants work on farms. These findings are particularly worrying since agricultural jobs are among the most dangerous. According to José Gomez Cerda, secretary general of the World Federation of Agriculture, Food, Hotel and Allied Workers (WFAFW), \"the risks are higher for children in poor countries working in the rural sector.\" Harvesting involves contact with chemical products which can affect the skin, eyes, respiratory and nervous systems. Children often lack the necessary protective equipment. Carrying heavy loads in unusual positions can cause permanent damage to limbs and the spinal column. The result is a serious threat to children's \"physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development\", according to the terms of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989); such threats may be added to a range of other hazards, including malnutrition, illiteracy and accidents, some of them fatal.So should there be pressure to outlaw child labour? It is not that simple. In the 1990s, some groups, such as UNICEF, drew attention to the need to understand the reasons behind putting children to work -the extreme poverty of many rural families. Children bring home a wage that is crucial to survival.Rural poverty also explains another form of child labour -domestic service. In Haiti for example, the term restavek is given to children from rural families who are sent to live with distant relatives in towns; they work for them as domestic servants in exchange for the opportunity -which often fails to materialise -to attend school.Paradoxically, another reason for not eliminating agricultural child labour is the education of the youngsters themselves. It is by working with their parents that the future farmers and livestock keepers learn their trade, as well as the ground rules for living in a community. Where else could they glean such important social lessons?Varying the tools So while the \"worst forms of child labour\" (exploitation on plantations, virtual slavery or prostitution) should be eliminated, a more pragmatic approach is needed to deal with other forms. \"Above a minimum age [ed. note: which varies between countries] and in conditions which bear no resemblance to the worst forms of labour, children would be allowed to work. But their working conditions should be in strict keeping with the other conventions of the ILO,\" observed Alice Ouedraogo, former director of the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC).The weapons to be used should therefore vary according to circumstance, and trying to outlaw all child labour is unrealistic, at least in the short term. Convention 182 of the ILO focuses on the worst forms of child labour. The 1989 convention, promoted by UNICEF, takes a similar approach. Even the IPEC programme sees itself more as a tool to help countries affected by the issue to make progress, rather than a body for carrying out checks and issuing sanctions.There are other noteworthy initiatives under way. At the international level, agreements exist for tobacco (1999) and cocoa production (2001); some manufacturers are undertaking not to use suppliers who employ children. There are also a number of national or local efforts. For example, the Federation of Uganda Employers organises workshops to raise awareness of child labour issues and has set up local monitoring committees in the tea, sugar and rice sectors, with plans to do the same for coffee and fisheries.Photo :T hink of a strand of hair and try to imagine a width that is ten thousand times smaller. Impossible, of course, but you are now entering the realms of the nanometer scale, which provides the foundation for one of the newest and some say, most exciting sectors -nanotechnology. Put simply, nanotechnology is the science of the very, very small. But its scope is vast. Many see it as the next technological revolution, in the same vein as the internet, and with even wider implications.Proponents contend the new science can help address some of the world's most critical development problems. Potential benefits include improved water purification, energy systems, health care, food production, and information and communication technologies (ICTs) (see box A new generation of ICT tools). Nanotechnology works on the principle of controlling individual atoms and molecules to manufacture smaller, lighter, faster and better performing materials, components and systems. There is enthusiastic talk about its potential for increasing production at significantly reduced costs, enabling polluting mining and manufacturing technologies to be scaled back. Storable solar energy developed through nanotechnology should greatly reduce carbon emissions.A key feature of nanotechnology is the way some materials change when worked in microscopic quantities. Substances used in tiny amounts may become heat or lightproducing. This phenomenon gives rise to all sorts of applications. But it also raises some important questions. There are doubts about the risks which nanotechnology may entail and some critics say it is too soon to take such a giant leap into what is still largely uncharted territory. Others voice concerns about the widening of the North-South divide if poorer countries do not become part of the nanotech revolution.Much of the industrialised world, including Australia, Europe, Japan and the USA, is investing heavily in the new technology. But according to some schools of thought, nanotechnology holds special promise for the South (see box on Top ten nanotech uses for the South). A report by the UN Millennium Project's Task force on Science, Technology and Innovation entitled Innovation: applying knowledge in development concludes that, \"Nanotechnology is likely to be particularly important in the developing world, because it involves little labour, land or maintenance; it is highly productive and inexpensive; and it requires only modest amounts of materials and energy.\"Brazil, China, South Korea, India and South Africa are among developing countries that have set up national nanotechnology research programmes. The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation recently unveiled plans for a National Nanotechnology Laboratory for Agribusiness. Research projects will include producing nanofibres to strengthen natural fibres such as those from coconut and sisal, and using nanotechnology to produce timed mechanisms for the release of pesticides.In ACP regions, South Africa leads the field, with a dozen universities, four science councils and several companies active in research and development. In April 2006 the government launched the National Nanotechnology Strategy, pledging an investment of R170 million (€18.6 million) over the next 3 years. The first commercial products are expected to include water purification schemes, cost-effective solar power devices, treatments to increase soil fertility and biodegradable materials to deliver drugs in gradual doses.A team of researchers at the University of Zululand is already showing promising results, investigating applications for nanomaterials in water treatment and energy storage. South African paper manufacturer Sappi is experimenting with nanosensors inNanometre: One billionth of a meter, 1/1,000,000,000 m Nanostructure: A structure smaller than 1,000 nanometers, the diameter of an average biological cell.Nanotechnology: A field of research and development involving building structures on the scale of atoms and molecules.Nanotube: Tube-like molecular structure generally made of carbon atoms. These are 100 times stronger than steel, can withstand temperatures up to 3,600°C and are only a few nanometres in width. The science of nanotechnology is big on promises in a whole range of sectors, including food production, energy and ICTs. But will ACP countries be able to claim their fair share of the benefits -and is it really safe?trees, to provide early warning of disease and detect termites or fungi. Meanwhile, physicists at the University of Cape Town are working on a project to use nanoparticles of silicon in printed electronics. The goal is to develop photovoltaic (solar power) cells, which can literally be printed on paper, a lighter and much less expensive alternative to the bulky solar panels currently in use.Scientists are already developing a range of inexpensive nanotech applications to increase soil fertility and crop production, including nanosensors to monitor the health of crops and farm animals and magnetic nanoparticles to remove soil contaminants. Nanotubes (see box A nano-glossary) would lower the cost of building greenhouses, reducing pressure on land and water resources. In the USA, researchers at the University of Berkeley are working on methods of pathogen detection using nanotechnology micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS). These smart treatment delivery systems would spot early signs of crop disease based on changes in metabolism and respiration. Nanotech experts at the University of Michigan are developing bioanalytical nanosensors that could be implanted in livestock to detect single virus particles long before disease symptoms become evident.In the field of food production, techniques are being developed to improve traceability in agricultural products, a growing requirement for many export markets. In the USA, scientists are working on Nanoscale Identity Preservation, a range of techniques which aim to achieve the continuous tracking of produce throughout the food supply chain, to pick up signs of pathogens, viruses, pesticides and even the presence of genetically modified organisms. With stringent sanitary requirements already proving a burden to many ACP producers, the advent of this kind of technology could prove a mixed blessing.One of nanotechnology's most compelling applications is water purification. A number of filtration systems have been developed to recover brackish or tainted water for agricultural or domestic use. Physical filters with nanometer-scale pores can remove 100% of bacteria, viruses and even prions (proteinaceous infectious particles).In the field of healthcare, the 'lab-on-achip' is a coin-sized piece of plastic which could diagnose a range of diseases from a drop of blood, ideal for use in small field clinics. Nanotechnology also promises to offer drug delivery systems better suited to developing world conditions, including a slow drug release system, a major breakthrough in locations where staff and proper storage facilities are lacking. The challenge will be to make them affordable.Nanostructured materials are already being used to build a new generation of solar cells, hydrogen fuel cells and novel hydrogen storage systems that promise cleaner energy. Glass photovoltaic panels remain too expensive and delicate for users in most ACP countries, but nanotechnology may allow for the production of inexpensive photovoltaic films that can be unrolled across the roofs of buildings.Not everyone subscribes to the theory of nanotechnology ushering in a new golden age. Among its most vocal opponents is the NGO Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC), which warns of health and environmental risks, as well as disastrous consequences for small-scale farmers in the South. These vulnerable producers may find themselves deprived of their income as primary export commodities such as rubber and cotton are displaced by new nanotech materials, it predicts. In much of the South, manpower is plentiful, so the introduction of laboursaving nanotechnologies will mean fewer jobs and the need for massive retraining in many cases.A number of pressure groups are calling for more risk analysis to be carried out on health and environmental impacts before nanotechnology applications become widespread. There are fears that nanoparticles could accumulate in the food chain and some critics claim that the new technology is leaping ahead too fast for proper regulatory frameworks to be put into place. One concern is that the pace of development is not being matched by responsible inquiry, with the risk that this will lead to a public backlash as it did with biotechnology. In a report, the EC warns that, \"Public and investor confidence in nanotechnology will be crucial for its long-term development and fruitful application.\"See Links page 10A study by the University of Toronto's Joint Centre for Bioethics (Canada) set out to identify the ten nanotechnology applications most likely to have an impact on the developing world. Nanotechnology is expected to make some of its greatest gains in ICTs, increasing the speed and quality of connections and making computers, display devices and connections more affordable for the poor.Experts predict it will open the way for the next wave of ICT development -pervasive computing, a system in which computers are embedded into the environment, in such a way as to be permanently available and inter-connected. Pervasive computing devices will be multi-purpose communication tools, serving as phone, internet linkup, video entertainment product and accessing diverse sensor networks and databases.These devices will need efficient power sources and research is under way to develop printable nanotech photovoltaic cell arrays to be laminated onto mobile communication devices and constantly recharged using artificial or natural light.■ Family farming plays an important role in ACP countries, both in terms of numbers (more than 60% of the population depends on it in Africa) and for its key contribution to food security. For this reason, in early May, CTA, together with the Network of Farmers' Organizations and Agricultural Producers in Western Africa (ROPPA), the Belgian agricultural NGO Collectif stratégies alimentaires (CSA, Belgium), the EU and the ACP Secretariat, organised a seminar in Brussels which asked the question: What future for family farming in the ACP countries? The choice of theme underscores the uncertainties that threaten this sector, due to lack of adequate support, low farm gate prices and growing competition caused by globalisation. The 100 or so participants examined the role of producer organisations and the support needed if farmers are to be fully involved in the decisionmaking processes which concern them.All ACP regions were represented at the seminar, which aimed to increase awareness among donors and policy-makers on the steps they can take to safeguard family farming. Among the many speakers in the full programme, those from the South, many of whom practise family farming, urged a farming model to be maintained, one which gives priority to the survival of people whose livelihoods depend on agriculture, rather than a model aimed exclusively at boosting production. Élisabeth Atangana, representing a platform for farmers' organisations of Central Africa, stressed that family farming is first and foremost \"a way of life, (…) a social, ecological and cultural unit\".Others, like John Mutunga, from the Kenya National Federation of Agricultural Producers, and Ibrahima Coulibaly, from the Malian federation of producers' organisations, spoke of their efforts to get farmers' voices heard in the national political arena. For, as the French participant Marcel Mazoyer noted, a better future depends largely on the degree of help received from the main decision-makers; it is not land that is lacking, but the resources to work it in a modern manner.In brief ■ The New Forests Project (NFP) has grown since Spore first featured its seed distribution programme (see Spore 89, p. 7). NFP offers free packets of tree seeds, technical information and training materials to groups of small farmers interested in starting reforestation projects with fast-growing, nitrogenfixing trees. Since 1982, NFP has helped more than 4,400 villages in over 120 countries. The organisation has now extended its range to offer high-quality seeds of 16 different tree species, which can be used for firewood, charcoal, furniture, shipbuilding, fodder and as a barrier against shifting soil. NFP has also launched the National Agro-forestry Network to stimulate an exchange of seeds and information between organisations and individuals. ■ Livestock theft is a scourge for many ACP farmers, and is regrettably all too common in certain regions, such as in the south of Madagascar, where the notorious dahalo steal zebu cattle from villages under cover of darkness. In the Kindia region of Guinea, 135 km north-east of the capital Conakry, livestock rearers have found an effective ploy to ensure that bandits can no longer sell their spoils quite so easily. The farmers themselves, rather than the local authorities, now supply the certificate of ownership for their animals -documents which have to be shown at the time of sale. Leaders of district livestock rearing organisations have the advantage of being more familiar with the farmers in their area, as well as with the animals. The onus is now on these leaders to deliver the precious document to livestock owners in their grouping, and to refuse it to others.The certificate gives the name of the owner, any distinguishing markings on the animal (tattoos, etc.) together with a number of illustrations that would be hard to forge. It costs 3,000 Guinean francs (GNF; €0.6), a modest figure given that a bullock fetches at least GNF400,000 (about €80). The proceeds are shared among members of the livestock farmers' organisation and the local administrative bodies that oversee them.Early results are highly encouraging. Before the certificate of ownership was introduced, livestock rearers in the region esti-mated that an average of 200 cattle were stolen each month. Now the police in Kindia say that complaints of cattle rustling are decreasing. The idea for the certificate emerged at a Guinean livestock rearers' conference in 2004. Taken up in the first instance by the Kindia farmers, it could well catch on in other areas where cattle rustling is a problem.A future for family farming? ■ A likeable cactus! The pitaya or pitahaya (Hylocereus undatus) has magnificent white perfumed flowers, which only open for one night, and produces attractive thornless red fruits. Their refreshing sugary pulp, which contains small black seeds, can be consumed as a juice, in salads, jellies or sorbets. The pitaya is currently grown in the dry tropical regions of Asia, and most notably Central America, where it originates. It can withstand temperatures of up to 40°C, needs little water and has good resistance to pests and diseases.The Mauritius Sugar Industry Research Institute (MSIRI) is attempting to develop cultivation of this plant, also known as 'dragon fruit', which grows wild throughout the island. Relatively undemanding, this new tropical fruit is likely to win over both sugarcane planters seeking to diversify their activities and consumers attracted by its beauty and its antioxidant properties. The MSIRI is propagating pitaya plants with the aim of distributing 4,000 of them by the end of the year. After that, it will be up to agricultural centres and tree nurseries to ensure their dissemination.Europe, where imports have increased strongly over the past 10 years, represents a promising market for this fruit, which though delicate and costly to transport, is already widely imported from Asia.■ A group of smallholder farmers in Malawi's southern district of Thyolo have found a solution to recurrent food shortages. Led by semi-illiterate farmer Charles Mkwapatira, producers in Samson Village have built a highly successful irrigation scheme. It all started in 2001, when Mkwapatira constructed a small irrigation canal using a hoe to tap water from the nearby Mapelera River and irrigate his 1 ha maize garden. \"I came up with this idea because rains are erratic, and in my household we always ran out of food before the beginning of the next growing season,\" he explained. Mkwapatira was able to harvest his maize crop three times that first year and sell the surplus to earn income.Spurred on by his success, more farmers joined him to form the Manthimba Irrigation Scheme. The association now has 500 members, who have traded their hoes for more sophisticated tools, using elevated plastic-lined troughs to carry water to over 93 ha sown with maize, beans, sugarcane, bananas and vegetables.\"If some people are going hungry in this area, then they are those who are not members of the scheme,\" said local farmer Modesta Chipatala.The venture has attracted support from World Vision Malawi, an NGO which has helped members build bigger and longer irrigation canals. Many farmers are now diversifying to fish farming, using the channels to carry water to the ponds. \"My advice is that there are many rivers, and if we use them, the problem of hunger will no longer exist,\" said Mkwapatira■ The Rwandan landscape is changing: bananas, coffee and tea plantations no longer rule supreme. In the East province, three million Moringa oleifera have been planted since 2003. The leaves are sold and consumed locally. The rest are processed into powder, soap and oil. There are plans to plant 5,000 ha of patchouli (Pogostemon cablin) in the country. More than 20,000 farmers will receive free cuttings of this herbaceous plant, whose essential oil is used in perfumes. Cultivation of passion fruit (maracuja or grenadilla, Passiflora edulis) is also making progress. A Rwandan firm has created a maracuja juice, which has won several prizes in Europe. ■ In early May, Mauritania and Senegal signed a revised draft of an important treaty dating from 1981. This new version stipulates a requirement for livestock to be accompanied by herdsmen, for herders to be in possession of a transhumance certificate with details of vaccinations, and for an exchange of animal health information between the two countries. It also requires herds to cross the border during daytime, at one of the manned points designated in each region of the two countries.■ A project to grow top quality coffee in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea has united traditional enemy tribes. The Sihereni Coffee project has convinced parties that were once enemies to lay down their arms and put their efforts into growing premium coffee instead. Tribesmen have joined forces to restore a 100 ha plantation, concentrating on top quality production and quality control methods. They have been rewarded with contracts to export their coffee at prices that are double or triple the normal rates. ■ It is no easy task for small-scale ACP producers to gain access to markets in big towns, sell their products for a reasonable return and hold their own against imported products while at the same time satisfying consumers who are increasingly demanding in terms of quantity, diversity and quality. At the end of March, the World Vegetable Center (AVRDC), the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) and the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS) pooled their expertise and networks to launch the Global Horticultural Initiative, an event attended by more than 70 delegates from research and development organisations. Plans are in hand to invest close to €2 million to help the poorest countries develop horticultural production, focusing on high value fruit and vegetables.www.globalhort.orgIn brief ■ In Sud-Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, mushrooms are proving increasingly popular with the thousands of farmers with poor access to land and consumers keen to vary their diet. The boom is such that village and town markets are now flooded with them.Mushrooms can be cultivated in small spaces, and even inside houses, safe from anyone who may be tempted to steal the crop. Their short growing cycle means that they can be harvested several times a year, thereby giving a greater and faster return than any other plant grown in the region. In Sud-Kivu, the warm and humid climate for much of the year provides perfect conditions for cultivating this vegetable, which grows equally well on decomposing roots, dead wood, termite mounds or in the soil.In the area around Bukavu, mushroom growers mainly cultivate oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus) in plastic bags. They produce the mycelium or spawn, which in turn produce the fruiting bodies or mushrooms, a delicate operation which requires hygienic conditions and a certain degree of expertise (see Spore 122, page 12).Mushroom growing is still relatively under-exploited in Central Africa, even though fungi represent good potential for income-earning and a significant source of proteins, vitamins and minerals.In Uganda, Asenanthi Byaruhanga, from Kireka, has made the all important transition from subsistence to commercial farming. He owes his success to the production of organic oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus), which he started 10 years ago. Under his guidance, 250 farmers -some 80% of whom are women -from several districts in Uganda have made the same move and formed the Uganda Mushroom Growers Association (UMGA).Thanks to the organic nature of the crop, export markets are flourishing. Ugandan mushroom growers are currently selling 44 t per year to Japan, 40 t to the USA and 2 t to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The UMGA is planning to supply mushrooms to other East African countries including Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania. A barcode for food ■ Identifying the geographical origin of an imported product (fish, fruit, vegetable), even when packed, thanks to the micro-organisms it contains: that is the principle behind the biological barcode being developed by CIRAD's Food Quality unit. In the future, researchers hope to create electronic chips: effectively, identity cards for imported food products. The innovation should prove useful to importers who have an obligation to guarantee the traceability of the products they market in Europe. Post-harvest losses can be as high as 50%. The process enables 95% of safous to be kept for 2 weeks at room temperature. Another more costly method involves storing the fruits in an air-conditioned chamber (19 to 23°C). This seasonal fruit is mainly eaten dried or cooked.✍ Email: Irad-fruits@camnet.cm■ Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing accounts for estimated losses of between US$4 and $9 bn (€3.16 and €7.12 bn) per year and is one of the main obstacles to sustainable world fisheries. A new website acts as a central information point on IUU, offering key documents, news stories, information on events, and links to other sources.■ Faced with plummeting prices on the international market, Mali, Africa's leading cotton producer in 2004, is now putting the emphasis on quality rather than quantity. In a bid to increase its meagre proportion (40%) of high-quality cotton, the country is looking to its planters. They are paid FCFA160 (€0.24) per kilo of first quality seedcotton, compared with FCFA135 (€0.20) for second quality and FCFA125 (€0.19) for third. The best producers also receive fertiliser, agricultural materials and discounts.■ Mobile plant clinics are helping African farmers to diagnose pests and diseases and find a cure for their ailing crops. The initiative, launched in Uganda with a pilot scheme in Kenya, is run by Global Plant Clinics. Surgeries are held once a week in public places, such as markets, and local farmers are encouraged to bring samples of their sick plants so agronomists and extension officers can diagnose the ailment and prescribe a cure.The clinics are proving a hit with Ugandan farmers. At Nakifuma market, Mukono, plant doctors diagnosed 57 problems including banana bacterial wilt, napier grass stunt and sorghum midge attack in under 2 h. \"Our motto is 'any crop, any problem'\", said project leader Okaasai Opolot. \"Most of the problems are well known to us, though we were surprised at how little people knew about common diseases.\" At one of the first Ugandan clinics, plant physicians managed to identify an outbreak of brown streak virus, and advise farmers on ways of reducing the risk of spreading of the disease, which rots cassava.  Photos: © Design that Matters Photo: © CABIIn Mali, a solar projector is changing the way villagers spend their evenings.  anotechnology is not an easy subject, but a number of organisations are doing a good job in trying to make this complex issue more accessible. One of the most successful efforts is that of the Science and Development Network (SciDev.Net), whose comprehensive nanotechnology dossier focuses on implications for the developing world.The EU's nanotechnology portal provides a good overview of European activities in the field, as well as information on international cooperation in nanotech initiatives. Visitors can download a brochure, Nanotechnology: Innovation for Tomorrow's World, which uses clear language to describe the scientific background, technological developments and applications of this fast-growing science.The Meridian Institute, a non-profit organisation, has organised several dialogues on nanotechnology, and published an interesting report, Nanotechnology and the Poor, Opportunities and Risks, which looks at some of the potential benefits in the fields of agriculture, health and energy. Meanwhile, the Canada-based Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC) has come down firmly against nanotechnology, but in spite of its partisan stand, this is a stimulating place to learn more about the pros and cons. A click on 'nanotechnology' will produce a wide range of reports and documents on the issue. Though it presents a rather doomsday picture, ETC's report Down on the Farm is an interesting look at some of the research currently under way in the field of food and agriculture.Lastly, the Foresight Institute is an educational body that focuses on advancing beneficial nanotechnology. It was founded by Eric Drexler, inventor of the term 'nanotechnology' and is an authoritative source of news relating to nanotechnology policy, applications and research. Many of the cereals and pulses that feature in this book provide important sources of nutrition for households in tropical Africa. A number also have secondary uses. The pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.), for example, has been used as a foodstuff in Africa for hundreds of years. But the vegetative parts also make an excellent animal fodder, and the plant itself can act as a windbreak on dry soils and in agroforestry, to supply green manure. Stems and branches are used for basketry, thatching, fencing and as fuel. Many cereals and pulses also have applications in traditional medicine. In Ethiopia, the root of grain amaranth (Amaranthus caudatus L.) is used as a laxative and for treating eye disease, while in many African countries, the leaves and seeds of the cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.) are used to treat swellings and the root is used as an antidote for snakebites. With severe degradation affecting much of the farmland in Africa, new approaches are needed if communities are to overcome growing food insecurity and poverty. One solution is conservation agriculture, a system based on soil and water management practices which sustain and enhance soil productivity. This manual, aimed at extension workers but suitable for farmers as well, explains what conservation agriculture is, and how it can help. It outlines the three main principles: disturb the soil as little as possible, keep it covered and mix and rotate crops. With the help of drawings and diagrams, this useful manual guides readers through the process of converting to conservation agriculture, with plenty of case studies to show exactly how it works, and some of the benefits. Farmers who have adopted the new technique report higher yields, better soil fertility and lower labour requirements. Start-up costs are low. As pointed out in a section describing how to make planting basins, \"You do not need special equipment to start using conservation agriculture. All you need is a hoe and a piece of string!\"  There is a growing awareness of the importance that information plays in rural development. But if that information is to be effective, it needs to be well targeted, practical and capable of solving existing problems. This handbook offers a selection of information service tools and methods, as well as concrete examples of how they can work in a specific setting. Aimed at NGOs, rural groups and farmers' organisations who are setting up or managing information services, the book takes the reader through the main steps involved in establishing or managing such services in rural areas, looking at a wide range of products, including books, factsheets, newsletters, question and answer services, radio and videos. There is a detailed discussion of how new information and communication technologies (ICTs) can be used to help information strategies, including sections on the internet, CD-ROMs and e-publications. Last, but certainly not least, the guide examines the financial aspects of running effective information services, and describes techniques for devising a budget that will ensure the products are sustainable in the long term. ■ A number of plant species which could make a valuable contribution to food security are under-utilised. Forgotten or neglected by researchers, technical staff, decision-makers, farmers and consumers, they risk disappearing altogether, and with them, their precious genes. The best way to halt this genetic erosion is to identify the plants and become more familiar with their various uses. That is precisely what this book sets out to do. Illustrated with superb colour photographs, it presents 158 plants from tropical and subtropical regions, all of them little known and under-utilised. They include not only fruits and vegetables, but also plants useful for their fibres, perfume and dye. Their applications may include foodstuffs or medicines, often with commercial or even industrial potential.For example, the essential oil of Tagetes erecta can be used to make perfume and cosmetics. Used as an infusion, the leaves and bark provide relief from rheumatism and toothache. The leaves of Pandanus, a fibrous plant with more than 600 species found between Africa and Oceania, can be used to make a wide range of handicraft objects. Contributors to the book, many of them from the South, offer their perspective on the debate over the relationship between biotechnology, biosafety, sustainable development and trade. They examine the risks and opportunities of biotechnology, as well as related issues, including intellectual property rights, access to genetic resources, benefit-sharing and traditional knowledge. One chapter analyses the inability of many developing countries to exploit the opportunities offered by biotechnology in the agriculture sector, suggesting avenues for them to become more actively engaged. Another analyses the potential for agricultural biotechnology to increase productivity and trade competitiveness in developing countries. Though the views expressed sometimes differ in tone, the overall message is clear -countries of the South need to take an active role in the biotechnology debate if they are not to be left out in the cold. Publications • ■ Atolls, lagoons, endless beaches … For the traveller, the coconut tree is the very symbol of paradise. But aside from conjuring up dreams, this generous palm tree is first and foremost a tree with many uses, among them food, drink, receptacles, fibres for weaving, roof coverings and fuel. Worldwide, the tree covers more than 11 million ha. This book describes 34 of the most commonly grown varieties of coconut palm (12 dwarf, 13 full-size and 9 hybrids) from 18 countries across the entire tropical belt. Each entry is accompanied by magnificent photographs and detailed information on its agronomic characteristics and particular uses.The book also offers a short history of the coconut palm through anecdotes and examples of unusual uses. For example, did you know that ancient healers in Tahiti used coconuts to set skull fractures?This reference book is likely to prove of interest to producer groups as well as to nature lovers in general. And it may well serve to pique the curiosity of young researchers looking into this plant, whose rich genetic potential warrants further investigation. ■ A new on-line tool, CAB Abstracts Plus, enables visitors to access literature on a range of agricultural topics, including animal and plant science, nutrition and the environment.The service provides full text content wherever it is available, as well as up-to-date pest distribution maps and descriptions of fungi and bacteria. Much of the information was previously unavailable in electronic format.The archive is constantly being updated and expanded, with an estimated 10,000 new articles expected to be added each year. The fee varies according to the region and the service required and is lower for developing countries. For more information, or a quote, contact:(For CABI Publishing's address see above) Email: sales@cabi.org • Publications ■ Marketing is often a major stumbling block for small-scale horticultural producers, and while extension officers are frequently well informed about production techniques, they too may lack knowledge about marketing or post-harvest handling. This manual should help fill the gap with its easy-to-follow advice aimed at extension officers wanting to help farmers sell their fruit and vegetables. Illustrated with amusing cartoons by the Zambian artist 'Yuss', the guide takes a look at the role of marketing before embarking on a range of practical aids and tips to help farmers link up with private sector traders and agroprocessors. There are chapters on helping farmers to understand the market and farm profitably, as well as 10 case studies, including success stories from Mozambique, South Africa and an unidentified Caribbean island. There are plenty of boxes and tables to break up the text, as well as a useful questionnaire to help farmers assess marketing potential and decide where to place their goods.■ This is a fascinating read for anyone interested in developing new models for agriculture, based on sustainability rather than quick profits. A collection of essays from some of the world's leading experts in sustainable agriculture, the volume traces the progress of the move towards farming techniques founded on ecological principles and examines some of the benefits.For ACP readers, one of the most interesting sections is likely to be Perspectives from Developing Countries, a series of chapters which focuses on how sustainable agriculture offers scope for smallscale farmers in the South to increase output and ensure that their land continues to be productive in the future.An article focusing on Kenya and Zambia shows how agroforestry can be fully integrated into farm systems of poor households, leading to both soil fertility replenishment and substantially increased yields.Another intriguing paper describes a survey of more than 200 projects in 52 countries, including 100 in Africa. The study found that sustainable agriculture is increasing rapidly and has led to an average 93% increase in per hectare food production where it has been introduced. The book takes a critical look at some of the mistakes made in the past, but it also examines how much Africa has changed in the past 20 years, with assessments of Africa's role in the global economy, the growth of regional economic cooperation within Africa and the evolution of its political and legal institutions. Looking ahead instead of backwards, the authors examine the potential of some rural sectors such as freshwater fishing, and take a look at efforts at peace-making in some regions scarred by years of conflict.There are also detailed discussions of the HIV/AIDS crisis and other important health issues. Each of the thirteen short chapters has a rich bibliography to guide further reading, and, ending on an optimistic note, the book concludes with an Agenda for Action, with suggestions for what the main players -civil society, African governments, donors, international organisations and NGOs -can do to make sure that the new map of Africa alluded to in the title does indeed become a reality.  The decision to devolve appears to have paid off, and the service is proving increasingly popular -in 2005, CTA's QAS centres responded to more than 7,000 questions. But never an organisation to rest on its laurels, CTA is now trying to make the service even better. A series of project management workshops for QAS practitioners and partners has been scheduled for 2006, with the first held at CTA headquarters in March for the English-speaking Africa region. The workshop brought together more than 50 participants from 10 countries and discussed a range of issues, including promotion and marketing of the QAS and the role of information in Africa's development. The second workshop will be held in October and will bring together francophone QAS partners, as well as partners from the Caribbean and regions. Dr Peter Oni of the Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria, writes to tell Spore readers of a tree he believes deserves to be more widely known -and grown. \"Synsepalum dulcificum, of the family Sapotaceae is one of the lesser known non-timber forest products (NTFPs) shrub species found in West Africa,\" he says. But the tree has a range of highly desirable uses and properties, as its common name -the miraculous or magic berry -suggests. Its single-seeded bright red fruit has a wonderfully sugary taste, thought to be due to a protein material called miraculin. The fruit is called miraculous because it neutralises acidity -after eating it you can even eat a lemon without wincing. As Dr Oni reports, subsistence and commercial use depend on wild populations, which are now becoming threatened. Current research at the Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria indicates good performance by vegetative stem cuttings, especially when pre-treated with growth hormone. \"The medical value of this miraculous berry cannot be over-emphasised,\" writes Dr. Oni. \"Uses include curing fever, diabetes, malaria, piles and acute cough.The natural sugar present in the fruit has been greatly used by diabetic patients in replacement for sucrose or sugar.\"Meanwhile, Kasule Emmanuel writes from Uganda to extol the virtues of the mango tree (Mangifera indica), not just for its fruit, but for its many medicinal uses. \"The shoots from the leaves are used in the treatment of diarrhoea and malaria by traditional healers,\" writes Kasule, \"while the back of the stem is used for the treatment of burns.\"From Tanzania, Peter Breuer has a request for advice on how to grow trees or shrubs on his coastal plot of land. \"I am looking especially for shrubs which I can utilise as green fencing,\" he writes. \"Since the soil is quite saline and the wind brings in a strong salt spray my planting success is very limited. Could you advise me about saline tolerant trees, shrubs and other salt resistant plants? \" Any ideas?Please contact Peter at: petbreu@gmail.com But while farmer innovation may not be new, it does offer considerable scope for agricultural growth and development in ACP regions, if researchers, academics and policymakers can recognise its value and build on it.With this goal in mind, CTA has been working with partner organisations to organise workshops in Jamaica, Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Senegal on the theme 'Identifying and Analysing Farmer Experimentation and Innovation'. Participants included representatives of farmers' organisations, commodity boards, universities, colleges, national research organisations and key ministries.This phase was followed by a series of case studies documented in each of the three countries. The reports will be circulated widely, to bring examples of farmer innovation to the attention of policymakers and other stakeholders. A pilot field exercise, carried out in PNG, Jamaica and Senegal, established a methodology for identifying, documenting and promoting farmer innovation.One of the main outcomes of this process was confirmation, if it were needed, that farmers themselves have much to contribute when it comes to technology transfer. Time and time again, inventive small-scale producers showed that their innovations could provide solutions for other farmers, and that they may be the most effective link when it comes to passing on new techniques.In the Kabwum District of PNG, young poultry farmer Diom Kuingiong Gorom invented an ingenious mobile hatchery after losing dozens of chicks to predators and dogs. Inexpensive and easy to build, it is fashioned out of a split bamboo-support, which holds a nest to keep brooding hens safe. Easily moved, the hatchery has been demonstrated to other farmers, who have started building their own versions.In the Senegalese village of Banoba, a group of farmers has succeeded in protecting land from salt water incursions, so they can grow sweet potatoes. In Jamaica, livestock farmer Robert Logan has invented a biodigester to recycle animal waste. The gas it produces powers a refrigerator and a water heater. He has also channelled waste water from his farm to feed a fish pond and a hydroponics unit for growing vegetables.Some of the innovations uncovered during the fact-finding process need to be followed up by researchers, to discover the scientific basis for the techniques, and see if they could be adapted for other farmers. But most important of all is the forging of stronger links between farmer innovators, researchers and extension workers. They all have a lot to learn from each other!  It focused on improving information and communication in ACP countries on best practices, added value production and certification of organic products, including medicinal plants. While opportunities clearly exist, information about successful ACP initiatives is not easily available and access to lucrative markets is constrained by regulatory frameworks for certification in developed countries and by the lack of them in most ACP states.In Uganda, the 20 participants visited farmers who had adopted organic agriculture, as well as a neighbourhood schools outreach programme. In Kenya, they visited organic agriculture training institutes, NGOs, organic farms, and small processing enterprises. The appeal of agricultureIn Suriname, as in other ACP countries, many young people are put off farming, seeing it as too much hard work for too little profit. But technology can be used to improve earnings and to give the agricultural sector fresh appeal in the eyes of the new generation.n Suriname, we are blessed with plenty of good fertile land, rivers, lakes, swamps and natural sweet water wells. In fact, Suriname has the potential to become the fresh fruit and vegetable basket of the Caribbean. But these rich resources are not used as well as they might be. That is because farming is not considered an attractive option. Take the Para district. Here, there are a number of old plantations -for sugar, coffee, cocoa, wood and indigoowned by descendants of slaves. But though good prospects for economic activities exist, many people are not interested in crop growing, because they see agriculture as very hard work for little money. Many young men and women are migrating to the capital to look for work, leaving behind thousands of hectares of good, rich land that could be used for farming.The problem is that people do not see the tremendous potential that agribusiness, organic farming and agro-tourism offer. We lack information and awareness of how to connect technology with agribusiness. Our government does little to promote agriculture, and a lot of farmers have difficulty to obtain information. Not everybody has access to the internet, and it is often hard to know where to turn for technical assistance and advice.Here, as in other parts of the Caribbean, there is a tendency for young black males to drop out of school and, like many other countries, we are going through difficult times with drug abuse, drug-related criminality and HIV/AIDS. But women, and especially mothers, have a role to play in getting our young males back. Traditionally, women are the country's crop-growers, and if they can be helped to take advantage of technology, and of the emerging organic markets, they can provide brighter futures for our youth. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are attractive tools for young people. They can help give agriculture an extra glow of innovation, as well as an extra 'kick' to small agribusinesses, so that young people will find that there is good money to be made from farming.At the Women's Business Group Foundation, we are trying to make agriculture attractive for our young people by offering training in basic ICT skills, e-commerce, organic farming, agribusiness and agroprocessing. We have recently set up a farm to serve as a demonstration and production unit, cultivating a range of organic agricultural produce (vegetables, root crops, fruits, herbs, horticulture). So far, we have opened up 3 ha of land and are planting fruit trees, ginger and flowers. We are also building three houses for young families who will live on the site. The farm will provide training in processing and marketing. Young people will be offered internships, and if they want to start their own farm, we will help. I believe it is important to help communities sustain their culture and get an income out of it. We are helping women's groups produce cassava bread, a cereal called 'kwak', porridge and other products on a larger scale, working with cassava mills powered by a motor. Together with other partners, we are setting up an organic cassava crackers factory for export production, working with Maroon women from the interior. We are also doing research and development on herbal teas, herbal baths and natural oils. Both Maroon and other indigenous tribes have a rich culture in using natural oils and medicinal herbs. But herbs do not have a long shelf-life. If producers use a de-humidifier, they can store herbs for over a year. The product itself can be packed in a more attractive way, which generates more profit.Another project is training indigenous women to produce soft furnishing products out of fibres from palm leaves, cotton, pineapple and banana bark, together with woven textiles. They already have a product line, but to diversify this we are using new, natural materials from the rainforest. These products will be sold to tourists and in local markets, as well as over the internet. This same community has been learning how to increase production of its pineapple cultivation. Right now, we are looking for technology for solar-drying pineapple chunks and other fruits for export.In all our projects, success depends on the cooperation of men. The women need men to help them to collect raw material. This means that the men must earn a reasonable income and the quantities have to be interesting. Helped by the Inter American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), we recently launched the Suriname chapter of the Caribbean Network for Rural Women Producers (CANROP). The Suriname chapter, named SUNROP, will be used as a vehicle to boost the agricultural sector in Suriname and get the message across to both young men and women that agribusiness is a thriving one, worthy of investment.It is important that we raise the profession of farmer to a higher level, where information tools can help upgrade rural practices and laptops, internet, websites, high-tech processing machines and cellular phones are part of the work environment. That will give 'cachet' to the profession, which many young people currently look down on. Agriculture will give them a brighter future than they have now.Email : colivieira@yahoo.comCornelly Olivieira is a co-founder of the Women's Business Group Foundation (WBG), which was set up in 1993 to encourage women to launch small enterprises to combat poverty. With a background in both agriculture and technology, Mrs Olivieira is a strong advocate of weaving the two elements together to create new opportunities for young people.\" Young people will find there is good money to be made from farming \"The opinions expressed in Viewpoint are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of CTA.","tokenCount":"9705"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"f1a44001394ea9eb49e7659e4e241ce7","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/411caa41-81f7-4734-abd9-83d8dc89c976/retrieve","id":"148669163"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"39c18027-e74d-4c73-8126-38665a66fa5c","pagecount":"5","content":"Banana (Musa spp) is an important crop in Uganda (Kalyebare et al., 2007). Although a traditional crop for hundreds of years in Uganda's central region, banana's omnipresence in the rest of the Uganda's (semi-) humid zones is relatively recent (Bagamba et al., 2008). In most parts of Western Uganda, where the crop is dominant in the landscape, it is hard to imagine farming systems without banana. However, it is only in the last 3 decades that banana, notably the cooking cultivars referred to as Matooke, got widely adopted by farmers in south-western Uganda (Gold et al., 1999) and became the main source of household income (Bagamba et al., 2008;Kalyebare et al., 2007). Matooke currently accounts for 51% of the land under cultivation in the south-west (Bagamba et al., 2008) and produces 68% of the Matooke on the Ugandan market.The rapid increase of land under Matooke in South-Western Uganda has been driven by the high demand for the staple crop from rapidly increasing urban populations in the country. This coupled with improved infrastructure and consequently improved market access, created chances for farmers to commercialize. Crop management has become increasingly intensive, with especially high increases in labor and manure used, to produce the market-demanded large bunches and maintain high levels of productivity. One could argue that intensive Matooke production has changed both the physical landscape as well as the economic landscape in this region. As Cheryl Doss states in her review paper on women in agriculture (2001), gender roles and responsibilities are dynamic and tend to change under new economic circumstances. In this short paper we take a qualitative approach to examining how gender roles and responsibilities changed over time and explore the potential that this was directly affected by the continuously growing importance of Matooke as a cash crop in one community in the Western region of Uganda.Data was collected using the GENNOVATE methodology. This standardized qualitative methodology was developed by a group of gender researchers from the CGIAR gender research network with the objective to provide robust evidence of the relation between women and men's agency, gender norms and innovation in agriculture and natural resources management. The overall GENNOVATE protocol is based on comparative case-study analysis and draws on casestudies conducted in many countries from four different continents. This short article builds upon one GENNOVATE case-study conducted in a community in Rugaaga sub-country of Isingiro district in Uganda.The methodology consists of three different in-depth Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), two different structured individual interviews and one community profile. Every one of the tools is conducted with women and men apart and targets a different social group varying in age and wealth. Data were collected by a trained research team of two women and two men in May 2014. Isingiro Isingiro is a new district which came into existence in 2006. Before the administrative changes it used to be part of Mbarara district. Isingiro is located in the Western region of Uganda, bordering Tanzania on the south and the districts of Rakai, Ntungamo, Mbarara and Kiruhura in the east, west, north-west and north respectively. Isingiro district experiences mean annual rainfall below 1000 mm and agriculture is limited by water shortages, with droughts occur regularly. Large areas, mostly unsuitable for crop production, are used as extensive grazing lands for mainly longhorn (ankole) cattle. For approximately 70% of the rural population of Isingiro, Matooke cultivation is the primary if not only income generating activity (Acord Uganda 2010). Production of Matooke is highest in the district of Isingiro with 597.000 Mt in 2008 (UBOS 2010).Matooke production has only recently reached its current level of intensity in Rugaaga, with 2004 described in the community profile and FGds as a major turning point. In this year the NAADS (government extension) program started providing incentives for farmers to improve management of Matooke. Farmers started to apply practices as de-suckering (removal of new sprouts to direct energy to production of large bunches instead of plant growth), digging trenches for water retention and (increased) weeding by hand instead of hoe. As a result of this agroecological intensification, productivity rose and bunches produced became larger. These are preferred by the market and therefore generate greater farmer income. Nowadays Matooke production is described as the primary income generating activity in the community. Many households have built their asset base around this, and in general respondents report to have improved their livelihoods as a result. Accordingly, a new class of 'rich farmers' has emerged in the community. The 'Matooke boom' has also created employment opportunities for casual farm workers in the plantations and in trade and transport activities related to Matooke commercialization.To own a Matooke plantation is now not only an indicator of economic wealth, but also a status symbol going beyond its immediate association with monetary income. Norms on what constitutes a 'good wife' or 'good husband' for instance, refer directly to Matooke production. A good husband for instance is someone 'who owns a Matooke plantation' or has a 'wellmaintained Matooke plantation'. A 'good wife' 'helps her husband in the Matooke plantation for instance by weeding with hand'.The large majority of land suitable for arable cultivation in the community is allocated to Matooke. Expansion of land under Matooke at the cost of grazing lands is also ongoing. Millet, once the main staple food in the area is hardly grown anymore. Other annual crops such as sweet potato, cassava and various vegetables are mainly managed by women on plots allocated to them by the husband or on rented land. Women complained however, that land available for renting is decreasing and becoming more expensive. In general production of annual crops is said to be decreasing which could have consequences for food availability and nutritional diversity.Land is still very much in the domain of men. Traditionally only men own land. Although legally, women can inherit and own land nowadays, it is still rare in this community. The only common exception is for widows; they can inherit land from their late-husband and manage this relatively independently. It is common for women in this community to rent land, but there are certain disadvantages associated with renting land. For instance, there is often insecurity in tenure which prevents farmers from making longer-term investments in management aspects such as soil fertility. But in in this community, the main issue is that, due to its semi-permanent nature, planting Matooke is not allowed on rented land. This excludes women to a large extent from Matooke production.Both men and women provide labor in banana-related activities. But the 'how' and the 'what' are linked to gender and to other social factors such as wealth. Not surprisingly, land is again the key asset that determines to a large extent the options women and men have with regards to generating income and food for consumption.In poor, landless households women and men will provide casual labor to other people's Matooke plantations. Although it is seen as unfavorable for women to work on other people's fields, it is accepted as a necessity for these poor women. Payment is often in kind (usually food) and not in money. Some male casual laborers will stay with larger farmers in their house for several years, after which they are rewarded with either a lump sum of money or a piece of land or both. Sharecropping is also a strategy used by landless farmers to get access to land.In poor households with a small plot, women and men will usually combine farming with work as casual laborers. They will work together on the plot to produce as much 'food' as possible to fulfill their own consumption needs. Some of these households will also plant some Matooke, but this will be intercropped with beans and other food crops. Matooke produced will be sold to earn cash.In 'middle-income' households with more land, women and men will more often concentrate on farming, although they might provide casual labor at times of food or cash-constraints. Men will feel ashamed however when they themselves or their wives work on other people's farms; this is perceived as a sign of incapacity to fulfill their role as provider. The household's land will be primarily allocated to intensive Matooke production which is under the control of the husband. The husband is in charge of marketing and sales and will conduct much of the heavy management activities such as de-suckering. Men control labor of their spouse, and women are expected to work on the Matooke plantation before they work on their own plots. A large part of that work consists of weeding by hand, and women complain about this work as it gives them back-ache. Women's own plots are either on a household's land, albeit often the less fertile soil types and land forms, further away plots allocated by their husband, or are on rented land. Young people still living with their parents, report that they work more often and longer hours on their father's plots than on their mother's, as women are less able to mobilize labor because they have less authority.The richest households in the community have a lot of land, with large Matooke plantations. Both women and men will usually not contribute much physical labor to plantation management, but hire casual labor instead. Often they make investments in off-farm activities and they also tend to have large numbers of cattle.Although men are almost always doing the selling of Matooke and control the income derivedmeaning that they have the final say in deciding on how the money is spent. This does not mean that women and other households' members necessarily miss out on all the benefits. Women and men talk about the responsibilities of men to spend income on the household; for instance on school fees for children, housing and meat for consumption. The only women who hold control over Matooke productive resources, are widows, and this is in accordance with what Bahati (2015, p66,) found in communities in near-by Mbarara district. Women and men also discuss the disadvantages of men being in control over the majority of household income; examples of men squandering money on alcohol and other women, are common and used to explain how households can remain trapped in poverty or even become poor.On the other hand, women do report increased options to gain incomes and increased acceptance of this. Especially in the poorer households, women are even expected to make contributions to household income. With men focusing on Matooke, women have more options to sell surplus production of annual crops, for instance. The income earning capacity of women is undermined by gender norms, however. Men explain how there is an inherent problem with women earning money; such women will become unruly and hard to control. This is especially expected to happen if the wife earns more money than the husband. Men argue this would make it difficult for them to control such a woman, implying that their authority is linked with their financial superiority over women. Some women also expect that economic empowerment of women will lead to conflict in the household and broken marriages.In this community a lot of changes have taken place in the last 10-15 years. The farming systems itself has been transformed, connections with the outside world, for instance through trade, have increased and socio-economic conditions of livelihoods have (generally) improved. In this short article we can only touch upon some of these changes and the dynamics around these.Although intensive Matooke cultivation is relatively new to Rugaaga, ownership of a Matooke plantation wears considerable economic and cultural significance in the community. In general, livelihoods have improved over the past decade. Matooke production has created opportunities for poor households to escape poverty by providing casual labor on other people's Matooke plantations using different kinds of strategies. A new class of rich farmers, whose wealth is mainly based on Matooke, has emerged in the community.At the same time the control over Matooke is strongly tied to land-ownership which, in turn, is strongly linked with gender. For most women it is not possible to produce Matooke. Although they will provide labor to its production, they do not control income. Women do have increased opportunities to produce annual (food) crops for home consumption and sales but because of expansion of Matooke areal, land is becoming scarce and more expensive. The production of annual (food) crops is decreasing, potentially threatening food security of especially the poor households.Gender roles in Matooke production are very distinct but do not apply to everyone to the same degree; for instance widows seem to operate outside of the general gendered division of labor. Also wealth status seems to be an important factor in determining women's options to provide casual labor. Although ideas about 'women and money' have somewhat changed, women can earn some (personal) income through casual labor and annual crop sales. However, economic empowerment of women is still constrained by norms dictating that men should control both income and time or labor of their wives.The context described provides a good opportunity to study how changes in physical and social systems interact and influence each other and to what extent outcomes are sustainable. Although not elaborated on here, we focused on gender and gender equality as an indicator for the social dimension of sustainability. We only presented some of the key-findings around control over resources and the gendered division of labor. Further analysis and new research will and should also address other aspects of the economic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainability.","tokenCount":"2242"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"33bb56454c6dcd737036674cf39b74d5","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/92cab2aa-7806-4e0b-b529-9daf989a5828/retrieve","id":"-1213306154"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"98f2fc11-78fd-4600-b5d2-4bc96f0d50e0","pagecount":"4","content":"Con este documento queremos rescatar los procesos de aprendizaje de los cuales formamos parte y presentar los resultados concretos que son producto de este proyecto.En este sentido, el eje de sistematización definido fue: \"la alianza de aprendizaje ha innovado al conectar diferentes tipos de actores para potenciar el trabajo que vienen adelantando en el tema de desarrollo empresarial rural\", porque representa un nuevo contexto el tratar de conectar actores que buscan un mismo objetivo, procurando una interconexión que permita un enriquecimiento de conocimientos y el manejo de información valiosa para mejorar nuestra forma de trabajo y lograr resultados exitosos.Desde siempre, EMPSA se ha preocupado mayormente por la gestión de recursos para la ejecución de proyectos, teniendo relaciones con organismos donantes.Nuestra vocación ha sido prestar servicios a la población rural, procurando la poca intervención de otros actores y manteniendo cierto celo por la información y el conocimiento, a causa de la misma competencia por capturar recursos. Esto en cierta manera ha entorpecido el proceso de desarrollo de sectores rurales; lo que también ha sucedido con otros organismos.Con esto decimos que nuestro trabajo no ha sido tradicionalmente compartido con actores del entorno. El esfuerzo por sobresalir ha cortado la relación con actores similares, porque normalmente, compartir no ha estado como un punto común en las agendas.Sin embargo, comenzamos a tener algunos vínculos con instituciones diversas que nos apoyaron en procesos de capacitación del personal y compartieron información técnica, logrando un buen resultado para nuestros intereses; de manera que se consideró la posibilidad de trabajar más de la mano con otras instituciones y organismos, para juntar esfuerzos que nos permitieran obtener mejores resultados.Resulta interesante regresar en el tiempo y comenzar a recordar todos los procesos de los cuales formamos parte: desde el inicio, siendo socios locales de CARE, hasta el intercambio de las Historias de Cambio Más Significativo, donde logramos enriquecer mucho nuestros conocimientos. Nuestra relación con diversos actores ha sido variada, con algunos muy activa como en el caso de CARE y la Fundación para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Agropecuario y Forestal de Nicaragua, FUNICA, y en otros casos un poco menos, como con Catholic Refief Service, CRS y el Servicio Holandés de Cooperación para el Desarrollo, SNV, pero siempre relaciones muy armoniosas.Las experiencias que tenemos con todos los miembros de la Alianza son muy buenas en cuanto al apoyo logrado en términos de colaboración hacia ciertas acciones como capacitaciones y procesos de intercambio de información y de conocimientos, que han sido muy útiles para nuestro quehacer cotidiano.Algunas acciones puntuales que han procurado un cambio muy significativo en nuestra forma de trabajar, se relaciona con el apoyo en términos de transmisión de conocimientos para ser aplicados en campo. Nuestro trabajo ha mejorado con el empleo de metodologías de Desarrollo Empresarial Rural, la metodología de Cambio Más Significativo para escribir historias (implementado en la práctica mediante nuestra participación en la Feria de Aprendizaje) y los resultados obtenidos de la aplicación de la metodología sobre Gestores de Innovación en Agroindustria Rural (GIAR) con los compañeros de CRS; todo esto, para compartir con más actores estas experiencias y conocimientos, logrando articularnos y encajar bien en estos procesos de aprendizaje.También podemos mencionar que con el apoyo de FUNICA se trabajó en la identificación de oportunidades de mercado en el municipio de Pueblo Nuevo, siempre bajo el enfoque del desarrollo empresarial hacia el sector rural, en donde se involucraron 110 agro empresarios, realizando directamente un estudio de mercado, encontrando demandas de sus productos tales como huevo, yuca, frijol, soya, chayote, y plantas medicinales. Con esto se logró el arreglo comercial de estos productos con algunos compradores locales del departamento de Estelí, permitiendo la obtención de precios de venta estables.Además, se realizaron otros esfuerzos a nivel del departamento de Estelí, con el Programa de Servicios de Desarrollo Empresarial (PROSEDE), trabajando bajo este enfoque e involucrando a unos 120 agroempresarios.En la actualidad podemos mencionar varios resultados que son muy importantes para la alianza y para EMPSA, pues encontramos interesante cómo este proceso nos conectó a varios actores apartando un poco los intereses individuales, siendo esto bastante complicado. El haber compartido cierta información y conocimientos nos permitió abrirnos hacia nuestro entorno.No podemos discutir los buenos resultados de nuestra participación en la Feria de Aprendizaje, ese flujo de conocimientos y experiencias que fueron compartidos nos ayudó mucho, porque conocimos otras instituciones que estaban trabajando con nuestro enfoque de cadenas de valor, lo que permitió enriquecer nuestros conocimientos y tomar en cuenta estas experiencias para nuestros próximos pasos; en especial, la metodología para contar historias de cambio, porque para nosotros representa una nueva forma de presentar resultados exitosos y la continuaremos aplicando en nuestros procesos de intercambio.Además de la proyección que se tuvo a través de la participación en la Alianza, se ha ganado un espacio para compartir e intercambiar con los actores y enriquecimos las relaciones con nuevos organismos, como universidades con las que se tienen convenios firmados y una alianza local que también la conforma la Caja Rural Nacional (como facilitadora de créditos con intereses más blandos), CARE y EMPSA; todo esto, en el marco del proyecto de Alianzas para mejorar la competitividad de 100 agroempresarios en el departamento de Estelí, donde se está trabajando con el enfoque de cadenas de valor que esperamos realizar con éxito.También estamos desarrollando otro proyecto con el Instituto Nicaragüense de Desarrollo (INDE) con el enfoque de desarrollo empresarial rural, mediante el proceso de capacitación a 150 agroempresarios del municipio de San Juan del Río Coco, para proporcionarles conocimientos, habilidades y actitudes que les permitan un mejor desempeño laboral. Además, estamos apoyando 120 agroempresarios con el programa de Servicios de Desarrollo Empresarial para fortalecer sus capacidades productivas y su visión empresarial.Otro aspecto importante es el fortalecimiento de capacidades del personal de EMPSA en metodologías y conocimiento sobre experiencias empleando la metodología Gestores de Innovación de Agroindustria Rural (GIAR), que ha sido muy beneficiosa para nosotros, porque nos ha permitido estudiar y concretizar los vínculos entre diversos actores estatales y privados en términos de compra y venta de productos.De esta manera, podemos decir que actualmente contamos con mejores herramientas metodológicas para compartir experiencias, hemos logrado nuevas y mejores relaciones con varios actores locales, al igual que nos hemos abierto a compartir información y conocimientos, y de igual manera, a complementarnos con otros actores en nuestro ámbito de acción.Siempre en todo proceso al final hay lecciones aprendidas que nos ayudan a mejorar y queremos compartirlas porque así se vuelven mas enriquecedoras y valiosas. Entre ellas, están:• Haber trabajado continuamente con celo en el manejo de la información frente al involucramiento de algunos actores y entrar ahora en una etapa de apertura hacia los demás y procurar un mejor desarrollo desde la perspectiva del compartir experiencias y conocimientos, ha permitido lograr un mayor nivel de impacto en nuestro quehacer, logrando dar a conocer procesos exitosos que ayudan a otros actores en su trabajo.• Es importante mostrarnos siempre muy positivos con las tareas que sean asignadas, especialmente si se pueden realizar en equipos de trabajo, porque esto nos permite superar obstáculos que considerábamos difíciles y nos ayuda a que los resultados sean exitosos y puedan ser compartidos.• Lo más importante es continuar utilizando al máximo esta posibilidad que se tiene con la Alianza en términos de facilitación de información y compartir conocimientos, ya que esto nos sirve para mejorar en la competitividad, la búsqueda de mercados confiables y la gestión del conocimiento.• Finalmente algo que haría de nuevo, sería trabajar más con el enfoque de cadena de valor, aprovechando al máximo la alianza de aprendizaje, como facilitador en la región.","tokenCount":"1260"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"9591d6d37ec1cf2f719e64d44f43338d","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/e673f8dd-0f3b-470f-b090-c422ab74962e/retrieve","id":"406028178"},"keywords":["water sources, political power, use and access","institutional density","forumshopping","and institutions"],"sieverID":"eb01c194-5614-402f-b954-e291e8bb6f11","pagecount":"14","content":"Historically, local institutions have been based on rules and norms that derived from hereditary chiefdoms and their governing of natural resources. These institutional structures and the values that underlie their establishment are currently persisting, albeit at times in modified forms, alongside of government sponsored regional and local governance structures, and donor-sponsored local organizations that are connected with various non-governmental organizations (NGO)-based development initiatives. This has resulted in a multi-layered structure of institutions and organizations, at times with unclear boundaries and overlapping mandates, which has come to represent a major challenge and opportunity to rural households' access to and use of natural resources. This paper provides some highlights and inferences on how smallholder dry land farmers in the semi-arid tropics of Ward 17, Gwanda -Mzingwane Catchment, Zimbabwe, respond and adapt to the challenges, opportunities and realities of 'water poverty', and the growing need for integrated water resources management. The paper draws some inferences from the socio-economic survey 2 , the institutional and water (re)sources mapping exercise that was conducted in Ward 17, Gwanda in 2006. Transact walks were conducted to map water resources by walking through the whole ward identifying the quality and quantity of water (re) sources. Social maps were used to locate key social features and diagrammatic representation of key institutional interactions identifying and mapping access to social networks, services and infrastructure, and to relations between different social groups. Results from the study show that household decisions regarding the use of particular water sources for multiple uses largely depends on ownership and investment in water, the design of the water collection-point, and the rules/norms of access prescribed by the investor, funder and or founder of a particular water source. Results from the study also show that there is a very high density of institutions operating in Ward 17. Water access and use is governed by multiple institutions ranging from traditional leadership, project/donor laws and conditions, group/community norms/rules to conditions and norms laid out by the founder, funder and or champion of a particular water source. The conclusions drawn from the study indicate that water access and use rights for the majority of users in Ward 17 depend on water sources, and that, the history and nature of institutions governing such access and 'user-ship' is primarily based on ownership and investment (cash and labour) in infrastructure for pumping and maintaining the water (re) sources.Water access, use and management, and governance in Ward 17 are a construct of institutional arrangements at play. Historically, local institutions have been based on rules and norms that derived from hereditary chiefdoms and their governing of natural resources. These institutional structures and the values that underlie their establishment are currently persisting, albeit at times in modified forms, alongside of government sponsored regional and local governance structures, and donor-sponsored local organizations that are connected with various non-governmental organizations (NGO)based development initiatives. This has resulted in a multi-layered structure of institutions and organizations, at times with unclear boundaries and overlapping mandates, which has come to represent a major challenge and opportunity to rural households' access to and use of natural resources. This paper provides some highlights and inferences on how smallholder dry land farmers in the semi-arid tropics of Ward 17, Gwanda -Mzingwane Catchment, Zimbabwe, respond and adapt to the challenges, opportunities and realities of 'water poverty', and the growing need for integrated water resources management. The paper draws some inferences from the socio-economic survey 3 , the institutional and water (re)sources mapping exercise that was conducted in Ward 17, Gwanda in 2006. Household decisions regarding the use of particular water sources for multiple uses largely depends on ownership and investment in water, the design of the water collection-point, and the rules/norms of access prescribed by the investor, funder and or founder of a particular water source. There is a very high density of institutions operating in Ward 17. Water access and use is governed by multiple institutions ranging from traditional leadership, project/donor laws and conditions, group/community norms/rules to conditions and norms laid out by the founder, funder and or champion of a particular water source. The paper is organised into four sections. The first section highlights, characterizes and typologise the water sources identified in Ward 17 while the following section provides a brief description of the water uses. The third section covers the institutional issues ranging from governance to forum-shopping while the last section provides some conclusions.I conducted transact walks in order to map and mark the different water sources in Ward 17 4 , Gwanda district. The exercise involved four people: Mr. Thomas Dube a local farmer; Mrs. Thenjiwe Sibanda local farmer; and the researcher and the research assistant. A total of 15 people were involved in the mapping exercise where some 3 The researcher was part of the Centre for Applied Social Sciences (CASS) team that conducted a socioeconomic survey in Gwanda. 4 Although the mapping exercise was done in the whole Ward 17, the researcher did in-depth studies in four villages, and did follow-ups in a fifth village. For purposes of clarity, the term Ward 17 is used hereafter to refer to the villages where more intensive research was done: Fumukwe, Humbani, Masiyami, and Mnyabezi. Reference is made also to Magaya village where substantial work was also done, though not in as much detail.farmers joined the team for a while and would opt out when they could not hang on any longer or to do other duties.During the mapping exercise, we managed to identify a total of 36 boreholes in the whole ward. The 36 identified boreholes included ones that are operational and others that are dysfunctional. There were only eighteen boreholes in the Ward that were operational during the time of mapping. Of the eighteen operational boreholes, eleven were found in Fumukwe village, two were identified in Masiyami village, two in Humbani village, one in Magaya village, two in Mnyabezi village. There were a total of four small dams/reservoirs with earthen high walls. Two of the dams were identified in Fumukwe village, one in Masiyami and the other one in Humbani village. Along the streams and rivulets dotted around the ward, we managed to identify a total of 23 shallow wells and five protected wells in the ward. The team also identified 17 streams in the ward locally referred to as rivers. Rain was never mentioned as a water source by the villagers although the whole ward relies on rainfall for their crops and livestock.In order to understand the history, institutional issues, access and use of the different water sources identified, it is imperative to unpack the water sources into different clusters as they are locally understood and portrayed. Water sources in Ward 17 are classified according to the type of access, ownership and investment contributions. The clusters presented below indicate the types of water sources as understood by the villagers as private, communal and donor funded water sources.Boreholes are the main source of water for villagers in ward 17. It is prudent to understand, quantify and explore the various meanings and explanations associated with water sources in order to come up with a typology. Villagers seem to have devised a special categorization which they use to identify the water sources in their area as follows:Privately owned boreholes There are nine private boreholes in the Ward 17. The boreholes are classified as private in recognition of the effort by individual villagers who invested their resources in financing the erection and maintenance of boreholes either at or near their homesteads, or within their small family gardens. They are also classified as private boreholes due to the 'rules of access or use restrictions and sanctions' 5 associated with each source. But who are the owners or investors of such water sources? The list and or brief profile of the private boreholes and or their owners is presented in the ensuing paragraphs. Mr. Bheki Ncube is a relatively successful villager who owns a borehole near the family garden. Other villagers can fetch water for drinking 6 from his borehole, but are not permitted to use the water for irrigating their gardens. However, when and if he wants to water his garden, access to the borehole is restricted to his household only. Mr. Nkosi Ncube -a local businessman who owns two boreholes, one at the homestead and the other within the household garden. Is well known as a tough businessman as a result no one else has access to or use his garden borehole. Not even water for drinking. Mr. X works for World Vision an international non-governmental organization. Mr. X has a borehole within his garden, about 150 metres from his homestead. The borehole is used for watering crops in the garden and is not accessible to anyone else in the village because it is tightly fenced and the gate always locked.Mr. Sibangani Ncube a successful farmer and livestock owner has one borehole in his garden. The borehole was erected in 1985 and is 19 metres deep. Mr. Ncube allows other villagers to access water from his borehole as long as they (other villagers) fetch water for drinking only. He does not allow other villagers to access water for other uses from his borehole. Mr. Z also owns a borehole within his family garden and only allows relatives and close neighbours to access water from the borehole only for drinking. The same applies to Mr. Y who owns a borehole and only allows other villagers access for drinking water only. Mr. Moyo has a borehole at his homestead where access for drinking water is restricted to close relatives and kin only. Only his family uses water from the borehole for watering a backyard garden and livestock.Mrs. S. Moyo 7 has a borehole within her homestead. The borehole is primarily used to irrigate a flourishing vegetable plot within the homestead, and for making bricks for sale. Other villagers, especially and particularly neighbours, are allowed to access water from the borehole for drinking during times of relative water abundance. An estimated total of 18 households have access to her borehole during the period January to September. However, there are restrictions during dry months i.e. October to December. During the dry months (October -December) only four households are allowed access to the borehole. The four households are close neighbours and have good social relations with the owner.There are four communal boreholes in the villages. Two boreholes were government funded and handed over to communities 8 , whilst the other two were joint efforts between government, communities and NGOs working in the area. Access to these boreholes is the amount of water one is allowed to draw per visit, the number of times one is allowed to visit the borehole per day, and whether or not a wheel-barrows or scotch-carts are allowed. 7 The borehole was purchased by her husband, a liberation war veteran who works at a youth training centre. Regardless of the many stories doing the round in the village about how the family uses political muscle to lay its hands on government resources, she still remains the only de facto female owner of a borehole in the village. 8 The mandate to oversee the use and maintenance of government funded boreholes used to be the responsibility of the District Development Fund (DDF). That responsibility was transferred to local authorities, Rural District Councils (RDCs). In this case, the responsibility and authority for such boreholes lie with the Gwanda RDC. The villagers/communities only have care-taker roles for use, operation and maintenance, with ownership vested in the RDC.not restricted and all villagers have equal access (in theory) 9 . The distance of one's homestead from a particular borehole serves as a self-limiting measure in terms of access i.e. the further away a particular borehole from a household, the less likely that the particular household will access water from such a source. However, there are a few special cases where some household members endure the relatively longer distances i.e. ranging from 1.5 to 2 km because the water from the borehole closest to their homestead is deemed of poor quality (high salinity levels).There are five exclusively donor funded and regulated boreholes in the villages. In principle the boreholes are open access to all the villagers. In practice though, there are limitations to access for certain uses. For example, two of the boreholes were meant only for drinking water for households. There were specific instructions laid down by the funding organizations that the boreholes were never meant for livestock watering. Although the villagers accepted and agreed to the laid down regulations at inception, there has been a tendency by villagers to breach the agreement and water their livestock instead. The two boreholes had their fencing equipment vandalized. The villagers then made a make-shift trough for watering livestock around the casing of the borehole. (See pictures below).The pictures above show the levels of vandalism of fencing equipment on EU-ECHO funded boreholes in Fumukwe village. Far left and centre pictures depict a make-shift livestock drinking trough made by villagers despite assurances made to the donor that the borehole was to be used for drinking water only.There were five protected wells in villages of Ward 17 where the research was done. The first well belongs to members of the Zion religious sect. The well is lined with brick and cement walls. Access to the well is restricted to the households and or members of the sect only. The second well belongs to Mr. Sibangani Ncube who also has a borehole in his garden. Access norms and restrictions to his protected well are the same as for his borehole where other villagers are only allowed to fetch water for drinking only. The third unprotected well belongs to Mr. Zikhali. The well is situated inside his garden on the edge of a local stream. Access to the well is only by his family. The remaining two wells belong to Mr. Moyo and Mr. Dude where access is restricted to their families and kin only.Of the 23 shallow wells identified during the mapping exercise, I will focus on the 8 shallow wells which yielded water for more than four months per season, including the dry months of October and November. The shallow wells are dug out using hoes and shovels, and sometimes with bare hands. The unprotected shallow wells are normally dug right on the river/stream bed or at the foot of a dam wall. The wells are usually fenced and/or covered with thorny branches to protect them from livestock. Water from the wells is used for drinking, watering gardens and for brickmaking. There was only one household that had a perennial shallow well within the household garden (see Mr. Thomas Dube's profile). The wells accumulate water or fill up over night where upon villagers wake up early in the morning to fetch the water and irrigate their gardens. Alternatively, the villagers fetch water from the shallow wells early in the morning to fillup containers at their homestead for brick-making.Examples of shallow wells (in Fumukwe village) covered with tree branches (left) and thorns (right). Water from the two wells is mainly used for brick-making.There are three small dams or reservoirs in Ward 17. One of the reservoirs is on Fumukwe stream, near the local shopping centre. The dam was built in the 1960s mainly for livestock watering. The dam/reservoir is an open access resource where all villagers can have access for livestock watering. Although there are no clear guidelines, there seem to be a general norm or understanding that no one is allowed to use water from the dam for watering their gardens despite the fact that there is a cluster of family gardens at the foot of the dam wall. Villagers use a nearby borehole for irrigating their gardens.People in Ward 17 access water for multiple uses ranging from laundry, bathing, drinking, washing, livestock watering, brick-making, watering gardens to beer-brewing and dipping cattle. Of the uses outlined above, there are three main types of water uses that cut across all the villages in ward 17. These include gardening, livestock watering and domestic uses. The three main uses stick-out from the rest because of the contribution they make to both household welfare and household livelihoods in the villages. Water use for gardening was primarily chosen because of the central role of garden produce in providing nutrition for the households involved and also for income to cover day-to-day needs. I also selected water use for gardening as a result of the wide use and application of drip-irrigation in Ward 17. The other reason that makes water use for irrigating gardens stand-out is the role of women in managing water for production at the garden level. Most garden work such as watering/irrigating, cultivating and weeding is done by women while men chip in by contributing in maintaining garden fences. This does not mean there are no men who actively participate in day-to-day gardening activities. A good example of men who work in the family gardens while their wives do other chores at home is Mr. Thomas Dude 10 .Being a predominantly livestock producing area, water for livestock is very important especially during the dry season when households without boreholes of their own resort to fetching water from communal boreholes early in the morning before the yield get low to water their livestock later in the day. This is also one of the reasons why those with privately owned boreholes do not allow other villagers to have access to their boreholes for purposes beyond drinking for household members.The prevailing perception amongst some villagers is that restricted access for other uses such as gardening and livestock watering is a way of reducing competition for produce on the market. Most resource poor villagers strongly felt that their counterparts with privately owned boreholes put in measures to restrict access and use of their facilities because they (the borehole owners) can not compete with poor households in terms of vegetable production, hence the restrictions are meant to stifle competition for produce on the market. So the regulations/restrictions serve to even out the playing field by denying those with labour access to privately owned boreholes. I asked several farmers whether it was not possible to exchange labour for access to water for their gardens. The response was that those who own boreholes do not want to sell water, neither do they want to exchange labour for water access by resource poor villagers. It is therefore difficult to easily strike a win-win compromise, and provides incentives for the researcher to follow-up on the leads.Case 1: Mr. Thomas Dube's Household: Gardening for livelihood Mr. Dube is a 64 year old farmer who has a small garden on the bed of Fumukwe stream. He used to work in Harare for a music recording company before retiring ten years ago. His garden is the main source of income and livelihood for his household. He grows tomatoes, rape, cabbage, carrots, onions, green beans and peas. The main and only source of water for his garden is an unprotected/un-lined shallow well situated within the garden. He has water all-year-round for gardening. He chose and allocated himself the land upon which his garden is situated. He did not have to consult with any authority since that part of the village land is deemed common property. Mr. Dube does most of the work in the garden with the assistance of his wife. Mr. Dube works in the garden everyday and does the watering, weeding, and fencing of the garden. Mrs. Dube helps out with watering, harvesting and marketing of the produce throughout the village (s). The Dubes, just like most other households, have access to drip-kits which they obtained from local and international NGOs working in the area.Mr. Dube is an active member of the local farmerfield group (Tovimba) where he teaches other farmers good farming practices such as contour ridging and ripping.The pictures show sections of the garden including the drip-kits, the shallow well and the produce. Some of the challenges the Dubes are facing with their gardening initiative include: pest control, preservation, and storage of produce.Any serious discussion of institutions cannot afford to ignore two other related terms, namely organisations and governance. Shah (2007: 66) suggests that if institutions as formal rules, informal constraints (norms and behaviour, conventions, and self-imposed codes of conduct) and the enforcement characteristics of both are rules of the game, organisations are the players. Organisations refer to groups of people with shared goals and some formalised pattern of interaction, often defined in terms of roles such as water user association, farmer unions and regulatory bodies (CAWMA, 2007). Governance, on the other hand, is the way authority is organised and executed in society and often includes the normative notion of the necessity of good governance and includes institutions, organisations and policies ((ibid).There is a high density of institutions and organisations (primarily donor-funded, and government agencies) in Ward 17 with multifaceted roles ranging from provision of water services, regulating access, infrastructure development and maintenance. Some of the most active and visible institutions involved in water resources management, access and use include:• Traditional leadership (headman/women, and chiefs)• Water committees, and • District Development Fund (DDF) These institutions do not operate on their own and have to liaise, negotiate and cooperate with the local villagers in water resource issues. The institutions I have presented above are the ones with visible presents in the villages, yet there are more subtle powerful institutional players who only become very public when there is an issue to be addressed. The group pits councilors, extension officers, traditional leaders and liberation war veterans. 11By water governance, I refer to the local level arrangements and understanding used to determine resource access and use. Water governance in Mzingwane is based and revolves around six broad issues/clusters: the founder associated with the resource, the funder or agency which financed the water resource point, and the amount and/or quality of investment involved at the local (user level), and the role of traditional leaders, war veterans and extension agents. The existence of such a high density of institutions in the villages of Ward 17 has provided opportunities (and challenges) for the villagers to have a wider-spectrum to choose from, this is what I refer to as forum-shopping.Forum shopping is clearly demonstrated in the villages in three forms. The first is where the villagers, when presented with an opportunity for infrastructure development such as boreholes by the donors and/or government, they accept the conditions, regulations and guidelines brought by the investor unreservedly. A good example is borehole 'A' in Fumukwe village which was funded by EU-ECHO on the basis that water from that borehole was meant only for domestic uses. Given the prevailing 'water poverty' in the village, villagers accepted the offer from EU-ECHO and undertook to abide by the regulations stipulated. A borehole committee was formed, with a membership of 12 people (six women and six men). A month after the borehole was erected; there was a mushrooming of small gardens near the borehole. A meeting was called by the borehole committee to try and chastise the six people who started gardening near the borehole. It emerged at the meeting that the six had asked the local headman for permission to put up small gardens near the borehole and it was granted. The villagers resolved that if many people were to put up small gardens near the borehole, it will dry-up the borehole. The committee, the headman, the councilor and the villagers agreed that instead of gardening, it was better for the community good to build a trough for livestock watering instead. In the end they resolved to build a rudimentary trough around the borehole casing. See picture belowThe trough was built without consulting EU-ECHO and in breach of the undertaking that the community and the leaders pledged at the inception of the project. I enquired with the borehole committee, the headman and the villagers, how and why they decided to breach the agreement. First to respond was the headman (Mr. Sibanda) who explained that providing the villagers with drinking water only when they do not have relish (vegetables) to go with their meals and when their livestock did not have water to drink was not only wrong, but also unacceptable. I quizzed him to explain why they agreed to the proposition by EU-ECHO? Mr. Sibanda explained that it was not wise for the villagers to turn down an opportunity to have a borehole, the first step was to secure the borehole, and what to do with the water was for the villagers to decide, and not EU-ECHO. Regardless of the earlier undertaking they had with EU-ECHO, the people of Fumukwe proceeded to build a trough where their livestock drink water. Members of the borehole committee concurred with the headman's sentiments that the decision on whether or not to fund the borehole rested with EU-ECHO, as such the villagers had to accept whatever terms and conditions that were attached to the funding of the borehole. However, what to do with the borehole and how to access it was the prerogative of people who live in the village and their leaders. The lesson here is that villagers negotiate access, and are willing to play-along as long as they are guaranteed infrastructure and access to water.The second aspect of forum-shopping is where and when villagers take over the responsibility to rehabilitate a broken down or dysfunctional borehole, and claim ownership. The norm is to request all villagers to contribute in cash or labour to the rehabilitation process. When only a few villagers responded and contributed to the call for contributions to rehabilitate a DDF funded borehole, they claim exclusionary 'usership' rights where access is only by those who made contributions. This has been widely backed and accepted by the traditional leaders and the councilors. Other villagers, who chose not to participate and hence lost out on access and user-ship, claim that they did not participate in the rehabilitation process because there are other communal water access points in the village. The availability of alternative sources of water is a major contribution for villagers when deciding whether or not to take part in communal resources, they forum-shop and make decisions on where and whether they want to contribute based on perceived incentives. The majority of villagers acknowledged that if the DDF borehole was the only source of water in the village, they would have contributed, but when there are numerous other sources of water available, they do not count their exclusion as a loss.The third aspect of forum-shopping applied to how villagers selectively pledge their allegiance to the traditional leaders, the borehole committees, and/or the councilors in times of disputes, competing claims over resources and confrontations. What I observed as a developing trend or pattern in Ward 17 is how villagers play-out institutions of authority against each other, rather than direct confrontation between and amongst the villagers themselves. How did this play-out? This is most demonstrated and most played-out between the traditional leaders and elected leaders (such as councilors and borehole committee members). One good example is how the six villagers went and asked the headman to put up gardens near the borehole, with the full knowledge that no such activities were allowed by the borehole committee. The point of contestation and negotiation pitted the borehole committee with the local headman. Yet in another village, the councilors also try to out-fox the traditional leaders by playing convenient and flexible saviors in resolving conflicts, and the villagers are not just recipients but active players and negotiators as well to serve their own ends.Private water sources are governed by unwritten codes and norms across the ward. For example, Mrs. Sibanda allows other villagers to fetch water from her borehole provided they abide by the set conditions of access. From January to September, all the villagers are allowed to fetch water in quantities of up to 20 litres per trip per person, and not allowed more than two trips per day. During the dry period/season (from October to December) other villagers (apart from the four designated households) are not allowed to fetch drinking water in buckets and containers of quantities above 1 litre. She does not deny other people water for drinking provided it is in small quantities as prescribed above. To ensure compliance, the design of the borehole makes it difficult for one to access it without notifying the owner or members of the household. No one has ever breached or broken the unwritten code or regulations as stipulated by the owner. Mr. X who works for World Vision avoided sharing his borehole water by ensuring that the garden is tightly fenced and the gate to the garden locked all the time, all this to ensure no one else, except his family and kin access water from the borehole.By access, this is attributed to whether the water source in question is open to communal access where everyone is allowed to use the source, private access where jurisdiction to use is determined by the owner or individual, 'project access' where only members of a particular project can access the water source, and or 'selective' group access where only individuals and households who participate in the maintenance and repair of the water source are allowed access. I will present a brief synopsis 12 of each of the cluster (s) of players who hold clout in terms of regulating water access and use in Ward 17.• The first cluster, common with most donor funded water infrastructure in Mzingwane catchment are water user committees which tend to operate under a mix of the prescriptive conditions, set of guidelines, rules and regulations negotiated with the community (by the donor) during the process of developing and proposing the funding arrangements for the infrastructure (borehole, community garden, dam etc).• The second cluster is that of individuals and households that invested in boreholes and shallow wells at their own expense, hence, they define, dictate and determine the access and use of their water 13 .• The third cluster is that of local government and/or government department funded infrastructure. In Mzingwane, like elsewhere in Zimbabwe, this mandate was the prime responsibility of the District Development Fund (DDF) 14 .• The fourth cluster is the role of traditional leaders, who by virtue of the centrality of their roles as local leaders, are vested with decision-making, adjudicating and negotiating authority on and behalf of the villagers qualify to be a governing institution in their own right.• The fifth cluster is that of governance structures and authority emanating from purely politico-administrative power bases where elected representatives from political parties hold sway as rivalry institutions to the traditional leaders.• The final and sixth cluster is that of agricultural extension agencies. For the villagers, the extension agent representative in their area holds a huge position and acts as both a repository of knowledge and as an intermediary between and among the clusters and villagers.In studying institutions in water access, use and governance it is important to focus on social practice, which refers to the visible undertakings of people, what they do in a structured and structuring fashion, and can be studied empirically rather than focus on top-down formalised policies and laws of the book. As such, both the institutional environment and the institutional arrangement should be analysed so that the two are closely matched. The reality of the institutional arrangements or state of play can be used to restructure the institutional environment if necessary.The nature of institutions is shaped by the resource itself (water source or access point) as well as the socio-political context within which institutions operate. For example rules governing use of such fugitive resources such as water and wildlife cannot be simply be extrapolated to sedentary such as land and forestry. This is because in the latter it is physically possible to isolate the resources and stake rights over them. But the issues are much more complex than physical boundaries. Institutional arrangements are part and parcel of the society within which they occur, and need to be contextualised within the socio-political, cultural and economic setting. To understand local institutions and how they shape and are shaped by the environment, one need to understand the social practices of the actual users before prescribing changes and crafting new institutions.However, just as with land, there is often a parallel legal framework governing access, control and use of water, under the jurisdiction of traditional system. This traditional system tends to be more equitable and protective of vulnerable livelihoods (see van Koppen et al, 2007 for a fuller discussion of local water law). Unfortunately in the region there tends to be outright antagonism or a begrudging acceptance of the reality of local water management arrangements. This paper highlighted some of the nuances that characterise the social practices in Ward 17, and how the social practices shape the institutional issues. It also showcases how water users (villagers) are active in negotiating access and help shape the rules of the game to suit their needs and context by pledging selective allegiance to those who wield political clout so that their actions are rewarded.","tokenCount":"5517"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"81b29dbe1b48ef20e3eb818417e8983b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/810944c8-edd6-47d9-bf61-60c1f4ece888/retrieve","id":"1332721657"},"keywords":["Vigna unguiculata","Striga","Biocontrol","Nodulation","Nitrogen fixation"],"sieverID":"469540e5-6191-4b88-9537-ce1cefaa3668","pagecount":"17","content":"were factorially combined with three inoculation options (two bradyrhizobium strains USDA3384 and IRJ2180A, and uninoculated control) in a screenhouse using potted sterile soils. Second, the same trial was repeated in the field with basal phosphorus applied at sowing and a fourth treatment of fertilizer-N (urea) included testing whether N was limiting cowpea growth. The field trial also included a separate treatment with no input that served as a negative check. Result Significant genotype x treatment interactions were observed in nodule counts, Striga attachment, emergence, and cowpea shoot growth in the screenhouse. There were few nodules across all cowpea lines. Striga counts were the lowest for resistant varieties with no emerged plants. Rhizobial inoculants depressed Striga counts with consistent differences Abstract Background Cowpea is a grain legume of major importance in sub-Saharan Africa where it is cultivated by smallholder farmers on poor soils and production is often constrained by the parasitic weed Striga gesnerioides. Method Experiments were conducted to assess the potential of rhizobium inoculation to mitigate Striga infection and increase cowpea productivity. We infested soils with S. gesnerioides and assessed the impact of treatments combining cowpea genotypes and bradyrhizobium inoculation on Striga dynamics and cowpea yield. In total, 20 cowpea genotypes were included, of which nine were resistant to Striga and 11 were susceptible. In the first experiment theseCowpea (V. unguiculata (L.) Walp.) is a grain legume of high agronomic, nutritional and economic importance in the semi-arid tropics where it is mainly cultivated by resource poor farmers. It constitutes a valuable source of protein in the diets of millions of people (Boukar et al., 2016). About 7.4 million metric tons of cowpea is annually produced worldwide on about 12.6 million hectares (FAOSTAT, 2017). Yet the productivity of cowpea on farmers' fields remains poor due to numerous abiotic and biotic constraints. Cowpea is often infested by parasitic weed Striga gesnerioides (Willd.) Vatke, which is a major biotic constraint to crop production in the Savannah and Sahel agroecologies of West Africa. The degree of infestation of Striga is greatest when soil fertility is poor, sometimes causing complete loss of yield and forcing farmers to abandon their cultivated lands (Kamara et al., 2014).S. gesnerioides is an autogamous parasite with a life cycle typical of other agriculturally important Striga spp., and a wide host range including cowpea and groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.), many other legumes (Alysicarpus spp., Euphorbia spp., Indigofera spp. and Tephrosia spp.) as well as tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) and Ipomea spp. (Berner and Williams, 1998). Adaptations to parasitism of Striga species include the ability to produce a large number of tiny seeds with prolonged viability and special germination requirements (Siame et al., 1993). Seeds germinate only after exposure to exogenous germination stimulants, strigolactones, which are derived from root exudates of host and often non-host plant species (referred to as trap crops) (Bouwmeester et al., 2007;Yoneyama et al., 2009;Cardoso et al., 2014). Strigolactones are plant hormones which regulate plant shoot and root architecture in response to the environment (Gomez-Roldan et al. 2008;Cardoso et al., 2014), which also function as host recognition signals for arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (Akiyama et al., 2005) and rhizobia, and trigger seeds of parasitic weeds such as Striga spp.to germinate (Soto et al., 2010;Foo and Davies, 2011;Foo et al., 2013).Farmer practices to combat Striga weeds range from hand-pulling emerged Striga plants, crop rotations / intercropping to improve soil fertility, the use of trap crops that stimulate suicidal germination of Striga seeds, to the selection of resistant crop varieties. Promising methods to manage Striga arising from research include the use of mineral fertilizers (Jamil et al., 2011), chemicals (Kanampiu et al., 2001(Kanampiu et al., , 2003;;Kountche et al., 2019), intercropping (Rusinamhodzi et al., 2012), improved tolerant/ resistant germplasm (Lane et al. 2003) and biological control (Mabrouk et al., 2007a). However, yield loss attributable to Striga is increasing because many promising Striga control methods suffer from limited adoption and utility (Silberg et al., 2021;Jamil et al., 2021). Low uptake of agricultural technologies is driven by multiple socioeconomic constraints at the farm or higher levels, resulting from lack of/or competing use of land, labour, cash, or organic resources, and reluctance of farmers to experiment with new methods (Oswald, 2005;Giller et al., 2011;Kanampiu et al., 2018).An integrated approach is required using direct and indirect measures in a concerted manner to prevent damage of parasitism, and ultimately to eradicate the seed bank (Rubiales and Fernandez-Aparicio, 2012). Integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) (Vanlauwe et al., 2010), including incorporation of legumes into cropping systems (Franke et al., 2018;Vanlauwe et al., 2019;Kamara et al., 2020)  crops such as cowpea can stimulate suicidal germination of seeds of Striga spp. that infect cereals as non-host species (Berner and Williams, 1998), and are used as trap crops to reduce Striga spp.in cereallegume rotation and intercropping systems (Midega et al., 2014;Hooper et al., 2015).Strains of rhizobia have been identified with potential for controlling the parasitic weed Orobanche crenata Forsk. in inoculated pea (Mabouk et al., 2007a, b). Inoculation of pea with compatible rhizobia was reported to affect O. crenata by reducing seed germination, and decreasing root infection with limited capacity for tubercle development and necrosis of attachments (Mabouk et al., 2007a, b). Considering that the key factors determining productivity/ or performance of legume technologies range from the genotypes of both the legume (G L ) and the associated root nodule rhizobia (G R ), the test climate and soil environments (E), to the agronomic management used (M), such relationship can be expressed as - (Giller et al., 2013). For a given environment, understanding in the same way the relationship between the effectiveness of various combinations of symbiotic partners (G L × G R ) and managements options (M), and the variability in legume infection by Striga spp. is of major interest in view of explaining the potential of matching legume variety and inoculant strain in controlling S. gesnerioides.Striga-resistant varieties and promising lines of cowpea have already been identified (Lane et al., 2003;Boukar et al., 2016), which provide a key entry point for testing integrated Striga management options. Genotypes of cowpea (Lane et al., 2003) and many cereals such as rice (Rodenburg et al., 2017), sorghum (Rodenburg et al., 2006) and maize (Badu-Aprakuet al., 2020) are reported to combine improved degrees of resistance and tolerance to Striga. Resistance to Striga spp. refers to genotype ability to support fewer infections, whereas tolerance denotes its potential to show less damage for similar infection levels when compared with other varieties of the same species (Rodenburg et al., 2006). Resistant varieties can induce the germination of Striga seeds while preventing the parasite from attaching to host roots or killing the attached parasitic plants (Badu-Apraku et al., 2020).In this paper, we present the results of an integrated evaluation of BNF technologies consisting of crop varieties, rhizobium inoculants, and the application of phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) fertilizers. The objectives are (i) to evaluate underscreen-house conditions the potential of rhizobia as biocontrol agents against S. gesnerioides in Striga-resistant and susceptible cowpea varieties, (ii) to assess the relative performance of rhizobial inoculants to control Striga infection of cowpea in the field as compared with standard mineral fertilisation, and (iii) to identify the most effective combination of rhizobia, cowpea genotype and fertilizer for optimal control of S. gesnerioides.Two sets of experiments were conducted in 2014 in Kano (Kano state, northern Nigeria) under screenhouse and field conditions. A screen-house trial was carried out under artificial irrigation during the dry season at the Kano Station of International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). A subsequent field trial was conducted under natural rainfall during the following rainy season at the IITA research farm (12°10′42\"N,8°32′39″Eat 500 m above sea level), located at Minjibir village 45 km north of Kano. Both locations fall under the Sudan savanna agro-ecological zone, where climate is dry with a unimodal distribution of 700-800 mm annual rainfall (Ronner et al., 2016) over a short growing season (about 120 days) from July to September. The mean monthly rainfall and temperature in 2014 at Minjibir are shown in Fig. 1.Soil sampling was done before land preparation by taking soil cores from 0 to 15 cm depth at random points describing a \"Z\" pattern across the whole field. The cores were bulked and mixed thoroughly to provide a composite sample, and a subsample was analysed for physical and chemical properties according to standard procedures (IITA, 1989) in the analytical laboratory of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria. The abundance of soil bradyrhizobia was determined by the plant infection technique (Vincent, 1970) (Table 1). The soil was coarse textured and texture fell within the loamy sand and sandy loam class (Table 1). Soil organic carbon Vol:. ( 1234567890) (9 g kg −1 ) was relatively low and total nitrogen (0.36 g kg −1 ) in the very low N fertility class. The concentration of available Cu (1.07 mg kg −1 ) was low and there was relatively high concentration of Mn (46 mg kg −1 ) and Fe (178 mg kg −1 ) due to the slightly acidic pH (5.6) of the soil (Table 1). Available soil P in the field (8.6 mg kg −1 ) was as low, as is common in sandy savanna soils with low organic matter content (Kwari et al., 2011).Twenty cowpea genotypes (Table 2) were compared in both screen-house and field station experiments. These lines have earlier shown variable responses to Striga ranging from lack of infection even at high Striga infestation rates (resistant genotypes) to presence of parasitism even at low Striga infestation (susceptible genotypes) (Muranaka et al., 2011). Seeds of cowpea lines were obtained from the Genetic Resource Center (GRC) of IITA. The Striga seeds were harvested in 2010 from a research farm at Malam Madori in Jigawa State, a Striga hot-spot where cowpea is widely cultivated. Striga seeds were manually threshed and cleaned to remove chaff. Seeds were then surface-sterilized with a sodium hypochlorite solution (NaOCl, 3.0%) for  3 min (Berner and Williams, 1998). Thereafter, the seeds were thoroughly rinsed with tap water through a fine sieve and left to air-dry in the laboratory.Bradyrhizobium sp. strain USDA 3384 (National Rhizobium Culture Collection, Beltsville, Maryland, USA) and B. Japonicumstrain IRJ 2180A were obtained from the soil microbiology laboratory of IITA. These area reference broad host-range rhizobia strain (Foster et al., 1998;Hashem et al., 1997) and an elite soybean inoculant strain (Sanginga et al., 2002;Okogun and Sanginga, 2003), respectively. Each strain was grown in yeast extract mannitol medium for five days to reach 10 9 cell ml −1 , which was used as liquid inoculant in screen-house studies. Bradyrhizobial broths were used to prepare peat-based inoculants to coat seed for field experiments. Standard peat carrier (APT, USA) was sterilized by gamma irradiation (Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, Accra, Ghana) in bags containing 50 g of peat each. Upon radiation, each bag was aseptically injected with 50 ml of the appropriate rhizobial broth, injection hole sealed, contain thoroughly mixed and then cured in the same bag at 28 °C for two weeks to obtain at least 10 9 cell g −1 inoculant (Hoben and Somasegaran, 1982).In a first experiment, test soil was artificially infested with Striga to assess responses of 20 cowpea genotypes to three inoculation options under screen-house conditions. Inoculation treatments comprised of the two bradyrhizobial inoculants used separately, and an uninoculated control. Sixty treatments were studied consisting of 20 × 3 factorial combinations of both factor levels. Treatments were established in three replications using a split plot arrangement where inoculation options were randomly assigned to main plots and cowpea genotypes to sub-plots as to minimize cross contamination. Cowpea plants were grown on potted-soil infested with Striga seeds using a modified protocol of Singh and Emechebe (1990). A mixture of top soil and river sand (2:1; v/v) was prepared and sterilized by autoclaving (120 °C for 1 h) prior to incorporating Striga seed. The soil used in screen-house trial was sampled from the field where the field trial was conducted. Growth units consisted of plastic pots (13 cm, height and width) containing ca. 2.5 kg pot -1 soil mixture. Four seeds of cowpea were planted and inoculated with 1 ml of bradyrhizobial broth pot −1 . The growth units were subsequently irrigated with tap water as necessary on alternate days to ensure adequate moisture and good germination. Pots were thinned to two seedlings at 2 weeks after planting then fertilized with 180 mg P as single super phosphate (SSP, 18% P). Seedling leaves were further sprayed with a combined insecticide (35 ml of Lamdacyhalothrine and 75 ml of Cypermethrin plus Dimethoate in 15 l sprayer) to control insect pests.In the second experiment conducted in the field, responses of Striga infection and crop performance of the same cowpea varieties to five treatments were tested on land heavily infested with Striga (five plants m −2 on average). The treatments were a negative check with no input (inherent soil fertility), a control treatment which received only P fertilizer, the two inoculants applied together with P fertilizer, and a treatment which received urea-N and P fertilizer (Table 3). We refer to the inoculant treatments and the N fertilizer treatment jointly as \"N sources\". P fertilizer was applied at the rate of 30 kg P ha −1 as single-super phosphate and N applied as urea at a rate of 20 kg N ha −1 . All fertilizer was applied at sowing in furrows and covered with soil to minimise losses. The experiment was set up as a split plot with 20 cowpea genotypes and 5 soil fertility treatments, replicated three times. The field was mown, harrowed and plant debris removed. The field was then ridged at 0.75minter-ridge spacing. Cowpea seeds were pre-treated with fungicide-insecticide Apron Star (20% w/w Thiamethoxam, 20% w/w Metalaxyl-M, 2% w/w Difenoconazole) to prevent soil-borne pests attack on seeds and seedlings. Plots (6 ridges × 4 m) were planted manually at the rate of three seeds per hill with 0.2 m intra-row spacing. Immediately before planting, cowpea seed was coatedwith peat-based inoculants (10 g kg −1 seed) using a solution of gum arabic (ca. 20 g l −1 ) as sticker. Pre-emergence herbicide Paraquat and Pendimethalin (3 l ha −1 ) was sprayed immediately after sowing to control weeds. Two weeks after planting, plots were thinned to two plants per hill and SSP fertilizer was applied at the rate of 30 kg P ha −1 . Lamdacyhalothrine 25 EC (0.7 l ha −1 ) and Cypermethrin, plus Dimethoate (1 l ha −1 ) was applied at flowering stage to control insect pests. The field was maintained free of weeds except Striga plants by regular manual weeding at three, six and eight weeks after planting.In the screen-house study, plants were harvested at 64 days after planting (DAP). Potted plants were cut at the soil level and pots were gently flushed with tap water to discard soil from the root systems for count assessment of nodules, Striga attached to roots and emerged Striga. All plant parts were oven-dried separately at 65 °C for 48 h for biomass. In the field trial data were collected from the flowering stage onward. Twenty plants were randomly uprooted from border rows of each plot, nodules recovered, counted and oven-dried as above for dry mass assessment. Number of emerged Striga plants was monitored three times from the two central rows of plots until 70 DAP and cumulative number calculated. At maturity, the same inner rows were harvested, shoots, pods and grains air-dried and weight recorded.Biomass data (cowpea and Striga dry weights) from the screen-house trial, and grain yield from the field study were analysed using a linear mixed model where genotype, strain, and genotype x strain were considered as fixed effects, and replicate, genotype x replicate as random effects. Count data across screen-house and field experiments (number of nodules, Striga attachments and emerged plants) were analysed using a generalized mixed model  4 and 5). All data were analysed using MIXED (linear mixed model) and GLIMMIX (generalized linear mixed model) procedures in SAS/ STAT software, Version 9.4 of the SAS System for Windows (SAS Institute, 2019).Striga infection, nodulation and plant growth in the screen-house At harvest 64 DAP, the majority of inoculated cowpea plants were poorly nodulated as they had reached physiological maturity (Fig. 2). The occurrence of nodulation appeared to be inverselyrelated to infection of cowpea roots by Striga, with most plants exhibiting either nodules or Striga attachments (Fig. 3B, C). In addition, the smallest values for cowpea dry weight were found on plants with the least number of nodules (Fig. 3A).There was a differential response of cowpea genotypes to inoculation treatments in shoot dry weight (P = 0.0155, Table 4). Resistant varieties grew the best, yet were not responsive to inoculation in pots. By contrast, susceptible lines showed substantial responses to inoculation with an average of 63% increase in shoot dry weight (P ≤ 0.0001,Table 4; Fig. 4A). Similarly, there were large differences between susceptible cowpea varieties which had significantly larger counts of emerged Striga plants (P = 0.0047) and number of Striga attachments to cowpea than resistant varieties (P ≤ 0.0001) (Fig. 3; Table 4; Fig. 4B-C). The number of emerged Striga plants from pots was the greatest (2.5 plant −1 ) for susceptible genotypes grown without inoculation (control treatment) (P = 0.0168; Fig. 4B). Moreover, inoculation with strain IRJ 2180A was the most effective totally in preventing emergence of Striga plants in the potted susceptible genotypes (P = 0.0246; Fig. 4C). On average, the smallest numbers of Striga attachments to cowpea roots were observed in resistant varieties (P = 0.0046), and in inoculated plants (P = 0.0065, Table 4; Fig. 4D-E). When compared with the uninoculated (control) treatments, addition of rhizobial inoculants was slightly more effective in reducing Striga attachments on resistant (90%) than susceptible (80%) varieties (P = 0.0168; Fig. 4D). Resistant genotypes performed best against Striga attachment to root with strain IRJ 2180A inoculant (P = 0.0246; Fig. 4E). Striga infection, nodulation and plant growth in the field trialAt early cowpea flowering stage, the number of nodules was 14.9 nodules plant −1 on average with significant differences among varieties (P = 0.0315), and between nutrient management options (P ≤ 0.0001; Table 5; Fig. 5A-D). The least nodule number (5.3 nodules plant −1 ) was found for cowpea managed without any input (P ≤ 0.0001; Fig. 5A). The application of Pfertilizer alone improved nodulation (13.1 nodulesplant −1 ), but to a lesser extent than when P and N sources were combined (P ≤ 0.0001; Fig. 5B). Addition of urea resulted in less nodules (13.3 nodules plant −1 ) than when rhizobial inoculants were applied (21.5 nodules plant −1 ) (P ≤ 0.0001; Fig. 5C). Among the inoculant treatments, the largest number of nodules was found in the presence of the strain IRJ 2180A (29.8 nodules plant −1 ;P ≤ 0.0001, Table 5; Fig. 5D).Overall, strong positive relationships were found between nodule number and cowpea yield and negative relationships with Striga emergence (data not shown). Emergence of Striga plants decreased with increasing nodule number, which led to improved cowpea yield. The density of Striga plants was highest for the less well nodulated cowpea plants managed without any input (≤5 nodules plant −1 ) and lowest for the abundantly-nodulated plants in the P+ IRJ 2180A treatment (≥25 nodules plant −1 ). For most cowpea genotypes, grain yield had a significant negative correlation with Striga count.Significant variety x management interactions was observed in the cumulative count of emerged Striga plants (P ≤ 0.0001, Table 5). Plots with resistant cowpea varieties were remarkably free of emerged Striga almost throughout the field experiment (Fig. 6A-D). Susceptible varieties had stronger infection with Striga count dependent upon the management option  and (E-F   (Fig. 6A-D). Sprouting of Striga was densest without any amendment (no input) compared with nutrient addition (P ≤ 0.0001, Table 5; Fig. 6A). On average, managing susceptible cowpea varieties with various combinations of P and N-sources led tomore than 2.6fold reduction in the number of Striga plants relative to plots without any input (Fig. 6A). Effectiveness in the control ranged from the least with P alone to the highest for P combined with N-sources (Fig. 6B). However, emerged Striga count when fertilized with urea was comparable with that for rhizobial inoculants (Fig. 6C-D).The differential responses of the cowpea genotypes to management options resulted in large grain yield differences at harvest (P ≤ 0.0001, Table 5). Grain yield as well as its response to input additions was consistently stronger in resistant lines than susceptible ones (P ≤ 0.0001, Table 5; Fig. 7A-D). Overall, grain yield was more than doubled in response to nutrient supply compared with no input treatments, with increase being marginally larger for resistant (128%) than susceptible (119%) lines (Fig. 7A). On average in addition, grain yield in susceptible varieties was more responsive to P alone (+16%) than P + N treatments (P ≤ 0.01, Table 5; Fig. 7B). When P was applied the yield response of the cowpea varieties to inoculant was significantly greater (ca + 10%) than with urea (P = 0.0174; Fig. 7B).Overall, cowpea yielded substantially more grain (31-34% more) with inoculant strain IRJ 2180A than USDA 3384(P ≤ 0.0001; Fig. 7D). Also, resistant varieties outperformed susceptible lines in yield responses to inoculation, which was most obvious in the presence of inoculant strain IRJ 2180A (P = 0.0043; Fig. 7D).Vol.: (0123456789)Our results demonstrate that integration of resistant varieties, fertilizer application and inoculation with Bradyrhzobium could effectively control Striga in cowpea. A pot experiment was used first to investigate genotypic variability in cowpea responses to co-inoculation with rhizobia and Striga in the screenhouse. Although the cowpea plants were poorly-nodulated by time of harvest (< 1 nodule plant −1 on average; Fig. 2), plant infection by Striga was strongly reduced as compared to the control without inoculation. Poor nodulation in the screen-house could be partly due to the harvest of mature plants, as well as the soil sterilization which would have killed off arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi as well as native rhizobia. In addition to the well-established role of AM in plant uptake of phosphorus in P-deficient soils which supports good nodulation and nitrogen fixation in legumes (Hayman, 1986, de Novais et al., 2020), there is evidence that AM fungi can suppress Striga infection in cereals. While the precise mechanisms need to be elucidated, AM both suppress germination of Striga seeds and attachment to host roots, leading to reduced root colonisation and emergence of Striga plants (Gworgwor and Weber 2003;Lendzemo et al., 2005Lendzemo et al., ,2006)), by altering the release of Striga seeds germination stimulants in host root exudates (Akiyama et al., 2005;Lendzemo et al., 2007). This suggests that further studies on the role of the tripartite interaction of the host legume, AM and rhizobia on Striga suppression are warranted. On average, the resistant cowpea varieties had the least number of Striga attachments to the roots as well as the number and weight of emerged Striga shoots (Fig. 3). Surprisingly, resistant varieties were also found to be the most responsive to rhizobial inoculants for the control of Striga: compared with the uninoculated control plants of these varieties, there was as high as a tenfold reduction in the number of Striga attachments which resulted in cowpea plants almost clean of the parasites (Fig. 4).In comparison with some practices recommended against Striga such as hand or hoe-weeding and conventional biocontrol, which operate only when the parasite has already infected the crop and subsequently developed emerged shoots, eradicating the seed bank and preventing root colonization by Striga may be the ideal solution to its control (López-Ráez et al., 2008;Kountche et al., 2019). The use of crop varieties that combine resistance with high tolerance levels is presently suggested among the most promising and easy to adopt control options against the weed Striga, particularly when combined also with other management practices (Rodenburg et al., 2006(Rodenburg et al., , 2017;;Badu-Apraku et al., 2020). Although much literature has emphasised the importance of integrated technologies involving improved crop germplasm, companion legumes, fertilizer and crop management option for control of Striga spp. (Tesfaye and Ejeta, 2011;Midega et al. 2014;Randrianjafizanaka et al., 2018;Kamara et al., 2020), little attention has so far been paid to the potential contribution of rhizobial inoculants against the weed. Our study shows the potential of using rhizobial inoculants as part of integrated management to aid Striga control. We provide insights into how resistant varieties, fertilizer and rhizobial inoculants can be combined to manage Striga in cowpea, although our results need to be further confirmed across more locations and seasons.Cowpea lines grown in fields infested with S. esnerioides readily formed root nodules without inoculation, demonstrating the presence of adequate native populations of compatible rhizobia (Fig. 5). Unlike other legume crops such as soyabean which have a symbiotic requirement for specific rhizobial strains, cowpea is a promiscuous host, able to form root nodules with a broad range of highly diverse rhizobia (Giller, 2001). On the other hand, poor soil fertility is a major constraint to the proper establishment and function of legume symbiosis in sub-Saharan Africa (Vanlauwe et al., 2019). The improved nodulation of cowpea in response to addition of P is consistent with widespread reports of soil P limitations for growth and production of grain legumes in sub-Saharan Africa (Ronner et al., 2016;vanHeerwaarden et al., 2018;Belete et al., 2019;Rurangwa et al., 2018). It appears that cowpea generally needs to be fertilized with P, except in a few locations such as in Ghana where field-grown cowpea genotypes nodulated well without any nutrient addition (Adjei-Nsiah et al., 2008).As expected from previous studies, our results confirmed a consistent varietal effect on Striga infection with a clear discrimination between resistance and susceptible cowpea lines in the field (Lane et al., 2003;Muranaka et al., 2011). Striga plants were not observed in the plots planted with Vol:. ( 1234567890)resistant cowpea genotypes and significant interactions between the variety and management were evident. This confirms the importance of resistant varieties to control Striga (Rodenburg et al., 2006;Badu-Apraku et al., 2020). Alleviation of nutrient deficiency through addition of P fertilizer and either rhizobial inoculant or N fertilizer also suppressed Striga (Fig. 6.), as poor soil fertility is known to favour the spread of S. gesnerioides. In a similar vein, Jamil et al. (2011) showed N and P fertilizers reduced secretion of Striga seed germination stimulants in maize resulting in less Striga infection.We further found a large difference in performance of the two rhizobial strains. Strain IRJ 2180A was much more effective in promoting cowpea nodulation and in suppressing Striga than strain USDA 3384. Our findings suggest that the improved nutritional status of cowpea is the most likely mechanism through rhizobial inoculants contributed to mitigate Striga infection. This could be mediated through reduced strigolactone production from inoculated cowpea plants leading to less Striga germination, and/or the ability of more vigorous plants to tolerate and escape the deleterious effects of Striga. It could also involve mechanisms of induced systemic resistance in the host roots by rhizobia, which leads to mechanical and chemical barriers against parasitic weeds (Mabrouk et al., 2007a(Mabrouk et al., , b, 2008(Mabrouk et al., , 2010)). Rhizobium leguminosarum strain P.SOM reduces pea root infection by the parasitic weed O. crenata through inhibition of seed gemination (more than 3-fold less parasite seeds germinated, with a large proportion ofnecrotic sprouted seeds), and attachment (up to 7-times less tubercles per plant, Mabrouk et al., 2014). Histological studies have shown that lignification of host endodermal and pericycle cells may be an additional resistance mechanism that prevents parasite penetration at the initial stage of infection, and leads to necrosis and death of developed tubercles (Perezde Luque et al., 2005). Further research is needed to elucidate the mechanisms. The effective reduction in the number of Striga plants in the field consistently resulted in better cowpea grain yields, and differences were consistent with trends in the repression of the parasite (Figs. 6 and 7). The increase of cowpea yield obtained here with the combined use of improved germplasm, fertilizers and rhizobial inoculants is a clear application of the concept of integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) needed for the sustainable intensification of African agriculture (Vanlauwe et al., 2015).The productivity of cowpea grown without any inputs was very poor (211-280 kg ha −1 ), the choice of cowpea genotype was clearly the most relevant starting point to increase yields. The use of improved cowpea seed alone led to the highest impacts both in the control of the weed (46 times less infection) and grain yield (+33%). As a second step, P fertilization was effective for controlling Striga in susceptible varieties (38% less emerged plants), though responses in grain yield remained strongest for resistant lines (2.6-compared with 2.1-fold increase for susceptible lines). Effective rhizobial inoculants formed a third level of intervention. For the susceptible lines, the most effective strain (IRJ 2180A) led to additional decrease (52%) in Striga emergence and enhancement in grain yield (18%) over and above the effects of P fertilization alone (442 kg ha −1 ). For the resistant varieties also, responses were almost similar with around 56% less Striga emergence and 15% increase in grain yield in comparison with P fertilization alone (715 kg ha −1 ). This suggests overall a sequence of improved germplasm, P fertilizer and rhizobial inoculant as steps towards implementation of ISFM.We have demonstrated the potential of using bradyrhizobial inoculants as effective biocontrol agents as part of an integrated strategy against S. gesnerioides weed infection of cowpea. Field-grown cowpea was confirmed to perform well in terms of grain yield and in control of infection by Striga when improved germplasm was used together with P fertilization. The use of appropriate cowpea genotypes is therefore suggested to be a suitable entry point for ISFM application, followed by P fertilizer and rhizobium inoculants. P fertilization was found to be crucial to both cowpea productivity and its responsiveness to rhizobial inoculants. Further evidence of a strong genotypic host plant x rhizobia strain interaction highlights the possibility for further selection of combinations to counter Striga damage. Whilst these are promising results, further investigations are needed to confirm the robustness these control options across more agroecological environments and seasons.","tokenCount":"5021"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1b961d11ec40b95e5578a083ac70fa6b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0ea34562-8bdc-42f4-8f8e-5e111bc72e53/retrieve","id":"422154413"},"keywords":["Cattle herd","simulation model","stochastic","production alternatives","Africa","feed intake","energy requirements","growth","mortality","reproduction MOTS-CLES Troupeau de bovins","modèle de simulation","stochastique","Afrique","alternative de production","besoins énergétiques","croissance","reproduction","mortalité"],"sieverID":"88c36772-0e3d-49c7-8c6e-3bf303052e49","pagecount":"110","content":"A primary goal of the research programme of the International Livestock Centre for Africa (ILCA) is to identify opportunities for improvements in tropical African livestock systems, and studies on the productivity of cattle herds are an integral part of this research. However, the consequences of changes in cattle productivity at the herd level are manifested over time in a complex way which can only be predicted probabilistically. At the same time, field research on cattle herd productivity requires substantial resources and an extended period before results are available. For this reason, ILCA's field research programme is comp lemented by mathematical modelling. The objectives of this approach, integrating field research and modelling, are to provide better predictions of the consequences of change than are possible from informal calculations, to maximize the transfer ability of research results and to engender and support the close integration of research in all the appropriate scientific disciplines.Due to earlier limitations in manpower and computer facilities, ILCA's initial modelling efforts were based on the use of existing models. The Animal Science Systems Group at Texas A & M University (TAMU) had developed a model of cattle production which represented an appropriate introduction to modelling techniques for livestock researchers in Africa. In 1978, ILCA, TAMU and the Botswana Government's Animal Production Research Unit cooperated in the application of the TAMU model to commercial ranching and traditional cattle systems in Botswana. ILCA Systems Study No. 1 reports on that research. This exploratory work highlighted the need for a simulation model with stochastic features -particularly for the forage component, as year-to-year varia bility in the quality and quantity of forage available is a key determinant of herd productivity in nearly all African livestock production systems. It was also con sidered that an integer-based model, i. e. one which treats animals in the simu lated herd as individual entities, was most appropriate for simulating the generally small herd production units in Africa. Additionally, the model had to be struc turally flexible, so that it could be readily applied to a range of production situ ations without major modifications. This Systems Study presents the rationale and formal specifications of an operational model with these features. The authors wish to thank J C M Trail for his constructive criticism and substantive comments from the initial conception to the final preparation of this report. They are also grateful to C de Haan,The long-term survival of traditional livestock production systems within the rapidly evolving national economies of Africa will depend on their capacity to provide products in quantities and at prices which satisfy the subsistence and in come needs of the livestock producers. Equally, the survival of these production systems will depend on their impact on land resources, as existing surplus ca pacity can quickly be eliminated by poor management or over-use. Human popu lations in the main livestock producing areas of Africa are increasing, and there is a strong positive linkage between the sizes of human and livestock populations due to the need for stock to meet subsistence needs. Thus these systems will be expected to produce even more in future from the same land resource base.Existing pastoral systems evolved over many years when the pressure on grazing lands was less intense than it is at present. Thus the limitations and fragility of the resource base were not appreciated, either by the pastoralists themselves or others concerned with their welfare. Periodic catastrophes caused by drought or disease were expected, with their attendant impacts on animal and human populations. This situation has changed somewhat over the last few decades, with the introduction of a variety of technical innovations and structural changes. For example, the rinderpest campaign has removed a major source of mortality in domestic cattle across the continent; however, by permitting livestock pro ducers to keep higher average herd sizes over time, the elimination of rinderpest has indirectly contributed towards increasing pressure on grazing resources. The development of water supplies has made grazing areas accessible which were previously little used and changed seasonal grazing patterns. Overall, this develop ment has been favourable, but it has also resulted in overgrazing and non-revers ible range degradation in many areas.Certainly many of the effects of development, both positive and negative, were foreseen, and, on balance, the changes brought about have probably been positive. However there are now few relatively empty areas in the pastoral zones of Africa and pastoral production systems are, according to many observers, already near the limits of their capacity. For this reason, it has become increasingly important that the consequences of any proposed changes be fully elaborated before they are introduced to the real systems. Despite important differences among various livestock production systems in Africa, for example in the degree of association with agriculture or the extent and nature of stock movements, all are concerned essentially with the conversion of forage and other feed resources, via the animals and in the context of manage ment regimes, into flows of products of use to man. The management regimes regulate the scheduling of some of the biological processes £uch as the breeding season and age of calves at weaning) and the timing and rates of offtake from the herds.The forage resources of many African pastoral systems are held commu nally. They are characterized by low levels of productivity per unit area and high variability in yields, both within and across years. Where grazing resources are held in common, the individual herd manager has few choices or opportunities to improve the supply of forage to his herd at any given time, and is limited primarily to moving his animals as the forage resources in one location are depleted. Some systems similar to commercial ranching do exist, with privately owned stock on privately owned and fenced land, as for example in Botswana and Kenya. However, they account for only a small fraction of the total yield of livestock products from the pastoral areas. In both types of production system, there is a substantially high residual variability in the resource base, and this is becoming more severe as livestock and agricultural enterprises expand, restricting the range of herd movements. This variability in the supply and quality of forage on offer compounds the variability inherent in the animal-level biological processes. However, within the confines of the production environment, managers have important means at their disposal to regulate their herds and the flow of pro ducts from them. To a large extent the day-to-day or season-to-season perform ance of the herd is determined by the management practices followed. The benefits of some of these practices are obvious, but other practices have complex multiplicath e and feedback effects which may become apparent only after considerable time. For example, in a particular production system taking a higher proportion of cow's milk for human consumption may be considered desirable. The uninfor med observer, judging from a seemingly small short-term effect on calf growth, may be inclined to recommend such a practice on a routine basis. Such a decision, however, would ignore what might be a major effect on the condition of the cows and their subsequent reproductive performance, as well as the long-term effects on the calves of energy deprivation at a crucial stage in their development. These effects are not apparent at the time when the extra milk is taken. Another example is late weaning of calves. If the females of a breed have relatively long and highyielding lactations, any extension of the calf weaning age will make extra energy demands on the dams. If this extended lactation period coincides with the season when forage is limited and of poor quality, the cows will lose considerable weight and the period to the next conception will be delayed, resulting in lower calving rates. The gains to the calf from the additional milk may or may not compensate for the cost in reproductive performance. Again, the trade-offs are not clear.::;• These simple examples illustrate the complexity of the interactions between a cattle herd, the forage resource and the management regime, and the importance of having a facility to make forward projections of the consequences of changes in a cattle production system. Such a facility, an analytical model, should be able to project herd performance and productivity, taking into account the essential responses of animals to forage and management practices.A model of cattle production systems will have several features if it is to be applicable to a range of production situations and of use as a tool to comp lement more traditional research, particularly by allowing the integration of re search results into a more holistic view of the target system. These features are described below:1.The processes of reproduction, growth and death are fundamental to cattle production systems: together they are the major determinants of overall herd productivity. As such, they should be depicted separately in the model and their effects should, to the extent possible, be determined endogenously as functions of other factors embedded in the model.As there are many components of livestock systems which are inadequately researched and understood, the more complex and comprehensive a model the more appropriate it is to incorporate stochastic features reflecting the limited understanding of the processes involved. This implies that some of the components of a herd model will be stochastic because the determi nants of many processes cannot be specified accurately in detail. For example, the complex set of variables which determine forage supplies to a herd are incompletely understood, as well as sufficiently complex to require a major separate modelling effort. Thus forage supplies in a herdlevel model are best represented probabilistically (i. e. as stochastic variables), thereby reflecting the observed variability in real production systems.A model must be validated if it is to be useful for studies of a particular production system. Thus, the structures in a model should be based upon data readily observable in the corresponding real systems.Similarly, the output of a model should principally be parameters with real-world counterparts. The use of artificial variables should be mini mized because the functioning of any component of the model with artificial variables can only be verified and validated as a logical expectation to which no probability can be attached.The model must be time dynamic in order to schedule correctly events and the responses to events parallelling those in real production systems. The computational cost of specifying time in a model as a continuous variable is massive. Thus a discrete time-step must be specified for calculationĥ aving regard to computational requirements, the availability of data for model specification and validation, and the appropriate interval to account for the important dynamics in the real systems.Models which represent animals as integer entities have a direct corre spondence to reality, as in such models animals are born, die, are preg nant or not pregnant, and so on. The mechanisms in the model then manipulate the status of individually simulated animals. This has oper ational advantages over non-integer formulations as computations are generally more efficient and the output is readily understood. In noninteger formulations, a herd is described by classes of animals which are to a large extent artificial. These classes vary through time, even for the same herd size, as they are fractionated and recombined. The inter pretation of output from models with non-integer representations of animals is more difficult, particularly for small herds, which is usually the case in Africa.Where a variety of different management regimes are feasible, and this is the rule rather than the exception in African cattle production systems, the model should permit specification of regimes in sufficient detail to allow simulation of the available options.Optimizing models oblige the analyst to specify an objective function. As herds in Africa are managed to satisfy many objectives, and the ranking of these often varies through time according to the status of the system, it is more appropriate to formulate and use non-optimizing models of livestock production systems. The output from such non-optimizing models can then be evaluated relative to a range of objectives. This approach avoids a common problem of drawing incorrect conclusions because of misspecification in the objective function.To be useful for the analysis of a production situation other than the one for which it was first developed, a model should be designed so that its components can be modified, added to or deleted with a minimum effort.A modular structure is best able to satisfy this requirement. It is also important to document a model fully so that it can be used by persons other than those originally responsible for its design and development. Finally, the computer code should be written in a language routinely available on a wide range of digital computers -for example FORTRAN.Together, these features imply that the best model of a livestock production system is time dynamic, stochastic, non-optimizing and treats simulated animals as individual entities. Several different models of cattle production systems have been developed for particular purposes over the last decade, but none has included this combination of features. Most have emphasized economic analyses, with insufficient attention to the underlying biological processes. By contrast, most of the changes introduced into livestock production systems in Africa have been tech nical innovation packages focused primarily on increasing biological performance; only rarely have development efforts focused exclusively on altering the economic context of production.The World Bank developed a herd projection model (IBRD, 1972) which has been followed by a number of similar models (such as BAE, 1974;IADB, 1975) which simulate future herd numbers in yearly time-steps, with deterministic herd productivity parameters for each year provided as data. The IADB (1975) model is a derivative of the IBRD one (1972). These models are most often used to calculate the rates of return for various sets of assumptions about the effects of investment. The BAE (1974) model is similar in most respect^but also includes a facility to preset the sequence of year-types occurring throughout the planning period. The different year-types assign different carrying capacities to the range area being considered. In this way, this model represents an important source of variability in the system, albeit simplistically.The ranch model developed at the Centro International de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) (Juri et al, 1977) is of more general application. It also uses a yearly time-step and stresses the financial aspects of ranch development, but, in addition, it has several stochastic components which permit evaluation of the risks involved in pasture development. It was designed for application in a ranch ing area of eastern Colombia where pasture establishment has a significant chance of failure in any year. Dahl andHjort (1976, 1979) developed a simple projection model to evaluate long-term herd dynamics on the basis of different assumed calving and mortality rates. This model focuses on aggregates and uses only two parameters to describe herd performance, and therefore can be used only for understanding demographic trends in large populations of stock. The authors have used the model to evaluate the recovery period for cattle, camel, and sheep and goat herds from a hypothetical 2-or 3-year drought.Researchers in the Animal Science Department of Texas A&M University (Sanders and Cartwright, 1979;Smith, 1979) have developed, tested and applied a cattle production model which focuses on biological responses at the herd level to various sets of production conditions. The specification of a cattle genotype is provided as data to the model. It is a deterministic model and comparisons between runs are made using the results generated when steady-state conditions are reached at a future date in simulated time. This model is an important advance over others which do little to represent the basic biological processes. Furthermore, calculations are made in monthly time-steps. In the original formu lation of the model, however, cattle in the simulated herd are not represented as integer entities, which makes it more appropriate to systems where the herding units are relatively large. Development of this model is continuing, including an integer version, and the perceived utility of its application to production problems in Guyana (Davis et al, 1976), Colombia (Cartwright et al, 1977), Venezuela (Ordonez, 1978) and Botswana (ILCA, 1978) has encouraged the group to initiate work on a sheep and goat model with similar features.The structure of the model described here was influenced by ILCA's experience in the application of the original Texas A&M model in Botswana (ILCA, 1978) and the features considered essential for the evaluation of livestock produc tion alternatives in Africa as discussed above. Chapter 2 provides the analytical background to the biological relationships represented in the model, based on quantitative evidence reported in the literature. The detailed algorithms used in the computer simulation model are elaborated in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 outlines the necessary steps for the application of the model. The appendices suggest analytical procedures for estimating parameters required as inputs to the model, based on field data.In general, forage intake by cattle grazing extensively is influenced by the age and physiological status of individual animals, the quality and quantity of the forage on offer, and the environment, including management and climatic factors. Considerable experimental work has been done, particularly in the last two decades, attempting to quantify the separate influences of the individual determi nants of intake. This work has suffered from a lack of standardization in the definition of the experimental animals used, the environment of the experiments, the quality and quantity of forage on offer, and above all, a clear definition of the variables being measured. Consequently, it is difficult to synthesize this work into a comprehensible framework; most attempts have only indicated the direction of effects or have achieved quantifications with limited applicability (Balch and Campling, 1962;Baile and Forbes, 1974;Bines, 1976;Cordova et al, 1978). This section deals first with a synthesis of selected experimental work leading to a specification of ad libitum intake by cattle. An approach is then proposed to modify the specification of ad libitum intake according to the particu lar environment of the system under study.Voluntary consumption of forage is limited primarily by the rate of passage of food through the digestive tract. This rate is, in turn, a function of the digestibility of the forage consumed. As a consequence, other factors being equal, digestibility should explain variations in voluntary forage consumption.Several studies have focused on the extent to which digestibility does in fact explain voluntary forage intake. In grazing situations with a highly variable mix of forage on offer and a high portion of roughage in the diet, the digestibility of the forage is recognized as the predominant factor limiting voluntary food intake (Campling et al, 1962;Blaxter and Wilson, 1962;Conrad et al, 1964;Montgomery and Baumgardt, 1965;Conrad, 1966;Hodgson, 1968;Karue et al, 1973;Baile and Forbes, 1974). As digestibility increases, intake increases substantially, but over a certain level of digestibility (about 65%) voluntary dry matter intake, ceteris paribus, becomes negatively related to digestibility (Conrad et al, 1964;Montgomery and Baumgardt, 1965;Conrad, 1966). Thus, on a diet of highly digestible concentrated feeds, voluntary intake is very closely related to the animal's requirements (Coppock et al, 1974).Although experiments have shown a strong relationship between voluntary feed intake and digestibility, results cannot be generalized beyond the particular contexts of the experiments. Most of the experiments reported related to mature animals at a certain physiological stage, fed on forage whose digestibility was altered, either artificially through mixing with concentrates or naturally as the growing season progressed.The usual method of estimating the voluntary forage intake of freely grazing animals is by faecal output (for instance, Conrad et al, 1964;Elliot and Fokkema, 1961;Elliot et al, 1961;Corbett et al, 1963;Hodgson, 1968). Daily intake (I) and daily faecal output (F) are related aswhere d is the digestibility fraction of the forage consumed. Faecal output is usually expressed on the basis of metabolic liveweight, i. e. 0.73 F-aW (2.2) where a is the rate of passage through the digestive tract (kg/kg metabolic weight/ day), referred to as the physical limit.Other things being equal, this rate is a function of the physiological status of the animal (e. g. pregnancy, lactation, etc). Thus, in general a = f(p) (2.3) where p is physiological status. Equations (2.1), (2.2) and (2.3) solved for I yield: 0 73 I = f(p)W * /(1-d) (2.4) where: I = forage intake (kg/ day) W = liveweight (kg) d = digestibility of forage consumed (fraction) f(p) »= the rate of passage through the digestive tract (kg/kg metabolic weight/day) which is in general a function of the animal's physiological status.Most reported results fall within this general specification, with differences between the functional forms depending on which variable is held constant. Of • studies carried out in tropical Africa, one of the most comprehensive, in terms of number of animal physiological situations analysed, length of observation period, digestibility range covered and completeness of recorded results, is reported in Elliot and Fokkema (1961) and Elliot et al (1961). Observations of intake were made for a continuous period of 2 years under natural pasture grazing without supplementation. All possible physiological situations were observed, including dry, pregnant and lactating animals. The digestibility of the forage consumed ranged between 42 and 65%, and a highly significant relationship between intake and digestibility was estimated. On the basis of the figures reported by Elliot et al (1961), the derived rate of passage through the digestive tract (coefficient a) for dry cows was 0. 042, for cows in the last 3 months of pregnancy it was 0. 045, and for lactating cows 0. 049. Thus, the intake of pregnant and lactating cows was about 7% and 15% higher than the intake of dry cows. The stage of lactation might also have an effect on intake. Elliot and Fokkema (1961) suggest on the basis of their observations that the lactational stimulus on appetite declines as lactation progresses, so that at weaning the differences between lactating and dry cows are relatively small. However, a comparison by Corbett et al (1963) of intake figures for cows from the 2nd to 4th months of lactation with those for cows from the 5th to 7th months of lactation revealed no apparent relationship between intake and the stage of lactation.Caution should be used in extrapolating the rates of passage derived from the figures reported by Elliot et al (1961) beyond the digestibility limits of 42 to 65% within which they experimented. Very low quality forage, for instance with a crude protein content below 6% which corresponds to approximately 40% digesti bility (Glover et al, 1957), substantially depresses forage intake. To account for this effect, Sanders and Cartwright (1979), drawing from results reported by Campling et al (1962), assumed an additional multiplicative adjustment in volun tary intake for crude protein (CP) less than 0. 06 (6%) by the factor (CP/0.06) ' . Assuming a close relationship between crude protein and digestibility, this adjust ment can be expressed in terms of digestibility alone, defined as (d/0.4)0,6, being in effect when digestibility is below 40%.Similarly, as digestibility rises above about 65%, chemostatic or thermo static mechanisms appear to regulate intake (Montgomery and Baumgardt, 1965;Conrad et al, 1964;Conrad, 1966;Baile and Forbes, 1974), implying, ceteris paribus, a constant energy intake for these high digestibility levels. Thus, it will be assumed that when the digestibility of forage is greater than 65% the animal's feed intake will be adjusted to maintain metabolizable energy equal to the level at 65% digestibility, as implied by equation ( 2 This constraint to voluntary intake at high digestibility levels is referred to as the physiological limit.In addition to the quality of the forage on offer and the size and physiologi cal status of grazing animals, the level of ad libitum intake is also a function of the animal's age. Very young calves (1 to 2 months) consume insignificant quantities of forage as they cannot digest a greater intake. The digestive system of ruminants develops gradually, reaching adult capacity at about 18 months.Relatively few quantitative estimates of voluntary forage intake by young animals are reported in the literature. Hodgson (1968) experimented with calves from 3 to 6 months, grazing on forage of digestibility ranging from about 65 to Intake was linearly related to digestibility within this range, indicating that the chemostatic mechanisms which limit intake in mature animals are not operating in young, rapidly growing calves. The relationship obtained was: I = (-0.143 + 0.3d) W0*73 where: I = daily voluntary intake (kg dry matter) d = digestibility (fraction) W = liveweight (kg).Information is apparently lacking on forage intake by young animals at low digestibility levels. An extrapolation of the above function implies that intake would be zero for digestibility below about 48%, which indicates that extrapolation downwards for the full range of digestibilities encountered is not possible. However, Hodgson also reports information on faecal output which provides an indirect measure of intake. He found that daily faecal output had an upper limit of about 22 grams per kg metabolic weight. Thus, voluntary intake by calves can be expressed by the equation (2.4), where coefficient a has the value 0.022 or about 53% of the coefficient obtained for dry cows.Similarly, although it is recognized that the voluntary intake of old animals is reduced due to loss of teeth and other problems associated with aging, quantified data are lacking. Sanders and Cartwright (1979) assume that voluntary intake is reduced by 3% for each year of age beyond 8. Thus, for animals older than 8 years, voluntary intake as reported earlier is adjusted in a multiplicative fashion by the factor (1 -0. 03 (t -8) ), where t is age in years.In summary, ad libitum intake by freely grazing cattle can be expressed as a function of the quality of the forage on offer and the age, size and physiologi cal status of individual animals. However, it would be incorrect to apply the absolute levels of the intake coefficients as reported above to all production systems. Other factors, such as the palatability of the forage, ambient tempera ture, regularity and quantity of water on offer and breed adaptability, have not been explicitly included. However, in relative terms, the intake coefficients for various classes of animals should be comparable between different production systems. Thus, as explained later in Section 3. 3. 1, the intake coefficient for a reference class of animals is estimated, based on observations from the system under study, and from this estimation the intake coefficients for other classes of animals are obtained.The estimates of forage intake reported above assume an ad libitum feeding regime and also adequate time for grazing. In many systems intake might be reduced because the quantity of forage on offer is limited, or daily grazing time might be restricted due to environmental constraints (such as heat) or con siderable time spent walking. Greenhalgh et al (1966) studied the effect of grazing intensity on herbage consumption and estimated that about 60% excess feed should be available for maximum consumption to be achieved. Similarly, Zemmelink (1980) studied the effect of selectivity on voluntary intake and estimated that 15 to over 40% excess feed was required to achieve maximum intake, depending on the quality of the forage. The general model suggested is: m ll -e-<Px/m)h 1/h where: y = level of voluntary intake x = quantity of forage on offer m = upper limit for y p = fraction of the forage which may be considered edible or acceptable h = a parameter indicating the shape of the relationship between x and y.This specification assumes no limitation on the time available for feeding and thus might not apply in many situations. Wilson and Flynn (1974), for example, report that beef cattle offered grass silage ad libitum required at least 6 hours access for maximum intake. Access times for extensively grazing cattle would be expected to be much higher for maximum intake, depending on the spatial concentration of the forage on offer. Thus, a more complete specification determining actual intake should take into consideration both quality and quantity of forage on offer and the time during which animals have access to this forage. The following is an attempt to provide such a general specification, starting with the assumption that the rate of forage consumption per unit of time is a function of the quantity of the forage on offer, provided the forage quality is adequate and the forage can be consumed by cattle: r = f(Qx) (2.6) where: r = rate of forage consumption (kg dry matter/hour) Q = quantity of consumable forage on offer acceptable to the grazing animals (kg dry matter/ha).It should be expected that 3r/3Q ^0That is, the rate of consumption is higher, the higher the quantity of acceptable forage on offer. The general shape of the relationship between r and Qiis depicted in Figure 2.1.Whether the level of voluntary intake is achieved as estimated from the digestibility fraction depends on the quantity of acceptable forage on offer and .the length of grazing time allowed in the system under consideration. The forage on offer will be characterized by a quality distribution function as shown in Figure 2. 2 which provides the relative quantities of forage of different digestibilities. From this distribution function, it is possible to obtain a forage supply curve as shown in Figure 2. 3 relating quantities of forage on offer above a given digesti bility level. Thus, if d is the average digestibility of the total forage on offer (Q ) and if the total forage is consumed, then its digestibility will be equal to d.  In general, animals will reject forage below a certain minimum digestibility (d ) which implies an average digestibility of acceptable forage d , and a corresponding quantity Q , such as d > d and Q < Q .Given relationship (2. 6) between the rate of consumption and the density of the forage on offer, the total intake during h hours of grazing time will be I = r.h = f(Q ).h (2.7) where: I = total intake (kg) h = grazing time (hours).This relationship suggests a trade-off curve between the quantity of forage on offer in a given area and the length of grazing time. A given intake level can be obtained from dense forage in a short time or from less dense forage over a longer period. These trade-off curves will be called isointake curves, representing the different combinations of forage on offer and length of grazing time that will yield the same intake. Figure 2.4 shows a family of isointake curves for different intake levels.In any real situation, the time actually available for grazing (h ) is limited by management and environmental factors, while forage on offer is limited to the quantity of a minimum acceptable digestibility level (Qi). Thus me feasible set of forage quantity and grazing time is shown in the shaded area of the figure.Thus, the level of voluntary intake as estimated from the digestibility fraction is achieved if its corresponding ad libitum isointake curve crosses the feasible set of Figure 2.4. The maximum actual intake corresponds to the level of the isointake passing through point A. Conversely, if the ad libitum isointake does not cross the shaded area, then actual intake is less than the estimated voluntary intake.Organic nutrients obtained from the different sources of feed available to an animal are used for a variety of purposes, including the maintenance of body functions, the construction of body tissues, the synthesis of milk, and the con version to mechanical energy used for walking and other work. These diverse functions all require the transfer of considerable quantities of energy, so that in most situations when the energy requirements of the animals' different functions are met it may be assumed that the animal's non-energy requirements (protein, minerals and vitamins) are also met. Hence, the nutritive value of different feeds can be expressed by their energy content, or more precisely by their ability to supply energy with a high coefficient of conversion into usable energy for the different body functions.The gross energy contents of different forages are very similar, at about 18 MJ/kg (Hunt, 1966). As shown in Figure 2. 5, a portion of this energy is lost as faeces, while the remaining digestible energy (DE), proportional to the digesti bility (d) of the consumed feed, is converted into metabolizable energy (ME) after additional losses of about 19% of DE as urine and methane (Armstrong, 1964;MAFF, 1975). Metabolizable energy expressed as a fraction of gross energy is referred to as metabolizability (q), and relates to the digestibility of the consumed forage approximately as: q = 0.81 d (2.8) Thus, metabolizable energy obtained from a given intake can be expressed as:or equivalently ME = 181. q (2.9) ME = 14.6 I.dwhere: ME = metabolizable energy (MJ) I = feed intake (kg) d = digestibility of feed intake (fraction).The conversion of metabolizable energy into net energy is also associated with some losses as heat, which depend on the quality of the consumed feed and the body function for which the energy is utilized. In the most general case, energy use in an animal can be accounted for by its requirements for maintenance, lactation, pregnancy and growth. Thus, conversion of metabolizable energy to net energy is described by the relationship: E. = k.. ME = 14.6k..I..d (2.10) li 11where: E. = net energy (MJ) required for the i'th body function k. = coefficient of the efficiency of conversion of metabolizable into net i energy for the i'th body function I. = quantity of feed (kg) required to meet the energy requirements of the i'th body function d = digestibility of consumed feed. Solving (2.10) for I provides the quantity of forage needed to meet the energy needs of the i'th body function: I. = E./(14.6k..d) (2.11) Thus, for the calculation of intake required for the i'th body function, net energy requirements (E.) and the efficiency coefficients (k.) need to be specified. This is done in the next sections, followed then by formulae specifying the net energy released from the mobilization of body tissue in the case of inadequate feed intake and the energy available to calves from milk consumption.Maintenance can be defined as that state of the animal in which there is neither a net gain nor loss of nutrients (Kay, 1976). Maintenance requirements are estimates of the amount of nutrients required to achieve such an equilibrium. One component of the energy requirements for maintenance is referred to as basal  et al, 1978) metabolism, and is proportional to the metabolic body size of the animal. The second component of the energy requirements for maintenance relate to the level of the animal' s activity and can be expressed approximately by liveweight and the daily distance walked. Thus, following Blaxter (1969) and Webster (1978), total net energy requirements for maintenance can be obtained from the relationship: m = 0.376W°*73 + 0.0021 W.D (2.12) where: E = net energy requirements for maintenance (MJ/day) W = liveweight (kg) D = distance walked (km/day).The efficiency with which metabolizable energy is used for maintenance (k ) can be expressed as a function of the metabolizability of the consumed forage (see, for example, Blaxter, 1974;van Es, 1976;MAFF, 1975;Pigden et al, 1979): m 0.55+ 0.3 q (2.13) Substituting the values of (2.12) and (2. 13) into equation (2. 11) yields the feed requirements needed to meet energy for maintenance. In general, the quantity of feed required increases for heavier animals and greater activity and decreases for feed of higher quality.Net energy requirements for lactation are approximately proportional to the quantity of milk produced: E = e M (2.14) where: E = net energy requirements for lactation (MJ/day) e = energy content of milk (MJ/kg) M = milk yield (kg/day).The energy content of milk is approximately given by the relationship (MAFF, 1975): e = 0.0386 BF+ 0.0205 SNF -0.236 (2.15) where: BF = butter fat content (g/kg) SNF = solid s-not-fat content (g/kg).For example, for a BF of 54 g/kg and an SNF of 85 g/kg, which approximately corresponds to milk from Zebu cattle (Williamson and Payne, 1978), the calculated energy content is 3. 6 MJ/kg.The efficiency with which metabolizable energy is converted into net energy for lactation (k ) is less than that for maintenance. The suggested relationship (Pigden et al, 1979) The significance of the metabolizability coefficient is not very high (van Es, 1976), and a value for k of about 0. 60 is usually suggested (e. g. MAFF, 1975).Substituting the values of (2. 14), (2.15) and ( 2.16) into equation (2.11) yields the feed requirements to produce a given quantity of milk of a certain energy content. In general, the quantity of feed required increases for higher milk yields and higher energy contents and decreases for feed of higher quality.Net energy requirements for pregnancy involve the energy deposited in the uterus and associated tissues (E ), the energy associated with synthetic processes involved in foetal growth (Ep2T» the energy required for foetal maintenance and the increased maternal fasting metabolism occurring during pregnancy (E o). Thus total net energy for pregnancy as given by MAFF ( 1975) is defined as: The efficiency with which metabolizable energy is converted into net energy for pregnancy depends on the different end uses of this energy. Thus, associated with the three net energy expenditures as described above there are corresponding efficiency coefficients as follows (MAFF, 1975):where: k = the coefficient of the efficiency of converting metabolizable energy into net energy for maintenance given by equation (2.13).Net energy requirements for liveweight gain depend in general on both the liveweight gain achieved and the animal's present liveweight. A relationship suggested by MAFF (1975) is: ™ (6.28+ 0. 0188 W) Eg = DW.^' 5  where: Eg = net energy requirements for liveweight gain (MJ/day) DW = liveweight gain (kg/ day) W = present animal liveweight (kg).Conversely, the liveweight gain obtained from the availability of net energy Eg is given by the inverse of the above relationship, i. e.DW= Eg/ (6. 28+ 0.0188W+ 0.3 Eg) (2.19) The efficiency with which metabolizable energy is converted into energy for weight gain (kg) is lower than that for lactation and is given approximately by the relationship (Blaxter, 1973):However, for liveweight gain during lactation, kgis much higher and approxi mately equals the efficiency coefficient for lactation:or is even higher, according to experiments by Moe et al (1971).Substitution of relationships (2.19) and either (2.20) or (2.21) according to pregnancy status into relationship (2.11) yields the feed requirements for live-weight gain. In general, the quantity of feed required increases for higher liveweight gains and heavier animals and decreases for feed of higher quality.When energy derived from feed intake is insufficient to meet the animal's total energy requirements, then the energy balance is achieved by the mobilization of body reserves. This is common soon after parturition, but in situations of low quality and quantity forage on offer and without adequate supplementation an animal may need to mobilize body reserves to meet pregnancy and maintenance require ments.Body tissue has an energy value of about 20 MJ/kg. Energy released by tissue mobilization is lower than the energy that originally went into its synthesis. Moe et al (1971) obtained the following relationship for energy utilized for milk production and originating in body tissue loss: E = 0. 632  where: E = net energy deposited as milk (Kcal/kg metabolic weight) ME = metabolizable energy (Kcal/kg metabolic weight) TL = tissue loss energy (Kcal/kg metabolic weight).This expression indicates that the coefficient of conversion of energy from body tissue mobilization to net energy for lactation is 0.84. MAFF (1975) suggests a value of 0. 82. Thus, for example, if 10 kg of milk are produced, with an energy con tent of 3. 6 MJ/kg, drawing exclusively on body tissue mobilization, this would imply a weight loss of 2. 19 kg computed as (10 kg x 3. 6 MJ/kg)/(0. 82 x 20 MJ/kg).The same efficiency coefficient is assumed when energy released from body tissue mobilization is used to meet pregnancy or maintenance requirements.In general, assuming an energy value of 20 MJ/kg for body tissue and a coefficient for its utilization of 0. 82, the net energy available from the mobilization of body tissue is: E = 16.4 DW (2.22) where: E = net energy available for maintenance, pregnancy or lactation (MJ) DW= mobilized body tissue (kg).The amount of body tissue needed to meet a net energy deficit E is given by the inverse: DW = E/16.4 (2.23)Milk consumption is the main source of energy for young calves. The gross energy content of milk is given by equation ( 2. 15) as a function of butter fat and solids-not-fat content. The fat fraction of milk accounts for about 60% of its energy content and is highly digestible (almost 98% for young lambs) (Owen, 1976). The overall digestibility of cow milk is nearly 93% (MAFF, 1975), which implies a digestibility level of around 86% for its solids-not-fat content. Metabolizable energy from milk is also used with great efficiency, at about 75% for lambs (Owen, 1976).Based on these conversion factors, and assuming a close correspondence between lambs and calves, the net energy derived by calves from milk consumption is about 70% of the gross energy contained in the consumed milk (0. 93 x 0.75 = 0. 70). Thus the net energy available from a given quantity of consumed milk is given by: E = 0.70 e M (2.24) where: e = gross energy of milk (MJ/kg) as given by equation ( 2. 15) M = milk consumption (kg).The quantity of milk needed to meet a net energy requirement is given by the inverse:Reproduction in a cattle herd is a complex phenomenon. A number of factors have been identified in the literature as determining the rate of reproduc tion of individual females in a herd, including age, liveweight level and change, and post-partum period (Lamond, 1970;Buck et al, 1976;Newton et al, 1980;Pleasants and Ginindza, 1980).In estimating reproduction rates, the females in a herd are classified in two categories, heifers and mature cows. The timing of a heifer's first conception is a major factor influencing its lifetime productivity, and is usually subject to some control by management to ensure that conception does not occur when an animal is in poor condition and that subsequent calving will occur at an appropriate time. Primarily, however, the timing of the first conception is determined by age and liveweight (Lamond, 1970;Pinney et al, 1972;Siebert and Field, 1975;Drennan, 1977;Anderson, 1977). According to these and other studies, puberty is reached at an average liveweight which is largely genetically determined, though the standard deviations for age and liveweight at puberty are large. If animals are inadequately nourished, their growth rate is reduced and the onset of puberty is delayed (Joubert, 1963). This is particularly evident in harsh environments where nutrition levels for young stock may be seriously inadequate after weaning. In such cases, heifers may need to reach higher weights than normal for their breed at the time of first conception (Sparke and Lamond, 1968). The variability in age or liveweight at puberty is probably greater than normal in undernourished animals (Lamond, 1970). At the other extreme, heifers which have grown very rapidly tend to conceive less readily than heifers which have grown at a moderate rate (Reid et al, 1963).Assuming that age and liveweight account for most of the variability in heifer conception rates, then the above observations lead to the construction of a probability surface representing heifer conception, as presented in Figure 2.6. The relationship represented in this figure has the following features:1.There is a minimum age/liveweight combination at which conception can occur (point A).There is an 'ideal' liveweight at any age with a maximum probability of conception (segment (AD), the projection of the segment (AE) onto the liveweight-age plane).The non-zero probabilities of conception correspond to weights above a minimum liveweight boundary (W^n {} and below a maximum liveweight boundary (Wmax ^) characteristic of the breed and the production system.The surface is regular and smooth. Thus, it permits the derivation of isoprobability of conception curves, defining liveweight/age combinations with equal probabilities of conception.Such a formulation of the determinants of conception in heifers is well suited to use in a computer simulation model. The use of this formulation in regard to the other components of the model is discussed in detail in Section 3.3.3.1. For mature cows after first calving, conception rates are basically a function of age, with maximum calving rates achieved in the middle age range and lower observed conception rates for both younger and older animals. The general age effect on average conception rates is shown in Figure 2. 7. Such relationships are usually derived from an aggregation of data from several years (e.g. Buck et al, 1976). While they usually explain a high portion of observed fertility for different age groups, some unexplained variance arises principally from the particular management system used and genetic differences between animals. Shifts upwards or downwards in fertility levels would be expected for herds with higher or lower average planes of nutrition. Buck et al (1976) show such a curve for the total animal population observed, but not for each age class. Their results show substantially higher calving rates for cows in good condition relative to those in poorer condition. At the extreme, however, the reproductive performance of very heavy cows is marginally lower than that of cows in average to good condition.When sufficient data on conception rates exist and are disaggregated by age and liveweight, a family of curves can be obtained, with each curve corresponding to a given age class. An exemplary curve, for a given age class, is shown in Between these limits, the curve is smooth and continuous.The maximum conception rate corresponds to an 'ideal' liveweight for con ception, intermediate between Wjj^and Wmax and, in general, closer to the upper limit of liveweight. Conception in cows is also influenced by the length of the post-partum period. Conception virtually never occurs in the first month post-partum, but subsequently this effect diminishes rapidly. It is not usually considered signifi cant by the 2nd or 3rd month post-partum.Computer simulation of biological systems requires two basic simplifi cations. First,a system's processes have to be approximated with mathematical expressions involving only the subset of all possible variables that can be identified as determinants of each process. Second, although the links between the different interrelated processes of the system are time-continuous phenomena, they must be specified in discrete time-steps.A plethora of explanatory variables might be suggested on theoretical grounds as determinants of the outcomes of a complex system. However, if they are to be incorporated in a mathematical model they must be readily measurable, with some known degree of accuracy, and their individual impact on the system must be well understood. For example, the quality and quantity of forage on offer, animal activity and the physiological status of animals can be used as the major determinants of voluntary feed intake. Other factors, such as environmental temperature, humidity, palatability and toxicity, are known to play some role in influencing intake, but their quantitative impacts on intake are not adequately known. Thus, they are excluded from the simulation of forage intake.The selection of an appropriate time-step is also determined by practical considerations. A short time-step, say 1 day, would require the detailed quanti tative description of numerous micro-processes which might not be important in explaining the system's evolution over longer periods, which are more relevant in practical terms. A short time-step also requires a correspondingly frequent collection of a large volume of field data. However, such frequent data collection is generally not possible, or even justifiable. Finally, a short time-step substan tially increases computational requirements. These increased requirements will pose some limitation on the use of a stochastic model as large and complex as the one presented here, even given the high speed of modern computers.Based on these considerations a time-step of one month was chosen for the model. Herd-level field data are often collected at monthly intervals, so the use of this time-step facilitates model validation. Furthermore, a monthly time-step is generally adequate for the specification of management practices, such as breeding season, weaning age and supplementation.The transition in the status of each animal from one calendar month to the next during the simulated time period is determined by the set of biological pro cesses and decision rules embedded in the model. These are summarized in Figure 3.1. At the beginning of each month of simulation, the model determines the forage quality and quantity on offer and the activity level of animals in the herd. Forage on offer is simulated independently, based on historical time-series data. The details of the forage component of the model are elaborated in Section 3.2. After determining the forage on offer, the model determines the changes taking place in each animal's status during the month of simulation, using endogenous biological processes regulated by exogenous management policies. Each animal in the herd is processed independently, except for cows with suckling calves. Suckling calves secure at least a fraction of their energy intake in the form of milk from their dams, and the balance between energy demand and energy requirements is determined simultaneously for the cow and her calf to avoid over-or under charging the energy costs to either of them. * Five general components in the model account for changes in the biological status of animals in a month of simulation: these are the forage intake, energy requirements, production and growth, reproduction, and mortality. The algorithms determining forage intake are based on the analytical relationships presented in Section 2.1, adjusted to specific systems by the procedure elaborated in Section 3.3.1. Similarly, energy requirements for the different body functions are obtained from the relationships given of Section 2.2, depending on the level of each activity.Intake of feed energy is exactly balanced by its utilization for maintenance (plus pregnancy and lactation as required) and weight gain or loss. Separate pro duction and growth algorithms are used to determine liveweight changes for adult males, calves and non-lactating cows, as well as milk production and liveweight change for lactating cows. As shown in Figure 3. 1, the level of production and growth for individual animals may be influenced by exogenous management practices such as supplementary feeding, calf weaning, milk offtake and responses to drought. The details of the production and growth algorithms are elaborated in Section 3. 3.2, and those of supplementary feeding, milking, weaning and drought options are described in Sections 3. 4. 1,3.4. 2,3. 4. 3 and 3. 4. 7.The reproduction component of the model determines whether a non-preg nant cow conceives or a pregnant cow calves during a given month. Conception is modelled as a probabilistic process, qualified by the distinction between heifers and mature cows. Conception is influenced by nutritional status and management practices, described as breeding policy in   At the end of each simulated month, the model determines sales and purchases of animals, depending on individual animal attributes and on aggregate herd size targets, as specified by management. These components are discussed in detail in Sections 3.4. 5 and 3.4. 6. As extended periods of feed shortage are characteristic of semi-arid environments, the model includes a component to specify various selling or supplementation options to mitigate against the effects of drought. These are described in detail in Section 3.4. 7.The quantnty and quality of forage on offer to a herd under extensive grazing conditions vary substantially from season to season and from one year to the next. There are basically two approaches to incorporating this variability into a herdlevel simulation model. First, the biological processes determining primary pro duction can be described in quantitative terms as a subsystem, with forage output (quantity and quality composition) predicted from the driving variables of the primary production subsystem (see for example, van Keulen, 1975). Such an approach requires a statistical description of the variables of the primary produc tion s}rstem, including rainfall intensity and seasonal distribution, soil fertility, solar radiation and grazing pressure. In practice, the amount of information required to drive the primary production model is overwhelming, even in cases where the biological processes are well understood. Thus, this approach is impractical for a general herd simulation model with emphasis on secondary pro duction.The second approach, which is employed here, bypasses the underlying processes of the primary production subsystem. Instead, the model uses a statistical description of the quantity and digestibility of forage on offer, based on field observations from the production system under study. Of course, this specification of primary production as an exogenous factor means that there is no feedback to the primary production system of the effects of its exploitation,for instance of overgrazing.Like forage production, the seasonal level of activity of cattle herds is associated with environmental variability. Herd managers respond to the varia bility of forage on offer by seasonal migrations. Even in systems where forage is adequate throughout the year, the usual water sources might be exhausted for some periods so that animals must be moved to distant watering points. Excessive animal activity implies a significant additional energy cost and might also reduce forage intake due to the reduced time available for grazing. Both of these impacts are incorporated in the appropriate components of the model.The specification of the level of animal activity is directly related to the specification of forage on offer. A year of good rainfall implies adequate forage and water resources, so that relatively low animal activity levels are expected. Conversely, a year of poor rainfall implies limited forage and water resources, requiring higher levels of animal activity.Statistical information on primary production and animal activity must be available on a monthly basis. However, monthly observations of forage quantity and digestibility are not independent of each other within a given year, as the environmental conditions prevailing during the growing season mainly determine primary production for the whole year. Thus, field observations of primary pro duction have to encompass the full annual cycle. Analytically, a particular year outcome can be denoted by three 12-element vectors, Q, d and D, where Q de scribes the quantity of forage on offer (t/ha) for the 12 months of the annual cycle, d describes the corresponding average digestibility of the forage, and D gives the corresponding average daily distances walked (km). Several years' observations of these variables provide a basis for their statistical description as a multi variate probability distribution function:the vectors of monthly (1, 2, ... , 12) quantities and average quantities for a given year (t/ha). In general it is possible to obtain estimates for Q, d, D and zl from a limited number of yearly observations. However, tuese estimates will not be statistically significant unless information exists for a longer time series, of say 20 to 30 years. Thus, to make the model applicable to systems where time series records have not been kept consistently for a long period, an additional simplifi cation is introduced. It is assumed that it is possible to construct K representa tive year types which characterize the range of the possible outcomes of primary production in the system under study. Additionally, it is assumed that each out come has a known relative probability of occurrence thereby allowing for the specification of a probability distribution where the sum of K probabilities equals unity. Formally: such that the quantity, quality and activity vector for year type i (i = 1, 2, . . . , K), and the probability of occurrence of year type i(i=l, 2,...,K)At the minimum, K equals one, in which case this specification implies that primary production and animal activity are known with certainty and do not exhibit any year-to-year variability. A value of three for K implies that the primary production and associated animal activity of the system under study can be characterized in terms of 3 discrete year-types corresponding, say, to poor, average and good years. A maximum of 5 year-types is likely to be permitted by the data base in any one production context. To construct a more refined yeartype classification, adequate information must be available to estimate primary production variability in the more accurate form as specified by equation (3. 1).An example of a data set required for the specification of forage on offer, covering 3 possible year-types, is presented in Appendix Table F. 1.ALGORITHMS SIMULATING BIOLOGICAL PROCESSESThe general relationship determining forage intake by extensively grazing cattle, which emerges from the discussion in Section 2. 1, is restated here as follows:- The digestibility-of-forage-eorrection multiplier accounts for the effect of digestibility on the voluntary intake of animals (physical limit) and the adjustments to intake at very low and very high digestibility levels. Its specifi cation is as follows: The quantity-of-forage-correction multiplier and the grazing-timecorrection multiplier account for adjustments in voluntary intake due to limi tations in the quantity of acceptable forage on offer and the time available for grazing. During certain seasons, estimated ad libitum intakes might not be realized because of insufficient forage on offer and/or excessive walking require ments, such as to distant watering points or for migrations. Section 2. 1.2 explained in principle how these constraints could reduce voluntary intake below the ad libitum level. As the data required to estimate the relationships proposed in Section 2.1.2 are normally not available, a simplified formulation is employed here, based on a minimum of data. Assume: Q* = the minimum quantity (t/ha) of acceptable forage on offer, below which a reduction in ad libitum forage intake is observed D* = the maximum distance (km) walked per day, above which a reduction in ad libitum forage intake is observed.These two threshold levels imply that forage intake will equal the ad libitum level when both the quantity of forage on offer (Q) is greater than Q* and the distance walked per day (D) is less than D*. If either of these conditions is not met, then a reduction in the voluntary intake is assumed, though the extent of this reduction is an empirical question. The assumed effects of these two factors are shown in Figures 3. 2 and 3. 3, subject to validation for each particular system under study. Figure 3.2 implies a reduction to 50% of the ad libitum intake level when the quantity of acceptable forage on offer is 50% of the threshold level. Similarly, Figure 3.3 implies a 5% reduction intake below the ad libitum level for each km walked over the threshold level D*. Formally, the assumed multipli cative effect of the forage on offer (Q) on ad Zibitian intake is: The sex-correction multiplier accounts for the apparent higher appetite of young males (x = 1) relative to young females (x = 2). It is assumed that males up to 18 months have a 10% higher appetite than females of a corre sponding age. Formally, this multiplier is specified as: For the specification of the physiological-status-correction multiplier, the following animal classes (p) are considered:1.very young calves (3 to 6 months) 2.young and rapidly growing animals (7 to 18 months) 3.males and dry females (older than 18 months) 4.pregnant cows (last 3 months of pregnancy) 5.lactating cows, including cows which are both lactating and pregnant.Animal class 3 is taken as a reference class (i.e. m(3, t) = 1. 0). On the basis of this class, together with the literature reviewed in Section 2. 1. 1, the correction multipliers for the other animal classes are specified as: Finally, the intake coefficient of the reference class of animals (a) is calculated on the basis of observations from the particular system under con sideration. In any production system, there exists a calendar month of the most probable year type during which the reference class of animals is in equilibrium as regards liveweight, that is, neither gaining nor losing weight. This implies that the daily dry matter intake during this equilibrium month is just sufficient to main tain body weight for the reference animal at the level of activity for the month.The liveweight of the reference animal (for example, a 7-year-old dry female) is known, as are the quantity and digestibility of the forage on offer and the level of animal activity for the equilibrium month. The computation of the intake coefficient (a) is achieved by equating intake requirements, as specified by func tional forms (2. 11) to (2. 13), sufficient to allow exactly for maintenance and the animal's level of activity, with the functional form (3.2).For example, consider the forage on offer as specified in Appendix Table F. 1 and the breed as specified by the parameters given in Appendix Table F.2. Also assume that during an average year-type the reference class (7-year-old dry females) maintains liveweight during the month of April, when the digestibility of forage on offer is 0. 50 and the animals walk 12 km/day. The intake requirements to maintain a 350 kg animal at this activity level, as obtained from equations (2. 11) to (2. 13), are 7. 32 kg dry matter/day. The coefficient of intake for the reference class of animals is then computed by equating this equilibrium intake requirement with functional form (3. 2):1/(1-0. 50) . 1.1.1. 1. 1. a. 350 * ?3 = 7. 32 which yields an intake coefficient a = 0.0509.In addition to forage, the feed available to an animal could include supple ments. Provisions are made in the model for two types of supplementation: con centrates and high quality forage. In both cases, the quality and the quantity of the supplements are specified by management (Section 3.4. 1). Aside from their dif ferent nutritive values, thetwo types of supplements are distinguished in the model in terms of their impact on voluntary forage intake through grazing. Because con centrates are generally supplied in small quantities and are highly digestible, it is assumed that they do not have any positive or negative effect on the level of voluntary intake through grazing, although it has been reported in some studies, such as Campling et al (1972), that the provision of urea results in increased voluntary intake of very low quality forage. When supplementation consists of high quality forage, it is assumed that the quantity consumed reduces the amount of standard forage which would have otherwise been consumed through grazing. For each kg of high quality forage consumed, voluntary intake of the standard forage is assumed to be reduced by 0. 5 kg. In summary, concentrates are treated as net additions to voluntary intake through grazing, whereas high-quality forage is assumed to substitute for lower-quality forage which would have otherwise been consumed by a ratio of 2 to 1.3. 3. 2. 1 Liveweight limits and the condition index. A simulation model of herd productivity must include an adequate representation of the liveweight potential of the breed under study. Observed liveweights of individual animals of a particular breed are a function of the genetic characteristics of the breed and the production system in which they are maintained. When sufficient liveweight data are avail able for the system under study, the expected values of liveweights can be esti mated, as well as the distribution of liveweights according to age and sex categories. These statistics can then be used to estimate extreme upper and lower limits of fluctuations in liveweights such that observed liveweights will lie within these limits with a specified degree of confidence.Assume that the observed average liveweight evolution curve of animals of a given sex in the system under study is described by the following function: Wt = f(t) (3.3) where: t = animal's age (months) W = the average observed liveweight (kg) at age t and that the distribution of liveweights around W is given by the general function #: lWt ^$ (Wt, a2t) (3.4) where <?t = the estimated standard deviation of liveweights at age t. This is, in general, a function of t:°= g(t) (3. 5) Estimated parameters of functional forms (3. 3) through (3. 5) will depend on the production system in which the observations were made and the number of years over which data were recorded. If the observations were from a few years with below average performance, then the mean liveweights calculated will be below those which would be estimated if the data were recorded from another sequence of years more representative of the system under study. Similarly, the range of liveweights at any age estimated from a short time series will tend to be smaller than that estimated from a longer time series. Thus, ideally, these relationships should be estimated from data collected over an adequately long and representative time period, to express the full range of liveweight possibilities for the breed and system under study. The actual period required depends on the variability of environmental conditions in the system; where forage availability varies substantially from year to year, a longer period is necessary.Although statistical estimates of functions (3. 3) through (3. 5) could theoretically be possible, in practice they would require considerable crosssectional and time-series data to guarantee high levels of significance. Because such data are often not available, less stringent assumptions than those in (3.3) to (3. 5) have to be made for the specification of liveweight evolution and associated distributions. Thus, it is assumed that liveweights are distributed normally around their mean for a sex and age category, with a coefficient of variation k which implies a standard deviation of liveweight variability:A procedure is presented in Appendix A to permit an approximate esti mation of function (3.3) from a minimum set of data, when time-series and crosssectional data are not sufficient for direct estimation. The coefficient of liveweight variability is in general a function of age, and, for a given breed, of environment, reflecting adaptations to relatively favourable or harsh conditions. For modelling purposes, three categories of animals are considered: calves up to 6 months for which the major source of energy intake is milk from their dams, relatively mature animals (over 18 months), and animals in a transition period from 7 to 18 months. For the first category, the value of k is taken as equal to 0. 30, and it is assumed to be independent of breed and environmental variability. This value was found to reflect calf liveweight variability for a number of breeds and production systems, but it can be changed readily if it does not depict the situation for a particular application of the model. For mature animals, the coefficient of variation is provided as data, derived from observed liveweight variability for the system and breed under study. Finally, for animals in the transitional category, the coefficient of variation is computed by interpolation between 0. 30 and the coefficient for mature animals.Under these assumptions concerning average liveweight evolution and associated variability around the expected values for each age group, it is possible to construct an upper and lower boundary of liveweight variability. Thus, using a normal distribution, the 95% confidence boundaries for liveweight are defined as follows for each sex: The estimated range for each sex defines a feasible set of simulated liveweights. Figure 3. 4 depicts the general shape of the average liveweight evolution curve and associated liveweight boundaries and presents two exemplary cases of liveweight paths. Case 1 shows an animal with a below average nutritional status until it dies due to starvation at the time its liveweight drops below the lower boundary, W . at age t . The liveweight evolution of the second animal (case 2) min, t 1 depicts a more typical situation, where liveweight changes follow seasonal forage fluctuations. In this case, the liveweight of the animal oscillates above and below the mean for its sex and age, and it survives at least until age t .uThe upper boundary for each sex can be regarded in practical terms as the maximum liveweight of animals of the breed under study. Similarly, the lower boundary can be regarded as the minimum liveweight, below which death occurs due to starvation. Thus, no animals should be observed below that weight. It is recognized that this is a simplification of the complex set of factors which regulate liveweight and limit liveweight fluctuations, as substantial differences are ob served among individuals of a given breed. However, since data are often inad equate to ascribe particular genetic potentials to each animal in the simulated herd, it is assumed that all animals of the breed under study are genetically equivalent as regards their potential for liveweight gain and tolerance to fluctu ations in liveweight over time. Similarly, it is assumed that animals of the same class and physiological status have identical constraints on intake and identical feed conversion efficiencies.For an animal of a certain age and weight, a liveweight condition index can be defined depending on the relative position of its current liveweight vis-a-vis the corresponding upper and lower liveweight limits: liveweight (Wt) WmaX)t average liveweight evolution  The condition index ranges from 1. 0(when Wt equals Wmax t)to 0. 0(when W. equals Wmin, t). This index is used in the model to modify lactation yields and reproduc tive performance.The liveweight limits are also used to determine the maximum permissible liveweight gain or loss during a simulated month. At the end of the simulated month an animal of age t in months can at most increase its liveweight to W . -, or at most decrease it to Ww^t+1. Thus, the maximum daily liveweight increase (DW^) and decrease (DMjJ^)  and where a month has 30 days. These two permissible liveweight changes play an important role in the specification of the growth algorithms as described in sub sequent sections.The growth algorithms that follow determine average daily change in liveweight over a month of simulation based upon the energy content of the total feed available to each animal, and its requirements as specified in Section 2. 2. Intake of feed energy is used for maintenance (plus pregnancy and lactation when appropriate), with any surplus or deficit balanced by liveweight gain or loss. In a situation of energy surplus, if the resulting daily liveweight gain is in excess of DW* then the feed intake is reduced to the level which gives a gain exactly equal to DWmax. In an energy-deficit situation, if the resulting daily liveweight loss is greater than DW^iax, then for non-lactating animals the weight loss will exceed DWmax, and the animal dies due to starvation in the subsequent month if it fails to increase its liveweight above the lower liveweight boundary. For lactating animals, the energy expended on lactation is reduced (implying a reduction in milk yield) to the level where weight loss does not exceed DWmax. If the weight loss at zero milk yield still exceeds DM^ax then, as for non-lactating animals, the cow dies due to starvation in the subsequent month of simulation. The calculations to determine the balance between available energy and energy requirements are made on a daily basis, with productivity over a month calculated as 30 times the daily. changes.Growth algorithm for adult males. Energy intake by adult males in the simulated herd is used first to satisfy maintenance and second for weight gain. If the energy intake is not sufficient to meet maintenance requirements then body resources are mobilized as required and the animal loses weight. Energy is available from the basic forage on offer and from food supplements if they are provided.A descriptive flowchart of the growth algorithm for males is presented in Figure 3.5, indicating the computational procedures followed. Forage intake (If) and the forage requirements for maintenance (If^) are determined first. If forage intake is more than adequate for maintenance the animal will gain weight equivalent to the excess energy in the forage intake over the energy required for main tenance, plus the energy from any food supplements provided. If the energy from forage is not sufficient for maintenance but a food supplement is provided, then the total intake is compared with maintenance requirements: if intake is greater than requirements, then weight gain occurs, if less, then body reserves are mobilized to meet the energy deficit and the animal loses weight. Table 3. 1 illustrates the computational procedures involved in the growth algorithm for males. The exact relationships used in the calculations are shown in the footnotes to the table. Out of a total forage intake of 7. 58 kg/day, 3. 55 kg/ day are available for weight gain above maintenance requirements. This results in a potential daily gain of 0. 89 kg or 26. 7 kg for the month of simulation. Since this potential monthly gain is well below the maximum permissible, actual daily gain equals potential daily gain, i. e. DW = 0. 89 kg/ day.The milk production algorithm used in this model is shown in Figure 3. 6. Three factors determine the daily milk yield: the age of the cow, the number of months post-partum and the liveweight condition index. The maximum potential yield (Y^^) is usually realized by middle aged cows. The extent to which the milk yields of younger and older cows are reduced below this maximum depends on the breed and the particular production system. In general, the potential milk yield of a cow at age t can be expressed as: Y? = YP .y, (3.12) t max twhere: Y^= potential milk yield per lactation (kg) of a cow at age t Y = maximum potential milk yield per lactation (kg) of middled aged cows max y = potential milk yield realized at age t relative to the maximum (fraction).If sufficient data are available, it is possible to specify relative potential milk yields at all ages. Appendix B presents an analytical procedure for estimat ing the age effect from a minimum of data.The distribution of milk yield over a given lactation is primarily a function of breed and management environment. In general, the daily milk yield increases to a maximum by the 4th to 6th week post-partum and declines steadily thereafter. Exponential formulations have often been used to estimate lactation curves from weekly or daily data (Cobby and le Du, 1978;Wood, 1969). The time-step in this model is one month, so there is only need to approximate the lactation curve in monthly intervals. Thus the maximum potential daily milk yield during the n'th month post-partum can be expressed as: Digestibility of forage on offer (dj) 3.Threshold quantity of forage below which voluntary intake is reduced (Q*f) 4.Distance walked per day (D) 5.Threshold distance above which voluntary intake is reduced (D*) 6.Intake coefficient for reference class (a) In practice, the average monthly yields over the 1st and 2nd months post partum are approximately equal. For modelling purposes, it is assumed here that milk yields are equal for the first 2 months post-partum and decline linearly there after. This simplification of the lactation curve considerably reduces the field data required for its estimation, while retaining its essential attributes. Appendix C presents an analytical procedure and the data required for estimation based on these assumptions. The cow's energy balance during the current month and its nutritional status during previous months are principal determinants of the actual current milk yield (Broster, 1972;Lowman et al, 1979). The cow's energy balance during the current month is based on total available energy minus energy requirements? the algorithm dealing with this aspect is discussed in detail in the following section. The nutritional status of previous months can be summarized by the current liveweight condition index as given by (3.9). When this condition index is above 0.3, it is assumed that liveweight condition does not have any effect on potential milk yield. For a condition index below 0. 3, a linear effect is assumed, as depicted in Figure 3. 7. Formally, the assumed multiplicative effect of liveweight condition on potential milk yield is defined as mc = 1 for c ^0. Table 3.2 illustrates the sequence of calculations to determine daily potential milk yields. Based on the parameters of the system under consideration and the specific parameters of the cow considered in this example, the potential milk yield is calculated as 2.44 kg/day. This potential daily milk yield is used as ■f-   Length of lactation (N) 3.Fraction of milk produced in the first 2 months of lactation (h^2)Animal-related variables 4. Age (t) 5.Expected liveweight for age (Wt) 6.Coefficient of liveweight variation (kj.) 7.Current liveweight (Wt) 8.Upper liveweight limit (W max, t) • 9.Lower liveweight limit (W min, t) 10. Liveweight condition index (c^) 11. Fraction of maximum yield for a 5-year-old cow (y §) 12. Potential milk yield per lactation for a 5-year-old cow (YP5) 13. Period post-partum (n) 14. Maximum daily milk yield during the 6th month post partum as a fraction of total (hg) 15. Maximum daily milk yield during the 6th month post-partum (Mp5> 6 max)  an input to the calculations of the cow growth algorithm described in the following section. Depending on the total energy available to the animal, this potential daily milk yield may or may not be achieved.Growth algorithm for adult females. In general, cows use energy for maintenance, pregnancy, lactation and weight gain. In this model it is assumed that energy needs for maintenance and pregnancy are satisfied first. Maintenance and pregnancy are treated as joint and inseparable energy demands. If additional energy is available it is used first for lactation and then, only when full milk pro duction potential is realized, for weight gain. Energy needs for maintenance and pregnancy have to be met at all times, either from the food on offer or by mobilizing body reserves. Body reserves are also mobilized to meet lactation requirements.Figure 3. 8 is a flowchart of the growth algorithm for cows. The potential milk production of a lactating cow is provided to the algorithm, based on the cow's age, stage of lactation and condition (Section 3.3.2.3). Forage intake (if) is ( 4determined, and compared with forage requirements for maintenance (Ifm) and pregnancy (Ifp). The flowchart details the subsequent operation of the algorithm based on this comparison, with the calculations leading to predicted daily weight gain or loss. In summary, if overall energy intake is adequate, lactation require ments are met and any residual energy intake is deposited as weight gain. Body reserves are mobilized as required if the energy intake is inadequate for main tenance and pregnancy needs. If intake is sufficient for these functions but not  sufficient to meet calculated needs for lactation, then body reserves can be mobilized up to a maximum level corresponding to a weight loss DWmax (Section 3. 3. 2. 1). A downwards adjustment in milk yield is in effect when required body reserves for lactation are in excess of DW*L0 .The computation procedures of this algorithm are illustrated in Table 3.3. The production system and the status of the cow used in this example are the same as in Table 3. 2. In addition to forage intake, the cow is supplemented by 1. 5 kg of barley daily, which corresponds to 1. 29 kg dry matter as the dry matter content of barley is 860 g/kg.Forage intake by the cow is calculated as 6. 90 kg/day which is insufficient to meet the cow's maintenance and pregnancy requirements, due to its low digesti bility and the cow's excessive activity. The energy deficit for maintenance and pregnancy is fully met by supplements, with an excess 0. 28 kg/day of supplements available for lactation. As this is not sufficient to meet total lactation require ments, the animal will lose a calculated 0.40 kg/ day liveweight. Total potential weight loss for the current month of simulation equals 12. 0 kg (calculated as 0. 40 x 30) and is well within permissible weight loss limits. Thus the lactation require ments of the cow are fully met, the animal loses 12. 0 kg over the month, and at the end of the month has a simulated liveweight of 328 kg (calculated as 340 -12). 3. 3. 2. 5 Growth algorithm for calves. In the context of the model, a calf is defined as an unweaned animal whose energy requirements are met totally or partially by milk from its dam. In general, both forage and supplements may also be available to a calf. The algorithm in the model specifies that milk consumption has first priority for calves, forage is consumed next, and supplements are then consumed if they are available and can be utilized. In the model, the voluntary forage intake by calves up to 2 months is zero.The growth algorithm for calves is depicted in Figure 3. 9. Milk available to a calf (Ma) is taken as equal to the residual of the milk yield of its dam minus any offtake for human consumption. The quantity of milk required to meet the calf's maintenance (M^) is calculated and compared with the quantity of milk available. If sufficient milk is available for maintenance, then any excess milk plus any forage or supplements consumed results in weight gain. If insufficient milk is available for maintenance, then calculations are made to determine if the forage available can meet the maintenance deficit. If the available forage is also inadequate, then supplements (if available) are used to meet the remainder of the maintenance deficit. If available forage and/or supplements are inadequate, body reserves are mobilized to meet the residual energy deficit for maintenance and the calf loses weight. The calf gains weight when the total energy intake is greater than maintenance requirements, subject to the maximum permissible level of weight gain.The operational procedures of the algorithm are illustrated in Table 3.4. A 6-month-old male calf is taken as an example. In addition to 3. 5 kg of milk available from its dam, it also consumes 2. 03 kg dry matter of forage daily. Milk alone is not adequate to meet its maintenance requirements, leaving The system considered in this example is as described in Tables F. 1 and F. an energy deficit of 3. 70 MJ/day to be met by forage. The available forage covers this deficit fully, with an excess of 1.45 kg dry matter/day which results in a potential weight gain of 0. 58 kg/day or 17. 4 kg for the month. As this potential monthly gain is below the maximum permissible gain, the actual gain will also equal 0. 58 kg/day, and at the end of the month the simulated liveweight will be 117.4 kg (computed as 100 + 17.4). This formulation requires considerable data from the system under study for estimating the probability surface, as postulated in Figure 2.6. Such data are seldom available, however, even for production systems which have been relatively thoroughly studied. Usually, an age/liveweight relationship must be inferred from data on the age distribution of heifers at first calving, which can be translated into an age distribution at first successful conception. This distribution is usually skewed, as shown in Figure 3. 10 where t0 corresponds to the average age at first successful conception of heifers of average liveweight, Similarly ti and t^are the minimum and maximum observed ages at first conception, corresponding to heifers of very good and very poor liveweight condition, respectively.Operationally, the conditions for heifer reproductive maturity can be approxi mately specified from ages tj, tQ and t2 in conjunction with the breed's average liveweight evolution curve and the associated minimum and maximum boundaries, as specified in Section 3. 3. 2. 1. Liveweight Wj^t in Figure 3. 10 corresponds to the minimum liveweight of heifers at t2 required for reproductive maturity. Similarly, liveweights Wt and Wmax ^correspond to ages t^and tj respectively.The linear segments (AB) and (BC) define approximately the age/liveweight combi nations required for heifer reproductive maturity. The shaded area then defines the feasible age/liveweight set for the breeding herd. Whether a heifer of age t and liveweight Wt has reached reproductive maturity can be ascertained by checking on whether point (Wj., t) is in the feasible set. The relevant checks are: (3.16) where: Wmax ^, W^. and Wj^t are obtained from equations (3. 7), (3. 3) and and (3.8) after substituting t^, tQ and t% respectively.In addition to these physiological conditions for reproductive maturity, conceptions are only possible within the conditions of the breeding regime in effect, as specified in Section 3.4.4. 3. 3. 3.2 Conceptions. In any month of the breeding season, a fraction of cows in the breeding herd will conceive. Since the mechanisms underlying the loss of foeti before full term are difficult to model, it is assumed that conception results in a birth 9 months later, as the gestation period of cows is 284 days. Thus, since birth rates are perfectly correlated with conception rates,in the model, annual calving rates and conception rates are synonymous. The model calculates the energy cost for a 284 day gestation, although the simulated time is 9 months or 270 days.Wmax, t Figure 3.10 Age and liveweight combinations for heifer reproductive maturity Three variables were identified in Section 2. 3 as the main determinants of conception for mature cows: age, liveweight and the interval since previous calving. The individual effects on conception of the first two of these factors were shown in Figures 2.7 and 2. 8 respectively. Though these factors affect conception simul taneously, data do not usually exist to allow a multivariate estimation. At best, data exist to estimate the age effect on fertility, which notationally can be represented by: \\ ' f(t) where: t = age of cow (years) r = average annual conception rate corresponding to age t (fraction).For situations where adequate data are not available, Appendix D describes a pro cedure for approximate estimation using a minimum data set.Observed herd fertility corresponds to a particular breeding regime, ranging from controlled seasonal breeding to breeding year-round. The specifi cation of the breeding regime in the model is described in Section 3.4.4. It is assumed here that, other things being equal, a cow is equally likely to conceive in any month of the breeding season. This assumption implies the following relation ship between the expected probability of conception in a single month of the breeding season and the annual conception rate: v^-^v -(1-*vL-li\\ = \"rt (3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17) where: P = the expected probability of conception during a given month of the breeding season of a cow of age t L = the length of the breeding season in months.Given r^(annual conception rate) and L, equation (3.17) can be solved for P+ using, for example, Newton's approximation method.The actual probability of conception during a given month of the breeding season is also a function of the liveweight condition of the animal (c) and the number of months post-partum (n). As data on the effects of these two factors are usually limited, the simplest formulation of their effects is considered here, subject to validation for particular systems. Their respective effects are incor porated into the model in a multiplicative fashion as shown in Figures 3. 11 and 3. 12. The condition multiplier (mc) implies a reduction in the probability of con ception to 60% of its expected value when the animal has lost considerable weight (c = 0). Conception is more favourable than normal for animals at higher than average weights, with a maximum probability of conception at c = 0.90. For over fat cows, with a condition index greater than 0. 90, the probability of conception is assumed to be slightly depressed. Analytically, the assumed impact of liveweight on the probability of conception is: mc = 0.60+ 1.5 c mc = 0. 833 + 0. 33 c for c ^0.20 for 0,20 < c s 0.90 mc = 3.233 -2.333 c fore > 0.90.The post-partum period multiplier (mn) implies a complete prohibition of conception during the 1st month post-partum and no effect thereafter. Analytically, this multiplier is defined as: n^= 0. 0, m =1.0 n for n < 2for n ^2 .In summary, the probability of conception for an animal of age t, of con dition c, at the n'th month post-partum is given by the relationship:where: P^is derived from the solution of equation ( 3. 17 Births. Conception in the model leads to a birth after a 9-month ges tation unless the cow dies during this period. The sex of the newborn calf is determined probabilistically, with equal probability for either sex. If the calf is a male, no other attribute is determined at the time of its birth. However, for female calves three attributes are determined probabilistically at birth, based on the a priori probabilities of their occurrence in the simulated herd due to chance or genetic inheritance. These are conformation, fertility and milk let-down capacity.From experience, and according to his preference and standards, a herd manager will judge a female calf as having an acceptable or unacceptable confor mation for retention as a breeding cow. The probability of a female calf actually being born with bad conformation is provided as data. A random number between 0. 0 and 1. 0 is drawn for each female calf born; if the number drawn is less than the bad conformation probability, the calf is identified as having bad conformation and is designated to be culled according to the particular policy followed for the herding system under study. Some fraction, usually small, of a population of females of any particular breed will never conceive because of a variety of disorders. This intrinsic in fertility rate is one of the determinants of the overall fertility of a herd; its importance relates directly to the cost of maintaining an unproductive female until the herd manager can detect her infertility. While there are diseases which might result in infertility of previously fertile cows, it is assumed that such occurrences are of minor importance and accounted for in the specification of overall fertility rates. Hence the concern here is only infertility relating to probabilistic intrinsic factors.In the simulated herd this intrinsic infertility is determined at the time of a female's birth. The fraction of barren heifers out of the total number of heifers that reach reproductive age can usually be established from records made over a period of years. When a female calf is born, a random number between 0. 0 and 1. 0 is drawn from a uniform distribution. If this number is less than the given fraction of barren females, then that female is identified as barren. Until the point when they would be identified by management, all barren females are treated as any other females, subject to the same management policies. Barren females are disposed from the herd only when a culling policy is applied in regard to rep roductive performance; if such a policy is absent then a barren cow will stay in the simulated herd for an extended period until it dies or is sold for some other ' reason.The capacity of a lactating cow to let down milk for human offtake relates to its breed type, and within a breed to the particular psychosynthesis of individual dams. In a female calf this particular attribute can be considered inherited from its dam or attributed totally to chance. In either case, it is assumed that the fraction of cows that let down milk is known for the herd under study, as well as the portion of the milk yield that they let down. Whether a newborn female will be able to let down milk during her reproductive life is again determined probabilistically by drawing from a uniform probability distribution between 0. 0 and 1. 0 and comparing the number drawn with the specified probability that a female in the herd will be able to let down milk. If the number drawn is greater than this value then milk can be taken in the absence of a suckling calf. The maximum fraction of milk which can be taken in the absence of a calf is provided as data to the model.This cattle model focuses on the dynamics of herd-level productivity in response to different nutritional regimes and management practices. Because the principal source of variability in the model is in the quantity and quality of forage on offer, in any run of the model the simulated nutritional status of animals could vary considerably, and some losses could occur in the simulated herd due to nutritional stress. Thus, the model is structured so that deaths can occur due directly to nutritional stress if harsh production environments are being simulated. Additionally, the model allows for 'normal' losses caused by a complex set of factors not directly related to nutritional status.As detailed in Section 3. 3. 2. 1, the liveweight of any animal in the simulated herd is bounded from below according to its age and sex. The lower boundary corre sponds to the lowest observed liveweights of animal alive in the herd. If an animal loses sufficient liveweight or does not gain liveweight as it should in accordance with its increasing age, its age/liveweight combination may fall below this lower boundary, in which case death occurs with certainty due to starvation.In addition, in each month of the simulation each animal has a chance of death independent of its nutritional status. In this way the model accounts for the wide range of causes of death in real production systems. The specification of this source of mortality is based on observed annual 'normal' mortality rates for each age class in the absence of nutritional stress. Annual mortality rates are different for different animal classes. In some systems, a high mortality rate is observed for calves to 1 year of age. After the animals pass their early growth stage, their chances of survival increase rapidly. The lowest death rates are typically observed for animals from about 4 to 9 years. After that, problems associated with old age appear which are manifested in progressively increasing death rates.These general observations suggest that to simulate mortality with a reasonable degree of accuracy, age-related differences in mortality rates must be taken into account. This is done in the model by specifying two age groups, animals younger and older than 1 year. Within the first group calves up to 3 months are treated separately. Thus, if S-^is the survival rate to 3 months andS2 the survival rate to 1 year, then the monthly probability of death to 3 months (P-^) and the monthly probability of death from 4 months to 1 year can be calculated as:The monthly mortality rates obtained from (3.19) and (3. 20) are the test values in binomial trials where a random number between 0. 0 and 1. 0 is drawn for each animal from a uniform distribution. If the number drawn is less than the test value corresponding to the animal's age, then death occurs and the animal is removed from the herd.Annual mortality rates for animals over 1 year old are disaggregated by age. In cases where age-specific information is not available, Appendix E provides a procedure for estimating age-related mortality rates from a minimum of data. Annual mortality rates are used to calculate monthly rates, such that when compounded over 12 months they give the annual rates. As in the case of calves, these monthly mortality rates are the test values in binomial trials. For example, if the annual mortality rate for a given age is 5% (i.e. survival probability of 95% over a year), then the appropriate test value in the binomial trial is . 0043 (where (1 -. 0043)1= 0. 95). A random number between 0. 0 and 1. 0 is drawn and if it is less than the test value death occurs. Costs are incurred directly or indirectly when livestock are fed with supplements. Purchased feeds incur direct costs. Farm-produced supplements may be available, but in the context of the productivity of the whole farm it might be more advantageous to use them in another way, rather than feeding them to the cattle herd. In both cases, the type, quality and quantity of feed supplements available for livestock are limited. Thus, the level of supplementation, its allocation between different classes of stock and its seasonal distribution are important economic questions.As indicated in Section 3. 3. 1, two distinct kinds of supplementary feeds are considered: concentrates and improved quality forages. Additionally, it is assumed that supplements are only given when the digestibility of forage on offer is below a certain specified threshold level. The maximum quantities of supplements available per head are also specified by management.Supplements are usually provided only to particular classes of animals in the herd. Animals with higher energy needs, higher production potential or those considered essential to the long-term viability of the herd are commonly given preference. In the model a limited number of different animal classes can be supplemented. These are:1.female calves prior to weaning when the quantity of milk available from their dams is below a certain level (X )2. male calves prior to weaning when the quantity of milk available from their dams is below a certain level (X )3. female calves for a specified period in months (X ) after weaning 4. male calves for a specified period in months (X ) after weaning 5. lactating cows for a specified period in months (X-) after calving 5 6.pregnant cows for a specified period in months (X\") before calving 6 7. non-pregnant cows for a specified period in months (X7) before the beginning of the breeding season. This class only applies in a controlled breeding situation (see Section 3. 4. 4).8. steers for a specified period in months (X ) before the planned sale date 9. all animals whose weight drops a certain percentage (X ) below their expected weight.In addition to these specifications for particular animal classes, threshold levels of forage digestibility (d*g) must be specified for each animal class below which supplementation takes place, as well as the quantities of concentrates CL%) and/or improved forage Q%\\) available to each class and their respective digesti bilities (dci) and (dgi).An example of a supplementation policy is given in Table 3. 5, with three classes of animals specified for supplementation. Female calves (class 1) are supplemented prior to weaning with a maximum of 0. 75 kg dry matter/ day of con centrates of 83% digestibility if less than 2 kg/day of milk are available to them and if the digestibility of the forage on offer is below 60%. Lactating cows (class 5) are supplemented for the first 4 months after calving with a maximum of 2. 5 kg dry matter/day of improved forage of 65% digestibility if the digestibility of the forage on offer is below 50%. Steers (class 8) are supplemented for 3 months before sale with a maximum of 2. 0 kg dry matter/ day of improved forage of 65% digestibility, if the digestibility of the forage on offer drops below 45%. An appropriately high threshold level for any class will cause the animals in that class to be supplemented independently of the digestibility of the available forage, if so desired. Some cattle breeds require stimulation by their calves before they will let down milk for human offtake. In these cases, only cows with a calf at foot can be milked, and lactation will cease when the calf is weaned. Other breeds can be milked with or without a calf, with no difference in total daily yield. The capacity of a breed to let down milk without a calf is incorporated in the model with the specification of the milk let down fraction, as described in Section 3. 3.3. 3. After calves are weaned, only this fraction of the total potential milk yield can be removed for human consumption.Milk offtake for human consumption reduces the energy available to the suckling calf. It can also make additional energy demands on the lactating cow if milking together with suckling results in more milk taken than by the calf alone. A rational manager milks cows selectively, taking into account the condition of both cows and calves. Thus, lactating cows are grouped into a limited number of classes for modelling the milking process. A milking policy is based on a set of rules provided as data to a simulation run, comprising any combination of the following options:1.A maximum percentage (X* ) of a cow's daily milk yield can be taken from cows with a female calf at foot.A maximum percentage (X2) of a cow's daily milk yield can be taken from cows with a male calf at foot.For female calves, no milk offtake is allowed if the weight of the calf drops below a certain percentage (Xg) of its expected weight (W^. in Section 3. 3. 2.1).For male calves, no milk offtake is allowed if the weight of the calf drops below a certain percentage (X4) of its expected weight (W in Section 3.3.2.1).A maximum percentage (Xg) of the cow' s daily milk yield can be taken from cows in their first lactation.No milk offtake is allowed if the total daily yield is below a certain level 7.No milk offtake, is allowed if the weight of the lactating cow drops below a certain percentage (X7) of its expected weight (W in Section 3. 3. 2. 1).No milk offtake is allowed from a cow more than a specified number of months (Xg) pregnant.A milking policy specified, for example, with X^= 40%, X2 = 60% and X3 = 80% implies a maximum milk offtake of 40% for a cow with a female calf and 60% for a cow with a male calf. Additionally, milk offtake from cows with female calves will cease whenever calf weights drop below 80% of expected levels.The weaning component of the model takes into consideration explicit policies specified by management (controlled weaning) and particular circumstances when the dams cannot provide sufficient milk for their calves (enforced weaning). Controlled weaning can be specified in two ways. All suck ling calves may be weaned in a particular calendar month regardless of their age or liveweight. Such an option is only relevant in a controlled breeding situation when the calves are all approximately the same age. Otherwise, calves may be weaned individually when they reach prespecified ages and liveweights.Enforced weaning occurs before the appropriate calf age and liveweight levels have been reached if the dam dies, if her milk production ceases, or if she reaches the 8th month of her next pregnancy. These checks are made before the controlled weaning algorithm is executed.For both controlled and enforced weaning the linkages between the dam and her calf are broken. Thereafter in the simulation, the calf is treated as a separate animal.The breeding policy used in the model includes control over the breeding season and the condition and age of the animals to be bred. The breeding season is specified in terms of the calendar months each year when conception can take place. In this way, two or more separate breeding seasons could be specified. If no particular breeding season is specified, the model assumes year-round breeding. Within any month of the breeding season, the liveweight and age of each individual female must exceed prespecified limits. If such limits are not specified, then every mature female has access to breeding regardless of liveweight and age.Herds are often built up in ranch development schemes by purchasing heifers as breeding stock. Because these purchases are usually financed by loans, they are scheduled in advance over a period of years, with the type of animal purchased and the time of purchase each year detailed in the ranch development programme. Because the elapsed time between the acquisition of breeding stock and the sale of their progeny is typically at least 3 or 4 years, the ranches will, overall, have negative cash flows during this period. For this reason, shortterm steer-raising enterprises are often included in the first years of a ranch development programme to provide a high rate of capital turnover and a cash surplus needed to finance the negative cash flow of the breeding enterprise. So that the model can be used in ranch development schemes, it permits detailed specification of both heifer and steer purchases.It is recognized that opportunistic purchases of stock can and do take place. However, such purchases depend upon many factors, including the manager's perception of risk, the availability of cash and the relative and absolute prices of stock and forage, so they are considered beyond the scope of the current model.In this model, stock purchases can be made only during the first 5 years of a run. Heifers and steers purchases are specified as follows:1.Heifers can be bought during a given calendar month (dj) at a certain age (t^) and weight (W^), and in numbers N-^, Nj2,. . . t N^5 for the first 5 years of operation respectively.Steers can be bought during a given calendar month (d2) of a certain age (t2) and weight (W2)> and in numbers N21, N22,. . . , N25 for the first 5 years of operation respectively.An example of a buying policy is given in Table 3. 6. In this example, 46 heifers are bought in the first 5 years, all during the 5th calendar month (May), at an age of 36 months and weighing 240 kg: 15 are bought in year 1, 12 in year 2, 8 in year 3, 6 in year 4, and 5 in year 5. Thirty-five steers are bought in July (month 7), at an age of 24 months and weighing 200 kg: 20 are bought in year 1, 10 in year 2, 5 in year 3 and none in years 4 or 5.Purchased animals are treated exactly the same way as other animals in the simulated herd; they are subject to the same breeding, supplementary feeding and selling policies. As with buying policy, only prespecified selling rules are included in the model; opportunistic sales are not modelled. Animals are sold when they are no longer considered productive, when they reach planned market weights or ages or if the total female herd exceeds the target size, giving a marketable surplus of heifers.Sales of individual animals depend on liveweight and age conditions which have been specified for different classes of stock. These conditions are entered as data and apply throughout a run:1.Males after they reach a certain age (tj) and weight (Wj) are sold in a specified calendar month (d-, ).Females above a certain weight (W2) which do not calve by a certain age (t2) are sold in a specified calendar month (d2).Females with poor conformation are sold in a specified calendar month (d3) after reaching a certain age ^3) and weight (W3).Cows which have not conceived for an extended period (t4) since their last calving are sold in a specified calendar month (d4).Cows which are neither lactating nor pregnant and have reached old age (tg) are sold in a specified calendar month (d,-).An example of a sales policy is given in Table 3. 7. Males, barren females and females with poor conformation are sold during the 5th calendar month (May) when they reach 42, 60 and 42 months of age and weigh at least 350, 270 and 250 kg respectively. Cows are sold during the 9th calendar month (September) in either of two cases: if they have not conceived for at least 30 months after their last calving, or when they reach old age, specified in this example as 120 months. As specified in text.A second set of sale policy options available in the model specifies the conditions under which excess heifers are sold. Based on resource carrying capacity or other considerations, a target size of the breeding herd may be speci fied. The breeding herd includes all females which have reached reproductive age and have had at least one exposure to breeding. If this target size is exceeded, then the excess heifers are sold.In systems where the quantity and quality of forage on offer vary widely from year to year, a sequence of years of poor forage may occur, leading to a drought situation. The effect on the herd of such a situation will depend on many factors, including the prior condition of the individual animals, the age and sex composition of the herd and the management response, which could include stra tegic emergency sales of animals and/or supplementary feeding.In the context of the model, a situation is defined as a drought when the average liveweight condition index of the herd at the beginning of a simulated month is below a certain threshold value and the digestibility of the forage on offer during that month is not sufficient for maintenance of the reference animal. The threshold condition index for the herd used in the model is 0. 10.In such a drought situation, the model assumes that all animals other than, those in the breeding herd are sold. Calves at foot are weaned and sold and all lactating cows are dried off. All remaining animals in the breeding herd receive sufficient supplementation to maintain liveweight, with allowance for pregnancy requirements where appropriate. The quality of the drought supplement is pro vided as data to the model. The occurrence and duration of drought situations and the total quantity of strategic supplements provided are reported at the end of each run. Any computer simulation model, however general, is restricted by its design to specific classes of problems. To use a model to help solve real-life problems, they must be formulated to fit into the set of problems accounted for by the existing model. If this is not possible, the model will have to be altered, the problem at hand restated, or perhaps even a new model constructed.The first and most difficult stage in the simulation process is to construct a clear definition of a problem and to formulate explicit objectives of the simu lation experiments to give answers to the problem. These objectives usually take the form of hypotheses to be tested or effects to be estimated. The second stage is to determine whether the specific problem to be solved falls within the set of problems accounted for by an existing model. Application of an existing model may be straightforward, but, more usually, it would require some revision of the problem definition or the model or both.If an existing model is judged appropriate for the type of problem at hand, the third stage in the simulation process is the derivation of data on the particular production system under study to validate and run the model. Every simulation model requires a certain amount of data of adequate quality to operate. If the data requirements of a particular model cannot be met, then a less demanding model may be identified or a different approach to the research problem selected. Validation of the model for the particular system under study is the fourth-stage in the simulation process. At this point specific parameters in the computer model may need to be altered to replicate the processes of the real system. The fifth and last stage in the simulation process is experimentation with the model, leading to the testing of stated hypotheses and the derivation of measures ol the effects to be estimated.Experimentation with a herd simulation model consists of a quantitative description of the productivity of the livestock system under study, evolving over a finite time horizon. Figure 4.1 is a schematic representation of the livestock production process in an input/output framework. The production process starts at the beginning of the simulated period with an initial herd (specified as given in   F6) which evolves over simulated time into the final herd at the end of the run. The intermediate inputs and outputs during this period are the feeds of various types consumed and the milk and meat produced.The production process specified in this model is stochastic. Starting with the same initial conditions and management regime, an infinite number of different outcomes may result over a finite simulated time period. The variety of possible outcomes occurs because of the variability in the forage regime from year to year and in the animal-level processes of conception, sex of calves and mortality.Alternative production strategies can be compared and evaluated by generating a sufficient number of realizations from each strategy, or replications, to permit the calculation of statistically significant probability distributions for each of the critical variables. Less than 20 replications are usually adequate to identify significant differences between alternative production strategies. A larger number of replications results in progressively higher computational requirements. This model has been applied successfully in the comparison and evaluation of Tswana and Simmental x Tswana cows in Botswana as milk producers under alternative milking and supplementation regimes (Konandreas et al, 1981). Other applications to traditional herding situations in different environments of Nigeria and Mali have also been initiated.The computer model is written in standard FORTRAN language and is operational on a Hewlett-Packard 3000 series HI mini-computer. The model is highly modularized so that it is readily transferable to other systems. Changes in the FORTRAN code to account for peculiarities in particular production systems can be done without major changes in the programme's overall structure. The data required to drive the model are entered interactively. Consistency checks are made on much of the data as they are entered. A complete description of the structure of the computer model, the input data interactive dialogue, and the output of the model as currently formulated is available on request. Assume that quadratic functions give adequate representations of these two seg ments. Then the functional forms of segments (AB)and (JBC)are:-2 W = a + b t+ c t for segment (AB), where t ^t.-2 W = a + b t + c t for segment (BC), where t ^t..  The requirement of a convex curve after the point of inflection (property 4) is always met, as shown by taking the second derivative of equation (A. 3).Additionally, for the curve to be concave from below up to the point of inflection and monotonically increasing (properties 3 and 2), the following relationship must Preliminary applications of known situations failed to pass the test for concavity. In most cases, growth up to the point of inflection can be approximated by a straight line and in some cases a convex growth curve results. Thus, compelled by evidence from field situations, the usually accepted concave property of the liveweight growth curve up to the point of inflection is not enforced in the model.As an example, consider females in a particular system which have an average weight at birth of 25 kg (WQ = 25) and reach their maximum rate of weight gain at 18 months (t^= 18), weighing at this age on average 200 kg (Wj = 200). They mature at 4. 5 years (t = 54) with an average mature weight of 350 kg (Wm = 350). Substitution of these values into the inequalities (A. 5) satisfies the left side, implying a monotonically increasing function, but not the right side, implying a convex curve throughout. The estimated equations (A. 2), For a given breed and production system under a normal feeding regime, the fraction of milk yield produced during the first 2 months is approximately con stant (a typical value of this fraction is about 0. 35). Assuming that this fraction and the length of lactation (N) are known, then it is possible to estimate a simplified specification of a lactation curve comprised of two linear segments as in for n = 3,4,..., 9 (C.9) n Equations (C. 8) and (C. 9) imply that of the total milk produced per lactation, 17. 5% is produced during each of the 1st and 2nd months post-partum, and this fraction drops to 15. 5% in the 3rd month, 11. 4% in the 5th, 7.3% in the 7th, and a2% in the 9th month.The minimum data necessary to estimate segments (AB) and (CD) of the curve are the average calving rate (r^) realized by animals at the youngest reproductive age (t-i ), the maximum calving rate (1^3) realized between ages to and t%, and the calving rate (r^) realized at the oldest reproductive age (t^). Assuming that quadratic functions are acceptable representations of the segments (AB) and (CD), then the following equations describe analytically the effect of age on average annual calving rates: r, = \\ (tl -*2> \"r23+t2 \"rl For cows conceiving at ages younger than t-, and older than t^, values r-, and r, are assumed respectively.As an example, consider a production system where 3-year-old cows have a 50% average annual calving rate (tj = 3 and r^= 0.50), 5-to 9-year-old cows have a 75% average annual calving rate (t2 =5, t3 = 9 and r23 = 0. 75), and cows 12 years old and older have a 40% average annual calving rate (t4 = 12 and r. = 0.40). Substituting these values into formulae (D.2), (D. 3) and (D.4) yields: 2 r = -0. 8125 + 0. 625 t -0. 0625 t for 3 ^t ^5 r = 0.75 for 5 < t ^9 r =-2.4+ 0.7 t -0.03889 t2 for 9 < t ^12.F. Table F.6 illustrates the data needed to specify an initial herd. In this example, the initial herd consists of six animals, including two (animals 2 and 6) calves at foot. This data set must be consistent with the calendar date at the start of the simulation, in this example September 1981.The data set for each animal in Table F. 6 can best be illustrated by elabor ation of the details for animal 5. This animal is in class 15, so it is a cow with a suckling calf at foot to which it is linked. The calf is number 6 as indicated in the 2nd column of row 5. Dams and suckling calves are linked forwards and backwards because they are treated together in terms of their food energy demands. Animal 5 weighs 305 kg at the beginning of September 1981 and has had one calf, the calf currently at foot which was born in May 1981 (date 8105). This cow conceived again in August 1981 (date 8108) and therefore is expected to calve again in May 1982. Finally, the last column of row 5 specifies that the cow would be expected to let down 75% of her milk yield if she were milked after her calf is weaned. In this example, some cows let down milk when a calf is not suckling; others, such as no. 1, do not. The let-down fraction of 0. 75 for cow no. 5 implies that 75% of her potential milk production can be extracted for human consumption after the weaning of her calf.","tokenCount":"19667"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6dbe1475d1fa82725e1190e7073390a4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/e93780ce-e906-4772-861e-de8dbf7a2d69/content","id":"-1288037067"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"bc1be954-0a5d-4ce3-afc8-b17a97138aaa","pagecount":"20","content":"At present nearly half of the world's population is under some form of government restriction to curb the spread of COVID-19, an extremely contagious disease. In Bangladesh, in the wake of five deaths and 48 infections from COVID-19, between March 24 and May 30, 2020, the government imposed a nationwide lockdown. While this lockdown restricted the spread of COVID-19, in the absence of effective support, it can generate severe food and nutrition insecurity for daily wage-based workers. Of the 61 million employed labor force in Bangladesh, nearly 35% of them are paid on a daily basis. This study examines the food security and welfare impacts of the COVID-19 induced lockdown on daily wage workers both in the farm and nonfarm sectors in Bangladesh. Using information from more than 50,000 respondents complied with the 2016-17 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) in Bangladesh, this study estimates daily wage rates as Bangladesh Taka (BDT) 272.2 in the farm sector and BDT 361.5 in the nonfarm sector. Using the estimated daily wage earnings, this study estimates that a one-day complete lockdown generates a US $64.2 million equivalent economic loss only considering the wage loss of the daily wage workers. After estimating the daily per capita food expenditure separately for farm and nonfarm households, this study estimates a minimum compensation package for the daily wage-based farm and nonfarm households around the US $ 1 per day per household to ensure minimum food security for the daily wage-based worker households.By September 14, 2020, nearly 29 million people in 216 countries and territories have been sickened by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) or COVID-19 [1]. By that time, the COVID-19 induced death toll had reached more than 925 thousand globally [1]. The virus was first detected on December 31 st 2019 in Wuhan Province, China, and on January 11, 2020, China confirmed the first COVID-19 induced death followed by the first death in the United States on January 21, 2020 [2]. On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a global public health emergency of international concern [3].COVID-19 is an extremely contagious disease, spreading rapidly through human to human contact [4][5][6]. Until the time of writing this article, there is no effective medicine to cure or vaccine to protect from this virus. To curb the spread of this disease, national governments have imposed varying levels of movement restrictions. For example, by April 7, 2020, national governments of 32 countries and territories in Asia, 43 in Europe, 38 in the Americas and the Caribbean, and 44 in Africa imposed varying levels of movement restrictions [7]. Studies and opinions warned that the COVID-19 lockdown and restricted labor movement could generate havoc across the world [8,9], and could cause severe global food shortages by disrupting the supply chain [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Particularly, the one-size-fits-all approach of lockdown can aggravate the plight of daily wage workers in low-income countries. Considering this, one suggestion is to expand social safety net programs in developing countries [14]. However, to our knowledge, there is no solid study based on microdata that examines the economic loss due to the COVID-19 induced lockdown and the minimum compensation required to ensure the basic nutrition of the poor households.The present study uses information from 50,000 economically active workers in Bangladesh, collected by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), to quantify the economic loss due to the COVID-19 lockdown based on the lost wage earnings of the daily wage workers in the farm and nonfarm sectors of Bangladesh. Then, applying simple econometric estimation processes, this study estimates the minimum compensation packages for the daily wage-based farm and nonfarm households of Bangladesh that ensure their minimum food security during the lockdown. The rest of the study is organized as follows. The next section describes the current poverty situation and the COVID-19 induced restricted movement and lockdown in the world and Bangladesh. Section 3 explains materials and methods, and section 4 presents major findings. Section 5 provides conclusions and policy implications.To control the spread of COVID-19, at least 157 countries and territories in the world imposed varying levels of movement restrictions [7]. In Asia, 12 countries implemented localized lockdowns, 10 countries implemented national lockdowns, and the rests implemented localized or suggested national recommendations, such as maintaining social distance [7]. These COVID-19 induced lockdowns and movement restrictions can exacerbate the already worsening global poverty situation.Despite the extraordinary success in alleviating abject hunger and extreme poverty since the 1990s [19], the share of hungry people in the globe has been increasing in recent years [20,21]. In 1950, more than 63% of the total population of the world was extremely poor, living on less than US$ 1.90/day [19]. In 1990, globally, the extremely poor reduced to 35.9% (1,895 million), which further reduced to 20.8% (1,352 million) in 2005 [22]. However, since 2015, the absolute number of hungry people has started to increase. In 2015, out of a global population of 7.3 billion, 784 million (10.7%) were hungry, which increased to 821 million (10.9%) in 2017 [23].It is projected that COVID-19 will further exacerbate the poverty and abject hunger in the world in a number of ways. It is argued that the overburden on the health sector causes the reallocation of resources to the health sector to save lives, which may reduce resource allocation to the agriculture and industrial sectors, thereby hampering the food production and input supply chains [16]. More importantly, COVID-19 induced lockdowns and movement restrictions have already increased unemployment and under-employment, which has severely reduced the purchasing power of consumers [10]. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that the participation of the global working force in the first quarter of 2020 declined by 4.5% which is equivalent to 130 million full-time jobs [8]. In a recent report, Asian Development Bank (ADB) projected that the COVID-19 induced global loss will range between $6.1 to $9.1 trillion compared to a no-COVID-19 baseline, which is equivalent to 7.1% to 10.5% of the global GDP [24]. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), warned that due to the COVID-19 induced lockdown and resource reallocation to the health sector to save lives, the global GDP could be reduced by 4.9% in 2020 compared to the previous year [25]. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and ILO [26] projected that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy of the Latin American and Caribbean region will shrink by 5.3% and the unemployment rate will increase from 3.5% to 11.5%, equivalent to more than 11.5 million new unemployed persons. Furthermore, the poverty rate in the region will increase by 4.4% and the extreme poverty rate will increase by 2.6% [26]. Studies also warned about a possible severe food crisis, particularly in countries currently experiencing economic shocks, weather extremes, or conflicts [10,27].It is observed that during epidemics like HIV/AIDS and Ebola, food prices in affected countries increased significantly, with severe impacts on food security, especially for vulnerable populations including women, children, and marginal people [28]. For example, in Sierra Leone, the triennium average ending in 2013 for rice (paddy) and cassava prices were US $614.3/ton and US$303.7/ton, respectively [29]. However, when the Ebola epidemic hit the country in 2014, the price of rice (paddy) rose to US$707.3/ton (+15%) and the cassava price to US$ 521.1/ton (+72%) [29]. Increased food prices can disproportionately affect vulnerable groups, such as marginal households and women [30,31]. In Bangladesh, for example, the food price hikes of 2007-08 pushed an additional 13 million people below the poverty line [32].Given the COVID-19 induced chaos, if major food and cereal exporting countries restrict their exports, a severe crisis may be generated in the food and cereal import-dependent countries [28,33]. In 2008, droughts in Australia and Argentina and rising oil prices prompted a number of major cereal exporting countries such as India to ban cereal and food exports, aggravating the food price crisis [28]. It is reported that Kazakhstan has already banned wheat flour exports and restricted exports of buckwheat, vegetables, onions, carrots, and potatoes; while Vietnam has temporarily stopped rice exports [11]. In fact, in its latest report, the United Nations warned that world trade could shrink by 15%, the global economic output could be slashed by US$ 8.5 trillion over the next two years, and the economic growth of developed countries could reduce to -5%. Consequently, the global economy is projected to shrink by 3.2% and some 34.3 million people are projected to fall below the poverty line due to COVID-19 [34]. UNU-WIDER warned that in the most extreme case, COVID-19 induced responses could reduce 20% of the income or consumption expenditure at the global level, and poverty levels could increase by an additional 420-580 million people compared to 2018 levels [35]. COVID-19 could create a severe setback to attaining the zero hunger goal of the United Nations by 2030 [23].In 2019, a total of 135 million people in the world were severely food insecure [10]. Food insecurity triggered by conflicts affected 77 million people in 22 countries; economic shockrelated food insecurity affected 22 million people in eight countries, and weather extremes caused food insecurity for 34 million people in 25 countries [10]. The World Food Program (WFP) cautioned that in the absence of swift and effective actions, the number of severely food insecure people could reach 265 million in 2020 [27]. In addition, at present, nearly 2 billion people in the world are moderate to severely food insecure [36]. These food vulnerable people are mostly concentrated in Africa, West Asia, and Latin America [36]. Although COVID-19 has been affecting high-and low-income countries, the aftermath of COVID-19 could have severe negative impacts on low-income developing countries.In Bangladesh, on March 23, 2020, in the wake of three deaths and 25 infections of COVID-19 [37], the Bangladesh government imposed a nationwide holiday and lockdown initially from March 26 to April 4, 2020 [38], and later extending the general holiday to April 11, and then to April 30, 2020 [39]. Finally, the government extended the general holiday and airport and road lockdown until May 30, 2020 [39]. Until April 17, 2020, out of 64 districts of Bangladesh, 38 districts were completely under lockdown and 17 were under partial lockdown [40] (Fig 1). As of September 14, 2020, Bangladesh had a total of 341,056 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 245,594 recovered and 4,802 deaths [37]. Since 2000, Bangladesh has continued to achieve stunning economic progress. After independence in 1971, the per capita GDP of Bangladesh was $133.6, which had increased to $418.1 in 2000, and $1688 in 2018 [41]. Due to the enormous population pressure, the average farm size in Bangladesh is as small as 0.68 ha [42]. Despite the fact, Bangladesh became the fourth-largest paddy-rice-producing country (49.5 MMT) in the world after China (214 MMT), India (169 MMT), and Indonesia (81.4 MMT) [43]. Today, Bangladesh is self-sufficient in rice, the major staple of the country. The 1971-73 triennium average daily per capita dietary energy intake was 1963 kcal, which has increased to 2574 kcal/daily in 2015-17 [44]. In 2019, Bangladesh ranked 83 rd out of 113 countries on the Global Food Security Index [45], whereas it ranked 102 nd out of 119 countries in 2006 [46].The COVID-19 induced turmoil, however, could substantially undermine the economic achievement of Bangladesh by affecting trade and the garment industry of Bangladesh. Bangladesh is the second largest garment exporting country in the world after China, where, in more than 4,000 garment factories, more than 4.4 million workers are employed, the majority of whom are female [47]. More than 80% of the total export earnings of the country solely come from the garment industry [48]. This industry is thus dependent on foreign export demand, especially from developed economies and also on imported materials from abroad and particularly from China. In 2015, the total merchandise trade value (export + import) of commodities and goods (excluding services) of Bangladesh was US $79.8 billion, of which total trade value with China was $11.1 billion [49], which was nearly 14% of the total commodity trade value of Bangladesh. In March 2020, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) projected that in 2020 global GDP will drop by 2.4% compared to 2019, and China's GDP growth rate would be below 5% [50]. Thus, negative impacts of COVID-19 in China and in other high-income economies could be transmitted to Bangladesh through the commodity trade channel. Alarmingly, it is already reported that the unemployment rates in China and the United States have increased to unprecedentedly high levels [51]. In Bangladesh, reportedly, until August 2020, export order worth of US $ 3.18 billion has been cancelled, which affected the employment of 2.28 million garment workers [52].The nationwide lockdown and movement restriction can also severely undermine the economic achievement of Bangladesh by directly curbing the wage earning opportunity of the economically employed labor force. In 2016-17, the economically active employed labor force (15 years and above) of the country was 60.8 million, of which 85.1% were informal workers (Table 1). The share of informal workers is the highest in the farm sector, in which out of total 24.7 million employed workers, 95.4% of them are informally employed [53]. The International Labor Organization (ILO) stressed that the income opportunity of the informal workers and casual labor in both farm and nonfarm sectors are mostly affected by the COVID-19 induced contraction of employment and the restricted movement measures [8]. The severe labor shortages problem in harvesting boro rice (dry-season irrigate rice crop) in 2020 has not only spoiled farmers' harvest, but also curbed income opportunity of the casual labor, who earn a major portion of their yearly from harvesting boro rice. Consequently, among the different groups, daily wage laborers are the most food vulnerable group during this COVID-19 induced lockdown in Bangladesh [38].In 2000, 48.9% of the total population of 127.7 million, were classified as poor, which reduced to 31.5% in 2010 [41]. However, in 2016, out of 158 million people, 24.3% were classified as poor [41]. In 2015, children under 5 years of age, every 2 children in 5, were stunned, and 14% were wasted [54]. A recent report warns that if lockdown continues for a long time, the current poverty rate and undernutrition could deteriorate significantly [55]. For example, it is stressed that in Bangladesh, at least 13 million extra people have fallen below the poverty line due to COVID-19 [56]. A recent survey asserts that 75% of the sampled respondents reported not having enough food, while 91% reported of not having enough money to purchase food [38].What is missing in the existing literature is an estimate of the magnitude of the economic loss associated directly with the lockdown measure taken by the government to curb the spread of the coronavirus, as opposed to the estimate of overall negative impacts. Using Bangladesh as a case, this study quantifies the daily economic loss due to wage earning forgone of daily wagebased workers both in farm and nonfarm sectors. As to food security, it has already been suggested to expand the public support system [14]. The present study, in addition, suggests that the minimum compensation package should be provided to ensure the minimum food security of the daily wage-based workers.This study relies on Bangladesh's 2016-17 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) data collected by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). Since 1971, BBS has conducted 15 rounds of surveys, with the HIES 2016-17 survey being the 16 th series. The monetary poverty of the country is measured mainly based on the HIES, which is a nationally representative comprehensive survey [57]. To enhance data precision by improving the data collection process, the World Bank provides technical support. BBS uses a two-stage stratified random sampling process. In the first stage, primary sampling units (PSUs), consisting of specific geographic areas, are selected. In the second stage, from each PSU, 20 households are randomly selected for a detailed interview. The 2016-17 dataset comprises 2,304 PSUs covering all 64 districts of Bangladesh and 46,080 households.The 2016-17 HIES survey is a multipurpose survey, with nine sections detailing information on household level demographics, food consumption, farm and nonfarm economic activities, and labor allocation. This study uses data on labor allocation, daily wage earnings, and food consumption. As each household was comprised of 4.0 persons on average, information on age, education, marital status, rural-urban affiliation, and job status in the sampled seven days were given for all 184,320 members of the sampled 46,080 households. In this study, however, we have only considered the economically employed respondents, who were more than 15 or less than 60 years old. Thus, this study uses the sub-sample consisting of 50,671 individuals, of which 34,152 (67.4%) were from rural areas, 16,519 (32.6%) from urban areas, 6,522 (12.9%) female and 44,149 (87.1%) male.To calculate the economic loss associated with the COVID-19 induced lockdown, we estimate the daily wage earnings (W is ) of a respondent i, working in sector s (= farm and nonfarm separately. The wage function is specified as follows:where lnW is is the natural log of daily wage earned by a sampled respondent i in sector s (= farm f or nonfarm nf), and cereal price is the price of cereals per kg in Bangladesh Taka (BDT/ kg). This variable is included in the regression to control for a possible association between cereal price and wage payment of the daily wage workers. The ILC is is a vector of variables, which includes respondent-level characteristics, such as:• years of schooling,• Female dummy (FM) (female = 1, 0 otherwise);• marital status (married = 1, 0 otherwise);• age in years;• a dummy for age group 15-24 years (Age 15-24);• a dummy for age group 25-34 years (Age 25-34);• a dummy for age group 35-44 years (Age 35-44);• a multiplicative dummy consisting of Age 15-24 × FM;• a multiplicative dummy consisting of Age 25-34 × FM; and• a multiplicative dummy consisting of Age 35-44 × FM.The vector of variables RLC is includes a rural dummy that assumes a value of 1, if a respondent is from a rural area, and 0 otherwise, and 63 dummies for 64 districts of Bangladesh. In addition, in estimating daily wage income, we include inverse Mill's ratio calculated after estimating Eq (7)-the occupation choice model, to take into account a possible self-selection bias in selecting wage receiving methods of the respondents as will be explained below.By multiplying the estimated per head average daily wage earnings (in BDT) in the farm sector W f and that in the nonfarm sector W nf by the absolute number of daily waged workers in those in Bangladesh, the expected loss of daily wage earnings due to the COVID-19 induced lockdown is calculated as follows:To estimate the minimum compensation package for the daily wage-based workers to ensure the minimum food security, we specify and estimate a function that explains household level daily food expenditure for the household of daily wage worker i (that is, survey respondent i) in sector s, as follows:where lnEDFX is the natural log of the household level daily total expenditure on all food (in terms of BDT); wage earnings, lnDWEH is is the natural log of the total daily wage earning of the household of respondent i calculated as:The definitions of the vectors of variables ILC is and RLC is are the same as explained in Eq (1). The vector of variable HLC is includes:• household level income from rent of land and other properties, insurance income, profit and dividend income, lottery and prize money, charity, gift, royalty and assistance both in cash and kind, remittance income, gratuity and retirement benefits, interest received and other income in cash or kind. To make it daily, we divided by 365;• household level receipt from social safety nets, including any positive income from any social safety net programs by any member of the household. To make it daily, we divided it by 365; and• land owned (acres).In estimating Eq (3), we have estimated, firstly without including division dummies; secondly including seven division dummies for eight divisions, and finally including 63 district dummies for 64 districts to capture the regional heterogeneity on the daily household level food expenditure. As both the dependent variable (lnEDFX is ), and the estimated household level total daily wage earnings ðlnDWEH is Þ are in log form, the coefficient g 2s ^in Eq (3) is simply the elasticity. It provides the share of total wage earnings are spent on household level daily food expenditure of a sampled day-labor household in farm and nonfarm sectors. Assuming, zero income of the daily wage-based households in a very strict lockdown situation, the minimum daily support can be calculated as:Where EDFX is is the estimated daily household level total food expenditure in sector s.In reality, however even under a stringent lockdown measure, daily wage earners may desperately search for any miscellaneous work, and thus can earn some positive income (>0). The earnings of a daily wage worker during lockdown time, however, can be lower by a fraction by θ than the normal time, where 0 < θ < 1. It means, in the lockdown time, the total wage earnings of a daily wage-based household will be yDWEH is , which is lower than the normal time household level daily total earnings DWEH is in Eq (3), where θ = 1. Consequently, the logarithm of the household level daily total food expenditure with this lost income (yDWEH is ) would be smaller than that without income loss by:By rearranging Eq (5), we obtainWhere (yDWEHÞ is is the lockdown induced reduced daily total wage earnings of a daily wagebased household, θ is the lockdown induced wage earning fraction (0< θ < 1), and g 2s ^is the estimated coefficient of wage earning in explaining the daily household level total food expenditure lnEDFX is specified in Eq (3)A reasonable amount of minimum daily food expenditure support would be the average of the difference between food expenditures with and without income loss due to lockdown measures. Using the estimated coefficient of the daily wage earning g 2s ^from Eq (3) and assuming different rates of income share, modifying Eq (5) we recalculate the minimum required daily support to be provided to each household in sector s as follows:where MS s is the minimum required daily support to a household, EDFXðDWEHÞ s is the estimated household level daily food expenditure that is obtained by estimating Eq (3), and θ is the estimated coefficient. Eq (8) indicates that the calculated daily minimum support is now contingent upon the fraction of daily wage earning θ, the value of g 2s ^and the household level daily total food expenditure in the normal time. Under the assumption that a daily wage-based household earns only 10% of their wage income (θ = 0.1) in the COVID-19 induced lockdown time compared to the daily wage earning in the normal time, then the household level daily total food expenditure will become fraction 0.1^(g 2s ^) of the initial per capita food expenditure, which is the estimated value of the dependent variable of Eq (3). In that case, the minimum support will be 1-0.1^(g 2s ^) Estimated value of the hosehold level daily food expenditureIn suggesting daily minimum support to ensure minimum food security of the daily wagebased households, we assume a range of income loss.In estimating the wage function (Eq (1)), we have incorporated the inverse Mill's ratio for controlling the possible self-selection bias due to occupation choice (daily wage-based workers in the farm, or nonfarm sectors. The multinomial logistic regression estimation procedure was employed to characterize the daily wage-based workers in the farm and nonfarm sectors (i), setting the non-daily wage workers as the base (= 0) and assigning a value of 1 for daily wagebased farm workers (N f ), and a value of 2 for daily wage nonfarm workers (N nf ) as follows:ln Pðdaily; farmÞ PðNon dailyÞwhere HLC is , ILC is , and RLC is are the same as in Eq (2), and Homestead is is the size of the homestead land owned (acres).Some basic background information of the sampled respondents is presented in Table 2. The sampled respondents are divided into three groups based on the wage payment methods: daily wage workers in farm and nonfarm sectors and other workers. Out of 50,671 sampled respondents, 34,301 (67.7%) were paid other than daily basis mode, 7,552 (14.9%) worked in the farm sector and were paid daily, and 8,818 (17.4%) worked in the nonfarm sector and were paid daily. On average, a sampled respondent was more than 36 years old, with nearly five years of schooling, more than 80% were married, and more than 67% were from rural areas (Table 2).In addition, a sampled household comprised of 4.4 family members, with 1.6 earners (Table 2). Female workers were less likely to be paid on the daily basis. In general, the daily wage workers were mostly engaged in the open field related physical works. In Bangladesh, it is not socially acceptable that females and males perform physical work together in an open field.A closer scrutiny of Table 2 reveals that, on average, the daily wage-based workers in the farm sector are statistically significantly older (40.1 years) with significantly fewer years of schooling (2.2 years) and was more likely to be from rural areas compared to others. In addition, the number of family members and earners were lower for households of daily wage workers in both farm and nonfarm sectors compared to the other group. Thus, daily wagebased workers in general, are relatively more resource poor compared to other workers.More than one-fifth of the sampled respondents were from Dhaka Division, followed by Chattogram (18.3%) and Khulna Divisions (15.2%) (Table 2). Dhaka and Chattogram are the largest garment industry clusters in Bangladesh [58], where more than 4.4 million workers are employed, the majority of which are female [47]. Thus, as there are more nonfarm work opportunities in Dhaka and Chattogram than other Divisions of Bangladesh, the largest share of sampled respondents was drawn from these two Divisions. Nearly 20% of the daily wage-based farmworkers were from Rangpur Division (Table 2). Of the total population of Bangladesh, 23.4% live below the national poverty line [57]. Rangpur Division has the highest incidence of income poverty (30.5%) [57], which is reflected in the concentration of daily waged-based farmworkers.As per Table 3, more than 13% of respondents did not have their own homestead land, and more than 11% were landless. On average, the daily wage earning in the farm sector was BDT 314, and BDT 421 in the nonfarm sector (Table 3). The yearly average income from land rent, rent of other properties, insurance, profits and dividends, lottery and prize money, charity, gifts, royalties and other assistance both in cash and kind, remittances, gratuities and retirement benefits, interest received and other income in cash or kind, was BDT 11,427. However, this income was significantly lower for daily wage workers in the farm sector (BDT 4,661.6) and the nonfarm sector (BDT 5,343.5). More than 5% of respondents reported inclusion in the social safety net programs, with the yearly average receipt from them being nearly BDT 10,414. It shows that daily wage workers were more likely to be included in a social safety net program than others (Table 3).The average daily household level total food expenditure was BDT 213.5, of which the expenditure only on cereals accounted for 30% (BDT 64.7). The daily per household level consumption of cereals was 1.8kg (Table 3). This indicates the importance of cereals as a cheap source of dietary energy for the poor in developing countries. Importantly, as expected, the daily household level total food expenditure was significantly lower for daily wage farmworkers, which confirms that the daily wage-based workers are more distressed than others. Tables 4-5 present estimated functions specified in Eqs ( 1) and (3). Table 4 presents the estimated functions explaining the (ln) daily earning per earner for farm and nonfarm workers. The estimates were obtained by means of the Generalized Linear Model (GLM) estimator. There is a positive relationship between years of schooling and the daily wage earnings in the nonfarm sector, however, such relation is insignificant in the case of the farm sector (Table 4). On average, the female daily wage workers were paid less than their male counterparts in both farm and nonfarm sectors (Table 4). The coefficients on the district dummies can be seen in S1 Table . The estimated daily wage earnings for farm workers is BDT 272.2, and BDT 361.5 for nonfarm workers (Table 4).In 2016-17, there were 24.7 million workers in the farm sector and 36.1 million in the nonfarm sector (Table 1). There is no straightforward information on the share of workers who were paid on daily basis. In 2016-17, however, 44.4% workers in the rural area, and 18.5% workers in the urban area were paid on daily basis [53]. As most of the workers in the rural area of Bangladesh are mainly engaged in farming, we assume that out of 24.7 million workers in the farm sector, 44.7% of them, or 10.9 million were paid on daily basis. Similarly, as in the urban area, most of the workers are mostly engaged in the nonfarm sector, we assume that out of 36.1 million workers in the nonfarm sector, 18.5% of them, or 6.7 million, were paid on daily basis. Following Eq (2), multiplying the estimated daily wage earnings for farmworkers as BDT 272.2/day and for the nonfarm worker as BDT 361.5/day, under the assumption of a For daily wage earnings, the t-test is applied to examine the mean differences of the wage earning between farm and nonfarm sectors. Differences = Mean (b)-Mean (c). H0: Diff = 0, Ha: Diff < 0 (one-sided t-test). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240709.t003 complete lockdown with no-one allowed to work, the economic loss in one day is estimated at BDT 5389.03 million or approximately US$ 64.2 million. Assuming 50% of the daily wage workers are not allowed to work and the rest are, the economic loss/day will be BDT 2694.5 million or US$ 32.1 million.Table 5 presents the estimated functions applying the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) estimation approach, explaining the (ln) daily household level total food expenditure of the sampled farm and nonfarm daily wage-based households. We have presented the results of three different models. In Model (1), we did not include the Division or district dummies, whereas in Model (2) we included seven Division dummies for eight divisions; and in Model (3) we included 63 district dummies for 64 districts.In the estimated functions, we have included the natural log (ln) of the estimated daily total wage earnings of a sampled household in explaining the daily household level total food expenditure of the sampled daily wage-based farm and nonfarm households (Table 5). The estimated (ln) daily household level total wage earnings are highly statistically significant and positive in explaining the (ln) daily household level total expenditure on food (Table 5). It shows that a 1% increase in total household level daily wage earnings leads to an increase in the daily household level food expenditure by 0.2% (Model 2) at the minimum to 0.34% at the maximum for the daily wage-based farm households in the farm sector, and a 1% increase in wage earnings leads to an increase in the daily per capita food expenditure by 0.29% (Model 6) to 0.41% (Model 4) at the maximum for the daily wage-based nonfarm households (Table 5). The income from other sources, years of schooling and age also positively and significantly affect the daily per capita food expenditure of the sampled farm and nonfarm workers. This shows that, on average, both farm and nonfarm daily wage-based households in Khulna, Mymensingh, Rangpur and Rajshahi Divisions spend statistically significantly less on food per capita compared to the households in Barishal Division, which is the base Division. The coefficients on the district dummies can be seen in S2  6). The estimation suggests a common minimum support at US $ 1 per daily wage-based household in Bangladesh to ensure minimum food security during COVID-19 induced lockdown time. However, our estimation process is flexible which contingent upon the share of income loss due to the severity of the lockdown. This flexibility in estimating the daily minimum support will allow policymakers to set the daily minimum support based on the severity of a lockdown situation in a specific region. Table 7 presents the estimated functions that characterize the sampled daily wage workers (Eq 9), applying the multinomial logit estimation procedure setting the workers who receive their remuneration, not on a daily basis as the base (= 0). Compared to the base workers, respondents with higher income, with more family members and more years of school and female respondents were less likely to be daily wage-based workers (Table 7). In contrast, married and rural respondents; and relatively older respondents, were more likely to be daily  7, the generalized inverse Mill's ratios are calculated separately for daily wage-based workers in farm and nonfarm sectors following Vella's [59] procedure, and plugged in into Eq (1) in estimating daily wage earnings (Table 4). It is noted that the methodology of this study is simple and relatively easily replicable for other countries. For example, in India, 34.5% of employed workers are casual labor, of which 21% are engaged in agriculture [60]. The daily average wage earnings per day by a casual labor ranged between India Rupee (Rs.) 253-282 [60]. A recent report stressed that in India, in April 2020, 12 million people became jobless, and the unemployment rate had increased from 8.8% in March 2020 to 23.5% in April 2020, due to COVID-19 induced turmoil [61]. By examining the share of expenditure of the daily income on food, it is possible to suggest a minimum support package to ensure the food security of casual labor-based households in India during the COVID-19 induced lockdown period.Using information of more than 50,000 respondents from the HIES 2016-17 dataset, this study, firstly quantified the economic loss due to the COVID-19 induced lockdown and suggested the minimum support package to ensure food security of the daily wage-based workers in Bangladesh. Nearly half of the world's population is now under some form of restrictions imposed by national governments to curb the spread of COVID-19. While this lockdown may restrict the spread of COVID-19, in the absence of effective support, it may also generate severe food and nutrition insecurity for daily wage-based workers, particularly in the developing countries [10,27]. The ILO warned that due to COVID-19 induced movement restrictions and lockdown, the participation of the global working force in the first quarter of 2020 has declined by 4.5% which is equivalent to 130 million full-time jobs [8].In Bangladesh, out of a 60.8 million employed labor force, 24.7 million (40.6%) are directly engaged in the farm sector, of which 44.4% are paid on daily basis, and 36.1 million are engaged in the nonfarm sector, of which 18.4% are paid on daily basis. This study stressed that, compared to others, the daily wage-based workers in both farm and nonfarm sectors are comparatively more resource poor in terms of land ownership and education. Based on the estimated daily wage earnings, this study found that under the assumption of complete lockdown, the daily economic loss due to prohibiting daily wage-based workers to work would be US$ 64.2 million.This study also demonstrated that the average wage elasticity in explaining the daily food expenditure at the household level ranged from 0.20 to 0.34, and the daily household food expenditure ranged from BDT 149.5-152.5 for the daily wage-based farm households. For the daily wage-based nonfarm households, the average wage elasticity in explaining the daily food expenditure at the household level ranged from 0.29 to 0.41, and the daily household food expenditure ranged from BDT 167-171. Assuming 10%, 20% and 30% of the daily earnings of the daily wage-based households in the farm and nonfarm sectors (θ = 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3) compared to the normal time income, we have estimated that on average it is necessary to provide daily BDT 51-104 or around US $ 1 per daily wage-based households during the COVID-19 induced lockdown time. It is important to mention here is that, the suggested minimum support US$ 1/day/household is calculated based on considering only food expenditure. The suggested minimum support package is thus only suitable for the short-term. In the case of a long-term lockdown situation, it is necessary to include the costs of health, education, clothing and housing.Recently, the government of Bangladesh announced the provision of approximately US$ 24/month to two million to households [62]. In addition, 20kg cereals and food will be provided to 1 million households in Bangladesh [63]. While the amount of support is in line with our findings, in the case of a lengthy lockdown period, it is necessary to consider other household costs, such as clothing, medicine and education in the support package. Moreover, as the labor market of Bangladesh is comprised of 60.8 million active workers, the coverage of the safety net should be expanded in the case of a lengthier lockdown. As food and nutrition insecurity can have long-run impacts on human capital formation, the government must expand the emergency safety network program to include almost all marginal households or consider loosening restrictions in the agriculture sector. Without effective support programs, an implementation of a strict lockdown for a long time may be very difficult, if the poor households are forced to come out to search for works, money and food. In such case, to support smallholder agriculture, wage workers and agricultural value chains, the government should consider issuing movement passes to persons and carriers of agricultural input and output in the case of a very strict lockdown scenario. Finally, it is also imperative to take necessary steps against government failure in the form of leakage in distributing compensation packages. Otherwise, the benefits of government effort may not reach to the vulnerable groups.","tokenCount":"6307"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"bd53ae287914b96100392b05fb5841f6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/798a3c96-b7f9-47b0-84fc-092678d34a2e/retrieve","id":"-1998352614"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"7a5f0641-e524-466f-845f-5b1efd7d4ca7","pagecount":"103","content":"This thesis or part of it shall not be reproduced through photocopying, transmitted to any other electronic or mechanic storage form, or translated in any other language without prior formal permission of the author or Egerton University on his behalf.All rights reserved.This chapter provides background information on East Coast fever (ECF), Infection and Treatment Method (ITM) and critical gender gaps the study intends to fill. Besides, this chapter presents the statement of problems and specific research questions that were tackled in the study.The importance of the research to policymakers and its contribution to the current body of knowledge are discussed in the justification section. Finally, the chapter presents the scope of the study and operational definitions of the key terms used in the study.East Coast fever (ECF) is a virulent cattle disease caused by a single cell parasite Theileria parva, and it is transmitted by the brown ear tick (Rhipicephalus appendiculatus) as the primary vector -as it feeds on susceptible cattle (Di Giulio et al., 2009). The ECF diseases is by far economically the most dangerous Tick-Borne Disease (TBD) in smallholder agro-pastoral and pastoral livestock production systems, as it is regarded as one of the most severe constraints to increasing cattle productivity in these systems (Minjauw et al., 2003). In eastern, central and southern Africa regions; ECF disease is reported to affect eleven countries in total, Kenya being among them (Mbassa et al., 2009).According to Di Giulio et al. (2003), ECF is a major cause of cattle deaths among East-African indigenous cattle, with reported mortality rates ranging from 40-80% in untreated immature cattle in Maasai pastoralists' herds. The disease is not only responsible for cattle deaths but also results in stunting of calves, reduction in animal traction power and a decrease in milk production in animals that survive (ILRI, 2014). Milk production is of particular concern because it has been reported to be the primary staple food and a primary source of nutrition for smallholder livestock keepers (Randolph et al., 2012). In this regard, Marsh et al. (2016) observed that the occurrence of ECF has led to a negative impact on the well-being of smallholder households that keep cattle as their primary source of income. Indeed, reported economic losses due to ECF are significant; recent estimates put the figure at $300 million annually (ILRI, 2014). Besides, previous studies on ECF reported that nearly 60% (75 million)of the region's cattle are at risk of contracting ECF disease (GALVmed, 2015).vector control are the primary conventional ways of ECF control. Acaricide use has become less attractive for a variety of reasons; including the high cost of acaricide treatments and inadequate access to functional dipping facilities. Environmental and sustainability issues of acaricide use also arise, including toxic residue, contamination of the environment and ECF-vector resistance (Mugisha et al., 2005;Di Giulio et al., 2009). In addition to vector control methods, the infected cattle are treated using curative drugs. However, these drugs are costly to acquire and to administer to infected cattle (Homewood at al., 2006). Furthermore, chemotherapy technique has been reported to be ineffective since it leads to negative consequences, as the animals that recover from ECF may suffer from; weight loss, produce less milk, provide less draft power and could suffer from reduced fertility and delays in reaching maturity. Similarly, in endemic areas, cattle that recover from ECF tend to become carriers of this disease (Taracha and Taylor, 2005).The traditional methods like use of herbs, bush burning (vector breeding sites), hand-picking, and birds picking are no-longer in use since they are deemed not to be effective in controlling this disease.Owing to the limitations of the above methods, immunization of cattle by Infection and Treatment Method (ITM) has been recommended by scientist to offer a valuable alternative for ECF control (Oura et al., 2004;Homewood et al., 2006;Kivaria, 2007;Walker, 2007). ITM involves infection of healthy cattle with live parasites and simultaneous treatment with a single dose of a long-acting formulation of oxytetracycline to curtail the infection. The result is a mild reaction leading to lifelong immunity to similar or related parasites.GalvMed (2010) found that use of ITM reduced mortality rate in calves from 80% to less than 2%; thus enabling pastoral-communities to stabilize/build-up larger herds, and led to increased livestock and milk sales. Besides, pastoralists were able to reduce the amount of acaricide they use to control ticks and other tick-borne diseases, providing additional economic and environmental benefits. Following report by GalvMed (2009) mature cattle that have been vaccinated, with the distinctive ECF vaccination ear-tags, make up to 50% higher market prices as compared to those that are unvaccinated.However, despite vaccination of cattle against ECF being reported to lead to stable yields under different environmental conditions and its introduction considered as a step towards stabilization and sustainable intensification of livestock sector in agro-pastoral and transhumance livestock keepers, its uptake is still low. In Kenya uptake of ITM has been undermined on account of several unknown reasons which constraints male and female livestock producers differently.According to existing literature, women who are reported to be dominants in smallholder agricultural production in developing nations are seen to lag behind in uptake of new technologies and improved management systems or benefit equally from their introduction as compared to men (Doss and Morris, 2001). The low adoption and benefits from agricultural innovations by women is reported to be due to unequal access to productive resources as well as opportunities within the household, where most are noted to be dominated by men (World Bank, 2007 andFAO, 2011).The gender inequality in various agricultural sectors and many developing countries imposes real costs on society regarding untapped potential in achieving food security and economic growth.Besides, intensification and increased market orientation of agricultural production have been shown to lead to the higher dominance of the production process by men, hence benefiting men more at women's expense (Dahal et al., 2009). While technologies are intended to be productivity enhancing, value-adding, and labor or cost-saving, not all innovations are beneficial and responsive to the needs of poor women and men or their expected users. According to literature, some agricultural interventions harm the targeted beneficiaries; as some benefits men more at the expense of women (Rao, 2002;Venter and Mashiri, 2007;World Bank et al., 2009).In Kenya, ITM was commercialized in 2010, and Uasin-Gishu County was among the first targeted regions. Since then adoption of ITM remains partial among the areas targeted. To further enhance the uptake process of ITM and improve cattle productivity, ILRI and GALVmed have adopted several development initiatives, some of which include collaboration with national government through Kenya Dairy Farmers Federation (KDFF) and private organization through SIDAI Africa to create awareness and deliver this technology to cattle keepers. Some of the initiatives used include; subsidized campaigns, field trials, extension visits, agricultural shows and use of mass media.Adoption of ITM has the potential to improve livelihoods of smallholder dairy cattle keepers through control of ECF. Uptake of ITM is anticipated to improve dairy cattle producers' welfare through a reduction in mortality rate due to ECF, increase milk output, improve cattle market value, and decrease the cost of acaricide use among other benefits. In Kenya, ITM was commercialized in the year 2010 with Uasin Gishu County being the target region. However, despite its perceived multiple advantages; ITM uptake has been disappointing on account of several reasons among them gender-related constraints and inadequate awareness among smallholder dairy cattle keepers. Besides, the effects of ITM adoption on household wellbeingare not yet apparent. It is on the preceding that this study aimed at filling these knowledge gaps.The general objective of the study was to contribute toward the improvement of the smallholder dairy cattle keepers' welfare through enhancing uptake of ITM in control of ECF in Uasin-Gishu County, Kenya.i) To determine gender disaggregated perception on ITM among smallholder dairy cattle producers.ii) To determine the actual and potential uptake rates of ITM among male-headed and female-headed dairy cattle keeping households iii) To determine gender disaggregated effect of ITM uptake on household income among smallholder dairy cattle producers.i) How do men and women dairy cattle keepers perceive ITM in control of ECF?ii) What are the actual and potential uptake rates of ITM among smallholder male-headed and female-headed dairy farming households?iii) What is the effect of ITM adoption on male-headed and female-headed household's income among smallholder dairy cattle producers?Livestock is primary sources of food (milk and meat), cash income, manure and serve as a store of wealth and hedge against inflation among smallholder farmers (Gezie and Kidoido, 2014).Furthermore, livestock keeping is considered to be a major source of employment for a significant portion of the rural population (Berhanu et al., 2009). Therefore, helping smallholder farmers to keep their cattle healthy and free from contagious diseases like ECF is considered as a positive measure of improving their livelihoods. This aim is in line with sustainable development goal (SDG) number one (end hunger, achieve food security and adequate nutrition for all, and promote sustainable agriculture). Thus, this kind of studies can assist policymakers and researchers to put in place proper interventions which can enhance uptake of agricultural innovations.The inclusion of gender lens in the study helps to understand gender dynamism and constraints concerning uptake of agricultural technologies. The gender aspects boost development of gender mainstreaming strategies approaches and policies which promote gender equity in both dissemination of knowledge and sharing of benefits accruing from the uptake of given agricultural interventions. This outcome will not only lead to the empowerment of rural women and men, but it is also vital for economic development as a whole. Uptake of agricultural technologies comes with social gains which contribute positively to the enhancement of SDG number five (attains gender equity, empower women and girls everywhere). Finally, findings from this study will add positively to pioneer literature by filling some of the knowledge gaps, and it will create more gaps for further research.This study focused on smallholder dairy cattle keepers located within Uasin-Gishu County. The data collected were limited to a period of twelve months; January 2015 to December 2015. Due to language barrier, enumerators from the study area were relied upon in data collection. The ability to recall determined the accuracy and validity of the data collected, as the majority of the smallholder farmers did not keep farm records. To improve on reliability and validity of the data primarily for the income and cost of production, recent short term financial transactions, quarterly information, were used to project the annual income from cattle or costs of production.The enumerators were encouraged to probe to determine if there were any variation in the daily activities during the production period and its effect on the projection for the annual income or costs.Actual adoption: The estimated rate of smallholder dairy cattle keepers who had vaccinated their cattle against ECF by the time the survey was conducted.This includes sales of: milk (milk sold plus milk consumed by the household), livestock, manure, hired animal power, and bull services-if any-in Kenyan shillings in the January 2015 to December 2015 production period.The ITM exposed/aware population: Smallholder dairy cattle keepers who had knowledge about vaccination against ECF by the time the survey of conducted.A household headed by a woman who is either a widow, separated, divorced or unmarried (de jure household female-headed households).Full ITM adopters: Smallholder dairy cattle keepers who had vaccinated their whole cattle herds against ECF by the time the survey was conducted.Household size: A group of people living together, cooking and eating from the same pot for a period of not less than six months by the time the survey was conducted.Smallholder dairy cattle keepers who had vaccinated their cattle herds against ECF (either partially or fully) by the time the survey was conducted.A household headed by a man as the key decision maker.Partial ITM adopters: Smallholder dairy cattle keepers who had vaccinated only part of their cattle herds against ECF by the time the survey was conducted.The estimated rate of smallholder dairy cattle keepers who had the ability to vaccinate their cattle against ECF by the time of the survey, but they were constrained due to lack of awareness.Smallholder dairy cattle keepers: Dairy farmers keeping less than five heads of cattle per acre of land.This chapter starts by presenting an overview of smallholder dairy farming in Kenya; followed by a literature review on the description of East Coast fever disease. Besides, a brief discussion on the development and dissemination of the Infection and Treatment Method (ITM) is presented. This section further provides literature on gender gaps in adoption of agricultural technologies where key drivers affecting the uptake of agricultural innovations are discussed and how they affect men and women differently. Due to inadequate literature that mainly focuses on gender and livestock-related technologies, a general literature review on crop and livestock related innovations was conducted. Finally, the theoretical and conceptual framework supporting the study is discussed.Cattle are highly valued assets in sub-Saharan Africa, as a majority of the rural population depends directly or indirectly on livestock as their source of livelihoods. Economically, livestock keeping employ approximately 80 % of the rural population in the eastern, central, and southern regions of Africa (FAO, 2009). According to IFAD (2006), an estimated one million smallholder farmers in these regions depend on dairy cattle as a source of income. In Kenya, the smallholder dairy sector contributing immensely to the livelihoods of the rural poor, and the national economic developing, as 56 % of the total milk produced in Kenya comes from smallholder dairy sector. According to Staal et al. (2003), smallholder dairy farming is the largest contributor to the livestock income, which accounts for almost 33 % of the agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) in Kenya.The dairy sector in Kenya is dominated by smallholder cattle keepers, with current estimates of 4.3 million heads of cattle (Odero, 2017); representing approximately 85 % of the dairy cattle in eastern Africa region (ILRI, 2000). The sector is considered to be the largest and the most rapidly expanding dairy sector in sub-Saharan Africa (IFAD 2006). In most parts of Kenya, smallholder dairy production is conducted on small farms with herd size ranging from one to five heads of cattle (Bebe et al., 2003). The production is based on the close integration of both livestock and crops. The major types of animals kept are pure breeds or cross-breeds and the indigenous (zebu) cows, which provide milk for communities in the drier parts of the country (ILRI, 2000).The main exotic cattle breeds kept by smallholder dairy farmers in Kenya include; Ayrshire, Friesian, Guernsey, Jersey, and their crosses (ILRI, 2000). In Kenya, cross-bred cattle constitute the largest proportion of the total population of dairy cattle kept by smallholder farmers, with Ayrshire and Friesian being the dominate breeds (ILRI, 2000). Zebu cattle, which constitute about 70 % of the total population of livestock in Kenya, are widely distributed in all agroecological zones of the country due to their high adaptation to diverse climatic zones.A majority of smallholder dairy farmers in Kenya uses intensive, semi-intensive, and extensive farming systems to manage their cattle (Auma et al., 2017). The indigenous zebu cattle are kept under traditional extensive farming systems in vast areas of Kenya (Auma et al., 2017). The method used in cattle management depends on a variety of factors, which include climatic conditions-agro-ecological zones and human population density (Staal et al., 2003). The intensive dairy production system is mainly practiced in the Kenyan highlands; primarily due to high human population densities, which results in fragmentation of land into smaller pieces. This system involves zero-grazing farming practices where animals are fed on crop residues and planted fodder supplemented with concentrate feeds (Njarui et al., 2016). Intensive cattle farming system is mainly practiced in the Central, Central Rift-valley, and parts of the Coastal regions.A semi-intensive cattle production system is characterized by cattle grazing freely on pastures and stalls feeding where animals are confined; in most cases, the animals are given supplement feeds during milking. According to Njarui et al. (2016), the main dairy animals kept under this system are cross-breed. However, milk production in this system is lower as compared to purely zero-grazing systems (Auma et al., 2017). This system is mainly practiced in the Rift valley, Central and Coastal parts of Kenya.The extensive dairy cattle keeping systems is practiced among indigenous zebu cattle, primarily in the Western, Coastal, Eastern, and parts of Rift Valley regions of Kenya. Cattle feeds used in these regions include grass, fodder (mainly Napier grass), crop residues, weeds, and compounded forages. In areas where farms are small, farmers confine their cattle and feed them through a cutand-carry system (Njarui et al., 2016).In Kenya, although smallholder dairy farming is considered a feasible economic enterprise, the enterprise is constrained by poor market access, poor access to breeding services, low quantity and quality of feeds, weak institutions and rural infrastructure development, poor technical skills on animal husbandry practices, and animal diseases (IFAD 2006;FAO, 2009;Auma et al., 2017). Scarcity of farming land has forced smallholder dairy farmers to move towards less productive regions where cattle grazing dominate, and there are high risks of cattle diseases;especially tick-borne diseases with ECF being of great economic importance (Gachohi et al., 2012;Perry, 2016).East Coast fever (ECF) was introduced into Southern Africa from Eastern Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century (Sibeko et al., 2010). The disease was reported first in Zimbabwe -then Southern Rhodesia-in 1902 (Lawrence et al., 1992). The introduction of ECF in Zimbabwe was through a consignment of cattle brought in from the Coastal region of Eastern Africa, and that is why it was named East Coast fever (Norval et al., 1992). The reasons for importation were twofold; first was to replace cattle herds that had been decimated by the rinderpest pandemic, and second to boost natural recovery of cattle population which had been destroyed during Anglo-Boer war of 1899-1902, as most of them were killed due to the high demand for beef and transport oxen (Norval et al., 1992).ECF is endemic in eleven countries in eastern, central, and southern parts of Africa, these countries include: Kenya, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Mozambique, Burundi, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia (Lawrence et al., 1992;Malak et al., 2012). According to the current reports, there is a continuous spread of ECF disease to new regions; between 2003 and 2004 the disease was reported in Comoros Island, making it the 12 th ECF endemic country with source pointing to the importation of cattle from Tanzania (De Deken et al., 2007).According to Theiler (1912), ECF is caused by a parasite known as Theileria parva that is spread by a vector known as Rhipicephalus appendiculatus (commonly known as brown ear tick). ECF is characterized by the lymphoid hyperplasia, which is usually accompanied by leucopenia and exhaustion of the lymphoid tissue (Irvin and Mwamachi, 1983). Fever, dullness, enlarged lymph nodes near the tick bites are common clinical signs in ECF infected cattle (Mbassa et al., 2006). Irvin and Mwamachi (1983) noted that in advance stage ECF clinical signs include lacrimation which is accompanied by photophobia, development of anorexia, cessation of rumination, corneal opacity, frothy nasal, and eye discharges and terminal dyspnea. Besides, diarrhea, leukopenia, pulmonary edema, and anemia are common signs in ECF infected cattle (Norval et al., 1992). In cases of pregnant cows, abortion is common, especially in the 'pyrexic' stage of the disease.The ECF clinical symptoms are reported to be more severe in exotic breeds compared to native cattle (Norval et al. 1992), as local breeds are mostly resistant to the parasite causing ECF, however with mild symptoms. The mortality rate in fully susceptible herds can be as high as 100 percent (Mbassa et al. 2006), with death occurring within 18-30 days after infestation and infection of susceptible cattle by Theileria parva (Lizundia et al., 2005). This time-lapse is mainly due to the initial incubation period of the parasite, which is reported to be within 10-25 days before the Theileria parva parasite spreads to the animal's body organs (Eygelaar et al., 2015).Cattle keepers use different methods to control ECF. Control of ECF vector (brown ear tick) through use of acaricide is the most widely used methods by smallholder cattle keepers in ECF endemic regions (Kivaria, 2007;Walker, 2007). This method entails the use of dipping baths/tanks, spray-races, pour-on/spot-on, hand-spray or hand-dressing to apply pesticides (acaricide) on cattle skin with the main aim of killing ECF vectors (Gachohi et al., 2012).However, this method has turned out to be unsustainable mainly due to development of resistance by vectors and the cost of buying acaricide (Homewood et al., 2006). Previous estimates put the cost between US$6 to US$36 per adult animal in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania (Minjauw and McLeod 2003); currently, the cost might be higher mainly due to inflation and other economic factors. In some instance, farmers have inadequate knowledge on how to mix the acaricide as stipulated in the instruction guide, hence rendering it ineffective or poisonous (George et al., 2004).Farmers employee control breeding where they inter-breed exotic cattle with native ones to have cross-bred with stronger immune systems to fight the parasite causing ECF (Minjauw and de Castro, 1999); as cattle local/native cattle breeds are more resistance to ticks and TBD compared to exotic cattle breeds. However, this method is not very effective since indigenous cattle are also susceptible to ECF, although the reaction is less severe compared to exotic animals (Samish, 2004).In some instance, cattle keepers' hand-pick the tick vectors as a biological means of controlling the disease (Samish, 2004). This technique is mainly practiced in the pastoral livestock production systems. Alternating grazing field with crops is practiced in some parts as it helps in controlling ECF vectors through reduction vector population, as grasses are termed to be the breeding sites for ECF vectors (Minjauw and McLeod 2003). However, these techniques have been termed to be ineffective in control of ECF.For cattle already infected with ECF, treatment method 'chemotherapy technique' is used to cure the animals. According to Gachohi et al. (2012), initially veterinary officers used tetracycline antibiotic to treat ECF; however, its effect was only effective when administered during early stages of the ECF infection. Currently, more effective ECF therapeutic drugs 'parvaquone and buparvaquone' are now being used to treat ECF infected cattle. However, these drugs are unsustainable due to high cost for smallholder farmers to manage (Lawrence et al., 1992).Besides, some of the animals that recover tend to become carriers of ECF parasite as sometimes the cattle improves to varying degrees, in extreme cases death is common due to blocked capillaries and parasites infecting the central nervous system.The 'Muguga cocktail' ITM vaccine has evolved over several decades, a process that started in South Africa (Perry, 2016). The first batch of ITM was developed and refined at the former East African Veterinary Research Organization (EAVRO) at Muguga, Kenya, between 1967and 1977(ILRI, 2014). Work on ITM was undertaken as part of a regional project funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and executed by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Since then, various versions of the ITM vaccine have been developed each differing in the strains of Theilerial parasites that are used in administering of this technology. The most widely used version in Kenya is known as the 'Muguga cocktail ITM vaccine' (Nene et al., 2016).In collaboration with the not-for-profit Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines (GALVmed), ILRI has registered the vaccine in Kenya, Malawi, and Tanzania (Nene et al., 2016). To date, the ILRI-produced vaccine has been used to immunize over one million cattle against ECF in Kenya, Malawi, and Tanzania (ILRI, 2014). In Kenya, Kenya's Director of Veterinary Services (DVS) with support from ILRI has tested and confirmed the safety and effectiveness of the 'Muguga cocktail ITM vaccine'; which was commercialized in 2010 (Nene et al., 2016).Production of the ECF vaccine is a complicated, time-consuming and costly process (ILRI, 2014, Patel, et al. 2018). Production one million doses of vaccine require approximate 130 heads of cattle that have not previously been exposed to the disease, 500 rabbits, and at least 600,000ticks. Besides, it takes approximate 18 months to produce a batch of 'Muguga cocktail' ITM vaccine. The ITM vaccine requires a cold chain and careful handling to deliver and have it administered by trained veterinarians, as ITM can be lethal if it is not administered with the required dose of antibiotic cover (Nene et al., 2016).The commercial production of the 'Muguga cocktail' ITM vaccine has now been taken up by the Centre for Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases (CTTBD), in Malawi, facilitated by GALVmed and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) which supports its commercialization (GALVmed, 2014). To make the process successful, ILRI is supporting the establishment of the ECF vaccine production processes in Malawi through the transfer of ticks, parasite seed stabilates, and technical backstopping (ILRI, 2014). In East Africa region, ITM is being delivered through registered and approved private and public veterinary services providers (Perry, 2016).Studies have shown that despite the ability of agricultural technologies to improve the livelihood of the rural poor, their adoption remains low, with women lagging in most of the cases (Doss and Morris, 2001;Njuki et al., 2014;Galie et al., 2015). Uptake of agricultural technologies takes three phases approach; awareness stage, tryout stage, and continuous adoption (Nchinda et al., 2010;Lambrecht et al., 2014;Theis et al., 2018). In line with this, an individual farmer needs to be aware of agricultural innovation before trying and fully embracing it (Diagne and Demont, 2007;Simtowe et al., 2016). However, in most cases, each phase has been shown to have a different effect on men and women farmers; with women farmers being mostly disadvantaged in all three stages (Theis et al., 2018).An empirical review of previous adoption studies considers factors related to characteristics of producers, perception on the effectiveness of the agricultural innovations and institutional set-up as the key drivers affecting farmers' engagement in the three agricultural technologies adoption phases (Pretty et al., 2011). Studies attribute low adoption of agricultural innovations to social, cultural, economic, and institutional factors which influence men and women differently (Bageant and Barret, 2015;Njuki and Sanginga, 2013). However, in most of the studies, it is not well illustrated on how the factors influence different genders of the household head, as a majority of the studies analyses the data with little or no focus on gender issues.According to literature, awareness stage is considered as a major constraint to adoption of agricultural technologies in most of developing nations (Ani et al., 2004;Conley et al., 2001); with effects of inadequate awareness of uptake agricultural technologies being more severe among women farmers (Theis et al., 2018). The level of knowledge regarding agricultural technology enhances the acceptance, adoption, and extent of adoption of agricultural technology.Targeted farmers who are aware of farming innovations are in a better position to gather more information concerning technologies' attributes an act that guides them in deciding on whether to uptake it or not (Simtowe et al., 2016).According to Ragasa et al. (2014), inadequate awareness of agricultural technologies among women is attributed to limited mobility which hinders them from accessing extension service or attending training programs regarding farming innovations that are being promoted to improve their livelihoods. In most African setup, men are shown to dominate training opportunities that are introduced in their locality to better their welfare with; women are sidelined mostly due to cultural barriers (Njuguna et al., 2011). In some cases, women are shown to have great challenges in accessing digital information which can be used in training or alerting them on new agricultural technologies, as most of them, especially from FHHs lack access to digital assets like phones, radio and televisions (Ragasa et al., 2014).According to literature, the age of the household head might influence the adoption of agricultural technologies either negatively or positively. According to Doss (2011), elderly framers were seen to have more control over agricultural resources; hence, it was easy for them to pay for agricultural technologies as compared to young farmers. Besides, age of the farmers contributes positively or negatively to getting information about agricultural technology, as in some cases most of the elderly farmers have well-built networks from which they can access agricultural information (Deere and Doss, 2006). Older farmers are considered to have better access to productive resources as compared to young farmers, hence have a higher likelihood of paying for and adopting agricultural technologies (Tanellari et al., 2010).Low levels of literacy among men and women farmers contribute to the low adoption of agricultural technologies. Several adoption studies have shown that less educated household heads lag in adoption of agricultural-related innovations that are introduced to better their livelihoods (Wanyama et al., 2013). Most of the studies attribute this to limited capability experienced by the less educated household decision maker face in interpreting the information given to them during training or once they obtain from visual and print media platforms (Shiferaw et al., 2009). According to Deere and Doss (2006), this is mainly due to their inability to read and understand the training manual or listen to adverts in digital platforms like phones or radios. In some cases, less educated farmers experience great challenges in attending agriculturalshows or training where they can gain information concerning new agricultural innovations.Studies consider the level of experience of the household head to affect the adoption of agricultural technologies, as more experience farmers are shown to have a better understanding of the farming challenges and the importance of the innovations (Tanellari et al., 2010). Lack of social group participation has been documented to be one of the key factors contributing to the low level of awareness and uptake of agricultural technologies among smallholder farmers.Active participation in social group activities has been documented to assist both men and women acquire knowledge from extension service providers and even sharing information among themselves (Doss, 2009). In some cases, the social group plays a crucial role in overcoming resource constraints, especially for women who are constrained in controlling household resources. Through groups, women mobilize agricultural resource among themselves and pay for agricultural innovations thus overcoming social inequities that surround them due to cultural and social norms (Doss et al., 2003, Meinzen-Dick et al., 2011, Ragasa et al., 2014) Poor infrastructure contributes negatively to the adoption of agricultural technologies among men and women, especially for those who are far from the extension offices, as it hinders extension workers from reaching farmers. This situation might be more hurting for women who are unable to walk for long distance to visit extension offices; as they are constrained by domestic chores and cultural barriers which curtail their movement (Njuguna et al. 2011);although the gender dynamics surrounding this aspect is not well articulated in the literature.Simtowe ( 2016) noted that distance to the nearest extension service provider influences the adoption of agricultural technologies as farmers who are near the extension service provider are likely to be reached and be trained on the available agricultural innovations.Besides, lack of proper institution and proper policies in place put smallholder farmers in a disadvantaged position as they are unable to access credit and other government support, in most cases smallholder farmers are forced to have collateral to access credit. The situation is more difficult for women compared to men, as most of the household resources which can be used as collateral are within men's control (Ross et al., 2004;Phiri, 2007;Njuki et al., 2014;Ragasa et al., 2014). Hence when it comes to try-out or fully adoption of agricultural technologies that need payment or productive resources, mostly men dominate, in some cases, women from the male-headed household are supported by their male counterparts (Deere and Doss, 2006;Doss, 2009).Household size has been documented in most literature to be one of the factors contributing positively to the adoption of agricultural technologies. In some cases, the members of the household might provide labour required to cater for the increased labor resulting from new technologies. Household with more working force might generate cash used to pay for the agricultural technologies (Kafle, 2011); although it is not clear in the literature on how household size affects the adoption of agricultural technologies in different household headship.Access to both physical and financial resources is considered vital in the adoption studies, as farmers use it to pay for the innovation expenses. However, in sub-Saharan Africa, it is noted that men dominate control over most of the household resources, an act that disadvantages women when it comes to the uptake of innovations. Some studies argue that women in MHHs can still use the resource to adopt, but in case of different ownership of assets that are being targeted by the technology this aspect might not work (Meinzen-dick, 2011).This study is built on the random utility theory. Following this, individual smallholder cattle farmers are assumed to decide by choosing options that will maximize their perceived utility gains. They are expected to rationally reveal their preference in line with the objective of improving their household welfare regarding increased income gains. The utility function can represent this preference, and the decision problem can, therefore, be modeled as utility maximization problem, in which the utility of each alternative is a linear function of observed individual characteristics plus an additive error term (Gardebroek, 2002). Thus total utility is the sum of observable and unobservable components, with appropriate distributional assumptions on the error terms.Following this, letting choice of adopting ITM or otherwise be represented by , k where 1 = k if the farmer is willing to adopt ITM and k = 0 otherwise. The resource endowment of farm household is given by z and vector x represents factors influencing the choice of that control method which includes: institutional characteristics, farm and farmer characteristics, and attributes of the technology that gives the individual confidence to prefer that particular technology. This can be modeled as shown below;If he/she does not have preference for the control method utility will be;Where u is utility from intervention program and y is the determinist part of the utility and the random component  representing the component of the utility known to the farmer but cannot be observed by the researcher, it is assumed to be independently and identically distributed (Green, 2003). An individual will prefer to adopt ITM iffThe presence of a random component permits to make probabilistic statements about decision maker's behavior; for example if the farmers prefer the intervention the probability of distribution is given by the formula below;Where \uD835\uDC5D \uD835\uDC56 = the probability of \uD835\uDC56 \uD835\uDC61ℎ individual up-taking ITM technology;disturbance term which is specific to producer utility preference andFarmer is therefore expected to uptake ITM technology only if he/she expected to get a higher utility as compared to other available control methods.Figure 1 represents a conceptual framework for ITM uptake. The context illustrates the adoption process of agricultural innovations, in this case ITM technology. According to the framework, adoption process begins with potential adopters getting exposed to /aware of the agricultural innovations. Thus, cattle keepers in the study area will only adopt ITM once they are aware of its existence. In a farm setting, this process is influenced by institutional factors and socio-economic characteristics of the targeted individual/farmer. The difference in socio-economic characteristics (gender of the household head, education level, age, household size, land size, cattle herd size, and major occupation) tangled with institutional factors (group membership, access to extension services, access to credit and ownership of information and communications technology (ICT) equipment) are assumed to influences the ability of individual farmer to get exposure to, and adopt ITM technology with a view of maximizing their net returns.In addition to awareness, perception (positive or negative) of the potential adopters will determine their ability to either adopt ITM or not. This will depend on how an individual farmer perceives the efficacy and accessibility of the intervention in equation (ITM). According to literature, some of the anticipated benefits resulting from ITM adoption include; reduced cattle death rate, increase market price, continuous milk production, a high market price for vaccinated cattle against ECF and reduced frequency of spraying using acaricide which leads to increase in household net income from cattle and other cattle-related products. This chapter presents information on the study area, and the study design, where sample size and sampling procedure used in primary data collection are discussed. The section further presents analytical techniques used in data analysis for the three research questions. Finally, the variables used in econometric analysis are presented.This study is based on a survey conducted in Uasin-Gishu County. This region was selected due to the high prevalence of ECF, and also being one of the ITM project target areas in Kenya. The county covers an approximate area of about 3,327 square kilometres (Km 2 ).Uasin-Gishu County is divided into six sub-counties namely; Soy, Turbo, Kapseret, Kesses, Ainabkoi, and Moiben (Figure 2). Ecologically, the county is located in the high agricultural potential and low potential agro-ecological zones. The county experiences mean annual rainfall of about <500mm to >1,000 mm in low potential zones and <1,200 mm to >1,800 mm in high potential zones, with a temperature range of about 8.4 o c to 26.2 o c. Demographically, Uasin Gishu County has a population of 894,179 people, representing 50.2% male and 49.8% female with annual population growth rate of 2.9% (KNBS, 2009).Agriculture is the primary economic activity in this county, as approximately 75% of the landholding is under farming. Mixed farming is a common practice in the region as a majority of the farmers depend on livestock keeping and crop production as their primary source of livelihood.The main livestock kept include; dairy cattle, goats, sheep, and poultry, while crop produced includes; maize, wheat, beans and passion fruits. Multi-stage sampling technique was used in selecting households for the survey. The first stage involved a purposive selection of Uasin Gishu County because it was one of the ITM project target region in Kenya. Besides, there is high prevalence of ECF disease. The second stage involved purposive selection of two sub-counties where dairy cattle keeping was considered as main economic activity. Upon discussion with experts from Kenya Dairy Farmers Federation (KDFF) and local dairy hubs located in the regions, it led to the purposive selection of Kesses and Soy sub-counties. In the third stage, purposive identification and selection of ITM exposed and non-exposed villages from the two sub-counties were done with the help of experts from the local dairy hubs, and this led to the selection of 56 villages. In the fourth and final stage, a sampling frame was developed with the help of experts on the ground where lists of both MHHs and FHHs were developed. A simple random sampling technique -by proportional to size -was employed to select MHHs from the villages of interest, while all female-headed households were considered for the survey because they were fewer in number. This generated a total of 298 MHHs and 150 FHHs who were successfully sampled and surveyed. The overall distribution of the respondents by region and gender of the respondent is as shown in Table 1. The required sample-size was determined by probability proportionate to size sampling methodology (Kothari, 2004). with allowable error term of 0.05. The calculation using the formula above resulted in a sample size of 384 households which was adjusted to 400 households. However, during the preparation of sample frame, the population of women in the sample-frame was found to be too small; hence all of them were included in the sampling. This process resulted in an increase in sample-size to 448 households.This study uses a cross-sectional data set collected from smallholder dairy cattle keepers in Uasin-Gishu County based on 2015 production period. The data were collected through administration of a pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire to 448 respondents. The questionnaires were administered by a team of trained enumerators mostly who could speak and understand the local (Kalenjin) language. The data were analyzed using STATA 12, a quantitative data analysis computer program.Objective one: A five-point Likert scale was used to measure the perception of smallholder dairy cattle keepers on ITM as a potential technology for ECF control. The study considered an odd number (5) Likert scale to provide a room for a neutral response for farmers who had no opinion about the attribute in the equation. This approach had an advantage over an even number of Likert scale where an individual could be forced to score on either positive or negative sides of the statements. As forcing an individual farmer to score on a Likert scale of an even number might skew the overall results of the survey mainly due to the difficulties individual farmers with neutral opinion might face in scoring on the attributes under consideration (Kulas et al., 2009;Fern et al., 2016).The smallholder dairy cattle keepers' perceptions towards ITM were operationalized as extents of their agreement with a set of ten selected attributes regarding ITM which were obtained from the previous qualitative study done in the same region of study (Jumba et al. 2016). The perceptions were measured on a Likert scale ranging from strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, and strongly disagree. Understanding of farmers' opinions on the efficacy of ITM was captured by focusing on the ability of ITM to increase milk yield, reduce acaricide use, improve the market value of the cattle and boost animal's immunity against other diseases. Besides, the study focused on smallholder dairy cattle keepers' perception of constraints that might be preventing them from adopting the ITM technology. It included opinion: on the price of ITM services, accessibility to the ITM service provider and the package of the vaccine.Percentages and coefficient of variations were used to summarize the data collected on respondents' perceptions of the effectiveness of ITM in management of ECF. Portions were used mainly because unlike means; they are considered to be a good measure of central tendency for ordinal data like for the case of a Likert scale (Harpe, 2015). The main aim of understating farmers' perception towards ITM was to enable policymakers and researchers to come up with better attributes of ITM that will be in line with farmers' needs Objective two: Since the commercialization of ITM in Uasin-Gishu, not all the individuals in the targeted population are aware of the technology. In the initial stages, ITMdistributors/vaccinators used field trials through subsidized campaigns to create more awareness regarding ITM. These strategies might have been done under prejudice where farmers with a higher likelihood of adopting ITM were given priority with the aim of acting as model farmers where other cattle keepers could easily learn from them. Besides, those farmers who are aware of ITM self-selected themselves whether to uptake it or otherwise based on their ability to interpret the promotions and adverts from newspapers, agricultural shows, and media. Therefore, due to inconsistency in ITM awareness, it is difficult to estimate its adoption rates and barriers to its uptake using classical approaches like Probit, Logit or Tobit models even when the sample size is collected randomly from the population (Dimara andSkura, 2003 andDontsop-Nguezet et al., 2010).Thus, the study used average treatment effect (ATE) framework model to determine the adoption rates and factors influencing adoption as used by (Diagne and Demont, 2007;Dontsop-Nguezet et al., 2010;Simtowe and Muange, 2013;Simtowe, 2016). The ATE framework was relevant in the study because it helped in control of both non-awareness and selection bias from the facilitators of ITM and the farmer respectively which could result in biased (underestimation or overestimate of correct population adoption rate) estimates (Diagne, 2006). The ATE framework model adopts average treatment effects (ATE) to measure the actual population adoption rate of a particular intervention. According to literature, this is commonly used to measure the effect/impact of a \"treatment\" on a person randomly selected in the population (Wooldridge, 2002). In line with impact evaluation approach, every individual in the targeted population has two choices (dummy whether to adopt or not) based on condition that he/she should be aware of the innovation.To theorize the ATE framework, let i y be the potential uptake outcome of a farmer when aware of ITM and 0 y be the potential uptake outcome when not aware. The potential uptake outcome can be either uptake status or not. However, in reality a farmer would only uptake a technology when he/she is exposed to it (Diagne and Demont, 2007). As a result, ( 0 0 = y ) for all farmers who are not aware of vaccination against ECF (ITM technology). Hence, the uptake outcome of the farmer \uD835\uDC56 is given by \uD835\uDC66 1\uD835\uDC56 and the average uptake outcome is denoted as i Ey ATE =. In this study, it is assumed that the binary variable \uD835\uDC58 to be an indicator for exposure to ITM 1 = k to represent exposure to the ITM and 0 = k otherwise). The estimation of adoption rates and its determinants were based on the observed random vectors from a random sample of the population as shown in the equation six:Where ix is the vector of covariates that determines potential adoption outcome (e.g. the value of Due to the problem of missing data, where there is the inability to observe both an outcome and its counterfactual make it impossible in general to observe the outcome variable of interest for the targeted individuals had they not been exposed to the ITM, hence, it is impossible to estimate the expected value of i y by the sample average of a randomly drawn sample, since some of the i y in the sample will be missing.According to Imbens (2004)  , which in this framework corresponds to the conditional ATE denoted usually as ) (x ATE . The parametric estimation procedure of ATE is based on the following equation that identifies ) (x ATE , which holds under the conditional independence assumption (CIA) (Wooldridge, 2002) as shown in equation seven.The parametric estimation proceeds by specifying a parametric model for the conditional expectation of the observed adoption status y given the vector of covariates x restricted to the subsample of the individuals who are awareWhere g is a known (possibly non-linear) function of the vector of covariates X and the unknown parameter vector  , which is to be estimated using standard Least Squares (LS) or Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) procedures using the observations ) , (  The effects of the determinants of adoption as measured by the k marginal effects of the k dimensional vector of covariates x at a given point x are estimated as: is the parameter vector to be estimated. All the estimations were done in STATA using the STATA add-on adoption command.Objective three: estimation of effects of ITM adoption on household income is constrained by the fact that the livelihood indicators of the treated group (ITM adopters) were not well documented as from the launch of the project. Consequently, it was not possible to observe the welfare shift due to ECF vaccination when restricted to adopters only. Thus, measuring the effects of ITM adoption using before and after scenario could not be applicable in this study.This implies that there is a problem of missing data because it is not possible to measure the impact on the same individuals at the same time, as we cannot observe the outcome variable of interest for the targeted individuals had they not participated (Wooldridge, 2002). According to Greene (2003), this can be achieved by evaluating the welfare shift using treated and control group from the sample population. Whereby we assume the control group can reflect the position of the treated group before uptake of ITM.In the study, ITM was not randomly distributed to potential adopters, as individuals within the targeted population made their own decision on whether to vaccinate or not to vaccinate their cattle against ECF. This was mainly based on the expected utility gain from vaccination as compared to other conventional methods of ECF vector control. However, this decision could have been affected by other unobservable characteristics within the individuals that gave them an upper hand in ITM adoption. Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983) noted that self-selectivity among target population might lead to endogeneity problem, which failure to address could lead to overstatement or understatement of the welfare effects of any intervention; as adopters could be better off even without embracing the intervention.To correct this bias that might be caused by the self-selectivity problem, instrumental variables (IV) approaches could be used. The IV technique embraces the use of an additional variable, known as the 'instrument,' in the next stage that introduces an element of randomness into the assignment. However, this approach still might yield bias estimates as it is difficult to get good matches between the adopters and non-adopters of a given intervention. Besides, it might be difficult for one to identify an excellent instrument to use in the regression. For this reasons, propensity score matching (PSM) was used in this study to estimate the welfare effect of ITM on household income.The basic idea of the PSM method is to estimate the welfare effect of a given intervention by matching those individuals who have adopted (treated) against those who are yet to adopt (nontreated). However, the main weakness of PSM is that unobservable attributes of an individual that may affect both the outcome variables and choice of a given intervention are not accounted for directly, as it assumes selection is based on observable variables (Dehejia and Wahba, 2002;Smith and Todd, 2005).The PSM is a two-step procedure. In the first stage, a probability model for adoption is estimated with the aim of calculating the probability (propensity scores) of ITM adoption for an individual based on observable characteristics. In the second stage, each treated individual is matched to a non-treated with similar propensity score from the control group, with the aim of estimating the average treatment effect for the treated (ATT). According to existing literature, several matching methods have been developed to match adopters with non-adopters of similar propensity scores; it is assumed that all matching methods should yield the same results. However, in reality, there are trade-offs regarding bias and effectiveness with each technique (Caliendo and Kopeinig, 2008). In this study, the use of nearest neighbor matching, kernel-based matching, radius matching, stratification matching and weighting matching were employed.Letting i k be a dummy variable equal to one if the individual i is a treated individual (household that has vaccinated against ECF) zero if otherwise. In addition assuming that 1 i y and 0 i y are the outcome variables describing household income patterns for individual (household) i conditional on the presence and absence of being in a treatment regime or not, respectively. Then the impact of the innovation/intervention on the th i household, usually called treatment effect is as shown in the equation fourteen:However, in estimation of treatment effects only 0 1 ) 1 (is observed rather than 1 i y and 0 i y for the same individual at the same time. Thus it is not possible to compute treatment effects for every unit at the same time. The primary treatment effect of interest that can be estimated is therefore the average treatment effect (ATT) given by; which is the main problem of causal inference (Heckman et al., 1999).Following the solution advanced by Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983), based on the assumption that given a set of observable covariates X , potential (non-treatment) outcomes are independent of participation status (conditional independence assumption-CIA): ( X k y i i ⊥ 0 ). Hence after adjusting for observable differences, the mean of the potential outcome is same for, as clarified by the equation sixteen:)This condition allows the use of matching technique to measure how group of participating household would have performed, had they not participated; it is possible to condition participation on the propensity score denoted by p(x) rather than on observed characteristics X , as indicated by Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983). The propensity score represents the probability of treatment conditional on the vector of observable characteristic and may be interpreted as the one-dimensional summary of the set of observed variables. Thus the technological effect (ATT) for household with \"similar\" propensity score is as shown in equation seventeen:Where 1 i y denotes the income when th i household is vaccinating its cattle using ITM, 0 i y is the income of th i household who does not participate in vaccinating cattle using ITM, and i k denotes the ITM participation, 1=participate, 0=otherwise. The mean difference between observable and control is given by: 0 ( ) 1 ( 0Where \uD835\uDF00 is the bias; given by:In regression framework the treatment effects model is given by equation below:Where i k is a dummy variable that takes the value 1 if farmer i has vaccinated his/her cattle using ITM and takes the value 0 otherwise, i x is a vector of control variables such as farmer characteristics;  measures the effect of vaccination on household mean returns. Under the assumption of homogenous treatment effects,  identifies the average treatment effect as well as the treatment effect on the treated.Before performing regressions analysis, all hypothesized independent variables to be used in modeling were checked for the existence of multicollinearity problems. Multicollinearity arises due to a linear relationship between explanatory variables. The issue of multicollinearity might cause the estimated regression coefficients to have wrong signs and high R-square value.Besides, it creates considerable variance and standard error with a wide confidence interval, hence becoming challenging to estimate the effect of each variable (Gujarati, 2004 andWoodridge, 2002). Different approaches can be used to identify the presence of multicollinearity problem between the model regressors. The variance inflating factor (VIF) technique is commonly used in an array of literature (Gujarati, 2004). The VIF method was also preferred in this study. According to Gujarati (2004), the VIF is described as how the presence of multicollinearity inflates the variance of an estimator. According to Maddala (2001), VIF for an individual explanatory variable ix is computed as:Where:the coefficient of correlation among explanatory variables.Larger values of VIF indicate stronger association among one or more model explanatory variables. As a rule of thumb, to avoid serious problem of multicollinearity, it is quite essential to exclude the variables with the VIF value exceeds a value of ten (Gujarati, 2004). Alternatively, the inverse of VIF (1/VIF), called tolerance, can be executed to detect multicollinearity. The closer the TOL of an explanatory variable is close to zero, the higher the degree of association of that variable with the other regressors. For the case of discrete independent variables, contingency coefficient test method was used to detect the problem of multicollinearity. The discrete variables are said to be collinear if the value of contingency coefficient test is higher than 0.75. Mathematically, it is computed:  This chapter presents the descriptive and econometric results of the study. The first sub-section presents descriptive results on the sampled households' demographic, institutional and cattle related characteristics separated by adoption status and the gender of the household head. The second sub-section presents results on the gendered perception of ITM: regarding efficacy and challenges to its adoption. In the third sub-section, econometrics results on the ITM adoption rates and factors influencing adoption are presented with the gender of the household head into consideration. Finally, the last sub-section presents the findings on the effect of ITM adoption on household cattle income among MHHs and FHHs.This sub-section report result for the descriptive statistics on the farmer, farm, and institutional characteristics of the sampled households, disaggregated by gender and adoption status. In total, the study uses data from 448 respondents, 298 from MHHs and 150 from FHHs. In MHHs, 57.04% of the total respondents had acquired information about ITM. Besides, 41.28% of the total respondents were ITM adopters, and 58.72% were non-adopters. In FHHs, 46.01% of the total respondents were aware of ITM, and only 19.33% of the total respondents were considered as ITM adopters.Descriptive results on mean: age, education level, and household size are presented Table 3 The results revealed that years of formal education of household head were statistically different at 1% significance level in both MHHs and FHHs. In MHHs, ITM adopter had a higher mean of 12.05 years of schooling as compared to 10.15 years of education for the case of non-adopters.On the other hand, ITM adopters in FHHS had a higher mean of 10.01 years of schooling as compared to 7.03 years of education for non-adopters. The higher education levels among ITM adopters in both MHHs and FHHs suggest that farmers with higher levels of formal education were in a better position of gaining access to, and adopting new agricultural interventions. They could easily get trained and acquire inputs (ITM-vaccine) for the new agricultural interventions that aimed at improving their livelihoods. Formal education has been reported to enhance the capability of the household head acquiring knowledge and adopting new agricultural interventions (Kassie et al., 2011;Simtowe et al., 2011).Regarding household size, there was a significant difference between adopters and non-adopters at 1% and 5% level of significance in MHHs and FHHs, respectively. Adopters of ITM in MHHs had an average of 4.38 household members as compared to an average of 4.10 household members for non-adopters. Concerning FHHs, ITM adopters had an average of 4.66 household members as compared to 3.75 household members for non-adopters. Higher ITM adoption among larger households could be possibly attributed to an increased need for the household food and other expenditures. Thus, there is a need to increase milk and milk income, as both are essential commodities in the study area. Furthermore, this may be due to the anticipated increase in labour size due to the increasing herd size, because of reduced mortality due to ECF. Gezie and Kidoido (2014) noted that larger household size increased the probability of adapting agricultural technology because large family size is usually associated with a higher labour endowment. Farming was the primary occupation in the majority of the ITM adopters in MHHs as about 65.85% of the adopters engaged in farming as compared to 52.57% of non-adopters (Table 4).Similarly, in FHHs about 80% of the ITM adopter household head involved in farming as compared to 20% of their counterparts. The difference was statically significant at 5% level of significance in both MHHs and FHHs. Farmers who exclusively depend on agriculture may have high experience in farming, hence aware of risk and uncertainties associated with ECF. Besides, partaking farming as the primary occupation increase the farmer's ability to interact with extension service providers in the region. The more interaction with extension agents makes them acquire more knowledge on the importance of vaccination against ECF; thus they are ready to adopt ITM with the aim of reducing the cost of production and other associated losses due to ECF. Simtowe et al. (2016), argues that participation in off-farm income generating activities lowers the ability of the farmers to interact with extension service providers, which makes them less knowledgeable on the intended interventions. Descriptive results (Table 5) reveal that herd size by adoption status was statistically different at 5% level of significance in both MHHs and FHHs. In MHHs, the mean herd size of those who adopted ITM was largest at 5.06 heads of cattle per household as compared to 4.56 heads of cattle for non-adopters. The mean herd size of ITM adopters in FHHs was largest at 5.27 heads of cattle per household as compared to 4.13 herds of cattle for non-adopters. The difference in herd size may probably mean that cattle keepers with larger herd size were more open to new ideas and were more risk takers than their counterparts. Smallholder dairy cattle keepers with a larger herd size were ready to vaccinate their cattle against ECF with the aim of reducing the risk of losing them to ECF. Furthermore, they could sell some of their animals and channel the returns to vaccinating the rest of the herd. Asset ownership has been linked to the ability to adopt innovations; as some of them can be sold and be used to pay for the technological expenses (Meinzen-dick et al., 2011).In FHHs ITM adopters had a larger land size of 4.92 acres as compared to 3.15 acres for nonadopters. There was a significant difference in mean of land size by adoption status among FHHs at 5 % significance level. The larger land size among adopters in FHHs is a sign of wealth and empowerment as this could explain the ability of the women to use the returns from other agricultural sources to supplement the adoption of new agricultural innovations. They could sell some of the other farm produce and use the returns to pay for the new agricultural technologies. Galie et al. (2015) argued that ownership and control over agricultural resources by women increases their capability of participating in agricultural interventions. Results on breed type, cattle keeping system and method of tick control are presented in Table 6.There was a significant relationship between method of vector control and adoption of ITM at spraying method in vector control as compared to 39.32 for non-adopters. Spraying as the primary method of vector control was indicative of a relatively well-off farmer, implied by the ability to purchase equipment and acaricide, and employ labour required for spraying at the farm level. The differences could be due to knowledge difference regarding the ability of ITM to cut on the costs of vector control through reduction in spraying. Regarding institutional characteristics; the results indicate that there was a significant difference in the average distance of responded from home to the nearest extension/ITM service providers at 1% significant level in both MHHs and FHHs as shown in Table 7. Considering working-time in minutes, ITM adopters in MHHs covered an average 20.77 minutes while non-adopters covered an average of 28.08 minutes to reach the nearest extension/ITM service. In FHHs, adopters of ITM covered a shorter distance, a mean of 12.80 walking time in minutes to reach extension offices as compared to 20.45 walking time in minutes for non-adopters. Distance from the household to the nearest extension service offices provides a good proxy for measuring the ease of access to information and production inputs. Location of the ITM service providers plays a more significant role in access to ITM information and even reduces the transaction cost in acquiring ITM inputs. Wollni and Andersson, (2014) noted that distance from the farm gate to the nearest extension service providers act as a critical hindrance to the adoption of new agricultural technologies, as it influences transaction costs and access to agricultural related information. Concerning the number of contacts with extension service providers in the last production period, adopters of ITM had more contact than their counterparts, and there was a significant difference at 1 % and 5% significance level among MHHs and FHHs, respectively. Adopters of ITM in MHHs had the highest number of contact with extension service provider at 2.43 times within the last production period of 12 months as compared to non-adopters at 1.41 times.Similarly, adopters of ITM in FHHs had the highest contact with extension service provider at 3 times within the last production period as compared to 1.5 times for non-adopters. The ability to adopt ITM can be enhanced by individual farmer awareness on cattle health and other vector/ disease management practices. Access to extension services positively influences adoption of new agricultural technologies as it helps in awareness creation. Dolisca et al. (2006), argued that a total number of contacts with extension service provider act as a reliable proxy for awareness creation and subsequent adoption of the innovation.  Concerning credit access, the ability of the household head to access credit (either in cash or inkind) from either formal or informal sector in the last one year was statistically significant at 1% level of significance in both MHHs and FHHs. In MHHs, the proportion of household head that accessed credit was highest amongst ITM adopters, about 73.98 % obtained loans as compared to 43.39 % of non-adopters. In FHHSs, 68.42% of those who adopted ITM accessed credit compared to 44.17 % for non-adopters. These findings imply that farmers who have access to credit have higher chances of adopting ITM; this might be due to a possibility of using the creditcash to pay for the ITM services. Credit programs may aid farmers to purchase inputs or procure physical capital needed for technology adoption (Mohamed and Temu, 2008).The study used a five-point Likert scale (strongly disagree=1, disagree=2, neutral=3, agree=4, and strongly agree=5) to rate and understand cattle keepers perception toward ITM. In total ten statements were used to capture farmers perceptions in both MHHs and FHHs. The statement captured issues on the effectiveness of ITM in control of ECF, and barriers to its adoption. This aimed at identifying the specific attributes that might help researchers and policymakers to design a technology that will meet specific needs of farmers. These statements were obtained from a qualitative study (FGDs) done in the same region before the quantitative one. The responses were based only on the cattle keepers who knew and either wholly or partially (vaccinated part of their cattle herds against ECF) adopted ITM.The descriptive analysis (Table 9) show that a majority of respondents from MHHs and FHHs agreed that ITM is the appropriate method for ECF control as depicted by positive scores on statements concerning ITM performance. According to the results, reduction in mortality rate due to ECF was the best most perceived benefits from ITM adoption by respondents from both MHHs and FHHs. In MHHs, ITM adopters had a strong perception regarding reduction in mortality rate due to ECF; with 77.05% of respondent scoring on strongly agree. These resultswere similar for the case of FHHs, where a majority the respondent strongly agreed with the comment regarding reduction in mortality rate due to ECF with 62.02% of the respondent scoring on 'strongly-agree.' These results suggest that adoption of ITM is a better intervention in reducing mortality rate due to ECF. This finding conforms with previous studies, where ECF vaccination is reported to lower mortality rate from more than 80% to less than 2% among the vaccinated herds (Toye and Ballantyne, 2015).Regarding the reduction in the use of acaricide in ECF vector control, findings shows that about 68.03% and 51.72% of MHHs and FHHs, respectively, 'agree' with this attribute. These findings suggest that vaccination against ECF has a significant effect on the cost of ECF vector control.These findings are in line with those found by Jumba et al. (2016) where vaccination against ECF led to drastic reduction in the use of acaricide as farmers who had vaccinated their cattle reduce the amount of spraying by almost a half the original times (twice a month instead of weekly). A majority of the respondents had a positive perception concerning an increase in milk productivity/yield per annum due to ECF vaccination, as 60.66% and 51.72% of the respondent in MHHs and FHHs, respectively, agreed with the statement. A possible reason for the positive opinion could be due to the larger lactating herd size among ITM adopters as compared to the non-adopters. Besides, this could be due to the low level of ECF and other diseases among lactating cows which could interfere with the milk yields, and keeping animals of pure-breeds with higher milk producing capacity (Jumba et al., 2016).The statement on a boost of the cattle's immune system regarding fighting other disease or responding to treatment received a definite \"agree\" perception by a majority (52.46%) of MHHs but a neutral attitude by a majority (55.17%) of the FHHs. These findings suggest that women in FHHs had less knowledge regarding cattle treatment as compared to men. The minimal involvement of women in cattle treatment activities could explain why they have little experience regarding cattle treatment (Njuki et al., 2013). There was a positive perception regarding an increase in live cattle market value for the case of respondents from MHHs where 63.11% of the respondent 'agree' with this attribute, however, this statement received a neutral score from a majority (68.97%) of the respondents from FHHs. The possible explanation could be due to lack of knowledge on the importance of ECF vaccination-especially regarding reduction in risk of losing the animals to ECF.The statement concerning the link between ECF vaccination and improvement in cattle growth rate received a positive score from both men and women. A majority of the respondents, 53.28% and 55.17% for the case of FHHs and MHHs agreed with this statement. The possible reason for this could be due to avoidance of stunting associated with infection with ECF in young calves.Thus, maintenance of better health in calves might boost calves growth rate. Finally, mean scores regarding the improvement in traction power in cattle due to ECF vaccination showed that respondents from both MHHs and FHHs had poor perception towards it. Results show that 90.16% and 79.31% of respondent in MHHs and FHHs, respectively, scored \"neutral\" on this attribute. Lack of involvement of cattle in ploughing in the region as the cows mainly kept for dairying could give a clear explanation for the neutral scores by both men and women.The study went further and looked at the challenges cattle keepers face in adopting ITM (Table 10). In both cases, all the respondents in MHHs and FHHs perceived the package of the vaccine as the main constraints to its adoption. Respondents from MHHs and FHHs had negative perception on attribute regarding the package of ITM vaccine in the batch of 40 doses.According to the results a majority (62.30%) of respondents in MHHs strongly disagreed with this statement, similar to FHHs where a majority (44.83%) of the respondents scored on \"disagree\". The negative perception is explained by the fact that it is time demanding to assemble the required 40 heads for vaccination for both men and women. Consequently, it is not easy for all the farmers who want to vaccinate against ECF to have the required cash at the same time, hence posing a real challenge to their desire to vaccinate against ECF (Jumba et al., 2016).Findings show that both respondents had negative perception on the availability of ITM service providers in their region. A majority of the respondent 62.30% and 51.72% from MHHs and FHHs respectively disagreed with this statement. This could be due to the few authorized ITM vaccinators in the region hence possessing a great challenge for farmers to vaccinate their animals. Results show that majority respondents 54.92% and 44.83% from MHHs and FHHs, respectively, agreed that the price of the vaccine was costly for them to afford. This could be attributed to the initial cost required to pay for the ITM services by the smallholder cattle keepers. Jumba et al. (2016) noted that although smallholder cattle keepers perceive ITM to be a best method of controlling ECF, the initial cost which ranges from Kenya shillings 850 to 1200 purposes a great challenge to its adoption. Key: 5 = Strongly Agree, 4 = Agree, 3 = Neutral, 2 = Disagree, 1 = Strongly Disagree CV = Coefficient of Variation.Before conducting the regression analysis, all the selected independent variables to be used were checked for the existence of multicollinearity problem. The variance inflating factors (VIFs)were used to test the association between continuous explanatory variables while a contingency coefficient test (CC) method was used for the case of discrete explanatory variables. Besides, the white test was used to check for heteroskedasticity.The VIFs results show that the data had no serious problem of multicollinearity (Table 11). The VIFs result showed that for all continuous exogenous variables in both MHHs and FHHs, the values of VIF were less than ten. Besides, tolerance values were far away from zero. These findings imply that there was no substantial association between the continuous regressors.For the categorical variable, contingent coefficients were calculated and results presented in Table 12 and 13, for MHHs and FHHs respectively. Results show that there was no serious association among the categorical variables, as all the contingent coefficients were less than 0.75 in all the cases. Thus all the discrete explanatory variables tested were used in modeling. The white test was used to check if there was a problem of heteroskedasticity among hypothesized explanatory variables before econometrics analysis, as presented in Table 14. The test result detected the presence of heteroskedasticity problem in both cases as chi 2 of 161.920 and 177.730 for MHHs and FHHs, respectively were significantly different from zero at 5% levels. As a remedy to these problems, the study used robust standard errors in the subsequent analyses. Robust standard errors help to reduce biasness of the coefficient under the case of heteroskedasticity (Gujarati, 2004). Prob > chi 2 = 0.007 Prob > chi 2 = 0.003This section presents results on estimates of ITM adoption among the targeted population and also gives more insight on factors influencing its adoption with the gender of the household head into consideration. Table 15 presents the results on the potential (ATE) and actual (JEA) adoption rates of the ITM, and the adoption gaps generated by the incomplete diffusion of information regarding ITM among the targeted population. Results show that in the year 2016 only 57% and 46% of the sampled household were aware of ITM for the case of MHHs and FHHs, respectively. The incomplete awareness of ITM among the targeted population restricted the actual adoption rates (JEA) of ITM to 41.10% and 19.40% for the MHHs and FHHs, respectively. These JEA estimate rates were significantly different from zero at 1% level.The potential adoption rates (ATE) of ITM if all the farmers in MHHs and FHHs were aware of ECF vaccination was estimated at 61.60% and 31.40%, respectively. However, the incomplete awareness of the ITM resulted in adoption gaps of 20.50% and 12.00% for MHHs and FHHs, respectively which were significantly different from zero at 1% level. These findings indicate that there is potential for increasing ITM adoption by more than 20% and 12% for the case of FHHs and MHHs if better awareness programs that will target both men and women are put in place by disseminators. The initial dissemination programs that entail the use of subsidized campaigns, field trials and extension visits that were guided by the prejudice of targeting particular farmers with a higher likelihood of adopting seem to be ineffective. The coefficients of the education level of the household heads were positive and significant at 1% level for both MHHs and FHHs, suggesting that household heads with a higher level of formal education have a higher probability of getting exposed to and adopting ITM than those with less formal education. Increase in one year of schooling of the household head will result in 3.10% increase in the probability of adopting ITM for MHHs, and 2.20% for the case of FHHs when all other factors are held constant. The positive relationship between the education level of the household head and ITM adoption could be attributed to the fact that a higher level of formal education increases the farmer's knowledge regarding ITM which translates to positive perception, therefore, increasing the probability of vaccinating their cattle against ECF. This result conforms with the findings of Khonje et al. (2015), where a higher level of formal education increased the likelihood of smallholder maize farmers adopting improved maize varieties, mainly due to more awareness of its availability and the expected benefits.In MHHs, results show that the coefficient for the age of the head of household is negative and significant at 10% significance level, suggesting that the probability of adopting ITM diminishes with old age. The marginal effects further indicate that one year increase in the age of the household head in MHHs, will results in 0.6% decrease the likelihood of ITM adoption when other factors are held constant. The possible explaination to this finding could be because older farmers may incur higher information search costs regarding agricultural innovations as compared to younger farmers. Hence lack of information on agricultural innovations lowers their ability to embrace them. This finding is in line with that of Simtowe et al. (2016) where older farmers lagged behind in uptake of improved pigeon varieties due to lack of awareness regarding improved varieties. Besides, this could be because older farmers tend to remain conservative to their old ways of doing things; hence, the tendency to adopt an innovation always becomes difficult. This may be because they are less receptive to new ideas and are less willing to take risks associated with innovations as compared to the younger farmers. Besides, over the years, older farmers through trial and error might have found better ways of controlling ECF hence they have no incentive to pay for innovations targeting ECF control. However, for the case of FHHs, the coefficient of age was positive and statistically significant at 5% level. The marginal effects suggest that one year increase in age of the household head, will results in an increase in the probability of ITM adopting by 0.3% when other factors are held constant. The result implies that age of the farmers in FHHs influenced adoption of ITM positively, where older farmers were more likely to adopt as compared to younger ones. This could be due to a higher resource endowment and level of empowerment among older women which enabled them to pay for ITM services with minimal difficulties. Besides, older women have higher mobility as compared to younger ones which might increase their chances of getting information about agricultural innovations (Doss, 2011).In FHHs, household size had a positive and significant coefficient at 5% level, indicating that larger household size increased the likelihood of adopting ITM. Marginal effects suggest that increase in household size by one unit; will increase the probability of adopting ITM by 0.7% when all other factors are held constant. The reason behind this finding could be due to the available labour that can be channeled into other agricultural enterprises that provide additional income which can be used to pay for the innovations. Besides, this might be due to the value the women with larger household size attaches on their animals, as they are in high demand of milk and other income benefits to provide for their families, thus the need to reduce risk by protecting them from the deadly ECF through vaccination.The primary occupation of the household head returned a positive and significant coefficient at 5% and 10% level of significance for MHHs and FHHs, respectively. The household head that considered farming as the primary occupation were more likely to adopt ITM as compared to those who engaged in off-farm income generating activities. The marginal effects show that the impact of having farming as a primary activity was inelastic to the probability of ITM adoption, as an increase in time allocation to farming activities by one percent increased the likelihood of adopting ITM by 5.4% and 4.4% for the case of MHHs and FHHs, respectively. Practicing farming as the primary activity might improve the chance of household head interacting with extension services providers, an act which raises their access to information regarding new agricultural innovations. This finding differs from those of Obisesan (2014), who noted that participation in off-farm income generating activities increased chances of adopting agricultural innovations, as the farmers took advantage of the extra cash from off-farm businesses to pay for the innovations inputs or services. The coefficient of farm size owned by the household for the case of FHHs was found to be positive and significant at 5% level, suggesting that cattle keepers -in FHHs -with more substantial land holdings are more likely to vaccinate against ECF. Marginal effect further indicates that an increase in household's farm size by one unit; will lead to an increase in the probability of ITM adoption by 1.2% when other factors are held constant. The land is perhaps the most critical resource for women in FHHs, as larger land size could provide an opportunity for farm enterprise diversification for stable income generation which they can use to pay for the ITM services. Awotide et al. (2012) noted that diversification of farming enterprise generated more revenue which could be used to pay for expenses required in adopting innovations.Cattle herd size returned a positive and significant coefficient at 5% level for both MHHs and FHHS, suggesting that households with more heads of cattle have a higher propensity to adopt ITM than those with fewer cattle heads. These findings indicate that an increase in household herd size by one unit increases the probability of vaccinating against ECF by 2.6% and 2.3% for the case of MHHs and FHHs, respectively. Larger herds of cattle are indicators of the wealth of the household, suggesting that slightly wealthier families have a higher probability of adopting ITM as they face fewer difficulties in paying for agricultural innovations. The findings resonate well with those of Simtowe et al. (2016), where economically well-off farmers -regarding the number of livestock owned -were able to acquire complementary inputs required to adopt improved pigeon peas for the case of Tanzania.The dummy whether a farmer was an active member of any social group returned a positive and expected sign, and it was significant at 1% level for both MHHs and FHHs, suggesting that being a member of any social group increased the likelihood of adopting ITM. Furthermore, marginal effects indicate that being an active member of any community-based farmers' group increased the probability of ITM adoption by 9.7% and 19.6% for the case of MHHs and FHHs when other factors are held constant. The reason to these results could be due to the social capital gained by being an active member of social groups which fosters technology uptake by enhancing information sharing through group learning and also facilitating credit access to the members. Also, most of the smallholder farmers managed to vaccinate their cattle against ECF using social groups, as it was easier to mobilize cattle for ECF vaccination and even pay for ITM service through these groups. Rogers (2003) argued that active participation in social groupings is one way of enhancing social capital/networking where an individual can quickly get access to information regarding agricultural innovations and even get convinced to adopt.The annual number of contact with extension service providers had a positive and significant influence on the probability of adopting ITM at 1% and 10% level of significance for MHHs and FHHs, respectively; suggesting that the likelihood of adopting ITM increases with increase in access to extension services. Specifically, marginal effects indicate that an increase in the frequency of contact with extension agents by one unit; it will lead to increase in the likelihood of adopting ITM by 17.7% and 15.4% for the case of MHHs and FHHs, respectively, when other factors remain constant. Cattle keepers who were regularly visited by extension agents and those who attend field days or host demonstration/trials were likely to adopt ITM; this was due to their increased awareness of the benefits of adopting ITM. These findings highlight the considerable role of extension agents in creating awareness about agricultural innovations as it is expected that regular contacts with extension agents enhance farmers' knowledge and equips them with new techniques of managing agricultural production. Mugisha et al. (2005) found out that the number of access to agricultural extension services positively influenced the adoption of improved groundnut technologies.Credit access returned an expected positive and significant coefficient at 5% significance level for both MHHs and FHHs, suggesting that agricultural credit have a considerable impact in facilitating the adoption of ITM. The marginal effects suggests that having access to credit increases the probability of ITM adoption by 11.5% and 13.6% for the case of MHHs and FHHs, respectively other factors remaining equal. This is attributed to the fact that credit relaxes the financial constraint cattle keepers' face in purchasing the ITM vaccines and paying for its services. Studies have shown that, as a liquidity factor, the more farmers have access to finance sources, the more likely they can pay for inputs and expenses incurred during the adoption of innovations (Mendola, 2007;Qaim, 2013 andSimtowe et al., 2016).Distance to the nearest ITM service provider or extension officers returned negative and significant coefficient at 1% and 5% significance level for FHHs and MHHs, respectively. These results imply that distance to the nearest vaccinator or extension offices negatively impacted the possibility of adopting ITM in both household headships. The result of marginal effects further demonstrates that increase in the distance to the nearest extension service by one unit results in a gave more robust results which satisfied the balancing tests. According to the findings, the estimated model appears to perform well for the intended matching exercises. The models haveMcFadden pseudo-R-square value of 0.325 for MHHs and 0.382 for FHHs and log likelihood value of 131.29 for MHHs and 93.91 for FHHs.The models further provide information on factors influencing adoption of ITM for the case of MHHs and FHHs. The results show that the coefficients of most of the variables hypothesized to affect adoption have the expected signs and are significant at different levels. These factors had been discussed in the earlier section (objective two). For the case of MHHs, the age of the household head, education level of the household head, the primary occupation of the household head, cattle herd size, group membership, credit access and the number of contact with extension agents influence ITM adoption. In FHHs, the age of the household head, education level of the household head, household size, primary occupation of the household head, land size, cattle herd size, group membership, and the number of contact with extension agents and access to credit influenced adoption of ITM. The only difference between the results in this section and the previous section is on the magnitude of the coefficients between the classical probit used here, and the ATE-probit applied in objective two above.  Estimation of the propensity scores was then followed by matching with the aim of finding out the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) for intended outcome variables. As discussed in chapter three, there are several matching algorithms. These include nearest neighbor with or without replacement, radius, stratification, kernel, and local linear matching algorithms. This means that a suitable matching algorithm has to be selected. Therefore, different matching estimators were employed in identifying the excellent match between the treatment group and control groups which fall within the common support regions-basing on the predicted propensity scores. The primary test used to check the quality of matching results was to compare the sample before and after matching with the aim of identifying if there were any differences between groups (the matched treated and the control). The choice of the best matching estimator was determined by taking into consideration the reduction in pseudo-R 2 (that is comparing pseudo-R 2 before matching and after matching), the overall decrease in percent mean bias, and checking the number of matched sample size. 18 indicate that in MHHs, kernel matching with a bandwidth of 0.5 resulted in relatively lower overall pseudo-R 2 and had a more significant reduction in mean percentage bias for overall covariates used to estimate the propensity score after matching as compared to other matching algorithms. Besides, the estimate had a larger matched sample size with an overall p-value (for all explanatory variables) being insignificant. However, in FHHs, nearest neighbor matching five (5), resulted in a lower overall pseudo-R 2 after matching and had a more significant reduction in mean percentage bias as compared to other algorithms (see Table 19).These results imply that after matching there was a considerable reduction in systematic differences in the distribution of covariates between adopters and non-adopters in both MHHs and FHHs.Kernel matching estimate with a bandwidth of five (5) and nearest neighbor matching five (5) were selected as the best estimates for MHHs and FHHs, respectively. As Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983) point out although before matching differences are expected in the covariates, afterward the covariates should be balanced in both groups, and no differences should be found. Dehejia and Wahba (2002) also noted that a matching estimator which reduces the difference between the control and treated groups and the one that bears a lower pseudo-R 2 after matching and results in a larger matched sample size should be considered as the best matching algorism.After choosing the best performing matching algorithm, the next task was to check the balance of covariates after matching process. The mean standardized bias test was used to determine the reduction in bias in covariates after matching method, using the selected matching algorithm.The analysis presents the difference in means of covariates in before and after matching and with their t-test results, and also the percentage reduction in bias for each covariate (see Table 20 and 21 for MHHs and FHHs, respectively). The mean standardized biases before and after matching are shown in the fifth columns while the total bias reductions are reported in the sixth columns.In MHHs, this was done using the kernel matching with a bandwidth 0.5, as it was considered to be the best matching estimates, while for FHHs, it was done using near neighbor matching five (5) as it was the best fit matching algorithm.Results show that after matching, there was no difference in the sample means of the 13 covariates, a majority of them were insignificant both for the case of MHHs and FHHs. However, before matching there was a difference in the most of the means of covariates used in modeling. This implies that propensity score matching adequately served the role of reducing imbalances between the covariates for both groups in MHHs and FHHs, thus making the control group a plausible counterfactual. Hence, the process of matching created a high degree of covariate balance between the treatment and control samples that were ready to be used in the estimation procedure. Thus the matching results can give a reliable result for ATT estimates in evaluating the effects of ITM on household net income among the smallholder farmers. Hence, results obtained are suitable for formulation policy that can help in scaling up of the ITM innovation among livestock keepers. In this section, the effects of ITM adoption on household net cattle income are evaluated with the gender of the household head into consideration. The study used different matching techniques with the aim of improving the robustness of the results. The methods used included near neighbor with/without replacement, radius matching with different calipers, kernel matching with different bandwidth and stratification. However, only results on near neighbor with replacement, radius matching, and kernel matching are presented. The estimated net cattle income was transformed into natural logarithmic because of the skewness of the data. All the matching was based on the implementation of common-support condition; so that the distributions of ITM adopters and non-adopters were on support. All the matching techniques used reveal that uptake of ITM in ECF control had a positive and significant effect on the estimated average household cattle income.The overall average gain of vaccinating against ECF per annum ranges from 0.28 and 0.30 for MHHs and 0.29 to 0.32 for FHHs as demonstrated by the different matching techniques (Table 22). Since income was expressed in natural logarithmic terms, the results of NN, RM and KM estimates show that farmers who adopted ITM have about 28% to 30% higher income per capita per annum as compared to the non-adopters, for the case of MHHs. In FHHs, results of NN, RM and KM shows that households which have adopted ITM have a net gain in cattle income of about 29% to 32% higher as compared to those of non-adopters. This confirms that the average household income for farmers vaccinating against ECF was higher than non-adopters no matter the matching method employed. These results imply that ITM is better intervention in improving livelihoods of smallholder cattle keepers. The bootstrapped SE were obtained after 100 replications Natural logarithmic differences are reported for the outcome variables; multiplied by 100 these figure were interpreted as percentage effect.The study aimed at determining the perceptions, adoption, and welfare effects of ITM for management of ECF in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya using gender-disaggregated data obtained from a sample of 448 smallholder cattle keeping households. The study utilized both descriptive and empirical analysis. The average treatment effects (ATE) framework was adopted to estimate the adoption of ITM, while propensity score matching (PSM) was used to evaluate the impact of the ITM on income generated from cattle.We investigated whether cattle keepers had a positive perception on the effectiveness of ITM on ECF control. Reduction in mortality rate due to ECF, reduction in the cost of ECF control, increase in milk yield, improvement in cattle growth rate, and improvement in cattle immune systems received positive score from a majority of adopter respondents from both MHHs and FHHs. However, the package of the ITM vaccine, cost of the ITM services, and availability of ITM providers limits its adoption as perceived by respondents in FHHs and MHHs.The results further underscored the importance of awareness in the adoption of ITM. Findings show that inadequate knowledge regarding ITM restricted actual adoption rates to 41% and 19%for the case of MHHs and FHHs, respectively. Yet, the potential adoption rate in the same year was estimated at 61% and 31% for FHHs and MHHs, respectively. Inadequate awareness of ITM resulted in adoption gaps of 20% and 12% for MHHs and FHHs, respectively. This finding implies that there is potential for up-scaling ITM uptake by 20.50% and 12.00% in MHHs and FHHs, respectively, through broader dissemination of ITM knowledge among the targeted population. The study further indicated that the likelihood of higher demand for ITM among the exposed/aware population from both MHHs and FHHs was influenced positively by the education level of the household-head, access to credit, access to extension services, group membership, and cattle herd size. Household size, age of the household head, and land size were found to have a positive influence among FHHs only.Results also demonstrate that the uptake of ITM has a positive welfare shift on household income from cattle. According to different PSM estimation methods used in the empirical analysis, ITM adoption results in a shift in annual household income from cattle by between 28% -30% and 29% -32% for the case of MHHs and FHHs, respectively. These findings reveal the potential impact ITM has on transforming the livelihood of smallholder cattle keepers, hence acting as a significant pathway for reducing poverty among rural households. Thus, inclusion, wider dissemination and uptake of ITM will help improve smallholder cattle keepers' (both in MHHs and FHHs) income from cattle which will translate directly or indirectly to their general wellbeing.To improve demand for ITM by smallholder cattle keepers from both MHHs and FHHs, stakeholders should consider overcoming key challenges smallholder cattle keepers face in vaccinating their animals. There is need to come up with smaller packages of ITM vaccine for example batches of five or ten instead of the standard one of forty doses. There is a need to come up with policy which can help reduce barrier to acquiring information and adoption of ITM.Policy makers and other relevant stakeholders should consider using institutional innovation platforms such as community social groups where cattle keepers can be trained, access credit, and even mobilize resources for ECF vaccination. Social groups can help farmers in vaccination as it is easier for them to overcome the issue of the package of the vaccine in batches of 40.Besides, smallholder cattle keepers can use such platforms to share farming information.These findings suggest that to improve the adoption of ITM, more awareness should be done among the target population. This can be achieved through policy formulation that can strengthen and leverage both government and non-government extension services and rural institutions to promote and create awareness about the ITM. The national government and other relevant stakeholder should train more ITM distributors and vaccinators so that it will be easier for cattle farmers to access them easily.The primary attention of this study was to evaluate, perception, adoption, and the contribution of ITM on the livelihoods of smallholder cattle keepers with a gender lens into perspective. Annual income from cattle was considered as a proxy for measuring changes, if any, in household ","tokenCount":"15978"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"effc81ad379448d4dc8ce151c045676a","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://data.mel.cgiar.org/api/access/datafile/:persistentId/?persistentId=hdl:20.500.11766.1/FK2/G4HFVQ/JYU5KA","id":"303960204"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"c09154d7-501b-4710-9ac2-241b0f36605d","pagecount":"9","content":"This questionnaire should be filled out with the wife (or first wife in polygamous households) or other adult female knowledgeable about household livelihood activities and food consumption. If need be, you will need to ask some questions to the other women.If the respondent is the same as for the 'baseline household head' survey, then go to Q3   (do not fill) (do not fill) Codes 1 = unsure 2 = male household adult (> 15 years) 3 = female household adult (> 15 years) 4 = jointly between male and female household adults 5 = male household child (<15 years) 6 = female household child (<15 years) 7 = jointly between male and female household children 8 = any household member 9 = non-household member such as relative, friend, neighbour 10 = hired male labourer 11 = hired female labourer -77 = other, specify below [__________________________________]1. Where it is possible all women should participate in the questionnaire. If this not possible, the enumerator should mention as a comment.  ","tokenCount":"167"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"e29c5d61a71628bcb5adfe06b07bb4d9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/06a240cf-9c3e-465c-baa7-8b3d5d06a2d5/retrieve","id":"-738352712"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"3d0b9a8a-e221-49fe-bbff-fa455dec625f","pagecount":"2","content":"• # of more people, of which 50% are women, without deficiencies of one or more of the following essentials micronutrients: iron, zinc, iodine, vitamin A, folate and vitamin B12 Description of activity / study: Scientists showed that there is geospatial variation in the composition of micronutrients that is nutritionally important at subnational scales. in Ethiopia and Malawi. For rural households consuming locally sourced food-including many smallholder farming communities-the location of residence can be the largest influencing factor in determining the dietary intake of micronutrients from cereals. Positive relationships between the concentration of selenium in grain and biomarkers of selenium dietary status occured in both countries. Surveillance of micronutrient deficiencies (on basis of biomarkers of status and dietary intakes surveys) could be improved by using subnational data on the composition of grain micronutrients. Beyond dietary diversification, interventions to alleviate deficiencies (e.g. food fortification, biofortification) to increase micronutrient concentrations in crops should account for geographical effects that can be larger in magnitude than intervention outcomes.• National • Regional Region(s):• Sub-Saharan Africa 1 This report was generated on 2022-08-19 at 08:13 (GMT+0)","tokenCount":"180"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"677b8106213d755eea922a4ee4fc0183","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/dbb260a3-c811-46fe-90ec-ae1d102e6299/content","id":"-542692585"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"372267d0-a2b5-49d2-8aaa-653d5ac0ba96","pagecount":"35","content":"The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is a non-profit international agricultural research and training organization. CIMMYT focuses on sustainable agri-food systems and improved livelihoods through research on maize, wheat and other food crops.Applying high-quality science and strong partnerships, CIMMYT works for a world with healthier and more prosperous people, free from global food crises and with more resilient agri-food systems. Its research brings enhanced productivity and better profits to farmers, mitigates the effects of the climate crisis, and reduces the environmental impact of agriculture.CIMMYT is a member of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food secure future dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources.The stylized narrative of an exodus of young people from rural areas in Africa implicates stagnant rural areas with limited economic prospects as the key push factor. Using nationally representative survey data from Tanzania, we explore patterns in self-reported satisfaction with various aspects of life. Lending some support to the stylized narrative around disaffected rural youth, we find that rural young people are neither strongly dissatisfied nor strongly satisfied with their lives. However, young people are notably less dissatisfied than older people, in both rural and urban areas, and in all domains of satisfaction measured. We also find that women are less dissatisfied than men. While there is evidence that people in less remote areas are slightly more satisfied with life than those in more remote rural areas, this is not a strong relationship. Furthermore, young people are markedly less satisfied in urban areas as compared with rural areas. After controlling for observable factors, we find that young people's life satisfaction is strongly conditioned by their household's level of consumption expenditures, as well as their familial context, and direct experience of crime. While some of these factors have strong spatial expressions, they map onto rural remoteness in different ways: while consumption expenditure tends to increase with population density, for example, so does the likelihood of experiencing crime. After controlling for individual and household-level characteristics, the residual effect of remoteness on life satisfaction is largely attenuated, although this residual effect is more pronounced for young people than older people, in line with the stylized narrative. We also find evidence that young individuals expressing lower levels of life satisfaction are more likely to migrate from their households to other locations. Our results provide a more nuanced update to the stylized picture of life satisfaction of young rural people in sub-Saharan Africa.• Young people report greater life satisfaction than older people in rural Tanzania • Individuals in rural areas are less dissatisfied with life than those in urban areas • However, rural people's satisfaction decreases with remoteness • Less satisfied individuals are more likely to migrate • We argue for more nuance in the narrative on disaffected rural youth in Africa viProgress toward creating decent jobs and reducing rural poverty requires transformations of economies, rural spaces, and food systems. Economywide transformation brings changes in relative factor costs (i.e., land, labor, and capital), new patterns of consumption, and changes in opportunities for trade and specialization. Food system transformation is shaped by changing food demand, which creates investments and jobs in food value chains and increases commercial farming opportunities. Both transformations will have substantial effects on rural economies, but maximizing the positive effects requires attention to policies and investments.PIM's Flagship 2 teams study these processes and analyze policy options to promote inclusive rural growth and transformation. Specific topics include assessment and implications of transformation processes, agri-food systems as source of jobs, key public and private investments to stimulate rural development, and the political economy of agricultural and food policy reforms.The foresight team at CIMMYT has been contributing to the research on rural transformation with special emphasis on the development of farm size, rural migration, the effects of rural transformation on youth and the effects on gendered outcomes of these processes.This discussion paper aims to contribute to the ongoing discussions of the role of rural transformation in overall development and the effects that this should have on agricultural research for development priorities.Director CIMMYT Integrated Development ProgramWhether framed as \"makers\" or breakers\" (Honwana and de Boeck, 2005), young people figure prominently in contemporary policy narratives around the future of rural Africa. On the one hand, their education, energy and willingness to embrace innovation are portrayed as essential to the transformation of agriculture and the rural economy (for a recent review see Sumberg and Hunt, 2019). On the other, their misplaced dreams of formal employment and urban life are linked to the aging of the farming population, the hollowing out of rural communities, and, when those dreams are frustrated, the potential for civil unrest and radicalization (Brück et al., 2016). The working assumption that underpins much policy discourse is that young people are dissatisfied with the economic and broader livelihood prospects available to them in rural areas, and that for a significant number, this dissatisfaction drives them to abandon agriculture and relocate to towns and cities. There continues to be debate as to whether the young people have assessed the situation correctly, or, as proposed by some, a lack of information and negative \"mindset\" has caused them to misread the rural landscape of opportunity.The aspirations of young rural African have received some attention in the rural development research literature, motivated by beliefs that (1) increasing levels of education and connectivity will fuel rising aspirations, and (2) to a greater or lesser degree, aspirations inform decisions about education, employment, marriage, migration and so on.Perhaps not surprisingly much of this literature suggests that agriculture does not figure prominently in young people's aspirations, while professional jobs, formal employment and urban settings do (Tadele and Gella, 2012;Petesch and Rodríguez Caillava, 2012;White, 2012;Anyidoho et al., 2012;Leavy and Hossain, 2014;Berckmoes and White, 2014;Temudo and Abrantes, 2015;Yeboah et al., 2017;BMZ, 2017;OECD, 2017;Elias et al., 2018). It is important to note that this literature generally leaves unquestioned the conceptual and theoretical dimensions of aspirations and their links to action, and the associated methodological and interpretive challenges. In contrast, these are important concerns within the sociological and youth studies literatures (Zipin et al., 2015). Hardgrove et al. (2015) for example, argue that alternatives to aspirations, including \"imagined futures\", \"future selves\" and \"possible selves\", deserve attention because they provide \"a theorization of the link between imagined possibilities in the future and motivation to act in the present\".Another possible, and yet largely unexplored window into young rural African's motivation to act, is provided by the positive psychology movement and its now well established focus on life satisfaction (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000;Gilman and Huebner, 2003). Over the last two decades there has been an explosion of research on subjective measures of well-being, including life satisfaction and happiness, but to date the research gaze has largely bypassed rural youth in Africa. We argue that any empirical insights into the relationship between young people's satisfaction with current conditions or anticipated prospects, and their decisions about education, training, residence, job orientation, marriage, political engagement etc. should be of significant interest to policy makers, perhaps particularly in Africa, given the predominance of the highly stylized and weakly substantiated narrative on disaffected rural youth.Rooted in insights from positive psychology, individuals' subjective assessment of their level of satisfaction with their own lives is now accepted as a valuable indicator of well-being (Dolan et al., 2008;Diener, 2000). Life satisfaction (LS) research, usually using questions with the form \"All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?\" 1 , is meant to capture a holistic evaluation of an individual's life, not simply satisfaction or happiness at the moment. The fact that LS data is subjective is not a limitation but a strength: rather than a cheap and cheerful proxy for more valuable \"objective\" measures of social welfare, LS provides an alternative window into lived experience. It is nevertheless important to note that subjective and objective welfare measures do correspond, albeit imperfectly (Carletto and Zezza, 2006;Lokshin et al., 2006). In their summary of findings from psychology, economics and sociology, Frey and Stutzer (2002) concluded that LS data are valid, consistent and reliable measures of individual well-being. People are able to evaluate their own quality of life without systematic errors, and their evaluation is relatively stable over time.Because subjective well-being is increasingly recognized as a legitimate component of economic performance and social progress (Fitoussi and Stiglitz, 2013) there has been much research interest in the correlates of life satisfaction both within and between countries. One key finding is that life satisfaction changes over the life cycle is broadly similar ways across a diversity of countries: LS generally declines between youth and middle age, and rises again in old age, forming the commonly observed U pattern (Blanchflower and Oswald, 2017).Another important set of correlates of LS relates to consumption, with LS being positively associated with own consumption but often negatively associated with consumption level of neighbors or peers (e.g. (Luttmer, 2005;Easterlin, 2001). Fafchamps and Shilpi (2008) also find this to be true in Nepal, and furthermore find that respondents residing far from markets care even more about the consumption level of their neighbors in forming their own subjective welfare assessments.While the correlates of LS have received much attention, the role of LS in decision making has not. Perhaps the most relevant work is that of Otrachshenko and Popova (2014) who studied LS as a motivator for migration amongst individuals from Central and Eastern Europe. They found that people who are more dissatisfied with life have a higher intention to migrate. These results held for internal, temporary international, and permanent international migration.There is a growing literature on life satisfaction in SSA (Addai et al., 2014;Affram et al., 2019;Botha and Snowball, 2015;Conzo et al., 2017;Ngamaba, 2016;Tsai and Senah, 2014;Hinks and Davies, 2008;Sulemana, 2015;Sulemana and Agkyapong, 2019;Chin, 2010). In terms of our particular interest in the rural economy and youth, however, there has been relatively little research. Working in rural areas of northern Ethiopia, Akay and Martinsson (2011) found that the impact of relative income on subjective well-being is insignificant and small in magnitude. In South Africa, Mulcahy and Kollamparambil (2016) found that rural-urban migration leads to a decrease in subjective well-being by 8.3 per cent, which they suspected reflected \"false expectations and changing relative groups used to peg aspirations\" (p.1368) as well as the emotional cost of being away from family and a home environment. Vath et al. (2019) used a quasinatural experiment to compare the subjective well-being of outgrowers and independent \"completely dissatisfied\" and 10 means you are \"completely satisfied\" where would you put your satisfaction with life as a whole? (Bjørnskov, 2010) farmers around the biggest palm oil producer in Ghana. They found a positive causal effect of the outgrower scheme on subjective wellbeing (1.5 points on a scale of 0-10) and linked this to secure rights to land. In the Saint-Louis region in Senegal, Van den Broeck and Maertens (2017) found that women's employment improves subjective well-being for the poorest rural women, but not for women whose household income is above the poverty threshold. They suggest that while well-being is improved through an income effect, there is also a negative effect related to a higher workload and low job satisfaction due to unfulfilled expectations. The positive income effect outweighs these negative non-income effects for poor women but not for relatively wealthier women. Finally, Natali et al. (2018) find that an unconditional cash transfer program in rural Zambia led to an increase in women's self-reported happiness by 7.5% and 10% after 36 and 48 months, respectively.Of particularly relevance to our interest in the subjective well-being of youth in the rural economy is the analysis by Markussen et al. (2018) of different kinds of employment on subjective well-being in rural Vietnam. They find a positive effect of self-employment in farming, relative to self-employment in nonfarm enterprises and wage labor. Their interpretation is that self-employment in farming increases self-perceptions of autonomy and competence, while the negative effects of non-farm employment reflect psychological costs of economic transformation. This stands in contrast to the typical rendering of the disaffected rural African youth story, which attributes said disaffection to limited employment and offfarm opportunities (Mabiso & Benfica 2019).To begin to address the gap in understanding of life satisfaction among rural youth in SSA, in this paper we use data from the 2014-15 Tanzanian National Panel Survey to describe patterns in self-reported satisfaction. We find that people report being moderately unsatisfied with their lives on average; young people are less dissatisfied then middle-aged people; and rural people who are economically engaged have higher levels of life satisfaction than those who report no main economic activity.Our analysis makes several contributions to this literature. First, we directly engage the question of whether rural young people are satisfied with their lives in absolute terms, as well as relative to older people, urban people, etc. Secondly, we provide a unique nationally representative evaluation of subjective wellbeing in a sub-Saharan African context. Thirdly, we address the linkage between rural economic vibrancymeasured as individual level labor allocation outcomes, as well as community-level proxiesand life satisfaction outcomes in rural populations. Fourth, we examine the role of self-reported life satisfaction in conditioning out-migration.The rest of the paper is structured as follows.After describing our data and key variables, we outline our empirical framework. We then present and discuss our main descriptive and regression results. The final section concludes with summary remarks about our findings and their implications for the ongoing policy discussions around rural youth in Africa.Data for this study come from the 2014-15 Tanzanian National Panel Survey conducted as part of the World Bank's Living Standards Measurement Surveys -Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) project. The key variables of interest are individual responses to the questions about seven dimensions of well-being, and overall life satisfaction. Questions took the form \"How satisfied or dissatisfied would you say you are with…\":• your health?• your financial situation?• your housing?• your job?• the health care available to you?• the education available for your household? • your safety?• your life as a whole?Responses to these questions are measured on a Likert-type ordinal scale, with seven possible answers: very satisfied, satisfied, moderately satisfied, neutral, moderately dissatisfied, dissatisfied, and very dissatisfied. These questions were in principle asked of all members of the household who were (a) able to answer for her/himself, and (b) were aged 15 or older. Of the 8,418 individuals aged 15-64 in the sample, 6,438 (76%) provided responses.A key interest in this analysis is to understand the effect of a variety of measures of farm and non-farm activities on subjective well-being.Our key hypothesis is that, ceteris paribus, larger opportunity sets will be associated with more positive life satisfaction. To explore this, we run regression models of the following type:where \uD835\uDC98 \uD835\uDC56 is the answer of respondent \uD835\uDC56 to the life satisfaction questions described above, \uD835\uDC6C \uD835\uDC56 is a vector of indicators for employment/labor allocation category; \uD835\uDC7D \uD835\uDC57 is a vector of indicators of opportunity in the community (which may be taken as measures of economic \"vibrancy\"), \uD835\uDC99 \uD835\uDC56 is a vector of other variables that may affect subjective well-being at the individual, household or community level, and \uD835\uDF3A \uD835\uDC56 is an error term. Errors are allowed to be correlated within clusters, i.e. the primary sampling unit of the survey, roughly corresponding to a community. \uD835\uDF38, \uD835\uDF39, and \uD835\uDF37 are vectors of coefficients to be estimated.While the sample of households is randomly selected and nationally representative, the actual respondents to these particular questions are likely a non-random subset of all household members. To correct for this in our regression work, we first estimate the probability of an individual providing responses to the subjective welfare questions, and then construct an inverse probability weight to control for non-random selection in our main models of interest.Another issue is the possibility that individual respondents' answers may be influenced by the behavior or other characteristics of the enumerator. In a recent study in Uganda, Di Maio and Fiala (2018) found this \"enumerator effect\" to be minimal for many types of factual data elicitation, but more pronounced for political opinions. To investigate and control for such bias, we include controls for each enumerator ID in the survey data.Finally, some acknowledgement of endogeneity issues is in order. We expect that labor allocation decisions, as well as many intermediate outcomes, may well be affected by life satisfaction. For example, individuals with greater life satisfaction may be more likely to successfully pursue wage employment or business activities. However, we do not believe that there are viable instrumental variables available to deal with these. As such, we do not make claims of causal identification in our regression results. Rather, we evaluate our coefficient estimates as conditional correlations. This caveat notwithstanding, the overall stability of our results, and the sensible coefficient estimates which we obtain, suggest confidence in the coherence of our results, which we believe to have important interpretive value.There is a wide variation in levels of satisfaction in relation to different dimensions of well-being in rural Tanzania [Fig 1 & Table  1]; most aspects have non-trivial shares of respondents who are either very dissatisfied or very satisfied. On average, people are relatively more satisfied with health and protection from crime (\"safety\"), and are most dissatisfied with their financial situation, followed by access to education and healthcare. Overall, despite the wide variation in responses, the average score for overall satisfaction with life is slightly negative.      We also find evidence of gendered patterns to life satisfaction, with women being more satisfied than men, on average (Figure 5). 38% of women are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with life, compared with 48% of men. Women's life satisfaction declines steadily with age, whereas men's drops precipitously throughout the teens and twenties (Figure 6). Gendered differences are most pronounced at earlier years of life. The wider confidence intervals at the higher age ranges suggest caution in interpreting these trends, and their gendered differences, in later years.Figure 5: Gendered satisfaction Interestingly, the strongest spatial gradient in satisfaction is with population density, which we would expect to reflect at least some of aspects of the potential for rural economic vibrancy. The inverted-U shape shown in Figure 7 peaks at a population density of about 400 persons per square kilometer, which roughly corresponds with periurban and urban environments (although not cleanly so). This indicates that, without controlling for other factors, increasing levels of population density are positively associated with life satisfaction in rural areas, but increasingly dense urban environments are negatively associated with life satisfaction.A key hypothesis in our analysis is that life satisfaction in rural people is positively associated with economic engagement, which in turn is enabled by the vibrancy of the local rural economy. Our primary window into economic engagement at the individual level is their categorical indication of the nature of their primary occupation over the prior 12 months. These responses are summarized in Table 4, organized by age of respondent as well as the urban/rural designation of the survey cluster. Some strong patterns are evident. Firstly, young people are more likely to work as unpaid family labor than older people, and are also more likely to indicate no activity at all. The share reporting no activity is much higher in urban areas (60%) versus rural areas (20%), despite the presumably greater economic opportunities in urban areas. We find evidence that satisfaction scores reported by individuals are positively and significantly correlated with those of other members of the same household, as well as individuals in other households within the same cluster (Table 5). This provides some initial indications that household and spatial factors are important determinants of individual level satisfaction outcomes. 1.9 1.9 2.1 1.9 1.8 1.9 1.9Results from our regression models are shown in Table 6. We estimated our basic model over several sub-samples, starting with our primary population of interest, rural youth (aged 15-24; column 1), as well as rural nonyouth (aged 25-64; column 2), the entire set of rural individuals (aged 15-64, column 3), and the entire survey sample of individuals aged 15-64 in both rural and urban areas (column 4). 2 As mentioned above, all models are weighted to correct for the probability of not providing responses to the subjective welfare module in the survey; estimation results from the probit model used to define these weights are available upon request. All models are estimated using standard errors which are robust to clustering at the community level.In harmony with our descriptive results, we find pronounced evidence that age is inversely associated with life satisfaction. In other words, young people indicate higher levels of satisfaction than older people, even after controlling for other factors. This can be seen in the coefficient estimates for the age of the respondent, which are highly significant and largest in magnitude in the rural youth subsample. The fact that this coefficient estimate is negative in all samples (although not significantly so in the rural non-youth sample) indicates that satisfaction continues to decline with age beyond the conventionally \"youthful\" years.We find evidence that females are more satisfied with life than males, after controlling for other factors. This appears particularly to be the case with younger individuals and those in rural areas, as indicated by the significance of the coefficient estimates in the rural youth and rural all ages sub-samples (columns 1 & 3).Interestingly, education is not a strong correlate of life satisfaction for the rural youth sample, after controlling for other factors. However, education is a significantly negative correlate of life satisfaction in the other samples, perhaps indicating unmet expectations about returns to education. Marital status plays an important role: relative to being married (the reference category), being separated, divorced or widowed (or never having been married, in the case of the youth) are strong negative correlates of life satisfaction. Finally, in terms of household membership context, there is some evidence that being a young spouse is associated with lower life satisfaction (relative to being a young household head).In terms of the main economic activity reported by respondents, for most of the subsamples having any activity is associated with higher life satisfaction than having no activity (the reference category). However, this is not significantly so, in most cases, and the coefficient estimate for self-employment (which may include working in another household member's business) is negativealbeit insignificantin the rural youth and full samples. This may reflect limited non-farm business opportunities and the low returns to such activities. The relatively larger coefficient estimate in the rural youth sample may also reflect the relatively more limited options for capital-constrained young people, relative to older people who may be able to invest more human and financial capital in specialized business activities. Having wage income, and working on one's own farm, are more consistently positive correlates of life satisfaction across the sub-samples, and significantly so (at p<10 and p<5% respectively) in the full rural sample of analysis, and the 15-24 age range, which is the United Nations definition, is conveniently amenable to comparison with the many other studies using the same definition (Mabiso and Benfica 2017).individuals (column 3). This supports the idea that productive economic engagementof any sortis a source of satisfaction.Being a victim of a crime is, unsurprisingly, associated with lower satisfaction.Interestingly, this appears to be particularly true for young people, as evidenced by the much larger and highly significant coefficient estimates in the rural youth sample.In terms of household-level factors, fewer household members and more farmland are associated with higher levels of satisfaction, although these coefficient estimates are not significant in the rural youth sample (which is not what the stylized narrative of limited land opportunities for rural youth would suggest). In line with other studies, household consumption expenditures are very strongly associated with life satisfaction, indicating a correspondence between subjective and objectively material welfare measures.  After controlling for other factors, we find only limited evidence that additional indicators of economic vibrancy matter. The estimated coefficient on log population density is positive, as we would expect if more densely populated areas offer more opportunities, and largest in magnitude for the rural youth subsample relative to the other sub-samples. This is possibly an indicator that, to the extent that local economic vibrancy is important to life satisfaction, it is already being captured in the other covariates. To explore this, we estimate non-parametric estimates of household-level consumption expenditure and individual-level reports of being a victim of crimeboth strong determinants of subjective well-beingagainst population density and distance from markets (Figure 8). There is a strong spatial gradient for both of these factors, with people in less remote areas both more likely to have higher household consumption levels but also higher risk of personal exposure to crime. These tradeoffs imply that the opportunities of geographical accessibilitywhich presumably include many of the features of relatively more vibrant rural economieshave multiple dimensions that may operate in opposing ways on life satisfaction and other welfare outcomes. To test whether the residual effect of remoteness/vibrancy may differ by age, we estimated a model in which log population density is interacted with a youth dummy (taking a value of 1 if the individual is aged 15-24). The resulting coefficient estimates (show in Table 8) indicate that younger rural people do have higher elasticities of life satisfaction to population density. In other words, after controlling for other observable factors, young people's life satisfaction is relatively more influenced by population density than those of older people. This would lend some support to the notion that young people may be particularly disaffected in lower density rural areas with (presumably) lower levels of economic vibrancy.   2018) description of \"psychological costs\" of some aspects of economic transformation. It is also congruent with empirical findings elsewhere of an \"invidious comparison\" effect, wherein subjective welfare is positively associated with own material welfare status but negatively associated with some measures of neighbors' welfare status (Fafchamps and Shilpi 2008) or inequalities therein (Gautam and Andersen, 2016).In addition to the covariates already described, we also tested for an enumerator effect, by using dummy variables for each enumerator. These turn out to have a large aggregate impact, explaining approximately 20% of the variation in the satisfaction scores. This is consistent with empirical findings elsewhere (Di Maio and Fiala, 2018;Himelein, 2015). For this reason, we include these controls in all models.Finally, we addressed the linkage between rural life satisfaction and individual migration decisions, using data from previous waves of the Tanzanian LSMS, which tracked individuals and households if they changed locations. For this analysis, we define a migrant as any individual who leaves their household of record in 2011 and shows up in a different household in 2013 that is not located within the same community. About 6% of the individuals aged 15-64 in our sample met this criterion (8.5% of individuals aged 15-24). Controlling for sample selection with inverse probability weights, we estimated models on the same sub-samples as above in which the dependent variable is a migration dummy (i.e. these are linear probability models). Results, shown in Table 9, indicate that after controlling for other observables, individuals with lower life satisfaction are more likely to migrate than those with higher life satisfaction. Interestingly, this seems to be particularly true for rural-rural movements, which constitute the majority of moves in the data; when we estimate similar linear probability models for rural-urban moves, the life satisfaction estimate is insignificant, although this may also be a reflection of the more limited number of rural-urban movers in the sample.  In this paper, our primary intention has been to shed some empirical light on the much referenced but poorly substantiated claim that young rural Africans are disappointed and disillusioned with their economic prospects. We use a subjective welfare module from the 2014-2015 round of Tanzanian LSMS-ISA survey, which is nationally representative of both urban and rural areas. Our results align with some elements of the stylized narrative: for example, people report being moderately unsatisfied with their lives on average, while rural people who are economically engaged have higher levels of life satisfaction than those who report no main activity. However, there is no evidence that young rural people are particularly dissatisfied with their lives: indeed they are less dissatisfied than older rural residents, even after controlling for other factors. Rural young people are also notably less dissatisfied with life than their urban counterparts.However, there is evidence that the life satisfaction of young people is relatively more responsive to proxies for rural vibrancy (particularly rural population density) than that of older people. Furthermore, we also find evidence that relatively more satisfied people (of all ages) are less likely to move. However, those who do move are more likely to go to other rural areas. We do not find evidence of a dissatisfaction-driven rural-urban exodus.The fact that our regression results align well with empirical studies in other regions lends credence to the robustness of our conclusions. For example, we find strong positive correlations of satisfaction with household consumption expenditures, and strong negative correlations with being the victim of a crime within the prior year. The patterns of satisfaction scores across ages is also consistent with other literature (Blanchflower and Oswald, 2017). Some of our findingsnotably, the strong gendered dimension of life satisfactionstand in contrast to the findings of other studies of rural populations (e.g. Markussen et al. 2018) and deserve additional study in Tanzania and other African contexts.The contribution of this study is important in at least two ways for the ongoing development policy discussion around young people in rural Africa. First, if the narrative suggesting that the majority of rural youth are severely dissatisfied lacks empirical support, this undermines the rationale for many youthfocused interventions. Our findings indicate that the satisfaction of rural youth is more complex than suggested by the commonly heard stylized story: yes, meaningful economic engagement appears to be important, but so do other household level contextual factors, as well as basic welfare indicators. This highlights the need for an alternative and more nuanced narrative that can help re-orient policy and intervention. Second, our findings reaffirm that subjective welfare should be an outcome of interest in the quantitative analysis of changes taking place in the rural economies of sub-Saharan Africa. Our analytical results correspond with structural interpretations of changes taking place in the rural economy but raise important questions for further research. Certainly, more work needs to be done to further explore the internal and external validity of our findings, as well as their implications. In particular, new empirical work on the role of subjective wellbeing in a greater range of youth decisions (e.g. to prioritize off-farm employment) would be valuable.","tokenCount":"5094"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"6f365e2ad21258b3e03d67c1a17e0e74","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a40489d6-cfbc-45db-bc27-5662014cffb1/retrieve","id":"-1321728188"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a7b816db-76f8-44a1-bba5-ef6ee75f52a9","pagecount":"53","content":"• Definiciones van hacia el impacto • Definir que significa \"regeneración\"Necesitamos una definición basado en impactos, flexible, sustentado en datos y ciencia \"La agricultura regenerativa es un enfoque agrícola holístico y basado en resultados que genera productos agrícolas y, al mismo tiempo, tiene un impacto neto positivo a nivel de finca y paisaje en la salud del suelo, la biodiversidad, el clima, los recursos hídricos y los medios de vida de los agricultores.\"Intervencion en agricultura siempre va mas alla de AC ¿Qué sistema es mejor?• Agricultura orgánicaDesde 1966, trabaja en el mundo en desarrollo con el fin de mejorar los medios de vida de las personas y promover sistemas de maíz y de trigo más productivos y sosteniblesMás del 70% del trigo que se siembra en países en desarrollo y más del 50% de las variedades mejoradas de maíz se derivan de materiales de mejoramiento del CIMMYT Más de 10,000 científicos y expertos agrícolas capacitados en el CIMMYTLa Red de plataformas de Investigación: Desarollar agronomía en todas las zonas agroecológicas  • Comparación de AC y LC con riego superficial y riego por goteo • Plataforma de investigación -AC: 17% de ahorro de agua -Goteo: 36% de ahorro de agua -AC + Goteo: 40% ahorro -17% ahorro de agua en AC vs LC -Reducción de 192 kg CO 2• Estudio muestra también el valor de nuestra red para el avance rápido de la investigación agronómica.Agua: reducir uso de agua de riego Reduciendo perdidas poscosecha con tecnologías herméticas • % de daño por insectos después de 6 meses:-Bolsas de polyproleno:• 39.4% (<500 m asl) • 4.1% (>2,000 m asl) -Silos herméticos • 2.9% (<500 m asl) • 3.8% (>2,000 m asl)• La tecnológica funciono bajo todos las condiciones diversas de los productores en MexicoOdjo et al. 2020 Impactos desde 2018:• Más de 80,000 ha (maíz y trigo)• Maiz: Más de 600,000 ton • Usando los datos de manejo capturados, para estimaciones de GEI • Principales factores:-Fertilizacion -Uso de energía (labranza) -Captura de carbono Rendimiento de maiz (kg/ha)","tokenCount":"335"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1b1d6aed742da68daf093bdf027417a3","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/4d15c718-186a-48af-aa19-545949d8e2e9/retrieve","id":"-1398101756"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"6bfdf303-80f4-4cfa-b701-6fd558607717","pagecount":"94","content":"Press pela autorização concedida para se reproduzir a figura 2 deste manual e à Gatsby Charitable Foundation pela autorização para se reproduzir a figura 11. Além disso, queremos agradecer a Barbera Oranje, ilustradora da Agromisa, autora da maioria dos desenhos.Piet Scheepens e Rik Hoevers, Wageningen 2007 O objectivo de um agricultor de culturas arvenses ou de produtos hortícolas é produzir com um máximo de rendimento e de qualidade. É evidente que preferiria que tal se concretizasse com um mínimo de investimento de energia e de recursos, mas está sempre a ser confrontado por todos os tipos de organismos nocivos (pragas) que ameaçam reduzir a qualidade e o rendimento das suas culturas. É extremamente importante que proteja as suas culturas contra estas pragas, mas é difícil alcançar o máximo de resultados com um mínimo de trabalho. É necessário ter em conta não apenas o efeito imediato duma medida, mas também o seu efeito a longo prazo.Este Agrodok apresenta uma panorâmica geral das principais medidas não-químicas que podem ser tomadas de modo a proteger as suas culturas contra pragas. A maioria destas medidas é preventiva e envolve planeamento e práticas agrícolas que o ajudarão a controlar as pragas e a limitar os danos provocados pelas mesmas.Os métodos não-químicos de protecção das culturas têm sido praticados desde sempre. A introdução de pesticidas químicos, há algumas décadas, parecia que tornaria muito mais fácil a protecção das culturas. O agricultor apenas necessitava, repentinamente, de saber quais eram as pragas com as quais estava a lidar, quais os pesticidas que se poderiam obter para controlá-las e como aplicar estes produtos de modo seguro. Estes produtos eram tão eficazes que, primeiramente, parecia que todas as pragas podiam ser erradicadas desta maneira.Não obstante, na prática as pragas não eram, realmente, erradicadas, pois surgiam de novo durante o período de crescimento das culturas. Ao mesmo tempo que se eliminava a praga, também muitos dos ini-migos naturais eram, temporariamente, eliminados, possibilitando, desse modo, uma multiplicação ainda maior e mais explosiva da praga (o caso 1 apresenta um exemplo desta situação) .Caso 1: Matar os predadores dos insectos da praga aumenta a dependência dos agricultores em relação a pesticidas (ver, também, o caso 7)A cigarrinha castanha, Nilaparvata lugens, ocorre na Ásia, nas culturas de arroz de terras baixas. Antes da introdução de insecticidas quase que era impossível ser detectada nas culturas devido ao seu tamanho ínfimo (menos de 3 mm). O seu número manteve-se baixo pela acção de inimigos naturais, em particular da aranha Lycosa pseudoannulata.Uma aranha come até 20 cigarrinhas por dia. A aplicação de insecticidas, logo no início do período de crescimento, mata a maior parte das cigarrinhas castanhas, mas as aranhas ainda são mais sensíveis ao produto químico. Na ausência dos seus inimigos naturais, a cigarrinha castanha pode recuperar-se e causar dano à cultura. Desde a introdução de pesticidas que a cigarrinha castanha se tornou uma das pragas do arroz que causam mais danos.Para se garantir uma cultura sadia é, normalmente, necessário fazer-se aplicações múltiplas de pesticidas em cada campanha agrícola, apenas para controlar um único tipo de praga. Eventualmente alguns dos pesticidas já nem surtem efeito porque as pragas tornaram-se resistentes a estes produtos. Foi o que se passou, primeiro com os pesticidas utilizados para combater insectos e ácaros (insecticidas/acaricidas), mas os pesticidas usados para controlar doenças (fungicidas e bactericidas) e ervas daninhas (herbicidas) eventualmente também perdem a sua eficácia. E dado que as pragas se tornam resistentes ao uso frequente de produtos químicos, verificou-se uma necessidade contínua de novos produtos, compostos e misturas. Alguns pesticidas também são extremamente venenosos para os seres humanos (ver caso 2).Caso 2: Os pesticidas podem constituir um perigo para a saúde do agricultorUm questionário levado a cabo em Moçambique entre 100 agricultores de algodão, revelou que a metade havia sofrido intoxicação por insecticida. (Javid et al., 1998. Insect science and its application 18, 251-255).Parte-se do princípio que os agricultores sabem como manusear estes produtos químicos, de modo seguro, mas, na prática, são muitos os acidentes ocorridos.Mais que qualquer outro factor, estas desvantagens desencadearam um interesse renovado nos métodos não-químicos de protecção de culturas, em todo o mundo. Felizmente os pequenos agricultores nas regiões tropicais nunca abandonaram, por completo, o uso de vários métodos não-químicos. Baseando-nos nos conhecimentos que possuímos sobre a biologia das pragas, este livrinho tenta explicar: ? como é que funcionam estes métodos não-químicos de maneio de pragas e ? como os vários tipos de métodos se reforçam uns aos outros Esperamos que isto lhe possibilite, como agricultor, aplicar estes métodos mais eficazmente e usar as suas próprias observações para os optimizar.Não é fácil comparar a rentabilidade entre os métodos químicos e métodos não-químicos de protecção das culturas. Em especial se se tem em vista uma única cultura e um só ano, muitas pessoas tendem a subestimar os custos do controlo químico e a sobrestimar os custos do controlo não-químico (particularmente os custos de mão de obra).Os custos do controlo químico incluem não apenas os pesticidas, mas também o equipamento, o vestuário de protecção, armazenamento seguro e custos de depreciação. E não esquecer a conta do médico caso se verifique um acidente. Em áreas remotas o preço obtido pela venda do produto (cultura) no mercado local pode não chegar para cobrir os custos dos pesticidas.Os pesticidas químicos são, normalmente, muito eficazes contra as pragas a combater, mas, por vezes, não têm nenhum efeito porque a praga já se tornou resistente ao pesticida ou devido a condições climáticas desfavoráveis. Nesse caso já se efectuaram despesas que não vão ser recuperadas pela produção.A protecção não química das culturas é, muitas das vezes, menos eficaz que a protecção química, mas normalmente é menos dispendiosa e assenta em insumos e intervenções disponíveis localmente.Os efeitos secundários, inconvenientes, dos pesticidas químicos fazem com que seja difícil combiná-los com muitos dos métodos nãoquímicos de protecção das culturas. No caso 3 apresentamos um exemplo.Caso 3: A combinação de métodos químicos e nãoquímicos de protecção das culturas pode ser difícilOs resultados do mesmo questionário levado a cabo em Moçambique (caso 2) mostram que a maioria dos agricultores depois da sementeira do algodão começava demasiado cedo com as pulverizações (aplicações de pesticidas).Eles não estavam conscientes de que estas pulverizações reduzem os inimigos naturais e podem não ter como resultado um aumento da produção do algodão.Este Agrodok explica como manter as suas culturas agrícolas sãs sem utilizar qualquer produto químico, apresentando exemplos concretos.Nele se sugere que somente tome em consideração a aplicação de produtos químicos se tudo o mais tiver falhado e que, nesse caso, escolha os produtos químicos que surtam menores efeitos tóxicos nos organismos que não constituem o alvo a combater. Na série Agrodok há uma outra publicação que poderá ser útil no caso de querer aplicar pesticidas: Pesticidas, compostos, usos e perigos (No. 29).Este manual não apresenta fórmulas \"prontas a utilizar\" de como reagir à praga X na cultura A ou à praga Y na cultura B. Veicula uma maneira de pensar e de trabalhar mais flexível que se poderá adaptar às culturas cultivadas e às condições locais.Quer um agricultor aplique métodos químicos ou não-químicos de protecção das culturas, deverá ser capaz de reconhecer as principais pragas que ocorrem na sua exploração agrícola. Também é importante saber mais sobre os seus ciclos de vida e como são afectadas pelas condições locais. O Agrodok No. 28: Identificação de danos nas culturas, também fornece informação útil para identificar os organismos que prejudicam as culturas.O capítulo 2 sumariza as características mais importantes das pragas e explica como se pode aprender a controlá-las de um modo responsável. A intenção não é erradicar as pragas, mas sim minimizar os seus efeitos prejudiciais.O capítulo 3 descreve como as actividades agrícolas podem ser organizadas de tal maneira que as pragas tenham menos oportunidades de se multiplicar a uma taxa explosiva. Muitas destas medidas são eficazes durante vários anos e ajudam a controlar mais que um tipo de praga.Muitas das medidas para proteger as culturas contra pragas são tomadas antes ou durante o cultivo. Estas medidas visam, normalmente, manter baixos os números de um determinado tipo de praga ou categoria de organismos praga. Um exemplo disso é o uso de semente sã para prevenir que a cultura seja afectada por uma doença num estádio precoce do seu crescimento. Um outro exemplo é a sementeira em linhas, de modo a que as ervas daninhas possam ser retiradas por meio de um utensílio manual. Ainda um outro exemplo é plantar uma nim/margoseira que mantém à distância muitas pragas de insectos.Visto que o efeito das medidas de controlo depende, em grande parte, do ciclo de vida da praga, nesta publicação tratamos do maneio das pragas, por categoria de organismo praga. No capítulo 4 estudaremos o ciclo de vida, a prevenção e o controlo de insectos e de ácaros e no capítulo 5 debruçar-nos-emos sobre fungos, vírus e bactérias causadores de doenças. No capítulo 6 dedicar-nos-emos às ervas daninhas e o capítulo 7 é devotado à erva daninha parasitária Striga.Esta publicação discute os princípios gerais da protecção não-química das culturas. Visando uma aplicação eficaz, é necessário estar-se na posse de conhecimentos adicionais sobre as culturas praticadas, as pragas que poderão albergar e a sua interacção sob as condições locais. As comunidades agrícolas possuem, frequentemente, um vasto e valioso conhecimento sobre este assunto, ainda que também tenham ideias e crenças que são incorrectas ou incompletas. Para uma produção eficiente de culturas sadias, utilizando uma quantidade limitada de pesticidas ou mesmo sem a utilização de produtos químicos, é importante reforçar e melhorar o conhecimento das comunidades agrícolas. Também se reveste de importância aprender a tomar decisões baseadas neste conhecimento e na observação das culturas. As Escolas do Campo para Agricultores (Farmer Field Schools) têm demonstrado ser um meio excelente para a aplicação e melhoramento da protecção nãoquímica das culturas. Estas escolas têm revelado ser um sucesso, em muitas partes do mundo. Para exemplos concretos, ver caso 4 e a figura 1.Neste programa participaram 250 agricultores, o que os levou a aumentar os seus rendimentos/produção em média em mais de 50% por hectare, elevando os seus lucros sazonais em 30% e reduzindo o uso de pesticida em 95%. Este aumento dos seus rendimentos possibilitou a melhoria das condições de habitação, o pagamento de propinas escolares dos filhos, a compra de roupa nova e uma contribuição para as suas igrejas. Alguns agricultores expandiram as suas explorações agrícolas e fizeram com que se tornassem empresas orientadas para o negócio. Os participantes oriundos das zonas de savana conseguiram produzir culturas suficientes para armazenarem alimentação durante os períodos agrícolas de baixa produção. Os agricultores provenientes de distritos com uma maior segurança alimentar puderam acrescentar mais carne e peixe à sua dieta alimentar. Para os agricultores foi muito importante o facto que a sua saúde melhorou devido à redução do envenenamento produzido pelos pesticidas. Os participantes femininos que foram capacitados como agricultoras ou agentes extensionistas sentiram que haviam reforçado a sua habilidade organizacional, as suas aptidões de liderança e a sua autoestima. A cooperação entre os agricultores também levou a que as autoridades locais e os serviços distritais de agricultura dedicassem mais trabalho ao desenvolvimento da comunidade. 2 Pragas e maneio de pragasQuando falamos de pragas das culturas agrícolas referimo-nos a todos os organismos que ameaçam a qualidade e o rendimento das culturas. Assim pode tratar-se de animais de maior porte, como sejam ratazanas, ratos ou pássaros, mas normalmente são animais muito mais pequenos, como sejam insectos, ácaros, nemátodos (vermes com dimensões microscópicas) ou caracóis. Os microorganismos como sejam os fungos (bolores), bactérias e vírus, também podem provocar doenças que causam danos às plantas. Algumas plantas de maior porte, actuando como ervas daninhas, também podem ser classificadas como pragas. Contudo, a mera presença destes organismos numa exploração agrícola não significa, por si só, que sejam pragas. Em princípio só são considerados pragas quando são prejudiciais para a agricultura e os seus efeitos se fazem sentir em outras explorações agrícolas. Há plantas que numa situação específica são prejudiciais, enquanto que numa outra situação até podem constituir uma fonte útil para a alimentação/forragem do gado ou para o fabrico de composto. As sementes, bolbos e raízes que são deixados num campo depois da colheita duma cultura podem originar ervas daninhas nefastas na campanha agrícola seguinte.É evidente que nem todas as plantas e animais que se encontram numa exploração agrícola se podem tornar numa praga. Todas as pragas potenciais duma cultura apresentam as seguintes características comuns: ? podem causar danos individualmente a cada planta duma cultura.? podem multiplicar-se muito rapidamente, sob condições favoráveis.? são prejudiciais ao agricultor na medida em que causam uma redução do rendimento ou da qualidade do produto colhido, ou se o seu controlo envolve grandes despesas.As pragas causam danos individualmente a cada planta numa cultura Os danos causados às culturas diferem de praga para praga. Neste Agrodok trataremos de três grupos de pragas: insectos, microorganismos e ervas daninhas.As pragas de insectos ou comem as plantas ou parte das mesmas (ver, por exemplo, o caso 5), ou furam as plantas e alimentam-se dos seus sucos/seivas.Caso 5: Lagarta rosada do algodão, um exemplo duma praga de insecto que se alimenta de partes da plantaA lagarta rosada do algodão, Pectinophora gossypiella, pertence ao grupo de insectos que passa por uma metamorfose completa. Quer dizer que as larvas (lagartas) são completamente diferentes dos adultos (borboletas/traças), tal como se pode ver na figura 2. As lagartas vivem dentro dos casulos de algodão e são responsáveis pelo dano causado à cultura. Mais adiante (Figura 12, capítulo 4) explicaremos mais em pormenor o que é uma metamorfose completa e uma metamorfose incompleta.Figura 2: Fases de desenvolvimento da lagarta rosada do algodão. Para mais pormenores, ver caso 5.Os microorganismos podem constituir uma praga porque podem causar doenças numa planta. Chamam-se, então, organismos causadores de doenças ou organismos patogénicos. Os sintomas de tais doenças podem incluir deformações, manchas nas folhas da planta, ou podridão dos caules, frutos ou raízes. A figura 3 (caso 6) mostra várias doenças num tomateiro. Na realidade é raro que uma só planta apresente tantas doenças ao mesmo tempo.Figura 3: Tomateiro evidenciando várias doenças (ver caso 6) Caso 6: Um tomateiro com várias doençasA figura 3 mostra um tomateiro. Não se podem ver os microorganismos que causam a doença, mas sim as reacções da planta aos microorganismos causadores da doença. Mais adiante, no capítulo 5, trataremos de doenças das plantas.A maior parte das ervas daninhas são prejudiciais porque competem com as plantas da cultura por luz, água e nutrientes, o que reduz o crescimento da cultura. Algumas plantas são consideradas como ervas daninhas porque são parasitas, quer dizer que vivem nas raízes de plantas e extraem nutrientes e água da planta através dum contacto directo com esta. Na figura 4 é apresentada a erva daninha parasita Striga nas raízes duma cultura de mapira (sorgo). Há outras plantas que são consideradas ervas daninhas porque albergam insectos ou microorganismos causadores de doenças.   Como grupo, os organismos praga duma infestação podem, eventualmente, ter um grande efeito sobre o rendimento e a qualidade duma cultura. O agricultor sente os danos causados na forma duma menor produção ou dum produto com menos qualidade que será vendido a preço mais baixo.A fim de se evitarem tais danos, o agricultor pode tomar medidas que visem o controlo das pragas. Mas estas medidas custam dinheiro, daí que não constitua uma boa ideia implementá-las imediatamente. A decisão sobre se se deve ou não tomar medidas tem que estar baseada em inspecções regulares da cultura. Na maior parte dos casos bastará uma inspecção semanal. O caso 9 mostra como se pode inspeccionar um campo cultivado. O objectivo destas inspecções é de identificar quais e quantas pragas estão presentes na cultura e de determinar se estão a aumentar de número.A protecção das culturas que utiliza uma grande quantidade de pesticidas é essencialmente reactiva. Assim que se detectam os primeiros indivíduos duma praga ou quando a população atingiu um certo nível, os agricultores (tal como você, provavelmente) tomam em consideração qual o pesticida que devem usar para reduzir o número de organismos praga. A vantagem deste método reside em que se pode alcançar rapidamente o resultado desejado e que este persistirá enquanto o pesticida for eficaz.Nas últimas décadas há cada vez mais pragas que se tornaram resistentes aos produtos químicos. Para além disso, os pesticidas químicos muitas das vezes têm um impacto muito amplo, o que significa que eles não matam apenas as pragas mas também organismos úteis e por vezes também são tóxicos para os seres humanos. Por todas estas razões, a protecção das culturas através de aplicações regulares de pesticidas químicos perde, cada vez mais, a sua eficácia.É possível proteger as culturas utilizando pequenas quantidades de pesticidas ou mesmo não utilizando qualquer produto químico, mas, para tal, é necessário tomar em consideração o ciclo de vida das pragas. Nos capítulos 4, 5 e 6 trataremos, respectivamente, dos ciclos de vida dos insectos, das doenças e das ervas daninhas. Em vez de se escolher erradicar uma praga assim que se detecta um pequeno número de indivíduos, também se poderá inquirir a razão porque esta praga reaparece cada vez que se planta uma nova cultura e porque se reproduz tão rapidamente, particularmente nessa cultura. Depressa se tornará evidente que as pragas se aproveitam de certas circunstâncias. Estas circunstâncias podem estar relacionadas com a praga, com a cultura, com as condições ambientais ou ser uma combinação destes três factores.Este conhecimento constitui a base duma abordagem mais pró-activa (preventiva) para a protecção de culturas. Sem dúvida que você já adquiriu muito conhecimento através das suas observações no campo. Ser pró-activo significa que aceita a presença de pragas na sua exploração agrícola, mas que tem vindo a organizar as suas actividades agrícolas e a adaptar as suas técnicas de cultivo de modo a que população da praga não se expanda demasiado e que os danos causados se situem dentro de limites aceitáveis. No caso da população de uma certa praga ameaçar atingir um nível inaceitável, o que não é usual, poder-se-á aplicar, como último recurso, pesticidas que causem menos efeitos inconvenientes.No caso de desejar aplicar protecção não química das culturas tem que ser capaz de reconhecer as pragas que são mais prejudiciais na sua exploração agrícola: as pragas chave. Quando souber sob que condições elas causarão mais dano, poderá, nessa altura, empreender uma acção pró-activa de modo a evitar os danos. Quando tiverem sido tomadas todas as medidas de maneio de pragas escolhidas, elas reforçarse-ão umas às outras de modo a proporcionar protecção contra estas pragas chave. Não perder de vista o facto que as medidas a tomar não devem ser demasiado dispendiosas nem requerer mais trabalho do que lhes poderá dedicar. Caso se verifique que um novo método traz melhoramentos, o mesmo é adoptado e utilizado a uma escala mais lata e concentra-se o trabalho no uso de extractos de plantas contra pragas de insectos (como exemplo, ver caso 18).Durante o período de crescimento é necessário inspeccionar a sua cultura numa base semanal para observar as pragas principais e formar uma ideia sobre a rapidez com que se desenvolvem. No caso 9 explica-se como poderá inspeccionar sistemática e acuradamente uma cultura. Sugerimos que, faça desenhos/esboços das culturas e das pragas, com as quais depara, várias vezes ao ano. Mais tarde é possível ver qual é a praga que se pode esperar num determinado estádio de desenvolvimento da cultura.Inspecciona-se o campo duma maneira sistemática percorrendo-o de um lado para o outro, em ziguezague (ver figura 6, a imagem da esquerda). Desta forma a parcela é inspeccionada cuidadosamente, efectuando-se observações acuradas de algumas plantas (ver figura 6, a imagem da direita).Figura 6: Inspecção duma parcela cultivada com vista a detectar a presença de pragasNo caso de trabalhar conjuntamente com o seu marido/mulher, é importante estabelecer um plano para levar a cabo as observações, para que, desta maneira, cada um esteja a par das actividades do outro. Ver o caso 10 para as observações no que respeita à Striga. No respeitante às pragas de insectos também é importante saber como se desenvolvem os seus inimigos naturais. No caso da praga se desenvolver muito mais rapidamente que os seus inimigos, mesmo assim é possível to-mar medidas correctivas. No fim da campanha agrícola poderá avaliar o rendimento e a qualidade da cultura.Caso10: Quem é que faz as observações de campo?É muito comum que tanto as mulheres como os homens efectuem o trabalho agrícola, mas não o fazem simultaneamente. Portanto, é importante que se chegue a um acordo sobre qual a observação que cada um deve fazer. E também é importante que se comparta não só o trabalho mas também o conhecimento.No Norte do Ghana, trabalhadores de campo discutiam a germinação da Striga e a sua ligação à planta hospedeira (ver capítulo 7) com um grupo composto tanto de homens como de mulheres. Nesta fase do desenvolvimento da cultura, as mulheres estão regularmente nos campos. E porque elas cavam a terra podem observar a ligação da Striga. Elas distinguiram duas espécies de Striga e durante uma sessão do grupo usaram as suas mãos para transmitir este conhecimento (ver figura 7).Figura 7: Uma agricultora ganense explica com as suas mãos a diferença entre as duas espécies de Striga (ver caso 10).Em cada campanha agrícola é necessário avaliar a eficácia das medidas tomadas com vista a controlar as pragas chave na sua exploração agrícola. Em relação a cada cultura e a cada praga, observe o que funcionou bem e o que poderia ter funcionado melhor. Utilize os resultados para ajustar os seus planos para a campanha agrícola seguinte.As empresas agrícolas, em particular as de grandes dimensões, muitas das vezes têm uma aparência monótona, com enormes campos duma mesma cultura. Esta uniformidade facilita o desempenho de várias tarefas nos campos mas também constitui a principal causa de um crescimento explosivo de organismos praga. Um campo grande com uma monocultura constitui uma fonte quase inesgotável de comida para pragas. Muitas das vezes a mesma cultura é produzida, ano após ano, no mesmo campo o que permite a multiplicação descontrolada de organismos patogénicos do solo e de certas espécies de ervas daninhas.As explorações agrícolas pequenas apresentam, de uma forma geral, uma maior diversidade, com várias culturas plantadas lado a lado num (só) campo. Os agricultores também desenvolveram muitas vezes os seus próprios métodos para manter as pragas nocivas, especialmente animais, afastadas das suas culturas. Estas explorações agrícolas também são muito menos atractivas para as pragas. Assim, se você produz uma variedade de culturas, já possui um avanço inicial no que respeita ao maneio pró-activo de pragas.Fazer com que a exploração agrícola seja menos atractiva para as pragas é um dos principais pilares do maneio pró-activo das mesmas. Para tal, um requisito chave é que se produza a maior variedade possível de vida vegetal e animal, tanto acima como abaixo do solo. Os cientistas denominam esta variedade de formas de vida de biodiversidade. A biodiversidade dificulta seriamente o desenvolvimento das pragas.Na secção 3.2 apresentamos uma série de medidas que podem ser tomadas com vista a aumentar a biodiversidade na sua exploração agrí-cola. Estas medidas afectam não apenas uma única cultura num ano específico, mas sim todas as culturas durante um período de muitos anos. Não pretendem combater apenas um tipo de praga, mas são eficazes no caso de um vasto leque de pragas animais, agentes patogénicos e de ervas daninhas.São as seguintes as principais consequências do melhoramento da biodiversidade: ? A produção de plantas variadas no interior e na periferia dos campos/parcelas cria um meio ambiente favorável para os inimigos naturais das pragas animais (particularmente insectos e ácaros). Em muito dos casos estes inimigos naturais evitam que a população da praga atinja um nível que é nocivo. ? O crescimento de plantas variadas, no interior e na periferia dos campos cultivados, limita a disseminação de fungos, bactérias e vírus patogénicos, assim como a propagação de insectos e de ácaros. ? O crescimento de plantas variadas nos campos pode fornecer uma cobertura do solo que cresce rapidamente e que se espalha mais, o que impede as ervas daninhas de germinarem e de se desenvolverem. ? Diversas culturas (culturas múltiplas) que são cultivadas ao mesmo tempo ou em sistema de rotação, estimulam uma vida rica e variada no solo. Isto ajuda a controlar o crescimento de agentes patogénicos e ervas daninhas no solo. ? Uma variada vida no solo, criada em parte pelo crescimento de plantas diversas, também é favorável à estrutura do solo. Uma boa estrutura do solo e uma fertilização equilibrada asseguram um crescimento óptimo de culturas que têm uma resistência máxima às doenças e às pragas animais e podem competir, com êxito, com as ervas daninhas.Caso 11: O crescimento de plantas variadas na periferia dos campos cultivados é importante para a protecção das culturas.A existência de plantas mais altas ladeando os campos cultivados é importante pois estas plantas têm uma função de quebra vento (figura 8).As cercas vivas ou outra vegetação têm várias funções: protegem as culturas contra os animais de grande porte e albergam animais pequenos que comem os insectos da praga. Um exemplo proveniente de Sri Lanka é o Grand Coucal (figura 9), um pássaro que é, ou devia ser, o melhor amigo do camponês visto que come uma série de insectos e de caracóis.Figura 8: Plantas mais altas em redor dos campos cultivados são importantes como quebra ventos (ver caso 11).Figura 9: O Grand Coucal (Centropus sinensis) é um inimigo de muitas pragas de insectos e de caracóis (ver caso 11).As medidas acima listadas não só ajudam a controlar as pragas como, frequentemente, também têm outros efeitos positivos o que constitui mais uma razão para as implementar. Outras vantagens podem ser: ? As culturas de cobertura do solo protegem-no contra a chuva e a intensa luz solar, ? Um solo coberto de plantas impede as perdas de solo, ou erosão, causadas por chuvas intensas ou por ventos fortes. Tal é especialmente importante no caso de terrenos elevados/montanhosos. ? A combinação de culturas de leguminosas com outras culturas permite as ambas aproveitarem-se da fixação do azoto (nitrogénio) das culturas leguminosas. O caso 12 e a figura 10 mostram como o milho e uma leguminosa podem ser cultivadas conjuntamente com uma utilização óptima da luz solar. ? A combinação do cultivo duma cultura de raízes superficiais com uma cultura de raízes mais profundas utiliza, com mais eficiência, os adubos ou fertilizantes usados. ? Uma rotação bem equilibrada das culturas também garante que as aplicações do fertilizante incorporado no plano de plantação sejam utilizadas de maneira óptima.Caso 12: Inovação no sistema tradicional de culturas intercalares milho -leguminosasOs agricultores no Quénia têm praticado a consorciação de culturas de milho e feijão durante muitos anos, tal como é apresentado na imagem superior da figura 10. Os nódulos radiculares da cultura do feijão fornecem azoto para ambas as culturas e, assim, ambas as culturas são menos afectadas por pragas de insectos.Um problema enfrentado nos sistemas tradicionais de cultivo é que as altas plantas de milho tapam, em grande parte, a luz, inibindo o crescimento das plantas leguminosas, menos altas. A solução encontrada foi dar outra disposição às duas culturas. Apresenta-se este novo esquema na imagem inferior da figura 10. Em vez de se alternar linhas simples ou únicas de milho e de leguminosa, as suas culturas são plantadas num sistema de linhas duplas alternadas -sistema \"Mbili\" (dois).Neste sistema Mbili de culturas consorciadas de milho-leguminosas, as leguminosas utilizadas são o feijão comum, o feijão mungo, o amendoim e a soja. O sistema Mbili também teve como resultado uma maior rentabilidade dos insumos e proporciona segurança alimentar quando a cultura do milho se perde devido à seca. Ao se alternar a cultura do feijão com outras culturas leguminosas em vez de se cultivar feijões todos os anos, reduz-se a incidência de pragas e de doenças na cultura do feijão.Figura 10: Cultivo tradicional das culturas de milho e de leguminosas (figura de cima) e uma nova maneira que aproveita melhor a luz solar (figura de baixo). Para mais pormenores, ver o caso 12.Não é necessário implementar todas as medidas que podem melhorar a biodiversidade na sua exploração agrícola e, seguramente, não ao mesmo tempo. Você mesmo sabe quais são as pragas que causam os maiores problemas na sua exploração agrícola. No caso de serem insectos e ácaros, o melhor é estimular os seus inimigos naturais. Se se tratar de agentes patogénicos que se multiplicam acima do solo, neste caso as medidas para controlar a sua disseminação revestem-se de uma importância muito maior. Se forem agentes patogénicos ou pragas animais do solo, a rotação das culturas constitui a medida mais eficaz. Os capítulos 4, 5 e 6 concentram-nos mais nos efeitos destas medidas, respectivamente sobre os insectos e ácaros e sobre as doenças e ervas daninhas.Cultivo de plantas na periferia dos campos e valas \"Canteiros\" de vegetação ao longo das margens dos campos e valas podem servir para desviar as pragas provenientes de fora. Para tal é suficiente que se combine o plantio de árvores altas com uma vegetação rasteira de gramíneas. Visto que muitas das pragas são transportadas pelo vento, reveste-se de particular importância plantar estes \"canteiros\" ao longo das margens dos campos que estão de frente para os ventos dominantes. Muitos dos inimigos naturais dos insectos dependem, durante uma parte do seu ciclo de vida, de néctar e de pólen. Por isso também é importante plantar-se nos \"canteiros\" árvores, arbustos e ervas que produzem muitas flores. A parte negativa é que a vegetação também pode oferecer alimento e abrigo para algumas pragas das culturas e talvez possa ser necessário adaptá-la de modo a que fique mais atractiva para os inimigos naturais e menos atractiva para as pragas.O melhor é utilizarem-se espécies de plantas que se desenvolvam bem nas condições locais, pois desse modo pode estar-se certo que estas plantas não morrerão. Pode-se criar um \"canteiro\" permanente, utilizando-se uma mistura de sementes de gramíneas anuais e perenes. Provavelmente terá que dar manutenção ao \"canteiro\", quer dizer, cortar as gramíneas, uma ou duas vezes ao ano durante os primeiros dois, três anos, principalmente para suprimir o crescimento de plantas indesejadas. Apare as ervas do canteiro depois das plantas anuais terem produzido semente. Não fertilize o \"canteiro\", pois tal estimularia o crescimento das gramíneas, que, eventualmente, se dispersarão. No caso de querer incluir capins anuais ou outros capins que não são provenientes da área, será necessário arrancar as ervas daninhas quando ainda estão muito pequenas, tal como faz em relação com as suas culturas.Ao cultivo simultâneo de duas ou mais culturas num campo chama-se consorciação de culturas ou culturas mistas. O cultivo associado pos-sibilita uma utilização óptima do espaço disponível no campo e também oferece outras vantagens quanto à prevenção de pragas. Infelizmente muitas das vezes não se pratica na medida em que dificulta o uso de equipamento mecânico.Existem três maneiras para cultivar duas culturas num único campo: ? A associação de plantas companheiras é um sistema no qual se semeiam ou plantam duas ou mais culturas ao acaso num canteiro ou numa linha; ? O sistema de culturas consorciadas, intercaladas em linhas é um sistema em que se alternam linhas individuais duma cultura com linhas individuais duma outra cultura (a imagem de cima da figura 10 fornece um exemplo de uma cultura intercalada em linhas); ? Na cultura consorciada, intercaladas em faixas (ou em contornos) alterna-se algumas linhas de uma cultura com linhas de uma outra cultura (a imagem de baixo da figura 10 fornece um exemplo duma cultura intercalar em faixas).Em teoria a consorciação de plantas companheiras é o sistema de plantio que produz o rendimento mais elevado e os maiores lucros por metro quadrado, sempre que se garanta que não haja uma competição muito grande entre as culturas. Estes benefícios são um pouco menos pronunciados nos outros dois sistemas, mas o maneio das culturas e a sacha são mais fáceis. No caso de culturas intercalares em faixas, o maneio das duas culturas pode ser efectuado independentemente.As brocas do caule (lagartas de traças) são as maiores pragas de insectos das culturas de cereais na África oriental e austral. As perdas podem atingir uma percentagem de 80%, enquanto as perdas resultantes da Striga variam entre 30 a 100%, na maioria das áreas. Investigadores no Quénia encontraram uma maneira de cultivar milho simultaneamente com outras culturas. Uma das culturas atrai as brocas do caule. Isto constitui o efeito de atracção.A outra cultura repele as brocas do caule, causando um efeito de repulsão.Cultivadas juntas protegem de modo eficaz a cultura do milho contra as brocas do caule. Na figura 11 pode-se ver como as três culturas se encontram dispostas no campo/parcela.Tanto as gramíneas domésticas como as selvagens podem causar o efeito de atracção. A gramínea Napier ou capim elefante é a mais eficaz. Deve-se plantar no canteiro em torno dos campos de milho quando as traças invasoras adultas são atraídas para a cultura. Em vez de se instalarem na cultura do milho, os insectos são atraídos pelo que parece ser uma refeição mais suculenta. O capim elefante tem uma maneira particularmente astuta de se defender contra a investida da praga: quando é atacado por uma larva da broca, segrega uma substância pegajosa que apanha (como numa armadilha) fisicamente a praga e limita, de forma eficaz, os danos por ela provocados. E, desta maneira, os inimigos naturais ocultos entre as gramíneas, entram em acção.A leguminosa Desmodium repele as traças da broca do caule e afugenta-as da cultura principal (milho ou mapira/sorgo). Planta-se o Desmodium entre as filas de milho ou mapira/sorgo. Visto que se trata de uma planta de crescimento lento, não interfere com o crescimento das culturas e, para além disso, apresenta a vantagem de manter a estabilidade do solo e de melhorar a fertilidade do solo através da fixação do azoto. Também é utilizada como uma forragem animal, altamente nutritiva. Há outras leguminosas que têm o mesmo efeito, mas a Desmodium também suprime a Striga, de maneira eficaz.Figura 11: Cultura consorciada de milho com a gramínea Napier (capim elefante) e Desmodium como forma de protecção do milho contra a broca do caule. Para mais pormenores, ver caso 13.A rotação de culturas é uma técnica de produção agrícola em que se cultivam várias culturas em períodos de plantio sucessivos. A rotação de culturas não só é importante para a fertilidade do solo, mas também como forma de controlar várias pragas, como sejam as doenças do solo e as ervas daninhas perenes.O ideal seria fazer-se uma rotação de culturas de cereais com hortaliças e tubérculos. Tenha cuidado para não cultivar duas culturas da mesma família (tal como seja batata e tomate ou aipo e cenoura), uma logo a seguir à outra. No entanto é possível cultivar uma cultura cerealífera mais frequentemente que outras culturas, dentro dum sistema de rotação, porque as doenças do solo não medram nos cereais. É evidente que deverá tomar em consideração as culturas que habitualmente fazem parte da sua exploração agrícola quando se planeia um sistema de rotação. Se necessita de 70% da sua terra para nela cultivar cereais, as possibilidades de rotação serão limitadas. Nesse caso, poderá tentar plantar cada ano, em terreno \"novo\", as culturas que são mais rapidamente afectadas pelas doenças do solo ou por ervas daninhas específicas.Caso 14: Agricultores orgânicos no Benin são bem sucedidos no cultivo de algodão sem o uso de pesticidas O algodão atrai um grande número de espécies de pragas de insectos. Esta a razão pela qual o cultivo convencional do algodão se associa com a aplicação intensiva de insecticidas. Agricultores de algodão do Benin, associados na ONG OBEPAB (Organização Beninense para a Promoção da Agricultura Biológica) mudou para um sistema orgânico de produção do algodão, sem a utilização de pesticidas sintéticos e de fertilizantes inorgânicos. Uma outra diferença com a produção agrícola convencional é que os resíduos da cultura são reciclados em vez de serem queimados, para se aumentar a fertilidade do solo. Na maior parte dos anos os rendimentos atingidos foram mais baixos que os dos agricultores de algodão \"convencionais\", mas em 2006 registaram-se níveis de rendimento de algodão orgânico comparáveis com os níveis da produção de algodão \"convencional\". Outras vantagens é que os agricultores orgânicos não precisam de usar pesticidas e que recebem um preço mais alto pelo seu algodão.A base do algodão orgânico é uma rotação da cultura de três anos. A cultura de algodão no primeiro ano é fertilizada com bagaço de semente de algodão e é cultivado em camalhões de resíduos da cultura em decomposição sobre a linha de contorno. À cultura do algodão, segue-se a cultura de cereais (milho, mexoeira/milho miúdo, mapira/sorgo) e culturas oleaginosas (amendoim, gergelim e açafroa ou açafrão bastardo). As culturas de especiarias e de hortaliças, como sejam o piri-piri ou a cebola constituem outras possibilidades. No terceiro ano, cultivam-se leguminosas como sejam a ervilha-de-Angola/feijão boer (Moç.), feijão mungo, grão-de-bico e feijão frade/nhemba (Moç.) A seguinte cultura de algodão (no ano 4) beneficia do azoto fornecido. Nos períodos mais longos entre dois períodos de crescimento o solo não fica nu, cultivando-se, então, culturas de cobertura para prevenir a erosão do solo, suprimir as ervas daninhas e fornecer alimento e abrigo para os insectos benéficos que controlam os insectos das pragas do algodão. As culturas de cobertura mais populares incluem alfafa, trevo doce, trevo vermelho, trevo branco, ervilhaca, feijão nhemba, trigo mourisco e mostarda.Para mais, cultivam-se culturas armadilhas ao longo das margens dos campos de algodão. Estas culturas atraem os insectos da cultura do algodão. O girassol, o feijão frade (nhemba), a alfafa e o quiabo (ocra) e o algodão de sementeira precoce estão entre as culturas armadilhas.Os 10-20 cm da camada superficial do solo são os mais importantes para as culturas. Esta camada superficial apresenta uma estrutura relativamente solta o que facilita o crescimento do sistema radicular das plantas, fornecendo-lhes ar e água. A planta retira da água os nutrientes de que necessita para crescer. O solo também contém muitos animais como sejam vermes e microorganismos. Entre outras coisas estes animais são responsáveis pela fertilização do solo, ao libertarem os nutrientes armazenados nos resíduos das plantas e nos minerais. O solo é um aliado importante no maneio das pragas. Alguns dos microorganismos do solo e outros inimigos naturais atacam directamente as pragas. Para além disso, uma boa qualidade do solo garante um crescimento óptimo da planta o que maximiza a resistência da planta aos ataques da praga.As culturas que produzidas têm um grande impacto sobre a qualidade do solo. As raízes seguram o solo, protegendo, deste modo o solo de ser lixiviado ou \"lavado\" durante chuvas intensas. O crescimento das plantas acima do solo assegura que as partículas do solo não sejam arrastadas pelo vento. O crescimento da planta acima do solo ou uma cobertura de solo feita de plantas mondadas e de resíduo de plantas (cobertura morta ou mulch), também protegem contra o sobreaquecimento do solo pelo sol e mantém-no poroso depois de chuvas intensas.Estes factores garantem a optimização das condições de crescimento das raízes das plantas e outra vida do solo.Dependendo das condições locais pode ser necessário tomar medidas adicionais para se proteger o solo contra a erosão da água ou do vento e para manter a estrutura e a fertilidade do solo. Tal como já foi dito anteriormente, estas medidas garantirão um crescimento óptimo da cultura, aumentando, deste modo, a resistência da cultura às pragas. Se a sua área se caracterizar por chuvas frequentes e intensas, pode ser que seja necessário cavar um sistema de valas de drenagem da água de forma a se minimizar o escoamento superficial. A melhor maneira de levar a cabo este método de controlo da erosão é com a colaboração da comunidade da aldeia.? Durante a estação das chuvas, certifique-se que o solo se encontra o mais possível coberto com plantas ou resíduos de culturas anteriores. Caso a cultura principal ainda seja pequena e uma grande parte da área superficial ainda esteja nua, pode-se considerar cultivar uma segunda cultura que se semeia mais cedo ou que cobre o solo de um modo mais rápido. ? Acrescente o máximo de resíduos de plantas ao solo. Estes restos melhoram a estrutura, a vida e a fertilidade do solo.No caso de aplicar nutrientes adicionais na forma de fertilizante, tenha cuidado para não acrescentar demasiado azoto (N), pois tal acelera o crescimento da cultura e a mesma torna-se menos resistente a pragas. Exemplos são a lagarta rosada (da cápsula) do algodão (caso 5) e a broca do caule do milho (caso 13). Em ambos os casos apenas as larvas (lagartas) causam danos nas suas plantas hospedeiras, enquanto as traças adultas se alimentam de néctar e de pólen.Os insectos adultos são responsáveis pela reprodução das espécies. Se têm asas podem voar dum campo para outro e espalhar a população sobre maiores distâncias. Os insectos comedores de plantas normalmente põem os seus ovos directamente sobre a planta hospedeira, que serve de alimento às larvas. As larvas ficam nesta planta ou em plantas vizinhas. Os insectos predadores, como seja a joaninha, põem os seus ovos em plantas com muitos insectos de presa.Figura 12: Ciclo de vida duma cigarrinha castanha (esquerda) e duma joaninha (direita). A cigarrinha castanha é um insecto com uma metamorfose incompleta e a joaninha tem uma metamorfose completa. Para mais pormenores, ver o texto.Os aparelhos bucais dos insectos encontram-se adaptados às suas preferências alimentares. Insectos sugadores têm aparelhos bucais com os quais podem furar a planta e sugar o seu suco. Os insectos que mordem e que mastigam têm maxilares mais duros com os quais podem cortar e triturar a sua comida. Alguns insectos alimentam-se de várias espécies de plantas, mas a maior parte dos insectos que causam danos às culturas são especializados numa espécie vegetal, ou num pequeno número de espécies do mesmo grupo. O estádio do insecto (adulto, ovo, larva ou pupa) durante o período entre dois cultivos, quando não há comida, varia de acordo com as espécies.Os ácaros são mais aparentados com as aranhas do que com os insectos. São menores que 1 mm e, por isso, pode ser preciso uma lupa para os ver (Figura 13). Tal como os insectos, os ácaros iniciam o seu ciclo de vida com um ovo. Eles passam por várias fases de desenvolvimento antes de se tornarem adultos e poderem reproduzir-se. Um grupo de ácaros numa planta forma, normalmente, uma espécie de teia de seda para se protegerem.Os ácaros têm aparelhos bucais que se encontram adaptados a furar as células individuais das plantas e a sugá-las, até ficarem secas. No caso de uma folha apresentar muitos pontos de sucção perto uns dos outros, a folha perderá a cor e, muitas das vezes, cai, prematuramente. As plantas que sofrem danos graves permanecerão pequenas ou podem até mesmo morrer. Os ácaros sobrevivem, frequentemente, o período entre dois cultivos no estádio de ovo, mas em algumas espécies eles sobrevivem este período no estádio adulto. Os ácaros não têm asas.Eles deslocam-se na planta e entre as plantas caminhando. Podem ser transportados a grandes distâncias pelo vento.Os inimigos naturais dos insectos e ácaros que causam danos às culturas também são aliados do agricultor. Existem dois grupos de inimigos naturais: predadores e parasitas. Os predadores comem as suas presas.Os principais predadores são inofensivos para as culturas e para as pessoas. Entre os predadores bem conhecidos, encontram-se as aranhas, os ácaros predadores, a joaninha, besouros carabídeos e moscas das flores ou sirfídeos. A vantagem destes predadores é que se podem multiplicar tão rapidamente como as suas presas. Os parasitas mais comuns são as moscas e as vespas. Estas põem ovos nas larvas dos insectos da praga e as suas larvas comem, então, o hospedeiro desde dentro para fora. Os predadores alimentam-se de várias espécies de insectos ou de ácaros, mas os parasitas muitas das vezes estão especializados num tipo de insectos de praga. Quando são adultos a sua dieta consiste apenas de pólen e néctar de flores (muitas das vezes selvagens).Caso haja um número suficiente de inimigos naturais presentes no início do período de crescimento, normalmente mantêm os insectos e os ácaros da praga a um nível aceitável e, deste modo, a cultura continuará sã. Referimo-nos aos casos 3 e 7 onde se apresenta o exemplo de como isso se passa no caso da cigarrinha castanha. O agricultor pode tomar medidas para ajudar um pouco os inimigos naturais.Uma vegetação variada ao redor de parcelas de terreno oferece abrigo onde os insectos podem sobreviver entre os períodos de crescimento da cultura. É possível estimular ainda mais o seu crescimento, semeando-se uma série de ervas que florescem em torno e nas parcelas em que estão cultivadas as suas culturas. Também poderá construir \"casas\" para os insectos predadores ou parasitas, tal como está exemplificado no caso 15 e na figura 14.Caso 15: \"Casas\" simples para vespas predadoras de forma a fornecer um abrigo para a progenia recém-eclodidaAs vespas predadoras encontram-se presentes em todo o mundo, sendo particularmente abundantes nas regiões tropicais. São predadores muito eficientes e que atacam um vasto leque de insectos, mas o seu alvo são especialmente as lagartas, com as quais alimentam a sua progenia. No Vietname foi desenvolvida uma técnica nova e original que possibilita o controlo da lagarta enroladora das folhas do algodão, Sylepta derogata, armadilhando os ninhos das vespas. As enroladoras da folha constituem uma enorme praga da cultura do algodão no Vietname. Estas vespas solitárias caçam lagartas e encerramnas nos seus ninhos como forma de reserva alimentar viva para a sua progenia. A ideia é de multiplicar estes locais de ninho que se encontram perto dos campos cultivados, onde se necessita de vespas predadoras. Estes dispositivos artificiais de aninhação variam quanto ao seu desenho, mas o princípio permanece o mesmo, tal como está ilustrado na figura 14.Trata-se de dispositivos de forma cilíndrica, com 6 a 12 mm de diâmetro, que são tapados com lama numa das suas extremidades para possibilitar que as vespas aí construam os seus ninhos. Estes cilindros podem ser feitos de bambu, cana, cartão de madeira perfurado ou até mesmo cartão. Atam-se várias armadilhas a uma folha de plástico ou de metal e colocam-se perto dos campos. Um método eficiente consiste em pendurá-las nas árvores baixas. É importante pôr qualquer tipo de cola na corda/cordel para deter as formigas ou térmitas que podem estragar os ninhos. Para além de credível e simples, esta técnica também é eficaz contra as enroladoras das folhas. Avaliações feitas no Vietname mostraram uma taxa de colonização de cultivo-armadilha de 30%, e uma média de 570 lagartas removidas dos campos por cada 100 ninhos instalados.Figura 14: \"Casas\" artificiais fornecendo abrigo para vespas predadoras. (ver o caso 15).A vegetação dentro e em torno dos campos cultivados faz mais do que apenas proporcionar abrigo para os inimigos naturais. A vegetação alta em redor dos campos mantém afastados os insectos voadores, assim como os ácaros, que são transportados pelo vento. Uma segunda cultu-ra num campo também pode servir como uma barreira física, para além de ter as vantagens mencionadas na secção 3.2. Filas de culturas específicas podem deter ou atrair os insectos da praga com os seus odores: estas culturas são conhecidas como culturas repelentes e culturas armadilhas. (Ver também o caso 13 e a figura 11, na secção 3.2).Numa rotação de culturas podem alternar-se culturas que servem de alimentação a uma determinada praga com outras que não são comidas por esta praga. A rotação de culturas faz parte de uma estratégia pluri-anual para minimizar o número de insectos de pragas numa exploração agrícola.No caso de se dedicar principalmente ao cultivo de uma única cultura e a rotação de culturas não constituir uma opção viável, reveste-se de especial importância alargar ao máximo o período entre culturas. O número de insectos de praga diminuirá durante o período em que não se cultiva. Também poderá acentuar este decréscimo enterrando os resíduos de plantas que contêm os insectos de pragas bem fundo na terra, ou trazendo estas pragas para a superfície onde são vulneráveis ao ataque dos seus inimigos naturais. Pode-se fazer com que o período de crescimento seja de curta duração reduzindo ao máximo os períodos de sementeira e de plantio, o mesmo se aplicando para a colheita. Também é melhor não aguardar até que se tenha colhido todas as plantas ou esperar até que toda a fruta esteja madura, pois quanto mais tempo esperar para se fazer a colheita tanto mais insectos de praga sobreviverão que afectarão a próxima cultura a ser cultivada.No caso de depois de se realizar a colheita ainda ficarem muitos insectos, é melhor remover os resíduos da cultura juntamente com os insectos da praga, em vez de deixar os resíduos no campo. No entanto, se nos resíduos da cultura houver relativamente poucos insectos de praga e muitos inimigos naturais, então o melhor será deixar os resíduos da cultura no campo.Fertilização É importante que a fertilização seja balanceada, com a utilização de quantidades suficientes de P e K e não demasiado N. Se se aplicar demasiado N tal faz com que a cultura seja apetitosa para os insectos e provoca uma cultura densa na qual é mais difícil para os inimigos naturais encontrarem os insectos das pragas.Mesmo com todas as medidas preventivas que já foram mencionadas, o número de insectos de praga pode tornar-se demasiado alto e constituir uma ameaça de causar danos inaceitáveis às culturas. É importante inspeccionar as culturas todas as semanas para ver se os níveis atingidos são críticos. Deve existir informação sobre os níveis críticos (como sejam o número de pragas por metro quadrado ou por metro duma fila) no que se refere à área em que vive. Na altura em que o número de organismo de praga for demasiado elevado, pode tomar em consideração empreender uma acção correctiva.No caso da população de insectos de praga não ser numerosa, os insectos que são relativamente grandes podem ser apanhados à mão e esmagados entre o polegar e o indicador ou de qualquer outra forma.Decerto que custa menos trabalho e é menos tedioso controlar estas pragas, atraindo-as para armadilhas. Os tipos mais comuns de armadilhas para insectos ou emitem luz de forma a atrair os insectos nocturnos ou são feitas de tiras amarelas cobertas com cola ou contêm qualquer tipo de isco.Caso pareça que os inimigos naturais dos insectos e dos ácaros da praga ficam nas margens do campo em vez de se movimentarem para o centro, poderá apanhá-los à mão e mudá-los para o campo. No caso 16 e figura 15 apresentamos um exemplo elegante desta situação.   Um dos preparados mais promissores sujeito a um ensaio de campo depois de se realizar este inventário, foi o óleo de rícino, Ricinus communis. Preparase da seguinte maneira: esmagam-se 0,5 kg de sementes frescas com casca ou 0,75 kg sem casca, aquecendo-as durante 10 minutos em 2 litros de água. Acrescenta-se-lhes 2 colheres de chá de querosene e um pouco de sabão. Filtra-se a solução (através dum pedaço de tecido) e dilue-se em 10 litros de água fria. O preparado encontra-se pronto para aplicação nas folhas, para controlo das lagartas comedoras das folhas, de afídeos e de hemípteros (percevejos das hortaliças) nas hortícolas.Atenção: O óleo de rícino é venenoso tanto para os seres humanos como para os inimigos naturais das pragas.Também se utilizam, de forma generalizada, extractos da nim/amargoseira, Azadirachta indica. Os extractos de amargoseira produzem efeito em cerca de 400 espécies de insectos, entre elas as pragas principais (traças, gorgulhos, besouros e as mineiras das folhas (lagartas). Não matam directamente os insectos, mas previnem, de maneira eficaz, a sua reprodução. Os extractos de amargoseira podem ser preparados a partir das folhas, mas as sementes contêm concentrações mais elevadas de componentes de insecticidas. Para cada litro de água deve-se usar 75g de semente (incluindo a pele da semente). As sementes devem ter, pelo menos, 3 meses e não mais de 8-10 meses. Põe-se o pó resultante da trituração do caroço num saco de musselina (tecido fino de algodão), que é deixado em água durante a noite. Depois espreme-se o saco e filtra-se o extracto. Acrescenta-se, por fim, um pouco de sabão à solução filtrada (1 ml por litro de água) para ajudar a que o extracto se pegue à superfície das folhas das plantas das culturas que se quer tratar.Também se podem utilizar folhas de papaia: apanhe 1 kg de folhas frescas de papaia, esfie-as em pedacinhos pequenos e ponha-as a ensopar em 10 litros de água. Acrescente 2 colheres de chá de querosene e um pouco de sabão e deixe esta solução a ensopar durante toda a noite. Coe a decocção através dum pedaço de pano e a solução está pronta para ser aplicada nas folhas das hortícolas, contra as mineiras das folhas (lagartas), afídeos e hemípteros.As principais desvantagens dos extractos de plantas são: ? Têm normalmente um efeito mais fraco que os insecticidas sintéticos. Isto quer dizer que muitos insectos podem sobreviver ou que apenas ficam doentes e depois se recuperam. ? A dosagem requerida difere consoante a espécie de insecto. Visto que a solução para pulverização é feita por si próprio, terá que determinar a dosagem óptima através da experimentação/ensaios. ? Alguns extractos (caso do suco do tabaco que contém nicotina) são muito tóxicos para os seres humanos e animais domésticos. Tal como no que respeita aos pesticidas químicos, dever-se-ão manusear com extremo cuidado. ? A maior parte dos extractos de plantas é tóxico para os predadores ou parasitas naturais dos insectos da praga e, desta forma ao se utilizar estes insecticidas biológicos, provoca-se uma perturbação do \"equilíbrio natural\".Alguns dos microorganismos entre os muitos fungos, bactérias e vírus podem causar doenças nas plantas. Estes microorganismos não são visíveis a olho nu. O que se vê a olho nu não é o microrganismo em si, mas sim a reacção da planta aos microrganismos.Ao se lidar com doenças das plantas é importante saber que os responsáveis por causar doença na planta são organismos muito pequeninos (patógenos ou agentes patogénicos), em número muito elevado, e que se espalham na planta e duma planta para outra. Uma vez que a planta se encontra infectada é quase impossível curá-la. Por vezes é possível deter o avanço da doença, mas somente removendo as partes afectadas da planta. O melhor é fazer tudo o que estiver ao seu alcance para prevenir que as plantas sejam infectadas por estes patógenos. Ainda que não seja possível ver os patógenos, é importante saber-se que eles estão presentes, de modo a que se possa compreender como prevenir eficazmente as doenças. Existem dois tipos de doenças: as que se disseminam acima do chão (doenças do ar ou veiculadas pelo ar) e as doenças que vivem na terra ou abaixo da superfície do solo (doenças do solo ou veiculadas pelo solo)Muitas vezes é difícil notar as doenças com origem no ar e até podem mesmo ser invisíveis no início do período de crescimento, mas podem tornar-se graves muito rapidamente. Este início lento está ligado com as três condições seguintes, que terão que ser satisfeitas, para que a doença afecte a cultura: 1 A planta tem que ser susceptível à doença, quer dizer que reagirá com os sintomas da doença quando se encontra infectada por uma bactéria, fungo/bolor ou vírus. 2 Tem que haver uma fonte da infecção presente que contém agentes patogénicos.3 É necessário que se reúnam as condições favoráveis à propagação da doença.Cada espécie de plantas só pode ser afectada por um número limitado de doenças causadas por microorganismos específicos; nenhum outro microorganismo pode causar doenças das plantas. Para além disso, os microorganismos capazes de infectar uma planta normalmente só podem fazê-lo com uma única espécie, um grupo de espécies relacionadas ou variedades de uma espécie. A susceptibilidade dos indivíduos dentro duma espécie a uma doença específica também podem variar consideravelmente -um pode ser extremamente susceptível enquanto um outro apenas o é ligeiramente.No início do período de crescimento, normalmente as fontes de infecção, a partir das quais a doença se pode propagar, são muito poucas. A semente ou o material vegetativo de plantio constituem, frequentemente, uma fonte importante de infecção. Os patógenos encontram-se localizados dentro ou na superfície exterior das sementes, tubérculos ou outros órgãos que se encontram plantados nos campos. As plantas que crescem a partir destas fontes desenvolverão doenças. Os resíduos das culturas do período de crescimento agrícola anterior também podem constituir uma fonte de doença. Uma terceira possibilidade é que a doença sobreviva o período entre duas campanhas agrícolas em plantas vivas da cultura ou ervas daninhas que ficam no campo depois que se efectuou a colheita.São várias as maneiras em que uma doença se pode disseminar duma planta para outra. As bactérias e alguns fungos podem propagar-se numa pequena área, não superior a meio metro, por intermédio de salpicos de gotas de chuva. Outros fungos podem ser transportados pelo vento a distâncias superiores a centenas de metros. As doenças veiculadas pelo ar, pelas gotas da chuva ou pelo vento, podem disseminar-se rapidamente dentro duma cultura caso a estação das chuvas seja prolongada. Uma cultura que seja muito susceptível à doença pode ser completamente destruída dentro dum período de tempo curto.São muitas as doenças que também se podem espalhar numa cultura através dos sucos/seivas das plantas. Os insectos com aparelhos bucais perfuradores podem transportar, desta maneira, muitos vírus, assim como bactérias e fungos. Ao sugarem o suco duma planta doente, infectarão a planta seguinte que lhes serve de alimento. O próprio agricultor também poderá, involuntariamente, tornar-se um portador se entrar em contacto com a planta doente e depois transferir os agentes patogénicos para a próxima planta sadia com que estiver em contacto.As doenças que são transferidas exclusivamente através dos sucos das plantas normalmente não se encontram muito dependentes das condições climáticas. Na secção anterior foi dito que as doenças veiculadas pelo ar podem desenvolver-se caso haja três condições que sejam satisfeitas simultaneamente: a presença duma planta susceptível, a presença de agentes patogénicos e a existência de condições favoráveis. Para a poder prevenir-se estas doenças é necessário garantir que, pelo menos, uma destas condições não seja cumprida. Nesta secção trataremos das possibilidades para que tal se realize (1) através do aumento da resistência da cultura, (2) através da diminuição do número de fontes de infecção e (3) exercendo influência sobre as condições externas.(1) Resistência da culturaAs variedades culturais cultivadas actualmente produzem, de forma geral, um rendimento mais alto do que as variedades tradicionais. Isto porque todas as plantas possuem as mesmas características genéticas que resultam em rendimentos mais elevados. Infelizmente, todas as plantas também são, de forma geral, mais susceptíveis a doenças. Através dum melhoramento selectivo, podem criar-se novas variedades que produzem um rendimento mais alto e são resistentes a uma determinada doença. No entanto, na prática o que muitas vezes se vê é que o patógeno neste caso se adapta e também pode fazer com que a variedade seja infectada, necessitando-se, então, de uma nova variedade resistente. O agricultor é forçado a comprar regularmente sementes ou material vegetativo de novas variedades para poder continuar a cultivar plantas sadias.As espécies locais produzidas tradicionalmente, de uma forma geral não são, de modo uniforme, susceptíveis a doenças. O cultivo simultâneo de variedades que apresentam diversas características de resistência apresenta duas vantagens: em primeiro lugar, as plantas que são moderada ou altamente resistentes não desenvolverão sintomas de doença (ou muito pouco). Em segundo lugar, tal como em relação a plan-tas de espécies inteiramente diferentes, apanharão esporos que se disseminaram de plantas doentes, mantendo-as afastadas, desse modo, das plantas mais susceptíveis. No caso 19 exemplificamos este princípio. A outra vantagem deste método é que não surgirão tão rapidamente novas estirpes do micróbio. Também faz com que seja possível para o agricultor seleccionar a sua própria semente e material vegetativo, em vez de ter que os comprar regularmente. No caso de produzir as suas próprias sementes é importante que estas provenham de plantas completamente sadias.A queima do arroz é uma doença causada pelo fungo Pyricularia grisea. O fungo mata o tecido da planta. Os sintomas são: manchas escuras e riscos nas folhas e nas flores. Em condições húmidas esta doença pode ser muito destruidora e causar grandes perdas da produção da cultura. Os agricultores chineses cultivam variedades de arroz que são resistentes à queima do arroz, mas estas variedades não são muito apreciadas pelos consumidores locais. O arroz local \"pegajoso\" é muito mais apreciado. Contudo, este arroz '\"pegajoso\" é muito mais susceptível à queima. Os agricultores protegem este arroz susceptível rodeando cada fila por 4 filas duma variedade resistente. Deste modo a doença desenvolve-se muito mais lentamente e os agricultores conseguem produzir quantidades suficientes de arroz \"pegajoso\" para satisfazer o mercado local sem o uso de fungicidas ou com apenas uma aplicação, ao máximo. Os agricultores vietnamitas também sofrem grandes perdas de produção causadas pela queima do arroz. Os agricultores que participaram nas Escolas de Campo aprenderam como a doença progride e como lidar com ela sem o uso de fungicidas. (No capitulo 7 trataremos mais em detalhe este tema das Escolas de Campo (para Agricultores). A solução para proteger as suas culturas de arroz consiste numa combinação de variedades resistentes com taxas de sementeira mais baixas e uma menor fertilização de azoto. Estas práticas abrandam a evolução da doença dentro do campo cultivado.(2) Reduzir as fontes de infecção ? Assegure-se que usa sementes e material vegetativo sadio. Tal reveste-se sempre de importância, visto que as doenças que surgem de sementes e de material vegetativo infectados, irão desenvolver-se logo no início da campanha agrícola, o que pode causar danos consideráveis no fim da campanha. O melhor método consiste em seleccionar sementes e material vegetativo de campos em que não haja muitas plantas doentes ou de campos em que as plantas doentes foram removidas de forma cuidadosa. ? Remova resíduos de culturas. Tal é especialmente importante no caso de agentes patogénicos altamente contagiosos que são conhecidos por causar infecções logo no início da campanha através dos resíduos das culturas. ? Continue a remover as partes doentes da planta enquanto o nível da doença ainda é baixo. ? Mantenha baixos os níveis de insectos e de outros animais portadores duma doença. Um insecto ou outro animal que pode transportar uma doença duma planta para uma outra denomina-se vector. No caso 20 damos um exemplo dum vector.O vírus mosaico e enrolamento da folha tem muitas plantas hospedeiras, mas causa dano particularmente ao tomateiro jovem. As plantas infectadas ficam gravemente definhadas e produzem folhas pequenas e distorcidas. Os frutos não são comercializáveis. A doença é transmitida duma planta para outra pela mosca branca, Bemisia tabaci. Pode-se manter esta doença dentro de limites se se controlar a mosca branca. No Sudão não são muitos os agricultores que usam insecticidas. Em vez disso plantam coentro como planta companheira do tomateiro. O coentro age como repelente: mantém a mosca branca afastada dos tomateiros. Os rendimentos do tomateiro ainda são mais elevados de que quando se utilizam insecticidas.(3) Exercer influência sobre as condições externas ? Uma boa qualidade do solo garante um crescimento óptimo da cultura. Uma boa drenagem e estrutura do solo desempenham aqui um papel importante. Uma cultura que cresce bem é menos susceptível de ser afectada por muitos agentes patogénicos. ? Uma fertilização balanceada (não demasiado N e suficiente P e K) cumpre dois objectivos. Garante que as plantas da cultura sejam mais resistentes às doenças e que culturas de folhas não se tornem demasiado densas. ? Também poderá criar uma cultura menos densa, com menos plantas por metro quadrado. A humidade do ar na cultura densa é, muitas das vezes, elevada, o que promove o desenvolvimento de doenças. ? A vegetação em redor dum campo protege a cultura contra os esporos dos fungos, transportados pelo vento e contra insectos voadores que espalham os vírus. Quanto mais alta for a vegetação tanto mais eficaz se tornará esta barreira. ? O cultivo duma segunda cultura no campo (culturas mistas ou consorciação de culturas) ainda é mais eficaz em apanhar os esporos dos fungos que se encontram no ar do que a vegetação plantada em redor do campo.As doenças com origem no solo penetram as raízes da planta ou a base do caule. Na medida em que permanecem no solo, sobrevivem o período em que não há culturas susceptíveis nos campos. Não são muitos os agentes patogénicos que podem fazê-lo. A maioria dos solos contém diversos pequenos animais mas também muitos microorganismos que estão em constante luta de vida ou de morte uns com os outros. As doenças do solo apresentam formas inactivas (dormentes) especiais que lhes permite sobreviver neste ambiente hostil. Estas formas dormentes podem tornar-se activas e penetrar nas raízes das plantas susceptíveis no seu ambiente directo, assim que estas começam a crescer.Dependendo da doença, entre os sintomas conta-se a morte das plântulas (damping off), podridão das raízes, murchidão e morte de toda a planta. Produzem-se novas formas dormentes nas as plantas doentes e esta alcançam (eventualmente) o solo. As doenças veiculadas pelo solo espalham-se lentamente num campo. A princípio a doença permanece limitada a plantas individuais ou áreas pequenas de plantas infectadas num campo. Estas áreas ficam apenas um pouco maiores, à medida que o período de crescimento vai avançando. Contudo, caso a mesma cultura ou outra cultura susceptível sejam cultivadas no mesmo campo em anos subsequentes, o número de agentes patogénicos aumentará cada ano ou cada campanha agrícola. O número de plantas infectadas também aumentará. E o próprio agricultor também poderá, inadvertidamente, acelerar a disseminação da doença ao transportar partículas de solo e material vegetativo, dum lado para o outro.As doenças do solo são muito menos influenciadas pelas condições atmosféricas de humidade do que as doenças do ar. A ênfase na prevenção destas doenças coloca-se largamente no cultivo de culturas que não são susceptíveis a estas doenças, ou apenas muito ligeiramente. Existem duas vantagens de se cultivarem culturas resistentes: a cultura resistente continua sadia apesar da presença de agentes patogénicos no solo e o número de agentes patogénicos no solo diminuirá durante o período de crescimento das culturas resistentes. Desta maneira poderse-á plantar, de novo, culturas mais susceptíveis, após um ou dois períodos de crescimento.As doenças veiculadas pelo solo tornam-se mais graves caso se produza, no mesmo campo, uma cultura susceptível ou variedades com ela relacionadas, em estações consecutivas. Quanto mais frequentemente se incluir culturas resistentes numa rotação de culturas, tanto mais depressa diminuirá o número de agentes patogénicos no solo e haverá uma menor oportunidade para se desenvolverem doenças. A murchabacteriana (caso 21) constitui um exemplo típico duma doença veiculada pelo solo para a qual a rotação de culturas é um importante componente da prevenção da doença.A murcha-bacteriana é uma doença veiculada pelo solo causada pela Ralstonia solanacearum (anteriormente chamada Pseudomonas solanacearum). Ataca uma vasta gama de espécies de plantas, mas é particularmente nociva nas plantas do tomateiro e da batateira. No tomateiro os primeiros sintomas manifestam-se por um emurchecimento súbito das folhas mais novas (como ilustra a figura 3) e um amarelecimento ligeiro das folhas mais velhas. À medida que a doença progride as plantas murcham permanentemente e morrem. Para confirmar se se trata da murcha-bacteriana os agricultores cortam um pedaço da base do caule com 2-3 cm de comprimento e colocam-no numa vasilha de vidro, dentro de água límpida. Dentro de alguns minutos começa a surgir um exsudado (pús bacteriano) leitoso, de cor cinzenta clara, proveniente do corte do caule. Figura 18).Não são comuns variedades do tomateiro e batateira resistentes, não existindo mesmo variedades resistentes que também tenham uma boa qualidade alimentar. É por isso que a murcha-bacteriana é difícil de erradicar. Mas os agricultores na Ásia e América do Sul encontraram formas de suprimi-la. A rotação de culturas constitui uma das medidas mais eficazes para fazer o maneio desta doença. Recomenda-se fazer a rotação do tomateiro ou da batateira com, pelo menos, duas (e, de preferência, três) culturas nãosusceptíveis. A seguir dever-se-á plantar, caso se possa obter, uma variedade de tomateiro ou de batateira moderadamente resistente. Evite culturas da mesma família do tomate ou da batata, como sejam a beringela, o piri-piri e o tabaco. De evitar, também, a bananeira, o gengibre e o amendoim. As culturas mais adequadas para fazerem parte duma rotação com o tomate e a batata são: forragens ou cereais; cebola, alho, alho-porro; couve-flor, brócolos, mostarda e outros membros da família das couves; a maioria das leguminosas, incluindo ervilhas e feijões. As culturas de amendoim, abóbora, pepino e abobrinha ou courgette não são adequadas.Visto que a murcha-bacteriana é facilmente transportada de campo para campo e de um período de crescimento para outro, deve-se prestar muita atenção de modo a impedir a propagação da doença: ? Durante a colheita e antes de se proceder à rotação, os restos da colheita devem ser removidos e queimados fora da parcela, longe de canais de irrigação. ? Durante a rotação da cultura, é importante remover as ervas daninhas e as plantas voluntárias de tomateiro e de batateira. ? Do mesmo modo, deve-se evitar que a água de irrigação ou da chuva proveniente de campos infestados penetre nos campos vizinhos. Para este propósito podem-se construir valas de drenagem. ? Devem-se limpar bem as ferramentas, os sapatos e as patas dos animais. No caso da doença já se encontrar presente no solo, não fará grande diferença se se acrescentar, através da semente ou de material vegetativo, um pequeno número de agentes patogénicos. No entanto a utilização de sementes e material vegetativo sadio continua a ser importante para evitar que a doença se propague a campos sãos.Pode-se proteger as sementes e o material vegetativo aplicando um tratamento na sua parte exterior com uma preparação bacteriana ou fungicida. Os fungos ou bactérias produzem substâncias que protegem a planta contra doenças veiculadas pelo solo na sua fase de plântula. No caso 22 apresentamos um exemplo em que se aplica um fungo ao material vegetativo ou directamente ao solo.Se for possível empreender alguns passos de modo a assegurar que haja uma boa estrutura do solo, as suas culturas serão mais resistentes a doenças. Tal também estimula a vida do solo e asim os inimigos na-turais dos agentes patogénicos terão uma melhor oportunidade de os controlar.O fungo Trichoderma encontra-se em todo o mundo no solo e em material vegetativo em decomposição. Não ataca nem mata plantas vivas, sendo, de facto, benéfico para os agricultores. Ajuda a decompor material orgânico, libertando fertilizante para as culturas. Também protege as plantas da cultura contra as doenças veiculadas pelo solo e contra os animais que atacam as raízes das plantas. Tal acontece porque este fungo vive muito perto das raízes das plantas, onde ele ataca -ou sufoca -estas pragas das culturas. Também produz químicos (antibióticos) que são tóxicos para outros microorganismos. O Trichoderma não é apenas uma estirpe ou uma espécie. De facto é constituído por muitas estirpes em que cada uma se encontra mais ou menos adaptada a determinadas temperaturas ou a uma determinada tarefa, tal como seja proteger as plantas contra doenças ou a decomposição de plantas mortas. Em Cuba seleccionam-se estirpes com boa qualidade do fungo Trichoderma que são cultivadas em grandes quantidades num laboratório, em tanques. Os agricultores aplicam o fungo directamente no solo onde as culturas foram plantadas. Por vezes também as misturam com adubo (estrume), composto ou qualquer outro fertilizante orgânico. O fungo Trichoderma é usado em vários outros países além de Cuba. Na maior parte, cultivam-se estirpes seleccionadas, em tanques, que se distribuem aos agricultores. Este estudo de caso mostra que os fungos que se desenvolvem naturalmente podem constituir uma grande ajuda no controlo das doenças. Para a maior parte dos agricultores não é possível obter Trichoderma cultivados num laboratório, mas podem experimentar com os seus próprios Trichoderma provenientes de uma pilha de compostagem bem decomposta. Podem pôr o composto directamente no solo ou podem colocá-lo em água durante algumas horas e aplicar esta água no solo que está contaminado com uma doença.A solarização exige muito trabalho, e por isso só é útil quando se trata de pequenas áreas de cultivo, como no caso de viveiros. Cava-se a terra para que fique solta até uma profundidade de 15-25 cm (toda a camada superficial), rega-se bem e cobre-se com folhas de plástico. O calor do sol aquece a camada superficial do solo a uma temperatura à qual a maioria dos organismos morre. Este método funciona contra as bactérias e fungos causadores de doenças e também contra ervas daninhas.6 Ervas daninhasAntes ou durante a sementeira ou a plantação duma cultura, muitas vezes é necessário preparar uma cama de sementeira. Para tal é necessário afofar a terra (fazer com que a terra da camada superficial do solo se torne solta) e remover as plantas que aí crescem. Estes tratos culturais criam as condições apropriadas para que a cultura germine e cresça. Não obstante, estas condições também são ideais para a germinação e crescimento de ervas daninhas. As ervas daninhas competem com a cultura, na medida em que partilham o mesmo espaço e utilizam a mesma luz, nutrientes e água. Esta competição leva a um crescimento atrofiado das culturas. As ervas daninhas também podem ser prejudiciais na medida em que abrigam doenças e pragas que ameaçam a cultura. Tal como os agentes patogénicos, algumas ervas daninhas parasitas, incluindo a Striga, infectam as raízes da cultura e extraem dela água, nutrientes e açúcar. As ervas daninhas podem ser plantas anuais ou perenes.As ervas daninhas anuais (caso do capim Barnyard, Echinochloa crusgalli: figura 19, à direita) produzem sementes dentro de um período de um ano e depois morrem. Estão bem adaptadas a sobreviver em condições instáveis, tal como seja num campo/parcela usado para o cultivo de culturas anuais, cujo solo, por esta razão, é lavrado com mais frequência. As ervas daninhas anuais multiplicam-se exclusivamente por meio das suas sementes e as suas sementes caem directamente, quase todas, na terra à volta da planta-mãe. As sementes de algumas espécies têm apêndices que lhes permitem aderir ao pêlo dos animais ou ser transportadas pelo vento a distâncias de centenas de metros. As sementes maduras que caem da planta não germinam imediatamente, mas permanecem dormentes pelo menos durante algumas semanas. A seguir a este período de dormência e se as condições forem favoráveis, então nessa altura germinarão. A germinação ocorre, quase sempre, nos 2 cms superiores da camada superficial do solo. Depois da preparação da cama de sementeira, há uma grande percentagem das sementes de ervas daninhas presentes no solo que germinará.As ervas daninhas perenes também produzem sementes, mas normalmente muito menos do que as espécies anuais. Um exemplo duma erva daninha perene é o capim Cogon, língua de vaca ou capim agreste (Imperata cylindrica), que se mostra na figura 19 à esquerda. As ervas daninhas perenes sobrevivem a estação quente pois armazenam alimentos nos órgãos vegetativos, como sejam as raízes, rizomas, tubérculos ou bolbos. Estes alimentos são produzidos em rebentos acima do solo na estação das chuvas. Elas podem continuar a sobreviver durante bastante tempo depois de estes rebentos terem sido removidos. Novos rebentos emergirão destes órgãos no início do novo período de crescimento. Devido às suas reservas alimentares, estas plantas, normalmente, crescem com mais vigor que as plantas anuais. Até podem deitar novos rebentos (abrolhar) de profundidades de 10-20 cm. Uma vez que tenham abrolhado, estes rebentos jovens também crescem mais rapidamente do que as plantas anuais na sua fase de plântula.Se não forem tomadas medidas para controlar as ervas daninhas, a cultura e as ervas daninhas amadurecerão juntas (na melhor das hipó-teses). Contudo, visto que as ervas daninhas crescem sempre à custa da cultura, desta maneira no fim do período de crescimento a cultura terá um rendimento reduzido. Uma outra possibilidade é que as ervas daninhas no início do período de crescimento cubram inteiramente as plantas da cultura, destruindo, assim, toda a cultura.Na prática é quase sempre necessário remover-se a maior parte das ervas daninhas numa fase inicial para evitar danos graves. O controlo não-químico das ervas daninhas implica muito trabalho, mas é necessário. Com as medidas preventivas pretende-se garantir que não seja preciso tanto trabalho manual para controlar as ervas daninhas mais tarde, no caso da mesma cultura ou para culturas subsequentes.O método mais importante de controlo não-químico das ervas daninhas em pequenas unidades de produção é arrancá-las à mão ou cortálas, utilizando para tal ferramentas manuais simples (no caso 23 e figura 20 apresentamos exemplos dessas ferramentas). As ferramentas só podem ser utilizadas se houver espaço suficiente entre as plantas da cultura. Uma vez que a cultura já se encontra plantada é importante que o solo seja perturbado o menos possível quando se arranca ou corta as ervas daninhas. A maior parte das sementes de ervas daninhas que germinam está localizada na camada mais à superfície do solo. No caso de se trazer o solo que se encontra mais abaixo para a superfície, também se dá uma oportunidade de germinação às sementes que aí se encontram.Figura 20: Da esquerda para a direita: 3 enxadas para cavar e 2 raspadeiras de erva Caso 23: equipamento manual de sacha Existem várias ferramentas para diferentes tarefas. A seguir apresentamos 4 grupos de ferramentas manuais. ? O machado de cortar erva, catana ou machete é usado para golpear ou cortar as partes das ervas daninhas altas, que se encontram acima do solo. ? As enxadas são apropriadas para o cultivo do solo e para a amontoa; não são tão apropriadas para a monda visto que estimulam a germinação das ervas daninhas. ? As enxadas ou sachos de raspar a erva, também chamados raspadeiras, são úteis para cortar as ervas mesmo abaixo da superfície do solo. São menos adequadas caso se trate de solos duros. ? As enxadas rotativas ou capinadeiras só podem ser usadas em culturas plantadas em filas. Podem apresentar um grande número de acessórios.É necessário continuar a fazer o controlo das ervas daninhas até que a cúpula da cultura se cerre. A falta de luz que daí resulta previne a germinação de muitas espécies de ervas daninhas. Algumas espécies ainda poderão germinar, mas as plantas ficarão pequenas e não serão suficientemente fortes para competir com a cultura.É mais difícil controlar as espécies de ervas daninhas perenes que as espécies anuais. Depois que os rebentos tenham sido arrancados ou cortados, a planta pode rebentar outra vez, a partir da mesma fonte ou os órgãos reprodutivos que se encontram mais fundos, começarão a dar rebentos (abrolhar). Estas plantas terão que ser controladas uma série de vezes em cada período de crescimento até que os seus órgãos reprodutivos estejam exaustos e não possam abrolhar mais.As medidas preventivas nunca serão suficientes para manter uma cultura completamente livre de ervas daninhas. Contudo, é possível reduzir-se o tempo necessário para controlar as ervas daninhas na cultura. Algumas das medidas visam todas as plantas que, potencialmente, podem causar problemas, enquanto que outras das medidas se dirigem especificamente a combater uma ou mais espécies que causam problemas com frequência.Em ambos os casos devem-se aplicar quatro princípios gerais: ? Esgotar a quantidade de sementes das espécies anuais e os restos dos órgãos das espécies perenes presentes no solo. ? Prevenir que novas remessas de sementes de ervas daninhas entrem no solo. ? Minimizar o espaço disponível para que as ervas daninhas possam germinar e crescer. ? Plantar as culturas de tal maneira que facilite o uso de equipamento de controlo das ervas daninhas. No caso 24 damos um exemplo do México de como se podem combinar vários métodos de prevenção das ervas daninhas.O cultivo simultâneo de uma variedade de hortícolas constitui uma prática agrícola antiga no México. Os agricultores utilizam cartões abertos para cobrir o solo entre as parcelas cultivadas. Nas parcelas cultivadas eles removem as ervas daninhas à mão, utilizando ferramentas simples para cavar. Quando a cúpula da cultura está cerrada, a sombra reduz ou pára o crescimento das ervas daninhas. No Verão, quando as temperaturas começam a ser muito altas para as hortícolas crescerem, os agricultores limpam as parcelas de vegetação. Nessa altura estendem pedaços de plásticos usados no solo de modo a facilitar a solarização. O ideal é o plástico preto, mas qualquer plástico que já não seja utilizado também serve. A rega das áreas solarizadas permite que as ervas daninhas germinem; elas perecerão devido às temperaturas abrasadoras, debaixo do plástico. As favas plantam-se quando a temperatura baixa. Esta cultura de cobertura permite que as restantes sementes de ervas daninhas germinem. Mas a cultura torna-se tão densa que as ervas daninhas ficam muito pequenas e não produzem sementes novas. As favas são colhidas e consumidas localmente. Deixa-se que as plantas cresçam até ao início da Primavera, altura em que são cortadas e deixa-se que se decomponham fornecendo assim nutrientes para as hortícolas subsequentes.Melhorar a biodiversidade do solo Se forem tomadas medidas visando melhorar a actividade biológica do solo (ver capítulo 3) haverá mais sementes que serão comidas por animais que vivem no solo e mortas por microorganismos.A camada superficial do solo dos campos que foram plantados ou semeados com uma nova cultura sem primeiro serem lavrados, é sempre rica em sementes de ervas daninhas. Ao misturar-se a camada superficial do solo com terra proveniente de camadas mais profundas, tal reduz o número de sementes que podem germinar. A lavoura revolve toda a parte de cima do solo e substitui-o com terra proveniente da camada mais profunda, constituindo, por isso, o método mais eficaz de combater as ervas daninhas anuais. É obvio que as sementes das ervas daninhas voltarão à superfície do solo no período de crescimento seguinte, mas nessa altura o seu número estará significativamente reduzido devido a morte natural, terem sido comidas por animais ou danificadas por microorganismos.Se a cultura é semeada directamente depois de se preparar a cama da sementeira, soltando a parte de cima da terra, as ervas daninhas começarão a crescer antes ou ao mesmo tempo que a cultura semeada. Uma alternativa consiste em fazer uma cama de sementes falsa, efectuando-se a preparação do solo, mas não semeando a cultura imediatamente. A maior parte das sementes de erva daninha, que se encontram na camada superior do solo, germinará e poderá, nessa altura, ser removida com um sacho/enxada. No caso de ainda se dispor de tempo, pode-se repetir este processo antes de se proceder à sementeira.Uma rotação de cultura bem concebida garante não só que as reservas existentes de sementes de ervas daninhas fiquem esgotadas, mas também que se tenha que utilizar menos sementes da cultura. O melhor é alternar entre culturas que crescem rapidamente e que produzem uma cúpula cerrada e culturas que podem ser sachadas durante um período de tempo mais longo. No caso das ervas daninhas perenes continuarem a aumentar apesar das medidas de controlo utilizadas, a rotação cultural é uma das poucas opções existentes para reduzir o número de plantas de ervas daninhas.Proporcionar abrigo para animais que comem as sementes A vegetação em redor dos campos oferece abrigo para os mamíferos, pássaros e insectos que se alimentam de sementes. Ao se cultivar mais que uma cultura, simultaneamente no mesmo campo, também se aumenta a população de animais que comem as sementes. Os efeitos no crescimento da erva daninha, mais tarde, variam e não podem ser preditos com precisão .Prevenir a produção de sementes e de outros órgãos reprodutivos Durante o período de crescimento, há um certo número de ervas daninhas que podem crescer sem que isso cause danos graves à cultura. Contudo, é recomendável fazer o máximo possível para evitar que estas ervas daninhas produzam sementes ou outros órgãos reprodutivos. Isto aplica-se em especial às espécies que muitas das vezes causam problemas a outras culturas. Depois de se ter realizado a colheita de uma cultura, pode ser que haja um período durante o qual o crescimento da planta ainda é possível mas que não há outra cultura que está cultivada nesse campo. Pode-se aproveitar este período de pousio para controlar as ervas daninhas perenes -e, claro, que também poderá controlar simultaneamente as ervas anuais para impedir que as mesmas produzam sementes. Também pode optar por plantar uma cultura adicional que cobre o solo rapidamente. A cobertura do solo suprimirá o crescimento e a produção dos órgãos reprodutivos das ervas daninhas.A limpeza das sementes e do material vegetativo de forma a garantir que os mesmos fiquem isentos de ervas daninhas, constitui uma importante parte da higiene agrícola, principalmente porque as sementes da cultura podem estar muito contaminadas pelas sementes das ervas daninhas. Mesmo que o número de sementes de ervas daninhas normalmente seja muito baixo comparado com o que já encontra presente no solo, continua a ser importante que se proceda a uma limpeza cuidadosa. De lembrar que a maior parte das sementes de ervas dani-nhas presente na semente provém de espécies que se encontram optimamente adaptadas ao cultivo dessa cultura em particular. No caso da semente ser procedente de qualquer outro lugar, poderá também introduzir novas espécies de ervas daninhas na exploração agrícola com as quais não estará familiarizado. No caso 25 damos um exemplo de como não apenas as sementes, mas também as plantas jovens dum viveiro, podem ficar contaminadas com as ervas daninhas.O capim Barnyard ou capim-arroz (Echinochloa crus-galli) constitui um problema grave na cultura do arroz e outras culturas cerealíferas. Esta gramínea infestante compete por luz com a cultura (principal). Também impede que as plantas de arroz afilhem, quer dizer, que produzam novos rebentos a partir da base do caule. Nos estádios iniciais de crescimento o capim Barnyard, por esta razão também chamado capim-arroz, confunde-se, frequentemente, com as plantas do arroz. Até pode acontecer que seja transplantado juntamente com as plantas jovens do arroz. Para se remover o capim Barnyard dos viveiros de arroz, é necessário conhecer as diferenças entre a planta do arroz e a planta do capim Barnyard (capim-arroz). A folha do arroz tem uma lígula pronunciada, que é uma pequena saliência na junção entre a folha e o pecíolo. Também tem aurículas pequenas, mas pronunciadas, que são saliências na forma de orelhas na junção entre o limbo e a bainha da folha. O capim Barnyard não tem nem lígulas nem aurículas, como se pode ver na figura 21. Para além disso, a folha do capim Barnyard tem uma lâmina suave enquanto a do arroz é dentado e pode ser tão aguçado como uma navalha de barba.Coberturas vivas e mortas (mulch) do solo Se houver um grande espaçamento entre as plantas duma cultura que se encontra cultivada com uma outra cultura (sistema de consorciação de ou culturas mistas), a cobertura do solo será mais rápida e é necessário menos trabalho para controlar as ervas daninhas. Uma outra possibilidade reside em combinar uma cultura com plantas altas com uma outra que não cresce tanto em altura. No início haverá um atrofiamento da segunda cultura, mas assim que a primeira cultura começa a amadurecer ou é colhida, deixando mais espaço para o crescimento das ervas daninhas, a segunda cultura começa a suprimir as ervas daninhas. Também se podem usar os resíduos de plantas como cobertura morta (mulch) para cobrir o solo e, dessa maneira, evitar o desenvolvimento de ervas daninhas.Se o solo não estiver bem fertilizado, a cúpula das culturas não se cerrará e a cultura estará muito mais susceptível a ervas daninhas, durante muito mais tempo. Se a cultura está plantada em filas, pode-se aplicar o fertilizante exclusivamente nas filas da cultura, de modo que apenas as culturas beneficiarão do seu uso.Criar e explorar uma vantagem para a cultura Nos casos 26 e 27 apresentaremos dois exemplos.As raízes do arroz contêm poros de ar através dos quais o oxigénio se pode espalhar para as raízes. Devido a esta capacidade, o arroz pode crescer em condições anaeróbias, em ambientes pantanosos e inundados. As raízes do capim Barnyard carecem destas características. Deste modo, ao se transplantar o arroz para um campo pantanoso ou inundado, bem preparado, previne-se o desenvolvimento duma população abundante de ervas daninhas. Numa sementeira directa, dá-se vantagem ao arroz ao se utilizar semente pré-germinada.Muitos orizicultores cultivam o arroz de sementeira directa. Para dar à cultura uma vantagem competitiva sobre as ervas daninhas podem usar sementes de arroz pré-germinadas. Também podem aumentar em 50% a quantidade de sementes a empregar. Uma terceira opção consiste em colocar fertilizante por baixo das sementes de arroz, de modo a que a cultura beneficie mais destes fertilizantes do que as plantas invasoras.Na África sub-sahariana, a queda pluviométrica limita, com frequência, o crescimento das culturas. Por esta razão os agricultores aplicam um sistema duplo de camalhões para as culturas de cereais e de leguminosas. Fazem camalhões com a terra que se encontra à superfície (do solo) que é a que contém a maior parte das sementes da Striga. Em seguida semeiam as culturas de cereais e de leguminosas por debaixo do camalhão, onde as condições de humidade são muito melhores do que as de cima. Como consequência a maior parte das sementes de Striga não germinam ou agarram-se às raízes da cultura.Padrão e espaçamento de plantio Através de experimentação os especialistas determinaram a distância óptima entre as plantas de cada cultura com o objectivo de se obter o máximo de rendimento. No entanto, para efeitos de controlo das ervas daninhas é desejável adaptar ligeiramente esta distância. As culturas que se encontram distribuídas uniformemente no campo podem ser semeadas um pouco mais juntas umas às outras de modo a que as ervas daninhas tenham menos oportunidade de germinar. Se tal não eliminar suficientemente as ervas daninhas, também se pode semear em filas com menos espaçamento entre as plantas e maiores espaçamentos ente as filas. Assim será possível remover as ervas daninhas entre as filas com a ajuda dum sachador/enxada ou de outra ferramenta.7 O ciclo de vida da Striga e opções de controloA Striga constitui um problema enorme nas produções de cereais e leguminosas de grão em toda a África e Sudoeste Asiático. A redução média estimada da produção devido à Striga é de cerca de 40%, podendo ocorrer perdas completas da cultura nos campos infestados. A Striga, também conhecida por erva bruxa, é a designação comum para uma família de plantas que parasitam as raízes de cereais e de leguminosas de grão e sobrevivem à custa da cultura à qual se encontram ligadas.Na figura 22 pode ver-se o ciclo de vida da Striga (as letras na explicação que a seguir se apresenta referem-se às letras na figura As sementes de Striga encontram-se normalmente presentes nos 2-3 cm da camada superior do solo. Ao se lavrar um solo que contém um grande stock de sementes, tal resulta na redistribuição das sementes de Striga em toda a camada superior do solo de 7 a 10 cm. Se as sementes se encontrarem concentradas mesmo na camada de cima (nos poucos centímetros que constituem a camada superior do solo), uma maneira de evitar uma infecção com Striga logo no início da cultura, é plantar a cultura em covas de cerca de 15 cm de profundidade. Cave a terra com um pau para plantar ou com uma enxada tradicional. Ver figura 23. No caso 27 (capítulo 6) descreve-se uma outra opção. Chuvas esporádicas, especialmente nos primeiros 2 meses após a sementeira, aumentam o stress da seca causado pela Striga. Um stress de seca severo, visível logo no início da época do plantio, constitui frequentemente um sintoma duma infestação de Striga, mesmo se ainda não seja possível ver as plantas de Striga acima do solo. São muitos os organismos que se alimentam de Striga, impedindo que a mesma produza semente. Algumas lagartas desfolham completamente as plantas enquanto outros organismos danificam as flores, impedindo a produção de sementes. Visto que tanto a Striga como os grãos que são afectados são plantas nativas, deve haver um lato conhecimento local de como encorajar os inimigos da Striga. O uso de insecticidas provou ser contraprodutivo para o controlo da Striga na medida em que matam os seus inimigos naturais.A Striga produz as suas próprias flores e estas produzem muitas sementes, atingindo 500.000 por planta. As sementes são tão minúsculas que chega a ser difícil identificá-las como sementes (ver a figura 24).As sementes de Striga agarram-se facilmente às sementes da cultura.No caso de não se tomarem medidas para parar este processo a Striga dissemina-se através da semente contaminada, dum campo cultivado para outro.A contaminação da semente da cultura pela semente de Striga é um dos principais meios de disseminação da erva daninha para novas áreas. Ao contrário do que normalmente se pensa, o vento e a chuva praticamente não desempenham qualquer papel na propagação destas plantas parasitas.A contaminação das sementes da cultura com Striga ocorre, muitas das vezes, na época da colheita, especialmente se as plantas de Striga não são removidas antes da colheita: as aurículas do cereal tocam as cápsulas da erva daninha ou da camada superior do solo que contém as sementes da planta invasora (ver figura 25). Pode-se limpar a semente da cultura, pondo-a numa panela grande e sacudindo-a vigorosamente. Devido a diferenças de tamanho e de peso, a semente de Striga solta-se e vai para o fundo, enquanto a semente limpa da cultura fica em cima. No caso de não se sacudir, a semente de Striga permanecerá agarrada à semente da cultura. Neste mesmo encontro, ou num outro subsequente, a comunidade escolhe, ela mesma, os participantes da FFS. Os participantes são convidados a priorizar as actividades propostas pela FFS. Também podem discutir ideias para resolver problemas e compará-las com potenciais soluções que são originadas fora da aldeia. Este processo deve resultar na preparação de um plano realista de trabalho para se realizar na aldeia a FFS de Protecção de Culturas.O plano de trabalho deve especificar: ? A data e a hora da reunião/encontro mensal da FFS. ? A localização física do campo experimental. ? A lista de participantes da FFS. ? Um plano das actividades semanais para toda a época de cultivo. ? Montagem de ensaios/experimentações de campo para se poderem comparar os métodos usados normalmente com os métodos novos.O plano de trabalho assenta nos hábitos locais e o melhor é que a decisão sobre se homens e mulheres devem participar no mesmo grupo ou em dois subgrupos separados, por género, seja tomada pelos líderes locais.Figura 26: Fazendo o mapeamento da aldeia, incluindo a sua agro-ecologia e delineando os problema vivenciados pelos agricultoresCada uma das sessões semanais integra as seguintes 8 actividades: ? Observação no campo (cerca de 30 minutos) ? Elaboração do gráfico de crescimento e desenvolvimentos da cultura (5 minutos) ? Análise do agroecosistema (30 minutos) ? Apresentação dos resultados e discussão (30 minutos) ? Análise económica (10 minutos) ? Observação do comportamento dos insectos (10 minutos) ? Exercício de dinâmica de grupo (10-30 minutos) ? Tópico especial (30-60 minutos) Podemos ilustrar este plano de trabalho referenciando-nos a uma FFS de Batata Doce realizada na Indonésia, em 1997. Os agricultores e os investigadores tinham trabalhado juntos, de antemão, para analisar os problemas quanto ao cultivo da batata doce dentro do contexto da empresa agrícola na sua globalidade. Eles concluíram que as pragas causaram perdas consideráveis em algumas épocas agrícolas. A falta de linhas de orientação quanto à fertilização foi identificada como constituindo um problema maior que os danos causados pelas pragas e este assunto foi incluído no programa de FFS. A FFS tinha 25 participantes como máximo, que se encontravam divididos em grupos de trabalho de 4-5 participantes cada.Cada grupo de trabalho avaliou 10 locais de trabalho em cada sessão. As observações englobavam: condições do solo, sintomas de deficiências de nutrientes nas plantas, sintomas de doenças e de danos provocados por insectos, número e tipo de pragas de insectos e inimigos naturais. A idade das culturas era anotada a par de observações de índole geral sobre condições climáticas, ervas daninhas existentes no campo e vegetação em redor do campo. Recolheram-se insectos desconhecidos e partes de plantas com sintomas desconhecidos que foram colocados em recipientes, para posterior observação e identificação.Elaborar o gráfico do crescimento e desenvolvimento da cultura Mediram-se semanalmente os comprimentos dos caules (lianas) e das raízes de armazenamento e foram elaborados gráficos. No final do curso, os dados foram usados para demonstrar de que modo a matéria seca se distribui entre as partes da planta que se encontram abaixo do solo e as que ficam acima do solo, durante a época de cultivo.A análise do agroecosistema (Agro-Ecosystem Analysis (AESA) constitui a actividade fulcral das FFS, e as outras actividades são concebidas para a apoiar. Na FFS de Batata Doce, reúnem-se, por grupo, todos os dados provenientes das observações de campo. As amostras ou elementos que se pensava que pudessem ter um efeito positivo na cultura eram fixados à esquerda, num cartão triplex e os elementos com um efeito negativo, do lado direito. Os participantes também foram estimulados a desenhar uma planta de batata doce no meio do cartão, mostrando a fase de desenvolvimento da folhagem e raízes de armazenamento. O desenho também devia mostrar se as plantas apresentavam sintomas de stress ou se tinham um ar sadio.Figura 27: Um grupo de trabalho de agricultores a prepararem a sua apresentação Apresentação dos resultados e discussões Cada grupo de trabalho apresentava e explicava, sucessivamente, a sua análise de agroecosistema a toda a FFS (ver a figura 27). Após os grupos de trabalho terem finalizado as apresentações, o facilitador guiava o grupo a fazer uma resenha das condições gerais da planta e do solo, a tirar conclusões e a apresentar recomendações.A análise económica é usada para se desenvolver as aptidões analíticas dos participantes. Na altura em que os agricultores de batata doce tenham reconhecido os factores que determinam a rentabilidade da sua empresa de produção de batata, eles encontram-se melhor colocados para escolherem entre opções individuais de maneio.O objectivo deste exercício é de descobrir o papel dos insectos, especialmente o comportamento dos insectos que comem as culturas e dos seus inimigos naturais. Os grupos de trabalho põem os insectos num frasco de vidro com o que se crê ser a sua comida preferida.Os exercícios de dinâmica de grupo desenvolvem a coesão do grupo e as aptidões para solucionar problemas, estimulando, igualmente, a colaboração e a criatividade. Este exercício começa, normalmente, com a introdução feita por um facilitador, que coloca um problema ou desafio para a FFS solucionar. Muitos são físicos e activos, enquanto outros problemas são verdadeiros quebra-cabeças. Os números que se seguem aos termos referem-se ao capítulo ou secção onde o termo foi usado pela primeira vez. agroecosistema a interacção de todas as formas de vida e condições físicas num cenário agrícola (8.3) anual uma planta que completa o seu ciclo de vida e morre dentro dum período de um ano, o oposto de perene (3.2) arável adequado ao cultivo agrícola (1) biodiversidade a variedade de formas de vida num determinado lugar (3.1) cama de semente falsa (técnica) de cultivo de uma cama de sementes tal como se tratara para nela se plantar e deixar então que aí cresçam ervas daninhas em abundância que serão removidas antes de se semear a cultura.(6.3) ciclo de vida as fases cíclicas de crescimento e desenvolvimento dum organismo (1) consorciação de culturas o cultivo de duas ou mais culturas simultaneamente na mesma área ou terreno (sinónimo de culturas mistas ou associadas) ( 3.2) controlo de pragas qualquer que seja a medida ou grupo de medidas que visam a redução dos números de uma praga ou complexo de pragas numa área; normalmente refere-se a medidas que produzem um efeito imediato sobre a praga ou complexo de pragas (4.3) cultura armadilha cultura plantada na periferia dum campo de forma a proteger a cultura que se encontra no seu interior contra doenças transmitidas por certos insectos de praga ou por uma planta parasita (3..2) cultura em faixas alternadas ou em contorno o cultivo de duas ou mais culturas em faixas alternadas (3.2) culturas mistas ver consorciação de culturas damping-off morte duma plântula antes ou logo após a emergência, devido à decomposição da raiz e/ou parte inferior do caule (5.3) doença (de uma planta) funcionamento anormal de uma planta causado por um outro organismo (1) dormente (literalmente: dormindo) estado de inactividade de um organismo, usado como mecanismo de sobrevivência (4.1) estirpe uma variante duma planta ou dum microrganismo usada para um determinado objectivo (5.2) fonte de infecção lugar inicial (onde surgiu) a infecção, geralmente em referência a uma população de plantas (5.1) infecção processo segundo o qual um organismo entra, invade ou penetra e estabelece uma relação de parasitismo com a planta hospedeira (5.2) infestação a presença dum grande número de organismos de praga numa área ou num campo, à superfície dum hospedeiro ou de qualquer outra coisa que possa entrar em contacto com um hospedeiro, ou no solo maneio da praga o mesmo que controlo da praga, mas integra tanto medidas preventivas como medidas que produzem um efeito imediato (2.2) maneio pró-activo das pragas em vez de se esperar até que surja um problema de pragas ou que estas se disseminem, leva-se a cabo, em seu lugar, um processo planeado e concebido de forma a possibilitar a sua detenção ou prevenção, logo desde o início ( 2 ","tokenCount":"16775"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"1e820d36fd256d205b582dfbb9c939d9","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/77be3a37-3b0a-4aff-9fe6-c2deefccffee/retrieve","id":"-1549362838"},"keywords":["Vulnerability","climate change","systematic review","research methodology","evaluation methods"],"sieverID":"08140e51-4387-4176-9952-fcbcd04d197c","pagecount":"83","content":"Because vulnerability is a conceptual construct rather than a directly observable phenomenon, most vulnerability assessments measure a set of \"vulnerability indicators\". In order to identify the core approaches and range of variation in the field, we conducted a systematic literature review on local vulnerability to climate change. The systematic review entailed an identification of frameworks, concepts, and operationalizations and a transparency assessment of their reporting. Three fully defined relevant frameworks of vulnerability were identified: IPCC, Patterns of Smallholder Vulnerability and Vulnerability as Expected Poverty. Comparative analysis found substantial heterogeneity in frameworks, concepts and operationalizations, making it impossible to identify patterns of climate vulnerability indicators and determinants that have robust empirical support. If research measuring farmers' vulnerability to climate change is to have any comparability, it needs greater conceptual coherence and empirical validity. We recommend a systematic program of testing and validating vulnerability measures before institutionalizing them in programmatic contexts.Aogán Delaney is a researcher with interests in systematic review, research synthesis methodologies, governance in conflict-affected settings and fragile states, and urban studies. In particular, he is interested in interdisciplinary approaches analysing and engaging in sociotechnical change in agropastoral systems, including the practices of the research community involved in those change processes. Crane has degrees in anthropology from Indiana University (BA) and University of Georgia (PhD). Prior to joining ILRI was an assistant professor in the Knowledge Technology and Innovation group at Wageningen University. He can be reached at t.crane@cgiar.org.As a global program, CCAFS (Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security) is actively engaged in understanding farmers' vulnerability to climate change across its benchmark sites. This is in order to effectively target measures that enhance farmers' adaptive capacity and reduce their vulnerability. CCAFS aims for its research and interventions to affect real world outcomes through carefully constructed impact pathways, which represent a programmatic agenda across the four flagship programs, which are implemented in five regions in the global tropics. From a programmatic point of view, an important question emerges from these objectives: how can CCAFS assess the impact of its various activities and interventions on farmers' vulnerability to climate change? Consequently, the research presented in this working paper aims to provide the foundation for a conceptually coherent and empirically valid approach to measuring farmers' vulnerability to climate change and the way it changes over time. Looking beyond CCAFS, the research findings and recommendations can also inform other regional or global programmes on how to assess evaluation of interventions designed to reduce vulnerability and promote adaptation to climate change. The research objectives were pursued by reviewing high quality case studies of local level climate vulnerability assessments.As vulnerability cannot be directly observed, most vulnerability assessments rely on measuring a set of \"vulnerability indicators\". These are the indicators linked to factors that explain how a unit of measure (person, household, community, etc.) is vulnerable to a shock and predict negative outcomes. These indicators vary depending upon the framework used, the research question at hand, the methodology employed, the context in which research is undertaken and often the disciplinary paradigm of the researchers. The cause and effect relationships between determinants and the outcomes are sometimes assumed, sometimes inferred, and occasionally rigorously explained. This diversity of approaches, which undermines comparability and complicates interpretation when dealing with vulnerability, suggested that it would be useful to undertake a systematic review to identify a suitable core set of candidate indicators to represent vulnerability at the appropriate scale required.Different fields of research have developed their own approaches to vulnerability, often heavily influenced by their topical and disciplinary foci (Sumner and Mallett, 2013). This has created multiple frameworks for understanding vulnerability to climate change and its subsequent classification (Adger, 2006;Adger and Vincent, 2005;Eakin and Luers, 2006;Gallopín, 2006;Vincent, 2007). One key division comes between physical scientists and social scientists -the former typically defining vulnerability based on physical exposure to extreme events and their outcomes, with the latter stressing the importance of social structures and differential access to resources (Adger, 2006). There has also been some blending of these two schools of thought, where the assessment is based on both aspects of a hazard as well as the social structures that respond.The conceptual and methodological choices made in vulnerability research are not mere technicalities. While much research is conducted on rural society and livelihoods, it can be extremely useful to closely examine the scientific practices through which that research is done (Crane, 2014;Weiler et al., 2014), because what is included and excluded in a research framework can alter findings and the socio-political and scientific responses to them. For example, while composite vulnerability indices have been popular (Brooks et al., 2005;Vincent, 2007), methodologies for developing composite indices have been under scrutiny because the indicators are generally derived from anecdotal information from case studies or expert opinion, rather than having been empirically validated (Notenbaert et al., 2013). This practice is problematic because resulting designations, such as 'vulnerable' or 'not vulnerable', mask the uneven rigor of underlying research, the complexity of the determinants aggregated and the interactions which produce their combined influence on vulnerability. In short, while their simplicity makes them programmatically convenient, indices reveal little about the socio-ecological processes through which vulnerability is produced, thus providing little evidence-based guidance for policy or technical interventions (Eakin and Bojórquez-Tapia, 2008).In contrast, many vulnerability assessments have focused on local or community scale, where vulnerable groups and coping strategies can be concretely identified (Stephen and Downing, 2001). Household and community level analyses allow insight into how similarly exposed populations exhibit different degrees of vulnerability (Eakin and Bojórquez-Tapia, 2008), usually due to how different sets of specific household characteristicsassets, activities and perceptions, for exampleare associated with vulnerability outcomes. Local level assessments have the potential to recognize the context-and system-specific dynamics of vulnerability determinants, which change according to the hazard (Eakin and Bojórquez-Tapia, 2008). The volume, the diversity and the importance of studies of local or household vulnerability in identifying determinants justify our decision to focus on them in this project.The dynamic process of vulnerability can be attributed to changes at a variety of inter-linked temporal and spatial scales, reflecting non-linear interactions and feedbacks that affect the vulnerability outcomes of a particular system under consideration (Downing et al., 2006). The extent to which these interactions and feedbacks are considered is a critical factor for interpreting vulnerability assessments (Adger, 2006). Following on this, it is important to note that just as vulnerability is produced by the intersection of specific contextual drivers, vulnerability assessments are themselves also often conducted at the intersection of specific contexts, actors and interests (Pronk et al., in review). The way that the science of vulnerability research is situated within policy discussions and responses is thus important. These factors can influence the resultant identification of vulnerability determinants and impacts, and thus the policy responses.Reflecting practices common in the wider field of climate vulnerability studies, research often approaches vulnerability using select literature studies in tandem with scientific and sitespecific expert opinion to summarize the vulnerability indicators for locales or sectors under consideration. In effect, a variety of approaches have been pursued. As the new set of Flagships get underway, a more in-depth assessment of vulnerability indicators was deemed necessary, especially to determine if, through critical analysis of frameworks and methodologies, evidence from local level studies could be used in monitoring and evaluation matrices at national or global scales across CCAFS target regions, and ultimately in the evaluation pathways, both for the regional programmes and Flagships. Systematic review was selected as a methodological approach through which to distil information from the vulnerability literature. However, the rigour and transparency that make systematic review so powerful also make it a complex and highly demanding methodology. The challenges inherent in systematic review resulted in the project unfolding in two phases. The first phase (henceforth referred to as \"initial review\") began with searching and identifying the literature, but ran up against substantial barriers in extracting necessary data. The initial systematic review effort encountered several difficulties that derive primarily from a lack of consistency both in reporting and in research practice, both of which were exacerbated by the complexity of the topic studied. The initial effort encountered and stumbled on the finding that heterogeneity in research on local climate vulnerability makes it impossible to justifiably compare studies using a data extraction and quality review template that takes reports of research at face value. Needing to read behind authors' surface claims made it far more complex than initially anticipated to draw conclusions about the realities of climate vulnerability from the literature. The same heterogeneity that frustrated our work, however, did point to the importance of identifying how vulnerability is conceived, how it is studied, how current research should be interpreted and the implications this has for future research and recommendations drawn for interventions and activities. The second phase of the research (referred to as the \"current study\" when necessary) brought systematic review specialists on board to substantially refine the methodological approach.The next section of this paper briefly describes and justifies systematic review as a methodological approach to pursue the objectives of the project. The subsequent section outlines the methodology used in this study. This is followed by a results section that describes the empirical findings that have been established through the systematic review of the climate vulnerability case study literature. These are then discussed both in terms of the state of the field as well as programmatic implications for CCAFS. Recommendations are then made on how CCAFS should structure and pursue vulnerability research and monitoring and evaluation over the coming years.Systematic review is a formal research methodology for identifying, assessing, and interpreting available evidence on a chosen topic and specific research question (Thomas and Harden, 2008). The methodology has its origins in the health sciences, when in the early 1990s scholars began to develop methods for systematically analysing multiple studies of Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) in healthcare interventions (Dixon-Woods et al., 2006;Magarey, 2001). This led to the development of a specific type of literature review termed the \"systematic review\", which was based on rigorous and replicable steps throughout the review process. Its rigor and replicability has lead it to be considered as a research method in own right, in contrast to traditional literature reviews (Magarey, 2001).Systematic review typically consists of the following steps: a transparent and reproducible search strategy; selection of studies to be included in the review through the use of defined protocols; extraction of data from subject literature through data extraction instruments; and the secondary analysis of extracted data (Magarey, 2001;Wells and Littell, 2008). Each of these steps is pursued through a method that embodies the principles of rigor, transparency, reliability, and comprehensiveness.During the past 20 years, the systematic review approach has undergone adaptation. From its origins in the health sciences it is now used increasingly in the social sciences (Evans and Benefield, 2001;Price, 2005;Secomb, 2008;Wallace et al., 2004) while in place of an exclusive concern with RCT data, methods have been developed for the systematic analysis of qualitative data (Campbell et al., 2003;Dixon-Woods et al., 2006;Major and Savin-Baden, 2012;McCullough et al., 2007;Wallace et al., 2004). Furthermore, in some cases systematic reviews have been adapted for a rigorous appraisal of methods rather than data, with the aim of generating more robust concepts, operationalizations, or measures (Dubois et al., 2013;Le Reste et al., 2013;van der Lee et al., 2007). Nevertheless, in adapting to each of these areas of application, constituent methods have been developed which remain true to the core systematic review principals of rigour, transparency, reliability, and comprehensiveness.In the initial effort, we aimed to evaluate evidence from multiple high-quality local-level vulnerability assessments in order to identify a generalizable set of causes and drivers of local climate vulnerability. Our intent was to support the design of interventions to foster adaptation to climate change that could be assessed, evaluated and scaled out. Despite the fact that all papers claimed to be studying what they referred to as 'vulnerability', we found diverse conceptualizations of vulnerability, a commensurate array of methodologies for its assessment and a remarkable variety of purposes. The degree of conceptual and empirical heterogeneity across the studies made rigorous comparative analysis virtually impossible. Consequently, we were not able to achieve the goal of the initial study.So, taking a step back, we undertook a second study, presented here, that drew on the commitments to and methods developed for systematic review to make explicit what was actually being researched in the various approaches to the study of local vulnerability. In essence, instead of attempting to draw realist conclusions about determinants of local level climate vulnerability, we adjusted the project to research the variety of ways that vulnerability research itself has been conducted. Consequently, the purpose for the current study is both to provide grounds for the interpretation of existing studies and to offer suggestions for future research on local vulnerability to climate change.Despite the challenges encountered in the initial review, we chose to continue with the systematic review approach because it contributes certain benefits to the purposes of the CCAFS programme that cannot be achieved with a traditional literature review. Firstly, the heterogeneity of approaches, methods, and scales of analysis used in existing studies on vulnerability makes it difficult to determine which research methods are best. A systematic review can help clarify and stabilize different conceptualizations of 'vulnerability' and identify methodological differences that are not otherwise apparent. This can allow a more coherent choice to be made when selecting the best methods, which will help CCAFS build a stronger research design, therefore producing more authoritative results. Secondly, because the underlying heterogeneity prevents comparability between studies, disentangling the methods used in existing studies can make explicit what is actually being researched, thus allowing more valid comparison between the CCAFS research and other studies in the field. Thirdly, clarification of the concept of vulnerability can lay the groundwork for a subsequent identification of drivers, causal mechanisms, and other patterns of vulnerability, which until now remain obscured by the unacknowledged differences in approaches. Finally, a systematic review of the vulnerability literature contributes to the development of the field more broadly by aiding the standardization of research approaches, both in terms of conceptualization of 'vulnerability' and its drivers, and in terms of operationalization.The current project builds upon the initial review. While the initial review had the same basic mandate, the work for the present review refined the research questions and the systematic review methodologies in order to deliver results that were empirically supportable. The methods described here represent a summary report on the combined efforts. For a detailed description of the methods used, see the Technical Report, published as supplementary material.This systematic review focuses on research that has explicitly carried out some form of local level vulnerability assessment. The aim is to understand how climate vulnerability is researched in order to inform both interpretation of existing studies and to identify a robust and standard core set of vulnerability indicators for future research that supports aggregation. Understanding how the findings resulting from studies of local determinants of vulnerability can be confidently aggregated to support claims at regional and national levels has received scant attention, especially in terms of a critical appraisal of the various methodologies through which these determinants have been identified.The focus on local level assessments in this review emerges partly from the drawbacks related to national level vulnerability indicators and their questionable reliability at the different scales and geographic contexts they claim to represent (Eakin and Bojórquez-Tapia, 2008). Finer-scale analysis at a household or community level allows greater clarity on specific causes, interactions and outcomes of vulnerability, but these studies have only rarely been explicitly informed by an interest in aggregating results at a higher level. Furthermore, if interpretable and comparable, the sheer number of published local level vulnerability assessments would provide a large pool of empirical (reported) material for aggregation into regional or national level conclusions.The overall research framework for our analysis of the local climate vulnerability assessment literature has been designed to answer the following core research questions. How is vulnerability conceptualized?  How is vulnerability operationalized?  Which operationalizations are empirically valid?  Which conceptualizations are supported by sound operationalizations?The methods used to conduct this review can be organised into six broad stages:1. The literature selection for the initial review was brought forward and added to in the second review. Therefore, this section reports on two distinct stages of selection of literature. For the first review a search was carried out across 15 scientific databases (Annex 1). A separate search string was composed for each database reflecting the particular characteristics of that database (see Annex 2). Search strings were based on a common set of terms, which were derived from the central research question of the initial review 1 , and then adapted to the specific databases 2 . This search of databases returned 168 papers. Initial screening for relevance was conducted on titles and abstracts of these articles.The key eligibility criteria included: Articles were included, for example, when in the context of vulnerability to climate change they referenced sub-national unit of analysis, poverty and/or insecurity. Initial screening reduced the pool of articles to 71. These 71 articles were advanced for a full text review,1 The research questions of the initial review were:1. What determinants of vulnerability are common across the studies? 2. What are the causal mechanisms that link determinants and vulnerability outcomes? 3. What are the methodological approaches that give most robust and reliable results in understanding determinants and mechanisms of vulnerability? 2 Details of this search and all other supplemental information are provided in the Systematic Review Technical Report screening for their relevance and sufficient quality to be included in the study (see Annex 3). Screening criteria at this step included:  Located in the global tropics  Local level focus of assessment  Clearly and explicit research questions  Well articulated sampling process and data collection methods  Empirically oriented methodology (primary or secondary)  Description of data analysis methods  Findings and analysis were primarily focused on vulnerability outcomes and determinants specifically, in line with our key research question and aims, rather than other topical areas such as adaptive capacity, resilience or coping mechanisms  Draws conclusions about vulnerability indicators or determinants After screening, 29 papers were considered to be relevant and of sufficient quality to be included in the study. 28 of these 29 articles were subsequently brought forward to the second review and constituted the initial pool of articles for the current study. The team then conducted a second stage of literature gathering based on consultation of experts in the field (Sandoval et al., 2012). It was therefore first necessary to identify and map what approaches are present in the initial pool of 28 articles. Initial analysis began with reading an article and drawing diagrams of the theoretical framework used in that paper. This same process was done with all 28 articles. These summaries of theoretical frameworks were then synthesized using a two step process. First, summaries were clustered by identifying features (e.g. scale of analysis, methodological approaches, etc.) that rendered them mutually incompatible. Summaries within each cluster were then synthesized into preliminary framework categories (c.f. Glaser, 1965 for a discussion of the constant comparative method). This analysis of the 28 articles advanced for full review identified seven preliminary frameworks, and for each category a well-executed example was chosen to as exemplar. To strengthen our ability to draw conclusions with respect to all studies of local vulnerability, we sent the result of this analysis by email to 31 selected experts in the field to ask first for examples of models and frameworks that should be added to the review (i.e. 'what are we missing'?) and secondly to nominate articles to replace those we had chosen as an exemplar.. This round of expert solicitation generated eight new suggestions. All articles were then screened for relevance, resulting in a final pool of 35 articles (Annex 4).The next stage was to more rigorously identify theoretical frameworks, constructs, and operationalizations 3 used in the final pool of papers. The 35 articles were imported into NVivo and a coding protocol was designed that would allow them to be coded evenly and transparently, and to extract data in a standardised format. This coding framework was designed based on the first two research sub-questions of the review (\"how is vulnerability defined\" and \"how is vulnerability operationalized\"). At the conceptual level, a 'theoretical framework' can be deconstructed into three components: constructs 4 ; construct definitions; and relationships; (following Carroll et al., 2013;Morse, 2004). These three components make the basis of the theory-coding framework. In order to code only analytically-relevant constructs (and not each and every construct mentioned in discussing theoretical approaches), the coder first identified a research question, and from there, identified constructs contained in that research question, and any additional constructs which are absolutely necessary in order to either study or make sense of that research question. Our analysis was limited by the depth of reporting in the selected articles. If a concept was named, but not defined or operationalized (which was not uncommon), it was not possible for us to interpret what the author was talking about or how they did their research. As such their report would be of no use to any organization wishing to replicate any portion of their research. As such, it was impossible for us to draw conclusions with respect to either the validity or utility of articles that had shallow reporting.For each article, a table was created of article-specific constructs, their definitions, if provided, and if applicable the operationalization of these constructs. A standard template was created for these tables to ensure even treatment across articles. Relations between these constructs were then identified. These relationships were used later in our study to integrate operationalizations of lower-level-or sub-constructs (e.g. labour and livestock are subconstructs of 'household assets', which in turn is a sub-construct of 'adaptive capacity') into theoretical frameworks that are defined at a higher level of abstraction. Because authors' use of language was inconsistent, we could not use author-reported constructs as a basis for identifying theoretical frameworks. For example, though many authors said they used the IPCC framework, the details of their studies often revealed limited mutual resemblance. Consequently, we used four a priori identified models and a miscellaneous category to code author-identified theoretical frameworks. These frameworks were Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Vulnerability as Expected Poverty (VEP), Food Insecurity and Livelihoods Approach . Graphical representations were created for each theoretical framework in each paper to provide easily digestible summaries of the frameworks. In total, 358 article-specific constructs were identified, of which 281 were defined (in some cases through reference to other works), of which 154 were directly operationalized. Twelve articles were coded as IPCC; 7 as 'Vulnerability as Expected Poverty' (VEP); 4 as Food Insecurity; 6 as Livelihoods Approach; and 19 as 'Other Framework'.The second stage of analysis opened with synthesizing the article-specific, author-reported constructs (emic constructs) into a global set of analyst-generated constructs (etic constructs) by using reported definitions and operationalizations to correct for authors' inconsistent use of language. Using these etic constructs, we then corrected our initial categorization of frameworks. For instance, we may have classified two frameworks as distinct when, in fact, their only differentiating feature was the name given by their authors to identically defined and operationalized constructs. We then generated our final set of ideal-type representations of these frameworks. Our choice to suspect and correct for inconsistent use of language allowed us to identify frameworks based not on authors' use of language but on the definitions and operationalizations. We inspected the framework clusters that were created in the first stage of analysis to generate uniform and discreet categories of frameworks. First, within each cluster, the graphic summaries of the article-specific frameworks were compared in order to tell if they were 'of a kind'. Where clusters were not assessed to be 'of a kind', codes were to be applied to enable the cluster to be split into two 'domains' (Borgatti, 1994). Once we examined articles within each a-priori specified framework, representative examples of each cluster of articles were compared in order to assess whether those clusters were distinct. Thus the frameworks identified through this method (described in detail in the Results section) are the outcome of empirical scrutiny, in contrast to standard overviews of frameworks where authors tend to report the versions of frameworks that they like the most.After merging clusters that were found not to be distinct, our set of 26 clusters was reduced to 20.Following the empirical identification of frameworks, the next step was to identify the key constructs that made up each framework. As our intent is to propose a common core set of indicators for studies of local climate vulnerability, we decided that it was not useful to examine and compare all of the 358 distinct constructs identified in the articles. Instead, we selected constructs that were common across all or all but one paper using each framework. As found at the level of frameworks, authors did not use terms consistently when discussing constructs. This, again, made it impossible for us to rely on terms used by authors to identify common constructs. Our solution, once again, was to make a selection of suspected equivalent constructs based on use of similar terms and later attempt to falsify our initial hypothesis of equivalence by examining their definition and operationalization. What differentiates this effort from that undertaken at the framework level is that when examining constructs at a framework level we would only trace one level of operationalization (e.g. vulnerability is a+b+c) where when examining constructs we would disaggregate as far as the report made possible (e.g. the item on a survey). All common constructs identified were listed. In doing so, all constructs with the same name were temporarily treated as one. This provided us with a total of 114 constructs. These 114 constructs were then brought forward for scrutiny. Scrutiny of constructs was done first within a set of constructs of the same name to test for uniformity, and secondly, across constructs to test for distinction In some cases, constructs were defined by authors through reference to other articles. We recorded these references and attempted to follow references when page numbers were given but this was never the case. However, if two articles each had a construct of the same name which they referenced a common source, we concluded that they are the same construct. One hundred of the 114 constructs appeared in only one article, with the implication that they were each uniform by default. Therefore only 14 sets of construct definitions were inspected for uniformity. Of these, ten were judged to be uniform, and four were split.After constructs that had the same name were compared within a given framework, we looked across frameworks through a cross-tab comparison. In total, 26 representative definitions were assessed to be equivalent to one or more others. Out of these 26 definitions, 7 merged constructs were created. The next step was cross-examining this set of frameworks and constructs by a team member who was a subject matter expert (SME), and then moving from author-reported constructs and frameworks (subsequently referred to as \"emic\") to analystgenerated constructs and frameworks (\"etic\"). The SME attempted to refute the hypothesis that the categorizations created through structured review was meaningful and to indicate among the frameworks found which were relevant for the purposes of the CCAFS. This inspection collapsed four frameworks into one ('Vulnerability as Expected Poverty'; 'Vulnerability as Expected food security'; 'Vulnerability as Expected Povertymulti-level analysis'; 'Asset vulnerability (Residual)'), and merged the residual article (Mathematical formalisation of vulnerability) into the IPCC category. Fifteen frameworks were seen by the SME as relevant and five as irrelevant. The first reviewer accepted all suggestions by the SME with the exception of one suggested merger. Each resulting model is incorporated into the final set of the results (see Annex 5 and 6).The third stage of analysis comprised testing whether authors reported how they operationalized constructs with enough detail to support interpretation, that is, was their reporting adequately transparent. Assessing whether operationalizations are transparently reported is a preliminary stage in determining if those operationalizations are empirically valid. The logic at work is that operationalizations must be interpretable before it is possible to test whether they are valid. A further issue is that if authors do not transparently report how they conducted their research, then their research cannot be effectively interpreted or replicated. In this stage, data for adequate operationalizations is extracted from the articles, and those operationalizations that were not adequately reported were screened out.An instrument test the transparency of reporting was designed based on that developed by Da Silva (2014), with five adaptations. First, Da Silva's instrument was developed to appraise an article as a whole, whereas the present study conducts assessment at the level of the operationalization. Therefore only a subset of the seven items in Da Silva's framework are used (Data collection methods reported; sampling strategies reported; sample sizes reported; data analysis methods reported). Secondly, an additional criterion is added to ask whether the article reports the operational questions or data collection instruments to represent the construct. Third, a criterion is added which asks whether the construct being operationalized has been defined in the paper, using the codes for construct definitions in the first stage of research. Fourth, while Da Silva lists three values for many criteria (e.g. missing; unclear; clear), here only dichotomies are used (e.g. missing or unclear; clear). One exception to this is the value 'secondary data', where allowances are made for less than full reporting when authors use an existing data source. For example, many studies used data from national weather centres to operationalize biophysical data. In such cases, full details of data collection methods and instruments were not reported in our subject articles, yet we considered them transparently reported because one could reproduce the study by approaching the same weather centre for the same data.This assessment was carried out on 147 defined directly operationalized article-specific constructs. Of these, 113 were found to be transparent, and 34 were found to be inadequately transparent. Operationalizations that were assessed as transparent were brought forward to the next stage for validity assessment.Da Silva's transparency instrument was itself constructed around the needs of the quality assessment checklist of Kampen and Tamás (2014). However, as noted by Da Silva, it is not practical to apply the quality assessment checklist unless you have substantial knowledge of the field of research in question (2014). Therefore this stage of analysis was carried out solely by the team member with the most knowledge of the field (the SME). A validity assessment was conducted on the basis of the data collected in the transparency assessment. Two criteria, both of which must be met for validity were used:1. The data collection methods correspond to the type of data required to represent the construct as defined. 2. The data collection methods, instruments, and analysis methods provide a complete and valid understanding of the construct defined.In addition to validity, an assessment of feasibility was also conducted. This involved a subjective judgment by the SME about whether the operationalization of each construct was feasible within the context of the CCAFS program. This validity assessment instrument was executed on the transparently operationalized, directly operationalized, defined constructs.The final stage of analysis involves integrating those article-specific operationalizations into the ideal-type research frameworks. This stage comprised two principal tasks. First, the etic (reviewer generated) constructs in the ideal-type frameworks were matched to article-specific operationalizations using 'operational chains' based on construct relationships linking higherorder, indirectly-operationalized constructs to directly operationalized ones. Secondly, where more than one candidate operationalization was found for a given etic construct, a framework was created which would allow a selection among them to be made by anybody with expertise in the field.The results of the systematic review of the papers will start by describing the theoretical frameworks that have been found and used to study vulnerability. A theoretical framework is composed of conceptual constructs and relations between these constructs. Thirty-five articles were surveyed in the review and of the 35 articles 17 frameworks were found, with 12 frameworks seen as relevant to the objective of the research (Annex 5). The analysis found three fully defined relevant frameworks: IPCC with variants, Patterns of Smallholder Vulnerability and Vulnerability as Expected Poverty with extensions. In this context, 'fully defined' refers to frameworks for which definitions could be found in the literature for all core constructs in the framework.Four 'uneven' frameworks were found, namely current and Future Vulnerability; Determinants of Resilience; Livelihood Vulnerability Index and Nested Vulnerability. The label \"uneven\" connotes cases where there were insufficient studies in our review for us to systematically create coherent representations of them through the use of their core concepts 5 .The final group of frameworks were those defined as having insufficient definition of constructs. Five frameworks fell under this category: Asset Vulnerability; Intensifying Vulnerability to Food Insecurity; Livelihood Trajectories, and Resilience and Vulnerability; Household Vulnerability Factors; Perceptions of Climate Change. In this group of frameworks most of the core concepts were not explicitly operationalized within the article(s) reviewed. This includes cases where concepts were operationalized primarily through reference to other articles.The IPCC framework is guided by the definition and theory of the IPCC, which conceives of vulnerability to climate change as having three dimensions: Exposure to climate-induced shocks (a biophysical phenomenon); the Sensitivity of the unit of analysis to such shocks (both a social and biophysical phenomenon); the Adaptive Capacity to deal with such shocks (a social phenomenon) (see Figure 1). Application of the framework often, but not always, creates a context-specific index of vulnerability from indicators of these three dimensions. Vulnerability under the IPCC framework is defined as \"the degree to which a system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes. Vulnerability is a function of the character, magnitude, and rate of climate variation to which a system is exposed, its sensitivity, and its adaptive capacity\" (Füssel and Klein, 2006). Articles using the framework included Antwi-Agyei (2013), Baca et al. (2014), CARE (2009), Füssel and Klein (2006), Hahn et al. (2009), Ionesco et al. (2009), Jamir et al. (2013), Luers et al. (2003), Notenbaert et al. (2013), Piya et al. (2012). The Patterns of Smallholder Vulnerability (Figure 2) framework utilises the same construct of the IPCC, but offers a substantial elaboration of smallholders' adaptive capacity, specifically on coping capacity to adjust to weather extremes, manage damages or explore alternative livelihood opportunities (Sietz et al., 2012). The framework applies the methodology of cluster pattern analysis as a way to deliver useful insights into recurrent indicator combinations based on similarities among units of analysis, in cases where such a grouping exists. The final dimension of the framework is around how vulnerability (as manifested by its three components) affect the four primary dimensions of food security: food availability, access, stability of supply and access, and utilization of food (Sietz et al., 2012). The Vulnerability as Expected Poverty framework (Figure 3) conceives of vulnerability as being when the unit of analysis (usually a household) becomes or remains poor in the future. It is an econometric approach that makes forward projections based on cross-sectional data and associated risks of climatic (and sometimes non-climatic) stress. In some cases, assessments of vulnerability based on expected poverty are then regressed against a series of socio-economic data to identify determinants of vulnerability.Extension 1: This is a variant of the framework 'Vulnerability as Expected Poverty' described above. The principal difference is that whereas the former takes its focus as that of current and projected future levels of poverty, usually measured through consumption, the current framework by contrast focuses on a household's current and projected future food security status (Capaldo et al., 2010;Mutsvangwa, 2011).Extension 2: Another extension of the 'Vulnerability as Expected Poverty' framework described above is characterised by its inclusion of multi-level analysis. That is, projections are made for units of analysis at two different scales (usually household and community/local), and analysis is done of differences between units at different scales (Échevin, 2011;Günther and Harttgen, 2009).The framework explores the notion of vulnerability to poverty, a concept which, given socioeconomic backgrounds of households, and biophysical data on expected environmental conditions, makes ex-ante estimates of a household's probability of becoming or remaining poor. Importantly this estimate is made before uncertainty regarding these conditions has been resolved. To clarify how these approaches mould together Calvo and Dercon (2013) utilized an 'axiomatic approach' to the analyse individual and clustered vulnerability. The framework integrates aspects like the household vulnerability index (Chhinh and Poch, 2012), food insecurity (Misselhorn, 2005) and expected future food security and nutritional status (Capaldo et al. 2010). Another important construct is around shocks, both household specific idiosyncratic shocks and covariate shocks correlated across households within communities (Günther and Harttgen, 2009), highlighting how those have different causal mechanisms and aggregate effects. The main characteristics of this framework are its comparison of current and future states of vulnerability. Vulnerability is conceived as being composed of two principal elements: exposure to climatic changes, and adaptive capacity. Multiple data sources are used to generate an assessment of current exposure and current adaptive capacity. On the basis of this data, and on historical social and physical trends, projections are made as to likely future states of exposure and future states of adaptive capacity. Future exposure includes estimating the future state of socioeconomic conditions (Ford and Smit, 2004). In defining the frameworks definition of adaptive capacity it integrates the notion of 'coping range' to reflect resource options and risk management strategies. The main construct of the framework uses the model of community vulnerability to climate change, conceptualizing vulnerability as a function of exposure and adaptive capacity to deal with the exposure (Ford & Smit 2004). Importantly the framework asserts the need for communication between the climate science community and climate attributes identified by the community to assert the likelihood of changes.The focus of this framework is on identifying determinants of resilience to climate-related shocks. Resilience is conceptualised temporally in terms of the time taken to make a recovery after being impacted by shocks. A vulnerability index (in this case based on the framework of the IPCC) is created to compute measures of vulnerability based on household survey data. Classifications of resilience are then created based on the time taken to return to pre-shock states, which are then analysed against the vulnerability data to identify determinants of resilient households. This framework was applied by Tesso (2012) and utilised the constructs of the DFID community resilience conceptualisations, where the management of change and ability to transform living standards in the face of shocks and stresses whilst not compromising long-term prospects is held as a central tenant.This framework consists of an index to measure levels of vulnerability. The index is composed of a highly developed set of household-level indicators chosen to represent seven dimensions of a particular conception of 'livelihoods'. These seven dimensions are: sociodemographic profile; livelihood strategies; social network; health; food; water; and natural disaster and climate change (Hahn et al., 2009).This framework is concerned with 'teleconnections' between households in geographically distant localities. It examines the mechanisms through which smallholders in distinct geographical contexts respond differently to exogenous drivers and shocks (climatic or notclimatic) and in so doing create a new set of influences on distant locations through connections in a nested globally interconnected system (Eakin et al., 2009). The framework assesses response options in terms of individual or household welfare.The following frameworks were categorized as relevant but as having not sufficiently defined constructs. Constructs were defined as insufficient if they were not found to be transparent. Constructs operationalized through reference to another article were also categorized as insufficient because time and resource constraints made it impossible for the review to request and analyse cited material. In addition, frameworks were placed in this category if the SME deemed the construct as presented in the paper to not have a valid operationalization in the frame of the central research questions of our project.This framework conceives of household vulnerability to climate change in terms of the management control that can be exercised over a series of assets. These assets include labour, human capital, non-labour productive assets, household relations, and social capital. A vulnerability index is created through a framework of weighted indicators representing each type of asset. This framework was applied in the article by Dasgupta and Bashieri (2010).Vulnerability is situated in a recursive framework, which captures a cyclical nature of intensification of vulnerability principally through the negative impacts that coping strategies can have on food security. The framework conceives vulnerability within communities as those that are unable to buffer themselves against hazards, with low ability to cope with shortterm shocks and mitigate chronic stressors, which results in negative impacts on livelihoods (Misselhorn, 2005). Vulnerability is conceived principally in terms of food security, which in turn is conceived in terms of access to food and food productivity. When food security is negatively impacted through climatic and non-climatic drivers, vulnerable households and communities respond with particular coping strategies, which can have a recursive effect on future levels of food security.On the basis of a mixed methods data collection methodology, the concept of 'livelihood trajectories' is explored among households over a time period. The framework seeks to generate narrative accounts of which livelihood strategies and trajectories lead to resilient and vulnerable states (Sallu et al., 2010).At a very general level, this framework investigates factors affecting household vulnerability. An index is constructed through which to measure vulnerability, which is then analysed against socio-economic data to determine the most significant factors influencing levels of household vulnerability (Nkondze et al., 2013).This category constitutes less a coherent framework and more of a collection of studies whose approach differs from the majority in this review in terms of their declared epistemological orientation and their position on the intervention cycle. The approach is explicitly subjective. It focuses on articulating perceptions of people whose livelihoods are affected by climate change (often farmers), and in particular their perceptions of climate change as a physical phenomenon, perceptions of the impact climate change has on their livelihoods, and respondent reported strategies of coping or adaptation. Key constructs of this approach centre around farmer perceptions, and the resultant adaptation and coping measures employed depend on the household's perception of extreme events and problems associated with them (Mubaya et al., 2012). The framework bases an understanding of adaptive strategies, as mediated through relative adaptive capacities and not according to the distribution of various types of resources such as physical or social capital (Westerhoff and Smit, 2008). We have chosen to include this category as relevant because it is the primary approach in which subjective experience and perception of vulnerability is acknowledged. Recognizing subjective experience as relevant made it permissible in this framework to use participatory approaches to assessment in which vulnerability can be defined through endogenous constructs of vulnerable rural populations. These endogenous constructs may be a useful addition or complement to exogenous scientific constructs and they, at minimum, are programmatically relevant as knowledge of endogenous constructs supports culturally appropriate intervention design.After coding of the final article pool, 114 constructs were identified, of which roughly 100 appear in only one article. Further scrutiny of construct definitions resulted in five frequently occurring constructs being split into nine. Although the same terminology was applied, the definitions varied markedly across the frameworks. The most significant of splits concerned the use of the term 'vulnerability' by 12 authors to denote a construct they use. After inspection, two main clusters could be detected (broadly corresponding to the IPCC definition, and the concept used in the VEP framework), in addition to some poorly defined uses of the term.Furthermore, 26 constructs with different names were subsequently merged into seven because they used different labels to describe what were effectively the same things. For example, despite using slightly different names, we merged all of the following constructs because they used effectively equivalent definitions: 'expected poverty' (Deressa et al., 2009); 'household vulnerability as expected poverty' (Chhinh and Poch, 2012); household vulnerability to poverty' (Échevin, 2011); 'rural household vulnerability' (Sarris and Karfakis, 2010); 'vulnerability' (Calvo and Dercon, 2013;Deressa et al., 2009).Finally, there were 37 article-specific constructs that could not be compared because definitions were not provided at all. Among those who did provide construct definitions, many were unspecific, self-referential, or otherwise difficult to work with. For example, while the IPCC-framework studies provided references to the work of the IPCC when introducing their concepts, many produced rudimentary, circular or self-referential definitions of the subconstructs. The explanation of the concept of exposure given by Piya et al. (2012:11) is illustrative, although by no means unique: \"Exposure is the nature and degree to which a system is exposed to significant climatic variations.\"Similarly, comparison between construct definitions was made difficult by the tendency of some authors to provide more conceptual definitions and others to provide more operational definitions. That is, in defining their concepts some authors lean more towards describe the theoretical phenomenon that they are trying to represent with that concept, while others lean more towards describing what data they will use to represent the concept. For example, on the basis of Westerhoff and Smit's (2008:321) definition of adaptation strategy (\"Adaptations, or adaptive strategies, employed by individuals or groups are depicted as being mediated through their relative adaptive capacities, indicating that adaptations may or may not be accessed according to the distribution of various types of resources such as physical or social capital\") and Eakin et al's (2012:477) definition of Impacts and responses to Hurricane Stan by coffee farmers (\"In this paper, we document household responses to a climatic shock, Stan, to gain insight into how natural resource-dependent communities move to secure their livelihoods following significant loss, the implications of household responses for coffee farming as a 'domain of attraction,' as well as to highlight those aspects of household choices and perceptions that may be indicative of resilience at broader scales.\"), the two constructs were assessed to be equivalent and merged. Although definitions were provided in both cases, the different formats, levels of detail, and different orientations made the comparison between them, the decision to merge, and the subsequent cross-check in the team, quite difficult. A final set of core constructs and definitions is provided in Annex 6.Given the centrality of the IPCC in climate change research and policy, it is not surprising that the IPCC framework is the most prevalent. However, IPCC defines the three key dimensions in very broad terms, leaving it up to individual researchers to operationalize them as they see fit. The profusion of approaches we found under the rubric of IPCC suggests that just because a researcher claims to use the IPCC framework does not mean they are doing same kind of research as others who also say they use that framework. Among the articles that actually defined them, the operationalizations of \"exposure\" and \"sensitivity\" were reasonably consistent, with exposure drawing on meteorological data and sensitivity capturing the degree to which climate phenomenon affect key biophysical processes (i.e. crop or pasture productivity).The common claim of papers to assess a state of vulnerability was critically unpacked in terms of how they operationalized the frameworks to assess vulnerability across the various constructs. A key dimension of how researchers operationalize their vulnerability frameworks is how they deal with the unit of measure, and the degree to which they approach vulnerability and adaptive capacity as emergent properties of systems (outcomes) versus as dynamic social processes that occur through human agency. The analysis of vulnerability itself revealed that the majority of the papers followed the IPCC in using \"a system\" as the unit of reference, many drawing on direct quotes of IPCC AR3. However, two papers clearly indicate an orientation on actors and agency in their definitions of vulnerability, representing an important variation on the choice of how to conceptualize vulnerability.\"Vulnerability generally refers to the propensity of some unit of exposure to experience harm. In practice, households are often a convenient unit of analysis for vulnerability assessments that aim to differentiate a population in terms of sensitivity to a particular stressor and capacities to effectively respond (Eakin and Luers 2006). At the household level, vulnerability is often evaluated by assessing exposure (the physical relation of the household to a stressor) and sensitivities to the losses experienced (e.g., what the impact means for the household's function and survival), as well as by the households' ability to cope and adapt, or its ''adaptive capacity,'' prior to and after experiencing loss\" (Eakin et al. 2012).\"Vulnerability is thus comprised of risks (or a chain of risky events) that people confront in pursuit of their livelihoods, the sensitivity of the livelihood to these risks, the risk response or the options that people have for managing these risks and finally the outcomes that describe the loss in well-being\" (Notenbaert et al. 2013).There was more variability in how researchers operationalized adaptive capacity (Table 1). Definitions range from direct quotes from the broad IPCC language to fairly specific descriptions of the constituent aspects of adaptive capacity. While most of the 12 definitions of adaptive capacity stay at the level of \"systems\", only Berkes and Ross (2013)  We view adaptive capacity as a latent property, which can be activated when people exercise their agency. The processes by which this occurs have not been well explored.The ability of a system to adjust to climate change (including climate variability and extremes) to moderate potential damages, to take advantage of opportunities, or to cope with the consequences.Adaptive capacity: The ability of a system to adjust to climate change (including climate variability and extremes) to moderate potential damages, to take advantage of opportunities, or to cope with the consequences.Adaptive capacity is the system's ability to withstand or recover from the exposure (Ebi et al., 2006).As per the IPCC's definition and framework, vulnerability is understood as a function of three components-exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. Vulnerability is defined as ''the degree to which a system is susceptible to or unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes'' (IPCC 2001).We define adaptive capacity as the extent to which a system can modify its circumstances to move to a less vulnerable condition (Fig. 1c). We quantify adaptive capacity (A) as the difference in the vulnerability under existing conditions and under the less vulnerable condition to which the system could potentially shift: A = V (existing conditions) -V (modified conditions) MarshallIt refers to the ability of individuals or communities to adapt to adversity and stressful life-events by 'reorganizing' through networks or institutions that learn, store knowledge and experience and are creative, flexible and novel in their approach to problem solving (Vayda and McCay, 1975;McCay, 1981;Sonn and Fisher, 1998).Adaptive capacity is the ability of a system to adjust to climate change including climate variability and extremes, to moderate the potential damage from it, to take advantage of its opportunities, or to cope with its consequences. Selection of indicators for adaptive capacity is based on the DFID sustainable livelihoods framework, whereby adaptive capacity is taken to be a function of asset possession by the households (Jakobsen, 2011;Nelson, et al., 2010b).The adaptive capacity of smallholders (the term as used in this study encompasses the coping capacity) describes the ability to adjust to weather extremes, manage damages or explore alternative livelihood opportunities.According to Füssel and Klein, the risk-hazard framework (biophysical approach) corresponds most closely to sensitivity in the IPCC terminology while the adaptive capacity (broader social development) is largely consistent with the socio-economic approach [18].In the framework, capacity is generated from the implementation of adaptation and mitigation interventions [18].Looking across the definitions, other factors specified as constituents of adaptive capacity include ownership of (various) assets, social support networks, learning networks, access to technology, institutional flexibility, governance structures and practices, DFID's sustainable livelihood components, and health status. These concepts are themselves broad and variably operationalized. Concepts are made meaningful through the ways that they are operationalized and constituted through empirical data. Table 2 describes the operationalizations of adaptive capacity offered in articles that provided information sufficient to be able to link interpretable individual research methods to the concept 'adaptive capacity' and which have been assessed in our review as empirically valid (see transparency and validity assessment for more information). There are several items that appear on the table multiple times, such as livelihood diversification, education levels, irrigation, dependency ratio, farm size, etc., perhaps indicating some consensus on their importance. However, it is noteworthy that the same variable is often used to operationalize different concepts. For example, \"Livestock\" is variously treated as \"Natural Capital\" or \"Financial Capital\"; both \"Credit\" and \"Membership in Community Organization\" are treated as \"Social Capital\" and \"Financial Capital\", indicating less consensus on the links between empirical foundations and conceptual clarity than might be supposed in authors who draw on the livelihoods five capitals approach. In addition to the IPCC vulnerability framework, the articles reviewed provided a fully developed description of the Vulnerability as Expected Poverty framework. The papers that constitute this framework emphasized how climate shocks contribute to impoverishment of households or communities. By emphasizing consumption level, food security or asset ownership as the indicators of vulnerability papers within the framework, VEP propose that projected poverty is the meaningful negative outcome related to climate vulnerability (Table 3). Subsequent operationalizations of \"poverty\" (Table 4) rely on household financial indicators as well access to production technologies. Transparency of the empirical foundations was a challenge in this group, however, primarily through the use of citations to specify details. Household vulnerability as expected poverty is defined as the probability that households will move into poverty given certain environmental shocks, current poverty status and household characteristics of respondents.We can define vulnerability to poverty as the probability of falling into poverty when one's consumption/income falls below a predefined poverty line.Thus a household is said to be vulnerable to the outcome of a risk event, if it does not have sufficient resources to adequately contend with the risk event. In other words, the extent to which a household is vulnerable to a risk event, namely the extent to which the household can become and/or remain poor or food deprived, depends on the size of the risk event and how effective the household is in managing the risk event. Considers vulnerability as the probability of consumption falling below a poverty threshold (Christiaensen andSubbarao 2004, Chaudhuri, et. al. 2002), Calvo and Dercon (vulnerability to poverty) In this article, we explore the notion of vulnerability to poverty, closely linked with the magnitude of the threat of poverty, measured ex-ante, before uncertainty has been resolved. [...] Remarking that we are interested in vulnerability to poverty will also be useful to pre-empt any confusion with vulnerability to downfalls in wellbeing. Our reference point is an absolute poverty norm (e.  This section has presented the fully operationalized frameworks in terms of how they are conceptually constituted and how some of the key concepts are then operationalized through use of empirical data. Space precludes full elaboration of the uneven frameworks and all concepts, but that information, including options among fully transparent operationalizations of core constructs, can be found in the full Systematic Review Technical Report. However, many of the insufficiently operationalized frameworks appear to deal with overlapping concepts, particularly variants on \"livelihoods\", \"household assets\" and \"poverty\".Finally, looking one step beyond the indicators used, Table 5 assesses the nature of actual data collected (as reported) to constitute these indicators. In particular, it explores the degree to which data presented are based upon objective measure (like precipitation data from a weather station) versus subjectively mediated data such as that reported by informants in interviews or in response to questionnaires. It is essential to note that \"subjective\" and \"objective\" should not be conflated with \"qualitative\" and \"quantitative\". There were a total of 53 constructs whose measurements were entirely taken by asking informants questions. Of these 53 constructs, 12 were subjective (e.g. informant's perception of risk) while the remaining 41 were objective (e.g. what is the actual climate variability). Some constructs appear in multiple categories because different articles approached them in a variety of ways. For example adaptive capacity was measured through a survey questionnaire, through combination of survey and meteorological/remote-sensing data and solely through meteorological/remote-sensing data. The first lesson that emerges from the comparative analysis of research on local level vulnerability to climate change is that there is substantial heterogeneity in frameworks, concepts and operationalizations used in the research community. As climate vulnerability is a fairly new research field, this profusion of approaches represents a positive indication that researchers are creatively grappling with the challenge of how to make the concept meaningful and useful. However, this same diversity makes it very difficult to conduct synthetic analyses across studies or at least to draw robust realist conclusions about patterns of climate vulnerability in smallholder systems. Because so many studies use different frameworks, different suites of concepts and/or different operationalizations of the same concept, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that even though researchers are talking about the same topic, empirically they are not really talking about the same thing. In other words, at the current time it is difficult if not impossible to identify empirically supported patterns of climate vulnerability determinants through a review of the literature. Even where studies appeared to have strong internal and external validity, the uniqueness of each study means that it is not possible to draw strong conclusions about causal pathways based on synthetic analysis of evidence.For example, the IPCC vulnerability framework is clearly, and unsurprisingly, the touchstone approach in the field. However, among the 12 different high quality studies reviewed that use the IPCC framework, there is high degree of variability in what those studies actually examined empirically. The name \"IPCC framework\" and its three component concepts (Sensitivity, Exposure and Adaptive Capacity) might be the only things that are actually common among these studies. It is noteworthy that the variability within the IPCC-based studies was not evenly distributed, with relatively greater agreement found in exposure and sensitivity and greater divergence found in adaptive capacity. We believe that as exposure consists of more clearly observable biophysical phenomenon there is greater agreement, or at least less apparent disagreement, on how to approach its characterization. While sensitivity has a stronger social dimension, its measure is still largely informed by the ways that the biophysical phenomenon (characterized in exposure) affect key economic or livelihood outcomes, such as crop productivity.Adaptive capacity, however, appears to be more challenging. The variability in the operationalization of adaptive capacity reflects how researchers struggle to characterize the extraordinary complexity of social systems and social practices, especially in how they are able to simultaneously respond to both biophysical and social signals. As such, much of the remaining discussion focuses on research challenges that our study identified in deciding what constitutes, or should constitute, core common aspects in the operationalization of adaptive capacity for research and evaluation within the CCAFS network.If we accept that frameworks and concepts are ultimately substantiated through the modes of operationalization and methodologies of measure, the diversity of indicators used suggests that each IPCC-based study effectively proposes or hypothesizes its own framework and constituent concepts. In effect, the \"IPCC vulnerability framework\" seems essentially to be a placeholder that helps legitimize and politically situate research, but is not meaningful in terms of predicting empirical comparability upon studies claim to fall under that rubric. Assuming comparability within studies that claim to use the IPCC framework may lead to confusion in the field. However, one implication of the range of diversity (or lack of coherence) within the IPCC-based work is that despite its apparent predominance, we cannot assume that approaches outside of the IPCC framework do not have substantial contributions to make to analysing climate vulnerability.Although this entire study was explicitly focused on local level climate vulnerability research, we still found variability in the units of research. Following IPCC framing, the prevailing language around vulnerability, as well as adaptive capacity, centres on \"a system\". However, the publications included in our review ranged from focusing on \"households\" to larger aggregations such as \"communities\" (both of which are themselves slippery concepts, (see Beaman and Dillon, 2012)). This represents an important methodological choice in how to approach the study of vulnerability.On one hand, many decisions and qualities regarding adaptive capacity (and thus vulnerability) can be said to occur at the household level, such as asset ownership, labour or mobility management, technological investment etc. Using atomized households as a unit of analysis, livelihood-based approaches have some potential for identifying socio-technical factors associated with vulnerability. However, this approach, like other indexbased approaches that look at vulnerability as a state of being to be made visible through the compilation of static indicators, misses the analysis of people's actual creative agency in dealing with climate stresses. This is significant because it sets up rural society as an analytical object that awaits external intervention, whether by policy or technology transfer, rather than viewing actors in rural society as dynamic partners with whom to engage. Furthermore, using such static household level analyses as a foundation for interventions risks directing attention toward addressing symptoms (indicators) of vulnerability rather than addressing root causes (drivers).While they can make a legitimate analytical focal point unto themselves, household decisions and qualities can also be seen as occurring in complex social, economic, political and ecological networks. In effect, choosing to study a \"community\", whether as an economic system, an ecological system, an agricultural system, a social system or otherwise, implies it is more than just the sum of its parts (households). These contexts affect not only how vulnerability is distributed within a social system, but also how people respond, both as networked individuals and as collectivities (see Crane et al., 2011;Siregar and Crane, 2011). Even changes in household level practices can change higher-level systems in unpredictable and emergent ways that will not be visible through household level analysis. Furthermore, \"upstream\" activities, such as shifts in national policy environments aimed at reducing vulnerability (or otherwise) can only be understood as meaningful through cross-scale and networked analysis. Taking a community oriented approach enables local social structures to come into focus as potential mediators (positive or negative) of vulnerability. Even broader, cross-scale analysis (Eakin et al., 2009) enables the possibility of identifying larger scale and complex drivers of vulnerability.Unlike the IPCC vulnerability framework, the Vulnerability as Expected Poverty framework is not inherently centred around climate shocks as the key shock to which people are vulnerable. Instead, VEP is based upon dynamics that create and perpetuate poverty. The papers analysed in our study simply represent a sample of VEP work that includes climate as an aspect of poverty and food security outcomes. The origin of the VEP approach from outside of climate vulnerability studies is a part of what makes its contributions particularly interesting.Concepts found in this set of papers provide approaches that allow climate vulnerability to be understood in the context of non-climatic drivers and broader contextual factors that produce the social circumstances of vulnerability and poverty more generally. It is argued in many corners that bracketing climate vulnerability and adaptation away from other dynamics of social and environmental change will lead to a poor understanding of how to engage. Where the IPCC framework would ask how climate shocks drive people to poverty, VEP would ask how the already complex socio-environmental dynamics of poverty creation are affected by climate shocks as an additional stressor. By implicitly asserting that vulnerability, in general, emerges through complex and multi-faceted social processes, VEP opens doors for questions that do not assume the primacy of climate as a driver of vulnerability. While this is not always explicit in the VEP publications, the implication is that secondary social mechanisms that contribute to, intersect with or compound climate vulnerability are relevant to include.That being said, the tendency within VEP to equate vulnerability to a poverty outcome appears narrow when examined from the perspective of other frameworks. While poverty and food insecurity are certainly keys indicators of vulnerability, making them the only indicators elides a much broader spectrum of complex outcomes that deserve a place in climate vulnerability discussions, including but not limited to ecological degradation, migration (Meze-Hausken, 2000), and undesired cultural transformations (Crane, 2010). Furthermore, like with other index-based approaches, econometrics risks glossing over people's agency in adapting to climate change.Systematic review is known to be a resource-intensive form of research and underestimation of workload involved is common (Wallace et al., 2004). Despite this, we believe our systematic review has produced findings that validate this extra effort. This is illustrated when it comes to interrogating the terminology used by authors. For instance, to code the studies' theoretical approaches, a coding structure was used that grouped authors' declared approaches into four categories (IPCC; VEP; Livelihood Approach; Food Security). These categories were later examined according to the presence of constructs, with the result that only two (IPCC & VEP) of these approaches were found to be empirically defensible as classifiers. Studies that were initially coded as either of the other two frameworks were either subsumed as variations of one of the two dominant approaches, or were found to only be present in one article.Similarly at the level of constructs, inductive coding based on authors' reporting of constructs identified 114 constructs of which roughly 100 appeared in only one article each. During scrutiny of constructs, five frequently occurring constructs were split into nine after definitions were examined; 26 constructs with different names were subsequently merged into seven; and 37 article-specific constructs could not be compared because definitions were not provided. This shows the value of a systematic approach in that it offers not only authority through rigour, but also can produce certain findings that would be missed in a review that did not look beyond authors' terminology.As such, the data generated in this review will allow a more informed decision to be made when selecting methods and indicators to study vulnerability, as well as making explicit the extent to which results can be compared between studies. Not only will this benefit CCAFS in designing their own study, but we believe it can also contribute to the development and refinement of the domain of vulnerability as a field of study. This study has shown that there are many existing approaches to studying vulnerability. Efforts to consolidate these approaches appear chiefly to take the form of a re-iteration of the definitions in the IPCC framework, though operationalizations still vary widely.The systematic method we have adopted is an attempt to move toward consolidation of research approaches through empirical description (i.e. 'this is what people say they are actually doing and only some of it seems to make sense') rather than normative argument (i.e. 'I'm and expert and I think we should do as follows.\"). Further, explicitly using a transparency assessment in reading reports of research encourages authors to report their research to a standard that will be recognized as transparent. The studies in the review came from a range of disciplines and ranged from theses to conference papers to peer-reviewed articles. From this variety of reporting formats, our transparency instrument was designed to retain only those operationalizations which reported information sufficient to support an assessment of validity. The fact that more studies were not found to have sufficiently transparent reporting should not be confused with low quality research. We suspect that this is at least partly a function of contemporary culture and practice of academic publishing. In some disciplines research methods are so standardized that it is no longer necessary to describe methods in detail and the standard format of peer-reviewed publications typically limits the length of articles to 6000-8000 words, with incentives to highlight empirical findings and novelty over richly developed conceptual and methodological precision. We would expect systematic studies, such as this one, will improve reporting practices in the field which will support empirically grounded standardization of research methods that consequently improves the quality of research.The methods used for this review were designed especially for this project. It builds on a number of existing reviews which use systematic review methods to study elements of the research processnamely identifying frameworks (Carroll et al., 2013), building frameworks (Carroll et al., 2013;Dubois et al., 2013); identifying concepts (van der Lee et al. 2007;Le Reste et al. 2013;Carroll et al. 2013), synthesizing concepts (Le Reste et al. 2013), and identifying research methods or operationalizations (Bing-Jonsson et al., 2013;van der Lee et al., 2007). However, it appears that the present review is unique in covering all of these elements in a single study. Another methodological novelty of our study is the dialogue between empiricism and expertise in the review process, in that assessments made by either systematic scrutiny or expert judgement were cross-checked by one another. Both the combination of existing methods and the dialogue between empirical description and expert judgement appear to have been successful.There were a number of things that could not be addressed in this study. First, important data were 'lost through citation.' Where authors did not fully report their research or theoretical frameworks in the report, but cited works where such details can be found, we did not chase these sources. This is not a failure of design but, simply, an argument for allowing more resources for the systematic review research process.Secondly, although a goal of the initial review effort was to identify causes and drivers of vulnerability, it was not feasible withing the scope of this study. Within the literature, we found that was impossible to systematically distinguish between concepts that deal with vulnerability as a state of being (indicators), as opposed to drivers (determinants) of vulnerability. There were two reasons for this. First, there was neither consistency across articles in terms of vulnerability outcomes (e.g. the potential problems that one faces when vulnerable, as opposed to vulnerability as the probability to face potential problems). Furthermore, there was no consistency in terms of drivers and underlying notions of causality (e.g. causal relations; determining factors contributing to particular outcomes; or composite factors influencing a state which itself is defined by an index of such factors). As such, a justifiable structure could not be produced within which to categorise these constructs. This represents an important finding for the field of vulnerability research. Although they are often difficult to distinguish in the literature, measuring vulnerability as a state of being or outcome (how do we know vulnerability exists?) is linked to but a very different research objective than analysing the causes and drivers that produce vulnerability (given some notion and measurement of vulnerability, why does it exist)?Thirdly, the results of this study could be strengthened with a more developed quality appraisal. Quality was ensured mostly through a validity assessment that used expert review to exclude research instruments from the review. However, an improved review should use empirical as well as more involved expert methods to appraise quality. For instance, the ultimate interest in assessments of vulnerability tends to be objective conditions such as rainfall, crop yields, household assets and alternative livelihood strategies.When we were assessing the validity of the operationalizations of constructs we identified 79 constructs for which we could determine both how data was gathered and about what the author was drawing conclusions. Of those 79 instances, 62 constructs referenced objective conditions like assets or yield. For those 62 constructs that referenced objective conditions we found in 48 instances that researchers relied on subjective data such as that produced by surveys or interviews. While we were pleased to note that these authors reported with sufficient transparency to link individual data collection methods to constructs, we found no discussion of whether authors were justified in relying on subjectively mediated data in drawing objective conclusions. Our intent here is not to suggest that objective measures are either more valid or preferable. Rather, what we were looking for and did not find was any discussion of measurement error that recognized the methodological challenges that come with securing valid data from human informants. What we are interested in here is unremarked use of subjectively mediated measures in quantitative studies.While this can be analytically and programmatically convenient, it risks giving an inflated confidence in the substance and precision of findings. If subjective measures are so well established that it is no longer necessary to document their validity, then there is no cause for concern. If, however, this is not the case, then there is reason to empirically test whether data arising from subjective measures are adequate for the purposes for which they are used. Any readers interested in a follow-up study to this review are directed especially to these three issues: citation, causes vs. drivers and assessing quality of operationalizations. We also recommend they be addressed through combination of empirical study and expert review.Through analysis of the existing literature, this systematic review has outlined a range of possible ways to study climate vulnerability, summarising a range of options from which to construct a programmatic approach. However, that being said, our research has also created a range of options which are not concrete with unknown provenance and unproven quality. Consequently, rather than recommending a wholesale adoption of a particular framework, approach, or methodological system, we instead look to recommend a variety of aspects represented in the reviewed work with an eye toward testing various approaches to the study of local-level vulnerability to climate change.As outlined above, a key question is whether the objective is to describe vulnerability as an outcome/state of being through a set of indicators, or to analyse the production of vulnerability as a process through which numerous determinants and drivers interact to cause specified outcomes. While our systematic review has found a diversity of approaches to studying vulnerability, we have relatedly found a lack of clear scientific validation of those approaches at the conceptual and operational levels, including clarity on whether the question is to identify indicators or drivers of vulnerability. Consequently, we recommend that further research in the field of vulnerability studies should be explicit about which of these objectives is being pursued, both in terms of research design as well as language used to describe it. For example, research questions and operationalizations should clearly indicate which of the following questions they are attempting to answer: 1) Is this system vulnerable? 2) How vulnerable is this system? 3) To what is this system vulnerable? 4) How is vulnerability distributed within the system? 5) What is causing this system to be vulnerable? Both vulnerability as outcome and vulnerability as process can theoretically be studied through linking across scales, ranging from households, to communities, to regional and national governments. However, they imply very different research questions and data sets. The report we analysed exhibited great diversity, implicit and explicit non-agreement, and objective conclusions being reached through subjective data and/or poorly validated research instruments. We propose that vulnerability indicators should ideally be closely tested, scrutinized and validated before institutionalizing them under the assumption that they provide an accurate understanding of the phenomena they aspire to describe. As such, we recommend empirical testing of both vulnerability models and measures. This testing should apply to vulnerability indicators and vulnerability drivers, the two being significantly intertwined. This task has been begun in this review through the identification of indicators used to transparently operationalize core constructs (for these readers are directed towards the full Technical Report, especially Appendix O and P). This now needs to be taken further.If CCAFS wants valid and comparable measures of vulnerability and adaptive capacity that support aggregation, but do not lose household level resolution necessary to support programming, CCAFS should experimentally develop an approach that tracks vulnerability (and thus adaptive capacity) through a set of indicators that mix some form of (objective) asset/poverty measures at the household level with (subjective) governance and policy factors at the community and national levels. While agricultural technologies (household level assets) are one aspect of adaptive capacity, evidence suggests that networked and cross-scalar dimensions (such as the ability to actively engage in policy processes that create enabling environments) capture changes in social dimensions that household level analysis will not capture.Recognizing that the causes of climate vulnerability are not just driven by exposure and biophysical sensitivity to climate events, but the social dimensions of adaptive capacity, the networked and cross-scalar approaches are important for understanding the drivers of climate vulnerability. Institutional interventions, well beyond farm or even community boundaries, can effectively improve smallholders' livelihoods, even facilitating the adoption of on-farm technologies (Röling et al., 2012;Röling et al., 2014). Following on this, analysis of the contextual drivers of vulnerabilityincluding, for example, policy environments, governance structures and practices, the organisation of value chains, customary gender and tenure institutions, etc.will be important for recognizing off-farm, non-local sorts of interventions that can contribute to reducing smallholder vulnerability to climate change. Eakin et al's (2009) \"nested vulnerability\" framework and related concepts are relevant because they recognize that local level vulnerability is substantially shaped by extra-local social phenomenon. For example, new climate information services, development of national policies and shifts in international development agendas work across multiple impact pathways and Flagship programs that address climate vulnerability. Applying the concept of \"teleconnections\" to the social dimensions of vulnerability permits analysis across diverse social locations, complex mechanisms of vulnerability creation that combine both climatic and non-climatic events as well as second-order effects of climate.From the point of view of scientific innovation, the profusion of a diverse array of approaches to researching climate vulnerability is positive development. However, from an institutional or programmatic point of view, such as that of CCAFS, an array of choices does not necessarily provide clear guidance for which approach is most appropriate, effective or useful. The problem of incomparability of vulnerability studies has been observed in programmatic contexts elsewhere, such as the Indian State Action Plan on Climate Change, which (Dhanapal and Panda, 2014). As with a monitoring and evaluation system for tracking vulnerability indicators, the frameworks and methods for the analysis of complex interactions of vulnerability drivers deserves systematic and rigorous experimentation in order to develop tools that can be confidently applied at the programmatic level.Annex 1: Databases used in literature search  community/local), and analysis is done of differences between units at different scales.This category constitutes less a coherent framework and more of a collection of studies whose approach differs significantly from the majority of studies in this review in terms of epistemological orientation and position on the intervention cycle. A tentative general description of this category is that the approach focusses on articulating perceptions of people whose livelihoods are affected by climate change (often farmers), and in particular their perceptions of climate change as a physical phenomenon, perceptions of the impact climate change has on their livelihoods, and respondent reported strategies of coping or adaptation. Nested and teleconnected livelihood vulnerability;Nested system; Eakin et al (2008) in turn is conceived in terms of access to food and food productivity. When food security is negatively impacted through climatic and non-climatic drivers, vulnerable households and communities respond with particular coping strategies, which can have a recursive effect on future levels of food security. Cluster pattern analysis is employed in this framework to investigate whether there are, and which, characteristics that explain the causal structure of vulnerability to weather extremes. A measure of household/smallholder vulnerability is created using a combination of IPCC and Food Security household-level indicators. A cluster pattern analysis is then run relating measures of vulnerability to socio-economic and other household-level data to identify characteristics, and in particular combinations of characteristics that are related to concentrations of vulnerability. On the basis of a mixed methods data collection methodology, the concept of 'livelihood trajectories' is explored among households over a period of (in this case) 30 years. With this long term approach, the framework seeks to generate narrative accounts of which livelihood strategies and trajectories lead to resilient and vulnerable states. The focus is on identifying determinants of resilience to climate-related shocks. Resilience is conceptualised temporally in terms of the time taken to make a recovery after being impacted by shocks. A vulnerability index (in this case based on the framework of the IPCC) is created to compute measures of vulnerability based on household survey data. Classifications of resilience are then created based on the time taken to return to pre-shock states, which are then analysed against the vulnerability data to identify determinants of resilient households.Vulnerability IPCC; Determinants of Resilience; Household level resilience; Exposure;Adaptive capacity; Tesso et al (2012) including climate variability and extremes'' (IPCC 2001). we derive a generic vulnerability metric by translating a general definition of vulnerability, the susceptibility to damage, into a mathematical expression. To do this we first define a threshold of damage and then measure susceptibility in terms of the system's sensitivity to and exposure to stressors. We then propose a framework for estimating a system's ability to modify its vulnerable conditions by adapting and responding to changing circumstances.For the purpose of this paper, we work with the definition proposed by the Working Group II of the IPCC in the third assessment report. We will refer to (1) exposure to climate change impacts, (2) sensitivity to those impacts and (3) the capacity to cope with those impacts as the components of vulnerability. Vulnerability is thus comprised of risks (or a chain of risky events) that people confront in pursuit of their livelihoods, the sensitivity of the livelihood to these risks, the risk response or the options that people have for managing these risks and finally the outcomes that describe the loss in well-being (Turner et al. 2003).Following the definition of vulnerability given by IPCC ( 2001), vulnerability in this study is taken to be a function of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity.Climate vulnerability is considered as a function of exposure, sensitivity and coping/adaptive capacity (IPCC 2007).Therefore, vulnerability is the degree to which a system is susceptible or unable to cope with the adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes. In this regard, vulnerability is a function of the character, magnitude, and rate of climate variation to which a system is exposed, its sensitivity, and its adaptive capacity [4].Nevertheless, the most commonly accepted approach, which is the approach adopted in this paper, comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s definition of vulnerability (to climate change) where vulnerability is ''the degree to which an environmental or social system is susceptible to, and unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes''Exposure is the nature and extent of changes that a place's climate is subjected to with regard to variables such as temperature, precipitation, and extreme weather events.Exposure is a property of a community relative to climatic conditions. It reflects both the nature of the climatic conditions and nature of the community itself. Some communities may be exposed to a particular climate event whereas the same event may not affect another community. Climatic characteristics include magnitude, frequency, spatial dispersion, duration, speed of onset, andFord & Smit 2004 temporal spacing of climatic risks, relating to temperatures, precipitation, and wind. The nature of the community concerns its location relative to the climatic risks Exposure: The nature and degree to which a system is exposed to significant climatic variations.The exposure of a system to climate stimuli depends on the level of global climate change and, due to the spatial heterogeneity of anthropogenic climate change, on the system's locationExposure in this case is the magnitude and duration of the climate-related exposure such as a drought or change in precipitation,Asper the IPCC's definition and framework, vulnerability is understood as a function of three components-exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. Vulnerability is defined as ''the degree to which a system is susceptible to or unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes'' (IPCC 2001).Different communities and ecosystems are exposed to varying magnitudes and frequencies of disturbing forces, often resulting in differential vulnerabilities (IPCC, 2001;Turner et al., 2003a, b). We capture these differences in exposure by calculating the expected value of the ratio of sensitivity to the state relative to a threshold based on the frequency distribution of the stressors of concern.risks (or a chain of risky events) that people confront in pursuit of their livelihoods, (Turner et al.Notenbaert et al 2013 Exposure is the nature and degree to which a system is exposed to significant climatic variations.Piya et al 2012 exposure, sensitivity and coping/adaptive capacity (IPCC 2007).Sietz et al 2012 Furthermore, in the IPCC frame-work, exposure has an external dimension, whereas both sensitivity and adaptive capacity have an internal dimension, which is implicitly assumed in the integrated vulnerability assessment framework [13].Exposure relates to the extent to which a particular system may be exposed to climatic stresses or variations (IPCC 2007).sensitivity determines the response of a given system to climate change and may be shaped by socioeconomic and ecological conditions of the system (IPCC 2007).Antwi-Agyei et al 2013 Sensitivity is a measure of how systems could be affected by the change in climate (e.g. how much crop yields change or how much human health might be affected).Sensitivity: The degree to which a system is affected, either adversely or beneficially, by climaterelated stimuli. [...] The effect may be direct [...] or indirect [...] [...] The sensitivity of a system denotes the (generally multi-factorial and dynamic) doseresponse relationship between its exposure to climatic stimuli and the resulting impacts. sensitivity is the degree to which the system is affected by the exposure Hahn et al 2009 As per the IPCC's definition and framework, vulnerability is understood as a function of three components-exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. Vulnerability is defined as ''the degree to which a system is susceptible to or unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes'' (IPCC 2001).Jamir et al 2013 is the degree to which a system is affected, either adversely or beneficially by climate-related stimuli.We consider the effects of weather disturbance on the agricultural systems as sensitivity.Sietz et al 2012Adaptive capacity in the context of climate change has been defined by the IPCC (2007, p. 869) as ''the ability of a system to adjust to climate change (including climate variability and extremes) to moderate potential damages, to take advantage of opportunities, or to cope with the consequences.'' Adaptive capacity connotes some positive attributes of a system that enable it to reduce the adverse impacts (vulnerability) associated with climate change (Engle 2011).In contrast, adaptive capacity is defined as a system's ability to adjust to climate change in order to reduce or mitigate possible damage [3]. Adaptive capacity is dynamic, and depends partly on the society productive base, such as: natural and artificial assets, social benefits and networks, human capital and institutions, governance, national income, health and technology [2], and how much capability a society has to adapt to the changes so as to maintain, minimize loss of, or maximize gain in welfare.Adaptive capacity is the capacity of actors in a system to influence resilience (Folke et al. 2010), and often works through social networks and learning communities (Goldstein 2012).[...] We view adaptive capacity as a latent property, which can be activated when people exercise their agency. The processes by which this occurs have not been well explored.The ability of a system to adjust to climate change (including climate variability and extremes) to moderate potential damages, to take advantage of opportunities, or to cope with the consequences.Adaptive capacity: The ability of a system to adjust to climate change (including climate variability and extremes) to moderate potential damages, to take advantage of opportunities, or to cope with Expected Poverty; of the threat of poverty, measured ex-ante, before uncertainty has been resolved.To clarify how all these intuitions come together under the concept of vulnerability, this paper proposes an axiomatic approach to the measurement of both individual and aggregate vulnerability.Household vulnerability as expected poverty is defined as the probability that households will move into poverty given certain environmental shocks, current poverty status and household characteristics of respondents.Thus, vulnerability is seen as expected poverty, while consumption (income) is used as a proxy for well-being.[...] This method is based on estimating the probability that a given shock or set of shocks will move household consumption below a given minimum level (such as a consumption poverty line) or force the consumption level to stay below the minimum if it is already below this level (Chaudhuri et al. 2002).we can define vulnerability to poverty as the probability of falling into poverty when one's consumption/income falls below a predefined poverty line.The suggested approach is an integration of multilevel analysis (e.g., Goldstein, 1999) into Chaudhuri's (2002) method to estimate vulnerabilityGünther & Harttgen 2009 vulnerability as a starting point which focuses on the susceptibility of the household (Füssel., 2007). This study takes on the starting point interpretation, which takes the root problem as social vulnerability and examines the current vulnerability of the households as a measure of vulnerability to climate change. Households that are currently vulnerable to food insecurity will find it difficult to cope with adverse impacts of changes in climatic conditions. Thus measuring the likelihood of being food insecure provides a way to examine vulnerability to climate change. [...] Vulnerability refers to the manner and degree to which a system is susceptible to conditions that negatively affect the well-being of the system. In the climate change field, the IPCC Third Assessment Report defines vulnerability as \"the degree to which a system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes\" (McCarthy et al., 2001). [...] The differences between these two interpretations of vulnerability are summarized in Table 1.Vulnerability according to the end point interpretation represent the expected net impacts of a given level of global climate change, taking into account feasible adaptations. Vulnerability according to the starting point interpretation focuses on reducing internal socioeconomic vulnerability to any climatic hazard. This study takes on the starting point interpretation. Thus a household is said to be vulnerable to the outcome of a risk event, if it does not have sufficient resources to adequately contend with the risk event. In other words, the extent to which a household is vulnerable to a risk event, namely the extent to which the household can become and/or remain poor or food deprived, depends on the size of the risk event and how effective the household is in managing the risk event.[...] considers vulnerability as the probability of consumption falling below a poverty threshold (Christiaensen andSubbarao 2004, Chaudhuri, et. al. 2002),Our aim is merely to make an ex-ante statement on the vulnerability of the individual to fall below a poverty norm z,Calvo & Dercon 2013 This study adopts the approach to measuring household economic vulnerability posited and elaborated in Chaudhuri's (2003) study of household vulnerability [...] Technically, the household vulnerability index is derived from the difference between the expected log per capita income and the minimum log per capita income threshold, with households having per capita incomes lower than the minimum per capita income defined as vulnerable (poor). The expected log per capita income is estimated using the three-step feasible generalised least squares (FGLS) method.Chhihn & Poch 2012 a given minimum level (such as a consumption poverty line)Deressa et al 2009 consumption falling below a poverty threshold (Christiaensen andSubbarao 2004, Chaudhuri, et. al. 2002) Sarris & Karfakis 2010 Food insecurity;Food insecurity in the communities described by the case studies maybe conceptualized as one element in an entrenched and escalating cycle of vulnerability (Fig. 3). Here, and in the following, idiosyncratic shocks refer to household-specific shocks (e.g., injury, birth, death, or job loss of a household member) that are only weakly correlated across households within a community. Covariate shocks refer to shocks that are correlated across households within communities but only weakly correlated across communities (e.g., natural disasters or epidemics).Household level; an extension of this empirical framework will consist in using two-level (i.e. household and community levels) modelling of the impact of those shocks following Günther and Harttgen (2009)'s approach.Multilevel models are designed to analyze the relationship between variables that are measured at different hierarchical levels (for an introduction see, e.g., Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992;Goldstein, 1999;Hox, 2002). We speak of ''hierarchical\" or ''multilevel\" data structure whenever variables are collected at different hierarchical levels with lower-levels (e.g., house-holds) nested within higher-levels (e.g., communities).Community level an extension of this empirical framework will consist in using two-level (i.e. household and community levels) modelling of the impact of those shocks following Günther and Harttgen Echevin (2009)'s approach.Multilevel models are designed to analyze the relationship between variables that are measured at different hierarchical levels (for an introduction see, e.g., Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992;Goldstein, 1999;Hox, 2002). We speak of ''hierarchical\" or ''multilevel\" data structure whenever variables are collected at different hierarchical levels with lower-levels (e.g., house-holds) nested within higher-levels (e.g., communities).Farmer perceptions; Unique in our study, is the use of individual perceptions in identifying and understanding the processes of adaptation in an area that has undergone significant political and socio-economic reformation resulting from a series of conflicts over land resources.there is an alternative approach which underscores how individuals perceive their environment and make decisions, with mal-adaptations attributed to problems in perception, cognition or the lack of available information (Diggs, 1991;Saarinen, 1966;Taylor et al., 1988). The main point is that from whatever level these adaptation measures are taken, the adaptation and coping measures depend on households' perceptions of extreme events and the problems associated with them (Davies, 1993).Adaptation strategy;In this paper, we document household responses to a climatic shock, Stan, to gain insight into how natural resource-dependent communities move to secure their livelihoods following significant loss, the implications of household responses for coffee farming as a ''domain of attraction,'' as well as to highlight those aspects of household choices and perceptions that may be indicative of resilience at broader scales.Adaptations, or adaptive strategies, employed by individuals or groups are depicted as being mediated through their relative adaptive capacities, indicating that adaptations may or may not be accessed according to the distribution of various types of resources such as physical or social capital, as developed by Adger and Kelly (1999).Asset vulnerability; Using Moser's (1998) asset vulnerability framework as guidance, we selected a range of variables to create an index of household vulnerability from GLSS 4. Each variable captures an aspect of vulnerability.Livelihood By placing the household as the focus of analysis, livelihood approaches highlight both the Eakin et al 2009A research framework for empirically applying the model of vulnerability proposed above to Arctic communities is illustrated in Figure 3. The first stage assesses current vulnerability by documenting current exposures and current adaptive strategies. The second stage assesses future vulnerability by estimating directional changes in exposure and predicting future adaptive capacity on the basis of past behavior.The assessment of current vulnerability requires analyzing and documenting communities' experiences with climatic risks (current exposure) and the adaptive options and resource management strategies employed to address these risks (current adaptive capacity).Ford & Smit Future vulnerability;Future vulnerability is assessed by analyzing how cli-mate change will alter the nature of the climate-related risks and whether the communities' coping strategies will have the capacity to deal with these risks. Assessing future exposure involves collaboration with the climate science community to estimate the likelihood of changes in climatic attributes identified by the communityCurrent adaptive capacity;Adaptive capacity refers to a community's potential or ability to address, plan for, or adapt to exposure (Smit and Pilifosova, 2003). Most communities can cope with normal climatic conditions and a range of deviations around norms. People have learned to modify their behaviour and their environment to manage and take advantage of their local climatic conditions (Jones and Boer, 2003). This ability to cope is referred to in the literature as the \"coping range\"; it reflects resource use options and risk management strategies to prepare for, avoid or moderate, and recover from exposure effects (Hewitt and Burton, 1971;Smit et al., 1999;Jones, 2001;Smit and Pilifosova, 2003). Adaptive capacity relates to communities' resilience, resistance, flexibility, and robustness (Smithers and Smit, 1997). It is influenced by economic wealth, social networks, infrastructure, social institutions, social capital, experience with previous risk, the range of technological adaptation available, and equity of access to resources within the community, as well as by other stresses that contribute to the environment in which decisions are made (Adger and Kelly, 1999;Smit and Pilifosova, 2001;Smith et al., 2003).Future exposure Future exposure also includes estimating the future state of the socioeconomic conditions, given that exposure is a property of the system relative to risk.The LVI includes seven major components: Socio-Demographic Hahn et al 2009 strategies; strategies in attempting to increase their income and asset base ('accumulation strategies'), spread or reduce risk (in-crease security through 'adaptive strategies'), mitigate the impact of shocks ('coping strategies'), and at the extreme, ensure survival through 'survival strategies' (Devereux, 1999;Scoones, 2000).Without such a pre-selection, alternative approaches investigate the structure of the data space spanned by selected vulnerability indicators using cluster analysis. They deliver useful insights into recurrent indicator combinations based on similarities among units of analysis, in cases where such a grouping exists. For example, clustering revealed typical livelihood strategies employed by small-holders in Mexico and Botswana (Eakin 2005;Sallu et al. 2010).Food security Food security is often discussed in terms of four dimensions: food availability, access, stability of supply/ access and utilisation (FAO 2000).  Bagchi et al. (1998) use the term \"livelihood trajectories\" to describe and explain the direction and pattern of livelihoods of individuals or groups of people (e.g., households). A livelihood trajectory approach allows the examination of an individual household's \"strategic behavior that is embedded in a historical repertoire, in social differentiation\" (de Haan and Zoomers 2005), and in perceptions of risk. Such an approach is sensitive to life histories (an individual's own \"story\" of their changing livelihoods).Through comparative research we provide a rich contextual narrative and use it to explore those factors that in isolation and combination push livelihoods along particular \"trajectories\" towards vulnerability or resilience. According to DFID, resilience at community level is explained as the ability of countries, communities and households to manage change, by maintaining or transforming living standards in the face of shocks or stresses-such as earthquakes, drought or violent conflict-without compromising their long-term prospects [10]. Similarly, resilience is the ability of a social or ecological system to absorb disturbances while retaining the same basic structure and ways of functioning, the capacity for self-organization, and the capacity to adapt to stress and change. This is a measurement of community's capacity to absorb external shocks. In the aftermath of occurrence of climate change induced shocks, how do farmer bounce back to normal livelihood is about the resilience level of farming com-munity. A resilient community is able to respond to changes or stress in a positive way, and is able to maintain its core functions as a community despite those stresses [11].","tokenCount":"16453"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"2b38399feffa85265c99c4fbec0c682c","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9d24fbe4-920f-47f0-aa61-b7f46ac625f3/retrieve","id":"-1487400653"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"0c4db7fd-3343-498a-9c54-54c8c9d7a7b7","pagecount":"70","content":"vi Forward Over the years, the agricultural R&D arena has seen a number of paradigm shifts and transformation. This has serious implications in the way the agricultural research is conceived, designed, implemented, evaluated and how the results are disseminated and used to generate innovations. Currently the agricultural research processes are guided by four complementary concepts and principles: the innovation systems perspective, value chain analysis, impact orientation and integrated research for development. One of the frequently asked questions by the researchers and research managers is how these concepts can be integrated and applied in the real world research processes. This paper is primarily addressing the issue of integration of value chain analysis and innovation systems perspective in the agricultural R4D processes.Although a number of stakeholders within the agricultural innovation system are interested in these concepts, the target audiences for this paper are the agricultural researchers and university educators. The authors also assume that the reader is familiar with the participatory research processes. We encourage the readers to provide constructive feedback in order to move this integration process forward.Over the past four decades the international consensus on the importance of agriculture in economic development has varied from very high (until 1980s), to very low (until 1990s) to the current rediscovery. Now, there is growing consensus that in the 21st century agriculture remains fundamental for poverty reduction, economic growth and environmental sustainability for agriculture based countries (World Bank 2008).Agriculture contributes to economic development in many ways (World Bank 2008):(i) as an economic activity and leading sector for economic growth, (ii) as a source of livelihood, (iii) as a provider of environmental services and (iv) as a contributing factor to peace and stability by providing food to the growing population at an affordable price.Enhancing smallholder productivity and sustainable economic growth are pre-requisite to achieve the full contributions of agriculture to overall growth and development.Increasingly, developing countries are viewing science and technology as the drivers of economic growth-and agricultural research and development is expected to play a significant role in the process.The scientific methods of experimentation and discovery have not changed since their exposition in the 19th century. What changes constantly is the environment in which discovery and innovation occurs which influences the organization and the social process of discovery and innovation. Since the time organized research was introduced into the developing world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), there have been significantparadigm shifts in agricultural knowledge generation, dissemination and utilization. The emerging paradigms while including many elements of indigenous knowledge (ethnic science) and modern science also encompasses major reforms in social, technological, organizational and institutional approaches. In responding to these changes, there is a gradual evolution of the central source model of innovation of the 1970s and 1980s to the current agricultural innovation systems approach. This evolution occurred as a result of the identified weaknesses of the predominant paradigm of the time, and the emerging challenges and needs of the society. This evolution is additive and based on the existing frameworks.Currently, the knowledge generation, dissemination and utilization processes within the agricultural sector are guided by four complementary and mutually reinforcing concepts and principles: the innovation systems perspective; value chain approach; impact orientation; and research for development (R4D). However, it is worth noting that the impact orientation and the R4D are implicit in the concept of innovation. Much has been written on these topics. However, one of the key lingering issues is how to integrate these different concepts in the design, implementation and evaluation of agricultural research for development (AR4D). The lack of clarity in some of these concepts and the absence of an operational model to guide the research process has been a critical constraint for the effective institutionalization of the concepts. This paper is an attempt to address this practical challenge confronting the research community in their daily professional activities.This paper is organized into seven sections. The next section deals with the on-going transformation within the agricultural R&D arena and the emerging challenges. Section three looks at the evolution and concept of the innovation system approach, and section four deals with agricultural value chains and value chain analysis. Section five looks at the integration of innovation system perspective and agricultural value chain analysis in an impact-oriented R4D, while section six deals with implications and challenges confronting development practitioners. The final section concludes the paper.2 Changing paradigms and contexts in agricultural R&D 2.1 Changing paradigms, contexts and on-going reforms Over the years, the R&D arena has seen a number of paradigm changes and transformation, and there are a number of emerging issues that pose new challenges to the R&D practitioners. Some of the key changes that will have a profound effect on the priorities of the R&D practitioners are discussed in this section.Recent studies (Biggs and Smith 1998;Hall and Nahdy 1999;Ashby et al. 2000;Chema et al. 2003;Paterson et al. 2003) showed that many organizations, especially publicly funded agencies dealing with agricultural R&D in developing countries are facing a crisis of confidence among key stakeholders due to lack of strategic planning that indicates future directions; inward looking attitudes; poor participation and cooperation of endusers in research activities; inadequate monitoring and evaluation systems; top-heavy, bureaucratic procedures; insufficient resources for effective implementation of priority research; lack of effective external linkages; and lack of evaluation and performance culture.These issues have been found to result in organizational inefficiencies, lack of adequate stakeholder participation and responsiveness, decreasing investor confidence, inadequate staff motivation and low moral, limited research and service outputs, limited uptake and utilization of research findings and a 'brain-drain' from the public sector. At present the three core institutions in the agricultural knowledge triangle (research-extension and higher education) have been down sized and restructured in many developing countries and new private institutes are now in stiff competition with public counterparts. This competition is also forging new partnerships.As a result, the policy organizational and institutional context in which agricultural research and innovation occurs has changed dramatically. Rapid changes are taking place in the structure and authority of governments, the global economy, the structure of the farming sector, and in the global and local food industries and retail businesses.The institutional landscape is also changing dramatically. For example, civil society, farmer organizations and NGOs are playing important roles in agricultural R&D. Crosssectoral linkages between agricultural and other sectors (such as water, health, energy and education) are becoming more important. The agricultural sector is expected to play a significant role in poverty alleviation, and food and nutrition security, while protecting the environment. With reduced funding, the agricultural R&D systems are now forced to raise questions about their continuing relevance, approaches, accountability and impact.Funding for research and support services can no longer be separated from the broader developmental questions.The reform agenda in R&D debates include: redefinition of the role of government in agricultural R&D; decentralization and privatization of agricultural R&D activities; market-oriented agricultural development; broader and active stakeholder participation in service provision; increased networks and partnerships; new funding arrangements (such as the separation of financing from service provision and research execution and changing the funding base to competitive funding), market liberalization; food and environmental safety; and effective use of ICT in knowledge management. Given the sweeping reforms that are taking place, the R&D systems are facing a transition period in which they will need to restructure themselves, confront new demands, and adjust to new political, scientific, institutional and economic environments. Exogenous trends contributing to the reform process are changes in the political, socio-economic, market and institutional context together with changes in the demand for R&D services, research technologies, methodologies, and approaches. Managing this complex environment requires a range of skills and tactical planning and shifts in paradigms.Over the years, a number of paradigm shifts have occurred within the R&D arena.These include farming systems perspective (Matata et al. 2001); participatory research methods (including action research); agricultural knowledge and information system (AKIS) (Rolling 1986(Rolling , 1988)); rural livelihoods (Christopolis et al. 2001); agri-food systems/ value chain; knowledge quadrangle; Doubly Green Revolution (Conway 1999); and Rainbow Revolution (UN 2006); innovation systems perspective (including networks and partnerships); and integrated agricultural research for development (IAR4D) (ASARECA 2007). Some of these concepts are short-lived; others have contributed to the evolution of the current prevailing paradigms of innovation systems perspective, value chain analysis and integrated agricultural research for development. These reforms and paradigm shifts have great potential in enhancing the significance and efficiency of agricultural research, but in practice their success will depend on how well they are applied and modified to the diverse local conditions (Chema et al. 2003;Eicher 2006).In the recent past, the agricultural sector has witnessed a number of changes in the context in which it operates. These changes cause challenges as well as offer new opportunities. Some of the key challenges facing the agricultural sector in developing countries are briefly presented below.iThe current financial crisis is contributing significantly to the economic slowdown of many countries resulting in reduction in the capital availability at a time when accelerated investment is urgently needed in the agricultural research and development arena.The projected low economic growth is likely to have negative second-round effects for investment and productivity with direct ramifications for food prices and food security around the globe. von Braun (2008) concluded that if the developing countries and investors can maintain agricultural productivity and investment under recession, they can avoid many of the negative effects of slower growth. Given the current financial crisis, much of the needed investment would have to be facilitated by public sources.iiIn the recent past, global food prices are increasing at an unprecedented rate and analysts say that they will continue to remain high for a considerable period.The long-term solution to the current crisis is increasing the supply capacity-a positive supply response. However, this response for better price incentives depends on public investments in markets, infrastructure, institutions and support services. In order to address the current food crisis, countries need a comprehensive plan to ensure long-term food availability and security as well as short term relief. They also must invest now and for the longer term in problem solving agriculture.iii Recent technological advances in biotechnology and ICT  2006).The revolution in ICT and increased access to them in developing countries is enabling a variety of new approaches to capacity building and knowledge sharing. However, exploitation of these opportunities require additional investments. Enhancing smallholder participation in high-value and emerging markets requires upgrading farmer's technical capacity, risk management instruments and collective action through producer organizations. Addressing the stringent sanitary and phytosanitary standards in global markets is even a bigger challenge. Small-scale producers also must follow these rules if they are to go ahead. The potential for rural economic development would remain very limited if the production and marketing strategies are based exclusively on traditional agricultural production, frequently oriented in selling surplus (supply) rather than market. To make use of the emerging opportunities and make economic progress, rural producers must not only improve quality and offer new products with greater value added, but also need an organizational arrangement that link and coordinate producers, processors, merchants and distributors of specific products (PAPA 2008).viThe incidence and impacts of diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria are well documented. These two diseases and the associated health complications constitute the greatest threat to food security and poverty alleviation. Additional threats and challenges are posed by highly pathogenic emerging diseases which are transmitted between animals and humans. Serious socio-economic consequences occur when diseases spread widely within human and animal populations. viiiOver the years, there has been a significant change in the expectations of science and technology and innovations, from increasing crop and livestock productivity to creating competitive, responsive and dynamic agriculture that directly contributes to the Millennium Developmental Goals (MDG). This leads to competitive agriculture which will result in market-driven exchange of both knowledge and products and also viable in domestic, regional and global markets. Moreover, they should respond to the multiple needs of small farmers, agribusinesses, food insecure groups, wealthy households, and should be dynamic enough to be able to adapt to long-term agro-ecological changes, medium-term structural changes and short-term shocks (Spielman 2008).ixIn the recent past, there is a trend towards globalization of private agricultural research.Drivers of globalization of R&D are growing markets for agricultural products and agricultural inputs (reduced restrictions on trade in agricultural inputs), new technological opportunities due to breakthrough in biotechnology; improved ability to appropriate the gains from innovations, improved policy environment for foreign investments and technology transfer and growth in demand due to increased income and policy changes (Pray 2008). If carefully nurtured and managed, this may offer additional opportunities for public-private partnership, to mobilize additional resources and to move the poverty reduction agenda forward.x Greater concern for the environment Since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, it is generally accepted that the environmental agenda is inseparable from the broader agenda of agriculture for development. Both intensive as well as extensive agriculture can lead to environmental consequences. The solution to these problems is to seek more sustainable production system and enhancing agricultural potential for provision of environmental service (World Bank 2008). This is crucial when discussing agriculture for development as one of the developmental goals is the sustainability of the natural resources.To sum up, there is a need for agriculturalists to change intellectually and operationally from a narrow focus on agriculture and technological research and dissemination to a better understanding of rural societies and their needs. There is a need to seek greater understanding of alternative pathways for rural economic development, placing the role of agriculture in perspective, and redefining the role, mission, and strategy of the agricultural institutes and agents as facilitators of rural economic growth. This calls for the change in the mind sets of the change agents and greater flexibility and creativity in defining the agenda as well as in defining new public-private-civil society partnerships on the basis of whatever is necessary to improve opportunities, productivity and income generation capacity of poor rural households.3 Agricultural innovation system perspective 3.1 What is a system?A system is a collection of related elements that must function in concert to achieve a desired result (Bean and Radford 2002). It consists of interlinked subsystems, but is more than the sum of its subsystems, with the central feature being its integrity and synergy. A system contains one or more feedback loops which are central to the system behaviour and permits a system to function in a self-managed, self-sustained way. The two key conclusions emerging from the system thinking are that the interrelated parts drive the system, and the feedback loops are circular rather than linear.The systems thinking is not new to agriculture. The earliest work in systems has its roots in early 20th century biology. Its systematic application in the agricultural sector began in the mid 20th century. The application of the 'systems' concept in agricultural R&D started with the farming systems research to address the farm level productivity constraints in the 1970s. Now the use has expanded to the application in organization and institutional analysis, resulting in the 'agricultural innovation systems' concept. The following sections of this paper trace this evolution and its implications for agricultural R&D management.In the literature different authors have defined the term innovation differently (EC 1995;Quintas 1977as cited in ISNAR 2001;Drucker 1998;OECD 1997). Freeman, 1982 defined innovation as '…the technical, design, manufacturing, management and commercial activities involved in the marketing of new (or improved) product or the first commercial use of a new (or improved) process or equipment'. However, Rothwell (1992) reminded that innovation is not always about radical change 'innovation does not necessarily imply the commercialization of only a major advance in the technological state-of-the art … but it includes also the utilization of even, small scale changes in technological know-how'.The simplest definition is 'anything new introduced into an economic or social process' (OECD 1997). The most useful definition of innovation in the context of R&D is 'the economically successful use of invention ' (Bacon and Butler 1998). Here invention is defined 'as a solution to a problem'. This allows us to make the distinction between knowledge and innovation. Taking a brilliant idea through, on an often painful journey to become something which is widely used, involves many more steps and use of resources and problem solving on the way.In the past, science and technology generation were equated with innovation. It is crucial to recognize that innovation is strongly embedded in the prevailing economic structure, which largely determines what is going to be learned and where the innovations are going to take place. Moreover, such innovations are not limited to technological (both product and process) innovations only but also include institutional, organizational, managerial and service delivery innovations. This also emphasizes the notion that the responsibility of agricultural research organizations does not end with the production of new technology or knowledge only. They can claim success when their inventions are being disseminated, adopted and used (Chema et al. 2001).Innovations are new creations of economic significance. They relate to the production of new knowledge and/or new combination of existing knowledge. The critical point to note is that this knowledge cannot be regarded as innovation unless it is transformed into products and processes that have social and economic use (Edquist 1997). This transformation does not follow a linear path but rather characterized by complicated feedback mechanisms and interactive relations involving science, technology, learning, production, policy and demand. The use of the term innovation in its broadest sense covers, the activities and processes associated with the generation, production, distribution, adaptation and use of new technical, institutional and organizational, managerial knowledge and service delivery (Hall et al. 2005).An innovation system is the group of organizations and individuals involved in the generation, diffusion, adaptation and use of new knowledge and the context that governs the way these interactions and processes take place. In its simplest, an innovation system has three elements: the organization and individuals involved in generating, diffusing, adapting and using new knowledge; the interactive learning that occurs when organizations engage in these processes and the way this leads to new products and processes (innovation); and the institutions (rules, norms and conventions, both formal and informal) that govern how these interactions and processes takes place (Horton 1990). People working on similar issues, be it in a specific commodity sector, at a particular location or in any problem area tend to form a chain or network that can be described as innovation system. An innovation system can be defined at different levels: national, sectoral, commodity and intervention based. These are discussed in the following subsections.NIS is defined (World Bank 2008) as a set of functional institutions, organizations and policies that interact constructively in pursuit of a common set of social and economic goals and objectives, and that uses the introduction of innovation as the key promoter of change. At its simplest, this concept states that innovation emerges from evolving systems of actors, their interaction and processes that are involved in research and the application of research findings for socioeconomic benefit. A NIS concept will allow better understanding of the governance, resource allocation and outcomes in the short, medium and longer term. The concept of NIS is a generic concept, which has three components:the knowledge domain, business domain and the environment as shown in Figure 1.  The concept of NIS was first mentioned in the industrial innovation literature in the late 1980s. The study of NIS started with relatively simple descriptive analysis that tried to explain the difference in innovative activity and performance between countries. More recently, however, the theoretical underpinning of NIS approach has been substantially improved by the addition of insights from various streams of thinking, including evolutionary economics, theories of learning, institutional thesis and systems theory (Roseboom 2004). NIS is simply an analytical tool that can be used for planning and policymaking to enhance innovations.NIS permits actors and stakeholders within the system to identify their distinctive roles and understand their relationships to others in the system. The net result is the potential for better articulation, identification of gaps and challenges, and greater agreement, at least in principle, on the future requirements for the system (Paterson et al. 2003).The important characteristics of NIS and the lessons learned (Metcalfe 1995;Arnold and Bell 2001;Roseboom 2004;Hall et al. 2005) included:NIS place emphasis on interdependence and non-linearity in innovation process, and • on demand as a determinant of innovation.They are strongly influenced by evolutionary thinking. A unique optimal NIS does not • exist, and dynamic NIS are continuously adapting and transforming themselves as new opportunities arise. NIS place great emphasis on role of the institutions both in terms of the rules of the • game and the players (organizations). The success of innovation relies heavily on the 'framework conditions'-policies, laws, rules and other cultural aspects-and the basic infrastructure of the system. Indeed, a particular culture's way of working, the social values it places on innovation and entrepreneurship, funding priorities, and notion of risk often most effectively explain the difference between those who innovate and those who do not.Greater emphasis is placed on the pattern and intensity of interactions between the • different actors within the NIS. Successful innovation requires both the 'supply-push' of the research community • and the 'demand-pull' of the users of new knowledge. Indeed, a successful system of innovation requires a constant interaction between many organizations and individuals in both camps.Innovation takes place within a social system of which research and researchers form • only a part of. Other essential components are the networks of actors that provide communication channels linking organizations and individuals. Such networks can be both formal and informal.'Intermediate organizations' often prove crucial to successful innovation, particularly when their task is to find out what producers (and their end users) want, and to search through the options within the stock of existing and new knowledge to find what best meets the needs.The origin and application of innovation systems concept in agriculture can be traced to a number of sources. These include the National Innovation System (NIS) that Freeman  As shown in Figure 2, like the NIS, a typical generic AIS incorporates a complete system of diverse agents whose interactions are conditioned by formal and informal socioeconomic institutions. AIS concept focuses on the totality of actors needed to stimulate innovation and growth and emphasizes the outcomes of knowledge generation and adoption. The framework captures not only the influence of the market forces, but also the impacts of organizational learning and behavioural change, non-market institutions and public policy processes (World Bank 2007). It also highlights the importance of framework conditions and linkages to other sectors and the broader science and technology community both within and outside the country. It is also important to note that this framework explicitly integrates the value chain concept.AIS perspective provides a means of analysing how knowledge is exchanged and how institutional and technological change occurs in a given society by examining the roles and interactions of diverse agents involved in the research, development and delivery of innovations that are directly or indirectly relevant to agricultural production and consumption. It is also important to note that the agricultural innovation system concept has a broader perspective than the concept of agricultural research system. The key differences and similarities between agricultural research systems and agricultural innovation systems are illustrated in Table 1. It is also worth noting that the transforming agricultural R&D systems in many countries have already incorporated the elements of the evolving AIS.According to Clark (2002) the AIS concept recognized:That the innovation process involves not only formal scientific research organizations, • but also a range of other organizations and other non-research tasks. The importance of linkages, making contracts, partnership alliances and conditions • and the way these assist information flows. That innovation is essentially a social process involving interactive learning by doing • and that process can lead to new possibilities and approaches inevitably leading to a diversity of organizational and institutional change. The interactions of the agents both condition and are conditioned by social and economic institutions.The innovation process depends on the relationships between different people and • organizations. The nature of those relationships and its political economy is important. That knowledge production is a contextual affair, i.e. innovation is conditioned by the • system of actors and institutional contexts at particular location and point in time. A commodity based innovation system, as shown in Figure 3, incorporates the various actors, their actions and interactions, as well as the enabling environment, facilitating institutions, and services that condition the various forms of innovation along the value chain of that commodity. This emphasizes the notion that innovation can occur anywhere along the value chain and not necessarily at the farm level; thus broadening the research agenda to incorporate both bio-physical and socio-economic research within the R4D portfolio. The concept of commodity value chain is discussed in Section 5.  An intervention-based innovation system can be constructed based on the nature of the problem and the context in which the innovation is applied. As we think of intervention-based innovation systems it is important to make sure that the innovation system is not confused with the innovation ecology. As noted earlier, innovation system incorporate the invention system as well as the complementary economic processes required to turn invention into innovation and subsequent diffusion and use. Innovation systems do not occur naturally, it is the problem sequence that defines a particular innovation opportunity. Hence, innovation systems are constructed for a purpose, they will change in content and patterns of interaction as the problem sequence evolves. Thus, although the innovation systems can be defined at different levels (national, sectoral, commodity and problem/intervention), the most relevant innovation system is the one that is constructed to address a particular problem. As Antonelli (2001Antonelli ( , 2005) ) argued innovation systems are constructed to solve 'local' problems and they are constructed around a market problem along the value chain that shapes innovation. They are not constructed around problems that shape the growth of science and technology.To explain the difference between generic systems and the problem centred innovation system, Metcalfe and Ramlogan ( 2008) made a distinction between 'innovation ecology' and a problem focused innovation system. The term innovation ecologies 'refer to a set of individuals usually working within organizations who are the repositories and generators of existing and new knowledge'. Included in this ecology are those organizations that store and retrieve information as well as those that manage the general flow of information. The principal actors are usually profit seeking firms (in the value chain), universities and other public and private specialist research organizations and knowledge based consultancies. They exhibit collectively a division of labour that is characteristics of the production of knowledge (Metcalfe and Ramlogan 2008). These ecologies are typically national in scope, with subnational degree of variation (often generic in nature), necessarily reflecting rules of law, business practice and the social and political regulation of business of the economies in which they are located (Carlsson 1997;Cooke et al. 2000). The concept of NIS, AIS, and commodity based innovation systems are generic in nature and fall under the category of innovation ecology.Problem focused innovation systems on the other hand, are constructed to address specific problems. These systems are very specific in nature; deals with the connection between the relevant components of the ecology; and ensures that the flow of information is directed at a specific purpose. Depending upon the problem at hand there can be multiple innovation systems supported by the same innovation ecology. Moreover, since the solution of one problem typically lead to different and new problems, we would also expect that as the problem evolves the actors in the system as well as their interconnectedness will also vary. Thus, while the ecologies are more permanent, the problem focused innovation systems are transient or temporary in nature. Once a particular problem sequence is solved the associated system can be dissolved. The dynamism of an economy/value chain depends on the adaptability with which innovation systems are created, grow, stabilize and change as problem sequence evolves (Metcalfe and Ramlogan 2008, 442). A problem focused innovation system can be transboundary in nature or cut across national boundaries and may be spatially unconstrained. This problem focused, transboundary, dynamic nature of the innovation system is the most relevant one for the R&D community.Innovation systems perspectives (ISP) implies the use of innovation lens in the design, implementation and evaluation of the activities of the various actors involved in the innovation process. ISP sees the innovative performance of an economy as depending not only on how individual institutions (firms, research institutes, universities etc.)perform in isolation, but on how they interact with each other as elements of a collective system and how they interplay with social institutions such as values, norms and legal frameworks. ISP suggests the analysis of three elements: the components of the system, principally its actors; the relationships and interactions between these components and the competencies, functions, process and results such components generate. Therefore the analytical implications of ISP are that there is a need to consider a range of activities and organizations related to research and development and how these might function collectively and the need to locate R&D planning and implementation in the context of norms and the cultural and political economy in which it takes place, i.e. the wider institutional context.The key features of ISP include (Hall et al. 2005 The dynamics do not depend on the agents 'expanding the frontier of knowledge' but on the innovative abilities of a large number of agents. This dynamics depends on the strength of information flows and the absorptive capacity of the individual agents of institutions and of society as a whole. The innovation processes depend on the interactions among physical, social and human capital, but mostly on the absorptive capacity of individual agents (Ekboir and Parellada 2004).Although the concept of 'innovation' and innovation system is relatively new for agriculture, these frameworks have been used in the industrial sector for a considerable period. A number of lessons can be drawn from these experiences. Rothwell (1992)  Success was correlated with high-quality R&D resources and effort dedicated to the • project, and to the level of commitment in terms of team size; failures had fewer resources and the result was lower-quality products. Success was found to be linked to the status, experience, and seniority of the • innovator or entrepreneur responsible for the innovation. Successful innovation champions were usually more senior and had greater authority than their counterparts in unsuccessful projects. This indicated a stronger commitment by senior management to the project.The single most important feature is to stress that the central importance of understanding users' needs must translate into action across all functional areas. This does not only mean better market research. It also means that R&D, design, and production departments are involved with users at an early stage in the innovation process. 'R&D people and entrepreneurs tend to dismiss the point as obvious, but nevertheless continue to ignore it in practice' (Freeman 1982). Wycoff (2004)  It should be emphasized that innovation requires organizations to build and coordinate capabilities across all functions. There are no examples of successful innovators being focused on a single factor. Empirical evidence also supports the view that quality of management is of paramount importance since innovation is a social process. In applying the ISP to agriculture, these lessons are highly relevant, and can make a significant contribution to institutionalization.To conclude in the words of Barnett (2008), research converts money into knowledge and innovation converts knowledge into money. Technology knowledge (which are the direct products of research) is necessary but not sufficient to create innovation. An innovation system paradigm is an attitude of mind shift from knowledge to innovation. It explicitly recognizes the importance of different set of actors contributing to innovation especially the intermediaries, and the importance of institutions (rules of the game both formal and informal) and the political economy power and incentives and the need to change the rules of the game.Another concept that is gaining popularity among the agricultural research for development (AR4D) community is the concept of agricultural value chain analysis.Although the value chain approach in general has a long tradition especially in industrial production and organization, its application in international development and agriculture, has gained popularity only in the last decade (Rich et al. 2008). There are four major basic concepts in agricultural value chain analysis: value chain, stages of production, vertical coordination and business development services. Since value chains are composed of hierarchy of chain stages, the concept of stages of production is basic in value chain analysis. Closely related to the stages of production is the concept of vertical coordination. A value chain needs business support services to function. Hence, the fourth basic concept is the concept of business development services. Below, we give brief description of these basic concepts.An agricultural value chain is usually defined by a particular finished product or closely related products and includes all firms and their activities engaged in input supply, production, transport, processing and marketing (or distribution) of the product or products. Kaplinsky (2000, 121) defines the value chain as 'the full range of activities which are required to bring a product or service from conception, through the intermediary phases of production, delivery to final consumers, and final disposal after use.' An agricultural value chain can, therefore, be considered as an economic unit of analysis of a particular commodity (e.g. milk) or group of commodities (e.g. dairy) that encompasses a meaningful grouping of economic activities that are linked vertically by market relationships. The emphasis is on the relationships between networks of input suppliers, producers, traders, processors and distributors (UNCTAD 2000).The value chain concept entails the addition of value as the product progresses from input suppliers to producers to consumers. A value chain, therefore, incorporates productive transformation and value addition at each stage of the value chain. At each stage in the value chain, the product changes hands through chain actors, transaction costs are incurred, and generally some form of value is added. Value addition results from diverse activities including bulking, cleaning, grading, packaging, transporting, storing and processing. See Figure 4   Value chains encompass a set of interdependent organizations, and associated institutions, resources, actors and activities involved in input supply, production, processing, and distribution of a commodity. In other words, a value chain can be viewed as a set of actors and activities, and organizations and the rules governing those activities.Value chains are also the conduits through which finance (revenues, credit, and working capital) move from consumers to producers; technologies are disseminated among producers, traders, processors and transporters; and information on customer demand preferences are transmitted from consumers to producers and processors and other service providers.Value chains can be classified into two based on the governance structures: buyerdriven value chains, and producer-driven value chains (Kaplinisky and Morris 2001).Buyer-driven chains are usually labour intensive industries, and so more important in international development and agriculture, which is our focus in this paper. In such industries, buyers undertake the lead coordination activities and influence product specifications. A dairy value chain is a good example where consumer preferences and food quality and safety concerns play critical role in product handling and packaging.In producer-driven value chains which are more capital intensive, key producers in the chain, usually controlling key technologies, influence product specifications and play the lead role in coordinating the various links. Some chains may involve both producer-and buyer-driven governance (Kaplinisky and Morris 2001).In agricultural value chain analysis, a stage of production can be referred to as any operating stage capable of producing a saleable product serving as an input to the next stage in the chain or for final consumption or use. Typical value chain linkages include input supply, production, assembly, transport, storage, processing, wholesaling, retailing, and utilization, with exportation included as a major stage for products destined for international markets. A stage of production in a value chain performs a function that makes significant contribution to the effective operation of the value chain and in the process adds value.The performance of an agricultural value chain depends on how well the actors 1 in the value chain are organized and coordinated, and on how well the chain is supported by business development services (BDS). Verticality in value chains implies that conditions at one stage in the value chain are likely to be strongly influenced by conditions in other stages in the vertical chain, in direct and indirect ways, and in expected and unexpected 1. Actors in a value chain may include input suppliers, producers, itinerant collectors (small and mobile traders who visit villages and rural markets), assembly traders (also called primary wholesalers who normally buy from farmers and itinerant collectors and sell to wholesalers), wholesalers (who deal with larger volumes than collectors and assemblers and often perform important storage functions), retailers (who distribute products to consumers), and processors (firms and individuals involved in the transformation of a product). Integrated chains are coordinated chains, but not all coordinated chains are integrated chains.ways. It should be noted that intra-chain linkages are mostly of a two-way nature. A particular stage in a value chain may affect and be affected by the stage before or after it.Better vertical coordination in a value chain leads to better matching of supply and demand between value chain stages, resulting in efficient, low-cost exchange, maintenance of product quality (minimal spoilage, losses), productive transformation (processing, packaging) that adds value, convenience, quality and other attributes, and overall good information on supplies and prices at different levels of the value chain.Coordination refers to the harmonization of the functions of a value chain-its conduct.The result of good coordination between the stages of a value chain may be reflected in a good match between buyer preferences and seller supplies. That is, better coordination in a value chain results in better matching of demand and supply between the chain stages, The primary focus of value chain studies, therefore, is on the vertical dimension, the ways of harmonizing the vertical stages of input supply, production, processing and marketing, and the interest is on how productive, efficient and effective commodity subsystems are in the production, assembly, transformation (processing) and distribution of commodities.Coordination of the flow of physical products, information and finance within the value chain is a critical consideration, since the ultimate emphasis of value chain studies is on how well coordinated particular commodity markets are. Consideration of the vertical dimension ensures analysis of the coordination between the successive stages of the value chain. Such analysis involves analysis of the implications of the different arrangements on who bears the risk in the chain, and the structure of incentives available for the different actors. Emphasis on coordination gives value chain analysis an especially institutional flavour, since changing the basic institutions of exchange strongly influence value chain performance. The focus on vertical coordination leads the researchers to the domain of New Institutional Economics (NIE), since transaction costs, and information asymmetry, and other market imperfections (notably variable market power) influence the nature of vertical coordination (Boomgard et al. 1992, 55). The NIE is an attempt to extend neoclassical economics by explicitly incorporating institutions into economic analysis (North 1995), and provides additional insights regarding chain coordination which the neoclassical economics is unable to do.since several factors affect vertical coordination in such value chains. Such factors include biological lag, fixed assets (once production began, price drops will not affect decision), incomplete information (especially actions of other producers), random events (weather, laws, trade policy etc.), perishablity relative to other products, storability relative to other products, and relative elasticities of supply and demand. Biological lags are pervasive in agricultural production, since production naturally requires a certain period of time. Alternative uses of fixed assets invested in agricultural production may usually be limited. Information asymmetry in agricultural markets, especially in developing countries is pervasive. Producers may not be able to co-evolve with changing market conditions if they are not informed in time. Many agricultural products are perishable and could not be stored for long.Closely related to the concept of value chains is the concept of business development services. These are services that play supporting role to enhance the operation of the different stages of the value chain and the chain as a whole. In order for farmers to engage effectively in markets, they need to develop marketing skills and receive support from service providers who have better understanding of the markets, whether domestic or international. Local business support services are, therefore, essential for the development and efficient performance of value chains. The roles of the business development services have hitherto been neglected. The neglect was a result of the mistaken assumption that profitable business development services will emerge as value chains develop or that the public will provide business development services where they are needed and when markets are insufficient to provide profitable niches for competitive services to develop.The agricultural value chain analysis approach and purpose 4.2.1 What is the agricultural value chain analysis approach?Agricultural value chain analysis can be viewed as a heuristic device or analytical tool (Kaplinisky and Morris 2001). The research can be descriptive, prescriptive and designed to provide operational guidelines to improve efficiency of vertical coordination.Agricultural value chain analysis systematically maps chain actors and their functions in production, processing, transporting and distribution and sales of a product or products. Through this mapping exercise, structural aspects of the value chain such as characteristics of actors, profit and cost structures, product flows and their destinations, and entry and exit conditions are assessed (Kaplinisky and Morris 2001). As such, value chain analysis is a descriptive construct providing a heuristic framework for the generation of data (Kaplinisky and Morris 2001). However, value chain analysis also provides an analytical structure to gain insights into the organization, operation and performance of the chain (see Annex 2 for details of the process of value chain analysis).Agricultural value chain analysis is a dynamic approach that examines how markets and industries respond to changes in the domestic and international demand and supply for a commodity, technological change in production and marketing, and developments in organizational models, institutional arrangements or management techniques. The analysis should look at the value chain as a set of institutions and rules; as a set of activities involved in producing, processing, and distributing commodities; and as a set of actors involved in performing the value adding activities. Value chain analysis focuses on changes over time in the structure, conduct and performance of value chains, particularly in response to changes in market conditions, technologies and policies.Agricultural value chain analysis focuses on chain governance and the power relationships which determine how value is distributed at the different levels. Through the analysis of systems and power relations at different levels, value chain analysis enables a more comprehensive modelling of the effects of interventions at different levels. Such an approach can enable a better targeting of interventions aimed at poverty reduction.Hence, value chain aims at identifying how the productivity of chain activities can be improved, either through improved technologies, organizations or institutions to better coordinate the various stages of production and distribution, and meet consumer demand.The agricultural value chain approach accords due attention to the roles of business development services in enhancing the performance of value chains. Since final demand is the major driver of agricultural value chains, a strategy to improve the competitiveness of a value chain should consider the nature of products in relation to the type of markets where the product is sold for final usage. 2Value chain analysis is criticized by some as being ill-suited for activities that cut across many vertical production-distribution systems (e.g. financial system), and for being less 2. A useful framework to identify appropriate strategies is the Ansoff matrix (Ansoff 1957). In the Ansoff matrix, products and markets are classified into two: existing and new. If the objective is to increases sales of exiting products to an existing market, the strategy of market penetration is required. If the objective is to introduce new products to existing markets, the strategy of market development is required. Such a strategy may include expanding into new geographical areas, or selling to new segments of the population. If the objective is to introduce new products to existing markets, the strategy of product development is required. Such a strategy may include product differentiation through new packaging, branding, or additional processing. If the objective is to introduce new product into a new market, the strategy of diversification is required. The particular strategy selected will have implications for the different actors of the value chain.effective in identifying within-firm constraints. However, since value chain research attempts to answer different questions than what cross-industry or firm specific studies intend to answer value chain studies are considered complementary to such studies, not substitutes (Boomgard et al. 1992).The agricultural value chains approach implies that four major key concepts guide agricultural value chain analysis. These are verticality and vertical coordination, effective demand, value chain governance, and leverage and impact. The concept of vertical coordination has been discussed in Section (4.1.3). In this section, we give brief description of the remaining three concepts.Agricultural value chain analysis views effective demand as the force that pulls goods and services through the vertical system. Hence, value chain analyses need to understand the dynamics of how demand is changing at both domestic and international markets, and the implications for value chain organization and performance. Value chain analysis also needs to examine barriers to the transmission of information in the changing nature of demand and incentives back to producers at various levels of the value chain.Governance refers to the role of coordination and associated roles of identifying dynamic profitable opportunities and apportioning roles to key players (Kaplinsky and Morris 2001). Governance implies that interactions between firms along a value chain reflect organization, rather than randomness. The various activities in the chain, within firms and between firms, are influenced by chain governance. Value chains are characterized by repetitiveness of linkage interactions. The governance of value chains emanate from the requirement to set product, process, and logistic standards, which then influence upstream or downstream chain actors and results in activities, actors, roles and functions.Therefore, power asymmetry is central in value chain governance (Kaplinsky and Morris 2001). In other words, some key actors in the chain shoulder the responsibility to allocate roles (inter-firm division of labour) and improve functions.Power in value chain governance can be categorized into three: setting basic rules for participation in the chain, monitoring the performance of chain actors in complying with the basic rules, and assistance to help chain actors adhere to the basic rules (Kaplinsky and Morris 2001). It must, however, be noted that some value chains may exhibit very little governance at all, or very thin governance. In most value chains, there may be multiple points of governance, involved in setting rules, monitoring performance and/ or assisting producers. The powers of governance may be vested within the chains themselves, in local communities, or in business associations.Chain governance should also be viewed in terms of 'richness' and 'reach', i.e in terms of its depth and pervasiveness (Evans and Wurster 2000). Richness or depth of value chain governance refers to the extent to which governance affects the core activities of individual actors in the chain. Reach or pervasiveness refers to how widely the governance is applied and whether there are competing bases of power. In the real world, value chains may be subject to multiplicity of governance structures, often laying down conflicting rules to the poor producers (Kaplinsky and Morris 2001) Value chain studies should aim to identify interventions which can have most significant impact on the value chain. In the case where large number of firms are involved it may be difficult to develop interventions to help each individual firm, since the cost of contacting each and every firm could be prohibitively high. Hence, value chain analysis seeks to identify key nodes in the chain where actions can help large number of firms at once. Such interventions are referred to as leverage. If the right leverages can be identified and implemented, small but focused interventions can result in higher impact.Leveraged interventions are likely to benefit large number of chain actors and reduce per-firm contact costs. In some value chain studies, most attention may be given to a particular industry because of its importance and the low level of knowledge available about it (Holtzman 2002).In order to identify sources of leverage, one has to look at three key indicators: system nodes, geographic clustering or policy constraints (Haggblade and Gamser 1991). System nodes are points where large volume of product pass through the hands of only a few actors (Haggblade and Gamser 1991;Boomgard et al. 1992). Large input suppliers and output distributors often function as system nodes. Clustering offers the possibility to reach many farms in one go. Policies can be the most powerful lever, as they can likely affect a multitude of firms spread geographically and in size. Leverage interventions, therefore, involve working through large intermediary firms, delivering service to geographically clustered farms, or policy reform. Oftentimes, wholesale markets or distribution points may provide opportunities to reach a large number of small firms.Value chain analysis is conducted for a variety of purposes. The primary purpose of value chain analysis, however, is to understand the reasons for inefficiencies in the chain, and identify potential leverage points for improving the performance of the chain, using both qualitative and quantitative data. In general, agricultural value chain analysis can be used to:understand how an agricultural value chain is organized (structure), operates In sum, the concept of value chain provides a useful framework to understand the production, transformation and distribution of a commodity or group of commodities.With its emphasis on the coordination of the various stages of a value chain, value chain analysis attempts to unravel the organization and performance of a commodity system.The issues of coordination are especially important in agricultural value chains, where coordination is affected by several factors that may influence product characteristics, especially quality. The value chain framework also enables us to think about development from a systems perspective, similar to the ISP. The challenge is how to integrate value chain analysis and ISP into AR4D. In the next section, we will look at the aspects of this integration.Integrating innovation systems perspective and value chain analysis in agricultural research for developmentImprovement in productivity and competitiveness of the value chain is the litmus test for value chain innovation. Value chain innovations should, therefore, encompass the supply, demand and marketing aspects of a commodity or closely related commodities. The value chain approach to market analysis and commodity development is a convenient framework to integrate these aspects of a commodity.The focus of value chain framework is in developing an effective way of coordinating the hierarchical stages in the value chain to meet consumer demand in an efficient manner. Effective vertical coordination of value chain stages requires partnership, actor interactions, information flow along the chain and coordination of the activities of chain actors. Hence, the competitiveness of a value chain is greatly influenced by the partnership and collaboration for innovation that can be realized by chain actors. Moreover, the development and operation of enabling and supportive business development services (e.g. market information, transport, credit) play critical role in how well the value chain responds to consumer demands. The constellation of the value chain actors and the business development services supporting it constitute the innovation system of a particular value chain.The objectives and levels of operation of an agricultural innovation system and value chains can be similar. Value chains and an agricultural innovation system can operate at multiple levels and can pursue various objectives. Common developmental objectives of value chains and agricultural innovation system include poverty alleviation, employment generation, food security, agricultural and rural development and economic growth.Agricultural innovation systems can operate at the individual, farm, community, regional, national, or international levels (Rajalahti et al. 2008). Value chain analysis could also identify leverage interventions at similar levels. It is noteworthy, in particular, that innovations in a value chain should not be limited to improving the performance of existing chain actors, but also to expand opportunities for the poor smallholders who may otherwise be left out from benefiting as actors in the value chain. In this regard, an ideal innovation or set of innovations in a value chain is one that improves the competitiveness of the chain and ensures fair distribution of returns among chain actors.Innovation systems help create knowledge, facilitate access to knowledge and its application to achieve economic, social and environmental gains. Information flow up and down the chain can trigger innovation in a particular stage of the chain, or on the way chain stages are organized and coordinated. In other words, innovations in a value chain can focus at a particular stage of the chain, or span across several or all of the value chain stages in terms of how they coordinate their activities. Innovation capacity of the value chain, the ability of chain actors as a group to innovate and respond to changing consumer demands, is, therefore, a sum total of the individual innovation capacity of the actors in the different stages of the value chain.Innovation possibilities in value chains are diverse and can relate to input supply, production technology, production organization, post harvest technology and management, processing, marketing and market functions, the supply of business development services, and policy and regulatory issues. In this regard, the links in the value chain stages provide new possibilities for innovation aimed at improving the performance of the chain.Moreover, innovations in a value chain can refer to technological, organizational or institutional aspects that have bearing on the value chain stages or on the value chain as a whole. While organizational innovations refer to the creation of entities and structures, institutional innovations refer to how the entities and structures operate. An innovation may also relate to product or process innovation (Kaplinsky and Morris 2001).Successful dynamic improvement in value chain performance critically depends on the ability of the chain actors to acquire, absorb, disseminate and apply new technological, organizational and institutional inventions in a continuous manner. Hence, the innovation process in value chains should embrace continuous improvements in product design and quality, changes in organization and management of operations, institutional development in input supply and procurement, marketing, and associated business development services, and modifications in the production and post-harvest processes.To conclude, both value chain analysis and innovation systems perspectives in agricultural R4D, are complementary and share a number of key features. These include: value addition (social, economic, and environmental) focus on creation of new knowledge and the novel combination of existing knowledge; emphasize on institutions (both formal and informal), emphasis on partnership, networking and interactive learning; and a need for cultivating wide range of attitude and practices among the R4D practitioners.In order to accommodate the changing paradigms and emerging challenges, most agricultural research for development activities at present are guided by four key concepts: the innovation systems perspective, value chain, impact orientation and research for development (R4D). Very often development practitioners raise the questions whether these concepts are mutually exclusive, complementary or compete with each other and how they could be integrated into the empirical AR4D planning and implementation process. In this section we would like to demonstrate that in fact these four concepts are complementary and reinforce each other when applied in the design, implementation and evaluation of AR4D activities. They could be easily integrated into the on-going AR4D activities of the various stakeholders at different levels: global, regional, national, subregional and within a country). By necessity in this paper we will focus on this integration aspect within the research processes at the national level.However, it is important to note that the same processes (with appropriate modification) can be applied to agricultural problems at other levels (subregional, regional, and global).The relevant actors, activities and institutes may be different.The emerging market liberalization, trade reforms and globalization are transforming national and regional economies and the farming sector. To respond to these changes there is a need to create a competitive, responsive and dynamic agriculture. This could be achieved through promoting smallholder led, market oriented agriculture, and impact oriented institutes. In this context, farming is considered as a business and the production signals are derived from the market. Improved access to market and establishing efficient value chains are critical for effective participation of the smallholder producers in the globalized economy.A typical national agricultural innovation system is described in Figure 2. This demonstrates that implicitly enterprises and value chains are embedded in an innovation system. Market processes and innovation system are mutually embedded and it is not possible to have one without the other. Innovation systems are not alternative to the market process. Markets are part of the necessary, adaptive link between innovation and development but they are not sufficient on themselves; other instituted activities such as education, research, and service delivery all matter. The value chain concept enables us to incorporate the backward and forward linkages and realize the entire contribution of a particular sector and/or commodity to the overall economy. It also allows us to address issues beyond the farm boundaries. Innovation is perceived as a continuous learning process in which individuals/group of individuals/organizations/firms master and implement the design, production and marketing of goods and services that are new to them, although not necessarily new to their colleagues or competitors-domestic or foreign (Metcalfe and Ramlogan 2008). Innovation can occur anywhere along the value chain as shown in Figure 5 and can be of different type-technological, managerial, institutional, organizational as well as in service delivery. As discussed earlier, although the innovation system can be defined and constructed at different levels (i.e. national, sectoral, commodity/enterprise and intervention) the most relevant innovation system is the problem/intervention focused innovation. Problem focused innovation system does not occur automatically; it is the problem sequence that defines a particular innovation opportunity. In practice innovation systems are constructed to solve 'local' real world problems using a value chain approach in the diagnostic process that will allow us to identify the priority problems that need to be addressed anywhere along the value chain, and an innovation system can be constructed around these problems.The integration of innovation system concept within the agricultural research for development process, within a commodity value chain is illustrated in Figure 6.Moreover, since solving one set of problem typically lead to different and new problems, one would expect as the problem evolve so too will the actors in the system and their patterns of interactions (Metcalfe and Ramlogan 2008). Thus, as mentioned earlier, the problem/intervention focused innovation systems are transient. Once the particular problem sequence is solved the associated system can be dissolved. Depending on the nature of the problem, the relevant innovation system may be spatially unconstrained cutting across national boundaries.In terms of integrating innovation system and value chain analysis in the AR4D, the following points need to be kept in mind:Use the value chain of an enterprise as the unit of analysis and focus on innovation of • the entire value chain as shown in Figure 5. Please remember in terms of diagnosis the entry point is still the household livelihood system of the target group.Identify the most binding constraint in the value chain which inhibits the exploitation • of the full potential of the value chain. Rank key component of the value chain in terms of where the grater efficiency and impact could be achieved. Within the high priority component (which offers the greatest opportunity) identify the • various problems (options) and rank them. Please note the two stage ranking process.For the priority problem identified brainstorm on the potential options. Screen and • identify feasible interventions. Depending on the availability of technologies and the level of confidence of replicability, the intervention may involve technology/ knowledge generation, technology/knowledge adaptation and/or scaling out and up. Construct an 'innovation system' that is relevant to the priority intervention(s) • identified. Please use the innovation lens to identify the various stakeholders who need to participate to make this intervention to become an innovation. Involve all the relevant key stakeholders in the planning process. Clearly identify the • roles, responsibilities, resource commitment, reward sharing, rules of engagement etc. Implement the intervention collectively. Please remember the roles of the individual • stakeholder may change as the implementation proceeds. Make sure that the various stakeholders participate in the monitoring and on-going evaluation process.Evaluate the performance and impact collectively. • Document and disseminate results and plan for 'scaling up' and 'scaling out'. • To facilitate the effective integration, the capacity of all stakeholders along the value chain need to be enhanced, and the necessary policy, and institutional environments need to be created. This is a challenge focusing the R&D practitioners and policymakers. This aspect is discussed in the next Section 6.  Implications and challengesThe adoption and institutionalization of the integration of the innovation systems perspective and value chain analysis in the agricultural research for development (AR4D)process has a number of implications and challenges. The next two subsections deal with the broader implications and the challenges that need to be addressed by the research and development community.6.1 Implications 6.1.1 Implications for agricultural research for developmentIn understanding innovation, the distinction between information and knowledge is critical. Since only people can know, knowledge is always tacit, and for knowledge to be beneficial to societies, it must be shared considerably across individuals, so that a stimulus will elicit similar responses for cooperation to materialize. Shared knowledge is, therefore, the foundation of knowledge-based societies. Metcalfe and Ramlogan (2008, 439) succinctly put it as: 'Uneven development is a natural consequence of differential knowledge and of very different instituted ways by which societies correlate the existing knowledge and promote the growth of knowledge.'The agricultural ISP recognizes the importance of technological, organizational and institutional inventions, but focuses on the application of inventions to achieve economic, social and environmental gains to society. Agricultural research and technology development are only part of the innovation system. The most important aspect of a successful innovation is not the creation of new inventions, but the adaptation and use of the inventions in order to realize economic, social and environmental gains. Such a shift from viewing research as the central actor to being only one important component of the innovation system carries profound implications for the organization, management and operation of the research system and how researchers operate (Rajalahti et al. 2008).Research systems and researchers are, therefore, required to encompass a range of new activities and processes, which hitherto have been outside of their mandate.The agricultural ISP underscores that there could be multiple sources of knowledge and The research systems will carry the lead responsibility of realizing the collaborative and synergistic benefits from working with others. Therefore, skills in negotiation, facilitation and conflict management will be critical for researchers. Funding and incentives to institutionalize and foster partnership and partner interactions will be needed more than ever. The ISP emphasizes the essentiality of enhancing the roles of farmers and other rural actors as the driving forces of innovations, which can, for example, be fostered through capacitating, organizing, and empowering them. Hence, the ISP requires The enabling policies for innovation relate to science and technology policy; fiscal policy; commercial and trade policy, and education policy etc. Investment in the enabling environment relates to promoting stakeholder engagement and collaboration through foresight activities, innovation platforms, adequate incentives for actors, and the development of interaction rules (related to intellectual property rights, research funding, agent roles etc.); and strengthening knowledge management capacities and collaborative arrangements that will lead to better use of available information, knowledge and technology at national, regional, and global levels, both in the public and private sector, and institutionalization of the ISP approach.One important area of innovation investment is investment in AR4D. However, the investment priorities to foster innovation are different from the traditional investment areas. Investment in R&D to foster innovation emphasize patterns of interaction between research and other actors, alignment of policies and procedures of research organizations to the requirements of partnership and collaboration. A direct link between research and users, instead of research linked with users through an intermediary organization, such as extension, will be vital. The ivory tower mentality of research organizations should change. Moreover, there will be an increased requirement on research to be much more responsive to emerging issues and dynamic needs of sectors.In addition to AR4D, firms are key elements of an innovation system since they make decisions of what to produce, how to produce and for whom to produce. Remember that the focus is on the transformation of smallholder agriculture into commercial orientation and commercial farming is a business undertaking. Much innovation emanates from existing firms in their effort to do things differently. Among the organizations involved in an innovation system, 'only firms have the unique responsibility to combine together the multiple kinds of knowledge required for innovation including knowledge of markets and organization' (Metcalfe and Ramlogan 2008, 440). Firms are also the key actors in the different stages of a value chain, spanning all the way from production to retail. Innovation capacity of firms, therefore, constitutes the foundation for successful innovation in value chains. Appropriate policies need to be put in place to enable firms are beneficiaries of their innovations. Such policies could relate to finance, property rights, market competitiveness, and entry and exit conditions, and others.The changes in the emerging food systems such as rapid rise and economic concentration in supermarkets, need for quality standards; a shift towards non-price competition among supermarket chains, bio-safety issues and the development of new forms of (contractual) relationships between suppliers and buyers offer both challenges and opportunities. They can either squeeze small producers out of certain markets contributing greater poverty and inequality or can offer new sources of income and market improvement in the quality and safety of food. In order to take advantage of this emerging situation, capacity of all the stakeholders along the value chain need to be enhanced (Tschirley 2006).Embracing the AIS concept and value chain analysis in agricultural research for development process offers a number of opportunities as well as challenges. The paper by no means is attempting to provide answers to these challenges. The idea here is to raise these issues so that collectively the practitioners can find empirical solutions to these problems. Therefore, in this section of the paper an attempt is made to identify the key challenges, so that we could simultaneously address them while continuing AR4D activities that generate socially beneficial innovations.The first key challenge is limited capacity for innovation, which includes limited • awareness of the concept, its application and implications for the AR4D community. Capacity building to apply the concept, as well as building sustainable capacity to build capacity remain as key challenges. The capacity for innovation occurs along one or more of four trajectories. These are product innovation, process innovation, institutional/organizational innovation, and service delivery innovation. The notion of capacity building in a system sense entails 'building up of collective capacity of networks or systems of actors interactively linked with a view to innovate'. This contrasts with the conventional thinking in which capacity development is often understood as the 'building up stocks of research infrastructure and trained scientists'. Therefore, a shift from a conventional to a systems conceptualization of capacity building requires a reorientation in our thinking. Stimulating changes in behaviour of the system and the institutions that govern the system must become the primary objective of capacity strengthening (Oyelaran-Oyeyinka 2005).The second key challenge is how to scale up innovations and the capacity to • innovate? Both aspects, the scaling up of innovations as well as scaling up the capacity to innovate, are equally important and deserves attention. Included in this challenge is how to develop productive and sustainable mechanisms and arrangement for AIS along the value chain.The third key challenge is the limited empirical evidence of the application of AIS, • its utility and value addition. This challenge entails conducting credible empirical analysis, and documenting and communicating results and experiences. How can we better understand the factors that contribute to the successful and sustainable innovations? What are the central concepts, methodologies, and principles that contribute to the institutional and organizational transformation needed to promote successful innovations?The fourth key challenge is creating the necessary environment and incentive system • to foster partnership, and reduce transaction costs of partnership and collaboration. Criteria for sustainable innovation systems are growing inter-relationship between participants in the innovation system; an intensive communication between all stakeholders; and a political and economic context favouring the agricultural innovation process. The term institutional arrangement in this context describes the mechanisms by which the various actors cooperate to promote technical and economic progress in agriculture. What are the preconditions needed to achieve this? How to assess successful partnerships, networks, and innovations? How to reward and provide incentives for the various partners in an innovation system? How do we demonstrate the utility and added value of this approach?The fifth challenge is how to change the mindset of actors, i.e. developing a wide • set of attitudes, practices needed to foster the culture of innovation. In particular, positive attitudes toward partnership, interaction, networking and learning need to be nurtured, not only in the AR4D system, but across a wide array of actors in the sector.The sixth key challenge is how to institutionalize the AIS and VCA thinking which • entails effective integration of the concepts and procedures with the AR4D system. There are several related key challenges: how to facilitate the creation of learning institutions? How to develop improved research governance that fosters partnership and collaboration. The seventh key challenge is how to institutionalize the multidisciplinary nature of • research. The AISP emphasizes systems thinking to encompass the value addition transformation from production to consumption. The eighth key challenge is while promoting innovation and institutional arrangements • that promote innovation, how to ensure that due attention is given to such factors as socio-economic equity and environmental sustainability while also generating new wealth and opportunities? What types of innovations will address poverty and how to facilitate the development of pro-poor innovation?The final key challenge is how to develop a coherent set of policies that foster • innovation.There is no blue print or recipe available to address these challenges. This is a long term process requiring action on a number of fronts. This type of a system pre-supposes a demand-supply relationship between users of services and service providers-a switch from a hierarchal model to a more market-like mode of cooperation, re-directing the incentives for AR4D services. Here the centralized AR4D bureaucracies are to be replaced by self responsive and responsible system. This institutional change is gradual, takes time to develop, thus calling for long term commitment.Innovation is an essential ingredient to future success in AR4D. Every organization/ stakeholder group innovates to some degree. For some, innovation takes the form of creative and successful new products; others rely on innovative solution for achieving cost reduction and higher quality products and services; and some others see innovation as a source of competitive advantage to secure greater market. The key challenge to AR4D managers is to learn how to identify/generate commercially relevant innovation along the value chain and how to achieve it consistently.Because of the greater emphasis on the broader developmental goal, the R4D strategies have shifted during the past decades. Currently most R4D activities are guided by four key concepts, namely, innovation system perspective, value chain orientation, research for development and impact orientation. This change in thinking recognizes that innovation takes place throughout the whole economy and not all innovations have their origin in formal R&D system, nor are all exclusively technical. Innovation can also occur anywhere along the value chain. The new perspective places more emphasis on the role of farmers, input suppliers, transporters, processors, and market actors in the innovation process. These developments clearly demonstrate that there is no uniquely best system to analyse all situations. The goal is to find the most appropriate system for the situation that one encounters; find the one that will evolve with the situation and put in place the processes that will allow one to learn and effect the future (van der Heijden 1966; ElliotIt is important to keep in mind that the innovation system perspective (ISP) does not undermine the value of research, good communication or effective extension services.These are necessary preconditions. The ISP and value chain orientation underline the need to invest not only in the research that generates this knowledge, but the quality and effectiveness of the delivery channels and the process mechanisms, and organizations that will use the knowledge once it emerges along the value chain.The innovation system idea does not provide one generic institutional model for innovation. There is no uniform theory of innovation. Instead of postulating a defined role for different actors, it becomes necessary to assess actual condition of each case and look who among several partners may take over one or more of these functions. In this perspective, the different functions from funding to research to technology dissemination and technology adoption are still critical functions and to be performed but who performs them and how is not pre-determined. Therefore, the concept of innovation is an empirical construct. One has to observe, who is interested in a particular innovation, who  Freeman (1987) defined NIS as 'the network of institutions in the public and private sectors whose activities and interactions initiate, import, modify and diffuse technologies'. Lundvall (1992) highlighted that learning and the role of institutions are critical components of NIS and emphasized the notion of diffusion of 'economically useful knowledge'. Metcalfe (1995) expanded this concept explicitly and introduced the context of defining NIS as '… a set of institutions which jointly and individually contribute to the development and diffusion of new technologies and which provides the framework within which governments form and implement policies to influence the innovation process. As such it is a system of interconnected institutions to create, store and transfer knowledge, skills, and artefacts, which define new technologies. The element of nationality follows not only from the domain of technology policy but from elements of shared language and culture which binds the system together, and from the national focus to other policies, laws and regulations which condition the innovation environment.' Edquist (1997) emphasized the notion of institutions and innovations and pointed out that 'authors working within the system of innovation approach (have been) centrally focused on technological innovation, and in addition, all are interested in organizational and institutional change.'A second root is the multiple source of innovation model for agricultural research and technology promotion first proposed by Biggs (1989). In the multiple source model all technology generation and promotional activities are seen as to take place in a historically defined political, economic, agroclimatic and institutional context. In this model, major emphasis is given to the idea that innovations come from multiple sources. Not only do innovations come from those who have been designated the roleTraining System (NAETS). This trend of thinking continued to include the other institutions involved in agricultural R&D and resulted in a number of other concepts such as Agricultural Knowledge and Information System (AKIS), the Technology Development andTransfer system (TDT) and the Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS).According to Elliot (2004), the difference among the different concepts is usually found in the expression of the objective of the system which then helps analysts describe given organizations as Components of the system (C) or 'part of the Environment' of the system (E) or linked as Partner (P) as shown in Annex It is worth noting that moving from NARIs to AIS, the goal of the system becomes broader (from research and technology to agricultural innovation); the number of organizations considered as 'components' also becomes larger and all inclusive. The issue of linkages,","tokenCount":"12605"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"4e6321a65bf634fe65918ef82e494b12","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/e1cd7b98-4936-4939-9cf1-cc51bc290508/content","id":"-1774017513"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"4e9804d8-8e42-4704-a1b6-ffa6ac9470c4","pagecount":"56","content":"Figura I. Mapa del Departamento de Cochabamba, Bolivia, mostrando las localidades donde se realiz6 el sondeo Figura 2. Precipitaci6n mensual media en la localidad de San Benito, Cochabamba (Valle Alto). Medias de 26 aftos. Altitud 2730 msnm.Figura 3. Precipitaci6n anual en la localidad de San Benito, Cochabamba (Valle Alto), mostrando la alta variabilidad de las lluvias. Altitud 2730 msnm .. Figura 4. Efecto de altitud sobre el nivel del mar, precipitaci6n y disponibilidad de riego sobre los cultivos sembrados en los valles de Cochabamba.Figura 5. Causas del problema de la erosion hidrica en las areas trigueras de! Departamento de Cochabamba.Figura 6. Causas del problema de! estres hidrico en el cultivo de trigo en el Departamento de Cochabamba.Figura 7. Causas del problema de deficiencias de nitr6geno y f6sforo para el cultivo de trigo en el Departamento de Cochabamba.Figura 8. Causas del problema de malezas en el cultivo de trigo en el Departamento de Cochabamba.Figura 9. Causas de! problema de las bajas poblaciones de plantas en el cultivo de trigo en el Departamento de Cochabamba.1llCuadro 1. Lista de variedades reportadas por los agricultores y la frecuencia en que fueron encontradas en los lotes observados.Cuadro 2. Malezas presentes y su grado de importancia en seis areas de Cochabamba.Cuadro 3. Problemas que limitan la productividad de trigo en Cochabamba, y las fuentes de informaci6n para su definici6n.Cuadro 4. Estimado de Perdidas de Productividad Anual Departamental (PPAD) con los problemas identificados.Tradicionalmente Cochabamba fue el Departamento mas productor de! pais, con una alta concentraci6n de producci6n en el Valle Alto. Sin embargo, en los ultimos aiios su producci6n se ha reducido, y en 1993/94 se sembr6 22.800 ha de trigo, con una producci6n total de 14.300 TM de grano (INE, 1996). Este nivel de producci6n situ6 al Departamento en tercer lugar en producci6n de trigo en el pais, despues de Santa Cruz y Chuquisaca, aunque su posici6n frente a Chuquisaca cambia de afio a aiio.El rendimiento promedio de trigo en el Departamento, y en general en el area tradicional triguera de! pais, es de alrededor de 700 kg/ha ( 627 kg/ha en Cochabamba en 1993/94). Este nivel de productividad es muy bajo dado el clima y condiciones de! Departamento, evidencia que hay oportunidades para la investigaci6n y extension agricola de mejorar la productividad de! cultivo.Para establecer un programa de investigaci6n eficiente es importante que los servicios de investigaci6n agricola entiendan la problematica de! agricultor y definan cuales son los problemas que ofrecen oportunidades para ser resueltos por la investigaci6n. Aunque hay limitaciones politicas y socio16gicas a la producci6n y productividad de! cultivo, estas no son oportunidades para la investigaci6n agricola, aunque deben ser tomados en cuenta en el analisis de tecnologias propuestas. En el caso especifico de limitaciones de indole politico, los investigadores pueden ayudar a resolverlos transmitiendo la informaci6n de! impacto de estas limitaciones a los encargados de la politica agricola.El Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo (CIMMYT) estableci6 un proyecto de agronomia de trigo a principios de 1994, con financiamiento de PL-480 Titulo 111/USAID-B. Para asegurar el exito de este proyecto, el cual apoya y proporciona asistencia tecnica a los programas nacionales de investigaci6n y transferencia de tecnologia en materia de trigo, y en el area tradicional triguera especialmente al Programa de Trigo y Cereales Menores de IBT A, fue importante establecer los problemas de los productores de trigo y las causas de ellos, para poder determinar prioridades, y definir oportunidades para la investigaci6n.Esta informaci6n proporcionara a los investigadores una base s6lida para la organizaci6n de un programa de investigaci6n eficiente.Se realiz6 el sondeo de agricultores en el Departamento de Cochabamba el 17 y el 23 de abril de 1994, para recopilar informaci6n que sirviera para orientar la investigaci6n del Programa de Trigo y Cereales Menores del IBT A, especialmente con referenda a la investigaci6n agron6mica. Diez personas, incluyendo un investigador y tranferencista de! Programa de Trigo y Cereales Menores, estudiantes tesistas de este Programa y de! Programa de Leguminosas, ademas de dos investigadores de CIMMYT, efectuaron el sondeo (Anexo I). Con anterioridad se escogieron 5 provincias de! Departamento para realizar las encuestas, basadas en su importancia sobre la producci6n departamental de trigo. La localizaci6n de las siguientes zonas cubiertas en el sondeo se observa en el mapa de Figura I : I. Valle Alto. Provincias de Esteban Arce, alrededor de la localidad Huasa Rancho, Jordan, alrededor de la localidad de Toko, y Punata, alrededor de la localidad de Pampa Khasi. 2. Provincia Esteban Arce, cerca a la localidad de Anzaldo. 3. Provincia Arani, alrededor de la localidad de Villa Serrano. 4. Provincia Carrasco, alrededor de la localidad de Totora (Azul K'ocha, Pilancho, Qhopi y Culpani).El grupo us6 una lista corta ( una pagina) sob re los temas a discutir con los agricultores, la cual sirvi6 como guia para dirigir las entrevistas. Esta lista de temas incluy6 todos los aspectos de la producci6n (suelos, rotaciones, cultivos, animales, residuos, estiercol, fertilizaci6n, etc.). Generalmente, mientras una persona conversaba con el agricultor, la otra tomaba notas.• 3 4 2 Figura 1. Mapa del Departamento de Cochabamba, Bolivia, mostrando las localidades donde se realiz6 el sondeo.Finalmente, los entrevistadores revisaban que se hubiese cubierto todos los puntos, y hacian preguntas adicionales para aclarar informaci6n donde fuera necesario.Despues de la primera entrevista del primer dia, la cual se hizo en conjunto para unificar criterios, se dividieron los participantes en cuatro grupos para las posteriores entrevistas con los agricultores. A pesar de que se habia tratado de programar la presencia de un lider de la comunidad para ayudar a conseguir los candidatos para entrevistar, en muchos casos esto no result6 y los grupos tuvieron que buscar individuos en sus campos para proceder con las entrevistas.Cada tarde despues de las entrevistas el grupo completo se reumo para discutir los resultados de las encuestas del dia. Con estas discusiones se prepar6 un resumen de las entrevistas, ademas de identificar aspectos del sistema de producci6n del agricultor que requerian de mayor clarificaci6n.Los puntos que requerian clarificaci6n se enfatizaron en las encuestas de los dias siguientes. Finalmente se prepar6 un listado de los problemas identificados por los agricultores o los entrevistadores durante el dia. Esto form6 la base para la discusi6n final de los problemas en el area triguera del Departamento de Cochabamba.Durante la semana se entrevistaron un total de 55 agricultores. Ademas en cada campo se hizo un estimado del rendimiento y se tomaron notas sobre la variabilidad del cultivo, pureza varietal, poblaci6n de plantas y la pendiente (Anexo 2), ademas de los problemas evidentes. Tambien se tom6 una muestra del suelo de la capa superior (0 a 20 cm.) en cada lote para el analisis de las propiedades quimicas del lote, y otra muestra en un area cercana que no estaba sujeta a la agricultura. (Anexos 3 y 4).Clim a El area triguera de Cochabamba se situa entre los altitudes de 2500 y 3400 msnm. Las diferencias de altitud y de la geografia accidentada tienen . un efecto marcado sobre el clima de una localidad, definiendo principalmente la precipitaci6n pluvial y la temperatura, incluyendo la frecuencia y severidad de las heladas.  Figura 3. Precipitaci6n anual en la localidad de San Benito, Cochabamba (Valle Alto), mostrando la alta variabilidad de las lluvias. Altitud 2730 msnm.En general la zona tiene un clima templado, monz6nica, semiseco con lluvias concentradas en los meses de noviembre a marzo (Figura 2). La precipitaci6n anual en diferentes localidades en la zona varia desde aproximadamente 350 mm hasta mas que 700 mm. en algunas de las zonas de altura. La variabilidad en precipitaci6n anual es alta (Figura 3 ). La temperatura media anual varia entre l 5°C y 11°c, y toda la zona puede ser afectada por heladas, aunque la fecha probable de inicio de las heladas se adelanta en las alturas. Los valles cerrados son mas propensos al daiio por heladas.Los suelos de la zona son principalmente Typic y Lithic ustorthents y haplustalfs, con presencia de ustifluvents en los valles. El analisis quimico de las muestras de suelo tomados durante la encuesta (Anexos 3 y 4) muestran que en general el suelo tiene un contenido bajo de materia organica y nutrient es.En general, los agricultores de la zona clasifican su suelo como:A pesar de esto, parece que estas clasificaciones son relativas, ya que en zonas mas arenosas como la region de Anzaldo, los suelos arenosos-limosos tambien se clasifican como lama.La pedregosidad mayoria de los pedregosidad.es un factor importante en suelos campos en ladera presentaban con pendientes, y la un alto grado de La argamasa, una capa densa, de grosor y profundidad variable, clasificada como un fragipan en el sistema de FAO, es un factor importante en la mayoria de las zonas de ladera. Este fragipan tiene diferentes grados de descomposici6n. A veces los agricultores lo Haman \"Llink'i\".Hay dos fuentes de agua de riego en la zona. \"Aguas claras\" de rios o pozos, las cuales son mas confiables pero mas escasas, mientras que las \"aguas turbias\", que provienen de corrientes ocasionales en los rios cuando llueve suficientemente en las alturas, son menos confiables, pero mas abundantes.Mucha del area plana esta sujeta al riego de una de estas dos fuentes, y, ocasionalmente los campos con pendiente al !ado de rios perennes tambien estan sujetos a riego con aguas claras. La cantidad y seguridad del agua tiene un efecto marcado en los cultivos y las rotaciones usadas por Ios agricultores.Los principales cultivos en las zonas encuestadas fueron (en orden de importancia).Menores: Trigo Maiz Papa Cebada Arveja Linaza Haba La importancia relativa de los tres cultivos principales (trigo, maiz y papa) parece depender de factores de altura sobre el nivel de! mar (temperatura) y disponibilidad de humedad, segim el esquema presentado en la Figura 4. La cebada tiende a adquirir mayor importancia en las areas donde hay mas riesgo de helada ( como el fondo del valle en Juntutuyo, Arani). Las areas dedicadas a leguminosas generalmente son pequeiias comparadas con las areas dedicadas a los tres cultivos principales. Las leguminosas son para autoconsumo aunque se vieron algunos campos relativamente grandes de arveja, lo cual implica una comercializaci6n en algunos casos. Figura 4. El efecto de la altitud sobre el nivel de! mar, precipitaci6n y disponibilidad de riego sobre los cultivos sembrados en los va11es de Cochabamba.Usos de trigo Los agricultores, en general, usan al trigo para el autoconsumo y venta, ademas de guardar su semiHa para el siguiente aiio. Despues de la cosecha almacenan el grano y van vendiendolo durante el aiio seg{Jn sus necesidades. Dependiendo de! area cosechada y su rendimiento, la cantidad de grano vendida puede ser mayor que la utilizada para el consumo de la familia, pero el autoconsumo es todavia la prirnera prioridad de! productor. Otra ventaja de guardar el grano y no venderlo todo a la cosecha es que sube el precio en el mercado durante el resto del aiio. Una excepci6n a esta generalidad se encontr6 en Azul K'ocha, Provincia Carrasco, donde un agricultor habia sembrado la variedad Agua Dulce. Su cosecha se iba a vender para semilla a Santa Cruz en su totalidad, sin guardar grano para el consumo.Las rotaciones estan supeditadas a las condiciones ambientales como se demuestra en la Figura 4. Dentro de todos estos ambientes, menos el ambiente 4 (menor que 3000 msnm, con precipitaci6n anual mayor que 500 mm, y riego suficiente), hay un cierto porcentaje de! terreno dejado en descanso por uno o dos ai'ios. La duraci6n de! descanso esta disminuyendo debido a las presiones de! minifundio. Donde un agricultor antes dejaba sus campos en descanso por 5 a 8 ai'ios, hoy en dia, sus hijos, con menos tierra por familia, solo pueden dejar la tierra en descanso por I a 2 ai'ios.En el ambiente I, representado por areas de Culpani y Villa Serrano, las rotaciones encontradas, en orden de importancia, fueron las siguientes: Las diferencias entre las rotaciones usadas fueron debidas a: a) El numero de cultivos seguidos de la papa (Dos en varias instancias en Culpani, uno solo en los demas casos. Culpani tiene suelos mas recientemente abiertos a la agricultura). b) La duraci6n de descanso. Generalmente de un ai'io, aunque en Culpani bubo un caso donde el agricultor no descansa la tierra, y tres casos en Villa Serrano donde descansan la tierra por dos ai'ios consecutivos.c) La presencia de cebada en 3 casos en Villa Serrano. En general cebada entra en las areas con mas riesgo de heladas. Las rotaciones encontradas, en orden de importancia, fueron las siguientes:Ambientes 2 y 5 representados por la region de Anzaldo (sin riego) y las areas sin riego del Valle Alto (Huasa Rancho, Pampa Khasi y Toko) son areas relativamente secas con una precipitacion anual menor a 500 mm. El t'.mico cultivo extensivo en estas areas es el trigo, solo variando la duracion del descanso. Las dos secuencias encontradas fueron:Las rotaciones encontradas en el ambiente 3 (Azul K'ocha, Pilancho y las partes de Qhopi sin riego) fueron muy variables. Esto probablemente se debe a las apreciaciones, de la probabilidad de precipitacion por parte del agricultor. Mientras mayor es la probabilidad de precipitacion, mayor es el area sembrada bajo papa y maiz. La papa y el maiz son los principales cultivos en terminos de insumos. Se encontraron las siguientes rotaciones:Azul K'ocha -Ambiente 3 Pilancho -Ambiente 3 I caso -Probablemente Ambiente 5En las areas regadas con aguas turbias en el Valle Alto de Cochabamba, CAmbiente 4) las rotaciones que usa el agricultor dependen de su disponibilidad de agua. Si tiene suficiente agua para toda su propiedad siembra solamente maiz y papa. Si el agua no es suficiente, siembra maiz y papa en la extension que sabe que puede regar, y trigo en el resto. Si eventualmente sobra agua en algiln momento durante el ciclo, entonces puede dar un poco de riego al trigo. El riego es por inundaci6n y generalmente bastante variable debido a la falta de nivelaci6n de los lotes. A la vez, las aguas turbias llevan sedimentos que probablemente tienen un efecto muy positivo sobre la fertilidad de estos suelos.Animal es Practicamente todos los agricultores tienen animales. En orden de importancia estos son bovinos, ovinos y equinos (burros) con presencia tambien de porcinos y aves. No se logr6 establecer con certeza los criterios que usa el agricultor para detenninar la prioridad de los bovinos sobre los ovinos. Generalmente hay mas ovinos que bovinos, pero los ultimos son mas importantes en la producci6n de estiercol, y son necesarios para tracci6n.En general los numeros de animales estan decayendo. Los tractores estan reemplazando a los bueyes, y habia referencias de que el numero de ovinos se esta reduciendo por falta de area de pastoreo, como efecto de! avance de! minifundio, ta! como es el caso de! descanso ( que provee buena parte de! pastoreo ). Esta reducci6n en el numero de animales tiene importancia por la reducci6n que implica en la disponibilidad de estiercol.El estiercol se usa principalmente en la papa, y a veces en el maiz. Nadie aplica estiercol al trigo. En general, hay una falta de estiercol, la cual es mas evidente en ambientes donde se siembra papa y maiz en forma extensiva. En estas areas es comun la compra de estiercol vacuno o avicola.En el Valle Alto se usa solo estiercol en la papa, dado que existe la creencia de que el fertilizante ( abono quimico) da un olor feo a la papa. A pesar de esto, en Culpani los agricultores solo usan estiercol en los terrenos cercanos a la casa, y fertilizante quimico en campos mas alejados. Esta diferencia se debe al destino de la papa -todo para consumo en el Valle Alto y una buena proporci6n para comercio en Culpani. El estiercol es preferido al abono quimico porque tiene ademas mayor efecto residual, y los agricultores manifiestan que el mejor trigo siempre es el que viene despues de la papa fertilizada con abono animal.El trigo se corta y se lleva fuera del campo para ser trillado. Despues de la trilla, la paja se usa principalmente como alimento animal (forraje), aunque en menor grado, se usa para la elaboraci6n de adobes y el techado de casas. Hubo casos aislados donde la paja de trigo fue vendida, quemada, incorporada o usada en trueque para alquilar la yunta.El rastrojo de trigo, la cual se conforma de las hojas y bases de tallos, se queda en el campo despues de la cosecha y es pastoreado, normalmente por ovejas. En general el pastoreo es libre: cualquiera puede pastorear sus animales en cualquier terreno.El maiz se corta al ras del suelo, asi que no hay rastrojo de este cultivo. La \"chala\" es usada en su totalidad como alimento animal, o en la finca, o vendida para tal uso. El rastrojo de la papa se desintegra rapidamente, y deja pocos residuos.Preparacion del terreno La preparaci6n de la tierra para la siembra de trigo depende de la fuente de tracci6n, animal o tractor, y del cultivo anterior. Dentro de las areas estudiadas, hay diferencias en la disponibilidad de tractores. En el Valle Alto hay mas disponibilidad de tractores, y todos los agricultores entrevistados en las Provincias de Jordan y Esteban Arce (Valle Alto) preparan la tierra usando tractores, mientras que en las regiones de Anzaldo y Villa Serrano (las mas alejadas de la ciudad de Cochabamba) todos los entrevistados utilizan tracci6n animal (bueyes) para la preparaci6n de la tierra. Tambien el uso de tractores esta confinado a areas con menor pendiente (menor que 6%), aunque agricultores con pendientes mayores a esta mostraban interes en usar tractores. En general los agricultores consideran que el uso de! tractor va en aumento. En las areas alejadas de Cochabamba hay demanda para arrendar tractores pero tambien hay escasez de estos. La preparaci6n de! terreno para la siembra de trigo es similar para los dos sistemas de tracci6n. Esto consiste en una pasada de! arado, una rastrada, la siembra, y la tapada. Cuando se emplea tracci6n motriz se usa un arado de discos para la preparaci6n inicial y una rastra de discos para la rastrada y la tapada. Con tracci6n animal todas las labranzas se hacen con un arado de pala. En este caso la preparaci6n inicial se llama \"la rayada\", y la segunda \"la cruzada\".Como la cosecha de la papa involucra una remoci6n marcada de! suelo, despues de este cultivo no hay necesidad de tanta preparaci6n de! suelo y hay una reducci6n en la labranza. En los sistemas mecanizados se omite la rastrada y en los sistemas con tracci6n animal se omite \"la cruzada\". En Villa Serrano, donde todo el trigo se siembra despues de papa, no hay una preparaci6n de la tierra. Se siembra sobre el campo cosechado y se hace la tapada con yunta.Hay sistemas mixtos donde la preparaci6n se hace con una fuente de tracci6n y la tapada con otra. En la Provincia Jordan, todos Ios entrevistados preparaban con tractor pero tapaban con yunta, debido a la escasez de tractores en el momento oportuno para la siembra. En Culpani habia casos de preparaci6n con yunta, y tapado con tractor y rastra de discos lo cual fue hecho en favor de la pendiente en un lote con una pendiente marcada (26% ). Esto resalta un problema con el uso de tractores en terrenos con pendientes marcadas, dado que el tractor no tiene Ia estabilidad para poder trabajar cruzando la pendiente.La variedad de trigo duro ( T. durum) \"Mexico\" es la mas cultivada en Cochabamba. Esta variedad es de porte alto, y se considera tradicional (es de procedencia desconocida y cultivada desde hace mucho tiempo ). Su popularidad se debe principalmente a su grano grande la cual la hace adecuado para varios platos de consumo local. Esta variedad, y otras similares como Russel y Barba Negra, tienen un precio mucho mayor ( aproximadamente doble) que el trigo harinero o trigo duro con grano mas pequeii.o en el mercado local. En general hay muy poca area sembrada (30%) con las variedades mejoradas (Totora 80, Tarata 80 y Agua Dulce) y no se encontro ninglin caso donde se sembrara la nueva variedad de trigo duro, San Martin, de reciente liberacion.Hubo dos areas que mostraron un patron de variedades diferente a lo expuesto anteriormente. En Villa Serrano, donde hay mas riesgo de heladas tempranas, la variedad principal es otra variedad tradicional de porte alto, Coposo, un trigo harinero mas precoz que Mexico que logra escapar a las heladas. A la vez, varios agricultores en esta region prefieren Tarata 80 porque es mas precoz que Coposo, aunque produce menos paja.En la Provincia Carrasco, Totora 80 es la variedad mas difundida. Esto parece ser debido al trabajo de varias ONG's en la region impulsando el uso de tecnologia mejorada. Se encontro un agricultor en el area sembrando la variedad Agua Dulce para venderla como semilla a Santa Cruz. Tambien en la region de Anzaldo habian dos agricultores que sembraron Agua Dulce para la produccion de semilla para Santa Cruz.En el Cuadro I aparece una lista de las variedades reportadas y encontradas. Las reportadas son variedades a las cuales se hicieron referenda uno o mas agricultores, pero que estaban sembradas en lotes que no fueron visitados. La semilla normalmente es guardada por el propio agricultor, aunque ocasionalmente la compra en el mercado local (de otro agricultor) cuando no tiene suficiente o su semilla esta mezclada. A la vez, el agricultor guarda su mejor grano para semilla y en algunos casos hace una limpieza parcial de su campo para obtener semilla mas pura. A pesar de esto, en general los campos visitados presentaban una proporci6n considerable de mezcla varietal.Cuadro 1. Lista de las variedades reportadas por los agricultores y la frecuencia en que fueron encontradas en los lotes observados. t Tambien llamado Maja Barrientos por algunos productores.No hay tratamiento de la semilla con insecticidas o fungicidas, excepto en el caso de algunos de los productores que producen semilla para Santa Cruz. En este caso los agricultores reciben semilla tratada del CIA T u otra fuente organizadora.Metodo de Siembra y Cantidad de Semilla Todo el trigo se siembra al voleo. Aunque los encuestadores notaron bajas poblaciones en la mayoria de los lotes visitados, el promedio de la cantidad de semilla usada es de 103 kg.Iha 1 con un rango de 64 a 165 kg/ha. Cincuenta por ciento de los agricultores usan entre 90 y 110 kg.Iha, y no habia una raz6n clara que explicara porque un agricultor siembra mils o menos semilla. En la Provincia Jordan, el promedio de uso de semilla fue mas alto que en las otras zonas (121 kg/ha vs. 99 kg/ha). No entendemos el porque de esta diferencia.La mayoria de los agricultores no fertilizan ni aplican estiercol al trigo. A pesar de esto, en la Provincia Carrasco el uso de fertilizante es comun y 90% de los agricultores fertilizan, probablemente por la influencia de las ONG's, especialmente el INEDER y APT (Asociaci6n de Productores de Trigo) que trabajan en la zona. En la zona de Anzaldo, Provincia Esteban Arce, tambien se encontr6 a tres agricultores que fertilizan el trigo, dos porque sembraron Agua Dulce para producci6n de sernilla, y el otro que experiment6 este aiio con fertilizante en la variedad \"Mexico\".En los casos donde se fertiliza el trigo, todo el fertilizante es aplicado al voleo en el momento de la siembra. La aplicaci6n mas comun es de 100 kg.Iha de 18-46-0 (9 de los 18 agricultores que fertilizan) combinado con urea (50 a 100 kg/ha en 6 de estos casos). Este nivel de fertilizaci6n (41-46-0) concuerda con la recomendaci6n general del Programa de Trigo y Cereales Menores de IBTA que es de 40-40-0. Otros agricultores aplican menos, 18-46-0 (50-75 kg/ha), rnientras que 3 de los agricultores aplican cantidades infimas y/o mezclas muy diferentes. Donde se aplica urea la mayoria lo aplica en la siembra, aunque en algunos casos se aplica en cobertura.El metodo principal de control de malezas es el manual, y la mayoria de los agricultores utilizan las malezas arrancadas como forraje.El control quirnico es comun en la Provincia Carrasco, igual que el uso de variedades sernienanas mejoradas. Nuevamente, esto probablemente representa la influencia de los programas de extension, promoci6n y difusi6n de las ONG's que trabajan en la zona. De los agricultores entrevistados en esta area, 60% usan control quirnico de malezas, aunque la mayoria tambien hacen una limpieza manual despues. Todos menos dos de los agricultores utilizan 2,4-D, y la mayoria dosifican 1.0 I/ha de producto comercial (rango 0.4 a 2.0 I/ha). En la parte alta de Culpani, dos agricultores usan Sencor para el control de Spergula arvensis, seglin la recomendaci6n de IBTA, aunque uno de estos agricultores habia hecho tres aplicaciones. Esta maleza fue el principal problema observado tambien en Azul K'ocha y Qhopi, y en menos proporci6n en el area de Pilancho.Los dos agricultores en la region de Anzaldo que estaban multiplicando la variedad Agua Dulce para venderla como semilla tambien emplearon 2,4-D (46% i.a.) con una dosis de 0.7 a 1.0 I/ha de producto comercial.Se encontr6 tambien que los agricultores de Huasa Rancho, Esteban Arce, usan mas control quimico que manual. Los encuestadores no lograron entender como se inici6 esta practica, pero es probable que fue por medio de una ONG, CIAPROT, que oper6 anteriormente en la zona. Los agricultores en esta region desconocian el producto (seguramente 2,4-D) que habian usado, y no tenian claro la epoca en que se debe aplicarlo. Las malezas que no controla este producto, principalmente una especie llamada localmente \"Nabo Americano\", no son arrancadas para forraje debido a que no son apetecibles a los animales.Todos los agricultores que usan control quimico lo hacen con mochilas. La dosis expresada por ellos normalmente esta en terminos de c.c./20 litros, el volumen de la mochila, dejando muchas posibilidades de variabilidad en la dosis aplicada por hectarea.Unos pocos agricultores entrevistados hablaron de un control de malezas con labranza, postergando la fecha de siembra para que las malezas nazcan con las primeras lluvias, seguido por una labranza para matar estas y finalmente la siembra con las siguientes lluvias. Esta practica se vio que fue efectiva en el control de malezas, igual que en otros paises, pero se tendria que analizar bien el balance entre el beneficio debido al control contra las desventajas de la humedad perdida frente al retraso en la fecha de siembra.En general las poblaciones de nialezas observadas en los campos fueron bajas, aunque no se pudo establecer si esto fue debido a: un control adecuado, poblaciones bajas iniciales, o el efecto del ciclo seco. De todos modos el grupo tecnico estim6 que las malezas afectan un 50% del area y que reducen el rendimiento en general en un 15% basado en ensayos en campos de agricultores. Una Iista de las principales malezas encontradas aparece en el Cuadro 2. En este Cuadro se ha tratado de mostrar las malezas mas importantes en las diferentes zonas, aunque la variabilidad de campo a campo fue en ocasiones importante.Cuadro 2. Malezas presentes y su grado de importancia en seis areas de Cochabamba. lnsectos El principal problema de insectos en la region es de hormigas cortadoras, que cortan todas las plantas alrededor de sus nidos, dejando un circulo sin plantas de 4 a 5 metros de diametro. Este problema ocurre en las areas mas bajas y no se presenta en areas regadas, asi que las areas mas afectadas fueron Azul K'ocha y Pilancho en la Provincia Carrasco, y las areas no regadas alrededor de Toko y Huasa Rancho (Valle Alto). La mayoria de los agricultores que tienen este problema controlan las honnigas espolvoreando Folidol al nido.Pocos agricultores mencionaron a los pulgones como un problema, y los entrevistadores vieron poca evidencia de ellos. Parece que son mas frecuentes en las zonas mils altas de Anzaldo y Villa Serrano.Ademas, con baja frecuencia se hablo de problemas de otros insectos, como barrenadores (Azul K'ocha) y \"gusano gris\" (Anzaldo).El sondeo se hizo cuando el cultivo estaba cerca a la cosecha, asi que fue dificil apreciar las enfermedades. A la vez parece que no hubo muchos problemas fitosanitarios en este ciclo debido a las condiciones secas.Ningiin agricultor usa el control quimico de enfermedades, aim en ailos mas humedos cuando hay mas presencia de roya de la hoja (Puccinia recondita), roya amarilla (Puccinia striiformis) roya del tallo (Puccinia graminis), Septoria y otros manchas foliares. La Roya amarilla es en general el problema fitopatologico mas importante que tienen los agricultores. Esta afecta principalmente a las areas mas altas como Anzaldo, Villa Serrano y Culpani, aunque en algunos ailos tambien afecta variedades susceptibles, como Mexico y Australiano, en el Valle Alto. lnvestigadores con experiencia en la region estiman que la roya amarilla es grave en un I 0 a 20% de los ailos. En estos ailos los agricultores dicen que pueden perder hasta un I 00% de su cosecha.En la zona de Anzaldo la mayoria de los agricultores tenian carbon ( Ustilago sp.) en sus campos, aunque en niveles bajos que parecen no afectar el rendimiento.Algunos agricultores de la Provincia Carrasco mencionaron la enferrnedad de \"Huariakasa\" como un problema ocasional. El sintoma de esta es clorosis en las puntas de las hojas. Seglin la experiencia de los investigadores, probablemente esta enferrnedad no es causada por un pat6geno, sino mas bien por condiciones climaticas. Podria ser un desorden fisiol6gico asociado con bajas temperaturas.La presencia de! acame fue infima en la region, y solo en Punata se observ6 acame en un campo sembrado con trigo Mexico, sembrado despues de papa. Los agricultores mencionaron que esta es una raz6n por la que se debe sembrar maiz despues de papa, y no trigo. Tambien si se siembra trigo despues de papa, y luego maiz, no queda suficiente fertilidad para el maiz.La presencia de cebada en la zona fue muy baja, y solo en el area de Villa Serrano se encontr6 una cantidad apreciable de este cultivo. Esta tambien es la zona mas alta y con mas problemas de helada ( debido a su fisiografia) entre las areas visitadas. Dentro de esta zona habia mas cebada en el area de Juntutuyo, donde el valle esta cerrado, que en Carmen Pampa, donde el aire fiio puede drenar hacia el Valle Alto.Los agricultores de esta zona manifestaron que la cebada rinde igual que el trigo, pero que el precio es mas bajo. Entre los beneficios que da la cebada es que se siembra un poco mas tarde que el trigo, ( 15 a 20 dias ), sembrandola a finales de diciembre a principios de enero, ademas que la cebada macolla bien, y no necesita un control de malezas.Toda la cosecha de trigo y cebada en la zona se realiza en forma manual. Despues de la cosecha se carga el cereal a una era donde se le trilla. Cuando hay mucho trigo, se trilla en la era usando un tractor, pero cuando hay poco se usan animales, normalmente caballos o bueyes. En general el uso de tractores para la trilla preva!ece, excepto en el area de Anzaldo donde todos los agricultores usan animales.Hay unas pocas trilladoras en la region, todas bajo el cargo de las ONG. En Azul K'ocha la trilladora de APT tiene buena aceptacion, pero 2 de las 3 maquinas de CIAPROT en la Provincia Jordan no funcionan y en Anzaldo la trilladora de CESA T no es popular porque dicen que parte el granoprobablemente un problema de calibracionCada dia despues de las encuestas y la discusion correspondiente se formulo un listado de los principales problemas observados. Al final del sondeo se hizo un listado de todos los problemas que habian surgido en los resumenes diaries. (Cuadro 3). Los problemas se clasificaron en dos grupos, los relacionados con productividad y los relacionados con sostenibilidad. Erosion fue el unico problema relacionado con sostenibilidad y como tal se le dio un trato diferente. Esto se reflejo en el alto grado de reduccion en la productividad que se le dio (100%), ya que, de continuar este problema a future, una gran proporcion (65%) del area de produccion se veria en series problemas de desaparecer. Finalmente, se dio a cada problema un peso basado en su frecuencia (en area y aftos) y el efecto previsto ( c de experiencia) sobre productividad (Cuadro 4). En este ejercicio se tomo nota de que las estimaciones del area afectada y la frecuencia de cada problema fueron de necesidad, subjetivas, pero responden a la experiencia de los tecnicos, y estan sujetas a corregirse con mayores datos. Mezclas puedan reducir el valor de! grano en el mercado especialmente en trigos duros.3. Estres hidrico. La sequia reduce el rendirniento.4. Competencia con malezas de hoja ancha. de especies resistentes a herbicidas.5. Competencia con malezas de hoja angosta.6. Poblaciones bajas de plantas reducen rendimientos.7. Desgrane por viento. Rendirniento perdido.8. Desgrane por granizo. 9. Erosion. La reducci6n en la capa arable reduce el rendirniento y terminara con la agricultura.10. T oxicidad de aluminio reduce el rendirniento 11. Heladas bajan el rendirniento.12. Variedades comunes tienen bajo potencial de rendirniento.Definici6n basada en: Observaci6n, experiencia, agricultor.Experiencia, agricultor.Agricultor, observaci6n, experiencia.Agricultor, observaci6n, experiencia Agricultor, observaci6n.Agricultor, experiencia.Agricultor, observaci6n.Agricultor, observaci6n, experiencia.Observaci6n, experiencia.Agricultor.Finalmente el grupo construy6 diagramas de flujo de las causas de 5 de los 6 principales problemas observados (Figuras 5 al 9). No se muestra un analisis de las causas del problema de variedades de trigo duro con mas alto potencial de rendimiento, dado que la \\'.mica soluci6n es la obtenci6n de nuevas variedades por medio del fitomejoramiento.En la preparaci6n de las Figuras se ha usado el protocolo mostrado abajo para distinguir entre problema y causas. Con frecuencia se encut::ntra que las causas de diferentes problemas son comunes, y en este caso se indica esto en la figura ( caja rayada) y solamente se demuestra todas las causas secundarias de esto en la primera figura donde ocurre. Tambien se demuestra sombreado las causas que el grupo ma1 c6 co mo oportunidades para investigaci6n.Cuadro 4. Estimado de Perdidas de Productividad Anual Departamental (PP AD) con los problemas identificados. La etapa final de! analisis de este sondeo fue la discusi6n de posibles soluciones a las causas de problemas identificados y la programaci6n de investigaci6n y transferencia de tecnologia basado en los resultados del mismo. Esta etapa final se llev6 a cabo durante la reunion de planificaci6n del Programa de Trigo y Cereales Menores en Cochabamba en junio de 1994. La utilizaci6n de este analisis de los problemas que limitan la rentabilidad del cultivo de trigo en Cochabamba, y las causas de estos problemas no esta confinada a un solo ciclo, y los resultados de la encuesta presentados podran ser utilizados en el futuro hasta que existan cambios importantes en las practicas y circunstancias de los productores que requieran de un nuevo sondeo. A pesar de esto, la etapa de diagnosis de los problemas en los campos de los agricultores es un proceso continuo, y los resultados de este sondeo deben ser enriquecidos constantemente por investigadores y extensionistas basados en sus observaciones en el campo y sus conversaciones con los productores.• .SiClllf>rM ~ PftldimotJi..,.~ .....    ","tokenCount":"5809"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b8ee46410c5ac1fbdc5954cc354da39e","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/94dbd473-cfd7-4592-a666-a0d192201b31/retrieve","id":"-1329982583"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"cc8a5e50-ec7f-4095-92b4-e5c565b56f42","pagecount":"88","content":"The International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI) is an independent international scientific organization that seeks to improve the well-being of present and future generations of people by enhancing conservation and the deployment of agricultural biodiversity on farms and in forests. It is one of 15 Future Harvest Centres supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), an association of public and private members who support efforts to mobilize cutting-edge science to reduce hunger and poverty, improve human nutrition and health, and protect the environment. IPGRI has its headquarters in Maccarese, near Rome, Italy, with offices in more than 20 other countries worldwide. The Institute operates through four programmes: Diversity for Livelihoods, Understanding and Managing Biodiversity, Global Partnerships, and Improving Livelihoods in Commodity-based Systems.The international status of IPGRI is conferred under an Establishment Agreement which, by January 2006, had been signed by the Governments of Algeria,The European Cooperative Programme for Plant Genetic Resources Networks (ECP/GR) is structured into six crop-specific networks (Cereals; Fruit; Forages; Oil and Protein Crops; Sugar, Starch and Fibre Crops; Vegetables and Medicinal and Aromatic Plants), and three thematic networks (Documentation and Information; Inter-regional Cooperation; In situ and On-farm Conservation).Each Network is guided by a Network Coordinating Group (NCG) composed of the Working Group or Task Force leaders plus a number of other co-opted Network members.This meeting of the NCGs' members was scheduled by the ECP/GR Steering Committee as part of the activities of ECP/GR in its Phase VII (2004VII ( -2008)); it is the only regular meeting planned in order to facilitate fulfilment of the NCGs' responsibilities and delivery of the requested outputs, and is therefore an important step in the preparation of the upcoming Mid-Term Meeting of the ECP/GR Steering Committee, to be held in September 2006.The meeting was attended by a total of 47 participants (37 NCG members, 4 observers and 6 IPGRI staff). The only Network which was not represented at this meeting was the Oil and Protein Crops. 1Frank Begemann, Head of the Information and Coordination Centre for Biological Diversity, (IBV), who also spoke on behalf of the President of the Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food (Bundesanstalt für Landwirtschaft und Ernährung, BLE), welcomed the participants to the Meeting of the ECP/GR Network Coordinating Groups. He explained that IBV is now a Division of the BLE. The move to its new premises took place on 1 December 2005. He then described the structure of the BLE, the largest agency in the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (Bundesministerium für Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und Verbraucherschutz, BMELV), giving a brief historical review of the development and reorganization of the German institutes leading to the creation of the BLE in 1995.BLE's tasks were primarily focused on market intervention and import/export. They have been extended to cover new fields of activities: acting as the executive agency for BMELV project funding; dealing with new areas, such as rural development, organic farming, food quality and consumer needs, agricultural statistics/monitoring (i.e. participation in international monitoring/control of fish), and most recently (1 Dec. 2005) agrobiodiversity.BLE has several other offices scattered in Germany.After this introduction and before proceeding with the meeting, F. Begemann wished to share with the participants the sad news he had just received from Vladimir Pekić (former ECP/GR National Coordinator for Serbia and Montenegro), informing the gathering of the untimely death of Dražen Jelovac, of the Maize Research Institute in Zemun Polje. Among his many roles and responsibilities, Dražen was the manager of the European Maize Central Crop Database since its inception. He also was the SEEDNet representative in the ECP/GR Information and Documentation Network and participated in many ECP/GR, SEEDNet and national activities over the past two decades.The Oil and Protein Crops Network NCG met in Paris on 16-17 May 2006 and provided a detailed report which is included as Appendix I. genetic resources; and the access is on mutually agreed terms and subject to Prior Informed Consent (i.e. it favours bilateral rather than multilateral agreements).Outstanding issues on plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) that were not addressed within the CBD were assigned to FAO as part of Resolution 3 of the Nairobi Final Act, i.e. the CBD covers only genetic resources provided by Contracting Parties that are the countries of origin of such resources or that acquired such resources in accordance with the Convention; the CBD did not address the legal status of ex situ material collected before entrance into force of the CBD, including the germplasm collections maintained by the CGIAR; or the questions on Farmers' Rights.Rationale for special treatment of PGRFA Special treatment is necessary for PGRFA due to their special nature, compared to wild species, to take account of the peculiarities of crop improvement and the breeding process. Important considerations are: the fact that PGRFA diversity is predominantly man-made with a strong dependency on continued human management; the importance of intraspecific diversity for the crop improvement and evolutionary processes; they are frequently the products of improvement work over many generations; and it is usually hard to define the \"origin\" of products and that of their several distinctive properties. Other important considerations are: the interdependency of countries on PGRFA; no country is (entirely) selfsufficient in terms of PGRFA; the importance of PGRFA for food security and to ensure that crops continue to be able to feed the world, including both health and nutrition considerations; and that for this purpose access to a wide range of PGRFA and related information is essential.If the access were only to be possible through bilateral agreements, for instance in the case of rice at IRRI (International Rice Research Institute), with more than 85 000 accessions and germplasm that originated from 111 countries, it would require that any given country would have to negotiate a minimum of 110 contractual agreements to get access to \"total\" diversity; and for all countries to get access to all the material it would require a minimum of 12 210 agreements! Clearly this would lead to high transaction costs and developing countries that are \"poor\" in genetic resources would find themselves with very low negotiating power when trying to establish exchange agreements.The Treaty was negotiated by 164 members of the FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture over a period of almost eight years. The Treaty was adopted by the FAO Conference by consensus in November 2001 and it entered into force on 29 June 2004, 90 days after it was ratified by 40 states. At present, i.e. end of March 2006, 95 States and the European Commission are Parties.The conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their use, in harmony with the CBD, together with its contributions to sustainable agriculture and food security are the main objectives. The Treaty is closely linked to FAO and CBD in attaining its objectives.One of the main achievements of the Treaty is the establishment of a Multilateral System of Access and Benefit-sharing (MLS). The principles of the MLS are:1. The recognition of the sovereign rights of states over their own PGRFA; 2. That the authority to determine access to the PGRFA rests with governments and is subject to national legislation; and 3. In exercising this sovereign right, the contracting parties agreed to establish the MLS.The list of 35 crops/genepools and 34 forages species/genera, included in Annex I of the Treaty, define the scope for the MLS. These species or genera were selected on the basis of their importance for food security and country interdependency; \"only\" PGRFA that are under \"the management and control of the Contracting Parties and in the public domain\" will form part of the MLS; the Contracting Parties invite other holders of Annex I PGRFA (e.g. private sector) to include such material in the MLS; a multilateral agreement on rules regarding facilitated access and benefit-sharing will have to be established; and the MLS also includes genetic resources that are held by the CGIAR and other international institutions.Facilitated access to PGRFA within the MLS Important aspects of the access to PGRFA that are part of the MLS include:• The material being accessed is solely for purpose of utilization and conservation for research, breeding and training for food and agriculture; • Access shall be expeditious, without need for tracking and free of charge;• Access includes all available passport data and other associated non-confidential information; • Recipients shall not claim any \"Intellectual property or other rights that limit facilitated access to the plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, or their genetic parts and components, in the form received from the MLS\"; • Access to PGRFA under development, including by farmers, is at the discretion of the developer during the period of its development; • Access to material with intellectual property protection shall be consistent with relevant international agreements and with relevant national legislation; • Materials accessed under the MLS and conserved shall continue to be made available under agreed terms by the recipients of those PGRs; • Access to in situ material is granted according to national legislation; and • Facilitated access to PGRFA is pursuant to a standard Material Transfer Agreement.As genetic resources that form part of the MLS are \"pooled\", there is no need to negotiate access and benefit-sharing contracts with individual owners. Therefore, the transaction costs will be low and this will benefit the users, that is farmers, plant breeders and researchers, and ultimately also consumers. The benefits arising from the use of the MLS material must be shared in a pooled and multilateral way and it should be noted that facilitated access to genetic resources and information itself is a major benefit.Non-monetary benefits that arise from the use, including commercial use, shall be shared fairly and equitably through the following mechanisms: a) exchange of information (on material, from research and utilization, on technologies); b) access to and transfer of technology, improved varieties and genetic material; assistance in using technologies; favourable access conditions on Intellectual Property-protected technologies; and c) capacitybuilding, including education, facilities and research.The sharing of monetary and other benefits of commercialization is based on the following principles: the involvement of the public and private sectors in collaborative research and technology development activities; if a product that incorporates material from the MLS is commercialized and its availability is restricted to others for further research and breeding, payment of an equitable share of the benefits is due on the basis of a financial mechanism; if a product is available without restriction to others, payment is voluntary; and benefits should flow primarily to farmers in all countries, especially in developing countries, and countries with economies in transition.In order to achieve the aforementioned access and benefit-sharing arrangements it will be indispensable to develop a sMTA as this is at the heart of the MLS. The sMTA will make the conditions of the MLS operational and it will operate at the level of private commercial law (see below, \"Update on the sMTA negotiation process\" by F. Begemann).In the remainder of the presentation, other key provisions of the Treaty such as the Farmers' Rights concept as well as the Supporting Components such as the Global Plan of Action for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of PGRFA (GPA), the agreements with the International Agricultural Centers regarding ex situ collections (about 600 000 accessions), the International Plant Genetic Resources Networks as well as the Global Information System were briefly described. Finally, the financial and institutional provisions of the Treaty were discussed and a schedule of forthcoming important meetings was presented.Following a request to elaborate on what benefits would be returning to farmers, J. Engels explained that this is an objective of the Treaty; however the implementation is delegated to the individual countries.B. Visser specified that the funding strategy of the International Treaty should contain plans for how the funds generated by the Multilateral System (MLS) would be spent and that they should eventually return to farmers in developing countries.F. Begemann gave an update on the standard Material Transfer Agreement (sMTA) negotiation process. He explained that the final agreement is expected to be adopted at the first meeting of the Governing Body of the International Treaty meeting to be held in June 2006 in Madrid, Spain. The adoption of this document, together with the adoption of a Treaty funding strategy and of rules of procedure, will allow the Treaty to become operational. Currently there is an agreed structure for the text of the sMTA and a preparatory meeting of the Contact Group is scheduled for April 2006 in Alnarp, Sweden, with the objective of finalizing the draft text of the sMTA.The sMTA will be applicable to all transactions related to Annex I crops of the ITPGRFA (approximately 60 crops), covering accessions under the management and control of the States and in the public domain. It will not be a contract between States but a private contract between the two signatories of this contract. One of the main issues that still needs to be clarified is the benefit-sharing resulting from ITPGRFA, Art. 13.2d(ii). The Treaty establishes that a recipient who commercializes a product that is a PGRFA and that incorporates material accessed from the Multilateral System (MLS) shall pay to the MLS an equitable share of the benefits arising from commercialization of that product, except whenever such a product is available without restriction to others for further research and breeding. However, a clarification is needed on the actual and practical meaning of some of the words in the text, such as: \"to commercialize\", \"product\", \"to incorporate\" and \"available without restriction\". The European region has reached a common position on some of these points. For example, it is considered that UPOV varieties should not trigger obligatory payments, since they are available without restriction for research and breeding.Once the final sMTA has been endorsed by the Governing Body of the Treaty, the use of the sMTA will be obligatory for all the PGR material under the Multilateral System, as designated by the member countries. A voluntary use of the sMTA for pre-CBD, pre-IT and non-Annex I crops will also be possible. It will be important that Member States clarify under which regime the different parts of their collections will be accessible.In the case of Germany, where the germplasm collections are not under the control of the federal government, letters will be sent to the public genebanks, as well as to the private collections, inviting them to place their germplasm within the Multilateral System.Sónia Dias and Samy Gaiji, IPGRI S. Dias presented an overview of the EURISCO activities undertaken from the beginning of 2005 up to the present, with reflections on future needs and developments in order to meet the various commitments, both at national and international levels.The EURISCO catalogue (http://eurisco.ecpgr.org) currently records data on almost one million accessions maintained ex situ from 29 National Inventories (NIs) representing 33 European countries.During this developmental phase, several actions have been implemented, covering areas such as: monitoring surveys both on the catalogue and on the NIs; implementation of new download capabilities; improvements in data availability and quality in the catalogue, and increase of the uploads of updated data; monitoring visitors and users; public awareness actions resulting in several articles in the IPGRI Newsletter for Europe, fact sheets, posters, and several presentations made at international fora; the EURISCO model was also presented in the Latin American region, and its deployment as AMERISCO is an ongoing process. Other possibilities are also being sought to present and deploy the EURISCO model to other regions.The data flow model is very simple and straightforward. The National Focal Point (NFP) gathers the data at the national level for the NI. Data are then sent to EURISCO through the automatic upload mechanism. NFPs have the entire responsibility for the quantity and quality of passport data they make available. The characterization and evaluation data are channelled through the European Central Crop Databases (ECCDBs) of the ECP/GR. In order to guarantee a better data flow and its completeness at all levels, the ECP/GR Working Groups' members are encouraged to certify that national data are channelled to EURISCO and they are also encouraged to contact their respective National Focal Points and collaborate for data gathering from all available germplasm collections within the country.In the context of the CGIAR-funded Generation Challenge Programme, tests are under way with SINGER (System-wide Information Network for Genetic Resources) data using the BioCASE software; this is one of the examples and opportunities for EURISCO to benefit from ongoing developments in the area of information technology.The international role of EURISCO is to be an essential actor in the implementation of the Global Information System and in particular in the context of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA).In the future, it will be important to continue the support for international commitments (CBD, ITPGRFA, GPA, SEBI2010) and Network commitments (contributing to the Documentation and Information Network, National Inventories, European Central Crop Databases, AEGIS; activities carried out at regional level, inter-regional level, etc.).Future steps considered also include: improvement of data quality and availability; refinement of taxonomic nomenclature/references; new search/download possibilities; raising awareness about the importance of PGR and associated information; increase of standards' harmonization; and linking to other information sources through Web services.To further improve the Catalogue it will be necessary to: identify ECCDBs that need support in the documentation and information area; identify ways to improve the recognition of EURISCO as the European Catalogue for European NIs; support the strengthening of the ECCDBs and NFPs complementary roles; seek funding opportunities for future actions; invest in public awareness on the role and function of EURISCO; consider linkages to other communities (e.g. botanical inventories); meet the commitment on interregional deployment of the EURISCO model.Gisbert Kley, representing the European Seed Association (ESA) (www.euroseeds.org), said that the new ESA was founded in the year 2000, as a central agency regrouping seed industry companies and their professional associations in the EU and European Economic Area.The mission of the ESA is to coordinate and facilitate any type of scientific research on all aspects important for the seed chain, as well as to devote its energy to the development and protection of the seed sector, in particular with regard to the protection of intellectual property, plant breeding and seed production.The association will also be used to keep up with the increasing pace of legislative developments at the EU as well as at the international level. Research in the pre-competitive stage is promoted, currently in cooperation with the EU variety office in Angers, France and the UPOV office in Geneva, Switzerland. The main PGR activities are currently devoted to sMTA negotiations. ESA considers it very important that the sMTA results in a simple and easy-to-handle document. Although public opinion believes that plant breeding is in the hands of big companies, this is only a partial picture, since small and medium-size companies are also very active and they need facilitated access to PGR. G. Kley concluded by saying that plant breeders are interested in all the progress achieved by ECP/GR and that their main need is easily accessible information on characterized genotypes.In reply to a question on whether breeders will consider the possibility of designating germplasm to the MLS, G. Kley said that the working collections of the breeding companies are generally made up of germplasm that had been selected and partially improved and that this is considered to be covered by trade secrecy. Therefore, breeders will be very reluctant to include any of their germplasm in the MLS. However, it was specified that UPOV varieties can be considered a contribution made by the breeders, since these are freely available for research.It was then asked whether breeders could make sure that UPOV varieties, once withdrawn from the official lists, will be formally maintained by the breeders and made available for use. G. Kley replied that varieties which had been withdrawn are often requested by organic farmers for multiplication and trade, but this is not an acceptable use, since withdrawn varieties should not re-enter in the market.The Global Crop Diversity Trust (referred to below as the Trust) is an independent fund established under international law on 21 October 2004. It is a public-private partnership and a joint initiative of FAO and IPGRI acting for the Future Harvest Centres of the CGIAR, the goal of which is to support an efficient and effective approach to the conservation of key crop diversity collections over the long term. It has at its centre an endowment fund with an initial target US$ 260 million, generating approximately US$ 12 million per year for conservation, in perpetuity. The Trust is an essential element of the funding strategy of the International Treaty on PGRFA, and its technical framework is provided by the Global Plan of Action for the Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (GPA).The Trust will support conservation activities, defined as activities essential to maintain and make available an existing collection over the long term such as:• Storage and maintenance (seed, in vitro, field)A first filter for eligibility is provided by the eligibility principles of the Trust. Meeting these principles is the minimum requirement for a collection to be eligible for support:1. PGR included in Annex I or referred to in Article 15.1(b) of the International Treaty 2. PGR accessible under internationally agreed terms of access and benefit sharing provided for in the multilateral system as set out in the International Treaty 3. Each holder of PGRFA commits to its long-term conservation and availability 4. Each recipient of funds from the Trust shall undertake to work in partnership with the aim of developing an efficient and effective regional and global conservation systemThe Trust has foreseen an interim agreement (referred to the Solemn Undertaking for Access) until the recipient country becomes a contracting Party to the International Treaty. This interim agreement should be signed by Official Level (Minister/Government Officer) responsible for PGR, confirming no legal obstacles to the recipient institute fulfilling its undertaking, to ensure that the material will be made available for the purpose of utilization and conservation for research, breeding or training in accordance with the terms and conditions set out in Part IV of the International Treaty.To further define these broad principles, the Trust has developed a set of criteria to be met before a collection will be considered for long-term conservation support. In cases where a collection meets the eligibility principles but is unable to meet all of the eligibility criteria, the Trust will consider providing support for the upgrading and capacity building needed to enable the collection to meet the criteria. In either case the Trust may provide financial support directly to the holder of the collection in question and/or to third party institutions for the provision of specific conservation services.These criteria, and the way in which they are applied, will be kept under review and revised as needed, based on experience. It is proposed that, at least initially, there will be six criteria as follows:1. Links to users: the managers of the crop diversity demonstrate strong links to farmers, breeders, researchers and other users; 2. Importance of the collection: value, uniqueness, range of diversity within the collection and in the wider genepool both ex situ and in situ; the collection is to some extent threatened; 3. Legal status of collection and holder: recognized by country's authority and able to meet eligibility principles of access and benefit-sharing and commitment to long-term conservation; 4. Willingness to collaborate: to act in partnership to achieve a rational system of conservation and intent to share facilities, resources and information; 5. Proven capacity for germplasm conservation and management:• human resources and management systems to maintain crop diversity,• adequate qualified staff,• procedures in place for genebank management, • proper documentation system,• germplasm health,• distribution, etc. 6. Status of storage facilities: facilities are adequate to ensure long-term conservation and conform to agreed scientific and technical standards of management.It is clear that the Trust will only ever be able to make a partial contribution to the total cost of conserving the world's genetic resources for food and agriculture. Grant recipients are also required to contribute financial or other resources to the costs of conserving the collections they hold. Such a counterpart contribution provides a means for recipients to demonstrate their own commitment to long-term conservation -a basic principle of eligibility for support from the Trust.The Global Crop Diversity Trust will support the development, through a series of consultations and studies, of a set of conservation strategies that will guide the allocation of resources to the most important and needy crop diversity collections. The conservation strategies will identify the collections that will be of highest priority for support by the Trust and the appropriate roles for the holders of priority collections as well as for other individuals and institutions concerned with the conservation, regeneration, documentation and distribution of crop diversity. The Trust supports two complementary and mutually reinforcing approaches to identifying and prioritizing eligible collections for upgrading and long-term conservation funding. One approach is to identify key ex situ collections of globally important crops 3 on a region-by-region basis. The other is to prioritize collections on a crop-by-crop basis at the 3 These are identified as those crops appearing on Annex I or in Article 15 of the International Treaty.global level. Both approaches will lead to the definition of strategies for rationalizing conservation.This process will bring together the managers of plant genetic resources and other experts from developing and developed countries to develop and implement the most cost-efficient and effective strategies for ensuring the long-term conservation and availability of the crops that are vital to the world's food security. Such strategies will not only involve the holders of the plant genetic resources, but also other institutions and individuals that can contribute to the conservation of priority crop diversity collections. The process is facilitated by experts and consists of gathering existing information on holdings, supplemented with inventories, as needed. The stakeholders will be consulted through surveys and consultation meetings. The Trust Secretariat, IPGRI and CGIAR Centres and FAO are providing backup.The regional conservation strategies aim at identifying key collections of important Annex I crops identified on a region-by-region basis. They will consist of a collective analysis by holders and experts of needs and the development of models for rationalization and costeffective conservation at regional level. They will facilitate the identification of regional priorities, identify needs for upgrade and capacity, and fund several collections in a single genebank. The following regional strategies are currently under way and all will be completed by mid-2006:• Americas The crop strategies will identify critically important collections on a crop-by-crop basis, and assign priority ranking to them for support by the Trust. They will also identify any gaps in the regional strategies with regard to important plant diversity collections, ensuring that they receive support to deal with the gaps. The approach to developing crop strategies is based on the same philosophy as the regional approach, i.e. it will be largely driven by experts and holders of genetic resources of the crop in question. The process will begin with a preliminary period of research into the state of diversity in the collections of that crop by an expert consultant, with assistance from IPGRI and FAO. Additional experts will then be consulted, as needed, to assist in the prioritization of collections and service providers for funding. In many cases, existing crop networks will be able to mobilize for this purpose; in others, a group of national and international crop experts may need to come together on one or more occasions. They will identify collections to receive conservation support over the long term. The crop strategies currently initiated are for: banana, barley, chickpea, coconut, grass pea, lentil, maize, oats, pigeon pea, potato, rye, rice, sorghum, strawberry, triticale and wheat. The next strategies to be initiated in mid-2006 will be for: beans, cowpea, faba bean, pea and sunflower. All Annex I crop strategies to be initiated and/or completed by end of 2007.The CGIAR Centers are major players in both regional and crop strategy development and their role is mainly in providing background information on crop collections and conservation standards, participating in the stakeholder process to define a rational conservation approach and technical backstopping to Trust grantees. They will also be beneficiaries of long-term funding.The main steps for the development of the crop conservation strategies are the following: • Agree on coordination, facilitation and process for developing the conservation strategy; • Compile existing information on crop collections and fill gaps through surveys;• Consultations with Crop and Regional Networks -feedback on some key questions such as: -Which collections are \"most important\" (size, extent/scope of diversity, wild relatives and other measurements as defined by partners)? -Which collections meet the Trust's eligibility principles? -Are funds required to manage these collections? -What collaborative arrangements will be needed for effective and efficient conservation? -What are the capacity building and upgrading activities needed to support this conservation system? • Development of a draft strategy for efficient and effective conservation of priority collections; • Draft strategy reviewed by the Trust and external experts;• Draft strategy circulated to partners; • Appropriate forum consulted for endorsement;• Final conservation strategy submitted to the Trust.L. Maggioni summarized the Terms of Reference of the Network Coordinating Groups, defined as groups of a maximum of 5-7 people, established within each Network (crop and thematic) and composed of the Working Group or Task Force leaders plus a number of other co-opted Network members. The NCGs are coordinated by a Network Coordinator, selected by the Group among its members and with the task of delivering the NCG outputs to the ECP/GR Secretariat and to the ECP/GR Steering Committee.Responsibilities of the NCGs are to formulate proposals, in consultation with Working Groups (WGs), or in the case of thematic networks other active groups, for the attention of the Steering Committee on WG priorities and activities, following the planning and prioritizing mechanism established by the Steering Committee; they also need to define which of the WGs will remain prioritized during the 5-year Phase, according to the planning and prioritizing mechanism established by the Steering Committee. They are also expected, before the mid-term Steering Committee meeting, to assess in standard format the progress made by the Networks, including progress made and constraints encountered. They need to produce a report reviewing the division of tasks within the Network in the current Phase VII and a proposal for the subsequent Phase VIII, focused on the proposed Working Groups to remain active, the activities to be undertaken and an estimate of the necessary funds. At a later stage, towards the end of this Phase, on the basis of recommendations deriving from the Steering Committee meeting of September 2006, the NCGs will need to assess the progress made by the Networks during the second half of Phase VII and, in consultation with WGs, establish division of work within the Network in the subsequent Phase VIII, with a definition of specific priorities and objectives and of clear, measurable targets, dates for completion and estimates of funding required from ECP/GR, based on funds allocated by the Steering Committee to each Network/WG.Apart from their primary task of monitoring progress and forward planning within Networks, the NCGs were invited to take the opportunity of this meeting in order to reflect on cross-cutting issues and to make proposals for joint actions and problem solving. A document circulated by the Secretariat in advance of the meeting identified a number of cross-cutting issues to be addressed in the areas of Documentation, Sharing responsibilities, In situ/on-farm conservation, Pre-breeding, Public awareness and on the mode of operation of ECP/GR in general. The groups were also reminded that a specific budget for crosscutting issues initiatives was available and that the NCGs were the most appropriate bodies to initiate proposals on the use of these funds (a total of nearly 33 000 euro, of which only around 12 000 had been definitively allocated at the time of this meeting).F. Begemann reported on the activities of the Documentation and Information Network (D&I Network) and current issues related to PGR documentation in Europe.  Some progress has been made in all areas, but there is still much to be done: Regarding EURISCO, the following suggestions were made:• International role of EURISCO Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) developments should be monitored; IPGRI should call a meeting with FAO and ECP/GR Network representatives to reduce duplication of effort; revision of the process of accession data acquisition; create links with Global Crop Diversity Trust and other regions; the ECP/GR Inter-regional Cooperation Network could consider documentation workshops in other regions.ECCDBs should harmonize their structure with EURISCO; ECCDB managers could focus on user-oriented scientific activities (data analysis, tailored services,...); 3-4 ECCDBs should be selected to analyze discrepancies between EURISCO and ECCDB (wheat, forages, etc.); linkage with ECCDBs (including characterization and evaluation data) to be revisited at the EURISCO-Advisory Group meeting (2007, Rome).Further developments of EURISCO are expected to be implemented by the EPGRIS2 project, as detailed below. • Another recent activity of the D&I Network was the participation in the Workshop on \"Inventorying European Cultivated Plant Species\" held in Warsaw, Poland, January 2006. In the absence of H. Knüpffer, Siegfried Harrer (IBV) reported on the major outcomes of the workshop: it was agreed that it was too late to submit a project for the second call for proposals of EU870/2004, and there was a need to identify funding sources; a group was constituted with the responsibility for drafting a proposal. This group is chaired by H. Knüpffer. 5On the issue of the possible future European data structure, L. Maggioni confirmed that IPGRI agrees to the principle of placing in situ and ex situ data under the umbrella of the EURISCO catalogue.Following a question by N. Maxted, F. Begemann confirmed that, regarding the development of in situ descriptors, the contribution made so far by the PGR Forum was acknowledged. Other initiatives are also taking place which are dealing with in situ, including on-farm information. Among these, there is a UNEP-GEF project, as well as a legislative process. The EGRISI project will offer an opportunity to strengthen the links between all these initiatives. K. Tobutt suggested the need to include someone from the In situ and On-farm Conservation NCG into the Documentation and Information NCG. N. Maxted, Coordinator of the In situ and On-farm Conservation NCG, supported this suggestion.P. Freudenthaler noted that the definition of the term \"landraces\" may eventually include the concept of amateur varieties in the European Regulation currently under preparation, although these varieties may be new and are certainly not landraces.F. Begemann remarked that, independently of the final text and definitions, it will be important to keep in mind that the term \"landraces\" will go through a regulatory process, of which the EU countries will need to take account.N. Maxted explained that the objective of this session was the attempt to match Crop Networks' requirements to the In situ and On-farm Conservation Network's workplan. The overall objective was to meet targets and goals of the CBD, GPA, ITPGRFA, GSPC (Global Strategy for Plant Conservation), EPCS (European Plant Conservation Strategy), 2010 Biodiversity Target and SEBI 2010 (Streamlining European Biodiversity Indicators 2010 project).He explained that the In situ and On-farm Conservation Network is focusing on Genetic Reserve Conservation (the location, management and monitoring of genetic diversity in natural wild populations within defined areas designated for active, long-term conservation) and On-Farm Conservation (the sustainable management of genetic diversity of locally developed traditional crop varieties with associated wild and weedy species or forms by farmers within traditional agricultural, horticultural or agri-silvicultural cultivation systems). Achievements of the Genetic Reserve Task Force consisted in the organization of the First International Conference on Crop Wild Relative Conservation and Use held in Agrigento, Sicily, September 2005, the publication of five \"Crop Wild Relative\" bulletins and the production of a \"Genetic Reserve Management\" paper in the IPGRI Technical Bulletin series. The Task Forces' achievements were inter-related with and significantly enhanced by the results of the PGR Forum, which included the production of CWRIS (Crop Wild Relative Information System) and the European CWR Catalogue, from which individual National CWR Inventories could be downloaded. The On-farm Task Force produced a preliminary list of on-farm conservation activities (still to be published) and descriptors and methodologies, produced on a local basis. Planning for the future includes a Genetic Reserve subgroup meeting in September 2007 and the publication of three more \"Crop Wild Relative\" bulletins. The On-farm Task Force will hold two meetings (June 2006 andSeptember 2007) and a Home garden/on-farm conservation definition meeting (date to be confirmed). Moreover, a publication on \"European landrace conservation\" is planned in the IPGRI Technical Bulletin series.The preparation of three projects was mentioned as a result of the activity of the Network: PGR Forum (European Crop Wild Relative Diversity Assessment and Conservation Forum): this was a Thematic Network funded under the EC Framework 5 and completed in November 2005, to provide a European forum, a Network of Excellence, for the assessment of the taxonomic (species) and genetic diversity of European wild crop relatives and develop appropriate methodologies that can be applied to conserve this diversity; ONFARMSAFE (On-farm safeguard of plant genetic resources), submitted under EC 870/2004 call 1, with the objective of sustaining and promoting on-farm conservation of landraces through use, where their current and potential value is greatest in Europe; EGRISI (European Genetic Resources In Situ Inventory) to be submitted under EC 870/2004 call 2, with the objective to inventory European crop wild relatives (CWR) and crop landrace (LR) in situ resources and make the information available via a decentralized, permanent and widely accessible Web-based information system.The Crop Networks' coordinators were asked to give an overview of how they could see the In Situ and On-farm Conservation Network interacting with their Network and about their needs in the in situ context.N. Maxted reported on a message received from H. Knüpffer, specifying that downloading of national data sets from the PGR Forum European CWR Catalogue available via CWRIS would be very important and that there is a need to do gap analysis in order to clarify which material is included inside or outside protected areas.B. Boller said that in situ conservation was very relevant and that the case of forages was very particular, since in situ conservation of forage plants relates to plant communities consisting of many different species of forage plants. These plant communities of permanent grassland were not usually ever sown and they develop under moderate human interference. Forage plants conserved in situ in this way could therefore be considered similar to crop wild relatives. Additionally, in some species like Medicago sativa, on-farm conservation of landraces is also of interest.K. Tobutt said that pear, cherry, plum and grapes are considered native to Europe and landraces exist not only for these crops, but also for apple, apricot, almond and peach. A number of species that are relatives of the fruit crops also grow in Europe.Considering possible interactions between the Fruit Network and the In Situ Network, proposals for the short term were the following:• The Beta WG is interested in conservation reserves and there is a need for a more formalized information flow between networks and agencies at the national level.The European information systems already contain information that can be used for management. Information on the presence of wild species in protected or unprotected areas would be relevant as well as knowledge on how to manage the species in the reserves.It was considered that any information system (such as the ECP/GR databases) should always be developed in collaboration with those who hold the material. L. Frese offered to use Beta as a test case in order to prove whether ideas on in situ conservation developed in the office can be applicable in practice.D. Astley explained that the Network situation is complex, since there are many Working Groups (WGs) with many crop genera. Only some WGs can say that there are endemic crop wild relatives in Europe. In these cases there is interest in the geographical distribution of the species. Increasing interest is also dedicated to on-farm conservation in all the groups and there is increasing awareness of participatory breeding. Most actions are carried out at the national level; nothing is done at the group level. In certain areas collaboration with the In situ and On-farm Conservation Network would be welcome, mainly at the WG level.D. Baričevič added that the MAP WG would welcome collaboration with the In situ and On-farm Conservation Network, since all MAP species considered by the WG are autochthonous and grow in the wild. The WG is developing descriptors for in situ conservation; therefore there is a need to work in collaboration.L. Dotlačil gave an update on the Inter-regional Cooperation Network's activities.The following areas of cooperation had originally been identified, following the circulation of a questionnaire about regional networks' needs and priorities: on-farm/in situ conservation; documentation and information system development; and policy implementation. Inter-regional cooperation activities were subsequently carried out as follows:-Organization of a workshop on information and documentation for African networks (jointly with IPGRI-SSA (Sub-Saharan Africa) and GRENEWECA (Genetic Resources Network for West and Central Africa) in Cotonou, Benin, 2003). The objective was to identify needs and priorities in documentation, training, infrastructure and institutional support, and establish links with the EC-funded project EPGRIS;-Participation of members of SSA networks in the EPGRIS meetings in Lisbon and Alnarp ( 2003); -Organization of a workshop on policies implementation (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2003), jointly with IPGRI-SSA, GRENEWECA and EAPGREN (Eastern Africa Plant Genetics Resources Network). The objectives were to enhance knowledge among genebank managers on the ITPGRFA and the CBD (in particular the Bonn Guidelines); to promote the sharing of experience and views regarding implementation of the new international agreements; to improve transparency on procedures at the national and regional level; to increase capacities among genebank managers to deal with the implementation of the international agreements, in particular issues of access and benefit sharing; to develop mechanisms for interregional collaboration on the implementation of the international agreements. During this workshop, a few priority areas were identified, including the development of national PGR programmes, awareness raising and the new roles for genebanks (documentation of indigenous knowledge, technical support to informal seed systems, germplasm enhancement, etc.). Regional proposals were advanced for a standard MTA and the establishment of a regional genebank or other mechanisms for sharing of responsibilities were taken into consideration.An account was then given of the last meeting of the NCG in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in April 2005. 6 Areas of importance for further collaboration between ECP/GR and other networks were redefined as being: documentation, training, development of GR policies at national as well as institutional levels.Due to the very limited financial resources for network activities, it was pointed out that the Inter-regional Cooperation NCG could only have a facilitating function, through which other ECP/GR Networks and Working Groups could be informed about interests and needs for collaboration from other regions. The regional network coordinators were considered as the key persons in this context and establishing regular information channels was thought to be a first step towards an increased collaboration and stronger partnership. The group therefore agreed that the available funds allocated to the Inter-regional Cooperation Network could be best used if spent on the participation of key persons in relevant meetings. Information that could be shared on a regular basis by the task force with other networks and National Programmes could be the notification of workshops and training opportunities within the identified areas of collaboration.F. Begemann reminded the meeting that the German agency InWent regularly runs training courses and that it is often difficult to find candidates for staff exchanges and training. The ECP/GR Inter-regional Cooperation Network could offer good links and advice on this.He also mentioned that the infrastructure of GRPI (Genetic Resources Policy Initiative) could be used with regard to training in documentation and policy matters. B. Visser reminded us that the Addis Ababa meeting took GRPI into account, and that GRPI works at the national level, while there is interest in looking at the institutional level and clarifying what it means in practice for genebank managers to have a policy in place.N. Maxted mentioned the imminent launching of an EU-funded project called Agro-Forte (\"Agro-fortification: networking on sustainable use of PGR\"), which will deal with the exchange of information and ideas among regional networks.S. Harrer described the PGR arrangements and the National Programme in Germany. Plant breeding research is carried out by the Federal Centre for Breeding Research on Cultivated Plants (BAZ), with a head office in Quedlinburg and various institutes distributed around Germany. In addition to this, research is also carried out at universities, institutes of the Laender and private companies. Ex situ conservation is guaranteed by genebanks and botanical gardens. The main collection is maintained at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), Gatersleben, which includes branch stations at Gross Lüsewitz and Malchow for potato, and for oil and fodder plants, respectively. The BAZ maintains the fruit collection at the Institute of Fruit Breeding (IOZ) in Dresden-Pillnitz and the grapevine collection at the Institute of Grapevine Breeding (IRZ), Siebeldingen. The Land Institute for Crop Husbandry in Forcheim holds the tobacco collection.In situ conservation and on-farm management are carried out in 14 National Parks, 14 Biosphere Reserves, over 80 regional parks and in other protected areas, as well as on farms and in gardens.The National Work Programme on Plant Genetic Resources of Agricultural and Horticultural Crops was formally established in March 2002 and was developed under the leadership of the German Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, with strong involvement of other relevant actors, such as the Federal and Laender governments, research institutions, breeding organizations and non-governmental organizations. The Programme is based on the structure of the Global Plan of Action (GPA).The objectives of the programme are the following: -To maintain the diversity of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) and their wild relatives (in situ and ex situ) for the long term in a cost-efficient and scientifically sound way; -To promote the use of PGR, e.g. through better characterization, evaluation, documentation and pre-breeding; -To use a wider range of agricultural and horticultural (including ornamental) crops in market-oriented and sustainable production; -To promote the conservation and rehabilitation of agricultural and horticultural ecosystems; -To promote greater transparency in the shared responsibilities of the competent authorities at the Federal and Laender levels and among all stakeholders involved; -To exploit synergies from closer cooperation at national and international levels.The supervision of the programme is ensured by an advisory and coordination committee (BeKo), which is supported by thematic working groups.Federal and Laender Governments, Research Institutions, NGOs and the private sector all participate in the implementation of the programme, according to their expertise and available capacities.A national Working Group on ECP/GR has the task of giving advice to the BeKo on crop specific and thematic questions, to \"guide\" the German participation in the ECP/GR, to prepare forthcoming ECP/GR meetings, to report back on the results and to contribute to the further development of ECP/GR. This group is composed of scientists/experts from the following institutions:- Following the German experience, the main elements proposed in order to link ECP/GR Network operations to national programmes consist of: creating a national ECP/GR expert group, with the broad involvement of all stakeholders; establishing a strong linkage between the Networks and the National Programme; and ensuring coordination in the preparation of the participation in ECP/GR meetings, analysis of results and the proposal of recommendations. Exchange of information is also very important, to be conveyed through meetings, email, Internet and Intranet.The AEGIS Project was presented by the project manager, Birgitte Lund. A short background was given on why and how this two-year feasibility study has been funded within the ECP/GR from mid-2004 to mid-2006.The project focuses on how long-term conservation responsibilities can be shared in Europe and it will give recommendations to the ECP/GR Steering Committee for the possible model of \"A European Genebank Integrated System (AEGIS)\". An AEGIS Steering Committee has the strategic oversight function. The technical Project Partners represent 11 countries plus the Nordic countries and the South East European Development Network (SEEDNet). The Project Partners work with four model crops: Allium, Avena, Brassica and Prunus. The project partners will take part in three meetings and each of the crop subgroups is going to prepare a sub-group report to be compiled in a final project report. Alternative models will be assessed and proposals of models for AEGIS will be formulated. Any legal issues and constraints which have so far been identified for development of the system have been raised and taken forward to be resolved.A document \"A Strategic Framework for the Implementation of a European Genebank Integrated System -Discussion Paper\" has been prepared by the Local AEGIS Task Force at IPGRI through a consultative process with the AEGIS Steering Committee and the project partners. The document has also been circulated among the ECP/GR Steering Committee members for their comments: they have subsequently been asked to endorse this document and for their agreement to publish it as an ECP/GR publication. The document describes the operational principles of an integrated genebank system in Europe and the implementation process including the benefits to be obtained with the establishment of such a system.According to this paper, the overall benefits of establishing a European genebank integrated system will be to improve collaboration among European countries for long-term germplasm conservation activities, in order to improve efficiency and quality, reduce redundancy and facilitate access. Such a system will be based on defined and agreed terms and conditions for an AEGIS quality management and monitoring system. The vision for the future is to establish a decentralized genebank, resulting from coordinated operations of the existing genebanks and other collection holdings in Europe. Germplasm, on an accession basis, will be offered to the system by each ECP/GR member country and the respective ECP/GR Crop Working Group will make the decision on whether the accession will be accepted and designated to the system. The ECP/GR Crop Working Groups will be given the responsibility for preparing and coordinating the implementation of crop conservation action plans. This means that the accessions will most often be conserved and maintained in decentralized collections, i.e. in the same locations where they are currently stored. However, the documentation system will be centralized as in the European Central Crop Databases and in EURISCO.To continue the establishment of AEGIS it is necessary that the ECP/GR Steering Committee at their mid-term meeting in September 2006 will formally endorse the recommendations given in the final AEGIS project report. It is then proposed that the ECP/GR member countries will be invited to sign a collective Memorandum of Understanding in which the responsibilities of the countries will be described, so as to continue the process of implementation of AEGIS.Additional information on AEGIS can be found at www.ecpgr.cgiar.org/AEGIS/AEGIS.htm.A possible scenario for how a European Genebank Integrated System (AEGIS) could be imagined in the future was presented by means of a role play projecting the \"ideal\" situation in the conservation and management of plant genetic resources as it could be imagined in 2015, following the successful implementation of AEGIS. The role play involved three participants, playing the parts of a Steering Committee member, a Crop Working Group member, and the ECP/GR Secretariat: Regarding the sustainability of AEGIS, he said that the initial cost (activation energy) to implement the system was provided 60% by the European Union (2007)(2008)(2009)(2010), and 40% by the member countries, covering the following:-Meetings of the Working Groups for coordination and implementation of AEGIS; -Four ECP/GR Steering Committee meetings (for consultation and implementation of AEGIS); -Crop-specific analysis of the databases and identification of AEGIS accessions, complemented with molecular marker analysis for vegetatively propagated crops; -Definition of a model for the establishment of AEGIS crop-based Conservation Quality Systems.He specified that 44 countries have collectively offered (designated) a total of 1.5 million accessions to AEGIS. Subsequently, the Working Groups delegated the particular institution holding the European Database for a specific crop to analyze these offers and to determine which accessions should be considered unique and important and become AEGIS accessions. The criteria for this definition were agreed by the WG on the basis of the Most Appropriate Accession concept. A total of 1 million accessions were accepted by the WGs as part of the AEGIS collection.On the basis of the AEGIS Memorandum of Understanding, the 1 million AEGIS accessions are:-All conserved for the long-term according to quality standards agreed by the corresponding WG; -All safety-duplicated as a black box in a second institution as well as in Svalbard; -All available for utilization for research, breeding and training. They are being distributed according to the terms of the International Treaty sMTA; -All documented with passport data; 75% are characterized, and 15% are evaluated.Data are available from the CCDBs and EURISCO.Regarding the sustainability of the conservation activities, he clarified that all routine conservation costs are carried by the respective holding institutions/countries. The routine management of the Central Database is offered by the lead institution. An AEGIS fund is available, as part of the ECP/GR programme and it is managed by the Working Groups according to their needs, in the framework given by the Steering Committee. It can be used to cover part of the regeneration or characterization costs, etc.The role of the National Coordinator, with a mandate and a budget from the Ministry of Agriculture, is to coordinate the PGR stakeholder community within the country and to undertake the following actions:-Communicating to the ECP/GR Secretariat the country's offers of germplasm accessions for designation to AEGIS; -Agreeing to the final and actual designation of AEGIS accessions for X number of crops, as determined by the Crop Working Group; -Communicating to the ECP/GR Secretariat what else the country can offer to the AEGIS system in terms of equipment and expertise (database management, cryopreservation units, safety-duplication space, regeneration capacity, etc.); -Overseeing implementation of conservation obligations at the national level, as well as compliance with quality standards and with transfer of material; -Reporting to the ECP/GR Steering Committee, of which she/he is a member, on the implementation of AEGIS at national level.The ECP/GR Steering Committee oversees all the operations and functioning of AEGIS, with the following functions:-Discusses the budget and its management; -Monitors the implementation of crop conservation plans; -Discusses problems in the integration of the various elements of AEGIS (effectiveness of quality standards, distribution of tasks throughout European institutions, national level problems requiring regional support, policy and financial issues, relationship with other regions and initiatives); -Delegates coordination activities to the ECP/GR Secretariat.Finally, the agenda for the next Steering Committee meeting was presented, including the following items:-ECP/GR budget for Phase X (AEGIS, Thematic Networks, Secretariat); -EU contribution to AEGIS; -Review of results of the internal review of the AEGIS Quality Standard System; -Proposal from Syldavia to include Newcrop in AEGIS and its offer to provide leading institution, database management and regeneration facilities; -Other business 2. ECP/GR Allium Working Group perspective D. Astley played the role of a Working Group member giving a presentation in 2015, on the 33 rd Anniversary of the Allium Working Group. At this date, 28 ECP/GR member countries collaborate in the Allium Working Group. The European Allium database (EADB) holds data for 13 450 accessions including seed and vegetatively propagated material. The Working Group coordinates two European Integrated Systems reflecting the different technical requirements and Quality Standards for the conservation of seed and vegetative material.The Working Group is structured in two sub-groups, that is the Vegetative Allium and the Seed Allium Networks.The ECP/GR Vegetative Allium Network works with collections of garlic, shallot and wild taxa. Historically garlic was identified as the priority crop and the working routines established were adapted for shallot and some wild taxa.In the case of garlic, 14 countries designated 3406 accessions available to AEGIS. The Allium database was used to identify clonal duplicates historically deposited in institutions as safety-duplicates. After removal of obvious duplicates all remaining accessions (2233) were fingerprinted using standard screening technologies at one of the institutional Molecular Screening Centres sanctioned by the Vegetative Allium subgroup. The fingerprinting identified 1666 accessions as being unique clonal material.Eight institutes collaborate to conserve both short-day and long-day garlic material in cryopreservation following agreed standard protocols.The work is governed by strict technical and quality assurance (QA) protocols. All new accessions are fingerprinted to determine \"uniqueness\" by one of the WG ratified and audited Molecular Screening Centres. All unique accessions are designated as the Most Appropriate Accession in the EADB and by agreement with the national donor. In vitro culture is used to \"clean\" the material to remove viruses. Each accession is cryopreserved as a European Vegetative Accession (EVA) and at least one European Safety-Duplicate (ESD). Currently a total of eight institutions act as cryorepositories for EVA and ESD material. Each institute is audited for QA biennially.Shallot conservation follows this scheme with three institutions acting as European cryorepositories.Wild taxa are more complex to deal with, hence material is still in field collections and only selected accessions are cryopreserved. The structure of the European network for cryopreserved Allium is shown in Fig. 2. The Vegetative Allium Network, including the WG Chair and the EADB manager, acts as the coordinating body for the network. The subgroup holds quarterly Internet video conferences to review workplan progress, characterization schedules and future goals. All partners are responsible for maintaining regular links with their National ECP/GR Coordinator, reporting on progress, technical developments and funding options. An emergency notification system is in place in the event of a resource failure in a national programme. The Allium Network's QA biennial institute audits are carried out by members of the ECP/GR cross-network cryopreservation group as independent experts. National programmes still maintain significant numbers of clonal accessions in the field as conservation/working collections outside of AEGIS.The second sub-group, i.e. the Allium Seed Crop Network has collaborating institutes in 28 ECP/GR member countries functioning as a decentralized system linked by the European Allium Database. A total of 9210 accessions were offered to the AEGIS programme by national programmes and 3010 have been identified as Most Appropriate Accessions for conservation, tagged in the EADB as European Allium Accessions (EAA). Fifteen genebanks currently act as European Allium Repositories for EAA following agreed QA standards. All EAA are safety-duplicated (ESD) in at least one other EA Repository, which is indicated clearly in the European Allium Database. Characterization data and links to evaluation projects are linked to the EAA in the European Allium Database. Failsafe agreements and early warning systems exist, based on ECP/GR bilateral agreements with all national partners. Twelve partner institutions have signed agreements to work as specialist seed regeneration centres for day-length sensitive material.B. Lund played the role of the AEGIS coordinator, giving a presentation on the perspective of the ECP/GR Secretariat in 2015. She described its role and functions in the coordination of AEGIS as follows:• To coordinate the activities carried out in the framework of AEGIS;• To be responsible for the financial management of AEGIS;• To provide support and assistance to the ECP/GR Steering Committee (technical and financial reports), the National ECP/GR Coordinators (during the process of designation of AEGIS accessions), and the Working Groups (facilitating implementation of workplan activities; • To secure overall transparency in the system;• To gather and distribute information (crop reports; workplans; protocols); • To provide links to other regions. She specified that funding sources for AEGIS were the European Union and the European governments. An example of use of these funds consisted of molecular screening and cryopreservation.The Secretariat functions for AEGIS coordination were described as mainly report writing for the EU, the ECP/GR Steering Committee and the European countries. Reports were focused on use of funds, outcome of activities and meetings and general impact of AEGIS on the different partner genebanks/institutions, including positive and negative effects.The broker role of the Secretariat included the role of Focal Point for problem solving activities, with assistance from IPGRI staff expertise, on any legal policy, technical and administrative related matter. Moreover, the technical requirements and Quality Standards for conservation and management of seed and vegetative material were also monitored by the coordination office.The whole system was said to be kept transparent thanks to the facilitating role of the Secretariat, by facilitating audits for QA in each collaborating genebank/institute by subgroup colleagues, by ensuring reports and information exchange, by linking to all stakeholders and other regions and by providing an AEGIS Newsletter.Finally, she mentioned that the ECP/GR Secretariat function as Depository and Provider of AEGIS documents and information related to law, policy, system administration, technical issues, crop conservation management, quality monitoring and QA audit reports.B. Visser, CGN and J. Engels, IPGRIThe European Cooperative Programme for Crop Genetic Resources Networks (ECP/GR) was founded in 1980. It is a collaborative Programme among most European countries, aimed at facilitating the long-term conservation and the increased utilization of plant genetic resources in Europe on a cooperative basis. The Programme, which is entirely financed by the participating countries, largely operates through broadly focused Networks dealing traditionally with groups of crops or, more recently, with general themes related to plant genetic resources. ECP/GR has served as a possible model for the development of similar networks in other regions of the world. Its major distinction and possibly the main reason for its success, compared to other regional crop networks, is its self-funding basis.In Europe most activities regarding the conservation of plant genetic resources (PGR) were, and still are, nationally organized and hence highly fragmented. Over the previous two and a half decades ECP/GR has succeeded in forging collaboration between the countries and the predominantly national PGR communities involved. Such collaboration is essential since challenges to maintain PGR for future availability are large and capacity is limited, in Europe as well as elsewhere. National contributions only become valuable as contributions to a regional and/or global effort as they form the building blocks of a regional/global system.For the understanding of this paper it is important to summarize briefly the major achievements of ECP/GR.(a) Collaborators within ECP/GR have agreed on common minimum descriptor lists to characterize/evaluate their crop collections, and to render documentation on their collections interchangeable between collection holders; (b) As a next step, ECP/GR has undertaken to build European Central Crop Databases; until 2005, 60 such crop databases, holding passport data and, to varying degrees, characterization and primary evaluation data of the major collections of the respective crops in Europe, have been established. In addition the EPGRIS project, developed in the context of the ECP/GR Documentation and Information Network, has resulted in the establishment of the EURISCO database, encompassing a Web catalogue that automatically receives data from National Inventories. This database is already providing information on nearly one million accessions and has the potential to almost double its content in the next few years. The aim is to effectively provide access to all ex situ PGR information in Europe and thus facilitate locating and accessing PGR;(c) Furthermore, Crop Working Groups of ECP/GR have been able to submit successful project proposals for EU funding. In this way, European collections have been documented, characterized and evaluated, and so-called core collections have been established for a number of crops. Most of these core collections (except for the International Barley Core Collection, BCC) are \"virtual\" and contain a limited set of accessions optimally covering the genetic diversity existing in (the European part of the) crop genepool, including as much as possible the original samples and excluding duplications.Whereas ECP/GR has provided a forum for a number of additional activities, the aforementioned results probably stand out as ECP/GR's most prominent and lasting successes, together with the creation of a general spirit of mutual collaboration. This was built on the frequency of meetings among representatives of rather different and fragmented worlds, coming together to get to know each other and to develop reciprocal esteem and trust.The results detailed above strongly contribute to the possibilities for analyzing existing information on and the distribution of knowledge regarding existing collections and associated accession-level information in the European region amongst the PGR community and to users. This achievement, in turn, has increasingly allowed us to avoid duplication of efforts by collection holders. As a consequence, these results may have also contributed to reduce the amount of over-duplication of accessions in collections in Europe, and may have promoted better utilization of the collections. However, this anticipated positive outcome is not per se the result of explicit joint decision-making in ECP/GR, although -without any positive proof -it could be hypothesized that decisions at the national level on avoiding over-duplication may have been taken on several occasions and in various countries, as a result of the influence of concepts elaborated within the ECP/GR networks. As a first step these results have contributed to initiating a process that will eventually result in a more rational regional system.Considering the above-mentioned commendable achievements, it is also fair to state that more advanced and concrete collaboration activities, encompassing task sharing in proper conservation efforts such as acquisition, regeneration, characterization, evaluation, storage, viability testing, etc., have not yet been achieved, possibly with the exception of some joint activities carried out in the framework of EU GENRES projects. Task sharing could potentially lower the costs and improve the quality of these collaborative activities considerably by allowing members to make optimal use of available expertise and facilities, with the aim of reducing collective costs and, directly or indirectly promoting the raising of quality standards. Such task sharing could allow either financial or in-kind cost savings between genebanks. Task sharing along these lines would also require and promote political commitment and mutual trust, aspects that have not or only to a very limited extent been addressed by ECP/GR. Hence, such task sharing would be a major second step towards establishing a rational regional system. Such task sharing was indeed the aim of the AEGIS initiative, addressed in more detail below.Since task sharing between European countries is obviously a very important goal, whether in the form of AEGIS or otherwise, at first sight the relatively slow progress towards attaining this goal within the ECP/GR context, and the reservations registered during the AEGIS feasibility study, may be surprising and require a closer look. Analyzing why progress has been slow, and how bottlenecks can be removed and reservations or even objections may be changed into enthusiasm and commitment, is therefore a crucial task. Several motives and mechanisms that have so far prevented fast progress can be distinguished, and thus provide the basis for the identification of possible solutions that would remove existing concerns and constraints.The quality standards for conservation, as currently applied, vary considerably between countries and even within countries. This was identified as a constraint by several ECP/GR Crop Working Groups in their attempts to define preferred or acceptable conservation standards. The frequent disparity of the standards in use tends to reduce trust in the institutions with low or ill-defined standards, and thus hampers effective collaboration. A general improvement of the quality of operations across the collaborating institutions would be expected to result from a regionally integrated system. Regional strengths could be shared and weaknesses eliminated by the process of raising standards and establishing them across the networks.Currently, ex situ germplasm collections fall under the national sovereign rights of a state and it is these same states that can use their rights to place germplasm material in a (regional) multilateral system. Decisions on task sharing require explicit agreements between participating countries on the rights and obligations of the providers and recipients of such germplasm. The rights and obligations formulated in the International Treaty and soon to be \"translated\" into the standard MTA, form a model that can also be applied to crops that are not included in Annex I of the Treaty and are maintained by European collection holders under the jurisdiction, management and control of European states. The new political context created by the entrance into force of the International Treaty should be influential in facilitating the adoption of its spirit and mechanism. This should be particularly true within the European region, which has been the most vocal during the Treaty negotiations in advocating the benefits of a Multilateral System extended to all crops. The European region now has the legal mechanism to operate consistently on the basis of its recommendations within its own regional territory. The AEGIS philosophy takes this approach further forward.In addition, agreements that may eventually form the foundation for AEGIS, would have to set out principles and criteria to identify the most appropriate accessions for inclusion in the AEGIS crop collections. Development of a decision tree to arrive at the identification of the most appropriate sample, and agreement on the identification process and its adoption are major components of such principles. A similar exercise undertaken by the Global Crop Diversity Trust may be of help in developing such a system as well.Users of PGR in Europe are manifold, and some user groups depend on facilitated access to germplasm and associated information, now offered by national genebanks in their own language. Task sharing and re-allocation of expertise could hamper such access (if not to the germplasm proper, then to the available expertise), for instance if and when characterization and evaluation should become the responsibility of another genebank. Whereas for some individuals these concerns might sound hypothetical, for others they are very real. Agreements on a brokering role for national genebanks to identify available information and/or to assist in the communication between a user and the \"foreign\" genebank managing the associated information are needed to remove this potential drawback of task sharing. This role will in any case be critically important for the future operations of genebanks, whether or not as a prerequisite for system integration.Any decision on task sharing should take into account an optimal use of existing expertise and facilities Europe-wide. In the current context of limited financial means, this would mean not only choosing the cheapest or qualitatively best expertise and facilities, but finding optimal uses for all currently and collectively available expertise and facilities. Such approach requires a shift in the mind frame and mind set of the ECP/GR members. It could also mean that in some cases less cheap or qualitatively second best expertise and facilities will have to be mobilized. So, as for the accessions, the idea is not to transfer existing expertise or re-allocate existing facilities, but to make full use of all those available. Such approach might take away the fear of the less well endowed genebanks that they might become marginalized in an Integrated System and even lose their jobs which might be taken over by the currently best functioning national systems. In order for such an approach to work, agreements will be required on minimum quality standards acceptable to and to be agreed upon by all. Furthermore, budgets will have to be found to allow those current collection holders not meeting minimum standards to upgrade their expertise and facilities.The current constraints to progress within ECP/GR can be summarized as at least four separate elements:Feeling insecure: formal political support is still lacking and this causes concern about the possibility of the Networks assuming new roles; Atmosphere of indecisiveness: often it is not clear who can make which decisions; Keep talking: ECP/GR is essentially a forum for meetings and is not offering a framework for policy and strategy decisions; Activities limited to technical aspects: the growing number of technical working groups is not being accompanied by more involvement of the policy makers in the ongoing activities.In order to address the limitations and constraints to progress within ECP/GR, new ways of collaboration should be set into motion and a possible reorganization of its structure could be considered. Progress towards closer collaboration was started during the last ECP/GR Steering Committee in Izmir in September 2003. At this meeting, a concept note on AEGIS (a European Genebank Integrated System) was submitted by the German participants, who noted that \"ECP/GR has only partially succeeded in facilitating a real prioritization of conservation activities (identification and safety-duplication of unique material, reduction of unnecessary redundancies, etc.)\". Among the objectives for AEGIS, key proposals were to assess existing options for the sharing of responsibilities on an accession basis, a crop-bycrop basis and a sub-regional basis focusing on four model crops; to assess institutional capacities and bottlenecks for a decentralized integrated European Genebank System; and to outline conditions to be fulfilled to develop such a system. The Steering Committee adopted the proposal to develop the AEGIS project, and -for the first time in its existence -decided to provide the necessary project funds directly from the ECP/GR budget.Based on the experiences acquired in the AEGIS feasibility study, in 2005 the ECP/GR Secretariat and the IPGRI-based AEGIS Local Task Force drafted a Strategy Framework discussion paper, in close consultation with the AEGIS Steering Committee and the ECP/GR Steering Committee. It envisages developing AEGIS from its current theoretical project phase into a new fully regional collaborative operation. It is foreseen (1) that a formal AEGIS membership of individual countries will be established; (2) that unique and important germplasm accessions will be identified; and (3) that these will be designated (by countries) to AEGIS, thus forming the AEGIS crop/species collection. The latter will in fact be decentralized collections of widely dispersed accessions that collectively form the European genebank integrated system. The Strategy Framework also stipulates that it is anticipated to start AEGIS with the implementation of legal, organizational and administrative frameworks. These frameworks will require close consultation between the technical level expertise in individual countries and the political and administrative levels. It is expected that the National Coordinators will have to play a key role in these consultations.The proposals contained in the Strategy Framework will need approval and AEGIS has now reached the stage in which consultations with the national policy-makers responsible for PGR policies in the respective European countries have to be initiated. One way to facilitate the \"operationalization\" of the ideas contained in the Strategy Framework would be to seek agreement amongst European states for the step-wise adoption of a Multilateral System of Access and Benefit-Sharing for all germplasm contained in the AEGIS collections, and thus, to effectively and greatly expand the coverage of the Multilateral System of the International Treaty in Europe, in line with the positions taken by the European delegation during the negotiations for the International Treaty. This coverage could even increase further if germplasm maintained by the private sector could be added to the envisaged AEGIS collections. Given the internationalized status of the breeding industry it seems only logical to initiate such discussions at the regional level, through discussions with the European Seed Association (ESA).It is foreseen that the necessary funding will be made available by the individual member states of AEGIS, wherever possible with the help of the European Union through project proposals. The \"justification\" of such an approach is based on the assumption that in the longer-term, AEGIS will provide a very strong basis for rationalizing collections, i.e. it will allow and encourage countries to decide to not continue conserving material that is elsewhere conserved better and remains freely available to all users within the System. It assumes that AEGIS will indeed \"pay off\" and really result in smaller collections and therefore in lower maintenance costs in the long term. In addition, funds for upgrading might also become available from the savings that a more rational system will entail.Without any doubt, AEGIS is a complex undertaking and it may be necessary to gain experience with this approach first before a fully developed European System will be achieved. It is foreseen that the establishment of AEGIS will be an evolutionary process, building on small steps and making use of existing arrangements.Three inter-dependent components are currently envisaged which should be the basis for the implementation of a European genebank integrated system:1. Crop level. Strategies towards AEGIS collections should be finalized, starting with the four model crops. 2. Country level. It is essential to set into motion a policy framework, allowing the endorsement of a mind shift from the concept of \"National\" to \"European\" collections.with inter-genebank collaboration, in order to contribute to the development of standards and task-sharing.The putting into practice of the third component is proposed below as an additional case study to be promoted by ECP/GR in the context of the AEGIS development.A conservation system that is not based on sharing information and germplasm, and that does not take advantage of the opportunity to grow germplasm where it is biologically, environmentally and economically the most adequate location for regeneration, characterization, evaluation and research, fails in cooperating effectively.Finding the best site for the job should result in a better use of prevailing specializations in terms of crops or conservation functions such as regeneration, documentation, taxonomic research and cryopreservation.The idea behind this proposal is to study the institutional issues separately from the policy aspects related to the development of the AEGIS model as elaborated in the Strategy Framework discussion paper. This case study focuses on the institutions of the collection holders or genebanks rather than on crop collections (as the current AEGIS case studies do) or on countries (the suggestion proposed in the Strategy Framework Paper). Thus, this case study would complement ongoing and proposed activities within the AEGIS framework.The rationale is to make better use of existing facilities and expertise and to improve standards where necessary. The objective is to contribute to the rational regional system and the expected results are (i) to identify a task-sharing process and procedures; (ii) to establish technical collaboration between volunteer genebanks; (iii) to reach agreements on minimum standards and (iv) to adopt protocols for collaboration between genebanks.The proposed approach of this feasibility study is as follows:Explain basic goals and options for institutional collaboration within AEGIS (framework for activities); Prepare an inventory of? genebank interests for task-sharing in Europe; Identify which genebank is needing or offering which activity; Organize meetings between partners with mutual interests; Develop workplans and conclude contracts among partners; Document and report to AEGIS any agreements and results; Adopt successful examples as guidelines for others.The principles behind this feasibility study include the bottom-up putting into operation of the AEGIS concept, with no re-allocation of germplasm unless as a result of specific requests. Only one condition would be established, that germplasm and associated information which is subject to the collaboration should be available to third parties as if in the MLS of the International Treaty. No other a priori prescribed procedures and conditions would be in place and the process would benefit from \"learning by doing\".The expected impact of task sharing for germplasm conservation in Europe will be the better use of existing funds; the possibility of using freed-up money to improve the quality of the work, including support for upgrading; higher work satisfaction for staff involved; and a major political signal sent to our own policy makers at the national level (and the EU), to our own funding sources and to other regions. The hope is that ECP/GR can soon enter into a new mode, using AEGIS as the vehicle to achieve a more rational regional system and to offer justification for sustainable funding.G. Kleijer asked whether there would not be a risk of creating closer collaboration between bigger genebanks and excluding smaller genebanks.B. Visser agreed that there is such a risk and it is necessary to identify the strengths of the different genebanks (e.g. crop expertise, regeneration, documentation, etc.) in order to do things where it is most efficient.G. Kleijer commented that it is necessary to have a much broader view than simply waiting for a genebank to be willing to delegate some of its activities somewhere else.B. Visser agreed with this remark and specified that failing to take any action may position several players in a loser's situation.F. Begemann reminded the audience that the 7 th FP will fund only \"networks of excellence\". These are already attracting most of the resources. It is therefore very advisable for germplasm-related institutions to try to become resource centres, thus to become capable of showing just where the excellence is. It will be necessary to capitalize on strengths, not to be slowed down by weaknesses.With reference to the role of the lead institutions for the Crop Working Group strategies, it was specified that these would mainly correspond to coordinating institutions and not to centres of excellence.K. Tobutt commented that centres of excellence might not be reliable references for genebanks, since expertise is often unstable, (i.e. it tends to be linked to the presence of individuals who may move on).C. Germeier remarked that it is necessary to formalize the subdivision of tasks, otherwise nothing can move forward.It was considered that agreements between countries for sharing of responsibilities for conservation of the collections, including staff exchanges and joint workplans, will not work simply on the basis of bilateral institutional arrangements, but will also need the involvement of the policy makers.L. Christensen remarked that the definition of \"designated accessions\" was still not clear to the NGB and this will need to be further clarified in order for the Nordic countries to be able to participate in AEGIS.J. Engels remarked that the concept of \"designated accessions\", which is defined in the AEGIS Strategy Framework Discussion Paper, will be tested, together with the entire AEGIS concept, in a few countries, possibly before the next ECP/GR Steering Committee, in order to face any possible reaction at the policy level. It is hoped that Czech Republic, Italy and the Netherlands will be the test cases.Regarding the designation of material, it was commented that the situation will be different in the various countries, since for example in Germany the genebank is not under federal government control. On the other hand, in France the concept of the national collection is a national issue.Regarding the criteria for selection of the AEGIS accessions, it was remarked that criteria for selection are not always defined, and in the case of smaller crops characterization descriptors are also not defined.The opportunity to find more about evaluation traits among the underutilized crops was acknowledged. Centres of excellence already working on these underutilized species should be identified.Different opinions were expressed on the most appropriate process needed to identify the maximum genetic diversity and the identification of AEGIS accessions. This process will be defined by each Working Group on a crop basis and the formulation of decision trees will be very useful, using the example which has been developed by the Prunus Working Group.• General consensus was expressed for going forward with sharing responsibilities for conservation. During the second day of the meeting, the Networks met in parallel sessions to discuss their specific agenda, including the following items: status quo and assessment of progress; suggestions for updating the workplan for the remaining part of Phase VII (2006VII ( -2008)); suggestions for planning and prioritizing Phase VIII (2009VIII ( -2013) ) for consideration by the Steering Committee meeting in September 2006. Each Network produced a report which was presented and discussed in plenary session the next day. These reports, including some minor amendments incorporated after the meeting, are given below. We recognize the need to meet the requirements of Crop NetworksWe intend to address these requirements through our future network activitiesWe encourage the participation of In situ Network members in Crop Network meetings and vice-versaNeed to be aware of EU legislation on in situ conservationWe wish to promote the in situ utilization (involve end-users in conservation activities, e.g. plant breeders)In spite of the Network having met only once, the following has been achieved:• Development and submission of four project funding proposals  A very strong potential for interaction with the MAP WG was mentioned, with a suggestion for closer interaction and joint meetings. There was agreement on this point, although the Network considers equally important the interaction with all Crop Working Groups.It was specified that the proposed joint meeting with Crop Networks in 2008 would consist of the participation in a meeting of representatives of different Crop Networks, financed with existing budget readjustments.It was recommended to pay attention to the interface between ex situ and in situ germplasm.It was suggested that the In situ Network should draft the terms of reference for the identification/nomination of the Focal Points in charge of the in situ component in the National Inventory, with inputs from the Documentation and Information Network (see below, report of the D&I Network, section on Activities for second half of Phase VII, first point).Attending: Frank Begemann (Network Coordinator, Rapporteur), Ian D. Thomas, Sonia Dias (observer) Unable to attend: Theo J.L. van Hintum, Helmut Knüpffer, Ahmet Semsettin Tan• Communication between Crop Networks and the D&I Network should be improved.One way could be through the ECCDB managers. There should be improved information flow from the D&I NCG through the ECCDB managers to the Crop WGs and vice versa; • The two available seats in the NCG have been filled by Iva Faberová (agreed) and Véronique Jamilloux (agreed to invite her for the NCG).  Activities for second half of Phase VII • To improve quality and quantity of PGR data, with particular emphasis on quality; • To improve functionality of EURISCO, NIs and ECCDBs and through this the use of European PGR; • To improve international/inter-regional collaboration with international information activities/systems; • To continue to strengthen national and institutional capacity in Europe in relation to D&I (ex situ, in situ, on-farm).The revised budget for Phase VII and proposed budget for Phase VIII are included in Appendix II.K. Tobutt emphasized the need for experts in vegetatively propagated crops to get involved in the revision of the MCPDs. It was reiterated that this revision process will take place at the global level (FAO/IPGRI) and that it will need to be transparent and inclusive of all the different expertises.C. Germeier stressed the importance of considering CropForge (a collaborative software development site, maintained by the biometric and bioinformatics unit of IRRI, providing tools and a centralized workspace for developers to control and manage software development) in the activities of the D&I Network.The high importance of improving communication between the NCG and ECCDB managers was acknowledged and reiterated.Attending: Tiberio Chiari (Rapporteur), Ladislav Dotlačil, Lambert Visser, Jan Engels (observer) Unable to attend: Vladimir Meglič, Eva Thörn (Network Coordinator)In Phase VI, activities comprised three areas of cooperation, i.e. On-farm/in situ conservation of PGR, Documentation and information system development, and Policy implementation.Two inter-regional workshops were run in 2003: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on policies; Cotonou, Benin, on information and documentation.In Phase VII, considering the limited progress in the area of on-farm/in situ management, and the need to develop this area of work within the European region in the first place, it has been proposed to focus efforts towards documentation and information systems, and policy implementation (directly related to task sharing, and the establishment of the AEGIS project).In addition, the issue of capacity building was indicated as a priority by other PGR networks.During the Network Coordinating Group Meeting held in Ljubljana, April 2005, a revised workplan was adopted, comprising eight activities. These activities deal with inter-regional meetings, documentation, and capacity building (such as training of trainers and staff exchange).The planned meeting of European national programmes in Belgrade earlier this year had to be postponed and it is in preparation later this year in Luxemburg with no ECP/GR funds. The participation of representatives from other regions in such an event could be considered.It is proposed that the meeting with regional network coordinators be co-organized with IPGRI and that it should include in its agenda the following topics: information exchange mechanisms, sharing of conservation responsibilities, capacity-building strategies and policies. Expected results are specific action plans for the identified areas, distribution of tasks and responsibilities amongst committed partners.The meeting will offer the opportunity to discuss the training of trainers in documentation and in genebank techniques and management. Moreover, the opportunity offered for capacity building by projects such as the EU project on \"Agro-fortification: networking on sustainable use of PGR\" (Agro-Forte) will be used.Considering the strategic role of the meeting, a reallocation of the remaining funds for the other activities is proposed.Tiberio Chiari (from Istituto Agronomico per l'Oltremare -IAO, Florence, Italy) is a new member of the Network who replaces Marcello Broggio (IAO), who will be resident in Brazil for the coming months.Training in documentation and information constitutes one of the main requests for assistance from other regional networks. Therefore, an increased involvement of the D&I Network is foreseen.In order to enhance the collaboration between European partners and developing countries, the Inter-regional Cooperation Network could facilitate the identification of strategic areas for the preferential intervention of ECP/GR.The Inter-regional Cooperation Network would act as a pro-active forum for the development of cooperation proposals between ECP/GR and other regions for submission to funding agencies such as EU and GEF.The revised budget for Phase VII is included in Appendix II. The proposed budget for Phase VIII will be formulated in 2007.L. Frese explained that the World Beta Network (WBN) is an international forum and the need was expressed from other regions to see the establishment of crop genetic resources networks following the example of ECP/GR. A possible role of the Inter-regional Cooperation Network was envisaged.J. Engels specified that the planned workshop of regional coordinators would work in the direction of strengthening the network's coordination role and suggested that the specific needs expressed by the WBN should be channelled to IPGRI in preparation for the workshop mentioned above.N. Maxted stressed the importance of bidirectional flow of information from regions to Europe, specifically regarding the expertise that was developing in the establishment of genetic reserves, such as in the CWANA region.Attending: Iva Faberová, Christoph Germeier (Rapporteur), Marja Jalli, Andreas Katsiotis, Gert Kleijer Unable to attend: Helmut Knüpffer (Network Coordinator)Iva Faberová replaced Annick Leblanc in the Network Coordinating Group. Marcin Zaczyński is the new database manager for rye, replacing Wiesław Podyma. Andreas Katsiotis has replaced Mike Leggett, who has retired, as the Chair of the Avena Working Group. Further changes within the structure of the Network are not planned.The issue of the minor cereals is unclear. Anna Michalová, who represented this topic had left the Czech genebank and the group. Dagmar Janovská has now been appointed to succeed Anna. It is proposed to invite her into the Network.Activity and progress are mainly reported within the Working Groups. Only the most important areas of progress are outlined, as follows:-Databases and Web applications have been further developed in all cereal crops: a considerable expansion is seen in numbers of accessions in the Wheat Database. Data for Aegilops spp. within the European collections have been added to this database as well. -A lot of characterization and evaluation data, resulting from EU projects, which have been completed, have been added into the Barley and Oat databases. These data are available on-line and downloadable from the respective Web pages. -Additional evaluation descriptors have been agreed by the group and added to the Wheat Database. -Contacts have been made with FAO for preparing a project on pre-breeding and broadening the genetic basis of breeding material within the barley genepool. -Conservation facilities have been improved for the major wheat collections.-A one-day ad hoc meeting with a limited number of scientists, to review the progress made and the workplan in rye and triticale genetic resources, is scheduled for September 2006.There were no significant changes in workplans and budget plans for Phase VII. Some activities were postponed (see Appendix II).-Safety-duplication -Cooperation of the CCDBs with EURISCO, GBIF and other international databases -Quality of data and updates -Harmonization of database structures -Use of molecular markers -Initiating EU and other international projects -In situ and on-farm related topics such as designation of protected areas (e.g. Aegilops spp. in Israel, Avena prostrata in Spain)Implementation of AEGIS will be a priority task for Phase VIII. This implies that all the Cereal Working Groups will have the same priority. It is anticipated that the implementation of AEGIS will require one meeting of the Network Coordinating Group and at least two meetings for each Cereal Working Group. All of the above-mentioned cross-cutting activities, with the exception of in situ/on-farm related topics will be part of the AEGIS implementation. Specific AEGIS activities will be the designation of coordinating institutions for each cereal crop, the designation of the AEGIS accessions and the development of quality standards. The implementation of AEGIS will necessarily increase the whole ECP/GR budget.The proposed budget for Phase VIII is included in Appendix II.The Global Crop Diversity Trust is currently developing global conservation strategies for all five cereal crops (wheat, barley, oat, triticale and rye). Members of the Working Groups take part actively in these developments.K. Tobutt asked about the feasibility of harmonizing database structures. C. Germeier replied that in his opinion the objective is not harmonizing structures, but undertaking a common modelling of genetic resources information and that CropForge is the ideal platform to set up open source software development.L. Horváth raised the point of genetic resources of rice, considering their importance in a few countries in Europe and the existing risk of genetic erosion.G. Kleijer reminded the group that it is always possible for specific interest groups to initiate activities within the Network.Attending: Beat Boller (Network Coordinator), Lajos Horváth, Chris Kik, Petter Marum (Rapporteur), Valeria Negri, Magdalena Ševčíková, Evelin WillnerIn the major databases between 80 and 100% of the accessions have an assigned \"Originality\". \"Primary holder\" is assigned for 0 to 72% of the accessions. Data for some databases are still missing.There is still a lot of work to do to reach our final goal of sharing the responsibility of maintaining a European forage collection. Some countries have extremely large collections. As a group we feel that we can contribute to go one step further to rationalizing large national collections and give advice on how to select the most appropriate accessions for long-term conservation.There are communication problems with some DB managers. The NCG is considering suggesting new DB managers for those databases and/or to reduce the number of forage databases by merging several databases. To improve the contact with the DB managers, one idea might be to integrate them more into the activities of the WG.Difficulties are encountered in completing the workplan on the identification of primary holders because some of the database managers find it difficult to do the job without extra funding (this is a problem for all). The Group will send a letter to some DB managers (National Coordinators) and ask if he/she is still able and interested in doing the job.The harmonization of data structure of some of the CCDBs with the EURISCO data structure is still not completed and is a big problem. The method of data exchange must be improved.The table of capacities for hosting safety-duplication and the table of applied regeneration standards have been completed.It had been decided earlier to submit a project to EC 870/2004. The NCG expressed concern about the slow progress made in the preparation of the project. It was discussed whether a change in leadership of the project might be an appropriate solution to increase the chances of submitting the project to the second call, expected very soon in 2006. It was agreed to ask Jan Nedělník (RIFC, Troubsko, Czech Republic) if he was willing to provide substantial input, possibly as coordinator. Soon after the meeting, Jan Nedělník agreed to assume the role of project coordinator and to prepare the project in collaboration with Vladimir Meglič of the Agricultural Institute of Slovenia, Ljubljana.-The workplan was updated in 2005 and the NCG has focused on the sharing of responsibilities and we still see this as the major task for the remaining part of Phase VII. -The Forages NCG encourages the \"Global Crop Diversity Trust\" also to start work on some of the many forage species included in Annex I. The NCG suggests starting work on Medicago, Trifolium, Lolium and Phleum as models for the other genera and is willing to participate in this work. -Revise the preferred standards of regeneration based on new knowledge. There were no significant changes in workplans and budget plans for Phase VII (see Appendix II).The Network consists of only the Forages WG.-Carry out primary MOS identification of primary holders with the remaining forage CCDBs for inclusion in the European forages collection.-Support genebanks in making proposals to assign AEGIS accessions.-Produce a system for entering characterization and evaluation data in the forage CCDBs using the IPGRI common descriptor lists.-Identification of European agricultural sites which harbour forage genetic resources. Carry out research to compare the genetic variation in European genebanks vs. the variation present in the above-mentioned agricultural systems. This may lead to the creation of a \"core collection\" of European grassland sites for in situ conservation.-Raise public awareness of forage genetic resources, by the way of forage crop portals.The Working Group will identify members or institutes who are willing to host particular species.-Support initiatives to investigate high throughput genotyping via SNP micro-arrays with the aim of identifying similar accessions in a more time-efficient way.The proposed budget for Phase VIII is included in Appendix II.Interest was expressed in the initiative to establish a network of conservation sites with high in situ genetic diversity. The identification of the unit of diversity (either accession or population), in order to apply the concept of core collections at the in situ level, was considered an issue to be clarified.Attending: Emma-Jane Allen, Emilie Balsemin, Stein Harald Hjeltnes, Marc Lateur, Erika Maul, Robert Oger (observer), Jesus Maria Ortiz, Kenneth Tobutt (Network Coordinator, Rapporteur)• Chairmen and Database Managers (DBM) presented progress reports. Excellent progress has been made by all Working Groups (WGs). By 15 April 2006 ECP/GR report forms will be completed.• We propose the four DBM should meet in 2007.• It was recommended that the Vitis WG use its funds for the database to allow the adaptation to the EURISCO format and the incorporation of the Black Sea project data.• Malus/Pyrus WG workplan will be revised during the WG meeting in November 2006. Prunus WG workplan was revised during the WG meeting in December 2005. • Malus DBM will distribute annotated lists to the curators with suggested euonyms (agreed standard names chosen from among synonyms for database purposes) for members to supply any corrections at the meeting in November 2006. Global Crop Diversity Trust Global Strategy for apples should be discussed with the Global Strategy Coordinator at this meeting. • The Pyrus database will adopt the EURISCO format.• It was agreed that the four databases should be harmonized as much as possible, e.g.Vitis, Malus and Pyrus DBs will adopt the Prunus DB homepage as a model, DBMs will share modules with each other and will adopt common AEGIS descriptors which are being developed by the Prunus group.• It was agreed that euonyms will be added in the databases to aid solving synonym problems.• Software developed at Gembloux for solving Pyrus synonym problems will be available for other ECCDB managers. • Advice on incorporation of pedigree information into ECCDBs would be useful.• The group recommends the use of standardized digital photographs with reference scales for developing photo galleries. • The flow of information between curators, ECCDB, EURISCO and National Focal Points (NFPs) needs to be clarified. • Clarifications of the EURISCO descriptors \"Country of origin\" and \"Accession name\" is essential.• Regarding microsatellite markers used for characterization, we recommend consideration of the \"Vitis-method\" n+2, n+4, …. instead of 110, 112, …, for incorporating data in the database.• All three WGs should be prioritized in Phase VIII, and an additional 18 000 euro will be required. Ad hoc meetings will allow for equal participation of the three groups. • The Prunus Genetic Resources Newsletter will be expanded into a joint Fruit Genetic Resources Newsletter. • At the moment vegetatively propagated crops are insufficiently represented in thematic Networks, e.g. Documentation and Information Network, In Situ and On-Farm Conservation Network. Therefore we recommend that these crops should be represented in the relevant Networks. • Interaction with Fragaria, Ribes etc. genetic resources groups will be desirable and integration into ECP/GR should be considered. • All WGs will seek to implement AEGIS and give priority to validation accessions of the ECCDBs by use of phenotypic, photographic and microsatellite descriptors. • All WGs will try to incorporate into the ECCDBs data from other collections with which they are not currently in contact. • Malus/Pyrus WG will develop better links between wild relatives and cultivars.The revised budget for Phase VII is included in Appendix II. The proposed budget for Phase VIII will be formulated in 2007.Standardization of guidelines for displaying photographs on the Web was discussed as an ideal situation, for which technical solutions exist. 8 The types of solutions implemented by several European herbaria, which are displaying herbarium sheets on-line, will be worth studying.Regarding the interpretation of the descriptor \"Accession name\", I. Faberová clarified that this is quite well defined and that no taxonomic information should be included there, even if the field remains empty.It was recommended that any issue related to standardization of information be channelled to the Documentation and Information Network and that a process for problem discussion and resolution be created through an appropriate platform. 8 H. Knüpffer informed that the EU project ENBI (European Network for Biodiversity Information), WP6, has published one of their deliverables as a book: \"Digital Imaging of Biological Type Specimens. A Manual of Best Practice. Results from a study of the European Network for Biodiversity Information\". The book describes general subjects on digital imaging of biological objects, current approaches for different groups of organisms and a number of case studies. The book can be ordered as hardcopy from the ENBI bureau in Amsterdam (enbi@science.uva.nl) or from the authors in Stuttgart (chaeuser@gmx.de). From ENBI's Web platform, CIRCA, both the entire book (11.9 Mb) as well as the individual chapters can be downloaded.Attending: Lothar Frese (Network Coordinator, Rapporteur), Roel Hoekstra Unable to attend: Andrea Carboni, Bruno Desprez, Martin PavelekThe Sugar, Starch and Fibre Crops Network (SS&F) encompasses crops with few agronomic or biological features in common. Hence our major joint interests are data documentation issues, and extensive knowledge in this field is available as we have been managing CCDBs for Beta and Potato for two decades. The Working Groups reported progress as follows:• Regeneration guidelines were compiled by all collection curators (as part of the quality management concept); • GIS (Geographical Information System) tool was implemented in the IDBB (International Database for Beta) to visualize geographic distribution of species or distribution of traits; • Good progress was achieved in the development of in situ management concepts.• European cultivated potatoes: the Web site was completely renewed and a tool for password-protected data input by contributors via the Web is being developed by SASA (Scottish Agricultural Science Agency) which should be available by September 2006; • European wild potatoes (including Andean landraces): good progress was made in updating passport data (e.g. VIR); • Good progress was achieved in assembling MAS (Most Appropriate Samples) list to be proposed to curators of the collections.• A Working Group for Flax and Hemp was established;• Updating of the descriptor list for flax is in progress;• Some progress in the Flax Database management (passport data and some characterization data by the Czech partner, evaluation data by the Slovak partner) was achieved and is quantified in the project proposal mentioned below.During the NCG database managers meeting (July 2005, Braunschweig, Germany) it was decided to write a project proposal to be submitted to the Steering Committee. The Czech partner with involvement of all NCG database managers elaborated the proposal \"Development of a reference implementation for access to and management of a Central Crop Database (Linum spp.) based on open source Internet technology\". 9 The major aim of the project consists in the improvement of the existing flax database operated by the Czech partner on the basis of the generic data model developed and successfully applied for Beta and Avena. The project can be considered as a case study hopefully leading to a broader application of the generic data model. 9Project proposal available on the Internet (http://www.ecpgr.cgiar.org/SteeringCommittee/ SC10/StandRep/IFDB-pp.pdf) higher priority. A clear commitment by decision-makers interested to establish an efficient and effective European genetic resources programme following the principles laid out by the AEGIS strategy may suffice.Past experiences have shown that some milestones set by working groups can easily be achieved through small amounts of money for targeted actions. Older working groups in particular have less need to meet and discuss workplans; rather, they need additional staff capacity to suit the action to the word. For that very reason the NCG has submitted the flax proposal and is suggesting various actions for Phase VIII. As the EU regulation 870/2004 will probably not be continued there is a clear need for a funding mechanism which will allow working groups to really progress with their work.Following the proposal from the Network to reduce the number of meetings and dedicate more funds to activities, F. Begemann asked the meeting whether this could be considered a generalized need and what would be the right balance between funds spent for meetings or actions.D. Astley replied that, in the case of the Vegetables, Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Network, there was agreement that it is important to have meetings to keep continuity of the WGs, but small injections of funds for activities can be very effective.A. Katsiotis enquired whether it could be appropriate to consider activities on cotton genetic resources, considering that this crop is important in Greece and Turkey. The meeting took note of this proposal.Attending: Dave Astley (Network Coordinator, Rapporteur), Dea Baričevič, Ietje Boukema, Marie-Christine Daunay, Maria José Díez Niclós, Willem van Dooijeweert, Joachim KellerThe VEGMAP Network involves seven Working Groups: Allium, Brassica, Cucurbits, Leafy Vegetables, Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Solanaceae, and Umbellifer Crops.Grégoire Thomas resigned as Coordinator of the NCG and Eduardo Rosa resigned as the Brassica Working Group representative. Dave Astley agreed to take over the function of the NCG Coordinator until the Full Network Meeting in June 2007.There was no representative of the Brassica WG in the NCG meeting. The Brassica report was presented on the basis of information supplied by Eduardo Rosa and Noortje Bas.i.This was the first meeting of the VEGMAPNET Coordinating Group since the Steering Committee included the MAP Working Group in VEGNET without consultation. The members of the Network Coordinating Group presented their reports on the achievements of the Working Groups. It was immediately apparent that the MAP Working Group has a different basis, workplan and objectives to the crop-based vegetable Working Groups. The members of the VEGMAPNET all agree that the MAP WG and the vegetable WGs would be better served by reversing the Steering Committee decision and removing the MAP WG to re-establish the Vegetable Network. Dr Dea Baričevič, Chair of the MAP WG was in full agreement with this recommendation. The MAP WG deals with >400 wild taxa as potential sources of medicinal and/or aromatic products and as such will benefit from collaborative support from the In-situ and Onfarm Network. We believe that the MAP WG requirements for the development of their practical, strategic and policy activities will best be served by incorporation in another crop-based network.ii. Based on recent surveys, all WGs recognize that safety-duplication is still a significant problem. We recommend that the members of the SC promote the essential nature of safety-duplication within their national programmes in order to safeguard their national collections and the broader international genepool.iii. Working Group members are appointed by national programmes. But the Working Groups find that some nominees are not always competent in the crop or plant genetic resources of the WG or may lack a sufficient level of language understanding. In addition, regular changes in national representation on Working Groups make the continuity of the workplans extremely difficult. National PGR Coordinators should be aware of the need for competence in their delegates for specific Working Groups and the benefits that accrue from the continuity of the membership within the Working Groups.iv. A new GENRES Project focused on vegetatively propagated Allium will be submitted by the Allium WG to the 2 nd call of EC Regulation 870/2004. The project proposes the use and integration of biotechnological tools (molecular markers and cryopreservation) in the rationalization of the material to create well-defined cryopreserved European collections.v. While searching the European databases, the Working Group members observed an increasing level of inaccuracy in taxonomic names with respect to spelling and synonymy. A higher level of accuracy and validation is required in European databases and this can only be achieved by regular input from taxonomic specialists. The NCG recognizes that the EPGRIS2 project proposal has a taxonomy validation component and looks forward to the implementation of such a system. 1. All Network Working Groups need funds to drive their work and the NCG recognized that the WGs have benefited tremendously from involvement in GENRES projects. However, it was also recognized that the time and effort required to develop a GENRES proposal are out of proportion to the rewards received. The VEGMAP NCG would like to see stronger interactions between the ECP/GR Secretariat, the ECP/GR Steering Committee and the various divisions of the European Commission to promote genetic resources in Framework Programmes and to link more directly into the development of GENRES programmes at a political level through the European Parliament and national programmes holding the Presidency of the EU.2. The VEGMAPNET proposes that the Steering Committee consider the development of a new thematic group for cryopreservation including the under-pinning requirement for in vitro work (phytosanitation by meristem culture). In considering the high labour and cost requirements for the field maintenance of vegetatively propagated germplasm (potato, fruit crops, garlic and shallot, MAP species like mint) cross-cutting initiatives should be used to support information exchange to promote the technical developments between these crop groups. There are significant advantages for groups which are developing protocols for crops previously not stored in cryopreservation to benefit from links with specialist groups. In addition, taking account of the investment required to establish cryo facilities, in terms of equipment and training, and the economies of scale to be achieved, it is essential to promote the use of centres of technical excellence for the cryopreservation of multiple crops.3. The members of the NCG were encouraged by the results reported from the AEGIS project and are keen to recommend the implementation of the various technical aspects of AEGIS as far as they can be applied to the different WGs within the VEGMAP Network (e.g. the definition of Most Original Accession/Most Appropriate Accession).4. The NCG was divided on the question of prioritizing Working Groups within the Network. All six vegetable Working Group representatives felt strongly that there is no benefit to such a priority ranking between the Vegetable Working Groups, while the MAP representative was wholly in favour of prioritizing groups within the Network.The status of the budget for Phase VII is included in Appendix II. The proposed budget for Phase VIII will be formulated in 2007.A question was asked about safety-duplication, enquiring whether the insufficient implementation is due to lack of capacity or other reasons.D. Astley replied that generally the problem consists in lack of implementation at the national level, following the agreement reached during the WG meeting. This problem is sometimes related to the insufficient delegation of governmental authority assigned to the WG members participating in the meetings.The case of the MAP WG and its most suitable allocation to a given Network was debated. It was concluded that any suggestion to split the VEGMAP Network should be accompanied by a clear justification.Chair of the afternoon session: Gert Kleijer Based on the wrap-up of the Networks' cross-cutting issues discussed throughout the meeting, a set of operational and strategic recommendations to be presented to the ECP/GR Steering Committee was drafted. These recommendations were discussed at the closing session and endorsed with a few modifications, as below:The meeting acknowledged a broad appreciation by the networks of the concept of AEGIS as outlined in the Strategy Framework Paper, and the application of AEGIS in order to create European Crop Collections. It also recognized its impact on the stimulation of several WGs (i.e. Allium and Brassica).The meeting recommends to the Steering Committee to support the broad implementation of AEGIS, especially including the need to accept obligations related to the national programmes.It was noted that several global initiatives on PGR conservation are ongoing (Convention on Biological Diversity, Global Crop Diversity Trust, International Treaty, Global Plant Conservation Strategy). It was considered important that ECP/GR continues to support these processes by making i.e. its knowledge, germplasm, training and capacity building available in this global context. In this context, AEGIS could be seen as a model contribution.The Networks reported some progress in improvement of quality and quantity of information and management of resources. However, agreement was reached to prioritize in the future on quality (i.e. quality vs. quantity of data, focus on characterization and evaluation data). Improvements in sharing of responsibilities in cryopreservation, in vitro infrastructure, as well as in situ and on-farm conservation areas (for instance through survey of present status) should be considered.The value of cooperation was recognized as being reciprocal. The meeting encourages reinforced inter-network relationships, as well as strengthening inter-relations with national and international development agencies.The participants recognized the increasing key role of Documentation and Information in conservation and utilization of PGR. In this respect EURISCO was appreciated as a central platform, which in future will cover ex situ, in situ and on-farm data on PGR. EURISCO, the NI/NFPs and the CCDBs are at the centre of the process. Their relationship needs to be clarified and the conditions for the functioning of the CCDBs need to be strengthened.The meeting took note of the upcoming meeting of the Governing Body of the ITPGRFA and was informed of the possible implications at the international level, i.e. the sMTA. The Steering Committee was requested to investigate further implications at the international level for national programmes (designation of accessions to the MLS, data structures, use of MTAs and their documentation).While progress was noted for most of the networks and WGs, the level of activities has developed very differently. This difference is partly due to insufficient levels of inputs and participation by individual national programmes. It is recommended that the National Coordinators assess the selection process for country representatives in the various activities and enable their operation at the ECP/GR level.After the last SC meeting the coverage of crops was expanded and positive experience was reported from the Networks. However, additional proposals came up from the Networks to further broaden the coverage of crops to be taken care by ECP/GR (e.g. rice, cotton, currant, strawberry, minor cereals). It is recommended that the Steering Committee consider such a broadening process and presents clear guidance to the Networks on this matter.The meeting is aware that ECP/GR used to work on the basis of strong inputs-in-kind by national programmes by means of providing a platform to exploit synergies among these, i.e. working through improved coordination, communication, meetings, training, PR activities. It was noted that ECP/GR provided substantial input into the preparation of projects that had been funded by external sources such the EU GEN RES programmes. However, such external funding is not sustainable and the above-mentioned tasks raise concern due to the limitations of the present ECP/GR budget. It is therefore suggested that the SC should not only consider maintaining the present budget line, but also consider an increase along the priorities outlined above, for Phase VIII.The past experience of ECP/GR showed that besides funding meetings, a certain amount of funds need to be reserved to targeted ad hoc actions. Attention to a fund-raising role is also recommended.The meeting noted that the current and future EU legislation has an increasing impact on ECP/GR activities. It is therefore suggested that communication between ECP/GR and the relevant European Commission services be improved (AGRI, Environment, SANCO and RESEARCH being the most important ones).Steering Committee members are encouraged to facilitate this process via their national inter-department links.The Working Group on Grain Legumes (WGGL) remains the only operative Working Group in this Network although new initiatives from other potential groups relevant to the coverage of the network would be welcome. The members of the Network Coordinating Group (NCG) had been unable to attend the meeting of all ECP/GR NCGs in Bonn at the end of March so this meeting was organized to address issues raised at that meeting. The discussion therefore focused on the operation, workplan, budget and future workplans for the WGGL.The workplan proposed at the end of the 3 rd meeting of the WGGL was considered realistic and achievable with the resources available within the Group.A task force of WGGL members had worked effectively and efficiently in planning and collating information concerning the regeneration protocols for grain legume (GL) species. This developed into an on-line consultation on the conservation, management and regeneration of grain legume genetic resources hosted by the ECP/GR secretariat and IPGRI Web site in the first part of 2005. The NCG expressed their appreciation to task force members and those associated with ECP/GR secretariat in their contributions to making this a useful and successful operation. Preliminary analysis of the findings had been undertaken at IPGRI. The targeted mailing to encourage contributions to the on-line exercise was viewed as very successful, resulting as it had in submissions from 23 countries. It was evident that there was interest in the issues raised and awareness was generated across the whole of the GL community and not just restricted to Europe.As outlined in section 4.1, an extended set of some 1900 Pisum accessions have been sourced from WGGL members. DNA samples have been prepared and the resulting data will be used to address questions of the structure of diversity held in European collections, putative duplicates and the \"most original sample\" concept. This was viewed as a very successful action on behalf of the WGGL in collaboration and delivery into a large research initiative.• Organization of a short workshop on regeneration of allogamous GL species Important interactions and networking were achieved in the out-of-session periods that will be taken forward in the work of the WGGL.This point had been covered as part of the on-line consultation exercise conducted in 2005. Sijka Angelova outlined particular cases that she was involved with in Bulgaria, and others that she was aware of in the region. She offered to contact other WGGL members and collate the findings into a short report this summer.While progress in this area has been achieved, the efforts were still rather fragmented. In the absence of a current summary, the NCG decided that a review of the current status of the Central Crop Databases (CCDBs) relating to GL was needed urgently to feed the planning for Phase VIII.• Full meeting of the WGGL 2007A formal approach had been made in February to the organizers of the AEP Grain Legume Conference (Lisbon, Nov. 2007) for a session on genetic resources. During past conferences, this workshop had been well supported and a similar event during the 2007 conference would also be scheduled. The NCG agreed that scheduling a full meeting of the WGGL in the days immediately prior to the AEP conference was a good way of ensuring that the group had the additional opportunity to interact with a wide group of users of GL genetic resources. Tentative dates for the 4 th WGGL meeting were fixed for 9-10 November 2007.The budget requested in Phase VII for the short ad hoc meeting and a full meeting of the WGGL were still considered appropriate by the NCG and no further requests were noted.The NCG regretted that representation of the Oil and Protein Network Coordinating Group had not been possible at the Bonn meeting. The NCG expressed their thanks to the ECP/GR Secretariat for all the pre-meeting papers and for making available a draft of the parallel sessions dealing with network-specific issues and the recommendations and conclusions of the meeting.The NCG noted the important work undertaken within this project and the stimulation to those WGs currently engaged in the project. The development of the framework was supported in outline but there was a strong feeling from within the Group that the strength of ECP/GR was its inclusivity. There may be were dangers that a two-tier system may start to develop which could be divisive if it calls for obligations that may not be readily met across member countries.The NCG supported the developments that had been ongoing within the Documentation and Information Network during Phase VII. Difficulties were envisaged in extending the coverage of EURISCO to cover in situ resources but the aim of integration within a single system was desirable and should be pursued. The current difficulties with the system were known to the Group and would no doubt be resolved in the near future. The NCG supported the continuation of effort in relation to CCDBs and their associated expertise.• Increase inter-regional cooperationThe NCG strongly supported this point and is actively engaged in initiatives that are contributing to this effort (see 4).The NCG discussed activities relating to raising awareness of the existence and work of the WGGL. It was felt that the short articles written following meetings and published in the IPGRI Newsletter for Europe and the AEP journal Grain Legumes were well placed for their target audience. These and mention of the WGGL in talks would be collated for the mid-term report to the Steering Committee. It was felt that more could be made of the WGGL Web page in terms of links to relevant initiatives with which the Group was associated, such as the EU Grain Legumes Genetic Improvement Programme. These links should be reciprocal.Mike Ambrose undertook to deal with these. Maria José Suso mentioned that there was a forthcoming meeting relating to the International Treaty to be held in Madrid next month and she undertook to approach the organizers to see whether it would be possible to provide information on the work of the WGGL at the meeting.A discussion on future workplans took the form of a brainstorming session on issues and initiatives that will help shape future discussions within the Group and the future work plans of the WGGL. The discussion is summarized as a series of bullet points. The discussion focused on the follow-up actions listed at the end of the report of the Valladolid meeting. It was still considered important to continue with the agreed targets. Maria José Suso would contact ECP/GR to request assistance with the cross-tabulation of the results of all the returned information from the on-line survey. This had not been available at the time of the meeting. Once this had been done, it was agreed that a publication would be written based on the results to raise the profile and significance of the findings. It was agreed that we should aim for publication of the work in GRACE in the first instance. The production of revised guidelines for regeneration protocols that addressed the findings of the meeting for more species-specific and practical information where it was available should be progressed this year so as to maintain momentum. The NCG was of the view that these could be developed as a Web document with the entry level being the species. A common structure to all entries would aid clarity. As a Web document it would also be easy to update and revise as new data became available.A strong theme at the meeting in Valladolid had been the increase in complementarity between in situ and on-farm conservation for allogamous GL species. This is an area that clearly links to the In situ and On-farm Conservation Thematic Network and the NCG was of the view that it would be a worthwhile exercise to develop a small exemplar project to go forward to the Steering Committee for one-off funding. Maria José Suso undertook to draft a short preliminary project outline for discussion by the NCG prior to communicating with the ECP/GR Secretariat as to its suitability prior to its submission to the Steering Committee.The NCG discussed the possibility of developing a proposal focused on grain legumes for submission to the 2 nd call for proposals. The general view was that none of us were in a position to coordinate such a proposal due to either time constraints or lack of institutional stability and that grain legumes were too narrow a framework for such a proposal. It was noted that activities within the Group were reflected in a range of funded initiatives that linked the resources into ongoing research projects. These represented a wiser investment of time and resources than regulation 870/2004 for the WGGL at the present time.Mike Ambrose has been involved with coordinating WGGL members in providing Pisum germplasm to the EU Grain Legume Integrated Project. DNA samples derived from single plants from each accession have been prepared and will be used in diversity screening using a set of 70 molecular markers anchored to the genetic map. The data generated will be made available to those who submitted material and will be made public at the end of the project. Contributions from seven European collections had resulted in 1900 accessions being made available. DNA samples had been completed in April of this year. Marker work was not due for completion until into 2007. This has been a valuable contribution to the project and a good example of contributing to one of the four ECP/GR Phase VII priorities.Gérard Duc outlined a project coordinated at ICARDA that would result in 50 SNP markers being scored across 1000 Vicia faba accessions selected for maximum diversity from the collections held in Spain, France and ICARDA. This was a one-year project and would result in the formation of a core collection for Vicia.Mike Ambrose reported in a meeting held at the John Innes Centre in Norwich. This meeting brought together key players from ICARDA, USDA-ARS and ATFCC-AUS to discuss the formation of an International consortium for Pisum germplasm resources. This was instigated to address a need, in the absence of a CGIAR centre with a mandate for Pisum. The consortium would be open to all those with resources who wished to participate and would focus on coordinating input into the growing number of GL research projects internationally and ensuring greater integration in the area of informatics development linked to GL resources. One of the main priorities initially would be to raise the issue of developing an international core collection for Pisum out of the various core collection initiatives that have already been developed. A draft document of the consortium would be circulated publicly during the summer of 2006.The NCG were grateful to Gérard Duc for organizing a session with Catherine Goldstein who is the manager of the TTP to discuss communication and interactions. While the EU GLIP project is primarily Europe-based, the TTP is aiming at the international GL community. Germplasm and data generated within the EU GLIP project is one of the key outputs for researchers and breeders. This already utilizes contributions made by WGGL members. The delivery of outputs is an area where the WGGL could usefully have input and be promoted. It was agreed that the TTP Web site will host a link to the WGGL Web page and WGGL would aim to reciprocate this arrangement as part of its devised Web page. The discussion was very much on the need for two-way dialogue between TTP and the WGGL and Catherine would outline information relating to genetic resources where the WGGL could assist.Budget for Phase VII is presented in Appendix II. The proposed budget for Phase VIII will be formulated in 2007. ","tokenCount":"21234"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a7e7643b4d2b3f02d4edfc6cc26c8233","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/1c318b37-b337-402f-894e-0514736e92a8/retrieve","id":"-1917431755"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"a03f0e64-fff7-4b78-a8ca-89bec696348f","pagecount":"8","content":"The international prices of staple food commodities began to rise in mid-2020 partly due to supply chain bottlenecks associated with the outbreak of Covid-19. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022 caused an additional spike in commodity prices, particularly those of wheat and maize. This brief estimates the impact of these price increases on poverty in Mali. It is part of a series of six such briefs that estimate the poverty impact of higher world prices for staple grains. The other briefs cover Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Kenya (see Martin and Minot, 2023a  and 2023b;Minot and Martin, 2023a, 2023b, and 2023c).The analysis starts by examining the effect of the increase in international grain prices on the real price of selected grains in the domestic markets of the country. We estimate the impact of the changes in domestic grain prices on the real income of each household in a nationally representative survey, taking into account the importance of the commodities in consumption and as a source of income for each household. Finally, changes in the incidence of poverty are estimated based on the changes in real income for each household in the sample. We focus on the prices of maize, wheat, and sorghum for the reasons discussed below. The methods are described in more detail in a separate brief (see Minot and Martin, 2023d).Because of low incomes and associated large shares of expenditure on food, Mali is potentially very vulnerable to sharp increases in the prices of key grain staples such as maize and wheat. A first step in understanding the impacts of changes in the prices of these products is to examine developments in their prices on world markets. After a long period of relatively stable prices on world markets, the prices of key food staples began to rise during 2020. This period of price increases, spanning the COVID-19 pandemic and then the price shocks following Russia's invasion of Ukraine raised serious concerns about the welfare of poor people in countries such as Mali.Sources: FAO GIEWS data accessed 4 May 2023. Wheat: US SRW wheat, Gulf Ports; Maize: US #2 Yellow, Gulf; Sorghum: US Export Sorghum, Gulf; Rice: Thai 5% broken, Bangkok.Figure 1 presents the movements in the prices of four key grain staples-maize, rice, sorghum and wheat-from the beginning of 2020. It shows that the world prices of maize, sorghum and wheat began to rise at different points during the COVID-19 pandemic. By February 2022, the wheat price was up 36 percent from its level at the beginning of the pandemic while maize and sorghum prices had risen by 71 and 87 percent. These prices jumped immediately following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with wheat up roughly 80 percent, maize up 100 percent and sorghum up 110 percent over January 2000 levels. Rice prices, by contrast, have not moved far from their initial level.The surge in the prices of wheat and maize following the invasion of Ukraine reflected concerns that the supply of these grains to world markets from Ukraine and Russia-which together accounted for 25 percent of wheat exports and 15 percent of maize exports-might be sharply restricted. As it became clear that these exports would be much less restricted than originally anticipated, prices of these grains declined from their immediate post-invasion peaks. For the marketing year following the invasion (July 2022 to June 2023), total wheat exports from Russia and Ukraine increased by around 15 percent, with Russia's exports rising by roughly one third and Ukraine's declining by 8 percent 1 .While the higher world prices of recent years created incentives to increase supply and to reduce demand in many markets, these price increases were not passed through into many markets. This, in turn, forced world prices to go higher than otherwise to balance global supply and demand. For wheat, price insulation appears to have roughly doubled the increases in world prices during the COVID pandemic and between February and May 2022 (Martin and Minot 2022).When assessing the impacts of world prices on the welfare of poor people, it is vitally important to consider the extent of price insulation. Clearly, when world prices rise and domestic prices are insulated against some or all of the price increase, any adverse impacts on vulnerable people are mitigated. But, against that, the collective impact of price insulation is to magnify the increase in world prices, increasing the impact of the original shock to world prices.A key influence on the importance of any particular food when considering poverty impacts is the share of total calorie consumption accounted for by that food. Foods that contribute a large share of calorie consumption are likely to be important both because of this large average budget share and because this share is likely particularly high for poorer people. The average share is shown in Table 1 for each of the key staples whose price rose sharply during the COVID and Ukraine crises. This Table reveals that the calorie share for maize is the highest of the three at 17 percent, while sorghum accounts for 13 percent and wheat for only 5.2 percent. It should be noted that rice and millet were more important sources of calories in Mali but are not considered because rice prices were relatively stable and there is no international price indicator for millet.As shown by Deaton (1989) the importance of a staple food in the diet is not the only factor that determines its real impact on household welfare when subsistence production is important. Rather, what matters is the difference between the share of the good in total income and its share in total expenditures-the so-called Net Benefit Ratio (NBR) for the food. Table 1 shows that the share of household income from maize is smaller than the share of expenditure for each staple food. The NBR as a percentage of initial expenditures is larger in absolute value for sorghum (at 1.7 percent) than for maize (1.4 percent) and for wheat (0.3 percent). These results show that average household real incomes are likely to fall by 0.17 percent for a 10 percent increase in the price of sorghum, by 0.14 or 0.003 percent for the same rise in the prices of maize or wheat respectively. What matters for household incomes in Mali is not changes in world prices, but rather changes in domestic prices. Table 2 presents the changes in world prices and in nominal and real domestic prices relative to January 2020 prices. Although inflation rates in Mali were quite low over much of this period-at 0.4 percent in 2020, 3.9 percent in 2021 and 7.6 percent in 2022-the differences between the nominal and real price changes over this period of nearly three years are quite noticeable. For consistency with other country studies in this series, we focus primarily on the changes in real domestic prices.Table 2 shows dramatic differences between the three prices reported for each commodity. For example, the 30 percent increase in wheat prices prior to the Ukraine invasion is associated with only a a two percent increase in real domestic prices. The further 46 percentage point increase in world wheat prices to May 2022 was associated with a 1 percentage point decline in real domestic prices. The sharp decline in world wheat prices to July 2022 translated into a real price decline of only four percentage points. Over the whole period, domestic wheat prices were essentially unchanged.The real domestic price for maize decreased by 49 percent during the COVID pandemic, comparable with the 61 percent increase in world prices during this period. The sharp rise in world prices following the Ukraine invasion was associated with a similarly sharp increase in domestic prices, while the decline in world prices to July 2022 saw essentially no change in domestic maize prices. Sorghum prices rose in each period, in contrast with the rise and subsequent fall in world prices. Mali depends heavily on imported wheat, with imports accounting for over 90 percent of consumption. Because wheat production is so small, there is little information available about policies affecting agricultural trade in sources such as Nkuingoua and Pernechele (2022) or Dewbre and Borot de Battisti ( 2008). WTO's Integrated database 2 reports that the applied tariff is 5 percent, which leaves little scope for reducing tariffs in order to avoid passing higher world prices into domestic markets. Given Mali's geographic isolation, some delay in transmission of short-term price changes might be expected, but this would not explain the absence of adjustment over the two and a half years under consideration. One possible explanation might be some form of rationing, given that consumption appears to have fallen by around a quarter 3 in the July 2021 to June 2022 year despite the apparently stable wheat price.For maize and sorghum, reported trade has been zero during the most recent five years 3 . Even though this would trigger retaliation from its neighbors (USDA 2023), the government banned exports of these products from December 2021, suggesting that it sought to insulate its market from the increases in their world prices. Nkuingoua and Pernechele (2022) note that restrictions on exports have contributed to average nominal rate of protection of -43 percent for maize and -25 percent for sorghum between 2005 and 2020. The sharp rise in real maize prices occurred despite little change in production and a decline in stocks during 2020-21. A fall in production of sorghum of around a third in 2021-22 likely contributed substantially to the much larger increase in domestic sorghum prices-both relative to world prices and to the domestic price of maize.In our analysis of poverty impacts, we focus on changes in prices up to July of 2022 because, as shown in Figure 1, the world prices of wheat, maize and sorghum remained in broadly the same range between that time and April of 2023. Figure 2 compares poverty rates at baseline with those for the three key time periods considered in the analysis. Clearly, poverty rates are much higher and increase much more in percentage point terms in rural areas than in urban areas, with rural poverty rising from 49.7 percent to 52.8 percent at July 2022 prices. The increase in poverty in urban areas is much smaller in percentage point terms, at 0.8, than in rural areas, although this increase is almost 10 percent of the initial share of poor people. The biggest contributing factor to the estimated rise in poverty is the rise in the real price of sorghum, which had both the largest price increases and the greatest leverage on the poverty rate because of its relatively large adverse Net Benefit Ratio. While alarming, these estimates of the price impacts on poverty omit the adverse impacts on farm incomes of the sharp decline in the 2021 sorghum harvest.Source: Authors' calculations based on changes in real prices of maize, wheat, and sorghum and household income and expenditure patterns.Two very important assumptions in this analysis were: (i) that domestic prices did not follow world price changes, and (ii) that what matters is the real, rather than the nominal, increases in domestic prices. key question is the extent to which the insulation of Mali's domestic markets from the increase in world prices helped to reduce the impact of the world price increases on poverty. Another is how sensitive the results would have been to use of nominal price increases, rather than the real price increases that were the focus of the previous section.To address these questions, Figure 3 contains three bars for each time period. The first shows the change in poverty rates based on real grain price changes. The second shows the impacts had the changes in world prices been passed fully into domestic prices. The third shows the impacts had the analysis been based on the changes in nominal domestic grain prices. Comparison of the first two bars shows that the insulation of Mali's markets from world price increases reduced the poverty impact up to January of 2022 by around 0.7 percentage points. But by May, the poverty impact of Mali's domestic price increases was roughly the same as if world price changes had been transmitted directly. For the period to July 2022, the poverty impact of the price increases in Mali was substantially greater than had producers and consumers in Mali been experiencing the full brunt of the increases in world prices to that time. When considering the global economic impacts of price insulating policies, it should, of course, be remembered that the volatility of world prices is magnified by the use of price insulating policies in many major grain producing and consuming countries. Martin and Minot (2022) estimate that the shocks to world wheat prices over this period were roughly doubled by these price insulating policies. Countries that use price insulating policies such as variable tariffs or export levies benefit directly from lower price volatility while contributing to global price volatility. Policy approaches such as export bans, by contrast, contribute to exacerbating global price volatility but may expose the countries using them to greater price volatility.Comparison of the first and third bars in Figure 3 shows that poverty impacts were only modestly higher when nominal, rather than real, price changes were used in the analysis. This is perhaps not surprising an average inflation rate of less than 5 percent per year between January 2020 and January 2022 and 6.5 percent between January 2020 and July 2022. The largest impact was for the period up to July 2022, when the estimate based on nominal prices was 3.0 percent, rather than the 2.7 percent obtained when using real price increases.Notes: The first bar in each set is based on changes in real domestic prices; the second on the assumption that domestic prices moved in line with world prices and the third on use of nominal, as distinct from real price changes.The analyses presented in this brief highlight some important points. The first is that world prices of key staple foods such as maize, wheat and sorghum can be extremely volatile, with sharp but often short-lived increases in prices having particularly dramatic impacts. With household survey data that are now widely available, it is possible to assess the short-run impacts of price changes on household incomes, and hence on poverty rates, using simple, robust techniques.In Mali, as in many other developing countries, net purchases of households tend to exceed net sales, frequently by a substantial margin. This, and the importance of these foods as sources of calories contribute to a situation in which the short-run impact of higher prices on poverty and food security can be substantial. However, it may be quite misleading to assume that domestic prices will move in line with world prices, especially in land-locked countries such as Mali where key staple foods such as maize and sorghum may be nontraded-whether because of high transport costs and/or policy restrictions.The quantitative restrictions used to insulate domestic staple food prices in Mali from world prices carry with them a substantial risk of creating even worse volatility resulting principally from shocks to domestic production. In the particular sample considered, this problem was highlighted by the dramatic increase in the domestic price of sorghum associated with the poor harvest in 2021. A key policy question is whether a more market-oriented policy, such as one focusing on expanding exports, perhaps with limited use of price-based measures such as export taxes, might achieve Malian policy goals with less instability than is delivered by current policies.This study is part of a series of case studies that IFPRI is undertaking to assess the impact of higher commodity prices on income and poverty in developing countries. The analysis presented is an initial impact assessment designed to estimate the impact of higher food prices on poverty in selected countries. The initial set of case studies covers Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali. The analysis may be extended to cover other countries in the future.","tokenCount":"2656"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"a94e5a909f6e6fac7fc875636f2461e4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/9d94701f-a719-4e9b-a171-f2d185f39c9f/retrieve","id":"339591167"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b44db518-e9b4-4269-a9dc-e403e8756bb9","pagecount":"18","content":"A stakeholder meeting was convened by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) on June 14th, 2011 in Kampala to review that status of efforts to develop the smallholder pig value chain in Uganda and the potential contribution of new activities being initiated by the CGIAR partners. The purpose of this meeting was to share information about ongoing work and solicit stakeholders' perspectives on constraints and opportunities in smallholder pig production and marketing, and to introduce and receive feedback on CGIAR Research Program (CRP) 3.7 on Livestock and Fish and CRP4 Agriculture, Health and Nutrition, and a new project funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the European Commission (EC). With the shift of the CGIAR system to focusing on achieving impact with solution-driven research for development, analysis and improvement of selected value chains in targeted countries and commodities offers the opportunity to tangibly increase incomes and alleviate poverty, in this case among smallholder pig farmers and informal value chain actors in Uganda.Participants were asked to share their perspectives on strengths and opportunities for enhancing the smallholder pig value chain and the challenges that might be faced. They were also asked to share information on what development activities and research are currently ongoing and what they perceived as opportunities for further research activities.Based on presentations and discussions, pig production and pork consumption are seen to be increasing and the sector is considered dynamic and quickly growing. At present, the pig production value chain is poorly characterized and linkages between the various sectors are weak and poorly coordinated, with farmers, processors, retailers, consumers, researchers and development workers sharing little information. It was agreed that major opportunities exist to improve its efficiency and offer benefits to the poor. These perspectives were also echoed during earlier field visits with farmers raising pigs in Kamuli and Masaka, a feed miller, butchers at the Wambizi slaughterhouse and at roadside pork joints.Development actors highlighted several intervention strategies for improving smallholder pig systems that have proven successful. In general, their perceptions of research needed to improve smallholder pig productivity corresponded well to several of the areas of current research on feeds, breeding, husbandry and animal health. Research has largely ignored other issues, though, especially with respect to processing technologies, management strategies and economic studies both on farm and along the value chain.Feed resources for pigs emerged as one of the most important issues for participants who cited a general lack of appropriate year-round feeds, prohibitive costs of available feeds, lack of development of locally available forages and lack of knowledge of feed mixes (concentrates, forages) which could improve meat quality and husbandry practices.Finally, the consensus of participants was that CRPs 3.7 had a positive role in contributing to their efforts and that the ILRI-CIAT collaboration could play a catalyst role for improving coordination and resource mobilization to promote development of the smallholder pig value chain.The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) are partners in a new initiative in international agricultural research: the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish (CRP3.7). This program is proposing to focus its research capacity and efforts on a small set of selected animal product value chains to work with development partners in transforming the value chains to benefit the poor. Two of the selected value chains are located in Uganda, one based on smallholder pig production and the other on smallscale aquaculture. ILRI and CIAT are leading the work on smallholder pig production and have begun engaging with stakeholders and potential partners in Uganda as they await official approval and start of CRP3.7. As part of this engagement, the two Centers convened a stakeholder workshop to introduce CRP3.7 and a pilot activity planned with support from the European Commission (EC) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). This report presents the discussions held during the workshop and the main points that emerged.The participants invited to the meeting represented actors at various stages in the pig production value chain as well as interested researchers and development actors. Actors in the value chain included farmers, pig breeders, feed mixers and representatives of small-scale businesses currently involved in the pig sector in Uganda. Development actors included District Veterinary Officers, NGO officers involved in pig production projects, representatives from farming cooperatives and agricultural donors. Researchers included scientists involved in research on constraints to pig production such as epidemiologists investigating diseases (African Swine Fever [ASF], cysticercosis), feed and forage scientists, breeders and genetists, and agricultural economists. In all, 31 people attended; their names and contact information are included as Appendix 1 of this report.The objectives of the meeting were twofold:• To share information on current research and development efforts to promote small holder pig value chain activities and• To review what is currently being done, what is working, challenges that are being faced and to look at whether a coordination of collective efforts would be beneficial to moving this initiative forward.Tom Randolph presented the concept of the proposed Livestock and Fish CRP, which provides the context for the IFAD-EC project \"Catalysing the emerging pig production value chains in Uganda to increase rural incomes and assets\". He also emphasized that this project would be the first of many activities to be undertaken over the next 6-10 years, starting with characterization of the smallholder pig value chain.A related CGIAR Research Program, CRP4: Agriculture for Improved Nutrition and Health, was also discussed. It will work at the interface of the agriculture, health, and nutrition sectors to improve the nutritional benefits of agriculture while reducing the health risks. CRP4 will also be pertinent to development of the smallholder pig value chain as it plans activities on assessing and managing meat-borne disease, neglected zoonoses such as cysticercosis, and diseases emerging as the result of intensification.The participants were then asked if they had any questions regarding the planned implementation of the IFAD-EC project or the two CRPs.Some issues raised in response:• As the Ministry has not been very actively involved in meat safety (pork inspection), would this project represent an opportunity to establish more effective and increased number of slaughter slabs?• There is a need to ensure, as pork production increases incomes in the project areas, that household human food security is not jeopardized in favour of pig food security. In addition, the gender component of the project must be closely analysed so that as the project is seen to be successful, the income generating activities are not taken over by men, potentially also jeopardizing household food security.• The particular points along the value chain must be closely analyzed in order to determine which one will have the greatest impact on improving incomes for the poor, and will therefore be the catalyst.The consultant agricultural economist, John Jagwe, presented some of the early results of a scoping study which is being undertaken by ILRI, the World Bank and FAO to improve livestock statistics for decision making, particularly focusing on production systems for dairy, beef, chicken, egg, pork and goat. It is hoped this scoping study will also generate a good amount of data to guide the design and implementation of the smallholder pig value chain project and other potential opportunities. Some of the data intended to be captured include quality and safety attributes, the type of consumer buying particular pork products, growth prospects by product type and constraints to growth in supply.Some of the preliminary observations presented include:• 60-70% of all pork consumed in Uganda is consumed in urban/peri-urban areas • The value chain currently producing this pork consists primarily of pig farmers → traders/transporters → road side outlets (butchers and pork joints) → consumers • At present, processors involved in the high-end market which retails bacon, pork chops, sausages, frankfurters, smokies, etc. in large supermarket chains are very few and this retailing constitutes a very small segment of market consumption • The price of pork in the rural areas is lower than that of the urban areas • Some traders/transporters have modified vehicles specifically to cater for transportation of pigs.Some of the challenges found were poor compliance with quality and safety standards, frequent loss of pigs to disease, lack of adequate feeds and poor quality, low prioritisation of pork industry by government and under-developed value chains.Preliminary findings also indicate trends in growth; an increase in the number of people keeping pigs and changing lifestyles and consumption patterns have led to an increase in demand for and consumption of pork, and an increase in the number of retail outlets selling pork.The following represented some areas that stakeholders felt could be incorporated into the study if they were not already being looked into:• As pork is considered \"the other white meat\" this presents an opportunity to alert consumers to the health benefits of eating pork. Also need to look into consumer preferences with respect to fat content of meat.what percentage is consumed inside the home vs outside. Are there any data on where pork produced in rural areas is sold if they cannot access urban markets? • Do consumers have preferences with respect to which retail outlets they buy pork from based on food safety standards? • Is there any evidence to link clinical disease in humans with pork meat safety issues?The session concluded with the point made that the Uganda Livestock Census conducted in 2008 states that 1 out of every 5 rural households keeps pigs (mainly 1 or 2 pigs tethered or free range) and 80,000 tonnes of pork is consumed annually yet very little is known about how the sector works. There is tremendous opportunity to influence exponential gain if knowledge is applied correctly to segments of the value chain.The next sections of the meeting focused on the perspectives of different groups of people in pig raising and pork production by analysing the perceived strengths and opportunities and the weaknesses and challenges (threats). Each category of stakeholder was asked in turn to share its views.• Food that is not used for humans can be fed to pigs, including maize bran, sweetpotato vines and cassava leaves. • Uganda's population is projected to reach 65 million by 2020; this could result in increased demand for pork products (Livestock Revolution). • There are many advantages to raising pigs over other livestock: pigs are easy to feed; women prefer to rear pigs; there is a ready market and proven demand; pigs do not take vast amounts of land (especially if zero grazed); pigs grow fast, have high fecundity and short generation intervals which can result in quick generation of cash for farmers and require few veterinary inputs. • Existing abattoirs are working below capacity and there is potential to introduce new ones into neglected areas. • Nutritional benefits of pork over red meats can inform consumers' choices adn therefore further increase demand. • There is great potential in the already dynamic informal sector to enhance breeding potential and pig production in general and there are already good breeds within Uganda such as Camborough, Landrace and Large white. • Significant numbers of scientists and students are interested in researching better feeds for pigs and there are potential feeds not yet exploited. • As most processed pork products currently sold in high-end supermarkets in Uganda originate from Kenya, there exists great potential for Uganda to set up a domestic processing industry which could extend to the region.• There has been little investment to date in the pork industry, few institutions established in national systems to support it and low prioritisation of the sector by government in development plans. • There are few scientists currently working on the pig value chain and the current curriculum at Makerere does not include many courses on pig production. • The available feeds are not good and in some cases limited to one brand only.• Attention needs to be paid to make sure that humans and pigs do not compete for same feed resources. • Farmers do not know how much their pigs are worth, breeds are inconsistent and animals are not raised in a structured manner to ensure consistency of product. • There is a lack of organized markets and farmers tend to get exploited by middlemen.Preceding the workshop, a team from ILRI, CIAT, IFAD and the EC had visited actors involved in the smallholder pig value chain in Kampala, Kamuli and Masaka areas. The following are perspectives collected from people met during those visits:Woman farmer -Kamuli: Basic improvements in pig husbandry promoted by VEDCO have permitted farmers to turn pig raising into a semi-commercial enterprise and significantly increase incomes. Sourcing a steady supply of feed can be a challenge, and reliance on local traders sometimes does not offer the best prices.Woman farmer -Masaka: The majority of pig keepers continue to raise local pigs as before, allowing them to free range. The pigs do not grow well, have problems with disease and often must be kept tethered to avoid crop damage and problems with neighbours.Woman farmer -Masaka: Support from Kamuzinda Farm has led to basic improvements in backyard pig systems for a number of households working with either indigenous or improved breeds, and provided an important supplementary source of income for key expenditures, especially for education costs. Marketing is not a problem given the constant demand from Kampala.The mill targets pig producers with single maize/fish feed product, but demand mostly limited to larger commercial piggeries and market remains small. Sourcing raw materials of adequate quality is a recurrent problem and results in less than half production capacity especially in the dry seasons hence having to sell products at high price. Lack of enforcement of quality standards gives small local feed millers unfair advantage in making cheap but sub-standard mixes.Wambizi slaughterhouse cooperative: This is the largest pig slaughterhouse in Kampala, run by a farmer cooperative. The leaders of the cooperative said that while demand is high for their pork products, they have difficulty sourcing animals and work at only 50% capacity. The market is segmented, with smaller pigs going to pork joints and the largest ones going to processors. Many byproducts (e.g. blood) are simply thrown out. There appear to be issues around how value of animals is determined: dressed weight versus live weight. The cooperative recognizes the need for better slaughter technology to improve their performance and profitability.The urban pork market has grown remarkably fast from almost nothing over the past 20 years. This butchery handles 2 tonnes of pork/day, of which an important share is sold in the operator's own pork joints at the same location. It has evolved strategies for segmenting the different qualities of pork (fat content, boar tainted meat, size of cuts). Pig supply is a challenge.A typical operator handles 2 pigs/day, mostly the smaller local pigs. Demand is steady, but sourcing pigs can be a challenge. There are perceived advantages to relocating to a centrally placed slaughterhouse in town to have better infrastructure and services.• Government has included pigs in its Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) as a means of alleviating poverty for smallholder farmers, particularly focusing on generating employment for youth and women. • As pigs can be sold at any time, they can be used to meet emergency or unforeseen household expenses and can also be used to pay school fees, sold to buy cattle and to upgrade homesteads. They can also be sold early if feed availability becomes a problem. • In times of climate change exerting pressure on farmers, pigs can be used as integral part of a diversified crop and livestock farming strategy. • Pigs do not tend to be rustled by neighbours so farmer is not as vulnerable to livestock theft as perhaps with cattle. • Agencies are already looking at generating bio-gas from pig manure.• Opportunities exist to support both the informal (which currently has the largest current market share) and formal markets. • Pigs are well suited to a \"pass it on\" scheme as they have high fecundity and short generation intervals, something which agencies are already exploring.• It is difficult to access funding or assistance from government regarding development of pig value chain. • The risk exists that as the value chain develops and is seen as successful, women and the poor may be pushed out by men and commercial enterprises. There is a need to advocate for the smallholder farmer and not lose sight of main beneficiary of improving pig value chain. • Inbreeding of pigs at village level and a current lack of good breeds readily available to farmers means pigs are sometimes sold before time and farmers are not aware of proper breeding strategies to realize most gain. • Need to ensure that if non-traditional feeds become available they are geared towards providing fastest growth and good quality of pork meat. • Transport of pigs from rural areas to markets is a concern because of poor road infrastructure. • Need to focus on housing and transport issues for pigs to ensure biosafety, not just feeds for pigs. • District officers may need more training on pig production as they might lack expertise currently. • There are more slaughter slabs being built for cattle but this is not occurring for pigs.• The perception that pigs are a zero input livestock and therefore require little care or money needs to be overcome if pig rearing is to be successful. While pig rearing can require fewer inputs, some veterinary inputs are necessary if disease constraints which may prolong growing time and create human food safety issues are to be addressed.• Programs distributing pigs such as \"pass it on\" initiatives need to be aware of disease risk transmission from farm to farm (this has happened for both clinically and sub-clinically affected pigs).The following section deals with what is currently seen to be working within the pig industry in Uganda, as perceived by two NGOs: VEDCO (Volunteer Efforts for Development Concerns), a development agency working with rural households in Uganda on agriculture and livelihoods, and Kamuzinda Farms, a pig farm promoting smallholder production in the Masaka area.VEDCO described in part their approach to pig rearing for smallholder farmers:1. Careful selection of farmers for pig production interventions. Farmers apply  are short listed  farmers interviewed at their households and interest in pigs (including their previous experience) assessed. Criteria assessed also include the availability of on-farm feeds. Households selected must be crop farming households. 2. Training in pig production is carried out using a modular approach. 3. Improved housing implemented for improved bio-security. This is cost-shared by the farmer, which ensures that farmers have an investment in the enterprise being successful. 4. Start-up kits (around feed and health) are supplied to the farmer, to demonstrate how important feed and health issues are. 5. Business plans (termed 'Involvement plans') are developed, including targets. 6. Children are involved in the enterprise. 7. Direct beneficiaries get a number of inputs (2 x pigs, cement, starter kits etc) which is paid back to other farmers (pig pass-on) rather than VEDCO. Selection of the receiving farmers is by the farmer groups, though VEDCO will then become involved with training of these farmers. 8. VEDCO engages a specialist with technical expertise in pig production to oversee the programme. 9. Lessons learnt have fed back into the design of the programme. An example of this is in modifying the programme from initially giving out pigs, cement, feeds and following the pig for a full year to now giving out starter feeds and vet supplies at the start, stressing again the importance of veterinary inputs and farmers' knowledge of disease and animal health (particularly ASF).Kamuzinda Farms described their approach:1. Have established a demonstration centre where farmers can observe and replicate back on their farms. 2. Provide access to a good pig breed (Camborough). 3. Availing pig production information to farmers, through bi-annual meetings. 4. Would like to avail feeds to farmers through feed storage facilities. 5. Working on providing ready markets. Organise farmers to collect porkers, which are slaughtered by the farms, and transported to Kampala markets.6. Have distributed a number of male pigs (one per every 10 families) so that farmers have access to boars. 7. Continuing research on pig growth Some of the challenges that exist are: 8. It is difficult to ensure meat safety and quality when transporting from remote areas to Kampala without a refrigerated truck. 9. The market pays better prices for premium versus ordinary pork, but farmers to not know how to produce a premium product. 10. Need slaughter slabs close to where pigs are reared. 11. Need to be trained and able to grade pork accurately.• VEDCO improves pig productivity on-farm through the use of social groups • Kamuzinda Farm supports farmers and improved productivity by providing a set of services around improved breeds, information and marketing opportunities, while ensuring sustainability by running itself as a business.Makerere University 1. Investigating weaning strategies appropriate to the Ugandan context, including best times and weights to wean and what types of feed to be given to maximize production cycle. 2. Looking at performance of improved breeds, focusing on cross breeding as most farmers do not keep pure breeds. 3. Characterization of production system and basic feeds in mid-western Uganda has been carried out. 4. Researching nutritional value of locally available feeds, including performance of bran vs grain, introducing fermentation to grain to improve digestibility and the use of fresh forage.Other research priorities identified include:• Understanding impact, prevalence and pathology of ASF in Uganda -potential collaboration with South African universities • Establishing a central market for pigs • Establishing a national breeding programmeResearch on ASF is currently being undertaken in collaboration with scientists from SLU and Makerere, working with ILRI and the Ministry, focusing on:1. How ASF is maintained within the country (changes in cycle times and roles of reservoirs in wild pigs) 2. Research to date has included work in work on > 20 outbreaks only during the last 10 months in > 10 districts (in North, South, East and West) investigating risks of wild pigs to domestic pigs and establishing the economic impact of the disease.Some results include: ASF affects both smallholder farmers and larger piggeries; indications are that healthy pigs act as carriers and distribution of health carrier pigs might have contributed to outbreaks; movements of wild pigs onto farmlands at night may play a role in transmission, but has yet to be quantified.Research on ASF at ILRI began about 6 years ago and has focused on diagnostic kits 2. Disease surveillance capacity has been enhanced by training of Veterinary and Wildlife Services on diagnostics and epidemiology in 5 East African countries 3. Study carried out on disease epidemiology in Kenya: virus type and cause of outbreaks; and establishing role of wildlife in disease transmission. Found that wart hogs and bush pigs can be infected and that wart hogs have been primarily responsible for disease 4. Findings show that >90% of smallholder pigs carry either internal or external parasites but efficacy of products and farmers willingness to treat has not been evaluated.Makerere 1. Research into Taenia solium cysticercosis: associated risk factors; efficacy of available vaccines; association with neurocysticercosis; is the disease rendering pigs unfit for consumption? 2. No current research on \"blue pork\" in Gulu region or harbouring of ectoparasites causing jiggers -need funds to do this.1. Looking at pigs as a reservoir for trypanosomaiasis: a study in Kenya has revealed that 11% of pigs were positive for tryps and that 40% of those positive were carrying human infective parasite, in sites where tryps has not been found for years 2. A study in western Kenya found that 55% of pigs sampled prior to slaughter were positive by Ag ELISA for cysticercosis but that 0% were identified as positive by meat inspectors -the extrapolation of this figure by literature review and data could mean that 6% of pork meals are infective for those who eat the pork.3. The Ag ELISA has been developed into a lateral flow penside diagnostic test which is manufactured in Kampala. Its efficacy and usefulness needs to be evaluated. 4. Research being done looking at pig movements: how often do they come into contact with pit latrines; what distances do they walk during a day? Results indicate free range pigs walk 6 km per day indicating a lot of feed energy expended. 5. Research in north-east India and Vietnam being done into what impact the smallholder pig sector is having on human health across 250 pork-borne diseases and chemical hazards; what resources and level of legislation and regulation is needed to appropriately address the risk? 6. Research in Vietnam has shown that although smallholder produced meat potentially has high hazard risk, the extent to which these are passed on to humans depends largely on food safety practices and in some cases, meat produced in formal sector can present greater risk. Risk is partly a function of short and direct supply chains vs long and complicated production chains.1. Work is ongoing on monogastric forage in Colombia looking at legume leaves (cowpeas, soybeans) and shrubs; looking at replacement value of these forages compared to formal rations. Work is also being done on looking at how to silage home grown forages and addition of materials to increase nutritional value. 2. Better methods of testing the nutritive and digestive properties of feeds focusing on rapid tests. 3. There is limited work undertaken on pig feeds in Uganda; the focus has been on the dairy industry but a proposal has been developed with Makerere to look at feed concentrate value chain in Uganda; how to reduce costs and increase availability of concentrates and how to combine with local feed resources.1. Trying to raise funds to look at correct feeds for pigs in Uganda but hampered by temporary relocation of technical expert for a year to Washington, DC.Despite a considerable amount of research ongoing, there are still many segments of the value chain that have not been considered, including processing and on-farm economics.The next section of the meeting involved group work aimed at identifying the critical issues for development actors and researchers. What are promising successes to be built upon? Do development actors think research is being done on the critical issues? What challenges are researchers being informed of by other actors and what kind of research is critical to addressing them?Promising Successes for Development Interventions• Pass the gift (roll on) with its multiplier effect of pig distribution (the approach)• Transforming the smallholder from free ranging to zero grazing confined systems (important in improving animal health and production), housing • Improving on farm production of animal feed as opposed to external or purchased feed • Use of paraprofessional or community based people who can offer community based extension services • Establishing farm demonstrations or model farms, quantifying the economics of farm operations to be able to provide tangible evidence of increased farm incomes and cost/benefit analysis of typical smallholder pig production unit • Mobilising farmers into farm associations/cooperatives or groups with legal status to increase their bargaining powers and increase dissemination.• Investment in to producing sufficient fodder for the whole year, to ensure consistent supply of animals for slaughter • Feed mills (with credit facilities) to play a role in reducing cost of feed and ensuring good feed quality • Bulking of produce to bring it to market centers, slaughter and grade at source (slaughter slabs), establish cold storage/transportation chain • Establish units to process by-products (blood, bone meal) close to slaughter slabs • Use of equity funds to mitigate in high costs of credit to investors in the value chain especially if there is lack of access to cheap credit • Establish community breeding centers to avoid inbreeding and poor quality animals • Capacity building for farmers in animal husbandry health and meat inspection • Advocate for enforcement of regulatory standards of food health and safety, feed regulations and standards • Advise smallholders on husbandry practices on their farms using an integrated approach.What issues should researchers being working on? 1. Assessment of food sources that are locally available or could be introduced, and the nutrient value of these foods (inclusive of molasses, brewers byproduct, leaf meal, fruits, abattoir waste, cultivable fodder, fish waste) and their potential to compete with human food resources 2. How to combine feed resources, considering regional and seasonal differences in feed availability, at both the farm and commercial level 3. Different pig feed requirements at different stages of their life (age, pregnancy / lactation, etc.) and for different breeds 4. Biotech solutions to increase food nutrition 5. Understand / develop the feed value chain Breeds Research Issues 1. Organisation of community based breeding schemes to avoid inbreeding and increase genetic potential of the animals, including looking at potential for crossing wild and domestic pigs to improve disease resistance; introducing foreign breeds (Chinese). 2. How do the different genotypes perform (production level, disease resistance / resilience)requires a means of genotype (breed) identification 3. Is pig artificial insemination a viable option (although transmission of ASF via semen is a concern) 4. Socio-economic aspects of keeping pig breeds, by system (peri-urban, rural, etc.) i.e. low input / low output system with the local breed versus high input / high output system with the Large white / Landrace breeds. Can we all work together to transform the pig value chain into a viable opportunity to increase incomes for smallholder farmers?The meeting concluded with the participants being asked to assess whether they felt that ILRI had a legitimate role as a catalyst and collaborator in the Livestock and Fish CRP. It was stressed that the CRP would play a role in helping to coordinate the efforts of various actors, in both individual contributory and complementary roles. The objectives of the IFAD project were reiterated to the participants and they were asked to assess the appropriateness of the strategy. There were no comments from the floor on this issue. The participants were then asked to comment on whether they felt there was sufficient interest to continue sharing information and form an informal action group on collaboration.Participants responded by stating the following:1. Different means of sharing information must be employed that all can access, ie, web platforms and face to face meetings and communication. 2. Some major stakeholders such as representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture are not present at this meeting. In order for the project to be feasible, these actors must be involved from inception as part of planning and information sharing. 3. CIAT and IITA should be closely involved in the IFAD project, for nutritive analysis both for animal and human feeds. 4. Look at other networks and platforms for lessons learnt and potential replicability -a smallholder dairy information platform exists (EADD) and UGONET (Uganda goat network) 5. Must ensure that collaboration is formalized with Memorandi of Understanding (MoUs); this will protect all actors and address issues of intellectual property rights.The meeting was concluded by thanking all participants on behalf of ILRI and CIAT for their attendance and contributions. ","tokenCount":"5163"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b4b749c885d75af8afe77b844be66e57","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/b3899abc-1e07-47fd-8fc3-dd669c467d9b/retrieve","id":"-1472550438"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"48870bd0-a6b4-4533-9026-361f3642f071","pagecount":"9","content":"This was my first time at a COP and what an honor to be at the one where food and food systems were so prominent in the discourse, declarations, commitments, and investments. The buzz was palpable and the food-climate links were even visible in what was on offer to buy and eat at the Expo.But how do we get from buzz to impact, especially for the poorest? How can our research and engagement help? On Dec 2, CGIAR/IFPRI hosted an event with the Rockefeller Foundation on SDG2 commitments to impact.On Dec 11, CGIAR hosted a conversation on commitments to climate goals, especially the global goals on adaptation which have been a key focus of the negotiations. These book-end events had common threads, and together with the read-outs on the negotiations, they offer sobering insights on the road we must still travel.For us in CGIAR, an important question is, how can the research we and our partners already have at hand be deployed to support high impact actions? What research should we prioritize to achieve the most impact? Today was a big day for agroecology and regenerative agriculture in our own events -and again reminded us of the importance of investing in the full scale of evidence around this topic.It is also clear there are elephants in the room on many topics that haven't received much attention yet. There are difficult areas to tread on how to stem the production, marketing, advertising and consumption of ultraprocessed foods and beverages making both people and nature sick, for example, and only one political leader I heard spoke about how women are carrying the burden of putting meals on the table around the world.I look forward to seeing what comes out in the final days of negotiations, and how we can deploy the power of CGIAR's research to support countries and other partners as they consider how to accelerate food systems transformations for humanity, for nature, and for the planet. Scientists, in partnership with international and national practitioners and stakeholders, have been developing solutions to address these interconnected challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution that weakening food security. Building on the direction given by international key instruments like the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the global biodiversity framework and using an integrated approach to build social-ecological resilience, enabling participation by all, including women, youth, and disadvantaged people.This session explored actionable strategies on how restorative agriculture and nature-based solutions can be powerful tools in simultaneously addressing climate change and safeguarding biodiversity, while also supporting our food systems. In her framing comments, Jacqueline Hughes, director general of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), told attendees: \"We need to transform our food systems. We have got to make them have net positive benefits -for climate, biodiversity, nutrition, and livelihoods. We've got to connect the social systems to ecological systems, and then build socioecological resilience. That's going to be really critical. That requires input from all levels of society; we need everybody involved, because otherwise we're not going to have those net positive benefits to the planet and the people.\"Cargele Masso, director of CGIAR's Environmental Health and Biodiversity Impact Platform, took to the podium to discuss barriers to achieving socio-ecological resilience -which he categorized as environmental, economic, structural, cultural, behavioural, sectoral, or policy-related -and stressed the importance of thinking holistically. \"We need systems thinking, because we are addressing multiple issues at the same time,\" he said. \"For this to happen, we need to think about the diversity of solutions, try to see how we integrate them, how they interact, and really understand what is happening. We need multi-layer governance [systems] for all people to act.\" Also framing the discussion of nature-based solutions within a scaling and systems thinking perspective, Olaf Westermann, senior technical advisor for Climate Change at Catholic Relief Services, noted, \"When we think about scaling, we often think of a fairly linear approach: from discovery, to proof of concept, to piloting and finally scaling. But that is not really what happens -this approach often fails. We have not yet addressed the challenges of food insecurity and land degradation at scale, and that is because we have a very simplistic narrative of the cause-and-effect relationship between innovation and scaling.\"• Systems thinking allows projects to move beyond the pilot phase and scale up. Using a system analysis of scaling scan tool can help change the mode of operation of a project and shift the magnitude of impact. This involves assessing the characteristics of the technology or practice, the awareness of and demand for it, its business case, value chain, the amount and availability of relevant finances, the state of the necessary knowledge and skills, public sector governance, leadership and management, evidence and learning, and possible collaboration. • Building socio-ecological resilience demands taking a whole-of-society approach, where all stakeholders are engaged and included. Partnerships across scales and geographies are needed. • Measuring the impact of climate actions is important; in addition to the innovations, metrics, performance indicators, and assessment frameworks that exist for individuals and institutions, panelists called for these types of assessment criteria to be developed and applied to technologies.In 2015, countries established a common global goal on adaptation (GGA) that aims to enhance adaptive capacity and resilience while reducing climate change vulnerability. However, there are still no agreed frameworks, methods, indicators, or metrics to assess progress towards the GGA.This session explored the latest progress on the GGA, which moderator Aditi Mukherji, director of CGIAR's Climate Impact Platform, claimed was \"very timely\" given the ongoing negotiations at COP28. Commenting on the draft GGA text made available on Sunday 10 th December, Mukherji said it was \"good to see the inclusion of important words and concepts from the IPCC reports and the science in general\", but also noted that \"we still have someway to go before it is an acceptable text\", adding that sectoral targets had been downgraded. \"What's most important for the developing countries with whom the CGIAR and our partners work is the means of implementation and finance.\"Christina Rumbaitis Del Rio, senior advisor for Adaptation and Resilience to the UN Foundation, provided an update on the progress of the GGA discussions: \"Week one, we really didn't have to have much of a substantive conversation on the text; the text that was produced was a consensus text, so dropped out a lot of the text that developing countries felt was important and had contributed in submissions, so there were a lot of procedural issues around those texts. Now week two, we're starting to get into a substantive discussion around the different language Parties want to see in there.The latest text does include thematic targets, including on food, agriculture, water, ecosystems, health and infrastructure. But they're not time-bound targets, which is problematic for some, and there is very weak language around means of implementation -code for finance, capacity building and technology transfer, which is needed for achieving those goals. This is very problematic for developing countries, and has been highlighted. In terms of further work, it proposes a two-year work program to develop indicators, which is great -it's important that that process be robust and include observers and experts and is not just a Party-driven process, but there had been other items in terms of further work that many countries wanted to see, like a standing agenda item on the GGA or a consolidated standing agenda item on adaptation, to help keep adaptation on the agenda of the UNFCCC and the negotiations.\"At the time of this event, delegates were still waiting for updated draft text on the GGA to see the outcome of the \"substantive discussions\" that took place over the weekend in Dubai.• Negotiations are ongoing to reach consensus on a set of frameworks, methods, indicators, and metrics to assess progress towards the global goal on adaptation (GGA). • It is important that the different communities of practice are engaged in the process of developing and implementing the GGA targets and indicators. Civil society can play a key role in agitating and advocating for certain targets and indicators. • There are calls for the IPCC to help define the indicators and targets within the GGA. The IPCC finds that progress so far on adaptation action is fragmented, not transformative, and small-scale. Questions remain about the feasibility of some adaptation actions beyond a planetary temperature threshold of 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.Food and Agriculture PavilionConvener: Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA)• African institutions should be emboldened to take forward their own agendas for action independently, aligned to the ambitions of the African Union Climate Change and Resilient Development Strategy and Action Plan. There needs to be a twenty-first century African-led agricultural research system. • Africa's regional organizations should support this African Union strategy.• Actions should be taken to transform CGIAR capacity building partnerships with African institutions, ensuring truly 'locally led development'. • CGIAR needs a 'vision' for scaling innovation in Africa, informed by AICCRA.• Panelists agreed with the findings of a newly published journal article, entitled \"Building twentyfirst century agricultural research and extension capacity in Africa\", from Jayne et al 2023 and reviewed by CGIAR's Sonja Vermeulen. This research found that while donors and international partners have increased the supply of professional African scientists, they have contributed relatively little to the institutional capacities of African national agricultural research and extension systems.This session explored how CGIAR can sustainably support truly African-led research and innovation. AICCRA (Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa) is building partnerships to scale climate-smart agriculture and transform climate services, through capacity development, innovation 'bundling' and technology transfers. It has developed a vision for scaling action based on its experience from its first phase of operation.AICCRA wants a clear 'exit strategy' that enables African partners to take forward their own agendas for action independently, aligned to the ambitions of the African Union Climate Change and Resilient Development Strategy and Action Plan (2022)(2023)(2024)(2025)(2026)(2027)(2028)(2029)(2030)(2031)(2032). With this in mind, panelists examined ways to transition to a \"twenty-first century African-led agricultural research system\".\"The CGIAR system is known for its excellence, but getting the technologies in the hands of farmers has been a challenge,\" said Florence Nakayiwa, deputy executive secretary of Planning Resources Mobilization and Management at the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture. \"AICCRA has been trying to shift that through partnerships, but also in ensuring that farmers are at the center of that partnership: a 360 approach to partnerships. It is amazing to see what young people are doing on the ground.\"She added: \"Sustainability is critical -a lot of these programs are timebound. We need to make sure that the skills to produce technologies are in the hands of Africans. So, when the program ends, Africans can continue producing the necessary technologies.\"Edith Adera -Lead Coordinator, Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP) and Regional Principal Officer, African Development Bank Group added that the CGIAR system is known in terms of excellence. But having that technology in the hands of farmers has been a challenge. AICCRA has been trying to shift that through partnerships but also in ensuring that farmers are at the center of that partnership. A 360 approach to the partnership. She noted that Sustainability is critical -a lot of these programs are timebound and there is a need to make sure that the skills to produce technologies is in the hands of Africans. So, when the program ends, Africans can continue producing the necessary technologies The presentation spotlighted instances where these tools were instrumental in shaping adaptation policies, aiming to augment resilience against adversities such as droughts, floods, and other climate-related impacts. In the words of Edson Nkonde, Director of the Zambia Meteorological Department (ZMD), there is a dual imperative: acquiring copious data addressing the exigencies of smallholders and garnering insights into their dynamics. What influences them? How do they assimilate and utilize our information?According to Edson Nkonde, the Alliance played a pivotal role in informing the National Adaptation Plan, presenting an invaluable opportunity to synergize with on-the-ground initiatives and fortify implementation through data-driven approaches.▪ Transformative adaptation cannot take place without the inclusion of social equity. We must design interventions and provide information to address the root causes of vulnerability ▪ NAP Implementation needs to be a consultative phase as it was in this case ▪ ClimBeR innovations such as the ZADMS which helps to monitor droughts will help the Ministry of Agriculture develop contingency plans. ▪ Training extension service workers so that they understand climate information must be a continuous process ▪ There are gaps in data collection-we need to expand observation infrastructure to analyze information and ensure that the information that reaches farmers is in a format that is useful ▪ When talking about delivering adaptation plans, we need to be able to provide finance to communities so that they are able to fund the activities that they design.","tokenCount":"2143"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"522e8157be9a613a2296eefa861736a4","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d3142627-de18-4220-b59e-7a978f73e2e4/retrieve","id":"1325944257"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"9aa2c098-5de8-4f6c-a87f-fc0aebe44b13","pagecount":"6","content":"Eighteen accessions of sweetpotato (Ipomea batata L.) were selected using the ratio of root/forage dry-matter production (R/F) and classified into four groups: (1) forage, (2) low dual-purpose, (3) high dual-purpose, and (4) low forage-high root production. Roots and vines produced between 120 and 150 days on plots of 10 square meters were evaluated over two years and analyzed in a fixed linear covariance model, including group, accession (group), and days as covariables. There was a significant difference among groups (P < 0.01) for total forage and root dry matter, total commercial roots, and root to forage dry matter. Significant differences of accessions within groups on total forage dry matter and commercial roots indicate that there is enough within-group variability among the accessions to allow a process of selection. The least-squares means for dry-matter forage production ranged from 6.07 ± 0.27 kg/10m 2 for group 1 to 4.43 ± 0.38 kg/10 m 2 for group 4. Total root production dry matter (DM) ranged from 2.04 ± 0.54 kg/10 m 2 for group 1 to 8.22 ± 0.50 kg/10 m 2 for group 4. The total commercial root produced was 2.99 ± 0.60 kg DM/10 m 2 for group 2 and 3.32 ± 0.55 kg/10 m 2 for group 3. This represents 132% more root production than group 1 and almost 36% less than group 4. The average weight of commercial root ranged from about 144 g to 259 g, with a significant difference between groups. The results show that a number of accessions have potential as dual-purpose sweetpotatoes. These are DLP-3548, DLP2481, ARB265, and ARB-158, defined as forage in group 1; DLP-3525 and DLP-2462, defined as low dual-purpose; and ARB-394 and DLP-275A, defined as high dual-purpose.Sweetpotato (Ipomea batata L.) is one of the 12 main plant species used as human food throughout the world (Woolfe, 1992). Sweetpotato roots are used for both human and animal consumption, whereas vines are generally used for animal feed along with crop residues and unmarketable roots, depending on local preferences and customs (Woolfe, 1992). When grown for animal fodder, the sweetpotato has several advantages over other feed crops in semi-1 CIP and ILRI, Lima, Peru. subsistence farming systems. One major advantage is that it may also provide food for human consumption. An optimally integrated livestock-management system can use the sweetpotato's ability to regenerate by continually or sporadically harvesting the vines throughout the growing season before finally harvesting the root (León-Velarde and Gomez, 1996). The emphasis in this practice is on green forage production; cutting the vines significantly increases the yield and growth rate of the aerial part of the plant, while decreasing the yield of the root.The germplasm collection held at CIP includes multi-use sweetpotato varieties, clones, and accessions. However, recent breeding efforts have concentrated on drymatter content for flour and starch. But in recent years, the demand for varieties that produce forage has increased.In mixed crop-livestock production systems, one limitation on productivity is the year-round requirement for feed. The sweetpotato can help to overcome this limitation without environmental damage. It can also contribute to the family's nutrition and household income. Previous studies have demonstrated that a group of accessions have both forage and root production that can help small farmers to increase their income as well as the availability of fodder (Arteaga, 1997;Gomez and Quesada, 1996). The favorable agronomic characteristics of these accessions include general hardiness, low input needs (due at least in part to the presence of vesicular-vascular mycorrhiza), and rapid vine growth in response to fertilizer (Tupus, 1983).Sweetpotato has potential for intercropping, is easy to propogate, has few crop pests and diseases, and provides good ground cover for soil conservation. In addition, the sweetpotato has desirable characteristics as fodder because of its high levels of both energy and protein from the roots and vines, and its palatability. The vines are highly digestible for consumption by both ruminants and monogastrics, and the generally low levels of enzyme inhibitors in the vines make it suitable for pre-drying or silage (Ruiz, 1982).A dual-purpose sweetpotato would have a comparative advantage over accessions and clones selected only for roots or forage production. It would provide food for human consumption, and an optimally integrated livestock-management system could utilize the sweetpotato's ability to regenerate by continually or sporadically harvesting the vines throughout the growing season before finally harvesting the roots.To test this hypothesis, preliminary studies were done to evaluate a selected group of accessions (León-Velarde, 1999). The evaluation was done on management effects and use (digestibility and conservation). Cutting frequency, plant density, and level of fertilization were the main management effects considered. The variety Helena (ARB-UNAP55) was evaluated in San Ramon, Oxapampa, Huachipa, and Cajamarca. Five accessions were evaluated in Oxapampa and Huancamba. These included DLP-3548, ARB-265, ARB-142, RCBIN-5, and Helena. The five accessions produced an average of 12.5 ± 2.5 t/ha of total forage and 2.3 ± 0.9 t/ha of total root dry matter. A cut frequency of 90 days during crop growth gave the best balance between forage and root production. A cut frequency of 45 days tended to reduce regeneration, resulting in lost forage production and nil root production. A level of fertilization from 0 to 180 kg of N increased Helena's forage production from 6.7 t DM/ha to 9.1 t DM/ha (six cuts at 45-day intervals), from 6.1 t DM/ha to 8 t DM/ha (three cuts at 90-day intervals), and from 5.4 t DM/ha to 6.2 t DM/ha at a cut interval of 135 days (Quispe, 1997;Arteaga, 1997).Use of sweetpotato as forage depends on its cost and marginal production in relation to other forages. Sweetpotato can be used in silage with maize (75% maize without ear-husk and 25% sweetpotato) as a form of storage that does not diminish nutritional value (Guerra and León-Velarde, 1998). The digestibility of the silage is around 65% in this combination, decreasing to 48% when sweetpotato proportions were increased. Silage using 75% sweetpotato forage and 25% roots did not affect milk production in dairy cows, and feeding costs were reduced (Sanchez, 1995).where υ i is the group effect, δ ij is the accession (group) effect, and ß is the regression effect of the covariate. Only accessions with at least three observations were considered (SAS, 1996). The variables: total dry matter for forage, proportion of commercial and non-commercial roots (CR/NCR), and ratio of root to forage (R/F) were analyzed, with 137 observations for each. Total root dry matter production (107 observations) and commercial (100 observations) were analyzed; and 98 observations of commercial root weight. Least-squares means and standard errors are presented in Table 1.Table 1 shows the evaluation done on 18 accessions classified into four groups. There was a significant difference (P < 0.01) among groups for total dry matter of forage and roots, total dry matter of commercial roots, and CR/NCR ratio as well as R/F ratio. The covariate (days) was not significant for total dry matter of forage and roots, commercial weight, or R/F ratio; it was significant for commercial weight and proportion of commercial and non-commercial roots (P < 0.05). This is related to the large differences found among groups for commercial root weight, which ranged from 140.27 g to 258.87 g. The information presented in Table 1 was sorted by total dry matter of forage then by total and commercial root dry matter in order to observe the relative importance of the dual-purpose sweetpotato. The results obtained indicate that the classifications fit the selected accessions. Nevertheless, there was a significant difference (P < 0.01) of accessions (group) because of the variability and characteristics of each selected accession, particularly in group 1. Further evaluation of the results showed the possibility of subdividing this group based on the CR/ NCR ratio. A subgroup of forage sweetpotatoes without roots was then defined and evaluated. The other subgroup within group 1 can be considered mainly for forage but with some root production. It Although, several studies have indicated the sweetpotato's potential for animal feed, additional studies are necessary to link root and foliage production in croplivestock farming systems. Limiting factors, such as the activity of the trypsin inhibitor in the vines and its effect on ruminants and monogastrics, need to be defined. The research on the sweetpotato as a dual-purpose crop reported here evaluated alternatives for assessing its more effective use in crop-livestock production systems.Considering the numbers of clones available in the CIP collection at the San Ramon experiment station, future selections for dual-purpose varieties could include characteristics that favor livestock production.The first step in the research reported here was to analyze the germplasm, considering the ratio of total dry matter of roots to vines (R/F), and to classify it into five groups: forage (R/F of 0-1), low dualpurpose (R/F >1-1.5), high dual-purpose (R/F >1.5-2.0), low root production (R/F >2.0-3.0), and high root production (R/F >3.0) (León-Velarde et al., 1997). Based on this classification, 18 accessions were selected and reclassified into four groups as follows: group 1, forage (9 accessions); group 2, low dual-purpose (2 accessions); group 3, high dual-purpose (2 accessions); and group 4, low forage-high root production (5 accessions). Accessions classified as high root production were not included.Four evaluations from years 1999 and 2000, carried out between 120 and 150 days on plots of 10 square meters were analyzed according to a fixed linear covariance model: is necessary to mention that in group 1, four accessions had previously been evaluated in Oxapampa and Huacho: namely, ARB-265, DLP-3548, RCBIN-5, and ARB-UNAP55 (Helena) (Fonseca, 1996). Results showed that there is some potential for forage and roots; however, the change in production between sites indicated a possible genotype x environment interaction, which needs to be considered for diffusion and use in other areas. Helena, which has an RF ratio of 0, is considered a forage variety. However, in certain places, such as Oxapampa, Peru, and Africa, Helena has been found to produce some roots (Ted Carey, pers. comm.). This could be evidence of a genotype x environment interaction.The accessions suited mainly for forage are DLP-3548, DLP-2481, ARB-265, and ARB-158. For dual-purpose use, DLP-2448, ARB-389, and DLP-3525 present a range of total dry-matter forage from 5.25 kg/10m 2 to 6.24 kg/10m 2 and commercial roots ranging from 1.42 kg/10m 2 to 2.35 kg/ 10m 2 , with a weight of 118.25 g to 253.71 g/root.Some accessions in group 1 produced a similar quantity of dry-matter forage to that produced by accessions in group 2; however, the main difference is the consistent commercial root production and the ratio of CR/NCR. Possible dual-purpose selections would be accessions DLP-2462 and ARB-394. Similarly, in group 4, which had high root production but less forage dry matter, accession ARB-UNAP74 needs further evaluation since it shows high root production with forage production similar to that of groups 2 and 3.","tokenCount":"1789"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"110107514b305fc7da00088240ecb7d6","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://repository.cimmyt.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/32f44ade-b2b7-4c56-9cbf-75a230e4ab60/content","id":"1481763535"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b2f45356-88dd-4b35-9f26-57345ce8f105","pagecount":"12","content":"Pos sí, pero pos no hay de otra.Si no le quita uno la maleza, el cultivo nomás no crece.Oiga, ¿por qué no le llama a su inge Erick? Seguro él nos puede recomendar un experto para que nos asesore.�Ah, pos sí, qué buena idea! Ahorita mismo le llamo pa' preguntarle, y cuando venga, le avisamos a don Juan, que andaba en las mismas.Una tarde, en la parcela de doña Soco… El MIM es una estrategia que combina métodos culturales, biológicos, químicos y mecánicos para reducir la maleza. Tiene dos líneas de acción: fortalecer el cultivo para que sea más competitivo contra la maleza y controlar la maleza durante todo el ciclo de cultivo.�Órale! Suena muy complicado; pero a ver, explíquenos, inge.A la mañana siguiente… Con mucho gusto. El problema con las malezas es que son plantas que compiten con los cultivos por los nutrientes del suelo, la luz, el agua y el espacio. Por eso es importante fortalecer el cultivo. Para eso tenemos cuatro prácticas:1. Sembrar variedades resistentes.2. Siembra oportuna y precisa.3. Nutrición equilibrada del suelo.4. Selección adecuada de herbicidas.Perdóneme, inge, pero no me queda muy claro eso de la siembra oportuna.La siembra oportuna es sembrar en la fecha correcta para que la semilla tenga las condiciones adecuadas para desarrollarse.Y lo de la nutrición equilibrada del suelo, supongo que tiene que ver con eso del análisis de suelo, ¿no?Exactamente. Se trata de elegir el fertilizante correcto y usarlo en las cantidades que el cultivo requiera.Ahora la segunda línea de acción: control de malezas. Es muy importante atacar la maleza durante todo su ciclo. Las cuatro prácticas en este caso serían:1. Control de malezas en periodo de barbecho. Para esto se usan cultivos de cobertura para mantener la humedad.2. Mantener limpia el área de cultivo, linderos y canales de riego.3. Debilitar las semillas de la maleza con el manejo de residuos.4. Rotación de cultivo, si es posible.A ver, inge, ¿cómo está eso de debilitar la semilla?Al igual que los cultivos, la maleza crece a partir de semillas. El objetivo es que esa semilla NO se convierta en una planta que pueda robar nutrientes.¿Y cómo le hacemos, inge? Porque ni modo de no regar el suelo.No, no, al contrario. Lo que se hace es regar o esperar a que llueva para que salga la maleza y aplicar un herbicida no selectivo para atacarla.Ah, y pos pa'l próximo ciclo, ya no va a haber tanta maleza porque no hay de dónde crezca... Ándele, Socorrito. Muy bien.�Ah, bueno! Cuando se usan en exceso, sí, pero en ocasiones es necesario aplicarlos.Por eso siempre hay que considerar cuándo y cuánto. La recomendación es emplear el manejo integrado de malezas. Así se reduce la dependencia a estos productos.Inge, pero yo he oído que usar herbicidas es malo pa' nosotros y pa' la parcela. ¿Es cierto?Slo deben usarse con base en el análisis de las necesidades. El herbicida es una herramienta más. Idealmente debería aplicarse al inicio del tratamiento para atacar la maleza y darle mantenimiento a la parcela con el…Mejor conocido como:�Manejo integrado de malezas! �Ah, pero si será rajón, don Crece! Vamos, pues. Bueno, pos vamos a las parcelas pa' revisarlas de una vez. �Ay, compadre, mejor mañana! Mire que ayer me la pasé todo el día limpiando la maleza.No se haga, Socorrito, si yo la vi bien dormida junto a la Lola.Creo que iremos todos, menos la Lola.Con sede en México, CIMMYT, es miembro del CGIAR y es el líder global en investigación para el desarrollo de maíz y trigo, y de sistemas de producción de maíz y trigo para los países en desarrollo. CIMMYT trabaja en México y en el mundo con cientos de aliados para incrementar en forma sostenible la productividad de los sistemas de maíz y trigo para mejorar la calidad de vida de los productores y mejorar la seguridad alimentaria global.Te invitamos a seguir de cerca esta campaña de resultados en nuestras redes sociales para conocer las actividades de los componentes, impactos, testimonios y más… Esta historieta fue editada por el Programa de Agricultura de Conservación, del Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (CIMMYT), con recursos del programa de Modernización Sustentable de la Agricultura Tradicional (MasAgro). Este programa es público y ajeno a cualquier partido político. Queda prohibido su uso para nes distintos a los establecidos en el programa.","tokenCount":"720"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"edb85130a42231dadb5a0cbd938da67b","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/511d85aa-cb31-4e55-bb0b-e0e0cfb91bfd/retrieve","id":"144224978"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"fb0fa2e4-f4dc-4bd7-adea-4f70f266388a","pagecount":"48","content":"Population and development pressures in !he agricultural hillside areas 01 Colombia inevitably lead lo soil erosion, waler pollution and environmental deterioration. Overcoming these problems requires the development of diagnostic and predictive tools which can be usad to derive appropriate resouroe management decisions. Various stages have been idenlified as importanl sleps in the development of monitoring procedures lo help identify the problems and predictive tools to assisl in mapping oul Ihe extenl 01 high priority areas.1. To compile data bases lar spatial analysis. Compiling and becoming familiar wilh existing dala was a uselul first step. Existing activites have been undertaken to help belter idenlify constraints in specifie sites with the aim of largeting research towards developing strategies and tools lo combat soil degradation.Questionnaires have been developad lo solieil farmers perceplions of soil conslraints and soil quality and biophysical characleristics in the field are being measured. Such informalion databases can be fad inlo simulalion models to serve as prediclive tools which will assist in resource managemenl decision making.However, during the analysis 01 existing dala it was generally found tha! the resolulion 01 was nol always useful resulting in very crude depiction of problems areas. Therefore, it is necessary lo determine prior to field investigations, Ihe lactors which are important to Ihe problem al hand.2. Developing a elassificalion 01 Ihe walershad lo serve as a guidanee lor depicting importanl paramelers and areas lor dala colleclion in a well slruelured moniloring framework Such preliminary diagnosis of!he area can be a useful firsl slep in walershed managemenl.3. Using parameters idenlified as importanl conslrainls lo develop predictive 10015. This can serve lo distribule conditions in areas where field investigalion has nol been undertaken, bu! also lo tesl the sensitivity of an area under different condilion. This is undertaken by using a simple erosion model 10 Iry and map out erosion risk areas, in order lo focus our altention on high priority areas. The maps were drawn by calculating Ihe % 01 all larmers responses in each vereda. For example, Ihe % 01 larmers in vereda number 1 answering thal they experience landslides on their larm plots. Often the questions were no! always direct and the response oplions loo general. For example, when asked the conditions 01 their soil in each 01 their larm plots, !he response was given as either good, regular or bad. Further, some questions are asked in a more general sense, and therelore do nol correspond lo each larm plol. For example, when asked il they use fertilizer or whether they keep animals it is not clear on which plot !he response relers too. One would assume Iha! Ihey reter lo !he main larm. This makes it difficul! lo make any assertions aboul the actual causes 01 bad soil condilions on each 01 !he larm plots.Assumption taken in the Analysís 1. Sectíon 3. Even though interpretation of these maps should be taken with caulion, Ihey nevertheless indicate possible aTeas wilh soíl erosion problems. This should be verified wilh lield observalions. More importanlly, the analysis here indicates Ihal il data was to be interpreted on a more locallevel, ie on a larm plot basis ralher than averaging the responses on a vereda basis which essentially cover larger areas, Ihen spalial analysis can polenlially yield importanl informalion aboul Ihe distribution 01 problem areas. Olten soil erosion problems are localized occurences or ralher begin so. II such problems could be identified then remedial measures could be suggesled and implemented.Despite only a few farmers over !he whole area responded that Ihey have bad soil conditíons (Iess than 8%), areas appearing to have the mosl soil problems are nol neccesarily those areas with leasllertile soils. The assumption would be that a map showng bad soils will be the exact opposite in character lo a map showing good soils condilions. Bullhis is nol the case. For example, in La Esperanza, de5pite74.5% 01 all larmers responding that Ihey have good soils, a higher % of farmers in this vereda al50 responded that they have bad sOils, (5.7%). This 01 course may be true, as there may be many  The problems encounlered during interpretation 01 this data may or may not improve wilh finer resolution geocoding. This highlighls the problems 01 using dala based on personal opinions lor deriving concrete conclusion, Often personal opinions aboul slate 01 physical conditions vary and is oflen subjective in nature, Therefore care should be taken lo interprete ¡he data as sensibly as is feasible.• 1I will be much more uselul il ¡arms could be georelerenced on an individual basis and with reference lo the micro-watershed they are found in, as il is the biophysical and morphological condilions 01 Ihese micro-units together with farm and management practices which will affect soll conditions.• Being able to map out responses on a larm scale basis will be much more useful without loss of detail since Ihen cne can link together cause and effect conditions instead of averaging over larger areas.• The questions nead lo be much more focusad in whal Ihey ask and perphaps much more !echnical in Ihe response options Ihey offer, bu! written in a way which will slill be underslandable lo Ihe farmer. For example, instead of goOO, regular or bad, Ihink aboul what conditions make a soil good and also give some sor! of scale which will make better scientific sense,• Ouestion formulation and interpretation of Ouestionnaires should be discussed with soil group PE- The procedure undertaken here has great potenlial as a process lor designing moniloring Irameworks.11 is simple lo carry out and uselul lor preliminary evaluation 01 a study area. Carelully Ihought out monitoring Irameworks are needed to aceurately define baseline conditions. Once these baseline levels have been measured, the impaet 01 Ihe adoplion 01 altemative land management systems can be assessed by comparison (E Barios) The procedure is iIIustrated using the Cabuyal watershed -Cauea.Our approach has 3 main stages tor classifying an area. The first step involves delineating the digital elevation model (DEM) lor the walershed. Secondly we delineate the micro-walersheds, in which sampling will be earried out. Finally we carried oul Ihe classificalion analysis using map layers 01 different biophysicall morphological properties.(1) The first step involved delinealing the topographic boundary 01 Ihe Cabuyal walershed, a subcatchment within the Ovejas Sasin. AII subsequenl analysis is largely based on the DEM.(2) The next step was lo delimite the microwaterheds within !he Cabuyal which would represen! \"sampling unils\". Using watersheds as sampling units is uselul because !hey have clearly defined boundaries which may help track the impact 01 landuse change and farm practices on Ihe hydrological processes 01 a walershed (E. Barrios). Principally the erosion by runoff. leaching and sheel-wash of nutrients and fertilzers are processes whích can be monitored and measured al these scales. Further location 01 monitoring stations within !he most significant microwalersheds will provide a baseline which could be applied lo other similar watersheds which may perhaps be less accesible lor carrying out impacl assesmenl in Ihe field.(3) The third step involves defining the biophysical and morphological properties important lo the study.In this case Ihe dislribution 01 aspect, slope and soil substraje as well as geomelrical and morphological atlributes 01 Ihe microwalersheds were chosen. Aspect determines the amount 01 solar net radiation received al the vegetated surface and therefore may affecl the productivity 01 the crops. In the tropics this influence may not be as significant and can Iherelore be excluded. Slope There are an infinite number 01 points along a slream where walersheds can be drawn lor any stream.Upstream walersheds are nested within and are par! 01 downstream watersheds. II could be argued that analysing the response 01 !hese smaller walershed units in terms 01 Iheir diflerent biophysical conditíons, shape, size and drainage density will be much more useful!han considering the basín as a whole, Farm plots are usually small wi!h diflerent crops and management practices being carried out.These lactors will afffecl!he response 01 local watersheds first before impacting the basin as a whole.We used manual and aulomated me!hods to delimit the microwatersheds (microwatershed.apr) The robustness 01 each me!hod is then compared,A previous study (J Rubiano) had manually chosen the micrawatersheds which could polentially be used as sampling unlts. The criteria lar deliming these was simply, defining the upstream conlributing area from each tributary oullel which joined the main river. The mlcro-watershed boundary was drawn by hand in ARC/EDIT uslng a lopographic coverage 01 contour Ilnes as a gulde.• To draw Ihe divide, start al the localion 01 ¡he chosen slream cross sectíon.• Then begln al the stream outlel. drawíng !he line away from either ils left 01 right bank, always maintainlng it at right angles lo ¡he contouT lines.• Continue drawing !he line until its Irend is generally opposite to the direction in which il began When drawing !he watershed divide il is helpful lo imagine thal the divide defines the highesl boundary which will ensure Ihal waler lalling al Ihis poinl will drop and flow downslope, evenlually enlering !he slream network. A divide can never cross a slream.This melhod is very lime consuming and subjeclive in Ihe placemenl 01 walershed boundaries along lopographical ridges. II leaves sorne areas ungrouped by a watershed boundary bul Ihey could be considered lo be part of Ihe area draining directly lo the main river. However, il allows you lo choose and define ideal and representative catchments for monitoríng. 1I also proves to be more robust Ihan Ihe aulomaled melhod. However, such a proceedure is relalively simple for small calchmenls. For larger calchments this will be a tedious lask lo undertake.Microwalersheds were also delimiled using raster-based hydrological lunclions in ARC/GRID. This automated approach to walershed delinealion allows Ihe concomitant rapid extraction of hydrological Further spatial analysis was performed on a microwatershed basis. The mean slope wilhin each microwatershed was calculaled lo yield a map showing micro-calchments wilh similar slope and aspecl charactenstics. These were also overlayed to produce an image whieh generalizes these biophysical properUes on a microwalershed basis. Two maps were produced; Figure 3.3.10 shows the classification using mean slope in each microwatershed and figure 3.3.11 uses Ihe most frequent slope distribtuion in each microwatershed. In bolh cases a much eruder classification 01 similar catchments is produced, which maY be more useful lor initial evaluatlon 01 similar catchments.The two morphological properties analysed here included the area 01 each micro-watershed and the coefficienl 01 compactability (or Gravelius index). Others could also be considered, such as Ihe relative relief, shape lactor and drainage density (Saenz 1995\"). A second importanl lactor is the Gravelius index which measures Ihe circularity 01 a catchmenl (Figure 3.4.2). This is basically the ratio 01 the perimeter 01 walershed lo the circumlerence 01 a circle whose area is equal lo thal 01 the watrshed, expressed as follows: Kc = 0.28\" P lA 0.5Where:Kc = Gravelius Index P = Perimeter 01 microcatchment A = Area 01 microcatchmenl A perfectly circular catchment will have a value 01 1, Slream discharge 01 circular catchments increase much more rapidly as waler reaches the stream network much lasler compared lo elongated catchmenls.We can see thal mosl 01 Ihe microwatersheds have north lacing slopes, only the small mícrowalersheds in Ihe NE 01 Ihe catchment have generally more south facing slopes (figure 3.3.6). In lerms of slope, Ihe larger microwalersheds have mean slopes less Ihat 15 degrees., while the smaller ones, and the area which draíns lo Ihe main river appear lo be much steeper (3.3.7). The mas! frequen! slope within each micro-catchment was also calculated, showing similar findings (figure 3.3.8). This of course ís a generalízatíon, rellectíng the resolutíon 01 Ihe DEM (25 melers) and localized slopes may be much steeper than this. A further map showing the frequency distribution 01 slope ranges within each micro-catchment shows how very few slopes have a steepness grea!er than 26° bu! may neverlheless be importan! locally (figure 3.3.9).28 classes were genera!ed in lotal. However, a histogram shows how 5 main importan! classes 01 biophysical combina!ions exits; 9.7,13,8,5 (Figure 3.3.9b).• The resulting classificatíon analysís 01 Cabuyal shows tha! il is largely homogeneous. This however may reftect the scale 01 !he dem and also the crude soil inlormation used in Ihe computation 01 Ihe similar areas. A finer scale soil map may yield better resul!s• II is important !hat these classes are validaled by visual ínspection in Ihe field belore we can confidenlly use them lor siting moniloring stations and for carrying out impacl assesment.• The automated techniques nol excecuted successfully. One reason my be the scale 01 the DEM, resulting in inconsistent results Automated processing should be used wi!h caution and should be inspected with respeet lo the original con!our lines. It appears !he algorithm for automa!ic processing nees further develoopment before widespread application.  La Figura representa el conjunto de los instrumentos metodológicos de la serie. En el centro de la figura se encuentran ocho instrumentos que se pueden agrupar de la manera siguiente: En color verde, Indicadores locales de la calidad del suelo; Análisis de tendencias de uso de tierra; Mapeo, análisis y monitoreo de los recursos naturales, son los instrumentos que permiten identificar, analizar y priorizar los componentes biofísicos, o sea, los recursos naturales a nivel de finca , micro-cuenca y subcuenca.,/ Realicen un análisis participativo con el apoyo de la información recolectada en los mapas y el recorrido, conforme al conjunto de componentes identificados.,/ Integren los mapas participativos a un Sistema de Información Geográfica.,/ Identifiquen las características de un Sistema de Información Geográfica a nivel local.,/ Tomando como base el análisis del estado de los recursos naturales, puedan definir un conjunto de indicadores (con sus respectivos valores) de la calidad de los recursos naturales.,/ Con el apoyo de un cuadro de indicadores de calidad de los recursos naturales identifiquen las microcuencas críticas, o áreas criticas dentro de éstas, en proceso de degradación de los recursos naturales.","tokenCount":"2300"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"8733f7656a02b16e05af12683e3a1403","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/d83ed77a-602d-4c07-981e-7342614ccf2e/retrieve","id":"-1021475061"},"keywords":["acid detergent lignin, correlation, grain yield, nitrogen content, stover yield Abbreviations: ADL, acid detergent lignin","bmr, brown midrib","COMT, caffeic acid O-methyltransferase","CAD, cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase","DES, diethyl sulphate","IVOMD, in vitro organic matter digestibility","NIRS, near infrared spectroscopy"],"sieverID":"236ff5c2-5df2-4ff8-9e25-72ccbbe947a1","pagecount":"5","content":"Ten sorghum derivatives with brown midrib alleles (bmr1 and bmr7) were investigated for stover fodder quality traits, grain yield and the relationships between these productive traits. Potential fodder quality was assessed by laboratory analysis. Significant differences were observed among the tested derivatives of bmr1 allele for stover nitrogen (N) content, in vitro organic matter digestibility (IVOMD), and acid detergent lignin (ADL) content. In contrast, no significant genotypic differences were observed among bmr7 derivatives. In the bmr1 gene derivatives stover N content ranged from 0.63 to 0.81%, ADL content varied from 2.6 to 3.2% and IVOMD ranged from 52.9 to 55.4%. Two lines have recorded over 55% IVOMD and higher grain yield than the bmr1 source. In bmr7 derivatives IVOMD ranged between 52.9 and 54.4%. The enhanced IVOMD coupled with improved grain and biomass yield in bmr1 and bmr7 derivatives will increase overall benefits from sorghum in mixed crop livestock systems. This is the first study on utilization of bmr1 and bmr7 mutants in improving the forage quality of tropical sorghums with perceptible genetic enhancement of candidate biomass and grain yield traits.Brown midrib mutants (bmr) significantly reduce the level of enzyme-resistant polymer 'lignin' in plants and increase their palatability and digestibility (Rook et al. 1977;Cherney et al. 1991). Brown midrib (bmr) is a visible marker associated with the reduction of lignin in corn (Kuc' and Nelson 1964), sorghum (Porter et al. 1978), and pearl millet (Cherney et al. 1988). Although the intensity of the coloration cannot be taken as a measure of reduction in lignin, it is a clear indicator that the bmr gene(s) are present. Jung and Fahey (1983) suggested that bmr plants have lignin that is less polymerized and contains less phenolic monomers which can affect digestion. Brown midrib silage with and without protein supplements significantly increased milk yield of lactating cows (Frenchik et al. 1976;Keith et al. 1979;Stallings et al. 1982;Cherney et al. 1991;Oba and Allen 1999). Similarly, the rate of in vitro digestibility and cell wall degradation of leaf blades by rumen bacterium from bmr12 sorghum was shown to be significantly higher than those from their respective wildtype isolines (Akin et al. 1986). Allelism tests on the sorghum bmr mutants derived through chemical mutagenesis showed that several of the mutations are allelic, and that the total number of independent bmr loci was smaller than the number of mutant lines assembled (Bittinger et al. 1981;Saballos et al. 2008). The effect of the bmr mutations on forage quality varies and depends on the genetic background of the line in which the mutation is introduced (Cherney et al. 1991;Pedersen et al. 2006). Therefore, the effect of each mutation on forage quality and agronomic characteristics needs to be determined.This suggests the need to either identify a suitable genetic background that allows for optimal impact of the muta-tion. The published literature indicates that a yield drag is associated with the bmr trait (Cherney et al. 1991;Pedersen et al. 2006). Most of these and other uncertainties stem from the fact that little information is in the public domain describing the characteristics and benefits of brown midrib mutant sources i.e. bmr 1 and bmr7 in forage plants. The impact of the bmr1 and bmr7 mutations, which were developed by chemically induced mutagenesis with diethyl sulphate (DES), (Porter et al. 1978;Vogler et al. 1994) on forage quality in tropical sorghums has not been studied yet. The bmr 7 mutant is non-allelic to bmr 12 and has reduced expression of caffeic acid O-methyltransferase (COMT). The objective of this study was to provide an assessment of the effect of the bmr1 and bmr7 mutations on fodder quality and grain yield vis-à-vis genetic background.Ten improved experimental brown midrib varieties developed through pedigree method by deploying brown midrib mutants bmr1 (IS 21887) and bmr7 (IS 21890) along with one brown midrib parental control (bmr1-IS 21887) were grown at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru (latitude: 17° 27' N; longitude: 78° 28' E) in the post-rainy seasons, 2007 and 2008. Both the bmr sources, i.e. bmr1 and bmr7 were agronomically inferior to either grain sorghum cultivars for grain yield or to forage cultivars for biomass yield (Srinivasa et al. 2009). The experiment was carried out in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) and each cultivar was planted in 4 rows of 4 m length in 12 m 2 plots with a spacing of 75 × 15 cm in 3 replications. Fertilizer dosage of 80 Nitrogen (N) and 40 P 2 O 5 kg ha -1 was applied with 50% of N as basal and the bal-® ance 35 days after emergence as side-dressing. Hand weeding was done twice followed by hoeing and inter-cultivation. The crop was grown during September to January on a soil with a silt clay loam texture of about 1.0 m depth.For each plot days to flowering (DF) was recorded at 50% anthesis and plant height (PHT) was measured to the top of the mature panicle before harvest. Ten mature plants were randomly selected from the centre four rows of each plot, and the panicles were cut for estimations of grain yield. The data were adjusted for each cultivar for a moisture content of 14.5%. Stover quality analyses were conducted on samples harvested from each plot. All samples were analyzed by near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) calibrated for this experiment against conventional chemical and in vitro laboratory analyses. The NIRS instrument used was a FOSS Forage Analyzer 5000 with software package Win SI. Stover nitrogen (N) was determined by an Auto Analyzer (VAP 4500, Gerhardt) and acid detergent lignin (ADL) content were analyzed according to Goering and Soest (1970). In vitro organic matter digestibility (IVOMD) contents were determined and calculated according to Menke and Steingass (1988) as modified by Blümmel and Ørskov (1993).General linear model (GLM) procedure was used for analysis of variance and to calculate significant differences among improved varieties with the SAS (1988) computer program (version 6.03). GraphPad Prism (1994) was used for simple linear regression analysis between traits.The results for stover N, ME, IVOMD, DF, PHT and grain yield of bmr1 derivatives along with the parent, 'IS 21887' are presented in Table 1. All the nutritional and agronomic measurements differed consistently and significantly among cultivars. The year-wise differences were also significant for most of the traits studied except for stover N. The genotype × year interaction was non-significant (P 0.01) for all the traits except for grain yield. Similarly, the data on above parameters for bmr7 derivatives are shown in Table 2. No significant differences were observed among the cultivars for agronomic and forage quality parameters. However, year and genotype × year interactions were significant for majority of the traits revealing the high influence of the environment.The correlation coefficients of agronomic characters with candidate forage digestibility traits in bmr1 derivatives is shown in Table 3. Plant height was significantly negative correlated with stover N (-0.96). The data indicated that better results can be achieved by selecting late maturing lines in the breeding program to improve IVOMD as the late flowering entries recorded higher IVOMD. In case of bmr7 derivatives (Table 3) no significant association among the traits was observed. Relationships between the agronomic parameters i.e. grain yield, DF and PHT with forage quality traits viz., IVOMD and N are shown in Fig. 1A-F. Significant relationships could not be established between the above agronomic traits with quality traits as the sample size is too small except for the negative relationship of plant  height with stover N in bmr1 derivatives. There was a negative association of grain yield with N (Fig. 1B) albeit nonsignificant. Similarly, the association of days to 50% flowering with N seems to be positive (Fig. 1D). More studies with larger sample size would certainly help to establish any relationships between these traits.The data (Table 1) revealed that bmr1 has background effects on ADL, IVOMD and ME, i.e. here three lines 'ICSB 73', 'ICSB 101' and 'ICSB 93' into which bmr gene was transferred, similar to the observations of Oliver et al. (2005) in bmr6 derived lines. The importance and high monetary value of (non-sweet) sorghum stover as livestock fodder was highlighted by Blümmel and Rao (2006)   also shown that stover in vitro digestibility accounted for 75% of the variation in stover price. Yearly mean stover IVOMD of 46.9 to 51.7% were associated with prices of 3.1 to 3.9 Indian Rupees (US$ = 0.066-0.083) per kg dry stover (Blümmel and Rao 2006). In the present study the improved varieties (IS 21887 × ICSB 101)-3-1-1-1-1 and (IS 21887 × ICSB 93)-4-1-1-1-1 had exhibited the highest IVOMD of 55.4 and 55.2%, respectively compared with parental control IS 21887 (51.55%). Among the bmr7 derivatives (IS 21890 × ICSB 88010)-5-1-1-1-1 recorded the highest IVOMD of 54.3% and 8.10 MJ kg -1 ME, while lowest values for these traits was recorded by the line (IS 21890 × ICSB 88010)-26-1-1-2-1 with 52.9% IVOMD and 7.8 MJ kg -1 ME (Table 2). The white midribbed control, RS 29 (data not shown), recorded the lowest means for N (0.55), ME (7.0) and IVOMD (58.5%). However, it recorded the highest grain yield (3.3 t ha -1 ) and ADL (3.3%). Fritz et al. (1981) found that the NDF digestibility of bmr sorghumsudangrass hybrids was 5% greater than non bmr hybrids when fed to non-lactating dairy cows. Comparison of bmr6 and bmr12 in multiple genetic backgrounds indicated that the effects of individual brown midrib genes within specific sorghum lines -and extrapolating within hybrids -are not uniform. The detailed study on bmr6 and bmr12 mutants in the backgrounds of 'RTx 430' and 'Wheatland' sorghum varieties showed significant differences in soluble and cell wall-bound aromatics, like p-coumaric acid, ferulic acid and caffeic acids as well as histochemical staining with diazotized nitroaniline (Palmer et al. 2008). Conforming to the above, in this study bmr1 and bmr7 showed varying levels of lignin content in different backgrounds. The range was 2.58 to 3.22 in bmr1 derivatives while it was 2.63 to 3.10 in bmr7 incorporated lines. These results points to significant impact of bmr1 alleles in reducing the lignin content and the IVOMD. The grain yield is also high in these lines, i.e. 1.0-1.8 t ha -1 in bmr1 derivatives (bmr 1: 1.0 t ha -1 ) while 1.8-2.6 t ha -1 in the lines with bmr7 alleles. However, the grain yield is much lower compared with white midrib grain sorghum control, RS 29 (3.3 t ha -1 ) but much higher than that of the bmr sources. Considering the vast differences of background effects, end users of brown midrib sorghum, i.e. farmers, should always evaluate the performance of specific hybrid/gene combinations (Bout and Vermerris 2003;Sattler et al. 2010). In such scenario the improved lines, IS 21890 × ICSB 88010)-19-1-1-1-1 (IVOMD 54.4% and grain yield 2.6 t ha -1 ) and (IS 21890 × ICSB 88010)-5-1-1-2-1 with IVOMD 53.8% and grain yield of 2.3 t ha -1 can be recommended for cultivation owing to their superiority for IVOMD though the grain yields are marginally lower.In the present work, it has been shown that the IVOMD was much higher in bmr1 derivatives to an extent of 4% as in (IS 21887 × ICSB 101)-3-1-1-1-1 with 55.4% and (IS 21887 × ICSB 73)-13-1-1-1-1 with 55.2% compared with parental line IS 21887, which will likely to fetch more price in the fodder market (Blümmel and Rao 2006). Similarly, among the six bmr7 derivatives studied, (IS 21890 × ICSB 88010)-19-1-1-1-1 and (IS 21890 ICSB 88010)-5-1-1-1-1 with 54.4% and 54.3% IVOMD, respectively, could fetch and high price due to better quality.The results of this study indicated that there is considerable background noise on the effect of bmr 1 mutant alleles. There appears to be consistent pattern emerging that showed that brown midrib in sorghum has a major impact upon stover quality. This came at no penalty in total yield of plant material but with much greater digestibility, higher protein level, and significantly increased palatability. All of these components contribute significantly to weight gains in animals and thereby increased milk yields. The brown midrib trait in tropical sorghum too appears to have a very bright future not only as better forage but also as a feedstock for ligno-cellulosic ethanol production, considering the tedious methods of pre-treatment and associated costs. This is the first study on utilization of bmr1 and bmr7 mutants in improving the forage quality of tropical sorghums with perceptible genetic enhancement of candidate biomass and grain yield traits.","tokenCount":"2070"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"43072b493030bb541027105862e5e9bd","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/19faf34a-111d-4641-975a-72e59b90fc97/retrieve","id":"939455194"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"f89a3ff0-e68d-4a53-a47c-e2e7d39e609f","pagecount":"133","content":"Bioversity International is an independent international scientific organization that seeks to improve the well-being of present and future generations of people by enhancing conservation and the deployment of agricultural biodiversity on farms and in forests. It is one of 15 centres supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), an association of public and private members who support efforts to mobilize cutting-edge science to reduce hunger and poverty, improve human nutrition and health and protect the environment. Bioversity has its headquarters in Maccarese, near Rome, Italy, with offices in more than 20 other countries worldwide. The Institute operates through four programmes: Diversity for Livelihoods, Understanding and Managing Biodiversity, Global Partnerships and Commodities for Livelihoods.The international status of Bioversity is conferred under an Establishment Agreement which, by January 2007, had been signed by the Governments of Algeria,Agricultural biodiversity includes the diversity of plants, animals, fish, trees and microbes that are used directly or indirectly for food and agriculture. The human race could not survive without access to this diversity, which enables plant and animal species to evolve and adapt to different growing conditions. Yet we have both undervalued this critical resource and squandered it, with the result that agricultural biodiversity is at greater risk now than at any time in recent history.While the value of agricultural biodiversity is not widely known, over the past few decades a growing number of scientists and policy-makers have started to take it more seriously. Nowhere is this more evident than in the sector of crop diversity, where a lot of work has been done by various organizations and countries. However, even in the domain of crop diversity, a lot more effort has been put into ex situ conservation and much less on in situ conservation and use and the management of diversity on farms. There is also the matter of policy and public awareness in relation to advancing the causes of better management and use of agricultural biodiversity. All these are areas that require greater efforts in research, education and development.Bioversity International, as the world's largest research organization dedicated solely to the conservation, management and use of agricultural biodiversity, has been playing a leading role in this area. Bioversity recognizes the important role that education plays in the proper management and use of biodiversity and has, over the last decade, contributed substantially to strengthening capacity development in plant genetic resources and lately in the management and use of agricultural biodiversity. Bioversity has collaborated with universities in developing MSc programmes in this field of learning, including work on plants, animals, fish and microbial biodiversity and the processes that sustain functional agro-ecosystems. The socio-cultural aspects associated with the knowledge of biodiversity are also key elements of this work. It is time to take stock of how this broader concept is being taught in higher education and how training curricula in universities could be strengthened.In recent years, policy-makers and scientists have been paying increasing attention to agricultural biodiversity. The effects of climate change, actual and potential, have given even more weight to the importance of this resource and the urgency for its conservation. Climate change will have a great impact on biodiversity, including agrobiodiversity. But agrobiodiversity also holds a key to strategies for adaptation to climate change; it encompasses the genes that will be needed to adapt varieties and species to the new conditions in any given future climate. Currently, agricultural biodiversity is a thematic programme under the Convention on Biological Diversity. The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, which entered into force in 2004, has secured the open access to germplasm of 64 of the world's most important food and fodder species and genera. On the conservation side, there is an increasing awareness that production landscapes -where farmers are custodians of agricultural biodiversity -will play a critical role in biodiversity conservation.The workshop 'Learning agrobiodiversity: options for universities in Sub-Saharan Africa' was held in Nairobi from 21 to 23 January 2009. This first regional workshop of its kind gathered 46 participants from universities and international organizations in 16 African and two European countries. The objectives of the workshop were to:• share knowledge and experiences on the current status and trends of the science, practice and policy of agrobiodiversity • discuss the implications for and feasible approaches to, mainstreaming agrobiodiversity in higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa • explore modalities and mechanisms for strengthening agrobiodiversity education and research in Africa through networking and joint learning. The opening session of the workshop was chaired by Prof. John Saka, the Board Chair of the African Network for Agriculture, Agroforestry and Natural Resources Education (ANAFE), who also gave an opening address. Opening remarks were given by Dr Mikkel Grum, Acting Regional Director, Bioversity International, Dr Dennis Garrity, Director General, World Agroforestry Centre and Dr Judith Ann Francis, Senior Programme Coordinator, Science and Technologies Strategies, ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA). Dr Aissetou Yayé, Executive Secretary of ANAFE then introduced the workshop programme. Part I of these proceedings summarizes the opening session and gives a background to the workshop.Dr Paul Kibwika, a consultant, facilitated the workshop process, which was designed to identify options for mainstreaming learning of agrobiodiversity in universities in Sub-Saharan Africa. 'Buzz-groups' were formed to extract key issues emerging from expert presentations. Working in groups and in plenary, the participants then made a four-step analysis.• Situation analysis of agrobiodiversity and the context of its teaching and learning: definitions of agrobiodiversity; megatrends and patterns impacting on agrobiodiversity; stakeholders. • Analysis of curricula and key issues for mainstreaming agrobiodiversity content: opportunities and niches for agrobiodiversity education in higher education; gaps in content relating to agricultural biodiversity; critical issues for mainstreaming agrobiodiversity in higher education. • Job profiles of graduates and approaches and options for mainstreaming: profiles of graduates; approaches to facilitate agrobiodiversity education; options for mainstreaming of agrobiodiversity in higher education. • Action Plan, Task Force and agrobiodiversity curriculum framework.The results of the workshop sessions are presented in Part II of these proceedings. These outputs include:• a draft curriculum framework, consisting of 10 learning 'clusters' (Annex 2). For each cluster, the rationale, key learning points and suggested content were identified. These would be further developed xi Executive summary after the workshop, in dialogue with the workshop participants and other key stakeholders • five different options for mainstreaming of agrobiodiversity in higher education were identified and their advantages and challenges listed (page 17) • a joint Plan of Action was agreed upon and a Task Force was set up to lead the work to follow up on the workshop results (page 19).Part III of this report contains presentations by experts from national and international organizations on the many dimensions of agrobiodiversity. Similarly, educational experts talked about educational issues of relevance to agrobiodiversity. The presentations provided the thematic background for the working groups and aimed to harmonize participants' knowledge and build awareness of the complexity of agrobiodiversity conservation and use. This part of the proceedings may be used as a resource book in future curriculum development.In conclusion, the need for mainstreaming agrobiodiversity in higher education in Africa was confirmed. Given the positive results of this workshop, efforts should be made to offer a similar workshop for French-speaking Africa. Because of the complexity of teaching the multi-disciplinary subject of agrobiodiversity, the Task Force should seek advice and draw lessons learned from related areas of education, such as agroforestry or integrated farming systems.Agricultural biodiversity -the subset of biodiversity important for food and agriculture -is a source of products that sustain livelihoods and services that maintain ecosystem functions. Agrobiodiversity and sustainable development are intimately related. Agrobiodiversity provides resilience to livelihood systems through the ability to mitigate and adapt to systems change and shocks. Agrobiodiversity maintains ecosystem functions through water and nutrient cycling, pest and disease regulation and pollination. Agrobiodiversity is also a part of our cultural heritage.The pressure on ecosystems is higher than ever before. The Millennium Ecosystems Assessment (MA) found that 60% of the ecosystem services examined were degraded or used unsustainably. One key finding was that 'The degradation of ecosystem services could grow significantly worse during the first half of this century and is a barrier to achieving the Millennium Development Goals.' ¹ The sense of urgency to act is reflected in the environmental conventions on climate change, biodiversity conservation and desertification, all of which have a strong link to the management of agricultural biodiversity.The availability of well-educated professionals who can perform research on agrobiodiversity, advise on its use and undertake proper conservation, is critical to successfully meeting these challenges. The relatively recent concept of 'agrobiodiversity' is subject to a rapidly increasing body of research, covering a wide range of disciplines and methodologies, including cutting-edge molecular genetics, traditional breeding and pre-breeding ² , environmental services, market analysis and value-chain enhancement, traditional knowledge and cultures, etc. This research has generated a body of state-of-the-art knowledge that needs to enter curricula.A 2007 survey of selected universities in eastern and southern Africa revealed an absence of comprehensive agrobiodiversity education programmes, or dedicated courses on agrobiodiversity. Isolated courses related to agrobiodiversity are taught at some universities but an agreed approach to teaching and learning the subject is lacking. Graduates would therefore not be fully aware of the role of agrobiodiversity for enhancing the value, productivity and sustainability of African agro-ecosystems.It is time to review current approaches to agrobiodiversity education, analyse gaps in content or delivery and advise on ways forward, in order to making the most of agricultural biodiversity. This effort is in line with World Bank recommendations to address shortcomings in Sub-Saharan agriculture education by, among others, 'training a new generation of agricultural professionals with different skill sets' ³ .Bioversity International therefore partnered with the African Network for Agriculture, Agroforestry and Natural Resources Education (ANAFE), the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) and the ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) in organizing the workshop 'Learning agrobiodiversity: options for universities in Sub-Saharan Africa' in Nairobi, on 21-23 January 2009. This partnership ensures that the workshop outputs reach the majority of African universities and beyond:• ANAFE is a network of 131 educational institutions in 35 African countries whose objective is to strengthen the teaching of multi-disciplinary approaches to land management • RUFORUM is a consortium of 25 universities in eastern and southern Africa, with a mandate to oversee graduate training and networks of specialization in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) countries • CTA has a mission is to strengthen policy and institutional capacity development and information and communication management capacities of ACP (Africa, Caribbean and Pacific) agricultural and rural development organizations. In total 46 participants, from 16 African and two European countries, attended the workshop. They represented universities, national agricultural research systems (NARS), regional education networks and genetic resources networks and international organizations. Most participants had a background in agriculture or forestry, while there was a limited representation of, for example, livestock and social science disciplines.The Opening Session of the workshop was chaired by Prof. John Saka, ANAFE Chair Person, who also gave an opening address. Prof. Saka said that ANAFE was very happy to be associated with this workshop because the objectives were consistent with those his organization. He told the workshop participants that ANAFE was launched in 1993 and is now one of the largest networks of educational institutions in Africa, with member institutions covering the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa. It has a membership of 128 African universities and colleges in 34 African countries, working to transform agricultural education and improve its quality, relevance and application. The World Agroforestry Centre has played an important role in launching and nurturing ANAFE and now hosts the ANAFE Secretariat at its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya.The initial objective of ANAFE was to incorporate agroforestry and multidisciplinary approaches into agricultural education. This initiative has resulted in major and significant success. Many colleges and universities are teaching agroforestry as a part of agriculture, forestry or natural resource programmes and also as a separate discipline. Over the years, the ANAFE mandate has been expanded to include the overall transformation of agriculture and natural resources education.In June 2007, ANAFE was registered as an international non-govermental organization (NGO). ANAFE's current mission is 'To improve agricultural education for impact on development'. This can be achieved through a wide range of activities including policy advocacy, institutional reforms to link education to development, review of curricula, development of learning resources, facilitating knowledge sharing, promoting women and youth in agriculture, HIV/AIDS mitigation, sound environmental practices, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, quality education assurance and risk management in agriculture.ANAFE is a decentralized organization that conducts its work through four regional chapters known as RAFTs (Regional Agricultural Forums for Training) There is one RAFT each in Eastern and Central Africa (ECA), Southern Africa (SA), the Sahelian countries (Sahel) and the Africa Humid Tropics (AHT). Under the RAFTS, there are 21 ANAFE national chapters known as NAFTs (National Agricultural Fora for Training).On behalf of the ANAFE Board and the joint organizing committee comprising also Bioversity, CTA and RUFORUM, Prof. Saka thanked all participants for accepting the invitation to this important meeting. He thanked the partners for excellent networking in the conceptualization and realization of this workshop. He also commended ICRAF for hosting and the regional office of Bioversity for facilitating the workshop. Finally, he thanked the leading partners, especially CTA and Bioversity, for funding the workshop and all partner institutions including Heads of Universities and Colleges for allowing their staff to participate.He expressed the hope that all participants would devote their energies to a successful and productive workshop and that the next actions led by the joint Task Force will ensure implementation of the workshop recommendations. He noted that ANAFE was pleased that the four institutions are working together -ANAFE has a memorandum of understanding with RUFORUM -and expressed the hope that this will be the case also with matters of capacity building.Prof. Saka then declared the meeting open, wishing all a productive workshop and looking forward to valuable outputs and a clear road map.Dr Mikkel Grum, Acting Regional Director, Bioversity International, in his opening remarks noted that agricultural biodiversity is a challenging subject. In its broadest definition it encompasses all aspects of general biodiversity conservation and use. Wild relatives of crops, domestic animals, trees and fish exist in wild ecosystems, along with pollinators, pests, diseases, weeds and many other organisms that impact on agricultural production systems.In a narrower definition, agrobiodiversity is the diversity within agricultural production systems, developed through intensive management by humans. The fate of this diversity is entirely in the hands of human beings. On closer inspection it becomes obvious that there are no clear boundaries between domesticated and 'wild' agrobiodiversity.Dr Grum said that the challenge that lies before us includes looking at how we deliver a topic of such complexity and with so many nuances to the next generation of scientists, in ways that will enable them to provide real solutions to real world problems.On behalf of Bioversity and its Regional Director, Dr Jojo Baidu-Forson, Dr Grum welcomed participants to Nairobi and wished them fruitful deliberations.Dr Dennis Garrity, Director General, World Agroforestry Centre, made his opening remarks on behalf of the hosting organization of this workshop. He emphasized that agrobiodiversity is a 'frontier issue' to students and universities. Dr Garrity noted the importance of conserving and nurturing agrobiodiversity. He expressed hope in quotes from President Barack Obama's inauguration speech, where he talked about 'restoring science to its rightful place' and 'harnessing the sun and the winds and the soil'.Dr Garrity said that agrobiodiversity is important at different scales, from plot level to the global scale. The enormous genetic diversity in trees is a particular challenge and one is humbled by the task of characterizing this diversity and applying appropriate conservation and management options.In his address, Dr Garrity also highlighted the Second World Congress on Agroforestry, being organized by the World Agroforestry Centre and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), to take place on 23-28 August 2009 and expressed hope that the congress will be linking universities and science.Dr Judith Ann Francis, Senior Programme Coordinator, Science and Technologies Strategies, ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) mentioned in her opening remarks that CTA recognizes that agriculture is underperforming and that agrobiodiversity is important, not only its conservation, but also its contribution to wealth creation. Recognizing the interdisciplinary nature of biodiversity she noted that collaboration and networking is an opportunity to charting a way for the future.Learning and science are central to CTA's approach. Since a 2005 meeting in Paris, CTA has included biodiversity in its programmes. Dr Francis said it is necessary to engage with policy-makers and emphasized the need for curriculum reform at all levels. The capacity and quality of innovators and enterprises need to be enhanced to take African biodiversity into the future.Finally, she encouraged the workshop organizers and participants to transfer lessons from this workshop to other regions.Dr Aissetou Yayé, Executive Secretary, ANAFE then introduced the workshop programme, attached in Annex 1. Dr Yayé said that advancing higher education is all about collaboration; south/south collaboration in particular. We are trying to avoid isolation, she pointed out. ANAFE is working closely with RUFORM to build capacity of African universities. The networks look forward to strengthening south/south collaboration further.Dr Yayé then gave an overview of the workshop objectives and expected outputs and emphasized that outputs should be extended beyond the Englishspeaking world to French-and Portuguese-speaking countries.Finally she thanked all the Vice Chancellors and Deans who are supporting this process. She said that she was looking forward to a powerful document coming out of this conference, which could also be presented at the World Agroforestry Congress.Launched in April 1993, the African Network for Agriculture, Agroforestry and Natural Resources Education (ANAFE) presently ( 2009) comprises 131 universities and colleges in 35 African countries. Initially created to incorporate agroforestry and multi-disciplinary approaches into agricultural education, ANAFE's mandate has expanded to include agriculture and natural resources education. ANAFE's current mission of 'improving agricultural education for impact on development' is achieved through activities including policy advocacy; knowledge sharing; promoting women and youth in agriculture; HIV/AIDS mitigation; mitigation and adaptation of climate change; review of curricula and development of learning resources, etc. ANAFE works through four regional chapters known as RAFTs (Regional Agricultural Fora for Training)-one each in Eastern and Central Africa (ECA), Southern Africa (SA), Sahelian countries (Sahel) and the Africa Humid Tropics. ANAFE has national chapters, NAFTs (National Agricultural Fora for Training) in 21 countries.The Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) is a non-political organization of the National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) of ten countries-Burundi, D. R. Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. Through ASARECA, agricultural scientists in the 10 countries work together and in partnership with farmers, extension, private sector, scientists of regional and international institutions, and development partners to come up with new innovations for agricultural-led economic growth, poverty eradication and improved livelihoods in Eastern and Central Africa. The Eastern Africa Plant Genetic Resource Network (EAPGREN) is a project under the Agrobiodiversity and Biotechnology program of ASARECA whose primary aim is to enhance capacity development for sustainable utilization and conservation of plant genetic resource in eastern Africa.The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) is an intergovernmental organization created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources and technologies.The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) was established in 1983 under the Lomé Convention between the ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) Group of States and the European Union Member States. Since 2000, it has operated within the framework of the ACP-EU Cotonou Agreement. CTA's tasks are to develop and provide products and services that improve access to information for agricultural and rural development, and to strengthen the capacity of ACP countries to acquire, process, produce and disseminate information in this area. CTA is financed by the European Union.The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Serving both developed and developing countries, FAO acts as a neutral forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements and debate policy. FAO is also a source of knowledge and information. The Organization helps developing countries and countries in transition modernize and improve agriculture, forestry and fisheries practices and ensure good nutrition for all. Since its founding in 1945, FAO has focused special attention on developing rural areas, home to 70 percent of the world's poor and hungry people.The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) is a consortium of 25 universities in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa established in 2004. The consortium had previously operated as a program of the Rockefeller Foundation beginning in 1992. It has a mandate to oversee graduate training and networks of specialization in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) countries. Specifically, RUFORUM recognizes the important and largely unfulfilled role that universities play in contributing to the wellbeing of small-scale farmers, and economic development of countries throughout the Sub-Saharan Africa region. RUFORUM's vision is a vibrant agricultural sector linked to African universities which can produce high-performing graduates and high-quality research responsive to the demands of Africa's farmers.The objectives of the workshop were to:• Share knowledge and experiences on the current status and trends of the science, practice and policy of agrobiodiversity • Discuss the implications for and feasible approaches to, mainstreaming agrobiodiversity in higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa • Explore modalities and mechanisms for strengthening agrobiodiversity education and research in Africa through networking and joint learning. The expected outputs were:• Synthesis of trends and emerging issues in agrobiodiversity and their implications for higher education • Curriculum guidelines/framework for agrobiodiversity education, including outline of key curriculum components • Options for mainstreaming biodiversity education in higher education identified • An action plan for mainstreaming agrobiodiversity in higher education in Africa • Mechanism for interaction between communities of agrobiodiversity researchers and educators for continued learning and sharing of knowledge and experiences • Workshop proceedings.The 3-day workshop included two main parts. The first part aimed at capturing the state-of-the-art knowledge of agricultural biodiversity: what it is, why it is important, the issues that are emerging and the methodologies available for enhancing conservation and use of agrobiodiversity. Continuing efforts to strengthen higher agricultural education in SSA were considered, with an emphasis on regional initiatives, networks and innovation systems. Experiences regarding curriculum needs and reforms were shared.The second half of the workshop was a participatory process, led by an external facilitator, to identify options for mainstreaming agrobiodiversity in curricula, to develop a draft curriculum framework and to prepare an action plan for future implementation of workshop recommendations.The workshop process and facilitation principles were introduced by Dr Paul Kibwika, Facilitator of the workshop. He described the expected workshop 'process flow', in six steps:• Create a common understanding of agrobiodiversity and challenges of agrobiodiversity learning • Share experiences in agrobiodiversity and identify issues for learning • Explore patterns and trends in agrobiodiversity • Define profile of desired graduates • Describe curriculum elements and delivery options • Define how to organize ourselves to take this initiative forward.Part II. Workshop objectives, process and results Situation analysis of agrobiodiversity and the context for its teaching and learningA discussion emerged in the workshop on the definition of agrobiodiversity. The working groups therefore studied several different definitions, two of which are cited here:'Agricultural biodiversity is a broad term that includes all components of biological diversity of relevance to food and agriculture and all components of biological diversity that constitute the agricultural ecosystems, also named agroecosystems: the variety and variability of animals, plants and micro-organisms, at the genetic, species and ecosystem levels, which are necessary to sustain key functions of the agro-ecosystem, its structure and processes' (Conference of the Parties decision V/5, appendix).Source: www.cbd.int/agro/whatis.shtmlUnited Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 'The variety and variability of animals, plants and micro-organisms that are used directly or indirectly for food and agriculture, including crops, livestock, forestry and fisheries. It comprises the diversity of genetic resources (varieties, breeds) and species used for food, fodder, fibre, fuel and pharmaceuticals. It also includes the diversity of non-harvested species that support production (soil micro-organisms, predators, pollinators) and those in the wider environment that support agro-ecosystems (agricultural, pastoral, forest and aquatic) as well as the diversity of the agro-ecosystems.' Source: www.fao.org/docrep/007/y5609e/y5609e01.htmWorking in five groups, the participants identified megatrends and patterns now and in the next 15 years that would make it crucial to mainstream learning and teaching of agrobiodiversity in university education. The groups' analyses focused on: food and agriculture, science, technology and innovation, environment and ecosystems, socio-cultural values and income and partnerships involved.Group 1. Megatrends -food and agriculture Changing food and nutrition patterns:• More people needing food security • People consuming more animal products as a result of increased incomePart II. Workshop objectives, process and results• Growing interest in 'exotic food' • Increase in organic food, fair trade, etc.• Awareness of nutrition and health benefits of agrobiodiversity (including medicines). Impact of changing food habits on land use and agricultural biodiversity:• Globalization, market influence on agrobiodiversity • Agriculture will rely more on wild species for the transfer of desired traits (modern biotechnology) • Conventional breeding will use genes as diverse as possible • Indigenous knowledge incorporated in modern science • Improved documentation of agrobiodiversity.Changes of agro-ecosystems:• Increasing human population and growing demand for goods and services from the environment The fifth group discussed the status of partnerships relating to agrobiodiversity education and research (Table 1). The workshop participants also identified key stakeholders in agrobiodiversity education. These would need to be mobilized to support the process of mainstreaming agrobiodiversity education. The key stakeholders include:• Farmers and natural resource managers What are the opportunities and niches for teaching and learning agrobiodiversity in higher education programmes? The groups identified six opportunities and niches that could facilitate mainstreaming agricultural biodiversity in higher education (Table 2). Having identified opportunities and niches for agrobiodiversity, the participants sought to answer the question 'What are the glaring gaps in agrobiodiversity education?' (This workshop did not specifically review current curricula.) The participants responded to this question based on their personal experiences as lecturers or research and development professionals. The five working groups captured their ideas on cards, which were then organized into clusters during a plenary session. Eleven 'gap areas' relating to agrobiodiversity curriculum content emerged (Table 3). Later in the workshop, these areas were re-visited, to form the first draft curriculum framework (Annex 2). What are the key issues for 'mainstreaming' the conservation and use of agrobiodiversity in universities' teaching and learning? The participants identified seven critical issues and listed a series of constraints/observations, that need to be considered by universities interested in enhancing their teaching of agrobiodiversity (Table 4). What should a graduate (at professional level) be able to do, in order to appropriately respond to megatrends relating to agricultural biodiversity? The participants listed the following tasks (Table 5). Advise farmers, policy-makers, etc. on policy issues Lobby, advocate and dialogue to influence policy reforms to promote and integrate agrobiodiversity in the value chain Articulate and consciously apply policy and legal requirements at national, regional and international levels, to ensure fairness and equity in sharing benefits of agrobiodiversity Implement policies, e.g. the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and AgricultureDesign and conduct research in agrobiodiversity using available tools and methods Think critically and facilitate collective initiatives for conservation, rehabilitation and restoration of agrobiodiversity Stimulate and support enterprise development for increasing benefits of agrobiodiversity to individuals and the society (value addition)Against this analysis, the workshop participants then suggested a set of approaches that could facilitate the mainstreaming of agrobiodiversity (Table 6). How should universities respond to this need for developing competences for conserving and managing agrobiodiversity? Working first in groups, then in plenary, the workshop participants suggested five different, but complementary, options for mainstreaming of agrobiodiversity in higher education, each one with its advantages and challenges (  The Task Force will lead the implementation of the workshop recommendations, which were captured in a draft Action Plan (Table 8).Building on the workshop results described above, the participants started developing a curriculum framework. First, ten 'clusters', or topics, of the curriculum were agreed upon. Secondly, the clusters were assigned to small working groups, who describe them in greater detail. For each cluster, the groups drafted: Introduction; Main learning points; Contents; Methods; Bibliography and; Internet resources. The curriculum framework, consisting of the preliminary clusters or topics is attached in Annex 2. NOTE: This framework is incomplete and preliminary and will require further consultation post-workshop, a process which is lead by the Task Force. The aim is to publish a final document, preliminary entitled 'Guidelines for Developing Agrobiodiversity Curricula' in 2010. Session 1 -Creating a common understanding of agrobiodiversity and challenges of teaching agrobiodiversity in universitiesThe worlds' food system needs to feed a growing population at a time of rapid change in consumer demands and threats such as those posed by climate change. To increase food security, the general approach has been intensification through a combination of genetic, agronomic and agrichemical measures, in an increasingly globalized market. Some Asian countries, like China and Vietnam, have used this approach successfully (but often at environmental costs). Many other countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, still fall short of the MDG targets for food security, leaving millions of poor farmers hungry at least part of the year. These farmers often live in marginal areas less suitable for modern 'green revolution' agriculture, or else lack capital and resources to purchase improved seeds, fertilizer and agrochemicals required for such varieties to thrive.Farmers in marginal areas often depend on agriculture based on locally domesticated landraces of a wide variety of species, including wild species. Low external inputs and informal seed systems are key features. Risk mitigation, rather than maximum yield, is often a key strategy. Preferred varieties tend to be robust and resistant to stresses such as drought or pests. Yet, scientists in agricultural science and development have only recently started to work with farmers to understand and enhance such traditional systems.Farmers are also custodians of valuable genetic resources that have often vanished from modern agricultural landscapes and that contain traits that might be used for breeding new varieties, such as those required in the adaptation to climate change. Farmer-managed genetic resources also play a key role in the implementation of the conventions on biodiversity, combating desertification and climate change. Agrobiodiversity, including below-ground microorganisms, contribute to providing ecosystems services that are necessary for a sustainable agriculture.This paper first discusses agrobiodiversity in food systems, comparing modern intensive agriculture with traditional agriculture systems. Secondly it discusses the function and trends of agrobiodiversity at the ecosystems level. Lastly, the paper reflects on how university education today is addressing agrobiodiversity in its education programmes and what might be desirable for future curriculum reviews.Global agriculture has come to depend on a very narrow range of crops. Only three -rice, wheat and maize -account for about half of the world's intake of calories and protein and 30 crops provide 95% of our food energy. This is to be compared with the estimated 7000 plant species that have been used for food or animal feed globally at one time or other, or around 150 that are commercialized on a global scale (Wilson, 1992).Tropical agricultural development has, since the 1960s Green Revolution, followed a shift from a traditional to a modern agricultural approach (Table 9). This shift has succeeded in raising the production many-fold in Asia's 'rice bowls' or in high-potential wheat-and maize-growing areas. It has been less successful in other environments such as the uplands in Southeast Asia, or in the dryland areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. In such areas, hundreds of neglected and underutilized plant and animal species continue to be important locally or sub-regionally, in particular for poor communities. Modern agriculture is often linked to negative environmental impacts, including: loss of biodiversity, unsustainable water use and pollution of soil and water by agrochemicals and excess fertilizers.There is an alarming erosion of the genetic complexity of agrobiodiversity, caused by substitution of modern varieties for local landraces, by habitat loss and by degradation, both in natural and agricultural ecosystems. For example, in Nepal, the area planted to modern rice varieties increased from only 7000 hectares in 1965 to 1.16 million ha in 2000 (Figure 1), leading to an alarming loss of local cultivars. Some of these varieties and their wild relatives, are conserved in genebanks, but not all can be saved that way. Conservation of genetic resources in situ and on farms is a critical complement to genebanks. Similarly, the world's animal genetic resources for food and agriculture are threatened and many breeds have been lost in the last 100 years. It is estimated that 20% of the worlds' breeds are at risk and that 9% are already extinct (FAO, 2007).Forest genetic resources, on which millions of people depend for food and traditional medicines and many other products, are under great stress, given the continued deforestation and degradation of forest resources, as reported by FAO's Forest Resource Assessment (FAO, 2005).A key question is: can the worlds' food systems make better use a broader range of agrobiodiversity? Some recent trends give hope: Globally, there is an increasing interest in exotic food, facilitated by cheap transport and effective market chains. Supermarkets now sell food from all over the world, products that were hard to find only a few years back. Organic agriculture and fair trade are growing fast too. Speciality foods, such as cacao or coffee, have a brisk market, at premium prices. Such trends provide new opportunities for farmers to participate gainfully in the market chain.There is a growing awareness of the value of using a wider range of diversity in the food systems. Traditional/local grains, pulses, vegetables and fruits can also often be very nutritious. Neglected and underutilized species, such as minor Bioversity International has in the last decade led successful projects to commercialize species such as quinoa in Peru, African leafy vegetables in Kenya, minor millets in India or rocket salad in Italy. Many more species are waiting to be 'discovered'.The tools and methods developed for such enhancement can now be scaled up for a wider range of crops and in a broader geographic area. The tools differ from main-stream agronomy because they require a focus on the entire production and marketing chain and a strong emphasis on participatory action research. This is in stark contrast to the specialization along the market chain that is found in commodity crops. These differences have repercussions regarding what and how to teach.Not only does agrobiodiversity include includes plant, animal and forest genetic resources. It also provides services such as pollination, soil processes, watershed services and carbon and nutrient cycling, all of which are required for sustainable agriculture development. Agrobiodiversity contains the genetic variation that is required for continued adaptation and evolution of species (essential for the adaptation to climate change). Accordingly, the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) includes ecosystem functions in its definition of agrobiodiversity: '… all components of biological diversity that constitute the agroecosystem: the variety and variability of animals, plants and microorganisms, at the genetic, species and ecosystem levels, which are necessary to sustain key functions of the agro-ecosystem, its structure and processes' (CBD, 2000).In the past decade, policy-makers have become aware of the role of agrobiodiversity in sustaining production systems for future generations. Originally not mentioned in the Convention on Biological Diversity, agrobiodiversity was added in a decision at the third Conference of the Parties in 1996 (CBD, 1996). Agrobiodiversity is currently a thematic programmes under the CBD. The UN Convention on Combating Desertification also depends on agricultural biodiversity for its implementation.Recognizing the multi-disciplinary nature of agrobiodiversity, FAO established a Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The Commission plays an important role in monitoring the status of agricultural biodiversity, coordinating the development of global plans of actions and advising on their implementation.Many agro-ecosystems are under great stress, as a result of a range of wellknown drivers. Is it possible to move towards a more agrobiodiversity-friendly agriculture approach? What alternative options are available that can slow down, or reverse the decline of ecosystems services? A few examples can be mentioned:• conservation organizations have in recent years adopted a landscape approach to biodiversity conservation. Protected areas cannot do the job alone. It is recognized that farmer-managed landscape mosaics play important roles in conservation strategies • schemes for payments for environmental services -biodiversity conservation, watershed functions and carbon sequestration -can provide alternative income opportunities or other benefits such as secure tenure rights • some farmer-managed landscapes, such as multi-storey agroforests can sustain a very high level of biological diversity and maintain many of the functions of a natural ecosystem • agro-tourism is expanding as an alternative income source.Managing biodiversity in agricultural ecosystems is a complex, dynamic process, involving multiple stakeholders at multiple scales. Agrobiodiversity is influenced by a range of biophysical, socio-economic, cultural and policy drivers. Not infrequently conflicts arise over natural resources. Given such complexity, how should universities teach agrobiodiversity, to develop graduates with ability to facilitate the conservation and sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity?A fairly new concept, agrobiodiversity has only recently started to appear, in a rather limited way, in some university curricula. Full programmes on agrobiodiversity hardly exist and even courses on agrobiodiversity are hard to find, as confirmed by two surveys conducted by Bioversity International, in Eastern and Southern Africa and Latin America, respectively.It is time to review how to teach and learn agrobiodiversity. This would also be a direct response to international policy commitments. For example, the Global Plan of Action for Animal Genetic Resources, in its strategic areas for action, includes 'Policies, Institutions and Capacity Building' as one of four strategic priority areas (FAO, 2007). It notes that a 'lack of trained personnel is a major impediment to developing and implementing animal genetic resources policies, strategies, programmes and projects'. It emphasizes that education and training to build sustainable capacity in all priority areas is required.More specifically, the Plan of Action for Animal Genetic Resources identified the following actions, in relation to the strengthening of national educational and research facilities:• identify needs for research and education • promote the formation of relevant cadres of experts, nationally or through international training • review national research and education capabilities in relevant fields and establish targets for training. This workshop is convened to discuss how to mainstream agrobiodiversity in university programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa. The workshop will take stock of the dimensions of agricultural biodiversity, consider how universities address them at present and how they should be taught in future. Some of the key questions to explore include:• the niche for agrobiodiversity in education systems dominated by commodity crops • managing plant, animal and forest genetic resources in an integrated way • the role of socio-economics and nutrition and health in agricultural and forestry programmes • learning approaches for developing abilities to enhance neglected and underutilized species • what can be learnt from educational innovation in related areas such as agroforestry, integrated pest management or farmer field schools?Keynote presentation: Challenges and approaches to learning and teaching agrobiodiversityEgerton University, Kenya• Learning agrobiodiversity is an incentive to sustainable utilization and conservation of agrobiodiversity. • Research in agrobiodiversity will create new knowledge that can be used by universities for its effective learning and teaching. • Integrating agrobiodiversity modules in existing curricula will enhance the learning of agrobiodiversity in universities in Sub-Saharan Africa. • A paradigm shift in the training and education system to participatory, inclusive approaches focusing on the reality at farmers level. General willingness to draw lessons from experience is vital in learning and teaching agrobiodiversity. • Development of enabling and responsive policies on agrobiodiversity depends on the level of awareness of the policy-makers and professionals in agriculture and related disciplines.Agrobiodiversity encompasses the variety and variability of animals, plants and microorganisms that are necessary to sustain key functions of the agroecosystem, its structure and processes for and in support of, food production and food security. As an approach to development and cooperation strategies, agrobiodiversity focuses on improvement of poor people's livelihoods through sustainable utilization and management. Local knowledge and culture can be considered an essential part of agrobiodiversity as it is the human activity of agriculture which conserves this diversity.Agrobiodiversity is an important asset for people's livelihoods. Its rapid decrease affects most directly the people who are living in close relationship with and depend upon it. Africa's greatest challenge is poverty, food insecurity and nutrition-related problems. The sustainable use and conservation of agrobiodiversity is an important element in achieving food security. Applying agrobiodiversity in farming is a skill that is learned either through experience or formal learning. To promote agrobiodiversity, we must influence the farmers' capacity to manage it. This requires professionals in agriculture and related fields who can carry out research in agrobiodiversity, disseminate the acquired knowledge and conserve agrobiodiversity.Training is an important incentive for the use and conservation of agrobiodiversity. It is a motivating influence for the use and conservation of Part 1. Opening and setting the scene agrobiodiversity. In the past, professionals have been trained in techniques and methods of identification and conservation of agricultural genetic resources. These skills need to be complemented with an increased understanding of the linkage between the natural resources and people's livelihoods, the sustainable utilization of agrobiodiversity and appreciation of the local knowledge of the farmers. It is therefore necessary to build capacity through learning and teaching at universities in Africa, to be able to promote the sustainable utilization and management of agrobiodiversity to counteract poverty, food insecurity and generally meet the Millennium Development Goal of poverty alleviation However, there are several challenges to learning and teaching agrobiodiversity. There is need for a paradigm shift in the training and education system towards participatory, inclusive approaches that focus on reality at the farmer level. There is need for a change in attitude of researchers, policy-makers and extension workers and a willingness to draw lessons from experience available from successful case studies. Integration of agrobiodiversity can only be supported by those researchers and other professionals who are eager to experiment with farmers to conserve agrobiodiversity. It is necessary to integrate farmer knowledge, innovation and practices in research and extension. The attitude of superiority in the custodianship of knowledge by university staff and researchers is a major challenge.For effective learning, there is a need to develop university curricula that are relevant to the farmers situation 'on the ground'. Currently, modules that integrate agrobiodiversity in various disciplines are lacking. Research in agrobiodiversity is needed to generate new knowledge that may be included in curricula and also in extension. A combination of local and scientific knowledge in research and extension can translate into relevant curricula.In addition, getting the relevant courses into university programmes is a challenge, especially at undergraduate level. The approval of a new programme takes time. There are several stages where different committees assess the curriculum before approval is given by the university Senate. An alternative option may be to incorporate modules on agrobiodiversity into existing programmes and courses. This may be done during the regular curriculum review.Another major challenge is the dwindling interest in agriculture. There is a dramatic decrease in the number of students who opt to take agriculture-related courses in Kenyan universities. This has been attributed to lack of employment opportunities for graduates in this field. So whereas appropriate curricula may be developed, the numbers of available students to learn agrobiodiversity may be limited.Lack of awareness of agrobiodiversity by decision-makers and professionals can create an obstacle in learning and teaching agrobiodiversity. Public information and awareness creation should serve as a basis for change in attitudes and development of interest and understanding of agrobiodiversity. In Kenya, the existing policy frameworks and legal regimes have not been responsive to activities of agrobiodiversity conservation and its sustainable use. The draft environment policy of 2008 proposes a broad range of measures and actions responding to key environmental issues and challenges. There is need for enabling, effective and responsive policies and legal frameworks that will create institutional structures that address agrobiodiversity conservation and sustainable use. Some of the policy actions may include capacity building at institutional levels. This will provide professionals who can support farmers in the conservation and use of their resources.Approaches to learning are varied depending on the age of the learners. Learning has shifted from only knowledge to the ability to perform tasks. For a person to do this there is need to have a combination of necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes. Generally, building on prior experience is an efficient way of learning, especially so in agrobiodiversity. At university, the teaching of agrobiodiversity needs to be based on the active participation of the learners. Experimentation with farmers and support to farmers through research should be adopted by the university staff. Experiential learning is central in communication on agrobiodiversity, which indeed is a cross-cutting issue. In general, competence-based education is the way forward for universities if we are to succeed in teaching agrobiodiversity.Atlere AF. 1994 Genebanks support crop improvement by providing important genes in the form of seeds of crops and their wild relatives. They provide breeders and other users with useful germplasm for crop improvement and other related research activities. They are the only security in case of the loss of important germplasm. Genebanks act as a back-up for germplasm in other countries.Techniques for conserving orthodox seeds involve drying seeds to low moisture content and storing them in low temperature in special containers. The physiological storage behaviour and inherent longevity of each species will dictate the mode of conservation. Seed storage is most preferred due to its practicality. This is the main conservation method for species producing orthodox seeds that tolerate desiccation to low moisture content and storage at low temperatures. Most arable, forage and forest species fall in the category of orthodox seeds. Some other seeds also tolerate combinations of desiccation and low temperatures. Recalcitrant seeds do not survive desiccation and low temperatures. These require different techniques for conservation.Most genebanks have organized their operations as follows:• Exploration and collection • Seed science and conservation • Characterization, regeneration and multiplication • On-farm conservation • Documentation and information dissemination.Assembling accessions involves collections in the field, or through donations. Once received samples are added to the existing collection, they have to meet the required quantity and quality standards and accompanying information requirements including passport data and other collection information. The seeds are cleaned, moisture determined, dried, viability-tested and packaged.High levels of seed viability are required. The routine monitoring of this viability will determine when to regenerate the accession. To minimize genetic drift, adequate numbers of plants are grown and sampled. Controlled pollination and isolation should be maintained.Seeds should be harvested on reaching physiological maturity and processed under optimal conditions to ensure high viability. Low humidity allows fast drying of the seeds while high humidity will delay seed drying leading to deterioration. Areas that should be strengthened Animal genetic resources (AnGR) comprise all animal species, breeds and strains that are of economic, scientific and cultural value or interest to humankind in terms of food and agricultural production now and in the future. Farm animal genetic resources (FAnGR or livestock) comprise the species, breeds and populations (strains and individuals) that are used for human food and agricultural production. With few exceptions, such as the wild boar (Sus scrofa) and the red jungle fowl, the ancestors and wild relatives of major FAnGR are either extinct or highly endangered as a result of hunting, changes to their habitats and in the case of the wild red jungle fowl, intensive cross-breeding with the domestic counterpart. In the State of the World's Animal Genetic Resources (FAO, 2007a) the number of livestock breeds in the world was estimated to be 7616, 86% of which occurred in only one country, while 14% were trans-boundary-occurring in more than one country. Of the trans-boundary breeds, 52% are international, while 48% occur in only one region of the world.Livestock plays many roles, particularly in developing countries, where they provide food (milk, meat and eggs), draught power, fertilizer and fuels, industrial raw materials (hides and skins), direct employment and capital (cash, social and cultural values). In quantitative terms, 30-40% of the world's agricultural outputs are produced by livestock, while 70-80% of total farm incomes in the intensive crop-livestock production systems are derived from livestock.Genetic resources naturally ebb and flow within ecosystems, resulting in the evolution of new species and the loss of others. The value of a vast majority of AnGR is poorly understood by scientists and policy-makers, yet it is estimated that on average, a breed disappears every month and 20% of the world's uniquely adapted breeds of domestic animals are at risk of extinction (FAO, 2007a). This risk is greatest in developing countries, where nearly 70% of the entire world's remaining unique livestock breeds are found. This loss of breeds is occurring while it is still unknown which breeds contain significant genetic diversity or specific genes that should be targeted for conservation and/or incorporation into breeding programmes (FAO, 2006).It is noteworthy to recognize that despite the past and ongoing losses of distinct breeds, new populations and breeds have been created. Potential still exists for continued creations through planned crossbreeding, synthetic breed formation and through application of biotechnologies. Biotechnology has enabled an increase in the variety of genetic material available for different species of livestock (semen, embryos, oocytes, somatic cells and DNA).Key drivers to the rate of change in AnGR include economic development and globalization; market demand for livestock products; environmental effects, especially climate change; science and technology and human population pressure on the limited natural resource base, among others (Seré et al. 2008). A sustained rise in demand for food of animal origin driven by growing populations, increasing consumer affluence and increasing urbanization has resulted in great structural changes along the whole animal food supply chain. The changes are accompanied by an increasing use of crops for livestock feed, rather than human food, raising questions about food security and poverty. The 'supermarket revolution' in urban areas is shaping an increasing demand for convenience, variety and quality assurance of livestock products. This consumer-driven change has great implications for livestock production and the players in the markets for livestock products.For efficient and sustainable use of AnGR within a country, the extent, distribution, basic characteristics and comparative performance of the different AnGR need to be understood. This information is the basic building block to guide decision making in livestock development and breeding programmes. Since genetic resources are not static, routine inventories and ongoing monitoring are needed. Few developing countries have current data on their AnGR to make an accurate analysis of their state.In the areas of diversity measurement, conservation and utilization, new and cutting-edge genomic tools, such as dense single nucleotide chips, assays and re-sequencing, provide new opportunities to study genome-wide DNA variations. The availability of high computing power makes it possible to link such variations with various layers and levels of environmental variables. This enables better understanding of the complex co-evolution of AnGR and their relationship to the environment in which they are raised today, including predictions of their potential and options for their sustained utilization in the future.The conservation of the diversity of AnGR is critical. Countries have a moral commitment to future generations to conserve the existing diversity as stated under the CBD. Genetically diverse livestock populations provide a greater range of options for meeting future challenges, whether associated with environmental change, emerging disease threats, new knowledge of human nutritional requirements or changing market conditions (FAO, 2007b).The last decades have seen increasing possibilities for bio-banking (ex situ, in vitro) as a result of advances in cryobiology and reproductive technology. Semen and embryos can be obtained, cryo-preserved and used for most species of farm animals. More recently developed possibilities include the use of epididymal sperm, oocytes, ovarian tissue, stem cells and somatic cells. Reproductive techniques necessary to obtain and use these types of germplasm include embryo transfer, in vitro fertilization, ovum pick-up and generation of embryos by somatic cell nuclear transfer. Appropriate embracement of these, particularly in cases where the threats to AnGR are great and skills are available, would lead to sustainable management (improvement and conservation) of populations that are currently under-exploited. Further study is needed to calculate and compare costs for different strategies, which should include short-term and long-term costs and perspectives.Inadequate human and institutional technical capacity, including poor infrastructure, currently constrain not only the improved understanding of AnGR, but also hamper their optimum utilization and conservation in developing countries. Inadequate understanding and domestication of global agreements (e.g. CBD, the Global Plan of Action) and the related, often too complicated, intellectual property rights issues around AnGR make it difficult to freely share them among counties and regions. What is needed to impact AnGR utilization in these countries includes:• National policies and legal structures for sustainable utilization of AnGR Priority areas for research To address the big social, economic and environmental issues in the world we need to simultaneously restore:• Biological resources and natural capital (soil fertility, water, forests, etc.)• Livelihoods (nutrition, health, culture, equity, income)• Agro-ecological processes (nutrient and water cycles, pest and disease control, etc.). • Agroforestry can contribute to these objectivesNatural ecosystems progress from a 'pioneer' stage to ecological maturity. Likewise, each phase of an agro-ecological succession will be more bio-diverse, as 'planned' biodiversity (planted trees, crops and introduced livestock, poultry, fish, etc.) are enriched by 'unplanned' biodiversity (all those organisms, above and below ground, that find niches to fill among introduced plants and animals). Agroforestry contributes towards diversification to create mature or 'climax' agro-ecosystems.Agroforestry is the integration of trees into the farming system and provides a wide range of products and environmental services. Trees diversify farms and help to restore ecological services and environmental resilience. Such mixed farming systems can be developed to become more productive and generate income and employment opportunities, so that household livelihoods are restored. This can be facilitated by 'domesticating' trees into farming landscapes.Agroforestry is uniquely suited to address the requirements for increased food security and biomass resources and the need to sustainably manage agricultural landscapes for their critical ecosystem services. Agro-ecological functions of agroforestry include:• Improved soil structure and organic matter management • Enhanced nutrient cycling -soil invertebrates, saprophytic and symbiotic fungal and bacterial associations • Improved water use efficiency • More effective crop pollination • Enhanced food chains/life cycles -reduced pest, disease and weed outbreaks (these functions are scale dependent) • Carbon/greenhouse gas sequestration.The future of trees is on farms Evolution has created 60 000 tree species. For thousands of years humans extracted what they needed from the forest. Today, the human population exceeds the extractive capacity of natural ecosystems. In 1850 there were 1 billion people; today there are 6 billion. Original global forest cover was estimated to be 70% of the land area, now it is 26%. Most tree species are wild but they need to be brought into cultivation to fulfil future needs as natural forest cover contracts and degrades.Tree breeding practices are largely based on:• Recurrent selection for additively inherited traits • The use of high selection intensities (1 in 100 000 trees)• Recent breeding for hybrid vigour, e.g., tropical pines • Recently clonal forestry to propagate superior types, e.g., rooted cuttings of eucalyptus • Most recently, assisted selection using molecular markers is being practiced on a small number of species and a narrow range of transgenic trees are being developed (pulp yield, disease resistance, etc.). Tree breeders have had success in increasing productivity, but they deal with very few species. Centralized breeding works best when one organization can control all steps in production: e.g. species trials, provenance/progeny tests, seed orchard establishment, seed collection and handling, nursery seedling production, plantation management. Compare this to agroforestry, where we have a diverse client group, at least 3000 useful tree species on farms and many organizations involved in the work. So tree domestication from an agroforestry perspective is not about tree breeding. Whilst trials and selection are important, it is also about the following activities that cannot be done in isolation:• Priority setting -which trees do farmers want to plant? (important species and farmers' and markets' traits) • Proactive seed multiplication of a range of species options • Engendering best nursery practices among communities • Appropriate tree management methods on smallholder plantings • Extension messages on seed collection methods • Working out how to deliver germplasm to decentralized producers in efficient ways • The marketing of tree products in a way that benefits small-scale production • Policies to support all of the above. Domesticating agroforestry trees involves accelerated and human-induced evolution to bring species into wider cultivation through a farmer-driven and/or market-led process. This is a science-based and iterative procedure involving the identification, production, management and adoption of high quality germplasm. High quality germplasm in agroforestry incorporates dimensions of productivity, fitness of purpose, viability and diversity. In tandem with species strategies are approaches to domesticate landscapes by investigating and modifying the uses, values, interspecific diversity, ecological functions, numbers and niches of both planted and naturally regenerated trees.Tree domestication is a farmer-driven process, which needs to consider questions such as:• Is the research addressing farmers' problems?• Are farmers involved in the work?• Do farmers recognize and appreciate the benefits?• Are the approaches used sustainable?• Should efforts seek to increase production or maximize stability?• Are we detrimentally skewing farmers' priorities?• Do we understand farmers' decision-making processes?An important question is the following: what do we know about genetic variation in tropical trees in agroforestry systems and how do we link this knowledge to action for enhanced livelihoods and improved conservation? The nature of the problem is that:• Farm productivity depends on both tree species diversity and genetic variation, but research on the latter has until recently not received the recognition it deserves • When knowledge has become available, it has not been linked in any systematic way with management, indicating a 'disconnect' between research and practice.Practical and conceptual problems in gaining information on genetic variation in tree species in farm landscapes include:• Lack of recognition of the nature of the problem. This is related to the persistence of trees in landscapes, meaning that it can be too late to intervene by the time the problem is recognized • An inability to assemble appropriate teams to undertake effective research.The institutional frameworks within which researchers work rarely support the team-based approaches needed to assess genetic variation and then meaningfully apply knowledge. For agroforestry the situation is acute, as 'forestry' and 'agriculture' are traditionally considered as discrete schools of research that should be treated/taught separately• Difficulties in recognising and quantifying variation. Genetic variation may be difficult to measure and important diversity may be 'cryptic' • The large number of species involved. A very large number of tree species are found in agroforestry systems and comprehensive analysis of genetic variation in all taxa is impractical. Is the concept of 'model' species relevant?Recent advances in assessing genetic variationRecent advances have been made in both 'direct' and 'indirect' research approaches for measuring genetic diversity in trees. Direct methods:• Morphological studies. There has recently been an increased emphasis on using participatory survey techniques with communities and on farmforest comparisons of trees, to assess useful morphological variation in stands, especially for fruit trees • Molecular studies. There has been an increased use of molecular markers in more targeted ways that relate to addressing genuine farmers' problems and that deal with current concerns of the lack of practical application of these methods. Indirect methods: • Source surveys. Advances in methods that consult all the actors (nursery managers, local seed dealers, etc.) involved in sourcing germplasm for farmers have been made and these approaches have been used to provide indications of genetic variation in planted trees • Farm inventories. There have been developments in the methods used to characterize tree species found in farms and in how to interpret such data in terms of genetic variation in agricultural landscapes, not just in terms of species diversity.Based on the types of approaches to research described above, it is observed that many trees are subject to poor germplasm collection practices in farmland that many species occur at very low densities and that a large number of taxa occur in aggregated (e.g., clumped, not well dispersed) distributions in farmland. These points all lead to the conclusion that the effective population sizes of trees species -and therefore their sustainability and productivity -in farm landscapes are on the decline. The consequences for an individual species will depend to some degree on the functional use to which it is put; consequences will be more serious for some categories of use -e.g., when trees are used for fruit production -than for others. The current state of knowledge indicates that a range of interventions related to germplasm access is necessary to improve existing management practices, including:• Enhancing community seed-and seedling-exchange networks, including the development of local commercial suppliers to support farmers with germplasm provision • Improving access to genetic resources through 'diversity fairs' that include both tree and crop activities (this is especially relevant for fruit trees) • Encouraging locally based, participatory tree domestication programmes that empower farmers' to collect their own genetic resources. More difficult to address, but equally necessary, is the development of market structures that support genetic diversity in tropical tree species. Measures suggested include the development of niche markets that support a range of variation within a species (possibly using a 'Denomination of Origin' type approach). It is clear that tree seed and seedling supply and product (fruit, timber, medicine, etc.) sale need to be considered as parts of one value chain if germplasm-and market-based interventions are to be successful.ICRAF has developed a series of resources for teaching and learning in the domestication of agroforestry trees, including short courses, databases and publications.The Most notable are the following:• The Agroforestree Database provides information on more than 600 tropical trees -including timbers, fruits, fodder providers and soil fertility improving species -that are of interest for planting by smallholders. The database includes information on where species grow, how they can be propagated and managed, their uses and pests and diseases problems (most useful of ICRAF's online 'tree' databases for educational purposes) www.worldagroforestry.org/Sites/TreeDBS/aft.asp • The Tree Seed Suppliers Directory provides information on the different suppliers of tree planting material. The database lists several thousand tree species, indicates where seed of these species can be obtained and provides information on the quality of different seed sources. The Directory allows users to make more informed choices about the trees that they plant (more useful for field managers than for education, but useful if need to access seed for research). www.worldagroforestry.org/Sites/TreeDBS/ tssd/treessd.htmICRAF's training materials on tree domestication include:• Tree seeds for farmers: a toolkit and reference source. This describes the technical methods involved in supplying tree seed and seedlings to farmer and how to go about making seed and seedling production a commercial concern • Tree seed education at agricultural and forestry colleges in eastern and southern Africa (FAO, ANAFE). Describes a possible further education curriculum on the topic of tree seed supply • Training in agroforestry: a toolkit for trainers. Describes the relevant methods for teaching agroforestry to students at different levels, but especially in a 'training-of-trainers' approach • Tree diversity analysis: a manual and software for common statistical methods for ecological and biodiversity studies. Describes how to do various statistical analyses of biodiversity data (CD-ROM) • Molecular markers for tropical trees: a practical guide to principles and procedures. Describes molecular marker methods and protocols and their relevance for tree research. The guide seeks to inform more practical application of methods. Information is presented in a format suitable for students at BSc, MSc and PhD levels • Indigenous fruit trees in the tropics: domestication, utilization and commercialization (ICRAF and CABI). A recent publication (2008) that describes the current state of knowledge on indigenous fruit tree research across the tropics. Farmer innovations and Indigenous Knowledge (IK) that promote agrobiodiversity go a long way in ensuring sustainable production of food. Indigenous knowledge is composed of ideas, beliefs, values, norms and rituals, which are native and embedded in the minds of a people and unique to a given culture or society (Warren et al. 1987). Areas of IK that are relevant to agrobiodiversity include preparation of recipes, agronomy, seed issues and herbal medicine, among others. Those with IK know wild plants with their traits such as earliness, lateness, cooking quality and drought tolerance. Indeed IK has played a key role in conservation and use of biodiversity.FAO, in conjunction with the government of Kenya, established a programme on agrobiodiversity in 2005 meant to support ecosystems, rural livelihoods and food security. The programme, sponsored by FAO-Netherlands Partnership Programme (FNPP), selected two districts in which to implement the programme i.e. Mwingi and Bondo. Mwingi district is a semi-arid area whose agro-ecosystem is agropastoral, in Eastern Province. Bondo is found in the Lake Victoria basin in Nyanza Province and is therefore a sub-humid lake zone. The agro-ecosystem is composed of aquatic and terrestrial components.The programme is in line with the farmer field school (FFS) approach, adopted by FAO, whose aim is to build farmer capacity to analyze their production systems, identify problems, test possible solutions and eventually adopt suitable practices. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the mainstreaming of agrobiodiversity through experiences gained from the two districts.Farmer innovations and indigenous knowledge are important components to be considered when developing curricula for agrobiodiversity in institutions of higher learning.The areas of study were Mwingi and Bondo districts of Kenya (Figure 1). These districts host FAO's FFS pilot projects since 2001. The agrobiodiversity programme was introduced in the same districts in 2005 and therefore has documented information. Reports from participatory rural appraisal (PRA) and stakeholder workshops were the main sources of data. The PRA teams were composed of government officials from the Ministries of Agriculture, Forestry and Water, the FFS coordinator for the district and selected participating farmers. The team selected the study sites that captured diverse ecosystems. Information was collected in focused group discussions using a PRA checklist developed by FAO. Two divisions per district were selected: Central and Nuu divisions in Mwingi district and Usigu and Madiany divisions in Bondo district.The workshops involved facilitators from the government and FAO as well as innovator farmers. Cross visits to nearby farms were made during the workshops. The Mwingi workshop attracted 19 innovative farmers while Bondo B A had 42. Further information was obtained at the FAO-Kenya office headquarters in Nairobi. The data were subjected to descriptive statistics to give summaries.FFSs in the two districts identified, verified and characterized some 230 innovative farmers. More than 20 categories of farmer innovations were identified. The main ones are in the areas of water harvesting (16%), irrigation (8%), ethno-veterinary (7%), soil and water conservation (6%) and biological pest control (6%). Other categories of innovation are livestock management, agroforestry, farm tools and machinery, poultry management, bee keeping, soil fertility management, crop management, tree crop farming, water storage, seed/crop storage, processing for export, seed crop bulking, agro-processing and water table management.Innovations by farmers are occasioned by necessity, changing conditions and curiosity. In this context, innovation may be defined as the successful exploitation of new ideas (DTI, 2002). However, research and extension tend to ignore the importance of local innovation for agricultural development (Reij and Waters-Bayer, 2001). It is important that formal systems recognize these innovations and incorporate them to make a better impact in adoption of new technologies. Towards this end FAO has been at the forefront of identifying and analyzing innovative farmers and innovations.In the case of Mwingi and Bondo, the innovative farmers were organized into groups that promote cross visits and exchange of ideas. Competitions are occasionally staged where the farmers are asked to present their innovations in drawings. Impressive art showing various innovations like good farm layout, contour farming and good husbandry are usually produced. Although more men participate, women too make significant contributions; innovativeness cuts across gender. This is an approach based on a combination of science and local knowledge systems, innovations and practices as part of integrated ecosystem management.The IK system in food preparation uses a wide variety of plants and animals. In Mwingi, it includes porridge and ugali made from bulrush millet, sorghum and finger millet; processing and preservation of milk and milk products such as ghee and preservation of meat. Others are fermentation where mixing with various grains or ground tuber crops is done, cooking in ghee, ground sesame or groundnut paste and cooking with fresh or sour milk.In Mwingi, focused group discussions established the number of indigenous crops that had been lost, or were disappearing and the number of crops that had been added to the farming systems. The balance sheet (Table 1) shows a net loss of nine indigenous crops. This trend is reducing agrobiodiversity and exposing populations to major risks in case of harsh conditions. The government of Kenya has announced that up to 10 million people are threatened with hunger. Failing rains have been cited as a major cause. The table below shows that even droughttolerant crops like cassava are disappearing, yet it is at times like these that such crops come to the rescue. It is known that traditional foods are generally available before harvest and during periods of scarcity. In Bondo, traditional foodstuffs embedded in farmers' IK include blood meal, ghee, milk, ugali from sorghum, ginger millet, groundnut paste, fish, dried local vegetables and honey. Others are quils (an edible bird), mushroom, pumpkin, sweetpotatoes and simsim. (Translations for the following foodstuffs could not be immediately established: Knoni Anang'a, Ovied, Nderema, Knon and Dek.)The balance sheet for crops in Bondo shows a net loss of 11 while three livestock and 12 fish species had been lost (Table 2). Most of the loss in fish occurred in Lake Victoria as a result of predation from the Nile perch. The loss is alarming and requires concerted efforts to stop it. The importance of these local crops and indigenous fish is that they are rich in nutrients and help to prevent malnutrition, a fact that has been well documented. Net loss (or gain) -1 0Original fish stock (species) -16Currently available -4Traditional rites do encourage sustainable production and utilization of animal and plant species for various uses, for example marriages, food and feed, medicinal, payment of debts and services, nutritional, etc.Indigenous knowledge can sometimes prove modern ways wrong. As an example farmers in Mwingi were urged to stop 'ratooning' sorghum, fearing that pests would multiply. But, recent research findings by the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute have upheld the IK on this issue. Ecologically adapted plant and animal species in Mwingi, generally, give better returns as they can do relatively well under adverse conditions. Most farmers in Mwingi still intercrop as a risk aversion strategy to adverse weather and diseases. Indigenous methods of pest control such as use of ash has little environmental impact, for instance there is little or no interference with pollinators.Many of the agro-pastoral inhabitants have over the years used plant and animal behaviour to foretell climate variability. The behaviour of some birds and insects and plant shedding of leaves, are examples that were used to forecast weather. This is IK that is getting lost as plants and animals get depleted.Although herbal medicines are known to be collected from the wild, there are some that are grown in Bondo. These are 'Luboga' and 'Atipa' which are combined to treat constipation, 'Apoth' and 'Boo' which are blended to treat malnutrition and 'Achak' to heal stomach ache. (The botanical names could not be immediately established.)Indigenous knowledge has a strong correlation with gender. Men tend to know about things in the wild and herbal medicine, whereas women have expert knowledge on agronomy and seed issues. For instance, preservation of seed in calabashes with ash and above cooking stones in kitchens is a preservation technology used by women. Women are indeed the custodians of plant genetic materials of most traditional crops. This is particularly important because private seed companies pay little attention to these crops.In Bondo, it was observed that the informal seed sector supplies over 90% of seed needs, but related regulations give no support to development of the sector, including production, processing, maintenance, exchange and marketing. Existing seed policies target national seed requirements and large-scale farmers, neglecting small-scale farmers, especially women. Although women are the main players in the informal seed sector, their involvement in national seed policy and programs is limited. Most NGOs and CBOs involved in informal seed initiatives at the grass root levels are structurally weak, poorly resourced and lack recognition from state institutions and research process. Farmers have more trust in their own saved seed or seeds from relatives, as compared to certified seeds.Indigenous knowledge is diminishing mainly due to changing values as globalization takes centre stage. Traditional values and related IK are thus shunned as outdated. Agrobiodiversity is being diminished by destruction of habitants for birds and insects, including pollinators, as well as forests and bushes that are sources of medicinal and dietary herbs. The much sought-after honey too is under threat. Commercialization focuses on a few high-yielding varieties at the expense of many adapted landraces. Traditional diets have largely been abandoned. The result is a loss of agrobiodiversity in plants and animals.Farmer innovations and indigenous knowledge abound but are neglected by research and extension. The two can play a big role in promoting agrobiodiversity and food security. IK is embedded in the minds of people and is embedded in social-cultural norms. For adoption of new technologies to be easier, it is important to incorporate IK. Women are the main custodians of plant genetic resources through seed handling and therefore need to be assisted to improve selection, processing and storage of seed. Funding of innovative farmers is recommended, as well as visits and exposure tours among them. These farmers should be linked to the markets.There is general loss of indigenous plants, animals and insects and subsequently of IK. Consequently, benefits like medicinal herbs, honey and pollinators are getting scarce. Measures are required to stem the tide and improve the balance sheets in their favour. A clear policy on conservation and sustainable use of agrobiodiversity in the Kenya is lacking and should be formulated. The ongoing process of mainstreaming agrobiodiversity is encouraged and it should be incorporated into curricula of higher learning to encourage better research and documentation of this new area. African leafy vegetables (ALVs) are important sources of essential macro-and micro-nutrients. They offer a source of livelihood when marketed as well as contribute to crop biodiversity. Despite these positive aspects, out of the 210 known ALVs species in Kenya only a few are grown, marketed and consumed. This neglect has been attributed to a number of factors including:• Erosion of culture and breakdown of traditional systems that ensured production and consumption • Emergence of exotic vegetables that were marketed as superior foods • Loss of growing areas where these vegetables used to grow naturally, especially along the river banks, due to environmental degradation • Lack of emphasis in agricultural training, research and marketing policy on traditional crops. However since 2001, there has been a marked increase in the demand and supply of ALVs in both formal and informal markets around Nairobi. Research carried out in 2006 showed that the market gross values had increased by about 212% between the period 2001 and 2006. The main species traded were found to be African nightshade, leafy amaranth, cowpeas and spider-plant. The growth of this market has been greatly influenced by increased consumer demand due to a number of factors. These include promotional strategies of local NGOs, international organizations such as Bioversity International, increased health awareness and consciousness of Nairobi dwellers, effects of HIV/AIDs and improved ALV presentation in supermarkets and upmarket groceries. Supply has increased due to promotion of production in peri-urban and 'upcountry' key production areas by international organizations and local NGOs, especially Farm Concern International, provision of external marketing support by NGOs, enhanced farmers' capacity for self-organization and improvement of telecommunication technology. The placement of ALVs in major supermarkets in Nairobi has particularly helped to enhance consumers' rating of these vegetables. The demand has been matched with increased production mainly by small-scale farmers in the peri-urban areas of Nairobi as well as increased supplies from far-off traditional production areas of western and eastern Kenya.According to one study, the major hindering factor the growth of the ALV market in Nairobi was the inadequacy of physical infra-structural development in terms of the transport network, storage facilities and actual physical trading space. Other hindering factors include unfavourable policies for production and marketing of ALVs, lack of capacity to regulate drastic supply fluctuations, lack of product differentiation and value addition and lack of credit and other forms of support to council markets' traders. Another drawback is the presence in the market of ALVs that are grown in unhygienic conditions, e.g. using sewer spillage, making potential consumers apprehensive about ALVs altogether.To promote the market further, favourable policies for production and marketing of ALVs are needed. ALVs should be included as a scheduled crop in the Agriculture Act and training guidelines on production and consumption of ALVs should be developed, which could also be included in the curricula of all levels of agricultural training.An analysis of the effect of market development on inter-and intra-specific on-farm biodiversity showed that market development had a negative influence on biodiversity. However, this was not statistically significant, but it is, nevertheless, an indication that the influence is important and should be monitored as it develops further, because supermarkets and other high value groceries only stock a few varieties with the highest demand.From the study it is clear that to rediscover ALVs and develop a value chain the following aspects are necessary; curricula should endeavour to capture them:• Initial exploratory survey to document information on ALVs (past and present)• Value chain, stakeholder and market potential analysis • Promotion and raising consumer awareness of ALVs to increase consumer demand • Development of marketing strategy aimed at linking the small scale farmers to the market developed. This has two stages: -Collective action on the farmer's side to ensure bulking, continuous supply and entry to high value supermarkets -Training to ensure quality in production and handling and other value addition aspects; ensuring phytosanitary conditions, grading, transportation, acceptable quality standards, labelling, etc. • Linking farmers to high-value markets as well as offering logistical support • Orienting policy towards neglected and underutilized species (training and extension, pro-poor marketing policies, etc.) • Development of market infrastructure for those in the open markets • Rural support services including infra-structure, access to credit, etc.ASB Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins, World Agroforestry Centre, Nairobi, Kenya Present address: Department of Rural Economy, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada• Ecosystem services as an integrating concept/framework • Overall trends and tradeoffs between ecosystem services • High prevalence of mosaic landscapes across most of the developing world • Importance of scale and stake in the ecosystem services generated by mosaic landscapes • Potential for synergies and tradeoffs among ecosystem services in mosaic landscapes • Limits on the effectiveness of regulations for safeguarding ecosystem services and growing interest in recognition, rights and rewards.The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) was initiated in 2001, bringing together over 1200 scientists under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Program. Its objective was to: 'to assess the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being and to establish the scientific basis for actions needed to enhance the conservation and sustainable use of ecosystems and their contributions to human well-being'.The MA framed its work around the concept of ecosystem services -the benefits that people obtain from ecosystems. The MA categorizes ecosystem services into:• provisioning services such as food, water, timber and fibre • regulating services that affect climate, floods, disease, wastes and water quality • cultural services that provide recreational, aesthetic and spiritual benefits • supporting services such as soil formation, photosynthesis and nutrient cycling. Changes in ecosystems services influence the multiple constitutes of human well-being:• Basic material for a good life, such as adequate livelihoods, sufficient nutritious food, shelter and access to goods • Health, including feeling well and having a healthy physical environment, such as clean air and access to clean water In the last decades, there has been unprecedented change in structure and function of ecosystems. More land was converted to cropland in the 30 years after 1950 than in the 150 years between 1700 and 1850. Accordingly, the status of provisioning and regulatory and cultural services has in many cases declined (Tables 1 and 2). Degradation of ecosystem services often causes significant harm to human well-being. The total economic value associated with managing ecosystems more sustainably is often higher than the value associated with conversion. Conversion may still occur because private economic benefits are often greater for the converted system Level of poverty remains high and inequities are growing Economics and human development • An estimated 852 million people were undernourished in 2000-02, up 37 million from the period 1997-99 • Per capita food production has declined in Sub-Saharan Africa • Some 1.1 billion people still lack access to improved water supply and more than 2.6 billion lack access to improved sanitation • Water scarcity affects 1-2 billion people worldwide. Industries based on ecosystem services are still the mainstay of many economies. The agricultural labour force accounts for 22% of the world's population and half the world's total labour force. Agriculture accounts for 24% of GDP in low income developing countries. The market value of ecosystem-service industries has been estimated to be:• Food production: $980 billion per year • Timber industry: $400 billion per year • Marine fisheries: $80 billion per year • Marine aquaculture: $57 billion per year • Recreational hunting and fishing: >$75 billion per year in the United States alone. Most direct drivers of degradation in ecosystem services remain constant or are growing in intensity in most ecosystems.These change in ecosystems services lead to increasing importance of multiple land use types in mosaic landscapes and forest margin areas. Such systems have been studied by groups such as the World Bank (e.g. Chomitz, 2007) and the Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn Programme (ASB, www.asb.cgiar.org). A few of the findings are reported here. A summary of the global evidence on the biodiversity value of agricultural and mosaic landscapes is provided by McNeely and Scherr (2002).ASB is well-known for its research on the tradeoffs associated with alternative land uses in benchmark sites located across the tropical forest margins of Asia, Latin America and Southeast Asia. A number of meta land uses were identified that span across the sites, with specific land uses differing somewhat across the sites. The meta land uses and specific land uses are listed in Table 3. Special attention was paid to intermediate land uses that combine trees and agriculture.Indicators of farm-level returns, contributions to the national economy, agronomic sustainability, carbon stocks and biodiversity were measured in each of the sites. Findings for biodiversity, for example, show that intermediate land uses such as jungle rubber are nearly as rich in (functional) biodiversity as nearby forests. Figure 1 shows the species richness and tree density of natural forests, old rubber agroforests and productive rubber agroforests in the Jambi area of Indonesia.  Overall, ASB results from across the humid tropics show tradeoffs between biodiversity conservation and contribution to human livelihoods, although there are ways to mitigate the tradeoffs. For example, the upper line in Figure 2 shows more complementarity than the lower lines. The next question is: where and how can we achieve tradeoff scenarios as depicted in the upper line and avoid tradeoff scenarios as depicted in the lower line. Human societies have devised a number of responses to manage the tradeoffs between ecosystem goods and services. The most common response is regulation, the imposition of rules and regulations on human interaction with the ecosystem. Inappropriate rules and weak enforcement of those rules limit the effectiveness of this approach. While thus often insufficient on their own, experience has shown that regulations are usually necessary and can complement other approaches.Social responses given more emphasis in recent years are recognition, rights and rewards. Recognition and rights go hand in hand. Recognition is the first step. That is, little can be done to effectively manage human impacts on ecosystem services unless those impacts are recognized and the stakeholders and motivations behind those impacts are recognized. Social recognition of stakeholders will often Where, how?Where, how? Biodiversity conservation conclude that some stakeholders have more legitimate claims on ecosystem services than others. The next step involves the codification and enforcement of the rights of those with legitimate claims, as well as the duties of other members of society to respect those rights. Research conducted over the last 30 years has shown the advantages and limitations of public property rights (held by the state on behalf of the citizens of a locality), common property rights (in which people have rights through membership in a group) and private property rights.A public response that has gained increased attention in recent years involves rewards for ecosystem services. That is, individuals or groups are given a monetary or non-monetary reward for stewardship of an ecosystem that provides valuable ecosystem services to other people (FAO, 2007). Over the last ten to fifteen years, the ASB program has shifted its emphasis from regulation, to recognition and rights, to rewards (e.g. Tomich et al. 2004).• Recognition: necessary, problematic • Regulation: necessary, rarely sufficient • Rights: necessary, but questions about allocation to the right people • Rewards: not necessary, but often useful.Questions/issues raised in consultations:• What biodiversity goals do 'we' want to achieve?• Do agro-ecosystems really have low biodiversity value?• Ecosystem services generated by biodiversity can indeed be important for local people • Integrated conservation and development projects have had mixed results. Ian Gordon ¹ and Barbara Herren ² ¹ ICIPE, Nairobi and ² FAO Rome• Pollination is a frequently forgotten ecosystem service despite a currently estimated global value to agriculture of 153 billion Euros • Pollination services have been available for free from nature but are increasingly threatened by climate change, local extinctions, pollinator scarcity, habitat destruction, insecticides and bee diseases • An understanding of pollination must start with the basics of pollination mechanisms and of floral and pollinator morphology and behaviour: not all floral visitors are effective pollinators • Various simple techniques are available for the practical investigation of pollination • Indigenous practices do exist that favour effective pollination, but there remains great scope for improved pollinator management on both small and large scale farms • A greater awareness of the importance of pollination can be fostered by its inclusion in educational curricula at all levels.According to Klein et al. (2007), 87 (70%) out of 124 major crops in the world depend partly or wholly on pollinators for sustained production. Even crops such as coffee that were previously regarded as largely self-pollinated benefit from insect pollinators, not only through effects on yields but also on berry quality (Klein, 2003). By taking into account the level of dependence on pollination for 100 crops listed by FAO as direct contributors to human nutrition, Gallai et al. (2009) estimate the global value of this ecosystem service to be 153 billion Euros a year. Pollination is generally an ecosystem service that is nature provides for free, although in many countries (including South Africa and in the past, Zimbabwe) it is deliberately augmented through the management, purchase and/or rental of honeybees, bumblebees and other bee species. Honeybee colonies are moved over hundreds of kilometres on large trucks to pollinate crops ranging from sunflowers to alfalfa and fruit trees. On a landscape and more local scale, pollination may be encouraged by the provision of breeding sites on farms for insect pollinators such as stingless or solitary bees, by reducing the application of pesticides and other agricultural chemicals that may be deleterious and by providing alternative forage plants that encourage pollinators to persist in agroecosystems outside of crop flowering periods.The success of large scale pollinator management over many decades indicates that natural pollinator services may suffer in intensively managed agro-ecosystems. In recent years this pollinator deficit has worsened as a result of global declines in pollinator abundance and diversity. The main driver of these declines has been the destruction of the natural habitats on which pollinators depend, but there are also species-specific drivers such as the colony collapse disorder that decimated honey bee colonies in the US in the winter of 2006-2007. Other factors include the use of insecticides and the emerging and poorly understood impacts of climate change. Climate change may affect pollination services through differential shifts in the distributions and phenologies of pollinators and their dependent plants, leading to trophic and reproductive decoupling. On the other hand the reintroduction of biodiversity, even into intensive systems, may sustain pollination services.The combination of pollinator declines, increasing intensification of agriculture and our enhanced scientific appreciation of the economic value of pollination makes the inclusion of pollination in educational curricula timely and essential. An understanding of pollination must start with the fundamentals of floral structure, modes of pollination and the means of pollination. Floral structure is covered in most basic biology courses but will need to be revisited as a starting point in the context of a pollination curriculum. Modes of pollination (self and cross pollination) need to be explained in self fertile, self sterile, monoecious and dioecious plants. It also needs to be explained that some crops (phenocarpic crops) develop fruit without any form of pollination whatsoever and are partially or completely seedless. The means of pollination are various (wind, gravity, water, birds, bats and insects) and need to be explained in relation to floral structure. Building on this basic understanding, major pollinators should be identified, and their taxonomy, behaviour and ecology described. The importance of pollination as an ecosystem service to agriculture (including estimates of its economic value,) and threats to pollinators and the global decline in pollinator services, should be covered. The importance of natural habitats and landscape ecology, together with pollinator friendly management techniques are essential components.A purely theoretical understanding of any topic has limited value and the curriculum needs to include practical exercises. Again these should start with floral dissections, relating the floral structures to pollinator morphology and behaviour in a way that makes clear that not all floral visitors are effective pollinators. The basic taxonomy of important pollinator groups (especially bees) should be covered using keys and specimens. Simple techniques for investigating pollination (e.g. direct observation and recording of floral visitors, pollinator exclusion, hand pollination) should be demonstrated. Farms should be visited and assessed from the perspective of the degree to which they are pollinator friendly (presence of natural habitats, field sizes, monocultures, etc). Breeding sites for pollinators should be identified in the field.Key issues for further research include the effectiveness of indigenous pollinator-friendly practices, pollinator taxonomy, ecology and behaviour, the influence of natural habitats and refinement of economic valuations.Eardley C, Roth D, Clarke J, Buchmann S, Gemmil B. editors. 2006. Pollinators and Pollination: A resource book for policy and practice. African Pollinator Initiative, ARC, South Africa.Nairobi, KenyaSummarizing issues surrounding genetic resources and intellectual property rights in the African context represents a significant challenge, because of the complexity of the situation and the often confusing or weak regulatory systems. This presentation outlines the basic framework within which the conservation and utilization of genetic resources takes place, and which forms the basis of most national approaches. It is divided into four main sections:• Ownership and control of genetic resources • Movement of genetic resources • Intellectual property rights • African Union.Ownership of and the right to control, genetic resources are the starting point for any consideration of conservation and use.The Convention on Biological Diversity www.cbd.int applies to most genetic resources and is the default framework for almost all matters relating to their conservation and use. It is important to consider several points when examining genetic resources in the CBD context:• Country of origin is a key concept in access. The country of origin of a genetic resource is where it is found in in situ conditions or, in the case of cultivated species, where the particular varieties developed their distinctive characteristics. There is no definition of distinctive characteristics. Where one is dealing with non-cultivated species the situation can be complicated by multiple points of origin, although the actual country of origin will be the jurisdiction where it is collected, regardless of wherever else it may be found. While, to the best knowledge of the author, it has not been significantly acted upon to date, the provision on the origin of cultivated species could become extremely complex • The provisions of the CBD are not directly applicable in national law, although they are seen as a framework for good conduct. There must be corresponding national law for them to be directly binding upon other than states • In developing countries, the genetic resource related provisions of the CBD are usually reflected in national law through access to genetic resources regulations. Some provisions, particularly those relating to conservation, are usually found in general biodiversity or environmental legislation.The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture www.planttreaty.org was developed in harmony with the CBD. It has the intention of providing a framework for the conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. It also seeks to provide a clear and predictable system for access and benefit sharing relating to plant species of key importance to food security and for which countries are interdependent in terms of access for plant material for research, training and breeding to improve food and feed production. The Multilateral System of Access and Benefit Sharing can be regarded as a means of implementing the framework provisions of Article 15 of the CBD, although the following points must be considered:• The Multilateral System of access and benefit sharing only applies to material of species listed in Annex I and under the management and control of the state and in the public domain and material in international and other collections placed in the Treaty framework • To date, the Multilateral System is mostly reflected in national law through administrative practice (rules, contracts etc) but this may change. In addition to the CBD and the International Treaty, several other initiatives that may have significant impact upon the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources are at various stages of development, including:• A more detailed framework for access and benefit sharing is being developed under the CBD. This is expected to be binding in nature, although this has not yet been agreed upon and is currently known as the International Regime. Negotiations are scheduled to be concluded at the meeting of the Conference of the Parties in 2010 but this remains a challenge and any agreed binding instrument would remain subject to some form of accession by states • With the adoption of the Global Plan of Action for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Animal Genetic Resources in 2008, discussions on access and benefit sharing are developing in this area, although it is not clear whether this will ultimately lead to any instrument. As things evolve, it appears likely that discussions will probably be confined to domestic livestock but they could also include wild relatives • The role of microbial genetic resources in agriculture is beginning to be discussed in terms of access and benefit sharing frameworks.What is your source of material?The source of material can have significant impacts upon issues of ownership and control. There are two basic sources of material, although each of these can obviously be broken down almost infinitely.A. Wild material. In considering wild material, the key determining factors are:• What is the location of the collection? Land tenure or governance, sometimes including customary law and practice, can significantly influence access procedures • Do you have national access to genetic resources regulations? Regulations are likely to govern access to wild materials regardless of where they are found• Is the sample native or an alien species? This can have implications for country of origin rights, although even alien species found in in situ conditions have, thus far, tended to be managed by the states where they are found. B. Ex situ collection. Ex situ collections tend to be more predictable than other sources of material and many are aware of the various international and national regulatory issues and have taken administrative steps to recognize them. In the event that there is any uncertainty, several basic questions should be considered:• Was the material in question collected pre or post-1992? Material collected pre-1992 is expressly excluded from the scope of the CBD by the Nairobi Declaration that accompanied the adoption of the Convention's text. • Who holds the collection and what species are you accessing? Some species are covered by the International Treaty on PGRFA, provided they are under the management and control of the state or have been placed within the Treaty framework. • What country are you accessing material from? Not all countries are parties to the International Treaty on PGRFA, although most are party to the CBD and the country where you are accessing the material may not be the country of origin.Apart from specific measures for access and benefit sharing, most movements of genetic resources have to comply with sanitary or phytosanitary standards and procedures, which are basically about plant, animal and more recently, general environmental health. • Technical mandate similar to that of IPPC but animals rather than plants • More info: www.oie.int/ In addition to the three sisters, there is the Cartagena Protocol to the CBD, which considers the risk to general environmental health from the movement of living modified organisms. The Cartagena Protocol is not as widely accepted or established as the three sisters. Its basic characteristics are as follows:• Biosafety: The need to protect human health and environment from the possible adverse effects of the products of modern biotechnology Intellectual property rights often control many aspects of the ownership and control of genetic resources but are a complex and diverse field at both the national and international levels. However, the key indicative instruments for genetic resources issues are the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), particularly Article 27. 3(b)  • How do intellectual property rights, allowing for private monopolies, link with sovereign rights and a state's power to regulate, over genetic resources? • Third parties can be prevented from producing or selling goods or services using protected information or material without the title-holder's authorization, e.g. a common issue in cut flower exports to Europe • Another issue that has generated concern is the impact that the appropriation of genetic materials under IPRs may have on the access to such materials for further research and development • The granting of plant breeders' rights (PBRs) does not limit the use of the protected material as a source for further research and breeding, because of the generally accepted 'breeders' exemption' • The treatment of traditional knowledge in IPR regimes has been seen as allowing for the appropriation of developments based on such knowledge without recognizing rights to the knowledge itself.The African Union has promoted the use of two model instruments relating to genetic resources issues, namely: The basic characters of each of these models are very similar: • Not binding -advisory documents adopted by Organization of African Unity/African Union ministerial conferences • Very useful for identifying principles and key concerns • Do not replace the need for work at the national level -difficult to implement in a 'cut and paste' approach. In the specific case of the African Model Law for the Protection of the Rights of Local Communities, Farmers and Breeders and for the Regulation of Access to Biological Resources, one should also consider the following:• Where UPOV focuses on rights of downstream users of biological materials, i.e. researchers and breeders, Model focuses more on rights of material providers • Seeks to establish/maintain rights to farmers' varieties and other informally developed or used material • Balance between role and rights of individuals, communities, government and the private sector can be difficult to achieve and probably needs further analysis at the national level.Concluding comments: what should a university teach its students?While universities could seek to develop detailed courses on genetic resources law and policy as part of legal or science and innovation policy training, they may also need to consider several areas for incorporation into courses relating to biological and chemical sciences and into the administration of technology and innovation, in particular:• How to responsibly and fairly collect and use material • How to protect the rights of researchers and those of their institutions, as well as those of others • Focus on promoting research and pre-empting problems • Universities will need to engage their respective national authorities in policy development.Mikkel Grum, Sibonginkosi Khumalo and Julia Ndungu-SkiltonLearning points Agrobiodiversity has developed and is nurtured within systems manipulated by people. Therefore, it is the choices that people make that drive the continued existence, or extinction, of agrobiodiversity. The initial result has been that there is today many times more agrobiodiversity than existed 10 000 years ago. These hard-won gains for humanity are now threatened by a variety of factors.The threats generally arise when there are gaps between the private value and public value of changes to production systems. The private and public values of farming activities are very often closely aligned with the development and nurturing of agrobiodiversity. This is how most development of agricultural biodiversity has been driven, in the interest of both the individual and the general public. Yet there are signs that this alignment is in part breaking down.Agrobiodiversity loss occurs at a range of scales from individual fields to the total loss of species or varieties from the earth. The loss can be viewed from the perspective of the loss of products or ecosystem services in specific locations, or the loss of options for humanity as a whole. Under a broad definition of agrobiodiversity that includes crop wild relatives and gathered plants and animals, its loss occurs in wild habitats as well as in agricultural production systems. However, this presentation will focus on the losses within production ecosystems to highlight the distinctive elements of threats to agrobiodiversity. Markets drive most of these changes.At one extreme, climate change is probably the biggest future threat to agrobiodiversity and represents the consequences of choices made by societies both within and more importantly, beyond agricultural production systems. With climate change, the trees, crops and varieties that they grow and the animals that they keep will need to alter in whole regions. This will happen at a pace that makes it very unlikely that they will fully master the intricacies of the opportunities offered, or the constraints enforced, by climate change. Since agrobiodiversity will need to be moved around very consciously, it is overwhelmingly likely that much of the diversity will be lost.In a parallel to habitat change for natural biodiversity, enterprise change is the most dramatic threat to agricultural biodiversity. When farmers replace one plant or animal species with another, or drop species, varieties or races because they focus on fewer enterprises within the farm, the result is a reduction in agrobiodiversity. On a larger scale, loss can also occur when farmers adopt the same varieties across farms, without necessarily resulting in a reduction in diversity on the individual farm. On a global scale the increasing demand for wheat, maize and rice is happening at the expense of diversity of many other crops.Examples can still be found where taking on new enterprises can increase on-farm diversity, such as when farmers begin cultivating trees or crops that they had previously gathered. The recent introduction of many leafy vegetables into cultivation is one example.Closely related to enterprise change is industrialization of farming, which often demands significant simplification of production ecosystems and the reduction of diversity. Mechanization is one aspect that encourages the production of fewer crops and varieties. The use of fertilizers, pesticides and medicines all influence production in ways that reduce diversity within the ecosystem through monocropping and reduced crop rotations and animal movements. There are also unintended side-effects on other agrobiodiversity by, for example, killing pollinators.Plant breeding, or even simply selection of one variety over another, results in the loss of large amounts of agrobiodiversity. The replacement of traditional varieties by new varieties is the most talked about effect, but the breeding of one crop, rather than another, favours that crop relative to others.Weeds, pests and diseases also exert their influence. Some of them add to the diversity of the production system by supplying products that people make use of, such as the weeds consumed as leafy vegetables, grass-cutters and pigeons which provide meat, etc. Pests and diseases have also been primary drivers of the diversification of plants and animals throughout the history of agriculture.There is currently much talk of 'peak oil', the idea that we have now reached a turning point with respect to the availability of oil and that future supplies will come at a higher cost and at slower rates than previously. Is the same happening with the plants and animals in our production systems? Have we reached 'peak agrobiodiversity'? And if so, how does this prepare us for the challenge of adapting to climate change and other future scenarios? Until recently, there has been a critical lack of information on how plant genetic resources (PGR) and agricultural biodiversity are being taught at higher education institutions in the developing world. To redress this, Bioversity International recently commissioned regional university surveys in eastern and southern Africa and in Latin America. The focus of this presentation is on the African survey, with a brief comparison with the Latin American survey results.A 2007 meeting with the Uganda-based Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) and Bioversity concluded that there was an 'urgent need for capacity strengthening in agrobiodiversity education'. Until this time little was known about how agrobiodiversity was being taught in universities, or the opportunities and constraints to delivering this training.Bioversity commissioned an external consultant to develop and conduct the survey. The consultant visited nine regional universities in eastern and southern Africa to gather in-depth information. In addition, a questionnaire was circulated by email to 50 universities, members of the African Network for Agriculture, Agroforestry and Natural Resources Education (ANAFE).The survey addressed all levels of university education, from diploma-level through Bachelors and Masters to PhD training. It looked at what was offered at the programme and the individual course level, but did not request information on which topics were covered within courses. Importantly, the study assumed a common understanding of the concepts and approaches defining plant genetic resources and agrobiodiversity.An important observation is that PGR-and agrobiodiversity-related programmes are often oriented towards specific (and often technical) disciplines, such as seed science, crop protection, agricultural economics, horticulture, microbiology and agronomy. This suggests a reduced scope for teaching more 'holistically' with emphasis on the multidisciplinary elements of agrobiodiversity, including the social sciences.Somewhat surprisingly, there was widespread dissatisfaction with the way plant genetic resources is currently being taught, with responses ranging from 'inadequate' to 'grossly inadequate'. Only the University of Zambia and Makerere University were comparatively more satisfied with their quality of training.Government ministries (particularly the Ministry of Agriculture) and other public sector institutions (including genebanks, national agricultural research organizations, etc.) are seen as providing the most important career opportunities for graduates. Private sector companies are seen as less enticing, with selfemployment and engaging in entrepreneurial activities being the least-favoured career pathway.Respondents were also asked to give examples of kinds of partnership, collaboration and other forms of external linkages they had established. The responses can be broadly categorized into 3 types:• Partnership with complimentary organizations • Linkages with genebanks • Participation in thematic networks.Nearly all universities felt that external partners made significant contributions towards the development and sustenance of their programmes. They also confirmed that partnership collectively builds capacity, helps realize common objectives and that it helps in managing and supporting reviews of curricula.Respondents were asked to identify some of the problems and obstacles in teaching agrobiodiversity and PGR. Their comments were that:• Teaching and learning is usually not problem-based • The student/teacher ratio is high • Excessive emphasis on theory • There is no e-learning mode of delivery • A lack of teaching aids, audio-visual equipment, computers etc.• The system does not expose students to be critical thinkers (there is rote learning).Judith Ann Francis S&T Strategies, CTALearning objectives• The nature of innovation including innovation triggers and hindrances • Knowledge, learning and science, technology and innovation policy • The system of innovation and its relevance to agriculture • The innovation system approach and its implications for agriculture and agrobiodiversity education and research.• Knowledge, learning theories, linkages, institutions, organizations and innovation definitions and concepts • Definition of systems of innovation and innovation systems approach • Application of the innovation systems approach to agriculture and agrobiodiversity education and research.This module should comprise classroom lectures to introduce the key concepts; a reading assignment on innovation, innovation system, innovation system approach, knowledge and learning; a group assignment in which students compare agricultural innovation system and innovation system in manufacturing sector, e.g. the car industry to identify synergies and differences and present their results orally and; an individual paper identifying and categorizing any innovation(s) for a chosen commodity, the source of the knowledge underpinning the innovation, the innovation triggers and an assessment of the performance.Technological innovations have been associated with productivity growth and increased material welfare for centuries. Yet, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) continue to be challenged in adopting technologies to increase agricultural productivity and competitiveness. The terms innovation, invention and technology development are often used interchangeably but, they are not the same. Innovation is the application of knowledge (including scientific and indigenous knowledge), whether new or old but new in a given context or applied in new ways, to bring new products, processes and services into social and economic use. Innovation as defined in this widest sense is an interactive, cumulative, evolutionary process that is embedded in the political, social, economic, organizational, institutional and cultural context and is driven by science, technology, learning, the policy environment, opportunity and demand. Innovation can also be social, political and organizational. Agriculture in SSA needs innovation. Scientific discoveries, inventions and technological innovations are not the only factors that underpin socio-economic development. The enabling environment including the policy and legislative framework, the financial system, the physical infrastructure including the communication network, the traditional habits, behaviour and practices and the knowledge and learning competencies of the actors are also important. Institutions, defined as the rules of the game, for example Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) legislation and organizations, defined as the structures created to take advantage of opportunities provided by institutions, for example universities, research institutes and extension services facilitate access to information and knowledge. Collaboration, networking and the information and knowledge flows among key stakeholders and their ability to learn and apply knowledge (codified and tacit; indigenous and scientific; knowledge embedded in technologies etc) within an enabling environment are critical.The innovation systems approach is a framework that can be used for evaluating and comparing innovation performance within and across sectors and countries. It is conceptually diffuse and is used to describe, understand and explain innovation determinants and processes and the results are used to guide innovation policy. It is holistic and inter-disciplinary in nature and provides a historical perspective. ISA can be applied at various levels and scales (international, national or sectoral) or to a particular technology. The boundaries of the system are generally defined by the aspects to be studied. In developed economies, the approach is used to understand the differences in innovation performance and to explain trends in economic development. Its application to understanding agricultural development in developing countries is limited but is acknowledged to be important.A system of innovation consists of a network of actors who, together with the institutions that influence their innovative behaviour, create, diffuse and use knowledge within an economic framework. The system actors include: the enterprises, commodity and industry associations, innovation and productivity centres, standard setting bodies, research and development organizations, universities, education and vocational training centres and information and financial services among others. Endogenous science, technology and innovation capacity is important for effective performance of innovation systems. The actors should be able to produce (e.g. through research) or acquire, diffuse, absorb and use scientific and technical knowledge as well as value traditional knowledge.The role and functions of agriculture have changed over the centuries. Agriculture is a complex inter-related activity with strong forward and backward linkages between producers, intermediaries and markets (highly structured in some countries) and not only provides food (for sustenance, nutrition and health), feed, fibre and fuel but also recreational and eco-system services including conserving agrobiodiversity and safeguarding the environment. This suggests the need for new innovation patterns which rely on collaboration and networking among scientists of several related disciplines and between them and other actors including policy-makers and entrepreneurs. Such system would take advantage of knowledge as needed and create and expand market opportunities for products and services. The emphasis must be on building capacity of the system actors to learn and creating the institutions and organizations that can support the enterprises to continuously innovate. All actors must be able to harness and add value to the rich agrobiodiversity that exists in sub-Saharan Africa for food and wealth creation. The initial objectives of ANAFE were to:• strengthen the capacity of institutions that have interest in advancing agroforestry education • provide fora for the exchange of information and experiences, especially in the context of south-south collaboration. Over the years, the ANAFE mandate has been expanded to also include agriculture and natural resources education. ANAFE was registered as an international NGO in June 2007. The mission of ANAFE espoused in its 2008-2012 strategy is 'To improve agricultural education for impact on development'. The major activities carried out include: policy advocacy, institutional reforms to link education to development, review of curricula, development of learning resources, facilitating knowledge sharing, promoting women and youth in agriculture, HIV/ AIDS mitigation, sound environmental practices, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, quality education assurance and risk management in agriculture.The structure of ANAFE is presented in Figure 1. ANAFE works through four regional chapters known as Regional Agricultural Fora for Training (RAFTs), in eastern and central Africa, southern Africa, the Sahelian countries and the Africa Humid Tropics. ANAFE also has national chapters known as National Agricultural Fora for Training (NAFTs) in 21 member countries.  Structurally, RAFTs report to the ANAFE Board, which in turn is accountable to the General Meeting of Members. RAFTs coordinate the work of NAFTs and are supported by the ANAFE Executive Secretary, who is responsible for overall management of the network, liaison with donors and partner organizations, information dissemination and reporting. The Executive Secretary is supported by four Senior Education Fellows, one in each region, who work directly with RAFTs. There is also a Network Manager who works closely with the Executive Secretary at the Secretariat.This paper is concerned with the curriculum review activities of the Network and discusses the review process, offers details on curricula reviewed and lessons learnt in the process including the way forward.Rogers and Taylor (1998) define a curriculum as 'all the learning that is planned and guided by training or teaching organizations'. Temu and Kasolo (2001) defined curriculum as 'a logically developed sequence of teaching and learning activities (theoretical and practical) that are undertaken by trainees to achieve a specified level of competence in a given field of study.'With regards to curriculum development and review, ANAFE sought out methods that were inclusive, integrative and affordable (Temu and Kasolo, 2001). Inclusive in the sense that all stakeholder groups were represented in the process; integrative in the sense that curriculum aspects of inter-and multidisciplinarity could be articulated. The process had to be within the financial reach of national institutions. This was particularly important especially considering that curricula are dynamic and the review process had to be repeated in the future. The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency provided resources for ANAFE to carry out curricula development and review exercises.Curricula review is necessary for a variety of reasons. First, new knowledge on the subject area will be developed. Secondly, we note that jobs are no longer available in the civil service -the traditional employer of graduating students; more and more graduating students are being self-employed. Thirdly, with the advances in information and communication technology, it is clear that new media for delivering education are available.Curriculum review weighs the effectiveness of an existing curriculum against the developments outside and inside the teaching institution. The objective should be to improve the knowledge, skills and attitudes that can be acquired by students going through the programme.ANAFE reviewed a number of approaches, including the classical approach; faculty initiated/faculty controlled, hidden process and participatory processes. ANAFE settled on the DACUM -Developing a Curriculum -as the method of choice for curriculum development and review because it incorporates a participatory approach to curriculum review. DACUM is based on three premises.• Firstly, expert workers are in a better position to describe their job than anyone else. A carefully chosen group of 8-12 expert workers from the job under consideration form the DACUM committee. Committee members are recruited directly from business, industry and the profession. Modified small group brainstorming techniques are used to obtain the collective expertise and consensus of the committee • Secondly, any job can be effectively described in terms of the tasks that successful workers in that job perform. The analysis usually results in the identification of 6-12 duties involving 50-150 tasks that define what a successful worker in a particular job, or cluster of related jobs, must be able to do. The end product of a DACUM analysis is a complete competency profile • Thirdly, all tasks, in order to be performed correctly, require certain knowledge, skills and attitudes. Whereas the primary focus of a DACUM process is on the performance aspects of a job, these lists represent other aspects of job analysis; they represent different ways of looking at the requirements of the job. The DACUM committee is carefully guided by the facilitator through each of the following steps:• Orientation The review of curricula is a lengthy process. Normally it takes up to three years to get a change approved. Over a 10-year period, 1992-2003, ANAFE was involved in the review of a total of 67 curricula for Certificate, Diploma, 1 st degree and postgraduate levels, as shown in Table 2.All curricula were reviewed on cost sharing arrangements between ANAFE and the institutions involved. All reviews and new programme developments were initiated and managed by the colleges and universities involved. Resource persons facilitating the curriculum reviews were drawn from ANAFE member institutions that had developed competence in the process. The DACUM approach was applied in all cases. Stakeholders participating in the process included farmers, students, researchers, policy-makers, local leaders, NGOs and educators.In the past 3 years, ANAFE has facilitated the development of four curricula: courses or programmes? Can desired competencies be achieved by modifying the content and/or delivery of existing subjects, or is a major curriculum revision required? • Consider stakeholder participation: Who should be involved in the curriculum development process? How? • Capture the multidisciplinary opportunities: What biophysical and socioeconomic issues will be addressed? Which disciplines need to be involved in curriculum development? As ANAFE's mandate has been expanded to incorporate agriculture in addition to agroforestry and natural resource management, it is important that curriculum development and review reflects the new focus. The DACUM process should now be used to review the curricula in these areas as well. Further support is needed to look at such aspects as quality of delivery, attitudinal changes for staff and students, as well as quality and relevance of programmes.Higher education in agriculture and related fields has a direct impact on agricultural productivity and on the performance of agribusiness. It stimulates implementation of knowledge-driven economic growth and poverty-reduction strategies. The quality of training at higher education institutions is critical because it determines the expertise and competence of scientists, professionals, technicians, civil service and leaders in all aspects of agribusiness and related industries. Their capacity to access knowledge and adapt it to prevailing circumstances, to generate new knowledge and impart it on others is raised. According to the Africa Commission (2009), urgent action must be taken to restore the quality of graduate and postgraduate agricultural education in Africa.Despite the increased enrolment and number of institutions in the past 15 years, Africa lags behind the rest of the world in investing in its people. The greatest challenge to policy-makers and managers of higher education in Africa today is how to strategically steer higher education institutions to become Africa's drivers for economic development.Agricultural research has the potential to bring creativity and scientific methods to bear upon the opportunities and problems facing the agricultural sector in Africa. Research leads to generation and adaptation of technological, sociological and economic innovations for use by actors in the agricultural sector, leading to, inter alia, increased productivity, incomes and improved, more sustainable livelihoods, as well as food security. Investment in agricultural research is therefore also investment in growth. In the areas of agriculture and rural development the national agricultural research systems (universities, national research organizations, etc.) will continue to be the heart of the research effort. In June 2008, the MDG African Steering Group recommended that investments in agricultural research be significantly scaled up to support research on sustainable agricultural practices to mitigate the anticipated effects of climate change.Capacity to conceptualize, plan and implement effective research is still limited. Research proposals received by the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), International Foundation for Science and others in the past 10-15 years highlight the challenge. Development paradigms are also changing and there is need to appropriately adjust, while at the same time building, a critical mass of system thinkers/researchers to address critical issues including food and nutrition insecurity, poverty alleviation in the face of environmental degradation, climate variability and change, high energy and food prices.Higher education in SSA: Some realities SSA has the lowest student enrolment rate in the world. Between 1965 and 2005 for example, Gross Enrolment Ratio increased from 1% to 5%. In order for institutions of higher education, particularly universities, to unlock their potential for turning the development wheel in Africa, key capacity gaps have to be addressed. These, inter alia, include:• Curriculum reform and delivery for relevance • Developing approaches and methodologies that enhance university contribution to national growth and development • Advocacy and fund raising to increase investment in higher education • Building managerial and leadership capacity and institutional reform for credible and relevant university training • Building capacity for Africa-based high quality publications. National political systems and/or legislation have had a major role in shaping institutions of higher education in SSA. Except for a few countries in the region, higher education is conspicuously absent from Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), which are Africa's most recent approach to development.Within the past 10 years, Africa has recorded a significant shift towards emphasis on higher education. A number of interventions are currently being implemented at national and regional/continental levels.At the national level, a number of countries are acting on their commitment to higher education through PRSPs. According to World Bank studies, key examples from Africa include Ethiopia, Mozambique and Ghana (Table 1). In 2000, 10 regional consultations were held with higher education institutions, students, business, regional governments and civic associations. The output was a Strategic Plan for Higher Education in Mozambique 2000-10 Ghana World Bank 5-year education sector project to improve quality of tertiary education through a teaching and learning innovation fund. Academic units can access fund to introduce new or different higher education delivery approaches Affirmative action policy of lowering admission cut-off points to achieve gender equity. Female enrolment grew by 6% between 1990 and 1999. Similar action in Tanzania's University of Dar es Salaam increased female enrolment from 19.5% to 27% between 1997 and 2000In this section I will highlight some initiatives/interventions by the Regional Universities Forum for capacity building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) during the past last four years.The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture and the sharing of knowledge • Mainstream new approaches within university teaching and research that emphasizes quality, innovation, impact across the agriculture sector's full value chain • Create a dynamic regional platform for policy advocacy, coordination and resource mobilization for improved training, research and outreach by universities.In 2004 RUFORUM commissioned a study for purposes of mapping out the capacity strengths and weaknesses of member universities in terms of expertise, facilities, resource endowment and experience, among others. The outcome was a 'comparative advantage map' of member universities. Through stakeholder consultation nationally, regionally and beyond, the consensus was for RUFORUM to pay particular attention to developing regional PhD programmes with a course work component. The objective is to build capacity for capacity building in agriculture. Six regional programmes were identified:• The project activities aim at: • Building rapport with managerial and technical staff as well as nonuniversity stakeholders • Establishing a learning platform for network dialogue on joint curricula, content, delivery methods, student support and research • Building the capacity of network universities by training trainers of core staff that will in turn train others and by sensitizing university management for the purpose of reviewing policies and institutional arrangements and with other institutions • Facilitation of participation of multi-stakeholders from the national innovation systems in learning cycles in reflection, planning, action, evaluation cycles of agricultural higher education with focus on needs assessment, priority setting for curricula reorientation and programmes as well as proactively creating a learning enabling environment. Other initiatives include the following, whose details are available at www. ruforum.org:SCARDA-ECA: Strengthening Capacity for Research and Development in Africa (SCARDA) is a capacity building programme of FARA, operationalized from sub-regional level to continental level. In East and Central Africa, The programme is being implemented as a project of the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in East and Central Africa (ASARECA) called SCARDA-ECA. SCARDA has two components of strengthening: competencies and capacity in agricultural research management and capacity for professional development in agricultural research and development.PMSS: RUFORUM is piloting the Personal Mastery and Soft Skills development course to enhance quality of training and research in RUFORUM member universities. The objective is to enhance capacity and competencies of the universities for better delivery of services to communities. This will result from enhancing teaching and research competencies of the academic staff, training practical oriented students and having adaptive management to facilitate innovations. The activities involved:• ","tokenCount":"21118"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"b0d4470072167677051cfdaebadf1b37","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/0e14bf47-3d1b-44da-86c7-04c94ef4189d/retrieve","id":"132395596"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"95cc241d-6ad0-4c33-b0ee-f49d62d38a66","pagecount":"8","content":"Fair dealing and other rights are in no way affected by the above. The parts used must not misrepresent the meaning of the publication. ILRI would appreciate being sent a copy of any materials in which text, photos etc. have been used.The MoreMilk project aims to generate research evidence on how informal milk markets can be leveraged to improve nutrition and health, especially in peri-urban settings. The overall objective of the project is to improve child health and nutrition outcomes through milk consumption. The project will evaluate the potential of milk markets and dairy development interventions to contribute to health and nutrition outcomes by  assessing how markets and policies influence the quantity and safety of milk consumed in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania;  assessing the health and nutrition benefits of a successfully piloted informal dairy sector intervention (a trader training, certification and marketing scheme), through a randomized control trial in Nairobi;  assessing the potential reach of the dairy trader training and certification intervention, as well as bridges and barriers to scale and sustainability through surveys in India, Kenya and Tanzania;  assessing the drivers of milk consumption in dairy farming households in rural Kenya and Tanzania and developing a social behaviour change communication strategy for milk consumption; and  scoping priority areas for food safety investments with a focus on Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Nigeria.The project will integrate a gender lens across these components. It will focus on understanding the ways in which women's empowerment can be leveraged to enhance milk quality and household nutrition.The Microbiological assessment is a cornerstone for understanding the safety of food that is produced, marketed and consumed. As part of the activities of the MoreMilk project, a baseline survey was conducted to assess the hygiene, nutritional quality and safety of milk consumed in 200 households in peri-urban Nairobi.To facilitate the laboratory activities related to this objective, a training course on laboratory procedures for bacterial culture and identification was held from 29 May to 10 June 2017 to train one technician and four students on the relevant laboratory methods. The trainees have subsequently analysed milk samples from the survey for microbiological quality indicators and identification of common milk-borne hazards.At the end of the training course, the participants were able to independently assess the general hygiene of milk samples (mesophilic total cell count and Enterobacteriaceae) and isolate Staphylococcus spp., Salmonella spp. and Listeria monocytogenes from milk samples.The objective was not to carry out a comprehensive training on microbiology but to focus on selected techniques to identify bacteria in milk samples by morphology and culture. Other aspects for classification of bacteria (e.g. biochemistry, staining and molecular analysis) were not part of the curriculum.The training was mostly hands-on at the laboratory bench and therefore the agenda was not rigidly divided into lectures and laboratory sessions. We started with an introductory and orientation session that also included a safety induction and continued with a day of preparing media needed for the training. Instead of buying ready-to-use agar plates, it was part of the training to learn and understand how to prepare media, with special regards to the local working conditions. We then went through the method talks and workflows for each test protocol before demonstrating them in the laboratory and had the trainees practise these themselves. Specific topics such as confirmatory testing were covered in small seminars during waiting times (e.g. during test incubation or autoclaving).The questions below were asked on the first day of the training and again on the last day. Each question was allocated a score depending on its level of difficulty (1 being the least difficult and 3 the most difficult). The group score was obtained by adding the adding up the individual scores obtained by each of the five trainees who took the test before and after the training. Overall, there was a growth in scores achieved, with particular increase of knowledge in questions relating to specific test protocols and principles. ","tokenCount":"661"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"66d88635b438159f4f49738f1033e900","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/61f85aac-618d-4f2f-bf45-b61895bb04b7/retrieve","id":"1994213914"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"b594f521-eb52-4c5c-8f3a-5cb79fac9077","pagecount":"2","content":"Small-scale pig production in East Africa can improve the welfare of smallholder farm families (Kristjanson et al. 2004;Randolph et al. 2007). Smallholder farmers keep 1 to 4 growing pigs and sell them to pay for food, school fees, and medicine (Dewey et al. 2011;Kagira et al. 2010). However, pigs grow slowly, gaining on average 130 + 20 grams per day (Carter et al. 2013). Poor genetics, free-range management, parasites, and nutritional deficiencies may contribute to their slow growth (Kagira et al. 2012;Katongole et al. 2012;MAAIF 2005;Muhanguzi 2012;Mutua et al. 2012;Ouma et al. 2014;Thomas et al. 2013). In Uganda, smallholder pig farmers report that feeding is a key production constraint. Feeds are expensive and scarce, particularly in dry seasons and in the \"hungry months\" that occur several months after harvest when feed and food stocks run low. Food/feed competition between people and pigs, and lack of knowledge to formulate low-cost nutritionally balanced rations are further challenges (Katongole et al. 2012;MAAIF 2005;Mutua et al. 2012;Ouma et al. 2014;Muhanguzi et al. 2012). Poor roads, limited transportation means, and a lack of money with which to buy feeds further inhibit farmers' ability to provide pigs balanced diets.Fruits, opportunistic legumes (weeds), crop residues, and concentrates that are low-to-no cost are available seasonally. (Katongole et al. 2012;MAAIF 2005;Mutua et al. 2012;Ouma et al. 2014;Muhanguzi et al. 2012). These could be used to formulate balanced least-cost rations to meet pigs' nutrient requirements, to improve pig growth performance while minimizing feed costs.In Uganda, empirical studies describing the nutrient value and seasonal availability of local pig feedstuffs have not been done, nor have the nutrient requirements of local and crossbreed pigs been determined. This information is needed as a basis for development of low-cost seasonal diets for pigs.The objectives of this study were 1) to estimate the nutrient value, seasonal availability, and relative importance of locally available pig feedstuffs in Central Region, Uganda; 2) determine the nutrient requirements of local and crossbreed starting and growing pigs; 3) develop low-cost balanced diets; 4) conduct a feed trial to determine the average daily gain and feed conversion of starting and growing pigs fed one of two diets based on local feedstuffs; and 5) conduct farmer training and feedback workshops to share the diets with farmers and understand the associated benefits and challenges of feeding the new diets to their pigs.Throughout the implementation of this research to accomplish the objectives above, the limited resources of smallholder farmers and their lack of access to purchased feeds, seasonal availability of feed stuffs, human/pig food/feed competition, management practices (presence or lack of deworming protocol, free-range versus tethered/housed) were considered. Spending approximately 3 years in East Africa helped the author gain a thorough understanding of the challenges experienced and the opportunities available to smallholder farmers there. Following diet development and validation through a controlled feed trial, trial results and diet formulation were shared with farmers and their feedback was requested.Pig feedstuffs of adequate nutritional value are locally available in Uganda. Low-cost balanced diets can be developed that not only meet the nutrient requirements of local pigs on smallholder farms but that include lowto-no-cost feedstuffs to which smallholder farmers have access. These diets also minimize the inclusion of","tokenCount":"531"}
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+{"metadata":{"gardian_id":"309147d7ea185dd4eb01cd19240d73b8","source":"gardian_index","url":"https://cgspace.cgiar.org/rest/bitstreams/a1e9d116-d128-4fe4-a54f-b4bfe23e6d0d/retrieve","id":"1343970218"},"keywords":[],"sieverID":"e3e5fcb6-d5b9-45a0-a9b5-553b5cde3061","pagecount":"17","content":"Agriculture is a Risky Business What do we mean by climate services?• A climate service is a decision aide derived from climate information that assists individuals and organizations in society to make improved exante decision-making (WMO, 2013).• Assist climate smart decision making at different levels• respond to user needs,• be based on scientifically credible information and expertise, • engage users and providers, and • help society to cope with climate variability and limit the economic and social damage caused by climaterelated disasters.Climate Services ensure that the best available climate science is effectively communicated with agriculture, water, health, disaster risk management sectors, to develop and evaluate adaptation strategies.Who needs climate services?An opportunity for digitalization of African extension systems, and agriculture in general.Types of climate services/agro-advisories Considerations for climate services• The farmer/pastoralist is the general manager of the farm business• Makes decisions after analyzing the information available to her/him.• The farmer/pastoralist considers climate information/agro-advisory as part of his/her risk management decision making.","tokenCount":"160"}
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